I liked Sky Captain and the World of To-morrow. I walked out of the theatre feeling like a kid.

Its main virtue is its full body slam effect. If that doesn't hit you, I can see plenty of reasons why you wouldn't like it. One of Franklin's main gripes was that the movie stole actual robot and ship designs from other things. This didn't bother me too much because, for one thing, I'm easy-going to a fault, and also because I knew these designs'd never been like this before. Max Fleischer's robots never felt so actually huge and the nostalgic look not only served in its own right, but also as an edifice of alienness. It ain't just designs that are reviewed in the film, there's also Lawrence Olivier. And I think if you can appreciate the reasons for which Olivier is resurrected, you can also appreciate why the designs were. It has to do with ghosts whose meaning has become pure atmosphere.

That's the key to this movie halfway between colour and sepia. It's not about how great movies were back then. It's about hitting the right chords for the audience by any means possible. Alfred Hitchcock said, "I enjoy playing the audience like a piano." And I think that's the foremost rule of storytelling. And, as it turns out, employing these designs simultaneously creates freshness while creating a wonderful atmosphere of ghosts. That they're sometimes employed enormously out of context is even more appropriate, emphasising the feelings of these antiquated goggles, if you will, rather than the statement.

I did have some problems with the film. Although I liked all the actors, I didn't think they were appropriately cast. Part of me thinks Gwyneth Paltrow would've been better as Sky Captain and Jude Law better as Perkins. Law's gorgeous, but I really wanted to see Clark Gable in his place. There's something too vulnerable about Law for the role. Paltrow looked great, too, but I wished she'd been more forceful. But I think that may be an issue of personal taste.

There were a number of problems of plot, such as characters referring to World War I in 1939, when they ought to've been referring to it as the Great War. It kind of bothered me, though at the same time I wondered if it had to do with the innocent mindset of the story's vision--that it infected the writer.

Anyway, though. Good movie.

To-day I've eaten a doughnut and purchased a coffee, which I'm currently drinking. Good morning, world of 7:30pm. I have an appointment to-morrow at 2:30pm--which, in any case, is Thursday so . . . damn, damn.

Something really shocking happened last night but I won't talk about it for a few days. Not until all my notes are together.

I really ought to get some things done. There's nothing I particularly need to do but getting things done seems appropriate . . .

Actually, maybe I oughta go to a movie. I oughta see that Sky Captain people are either worshiping or condemning. I oughta see it so's I can worship or condemn it, too. Or maybe I'll do both! Crossfire, with Setsuled! By Himself, Even!

I've been reading web comics a lot lately. Figured since I'm making web comics I oughta have a look at my contemporaries. I like Scott McCloud, of course. And everyone seems to like Something Positive, which I find decently funny, and suspect I've not been reading it long enough to appreciate its chief virtue, which is that it's updated a lot.

Beyond that, I've been checking out things McCloud links to in his blog, which I won't bother linking to here as anyone reading may as well go and see McCloud's blog themselves . . .

Now I'll go do my thing, whatever that is.

Slept strangely. At around 9:30am I finally had to admit defeat when I was having a half-dream about a strange face. It seemed an old woman with leathery, puckered skin and a mouth on her right temple. This mouth had no lips and thin, needle-like grey teeth. The scary thing about her was that she seemed to know all about me; she knew I was lying there trying to get to sleep and that she was a half dream I was having. And the more I thought about her, the more she cackled at me. She seemed pleased with each new detail I noticed--first the second mouth, then the wiry hair, the bulging eyes, and the long, limb of a nose.

So I woke up, drew something for about four hours, and went back to bed at 2pm. This time I had a dream about living in a very cold valley with big dark trees. I lived in a poorly lit wooden cabin on a pile of rocks and there was a pretty girl sleeping in my bed. She seemed worried and continually wondered why the lights weren't working very well. She told me her boyfriends were looking for her and she didn't want to be found--she wasn't very enthusiastic about that. I looked out the window which, since the house was on the hill of rocks, gave me a good view of the tree tops. There was a heavy mist on them and cartoon witches occasionally bobbed up out of it as they flew by on their brooms.

What've I been up to? Let's see . . . Last night was the Acorn Review class. A week earlier I'd voted "no" on a piece most of the other students had voted "yes" on and the passage of time had made me sorrier that I hadn't put up a stronger argument. It was a poem about white people being told they can't "dress black" or listen to rap. Before, I disliked it because it seemed silly but, after having seen how important most of the students seemed to feel the issue was, I'd been wanting to scream at them, "This isn't a social problem! It's a social quibble! If your worst problem is that people are telling you [as the poem says they are] that if you listen to a song with drum and bass it must have electric guitar . . . Well, count yourself lucky! And while you're at it, laugh in the person's face! How the hell can someone think this is a big deal in a country where some people aren't even allowed to marry who they love because of a prevalent bigotry?! This poem is the voice of the spoiled teenager!"

