"When the world is a monster..."
Oct. 13th, 2008 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastWell, the whole verse would be:
When the world is a monster,
Bad to swallow you whole,
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in,
Throw your troubles out the door.
But, somehow, having put that quote down, it looks far more positive than I feel, and, more importantly, it implies that I myself am anything but monstrous. And look, I haven't even started the entry, and already I'm digressing. It's a quality that Sarah Crowe —— the protagonist of The Red Tree —— and I share in common. We both digress, endlessly. And speaking of The Red Tree, yesterday I wrote 1,718 words —— a very respectable writing day —— and finished Chapter Seven. That means I have only one chapter to go to reach THE END. At this point, the ms. stands at 78,732 words. And I can see that the book was begun April 15th, but almost all of it has been written since July. And I can see THE END from here, and I only hope that I am doing this the way that I need to do it. There is no "right way" to write a book. There is only the way that the author needs it to be written, because the novel serves the author, even as the author serves the story, and failure is the act of failing to pull off that trick. I will begin Chapter Eight today, because, you know, no rest for the wicked.
---
Please have a look at the current round of eBay auctions, which began just yesterday. Thanks.
---
I'm still not in a position to say exactly what happened on Thursday that sent me into such a funk that I seriously, seriously considered shelving The Red Tree indefinitely. It might be, in the days that come, that I decide I overreacted, and it might be that I don't. Regardless, on Thursday I was too angry to even consider work, and it seemed like a good idea to get out of the house. We headed south and west, for Stonington in Connecticut. We did actually make it to Stonington Cemetery, but, I'd underestimated the effect of the blue-white sky bearing down on me, and how raw all that sun would leave my eyes. We did not linger, but boomeranged right around and headed home. It was a day wasted on an ugly road, beneath a merciless autumn sky. A few clouds might have saved the day.
On Friday, again there was no work on The Red Tree, as I was still laboring under the resolve that I would leave it uncompleted. Instead, we went to the movies. But I'll get back to the movies. There have been a lot of movies the past four days. We didn't make the mistake of another road trip. The grip of autumn is too absolute, and my agoraphobia-like dread of all that blue emptiness above me had done enough damage the day before. I learn my lesson, if only for a little while. On Saturday, after speaking with my agent, Merrilee, I went back to work on The Red Tree. Nothing had changed, except that indignation began to take on the characteristics of resignation. So, on Saturday, as I've already said, I wrote 1,412 words.
---
In all this mess, I neglected to wish![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay a happy birthday, though her birthday was on Thursday. So, here it is, belatedly. Also, my thanks to stsisyphus for the T-shirts. Spooky adores her steampunk DJ, and my cephalopods are very fitting.
---
Yes, there have been a lot of movies, helping to keep me from breaking things. Thursday night there was Matt Damon in The Bourne Monotony or whatever it is they called the third film. A murksome mess that proceeds with all the inspired pacing of a television commercial. Though, I will admit, the last half hour or so are almost engaging. And then, on Friday, we made a matinée of John Erick Dowdle's Quarantine, which we both liked quite a lot. Of course, this film's going to be judged as a zombie film, even though it isn't. It did get me to thinking how the "zombie film" has edged away from the collective human loathing of their own dead to a fear of contagion and the damage that unrestrained nature can do. Like Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), Quarantine is a film about a genetically engineered rabies-like plague, not the living dead. But, somehow, the two things have been run together in the minds of moviegoers. Maybe it's the shared element of cannibalism. Maybe what humans fear most of all is not death or the dead or even plague, but being eaten alive by their own. Or things that used to be their own. Anyway, Friday night we watched Tarsem Singh's The Cell (2000) again, because I wanted another look at it after seeing The Fall. It's truly a gorgeous film (and, if you're me, a damned sexy one), but the script is slipshod and Jennifer Lopez is a walking disaster, whispering her way from line to line as though that will disguise the fact that she simply cannot act. Then on Saturday night, we got stoned and watched Julie Taymor's Across the Universe again, and it's still amazing. Finally, last night, we watched Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), because it's one of those films that soothes the monsters of my id.
