dickhead interweb

i'd meant to set down just about anything and everything i can think of to say on A Scanner Darkly (the film) but what i'm optimistically assuming is the effect of the Taiwan quake combined with Holiday Interweb Congestion but may in fact be the best i can hope for of an interweb connection from now on now that i've given up access to the trusty (not so) ol' office broadband has put me out of the proper mood.

so instead, i will simply say that the local movie market sucks for not having allowed this masterpiece a chance in theaters; it sucks worse because the decision was probably the 'right one' to make in light of the potential marketability of this movie hereabouts.

that said, i *am* glad they got it out on dvd so quickly. i've seen the movie twice now, once without the commentary track and once with, and plan on seeing it at least one more time within the forseeable future. Richard Linklater has made an absolutely brilliant adaptation, possibly the best film adaptation of any literary work yet, bringing to life all the important bits, i.e.: the ones a reader is most likely to remember or want to remember or want to see brought to life after reading the book; the ones a reader is most likely not to remember but should be reminded of; and the ones a reader is most likely to have missed entirely during the reading but ought not to have for a thorough understanding of the story and the author's intentions for the story. Mr Linklater *does* take liberties with the adaptation, but the most startling, significant, potentially deal-breaking liberty he takes with the narrative actually *fits* into the original text despite being nowhere to be found in it.

if there is anything about the film that ought to have Philip K. Dick tossing and turning anxiously in his grave, it may well be that Linklater's adaptation has rendered actually reading the original book unnecessary. of course geeks like me know how utterly preposterous a supposition that is to make, but there is no higher praise i can think of for such a work as Mr Linklater has done for Mr Dick's book.

despite my disclaimer, i see i've managed to put down quite a bit of a ramble; still, that isn't everything: there's still a lot to say on the film, not least of which are some notes on the performances, and some things on the dvd itself: particularly on the commantary track provided by Mr Linklater, Jonathan Lethem, the lovely Isa Dick Hackett, and *gasp* (or more appropriately: *whoa*) Keanu Reeves...

but i think i'll hang it up for now and say this has to be my fave film for 2006. of course, it's probably best not to trust me on that just yet; i've only just seen it, after all, and so it's the film that is foremost on my mind at the moment. so (echoing Paul's review of the Itchyworms' Noontime Show): get yourself a copy and see for yourself.

*

whoops, hang on, there *is* one other thing i should probably mention: i read the book before i saw the movie, and at some point early in my first viewing, i began to wonder whether there was any point to watching the film after reading the book; the movie is just so *faithful* to the book, it didn't seem to offer anything new (even considering the beautiful rotoscoping, sharp dialogue and brilliant performances). at that point i thought it might not be amiss to either watch the film or read the book, and not both. i think i would have enjoyed the movie more if i had not known what a character was about to say or do...and then Mr Linklater threw me off with the simplest twist (the aforementioned liberty)...and, in retrospect, Mr Linklater *did* leave a few things out to create a tighter, more feature-length-film-appropriate narrative--things that feel like they really don't have a place in the movie but are nontheless integral to the *original* text...so now, yeah, i *would* recommend reading the book and seeing the movie...i just can't decide in which order it should be done.

Last Day

'Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful. A few years ago, no college or university would ever have considered inviting one of us to speak. We were mercifully confined to lurid pulp magazines, impressing no one. In those days, friends would say me, "But are you writing anything serious?" meaning "Are you writing anything other than science fiction?" We longed to be accepted. We yearned to be noticed. Then, suddenly, the academic world noticed us, we were invited to give speeches and appear on panels — and immediately we made idiots of ourselves. The problem is simply this: What does a science fiction writer know about? On what topic is he an authority?'

-Philip K. Dick, 'How To Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later', 1978.

read the whole thing here:

http://downlode.org/etext/how_to_build.html

(thanks, Paul for the link.)

'I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe — and I am dead serious when I say this — do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.'

i can think of no better way to mark my transition as i move from one order of chaos to another.

