When I heard that "consumer electronics" (whatever that might mean) had surpassed books as the most sold item by Amazon I was a little depressed. But without going into that obvious skein any further, the thought that some of that gadgetry might be something like Half-Life 2 is somewhat mollifying. Ish. In any case, the game has turned out to be so engrossing that not only does my family sit around and watch whoever's playing it, but other people (female, even!) come over to watch. Not just for the eye-candy, as that would never be enough for the gather-round-the-fire effect, but really just for the story and characters. It's like a thirty-six hour (the estimated play time) movie, as Wyatt pointed out.

Feed, by M.T. Anderson. One of those books that's hard to describe; I'd say part 1984, part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and part cyberpunk. It is geared for probably around high school age, but nonetheless is quality writing, and some of the obvious pitfalls the novel could have taken into tacky or cheesy or excessive neologism were adroitly avoided.

Ocean's Twelve - with...too many people to name. Like Blade Trinity, we thought this movie might have done better to have more length and room to flesh itself out, but not as much potential. It was pretty good all in all, but mostly explained by the original idea being set for a John Woo movie and rewritten for the Ocean's Eleven characters. The metafiction was cute, but ended up going a little overboard, at least for me.

Supersize Me - with Morgan Spurlock. Not really much to say, as I wasn't that interested. It was funny at times, and cleverly edited to keep it from getting boring, but it was still basically unpleasant to watch.

      The difference between the words judgement and discernment struck me again as I was reading an article the other day, though I'm still trying to understand it. Judgment places the subject in question in a hierarchy, which could be good, say, if the hierarchy is based within a system of good/bad that works, like the theoretical court system (?). But discernment might be more useful on a personal level, to distinguish differences between subjects and have definition, without placing blame or assigning necessarily positive/negative connotations right off the bat. Or, as the article mentioned, on an even closer level, discernment can help one distinguish one's I from other identities without constantly placing them in a hierarchy, which causes its own issues.

-Idoru by William Gibson. From the guru of cyberpunk (as per Zach's description), it's a subtle, but biting satire/exploration of the nature of celebrity. Chock full of little interesting skiffy ideas, and embellished with humor, Gibson uses his usual back-and-forth play of multiple storylines to keep the tension and interest up. The ending seemed something of a riddle, though, which I'm not sure had an answer within the novel.

-pi10k - makes music out of pi; a few chords turned out to be kind of eeriepretty

Grosse Pointe Blank - with John Cusack and Minnie Driver. As this is one of my favorite movies, not much to say about it, in the interests of avoiding expounding. Sharply funny and sweet at the same time, and with some deeper issues of nostalgia touched on. And one of my all-time favorite fight scenes between Cusack and (the entirely random) Benny Urquidez, a real-life kickboxer/karate champion.

Blade Trinity - with Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, and Jessica Biel. Like Wyatt said, we didn't see it for the plot, but it was art. It had the trademark Blade style, and the usual healthy mix of martial arts (among others, Biel using wing chun, and Reynolds with some smooth jujitsu). I just wish it had been longer; the characters and villians and plot could have been fleshed out to great effect, in my opinion. Still, it was funny, and great action.

Musa the Warrior - with Woo-sung Jung and Ziyi Zhang. Not sure what to make of this movie; it was interesting, though. Part period piece, part sort-of-realistic war movie, part martial arts movie. I'm intrigued enough to go look up some Korean history now, based on the supposedly historical conflict the story takes place within. There were some subtexts I wished I'd known more about so I didn't have to spend half the movie figuring them out, however, like the relationship between the noble Korean soldiers and the peasant (?) soldiers. And who the hell was Musa? There was no one named Musa in this movie.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Incredible, but twisted. This movie was viscerally painful for me for a few reasons to watch, but in the same token, I'll watch it again because of that. It left me feeling like everything around me was uncanny well into the next morning. Jim Carrey's character was very different from his usual, which was quite interesting; Kate Winslet was adorable, but her character (along with some of the others) was like a concentrated form of the people who give me mental baggage at work.

Zatôichi - with Takeshi Kitano and Tadanobu Asano. Everyone I know who's seen it thought it was amazing; but at the same time, everyone I know who's seen it likes that kind of movie. The choreography is done in a unique style (which is nicely explained on the DVD in an interview), and while sedate the movie does move itself along, with a range of emotions being drawn out from sad to hilarious. The ending, however, as Brian at the video store pointed out, "gets...a little hokey." Which isn't to say it's bad. More like, hallucinogenic.

Jersey Girl - with Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler. Kind of fluff, but really cute fluff. It's a family sort of movie, but directed by Kevin Smith, so it's a family sort of movie with a foul mouth on it. Incedentally, the first movie I thought the two main actors were attractive or good in.

