Confessions of a Pop Fan

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

ALTERNATING BETWEEN HEAVY & LIGHT

Some basic updating.

Current workload: Finishing second volume of a manwha not yet on the Tokyopop site, so I won't mention its name, and just completed a short story called "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat." I also completed the first draft of this week's Permanent Records today.

Currently Reading: Benkei In New York, a gripping one-off crime manga by Jinpachi Mori and Jiroh Taniguchi. Benkei is a hyphenate, an art forger-vengeance fixer. He exacts his elaborate revenge schemes with a cold detachment. The art is clean and efficient, befitting the mood of the story.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (courtesy of Joëlle). I am about 2/3 of the way through, and I am finding the whole experience terribly humbling. I look at what I do in my books and what Kundera is doing in this one, and I have to wonder why I ever boot up my computer. He is just too, too good. He does very interesting things with time, packing a large memory into a small moment of a present-tense scene, as well as creatng a wonderful interaction between the omnicscient narrator and the fabric of the text. If nothing else, go into a store and flip to section II, "Soul and Body," and read chapters 11-13. The parallel of his fiction to the fiction of Dostoevsky as being read by one of his characters is breathtaking, and the image of the lovers sleeping hand in hand, and why Tereza chooses to do so, is one of the most gorgeous things I've ever read. New favorite line of all time: "The crew of her soul rushed up to the deck of her body."

Current Soundtrack: random play on my iPod smart playlist The Never-Played Symphonies (comprised, somewhat obviously, of files not yet played): Sisters of Mercy, "Kiss the Carpet;" No Doubt, "Just a Girl/Running;" Travis, "Luv;" Mansun, "Cancer (Interlude);" Ike & Tina Turner, "I'll Never Need More Than This"

Current Mood: lost