Hysterical Historical Portrayals

I must start by giving credit to “The Muse” over on Inspired Day by Day for tweaking my brain cells into action on this one. She recently did a post about watching Amadeus with her youngin’s and discussed some of the license that the screenwriters used with that movie.

So it got me to thinking about all the movies that are “based on actual events.” Well, loosely based is perhaps more accurate in most cases. As I told “The Muse”, I tend to get agitated/aggravated/angry/pissed-off at the deliberate insertions of inaccuracy in the name of “art”. I think Hollywood is the worst culprit, but fiction writers have sometimes traveled this road too.

I see nothing wrong with taking a purely fictional character and inserting that character into historical events, even in close association with real historical figures. Some examples are the Horatio Hornblower series, set in the Napoleonic War era, or the Bernard Cornwell series about Richard Sharpe, also set in the Napoleonic War era. (Both sets of books also became TV series.) In both cases the fictional title characters interact with real historical figures. However, their interaction does not alter history or the actions of the historical figures.

Fabricating history in the portrayal of historical figures is an entirely different matter. The most common manipulation is the insertion of a love affair between historical figures where there is absolutely no evidence of such an affair. Some examples: Braveheart, the love affair between William Wallace (Mel Gibson) and Queen Isabella (Sophie Marceau)…there is no evidence that they ever even met, Kingdom of Heaven, the love affair between Balin (Orlando Bloom) and Queen Sibella (Eva Green)…they were acquaintances, but nothing more, the HBO mini-series Rome, the love affair between Atia (mother of Octavian played by Polly Walker) and Mark Antony (James Purefoy).

In all three cases the real story of all six historical figures, or what is known, is fascinating enough. Why does Hollywood feel this overwhelming urge to insert something that is complete fabrication? If viewers could be counted upon to treat all such renditions as fantasy, then perhaps the damage would not be so great. However, I’ve been party to discussions with otherwise educated, seemingly informed people who effuse on the historical accuracy of such films. They believe that those portrayals are historically accurate.

To this indignity add all the other glaring historical inaccuracies in each of these films and it becomes frightening that this is how many Americans seem to learn their history. If such films piqued interest so that the viewers then retreated to study the real history, then they would redeem themselves. Sadly, it does not seem that many Americans bother to check up on events portrayed in movies.

Still I can’t leave this topic totally negative. I commend two films to everyone for their historical accuracy at virtually every level. Obviously private discussions are fabricated, but do not take away anything in terms of historical accuracy. Both films prove that the real life stories can be brought to film without the nonsense and still be entertaining as well as informative.

First, I highly recommend the recently concluded HBO mini-series John Adams, an outstanding adaptation of David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning book by the same name. I'd put it on your "must read list". The mini-series will be released on DVD on 10 June 2008.

Second, I recommend the movie Amazing Grace, the story of William Wilburforce (starring Ioan Gruffudd) who fought for the abolition of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery within the British Empire. Amazing Grace is currently available on DVD.

Some Musings on Language

A turn of phrase my mother-in-law used the other day got me to thinking – what an odd language we have. That is if you speak English. The phrase that got me thinking was, “leave the dog out.” Now for me at least, “leave the dog out” means that the dog is already out and we are not allowing the dog back in. My mother-in-law, a Cleveland native, means the process of opening the door and allowing the dog to go outside. Drives me nuts every time I hear it!

Another of my favorites (in the negative way) is the “hot water heater.” Why on earth do we need to heat hot water? Is there some reason we want to take hot water and make it even hotter? Why not just heat water to the temperature we wanted in the first place?

I could understand a “hot water cooler” which might be useful in some application where we are cooling down water to be reused as part of an industrial process (like a nuclear power plant), but a hot water heater? We don’t call a water cooler a cold water cooler. After all, what’s the point in cooling cold water?

Then there is the “driveway” – where we park. And the “parkway” – where we drive. What drunk dreamed those up? My list and expertise are not exhaustive as far as languages go, but I haven’t found any other languages where one can park in the driveway and drive on the parkway. It seems only possible in English.

The “near miss” – is really a hit. Think about it. If something almost missed, it’s a hit. Should it not really be a “near hit” if we are meaning to say that it almost hit?

Just some musings. Hey, it’s tax day…after enduring the crunch to corporate tax time, I then had my own to do…so now I’m just taking a deep breath.

Wildflower Blitz

The last two years in North Carolina we’ve been living in drought conditions. We seem to be coming out of it, but only time will tell. So, given that I do not particularly enjoy driving the mower around the yard all the time anyway, two years ago I took drastic action.

The grass was dying…the good grass anyway. I had plenty of weedy stuff growing. I decided to take about a third of an acre (our yard, front and back, is an acre) out of grass. So now all around the border of the yard and dead center in the front, I mulched.

And then came the wildflowers. I bought over thirty pounds of seed, most of which are highly drought resistant. Liberally sprinkling same, I waited. Ok, I did water a little just to get them germinated. First summer, not much happened because I did start late.

Above is a Blanket Flower (Gaillardia aristata) a perennial.

Ah, but last summer! WOW! Things took off. I have about 45 varieties of wildflower out there now. Don’t need to bother with them much either. When the neighbors are all complaining about things dying, my wildflowers are blooming furiously.

My father-in-law hasn’t yet grasped the drought thing. He keeps buying traditional water-guzzlers. Unfortunately, since the in-laws live with us, that is cause for some conflict. Where I’ve gone to nematodes to combat grubs rather than chemicals, he still wants to poison everything. We finally had to ban him from all but the small section of yard near their entrance and along a small section of fence in the back yard.

The Blue Flax (Linum perenne lewisii) another perennial, are already in bloom.

At any rate, wildflowers are great! An added benefit is the variety of birds and butterflies they attract. My next-door neighbor complained last year that the gold finches were ignoring his finch feeder…they preferred my front yard. We had more butterflies last summer than at any time in the last twelve years.

This year we are looking forward to the perennial wildflowers taking off. They don’t usually flower the first year. Some are already in bloom. We also liberally spread the seeds from last year’s annuals and already they are popping up.

We could never get anything to grow along this small strip by the driveway.
Note the sunflowers towering over the fence.

This is in front where we got rid of over half the lawn.

The Johnny Jump-ups (Viola cornuta) are in bloom for the first time this year.
They spread like violets, which could be bad or good.

This year, we are working on seeding the wooded section at our back fence with woodland flowers. As things get more established we will start "shaping" to make the layout more presentable. If I could swing it, there would not be much grass out there at all.

But I suppose the doggies still need room to romp and poop.

Quick note...all the flower pictures above with the exception of the Blue Flax and Johnny Jump-up (which were taken today), were taken in August when drought conditions were severe. We were on the fourth flowering cycle by that time. The yard goes through first primarily yellow and orange, followed by pinks, blues and reds, followed by yellows and oranges again.