Domino, with Kiera Knightley and Mickey Rourke. I think I watched a good, solid portion of this movie with my jaw dropped and my head cocked to the side. I'm still not sure whether that's a good thing or not, to be honest. In one sense, it's a lot of fun in that regard - the characters, violence, and crazy/unique cinematography (reminiscent of Man on Fire?) complement each other quite nicely, and as much as I rolled my eyes at the nunchuks at first, I took that back in the space of a moment when they were amazingly used in a logical way. And the soundtrack is completely psychotic. Another thing I'm not sure whether I liked or not. In a strange sense, I keep trying to find a connection to William Gibson's ideas of celebrity-status being a matter of achieving a critical-mass of attention, I'm positive this movie is an oblique commentary on it somehow.

Unfortunately, the narrative (which had already been chaotic and disjointed, but in a good way) completely trips and faceplants near the end. I'm not exactly sure when, but I went from engaged to mind-wandering-sleepy when the plot threads went from 'tangled' to 'knotted' and 'disjointed' became 'completely dislocated.' Something about getting to see the realy Domino Harvey made me smile, though.

Ok, here's my main argument as to why V for Vendetta isn't actually that liberal, after talking with Wyatt about it at 2am - the trick is, every 'liberal' jab or slant comes from a regime information source. And running off the 1984 parallel, in the aspect of extreme propaganda, all of that information given by the regime is at least not trustworthy if outright stated lies.....so the irony in the end is that the 'liberal' messages within the narrative come almost exclusively from the ultraconservative totalitarian regime. Now, does anyone have any thoughts on the morality of V's deception of Evie? That seems a fun, complicated, sticky issue to me.

First off, a new exercise! Haven't done that in a while. This one is courtesy of Mr. David (and the SHS wrestling team): sabercat pushups. Or is that sabrecat? Anyway. Beginning at the bottom of a pushup, body resting on the floor, start with just one push - up and then back down. Rest on the ground for ten or so seconds, then two pushups, etc, up through at least ten. Now, this is a very deceptive exercise. The trick is, you're not allowed to move your hands from the spot you placed them in at the very beginning - so even when you're resting on the ground, your muscles are actually slightly engaged as yet - basically, it's a pushup that will sneak up on you like a sneaky...uh, sabercat, and also a funny trick to play on someone, because ten pushups after all that "rest" should really not be that hard.

In other news, another good workout that sneaks up on you is combining forms into one long string. So while doing one kata or form with power might get you riled up a little, it's a nice exercise - both mentally and physically - to flow from one right to the next, though it can take a while if you string together enough of them. There's a little finagling to be done to make them fit together, but that's usually pretty easily done by just leaving off the mudras at beginning, though the end mudras often work out nicely. As an example, last night we worked out Wonsu, Anaku, Empi-sho, and Bassai-dai - or, Wukushodai, if you will. Our goal is to get up to Wukushochidaigodan. Trust me, that gibberish right there is hilarious if you've worked with all those katas. Of course, personally I enjoy the more poetic names for the katas that are hardly ever used, such as "swallow pivoting on beach" or "breaking the forest."

Dragons of a Fallen Sun, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Ah, finally (working my way through these old Dragonlance novels) one that I quite enjoyed. Basically, the authors seemed to take what was already an expansive setting, and then gave it a similar treatment to what created that grandest of comic book epics, Age of Apocalypse. Everything is flipflopped around - but not as implausibly as a Superman-bizarro world - morality that was starkly clear is now grey and complicated, and though the world is darker (and even creepy at times), the brightness in it is that much more surprising and nice. Which is ironically closer to the end of their first trilogy than any of the subsequent novels up till this point.

Furthermore, the authors took the interesting fantasy tact of getting rid of most overtly 'magic' elements, which in my opinion consistently makes fantasy more interesting in a proportional manner by drawing the focus to the characters and plot. Ironically, however, there is not that much character development for a novel this size, but the setting makes up for it in a Southwest lit. kind of way.

Waiting..., with Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long. I'm quite surprised this movie pulled off an R rating. Vulgar, dirty, and vulgar. But quite funny, especially so if you have experience with restaurants in regards to how the movie is set. There's a good many laughs, but the almost-depth in regards to the apparent main character confused me, I wasn't sure if it was there to have actual depth or give the veneer of it - and if the latter, why bother? But, it was interesting overall nonetheless.