That's what I wished I'd said. Probably better I didn't as having put up the meagre argument last week, that "the emotion is disproportionate to the subject matter," I could tell I'd already made enemies. Not a good class for making friends, although some of the old campaigners (people who've taken the class multiple times) are starting to seem like okay people to me.

Ugh. I feel like I'm missing something . . . Oh, yeah, food . . .

The newest Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up on my site. Have a look.

It was a pain in the eema this week. I was working on it until at least 4am every night. Hope it doesn't suck. I don't think it sucks but, then, I'm the daddy.

And so I've finished early to-night and I think I'll go watch a movie . . .

A few days ago, someone was making the case that a writer can never be very good if he or she suffers from an almost complete absence of human society and a lack of interest in procuring any. This idea is demonstrably wrong when one thinks of the likes of H.P. Lovecraft or Kafka--or, well, any number of writers. Just last night I was watching the special features on the Naked Lunch DVD and William S. Burroughs mentioned in an interview that writing requires a commitment to solitude. In fact, it seems to me that a sociable writer is more of an exception to the rule than anything else.

But this is probably almost obvious to most of you and I am indeed a little surprised that anyone would attempt to argue to the contrary. The only reason I bring it up is because I got to thinking last night about the relationship between sociable people and fiction. Someone who spends most of their leisure time interacting with groups of other human beings will obviously spend less time with art. And for one for whom art is a lower priority, it's not unreasonable to suspect that their exposure to art is governed by a narrow set of prejudices; if they're going to waste valuable time on art, they will obviously want the piece most likely to yield pleasurable results and, without having taken the time to study art in general or to exercise intellect to reason that one can benefit from an open mind, they're likely only to seek out those pieces that, to their untrained eye, have similarities to those pieces they either enjoyed in the past or, more likely, were instructed to enjoy by their society.

That's also pretty obvious, but I think it pays to think about it in this detail. And by the way, I don't mean to suggest that someone who spends more time with a social group necessarily places art at a low priority. There're a myriad of reasons as to why someone might feel the need to be surrounded by people often. But as this becomes a comfortable situation, one falls in danger of becoming someone whose poor attention to art taints their perception of it.

So the question on my mind last night was . . . what is therefore the value of art to someone who is afraid of solitude? How could I explain the benefit of art to the poor students obnoxiously gabbing their way through movies?

My suspicion is that there is no answer and that we're all mad here. The person who is alone writes for the person who is alone. Perhaps the writer exists as the emissary of fixation, whose job it is to fill the strange aquarium which the average person now and then has need to look in on, to gain a perspective?

Well, I've got a page to draw . . .

Finally got a decent amount of time to-day! I feel oddly giddy and unsure of how I want to spend this time. A thousand different things are occurring to me. I picked up the Criterion edition of Naked Lunch a few days ago so I'll probably watch that. It's got all kinds of features, included commentary from David Cronenberg and Peter Weller as well as a piece written by William S. Burroughs about the film. And more than that even.

It's weird to think back to the days when I thought of Howard Shore primarily as the composer for Cronenberg movies. Maybe Cronenberg will do a fantasy adventure movie?

A lot of my time's been taken spending time with my grandmother, who's still in town. I watched North by Northwest with her--a movie I haven't seen since high school. And of course, I can appreciate a lot more of it now than I did then. Watched it on a huge, widescreen television on DVD--looked absolutely beautiful.

Speaking of movies I first saw as a youth that I can better appreciate now, I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit last weekend. I can appreciate a lot of the dialogue a lot more now (I now know what a drunken reprobate is, for example). But the more interesting thing is how the animation looks now, after time has passed. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was made years before cgi was commonplace, and absolutely no cgi was used in the movie. And much is done in the movie that to-day no one would even think of doing by any means other than cgi.

I remember as a child marvelling at how extraordinarily fluid much of the animation looked--remember the cartoon at the beginning where we see the jar slowly tipping off the broken shelf? No cgi there--meaning animators had to go through the trouble of mathematically figuring out the appearance of the jar based on the changing perspective as it moved--and with a subtle distortion because it was close to the "camera". It must have taken forever to draw each of those frames--and that was just the jar. How many other virtuoso examples of animation were seen in the film?

You might remember that the older Disney film Oliver and Company actually employed some crude cgi--so it was available. But the director of animation for Roger Rabbit felt that cgi would not have been in the spirit of the movie they were making. We're fortunate he felt this way because now the movie stands as an artefact of a kind of motion picture that we may never see again. It does have a different look from cgi--sometimes it's very subtle but it's definitely there. It's fascinating and almost unnerving, feeling more unpredictable and less cold than cgi. I suppose because somewhere in all our brains, we can see the true, natural three dimensions and are acquainted with them. But the three dimensions in Roger Rabbit are subtly different--in fact, no matter how perfectly calculated, we're inevitably looking at an artist's impression of the three dimensions. As a consequence, the movie seems more like a voice communicating with us.

