I went to the zoo to-day--my mother had gotten me a zoo pass for my birthday in April, and so far I'd managed to go only once. I figured I'd better get in at least one more quality visit this year--I'll post more pictures and video to-morrow. I saw some weird shit this time.
But, for now, as you can see, I had another peacock encounter. I'd thought maybe the one I saw wandering around the road earlier this year (seen below) had escaped from some pen;
But I guess they're just allowed to roam the park because I encountered two to-day, the first sitting coolly on the rock there, letting people take pictures, even people using the flash on their cameras. The second one I ran into was in the middle of a big crowd, in the path of a bus, forcing the vehicle to stop. On instinct, I stepped back, knelt down, made clucking noises with my tongue and tapped the ground with my fingers, the way I sometimes do when I want to get a cat to come to me. To my surprise, the peacock did walk right up to me, out of the path of the bus which immediately resumed its route. So yes, quite tame.
I can't believe how much I've gotten done to-day. I worked on the new Venia's Travels until 4:30am, having worked on it all day since the maids woke me up at 11am. Then, to-day the insurance of the guy who'd hit my car a few months back decided to start sending calls my way at 11am. At least now I have an appointment to get it fixed and the guy's accepted full responsibility.
I coloured almost all eight pages yesterday, having finished with pencil and ink on Wednesday. I know Christmas is right in the middle of my schedule for chapter 41, but I'm hoping it won't be such a painful experience as 40, especially since I got an early start on the script last week.
Twitter Sonnet #92
All payments accepted but most of them. The sink motion sensors ignore my hands. Happy phantoms open doors on a whim. Consumer ghosts are alone in grey lands. Whiskey, save us from the poisoned water. Or boil it in a ruined bathroom. Salmon sashimi's a raw mad martyr. Red silly string of fate is on the loom. Unpainted cars start in the late evening. Only one person would call after six. The slow grapefruit might just now be winning. A gold alarm ambivalently ticks. Yellow oceans now flavoured with lemon. Peacocks are significant among men.
The new Venia's Travels is online. I spent all day colouring, and the computer crashed at one point, corrupting a file and I had to start over completely on one page. I sure hope I don't have to deal with another chapter like this. And to think I had ambitions of getting up early to-morrow . . .
Up very early, it being Thursday. My brain's not on yet, but I thought I'd write about last night's dream while I can remember it--
I was going with some people to a place where I used to work. I'm not sure who the people were, but I believe there were four of them and among them may have been Elvis Costello and Angel (David Boreanaz). We were going to Big!Lots, where I worked several years ago, a place that sells really cheap overstock and discontinued items from other stores. But in my dream, it was located in a subterranean parking garage. When we got there, we found that all the cash registers were outside the entrance, which was a massive hanger door. Suddenly, a panicked woman's voice came on over the PA saying, "The cash registers are going to explode!"
And they did, shooting blue sparks first and a thick, steel door slammed down over the entrance. My group was still outside the store, with the registers, but doors slammed down on the entrances to the parking garage, too. We decided to try to get out through the sewers, which we managed to do, and we found that all electricity was off throughout the city, many buildings had fallen and several more were beginning to fall. Dust had somehow gathered into grey serpents of clouds drifting around the buildings.
I remember just disjointed bits after that--some kind of underwater community of people in little orange volkswagen bugs, learning to create working hotplates without electricity.
Well, it's probably for the best I had to get up early to-day--I have a lot of colouring to do. I got behind because of Christmas shopping and all the medical shit I had to deal with. It's looking like I just might be out of the woods on both fronts, though, so maybe to-day is mine.
Speaking of right wing fantasy films, I watched the trailer for Iron Man 2 last night. I liked the first movie, and I think there's a good chance I'll like this one, but I can't help feeling a chill when I hear the line, "I have privatised peace!"
Last night's tweets;
Whiskey, save us from the poisoned water. Or boil it in a ruined bathroom. Salmon sashimi's a raw mad martyr. Red silly string of fate is on the loom.
We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule, or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision.
They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of past.
There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers.
The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident. Inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.
-William S. Burroughs
My last night's tweets;
All payments accepted but most of them. The sink motion sensors ignore my hands. Happy phantoms open doors on a whim. Consumer ghosts are alone in grey lands.
I turned Keith Olbermann's show on during lunch and listened to the depressing state of the health care reform bill. I can't say I'm surprised--one of Olbermann's guests talked about how the Democrats were "out-foxed" by the insurance companies. No, I don't think so--make whatever jokes you like about people in government, no-one's dumb enough to not know what's happening when a bill originally designed to implement useful public healthcare becomes just a massive siphon to move funds from the taxpayers to the insurance companies, requiring citizens to purchase private health insurance with bits eroding a woman's right to choose as the cherry on top. None of these just get slipped in without people noticing.
I voted for Obama, I liked him. I was excited to see a black guy become president, and I got swept up in the idea of this being a signifier of meaningful change to come, like a lot of people did. But I don't think there's any escaping the conclusion now that he's far enough in the pocket of private interests to be totally useless. Though only an idiot would argue McCain would be better.
