well, after sleeping twelve out of twenty-four hours, i clambered out of my coffin (hiss!) to a sunday morning, which meant-- you have to get a hair-cut special attack maneuver! i went to a salon! it was fez, which is crazy, right? naming your hair salon after a type of hat! first, alex! she looked liked a dark haired version of sweet pea from that clothing designer show you all like. she washed my hair, & so i tipped her! she seemed very surprised that i did! i think she probably expected that i wouldn't, since i gave off all kinds of "what the hell is happening to me right now?!?" anyhow, after that, the owner, rudy came & cut my hair. he would, you know, sort of ask what i wanted, & i'd be totally helpful. "a hair-cut!" that is what i want! "do you want to keep your sideburns this length?" "you tell me!" or you know, whatever. anyhow, so i got my hair cut, & then after that, i picked up sandwiches.
Current Mood:songs? from where!? Current Music:crown me king- crickets, spiders, ______
"This is pretty well reasoned on a lot of points. I don't think it is quite as squeak-worthy as you, & I really liked the movie, but let me make a defense of it. Simply this: Iron Man, Tony Stark, is a white male. Now, I'm willing to 100% agree with you that the proliferation of white males in comics is the result of systematic racism & sexism over the course of three-quarters of a century. Both characters & professionals. It is only now (actually, I'd say maybe it started with the original Crisis in a big way) starting to change.
The corollary to this is that...well, if you want to make a movie with Tony Stark as the main character, he's going to be a white male. You could argue that they could have made a Rhodes Iron Man movie, but why not start at the beginning? With Tony, with the actual text of the comic. You could argue that they could have race-swapped Tony like they did with Nick Fury, but then what is the movie? "My dad the WWII weapons dealer" doesn't make sense, & then you could argue that the portrayal of the character as a jerk would be a negative representation of whatever ethnicity you switched him for. Besides all that, the further you diverge from your source, the more danger of collapse you get into.
So looking at Pepper & Jim as "subservient" is I think a little disingenuous. Yes, they are support roles, but they are support characters. They aren't the main protagonist of this film. Yes, that is because of a legacy of discrimination. As far as specifics go, though, I'm not going to cry foul.
Sure, the reporter gets treated like trash. Doesn't she come back later & punch Tony Stark's ticket? He treats her like a sex-hole, & she comes back & while he's expecting her to be "an angry ex" or whatever, she's pissed at his corporate practices. I thought that was an interesting tweak in the power dynamic.
Speaking of women & the power dynamic: Pepper gets herself out of trouble. I'm not saying Pepper is a super positive feminist archetype-- she's a secretary-- but I certainly don't think she's a negative one. The same goes for Jimbo-- you know, he doesn't get as much attention, & he does get dominated by Tony, but at the same time, when the chips are down, he tells Stark to go fuck himself. So does Pepper, when Tony tries to schmooze her.
Tony Stark is portrayed as a highly charismatic asshole who slowly becomes less asshole. You know what, the idea that soldiers might be vulnerable to star factor? Um, yeah. Soldiers aren't magical war robots, & I think that did a lot to humanize the situation. Instead of just dudes in uniforms getting blown away, the movie managed to make some kind of connection with them.
As to Iron Man as agent of violence against outsider forces-- well, isn't that the whole premise of the genre? One individuals actions succeeding where a authority group fails? One person fighting crime, or aliens, or whatever? You know? Iron Man shows up & yeah, he beats up "Terrorist Bad Guys." & sure the fiction element is strong there-- but wouldn't it be nice if there was an easy "Iraqi Bad Guys" group to fight?
As to your statement that Brown Men have the "right to kill" provided it is handed to them by the White Man, uh...I think actually the text totally supports that reading...& demonizes it. I think, yeah, it is pretty overt that what you'd call the white guy is what the movie represents as Western Military Industrial Complex in the form of Stane & pre-change Stark. Sure, putting on your fighting robot suit to stop mis-use of arms isn't a reasonable solution, & maybe you disagree with the argument that weapons dealing in any form is unethical-- the film addresses those complexities (Tony Starks shutting down the arms dealing till he can "figure out" what to do with it) while yeah, at the same time providing a simple answer (just beat up the bad guys) as this is fiction & we're looking for a satisfying story.
Oh & calling Jim Rhodes a shuck & jive sidekick? Woah. I don't see that anywhere in the film. That is a pretty crazy statement-- when does that happen? I mean, the rest of your racial critique I can get behind to one degree or another, but Rhodes doesn't come across as a racial stereotype at any point. It sounds to me like inflammatory language used to reinforce a point, but to me it just undermines your other arguments."
