LoL

I love the reviews of the tv show, The River. Doesn't matter how bad the show is, we all can't wait to see more and the debates that sprout out of it are so funny :D

Here's the latest one from Price Peterson:

Of all the things we learned about Dr. Emmet Cole this week, I think the most important is how bad he is at hiring crew members. First it was the party bro who thought it was okay to film locals' deaths on his Android and this week we learned that Emmet had also hired an extremely dangerous woman to operate his cameras. I'm talking, of course, about Katie Featherston, the main subject of of THREE documentaries that very explicitly prove she is haunted by and/or possessed by A DEMON. Seeing as The River is a found footage show that supposedly takes place in the real world, shouldn't Emmet Cole at least have had a passing familiarity with the Paranormal Activity franchise? I'm just sayin'... If I was trying to staff up an expedition into highly supernatural and treacherous territory, I will probably not hire the most famous demon-bait in America. It's just common sense. Then again, maybe Katie just had a great resumé?

This week's episode, "Doctor Emmet Cole," was basically The River's attempt at a flashback episode. Operating on a tip from Lena's ghost dad, Tess and the rest of the gang hiked out to a waterfall where they immediately found Emmet Cole's backpack. One guess as to what was inside of it? That's right, MORE footage! Fun fact: Did you know that you can store over a week's worth of nonstop camera footage (from two different cameras!) in one tiny ziplock bag? Anyway, before we knew it, the entire crew was huddled around the video monitors watching a (fully edited?) account of what happened to Emmet on his final expedition. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting stuff. But if your primary question is whether a man is still alive or not, maybe just skip to the last tape? I don't know. Instead everyone just stood there watching the tapes from beginning to end, and occasionally Tess would make everyone leave the room when she felt like Emmet might die on camera. Not the best viewing experience.

Emmet's footage began with Magus hidden-camera footage (which, why was this footage in the backpack? Be quiet, brain.) of a mystical dragonfly flying right into a meditating Emmet's open mouth and him awakening with an epiphany as to the whereabouts of The Source. A pretty typical day, in other words. After a brief on-deck fist fight with Lena's dad over the fact that Emmet had dragged them all on his crazy sorcery hunt, he packed up his dog and set off. Two crew members decided to go with him: Totally Gonna Die Guy and Katie (operating under the assumed name "Rabbit"). Almost immediately Emmet became super annoying by bragging about all his jungle knowledge, reciting from memory entire passages of Rudyard Kipling, and forcing everyone to eat bugs for dinner even though they'd brought food. And then when they were all trying to get some Z's, THIS happened:

After that, things just went from bad to worse. First of all, the dog got hungry. Secondly, there was some awkward tension between Emmet and "Rabbit" after she'd tried to put the moves on him around the campfire. Thirdly, the other dude was skinned alive and hung from a tree. Fairly typical jungle issues, but definitely enough to put a damper on everyone's hike excitement.

As Emmet had mentioned in one of his many know-it-all speeches, this particular section of the jungle was home to a race of superhuman natives who believed themselves to be angels. At the same time there was an evil entity that was definitely not a rip-off of the Smoke Monster from Lost. This one was made of leaves, not smoke. But yeah, a leaf monster kept attacking everybody and was responsible for flaying the other dude. Fortunately Emmet knew how to keep it at bay: By whistling the theme song from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or was it the Mogwai lullaby? Either way, a whistle a day kept the monster away.

So then "Rabbit" stole the supplies and snuck off (she probably needed to get back to San Diego to deal with some demon stuff), Emmet Cole and his dog continued onward, still dutifully filming everything from multiple angles. It wasn't long before he was incredibly thirsty and starving and was staring longingly at the dog as though it had turned into a cheeseburger like in the cartoons. There was even this long, horrible moment where he got out his Swiss army knife and tried to muster the strength to do it but finally couldn't. I don't know about you, but that was the tensest moment this show's had yet! I also don't know about you, but if he'd actually done it I would have turned off the TV and never watched the show again. Life is too short, you know? So good choice, Emmet Cole!

Just when the gathered Magus crew decided Emmet was probably going to pass away on camera, they were shocked and delighted to see that he was then SAVED by the aforementioned angel-tribe and deposited at the fence of the Dharma Initiative! Just kidding, it was probably just some kind of deforestation operation (there were bulldozers and English-speakers, so I'm just assuming). Then I guess the natives stole all his junk and neatly placed everything in ziplock bags for Tess to find near the waterfall? I don't know. Hopefully they pawned the camera. Anyway, after a round of hugs and high-fives, the Magus posse were suddenly shuffling through the jungle looking for that deforestation base camp. After fortunately avoiding the leaf monster and accomplishing in 20 minutes what Emmet nearly died of starvation trying to do, they pretty quickly came upon the place where Emmet had been dropped off. That was the good news.

