A new day, a new digest, a new blog title.
The LJ will now be known as "Unfit for Mass Consumption," until I grow weary of that title. At least it's an accurate description of the blog, and its author, and her writing. By the way, if you can tell me the film that title references, you win...absolutely nothing.
I've just received the illustration for "Shipwrecks Above" from Vince. So, I'm hoping that subscribers will have Sirenia Digest #46 by midnight EST.
As for yesterday, and the night before yesterday, and the day before that...
All of Monday was spent tweaking the ms. for The Ammonite Violin & Others, getting it ready to send to Subterranean Press. It needs at least one more day of tweaking, which I expect is what I'll be doing tomorrow. I did decide that the collection will be dedicated to Diane Arbus, and that the next one will be dedicated to Henry Darger, because it just seems right. Oh, there was also interview-related business on Monday. Turns out, I have two more to do, both in October, and then I'm saying "no" to everything until after I write the next novel. Well, unless it's Oprah fucking Winfrey or The New Yorker or something of that stripe. Not that The New Yorker and Oprah fucking Winfrey are of the same stripe, but there you go. Anyway, here's a link to one of the most recent interviews. I think it's actually one of the better I've given recently, if only because I'm so sick of doing them that it's a bit more "open" than usual.
---
Monday night, we discovered that Netflix is streaming Joel Schumacher's Flatliners (1990). I'd not seen it since the original theatrical release, and I wanted to see how well it had aged over the last 19 years. It's not too dated, and I still find it enjoyable. But I do think a really sublime premise was wasted on this film. One gets the feeling that the director or writer or who the hell ever got his paws on this rather grand premise (med students exploring what lies beyond brain death), but had absolutely no idea what to do with it, and so coughed up something flaccid (after death, we will all be haunted by our guilty consciousnesses).
---
Yesterday, not much work. There was a veil of anger I could not seem to think through (it's been with me a lot lately), so we took in an afternoon matinée of Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates. Again, great idea, not so stunning execution. Yes, someone needs to make a good sf thriller about the logical consequences of Second Life and the concept of robotic avatars, but, sadly, this is not it. Which is not to say that Surrogates is a bad film. But it's not very bright (which is what it most needed to be). Mostly, it's an okay sf/action flick, and I'd say wait for the DVD. It has some good moments here and there, though they mostly serve to remind one of the unrealized potential. There are some good visuals, and Bruce Willis rarely bores me. But the science has holes you could toss a small planet through (I'm thinking Mercury). We're told, for example, that something like 98% of all humans on Earth (about fourteen years from now) are using surrogates. And I immediately thought, how much do these things cost? Surely, inflation will continue in this future, and a surrogate is an infinitely more complex piece of technology than is, say, an iPod, iPhone, or the best available laptop. So, what charitable organization saw to it that the three billion or so people worldwide living below the poverty level (working from the World Bank's current estimate of people now living on less than $2/day and projected rates of population growth in developing nations) were provided surrogates? Now, maybe this is a future with far fewer people, and one without rampant poverty, but if so, we're not privy to that information.
---
Last night, we watched Dominic Sena's Kalifornia (1993), again because I was curious to see how well the film's held up after so many years. Much better than Flatliners, but then, it was a much better film to begin with. Neither Spooky nor I had seen it since it was new. But it still packs a wallop. Brad Pitt's Early Grayce is a joy to watch (a disgusting joy, admittedly), and utterly overshadows poor David Duchovny, who'd not yet grown much of a personality. Juliette Lewis gives one of her best performances, and Michelle Forbes (of whom I'm oddly fond) rounds out the foursome with one of her few genuinely good performances. The cinematography tries a bit too much to look like a Tony Scott film, but the script is sharp enough to make up the difference. So, yeah, still a very fine film, even with the unnecessary epilogue and Duchovny's sleep walking.
We also watched the new episode of Heroes, and another episode of Pushing Daisies. Yesterday, I really wasn't up to much but watching.
---
I had a fairly severe seizure yesterday at the market. It's one of the few that's happened any place public, and it left us both deeply shaken. It was violent, but brief. No one did anything stupid, like call an ambulance. Back home, I slept an hour or so, and felt a bit better.
