Jan Svankmajer - Jidlo

Jan Svankmajer is a Czechoslovakian surrealist film-maker. He made a couple of short films. A floormate of mine showed Jidlo, at least the lunch and breakfast portions of it. He didn't like dinner as much so didn't show the last half. They're very neat, funny really. They're stop-motion, which is neat. They're about 5-10 minutes long. Some of his things are on YouTube.

Malls and Anacondas

I went clothes shopping the other day at the Ann Arundel and Annapolis malls. We saw Stardust in the Ann Arundel mall theatre, Egyptian Muvico. That theatre was very nice and I bought one outfit (a shirt and some pants). It was all rather a waste, haha. The fall season isn't very good. The shops I wanted to go to changed their stock and what I wanted was no longer there. By the time I got to Annapolis, the mall I wanted to go to, I was too tired and not-caring to attempt to really search for clothing. Instead we visited some lizards and snakes at the pet shop. I bought the first volume of Showcase Presents: House of Mystery, which I have been reading constantly. It is good. The stories are a little campy at times, but for the most part, they do their part. They had pretty good writers for the series. And Cain, well... Cain has a very interesting wardrobe. I love his pajamas. Polka-doted, which all I can think of as being green and pink. Respectably spooky colours to not come polka-doted. He rather likes the word groovy, which I find inexorably strange. Along with that, he likes alliteration and cheesy lines like 'I had a bone to pick with him... his wishbone' or something like that. Oh and puns, terrible puns. He's not a very spooky man but more so very strange and almost sad. Every so often he has something bad happen to him (rather than the people in his stories) or he will actually be apart of the story, a bystander or an interference in some cases. I love Gregory (which is the same Gregory in Sandman). There is a promo for House of Secrets and I love how he basically sits there all day staring at the house with binoculars and angrily muttering how much he hates his brother. I wish that they will, at some point, make reprints of House of Secrets.

I also spent the night at Kiwii's house. Which was fun.

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For those of you who do not know, I have restarted Never Wonder Nights and its brothers. I've been trying to finish this Cain story but I keep getting distracted by the internet. A blog about paleo-future and a photo of a snake dragging a wallaby or kangaroo away (I was never good at which is which).

So I've found some of my scraps of ideas. I'll take a scrap, write something neat down and it'll disappear. I found one I wrote during X-mas Eve dinner about Crowley and him having to show some idiot young demon around the ways of Earth (reluctantly of course). A couple of fortune cookie fortunes I like, my most favourite being: Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Things like that.

I really like the Dream fortune. I want to add it, perhaps as the first page, to what I've dubbed Theatre Magic, for lack of a good title. Some of you remember about it. It's about this terribly hectic author who cannot do anything. He's tried to interview a lot of people and end up late to the meeting or never got anywhere after the interview, etc. His very annoyed bitchy friend, who is an actor, gives him a chance to interview her and her players for a new play. They've been asked by a lot of others, but she's being nice for once and giving him a chance. He embarks on a dream through the theatre and ends up in a strange fairy-like world with tales and very tricky people. The first he meets are Tragedy and Comedy, the goddesses of theatre. They're naked, except for their unmoving masks, and neither of them can be trusted because they both tell the truth and lies. At the end his friend wakes him up, wondering why he's so early to the theatre (because he didn't want to be late and therefore slept in his car in the parking lot) and he blows off the interview because he has this brilliant idea. I don't know how long the story is. There's a lot of stories within his dream, which may or may not only be a dream (you can never tell). I don't know how many stories but I do, at least, know the beginning (which has changed since I last started to talk about it) and the ending (which didn't really change). I know it takes form of a comic. Which is sort of hard being that I don't have an inker, colourist or sketcher.

Idiots' Books

Link

A little while ago, I wandered into my local used bookseller. I get all my signed editions of Neil Gaiman from him. (And we all know that's very important.)

