Book Review: Babylon Babies

So, I finally got around to reading the book that Babylon AD is based on. This is a movie that I bought in the hopes that Vin Diesel would get nekkid, and wound up enjoying in spite of (or maybe because of) the weird ass plot.

Generally, when there's a question of book vs movie I pick the book. Then again, generally, when there's a movie based on a book, the plot is the same. Oh, things get switched around, cut, reorganized and generally polished for the different format but the plot is still recognizable.

Not in this one. I don't know whether it's the translation of the book from French to English, or the fact that Hollywood said "Ok, we're gonna make this a little less... French..." but there are very few things that the book and the movie have in common.

Here's where I say spoiler alert. If you haven't seen the movie, you may not want to read the rest of this post. If you haven't read the book, well, read on, because I can save you some time and effort.

First common point: Toorop. A mercenary of immense skill, your average love-to-hate-em protagonist. Except, in the movie, he's highly skilled and implacable, doing his job with precision, dedication, and a certain flair (come on, he backflips a snowmobile into a rocket. That's cool.) In the book, he's kinda fuckin nuts. To start with, he recites poetry to the corpses of men he kills in single combat. The virtual peeks inside his head provided by the author are, especially in the beginning, confusing, convoluted, and mostly lacking in anything most folks would call sense.

Second common point: Toorop is engaged by Gorsky (Russian Mafia, same name in both, but different dudes, apparently) to deliver a young woman from the wilds of Russia to North America. Again, here's where the split is. In the movie, Toorop must accomplish this with nothing but Gorsky's cash, and a car thoughtfully stuffed with cash, weapons, and maps, provided by Gorsky. In the book, Toorop has a team of mercenaries, and logistical support from both the Russian Mafia and a branch of the Russian Intelligence Service headed by a corrupt colonel. Toorop makes the plans, but he has access to helicopters and safe houses along the way. Far less cool than taking off with a couple chicks in the back seat and a trunk full of cash and ammo.

Third Common Point: The young woman in question is pregnant with twins, who will eventually be discovered to be a whole new species of human, hyper intelligent and capable of amazing things.

That's pretty much all they have in common. The young woman has a different name in the movie (Aurora) than the book (Marie Zorn). There is no Sister Rebeccah in the book. No submarines breaking through the ice, no run from killer patrol drones.

Oh, and in the book, Marie is special because she's schizophrenic, and has been treated with special drugs and such to help her control her schizo tendencies, which has the amazing side effect of allowing her to interface directly with the Cosmic Serpent, a sort of hive mind of all living things, apparently made up entirely of DNA.

To be honest, I really didn't follow any more of the explanation than that. It just drips new-age ancient mysticism, and my brain just sort of went "um... ok?" and moved on.

As odd and sometimes disjointed as the plot of the movie is, it's still followable to the extent that in the end you're saying "aww" as Aurora sheds a single tear, dying in the moment her babies are born. Yes, Aurora is odd, apparently a bit telepathic, and in possession of knowledge that she has no experience of, but she's still a character you can connect to on some level.

Marie Zorn is... well, she's nuts. I must admit that while I know very little about schizophrenia the writing conveyed the bug nuts bit quite nicely. The problem is, most of the time I couldn't tell if the writer was trying to write from a schizo perspective or not. The entire book is a writhing mass of strange metaphors, long winded internal monologues, and just plain weird ass imagery.

I can let the flow problems slide. It's always difficult to preserve the integrity of a text when it's translated, and I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt that it's far more readable in French, since I can't check.

All in all, I say skip the book and watch the movie. If for no other reason than Vin Diesel and Melanie Thierry provide excellent eye candy no matter what your personal flavor of choice may be.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I prefer a movie to a book.... I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself now....

Puppehs!

So, my good friend and the owner of Fuzzy Pup's mom is going on vacation next month, with her inlaws and four (omg) kids. It just so happens that Fuzzy Pup has a litter of brothers and sisters just waiting to come into the world... And his mommy doesn't do well with being moved after she has the pups, so I'm puppeh sitting.

The poor girl is a bitteh schnauzer... and she usually has five or six pups. No problems with the litter size she's an excellent mom, but she looks like she swallowed a football.

Right now she's flaked out on the recliner looking miserable. Her temp is dropping and her breathing is getting a little shallower, along with her belleh sagging, so any time in the next 24 hours, maybe a little more, we could have pups. Then again, with the stress of switching locations, she may delay as long as she can, hoping she'll get a more secure place. She seems fairly chillaxed today (she arrived yesterday) but there's a lot of stress involved with moving this close to whelping, so it's hard to say how things are going to go until they start to actually go.

