The reason I'm still here

Yesterday I moved all the big things. Chairs, couches, love seats, beds--those were the focus. My parents, their truck and trailer had made a one-day-only appearance in the Emerald City.

Once they had dropped off the peasant's winter supply of coal, there was more than enough room for my things. They were late arriving, and eager to be leaving. And so it was, that in under 3 hours, many heavy things were carried down many flights of stairs. Now I have absolutely nothing to sit on.

Then Shannon's mother stopped by to pick up the remnants of her daughter's things. As the move progressed, it had become clear that those remnants not mere scraps, but were, in fact, room-sized. Susan took everything except the half-dozen or so pieces of art that had hung on the walls. Now their safe return to her house seems to be my responsibility.

Why she left these isn't quite clear, but it seemed to have something to do with her "not feeling good" about their chances of survival in her car. The implication being, of course, that my, much smaller car, is more desirable for the transportation of things sheathed in thin, brittle glass. Thanks for that honor.

Last night I slept on a thermorest mattress measuring just under 18 inches wide, swaddled in a sub-zero rated sleeping bag. It was an itchy, sticky night by turns unbearably hot and nipple-erectingly cold. Inasmuch as I spent only about half the night balanced on the thermorest, the itchy was from the disgustingly dirty Arya rug covering most of my living room floor.

You may be asking why the hell I'm still here--indeed I'm beginning to ask that myself. The answer--which I continually remind myself of, lest I forget--is twofold.

I haven't seen all the movies playing in Seattle that have no chance of coming to Spokane. There are about four--five if I decide to go to the midnight screening of Donnie Darko Director's Cut. I also want to see Gozu, The Brotherhood of War, What the [bleep] do we know, and The Last Shot.

I also still have to see Hero, Sky Captain and Shaun of the Dead, but those all seem to be playing in Spokane.

Secondly, I need a haircut badly.

I've had one good haircut in the last five years, and it was from a guy named Lewis in Fremont. Lewis' days off are Friday and Saturday, thus, I'm here until at least tomorrow. Lewis charges a sickeningly reasonable 15 dollars.

My last Spokane haircut was so bad that I swore off haircuts altogether for almost 9 months, until I found Lewis. I was back in town on business, and had a little over an hour before I had to meet with a client. I rushed into Gretchen's on Hamilton.

Me: Alright, can you get me out of here in less than an hour?
Girl: Sure, no problem. How should I cut you?
Me: Well, hmmm, I need to get rid of quite a bit of length, but still want the shaggy thing . . . have you seen Big Fish?
Girl: Yeah.
Me: I want Billy Crudup's hair.
Girl: [eyes wide] I know exactly what you're talking about. That's a great look. He's so hot.

"Good. Yes, it is. Yes he is." She went on to describe just about exactly the look I was going for. It should be said at this point that my glasses aren't purely cosmetic. I have such poor eyesight that, without those glasses, a mirror more than 2 feet away renders my reflection a dirty pink blur.

Thus, everyday acts take on religious significance. Haircuts become profound leaps of faith.

This hairdresser, though, seemed like a safe bet. She watched good films, had good taste in leading men and their hair. I felt things were going to be fine.

My poor sight has enhanced other things: my sense of smell, touch--my hearing as well somewhat. After she seemed finished with the sides, I could feel that my hair still hung somewhere about halfway down my ears. This is good, I thought. Then, just when I thought everything was about done, she reached for a bottle. The contents of this bottle, as they touched my scalp, took on the consistency of melted wax, and the girl proceeded to tug my hair in various directions for about five minutes. She paid special attention to my bangs.

These tugs felt familiar, and recalled for some reason my freshman year of college. Dread crept into my being. She couldn't be. We had the talk, she understood. On a certain level, I thought we connected.

After she'd tugged to her general satisfaction, she took a theatrical step back and said, "Alright, whatdyathink?" I reluctantly put on my glasses.

<-- The face staring back at me looked less like this than this -->

In that way it came to pass that my cranial fortress and I left Gretchen's--angry and 30 dollars poorer--having been thoroughly Rossed. Hence, Spokane, as a town of hairdressers, is dead to me.

So I remain in Seattle at least one more day, until the movies I desire are seen, and the hair I want is had.

That is SO NOT the look I wanted.

Read the full thing here.

Can we get in on that?

