Serious

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I work hard at not being a downer but in reality the last few weeks have been fairly sad for a variety of reasons. Righ now someone very important in my life is in the hospital, and I would appreciate your good thoughts/wishes/prayers- much as I doubt the actual influence of those things upon anyone's health, they're still, you know, NICE.

Bionic Woman

I just assumed ALL women were deadly and made of cold, unfeeling steel?

Heard "Bionic Woman" was cancelled- and the fact that it was released as an 8-episode double DVD should have been a hint. Had I been warned in advance I might have gone my own way, but no, I went and got nedlessly involved in this go-nowhere plot about robot people and government conspiracies and the difficulties of juggling your family life and your massive killing abilities.

Although far from disastrous, (the premise is obviously time-tested, and Michelle Ryan was capable in the lead), I never felt they settled into something NEW. While I wasn't squirming or fast-forwading through plotlines that were creaky back in the '70s, my mind would wander to all the better shows "BW" practically quoted from. "Hmmm, instead of this, I COULD be watching '24'. Or 'The X-Files'. Or 'Buffy.' Hell, I should be watching that LAST season of 'Alias' I never got around to. I wonder how things turned out for Sidney?"

And everytime Katee Sackhoff showed up, it served to remind me that my real TV watching duties led elsewhere.
So, good-bye, "Bionic Woman".
Hello, Season 3 of "Battlestar Galactica"!

CHAPTER THIRTY: THE VICE-CHANCELLOR

Our little old lady courageously grabs her proto-walker and hotfoots it to Monsieur Maupeou’s residence- eagerly wishing to see the Vice-Chancellor and simultaneously hoping she won’t be allowed to see him, since it is after seven at night, and the blue-bloods of Paris haven’t carried any official duties since at least 4, (which was dinner time for the nobility.)
Shaking before Maupeou’s ominous residence, the Countess of Bearn crosses herself and approaches the porter:
“Hi,” she says, “I would like to see the Vice-Chancellor, but of course he’s not home, I understand how it is, I’ll try some other day, how silly of me!”
“Oh,” says the porter, “actually he’s very much at home.”
“Right, but OF COURSE, he’s certainly busy with important affairs of state, and he’s not receiving anyone.”
“Oh, he’ll totally receive you!”
The little old lady trembles with disappointment- as do most people who get what they want. Whereas she expected Maupeou to be the sinister nay-sayer her lawyer had railed against, Maupeou is quite courteous, and hears her case against the Saluce family with “equanimity.”
The Countess of Bearn: “This all goes on trial this Tuesday. Now that I have made my plea, what’s your legal advice?”
Maupeou: (sweetly) “I would strongly recommend you gather the rest of your money, so you can pay all the fines you’ll get when you lose this lawsuit.”
The Countess of Bearn: “Why would I lose?”
Maupeou: “Because the Saluces are my buddies and they have hook-ups in Parliament. Not that this influences justice in any way, mind you!”
The Countess of Bearn: “But I will be ruined! Does justice have no pity?”
Maupeou: “No, that’s why she’s blind, so she doesn’t have to look at pitiful people. But my dear Countess, you, such a noble if badly aged woman, you must not despair- there is one last hope. Take a page off your enemies’ book. Perhaps if you were to get a-hold of a VERY INFLUENTIAL friend..?”
The Countess of Bearn: “”I would have to work on the ‘having ANY friends’ part first.”
Maupeou: “If only you knew the Dauphin, but no, he’s sort of ineffective. Or the King’s daughters…but no, they’re mildly retarded. A-HA!!!” As though it has JUST occurred to him, instead of reading right from the script he has on his desk. “You know who you SHOULD be friends with? Madame Dubarry!!!”
The Countess of Bearn: “What? The King’s ho?!?”
Maupeou: “The King’s wholly wonderful friend, you meant to say, right?”
The Countess of Bearn: “Right, right. But then, it’s so hard to insinuate oneself into those circles.”
Maupeou: “Well, the King controls all, Madame Dubarry controls the King… Maybe you know the person who controls Madame?”
The Countess of Bearn: “Maybe… Who?”
Maupeou: “Zamore! Are you buddies with Zamore?”
The Countess of Bearn: “What?!? The little African that they dress up like a pug-dog?! Why would I be friends with that- that cannibal!!!”
Maupeou: “Because he’s just become the governor of Luciennes- you caught me signing the order. Everyone knows that if you want to get anywhere these days, you’ve got to be friends with Zamore. Ask any duke or peer if they would dare show up before Madame without remembering to bring candy for her little friend.”
The Countess of Bearn is terribly mortified at having to debase herself by befriending the lesser races, but since the times they are a-changing, she begrudgingly agrees to carry the order of Zamore’s promotion to Madame Dubarry. Since this evening is carefully scripted, at this precise moment, and to prevent any hesitation, the Viscount Jean Dubarry appears to plea HIS case before Maupeou: “Oh, Philip de Taverney stabbed me in the arm, boo-hoo, I’m going to sue him- OH, HEY, is that Zamore’s governorship? What a coincidence! I’m just going to visit my sister, Madame Dubarry! I’ll take it!”
The Countess of Bearn- who is finally catching up to what’s good for her- “No! No! Why don’t *I* take it to her, after all, I’ve been DYYYYING to see that wonderful Zamore! I just think he’s the cutest little tyke ever!!!’”
Jean affects some hesitation, so the Countess presses on:
“And hey, I could even be a witness in your trial! Didn’t you say this attack on your person took place on Lachausee? I passed by that village not two hours later, and heard all the details, and you, Viscount Dubarry, were SO the injured party!”
Jean: “Ah, huh, now we’re in the spirit of the thing! Say, why don’t I take you in my carriage RIGHT NOW to meet Zamore and Madame Dubarry?!? What a lucky, totally coincidental turn of events!”
Jean winks at the Vice-Chancellor, slips him a twenty, and whisks the Countess of Bearn right to Luciennes, where the unwitting, aging pawn of Madame Dubarry’s chess game is soon happily petting Zamore’s head and curtseying before the King’s favorite playgirl.
“My dear noble, high-ranking lady,” says Madame DuBarry, with a humble-yet-radiant smile. “What a pleasant… surprise...”


ABOVE: We'll probably use random Anne Hathaway pictures everyone Madame Dubarry appears.

Enchanted and Slanted

Disney's self-cannibalizing "Enchanted" is a grab bag of hoary romantic comedy cliches mixed in with the dullest kiddie fare: not only are we not spared the cloying precocious child, we also have to deal with the antics of a CGI chipmunk and a high charged special effects finale that not only apes "King Kong" without shame but also seeks to nullify whatever emotional charge the movie could have had and...

Hahaha, no, man, I'm just fucking with you!!! Who do you think I am, Grumpy?!? "Enchanted" was soooooo cute!!!