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Basics - by Gene Simco is a solid collection of simple, effective techniques, but I don't have much more to say for it than that. Disregarding my opinions of BJJ, I did learn some little tricks that have born out application, though for a wrestler or grappler this book is best used for review of pinning principles and using the guard. Throws are given a cursory treatment at best, and an almost misleading overview at worst. But hey, BJJ is all about the ground, right? Lastly, it's just not very well written; that is, the techniques are explained adequately enough, but some of the history and other discussion I found distastefully egocentric and written with poor style.

-missed it by a few, but the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge happened (via Wyatt)

      I've felt a certain kind of feeling before when I've gone to write important papers, but not so much as I have for the last term paper I wrote. Basically, it's like I can feel the structure of it forming in my head, and I can organize the pieces, it just takes time. So I have to sit there for a period of time, then gather more information, then sit, then gather, and eventually it starts to coalesce, until I can start writing. Then I find that as I build up the flow of things, bits and pieces of the information start connecting without me even realizing it at first, but then I just have to go back and make sure they're connecting on the page and not just on my head. I don't know, I'm still working these thoughts out.

-hmm...I'm pretty tempted to eat it, actually

-kind of dippy, but well made; makes me want to go to Bookman's and buy the actual one

-Double Happiness Wedding - short comic

      One phrase my dad sometimes uses is: "There are no stupid people; people just do stupid things." The most common instance that I hear this is when I describe some of the patients I end up with at work. Now, I've been chipping away at this one, because honestly it really does seem to me that some people really are just stupid. But, especially since my dad is the one saying it, I still feel like there's some wisdom I just haven't understood yet in it. One part of me is thinking that it's tip-of-the-mental-tongue thing in the "there are no stupid people" part, and that I just need a better understanding of myself or people to get it. The other part of me is thinking that the import of the phrase is not directed outwards; that is, to assume that someone is stupid would probably lead to acting in a certain way towards them. But to accept that they are who they are, and that for whatever reason they might be doing a stupid thing, at least opens up the possiblity of acting more postively towards them.
      In a slightly similar vein, something clicked in the middle of aikido today. The literary theory professor said at one point that the reason the critics use such esoteric/odd/stilted/figurative language is because oftentimes what they're trying to describe can't really be described for all intents and purposes; it's just sometimes outside of language. So, in effect, the best they can do is point to it with whatever kind of language they have. In the same token, my martial arts teacher (and me on occasion for my unconscious imitation of him when I teach) have been nudged for using an excess of analogies or figurative language to attempt to explain things. It seems to me that there are some things in martial arts that can't really be expressed by using basic, precise language, but that can only be pointed to in a similar way. That, or I just have trouble communicating.

-crazy burpee variation that seems obvious now that I think about it: do it under a pull up bar: starting from a squat, jump up, grab the bar and do a pullup, drop down into a squat and shoot your feet back, do a pushup, and shoot feet back to the start; wash, rinse, and repeat.

-some conditioning articles - haven't gone through all of them, but so far some are interesting, a few are dippy, and some I just plain disagree with

-like Kevin said, it's not even really a caricature

-fun, and relatively assertive...sort of. okay practical.

Think the Unthinkable: Partition Iraq - interesting column; I heard the author interviewed on the radio, he seemed quite intelligent. I'm not sure how viable his ideas are, but there they are nonetheless.

"When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion dollars developing a pen that writes in zero gravity upside-down on almost any surface including glass and at below freezing to over 300C.

The Russians used a pencil." (via my dad)