Shu shan zheng zhuan ('Zu Warrors'), with Ekin Cheng and Louis Koo. I can't give a real opinion on this, in all fairness, because we meandered out of the room and promptly forgot that we'd left it on a quarter of the way through. And I was the only one half-paying attention anyway. Why that reaction, one might be tempted to ask? It's not as if the movie was horrendous. It had really interesting imagery. It was just...imagery, however interesting, isn't enough to carry a complete lack of character depth and plot to the point of making those images banal. I find it odd that I would have given this movie more of a chance had it been a well-drawn cartoon, for the amount of energy that seems to have gone into making it quality live-action.

A couple articles on weight/eating/health and yoga, as a tangent to the Workout Challenge

Possibly thought-provoking quote of the day: "Did you know you run faster when you visualize yourself being chased?"

-and I finally did it, I sprang for an upgraded flickr account...which I begin to gather might induce me to taking even more photos, so that's cool

Still needs a title, still first draft-y like usual
---
It seems funny that a few words, a note
can raise such ire inside.
Perhaps I should call it a poem in prose
to justify this emotion it wakes,
this heat that sings in my veins
and singes the skin of my face,
lighting it crimson from the inside.

Or is it the content, the meaning
of these verbal symbols?
Am I caught in their semantic web,
the threads of connotation too fine to see?
I wonder whether this red disquiet
is a venom of imagined words between words,
whether I am already cocooned
and dreaming poison dreams.

The author, I insist to myself-
it is the writer of this text,
the one who set the message
to paper in ink of arsenic and rust,
who tattooed it in the rapid rhythm of my heart.

But even as my blood burns to sing
in brimstone harangue, even as my eyes narrow
at the brightness of my fiery, righteous response
to the affront of words, meaning, and intent,
I stumble into that quiet moment,
where flame becomes ember.

My anger is my own.
Though I stalk and circle, blade in hand,
I realize there is no handle –
the blood dripping from its edge
flows from the hand that grips it.

My choice is my own.
I sheathe the sword,
still slick with crimson emotion
and wait

for stillness.
---
(I feel I should say that this isn't actually based on any real letter at all, just to keep anyone from glancing at their 'sent' folder or whatever)

A kind of silly thought from an article on backbends: we never really see our backs. Well, we see reflections in mirrors, perhaps, or photos, but generally there really isn't a way to actually directly look at some parts of our backs. Perhaps there isn't any significance to that except in a zen eye-trying-to-see-itself way, but there it is.

-from a novel:
"What did your hair look like, Mina?" he asked.
"It was the color of flame, long and thick. The strands would curl around your finger and tug at your heart like a baby's hand."

Also, picpics; I haven't yet decided whether to spring for a full account to put some of the carshow pictures up, though...(donations welcome, of course)

Word of the Day: aubade - a song or poem greeting the dawn; also, a composition suggestive of morning

One of those interesting thoughts I came across in that activity I seem to spend most of my day doing (reading): paraphrased from poor memory, we are never deceived - we only deceive ourselves. So I start thinking, deceit? Then I think about a person cheating on spouse - aren't they deceiving their spouse? Or: is the spouse willfully being blind to to the truth, however subtle the cues (perhaps not even the cheating, but that the relationship is failing and engendering the wandering eye).

But, doesn't a conman deceive their mark - isn't that the whole point of it being defined as a scam as such? Buuut, there's that subtle layer, where one might wonder whether the mark is just not being observant or incisive enough to sense the deceit in the other person's body language or whatever other subtle hint, maybe because in some way they want to trust that person (like with the cheater) or, say, a person complaining of being seduced into a one night stand was deceiving their self, and let themselves be "tricked" because they really did want the guilt-free night (the rationalization being icing on the cake)?

In completely other news, I got to go to an Irish music jam session last night. There was a flock of fiddles (or a gaggle? a pod, perhaps?), a couple guitars, a mini-guitar of some kind, an Irish drum of dazzlingly simple design for what it was capable of, and this strange trapezoidal instrument with combined/braided strings that had a lovely sound, though I know not the name of it. Tangential to all that, besides being reminded of how toe-tappingly good Irish music generally is, I was reminded of a conversation I had on the weekend where I explained that one thing that really attracts me to a girl is admiring her for something.

