Okay, so on the radio this morning they mention it is Rowan Atkinson's birthday. I'm cool with that, better than my old birthday buddy Richard Nixon. But, but then they said HE IS A YEAR YOUNGER THAN ME!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO. I mean, really, how can Mr. Bean be a year younger than me? I think I'm cancelling my birthday this year.

Twittering as jackwilliambell.

• 10:00 Ran into a weird problem debugging in Eclipse on a Mac. But help was only a google away: blog.christianleberfinger.de/?p=167 #
• 10:01 @brendacooper You are aware you can delete a $FAIL tweet? #
• 22:01 @brendacooper Delete is one of the options when viewing your tweets on the website (mouse hover). Some phone apps support deletes as well. #

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Automatic payment failed for my live journal account for no apparent reason. It failed days after the expiration date of my account, which apparently took effect retroactively, except it told me I was using "119 out of 6 userpics". I manually upgraded to a paid account, and so far all my things are still here. Isn't it cute how live journal has a message about trained monkeys running things? It's joke, of course. Of course.

Shots like this make Snow White worth watching;



There's a real beauty to this movie the likes of which is only found in Hayao Miyazaki movies to-day, though the bulk of the film involves endearing dwarf slapstick. I remember hearing how tedious the old animators found it to animate realistic people, and this is evident in no-one more than Snow White herself, whose rigid mannerisms suggest something more to me than just an uncertainty of how to animate an innocent young woman. Though she is gorgeous.



A lot of people talk about the sexist nature of Snow White's character, who seems irresistibly drawn to cooking and cleaning. I suppose you could say this might be the talents of a scullery maid, but I don't think we should look to Snow White for an exercise in historical accuracy. One could say she's a product of the 1930s, which she certainly is, but she still lacks the depth of the characters in 1939's The Women or any of Joan Crawford's shopgirl films. There's something very remote about Snow White, and the impression I have is that she's the vague realisation of the filmmakers' ideal--all the human characters in the film, including the dwarfs and queen, feel like versions of parental figures, which I think Walt saw as being something children would respond warmly to. Snow White's performance of her chores isn't so much meant to be a model for young girls in the audience (though I doubt anyone minded if it was taken that way) as a rendering of what the filmmakers saw as a great female--a beautiful and irrepressibly kind caretaker. Which ends up saying a lot more about the animators than it does about any fictional female character, since she is so broadly and indistinctly crafted.



Animation of the female leads in Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty is superb, but I don't think we get to see a real female character protagonist in an animated Disney film until The Little Mermaid. The villains are another story, as even the evil queen in Snow White seems to have something to her, even if that something is still made only of her creator's fears.

Twitter Sonnet #98

Swerve out of the next off-ramp suddenly.
Erratic driving brings joy to us all.
Let's reach destinations gradually.
Always will plastic cheese be at the mall.
Never fully trust Hollywood archers.
Hold your mace carefully, Basil Rathbone.
The parade tuba's ahead of marchers.
Behind, cellist Woody Allen, alone.
My rubber bottomed car key has no ring.
Not all lights on your board serve a purpose.
For what lady do the caged blue fish sing?
Only Aayla Secura can help us.
A hard, lekku lesson's in the bottle.
There's nowhere a plain Cantonese noodle.

Things maybe I should've resisted doing, vol. 82309234321:

http://sm-feminist.blogspot.com/2010/01/form-and-content.html

Yeah, those comments from '05 are old, and maybe I should've left them alone. But in a way I've always really liked them, as I feel they capture really well a difference between my views and the views of some people who are leery of power dynamics. I talk there about power dynamics I think are risky and ultimately beneficial; she articulates (IMO a little less precisely, but I think that's the nature of the beast) a view of trying to create a life and a world (or so I read her to be saying; I might be wrong) that has less of any of them, because they're less "helpful" (I interpret her to be saying they're bad without using that word; she says that's not what she means. Draw your own conclusions. And I do mean that. I've been wrong before.)