According to this NYTimes article, Britain is offering something fairly extraordinary:

Britain is planning a new effort to help poor countries reduce their huge debts by offering to pay off 10 percent of the total owed to international agencies and challenging other nations to follow suit, said Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the Exchequer.

Sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said shortly after Bush received word of this, he was on the phone to Blair, leaning on the prime minister to amend the offer from "third world" to "first world". He noted that most third world countries do not, in fact, sympathize with the Coalition of the Willing, that people "won't never learn" if they are continually bailed out, and that they'd probably just end up resenting the help. He then suggested that all that money would just end up in the hands of Osama bin Laden.

Blair was reportedly unconvinced by this.

Bush ended by entreating his friend, "C'mon, Tony . . . Toni--Tone, I really need that money."

Tony, was that an offered hand shake or an errant Judo-chop?

Read the full thing here.

So this is [is this] Networking. [?]

I found this site called blogcritics.org.

Not like I stumbled upon it.

I was actively searching for people to canoodle with until they blogroll me. Unlike real life, the internet allows me to pretend I have an interesting personality and am not overly demanding/argumentative. I make a fair amount of acquaintances this way.

But this place is a little different. It will let me publish my reviews to their site, and link whore back to my own blog in any way I desire (besides excerpting part of the review then linking back to your site for the rest), and all I have to do is figure out which piece in the Amazon.com haberdashery is closest to the thing I'm talking about. Not bad.

The site has a daily readership of at least 10,000 according to Sitemeter, compare that with my 40.

The thing itself takes a ridiculous amount of time to set up (including a screening) and has a mild learning curve for anyone not acquainted with Movable Type.

The concept is good, and it's a smart way for whomever owns the site to get massive Amazon click-throughs without actually writing any content. But from my end so far it's a pain in the ass to use--I don't know how long I can keep it up. We'll have to see if any new IPs start surfacing.

My first post was just a rehash of the Ghost in the Shell 2 review. See how I link whore. I think this will be my programme, just rehash the stuff that doesn't suck too badly on this blog.

And yes that is an Amazon link to the original Ghost in the Shell, as Amazon has nothing related to the sequel.

The system isn't perfect.

Read the full thing here.

My bad, Yusuf Islam

Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, is sitting in Boston's Logan airport right now. He's waiting to be deported back to the UK--probably at gunpoint. His crime? Well, none really.

Maybe the percentage of box-set royalties he donated to the September 11th Fund wasn't large enough.

Regardless, we can chalk this up as another small victory for homeland security.

Although Cat converted to a radical form of Islam in the late seventies, and even called for the murder of novelist Salman Rushdie, age has calmed him. In addition to giving charitably and overseeing moderate muslim schools in Britain. He has even retracted his death threat and apologized, saying the threat was taken out of context and was in reference to a pinochle debt that Rushdie failed to pay. "The excesses of high stakes pinochle were among the reasons I converted to Islam in the first place," Mr. Islam said.

And, really, who among us hasn't called for the untimely death of Salman Rushdie?

So why is Yusuf Islam, a highly respected member of the moderate Islamic community in Britain, being sent on his way? Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle remarked, "The intelligence community has come into possession of additional information that further raises our concern."

The "additional information" was uncovered after Doyle and department head Tom Ridge scored and eighth of mushrooms and played Moonshadow backwards on Doyle's mom's turn table. "I don't even want to tell you what it said, man, but it freaked me out."

On a personal note, I gravely regret whatever hand I may have had in raising the terror level and the subsequent banishment of one of the twentieth century's most enduring talents.

It's a wild world.

Read the full thing here.

Best specialized robot name ever: Gynoid

I feel a little guilty talking about this movie right now. It's a little like going to class without having fully digested the previous night's reading assignment. Sure, you read it through fairly deeply. You take notes. Maybe you had a midnight BS session with your roommate or the kid down the hall.

But maybe you were a little tired; maybe you were a little drunk. For whatever reason, you worry you might have missed something important.

That's more or less Ghost in the Shell 2's 100 minute running time in a ghostshell. It doesn't help that the dialogue is in subtitles (the way it should be) and the animation is some of the most beautiful I've seen since . . . ever. Your eyes pull double duty, straining to digest polysyllabic words stacked 10 deep while soaking up animation of unrivaled scope and grandeur. Beauty and the Beast has nothing on this.

It's a much more assured and revelatory work than it's 1995 predecessor.

Credit Mamoru Oshii with improving upon every facet of an already intelligent and fascinating premise. Yes. Everything is better.