There is no-one better. There is no-one--just a machine designed to solidify the existence of an aristocracy. Unlike what William S. Burroughs said, I think this beast is clearly designed to preserve some people. Maybe this is the only way, with overpopulation and the inescapable deterioration of resources, maybe it is time for 1% of the population to be isolating themselves. While the rest of us are left only with the self-evidence of our rights.
Olbermann was making fun of Michele Bachmann for comparing her supporters to "The Charge of the Light Brigade". I don't think it's a coincidence that that Tennyson poem was featured prominently in the current, successful right wing fantasy film, Blind Side.
Reading comments on the YouTube clip of the original deleted Jabba scene from Star Wars, I'm seeing a surprising number of comments like, "Ok so I'm confused. I guess I'm a SW fan of this generation, so I don't know how they explained how Jabba went from being a human being in ANH to being a slug in ROTJ lol?" Maybe they don't know it was originally a deleted scene, but I get the feeling it's more like they consider anything shot for the movies as being things that actually "happened", canon-wise.
I've been thinking about "entitlement" to-day. This is a word I hear being used a lot lately--I think when I first noticed it frequently popping up it was coming from right wing talking heads who were using it to refer to poor people wanting more healthcare or money than they'd "earned" or "inherited". Then I started hearing it in terms of male/female relations, that some guys feel they're entitled to certain things from women based on time or money they spent on dating them. I heard it from someone who told me I was being unreasonable when I took it so hard that a certain girl stopped speaking to me abruptly. And, finally, I'm hearing it from Howard Stern a lot these days--he told Artie Lange that it was a sense of normally getting what he wants that made him all but fall apart when he was feeling badly. Stern also used the word referring to a guy recently who murdered a girl who'd rejected his advances. Stern speculated that the guy had probably grown up with parents who gave him everything he wanted so he wasn't equipped to handle being denied.
I went to San Diego County Medical Services to-day for my appointment to see if I could get financial aid. Fortunately, a family member had already been kind enough to send me the money I needed, but I figured I'd go to see if I could get the bill reduced anyway. Turned out to be more of a loan sort of thing that would've required me to reimburse them the money anyway. While I was there, I sat with a lot of people that I think it would be safe to classify as being "poor". A large woman next to me had a rambunctious kid with her. She thought nothing of pushing me aside to make more room for herself on the bench, despite the fact that there was plenty of room for her on the other side. She spoke unkindly to her kid, and I could see she was the sort of person very much focused on her own needs. And I thought, if it's true pampering is what causes that feeling of "entitlement", then surely this kid would grow up to be very self-sufficient, expecting nothing to be handed to him. Or, perhaps it's more likely that in normally receiving far less than he instinctively knows he deserves, he becomes accustomed to having a feeling of being short changed so that he grows up to become a person who's totally focused on his own needs, not unlike his mother seemed to be.
A week ago, a guy called in to The Howard Stern Show who'd been almost totally paralysed by MS for twenty years. Stern usually has prize money from a sponsor to give out as he chooses, and lately a lot of callers have been blatantly asking for the money. Since this guy had obviously had a rough life, Stern decided to give him seven hundred eleven dollars from 7/11. But, to make it at least some kind of game, Stern asked the guy to spell "Seven Eleven."
The first couple times, the guy just said, "Seven Eleven" and Stern had to repeat several times that he needed to spell the words, during which time the guy got noticeably angry. Finally, the guy said, "s-e-v-e-n e-l-v-n". They made fun of him a little for spelling it wrong, and it sounded like the guy was going to start crying from anger, even though it was clear they would give him as many tries as needed for him to spell it right. I was amazed someone who was evidently familiar with the show, who knew the ball-busting could've been much worse, would fail to be more gracious to someone who was all but handing him seven hundred dollars with no strings attached. It seemed to me he'd cultivated a perspective on the world in which he saw most of the things that were his basic rights as a human being as being wrongfully withheld by luck or by other people.
I started thinking to-day about how the people who so derisively use the word "entitlement" are usually the people who don't have to worry about their basic needs--the Right Wing talking heads have the healthcare they would withhold from illegal immigrants and the poor, the person who accused me of being possessed by a sense of entitlement to consideration from the certain girl had a lot of friends and was in a very good, stable relationship with someone, and, of course, Howard Stern is a multimillionaire married to a model. I'd speculate that the preoccupation these people have with a sense of entitlement from those less well off is a manifestation of perhaps repressed guilt at being more fortunate in life than they, deep down, feel they deserve to be.
In the case of guys expecting more from women than they deserve, I think a culture that puts down guys who don't rack up numbers and the male libido might be at least partly to blame. Which would, again, account for an attitude of "entitlement".
People who expect the world to give them things without ever giving anything back are, in my opinion, certainly assholes, particularly when such selfishness harms others. I'm just thinking to-day that it's not always that simple, and sometimes it might be good to think about what in the world might make someone mean. It could be they're desperate.
Twitter Sonnet #91
The next door computer's the storm outside. Some strangers have hot grievances with me. Inside rocks the cagier footpads hide. Lemmings and lightning fall random on meat. Hera beats machines at Jack in the Box. She makes the hottest eggs between croissants. Some seamstresses confuse panties with socks. No-one's really sure what a clown boss wants. A lone, sad storekeeper sells short butlers. And indistinguishable chess pieces. A burning disk might trigger the sprinklers. Record of people afraid of cheeses. Voice in you demanding all is the chems. But you have a right to eight extra limbs.
