Random Unstimulated Thoughts

I've been thinking a bit, and here's the offspring of my mutated cerebral processes.

1. This is the first year I've had decent financial aid. Funny, my last year of school, and they finally get my FinAid right.

2. I'm watching The Office right now. Now, I love The Office--unlike a few (foolish) people I know--and I think the reason I like it so much is because of the commitment to character that most of the actors display. Some would argue that characters like Kelly Kapoor, Creed Bratton, Dwight Schrute, Kevin Malone, and Angela Martin are what made The Office great during its heyday, and across the board, the actors playing those characters are absolutely committed to being in character. The show's set is reportedly a hotbed of improv, with some of the greatest moments emerging spontaneously off-script (like when Michael kisses Oscar in season 3). In terms of practice, The Office has got it goin' on.

3. There's a lot of buzz recently that the superhero film as a genre is dying or fizzling or something. I don't think superhero movies are dying, exactly...but I do think they're in danger. Pity. There have been a lot of superhero flicks over the past decade which have had a serious impact on the film industry. Spiderman 2, for instance, gave the genre a lot of cred because of Alfred Molina's performance--it showed the American moviegoing public that superhero films can have good acting as well as good effects. But when a "superhero film" with Nicolas Cage and Christopher Mintz-Plasse makes $50 mil in a relatively unopposed market...that means that there's a problem. Here's hoping the efforts of Marvel Studios can turn things around.

4. A poem. The Second Coming, by William Butler Yeats. Here ya go.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Long live randomization!