But that cuteness doesn't come from the clever-though-wasted premise, or the punch-pulling in-jokes, or even from the pairing of its leads. Nah, it all radiates from Amy Adams as a cartoon-princess-come-to-life. She turns what could have been a very annoying SNL character into someone you (I) fall in love with. She makes you long for the kind of wall-eyed innocence that an old-time Disney heroine might exhibit, so that the line between mocking her and admiring becomes as blurred for the audience as it does for the typically a-charismatic Patrick Dempsey. I don't care how McDreamy he is, he sort of stands there offering dead-pan reactions- but here it works, because you really don't want anyone interfering with Princess Giselle.
The problem with "Enchanted" is that there WILL be interferences by a lot of stage business that probably thrilled kids- but can only suitably entertain foggies like me who were thinking: "Damn it, this is such an intriguing situation! I want all of its implications to be examined!"
Like for instance, suppose she reverts to her cartoon form, and he doesn't. Can they still have sex? Human-on-cartoon?
What?!? I was the only one thinking about this?!?

ABOVE: How many more crushes on celebrities can I have? Nellie McKay, Kate from "Lost", Bea Arthur... And now Amy Adams? The human heart can only take so much!

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THE COUNTESS OF BEARN

Fashions are cyclical: the Countess of Bearn has been wearing the same clothes since her youth in the ‘40s, and now it’s 1770, and she’s practically “en vogue” again. This little old lady is the one that Viscount Jean and Chon went looking for way out in the countryside, at Verdun.
Their simple plan: Chon pretended to be the daughter of Master Flageot, an attorney that needed the presence of the Countess of Bearn in Paris. Ulterior motive: Luring the out-of-the-loop Countess into the big city, then tricking her into presenting Madame Dubarry before the court.

Here Dumas perpetuates the negative stereotype that senior citizens are witless and easily duped by anyone pretending to be a lawyer, doctor, real state developer, or messenger of God. This is entirely false: the elderly only PRETEND to be duped in order to have someone who will listen to them whine about their smelly, crushing loneliness.
The situation with the Countess of Bearn: for the last two decades she’s been suing her neighbors, the Saluce, over adjoining lands- the little old lady says they belong to her, the neighbors turn the sprinklers on when she appears, that sort of thing. Now that she thinks her case is FINALLY going to court before a Vice-Chancellor called Maupeou, she dons her newly fashionable 1740s oufit, and sets out on a coach that has been thoroughly oxidized. Understand, this impromptu trip to Paris is setting her back a pretty penny, but after waiting 20 years for a case…
“Funny,” the Countess of Bearn reflects for a moment while en route. “20 years I have had Flageot as my lawyer. He never mentioned a daughter.”

That’s because, as she is informed by a surprised Master Flageot as soon as she shows up at his Parisian offices, he doesn’t have a daughter.
Little Old Lady: “Niece.”
Flageot: “Nope.”
Little Old Lady: “Really really effeminate nephew?”
Flageot: “Nope.”
Little Old Lady: “So who did you send to look for me?”
Flageot: “That would be no one, because your case is most definitely not coming on. You should go back to your estate.” (The ‘estate’ is reduced by now to a garden and a shed.)
Little Old Lady: “I spent a year’s pension on this trip! I broke a hip on the way here! This will be the end of me!”
Flageot: “Let me give you this business card, then, and recommend me to any of your younger acquaintaces.”
But as it so happens in a land so thoroughly governed by shady ploys, this is the moment in which a young law clerk runs into Master Flageot’s office with the news that the Bearn affair is, after two decades, coming to court that very Tuesday!
Flageot: “I’ll be. I thought for sure I was just going to keep charging you for the rest of your life. Not that we’re going to win, mind you.”
Little Old Lady: “What, why not?”
Flageot: “Well, I’m not a very good lawyer. That’s one. Also, Vice-Chancellor Maupeou is a toooootal asshole. This is quite promising for my career, though, because even though you’re not getting your lands back, I might get a chance to use this overwrought political speech I was saving for such an occasion. It’s full of fire and brimstone. Check it, I use lots of Biblical allusions.‘Nineveh.’ ‘Babylon’. Babylon represents Versailles, did you get that?”
“You’re a moron,” says the little old lady. “I’m going to have to take this into my own liver-spotted hands.”

I Program Interactive Fiction, AND I Have Often Showered... How Am I Still Single? I Don't Understand.

Dear Imaginary Reader:
Be not surprised if I have often wanted to dabble in the field of programming interactive fiction. What..? Does the name Zork not make your eyes glisten with enchantment? Is your Infocom library lacking? You have no idea what TADS is?!?
My contempt for you is now boundless.
Below you may find the demo I am hoping to expand into a gaming franchise enjoyed by as many as six balding freshmen at MIT.

LON STRYKE: NINJA SPY FROM AZALATH.
An Interactive Fiction Extravaganza
2008 Release 1. Serial 57483. Inform compiled by darkdork@linuxking.com. Version 84732/ 57382. Library 2.5

"And the worm-like shadows of distant Azalath spread over my consciousness as I grasped with horror, clam-handed horror, from which man knows no awakening." P.B. Laracroft.

PRESS SPACE

>SPACE
You awake in a dark room. There's a door to the North.

>INVENTORY
You have a talisman, a bag containing elf ears, twenty dollars, a picture of your dead wife, a katana.

>LOOK
It is a dark room. You can't see anything. There's a door to the North.

>SEARCH
There's a DOOR. To the NORTH. Can't make it clearer.

>NORTH
There is ANOTHER room entirely unlike the other room. There is an exit south, (which leads you to the first room where there is nothing) and an exit north.

>NORTH
The door stands on your way.

>OPEN DOOR
The door is locked.

>USE KATANA ON DOOR.
The katana breaks in pieces. The door is still locked.

>USE TALISMAN ON DOOR
Look, the door is locked. Hint: Why not LOOK around the room?

>LOOK
Even though you are a highly experience ninja spy from a distant galaxy, you hadn't noticed the large table in the middle of the room. In the table there are: a keychain with keys, a microwave oven, a Colt .45, grip pliers, and a fishbowl with a single goldfish.

>?
Come on, it's pretty obvious.

>TAKE KEYS
That's not an important item.

>ASK FOR HINT
Maybe some fish like it hot?

>? ASK FOR ANOTHER HINT
Maybe you should heat up the fish?

>PUT FISH IN MICROWAVE
You are a horrible person! That is not a possible action.

>? ANOTHER HINT
It's EASY to shoot fish in a barrel.

>TAKE GUN, SHOOT FISH
You are a horrible person! That is not a possible action.