Part of the reason I looked back at it in the first place will be familiar to some of you I've been talking to in IMs about hierarchies and power and limited meritocracy, and my feelings about them, especially years after emerging from a social group that seemed not to want to think of those things as anything but bogeymen. I... eh. I probably should just write another post and attempt, in it, to leave the things that comment has given rise to in my mind. She told me there, though, that I was asking questions of myself -- in the context of the original convo, I found that comment rude and dismissive and saw it as "Don't challenge me, go navel gaze." 

But it proved prophetic: I have thought about it and for a little less than five years (!!) now. I've thought about what it means to want to cleanse our lives of certain things, and whether we can ever make that purely personal. I've thought more about the questions I ask her, about when power-over can be productive and why it so easily goes wrong. I've found, over many years, comfort with my own ambition and desires that I sought for many years. (Anyone who wonders why I use this icon: it's more than just a fandom thing. It's a finally accepting things about what I believe and how I feel, and feeling more comfortable than I have in years thing. I should write about it. And probably not link that post.) And I think that conversation sparked quite a lot of it, honestly. I have a lot to thank her for, actually, despite my still cringing at some of the comments there. (I won't dig them up; if you look, you'll probably find them.)

Anyway, i'm not sure why I'm saying this. I guess because I feel two ways. One, like I've done something a bit unfair -- especially since, as she points out, 2005 is a long time ago and people's opinions aren't static, including hers. But two, again, that I feel it offers a clear picture of something I wrestled with for a long time when I'd just detached myself from some identities and communities I felt were stunting me.

So... eh. HC, I can only say I understand why it bothers you to see me mention it and why it looks like some weird personal crusade. But really: aside from a twinge looking back at it and remembering what it was like to have that conversation, I'm not angry now. I'm just... not agreeing with things you said then (do you? I don't know, as you pointed out), and thinking and talking about why.

...do the "if I had to do whatever you want for 24 hours, what would you have me do" meme.

Nope. No way.

XD

So, I'm registered for the spring semester. I'm taking:

Introduction to Computer Science Using Java II
Java for Distributed Computing

So a few days ago Roszfianna became exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord. She was *not* going to buy the Reins of the Red Drake. But she realized she hadn't ever picked up the pattern for Mysterious Bag from the WrA quartermaster. Ahem, okay, she bought the drake.

Last night, I followed this pair of raccoons across a couple neighbours' lawns;






I've seen them before--they live in a storm drain next to where I park my car. I'm calling them Rocky and Nancy for now, though the masks conceal their real identities. They hissed at me a couple times, and I've heard raccoons can actually be quite dangerous, though I seemed to remember it was only when they were cornered.

It turned out to-day's appointment for my car was just to get an estimate--I have another appointment a couple weeks from now, a date I chose myself to fall on another day when I'm not working on my comic. It's going to cost the guy's insurance company 1,300 dollars. I don't know how much he has to pay, but I bet he'll be really careful backing up his truck from now on.

Teenagers sure like their uselessly huge vehicles. Tim pointed out an electric car to me on Saturday in the Fry's parking lot--we saw two that day, and they're extraordinarily tiny. I was reminded of Sam's personal transport from Brazil. I guess if I didn't actually tend to use my back seat and trunk, such a car would suit me pretty well.

Last night's tweets;

Never fully trust Hollywood archers.
Hold your mace carefully, Basil Rathbone.
The parade tuba's ahead of marchers.
Behind, cellist Woody Allen, alone.

I'm really happy with the next Venia's Travels script, which I finished last night. This could be one of my favourite chapters. I finished writing it at around 1:30 am and found myself wanting to do something, but not quite sure what. Lately I've really wanted a good video game to play, but just about everything surpasses my computer's capabilities. I'd really like to try Dragon Age, especially since I've been bad mouthing it so much. I hate being so critical of something without giving it a totally fair shake. I'm thinking I may try getting TIE Fighter to work again--I really miss that game. I was quite addicted to it in the first years of high school. Somehow it comes off as quite a convincing flight simulator which serves remarkably well to get you involved in the narrative introduced--the larger picture created by the missions you, as a TIE Fighter pilot for the Empire, are obliged to go on. It's pre-episode 1 Star Wars fiction, too, which carries a great deal of charm nowadays, artefacts of a time when Star Wars was vast, sort of enigmatic, and full of potential.

