Monday, December 2, 2002

THE WIZARD OF PAUSE

You'll all be relieved to know that I finally understand what I'm doing with this kinderculture manifesto, and so I elect that this is the perfect time to stop, as they say, for lunch.

This has given me a lovely opportunity to troll about the Interweb for news of my favorite dead (and surpassing, in my esteem, most of the living) person, Elizabeth I, who ruled England in what is retrospectively seen as total triumph from 1558 to 1603. Popular fascination with her - and her infinitely ballsy mother, Anne Boleyn - has barely taken a breath since the 16th century, so there is a wealth of information available about both of them, although most of it should be foreworded with an enormous neon sign reading CAVEAT EMPTOR.

The 1998 film Elizabeth, for example, is a complete disaster. To feel smug and angry at the same time, I once rented it with the express intent of committing to paper every single one of its inaccuracies. Don't get me wrong: I understand that the entire medium often requires quite a bit of fooling about with history (remember how fond I was of the Christmas trees in The Lion in Winter), but this film took history and made it boring, confusing and unnecessarily violent.

In any case, I'm very excited to be venturing out to England on what will be, coincidentally, the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth's death. The nation will be commemorating her year-round, and instead of sitting in Edmonton singing praises to Bruce McCulloch and West Edmonton Mall, I'll be standing in Westminster Abbey

Lunch time. next to the effigy of the woman I love.

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