A Surprise

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I really wasn't hyped about Watchmen. I usually get pretty excited about comic book movies, but I have gotten a little blase about them lately, maybe afraid of seeing a stinker... don't know. I loved the graphic novel Watchmen it was huge in the 80's and I collected comic books and such back then including Watchmen, Maus and Tank Girl etc etc. Somehow Watchmen movie just slipped by me. So landed up watching this weekend and I really loved it. Same director as 300 so I should have known better. I wish I had seen it in the theatre, it was so beautiful. What's extra special is it totally feels liek a grown up comic book, no measly kids or sugar powdered sex scenes. In fact, the sex scene is really cool. I totally loved all the actors cast and went and looked them up on google today. I was like who is this woman playjng Silk? I loved her! What an outfit! (she's Swedish-Canadian yea!) My only consolation for being such a loser and not seeing this in the theatre is that there is a directors cut with an extra 24 minutes. Imustfindnow. The filmmakers did such an amazing job with bringing this to the big screen twenty years later, and especially without compromising the dark sick stuff. A true gem. The actrors are incredible. I couldn't take my eyes off Rorschack. He was amazing and his body work in fight scenes and in general conveying his character through his body (since a fir bit of the movie he has a mask on) was mindblowing.I loved Silk's work too and whatever this actor did to fight and move was excellent. She seemed painted and alive all at once. The opening sequences are crazy good. Totally preparing the viewer for this new history of the world.I never would have believed I would say this, but this movie is mostly fantastic because of the casting! These are excellent performers perfectly cast. Combined with a relatively intense storyline (really hard to find in comic book adaptations) and ultraviolence, slick cinematography, perfect set direction...this is a movie to watch on a snowy afternoon when you just don't want to do anything else but snack on vegies and 5 layer bean dip and enter a parallel world. Zack Snyder you are a god!

Are You Ready For Your Transformation, Per se.

We just caught a South Park episode we hadn't seen from a couple years ago. Butters discovers vampires at school and the Goth kids also notice them because they are angry that instead of being the few kids who look good at school now all the kids who used to be jocks are now dressing in black. Not just black, but styling on the goth look. Stagg made a joke that they must be shopping at Hot Topic. Hot Topic is a store in malls that makes all these prefabricated clothes for Emo and Goths and punk and infant shirts with The Misfits. The firs time I saw it I couldn't believe it, it was so funny and when I was goth and punk...we had to make our own clothe. Now you can buy them already made. No...I mean mass-produced...not even a independently owned boutique for urban goths. The store is riot. Turns out, that in fact it is exactly the conspiracy in the episode called The Ungroundable. All the kids are being turned into vampires by being taken shopping by the vampires to Hot Topic. The leader of the vampires ends all his sentences with "per se".

Eventually, through Butters, the Goth kids at South Park(in above photo at the Principals office) find out the conspiracy and demand a assembly in the gym and write a speech they present to the school.

Fellow students. Over the past week there's been a lot of confusion, and so we have asked for this assembly to clarify the difference between Goth kids and Vampire kids. Let us make it abundantly clear: if you hate life, truly hate the sun, and need to smoke and drink coffee, you are Goth. If, however, you like dressing in black 'cause it's "fun," enjoy putting sparkles on your cheeks and following the occult while avoiding things that are bad for your health, then you are most likely a douchebag vampire wannabe boner. Because anybody who thinks they are actually a vampire is freaking retarded. [two seconds later everyone begins to applaud the speech. During the applause, Goth 2 steps up to the mic and gives everyone the finger]

The Anxiety Of Influence Or Why Easton Ellis Makes Me Laugh!

If you google Salinger's death you will probably come up with the above Twitter message from Bret Easton Ellis.

I am not sure I can explain why...but I found this to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the innernets.

The thing is...a bunch of people were totally horrified by this Twitter comment posted yesterday by Bret Easton Ellis. I however, laughed my ass off.