>PLEASE, SOLUTION.
Are you even a bipedal? Do you have opposable thumbs? Clearly what you were meant to do was extract bullets from gun, put bullets in microwave, heat microwave for 50 seconds, grab hot bullets with plier, drop bullets in fishbowl, wait while water heats up, boiling fish, get dead fish, eat dead fish, and then find the key that was hidden inside the fish. DUH!

>TAKE GUN, SHOOT SELF.
You lose. Would you like to retry, save or quit?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: RAG, TAG, SCRAP

Poor Louis XV! No throne is worth all this scurrying from one disappointment to the next. Rag, Tag, and Scrap are the Princesses Adelaide, Victoria and Sophie, but for the express purpose of condensing their shrill complaints, let’s refer to them as The Three Harpies.

The King summons his patience right outside the door that leads to their apartments:
“On to the bitching.”
The Three Harpies furiously hurl themselves out of the door at once: “We heard that! Thank you, father!”
Louis 15: “Let’s face it, Louise was the only one of you all that never gave me a headache.”
The Three Harpies: “Just you wait, she will, nag nag nag!”
Louis 15: “And that means what?”
The Three Harpies: “It means that we know the REAL reason she’s leaving to that convent, yuck yuck yuck!”
Louis 15: “That so? Scrap, you. Spill it. What’s this reason you’re privy to?”
Scrap: “Well, Louise is leaving the court because over with the nuns she can feel freer to… ‘experiment’.”
Louis 15: “Well, that’s commendable! I always did enjoy chemistry and physics myself.”
Scrap: “This is a different kind of ‘experimenting’.”
The King snorts: “Listen, Scrappy, of all the women in court, you should be the last to start rumors about other people ‘experimenting’.”
Scrap: “Father!”
The other Harpies come in Scrap’s defense: “What Sophie meant is that our sister’s doing experiments in politics- writing theories concerning governments, and how to reform them, Gah gah gah.”
This the King finds not so thrilling, and that’s when Rag delivers her blow:
“And that’s not even the real REAL reason she left. It had more to do with certain intrusions in the palace.”
Now the King knows what they’re onto: “If there’s anybody in the palace without my consent, do tell.”
The Three Harpies: “When we said intrusions, we meant certain presentations. She wanted to evade seeing the Countess Dubarry, hehehe.”
Louis 15: “Nice. Now that I know how my devoted daughters feel about the whole thing, there’s only one course of action for a dutiful father to take!”
The Three Harpies: “Exactly! Wait. Father. Was that sarcasm?”
The King slams the door on their faces, muttering curses under his breath, and goes to visit his hound dogs: “Truly, I will only find solace in the company of my doggies. Oh, how I long to see my dear Gredinet!”

This is an epically bad hair day for the King- no sooner has he approached the kennels than his beloved Gredinet runs out barking, foaming at the mouth, wanting to tear some throats. The officer in charge of the greyhounds barely manages to restrain the animal. “No good, sire, this one’s gone rabid, and we have to put him down.”

Even kings have a point when the weight of worldly issues is too much. Making not a peep, Louis XV retires to his cabinet, stepping over a frightened valet in the process- but we're allowed to spy on his thoughts, and they're on the following vein:
“De Choiseul is against me. The dauphin is against me. His Austrian bride is against me. My daughters are against me. Even my dogs are against me. It’s pretty much down to me and Madame Dubarry on the red corner. So everyone else can suck it! Let's see what can be done about this presentation!”
Being a King is really demanding... Who can fault him for needing steady nookie nearby?
Decision made.
He writes two letters with quite the opposite intents. The first forces the Count of Stainville to delay Marie Antoinette’s arrival in court by six days. The second informs Madame Dubarry that little Zamore will indeed be installed as governor of her house in Luciennes, meaning that tonight, he can actually meet her there to banter back and forth wittily as the lenghty prelude to highly euphemized sex.

Allow me My Double Shot of Late Night Emoness/ Lyric Quoting

Said something once, but sometimes you just have to say it again: Nicole Atkins, yo! Way less fugly than Amy Winehouse, and she'll also drink you under the table! What happened, Grammy voters? People, show Nicole love, 'cause it feels like the only three people who bought "Neptune City" were me and two runaway girls in Jersey, and that's not right...


It's laaaate enough at night that the flimsiest of songs gets four or five layers of added meaning, but isn't "The Way It Is" beeeautiful- the way it captures the sheer stupidity of being in love? Awwww. *sniff sniff*

"Don't tell me
My love's not the one that I want
That he's not the one that I need
I'd rather find out for myself

You're the one
Who shakes at the touch of my hand
But can't decide where we should stand
If I was smart
I'd never call you, call you ever again

In my ears my blood is just roaring
'Cause you're the only one I've ever wanted
(I suppose that's just the way it is)"

Oh, wow. All that sounded a lot sillier once it was typed out.
********

You know what ALBUM inexplicably lunged itself at me from the paaaaast and keeps on looping on my head? This is a true mystery.
Jewel. "Pieces of You". Swear to God.

For the last three weeks or so "Pieces of You" has been playing in the radio station of my mind, which I am unable to control, (obviously, since it has included at times artists as diverse as The Fray, the Bloodhound Gang, and the Baha-Men.) I have no clue where it comes from, I'd even forgotten about Jewel!
(Younger Imaginary Reader: Learn your history! Jewel was an adorable poet and folk singer who joined Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie and they all wrote powerful songs that helped stop the French-Indian War.)
I can still recall that glorious day of late 1997 when our school's sole hippie chick (we were Tupac territory) introduced me to "Pieces of You" and was all like: "Now THIS song is going to stop meanness and war and racism and homophobia!"

And then it played: "Ugly girl, uggggly giiiiiirl.."
Haha! We were all so innocent then.

And who could forget:
"Excuse me! Think I've mistaken you for somebody else!
Somebody who gave me a damn, somebody more like myself!"

OR...
"Hey little sister, I heard you went to mister so and so
Knock knock knocking on his do' again
Said you wanted mo'"

AND OF COURSE:
"I go about my business, I'm doing fine,
Besides what would I say if I had you on the line?
Same old story, not much to say..."
(in her sad little girl voice)
"Hearts are broken everyday..."

AWWWWW.
Allright, well, let me
"...put on my PJs and hop into bed,
I'm half alive but I've been mostly dead
I try to tell myself it'll be right
I just shouldn't think anymore tonight
'Cause..."

