New Year's Resolutions

I don't know consciously and realistically make resolutions. In fact, I don't even really believe in New Year's. It seems rather arbitrary. Just the same old passage of time. Out with the old year, in with the new year, a lot like the old year.

But I am on a certain path. One paved with an idea of constant self-improvement. And self-improvement is not just masturbation.

I think I can characterize 2007 as a year of loss. Loss in that I lost a lot of weight. Okay, maybe not actual weight loss, but I'm now just in better shape. Although, I did downgrade shirt sizes, from medium to small. Unless that's just a result of everyone else being relatively fatter and the industry making a secret pact to adjust sizes accordingly, lest we all shop at the Big & Tall Store.

Another improvement I seem to have made is I managed to read a lot more and consume other artistic entertainments as well. I see a lot (more) films in theatres now (plenty of "independent" films included) rather than discovering them on video. I actively hunt down new, credible music. Most importantly, I've read easily more than twenty books this year, which may not necessarily seem like a huge improvement but it feels like one. I don't usually count, though, so I can't be sure of any numbers, but did keep a listing of my summer reading. And that summer reading is likely the majority of my improvement.

So I'm further along down the road of my infinite self-improvement. It may be one giant infinite regress, but it still feels like progress. And thusly I will persevere and maybe that means I can do something about the fact that I'm still a bitter, misanthrope.

M.I.A.

I'm surprised I managed to write an entry about M.I.A. (née Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam) and not mention what a fox she is:



And I can't believe I've missed two opportunities to see her perform live (two times I've been aware of her playing in my Local Big City).

My Best of the Year in Music: Kala

The Year: 2007

The Album: M.I.A.'s Kala

I don't buy much music on cd anymore. I do a lot more downloading. But I bought Kala. Usually I'm still catching up on music from the last few years so I'm not always listening to the most recent releases. But I bought Kala the first week it was out.

Usually when I buy something new, I listen to it once, out of consumer obligation, then set it aside not having struck a chord. Still, I usually revisit the album, and luck permitting, I'll really love the album.

Of course, I had already heard Arular. That's why I knew to buy Kala in its first week of release. Yet, Arular was never part of my regular rotation. I'd listen to all once. Then occasionally I would revisit a track or two. Never knowing which track to pick, which would give me the rush I was looking for, the instantaneous satisfaction.

Kala, though, was an album that I loved immediately, straight from the opening track. (And it's one of those that sound great as a soundtrack to driving, a reason for the cd purchase-- until I give in and buy an iPod). That said, other critics can sum it up better than I can.

From The A.V. Club's Best of Music 2007 list where it ranked sixth:

M.I.A.'s Kala joined the ranks of that special brand of album that evokes not just an inimitable musical world, but, better and more resounding, a whole other planet. Song after song proves hot and colorful, and M.I.A. exhibits the kind of presence as a rapper-singer that shows no sign of flagging. No song this year did a better job than "Bamboo Banga" of summoning both the homey rock drone of The Modern Lovers and the spirit of Bollywood, and the party never dims from the opening track on. Extra credit, too, to an album that counts its one Timbaland-produced track as its weakest.

I pretty much agree with everything said there by The A.V. Club critic. Although, "Mango Pickle Down River" may in fact be the weakest track. Despite its killer beat, the novelty of the child rappers is just too grating. And while "Bamboo Banga" is a great opening track that establishes the rest of the album, the real standout is "Paper Planes." It is just super-catchy and makes great use of a Clash sample (Combat Rock's "Straight to Hell").

I'm not very good at noticing samples without external aids though (thankfully I have Wikipedia). Other things I noticed and enjoyed, though, are the "lyric sampling" of The Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" and Pixies' "Where is My Mind?" in "Bamboo Banga" and "20 Dollar" respectively. There are some real underrated tracks on the album too; tracks that don't standout on first listen but grow and grow as their accomplishments become more apparent on repeat listens. My personal favourite is likely "The Turn" at this point.

Here is the music video for "Paper Planes": (There are also videos for "Bird Flu," "Boyz," and "Jimmy")




(P.S. Look out for two of the three Beastie Boys).

Other new albums I've enjoyed this calendar year: Stars' In Our Bedroom after the War, Busdriver's Roadkillovercoat, Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City, Beirut's The Flying Club Cup

Still need to check out new Radiohead and Wu-Tang among others...

