May 10, 2005
Flickering role models
The Women of ST:OS (link from Plep).
(And, who knew there was a "Groovy Sixties Women" webring?)
May 05, 2005
Jessica Alba to play Elizabeth Bennet
Planning to read my book this evening instead of blogs — a novel idea — but had to pass on this tidbit: there is apparently to be a Jane Austen action figure, though if it is at all realistic I suppose we are to understand "action" loosely. She comes, one hears, with a quill pen, a tiny copy of P&P, and a writing desk, and will debut this summer (news from AustenBlog via Emily Friedman on C18-L, who wonders if this mightn't be a sign of the apocalypse).
And here is a lovely group-authored mash-up of, I kid you not, Austen and The Terminator:
The tall and handsomely dressed figure of Mr. Terminus stood a moment with an expression of resolution upon his features, as does a man contemplating a plunge from a precipice, or perhaps a proposal of marriage (the two carrying nearly equal terror to most). Then he began to relate the most astonishing tale Patience had ever heard.
"As you know, Miss Patience," he began, "I am, to a great degree, a machine; my exterior, and some portions of my interior, are made as are those of Mr. Connor and yourself, but the greater part is metal and other materials, some of which you would recognize, and others of which you and even the wise men of your universities would know nothing at all."
And there is a movie, Pride and Extreme Prejudice: "The CIA and the KGB both pursue a former operative (Brian Dennehy) who seemingly has become unstable."
Finally, there was a wonderful satiric book cover I saw some years ago, but it doesn't seem to be on the net, though I did find someone's description:
"My favorite take on PRIDE AND PREJUDICE sequels was the parody cover illustration for (the non-existent) PRIDE AND EXTREME PREJUDICE, showing an elegantly-dressed 18th-century lady holding a smoking gun--a new Bennet sister 'Dirty Harriet' who tells Lady Catherine 'I have no objection, your ladyship, to your proceeding, since, by so doing, you shall render my afternoon quite agreeable.'"
Perhaps it is the apocalypse.
Things I will post about soon, I promise
I am three-quarters of the way through Nalo Hopkinson's wonderful The Salt Roads. Read an excerpt, then get the book. A rich, peaty book, full of colours and smells. Hopkinson's writing is full-bodied/full of bodies/full of the body.
Recently finished The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-first Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois and have been meaning to blog about it before I forget it. Also want to say a few words about Conjunctions: 39, The New Wave Fabulists, which I read some time back (Nalo Hopkinson has a memorable story here, "Shift": identity, interracial dating, parent/child relationships, and Caliban's sister).
And saw Stage Beauty and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and have been meaning to comment.
Until then:
— Paul Di Filippo, Emerald City, and Jayme Lynn Blaschke on The Salt Roads
— Inside Liguria: The Old Salt Roads
— Route du Sel — Salt Road — Lou camin salié
— Salt Roads in Thailand
— Via Salarium — The Salt Trail of Turkey
— Interview with Stage Beauty Writer, Jeffrey Hatcher
— Samuel Pepys's diary entry on Edward Kynaston
— Stage Beauties: Stars of the Edwardian Stage
Ned Kynaston in 1660.
April 26, 2005
Finished one pile of marking
today, and am celebrating by watching The Village on PPV. What an odd film! So beautiful to look at. Such stilted, formal language. The Scarlet Letter meets Children of the Corn.
Update (1:20am): And a lame-ass cop-out ending. But, it's always fun when the girl rescues the guy.
April 19, 2005
Online resources
DNA of Literature Project. The Paris Review is posting their interviews with authors, by decade. They are up to the 1970s, with the 80s due in June (via Maud, who posts highlights of the Joan Didion interview).
The Borgesian Cyclopaedia: "Being a Virtual Reference to the World of Jorge Luis Borges" (via Plep).
The Epic of Gilgamesh and Reading in the Islamic World (both via Mark Woods).
Publishers' Bindings Online, 1815 - 1930: "a digital collection of decorative bookbindings that strengthens a growing interest in this 'common' object - the book." Feast your eyes (via Bibi).
The Encyclopedia of Television "includes more than 1,000 original essays from more than 250 contributors and examines specific programs and people, historic moments and trends, major policy disputes and such topics as violence, tabloid television and the quiz show scandal. It also includes histories of major television networks as well as broadcasting systems around the world and is complemented by resource materials, photos and bibliographical information" (via Exclamation Mark).
Nest, that very funky shelter magazine "where high-style London and Paris interiors meet igloos and prison cells on equal terms," ceased publication last year but has plans to digitally archive its entire fabulous run (via things magazine, though one might be forgiven for missing it within a truly phenomenal link dump).
April 09, 2005
A Canadian post
Click for larger view.
The Paul Martin who is not our Prime Minister let me know that he has just written about hockey poems. Apparently, there is a lot more going on than one might think. But visiting his site, I was sidetracked by his post about that classic series, Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders (1953):
A villain named Marlof attempts to set up secret missile bases inside Canada so he can launch missiles at the U.S. The Canadian Mounted Police dispatch agents to try to stop him.
Compelling, no? But beware: "This one is not a high point in the history of serials."
Bonus links:
"Romancing the Redcoat: A Canadian Hero Lost in Hollywood" at Canuxploitation: "Your complete guide to Canadian B-Film."
Atomic Movie Posters.
April 04, 2005
Cornucopia of SF
Natural Magick (Magiae naturalis) by John Baptist Porta. Transcribed from 1658 English Edition, Printed for Thomas Young and Samual Speed, at the Three Pigeons, and at the Angel in St Paul's Church-yard: "Wherein are searched out the causes of things which produce wonderful effects." From housekeeping to Alchemy (via Bibi).
Chile: An Alleged Non-Human Caught On Film from Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (via BoingBoing). Pretty damn persuasive.
Exegesis: Philip K. Dick's unpublished writing online (via growabrain).
EarthCore, apparently the world's first podcast-only novel, "a cross between episodic modern-action fare like 24 and classic sci-fi movies like Predator and Starship Troopers." Starship Troopers?? (also via BoingBoing).
Blind Shrike, a novel by Richard Kadrey, can be downloaded under a Creative Commons licence (again with the BoingBoing).
Horror Masters. Lots of classics available for download; I used some of them for my Writing by Women class. Caveat: files will not print. But lots of stuff unavailable elsewhere.
On a similar theme: "Ladies of the Darkness: Trows, Rusalki, Vampires, and White Ladies of Literature and Folklore" by Lezlie Kinyon, Internet Review of Science Fiction (registration required).
The Periodic Table of Comic Books (via Life in the Present).
Basil Gogos, who gave the Creature from the Black Lagoon, left, his beautiful glow (also via Life in the Present).
Nominations for the Bram Stoker Awards at Locus Online. Hey, Shaun of the Dead is up for best screenplay. As is Dawn of the Dead; what a conundrum. Maybe Hellboy will sneak up the middle.
File under, there was a time this would have made me happy: a second X-Files film may be in the offing.
Or just download Nosferatu. You know you want to (also from Bibi).
In other film news: Disney takes up the white man's burden (heads up from Nalo Hopkinson):
ROSEAU, Dominica (AP) — The tourism minister on Tuesday defended plans for an upcoming Disney movie expected to portray Dominica’s Carib Indians as cannibals, calling the film a work of fiction that could bring economic benefits to the poor island. ... Tourism Minister Charles Savarin called the criticism unwarranted. "Nobody is saying that (the film) is an accurate historical report of what happened in Dominica," Savarin said in a statement broadcast by private Kairi FM radio. "We have to get beyond our history and not continue trying to live in the past." (from Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink).
Loads of sf links from Locus Online (thanks, Matthew) and Listology.
March 28, 2005
Bring it on!
Directed by Roger Corman; screenplay by Robert Towne, who later wrote Chinatown; public domain; available online: what's not to love? (thanks to one man for the link).
Maybe I'll show it to my students this summer.
March 16, 2005
Nice stuff to look at
Das Reich der Liebe ("The Kingdom of Love") by Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (Leipzig, 1777). Click for larger image.
Cartographical Curiosities, Map Collection, Yale University Library (via Mark Woods).
Woodcuts from Sebastian Brant’s 1494 book Das Narrenschiff ("The Ship of Fools") at Giornale Nuovo.
Katja posts on cowboy culture in East Germany.
Marja-Leena Rathje posts some beautiful prints by artist Bonnie Jorden.
The Art of James Bond (via Life in the Present).
January 27, 2005
Blow 'em up real good!
He's the last man on Earth. And he needs a drink.
I need to be thinking this term, off and on, about the summer course I will be teaching next July. It will be speculative fiction, but it can take any shape. I have always taught it with some sort of overarching theme: "Loving the Alien," "Gender in Space," or "Gender and Sexuality." This time I was thinking of going with single-sex societies. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland; Phillip Wylie's The Disappearance, which is back in print (here's the edition I have); Sheri Tepper's Gate to Women's Country; Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast Chronicles. But since it will be a summer course, and hence more concentrated, I can't really assign the same amount of reading as during the regular term and so I was hoping to fit in several films. Trouble is, can't think of any films based on my prospective theme. Maybe going back to some version of "Loving the Alien" would be more fruitful: hey, then I could show Alien (as you see, it's not necessarily really loving the alien, but more an exploration of how different writers try to create non-humans).
