The old razzle-dazzle

Am I the only one bored enough to be insulted by the lack of creativity abounding in articles about celebrities? Has anyone else noticed the strange circularity of the vocabulary used in fashion, movie, and music writing?

Well...probably. Anyhow, here are my top three most-overused terms in celebulary:

buttery: adj. used to describe the hair of every blonde female from Gwyneth Paltrow to Anna Nicole Smith to Kate Winslet to Helen Mirren. In other words, as long as it's some shade of blonde, it's 'buttery'. Ex: 'Reese sets off her orchid-tinted outfit with buttery but flyaway-topped tresses...' (MSN Oscars 2007: Undressed!)

pop: v. basically, spot-coloring. Anything from clothing to makeup to jewels to shoes can 'pop'. Ex: 'Choose lip colors that are natural...for a pop of color.' (MSN Shopping: Expert Makeup Advice)

chanteuse: n. any female singer ever. Genre not an issue. Ex: 'McLachlan isn't the only modern-rock chanteuse to throw her red felt hat into the ring this year...' (MSN Music)

On second thought, maybe the writers at People own a dictionary--clearly MSN is most responsible for these semantic crimes. They, too, give me my honorable mentions: modish and snaggle-toothed (oddly, both are usually used to describe Kirsten Dunst). I guess the moral of the story is, read what your Brit Lit professor assigns you and skip the famous people.

Le sigh

I confess that I am baffled. First, there's this, a New Yorker article about Joel Surnow, the creator of the cult TV show 24. Now, I have never seen this show and probably never will, so that means I'm unbiased, right? Or maybe it means I have no right saying what I'm about to say: that this show seems ridiculous, I can't see how it has so many fans, and how on Earth is it winning Emmys for portraying acts such as the ones detailed in this article?

However, 24 is not really the point. The point is, Joel Surnow, the "right-wing nut job" himself, apparently wants to make a pro-McCarthy movie...a movie which depicts McCarthy as an "American hero". All I can think of when I consider this hypothetical film is, Huh? I didn't know there WERE pro-McCarthyists! I didn't know that being anti-McCarthy was a liberal point of view--I thought it was an I'm-not-psycho point of view! Geez, people; the guy was crazy. He was a demagogue and he did imprison and blacklist and otherwise ruin the lives of plenty of people, some of whom were only guilty of occasionally wearing red lipstick. "It's not a movie I could get done now," Surnow says, and me oh my am I glad.

Then, there's the weensy fact that Bridge to Terabithia is getting good reviews. 74% positive on Metacritic and 85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, to be exact. I can only conclude that none of the critics have actually read the book. Bah. Am I actually going to have to see this film??

ITP: BOOBS

My logical side knows that hypocrisy is not a crime. If it were, what would we do for government leaders? They would all have life sentences. However, things like this completely dispense with my logical, rational, equitable side and bring out the roaring feminist within.

Actually, scratch that. This is not about feminism. This is about common sense. I'm not a feminist, and I don't have a lot of common sense, but I have enough to know that a mother breastfeeding her baby is not exactly a situation for lawsuits. Futhermore, this is America. Breasts are big business. They're everywhere, from movies to billboards to music videos to magazines dirty and otherwise. It is sheer hypocrisy to label a mother feeding her infant as 'indecent' or 'lewd' when more than half of the nation's population looks at tots daily. Where is these people's shame? To claim that 'men don't know what to do or where to look when a woman is breast-feeding in front of them' is sick and should be seen as such. Look at her face, you drooling idiot! Try and act like your IQ is higher than your sperm count. There is nothing, nothing sexual about a mother feeding her child, and there is no reason that men should feel awkward. A good chunk of them were breast-fed, I expect, and another sizable bunch see their wives' or girlfriends' breasts every day. Celebrities in Hollywood blockbusters flaunt their double-Ds all over the movie screen, yet an infant receiving its breakfast is despicable and should be hidden? Lame.

Another aspect of this situation is that many of the people taking offense are women. Does that make sense, or am I just old-fashioned? Why would women be taken aback by the sight of something that they personally possess? One of these women commented on a magazine cover which used a photograph of a nursing baby; she said, I don't want my husband or son to accidentally see a breast they don't want to see. From this woman's comment, can we assume that she and her husband have never seen one another unclothed? And she better not believe that her son's never seen boobies, 'cause that's just wishful thinking.

Certainly, it's preferable to find a private place to feed your kid. But if that's not possible, and often it isn't, what's more annoying: a screaming baby or the possibility of the public seeing something 99% of them have already seen, numerous times? Come on. No one in this country can grow up without seeing tots, and lots of them--girls have them, boys like to look at them. It's stupid to say otherwise, and it's hypocritical to pretend offense when a woman breast-feeds her infant in a public place. Our society sees breasts as sexual, but that same society is what has turned breasts into fantasy objects. Breasts are there for a purpose, and that purpose is to feed children. Deal with it or go find a nice cave, you self-righteous Puritans.

