OK, OK I get it ...

I've been listening to people I know mutter Firefly this, Serenity that for some time now, having (I must confess) no idea what y'all were talking about. Well, this weekend, I noticed the first disc of Firefly at the video store, and decided to see what the fuss was all about.

OK, I get it: the "wagon train to the stars" aspect was perhaps a mite overdone (I'm thinking especially of the 19th-century American frontier slang, the retro guns, the ... horses), but I liked the storytelling style, the dialogue, the visuals, the characters (I think--depends on what they do with them, beyond episode 3 ...). Also, I really love the "You can't take the sky from me" theme (yes, wailing fiddles and Waylon Jennings-style vocals and all).

So, it turns out that these discs are really, really hard to come by, at the moment. Anyone have a copy of disc two that I can borrow, before I shell out the money to see Serenity? :)

"El manco de Lepanto" turns 458

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ("el manco de Lepanto") would have turned 458, last Thursday, and his ur-novel El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, (the first half of which was published in 1605) turns 400, this year. In honor of that anniversary, Seattle's Book-It repertory theater has produced the what has to be the best theatrical--or cinematic, for that matter--adaptation of the book I've seen.

(Granted, the competition is not stellar, here, as the best directors to have attempted an adaptation--Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam--failed to even complete their projects. And Man of La Mancha was pretty lame, if you ask me ...)

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If you're in Seattle, Book-It's Don Quixote is playing through October 16th. A bargain at the low, low price of $10!