Come on, don't front, you know how the rest goes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: MADAME LOUISE DE FRANCE

Now Louis XV enters the great gallery of Lebrun. Curious courtiers throng at both ends, while the clad-in-black figure of Louis’ daughter, Madame Louise of France, awaits for her father at the center of the gallery, under portraits of all the Kings of Europe.
Of all his daughters, Madame Louise is Louis’ favorite- not that he loves her, because that would be asking a smidge too much, but at least he doesn’t nickname her “Rag”, “Tag” and “Scrap”, as he calls his other three daughters, (Adelaide, Victoria, and Sophie.) This is her below:

Louise is regal, austere but not stern, and just about the only resident of Versailles who people don’t talk smack about.
And now she’s getting the hell out:
“I’m off to the nunnery, to become the abbess of the convent of the Carmelites at St. Denis. Off to find God.”
The King: “Makes sense to me. Except not! Don’t leave! All the other Kings are going to laugh at me!”
Louise: “They already ARE, which is partly why I’m off. Look about you, Daddy! You have four daughters, right? Well, there’s 20 princes on Germany, three in England, 16 in the Northern States, ten in Italy, and six in Spain, and ain’t NOBODY asking four our hands! At this rate I would marry a Moslem prince, but you know I always wanted a Church wedding. Hence, the nunnery. In a crowd, man calls out to God with no avail- in solitude, God talks to man.”
The King: “Ah. So this God fellow been talking to you, you say?” (Mentally readying a room at Le Sanatorium Royale.)
Louise: “Yes, and he speaks with the voice of the people, and the people are hungry and angry, and they don’t have bread to eat and they freeze at night, and they’re reading books that teach them words like 'tyranny' and 'freedom' and 'justice'.”
The King: “The people are READING BOOKS? Now I KNOW you’ve gone crazy!”
Louise: “Ah, why is it that the truth so often sounds like madness? Beware, beware, your Majesty, for the end is nigh! I pray for us all… From the safety of my convent. Au Revoir!”
The one daughter he likes exits for St. Denis. The King shouts:
“I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE KING THIS MORNING!”
But then he consoles himself:
“On the other hand, she always was a party-pooper come orgy-time. You win some , you lose some.”
Talking about losers, next item on the King’s busy to-do-list:
“Meet with the worthless daughters.”
So off to learn about Rag, Tag and Scrap.

"Justice League: New Frontier"

Although the animation on "The New Frontier" does not match the cinema-worthy intro- (THERE you get the full feel of Darwyn Cooke's guiding influence), the story itself is wonderful, a notch (actually, two or three) above Marvel's similar direct-to-DVD movies. And the high-B-list cast must be about the best ever put together for a product that just a few years ago would have been thrown directly to the cob-webbiest corner of the local Dungeon-Masters' meeting place.
I will however say I am no longer too pleased by the once ground-breaking "Batman/Superman" style, with its money-saving angular shapes and its ridiculous shadows that are meant to add depth but do not correspond to any possible light sources.

ABOVE: No, seriously, where IS that light source placed?

Some dude who directed Saw's "Death Sentence"

ABOVE: "Taxi Driver 2: Taxi Driver-er."

Yeah, so these punks kill Kevin Bacon's kid and he goes out to single-handedly destroy the Gangs of New York or wherever the hell this was filmed, even though at the beginning of the movie he looks too timid to ask coffee from his secretary without suffering a panic attack. The message of the movie? Kids, violence doesn't solve anything...but it sure looks awesome when people get shot in the face in extreme close-ups!

Where have you gone, Charles Bronson? Did you take my suspense of disbelief with you?

We Haven't Had Teen Spirit Here Since 1991

He ain't no Bon Iver, but to quote Hedwig (from "And the Angry Inch" fame): "This Kurt Cobain kid has a bright future ahead of him."


Necessity is the mother of invention, and as far as inventions go, A.J. Schnack's "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" is a nifty one. What do you do if you have the audio (culled from what feels like 30,000 hours of interviews conducted by indie-rock-scribe-extraordinaire Michael Azerrad), but no video to accompany it? Why, roll scenic backgrounds out of the opening of "Twin Peaks": mills, factories and smokestacks polluting skies that are grey enough to terrify Dorothy into joining a punk band.
There's ten people, (I'm one of them), who shamelessly appreciated this hypnotic approach- why stare at Kurt's impishly incoherent face for two hours? But I suspect that non-Nirvana dorks might drift between the sometimes scratchy background audio and the foreground images, specially since the movie offers no way for a non-Nirvana-fan to step into the material.
On the other hand, what's a non-fan doing listening to a suicidal manic depressive chat about how cool his Aunt Mary was?

And I Told You to Be Patient

Justin Vernon, a.k.a. Bon Iver, is a total Christopher McCandless type- he holed up in a cabin in the Wisconsin woods to come up with the material for this album, “For Emma, Forever Ago.” It is haunting stuff, built around his echoing voice that snarls right before sinking into tenderness. Check out "Flume", or even better, “Skinny Love”- is he describing the physical attributes of the object of his affection, or how pathetically thin the bonds that connect two human beings can become?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE KING IS FURTHER ANNOYED BY KINGLY BUSINESS

The King is fleeing his grandson, and his majestic concerns, when he comes face to face with De Choiseul, the Minister, who ambushes him right outside the Salon of Timepieces. Tom Wilkinson is going to play De Choiseul, but I swear, I’m at my wit’s end: if Dumas keeps on introducing characters, I’m going to have to start looking for actors among the cast of “One Three Hill”, and then I would have to watch “One Three Hill”, and that just doesn’t seem fair.

This chapter is pretty repetitious, but here’s the jist:
Louis 15: “Yes, you, De Choiseul, I was just looking for you, but make it quick, because I have to meet with, hmmm, yeah, the Marchioness of Mumbledy-Mumble.”
De Choiseul: “That’s fine, because I only came to inform your Majesty of the recent events involving the Viscount Jean Dubarry and a young soldier whom your Majesty should revere, Philip de Taverney, a scion of the Maison-Rouge lineage.”
Louis 15: “Revere? I was about to throw him in prison!”
De Choiseul: “He was only doing his duty protecting the Dauphiness, and Jean was trying to steal Marie Antoinette’s horses, and in so was offending you and the crown. It’s pretty much treason. So if you must punish someone, it should be Jean. I suggest you put him to death.”

(Now it sucks for Jean!)

Louis 16, who’s fixing his clock but it’s not missing a beat, says: “I don’t approve of the death penalty!”
Louis 15: “Good, good, see, De Choiseul? We can all learn from Louis August.”
Louis 16: “We should just send him into exile.”
Louis 15: Gah!
(The King here has a premonition. He

saw in fancy the Countess Dubarry furious, and Chon in a rage — he saw peace flying from his dwelling (peace, which he had been seeking all his life, but had never been able to find), and intestine war with crooked nails and eyes red with tears entering in her stead.