Music Review

Since I have written film and book reviews for this blog, I feel a certain obligation to tackle music as well. I enjoy music and it has become a large part of my life, as a pleasure. I listen to music everyday essentially. Yet, I don't have the ear for music like I do literature and film. So I can know what I like but I don't know that I can put into words why I like something or write something that convinces of some thing's quality.

Silly or sentimental or just meaningless lyrics won't detract a song for me. Yet, good lyrics will certainly enhance my enjoyment and make the experience of listening to a song more memorable. Mostly, in the music I listen to, I look for a particular sound that strikes me. This is to say nothing of genre. I listen to folk, pop, rock, country, hip hop, electronic, and anything else you may subdivide music into (I won't rally about my dislike for the ghettoizing that is genre classifications here).

That said, maybe a project I can put together for myself is the reading and assimilation of music criticism. I mean this 'blog' as a writing exercise, and such an endeavour would certainly be an exercise.

My Best of the Year in Film: No Country for Old Men

The Year: 2007

The Film: No Country for Old Men

Written and directed by the Joel & Ethan Coen based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy.

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem.

Brilliant.


Justification: I may not see as many films in a year as I wish, but no other had quite as much impact as this one. I'll give it a proper review once I can watch it again, hopefully over and over on DVD. And I'll discuss how I personally justify the undoubtedly contentious ending. I imagine everyone does it just a little differently.

Runners-up: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Eastern Promises, Zodiac, The Darjeeling Limited

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Swampman

Certainly had no intention of doubling up weeks on thought experiments, but then again here we are.

Thought Problem! Thought Problem! Thought Problem!

Donald Davidson introduced the Swampman as philosophical thought experiment in 1987. In Davidson's paper he describes himself on a hike, in the third person. He is killed by lightning. Simultaneously, another bolt of lightning nearby rearranges molecules upon contact, spontaneously and coincidentally, to form the same form as Davidson's body upon the moment of his death. This new Davidson, dubbed Swampman, thinks and acts as Davidson would, is structurally identical, and walks out of the swamp as Davidson memories, friends, family, life intact.

In spite of everything, Swampman is not Davidson. When he meets an old friend, and there is an air of recognition, but it will be impossible for an actual recognition. Recognition can not occur without first there being cognition. Swampman has never actually met these friends of Davidson before, so this if the first time. Essentially always. For Swampman has no proper state of reference. All is incoherence.

All of this ties into semantic externalism.

Wikipedia by Week

Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One: Lolita fashion

Found Objects

In my recurring dream, it's John Cage, Marcel Duchamp and me in a West Side Story-style rumble against all the squares.

"Eat fist, Truman Capote!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas by the Lyrics

Get ready to set your Facebook statuses and MSN Messenger* personal messages to spread some holiday cheer:

From The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" featuring Kirsty MacColl (written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan):

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God its our last

From Aesop Rock's "Holy Smokes":

Christmas morning smelled fresher than angel pussy
But immaculate conception came second to playful goodies
Like laser-tag was way more spiritual than blood and body wafer bags
And manger staff is swung as Santa ate the cookies

From Material Issue's "Merry Christmas Will Do" (written by Jim Ellison):

I call, yes I call
But I always put down the phone
When I hear his voice I got no choice
But to spend Christmastime here alone

You don't have to say you love me
I know that that's not true
But Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas will do

*Yeah, it's now known as Windows Live Messenger, but god it was MSN Messenger for so long and we wouldn't even still be using it if it wasn't for convenience and the fact it was ingrained with my generation in our formative years (i.e. middle school/high school).

Top Five I: The Films of Tim Burton

1.     Beetle Juice (1988)
2.     Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)
3.     Edward Scissorhands (1990)
4.     Batman Returns (1992)
5.     Mars Attacks! (1996)

Unseen: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Ed Wood (1994)
N/A: Shorts (likewise an honourable mention should be given to Vincent (1982), although it's been awhile since I've seen it)

Underappreciated Punctuation I: The Semicolon

The Semicolon. That unwanted step-child of the colon. And, I guess the comma, too. Probably your keyboard as well. How rarely you get your due. So little used, and when so, often incorrectly.

Besides, the semicolon get all that bad press. But someone else might say, "hey, bad press is still press, at least it's staying in the public consciousness." Well, not with this kind of hate. Here are some of the haters.

Kurt Vonnegut (from A Man Without a Country):

If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.

