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The Previous Grand Mufti (aka Max Brooks)
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[Nov. 20th, 2009|01:54 pm] |
Alright, so this one is for all the genre authors out there:
I was thinking about The Shining today, and how Stephen King didn't appreciate Kubrick's film, and, when he was sufficiently powerful in Hollywood, remade it to be more accurate to his book.
Well, this is an enormous act of hubris. Pulp genre often requires a film to be made of it for it to take on any meaning at all. How many other books have been made into amazing movies, despite authors being unsatisfied? Jaws? The Exorcist? The Godfather? Gone with the Wind? Mary Poppins? The filmgoing world has recognized the films to be the definitive take on these stories.
There's a story about the author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, having held out on Walt Disney for decades on the production of the film. In the books, Mary Poppins is an occasionally bitter, highly moralistic force of nature, very different from the sweet and charming young woman played by Julie Andrews. The animated sequence with the dancing penguins and so on was wildly hated by Travers. On the night of the film's opening, she grabbed Disney by the shoulder and presented a list of immediate changes to the film before she would accept release. He politely, but sternly, told her it was moving on without her.
The Shining is, as close as I can estimate, one of the great films. I don't give a fuck what Stephen King says: once it's out of the artist's brain and onto paper, it becomes the world's child. And that's a thing we need to learn as creatives in this society before we can progress. |
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| A PLAYLET I WROTE ABOUT THE WINTER SOLSTICE |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|01:29 am] |
SCENE: A family is unwrapping presents.
KIDS: HOORAY! IT'S EARLY CHRISTMAS!!
DAD: No, it's not. It's Winter Solstice. We no longer celebrate Christmas. Your mother's decided to cast off the shackles of oppression.
DAD takes a swig of whiskey.
KIDS: But we still get presents?
MOM: Yes! Winter Solstice presents!
KID 1: What's a Winter Solstice?
MOM: It's that day of the year where we celebrate the end of the dark season and look forward to the light season! And crystals and cakes and ale and MAGIC.
KID 2: So, basically, we're celebrating the end of winter?
MOM: Yes.
KID 2: But it's not the end of winter. It's right smack dab in the middle of winter. It doesn't get more wintry than this. This is a stupid holiday.
KID 1: What are cakes and ale?
MOM: It's the offering we give to NATURE.
KID 1: To make it go away?
MOM: Well, no, not really.
KID 1: Do the cakes and ale do anything?
MOM: No.
KID 2: Can we eat them?
MOM: No.
DAD: Dad's got dibs on any booze in this equation.
DAD belches.
MOM: I don't think you understand. We're celebrating the Goddess.
KID 1: So, basically, we're giving a goddess something to eat and something to drink on the shittiest day of the year so she'll leave us alone?
KID 2: That sounds like bribery to me.
KID 1: Jesus says bribery is bad.
MOM: Well, kids, Jesus is a manifestation of the phallic sun god, sacrificial in nature and dependent upon guilt as a motivating factor. The Goddess doesn't deal in guilt.
KID 2: But... we have to give her cakes and ale?
MOM: We don't have to.
DAD has, at this point, passed out and is now snoring.
KID 1: What happens if we don't?
MOM: Well, uh, I don't know.
KID 1: Does she make the earth somehow stop spinning and cease the gravitational axis of the planet from being tilted, thus eradicating the seasons?
MOM: ...er... no...
KID 2: Will she be unhappy?
MOM: Yes.
KID 1: So, basically, you're telling us that this "goddess" of yours will be unhappy if we don't feed her cakes and ale, but Jesus somehow is worse?
MOM: Well, he is, because...
KIDS: Because why?!
DAD wakes up.
DAD: BECAUSE DADDY CAN'T GET IT UP ANYMORE, AND MOMMY HAS DECIDED THAT THIS IS HER FATHER'S FAULT, AND HER FATHER IS HER EXAMPLE FOR GOD, AND JESUS IS IN DADDY'S PANTS, AND JESUS DOESN'T GET IT UP FOR HER ANYMORE.
SILENCE. Kids open the presents.