Cute.
Well, it looks like at least Philip is safe for now… Jean better watch his back.
De Choiseul (one track mind): “So, how does your Majesty suggest we punish the Viscount Dubarry?”
At this an usher pokes his head from above De Choiseul’s shoulder and says:
“Sire, your daughter, the Princess Louise is awaiting in the gallery to say goodbye for good.”
Louis 15: “What the..? Goodbye? Where is she going? What now? Man, I wasn’t even supposed to be King this morning!” But he’s sort of relieved. “See, De Choiseul, I can’t really dedicate time to a little bar brawl right this moment.”
De Choiseul: (not the least perturbed.) “Yes. So how does your Majesty suggest we punish the Viscount Dubarry?”
Louis 15: (as he flees) “Can’t hear you! My wig has gotten into my ears! Toodles!”
De Choiseul turns to young Louis 15: “Okay, next best thing. So, how do YOU think we should punish the Viscount Dubarry?
“A-ha!” Says the Dauphin.
“What?” Says De Choiseul.
“I fixed the clock!!!” The Dauphin examines his masterpiece like the crazed kid that he is, and De Choiseul takes the hint and quietly retires.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THE SALON OF TIMEPIECES

Louis XV is always one room away from where he’s supposed to be. Good tactic. He flees the Countess Dubarry and the approaching Duke of Choiseul and runs to meet his grandson, the Dauphin- while simultaneously planning his escape from the Dauphin.
Ah, the Dauphin of France is now pacing the Salon of Timepieces.
Meet Louis Auguste, Duke of Berry, Marie Antoinette’s boo, soon to be Louis XVI. Wait, he’s the grandson of Louis XV? Did we skip a generation? What happened to Louis XV ½? I could do some research on this, but let’s pretend Louis XV ½ is off studying at Hogwarts.
The Dauphin is a petulant, self-centered, ugly looking young man. I’m going to go with the Sofia Coppola lead and cast Jason Schwartzman after all.

Can I just call him Louis I6? And gramps Louis 15?
Louis 16, (who, in 1770 is, confusingly enough, 17) is idly thinking about all the different clocks in this magical room. Which makes him think about how things, whether natural or mechanical, tend towards inequality. Which makes him think about life, the universe and everything, and our Dauphin finds himself captivated by the workings of the largest standing clock in the room, a towering masterpiece of clockery that marks not just hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, but also the seasons, the menstrual cycles of the ladies in court, the phases of the Zodiac, and the course of the planets, (all five planets they knew of at the time, anyway). Oh, this curious created machine that is a man examining a curious machine of its own creation! How those levers, pendulums, hands chart the inexorable progression from life to death!
Louis 16 would totally get along with Gilbert.
He’s intently staring at the clock when it
STOPS
Even without a licking, it stopped ticking.
Is this an omen?
Or is it an excuse for Louis 16 to show his mechanical inclinations and start messing with the gears of the clock, pushing buttons, loosening screws? Our ugly little spoiled Dauphin may just be the one person in the Marie Antoinette saga that is capable of FIXING something through actual manual labor. He intelligently finds the problem, and is ready to put the clock back together…
But of course that’s not what the King sees when he walks into the Salon of Timepieces and finds Louis 16 sitting next to all the cogs and gears of the disemboweled clock.
Louis 15: “You fucked up the clock, didn’t you? Jesus, Louis, can you do ANYTHING right? Anyway, you wanted to talk to me? Make it quick, I’m supposed to be in a meeting with the Baron of, no, wait, the Duke of… It’s someone really important, trust me.”
Louis 16: “Gramps, I mean, sire, I requested to meet with you because…” (He’s all serious and intent)
Louis 15: “Yes, I know where this is going, I’ll write you a check…”
Louis 16: “No, sire, I have been good at saving my allowance. Also, I mowed the lawn for the King of Austria. What I want to know is… When will the Dauphiness be getting here?”
Louis 15: “Oh. Is that it?”
Louis 16: *pouts* “I want to get laid already! I’m 17! The clock is ticking! Well, not the one , but you know…”
Louis 15: “Ease on, horn dog, she’ll get here. You just have to get used to women making you wait. Soon you will meet your beautiful 14 year old under-aged girlfriend.”
(It was fast times back then! Don’t judge!)
Louis 16: “But sire, she’s taking soooooo long to get to the Court! This is already Chapter 25! I want her NOW!”
Louis 15: “I would recommend a cold shower, but it is common knowledge that showering allows the humors to fall out of balance as the gall bladder attacks the lungs and causes goiter. Or something. If you’re that horny, you do realize you’re the Dauphin and can probably slip it in to pretty much any pretty waiting maid you see around without much repercussion? Just make sure you wrap it in ye olde lamb-skin. Ok, this conversation is OVER! I’m glad we wasted my kingly time so efficiently.”
And the King exits the Salon of Timepieces only to RUN RIGHT SMACK INTO the Prime Minister, the Duke of Choiseul. He’s been trying to avoid him all along!
Louis 15: “Damn! I wasn’t even supposed to be King this morning!”

Shin Megami Tensei Series

In times of unemployment, heartbreak, or bone fractures, I turn to video games, which are the more misunderstood new art form, (never mind what Roger Ebert said, and I seldom mind what Roger Ebert says). When my parents catch me playing "these little games" as they minimize them, I rage inside. "These little games" are often extremely complicated works involving mathematics, music, literature, painting, design, cinematography... It takes a pernicious sort of blindness to not see or dismiss the potential of a new media that has gone in a flicker of time from being about two bright dots on a black screen to being about alternate worlds that would leave Tolkien flummoxed. If the videogame industry is still slow to wake to its true artistic powers, it might be because artistic establishments have snobbed videogames by and large. More painters should want to decorate the virtual walls of a well-crafted video game. More musicians should be interested in creating rapturous Wagnerian moods to accompany your monster-killing campaign. More writers should be saying, FORGET ABOUT THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL; I want to write the GREAT AMERICAN VIDEO GAME.
So it goes with art forms in infancy, but no previous art form has kicked so much ass, so quickly. It was only in 1986 that those Super Mario Bros. were hopping around. If you can look at that, and then look at this game I'm playing now, and not see what a huge leap that is, and not project that to what may just be in 20 years, your imagination is not doing right by you.
Now I will go summon some devils and bring about the Apocalypse.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: KING LOUIS THE FIFTEEN

Same as above! Madame Dubarry’s room! Starring: The Madame in question + Sartines, the Chief of Police + one invisible, unimportant waiting maid + “the little negro boy”, who we will soon meet more fully + the King, Louis XV!

Our King will be Robert de Niro in un-gangsterish-mode. Put a crown on him, de-Italianize him, Frenchify him. You’re set.
“Good morning, Countess! Fresh as a rose!” Gallantly kisses her hand, eyes the copper, “Monsieur Sartines, beating me to the punch?” This king is on the ADD train, by the way, because before anyone has said anything he’s flitted to a corner and observes a large Chinese fountain in the form of a pagoda, a fresh addition to the Countess’ bedroom.
The Countess Dubarry demonstrates her new toy:
“Sire, look, the water comes out of here, it makes these birds sing and these fish swim, then the doors of the pagoda open and a procession of mechanical mandarins come out! And all the magic happens when I handle this cock.”

