Sunday, January 04, 2009
Who Benefits from Spells?
Last.fm is definitely interesting. It just played a bit from the soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound followed by Siouxsie and the Banshee's "Spellbound". Unrelated, as far as can tell.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Lubricant
I don't know why no alcoholic beverage makes me as happy as hot sake. Sure, I enjoy Wild Turkey neat, I'm always glad for some absinthe, but sake, at a fraction of the alcohol content of those beverages, is for some reason the only thing that makes me feel anything like what I'd describe as drunk. The past couple nights I've been making hot sake--a while ago, my aunt told me her Japanese mother would heat sake in the tokkuri on the stove, so that's how I've been doing it the past couple nights. Works like a charm. Much faster than putting it in hot water, which I guess is the traditional way.
I was too tired to draw yesterday, but I spent a lot of time colouring. I also went over to Tim's house and somehow managed to play Soul Calibur 4 tired better than I usually do wide awake.
Howard Stern's been on vacation for a couple weeks, so his Sirius channel's been airing a compilation/documentary called The History of Howard Stern and last night I heard a bit from the 90s from just before Stern really got in trouble with the FCC. A sixty-three year old woman called into the show to tell Stern about how he was destroying the moral fabric of society and that she was going to take down the names of everyone who was going to show up at his Christmas party the next night. Chief among her complaints was the presence of a man who could play the piano with his penis and a choir of gay men.
Stern suggested that the woman would help more people by feeding the homeless or volunteering at hospitals, a suggestion to which the woman apparently had absolutely no reply except to repeat that she was going to "write down all the names" of the people at his Christmas party. Apparently she eventually wrote to her senator, and the transcript of the Christmas party became one of the flashpoints for the FCC charge against Stern. All this sparked by an apparently reclusive woman who also accused Stern of being friends with "negroes".
Stern and Robin Quivers tried asking the woman how a choir of gay men or a guy who could play piano with his penis were hurting anyone. Once again, the woman had no reply, but Stern managed to get out of her that she'd never been married and she refused to answer whether or not she had ever had sex, which sounded to me clearly to indicate she had not. "Women seem wicked when you're unwanted" as Jim Morrison said, and I guess the other side is true, too. The woman so resented her long life of deprivation that she was projecting her frustration on men who were free and happy. And she was one link in a grapevine that apparently went all the way to congress. It was a nice demonstration of the mechanics of batshit crazy morality manipulating this country. The more vigorously someone denies him or herself paths to acknowledge the reality of human need, the more passionately they want to prevent the world from reminding them they're wrong.
The sadness waiting just around the corner for a 63 year old woman who's locked herself up her whole life must be colossal. Life really is too fucking short.
I was too tired to draw yesterday, but I spent a lot of time colouring. I also went over to Tim's house and somehow managed to play Soul Calibur 4 tired better than I usually do wide awake.
Howard Stern's been on vacation for a couple weeks, so his Sirius channel's been airing a compilation/documentary called The History of Howard Stern and last night I heard a bit from the 90s from just before Stern really got in trouble with the FCC. A sixty-three year old woman called into the show to tell Stern about how he was destroying the moral fabric of society and that she was going to take down the names of everyone who was going to show up at his Christmas party the next night. Chief among her complaints was the presence of a man who could play the piano with his penis and a choir of gay men.
Stern suggested that the woman would help more people by feeding the homeless or volunteering at hospitals, a suggestion to which the woman apparently had absolutely no reply except to repeat that she was going to "write down all the names" of the people at his Christmas party. Apparently she eventually wrote to her senator, and the transcript of the Christmas party became one of the flashpoints for the FCC charge against Stern. All this sparked by an apparently reclusive woman who also accused Stern of being friends with "negroes".
Stern and Robin Quivers tried asking the woman how a choir of gay men or a guy who could play piano with his penis were hurting anyone. Once again, the woman had no reply, but Stern managed to get out of her that she'd never been married and she refused to answer whether or not she had ever had sex, which sounded to me clearly to indicate she had not. "Women seem wicked when you're unwanted" as Jim Morrison said, and I guess the other side is true, too. The woman so resented her long life of deprivation that she was projecting her frustration on men who were free and happy. And she was one link in a grapevine that apparently went all the way to congress. It was a nice demonstration of the mechanics of batshit crazy morality manipulating this country. The more vigorously someone denies him or herself paths to acknowledge the reality of human need, the more passionately they want to prevent the world from reminding them they're wrong.
The sadness waiting just around the corner for a 63 year old woman who's locked herself up her whole life must be colossal. Life really is too fucking short.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Salt and Girl Swords
Why does Ralph's have better hummus than everyone else? I love the kind with the bits of garnish in the middle--especially the Greek olive type, with sliced olives in the middle. No-one but the elite markets like Henry's and Trader Joes seem to have decent soup, though. I had some of Amy's brand minestrone last night--the nutrition facts label says that one of the supposedly two servings in the little 14 ounce can contains 24% of the daily recommended amount of sodium. Since I'm not a chipmunk, a single serving for me was all fourteen ounces, which means I had in that one meal roughly half the amount of sodium one is supposed to have in an entire day. And, let me tell you, after consciously cutting back on sodium lately, I could taste it. It was like a bowl of salt water. I may as well go the beach with an empty can, scoop up some surf, and sell it as soup du jour.
Barely any sleep to-day. But I got in plenty of sleepless ceiling gazing. I don't get it. Doesn't my body want to make the best use of it's time it can? To which my body would likely reply, "Well, you're the one locking us indoors drawing comics all night."
This afternoon, I watched the first episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, a series I've been wanting to see for a long time. I was intrigued by the idea of a series about lesbians that wasn't aimed at a male audience, and I had a general sense that the series is considered to be more intelligently written than most anime.
So far, it's entertaining. The backgrounds and world details are pretty simplistic, and the social roles occupied by the characters seem to exist entirely to address interesting sexual and gender issues. Utena, the lead, has chosen to wear a boy's school uniform and is generally treated like a boy among her classmates, yet she seems firmly to consider herself a girl. Her apparent love interest is a girl named Anthy who seems to become the thrall of whoever wins a particular ceremonial sword duel, in which Utena engages wielding the hilt of a shinai, a wooden practice sword for kendo, versus a man wielding a steel sabre. The winner of the duel being the one who cuts a rose from the lapel of his or her opponent.