For a very long time, a month I think, I have noticed Idiots' Books painted on the window. Finally, after several travels to random states, I entered and asked what this sign was about. He told me that the Idiots' Books were a local budding book publisher. An illustrator and writer joined together and began producing books, monthly. Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr produce their books by themselves, so you get very interesting results. The book I own is Ten Thousand Stories. I like it a lot.

If those of you are interested for these books for your kids, well... they're not quite for that. They're not like Pan's Labyrinth, but they're closer to Stardust. A strange comparison. So much that it MAY be enjoyable for children, it isn't what these books seem to be for. Especially very young children. I could have enjoyed them amusedly (but not quite understandably) when I was ten. Of course I had a weird childhood, see post below. I would suggest getting some of these. I rather liked Ten Thousand Stories. The art was very intriguing and marvellous. Brilliant.

I, when I remember, read Idiot's Box. This is Robbi's blog. Nice and funny woman. I'd suggest reading it.

I find this most strange, I'm used to a small tiny town with no one quite famous (perhaps our resident writer, Peter Heck, which I am embarrassed to say I have never read his books), but I could, when walking into the Book Plate (the used and signed bookseller), run into Robbi or Matthew. A lot of times the authors of books I read are unreachable (a fair few are dead) and this is mildly disconcerting but makes going into town a little more exhilarating. I do not know what I would want to say to them. Hmmm...

I was always a very bad journalist.

Is it harder or easier than what it seems?

THE MAN OF THE WEEK IS HERBERT GEORGE WELLS.
(I think I can see why he uses abbreviations for his name)

"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft."

"There comes a moment in the day, when you have written your pages in the morning, attended to your correspondence in the afternoon and having nothing further to do. Then comes the hour when you are bored; that's the time for sex."

"If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn't esxpecting it."

The middle quote? It just... WHAT? That's my only reaction. I don't know what to say to it. It's just WEIRD.

He was my favourite author as a kid. Besides Doctor Who, some of the earlier movies I remember was the '77 version of Island of Dr Moreau and '78 version of Time Machine (I often times confuse Time Machine with my favourite episodes of DW - Keeper of Traken, Logopolis and Castrovalva (The first scene that comes to mind when I heard Doctor Who was the picture of the Master killing a guy and slipping into his clock-shaped TARDIS, which was apart of Keeper of Traken.) I remember how AWESOME and cool Island of Dr Moreau was. I saw it in Maine. I think it would be my first B&W film.

- I originally put it as 78's version of Time Machine, however I was WRONG. I meant the 60's version, HAHAHA. (I want to see the BBC 40's TV version).

- I ALSO originally put it as the 77's version of Island of Doctor Moreau. Umm... I was was 50 YEARS off. Mine was B&W, 77's was colour. YEA. I watched old movies as a child, WHAT THE HELL. And YOU'RE wondering why I never know about some newer hip cool rad... groovy movie. Anything past the 70s is like... rare game. I watched Doctor Who and Monty Python's flying Circus, so that's 60s to '81 (never saw Davison) and '69 up to something. Red Dwarf was '88, so at least I had something from the 80s. Jurassic Park and The Mummy were my favourite new movies (they're classics in our family, GOD I LOVE THEM). I listened to '40s and classical (via grandmother). I DANCED to classical music (it was interpretive dance and VERY embarrassing, they were records, I should go find out what song it was that was my favourite ever, the records should be somewhere).

I didn't realise that he came into the '40s (of 1900s). I always though closer to Mary Shelley, >.>

"While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness in not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful."

This is pretty much my default LAW of life. Either I have never seen this quote before and nonetheless adhered to it OR I did once and have forgotten. While I'm not exactly CHEERFUL, more so optimistic in my cynical and sarcastic way, at least I've always been sure everything would end up optimistically.

I love this man so much. I like his quotes a lot. I want to ask Everdell, Robinson, Kaylor or Woodworth if they got History of Ideas from him. He once said 'Human history in essence is the history of ideas.' and I THINK that might be how they got the title of their class. If not, DAMN. I really hope so though.