Meanwhile, the poor girl looks miserable, and I can feel four pups in there, and my friend says she always has a couple that you can't feel. The little ones aren't as active as they were yesterday, but then, yesterday they were squirming so much you could see little noses and feet yesterday through her sides, like multiple little chest-bursters.

I'll keep ya'll updated.

Sold

Red is now officially someone else's problem. I can't argue with the way he behaved, he was actually an angel. He also worked really well for me in the pens before we went through the ring... I got several compliments. A lot of those came from people who had asked me about him, with the question that I dreaded more than any other... "Is he real gentle?"

If I were just a bit less honest I could have danced around that question better, and gotten more money, but I won't be responsible for someone buying that horse for their kids and the kid getting hurt because he's a jackass. So, I answered it the best I could... He's real gentle on the ground, loves attention, you can do anything with or to him. In the saddle, he learned he could bully someone before I bought him, and he's gonna try it. Don't let him, and you're fine. Which was completely at odds with his relaxed, lazy demeanor, at that point.

In the ring... he wasn't as snappy as I would have liked but he wasn't being utterly neurotic either, so I was happy. The guys in the auctioneer's booth were trying real hard to get him sold for me, and I really appreciated it. I'm fully aware he's an ugly little cuss, but they were saying things like "You folks are looking out the window on this one.. he's got more training than that... well, look at him!"

Anyway, I didn't get anywhere near the top price of the day but I beat the low price by a lot too, and I was one of the last few to sell. That, combined with all the compliments I was getting on him (some in optimism before I went in the ring, some afterwords in commiseration because they really did believe he should have brought more money than he did) made it a good day.

I happen to know that the guy who bought him does a lot of pony cart stuff, renting out carts and ponies and traveling around doing parades. Since I've said before that if I had a cart I'd hitch Red to it, I can't think of a better place for him, and he'll be kept busy enough that he'll stay settled down.

Anyway, he's not my problem anymore... which makes me smile. I'll smile bigger Monday when I cash the check, though.

Moving Cows: More Fun With A Rodeo

I'm still waiting on my new laptop power cord... it should be here tomorrow. Gawd I hope so, I miss my laptop.

But, last Sunday, we moved cows. This time we called in some backup, in the form of my old friend S, his girlfriend, my newer friend K, and her boyfriend.

S, his girlfriend, and K, all had horses. K's boyfriend, J, didn't. I don't know much about the guy but after a (way too late) night Saturday hanging out and Sunday moving cows, I like him.

See, he rode Red. I'd like to say that I wasn't intending to be evil when I said he could ride Red. Yes, I find the imagery of other people on the little pony funny, but he's been behaving really well, and since Monkey was way too wound Sunday morning and I was riding Rebel, I didn't have any other horse that has been ridden recently.

Also, I had no clue that Red was going to go rodeo the instant J's ass hit the saddle. I gotta come up shouting for the kid, he stuck, and he didn't let him break completely in two again.

But I take no responsibility for him coming off when his girth wasn't tight enough and the saddle slipped when Red tried to jump out from underneath him. That one was all J.

Anyway the battle continued all day, and I think J actually enjoyed it. I feel just a bit bad, because I was pre-occupied, and didn't think to tell him to lunge him in a few circles before he got on. I've gotten on Red without that, but I'd also been working him for a few days when I did that, and the weather was nasty last week so he'd had three days off.

Some commentary about The Jackhammer, as S calls Red:

"He's not that bad."

"Ok, you told me he was round withered and the saddle would slip, but I didn't expect that." (Said when I rode up to him to check on him when I realized that Red had come cantering proudly by me, without J.)

"Oh god, that was my nuts..." (After a minor hissy in which Red managed to get J thrown forward into the saddle horn... poor guy)

"I almost wish he'd buck again... that's the smoothest gait he's got."

And somehow, after all that, he managed to remain polite. When he was telling me how "not bad" Red was, I smarted off with "So, you wanna buy him?"

He took a moment, looking at Red, with an expression that could have been taken for mental calculation on whether or not he wanted the horse but I took as an effort to not say something very rude, and answered me "He's too small."

I gotta admit, I busted up at that point.

We got the cows into their new pasture, no thanks to the llama, who decided to come see what was going on when they were coming in the gate... and when the cows ran decided it was fun to chase them... right back out the gate. I could cheerfully have shot her right then. Anyway it was mission accomplished, and plenty of laughs.

