A personal diary keeping people abreast of what I am working on writing-wise.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

HE'S ELECTRIC, HE'S GOT A COMIC BOOK FULL OF ECCENTRICS

I love mail.

And I really love getting surprises in my mail.

Yesterday I got home to find a manila envelope propped up against my door. It was nice to see it, since Saturday someone stole some Buñuel and De Sica DVDs from the same spot. I'm not a complete lightning rod for thievery yet. Maybe the contents of the first package scared them away. "These movies ain't even in English!"

Anywayyyyy...this Jolt Cola style of writing I have been inspired to is a result of what was in that manila envelope. A copy of the new book by Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders, The Five Fists of Science (Image Comics; in stores tomorrow).



The slug line is both simple and complex. Simple because it's a pretty straightforward story, complex because you can't be a dimwit or you'll have no idea what it's on about. You see, at the turn of the century, noted author Mark Twain and noted nutjob genius science Nikola Tesla both want to end war forever. Apparently, that whole build-up of arms that I talk about in my review of Why We Fight has been a concern for people for many, many eons. The thing is, Tesla has an idea for how to do it. He's built himself a little gizmo that works like what we might call "virtual reality" or "motion capture." A man puts on a suit and when he moves while wearing it, a giant metal automaton performs the corresponding movement. Bingo! No men of flesh and blood need ever fight again. Twain figures if they can get each country to buy one, then everyone will have equal power, and they'll start leaving each other the hell alone.

Bad news for them is J.P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, Marconi (he plays the mamba), and Andrew Carnegie are in a Lovecraftian cabal who are building a tower to give evil a central action point for taking over the planet. Peace is bad for business.

If it all sounds a little crazy, well, that's because it's written by Matt Fraction, and despite his moniker, he doesn't do anything by halves, quarter, or thirds. Fraction is a go-for-it kind of guy. The thing is, when that kind of attitude finds the right outlet, it makes for a whole lotta fun for the audience. The Five Fists of Science is a whole lotta fun.

I wasn't sure about Steven Sanders' art from the preview pages I had seen, but seeing it printed in gorgeous color on glossy paper, all doubts were removed. My favorite thing about his work is the sense of color. Particularly in the big battles, when the big guys are tossing electricity around like silly string, I was really digging it. His pencil style--and sometimes his facial expressions--actually reminds me a bit of Bill Plympton, a comparison that makes more sense when you consider how much comedy is on the page. Fraction puts a lot of business in his panels, and he doesn't take time to pause for the middle moments. He needs an artist that is willing to jump first and look to see if the bungee chord is attached later. Sanders fits the bill. Check, for instance, each time Tesla's assistant Tim (the fifth fist in the Five; one hand is prosthetic) gets socially cockblocked by his boss. Tim is stopped before he starts all in the space of one panel, and it always comes off.

The Five Fists of Science isn't a perfect graphic novel. Like so many stories of this kind, I felt like maybe the writer was enjoying the set-up a little too much and didn't save as much room as he should've to finish it off. Also, sometimes Sanders' digital effects are unnecessarily fluffy (ex: Twain moving through a blurred crowd). Yet, these are minor quibbles in the face of solid entertainment. As the summer begins and the big cinematic blockbusters are already starting to disappoint us, The Five Fists of Science kept me intrigued from page the first to page the last. It's the comic everyone tried to convince me League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was but that I never found that book to be: good ol' pulpy adventure with familiar faces living out the roles we always imagined they could.

Current Soundtrack: Thom Yorke, The Eraser

Current Mood: nerdy

mailto:golightly@confessions123.com* The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

LOVE STEALS US FROM LONELINESS

The May edition of "Can You Picture That?" is now online. Read about Bukowski: Born Into This and the anti-war documentary Why We Fight.



I have also prepared my monthly picks for Trilogy Video. I realized I had a bunch of movies on my list of films waiting to be recommended that centered around adultry.

* Brief Encounter, based on a play by Noel Coward, dir. David Lean

* Closer, starring Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, & Natalie Portman, based on a play by Patrick Marber, dir. Mike Nichols

* Indiscretion of an American Wife/Terminal Station, starring Jennifer Jones & Montgomery Clift, dir. Vittorio De Sica

* A Married Woman, dir. Jean Luc-Godard

* Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn & Albert Finney, dir. Stanley Donen



Current Soundtrack: Idlewild, Warnings/Promises

Current Mood: bitchy

mailto:golightly@confessions123.com* The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Saturday, May 27, 2006

BELIEVE US WHEN WE SAY THAT YOU'LL LOVE THE WAY WE LOVE

Yesterday, mid-day, the compete interiors of Love the Way You Love vol. 1 were uploaded to the printer. It's done, kids, it's ready to go. Orders were strong, and we're all very excited.

