2.25.2008

Composite.

Text pours over the screen, capitals and lowercases and ones and zeroes and other alphanumerics. I relax my arms and sit back in my chair. I'd been writing for hours, sitting in the dark of this room alone, lit only by the glow of my computer's monitor. But it's done now, finally. The opus. What will put me on the great virtual map of the world's stage, literary-wise at least. I rub my shoulders and stare at the ceiling. There is a crack there. It's new, or newer, anyway. I haven't looked up there in quite some time, so for all I know it could be months old at this point. It looks new though.

"So now what?" I thought. "The book is done. It is finished. El finito. Done. A complete work. And no one cares yet. But OH they will. Oh, how they will. They will gaze in awe at my vast intellect and carve statues in my honor and give me awards and money and the women, OH the women. Screw Karen, I don't need her now, this is my ticket out of this cell she put me in and when I get out. . ." I had to stop myself there, I was getting carried away. "All in due time," I tell myself, "you need a publisher still." Which was true. I didn't have a publisher. But I will! And it will be glorious.

I get up out of the chair, which seems a little rusty in the wheel area. It doesn't roll quite as smoothly as it should have. Whatever. I'll fix it in the morning. A little oil and I'll be fine. It'll be fine. OH, I almost forgot to back my work up. That could be a disaster, right? A power outage, a hard drive crash, and all my hard work would be eliminated in a swoop of electrical surges and broken glass. Because I would probably throw the monitor out the window. Anyway. . .


There's a crack in the ceiling.

I've been staring at it for hours. It stands out against the white of the paint, a thin black fissure in the otherwise featureless area. It's about 3 inches long, and winding and crooked, as a crack looks in cartoons and art renderings. I stare at it. I keep thinking if I let my eyes wander away, it will get bigger. I imagine it growing larger and larger, becoming gaping, a yawning mouth in the ceiling, reaching forth to swallow me off the bed and take me to. . . elsewhere, I guess. No place in particular. Limbo, perhaps. I imagine myself being lifted, like in a bad alien abduction movie, like Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters, and pulled into the abyss. The crack grows larger, swallows the room, the entire building, the rest of New Brunswick, the whole of New Jersey, and still it grows. Impatient, it takes it all, and feeds its ever growing area of effect. Like a black hole, once the event horizon is crossed there is no return. Still it grows. Insatiable, unsettled, implacable distance inside it, pitch black, no measure of time or space or reason available. In pitch black, there is no benchmarks, so whether it's been 5 feet or 5 thousand years, I can't tell. Solitude is absolute in the void, and still it grows. The United States is now a chasm. The oceans are spilling over like in old maps, the world is turning flat. I close my eyes.

There's still a crack in the ceiling. It's still only 3 inches long.


. . .I have to blink a lot, readjust my vision for some reason. I think my mind wandered away from me for a while. I'm still sitting in my chair in my office. My legs are sore, and it's still dark. I still haven't saved my work. I roll towards the screen, but the wheels aren't moving at all now. Hmm. Odd.

Something is wrong, but I can't place it. Every time I try to move my chair, or just get out of it now, I can't seem to move. There's a force holding me down, whether it's an outer or inner one I can't quite figure yet. But in any event, it's moved beyond irritating and into worrying. I mean, yeah, it's only been a minute that I've been like this, but a minute is an hour in a lifetime is a second. Time is relative, and right now I'm relating to nothing. I need to save my book. I need my book saved. I need. . .


As I cross the bridge into the next state, a fissure glares out into the dark waters of the river below, a dividing line between blue sky and black hole. No sense of gravity exists, and as such it is not a true singularity, but I feel drawn to it anyway, if only in eye line. There's a restless atavism within it, a relentless march towards devolutionary oblivion, inexorable and irresistible. I can see it stalking along the edge, hunger and greed nakedly visible in it's many eyes, full of malice and future-tense violence and dead piling up on the base tarmac and promises of an end to all the terror and marches in lockstep to the beat of 30 years gone by. Incoming traffic passes, headlights blinding and pulling me away from the unceasing pull of the beast.

