Tederick.com: July 2007 Archives
« June 2007 |
Archives | Back to blog
| August 2007 »
Whaddaya think, maybe this is the next tattoo right here:
cuz up is sure as fuck down these days. Besides I could get a whole street cred for upside-down tattoo art. It could be my "thing:" I only make sense when I'm standing on my head.
"You and I think about this sort of thing too much." - Daniel Cockburn
"Aye! He's onto it!" - Barbossa
This one slipped under my radar for a couple of days. Tom Snyder passed away on Sunday; Letterman eulogized him last night. I fucking loved this guy. Loved every single damn minute of him. Obviously I missed his heyday by quite a few years but when he took the post-Letterman slot in '95, I think I watched every single episode. It was sort of an ongoing mainstay of my uni experience, watching Snyder religiously from 12:35 till 1:30 (or even later on tape if I missed it live), no matter where I had been that day or what I was doing the next day. Tom Snyder was just a fucking incredibly entertaining, watchable, insightful old fart eating up loads of airwaves in the wee hours of the night. I even wrote to him when I was like 22 or something like that - I can't remember what I asked him but it was probably unbelievably trivial - and he was (as I expect he was with everyone) kind enough to write back to me personally. Like, handwritten. Man, I cannot believe Tom Snyder is gone. It's a darker world without him.
The only nominal element curiously missing is a musical number; and the only true concession to the Friday night morality of the multiplex is a gag shot of Bart's dick. Otherwise, it's Simpsons through and through. Big glorious frame (and computer-enhanced animation and colouring) notwithstanding, it's amazing how cleanly the 88-minute movie effort fits within the emotional rhythms of the 400-strong flotilla of 22-minute episodes.
Less than six months after her tenth birthday, Buffy turns fifteen today. Oh media.
A certain individual who saved the entire magical and non-magical world from enslavement and death was also born today.
6:46 in the morning? What the hell is wrong with every molecule of me???
Double that grin and give me another. The universe has a hell of an awesome sense of humour. (And dramatic timing! Wooooo.)
I can't sleep.
Hey, I heard about this a while ago but it's sort of driving me nuts: apparently the original intention in Pirates 3 was that if Elizabeth remained faithful to Will for the 10 years he captained the Dutchman, he'd be freed when he came back. Which is very specifically not what is said in the film (I've checked... four times); in the film, Will's fate is that he will have to captain the Dutchman for eternity and only return to Elizabeth (and Will Jr.) once every ten years. But apparently the deleted scene that contains the original intended concept will appear on the DVD, thus providing irritating non-canonical referencing for the folks who want to believe that it all turned out all right in the end. Isn't it so much better if Will is out there on the Dutchman for the rest of time? Like, he's there right now even? He watched Elizabeth grow old and die and his son grow up and his son's son grow up and so on and so forth, and all that time served as the guide for those souls lost at sea, because he had finally become a whole, individuated, selfless person? Isn't that what his story is about? That is a freakin' terrific end to that tale, not "she was faithful to him for ten years so he got out of jail free." Elizabeth got the Empress, Will got the Dutchman, and they pulled a Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor: "in one night, we loved a lifetime's worth."
Sorry. That's been kicking the back of my head for 2 months. I needed to vent.
Did you know there's a Simpsons MOVIE??? I know! Insanicrap. Well it's a pretty goddamn terrific movie, too, and that is heartwarming. It took 'em 18 damn years but they didn't screw it up. I mean there's no Jasper in the thing to speak of and it doesn't exactly rip America in half with incisive critical commentary, but it makes you remember just how much we love the Fab Five, and it has the Spider-Pig song, and Boob Lady and Alaska and Bart's penis and a truly definitive hero moment for Homer J. Simpson. That's pretty tight, Simpsons folks. Pretty damn tight.
Hmmm. Still can't sleep. (Obviously.) Maybe I should listen to the thrumming of Sebulba's engine... that always does me.
You know what? I've got a pretty good crew. Between the roommates and Teen Girl Squad and the Box and the e.team and the soccer team and the Yorkies and the FORPies and the fam and whatnot, I'd say we're fairly well unstoppable right now. We've pretty much got this fucking thing covered.
[Homer anxiety dance]OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD [/Homer anxiety dance]
No week like Comic Con week to be on the internets. Have you seen the Iron Man preview bootleg? As with Golden Compass, I didn't watch all of it, because there's always that part of my brain that clicks on at the 45-second mark and says "don't you want to just see this for the first time when you see the movie?" But I skipped to the end. AND I LOVE THE END.
Meanwhilst, the Indy IV comic con presentation video (live on set with EVERYBODY!!!) can be seen at the official site. Along with a pretty cool video of Shia LeBeouf riding a bicycle! WOOT!! I am such a man whore.
And because I've been meaning to link to it for days and just can't seem to get 'er done, here's the Sweeney Todd poster, which I think is actually the best poster I've seen in the past several years. Definitely hips me to the flick, even though the only stuff I know from Sweeney Todd is the bits they used in Jersey Girl.
And now to reiterate, on a separate subject:
[Homer anxiety dance]OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD[/Homer anxiety dance]
Playing a big game now. Heady times, these.
Rebecca Wood, that is.
More news from the front:
Over here, you can read about Daniel Radcliffe reading Deathly Hallows. Oddly, he and I were listening to the exact same music when the book ended. Coincidence? Obviously.
Ye olde info re: Angel Season 6 be here.
And from the Joss panel: Ripper looks like a definite maybe, More Fray Coming, Drew "God" Goddard writes Buffy after BKV, and that crazy son'bitch Joss is writing a fucking ballet for Summer Glau. What?
Two down, one disregarded. Two up: we got ourselves a ballgame. And in case I don't say it enough, there are times when I am intensely glad that Mark is my best friend. That man knows his Transformers.
Merlin's pants, I hates me the telecom industry. HATES IT. (Yes: irony.) I was trucking along the Danforth on my bike this afternoon and my cell phone just wouldn't stop making noise. If it wasn't ringing, it was message-alerting. If it wasn't message-alerting, it was text-alerting. If it wasn't text-alerting, it was low-battery-alarming. I do not need to be this well informed. Nobody does. In the resulting furor I turned off every noise that the phone is capable of making - it is now on silent running, forever. The only way to get my attention now is for me to see the fucking thing light up blue. I'm okay with it.
Merlin's pants, I am also suddenly very fond of the expression "Merlin's pants."
Terry Moore is taking over Runaways, and Warren Ellis is taking over Astonishing X-Men. Which... is... okay... I... guess...???
Also straight out of comic con, a five minute preview of The Golden Compass. And it's official: I'm not on board. This thing just doesn't feel right. The animation on the daemons is way better than it was before, and the sets are pretty and everything, and Daniel Craig owns every kind of balls. But the girl doesn't work. And as the girl goes, so goes the nation. You can see her performing, see the tattered edges of Dakota Blue Richards trying to think her way through the blocking, the lines, the attitude, to pretend to be Lyra for the ten seconds that the camera is running and no longer. Sure, maybe I'm completely wrong and in the movie it will work perfectly. But in this rapid transit tour, it's a misfire.
