John Mayer...Room For Squares Bjork...Greatest Hits Beth Orton...Daybreak Coldplay...A Rush of Blood to the Head Counting Crows...Hard Candy Score for The Two Towers
bubble gum tongue
Sunday, March 30, 2003
how sad that i'm hoping for a hostage situation.
the Command Post relays information on an Iraqi television interview of Peter Arnett, former CNN anchor.
while the first conclusion is that he's giving a repeat performance of past anti-US government statements; odd, given that he'd become a US citizen in the last couple of years; i have a hard time believing that he'd make such brash statements on Iraqi television.
and there's also this most recent bit from CP.
08:10 PM EST | 4:10 AM Iraq | Fox Reporter On Tighter Baghdad Controls
Fox News' Simon Marks, speaking from Amman, Jordan, says that during the first seven days foreign reporters were in Baghdad, the Ministry of Information had a "very light touch. We could go anywhere we wanted, interview anyone we wanted to talk to--it was almost a normal assignment. For the final 72 hours, you could sense the climate changing. Ministry officials were getting nervous; restrictions were placed on our ability to communicate with the outside world."
Marks made the comments in a discussion about Peter Arnett's appearance on Iraqi TV. Fox's John Gibson going very hard on Arnett. Marks said he was in a "difficult position" since he's a friend of Arnett, and that it's too soon to judge what's going on. Gibson notes that Fox has been kicked out of Baghdad, as have most other news organizations, and that other reporters have apparently been jailed.
i think we should secure the guy the hell out of there first, and worry about his comments later. i sincerely hope he's okay.
it is disrespectul to the sacrifice and suffering that are byproducts of conflict. if you've read the RB's blog, you know what i think. i see no need to rehash it here as she did such a thorough job there. handy thing, that.
how about that website problem?
good thing no one actually watches Farscape or we'd have been really frelled. rolls eyes.
the Monkey enjoyed the most raucous and amusing statement the Monkey has probably ever read and must share the source of the Monkey's many, many giggles. the Monkey enjoys greatly being amused.
i've got a monkey. i've got a monkey. woo hoo hoo hoo. i've got a monkey.
ain't he cute? looks like me too with that whole, "did i just say that out loud?" gesture going for him. the RB rocks muchly.
stay tuned for upcoming Monkey rants. Bonnie will of course be my first target, but after i sleep...followed by that mysoginistic jackass that wrote the soon-to-be-infamous article in the March 17th issue of Time. oh, you haven't seen it? dear, dear, dear. do go read it here. that Bonnie. she's just too special for words.
then go check out what the jirls are doing in uhm, support, of Farscape.
"support." i crack myself up. "Don't be a boob. Watch Farscape." *snicker* gawd, i love chicks sometimes. we can be such delightful bitches, can't we? *snicker*
i thought at first the delay was standard performance anxiety entwined with an insufficiently broken plot. which, of course, it was, but, not in totality. 609 was started before my stepfather died. it was finished shortly thereafter. April 4th will be one year. one year without a virtual ep. one year with the gaping hole that is the absence of him in my life. it is fear, in effect, just not of writing an ep that blows. well, that too, but not to any large degree. the fear is of moving forward. that incompletion ties me inexorably to him, and the loss of him. i haven't been able to write the ep for the same reason that i haven't replaced my cracked windshield. it happened then. a daily, visual confirmation that he was here.that he existed. something that isn't brass, rectangular and covered in sophistry.
"here. talk to them." my mom shoves the phone in my hand microts after she wakes me up. "uhm, hello?" it's the funeral home. what would i like the gravestone to say? what would i like the gravestone to say. how about "fuck you, i'm not dead." no? oh. "maybe i shouldn't have listened to my family and gone with the open heart surgery cuz then my cancer wouldn't have killed me for a few more years." too wordy? ah. i'm then left with the perennial standby, "husband and father." what the fuck did they want from me when i'm conscious for 10 whole seconds, freakin' Ovid? yeah. the Air Force tossed in "beloved" for free. or pity. i'm not sure which.
my subconscious is afraid that when i finish 610, i'll move on and somehow forget. irrational thing, the subconscious. messy. have i mentioned, messy? yeah. so there you have it. fear for all the world to see. or as much of the world as reads my blog, which, blissfully, is nobody, so there.
i'll finish. when it's time. i hope soon. like i could forget. freakin' dead people. they're so demanding.
maybe i'm just dumb. unsophisticated, uncomplicated, ignorant and dense. incapable of detecting subtlety. too stupid to see what some speak of with such derision, disappointment and apathy.
