"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -Sherlock Holmes

Evidently, a number of people in my family like to use the word "evidently." My mother's been driving me crazy by peppering her speech with it overmuch for months. Too much peppering. Sneezing peppering. Now this morning, my grandmother, recounting the boring events leading up to the finding of her lost keys, saw fit to goop on copious doses of "evidently." Where the hell did this come from? I'm starting to hate the sound of the word from my own mouth.

Last night I went to bed at the peculiar hour of 12. I woke up at 6:30am. This must be the most normal night of sleeping I've had in years. Certainly it's the strangest in recent days, which've seen me sleeping from 9am to 6pm.

So I walked to Starbucks, drank a mocha (with an add shot), ate a scone, and read a few chapters of Poppy Z. Brite's Liquor. Really a good book. It never occured to me that I'd have so much fun reading about a couple of guys starting a restaurant. But fun it is.

I don't talk much here about what I read, do I? Well! I've just finished James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Before this, the only other Joyce I'd read was the novella The Dead, and both works had something very concentrated about them. I was struggling to describe it to Trisa one morning, and the image that comes to mind is of Spider-Man's web shots--how they come out in a very neat violent line but kind of fan out at the end, suggesting that the cord is made up of many strands concentrated together. That's kind of what reading James Joyce is like for me. In any case, wonderful writing. There's actually nothing wrong with it. Almost too much nothing wrong with it--well, not really. What I mean by that is just that, er . . . Well, there's no fringe uselessness, or even what might seem to be uselessness in Joyce's work. Every line is so much the straight dope that sometimes I need to stop and catch a breath.

Anyway. I'm not used to being alive this early. I've an optimistic suspicion that I'll be more productive to-day. We'll see!

Snurched from Mella's journal;

"1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Make these sentences into a paragraph:
Book #1 -- first sentence
Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
3. name your resources."

"1801--I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. In the meantime the sister woke up from the bewildered state she had fallen into after the sudden interruption of her music; after she listlessly dangled the violin and bow awhile in her slack hands and gazed at the music as though she were still playing, she pulled herself together, put the instrument in the mother's lap (the mother was still seated, gasping asthmatically for breath), and ran into the next room, which the boarders were rapidly nearing under the father's pressure. Not a very deep space, but long, the bar along the bridge side and the opposite all mismatched windows, looking south, past the piers, to China Basin. Then suddenly his eyebrows contracted, and with a brusque movement of his left foot he spurred his horse and galloped forward. 'I've done you before, haven't I?' it said."

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
2. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
3. All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson
4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
5. Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams

Well, that didn't make any sense.

Who's the naughty boy not updating his blog? Pontius Pilate! Oops, I mean Setsuled. Almost gave away my secret identity . . .

Seriously, folks, I'm feeling bleached. I drew a picture last night, first bit of productivity in "days". Why in quotes, asks you? Because of my weird ass sleeping schedule, because of meeting Trisa for dinner at 7am for days and waking up at 6pm. Pull it together, me.

Trisa drew a picture of me. I told her it looks a little like Lucien from Sandman, but that doesn't diminish me feeling happy 'bout it.

I think I have about 323 movies on tape that I've never seen before, and most days, I'm in the process of recording about three more. Yet, last night, I actually sat down and watched a movie I'd already seen before. I watched Time Bandits, one of Terry Gilliam's earlier films and a really good one. I love Randal's attitude--sure, God's fallible. But why get upset about it? Why not get stinking rich?

I love the anti-feel-good ending that feels oddly great. I love Kevin's stay with Sean Connery's Agememnon. I love John Cleese's naive, superficial Robin Hood who seems to be either a soft bellied coporate executive or a confused communist dictator.

Anyway, I slept 'til 6pm to-day, so I ought not to put too much time into the blog . . .

I have a feeling I'm not going to be very productive to-day. I've only just awakened, after having gone to bed at around 1:30. My head feels foamfull.

