Bleugh. Well, I guess I had an interesting Valentine's Day. I got shanghaied into a family function--ostensibly a party for my great great aunts (yes, two greats for both of them). But they both looked almost as bored as I was. Two or three people there gabbed furiously while the rest of us were smothered by the atmosphere. Or maybe I was the only one who'd call it smothering.

The location was some kind of sea food restaurant I hadn't been to since I was a kid. The tables were very low, making it difficult for people to move their hands from their laps to the table top--it was something like the harness on a rollercoaster. I had slept from around noon until 3pm, so I was ravenously tired, and drank innumerable refills of black coffee. But circumstances didn't permit me to sleep until 9pm, and I slept sporadically throughout the night. I woke for periods to eat, watch The Daily Show, play Baldur's Gate--but those activities only fitfully, as I could barely concentrate.

By 8am, I wasn't sure if what I'd experienced counted as a night's sleep or not. I decided it had, so I toasted a bagel. Lucky the Cat seemed to disagree with my assessment, as he jumped off my bed and walked into the hall to observe me eating. You ever look at a cat and swear he's about to say something in English? It wasn't a cat look. It was a, "Are you going to bed, or what? You look a bit ragged, Old Boy," look.

But I decided to take the opportunity and do some of those daytime things I'm never able to do. I went to the banks and deposited money into my checking account. Fortunately I wasn't as low as I thought I was, and I received Sirenia Digest #3 in the e-mail last night. I suppose I'd just be overdrawn, but I had this irrationally dreadful fantasy of receiving an e-mail from Spooky saying, "You dishonour us with your lack of funds, and you dishonour yourself."

After that I wandered aimlessly a bit, intending to write the new Boschen and Nesuko script at a Starbucks or something, not expecting much difficulty as I have the whole thing practically written in my head by now. Or at least I've got the exe file. But I started feeling out of sorts, and now I'm back, it's 3:40pm, and I feel like it's bedtime. I really hope this doesn't get in my way too much.

Think you can shoot better than Dick Cheney? Step up!

A CNN poll finds 8% of those polled feel the government is doing "too much" for victims of Katrina. Those can't all be bored junior high students and ASL gorillas. How do you get to be that brand of asshole? My guess is it takes a lot of money.

It seems Paris Hilton's impeccable moral character has finally paid off.

I picked up the final volume of Maison Ikkoku yesterday. An ending of a Rumiko Takahashi series! A real ending, too, not just a last episode where nothing changes. Which I guess is the advantage of reading the manga--although the Ranma 1/2, Urusai Yatsura and Inu-Yasha television series have no proper endings, supposedly their manga counterparts do. And so, from what I hear, does the Maison Ikkoku television series, which adheres closer to the manga than any other. But I have to say I was somewhat disappointed by the one episode I saw.

Tim copied a bunch of anime for me on Saturday. This time he gave me the movie Jin-Roh, two episodes of Top o Nerae 2, and all twenty seven episodes of Noir.

I watched the first episode of Noir and was pretty heavily disappointed. There seems to be a frightening thirst for the homogenous in anime these days, and Noir is a good example of the trend. I think it's meant to be film noir-ish, but it's not easy to tell with its very standard and dull J-Pop theme, hazy story, and hazier characters. Animation is very, very slow--which I might forgive for a presumably low budget if the compositions weren't utterly bland and coloured with boring pastels worthy of a Hallmark shop before Easter. The main characters apparently are a blond assassin and a girl who wants her help because she has amnesia. "But," the assassin says, "I don't help people. I kill people," and tells the kid that, once they find out the secret of the kid's identity, the assassin's therefore going to have to kill her. Er, yeah. This after they've been in a gunfight with your standard mysterious thugs in black suits and sunglasses. A fight that had all the excitment of blank postcards falling through a mailslot.

But I'm excited about the Top o Nerae 2 episodes. These are episodes three and four of an OVA series probably destined never to be released in the U.S. If it is, it'll probably be under the title of Gunbuster 2, as Gunbuster was the English title of the first series, a classic from the 80s. Directed by Hideaki Anno who, apparently, has recently done a tongue-in-cheek live action adaptation of Cutie Honey, which I'm afraid to see.

Top o Nerae 2 is produced by Gainax, the same company as produced the original series. The director's different, and the show has a different sensibility, but it's especially after viewing Plain Jane Noir that I appreciate it very much. It's a lot of fun, and interesting. Why are people so afraid of Interesting?

Anyway, I didn't do very much else yesterday. I'm making grand plans, mainly. I want to get started on the next Boschen and Nesuko chapter early as there will be a lot of things I need to work out. Plus I'm working on another project which needs a whole lot of groundwork laid, but I like the daydreams I'm having about it.

But for now, perhaps, I'll sleep . . .

I just now finally read Caitlin R. Kiernan's most recent Sirenia Digest--number two. It came in the e-mail weeks ago, I think. I think it's almost time for Sirenia Digest three, in fact. Where does my time go?

But the #2 pair of tales was a very lovely time in my chair this evening. First was a vignette called "Orpheus at Mount Pangaeum", which was like the minds of three creatures laid out in a laboratory, utterly dwarfing the room's clean orderly nature with their awesome strangeness and beauty. It's with a vignette like that that it becomes very clear how much Caitlin loves monsters. And why not? It's like Michelangelo walked into a room filled with alien and demoniac cadavers and was told to make a sculpture--and the results expressed things simple marble could not. Claws, teeth, and blood seem to sprout from the vignette to suit the unspoken emotional rhythms writer and reader are keyed to.

The second story, "Pony", is more human, perhaps. But in a good way. It's a pair of lovers and a strange friction they feel due to one of Kiernan's favourite concepts--people attempting to cope with an apparently supernatural experience. It's also got some very pleasing sex.

It's nice to cap the evening with good art. I'd been playing Baldur's Gate for a while beforehand, which feels more and more like a joyless addiction. What's worse, it's a joyless nostalgic addiction--I get a certain thrill from using Fireball and Stinking Cloud again, just like I did in the Golden Box D&D games I played when I was younger. But it leaves me feeling really empty, and I miss just watching movies in the evening.

The latest Boschen and Nesuko chapter ate up so much of my time last week, that I only managed to watch Revenge of the Sith--and that in parcels, over several nights. Part of the reason I had so little time was because I had to get ahead in order to be free on Friday night to baby-sit my cousins. For which, it turned out, I was in fact not needed.

And gods, was Thursday ever a particularly nasty clog in the works. I got three hours of sleep that morning, then of course had to be out at 11am. I went to Fry's and bought a copy of Lawrence of Arabia and Elvis Costello's Armed Forces. Can you believe I didn't have that album, Costello fan that I am? It occurred to me to get it finally when I saw this entry in Spooky's journal. I took it as a sign--despite the fact that I have no real faith, I am paradoxically rather superstitious. Call me Ichabod Crane.

Well, anyway--I still don't have that album. I got to my car, eagerly tore off the cellophane . . . and found part of the jewel case was missing, and along with it the bonus CD. Fry's notoriously dodgy merchandise strikes me at last. There's a reason their returns section always has a huge line.

I almost went right back in, but glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 1:45pm and I wanted to visit Marty at around 2pm. Which I did, and it was a nice visit.

So I got back home at around 3:30 or so. I fed the cats and went back to sleep--waking up at 9pm. The good news was that I finished both of the last two Boschen and Nesuko pages--and the bad news was that I couldn't get to sleep until noon. And I had to get up at 4pm.

Ever since then, I've been dogged by a phantasmal shroud of sleepiness I can't shake for the life of me. But I did enjoy watching Lawrence of Arabia on the 42 inch screen. I sit real close, too--and I sit through the Overture. That's how it's meant to be, folks. Take it that way and I guarantee you'll feel better in the morning.

The new Boschen and Nesuko's up early. I finished the last two pages last night because I think I might be busy to-night.

It's another anti-Valentine's Day chapter. I just can't kick that holiday enough times in its stomach.

Also, if you're out there wondering if there's anything you can count on in this world, well, I can guarantee you you'll see Nesuko naked yet again. I live to serve.

Addendum;

I forgot to mention that I don't think the Danish cartoons are very good. Which seems important, somehow. Although I hesitate to positively critique something that was created in a culteral context to which I am alien. But I also find myself hesitant to condemn them as obviously, intentionally bigoted.

A while ago, a friend of mine told me that he felt religion was the bane of mankind, that we'll never see peace in the world so long as there is religion. I responded by saying that I didn't feel religion was the problem, but a symptom of the problem.

I don't like the idea that my consciousness will cease with my death. And yet, if I had to choose, I'd say that's what I believe occurs, since there is a lot of evidence to support it, and no evidence to the contrary. But because the idea makes me unhappy, I can certainly understand why people would choose to believe in an afterlife. And so I can therefore understand why people hold faith in certain belief structures instead of accepting a frightening alternative.

So the problem isn't religion. The problem is that people prefer to be ruled by their passions instead of their reason, and religion provides an excuse to do so.

I've been thinking about this as I read and hear about the international crisis arisen in the wake of Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Twelve little cartoons and people respond not only with riots, but embargoes and official diplomatic atrophy. It's bad enough when it's teenagers burning embassies because they're hot-blooded and ignorant, but when prominent public officials and diplomats, even those who decry terrorism in the name of Islam, are deliberately damaging trade and calling for punishment of the cartoonists, it's a larger, more serious problem. A more fundamental problem, you might say.

