Guillermo del Toro in The New Yorker Magazine

del Toro discusses his process, trials with Hollywood, The Hobbit, At the Mountains of Madness, monster theory, and squashes his daughter with his gut in Daniel Zalewski’s fantastic New Yorker profile.

“The Hobbit,” he said, “is much less black-and-white. The monsters are not just evil. They’re charming, funny, seductive. Smaug is an incredibly smart guy!” Del Toro later said that he inevitably imposed his sensibility on source material: “It’s like marrying a widow. You try to be respectful of the memory of the dead husband, but come Saturday night . . . bam.”

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Sarah Palin Battle Hymn. Yes.

“And when she gets to Washington, it’ll be cold as hell…”

Two things that I suspect have not occurred to these good-hearted folk: 1. They’re chorus thesis hangs on the cultural idiom, “Hell Freezes Over.” Which is to say, Hell will never freeze over. Ergo: Sarah Palin will never get to “Warshington.” She couldn’t finish her term as governor.

2. Commandment Number 2: “You shall have no other gods before me.” This song is elevating Palin to Golden Calf status, by conflating “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as a church hymn. Pretty dubious as a church/state conflict, let alone borderline blasphemous.

Hey, man, just sayin’. Besides that, they seem like good church-goin’ people who are troubled by the rampant socialism that Jesus preached.

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