Bicycles and Zombies
It's pretty weird having nothing at all to do. Since I have graduated, don't have a job yet (thought I have some applications in), and have enough student loan money to left over to live on for a while, I've been living a rather surreal life of leisure for the last two weeks. It's fun, but kinda disorienting to have no responsibilities and no consequences. The past few days, I've been coming up with sort of odd things to do with my time, mostly to have something to write about on the blog.
On Saturday, I rode my bike all the way up and down the island of Manhattan, twice. On Sunday, I went to see two movies about zombies in the theater in the same day. That one managed to combine my love of zombies with my love of air conditioning in 90 degree heat.
First, the bike trek. I brought my bike with me to New York, in part because I'd only recently bought it in Easthampton and didn't feel like selling it so quickly. It's nice to have it, although my building doesn't have a bike room, so I have to lug it up and down five flights of stairs every time I want to use it, which is less than ideal. Avoiding the climb, I hadn't used it for a while, but I decided to get outside on Saturday. I noticed last fall that there was a bike trail that ran along the Hudson River, but I couldn't figure out how to get there, since it was on the other side of the highway. Eventually I asked someone, and was on my way. You can see the green line representing the path here.
My first task was to make it to the George Washington Bridge which looms in the northern part of the bike path. That proved to be trickier than I thought, involving going off the path due to construction and walking my bike through a fruit market. But after some wrong turns, I made it to the bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse underneath it. I figured I'd come all this way, I might as well go across the bridge, which took a half-hour walking detour through Washington Heights until I figured it out. The view from 212 feet up on the middle of the bridge were amazing, but when I stopped to admire it, I was freaked out by how the whole bridge shook with traffic. I got back on the bike and headed back.
I was surprsingly not tired at that point so I turned around and went back on the path headed south and found, as I suspected, that it runs all the way down to Battery Park, where the Staten Isand Ferry terminal is. So I managed to clear the entire island. It occurred to me that this would be a great way to see the city if you've never been -- in addition to the bridge, you pass the Chelsea Piers, can see the Empire State Building, World Trade Center site and the Statue of Liberty, even Frank Gehry's new building, which is just across the street from the path. All without subway tolls, traffic, or consulting a map. Turning around to head home, though, the long trip started to take its toll, but I made it just fine. And now I can say I've see the whole west side by bike.
I couldn't top that with anything athletic the next day, so I topped it with something slobby: the zombie movies 28 Weeks Later and Grindhouse (well, at least half a zombie movie on the second one). I wouldn't say that I'm a real big horror movie fan, but I love zombies. Love 'em. Probably mostly because there's usually some intelligence and satire behind them in the George Romero tradition. But also because zombies are cool for several reasons.
A) There are always a lot of them and there's no place to hide. B) The intriguing moral quandary of having to fight off the people you once loved who are now reanimated corpses hungering for your flesh. C) There are no goofy "rules" for defeating them (silver bullet, stake through the heart, sunlight, simple bacteria). You just blast away at them, but more soon come to take their place. D) As mentioned above, they form a nifty shorthand for whatever mindless group the filmmakers want to comment on.
I first went to see 28 Weeks, the sequel to 28 Days Later. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it before it came out, since it was a sequel with no one from the really creepy original movie involved, no stars, writers, directors, nothing. Just more from the cannibalistic people infected with the "rage virus" (they aren't technically zombies, but for all intents and purposes). But the decent reviews convinced me to see it, and it was pretty good. The "satire," if that's what it was, is pretty heavy-handed -- U.S. troops have to rebuild London after the apocalypse, and zombies eventually invade the fortified "green zone" etc. Nonetheless, it works, if you're into creepy scenes of deserted London and zombies gorily tearing people apart.
After the movie ended, I remembered that another recent zombie movie was still playing in New York (and probably nowhere else, after it tanked at the box office). I figured spending over five hours in horror movies was as good a way as any to pass the day, so I headed to Grindhouse, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's three-plus-hour gore-soaked double-feature magnum opus. It got great reviews when it came out, but no one went to see it. I didn't have time with school, otherwise I'd be first in line, but it still sold out the little art house theater that was still showing it this weekend.
The deal is that it's two movies for the price of one: Rodriguez's zombie flick "Planet Terror" and Tarantino's "slasher" flick "Death Proof." Since this is about zombies, I'll just mention that Tarantino's was totally bizarre -- a horror movie where almost nothing horrific happens. There are long, long stretches of dialogue before the few minutes of horror. I thought it was fun, but several people actually seemed offended by the lack of gore -- they stormed out during the dialogue, saying loudly "This is awful! Let's get out of here."
No one stormed out during the ultra-gruesome Planet Terror when zombie Bruce Willis's pus-filled face exploded. Seeing two zombie movies in the same day was an odd experience, particularly since the two were so similar. Both were about a "virus" rather than traditional zombies, both had major subplots about the military, and both include a scene where people realize that the best way to dispatch a whole mess of zombies at once is to use the blades of a helicopter. By the end of the day, I wondered how many heavily made-up extras I'd seen ripped apart during the course of the afternoon, but figured it was far too many to count.
