ScarJo does Tom Waits

everytime i think i would like nothing better than to shut down the ol' blog, i think up/find/come across/discover/get hit on the head by/run over something i'd like to put up or share, no matter how uninteresting it might be to anyone else.

take this: it seems like forever since i first heard about this. well, ok, maybe just a year or so. but i can't wait to hear it. i've always dug Tom Waits and, hey, ScarJo's hot and judging from this, it might not be half bad:



(from youtube)

for those who have a less than ideal connection to the internets, or who are just plain impatient, that be a video of scenes from the loverly Lost in Translation, scored with ScarJo channeling Stacy Kent by way of singin' Gershwin's (have i got that right?) Summertime.

here's the man hisself (ie, Mr Waits) mentioning ScarJo singin' his songs in an interview over at Stereogum a few months back:

http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/tom-waits-talks-scarjo_004029.html

What counted...

A new form will always seem more or less an absence of any form at all, since it is unconsciously judged by reference to the consecrated forms.

-Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008).

and

...the time had passed for novels to be about characters and individuals. ...What counted was creation... (my ellipses)

http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2257878,00.html

i'd say more, but my copy of The Eraser sits in a box back home, beyond my reach, as yet unread.

and if this was late, my apologies. would it be any comfort to consider that it was almost never?

True Weird

i should be out getting my thousand words for the day done but looking up brought me to this:

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/02/10/contest-tell-us-your-new-weird-story-win-tons-of-cool-stuff/

(with an update here:

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/02/15/new-weird-contest-deadline-sunday/

over at www.jeffvandermeer.com)

i got mine in a few minutes ago, about two hours before deadline (i think). there might be time. check it out.

hot potato

just dropping by to spread the word: Neil Gaiman's blog just turned 7 and, to celebrate, Harper Collins will be offering one of Neil's books available 'online, free, gratis and for nothing.'

Mr Gaiman has kindly laid it all out for us here:

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/free%20book

now all we have to do is choose.

(i thought of rigging the link but i haven't really decided which book i want online, so you'll just have to decide for yourselves.)

and so...HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEIL GAIMAN's BLOG!

Brother Felix

it's confirmed. Brother Felix died this morning:

Our dear Br. Felix Masson FSC has fulfilled his promise to pass on. He was reunited with our Creator early morning of February 6, 2008.

We treasure the years he animated our Lasallian communities in the Philippines and genuinely touched the hearts of many of our employees and students.

Let us pause for a moment of silence and say a short prayer for the repose of his soul.

Eternal rest grant unto the soul of Br. Felix Masson, Oh Lord, And let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace. Amen.

(from the De La Salle Santiago Zobel website)

it's hard for me to think of anything appropriate to say about him. if you knew him, i don't think i could add to what he left you with; if you didn't, and i hope you don't think i'm being smug or self-important or just plain full-of-myself, you'll probably never fathom what it is we've lost. Brother Felix was never the sort of man you'd sum up with words; he was the kind of man you had to meet for yourself. and you only had to meet him once, usually as he stood on the sidewalk on campus beside the yellow patintero, step-no and piko lines on the pavement, shaking everybody's hands with a smile as though he were running for congress but without the icky smarminess that implies...

Brother Felix was the one person who made having a birthday in Zobel seem worthwhile to me. that probably sounds like such an inadequate summary of who he was, but you can't imagine what a big deal that was then.

while the impulse to grieve may be strong, i'm pretty sure he'd want us to pick ourselves up from this, give the world our brightest smiles and have ourselves a fine day. wasn't that what he always wanted, all he ever really asked of us, standing reliably out in the sun the way he did?

Willesden Herald 2008 and the Energy of Delusion

this has to be the most painful rejection letter i've ever read.

it's one thing to be judged wanting against writing that is obviously superior, or even against writing that isn't. Ms Smith's way, there's simply no way to rationalize, to rework your inadequacy into something even remotely conciliatory; no compromise can be made with yourself to inject even a modicum of consolation for your ego, your sense of self-worth; bereft of all the defense mechanisms you've grown accustomed to employing against such assaults on your self-esteem, you are left exposed, naked against the raw force of the truth: you've been contributing to mediocrity all along.

when did i start operating on the energy of delusion? i want the old me back, the hack from two and a half years ago who only wanted to join the fun, who only wanted an excuse to play with the one skill he had any confidence in having.

anyway, and i say this without irony, hooray Willesden Herald for showing such integrity. not something we seem to be seeing much of these days.

*

i've just heard a rumor concerning Zobel's beloved Brother Felix. i'll wait for confirmation before i say any more, but if there's anyone out there who thinks they have the kind of information i'm looking for, please do drop a line.

if you're from Zobel, you'll likely know what i'm talking about.

(thanks to Mendozaria for the news.)