What movie? Did I watch? Brigadoon, a fairly decent musical fairytale starring Gene Kelly, Cyd Charrise and Van Johnson. Van Johnson was half-funny, half-pointless. Gene Kelly, as usually, made you wanna play along in whatever game he was playing. Cyd Charrise was speaking in a false Scottish accent, and not very well . . . But she was gorgeous, so it's okay.

Gene Kelly managed to tap-dance rather well on a dirt road. That was impressive.

I'm going to try to stay awake now.

Dreamt that a planet was discovered at the centre of our solar system, where we'd all supposed the sun to be. For some reason, what'd looked like a sun from a distance was in fact a planet similer to earth, covered with green and water.

With an old man, a raven, and a spaceship, I journeyed to that world. We wandered through vibrant green forests under a blue, sunless sky, finding no apparent sentient inhabitants. Then we came upon a very nice, large house of dark mahogany wood and various places to put scotch and bourbon. We wandered around in there, and stayed the night. The next day, we continued exploring the world.

...

Last night I watched Tarzan, the Ape Man. It was made in 1930, before the production code, so Maureen O'Sullivan got to look really gorgeous in a skimpy, shredded dress, confusedly handled by Tarzan. It was odd how much her screams sounded like the screaming apes clustered around them. Apparently, in 1934's Tarzan and His Mate, she even has an extended nude scene. Since 1934 was the year the production code was established, it gives a tantilising glimpse of what movies of the 40s and 50s--perhaps even society--might've been like if people'd realised from the beginning that the proposed code was in violation of the First Amendment.

Ah, well.

So, Tarzan the Ape Man. There were several moments in the movie that one might dismiss as racist, such as when Jane and her father's expidition are negotiating a lofty, hazardous cliff and one of the black men they'd hired to carry things falls to his death. Mr. Parker and Holtz seem far more concerned with the loss of what the man'd been carrying, although Holtz did add, as an afterthought, "Poor devil." Personally, I saw this more as an illustration of how hardassed the men were, and how pragmatic, rather than as casual racism.

Which is not to say there isn't racism in the movie. Much is made of the fact that Tarzan's white, for example, although Jane's father does have a line something like, "It doesn't matter what colour they are. They're all savages!"

Even so, I liked the movie. The scenes with the animals felt eerily genuine, as if Tarzan really was cooperating with the elephants and chimpanzees. I'm pretty sure that, in one scene, he's genuinely wrestling some lions. Of course, the poor animals must've been terrified going through whatever they'd been forced through to make them seem so canny for the camera.

I liked also how silent much of the scenes were of Tarzan and Jane hanging out in the trees. There was something truly animal about John Weismuller's Tarzan, something about the noises his body made scraping against the trees. This was one of those cases, I think, where Hollywood was blessed by the fact that it didn't know how to be as polished as it does to-day.

I suppose I've always had some difficulty with the Tarzan premise. I can never help wondering, "Why doesn't he have a beard? Why is his hair so perfect? Why does he wear a loincloth?" The answer to all of these questions, of course, is, "So he'll be presentable to the audience." I ought to read the book and find out if Edgar Rice Burroughs really meant it to be that way . . .

I made a new pin-up for Nar'eth. In the process, I learned a little about Indian jewellery and clothes.

I watched Forbidden Planet last night. Not a bad movie. It came from a time when space meant cold, weird, discordant electronic sounds. Which was kind of neat, I think, as I think it reflects the terrifying strangeness of being outside earth's atmosphere.

I didn't notice the whole movie that the story was based on The Tempest. Even though it very much was. With Robby the Robot as Ariel, which I didn't mind, even though I usually prefer to think of Ariel as a pretty girl, perhaps because of The Little Mermaid.

Perhaps the most surprising thing was that I didn't find the movie to be at all silly. I bet there're plenty of people who would but . . . I took it as seriously as it took me. Even though Leslie Nielson's flying saucer crew talked like the 40s movie crew of an American WW2 battleship. They even had a cook wearing an apron and a paper hat. In fact, I liked that.

I'm horribly sleepy. I didn't go to bed until 8am because Trisa and I met for breakfast--dinner--meal. And at 2pm I realised I had to wake up fully (I'd woken up briefly earlier to enlargen an eye) because I have to go to a guitar class with my sister.