Current Mood:blogosphere experiment Current Music:crown me king- iron man versus war pig
oru the inch-worm. after work i stayed on the great roaring red dragon with david, & then switched over to the green for EXPRESS SERVICE. i was headed to atlantic, do not cross go, do not collect $200. my actual destination was the men's wearhouse, to go suit shopping. jenny hates, hates men's wearhouse, & i couldn't even tell you why. i will tell you that she's the one who pointed out the terrible pun, that it is "wear"house instead of warehouse, which okay. is pretty awful. but i've had a fondness for it since kingtycoon took me there when i was a wee sprout, so it is always the first place that leaps to mind. anyhow, my guy there was eli. hello eli! we shook hands like men-- the whole thing was conducted under the auspices of masculinity. oh there was a lot of that, but in an acceptable way. there was just a framework for ceding authority-- i am buying the suit but don't know anything about suits, do he becomes both my worker & my boss. it would be tricky, if the dominance structure wasn't so clear. "let me take your things, sir!" "here, try this on, sir." funny. i'm a 44 long, now, just for the record, & a little skinnier than perfectly proportional. according to eli, at least. he's my suit guy, you know. anyhow, we eventually found something nice-- a four button three piece in black, but he's got to get it in, & that'll take a few days, then it has to get tailored, which will take a few more days. i'm not worried though, it should be finished up in plenty of time. then i picked up burritos, came home, & then jenny & i were fussy clutch babies until she fell asleep at like, nine. what! so i stayed up, drinking my final glass of chartreuse & goofing around with toys. shut up about it why don't you!
Current Mood:day of chronos Current Music:crown me king- idol in shackles
this whole wedding thing is weird, but presumably it is a one-time deal, so that is a pretty nice floating mote to keep your eye on. you check something off the list & it is checked fucking off. last night after work i slid home for just long enough to gulp down a glass of wine before it was time to ride the orange dragon (hey, don't tell tiamat!) to chinatown to pick up jenny from work. then it was a little bit of tube-dodging into the point of greenpoint to meet up with matt, who will be doing the photographing. we met at the korean grill, ittl ore, & while waiting for matt to show, jenny & i sucked down a bottle of vino & a plate of kimchee, & some tempura; matt slid into the booth sometime later & we got cooking! then jenny & i chilled out in the park while matt zoomed away in his motorized bi-cycle, insisting we needed yogurt. insisting. "it has cultures!" he shouted as he sped away.
matt's apartment is in a greenpointy part of the point, which is good. he's a couple of blocks further in from where i normally go to visit. i liked that his pad was filled with tools, like the garage of my house growing up. i played with he dog kind of autistically for a while. really, i was no help, but then, i don't think anyone was! jenny & i don't know what we want our pictures to look like, we just don't want them to look like gross wedding photos. that is really all i have to add! so that was weird; i sank into a fugue pretty deeply. i'm a joy to have around! eventually matt's guest the charming noel came home & we got to chatterboxing while matt...did mysterious things with umbrellas. really, i can't stress enough how little help i was. i drank crown royale & talked to bugs. & talked to noel. & put matt's key's in the refridgerator. i'm pleasent! we were there sort of sheparding the process till about something thirty (?:30). two, three thirty (2:30, 3:30). then it was the cars to take us home! thanks, knightrider. nightrider. whichever.
Current Mood:shantilly lace? Current Music:crown me king- is hiding under your bed again
ka-pow! fucking crooked ass guys. i caught the shadiest buyback guy trying to trick me, so i ran out in the rain to tell him that i didn't want to see him again & threaten him with hellfire & police attention. not that the fucking cops were around when it would be helpful. seriously though, fuck that guy. his master plan is to hide around the corner? fuck that, i'm having dudes check around the corner. done & done. i know peter gets pissed about it & comes up with acme (tm) plans to bust them, but now fuck him from me too. anyhow, now a girl just came in & her name was lovelie, so that is pretty much better.
Current Mood:fantastic-four leg lock! Current Music:crown me king- maximillion in the black hole
intergalactic. planetary: crossing worlds by warren ellis, phil jimenez, jerry ordway, & john cassaday.
something about planetary didn't click with me. on the surface, it seems like a great idea: fight the evil fantastic four! do lots of comics pastiche! but maybe i'm a little sick of "grimming up" silver age stuff? there is a certain element of that inherent in planetary. hey, maybe that is what the late nineties & early oughts are all about. see also the authority, right? but this was fun enough. in one of them...planetary & the authority crossed over? that was pretty confusingly plotted; i still don't know what was supposed to be going on. in another one, an evil planetary was fought by the diana prince, clark kent, & bruce wayne that the four killed in regular planetary continuity. that was...alright, though it did make me more resolute in my opinion that wonder woman should become slightly more morally ambiguous (see also: "fuck you max lord, snap"). the third one was planetary versus a bunch of different continuity batmen. batmans. whatever. i liked it, especially the part where the adam west batman defeated them. that was great.
Current Mood:gotta go! Current Music:crown me king- bondage chicken?
fourth edition peeks. keep on the shadowfell by bruce cordell & mike mearls.
see, this is good word of mouth advertising. send me a free copy of your adventure! i'll spread the word, you bet! so here is what is of note in keep on the shadowfell: quickstart rules & an adventure. & insight into the format future adventures will be published in-- lets start with that. okay, i think thirty bucks ($29.95) might be a bit pricey for what i've got here. see, okay. i ought to describe it. the cover is basically a trapper-keeper folder, with one side filled with a magazine-bound adventure booklet & the other with more magazine-bound quickstart rules & maps. so for twenty-nine ninety-five, i gotta be honest: i'd feel better with a hardcover. just a matter of perception. the big, big, notable upside is that things can be included! maps, handouts, that sort of thing. yay! the downsides are-- well, it seems kind of flimsy. the corners on mine are pretty crumpled, & if you are kind of anal retentive about those kinds of things (i am), that might inhibit your buying. the magazine-binding on the adventure might be better for flattening when using it? but again, not so great for collecting. i'd actually rather this was in an old "monster manual" form!
okay, now to the rules: here is the big problem about this discussion. any actual opinions on the rules are guesswork, since this is an incomplete text. i have...questions! like on page 29, irontooth's "blood crazed" power-- does that mean he essentially gets fast healing five whenever he drops below half hit points? that seems pretty...insane? i will say this though: lidda the halfling rogue has a pretty awesome power! trick strike, which lets you maneuver your opponent around the battlefield? very cool. the wizard is pretty disappointing, since all of his spells are battle spells, but that is something you can expect from a quickstart. i can't imagine it will be limited to that when the full thing comes out. the adventure itself is an adventure, you know? you could go on it. there aren't any weird vampire trees, though. lots of slime! slimes!