...

Kiwii and I were talking about time machines. She joked that hers was heading towards 16th century China (which 16th century, I don't know... there's many after all and even more so if you stray from the typical Gregorian calender). I told her that I'd rather head to England, March 1817. Why and when? Not entirely sure. As I'd figure, getting in that range itself would be pretty difficult. A lot of close steering and sharp edges. Let alone the whole 'where the hell IS it anyways?' problem aside. I mean 1817 in the Gregorian calender, I think. It's the March that sets it as a calender, purely 1817 is VERY tricky decide WHICH year and, overall, WHAT 1817 MEANS (time, day, year, month, decade, century, second, minute, placement, galaxy, degree, house number, station number, level number, number of unknown measures... all in the matter of... generalisational terms of course, this is just ENGLISH, American 1990-2007 English at that). Every so often, if you catch me off guard, I'll name a weird date. In this case I thought it was Wednesday March 1817. I thought of England. I figure something interesting is there. If not, it was me being random and I wasted some energy and the thought processes of me and my time machine.

If you're wondering, I do INDEED think this way. Which explains a lot, especially when I look at you quizzically, say something random and walk away (sometimes I JUST walk away).

Unhiatus

I am OFF hiatus and GASP, I bring things.

In this section, I should be posting something some time later, in Never Wonder Nights, some stories quite soon, and in Masterpiece Theatre, there are some reviews to be done and some movies (Stardust) to be reviewed. So hang tight, things should be coming up.

I proper normal post of 'this is my life' should appear later.

I hate to say this, I really do.

Sorry, but I am going to have to say that this Blog is now officially on haitus.

I figured that everything would blow over, be quick, nice and easy. But it won't. I will not be able to post for a while. Well, maybe here I can. This is a normal journal, after all, but the other two will not be updated too soon.

Not that anyone reads this.

A rant no one really wants to read

This is one of those rants in which I will be talking about something that no one knows about but me and is only here because I'm being narcissistic. It's one of those 'I'm ranting about a story idea' which means that no one else will really want to hear about it.

A long time ago, I wrote two stories. One was about two vampires wandering into a diner. Eventually they end up killing the staff. It was a project done for fiction class. We were given the first page of the Killers (Hemingway) and told to write the rest of it. The other was about two detectives looking for a supernatural killer. The two detectives themselves are rather off-beat. They're heavily noir-based, from London and are rather supernatural themselves. I loved these four characters a lot. I always wanted them based in their own books somewhere. I recently made up two new characters. One is a kidnapper and the other a demon who was the kidnappee. All six of these characters live in the same world. Slightly fifties based, lots of smoking and cursing and suits. I figured they could all star in the same book. Maybe even give them their own one day or at least a few short stories.

Frankie and Al were the first I created. They are vampires. They both wear suits. Frankie doesn't really smoke and nor does he really curse. He would, but he has Al do it for him. Frankie is older than Al, I'm not sure by how much, and he constantly feels sorry for all the people Al talks to. Al smokes and curses like hell. That's all there is to him. He's also rather self-centred.

Spade is the head detective. He has a power over fire, and no one really knows how much, and tends to smoke because he likes the niftiness of never having to buy a lighter. Spade is not his real name. His real name is unknown and not detective-enough, as he puts it. Bartibus Max is his partner. He's older than Spade. He's also shorter and stockier. He has power over water. He spends his nights in brothels and is constantly out of cash (and has to steal it from Spade's pockets). Most people would argue that he could beat down Spade in a fight (of supernatural powers) but as Spade would like to say 'In this world, there are no cheap tricks of elemental superiority; water may extinguish flame, but heat evaporates water'.