Kicking butt, spraining ankles

Despite my slow-but-sure assimilation into the world of comic books (zomg Immortal Iron Fist!), I still have one problem with the whole shebang.

The women. No, I'm not going to go off on some feminist rant about how no comic artist has ever drawn a less than modelesque superheroine/villainess--you have to be a feminist to write things like that, for one thing. My problem does lie partly in their appearances, but I don't really care that they're all apparently 42-39-56. I care more that they seem to save/destroy the world while wearing thigh-high stiletto boots, white lingerie (I mean...come on. White? Clearly written by a man), and generally scanty outerwear which would, in a realistic situation, provide not-very-much protection. And they overwhelmingly have long, flowing hair.

The innate sexism in comics aside, this is just stupid. If I were fighting an opponent, particularly a male opponent who is theoretically larger and stronger than me, I would much rather be wearing, say, very lightweight Kevlar. NOT Spandex, NOT leather, and certainly nothing as exposing as the White Queen's typical gear (hello? That bare midriff is just begging to be stabbed). I can sort of understand why everything is so skintight; excess fabric gets in the way, I suppose (although I also suppose it might soak up some impact)--plus, a gal's gotta be able to move. But this is the Marvel universe, where S.H.I.E.L.D. can create fabric that never rips, shows bloodstains, or even bags at the knees! Surely they can come up with some sort of flexible body armor. Also, may I point out how impossible it is to run while wearing heels? No woman of any sense would choose heeled shoes as part of her alter ego's costume.

Then there's the matter of the hair. Back to this hypothetical fight--the dude I'm fighting, he wants to win. And we all know that no one (except maybe Captain America) fights clean. Seriously guys, it's not just a chick-fight thing. If my hair's waist-length, a man's going to do the same thing a woman would do: Yank all that hair flapping around in his face. It hurts to have your hair pulled, people know this, and in a fight, they're going to do whatever it takes to win. Who would give their opponent an extra weapon against them? Not to mention that hair also gets in the way of whosever head it's on...in the middle of a nasty fight, I want my peripheral vision to be free and clear.

So, my point is--I know that comics aren't real, that their unreality is at least half the coolness and fun, that the appeal of Emma Frost and Natasha Romanoff is that no real woman actually resembles them--but for goodness sake! At least give our heroines and villainesses a pair of sneakers!

Jossaholics Anonymous

A weensy disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of Joss Whedon. Honestly, if they managed to reproduce his essence of cool in, say, whiskey form, I'd have to start attending AA. Thus, if my drool starts oozing out of your computer screen, really--it's not my fault.

Okay then! Let's talk about Joss and his many excellent creations. Rather, let's talk about what the Big Three of Cult TV have in common (besides a mutual creator and general awesomeness). I would like to postulate that it is music. Not that the soundtracks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series, and Firefly are that similar; they're not. However, Joss's opinion of the importance of music is evident in all three series. Serieses?

First, we have the Buffy theme. AH, the Buffy theme. That creepy organ chord--that wolf howl--and then, Nerf Herder! Doing their darndest to shred your eardrums! I love it; I never get sick of it. Furthermore, the Buffy theme illustrates, within the 40 seconds of its existence, the delightful pastiche of teen culture and classic horror which came to signify the series itself. Which brings me to the rest of Buffy's music; from Dingoes Ate My Baby to Cibo Matto to Aimee Mann to Michelle Branch, the Scooby gang had a frippin' awesome soundtrack to their lives. Slayage to the beats of "Chinese Burn" never looked or sounded so fun.

For my money, the Angel theme is equally rad, if in a totally different way. It's darker, slower, and more classical--cello-rock, if you will--and fitting for a show on the whole more gritty than its parent series. As Buffy's theme illustrated the Buffy credo, so does Angel's theme show Angel's journey of redemption. Angel also gets its share of pop: the karaoke bar to end all karaoke bars, Caritas, is the scene of many a grand rendition, including Barry Manilow's "Mandy", Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", and "Crazy" by Patsy Cline.

(Worth noting...an actual Buffyverse discography exists, including the movie soundtrack, the original songs written for "Once More, With Feeling", a compilation entitled "Radio Sunnydale", The Velvet Chain's The Buffy EP, and Live Fast, Die Never, an Angel soundtrack compilation. Groovy!)

And, at last, the boot-tappin' tunes of Firefly. Ah, was there ever a zanier television series? Space cowboys! What's more fun than zipping around outer space in duds straight out of Bonanza? The sadly shortlived show's theme, "The Ballad of Serenity", was composed by Joss himself, and performed by Sonny Rhodes. The soundtrack itself is a sometimes-bizarro blend of campfire fiddling and Asian white noise, reflecting the retro-futuristic nature of the show.

And there you have it: the secret to Joss Whedon's success. Good music, duh.

