Entertainments log from Manhattan, Kansas, written December 5, 2008

The end of the academic semester is always a period I dread. Having been a procrastinator as a student, I always had more work than I could do the last couple of weeks of school, fall and spring. And I always felt guilty that I hadn't planned better, that I was doing hurried work miserably when I could have done better work at leisure if I had made myself plan ahead.

When I taught, then, I always felt bad for my students who were habitually late and hurried. I empathized. And that has carried over: I still feel rotten during Dead and Final weeks each semester.

Which makes the boom in parties around this time even a little harder to take. I could have used some of these parties during July and August, but they all seem to come during the weeks I'm feeling bad about having been behind in my classwork thirty-five years ago. Haunted by my past (and by the imagined pasts of a generation of my own students), I wander from reception to party to housewarming. My heart is not in celebration. I suspect I'm the ghost at the feast.

Too bad. Because if I were a little more cheery, perhaps other party-goers would put me on to a few books like Kenneth Giles's "Some Beasts No More." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Giles ) Mrs. Higginson's copy was a paperback "Walker British Mystery" reprint of the 1965 mystery. The text features long chapters and some quick cutting. Our hero, a London police detective, sees something odd in Trafalgar Square, hears a cop statistician argue that a series of murderers are apparently being killed off, and is quickly sent to a small English town, undercover, to investigate the disappearance of a Member of Parliament. I got to reading the first chapter at a football game and was immediately so taken with it that I couldn't make myself quit reading to watch the game. Which may have been just as well.

On the other hand, "The Feast" by Margaret Kennedy (http://www.librarything.com/author/kennedymargaret ) is not quick going. But it is good, a sort of "Ship of Fools" set in an isolated West Country hotel that is eventually destroyed. The guests are odd and their interaction is interesting, and sometimes funny. But the narrative doesn't develop much pace.

Pace was also a question during the odd production of "Noises Off" presented recently in McCain by K-State students. Charlotte MacFarland got laughs from stuff Michael Frayn (http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc74.html ) hadn't written, including a rolling start. But then she didn't capitalize on the on-stage and back-stage precision intercutting that makes the second act such a wonder. Those of us in the auditorium, though, enjoyed the performances, including especially Michael Wieser's long and well-rehearsed prat fall in act three and Brooke Wilbur's shameless contortions and up-staging throughout. Fun. Different from what the quick play usually is, though.

Then we got the McCain Christmas show by "Riders in the Sky"--that was just what it usually is (http://www.ridersinthesky.com/). The quartet (they've added an accordion player since I saw them last, twenty-some years ago) performed dozens of old lariat-whirling, campfire-tending melodies, many of them associated with the season. Included was Gene Autry's "Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer," of course. I never warm to these guys, but they are professionals and very hard-working.

Recently the movies have been a mixed bag. "Madagascar 2" is even a little less fun than was the original. The fugitive New York zoo animals make it to an African game preserve, but evil, stranded White people dam up the river which provides water to the area. How will our nutty heroes with star actor voices save the day?

Better, markedly, was "Bolt," Disney's 3 D ($2 extra cost) animated film about a dog who can't tell the reality of his hit t.v. series from the reality of his life as a stray. This is a good example of Disney craft--there isn't anything surprising in the picture, but one feels one has been through something entertaining by the time the credits roll.

I was unprepared for "Twilight." They say there's a series of books, on one of which this film is based (http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html ). In it the ingenue falls for a vampire. The blood-sucker belongs to a family of what might be thought of us Reformed Vampires who don't attack humans but stick with animals. As is always the case with plots involving Vlad's heirs, the story is a symbolic one about sex. Apparently the adolescent girls who go for this sort of thing would rather have their sex in metaphors. But the movie isn't bad, just a little long.

"Transporter 3" would be long if cut to ten minutes, except that it stars Jason Statham. This former Olympic diver again plays the karate-fighting professional driver with the French police inspector pal. And other than that, who cares about the film? Mindless. But everybody likes Statham.

And almost everybody used to like Baz Luhrmann (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0525303/), who directed the recent "Moulin Rouge" and "Romeo + Juliet" and "Strictly Ballroom." But some guys don't get his newest, "Australia" with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. That's too bad. It is "Gone with the Wind" with a "Red River" passage and some contemporary story cliches all incorporated in a surprisingly fast-moving romance with an arch tone. The question about the film is, "Is the tone arch all the way through, or does Luhrmann sometimes fall in love with his own depiction of Love?" I enjoyed the movie.

Then I didn't like "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," which shows how shallow I am. Here's another Holocaust movie, this one made from the point of view of the family of the SS officer in charge of the concentration camp. The action is slow. The morals are obvious. The ending is contrived.

I think I even enjoyed "Four Christmases," the new Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon movie more than I did the eugenics one. This is apparently the only Christmas movie of the year, and it is only tangentially about Christmas--a couple has to visit each of their divorced parents on Christmas Eve. Not many yucks. And the crowd really wanted to have fun at the theater.

Maybe we were all suffering from end of the semester blues and that kept us from seeing what was funny in the film. Who knows? Well, in two weeks I'll be back and over my seasonal mood-swing, so check in then to see what I've been up to here three blocks from Aggieville.