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]