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shadowkatOh do I feel crabby today. Itchy and irritable. And wired. The smallest things have been setting me off lately. Probably PMS and damn it don't you hate it when people say that? Men feel crabby and no one says, oh you are going through PMS. Probably doesn't help that I got my cable bill (ouch!) and that my highspeed cable has been wonky tonight, slow, draggy, and wouldn't even let me get on for ten minutes.
Took me twenty minutes to send one email. Also doesn't help that there is zip on tonight and I desperately want to veg. Only night this week with new shows airing appears to be Tuesday when I have class, dang it. So taping Gilmore Girls and hopefully will home in time to see the premiere of House. Skipping Bones for now, if it's any good, maybe I'll rent it some day from netflix or catch in reruns.
Loving netflix - have over 221 films in my queue. Averaging three discs a week, which is basically 12 a month, which comes to 1.50 per
disc. Seeing movies and tv shows I've hunted in video stores and never found. Classics such as the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Mr & Mrs Smith (by Alfred Hitcock in 1950s, not the new version), Caligalua (Malcolm McDowell and Peter O'Toole). TV shows such as Dead Like Me, Carnival, Entourage, Prime Suspect 6. Wonderful little service. Tempting to cancel tv and just go completely with netflix, but I'm moody and impatient and need my news. So, would never work.
Saw Stage Beauty last night. Interesting film. I enjoyed it, even though the DVD was damaged in places and kept freezing on me. Yes, it appears to be one of those weeks where I'm at odds with all my electrical appliances.
The film takes place during Charles the II reign in England. It's about a Shakespearen actor who up until the middle of Charles reign was considered the most beautiful actress in London. Samuel Pepys, a character in the story and an actual historical figure, notes that Kryanstan was the most beautiful actor in England - he like many actors at that time played principally female roles since women were forbidden to act on the stage. Then Charles the II with a bit of nudging from his current mistress, decides to change all that. Proclaiming that not only can women act on the stage, but that female roles can only be acted by women. (Personally, I think it would have been more interesting if they only allowed women to play male roles and men to play female ones...then just sit back and watch how the two genders stereotype each other. But that may have been more than people could have tolerated.) The movie via Charles the II gives a bit of history on why women couldn't act on the stage - a hold over from that nasty Puritian period. There's a lovely line in it - where Charles states to a cleric, who is opposing the change, "don't see why women can't act on stage, after all the French have been doing it for ages." The cleric responds, "Everytime we want an excuse to do something we shouldn't, we state the French have been doing it." Being French Belgium - I giggled at this. Silly Puritanical English. Knew there was a reason I adore the French. At any rate, the film is a romance, but unlike Shakespeare in Love or other period romances, the romance is secondary. The story is more concerned about the effect this change has on the male actor who specialized in playing a female role - on how we view gender, on the relationship between masculine and feminine inside each of us. It's a bit clunky in places and I don't agree with its pat and somewhat conservative conclusion, but found it to be interesting overall and the actors appealing. Billy Crudup and Claire Danes play the leads ( a much warmer coupling in some aspects than Joseph Fiennes and Gwenyth Paltrow, but that is largely subjective). Another memorable line is a brain teaser: "I am a woman in a man's body playing a man. I seek beauty as women do." The Male lead sees women as objects, detached bits of beauty, without true emotion or even true thought - a painting he strives to become. It's an interesting take and as the female protagonist aptly points out, horribly inaccurrate. The play at the center of the story is Othello - which is a tragedy of misunderstanding. I recommend it. Not perfect by any means, but certainly thought provoking.
Also finished reading Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Black Orchid. It should be noted that I don't read graphic novels quickly, I chew over them thoughtfully, memorizing the panels, savoring the artwork, then reading the dialogue, then putting the two together. For me reading a graphic novel or a good book is a bit like a true gourmet or foodie eating a really good meal, savoring, tasting eat bite.
When you race through things, you overlook stuff. You miss the fine points.
Black Orchid is the tale of a female, possibly a superhero, in the DC universe finding herself and finding a way to handle both her own grief and the violence she remembers and has experienced. The novel starts with the brutal execution of this superhero. Then we meet her sister and successor, who chooses not to follow in her sister's footsteps. Chooses not to seek vengeance.
The story has a great deal of violence in it, yet unlike the novels of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and others who've written about super-heros or attempted to re-imagine them, this story breaks the mold or structure, it looks at the violent world these characters inhabit and says somewhat quietly we don't have to do this. There's another way. And succeeds. The poem I quoted in my last entry, ee cummings, I took from the last page of this novel.