I feel kind of sad thinking that no animation studio large enough to carry off something like this would now consider it cost-effective to make a movie this way. Even Trail Mix-Up, the newest Roger Rabbit short, employed a bit of cgi. Just not right at all.

Oh yeah . . . And what's the deal with Kathleen Turner not being credited as the voice of Jessica Rabbit? It sounds like her. IMDb says it's her. Very strange. I'm noticing all kinds of uncredited performances these days. Y'know Teri Garr wasn't credited for her role in Ghost World?

"A sea monster ate my ice cream?! A sea monster ate my ice cream!"

So said Scrooge McDuck on Duck Tales this morning.

Where is all my time? I want so much more. I've a lot to talk about . . .

Euh . . . Bloody gods in formaldehyde . . . I feel like . . . complete shit . . .

Grandmother from out of town, in town. Told yesterday to meet relatives for brunch. At 10am. I'm used to going to bed at 6am. I tried my damnedest but couldn't do otherwise. Slept for one hour.

Managed anyway to be human-like for b-runch. It was a buffet at a hotel called Hanalei--Hawaiian themed and stuff. I hate croissants and muffins. Then I noticed all the tiny flies on the croissants. I sat there wondering how many flies I'd eaten. I was managing my brain in my skull like an egg-yolk in a teacup. I had the feeling if I stopped concentrating I'd start screaming meaningless obscenities at people who didn't deserve it. Got back here at noon. Slept 'til five, awakened feeling, as Spangler said, like the bottom of a taxi cab.

By the way, the Amazing Caitlin, who's probably felt worse than this due to sickness in recent weeks, has uploaded the latest Nar'eth manga chapter I did to Nebari.Net. And now, although I can scarcely believe it myself, I'm gonna draw a page of comic . . .

Reading Murder of Angels this morning at Starbucks, I was startled to notice a sticky, black fissure opening up through the centre of the world. And then I realised it was the book's binding giving out. Yes, I love the book well, but actually I think the San Diego sun is at fault in this case.

Last night I watched the truly beautiful 1945 version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The film won an Oscar for best cinematography and was nominated for best art direction. In this instance, the Academy was spot on. These were definitely the strongest aspects of the film, and in precisely that order. Fascinating shadows, textured edges of ancient walls, exquisitely framed shots of staircases seen through drawing rooms, and even the titular painting was great, holding up to the praise of the narrative. Much narrative in this movie, taken, of course, from Wilde's book. Generally a cop out for a filmmaker, but I didn't mind in the slightest because it's always nice hearing Wilde read. The movie would have been appreciable as an abridged version of the book accompanied by images, but the gorgeous look of the thing elevates it.

Dorian was played by a guy named Hurd Hatfield, who was definitely not a good actor but, astonishingly, was absolutely perfect in the role. In fact, I almost think this was a job for a bad actor, and that a good actor would have made for a lesser movie.

His pretty, androgynous face barely moves throughout the whole movie. Which is, of course, perfect. His look was fabulous--not merely pretty and androgynous, but also slightly gaunt and a bit creepy. He looked like someone an artist would want to do a study of, and also like someone who may have sold his soul. His mask-like face, conveying little, never positively communicated a person who'd sold his soul for vanity or was just an innocent kid. The only problem I really had with him was that he couldn't do a British accent.

The supporting cast, meanwhile, was generally solid, including a very young Angela Lansbury as Sibyl Vane. Gods, it's weird thinking Angela Lansbury is hot.

George Sanders played Wilde's avatar, Henry Wotton, very well. It's with a kind of fascinated chill that I read on IMDb that he committed suicide in 1972, leaving a note that read, "Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored."

Nesuko's ship, the Raithuras, will make an appearance in the next Boschen and Nesuko chapter, so I've been tearing apart my closet looking for the schematics of the thing I made in high school at some point. I considered drawing up some new ones but, the truth is, I don't have as much of a taste for such almost mindless mathematical endeavours as I used to. High-school-me liked putting together plastic models of spaceships and drawing endless maps and schematics. I haven't been in that mindset for so long that I look back at these old things and I marvel that I actually devoted such time to getting precise measurements and adding all kinds of little details. Actually, I think I didn't so much fall out of that mindset as I did transfer it--to writing, especially to the writing of characters. But now I'm hoping me-of-the-past and me-of-the-present can forge a fruitful partnership.

I've found the starboard, dorsal, and cutaway drawings, but I'd very much like to find the one where I detailed the Raithuras's strange, somewhat silly, atmospheric flight system . . .

I had this very vivid dream the other night. In it, Tim and I were at a music store in El Cajon. There was a skinny girl with bright, dyed red hair who was giving me nervous looks. Finally she asked me to draw something on her chest, which I did. I asked her out, she said yes, but still seemed like she had something else on her mind. Tim and I went outside and discovered my car'd been stolen. A large man with a messy pony tail, a Van Dyke, and a pointy scalp, nervously approached and asked me not to go out with the girl because he was in love with her. I shrugged and said, "Okay."