The bad news was that it was now clearly a haunted, abandoned hellscape like something out of a Silent Hill video game. Uh-oh! We knew Emmet was still alive seeing as he'd pulled the dragonfly trick in Episode 2 and literally spoke to Tess, but now there were other factors at play, including the fact that apparently Lena is destined (via birthmark) to be some kind of mystical being. (Oh, also we learned that Lena had personally set off Emmet's emergency beacon in order to trick everyone into coming, but that ended up being a big who-cares? revelation.) And also we learned that a big reason Emmet had gone on this journey was to have a reunion with his deceased 2-week-old infant daughter Alice. So yeah, things were definitely getting weirder.

All in all, most this episode amounted to watching footage of characters watching footage. Very low-stakes! Still though, the episode was pretty riveting and had a great ending. I'm looking forward to next week's episode more than any episode so far. Congratulations, The River, I finally care. Only two episodes left!

Oddly enough, I am the sort of person that in my books, I have wings tattoos, long red hair, green eyes, great lips, even greater boobs, a pet wolverine dressing as a Beagle, a fetish for archeology, can use a short sword, own a sniper rifle, eat only pancakes, steal books and am married to a very tall and impressive General… In the real life I have wings tattoos, long red hair, green eyes, great lips, even greater boobs, a pet wolverine dressing as a Beagle, a fetish for archeology, can use a short sword, own a sniper rifle, eat only pancakes, steal books and am married to a very tall and impressive General … The only difference being, when shit hits the fan, and it tends to, in the real world instead of in front, I stand behind him and wield a camera.

8th of March, ladies day... Listen, ladies.

Researching the articles for the bookie, I came across the March 8th debates and how everyone is (still) loud about how the year has 35o something days, how men should be nice to women all year long, how blah blah blah yaddy yaddy yaddy... YES. WE GET IT. Nobody is bringing you anything on March 8th. Nobody is bringing you anything on any other day either.

Feminists. Look. The times are tough. People don't have the means and opportunity to treat you like queens all the time. We have our anniversaries, we have our birthdays and we like that. Humans like being told what to do, when to do it. It doesn't mean our men don't kiss or hug or love us all the time, smile and compliment us, make us food and keep the dog from being noisy at street pigeons when we are napping. They do. Sex is good all year long, there's talks and itty bitty surprises that make your whole day are often. But we don't have the time to go strolling romantically every evening nor the energy to go hiking every weekend or the money for restaurants every Thursdays and Tuesdays night. So maybe four times or so, it's ladies' choice. And I think that's nice. Not because I wouldn't get to choose 350 days a year, but because it took women in our society a fuck long to get this far and if you think a day like this is demeaning, go look at the societies that don't celebrate it. Where a man, when told to celebrate a woman's day is asked to buy stupid flowers or theater tickets and he frowns, confused... why??!

A book could be written about why men don't need their day because they are already kings and dalai lamas and bosses all the time, or about how their allowing us to reach equality and liking us for it is patronising, and so on, but honestly, I will rather go talk silly lovey talk over the phone with my booboo and when he gets home, even if he brings me nothing for this one day on the calendar (though he always does, silly old traditionalist), he brings his warmth and his scent and the curly chest hair and the giant hands that my giant ass fits in perfectly, and I'm home. Right there. There is nothing equal about it. He's the man. I am the woman. Not a womb, not a cook, not a cleaning lady. I'm the cushy realm of boobs around the heartbeat that he collapses into at the end of the daily trials. And if he brings me sunflowers and chocolate or doesn't, it doesn't change a single fundamental thing. I rather he didn't, because I don't really like plants, but if he does, that's just because men mean well and will try anything when they think it will make their women happy. (And let's face it, we don't make it simple on them.)

Gaiman and Palmer

Since Gaiman's people answered my copyrights issue so quickly and so nicely, I couldn't but consider the guy may not be a total dick after all. Truthfully I don't remember why I thought that in the first place, it had to do with something that happened 20 years ago...   Anyhoo, in one of his interviews on YouTube (Yes, it got as far as me actually youtubing him) he gives an advice to young authors:

READ
WRITE
LIVE

... Which, I have to say, though nowhere as instructive as Vonnegut's, is rather true. In a nutshell.