Running very late to-day because of some Christmas shopping. As I was walking through the mall, a young woman walked up to me and asked if I knew anything about the Dead Sea.
"Yeah," I said. "Another girl walked up to me and talked about it in an effort to sell me something a year ago."
"Only a year ago?" she asked and I realised it was probably more like five years ago. But before I could say anything else she took my hand and started rubbing a small, brick shaped object against the fingernail of my left middle finger like an emery board and began asking questions about me--where I lived, what I did. It was a bit like the doctor, actually, in that I sensed that this was part of a programme designed to put me at ease rather than anything based on an actual interest in my life.
She told me she was from Israel, as was the product she wished to sell me, a case of lotions and oils that cost fifty nine dollars. "And you get a picture of me," she said, pointing at a pretty girl on the box. "Just kidding! She wishes." The girl really was cute, and I almost thought she was flirting with me until I remembered the other girl had said exactly the same thing. An awful lot of scripted dialogue for a mall kiosk, if you ask me.
I still wanted to ask her to coffee, but I reminded myself of the old Onion article that was titled something like, "The Barista is Not Flirting with You."
She had a thick accent, too. Why do Jewish dames gotta be so cute?
I have one, weirdly shiny fingernail now.
Last night's tweets;
Hera beats machines at Jack in the Box. She makes the hottest eggs between croissants. Some seamstresses confuse panties with socks. No-one's really sure what a clown boss wants.
Trying another new concoction--this time I've mixed half cranberry juice, half apple juice, cinnamon, and I microwaved it for two minutes. So far a tart, but good drink. It's a dark, brownish red.
While washing some dishes a few minutes ago, I put the television on the SuhaiFuaigh Channel (in response to their effort to make their name shorter, I've decided to make it longer) which was showing some new Alice in Wonderland television movie. "What?!" you may say. "A kid's movie? What I drag! I want to play outside." But wait! Yes, it's Alice but she's--wait for it--a teenager! And! It's a darker story. "Oh, sweet mystery of life at last I've found you!" you might say. "I'm humbled before the great, brilliant juggernaut of human achievement at its finest!" Not only that, but get ready for Agent Smith-ish stormtroopers working for the Queen of Hearts and a magical Ring of Power MacGuffin that Alice carries! And she has a blonde boyfriend but she might be in love with The Mad Hatter who wears eyeliner! Imagine the lead singer from Green Day but vaguely cuter and with a smaller head!
Also, extremely cheap looking, minimalist sets and costumes. It sucks Colm Meaney and Matt Frewer had to get caught up in this thing. It actually looks like the ring is stolen more from The Magician's Nephew than from Lord of the Rings, but they're definitely playing it as a LotR-ish chase film with financially convenient modern elements.
I'm trying to keep my expectations low for the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland (trailer here--Disney's disabled embed because, you know, that could lead to people promoting the movie on their blogs). Some of the sets and costumes look nice, a lot like Mark Ryden paintings, though the look of Alice herself is a bit washed out and indistinct. In all the posters she looks like an especially boring young aristocrat from the 1930s who wandered onto a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory set, which may be appropriate, but it's slightly dispiriting anyway. I might be getting Johnny Depp fatigue because his Hatter doesn't excite me at all, or maybe it's just the Bozo the Clown getup. I like the John Tenniel huge head Helena Bonham Carter has, and I like that Alice's clothes don't shrink with her, or I would if the movie were rated R. As it is, it probably just means we're in store for a lot of really awkward shots planned around the terrible nipples and vagina off screen. There, I think my expectations are sufficiently low.
I watched the eighth episode of Dollhouse' second season to-day--not really a bad episode, though I'm very disappointed the writers decided to get closer to stating definitely that personalities exist for the dolls under the imprints, that there's a "soul". We're drifting further from the really interesting stuff between Amy Acker and Topher early in the season. But it was nice to see Alan Tudyk back as Alpha and Patton Oswalt as one of Echo's regular clients. The idea of him liking that Echo's carrying the personality of his dead wife inside him was nice, but was hit a little too hard with a music cue at the end. Moments like that always remind me of a line from John Cleese in Monty Python's Meaning of Life; "Why not start her off with a nice kiss? You don't have to go leaping straight for the clitoris like a bull at a gate."
Last night's tweets;
The next door computer's the storm outside. Some strangers have hot grievances with me. Inside rocks the cagier footpads hide. Lemmings and lightning fall random on meat.
You know spinach is hiding everywhere. Leafy greens coldly observe all your sins. And Christmas light eyes at packages stare. Friends and relations stored in labelled bins. One alien mall wing's always empty. The best Indian prices for Christ's wood. Phallic like a long observatory. A new shadow falls where Bob's Big Boy stood. Everyone would get doubloons for Christmas. Brashly boarding a bloated galleon. Cameras pillaged from Natalie Kalmus. Technicolours run in rash disunion. Sweet's swallowed with sour by the throat well. Red juice separates from the caramel.
Drinking some flash pasteurised apple juice I heated in the microwave. As with orange juice, flash pasteurised turns out to be much better than concentrate.