And fuck me if the winter wind didn't blow straight through me when I heard him laugh.
Marion Ravenwood, the archetype for every woman I've ever loved in my entire life, returns. DONE AND DONE.
Points against Indy IV: 3
Points for Indy IV: 4 (Marion's worth 3)
Points pending: 1 (title)
You know that thing where I said if you didn't want to be spoiled for Deathly Hallows, you shouldn't come to the blog for 4 or 5 days? Turns out it's going to be a lot longer than that. By my reckoning the statute of limitations on spoilers runs out on Monday anyway so you can deal with it as you see fit; last night Amelia and I got shushed at a restaurant because we were talking too loudly about what happens to Neville. (Good natured shushing, mind you, and happily accepted.) And I'm pretty sure Jeff was ready to take a swing at Stacey and me at soccer last week because we just couldn't stop talking about it. You ever seen a pissed off Szpirglas? It's a wonder to behold.
Today we're going to be talking about two of my very favourite aspects of the final book: the redemption(s) of Kreacher and Severus Snape. These are both interesting because I basically thought they were impossible. I mean, I knew she'd make some token effort to redeem Snape in Book Seven and I thought I'd be all like, "OK, whatever" about it, but there is no denying that when she gets done with ol' Sev, she has actually succeeded in completely reversing every single thing you thought you knew about the character. Ditto for Kreacher, a redemption I didn't even see coming... I seem to discount House Elves from the character dynamics scale for some reason (it never even occured to me that she could kill Dobby) which is just faulty reasoning on my part. End of Book Five, I pretty much hated that guy as much as I've ever hated any character in the saga (short of Umbridge). Now, I'm all about Kreacher. I want a Kreacher of my very own. I derive enormous satisfaction from the fact that in the years following Hallows, Kreacher got to live out his remaining time on this earth taking care of Harry Potter and his family. That is a beautiful thing.
Snape's turn, too, is a beautiful thing. More of a tragic thing than Kreacher's, obviously, because every single bad thing that happens to Snape, he brought upon himself. In both his and Kreacher's case, the turn for the readers seems to rely on showing the pitiable state in which the characters find themselves - in Kreacher's case, we literally watch him getting tug-of-warred by the various requirements of the House Elf's enslavement; in Snape's, we see how he slowly and meticulously drove his one true love out of his life, and then had to not only suffer the ignominy of watching her marry and procreate with the living emblem of everything Snape hated/wished he could be, but die for it (at least partially through Snape's actions). There's no magical curse on Snape, but he's as fucked as they come. He's a dead man walking from the moment he turns to Dumbledore before the attack in Godric's Hollow, and yet every single nasty, horrible thing he had to do over the next 16 years is coloured completely differently when you realize he was doing it all for Lily. Good googly moogly, how god fuck awful it is to finally be empathizing with Severus Snape.
These turnarounds lead to two of the most affecting images in the book and possibly the entire saga - Kreacher slaving over a steak and kidney pie that Harry will never return home to eat; and Snape wanting to die looking into Harry's/Lily's eyes. Once you put the pieces together on that, tell me you haven't completely come around on every single thing you ever thought about both of those despicable wretches. It's all so masterfully done.
Holy sweet magical crap, JKR spilled the beans. Everything that happened after: the long version!
Surprisingly, the info about Luna was what I was craving the most, with Hermione's career choice falling a close second.
Fuck, I want this. Stupid exclusives stupid stupid.
As I scrambled to make Starbucks change in my wallet this morning, I realized that the Black Dime is no longer in there. After travelling with me for the bulk of 2007, the Black Dime has moved on.
What was special about the Black Dime?
It was black.
Why did you keep the Black Dime?
Because it was black.
Oh, there's no telling what will come of this. Anyways Comic Con has started so it's newsapalooza right now, along with tasty vittles: better shot of Keira, plus two young hobbits. Sam looks good but Frodo looks even more gorked out than usual. Hey, they did all right with Boromir but when my Faramir arrived last month they'd done him at such a high gloss on the skin that I call him Boromir's Sweaty Kid Brother (Fun At Parties). So you have to take these on a case-by-case basis.
Let's round out the miscellany with a list of nicknames I've had in my life:
I don't know why that was interesting but it was interesting to me.
Man I just got a Return of the King craving in the worst way. 3QF gonna be loud this weekend...
OK, I went to the white place for a minute there.
Harry Potter 6 casting rumours: not true. For my part I'm well into casting 7 in my head; I want Daniel Craig for Yaxley and I want to get Peter O'Toole in there as either old Grindelwald or Elphias Doge, as a tip of the hat to the one true Dumbledore (Richard Harris). And clearly we gotta get Bob Hoskins in there somewhere (Xenophilius Lovegood?) or he's gonna cry.
Michael, row your boat ashore. Hallelujah.
Hey guess what: in addition to getting the Indy license (shah!), Sideshow also picked up the import license for Hot Toys' Pirates 3 line. Including this very swank Captain Swann. Those suckers run a damn fortune but them's the breaks.
Enjoyed Buffy #5 a lot but I think I need to read it again cuz the structure sorta threw me. Enjoyed Mighty Avengers a whole lot more, which has been happening with uncanny regularity lately. That is some mighty, mighty Avengers.
The braintrusts at Rogers shut down Tederick Central Command again this morning, calling into question for the umpteenth time my decision to bundle anything, ever. Say you have a bundle of wood. (A "faggot" if you will.) And you set fire to a piece of wood in that bundle. You know what happens to the rest of that wood? It burns. Boy does it burn.
Speaking of fire, you can't deny the simple appeal of this:
(and trailer)
Crapulent awesomeness. But I think it's going to be down to me to make a movie that unites all of the Cardinal points of my particular compass: Dragons vs. Pirates vs. Schoolgirls With Lightsabres. Until then, Dragon Wars will do nicely.
Hey speaking of good ideas for a movie: dead baby in wall. Dead baby from 1925! Tell me this doesn't read like the first scene of a kickass period ghost story.
Fuck, I don't write enough.
Hangover. Harry Potter hangover. While I could not help but remark, last night, how nice it was to be reading anything that wasn't Harry Potter - there are other stories and characters and events in the world, oh my! - after my short respite I am now starting my second read on Deathly Hallows. Because otherwise, y'know, the DTs. Nonetheless I am feeling downright funky all over. It's like having the same dream two nights in a row. Plus I'm inexplicably exhausted. I think I'm not eating well enough or getting enough exercise or something. I felt so completely wiped and exhausted this afternoon that I came home from work early. It's not as much fun as it used to be, now that looking at porn has lost its appeal. Instead I'm cruising celebrity blogs, because I needed more reasons why I am better than Zach Braff.
Here are the recent non-Potter bullet points:
I can't believe Voldemort was living inside Ginny the whole time! I can't believe he decided to take the concept of the Horcrux one step further with the creation of the Morcrux, wherein a little bit of his soul lives inside every single person Harry has ever touched with his mouth! Mental, that.
I WARNED YOU.
