The Travels by Marco Polo

[Drunk Monk]

For reasons CF & LCF know, and the rest of the wulin will soon understand, I read this previously overlooked book, a shameful oversight in my study of China. It's a pretty amusing read actually. Each chapter discusses various cities in a somewhat formulaic report: what they trade (salt, silk, various produce and textiles), what they worship (Christian, Mahomet, or idolaters - the idolaters are Buddhists and Polo recounts the tale of Buddha but totally messes up the enlightenment part), whether they tithe to the Great Khan (Polo's discussions of Kublai are the most overt demonstration of kiss-assery ever), what kind of money they use, and some other odd details. It's those odd details that are most amusing as most of them are the sexual habits of the rules, many of whom have amassed massive harems, like 300+ wives and consorts. But there are also detailed discussions of wife sharing and all sorts of female subjugation. There are also some encounters with mythic beasts - Polo's description of a real unicorn is surprising. I'm glad to have read it so I can speak intelligently about it in December, which I will surely be called upon to do.

[Drunk Monk]

This was our cover story for our most recent issue (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1191">http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/ ... ticle=1191</a><!-- m -->). Thanks to LCF for providing the cover story.

It was a huge risk on my part. But I'm happy to say this one paid out.

The show is good. I'm halfway through and enjoying it.
Great swordfights, especially the one at the end of episode 2 which, although being mediocre choreography, was very well shot. The fight scenes are amusing overall.
Great sets. And great costumes. They spent $90 million on this beast and it shows. Spectacularly panoramic.
Good hallucination scene - that's episode 5, the Hashassin one.
Okay dancing, but not Bollywood scale - mostly nekkid courtesan stuff. There's a lot of gratuitous nudity.
Only spotted one dog scene so far.

So far, very enjoyable.

[Drunk Monk]

I think Greg is still part of the Netflix collective.

This series was great fun. The scope of it is really impressive for an exclusive Netflixer. I feel like totally I got my $8/per month's worth with this.

Fun swordfights. 'nuf said, right?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I'm not streaming at the moment since I hadn't used that particular service in quite some time. Plus I had a ton of shows DVRed that also negated the need for streaming.

then I swapped out DVRs and now I have nothing and I'm about to turn the Netflix stream pipe back on. Especially with Daredevil on the horizon.

In case you didn't see it, Entertainment Weekly, where I get most of my Entertainment news, gave it a middlin' review, saying the show worked best when Marco Polo wasn't on the screen.

[Drunk Monk]

...Lorenzo starts out kind of lame. His character develops as the episodes progress, but he's not the one I was really watching. Benedict as Kubilai, Joan as Chabi, Tom as 100 eyes, and of course, Olivia as the nekkid Kung Fu ho - they were all more engaging.

Besides, who you gonna believe, DOOM or EW? Remember EW put your fav flik Maleficent on their cover.

You'll like the sets. Trust me.

[King Bob]

Well back to the book....

I kind of got bogged down and lost interest, but if you like it then you should definitely check out Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, a novel where Marco Polo tells the emperor tales of fantastic cities. It is sort of like Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, same kind of feel.