Donald Barthelme (from "Not Knowing"):

"Style is not much a matter of choice," he paused then to ask: "Why do I avoid, as much as possible, using the semicolon? Let me be plain: the semicolon is ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog's belly. I pinch them out of my prose."

Apparently, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, and E.B. White (and I shockingly do not own the Elements of Style) were also opponents of the semicolon, but I couldn't find any proof in my basic Google research.

Now in looking for these quotes, I found that many odes to the semicolon have already been written. So I'll try to do a little something different.

So, what's a semicolon good for? Mostly it tends to be used for lists, such as in the case that a list contains clauses or multiple clauses that should not be separated by comma. Most beautifully, though, is its use as a connector of two separate independent yet related clauses. When used correctly in this manner, great impact can be observed as two different but related thoughts are conveyed in glorious sequence.

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Chinese Room

Thought Problem! Thought Problem! Thought Problem!

The Chinese room argument is a thought experiment (or the German Gedankenexperiment) . On first read through, its full philosophical impact failed to hit me (my fault, not its). Still, it's no Turing test. That said, like the Turing test, it is concerned with artificial intelligence.

I'll attempt a quick run through of the actual problem-- without plagiarizing the Wikipedia entry (or the problem's originator, John Searle):

Imagine a computer. It's 1980, so imagine a 1980 computer. It shouldn't be too hard since you're a person in 1980. Imagine the year is 1980. Now a computer-- hopefully you know what a computer is. Yeah, those big room-sized machines with the punch cards and the more hassle then it's worth. Now, this computer, its input is Chinese characters and its output is other Chinese characters. To get this other from the non-other, it runs a program. This program works astonishingly well, so well as to pass the Turing test. That is, it convinces a Chinese speaker (human, naturally) that it too is human. There is the suggestion that the computer is an artificial intelligence and understands Chinese, understands like a human.

Now imagine, that instead of a program, the computer is with someone in a room, an English speaker (the computers are networked-- yes, like the internet. Oh, you don't know the internet? Geez, check out the rube from 1980.). Now this English speaker receives the Chinese speaker's input, consults a book on how to process the input to create the output, and does so. In this way, the English speaker manipulates the computer to pass the Turing test for the Chinese speaker. Without an ounce of artificial intelligence.

Did I mention that it is a criticism of the Turing test?

And that is it. The rest of the Wikipedia page is kind of extra-textual. It contains some background, some definitions, and most intriguing a lot of responses to the argument.

Wikipedia by Week

Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One: Lolita fashion

Privileged I

Woot! Today, I officially received my first piece of Facebook spam:

Some analysis.

A) She says "hey, my name's Victoria" despite it saying her name is Elizabeth [redacted].

B) She says "i'm trying to chat with you, but i don't think you can here on facebook". False.

Okay, so likely someone's profile got hacked. Hell, she used to actually have a profile picture when I received the message, so someone has taken some actions. Plus no sane person sends a message at 5:52 am.

Some things about Elizabeth [redacted]:

• she hails from the mythical city of Halifax, NS, United States
• her Favorite Books include Other
• she ain't bad looking

Finally, there is this link [url redacted]. How tempted I am. But somethings will have to remain in my imagination.

Personal I

MSF

Under 25. Must be bitter about the human race, yet in a state in of perma-optimism.

Film Review: Charley Varrick

Random Film Reviews: Short Reviews of What I Happen to be Watching As I Expand My Film Knowledge

Inaugural entry:

Charley Varrick

Directed by Don Siegel. Written by Dean Riesner and/& Howard Rodman based on a book by John Reese.

Starring Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, and John Vernon.

1973.

This, Siegel's first effort following Dirty Harry two years prior, is a tight little crime caper. The crime itself, a bank robbery, occurs relatively early in the film and the remainder deals with the getaway. Getaway not from the law, but the mob, that is. Matthau and his crew of diminishing numbers have inadvertently knocked off a money laundering operation in their attempt to hit another small time bank and end up with a take of about 3/4 of a million dollars.

We watch Matthau's bank robber squirm in his tightening noose as Joe Don Baker's mob enforcer follows the leads towards Matthau and the money. But Matthau, the titular Charley Varrick, is smarter than all of us, and we're always left with these threads that don't seem to connect, until Varrick ties them together in front of our eyes.