The cartoons are viewable at the Wikipedia entry on the matter. Some of them criticise the treatment of women in popular Muslim culture, while another is of a cartoonist nervously drawing Muhammad. That these should provoke physically violent outrage is terrible, but the most controversial cartoon is one depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. That this should provoke violent reprisals is terrible in a different way. For one thing, it shows the distressingly poor conception of irony; "Call us a violent people, will you?! That makes us so mad that we're gonna burn your embassies!"

Personally, I don't think the cartoon is necessarily insulting to Islam. If the artist was interested in making a statement with it, it could well be that the juxtaposition of Muhammad with a bomb is a discordant one, an ugly one. One might say that if the artist felt violence was fundamental to Islam, such a drawing would be pointless. But, then, maybe the artist wasn't that clever. Perhaps it's a genuinely bigoted caricature.

In any case, I disagree with the people who are calling the article and the cartoons the obvious products of irresponsible provocateurs. The general point of the article seems to have been to do with free speech and understanding the nature of Islam in a positive light; the cartoons were commissioned as response to an author's difficulty in finding illustrators for a children's book on the life of Muhammad. That those who've reacted hatefully to the article are unable to comprehend that, to the point of feeling very extreme reprisals are warranted, evinces a deep rooted and widespread cultural malady. A malady that cannot be solved with military action, as current U.S. leaders might think, but, if anything, with better cultural thought, and the instillation of respect for secular reason.

The fact that that's probably never going to happen should not restrict artists from working for or under finer principles. And part of living in a society where people are free to express ideas is learning not to freak out when someone expresses what seems like a bad idea. Perhaps people simply need to realise that considerations of life and limb ought to take more serious priority than those of ink and paint.

And for gods' sake, people; lighten up.

"As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster. Or an evil wizard."

I succeeded to-day in waking up at 8pm. Thank you, thank you.

Yes, I'm only too happy as another Thursday draws to a close. Although I tried to go to sleep earlier, I only managed to drop off at around 8am--and then I of course needed to awaken again at 10am. So out into the world I went, an ambassador of bad coordination and sticky eyes. I had a meal at Einstein bagels, and had serious trouble counting the seven dollars from my wallet to pay for it. My poor math abilities are grossly multiplied by sleep deprivation.

Not thinking about it a whole lot ahead of time, I decided to see Brokeback Mountain again in order to kill the time. I think one of the fun things about seeing Brokeback Mountain alone as a young man is that it makes you Obviously Gay and Possibly Tragic.

"One for Brokeback Mountain," I said to the 20-something male cashier, who, in response gave me an earnest look and said, "Hey, that's no problem." The guy who took my ticket even blessed me.

The first time I saw the movie was in La Jolla, at the Landmark, which exclusively shows foreign and indie films. The audience consisted of a lot of women, and one old man who I overheard talking about seeing Snow White when it was first released.

To-day, I was in Rancho San Diego at the big Edwards Meta-plex, or whatever they're calling them now. The audience, it being the middle of the day, was small; only about fifteen or so people. It consisted of older, gossipy women, who thankfully talked little during the movie, although several of them left and returned to the theatre throughout the movie like it was a football game. And they would always walk all the way across the theatre, in front of the screen, so that Ang Lee's beautiful mountain vistas were frequently accented by fluffy round-haired bespectacled silhouettes. A people impressively out of touch with their feelings, I noticed, as one woman even strolled past during Ennis's story about the old man he saw mutilated and murdered.

I stayed until the credits stopped. At the end of the row to my left, two old women also stayed in order to chatter for the duration. When I finally got up to leave, and I walked by in front of them, one of them said, "Oh, my god!" and they both stopped talking.

...

I was made extraordinarily, maddeningly happy on Monday. I went to see Match Point--and it was a great, unpredictable, thoroughly wonderful movie. I can't remember the last time a new movie has made me feel so happy. I can't remember ever being happier, actually.

Driving home afterwards, I couldn't stop smiling. Not because it was a happy movie, but because it was so damn perfect. And it was even better because I knew hardly anything about it going in. It's directed by Woody Allen, who says it's his best film. And although I've only seen four other Woody Allen movies, I think he could be right.

I could tell the audience behind me weren't terribly happy about it. A woman behind me said, "I guess it was entertaining, but there was no point." I can assure you people that there was as much a point to the movie as there was to Casablanca, Taxi Driver, or Ghostbusters. It was the uncomfortable grumbling of an audience who was undeniably at the edge of their seats for the whole movie--not a peep or rustle did I hear--even though the movie couldn't be neatly categorised or--worse--couldn't be categorised as a typical Woody Allen film.

First of all, the beginning of the movie almost brought me to tears by the fact that it had intelligent, complicated, and engaging dialogue. And then about halfway through the movie I was having the beginnings of a darkly strange cinema orgasm. My thoughts might have read something like, "Oh, Allen, what--what are you doing . . . I'm . . . not sure I like this . . . no, Allen, stop--stop! Oh, gods, stop . . . stop, stop, stop---aAHAHUh! No, no, no--yes, yes, yes, yes, YES! Yes . . . ah . . . ahhh . . . Ah, oh, Allen, mmm, I--I love you. I love yoooooou . . . "

Trust me. You want what I was having.

I just learned, somewhat appropriately, I suppose, from Moira that Moira Shearer died yesterday.

I've only seen her in The Red Shoes, and a long time ago I saw Peeping Tom. Which shows how deficient I am in Powell/Pressburger movies I've seen. Especially considering The Red Shoes is a movie that I constantly have to prevent myself from re-watching. It's a great movie in so many ways; editing, its use of colour, pacing, story, acting, characters, costumes. Each aspect can definitely be described as both striking and beautiful.

And Shearer was great in it. A beautiful and talented ballerina, who also proved to be a very good actress. Whenever I imagine a Boschen and Nesuko movie, actually, a young Moira Shearer is who I usually picture playing Nesuko. Sometimes I imagine Katharine Hepburn, particularly if I'm imagining a cgi movie, but I know Shearer would've been able to handle a lot of the physical stuff. I loved her in The Red Shoes that much.

I just noticed there's an 1894 film for download of Annie Oakley in her Wikipedia entry.

I feel like this was an unproductive night. I spent a lot of time playing Baldur's Gate. Yes, the writing irritates me, but it is still Dungeons and Dragons. If only I lived near Stephen Colbert, who, as I've learned from this recent Onion interview, played it as a lad. He was lucky. I wish I knew people nearby who played Dungeons and Dragons.

Well, then, maybe I don't. After all that Baldur's Gate, I feel really dirty. The best way I could justify it to myself was by saying, "It's Sunday. Sundays are made for slacking off."

I was playing it a few nights ago as well, when I looked to my left and noticed that my Citizen Kane DVD happened to be sitting at the top of a DVD pile. And I asked myself, "What would I really rather be doing? Playing this insipid game, or watching Citizen Kane yet again?" And I'm happy to say Kane won that particular vote.

Afterward, I was looking at the movie's IMDB entry and noticed one of the user comments, though ostensibly a positive review, described the movie as "slow" and, though obviously important and influential, also "not pure entertainment."

Bullocks. Someone needs strangling. I'm not even putting this one down to a short attention span. This is abject stupidity. Slow? There's not a merest fraction of an atom of fat in that movie. Though I guess I can see how a teenager might not like the subject matter, and even get greater thrill, as the quoted reviewer does, from The Matrix. But it sure does make me hate young people.

Anyway. I better put myself to bed now before I start dragging white trash out of their homes and into cold asphalt hell, as I lecture them in the early morning chill about the difference between squares and rectangles. Gods, all my crotchetiness seems to come out at 7am . . .

The original Harry Potter?

It's the jolliest Boschen and Nesuko yet! I think it's also an early anti-Valentine's Day chapter.

Boschen and Nesuko's now past 300 pages, so . . . mazel tov to me, I guess.

Yesterday was a strange eating day. I went to Starbucks thinking I wasn't going to have much time for breakfast, wanting to get a zucchini walnut muffin. When they didn't have any, I settled for a cheese danish, which had a strange, insubstantial weight in my stomach. I couldn't tell if it'd filled me up or not. So when it turned out I'd have more time yesterday than earlier thought, I went back to Starbucks and used up a gift-card on an egg salad sandwich and a five-shot grande latte. I was unmistakably full after that. So I went home and got to work on Boschen and Nesuko, and after an hour of decent headway, I got a call from my mother asking if I'd like to drop by for some tofu salad.

My operating system, by default, will not refuse free food. Then there're several programmes running that add qualifiers like, "Does it have meat?", "Am I even really hungry?", and "Is it sweet (if yes, then no)?" But the operating system's running the "accept any food" algorithm the whole time, and sometimes I run out of virtual memory, and then that directive is all I've got to go on.

Anyway, I figured, the tofu salad might simply spackle the couple empty spots.

However, I'd probably misheard my mother, because the meal ended up being the salad, two kinds of paddy looking things, soup, and chips with guacamole. The bitch of it all was that it was good stuff, but I could barely choke down half of it.

I was sorrier at 3am, though, when this stupid body reminded me that us organisms have to eat at intervals No Matter What. And I had to settle for two miniature microwave burritos.

I was playing Baldur's Gate at the time. I've been itching for a game with an interesting plot with well written characters and dialogue since Fallout 2. So I borrowed Baldur's Gate from Tim, figuring since both it and Fallout 2 were from Black Isle, they'd share some writing quality. No such luck.

Either the writers are different, or the Fallout 2 writers' skills were neutralised by the Forgotten Realms environment. The dialogue is so awful as to be awesome. It deserves an award for "Most Gratuitous Misuse of a Thesaurus" with lines like, "There are a plethora of people going through the woods," and, "It's a mistake to think I'd trust your benevolence!"