Did you order your copy yet? If not, you can give your comic book retailer the Diamond order code APR06 3293 and ask him or her to make sure to have one for you when it arrives on June 28. If you're a bookstore kind of person, your local retailer can order it from Diamond Books with the ISBN 1-932664-52-1.

Last night was a little mini celebration. Bitsy McCubbin is in town, and we went over to meet Joëlle. I also met Laurenn's friends, Frank and Jill Beaton-the-Brat. I drank too much and thus, talked too much. But what else is new?

Now it's on to The Everlasting. It's due to the printer in three short weeks. Egads!

Then Lara and I have studio time booked for July 6 to record the song "Love the Way You Love." Busy, busy!

Current Soundtrack: ACO, Kittenish Love

Current Mood: ditzy

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Friday, May 26, 2006

PERMANENT RECORDS: HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE SOME KIND OF BEAUTIFUL?

Permanent Records is a year-long project. Each Friday (or thereabouts), I will post a new entry about one specific album, chosen due to its significance to myself as a fan. Though the list is numbered, a particular record's placement should not be considered a ranking. There will be 52 albums in all.

This endeavor is based on a concept started by Chris Tamarri at Crisis/Boring Change. It has since been expanded as a concept, as Neal Shaffer takes on a study of album covers over at Leftwich.

32. P.M. DAWN - OF THE HEART, OF THE SOUL, AND OF THE CROSS: THE UTOPIAN EXPERIENCE (1991)
Personnel: Prince Be & DJ Minute Mix
Producer: P.M. Dawn/ Label: Gee Street/Island



I don't know what you'd call last week's entry. A fictional essay? A confessional half-truth? A lie wrapped in the wink of honesty? Whatever it was, it makes for an interesting stepping stone in this series. I've always looked at this as a journey, wanting to let one week suggest another, the ideas tumbling after each other, like those tandem skydivers that drop from a plane and form a circle, hand locked in hand as they freefall.

In writing about Spandau Ballet, I created a portrait of someone out of place, out of time, one step to the left of everyone around him. He saw Spandau Ballet as kindred spirits, a focal point for the things he felt made him different. In itself, the choice may reveal how out of step I may be. Spandau Ballet is so rarely considered cool, so I've drawn my line in the sand to say, "I like it, and I don't care about your cool. This is one of my very favorite records."

P.M. Dawn could inspire the same reaction. Last week's portrait could have just as easily been about their main man, Prince Be. You wanna talk about being out of step with everyone around you? How about a hiphop duo who sing about spirituality, love, dancing, and other bizarre concepts? Keep in mind, their debut album promoted the utopian experience a little over a year after Public Enemy told us to fear a black planet, and their biggest hit topped the charts twelve months before Dr. Dre released The Chronic and changed mainstream rap forever. The title of the album alone tells you that you're not dealing with average concerns here. Of the Heart, Of the Soul, and Of the Cross. Just what the hell does that mean? These guys were so far from the pack, the cover photograph shows them in the ice fields of some remote location. If Dr. Dre was America, P.M. Dawn was Antarctica.

The band's name alone is somewhat an explanation of their contradictory position in the rap game. Loosely translate it as Night Morning, or the Morning of Night. It's every state of being, it's yin and yang. Their garb and their vibe were vaguely hippie-ish, with paisley shirts and peace symbols matching the African-inflected hiphop fashion of the day. Their closest compatriots could maybe be considered De La Soul, and P.M. Dawn even sample "Potholes in My Lawn," but De La had just released De La Soul Is Dead a couple of months before (to give you further idea where the rap game was at the time), and one imagines that had they seen P.M. Dawn at a party, even those guys, what with their attempts to now discard the D.A.I.S.Y. Age, would have pretended not to know Be and DJ Minute Mix.