John Vernon plays the charismatic president of the bank chain doing the laundering who tries to find Matthau before he gets accused of being in on the take. Vernon has a standout scene, a condescendathon if you will, with the investigators who won't let him in his own bank., but Baker's Mr. Molly really steals the show. There's a certain straight-laced stoicism belying the true ruthlessness of his character.

Great lines abound as well-- Mr. Molly: "I don't sleep with whores. At least not knowingly."

Not too give too little credit to the director or lead, though, because I'll certainly be looking to catch more of Siegel's films and Matthau's dramatic roles (particularly The Laughing Policeman and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three).

Sailing to Byzantium

"Sailing to Byzantium"

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

- William Butler Yeats, The Tower, 1928


Almighty, going to have think on this some more.

Things That Won't Be in the Movie I: I Am Legend

Who wants to bet this part didn't get adapted to the Will Smith-blockbuster version of Richard Matheson's brilliant I Am Legend?

He never looked at them anymore. In the beginning he'd made a peephole in the front window and watched them. But then the women had seen him and had started striking vile postures in order to entice him out of the house.
[...]
He closed his eyes again. It was the women who made it so difficult, he thought, the women posing like lewd puppets in the night on the possibility that he'd see them and decide to come out.
A shudder ran through him. Every night it was the same. He'd be reading and listening to music. Then he'd start think about soundproofing the house, then he'd think about the women.
[...]
The women were out there, their dresses open or taken off, their flesh waiting for his touch, their lips waiting for--
[...]
The women, the lustful, bloodthirsty, naked women flaunting their hot bodies at him. No, not hot.

This might just sound like I'm looking for the sexy. I am. But the respectable reasoning for this is that vampires have a long history of being sexualized creatures in their depictions in both films and books at least back to Dracula (sorry, I'm not up on my Polidori). Hell, Anne Rice has built a cottage industry out of this. And to me, Matheson subverts this. Sexual desire is replaced with sexual disgust. I'll be surprised if this is not the least bit bland, and contains "Come out, Neville!" or keeps the brilliant ending intact.

Comedy/Dialogue I

Apropos of nothing, except maybe Indian girls:

Toofer: Hey take that off, you didn't go to Harvard.

Frank: I went to Harvard. I did stand-up there this weekend.

Toofer: Very funny. You were not graduated from that institution.

Frank: Well, I got a squeezer from an Indian girl on a bunk bed, so I think I got the full Harvard experience.

Liz: That does sound pretty accurate.

Toofer: You're just trying to get a rise out of me, sir... and you do not want to make a Harvard man angry.

- 30 Rock, "Secrets and Lies", Season 2

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Ambrose Burnside

I owe this one to my research for my Abe Simpson quote post:

Mona: "Abe, isn't Homer cute?"

Grampa: "Probably. I'm trying to watch the Super Bowl. If people don't support this thing, it might not make it."

Howard Cosell: "Joe Willy Namath, swaggering off the field, his sideburns an apogee of sculpted sartorium. The foppish follicles pioneered by Ambrose Burnside, Appomattox 1865."

Mona (internal): "His wild, untamed facial hair revealed a new world of rebellion, of change. A world where doors were open for women like me, but Abe was stuck in his button down plastic fantastic Madison Avenue scene."

Grampa: "Look at them sideburns! He looks like a girl. Now, Johnny Unitas, there's a haircut you could set your watch to."

Now, let's get to the man himself, Ambrose Burnside, namesake of sideburns.

How's that work exactly? Well, they, etymologists no doubt, took the first syllable of his surname and used it as the second syllable of the terminology, then they took the second syllable of his surname and used it as the first syllable of the terminology, added an 's' to the whole thing, then took the concoction, put it in the oven for three hours, removed from the oven, let sit for thirty minutes, and you have it: delicious sideburns.

And would you look at those beauties:

Incidentally, Burnside was a general for the Union in the American Civil War, but I think we all know what we came here for. Apparently, he wasn't very well fit for military command and he knew it, but Ulysses Grant said it too so we know it as well. The write-ups of some of his campaigns are pretty interesting like "The Battle of the Crater" with its tales of unused specially trained Black division as well as incompetent drunk subordinate generals.

Still, Burnside's contribution to history will remain his most visible contribution to his face: thick strips of hair on the side of his face connected to his moustache all while leaving the chin clean-shaven.

God bless you, sir.

