All Mimsy Were The Borogoves,

Mrs. Doubtfire is cinematic comfort food.


While my first thought when Sarah got it out Saturday for her and Jeffrey to watch while I was home with them as Martha was at work was "oh no, not again" the more I watched the more I got into the movie. I mean, even with its premise of a divorced couple where the ex-husband dresses as a woman to spend time with his children (just one of many strikes which would probably be against its release today, apart from its lack of appeal to the oversensitive because it's fun and funny), there are just amazing shows within shows (the Pudgy the Parrot cartoon at the beginning, "Aunt Euphegenia's House" at the end) that beg expansion. You also have to wonder how the Hillard kids are doing ...


at least I do.


Thank God the planned sequel to this 1993 movie (based on a 1987 book which you've probably never heard of this side of the Atlantic, Madame Doubtfire) was permanently shelved after Robin Williams -- who was the ex-husband/Mrs. Doubtfire -- died! There are some stories you really don't want to see what happens next. I can't quite say that about the show trial of the 19th century; at least, that's what many of the Union generals who judged the military tribunal in Thomas Fleming's novel The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee (ISBN 9780765352071) wanted to make their trial of the leading Confederate general, painting his upholding honor and refusing to fire on fellow Virginians as a betrayal of the oath he swore to the United States.

This is a work of fiction.
Which is how most disclaimers on the copyright pages of novels begin, and I'll admit once or twice I had to remind myself of this. Narrated by journalist Jeremiah O' Brien of the New York Tribune (who apparently was not a real person, though most everyone else in this novel was) the coverage of a military tribunal and by extension the trial of a system that perpetuated slaveholding and enormous plantations to be ground down in the name of righteousness ... blech. There is no good way to word this; it was going to be Lee (and by extension the South) sacrificed for the conscience of the North.

For more background than I can give here, see American Civil War, Causes of the.


The bulk of Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen's Image Comics series Descender (volume one, ISBN 9781632154262) takes place ten years after gigantic Harvester robots appear over each of the nine Core Planets of the United Galactic Council (UGC). It's implied that they were defeated or destroyed at great cost to the UGC, but what's definite is that ALL artificial life forms are set for scrap. When one of those, a companion robot named Tim-21, uplinks to the UGC database it becomes a free-for-all among scrappers -- think scavengers/bounty hunters for robots -- a former robotics consultant, hostile aliens, and UGC soldiers to claim him.


Particularly because Tim-21's programming matches the Harvesters.


So many want to know why ... today here in Minot is the day before school begins, and as I finish this at 1350 CST I've just returned from Longfellow where Sarah will start fifth grade with Mrs. Perrin and Jeffrey fourth grade with Mrs. Evans. They met, we've got the paperwork filled out we need, and the extended family (Robert and Sharon, Mary, Breanna, Josceline, and Avery) were there along with Martha and the kids. I'm glad I was able to get there too, even with the fresh coffee stain very visible on my shirt because I forgot to close the travel mug!


This is very important.


David