KID 1: Oh boy! I got a... *sigh* bottle of Prozac.
KID 2: And I got some Vitamin D pills.
MOM: AND MOMMY HAS SEASONAL DEPRESSION.
DAD belches again. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|11:48 pm] |
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I am fairly certain that I am as Deist as it's possible to be. I'd be right at home in 1774. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|11:51 pm] |
From a Renaissance era cookbook:
"A Goose roasted alive. A little before our times, a Goose was wont to be brought to the table of the King of Arragon, that was roasted alive, as I have heard by old men of credit. And when I went to try it, my company were so hasty, that we ate him up before he was quite roasted. He was alive, and the upper part of him, on the outside, was excellent well roasted. The rule to do it is thus. Take a Duck, or a Goose, or some such lusty creature, but he Goose is best for this purpose. Pull all the Feathers from his body, leaving his head and his neck. Then make a fire round about him, not too narrow, lest the smoke choke him, or the fire should roast him too soon. Not too wide, lest he escape unroasted. Inside set everywhere little pots full of water, and put Salt and Meum to them. Let the Goose be smeared all over with Suet, and well Larded, that he may be the better meat, and roast the better. Put the fire about, but make not too much haste. When he begins to roast, he will walk about, and cannot get forth, for the fire stops him. When he is weary, he quenches his thirst by drinking the water, by cooling his heart, and the rest of his internal parts. The force of the Medicament loosens and cleans his belly, so that he grows empty. And when he his very hot, it roasts his inner parts. Continually moisten his head and heart with a Sponge. But when you see him run mad up and down, and to stumble (his heart then wants moisture), wherefore you take him away, and set him on the table to your guests, who will cry as you pull off his parts. And you shall eat him up before he is dead." |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|03:38 pm] |
I am quite often down on science-fiction, especially in the post-Star Wars "sci-fi fantasy" vein that it tends to take these last few decades. Sci-Fi, proper sci-fi, isn't fairy tales about desert planets and super powers. That's fantasy, and, quite frankly, I don't need it. I'll watch if it's on, but I've longed for proper science fiction for some time, and "The Box" is definitely proper science fiction.
And why shouldn't it be? It's based on "Button, Button", by Richard Matheson, one of the all time great masters of the short story. "The Box" is a tale similar to "The Monkey's Paw" in set up. A mysterious man delivers an innocuous looking box to a hard-on-their-luck family, and explains that inside the box is a button that, if pressed, will provide $1 million in untraceable cash to the pusher of the button in exchange for the death of a random, unknown person somewhere in the world. Of course, the movie would be VERY SHORT INDEED if the couple, played here by Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, didn't press the button.
What's fascinating here is that it's adapted and directed by Richard Kelly, who created "Donnie Darko", and the sprawling interplanetary conspiracy led by the deliciously professional Mr. Steward, played by Frank Langella, segues directly into Donnie Darko's universe. The unidentified alien presence that has granted Mr. Steward effective immortality and amazing psychic prescience has it's price... the aliens are using him to conduct a "test" on humanity, to see if they should be invited to join the rest of the cosmos or be exterminated. The test is about whether or not the human race is capable of altruism, and it's a glorious and refreshing morality tale in this day and age of Ayn Rand and an entire political party dedicated to refusal of charity.
So, yes. Oh, and did I mention the score is by Win Butler and Owen Pallett of The Arcade Fire? Yes. It's glorious.
Go see it... or else I push the button. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|04:01 pm] |
I'm going to admit that I find the "Underwood Ham-Quicks" recipe to look rather delicious from my angle.
Biscuit + ham = no way to lose.
Looks like something that would be classy at a traditional high tea meal or something. I admit I dreamt about it last night, and I dreamt it was the most delicious food I've ever tried. WE SHALL SEE.
Yes, I dream about ham. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|01:27 am] |
Well, Washington election is over, and it summarily kicked some ass.
Referendum 71, the domestic partnership equality law, won handily despite A LOT of external influence from Pat Robertson, Focus on the Family, the Mormons, etc., sending a lot of money in to our state to try to take away a right that we've already voted on once before. It's their own damn fault... they figured it would be an easy scoop, and they didn't quite realize how Washington politics works.