Current Mood:ochre! pudding! Current Music:crown me king- cut by throne of obsidion
tusks. let me talk about them: i heart them. tusks. tusks, & really, really long horns. like, going up from the forehead super high. i'm kind of crushing on the infernal lately, especially with my game-- "infernum majestika" is my favorite thing to scream about when i dunk my head underwater so no one can hear me screaming. vibrate, molocules! tusks, but really curved, like lower face, from a pronounced underbite. also, fangs, but particularly incisors rather than canines. these are things, this is my reinvention of the face. though i can't think of bodies as anything other than sort of puddings, varying in colour, with nodules of bone & thick gristle lodged in them. the fact that this is not an entirely inacurate picture of bodies is not lost on me. trolls! they don't live under bridges, bridges are made from them. the whole world is made out of giants. your city is one. sleeping. dreaming you. but not dreaming me. i have passed out of the dreamer, & will kill him to keep him from every waking. you can thank me later. edit: i think maybe all this thinking about tusks & my headache might be...related? maybe my tusks are growing in!
Current Mood:cog & faz. Current Music:crown me king- trapped in the throne of amber
you know what isn't making my headache any better? the news that access to the "extra content" on the dnd webpage is going to cost fifteen bucks ($14.95) a month. hey kids! fuck you & your trying to play the hobby bwa-ha-ha-ha! hey former dragon magazine subscribers? mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! because seriously, what? all i can say is the truth: i'll support their books, but i'm not paying to go on a webpage. it just sucks because we got a bunch of promotional material from them today, & we were all excited. hung up the new poster & everything. there is a little gnome in the background...hugging a badger! how adorable, & a nice tip of the hat to us gnome fans. heck, we even started talking about what our first characters will be. pretty exciting, non? well hey, they were super excited to announce that the beta-testing will be free! but some of the software won't be available in the beta-test. seriously, i'm pretty over this, & it is just more of the same, but whatever. pay for access. what a weird, anachronistic joke. & did i mentioned i have a headache? a headache, dear friend. what the fuck is a headache? i never have them. it is like this pain inside of your skull? hey, that is my brain, thanks very much. i'd prefer if it didn't suddenly start hurting, especially as it isn't supposed to have nerves in it or something? brains. stupid noodle pile. this is why. i hate you. you fucking bunch of tiny little dots. this is your personality: a slightly more elaborate version of the colours i get when i press my knuckles into my eyes. this is you. this is you. i fucking hate everything. headaches! tumors! actually, this is kind of fun, now.
Current Mood:the hell with you. Current Music:crown me king- the cities of the underworld
voice, metal. so i don't really have any bachelor party plans. whatever, what the fuck is one of those things? jenny keeps insisting that i not have any strippers & then i tell her that i don't want any strippers & then she forbids me from having strippers & i'm like "you can't forbid me!" which totally defeats the purpose, because i don't want a stripper to dry hump me! stop "putting your foot down!" neither here nor there, though. who would think at all that i would want a stripper. blech. i just have to batten down the hatches, because now the clock-work gears are getting gnashy. plans are terrible bladed chariots, all around the circus. back to the bachelor party thing, ugh. i don't even know. i guess the open slot is two days before the wedding, when jenny has her bachelorette party. stag party! also, i don't really want to get hammered right before the wedding. which is antithetical to the idea, i think. i wouldn't let a guy escape his bachelor party without getting faced. then again, i am kind of like mister miracle, & can escape anything. so i'll escape it. the best plan so far is laser tag, but laser tag can only last so far, so i need something else to follow up the laser tag with. that is where that stands. oh, & sunday i made an appointment to finally get my hair cut. by a stylist! at a saloon! salon, i mean. i wish it was a saloon though, & in my heart of hearts, it is.
Poll #1184647salon, saloon!
Open to: All, results viewable to: All
i have an appointment for a hair salon? what should i do to my hair before it?
hey, i keep meaning to talk about the ghost that has been haunting our television viewings! the ghost of...the mole! remember that reality show where one of the contestants is actually...evil! or whatever, is working against the others? most notable for the fact that celebrity mole looks like so much fucking fun. seriously, everyone on celebrity mole looks like they are just freaking having the time of times, & pulling out their hair at the same time. they've been flashing spots at us for a while now! at first, i thought that maybe like, it was a recording-over-a-recording type of situation, but now i think we are in for more moles in moleville! i mean, i guess i could have checked wikipedia, natch, but we finally captured a screenshot last week.