I picked up Morrissey's new B-sides album, Swords, to-day. There's a rather nice interview included--this bit reminded me of Akira Kurosawa's attitude toward critics, as he tended to avoid reading all reviews;

I think it's important to ignore praise. If you ignore praise then you naturally ignore criticism. If you let criticism in, then you're done for.

You live, in any case, in a situation whereby the music writers who are inclined to criticise you have never actually themselves attempted to do what it is you are doing, so you wonder how they can fault you for doing something that they themselves have never mastered. It can all very easily unbalance you, especially when most pop journalism is so consistently inaccurate, yet relishing their own wit and their own place within the review of your recording. My own position, therefore, is to lethally disregard anything at all that is said--whether good or bad. It isn't the gluttony of the self-engrossed, but a form of protection. It's true that once you make a recording you then hand it to the appraisers, but your own instinct is the best judge of whatever it is you do. When you first begin, before you've ever recorded, you don't write to music critics to ask them what you should play if and when you finally get a chance to record, so why on earth you should listen to them once you've made your record is baffling to me.

Okay.

When someone moved Warp without knowing any better, I was mad.

Now that someone has done it AGAIN, someone who saw me really, really angry and upset because a piece was missing and I thought I'd lost it, someone who knows how much that hurt my feelings...

I am not mad.

I am too incredulous for that.

Do I have to get a fucking airtight glass box and LOCK him in it for you people to STOP DOING THAT?

I need to move.

So I havethis bad cold with a painful cough and, for some reason, insomnia that defies even sleeping pills, which doesn't make me any happier. I have an entire cookie tin full of various prescription and over-the-counter drugs and bags of cough drops, along with a collection of Alan Moore CDs (there's a reason for that).

My voice keeps going in and out but I've ordered more of the magic pralines
http://kestrell.livejournal.com/552277.html .

So, although I am hoping to be well enough to go to Arisia, I expect I will be pretty low energy, so I'm trying to find a ride to get to the hotel on Friday around noonish. I realize that getting to Cambridge by way of Dorchester is not exactly intuitive, but I would be willing to chip in with gas money if someone would be willing to give me a ride to the con.

I haven't been writing as there really hasn't been much to report. I worked the last week of the year. I really hate holidays that fall on Fridays since I don't work Fridays anyway. They let us go at like 3:30 the two Thursdays... but I only work until 4:30 anyway. Yeah, I'm grumpy about the "holiday" thing even though I just had a fab vacation. Who said these things are logical?

Anyway, for the New Year's Eve holiday Erika & Russell went to a big party in Marin (that sounded fun but like a total zoo) and I went over to Kurt & Marina's for a lovely evening with a few friends in the hot tub. Russell got to celebrate his birthday in style (it was Edwardian/steampunk and he looked fab in a rented costume) and I got quiet friendship which was much more what I wanted.

Friday was a quiet day around the house, plus I met Rachael in WoW and went adventuring. Erika took Russell and I out to McCormick & Smick for a lovely birthday dinner.

Then Saturday I woke up with a sore throat. I had planned to go to Kaerla's potluck but by midmorning it was clear that I was a germ factory. *sigh* Evidently several of the other possible attendees were in like case and it was probably as well not to exchange bugs... but I am very disappointed since I was looking forward to it.