I am bound to this path by chords, tied tight and structured as to bring out the inherent pressure in living and breathing through the corralling of sunken eyes and broken treaties. Everything is illuminated, the light shining on the ugly as well as the beautiful, and the returning shadows swallow all as well, boring into the bored and bound alike. The creeping authority of silence grows, and the subsequent miles pass in a blank state of emotional withdrawal, every signpost and marker declaring an intention of invasion. "We are coming," they seem to shout in unison, "and we will not submit."

Strange neuronic flashes in my cortex establish themes and memes and lend context to every detail in the environment. Here: an unlit match, struck and immediately extinguished. Here: a duck crossing. Here: a 4 way stop sign intersection. Here: a dead end. How does it all add up? What is the pattern? It's crying out to be heard, practically screaming, a high pitched keening banshee that declares internal distress to all who care to put ear to ground and LISTEN. Spiraling in a golden shape, and sparking back to divert my gaze from the sky's separation and back to where I'm going and what I'm coming from and what the relation of one to the other is.

The sky has an edge. And it is sharp.


. . .and the door is locked. I can tell. I can't see anything coming out from under it no light no air I am trapped here the air is closing in on me I am being worn out I am being worn out I am being worn down I am being worn UP I'M UP. Oh thank god. It was just me. I'm more tired than I thought. I blink sleepily and walk to the keyboard, which is darkened by the fact that the monitor has entered sleep mode. I hit the space bar to wake the screen, and nothing happens. I move the mouse, and again, nothing. I'm awake now, my eyes wide and hairs on end. I hit the power button on the monitor, and again nothing happens.WHAT IS HAPPENING. I can't think this happens, I can't. No. It's just a monitor error. It has to be. I hit CTRL and S on the keyboard, and cross mental fingers that this works, that I am not fucked, that everything is savvy and everyone is safe and everything is sane and nothing, there's nothing to look forward to, it's all gone all gone my work is gone she's gone why did this happen now why did she have to turn off and erase it all when did this happen why can't I finish things easily why can't I can't I can't I. . .


We'd gone through three radio station area changes, and somehow, the same noise kept showing up. All mindless beats, and computer noises, and false promises of sex and professions of love. I can't think about any of that right now. It's still too close, too up front. It hung in the atmosphere between us, like the smoke from her cigarette, which still sat, smoldering, in her left hand. She smokes like a soldier, holding the filter between her thumb and index finger, bringing it up to her lips every few seconds for a quick drag, then leaving it hovering in the air, her palm up and pointing the lit end towards her chest, as if it's a knife poised at her chest.

I don't smoke.

At the first rest stop across the border, I'd asked her where we were going. "South," was the only answer she gave. I pressed her for more, but only got slight grins and silence. I'd thought about pushing the issue, about being a real hardass, but before action could be taken, I'd found her arms locked behind me and her lips had pressed against mine in a furious rush that staggers me still, now, sitting in the car, who knows how much later. God, she'd moved fast. It was as if she was afraid that if she didn't, the world would spin on its axis and pull us both away from each other to opposite corners of the globe. I found my center of gravity in her kiss.

It was the kind that you remember, and compare all others to for the rest of your life. If I knew a suitable descriptive for it, I would use it, but for once words are failing me. It was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of my lungs, and she was working to revive me singlehandedly. Her lips were the event horizon, and I was irresistably drawn in. Worlds began and ended, entire civilizations evolved and became extinct, and Ragnarok was brought to bear on all the old gods in creation. What followed, in the darkened spaces we went to, really was almost an after-thought, after that kiss. There was a sense of urgency there, which I can't really account for. It wasn't love, it wasn't even lust, it was beyond that. It was beyond us. . .

Beyond Karen.

Afterward, in the returning rush of sense and reason and balance, there was a moment when she looked into my eyes and I could see myself reflected back at me. The first time I had seen anything clearly in those deep orbs. I couldn't look, it was too disturbing, to see myself so naked and open in front of another. It was only a brief moment, but when I looked again, there was something else in her eyes. I can't be sure what, was it . . . fear? No. Loathing? No. It was . . . a sadness of sorts. Indistinct, but there nonetheless.