After dreaming of a zombie infested office building where only Indiana Jones could save us all if only I could bring him his whip and hat, I drove to Grossmont Centre to buy Bjork's new album and some liquorice flavoured Altoids. Because both items have black and white packaging, the sounds of Bjork's Medulla shall forever be tied for me with the flavour of liquorice.

It's a good album, although nowhere near as good as Post. It shares the same virtue as her previous album, Vespertine, which is atmosphere. A very different atmosphere, though, and more striking than Vespertine's weather-like busy ambience. Medulla is an experiment to see if she can rely almost exclusively on voice for all of the music. Results are interesting and, while I certainly like it, many of the results are more fascinating and enjoyable than truly good. Meaning, much like Vespertine, Selma Songs, and, to an extent, Homogenic, this is an album not to be listened to twice within a short period.

After Grossmont Centre, the plan was to drive to Mission Valley Centre, buy a sketchbook at Michael's, and settle down at Starbucks with Murder of Angels. Only Michael's was totally out of sketchbooks--or, at least the kind I wanted. So I drove off to UTC, ate lunch, and went to Tim's.

Tim installed Doom 3 and I watched. It is, really, a . . . decent game, I suppose. I found myself unable to get as excited about it as was Tim.

Like most games of its ilk, it is, essentially, what a bunch of guys came up with after wondering what they'd make if they were licensed to make an Aliens game. Aside from a variety of perfectly fine nods to the original Doom, the game clearly takes some pages from the books of Half Life and System Shock 2. Unlike Doom, or Quake, or so on, Doom 3 begins without action, instead establishing your characterless character, the story (heh), the environment, and, most usefully, the controls. It does this in a manner reminiscent of System Shock 2 by having you stroll through the marine base talking to people.

There are some very impressive things going on in this game, and many of its strengths are sadly neglected. I liked how you were able to naturally overhear a conversation between some workers. I only wish there was more to the dialogue than obvious exposition. The great realism hinted at by the impressive engine with its awesomely sophisticated dynamic lighting is harmed significantly by the fact that all of the people talk like animatronic characters on a Disneyland ride. And so, a lot of the potentially frightening action is dampened by the feeling that you're on Splash Mountain. There's a particularly laughable moment just before the exposition sequence ends where your character encounters a scientist who's hurriedly trying to get out word about the escaping monsters. He takes a moment to slow down and ham, "The devil is real! I know. I built his cage," gazing wistfully around the room while, supposedly, things'll go to hell if he doesn't do something fast.

I had a chance to play it myself and, once past the exposition sequence, the game's another shooter. Decently fun, and it was nice having the Doom/Quake shotgun dynamics back, where it's beneficial to get as close as possible to the enemy before firing.

Many of the people you talked to earlier are now zombies, which actually makes them seem more lively.

And then I went home and watched Murder by Death. Great performances, but a bit too hell-bent on being silly. The plot involves spoofs of famous detectives (Dick and Dora instead of Nick and Nora, Sam Diamond instead of Sam Spade, Perrier instead of Parrot, etc.) being summoned to a mansion by someone who wants them to solve the ultimate crime. Or something like that. A lot of it didn't make any sense but I suppose it wasn't meant to. I suppose Neil Simon (the writer) thought that would be a good idea.

Personally, I would have kept the humour that worked (I really liked the scene with the blind butler and the deaf mute woman he thought was the cook) and not tried so hard to make humorous the things that didn't work as such. I think it would have been cool to have the actual detectives try to actually work their way through a similar situation. But then, I suppose I'm missing the point, the boorish point about Simon pointing out all of the nagging, characteristic flaws of the various mystery fictions. This point is, after all, jabbed home at the end by their host who literally ceases to address them as people but instead as characters in stories he's been reading for a long time . . .

Oh, what could have been. The movie had David Niven, Maggie Smith, Alec Guinness (playing the butler brilliantly), Peter Sellers (surprisingly unfunny), Peter Falk, and Truman Capote.

And I spent much of the evening compulsively researching details of the various film adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, lamenting that nearly all of the remotely worthwhile versions are unavailable. I would very much like to see the 1948 French marionette version that Disney tried to suppress. Even the 1933 version with W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty and Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle doesn't seem to be available. Nor does the Jim Henson produced Dreamchild, starring Ian Holm as Lewis Carroll. Well, that one at least has old VHS copies available, but I know they're pan and scan (get this; Gates McFadden, Star Trek TNG's Dr. Crusher, is a puppeteer on that movie). There is currently available an intriguing 1966 BBC TV-movie available. It's got John Gielgud and Peter Sellers. In fact, as far as I can tell, Peter Sellers is the only person to be involved in two Alice productions.

Well. I think that's enough fun and games for me . . .

