Today the weather in central Virginia is “BE YOU” tiful!  Perfect.  Low humidity, cool breeze, warm sun.  I could go on but you get the picture.  I walked 8 miles with no discomfort and the birds were talking  the whole way.  The trees are still blossoming and I decided to take it over to the University of Richmond to see what picturesque scenes are on display there.  And what did I find?  Tulips!  Many colored wonderful flowers!  You thought I was going to say something else, right?  Well the girls are still looking good but it must be close to exams or something because they didn’t look particularly happy.  When is spring break?  Maybe it’s already over.  If you want to see some smiles you really need to visit a day or two before the great spring flight.

Today was not that day.  But I was preoccupied in any case with thoughts of John Carter and the music from his movie I just downloaded earlier for the walk.  Dagen Mcdowell on Imus was talking this morning about everybody downloading the music from The Hunger Games and so I went there on Amazon.  But, frankly, it was boring stuff although one person wrote to say she lives in the mountains of North Carolina where the movie was made.  And the music is great!  If you don’t like it don’t listen to it!

Okay.  Fine!  I won’t.  So I went to the music for  John Carter and it is great!  Or at least I want to listen to it even though the movie sucked!  Or maybe it didn’t suck.  Maybe it’s going to be a cult classic like some reviewers suggest.  There’s a long history of people loving John Carter and Edgar Rice Burroughs who created Tarzan, one of the most epic characters of all time.  Here’s a Youtube creation that clearly was done by someone devoted to the task.

So I was mulling this over on my walk but I was remembering doing some reading in my early days from ( I thought) this author about an apocalyptic vision and some poor dude lying in a drainage ditch with insects using him as their host for future generations of bugs.  I believe he was a gold buyer and hoarded lots of coins or bars as society deteriorated feeling, wrongly as things turned out, that this would see him through the disintegration of life on the planet.  How was it possible that Edgar Rice Burroughs who made Tarzan and was a great businessman felt this conservative fellow deserved such a sad end?

Well he didn’t! As it turns out this was William S. Burroughs who smoked opium and was crazy although an amazing writer who went to Harvard and helped to bring about the Beat Generation with fans like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.   These two guys represented the yin and the yang of adult fantasy writers in the twentieth century apparently.   Edgar wrote books that talked about strange things in the jungle but you were allowed to see them from a distance.  William felt they should be allowed to get under your skin and use you for lunch until, many moons later, you figured out a way to hold your breath until you died.  That would be where the drugs came in I suppose.

So Edgar is the guy  and I wanted to go see John Carter today but Betsy was not so fascinated with the idea and wanted to wait until he arrives On Demand.  Why pay 10 bucks when you can pay 5 and don’t care about the movie?  She has a point.  So I’m writing about it instead and pulling videos of  it from Youtube while try to remember what book I read that contained the sad tale of the gold buyer who was eaten by bugs.  I looked here but good luck trying to find it.  William was not easy to follow in print.  Following his book trail will also lead you into some seriously strange places.  It’s much easier staying with Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars The Old Republic and John Carter.  All have a fantasy element that makes us wonder about life as we approach the end of the Mayan Calendar in December.

I don’t mind thinking about all of those things.  Orcs and aliens are alright to imagine from time to time.  But you have to draw the line somewhere! And when it comes to bugs I prefer eating to being eaten. Which reminds me, isn’t Survivor coming on tonight?