. . .am I? Am I here? I'm where? Questions are echoing in my head, but none have reached the stage of audibility yet. I cannot speak, my mouth is filled with mud and spit and bile and dust and dust and dust and oh god where am I. I'm in my office. Yes. Of course. I sit up from the floor and shake my head, the dust falling in slow flakes like snowflakes and I'm cold. It's cold out, and the breeze isn't helping. I should shut the window, yeah. I should protect myself from whatever is coming in, the air and wind and moisture and everything. I turn towards the window, but I don't see it, it's gone. The window is gone. It's been boarded up, I've been boarded. I'm trapped here oh god oh god oh jesus oh shit I'm cold it's cold where is this wind coming from I grab my arms tight to my sides to stay warm but it's not helping. I am trapped. Except the. . . door. YES. The door, it should still be open and leaveable. That means I can be leaveable, I can leave I can go go let's go get out oh god where is the light it's so dark and cold and I'm alone and yes the door, find the door, find the. . .


I can see the headlights in the reflection of the rainsoaked window. It's 3am again, as you would expect, time moving on its tragic march and all, and you could say that I'm unexpectedly thinking of another place and time, but really, its not unexpected at all. The mind does wander, mine especially, and while it wonders and wanders, I tend to lose focus on where I am and what I should be/am doing.

Where was I?

The fog rolled in yesterday, further obscuring the view through the streaked glass. I have no heat, so the defroster does little to nothing to help sight improve. The car is not old, but it's seen better days, no question. Its the best I can do at the moment, as I am without employment or a source of income steady enough to afford a newer one. I grip the wheel tight, but with gloves on a firm purchase is impossible. I always forget, is it turn into the spin or away?

Anyway.

Last night, I made a call to someone I shouldn't have, and said things I knew better than to say. On one hand, a good thing, because I didn't have to say them, but I needed to, which is the point here. I think. I'm not sure. I'm a little woozy from blood loss. I admit, I've been drinking a little. A lot. Whatever. My phone rang a few minutes ago, and the cracked LCD folds up like the jackknifed truck that I passed on the highway in the summer. It was warmer then, and it didn't matter that my car doesn't have heat. I almost crashed then, almost lost it.

Last call, this is last call.

Sorry, I lost my head again. The rain and the lights have made me dizzy, and I lost control, flipped the curb, and hit the wall. Simulcast in technicolor wishes and harmonic dreams, I tune my instrument and go off on a tangent. Ever wonder what would happen if you imagined your own death, while having an epiphany to prevent it?

No. This is insignificant, in the grand scheme of things. Engine failing, and the power is slowly stopping to the brake lights. My seatbelt holds still, glass shards stuck to my hair and blood dripping into my eyesight. I see the boots of the patrolman in the rearview, and he's walking on the sky.

Are these words from the future? Or am I just upside down?


. . .and then I can get out of here and everything will be fine and the light is on? Why did the light come on? It's. . . Karen! "Karen, thank god!" She just stands there, silhouetted in the now open door frame, the light from the window (the window?) behind me casting criss-crossed shapes onto her form. She's been crying. I can tell. But she's not coming in the room. "Karen, I'm sorry, I was wrong, everything has been my fault and-" She's ignoring me. She's not reacting, no movement, not even a timid step. Her eyes are red, and I don't know whether it's because of what I did, or what I just said. There's a voice somewhere downstairs and behind her, and she turns slightly to answer, "No, I'll- I'll be fine. I just wanted to see it for myself. I just- I just keep expecting him to walk in and- and- " And she gets cut off by a flood of tears. I want to hold her, I want to tell her I'm all right, that everything will be fine, that everything is fine. But I can't. I can't even move. She can't see me. I'm not even there. And she's already gone.

Labels: ,

2.24.2008

Oscars 2008


I will be watching the Academy Awards tonight, as I try to do every year. The major difference is that this is one of the few years (recently, anyway) that I've seen the majority of the major nominees. As such, I feel more confident than usual in my predictions as to the winners. (For example: last year I saw a few of the nominees, but not most, and I was 11/15 in my picking of the winners.)