Saturday and Sunday I alternated between sleeping and being on the computer. Kurt is in like case and we met in Second Life and did a fun Avatar movie photo shoot with some new Na'vi skins we found. My friend Chris has really gotten into the Na'vi thing and says there is even a community of Germans in SL who can speak Na'vi without a translator. The Pandora build we did most of the shoot at was a role-play sim and the Na'vi we saw were using translators. I admit I'm a little surprised by how fast things get taken up by fandoms! Then I went back to sleep. *sigh*

Russell and I had really wanted to do our joint birthday dinner Sunday night. We had wanted to go to Arcadia but it is dark Sun/Mon. So we went ahead and went to Morton's steakhouse for dinner since we have talked about trying that since it opened a block from Adobe. I thought the restaurant more down market than I had expected. The food was quite lovely though. I was definitely not a scintillating conversationalist though. And I went to bed at 8pm when we got home from dinner. I am so ready to have energy and not be coughing!

It is almost 7am on Monday morning and since I was up coughing half the night, I am going to call in sick for the first workday of the new year. I really hope this isn't some kind of omen for how 2010 is going to go. Russell says I need a new immune system. I said "sign me up". *sigh*

Last night's tweets;

Swerve out of the next off-ramp suddenly.
Erratic driving brings joy to us all.
Let's reach destinations gradually.
Always will plastic cheese be at the mall.

Unexpectedly slow day to-day--for some reason, I kept taking my time doing everything. Maybe I'm dragging my heels to delay to-day becoming to-morrow, when I need to take my car in to get it fixed. As in, the dent on the hood fixed, not spayed or neutered. I am happy the other guy's insurance is paying for it, but mostly all I can think about right now is how damned inconvenient it is.

Oh, and! I've heard from the hospital and it seems they've decided to bill me again! 388 dollars this time, which fortunately I happen to have right now, thanks to Christmas, though I'm going to have say goodbye to my idle ambition of upgrading my computer. Hell, I can't very well think about spending money again for a good long while as it seems that a visit to the emergency room in November has given the hospital license to take money from me whenever it wants. What's the excuse this time? "Intermediate exam". That leaves an awful lot of adjectives and nouns they can combine, doesn't it? I suppose I might yet be billed for "Procedural survey", "Dedicated probe" and "Careful scrutiny."

I suppose if I'd known about this thing, I wouldn't have spent eighty dollars on movies yesterday. I picked up TCM's musical collection of The Band Wagon, Singin' in the Rain, Easter Parade, and Meet Me in St. Louis. I also got Disney's recent release of Snow White and Criterion's new release of The Seventh Seal, which I watched last night.

I hadn't seen the movie in at least ten years, and I was surprised by what a nice sort of road trip movie it is. It's almost a party from a Lord of the Rings style fantasy, comprised of the knight, his squire, the peasant woman the squire presses into housekeeping service, the smith, the smith's wife, and the two actors, Mia and Jof, whose names remain Mia and Jof in these English subtitles, unlike Criterion's previous edition which changed their names to "Mary" and "Joseph", creating an inappropriate biblical reference. Each character is crafted so fully, and they play off each other so well, I'd have watched a series of movies about these people travelling through plague infested lands.

I've been trying to discern the exact moves of the chess game Antonious and Death play. I thought there'd be a site that had them all recorded, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. It's hard to tell what's happening as the pieces are very blocky and look similar to one another, but a lot can be seen in this shot;



This is after Death's taken Antonious' Knight and Antonious laughs as though this was a great trap he had lain for Death, using his next move to put Death in check. But we can see here how easy it was a check for Death to get out of, simply moving his King over one square, and the position of Death's rooks tell us he's already castled, which indicates the movement of his King is no great sacrifice. It kind of gives you the impression that Antonious is trying to psych out Death.

I was perusing Scarleteen today (probably because I mentioned an old conversation to someone in my religion post, heh) and I came across this little bit from Hugo Schwyzer (who as many of you know, I do not always agree with, or even like, but hey) that I liked. It's discussing sexual ethics in the context of newfound Christian faith, which is not in any way relevant to me, but I feel it answers very well why people's objections to BDSM and even to D/s don't work for me:

Let me suggest, Christine, that God cares more about the content of our sexuality than he does about its form. Traditional Christian sexual ethics are often discussed in the context of what Christians can and can’t do. Some Christians will often say things like “the only form of genital contact sanctioned by God is that which happens in a marriage between one husband and one wife.” The implication is clear: if you get the “form” (heterosexual marriage) right, then the sex that follows is okay. If you haven’t got the form right, then you’ve “fallen short of the mark.”