And I think the Lord of the Rings movies have ruined at least one thing for the AD&D worlds--it doesn't wash to hear American voices speaking in faux Middle English. No longer may Ed from the corner drugstore play Sir Gawain.

There's a free episode of South Park online (it's Quicktime). I guess it's kind of a "fuck you" to Tom Cruise, who's prevented broadcasting of the episode in Britain. The episode makes fun of Scientology and makes an oblique, but lengthy crack at the man's supposed closeted homosexuality.

Personally, I've never really found the idea that Tom Cruise might be secretly gay to be particularly funny. Mostly it just reminds me of the guys passing him on the street in Eyes Wide Shut calling him a faggot--it just seems kind of immature, and provoked by the fact that he's handsome, but not as particularly macho as other pretty leading men of his generation.

But I do think it's stupid how angry he gets over the jokes, which may also be the real point of the South Park episode. And I do agree with Stan's assessment of his acting ability--I don't think Cruise is a bad actor, but John Heder probably is a little better.

As for the Scientology stuff, Matt and Trey really seemed to be just phoning it in. It's not as funny as the Hubologists from Fallout 2--the South Park episode basically relies on actual facts of Scientology to be funny by themselves. Matt and Trey used to be more inventive. I wish they'd retire, before the show shares The Simpsons' fate.

I love Firefly.

A little over a year ago, long before I'd seen any Firefly, I talked to a guy at school who I knew was a fan.

I said to him, "From what I've heard, it sounds a bit like . . . Cowboy Bebop?"

And his face subtly fell. I could tell he was used to telling people how innovative this series was, and suddenly he realised he couldn't think of significant differences between it and Cowboy Bebop. But what he said to me was, "No . . . Firefly's pretty much a drama."

I let it go at that, even though I knew Cowboy Bebop was not a comedy series. But I thought about it as I finally got around to watching Firefly a few weeks ago. And yes, it's a lot like Cowboy Bebop. As I continued to watch the series, I couldn't help but check off similarities, and places where one was better than the other;

They're both combinations of Space Operas and Westerns. In both, characters usually speak one language, but can slip into another on occasion (in Firefly, it's English and Chinese, and in Cowboy Bebop, it's Japanese and English). The respective central space ships, Bebop and Serenity, even look a little alike.

A Firefly episode is roughly twice the length of a Cowboy Bebop episode, so you get a more intimate feel for the characters. The characters are also a lot more affectionate with each other, which is kind of sweet, and there're more of them.

But Cowboy Bebop easily defeats Firefly in terms of visuals. Mars on Bebop, which combines jumbled Tokyo-like modern city with familiar empty red Mars landscape, monorails, and very vital, complicated crowds, easily overshadows Firefly's big cities, such as the one seen in "Ariel", which are neat, but grey, and seem populated by twelve to twenty television extras. But partly to blame for that must be the budget limitations of a live-action television series.

I also have to admit I got tired of how similar most of the planets on Firefly looked. I know it's in keeping with the western theme, and maybe it makes sense if all the planets are terraformed by the same technology, but it all looks a lot like empty fields a few miles from here. I guess the fact that I live in southern California biases me on that score.

It highlights an advantage Farscape had in being produced in Australia, with its wider variety of locations in a small area.

I loved the characters and writing on Firefly. Inara felt kind of stiff most of the time, but in instances where she didn't have to play formal, unconvincing Lady of Elegance, and just be a girl, she was good. I was able to remember why I liked Morena Baccarin as Black Canary on Justice League.

Kaylee was adorable, and the actress playing her continually found interesting ways of making her lines effective. Nathan Fillian as Mal was good, except his jaw line always seemed a little too soft to me. But that really didn't bother me a whole lot. I never did really warm to Simon, as I thought I might, but the actor doesn't do a bad job. It's not his fault if I think his face is weirdly lumpy.

Summer Glau was good as River, and is probably a big part of why her character worked, which is the sort of character I think is a lot more difficult to make credible than a person planning a series might assume. It's hard to make crazy talk without sounding very contrived, and actually, they didn't always succeed with River. Especially when she was under the pen of writers who Joss Whedon probably purposefully left in the dark regarding River's true nature.

But she was really good in the last episode, versus the bounty hunter who was apparently an homage to Boba Fett, complete with his own Slave 1. I knew he was a bounty hunter from the moment I saw the shape of his ship. However, his character was obviously more complex than Boba Fett, and genuinely threatening when it came to Kaylee. Which was why it was a shame he lost a bit of his gravity in his dialogue with Simon.

Overall, it's a lovely series.

I wish I had some gloves. Mittens, even. Or thick gloves with the fingers cut off--I'd feel very Blade Runner, then.

Now, I know that compared to where most of you lot are now, this temperature around me is practically the surface of the sun. But I think it's rather cold, and I seem to be one of the only ones around here who seriously thinks so.

I've got layers of clothes piled on me, but my bare hands have become floppy frozen hamburger paddies.

I ate breakfast at Einstein bagels again this morning. No one knows how to act in there anymore--the counter spreads pretty symmetrically across a corner of the shop, and they've removed the "Order Here" sign. So I might be blissfully daydreaming in the queue, free to ignore the corporeal world, when I notice a fierce redheaded businesswoman giving me bristly indignant glances as she shuffles from the opposite direction.

But I have the old knowledge. I know where the order sign used to be. And I see that ordering and paying still goes generally in the same order. But do the employees correct anyone? No, they just take 'em as they come, from whatever direction they come, and my somnolent routine is disrupted.

The queue is strange as a social venue. There's an unspoken protocol, and a narrow avenue for unspoken confrontation.

At the bank, I usually read a book while waiting, and to-day I had Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Five of Cups. Next to me, an athletic girl in a short, bright blue nylon skirt and an oversized white t-shirt seemed unsatisfied that I could monitor the progress of the queue and read at the same time. Subtle body language conveyed this--from the rhythm with which she edged closer to me, to her rigid trajectory.

But do not get me started on they who can't actually stay in queue, but think they are when they're standing well off to your right, left, two people ahead of where they're supposed to be, and leaning on the counter. An old woman dressed in black behind me, upon noticing such antics displayed by someone in front of me, remarked that such a thing never happened in New York.

I think the secret to San Diego's social malaise is its artificial easy attitude. People like to think they're laid back, but they're really just trying to cut in line. That's what I says, and I'm an anti-social recluse. So there, yeah.

I learned of the draw Batgirl meme through Robyn's journal.

Here's my version;



She'll fuck you up, man.

I looked at a bunch of pictures of bats, thinking about how I was going to do this thing. It terms of colours, I think I based it on a lot of the more harmless bats. So it's the girl half that's dangerous, naturally.

Truthiness to power.

See how you feel about the new Boschen and Nesuko chapter.

I'm dedicating this chapter to Jessica Rabbit, for reasons less obvious than you might think.

Ai, ai, ai. Just watched Dead Ringers for the first time in a long time. Gods, I love Cronenberg. Sure, the idea of twin gynaecologists going mad and one of them creating some evil looking "instruments for mutant women" is a bit disturbing in itself. But there's something subtler about Cronenberg's style that gets under my skin so nicely. Something that has purely to with angles and editing--the bare bones, to which the subject matter is almost secondary.

I got the Criterion edition of Dead Ringers, which has been out of print for a while, so I had to order it used from Amazon. But it's worth it, knowing I have the Cronenberg commentary that's not on the newer edition.

Cronenberg does a good commentary. He's articulate, intelligent, and doesn't merely point out obvious things. Some commentaries are critics who seem to assume I've decided my first ever viewing of the film would be with their commentary, so they give me the play by play; "Here's Jimmy Stewart . . . He's playing the lead in the movie . . . Now watch what happens here . . . Neat, huh?"

Then there's the other end of the spectrum, like Marian Keane's commentary for Notorious, which really tells you more about Marian Keane than it does Notorious. I'm sorry, Marian, but a transitional shot that happens to feature a grandfather clock is probably not meant to be a penis.

But, then, it could be anyway. I saw an interview with Hitchcock's daughter where she talked about taking a film class where her father's movies were being similarly overanalysed. She went home asking her father if he really meant to put all that in his movies. He told her, of course not, but people are allowed to see whatever they like in the movies, and it pleases him.

Anyway, Cronenberg's commentaries are generally good. I liked an anecdote he related on the Videodrome commentary about an exchange he overheard between Deborah Harry and James Woods--Woods had to wear an uncomfortable, large prosthetic over his stomach of a vertical lesion in his pseudo-flesh. It was so uncomfortable that he griped to Harry one day, "I've ceased to be an actor and have become the bearer of the slit." To which Harry replied, "Now you know how it feels."

It's been a good Christmas for movies, a lot of which, actually, have commentaries I'm looking forward to listening to; Brazil, Star Trek II, The Circus, the Star Wars trilogy, the 1950 King Solomon's Mines, Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, and Akira Kurosawa's Ran. I haven't had time to watch any yet except Beauty and the Beast, which I intend to watch again, both because the movie wants to be watched again, and because I've been borrowing Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast production diary from Marty for over a year now, and it strikes me that this would be an excellent time to read it, especially as I've just finished the previous book I was reading.

I also reread King Lear in preparation for Ran (which is based on the play). This is the Criterion edition I've just gotten, and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the 42 inch screen. I have an older DVD edition of the film that isn't formatted for widescreen televisions, and since it's a movie in which Kurosawa consciously avoided close-ups, I think as large a viewing as possible would improve the film substantially.