A lump in the throat

I'm not so huge on most of Robert Frost's poetry (though I acknowledge that his poems are not the easy, simple ye-olde-Americana-scratch-the-surface-and-get-more-surface rhymes that some people seem to think), but I am getting to like his literary criticism. "The Figure A Poem Makes", his most-oft anthologized essay, is lovely and lyric enough so that you can tell a poet wrote it, yet it remains clear, succint, and definite.

I kinda love it.

Admittedly I enjoy reading literary criticism, period. I love Orwell's essays in particular (possibly even more than his novels), and Martin Kellman's T.H. White and the Matter of Britain is brill, but Frost's essay on the nature of poetry left me a little dizzy. I actually read it three times in a row, and I never read anything for American Lit classes more than once. (Not even "The Waste Land". Ick.) Frost manages to articulate ideas and give structure to thoughts of mine that have only ever been ethereal; while reading his essay I felt that essential recognition, the likes of which I have only previously experienced while reading White.

Anyway I'm about to quote, and with relish.

"If it is a wild tune, it is a poem...to be wild with nothing to be wild about."(The joy found in the everyday--the telling of the mundane in a way which is anything but.)

"For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew."

"Scholars get their [knowledge] with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields."

"Read [a poem] a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went." (The pleasant shock of discovering something in pages read over and over.)

Longwinded, yet deserving, I think. Frost's words can be applied not only to poems in their technical sense, but any writing with the smoothly lyrical, off-kilter and frightening, or purely lovely qualities of poetry. Even prose, at its highest, is a form of poetry and contains the joys of remembering things we didn't know we knew, of recognition, of sparkling newness.

Amalgam universe

At long last, Tampa has deemed Pan's Labyrinth worthy of its screenspace. Only about a month late, but as they say, better late than never. A towering fantasy of a film, Guillermo del Toro's newest is great. Those expecting a pure fantasy will probably be a bit disappointed, but for my part, I was enthralled. The balance of fairy stories and history seemed just right, and for someone a little obsessed with the Spanish Civil War, the historical backdrop to fantasy was welcome. The two plotlines feed off one another and come across as natural, while there is evidence aplenty to support either the idea that everything is in Ofelia's head OR that the fantastic elements actually occur. Del Toro has done an astounding job keeping the ending (and indeed, entire movie) beautifully ambiguous.

At the risk of sounding overwrought, I don't recall the last time I was so absorbed into a movie. Go see it, right now.

In other news, two adaptations I'm excited about, and one I'm excited about on behalf of most of my friends:

a) A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. ZOMG one of my favorite fantasy series OF ALL TIME. Committed to...okay, television. HBO is turning Martin's as-yet unfinished masterpiece into a seven-season miniseries. Why oh why do I not have cable?

b) Atonement by Ian McEwan. Considered by many to be his greatest achievement, the upcoming film stars Keira Knightley as Cecilia. I would have chosen her for Briony, but that's just me. In any case, it's an Ian McEwan novel, on film. YAY!

c) Metal Gear Solid. No link because there's nothing to see, yet, but...dang, another videogame film. At least Uwe Boll isn't directing this one. I vote Eric Bana for Snake please!

Inappropriately intense

This post should have been about the new film Pan's Labyrinth; alas, Tampa isn't cool enough to get Mr del Toro's latest effort, so, instead you get The Top Five Stalker Anthems Yet Recorded. Oh yes! I'm not sure why famous people are allowed to be weird and unbalanced and obsessive and it counts as 'art' while the rest of us just get restraining orders, but the charts are full of stalkers. They're everywhere. They're on your radio. They're in your CD player. They're invading your personal space right now.

1. The Classic: "Every Breath You Take" by The Police. Duh! Maybe not the original (I believe that goes to "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" by Diana Ross), but certainly the best known. Could Sting get any creepier? The song tries to toe that slim line between sweet and sick, and ends up on the far side. Giveaway Lyric: "Every breath you take/every move you make/every bond you break/every step you take/I'll be watching you".

2. The Cute: "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey. Man, if Mariah can't get her man to stay, what hope is there for the rest of us? This one almost sounds like an ode of devotion, but then you start to realize just exactly what your lips are synching. Giveaway Lyric: "Boy, don't you know you can't escape me?" and "No way you're ever gonna shake me/ooh darling, 'cause you'll always be my baby".

3. The Creep(y): "Creep" by Radiohead. Now, I'd believe it of Thom Yorke; he looks depressed and English enough to give stalking a try. This song is proof of it, all whisper-ranting about feeling out of control and how the narrator is going to make the intended notice when he's not around. Not that he's ever not around--that kind of screws with the aim of stalking. Giveaway Lyric: "She's running out again/she's running/she runs runs runs runs/runs..."

4. The Cover: "Gonna Get Close To You" by Queensryche (original by Lisa Dalbello). I was so hoping to give a spot to my favorite prog-metalheads. Why Geoff Tate and Co. saw fit to cover this one is beyond me; I suppose they were feeling especially perverse. Giveaway Lyric: "I wait by your door 'til you're asleep at night/and when you're alone I know when you turn out the light."