I have made intimations along these lines previously but I wanted to say it once more, clearly and for the record: I am so damned grateful to every single Harry Potter fan whose life has crossed mine in the past month. I have traveled with many fanbases, so I can safely say that Harry Potter fans are the best in the world. Unfortunately due to the random and usually unfamiliar nature of these encounters, I can more easily thank the wind than thank them in person. But as I think I've said before, I've had more conversations - sometimes shockingly heartfelt, personal, emotionally supportive conversations - with total strangers in the past month than I ever have in my entire life. Most recently on Friday night at the Indigo where we got our books, where I was temporarily inducted into a small cadre of Potterphiles who had never met me before and will likely not meet me again, where yet another utter stranger joined our midst for the duration from outside and then melted away into the night to do what we've all just spent the last two days doing. We are all of us united. Or like the Coke ad says, "you give a little love, and it all comes back to you."
Love being, of course, the prevailing theme anyway. We won, gang. We won.
What I Liked (being a presumptuous list of excellences)
The greening of Dudley. The motherfucking X-wing dogfight (for all intents and purposes) in the sky over Privet Drive. The death of Hedwig, first soldier down. (I mean that's not a good thing, but damn howdy, it was effective. Cry my eyes out, part 1.) Second soldier down. The kiss. The wedding. Kreacher, now quite possibly my second-favourite character ever. Umbridge's eyeball and what came after. Indiana Jonesin' around the British countryside. The One Ri... er, locket. I can live with the sister thing. Boy-huggin'. Luna's bedroom (cry my eyes out, part 2). The Hallows, whatever they are, and wherever they're from. The death of Dobby. (See above re: Hedwig.) Riding the dragon (oh YEAH). Aberforth, in his entirety, vying with Kreacher for my eternal affections. The Ariana story. Minerva McGonagall. Neville Longbottom, Resistance Leader. The Children's Crusade. The suits of armour. "Is this the moment?" "Oi, there's a war going on here!" Continued magical interestingness (the Gringotts boobytraps; Crabbe's Big Mistake). The Battle of Hogwarts, part 1. Percy. McGonagall vs. Snape. Ron punching Malfoy ("and that's the second time we've saved your life tonight, you two-faced bastard!"). Snape and Lily and Petunia on the playground. Snape and Lily later. Looking into "Lily's" eyes as he died. Grawp vs. giants. Harry walking to his death (cry my eyes out, part 3). The Galadrielesque conversation in King's Cross. Neville beheading the snake. The Battle of Hogwarts, part 2. Buckbeak and the Thestrals. Kreacher and the elves. "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" The final duel. The portrait applause. The unremitting sense of joy of the thing, from about page 450 onward, even in the face of what must have then seemed certain doom.
What I Did Not So Much Like (being a list of quibbles that I will otherwise not give a fuck about ten minutes from now)
No Regulus, not really anyway. That damn mirror (that's two I owe ya, G). The strong Trio focus reducing the rest of the cast to cameo roles. All the frickin' Polyjuice. Harry Potter, Frequently Unconscious. Overuse of Rita Skeeter's various doings. Ron flippin' and runnin', again. The ghosts of Harry's family showing up, again. (We get it already.) Remus and Tonks - seems arbitrary and pointless. The explain-it-all convenientness of the apparent states of death. (If we could always just ask the portraits for advice, why didn't we do that from the frickin' get-go?) Knowing the future careers and lifestyles of literally everybody except the three people we care about most.
The one thing I was right about that I most specifically wish I was wrong about:
Fred.
The only "I Told You So" I shall utter:
Harry, the Horcrux. It's on page 568 spelled out in those exact words. To every single person who has declaimed to me with righteous defiance over the past two years that Harry couldn't possibly be a Horcrux, look it the fuck up.
Good shit from out and about:
"Speaking of people who are Like Jesus, In a Way, can I just say that it was like the fucking Beatles came out of those packing boxes when they opened at 12:01? I've never heard screaming like that in my life." - Cleolinda
"As the conflict with Voldemort comes to a head, Ron Weasley is suddenly and shockingly killed. Hermione responds with steely determination, joined by Luna Lovegood, who turns out to be a rare witch who has super-powerful martial arts skills." - If Joss Whedon Wrote Deathly Hallows
"It's one of the key differences between Rowling and her great literary forebears. Rowling has been careful to build Harry up from boy to man, student to leader, but she has been equally attentive to the task of breaking Dumbledore down, from a divine father-figure to a mere human. Her insistence on this point is a reflection of the cosmology of the Potterverse: there are no higher powers in residence there. The attic and the basement are empty. There may be an afterlife, and ghosts, but there is certainly no God, and no devil. There are also no immortal, all-wise elves, as in Tolkien... there is certainly no benevolent, paternal Aslan to turn up late in the book and fight the Big Bad. The essential problem in Rowling's books is how to love in the face of death, and her characters must arrive at the solution all on their own, hand-to-hand, at street level, with bleeding knuckles and gritted teeth, and then sweep up the rubble afterwards." - Time Magazine
"Of course it happened inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" - Albus Dumbledore
Beyond the veil
One other thing worth quoting from that Time article, by the way: "We did something very rare for Harry Potter: we lost our cool." Boy did we. In this miserable age when irony has eclipsed sense, the entire world went blushingly gaga over the goodhearted adventures of a boy wizard and his friends. I suppose it can't truly be argued that Rowling's work is particularly supple or ingenious in the way that Tolkien and Pullman will forever be; the reason that none of that matters, the reason that all of this happened, is her nearly uncanny knack for characters. We loved them. We loved each and every one of them like (as I quipped in my Phoenix review) blood. There is a dexterity and dimensionality to the inhabitants of this gormlessly cheery alternaverse that leaves them like shadows on the wind long after the storm has ceased to rage. The storm is over, all right, but they're still glimmering behind our eyes, and my strong suspicion is that their mark will be with us forever.
THAT. WAS. SO. GOD. DAMNED. SATISFYING.
I don't know how much of the epilogue I absorbed. The words were sort of swimming before my eyes.
Don't visit the blog for the next five or six days if you don't want to be spoiled for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Additionally, comments will not be moderated, e-mails will not be replied to, and the web will not be surfed. I am going into the hole.
In the meantime, here be my predictions:
Is Harry going to die?
No. I do not believe that the series we have been reading for the past six books has been the tale of a person coming to the end of his life. This, like largely any other fantasy series for young people, has been a story of how to be a moral person in a complex universe. I do firmly believe that Harry will get a "Frodo" ending - i.e. as with most heroes, he will see and do things in saving the world that will make him unable to return to a normal, happy lifestyle after whatever fates await him in DH - but I do not personally believe he will die.
I have, of course, been wrong before. I had no sooner come up with my "this is not a tale of a person coming to the end of his life" theory than I realized that, well, it kinda is. Death has shaped every single major decision and distinction that Harry has come to in these past six years. His nemesis, Voldemort (true translation TBD), fears death above all other things and seeks to overcome it, meaning that Harry's true quest should be to accept the inevitable reality of human mortality. So... yeah. I still believe paragraph a), but must admit that paragraph b) has solid foundations.
Is Hermione going to die?
Why the FUCK does everyone keep saying that???