The simple backgrounds of the world Utena's at odds with feature many tall white towers, long planters, and a variety of other phalluses. I can tell this is going to be an interesting series.
Barely any sleep to-day. But I got in plenty of sleepless ceiling gazing. I don't get it. Doesn't my body want to make the best use of it's time it can? To which my body would likely reply, "Well, you're the one locking us indoors drawing comics all night."
This afternoon, I watched the first episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, a series I've been wanting to see for a long time. I was intrigued by the idea of a series about lesbians that wasn't aimed at a male audience, and I had a general sense that the series is considered to be more intelligently written than most anime.
So far, it's entertaining. The backgrounds and world details are pretty simplistic, and the social roles occupied by the characters seem to exist entirely to address interesting sexual and gender issues. Utena, the lead, has chosen to wear a boy's school uniform and is generally treated like a boy among her classmates, yet she seems firmly to consider herself a girl. Her apparent love interest is a girl named Anthy who seems to become the thrall of whoever wins a particular ceremonial sword duel, in which Utena engages wielding the hilt of a shinai, a wooden practice sword for kendo, versus a man wielding a steel sabre. The winner of the duel being the one who cuts a rose from the lapel of his or her opponent.
The simple backgrounds of the world Utena's at odds with feature many tall white towers, long planters, and a variety of other phalluses. I can tell this is going to be an interesting series.
"Rodriquez has His Alfaro and for Every Alfaro there is Always a Rodriguez"
Me reading "They Do Not Always Remember" by William S. Burroughs from the Exterminator! collection.
It sure is hard reading a story by a guy who doesn't like using commas.
It sure is hard reading a story by a guy who doesn't like using commas.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
'Twere Beasts that Killed the Beauty
I just came from my parents' house, where I tried to take pictures of the new kitten, but none of them came out. The little creature can't stop moving--they're all pictures of blurred black fur.
I ate breakfast with my mother and sister, only they were eating dinner. After they left the room, I put the television on TCM and caught part of the original King Kong, which I hadn't seen in two years. Fay Wray is so luminous--her performance is so layered, little tremors of emotion can be seen like a flickering candle flame. These little, seemingly uncalculated, things make the beast seem far more threatening. She creates an internalised world that's subtle and delicate, which is a perfect contrast for the blundering ape who, no matter how he feels, can't possibly understand what's going on.
And I love all the skin-tight, flimsy white gowns actresses wore in the 1930s.
I didn't really have time for anything but my comic last night. I went back to watching the Tenchi Muyo OVAs now that I've finished His and Her Circumstances, the last several episodes of which were rather disappointing. It almost seemed to me that director Kazuya Tsurumaki was rebelling against the forces that made Hideaki Anno leave. But I guess we'll always have those first sixteen episodes.
I watched the seventh episode of Tenchi Muyo. I don't think I'd ever seen past the fourth episode, and five or six were rather disappointing, involving the characters fighting an evil space warlord. But the seventh episode brings us back to the good stuff--good, old fashioned, ridiculous harem anime. It's weird how much more daring anime used to be, though. Gone is the commonplace gratuitous nudity of the inevitable bathhouse sequences, and scenes like the one I saw last night where Washu, the beautiful mad scientist, restrains Tenchi and tries to take a semen sample. It's sad what the new shows give us in terms of ostensibly outrageous and embarrassing situations for the put-upon protagonist.
I ate breakfast with my mother and sister, only they were eating dinner. After they left the room, I put the television on TCM and caught part of the original King Kong, which I hadn't seen in two years. Fay Wray is so luminous--her performance is so layered, little tremors of emotion can be seen like a flickering candle flame. These little, seemingly uncalculated, things make the beast seem far more threatening. She creates an internalised world that's subtle and delicate, which is a perfect contrast for the blundering ape who, no matter how he feels, can't possibly understand what's going on.
And I love all the skin-tight, flimsy white gowns actresses wore in the 1930s.
I didn't really have time for anything but my comic last night. I went back to watching the Tenchi Muyo OVAs now that I've finished His and Her Circumstances, the last several episodes of which were rather disappointing. It almost seemed to me that director Kazuya Tsurumaki was rebelling against the forces that made Hideaki Anno leave. But I guess we'll always have those first sixteen episodes.
I watched the seventh episode of Tenchi Muyo. I don't think I'd ever seen past the fourth episode, and five or six were rather disappointing, involving the characters fighting an evil space warlord. But the seventh episode brings us back to the good stuff--good, old fashioned, ridiculous harem anime. It's weird how much more daring anime used to be, though. Gone is the commonplace gratuitous nudity of the inevitable bathhouse sequences, and scenes like the one I saw last night where Washu, the beautiful mad scientist, restrains Tenchi and tries to take a semen sample. It's sad what the new shows give us in terms of ostensibly outrageous and embarrassing situations for the put-upon protagonist.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Someone Help the Naked People in the Machines and Machinations
Grocery shopping a couple nights ago, at around 2am, I saw that the Ralph's in La Jolla had no human operated check-stands. Just six self-scan check-stands. For months, I watched the slow progression from one open human check-stand in the wee hours and a bunch of customers shy of the automated ones, to the point where everyone was using the automated ones. The only human employee was a woman sitting idle in a booth in case someone had a problem.
This is only in the La Jolla Ralph's, and La Jolla is one of the most expensive places to live around here, But, still, this seems like an interesting new twist in this country's poor atmosphere of employment.
I drew two pages last night, and listened to more of Christopher Lee reading The Children of Hurin while I inked. I'm at the section about Turin in Nargothrond. I still marvel at what an astoundingly luckless chap Turin is. He's so full of good and even reasonable intentions that almost invariably go to ill.
I didn't have time for much else yesterday. The maid was here which kind of put me off my routine and I felt sort of poorly aimed all day.