5. The Catchy: "One Way or Another" by Blondie. Debbie Harry takes stalking to startling heights with this one, spelling out exactly how she intends to snare her beloved. And oh, it sounds like a plan! Giveaway Lyric: "And if the lights are all out/I'll follow your bus downtown".

All in all, a good haul! There are oodles more, but these are, for my money, the cream of the crop. Although, I must say, honorable mentions go to "As Long As You Love Me" by The Backstreet Boys and "Stalker Song" by Danzig, the former for being utterly nasty and the latter for being utterly obvious. Keep stalking, guys and gals. Someday the object of your erotomania will reciprocate. Or not.

For the boys

I have these friends, right, these two different sets of friends who, if they but knew each other, would become one larger mass of friends, because really, they're quite similar.

The main similarity is comic books. Videogames too, but right now we're talking about comic books.

Now then. I have addressed this issue in the past, but since then it's grown and mutated (ha, ha) and on the whole become confusing, difficult to explain, and not a little tiresome. The problem, then, was simple: I didn't read comic books. I had very little interest in reading comic books. However, because certain of my friends like to argue and talk and explain, I knew something about a few comic characters, which led certain of my other friends to believe that I was simply in denial.

Well, I'm not in denial anymore. I'm out. The closet door of comic fandom has been flung open, and look who was hiding in there--it's me! I have decided to embrace this, nerdiest of all fandoms barring Farscape. Well, and Star Trek (that's just a classic). I have decided to become, if not a hardcore comic fan, at least an admitted one. And I would like to thank Tamora Pierce, because it's mostly her fault.

Yes. Tamora Pierce. Not Stan Lee, not Frank Miller, not Neil Gaiman or even Michael Chabon--Tamora Pierce, that lovely authoress of young adult fiction generally skewed toward teenage girls. I love her. I love Tamora Pierce with an eternal passion, because she wrote some of my favorite books and birthed some of my very favorite characters and as soon as I have a black cat again I will name it Faithful and gauge potential friends by whether or not they know why the cat is so named (people who are friends with me already, no fear; you'll be grandfathered in). And now, Ms Pierce has been given her very own Marvel miniseries, White Tiger, which makes me love Marvel even more than I already did (which is to say, not very much).

Obviously, Marvel is cool because it's home to people like Deadpool and Wanda Maximoff. DC can hardly compare--they have Batman and Green Arrow and the Birds of Prey, and that's about it for me, and with Ms Pierce on board for White Tiger, DC is going to have to really hop to get my attention. They're going to have to revive George Orwell and let him write a new Batman or something. Anyway, the new White Tiger is cool. Very cool. It gets my stamp of not-very-knowledgeable approval, mostly because of its writer, but also because the characters are fun. I'd never even heard of Angela del Toro before a fellow Pierceaholic tipped me off to the series, but she's a ball of fire--and folks like Daredevil (and some other guy wearing the Daredevil suit), the Black Widow, and Spider-Man turn up too. What's not to love? A butt-kicking heroine, a shadowy criminal organization, and famous masks all over the place, all coupled with the author to whom I have already given more money than anyone else in the literary world.

Thanks, Marvel. Way to be a pal. Maybe I'll branch out. Maybe I'll delve. Maybe, someday, I'll be a REAL comic fan.

A blank shade of pencil-gray

I may be having a Claire Cooney moment. Is this or is this not the 'awkardest sentence alive'?

"Annan, who will be succeeded by South Korean Ban Ki-Moon, questions whether he has succeeded during his decade in the job in making human rights the "third pillar" of the United Nations, on a par with development and peace and security."

That's from a CNN article wherein Kofi Annan bashed...mm...the entire free world for doing nothing much about the troubles in Darfur. Well, I'm all for the UN Secretary opening up a can; that's not the point. The point is, the author clearly does not subscribe to rules of grammar or even logic. For one thing, if the "pillars" of the United Nations are development and peace and security, then wouldn't human rights be the FOURTH pillar? Furthermore, just look at that verb repetition: 'succeeded' TWICE in one sentence, just ten words apart! A clear-cut no-no; come on, people, that's what we have thesaurii for. Then there's the case of "on a par with"--no, not strictly against the rules, but a clinker all the same. Why's that "a" chilling there? No "a" is needed in that sentence; "on par with" makes just as much sense and flows even better.

The silly thing is, I'm not even good at grammar. I never learned my participles, complements, or the purpose of an auxiliary verb. I couldn't identify the subjunctive to save my life, and sentence-diagramming was the only English quiz I ever failed. But even I can see that CNN needs to buy a nice OED (unabridged, please) and head back to 9th grade Language Arts. Where do people get off teaching English like it doesn't matter, like it has no utility? Language is the basis of our society, whether we like it or not, and since we have to be able to communicate, would it kill us to communicate efficiently, fluidly, even elegantly? Why is there no longer any joy taken in the kick and flow of words?