I watched "Orpheus" last night, a second season episode of Angel I was kind of dreading because I saw from the description that it was one of those episodes, found on many television series, where characters are transported to some magical headspace where they just talk. I usually find that type of episode to be fruitless water treading in the name of character exploration, but, to my surprise, I found "Orpheus" to easily be one of my absolute favourite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel.
For one thing, it's got epic Buffyversity--Willow coming in is one of those nice, comic bookish moments when Spider-Man unexpectedly turns up in Fantastic Four or something and he makes good on all the coolness you know he's capable of when he swings into the panel instead of just being a stunt guest star. Also not misused in the episode is Faith, as this is the last in a group of three episodes where Angel had essentially become Faith the Vampire Slayer, which works for me as I like her a lot more than Buffy. What's more, the short arc actually builds off Faith's already established story, and it's wonderful seeing her immediately take charge, prison and her relationship with Angel apparently having made her into an adult instead of the girl who's always either following or rebelling. It certainly highlighted one of the flaws in Dollhouse when I'm used to seeing Dushku on the newer show but Faith turning up on Angel still gave me a feeling of, "Fuck, yeah, Faith's back!" Dushku really can't do the infinite characters thing, and so the end result is her never really getting a foothold on an arc. But she was Faith.
It's especially satisfying seeing her kick Connor around, who, although I was liking him early on, is on my last nerve now as he too persistently can't figure anything out on his own. Everyone has at least one quality moment in the episode, except maybe Gunn--Wesley has his comparing darkness with Willow, Fred inadvertently flirts with Willow, Lorne singing to unconscious Faith is really sweet and, my favourite, Angel is again an important agent in Faith's rehabilitation when he shows her he fed off a human once after he'd been given his soul back--though, if it'd been me writing it, I'd have had Angel doing something much worse than feeding off a guy who was already dying.
The synchronicity with the Buffy storyline is nice, too, even though the Slayer Army thing makes me cringe with the awesome weight of its lameness, particularly when Giles or Buffy decides to hold forth on how serious everything is and how they shouldn't joke around, ever.
With breakfast to-day, I watched one of the new Dollhouse episodes aired last night, "Meet Jane Doe". Nicely unpredictable, Echo as a rogue do-gooder was surprisingly very satisfying, and I love the pro-immigration propaganda, as a beautiful, innocent young Mexican woman is mistreated by hick American cops. This could be a nice counterweight to the right wing's less honest propaganda, in the long run--a fiction series never claims to be telling you the truth, but most people, in their heart of hearts, can see the things in it that reflect reality.
I really liked Adele turning out to be completely, ruthlessly evil, especially after we're led to feel bad for her in a new role as a sort of high level secretary to an arrogant boy's club. Her betraying her friends was a much more satisfying female empowerment than grabbing Ray Wise' balls. I say, if women aren't allowed to be truly evil, there'll never be equality of the sexes.
One alien mall wing's always empty. The best Indian prices for Christ's wood. Phallic like a long observatory. A new shadow falls where Bob's Big Boy stood.
They're putting a Bob's Big Boy in Parkway Plaza mall. And I thought they'd all gone out of business--it's no place for a vegetarian, I guess, but I'd like having David Lynch's favourite burger joint nearby. There used to be Bob's Big Boys around here when I was a kid--I remember their food being a bit dry and tart, by fast food standards.
Last night I dreamt Charlie Chaplin made The Great Dictator and woke up to find it was true. In my dream, though, the movie had an extra "blank" act. I don't remember what that might have looked like--the only visual I remember was a blank title card with a white, flowery border.
I've been playing chess pretty regularly in Second Life lately ever since I finally found a vital community of players. Everyone seems to be better than me, luckily I really don't seem to mind losing nowadays. Maybe I'll play better with some alcohol, which I might try to-night since my doctor called to-day to tell me the results of my blood test. My blood says I'm totally fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm not saying my blood was flirting with me, but who knows?
They stuck a needle in my arm yesterday, which I don't think I've had done since I was a little kid. I wondered if it would freak me out, but I made myself stare at it like Akira Kurosawa's brother made him stare at dead bodies after the Great Kanto Earthquake, the idea being to face fears. I always liked this philosophy, and yeah, it works, at least as far as my blood test. Just a little piece of metal in my arm, nothing monstrous.
I'm drinking coffee in the morning again. I still get this abdominal pain, but I'm thinking maybe my muscles were worn out. Or something.
Here's the best I could salvage of the Morrissey concert from my sister's camera;
Clips were short because of the mean usher, and were blurry because the auto focus on the camera was more into the people standing in front of my sister. This was the best still image she got;
Also on my sister's camera, I found this picture of me reading War and Peace to Saffy the Cat.
"Rostov is foolish," says Saffy. "But go on." I really need a haircut.
A kind person at morrissey-solo.com informed me the 60s band I was curious about in the series of video clips was in fact Shocking Blue. This is the very video;
Love that bass. I wasn't even able to search for the title before as the quality of the amplified sound in the symphony hall make all the lyrics unintelligible to me. But it had that pounding bass and drum with the cool girl's face--I was sold on those two things.
The guy I'd described as "an American singer of Italian descent" was in fact Irish singer Joe Dolan.
I guess I thought he was Italian because he looks a little like Frank Sivero.