Then I noticed he's currently married to a freaky music sort of a person and after checking out her blog, I find, she writes:

neil is home and working and clearing out his headspace to start his own New Big Things. he and i are almost on the same creative menstrual cycle….probably not by accident.
i think if you marry an artist who makes Big Things and you’re an artist who makes Big Things, chances are you’ll start grooving in the same cycle…hunkering down at the same points and mining your souls simultaneously in different corners of the same room. i love his so very much and can’t believe how fucking lucky i am to have found a man who actually wanted a rock star for a wife

... and I can't but wonder... Would this have happened to dDidi and me? Would it? I still think it would not. I am much too needy for cushy things, for safety nets, much too lost in the real world to achieve that sort of power on my own and he would never push me - so it would never happen. Maybe he would have gotten somewhere as an author, but I'd stay way behind, anonymous, and content. In my case, the point in fact stands: a professional fantasist requires a hardcore realist to sustain her. And an occasional heartfully meant bitchslap.

In the article below, about Costa Concordia, there's an interview with an elderly couple during which the man says how terrible it was to lose sight of his wife for one moment, in all the panic... How usually he doesn't allow her to go out on her own. And I thought... That's why I always wear a red hat. And the General never allows me to go someplace where he couldn't find me. And how he gets upset if I don't pick up the phone. And how when I am working in the field, he finds an open vantage point and is constantly making sure I didn't wander off or fell someplace while photographing things.

I realise that now - it was only ever a problem me needing a hero to take care of me, while I was surrounded by gay poets.The kind of men that, while a ship is sinking, would weep, hold my hand a write about broken hearts lost in a vast dark sea... It is not a problem anymore. Suddenly, when I don't feel like I have to have my own back all the time, I actually glow, grow and grin.

Costa Concordia

Just watched a DC4 doc about the sinking of Costa Concodria. I still can't believe 35 people were lost over such a stupid accident. None needed to die and I hope this updates some of the rescue protocols, like the gentleman at the end of the documentary said.

              The list of idiotic things regarding the accident. 

1.       1.    The captain. What. A. Friggin’. Snotball. Okay, anyone can understand the accidental part – how the ship came to close to a poorly charted shoreline, that happens. But the man had three compartments flooded – and that’s more than a ship like that can carry – and he a) kept going there and back; b) never warned the people; c) LIED to the coast guard about what was happening and d) managed to run aground the second time, on the same shoreline. And let’s not even go into the part where he was told that passengers are getting into the lifeboats and he commented: “Whatever.” Or that he never issued an evacuation protocol but instead fled with the earliest lifeboat (that actually happens quite often), and would not return to the ship even after a coast guard officer was ordering him to do so and coordinate a helicopter rescue from inside. It was dark and the rescuers had no way of knowing where to look for people, as nobody told the people where to go or counted how many were still there or already rescued…

2.       2.      The ship. Zero rehearsal frequency, zero rescue coordination, outdated lever system for rescue boats and nobody trained to lead the confused passengers.

3.      3.       The passengers. OMG we are all going to die, this is a Titanic, there is no hope!!?? … Dudes. Seriously? The ship didn’t SINK, it LISTED. As if, RAN. ASHORE. By definition that means it can’t go any deeper. Second: The SHORE was, like, a 10 meters away. On a clear night. In Mediterranean. I swam distances greater than that in a bathtub. If need be, really, someone could just lead and ant-chain of people towards the shore where someone would try to signal them by light. Villagers were already helping. But there was no need, because boats were coming back. It wasn’t really much of a distance. Really, really no need to do a whole Kate and Leo thing and climb on top of the ship, like someoe people dangerously did. You could simply sit it out. 

I’ve been on many ships in my life. I’ve been on some that ran ashore. None that actually literally sank, but one that did get flooded and listed. It was an incredibly boring night, as we then had to wait several hours to be helped off and then another several to get our things. It’s one of the reasons why I never get go of my bag, ever, and why I often, when travelling, pack things such as a Mag Lite (which is fucking heavy and can also serve as a maul) and rope, and why I always check evacuation routes and, if possible, sleep on decks. Not that that really changes anything, I just like being paranoid.

The Costa Concordia crew never instructed people (because supposedly that causes panic) to put on life-belts precautiously and just stroll towards the life-boats, just in case. Just as a drill, if need be. In fact, not only they didn’t mention they have a fifty meter gash in their engine deck, they never sent out a mayday to the coast guard. Even after all power ran out and the boat began to tilt, and passengers themselves would call 911, crew lied that it’s nothing, nothing to worry about at all. Everyone could have been safely, quietly evacuated until then. But, as per usual, they were left in ignorance on a sank ship and the crew fled. 

I have listened to the conversation between the messed up gigolo captain Schettino and a coast guard officer De Falco, in which De Falco instructs the captain to return to the ship and help assess who is still on and how disabled are they (kids, elderly…), which Schettino didn’t do. The line from De Falco: "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" is especially famous by now. Get the fuck on board!

So, I don’t think it was terrible that the ship struck shore at all. That happens. Nobody died from that. What they died from was being ignored, lied to, not led and left behind. You would think with all the air precautions and marshals someone would at least think to have a rescue coordinator on ships. Everyone knows number one killer is a hysterical mass of sinking people – if no one tells them the water is not going to come up any higher than their knees.

