Music to listen to when you’re living your life 1 1/2 inches at a time:

Take that Dido take a cue from Fisher and just let it go:

Surrender

I believe there�s no Hell
If you just try to love enemies as yourself
Heaven will surely hold you a place

Outer space is so friggin� huge
I�m convinced there�s no way
we�re just spinning �round
the sun all day without
a purpose or an explanation

Raise the white flag
and surrender to this life
Don�t question how or why
Pour the whiskey, smell the roses
tell some jokes
Laugh before you die

It is obvious life is too short
Always seems we get it down
just in time to go
somewhere who knows where
Maybe someplace better�better

See the white light and surrender
When it�s time
don�t question how or why
Lay your arms down
and surrender to clouds
You will feel amazing
You will be amazing

What is fiction what is real?
We�ve been programmed what to feel
by the tv� by the pen
Let your heart open your eyes again
your eyes again

You know life�s too short to live it in fear
Only thing you will regret is what you
do not do at all even more than the
stupid things you do
better take the chance
Listen to your heart
no one can tell you
what your spirit wants � tell yourself (You�ll make it to Heaven)

In other news, it’s been about a year since I started my baking binge and I decided last night it was time to do a clean start on my starters. So I started up the ol’ yeastie boyz warming tank and mixed the magical elixers of flour and water and yup, they’re perking already.

Cool. Just another reminder that life goes on.

Last night I splurged and came home with “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” on DVD. Now, I must preface this with the fact that I couldn’t imagine anyone making another version, since the Gene Wilder version is one of my top 3-5 movies of all time. But when I found out Johnny Depp would be Wonka, well I was willing to keep an open mind, since Edward Scissorshand is also on my top movie list.

I made myself a BIG bowl of popcorn and settled down to watch. Gus the cat jumped up and seemed to enjoy the first half but napped during the second half.

I have to say that for a great deal of the movie I was full of exclamations about the scenery and the casting. Parts of it were overdone – I think the bratty nasty kids don’t really have to be so completely over-portrayed but I guess it helps with the notion that this is fantasy.

I loved the whole Bucket family and Charlie himself. A kid I’d like to know in person.

The chief disappointment was with the Willy Wonka character’s portrayal. As played by Depp, the character seems driven by the normal childhood trauma – flashbacks, bad memories and outrageous orthodontic devices. What’s up with that? Rather than being an eccentric genius with some appropriately eccentric behavior, Depp’s portrayal was all about the dark side and candy-genius as retribution for parental behavior. His inability to say the words ‘parent’ or ‘family’ — total silliness. All in all a little too dark and not faithful to the book.

I thought about it later, and in thinking about the two movies as light and dark versions of the same tale, I would have liked to see Gene Wilder in a similar, darker portrayal. I think he would still not have been so angst-driven.

I am still giving it a thumbs up, but the Wilder version stays in my top movie list without challenge. At least in the Wilder version, Wonka liked kids (if they weren’t of the bratty variety) and didn’t act out of his own neurosis.

Remember those postcards?

Well, they done good in Houston! This just in from the instigator:

At 7:10 AM -0600 10/31/05, Virginia Spiegel wrote:

Congratulations! Your donated postcards raised over $18,500 at Houston with more money coming in from Sunday sales and the silent auction postcards. We will undoubtedly be over $19,000! Our grand total is now over $30,000 raised for the American Cancer Society.

I can’t possibly thank all of the people who made this such a huge success, but, of course, I must mention Karey, our fairy godmother and honorary chairperson and her wonderful staff, most especially the patient and hardworking, Andrea. Over 700 postcards were placed in acid-free plastic display bags and velcroed to the display boards before we ever arrived. Can you imagine the work that went into that!

Here are the postcards I sent to Houston:

• lane view 1
• pasture
• the gates
• memory of the gates
• freefloating
• lane view 2
• feather 3

Thanks to Curt over at The Occupational Adventure for these great quotes:

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one’s talent, and one’s inner happiness. — George Sand

The secret of life is to have a task, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do. — Henry Moore