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weblog :: the.rumpus :: archives Thursday, March 28, 2002 Hey, I got quoted on Random Blog Quotes today! Check it out, it's a pretty keen site. :: 3:44 PM :: :: link to this post :: Listening to: KEXP This thing is groovy. A original idea for a blog: No words. Detail & Pattern :: 2:57 PM :: :: link to this post :: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 Listening to: This American Life archive (and you should be too)So, I've decided to learn to speak Japanese. I've been watching so many Japanese language movies lately that I actually started to pick up a few words and grammar, so I figured I might as well transfer that momentum into educating myself for a change. So far, I can say "I am a student" (Watashi wa gakusei desu) and "I am not a student" (Watashi wa gakusei ja arimasen). And I can ask a question: "Is Mr. Yamada a student?" (Yamada san wa gakusei desu ka). Watashi wa kore kora meijin no nihongo desu! I saw a very fun movie on Sunday called Samurai Fiction. In the words of its promo, it's a "funky-fresh MTV-generation supa-cool" movie. It's got all the trappings of a traditional samurai flick, but it's made in a modern, somewhat whacky way by a young Japanese director, Nakano Hiroyuki. The cinematography is well done, the story is interesting, and the actors are top-notch. It's laugh-out-loud funny in many places, but still manages to tell a serious story. The ninjas alone are worth the price of admission. If you're in Seattle and can get yer butt over to Scarecrow, you need to rent it now. :: 3:51 PM :: :: link to this post :: Sunday, March 24, 2002 Listening to: DJ Krush, ZenReading: Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil Yatta! Yatta is a Japanese word to indicate exuberant joy, and it pretty well sums up how I feel about the kick-ass (to use an American phrase) weekend I've had so far. (Yatta is also the title of this song. Watch this video at your own peril). First, Friday evening. Miss X knows a lovely couple, Courtney and Michael. Courtney and Michael know a very cool guy by the name of Jeff Friesen. Jeff is the guy that manages Nikko, the super-fabulous sushi restaurant in the Westin Hotel here in Seattle. Jeff decided that he was tired of always catering to business travellers staying at the Westin and wanted to "increase the party vibe" in the place by having his friends come and eat a lot and get loudly drunk. To facilitate this, Jeff gave Courtney and Michael a free sushi dinner for 15 people. I got to tag along to this gift from the gods on Friday. Our party got our very own rice-paper-screened room where we sat on tatami mats and tucked in to the most gargantuan feast of japanese cuisine that I've ever seen outside of an episode of Iron Chef. We began with vodka martinis, fresh snap peas and thinly-sliced marinated steak filets. After the rest of the group arrived, we moved on to giant plates of tempura prawns and vegetables, teriyaki chicken, and the first of our many, many bottles of sake. When the tempura was obliterated in a frenzy, the sushi began to arrive. The lovely Emiko was our talented and dedicated server for the evening and she never let a glass go empty or the table become free of foodstuffs. And oh, the sushi we had. I have been to sushi dinners before, and have usually had my fill. Or so I thought. The prohibiting factor in sushi consumption has been, it turns out, the cost. When free sushi is being brought by the dozens of pieces to your table, you eat it. And eat it. And eat it. For hours. At the end of the night, we were actually begging Emi to stop bringing us food. Please, for the love of the gods... can't you see you're killing us?! Have mercy! Of course, we were drinking just as much as we were eating. And that was the deal, the way we understood it. Nikko gives us free raw fish, we drink like sailors on shoreleave and have a hefty liqour bill. Everybody wins. Well, the end of the evening rolls around (after toasts to Jeff and Emiko) and we get the "bill." Jeff has comped us for the whole friggin' thing. We owe exactly $0 for our bill, which totals over $1300. Those weren't ordinary bottles of sake they were slinging, each one was $120 (and one bottle was nearly $300, but was left off the bill). We were speechless. So, we left Emi a $350 tip and begged Jeff and Emiko to come out with us and have a drink. This they did, and there was much rejoicing. After Nikko, Jeff tagged along with us to the Bookstore bar, where cigars were smoked and scotch was consumed and we all got good and plastered. Cabs arrived and whisked us home and we all passed out, filled to the brim with fish and human kindness. Saturday morning was spent recovering until we struggled to breakfast at 3:00 in the afternoon. The menu at IHOP insisted that we must have three pancakes, regardless of what we ordered. Everything comes with three pancakes. The three-pancake breakfast comes with a side of three pancakes. Want a glass of water? 