---
I didn't really get much reading done. Mainly, from the September 2008 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, "New information on Stokesosaurus, a tyrannosauroid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from North America and the United Kingdom." It's clear now that this lineage of theropods reaches back at least to the Late Jurassic, and that the smaller, more gracile predecessors of Tyrannosaurus lived alongside such classically Jurassic theropods as Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus.
---
Finally, there has been a good deal of World of Warcraft, which has proven itself a great "pressure valve," as the consequences of slaughtering virtual beings are far less worrisome that doing the same thing in the here and now. Mithwen, the night-elf warrior, is now at Lvl 28, and running missions out of Menethil in the Wetlands. She was rather shocked to learn that humans are so tiny, and the Sin'dorei even smaller. Honestly, I cannot fathom why anyone plays a human. But I digress (again). Shaharrazad, the blood-elf warlock, has made Lvl 21, and has been enjoying the company of her minions. She's mostly keeping to the Ghostlands and Undercity for the time being. There'a third character now, and you can blame Spooky for that —— a Draenei, a Lvl 10 huntress named Voimakas. That's Finnish for "strong" or "powerful," "fierce" or "intense," in keeping with our impression that Draenei words look Finnish, and Finnish has always seemed a very alien language to me. Frankly, I think the Draenei are possibly the best designed and executed part of the game I've seen. And the interjection of such an explicitly sf element into the faux-Tolkien stew is much appreciated. So far, Voimakas has made it only as far as the Bloodmyst Isle.
Okay. That's more than enough for now. Time to make the doughnuts.
When the world is a monster,
Bad to swallow you whole,
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in,
Throw your troubles out the door.
But, somehow, having put that quote down, it looks far more positive than I feel, and, more importantly, it implies that I myself am anything but monstrous. And look, I haven't even started the entry, and already I'm digressing. It's a quality that Sarah Crowe —— the protagonist of The Red Tree —— and I share in common. We both digress, endlessly. And speaking of The Red Tree, yesterday I wrote 1,718 words —— a very respectable writing day —— and finished Chapter Seven. That means I have only one chapter to go to reach THE END. At this point, the ms. stands at 78,732 words. And I can see that the book was begun April 15th, but almost all of it has been written since July. And I can see THE END from here, and I only hope that I am doing this the way that I need to do it. There is no "right way" to write a book. There is only the way that the author needs it to be written, because the novel serves the author, even as the author serves the story, and failure is the act of failing to pull off that trick. I will begin Chapter Eight today, because, you know, no rest for the wicked.
---
Please have a look at the current round of eBay auctions, which began just yesterday. Thanks.
---
I'm still not in a position to say exactly what happened on Thursday that sent me into such a funk that I seriously, seriously considered shelving The Red Tree indefinitely. It might be, in the days that come, that I decide I overreacted, and it might be that I don't. Regardless, on Thursday I was too angry to even consider work, and it seemed like a good idea to get out of the house. We headed south and west, for Stonington in Connecticut. We did actually make it to Stonington Cemetery, but, I'd underestimated the effect of the blue-white sky bearing down on me, and how raw all that sun would leave my eyes. We did not linger, but boomeranged right around and headed home. It was a day wasted on an ugly road, beneath a merciless autumn sky. A few clouds might have saved the day.
On Friday, again there was no work on The Red Tree, as I was still laboring under the resolve that I would leave it uncompleted. Instead, we went to the movies. But I'll get back to the movies. There have been a lot of movies the past four days. We didn't make the mistake of another road trip. The grip of autumn is too absolute, and my agoraphobia-like dread of all that blue emptiness above me had done enough damage the day before. I learn my lesson, if only for a little while. On Saturday, after speaking with my agent, Merrilee, I went back to work on The Red Tree. Nothing had changed, except that indignation began to take on the characteristics of resignation. So, on Saturday, as I've already said, I wrote 1,412 words.