…

Dictionary.com tells me “a cock is a hand-operated valve or faucet, esp. one opened or closed by rotating a cylindrical or tapered plug”. So let’s not lower ourselves to making immature remarks about how good she is at handling cocks.
The King has already moved on to noticing the “little negro boy”: “How splendid Zamore looks today!”
Little Black Zamore is dressed up in a fantastical manner that involves a little turban, with feathers falling on its side; a golden vest; slashed breeches of satin; a multi-colored scarf around his waist, and a precious little dagger: in other words, an 18th century French tailor’s idea of how those Moors should dress. I would be lying if I told you I had no idea who to cast as Zamore.

The Countess says Zamore is all dressed up because he has a favor to ask of the King, the King says: “What more can Zamore want? Is he not already the equal of a King?”
Dubarry: “How so?”
The King: “We are both your slaves!”
Monsieur Sartines snickers in his corner.
Dubarry: “Awww. Still, Zamore’s petition involves my little country house in Luciennes. The one you have never visited. The one I want you to spend the night with me at.”
The King: “My dear, you know the etiquette: unless he’s traveling, the King can only sleep in a royal chateau.”
Dubarry: “I know, that’s why Zamore wants you to make Luciennes a royal chateau, with him as the governor.”
The King: “Come on, my dear, that’s ridiculous, he looks like he’s 12.”
Dubarry: “Zamore! Kneel before the King! There, Zamore is now governor of Luciennes! Luciennes is a royal chateau! And now your Majesty can visit me there.”
The King makes the universal pussy-whipped resignation gesture and turns to Monsieur Sartines:
“Can anyone deny her anything?”
Monsieur Sartines: “I’m sure someone can. But I haven’t found him.”
Now the Countess tackles Sartines again: “That’s because you’re terrible at finding people… for a Chief of Police. Did I not commission you to find someone for me almost three months ago?”
Sartines is confused for a moment, not quite knowing where Dubarry is going to strike from now.
The King is made curious: “Who are you looking for?”
Dubarry: “A sorcerer!”
The King: “What fairy tale is this?”

Madame Dubarry seems as if entranced: “A fairy tale…yes… it IS a fairy tale, of a sorcerer who must be rewarded. You see, once upon a time there was a poor young girl who had no home, no carriages, no servants, no Chinese fountains, no parrots, no monkeys… and no kings. She went about Paris in mortal fear, for it is said she was very pretty, and was cautious about meeting men, men who could perhaps take advantage of her, er, friendly nature. One night, while crossing the Tuileries, she noticed that a dark, handsome young man was following her.”
The King: “And so this poor young girl hooked up with him?”
Madame Dubarry: “Ah, sire, see, you have a bad opinion of women because you are always hanging around with certain slutty duchesses whose names I will not mention. No, this man swore to our poor young girl he meant her no harm. He only wanted to extract a promise from her: that she would grant him the first wish he asked of her when she became a… queen.”
The King: “Huh.”
Madame Dubarry: “Naturally, the poor young girl thought it so far-fetched that she engaged herself to this promise. But there is magic in life as in fairy tales, and now that poor young girl is practically a queen. And wishes to find this handsome young sorcerer. And that’s what she’s asked of the Minister of Police.”
The King: “Handsome young sorcerer, eh? Maybe it’s better if we DON’T find this dude.”
Madame Dubarry: “I only want to ask him a question: when will this Queen be presented to the Court?”
The King: “Oh, here we go again! You know how it works! You know you have to find a noble lady to present you!”
Madame Dubarry: “Oh, as easy as that! All those prudes in court are sold to the Choiseuls.”
The King: “We agreed we wouldn’t talk politics in the bedroom.”
The Minister of Police is looking for a hole on the marble floor through which to escape, when the quasi-conjugal cloud is dispelled by the arrival of Chon, who’s all happy and like:
“It’s all settled!”
Madame DuBarry gets super happy too. Yeah, I can sort of see Evangeline Lilly and Anne Hathaway as sisters, I guess. Anyway, while the sisters giggle about the apparent success of whatever plot they’re brewing, Monsieur Sartines takes the King aside and starts warning him about

THE ILLUMINATI
THE FREEMASONS
THE PHILOSOPHERS
THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS
VOLTAIRE
AND A MYSTERIOUS CONSPIRATOR SENT TO DESTROY THE MONARCHY

The King yawns. Just then Chon melodramatically says: “Oh, also, they’re probably going to have to cut off poor Jean’s arm! He’s been so horribly wounded!”
The King: “Another bar fight, eh..?”
Chon: “No, this was an assassination attempt, really! This mean mean man tried to kill Jean, who was only trying to secure some post-horses so I could hasten back to my sister here!”
Monsieur de Sartines: “What the hell, I’m a cop. I guess I should try to do something about that!”
Chon: “If only I could remember the man’s name. Darn, if only… I’m so bad at remembering petty details, I can’t hold a grudge, let’s see, hmmm, could it be that his name is PHILIP DE TAVERNEY, AN OFFICER IN THE BODYGUARD OF THE DAUPHIN, REGISTRATION NUMBER 34746379048? Yeah, I think that just might be him. Arrest him.”
Monsieur de Sartines: “Tomorrow he sleeps in the Bastille.”

(Sucks for Philip!)

Madame Dubarry is milking all the drama out of the Jean vs. Philip tiff. “You won’t do anything about it, my relations are being massacred and you don’t care, you know it’s the Choiseul people who are trying to kill my family, you don’t love me, boo-hoo-hoo!” The King is like: “My dear, don’t be like that, you know I’m just trying to keep everyone happy.” Dubarry: “No! Choose me or Monsieur de Choiseul!” The King: “Now now, De Choiseul isn’t against you, he even admires you, I’m sure! He probably had nothing to do with this fight, it’s very natural for military men to quarrel, right, right? Chon? Monsieur Sartines? Zamore?”
Zamore: “Whatcha talking about, Louis?”
Now the King gives a sigh that signifies he’s had his daily dose of court drama, and both Chon and Madame Dubarry pick on this so they lower the tear gears a little, and Chon says:
“Now, I am not saying that the Duke of Choiseul was behind this attempt on Jean’s life- and after all, he’ll probably recover fully- and maybe it wasn’t such a terrible wound…”
All that poor Louis XV wanted to do this morning was to make out with his cute girlfriend and instead he got all this headache about ministers and presentations and freemasons and assasination attempts. Madame Dubarry, who did not get to where she is by being bad at reading the king, waltzes up to him: “Oh, sire, I just wish there weren’t so many people trying to complicate your day…. I wish we could just lay around and play with your monkey.”

