I hate Thursdays. To-day's Wednesday but it's acting like Thursday so I have little time.

Last night, Tim gave me a Christmas present which he'd ordered for me a while ago but just not came in the mail. It's a collection of Studio Ghibli movies. Cool guy, that Tim. While I was at his house, I took advantage of some of his connexions in Utah and purchased over a thousand dollars worth of DVDs for merely one hundred forty dollars. And that was very nice. So in about a week I shall have the entire Evangelion TV series and movies on DVD, the entire Cowboy Bebop series and movie, plus soundtrack CD, all of the Ranma 1/2 OVAs, and the enitre Slayers television series. All on DVD.

Yes, it's been a good Christmas.

The Last Place

Gull slipping cry over
Grey stain stumble daytime glitch
No fortune talking, no betting
No song to swirl down the sweet

Straining the sheet, casually
Nothing past the shreds of sheet
Pulling back, naturally, from
Nothing on the coated heart

Full and slick with black fluid
Fast, falling through lifeless tubes
System messing to grim
Cold hands for years

Of no-one in particular
Fading window image gone and
Closing shades are irrelevant
Eyes fall through

False matter, no matter
Nothing, no-one to be seen
Cathlish frogging of shock
Electricity of the dead

Power of the stationary
Of the illusory and story
Diverting fancy vista—
Surrounding Fake

A coat so cold, now
A place so bereft
Unravel all your coats and shirts and stay
There’s nowhere else to go

...

Morning in the Remains of the Orchard

Leaves the colour of blank
Trees the full of gone
Woke up at noon
To blow dry the well

Ugly absence of something
Uncertain feel of lacking
Chill frame of stolen picture
Fascinate—fascinate

It’s the thing
The only one
And the road will break

In our town, we’ll go
And we’ll be as nice
As penguins who live
Together in town

A thousand of us
Means less than one
A cough and we’re all
Sick

Spill now our regular
Whisper songs for me
That mean commercials
And the thought of noise

...

Girl Sleep Killer

She falls that way
Where no-one points
Her eyes have escaped
The reflected sky

They’re busy
Turning amongst the things
When there’s a fire
Over her head

It’s okay when
All the wood is gone she’ll
Have fire instead
And weave her chain mail of heat

Chasing heat, smelling heat
Licking and choosing heat
Wet shoulders
And no more rest

The sky is invisible
The air dances, silly unconscious
No grip no question
But shells so frail and dry

Dark edge like fire
The plain dream of sweet
Girl animal at home
Is heavier than rooms

And boxes and boys
And yes, she is the truth
Answer simple as talk
She is always alive

Fully over the sustenance
Enveloping and not needing
Having and not going elsewhere
The new and old days are hers

Locked inside the outer space
Warm room for her
No more stopping, frustrating
Winning hand perhaps

All chips and dresses
In the safest place
The perfect figure
The most rational thing

In the life of only feeling
The fast of feeding
The walk of the dead
And the burning of sleep

I think I could beat Garfield in the sleeping marathon.

I didn't want to wake up to-day. I suppose if I got to work on one of my many projects I'd feel better . . .

Watched The Two Towers extended edition with my sister last night. For a while, I feared she might not connect with the last hour of it for being in a snit about this long movie keeping her up to 11pm. But, thankfully, by the end she seemed to feel it'd been worth it.

Still, I noticed she missed some of the best moments to play with her dog. She missed Gandalf's charge with the Rohirrum and Legolas's famous horse mounting procedure.

And she does not believe she'll be able to sit through Return of the King. I hope I'll be able to convince her otherwise. She believes she has ADD and I'd like to show her she's capable of getting involved in something of such long duration.

Got the Mullholland Drive soundtrack yesterday. Picked it up at Tower Records where I had gone to buy a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode, but got this instead. I was surprised to see it, for some reason. I didn't think there'd been a sountrack released for the movie.

There's a snippet taken from a track on the Lost Hightway soundtrack, although it's not credited as such in the CD jacket. I'd noticed it when watching the movie.

Most of the music is very, very subtle. Listening to it on the way back from Tower Records, I could hardly hear it, even though I'd turned up the volume very high. Then, there's sudden spikes of loud. Which I kind of like--it makes me smile that people are being forced to listen to music loud.

There's also the Spanish version of Roy Orbison's "Crying" and a track written by David Lynch and John Neff called "Mountains Falling."

