I Hope You Enjoy My "Awesome Content"

"What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance." - Theodore Roethke

I recently received the email you see below. I have removed the names of the actor and movie mentioned as well as links provided.

Hello Richard 
We wanted to inform the readers of Riku Writes about the giveaway for "---------------," the -------- ---------l movie which hits Redbox May 14. In exchange for posting their best -------------action pose, fans earn the chance to win an Aikidogi, MMA fight gloves, or a wooden bokken signed by ---------.

Given your awesome movie content,* we'd be honored if you could post about it for the readers of Riku Writes. Below is a quick synopsis of the movie as well as a link to the content page.

Synopsis

“--------------------------” is an adrenalin-fueled crime drama that follows Elijah Kane (------------), leader of a Special Investigation Unit, and his skilled four-member team as they track a network of drug dealers and killers led by Russian mastermind, Nikoli Putin, in the dangerous outskirts of Seattle.


Given the cult following of --------------- and the hard-nosed action of the film, we think your audience might find this engaging. 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

With appreciation,
Dave N.

*Emphasis mine

I did not fashion a reply to this email as I was so overwhelmed by the lovely compliment about my "awesome movie content." I do indeed pride myself on providing "content" for my legion of readers (both of us) but to have it singled out as "awesome" is truly touching. One strives for awesomeness and hopes to achieve it -- nay prays for it. Had I replied to Dave's email I would have first thanked him for recognizing this site's awesomeness. I might have said: "it was awesome of you to point out my awesome movie content." Or "how awesome of you to say that my content is awesome." Then again I might have pointed out that this blog has not been called Riku Writes for some time now. I also might have suggested that after even the most cursory reading of my blog one would note -- in addition to the awesome movie content -- that I do not prostitute my site for commercial ventures and that I find the type of film that he describes to be abhorrent. The fact is that I would no more be a shill for his contest or that action star or that type of film than I would be for the the Westboro Baptist Church. I would have ended my response: awesomely yours.

Hey everybody today is the fifth anniversary of this blog. And the more I think about it the less I have to say about this momentous occasion.

It has come to my attention that a film version of The Great Gatsby has just opened in theaters. I am always ambiguous about one of my favorite novels coming to the big screen. My favoritest -- On the Road -- only recently got its first significant cinematic rendering. I had highly anticipated its arrival but given the mostly negative critical reception I gave it a miss. If a book that is near and dear to one's heart is re-told on the big screen it had better be a cracking good movie. First off the film makers are tampering with a story that a person has conceptualized for themselves. We have created our own interpretations of the characters the settings and even to an extent the mood. People will complain that a movie is not true to the book but what they really mean is that its not true to their interpretation of the book. So here comes Gatsby by Baz Luhrman and critics are divided. Lurhman will never make films that everyone likes because he has too personalized a style and from previews this Gatsby looks very stylish. I just read the book for the third time in anticipation of this release but given the reviews I'm not going to rush out to see especially with a European vacation starting a few days hence.

"So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight." - From the Great Gatsby by F. Scott  Fitzgerald. 

"She could drag me over the rainbow send me away." -  From Down by the River by Neil Young.

So as I think about a fourth trip to London a second to Paris and a first to Rome I am left grappling with the enormity of life and the tired stale bits of it that we leave around us on those normal days that pile up like so much clutter. And we go on because there is so little else to do. There is suicide but when successful there is a finality to it that seems oppressive. I just watched a film in which the heroine leapt to her death. It was based on a true story so there's no going back on that either. Suicide is of course also singularly selfish. Some of my favorites have done it: Sylvia Plath Anne Sexton Diane Arbus Ernest Hemingway Freddie Prinze. They of the tortured artist variety (one could certainly argue that Jack Kerouac effectively committed suicide as he reportedly said that he meant to drink himself to death). It does for those of us in future years add some glamour and mystery to their lives. But absent incurable physical or mental disease the idea of ending it all seems totally mad to me. This is a helluva ride we get being members of the human race (apologies to my non human readers) and experiencing the ups the downs the sideways the crazy and the mundane. A few years ago when my father and mother-in-law died in quick succession and I was going through trying times at work a co-worker expressed great sympathy for my recent difficulties. I knew his intent and that his heart was good but the sentiment was badly misplaced to me. I'm not one to be shattered by life happening around me. I may not always be happy about but there's got to be a level of acceptance for whatever goes on around us and an acknowledgment that so much is out of our hands and that we need to appreciate all the reminders we get that we're part of this mad whirl. The bad times are a way to put life in perspective and a way to make the good times all the better.

Coming up in a few days on this site: my travel diary.