Much of the first Ghost in the Shell felt like a fleshing out of the various philosophical topics woven into the game of Artificial Intelligence. It was about debunking the line of demarcation between man and machine. It was about finding something unique in humanity amidst the clamour of our technological near-future. Oshii was struggling with this right alongside his characters, and it showed in a somewhat lackluster visual presentation, a jumbled thesis, and a messy ending. The plot itself, a techno-noir murder mystery, felt tacked on. Still, the original Ghost in the Shell was something to behold.

In the 9 years that have passed though, Oshii definitely did his homework. In a time when everyone needs a kickass firewall for that lumpy grey mass between their ears, knowledge is immediately available to all, and the section nine detectives Batou and Matoko use all the net has to offer in contemplating their place in the vast, jacked-in world they inhabit.

They drop anecdotes about Descartes, quote Confuscious, the Old Testament, reference Rabbi Judah Low ben Bezalel and the Golem of Prague. They quote Milton. I studied English literature and I can't quote Milton.

But then, maybe it takes someone like Milton, someone with sympathy for the devil, to live as a human in a world where men are ever more becoming mechanized, and the machines they build take on the characteristics of their creators.

Maybe it took Oshii a few years slogging through the quagmire of western skepticism and self-doubt to realize that.

The plot this time--another nod to noir--is more focused and accessible, except for the beginning of the third act, when someone hacks Matou's brain. Things get a little fuzzy then, but they're supposed to.

I don't believe the philosophy involved can totally reveal itself in one sitting. Certainly, trying to flesh it out here would be pointless and boring. Suffice it to say that in Oshii's future, humanity has angst to spare and it looks like things are only getting worse.

Even the animation choices reflect a feeling of alienation, and shows such painstaking love on the part of Oshii. The movie is dominated by advanced computer graphics and lush matte paintings for its backgrounds and many of the dolls (see also: robots, see also: gynoids, see also: sexroids etc, etc). Cars, library Stacks, great post-apocalyptic landscapes are by turns vivid and dingy and exploding with detail. They burst off the screen. Batou and Matoko and the rest of the humans (as well as the gynoids who have been given ghosts [souls]), in contrast, are cell animated the old fashioned way. In this environment they seem helplessly two dimensional, out of place and almost inferior--which is just the way they actually feel. And when a gynoid, through pursed lips and with seductive langour, pleads "help me," the hackles on your neck are at full attention. Brilliant.

I took notes during this movie. I felt compelled to. I think I'm going to find some pop-culture doctoral program and write my thesis on it. The depth and breadth and sheer complexity of the imagery and symbolism in Ghost in the Shell 2 is crippling. It feels at times like Heart of Darkness, but is careful to remain far less turgid and depressing. It fully warrants a second or third viewing, to mine the depth of what Oshii is offering.

At a time when the vast majority of films--even arthouse flicks--opt for allegorical poverty rather than alienate potential ticket sales, it's all the more refreshing to see a beautiful, self-assured movie that's content to do more talking--about Milton for godsake--than shooting.

"If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well."

Read the full thing here.

Social Experiments

Today felt very fecund.

I did a lot of reading, exploring, people-watching, brainstorming, and I saw a doctoral cognitive psychology thesis masquerading as an anime.

Fantastic stuff, all of that. The movie was particularly illuminating. I'll be babbling on about it at length later--but you already guessed that.

incidentally, if you want to conduct a cognitive psych experiment of your own, get a copy of Invitiation to a Beheading--or any book with a flashy cover and a title that smacks of Jihad--and find a large mass transit system on which to read it.

Gaze longingly out the window, read, furrow your brow, take furious and enthusiastic notes on loose-leaf paper, and watch your fellow commuters scatter.

I wasn't intentionally trying to raise the terror level, I just had some ideas for stories while reading this particular book. I wish I would have been paying more attention to the people, though, because when I looked up, there was a no-sit zone around me and lots of wary people skirting the edges of the subway car.

Ahhh freedom. I'm sure a rough sketch of my face is being faxed to various government agencies around the country. I'll probably show up on the no-fly list.

God bless you, Tom Ridge. Never before have people felt so secure in their homeland.

Why are humans so obsessed with replicating themselves?

Read the full thing here.

Vile Young Things

Being the much put-off, though not oft requested, review of Steven Fry's Bright Young Things. Because I haven't written anything of consequence since maybe forever.