Case in point here being said drummer, a friend whom I already respected for her sharp intelligence and was already attracted to her big pretty eyes. When I watched her drumming and realized not only her skill but her enjoyment of it and of learning on the fly, I got that odd combined feeling of impressed/attracted, each feeling linked to the other, and had to restrain myself from staring at her all night. I'm not really sure what comment I'm making with that, maybe just complimenting the drummer if nothing else, but there it is.

I think the best part is how she completely dominates her opponent in the end (watch for the beautifully timed shin to his inner right thigh)

(as per the usual, not entirely refined yet)

The Cold Season

I loathed each winter.
The sun's daily fall into ash.
The wan rain that barely-
The cold that ached in my bones
before I even woke.

Until I found you -
a brush of color,
a drop of autumn ember
in that pale season.

Oh, we were both still chilled.
(it was still winter)
It was not warmth you lent me-
(though we shared what we could)

Rather,
You gifted me with new eyes,
to caress the air,
its subtle noncolor of ice.

Your scent woke me
to the colors that were,
the ghosts of tree's sunsets
that lingered in wintry grey and blue.

In your voice I heard
the quiet timbre of frost
bearing itself into existence.

Where my soul had contracted
before in fear of the constricting
pain of cold, it began to wake
to the bracing vitality
I had once hid myself from.

In your lips, I tasted snow-white honey.
In your arms, in the long nights
of that cold season, I found winter.

Standing, waiting for confusion to be cleared in the sales office, and looking forward to the blessed feeling that will probably follow yoga this afternoon, I was reminded of a little thing. The teacher I've been going to lately has a penchant for one-leg balances, and while she doesn't particularly emphasize it I've read that the slightest bit of expanding of the bottom of one's foot can help massively with balance, by virtue of surface area involved versus what's loaded/balanced upon it. For example, by spreading your toes, or consciously rocking till weight is distributed equally amongst the edges of your foot.

The trick is, this really only seems to work well when bare-footed; with any kind of shoe or sandal on, the surface area in question becomes that of the shoe (or point of a heel, I suppose), and one can't very well spread plastic or leather. But I've noted it does work very well for augmenting sheer endurance (less energy spent wobbling to keep balance) when doing deep stance training or just standing and listening to lectures in martial arts, or not falling over in yoga. Though I haven't figured out quite how to integrate it into an on-the-fly movement like kicking, except by ingrained muscle memory.

Connie's neologism of the day: complinsult - kind of a "thanks...I think" thing, and kind of a compliment-without-the-follow-through that's harder to explain

the sales manager's secondary neologism of the day: whatsofuckinever - I'm just having fun trying to parse out what it might mean

Word of the Day: awry - away from the correct or expected course (just because it's a funny word, especially so if you've read any Dan Abnett novels - you'll probably laugh whenever you hear someone use it in real life)

Weekend! With an almost literal complete lack of sleep for almost every single person I ran into, for the thirty-six hours or so in question! Congratulations for Scott, for second place in the GM class at this year's NOPI! We did re-learn that though it might be chilly and windy, however, that you'll still get burnt after spending literally every daylight hour in the sun. In other news, that was probably the least healthy eating-wise day I've had in a long while - chicken fingers, a huge BBQ tri-tip sammich, a ginormous hot dog, mall food court Chinese food, and a beer. Awesome. Also, got some ideas from a rocking French-Canadian Jewish former pro-snowboarder that was parked next to us for modifying my Eclipse in an affordable manner, so news on that might be forthcoming (pending me figuring out how much money I have left after the thousands of dollars I've been spending and am going to be spending for a the next few months).

V for Vendetta, with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. I enjoyed this movie a great deal, as much as I was leary of the political slanting. But the trick is, as much as it seems it could be termed a 'political movie,' at the same time that was just understated enough that it could quite well be read as a near-future 1984 take that just happened to use appropriate present day references. I loved the dialogue and its poeticism, and finally warmed up to the idea of the mask, and also greatly enjoyed the overarching coincidence theme. The fight scenes were solid enough that I'd like to scan through them again, as well. So, I thought Ultraviolet looked cool in the trailer and was disappointed, and thought this looked dippy in the trailer and was pleasantly surprised - go figure.

