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STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: follow the trail

I went for a walk in Malibu (Surfrider Beach) this morning. It was gloriously deserted; everybody tucked away in church pews pondering that strange resurrection thing or thinking about the chocolate bunnies waiting for them back at home. It's one of my favorite holidays because it is so obviously pagan in origin with just the thinnest veneer of Christianity pasted on top. So I went hunting sea shells instead of easter eggs, washed my feet in the salty sea, and grinned up at the blue sky. Afterwards I stopped at Starbucks for something with lots of vanilla in it.

I'm glad to see there will be a Nick Drake Tribute Gathering this year in Tanworth In Arden. (For more info visit NickDrak.co.uk.) I won't be there myself but it sounds like everyone enjoyed the event last year and I'm sure this one will be just as lovely.

My neighbor gave me a copy of The DaVinci Code and I read as much of it as I could stand. Apparently the author trawled the internet for every conspiracy theory and unprovable weird factoid he could find and then sprinkled a few on each page. The overall writing style is of the "Have you heard about [fill in a weird theory]?" "No! Gasp!! Tell me more!!!" variety. The utter lack of research and discrimination is appalling. But, hey, it's fiction and pretty funny most of the time. In fact, I had to laugh when the author wrote that the little Mermaid in the Disney animated movie has long, red hair because (Gasp!) Mary Magdelene had long, red hair! What?!! Disney's Little Mermaid had long, red hair in the movie because the immensely talented actor who voiced the character (Jodi Benson) has long, red hair. Disney animators frequently use the voice-over actors' appearance as the basis for their drawings. In fact, Jodi Benson looks exactly like Arial, the Little Mermaid but, as far as anyone knows, she doesn't look a thing like Mary Magdalene. At this point I put the book down and decided to find something else to read.

On the other hand, I highly recommend Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the book that details the 'Mary Magdalene/Jesus bloodline' theory. It rambles a bit (actually it rambles a lot) but is full of interesting ideas, most of which are either unprovable or just plain wrong but at least there are no audible gasps in it.

Copyright 2004 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.