A Dangerous Method

 

Watched the movie. Liked it, liked the turning of the tables of it. It's like they showed the right chunk of lives that made a lot of difference in a particular profession. Not sure why they had to stress at the end that everyone eventually died, but okay. Also, as Anita Du Bauch said, sometimes you just can't go wrong with corsets and spanking (though that bit with the belt?? The force he used?! That shit hurts, yo!) The scenery and costumes were sublime. Ahh, the old Vienna. Didn't like Keira Knightley quite as much, I think this role would have been a lot better cast with someone who doesn't need to try so hard (literally twist herself around to appear haunted? Really? I suppose they've tried it with just her eyes and realised she's already done that to death. You kind of do get to see her breasts, but then again there really is nothing there to see.) Mortensen was quite nice, I enjoyed seeing him toned down a bit for a change. And of course there's Michael Fassbender (whose movies I've been watching these past days back to back, just because). How he plays a coy, uncertain, mild and naive married-into-money doctor who lands quite hard into the real world and then suffers a broken heart over parting ways with Freud, that was quite well done. The language they used, with the confidence they employed using it, was kickin'. 

         Personally I have to say I don't believe in psychotherapy and find the lot of the so called 'doctors' on the subject quite unnervingly daft, especially if they have read every book written on one single approach to some dysfunction and they feel like you're talking to a retard through a wall. Really, there is a wast field of nothing between my understanding of the gene - the biology of all interactions of things alive on this earth - and my infamous impatience with whining. "Get the fuck over yourself. Stop blaming your mother for every little fucking thing you fail to do by the age of thirty and from the age of thirty-five you've been alive for so long EVERYBODY has at least one ugly experience that's changed them. Seriously. Quit. The fuck. Craving. Attention." And get laid. (I have to agree with the boys on this one - too many man-caused bad things happen because people don't think sex is just as normal and random as eating or dreaming. Though of course 90% of primal things that cause pleasure remain labelled perversions.) Certainly, you have people who really are sick - but that's either a matter of chemistry or physical damage, or, ironically, syphilis - or people who really have been traumatised by a gruesome act of violence. In which case they should be treated by psychiatrists. The people I know who go to see psychotherapists, pay what priests and pets are made to listen to for free. 

I sometimes wonder if I am the only person in creation left to think that to suffer through a great sadness, worry or stage fright without the aid of drugs, alcohol and/or only a mild amount of hysterical rampage, eventually brings about clear and fruitful resolves and decisions, not to mention growth. Then again the times in which we live now offer a great deal of boundlessness in which people can play. I can't think of anything more natural for a couple to enjoy mock-violent fantasies and a certain amount of pleasurable pain from time to time in the privacy of their afternoon leisure hours. And I really don't think my dreams have anything to do with my libido. I know a wet dream when I have one and running a marathon via a submerged hanging bridge holding onto the ropes for dear honor is not it.

        

Getting pretty pretty flowers - it means you've done something right :D I had a bit of a school presentation of my work last night, giving a lecture about being an illustrator... Even at the very start I could see some of the people's intellectual and educational (not to mention their imagination) development has been arrested around the age of twelve and they had no idea why the heck I was showing them books with illuminated manuscripts to explain the history of picture books, or why someone who doodles for a living has a right to stand while they sit... But then there is the other kind - the kind that can't stop asking questions. The kind that makes me want to be a teacher.

The little girl who acted as my commissioner, the author of the tale, explained about the statue of their fair city - how a pegassus supposedly once landed her, stomped a hoof and healing water came bubbling out - and that's how it started, the legend of this spa town and their famous hot springs.

Then we had a bit of a girl talk with her mum and the teacher who invited me and the girl (and a cushy pitch black lab called Night, their family dawgie), while The General read in the car. He picked this habit up from my dad and I'm starting to worry he won't be willing to shake it, ever.

Tonight I slept long and soundly for the first time in a long time. Two days ago I wrote to the editor about the Little Karlins travel book and she responded very early yesterday morning, so even though I tried to place the book in .pdf until I was frozen numb and starving, I still rushed to finish it the same day and then rad to the train station... So now there are so many things up in the air, that are out of my hands, that I have zero control and it feels so airy and calm...

Oh, and today is the first day of spring. not the official, equinoctial, but I just have to look out of the window and there it is :D No more showering in the freezer!!

Crap. They cast Katherine Heigl to do Stephanie in One for the Money. Fuck. She's terrible, she usually has no idea what kind of a movie she's in anyway, and now the whole wish they did the books on-screen is ruined for me. I liked the books a lot. Steph has that sassy Brooklyn humour that really makes you glad it's her and not you that's chasing after hot bad guys :D