When Harry Met Sally, with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. Aiiyaa. I also enjoyed this movie, however much teasing of me it engendered. Yay parallels between movies and real life turning out badly in the latter (two different parallels, even). Except not yay. But it made for the funny. Anyway, it's a solidly good film, a classic, if you will, in dialogue, plot and character development, each in their turn. It's...cute, and intelligent, a nice combination.

A thought provoking article on one of my favorite subjects, the relation of language to perceived reality (I really wanted to fit a pun in there, but it was either way too easy or too hard)

Google Mars would be a fun companion for reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy; though I'd surely like to see the oceanic northen hemisphere from the last novel, photoshopped maybe.

-nice dialogue, from an article-
"Have you been writing all of your life?" I asked, elated at the victory a writer could still have at her age.

"I wrote through my 20s and then got married and had a son," she said. "I didn't start up again until my 60s when my husband died."

I paused. I was a gung-ho writer then and wouldn't give it up for anything.

"Well, was it hard? I mean giving up writing. Did you resent it?"

"Oh, no, I didn't feel bad," she replied. "All the years I didn't write I never stopped seeing myself as a writer."

I had a horrible, horrible dream last night. But for the first time in a while, at least it didn't put me in a analogously horrible state when I finally got up for the day. I think as I fell back asleep after waking up out of breath, I was chanting internally over and over (and not without some element of desperation, I'll admit), "let it go," so that helped. Also, I did my best upon waking to find some positive in a mental re-run of old pain (or, emotional split lip, if you will), so that helped, too. Now that I'm aware of that lurking baggage that I'd thought was long gone, I can deal with it and heal it in a more aware manner - however painful that might be, at least it's healthier. As one meditation article aptly points out, of course, working towards "self-realization is never pretty."

-in other news, a few more photos

Born to Run, by Stephen Kenson. I used to adore the Shadowrun shared setting. It was gritty, noir, always original, sexy, brutal, and made for interesting exploration of issues of the darker sides of morality and character. But then the parent company that produced the game based in the setting went defunct, and they stopped publishing the novels. I picked up this novel with wary high hopes, noticing that they seemed to be bringing the shared setting back...and was unfortunately quite disappointed. Granted, I guess this might be a kind of introductory book to the setting, but even in that it would be a weak one. Any exploration of issues is shallow at best, there is little if any development of characters more rooted in real life slang and manner than in that of the setting, and the whole thing seemed better suited to a short story. Nope, does not match at all up to the old school days; thankfully, there are still used bookstores out there that usually have a few of the original Shadowrun novels in stock.

Tangentially, take almost everything in there and apply it to what happened when (with the same parent company, of course) the wonderfully epic and rich Battletech shared setting was watered down and defiled into "Mechwarrior" and then even more ungodly worse, "Mechwarrior: the Dark Ages" or whatever it is. I won't even deign to italicize those blasphemies. Ugh.

High Fidelity, with John Cusack and Iben Hjejle. One, movies on the Oxygen channel become dippy when there's lots of cursing. Who the hell would say, "What the frog?" Who thought that up when dubbing it? Sheesh. Two: why on earth would the same channel advertise Secretary for the next night - how the hell much stuff will they have to edit out? It makes me angry to think of it.

Aaand back to the film. It's...definitely under the category of 'meandering.' Also under the category of 'interesting character study.' See, where I normally have fun identifying with Cusack's intriguing characters, this one mostly just bothered me up until the very end. And while my first impulse was to ascribe that to maybe his character just not being very likeable, like the one in Pushing Tin (though I may go back and revise that), I started to wonder whether I was identifying with him, and just being bothered by something in myself. I still haven't figured out quite what, though; there were ephemeral, passing parallels, but I'm still at something of a loss. While I was put off by his seeming stubborn insistence on staying the same, mabye that was just his odd way of releasing his emotional baggage to be able to change? Still, there wasn't enough clear character development to make me want to go back and figure it out, as much as I usually like Cusack's movies.