So, anyway, I usually watch the Oscars, and make fun of the host, ridiculously overdone montages, very overdressed actors, and faux earnestness that the winners put in their acceptance speeches. It's all very amusing to me. Usually, the films I really love in any given year do not get nominated for one reason or another (company politics usually being the culprit), but this year, I liked a lot of the main nominees. So, here we go, the nominees and my picks for 15 categories (my picks are the ones bolded):


Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Director
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood


Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: the Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton


Best Adapted Screenplay
Atonement
Away From Her
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Original Screenplay
Juno
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
The Savages

Best Original Song
"Falling Slowly" from Once
"Happy Working Song" from Enchanted
"Raise It Up" from August Rush
"So Close" from Enchanted
"That's How You Know" from Enchanted

Original Score
Atonement
The Kite Runner
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma


Animated Feature Film
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

Art Direction
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd
There Will Be Blood

Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood


Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Costume Design
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd

So there we have it. Who will win? No one knows. (Except maybe the Shadow. . .)

Labels: , ,

2.22.2008

Video Friday 2/22/08

I've been making a mix of 90's music for the Bandit Queen over the past few days. It's 4 discs long at this point, and that's with a load of limitations I've placed on myself for it (examples: no rap, metal, or ska; only songs that received significant radio airplay; one song per album; etc.) As such, I've been in a 90's music frame of mind. I was already halfway there before I ever began though, as I'd recently purchased and read the 33 1/3 book series volumes on the Pixies' Doolittle, Nirvana's In Utero and Radiohead's OK Computer. (All excellent books by the way.)

I personally love OK Computer, in a way that might be slightly unhealthy. The song "Lucky" makes me feel like I'm having a heart attack. But in a good way! Anyway, this is the video for "No Surprises", a track from that album. It's weird and arty, and for the most part is just Thom Yorke and his creepy eye staring at you, reading your thoughts, and singing along.

Then he drowns.

Labels: , ,

2.21.2008

Buy the Ticket; Take the Ride


I've been in a bit of a Hunter S. Thompson mood lately. Re-reading a couple of his books, watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on dvd. I was given The Kitchen Diaries, a sort-of memoir/series of stories about Hunter told by two of his close friends, and that's most likely what kicked this off. He's one of my favorite writers, and was one of my few living heroes (until he offed himself, of course. Then he wasn't living. [for completion's sake, the others are Grant Morrison, Eddie Izzard, and David Foster Wallace.])

Anyway, I've been writing, though nothing's finished. As such, I have little to post, though I feel I should say SOMEthing. Thusly, here is an excerpt from HST's book Kingdom of Fear, published in 2003. It was his last completed book (other than a collection of his essays from espn.com called Hey Rube), and this brief selection from it encompasses a lot of what I love about his writing: his wonderful sense of rhythm, the beauty of his word usage, the elegance of his phrasing, his eye for a musical phrase. RIP HST.

"

Whoops! How about a break, people? How about some Music? Yes. Music is where it's at, so consider this:

I am a confused Musician who got sidetracked into this goddamn Word business for so long that I never got back into music --except maybe when I find myself oddly alone in a quiet room with only a typewriter to strum on and a yen to write a song. Who knows why? Maybe I just feel like singing --so I type.

These quick electric keys are my Instrument, my harp, my RCA glass-tube microphone, and my fine soprano saxophone all at once. That is my music, for good or ill, and on some night it will make me feel like a god. Veni, Vidi, Vici. . . . That is when the fun starts. . . . Yes, Kenneth, this is the frequency. This is where the snow leopards live; "Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. . . ."

Herman Melville said that, and I have found it to be true, but I didn't really know what it felt like until I started feeling those shocks myself, which always gave me a rush. . . .

So perhaps we can look at some of my work (or all of it, on some days) as genetically governed by my frustrated musical failures, which led to an overweening sublimation of my essentially musical instincts that surely haunt me just as clearly as they dominate my lyrics.

-- November 19th, 2000

"

Labels: , ,

2.20.2008

New Comics 2/20/08

AGAIN with the not buying anything!

Release List 2/20/08

This is now two weeks in a row where there was nothing I wanted to purchase. Not entirely unprecedented, but still odd.

