rain_gryphon | No, I won't hold you responsible...

Tim Burton's doing a remake of 'Willy Wonka'. I'm ordinarily pretty damn tired of remakes, and frankly there's not a whole lot wrong with the original, which is one of the most subtly disturbing things I've ever seen. I'll probably go and see this, though. I'm interested to see if he can better the original. Part of the impact of 'Willy Wonka' comes from the fact that the director's trying real hard (I'm pretty sure) to make an ordinary children's movie, and it just turned out that way. It's got that same morbid charm as the liner notes for the Beatles' White Album, where you know that someone who's way out there is trying to see things like a normal person. Burton will go deliberately over the top - the contrast should be informative.

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So wrong...

http://home.att.net/~bugs-bunny/jesussaves.gif

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Last night I went to see the fireworks at the Park of Roses. Quite nice, although I had to drive around for close to a half hour to find a parking spot. Maybe half that time was spent in a minor gridlock on a street where there was only enough room between the twin rows of parked cars for a single car to get through, and some doofus had decided that he'd try to go the opposite way from the thirty other cars on that block. When we finally got rid of him, I managed to find a place remarkably close to the park, AND near a traffic light, so that when it came time to leave I was able to get immediately out and go home. An obviously costly and well-executed fireworks show, if uninspired. They had shells that burst in a heart shape, even.

There's something neat about the whole Fourth of July thing as well, when all of the happy crowds are streaming along in the hot summer night, gathering together to see stuff get set on fire and blown up. That was an invariant ritual of my childhood, was walking down to the Huntingburg City Park* in the warm twilight to see the fireworks. Now, as then, you've got the vendors selling food and drinks, and the crowds of kids running about. These days more of the kids seem to have flickery LED toys than hand-held fireworks, but visually it's much the same.

* It's the park used in 'A League of their Own' - a very well-preserved early 20th century city park.

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I drove through the Stoat Fair grounds on my way to the fireworks last night, and they've got the seats attached to the chairlift thingy. Stoat Fair time is coming! :)

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Last July 4th I stood by the fence of a horse pasture behind the motel in Carlisle, PA, watching silent fireworks way off in the distance. That night stays with me. I need to get my Gettysburg pictures sorted and posted.