Wednesday evening, woozy

[cleolinda]

So I'm sick again. I think it's a relapse; I started coughing up phlegm again, and I was working at the table in the den when all of a sudden, about 9:30 am, I felt like I was pretty much going to fall down if I didn't lie down. The next thing I knew, it was nearly noon and Sister Girl was fumbling with the still-locked front door. Today was pretty much spent entirely in a coma. Wheeeeee.

(I'm also looking forward so much to my psych appointment next week. I had my last appointment on March 1st, and on Saturday, March 3rd, my mother got that wild hair on to get those puppies she'd seen at the vet. "So, did you make any headway on the things we talked about, like finishing some of your ongoing projects?" "No, we got puppies instead. But they're really, really cute.")

Anyway. I started thinking more about horror. I really like horror, actually, but I'm much more into psychological horror. Stephen King's short story "1408," for example (coming soon to a theater near you): the whole thing goes to hell for me as soon as the main character steps into that room. It's the hotel manager telling all the stories of what previously happened in that room and just why, exactly, Mike Enslin shouldn't go inside that makes the story for me. That first half is absolutely terrific, particularly because the hotel manager starts with the most mundane excuses and starts working his way up--he holds out as long as he can. "Are you sure?" "Cigar?" "You still don't think I can talk you out of this?" "Well, I was reading your previous books..." "What's in 1408 isn't like those ghosts you don't actually believe in..." "I'm begging you not to do this." There's eleven or twelve pages before Olin even starts talking about what's so hinky with Room 1408, and another twelve or so before they even get to the room itself. And it's not even that what King then puts into 1408 can't live up to what you've been imagining, not at all--I don't know that I was able to imagine something awful enough to match Olin's fear-mongering. That's almost what's so delicious about it. Given a half-open door and what's in the room itself, the door will always be scarier than anything that could be in the room, yes, but I almost think that the most awful-wonderful part of horror is the idea that there's something so terrible back there that you can't even comprehend it. Maybe that's what makes Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos tick--the cities with their unimaginable non-Euclidean geometry, the mad ancient texts too horrible to translate, the horrors that cannot be named. In the best Lovecraft stories, he gives you enough to understand that there's things out there too awful to imagine--too awful to see, even, because the people who do go mad.

And maybe that's why I'm so against the Hostel movies, because they're all about showing the very worst they can imagine, and what they imagine doesn't leave you lying awake at night wondering how many corners of the world, like Room 1408, are bigger and more awful than you can know; they imagine small, cruel, sleazy things and show you all of it.

So... that's my soapbox for the evening. Linkspam:

mustang_bex1126: Why some victims of domestic violence are too scared to leave.

Red Hair: Blessing Or Curse? Whoa, people still get persecuted in Europe over this?

jennnk: "Because Alabama is the center of the universe: Three men involved in medieval brawl; battle-axe, sword, and crossbow among weapons recovered." Trufax: We really do have a large Renaissance Faire.

("They pulled up in the truck, rolled the window down, said a few words that weren't very polite to me, 'you want something come get it', all that and spun the tires started taking off. I busted the passenger side window with the golf club, I admit that. They went up probably up past that pole, they both jumped out, one had an ax, it's an ax with a spike on the other end which is what he chopped me in the arm with." Only in Alabama, y'all.)

More Idiotic Panic About the Online World, or John Scalzi on "Andrew Keen, whose book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture takes the position that, well, the internet is killing culture, apparently because it lets anyone say anything, and then anyone can listen to them, instead of listening to the experts (provided to us, presumably, by a gracious and disinterested traditional media, which seeks only truth and knowledge)."

LOL'80s: A Picture Thread ("Oh hi, we upgraded your WHAM!"). Helps to be familiar with the lolcat tropes at I Can Has Cheezburger ("I has a flavor," "Noooo not mah bucket!," "I made you a cookie but I eated it," "Let me show you my Pokemans," etc.). Keep going and keep an eye out for "Would sir desire to push it?" and "Noooo they be stealin my perogative!"

From lilynia: Some of the Golden Compass production footage screened at Cannes.

drpeprfan gives us the full lyrics to "Hoist the Colors," which are much more involved in terms of the POTC movies' mythology.

Peter O'Toole will play Pope Paul III on The Tudors.

Thundercats Headed for the Big Screen.

Ridley Scott's 'American Gangster' Gets a Trailer.

Shoot 'Em Up Trailer! Paul Giamatti's a hitman with weird verbal flourishes! Clive Owen's protecting another woman and baby, only it's a lot more fun this time! Also, he was recruited by Black Ops when he was, like, ten. Or something. GUNNNNNNNNNS! (Wait, that was Monica Bellucci?) Note: I will piss and moan about Hostel until the cows come home, but I will be at the theater watching this with bells on. C'est la vie.