What this means, of course, is that some time in the next few weeks there will be a release day when SEVEN BOOKS come out that I want, plus three trades, and maybe a puppy. The comic gods like to punish me that way. There is something I've been keeping an eye on though. . .

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #6 (of 6)

The final issue of the Dark Horse miniseries, written by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, with art by Gabriel Ba (who did the first Casanova arc), is released today. I've heard nothing but good things about this series, and will very likely be picking it up in trade form. From what I understand, it falls firmly in the Grant Morrison/Matt Fraction area of BIG IDEAS! and FUN WEIRD THINGS! that I enjoy quite a bit. Monkeys and jet packs and whatnot. Dizzle likes it, and that's enough for me to be interested.

What did you get?

Labels:

2.15.2008

Video Friday 2/15/08

My friend JayV has a tendency to record video whenever a bunch of us are hanging out. He does a vidcast semi-regularly, actually. And apparently the random shit I say is funny to him. So this installment of "Video Friday" is the latest in the "Danger Phrase" series he randomly does. So yes, watch as I act random.





I was referring to Casanova: Luxuria, in case anyone was wondering.

Labels:

2.13.2008

New Comics 2/13/08

NOTHING I WANTED CAME OUT THIS WEEK.

release list 2/13/08

I am disappointed. I mean, I don't buy a whole lot of books anyway, but usually I'm good for at least one per week. SO yeah, whatever.

I bought a bunch of trades and graphic novels this past weekend, so I'll probably do a post on all of them in the next couple days.

So what did you buy?

Labels:

House of Leaves.


I'm not entirely sure how to go about writing about the last book I read, House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski. It defies easy description, and any sort of conventional review or analysis is right out. So I won't be attempting to do so in any concrete or normal fashion. In lieu of such, I am putting here bits and pieces of conversation, some observations, a few photographs taken while reading, and other flotsam and jetsam.


A conversation:

Nicholas: the book is the house is johnny is zampano is the film is the book
The Bandit Queen: Care to elaborate?
Nicholas: not yet, need to formalize thoughts a bit more
Nicholas: but the book is obviously the house, that much is easy
The Bandit Queen: yes. And Johnny's story is the same. The house is just one name they put on this intense madness that they all confront.
Nicholas: mmhm
The Bandit Queen: It's like the Boogeyman in that very real sense: just that basic, primal childish fear that comes with being alive.
Nicholas: the house = the other outside which is also within
The Bandit Queen: It's no one thing in the world, it's just...yeah, yeah exactly
Nicholas: also, god as an equals sign and an echo
The Bandit Queen: It's any inner place you're unwilling to go.
The Bandit Queen: oh god.

Nicholas: It's also about how art critique is irrelevant, as any art's meaning can only be entirely unpacked by the artist, and even then its an unreliable sort of unpacking
Nicholas: It's also about relation of cinema to print and vice versa
Nicholas: labyrinths and spirals and echoes and codes and oh god I'm never getting out of this am I
The Bandit Queen: Don't worry. At least you're in good company.
The Bandit Queen: Also: moo hoo ha ha.
The Bandit Queen: At different times, Truant says: "Known Some Call Is Air Am". Although it appears to be a random string of words, it is actually phonetically equivalent to "Non sum qualis eram", Latin for "I am not as I was".

Nicholas: ALSO, theory: the Navidson Record is entirely fictional, even in the world of the book
The Bandit Queen: Oh, yeah! That's totally a possibility. Which...what was Zampano's deal?
Nicholas: three pieces of evidence of such: Johnny can find no trace of anything to do with the house or film, there's a card in the front collage (more visible in the appendices) saying something about "killing the children", and how the house might do so
Nicholas: also, the occasional pronoun switch in zampano's writings like, in while writing about Tom Navidson: "He might have spent all night drinking had exhaustion not caught up with me"
Nicholas: also, the "deletion" of all the minotaur sections, as they implicitly mention that the minotaur was a hoax and not real, though the labyrinth was
Nicholas: so the labyrinth/book is quite real, and you can become lost in it, but the secret it contains/story it tells is not
Nicholas: I am way too into this


