Mixed media

[petronia]

Threw on several albums' worth of gravel-voiced McGill-alumni-ojiisan and read Endless Nights, by that nice fellow on my lj-friends who's been travelling a lot lately and seems as exhausted as, well, everyone else on my lj-friends. (A make-up-the-free-shipping-limit purchase, on Amazon; I'd very much like to "support my local comics shop" if there were any possibility of me getting there before their closing hours, and believe me I've tried. Besides which it's the Indigo and the Archambault on St. Catherine that suffer my tachiyomi depredations, and to which I feel a sense of pecuniary obligation.) Try it this way, I recommend it. It doesn't so much matter what song comes up, but their respective vocabularies overlap enough to set off echoes, somewhere subterranean and familiarly dark.

Lots of pages lately. Was feeling quiet at the Angstgiving party, so intentionally lost an hour or three to Transmetropolitan vol.7-8 and Sandman: Season of Mists, which I didn't remember as well as I thought I did. Thanksgiving proper ditto, except then it was Nabokov's True Story of Sebastian Knight and a few pages of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Yeah, the unheralded return of English-language reading matter, complete with the full extent of my English-language vocabulary. Though that very last is sororial unit's; she's also got The Rum Diaries somewhere. Methinks she figures if it's good enough for the Deppster - albeit likely a bald Deppster once again - it's good enough for her.

If you've seen Once Upon A Time In Mexico, you'll know what I mean when I say Johnny Depp would make a good A. J. Crowley. If you've seen Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, you'll know what I mean when I say he'd make a good Spider Jerusalem. Possibly he would also make a good version of your mom. My thesis is that the man is scary, j0.

In all this you've been hearing mostly my nezumi squeaking re the Halloween fic, which is good too. I had T read the 2000 words I have, and she thinks it in character - Mythos or not, GxB or not - so I suppose throwing myself off Champlain Bridge is unnecessary I'm still on track as a writer.

Meanwhile, Kill Bill is a brilliant stylistic exercise, which is a class of endeavour for which I have perpetual sympathy. It's easily enjoyed by anyone who likes gore and/or swordplay, methinks, but requiring a real education to be appreciated. And by that I mean a better education than I have in the field. ^^; Shaw Scope! Tajima Shou! Music cues gacked from the Lily Chou-Chou album, of all things, thus proving Quentin Tarentino really does watch the same films I do! (Well, we knew that.) He plays synthesist here, QT, not what I think of as innovator - but there's place for both in the world, and he pulls it off damn well. How in the name of wonder did he dredge up those particular enka songs, one wonders? Or did he commission them? Either way, genius.

...It makes me feel like writing the reviews I never got around to for this summer's FantAsia festival. Specifically, for Ainu - "Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan" - and come on, with an English title like that? It's 70's Shaw Brothers lesbian wuxia female revenge drama, with whippings and the occasional naked b00b and no wire-fu, because it was made before Hong Kong invented wire-fu, so no one jumps more than a foot and a half in the air under their own steam. I defy you to find an inherently more meritorious formula in the history of cinema.

Comments

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

So, in lieu of trying to track the damned thing down in past entries... where's the blog for the fellow who's working on the Gravi manga translation, again? ^^;;

Looking forward to the GB fic. The last one was... hm. I came away from it with a feeling something like what I get from Maidens in the Mirror, if that makes any sense to you. It's something about the mood of a particular type of your writing, of course, rather than any other similarity between them -- like looking at either series through Sabina-vision.

[luxetumbra.livejournal.com]

where's the blog for the fellow who's working on the Gravi manga translation, again?

Here. (http://www.confessions123.com/jamie/mainpage.html)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

What she said. ^_^

Looking forward to the GB fic. The last one was... hm. I came away from it with a feeling something like what I get from Maidens in the Mirror, if that makes any sense to you. It's something about the mood of a particular type of your writing, of course, rather than any other similarity between them -- like looking at either series through Sabina-vision.

Makes sense to me; I think they're alike as well. For one thing, they both rely on extended left-field metaphors that have nothing to do with the series... ^^; And both are really sort of analytical pieces, me rounding out the characters by debating with myself. Serves the function of an essay, but fiction conveys subtleties of meaning better. After it's done I have the characters, and writing canonical-flavour gets a lot easier.

(There's friends-locked GBfic scattered in the past entries over the last month and a half; some drabbles and a section of the Toshiki story. I put you on lj-friends so you can read them, if you like.)

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm in that stage of fandom where... well, no, it's not even that I'm constantly looking for a fix now that I've finished the series; it's more that I've barrelled straight on into 'better make my own fix' (mostly in the form of IRC and winamp skins) but I appreciate good fiction all the same because I'm doing a lot of thinking about the series and that helps.

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

you'll know what I mean when I say Johnny Depp would make a good A. J. Crowley.

oh god, I could see it. I hadn't thought of it before you said it, but I could definitely see it! And despite not having seen the other movie, I could see him as Spider Jerusalem as well. (What a guy!)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

OUaTiM dealing in archetypal characters, I was sort of puzzled because I couldn't immediately pin down who Agent Sands reminded me of. I mean, I knew he reminded me of somebody... Then I realised he was basically Crowley, except very American and very mortal.

As for FaLiLV, Johnny Depp turns himself directly into Hunter S. Thompson (which is a neat trick), and Spider Jerusalem is Hunter S. Thompson except near-future and with the prose style of Warren Ellis. And tattoos. Watch the movie - you'll recognise the body language immediately, it's uncanny. (It'll also put you off the idea of hard drugs forever, in a far less moralistic manner than, say, The Basketball Diaries. ^_^;;)

[vonbrigthi.livejournal.com]

ahah, well he did spend some time on Thompson's ranch, and got his head shaved by that man (something like he just approached him with a huge razorblade...). but yes, excellleent.

tajima shou references in Kill Bill? oo? oo? the anime sequence, perhaps? now i have to see. arr.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Tajima Shou = character designer for anime sequence. *g*

Johnny Depp did that!? Ahahahahahaha I can so see it happening.

[nekokoban]

... the thing is, Johnny Depp being, you know, Johnny Depp, it means that he could probably play BOTH Crowley and Aziraphale with style and never batting a lash.

(Okay, maybe with SOME batting, because he's got such nice eyes. But that's just my bias showing.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

...

*am now picturing Johnny Depp's one-man stage-play version of Good Omens*

*breaks down somewhere alongside Johnny Depp as satanic nun*

Some lash-batting, yes. XD There were scenes in PotC where I swear I thought he was going to set a breeze swirling through the room by blinking.

[nekokoban]

Come on, he'd so be able to pull it off. <3 Given his penchant for less "mainstream" characters and giving characters his own personal twist, I'm sure he'd probably enjoy it, too. XD

And since PotC is not anime, and thus cannot rely on the tenuous laws of Anime Physics, Mr. Depp must provide the "dramatic wind" at appropriate scenes said blinking. [laughs]

[corneredangel.livejournal.com]

If you've seen Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, you'll know what I mean when I say he'd make a good Spider Jerusalem.

...instinctively, it makes sense, but on subsequent thoughts, I'm not sure he could pull off bits - towards the end-game, mostly, wherein Spider is either dead serious or broken. And that's just where the frustrating part lies, too; Patrick Stewart could do *those* easy enough, but would fall flat on...damn near everything else that makes up Spider's personality/persona.