The Days Go Down in the West Saturday, November 22, 2003

Female Empowerment Dance Mix on the iPod this morning: Luscious Jackson and late-period Cyndi Lauper. LJ was a super-fab, ultra-funky outfit--sort of a ladies' auxiliary to the Beastie Boys. They have since gone on to bigger things, such as collaborating with Emmylou Harris and Daniel Lanois. Meanwhile, I've got a serious soft spot for Cyndi, especially when she makes with the Queens accent. She was born in the hospital that removed my tonsils! We're practically cousins.

Began watching the commentaries on TTT. Lots of laughs, but they don't dispel the queasy feelings. The writers are smart, they've done a great job in many respects, and their explanations for changing things are all very sound. But I think there's a point where you should realize that film-school stuff about "a character's journey" (which is at least better than "arc") or "establishing" whatever or "maintaining tension" has its limits. Faramir--for instance--is incorruptible in the book for a specific reason: He's a contrast to his brother and a symbol of what Man can do with grace and a strong heart. You can't tell me that the screenwriters--who found all sorts of nuance in Merry and Pippin, f'rinstance--couldn't do something that maintained that integrity. Give the guy a "temptation" scene like Galadriel's, or something, and have him come through it.

Blah blah blah. It's Saturday, dammit! Must rip CDs and be husbandly. See ya.

@ 10:01:00 AM, ,

I Was Halfway Crucified Thursday, November 20, 2003

Watched the rest of Two Towers; things aren't as dire as they looked. The big battle scene remains wonderful, and some of the additions actually added some nice texture. But overall the movie feels flabby and poorly conceived this time around. Maybe the commentaries will explain everything.

Quite a ways into the Secret Thing at this point--maybe even a quarter of the way there? Close to a third? But it's getting to be like pulling teeth. Everything's getting to be like pulling teeth these days; I even had to fumfker around for ten minutes before I could bring myself to write this entry. This is distressing.

Talked to my buddy John about this the other day--John, who is working on Secret Thing #2 with me (and probably doesn't know what he's in for). I think the problem for most writers is that they can't find their level. They think they're better than they are, and they end up writing stories whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs. I think I could write decent trashy sci-fi, but every time I start typing I start cramming in modern society, God and Man, the improbability of grace...etc. etc. until it squeezes out the spaceships and Destruct-O-Bots and everything else I keep insisting you need to put into sci-fi stories.

A toughie. Plus Evelyn is going to give me nightmares. He has a talent for that: He writes wonderfully comic sendups of upper-class life that end with chillingly cruel ironic twists. I haven't been able to get the ending of "Black Mischief" out of my head, and it's been months. Just finished "A Handful of Dust," and it's even worse. At least he cheered up, a bit, with "Brideshead" et al. But that doesn't do me much good seven decades later on a Thursday night.

More at some point.

@ 11:36:00 PM, ,

Good Smeagol Always Helps Wednesday, November 19, 2003

My buddy Dave "Mick," link at left, has an interesting post about how the malefactors who send out viruses shoot themselves in the foot with lousy grammar...i.e., who's going to believe they have to ANSWER THIS E-MAIL IMMEDIATELY!!! Dave suggests this holds lessons for marketing in general. I think the more interesting question is: How long before some hacker turns up who has a buddy with an English degree? Not that I need the work, but...

It took only three days, but I've put down the new translation of "Don Quixote." It's a wonderful piece of work, the prose is crisp and funny and altogether delightful, but it's bigger than a battleship and for all the wonderful jokes I keep turning pages and thinking NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Twenty-first century me. Picked up Evelyn Waugh's "Handful of Dust" (as in, "I will show you terror in a...") instead. Cruel, fearless, hilarious.

Started watching "The Two Towers," the long version. It is terrible. I saw the theatrical version four times, and generally thought they did a good job of getting in all the important parts and making it seem like a movie. They changed some important things, and left out some favorite scenes, but you can't have everything. My thinking going into the extended version was: Ah, now we'll get to see all the wonderful stuff they couldn't include--more or less what they did with Fellowship.

Instead, the extra material feels like a beer gut. The scenes are not only irrelevant, but make what's around them look worse. If you didn't think Aragorn falling off the cliff was dopey enough, now you get an establishing scene with him horse-whispering (so that there's a "bond" between him and the velocipede that saves him). Plus poor, glorious Sean Bean--who turned in the best performance in Fellowship by a long shot--gets thrown into a ridiculous flashback here, something that could've been spliced in from "Krull."

We only made it halfway through before we ran out of gas. But already I'm thinking this is one that will gather dust. Editing is everything. Exterminate the brutes.

@ 8:54:00 AM, ,

Is This Desire?

Quiet the past couple days. Busy weekend, sleepless week so far. Something soon, I promise.

@ 7:02:00 AM, ,