(read the whole thing: there's some really crazy shit in there, i mean really crazy. it all makes *some kind* of weird sense...and some of it may be 'proved' in part by, among other things, Hal Duncan's Vellum.)

thing is my oyster

i find it oddly comforting and at the same time vaguely distressing to learn that other people do, in fact, sometimes, particularly when administered the same stimulus, think like i do:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20060712/ai_n16528165

(the stimulus, by the by, in case it isn't clear, being Amelie.)

does anyone else, i wonder, find the implications of calling that particular part of the chicken the 'pope's' or 'parson's nose' (particularly given what *we* call it hereabouts) in any way amusing?

i've always been fascinated with the idea of a/the collective subconscious and how it might be possible to manipulate an individual, a population and/or an entire species through it; people as varied as Adolf Hitler, Carl Jung, castmembers of Saturday Night Live, Bob Dylan, Hugh Hefner, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and Syd Mead, the Wachowski Brothers, producers of any one of the more commercially successful artists and television stations, Neil Gaiman, the Itchyworms and Mike Carey have all, in their own ways, profited from the idea.

synchronicity is another concept that's always been of particular fascination to me; in a half-assed attempt to employ the two ideas in a single entry (and, perhaps, provide something of a public service), i include this e-mail which i received as i was composing that bit on the collective subconscious:

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN number in reverse order. For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you. This information was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists. Please pass this along to everyone possible. If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN number in reverse order.

a response to which can be found here:

http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp

last couple days on the office broadband. i really wish i had something more interesting to put on this blog.

*

further synchronicity: Paul just posted this review of the Itchyworms' ubercool Noontime Show over on his recently pimped blog.

nothing to blog about...

...but i really wanna capitalize on the office broadband while i've got access to it. so i thought i'd blog/rant, mostly about Nellie McKay, 'Princess of the Protest Ditty'.

caught an ep of Late Night with Conan O'Brien over the long weekend. more than 'an', actually (it was, after all, a 'long' weekend), though i refer only to one here. i'd started to realize how much i hated the life-numbing effect of having an actual television set in your home, with channels and cable and sofas and a remote control and everything, but coming home a couple nights ago i got gummed up on the sofa...true, Conan's stand up just keeps getting worse (imho), but he *does* have his moments, the show can be encouragingly bizarre (and funny. i personally miss Victory) and Max Weinberg is hands down the funniest talkshow sidekick on late night TV (don't get me started on that annoying Paul Schaeffer guy), and anyway, Michelle Trachtenberg was on the couch.

yes, i've said it before, i'll say it again: i have a thing for Ms Trachtenberg. i even sat through an ep of Punk'd once coz she was the vic. anyway, back to the Late Night ep, i was only too glad to have seen the House ep they were talking about, where she was beleaguered by, of all things, (SPOILER ALERT) cooties (whoops. too late, was it?) and i was delighted to learn she'd caused Hugh Laurie's 'huh' on that ep...well, enough spoilers. see for yourself what Ms Trachtenberg had to say:



(here, from youtube.)

but i digress. i'd meant to rant about Nellie McKay who i know next to nothing about, except that she's really, really good:



(here, from youtube.)

not the Late Night gig i caught, she seemed much more enjoyably unrestrained (banging away at the keys to make that delightfully wicked disjointed bang-tinkling sound) on Late Night playing with the Max Weinberg Seven, but really, really good nontheless.

here's her website:

http://www.nelliemckay.com/

nothing much on there, pretty much just a few newsbits and the mailing list, you can find out more about her here:

http://www.nelliemckay.org/

right. possibly more 'interesting' things later.

the world is flat

Eric Rosenfield, over on wetasphalt, says:

...I can't help but feel frustrated that the richness of different kinds of writing, with different ends and likewise different means, is not recognized by the critics, and by extension, the readers. Because if it was maybe we'd be producing a richer variety of work.

http://www.wetasphalt.com/?q=node/125

he was only talking about 'flat' versus 'round' characters, but i don't suppose it would hurt to expand his point to encompass other things.

his argument (particularly in the above quote) also raises red flags re:the inherent dangers in my posits for those 'other things', but what's life without a little danger, yeah?

thanks to Paul for the link.

and *this* is going to be so cool:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/grindhouse_hd.html

(watch Quentin Tarantino rant about the flick over on youtube.)

well. it looks as though it's going to be so cool. the Transformers trailer is promising as well:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/transformers.html

not quite the Transformers most of us know (and the pace of the trailer seems a bit wanting, imho), but hell, i reckon i'll bite.

damn movie ticket prices these days. particularly where i'll probably be when the movies hit. arg. 'As the philosopher Jagger once said: you can't always get what you want...'