I agree that number 1 is definitely up there; I hesitate to put more thought into this, but I would certainly add the love scene in the new Thomas Crown Affair completely off the top of my head. And disagree with several of those. Now, erotic scenes in novels and poetry...hmm...

I don't really have any deep thought behind this at the moment, but I'll just note that I've seen several gals lately without makeup for the first time, and was quite...well, surprised. Interestingly, they were much, much more attractive (all of this just in my perception) without anything on, almost looking like entirely different people. The one exception from a while back that I can think of is a minimum amount of makeup, ok two exceptions, and I remember the tiny amounts I saw each of them put on as little accents, but that's a whole order of magnitude of difference from the previously mentioned lipstick et al.

In other news, I've only quickly played a downloaded demo of it, but F.E.A.R. quickly caught my attention. One aspect can be summed up by the fact that while playing it late at night I was startled enough to think the phrase, "Sweet pumpkin-humping Jesus!" That said, it's a first-person shooter whose most attractive aspect, I think, is its atmosphere - which is, in a word, creepy. The action is also quite solid, as well, with impressively (seemingly) organized and reactive AI, and something of a setting that hints of expansiveness even within the minimum given in the demo.

Also, Fear of Physics seems to be an interesting site for tinkering with

Here we have an example of the complete opposite of a recent relationship of mine; well, at least one aspect of it. A gas explosion is not very passive-avoiding, no siree. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if trying to shoot, stab, and blow each other up might symbolize true love. In a Mexican way.

Quick article about expectations between people, and while it doesn't mention it I think it's probably great advice for romantic relationships

The Golden Bough, by James Frazer. For some reason, I don't recall why, I had occasion to look up a movie called The Wicker Man; and somehow, I also don't recall how, that led me to this book which has been transferred in its entirety online. In any case, it was written a good ways back in the century, but if you wade through something of an antiquated style there's all sorts of interesting information about pagan ceremonies and beliefs.

Flow, by Jenova Chen. Scott found this one, it's...oddly relaxing; a wonderful piece of art, if you ask me.

One of those ideas that came up in cross-country conversation, borne from real-life examples, (admittedly painful) examination of my own past behavior, and from texts I've been poring over lately. So, we acknowledge that idea that it might be part of human nature (or any animal's nature, really) to never do anything entirely for someone else - like, there's always some ulterior motive, however slight or subtle. So, if you have an urge to...help the homeless, or change a lover, there's probably anything from wanting to feel validated somehow to doing it to feel superior (etc) involved in the impulse.

The trick probably is, that's not necessarily a bad thing, just something to realize and remember - to be aware of really. One might aspire to truly selfless service, and gain whatever benefits that aspiration might confer. But a perhaps more directed point we ended up at in the conversation was that it's interesting that service of whatever kind to others can actually turn out to be more selfish than simply directing attention towards improving/changing/healing oneself. The irony is in the natural thought that is if one were to focus on one's self, that's 'selfish,' when it might actually be the one thing that can be done without using someone else for gratification. [not talking about focusing on the self at the expense of others, mind, but hypothetically healthy introspection of whatever kind]

Ultraviolet, with Milla Jovovich and Nick Chinlund (Toombs from Chronicles of Riddick? wtf?). Well. Uh. The trailer looked pretty good. Unfortunately, the pretty cool gadget-concepts and it-had-its-moments martial arts were nowhere near enough to make up for horrible writing, zero character development, and iffy CGI. And a plot that skated close to being incoherent, with a few odd just plain red herrings. Eh, I suppose in the end it's rent-able, if you're in the mood for some martial arts, but disappointing in the theatre; I can't really muster up anything articulate to say about it. It did have a fun opening credits sequence.

The Libertine, with Johnny Depp and Samantha Morton (Maria from Code 46? wtf?). Actually, there's several more actors in there that surprised me, in truth. Anyway, this film was better than Ultraviolet in quality in the order of magnitudes, though they are really too different to compare in any way. In any case, from the get-go The Libertine catches your attention intellectually - stay on your toes, attention-wise. I'll quickly acknowledge that it's very, very....risquee; I was actually feeling a little uncomfortable sitting next to my old roommate (in a slight "*cough, cough*" way), and in our theatre and the theatre a friend went to both, people were walking out. The writing and acting as a whole are filled with nuance and wit, ranging from snipes that you have to think about to running jokes made for snickering. Basically, to cut myself off from rambling, it's quite a combination of character study and period piece.