---
In all this mess, I neglected to wish
sovay a happy birthday, though her birthday was on Thursday. So, here it is, belatedly. Also, my thanks to stsisyphus for the T-shirts. Spooky adores her steampunk DJ, and my cephalopods are very fitting.---
Yes, there have been a lot of movies, helping to keep me from breaking things. Thursday night there was Matt Damon in The Bourne Monotony or whatever it is they called the third film. A murksome mess that proceeds with all the inspired pacing of a television commercial. Though, I will admit, the last half hour or so are almost engaging. And then, on Friday, we made a matinée of John Erick Dowdle's Quarantine, which we both liked quite a lot. Of course, this film's going to be judged as a zombie film, even though it isn't. It did get me to thinking how the "zombie film" has edged away from the collective human loathing of their own dead to a fear of contagion and the damage that unrestrained nature can do. Like Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), Quarantine is a film about a genetically engineered rabies-like plague, not the living dead. But, somehow, the two things have been run together in the minds of moviegoers. Maybe it's the shared element of cannibalism. Maybe what humans fear most of all is not death or the dead or even plague, but being eaten alive by their own. Or things that used to be their own. Anyway, Friday night we watched Tarsem Singh's The Cell (2000) again, because I wanted another look at it after seeing The Fall. It's truly a gorgeous film (and, if you're me, a damned sexy one), but the script is slipshod and Jennifer Lopez is a walking disaster, whispering her way from line to line as though that will disguise the fact that she simply cannot act. Then on Saturday night, we got stoned and watched Julie Taymor's Across the Universe again, and it's still amazing. Finally, last night, we watched Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), because it's one of those films that soothes the monsters of my id.
---
I didn't really get much reading done. Mainly, from the September 2008 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, "New information on Stokesosaurus, a tyrannosauroid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from North America and the United Kingdom." It's clear now that this lineage of theropods reaches back at least to the Late Jurassic, and that the smaller, more gracile predecessors of Tyrannosaurus lived alongside such classically Jurassic theropods as Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus.
---
Finally, there has been a good deal of World of Warcraft, which has proven itself a great "pressure valve," as the consequences of slaughtering virtual beings are far less worrisome that doing the same thing in the here and now. Mithwen, the night-elf warrior, is now at Lvl 28, and running missions out of Menethil in the Wetlands. She was rather shocked to learn that humans are so tiny, and the Sin'dorei even smaller. Honestly, I cannot fathom why anyone plays a human. But I digress (again). Shaharrazad, the blood-elf warlock, has made Lvl 21, and has been enjoying the company of her minions. She's mostly keeping to the Ghostlands and Undercity for the time being. There'a third character now, and you can blame Spooky for that —— a Draenei, a Lvl 10 huntress named Voimakas. That's Finnish for "strong" or "powerful," "fierce" or "intense," in keeping with our impression that Draenei words look Finnish, and Finnish has always seemed a very alien language to me. Frankly, I think the Draenei are possibly the best designed and executed part of the game I've seen. And the interjection of such an explicitly sf element into the faux-Tolkien stew is much appreciated. So far, Voimakas has made it only as far as the Bloodmyst Isle.
Okay. That's more than enough for now. Time to make the doughnuts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:06 pm (UTC)Quarantine is basically a shot by shot remake of REC....
I am aware of REC, but not having seen it, I can't judge. I suspect I would prefer the remake, if only because the production values are somewhat higher (and my eyes aren't good with subtitles).
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:23 pm (UTC)Plus, subtitles in an action-oriented horror film completely detract from the film. For something atmosphere-based like The Orphanage, it's not so bad--because you don't find yourself being distracted from some sudden element by having to read a subtitle. Still, since I can understand spoken Spanish pretty well, I watched it without the subtitles, and still think Quarantine is a greatly superior film.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 09:18 pm (UTC)I totally dig your icon collection, by the way.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 09:33 pm (UTC)Hmm, I found the acting much more believable in [REC]. That makes a huge difference to me.