I also went on a small CD binge, getting Charlie Parker's With Strings album, Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, and two Oingo Boingo CDs. I'd been wanting more of the Boingo since Trisa played a collection of theirs on our trip back from San José, but, unfortunately, I'd only been able to find collections for the longest time. I don't like collections--they lack the structure of proper albums, and buying them usually means you end up buying most of the songs multiple times. But I found Only a Lad and Nothing to Fear for rather good prices, and I am pleased with them.

Damn. I forgot about Broken Flowers and Howl's Moving Castle. Years are too damn long.

Okay, the revised list;

1. Munich
2. A History of Violence
3. Broken Flowers
4. Serenity
5. Sin City
6. Brokeback Mountain
7. Grizzly Man
8. Revenge of the Sith
9. Howl's Moving Castle
10. Batman Begins

So now it's an even ten. Okay.

At last, a day stretching before me with almost nothing I need to do. I've been itching to post about movies I've seen lately, but Christmas put me quite behind on Boschen and Nesuko, so I've been drawing like mad all week. I'm nonetheless basically happy with the chapter as it stands, even though I changed it significantly as the week progressed. Sometimes I wonder if I oughta settle down on Boschen and Nesuko and simply write it as one of the sorts of stories it seems to be in certain chapters, but I get a certain glee from watching it hop genres.

Anyway, Caitlin posted a list of her favourite movies of 2005. Here's mine, of what I've seen--though it ought to be noted that I still have not seen King Kong;

1. Munich
2. A History of Violence
3. Serenity
4. Sin City
5. Brokeback Mountain
6. Grizzly Man
7. Revenge of the Sith
8. Batman Begins

Munich

Rarely have I left a movie theatre feeling more pleased. This is the most unsentimental Spielberg movie I've seen and I love it.

It's also the second best spy movie I've ever seen (Notorious is still #1). Mainly because it never falls into the two big spy movie traps--it never gets the dry bird's eye view of the political world and it's games (like a Tom Clancy movie), and it never treats itself like it's fake (like a James Bond movie).

Spielberg shows that the biggest influence on him as a filmmaker is probably Alfred Hitchcock, whether he likes it or not, because the main reason this movie works so well is that we see everything from Avner(Eric Bana)'s point of view. The stuff about Israelis and Palestinians is interesting, and always played intelligently without Spielberg giving a heavy hand to either argument, but instead allowing things to sit out in the light; cold, bloody, and tragic. But the presence of those details is important mostly because they enhance Avner's story;

Munich is about rationally deciding to kill for something you love, and then continuing to kill because it continues to seem like the most rational course action, and then waking up one day and realising you're a creature whose entire life is wrapped around killing others and avoiding getting killed yourself. The movie shows the strange deletion of beautiful, seemingly integral parts of the human perception. There are some critics saying this movie has a lot of fat to be trimmed, but I wouldn't remove a single thing. The reviewer at CHUD claims there's too much of the business of killing in the middle, but what I saw was a movie seamlessly moving through amazing action sequences to create the feeling of Avner's mind realigning to the new conception of life. Not just becoming good at killing but learning how vulnerable everyone is to a bomb under the bed, or in the telephone.

Here's a movie that says we've lost innocence and goodness, we're probably never gonna get 'em back, and no-one knows any solutions.

A History of Violence

I thought of this movie a couple times while watching Munich. They're both brilliant movies about the function of violence on our world, the effects it has on our lives, and whether or not it's worth those effects.

I talked about the movie in this post.

Serenity

I talked about it here.

I've since watched the first five episodes of Firefly and, while I love the Joss Whedon written episodes, the others are only good. There was a ballroom scene in the episode called Shindig where Inara really didn't come off but Kaylee was adorable and it was somehow fun seeing everyone playing with what was essentially a standard ball from a 1930s or 40s Western.

Sin City

I talked about it here.

I've since gotten the extended edition, which is really nice, since it isolates the stories as their own short films. Now I can skip That Yellow Bastard with a clear conscience. I'm finding The Big Fat Kill has grown on me quite a bit, especially since I've read A Dame to Kill For. Really looking forward to the next movie.

Brokeback Mountain

Gorgeously shot, with Crouching Tiger-ish views of vast, mist shrouded mountains. Well acted with an endearingly subtle, grumpy performance from Ledger, and a charmingly Marlboro-ish Jake Gyllenhaal.

The premise of a love that everyone in the world forbids, yet persists anyway, is obviously the makings of a great tragic romance. Or a cheesy one. It's to Ang Lee's credit more than anyone else's that it is definitely the former.

The characters are real and complex and the movie, though it looks beautiful, never goes for the decadent and operatic, choosing instead to seemingly allow the real feelings speak for themselves.

Of his motivation to make movies of wildly different subject matter, Lee often says that he's mainly attracted to stories of people trying to adjust to a world changing around them while not accepting them. And that was one of two things about Brokeback Mountain that reminded me of John Huston's The Misfits. The other thing being that The Misfits took place in relatively the same period in relatively the same society. It's not hard at all to imagine Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist competing with Montgomery Clift's Perce Howland at the rodeo.

And while The Misfits is about free spirited cowboys being broken by capitalism, and a divorcee being broken by the impermanence of love, Brokeback Mountain is about two men being gay in the middle of what could be one of the worst possible cultures to be gay in. And that's made clear by a flashback Ledger's character has of an old man being beaten to death for just maybe being gay.

It's a good, beautiful film. And yes, damnit, it's a little sad. Why is it I feel like I'm the only person I know who likes sad movies? Anyway . . .

Grizzly Man

Talked about it here. I gots to see more Herzog movies . . .

Revenge of the Sith

I still like it, bitches. I talked about it in this post.

Batman Begins

I said things about it in this post. For some reason I don't feel much like getting the DVD. I'm not sure why. You know, I don't get a hankering to re-watch Memento very often, either.

Don't eat lasagne before, while, or after reading the new Boschen and Nesuko chapter.

Ah, and, again, I recommend signing up for Caitlin R Kiernan's Sirenia Digest. It'll knock your socks off.

"That is how we say goodbye in Austria."

Just a reminder . . .

I feel like someone's scrubbed behind my eyes with a dirty little mop. Because Christmas day is all about frantic, tight schedules wherein many are angered if I fall out of step, I've taken the sleep upset Thursday and used it to quickly alter my sleeping schedule--I went to bed at 8am or so on Thursday, as usual, and then got up three hours later for the maids, as usual. Only this time I didn't go back to sleep when the maids were gone. Thus enabling me to go to sleep at around 8:30pm Thursday, and awaken to-day at around . . . 3:30am. Well, it was the best I could do. It just feels so strange sleeping at night; however sleep deprived I was, every time I woke up, I felt like I ought to leap out of bed and do something.

So I wasn't good for much that was very complicated yesterday. The two pages of Boschen and Nesuko script I wrote only demonstrated to me how boring I am when I'm sleepy. So I have a lot to do to-day, particularly since I wanna get ahead a bit.

Anyway, Merry Cephalopodmas.

The latest reason why it's legally irrefutable that Bush belongs in prison.

Wouldn't it be nice if something came of it for once?

I've seen The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And there's a very simple way to tell you why this movie doesn't work:

To-day's audiences are too jaded and emotionally atrophied for the real The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's my belief that everything that's wrong with the movie--say, 81.7% of it--can be traced back to that problem. This was not the time for The Chronicles of Narnia to be made major motion pictures.

It's really too bad, too, because, at one time, Disney would've been the perfect studio to make The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Imagine if the folks that made Snow White had done this? That might have been beautiful.

I will say I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I was going to. I mostly liked the actors, and I was particularly surprised by how much I liked Lucy, who is very good, except when she cries, but I won't moan about that as it's probably hard to get convincing crying out of child actors, even generally good ones. I liked Edmund and his perpetual frown that reminded me of Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures. I liked the beavers--they were fun and engaging, almost exactly like they were in the book. I adored Tilda Swinton as the witch--she was threatening, beautiful, and cunning. I bet a lot of people left the theatre wishing she'd won (I know I did). I loved the design of the armour and costumes. Richard Taylor's team prove once again that they are brilliant at crafting these things. The colour schemes are very different from the Lord of the Rings costumes, with silvery armour and bright red, blue, and green tunics. It reminded me a lot of the Technicolor Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn, which, to my mind, is the absolutely perfect note to strike with this material.

But my absolute favourite part of the movie was when Lucy came across the lamp post and met Tumnus. It was the only time in the movie where I actually sort of felt like I was looking at Narnia.

And the interaction between Tumnus and Lucy is, I suspect, one of the few pieces of the story that Andrew Adamson was able to connect with enough to actually put some heart into. It's also why the beavers worked--these were both Shrek-like bits; animals and mythical creatures talking absurdly like familiar humans, to humorous effect.

As for what I didn't like, I'll start at the beginning;

I'd heard a long time ago about Adamson deciding to make the opening scene be the bombing of London by Nazi Germany during World War II, even though this is not in the book, nor does the book begin on even remotely the same foot. When I first heard about it, I thought perhaps Adamson was trying to suggest that Narnia was in fact a means through which the children are coping with their experience of real war, with real death. I don't know if I'd necessarily mind such a story, but such a story is not The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The book's a fantasy, yes, but such a manoeuvre with the movie would be to make a fantasy within a fantasy--essentially, it would be assuming the audience is too jaded and emotionally atrophied to take fantasy at face value. They'd need it justified with a reality check, a VH1's behind the scenes this-is-what-we're-literally-saying device, nothing so eloquent as actual art, thank you.

