Discordia Goes Mainstream

I can’t believe it. Finally, the goddess Eris, most often overlooked of the Greek pantheon, heavenly troublemaker, all-around cool chick and divine inspiration for the Discordian Society, is making it to the big screen. Portrayed (in animated form) by none other than Michelle Pfeiffer, in the upcoming Dreamworks feature Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas. A couple of my old roomies didn’t particularly care for her, but I always thought they were out of their minds (actually, I’m pretty sure they were, but that’s probably beside the point).

Oh, sure, she’s technically the villain of the movie. But I understand they’ve got to make a few concessions to mainstream thinking. I still think the kiddies will get the point. After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Also in movie news, I got out to see The Matrix Reloaded this past weekend. While I had a number of criticisms (too much dependence on CG effects, a little unbelievable depiction of life in Zion), on the whole I enjoyed it immensely. Particularly after last year’s string of disappointing sequels — Attack of the Clones, Nemesis, Die Another Day — it’s nice to see someone getting it right (particularly on the heels of X2, another phenomenal effort). But what was most remarkable (well, for me, anyway) was the intertwining of the 23 Enigma among the rest of the philosophical musings. It starts right in the opening title sequence, in which a roll of digital numbers counts down to 00 before continuing to 23.

And on a completely unrelated note, I noticed an interesting solution to the whole gerrymandering issue, proposed in a Letter to the Editor by Joseph J. David in today’s Washington Post. Let a computer — which can ignore things like political affiliation, race, wealth, etc. — determine the congressional districts. At first glance, I can’t find a single rational argument against this system. In fact, I’d strongly suspect any politician who did object to it of being exactly the sort of corrupt scumbag we’d like to avoid. Maybe — should this idea actually start to gain feasibility — I’ll be proven wrong.

But right now, I seriously doubt it. I think I’ll see if there are any activist groups working toward this goal.