wildcat

1. Michael has a predilection for using the phrase "Oh, snap!" Where this started, I'm not sure.

2. I used to pretend I had x-ray vision, when I was little, by playing around with my depth perception - focusing and unfocusing my eyes.

3. Staying out in the sun for hours and hours, especially while imbibing spirits (1. tiramisu soaked in Peach Schnapps and 2. quarter-bottle of Sangria) will lead to mild sun-sickness. This does not help near exhaustion or a back-ache.

4. Dentists are (often/occasionally) not nice people.

5. I need to read the bit in the bible containing the story of Samson and Delilah. For the purposes of research.

6. Still haven't seen Superman Returns, although I would like to. I'm not sure I can wait until the Roxy for this one.

7. Pride Parades all blend together after a while. That said, one must keep in mind that for every minute of parade time, someone somewhere is probably having the shit kicked out of them for their sexuality or gender identity.

8. I have an idea for a going away present for Joy. Not sure about Matt yet.

9. I acquired a copy of James Joyce's The Dubliners for three bucks fifty cents the other day.

10. I am inclined to locate a copy of Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell, based on a very brief passage I encountered.

11. The impulse to work on that second draft is up against the urge to crawl into bed and die, radioactive, illuminating the room after light's out with x-rays. Geiger counters everywhere are going off for no reason. Apparently, the house's smoke detector went off for no apparent reason at five this morning, when I was at Michael's place; hoping it doesn't do this again.

12. I suspect writing the draft at the moment will lead to some slightly hallucinatory passages brought on by the sun-sickness.

1. Spent some time today researching Samson and Delilah for this short story I'm writing, which is slow and awkward at the moment in between oblique bursts of frenzied activity. Draft #1 was about the idea, the broad idea of the thing. Getting it onto the screen or the page or whatever. Draft #2 is about putting all of that in the context of a scene; making it a physical, present tense interaction between characters in a concrete setting. Draft #3 will be about where it's going, what the point is, the purpose of the story. Why the characters are there, then, with each other. What they hope to gain. I have an insufficient grasp as yet on Del's motivation. It works, looking at the different drafts as layers of body -- organs, skeletal structure, skin. Working on one draft until it's finished and I can work out what's dissatisfying about it, then focusing on that for the next round.

2. Distracted by the offhand reference to Dagon in the biblical translation I'm reading. Delilah's people, the Philistines, worship Dagon. Dagon is a fish god and would eventually end up being picked up by H.P. Lovecraft for inclusion in his Chthulu horror mythos, as one of the Old Ones. He would write a story called "Dagon" and references would pepper his work. Consequently I'm left wondering about a rewrite of Samson & Delilah with Delilah as a horrible fish priestess selected by her people to bnng down Samson and sacrifice him for the purpose of raising Dagon from the depths. Unfortunately, this idea is extremely lateral to the project at hand and I would probably be required to read some Lovecraft. I don't particularly like Lovecraft; his diction is self-indulgent and you can't help being trapped by the rampant woman-fear and otherphobia filling up his books. I've tried reading him the past and it's too dry, if nothing else.

3. Thinking about the spies. Teiresias Jones and Johnny Damocles. I keep thinking about their colour schemes, and I'm tempted to adapt them into a comic book script. I've been looking for a subject for a script for a while, and they make a degree of sense. But the colours! The intense neon of their London, the extravagance of Teiresias's wigs and Johnny's improbable outfits. The kimonos and opium fantasies. I might write a short story about them after the current project and then adapt it.

I have to get up at a very wee hour to go to work in the morning.

Probably sit in bed with the rantbook on my knees, working on sentences, word-by-word. Plucking them out of stray top hats and assembling them together, re-assembling them.

Thinking about colours. Also: spices.

Also: reading one of Christopher Fowler's "Bryant & May" mysteries, The Seventy-Seven Clocks. A murder has just been committed using a Bengali tiger as the weapon. I think I preferred The Water Room, the volume which precedes this one in terms of publication but follows chronologically. I'm rather afraid that one day I'll turn around, having grown old, to realize I've become Arthur Bryant, shuffling around in a very large coat and scarf.

I shaved the hair from my face and moisturized most of my head and upper body. Maintenance of biology.

I have to get up at a very wee hour to go to work in the morning.

Probably sit in bed with the rantbook on my knees, working on sentences, word-by-word. Plucking them out of stray top hats and assembling them together, re-assembling them.

Thinking about colours. Also: spices.