Now, having seen the movie, I'm not sure Adamson's intent was anything so complicated. What the opening scene actually felt like was a sucker punch. Like Adamson felt the movie needed a big opening, and he needed to throw in the trauma of the childrens' separation from their mother, which we get in the following scene where they part at the train station. It felt like a cheap trick to get us emotionally involved, but it didn't work at all because we don't know the characters yet, and the shots of the bombing are terrifically dull. For one thing, it begins in the air with the German planes, then cuts to the interior of one of their cockpits. Since the shots aren't particularly interesting, and look fake, and the pilot is pretty anonymous in his mask, we don't really have a point of view yet, so the effect is somewhat inferior to what stock footage of actual WWII planes might have been.

And beginning the movie with emotional trauma is just a bad idea, as I think Lewis could have pointed out. He didn't begin the book that way, and with good reason--kids are resilient and not usually accustomed to grief and horrific stress. You really have to take them through it; you can't just drop them right in, particularly when your uncommunicative filmmaking style isn't helping.

The professor's house is introduced decently enough, and at this point in the movie, I was making a concerted effort to not be bothered, since I wasn't sure yet whether my chafing from the opening wasn't due to preconceptions. I was really watching Lucy because I remembered not much liking the look of her in the trailer. What's interesting is I don't feel like I actually got a look at her until after she went through the wardrobe. The scenes of the children in the mansion involve some sub-par dialogue and some very quick cuts, which reminded me of a quote I'd heard of Sergio Leone saying about the movies he saw in his youth never giving you time to actually look at the stars' faces. Leone, of course, was known for his long close up shots, so maybe his perspective was peculiar, but it's movies like this that give me an idea of how he must have felt.

The introduction of the White Witch was good--as I said, Swinton was a goddess on screen. But her dwarf henchman, described as hideous in the book, was far too cute, and made the audience giggle far too much.

It was nice seeing the kids deliver Lewis dialogue at Tumnus's house, where Edmund argues that Tumnus was a criminal, and we know why he would say that, and it's subtle character stuff. But those spots dissolve far too quickly into dumbed-down one liners.

One of the movie's biggest problems is that Aslan aggressively doesn't work. He looks very cartoonish, is introduced rather off-handedly, and we never sense the grandeur of Aslan as we do in the book, mostly because I don't think Adamson even began to know how to pull it off. I feel bad for the lion during the stone table scene, but only because I wouldn't want to see that happen to anyone, and absent is the shock of seeing the mighty Aslan so dressed-down. It made me a little uncomfortable, as though I was sitting through the funeral of a complete stranger.

The battle sequence at the end fails miserably, as Adamson attempts weakly to find a middle ground between modern, action war epics, and the unabashedly fairy tale quality of the story. It could have worked, but what it needed was a new vision, one that could interpret the fairy tale battle to moving pictures, instead of imitating Braveheart and The Lord of the Rings. There are several shots that are almost replicas of ones from Lord of the Rings, such as a minotaur standing on a rock, waving his hordes forward. Or the first clash of the armies, which looks identical to the warg battle in The Two Towers.

Again and again, I was impressed by the fact that Adamson wasn't up to this. There were too many obvious day-for-night shots, which Peter Jackson doggedly avoided, going so far as to do a month of night shoots for Helm's Deep. It's particularly bad in the stone table scene, where the table is obviously on a sound stage, with complete darkness outside the ring of torches, while Susan and Lucy are clearly looking on from a completely different, outdoor location, which glows blue with the lens filter. When the girls are finally at Aslan's side, on the table set, green screen is used to put the location shot in the background.

I was astonished by how many obviously artificial backgrounds there were in this movie, where there very clearly didn't need to be. One shot had Peter artificially placed in front of his tent. I mean, just a canvas wall, for gods' sakes! Adamson, if you can't plan ahead properly, then at least have the mivonks to do proper pick-ups once in a while.

Anyway, it was, after all, Adamson's first live-action movie, and only his third movie of any kind. All he'd done before were the Shrek movies, the success of which, of course, brought him this project.

I've only seen the first Shrek, and I liked it. But what made that movie good? Sly, post modernist humour. The sort that connects with--yes--a jaded and emotionally atrophied audience. I'm not suggesting it's bad. Not at all. Merely that it's almost the polar opposite of the unabashed, earnest fantasy of the Narnia books. Which also makes Narnia the polar opposite of what audiences these days are open to.

So. Maybe we can try again in twenty or thirty years . . .

Oh, yeah, and now guys can see if they measure up to Heath, penis-wise. This'll be the last genitalia related post for a while, I promise.

So, the other day I was craving vagina and a visit to Innsmouth. A few minutes ago, reading issue # 1 of Caitlin R. Kiernan's Sirienia Digest, I just about got all I wanted. Beautiful words conjuring sex, surgery, and strange sea things. That's what I call an evening well spent. If you're looking to have good evenings, I recommend subscribing.

Actually, I suppose it's morning for most people, now isn't it? I suppose I ought to make some attempt at sleeping earlier since I have about four Christmas presents left to buy.

In the real evening of . . . what day was it?--Sunday! On Sunday night I read this interview with Richard Taylor of Weta workshop--those of you who've watched the special features on the Lord of the Rings disks may remember him as the New Zealander with the peculiarly monotonous voice and Harry Potter glasses. Sounds like he's really eager to make an Evangelion movie, and he's eager to get the right director *cough*Peter Jackson*cough*.

I do believe it's possible for the Evangelion story to be made into a great live-action movie. But I think it'd be extremely easy to screw up, too, so I hope Taylor's earnestness has sufficient influence over ADV. Yes, I advocate influence, hahahahaha!

You may've noticed that Adult Swim's been showing Evangelion lately. Part of me's happy that the show might be getting a bigger audience, but another part of me resents that so many people'll be seeing the show for the first time in its English dubbed format. Like all anime series I've ever seen, Evangelion is horribly dubbed. I don't know what the hell the problem is, except every show seems to be dubbed by the same four or five reekingly incompetent actors. My guess is some translation studio executive is pocketing money that could be spent on a better dubbing budget.

On another subject; what do Mulholland Drive, King Kong(2005), and Ellie Parker all have in common? They all star Naomi Watts as a struggling actress. Think about it, won't you?

Don't be influenced, bitch!

Some people are so fucking stupid, they do shit like putting their fists into their mouths and letting their friends dress them in different outfits. How fucking dumb, man!

How about you? Are you a brainless fucking idiot? Well, are ya? Are you fucking high right now? You spineless little shit!

Why can't you be Above the Influence! Right now, there's a league of strong, clean, magnificent boys and girls. Their hair is shiny and blows freely and gracefully in the winds of the strong Utopia. For they are strong men, and strong women.

Do you wash your genitals in marijuana soap? Now, I know that ain't how your mommy and daddy showed you to wash.

At Above the Influence, our mission is not to pressure you, merely to teach you how to be clean and strong, like a Super person.

A new Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up. I coloured the last five pages to-day. That was a lot of hours. I really need to stick to colouring every day . . .

Damnit, my hopes just shot way up.

At the very least, Studio Ghibli will treat Earthsea better than Sci-Fi channel. And, you know, if Goro's style is anything like his father's, this could be a perfect marriage. Earthsea could do with the slower, more contemplatively beautiful style.

The true meaning of Superman.

Ah, back on the old schedule. I didn't manage to get to sleep until 7:30am or so.

Instead of counting sheep, I like to play a variation of Degrees of Separation in my head--I pick two seemingly wildly disparate names from the movies and connect them. I went through several this morning, but I was proudest somehow of connecting William H. Macy with John Gilbert.

William H. Macy was in Fargo with Steve Buscemi, who was in Big Fish directed by Tim Burton, who directed Jack Nicholson in Batman. Jack Nicholson was in Terms of Endearment with Shirley MacLaine, who was also in The Children's Hour with Miriam Hopkins. Hopkins was in Trouble in Paradise, directed by Ernst Lubitsh, who also directed Ninotchka starring Greta Garbo. Greta Garbo starred in Queen Christina with John Gilbert.

There're probably closer connexions than that, but I like to think of interesting ones. I did think of some nicer ones, like connecting Selma Blair with D.W. Griffith (Selma Blair-John Hurt-Anthony Hopkins-Katharine Hepburn-John Huston-Marilyn Monroe-Billy Wilder-Charles Laughton-Lillian Gish-D.W. Griffith).

I've been listening to a lot of audio commentaries while drawing lately. A couple days ago, I listened to Brian Singer and Newton Thomas Sigel's (cinemtographer) commentary for X-Men 2. It's a sad thing to listen to as they discuss quite enthusiastically some of the things they hope to do with X-Men 3. Oh, why did Superman have to come along? And why did the people at Fox have to be such dicks?

So when I finished drawing last night, I watched X-Men on the big 42-inch television. I'm pleased by how rewatchable those movies are--the actors and sets all work together so well, it feels like returning to a favourite television series.

I've mainly just been rewatching movies lately, mostly because VHS tapes don't seem to work on the flat screen television. I finally got around to buying the Indiana Jones collection on DVD. It'd been a long time since I'd watched any of them in any format, especially Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I don't believe I'd watched since I was age 15 or 16. There's such a natural flow of action and fun and danger in that movie that it is, when you step back from it, awe-inspiring. When you're in the middle of enjoying it, of course, you just feel happy and absorbed.