…

Seriously, folks, I’m not making any of this up.
So they call out for the royal monkey to entertain them. After the monkey jumps around a bit, the King hears that the Duke de Choiseul is coming to see him and quickly slips away- “urgent business to attend to with the Dauphin, you understand”-leaving Madame Dubarry to face her hated enemy. While she waits, surrounded by visiting chattering courtiers, the Duke of Tresmes, (a hunchback/buffoon) randomly appears to entertain her: “I’m uglier than that monkey there, yes I am! Look at me! Aaah!” This greatly amuses all the courtiers, who throw apples and stones at the hunchback and have a jolly time. When the news gets around that Viscount Jean got stabbed in a sword fight, the courtiers get even happier. It’s cruel cruel party time at Versailles.

MY "INTO THE WILD" EXPERIENCE

DAY 1

The blindness ended. My eyes are open- there’s this “Into the Wild” movie about a young saint called Christopher McCandless... No. NO! “Alexander Supertramp”, for thus he would rather I call him, unshackled at last from the slave name his fascist progenitors imposed on him. I too was unfairly named- I was not even consulted in this subtle laying of parental tyranny. That’s over. From now on, call me BoBo Nowhereman.
“Into the Wild” was so inspiring- I couldn’t really watch too much of it because it had a lot of Eddie Vedder songs and I’ve always been a Trey Atanasio man myself, but what I saw seemed pretty encouraging, so I am bidding goodbye to the endless lies and lies of my sheltered existence of wealth and happiness, goodbye to my family with their loving, understanding, stupid faces, goodbye to this humming of cellphones like cancer-sending bees, goodbye to the exhaust of my Porsche that takes almost 5 seconds to get to 60, (phony car salesmen with their phony ads). I’m even torching my Wii (which is all WHITE!!! I wonder what message they’re trying to send with THAT?!?)
Farewell, bourgeois existence, I am shedding you like the proud grizzly bear sheds the sleep of winter. I am moving to Alaska! NATURE= REALITY! REALITY AWAITS!!!

DAY 1 (later)
Turns out my pot dealer doesn’t have any connections in Alaska, so I’m rethinking my itinerary.

DAY 2
I set out today wearing nothing but the clothes in my back- well, they also cover the front. And the pants are on my legs, not my back. The shoes on my feet. It’s a little confusing, that saying. But see, that’s what I’m talking about! How language oppresses us, it keeps us from finding ourselves as we are lost in this labyrinth of things that we mean to say but can’t. I really liked that movie when I was a kid. “Labyrinth.” It had that girl who shows her beaver on “Requiem for a Dream.” Oh, man, wheew, who knew walking ten blocks would be this exhausting? Maybe I should go home and rest up a little before I set out for the wild. Maybe I’ll rent “Labyrinth”.

DAY 3
It is my third day of setting out for the wild. I haven’t literally left my apartment so my parents haven’t noticed my escape- BLIND FOOLS, blinded by their comfort, their processed foods, the neutering glow of that retarded television set! Love this episode of “That 70s Show”, though. This is the one where Red gets fired. Maybe I'll watch for a while.



DAY 4
I cheated somewhat and took like 200 bucks out of my account. 80 went to pay for a Greyhound to Mississippi ‘cause even though I had my heart set on Alaska that was going to take too much walking. My other option was hitchhiking but I know how truckers get all hot and bothered by cute guys like me, and that ain't my bag. I say: “Into the wild, but not THAT wild!”
I started reading a book by Thoreau but it was pretty thick and then I remembered I had a Thor comic book and I thought: Thoreau, Thor, practically the same. It’s so true, if you think about it. The Thoreau book was about how we must turn away from the hustle and bustle of modern metropolis, with its obstreperous steam engines and noisome horse carriages. The Thor comic was about escaping from the hustle and bustle of evil Loki’s grip.
As I finish my reading I look out the window in reflection, having reached the quiet kind of epiphany that can only be achieved when you are in solitude with literature:
Thor’s hammer is almost like some sort of huge dick.

DAY 5
I haven’t eaten in two days. I feel like Jesus in the desert, except I’m outside the bus station here in Biloxi, and instead of the Devil I am being tempted by an endless chain of restaurants. Bah, the toxins that emanate from their foul smokestacks have endangered the bald eagle and the thumb-specked salmon. I won’t fall for this.
I am however, very hungry.
Like Chris McCandless, I tried eating grass off the lawn outside the bus station, but it turns out I’m not really that hungry after all.
I watched some birds above me. Some sort of white birds, I don’t know what they’re called. I cried for about an hour, they were so free, their wings spread as though they were a feathery unfurling of freedom.
I cried so much that the bus left without me, so I went to take out some more money, and you know what? My account was locked.
I called my Dad the pig from a pay phone and I asked him what gave, and he told me he was trying to encourage my financial independence, so I said, fine, I won’t succumb to the sick rules of your capitalistic game! And he said: “That’s right! Stick it to the man, BoBo! By the way, your mother and I are going on a cruise to Alaska. We had a ticket for you, but since you didn't seem interested we're taking cousing Jenny. Well, you’re a resourceful young man, you don’t need us old foggies to waste your time and tie you down. Good luck being ‘On the Road’. ‘Walk on the Wild Side,’ my boy! Hahaha!” He hung up. There’s a generational gap between us that keeps me from getting his obscure references, but what does it matter? We are all of us sent forth in loneliness.
I still have like 100 bucks. Maybe I can score some shrooms around here.



DAY 7
I am as an animal now, unencumbered by civilization or deodorants. I haven’t brushed my teeth in several days, and a cloud of sulphur exits from me whenever I nibble on tree bark. It is as God intended it. To think that for years we've mutilated ourselves twice daily, at the whim of big toothpaste companies, when it only makes sense for our gums to fester in this way, creating their own protective bacterial ecosystem of encrusted halitosis. I feel stronger than ever, immune to all disease now, for what germ could possibly attack me? It couldn’t last a second in the swamp-like atmosphere of my mouth..

DAY 8
I am, at last, ALIVE!
Howling at the moon, my sole companion! No one around, except that weird-looking Filipino immigrant who sold me the shrooms, and who acts all concerned and insists I should take a shower. Fool that he is! For I now realize that he is merely a figment of my imagination. I am far away from the city, away from the repulsive binds of “human interaction” and “societal concerns”, I have finally understood what the three-headed coyote has been trying to tell me all day long:
I AM ALONE
EVERYONE ELSE IS AN ILLUSION, A PROJECTION OF MY ABSURD FEARS.
THE UNIVERSE WAS MEANT FOR MY ENJOYMENT, THE EARTH AS MY PLAYGROUND.
ALL COUNTRIES ARE AS ONE.
ALL IS LOVE.
I AM LOVE.
I AM ALL.
THEREFORE I AM GOD.
Also, these ‘shrooms kick ASS!!!