I haven't been too closely following the current conflict between Israel and Gaza, but I have to say I think Israel's probably doing the best thing it can. When a population is so ignorant and blinded by hatred that they elect a party bent on the destruction of a neighbouring country, what else can that neighbouring country do? But who knows who the people in Gaza could've been if they'd had a better shot at life.
This is only in the La Jolla Ralph's, and La Jolla is one of the most expensive places to live around here, But, still, this seems like an interesting new twist in this country's poor atmosphere of employment.
I drew two pages last night, and listened to more of Christopher Lee reading The Children of Hurin while I inked. I'm at the section about Turin in Nargothrond. I still marvel at what an astoundingly luckless chap Turin is. He's so full of good and even reasonable intentions that almost invariably go to ill.
I didn't have time for much else yesterday. The maid was here which kind of put me off my routine and I felt sort of poorly aimed all day.
I haven't been too closely following the current conflict between Israel and Gaza, but I have to say I think Israel's probably doing the best thing it can. When a population is so ignorant and blinded by hatred that they elect a party bent on the destruction of a neighbouring country, what else can that neighbouring country do? But who knows who the people in Gaza could've been if they'd had a better shot at life.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
I'm becoming a hopeless shutterbug. Hopefully not an obnoxious one. Here's Snow, the neighbours' cat, very early this morning. Cameo by my very dry hands;
He really wanted to go inside the house. I felt bad leaving him out there, especially as his big blue eyes watched me imploringly through the door.
This was just before I went to bed, and it's a testament for my weakness for cats that I spent time with him after getting barely any sleep yesterday.
Since I knew I wasn't going to get any quality work done on the comic, I went to Tim's early in the evening before coming back here and watching my new copy of Vertigo. I know, it's pathetic; I already had a copy that I've watched fifty billion times. But finally the movie's been put out by people who know a thing or two about DVDs--it's anamorphic widescreen now instead of just a letterboxed image in a square, the sound's mixed properly so the dialogue's not just barely audible under music and sound effects blasting, the colours are crisper, and the resolution is almost twice that of the old release.
While I watched, I drank a sample bottle of Le Tourment Vert, a brand of absinthe I'd never heard of, but the sample bottles were only eight dollars by the register and so pretty;
It's so amazing to me to think genuine absinthe is now being sold on check-stands. Though this wasn't the best absinthe I've had. First of all, it's only 100 proof, very weak for absinthe. I sipped a bit of it straight and it tasted a bit like a gummy worm. I mixed the rest with water and it tasted a little like mouth wash. But I enjoyed it more as I kept drinking, and absinthe seems the perfect beverage for Vertigo.
Jeez, the whole movie's on YouTube;
Switching to full screen mode, I bet it's not such a bad way to watch it.
He really wanted to go inside the house. I felt bad leaving him out there, especially as his big blue eyes watched me imploringly through the door.
This was just before I went to bed, and it's a testament for my weakness for cats that I spent time with him after getting barely any sleep yesterday.
Since I knew I wasn't going to get any quality work done on the comic, I went to Tim's early in the evening before coming back here and watching my new copy of Vertigo. I know, it's pathetic; I already had a copy that I've watched fifty billion times. But finally the movie's been put out by people who know a thing or two about DVDs--it's anamorphic widescreen now instead of just a letterboxed image in a square, the sound's mixed properly so the dialogue's not just barely audible under music and sound effects blasting, the colours are crisper, and the resolution is almost twice that of the old release.
While I watched, I drank a sample bottle of Le Tourment Vert, a brand of absinthe I'd never heard of, but the sample bottles were only eight dollars by the register and so pretty;
It's so amazing to me to think genuine absinthe is now being sold on check-stands. Though this wasn't the best absinthe I've had. First of all, it's only 100 proof, very weak for absinthe. I sipped a bit of it straight and it tasted a bit like a gummy worm. I mixed the rest with water and it tasted a little like mouth wash. But I enjoyed it more as I kept drinking, and absinthe seems the perfect beverage for Vertigo.
Jeez, the whole movie's on YouTube;
Switching to full screen mode, I bet it's not such a bad way to watch it.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Space, the Final Frontier
There's a scene early in Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel where Takashi Shimura opens a door for ventilation, starts to walk away, then, noticing the door's starting to shut itself, goes back and opens it again. He does this a few times before he can finally rig it to stay open. That's so me. I have a tendency to chew on problems until I reach a resolution, which has put me at odds with people who prefer to avoid addressing issues. But I think it served me well last night, when I redrew the last panel of a page over and over between around midnight and 4am. Until I got it right. It was one of those things that looks so simple, and no-one's going to notice it, but I fucking mastered the motherfucker. I won't spoil what it is for you, but I will say it involved drawing something I've noticed most comic book artists avoid roughly a 100% of the time, though I've noticed people working in animation don't seem to have any trouble with it.
For some reason I can't really figure out, I woke up at around noon after falling asleep at around 8am, and couldn't get back to sleep until 2:30pm. I started thinking about a guy I knew on Live Journal formerly named Watermelontail--St. Sisyphus brought him up to me again recently. He's brought him up to me several times for reasons I've never been able to determine. Watermelontail actually seems to be a touchy subject with a lot of people and I can't quite figure out why. I have a feeling there's a big piece of the puzzle I'm missing.
After Sisyphus had mentioned the guy to me several times, I friended him for a while and almost immediately regretted it when I saw he was one of those people who used his blog to write a story serial in. Most people aren't very good writers, and I don't like to sugar-coat my criticisms or encourage people who'd probably be better off discouraged. But at the same time, I don't want to be randomly rude to some guy, so I didn't read any of his creative writing posts. I felt a little awkward in the position, though. When I eventually did read a couple of his shorter things, mainly poems, I couldn't find anything in them that particularly interested me, but I still didn't say anything. Really, the guy wasn't much of a blip on my radar. He kind of just took up space on my friends list, but it's not like he was a bother.