-roller disco is funktacular

-ojingogo - a comic about a girl and a...um...squid...thing

      Well, any work on my term paper was sidetracked by my debilitated right side (which Magda's homeopathy and Michelle's massage mitigated, thankfully), but let's see what kind of minor brainstorming I can do in case I get screwed over by chance and have to present later today. The concept of the double (identical person/reflection) has its roots in the very nature of language, and manifests itself as uncanny (aka creepy) as a response to more primitive/younger self-love; the myth of Narcissus is a useful tool for reading representations of that in texts.
     The pronoun "I" is found in every language, referring to a specific person at a certain instant of discourse.  When "I" is used, it is implicit that there is a "you" in the discourse as well for that "I" to be speaking to. In the give and take of that discourse, however, the "I" becomes the "you" and the converse, in effect blurring the line between them; they are "complementary and reversible." That is not to say that they are necessarily equal, however; on some level one's ego is in a higher register than the "you," rendering it an "other." (Benveniste)
      Before that ego comes to the fore, there is a time in which the double is a representation of possible immortality. This is youthful narcissistic stage that is superseded when the ego becomes capable of self-observation and self-criticism. The double as a ward against the "annihilation of the self" (thank you Scott for the reminder on that phrase) falls by the wayside, and the double as the "uncanny harbinger of death" comes forward. (Freud) Not only can the double embody all the things we might have been (and the bad things we may have done), it also takes on the weird/uncanny properties of a reflection (as can be seen in the myth of Narcissus). If you walk away, your reflection ceases to exist; but in the same token, are you sure you're not the reflection, and you will not cease to exist if the real you walks away? Furthermore, there is an attraction/revulsion towards one's reflection. Attraction because of the desire for an ideal version of one's self, and revulsion because of the fear that the reflection might replace one's self. The trick with the attraction is that there is usually a point where on some level it is realized that one cannot truly love/possess one's reflection, and that is its own kind of psychological death.
      Now, I think I need a bit more theory (Laplanche and Pontiliste for identification with characters and something similar from Doane's Femmes Fatales hopefully) and to just pick one example to dissect or a theme to delineate. The options off the top of my head are solutions to the narcissistic pattern (that normally leads to tragedy), the oddshot of a distortion of that pattern (Alien: Resurrection being the only weak example I can think of), or just showing how that pattern might be explored in terms of solution and replication of it in one movie (more promising examples there, Spiderman 2 and Cat People, maybe Double Indemnity).
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      Random new foods have been good to me lately. Xuemei tossed some pickling cucumbers with salt and garlic, which was good snacking. Similarly, chicken and rice with cheese and homemade salsa makes a good, easy burrito. Xuemei's mom made steamed buns with pork and pumpkin filling, which seem to have been pretty much universally reviled, which is good; that means I get all of them. And at UMC they had what were basically Cinna-bons, but with spicy oil instead of cinnamon and a bit of cheese instead of glaze. Unfortunately, it was only a quick break so I didn't get to buy the entire basket they had of them.

-a short of martial arts in Elektra; or, why Jennifer Garner rocks and/or rolls

another end-of-semester revision-

Creosote
-
Before, when we crested the shadowed shoulder of the hill,
the liquid sun glanced back at us
on its way out of the sky.

Our cheeks brushed, and your warmth
was the desert rose and pink copper
of the sunset's last breath.

In the dark, however, it is your whispered
footsteps I follow, without the light.

The honeysuckle pollen of an ocotillo flower
tastes red when your lips touch mine,

and the last caress of your skin
smells like rain.

      Random, disconnected things. I think Halo 2 is quality because you can play it cooperatively, which is not only huge fun in and of itself but also nixes having to deal with overly competitive people, and it has clever characters and a setting that while not originally fleshed out, has become so. Hockey is a very, very, very violent sport; so it's cool, because you can't take little kids to cage fighting. The annual martial arts tournament that KoSho puts on was a success; we had people from several schools, even from Paradise Valley and Surprise, and a Shaolin group. And Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall trilogy is noticeably kiddy in style, but perfect for one-shift reads in the ER.

-fine, but now I want somebody to cluster balloon across an ocean

-interesting but vaguely scary (via Wyatt)

first revision-

Headache
--
She strokes my face as if she is afraid
it will break.
She asks, would it hurt less,
if you let yourself?

But I've never yelled,
not out loud
never moaned,
never growled

like a dog, startled. All the same,
no silent tossing of my head
can put out the wet fire in my skull.

And yet,
all the same,
the coolness in her fingertip distracts.

It does hurt less, when I close my eyes,
though the dark light that blinds
still presses against the back of sore lids.

It does hurt less, when I make myself breathe,
though my neck does not unbend
from the unreal weight of it.

But the release of a scream,
I slowly explain,
would be too much to bear.

I leave silent
the jaw clenched tightly open
and hands straining to clutch at temples;
the self that screams inside my mind.

She presses the mug into my hands,
and strokes my face.

"We read…a poem to make contact not so much with some objective truth but with a particular mind trying to know what is true for it, a contact more immediate than the kind we are likely to get in fiction and drama." - Carl Dennis
      This is definitely a large reason in why I prefer writing poetry over writing fiction. A teacher once gave me a quick explanation of the difference between fiction and poetry being that a fiction writer wants to know "why," while a poetry writer concentrates more on "how." While I sometimes enjoy exploring the motives of characters, I much prefer to read what someone else has written in that regard. Poetry, whether I'm writing or reading it, appeals more directly to me, especially in how Dennis puts it as trying to express the feeling of "a particular mind trying to know what is true for it."

"Now it appears to me that almost any man may spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel - the points of leaves and twigs on which the spider begins her work are few and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting." - John Keats

-Sabaki Challenge - Ahh, bareknuckle karate. The videos available for download are pretty hardcore; these kind of karate rules are the kind I've always supported, as opposed to the focus-on-clean-technique one point at a time rules present in almost every other tournament. Then again, there's always MMA, but that's an entirely different story I suppose. Tangentially, the local teacher for one of the styles connected to this tournament comes to the Diner, apparently they've got some Enshin karate and Japanese sword classes at one of the local YMCAs.

-The Skinhead Hamlet - "HAMLET: Fuck off to a nunnery! "

-the XM8 - is totally cool