Current Mood:i am the mole. Current Music:crown me king- to serve in heaven (a cookbook)
okay, so put all your characters in by their age of publishing. gotcha. i don't know, it is a little bit whatever. don't get me wrong, there certainly are moments, but most of those moments are visual. & i kind of don't care about the challengers of the unknown. sorry! i think the strongest character is wonder woman, really, followed by the martian manhunter. batman is really great at bits, but he isn't in it that much. oh, i'd not dissuade you from reading it, but i wouldn't say go out & read it this minute or you'll diiiiiiieeee either. still the art is nice? maybe i'm just not the guy for this.
Current Mood:wallow eye. Current Music:crown me king- serial bassist
so last night was kind of funny, wasn't it? i opted out of going to play practice (rehersal) to see danielle's graduate showcase. danielle not my home skillet dizzy gee, but danielle donielle. precision, that's what we aim for. she graduated from some kryptonian school for fine theatre, & i was going to see it. & i did. i got there with only a minimum of headache (everything was going swimmingly until i tried to find 501 instead of 510) & ended up being one of the first to arrive, which meant: wine! see, good omens already. the next face through the door was...pamela?! okay, that is a little disingenuous. i sort of suspected pamela was coming from some internet chatter, but i also thought she lived in california so maybe that chatter wasn't accurate? okay, whatever. explaining out my thought process isn't the most riviting thing. i should make coffee.
gosh, are we out of coffee grounds? i find that hard to accept. anyhow, no coffee for me. so pamela's story with me is a funny one! she maybe invented the whole "mordicai only wants to have these close nebulous, non-sexual relationships with girls" thing. she was what i suppose you would call my best friend for a year or two there, back in high school. then that stopped abruptly, & poof! she was gone. occasionally, when circumstances required it, like when she lived with carla & mark, or when i bumped into her at mark's wedding, we were "friends," but that was mostly just the sounds of echoing gunfire in the canyon, if you know what i mean. so suffice to say she's tangled up in the plot, but from much earlier in the story.
we had wine & did, whatever, catching up, which means we sort of were like "oh, hey, yeah, i'm getting married," & "oh, i bought a place in manhattan." punctuated with a healthy peppering of nostalgia. it was nice, & she said i had a "good vibe" (but she prefaced it with the warning that it would sound "too california") & i thought she was nice. i totally had a friends crush on her, in fact! which lets not get ahead of ourself. anyhow, we went into the performance & i snuck a program, which apparently you have to be an agent or producer to get. or a mordicai, ha ha! foiled you bastards!
danielle was pretty good! really i only feel qualified to talk about her comedy scene, which was funny. since it was woody allen, the laughs were sort of at someone's expense, & she was the straight woman, so i don't know if she got enough credit. i liked it though. i also liked a couple of the other parts, too; one other guy in particular was kind of great & i meant to tell him afterwards but did not. there was a scene about prom, & that was funny, since pamela & i went to prom together. danielle's monologue i don't know about, since it sounded very much like having a certain type of conversation with danielle.
the meet & greet in the wake of the show was sort of an industry networking thing. at least that is the scene as i saw it, so correspondingly, i didn't see very much of danielle. let her do her thing! she's working. plus, there was a pamela to talk to, so we had a little more wine & laughed or whatever. & i proceeded to give her my number & i'll probably email her & we'll see what happens with that. danielle lives like a couple of blocks away from me, so we'll see what happens with that, too. maybe these girls from early in the life of this monster mordicai will pop up again in the second act? that would be strange, but welcome. i'm not going to hold my breath. or maybe i will, because fuck you david blaine. i ducked out after too long since jenny was waiting for me, & then the two of us lovelies stayed up watching the wedding episodes of how i met your mother because why not be a sappy dork? why not. & maybe the panic about the vows is solved. so that is a nice thing.
Current Mood:this cookie...called death! Current Music:crown me king feat brian wilson- the hymn of the four horsemen
okay, this was pretty great. so the atom is a super-hero who can shrink & control his mass. sometimes that makes him pretty great, other times, not so much. anyhow, the premise of sword of the atom is that atom's marriage falls apart, since he & his wife have been growing apart, each focused on their work. so the atom goes on a long trip, hoping that they will be able to work it out when he maybe comes back. along the way, he crashes, & shrinks, & then his shrinking belt breaks, leaving him stranded at six inches tall. then he finds a bunch of tiny yellow alien people to be conan the barbarian slash john carter of mars with. & a tiny princess in a chain mail bikini & everything. so a) this was totally awesome, since i like the pulps it is clearly drawing from. b) he totally fights miniature zombies & also, rides frogs. c) one time the atom says that lawns are "just something to keep the middle class too busy to overthrow the government." d) the one weak point is that like ten percent of it is re-cap; even just from the prior issue. fuck off with that!
d) okay, lets talk about girls. at first, the chainmail bikini wasn't the worst since the boys wear chainmail speedos, too. the princess is okay. she fights along side him without a "omg she fights?!?!" moment, it is just assumed. there is maybe a little too much "noble savage" going on, but really it is too weird to be a corrolary to any race relations. plus, i always like high tech slash low tech mixes. anyhow, later there are other pink people besides the atom? where did that come from? then eventually there is a scientist girl who wears some kind of robe & also tights, i.e. clothes. all of which was a little confusing, but okay. gil kane's art is pretty great though.