3 pancakes. Some college kids at the next table discussed how artificial diamonds are formed. It has something to do with blowing stuff up -- that's as much as I could catch. Oh, and "the russians" do it some other way, without blowing anything up. I had pegged the group as roleplaying geeks when we walked in, and just as I was about to give up hope I caught the phrase "radiated a false dweomer of magic as we left the dungeon" from their table. Ah... I can spot 'em. There was actually a girl at their table, though, which troubled me at first, but I stuck to my guns. After pancakes, Miss X and I wandered through Zanadu where we re-discovered the genius that is Chris Ware and the Acme Novelty Library. Purchases were made. Also, I found a sweet-ass Chung Ling Soo magician's tin lunchbox that will get me into the Heaven of Cool Pop-Culture References of the Past Century, when the time comes. Later Saturday evening, Miss X and I watched two movies on DVD, courtesy of Scarecrow Video. But this entry is too long already, so the capsule reviews of those films will be in another entry. I have to run now to get ready for the Oscar gathering at Courtney's this afternoon. God, how I hate the Oscars. But it's like a sore tooth, you just can't help probing it with your tongue over and over again. I'll just say this: Ghost World, The Royal Tenenbaums and Mulholland Drive are not even nominated for Best Picture. Fuckers. Oh, and what the hell are they really saying in that crazy Yatta song, you may ask? These guys have figured it out. Have fun with that. :: 1:40 PM :: :: link to this post :: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 Listening to: Massive Attack, Mezzanine (and lo, it doth groove me)Reading: Michael Chabon, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (and I'm almost done... dammit. I want this book to go on forever) My buddy Jen gave me a prompt the other day: Porn: From a macro level, do you think that it is it a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? From a personal perspective, how do you feel about it? My, my. This is a rather large issue to tackle, isn't it? I'm going to leave the first question for now (good or bad) and jump right to the second. Porn: how do I feel about it? First let me say this: I like to look at beautiful women. Naked, half-naked, fully clothed, whatever. A beautiful, sexy, woman is a wonderful thing to look at and I take pleasure in doing so. I am a heterosexual adult male, so this is pretty much a given, but I'm stating it for the record anyway. I think we can all agree that enjoying the sight of an attractive member of the opposite sex in various stages of undress is not objectifying or demeaning, anymore than enjoying a sunset or oil painting is objectifying or demeaning. True, when I look at a picture of a woman I am enjoying her physical body only, and not conceiving her as a whole person with a mind and heart, but this is the nature of visual beauty -- it is surface, not substance. When I look at the physical form of my lover, I am moved by her surface beauty, and also by the person that she is inside -- what she means to me. Being with her is a much more fulfilling experience than looking at a painting, or a sunset, or an erotic image. This is an important distinction, but it doesn't invalidate the pleasure I take in admiring beauty elsewhere. It is my attraction to women, their bodies, their beauty that makes me able to desire my lover, in fact. It's a necessary, healthy, component of the human sex drive. So, I say all that simply to state a few basic ideas before we move on. Images of naked people are not generally considered pornography. Pornography implies (to me) the depiction of sex in some form or another (masturbation, or a sex act with two or more people). How do I feel about that? This is a hard question to answer. Pornography comes in a wide range of styles, quality, and, for lack of a better term, "levels of taste." Having a fast connection to the Internet, I've been able to see a sampling of something from most of the categories (except those that I refuse to watch... bestiality, children, fetish stuff... I won't be talking about those in this post). Some of it I have enjoyed watching (and found arousing) but most of it I find tedious, repetitive, and dull at best -- crude and embarrassing at worst. The porn industry is like the pulp-fiction industry of the 1930's -- demand greatly exceeds supply, so quality really is not an issue of production. Throw anything out there, and it will be gobbled right up, no questions asked. But this is supposed to be personal, right? You're wondering, what did he enjoy watching? You want the goods. Well, sorry. Go find your own stuff, you sick puppy. When I am in a relationship, I don't generally watch pornography. During a long stretch of being single and alone, however, (as happend last year) I do sometimes rifle through the old "porn folder" on the computer. I don't think this makes me (or anyone else who occaisionally watches porn) a sexual deviant or pervert. My theory is the same as Margaret Cho's: Everyone Loves Porn. In everyone there is a desire to play the voyeur, to look at beautiful people, to