I think the first time I felt any kind of irritation towards him was when I mentioned to Sonya that I thought his writing was kind of boring and unimaginative and this happened to coincide with her becoming very cold towards me. Of course, I still don't know why she stopped talking to me, but Watermelontail became the centre of one of my theories. I didn't really know why, though, she'd be so sensitive about him--he wasn't even on her friends list at the time. But afterwards, I noticed she began showering him with attention, particularly his writing, which seemed to me as boring and unimaginative as ever. I guess she disagreed with me about his work, but it seemed as though there was something far more personal in it for her that caused or exacerbated a rift between us that I still don't quite understand.
Then I started to notice one or two instances where something Watermelontail said seemed to reflect things I'd said to Sonya in private e-mail. Around the same time, I found out that Watermelontail was using my name for a character in an online role playing community. I guess I ought to have found this flattering, but combined with his apparent knowledge of things I'd thought I was saying just to Sonya I started to wonder who the fuck this guy was and why he was so far into my business. He went from being a guy I barely noticed to someone who actively skeeved me out, maybe more than he really deserved. I mean, maybe he didn't ask Sonya to tell him things about me, but I also kind of resented the fact that he might have a better idea of why Sonya stopped talking to me than I did. So when he took me off his friends list after my blow up on Sonya's journal at the end of 2007, I definitely felt like it was good riddance. But, still, I barely knew the guy and he seems to be friends with a lot of my friends, so I wonder if I dislike him a lot more than he really deserves and I definitely wonder about his significance to Sonya and possibly other people. I even remember Caitlin mentioning how she'd "finally" met him at Reader Con, even though I could barely remember them interacting much at all. I guess the fellow's really special in some way I can't see and which some people maybe resent me for not seeing.
So. To whom it may concern; sorry.
For some reason I can't really figure out, I woke up at around noon after falling asleep at around 8am, and couldn't get back to sleep until 2:30pm. I started thinking about a guy I knew on Live Journal formerly named Watermelontail--St. Sisyphus brought him up to me again recently. He's brought him up to me several times for reasons I've never been able to determine. Watermelontail actually seems to be a touchy subject with a lot of people and I can't quite figure out why. I have a feeling there's a big piece of the puzzle I'm missing.
After Sisyphus had mentioned the guy to me several times, I friended him for a while and almost immediately regretted it when I saw he was one of those people who used his blog to write a story serial in. Most people aren't very good writers, and I don't like to sugar-coat my criticisms or encourage people who'd probably be better off discouraged. But at the same time, I don't want to be randomly rude to some guy, so I didn't read any of his creative writing posts. I felt a little awkward in the position, though. When I eventually did read a couple of his shorter things, mainly poems, I couldn't find anything in them that particularly interested me, but I still didn't say anything. Really, the guy wasn't much of a blip on my radar. He kind of just took up space on my friends list, but it's not like he was a bother.
I think the first time I felt any kind of irritation towards him was when I mentioned to Sonya that I thought his writing was kind of boring and unimaginative and this happened to coincide with her becoming very cold towards me. Of course, I still don't know why she stopped talking to me, but Watermelontail became the centre of one of my theories. I didn't really know why, though, she'd be so sensitive about him--he wasn't even on her friends list at the time. But afterwards, I noticed she began showering him with attention, particularly his writing, which seemed to me as boring and unimaginative as ever. I guess she disagreed with me about his work, but it seemed as though there was something far more personal in it for her that caused or exacerbated a rift between us that I still don't quite understand.
Then I started to notice one or two instances where something Watermelontail said seemed to reflect things I'd said to Sonya in private e-mail. Around the same time, I found out that Watermelontail was using my name for a character in an online role playing community. I guess I ought to have found this flattering, but combined with his apparent knowledge of things I'd thought I was saying just to Sonya I started to wonder who the fuck this guy was and why he was so far into my business. He went from being a guy I barely noticed to someone who actively skeeved me out, maybe more than he really deserved. I mean, maybe he didn't ask Sonya to tell him things about me, but I also kind of resented the fact that he might have a better idea of why Sonya stopped talking to me than I did. So when he took me off his friends list after my blow up on Sonya's journal at the end of 2007, I definitely felt like it was good riddance. But, still, I barely knew the guy and he seems to be friends with a lot of my friends, so I wonder if I dislike him a lot more than he really deserves and I definitely wonder about his significance to Sonya and possibly other people. I even remember Caitlin mentioning how she'd "finally" met him at Reader Con, even though I could barely remember them interacting much at all. I guess the fellow's really special in some way I can't see and which some people maybe resent me for not seeing.
So. To whom it may concern; sorry.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
This is Not about Sex
My corkscrew broke trying to open a bottle of mead last night. The metal bit is stuck in the cork now and I have no idea how to get it out. I always wonder if this kind of thing is a metaphor for my rotten love life. My aim always seems to be off when I toss something in a basket, too. Fortunately, I've yet to experience any trouble with gas pumps. Well, except that one time when Trisa and I were arguing about how much gas I'd let her buy for me and the pump came out and gasoline spilled all over the place.
Er, I know what you're thinking and, no, Trisa and I never slept together.
Before beginning comic work yesterday, I went to Target and bought a cheap tea kettle for the mead (it was awkward pouring it out of a pan before) and some moisturising hand lotion. My hands get astonishingly dry during the winter and normally I just wait for my mother or sister to look horrified at my cracked and bleeding fingers before giving me a bottle of lotion, but no-one noticed this year. I wasn't quite sure what kind I should get, and I couldn't help feeling somewhat awkward in the aisle looking them over. I assume everyone who sees a guy buying lotion by himself thinks he's going to use it to masturbate, which probably makes it a good thing the Bath and Body Works was closed when I went to the door.
I've been trying to figure out whether Amanda Palmer's "Blake Says" is a tribute to or a rebuke of The Velvet Underground's "Stephanie Says". Maybe it's both. It almost seems like it's about how, though Blake is critical of Stephanie's emotional remoteness, he secretly wants to end up either with her or become just as cold as she is. I get the sense that Palmer sees this situation as both pathetic and pitiable (er, those words mean almost the same thing, don't they? Let's read "pathetic" as containing a dose of derision from Amanda). Maybe the idea is that Blake focuses on aloof women to avoid confronting his own fear of intimacy.