I'd like to tell you why I find this so hilarious but not sure I can. Immediately when I saw this Twitter (and it seems hundreds of websites are posting this quote, like The Huffington Post). I just had a huge guffaw. First, it might be the most blasphemous thing someone not religious could say or hear. My god... a literary god dismissed. Making bad with the dead. Of all people Bret Easton Ellis makes this even funnier since he surely is the heir to Salinger's style, and had a following every bit as cultish as Salingers devoted fans. If you're a writer and your work appeals to young people (Is there any higher acclaim? Is there any group better for financially-boosting and ego-boosting than the youth of the United States as your fan base?) then you surely will always be compared and have to lock horns with Salinger. Is it possible it would feel good to have one's major competition as "greatest living American writer" pass away? It's so sick, but I can't help but laugh at Easton Ellis being so forward. That is if he really means it. With Ellis I'm not too sure. His entire Twitter page is hilarious and could be written by some of his own characters. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Easton Ellis just wanted to say the most shocking thing he could think of...and I could even imagine him finding it funny. As I said, I sure found it funny. And I'm pretty sure Easton Ellis meant it as a joke. A lot of people are calling Easton Ellis a loser and a has-been since he posted this yesterday but to my mind, he actually seemed incredibly intuitive and relevant with this goofy bad-taste joke. It's right up there with John Lennon saying "We're bigger than Jesus" (did he say that or is that an urban myth?) or Elvis Costello's comment about Ray Charles in a bar fight in the 1970's. (apparently Ray Charle's said, ""Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper.")

Celebrity feuds are now a major part of mainstream news. They seem like a whole new format of market branding for famous people. The Leno/Conan fight, the Nicole/Paris fight, Rosie/Trump fight, the MacKenzie/Michelle fight, the Herzog/Kinski fight, the Bale/Hurlbut fight...somehow it seems fitting that Easton Ellis would pick a celebrity feud with a ghost.

Here is another one of Eston Ellis's Twitter comments:

A lot of gays at Avatar at The Dome tonight. Well, now we know what the most popular Halloween costume in West Hollywood will be this year. From Easton Ellis Twitter page

Who knew Easton Ellis had such a good sense of humour...I found his comment on Salinger a sign the guy doesn't take himself as seriously as I, only slightly, thought he did. Somehow his comment perfectly describes what it must feel like to write locking horns with the great. Easton Ellis's humour is strangely profound and insightful. And here is really why I found it so funny...In one simple sentence he portrayed part of the work of a writer, to lock horns with the past. He came out of the closet in what Harold Bloom called "the anxiety of influence"...

Bloom's central thesis is that poets are hindered in their creative process by the ambiguous relationship they necessarily maintained with precursor poets. While admitting the influence of extraliterary experience on every poet, he argues that "the poet in a poet" is inspired to write by reading another poet's poetry and will tend to produce work that is derivative of existing poetry, and, therefore, weak. Because a poet must forge an original poetic vision in order to guarantee his survival into posterity (i.e., to guarantee that future readers will not allow him to be forgotten), the influence of precursor poets inspires a sense of anxiety in living poets.

Here are some other famous writers Twitter comments about Salinger passing away...I think they help put Easton Ellis's Twitter in context...

Salinger, R.I.P.

Is it too strong to say that J.D. Salinger saved my life? When I read The Catcher In The Rye I found that life sucked just a little less because Holden Caulfield saw through the phonies and maybe I could try not to be a phony. Maybe I'd fail, but it's a noble aspiration. The novel suggested that friendship is one way to stay out of the mental institute and hey. Staying out in the world with friendships and trying to be well seemed like a damn good plan. Thanks Holden Caulfield.

I've read his books and stories at least a half a dozen times each and Franny and Zooey is my favourite Salinger story. It actually has the best and surely some of the most profound philosophy in a novel. The novel proposes that every person, no matter what kind of an asshole, or jerk, or pretentious, or holy, or gifted is all of us, the Buddha. (possibly disguised as the "Fat Lady") Somehow Salinger managed to make Buddhaconsciousness or Christconsciouness cool. We are all the "Fat Lady" and we all have the option to perform and practice art as well as we can even if it's just for one other person. His characters are some of the coolest heartfelt people in literature. Complex, flawed and trying to be kindhearted. His few published books all seemed to wrestle with how to live kind and thoughtful in a cruel and fucked up society. Franny and Zooey is on my World Peace Reading List. He may only be read by kids these days, but I think this is a good thing...get the kids before they turn into cynical old phonies ha ha.