And now, I take my platypus in hand and....
I've just received the illustration for "Shipwrecks Above" from Vince. So, I'm hoping that subscribers will have Sirenia Digest #46 by midnight EST.
As for yesterday, and the night before yesterday, and the day before that...
All of Monday was spent tweaking the ms. for The Ammonite Violin & Others, getting it ready to send to Subterranean Press. It needs at least one more day of tweaking, which I expect is what I'll be doing tomorrow. I did decide that the collection will be dedicated to Diane Arbus, and that the next one will be dedicated to Henry Darger, because it just seems right. Oh, there was also interview-related business on Monday. Turns out, I have two more to do, both in October, and then I'm saying "no" to everything until after I write the next novel. Well, unless it's Oprah fucking Winfrey or The New Yorker or something of that stripe. Not that The New Yorker and Oprah fucking Winfrey are of the same stripe, but there you go. Anyway, here's a link to one of the most recent interviews. I think it's actually one of the better I've given recently, if only because I'm so sick of doing them that it's a bit more "open" than usual.
---
Monday night, we discovered that Netflix is streaming Joel Schumacher's Flatliners (1990). I'd not seen it since the original theatrical release, and I wanted to see how well it had aged over the last 19 years. It's not too dated, and I still find it enjoyable. But I do think a really sublime premise was wasted on this film. One gets the feeling that the director or writer or who the hell ever got his paws on this rather grand premise (med students exploring what lies beyond brain death), but had absolutely no idea what to do with it, and so coughed up something flaccid (after death, we will all be haunted by our guilty consciousnesses).
---
Yesterday, not much work. There was a veil of anger I could not seem to think through (it's been with me a lot lately), so we took in an afternoon matinée of Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates. Again, great idea, not so stunning execution. Yes, someone needs to make a good sf thriller about the logical consequences of Second Life and the concept of robotic avatars, but, sadly, this is not it. Which is not to say that Surrogates is a bad film. But it's not very bright (which is what it most needed to be). Mostly, it's an okay sf/action flick, and I'd say wait for the DVD. It has some good moments here and there, though they mostly serve to remind one of the unrealized potential. There are some good visuals, and Bruce Willis rarely bores me. But the science has holes you could toss a small planet through (I'm thinking Mercury). We're told, for example, that something like 98% of all humans on Earth (about fourteen years from now) are using surrogates. And I immediately thought, how much do these things cost? Surely, inflation will continue in this future, and a surrogate is an infinitely more complex piece of technology than is, say, an iPod, iPhone, or the best available laptop. So, what charitable organization saw to it that the three billion or so people worldwide living below the poverty level (working from the World Bank's current estimate of people now living on less than $2/day and projected rates of population growth in developing nations) were provided surrogates? Now, maybe this is a future with far fewer people, and one without rampant poverty, but if so, we're not privy to that information.
---
Last night, we watched Dominic Sena's Kalifornia (1993), again because I was curious to see how well the film's held up after so many years. Much better than Flatliners, but then, it was a much better film to begin with. Neither Spooky nor I had seen it since it was new. But it still packs a wallop. Brad Pitt's Early Grayce is a joy to watch (a disgusting joy, admittedly), and utterly overshadows poor David Duchovny, who'd not yet grown much of a personality. Juliette Lewis gives one of her best performances, and Michelle Forbes (of whom I'm oddly fond) rounds out the foursome with one of her few genuinely good performances. The cinematography tries a bit too much to look like a Tony Scott film, but the script is sharp enough to make up the difference. So, yeah, still a very fine film, even with the unnecessary epilogue and Duchovny's sleep walking.
We also watched the new episode of Heroes, and another episode of Pushing Daisies. Yesterday, I really wasn't up to much but watching.
---
I had a fairly severe seizure yesterday at the market. It's one of the few that's happened any place public, and it left us both deeply shaken. It was violent, but brief. No one did anything stupid, like call an ambulance. Back home, I slept an hour or so, and felt a bit better.
And now, I take my platypus in hand and....