enduring the sky
So, yes, the list of not-writing things I have to do today is annoyingly long, a string of undertakings united only by the fact that a) they are related to writing, b) are not the actual act of writing, and c) I do not wish to do them. But there you go. Tedium is just another part of the landscape.
Yesterday. Let's see.
Well, I read Volume Two of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and as some had predicted, I liked it even better than Volume One. This one was Mina's, and I couldn't have been more pleased. I adored the Barsoom stuff at the start, and the love scenes between Mina and Quartermain were touching and sexy and funny. In the end, I think, Hyde almost stole the show, and I adored that, too. My only complaint was that the ending seemed just a little rushed, bringing down the Martians and all, and it seems to me the story could have used a couple more issues. But that's a quibble. Now, of course, I have to wait until October for The Back Dossier.
Sometime after dark, we went out into the steamy night, to Videodrome, to rent Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006), which I somehow missed during the one week it was playing at Midtown here in Atlanta. Based upon Patrick Süskind's novel, Das Parfum (which Spooky has read, but I haven't), it is surely one of the most sublimely erotic films I have ever seen. Like all the best erotica, it's not for the faint of heart, or those who have no use for fairy tales, or those who get queasy at the sight of blood or filth or maggots. There were echoes of Angela Carter and some of Herzog's early films (I'm thinking Heart of Glass, in particular). When it was over, and I was breathing normally again, I told Spooky that the last film that affected me that viscerally was The Proposition. It's that raw, that unfettered, that fucking perfect. This is a film that truly must be seen, unless visceral isn't your cup of tea. In which case, you may be excused. But damn, what an amazing, amazing film.
The heat is still with us. We shall likely see 100F again today, and I won't even make a guess at the heat index.
A couple of days back someone asked if I am in the "Al Gore camp" as regards mankind being responsible for global warming, for this current period of global warming. And I said that yes, of course I am. I said that, given the preponderance of available data, from such such diverse disciplines as meteorology, paleoclimatology, geology, and oceanography, that there is no longer any other reasonable conclusion to be drawn. But I think there's something more I should have said. And it is this. Regarding global warming the only remaining controversy is political, not scientific. Science has reached a consensus, after decades of research. Sure, you can still find scientists who are skeptical that humanity is the cause, because that's how science works. But there are fewer of them every day. The only reason the public "controversy" persists is because so many people have such a profoundly nonscientific and economic stake in there seeming to be a controversy. Which is to say, it's not something that people want to believe, because the consequences of believing it and accepting responsibility are so dire. But that's not how science works, this matter of believing only that which is convenient and comfortable. At least not when science is working right. Anyway, I felt like my reply was incomplete, and now it is less so.
Okay. There's tedium awaiting me...
Yesterday. Let's see.
Well, I read Volume Two of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and as some had predicted, I liked it even better than Volume One. This one was Mina's, and I couldn't have been more pleased. I adored the Barsoom stuff at the start, and the love scenes between Mina and Quartermain were touching and sexy and funny. In the end, I think, Hyde almost stole the show, and I adored that, too. My only complaint was that the ending seemed just a little rushed, bringing down the Martians and all, and it seems to me the story could have used a couple more issues. But that's a quibble. Now, of course, I have to wait until October for The Back Dossier.
Sometime after dark, we went out into the steamy night, to Videodrome, to rent Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006), which I somehow missed during the one week it was playing at Midtown here in Atlanta. Based upon Patrick Süskind's novel, Das Parfum (which Spooky has read, but I haven't), it is surely one of the most sublimely erotic films I have ever seen. Like all the best erotica, it's not for the faint of heart, or those who have no use for fairy tales, or those who get queasy at the sight of blood or filth or maggots. There were echoes of Angela Carter and some of Herzog's early films (I'm thinking Heart of Glass, in particular). When it was over, and I was breathing normally again, I told Spooky that the last film that affected me that viscerally was The Proposition. It's that raw, that unfettered, that fucking perfect. This is a film that truly must be seen, unless visceral isn't your cup of tea. In which case, you may be excused. But damn, what an amazing, amazing film.
The heat is still with us. We shall likely see 100F again today, and I won't even make a guess at the heat index.
A couple of days back someone asked if I am in the "Al Gore camp" as regards mankind being responsible for global warming, for this current period of global warming. And I said that yes, of course I am. I said that, given the preponderance of available data, from such such diverse disciplines as meteorology, paleoclimatology, geology, and oceanography, that there is no longer any other reasonable conclusion to be drawn. But I think there's something more I should have said. And it is this. Regarding global warming the only remaining controversy is political, not scientific. Science has reached a consensus, after decades of research. Sure, you can still find scientists who are skeptical that humanity is the cause, because that's how science works. But there are fewer of them every day. The only reason the public "controversy" persists is because so many people have such a profoundly nonscientific and economic stake in there seeming to be a controversy. Which is to say, it's not something that people want to believe, because the consequences of believing it and accepting responsibility are so dire. But that's not how science works, this matter of believing only that which is convenient and comfortable. At least not when science is working right. Anyway, I felt like my reply was incomplete, and now it is less so.
Okay. There's tedium awaiting me...