But “form-based” sexual ethics clearly have their problems.

For example, it ignores entirely the great likelihood that coercion, disrespect, and force can take place within marriage. The Churches did not start condemning marital rape — or even acknowledging that such a concept was possible — until the second half of the twentieth century. Is a situation in which a husband demands sex from his wife against her will somehow more in keeping with the spirit of Christ than a situation in which two unmarried people make love with mutual enthusiasm? If you’re a stickler for “form-based ethics”, you bet. For the most traditional of theologians, marital rape is less of a serious sin than homosexuality or pre-marital sex, because form matters more than content.

“Content” based sexual ethics are concerned with the way in which people, in the process of being sexual, value themselves and their partners. Content-based ethics are deeply concerned with mutuality, with pleasure, and with the willingness of each partner to take responsibility for the physical, spiritual, and emotional consequences of what is done. Form-based ethics teach the Christian to ask the question “Am I allowed to do this?” Content-based ethics teach the Christian to ask “Am I truly loving — in every sense of the word — the person or persons with whom I am doing this, including myself?”

This is what I can't parse about "BDSM is wrong," even when it's phrased as "Hierarchy is maladaptive for humans and limiting and restrictive." That's form. That's "The sex (or "the relationship" in the case of outside-the-bedroom D/s) you want needs to not have these features that look like this in order to not be this, which I find maladaptive." It follows that up with an explanation of where that maladaptiveness comes from, yeah -- but so do explanations of why homosexuality is wrong in conservative Christian moralities, sometimes in great detail. There's reasons given for "bad form." They're bad, but they're there.

Saying content matters instead implies that all the answers to "form" questions like "is BDSM compatible with feminism/okay for Christians/good for Buddhists/acceptable for snails?" (okay, that last is me giggling over "love darts") will not be quite right, because they start with the wrong question: "what are you doing?" or "what are you mimicking?" rather than "how are you doing this?"

It's funny how people who usually seem to go with the content-based ("of course it's okay that I'm gay, silly!") slip into the form-based ("he wears a collar [usually not, it's too big for his neck] and called you Master once being cute? OH MY GOD!") when things are outside their comfort zone.

Because this happened just recently and I felt the need to let the universe know:

These days, I consider instant messaging a way to talk with friends. People I particularly like and want not just to converse with over a blog, but to spend time with. (And a couple people I don't really feel close to any more and am struggling to think of a way to tell to leave me alone.)

So if I don't know you all that well and you're not my good online friend, and I write a post you disagree with -- especially for political reasons -- please don't IM me about it.

Please feel free to let me know you didn't like it and tell me why, whether in a comment, a PM, or even an email (just drop me a line and I'll gladly give you the addy.) I don't have any problem with being told you think I'm wrong. (Though of course I may think you're wrong.)

But if you IM me and are like "Uh, hey, it's so and so." "Hi." "Uh, you said something I really took issue with and I wanted to talk to you," it's going to rub me wrong, kind of like if you just moved in and went "Hi, neighbor! Good to meet you!" "Oh, hey!" "Uh, about that campaign sign in your front yard... I really think you should be voting for the other guy. Mind if I just invite myself in and tell you about that for a minute? By the way, I love the way you painted your foyer!"

Not going to name names because this person had no reason to know I feel this way about instant messaging and honestly I wasn't sure exactly why it bugged me at first, so I don't want anyone thinking this person is intentionally ill-mannered.

But as a heads up: Don't do that.

(If I don't know you well and you want to make friends, go ahead and IM. I'll tell you if I don't feel comfortable.)

Twittering as jackwilliambell.

