End of the World. Last Movies. Misty Mountain Hop

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I have only experienced one sweat-free day during this “winter” season thus far, while the rest of the days are still too hot and dripping humid to bear.  I know that I sound like a broken record here, always complaining about the heat (after all, I moved here), but it is such an intense, immediate in-your-face fact:  it is agonizingly hot here, all the time, even in our “cool” season.  Expatriates sizzle in Hell. 

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I’m grouchy.  Although I do not get out much, a recent trip to a shopping mall hit a seasonably sensitive nerve:  Christmas music!  It has followed me into the tropics like a hell-hound on my trail, and I fear I’ll never escape it.  Yes, I’m a classic Grinch, but the November/ December season always depressed me back there in the dark north.  It is unnerving to walk from the sunny, tropically humid outside heat into a pleasant a/c environment only to be hit with Christmas decorations everywhere and carols blaring loudly.  Why are Thais doing this?  They are less Christian than my most mercenary pet cat, Silly Willy.  It must be something about money. 

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Well, relief may well come soon.  “It’s the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.”  The ancient Mayan calendar is said (by some) to mark this upcoming 21 December 2012 as the end of the world.  End… period.  All over.  End of time.  On the eve of this ending of all time, on the 20^th, I plan on meeting my libertarian friends downtown, so I will raise a glass with them as oblivion engulfs the world from the International Dateline on a westward march through the time zones. 

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(Wait a minute!  Did the ancient Mayans know about the Earth’s sphericity, revolution and time zones?  Nevertheless, they did know something about the rise and fall of civilizations and, rationally, they did see their own decline as a coming inevitability.  I’ll give them that.  Perhaps it is healthy for long-ruling civilizations to occasionally imagine their catastrophic ruin.  It combats hubris and puts one in touch with the Timeless.)

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One of my major regrets as the End nears is that I am not even partly through my reading list of both online readings and the piles of books I’ve squirreled away. 

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Meanwhile, I have seen the movie Cloud Atlas, and I want to see it again if possible.  I did not read the novel, but had I read reviews that told of the story’s complex plot – complex in terms of time, space, character identities and narrative continuity.  Yes, it’s a weird one, not for everyone, but it is very interesting.  I prepped for the movie by reading online summaries of the novel and its plot – a kind of modern “Cliff’s Notes” approach to a book which one doesn’t have time to read.  The cast is all-star, and they portray multiple characters (often with heavy makeup that takes a minute to see through).  Definitely worth seeing again – if I can get downtown, if the nagas be willing, if the creeks don’t rise, and if the world doesn’t end too soon. 

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Meanwhile, while waiting for Armageddon, I am eagerly anticipating the premiere this week of Part One of the film trilogy, The Hobbit.  I am rereading the novel and am using The Atlas of Middle-Earth that my sister gave me for cartographical, geographical, geological and mythological orientation.  After all, “Not all those who wander are lost.”  Some pages in that Atlas are detailed enough to call in artillery strikes, provided that the graphing of the terrain is ontologically sound. 

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Bilbo Baggins is my all-time favorite Tolkien character, although others warrant my fond respect:  e.g., Gandalf intrigued me with his mysterious comings and goings seemingly backed by arcane knowledge and a traveler’s wisdom; and the early Strider, the Ranger of the North in The Fellowship of the Ring (before he became all kingly and prettified later), appeared to me as a brother in arms, grimly tramping alone up and down the wilds of the ruined vestiges of Arnor’s former glory.  Because the world will end so soon, I am sorry we will never see parts two and three of this very promising movie trilogy. 

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Bilbo is my favorite character because he loved maps and (with some initial persuading) loved going on “adventures!”  He was an unlikely romantic, raised in the womb of Hobbit comfort but bitten by the wanderlust bug, always packin’ his bags for the Misty Mountains. 

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-Zenwind.

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