Also: reading one of Christopher Fowler's "Bryant & May" mysteries, The Seventy-Seven Clocks. A murder has just been committed using a Bengali tiger as the weapon. I think I preferred The Water Room, the volume which precedes this one in terms of publication but follows chronologically. I'm rather afraid that one day I'll turn around, having grown old, to realize I've become Arthur Bryant, shuffling around in a very large coat and scarf.

I shaved the hair from my face and moisturized most of my head and upper body. Maintenance of biology.

In other words: do not give me a gun, do not let me press the trigger, this morning has to be some kind of time warp from hell.

This afternoon had better be smoother. Nice and smooth. Please? Please? Please?

As usual, I'm wasting the day by drowning myself in Wikipedia and thinking about Superman too much.

Unbihexium, the placeholding name for the unknown element that shares the same atomic number - 126 - as green Kryptonite.

Information about Planet Krypton, the original source of Kryptonite. Specifically, there's a section on the survivors of Krypton:

"When the planet exploded, one entire city of Krypton survived the cataclysm. This city, named Argo City, drifted through space on an asteroid-sized fragment of Krypton, which had been transformed into kryptonite by the explosion. The super-advanced technology of its Kryptonian inhabitants gave the denizens of Argo City the ability to construct a life-sustaining dome that allowed them to survive for several years, in addition to building a lead shield that protected their city from the kryptonite radiation of their asteroid. However, the protective shield was destroyed in a meteor storm, exposing the inhabitants to the deadly radiation. One sole survivor of Argo City, Kara Zor-El, was sent to Earth by her scientist father to live with her cousin Kal-El, who had become known as Superman. Kara adjusted to her new life on Earth and became known as Supergirl."

Researching slash writing for the spies, Johnny Damocles and Teiresias Jones. Typically, this is a rather involved operation, what with having to find the horniest music (aah) and ridiculously superficial magazine spreads (ooh) full of colour but very little meaning.

We're not even on page 2 of this thing and they're already getting naked after I've spent whole paragraphs describing their clothing choices.

Prada definitely needs to make corsets.

The psychology of this! Having to delve into British pop music goups and fetish pornography, Victorian photography, and expensive architecture. Not to mention the mildly offensive bits. It's like being Twiggy.

Untitled (Cosmo Cover Girl), photograph by Cindy Sherman.

As I told Matthew, I might work toward using this story as a template for a comic book script, although I can't yet be certain where that will go.

Item for consideration: Nyotaimori (body sushi), especially the "bondage sushi bar." Possible capture of hot and oversexed secret agents for use as dining ware. Generally associated with Yakuza-run prostitution. Likely Candidate: Dashing Mister Damocles, all tied up with his body carefully shaved and prepared. See also: Wakame Sake.

The exact nature of the piece's villain is as yet unclear. But, as usual, the title is: One Lone Bolshevik Against the Night, which suggests certain things.

Additionally, there is Damocles's wife to consider.

There is the question of Teiresias's sex, and the appropriate pronoun. Her? Hir? She is generally female presenting but I have not yet fully plumbed her depths, so to speak. Additionally: why her civilian identity dabbles so heavily in fashion and architecture.

Possible use of the eunuchs, Pomp & Dada?

Additionally: surveillance culture, a variety of narcoctics, celebrities as fertility god/dess fetishes, the future is now, "Every unspent orgasm is a bullet in my gun," exotic weapons, big game hunting, The Avengers, the advertizing business, and Blade Runner.

Some time around quarter to midnight, Michael and I split off from the main body of the group like spores: we caught a cab down Fort Street and over to his house. Senseless. Before this we all stumbled into town from Mile Zero - always Mile Zero - like zombies in search of rich, rich brains, brandishing bags of empties and guitars and our own brains like pickled herring, by this point, and washed with moonlight.

The next morning with Matthew visiting from Vancouver, we happened upon much the same point as last night, down on the beach. Over the ridge, there was still a "rave" happening - aging hippies laying out on the rocks with sunglasses on while tiresome trance undulated and drowned out the noise of a portable generator. There was an athletic man standing on an outcropping with a hoola-hooper zipping around his neck.

Mostly we've been entrenched in the comparison of story notes, watching each other's films, critiquing and building up things. We discussed the spies. We stopped for a coffee with Steph over in Cook Street prior to the Waterfront.

We ate dinner at the Japanese Village, too much.

We drink gin & apricot juice like water, like fishes, while the humidity rises.

Flicking through that Blackalicious album Matt made me a while back, I'm locked in the middle - Samson between the two pillars - of the apartment, working at putting things together, jigsaw-like, rather than letting them sit where they may and collect dust. In other words: I'm trying to set it up more. Things end up in piles, boxes, uncomfortable junk heaps and I do basically nothing about this state of affairs for months but I suppose I'm inspired because I bought this beautiful antique chair for sixty bucks the other day, chucking out my old desk chair in the process.