Happy birthday, Brian.
My tweets from last night;
You know spinach is hiding everywhere. Leafy greens coldly observe all your sins. And Christmas light eyes at packages stare. Friends and relations stored in labelled bins.
Rather busy day to-day--I'm getting a bit behind on my comic. I guess I'll need to put in work on Friday and Saturday, the days I normally set aside to take off.
Visited my doctor to-day, a guy named Hawkins. Very nice, friendly guy, seemed a little too excited about everything--"I normally get up at noon." "Wow!" "I have a web comic." "Wow! That's great!" He didn't know what a web comic was. But, again, he seems like a perfectly decent fellow, and I probably ought to appreciate him after my mother told me about the mean military doctors she had to go to when she was a kid.
So he told me the headaches and light-headedness were due to the coffee deprivation, and he did say it was okay to start drinking coffee again. He didn't seem at all concerned by my floating abdominal pain after he pushed his fingers deep into my gut in a couple places, almost to my spine, as the ER doctor had done. As before, this caused me no real pain. Maybe this has all been in my head? Gods, I hope so, but it's a bit disturbing. Mind over matter, eh? I guess I'll know for sure after the blood test I'm scheduled to have to-morrow.
Morrissey was absolutely wonderful last night. My sister bought my ticket as a Christmas present some months ago, assigned seating at Copley Symphony hall, we were in the centre, eleventh row with a terrific view. Moz mentioned being displeased with his previous couple of shows in San Diego, which was clear last time when he shook his head sadly at the sound of his own voice. But that was outdoors, at the harbour--I think he was considerably more pleased with the acoustics of the symphony hall. He even did an encore this time--just one song, "The First of the Gang to Die", but that's more than the last couple times. He'd cancelled a show in Arizona a couple days ago due to a shot voice, and last night was a short show which was at least 50% Smiths songs, something I'd predicted as they're less vocally demanding. Though he didn't seem to be in remotely bad form, his voice travelling to all the right high notes in the more adventurous vocals of his newer songs, which made up almost 50% of the rest of the performance--he only performed two 90s songs, "Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself?" and "The Loop", both great songs well performed, the latter seeming to produce the most jubilant crowd reaction, even moreso than "How Soon is Now?" which he also performed.
The only videos posted so far have really messed up sound, but here's a great video of "The Loop" from Monday's show in Pomona;
My sister got some video, but I still need to help her upload it. She only got bits and pieces, I think, no full songs because an usher kept coming by and pestering her to put away the camera. She'd gotten the camera past friskers by simply placing it in a small pocket in her purse--I wasn't so lucky. I hadn't planned on taking my camera in, in fact I hadn't even given it a thought, so maybe that's why I'd totally forgotten putting it in my coat pocket a couple days earlier. I happened to get one of the more humourless, anal-retentive security people who searched my whole coat carefully and made me take my camera back out to the car, after which I was obliged to go to the end of the line which had by then wrapped partly around the building, meeting the end of the wil call line, which was causing some confusion. My second time through, I had a different guy who didn't even seem interested in my coat.
So I only caught the last four songs of the opening act, a band called Doll and the Kicks, who weren't bad at all.
The lead singer wore her panties on the outside of her tights, which I thought soundly reversed the whole under/outerwear paradigm.
Between the acts, a series of old videos were shown on the screen obviously carefully put in a specific order, someone's playlist, presumably Morrissey's. I wish I could identify some of them--the first was a short clip from a 1960s movie of a guy ringing a school bell and saying something like, "Class is in session." This was followed by this;
Then, I think, came a great video from the late 1960s, a pop band with a female lead singer I wish I knew the name of. The other videos that I can remember, in as close to the right order I can remember, were;
There was a video of The New York Dolls performing "Looking for a Kiss" on an Italian show. YouTube doesn't seem to have it, but this is a very similar video of that band performing the same song;
The clip of the guy with the bell came on again at some point, there was a mid-60s video of a black guy I didn't recognise talking about racism, an American singer of Italian descent singing a very enthusiastic song about a beautiful woman, and finally a short clip of a transvestite performing as, apparently, Gloria Swanson disappearing behind a blue starlit curtain. Then Morrissey appeared, opening the show with "This Charming Man" and carrying a vinyl record which I've since learned was the Elvis Presley album Spinout, a Christmas gift to him from fans at the Morrissey-solo website.
Twitter Sonnet #89
Light eggs besieged the styrofoam castle. Yellow yolk men break on the Golden Horn. A female spy hid more in her bustle. From this, an odd new victory was born. Torn notes are worth personable money. Mailmen make mashed letter oatmeal with rain. The bank ghosts think many things are funny. Brilliant leaves race water down a curb drain. Morrissey's human and needs to be loved. Thick coats can carry cameras you don't know. Wilde said even true things can be proved. Streets cannot say which way you ought to go. Faeries make inscrutable chess pieces. Blue phones are where telepathy ceases.
It's hard to imagine a more intimate movie than Notorious, Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 film starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. There are at least three different high wire acts going on--Devlin's internal struggle between his feelings for Alicia and his general mistrust of her and possibly all women, Alicia's attempt to deceive Sebastian, and Sebastian's attempt to deceive Alicia. Cary Grant felt this was Ingrid Bergman's movie, and certainly, the whole film is from her POV except for a few scenes given to Sebastian and the film's last couple scenes, given to Devlin. But mostly it's Alicia trying to read the faces of the men around her, and we read with her as she's the one who's kept at the audience's level of informed.