Hmmmm. I thought the acting was quite good and entirely believable. I thought Jennifer Carpenter was particularly good, especially in the climactic attic scene.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 02:00 am (UTC)Oddly enough, the acting in [REC] is what kind of lessened the impact of the film for me. I thought the sense of sheer panic represented in Quarantine to be a thousand times more realistic--hence the reason it affected me so well. In the original, I just had the feeling the actors were clearly aware at all times that they're in a horror film and need to be acting scared. In Quarantine, I swear some of those actors literally did shit their pants from sheer terror!
REC
Date: 2008-10-13 06:20 pm (UTC)No slight to Jennifer Carpenter, who does a great job, but one must see 'REC', however, to enjoy Manuela Velasco...
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 06:44 pm (UTC)Having seen both, I give the edge to the original if only because the actors in the remake are too recognizable for the conceit to hold up, as it did in Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project, that we're watching actual events caught by a camera — not that we'd literally believe that anyway, but an anonymous cast helps us to agree to buy into it for the purposes of the filmmaking.
On the one hand, that makes sense. On the other, I recognized none of the actors, so it wasn't an issue for me, personally.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 08:01 pm (UTC)Nope. Neither one.
But didn't you recognize Yuri the landlord as Rade Šerbedžija of Eyes Wide Shut?
I did not. But, then, I've only seen Eyes Wide Shut once (which is rather odd, now that I think about it).
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:06 pm (UTC)I thought it read better when it was throw your trolls out the door. gri.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:07 pm (UTC)I thought it read better when it was throw your trolls out the door. gri.
That was an odd little Freudian slip on my part. Gri?
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:13 pm (UTC)Troubles are always around in some form, Trolls however can be dealt with!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:06 pm (UTC)Gladly accepted. I wish some of that day's luck had spilled over to you.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:20 pm (UTC)Also, you may find this interesting: Ridley Scott to direct Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117993856.html?categoryid=13&cs=1) THAT could potentially be 100% awesome.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 05:42 pm (UTC)One review I read said the film looked like it was shot in a Jaycee's haunted house. I can only guess that's because we weren't given brightly lit close ups of the infected. As with most horror films, I think that would have made Quarantine a much less frightening experience. So, to that reviewer, I give a great big bloody finger.
As I left the theater Friday night I thought to myself "I bet Caitlin would really like this film." I'm glad you did.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 08:06 pm (UTC)As I left the theater Friday night I thought to myself "I bet Caitlin would really like this film."
And right you were.
We avoided the inevitable inappropriate laughter, from people who have no idea how to respond to horror films, by attending an early matinée.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 08:03 pm (UTC)The shirts were hideously overdue, but I had two moves and your move which delayed them getting out.
Nah. They arrived just when we needed them.
Why my main WOW toon is human
Date: 2008-10-13 09:25 pm (UTC)Re: Why my main WOW toon is human
Date: 2008-10-13 09:31 pm (UTC)There must be a story behind THAT.
Oh, indeed.
I think my main thing about WoW humans is that they all look so oddly stocky. I think a better job could have been done wit the design. Oh, and the human NPCs are such doofuses.
Re: Why my main WOW toon is human
Date: 2008-10-14 01:33 am (UTC)Re: Why my main WOW toon is human
Date: 2008-10-14 03:09 am (UTC)Aren't all the NPCs doofuses? :-D
Nope. Well, at least they haven't seemed that way to me. The elves are pretty good (except the crying crap, and that's silly with all the NPCs), and the Draenei are good. The gnomes and dwarves are okay, not too campy.
Thank you
Date: 2008-10-14 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 02:01 am (UTC)Good for you. Prob'ly did you a world of good. Glad you're edging your way toward feeling better.
Taymor's an interesting auteur. Like a bazillion others, TITUS was my intro to her work, and she struck me as a kind of Technicolor Kathryn Bigelow. Haven't seen ACROSS THE UNIVERSE yet. Will add it to The List.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 03:07 am (UTC)TITUS was my intro to her work,
Same hear. I adore that film.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 03:20 am (UTC)Talk about yer perfekt stoner movie ...
(Bigelow's good, too. Check out NEAR DARK, if you haven't already. And BLUE STEEL is creepy as hell.)
p.s. Happy birthday Sovay.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 02:41 am (UTC)