The new chair is fantastic, with spool-cut legs that are simple and elegant. The wood matches my writing table. The old chair was this callous, gold-leaf formica thing, Seventies Kitchen Table Chic, and had several large rips along the seat which were sealed with duct tape. The tape was beginning to peel. These things reach a certain point and then they have to go somewhere. Somewhere away from me.

That said, I'm a little perplexed. There isn't much storage here, which means I need to go through a cull a few items from my collection before I can much of anything, although I did switch the purely decorative (by this point) phonograph with the typewriter, so now I'll be sleeping with a typewriter beside my bed.

Symbolic, yes?

Anyway: I'm going to do a load of dishes and then head out to the grocery store to pick something up for dinner. Probably fish and pasta or something, with some vegetables. I've done enough on the apartment for today, I think, beyond that bag of trash to be taken out with me.

I woke up after one of those dreams, the ones where somebody was in it or something happened but you can't remember what. I hate those; I'd rather have perfect recall than this cloud of familiarity that hazes around my head and will continue well into the evening. It's like remembering some small item or image from a book but not the page number, so you flip through the entire book probably more than once and miss whatever it is each and every time.

In about half an hour I'm going to see Samara, we'll do lunch because we haven't seen each other in quite some time and need very much to catch up. After that I have to walk over to Pandora to pick up money from Joy so I can pay for the garage sale ad she placed, while she's at work. This means I have to walk over to the Times Colonist which is a bit dubious.

After the newspaper offices, I'll bus up to Hillside Mall and dump the rented DVD that Matthew accidentally left in my apartment this weekend into an envelope and send it on to him. Then I'm going to walk home and think about a story for a while, eat some pepper smoked salmon and pasta for dinner before writing for a few hours. I'd like to write this morning but as usual there's something missing, some important ingredient...

...which will probably turn out to be this dream, whatever it was. Maybe that's the missing element. If I think about it while I'm up at the mall I might pick myself up a box or two of raspberries to feast upon.

Work has been scarce this week, I missed a spot under my jaw when I was shaving this morning, and I've grown melancholy because of Simon and Garfunkel.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. The following contains SPOILERS, duh, mere minutes after finishing Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. Laugh, cry, condemn me, winsomely claw at the screen, take pictures, whatever you need to do. There will also be Jimmy Olsen-related drool.

First of all: I liked this movie. I've seen and heard some pretty horrible things said about it and it wasn't bad. It was, in fact, good. By no means perfect, certainly - the scope of Lex's plan, for example, was a little off. But a lot of it worked.

I went to see this alone, which was sort of awkward given my tendency toward neurosis and anxiety, but this all dropped away when the opening credits began - Krypton exploding, all that jazz. Only one shall live.

And then we're in Kansas, outside Smallville, as a pick-up truck drives off and Martha Kent cleans up after a rousing night playing Scrabble with friends. The puppy snuggles in the corner of the kitchen while Martha does the dishes. And then she hears it - something's coming. The house shakes, and we're treating to some lovely overhead shots of scrabble pieces left out shuffling to the side.

I loved this opening scene with Martha, because in any other scenario, whoever's in the house is going to have that dawning comprehension that something very fast and very much on fire is streaking towards this little farm and would probably be screaming, panicking, possibly running to the cellar. Not Martha, no. We've seen this scene a hundred times in different movies, the UFO landing, and Martha in particular has seen something like this once before. She calmly watches the burning object streak over top of the house and embed itself about a mile or two away. Calm. And then she gets in her truck and goes to look. And there's this object, crystalline, the area around it practically an inferno and old Martha, she goes right up to it and investigates, because she's been here before. Pitch perfect.

Brandon Routh acquits himself nicely as the (new/old) Man of Steel returning to his adopted homeworld. The script calls for some potentially dodgy behaviour from Superman, sure, but it all makes sense given that the world has continued on without him and he's just spent five years in deep space without human contact, so you know - maybe a little funny in the head. He does a slightly better job than Kate Bosworth, who was competent but a little young for the role. Lois is given some good material to work with and demonstrates quite clearly why it's Lois and Clark, together, as a team.