• 15:54 @doctorow Who does a vegetarian Luau? OK, you did, but isn't succulent pork kind of the point? Was there no chicken option? Fish? #
• 15:58 @doctorow Now I'm trying to imagine the menu for a kosher luau... Is Poi kosher? Was the entertainment worth it at least? #
• 21:57 Nearly two years ago I said 'I am a Mac now' bit.ly/6JNKYF Today my gaming computer borked Vista (driver update), reminding me why. #
• 22:23 Dan Savage on how to maintain a long-term relationship: bit.ly/7fGIMp (Yes, it's about the sex.) #

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Inspired by a lovely long conversation with eerian_sadow in IMs earlier tonight.

 I long ago stopped being a Christian. I actually remember the moment. I was reading a book, a book I loved, an old copy of The Gifted Kids Survival Guide, Book 2. I still don't know where he got it, and I've never seen book one. This book was wonderful, talking about difficult situations that smart kids find themselves in, from taking different classes than other kids  to feeling like misfits. I loved it because it talked about the things I wrestled with, in words that made sense to me. There was some John Lennon quote in it, something like "I saw gray where everyone else saw black or white, and I would say 'But this is going on!' and no one knew what I meant" that I still remember to this day because it captures so well how I felt.

But there was one problem with this little book. That was a little section at the very end that included a survey of young teenagers and the sorts of things they wondered, a list of Big Questions but they just couldn't answer and kept wrestling with. And right there, in the middle of the page, was a question I'd never thought about but that changed my life forever:

"Is there a God?"

As soon as I saw it, I realized I didn't know the answer. I suddenly hated the book for making me think to ask. I'd always assumed that the things the grown-ups were telling me had to be true. Otherwise, why would we spend every Sunday talking about, singing to, and learning about something that we didn't know was real? I was devastated, much more so than I was when someone told me there wasn't any Santa Claus. I didn't like that one either, but at least that didn't mean my mother and my grandmother and my pastor might be wrong. For hours. Every weekend. And sometimes on important Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, too.

I never got confirmed in my church. I took the pastor aside and I told him I couldn't make a vow that depended on me agreeing that God existed when I couldn't be sure. I said that I hoped they forgave me, but if I went through the ceremony I would be lying, and that if God was real, I didn't think he would want me lying in his house and everyone celebrating about it. He was very sad, but he said that he understood why I was making this decision, that the choice was mine, and that no one would want me to lie about how I really felt about something so important. I was very grateful for that answer, and I still am.

My family has a tradition of going to church together on Christmas Eve. For a while, when I was a teenager, I refused to go because I didn't believe. It broke my mother's heart, and some years ago I decided that squirming uncomfortably in a pew while people sang their hearts out and we're nice to each other was a small price to pay for my mom's happiness. Despite that I still think she's a little neurotic about her religion.

But the thing is, I always feel strange. Communion is open to everyone, and I go up because I feel odd if I don't. But the thing that always gets me, even more than standing there like I agree with them and dipping a tiny hunk of bread in grape juice (actually, it doesn't taste that bad) and pretending that I'm communing with Jesus, is the expectation of kneeling. Not everyone kneels, but many kneel down and offer a prayer. I don't do it, though I feel a little like a rude guest, standing there haughtily and walking off like some ill-mannered king.

But I can't make myself kneel.

For a while, I believed people who thought that I didn't kneel because I didn't have humility and was arrogant. these people tend to believe that there's something deeply important about "accepting that you're not the most important thing in the universe," as if most of us somehow don't know this. They seem to think that this grants peace of mind. Since I've never had much of that, I spent a lot of my life wondering whether I should submit a bit more, need control of a bit less.

But I realized why it is that I'm so uncomfortable with the kneeling, and even all the praying and the singing. We're supposed to be singing praises and prostrating ourselves symbolically before God. You might think the reason is obvious: that I don't know that God exists, and therefore I'm wondering why we're all making this worshipful noise -- not just making noise, but lowering ourselves! -- toward something that might not even be out there to exalt.

But I realized it's not even that. What bothers me is not so much that we might be making fools of ourselves singing to nothing, but that since I don't know that God exists, I have no way of knowing whether he's the kind of being that deserves my submission.