Salad Fingers + Mr Peake

'oh. hello there chaps. you arrived earlier than i expected. and might i say, you are looking rather splendid this evening...'

http://www.fat-pie.com/salad.htm

'i like it when the red water comes out.

i like it when the red water comes out...'

thanks so much to Chris for pointing me in the right direction. i can't thank you enough...

brilliantly drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. written by David Firth and Christian 'Crust' Pickup, with music by Boards of Canada and David Firth.

all the goodies are nice over at fat-pie.com:

http://www.fat-pie.com/

oh, and look...they have shirts:

http://www.cafepress.com/fatpie2

now i'm off...i must find the perfect spoon.

*

right, just wanted to add this, from the latest issue of Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901061211-1565505,00.html

With a career encompassing 25 years that included five novels, a handful of plays and thousands of drawings, paintings and sketches, why isn't Mervyn Peake a more celebrated English literary and artistic hero? A cult figure today, Peake is best known for Gormenghast, his bleak but compelling gothic fantasy trilogy published in the 1940s and '50s about the hierarchy of a fictional castle, Gormenghast, and the Machiavellian machinations of its inhabitants. But he was also an accomplished illustrator, painter and war artist. "If somebody's good at everything, then they're never taken seriously, are they?" muses Chris Beetles, owner of the eponymous gallery in St. James' in London that hosted a rare exhibition of Peake's art in October.

It is precisely this failure to acknowledge Peake's breadth of talent that Mervyn Peake: The Man and His Art, a new and comprehensive guide to his career, seeks to redress.

more info on the book can be found over at mervynpeake.org (run, i believe, by Mr Peake's son Sebastian Peake) here:

http://www.mervynpeake.org/artofpeake.html

click around the site for other Peake goodies.

Joel Meadows, who wrote the Time Magazine article, can be found here:

http://joelm1-joelmead.blogspot.com/

lots of interesting things on comics there as well.

i do hope this rustles up enough attention to bring more of Mr Peake's stuff to our shores. if the book doesn't hit our shores (and as an added service to Mr Peake's estate), you can order the book through Amazon.co.uk here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mervyn-Peake-Man-His-Art/dp/0720612845/sr=1-3/qid=1160122975?ie=UTF8&s=books&tag2=theestateofme-21

Mr Peake, in case you didn't know, is The Man. apart from the Titus Groan books, he also did lovely illustrations to such things as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, not to mention The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, as well as some of the wisest poetry i've ever read:

The vastest things are those we may not learn.
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
With love.
How pitiful is our enforced return
To those small things we are the masters of.

-The Vastest Things are Those We May Not Learn, Mervyn Peake

and let's not forget his nonsense poems. of which, the following is (arguably) not an example:

'Each day I live in a glass room unless I break it with the thrusting of my senses and pass through the splintered walls to the great landscape.'

ex libris

no this isn't a list of my books. am way too disorganized (read: lazy) to do that sort of thing, make lists and things. however, of late, i *have* been consumed with the problem of how to organize my little Library of Chaos, and stumbled into this through Mr Gaiman's blog:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4182224

of course, it's far more likely i'll be putting everything in boxes any which way they'll fit (i'd start out neatly, almost obsessively, meticulously sorting books by author or genre or target audience or cover texture or probability of sticking or probability of getting a mildew infection or probability of spreading a mildew infection or general state of wear or size, but eventually digress into shoving them into every gap, corner and/or crawlspace available, i expect. i'm just that sort of guy), and ship them out of the apartment.

in other matters, Banzai Cat has put-up a free-for-all story idea, in case anyone's interested.

anyone at all interested in M. John Harrison would do well to check out Uncle Zip's Window. i'm now more or less convinced that the man has low latent inhibition, the same 'condition' that purportedly makes the Wentworth Miller character on Prison Break a 'genius'.

i find it interesting how both autism and low latent inhibition are thought to play a roll in that thing the rest of us call 'genius'. though i personally suspect that they aren't mutually exclusive (and perhaps i'm mistaken, my google investigations not really making me an expert on the matter), their definitions to my mind put them on opposite ends of the spectrum of subjective experience.