I want to make a movie with Parker Posey. She was actually having genuine fun with her role, kids, and she was fabulous. I entertained thoughts of recasting the film with her as Lois Lane, and how weird and fucked up that would be, but I kind of like that idea. Kevin Spacey didn't favour the Gene Hackman foppish Luthor, but instead a cruel man just out of the big house who manages to attack Superman as if they were in an episode of Oz, which was both unsettling and highly effective. Luthor is primarily a man of the mind, meant in contrast to Superman's physicality, but the brutal scuffle underscored how much control Superman's presence has over his emotions. As I said before, Luthor's big plot isn't quite right for the movie, or at least they don't present it as being big enough for him. I wondered if they might consider adapting the "President Lex" storyline for the sequel - if there is one - because this Luthor is far too calculating. But the big plot was a little beneath him and lacked a certain imagination on the part of Singer and company. It had scope but failed to have the right dimension to it. Although I did love Luthor's secret train set miniature world.

Jimmy Olsen, sigh. Sam Huntington delivered a solid performance and was, er, extremely attractive in a bow-tie. He was also pretty funny, what with the taking Clark out to have a drink in the middle of the day - and he gets a little sauced - to, you know, console him over Lois moving on with her life while he was off "travelling the world" and Superman was flying across the galaxy. Consoling. Right, Olsen, all you want is to console, you certainly didn't bake Clark a cake or anything. Huntington and James Marsden, who plays "Richard White," the new man in Lois's life were very much a backbone to the cast, playing likable characters. I rooted for Lois to forget the Man of Steel - as both of them had relationship "issues" - to remind herself why she was marrying Richard, who was great for her.

There was action, weird Oz-type sequences, explosions, a decent love story that wasn't resolved in any real way, and some decent special effects. They had the big surprise twist in there as well - shocking, or something - but it wasn't that surprising and demonstrated an actual willingness to encourage growth in the franchise and move the narrative forward - shocking, I know, but eventually Lois found out who Superman was in the comics, and they actually got married, and the story survived without reverting to her as a ditzy girl trying to get the scoop on Superman. Growth is important, and it was delivered in such a way that it wasn't a particularly big surprise. The idea's been around since about the Fifties anyway, but usually only in "imaginary stories."

There's a lot of potential here. I'd like to see them move away from Lex in favour of, I don't know, Brainiac for the next one. Maybe they could have a big villain and a bunch of Superman's smaller villains. Or Mxyzltplk, the five-dimensional imp. Something beyond the fallible Superman/Luthor dynamic - while both actors worked well with their roles, ultimately the battle and Luthor's weak plan made me crave a different route, and the door's already been opened for that in other ways.

Incidentally, what's up with the guy who plays Kumar in Harold & Kumar Go to Whitecastle being in nearly fifty percent of the scenes in this film and not having a single line. He wasn't even a background character, he was one of Luthor's main henchmen! Geez.

I was shocked, excited, aroused, and driven mad with ecstasy, having discovered that Mike Mignola's one-shot The Amazing Screw-On Head comic was adapted into twenty-two-&-a-half-minute animated series pilot. Mignola is creator of Hellboy, for the record.

Please go and view it now, on the SciFi Channel's website and fill out their survey. There's a big old button-image in the middle of the page leading to the cartoon.

(Cover image by Mike Mignola, ganked from Dark Horse Comics)

This, ah, strikes a blow for democracy or something. It's a cartoon featuring a clockwork robot head as the main character, his manservant Mister Groin, and Abraham Lincoln is an important supporting character.

The villain, Emperor Zombie, is perhaps the closest representation you will ever find of what I'd be like if I was killed, resurrected as a zombie, and went off to to pursue a career in evil dictatorship. Furthermore, he is voiced by David Hyde Pierce.

Wax Banks: Is Joss Whedon feminist enough?

Fred's 'pregnancy' is an infection, a transformation of her body, and the episode in which she dies is closer to Outbreak than Rosemary's Baby in plot and temperament. But the tale's body-angst and the helplessness of the men around her (who acquit themselves magnificently trying to save her) as she suffers alone with her beloved are linked, I think, to a generalized association of pregnancy (and the deadly, grotesque miracle of birth) with monstrosity in Whedon's work. Remember Ripley's gleeful words in Alien: Resurrection - 'There's a monster in your stomach. [...] In a few hours it will punch its way through your chest and you'll die. Any questions?' Stricken, the villain asks: 'Who are you?' 'I'm the monster's mother.' Not for nothing is the pregnancy that kills Cordelia her second such affliction.

A feminist analysis of Joss Whedon's various film and television work, with a particular focus on Angel as the male-centric counterpart to Buffy's superwomen. Found via Kalinara's Second Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans.

About to start a lovely downtown seven hour shift and then drinks afterward with the Scooby Gang.

I bought lovely comics today.

Otherwise - well, there's the dark stuff as usual, but that's life.