Meme taken from Poppy Z. Brite's journal;

Five Things You May Not Know About My Time in School Are:

1) My teachers usually liked me.

2) My sixth grade teacher found an excuse to dress one of the more mature looking female students in a slinky gold gown. He also had a kissing booth in the back of the room one day, where he had two female students practise kissing one male student.

3) In fifth grade, I was once sent to the back of the room for coughing. The teacher was angry at me for not covering my mouth with a fully open palm.

4) In first grade, I had a crush on Sarah Visces (unsure of the spelling) because she had short hair.

5) I once saved a paper lunch bag for weeks because it had a picture of Tweety Bird on it. And I didn't even especially like Tweety bird.

Five Things You May Not Know About the Job(s) I Have (or Had) Are:

1) I got paid more than ten dollars an hour for my first job, which was also an extremely easy job.

2) For the job I held the longest, four or five years, my boss was the father of Roman Dirge. It was a job straightening merchandise in the aisles of a value store now called Big!Lots.

3) I used to be an ice cream scooper at Rite Aid, and was frequently told by customers that I was the only Rite Aid ice cream scooper that wasn't rude. I even got called into the office once to be commended by the manager for this.

4) I've applied for work at Victoria's Secret several times. I'm a pervert.

5) I've applied for work at The Disney Store several times. I'm a pervert.

Five Things You May Not Know About My Online Life Are:

1) I used to be on aol.

2) Up until a couple weeks ago, I never had any means to pay for things online.

3) I have a couple web sites up that I can't take down or modify any longer because I don't remember my passwords for the various web services.

4) My friend is a hentai guru.

5) I once had David Bowie comment on something I said on the BowieNet message board. It was a long time ago, and I have a suspicion he doesn't pay attention to his boards any more.

Five Things You May Not Know About Where I Live Are:

1) Tom Waits grew up near here.

2) It's getting almost as expensive to live here as in L.A.

3) Never try to drive to the San Diego Comic-Con. Always take the trolley.

4) We have a Mormon Palace--at least, that's what I call it. They probably call it a church or something. But the place is twice as large, and twice as decadent, as Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland.

5) Horton Plaza has two Starbucks.

Five Things You May Not Know About My Core Personality Are:

1) I'm easily amused.

2) I'm not at all arrogant.

3) I firmly believe that most of the idiocy I see--in a distressingly large amount of the people I see in the world--is not innate.

4) I live by the "art for art's sake" idea, even when I vaguely suspect it's not very wise.

5) I don't understand the appeal of most social gatherings.

Five Things You May Not Know About My Home Life Are:

1) I live at my grandmother's.

2) I often see opossums in the back yard.

3) I often shave before going to bed.

4) I use a desk my grandfather built that was later, unwisely, chopped in half by my grandmother.

5) I don't know any of my neighbours and I try to ignore them.

Five Things You May Not Know I Would Really Like to Have Are:

1) A space station.

2) My own movie theatre.

3) Shape-shifting abilities.

4) A better laundry detergent.

5) Sovereignty.

Five Embarrassing Fannish Admissions I Have That You May Not Know Are:

Not that I am embarrassed by doing anything fannish, but . . .
1) I make fan-fic manga for Nebari.Net

2) I know everything about how the Enterprise-D works.

3) I have more than a hundred Star Trek tapes.

4) I have Deanna Troy's autograph.

5) I used to want to be Donald Duck. In elementary school, I even used to angrily sing an alternate version of the Mickey Mouse Club theme--"D-O-N-A-L-D! D-U-C-K!!"

Five Things You May Not Know About What I Do On A Typical Day Are:

1) I read a lot of blog entries and posts in the morning, hours before I reply to anything.

2) I walk aimlessly around the mall, thinking.

3) I don't usually get to bed before 5am.

4) I bring the newspaper up.

5) Hmm . . . er . . . I don't watch much television.

Five Things You May Not Know That are Really Important to My Character Are:

1) I'm a slow reader.

2) I have, what many people seem to consider to be, an irresponsible absence of concern for what strangers think of me.

3) I think too many people enjoy being told what to do.

4) I hate salad dressing.

5) I don't lie to people because it really pisses me off when I sense people are lying to me.

I watched Mrs. Parkington last night. A pretty good movie. Greer Garson did a remarkably good job of portraying someone several decades older than herself. But she was absolutely gorgeous as the girl in the mining town.

Last night's episode of Venture Brothers was particularly good. How could I not like a show with gratuitous David Bowie references? And the Major Tom zombie was plain awesome. It's on again to-night at 12:30 if any of ya'll would like to catch it . . .

Now I'll go meet my parents for dinner. Having been awake now for more than an hour, now seems like a good time for dinner . . .

There. The new chapter of Boschen and Nesuko is up on my site. Have a look, I beg you.

I guess it took me, what, two and a half weeks to update? That's bad. I promise it shall be no more than two weeks from now on.