When a first time screen writer and director sets about adapting a book by a beloved author, what does he think about? Creating a psychological tone of narration? Giving features, voices and attitudes to characters that had previously existed independently in the mind of each reader? Maybe.

Maybe he just really didn't want to blow his first writing/directing gig. He wanted a good omen. He needed a good name. Maybe he thought Evelyn Waugh's cutting Vile Bodies was too drab, too glass-half-empty. Maybe he wanted to set a lighter tone.

Why else would he take the novel's original title--which no doubt hints at Waugh's intended tone and moral--and water it down to something as limp as Bright Young Things?

The change is indicative of a series of stylistic and content choices that castrate potentially biting social satire into a bland period piece. Sure it's funny and cutting at times, but in a blithely sentimental way that obfuscates any condemnation of the characters and their cagey morals. As there's an ultimately happy[ish] ending, there can be no lamenting this particular lost generation. Theirs was excess without consequences.

Worst of all, though, it takes no pains to draw connections between Britain in the 30's and the world at large today--connections which are blindingly obvious.

It's Britain on the eve of World War II, a generation of young idle rich are doing the Gatsby from London to Dover and back. The press is having a field day. I don't know much about the history of journalism, but this era might mark the realization that celebrities and scandal tend to sell more newspapers than real news does. Bright Young Things is funny sometimes and painless almost always. Wackiness and orgies happen, then bombs drop, then everyone goes home happy. Somewhere, in the background, someone does a shot of Absinthe.

The parallels to 21st century America are blatant. For two years now millions of Americans have added to their waistlines watching Magnate's daughter Paris Hilton and her Top-40-spawned cohort travel around the country flirting with rednecks and chasing greased hogs.

Similar things exist in England, where reality TV was pretty much [re]invented and where celebrity worship there has reached the level of art form.

As it is, you could remove the actors from their starched collars and bowler hats, swaddle them in distressed denim, trucker hats and feathered boas, and you'd basically have an MTV beach party. Then give Jim Broadbent a pair of timbs and an afro just for my amusement. "What's all this," He'd ask.

If Arthur Miller could make resounding connections between the Salem of the 1690's and the Hollywood of the 1950's, then surely Fry could have taken the pains to underscore the obvious connections between the Bright Young Things and the MTV Generation. He doesn't.

He chooses instead to gloss over the deep and crippling moral and social constraints his characters live in. He deliberately and repeatedly balks at exploring vital and immediate topics like personal freedom.

Miles is a main character. Miles is also gay. Being gay in Edwardian England is a high crime. Miles' lover leaves some scandalous letters lying about. The police get ahold of them somewhere near the climax of the picture. Miles says he must leave England. Miles is never mentioned again.

In Steven Fry's Bright Young Things, characters like Miles are used as anecdotal filler, and are tossed off whenever he feels the need to reaquire the original plot--a trite comedy of errors involving a 1000 pound bet on a stakes race by a novelist you never care much about because he never really loses. Somewhere, in the background, someone does a shot of Absinthe.

All of this is supposed to mean something, it's all supposed to cohere into something about fast and pointless existence. Maybe Waugh's Vile Bodies does, but Fry's Bright Young Things definitely doesn't.

Weightless sound and occasionally funny fury

Read the full thing here.

Let freedom walk, Part ye Seconde

Here we have the Old State House, a striking testament to the past, stooped amongst towering modernity.

[click for larger image] The dual statues that adorn the cornice of the North and South Facades--the Lion and Unicorn--are the Massachusetts Bay Colony's tribute to the overwhelming influence of Fantasy literature and film. The Lion represents C.S. Lewis and his Christianity-infused Chronicles of Narnia. The Unicorn recalls Ridley Scott and his film Legend, which had "Ye moste kickass rubber-horned Satan"--the words of Benjamin Franklin.

It gets a little light from here, less interesting things, things that cost money, things overrun by knicknack and curio shops. Once you get across the river to Charlestown though, things begin to pick up again.

"Huzzah! Her sides are made of Iron!"

Nothing funny to say about this thing, it's a boat.

[Click for larger image] The Bunker Hill Monument was cool though. This monolith commemorates the Colonist's alliance with--I think--the Egyptians or Romans (wherever pyramidal monoliths come from) in their campaign against the tea-taxing, intolerable-acting British Empire.