Words are swallowing me, surrounding my head with suffocating syllables and breathless boundaries, all ensconced about my person, my throat closing from declension and circling the systematic series of statements started and stopped in my stead. I am lost in the leaves, pages turning over like a record and repeating around themselves again, footnoted and obliviated into a perfect spiral of senseless apprenticeship. They are eating me alive. I see them, in the corners, lurking, waiting, to tear into me with claws of consonants and teeth of tangents, low murmurs and growls emanating from the walls of willful mispronunciations. I hear them, I see them, I know them, they are mean and meant and meaningful and meaningless and every verbal trick in the vast vocabulary I can voice does not dissuade. I am drowning drowning drowning drowning drowning drowning drowningdrowning drowningdrowningdrowning drowningdrowningdrowningdrowning. Breathing in brings broken phrases, basked in battled bafflement, breaking down the days and numbers into equational phrases and fractured fractions of format. I am sorry to suffer for sensory perception, still somehow syllable and sentence stick together to set me aside and send me swooning. Air air air. I need some air.


Additional thoughts:

:: A blind man "writing" a book about a film is too much of an irony to not be a comment on the writing process, and how one is always feeling in the dark towards a goal you cannot see and will not witness entirely.

:: The journey into the house as an exploration of the human brain, as one cannot map out or define what one does not understand and is constantly changing.

:: The center of the story really being about the damage one's own history causes on the present and the future. Navidson's past intruding and effecting his relationship with Karen; Johnny's past disconnecting him in his relationships with everyone he encounters, especially all the various hook-ups and one night stands he mentions.

:: the underplayed story of Zampano as a world war vet whom life has passed by, leaving him blind and unloved. Also, the connection between him and Johnny's mother: "My dear Zampano, Who did you Lose?"

It is very easy to get lost in this House.

Labels: , , ,

2.12.2008

Desert Planet 2.

Jed tapped the view screen twice, and sighed. "Damn hydrogauges," he muttered, "they always lock up when I'm about to go home."

He opened the door of the crawler and stepped out into the fading second-sunset, his boot sinking into the loose sand close to the treads. He blinked against the wind, realizing he'd forgotten his goggles in the cabin. Smacking the side of the bed, the coils leading to the tank shifted slightly and began to emit a faint hum, barely audible over the wind in his ears. Satisfied, he turned to go. Off in the distance, a sanctuary dome sank below the horizon line, and he saw a lone star flash briefly then fade. He absentmindedly scratched the scar on his neck that stretched from below his left ear and disappeared down into the darkness of his collar attachments.

"Still," he whispered quietly, "I suppose there's worse things to worry about." Climbing into the cab, he sat and waited for third-sunrise.

Labels: , ,

2.08.2008

Video Friday 2/8/08

Today is the inaugural Video Friday! From now on until the end of time (or I get bored and change formats again), I will be posting a video from somewhere online every Friday. Occasionally it will be something I'm directly involved with, or it might be related to something I'm writing, or it might be completely unrelated and random (I know, SHOCK).

In any event, to kick things off, here is the trailer to the film I DO INTEND to finish writing about before the Apocalypse (but not the Metalocalypse) The Fountain. This trailer is AWESOME. That is all. Enjoy!

Labels: ,

2.06.2008

New Comics 2/6/08

This is the inaugural "NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY" post. As such, I will lay the rules out here, and then either completely forget about them, or remember them but completely ignore them. Fun for the whole family!

1. These are comics released this week. I will provide a link to a full list.
2. These are only the ones I either A) plan on purchasing, or B) find interesting in a "staring at a train wreck" way.
3. If there is nothing in a given week, I will say so, and more than likely badmouth Joe Quesada and Dan Didio.
4. I like what I like, and you should offer suggestions to me, but remember one dictum when perusing what I read: I like things that are fun. No moping or crying in my books, thanks.
5. WARREN ELLIS OWNS YOUR SOUL.


And now, without further ado:

Coming 2/6/08


Annihilation: Conquest #4 (of 6)
I enjoyed the first Annihilation miniseries from Marvel quite a bit, and while this one hasn't quite reached the heights of Galactus getting his ass whupped or Drax the Destroyer ripping out Thanos' heart yet, it's still been a very enjoyable space opera story with a few surprises. Abnett and Lanning's writing isn't Keith Giffen, but it's still damn fun.

