http://randomsome1.insanejournal.com/93403.html

I read Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death series again as braincleaner. It's working, and I'm glad she's writing a fourth one.

~~

I read Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby, finally. It's strange, yeah, but it's interesting--and also functioned as braincleaner. The main character finds himself in possession of a poem that can kill, then finds himself able to kill with a thought. What follows is a fairly convoluted tale of the corrupting nature of power, mixed with the clash between modern media's force-feeding style and a situation where an influx of information can be deadly, and then sprinkled with a heaping spoonful of WTF-gender-and-sexuality and studded with liberal pokes at the fourth wall.

Old George Orwell got it backward.

Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed.

He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled.

And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world. (p.18-19)

I still really wish I'd been at the reading he did at my old college--the one where a number of people in the audience passed out.

~~

I went back and read chunks of David Foster Wallace's short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and found myself more appreciative of its frequently overly-wordy WTF than I was in college. He was an oddball, that one, but his writing style's conductive to sitting down and concentrating on what's being said--something I needed.

~~

Mark Millar's graphic novel Old Man Logan wasn't as puerile and poorly-written as Wanted, but somehow was even less cerebral or well-plotted. The story opens up fifty years in the post-apocalyptic future, as Wolverine's non-mutant kids offer to sell their working x-box in order to pay rent.

If you can't get your brain around the idea of an x-box making it fifty years without bricking, this would be a good stopping point. It just gets worse from there. Om nom nom adamantium. Seriously: if I get started, I'll rip the entire story to shreds.

Otherwise . . . I'm not sure if Millar aims for transparent bigotry or just lands there anyway. The bad guys are a black man covered in gold jewelry, a Hispanic girl with too many facial piercings, and the (morbidly obese) Hulk's cannibalistic trailer-park-living kids/grandkids--an emo-haired punker, some rednecks, and a perpetually-publicly-breastfeeding female. The protagonists? All white males. The good women? Sidelined or fridged. The young, attractive women? Evil or whores. Then there's how Wolverine/Logan is a pacifist(!) who hasn't popped his claws in fifty years and who is stomped/stands by placidly as his friend gets beaten down--but he finally turns violent and almost stabs a random bar patron in the face when they imply that he might be gay. And of course, the work completely fails the Bechdel test.

Subtlety, thy name is not Millar.

But at least it wasn't Wanted. Few things can be as bad as a monster made of Hitler's poop or the closing line "This is my face as I'm fucking you in the ass."



For braincleaner from that, I might have to dig up the Wonder Woman comic written by Jodi Picoult.

~

The thing I thought would be novella-sized is going to top out at about 15000 words. Oh well. As long as I finish it.

http://randomsome1.insanejournal.com/92922.html

Today I watched a very small child wandering about the store. He was about a head over knee-high--maybe three years old--and completely unattended. He toddled all the way from the opposite side of the store towards me, veered off down an aisle, meandered back to the main aisle, walked almost up to my counter, headed further into the store to look at a couple of little old Italian men drinking their coffee, turned around, walked back across the floor . . . and, with his parent still not in sight, headed straight for the automatic double doors and the road directly outside.

I bolted around the counter and caught him before he could get past the first set of doors, then herded him back in--which is the point his parent turned the corner looking for him. If I hadn't been watching, that kid could've been road pancakes. Some people really should just not be allowed to have children.

~~


WTF, Dexter season finale. WTF.

http://randomsome1.insanejournal.com/92446.html

I cleaned the rabbits, then stacked their cages in preparation for company tomorrow. Sambunny is now in the window--and has been stomping for the past half hour. Usually it's not so big a deal . . . but since the cages are stacked, with his smaller one on the top, any stomp he makes fucking echoes.

I tried to be nice. I figured he was just scared of new elevations, in the same way he's afraid of the outside and/or open spaces. I went in and petted him for a bit; I fed him banana chips and told him it was all okay. I even got him a box to hide in--something that's always been guaranteed to make him calm down.

Three minutes after I left, he started stomping again. He isn't afraid, he just hates it--in the same way he hates grass, water not in a bottle, feet, and keys.

He keeps it up, I might eat him.



I think I want a Christmas tree. The question remains: Do I get a bag of dirt and replant the tiny sad one I have that I haven't watered in months, in hopes that it will recover? Or do I get one of those rosemary trees I've been ogling for the past few winters?

Things to consider:

The rosemary tree is expected to die in a few months.

Then again, so is anything plantlike that I touch.

Where do I put this bundle of holiday spirit, anyway? On Sambunny's cage?

All of this requires me to go outside, and it's god-awfully cold out there!

ETA: Rosemary was expensive; I picked up a couple Christmas cactus instead. :P

http://randomsome1.insanejournal.com/92272.html

I picked up a piel de sapo from Sam's club out of curiosity--and completely without knowing that its name translates as "toad skin." It's interesting, but amazingly generic in flavor.

This doesn't mean I didn't just eat an entire half of one, of course. You know how with a normal melon, they're not as sweet once you get closer to the rind? This one isn't so much like that. I'm sure the bunnies will be thrilled once I start doling out leftovers. Sharkbunnies attack!