Dragons of Summer Flame, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Yet again, another Dragonlance novel. This one is a very marked improvement over every previous one I've read lately, though it's still beer and pretzel fantasy - not that that's a bad thing, just something to remember. The authors did take an interesting turn playing with "good" and "evil" and exploring what each really means, or how perception can affect them. In that, however, they made for one quite interesting character that embodied that exploration and its implied conflicts (both internally and externally), and a whole bunch of characters that are just not interesting at all.

At the risk of sounding like my mother when she chants, "Maya, maya, maya!" everyone remember to drink water till it comes out your ears. Or something equally vaguely threatening. I mean, I've just been kind of cranky and breaking out a little, and headache-y. Lisa in the office here, on the other hand, was out the entirety of last week because of a kidney infection brought on by not drinking any water. Yes, it's not exactly desert heat, but as Xuemei pointed out in coming from Boston, cold can take moisture out of the air by freezing it or otherwise just as well. A public service announcement. ("Maya, maya, maya!!!")

I'm starting to re-think Xuemei's edict that I should make it my life's mission to find and marry her, now that I've seen a photo

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter." - hmmm....truth to this statement?

-and this one?
"We tend to do a lot of top down, micro-managing. In other words, we use the reptilian model." - it seems like some principle of biology I should know, and if that is the case, how would avian or mammalian or..uh, fish-ian models compare?

Here's an interesting observation: if one feels attacked or singled out when criticized by a loved one or superior in the workplace, it might feel like an unusual amount of sensitivity, like "I'm not normally this touchy..hmm..." So that inordinate sensitivity might actually be coming from an inward place, that is, a desire to please others or gain their approval (that seems to me one of those things that should be obvious but seems quite a surprise, anyway, if true). From there I guess we might return to an adage closer to the source, as it were, and reiterate the thought that it's important to have approval and validation from within one's self first, and then have any of that from anyone else just be icing on the cake.

Sanskrit and Arabic interest me as languages for similar reasons. Arabic seems almost designed for poetry - and this isn't just me spouting off, I've read that in disparate sources, actually. Part of the reason for that is because connotations of words in Arabic are almost more significant than the denotations, thus lending a given word several layers of meaning by default. Sanskrit, in turn, has been said by some to be a language almost designed, in a sense, for ritual or ceremony. Like Hebrew, each letter or distinct sound has its own significance and meaning, and thus every word is built up of those smaller component meanings, which provides a semantic depth to each word that is unparalleled.

And also, a quick ramble on one reason I prefer bodyweight exercise over weights. After a yoga class which turned out to be a slight bodyweight workout last night, it occurred to me that during and after I had a distinct feeling that what I was doing was something that was good for me - my body liked it. There is a similar feeling when I do bodyweight exercises such as abdominal sets, pushups, or pullups; one's muscles thrive on repetitive flexing and contracting - you're letting them fulfill their very purpose of being. Now, weights have their purpose, certainly - if I were to join the military or I was training for a fight, I would have reason and desire to augment my body beyond its natural state. But as it stands, I'm content to work on quality and density in my tissue over size and quantity, by pushing my self, using my self, rather than purposefully slightly injuring it to build it up over and over and losing out to wear and tear in the long run.

Word of the Day: logodaedalus - someone skilled in the manipulative use of words. That has to be useful somehow, seriously. And it's just a cool word.

One reason I like The L Word so much (besides the fun theme song, of course) is its emphasis on exploring identity. I mean, sure, technically the show is kind of a soap opera, but at the same time one would be quite hard-pressed to find a show that is able to delve into such a range of different identity issues, and with such clarity, without it becoming an academic gender issues exercise. For example, one character, Moira, is involved in changing her gender - becoming "Max." So, her breasts will be removed, and her hair is shortened, and her appearance is changing in a subtle but apparent way. Fine, that's a whole identity issue in and of itself. But: another character, Dana, develops breast cancer. Her breasts are removed, her hair falls out, and her appearance changes in a subtle but apparent way.