or not.
i'm speaking of Farscape, of course, and the strange ride that is Season 4. i don't know why i see something different. i have a feeling it's because i don't project when i view. i don't project my expectations on the characters. i don't project my issues on the characters. i watch like i read. the author writes, i absorb. i don't stop halfway through a book and pitch a fit because a character did x instead of y. it's not my story. it's the author's story. does that mean i always agree? no. but i don't fault the story because it's not what i wanted. the story is what it is. are there times when a work isn't up to an author's previous work in my opinion? sure. my yardstick, however, is whether i'm entertained. was the book worth reading? was the show worth watching?
i've enjoyed Season 4. i refuse to apologize for that. was it different? yeah. do i wish that, given the cancellation, they didn't "play" so much in the earlier eps? maybe, but not because i thought the time was wasted, but because i don't get to see the end of the story now. they didn't know. the downside of hindsight.
i'm tired of Aeryn bashing. Aeryn is just Aeryn. she's not all womanhood. she's not super PK. she's just Aeryn. let her be just Aeryn. i'd like to see fans stop projecting their personal issues about being female on Aeryn. i'd like to see fans recognize that they don't do the same for John because, one, they're not guys, and two, they're in love with the poor bastard. who isn't? well, maybe Braca, but let's not go there.
is John in a bad place now? oh hell yes. i can see how he got there. i've been there. minus the thermonuclear device, the neural clone, the wormhole tech and the torture mind you, but still. everything is visceral. there is no logic. there is no sense. there's only pain. confusion, self-loathing and pain. do i have a problem with the irony of John using a thermonuclear device as a threat to secure safety in a power play while trying to keep wormhole tech away from the bad guys? nope. would it kill lots'o'folk if it went off? duh. would whole slews of those folk be innocent? maybe. the option, however, is allowing the power to destroy the very fabric of space time into the hands of xenophobic freak monsters. nuke away.
do i have a problem with John's Faust? nope. Aeryn became a pawn in the game because of John. he knows that. he loves her. he wouldn't leave her there to suffer because of him, and he's not going to give away another child. another part of himself sacrificed for someone else's agenda.
how much damage to one's psyche does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of the tootsie pop? following the metaphor because it intrigues me, and i'm a big fan of the work, let's sidetrack and look around....Goethe's Faust kept running from his internal feminine, refusing to balance it with the masculine, ultimately leading to his downfall. he would protect the external feminine, but not the internal. his emotions, i think, terrified him, confused him. they weren't simple or clean. Mephisto, as alter-ego, is the trickster, the uber-masculine, leading a flawed Faust to his doom. it could easily be argued that John really is Faust, and Scorpius his Mephisto. does that make Aeryn Helen of Troy? maybe. there's enough similarities for a good argument. who then, is Euphorian, the child of Faust and Helen, doomed to absorb his father's faults and destroy himself, driving Helen to leave Faust for the Underworld with the soul of their dead child? perhaps Euphorian is a what, rather than a who. John's innocence, shattered and overburdened.
the tragedy, the flaws, have always been what draw me to Farscape. John Crichton is no saint, and no hero. not in the classic sense. he tries to do what he thinks is right. that isn't the same thing. Farscape isn't heroic, either. not in the classic sense. it too, tries to do what it thinks is right. also, not the same thing. i stand by it for the trying. i am proud of it for the trying. it is better for the trying.
what was it Ben said in an interview...something about being better to try and fail gloriously, than make no attempt. my kinda philosophy.
i'll talk about the delay of virtual LFN in a bit. got some stuff to do first.
an addendum
was just reading cofax's blog and she mentioned bookslut.com. i flitted over because i'd forgotten about the place, glub, glub, (and she mentions the grooviest websites,) and there was the bit about the theft of a work. i borrow a reply by the victim out of context, because it underlies the point i was going for above.
to wit.
"...I enjoy writing stories that are mysterious, that leave certain things unexplained, for the simple reason that I enjoy reading material that allows me to make connections for myself, or to search within my own experience for answers. But ambiguity causes much consternation among some critics, and bugs the hell out of a lot of readers...
i'd add, "and viewers" to that last sentence.
and this quote, because it's so damned funny. i like this guy. a lot. take it away Seth......
question: "Do you harbor some sort of weird fetish about sports?"
answer: "Yes, yes I do. And monkeys, boy, do I ever have a thing with monkeys. Especially monkeys dressed up as butlers. I can't get enough of monkey butlers."
*snicker*. that sounds like something the RB would say.