Later: Was thinking about this further and have more or less decided to go with the apocalypse (now there's a catch-phrase: relax, sit back, and go with the apocalypse). One of my favourite themes, as regular readers may know. I could use some of my same-sex societies — both Tepper and Charnas write about post-disaster cultures — and there are gazillion films: so many that I'm sure I can avoid Kevin Costner. Plus there's a cool a graphic novel series. There seems to be a sub-genre of same-sex societies within post-apocalyptic narratives; I wonder why? Is shaking up the heteronormative status quo that apocalyptic a concept? Is losing "the opposite sex" the most dreadful marker of loss and change that we can think of?
Possible cheery texts and films:
The Last Man by Mary Shelley.
John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1951), and the film (1962).
On The Beach: Nevil Shute's 1957 novel, and the 1959 film based on it.
A Boy and His Dog — Harlan Ellison's story and the 1975 film .
The Children of Men by P.D. James. Too bad Greybeard by Brian Aldiss seems to be out of print; they would work well together.
The Omega Man. A classic.
Luc Besson, La Dernier Combat (Fr, 1983)
Night of the Comet for some comic relief.
There is a ton of stuff; I think I will try to have pairs: either filmed versions of written texts, or at least texts and films that work closely together.
There are some RPGs too; don't know much about that but depending upon who signs up for the course, that could be worked in...
I'm multitasking as I write this. The remake of The Dawn of the Dead is on PPV. And I'll tell you one thing: I miss those nice, slow Romero zombies. None of whom were under ten.
Okay. That was tense.
January 20, 2005
SF
Farah Mendlesohn is doing a survey for a book on children and science fiction. She blogs at The Inter-Galactic Playground.
Benjamin Rosenbaum has released his amazing story, "Start the Clock," under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike license. What a fascinating idea (via BoingBoing). I hope he, or someone, traces any offshoots.
"I'll be a postfeminist in a postpatriarchy, or, Can We Really Imagine Life after Feminism?" by Lisa Yaszek. Part of this essay discusses sf as it relates to "postfeminism":
[F]for feminist authors, SF’s insistence on historical mutability and utopian possibility provides an ideal narrative vehicle through which to posit and explore the always necessary and political question, “what comes after patriarchy?”
(link from Mark Woods).
StarTrek R.I.P.? Not in our hearts (link from The Website at the End of the Universe).
January 08, 2005
Alien Loves Predator
Ttwo thumbs up from Shatnerian:
Preston is a Predator. Abe is an Alien. Together, they're roommates searching weed, love, and a decent apartment in New York City. They also attend Yankees games, for whom Jesus Christ was recently drafted.
It's the funniest web comic I've read in a long time.
I think we have all had an Alien roommate at one time or another. I know I have.
Update (10/1/05): Link fixed. Doh!
December 29, 2004
Ah, no.
Brandon Hunt, Lennie Grabs a Dog, 2003
December 11, 2004
SF links
The trailer for the forthcoming Spielberg film starring Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds, is now online. Trailer sites: IFILM, Apple (via Boing Boing). Well at least no-one would mistake it for a newscast. Though why, when a director wants to demonstrate the worst sort of destruction of the innocent they have to go and blow up the same tired old Norman Rockwell suburb, is beyond me.
Etexts available of The Book of Were-Wolves (1865) by Sabine Baring-Gould and The Lair of the White Worm (1911) by Bram Stoker (via Plep):
Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a Vicar in the Church of England in Devon, an archaeologist, folklorist, historian and a prolific author. Baring-Gould was also a bit eccentric. He reputedly taught classes with a pet bat on his shoulder. He is best known for writing the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers'.
This book is one of the most cited references about werewolves. The Book of the Were-Wolf takes a rationalistic approach to the subject.
The book starts off with a straightforward academic review of the literature of shape-shifting; however, starting with Chapter XI, the narrative takes a strange turn into sensationalistic 'true crime' case-studies of cannibals, grave desecrators, and blood fetishists, which have a tenuous connection with lycanthropy. This includes an extended treatment of the case of Giles de Rais, the notorious associate of Joan of Arc, who was convicted and executed for necrosadistic crimes.
So hop on over.
As for Stoker's novel, don't forget the Ken Russell film of 1988, featuring a smooth-cheeked Hugh Grant. Other etexts here and here.
Speaking of Stoker, watched Van Helsing on tv the other night. It sucked lemons.
Dreams of Space: Space Art in Children's Books 1883-1974 (via Maud).
Monstrous: An online encyclopaedia of monsters (via Plep).
Nice link from Gerald Lucas, to Dante’s Inferno Illustrated by Sandow Birk:
Dante's original vision was audacious for its time, in essence a re-figuring of the Biblical Canon — a contoured retelling of Dante's journey through the afterlife. The Divine Comedy was at once a spiritual document and a political treatise on how humanity fails the spiritual test and how redemption through universal love creates a new political structures here on earth in this life.
It is in this tradition that we embark on an audacity of our own — publishing a re-translation of Dante's seminal work into the images and street language of today.
Set in Los Angeles.
The Minotaur
As we scrambled down the rocky path we came
across the Minotaur, the legendary monster of Crete.
(Canto XII, 11-12)
Two recent posts on Crooked Timber about Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I am now more than ever eager to read over the holidays.
Life In The Present leads to The Little Red Riding Hood Project, "a text and image archive containing sixteen English versions of the fairy tale."
And if these aren't enough links for you, check out Matt Cheney's.
December 02, 2004
See you in the mead hall!
Shooting is apparently finished on what looks to be a credible filmed version of Beowulf, called Beowulf and Grendel (heads up from another boring academic has a blog?). Though looking at the site, it seems they have taken some liberties: there is now a "Sea Hag," women seem much more in evidence than in the poem, in the person of Sarah Polley, and worst of all, Grendal's mother seems to have become his father. But those berserker warriors sure are butch! Well, we'll see.
Correction (3/12/04): Grendel's father does not take the place of Grendel's mother; she apparently is left out altogether. From the title it would seem that that the focus is only on the first part of the poem. Go to the site and click on "story" for the storyboards for the first scene, in which some backstory — including Grendel's father — is provided.
October 07, 2004
Lost and found day
Yesterday was not a stellar day. Last minute fussing and administrative confusion with my grant application, two classes that were less than inspirational, and the inability to get online all yesterday evening (our server was down. Again.)
On the plus side: had a good conversation with two students after Gender Studies (they must have found the material compelling, even if I wasn't). The Jinker Boy's Scholastic book order came in, so there was fun reading in the evening1. And I watched the second half of The Godfather. It really is one of those films that have become so iconic that we don't even look at it anymore. I had forgotten how out of step Pacino looks in his dark wool, there in swinging Las Vegas or with his bright young wife, like a Hasidim who's wandered into the Kentucky Derby.
1 Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are came with a wonderful DVD — part of a really nice Scholastic series that I can't find on their difficult-to-search-site — that also includes In the Night Kitchen and The Nutshell Library. Watching the DVD I realised that Sendak finds children's feet as endearing as I do.
(Does that sound wierd?)
And can you believe that In the Night Kitchen was banned? Oh, yes:
In the Night Kitchen (1970) proved controversial on its release, as several well-meaning librarians and teachers reacted to Mickey's nudity by removing the book from the shelves and/or covering the child's offending genitalia with marker, tape, or other method of obscuring it. The book continues to appear on lists of banned or challenged books, somewhat to the consternation of those who can find nothing disturbing or "sexual" in the nudity of such a young child as Mickey appears to be.
Sendak himself has said that he did not intend to be controversial with this book; his concern was more aesthetic, to avoid the "mess" that would result from Mickey's falling into the batter with his clothes on. (source)
Very practical, too.
<< Is anyone disturbed?
Bonus links:
Nice, visual Sendak page
Another nice page
Sendak exhibit in Pittsburgh
Wally Hastings' children's literature page.
October 03, 2004
Wierd SF
Still working on grant proposal, and trying to put together what I'm going to say about The Man of Feeling tomorrow, but what the hey:
Where's my atomic-powered car? (from Plep).
"If all stories were written like science fiction stories" by Mark Rosenfelder (via FutureTense).
Did you ... or are you just 'special'? (from Shatnerian).
Team America: World Police: according to Boing Boing, " it may be the single best crappy movie you'll see all year."
September 29, 2004
Not with a whimper
What is the appeal of post-apocalyptic visions? (via Boing Boing). Part of it must be the comfort one takes in imagining that at least someone would have survived, else who is taking the pictures? Though the end of Natural Born Killers should have cured us of that one. Maybe it is the appeal of being able to go places previously restricted or difficult to access, the backrooms, basements and byways; maybe it is the carnivalesque appeal of living in the New York Public Library. No doubt shopping has a lot to do with it (even if it's at Tesco's):
"What are they doing? Why do they come here [to the mall]?"
"Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do; this was an important place in their lives." (Dawn of the Dead).
(Surely I'm not the only one who has shopping dreams? Welcome to advanced monopoly capitalism: my father, a retired welder, has factory dreams. Me, I'm in the mall, often at a chi-chi make-up counter. So much like my waking life.
Never dreamt about post-apocalyptic malls, though.)
Apocalypse on the web:
Apocalyptic Dreaming: "The Web provides the largest possible audience imaginable, and it seems only right to use the chance to widen our discussions about the end of the world."
Reading the apocalypse:
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction: a useful guide with books divided into various categories like "WW III," "Pandemic," and "Astronomic impact."