Honestly, and these aren't just my prejudices talking: if Hermione was going to die, she would have died in Book 5. At this point I'd actually say that Hermione is the safest character in the series. If there is one Potter character that I would lay good odds on having a nice, fat "what happened to her after Hogwarts" paragraph in the final chapter of the book, it's Hermione Granger. (Future Minister for Magic.)
Well then...?
If Rowling kills a trio member (and I hold that chance at slightly less than 50/50), she's killing Ron. I'd love to think she could do away with Hagrid but I'm not that lucky. Ginny's in solid jeopardy (see above re: Frodo ending). Snape, clearly, is doomed, regardless of whatever deal he worked out with Dumbledore in advance of the murder; Malfoy should be killed (there is no redemption for what he did in Phoenix), but won't be. All of the other Weasleys are obvious fodder, and I remain firm in my belief that killing a twin (but not the other twin) is pretty hefty on the drama scale. Killing a Dursley would also have phenomenal dramatic power; McGonagall's probably all right but some of the other teachers (and former teachers: Lupin, Moody) will probably be going down. It's a war, after all. For some reason I'm pretty sure Tonks is gonna make it. And let's not forget that if "two major characters" are indeed going down, old Voldy is about as major as it gets.
Is Harry a Horcrux?
Yes, I think he is. We do not actually know what curse Voldemort performed on Harry that rebounded and formed the scar. We have always assumed it was Avada Kedavra, but it may not have been; like that drink on the Enterprise so long ago, we only know that it was green. Voldemort had just killed two people to get to Harry, providing ample soul-shredding potential. The opportunity to create a living Horcrux out of the person marked to destroy him would have been quite appealing to young master Riddle. Harry being a Horcrux explains why he dreams Voldemort's dreams, why he sees through Nagini's eyes (another Horcrux) when she attacks Mr. Weasley, and why Snape has been so damn freaked out by H-pot since day one.
But if Harry's a Horcrux, then doesn't he have to die in order to destroy Voldemort?
Who am I, Noam fucking Chomsky? Figure it out for yourself!
A few final words:
Serpentsortia. Murtlap. Millicent Bullstrode's no pixie.
Well, it took six years but I've finally got an idea for a piece of Harry Potter slash fiction. It involves Crabbe and Goyle, Polyjuice potion, and whatever Slytherin first-years they were duping into giving them bits of themselves when C&G had to guard the Room of Requirement for Malfoy. Bex is right, the Room of Requirement is the slash fiction location. It's positively fraught.
Serenity Rose: currently moulting.
I really like Book Six. I tend to underestimate it every time I go into it, on account of there being no story. But I enjoy the Voldemort Godfather II stuff more and more each time I read it - it's just so well-authored and evocative. Plus it really makes me look forward to what they could do with it in the movie, particularly if they can work some digital whamma jamma to slowly move from Christian Coulson to Ralph Fiennes over the course of the film. Besides, the present-day stuff in HBP is just so unremittingly fun. I kinda respect that about old JK: after the sheer psychological punishment of Book Five, she stepped it back a notch and let us have one last good time before what is sure to be the sheer psychological punishment of Book Seven. Lo, shall we look back upon these days with fondness.
DH minus 177. Slightly ahead of where I wanted to be, but there are worse things.
OH MY GOD.
Must. Not. Scratch. Serenity.
This is driving me NUTS
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand my tat got blogged about by the artist himself. Not the tattoo artist, the art artist. And Mr. A dropped me a cordial e-mail on the subject, too. Sunshine and puppies over here, Internet.
Sera herself is a great scabby mess right now. And the scabs have started to come off so she looks a bit like she's disintegrating after having been turned to stone by Lord Voldemort. But the response has nonetheless been overwhelmingly positive all over town and continues to be so. I am having random "new tattoo?" conversations just as frequently as the random "which Potter are you on?" conversations that I've been having for the past month. Boy I talk to a lot of strangers about my life. (Just in case you thought that only happened in blog-form.) I wrote an extremely lengthy decompress on the subject of tattooing last night in my journal and, because I am a coy bitch, I shall not reiterate it here. Except to say that I'm fairly confident that this is the single best thing I've done for myself since 2003.
I had a late recording session last night for City Surf, so I booked today to work from home. Why commute when you can sleep right up until 8:30? Perfect day for it too; warm and sunny with a pleasant breeze. I ran a network line down to the living room, made tea, opened the windows, took meetings via telecommunicative devices, and generally enjoyed myself. And watched 7 episodes of E.R. while I worked, from back before the show sucked. I'm cool that way. You know, like when Ewan McGregor was on it that one time, or when Omar Epps jumped in front of the subway. I was in my second year of film school when season three of E.R. was on the air, and the show was the perfect metaphor for just how freaked out I was, all the time.
Hey guess what! Extreme Steve vol. 3 starts tomorry. I'm very excited.
Happy Sexiversary, everyone! Yes, today would be the recognized anniversary for the loss of my virginity. Celebrate as you deem fit.
I am taking this opportunity to help put to rest a cultural myth, because I was not de-virginized in the manner depicted in story and song (and American Pie) as the standard for young North American males. In a complete reversal of everything we've come to expect from the de-virginization process (and in spite of the so-called "anniversary" today), there was no one definable "time," a single event where "it" demonstrably happened for the first time. Nope, in actual fact I'd say that the loss of my virginity took about a full week, a week of gradual progress. As such it wasn't so much a "loss" as a "slow misplacing."
This kinda bugged me for a long time; it's bad narrative and shite at parties, among other things. We all want that story, even if it turns out to be a stupid/embarrassing/painful one. What I've come to realize in the years since V-day is that I'm by no means alone in my experience, particularly among those who lost the V after their generation's prescribed age average (I believe in my case, I was supposed to lose it when I was 15.3?). I got to undergo the process in a safe and caring relationship, so that doesn't suck. I position it as a worthwhile alternative to getting shagged after prom in the back seat of a car. (Which is also fun.)
Hey, while we're on anniversaries, we premiered the original Centipede fifteen damn years ago today! Wow. Half my life. Fifteen damn years and yet I still don't feel like I've "started" really making movies. Well what's with the back-catalogue then? Jesus, I've made more movies than I ever would have thought possible back on July 17 1992 and done things that wouldn't have occurred to me in my wildest dreams. Any feeling otherwise is such backwards horseshit.
Guest-hosted moviesTO over the weekend... ignore the bit about the Sunshine tickets (that got all screwed up), but enjoy the rest!
Restless, unfocused dreams last night - at one point I was trying Indiana Jones' hat on over and over again; at another, I was about to sit my OWLs at Hogwarts and was flying into a panic because I couldn't remember Wingardium Leviosa - which even I knew was ridiculous, given that it was the first thing we learned in first year. Then Cripps showed up and it all went to hell, possibly as a result of certain soccer-related conversations from the subway home last night. Oh patterns.