And it's September 11, so . . . hmm. The September 11 is a day I, like everyone, still remember well. Memories of it for me are somehow appropriately tied to William S. Burroughs. I went to the mall that morning and I sat there reading Burroughs' Last Words before everyone at the mall realised that they were closing. Somehow Burroughs' voice seemed perfect for the strange, fearful atmosphere that reached all the way to San Diego.

Yesterday, I was driving between two large hills listening to Tom Waits' Mule: Variations. The sky seemed perfectly clear until I looked in my rear view window and saw a strange, enormous mass of clouds. It occurred to me that if the clouds were coinciding with a terrible noise, I probably wouldn't hear it from that distance and with the Waits music.

Which brought my attention back to Waits, who was singing, "Why wasn't God watching? Why wasn't God listening? Why wasn't God there . . ."

My mind played a movie of San Diego devastated by a strange attack of clouds; a montage while the Waits song played. The usual apocalyptic imagery--burnt, empty stores and mangled street signs teetering in the wind.

I guess I was thinking about those moments when it's irrefutable that there is no benevolent, omnipotent deity out there. Why wasn't God watching? I remember the old Iraqi woman in Fahrenheit 9/11 who was crying in the rubble of her destroyed home where several of her family members died, asking where God was. Maybe it's because I believed in God when I was a kid that this sort of thing gets to me . . .

And so . . . I left a big scary face on the woman's desk. She wasn't in her office, so I left the flyer there, waiting, staring . . .

Last night I dreamt I was in an elevator with Neil Gaiman (who would probably have been in a lift). The thing got stuck and we had a few nervous moments of listening to it creak and moan before the cable snapped and we plummeted eleven storeys.

We actually survived, although Gaiman was very quiet from then on. I left and went to my high school where I was barely in time for some class. But my teachers, a pair of large women with cunning faces and old grey robes, told me I was too dirty from the accident, and told me to go home and take a shower.

On my way, a girl wearing an enormous yellow wig and a red cheerleader uniform jumped on my back. She laughed in my ear as I kind of staggered, and she said, "Remember me?"

My mind automatically started running through the names and faces of every girl I'd known in high school, but I never precisely pinned down her identity. Looking back, her costume was reminiscent of Karen from Street Fighter: Alpha.

Anyway, I told her I had to go home and shower. She whispered wickedly; "Let's go together!"

But then I was suddenly home--although it didn't resemble any home I've had in waking life--and she was gone. I was watching a cheap movie made in the mid-1980s. It starred Ian McKellen and Andrew McCarthy and had a soundtrack by Howard Shore. I remember thinking it wasn't very good.

hulllruuuuuunnthh . . . I'm not meant to be up this early. It's NOT NATURAL. How I hate Thursdays. And this looks to be the Thursdayingest of Thursdays.

I couldn't get to sleep, of course . . . I ought to've just stayed up all the way. It's worse somehow to settle into a deep sleep with your measly four hours only to have to be jarred up again, even if it is by the Hope Sandoval/Jesus and Mary Chain song "Somtimes Always".

I finished the Boschen and Nesuko page early, but was not allowed to savour that. No, I had to be asleep. But first I had to find a way around my printer whose lack of a fresh fifty dollar ink cartridge made it feel justified in not printing out a black and white image. I finally figured that it wasn't printing the shades of grey, so I very quickly drew up an entirely black and white image for the Acorn Review flyer I'm supposed to deliver to-day, or thereabouts. Why don't I feel so enthusiastic about the Acorn bloody Review right now? Why am I not sending my stories off to more real magazines? Do I mean "more" as in quantity or are they more real somehow? I'm sure they are more real. The Acorn Review is unreal. Hoo-ha.
So for the Acorn Review--sweet, bitter calcium drop on the brain tongue just to keep typing it--for the Acorn Review last night I hastily drew a face . . . staring with big, dark googily eyes at any hapless passers-by, telling them they have to submit to the Acorn Review, but something horrible shall probably happen to them (the passers-by) anyway.

After that I read a bunch of Scott McCloud comics. Now there's a site with great content. That's what I need; content.

Then I lay awake thinking about the nature of comics. I thought about how comics relate to films and figured the writer is closer to the director while the artist is closer to cinematographer. I thought about how I wish I could work faster and better. I thought about people like Jhonen Vasquez who wrote and drew their own big comic books, and I wondered how long it took them put out a 24-or-so page book. I felt ashamed that the best rate I seem to be doing is sixteen pages a month. I tried to think about what I could take out of my day, but there's not much left to take out. Iiiissssssh. I thought about the sound "Iiiissssssh."

The two predominant things I felt yesterday; happily creative and bitter. I thought about whether I wanted happiness or the continual pursuit for creative fulfillment. I concluded that I don't think happiness is possible, and I'd better get used to the latter, although I think part of that latter is its inability to be comfortable. Like a toothed inner-tube.