EmptyWorld: "Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV"
The Ultimate Survivalist Bookstore (at Australian Survivalist Online)
Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Novels (a difficult quiz)
Watching the apocalypse:
Survivors: Series One on DVD. Graham Nelson on what makes cult tv.
New pay-tv series ReGenesis starts Oct. 24, part of "a general paranoia" in the new season of Canadian TV, according to the Globe and Mail.
Playing apocalypse:
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: "Post-holocaust games, like other post-apocalyptic literature, are often compelling"
Post-apocalyptic media
September 25, 2004
Tristram Shandy
UK director Michael Winterbottom is planning to adapt Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to film.
I'm having trouble imagining this, but would love to see it. Maybe it will make my students feel more charitably towards the book. As long as he avoids the money shots.
(Link from Stephany at Maud's).
September 24, 2004
I have to share
I just overheard one of our undergraduates say to another, in line at Tim's, that she answered a question on food-poisoning on a biology test correctly because she remembered The Simpsons episode in which Homer, at the bargain store, says, "Ummm! Year old tuna!"
September 21, 2004
Resistance is futile; you will be cute.
Two Borg stories, neither of which I would have blogged alone, but ... well it's just eerie, that's all.
Even sweeter than those little Borg babies in the fishtanks: the Borg assimilate My Little Pony (via Boing Boing).
And, another reason to be an atheist (via Wierdwriter).
September 16, 2004
Okay, the world is really ending.
According to Brian at Weirdwriter, who often seems to find stuff that gets under the skin, Paris Hilton is set to play Daisy Buchanan in a remake of The Great Gatsby.
What for??
September 12, 2004
Yimou Zhang's Hero
In pursuit of our goal to go out just the two of us once a month (cue horrified gasps from those without children), Joe and I saw Hero last night.
After having read all the reviews that focus on what a visual feast it is, I was not expecting the heavy-handedness of the moral of the tale. Director Yimou Zhang said somewhere (quoted in a review in The Globe and Mail, I think) that the colours were not symbolic, but I could not help but notice that the final scenes were shot in black and white.
Many reviews have also followed the promotional material in likening the film to Rashomon, though the purposes of the two films seem antithetical: Rashomon was a meditation on how meaning is elusive, subjective, and impossible to determine. Hero does indeed present three versions of the same story, but each retelling moves closer to "the truth" as the Emperor first casts doubt on aspects of Nameless' tale, and Nameless in turn corrects the Emperor’s errors. Further, there are elements of external reality represented (the tying up of Broken Arrow and Snow’s story), so the viewer, by the end, is never in any doubt about "what happened." The device of the multiple tales is clever, but it is used here to unravel a mystery, rather than to question the knowability, or even existence, of an external reality.
Jet Li, so alive looking in casual photographs, is stony throughout; Maggie Cheung is wonderful. She shifts through the three versions of the tale from a lipsticked dragon lady (Joe: "They were punks, like Sid and Nancy. She looked like an anime villainess") to a purer version in less make-up. Tony Leung is always watchable, though Daoming Chen, as the Emperor, is the only one who shows, or maybe could show, because of the freedom of his character, real range ("The Emperor carried the movie," says Joe). Anyway, this film isn't about the acting; the characters are more iconic, with their windblown hair and trailing costumes.
None of this is to say that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, from start to finish. It is a beautiful film: cinematography, scenes, actors, costumes. I felt myself smiling again and again as each new scene spread out on the screen. One of my favourites is the one pictured here, when Snow battles Moon in the first version of the tale. Though sometimes the visuals followed the heavy-handedness of the script, as when the golden leaves all turn red at the end of this scene, or the infamous (another mislaid review; sorry) scene in which the turquoise curtains match the costumes of the actors. But that works in another way, because it connects the melodrama of the plot to the aesthetic, removed quality of the visuals.
September 05, 2004
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Watched it on the movie channel. Antonio Banderas was brooding and sultry; Salma Hayek was the dead beauty who motivates the hero in a series of flashbacks. Both struck the pose. But Johnny Depp stole the show; he stepped outside the dynamic of cinematic tribute and did his own twisted riff on "the renegade — read psychotic — government agent" (in one scene he wore a tee-shirt with "C.I.A." written on it in huge letters. In another, in which he tried to snow someone who ended up snowing him, he wore the proverbial "I'm with stupid" shirt).
Robert Rodriguez used all the clichés, but lovingly, and with several tongues in several cheeks. Lots of nods and bows to Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, and a host of others. I liked how the martial prowess of Banderas and Hayek's characters was so over the top in Cheech Marin's character's description to Depp at the beginning of the film, and how he then shrugged and laughed and said that legends can become overblown. Then, when we see Banderas in action he is as impossibly adept as he was described. (And Johnny Depp rivals Master Po in his final scenes. Master Po channelling Brandon Lee. Or Alice Cooper).
August 27, 2004
SF stuff
Scientists choose their favourite sf authors (from Maud).
Matthew Cheney strongly recommends Light by M. John Harrison.
Tara and Willow together 4ever (from ms.musings).
Jill gets annoyed with fembots.
Very creepy; very beautiful. And as Maud would say, categorization is a conundrum. (from Boing Boing).
Go ask Alice
Lauren's Alice in Wonderland Page: collection of illustrations (from Bookninja [08/23/04]).
Dakota Fanning might be in new Alice film from Spielberg (from Stephany at Maud's).
Alice is big in Japan.
Lewis Carroll Academic Information.
Flash Alice (from Boing Boing).
Alice in Wonderland Theme Park.
Alice In Wonderland and the Shroud of Turin.
Go to Wonderland yourself or send a loved one.
And what would life be without Quizilla? Which Alice in Wonderland Character are you? (link from Sharon. Who is of course also the Chesire Cat.)
[I misplaced a link to a site featuring wierd and creepy photos of a Japanese Alice and her cohorts in a stiff, formal garden setting; it was linked recently on someone's blog. I'd love for anyone who recalls it to leave a comment. Even if the comment begins, "That what 'Add Bookmark' is for, bubblebrain!"]
Update (30/8/04): Thanks to Vernica for the elusive creepy Alice link: Alice in Wonderland staged by Japanese cosplayers (link from Boing Boing). And check out her The Playful Antiquarian for more examples of "Carroll-mania."
August 14, 2004
At the movies
Got a babysitter and went out for dinner and a movie (woo hoo!). Left too late to catch The Manchurian Candidate, which Joe wanted to see — he often screens the original in his popular culture class — so we saw The Bourne Supremacy although neither of us had seen The Bourne Identity (first, or second. Though we remedied that by renting both at Blockbuster on the way home, as much to extend our night out as anything else, I think).
Kept thinking, all the way through the film as the narrative swept from one exciting location to the next — Goa, Naples, Berlin, NYC, Moscow — that this is really the way to travel. Painless, cheap, no fatigue or troublesome dislocation. I am ready and waiting for the virtual future, man. Bring it on!
After dinner we went to a new Thai restaurant, which might not seem noteworthy to many, but is for us. When we moved to Saint John almost eight years ago there were few interesting restaurants: a good sea-food place, an inconsistent little-bit-of-everything place with a horrendous, punning name, a couple of stultifyingly timid upscale places, a Chinese restaurant where everything is covered in sticky red sauce, an excellent Guatemalan restaurant — okay, granted, that was unexpected — and lots of fast food, diners, and steakhouses. Since that time there have opened two or three other Chinese restaurants, all good, two Thai restaurants, a wonderful Indian restaurant, and a few others (another of which also has a punning name). It has become, in short, a town where you actually have to decide where to go for dinner based on something other than your pocketbook.
That being said, the meal tonight was not wonderful. Both Joe's and my soup tasted vinegary, and my tamarind shrimps, and dessert, were both too sweet. Sigh. I tease my cousin that he and some of his friends are food Nazis. You know, people who send dishes back even if they're not burnt. But then, that is in London where one can routinely pay more for a good restaurent meal than, in other places, a good restaurant, so perhaps they have some justification. During dinner this evening I kept having to grab my evil arm, like some cranky love-child of Peter Sellers and the late, lamented Julia Childs. Or Martha Stewart, more like. Quite inconsistent given the amount of Kraft dinner I have eaten in my life.
Perhaps it's just as well that we aren't able to eat too many meals out these days without the levelling influence of the Jinker Boy.
[We have this book and the Jinker Boy likes it, although he does not seem to recognize the pointedness of my choice in having bought it for him.]
This blog entry mirrors the pattern of Joe's and my conversations whenever we do have a chance to go out alone: it always comes back to the Jinker Boy.
August 08, 2004
That was not the amusing post
This is.
So we went to Rainbow Valley, an amusement park in Cavendish, P.E.I. You need to scrutinize the web site to understand the true vibe of the place. That 70s Show should shoot an episode there. Here is one of the two souvenir shops (the other is a castle); maybe Jackie could get a job there:
Here is a close-up of the window (it contains a garden gnome holding a Canadian flag, in case it's not clear):
And the rest of the park is equally wonderful. With the bonus that since it was built way back when, the trees are mature and so the whole place is lovely and shaded.
But I was worried, when we first got there, that it might be overwhelming for the Jinker Boy. After all, he probably could have happily played with any one of the things he saw for half an hour, and here were a couple of acres. It took quite awhile to coax him away from the yellow ducky boat, and then he found a shoe house, presumably of the Old Woman who had so many children she didn't know what to do (and how she managed in one room I can't imagine), and he wouldn't come out:
(Here is a close-up of his face:)
It wasn't as though it was particularly interesting there, either: the shoe was beside a half-filled pond with what looked to be part of a plastic crocodile who had seen better days.