Which is all by way of saying, I don't think my brain (or this blog) is going to be much good this week. I'm about a 65% walking Harry Potter repository right now. I'm going to be abjectly useless at work, for sure, and the blog skein might be a tad specific for the next whiles. So unless you're all keyed up to read about my latest Potter thoughts - which will be occasionally broken up by tattoo gushing or the virginity thing I'm writing for tomorrow - this is gonna be a dull week on the blog.
Hey, tattoo: going well, although Sera now resembles nothing so much as a dirty great hunk of scabby scabness. She's itchy, too. Damn itchy. Vitamin E barely keeping ahead of the irritation factor. But I am still very, very happy. Having now gone ahead and done this, I suppose I oughta provide a little information on the whys, but we'll save that for later.
Meantime, meet Serenity Rose.
We creamed the opposition in soccer last night, thanks once again to our substitute goaltender and some fine offensive player from... well... everyone. The only downside to the game (aside from tattoo concerns) was the Bug Storm. Yes, we played in a Bug Storm. We played in some kind of mass migration of tiny gnats that proceeded uninterrupted through the entirety of the first half of the game; literally millions of the damn things were all headed north in a languid, unbroken cavalcade across the flats. By halftime they were stuck to my arm like flypaper and getting under my contacts and god knows what all else. It was most discomfiting. But as for the Yellow Wall - which may soon have to be renamed Yellow Domination - we've got a hell of a team there, folks. It's nice to be in charge when everything's going well.
Turns out it's a lot more fun to do me as a kid. You know, like how Muppet Babies are inherently cuter than Muppets.
That thing where every British actor has already been in a Harry Potter movie isn't exactly true. Here's who should be put in the next flick according to me, Supreme Mugwump:
Rufus Scrimgeour: Derek Jacobi
Narcissa Malfoy: Tilda Swinton (despite Narnia conflict)
Horace Slughorn: Brian Blessed
Merope Gaunt: I would have said Shirley Henderson, but they've already used her. I'm going to go to the bullpen and grab Kelly MacDonald, not least because I enjoy looking at her. Kate Beckinsale wouldn't suck either.
Morfin Gaunt: Jason Flemyng
Marvolo Gaunt: Ian Holm (conflict again, but why not?)
Tom Riddle Sr.: Toby Stephens
Fenrir Greyback: Bill Nighy
Regulus Black: Only one person alive can play Gary Oldman's badass kid brother, and that man is Johnny Depp.
It's not a patch on the South Park one, but you can't deny the appeal of designing your Simpsonsverse self.
No tattoo options though. 
simpsonsmovie.com
Incidentally, thanks for being polite about it but you're right, I am an idiot. The Simpsons Movie comes out next week, not this week.
As it turns out, doing yoga with a scab the size of a baked potato on your left arm is a study in compromise. Yeah.
I am very nearly done Order of the Phoenix. That means I'm a day behind, but Teen Girl Squad had my Half-Blood Prince until just now so there's not much I could have done about it. Stupid girls and their poisonous reading habits! Marrr. But anyways, I just read page 698, which serves as the basis for the story I use whenever asked how obsessed I am with Harry Potter. Goes like this:
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2003, when Phoenix came out. After a marathon weekend reading session that had got me into the climax at the Department of Mysteries, and in no fit state to deal with whatever "main character death" Rowling had been advertising for months, I happened upon the following passage on page 698:
"But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his wand; a streak of what looked like purple flame passed right across Hermione's chest. She gave a tiny 'Oh!' as though of surprise and crumpled on to the floor, where she lay motionless."
I turned to page 699 to continue... and page 699 was blank.
It's not actually blank. I'm looking at it right now; there are words on it. But on that day, after reading that paragraph, my brain turned page 699 white, just in case page 699 contained the confirmation that Hermione Jane Granger was, in fact, dead.
So that's how obsessed with Harry Potter I am.
All in all I'd say seeing the Phoenix flick this week was a mistake because it totally torpedoed the last act of the book for me. As a cautionary measure I'm going to leave off seeing The Simpsons until well after I'm done Book Seven. Just don't have enough room in the brain right now. It's a shame, though, because there will be Batman.
For a series called Harry Potter, I don't think I can recall one of these movies that was so brilliantly, delightfully about its titular character. Pecs bulging and eyes steady, Daniel Radcliffe glares out from the screen with a dominance that wilfully pushes the rest of the junk clean out of the frame. Actor and character have fused at last. Radcliffe's matured chops meet Harry's Book Five angst, and the resulting potion is the film franchise's equivalent of veritaserum.
7 days out, 700 pages to go. And FYI: it absolutely sucks to see a Harry Potter movie without Becky Jo Wood.
OH MY GOD I LOVE HER SO MUCH. OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM SO HAPPY.
See? I toldja. 
I am in love. That's all there is to it. I am in love with my own arm. In my humble opinion - which is, at this time, admittedly not too terribly humble - Lisa did a better job with the art than the original. The eyes, for example, are fucking phenomenal. I love the living shit out of the eyes. There's a smirky glint going on in the face that wasn't there before. And the shading on the face and on the clothes is, quite simply, not something I thought was possible with tattoo art. The blue in the hair pops. The definition on the pants (good pants) and shoes and arm bandages are all just tremendous. For a first tat, Lisa cranked this one out of the park and made herself a big ol' lifetime customer... because yeah, I have got to do this again.
Here's the last time you'll ever see my inner left arm un-Rosed:
I've sent a picture over to Heart Shaped Skull. Attitude of gratitude.
"No more virgin canvas," my friend Jacob said when we started this process. He's been my key adviser on this from the start. It was Jacob who pointed me towards Sinful Inflictions in lovely downtown Whitby Ontario, which is where he got his rather spectacular art done. I got hooked up with Lisa at my consultation a couple of months ago, and have been doing the thrill-of-dread waiting game ever since for my July 12 appointment.
Let's cut straight to the heart of this thing: getting a tattoo hurts, Internet! Didn't see that coming. And good fucking God, was it a turn-on. Didn't see that coming either. Jesus I'm licking my lips right now just thinking about it; I've got a full flush on. Mmmmmmmm tattoo.
When Lisa was doing the outline, it hurt a lot, but I was doing a pretty good job of managing it - occasional flashes to the river of fire on Mustafar, sure, but for the most part I was just giggling and chuckling and so forth. I realized today (and should have done long, long ago) that I have a weird sense of humour about pain. That's why I'm always cracking up when I fall over snowboarding or get hit in the head with a soccer ball: I just sort of find pain amusing. It bears elements of simplicity and focus that are quite useful.
So there I am giggling away and commenting that the pain is more irritating than painful, when she starts with the shading - and holy mother fuck, that's a whole other level of owie. So... I started picturing going down on various people. Yeah. Some people I have gone down on, some people I would like to go down on. It became a bit of a free for all but I kept at it because it was terrifically effective.
And then she starts the colouring and the white... and there is no longer a single thing I can do to be anywhere other than that fiery maelstrom of pain. I am right in there. My entire life has turned into an old, beaten up piece of film: there are unintentional speed-ups, and film white-outs, and bad splices cutting through the center of frame and even a burn-out or two. I just lived there for about ten minutes because there was nothing else I could do. But when that was done, it was done. And I was just so goddamn happy.
