Required Reading

I’ll admit I’ve hit one of my periodic periods of blogger’s block. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been working quite a bit the last couple weeks, the stress of school ending this week for the girls ¹, or just the blogging part of my brain taking a breather, but I’ve struggled to come up with things to write about the last week or so.

But I have been reading lots, so here are a few links.

Last week was the 30th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back. By my reckoning, I saw it about a month later, at the Midland Theater when we visited Kansas City. So somehow I was able to tune things out and avoid any juicy details for at least two, maybe as many as four weeks. Funny to think that I went in having no idea that Darth Vader was Luke’s dad. Especially when there were many fans of Lost who turned off their Twitter and Facebook feeds last night to avoid any spoilers of the final episode of that series.

Simpler times.

Anyway, here’s a geeky look back at the best of the Star Wars movies.

Blogging the Trilogy: The Empire Strikes Back -

Now, if you watch the prequels before the original trilogy (in chronological order), the ending of Empire is completely without weight. The biggest reveal in the history of cinema is ruined. Sure, there’s the dramatic irony of watching Episode IV and V knowing Luke and Leia are siblings and Vader is their father, but it’s not played for dramatic irony; for that you need suspense, and the climax of Empire is dependent on surprise, not suspense. It is the reason I will ensure that my children not watch the prequels until they’ve seen the original trilogy (in whatever form it exists by that point).

Speaking of geeky, one of my favorite writers takes a deep look at the most unusual computer virus to plague the Internets.

The Enemy Within –

The good guys have gone to unprecedented lengths, and have had successes beyond anything they would have thought possible when they started. But a year and a half into the battle, here’s the bottom line:
The worm is winning.

I just read my first Stieg Larsson novel and enjoyed it quite a lot. I’ll be completing the series at some point. Here’s a long look at the complicated case of figuring out how to divvy up the spoils left when an author dies before he makes it.

The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson -

In fact, not the least of the attractions of the books for American readers is that they introduce us to a Sweden that is vastly different from the bleak, repressed, guilt-ridden images we see in Ingmar Bergman movies and from the design-loving Socialist paradise we imagine whenever we visit Ikea. It’s a country that turns out to be a lot like our own.

Finally, a Toronto baseball writer visits Kaufman Stadium and loves it.

<a href=”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/stealing-home/theyre-real-and-theyre-spectacular/article1579351/> They’re Real and They’re Spectacular -

It was while strolling through the outfield plaza – highlighted by its waterfalls, fountains, statues, and massive centre field scoreboard – that I thought to myself: “Maybe being a Royals fan isn’t so bad, after all. Sure, they’re awful. So are a lot of teams. But at least they’ve got The K.”