Er, I know what you're thinking and, no, Trisa and I never slept together.
Before beginning comic work yesterday, I went to Target and bought a cheap tea kettle for the mead (it was awkward pouring it out of a pan before) and some moisturising hand lotion. My hands get astonishingly dry during the winter and normally I just wait for my mother or sister to look horrified at my cracked and bleeding fingers before giving me a bottle of lotion, but no-one noticed this year. I wasn't quite sure what kind I should get, and I couldn't help feeling somewhat awkward in the aisle looking them over. I assume everyone who sees a guy buying lotion by himself thinks he's going to use it to masturbate, which probably makes it a good thing the Bath and Body Works was closed when I went to the door.
I've been trying to figure out whether Amanda Palmer's "Blake Says" is a tribute to or a rebuke of The Velvet Underground's "Stephanie Says". Maybe it's both. It almost seems like it's about how, though Blake is critical of Stephanie's emotional remoteness, he secretly wants to end up either with her or become just as cold as she is. I get the sense that Palmer sees this situation as both pathetic and pitiable (er, those words mean almost the same thing, don't they? Let's read "pathetic" as containing a dose of derision from Amanda). Maybe the idea is that Blake focuses on aloof women to avoid confronting his own fear of intimacy.
Preliminary Post
I've been seeing ads for these "Busted Tees" just about everywhere. Are we selling shirts or breasts? Are they really such a lucrative sponsor? Or does everyone just like the subtle breast garnish on their site? When will you be honest about your kinks, humanity? Think about it; these women could be topless.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
When Machines Translate Passions
Now testing my camera's video function;
I was listening to Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg's "from The Green Automobile" and I'm rather surprised by how audible it is. Visible on the computer monitor is this story about a man in Philadelphia who shot another man in the arm for making too much noise during The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. First of all, let me say; finally. People need to learn to shut the fuck up in a movie theatre.
Seriously, though, no-one deserved to be shot. I know my friends who are proponents of less restrictive gun laws would likely say, sure, you hear about this story, but not all the stories where other gun carrying audience members spotted the irate viewer in the dark theatre and gunned him down before he could shoot the noisy gentleman, or maybe the noisy gentleman would twist around and fire back at the guy like Abraham Lincoln in the opening to Police Squad.
Is a movie called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button really the place for any kind of gun violence? With all due respect to F. Scott Fitzgerald and director David Fincher, that is one of the most twee ass titles I've ever heard for a movie. What's next? A knife fight during The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants? That doesn't sound so unlikely, actually . . .
Feels like the sore throat is coming back to-day, along with coughing and sneezing. Guess I'd better buy some more mead . . .
I was listening to Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg's "from The Green Automobile" and I'm rather surprised by how audible it is. Visible on the computer monitor is this story about a man in Philadelphia who shot another man in the arm for making too much noise during The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. First of all, let me say; finally. People need to learn to shut the fuck up in a movie theatre.
Seriously, though, no-one deserved to be shot. I know my friends who are proponents of less restrictive gun laws would likely say, sure, you hear about this story, but not all the stories where other gun carrying audience members spotted the irate viewer in the dark theatre and gunned him down before he could shoot the noisy gentleman, or maybe the noisy gentleman would twist around and fire back at the guy like Abraham Lincoln in the opening to Police Squad.
Is a movie called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button really the place for any kind of gun violence? With all due respect to F. Scott Fitzgerald and director David Fincher, that is one of the most twee ass titles I've ever heard for a movie. What's next? A knife fight during The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants? That doesn't sound so unlikely, actually . . .
Feels like the sore throat is coming back to-day, along with coughing and sneezing. Guess I'd better buy some more mead . . .
Friday, December 26, 2008
Discrepancies of Size and Flavour
Snow the cat also took shelter from the rain on the back porch last night--every time I looked outside it seemed there was a different cat. I went outside to see Snow and the poor guy was very cold to the touch. He's gotten a lot bigger than he was when I saw him last. His fur's not quite pure white, it's slightly browned on the edges and he looks a little like a roasted marshmallow. Last night, I could swear he smelled slightly like a roasted marshmallow, too.
I was too tired for much of anything last night, but I knew better than to go to bed early which, from past experience, I know would only result in a couple hours sleep before hours of sleeplessness until I fell asleep three or four hours later than I usually do, and nothing gets solved. So I read more War and Peace, played a lot of Jedi Academy, and fiddled with the most expensive present I received for Christmas, a digital camera. I'm not yet satisfied with my level of competence with the thing, but here are a couple of the practice shots I took last night;
This is my Edea action figure from Final Fantasy VIII. I really love the camera's ability to focus on such a close object--the figure's only around six inches high.
A candid shot of my bedside table, which obviously I have to use for storage. I haven't finished reading that distinctly 1970s looking Gene Tierney autobiography yet--War and Peace has been monopolising my scarce reading time.
My Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley Soryu figures with my Eraserhead coaster in the background.
Neither of the figures usually stands on her own, so I guess they really wanted their picture taken. Actually, I somehow managed to rig them so they're supporting each other's weights via Asuka's elbow. They each came with alternate heads and arms that can be swapped.
I'm running behind, so I'd better end this now. Remember, new Venia's Travels to-day.
I was too tired for much of anything last night, but I knew better than to go to bed early which, from past experience, I know would only result in a couple hours sleep before hours of sleeplessness until I fell asleep three or four hours later than I usually do, and nothing gets solved. So I read more War and Peace, played a lot of Jedi Academy, and fiddled with the most expensive present I received for Christmas, a digital camera. I'm not yet satisfied with my level of competence with the thing, but here are a couple of the practice shots I took last night;
This is my Edea action figure from Final Fantasy VIII. I really love the camera's ability to focus on such a close object--the figure's only around six inches high.
A candid shot of my bedside table, which obviously I have to use for storage. I haven't finished reading that distinctly 1970s looking Gene Tierney autobiography yet--War and Peace has been monopolising my scarce reading time.
My Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley Soryu figures with my Eraserhead coaster in the background.
Neither of the figures usually stands on her own, so I guess they really wanted their picture taken. Actually, I somehow managed to rig them so they're supporting each other's weights via Asuka's elbow. They each came with alternate heads and arms that can be swapped.
I'm running behind, so I'd better end this now. Remember, new Venia's Travels to-day.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Venia's Jolly Excursions
Merry Christmas, everyone! Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Ha, Ha, Ha, Christ is back and his veins are huge!
Er, what I mean to say is, as a Christmas present from me to personally you, I've uploaded the new Venia's Travels slightly early. Soon Venia shall be an indispensable part of your Christmastime.
Actually, I think I'm just too sleep deprived to trust myself uploading it later. I was trying to think of Christmas movies to watch and I thought of Groundhog's Day because of the snow. I spent some time asking myself whether or not Groundhog's Day takes place on Christmas. Yep, that's sleep dep. Now let's add some alcohol . . .
Er, what I mean to say is, as a Christmas present from me to personally you, I've uploaded the new Venia's Travels slightly early. Soon Venia shall be an indispensable part of your Christmastime.
Actually, I think I'm just too sleep deprived to trust myself uploading it later. I was trying to think of Christmas movies to watch and I thought of Groundhog's Day because of the snow. I spent some time asking myself whether or not Groundhog's Day takes place on Christmas. Yep, that's sleep dep. Now let's add some alcohol . . .
Markers
Did not get enough sleep. But there are Christmas things to be done.
I listened to the first four hours of Christopher Lee reading The Children of Hurin last night while colouring. Lee reads very well, and I love the story of Turin, though I've yet to spot any difference between this version and the one included in The Silmarillion.
There's a lot of moral greyness in the story for Tolkien, though I found it interesting the lengths to which he'll go to tie misfortune with pride or some other unbecoming emotion, like Morwen is apparently punished by fate for not going to Doriath with her son because staying behind in the hopes her husband would return was a point of pride. But Tolkien never seems to really pin the blame for Turin's misfortune on Turin. Maybe he was inspired by the story of Job. I don't know, I'm too tired to really think right now.
The introduction to The Children of Hurin, written by Christopher Tolkien, is also read by Christopher Tolkien, and it's wonderful hearing the care he takes in his brief synopsis of the history of Arda thus far and the pronunciations of various words his father made up. He made a new map for the book, too, and a folding copy is included with the audiobook.
There is currently a big, grey homeless cat taking shelter from the rain on the back porch . . .
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Lion, the Biomechanical Monster, and the Christmas
I suppose Christmas is a time for hope, a time for possible paths of light streaming away from the penchant for destruction and mediocrity that so often characterises humanity. The first item that might qualify as a ray of hope I've seen to-day is Disney pulling out of the Narnia business. Hopefully this means the Prince Caspian adaptation shall be the last dry, chalky crusting of coloured sugar on the necklace. I'm generally pleased with how already everyone seems to have trouble remembering the first film, that even people who told themselves they liked the first one had trouble remembering to see Prince Caspian. Now, hopefully the series will sail completely into obscurity before The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has a chance to be ruined, and ten years from now we'll see an honest adaptation of the books.
Of course, I suppose this frees up Weta for the live-action Evangelion movie, and I'm not entirely sure I want to see an Americanised, live-action Eva. I'd probably change my tune for the right director, though.
I worked all night on my comic, but I still need to colour the last two pages of Chapter 15. The chapter's looking a bit better than I'd expected.
Anyway, that's about all I have time for. Merry Christ Mouth, everyone!*
*Baby Jesus lives in Christ Mouth until he's older, but sometimes he's eaten on accident.
Of course, I suppose this frees up Weta for the live-action Evangelion movie, and I'm not entirely sure I want to see an Americanised, live-action Eva. I'd probably change my tune for the right director, though.
I worked all night on my comic, but I still need to colour the last two pages of Chapter 15. The chapter's looking a bit better than I'd expected.
Anyway, that's about all I have time for. Merry Christ Mouth, everyone!*
*Baby Jesus lives in Christ Mouth until he's older, but sometimes he's eaten on accident.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Red Man and I Want to Read, Man (Hold Your Applause)
I saw a Santa Claus at the mall yesterday, in a little gazebo located in the middle of one of the thoroughfares. I heard him first; a loud, "Hello, there!" to a child a few feet away.
It's one thing to talk about the inherent comedy of these guys, but actually seeing them in the wild I can't help but feel acutely aware of why so many children cry while sitting on the laps of these guys. I bet the kids get this indescribable feeling of wrongness just encountering them--it's not that they necessarily didn't believe Santa existed, I just think there's something discordant about having an entity comprised of fantastic concepts illustrated with subtle variation by multiple sources suddenly distilled into a strange man with frequently unconvincing line deliveries. There's a lie there, but it's a lie too big and profound for the mind even to begin processing in a normal fashion.
I see Paul Dini's dreaming of a Max Fleischer-esque Indiana Jones animated series. It's a great idea. But, if anything like that happens, here's what it'll be; George Lucas will decide it's more important to get guys he can keep under his thumb than anyone with independent vision, the series will be cgi schlock like the new Clone Wars series, and we'll all feel a dose of undeserved shame for our childhood dreams.
Also at the mall yesterday, I got the unabridged audiobook of The Children of Hurin read by Christopher Lee. How wonderful does that sound? I'm starting to wonder if my reading is going to shift entirely to audiobooks. I don't really want it to--I still prefer reading the old fashioned way, but I barely have time for it. I squeezed an extra thirty minutes out of my night a couple nights ago to read more of War and Peace. I'm only seventy nine pages in after all this time. I had so much more free time when I was doing Boschen and Nesuko, but I guess this is what I get for putting so much more work into the colouring.
Speaking of which, I'd better get to it so I won't stress about it as much over the next couple of days which, apparently, are Christmas Eve and Day.