And straight ahead was a band of weird birds who would break into song ("Rocking Robin") at irregular intervals, through no discernible mechanism.
Then there were the various passersby, determined to see every nook and cranny, who stomped up the steps to the shoe house then jumped when they noticed the little boy half hidden behind the stove. I thought we had reached a stalemate when Joe appeared and took matters into his paternal hands:
But don't cry for the Jinker Boy; after this inauspicious beginning he decided that he loved Rainbow Valley. Particularly the water slide.
[Click on image for larger view]
He has been periodically asking when we will go back, ever since.
July 28, 2004
Stateside
Arrived back in Newark Sunday, and spent a couple of days in Queen's at the Jinker Boy's Nonna's (or "Noona," as he calls her. Which is apparently charmingly archaic dialect and not mispronunciation. Who knew?)
Driving away from the airport I was reminded of the episode of The Soprano's in which Tony, Christopher and Paulie go to Italy. In Naples, Paulie is sentimental, full of enthusiasm, but the Italians he meets are uncomprehending. In one scene a prostitute remains unimpressed that his family was from her village; in another, a man on the street starts to rant about Nato when Paulie tells him he is from America. Near the end of the episode there is a wonderful, understated shot of Paulie sitting in the car, smiling out the window as he is driven home from the airport past various scrap-yards and dumps.
In keeping with one of the themes of my recent trip, of my reunion with the menfolk, I refer you to a passage from Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë which alludes to the period just after Brontë's wedding to Arthur Nicholls:
Henceforward the sacred doors of home are closed upon her married life. We, her loving friends, standing outside, caught occasional glimpses of brightness, and pleasant peaceful murmurs of sound, telling of the gladness within; and we looked at each other, and gently said, "After a hard and long struggle — after many cares and many bitter sorrows — she is tasting happiness now!" We thought of the slight astringencies of her character, and how they would turn to full ripe sweetness in that calm sunshine of domestic peace. We remembered her trials, and were glad in the idea that God had seen fit to wipe away the tears from her eyes. Those who saw her, saw an outward change in her look, telling of inward things. And we thought, and we hoped, and we prophesied, in our great love and reverence.
And that is all I will say about that, except to add that the Jinker Boy, Joe and I (and Sally, but don't tell the management) are in a motel in Maine, on the way home. Joe is lying spread-eagled on the bed watching the Democratic Convention and JB has a black eye from slipping on the deck of the motel pool. "Ripe sweetness" indeed.
July 10, 2004
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Posting this from my cousin's living room in London; it is either 8:49 pm or 1:49 am.
The flight over was not too bad at all, and since Virgin has a variety of videos on tap, was able to avoid the usual pap and got to watch the brilliant Shaun of the Dead: "A romantic comedy. With zombies." And the fact that everyone around me seemed to be watching The Princess Diaries added a certain piquancy to the experience.
All for now. Don't want to waste any more juice until I get hold of an adapter so I can recharge my PB battery. Already spent way too much time going through email, getting rid of spam, and writing messages I'm sure to regret.
July 03, 2004
Movie meme
so my trashy taste is a matter of public record.
Instructions: bold the titles you've seen and add three to the end of the list (from mamamusings, Chuck, and Culture Cat).
01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow
19. Pirates of the Caribbean
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead (The original).
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job
25. The Goonies
26. Baseketball
27. The Spice Girls Movie (Spice World)
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
31. Can’t Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity (both!)
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen The original.
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where’s My Car
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
68. Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
69. Muriel’s Wedding
70. Croupier
71. Blade Runner
72. Cruel Intentions
73. Ocean’s Eleven
74. Magnolia
75. Fight Club
76. Beauty and The Beast
77. Much Ado About Nothing
78. Dirty Dancing
79. Gladiator
80. Ever After
81. Braveheart
82. What Lies Beneath
83. Regarding Henry
84. The Dark Crystal
85. Star Wars
86. The Birds
87. Beaches
88. Cujo
89. Maid In Manhattan
90. Labyrinth
91. Thoroughly Modern Millie
92. His Girl Friday
93. Chocolat
94. Independence Day
95. Singing in the Rain
96. Big Fish
97. The Thomas Crown Affair
98. The Matrix
99. Stargate
100. A Hard Day’s Night
101. About A Boy
102. Jurassic Park
103. Life of Brian
104. Dune
105. Help!
106. Grease
107. Newsies
108. Gone With The Wind
109. School of Rock
110. TOMMY
111. Yellow Submarine
112. From Hell
113. Benny & Joon
114. Amelie
115. Bridget Jones’ Diary
116. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
117. Heavenly Creatures
118. All About Eve
119. The Outsiders
120. Airplane!
121. The Sorcerer
122. The Crying Game
123. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
124. Slap Her, She’s French
125. Amadeus
126. Tommy Boy
127. Aladdin
128. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
129. Snatch
130. American History X
131. Jack and Sarah
132. Monkey Bone
133. Rocky Horror Picture Show
134. Kate and Leopold
135. Interview with the Vampire
136. Underworld
137. Truly, Madly, Deeply
138. Tank Girl
139. Boondock Saints
140. Blow Dry
141. Titanic
142. Good Morning Vietnam
143. Save the Last Dance
144. Lost in Translation
145. Willow
146. Legend
147. Van Helsing
148. Troy
149. Nine Girls and a Ghost
150. A Knight’s Tale
151. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
152. Beetlejuice
153. E.T.
154. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone
155. Spaceballs
156. Young Frankenstein
157. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
158. American President
159. Bad Boys
160. Pecker
161. Pink Floyd: The Wall
161. X-Men
162. Sidewalks of New York
163. The Children of Dune
164. Beyond Borders
165. Life Is Beautiful
166. Good Will Hunting
167. Run Lola Run
168. Blazing saddles
169. Caligula
170. The Transporter
171. Better Off Dead
172. The Abyss
173. Almost Famous
174. The Red Violin
175. Contact
176. Stand and Deliver
177. Clueless
178. William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet
179. Dangerous Laisions
180. I Am Sam
181. The Usual Suspects
182. U-571
183. Capricorn One
184. The Little Shop of Horrors (the one with Jack Nicholson)
185. Die Hard
186. The Flamingo Kid
187. Night of the Comet
188. Point Break
189. Chatterbox
190. Secretary
191. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
192. American Beauty
193. Pulp Fiction
194. What About Bob
195. Roger and Me
196. Fahrenheit 9/11
197. Bowling for Columbine
198. The Professional (aka Leon)
199. The Fifth Element
200. La Femme Nikita
201. Heathers
202. Bull Durham
203. The Scorpion King
204. The Thin Blue Line
205. Do the Right Thing
206. Lady From Shanghai
207. Natural Born Killers
208. Funeral in Berlin
209. Decline of the American Empire
June 19, 2004
Get lost
in Springfied, courtesy of ampersand. Wander down Elm St., past the Android's Dungeon, make a left and drop in at the Palais de Donut ...
Names to conjure with.
And it may be awhile before the Lonely Planet guide comes out.
June 11, 2004
Linked links
Three book links:
Altered Books: the site of the International Society of Altered Book Artists (via moleskinerie).
Pop-up and Movable Books, part of the University of Delaware Library's "world of the child" collection (via Plep).
Fancy limited edition of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver , list price $ 200.00. But as they say at the Literary Salon, while it's tempting, think of all the not-so-fancy books you could buy with that money!
Segue into SF links:
China Miéville's next novel, Iron Council, due out July 27, takes us, according to the editors, "back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later." (Thanks to The Agony Column). Miéville is also one of the authors represented in the anthology Cities: The Very Best of Fantasy Comes to Town, out this past April.
Segue into dead languages:
"Yoda speaks like Anglo-Saxon" (courtesy of Mirabilis).
Blogging in Latin (via Household Opera).
(Clever how I did that, wasn't it?)
June 03, 2004
Poaching
culture, poaching links...
Hand knit superhero costumes that look like grandpa's longjohns, embroidery samplers featuring comic book vignettes, beaded trading cards: it's all here (via Boing Boing).
The Heinz Nixdorf Museum: "From cuneiform to computers." Think stone tablets and computers that fill whole rooms (via Boing Boing. Who have the resources). On a related note, Liz Lawley contemplates adding to the landfill.
Elizabeth Gaskell's home open to tourists (from MoorishGirl). I've been to Chawton and Dylan Thomas's boathouse, have walked through Bloomsbury, and will be going to Haworth in July as part of a conference. Now to get up to Manchester ...
More on gendering robots, from the new, refurbished ms.musings.
Also from msmusings: WisCon, and seven women sf writers talk about rewriting a masculine tradition. This from Patricia Wrede: "Size does matter."
Perhaps I have misjudged Eliot all these years (from Rake's Progress).
The Shatnerian keeps up with his home town.
Vintage tobacco ads (and related products such as "Slug-a-Bug insect killer for use around children, food, pets!") and before and after trade card ephemera (from Beautiful Stuff [and here]).
"Corpi, Murakami, and Contemporary Hardboiled Fiction" by Cathy Stebly, about using hard-boiled fiction to examine the past (from wood s lot).
"Studies in Narrative: Science Fiction and Fantasy": twenty lectures that overview both genres, available as MP3 downloads from The University of Minnesota (from Beautiful Stuff).