But what I mean by intimate is that the movie succeeds at being mostly made up of close-ups because so much of the story is in the subtle changes in characters' faces--it's no wonder this movie's considered Cary Grant's greatest work as an actor as he conveys being torn up inside while at the same time making you think it could just be your imagination, just as Alicia would see it. The "love test" he employs, shutting out Alicia from his feelings to make her feel like she's alone, is shown to be another example of the folly of man's machinations in the film because of the way you can see it tearing up both him and her.
Bergman's performance is just as nuanced, her face in her first meeting with Sebastian conveys to us her fear at recognising Prescott while being subtle enough that we can legitimately believe Sebastian doesn't notice. Everyone's pretending to feel something they don't, but the close-ups make everyone's actual motives seem dangerously close to the surface. The volumes spoken by every twitch of the eye, every furtive sidelong glance, seem to make this movie endlessly fresh to me.
I have a feeling a lot of modern audiences just wouldn't get a movie like this--I kind of think people aren't as empathetic as they used to be. The film was certainly a nice change after the episode of Angel I watched a couple nights ago, where Angelus deceives his friends into believing he's Angel. I've come to like Boreanaz's performance as Angel, but he never sells Angelus the Master Manipulator to me, mainly it just like everyone else happens to seem less intelligent all of sudden.
Actors who just successfully act completely different to play a deceiver can be fine, like the deceptive characters on the sixth episode of Dollhouse's second season, which I watched with breakfast. Still digging Summer Glau, and I noticed another Vertigo reference as Senator Perrin's wife was another blond in a grey suit from Salina, Kansas (though the actress accidentally pronounced it "Salinas"). I loved that Topher made a doll version of himself, but a couple important things bothered me about the episode. For one, yes, obviously Topher's bigger than Bennet and could probably take her in a fight, but he's still a nerd who spends most of his time indoors with computers. I don't buy that he could knock her out with one punch, but I guess that's a conceit of television action fiction. Still, Bennet had a little tranquiliser gun on the table, he could've used that instead. And Adele grabbing Ray Wise by the balls to get her way was just a bit cheesy. Realistically, he could've threatened her with at least as much violence.
I've been feeling a bit light headed the past couple days, having difficulty concentrating. Abdominal pain seems mainly gone, though. I'm going to see Morrissey to-night with my sister, hopefully that'll help me feel better.
Last night's tweets;
Torn notes are worth personable money. Mailmen make mashed letter oatmeal with rain. The bank ghosts think many things are funny. Brilliant leaves race water down a curb drain.
It's been rainy and windy to-day. I went outside and took pictures;
Here're a couple pictures of the same area from earlier in the year;
So I guess the trees do change colour around here. For some reason I never noticed before.
To-day's Pearl Harbour Day and Tom Waits' birthday.
Reading some comments on a Howard Stern Show fan blog to-day about Artie Lange's latest absence from work, I got to thinking again about how anonymity makes people assholes. It seems like, for the most part, how much of an asshole someone is online is directly proportional to how honest they are about who they are. Or at least, the honest people are more considered assholes.
As I think about it, it seems fitting somehow--souls bereft of identity can only communicate with hate. It's like they're cursed, and if they look back at the identity they've created through self-expression, they'll see just an insubstantial, long, hazy shape.
I guess this is a bit Evangelion--"This is the Asuka that exists in your mind, this is the Asuka that exists in Kaji's mind"--the alternate "people" created by works or interaction. I can say I love Dostoevsky, but I don't really know all the mistakes, achievements, and ideas he had when he was alive. There's a real, important Fyodor Dostoevsky who's immortal, but there's also a Fyodor Dostoevsky who's dead.
I'd forgotten to watch the new episodes of Dollhouse on Friday--apparently in an effort to purge the last remnants of a cancelled show from its gut, Fox is airing two episodes at a time. I watched one of the two with breakfast to-day--the episode which introduces Summer Glau's character, Bennet, who seems to be a wonderfully weird, introverted control freak. The way she ordered someone to "make sure, make sure, make sure" repeatedly was eerily like a child who doesn't understand or care about considering others. Otherwise, the episode wasn't bad, but not as great as some of the previous episodes. Ballard's motivation got a bit murky, and I'm not sure I think Adele would want to help November once she found out the senate hearing was part of a Dollhouse plot. I did like Echo's line, "I think my bad guys aren't as bad as those bad guys."
The nausea's gone to-day, and the pain's settled into my lower abdomen. It's weird how it migrates instead of spreading. I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, so maybe I'll get some answers then.
Last night's tweets;
Light eggs besieged the styrofoam castle. Yellow yolk men break on the Golden Horn. A female spy hid more in her bustle. From this, an odd new victory was born.
Got grocery alien water eggs. The lucky pods hatch only h2o. I knew a spider with eight wooden legs. Aside from Smith, their names I do not know. Fifteen pounds of flax seeds impede progress. Thousands of dollars appear in dream jars. Modest is the world's idea of success. But it's just slightly closer than the stars. Some spinach lasts almost as long as bread. Strange songs play in the car without sugar. Lots of cinnamon turns apple juice red. Tall trees hide many a feline mugger. All the big candles are trapped in the glass. Spirits curves sharp round the void by Saul Bass.