It's not really that I don't respect authority. There are a lot of people who know far more about certain things than I do, or who make choices that I admire and I'm not sure I'd be able to make myself, or who stand tall when I get nervous, or any number of things that make me respect them as better than me at whatever it is. (Better than me full stop? I'm not sure that could be measured, and I like Kant's idea that we all have infinite worth too much not to grumble at that.)

But the thing is: All of these people that I respect enough to bow before?

They've all demonstrated to me, whether by rising to a challenge I or someone else set them, or by consistently impressing me with their strength of character, that they are worthy of my respect.

I understand the story of Jesus. Supposing for a moment that we're dead sure he existed, I certainly believe that someone s willing to die for his beliefs, when those beliefs involve helping everyone else, has some qualities that are admirable and is willing to do more than I probably would be in the same situation. But I just can't get past the idea that I'm supposed to prostrate myself before someone I honestly know very little about. Someone whose personality I only know from a few hundred pages of a book that, well, doesn't really go into character details. How is that person worthy of my prostration? how is that person worthy to be sung to every Sunday as the most wonderful thing in the world?

I don't say this to insult other people. I don't say this to claim they're being stupid when they kneel in heartfelt submission. Many people are more submissive to me, and that doesn't make them inferior to me in any way, or stupid, or confused. But the thing is, it's something I simply cannot do.

And I realize that that's why the stories of other gods resonate with me so much more. I like polytheistic religions because the gods of those religions seem much more accessible and understandable for one thing, and for another don't try to be everything to everyone. They may be aspects of one deity in the end, but they have different personalities and different aspects of life that they reign over.

Depending on the deity, they're also depicted as much more fearsome, which makes me more inclined to understand why they might be deserving of respect. If communion with Mother Kali is difficult, frightening, transforming, involving tearing away my ignorance without much concern for my delicate feelings, I can understand why the bringer of such an experience would command my respect and be worthy, if those experiences helped me, of my veneration.

But something about the way the Christians around me do it -- and again, I want to make clear that these are very nice people who have always treated me well and whose choices I respect and I'm not trying to cut them down here in any way -- just doesn't sit right with the way I live. It makes it seem like their God really needs attention, constant praise and singing and noise, noise, noise for something that he did 2000 years ago. It just doesn't work for me.

So I always feel strange on Christmas Eve, enjoying the music, studying the text, listening to whatever wisdom lies in the sermon (and there's usually some, regardless of what I believe) and at the same time feeling terribly removed from it all, like an outsider watching others sing in some other language.

And my mom sits there elated that I'm sitting beside her, the song washing over her, indifferent to the confused curl of my lip.

Or oblivious. So it goes.

Twitter Sonnet #97

Rain creates new living environments.
Contented cats scheme of a restless night.
Anxious plants break radish red through cements.
The garden of pundits predict a fight.
Cheese is the last refuge of face huggers.
Bad alien queens give birth to mouse traps.
Fop xenomorphs tread in fear of muggers.
There's a storm of bugs out there for bold chaps.
The adventure of daylight is shrinking.
Healing happens only at some hours.
The pencilled eyebrow god eye is blinking.
Some joker sent Saruman two flowers.
When there's no grace around, there's no disgrace.
No-one acknowledges monsters in space.


Since I ranked it at number 9 among best movies of the decade, I figured I oughta watch Todd Solondz' Storytelling again since I hadn't seen it in several years. I watched it with Trisa just a short while after she and I started hanging out, which was a very long time ago, I don't remember exactly how long. It's a good movie, though I have to admit it had gotten better in my mind in the years since I saw it and was actually a little disappointing last night. I'd forgotten how flat the ending is. But it remains a remarkable piece of work otherwise, particularly to anyone who's gotten involved in serious conversations of literary or film criticism.

