Its no secret that I’m a big fan of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas so I was very excited when perusing Ain’t It Cool News today to discover that Mr. Burton has done it again. Halloween 2005 will bring us Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. (watch the LARGE trailer, the fullscreen one requires an iTunes browser). A sequel to Nightmare has been rumored for years and, while not a true sequel, Corpse Bride looks to carry on the tradition of top-notch stop motion animation and the bizarre imagination of Tim Burton. I’m VERY excited!

More information on this film can be found at the Tim Burton Collective.

I don’t really have anything else to say but, “OUCH!”

(clicking on above picture will take you directly to this video. It takes a few seconds to load during which time you’ll see a blank page)

SCOPITONE FUN

For a taste of the bizarre check out scopitones. I was first turned on to this site by local Kansas City writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. Click on Scopitone of the Day and you’ll find a list of scopitones that you can watch. I’ve only watched a few but my favorite thus far is Queen of the House. They take a little while to download even with a broadband connection but they are fun. I’m guessing that Queen of the House was filmed in the late 60’s or early 70’s based on Jody Miller’s appearance. The cheesy sexuality of the dancing-tarts is quite comical, but someone needs to explain to me why the ice man, in his tight blue high-waters, gets a brief cameo. I imagine Ms. Miller would die of embarrassment if confronted with The Race is On. And for those of you counting the days until the end of the school-year make sure you check out L’ecole est finie (School is Out) Enjoy!

I had another of those moments today. ‘Serendipity’ may not be the right word to use but its definition-The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident-fits what I’m trying to describe. Its a premonition, a “knowing”. For example: Off and on over the past year I’ve tried to remember the name of a science fiction novel I read about 12 years ago when I worked at Waldenbooks in Tulsa, OK. I remembered that it was essentially a novel about space pirates and had a vauge notion of a pirate ship being on the cover…that’s it. Not the kind of information that you can type into a search engine and easily find an answer. Before leaving for work this morning I was looking at a book up for auction on ebay and clicked on the link to the ebay store of this particular seller. He is located in Australia and had a HUGE list of books for sale. I scrolled through a few and then it came to me-this overwhelming feeling that if I just kept looking I would find out about the book that had been eluding me. Though running late I continued to look through page after page of tiny pictures of books for sale….and there it was, a serendipitous moment. Though the picture was less than half the size of a postage stamp I immediately knew that was it! The book is Henry Martyn by L. Neil Smith.

This type of thing has occurred several times over the years. During our time in Tulsa there was a certain author that my wife enjoyed and I always knew when the local bookstore had a new book of hers in stock. I’d just know. As my fantasy football team can attest to I have no control over these amazing powers but hey, its fun when it happens.

Incidently, the word ‘serendipity’ was coined by Horace Walpole whose book, The Castle of Otranto, was the last book I read in 2004.

It happened. Less than one week ago today over a bowl of Panera’s brocolli and cheese soup I wondered aloud “how long will it be before ABC starts announcing how many episodes of NYPD Blue are left”. Tonight at a quarter to nine the magic number was announced…..seven. And now there are only six. Six more episodes of the one show out of all shows that I have religiously followed, year in and year out. I missed the first year or so (although Christmas brought me year one on DVD…Thanks Pat!) but have watched it faithfully since. I have found no other television show to be this compelling nor any character as fully developed as Andy Sipowicz. Dennis Franz (and the writers) have brought more than one tear to my eye over the past several years and I’m sure there will be more to come before the final March 1st episode. When that day comes I will feel like I’ve lost an old friend and Tuesday nights will never be the same.