I'm currently drinking bad coffee and there's nothing else to say . . .

And last night I watched 1947's Sinbad the Sailor, starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.--who did a charming imitation of his father's almost ballerina-like athletic antics--Maureen O'hara--a strong jawed, red headed (the film was in colour) Irish lady playing a Persian Princess--and Anthony Quinn. It was a really pretty, colourful movie that seemed almost peculiarly faithful to the sort of Arabian fairytale upon which it's based. The special effects weren't always so special, but were also charming enough and effective in their way.

And what the hell else would I tell you, blog? Let's see . . . My venti americano looks like a Grecian column.

Ann Miller was a terrific dancer (I spelled her name with an extraneous "e" yesterday!). She was the opening act in the movie I watched last night, Kiss Me Kate. A George Sidney movie with music by Cole Porter, it was a very fun and well played out idea about adapting The Taming of the Shrew into a musical. Katharine Greyson was the lead, but Miller easily diverted my attention during her scenes.

And that's all I'll say right now.

Last night I watched the Gene Kelly/Stanley Donan film On the Town. It was shown as part of a tribute to the recently deceased Anne Miller. The only other movie I'd seen with Anne Miller was Mulholland Drive so, needless to say, it was fascinating to see her so vivacious and sexy (no, I don't find it an odd experience at all). And what an incredible dancer--she really ought to've had a larger role. I'd have loved to see her dance alone with Gene Kelly.

Frank Sinatra and Betsy Garret were also in the movie, and both did very well. Sinatra had that voice and that manner . . . you know.

I feel sleepy to-day . . .

Wednesday night I watched the first Bette Davis movie I'd ever seen, The Old Maid, a wonderful film based on a play that was in turn based on an Edith Wharton novellette. Of Wharton's works, I've only read The Age of Innocence. Comparing these two stories, there seems to be a common theme of an individual repressing his or her desires for their entire lives, never being granted the thing they want most before death. And every time the sacrifice is brought to a point, we see that the character has very good reason for sarificing him/her self, and we admire the character's strength for being able to do so.

Bette Davis was a very good actress. Knowing she was the notorious rival of Joan Crawford biases me somewhat (I love Joan Crawford), but I figure it's all water under the bridge--and, anyway, art ought to rise above such things . . . blah blah. Yes, Davis was great. And for some reason I was surprised by how slim she was.

Mirium Hopkins was also in the movie, having just begun to mature past the deviant moppet I loved her as in Trouble in Paradise, a film I've been thinking about a lot lately.

So why didn't I post yesterday? Well, after 6am Thursday, there was rarely a moment that I had any access to the computer. I didn't return until the following 3:30 am, when I found my aunt had been having troubles with the printer that I endeavoured to help with before falling unconscious.

And what was I doing yesterdy? I drove and wandered. Then hung out with Trisa, and played much Soul Calibur 2 . . . At last, a human person was willing to play against me! Such joy . . . and she wasn't a push over, neither. Sure, I won most of the time--but not all the time!

Last night I watched Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach, starring Robert Ryan and Joan Bennet. A very flawed film that involved a blind painter who Ryan's character suspects isn't blind and is played by a man who had no idea how to play a blind man. At least the movie had some good ideas, even if they didn't play out so well.

I walked to the bank to-day and could have sworn I saw someone I knew. I locked eyes with her and I'm still not sure if she recognised me or not, or if she was even the person I thought she was. Oh well . . .

It's only 6:30 pm--practically morning for me--and I've already been out to dinner with my family and angered them by asking why they follow the teachings of Sylvia Brown. It was kind of creepy the way my sister answered, as if it were a perfectly good reason, "Because we're programmed to." I don't normally discuss their beliefs with them, having learned long ago what a breach of diplomacy they considered it to be. But I guess it'd been so long since the last time that I'd forgotten.

I watched Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game last night. It was a fun diarama of chaos and people being cool and kind of stupid about the grave peril they're. My favourite line was when Marceau, the poacher, helpfully suggested to a man (whose name escapes me) that he shoot Octave for kissing his wife, only to have the man reply that he'd used up all of his bullets on Marceau for doing the same thing. It was like screwball comedy delivered with utter candour.

Now I feel like working on things . . .

Took the guy at Starbucks by surprise to-day when I ordered a grande valencia americano with no room for cream. It just struck me as I walked up to that little booth that calls itself a Starbucks at Parkway Plaza; why haven't I ever gotten flavour syrup in my americano?

So it's pretty good. It tastes a bit like hot orange juice.

Now, I draw . . .

Last night I watched John Ford's Fort Apache starring Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Shirley Temple, and John Agar. Temple was cute and adequete in another of her teenager roles. Wayne was quite likeable. But the best performance here was definitly Fonda's as the disciplined but overconfident U.S. colonel. It's a role where you could have very easily ended up despising the man but Fonda makes him more complicated than that. Really, the whole movie hinges more on Fonda's performance than anyone else's.

I taped the film off TCM and there was an introduction by TCM's film historian Robert Osborne, who usually has interesting things to say. he mentioned that Fort Apache, made in the late 40s, had the skewed morality regarding Native Americans common to westerns at the time. After watching the movie, I found it odd Osborne would have mentioned this because the film portrayed the Apaches in a surprisingly good light. There were even scenes of Captain York (John Wayne) defending the Chief's honour when the colonel suggested that all Indians, including the Chief, were mindless savages. In fact, the Indians hardly seem villainous at all, especially after the Chief's speech about how war is bad, but living in a state where women and children are dying because the U.S. government is neglecting them is even worse.

...

I had a minor triumph with HTML this morning, working on my new web site. Little did I know that for hours I was merely one, small tag away from having the tables I wanted . . .

I discovered, on Thursday night, that my last alarm clock, my phone, doesn't make any noise. This was unfortunate, since I had to be up at 6am to go to my sister's graduation, and then on to other things. So I knew it wouldn't be a good idea to stay up through the night, as I normally would. Fortunately, a search on yahoo! led me to a software alarm clock that even loaded up an mp3.

So, securing four hours of sleep, I awoke to "Kathryn" by Black Tape For A Blue Girl, and proceeded to my parents'. I then journeyed with them to the SDSU Open Air Theatre, the same place I saw Morrissey a year or two ago.

We sat in the sun and listened to more than six hundred names get called off and listened to bad speeches. The valedictorian's speech was amusing and, since he'd clearly meant it to be, was pretty good. The preceding speech, by the salutatorian, was another matter. She began with something like, "This year, we said farewell to six friends on the TV series Friends . . ." and I was thinking, "Please be a jest, please be a jest, please go on to say, 'But to us acedemics, this barely caused a ripple in our lives which were much larger, and now I'd like to quote from some truly great works of art . . .'" But, no. The conclusion of Friends became her metaphor for the graduating class. How so? Something like, "If we were all on a television series, I'm sure viewers would be just as sad to say farewell to us." This was delivered with no irony or really humour.

Gods. Are my expectations for humanity too high? I'm starting to think so. But my gut reaction at the time was, "this person is supposedly the second highest ranked student in the school. Is this really what's in her head? Can't we do better than that?"

Oh, we can. The valedictorian's speech was fine, after all. He was a person out to do something. He wanted to create a certain effect and did it. This salutatorian clearly had the stink of one who's far less interested in doing things than she was in getting things done. "Do this junk to get this grade, this title, this to pass go."

I said congratulations to my sister afterwards--everyone was too hot and tired to be particularly emotional. We went to a very nice restaurant right on the beach with a beautiful view called The Marine Room. The menu said Gregory Peck had eaten there once.

I asked my sister about the salutatorian and my sister had said that she had indeed known her and not liked her. My sister said the girl was constantly trying to show everyone how intelligent she was, "and," my sister added, "obviously she is . . ."

"No," I said. "Don't say it's obvious. It's definitely not obvious."