I think I enjoyed the second movie almost as much, although in different ways. But I was surprised and dismayed by how disappointed I was by the third movie. It's as though invention ended with the poor reception of Temple of Doom, replaced by a desire to produce a Well Made Indiana Jones movie. And to be sure, The Last Crusade is well made in a lot of ways. There's definite evidence of a more technically adept Steven Spielberg than the one who directed Raiders of the Lost Ark. I sense the earlier Spielberg probably couldn't have handled the Venice boat chase. And yet I never felt as engaged by any of the action sequences as I did by the ones of the previous films--though, make no mistake, I did enjoy them. In fact, the boat chase and the motorcycle chase were two of the highlights of the movie for me, in no small part due to John Williams' score. I love the theme he composed for "Chasing after the Joneses." And I admit I didn't like the overuse of the Raiders’ march at the beginning of Temple of Doom.

And yet, it really didn't bother me because the beginning of Temple of Doom is so damn wonderful. One spectacular surprise after another is pulled out of a hat. And then, it gets better because the movie gets grim. I mean, it's Temple of Doom that most gives the feeling of Indy-as-unlikely-hero. You're talking about one little archaeologist up against a big, really menacing Kali cult, and he's not just trying to get away from them. No, he's going to steal diamonds and try to save a bunch of brutalised kids. It could easily have felt sappy and fake, yet you really get the feeling of a big damned Temple of Doom casting a shadow.

Now, again, there are elements of Last Crusade I like. In spite of the fact that I think bringing in Indy's father was a bad idea, and that Indy essentially becomes a different, less interesting character around his father, I do like the dialogue they have on the airship; "We never talked." "Well, I'm here now . . . what do you want to talk about?" "heh . . . I can't think of anything . . ." "Than what are you complaining about?" Much better than just a few minutes later when Indy, after revealing his limited knowledge of flying, is startled to find that his father thinks he's talking about time when he yells, "Eleven O'clock!" Oh, that old chestnut. Did we have multiple, un-credited writers for this movie? Yes, we did.

But what really bothers me about the third movie is the last act. Suddenly it's about whether Indy believes in Santa Claus and Angels and love and it just soggily sucks. I mean, the Ark in the first film worked on God juice and I didn't care. It was great--melting faces, physical peril, and MacGuffin. It's a good show, because what's interesting is whether Indy and Marian escape and get the MacGuffin and what and how. Not whether or not Indy can bring himself to believe in God.

Even invoking Siiva in the second movie, it was fine because it was bloody cool.

Anyway, all this has made me lot less eager to see the fourth movie, if they ever do get their act together on it. And my belief that Schindler's List and Jurrassic Park ought to've actually been back-to-back Indiana Jones movies has sort of been reaffirmed.

I was looking at the top 100 lists of the highest grossing films of all time, adjusted and unadjusted for inflation, and I noticed that in the unadjusted section, Return of the Jedi beats The Empire Strikes Back, while in the adjusted section, it's the other way around. There are some other, even more severe examples than that. Number three seems to be the weird one on both lists; Shrek 2 and The Sound of Music? And where the hell's Casablanca? And what the hell's Sergeant York doing on that list?

A new Boschen and Nesuko chapter's up. "Read" it slowly.

Happy Thanksgiving, people. At dinner last night (I had two Thanksgiving dinners!), everyone said what they were thankful for. The only thing I could think of was, "The internet."

So now I'm strangely sleepy. I may stop making sense, because I'm so sleepy, or because I've been reading Robyn's Evil Podiatrist.

This evening was spent with my sister decorating my mom's white Christmas tree with Fruit Loop colour lights. My mother wanted a tree different from every previous year. Personally, I still prefer green trees with red and gold decorations. Call me old fashioned. In fact I am.

Oh, yes, I like Christmas. In fact, this year promises to have a more Christmassy Christmas for me than usual. Because somehow, Christmas for me has always felt connected to vacuous, unknown territories, perhaps with tall robed figures chanting in the shadows.

I saw Walk the Line to-day. Joaquin Phoenix did a good job, especially considering he really didn't resemble Johnny Cash, particularly not in the late 1960s. But he did a good job emulating Cash's voice.

The story goes through the usual rock star biography waypoints, without ever truly painting complex people on its canvas--some childhood trauma, surprise success, divorce, drugs, love affair, getting clean . . . etcetera. The movie went to some pains to explain and make excuses for characters' motives. Sometimes I tried figuring out how the true events differed from the fiction, as when Cash's young children walk in on him screaming at his first wife wall pinning her on the floor. This was preceded--out of the children’s' view--by a standard sort of yelling argument. I had to wonder if maybe the movie version is a child's glossed-over memory of seeing her father rape her mother.

Robert Patrick was good as Johnny's father. Although the filmmaker's reticence to use age prosthetic makeup was a little disconcerting as everyone looked the same age from 1945 to 1970, except when Johnny was played by a child actor. This means that Johnny looked older than his mother in the scene where he was leaving home to enlist in the Air Force.

Time for more coffee . . .

On C-SPAN, there's a Catholic Priest, Rev. George Coyne of the Vatican Observatory, speaking against Intelligent Design and speaking in favour of keeping scientific theories unfettered by religion. He's showing some slides about evolution, and said at one point, "There are some who would draw their own conclusions. I prefer to draw my own ignorance." Amen. What's so hard about that? If a Catholic Priest doesn't have to bring his god into science, why the hell must our schools?

So here I am back in San Diego. I've been back a few days, surprised at how odd it feels, and at how much I need to regain the sea legs for my familiar vessels. There're some tumultuous things going on around here. My parents' house seems to be falling apart. More could be said about that.

I'm supposed to get to work on the new Boschen and Nesuko script to-day, which means I'm going to need to reign together the fifty or so ideas I feel compelled to pummel the reader with in this chapter. But I'm sort of looking forward to the challenge. What I'm not looking forward to is figuring out how to colour it. Some of you may've noticed that the new chapter is coloured darker than any previous--and many of you may have found it to be the first that didn't look somewhat washed out. This is because of the aforementioned monitor problem--on my big, boxy CRT, the new chapter's hard to see, but all previous chapters look richer and more nuanced than they do on the new flat panel monitors everyone else in the world apparently has.

I'm a little at a loss how to proceed in the next chapter. I'm thinking I might raise the brightness in the gamma correction menu, but doing that seems to give everything a green tinge that I can't seem to neutralise by adjusting the RGB values--sometimes I think I get it, but then look at something and realise it's suddenly completely the wrong colour, both for my customary monitor setting, and for what I remember of Trisa's. I may do a page and then see how it looks on Tim's monitor. It could be slow-going on a chapter that already promises to be complicated.

Anyway, if anyone has an opinion on this, do speak.

Hoy. A new Boschen and Nesuko chapter is online a day early. Again. Don't get used to this.

Really, I'm very amazed I actually got through it. Working on it was ridiculously difficult with all the sneezing and other allergy related things I was kept busy doing. Ugh. So I'm going back to sleep . . .

I finally saw the 1983 version of Scarface last night. And, I must say that, although I liked Brian DePalma's version, I much prefer the 1932 Howard Hawks version.

To those of you who know my preference for pre-mid 1960s aesthetics, that's not a surprise. But there were other things, besides the sets and costumes, that I felt were superior in the original version.

For one thing, Hawks simply had a better instinct for setting up shots. The DePalma version has a number of good shots, but in between them there're mostly just good-enough compositions.

But, more than any thing else, the ending of the original version was terrifically superior. And I'll tell you why I think so, so there be spoilers ahead.

For one thing, the sister lasts a little longer in the original version. She and Tony actually make up, which, coming right after he's murdered her new husband, seems to better underline the subtly incestuous vibe between the two. That it happens while they're both under fire from the police, that she's furiously helping him reload his weapons, adds to a sort of flames of hell atmosphere.

The way Tony's killed in the 1932 version also packs considerably more emotional punch. To be fair, it wouldn't quite have worked in 1983, because the original version's ending hinged more on the audience being unused to police being portrayed as fallible in drama. When Tony's gunned down by cops, it gives you a subtle feeling that, underneath, maybe no-one's really "right" in this world.

Tony being killed by his rivals in the drug trade is simply what one would expect to happen. Moreover, the final scene feels as though it would fit comfortably into Die Hard, or Predator, or another psychologically light 80s action flick. It is fun, but doesn't feel half as tragic as the 1932 version.

Pacino gives a great performance. He exudes an authoritative menace, even when he's still small time. Muni did, too, and actually I wouldn't say that one performance was better than the other. They were both very good.

Anyway, there's a kitten sleeping on my lap right now. adopted her a couple days ago and, after more that twenty four hours of deliberation, has named her Beatrix. A very sweet, well behaved kitten, too. She gets rambunctious, but has thus far not destroyed anything. She likes to crawl on top of my head while I'm watching a movie, but she's discovered that I'm a hard man to distract from a movie.

The November 5 chapter of Boschen and Nesuko is online to-day, a day early. Just because I wanted it to be.

So here I am at Trisa's. I've been here since Sunday and it's been a generally nice visit so far.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much for us to do in regards to celebrating Halloween. Neither of us had thought to get candy for the Trick-or-Treaters that showed up. We had to turn away a polite little girl dressed as a princess, a little girl dressed as Harley Quinn, and a bunch of noisy and annoying little boys. But Trisa did have some Halloween ravioli in her freezer, which was dyed with squid ink, which I had not known was edible. I'd now like to try a bowl of it.

I managed to do a Boschen and Nesuko page here yesterday, dispelling my fears in that regard. The only problem I can see so far is that the pages all look a lot different on this monitor--much, much brighter. They look brighter and sort of washed out, as they also look on Tim's monitor. It leads me to think that perhaps the monitor I've been working with is too dim, and I find myself thinking about strangely dark pictures I've seen friends post in their blogs.