I don't feel like listening to myself. The gods clearly meant for me to be asleep right now.

I wonder if I'm the only one who's discovered that mozzerella cheese is best served with mustard?

So many film stars didn't survive the advent of talkies.

Mall Mexican restaurants are depressing.

There. That was cohesive, wasn't it?

All right, back at it. Just three pages to go . . .

I've been working on Boschen and Nesuko every night, wanting to complete at least one page a day. This has regularly taken until 5am, but last night I somehow finished at 2:30am. So last night I watched Body and Soul, a film from 1947 about a boxing champion played by John Garfield.

It was pretty good. A typical story of athlete fights for friends and family, athlete gets corrupted by fame and fortune, athlete has climactic fight where he might salvage both his soul and the faith of his girl. But it's put together by a very smart screenplay. You're never really sure what who's gonna say next, but it always seems natural. My favourite scene was Peg (Lilli Palmer) answering the door early in the morning to find Charlie (Garfield), her estranged former fiance. The conversation they have is really neat, particularly the part where Peg mentions not being "very bright" that morning because she'd worked late the night before. Just a nice moment of a character's "real" life making itself known subtly in the dialogue.

I'm a lot more tired right now than I oughta be . . .

Tim and I went last night to see Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman. At last, the good blending of the musical with the martial arts genre that I've long dreamed of has finally occurred. It's only too bad Fred Astaire wasn't in it.

Partially, it was a good, old fashioned samurai movie with quick but deadly action sequences interspersed with story and character development. As Roger Ebert notes, the director, Takeshi Kitano has a very keen sense of timing, so this old format seems very lively. But it doesn't stop there, folks, no. There're also choreographed farmers, smacking dirt in a rhythm to correspond with the movie's soundtrack. And the musical number at the end is fiercely smile-inducing. Even the homophobe jackasses sitting behind me went quiet, evidently at a loss for words, or even guffaws.

I knew they were homophobes because of their reactions to one of the film's characters, a transvestite. When I could get past my irritation at the two chuckleheads, I found myself pleased at the all-to-rare example of a transvestite, or other gender altering characters, being portrayed respectfully in a period piece.

Gods, movie audiences are getting too fucking annoying. Behind the homophobes were another couple of noisemakers. One of them commented to his companion, "I don't understand anything that's happened so far." I wanted to turn around and scream, "Well then you must be AN IDIOT!"

Er, so . . . Zatoichi is excellent. Go see it. And don't murder anyone in the audience.

I've gotta learn to pace myself. I find if I actually work too much on my web comic, I end up behind the next day. It's very strange. It looks like I'll have the next chapter up a week from to-day, though.

I've been desperate for unsweetened beverages lately. They're hard to find in this country. I swear we were a nation of humming birds in a past life. So to-day I went to Mitsuwa and bought a jug of unsweetened green tea. I may go back to-morrow as it looks as though there's a sale on ramen. A man was standing next to the stand yelling at passers-by in Japanese. When I smiled at him, he giggled oddly. So it's probably good ramen.

I watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines last night and, holy fucking gods, Batman, what a great movie! Not a single scene is wasted. From what looks like an actual elephant hunt to the scene where Allan Quatermain discusses reasons for seeking the mines with Mrs. Curtiz.

Now, I've not read the book and right now I'm suspecting that's a damn shame. The instincts with which the story was put together, placing you early on into violent chaos, and then taking you aside and having Allan explain about the jungle's meaningless cycle of death . . . Great stuff for rumination, but it becomes a hard punch when combined with how fucking realistic the movie seems--I mean, the fact that it was made in 1950 is sort of astounding. Real Africa, yes, that'd happened before, but exclusively real natives, bloody real stampede, and real knowledge . . . Well, I haven't seen everything yet but it all seemed pretty groundbreaking.

Deberah Kerr and Stewart Granger were both great. And great sports, too, for all the shit they obviously really had to go through, including Kerr falling face down in a swamp. She looked genuinely miserable. I mean, there's no logical way she could have not been going through hell. And Granger's Quatermain was just bad-ass.

When they visit one village and Quatermain makes to trade salt and meat, Mrs. Curtiz says she thought it was always beads that were traded. Quatermain explains that salt is incredibly valuable and adds, "They're not stupid, you know."

Wow. In 1950, after the Tarzan movies and the like where the natives are portrayed as stiff particle board brains, these real natives are correctly observed--and in many ways throughout the movie--as being very much not stupid indeed. Hot damn, I'm glad I watched this movie.

I watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines last night and, holy fucking gods, Batman, what a great movie! Not a single scene is wasted. From what looks like an actual elephant hunt to the scene where Allan Quatermain discusses reasons for seeking the mines with Mrs. Curtiz.