OK that's enough storytelling for one night. Gotta go buy Vitamin E.
GO GET A TATTOO, INTERNET. You'll be glad you did.
"I don't wanna die without any scars."
Moody and Shacklebolt ain't lackin' for charisma neither, but man howdy that is some good purple hair.
Very tired. More to come.
I know they make 'em different in Alberta, but Jesus, thirteen?! And what's with the 23-year-old boyfriend? That's a thing now? (Says the 30-year-old who's been chasing a 20-year-old like a puppy after a 1956 DeSoto)
Gruesome as it is, I can't help think that this story would make a hell of a film, in the Heavenly Creatures / Welcome to the Dollhouse / Ghost World mould. (That's a mould?) Though it'll probably just end up a gorramned CBC movie-of-the-week. But the subtextual possibilities are monumental.
Hey, speaking of viscera, my brother did a mockup for school last week of a waterbed called the Eviscerated Bear. He took the tauntaun concept a step further by making a bed where you actually crawl into a bear's guts (rubber tubes of heated water) and are soothed to sleep by a gently pulsing hearbeat. The kids learn about the inevitable passing of all things and stay snuggly warm. It's really something, and proof that all those year Adam spent bisecting Gonzos and building parachutes for Nini actually went somewhere productive.
I am doing my best to be productive as well, which means more time crawling forward on my meagre production slate and less time for everything else - including the film-watchin'. I really don't know when I'm seeing Harry Potter, or any other movies at all really; even the Pirates screenings have been necessarily curtailed. As one third of the popular singing sensation Mamo!, I am more than aware of the current state of theatrical distribution, thankyouverymuch. Still, I was going through the movie listings the other day and was sort of re-bummed-out about the fact that World's End, six weeks after its release, is pretty much gone from Toronto. I miss the days of longer runs. When I was a teenager - which wasn't that long ago, cheers - I made a semi-regular habit of going to see my favourite movie of the summer on the the Labour Day weekend, to close off the vacation before school started; unless my favourite movie this summer turns out to be Rush Hour 3, that shit just doesn't happen any more. It takes (for me) the last veneer of decency out of the summer movie phenomenon, because at least in the past it was possible to conjure the illusion that the movies, if dumb, were at least amiably enjoyable enough to be worth looking at again in due time. Summer movies in the 21st century are the cinematic equivalent of overworked prosties, out the door before you're even done towelling off. Sucks. This all points to a future where the blockbusters are downloaded into our brain before they're even written, sold to our hard drives before we've bought the computer, and interact with our iPhones to let us text-vote our preferred endings to the digital animation department that will, for a modest fee, create the ending we want so that we don't have to surrender our emotions to something as archaic as "authorial control."
And all this so that we can avoid the need to deal with death. Cripes, we are a backwards people.
Now I'm getting e-mails from Adrian Veidt. I'm really liking the way this is going.
Fucking hell it is HOT, Internet. Oddly beautiful night in its way, too, but my room is actually so hot that if I sit in it, I pour sweat as though I am my own little garden sprinkler. It's almost a Stupid Human Trick. So I'm out on the back deck doing the usual Monday night routine: reevaluating every single facet of my stupid solitary life. With pizza.
Too heat-unfocused to really blog about what I came on here to blog about but yeah, you'll do all right without me.
Well, I'm back. A little too back if you ask me; the wanderlust is running strong beneath. Time to start planning the next chunk.
Last night's soccer game was a hoot, given that we were playing it in the physical equivalent of hot soup. There's sweat and then there's sweat, and last night was the latter. The other team was playing on no subs, so they had it worse. The Red Queen was in play so Stacey subbed for goal, the Ringers have made solid inroads with the Wallers, and if it weren't such a topsy-turvy disadvantage to start with I'd have called it the Best Game Ever. Chris and I came home and ate mightily of salty food products to cope with the desalinization effects, and watched Trainspotting; I couldn't help wondering "where's my bag of money, and when do I get to run out the door?"
My sister moved out of the 'rents place this weekend, and to avoid any after-the-fact ground support my folks are off to Ireland today for a week. Plans to go south for Christmas are also moving solidly ahead... anyone got recommendations re: DR vs. Jamaica? Or anywhere else? My Dominica plans went the way of all things, when all things have no infrastructure. But I'm still after a place where I can do things other than lie senseless on a beach, or tour interesting old streets. I want to climb something tall, jump off something taller, swim under something creepy and drink rum till dawn. Takers?
TIFF passes go on sale in 9 minutes... the closing gate of the 8-week sprint I'm about to start.
"Suffice to say that we have top men working on it right now. Top men." - Hasbro re: Indiana Jones action figures. Call me a geek but that made me split a Joker grin.
(Wait, I'm only just now giving you license to "call me a geek?" Boy, I certainly hope you've felt free to do so before now. Because come on: I am a fucking geeeeeeeek [the extra e's express enthusiasm!]. Case in point: people actually come up to me now and ask how the Harry Potter reading drive is going. People I didn't know two weeks ago are checking in with me at yoga, soccer, etc. Honestly, I should have done this for charity or something. I have had more conversations with total strangers about reading Harry Potter in the past week than... a... big... number.)
Hey, nothing beats doing a bunch of tourist shit in another country just to come back to your home town and do even more. So me and Caitlin went to the Titanic exhibit on Friday. Awesome! Especially the part where the passenger name I was assigned ended up dead. That was cool. Got a wicked idea for a new script, too, which I guess I can start researching and writing as soon as I'm done researching and writing the other historical movie script idea thing I've got.
Anyways. A loooooooot of Order of the Phoenix this weekend to get back on schedule. Plus quite a bit of tidying and organizing since that's how I deal with stress. Looking forward to soccer tonight in a big way. Oh the things we do in the meantime to keep from bothering that it's the meantime.
"...as plate after plate of fluffy poached eggs, cartilaginous peameal, and lakes of sunshiney goo continued to pile up over time, I realized that if I don't start catalogueing these excursions in some formal manner, a great field of human knowledge would be lost. Hence, the Benedict Chronicles..."
Last week when Matty Price and I got lost on the way to Philadelphia, we swerved the car to the side of the road when we saw the sign for The Egg and I. Though thoroughly packed on a Sunday morning and mercurially slow of service (over a half an hour after the order before the food arrived), the place was friendly enough and we had a good time.
The benny, however, while offending in absolutely no definable way, also failed to deliver any single element that pushed it past a straight middle-of-the-road effort. Although everything about the benny was as expected (decent peameal, decent hollandaise, decently cooked eggs, decently toasted muffin), and the hash browns were also - to repeat the phrase again - decent, there was nothing particularly great about it, either. In the end a really great side, or a spectacular cup of coffee (this one boasted neither), might have elevated the score but I was slightly disappointed by such an engaging restaurant's failure to really give me something memorable in the benny department. I'm hitting it with 2 and a half eggs out of four.
The Egg and I is located at 1760 Upper James Street, outside Hamilton, Ontario. The Benedict Chronicles is an ongoing, non-regular series.
Matt P: "It's free and easy under here!"
Matt B: "Oh, hooray for everything."