I just got back from the grocery store where I overheard a woman, kneeling by her unruly child, say, "You know Luther's watching you, right?" I turned it over in mind a little while, but couldn't make "Santa" sound like "Luther." Do Lutherans use Martin Luther as a bogeyman?
Really tired again to-day, despite plenty of sleep. I miss coffee. Mostly the pain's gone from my abdomen, except for persistent nausea and intermittent shooting pains. I have health insurance now, and I'm hoping I can get an appointment to see a doctor within the next two weeks. I know not to hope for anything better. I do hope this is something that'll go away on its own.
I went to Tim's last night and played more Oblivion. This is my current character;
I love that Oblivion's character creation system has sliders for bruised eye sockets and flushed skin. I think this character actually looks like someone who spends most of her time gathering ingredients. I've been concentrating on Alchemy, but the main skills I chose for her custom class also include Illusion, Mysticism, Marksman, Light Armour, Sneak, and Destruction. I rather wished I'd chosen Blade instead of Light Armour, as in the hardest mode, most enemies can kill her in one hit regardless of what she's wearing, and as she has no skills that would cause her strength to get any higher (practicing certain skills raise attributes), she's only strong enough to carry around 150 pounds, so I have to drop the armour a lot of the time anyway. Marksman, Sneak, Illusion, and Alchemy, though, are a wonderful combination--enhancing your Sneak with an invisibility spell (for Illusion), and shooting poisoned arrows at people. Most enemies never get in range.
I also watched Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula again last night. That movie seems more perfect as years pass, as the problems I have with it either become gradually insignificant or I even develop affection for them. Well, okay, I have complaints--I haven't read the book in a while, but I feel like it gave a better sense of the lives of the English characters before Dracula came along. I'd have liked to have seen more of the "sensible Mina I always depended on" to contrast with the Mina losing her grip. I still would've liked someone else beside Keanu Reeves as Jonathan, but I've come to appreciate the appropriateness of Reeves' immature body and general aura of uselessness as a contrast to the more virile Count.
One of my favourite things about the movie is the peculiar effect, mainly created by editing, of simultaneous, multiple perceptions of the same event--things as simple as the wolf-ish form Count looking up from Lucy to see Mina, followed by another shot of the Count noticing Mina again--it comes off as though, in the first shot he inevitably notices Mina, and then, in the second, he deliberately notices Mina. There's a lot of confusion about whether actions or events occur because of someone's intention, supernatural power, or fate.
Last night's tweets;
Some spinach lasts almost as long as bread. Strange songs play in the car without sugar. Lots of cinnamon turns apple juice red. Tall trees hide many a feline mugger.
Fifteen pounds of flax seeds impede progress. Thousands of dollars appear in dream jars. Modest is the world's idea of success. But it's just slightly closer than the stars.
Turned out I'd received my bill earlier in the week and it'd gone unnoticed. $6,972.75. That's actually two bills--I got one for $6.505.75 from the hospital, and a separate, 467 dollar bill from the "X-Ray Medical Group" in Wareham Massachusetts, this in addition to the $5,225 radiology portion of the original bill. The doctor had given me one pill and a bottle of laxative that night which accounts for $38.75 of the bill. What a bunch of assholes.
Payment for the $467 bill is due on Tuesday, and I wouldn't be able to pay it on time if it weren't for the donations I received recently. So thank you, you did make a difference and I can't adequately express my appreciation. Thank you.
Nice for one bill to be due a week before my appointment with financial aid, isn't it?
I've been doing a lot of thinking. One thing I've realised is I can't stay in this country. This is no country to be poor in. But I'm still going to try to ride it out until I've finished Venia's Travels. I've committed to telling this story, and ever since I can remember, telling stories and creating art has been the first imperative in my life.
I can tell even a lot of people who agree with me that the U.S. healthcare system is fucked up often still see me as a very irresponsible person for putting this idea of living and dying for art ahead of making a proper nest egg and savings for myself. It's been an issue in at least one relationship I can think of. Even I think back at my academic career, wishing I'd been better at studying and remembering my homework assignments. All these beans that might have added up to the right jar that somehow could've given me time and opportunity to do what I'm doing now while providing me with a home and healthcare. You can tell I'm not sorry. I refuse to apologise for living sanely in an insane world. Maybe there are too many people in the world, maybe a lot of people need to be short changed, weeded out, to save the species. I still think everyone has a fundamental right to health.
All the same, I remember hearing Dustin Hoffman say on The Howard Stern Show that when he finally got his break at the age of thirty, he was about to get out of acting because he'd given himself that age as a cut off. Well, I'm thirty now and I haven't gotten my "break"--no-one's offered me a job as a writer or artist, and although some of my submissions at Comic-Con were looked at with some interest, none of those were accepted either. So once I'm finished with Venia's Travels, unless someone offers me a job, I'm out. At least from doing this full time. I'll go back to school if I can, maybe get a part time job, see what career paths I can find that will take me out of this fucking country, still ranked 37 by the World Health Organisation.