*

R.I.P.: Joseph Barbera, definitely one of the shapers of my life.

*

saw ep 3.3 of House ('Informed Consent', reviewed by Scott over on politedissent here) last night and the medicine is getting horrendously bad. despite everything i said a couple posts ago, am starting to feel exasperated meself with the 'medical mystery' angle of the show. you can only push the Star-Trek-technobabble-analogy so far; after all, House, unlike ST, has the burden of 'provable' and 'known' real-world facts weighing down on it...am on my way to see what Scott has to say now.

perhaps House's penchant for General Hospital is meant to be a sort of post-modern-ish comment on the show...soap operas *do* tend to abuse the 'average viewer's' lack of 'extensive medical knowledge', and House proves to be no exception, but, while it's simply dumb for shows like GH, i have to admit it seems plain irresponsible for a show that purports to be 'smart'. certainly, in its way, House is far more 'intellectually stimulating' than GH, but 'smart'...? more and more i find myself waiting for them to just drop the whole 'medical mystery' angle and go full-on with the soap opera side of the show...which, imho, won't be so bad. Scrubs, for instance, rarely delves into actual medicine, focusing on aspects of the *practice* itself and on the people, thereby managing to be 'truer-to-life' than most shows of the 'medical drama' genre i enjoy (imho).

will Dr Gregory House and his team redeem themselves in coming episodes? stay tuned...

MEME!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFCG3BVKTk0

House--MD?

House, MD's medical cred goes down with every episode. for all the people who'd rather not turn a blind eye to House's medical foibles, or for those who already have but nonetheless feel the burning need to see the light, check out this site:

http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html

and there is, apparently, a book which explores the 'science' of the show:

http://www.houseisright.com/2006/12/01/house-diagnoses-are-real/

though i expect the book to focus more on the things the show 'does right' than politedissent.

Mabel continues to be exasperated by the show. she is, after all, a practicing physician, and can see right through House's obfuscating jargon-juggling. me, i've long ago taken to the grain-of-salt approach to appreciating 'TV knowledge' (i take it as no different from the delightfully meaningless technobabble that informs, say, Star Trek or Doctor Who), and continue to watch House because, let's face it, he's just an interesting, funny bastard, whether or not his on-show 'brilliance' would hold water in the real world. (oh yes, as a nod to my friend Johnny, i should also mention that 'Dr Cameron' is hot.)

the tube's 'on' button is my brain's 'off' button, the Discovery Channel and Mythbusters notwithstanding.

besides, i do so love grotesques, and Hugh Laurie's misanthrope is as grotesque as you can get on TV. barring, perhaps, Dexter Morgan...

meanwhile, i know am yet again late coming to this, but i've only recently begun to develop a taste for Franz Ferdinand. i dig their 'post-punk rock girls can dance to', and honestly believe they do a better Beatles-impression than Oasis.

so, on the spinner: Franz Ferdinand's You Could Have It So Much Better.

and, for purposes of this post, i dug up the following review from The Guardian:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1580837,00.html

yeah, i know. a music review from The Guardian. whatever.

still, M. John Harrison more-or-less regularly does reviews for them. so sue me.

hedging

'You Can't Always Get What You Want'
by the Rolling Stones
(Jagger/Richards)

I saw her today at a reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

No, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

I saw her today at the reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she was gonna meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

Oh yeah, hey hey hey, oh...

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"
Sing it to me now...

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need
Oh baby, yeah, yeah!

I went down to the Chelsea drugstore
To get your prescription filled
I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy
And man, did he look pretty ill
We decided that we would have a soda
My favorite flavor, cherry red
I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy
Yeah, and he said one word to me, and that was "dead"
I said to him

You can't always get what you want, no!
You can't always get what you want (tell ya baby)
You can't always get what you want (no)
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need
Oh yes! Woo!

You get what you need--yeah, oh baby!
Oh yeah!

I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need

You can't always get what you want (no, no baby)
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need, ah yes..

cool.