It's a good soundtrack. Mostly filled with the stuff of Angelo Badalamenti, the kind of stuff that makes soundtracks to David Lynch movies great to listen to.

Now I have things to do . . .

Watched the other half of the Sherlock Holmes DVD with Ha last night and was happy to find that she liked Jeremy Brett a lot, too.

Bought the new Cruxshadows album, Ethernaut, yesterday and it's pretty good.

Can you tell I'm spending Christmas money here?

At 2am, I found myself watching Darkwing Duck on Toon Disney. I like Darkwing Dark. I like the character. The writing in the episode I saw was . . . palatable. I like how characters in that show used guns. Hard to imagine, but just seven or eight years ago, that was okay in a kids cartoon.

At 4am, I watched DuckTales, which was an even greater stride down memory lane. Those were the days when the people making kids shows didn't usually figure the kids wanted some annoying, super-zany character. Well, there are a few shows not like that nowadays--Pokemon's fine, for example. I think the problem is that adults are annoyed by these shows, so they assume that kids like annoying things, and write for them accordingly. That's why Freakazoid didn't work and it's why everyone hates Jar-Jar Binks. It's not that I think the creators are conscious themselves of the annoying quotient of their creations, merely that they have gorged themselves on annoyance-vaccines.

This morning--or, really, this afternoon, for people who keep sane sleeping schedules--I found that the television was still on Toon Disney, and so I watched some of the brand new Mickey, Donald, and Goofy cartoons. These aren't very good cartoons. They're quite bad, in fact. They have much the same problem as the new Looney Tunes cartoons; the writers don't understand the sensibility with which the old cartoons were written.

And it's a shame. These new cartoons have good animation, although not the lush, more unpredictable animation of the old cartoons. It's mainly the writing--old gags and fall sound effects are used Because They Must Be and not because they come from real comedy-logic. Donald's been made impotent, prevented from using some of his old violent tricks when dealing with his foes. Yes, true, he always was impotent. But his impotence had a kind of meaning back then. You could look at what he was doing and say, "Jeez, this guys pullin' out all the stops and still nothing." Now his actions are sanitised and empty.

This unconscious campaign for the destruction of all things biological is kind of doomed, I think.

Got lots of DVDs yesterday. Went to Best Buy to get another Farscape DVD and ended up buying two Farscape DVDs, a Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes DVD, and, while I was waiting in the checkout line, I spotted The Big Lebowsky for ten dollars and nabbed it too.

There're two episodes on the Sherlock Holmes DVD and I've watched one--The Priory School. One of the most atmospheric of the Jeremy Brett Holmes series I've seen. And it's wonderfully dreary.

One of the Farscape DVDs I got is the first of the fourth season, and I was happy to find that it was formatted for widescreen televisions. So I watched it on the widescreen television upstairs, and the whole thing felt more cinematic.

Now I ought to do something to-day on the road to getting things done . . .

Another step on the road to a New Empire.

The gift I received the most for Christmas (I think four times) was the whimsically unlabelled Starbucks gift card. I have no idea how much money is on most of them, making each coffee purchase an enlivening game of Russian roulette.

All in all, it was a good Christmas, better than I've had in a while. I'd say the high point was reading Caitlin's journal entry.

I woke up to-day at 1pm--a big difference from yesterday's 6am. And I feel better. I stayed up until 3am, first talking to Cryptess, then playing Pictionary with Ha, then watching Eddie Izzard--I really did manage to stay up far later than my body felt like it wanted to. I call that--Victory!

I'm wondering if I'm something of a schmuck.

I'm gonna tell you this story and I want you to tell me if I'm justified in feeling kind of burned:

Okay. Everyone asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Mostly I couldn't answer--I was having enough trouble trying to figure out what to get everyone else. But once, when I was at Lake Arrowhead and my mother asked me, it hit me; I wanted the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD. I mentioned it, and my mother said, "Okay."

Now, I'd almost forgotten about it by Christmas. If I'd never seen it on Christmas day, I don't think I would have been bothered. But Christmas morning, at around 9am, when I'm opening presents with my parents and sister, suddenly my mother brings up a package to "the family" from Bella, the new dog (a tiny, adorable, half Chihuahua, half Yorkie thing). It was the Indiana Jones trilogy--"In widescreen!" my mother points out to me because, most of the time, I'm the only one who cares about that.

So basically, it's like I received it for Christmas. Only I can't watch it most of the time. I can't watch it on my own. I can't lend it to someone if I wanted to. I can't take it with me. Hurrah.