The movie's divided into two totally separate stories, and the first one, which revolves around a college creative writing class, rings loudly true to anyone who's ever been in such a class. Not just for the type of reactions represented--from the people who praise anything earnest and personal to the people who are ruthlessly academic with criticism. But it was also a dead accurate portrayal of the types of stories I'd see constantly submitted when I was one of the editors of the literary magazine at my college--embarrassingly transparent vanity pieces or flagrant bids for pity. I was constantly astonished at how unabashedly these writers would try to convince a reader of how great or pitiable they are, always, of course, provoking almost the exact opposite of the intended reaction. It's what led to one the few consistently followed rules I adhere to when I'm writing fiction--never, ever write about yourself. Because whatever you write will inevitably be about yourself, as it's a reflection of your interests and beliefs, so consciously writing about yourself or how you perceive yourself is annoyingly redundant.

That first section of the film, called "Fiction", is by far the superior of the two sections, but the second, "Non-Fiction", isn't bad, containing a lot of great dialogue delivered well, particularly by Paul Giamatti, who would seem to be an avatar for Solondz himself, and here I'm already contradicting myself, but I always think there are exceptions to rules. And even here you can see the importance of the rule, as the portions of the story focusing on Giamatti are brief, and only the first scene is interesting from the standpoint of writing, the later scenes are made interesting by Giamatti's performance and the fact that his lines are about other characters and the nature of art.

It's difficult to say why the first section is "Fiction" and the second is "Non-Fiction" in relation to each other, even though the first is concerned with characters writing fictional short stories and the second is concerned with a filmmaker making a documentary. Maybe the blurring of the lines between fiction and non-fiction is intended, as the first story features characters basing their fictional stories on their actual experiences while the second features a documentary about a family that is conspicuously stylised. Through exaggeration, it portrays the common arrogance, selfishness, and insensitivity of the average American middle class family, both for humour and as a sympathetic rumination on the spiritually disconnected state in which these people exist. Apparently the section is a response to critics of Solondz' earlier work, as it explicitly argues that the filmmaker cares for these people even as he laughs at them. Which would of course justify the titles of the two sections.

With breakfast to-day, I read one of the stories from the new Sirenia Digest, "Untitled 34", which is a fascinating portrayal of a mythical being in a modern setting, carrying her own myth as emotional baggage to potentially sabotage her new relationship with a young man, perceiving the damage done to her by the human in her story as inevitably to be repeated by her new human lover. A very nice story, tying myth to neurosis, which seems an incredibly perfect idea.

...and who have read the latest chapter, a couple of questions

(rest of you, go get caught up and then come back here... and the comments will probably be spoiler-y so finish it first.)

( snipness )

I didn't have time for anything yesterday but my comic. I went to bed almost right after uploading, but found I couldn't get to sleep. I ate a croissant and finally fell asleep at around 6am, getting up at around 2pm. There's my old schedule, buried underneath everything I try.

So, remember there's a new Venia's Travels online to-day. Venia's hair wasn't intended to be a Star Wars reference, but I don't mind if it's taken that way.

I realised this afternoon that the panel with the siren's first appearance might make a decent, NSFW desktop wallpaper;



The different sizes are available here, including a version of the image's original dimensions of 2099 x 985 in png format, for those whose panties are moistened by anti-alias. I modelled the siren after Christina Lindberg, but I don't think she ended up looking much like her.

I've wanted to make Venia's Travels wallpapers for quite a while now, but I just don't have the time. If there's any other especially large panel from the comic someone wants me to turn into wallpaper, let me know.

Am I using the siren wallpaper myself now? Nope. I'm loving my current desktop too much.

Now I think I'll go slack off.

Last night's tweets;

Cheese is the last refuge of face huggers.
Bad alien queens give birth to mouse traps.
Fop xenomorphs tread in fear of muggers.
There's a storm of bugs out there for bold chaps.

Yay!! The big show is tonight, and our new singer (Robin Yukiko) is going to rock harmonies with Keiko! Please come out & rock with us. It will be a night of SF local indie-pop-rock!

Kimo's 1351 Polk St.
San Francisco, CA

9pm: The Bobbleheads
10pm: The Shebangs
11pm: Kaizoku
12am: Great Girls Blouse
$7 at the door, 21+ bring all your friends and I will share my beer with you!

More info: http://tinyurl.com/ye7c5cv