Personally, I think these flat screens are showing far less subtlety. The careful texturing I did for Nesuko's hair is almost completely invisible on some pages now. And panels that I had coloured thinking that they would be almost entirely black are now easily discernable greyish blue shapes.

Ah . . . c'est la vie. At least it doesn't look silly. For consistency's sake, I'll adhere to the old colour palettes, but it's going to be a little tricky with this monitor.

Last night, I saw a promo for the new crappy children's movie, Zathura. The promo was using music from Requiem for a Dream. Some incongruities just tickle me. True, Requiem for a Dream music was used for Two Towers promos, but this is much better.

I see from the imdb entry that Zathura is distinguished by having yet another shitty David Koepp screenplay.

So, Trisa and I are leaving in an hour and a half. I'm a little worried about Boschen and Nesuko, as this'll be the first time I've had to work on an update at another location. Hopefully no unexpected calamity shall arise.

I was captivated last night by this Off to War show. It seems to be a reality series about American soldiers in Iraq. I say reality series instead of documentary because it seems somewhat aimed at the Real World crowd, with its interview style and unfortunate John Mellencamp theme. Probably an admirable attempt to reach out to the young people, but it's already doomed in that regard by being on a Discovery Channel.

Anyway, it was fascinating to watch soldiers on a daily routine dealing with traffic jams, wandering Iraqi merchants trying to sell them porn, and the hospital situation. Gods, the hospital situation--American soldiers standing around in a small cluster, handing things out to aggressive and desperate Iraqi women. And I was quite struck by the fact that the American soldiers were trying to speak English to them. In fact, I didn't once hear an American soldier say anything in the native tongue. That seems to me a lapse in training and I wonder if the culture clash would be as severe otherwise.

It was interesting that each of the soldiers interviewed seemed to feel that they were sent to Iraq for no good reason. One sergeant said that, after what he'd seen, he couldn't imagine democracy as we know it emerging in Iraq. Just a little of Off to War makes that clear to the viewer, too.

Damn. 4:40am. I guess you can't teach a dog new tricks. He has to have chains nailed into his limbs so's he can be a living marionette.

I'm trying to adapt my sleeping schedule to something closer to Trisa's, who I'll be staying with in San Jose for some time starting to-morrow. Yesterday, I managed to wake up at 11am after having gone to bed at around 2am or so. I was quite proud of myself. Guess I got too comfortable--now I can't sleep.

So I ate some oatmeal and watched some 100 Scariest Moments show on Bravo featuring various celebrities and critics talking about said moments. I was intrigued by the presence of Peter Jackson, Rob Zombie, John Carpenter, Clive Barker, a couple Buffy cast members (Tara and Drusilla), and Jennifer Tilly, among others. I was a bit thrown by the presence of the Coors Light Twins, but, still.

They were talking about The Exorcist, which, if I remember, was at number four (entire movies seemed to count for "moments" somehow), and they were all talking about how that movie absolutely gets you. That it's so unpredictable, that it crosses boundaries that you would've never expected it to. It was when John Landis was saying how you completely bought into the girl floating off the bed that I recalled seeing the movie in the theatre a few years ago and noticing how the entire audience seemed completely unaffected, half-bored even. There was frank laughter whenever the little girl cussed and, yeah, that sort of thing is played for laughs in modern movies.

More and more, I think people are going to see movies for self-contained realities that have no intimate relationship to their lives--at best, they can jive with the opinions in the movie.

I went to see A History of Violence again on Thursday and my love for it increased greatly. Because this time, the only people in the theatre were me and a perfectly quiet old man sitting in the back. The first time was on a Sunday night with a young El Cajon crowd that sounded as though they clearly belonged in the Deuce Bigalow theatre. You know homophobia's bad when guys in the crowd are referring to a sex scene between a man and a woman as "gay."

Without those chattering voices around me, I was able to settle into the movie and approach it on its own terms a lot more easily. The wall with multicoloured light cast on it was now a clear window to a reality, playing in my senses.

When I was telling my friend Marty about my experience first viewing the movie, and the assholes in the crowd, he said, "Where's the bomb when you need it?" It was such a perfectly Morrissey thing to say, and he was right. You know, I spent a good part of my adolescence wondering about how Stormtroopers might be real, complex souls, only to find out now, when I'm older, that they may have been soulless clones all along.

It always feels like a misfortune on so many levels when I notice that a large group of humanity living nearby is hopelessly stupid. Bill Maher mentioned on his show last night that only 15% of Americans believe in evolution.

And every day is like Sunday . . .

I love David Lynch.

Discussing his newfound love for digital video, the man says, "Some would say it looks bad. But it reminds me of early 35mm, that didn't have that tight grain. When you have a poor image, there's lots more room to dream."

That's what I call an exquisite attitude (you can read more here).

But I've been neglecting another of my favourite Davids, namely Cronenberg, as I've not here discussed my feelings about

A History of Violence

Not Cronenberg's best, far from his most ambitious, but probably the best movie in theatres right now (I feel I can safely say that without having seen Capote, partly because I'm a smug bastard).

Viggo Mortensen is well cast as a man who, when we first meet him, seems an ordinary denizen of a small American town, but who is eventually revealed as having a sinister, bloodied past. It's the same qualities that made him ideal for Aragorn, actually--he can be the dangerous, wild-faced Strider, but also the good and noble Aragorn.

His Tom Stall at the beginning of A History of Violence seems basically an affable, decent, if quiet, man, but there is a subtle, buried fierceness you can see in his eyes. I'm sort of reminded of the opening shot of Blue Velvet, where David Lynch showed that even under an idyllic, suburban setting, there're vicious insects scrabbling under the grass. In Cronenberg's new film, even in the ostensibly normal, peaceful atmosphere of the beginning, there are harbingers of a violent reality kept at bay; the strange anecdote from the cook in Tom's diner, the juxtaposition of Tom's daughter screaming about imaginary monsters at night with the film's opening scene, and, well, Mortensen.

The very first scene is two thugs lazily committing horrific crimes. A subtle, somehow perfectly Cronenbergian touch I noticed was that one of these thugs bore a resemblance to Mortensen. Cronenberg relies on people knowing Viggo Mortensen's the star of the movie, so that one or two people in the audience might be saying to themselves, "Looking for Viggo . . . Looking for Viggo . . . Looking . . . Wait, is that him? I know he looks different without the Aragorn makeup so maybe . . . I don't know--no, no I don't think it's him." So already there's a little shadow of Tom's duel life.

Maria Bello's good as well. She has the task of conveying the horrified disorientation at learning her husband of fifteen years may not be who she thought he was, an idea audiences are largely too jaded for. And she's good in the movie's two sex scenes, which are both very different in tone and are both instrumental in conveying the nature of hers and Tom's relationship. The second scene in particular was terrific for conveying her internal conflict.

Daily life, sex, violence . . . The film does a wonderful job of showing that these are all, in fact, part of the same fabric, and that one of the biggest tasks we may face as human beings is holding all three in the same perception of the universe. This is almost the opposite of what most films seem to do these days, which is to perceptibly switch modes between violence, dialogue, sex.

The violence in the movie is sudden and terrible, and lingers as something you're still trying to understand moments after the action has passed. In that way, it was somehow Kurosawaian. And unlike many directors of late, like Chris Nolan in Batman Begins, Cronenberg does not use quick cuts and manipulative editing as a crutch to make up for the actors' inability to perform the stunts. Instead, Cronenberg uses quick cuts and expert editing as an enhancement for the violence. Godard said, "the cinema is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie." So, like everything in the medium that the audience is hip to the artifice of, the presence of these cuts has to be justified by artistic brilliance. Cronenberg succeeds. Baz Luhrmann ought to be taking notes.

A new Boschen and Nesuko is now online. And I'm long overdue for another cup of coffee . . .

Oh, Thursday, you are a harsh female thug. It's like you crept up behind me and hit me with a blackjack. But otherwise, the day hasn't been so bad, really.

I almost didn't wake up in time to leave for the maid, but a nightmare about 8 1/2, which I'd watched last night, woke me just in time.

Here are some signs I didn't get nearly enough sleep;

1) I settled for a muffin at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for breakfast.

2) I almost banged up my car pretty good in the Hillcrest Landmark parking garage.

3) After purchasing my ticket, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out which of the five, clearly marked theatres was screening Mirrormask.

4) As I was leaving the parking garage, the lady I gave my parking validation to asked with a thick accent, "Where did you go?" ME: What? HER: Where did you go? ME: Who? HER: You! ME: Oh. The movies.

5) I found my way back on surface streets. On one street, it was clear that I was going to need to U-turn at the next intersection, and I couldn't remember whether or not one was allowed. I made a mental note to check when I was in the left turn lane. About fifteen minutes later, I reminded myself. ME: To do what? OTHER PART OF ME: To check to see if you can U-turn! ME: Why? Where? OTHER PART OF ME: Why, over . . . wait, why're we moving in the other direction already? ME: We're going home. This is the way. OTHER PART OF ME: Yes, but we needed to U-turn. We must have U-turned to have been moving in this direction. Why can't we remember--oh, never mind . . .

Anyway, here's some more on movies I've seen lately;

Mirrormask

First of all, Roger Ebert's review is retarded. Ebert himself admitted on Ebert and Roeper that he was biased against Fantasy movies, which was pretty clear to me from his Lord of the Rings reviews. You could tell he really hated to admit that those were good movies.