Key distinctions:
Last night after I got home and unpacked, I grabbed my iPod and headed out the door... and ended up walking to Queen and Spadina (!). I was just saying to MP the other day that it's been a while since I've done a solid city walk... this one wasn't so much planned as that's just the way things worked out. I was at City Hall before my brain twigged to how much I wanted a burrito right then. So it all worked out.
Teen Girl Squad got rid of Vinyl! No General Grievous for me, at least not for a while. Honestly, though, with my 2008 fates as uncertain as they currently are, adopting a kitten might not have been the best idea anyway.
It is almost impossible to describe how much the DVD universe has changed since the release of the first My So-Called Life boxed set; little things like how getting a TV show onto DVD no longer involves a 1-year petition, a high price point pre-order, a small production house transfer overseen by a designated fan, a collectibles distributor, a 10-month wait, and filing complaints with the FBI. Now here's version 2. I don't know, the pieces are all there, but it just feels... a little easy?
And relatedly, in spite of any previous claims on this site, I am now thinking that I will be going hi-def at some point in the next year after all... and the winner of the format war is... Blu-Ray!! The reason for this is that there are actually only four titles that I would buy the player for: three that start with "Pirates of the Caribbean," and one that's about giant robots fighting each other. I'm sure there would be others eventually, but those are the forerunners, the decision-makers, the reasons I'm doing it. The idea of seeing Transformers or World's End in anything less than the best presentation possible hurts my brain and makes my heart go puppy-sad. So.... that'll be 'spensive. New TV, new player, new speakers, new living space... all so I can watch Optimus beat the shit out of Davy Jones.
What? The players don't let me do that?
This dude seems to be undergoing the decision-making process that confronts us all when faced with a stand-alone pay toilet in the streets of a major cosmopolitan landscape: "What's this gonna be like?" This bathroom stands right in front of Philadelphia's photogenic City Hall, and looks like a futuristic elevator to the underground kingdom of Downthereia. I did not have the scrote to try the bathroom myself, so its contents remain a mystery to me.
You know what this town needs? Batman, that's what. If and when I get to make a Batman movie, fuck Chicago, I am making it in Philadelphia. This town IS Batman. You will not believe how well art directed Philadelphia is. The Batmobile ripping through downtown would look pretty scratch, my friends.
The statue above is a big pile of feet. I saw it and said "corporate stress" and Matty Price said "familial obligations." We invite the reader to draw their own conclusions.
Hey, today we went to Independence Hall which is the cheesiest and most obvious thing you can do in this town, and was therefore really just about the best thing we've done. Yeah call me a whore for the obvious historic touchstone but standing in the room where the Declaration was signed was worthwhile. Then later in the day we watched the Fourth of July parade and got to see firsthand exactly where all those good (and not so good) intentions ended up. A study in narrative, this place is.
Here's Matty Price wearing a really, really, really big hat:
We did a nice, fat on-the-road Mamo this morning - longer than usual and covering the expected plate of summer releases of the past week and change. We also had a bunch of time to kill this afternoon so we went to the Mütter Museum which houses a collection of medical oddities. There was shit in there that would grease your hair for free, Internet. Like a woman with a goddamn 8-inch fucking horn growing out of her head, for one. And info about Abigal and Brittany, who continue to fascinate. But the one that really took me was the skeleton of a guy who lived for 39 years with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, a disorder which basically turns injured muscle and tendon tissue into fucking bone. Can you imagine that shit? Your soft tissues start turning to bone??? I know osteogenesis imperfecta is a completely different thing but looking at that strange, sad skeleton, and knowing that he lives in the city, it wasn't hard to see where M. Night Shyamalan came up with Mr. Glass. We've got this incredibly complex computer code running our systems from the moment sperm hits egg, and if even one of those bajillion combinations of data goes awry, all kinds of crazy holy shit can come babbling out. It gives one pause.
The storm-darkening skies over Independence Hall:
The rains came just as the parade was winding down. We walked back out to South Street and then along, after the rains had stopped and a perfect twilight was descending. Found a really good comic book store a bit too late to be useful - they were closing up, and aside from a sweet conversation with the guy behind the counter who said that the Silver Snail and the Beguiling were reason enough for him to move to Toronto, we had to scarper before any real commerce could be achieved. (Still picked up a couple Emily the Strange books.) Then we hopped in the Pricemobile and were on our way back to the hotel when the mother of all fucking rainstorms came down and blew us clear off course - literally. We were halfway to Jersey before we got turned around and back in the right direction.
In all respects, a successful broadcast.
"I never take painkillers from a beautiful woman. It's a little too 'on the nose.'" - me when offered free Advil by a babe on the street
No pictures today because I am too fat and lazy to plug in the camera.
Today we thoroughly explored the area of Philly I would live in if I lived in Philly: South Street. It's that neighbourhood - your Queen West-ish type place. Nicely endlessly busy and packed and fun and lots of good stuff in it, like a hatterer and a magic shop. And after some frustrating big box shopping yesterday we found Bay Street Video's opposite number here in town, i.e. the place we'd buy DVDs from if we actually lived here. And guess what? They were having a sale on Criterions. Like, Criterion disks for $25 American. Which works out to about $26.50 Canadian right now. I bought six.
I also rolled some videotape today. Not sure if anything in it will come to anything - I got some nice stuff in a graveyard and more than a few pieces of footage of the quasi-erotic art of Philadelphia, but the idea of doing the historical plaques movie sort of fell apart once we were actually on the ground looking at the things. I still might be able to squeak a shadow "secrets" movie out of the deal, or I might use the aforementioned erotic art for a Final Cut Pro editing experiment when we get back, but mostly I just enjoyed using the camera. It's been a while.
We toured the historical areas for most of the day. You know, real wrath-of-god declaration-of-independence midnight-rides-on-horseback type shit. I bought a replica Declaration of Independence to use as rolling papers when I get back although there's probably enough benzine in that fake parchment to flash-fry a buffalo brain. We were merrily entertained by a Jewish storyteller who gave us a Canadian-relevant tale of intrigue from the Revolutionary War, saw the house of the guy who invented soda pop, and walked all the way from the Rocky steps back to City Hall and then down to the Italian Market which is, like, the entire damn run of the place.
Oh: and Philly Cheese Steaks. We had two apiece as the day went on. The first was at Jim's and that was pretty fucking spectacular. Jim's is the place where the lunch-hour line is literally about 30-45 minutes, and it's the place that the locals go, so it didn't disappoint. Later in the day we went to Geno's which is the place that all the tourists go to, and I was significantly less pleased with both the food and the attitude. Actually that place really pissed me off. There was a noticeable racist vibe about the joint, a "never forget" style plaque naming an Arab cop-killer from a murder almost thirty years ago, and a gag photo of Geno himself getting blown by a porn star while two bare-breasted femmes looked on, which was proudly displayed on some of the tables - which, given the three little girls happily eating their sandwiches with their parents at the next table over, was sort of the last straw for me. I was not sad to kiss that fuckin' place goodbye.