Current Mood:i went to the gym this morning Current Music:crown me king- i'm made of smaller men!
this neighborhood is...unfriendly! marvel adventures: spider-man volume six: the black costume by fred van lente, michael o'hare & cory hamscher.
so i get it. the actual black costume origin is so...weird, & tied to crazy event comics, & just generally silly, that you have to bail on it. he got it from a weird machine inside a planet built by a god to make superheroes fight? he got it because reed richards is a dick who just tells you to go start pushing buttons? okay, yeah, that isn't any good. i don't like van lente's macguffin either, though. some sort of "smart skin" built by the tinkerer? naw man, naw. at least have it be an alien! i liked the movie, frankly, though my pitch is to have john jameson (the astronaut) bring it back from the moon. anyhow, these are fun, but mostly only okay. i liked the art on the black costume johnny storm!
Current Mood:sing it, ac/dc! Current Music:crown me king- sing it, tesla!
the soaring gallows! zeppelin most dreary & dreadful! the soaring gallows is an airship captained by the ghoul named darling matador, first mate painted devil, airmans one, una, two, duo, three, & trio! stevedores mister drown, mister candles, mister gone, mister sorry, so forth! gremlins from the blickerwurm hegemony! ghouls of clan of the ectoplasmic ansible! the soaring gallows is a ship whose stock in trade is the phrase "happy is the cemetary where no wizard lies!" darling matador travels the world, hanging those criminals too foul for local authorities, & in the side compartments of the ship hold the graves of 435 of the most damnned souls of the century, those too wicked to be buried in consecrated ground & too dangerous to be buried in unconsecrated ground. along the way, darling matador & painted devil make a little pocket change ferrying v.ery i.mportant p.eople around, such as our fine young player characters!
the players are due to the kingdom of lalala, & so the captain (skin a lovely bruise colour, all dressed in herringbone & with a spider living in his snuff-box) & the mate (face an androgynous mask of botox & plastic surgery, tattooed with oni swirls & whorls-- i wore a mask to play him/her) tried to make them comfortable. the low-level hauntings didn't make the players comfortable, though! but then finding yourself being watched in the dark as you get romantic or possessed & sitting on the outside hull of a moving airship will do that to you. then, BOOM! there was a terrible shaking & the ship itself began to...flip over! there they were, miles above ground, & the vessel flipped on it's side. lorelai wasn't slowed down by it; in fact, she went on to shepard the rest of the party, wearing an airman's goggles & carrying a sailors gaff. she also rappelled down the side of the balloon in the dark to see what the damage was, like a lunatic.
with the side compartment ballast jettisoned, the soaring gallows just began to fly upwards-- fall upwards, really-- plummeting into the heavens. the flipping of the zeppelin onto it's side also disturbed the graves of the dead warlocks, leading to a possession of bedwin ultimately culminating in the other party members being him into unconciousness, breaking his nose & giving him a pair of black eyes. damocles found, written in steam on the bathroom mirror, a note along the lines of "hail damoklese lord of sheol & gehenna, general of the armys infernum majestika, we are LEGION & we are your friend" & then a crown drawn at his brow level. bedwin woke up & started narrating all the things he was seeing; a double-exposed balthazar, a firey-eyed damocles. hauntings continued; blood out of faucets, airmen setting themselves on fire & jumping overboard, just a jolly time.
eventually the party became aware of mutterings amongst the crew; the goblins told balthazar that they & the captain favored a plan in which they would let bouyancy out of the balloon by punching a hole in it; the stevedores told lorelai that they opposed the plan & would rather try to snag the ship on the mountain tops of the five peaks. the remaining ghouls of the ship, accidentally spotted in the hall, were slack-faced zombies dressed in rubber suits with metal diodes sticking out of it & a device part old fashioned accordian camera, part porthole, part television, part ouiji board sticking out of their midsection in a harness. eventually, as the ship fell ever into the sky, about sixty hours worth, the captain gathered them together to puncture a segment of the balloon. the captain darling matador stood along with the airmen, the painted devil stood with some of the goblins-- the gremlins first class. gaspar, the party's old friend, stood with one of the strange ghouls, & the stevedores all stood with a tall, pretty woman with mossy hair holding a hissing boy by the hand. all agreed, the captain psssssst started letting gas out while the passangers, our players, took themselves someplace safe, & lorelai took rope & made them all safety hammocks. they crash landed as well as can be expected, but found themselves in the orange, black, & rainbow coloured landscape...of The Badlands!
mostly i was happy to be getting better with timing; i shot for one session & i got it done in one session. it can be easy to over-estimate or underestimate how long a thing will take, you know? this was tom's second session, & he is starting to gel with everyone; the dynamic of the party is very interesting. we'll see how things go from here...