"Well, she has one of the highest GPAs--"

"That is not an accurate measure of intelligence."

I could see my mother and her exchanging one of those looks that says, "Oh, he's got a strange opinion again. Let's just let him be so there's no argument." Which, of course, implied they disagreed with me and I'm afraid propriety and peacekeeping have lower priority for me than the quest for illumination. I didn't think I was wrong, but if I was, I'd much rather have learned why than have to turn everything off. And if I was right, that there was something more important to learning than GPA, then it was certainly something my sister needed to take to heart, particularly, I figured, this day of all days.

So I said, "My whole point is that this girl's speech showed she wasn't very smart, and that the school system was in error."

No one said anything in reply, the subject was quickly changed, and I suppose I won't know if my words meant anything to anyone, but I figure that's as much as I'm gonna get out of it. I figure I did my duty, though.

We later went to see The Stepford Wives. Not a perfect movie, but it was a lot of fun.

Last night, I watched John Huston's Beat the Devil. It felt kind of like watching an Indiana Jones movie I'd never seen before. It was great fun with cool and interesting guys and beautiful and interesting women. The movie deserves more from me but I feel rather dead at the moment. Inexplicably sleepy . . .

Jennifer Jones was a adorable. Gina Lollobrigida was terribly sexy. Humphrey Bogart had noticeably bad teeth at this point but really seemed to be enjoying himself. And Peter Lorre was in it, because he seems to be in every movie I watch lately. Roger Ebert, in his Great Movies review, said Lorre improvised a lot of his lines in this movie.

In other news, the Starbucks at North County Fair, my favourite mall, has been suckicised. It now has the new machine, and its big comfortable chairs have been taken away. It was a disappointing sight. The triple latte I got was good, but only as good as most Starbucks'.

I have to get up early to-morrow for my sister's high school graduation. Oh, how the time flies. As Lorre said, "What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook."

Now I think I'll draw things . . .

I have coffee and I've got Cherry Coke.

Last night I watched the 1960 Ken Hughes film The Trials of Oscar Wilde. Peter Finch played Wilde and, for the bulk of the film, did a reasonably good job. No one working on the film seemed to have the proper sense of timing to deliver Wilde's witicisms early on in the film. So badly were they delivered, in fact, that I was partially compelled to stop watching, out of respect for the late Mr. Wilde. But I stuck it out, partly because I don't believe in judging a work of art until you've seen the whole of it, and partly because I was still curious about where it was going.

When it got to the actual courtroom scenes, the movie began to be effective. I suppose this is probably because the scenes took their script from court transcripts. Also, in these scenes, Finch gave a very good, moving performance, and it had me dwelling on that absolutely daemonic situation, of this brilliant, beautiful person who strayed into a lion's den with faith that being a true person who'd done nothing wrong would be all the defence he needed. Here's a vivid example of someone being destroyed by villainous and popular prejudices.

Someone's actually consented to take photos of me again.

So, friends, here's some images of me at the park with my family;

First, here's one of the many instances where I look like I've been punched in the face, even though I hadn't been;


Here's me showing off my false tooth with my Lon Chaney impression;


Here's me being the smug bastard I am;


Finally, here's me, my sister, and my sister's 1300 dollar Louis Vaton bag (no, I'm not exaggerating);


...

Picked Trisa up from work last night--er, I mean this morning. At around 6:20am. She works in a very nice part of town . . . I told her about watching Sylvia Scarlett a few hours earlier, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn's first collaboration. It was good. Hepburn spent most of the movie dressed as a boy, looking very much like Hilary Swank's Brandon Teena, and Cary Grant got to use his natural cockney accent which was, well, clover.

I've got a lovely bunch of Altoids . . .

Ginger Altoids! I love ginger things . . . yeah . . .

I watched Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and Peter Lorre in Silk Stockings, the musical, 1957 remake of Ninotchka, with songs by Cole Porter. It was pretty good. Not much of the witty dialogue the older one had, but the dance numbers kind of made up for it. Cyd Charisse seemed to be doing a straight Greta Garbo impression (Garbo played Ninotchka in the original film), but that was kind of cute.