Now, I've not read the book and right now I'm suspecting that's a damn shame. The instincts with which the story was put together, placing you early on into violent chaos, and then taking you aside and having Allan explain about the jungle's meaningless cycle of death . . . Great stuff for rumination, but it becomes a hard punch when combined with how fucking realistic the movie seems--I mean, the fact that it was made in 1950 is sort of astounding. Real Africa, yes, that'd happened before, but exclusively real natives, bloody real stampede, and real knowledge . . . Well, I haven't seen everything yet but it all seemed pretty groundbreaking.

Deberah Kerr and Stewart Granger were both great. And great sports, too, for all the shit they obviously really had to go through, including Kerr falling face down in a swamp. She looked genuinely miserable. I mean, there's no logical way she could have not been going through hell. And Granger's Quatermain was just bad-ass.

When they visit one village and Quatermain makes to trade salt and meat, Mrs. Curtiz says she thought it was always beads that were traded. Quatermain explains that salt is incredibly valuable and adds, "They're not stupid, you know."

Wow. In 1950, after the Tarzan movies and the like where the natives are portrayed as stiff particle board brains, these real natives are correctly observed--and in many ways throughout the movie--as being very much not stupid indeed. Hot damn, I'm glad I watched this movie.

I watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines last night and, holy fucking gods, Batman, what a great movie! Not a single scene is wasted. From what looks like an actual elephant hunt to the scene where Allan Quatermain discusses reasons for seeking the mines with Mrs. Curtiz.

Now, I've not read the book and right now I'm suspecting that's a damn shame. The instincts with which the story was put together, placing you early on into violent chaos, and then taking you aside and having Allan explain about the jungle's meaningless cycle of death . . . Great stuff for rumination, but it becomes a hard punch when combined with how fucking realistic the movie seems--I mean, the fact that it was made in 1950 is sort of astounding. Real Africa, yes, that'd happened before, but exclusively real natives, bloody real stampede, and real knowledge . . . Well, I haven't seen everything yet but it all seemed pretty groundbreaking.

Deberah Kerr and Stewart Granger were both great. And great sports, too, for all the shit they obviously really had to go through, including Kerr falling face down in a swamp. She looked genuinely miserable. I mean, there's no logical way she could have not been going through hell. And Granger's Quatermain was just bad-ass.

When they visit one village and Quatermain makes to trade salt and meat, Mrs. Curtiz says she thought it was always beads that were traded. Quatermain explains that salt is incredibly valuable and adds, "They're not stupid, you know."

Wow. In 1950, after the Tarzan movies and the like where the natives are portrayed as stiff particle board brains, these real natives are correctly observed--and in many ways throughout the movie--as being very much not stupid indeed. Hot damn, I'm glad I watched this movie.

Intending to go to bed early last night, I began watching Quo Vadis at 2am . . . and watched the whole thing. Three hour long movie. Damn.

I like long movies, though. I like when the cinematic narrative gets to stretch itself out comfortably. There ought to be more three hour movies.

Quo Vadis had a lot of week points. Robert Taylor, as the lead, is astoundingly bland. There's an irritating pro-Christian thrust that does even Christians a disservice. In an earnest attempt at converting Taylor's Roman commander, and obviously intended as a portrayal of righteous evangelism, Deborah Kerr and the numerous Christians fail to even really explain their philosophies very clearly. Yet we're meant to feel sorry for Taylor when, even though he's had the word "Christ" repeatedly shoved in his face, he resists becoming a Christian.

So the most likeable characters have nothing to do with Christianity. Mainly I'm thinking of Peter Ustinov's Emperor Nero. It's fun to watch the deluded, bad artist cream-puff and his cadre of fluffers. Ustinov's absolutely wonderful. He's positively soaked with self-adoration and self-pity.

A part from this, the movie was fun to watch simply because it was Ancient Rome with action, great costumes, great, huge, expensive looking sets, intrigue, and all that. Usually unrealistic lighting pisses me off, but here the vibrant Technicolor made everything look like Pre-Rahpaelite paintings. So I forgive it, even for a big banquet scene where a single wall sconce in the background is supposed to explain to us why the room is so bright there aren't even any shadows.

Anyway. I'd better start drawing, now.

Watched an episode of Ducktales a few minutes ago. I had a revelation.

Scrooge McDuck says he's happy to have Launchpad back. Launchpad asks if he's still gonna get a raise.

Scrooge says, "I was already paying you twice what you're worth!"

Launchpad says, "All right, Mr. McD. I'll come back to work for you only on the condition that you pay me half of what you were paying me before."

And they shake hands.

When I was a kid, I never got the joke even though I saw the episode over and over. Which probably goes to show you what my math grades looked like. Anyway, this morning, I saw and understood.

After Ducktales was an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (I was watching Toon Disney). I want a show that gives you that same, sweet, pastel, adventurous feel as Pooh, except with a lot of blood and horrendous violence. Before Toon Disney, I was watching Taxi Driver.

These are the kinds of things my brain can do at 5am. I'll get back to you when I'm fully brain certified again . . .