Not that P.M. Dawn would care. The second track on Of the Heart... is "Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine," a tribute to their disassociated state. Lyrically, reality could be the concept itself or a girl, and Prince Be laments the loss of his connection to both; musically, however, the track practically celebrates having broken the bounds. Built on a piano loop that I swear sounds like it was taken from the Peanuts cartoons, "Reality" is a rump shaker. You might be nuts, sir, but you can dance like Franklin at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas. "Now I'm known as the maniac man!" On that track, Prince Be says, "I figured life would just hand me bliss, and it's an important statement for the idealist trying to make music about his views of utopia: if life fails to live up to his expectations, he doesn't change his expectations, he alters life. It's never easy, there is always regret and there is always struggle, but it's a battle worth fighting for how hard it's won.

The next track is sort of the instruction on letting loose oneself. "Picture you, picture me," he says by way of an opening on "Paper Doll." It's an '80s soul ballad, smoothly transitioning from the verses with Prince Be's soft rapping to a plaintive chorus sung by Be as a mid-range croon. His voice is one of P.M. Dawn's most formidable weapons. Even today, someone who can rap and sing with equal skill is still a rarity.

"Paper Doll" is essentially a suggestion that one should become less substantial. Forget about how all humans are linked on this plane, consider the greater cosmos. "Life surrounds what's presumed as wise/ It wouldn't be wise until the fist uncurls." This, presumably, is part of the Of the Soul portion of the titular equation. The soulful elements have a strong hold on most of the tracks. "In the Presence of Mirrors" details man's internal conflicts, and once again reinforces we are all one ("I come face to face with you/ Which is me"). "Comatose" is a darker portrait, the title referring to the state most people live their lives in.

Of the three pieces of the puzzle, the one that is least obvious and, consequently, the most subversive, is probably Of the Cross. There are passing references to faith in songs like "To Serenade a Rainbow" ("Agape compels me to love you...Father, I talk to you for peace of mind"), but it's never so up front as to be in your face. It's not that the religious element is the least important, it's more that it informs all of the band's choices, making it a part of the other elements in a way they are not part of each other. It's religion as it's supposed to be, a way of trying to live better but not an excuse to hide. "Even After I Die" is the one song devoted entirely to this religious pursuit. Its placement on Of the Heart... can't be accidental. "Even After I Die" is the absolute center: six songs precede it and six songs follow it, making it track 7, a divine number. Built on a soft acoustic strum, the track is Prince Be posing his personal existence against the existence of God: "A question mark on a question mark/ And insecurities connect my parts/ I thought you are me and I am you." His doubts taking shape as auditory abstraction--a synthesizer squeal, a quick twinge on an electric guitar. All he can do is accept what he isn't sure of--"I guess I'll never know, it'd probably cut me like a knife"--and continue his struggle.



Because if he gave up his struggle, if he let the cross become a shield from life, then there would certainly be no Of the Heart. P.M. Dawn's romantic spirit is what most people know. Their #1 single was "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss," a poppy ballad that samples "True" by our Spandau boys. (Tony Hadley was even in the video.) It's not a ballad for a specific love, though, it's a rumination on a dream lover, on the endless search for the ideal. Call her the Utopian Girl. The song refers to her as "the thought of Mrs. Princess Who?" and suggests it's like a dream he can't quite remember, "Subterranean by design,/ I wonder what I would find if I met you." The bliss of memory is thinking on this perfection once tasted and trying to find it again.

Maybe he does, too, a couple of songs later. Maybe she's the "you" he can see in "On a Clear Day." It's another of those songs that could be about the Heart, or it could be another one about Soul. In fact, most of the songs on the disc sound like love songs, whether they are or not. "Paper Doll" certainly comes across as being about lovers conjoined, not a search for some kind of metaphysical connection. "Reality Used to be a Friend of Mine," again, is just as much about an estranged paramour as it is the fabric of existence. Like I said, most people think of P.M. Dawn as a romantic band. Even I had in my mind that all the songs from The Utopian Experience were about love. Of the Heart must be the most important because it's first, right?

Yes, but it's not a narrow definition of love. It's more grand.

And yet, The Utopian Experience doesn't always add up. "Comatose," for instance, is almost angry, like the duo is ready to give up on their fellow man. "As lost as a meal that's pushed to a panther/ I keep my eyes on those who pass by/ They look to P.M. Dawn the quest for the answer/ Mercy mercy me...till I see/ The end of the human race is grand prix." There is a hedonistic element to the song, the sweat and rhythm of a nightclub, the undulating Sly Stone sample, and it's hard not to think the duo isn't enjoying it. Strangely, the attitude fits them well. It doesn't feel put on. Neither does "Shake," the house track with Todd Terry, which is no more than a halleluiah over pelvic thrusts. The conglomeration of all these disparate and often incomprehensible elements reminds me a lot of Prince, and it would not surprise me if Prince Be's moniker is a definite nod to an idol. There are also the uses of letters and numbers in place of words, a love of wailing electric guitars, and on "The Beautiful," Be even says he's sending a "purple valentine." His diminutive highness' fingerprints are all over this record..