Current Mood:ahoy! Current Music:crown me king- infernum majestika
ozzy's lost his mind! marvel adventures: iron man volume one: heart of steel by fred van lente, james cordeiro, & ronan cliquet.
i read this comic book about iron man because in a couple of hours i am going to go see iron man. how sweet is that? i came home drunk last night & set my alarm for the time i'd get up to go to work because, frankly, programming in a more accurate wake-up time seems like the trickiest thing ever. what am i, loki? go program yourself! so as i was sort of morning-fucked, i had plenty of time to read stories about tony stark! let me recap for you: i didn't like the first issue, the origin, but i did like certain elements of it, like the steve jobbing of stark. then there was a bit with mandarin, & the mandarin built a dragon, & i wish that it had been fing fang foom. i liked rhodes but didn't like pepper-- how come he gets to be a cool dude but she's stuck being the frigid secretary? fuuuuuuuck that! whoosh! um, some other stuff happened-- a spy guy or something? i like these marvel adventures though, am i right? i worry about digests...i worry. like, maybe they are fiscally bad? they don't make money? because dc (it stands for "detective comics!") stopped publishing any of them & marvel has stopped putting runaways out in digest. like...the hell? those digests are the only comics we sell actual kids. the only ones.
Current Mood:IRON MAN? Current Music:crown me king- iron man versus the war pigs!
“So I snook(?) I don't care, so I snook(?) out all over the party which was the go and see the Star Wars ___ Trilogy ___ so now I am left behind waiting for any kind of fucking train and bus support and I have nothing, nothing, nothing so I will suck up in smoke and blow and spray, anything bored and I just want the train to come so I can put my head phones up, wait I don't need buses or anything to come, I can just put my headphones on right now, so this is my boredom, this is my boredom manifest, this is go to hell, to hell.”
i finished up the third volume of this last night, after realizing that i never had. also, it is weird to have opinions on erotica. not weird, weird isn't the right word. just different, since you know, erotica attaches sexuality to the topic at hand. like-- it is implicit in the discussion of the subject that i was looking at pictures of naked people & also, how sexually aroused might be a factor to judge it by. ha ha. anyhow, well. first off, if you are going to write sexy stories, you might as well write them about dorthy, wendy, & alice. you really ought to, in fact. so there is a strong "meta" streak going through this volume-- the girls are reading a book of erotica, & talking about how scandalized by the incest & pedophilia, but also how it isn't really bad, because it is in a work of fiction. it is a little bit overt commentary on the reaction any one can imagine lost girls creating in some people, & a little heavy-handed, but then, i guess erotica isn't the place for too much subtlety. gebbie's art is serviceable, & actually that probably works to the benefit of the piece; she has a sort of simplicity that lets you impose your expectations. if you know what i mean. also, smoothing out all the lines makes all equal-- young, old, fat, skinny. so yeah, as a work of literate erotica, this fulfills it's purpose. i am pleased enough to own it.
Current Mood:warthog. Current Music:crown me king- anabelle tinkerbelle
i talk about yerba mate all the time, right? but this is the first time i've ever sat down & brewed some in my own gourd. i suppose i should talk about it. well, i found out about it from gene wolfe. in the book of the long sun, people are drinking it all of the time: in particular, silk prefers it over other similar drinks. reading it, i was all "...the fuck is mate?" see, mister wolfe tends to use a lot of obscure words in his books, words he is sometimes accused of inventing, but that he has really rescued from the past, or from foreign locales. mate is one of the latter: it is the other caffeinated drink, after tea & coffee. anyhow, you make it in these special gourds, with these special straws, & maggie got me the materials for my birthday. it had to cure the gourd first, so today is the first day of having it! i like it a lot-- it is a third taste, different than things enough to make describing it hard. this batch tastes a little like hay, but not in a gross way.
Current Mood:whorl-wise. Current Music:crown me king- the tenet of rotas place.
i was asking jenny if i should go over to david's tonight, since he's been on-again-off-again threatening to screen the star wars trilogy. her reply was "sure, if you pick up your room!" which is just such a perfect answer. let me give you some context: our apartment is pretty dirty. we've just been too out & about & so there are piled up dishes & the like. cleaning is one of my projects today, & that is just that. when i asked jenny, i clearly was just asking her advice, but out of context it did sort of sound like i was asking permission. so i was sort of laughing to myself about that, like "mom, can i go to david's if i do my chores?" which, naw. jenny's got plans with carla, & i wasn't sure if i should hang around here to catch the tail-end of their plans or what. anyhow, her reply just captures the same "i get this" attitude. fun. of course now she's just going to tease me about how all i write about in my stupid diary is how much i love her. nerd for love!
last night after work i was meeting up with danielle, but was running about an hour ahead of her. i went to saint marks to do something silly, which apparently turned me into a weirdo? & then after wandering around trying to remember what i might be nostalgic for on the lower east side, i decided to go to the asian pub to grab a lycheetini. hah! then to whole foods to meet danielle, since they had wi-fi. except they didn't have wi-fi, except we got wi-fi from someone else while we were there. we wrote some character bios for a thing we're doing, & then we were off for more lycheetinis. then i found out jenny had food poisoning or something, so we parted ways & i brought home some medicine & electrolytes for her. then i stayed up for a while drinking wine & reading.