Index to the biographies and writings of members of the Frankfurt School and The Charles Booth Online Archive (both from Plep).
June 02, 2004
Modern Translations
News story about e-commerce monks: "It's a modern adaptation of what we've done for hundreds of years." (from rebecca's pocket).
And, a review of Troy in mock-heroic blank verse, by Liz Penn:
I sing of arms and the man:
Very large arms, and the man who built them ...
June 01, 2004
Law & Order art
with a major focus on Lenny, may he enjoy his retirement:
(from Boing Boing).
Interesting which television shows get poached, and in what ways. Though as well as this highbrow stuff, there is plenty of more standard Law & Order fanfic out there (you're all of legal age, right?):
Prosecutorial Discretion
Exculpatory Evidence!
Law & Order slash fanfic
FemFic.org: Law & Order
Law & Order Slash Links
The Law & Order: SVU Femslash Site Index
May 28, 2004
Must ... control ... fist ... of death!
I just had to delete thirty comments all from some porn site promoting more varieties of rape than I would have thought possible. And, I'm very bitter for having now been made to think about them. So, here are some light-hearted links. Go on, chuckle!
Finally — American politics explained.
The 100 Worst Porn Movie Titles (from the Rake, living up to his name). I'm trying to decide between May the Foreskin Be With You, Ass-Hole O Mio, and Yank My Doodle, It's A Dandy. Okay, you may not want to visit this page. But at least there's nothing about rape there.
Gawker says that Soul Plane is "the Citizen Kane of blacksploitation airline industry films." Shatnerian says that this is "The Movie Blurb of the Day. I say, they are both right.
Stephany Aulenback's Beckett for Babies project continues apace. I regret not having sent in a photo of the Jinker Boy, but he is just so purposeful.
Check out The Blog of Death, a blog of obituaries (link from Portage). Okay, that one's not funny. But now I feel better.
Thanks for being there.
May 23, 2004
SF stuff
I have never understood the fixation of many Star Trek fans with William Shatner. Sure, then he was Captain Kirk. But now? And just when you think it must finally all be over, you hear this (from Slashdot).
Still on the theme of obsolescence: Alan Lattimore writes,
Steve Carper, a regular in the TangentOnline newsgroups, notices this is the first year none of the Nebula awards® went to print magazines.
Just went to see Shrek II with my significant others this afternoon. It was a lot of fun, more for us adults, though, than for the Jinker boy. I suppose three is a tad young, but I also thought that the movie was more geared to adults; the much-touted double layer of humour was there, but I thought the adult half of the equation was privileged. After all, we buy the tickets (and DVDs, and books, and etc.). Then again, I'm an adult — it says so on my driver's license — so the children's humour was over my head, perhaps. But see it; Antonio Banderas (pictured. Well, you know what I mean) and Jennifer Saunders are particularly good.
May 18, 2004
At least it wasn't in the bed
Here's a link to a series in Slate that I had not noticed before, Mob Experts on The Sopranos. Lots of discussion of Sunday's dream sequence, which included Tony on a horse in the living room. Lucky they have a cathedral ceiling.
May 14, 2004
Klingçais
Qov, who posted the haiku of yours truly not so long ago on her Klingon language blog (story here), has hit the big time. She's off to Cannes for the International Film Festival courtesy of the producer of Earthlings: ugly bags of mostly water (mentioned here earlier). Her worry?
I'll get to have the dizzying fun of going back and forth between Klingon and French, trying not to produce bizarre Klingçais sentences. There are a couple of Klingon verb prefixes similar to French pronouns, and that might trigger accidental code-shifting.
I've always thought that Klingon sounded more Germanic than anything else; the idea of Klingçais (or Frangon, as one commenter wrote), is indeed dizzying. I will look forward to Qov's reports about her trip (though they will likely not be in English!).
(news from Tenser, said the Tensor).
Troy, eh?
The Elegant Variation has a series of helpful links in honour of the opening of Troy, including the five minute Iliad.
May 07, 2004
Oh crap!
Brad Pitt set to play Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (heads up from Stephany Aulenbac).
May 02, 2004
SF links
Crib notes for Kubrick: 2001 explained. Very well done. Don't know, though, if they intended to underscore Kubrick's presentation of "humanitiy" as blue-eyed males or just uncritically reproduced it. Via Plep.
"'Where in the multiverse...?': researching the vocabulary of science fiction for the OED": update on the OED sf project. Via Boing Boing.
"The Factwhore Proposition" by Charles Coleman Finlay, a story about the commodification of knowledge work, at Futurismic. Heads up from Boing Boing.
April 28, 2004
SF mash ups
A photoshopping contest: mash up two or more sf television shows or movies. Some of these are pretty funny. Via Boing Boing.
April 26, 2004
Some links
Poetry in your pocket (via Culture Cat).
Tracking kids with Lego writstbands (via slashdot).
Zombies are the new Republicans (via the chutry experiment).
A woman who says her iPod is better than her boyfriend (via Cult of Mac).
Screensaver mimics airplane window (via Cult of Mac).
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: a punctuation game (via forty.something. And no, you may not know my score.)
La Gringa asks, "What would Joan Jett do?" (W.W.J.J.D.?)
April 24, 2004
Kill Bill intertextually
Go here for a catalogue of film references in Tarantino's Kill Bill duology. (From kottke via Boing Boing.)
A commentator on an earlier post does not like the yellow tracksuit Thurman wears. Apparently it's a reference to the one Bruce Lee wears in his last film, Game of Death. (Don't know if that makes it more appealing).
I am planning to see Kill Bill: Vol. 2 next week, the gods of the local multiplex allowing.
April 22, 2004
I know it when I see it
Art or porn? You decide. Via Plep.
My score? "You scored 8 out of a possible 10. There are two explanations for how you've done so well. 1: You're a devotee of great cinematic art, and recognise key moments in film history when you see them. 2: You have a huge stash of vintage porn."
My lips are sealed.
April 21, 2004
I vote for Catherine of Sienna
Franciscan friars have mounted a petition in an attempt to interest Mel Gibson in doing a biopic of their patron saint. According to the BBC story, the friars say that "This powerful figure has too often been reduced to a pious, peace-loving character cast in plaster."
Well, perhaps not for long. G'a 'head, sign the petition.
(Via Mirabilis.ca.)
This reminds me of an All Saints' party a friend of mine had some years back. I went as the little-known St. Afra, a prostitute who sheltered a Christian on the run and was burnt at the stake for her troubles. Putting that costume together was a blast. Joe thought he would top us all and went as Satan (cheating, I think, though I lack a proper religious education). But the joke was on him, for as he was lounging around the snack table with my lipstick all over his face, his red track suit caught on fire from a nearby candle. He won a prize for best special effects.
April 20, 2004
Even more lost
By way of a followup to my earlier post: according to Boing Boing, criticism of the depiction of Japanese characters in Coppola's film is heating up. Links to this article in The Christian Science Monitor, and this post from Joi Ito.
Update (21/4/04): Joi Ito posts that "Lost in Translation doesn't translate well in Japan." Lots of agreement in the comments section, though I do admire the one dissident who writes, "The complaints about the movie remind me of dentists who see a movie and critique the teeth of the actors."
April 17, 2004
Kill Bill without apology
ms.musings links (scroll down) to an interview with Uma Thurman about her role in Kill Bill:
"I'm not going to buy into that 'because it's a woman it has to be worse,'" she said. "If it's a character, it's a very male character. I mean, the scope of the journey that the character goes through is something that you wouldn't blink twice if you saw Mel Gibson's Mad Max in this position, or Clint Eastwood. The character is severely abused, and it's a revenge story. It's about someone being victimized who, yes, was a former professional assassin.
"It's comic booklike road-kill. It's a very, very familiar story. What is different is that I am a woman and the person fighting their way back out of the grave, the person seeking revenge, the person taking the beating and the person coming back for more fearlessly is me, a woman, and not your typical man. For people to find that to be anti-feminist is interesting to me, because for as many people who find it upsetting on that level, there are many more who find it more sort of exciting and inspiring to see a woman exhibiting as much strength and aggression and power as you expect from a male in storytelling....
Thurman drew inspiration not only from Gibson and Eastwood but two strong women: Gena Rowland's Oscar-nominated performance as a woman hiding a child from the mob in Gloria and bodacious blaxploitation heroine Pam Grier, who is now a regular on Showtime's The L Word.
Thurman spoke of the revelation she had watching both parts of Kill Bill.
"I realize that I didn't grow up watching a movie where a woman was portrayed as so tough and so strong and so fierce and brave," she said. "I went through many other wonderful adventures, but I never saw that, and if there was one thing that I got back out of all the work that went into it, all the pain that went into doing it, it was that that gave me something back. Like, 'Wow.' Like it or not, Kill Bill is an example of that, and that's not common."
It's my birthday next week. I have asked for dinner and a movie.
Addendum (20/4/04):Boing Boing links to an on-line game based on the movie. Caveat: it's in Czech.
April 14, 2004
Today's sf links
1. Oodles of definitions of sf, via The Mumpsimus, one of several interesting links on offer. I like Darko Suvin's definition:
[...] SF is ... a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment.
2. The Male Malaise. Speculation about the long-term untenability of the Y chromosome (125,000 years long-term). Ends with references to various female utopias and some good links. Via ms. musings.