P.M. Dawn would be nothing without their contradictions. "The Beautiful" closes the album (and somehow manages to get away with sampling its melody from the Beatles' "Baby You're a Rich Man"), and it contains the revealing stanza "Once more my feelings have succeeded in confusing me/ But what's most amusing is/ I like the way it looks." It's more heroic, in its way, accepting one's outsider status and not fighting against it, knowing you're not one of the comatose and not really looking to join them.



Nowhere is that willful quest to understand more pronounced than on "A Watcher's Point of View (Don't 'Cha Think)." It's a dervish of a song, with Prince Be's most aggressive delivery on the album. The beat is pummeling, never deviating but pounding consistently from point A to point B. (I almost said "to Prince Be," but that's too cute.) "He who thinks, thinks for himself" is its first line, and that would sum it up nicely if the chorus wan't more illuminating:

Problems of the world, lovers, girls, and things of that nature bound to break my heart
They all show different sides of me, they're all wrapped up inside of me...
I feel certain awe for those who fall to find out they're in the shadows in the stars
Even from a watcher's point of view
.

P.M. Dawn recognize their own position as observers, knowing that the world at large is perhaps too harsh for them; even so, they refuse to remove themselves absolutely. They can't be complete voyeurs, they will always have empathy. "Cause he who learns the rules of wisdom/ Without transforming it to daily life/ Is a bad condition of contradiction"-- you can't give up on yourself, but instead you have to find a way to make living work. Be you the boy at the dance who doesn't understand how to make the feelings of a three-minute pop song transform into an ongoing relationship or a paisley-wearing Christian rapper competing for chart positions with hardcore gangstas, you have to stay true to your heart, your soul, and whatever larger power you put your faith in, or you'll never find the perfection you seek.

Of the Heart, Of the Soul, Of the Cross: The Utopian Experience, the P.M. into the Dawn. Not conflicting elements, but one growing into the other, the darkness giving way to sunrise.



#52 #51 #50 #49 #48 #47 #46 #45 #44 #43 #42 #41 #40 #39 #38 #37 #36 #35 #34 #33



Reminder: As always, this post is full of links to Amazon. Click on any one of them when shopping, and Amazon will shave a few pennies off their take to give to me. So, if my reviews make you all hot and bothered and you just have to own one of the things I'm talking about, use my link and contribute to buying me more stuff to review. (Those reading a Live Journal feed will likely have to click to the actual blog page first before heading over to Amazon, though.) Either way, thanks for reading.

Current Soundtrack: Primal Scream, Riot City Blues

Current Mood: restless

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Y'GOTTA BE BAD-ENOUGH TO BEAT THE BRAVE



So, Confessors, I guess I've sussed you out. Monday I have a new short story--a teaser for my next novel--posted online, and my invite to you to make comments meets with silence. Later that day I note that I have seen X-Men: The Last Stand with a promise that full opinions will come with my review for DVDTalk, and I get several e-mails from people saying, "Me, me, I'm special. I know you'll spill to me."

I see how you all are.

Well, here you go, you jackals. My review in full.



The above is my new desktop image. It replaces the illusration from the cover of The Everlasting. Interestingly, it's pretty much an exact reversal of Chynna's shot of Lance and Quentin, including who has their eyes where. The only difference is Audrey has the graciousness to close hers.

Current Soundtrack: Oasis, Be Here Now

Current Mood: sarcastic

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Monday, May 22, 2006

IN THE FUTURE WHEN ALL'S WELL

Just got back from seeing a screening of X-Men 3, which I will say nothing about until my DVDTalk review goes up on Thursday. But the reason I write now is not to boast (okay, maybe a little), but because I can't believe I nearly let the day go by...

Break out the bubbly! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MORRISSEY!



According to your Shojo Beat horoscope, you're going to find both the "eye candy" and the "brain candy" you seek in a mate, but sadly, not in the same person. It's your move on the chessboard of love. How shallow shall you be?