The park ranger kept referring to the monolith as the site of a tremendous effort on the part of the Colonial partisans to fortify the area. From what I gathered, they built it up in like 8 hours before the fight.

Inside the smaller building is a glassed-in miniature battlefield with little pewter figurines everywhere. I think it's a game, like some kind of 18th century precursor to Risk or Warhammer 40,000. I thought at first it was a scale recreation of the battle, but I didn't see a mini monolith anywhere. The park ranger kept referring back to it, though, during his speech. He must have really kicked ass that game.

Then you climb the 294 steps and see this:

It's a fantastic sight. I can tell why the British would have wanted to capture it so badly, you can see everything. The smudges there aren't from the camera lens, but from some engravings on the Plexiglas. It's fascinating to see ancestral scrawlings like this.

"Benji Franklin sucks" was the most evocative for me personally.

And that was about all the freedom I could handle.

Read the full thing here.

Let freedom walk

Today, I walked the Freedom Trail so you won't have to! It was a circuitous 2.5 miles pregnant with historical gravitas.

At the beginning, on the Tremont Street side of Boston Common, a cheerful sign read:

Acquaint thyself with the birthe of thise Nation's greate democracy by schlepping arounde like a Communiste.

I've been using nothing but public transportation since I got here and already form ranks like a Bolshevik, so this felt natural.

The first stop was the Massachusetts State House, which I named Big Gold Boil (BGB). In addition to housing the state and being nauseatingly gaudy, the BGB was built to reflect the sun's rays directly into the eyes of redcoats. Turns out BGB is also an attention whore trying to keep you from turning around and seeing the real star of Beacon Street, the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial.

If you're having trouble placing these stalwarts, imagine Matthew Broderick astride that steed. Shaw and the 54th were the regiment featured in Glory, one of the best war movies ever.

On the north end of Park Street facing Tremont is the thoroughly boring Park Street Church. My opinion contrasts with that of Henry James, who called it America's "most interesting mass of bricks and mortar." But we all know how much James sucked, how much he enjoyed being unnecessarily elliptical, and that he hated America, so that was most likely a back-handed compliment. Further north is the Granary Burial Ground, dedicated in 1660.

[click for bigger pic] This place is cool. The tombstones not only display the flavor of their various periods (the 1660's up through the mid 1800's), but suggest that in certain decades, the 1750's through 70's in particular, Boston was a one tombstone mason town. Those Grim Fandango-ish skulls with wings adorn every tombstone I saw from that era--there are two other similarly old burial sites dating to 1630 and 1659--and they're all basically identical. Fascinating. Later in the 18th century those skulls become lifeless looking cherubs, then around the turn of the 19th century you start seeing differentiation, scales of justice for judges and lawyers, etc. Mother Goose and John Hancock rest there, as well as this guy:

Godspeed noble brewmaster. There was substantial wear and tear on the tombstones, a lot of it probably from freaks like Ben Kromer who take grave rubbings. This is deplorable and destructive. I admit though, in the moment, drunk with history, I should have liked to take rubbings of a few choice stones. However, there was a sign begging against it and that alone stayed my hand. The prohibitory sign itself was engraved and I almost made a rubbing of the no rubbing sign, just to say I'd rubbed something.

Then came the King's Chapel, which actually is interesting architecturally because it's Anglican, and has a little English neo-classical thing going on. Of even greater interest, though, was the interior.

This is a very early instance of the plucky American desire to increase productivity. The Anglicans found that by placing families in these little cubicles and charging rent, not only did church revenue skyrocket, but salvation jumped some 76% and demon-possession dropped by 13%. Curiously, immaculate conceptions remained steady.

Next was the Old South Meeting-House. Benjamin Franklin was baptized here and Phyllis Wheatley no doubt gained divine inspiration for her trite and derivative poetry--though credit her with being the first freed slave to land a book deal. Across the street is the really cool thing though, even if it doesn't technically have anything to do with the Freedom Trail.

[click for larger pic] These statues were originally entitled "Scorn the Poor and Steal Their Children," and are highly evocative of both scorn--the woman's face--and baby stealing--a stomach that flat screams 'this kid ain't mine'.

When baby-stealing fell out of fashion at the turn of the century, the statues were rebranded a tribute to the Irish working class. Pffft.

That's it for now, I'll post the rest of these tomorrow morning, probably before any of you wake up.

"God has no right to choose the upper world for Himself, and to leave the lower world to us"

Read the full thing here.