3. And finally, extending the Easter festivities just a few more days, we have a 30 second version of The Exorcist re-enacted by bunnies. Via Alas, a Blog. Which seems to be indulging in a lot of levity of late.
Addendum (7:51): 4. Wonderful zombie parody at Yankee Pot Roast.
April 09, 2004
Lost in Translation
Jesse, a student of mine, wrote about Lost in Translation awhile back in his blog. I responded in the comments, in best Butley fashion—not having seen it and "you know how it exhausts me to write about films I haven't seen"—and he promptly lent me a copy on DVD. I have been promising a response for awhile.
Spoiler alert, eh?
Jesse sees Japan, in the film, as a representation of the "cultural and intellectual noise" of contemporary post-industrial society, to the nth degree, and as such, it is an effective background for a film that is about, finally, an act of communication in a world that makes such acts almost impossible. The inability of the anglophone characters to speak to the Japanese characters reflects a general inability to communicate, even in a shared language.
I find this a persuasive argument, with the caveat that Coppola is also indicating something about the specificity of Japanese culture as experienced by two Americans. It would not have been the same film had it been shot in Hong Kong or Buenos Aires; it does represent something of Japan, though backwards and upsidedown.1
Jesse goes on to write, approvingly, of the way in which the film undercuts the expected boy-meets-girl narrative by not having Bob and Charlotte fall into bed. Of their final scene together, when Bob whispers something to her before he leaves, he writes,
We, the audience, never hear what he says. To me, we don't need to hear it — more than that, we can't hear it, because it would be meaningless to us. But in that moment, they finally reach each other — he talks, she listens. And whatever it is he says, it is exactly what she needed to hear.
He continues,
Admittedly, my own interpretation is slightly weakened by that over-long kiss on the lips the two characters enjoy. In my mind, though, it's the final kiss on the cheek that's more important — a kiss of affection, but not a kiss of lovers.
I think this is exactly right; it is that final kiss that summarizes their interaction. But the longer kiss on the lips is significant, too: to my mind, it stands for all the "what ifs" of Murray's character's situation: "what if I weren't married? What if you weren't?" But more importantly, "what if I were twenty years younger?" (or, why not? à la Something's Gotta Give, "what if you were twenty years older?")
It would have been beyond tedious if Bob had had sex with Charlotte. One thing that I liked about this film, among many, was that both leads played their ages: Bob is middle-aged. He is a bone fide boomer: he's rumpled and wrinkled; he gets tired; he is bemused by youth culture; he is in a mature, long-term relationship and all that implies (love the scene where his wife FedEx's him carpet samples and he looks at them where they have fallen on the floor, muttering, "which one is burgundy?"). Charlotte is a slacker: young, at points even immature, as when she sulks about Bob's one-nighter with the lounge singer:
Photo by Yoshio Sato
As someone closer in age to Murray than Scarlett Johansson, I was impressed that a director of Coppola's generation had such a nuanced take. Or maybe she's just sick of the Michael Douglas factor. In my reading, Charlotte probably would have consented to a sexual affair, but Bob was clear-sighted, or experienced enough, to know that it would have been destructive. He seemed to view her with a sad nostalgia from almost the beginning.
This is not to be critical of Charlotte; she is not irresponsible, she is young and adrift. To some extent she is a cautionary figure: girls, don't let yourself become some man's baggage (an old story that needs retelling). By underscoring her age, Coppola makes Charlotte's potential clearer. She is a work in progress, whereas Bob is more fixed. I found her contented expression in the final scene, after Bob returns to the taxi, an indication of learning and transformation.
Will Bob and Charlotte meet again? Unlikely. You can't go home. Or in this case, they couldn't take it home. And that's a good thing: what they had was a bubble, an interlude, ultimately uncategorizable but nevertheless life-changing. But completely dependent on that time and that place.
So she won't seek him out at home and seduce him on the burgundy floor of his study. If for no other reason than his knees couldn't take it.
And, boy, was Bill Murray ever robbed of that Oscar.
Sidenote:
Languagehat writes about mis/translation, and points to Margaret Marks' post on the Suntory whiskey scene and what the director is really saying.
1 An exchange on Joi Ito's blog about whether or not the film is racist, and his initial reaction to the film:
I just saw Lost in Translation. It was strange watching it in Boston just hours after leaving Tokyo. It was like looking at my moblog... I knew the sushi chef from Ichikan in Daikanyama and the guy who played the producer of the photo shoot, Maki-san. I knew almost every location they shot. Everything was so familiar. It was strange thinking that it must seems so weird to people who haven't been there.
Makiko Itoh likes the film. Check out the links and comments.
Addendum (9:55pm): Chuck Tryon points towards an interesting review, at miscellany is the largest category, which focuses on sound in the film.
March 23, 2004
Back to normal
Zombies Push Jesus from Top of North American Box Office.
(Link from I Know What I Know.)
March 15, 2004
Passion blooper reel
Okay, I swore I would not write about John Travolta's Mel Gibson's Battlefield Earth Passion because I have no intention of seeing it, and fair's fair. But, ran across this and had to link.
March 14, 2004
LotR forever
This just in from Kieran Healy: there is to be a LotR musical. Write to Crooked Timber with your suggestions for songs. My offering: Frodo to Gollum: "I don't know how to club him."
February 08, 2004
What if LotR had been written by Jane Austen?
Here is a hilarious site, via Austen-tatious, where are gathered various spoofs of LotR channelled through the likes of Coleridge ("In Khazad-dûm did evil fall / And stately Aragorn despair"), the Beowulf poet ("A great shadow descended / Horrific winged creature with wicked rider"), John Donne ("Goe and catch a falling Ring / Get with child the Elven Queen,"), Robert Burns ("Wee timid, hungry, half-grown hobbit, / Living in hole like ony rabbit,"), John Keats ("O what can ail thee, Frodo lad, / Alone and palely loitering?"), and scads of others. Here is a taste:
e. e. cummings
by Hunter Greenprecious) downward
my) the heat rises
O) the mountain riseslike a mouth the earth
swallows
greedilya finger without its hand
a body without its soul
an evil without its powerbright sun on us both)
remembering(
bobbing forth and back)
my birthday(
he was greedy like the earth)
one life begins(
one life ends)
river like a mouth, cold, hot
ring like a mouth, devouring
consumed i must consume(Sméagol?)
the ring (O
and the body (my
are consumed (precious
Helen Fielding was mentioned twice, much to my delighted surprise, but of course it wasn't Helen, sister of Henry, but that other Helen Fielding.
Most of the writers who are pastiched here are male, which I suppose is hardly surprising. Some of our students are (were?) thinking of putting on a public debate to discuss the proposition that the LotR is a misogynist text. Hope it goes forward.
January 27, 2004
Cultural vocabulary
I'm teaching Frankenstein to my intro. class this week. Today I mentioned that Victor Frankenstein is immediately repulsed as soon as the creature moves, particularly when he sees its “dull and yellow” eyes. He does not have even a fleeting moment's elation after virtually years of obsessive work. I made a comparison with the classic film: blank looks. You know: "It's alive!" They laughed, more at their professor bug-eyed and yelling, than in recognition.
The incident reminded me of the last time I taught "Ozymandias" and, in an effort to find common ground, mentioned that the poem reminded me of Charlton Heston falling to his knees when he sees the Statue of Liberty, at the end of The Planet of the Apes, and howling, "Noooo!" Again blank looks. Didn't I mean Mark Wahlberg?
At least I didn't fall to my knees.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
[Charlton Heston, actor, Republican, and past president of the NRA. Look on his works and despair.]
January 23, 2004
One day, in Teletubby land...
Everyone knows that Jerry Falwell claims that Tinky Winky is "promoting the gay lifestyle," right?
Though why he would think so, is anyone's guess.
(Here is the scoop from theory.org.uk.) And here, via The Foo Blog, is someone so far out, Falwell looks almost reasonable in comparison: "TELETUBBIES: Nazi Hybrid Greys in Disguise" (you've been warned). No, wait; Teletubbies are part of a secularizing, goddess-worshipping conspiracy. Then there is the Teletubbies conspiracy site, which has to be a satire. Has to be. Almost certainly satiric is this site about the species Teletubby (Tubbis tele).
I have been meaning to post on the Teletubbies for awhile now. The Pinocchio Theory offered some incisive Tubbie analysis awhile back. And then I was pushed over the edge when my mother, watching with Alex, suddenly noticed that Dipsy has darker skin than the other three, and said, "That's odd; I thought they were all one family." I, on the other hand, have always assumed that they are some sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune (this reading of the show as a hotbed of progressive ideology is backed up by the interpolated vignettes of multi-racial groups of children—real children, whose socks fall down, not the polished automatons on Barney—and the episode in which the mummy of the little girl with the puppies is casually revealed to have a tattoo). The Pinocchio Theory post is worth quoting in full:
I watch Teletubbies now and again with Adah (who is now 15 months old), but I have to admit I love it more than she does. I think it’s the most brilliant kids’ TV show that I have ever seen (or at least, that I have ever seen as an adult).
