Another look at the

SPOILER ALERT! Warning: If you have not seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, first of all, welcome back & secondly, there may be some plot elements revealed here…

In preparation for yesterday's release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls I’ve been re-watching the Indy films and am coming around to the idea that I’ve never really given Temple of Doom enough credit.

During our quixotic endeavor to catalog and rank every film in my VHS collection in college, joel miron & I had a discussion regarding which Indy movie was the best of the (then) trilogy. We debated the relative merits of Raiders of the Lost Ark & The Last Crusade and pretty much assumed that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom wasn’t a part of that discussion. I remember miron even watching both ends of the trilogy & making a list of pros & cons for each to settle the issue (miron, if you can produce it, i would love to see that list... otherwise, get to work on another one).

While often read as the weakest, perhaps primarily because of it’s non-Christian centric story, in re-watching the film it stands up pretty well among the four. One of the differences that make the film stand out, i think, is that Indy isn’t ‘driven’ by dreams of fortune and glory as he is in the other films, rather he’s called. The film explores questions of fate even though its framed most explicitly as a story about seeking fortune & glory, but really its the least so. Take, for instance, the shot after revealing the children were stolen from the village, Indy is presented as ‘hero’, low angle shot, panning in. While this 'hero' shot is present in all the films, the narrative moment that this shot presents Indy as 'an only hope' rather than 'a hero'.


The film is, clearly, darker than the other Indy films, allowing Harrison Ford to play 'bad Indy' & exploring a variety of sadistic scenes, but it isn't this darkness that inherently makes the film superior (and i'm not ready to say that it's the best of the Indy films, though i'm no longer ready to say anymore that it's not the best of them, either)... The exploration of darkness & 'light' in the structuring of this film as one about fate & calling, rather than about treasure hunting and personal gain makes it more intriguing than at first glance. I think the film's setting & it's non Christian-centric center also make it interesting in the sense of questioning convention. Officially, Temple of Doom is a prequel, because the events happen 2 years before Raiders of the Lost Ark, and with the success of that first film, going to a previous time & to an unknown setting (India was at least an 'unconsidered locale in the mid 80's) was a huge gamble that actually didn't pay off... Relatively hated by critics & at the box office this makes the film, in some circles, even more worth a closer look...

Searching for "yourself"

I have a friend, Ron, in the Program who has enjoyed, at times, playing this 'character' during the course of his life here at Milwaukee. The 'character' is a guy who has just discovered the Internet, is just finding all of these websites and who likes to share with other people his new discoveries: "I was at this website and any word i typed in, it would bring up, like, a million pictures of that thing, i mean, literally, a million, man, can you imagine?"

It's an amusing diversion, but it's recently gotten me thinking...am i still the only one whose sort of blown away by this whole internet thing? I mean this sort of seriously...i was googling myself the other day (does anybody else still do this? if not, don't worry, i've probably googled you recently, so i can tell you about yourself or others who share your same name) and first of all, i was appalled to find that google suggests that when you search "joel seeger" you might instead want to search for "joel siegel". This didn't use to happen, but now it's the first result. It kind of verärgers me.

I remember having a conversation with Dave Wake several years back after i'd met a cute girl at an emergency room... I'd googled her to figure out a little about her, which at the time i thought nothing of, but he informed me that "that's a little creepy." I wasn't convinced, but for the most part i desisted in looking up information on people unless i knew them fairly well, it would strategically help me for some reason (e.g. i'm going in for a job interview with them, or something), or i just really wanted to know more about them.

Anyway, i noticed in googling myself, that my Chips columns were still showing up, but no longer on anything resembling the Chips website. Some other site had co-opted them... When i went to investigate (to see if/who i could sue) they had some sort of disclaimer in their "About Us" section that the copyright for the intellectual content on the website is not theirs and their content is 'spidered' from other websites.

Not only am i continually overwhelmed by the sheer amount of 'information', but how much easier it is to maintain personal relationships with the internet. Before the internet, i would completely ignore my friends for months & years on end, miss their birthdays, steal their pants, i would have to make amends, apologize, or return their pants. Now, i can use the internet to find new friends... so much easier.

Occasionally, i enjoy typing in random words into google... Did you know, for instance, that if you search for "yourself" your first result is a site that tells you how to be yourself? Very useful information. Not only that, but the site that teaches you how to be yourself, wikiHow, can teach you how to do any number of useful things, like make deviled eggs. I love deviled eggs.

Membership Drive

A new feature on Roman Numeral J, where i attempt to recruit new readership by telling stories about people using their full names, thereby making them "find themselves" when they randomly google themselves. Today's subject: Ryan Gjerde.

As a side note for this new feature, the stories told are not necessarily "true", but they are accurately retold from my memory of the occurance. It was the fall of 1998 & my roommate miron & i were throwing another really quite terrible party. In attendance, besides miron & myself were my girlfriend Brooke (i think), Ryan Gjerde & possibly Sandy (or maybe Toni {or maybe & Toni}). The party was so bad that conversation had turned to Ryan Gjerde's middle school journals he had made for a grade in 7th or 8th grade. He'd been describing something he'd done in them, and then said suddenly, "Want to see?"