What hit me about the novel is how it runs counter to our current societal impulse to seek retribution or revenge for acts taken against us, showing how doing so just unravels our world further. We have two characters that we follow in the novel, written in 1988 yet oddly relevant now, one is Carl Thorn who enacts vengeance for every imagined slight and the other is Black Orchid who avoids enacting vengeance and runs from it. Despising it. The art black and white for the violence with splashs of red, while brilliant greens and purples for the absence of - shows the contrast. A rare beautiful find. I honestly think this small little novel, written and drawn before Sandman or the other books, is amongst Gaiman's best and most haunting.
Next up is Gaiman's 1602, while in the netflix bin - Dead Like Me Season 1, disc 4, Dead Like Me Season 2, disc 1, and Secretary.
Currently reading George RR Martin's Clash of Kings which is longer than the last book and sort of drags in the middle. Not sure why all these epic reads drag in the middle, fast moving for the first 100 pages, slow for 300 pages, then take off again. It's a good detailed fantasy, just perhaps a tad too detailed in places? I find myself wishing I could skip certain characters and spend more time on others. It's a danger I suspect of writing in multiple points of view - you want the reader to want to be with all your characters, not one more gripping than another (much like the director of In Her Shoes commented in a recent interview) but by the same token, you can't control how they will react. And the more points of view you have the more you risk losing your reader's attention, scattering it.
Martin engages in an interesting balancing act, cutting off each character's pov just at the point of the cliff-hanger, not coming back to them until at least 50 to a hundred pages later. Yet at the same time, using each pov to build a whole picture of the story. It's like reading something from 10 points of perspective. Keeping each in your head simulataneously, and developing each. And the kicker? They are often opposing views. The villains and heroes in the novel flip sides, until you are no longer certain who to root for. The noble hero in the previous book, given more background from a completely different point of view, comes across as a bit villaineous in the next. This may be why I keep plodding through, my fascination at the complexity of the characters and universe the writer is building and it's unpredictability.
Took me twenty minutes to send one email. Also doesn't help that there is zip on tonight and I desperately want to veg. Only night this week with new shows airing appears to be Tuesday when I have class, dang it. So taping Gilmore Girls and hopefully will home in time to see the premiere of House. Skipping Bones for now, if it's any good, maybe I'll rent it some day from netflix or catch in reruns.
Loving netflix - have over 221 films in my queue. Averaging three discs a week, which is basically 12 a month, which comes to 1.50 per
disc. Seeing movies and tv shows I've hunted in video stores and never found. Classics such as the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Mr & Mrs Smith (by Alfred Hitcock in 1950s, not the new version), Caligalua (Malcolm McDowell and Peter O'Toole). TV shows such as Dead Like Me, Carnival, Entourage, Prime Suspect 6. Wonderful little service. Tempting to cancel tv and just go completely with netflix, but I'm moody and impatient and need my news. So, would never work.
Saw Stage Beauty last night. Interesting film. I enjoyed it, even though the DVD was damaged in places and kept freezing on me. Yes, it appears to be one of those weeks where I'm at odds with all my electrical appliances.
The film takes place during Charles the II reign in England. It's about a Shakespearen actor who up until the middle of Charles reign was considered the most beautiful actress in London. Samuel Pepys, a character in the story and an actual historical figure, notes that Kryanstan was the most beautiful actor in England - he like many actors at that time played principally female roles since women were forbidden to act on the stage. Then Charles the II with a bit of nudging from his current mistress, decides to change all that. Proclaiming that not only can women act on the stage, but that female roles can only be acted by women. (Personally, I think it would have been more interesting if they only allowed women to play male roles and men to play female ones...then just sit back and watch how the two genders stereotype each other. But that may have been more than people could have tolerated.) The movie via Charles the II gives a bit of history on why women couldn't act on the stage - a hold over from that nasty Puritian period. There's a lovely line in it - where Charles states to a cleric, who is opposing the change, "don't see why women can't act on stage, after all the French have been doing it for ages." The cleric responds, "Everytime we want an excuse to do something we shouldn't, we state the French have been doing it." Being French Belgium - I giggled at this. Silly Puritanical English. Knew there was a reason I adore the French. At any rate, the film is a romance, but unlike Shakespeare in Love or other period romances, the romance is secondary. The story is more concerned about the effect this change has on the male actor who specialized in playing a female role - on how we view gender, on the relationship between masculine and feminine inside each of us. It's a bit clunky in places and I don't agree with its pat and somewhat conservative conclusion, but found it to be interesting overall and the actors appealing. Billy Crudup and Claire Danes play the leads ( a much warmer coupling in some aspects than Joseph Fiennes and Gwenyth Paltrow, but that is largely subjective). Another memorable line is a brain teaser: "I am a woman in a man's body playing a man. I seek beauty as women do." The Male lead sees women as objects, detached bits of beauty, without true emotion or even true thought - a painting he strives to become. It's an interesting take and as the female protagonist aptly points out, horribly inaccurrate. The play at the center of the story is Othello - which is a tragedy of misunderstanding. I recommend it. Not perfect by any means, but certainly thought provoking.