Grammar, spelling, sentence construction, and even reading are all headed downhill in a greased handcart. Books are going the way of the Dodo. Ladies and gents, the Apocalypse of the literate will commence momentarily.

IS NOTHING SACRED?

I swear. Disney gets more uppity every year. This time around, I am firmly convinced that the people responsible are GOING TO HELL. Who told them they could make a movie out of Bridge to Terabithia? Furthermore, who told them that it would be a good idea to lift imaginary scenes from the book, change them into real-life monsters and magic, and then call it Bridge to Terabithia as though nothing was wrong?

I mean. Watch this and tell me you're not personally offended. I know I am, and not just because I dislike Disney at large. This is sheer idiocy, warping a classic children's book into a knock-off of a knock-off (and I do mean Eragon). What, was the original story not good enough? The death of some 11-year-old kid's best friend--geez, that's just so five minutes ago, not enough human interest. I find it purely sick that Disney feels the need to cash in further on the sudden 'ooh magic!' craze; will this version of Terabithia also feature penguins, that other Hollywood fad of late? Furthermore, from all appearances the plotline has been moved to present-day, a decision which strips the story of plenty of its meaning. The book's time period is that of Vietnam, a teensy detail which just happens to contribute mightily to the plot, subtext, and conclusion. Would it have killed them to just make up a new title to fit this new film of theirs, instead of cribbing Katherine Paterson's? From what I can tell, this movie bears very, very little resemblance to the book, so why not just make it allllll up??

This is one I won't be seeing. This isn't even on level with King Arthur or the remake of The Wicker Man. Those were bad, very bad indeed, but I saw them anyway, because I like to see things and then complain about how badly they suck. Heck, it's a treasured pastime. This, however, this bastardization of one of my favorite children's books...this will not be getting a dime from me. And if I find out that anyone I know went to see it, well, that'll be the end of that friendship. Disney, don't screw with my childhood--for Pete's sake, don't screw with my psyche. I know I'm not the only person out there who's absolutely going bonkers over this film (whoever you are, let's hang. Clearly we both have too much time on our hands); and I know that for every book-loon alive and shrieking in America, there's eight more movie-loons who will see this film in 2007 and think that the book they never read in elementary school is just another C.S. Lewis rip-off.

It is so much more. It's JESS AARONS AND LESLIE BURKE AND PRINCE TERRIEN, BITCHES. DON'T EVEN MESS.

What if you could live forever?

Ah, Darren Aronofsky, keeper of my heart. At least, my film-nut's heart. Creator of Pi: Faith in Chaos, one of my very favorites; Requiem for a Dream, which though I dislike I at least admire; and the new, weird, lovely, stunning The Fountain.

People will tell you it sucks. It's a mess. It's disjointed, pointless, scrambled, nonsensical, and above all pretentious. These people are sadly misguided. It's a wonder; a film with fairy-tale originality, maybe, but told and portrayed with fairy-tale magic. The film consists of three sections: the central one is that of Izzi and Tommy, a woman with a brain tumor and her husband, a neurosurgeon working to find a cure for her. Then there are Isabella and Tomas, the Queen of Spain and a conquistador sent by her to find the Tree of Life, stars in a story Izzi is writing--a story which Izzi leaves open-ended, for Tomoas to finish. In the final segment, Izzi has become the Tree, and Tommy is an astro-monk of sorts, and both are on a spaceship (I guess), zooming toward eternal life, which is to be found in a nebula the Mayans called Xibalba.

I swear, it makes more sense when you're watching it. The director manages to weave together the three parts beautifully, due in no small part to the talents of star Hugh Jackman (watch this movie and just TRY to imagine Brad Pitt doing the characters justice). And although I personally would not cast Rachel Weisz to act as herself, you can hardly blame Mr Aronofsky--she gave birth to his child. On one hand, The Fountain is the sort of thing which happens when a director has too much time, yes-men, and money on his hands: it is self-indulgent, bombastic, egoistic. But on the other hand, it is and needs to be nothing more than a moving, spiritual portrayal of love.

Stoner-pop for the win

I've already drooled over this bunch in a previous post, but I think they deserve a few more paragraphs. Priestess (along with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, of course) is Canada's way of saying sorry for things like Steppenwolf and Avril Lavigne and Rush. Priestess is a seething foursome of whomp-rockers who bang their heads, stomp energetically over their guitar strings, and clearly don't think much of barbers.

I love them? Yes? Hairy-Canadian-rock-star-mosh-pit-sex please?