We all did, of course, and he ran accross the hall. Only years later does the question really occur to me, why had Ryan Gjerde brought his middle school journal to college with him, particularly, because this was his senior year... I mean, i can sort of see it as a freshman thing, with the thinking that it might be "an interesting conversation piece" and helping to "get to know people", but three years into college, it seemed an odd thing to have along...

[please permit a short aside about Ryan Gjerde - this may be the part where things i say are not entirely "true", but at least they're "truthy". - Ryan told a family history story, about how in the 1800s (or earlier... or later) when his family were living around in Iowa, they were being discriminated against because of their foreign heritage & Norsky sounding name, so they decided to change it. Their family officially changed their name, in an effort to seem less ethnic, from Gjerde to Knudson, no joke (though possibly a lie). After a few years of seeing this hadn't worked, they went back to their original name, Gjerde]

So, Ryan returned to the party with his middle school journal and read out two very memorable pages, the first words that almost rhyme with silver (pilfer, sliver, gold), followed by words that almost rhyme with orange (door hinge, cringe, gold). Both of these lists were incredibly long, very funny, and well constructed (particularly for a middle schooler). Shortly thereafter some more people showed up and the party rose from totally lame to kinda crappy.

And so, faithful readers, we come to the end of the membership drive, with the hopes that Ryan Gjerde has found us and will continue to enjoy the blog about once every 6 weeks, thus tripling readership. Also, this feature reminds me of two separate blogs i'd considered starting, but never got around to. One would be a blog called "After Further Review" (or some similarly terrible punny name) and would be reviews from everything from coke blak to plastic corpses to Hollywood blockbusters. The other would be called "This One Time..." and people would tell stories about other people they know. Both would ideally be open enrollment sort of blogs where lots of people would submit, but i only want to start them if anyone is interested in writing at least occasionally.

It's Hard Out There for a Primp

Tonight is MAPH Prom... The end-of-the-year Boat Cruise, with a 3-hour Open bar, that my program puts on for us... And it only cost me $30,000. Still, Open bar, though...Good stuff. So, i am getting all fancied up for the event, which i enjoy & despise.

Yesterday was the first day of the year that i climbed into a car that was toaster-oven hot, it was fantastic, finally, if i leave my car in the sun for a couple hours, it's warm enough out to make it unpleasant to get back in... Normally, this is a great time of year, but suddenly i'll be trying to do the same thing while suited up, making me an instant sweat-ball & all-round unpleasant person. I also shaved for a second day in a row, which my face really complains about... & i forgot to bring my battery-acid aftershave (which tells my weeping face: "i'll give you something to cry about") so there was additional facial unpleasant-ness... Add to this the fact that i evidently have no acceptable shirts to wear under my suit (although i thought i had about 20) and it makes for a trying dress-up experience.

But i love being whole-assed snazzed up. It's one of my favorite feelings. I don't do it often, and i don't do it well (because i always end up with 1 key element missing, socks, belt, pants), but i love the feeling of belonging to the world by trying to dress superior to it that accompanies the experience for me...

Plus, there's nothing better than being drunk in a nice suit.

A review of Food

Quite the Tuesday. After getting home late from barring around last night, i slept a bit late this morning, then headed to campus, leaving Nathan & Lissa to find their way downtown to hook up with Tritle, which they did fairly successfully. I had a blueberry muffin & coffee at the Classics Café. The coffee was desperately needed & the muffin was ok, but a bit crumbly. I really shoudn't get muffins. I don't eat them very attractively, i'm afraid.

I headed downtown to meet up with everyone & got to the basement restaurant they had lunch in just as they were finishing. After stops at Millennium Park (which i now appreciate as a pretty sweet thing - previous visits have all been in foul weather & therefore tainted) and the Art Institute of Chicago, we hit the 'Park Grill' near Millennium Park for a Heinekin and some chips & salsa (my favorite food, hands down). The salsa tasted a bit barbecue-y to me & had a very thick consitency. Strange stuff.

After that we headed to U.S. Cellular Field for the White Sox Game. They won handily, in a quick game. We got in on some successfully scalped tickets & i had a brat w/ sauerkraut. It was pretty decent, but nothing too special. I had been told by several Chicagoans that U.S. Cellular Field has some of the best stadium food in the country, but i would say it doesn't hold a candle to Miller Park... Not even close. I had a Sam Adams & then discovered with my Pretzel purchase (again, no Miller Park pretzel) that they had a vendor with PBR on tap. Which makes this stadium ok in my book.

The game was fun. Lot's of homeruns & a 'loud guy' (guess which one of those people is 'loud guy') pretty close to us who yelled at Frank Thomas a lot. Once again, no actual images of the game, because Nate's camera has a crazy big memory card that fits nowhere, but here is some evidence we were at the game, and here's some more... of my watch, Lissa's soda, and me looking at the card the photographer handed me that says how to find my picture. (You can buy a Joel & Lissa at the White Sox game t-shirt - Nate was getting cash & food). Oh, speaking of photographic evidence... there was a couple in front of us, who, when the photographer came around asking if people wanted their pictures taken, to put on the website, they were like "No, we can't be shown to be here..." then laughed & were hiding from the photographer as he took other people's pictures. I think they were illicitly coupling. Cool.