The climactic dance sequence, centring on Astaire, was not as good as I wanted it to be. This film suffers from kind of the same thing The Band Wagon suffers from--it focuses too much on the nature of musicals and their relevancy to modern audiences. The final number, "Ritz, Rock, and Roll," was too broadly a "Hey, it'd be neat to have this fusion thing!" If they wanted to do that, they ought to've simply done it instead of singing about it. It needed to be a love song anyway.

I did kind of like the song they did about Cinemascope, Technicolour, and Stereophonic Sound. But my favourite scene was Cyd Charisse dancing with the titular stockings; it catered to the pervert in me.

Saw the new Harry Potter movie with Trisa yesterday. Trisa tells me there're some things in it different from the book but we both seemed to enjoy it. I thought it was easily superior to the previous two movies--but that's not saying much because Chris Columbus is a moron. This one felt more dynamic. You felt more like these kids were going to school at a secret magical school instead of hopping into a Hallmark Christmas card.

No blog entry yesterday because . . . I was not here very much.

Where was I? Nowhere of particular interest.

Actually, let me start by saying that I saw Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho for the first time on Friday morning. That's a beautiful movie. The beginning segment with Janet Leigh does the wonderful thing of putting together a world where you are guilty and on the edge of being found out by a world with a frighteningly greater moral clarity than your own. By the time Norman Bates shows up, we're already in a place where bad things can happen to us not simply because life is cruel and people are twisted, but also because we're not entirely sure if we don't deserve it.

More can be said; the music was gorgeous, Anthony Perkins was perfect as this sweet kid whose mother knows best, and the camerawork and lighting were . . . you know, supurb. There's not one mistep in this movie.

So Friday evening, I went to a play with my family and my sister's boyfriend. This play was Moliere's Don Juan, which was a lot of fun. The lead actors were pretty talented and fun to listen to as they delivered naughty dialogue. And there were ghosts and talking statues and . . . fun.

And last night, after a fruitless attempt to install Neverwinter Nights, I watched Top Hat, a Fred and Ginger movie with songs by Irving Berlin, including "Cheek to Cheek." And what a glorious dance sequence that was.

I really am spoiled by all this great art, I think.

With Trisa yesterday, watched Rebel Without a Cause. The director, Nicholas Ray, had a definite agenda to put forth his perhaps not invalid theory about the destructive, dysfunctional relations of the family, and the young person's inability to find the familial solace he or she desperately needs. Sometimes, it worked; the characters' of Jim and Judy's respective parents were intriguing and very believable. Other times, it didn't work--Plato, Jim's tag-along-buddy, with his psychotically tinted need for his dead parents, wasn't very believable or interesting, consequently making his character a little annoying.

But James Dean, as Jim, was a very effective thing. His aura of chaotic, cool vulnerability added a sort of credibility to scenes. You really felt for this guy. The action sequences, particularly the knife fight, were the best parts of the movie because Dean looks like a guy who might get cut. I liked the movie.

Later in the evening, I watched a movie I enjoyed a little bit more; Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace, with Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, and Peter Lorre. No big message with this one, just a screwball comedy about an anti-marriage playwright who gets married (Cary Grant), a psychopath named Jonathon who hates when people point out he looks like Boris Karloff, a fake doctor named Einstein (Peter Lorre), a bugle player who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, and two little old ladies who put Arsenic in the eldeberry wine as a public service, certainly not to murder, and that's why there're twelve bodies in the cellar, of course.

Another day, yo. Last night I watched George Stevens'Penny Serenade with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. It was okay. It was sad. The ending felt wrong. It felt a little like it was just the beginning of another cycle in the loop the movie kept putting the couple through. These were real, complex characters. They deserved a real, complex ending.

Lucky the cat has been in my room since 5am and I don't think he wants to leave any time soon.

Not much time right now and I can't think straight anyway . . .

Watched the season finale of Justice League last night and it was good. But I wish they were allowed to cuss and show nudity and blood.