Current Mood:the lalala. Current Music:crown me king- tenor in the sator opera
the great wurm! the worm ouroboros by eric rücker eddison.
e.r. eddison had a world inside of him & that world is amazing. i'm pretty jaw-dropped over this. the basic plot involves a clash between the lords of demonland-- lord juss, his brothers goldry bluszco & spitfire, & their friend brandoch daha-- against the lords of witchland-- foremost the king gorice, along with his advisors corund, corsus, & corinius & the treasonous lord gro of goblinland. first off, the country names? i've mentioned being swayed away from totally made-up nouns, with some leeway given for con-langs, right? but this book has, along with plenty of made-up words, also impland, pixieland, & so forth. be still my heart! really i think the thing that tells most true is that he started creating this mythology when he was ten years old. it adds levels of nuance that, by seeming slightly askew, add verisimilitude in spades.
the work itself is written in a very archaic style, which itself devolves into middle-english whenever a correspondence or song intrudes. for all that, for all the over-wrought thrones carved of a single gem & mountains reaching to the heavens, it captured me entirely. to be fair, i'm a fan of tolkien's silmarillion as well-- & i suppose it bears mentioning that this was a fairly major influence on tolkien's writings. as for the format of the book, it possesses some very sophisticated flourishes. it gives equal attention to both the "heroes" & the "villains" of the tale, dwelling as much in the fortress of carcë in witchland as with the lords of demonland on their adventures. none of the characters are thoughtless cut-outs & all of them are very compelling. women don't enter into the story until a good bit of it has gone past, but when they do they do they are if not progressive than at least full-formed. as for the over-all construction of the tale? lets just say that there is a fairly post-modern hook dragging the fish along.
how did i like it? it sat me down in a very nice chair, poured me a cocktail, & then slapped me in the face. seriously, the fight against the manticore might be my favorite fight i've ever seen in print. you know, i picked this up thinking i'd be just paying my dues to a past fabulist, someone who laid foundations, but instead i found that this guy built a palace, or a tower, something vast & magnificent. i can't give it an earnest enough recommendation. it might require a bit of a buy-in, it might require that you like, i don't know, high diction & fantastic worlds, but if you have that, this is the thing for you. i don't know what i am going to read next, but this is a pretty hard act to follow. oh, by the way, brandoch daha's battlecry is "who meddles with brandoch daha?" & his mottto is "ye braggers an 'a', be skeered and awa' frae brandoch daha." which is pretty hard-core.
Current Mood:unction of wolf & salamander Current Music:crown me king- liro vorpo voarcha dumia
oh right, one of the things i forgot to mention is that i'm playing cool but periodically freaking out about this thing that happened, this terrible thing. i didn't know quite how bad it was, & i still don't but it has just been looking suckier the more i find out about it. basically, the chef & kitchen staff left the montauk club. okay, i really don't know if this is a disaster, & i probably think it isn't, but it does suck. whoever else gets hired will probably be up to snuff, but that guy joel, the kitchen manager, he was an okay dude. all treating us right & wooing us & shit. that was a pretty solid perk to the club! & it would be one thing if just he had left, but a whole bunch of people left, & under the cloud of "contentious circumstances." so that sucks, i have to admit. fingers crossed, though! too late to do anything about it, eh? edit: blech. the natives are restless. edit again: okay well, they have a new chef now so that is at least something. some anonymous commenter says it is a department of health thing, which, whatever.
Current Mood:... --- ... Current Music:crown me king- toll for me, bell?
oh, & the answer: sherry by a mile. jenny was chatting on the phone with her mother last night about something on the computer, television was paused, & so in this lacunae of media i picked up my nanonwrimo novel & started flipping through it & hey, that isn't a bad kettle of bones! so maybe i'm forgetting about being sick of it, from sleeping & breathing it for a month, & will go through with a pencil soon. i'm thinking a nice step one would be to divide it into chapters; a straight forward task that would trick me into re-reading it, & give me a chance to write junk in the margins. i don't know, just a little hissing crocodile crawling out of the fire & into the great blue river that leads to the sea. other than that, somehow we drank a bottle of wine without meaning to & oh, i should mentioned that sleeping was totally fucking awful. just terrible.
Current Mood:audible! Current Music:crown me king- operator! operator!
you know what i don't like? i don't like it when pretty girls don't know that i have a pretty girlfriend. like, hey, settle down everybody. i am flirting, but only since i'm a giant flirt! you know how sometimes someone will talk about their significant other & you'll be like "huh. i bet her boyfriend is fat. too bad for her!" or other like thoughts? i don't want others to entertain those thoughts of me! jenny is very pretty, & besides liking her more than everybody else (allow me to intrude a comment here: i don't think any of you exist!) i also think she is pretty, so very nice & pretty. don't think i'm dazzled by you, kid! i've got a knockout of my own at home. apropos of nothing.
Current Mood:jot! Current Music:crown me king- bleep blorp, says ai!
kablooie kablam! i am supposed to write something this week for symon's magazine about whiskey, but i don't know what i might write about! my skull is a pressure cooker, or maybe a crock pot; i throw stuff into it & let it simmer. maybe i'll come up with something about the people who live in the northern lights. gosh though, i'm really empty on the subject! also i am meant to get together with danielle to write stuff, & i will, but when? i don't think i am qualified to make decisions about my life, like when i might go to a place, or whatever. or i could talk about giants, or jetpacks, or all three things. he told me it should be experimental, so maybe i'll make it about science! fuck, man. i should just do it, right? like nike, the goddess of shoes, says. just do it, it is engraved in the base of her statue. here, i'm on the phone now, calling symon. he'll advise me! or i'll get his voicemail. bastard! oh, fuck, i could write about a robot named "Ai." that is kind of cute. the robot is the king of the jungle. okay, a robot who is the king of the jungle, has a jetpack, & lives in the northern lights. see, this brainstorming session is going pretty well, don't you think? it is like tarzan, but a robot. maybe Ai is the god that Hansel should worship. also let me tell you about the four saints; i could write about the four saints in there too. why not kitchen sink it? sink everything, i'm a sinker, we all know that about me. you know, bai ling doesn't have these troubles. she's so brilliant. i envy moonpeople. (if you had a jetpack, you'd be the king of the jungle too. "oh look, a lion. fuuuuuuuck you! whoosh!") okay or how about this: it is a story about a bunch of wizards, flying around through space, with their magic swords, & then they crash. & meet a robot named Ai. okay, okay, this is coming together!