Well, okay, maybe I am schmuck. I'm certainly not gonna bring this up with them. Why sow animosity? And after all, they are buying me new contact lenses and they gave me two Nightmare Before Christmas shirts--that I genuinely like--from when they went to Disneyland without me a few months ago.

I went with them to see Cold Mountain and I fear I may have unintentionally soured the experience when, after the movie, I talked about how I didn't think it was Anthony Minghella's best movie by any means, that while it had some nice components, the whole wasn't so great. I talked about how, in some movies, I find over-prettification to be insulting and disturbing. I didn't like the juxtaposition of very realistic, bloody Civil War battles against the idea that in this reality, Nicole Kidman and Rene Zellweger will always look as perfect as magazine perfume advertisements, no matter how rugged their situation and setting, and Kidman's love scene with Jude Law shall look like an advertisement for Godiva chocolates, even though they're making love in an abandoned wood shed in the snow covered forest.

Returning here last night, I received a new journal book from my aunt. I mean, three journal books with a very nice, interchangeable sleeve cover for all of them. I mean, it's really nice. I'm happy to have it.

I sat down to watch the rest of the Farscape DVD I'd gotten on the 24th only to find, halfway through an episode, that the DVD had a warp in it that prevented the DVD-ROM from reading it further. Annoying.

I suppose I'm the only fellow for many a mile who can have a relaxing day at the mall on Christmas Eve. This I did, yesterday. Bought myself a Farscape DVD.

Went to bed at 6pm last night--no, I can't believe it either--thinking it would make getting up at 6am a little easier this morning.

It didn't. Not really.

Anyway, I have requisite hoops to leap through.

Happy Christmas, all o' yas.

Having done all of my laundry a couple days ago, I now have all my favourite outfits again at my disposal--ah! It's been a long time since I last saw many of these. To-day I'm wearing my "uniform"--one of several pairs of black button shirts and black slacks. I feel like "me" in these clothes.

Watched Johnny Belinda last night. It was basically a great movie, particularly for Jane Wyman's terribly brilliant performance. I had two issues with it, though;

1) The title still doesn't make sense to me. The movie's primarily about Belinda, played by Jane Wyman. So where does the Johnny come from? Halfway through the movie, I was starting to become convinced that it was the Nova Scotia (where the story takes place) version of "Bonny", thereby making the title something like "Pretty Belinda." But then we learn that "Johnny" is what Belinda decides to name her baby. Since the baby never becomes more than a prop in the movie--something for everyone to react to, and mostly as an element in Belinda's life--and never becomes a character, his name being in the title is confusing. And its coupling with Belinda even moreso as Belinda does have a last name.

2) I'm not sure the tidy Hollywood movie of the 40s is really the best place for a story about rape. In a way, it's rather cruel suggesting that everything'll come up roses by the end. But then again, maybe there is some value in saying that sometimes things do work out--although the movie almost seems to suggest that they do so in a way that effectively erases the hurts of that awful experience. Yet, on another hand, it did feel good seeing the guy getting shot.

Went to see The Return of the King again last night, this time with Tim, and this time with a better sound system. Afterwards, he and I talked about how they simply do not make movies like that anymore. Or maybe a movie like that has never been made. But judging from the agonisingly giggly reaction of the audience, modern American audiences are not equiped to deal with the sight of men crying and expressing love for each other. In addition to basking in the glow of a great movie, I was also feeling pretty sad about humanity as we left the theatre.

When Tim said, "They're not worth worrying about," I thought to myself, "Yeah, but we're surrounded by them."

But back to whether or not there's ever been movies like this: I thought there was something very Errol Flynn-ish about Legolas taking down the Oliphant. The sight of Aragorn in kingly attire also reminded me of something from an old Lawrence Olivier movie.

To-day . . . I shall finish my Christmas shopping.

Yesterday I wrote lots and lots. I was on quite a roll. I stopped only when Trisa came by wearing a great coat. She and I went for dinner at an Olive Garden in Carmel Mountain. Wish I could say it was a pleasant evening but in fact I came home feeling like someone had taken my hat and had begun stomping and pissing on it before stomping and pissing on me. So let's not dwell on that . . .

Later last night, I watched Possessed, with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford. It was a very simple, very cute movie. Its chief virtue being its dwelling on the existence of Joan Crawford, which it did rather well.

I didn't get to sleep until 5am--not for any particular reason. I kept getting up, thinking there was something I was going to do. But mostly all I ended up doing was urinating.

