Big Bird PBS Ad

A little girl answers her door to find Big Bird standing there.  Big Bird takes her hand.  He leads the girl to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, on a safari, marching through a Suffrage demonstration, to a ballet, through the markets in India and then to the Moon.  

Am I the only cynic who thought, "Big Bird just abducted that child!"?  (He did bring her home after their adventures but...sigh.  It just shows that my innocence is lost...)

Oh, and there's the other PBS Ad where the mom is reading to her child and Jim Lehrer, some animated character, the This Old House guy (I think) and others are in the room, making comments.  

I, of course, thought, "That child is going to have nightmares."

What did I learn from those ads?  Time to reclaim my sense of wonder.  Or to check for Jim Lehrer under my bed each night...

The Buddha

At one point in The Buddha, an interviewee recites a quote about reincarnation: "like going through junior high over and over again." So that's how Buddhism gets around the "no Hell" thing.  Make everyone re-live their awkward phases for lifetime after lifetime.  Makes me shudder. 

I was looking forward to this two hour film by David Grubin because I don't really know much at all about Buddha except for what Deepak Chopra would tweet.  (Confession: I hated to do it but I de-followed him on Twitter because he over-tweeted.  Five tweets in a row? No, Deepak, I only tolerate five tweets a day from each Twit.) 

The Buddha tells the story of Prince Siddhartha and his enlightenment into the Buddha with some history and commentary and cartoons and Richard Gere voice-overs along the way.  His mom the Queen had a dream that he would either be a bigtime ruler or the Buddha.  The King was partial to the former so he sheltered the heck out of Siddhartha.  Food, entertainment, chicks, you name it.  Long story short: Siddhartha ventures out of the kingdom four times and sees first a sick man, then an old man, then a dead man, and then on the fourth trip he sees a spiritual seeker.  He learns that he can get sick, he will grow old and he will die.  So he wants to know how to escape that pain.  Longer story shorter: he seeks, he fasts, he sits under the bodhi tree, he's tested by some crazy-armed lord of temptation god and then he becomes the Buddha.  I'm sure I left some stuff out. 

I find all of this fascinating but I'll admit that I watched it late at night and I briefly fell asleep.  And weirdly, I woke up to Buddha saying, "Remember me as the one who woke up."  Huh.  And there was more nuggets of wisdom prior to my catnap so...

What did I learn from The Buddha?

Favorite quote about Balance: "The string is too tight, it snaps and the music dies. The string is too slack, it makes no sound and the music dies.  There is a middle way."  (Buddhism according to Goldilocks!)

Siddhartha called his newborn son, Fetter.  He called his son "ball and chain"!  And then he took off to seek.  This was before he learned the whole 'balance' thing, I guess.

"No knowledge won without sacrifice." And "in order to gain anything, you must first lose everything." To me that means, "give up that ignorance, folks."

Four Noble Truths: 1. There is suffering (dissatisfaction) in the world. 2. Our minds cause suffering.  3. You can be free of suffering by understanding the cause.  4. Follow the Eightfold Path.  (They didn't go into the Eightfold Path but I have them in my notes somewhere from a Deepak PBS Pledge Drive special.  Not from his tweets.)

Buddhism is about being ordinary and doing human things. Everyone can be a Buddha. 

Pay attention.  Balance. Compassion.  Be smart about desires. Change must come from within. Everything is connected.  Everyday life is already miraculous.  The Buddha is available on BluRay and DVD.

And check out the Buddha Mahjong game!  Here!

Masterpiece Classic: Sharpe's Challenge

I'm new to Sharpe's world.  So new in fact that I thought this was the first Sharpe movie.  IMDB laughed and said, "Silly child, this is the 15th Sharpe movie."  For those of you who thought Sean Bean sat around between Patriot Games and Lord of the Rings, you are sadly mistaken.  And when I say you, I mean me.  He-of-the-Awesome-Name was starring in fourteen Sharpes.  (And I love that they are all named "Sharpe's something".   Like Sharpe's Rifle and Sharpe's Battle.  And at sixteen movies with next week's Sharpe's Peril, they're going to start running out of manly, adventurey words.  Can't wait for Sharpe's Holiday!)

So Sharpe's Challenge can really only be described correctly using the word "swashbuckling".  There are sword fights and damsels in distress and cannons and rifles and drinking and femme fatales and traitors and other stuff my dad loves.  (Mental note: ask Dad if he's read the novels by Bernard Cornwell and if not, birthday gift done.)  Challenge opens with the traitorous Dodd slaughtering the entire British army unit in an Indian camp.  Dodd left no one alive...or did he?  Yep, Sharpe was there and witnessed the whole thing. While playing dead.  Dodd is played by Toby Stephens aka Maggie Smith's son.  I have only seen Stephens play bad guys like the Bond villain in Die Another Day.  And because of his skill at being smarmy and ambitious and evil, he creeps me out.  But I'm sure he's lovely in person.

Years after that massacre, Sharpe is back in India to find a friend who will soon become his Irish sidekick, Harper.  Then the two have to rescue General Burroughs' daughter who was kidnapped by...wait for it...Dodd!  Dodd "gifted" her to the evil Raja.  Dodd is in cahoots with the Raja's Regent played by Padma Laksmi.  Yes, all you Top Chef fans: Padma is playing a conniving ex-concubine.  There's a great scene where Dodd's men cut off a British lieutenent's head and I immediately thought, "Utensils down! Hands up!"  I'm a Top Chef nerd.

Meanwhile, Sharpe is having to contend with the British troops that aren't stepping up fast enough to attack the Raja.  Specifically, General Simmerson.  Simmerson is the character that hates Sharpe for some past reason or perhaps no reason at all.  Sharpe interrupts Simmerson while he's getting his hair cut.  Simmerson says, "What fresh madness is this?" (I'm stealing that line.) And Sharpe says he's going to rescue the daughter.  Simmerson says, "I don't mind if you do die..." Sharpe: "If that's permission..." Simmerson: "Go and die."  Not quite "good luck".

As this was set in British-occupied India, Challenge did a good job of balancing Brits and Indians being both good guys and bad guys.  Although both main good Indians, the cavalry leader and the Raja's sister, said something along the line of "I'm helping you but I really don't want you here".  But the cavalry guy apologizes to Sharpe after the final battle and he's dying.  Perhaps he expired before saying, "But really consider leaving our country please."

One negative of Challenge: the British officer Bickerstaff who was so over the top and Dickensian in his villainy that I thought he was going to break out into "Master of the House".

What did I learn from Sharpe's Challenge? How to use "parlay" and "brigands" in a sentence.  Evil conspirators' romances never last.  In the middle of battle, respond to your inferiors by saying, "Damnit man. I will not have my story interrupted."