Current Soundtrack: The Smiths, Strangeways Here We Come

Current Mood: geeky

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

BOYS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO USE THOSE TOYS

The first Everlasting deleted scene is now online at Comic Book Resources. "Toys for Boys" is a section I was really sorry to see go. I'm very fond of the writing in it. Please read it and post comments here.

Interestingly, the whole opening scenario of this story originally appeared after the toy scene when they were in the book, but I liked it a lot, too, and so brought it back and tied it in with this sequence.

As the introduction says, the Diamond catalogue with the book listed in it is out this Wednesday. Please preorder!





I also have a couple of new DVD reviews up. Two are for pretty bad films from Hong Kong (I Will Wait For You! & What a Wonderful World); the other is for an exceptional Hungarian movie, Damnation. This is also one of the reviews I am most proud out of the ones I have done for DVDTalk so far. (Has it been 12 already?!) The best I can say about the other two is I think the screencaps I made are pretty funny.

Current Soundtrack: Public Enemy, Rebirth of a Nation

Current Mood: nervous

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Friday, May 19, 2006

PERMANENT RECORDS: IT'S THE CODE OF LOVE, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HIM

Permanent Records is a year-long project. Each Friday (or thereabouts), I will post a new entry about one specific album, chosen due to its significance to myself as a fan. Though the list is numbered, a particular record's placement should not be considered a ranking. There will be 52 albums in all.

This endeavor is based on a concept started by Chris Tamarri at Crisis/Boring Change. It has since been expanded as a concept, as Neal Shaffer takes on a study of album covers over at Leftwich.

33. SPANDAU BALLET - TRUE (1983)
Personnel: Tony Hadley, vocals; Gary Kemp, guitar & background vocals; Martin Kemp, bass; Steve Norman, saxophone; John Keeble, drums
Producer: Steve Jolly and Tony Swain/ Label: Chrysalis



He didn't realize the importance of being understood until he was old enough to reach some understanding himself.

As a younger boy, it hadn't mattered that he was weird, because every kid was weird. There wasn't yet any major focus on fitting in. Everyone sat in the same desks in the same rows in the same classes at the same school, so how did anyone not fit?

It was when he was older and had moved on to the other schools that things started to change. Kids now talked to each other in odd ways. He could strike up a conversation with someone--a girl, particularly--and before she responded, it was like she was weighing the significance of talking to him. What was in it for her if she did? Or, more baffling for him, what wasn't in it for her if she did? What did she stand to lose? He hadn't witnessed any corrosive effects to having a conversation with him, and yet his voice repelled.

More telling was seeing the same girls talk to other guys. Suddenly, their attention was focused. Their bodies perked up, and they leaned in rather than lean away. He couldn't see why. The guys he knew spoke in boring, clipped sentences, as if the words were pits of tar and they were walking across them wearing galoshes, sticking and sinking on their way to the end punctuation. What happened to being clever? What happened to wit? Where was meaning?

It was this boy's intention to express something, to speak in words that carried the weight of his heart. So, it was a rude awakening to discover that no one cared about the heart anymore.

Where had he gotten this sensibility from? It wasn't like he had role models for it. Certainly there was no great romance between his parents. His father never sat him down and said, "Son, this is chivalry. This is how you love a woman and how you treat her so that the love lasts." No one instructed him on what kind of flowers to buy or about opening doors or about being a champion who fights for his princess to the bitter end; yet, the boy didn't remember a time when he didn't carry those kinds of thoughts with him.

Sure, there were movies, books, music--but how could he be sure which came first? It was impossible to know if they had informed his worldview, or if he had gravitated to them because they were simpatico. He saw life as a music video, the floors and walls an empty white, and men in dark jackets and slick hair singing about love like it was a game for secret agents, a mission one completes successfully or risk punishment from foreign powers. They were Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart rolled into one, unafraid of speaking as they pleased and standing where they stood, lovers and fighters both.

The thing was, girls swooned over this band. He knew it because he had seen the buttons on their jackets and the stickers on their notebooks. If he had a microphone and could sing, would they accept his declarations of romance, too? He had tried telling them straight out, but he always fumbled. He tried writing it down, but the notes got passed around, vandalized, or maybe they just didn't want to be asked to read (in which case the boy wasn't interested anyway).

There had to be a magic formula. How could this suavity be brought from the record player to real life? He listened to the album incessantly, tried to decipher any secret message it might contain. If they were spies, then they were smuggling the vital information to him, and with it, he could rule the world--or at least a few hearts.