Current Mood:CHOCOLATE EGG CREAM! Current Music:crown me king- the amazing ragnarok boy!
ghastlies & spooks! heroes of horror by james wyatt, ari marmell, & c. a. suleiman.
my friend tom is a funny cat. he is the kind of guy who is always giving his stuff away. now, i think a lot of it has to do with tensions in his character, between wanting &...well, wanting not to want. he's rendered unto me many fabulous gifts! & recently, he has decided to sell off all his his dnd books, since the new edition is coming out. okay? not my style, but definately his. i took this off his hands, since i've sort of admired it for a bit but not quite enough to buy it new. the rules are only so-so; the classes are interesting but ultimately one-use only; you could get a few different spins out of the archivest character, maybe, but a one dread necromancer is the same as the next. plus, corruption, tain, whatever. the advice is much more to my liking, & in particular it is the tidbits that i like. i like the moose-headed god of spite, for one thing. moose-headed god of spite! & the random lists of spooky things-- some of those i like as well. &! oh, the frame story, which is all about jozan (the signature cleric of the game) being turned into a vampire! how adorable. though in one picture, lidda is dead, & let me tell you something: lidda is a halfling, & halflings always survive.
Current Mood:umbles pie. Current Music:crown me king- the spice that dare not speak its name
1. the source of my self-esteem is that i have never seen the film double dragon. 2. in all ways am i well girdled with the secret knowledge of bones & pitch. 3. the rumor of my discontent with wikipedia is true! not entirely, not to the quick, but it has the ring of honesty for such it is. the root of these misgivings are thus: deletionists. these bastards are the worms in the apple of knowledge of good & evil. frank bacon had it right: take all knowledge baby! take it & providence all over it! so these guys delete articles that aren't "worthy of inclusion." listen, i retort with the inclusionist manifesto: wikipedia is not paper! who cares if every pokemon has its own page, you fucking pseduointellectual snobs? you know what, yeah! yeah, sometimes i search wikipedia to find out about comic book characters, & you know what? i should be able to. i want wikipedia to contain within it all of everything, till it rears up alive & sentient like skynet. fuck you i want this thing & you cannot stop it. 4. i don't really remember much after we went to bed, but the fragments of memory i possess are very nice. i quite enjoy them. a cupful of sparks, embers sparkling. 5. i have been meaning to speak about something, but i am conflicted, both with superstition & doubt. i don't want to jinx this thing, but it occupies my thoughts & i should speak of it somewhat to do right by myself & the pretense of the honest rendering of my life. jenny is a very good girlfriend, & is respectful of important choices in my life, that is it in summary. gentle deeds are afoot & she is the perfect culprit. she is excellent in new ways-- ways that are subtle but important to me. i recognize them & dwell on them, in earnest but in secret. to wit: my name. 6. it turns out that anytime you put paprika into a thing, i will like it. i am not proud of this admission, since it reveals the scars of childhood. i resent that anything that might have happened to me then could inform my present, but it is true. i have a little bit of an ethnicity & there it is.
Current Mood:fire of emeralds, fie! Current Music:crown me king- the secret legion
oh it's sweet how the darkness is floating around! any question? any of you bubbles of saint elmo's fire or wil o' wisps require any further education? let me give you all assurances that the furnaces of the goblins have not ceased, & that all of time is to be kept sacred with industry, preparing invulnerable tanks for the final war against all. that the children of angrboda have supped on the waters which achilles was dipped, & that they are hungry for the meads of valhalla, the ambrosia of olympus, the mana of heaven. also be well promised of this: that while we watched television, we did drink six seven bottles of wine, & that i did speak into them & thus sounded so very much like sir darth vader.
Current Mood:spock! sing about a hobbit! Current Music:crown me king- i have a pet anvil
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mordicai's journal
planetary: crossing worlds by warren ellis, phil jimenez, jerry ordway, & john cassaday.
keep on the shadowfell by bruce cordell & mike mearls.
you know what isn't making my headache any better? 
5 (25.0%)
dc: the new frontier by darwyn cooke.
sword of the atom by jan strnad & gil kane.
marvel adventures: spider-man volume six: the black costume by fred van lente, michael o'hare & cory hamscher.
marvel adventures: iron man volume one: heart of steel by fred van lente, james cordeiro, & ronan cliquet.
lost girls by alan moore & melinda gebbie.
the worm ouroboros by eric rücker eddison.
oh right, one of the things i forgot to mention is that i'm playing cool but periodically freaking out about this thing that happened, this terrible thing. i didn't know quite how bad it was, & i still don't but it has just been looking suckier the more i find out about it. basically, 
heroes of horror by james wyatt, ari marmell, & c. a. suleiman.