Day after tomorrow we go to the sale, and Red will find a new home. Hopefully his good ground manners and the bit of play I'm able to do with him on a lead (which Farmmom says is actually kind of impressive) will outshine any jackassery he pulls while I'm in the saddle. I'll spend most of the day outside working him on a lead and riding him, so that he hopefully won't be too bad in the ring.

Tomorrow, I'll work the hell out of him. We'll work on the ground until he's sweaty, then get on and work him some more. This will keep him from having too much excess energy, and make my job (making him look good... no small task when you're talking about Red, who has conformation, size, and under saddle attitude going against him) that much easier.

Hopefully it'll be enough....

Survival Seeds

So, over the winter I was contacted by a very nice lady from Hometown Seeds, asking if I'd link to their Survival Seeds packages. She offered to send me one of the packages in thanks, and I told her that I didn't endorse anything on the blog that I hadn't tried, but if she was willing to have it be a review rather than just a plug, I'd be happy to do it.

Hey, Farmmom gets a free garden this way.

Well, what with life being busy and waiting for actual spring, we hadn't gotten anything done with them, until now.

The other day, we started the cabbage, peppers, and tomatoes in a little greenhouse thing that we bought at El Marto Del Wal, so this will be the first post of many concerning these non-hybrid seeds.

In general, I have to say I like the idea of a garden that's renewable from itself. You may not get some of the fancier plants, but you also don't have to buy new plants and seeds every year.

For a SHTF planning accessory, I think it's a good idea, if you know enough about what you're doing to manage starting an entire garden from seeds. It's not that hard, but you do have to know that things like peppers and tomatoes are best started indoors in planters or the greenhouse trays you can buy. The kit comes with instructions, though, so most of the guesswork is taken out of it. For instance, I didn't know that we needed to start the cabbage indoors until Farmmom read the instructions.

Plus, the kit comes with a LOT of seeds. For what exactly it contains you can check out the website, now linked on the sidebar under "Other Stuff"... I think it would provide for a small family fairly easily, were you to plant all of the seeds.

Anyway, I'll get regular updates about germination rates and eventually what the veggies taste like (which will probably be a great excuse for mom to do another recipe post) and we'll save seeds from this year's plants to plant next year.

I'll try to get Farmmom, who is after all the gardener in the family and is actually doing the growing, to give some of her observations direct instead of them filtering through me, too.

And, just a note, also under "Other Stuff" you'll see a link to "Custom Cheap Vinyl Banners"... This goes to buildasign.com, who have also offered me free shit. I like free stuff, and upon looking around their website I decided that they seemed reputable, and for some blog swag, I'd do it. Once I get my chosen free shit designed and ordered and get it in, I'll do a review of that as well, and probably hold a couple of contests in order to give away some of the aforementioned free shit. I'm not endorsing their products just yet, mind, that'll wait until they get here and I'll be honest about what I think of them.

If anyone else wants to offer me free stuff- keep in mind that I love free stuff, as anyone does, and I will be completely honest about any free stuff you send me. If it's good, I'll say it's good, if it's crap, I'll say it's crap. I'm bribeable to the extent that you'll get a link such as are already there, but not bribeable enough to give a good review of crap to my readers just cause you gave me something shiny.

That is all.

Dead Laptop...

The charging cable on my laptop is, for lack of a better word, fucked. So, I won't be blogging as much. Right now I'm borrowing Mamaw's computer...

In the interim, have a cute puppy picture... little miss Jezebel (or Belle) is truly a pocket puppy, for a while yet anyway:

Breed All About It: Lipizzaners

That's right, perhaps the most famous horses in the world, the "Dancing Stallions."

Just about anybody can tell you that a Lipizzaner is white, and does pretty things with a rider.

Except, they're not. White, that is. Lipizzaners actually carry one of those tricksy grey genes, being born a dark color (bay, black, brown) and gradually fading to that almost perfect white. Perfect enough, if you're watching from the sidelines. A very few of the breed do not have the grey gene, and will retain their dark color throughout their lives... The Spanish Riding School (associated with the Piber Federal Stud, the place where most Lipizzaners are born today) maintains a tradition of keeping a bay stallion at the school, believing that the lack of one would be unlucky.

The breed originated on an Imperial stud farm in Kladrub established in 1562, and Lipica, near the Adriatic sea, founded in 1580. Nearly five centuries ago... what history.

The horses were intended to be the aristocrat's horse, whether under saddle or pulling a fine carriage. They had to be intelligent, smooth gaited, and look good... the main concern for any aristocrat, at any time.