I'd probably write something more clever about zombies if I weren't so tired and leaving for San Francisco in the morning. Pictures and stories from the City By the Bay next week!
Until then, I can't believe you actually read this far...
On Saturday, I rode my bike all the way up and down the island of Manhattan, twice. On Sunday, I went to see two movies about zombies in the theater in the same day. That one managed to combine my love of zombies with my love of air conditioning in 90 degree heat.
First, the bike trek. I brought my bike with me to New York, in part because I'd only recently bought it in Easthampton and didn't feel like selling it so quickly. It's nice to have it, although my building doesn't have a bike room, so I have to lug it up and down five flights of stairs every time I want to use it, which is less than ideal. Avoiding the climb, I hadn't used it for a while, but I decided to get outside on Saturday. I noticed last fall that there was a bike trail that ran along the Hudson River, but I couldn't figure out how to get there, since it was on the other side of the highway. Eventually I asked someone, and was on my way. You can see the green line representing the path here.
My first task was to make it to the George Washington Bridge which looms in the northern part of the bike path. That proved to be trickier than I thought, involving going off the path due to construction and walking my bike through a fruit market. But after some wrong turns, I made it to the bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse underneath it. I figured I'd come all this way, I might as well go across the bridge, which took a half-hour walking detour through Washington Heights until I figured it out. The view from 212 feet up on the middle of the bridge were amazing, but when I stopped to admire it, I was freaked out by how the whole bridge shook with traffic. I got back on the bike and headed back.
I was surprsingly not tired at that point so I turned around and went back on the path headed south and found, as I suspected, that it runs all the way down to Battery Park, where the Staten Isand Ferry terminal is. So I managed to clear the entire island. It occurred to me that this would be a great way to see the city if you've never been -- in addition to the bridge, you pass the Chelsea Piers, can see the Empire State Building, World Trade Center site and the Statue of Liberty, even Frank Gehry's new building, which is just across the street from the path. All without subway tolls, traffic, or consulting a map. Turning around to head home, though, the long trip started to take its toll, but I made it just fine. And now I can say I've see the whole west side by bike.
I couldn't top that with anything athletic the next day, so I topped it with something slobby: the zombie movies 28 Weeks Later and Grindhouse (well, at least half a zombie movie on the second one). I wouldn't say that I'm a real big horror movie fan, but I love zombies. Love 'em. Probably mostly because there's usually some intelligence and satire behind them in the George Romero tradition. But also because zombies are cool for several reasons.
A) There are always a lot of them and there's no place to hide. B) The intriguing moral quandary of having to fight off the people you once loved who are now reanimated corpses hungering for your flesh. C) There are no goofy "rules" for defeating them (silver bullet, stake through the heart, sunlight, simple bacteria). You just blast away at them, but more soon come to take their place. D) As mentioned above, they form a nifty shorthand for whatever mindless group the filmmakers want to comment on.
I first went to see 28 Weeks, the sequel to 28 Days Later. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it before it came out, since it was a sequel with no one from the really creepy original movie involved, no stars, writers, directors, nothing. Just more from the cannibalistic people infected with the "rage virus" (they aren't technically zombies, but for all intents and purposes). But the decent reviews convinced me to see it, and it was pretty good. The "satire," if that's what it was, is pretty heavy-handed -- U.S. troops have to rebuild London after the apocalypse, and zombies eventually invade the fortified "green zone" etc. Nonetheless, it works, if you're into creepy scenes of deserted London and zombies gorily tearing people apart.
After the movie ended, I remembered that another recent zombie movie was still playing in New York (and probably nowhere else, after it tanked at the box office). I figured spending over five hours in horror movies was as good a way as any to pass the day, so I headed to Grindhouse, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's three-plus-hour gore-soaked double-feature magnum opus. It got great reviews when it came out, but no one went to see it. I didn't have time with school, otherwise I'd be first in line, but it still sold out the little art house theater that was still showing it this weekend.
The deal is that it's two movies for the price of one: Rodriguez's zombie flick "Planet Terror" and Tarantino's "slasher" flick "Death Proof." Since this is about zombies, I'll just mention that Tarantino's was totally bizarre -- a horror movie where almost nothing horrific happens. There are long, long stretches of dialogue before the few minutes of horror. I thought it was fun, but several people actually seemed offended by the lack of gore -- they stormed out during the dialogue, saying loudly "This is awful! Let's get out of here."
No one stormed out during the ultra-gruesome Planet Terror when zombie Bruce Willis's pus-filled face exploded. Seeing two zombie movies in the same day was an odd experience, particularly since the two were so similar. Both were about a "virus" rather than traditional zombies, both had major subplots about the military, and both include a scene where people realize that the best way to dispatch a whole mess of zombies at once is to use the blades of a helicopter. By the end of the day, I wondered how many heavily made-up extras I'd seen ripped apart during the course of the afternoon, but figured it was far too many to count.
I'd probably write something more clever about zombies if I weren't so tired and leaving for San Francisco in the morning. Pictures and stories from the City By the Bay next week!
Until then, I can't believe you actually read this far...
posted by Ryan Davis | 9:03 PM
1 Comments:
I think it's time you updated your blog :-)
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