The Zen of Napoleon Dynamite...
We had a very nice Easter weekend and we hope that you did too.
My little sister and her family were in town from Pennsylvania to help us celebrate; we only get to see them, perhaps, once a year so it was good to be able to spend time catching up. It is always amazing to glimpse the yearly snapshot of my nephew, Dan, as he quickly grows up. It seems like another lifetime those 14 years ago in Dallas when I first saw him in the new baby viewing window at Presbyterian Hospital. He's now a "too cool teenager". Not too cool really, though he'd like you to think so. You can tell he still wants to do most anything...he just acts like he's too cool to want to do it. Things like watching Napoleon Dynamite. Dan opined that it was "childish" and "the worst movie he's ever seen". I noticed him holding in the laughs.
We are now the proud owners of Napoleon Dynamite on DVD. I have to admit that I knew nothing about Napoleon Dynamite and would never in a million years have gone to the movie theater to see it, but now I have seen it two nights out of three and I am a reluctant convert. Thursday evening, Jack, Julie and I watched it [to humor Jack] while having to restrain young Jack from uttering, "watch this, this is funny" at each new scene. His 11 year old glee was catching however and I, much to my chagrin, found myself stiffling a occasional chuckle...I'm rather too cool too.
Saturday, the entire family including my 82 year old parents were in attendance for dinner at our house and, of course, [thanks to Jack] the subject of Napoleon Dynamite came up. My Mother is somewhat of a movie buff so she became interested in the film that we were all talking about. In spite of much dissuasion from the younger crowd she was determined to see it and so we did.
If you have seen the movie you will perhaps identify with our comments. After the first 10 minutes my mother said, "we'll maybe it gets better". The consensual answer from us prior viewers was, "No not really". My Father said, "this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen". Our answer was, "yes just about". Adding further he said, "what's the plot?". The answer had to be, "there isn't any". But that is the brilliance of Napoleon Dynamite, the sum of nothing adds up to a magnificent whole.
The zen of the movie is that it is like life itself. Life, yours or mine, does not have a scripted plot. Mine is mostly just a series of bonehead incidents strung together in an array as mundane, strange and comical as Napoleon's. If there is a moral to the film it's that somehow in spite of all obstacles and strange relatives, we do manage to get by...even the dweebs of the world. And now life imitates art at our house. Not an hour goes by without a quote from the film being applied to the situation at hand. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by and hear Jack's renditions of all the major quotes from the movie. He knows them all and is really quite good with the dialects. Jack has a new "Vote for Pedro" T-shirt and I want Jack and his friend Hunter to go out and play "Uncle Rico" with me. This involves them riding their bikes past the house while I throw meat at them.
If things don't change we may go for counseling but for now I leave you with Kips Wedding Song
We had a very nice Easter weekend and we hope that you did too.
My little sister and her family were in town from Pennsylvania to help us celebrate; we only get to see them, perhaps, once a year so it was good to be able to spend time catching up. It is always amazing to glimpse the yearly snapshot of my nephew, Dan, as he quickly grows up. It seems like another lifetime those 14 years ago in Dallas when I first saw him in the new baby viewing window at Presbyterian Hospital. He's now a "too cool teenager". Not too cool really, though he'd like you to think so. You can tell he still wants to do most anything...he just acts like he's too cool to want to do it. Things like watching Napoleon Dynamite. Dan opined that it was "childish" and "the worst movie he's ever seen". I noticed him holding in the laughs.
We are now the proud owners of Napoleon Dynamite on DVD. I have to admit that I knew nothing about Napoleon Dynamite and would never in a million years have gone to the movie theater to see it, but now I have seen it two nights out of three and I am a reluctant convert. Thursday evening, Jack, Julie and I watched it [to humor Jack] while having to restrain young Jack from uttering, "watch this, this is funny" at each new scene. His 11 year old glee was catching however and I, much to my chagrin, found myself stiffling a occasional chuckle...I'm rather too cool too.
Saturday, the entire family including my 82 year old parents were in attendance for dinner at our house and, of course, [thanks to Jack] the subject of Napoleon Dynamite came up. My Mother is somewhat of a movie buff so she became interested in the film that we were all talking about. In spite of much dissuasion from the younger crowd she was determined to see it and so we did.
If you have seen the movie you will perhaps identify with our comments. After the first 10 minutes my mother said, "we'll maybe it gets better". The consensual answer from us prior viewers was, "No not really". My Father said, "this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen". Our answer was, "yes just about". Adding further he said, "what's the plot?". The answer had to be, "there isn't any". But that is the brilliance of Napoleon Dynamite, the sum of nothing adds up to a magnificent whole.
The zen of the movie is that it is like life itself. Life, yours or mine, does not have a scripted plot. Mine is mostly just a series of bonehead incidents strung together in an array as mundane, strange and comical as Napoleon's. If there is a moral to the film it's that somehow in spite of all obstacles and strange relatives, we do manage to get by...even the dweebs of the world. And now life imitates art at our house. Not an hour goes by without a quote from the film being applied to the situation at hand. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by and hear Jack's renditions of all the major quotes from the movie. He knows them all and is really quite good with the dialects. Jack has a new "Vote for Pedro" T-shirt and I want Jack and his friend Hunter to go out and play "Uncle Rico" with me. This involves them riding their bikes past the house while I throw meat at them.
If things don't change we may go for counseling but for now I leave you with Kips Wedding Song
We met in a chatroom, now our love can fully bloom...
Sure the world wide web is great, but you, you make me salivate...
I love technology, but not as much as you, you see...
But I STILL love technology...