Lucky the cat, who seems to want a lot of attention these days, tried sleeping next to me again. Much more successful this time as he found a more strategic spot, one where I didn't have to scrunch up my legs uncomfortably. But at around 8am, he woke me up to let him out.

I then woke up at around noon. Lots of people came to the door and I had no answers or money for them.

In the midst of writing this entry, I received a package from an aunt and uncle in Tennessee. It's a cake of some kind, I think. It smells nice, anyway.

Spent a lot of time on ICQ yesterday talking to Cryptess, Richard, and Ha. Unlike many people who use ICQ regularly, I guess I consider it more of an event than a casual interchange because I just very much don't have a head for multitasking. Kind of pathetic, I know, but when I do multitask, I get kind of an adrenaline rush. I felt proud that I was simultaneously talking to all three people, playing Defend Your Castle, writing yesterday's blog entry, and then watching some Brian Mung flash movies Richard'd recommended to me. When I finally signed off, I felt like I'd been on a spirited gallop through the countryside while I'm sure all other participants were just idly killing time and chewing the fat.

Of course, this means that in the process of accomplishing very little I felt like I'd done a lot. I'm gonna need to make up for that to-day.

Last night I went to my parents' house for dinner and we played a somewhat annoying game called "Seen-It!" that was supposedly a game about testing one's movie knowledge but which often times tended to be more about piecing images together to make words or other things that required a mind quicker than my very slow one.

I guess the generally thrust of this post is . . . I'm too slow for most of the other reindeers' games. But I seem to enjoy myself most of the time, merrily skipping along a mile behind the herd.

After my parents', I went to Tim's where I beat his score in Soul Calibur 2 team battle. That is, the score he set while playing on medium difficulty mode. I was playing on ultra-hard. So there are some things I can do!

This morning I've taped Harvey and Treasure Island(1934). I've never seen either but am looking forward to watching them . . . Of course, I did put them on tape 23 and I've only through to watching tape 6, which was Lawrence of Arabia.

One of the things that particularly impressed me about Lawrence was how real it all was . . . In those days long before cgi and a number of other fancy modern tricks, they had to do actual armies of camels and horses through actual cities . . . Blow up actual trains . . . It all feels great.

Next I have Ossessione to watch, which should be a good chaser for Double Indemnity . . .

I . . . am . . . insured! With the car I am, anyway. No health insurance. No accident insurance with double indemnity clause that Barbara Stanwyck might be able to take advantage of.

Just got the call this morning so now it looks like I shall again be able to enlist my automobile in my regular campaigns of goofing off--which is actually the only thing I've found the car to be useful for, but there's something to be said for goofing off, to be sure.

And last night, I at long last received my copy of Double Indemnity in the mail. For new, the movie costs around eighty dollars but luckily Tim was able to find a Taiwanese bootleg version for only ten dollars. It has a few little quirks, like default cantonese subtitles (but they can be turned off), a little white line at the top of the screen, no end credits, and the omission of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck from the DVD case cover--The cover would have you believe that the movie primarily stars Porter Hall and Jean Heather.

But all in all, I'm very happy to have this movie. I suppose I oughtn't to have been watching it whilst waiting for a call from my insurance company . . .

And yesterday, Ha and I watched Head, starring the Monkees, screenplay by a young Jack Nicholson. It was strange, and it wanted to mean something--that much I can deduce from its somewhat tasteless use of actual footage of a guy getting shot in the head. But it all adds up to no more than a goofy romp, which was kinna fun, at times.

And, yay, I can post again!

So Return of the King was fabulous. I had this moment of extreme, genuine dread when Eowyn confronted the Witch King. Probably just me though--I dunno. Something about that moment filled me with the utter certainty that this thing was all too powerful for little Eowyn with her plain steel sword. And this is in spite of the fact that I've read the book. I literally trembled and my eyes teared up. It was the most extreme reaction I have had to anything in these movies . . .

I'm almost finished Caitlin R Kiernan's Low Red Moon, which is a terrific book, even better than Threshold.

I wish blogger would start working again.

Okay . . . Still nothing's getting posted. This is really starting to piss me off.

Forgot to take out the trash cans last night . . . I saw Return of the King . . . But what's the point of discussing it?

Posts . . . still . . . not . . . working . . . gagh . . .

Well . . . Wednesday's posts don't seem to be going up. Will this one . . . ?

I get the impression that Roger Ebert didn't want to like Return of the King. He just can't help it.