(here. on youtube.)

i only wish coolasice14 would finish uploading the pilot ep already.

now pass the word around so it gets to the fellow, there's a good chap.

juggling

right, haven't quite felt like doing a coherent/comprehensive blog post in a while (still don't, really) so i thought i'd just throw some ideas out there and use the 'bullit' function for once. i'll call this list 'PKD wrote really good SF (however you read "SF")':

• All SF (or, as others might have it, all 'literature') is really about the present. (?) in truth, it seems to me that this may have more to do with the *process* of writing, and maybe the effect it will have on a particular work in terms of the way it is 'accepted' by society. case in point:
  
• PKD wrote about *our* present. true, his work was based on his experiences of his *own* (in his mind probably writing about his present), but this is in part belied by the fact that the people of his time weren't quite able to see the relevance of his philosophies. (true, marketing plays a role in this as well...PKD refused moves to better market his work, but that's another thing altogether.) offshoot: this has led to the appreciation of PKD *today*, in retrospect, and not in his day. his work may feel 'dated' when read superficially, but the underlying philosophies of his work are more relevant today than they *appeared* to the people of his time; their relevance to our future, of course, remains to be seen, but at this point, given the direction mankind and technology appear to be headed, it seems logical to assume that the relevance will only grow.
  
• PKD's philosophies were, in a way, a reaction to the 'technological optimism' informing his world. note: the same sort of 'reaction to optimism' informs sub-genres such as cyberpunk (reaction to the optimism for the 'information age', the death of which was already imminent at the time of that particular sub-genre's birth--in essence, cyberpunk *was* about the present, the disillusion and suspicion that had already crept into the collective subconscious).
  
• ergo, PKD's work proceeding in this manner (following a present concept/thought pattern through to its conclusions re: his future--our present) epitomized the concept of 'speculation' in fiction. the dude was a prophet.
  
• SF, as a 'genre' (or at least that part of it which is supposedly concerned with such things...see later), ought to be good at the sort of thing PKD did (and 'does'); better, in fact, than any other 'literary field' or 'genre'.
• the movement of SF as 'speculative fiction' is ultimately to either tear down 'genre boundaries' (liberating writers from the marginalizing [and often *stigmatizing*] effect of working 'within' the genre) or 'reappropriate' fiction that, for one reason or another, has been taken out of the 'SF canon' but, with a broader definition, 'belongs' conceptually to the genre.
  
• this movement, while it has its merits, appears to be (whether as part of its intentions or as a kind of subconscious side effect) taking the focus away from what (part of) the genre--in the 'outdated' incarnation of 'science fiction'--was (arguably) all about.

(on a side note, i find it baffling that these concepts of 'marginalization' and 'reappropriation' are such a major concern for SF writers, when other genres [e.g., mystery and crime fic, romance and even, to a certain extent, horror] do not appear *quite* so hung-up on them. well, perhaps not so baffling; these other 'genres' have always enjoyed a relatively broader acceptance, as exemplified by 'bestsellers' lists, despite SF having formidable 'real estate' in the modern bookstore or library.)

which, i suppose, brings me back to ideacentricity--focus on the 'intellectualization' of literature. SF (as 'sci fi') didn't previously need an advocate for ideacentricity--that was one of the things that pigeonholed SF ('sci fi') writers in the first place and so 'marginalized' the genre. 'speculative fiction' is a good title for what the genre is supposed to be capable of (read, imho: what it's supposed to do), but given the application this revised 'SF' terminology is being put to, the word choice doesn't seem quite so appropriate, leading me to agree with Michael Co when he stated in earlier discussions his preference for 'science fiction'.

i realize, of course, that 'spec fic' is meant to be an umbrella term that *includes* science fiction, but the conceptual interchangeability of 'sci fi' and 'spec fic' seems an unfortunate inevitability, given that the term was born of that particular combination of the letters S and F.

right, allow me now, if you will, to make this pretentious statement: even if you advocate 'breaking down the boundaries', keep in mind that 'science fiction' is an integral part of 'speculative fiction', and try to remember what 'science fiction' is all about.

