Monday, October 25, 2010

Space Odessy Nothing!

My sister thinks all five of us (sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, and me) should dress up as the monkeys and the monolith from 2001: A Space Odessy for our halloween costume. Yeah, I know, re-dic-u-lous.

I recently bought a small vacuum for the carpet in my classroom and my nephew put the box over his head and ran around running into things. It's about as tall as he is so he looked like a walking box. My sister thinks we should paint the box black, cut eye holes, and turn him into the monolith. So that means the rest of us have to dress up (and act?) like monkeys? Sorry sis, but no thank you.

For as stupid (yes, I am completely biased) as that movie is, it seems to have pervaded our cultural psyche. Yesterday my sister pointed out that lots of people make references to it. As a lover of good allusions, I can hardly argue, but do they have to be about THAT movie? What is it about monkeys and monoliths, humans and computers, revolving space ships and "The Blue Danube" that we connect to? Now today I received an emailed link to an article asking if Google is making us stupid. How does it start? The author quotes HAL as he is "dying."

"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?”

Yes, please stop!

Okay, so I'll grant that I have never done an in depth study of the movie or any sort of serious thematic dissection. And yes there are those out there who really like it. And yes I'm probably taking it out of context because it was filmed before I was born in a different movie age. But, seriously, jogging in a revolving space ship for, what, 10 movie minutes?

I'm just sayin'.