So, if the changes in one signify a shift to the masculine, what does that mean for almost the same changes in the other? Now that must have been a fun 'bam!' moment to write into the script, where those two changing identities came into confluence (I think it was a tiny bit stilted, but still done with aplomb).

With that focus on identity issues (and the recent theme of changing identities, another example being a lesbian character finding herself attracted to men again), the show is especially interesting because when you do find an identification with a character, it becomes especially acute. At least for me, anyway; I've been finding all sorts of identification with the characters whose relationships are shifting or ending (plus the meditation-subplot), so I'm always left a little aching afterwards, but having gained a little perspective, so bittersweet would perhaps be a better term in the end. It's too bad you don't watch that show, t, we would have a field day with identifications...

An experiment. We took cuttings of creosote, bird-of-paradise, and bougainvillea, and are going to attempt to grow them. A bonsai knife (ie, very, incredibly sharp) was used to cut them at a 45 degree angle for the maximum amount of that outside ring layer we could get (amazing how often that angle pops up, isn't it, for anyone who gets what I'm referencing). Then we dipped them in a liquid root hormone, then in a powder root hormone of a different type (which may be overkill, but it seems to work better on bonsai roots). Then, we used a chopstick to poke a hole for each stem in some rainwater soaked bonsai soil, so we wouldn't lose the powdered hormone by just shoving them in the dirt. As an alternative, we also tried putting some creosote stems in a small vase to soak, to see if the potato-principle might apply. If either method does happen to work, then people across the country'll be able to smell desert rain as soon as I get their plants to them!

Also, while we were doing that (it was twilight/dusk) we heard some planes, and so looked up. And damned if it wasn't a C-130, flying wingtip-to-wingtip....with an F-22! Had to be less than a thousand feet above us, like right there. And then they circled all the way around to come right back near us again. I think we just kind of stared with dropped jaws for a bit, then started babbling. I may have actually hopped from one foot to the other several times. The F-22 is really a beautiful machine, and I'm used to seeing A-10s in their graceful arcs (and even some F-4s and an Apache helicopter the other day!) a few hundred feet above me as I drive home and they come in to land. There was an interesting bell-toned clarity to the Raptor's sound at a certain point, distinctive enough to note, anyway. We couldn't figure out why those two planes would fly together in the manner that they were, though, it seemed a horribly odd combination.

Clade, by Mark Budz. I've read that this author has been compared to William Gibson, which I agree in thinking would be apt. Here's the trick, though - as was coined by a quote on the reverse of the novel, where Gibson was famous for being part of (or starting, even?) the cyberpunk subgenre, Budz has turned the driving themes that made such wonderful settings in novels such as Gibson's or Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash towards a different angle - 'biopunk.' That is, if one were to take the weaving of the semantics of technology and (dys)utopian from a cyberpunk story, and insert 'biology' instead of 'technology,' that might be an okay way of putting it. Or, from another angle, a slightly more punk and much more explicitly bio take of the characterstics of Ian Mcdonald's great novel Terminal Cafe. In any case, if you read this you'll probably be much more aware of smells and plant-life for a bit; that said, however, the novel is really more about the setting in the end than the plot.

Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. I'd say this was a solidly good movie, though also a long and not exactly happy one. But it's certainly interesting, and the music's great, natch. Phoenix and Witherspoon acted and sang wonderfully, and were apparently uncannily like the real people according to my parents (my dad having having had breakfast with Cash and my mom having seen him and Carter in concert). I feel like I should have a lot more to say about this movie, but...at the same time, I don't think much has to be said about it. It's worth seeing if you're interested in Johnny Cash at all, and a generally good movie regardless.

fleurs, un papillon, et un arc-en-ciel

I was thinking in reading all those borrowed Dragonlance books that it kind of annoys me that fantasy shared settings of that general demeanor (maybe see also Forgotten Realms, for example, or even 40k thought that's debatable) utilize gods that play active roles in the stories and are often capricious or more human in character than not. It just...seemed to me to make something 'god'-like into more something that was kind of dumbed down, or just dippy, even; maybe it just became hard for me to take them seriously as 'gods.' So, in that style of fantasy writing I gravitated towards other shared settings, either without gods (Dark Sun or White Wolf Publishing's new stuff) or that made effort to maintain 'gods' as things that were really god-like, and not just another character (Planescape or WW Publishing's old stuff).