Tonight I made what can only be described as a catastrophic gustatory error tonight, sending us out for dinner in spite of the fact that we’d each had the 2 philly cheese steaks apiece, along with a nice breakfast, and on my part anyway, a “peanut butter sandwich” chocolate square that might very well have been the Allspark. The good news is that staring down at a pound of pasta apiece, Matty Price and I proceeded to throw ourselves into a giggle fit that will define the art form for years to come. So that's good times.
Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, which will either be the best or the worst day we'll have here.
Geeking it up oldschool here:
Rorschach -
Your heart's in the right place. But you're freaking everyone the fuck out. CHILL! Think about the long-term consequences of what you're doing.
- Matt
think of consequences of not doing work.
scares me more.
.RR.
OK - who would win in a fight: you or the Joker?
joker not real.
i am.
.RR.
Also, as of last night's trailer crawl I am officially all about:
Gimme gimme gimme.
Philadelphia, day 2. After giving the big fat "meh" to the second-biggest mall in the country and securing our DigiTrans tickets for the evening, Matty Price and I went to downtown Philadelphia, home of the Gozer building:
On the way into town we pulled off the highway suddenly (random changes of plan were MP's gestalt for the day) and found a circle of statues originally erected by the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America, which looked to me like a perfect place to fuck outdoors. At least, if I lived in this city, that's where I'd be doing it. On the way back to our car, me and Matthew were intercepted by a woman who proceeded to tell us that a small bush nearby had been the site of a week-long Virgin Mary apparition back in the 1960s, and that once when this woman had driven by the spot, she had begun speaking in tongues. It's the little details.
After visiting City Hall - you know, that thing they use in any movie set in Philadelphia to prove that the movie is set in Philadelphia - and sending some postcards, we found the single best burger place I have ever been to, and then headed down to Chinatown. I looked through a door and saw a glittering Asian wonderland beyond and so went inside, and got into a bit of a situation when a cute Chinese girl noticed me looking at some dragon-headed canes on display, walked over, unscrewed the head of one of the canes, and a sword came out. This becomes important later, when Matty Price and I tried to visit the Liberty Bell with cane in hand, and were told that really you can't go into a government installation with a cane that turns into an edge weapon. REALLY? But of course I bought the dragon head sword cane. Of course I did. Honestly when the cute Chinese girl popped the sword out of that dragon cane she could very easily have told me the damn thing sold for two hundred dollars and I would have whipped out the Visa and said "I'll take two." There are some battles I just can't fight, and a cane sword can turn out dead useful in a sticky situation.
Beautiful Philadelphia!:
Here's Matty Price putting his head on John Hancock's plaque:
And here's the two of us amusing ourselves greatly on the duck bus:
The duck bus was one of those roving vehicular amphibo-dealies that went into the water. It was made challenging because they handed out noisemaking duck bills to everyone aboard to honk merrily as we went along, and the woman in front of me just couldn't get enough of that fucking thing. I mean, she was having the time of her life. And I had a cane in my bag that turned into a sword. Actually I got a keen insight into the nature of violence when I realized that having a weapon around really does drive up the urges. My brain just kept saying "I have a cane in my bag that turns into a sword I have a cane in my bag that turns into a sword I have a cane in my bag that turns into a sword" over and over again as this excruciating woman kept honking on her duck. Man howdy they won't let you take a sword cane to see the Liberty Bell but they're okay on duck buses? What a country.
On the way back to the hotel at the end of the day, a huge military helicopter buzzed the interstate before pealing off and disappearing into the setting sun. It put a lot of stuff in perspective for me. If I lived in a country where shit like that happened all the time, I'd think my country was pretty awesome too. I think I need these annual trips down to the U.S. to do away with all the built-up dislike so that I can see some of the good side of things.
It's 11:43 p.m... Transformers has already made a trillion hundred dollars. True story.
Matty Price and I saw Transformers tonight in probably the best circumstances you possibly could - with an American crowd, in a room filled with Transformers fans, on a 2K digital projector. Holy sweet mother of fuck filmies, it's over. That was the sweetest pimp ride of a filmed image I have ever fucking seen. The movie? Yeah all right. It's oddly effective and ineffective in equal measure, varies wildly in tone from moment to moment (including the ten-minute "capering Autobots" scene), and is pretty much exactly every single thing that a Transformers movie needs to accomplish in order to be a Transformers movie. Seeing Optimus stand up and walk around and talk like Optimus made me a 12-year-old boy again, and Michael Bay's continued inability to understand basic storytelling made the end of the film feel a bit like being hit by a flying piece of concrete. So... all expectations present and accounted for, yes sir.
Now here's the thing: when I was a kid, me and Adam had maybe three Transformers apiece and for each of them, we could transform behind our backs with our eyes closed. Like marines. A few weeks ago, though, I bought Blackout from the new movie... and it takes me about twenty minutes to transform him, with two pages of detailed instructions. I patently refuse to believe that this is just because I'm post-pubescent, and therefore insist that Transformers have gotten harder. Does that seem like the right move to you?
No really.
Now reporting to you live from the road at the Sleep Inn (ooh witty hotel name punnin'!) in lovely nowhere-near-the-downtown Philadelphia, Land of Shyamalan, Home the Village and the Cove and the Crop Circles From The Signs. How I ever lived in hotels that did not have complimentary WiFi, I cannot tell you. For certain, the room here is not large and any cable tether would doubtlessly give me free-ranging access to every corner of the place, but WiFi tastes better. And so, being in America, I consoom.
Drive took a while. We got caught in the recurring Devil's Snare of my life's navigational exploits, the goddamn QEW/403 switchover outside of Hamilton. That thing is my Kryptonite. Two spectacular girlfriend fights, three of the worst getting-losts of my entire life, and then today's needless couple-hour detour into nowhereland (and eggs), all because of that Bermuda fucking Triangle of Southern Ontario. It's because the rules don't make sense there. Up is down, black is white, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! And then even when we literally turned around and went back the way we came to get out of this problem at last, we got caught up in July 1 QEW traffic. So we only got over the border at around 2:00, having left Toronto at 9:00. Shameful.
Border guard: Reason for your visit?
Us: Going down for the Fourth of July.
Border guard: So you're celebrating the Canadian holiday in the United States?
Us: Pretty much yeah.
We stopped in Syracuse to go to the Dinosaur BBQ, a place Matty Price found online. It's a biker bar... for the whole family. Syracuse is a weird fuckin' town on a Sunday afternoon (every parking spot taken, but no humans visible anywhere), but the Dinosaur was swarming with folks. Oh by the way? Best food ever. Holy mother fuck. I had the Mojito Criollo Chicken Steak with mac and cheese on the side and it was like if Jamie Oliver jacked off in Strawberry Shortcake's hair and made her make a mince pie. i.e. really fucking good. And yes, there was the obligatory waitress crush on both our parts (she sent us out with a complimentary portion of the day's featured desert, Porn on a Plate), but let's not talk about that; let's just revisit the food:
Oh fuck I'm hungry again.
Now Matty Price are iChatting with each other from beds separated by less than three feet of distance, because we have run out of other ways to make conversation interesting, and looking at Marisa Tomei's breasts on the internet. It's gonna be peculiar in here in a minute.