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My life, metaphorically speaking, is a large stove with three or four big burners up front and about twenty or thirty back burners. There are many things, good things, wonderful things, important things that I have to put on those back burners when the big pots on the front burners start a’rumblin’. (I see you nodding your heads.) PilgrimAkimbo, this little corner of my creative world, has been languishing somewhat on one of those back burners with the heat set on medium-low. It will stay there for a while still, poor little blog, with the occasional bubble and pop.

The front burners are:

• I am in the final throws of my MBA wrestling match. One more class to go, then finish my thesis. The pressure is on from all fronts.
• Hey, I have a family! Wow, and they’re still here. Happy Father’s Day! Needless to say, families are big priorities and having a baby in the house adds to the level of constant investment. Big events so far this year: Wilder is born; Lily learns to ride a bike; Maricel starts painting again; Lily finishes 1st grade; Wilder keeps growing…
• My paying job, you know the one that helps us buy food and shelter, is particularly stressful these days. No blogging at work!
• Once I finish the MBA we will be looking for a way to make it pay for itself, and then some. Who knows, we could be moving sometime in the next several months. Yay & ugh!

In the mean time, I’ve been thinking about this blog, what it is, how it looks, how it could be organized better, and what content it should purvey. Here are some thoughts:

• I have added a food blogroll, Viands & Victuals, I am looking for more good food related links. And I plan to populate PilgrimAkimbo with food related writing, including some of my favorite recipes and meals – but that’s down the road. When I will have the time to do some food writing I do not know – even my magic eight ball isn’t being helpful.

• I plan on revamping my whole approach to tags. For those of you who witnessed my last tag fiasco the answer is “yes, I am not too bright, but I know I can learn, I have a masters degree.”

• I will likely change some of the look-and-feel of the enterprise, but mostly keep it the same. I am a visual person and the style of PilgrimAkimbo only pleases me a little, but I have not had time to affect any changes. And, I am often impressed with the design of other blogs, but it takes time to get to that level. We’ll see.

So, I will still put up a post here and there, makes a few changes when I can, and suffer, as all bloggers must, with priorities. But not suffer too much.

Oh yes, a film…

Last night, continuing Lily’s cinematic education, we watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Lily found the film very moving and was greatly saddened when Captain Nemo died. I found the film better than I had remembered. This film was my favorite film when I was a kid, but in recent years I had come to believe that the film was a bit outdated. After watching it last night I have changed my views and consider it wonderful.

Recently I posted something on watching Treasure Island with Lily. In that post I mentioned the moral conflicts posed by the existence of the Long John Silver character. There is a similar ambiguity with Captain Nemo. As a kid (and still as an adult) I found Nemo (Latin for “no one”) to be both frightfully dark and exhilaratingly compelling. James Mason is wonderful in the part. He is both evil and good, a villain who cares for the oppressed and hates violence, yet uses violence to get revenge. I did not know exactly how to deal with Nemo. Should I like him or hate him? I saw the same tension within Lily. She knew he was bad, and yet she almost cried when he died. In fact, while we were watching the “making of” documentary on the DVD she did not want to see the crew filming the scene where Nemo is shot. I don’t blame her. For me that is a tragic moment as well, even though I know he is getting what he deserves. In this way Nemo is a little like all of us. We (speaking on individual terms) judge the world and others and yet we deserve to be judged ourselves. We (speaking in terms of “humanity”) all too often use evil in the name of good, justifying our actions because we elevate our own personal stories above those of others. Nemo is the evil and self-righteous genius who believes in the goodness of his own heart. I’m no genius, but I know what it is like to experience the rest.

Note: I absolutely loved the look of pure excitement and amazement on Lily’s face when Nemo says “You may call me Captain Nemo.” For a kid who has grown up with Nemo being a cartoon fish, it was great to see her get truly excited about the origins of “Nemo.”

Extra: you can see the 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea here.