"Pearl Harbor" was not as bad as I thought it would be, it was worst. I think it was the worst writing I have ever witnessed in a movie, not because the dialog was bad and full of cliches, not because the love story overwhelmed what the movie was supposed to be about, not because that love story was a superficial love triangle that insulted the intelligence, and not because the story was so superficially neat and perfect, celebrating good-looking swashbuckling heroes that survive rather than the ordinary sailors and soldiers that died -- no, not because of these very good reasons to despise the film, I think it's the worst because it wants you to believe it and take it seriously and it takes three hours to finish which is three hours too long.
I watched a movie I had rented before. The movie is called Bliss. It's about a man who tries to cure his wife's sexual and mental difficulties with sex, a type of therapeutic lovemaking or conscious sex that brings her to a state of bliss. The movie is one of the few movies about sex that treats the subject with thoughtful integrity. Reminded of it, I have to remember to put it on my favorite movies list. It's a beautiful movie, romantic and sad.
My mother has been in a kind of strange mood lately, so I took her out to lunch today. We went to this restaurant she likes called Henry's Landing. We shared an appetizer and an entree, and the waitress serving us had one of the most exquisite and erotic smiles my eyes have ever witnessed. When she smiled I nearly jumped out of my skin. She was married of course, or maybe the ring was an anti-man repellent, but regardless it drove me mad with desire and that sadness that marks an encounter with unattainable beauty, a beauty that even if one possessed it, and one wouldn't want to for fear of losing it, it still would not be enough, would not be close enough, because the flesh always separates the soul from pure beauty.
I finished Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara.
Friday, June 8, 2001
Monday, June 4, 2001
Sixers Win
They are finally showing the sixers on television. It was the seventh game of the series with Milwaukee yesterday, and what an awesome game. Philadelphia won. Now they have to somehow find a way to defeat Los Angeles, a team that has looked unbeatable. It promises to be quite a show. If Milwaukee had defeated the Sixers, I don't think they would have had much of a chance to beat the Lakers, but the Sixers have the defense and the rebounding to keep it close. The series starts Wednesday at 6 p.m., so I'm going to try to get a couple of friends over to watch it. Wish me luck. Earl's very married. And Devon's wife just gave birth to a baby girl, Isabella.
I'm supposed to go to "Pearl Harbor" tonight, and I loath to go, knowing somewhat what to expect: vapid triteness and good actors embarrassing themselves with melodrama of such galactically hysterical proportions that it makes vaudeville look like serious art. I mean, Alex Baldwin is an accomplished actor, so why would he agree to do this movie. Cuba Gooding, I can understand. But is this the same Alex Baldwin who does such a good job in Glenn Garry Glenn Ross? Now I have to sit through three hours of mind numbing drivel.
I just came back from my first visit to the new library. It's large so it seems very sparse. That word, "very," creeps into my sentences all the time. It's a pointless word. Either the place appears sparse or not, adding "very" doesn't help me visualize it any better. I took out a couple of books, of course -- Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino; and Steering the Craft by Ursula le Guin, about writing. I like to read books about writing, they inspire me for some reason, almost like an injection of amphetamines straight into the cerebral mainline. The jazz. But it's an artificial tonic. What I need to do is develop my own music, my own momentum and rhythmic swing, pushing higher and higher until it cranks over three hundred and sixty and keeps cranking over like the camshaft of an engine, the momentum doing much of the work. One gets that from actual writing, the story builds its own momentum but it's hard to begin and even harder to keep dutifully attentive to what you are being asked to write.
They had some books for sale. I picked up The Outsider aka The Stranger by Albert Camus for 30 cents. I thought at the time I might read it again, but now I'm not so sure.
I'm supposed to go to "Pearl Harbor" tonight, and I loath to go, knowing somewhat what to expect: vapid triteness and good actors embarrassing themselves with melodrama of such galactically hysterical proportions that it makes vaudeville look like serious art. I mean, Alex Baldwin is an accomplished actor, so why would he agree to do this movie. Cuba Gooding, I can understand. But is this the same Alex Baldwin who does such a good job in Glenn Garry Glenn Ross? Now I have to sit through three hours of mind numbing drivel.
I just came back from my first visit to the new library. It's large so it seems very sparse. That word, "very," creeps into my sentences all the time. It's a pointless word. Either the place appears sparse or not, adding "very" doesn't help me visualize it any better. I took out a couple of books, of course -- Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino; and Steering the Craft by Ursula le Guin, about writing. I like to read books about writing, they inspire me for some reason, almost like an injection of amphetamines straight into the cerebral mainline. The jazz. But it's an artificial tonic. What I need to do is develop my own music, my own momentum and rhythmic swing, pushing higher and higher until it cranks over three hundred and sixty and keeps cranking over like the camshaft of an engine, the momentum doing much of the work. One gets that from actual writing, the story builds its own momentum but it's hard to begin and even harder to keep dutifully attentive to what you are being asked to write.
They had some books for sale. I picked up The Outsider aka The Stranger by Albert Camus for 30 cents. I thought at the time I might read it again, but now I'm not so sure.
Friday, June 1, 2001
Ghost Dog
In my saturnine stupor yesterday, I almost ruined my page by mistakenly saving a blank page over my hypertext. That would have sucked.
I received in the mail a book I ordered a couple of weeks ago. The book's called Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai. A movie I recently watched, "Ghost Dog," involves a contract killer who thought of himself as a samurai warrior in the traditional sense. Sections of the "Hagakure" are read aloud throughout the film almost as a running commentary on the action. Having always been interested in oriental culture and philosophy, I was intrigued and I ordered the book from the largest used bookstore in the world, Powells Bookstore in Portland (for their website, just add a .com to their name). I ordered it delivered surface mail (the cheapest) so I was surprised to see it arrive so soon. Now all I have to do is find time to read it.
I received in the mail a book I ordered a couple of weeks ago. The book's called Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai. A movie I recently watched, "Ghost Dog," involves a contract killer who thought of himself as a samurai warrior in the traditional sense. Sections of the "Hagakure" are read aloud throughout the film almost as a running commentary on the action. Having always been interested in oriental culture and philosophy, I was intrigued and I ordered the book from the largest used bookstore in the world, Powells Bookstore in Portland (for their website, just add a .com to their name). I ordered it delivered surface mail (the cheapest) so I was surprised to see it arrive so soon. Now all I have to do is find time to read it.
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