It's one thing to talk about the inherent comedy of these guys, but actually seeing them in the wild I can't help but feel acutely aware of why so many children cry while sitting on the laps of these guys. I bet the kids get this indescribable feeling of wrongness just encountering them--it's not that they necessarily didn't believe Santa existed, I just think there's something discordant about having an entity comprised of fantastic concepts illustrated with subtle variation by multiple sources suddenly distilled into a strange man with frequently unconvincing line deliveries. There's a lie there, but it's a lie too big and profound for the mind even to begin processing in a normal fashion.
I see Paul Dini's dreaming of a Max Fleischer-esque Indiana Jones animated series. It's a great idea. But, if anything like that happens, here's what it'll be; George Lucas will decide it's more important to get guys he can keep under his thumb than anyone with independent vision, the series will be cgi schlock like the new Clone Wars series, and we'll all feel a dose of undeserved shame for our childhood dreams.
Also at the mall yesterday, I got the unabridged audiobook of The Children of Hurin read by Christopher Lee. How wonderful does that sound? I'm starting to wonder if my reading is going to shift entirely to audiobooks. I don't really want it to--I still prefer reading the old fashioned way, but I barely have time for it. I squeezed an extra thirty minutes out of my night a couple nights ago to read more of War and Peace. I'm only seventy nine pages in after all this time. I had so much more free time when I was doing Boschen and Nesuko, but I guess this is what I get for putting so much more work into the colouring.
Speaking of which, I'd better get to it so I won't stress about it as much over the next couple of days which, apparently, are Christmas Eve and Day.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Arrangements
I think I may've caught something from Tim, who'd caught something when I saw him. That would explain my fatigue yesterday, maybe. To-day it's just a cough and slightly sore throat, for which I'm now drinking chai tea with honey. Fantastic stuff for it. I also bought a bottle of mead, because I suspected some hot mead would also go well on a sore throat, and, in fact, a doctor who was in line next to me at BevMo, who was also buying mead, confirmed this for me.
I was mainly out to-day doing some last minute Christmas shopping. Normally this is about the time I start shopping, but for months I've had a recurring nightmare that I'd forgotten to go Christmas shopping and I saw everyone shaking their heads in unsurprised disappointment, perhaps muttering, "We all knew he was a selfish asshole."
I felt good going out to-day, though, in spite of the rain and the cold. I'm just not in the right rhythm for cold. I keep starting tasks without my jacket and find myself surprised to notice I'm not properly attired. Yesterday, since I was so off the ball and strangely tired, I just went to my parents' and watched some Sherlock Holmes with my sister and came back here and watched Shiki-Jitsu, Hideaki Anno's second live-action film released in 2000 in Japan. It hasn't been released yet in the United States and it took me two weeks to download the fansubbed version, so I guess there's not a whole lot of interest for it in this country. Which is a shame, because, while it's certainly not perfect, it's definitely a fascinating and impressively constructed film.
The first thing I noticed about it was how strongly it resembled Evangelion. The setting is a section of town filled with factories and warehouses and, somehow, residences. The sounds of machinery and establishing shots of the grey, inhospitable buildings are almost identical to shots of the dismal part of town where Rei Ayanami lives and is accompanied by the same anonymous, rhythmic sound effect of pounding metal. It's reminiscent of Eraserhead, yet this place is quite real and, indeed, closely resembles the real home town of Hideaki Anno, if this video is any indication.
Shiki-Jitsu is told primarily from the POV of an unnamed anime director played by a live-action film director named Shunji Iwai. The guy couldn't more clearly be an avatar for Amano himself, so it's interesting that the other principal character of the film is an unnamed girl played by Ayako Fujitani who also wrote the novel upon which the film is based. I was very much surprised the movie was based on something written by anyone other than Anno, as the film seemed not only to feature autobiographical details but also seems to reflect opinions and desires I'd read of as attributed to Anno, most significantly in this quote from the clip I posted last night (which is also quoted in the Wikipedia entry); "Images, especially animation, simply embody our personal and collective fantasies, manipulating selected information, and fictional constructs even live-action film, recording actuality, does not correspond to reality conversely, reality, co-opted by fiction, loses its value. 'The inversion of reality and fiction.'"
Apparently the character in the book was a shopkeeper; Anno evidently made a great deal of changes. The movie would seem to be a successful fusion of two very personal stories, Fujitani's and Anno's, a success achieved by the stark definitions of their roles as director and subject. The director eventually starts making a documentary film of the girl, and seems to utterly lose sense of his place when she decides to turn the camera on him--though he's not frightened or particularly angry. He seems to relax into the realisation that he is an entity that finds subjects of interest, and he's not particularly interesting himself.
Anno's previous film, Love and Pop, seemed partly to be about Anno doing everything with a camera he couldn't do as an animator. Shiki-Jitsu, on the other hand, seems to be completely about adapting aesthetic sensibilities he'd honed as an animator for live-action. There are a great deal of static shots and extremely carefully arranged compositions.
There's a very appropriate ambiguity about the reality of what we're seeing. We're not bombarded with obvious dreamlike imagery or effects, but the very premise of the movie seems to be a metaphor.
Whenever I find myself in a girl's room, I pay careful attention to how she's decorated it, what books she has on her shelf, what objects decorate her desk and so on. I suppose there are guys who are this way as well, but I've found that generally women are more likely to try to communicate by how they've arranged their rooms. Shiki-Jitsu takes this phenomenon and expands grandly on it so that the girl played by Fujitani is the sole inhabitant of an office building, which functions in the movie as a physical manifestation of her psyche through which she permits the director to wander. Inside, she's carefully arranged furniture, pictures, umbrellas, bathtubs and telephones. So much detail is given quickly by Anno's tendency to throw things into rapid shots inserted into the middle of scenes of dialogue. I had to be quick to get these screenshots;
We're never quite sure what's happened to the girl's family, whether they're dead or alive, whether they abandoned her or she ran away. But she seems to have a bottomless appetite for love and affection, doing what she can for herself, and then demanding it constantly from the director when he becomes the only person in her life.