Raymond Smelt had the unlucky chance to kidnap the wrong demon. His life was constantly a battle of bad luck and failure. In a way, he would have rather picked the right demon and died rather than pick the wrong demon, especially this one. He might have had a better chance in Hell. Belle, for all her sweet and innocent looks, was harbouring a dangerous secret, one that was wanted in five planes of existence. The problem was, she was just too adorable. She wasn't particularly mean and nasty, either. She was just dangerous to be around. She liked Ray, even if he spilled greasy food on his pants and tripped while running from a fight. He bought her sweets, after all. No one had ever done that. They mostly attempted to capture, maim and kill her for her powers.

This story, which has no name, will revolve around all three groups. Ray, being the man who kidnapped Belle, is an obvious choice. Spade and Max are trying to find Belle and bring Ray into jail for minor atrocities and bringing a dangerous being into the first plane on Earth. Frankie and Al? Well, they're just there. Their purpose is unknown and probably a little bit of a secret. I just think they shouldn't be left out of the fun, even if they're just cameos.

Film Class

So, I haven't popped up around here in ever. This is rare, because I have something I have written. They are, of course, just some bad essays from school, but hey... why not? (It's probably just because I want to procrastinate, haha).

The movies are M, The Third Man and Breathless.

M is directed by Fritz Lang (his wife wrote the script, I think), is German and from 1931.

The Third Man is directed by Carroll Reed (written by many people, most notably Orsen Welles), is British and from 1941.

Breathless is directed by Jean-Luc Gudard (amazingly I spelled it correctly), is French and from 1959.

Pan's Labyrinth Review

Yesterday... Yesterday was seeing Pan's Labyrinth. Kristin and Kiwii went with me to see the movie at the Harbour Centre (Annapolis). We arrived relatively early and meandered around for a while. We went to the bookstore, where Kristin bought a few books (Augh... Good Omens and Complete Lewis Carroll?).

The movie was excellent. It is adult, it is rated R. Some people said it was very gory, which it certainly is not, but it is not free of violence or blood. There are three parts that would claim 'gore', but it is not like these Saw or Chainsaw Massacre movies, which are relatively akin to the pulp horrors of the 50s. It was, to say, necessary gore. It could have been done, cinematographically, differently but it was better this way. The audience understood it this way. The example I will use (and not be a spoiler) is when the Captain beats and kills a man with a bottle. We see him break his nose and smash it in. I would deem that more violent than gory. However, when watching it, remember that 1. This is NOT an American film and 2. It has violence and blood (and some gore).

I expected there to be more of the fantasy. While Ofelia is the main character, we get a lot more of the Spanish Civil War and the Captain, in some ways, than Pan and the fae. I think Gaiman (oh shut up, there are not many OTHER authors on blogs so I can't quote them, now can I??) said it best: 'an uncompromisinly adult film, with a child and her fairy tale inset into it as a contrast and echo.' There are two plots, really. I thought they would converge at one point (and that was slightly disappointing, but I will get to that later), but they never really do. There is the Captain (and his bastardness) with Ofelia's mother and Ofelia and her brother and then there is Ofelia and Pan and the fairies. The movie is mostly done through Ofelia, but we also see a lot of the Captain's view. That is, of course, interesting. As the villain, we should see less of him and more of Ofelia, but when we are in the real world with the Spanish Civil War, we see both Ofelia and the Captain. When we slip in the fairy world, we only see Ofelia. There are no 'only Pan' moments. We get Ofelia and that is it. Actually, for a movie called Pan's Labyrinth, it is not so much as based around the labyrinth itself. (Do not mistake me, for I love the fact that it is called that).