Brian De Palma's 'Dressed to Kill' To Be Remade. Well, it's not like it could hurt: "Both Caine and De Palma even managed to earn Golden Raspberry nominations, and believe me, there was some pretty tough competition that year."

Wong Kar-Wai to Direct Eva Green in 'Midnight Poison.' Well, if nothing else, it'll be gorgeous.

Spike Lee Will Direct World War II Drama Set in Italy. "Lee, who announced the project while in Italy, informed a newspaper there that he had 'met a black veteran who fought at Iwo Jima, and he told me how disappointed he was that there was not even one Afro-American (soldier) in Clint Eastwood's two films.' "

'Last Chance' for Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.

D.J. Caruso In Talks To Direct 'Wolverine,' Source Says. Hey, "the guy who directed Disturbia" works a lot better for me than "the guy who does the Rush Hour movies."

Warner Acquires Shannara Rights.

Premiere Magazine: The 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time. Okay, I like American Beauty and I've got to admit that it's overrated. But the thing about overrating is, it depends on the "rating" itself--if everyone goes nuts about a certain movie for months at a time, particularly an Oscar contender, reactions can definitely be overblown. I thought it was a great movie when I saw it, particularly because that's basically the world I grew up in and it resonated with me, but even I can say, "Okay, the critical freakout that followed was really too much."

And now, I go to wash my hair before dinner, because tomorrow the carpet cleaners will be here bright and early to dedogstinkify the house.

Comments

[pennyverse.livejournal.com]

This seems vaguely stalkerish, BUT I saw your comment on the most recent f_w post about needing a "you are a bitch, QED" icon. I can't comment over there, but I made one (http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a348/miscellanelle/youareabitchqed.jpg) for the hell of it. Failboat MSPaint and all!

I hope you feel better soon!

[heroically.livejournal.com]

I've spent the last semester in England and I was surprised to find out how people talk about 'gingers' here. On one of the first days I was here I heard the joke:

'A woman has a baby and she asks how it is. The doctor says, "Well, there is good news and bad news." The woman asks for the bad news first: "It's ginger." And the good? "It's stillborn."'

From my observations I've gathered this sort of stereotype: You can't be attractive if you're ginger, you'll be picked on as a kid if you're ginger, you'll have a hard time socially if you're ginger, etc.

Coming from a family of redheads, it was uncomfortable to find out all the stigma having red hair has over here.

[marginaliana]

Wow, the LOL80s is the best thing ever. First thing to make me laugh out loud in a loooong time.

"We can't stop here, this is big country!" :D

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee, thanks. (Heeeee, "failboat.")

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

"My Banshees, let me show you them."

[reynardine.livejournal.com]

That's funny you should mention horror, because I've been re-reading a lot of Lovecraft's works (and am also making my way through a number of anthologies based on his works). I've always thought Stephen King's short stories were his best work because he is forced to be brief. He really is good at building up suspense with just a few pages. It's true the best horror is not the stuff that shows everything in order to shock--it's the stuff that hints at those things one does not speak of, and then the reader (or viewer) is left thinking "Oh no he didn't," but he did. When in doubt, pan to the fireplace. ;-D

[paradise-loved.livejournal.com]

I never usually comment here so no worries, I am not stranger. Most everyone just says stuff that I mean to say first.

I agree with your horror movie point completely. I enjoy horror - I just don't enjoy violence. That's why I get a lot more out of simple, psychological things like Secret Window where the violence is a lot more implied than shown. I am personally terrified of the blood and guts - but I don't mind being wigged out over something I don't actually see (if that makes any sense).

Speaking of Stephen King, have you read his guide On Writing. I started it yesterday to get a head start on summer reading for AP Lit next year and I would SO recommend it. It's great.

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

Any ideas where this comes from? Having grown up in Canada my entire life, I find the stereotype fascinating, in a sad sort of way.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

It's like Showtime is really, really trying to get me to watch The Tudors again.

And I kinda want to, despite the fact that I KNOW I'm going to spend the entire show going "NONOBADWRONGARGH!"

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

Really good horror movies are so rare to come by. You have a slew of mediocre ones, and some really godawful ones, and I know some people like having buckets of blood and guts thrown at them, but I think there's something so much scarier about there actually being something out there that's too frightening for you to even imagine. Or the manipulation of the everyday into something horrific (The Ring, and even The Descent to some extent because of its play on fear of the dark), I think an audience, desensitized as it may be, is more liable to get scared by a really well-directed psychological thriller than something like Hostel, which seems to gross out and nothing more.

You know, I heard such raves about American Beauty, yet when I saw it, couldn't find anything about it that was more than mediocre. Admittedly, though, this may be because I have some unfounded dislike of Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I never usually comment here so no worries, I am not stranger.