Wikipedia by Week

Week One: Lolita fashion

Book Review: World War Z

World War Z by Max Brooks

Brooks writes this, his second zombie book following The Zombie Survival Guide, as an oral history from the viewpoint of a representative from a UN Postwar commission. The war in postwar being "The Zombie War." This allows Brooks to apply a grand scale to his tale as we read the transcripts from this representative's interviews which provides us accounts in China, Tibet, Greece, Brazil, Barbados, Israel, Palestine, the US, Finland, Antarctica, India, Russia, Greenland, South Africa, Ireland, Ukraine, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Cuba, Australia, Chile, Siberia, and in Earth orbit.

Brooks adapts to the different perspectives with great aplomb, moving between doctors, different military experiences, politicians, refugees, and survivors of different cultures. Some standouts are the recurring segments with US Army infantryman Todd Wainio who provides an angle from the frontlines of the zombie war in the US, as well as downed fighter pilot Christina Eliopolis's account of sludging her way through a Louisiana swamp on her way to safety. The best segment though may be the detailing of South Africa's "Redeker Plan" by disgraced apartheid-era politician Paul Redeker and its use of acceptable losses.

I've never read a real oral history before (I wouldn't mind reading some Legs McNeil *hint*hint*), just fake ones (thank you, Mark Leyner). I imagine this is a pretty accurate rendition as I enjoyed the style and felt the details on a worldwide endemic made the novel. It may not be high literature, but it is excellent populist fiction that didn't insult my intelligence as well as quick read.

Word is that a World War Z movie is in the works. Although, what this book really begs for is an HBO Band of Brothers-style mini-series bookended by faux interviews with veterans of the zombie war. Word is bond.

A Novel Idea II

Again, probably not something anybody would want to flesh out to the extent of novel-length:

In the interest of realism, my virtual reality has a virtual reality unit in it.

Awareness Ribbon of the Month: December 2007

December's Ribbon:

Support Discount Bus Fares for War Widows

Old Timey I: Abe Simpson

"Maggie, your babysitters here. What's that mean? Ohhh, you must be sick! Lets see, what's old doc Washburn prescribe? Do you have dropsy? The grip? Scrofula? The vapors? Jungle rot? Dandy fever? Poor man's gout? Housemaid's knee? Climatic boo bow? The staggers? Dum dum fever?"
- Marge Gets a Job, Season 4

"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I took the fairy to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones."
- Last Exit to Springfield, Season 4

"Ah , there's an interesting story behind this nickel. In 1957 I remember it was, I got up in the morning and made myself a piece of toast. I set the toaster to three, medium brown."
- Homer and Apu, Season 5

"I leave these: a box of mint-condition 1918 liberty-head silver dollars. You see, back in those days, rich men would ride around in Zeppelins, dropping coins on people, and one day I seen J. D. Rockefeller flying by. So I run of the house with a big washtub and, where are you going? [...] Anyway, about my washtub. I just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking bird. We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called baseball."
- Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy, Season 5

"I first took a fancy to Mrs. Bouvier because her raspy voice reminded me of my old Victrola. Oh, it was a fine machine. With a vulcanized rubber listening tube which ya crammed in your ear. The tube would go in easier with some sort of lubricant like linseed oil or Dr. Shomways... Oh! I'm sorry."
- Lady Bouvier's Lover, Season 5

"I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missoura!"
- Homer Badman, Season 6

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."
- A Star is Burns, Season 6

"Oh, jeeh, you're ignorant! That's the Wright Brothers' plane. At Kitty Hawk in 1903, Charles Lindbergh flew it fifteen miles on a thimbleful of corn oil. Single handedly won us the Civil War, it did."
- Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming, Season 7

"Big deal! When I was a pup, we got spanked by Presidents till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two nonconsecutive occasions."
- Two Bad Neighbors, Season 7

"Now! Hey, listen! Now, my story begins in 19 dickety two. We had to say dickety 'cause that Kaiser had stolen our word twenty. I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety six miles."
- Raging Abe Simpson and his Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish", Season 7

"Alright, ya got me. The story of the Simpson family began in the Old Country. I forget which one exactly. My dad would drone on and on about America. He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sliced bread having been invented the previous winter."
- Much Apu About Nothing, Season 7

"Dang right. Fact is, I invented kissing. It was during World War I and they were looking for a new way to spread germs..."
- The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase, Season 8

"Oh, I know this story! The year was nineteen aught-six. The President is the divine Miss Sarah Burnheart and all over America people were doing a dance called the Funky Grampa! Oh I'm the..."
- Lisa's Sax, Season 9

I guess maybe we should end with what my definition of Old Timey is: a stereotyped vision of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (or really any time period that's convenient for me). Sort of an imagined memory of the past. Got it? Good.