Doktor Sleepless #5
In Warren Ellis' continuing quest (along with Grant Morrison and Matt Fraction) to get MORE of my money, there's this ongoing series about mad science and crazy technology. It's been a slow burn, at least compared to Ellis' last long-form creator owned series (Transmetropolitan: ONE OF THE BEST THINGS EVER), but things are beginning to move a bit in terms of plot, and the character of the Doktor himself is quite entertaining. SCIENCE! {lighting bolts}

Metal Men #6 (of 8)
Speaking of mad science and crazy technology, there's the Metal Men. This miniseries has been nothing but non-stop awesome since it started. Duncan Rouleau has really knocked it out of the park here on both art AND story, with the mad ideas and science wackiness combining with the sense of foreboding as to where it's all going leaving me with interesting thoughts and a case of the giggles. Also: where else would you have a group of evil robots called the Death Metal Men? NOWHERE.

So... what are you reading?

Labels:

burst and bloom

I rarely write in here anymore without a specific agenda to it, be it movie review/analysis, short fiction, and what-have-you. But I have nothing on my mind (in a grand operatic sense, anyway), and the piece I'm working on about The Fountain is as yet unfinished. And I feel like, since I've reopened this avenue for my written discoursing (SIDEBAR: FUCK Writerscafe.org. TWO YEARS of my fiction and poetic writing GONE bc of a database fuck-up, a lot of the poems which I hadn't saved elsewhere, and I'm just supposed to shrug, say "Oh well," and gloss over it? FUCK YOU. SIDEBAR OVER), I should write something in here, if not on a regular schedule, at least somewhat regularly. (more on this in a bit) Hence, this random scattershot of whatever crosses my transom. Also, there will be random pictures. And pie.*


Not to say, with all that, that I have NO idea what I'm doing. I have some things I'd like to talk about, but most are either very vague statements, or things I'm saving for the future when I can write more in-depth and look like I'm using some segment of intellect about it. Which is what causes the long breaks in-between posts of consequence. The former name of the blog was "Hooray for the Madness! We are better by Design!"**, but that was not entirely true, as the "design", if it could be said to have any, was pointed more towards sparsity of information and occasional thoughts of "Huh, I haven't written anything in a while. Oh well." The current name of "We Laugh at Catastrophe. (we're random but we like it that way)" is much more appropriate, I feel, for both the frequency and the varying subjects of the posts. If there were other writers, I would probably feel better about this, but y'know, it's hard enough motivating myself to do anything other than read long books about piracy and currency or graphic novels about superspies and tits.


So yeah, here's a post about nothing. Well, not literally nothing, not in the nihilistic sense. Or in the Seinfeldian sense of purposefully without purpose. But whatever. I'm sitting here, at 1 or so in the morning on a Wednesday. The television is on behind me, prattling on and on about the current elections (or primaries, as it were), about which I am currently caring less and less each day, as I find most of the people running reprehensible, annoying, or just plain insane. Ok, I like one candidate, but being the eternal cynic, feel there's no chance in hell he'll win in the long run. BUT WAIT, that is a sentence (or two) about something. Have I already defeated my self-described purpose in writing this? No, because THIS IS Sparta MY BLOG AND I CAN DO WHAT I WANT.


UGH, I think of things I want to put in here all day, and now when the moment comes my mind is gazing wanfully out of its tower waiting for a prince to ride up on a horse and rescue it. I think I've fulfilled my purpose in doing this anyway. AND NOW, to BUSINESS: I plan on enacting a very loose sort of schedule here. Wednesday will now henceforth be COMICS I AM BUYING THIS WEEK DAY, wherein I will mention the paltry few titles I will be picking up at my local comic/graphic novel conveyor. Friday will be VIDEO DAY, wherein I will post a video, either one I was personally involved with, or not, and maybe with a bit of commentary about it. We'll see how this works out, if I can keep my own schedule or if I will be damned to flounder at even this small task. Tune in tomorrow, Rocketeers!

* There is no pie.

** Actually, the ORIGINAL name was "Bigger Than Jesus", but the less said of that, the better.

Labels: ,