Teletubbies is pure bliss.The show has a formal elegance rare for TV: a minimalism as rigorous as those of early Philip Glass or late Samuel Beckett. The beginning and end of the show are always the same: the baby-sun rising, and then setting, with the Teletubbies saying hello and goodbye respectively. Once the sun has risen, the Teletubbies run away over the hills; and a voice emanating from one of those tubes that rise out of the ground asks: “Where have the Teletubbies gone?” This enigmatic question is never answered: it is always followed by a series of abstract scenes, with multiple Teletubbies against monochromatic backdrops. There are only four Teletubbies, but they can be “everywhere,” thanks to their multiple instantiations in these abstract scenes. Other elements are repeated from show to show as well, like the mini-films of children around the world, broadcast through one or another of the Teletubbies’ tubbies; and my favorite, the twice-repeated (sometimes more) “Big Hug” that follows the offscreen narrator’s assurance that “Teletubbies love each other very much.”
I also love the puzzling non-narratives that sometimes happen in the latter part of the show: a piece of Tubby Toast is too big for Tinky Winky, Dipsy, or LaaLaa to eat, but Poe (the smallest) manages to eat it just fine. Or, the meadow is mysteriously turned into a big lake, then just as mysteriously back to a meadow again. Or, LaaLaa plays with her (?) ball inside because it has started to rain; but when the rain ends, she goes outside again. Even when these little stories seem like they are going to turn moralistic or didactic, they don’t, but stop short of having a point (I imagine this to be some Western child’s version of a Zen koan, but I don’t really know anything about Zen). Of course, other times there are no such pseudo-narratives at all; the Teletubbies just dance, or march around, or something.
The Teletubbies themselves intrigue me endlessly: it’s so hard to figure out whether their brightly-colored surfaces are skin/fur, or just costumes they are wearing (the seam on their backs suggests it is just a costume, but somehow it makes sense to me that this would be the form of their actual, pre-genital bodies). LaaLaa and Poe seem to be female, because they are smaller and their voices higher; Tinky Winky seems to be male (and gay, as Jerry Falwell claimed); Dipsy remains mysterious to me in this regard. But infantile or pre-genital gender is a strange sort of concept anyway; one thing that is good about the show is that this strangeness is retained intact (instead of being “normalized” by the absurd tyranny of boys-in-blue and girls-in-pink from the moment of birth).
I’m usually not a fan of minimalist art; but here the infantile content perfectly matches the form.
Further to the aesthetics of Teletubbies, via an old post on Law Blog: "Teletubbies inspire new style of jazz."
But are they good for you? Here, just as some have feared, is a photo of someone's baby being hypnotized. But despite what some people say, Teletubbies are educational. Pedro Vera describes how his little one has developed a sense of order and hierarchy from the Teletubbies:
Pedro has an incredible collection of Teletubbies. He has them in all sizes, both plushies and plastic. That is on top of the other zillion toys in the house.Except for one thing: Regardless of where I find them in the house, I always find them arranged in the proper order that they are presented in the TV show:
1. Tinky Winky (Boy, Purple)
2. Dipsy (Boy, Green)
3. Laa Laa (Girl, Yellow)
4. Po (Girl, Red)It is not that they are always in a perfect line (they never are) but that Pedro always sorts them by color. From where I am sitting right now I can see two sets setup that way, and I just saw in my own bedroom there is another set (huge plushies, 2/3rds of Pedro's height) arranged on the foot of our bed.
Surely this can only be a good thing.
And millions of viewers can't be wrong. There is quite a fan base out there. Here are links to 8 Track Diva's knitting patterns for Teletubbies projects (I love the hats). And paper crafts ("All projects require a toilet paper roll to complete"). And cupcakes.
Electronic tubby postcards from the Netherlands.
A webring.
Of course, not everyone likes them. This picture from the frisky Alive and Blogging is frankly disturbing, though I am not entirely sure why since I have worked out my own Tubbie taxonomy which includes a few of these elements (Dipsy=dipsomanic is a no-brainer). Must be the R. Crumb-does-the-playground idea. Mike Rogers would appear to have some serious Tubbies issues. Along with a nightmarish picture that is NOTHING like Teletubby Land, he offers a shoot-'em-up called "Teletubbies mercy killing." And here is another shooting game, though I couldn't figure out how it worked. But my heart wasn't in it.
Then there is the Teletubbies virus hoax and the Teletubbies quiz:
Uh-oh!
And finally (be still, my heart), one can buy one's own Noo Noo.
Tubby successors: Boobahs. On this side of the pond, watch for them Jan. 19 on PBS.
December 26, 2003
T3
Two of my students wrote very good reviews of Terminator 3 for the sf class. They disagreed neatly on the issue of whether the treatment of women in the film was empowering or demeaning. I was looking forward to seeing the film myself, and ordered it on PPV the other evening. Too quickly, as it turned out; I inadvertently ordered it in French. Now my understanding of spoken French is pretty rudimentary, but I thought since it was an action film and I had heard that the Governor had half a dozen lines at most, I would give it a go. Well, he did have half a dozen lines, but other characters had many more and as the credits rolled I was left confused about the fate of the planet. What did not need translation, however, was the way the formerly icy evil Terminator turned into a snarling metallic hellcat in her last scene, nor the way that Arnold finally vanquished her by ramming an explosive into her mouth with a vehemence that would have been rude in hard porn.
Claire Danes had it right the first time, even though she backtracked, when she brought up the virgin/whore dichotomy in an interview or two.
December 20, 2003
28 Days Later
Recently watched 28 Days Later on Pay Per View. Several times disturbed Sally dog by suddenly lurching forward on the sofa, jumping, or twitching. And sometimes by sitting forward because of interest in the images on the screen, which doesn't happen nearly so often.
SPOILERS: Here is a review by the prolific Cynthia Fuchs with which I would by and large agree; here is another perceptive review from Blogcritics.com, except for its red–baiting. I haven't posted links to all the reviews that claim that Danny Boyle rips off George Romero's Night of the Living Dead etc. A distinction needs to be made, I think, between working within a tradition and ripping it off, between homage and plagiarism. Especially with sf, horror, and thrillers. I mean, how many different ways could the zombies– overrunning– the– world scenario be played out, anyway? How many different ways could survivors react? Why is looting stores a cliche? (I know that's what I'd do). Anyway, this film is set in the UK, so the characters get giddy in a supermarket, not a gun shop or a mall. Bottom line: this film brings a lot of originality to the mix. As Boyle himself says, "nothing can stand on its own anymore — there is always some reference point."
From the opening scenes of a chimpanzee strapped down like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, it is clear that Boyle, of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting fame (and The Beach, but let’s not talk about that), is self–consciously working in a tradition. Indeed, he is quite candid about his influences and said in an interview that casting Selena as a black woman was a deliberate choice, in keeping with the tradition of Romero and the Omega Man; that it was an aesthetic rather than a political choice. There is no reason to believe him disingenuous here, as he is hardly backward about his politics. It seems to me that despite what Boyle says, however, race is an issue. Specifically, that racism in the UK is part of what drives the apocalypse. How else to read the proposed gang-rape of Selena, who is black? How else to explain that the only black soldier in the unit is also the only infected soldier, kept in a courtyard with a chain around his neck for purposes of “military intelligence” (ie. to see how long he takes to starve. The Major makes the scientists at the Cambridge lab seem like PETA.) And how else to read this soldier’s ultimate role in the altercation with the soldiers? That final shot of him, triumphant and tortured, in the doorway of the country house?
The acting is strong. Cillian Murphy is effective as Jim, the bicycle–courier–turned–amateur–commando—though one reviewer calls him “some kind of skinny, dead-eyed ninja, as if a member of Radiohead had had his DNA spliced to Sho Kosugi's—and Naomie Harris is wonderfully nuanced in her role of sf–amazon–with–a–soft–heart in the tradition of Linda Hamilton and Sigorney Weaver. Brendan Gleeson is strong as Frank, burly cab–driver and protective father (And nothing like Ernest Borgnine’s cabby in Escape From New York, though presumably Frank’s occupation is one of many nods).
Despite costing only eight million dollars, the sets, effects, and cinematography are all excellent. Shooting digitally worked well with the mood and subject.
Apparently there are three alternate endings on the DVD. There was one on PPV, shown with no notice after the credits, with the cryptic inter-title, “What if?” Bleaker than the chosen ending, but perhaps, after all, more in keeping with the rest of the film.
Bloopers: surely a research lab working on something so potentially lethal would have more security in place than one hapless scientist. Is it at all likely that the victim of a virus could display full blown symptoms within 10–20 seconds of initial contact? Is it likely that a virus could be immediately transferable from other species to humans? And what happened to all the animals? This is England, after all. Where were all the homicidal persians and slavering spaniels? And why were our intrepid band initially surviving on Maltesers and Pepsi, in London? Surely there were neighbourhood Tescos to raid? And would such a complete media blackout of the quarantined UK been possible? I point these things out not to be pernickety, but to demonstrate that yes, I noticed them. But so what? Zombie movies are horror movies, not sf, and horror does not require the same level of explanation. As one viewer apparently said of Escape From New York, “Stupid but my kind of stupid.” And more importantly, the reader/viewer/critic, to be fair, needs to judge the text/film/etc. within its own stated parameters. This film is a visual treat, a mood piece, a social commentary, a morality tale, a cautionary tale, a catharsis: not Isaac Asimov. In fact, the Lord of the Flies feel to the second half pushes the genre elements entirely to the back burner.
