Tuesday, September 01, 2009

The Violence of Indecision

Very short on time to-day. With breakfast I read the first vignette in the new Sirenia Digest, "WEREWOLF SMILE", which ended up being a nice meditation on violence in art and a predator/prey dichotomy in relationships. Caitlin's Prolegomena mentions David Bowie's Outside album, and the "art crime" murders of that album's story bear some thematic resemblance to what happens in "WEREWOLF SMILE". It's one of those stories from which a sense of horror and dread is aided greatly by the mood of the narrator, as well as references to the infamous real life murder of Elizabeth Short. If, like me, you've seen photos of that woman's body as it was found, you won't be able to help feeling again a mix of sadness, revulsion, and hopelessness, which in this story assists in creating sympathy for the narrator.

I was pleasantly surprised to-day to find the eighth Zan Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei had been subbed and that it was one of the best episodes of the season. Particularly the last segment--I can't find any streaming service that has it subbed, but even if you don't speak Japanese, you might want to watch some of this. The animation's beautiful;



The matter at hand here is people who ask questions as though they haven't made up their mind even though they actually have--the "mystery train" carrying them to a supposedly unknown destination, yet one that's in fact inevitable. Kind of reminds me of the trolley to the graveyard metaphor from Double Indemnity.

My tweets from last night;

Telephone hopping's how to get places.
Don't let Karl Marx see your blackberry.
So I'm taking my teas through the paces.
Wine has now become my adversary.


I ended up trading in my blackberry for a regular cell phone. A blackberry just seemed to decadent to my commie heart, and, anyway, I wasn't going to use half its features. I'm back to drinking lots of green tea.

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