Also finished reading Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Black Orchid. It should be noted that I don't read graphic novels quickly, I chew over them thoughtfully, memorizing the panels, savoring the artwork, then reading the dialogue, then putting the two together. For me reading a graphic novel or a good book is a bit like a true gourmet or foodie eating a really good meal, savoring, tasting eat bite.
When you race through things, you overlook stuff. You miss the fine points.
Black Orchid is the tale of a female, possibly a superhero, in the DC universe finding herself and finding a way to handle both her own grief and the violence she remembers and has experienced. The novel starts with the brutal execution of this superhero. Then we meet her sister and successor, who chooses not to follow in her sister's footsteps. Chooses not to seek vengeance.
The story has a great deal of violence in it, yet unlike the novels of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and others who've written about super-heros or attempted to re-imagine them, this story breaks the mold or structure, it looks at the violent world these characters inhabit and says somewhat quietly we don't have to do this. There's another way. And succeeds. The poem I quoted in my last entry, ee cummings, I took from the last page of this novel.
What hit me about the novel is how it runs counter to our current societal impulse to seek retribution or revenge for acts taken against us, showing how doing so just unravels our world further. We have two characters that we follow in the novel, written in 1988 yet oddly relevant now, one is Carl Thorn who enacts vengeance for every imagined slight and the other is Black Orchid who avoids enacting vengeance and runs from it. Despising it. The art black and white for the violence with splashs of red, while brilliant greens and purples for the absence of - shows the contrast. A rare beautiful find. I honestly think this small little novel, written and drawn before Sandman or the other books, is amongst Gaiman's best and most haunting.
Next up is Gaiman's 1602, while in the netflix bin - Dead Like Me Season 1, disc 4, Dead Like Me Season 2, disc 1, and Secretary.
Currently reading George RR Martin's Clash of Kings which is longer than the last book and sort of drags in the middle. Not sure why all these epic reads drag in the middle, fast moving for the first 100 pages, slow for 300 pages, then take off again. It's a good detailed fantasy, just perhaps a tad too detailed in places? I find myself wishing I could skip certain characters and spend more time on others. It's a danger I suspect of writing in multiple points of view - you want the reader to want to be with all your characters, not one more gripping than another (much like the director of In Her Shoes commented in a recent interview) but by the same token, you can't control how they will react. And the more points of view you have the more you risk losing your reader's attention, scattering it.
Martin engages in an interesting balancing act, cutting off each character's pov just at the point of the cliff-hanger, not coming back to them until at least 50 to a hundred pages later. Yet at the same time, using each pov to build a whole picture of the story. It's like reading something from 10 points of perspective. Keeping each in your head simulataneously, and developing each. And the kicker? They are often opposing views. The villains and heroes in the novel flip sides, until you are no longer certain who to root for. The noble hero in the previous book, given more background from a completely different point of view, comes across as a bit villaineous in the next. This may be why I keep plodding through, my fascination at the complexity of the characters and universe the writer is building and it's unpredictability.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 12:23 pm (UTC)Apparently at the time it was first printed, readers believed there would be another issue and it wasn't until several years had passed that they finally realized that no - this was the ending Gaiman intended.
So often in a superhero comic or action comic - the ending will be some hero or former victim taking retribution. Fans, according to the critic, clamorored for the traditional ending - where the heroine takes out Luthor (like we see in so many Superman comics) or kills the bad guys. But
here, the heroine does neither. Instead she grieves for the villian (Carl Thorn) who has hurt her the most. She doesn't kill him, but saves him.
And he inadvertently has saved her in the end, without intending to.
It's a weird karmic ending - where Black Orchid by saving Carl, inadvertently sets him against Luthor and the others. But she herself never takes any action to hurt him - he does that himself. What the novel does which is less obvious in Miller or Moore's violent renderings of the universe, is demonstrate the choice to do violence. We "choose" to do it.
It's not inherent in our nature. It's not forced. It's not necessary.
And choosing violence, choosing to kill does not bring back those we love and does not solve any problems but just create more grief. Oddly, Peter David in the Spike One Shot attempts to do the same message - but he lacks the subletly of Giaman's. His story feels more forced, more preachy, while Gaiman's makes one think.