*

this, just in from E.Cross Saltire, lends credence to the rumor:

Last week, Br. Felix started getting very weak and could not get out of bed. His vital signs started to fail; he stopped drinking milk and water and slept for most of the week. He has been under constant care for almost two weeks now and has not left his room even in his wheel chair. He received the Sacrament of Anointing and Viaticum. However, his condition improved and his vital signs are back to normal. He has begun to take nourishment again although he is still weak and not speaking. His cancer wound on the lower lip has not healed and morphine is administered to him every two hours. According to Br. Ronald, “he is an amazing person, he has never
complained about, has always been cheerful and always says thank you”.

Let us keep Br. Felix in our prayers

(from here: http://www.zobel.dlsu.edu.ph/reflections/2008_-_03_(4_February_2008).pdf)

Brother Felix retired to Napa in November 2006.

emo

first off, i should let you know: The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories can now be bought online.

right.

after the realization attending my last post and incidentally stumbling across the fact that i arrived here one non-leap year ago, i thought i might take my cue from Jim Halpert, buy myself a minibottle of champagne and celebrate by myself tonight. sadly, 7-11 doesn't carry champagne, at least not the one i'm most comfortable visiting, the one where they know me well enough by face to sell me one thing when i've asked for something else with a friendly if somewhat self-satisfied smile and no malice whatsoever as far as i can tell, and i walked away with a seven dollar bottle of Jacob's Creek Chardonnay, Vintage 2005 instead. which, i've come to agree with the universe, is fine: what, after all, have i got to be all self-congratulatory about?

i've chucked the first complete draft of Spooky into the fuhgedaboutit part of my brain, where it will almost certainly be cannibalized for spare parts, vital organs and light, unhealthy yet vile-tasting snacks. hopefully, starting fresh will give the story the life i'd always wanted for it. maybe this time Kip and Ana will actually have room to breathe.

currently reading: Robert Baldick's translation of A Rebours by J-K Huysmans.

humming along to: whatever pops into my head which, lately, has been mostly this:

Don't know how else to say it
I don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train.

and i keep waiting to get to this part:

Once in a while, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark...

i suspect i might only have missed the first part--they go by so quickly, don't they? the good bits of your life?--and skipped right on to the end cause now i see quite plainly that, yes, i'll never stop this train.

(apologies to John Mayer, to his fans, and to John Mayer-haters who've somehow stumbled onto this blog. and to anyone who's actually read this far. honestly, haven't you got better things to do? well, thanks for dropping by anyway.)

remember: un long dimanche fiancailles 2

neither Mabel nor i have been very good with dates. i suppose it may be because we aren't very sentimental about them: what matters is what 'special occasions' celebrate, not the special occasions themselves. these occasions are just markers, signposts, excuses to make a fuss about what you are and from the beginning i suppose Mabel and i have never been about that.

but really, we just forget, that's all.

the fact is, i'm a little uncomfortable even mentioning this now. owing to our situation at the moment, i won't be flying home til late May at the soonest, 'special occasions' are less reasons to be cheerful than reminders of exactly where we each are right now. still, all that said, now that i've remembered, it seems inappropriate for me not to say anything.

soon i'll have been here a year, Mabel, and the desire to come home and be with you is as strong now as it was when i first left; no, stronger.

on 20 January 2007, we were engaged.



and, as i've never had any qualms about repeating myself and it is as true now as it was then:

Out of the chaos of my doubt
And the chaos of my art
I turn to you inevitably
As the needle to the pole
Turns . . . as the cold brain to the soul
Turns in its uncertainty;

So I turn and long for you;
So I long for you, and turn
To the love that through my chaos
Burns a truth,
And lights my path.

-Mervyn Peake, Out of the chaos of my doubt

and, again:

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.

-M. Peake, The vastest things are those we may not learn

synchronicity

today i finished J-K Huysmans's The Damned and tonight's episode of Two and a Half Men featured Charlie shacking up with, you guessed it, a Satanist.

yes. i need a life here in Spore City.

whoops. excuse me, Punch Drunk Love is on.

later.




back.

i have no idea why i posted this, but i suppose i should say more to kinda sorta make up for it.

i absolutely love Punch Drunk Love, but i'm put-off that MediaCorp TV (Channel 5) decided to cut some scenes out. no these were *not* unnecessary scenes and there was nothing in them to warrant censorship. well, ok, i can sorta imagine why Barry telling Lena he wants to smash her face in before they make love might make some people a little uncomfortable, but cutting the brilliant comedic turn at the end of the confrontation with Dean Trumbell? i suspect it has something to do with fitting the movie into the time slot and still get all the ads in, but it isn't something they'd do for a sure box office hit like last week's X2. i suppose i should be thankful they even bothered to put PDL on the air in the first place and this is probably unfair and judgmental and much too generalizing a statement for me to make, but i'm a little too put off right now to let my internal editor censor my thoughts, so: this reinforces the image i've built around this place in my head: that of an artificial, deliberately constructed, utterly soulless society where everything is commodified.

er. maybe i shouldn't have said anything else after all.

to divert your attention, i post this:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/35/pt_anderson.html

right. i see Sideways is coming up now and, seeing as it's a movie i haven't seen enough to know if i'm being shortchanged, i'll probably have nothing else to say tonight.

good night.