(all this thinking has also lead me to wonder: who among today's writers might be doing what PKD did in his time?)

caveat: i tend to be a moody bastard. take what you will from all that's been said here, but be warned that this is all from the perspective of a *personal aesthetic*...as such, expect no consistency from me when it comes to this sort of thing.

also: should you expect this sort of output from me? hell no. well, not necessarily. i write what i want to write, what i feel like writing at any particular time, keeping no such 'higher ideals' in mind when i do. which i suppose is one reason why my crap has thus far been unpublishable.

apart from the fact that it's all crap, of course. ha.

who wants to write SF?

writing about pirates is not something i expect to be doing again anytime soon. in fact, i'm beginning to wonder what sort of thing i *really* want to be writing.

that story, reading M. John Harrison and my debate with zoneseek re: PKD over on his message board (currently dubbed Bookjunkies, but it's changed enough times that i'd expect anything) had me thinking a lot about the whole 'sci-fi/fantasy' vs. 'spec fic' thing over the weekend, what 'sci-fi' should do and why 'spec fic' seems iffy to me and all that thinking brought me to some rather unsavory, probably antiprogressive ideas on the genre that i thought i might talk about here.

only i don't really feel like getting into it right now.

so, instead, here's Brittany Murphy (and, er, Paul Oakenfold):



(here, from youtube.)

she scores points not just for actually being able to sing, but for being uber-hot in Sin City. and yes, i do dig the song.

*

i would've stopped there, but then i found this. here's an alt video, just for kicks:



(here, from youtube.)

right. Monday's great, ennit?

Motion Picture Soundtrack

damn memes. chris, this is all your fault. though i'll admit, they're great for procrastinating.

am currently listening to the 'soundtrack of my life', with the following track list:

Opening Credits: the saga begins (Weird Al)
Waking Up: your love is king (Will Young)
First Day of School: Mental Tan (Devin Townsend)
Falling in Love: Untitled Track from Synchestra, aka Sunshine and Happiness (Devin Townsend)
Fight Song: Pink Triangle (Weezer)
Breaking Up: Boomerang (Kjwan)
Prom: No Names (Kate Rusby)
Life's just ok: Time (Tom Waits)
Mental Breakdown: Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and Other Games) (Of Montreal)
Driving: Banquet (Bloc Party)
Flashback: Milktoast (Helmet)
Getting Back Together: Murder (or a Heart Attack) (Old ‘97’s, live)
Birth of Child: 2:1 (Elastica)
Wedding: Pag-Ibig (Kitchie Nadal version of the APO HS classic)
Finale Battle: My Waltz for Newk (Iain Ballamy, Mirrormask Soundtrack! best Battle scene song ever! ha!)
Death Scene: Save Me (Aimee Mann)
Funeral Song: 2/1 (Brian Eno, from Ambient 1: Music for Airports. hmm. wouldn't mind attending me own funeral then.)
End Credits: Requiem from O.M.M.2 (Of Montreal) (followed, if i may add, by These are Days – 10,000 Maniacs)

google the licks for a good laugh. i'd put up links and upload the tracks, but i've said it once, i'll say it again: except for the fact that i talk too much on these blogs, i'm a lazy-ass blogger basturd.

r[a]viewing M. John Harrison

i'm trying very hard not to read Abigail Nussbaum's review of Nova Swing over at Strange Horizons. it isn't that i don't like her reviews; although i have disagreed with a lot of her opinions and analyses, it isn't because any of it was not done with intelligence, and i actually enjoy reading opinions at variance with my own. that said, however, and although i realize it may seem disingenuous for me to be doing my own review-type things at on an other life and then go on to say this, here i go anyway: i actually think that reading M. John Harrison is best done with as fresh a set of eyes as you can manage to get yourself before dipping in; Ms Nussbaum may have tainted the experience of reading Signs of Life for me with this really old review over on her blog, Asking the Wrong Questions. knowing where the story was going killed part of the pleasure for me, not because 'i knew where it was going' but because it made me too impatient to get through everything else to see how it happens or how Mr Harrison handles the weirder material--M. John Harrison's works, you see, need to be savored 'held in the mouth like a flower' to paraphrase a favorite line of mine from The Last Unicorn (no relevance, just felt like throwing that in); of course, with an M. John Harrison book, that's never more than a tiny jag on the tip of the iceberg, and i still look forward to the time i feel my eyes have been 'refreshed' enough to go back.