Don't worry--even if you were, it wouldn't matter. I have all kinds of fun new people drop by all the time. : )

And yeah, his On Writing is great--they're having you read it for class?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I saw AB in the theater pretty early on--I mean, not like it was a tiny little art film or anything, but I think I saw it early enough in its release that the tongue baths hadn't really started yet. And I think the movie had me from the cheerleading sequence on, because--I don't care if it was supposedly choreographed by Paula Abdul--it was SO COMPLETELY the same crap routine to the same crap song that we'd had at my high school. The residential streets with the trees hanging over them were so my neighborhood, one of my friends so lived in the house or apartment or whatever that Carolyn was trying to sell--and I mean, I admit that Oh Noes People in Suburbia Are UNHAPPY is such a cliché, but this specific variation on that cliché got me where I lived, literally.

As for horror, I try not to bring this up because I can't remember it properly, but I had a professor (who was teaching sentimental lit at the time, if you remember me talking about that class lo these many years ago) who said that the difference between terror and horror is that with terror, you feel everything, or you feel too much, and horror is that you're shocked into not feeling anything at all; you shut down. Again, I feel like I'm not getting the essential phrasing across correctly, because that doesn't quite sound right. But it does strike me that terror is something you feel *before* something bad happens, and horror is something you feel *after.* And that to me is, therefore, the defining nature of terror: you can only feel terror up until the thing you're terrified of happens. And maybe that's my problem with "1408"; the part I like is terror, and the part I don't like is horror. I guess you could blend them, though--like, this is horrible, but something worse could still happen.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Absolutely agree with all the Premiere overrated movie choices -- except The Wizard of Oz. WTF?! Who would have the audacity to put it on this list? What a bunch of tools. It's only one of the most influential movies of all time. Now, if they'd included Manhattan or practically every other Woody Allen movie post-Crimes and Misdemeanors, I would have said, "too right."

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

Lawrence Lessig wrote up an excellent review of Keen's book (http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003784.shtml). Actually, he pretty much destroyed Keen's arguments, particularly where Keen misinterpreted his own (Lessig's) work.

But what is puzzling about this book is that it purports to be a book attacking the sloppiness, error and ignorance of the Internet, yet it itself is shot through with sloppiness, error and ignorance. It tells us that without institutions, and standards, to signal what we can trust (like the institution (Doubleday) that decided to print his book), we won’t know what’s true and what’s false. But the book itself is riddled with falsity — from simple errors of fact, to gross misreadings of arguments, to the most basic errors of economics.

[meandstuff.livejournal.com]

It's sort of like the difference between watching 'Psycho' and seeing someone getting stabbed. One is titillating because of the music and the cutting and the almost-but-not-quite seeing it, and the other is just a repulsive act of unrepenting violence.

[meandstuff.livejournal.com]

I mean, unrepentant violence.

ETA

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

Lessig is a fair use advocate and the creator of "creative commons" license. He was also part of the team who created this brilliant piece Fair(y) Use Tale (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo). Know how Disney is OCD about copyright...?

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I think the best thing about the medieval brawl story is that they're still friends. I'm really not sure I could be friends with someone who had SWUNG AN AXE AT ME.

[mustang-bex1126.livejournal.com]

And yet, the Doctor wants so badly to be ginger... curious.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'll have to go read that.

What I find most interesting about the whole thing is that my initial reaction was, "Hey, I like the internet. It gives me a place to be heard." Which means you can deduce pretty quickly that anyone who panics that ANYONE CAN JUST WALK IN OFF THE STREET AND SAY SOMETHING!!! is now afraid that he, specifically, won't be heard. And I have a hard time taking anything seriously that's written in fear for one's own current monopoly of a situation.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I definitely like his short stories best; he's really good at thinking of new, weirder shit over and over and OVER again, and I like the jolt of his ideas (and the buildup) without it going on for 600 pages.

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

If I read Lessig correctly, Keen thinks the Internet threatens democracy. This doesn't make sense really--the Internet is just the Athenian forum, only bigger. You just have to shout louder now.

Of course, now I have to go read Keen's book. I just finished reading the comments on Lessig's entry, and some say he is ranting more than reviewing.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this ginger stigma in the UK is totally bizarre to me.

[morgan-c-hoax.livejournal.com]

Thundercats Headed for the Big Screen.

The worst part is that I saw that coming. :(

[tine-marie.livejournal.com]

So is that where the Weasley family in Harry Potter came from? They're poor and looked down upon by other members of society, it seems. Is that based upon that stereotype as well?

I'm from Canada as well, and I also find this stereotype mystifying - I've never really heard anything like it.