I played some Oblivion at Tim's house last night, my alchemist character. I made three thousand gold just from potions I made with the plants on the road between Skingrad and Anvil. If only it were that easy in real life--that game just keeps finding new ways to appeal to me.
A good, almost eight hours of sleep and I feel almost normal. I pushed myself right to the edge last night finishing the new Venia's Travels chapter, which is, again, now online. After not getting much sleep one day, I stayed up late finishing it the next--hours after I felt like I definitely, absolutely had to get to bed. I've set the next deadline for two weeks from now, crossing my fingers that nothing big gets in the way. Thank you, everyone who's donated so far. I still haven't gotten my bill from the hospital, which is really bugging me--I'm thinking I'll call them to-day.
After visiting Marty yesterday, I did pretty much nothing but work on my comic, except I went to Denny's for lunch. I also watched "The Killer in Me", a seventh season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the best in a while, as focus is shifted away from the Our Glorious Leader Buffy thread. Willow and Kennedy's romance feels a little awkward, partly because the actress playing Kennedy doesn't seem to have much of an investment in the character. I think it's also just team Whedon's usual awkwardness with writing romance, exacerbated by self-consciousness about gay characters all lumped into a single episode. But I liked the idea of Warren's form and personality attaching to Willow as a manifestation of her feelings of guilt and remorse. And I like that Alyson Hannigan finally has long hair again.
Anyway, I've not much else to say to-day. Here's one of my favourite phoney phone calls from The Howard Stern Show;
Last night's tweets;
Got grocery alien water eggs. The lucky pods hatch only h2o. I knew a spider with eight wooden legs. Aside from Smith, their names I do not know.
Went to visit my friend Marty to-day for the first time in two years--he's a teacher at the high school I went to, and always good to discuss books or movies with. In discussing the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Marty said that, though he liked the film, he was finding these days that books generally feel more "real" than movies. I could see what he meant--with modern movies being constructions of a lot of rapid cuts and textured cgi, there's something unfiltered about a single, unaided narrative voice. I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but I was interested in a point Marty made about the tradition of storytelling implied by the existence of narrative in the book taking the edge off somewhat from the bleak subject matter--that is, creating a more three dimensional experience. Anyway, he recommended that movie, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and a few others.
I ran into a cousin of mine while I was there who I hadn't seen in some years. I noticed he and two of his friends with him had exactly the same haircut--shoulder length, very treated wavy hair. It almost looked like Farrah Fawcett hair except parted at the side with a swoop of hair hanging a sharp right over the forehead.
Feeling like crap to-day--barely any sleep. I fell asleep okay at around 5am, but woke up at around 8am with shooting pains in my abdomen and pelvic region. I was kept up then more from worry than pain, though I guess it's pretty clear I need to see a doctor again . . .
Twitter Sonnet 87
Ten hours now marked by pencil and ink. Absence of coffee prevents extra thought. Actions just happen as I do not think. Is this the mind for which medicine fought? Iron candy canes in a cold tin can. The impotent heater fringing the wall. White box for dinner holds half a cold yam. Holy fucking shit I need alcohol. The most obnoxious noises drift up. Contamination's too quick and easy. It's a liquid Wack-a-Mole for your cup. Nothing like a car wash makes you queasy. The kids have a brand new haircut for school. Into white sunlight creeps a sleepless ghoul.
Iron candy canes in a cold tin can. The impotent heater fringing the wall. White box for dinner holds half a cold yam. Holy fucking shit I need alcohol.
Still wary of alcohol, but I did have a cup of coffee with breakfast to-day. Fantastic. After almost a month of not having any coffee, it still made me feel really good. I have to wonder if there are things about coffee science doesn't know yet. It made me feel terrific, and it didn't make the pains in my abdomen feel any worse. I'm hoping the pain I'm still getting is some kind of after effect of the antibiotics.
Had to get up early to-day because of a lot of noise around the house. But on the plus side, I've already pencilled and inked a page to-day, and it's only 19 minutes past seven. With breakfast, I read "Exuvium", a new story from the latest Sirenia Digest. A story with a lot of nice imagery about a person seeking escape into a blissful, womb-like existence. The image of a butterfly cocoon on a clitoris was particularly effective.
This week I've been making my way through Elvis Costello's discography, chronologically starting with My Aim is True. I'm listening to Spike at the moment. I only skipped Goodbye, Cruel World, which Costello himself considers his worst album, though I did listen to the b-sides which feature very nice acoustic versions of songs Costello rightly feels were just about ruined by cheesy synthesiser and saxophone. As Costello says in the album notes, "Unfortunately, when I now hear the sax entrance on "The Only Flame", I can't help but think of the theme from Moonlighting. Ah well, it all seemed like a good idea at the time." But the alternate version of the song on the bonus disk, which is sans sax, is truly great.
I guess I got in the mood for this Costello marathon after catching his appearance on The Colbert Report last week, where Costello, having recently lost his voice, played guitar while Colbert sang "Cheap Reward" (which you can watch here). I rather liked that Colbert didn't give a "joke" performance, investing himself in a real interpretation of lyrics that came off pretty well. Colbert's best performances owe a lot to some subtly shaped delivery.
Here's an interesting moon I got a picture of last night;