normally i like to know what i'm getting into with the books i read, but i find there is no better guide to and through Mr Harrison's fictions than the narrator he chooses himself to tell the story. it may sound like disingenuous grape thingies, but that fact honestly makes me glad that the particular edition of Things That Never Happen i got my grubby little fingers on does not have China Mieville's introduction.

i really ought to stop here, as all this is really the sort of thing that i ought to put up in on an other life (look, i had Fun With Prepositions! and Vowels!) and not here, but let me just add: M. John Harrison writes fiction that is not afraid to make you think rather than necessarily feel. and while his works fall outside the boundaries of any genre, it's one of the things i feel really good genre SF should be brave enough to do as well.

oh, and one more definitely final thing before i get to work: given that in my mind the single greatest trick a writer can pull is to convince a reader that a story can be written in absolutely no other way, whether or not said reader actually likes the chosen style, M. John Harrison is absolutely brilliant.

phew. that was a bloody ramble. and i haven't even had me coffee yet.

inspired by Light

clicking about the site at the end of this link from Mr Gaiman's blog, i came across this article:

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/book-burnings-potter-tech-media_cz_ds_books06_1201burn.html

of course, the bit i found most interesting was the idea that William Tyndale 'coined' the phrase 'Let there be Light.'

trusty ol' wikipedia has this to say:

In translating the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words into the English language:

• Jehovah (from a transliterated Hebrew construction in the Old Testament; composed from the tetragrammaton YHWH and the vowels of adonai: YaHoWaH)
• Passover (as the name for the Jewish holiday, Pesach or Pesah),
• Atonement (= at + onement), which goes beyond mere "reconciliation" to mean "to unite" or "to cover", which springs from the Hebrew kippur, the Old Testament version of kippur being the covering of doorposts with blood, or "Day of Atonement".
• scapegoat (the goat that bears the sins and iniquities of the people in Leviticus Chapter 16)

He also coined such familiar phrases as:

• let there be light
• the powers that be
• my brother's keeper
• the salt of the earth
• a law unto themselves

Is [sic] should also be noted that Tyndale's translation was notoriously bad. St. Thomas More commented that searching for errors in the Tyndale Bible was similar to searching for water in the sea. Tyndale translated the term baptism into "washing;" Scripture into "writing;" Holy Ghost into "Holy Wind," Bishop into "Overseer," Priest into "Elder," Deacon into "Minister;" heresy into "choice;" martyr into "witness;" evangelist into "bearer of good news;" etc., etc. Many of his footnotes were vicious. For instance, Tyndale referred to the occupant of the Chair of Peter, as "that great idol, the whore of Babylon, the anti-Christ of Rome."

(here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale.)

admittedly, i myself never imagined the Whore of Babylon as looking anything like Pope Benedict XVI. on that note, 'that great idol' brings someone more like this to mind (yes, that was rather gratuitous, wasn't it? at least i chose a relatively 'family-friendly' link, so don't go burning blogs just yet, there's a good chap).

then again, what do i know, yeah? (definitely not, prior to some more clicking about the nifty ol' interweb, this.)

it should, however, be noted that ultimately it is Steven Colbert who has dibs on the Word.

still knocking about in here

hmm...that's odd. maybe this beta blogger thing doesn't work too well with dial-up after all; working with broadband now, and everything looks pretty much the same as it did pre-beta...

here's another test run, using Hot Fuzz!:

http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/trailers/hotfuzz_trailer_xlarge.php

yes, everything looks almost all dandy now.

here's the link to the post i was trying to link to with my last post when this 'create post' page went wonky and lost the link button right after i made the switch to blogger:

http://skinnyblogcladdink2-0.blogspot.com/2006/11/nostalgia.html

right. now if only there was something i felt like posting about...

whoops. your ludd is showing.

an anonymous poster posted on me Michelle Trachtenberg/Pete and Pete inspired post to point out that i'd miscredited Polaris as 'Mike Mulcahy' when it ought to be 'Mark Mulcahy'. my bad.

rather than cleaning up my mistake, i thought i'd create another post to try out this whole 'beta' thing...hmm. doesn't look all that different. seems cozy enough, only...hey, where's the link clicky-button-thingy that lets you do link-thingies with your text? and the picture-posty thingy? is this the html or regular 'compost' page-thing?

gah. what have i done?