fantasize. When it is not abused, when it isn't a substitute for real intimacy, when it isn't exploitative or harmful or illegal, porn has its place. I've often wondered what it would be like to watch something racy with my lover, but I've never done so. Part of me thinks it might be exciting, and another part wonders if it would just seem pathetic. I've always had a very fulfilling and active sex life in my relationships, and have never felt a real need to "spice things up" with a video or whatever. Then again, it might be fun. Or at least funny, since the average "actor" in a porn video is so wooden, er, I mean stiff... um... "not very good"... that there might be a few laughs. So, uh... I guess I've said my piece. This is one of those entries where your comments are practically required, people. Lemme know what ya think. :: 6:37 PM :: :: link to this post :: Monday, March 18, 2002 Saw two movies yesterday.Scratch Documentary film about the birth and growth of hip-hop music, told through the memories and stories of the DJs that invented the artform. I am not big into hip-hop or anything (though I do like me my DJ Krush, yes I do) but I do like a good documentary. Scratch delivers. It's not Paradise Lost or anything, but it's a crisp, engaging exploration of hip-hop music from 1979 to today, and it does a great job teaching the audience about the technique and art of scratching, digging, mixing, transforming, and all the other incredible magic that DJs conjure with turntables and a mixer. Excuse me, they're not DJs anymore, they're "turntablists." I'm not kidding. Scratch is playing at the Metro in Seattle right now. Rope A Hitchcock film that I somehow forgot to watch until now. Miss X had seen it, and felt that I should see it too. She was right. Rope is not a great movie (it's deeply flawed in many ways, in fact) but it is a technical marvel of filmmaking precision. Hitch wanted to make a movie that captured the experience of watching a stage play (the screenplay for Rope was adapted from a play), i.e. no edits, no cuts, no breaks in the experience. So, this is what you get. Rope is presented as a series of 10 minute reels with no edits (the longest continuous shot Hitchcock could do before running out of film). The next reel begins exactly where the last left off, so there's no (or very little) visual disruption in the action. All of the action takes place on one set, and as the camera moves to cover the actors (there are roughly 20 camera moves per reel) stagehands have to move walls, chairs, and props out of the way and then replace them before the camera comes back around. This is entirely invisible to the viewer, however. It wasn't until much later in the evening that I realized that the camera had moved through spaces occupied by tables and walls a moment before. Rope is also the first major Hollywood film to have openly homosexual characters as leads. Even more amazing, the film treats them as complex people who happen to be gay, not as characters defined by only a single attribute: "gay." This kind of subtle treatment is a very rare thing in movies of any era, and is really amazing to find in a film from 1948. :: 11:24 PM :: :: link to this post :: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 a fableIt is said that the Queen of the East kept two colored flags in her bedchamber. Each night, after a bath in warm waters scented with lavender, she would dismiss her handmaidens and walk naked upon her balcony to dry her skin in the cool northern breeze. Her husband, the demon Akagi, whose eye was the moon, would look down upon her beauty when the moon was full and bright. On such nights, the Queen of the East would fly a silver flag, embroidered with an eye in indigo thread. Thus, the people would know that Akagi was well-pleased with his love, and the land she ruled, and its people would be well and prosper. But the Queen had a second flag. A narrow pennant of black silk without device or emblem. This was the flag of Mordu, He Who Is Not Seen, the keeper of the chambers of the night. On the nights when the eye of Akagi was turned away, the Queen flew the black flag of her secret lover. And it is said that Mordu would visit her bedchamber when the black flag flew, and the Queen would welcome him with the fires of rose thorns and pitch. When the black flag unfurled from the balcony of the Queen, the people despaired, for they believed that Mordu was an evil spirit, and his congress with the Queen her sacrifice to keep her people safe in the dark passages of the night. But this was not so. And when the thief Zrahad stole the silver flag and the black flag from the bedchamber of the Queen, a great lesson was taught to the people of the empire of the East. It is from this teaching that the proverb comes: The eye sees what the heart wants, the hand feels what desire seeks. :: 6:13 PM :: :: link to this post :: Thursday, March 07, 2002 Overheard at the Blogger lunch today:"What's with all the penis monsters, anyway?" "... previously free bestiality..." "I want bigger, pointy ears." "... and their least favorite sexual