I once got into a massive competitive discussion early in the 1990's internet of online web boards when I thought that A Nice Day For Bananafish might be the story of a pedophile who couldn't live with themselves. (It's more likely about a war vet who couldn't live with themselves and the superficial society they found themselves in...but I had a strange epiphany and stuck to my guns pissing off some other readers online)

Salinger's character would come alive in their speaking...Everytime I read Salinger's characters I could hear them speaking out loud. They seem as real as anyone in the way he could nail dialogue. Salinger's peers are David Mamet and Quintin Tarantino for gifted dialogues.

Reports say that Salinger passed away at home. I wouldn't have expected anything less. He outwitted the hospital and retirement home and stayed reclusive till the end!



The voice at the other end came through again. "I remember about the fifth time I ever went on 'Wise Child'. I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast-remember when he was in that cast? Anyway, I started bitching one night about the broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Walker. I was furious. The studio audience were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour.I said, they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again-all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and-I don't know.Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense."

Franny was standing. She was holding the phone with two hands. "He told me, too." she said into the phone. "He told me to be funny for the Fat Lady, once." She released one hand from the phone and placed it, very briefly, on the crown of her head, then went back to holding the phone with both hands. "I didn't ever picture her on a porch, but with very-you know- very thick legs, very veiny. I had her in an awful wicker chair. She had cancer, too, though, and she had the radio going full-blast all day! Mine did, too!"

"Yes, Yes, Yes. All right. Let me tell you something now, buddy...Are you listening?"

Franny, looking extremely tense, nodded.

"I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over the radio, it can be over television, it can be ina goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you one a terrible secret-Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know-listen to me, now-don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?...Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy." From Franny and Zooey


Shadrach by the Beastie Boys..."I got more lyrics than J.D. Salinger..."

Collections And People

My first apartment was down the street from my dad and step-mum. I had flown the nest but not too far away. The apartment was in a very old "character" building in downtown Calgary. We lived just by 17th Avenue and 8th Street. The last time I drove by both my step-mum's old place and my old place they were still painted wth the same colours my family had chosen a long time ago. I have a few friends who helped paint that house and they have noticed the same interesting fact that any new owners have maintained that house colour. Anyways...I lived about a block from their place. One day I was doing yoga in my Danskin jazzercise body suit when the police pounded on my door. Apprarently my next door neightbour had tried to kill himself by shooting a rifle into his gas stove. The cops looking me up and down once in my yoga costume then asked to look in my closet for the bullets that went through the neighbours walls into my clothes. I didn't even notice. I was a very thick and slow teenager. Never even heard the gunshots. I did not tell my step-mum this story or she would have got me to move back in home. I had this ridiculously small kitchen about the width of the human body and back then I spent all my money on clothes and kitchen supplies. I vaguely remember eating but only on my shift at the local hipster vegetarian restaurant where I was a waitress. I'd eat a salad and carob cashew milkshake once a day. How funny is that? No matter how many tips I made I was always scrambling to pay my rent. Did I mention I spent all my money on clothes and cooking equipment? In this old apartment building I lived in we had shared washroom accomdation, which completely grosses me out now that I look back. Yuck. But I would haul my towel and a caddy of hair products and cleansing products down the hall in my robe for a bath. I always cleaned out the tub before I used it. One day an elderly couple across the hall asked me to help them do some errand they were having trouble with, I often met them in the hallway checking mail...or heading to the shared shower. Tey seemed sweet and I was as I said rather naive and so I went into their apartment to reach something or other for them. I couldn't believe what I saw in their apartment. It was filled to the ceiling with newspapers. The only way I could get to their kitchen was to carefully glide between tall coridors of stacked yellowing newspapers. I had never heard of hoarding before. In fact, being so naive and trusting I assumed they must have some fabulous purpose for keeping all those newspapers. I had no idea it was a mental illness.