Lipizzaners are marked by their brands, on the left cheek, the brand of descent, usually an L denoting a purebred Lipizzaner, on the left withers, a letter denoting the bloodline of the sire (out of the six classical bloodlines) and a symbol denoting the bloodline of the dam (out of the same six bloodlines) and the left hip carrying the brand of the stud at which the horse was foaled. The Piber stud's mark is a P beneath a crown. The only brand on the right side of the horse is the foal registry number, and all brands, excepting the cheek brand and the hip brand, are covered by the saddle.

Bloodlines, as you may have guessed from the individual horse being branded with them, are very important. Most Lipizzaners born today carry their ancestor's names. Maestoso, Conversano, Pluto, Favory, Neapolitano, and Siglavy all live on in their names and bloodlines today.

Throughout the ages the Lipizzaner breed was tied to the Spanish Riding School at Vienna Austria. They were considered the best of the best for the Haute Ecole (or "High School"... the final training) in dressage, and the Spanish Riding school was, and is, the best of the best in training riders.

If a student passes the (stringent) entrance exam, they can look forward to riding without stirrups or reins, on a well trained horse controlled via a long rein by a more experienced rider, for up to three years, or until they have a perfect seat. After that, they are allowed to control their own horse, still under the eye of an experienced rider, until they master the Haute Ecole, no mean feat. After they have mastered, absolutely mastered, the art of dressage, which can take up to four years, they are allowed to train a stallion, from start to finish. Only then are they considered capable of representing the school in one of their famous performances.

The school uses stallions exclusively, partly from tradition, and partly from practicality. The Airs Above The Ground are so precise that a mare cannot perform them. Her center of gravity is in the wrong place to properly perform the Airs.

Once the Spanish Riding School performed only for royalty and their guests... today, they no longer have Imperial support, and so they perform for the public, to be self supporting.

The most stunning, and awe inspiring, movements performed by the riders of the Spanish Riding School, and some of what makes the Lipizzaner breed famous, are the Airs Above The Ground. These include the Levade, Courbette, and Capriole.

The Levade (pronounced le-vahd) is when the horse raises it's front end off the ground to about a thirty degree angle, and holds that position. More difficult than it sounds, especially with a rider.

The Courbette (cor-bette) begins much like the Levade, but with a greater angle, more like 45 degrees, and the horse proceeds to hop forward, without touching his front feet to the ground.

My favorite Air, however, is the Capriole (cap-ree-ol)- A mighty leap into the air, with a kick out of the hind legs at the peak of the jump. Beautiful.

Lipizzaners have far more to their history than intense schooling and great beauty, however. In World War II, the stallions of the Spanish Riding School were evacuated from Vienna, to St Martins, by their riders and stable hands. The breeding stock from the Piber Stud, however, was taken by Nazis to Hostau.

When St Martins came under the control of the US Army, General Patton discovered that an old friend, and fellow Olympic Equestrian, had taken refuge there with his students and horses. Alois Podhajsky, then the head of the school, put on a performance for Patton, and the American Undersecretary of War, Robert Patterson, who then agreed to place the stallions under the protection of the US Army.

When it was discovered, through captured German officers who feared that the iconic horses would be slaughtered for their meat, that the breeding stock from Piber was now at Hostau, Patton issued orders for a raid. On April 28, 1945, American soldiers accepted the surrender of the Germans at Hostau. Colonel Charles H. Reed, the leader of the raid, later reported that the surrender was "more of a fiesta than a military operation, as the German troops drew up an honor guard and saluted the American troops as they came in."

Only 250 Lipizzaners survived the war, but thanks to General Patton and every man who went on that raid, the breed survived.

You can read more about the history (and WWII rescue) of the breed here (this is the best telling of the story that I've found, including some pictures from the actual evacuation of the horses from Hostau and the performance the SRS put on for General Patton... more pictures of that here.)

All in all, quite possibly one of the most famous, and historically interesting, breeds. I'm quite fond of the breed myself, although I don't expect to be able to afford one any time soon. At over $5000 for a two year old stallion from the Piber Stud, they're a bit out of my reach... And I'll never run away to Vienna to join the Spanish Riding School, although I dreamed of it when I was younger. I'm about ten years too late to start learning the discipline of dressage to get me into that school, but I'll cheer their two female students (the first in the history of the school, admitted in 2008) wholeheartedly.

Still... I dream of riding the Airs, to this day. Probably, I never will, but a girl can dream, can't she?