Except they weren't spies, they were a band, and he wasn't a counter-agent, he was just some kid with an out-of-date fascination. The scenarios they sang about were fantasies of something that had passed him by. A battle had been fought before he was even born, and his side had lost.

Even so, that was no reason to give up, and with each passing year, he would grow more earnest in his pursuit, while also letting go of another sliver of the illusion. It was odd, because the more he chipped away at it, the more real it became. The fantasy element was just a smokescreen, a convenient excuse to insist he didn't believe in it, when really it was right in front of him the whole time. Love was hiding in plain site as itself.

He recalled school dances where the DJ played the song off the record, the one from the video. It was pretty much a given that the tune would find its way into the set at some point. It was a popular song, practically a staple. Teenagers liked to dance close to one another when it was on, let its lofty proclamations guide their steps, and maybe for its duration, their emotions, as well. He liked the song for its imagery. It talked about music, too, of a romance that consisted of staying up all night and listening to Marvin Gaye. The boy wanted a similar experience, but he and the object of his affection would listen to this band instead. No matter how much he tried to get past it, he wanted the love they sang about.

Then it occurred to him: the song's strongest thematic thread was about writing the song itself. There were other references on the album to literature and creating your own code, but it was most explicit here. The lyrics implied that it wouldn't always be easy, but you had to stick to it. The boy's problem was that he had been letting others dictate how his romantic inclinations would play out, and if he wanted them to finally go his own way, he had to craft his own narrative, write his own love song. That's what life was about. Who cared if your style of music was out of fashion? Such worries were for the fickle, and this is about the notion of forever! He knew that much, at least, was true.

When a record ends, you don't discard it. You pick the needle up, put it back at the beginning, and listen again. If it doesn't all make sense to you the first time, it doesn't matter, because you'll get more out of it the second time, until eventually you know the whole thing front to back, every note, every word. That was the way to be understood, to keep at it until he was loved completely, front to back, every odd tick, every flaw. Only then can the code of love be decoded, and at last, the boy will fit.



#52 #51 #50 #49 #48 #47 #46 #45 #44 #43 #42 #41 #40 #39 #38 #37 #36 #35 #34



Reminder: As always, this post is full of links to Amazon. Click on any one of them when shopping, and Amazon will shave a few pennies off their take to give to me. So, if my reviews make you all hot and bothered and you just have to own one of the things I'm talking about, use my link and contribute to buying me more stuff to review. (Those reading a Live Journal feed will likely have to click to the actual blog page first before heading over to Amazon, though.) Either way, thanks for reading.

Current Soundtrack: Pet Shop Boys, Fundamental/Fundamentalism

Current Mood: artistic

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Thursday, May 18, 2006

CRYING IN THE CHAPEL

HOLY CRAP! My boy Mike Allred did a cover for an August Criterion release!



The last Pietro Germi film they released had a Jaime Hernandez cover, and if they are going to keep going this way, I say please do more Germi films!

I did an interview with Mike for the second issue of Bottle Rocket magazine, due out in July.

*

How common is it for writers to be affected by their own work in the emotional way they hope it will touch their audience? I sometimes grow very cold to my stories, but other times, they surprise me with their punch. The Lance Scott stuff seems to be the worst. I cried at the end of The Everlasting the couple of times I read it front to back. And last night I sat down and read "Romeo May be Bleeding, But Mercutio is Dead" for the first time since finishing it, and I got all choked up and had to compose myself because I was in a coffee shop. Which has to be a good thing, right? Or maybe I need to give that poor sucker Lance an even break....

Current Soundtrack: Elvis Presley, "Thrill of Your Love;" Sugababes, "Better;" The Sundays, "Hideous Towns/Medicine"

Current Mood: curious

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

MINIMAL



New DVD Reviews this week:
* 49 Days, a mess of a Hong Kong supernatural thriller
* Compulsion starring Orson Welles & Dean Stockwell
* Walt Disney's It's a Small World of Fun vol. 1
* Walt Disney's It's a Small World of Fun vol. 2

Click over and check them out, and definitely seek out Compulsion. It's a great film.

Currently Working On: Tenshi Ja Nai!! vol. 5 script

Currently Reading: "The Rape of Lucrece" by William Shakespeare

Current Soundtrack: Fiona Apple, "Never is a Promise (live);" Bryan Ferry, "A Fool For Love;" Electronic, "Try All You Want"

Current Mood: uncomfortable

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * "Can You Picture That?" * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich