(no subject)

Taking it easy today, fighting a headache, cramps, the usual monthly period orniness. Have however managed to completely avoid, so far, the flu bug that seems to have hit half my flist, my brother, his wife, their kid, and my mother. My brother and his wife have had it for nine weeks. They took the entire family to the doctor the other day to get antiboitics. The other brand they were using was making sisinlaw vomit.

For myself - still dealing with my landlord's renovation hell. Which would be less hellish if I would see the benefits. But no. They are varnishing the downstairs apartment - the fumes smell like gas and wafted all the way up to my apartment. This was Tues, Wed, Thurs last week and Thurs again this coming week. Damn them. They turned off the heat for two nights because of the varnishing. And no there's nothing I can do about it, except move, which isn't happening anytime soon. By the time I find a new apartment - they'll be done. [Oh well, at least they are only doing it one day next week and not on the weekend.] Wish I had my own place. Wish I didn't live above a rich art director in his early thirties with girlfriend. Very nice, but I miss the old landlord.

Oh well, must concentrate on the positive. Work is going well. Looks like I might actually get a four percent raise increase. And will not lose my job, they seem to need me. Also enjoying the pottery. Made three things this semester and got two free items that my teacher had made and didn't want - a really nice small vase and a lovely blue and lavender mug. And my writing is coming along. Plus if I work at it, I might be able to find a new place - no rush, landlord is nice enough, rent isn't that high, I'm not being told to move, just a little renovating aggravations which will be over all too soon. Landlord is recaulking my tub tomorrow morning (ugga bugga) because the first round didn't take. But have to do laundry, so not a biggie. And Sunday mornings are good days to do laundry.

Saw the premiere of Dr. Who on Sci-fi last night. Have a confession to make, never much liked the original - which played on PBS when I was a kid back in the 70's - of course at that time I didn't like most sci-fi - it contained mostly monsters and I was probably far too young to appreciate the stories. I just saw the monsters and the cheesiness. This version is more interesting, also I like the guy playing the Doctor, although I recently read that I shouldn't get too used to him, he's going to be replaced in season 2 by another actor. (Apparently it's not Doctor Who if you don't have more than one actor playing the part.) Also you do not need to know any of the back-story, the point of view in the introductory episode is exclusively Rose's. You get in the Doctor's pov in the next one. I've not seen Christopher Eccleston in anything before, although he feels oddly familar, so maybe? At any rate - he's fun. Irreverent. At times goofy, at times serious. A nice balance. Rose, the other main character, played by Billie Piper, is equally interesting. Very Buffesque. But not as skinny. A plump, normally proportioned heroine - nice change of pace over the Kate Moss wannabes that I usually see on Television. She provides a balance to the show - or rather a rep for the audience, without devolving into a Mary Sue. Liked the second episode better than the first. Particularly the villian, which is wonderful commentary on the societal focus on cosmetics, plastic surgery and thinness - or rather vanity and all its ills. Thought-provoking and fun. Nice change of pace.

Listening to The Lost Boys in the background as I write this. Will have to log off soon. Run errands, fix lunch, maybe write. Sorry haven't been around much on lj - combination of being busy and having a poor internet connection. Took me an hour this week just to order three things from Amazon - all of which I got today, using a birthday gift certificate. I got: Spirited Away (yes, finally), Tell Me Lies - a Jennifer Crusie ( a writer that has been rec'ed by two people on my flist that I trust (rah and ang). Also it's a romance/mystery - not much of a fan anymore for pure romance, I need more story, I get bored if the only story is whether they'll get together or not. And finally John M. Ford's The Last Hot Time - I wanted Dragon Waiting, but it's out of print. A bit of good news, The Iron Dragon's Daughter is being re-released this summer, ie. coming back into print. YAY! This means I can get it finally.
(Of course I could do the buy "used" bit via Amazon and am considering it for Mary Gentle's "Ash" series, and "Dragon Waiting" - both unavailable other routes.) Wish someone could explain why the more formulaic/traditional fantasy serials by prolific writers seem to always be available (Robert Jordan, Ann McCaffrey, Terry Brooks, Laurell K Hamilton, Mercedes Lackey) while the offkilter, interesting, difficult to pigeon hole books never stay in print and are impossible to find. This is why I began writing in the first place, and why I may never get published, I like off-kilter stories, things off the center, hard to find. It's not that I think the Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan, Ann MCaffrey, Terry Brooks, Terry Prachett, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Mercedes Lackey novels are poorly written - they aren't. Or the stories aren't interesting. They are. Just that they don't seem new or interesting to me. I've grown weary of them. And they've each written so many books, that you read the backs and feel as if you've read it already. The hero's journey...sigh.
I think what I liked about the movie The Lost Boys was it took the vampire film/motif to a new place. Played with it a bit. It's also why I'm enjoying The Finovar Tapestry another incredibly difficult series to find, but takes fantasy to a new place. Or the Stepen Donaldson books about the Leper who was a healer in another world. I did not like any of Donaldson's other books though. Or CJ Cherryth's series about the Cat people in outter space, which I can't remember the name of - one was The Kif - it dealt with racism and issues of interracial romance in a new and interesting way. Or Octavia Butler's twist on the time travel novel with Kindred which explores slavery and effects of it on a nation's consciousness in a way I hadn't considered before. Or even Philip K Dick, a prolific novelist, who brought sci-fi into the realm of noir fiction.

I'm just about finished Finovar, and may try Charlain Harri's comic vampire romance mystery novel, Dead To The World, next. The books I enjoy the most, I've discovered, are much like the tv shows/movies I've loved the most, impossible to pigeon-hole. They blend their genres. It's why I adored Whedon's shows, he was a master of blending different genres, not sticking with one. And it's what I like about BattleStar Galatica - a blending of genre. Playing with things. I like things that you can't neatly fit in a box or category, perhaps because in my working life my job is often feels like just that?

Teen Movies...the great, the good, the bad..and the incredibly odd

Not the most creative title in the world, but hey, it's to the point.

Just finished watching the DVD of my favorite teen/high school drama, Pump up the Volume circa 1991. Watched the end of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen first, which was truly horrid, leading me to believe that whomever is writing teen dramas now needs to revisit the glory days of the 1980s and early 90s, when they actually had something to say. Pump Up the Volumn is about a boy who is uncomfortable talking to people, incredibly shy, who uses a radio bandwith to talk to the world, to say what he feels - sort of like livejournal or the internet has become - back in the late 80's, early 90's it was radio signals, because the internet, while it existed wasn't advanced enough and well not everyone could get on. He picks up a book called "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People" by Lenny Bruce and through words tells how he feels. The film is your basic teens against authority theme - and is precursor to edgy teen dramedy's such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Popular, Freaks and Geeks, and My So Called Life which popped up on the television landscape shortly afterwards or around the same time. Veronica Mars references Pump Up the Volumn in one of its episodes - the one where the kid hosts a rogue radio show. And VM thinks it's the VP's kid and he says, yeah right, I'd get away with that. It also has a brief cameo by Seth Green later to appear on Buffy, Greg the Bunny, and the Italian Job. The theme song is Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen. Featuring edgy music and edgier/sex-edged dialogue it cut to the root of the teen situation without romanticizing it. Also depicted some of the difficulties with the US public school system's emphasis on standardized tests - specifically SAT scores. Flawed in places, it still hits more chords than most teen dramas before or since. Showing high school is hell for everyone and surviving it is a preview to adulthood. One of the best lines is - "Everybody is telling you what to do, everyone wants you to find a nice girl, plan a career, and settle down...like your parents. They don't care what you think and maybe that's not what you want." Pump came around the same time as the black comedy/satire Heathers which was controversial at the time and rarely seen now. Think Mean Girls except with a homicidal edge and better dialogue. Now I'm half watching a teen version of Pride and Prejudice...very odd, but not nearly as clever as Clueless, making me think yet again - the teen movie market has seriously taken a dive downhill since 1999. Actually it appears to be Pride And Prejudice meets Little Women if the parents died or disappeared. It's on EWAM and is circa 2003 and stars Kam Heskin and Orlando Seale and directed by Andrew Black...never heard of it. Also has moments of cleverness tucked in here and there. Yes, it is a bit pathetic I know, but I'm in a teen movie mood for some bizarre reason.

Saw Mirrormask last weekend - which is a movie that improves in retrospect. I am haunted by it. And find myself liking it more and more after the fact than when I watched it. The images stick in your head and flip around. It is a film you have to think about. It seems simple on the surface...but. Oh hell. The film is about a 15 year old girl who juggles in her father's circus. She hates her life and is frustrated with her father. And uses art as an outlet - drawing how she feels, her frustrations, her inner struggle. Creating in the process a fantasy world within her drawings -a sort of shadow world which explores all the psychological and emotional turmoil within. When she tells her Mom that she wishes she was dead and her mother has a freak brain aneursym - the girl freaks and her guilt/love/anger with her mother overwhelms her. Into the world of the subconscious we travel - and much like Dorothy's journey to OZ we aren't certain what is dream and what reality, how much is in the head and how much outside it. Is the girl dreaming or has she fallen through her pictures into the other world, exchanging places, albeit momentarily with the girl in that one? It is a story told more through visual images than words. Each character in the world of Mirrormask wears a mask. One that tells us who they are in the inside, their real face possibly the real mask. It reminded me a bit in style with the film Paper House - which is a story about a seemingly autistic child who uses art to deal with her pain - her pain has to do with her feelings towards her father who is both demon and father. It is the daughter/father version of Mirrormask's mother/daughter dilemma. Would be interesting to watch them back to back. Paper House was done in the 1990s, ages ago. Kidbro recommended it back when he was a film major and did art films. It haunts me in the same way and both had similar nightmare images. Also in both the resolution was found within the girl doing the drawings. Another one that deals with similar themes was of course Labrynthe - about a girl's envy of the attention her baby brother got and wish to be rid of him and her struggle to come to terms with the love/envy. Sometimes I think metaphors depicted in fantasy and sci-fi get to the root of problems, at least psychological ones, far better than straight literary fiction does. Or maybe it's easier to see and understand something, when it is shown and not told?