Skip to main content

Where does the time go

I seem to be doing this once a week--Saturday nights when my husband has gone to bed and I've watched Full Metal Alchemist. No time, no time. Like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party--no room, no room. Have a short list of topics to write on that I carry to every job and never get to.

Just saw Neil Gaiman's blog listed in the of interest column on the log in page. I love Neil Gaiman. Just read "Anansi Boys." Delightful, but not as thought provoking as "American Gods," which is fine. I have a post card from Mr. Gaiman because I mailed him a Halloween wallhanging and he wrote a very nice thank you on a postcard with a Charles Vess illustration.

Watched "The Most Terrible Time of My Life" last night--Japanese, early 90's with a character named Miku Hamma (or rather Hamma Miku, but the joke's lost that way). Very funny and sweet and sad and fantastically shot. When it began I said, "That guy (the lead) looks like the guy in "Mystery Train" which I must have seen 12 years ago and IMDB let me know that it WAS the guy in "Mystery Train." Wow.

Watched "Live Flesh" tonight, a Pedro Almodovar based on a Ruth Rendell, one of my favorite authors. Despite changing several details, I really felt that Almodovar captured the spirit of her novel better than any adaptation that I've seen which always seem to stifle her writing. She writes with so much insight into human motivation, good and bad, and it just gets reduced to British moires in adaptations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Adapting a book--The Prestige

I was completely blown away by the movie of The Prestige , and I thought then about reading the novel, but it seemed too soon. So I carried the author's name around with me for over a year (Christopher Priest) and then, finally remembered to buy it through an odd sequence of events. We watched The Painted Veil based on the novel by Maugham starring Edward Norton, and while I decided I didn't want to read The Painted Veil because of it's differences from the film (which was more romantic and tragic) it reminded me that I had wanted to read Fight Club (the movie version of which starred Edward Norton) and that reminded me that I had wanted to read The Prestige (which did not star Edward Norton, but was up against The Illusionist which did). Whew...so it's all Edward Norton's fault. The Prestige is a very good novel, and yet, the movie differs from it considerably. And I am still trying to figure out what exactly that means. The central premise is the same, AND HE

Putting my money (read time) where my mouth is

Some Duran Duran with some songs that I believe prove their musical merit. eSnips gives me the power and I'm going to use it. ( Bwahaha ) Get this widget Share Track details This is one of my all time favorite songs. I have it on a B-Side Collection, although I can't find any mention of what it was B-Side of, just that it came out in 1988. The words are quite haunting, as is the melody. But, I can hear you say, this is not at all a standard D2 song. Well, no, but what is a standard song by any band? How do you average that? Thomas Dolby's singles were always abnormal compared to the rest of their respective albums. Same with Barenaked Ladies. I think the B-Sides are often truer to what the band wants to be without the pressure of the labels for commercial success. Get this widget Share Track details This is probably more like Duran Duran you're thinking of, right? It's from Pop Trash , released 2000. The words are based on the true story of a boy who was building

The end of Cloud Atlas

Feel I must write this--promised it to myself, can I finish before midnight (when I said I would go to bed at 11)? Where was I? Oh, yes, section 5, where it gets interesting--because it's the future, at least 25 years, hopefully more. I say hopefully, because I don't want to be living in this future. The section is called "An Orison of Sonmi-451." An Orison (I had to look it up, proving I don't remember my Shakespeare) is a prayer, but in this future world where language has taken as many turns as in Orwell's 1984, it is more a confession or final statement. Sonmi-451 is a clone (as the name might suggest). The section is not entirely original. It owes much to Brave New World and Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (made into the film Bladerunner ). I find it interesting that 40 or so years ago--when Dick wrote his book he believed that future slaves would be Androids, replicants. Now we are much more likely to presume they will be clo