Jesus Christ, Spider-Man and Harry Potter

Jesus Christ, Spider-Man and Harry Potter

Abel knows I love humorous books so he recommended a book by Christopher Moore called Lamb. It's the gospel according to Biff, Christ's best friend growing up. Moore mentions the fact that the bible skips from Jesus's birth to the day when he was baptized around 30, so it endeavors to humorously fill in what happened during those years. The book is a riot. To me, I guess because I have a more relaxed view of religion, it actually enhances the idea of faith because it paints an interesting picture of who the Messiah could have been, meaning his personality. In the bible Jesus is saintly, pious and forgiving and it's hard to imagine a 7-year-old boy acting that way. In Lamb Jesus aka Joshua is smart, witty and mischievous as well as forgiving. And he has a neverending supply of love for those around him and faith in the Lord. For example, as a 12-year-old, Joshua's cousin John the Baptist gets disgusting green sores on his privates as a result from standing in the water all the time. Joshua thinks it's gross and tries to get him to just put a salve on it instead but never lets John see anything but sympathy. So while Biff is yelling things like "You're not going to touch him are you? EEEW! He's unclean, let him go live with the lepers." Joshua heals him. The relationship between Biff and Joshua is the greatest part of the book. Biff is sarcastic, promiscuous and kind of a jerk (in a way guaranteed to make you laugh out loud), but what keeps him from being almost sociopathic is his absolute love and loyalty to his best friend and their friend Maggie (Mary Magdalene.) If you're at all religious or interested in religion, and you only read one book all summer, I'd pick this one up.

A scene from when Biff and Joshua were studying with Buddhist monks, the story is told from Biff's perspective:

"Hey, I have discipline. Through practice I've learned to cause spontaneous nocturnal emissions."
"That's an accomplishment," the Messiah said sarcastically.
"Okay, you can be snotty if you want to, but when we get back to Galilee, you walk around trying to sell your 'love your neighbor because he is you' claptrap, and I'll offer my 'wet dreams at will' program and we'll see who gets more followers."
Joshua grinned: "I think we'll both do better than my cousin John and his 'hold them underwater until they agree with you' sermon."
"I haven't thought about him in years. Do you think he's still doing that?"
Just then, Number Two Monk, looking very stern and unenlightened, stood and started across the temple toward us, his bamboo rod in hand.
"Sorry Josh, I'm going no-mind." I dropped to the lotus position, formed the mudra of the compassionate Buddha with my fingers, and lickity-split was on the sitting-still road to oneness with allthatness.

So we saw Spiderman 2 last night. Good stuff. I'm an enormous fan of X-Men 2 so I'm not certain I would call it "The greatest superhero movie of all-time" but since we're talking superhero in the singular, maybe I can. The action was awesome, the storyline exciting and the effects rocked. Looking forward to owning the DVD. The other day I was in Barnes and Noble aka Heaven On Earth and I saw the complete Spiderman in a hardbound edition. Now I realize that unlike the comics, the book has no monetary value. I've justified all my comic book purchases in the last ten years by pretending they were an investment (as if I would ever sell my comic books!!!!!!!!!) So I couldn't find a way to justify this purchase. It was pretty cool though. Back to the movie, not sure if I can recommend it as the movie to see if you only see one movie this summer because...

Not sure if I mentioned it but Geo and I also took in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the day it came out. Alfonso Cuaron did an amazing job. I admit I was a little skeptical when I'd heard he was going to direct number three, being that the movie he is famous for Y Tu Mama Tambien is as different from Harry Potter as you can get. But the guy has talent because the third Harry Potter is better than the first two combined. Then again Christopher Columbus sucks balls. The effects and the Harry Potter machine carried the first two movies. The third book has 435 pages, which of course would translate into a jillion-hour movie, and Cuaron did a wonderful job deciding what should be removed and what should be re-written for the silver screen. My only problem with the movie is that they didn't show enough Quidditch, and they didn't show the Gryffyndors finally winning their first Quidditch Cup. I mean HELLO!!! The last time Gryffyndor House won was when Charlie Weasley was still seeker, this was a pretty big fricken deal. They better show Gryffyndor's big win in the deleted scenes of the DVD. Other than that, the movie rocked.

Last but not least, I read a book called Inkheart by Cornelia Funke a couple nights ago. It was pretty good, but maybe I wasn't as enthused because I had been expecting too much from the author some critics have proclaimed "the next J.K. Rowling." She's really not. That's a pretty big hat to fill. Jonathan Stroud's Amulet of Samarkand (Book One in the Bartimaeus Trilogy) was a lot better. Harry Potter fans should definitely pick that one up, especially since Book Two comes out this August. Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series is also a pretty good way to kill time on the subway.

And that concludes the entertainment portion of my post.