And then, of course, was Initiative 1033, which is a lunatic example of how Washington politics work. We have the initiative process here, and we abuse it quite frequently. When I say "we", I mean a particularly wormy little douche named Tim Eyman, who has made it his life's cause to fly as many lunatic anti-tax schemes as possible to see how many of them stick. In this year's iteration, the idea was to limit taxation by population growth. The wording was actually far, far vaguer than I just typed there, and it was uncomfortable.
Referendum 71 was approved, giving all domestic partnerships equal status, and Initiative 1033 was rejected, sending Eyman on another strike-out. Bravo for Washington...
Of course, the best part is the ENORMOUS disparity between urban Greater Seattle and, well, everywhere else. Rural Washington, which is stupidly rural (one county, for instance, has 2000 citizens TOTAL), is typical blood-und-soil conservative, but the second you hit Greener Grad country and travel north to the border, you've entered the 51%. And that's the 51% that makes the decisions.
Do I bemoan the rural idiots? No. For a while in the 80s, they were wanting to split Washington into two states (the eastern half would've been named "Lincoln"...). Unfortunately for them (and us), such a thing requires a majority we're not willing to grant. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|09:31 pm] |
I once saw this, or something quite like this, when I was about 6 or so, and it's haunted me ever since. In the 70s, there were hundreds of these crappy paranormal shitfests made for television. This one is fantastic... I remember very clearly the supposed photo of a starving boy in a cage, which at the time scared me witless. Now, it is obviously just a dude in a cage looking gaunt. Meh!
I love crap like this. I merely recognize it for the crap it is. I just picked me up a used copy of "The Encyclopedia of Forbidden Knowledge" by Zolar (copyright... 1970), although I was looking for a copy of Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth", which is apparently stupidly easy to find, and goes for about a buck-fifty.
I love hippy dippy new age spooky crap. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|06:25 pm] |
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We spent Halloween at the Brotherhood this year. I enjoyed it. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|10:01 pm] |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Durrant
Theodore Durrant... the Ted Bundy of the 1890s.
It's related that the day he was hung, the prison warden invited his parents to lunch after they were to claim the corpse, as they were high-falutin' society types. They hit the gossip pages the next day when they apparently accepted a second helping of roast beef, as their son lie in the room. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|03:39 am] |
We do some crazy things around here.
Oly Film Festival has some gems this year. I'm excited. For instance: The 1933 Alice in Wonderland, which I am told has some sort of Hollywood curse legend around it. Still, here's the cast list:
* Richard Arlen: Cheshire cat
* Roscoe Ates: Fish
* William Austin: Gryphon
* Gary Cooper: White Knight
* W.C. Fields: Humpty Dumpty
* Leon Errol: Uncle Silbert
* Louise Fazenda: White Queen
* Alec B. Francis: King of Hearts
* Richard "Skeets" Gallagher: Rabbit
* Cary Grant: Mock Turtle
* Lilian Harmes: Cook
* Charlotte Henry: Alice
* Sterling Holloway: Frog
* Roscoe Karns: Tweedle Dee
* Baby LeRoy: Joker
* Mae Marsh: Sheep
* Polly Moran: Dodo Bird
* Jack Oakie: Tweedle Dum
* Edna May Oliver: Red Queen
* May Robson: Queen of Hearts
* Charlie Ruggles: March Hare
* Ned Sparks: Caterpillar
* Ford Sterling: White King
* Alison Skipworth: Duchess
* Edward Everett Horton: the Mad Hatter
* Jackie Searl: the Dormouse
Edward Everett Horton is worth noting, since although his name is a little obscure, he would later go on to narrate the Jay Ward Fractured Fairy Tales cartoons. Since, naturally, Johnny Depp is playing the role (inscrutably) for Tim Burton's version, I would like to taste what the original flavor was. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 23rd, 2009|06:21 pm] |
I remember there was once a time when ANYTHING with Mario's face on it tasted sweeter than ambrosia. |
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