Maybe it's the froggy vocals of singer Mikey Heppner, hoarse and engaging and full of fire. Maybe it's the fact that they actually blew out one of my laptop's speakers. Maybe it's the Rieseny way Mike Dyball's basslines slide down my ears, heavy dark-chocolate-coated swaggering headbanger goodness. Maybe it's the bopping drums, hard-pounding and yet oddly cheerful. Whatever it is, it's addictive like homemade mashed potatoes and crystal meth, and I want more. Hello Master, their debut, isn't enough. Hurry up, Priestess! Stop touring with Black Stone Cherry since you're not paying Tampa a visit, go back to the North Country, and record another album now please!

Looking forward to it.

Bang your...bindi?

Much as I hate to admit to SPIN getting the jump on me, this month's issue contained one interesting story amongst the garbage: Indian metal. Yes, Indian as in subcontinent; Mumbai specifically seems to be the center of this apocalypse. Apparently some choice Indian twenty-somethings are getting a tad morose with all the Bollywood and bad Coldplay covers, and have decided to do something about it.

Children, meet Demonic Resurrection, four young Mumbaikers who cite Emperor, Lacuna Coil, and Porcupine Tree among their influences, and just generally play their metal with vicious aplomb. The quartet is easily as harsh as anything to come out of Finland recently, and better than much of what passes for metal in America, mix'n'matching melodic and death metal vocals freely and backing it all up with pounding bass and some shrieky guitars. Fittingly, they call it 'demonic metal'.

On the other side of India's metal scene are Pin Drop Violence, a five-man 'chaos squad' who are enrolled in the Lamb of God school of metallurgy. Growlier than Demonic Resurrection, Pin Drop Violence is all black metal hollers, brassed-off lyrics, and thundering drums, and they believe in their right to riot. Sounds like a kick in the balls.

So there you have it. The next wave of heavy metal, fresh and spicy from the Far East.

George Carlin was right

I'm a fairly private gal, but some things must be shared for the sake of humanity and civilization. I feel that my ongoing hunt for an anti-perspirant that actually works is one of these things.

To be frank, I'm sweaty. I live in Florida, where everyone is sweaty, but I think my sweat glands are a tad overactive. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of air conditioning in my car--I drive five minutes to Blockbuster and to look at my armpits you'd think I ran there instead. In any case, the normal lot of anti-perspirants don't seem to work--at all--thus, my quest to find one that actually does. Make no mistake--this is not a cheap endeavor. And if I were more artistic, I'd find some way to shape all the half-used Mitchums and Lady Speedsticks and (Heaven help me) Arrid-Xes into something beautiful, something worth all the money I give to the talc and aluminum barons. However...I just throw them away, because the sight of them and their ineffectiveness makes me cry.

So. Come along on my damp-armed adventure!

Suave Invisible Solid: So close, but no dice. This is the one anti-perspirant that actually almost works. Bonus points for it fooling me into thinking it works because the first time I used it was on an overseas flight, and not only do you not do much on planes period, but it's also too cold to sweat efficiently, even if you're me.

Secret Platinum Protection: Not strong enough for a man, still made for women. Doesn't work AND tends to bleach the arms of dark-colored shirts. Thanks for nothing, Secret. Your commercials blow, too, for the record.

Secret Platinum Protection Gel: See above, but even more pathetic. You'd think by now I'd be used to failure, but it still hurts. And my armpits still sweat.

BAN: Catchy adverts that don't deliver. And by 'don't deliver' I mean 'my armpits cackled in glee when I put this on and five minutes later I appeared to have run a marathon in July heat'. One word: EW. Wait, another word: USELESS. Don't bother; BAN sucks more than a truck-stop hooker.

Lady Mitchum: So effective, you could skip a day. Only not. I put this on, put on my t-shirt, brushed my teeth, and...ew, I haven't even gone outside yet! NEXT.

Mitchum: So effective, you CANNOT SKIP A DAY STOP IT STOP IT. It's really bad when even men's-strength anti-perspirant does nothing. And I do mean nothing. I guess I'm not a Mitchum man, even though my freezer contains an economy-size box of frozen hamburgers.

Degree: More evidence that I sweat more than your average beefy male. I skipped Degree for Women--what's the point? Nothing like crescents of moisture under your arms 24/7 to make you feel feminine. Plus, this stuff doesn't even smell good.

Teen Spirit: My mom bought this for me; I think it was supposed to be funny. I smelled like it, all right. If only the sweaty grunge thing was still in. I'd be the coolest kid on the block!

I'm getting to the point where I wonder if it is actually possible to apply so much pure talcum powder that one is 'chemically unable to sweat', as Rick Bragg claims. That would be okay with me, because let's face it, I am wicked sweaty. My armpits howl in the face of anti-perspirants. No one will ever want to cuddle with me. But hey--at least the deodorant aspect seems to work...mostly.

The really sad thing? I'm not even getting paid for all this terribly useful scientific research.