I loved the faun and the white man. I should actually stop calling the faun 'Pan' because I don't think he was named that. He was always just the faun. The white man was most interesting. Both were the same man, if I remember correctly... Yes, it was Doug Jomes who played them. I love the costuming for that. It was latex plus CGI-ed lower halves (if you look at the white man's lower half, it is extremely skinny and unhuman). The legs for both were made latex and they deleted Doug's legs, out of the picture. Very interesting and beautiful. Nothing was, I think, compeletely and utterly CGI. The fairies are the only thing. Everything else was latex - the frog, the captain's face... the mandrake was there, too. That makes me very pleased with Guillermo del Toro. It was done, special effects wise, how I think films should be done - anything that can be done (well) with latex and models and costumes, do so... anything else done by CGI. The imagery was wonderful (as an add-on, so was the music).

I found it interesting how I forgot about the sub-titles. Completely forgot. They were done well.

Now, the plotlines. This is most likely to contain a bit of spoilers (I will attempt to NOT make many, but I'll put the horrifically big ones in white). I thought that, in the end, Ofelia's world and the real world would collide. Interestingly, it never really did. Some people might be disappointed, I found it refreshing. It was nice for them to not, blatantly, converge. My theory on it is that the faun and fairies are all in Ofelia's mind. ((SPOILER, highlight to see: This is most obvious when the Captain (his name is Vidal, apparently) enters the middle of the labyrinth. He does not see the faun and the faun does not see the Captain. There is no interaction at all. )). It is a bit iffy, really. There are some things that it does not make entire sense, but we do see it (the fairy parts) through Ofelia. The movie is not a fairy tale, so much as a war story fused into one. Instead of seeing it through the eyes of an adult, where we would get an accurate tale of the war, we get it through the eyes of a little girl who is obsessed with fairies and fantasy. Ofelia, being an imaginitive little girl, does not absorb herself into the happenings of the war and so, makes up her own little world. The only way we can see anything about the war is if we look through the Captain's eyes or Mercedes (I realise I haven't said much on her... haha) or Ofelia's mother or even the Doctor ((SPOILER, highlight to see: Minor note, I love it when the Doctor dies. It is astonishingly done... The view of the camera and his actions - wonderful)). If the film was done entirely through the eyes of Ofelia, we would not have any of the war, most likely. It would have been all faun and fairies.

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On another note, Ray Bradbury is going to Comic-Con. This makes me really happy. Now it is both Bradbury AND Gaiman, haha!

First Chapters Writing Competition

http://www.gather.com/viewGroup.jsp?grpId=3659174697244428

On Gather.com, there is a competition running of Touchstone's to publish a book. Sadly, I cannot enter. I do not have a finished manuscript, which makes me want to cry. I'll wait until another opportunity, but felt like sharing this. ((And if anyone else new to Gather was wondering, yes... it is extremely confusing your first time around)).

Snow and cuts.

http://kino-express.ru/stills/stardust

Russian site, has a lot of pictures of the movie (Stardust).

http://www.theoriginalsushipillow.com/home.html

Wonderful pillows. They are very beautiful and I really would love to get one. They are sushi pillows. I want the avocado nigiri and the shrimp the most.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6286617.stm

Romanian news (because I care?). I always post these articles.

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I got my haircut (whoo). It's a lot shorter than before. It was too long, before. It was grating on my nerves, really. This is the best picture I took (no one was awake when I was taking pictures, so I had to take them by myself). I look a tiny bit scary here?


Here is when I first tried to take my picture, and sort of missed.


Finally, this is how short it is in the back:



If you want a reference picture, this is what I looked like before hand:



Much shorter.

On another note, it is snowing here. It's been snowing off and on this week, but it snowed uite a lot (actually) today. It kept flurrying. It was very beautiful. We all went out and threw snow at each other and played, for the most part. Then everyone shuffled off to go home.

I figured out how to add fonts to Word (and all that). It was very amazing. I've added Ancient (both versions) and Go'auld, from Stargate. It amused me greatly.

I've been doing nothing all night. I ought to go do my homework now... *sighs*. (I also need to finish up reading Spindle's End and give it back to Cunningham).

...