postion? The Piledriver." "Oh good, you're still on porn!" "We're gonna blog you up real good." "I WILL NOT CRY!" Did I forget any good ones? :: 4:23 PM :: :: link to this post :: Listening to: The Nields, 'Mousse Reading: Michael Chabon, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Blarg... that "middle school" entry was pretty crappy, huh? Oh well, that's what I get for posting right before bed. This blog is very much a "fire-and-forget" system, however, so I can't complain about it too much. Chapter three of Coil isn't quite finished yet, but you can see what I've got so far. The ink is still wet, so mind your fingertips. :: 3:10 AM :: :: link to this post :: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 prompt number one (from sundry):My Very Best -and Worst- Memories Of Middle School Jessie Clark Middle School, Clays Mill Road, Lexington, Kentucky. When I type it like that, it seems awfully rural and hayseed, which it wasn't. And it wasn't a middle school back then, either, it was a junior high -- grades 7, 8, and 9. I moved to Lexington during the summer after sixth grade, from a little college town to the south called Wilmore. I remember not wanting to move. All of my friends were in Wilmore. Good, boyhood friends that rode their bikes with me over every square inch of that town. Friends that charged with me, hurling stones and clods of dirt, to de-throne the King of the Hill. Friends that crept in silence with me to Capture the Flag, to Tag, to Un-Freeze, to Hide and to Seek. Wilmore was our town. It was bicycle-size, kid-size. It had a creek with frogs and huge fields with cows and horses and tall, dark, forests and railroad tracks. There was no reason for me to leave. If I left, Kelly would have to fight the War of the Thistles on his own... and the thistles might just win. But we moved anyway. To the big city: Lexington. The first kid I met in our new neighborhood was some blonde-haired punky jerk that yelled at me and called me names. I tried to ram him with my bike, he pulled me off, and we beat the living hell out of each other on his front lawn. Later, I found out his name was Richie and he liked video games almost as much as I did. We walked to school together for the next 3 years, every morning, rain or shine. It was important to get to school early so you could do the circuit. Jessie Clark Junior High is laid out around a big rectangular hallway, with classrooms on the inner and outer walls of the hall. In the mornings before class, all the students would walk - in two lanes - around this rectangle to see and be seen, to gossip, fight, joke, and tease. It was a slow parade of adolescence. I can’t imagine what the teachers thought of this phenomenon. I never found out how it started, but I do know that students have continued to do it to this day. Two sections of the hall were carpeted, and if you shuffled just right, you could build up a pretty nasty static charge to unleash on passers-by. My friend Drew was the master of the shuffling shock. I swear I actually saw a small arc of electricity leap from his fingertip once. Hurt like hell, too. I had some wonderful teachers at Jessie Clark. Mr. Fore taught civics and I learned loads from him. Not about civics, necessarily, but about how to be a wise-ass, how to stroke your goatee thoughtfully, and how to put someone in their place with a few well chosen words. Mr. Fore owned a comic book store in town and occaisionally ran roleplaying games for his students. One game of Call of Cthulhu (a horror/mystery game) that he ran still haunts me to this day. Creepy. One day, a student called him a "male chauvinist pig" because of a remark he made. He asked the student "who was Chauvin and what was his crime?" When she couldn't answer, he made her write a paper on it. Like I said, he was a wise-ass. Ms. Moore introduced me to Mr. William Shakespeare, and specifically, Hamlet. She encouraged the love of language that my parents had already instilled in me. She also let me turn in video projects for virtually any assignment she gave, giving me and my friends plenty of excuses to shoot crazy little movies all the time. My buddy Drew wrote Douglas Adams-style spoofs of every Shakespeare play we read (and West Side Story, too) and Ms. Moore liked them so much that she asked Drew to read them to all of her classes. Drew's take on Shakespeare's "naked weapon" metaphors in Romeo and Juliet left us all in stitches and turned Ms. Moore beet red. This is getting long, and I have to go to bed. More to come... :: 2:50 AM :: :: link to this post :: Sunday, March 03, 2002 James (that funny Lileks guy) has himself a blog! And it's funny! Go, read. Oh, and this is not to be missed.:: 5:29 PM :: :: link to this post :: Saturday, March 02, 2002 Word of the week: Premake, to re-make a movie before the original is made. (courtesy of Jen Roth and Film Club).I got my very first prompt the other day (thanks Sundry!) so I'm off to write about Middle School (oh, the joys and sorrows). Later. :: 6:33 PM :: :: link to this post ::
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