Move Over, Garlic and Crucifixes

I've been watching so many good Stephen King productions lately I was a little surprised to come across something sub-par last night. 2023's Sleepwalkers was written for the screen by King and has Alice Krige, Madchen Amick, Ron Perlman, and Mark Hamill (though he's uncredited for some reason). But it's about vampires who are allergic to cats and it's about as silly as you could imagine that premise being.

Charles (Brian Krause) and his mother/lover, Mary (Alice Krige), are down on their luck vampiric demons who require the souls of virgins too sustain them. Lucky for them, Charles meets the beautiful young Tanya (Madchen Amick).

Tanya's the best part of the movie and I suspect King wrote her as his own dream girl. She works at a movie theatre and she's introduced dancing alone to her headphones while sweeping. The camera gazes long and appreciably at her in the sequence.

I suppose it's the kind of thing you might see in a commercial but, hey, it's Madchen Amick.

The Sleepwalkers, as the vampiric beings are called, have some interesting powers and there a few cool, vicious scenes, like the one where Charles decides to murder his creative writing teacher (Glenn Shadix). I get the sense that King isn't a big fan of creative writing teachers.

Unfortunately, when a cat attacking Charles consists of the actor holding a stuffed prop to his neck and writhing, it looks exactly like what it is. It's hard to make a movie about cats that gives them the majesty we cat lovers know they possess in life. Lots of people have tried, though.

Sleepwalkers is available on The Criterion Channel as part of a Cat Movies playlist on The Criterion Channel.

X Sonnet #1807

A normal box for ev'ry pace was checked.
Reflective marble blushed beneath the blood.
The dancing busts in ivy wreaths were decked.
A pterodactyl lifts the deadly bud.
Deducted metals scored for lead in rings.
Remember time when baking space for air.
Whenever pots're washed, enamel rings.
No messaged mind could find a worthy pair.
Aggressive fungal ghosts are sleeping late.
Omitting falls, the water changed to mist.
Forever, questions swirl about the gate.
Perverted sleepers marvel at a kiss.
Returning time has rendered red to grey.
The ancient oak became a paper clay.

Summer Sunlight

Heading into summer, which around here means bugs, flowers, and rain.

Students have been carrying big thermoses of water or barley tea ("mugicha") to school. Practicing "are you/Yes, I am/No, I'm not" sentences with first year students, I asked one girl, "Are you a cat?" and she didn't hesitate to reply, "Yes, I am."

(Not a photo of the student).

I've been visiting two after school clubs in my current school--the handmaking club and the computer club. The handmaking club is for various crafts. Mostly the students are making origami, baking little resin charms, or knitting scarves. These kids are so productive.

Many of the students are also drawing in the handmaking club since this school has no art club. Mostly they draw characters from Kimetsu no Yaiba or Jujutsu Kaisen. I'm about seven episodes into the latter and it continues to be pretty good. It features a main character who strategically allows a demon to take over his body at times. The advantages being that the demon can slaughter his enemies and heal his severed limbs, the disadvantage being the demon wants to kill his friends. I continue to be fascinated by how brutal these two massively popular shows are, despite attempts by some authority figures here to regulate the moral content of the media kids take in.

I'm also thankful the animation is so good after so many years of cheap looking, cookie cutter anime.

Brought to You by Rain

Anyone know what kind of bug this is? I think it's a cicada but I can't seem to find this kind with the pine needle wings when I google. I feel pretty sure I've seen them in anime before.

It's the end of a rainy week with more rain to come here in Kashihara, Japan. I was home from school for two days due to the emergency but luckily, unlike other parts of Japan, there were no fatalities here.

I've been seeing more and more cats lately. And spiders, especially these little green ones.

Here's a picture of me from a school poster. I'm on the left. I have absolutely no memory of what I was doing. No clue what my hands are doing.

Twitter Sonnet #1371

Remaining gold awaits beneath the sod.
The seconds ticked across the granite slate.
Impassive beats surround the nervous god.
A heavy question touched the burdened pate.
Reluctant webs deploy about the bug.
A shaky grid becomes a tangled mesh.
The fire wants a kind of liquid hug.
Becoming real requires bone and flesh.
The dance remembered floats upon the pool.
In sequence stars became a drifting line.
Along the branch we wrote a single rule.
We fell asleep beneath the silent pine.
Assorted bugs require certain smells.
There's certain songs would ring the wooden bells.

The Waters of July

I'm home early to-day because there was a state of emergency called due to the thunderstorms. The school closed and everyone went home. This past weekend there was flooding in Kyushu with some deaths. But to-day here in Kashihara things seemed like they'd already settled down again by the time I got home. The river was calm.

So far the worst thing to happen to me to-day is this cat stuck his tongue out at me.

He doesn't even know me.

This was all pretty fortuitous since I got hardly any sleep last night. Now hopefully I have the discipline to send myself to bed early.