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Lolita Fashion

Lolita fashion is apparently a Japanese subculture. One involving attractive Japanese women and Victorian children's clothing. It obviously could stand to be imported to Canada and the United States. I certainly wouldn't complain.

Lolita fashion has further subtypes such as Gothic Lolita and Punk Lolita (perhaps referred to by portmanteaus such as Gothloli and, presumably, Punkloli). Obligatory Simpsons reference: "I want a bigger lolli."

The Nabokovian reference to Lolita seems to be one of convenience. There's nothing explicitly sexual, deviant, or coquettish about any of this.

Next time there's an anime convention in the nearby Big City, I might have to see if I can find any firsthand examples.

Book Review: The Melancholy of Anatomy

The Melancholy of Anatomy by Shelley Jackson

The Melancholy of Anatomy is a collection of "Stories." The book divides the stories according to category: Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic, and Sanguine. These obviously correspond to the four humors of Greco-Roman medicine, being yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood, respectively. They also correspond to the Four Temperaments theory of modern psychology.

The stories contained within are:

• Blood

Choleric

• Egg
• Sperm
• Foetus

Melancholic

• Cancer
• Nerve
• Dildo

Phlegmatic

• Phlegm
• Hair
• Sleep

Sanguine

• Blood
• Milk
• Fat

I guess I've met one of my year's goals now. Getting pinged on google searches for dildo (probably around the 320, 670, 456th result).

The Melancholy of Anatomy concerns itself with elements of the body, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, these elements have been externalized. They are foreign elements which show up unexpectedly. This creates a diaspora of the in/out in all of the stories. All of this analysis makes the work sound more heady than it really is. Instead, Jackson of the school of postmodernism, has a playful hold of language and has ludic fun with our expectations and misconceptions. Well worth a read.

Short Pick: Foetus

Making Our Own Maxims I

Contradicting schools of thought:

What is the canon: "Can we put it on a t-shirt?"

and

He'll say, "Is this too obscure?"

And I'll say, "It's not obscure enough."

Things I Found While Goin' Through Your Purse

• your makeup
• your compact
• your lipstick
• shit like that
• the keys that you keep on a chain
• your cigarettes
• my lighter too
• a picture of your sister (god, I think you're one and the same)
• a photo of your mother, too
• and all the boys who dated you
• your high school graduation ring
• a cheque stub from the place you work
• some poetry from some stupid jerk who's trying to steal your heart from me

A Novel Idea I

Well, maybe not a novel but a short story. Here goes:

It's a detective murder mystery. Dead bodies start showing up around, I don't know... town, the country. Maybe it's something that has caused the FBI to be alerted. That sort of scale. Anyway, there seems to be no leads. Nothing connects the victims--except all victims have a patch of skin of missing from their corpses. Now these aren't the same patches on every victim. No, they come in different shapes and locations but they're generally of a rectangular nature.

So, eventually (I don't know, page 3) the killer gets interrupted and has to flee the scene of their crime post-haste. In the process, they leave behind the patch of skin and surprise, surprise it has a tattoo inked into it: a word (the word is not especially important in itself, just the idea of it being a word, but it could be made into a metaphor for the story-at-large, blah, blah, blah, meaning, meaning, blah).

Anyway, some quality sleuthing and quick googling later, and it turns out all the victims are participants in Shelley Jackson's short story Skin. The text itself is dying, disappearing. Oh my, now even our fictions are fleeting. Anyways, the detectives contact Jackson, but no more clues are forthcoming.

Take a break for more detective work, etc.

Since the nature of the project, the detectives don't have access to the short story or its list of participants or there's too many or something convenient like that. But one more google search later and there's someone tattooed close by. So the detectives just plan to keep an eye on this person: surveillance time! Witty stakeout dialogue!

The detectives are involved in a chase with the killer, possibly involving rooftops, and voilà, they pin the killer down. Anyway, one old man Wiggles unmasking later and the killer is revealed to be: shock of shocks, Shelley Jackson.

Ms. Jackson then delivers the story's parting words.

"I'm not the Shelley Jackson who wrote Patchwork Girl.

I'm not that Shelley Jackson."

So consider that released into the ether. Have with it, ether.