Another reason I was surprised the film wasn't an idea original to Anno was because, according to Wikipedia, during the production of Evangelion, "Anno became disenchanted with the Japanese 'otaku' lifestyle, considering it a form of forced autism." The girl's behaviour in Shiki-Jitsu seemed exactly that--a sort of self-imposed autism, and eventually the director becomes impatient with the girl's desire to create a world around her out of only the things in her life that pleased her, denying the existence of anything unpleasant. I was reminded of a question posed to Evangelion deputy director Kazuya Tsurumaki about episode 16 of Evangelion in this interview; "There was a line in that dialogue -- something like, 'We can't weave our lives only out of things we like . . .' That line was pretty intense. I would have thought it would strike right to the heart of anime fans . . ."
As I recall, in at least one of the translations of Evangelion I've seen, the line is something like "Stringing together the pleasant things in life like rosary beads." Shiki-Jitsu can be translated as "Ritual Day", and the girl's arrangements of her possessions, her costume-like wardrobe and extreme makeup corresponding to specific days or weather, seem definitely ritualistic.
I was mainly out to-day doing some last minute Christmas shopping. Normally this is about the time I start shopping, but for months I've had a recurring nightmare that I'd forgotten to go Christmas shopping and I saw everyone shaking their heads in unsurprised disappointment, perhaps muttering, "We all knew he was a selfish asshole."
I felt good going out to-day, though, in spite of the rain and the cold. I'm just not in the right rhythm for cold. I keep starting tasks without my jacket and find myself surprised to notice I'm not properly attired. Yesterday, since I was so off the ball and strangely tired, I just went to my parents' and watched some Sherlock Holmes with my sister and came back here and watched Shiki-Jitsu, Hideaki Anno's second live-action film released in 2000 in Japan. It hasn't been released yet in the United States and it took me two weeks to download the fansubbed version, so I guess there's not a whole lot of interest for it in this country. Which is a shame, because, while it's certainly not perfect, it's definitely a fascinating and impressively constructed film.
The first thing I noticed about it was how strongly it resembled Evangelion. The setting is a section of town filled with factories and warehouses and, somehow, residences. The sounds of machinery and establishing shots of the grey, inhospitable buildings are almost identical to shots of the dismal part of town where Rei Ayanami lives and is accompanied by the same anonymous, rhythmic sound effect of pounding metal. It's reminiscent of Eraserhead, yet this place is quite real and, indeed, closely resembles the real home town of Hideaki Anno, if this video is any indication.
Shiki-Jitsu is told primarily from the POV of an unnamed anime director played by a live-action film director named Shunji Iwai. The guy couldn't more clearly be an avatar for Amano himself, so it's interesting that the other principal character of the film is an unnamed girl played by Ayako Fujitani who also wrote the novel upon which the film is based. I was very much surprised the movie was based on something written by anyone other than Anno, as the film seemed not only to feature autobiographical details but also seems to reflect opinions and desires I'd read of as attributed to Anno, most significantly in this quote from the clip I posted last night (which is also quoted in the Wikipedia entry); "Images, especially animation, simply embody our personal and collective fantasies, manipulating selected information, and fictional constructs even live-action film, recording actuality, does not correspond to reality conversely, reality, co-opted by fiction, loses its value. 'The inversion of reality and fiction.'"
Apparently the character in the book was a shopkeeper; Anno evidently made a great deal of changes. The movie would seem to be a successful fusion of two very personal stories, Fujitani's and Anno's, a success achieved by the stark definitions of their roles as director and subject. The director eventually starts making a documentary film of the girl, and seems to utterly lose sense of his place when she decides to turn the camera on him--though he's not frightened or particularly angry. He seems to relax into the realisation that he is an entity that finds subjects of interest, and he's not particularly interesting himself.
Anno's previous film, Love and Pop, seemed partly to be about Anno doing everything with a camera he couldn't do as an animator. Shiki-Jitsu, on the other hand, seems to be completely about adapting aesthetic sensibilities he'd honed as an animator for live-action. There are a great deal of static shots and extremely carefully arranged compositions.
There's a very appropriate ambiguity about the reality of what we're seeing. We're not bombarded with obvious dreamlike imagery or effects, but the very premise of the movie seems to be a metaphor.
Whenever I find myself in a girl's room, I pay careful attention to how she's decorated it, what books she has on her shelf, what objects decorate her desk and so on. I suppose there are guys who are this way as well, but I've found that generally women are more likely to try to communicate by how they've arranged their rooms. Shiki-Jitsu takes this phenomenon and expands grandly on it so that the girl played by Fujitani is the sole inhabitant of an office building, which functions in the movie as a physical manifestation of her psyche through which she permits the director to wander. Inside, she's carefully arranged furniture, pictures, umbrellas, bathtubs and telephones. So much detail is given quickly by Anno's tendency to throw things into rapid shots inserted into the middle of scenes of dialogue. I had to be quick to get these screenshots;
We're never quite sure what's happened to the girl's family, whether they're dead or alive, whether they abandoned her or she ran away. But she seems to have a bottomless appetite for love and affection, doing what she can for herself, and then demanding it constantly from the director when he becomes the only person in her life.
Another reason I was surprised the film wasn't an idea original to Anno was because, according to Wikipedia, during the production of Evangelion, "Anno became disenchanted with the Japanese 'otaku' lifestyle, considering it a form of forced autism." The girl's behaviour in Shiki-Jitsu seemed exactly that--a sort of self-imposed autism, and eventually the director becomes impatient with the girl's desire to create a world around her out of only the things in her life that pleased her, denying the existence of anything unpleasant. I was reminded of a question posed to Evangelion deputy director Kazuya Tsurumaki about episode 16 of Evangelion in this interview; "There was a line in that dialogue -- something like, 'We can't weave our lives only out of things we like . . .' That line was pretty intense. I would have thought it would strike right to the heart of anime fans . . ."
As I recall, in at least one of the translations of Evangelion I've seen, the line is something like "Stringing together the pleasant things in life like rosary beads." Shiki-Jitsu can be translated as "Ritual Day", and the girl's arrangements of her possessions, her costume-like wardrobe and extreme makeup corresponding to specific days or weather, seem definitely ritualistic.