Edit: I had forgotten to mention this earlier, but I am going to see Pan's Labyrinth this Saturday. It is playing at 7 in the Harbor theatre and I can't find the thing for the mall theatre (this would be in Annapolis). We (my dad and I) want to arrive in Annapolis at 6-ish, so we (Kristin, Kiwii and I) can eat dinner and kind of play around for a bit. I was hoping for the movie to be at 7:30 so that we could have more time, but the only other time is 10 and that is most certainly too late (we can only see a movie around 7 or 8 because of when Kristin gets off work).

The Sacrificing Brother (A. Cain Arlini) - Link

The Sacrificing Brother (A. Cain Arlini) has been written, edited and finished... and submitted to Suite 21.

The Sacrificing Brother (A. Cain Arlini) is about a more-or-less modern-day Cain and Abel story. ((There is no definitive time period, but it is done in the 20th century)). Cain and Abele are sons of the mafia members: Adem and Ava Arlini. Cain and Abele live and run an apartment building. Abele, to his dismay, is beaten by his brother on a monthly (and sometimes weekly) basis. The Sacrificing Brother is a second part (of sorts) to The Sacrificial Brother (Abele Arlini).

Note: I will be making these little posts from time to time because it is easier to look at then digging through my mass of links in Never Wonder Nights.

Links, links to lists and wasting time.

Archeophone would be a website about 'old' music, basically (stuff that's from 1900-1920 type stuff and earlier). Interesting.

Adam Buxton's blog. Don't know if I posted this before or not, but I like his blog. Amusing.

I keep meaning to look through this blog thoroughly. It's relatively interesting and I need to look up Susanna Henderson now.

I've heard of John Crowley before (in passing mention while looking up something Good Omen-ish). I like his list, it IS something good to look at, if you're a fantasy writer (especially) and good if you like reading (fantasy, mostly) and, in general, like writing or reading.

Kawaii Not. Somtimes funny and always cute. Webcomic. ((I sometimes think I should put up a list of webcomics that I think are amusing, good and/or entertaining)).

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Because I don't want to list it all here, I'm going to give the link for my livejournal. ((Same material, but with the big gigantic list of books. Basically, if you don't want to read it, skip on. If you do... well, you know what to do)).

I'm supposed to be saving my money for Comic-con (seeing how that's my GRADUATE PRESENT, that means that I get no money for it). I'm not sure how that'll work if I have such a long and tantalising booklist, >.<'' (that gets longer about every week... there are still some things that are not written down that I want).

...

I've 'applied' to the local library, so I can get my community service hours. I have 18 and I need 45 (on the whole and general... basically minus 18 from that because I'm not very good with math). I'm hoping that I pick my grades up enough so that I can actually get to intern. What will I do for interning? Who the hell knows. I have no freaking clue as to what I'd do for interning. It's a very broad thing, me interning. I kind of want to do something like Vertigo or something random and fun and interesting. I don't think I'd be able to intern there, haha.

Blogging is very impeding towards writing. I've wasted a few hours now. *sighs*

Step up and enjoy the show.

So, this is the pilot of a new blog. It seems as though I am creating a collection every few months. First my livejournal, than Never Wonder Nights and now this (thankfully this is only an ammendment to Never Wonder Nights and not a completely new blog). This will, most likely, contain a lot of the same information of my livejournal.

This is still in 'construction'. As you can see, there are no links up. I'm not sure why not, but I'll figure that out eventually. ((As a small note, Never Wonder Nights is still in slight construction)). I would love to figure out how to cut long posts. Perhaps it is not even possible on blogger, but Never Wonder Nights posts are always so long and it is hard to navigate. I also need to add a few links. I need to add the Suite 21 link (that would be a writing club I belong to... even if it seems to not reallybe going anywhere) and my librarythings page (for those wondering, go here. I personally like librarythings). Besides all of that, I have been trying to figure out RSS feeds. I would love to put this up on livejournal. Perhaps that would actually mean people reading these things. This is probably a small hope, but maybe, just maybe, it might not be.