No friend as loyal as a book

Generally I'm not one to rave about social networking sites, but for an avowed word-nerd such as myself, Librarything is a treasure trove. It's basically Last.fm for bookworms! Godly. The site's aim is simple: allow marathon readers to catalogue their own personal bedside libraries, organize the titles by tag, and connect with other readers who share similar tastes. Once you've got a few names in your library, you can really start having fun--try clicking 'tag cloud' or 'author cloud' to see what you're topheavy on, visit the Author Gallery to peruse writerly visages, or feel important because according to the 'Fun Statistics' page, you're the only one with a copy of The Game of the Foxes in your house.

Heaven. Somehow it's just so reassurring to know that there are exactly 184 other Librarything users who own The Courtship of Princess Leia. 16 other IP addresses are fans of Lonely Planet's British Phrasebook, while the owners of the Harry Potter series are in the high 7000s. And these numbers are just for today; who knows how many more there might be tomorrow?

This site restores some of my faith in the human race as readers. Maybe libraries will not become defunct after all--because these, these are my people.

But the beauty is grim

I am captivated by ruin, particularly if there is plant overgrowth involved. If I were any kind of photographer, my film would be wasted on landscapes of forgotten gardens, rotting wooden houses overtaken by creepers, stone walls crumbling under the weight of vines and time.

Tampa, my city, has a lot of this. One reason why I like this town so much--it contains both urban and natural decay, both of which are oddly fascinating. There are the alleys overflowing with garbage and used needles and the homeless; there is the low concrete wall on Columbus, once decorative and now in decline, eaten away by air pollution and shrubs; there is the water tower, white and slim and inside bursting with bats and moths and moldering beams; there is the prodigious graffiti covering the back walls of minimarts and gas stations . And there is perhaps my favorite spot in the entire city: the lot at the rear of the art museum, yards of gardening forgotten, growing wild. There are neat rows of palm trees and clear outlines of intended flower plots and scads of climbing vines trailing down the back wall onto the sidewalk and outdoor lights which have been kicked, shards of glass half-covered in earth. There's even an amphitheatre, its steps clotted with dry leaves and trash. It's a little eerie, to walk alongside the shiny tin-foil musuem wall, modern and sleek, and then climb up to wander in the gardens that somehow, the museum personnel managed to forget. It looks like a movie setting; you wonder if maybe you're about to be mugged, or--depending on the time of day--see a ghost.

I love it. If I had to be homeless, I would ditch the hordes of homeless people who gather for their own private reasons on the fountain steps in front of the museum. I would go a couple hundred yards to the back, where you can see the water and the sun warms the concrete. Maybe the museum has remembered their landscaping project and remedied all the weeds since I was last there, but I hope not. I hope they let it be.

KEGGER TONIGHT LOLOL

I've read many bad books. The Sun Also Rises. Opal Mehta. The Rachel Papers. The Black Album. Shopaholic. The Scarlet Letter. There are legions, because nowadays anyone can get published. But nothing compares with I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe. Yes, I'm aware that I'm two years and eight billion bad reviews late, but I don't care. I've only just read this tome (738 pages of nothing--almost impressive) and now it's time to carp.

I Am Charlotte Simmons strives to do one of two things: a) accurately chronicle college life or b) viciously satirize college life. However, since his descriptions and characterizations are neither outrageous enough for satire nor authentic enough for truth, Wolfe fails in both objectives. The stock characters abound--the aging-hippie professor, the drunk frat boy jocks, the politically aware yet socially down-trodden nerds, the sorority beer sluts, the bullying anti-intellectual coach, and of course, the eponymous small-town virgin. The prose is just that: prosaic, with repeat-offender use of certain adjectives and nouns ('lubricious', 'loins', and 'lissome' among them...sheer alliterative agony). The devolution of the characters and the plot is unbelievable at best. All in all, the book reads as though no editor ever made its first draft bleed.

Maybe Wolfe really did visit numerous universities in his attempt to research the idiocy and glory of college students. Maybe he really did flee the cops at parties with frat boys. But reading I Am Charlotte Simmons makes this purported research a tad hard to believe. Do normal human beings not attend Duke and Cornell and every other elite prep school the novel is based on? Are the Ivies really just costlier versions of high school? I'm not decrying Wolfe's age; I don't think he's out of touch with what the kids are doing; I simply don't think that he's ever actually met a college student.

I attend college. Admittedly it's a state school, not a smarmy private institution, but it's college nonetheless, and while there are indeed the athletes who get free rides, the slutty drunk girls who never spend a night in their own room, and the pseudo-philosophical nerds, there are far, far more students who are nice and average and decent in every sense of the terms. I have never seen or heard of a so-called 'geek' getting beaten up or verbally abused for not playing lacrosse. None of the geeks I know would take that sort of crap, even off a vaunted athletic star, and most of the athletes I know have grown up a little since graduating high school. Furthermore, Wolfe's insinuation that the youth of today have no moral compass is purely insulting. I'm not talking moral in a religious sense, but in the sense of having personal integrity: what you will and will not do. Everyone has principles--everyone--and if you don't want to drink or smoke or have sex with every basketball player you can get your hands on, then by all means DON'T DO IT. No one can force you to, and that is why I find the character of Charlotte Simmons (not to mention her roommate, and numerous love interests, and every other character in the novel) so implausible: they apparently can't think for themselves.