But, all of a sudden I've got two angled thoughts off of that. One, that maybe those gods that annoyed me were being used like the gods in Greek myth; that is, maybe they aren't being dumbed down so much as being used to try to lend these fantasy stories an air of myth and make the story 'bigger' than it would be otherwise. Then, two, there's the interesting path of H.P. Lovecraft, who attempted with his writing to de-centralize humanity. Where myth generally serves to validate humanity's existence and place it in a place central to destiny or fate, Lovecraft wrote his 'gods' in such a way as to make humanity, and whatever its destiny or fate may be, insignificant, to loop back around as opposed to 'gods' taking a personal interest in the day to day living of individuals.

Though I'm still very much a proponent of bodyweight exercise over any weighted exercise, this seems a nice survey of exercise technique for the womens.

I don't know what the hell it is, but looks yummy - well, unwholesome, but still yummy.

And now, a study in contrasts. Sort of. I just really like that phrase. Anyway. (this is what happens when I try to write while having one my headaches). I'll try to focus, though.

Teachers, and teachers. I enjoy it when teachers (of anything) have two qualities especially. One, if they place themselves within a context. An example of context within history might be 'lineages' as used by traditional martial arts teachers or Siddha yoga teachers, where you can trace who taught who back to olden days. Obliquely from that might be combining, such as MMA or finding parallels in Sufi poetry and Sanskrit texts. Or from a different angle, context might be showing the students how what they're learning may be practically used - getting more out of films with close-reading, for instance, or take French-language students to a French restaurant to actually practice. Two, giving priority to common sense.

Which leads into the contrast. Sometimes teachers go purely by-the-book, which (another example) can be disastrously misleading in a martial art that is taught by principles over pure technique, or really any martial art in the end (not a person in the world actually fights from some deep stance or uses techniques straight from forms if they have any intelligence...but some still teach that anyway...). Or, to combine thoughts, using withheld reasoning ('my way only!') or tradition or by-the-book logic to narrow the focus of teaching, for whatever negative reason such as keeping the students low or fear of being able to expand or just need for control.

And I hope that was semi-coherent. I'm kind of afraid to go back and read it.

The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King. Ah, the Dark Tower epic. So addictive. For as thick as this book is, it reads fast. This second novel of the series in what a forward describes is supposed to in truth be one gigantically long uber-novel serves mainly to introduce more main characters; as such not as much seems to happen in it as the first novel, but that might just be because the main plot doesn't advance forward so much. Because a lot certainly happens in the course of introducing and fleshing out the eponymous-by-title three. As a sidenote, it's especially interesting how King often lends a completely secondary and tangential character a couple pages of background or character sketching, and then all of a sudden what would have been a random, forgettable scene becomes that much more memorable, and takes on that much more weight (kind of a reverse of the future-flash for the secondary characters in the film Run Lola Run).

Test of the Twins, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. This was my favorite out of the second Dragonlance trilogy (courtesy once again of Mr. Bryce). For one, it actually expanded the characters out from the few the previous to novels had been kind of stiflingly centered on. Two, it actually approached the sense of 'epic' the first two novels wanted, but didn't achieve. Three, the time time travel schtick is handled tastefully and with aplomb in this novel. And four, there's relatively none of the bloody kender (to reiterate, that race in which there is constant disregarding of that which makes them uncomfortable, rationalizing of actions, and a complete lack of understanding of consequences). In that vein, a quote, (which I think you'd like, t) -
"They [the other kender] don't seem to understand. They just don't...well...care. It's hard - caring - isn't it, Caramon? It hurts sometimes."
"Yes, Tas," Caramon said quietly. They had entered a shady grove of trees. Tanis was waiting for them, standing beneath a tall, graceful aspen whose new spring leaves glittered golden in the morning sun. "It hurts a lot of the time. But the hurt is better than being empty inside."

Witty columns by Lore Sjöberg, for spare-time enjoyment