Category Archives: Classics

Father, The Sleeper has Awakened!

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Variety just announced today that Peter Berg has been picked as the director for a new theatrical release adaptation of Frank Herbert’s totally awesome classic science-fiction novel Dune for Paramount Pictures. Here’s an excerpt from the Variety story:

Herbert’s 1965 novel is a sweeping, futuristic tale set on the remote desert planet Arrakis, which produces the interstellar empire’s sole source of the spice Melange — used for distant space travel. An empirewide power struggle ensues over the control of the spice. Berg would be the latest helmer to take a crack at the property, which spawned a 1984 David Lynch film as well as a 2000 Sci Fi Channel miniseries starring William Hurt.

The project is out to writers, with the producers looking for a faithful adaptation of the Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning book. The filmmakers consider its theme of finite ecological resources particularly timely.

IMDb is listing the projected release date as 2010.

While David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune (IMDb) wasn’t well received, I personally liked the look and feel of it better than the more recent made-for-TV miniseries (2000, IMDb). Of course, I will be the first to admit that the mini-series was far more complete than the truncated Lynch version. I’m not sure what to think of Berg as the director. He’s a relatively new director and I hope that he doesn’t turn Dune into a “The Kingdom” style movie. In my opinion Lynch was on the right track making a quirky, science fiction epic.

He who controls the spice, controls the universe!

Bonus Dune Pop Culture Quiz: What Fatboy Slim song quotes a line from Dune? (and perhaps has other allusions to the book)

Answer (select text to view): Fatboy Slim’s 2001 “Weapon Of Choice” has the following quote: “Walk without rhythm and it won’t attract the worm.”
The music video for the song is also a must see.

(HT Peter Chattaway on the Arts and Faith Forum)


From Potties to Potty-Mouths: Classical Swearing

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There is an interesting article on profanity in classical authors by Barry Baldwin over at Shatter Colors Literary Review. The article, “Classical Swearing: A Vade-Mecum,” surveys the history of swearing in classical times.

Here is an excerpt:

You might expect the Greeks who supposedly had a word for everything (actually they didn’t: no noun for “orgasmâ€?, though one supposes they did have them) and the Romans (likewise lacking a term for “suicideâ€?, despite all that falling on swords in Shakespeare) with their reputation for plain speaking would not line up with the American Indians, Japanese, Malayans, and Polynesians who do not curse but rather with those many cultures in which – as Geoffrey Hughes puts it in his book of that name – “Swearing is fascinating in its protean diversity and poetic creativity, while being simultaneously shocking in its ugliness and cruelty. It draws upon such powerful and incongruous resonators as religion, sex, madness, excretion, and nationality, upon an extraordinary variety of attitudes including the violent, the shocking, the absurd, and the impossible.â€?

The article is mildly fascinating, though be warned: it does contain swear words!

(HT Abzu)