For your apocalyptic viewing pleasure at this joyous time of the year:
Steve Sekely and Freddie Francis, dir. The Day of the Triffids From the novel by John Wyndham (UK, 1962)
George Romero, dir. Night of the Living Dead (USA, 1968)
Boris Sagal, dir. The Omega Man (USA, 1971)
George Romero, dir. The Crazies (USA, 1973)
George Romero, dir. Dawn of the Dead (USA/Italy, 1978)
John Carpenter, dir. Escape From New York (USA/UK, 1981)
Luc Besson, dir. La Dernier Combat (Fr, 1983)
Thom Eberhardt, dir. Night of the Comet (USA, 1984)
Geoff Murphy, dir. The Quiet Earth (NZ, 1985)
George Romero, dir. Day of the Dead (USA, 1985)
Terry Gilliam, dir. Twelve Monkeys (USA, 1995)
Danny Boyle, dir. 28 Days Later (UK, 2002)
December 19, 2003
Once More, with Hobbits!
BtVS and LotR fans (you know who you are), you MUST check out this brilliant parody of a parody (how metafictional is that?), Once More with Hobbits. They promise audio sometime soon; be still, my heart.
[Thanks to WHEDONesque for the link.]
December 17, 2003
Denizens of the Buffyverse
Andrea, Jesse, Christie, and probably the rest of you too: just discovered a blog on all things Whedon; it's an open blog with lots of links. Link on the right.
December 10, 2003
I'll post this, then crash
Something more on the recent discussion of Ballard's Crash and the question of why it was even on an sf course. One of my students just posted impressions of the novel:
I didn't even see the world of Crash as Earth, or even the possible future Earth, but instead "a Counter-Earth", sort of a Twighlight Zonesque concept. I know, I watch too much television. The World Ballard is depicting, initially seemed to me, like a doppelganger world, with negating duplicates of everyone on the existing Earth.
Of course the writer is not arguing literally that Ballard has written an alternate universe narrative, but I'm wondering if one couldn't justify categorizing the novel as sf based solely on its tone?
December 05, 2003
Crash test dummy
Two weeks ago I had my sf class read J.G. Ballard's Crash. (For anyone unfamiliar with the novel, here is the blurb from the back cover:
In this hallucinatory novel, an automobile provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a 'TV scientist' turned 'nightmare angel of the highways,' experiments with erotic atrocities among auto crash victims, each more sinister than the last. James Ballard, his friend and fellow obsessive, tells the story of this twisted visionary as he careens rapidly toward his own demise in an internationally orchestrated car crash with Elizabeth Taylor. A classic work of cutting-edge fiction, Crash explores both the disturbing implications and horrific possibilities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.
A little overblown, but you get the idea.)
This is the second class I have asked to read this novel, and while the previous one uniformly disliked it, they did so with none of the vehemence of the current group (see here, here and here [26/11/03:9am]). Of course they are two different groups of people, but I wonder if asking this year’s bunch to blog might have increased their comfort levels with me, and each other, and allowed them to be more forthright.
One aspect of the whole discussion has given me real pause: two students told me that the novel had made them extremely uncomfortable due to events in their own pasts. I had not considered this possibility with this particular text; certainly it’s full of graphic descriptions of sex and physical injuries, but the sex is consensual and the injuries are from car crashes: it lacks the sort of coercion, abuse of power, or interpersonal violence that would have automatically impelled me to issue a content warning. Actually, I have only once ever put something on a course that I thought warranted such a warning: I showed Boys Don’t Cry last year in my intro. to gender studies class, because the subject was important enough to override considerations of comfort (here is the official page from Fox, which manages not to mention that Brandon Teena was transgendered). I put Crash on this year’s course as part of a section on technology interfacing with sexuality (we also read William Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” and Candas Jane Dorsey’s “(Learning About) Machine Sex”), but while it is an early example of the treatment of this theme, because of the reactions this year I doubt I will assign the whole novel again. Perhaps just an excerpt; there is one published in the RE/Search edition of The Atrocity Exhibition that I have, that would work.
Anyway, apart from anything else, I realized that I don’t want to read it again, so how can I teach it?
The whole discussion was an interesting exercise, however. The students questioned whether it is sf at all, and I have to agree that it is only in the broadest sense. It seems to be set at the time of the writing (pub. 1971), but it is strangely prophetic in its evocation of a world where individuals are disassociated from any sense of community by the impersonality of their surroundings; to whatever extent that was true thirty years ago, it must be even more so now. And even though that last may be arguable, the novel is prescient in terms of sf trends.
One of my students wrote a somewhat more appreciative blog entry than most of his classmates, and I think it’s worth quoting at length:
Seeing the reaction of the class towards James Ballard's Crash, I felt inclined to say a few things about it that I think I left unsaid. When we were on our break i was explaining to Krystal how i had felt about this novel. I told her about when I had visited England when i was about 13 and my parents and I were at the Piccadilly train station and somehow i got seperated from my parents and I ended up getting up close to the actual platform of the tracks, eventually the train had come and it whizzed by me and it just caught me offguard. It didn't scare me neither did it fascinate me, for me those 30 seconds of the train whizzing by me with all the lights, sounds and wind will always be a memory. This is how I felt about Crash. The whole novel seemed to me as just a plethora of sexual images. To the point where I had just become numb. And this is where I maybe understood where Ballard was coming from. Media in the contemporary world seems to forcefeed society with images of violence and sex and more imporatantly death, to the point where we take it for granted. In my opinion technology has amost numbed us to these aspects of society. We watch violence and death on the news and it does not seem to affect us anymore. The abundance of sex and our continued interactions in everything that we come in contact whether it's advertisements, movies, sitcoms whatever, we take sex and it's societal implications for granted. Maybe Ballard believes that we shouldn't.
To an extent, I had to justify choosing the novel, and that made me think about it beyond the obvious human/technological interface idea. It is, above all, a novel of ideas. A concept novel. I think that Ballard had this neato idea about people who got off on car crashes as emblems of what he saw as dangerous social and cultural trends, but instead of writing a story, as one of my students wished on his Crash webpage, he sat down and wrote a whole novel. I have to say it: that sort of unremitting focus in spite of all other considerations: it’s such a guy thing. But that being said, and as I remarked to my students, they may have hated it but I doubt that they will forget having read it. They may forget characters or incidents, but they won’t forget the queasy feeling they had as they read it, or the central linkage of sex, twisted metal, and wounds. And how long do they think they would have remembered, in comparison, an earnest editorial, say, on over-dependence on technology? And really, how else can we measure the success of a piece of writing but by the strength of its impact? One of my students wrote :
There's a saying I've heard once or thrice that every personal library should have one book that can offend anybody. Well, now my library has such a book, and it's name is Crash.... it's staying in my library as that book that can offend anyone. A trophy, if you will, to a literary war-wound received during my university days.
It is a fascinating novel; it must be practically unique in being so full of sex, from cover to cover, yet in utterly failing to titillate. It is the most unsexy dirty book that one can imagine, and that can hardly be unintentional in a writer of Ballard’s talent. (That is one reason why the Cronenberg film is so irritating: it could not, by virtue of being a visual medium, never mind the beautiful actors, achieve the almost ascetic quality that the novel has. Perversely ascetic—degradedly and begrimedly ascetic—or do I mean passionless? Or just enervated?). No-one in it to like, or sympathize with. Or, to even understand. Ballard makes us feel the same disassociation, the same anomie, as his characters. I suspect that that is the real reason for the strong reactions from many readers, myself included.
I can’t help thinking that Ballard must have had in mind the old comparison between being compelled by something, and not being able to look away from an accident. “You know. It was like a car crash; I couldn’t look away.”
October 01, 2003
Sargent's fear of dogs
Pamela Sargent's story "Fear" reminds me of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, which explores a similar scenario from the masculine viewpoint of a young man in a world with few women. It was made into "A grungy, odd cult film," according to Jeffrey M. Anderson of the San Franciso Examiner, starring Don Johnson and Jason Robards. Here are some reviews, at badmovies.org and rottentomatoes.com. A black comedy set in a post–holocaust desert—Mad Max without the machismo—worth watching if only for Jason Robards as the twisted patriarch who lives below ground:
Here is the original poster,
and the cover for the DVD release:
September 25, 2003
Cats and dogs
Further to the last message about the alien women: it is not an accident that two of the four characters were described as feline (literally, in the case of C'mell, but the Shambleau had cats' pupils and feline claws). And, arguably, Ahrian had feline qualities (small; pointed little face).
I have a dog and a cat. The dog's name is Sally (her kennel name is Salome Summer Bright. And she's a good Salome, despite the eyebrows and beard: she does the dance of the seven plastic grocery bags) and the cat's name is Furio, after the hitman from Napoli that Tony Soprano brought in to do a job. Our job was a kitchen full of mice, and Furio has been as good as his name. But we are constantly mixing up their sexes, calling the dog "he" and the cat "she." Sally is simply not "feminine": she has an exaggerated sense of territory, she is aggressively playful, and she humps Furio to let him know who's on top. Furio, on the other hand, could care less, and lies there limply while Sally makes a fool of herself, and sometimes, very lazily, taps her nose with his paw.
C'mell is described as having red hair like cat's fur, and I kept picturing little Furio's gingerly coat.
This photo is deceptive. They are like the coyote and the sheepdog in the Looney Tunes cartoon who say hello to each other before their shift, punch their time cards, fight all day over the sheep—the coyote getting the worst of it, of course—and then clock out at the end of the day, say "see you tomorrow," and go home.
Sam and Ralph on their lunch break.
[Oh no, I've turned into one of those people who blogs about her pets.]