Call me an idealist, but I refuse to believe that of students. We are not a cliched mass of lemmings, hurtling off every social cliff because the girl with the Gucci stilettoes says it's cool. Is it so hard to fathom college students who have their act together? Wolfe writes disparagingly of Charlotte's act of 'moral suicide', yet he never allowed her to have morals in the first place, only knee-jerk reactions born of her upbringing. So what does he have to be disappointed about?

Celluloid madness

Hoom, well, I was already pretty fond of the Spartans, but now...

Now. Check it, people: Frank Miller's 300. At long last, the comic book nerds and history buffs will have something to drool over communally. And I don't want to hear about historical inaccuracy; for Pete's sake, I'm a history major. I know there weren't any war rhinoes at the Battle of Thermopylae. That doesn't change the fact that the idea of WAR RHINOES IS COMPLETELY BADASS. I'm aware that the Persians weren't misshapen monster-creatures, and I realize that there were more than three hundred allied Greek fighters at Thermopylae, but damn if I care. Gerard Butler is Leonidas, David Wenham is Dilios, Rodrigo Santoro is Xerxes, and this movie is going to own your soul.

Speaking of historically-inaccurate yet soul-owningly-cool films-to-be, Pathfinder is also on the menu for spring 2007. Talk about loose interpretation of history, but again...who cares? Karl Urban running around in a loincloth brandishing a sword, Vikings who look more like Uruk-Hai, and plenty of nice Earth Mother mysticism--what more could you need? It might be a history professor's worst nightmare, but it appears to be stylistically gorgeous and have some butt-kicking fight scenes to boot, so we'll just pretend that the Vikings did in fact wear huge horned helms into battle and enjoy the ride.

Vanity's proving ground

November 1991. The room's not that big, and the people crowding the rows of chairs make it smaller. My mother is in the front row, catty-corner to where I sit with my sister and grandmother. She is all in white, though I don't exactly understand why, and her bare feet are planted firm on the carpet, tan lines against deep blue. One of her friends sits behind her, weaving her dark hair into a plait. I watch the hands move in the Thoroughbred brown locks until she stands and walks toward the side door which will let her down into the water. Her feet pace broad and sturdy on the floor; her hair smacks her back, a fat intricate rope against the white gown. I touch my own hair, the same color, the same bright roan but thinner, and its wisps pulled into a bun, tucked in place with pastel bobby pins. I pull at it and watch my mother disappear behind the wooden door and then reappear, down in the font opposite the missionary who holds his hands out and recites words and dips her backward into the water, too cold for November, and she rises, white and wet and smooth, her brown braid and her smile gleaming up at me. When she returns to her seat later, dry-clothed again, she tosses the still-damp plait over her shoulder and smooths my errant wisps back into their pins.

June 2001. The clippers are cool running over my scalp. I stare into the mirror, at thirteen years' worth of hair now spattering the checkered tile floor. My face is alien, too thin and too open without a protective sheath of hair around the cheekbones, the chin, and my ears, oh, my ears--why had Mom never told me how big my ears are? The back of my neck is freezing, and abruptly I hate myself for doing this. The chop. How did I talk myself into doing this? A pixie, Mom calls it, so cute. I look like a boy. The hairdresser gives me my glasses and they wink as I put them back on, flashing taunts in the mirror. I watch the shape of my jaw, the obtrusive freckles, the way my eyebrows now take up half my face. I watch my mother's mouth make smiles and loving words, exchanging coos with the hairdresser. They tell me how good it looks. My sister says it's very European, a clear compliment. My aunts remark on how grown-up it appears. My stepfather wonders, when he comes into the kitchen that night, where his long-haired daughter went. I am too young yet to mind, I am now in love with the nakedness of the back of my neck, the long bare swath of throat, the dark strands close against my skull. I am too young yet to mind.

October 2006. We lay in the dark heat of each other's bodies, not illicit but innocent still. I feel bold and shivery at the same time, my belly warm and my feet cold. Your arm is fever around my shoulders, keeping me close against your side. I bask; I blaze. And there are your fingers, trickling chill over my hair, your hand brushing the cropped locks soft and slow. There's a purr rising in my chest, and I have to resist the urge to move under your fingers, to butt my head against your palm, cat-like. I luxuriate in the steady motion of your hand, gentle and even and continuous, your fingers drawing patterns on my skull, tenderly tugging strands, the occasional pleasant prick of flesh against flesh. Your palm cups my head; fingertips tickle behind my ear and trace the length of my neck. I drowse. I am safe, safe in the solid warmth of the barrel of your ribs and your smile quick like heat lightning and the eternal flow of your fingers in my hair.