But, fortunately, albeit quite against my will, his review lowered my expectations, so I was partially pleasantly surprised--and partially I got exactly the good movie I was expecting.

I went to Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's panel on Mirrormask at the Comic-Con a couple of years ago, which would have made anyone excited to see the movie. Even Tim, who was with me at the time and has little interest in that sort of movie these days, seemed somewhat engaged by the presentation.

Anyway, as the movie started, I sort of regretted having watched 8 1/2 the night before, as it was suddenly clear to me that Mirrormask was, in some ways, a similar animal, only not nearly as good. And I became a little frustrated with the beginning of the movie, which was awkward and laden with some too obviously expository dialogue. I began to wish actually that the movie was more like what some of the negative criticisms about it said it was; a confusing and nonsensical ride.

I didn't really get into the proper mindset for the movie until the character Valentine started talking about his tower. His tower, his tower--kept mentioning it until finally the pervert in my brain woke up and said to the rest of me, "Oh, I get it."

Valentine is for this movie what David Bowie's crotch was in Labyrinth. Or, really, where Jareth's relationship with Sarah was meant to deal with a teenage girl's emerging sexuality in Labyrinth, so was Valentine's relationship with Helena in Mirrormask.

Mirrormask, in the early stages where Jim Henson Co. was just approaching McKean and Gaiman about it, was meant to be a sequel to Labyrinth. So I can very easily picture the two sitting at a table and tossing about what they liked about Labyrinth. And, personally, the sexual undertones would have been pretty high on my list, so I just about fell in love with Mirrormask at that point.

McKean's imagery is wonderful, and his stylistic use of cuts at times made me wish it were more of a Dionysian film. Gaiman, though, is the most Apollonian of writers. And perhaps that's why Ebert didn't get it.

Gaiman carefully crafted in little fun and interested ideas in bits of dialogue that contribute to a whole that generally mirrors those little bits. And the detours are nice and welcome--like the floating giants, which was a sweet, sad moment.

I think the only thing I'd really change is that I'd remove the very last, one-word line in the movie.

Stephanie Leonidas, who plays Helena, looks like a young female Cary Grant.

8 1/2

Now this was brilliant. And no, can you believe it, I'd never seen it before!

It starts with an easily interpretable dream sequence; Guido, a film director, is stuck in oppressive traffic. He struggles out of his car to then float away . . . only to be pulled down from the clouds by his producer.

What follows is Guido's wanderings through a life cluttered with a wife, mistress, producers, a cardinal, a difficult writer, anxious financiers, and an assortment of more difficult to label others.

The movie's about truth, and the usefulness of truth or the truth in lies . . . among other things. Mainly the movie is itself. That's one of the marks of a great movie--it doesn't need to be reduced to what its themes and plot are. It is it's beautiful self, and that's enough.

Okay, now I'm gonna talk about movies I've seen recently . . .

Corpse Bride

Eh. A decent way to spend a couple hours. A pretty movie, with a couple of palatable songs. I recognised the voice of Danny Elfman himself as "Bonejangles." Not as good a tribute as Fred Astaire in Swing Time, but they don't make Fred Astaires any more. Or Bojangleses, for that matter.

I was surprised we didn't get to hear Johnny Depp sing, since all this time he's been talking about how his first love is music. I wonder if he has a really bad singing voice and everyone's afraid to tell him? It's funny, but in a so-called musical, the only of the principal characters who gets to sing is Emily, the corpse bride herself, and even she has to share her song with two of the more cartoonish supporting characters who otherwise dominate the musical numbers.

A lot of the visuals recall earlier Tim Burton movies--the opening shot of the bleached 19th century city was reminiscent of the one in Sleepy Hollow, where we see Depp's similarly dressed character peering out the window in a similar fashion. Also, the corpse bride's entrance is shot almost exactly like Beetlejuice's.

SPOILER WARNING:

The film's about as good as Donnie Darko and ends on the same note. What's with all the noble sacrificing, anyway? Not that I mind, really. I mean, it is admirable and all. Though mainly what it reminds me of is the scene in Amelie where Amelie's watching television and imagining herself as some sort of tragic saviour. But I like Amelie Poulain, and if you're like her, then I like you too.

Serenity

AH. This was a very satisfying movie. I was saying to Trisa afterwards, "I feel very satisfied right now." It felt good. There was a huge amount of non-bullshit in the movie that more than made up for the two milligrams or so of bullshit I detected.

I've never seen Firefly, but now I very much want to. Serenity was good, uncompromising movie-matter from beginning to end. I mean, yes, compromises were made, but never with the result of damaged goodness. Most everyone talked like grownups, too! In the tracking shot where we meet the crew, two unruly children sitting in front of me decided to leave the theatre when they realised they couldn't follow the dialogue. That is plain great. And it felt great.

Man, I don't think I'm very articulate right now. I feel like a jazz DJ. Isn't it weird how all DJs on jazz stations seem to have inordinate difficulty expressing themselves with words?

Er, that's a digression (obviously). Anyway . . .

Robyn's been complaining that the movie isn't as much of a Western as the television series is. Not having seen the series, I'd say overtly Western qualities (i.e. those not normally shared by space operas anyway) were limited to superficial details; dialects, sets, weapons (Captain Mal's cool quick-draw pistol), references to pioneering, and heists. The personalities of the characters are, for the most part, in wide-open violation of typical Western personalities, and anyway, Whedon's trademark catty dialogue is about as far away from John Wayne as you can get. Which makes me wonder how Western the series can really be.

Actually, the only thing that really bugged me about the movie was all the Galadriel shots of River's feet. I mean, sure, I like her feet, but I got bored by what was being said with them. Again and again, "Oh, poor vulnerable little River nonetheless steps boldly into dangerous/dirty situations/places!" Oh, that River! Where will she get to next? Of course, mainly I liked River. One shot of her holding a bloody sword and hatchet reminded me somewhat uncomfortably of Nesuko. But, hey, Nesuko has a kukri, so she's completely different, right? Right.

Oh, and a lot of people are upset by a certain character's abrupt death. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd seen the series, but personally, I loved Whedon for it. One of the things about death that's always struck me as particularly bad is the fact that it's a barrier placed between yourself and the deceased that you can't be prepared for. So it seems something of an insult, to me, that characters are constantly given really long, drawn out death dialogues that last comfortably as long as it suits the audience. Sometimes, that does work. But it is overdone. I love Farscape, but one of the most irritating few minutes in my television-viewing life was watching Zhaan bid her personalised farewells to each member of the crew. I was left feeling not so much that Zhaan had died as Virginia Hey was leaving the show.

Er, anyway, I deeply loved Serenity. Sorry Robyn and Moira. I cannot share in your disappointment.

And now it's 6am and I think this is getting long anyway (it's kind of hard to tell since I write my first draft in notepad with the word-wrap off. Weird, huh? Yeah, I've only been doing it the past couple months . . . Don't know why but I like it.). I guess I'll talk about the rest of the movies in my next post . . .

Hurray, I made a banner! See;



There's a whole new focus on banners on my links page now. It's like I'm trying to work my brain on the whole linking-structure-web-philosophy thing. Rather far from my forte, or so the dim feeling in my skull informs me. I intend to make more, big, sweeping changes on my site this week, but I probably won't, because I'm like that.

See, I'm not even feeling up to talking about Serenity and History of Violence yet, both of which I've now--finally!--seen.

*. . . yawn . . . * maybe I'll post about them to-morrow . . .

The new Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up. And it's only 7pm (here)! That's the soonest I've gotten a chapter up in a long time . . . Now maybe I'll go see one of those movies I've been wanting to see all week.

I've decided to go cold turkey on sweets. That's right folks; I don't like sugar. It sucks. Sugar can suck my ass until it's retrieved all it's foisted on me.

A chocolate pudding and whipped cream pie at my mother's house last night pushed me over the edge. I couldn't even finish it for how gross I felt.

Meanwhile, one grandmother gives me banana cream pudding and a huge bag of caramel brownies, while another wants me to eat a huge bag of chocolate muffins, bearclaws, and scones. And it's like this every gods-damned month. I know they mean well, at least I think they did the first couple months I was telling people I want to lay off sweets. But I'm through being polite. I'm upset that the very thought of sugar makes my stomach turn. I have a feeling it didn't need to be this way. I fondly remember being able to enjoy mocha or flavour syrup in my coffee. Now I can't. Not even vanilla.

I think I'm gonna eat a lot of plain oatmeal from now on. Gods, that actually sounds incredibly appealing. Yeah. As Wilfred Brimley says, when he thinks he's alone, "It's the right god-damned thing to do, and the right fucking way to do it."

In other news, I felt all lazy and sleepy yesterday, in a somewhat entrancing way that never happens to me anymore, so I didn't feel very guilty about not starting the Boschen and Nesuko page until 11:30pm or so. What surprised me was that I pretty much finished it by 7am, except for the last panel which I decided to leave for to-day since it uses the same colour palette as to-day's page. A complicated page--not page 228 complicated, but very complicated--yet it charmed me in an unexpected way, which I think helped a lot. Now for page 236 . . .

What happens when a repressed Westerner's sexual fantasy about Geishas is purchased by Steven Spielberg, who loses interest, and gives the project to the almost-competent but celebrated Rob Marshall(Chicago)? Why, an American movie in English starring Chinese actresses--who speak that English with Chinese accents--about Japanese culture in the early twentieth century. With very silly looking blue contact lenses. And I shall likely be the only person who's bugged by it all.

But I bet Japanese audiences will be amused.