Story about a Greek mythological hero called "Parentheticles," probably the brother or cousin of Hercules, Perseus, or Jason. Anyway, he's barely a footnote in the mythos. Make up some convincing monsters for him to battle, try to avoid the inevitable degeneration into Clash of the Titans meets Flesh Gordon.

The heat is turning me into an absolute bitch. I'm always amazed that Michael will put up with me between the cussing and the frantic, flailing arms desperate to rid myself of whichever hornet, mosquito, moth, or fly happens to be buzzing around me at any given moment.

My entries lately have become very brief, not sure why. I've only been writing sporadically as well, which probably means I need to actually sit down and do something about that. I'm probably going to saunter downtown tomorrow morning and write in a coffee shop before I head off to work. It's not that I'm lacking ideas, as usual, but the motivation necessary to transform thought into deed is lacking. The heat. The exhaustion.

Maybe I need some sort of challenge for myself. Okay: one short story, every two days. Length is unimportant, but I must produce a finished product. Additionally, poetry. I haven't been poeting for a while and need those muscles to be full-strength again. I was on the phone with a friend of mine in Toronto and it felt, as usual, like nothing much was happening with my life -- have I become stalled in this current status quo? Well, obviously. What can I do to change? Productivity. I am a writer, hence: writing, must do, no choice, forward motion must be made.

The challenge is on.

Most of the way through The Ten Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler, because for some reason I've started to enjoy mystery novels. Then I'm going to crack the collected Non-Fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, because he's smarter than I am and I want to be as smart as he was. Or something.

(Mike Mignola, Hellboy: The Island, I certainly have days like this)

And thus, the laying on of hands: fingers to keyboard. I'm in my underwear, the Sun looms ever closer to Earth, I've been reading about apocalypses again, there's gin in the freezer, I'm heading out shortly to pick up some food for dinner, and what's most important: I'm writing. I'm going to pound out some things onto the screen and I'm going to save them (SAVE US, they cry, lapsed Catholics on their death beds dangling before Lucifer's fingernails), I seem to be bleeding poetry again in the heat. The heat!

Will report back in a few hours with victorious shouts and/or cries of defeat following my own private Alamo: the blank page.

Well, not that private with the incessant babbling and all those other writers out there.

Well, anyway, the working title is "Yobbos," but I'm not sure if that's going to end up having the correct connotation so I might switch it up for something else. I like what I have written so far but the scene transitions have been awkward at the best of times, which means Draft #2 is going to have to pull its weight in the rewrite process. Not that I'm anywhere near the end of Draft #1. The familiar, distressing, glorious sensation of being right on the edge of something new is there, which means nothing but it's sort of the literary equivalent of tantric self-absorbed orgasm.

While shopping for bon voyage gifts today, I picked up copies of Samuel Delany's Driftglass short story collection (including a complicated short story Matthew had mentioned and raved about while he was here) and, also, Phillip K. Dick's Ubik, which is a long sought book that finally appeared as manna from Heaven. As well, I found a Shirley Jackson novel about a haunted house and a paranormal investigator. I have rather a long road ahead of me.

I nearly picked up the twenty-five dollar vintage hardcover Wonder Woman essay / reproduction book, but I abstained.

As a side note, Samuel R. Delany - he who is known for his radical stance on pornography - wrote Wonder Woman comics during the tumultuous Seventies Relevance period when she was depowered and turned into an Emma Peel clone:

Last night was one of those end-of-the-world parties with a house emptied of its contents and far too much wine being spilled everywhere by other people: also, the gin. Actually, two mickeys of gin, one of which was left behind as a spoil of war. But this much can be said: many photographs were taken, several of them scandalous (ie, the exposed shoulders of Caroline and Joy, bathtubs, Joy and Matt trapped in sepia-hued Seventies porn sequences - "Hello there, ma'am, I'm here to deliver phonebooks"), and there was simultaneously too much drama and not enough of the right kind.

Steph arrived with the new man in tow, seems like a good egg and handled himself well considering we can be a touch abrasive on first contact. I gather - I've been told - I can be quite intimidating at times. Steph and I had a great conversation about V for Vendetta.

At possibly the correct moment - from what I hear - Michael and I exited the party to stumble home with relative speed given our proclivity to argue drunkenly when attempting to move from point A to point B.

On Monday, very shortly, Joy and Matt will be on their way to Japan for the forseeable future. Sad, but it's a good fresh start from them and WILD ADVENTURES. They're going to have them.

And Christian will be back in Victoria shortly!

Otherwise: working on the story, having some success for a first draft that feels, perhaps, too cold character-wise. This is more about the world-building and the real character work is the priority for Draft #2. I'm having a lot of fun writing pulp, and I think that's what I'm going to do for the forseeable future. But that's not a surprise.