Many times over the years since then, I thought about that apartment and that keeping newspapers and I later found out when I took a psychology course that hoarding might be a behaviour of a mental illness and might be related to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Recently A&E started a series called Hoarders and I've been watching it. Sometimes Stagg will watch because it is totally fascinating. Stagg has a tendency to collect things and he makes a lot of artwork out of found stuff collected...and he calls the hoarders his peeps. Sometimes I laugh when he says this, heh heh...but I am the opposite, I like to have everything in a place and a home...even if we have a lot of stuff...I need to know exactly what it is and where. And if we don't need it: goodbye! Not easy. One thing that I really like about the tv show Hoarders is that at first I thought it was about the people who kept everything and filled up their houses. But it's turned out that the tv show is actually about the family of hoarders. Often these people are mystified and co-dependent or have worked really hard to not live in chaos themselves...and sometimes they step in with a psychological team to try and help the hoarder in their family. Heavy shit...and it absolutely seems to tear family apart.

Today we were walking home and from several blocks away we saw guy filling up a huge garbage bin. As we got closer I thought it was a reno job...but then I realized...holy cow, those are all newspapers. Real life hoarder! I couldn't believe it. The house he was hauling all this stuff from was a really beautiful huge house built in the 1940's on a fairly posh street near our apartment. I had to go up to talk to the guy. I said, "My husband and I are really impressed with how hard you are working on this terribly cold day" He says "Yeah, well you gotta take the work if you can." I ask, "Is this all newspapers from that house?" He says, "Yep, and there's lots more." I ask, "Is the owner in the house while you're working?" He says" Yes, and the owner's daughter."

Wow, just like the tv show I thought. I felt so bad for the daughter. One of the things that is obvious in the tv show is that sadly...so many of the hoarders have very little social skills or take pleasure in what most of us experience as a valuable part of our lives with our families. The hoarders choose things over people. Something to think about. I am probably weird but I just had to take a picture of the newspapers in the refuse bin. When we got back home...I noticed a huge pile of things I've got by the door to donate to a church fundraising sale this week. Boy, I can't wait to get them out of the apartment.

7 Days Till LOST

It's been a long strange trip but LOST and it's mysteries are finally coming to the surface this last season. What is that sound whenever the black mist shows up? What happened to Walt? Are Kate and Jack meant to be together? Who is Clare's baby and why was the spiritual forecaster so cryptic about his birth? Why those numbers? Why are all the books on the show like fundamentals of a magic Borges library? Will Saywer take off his shirt?

I am so excited for next Tuesday. I miss a lot of things about not being in Toronto, but one thing that is gonna be weird is I sure wish I could have a "LOST party" with my friends and family who also have watched every episode of this fricking awesome tv show. The pilot episode is probably still in the top ten pilot episodes ever. (others would be ER, 24, Desperate Housewives, How I Met Your Mother, True Blood, Dexter, Arrested Development, and The West Wing)

I really am going to miss being able to talk about each episode with family and friends in person. As it is, we make a lot of long distance phone calls and thank goodness for Skype, right? On a good night I don't have a clue what is going on and I depend on recaps and individual theories to keep up to speed ha ha. We've been waiting for this season forever it feels like...and one thing that is a drag is that the season will be pre-empted by the Olympics. Sure I'm going to be watching the Olympics, I prefer the winter games much more than the summer ones (sorry ancient Greece)...but still...how nasty to have LOST interrupted!

Some LOST fansites I've enjoyed:

1.) The Tail Section
2.) Lost Media
3.) 4 8 15 16 23 42
4.) Lostpedia
5.) Dark UFO
6.) A Theory Of Time Travel

Pop Songs From Shakespeare

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!

Helen Mirren ... Imogen
Michael Gough ... Belarius
Geoffrey Burridge ... Guiderius
David Creedon ... Arviragus

Directed by Elijah Moshinsky