DAY 9
Even though I am the God of all things and no one else is real some skater dude just mugged me and stole my last 40 bucks, so I had to call my sister and ask her for money so I could get back home. She agreed to wire it, but of course she was bitching and nagging for like two hours and I have a huge headache, but it’s okay, though, now that I am aware that she is merely a hallucination I have created to give me grief, I can endure her whining about “responsibility” with a knowing, Buddha-like smile.
I know the three-headed coyote would approve.
I have been to the Wild and Back.
My soul has expanded past all of mankind’s imaginary borders, and I feel I have communed with my animal friends, but if you twist my arm I’ll admit I can’t wait to get back home and shower and play “Bully: Scholarship Edition.”

DAY 10
FUCK FUCK FUCK!!! I FORGOT I TORCHED MY WII!!!! WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?!?!? FUCKING HIPPIE BULLSHIT!!! FUCK YOU CHRISTOPHER MACCANDLESS!!! If I get my hands on you, man, I'm gonna pop ya one!!!!

I Just Got Sick of Orpheus

"The Son of Dream, he sang his song
The multitudes, they sang along,
Little flowers, they grew voices
Even rocks made happy noises.”

That's a story mama told me when she was tall enough to hold me.

Sang his song, this dreamer boy/ Made the mountains cry with joy,
Much beloved of the Gods/ Who gave to him (against all odds)
A winning shot at woman fair/ Like iron bold with raven hair.

But on that tragic wedding day
He let the girly get away!
A serpent bit the beauty’s breast
(Oh, man! Do serpents ever rest?)
Orpheus bawls: “My baby’s dead,
Just when I talked her into bed.”

Everyone’s fallen for someone who’s not quite there
Everyone’s felt that icy glare
Everyone’s wondering about everybody else’s underwear

And down the Well
Does Orpheus go
To the Bouncers of Hell
He says: “Hell-o!”
The Bouncers let him in,
He's on the list
Of those who've tasted sin
And can't resist.

Laid on liquid graves, the bodies crash in waves
While the showy nineties-glow from endless raves
Washes up and down in sub-oceanic caves.
The singer poet artist slash eventual crook
Makes it past bleeding Eden and reaches the nook
Where hanging lean from a hook, she gives him a mean look
- Even here, any stripper reads him like an open book
He screams that they're each other, that they're twins
That he's her and she's him
And since the light is dim
He can't tell her where his body ends and hers begins

A compassionate dealer shows him the losing card
Says: "From out here it looks easy, but for you I bet it's hard.
There's nothing you can do, that bitch is dead.
Get her out of your head, fuck somebody else instead."

(But he remember when she kissed him
Can’t get the girl out of his system
Necrophilia's not in fashion
Maybe that’s part of the passion.)

THE GODS OF THE LIVING GAVE HIM A RAW DEAL
HE TURNS TO THE GODS OF THE DEAD FOR APPEAL

And Hades said: "Well, here's the deal.
You’ll get your love, this time for real.
You'll once more look upon your wife.
You'll get the dead girl back to life.
But first you need to prove you excel.
You gotta walk her out of hell.

If you believe in resurrection as a fact
Or that opposites attract
And you don’t care what she says
About her crazy ways
(Lord All-Mighty
Girls are flighty!)
You grab that girl and don’t look back
She has no heart.
So don't worry about the heart attack."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OPTMISTIC CODA, BEFORE THE JOURNEY BEGINS, EVEN THOUGH EVERYBODY KNOWS HOW IT ENDS.

O:
And then when we’re out of hell
You’ll smile and think that it's swell,
To see the sky up above you.
I feel I have much to give.
I'm sure I can make you live!

E:
I doubt you can make me love me you!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE COUNTESS DUBARRY'S MORNING LEVEE

(I try not to have two chapters uninterrupted by random comics artwork, but I really would looooove to meet my ideal quota of ten chapters per month. So I might kick things up, and it's a little exhausting. This one is long. I even had to do poetry!)

We have Jean and we have Chon, but it is high time we meet the more famous member of the Dubarry crew, 27-year old Marie Jeanne Becu, a.k.a Countess Jeanne Du Barry, a.k.a “That Classy Ho.”
To do so, let us skip to the next morning, and hop it to Versailles; once there, let’s visit the suite of rooms Louis XV has dedicated to his mistress, cutting past the long line of admirers, hanger-ons, parasites and sycophants that populate Madame Dubarry’s antechambers.
Lucky we, we go right to the bedroom where we encounter our lovely houri in more or less the following state:



It’s nine in the morning and she inquires of one of her dressing-maids if there are any news of Jean or of Chon, but there’s nothing going on.
“Ugh,” she says, “It’s going to be a bitch of a day. Anybody waiting outside? Of course it’s full of people, but they will all abandon the little twinkling star that is moi as soon as the Dauphiness arrives. Has the Duke of Richelieu stopped by? No. That’s two days now he hasn’t. Am I losing my charms?” She’s basically asking the mirror at this point, knowing full well she hasn’t.

I think I’m randomly going to cast Anne Hathaway for this role. It makes sense, see, she WAS in “The Princess Diaries”- and the King’s mistress is currently staying in rooms that once belonged to Princess Adelaide, one of the King’s daughters… which partially suggests how scandalous the arrangement was.

Lots of hot chicks in these dusty historical adventures! Who knew?

Anyway, Madame DuBarry finally asks to see the Minister of Police, Inspector Sartines, (here played by Roman Polanski).

Oh, yeah, one for the ladies!!! What a hottie!!! In that statutory rapist kind of way.
As the # 1 Cop in France enters the chamber with an ingratiating smile on his thin, severe lips, the Countess doesn’t even bother to turn away from her mirror: “Good morning, my dear enemy!”
Sartines: *theatrical gasp* “Your enemy, madame!”
Dubarry: “People are either my friends or my enemies, and you are no friend of mine, because you have allowed the publication of an entire ocean of slanderous songs and pamphlets and poems- all making fun of me!”
S: “But, madame, I didn’t write them!”
D: “So arrest the person who did!”
S: “Oh, rest assured, if it was ONE person, they would have died already from the effort of writing ALL of those funny songs! Haha, did you hear that last one that goes:
‘Oh, the Countess Dubarry
The King will never marry
But if you’re Chuck or Larry
She’ll teach you how to parry…’
Funny stuff!”

(She throws a heavy wooden hairbrush in his general direction- but it only knocks out one of the chamber-maids, who proceeds to die unobtrusively. Sartines continues:)
S: “Oh, dear madame, I only want to be your friend.”
D: “You are my enemy if you are friends with the Choiseuls, and you let them harass me!”
S: “Monsieur Choiseul is the Prime Minister, I merely obey his orders. Besides, madame, recall, did I not recently warn you that the dauphiness was hastening her arrival? Is that something an enemy would do?”
D: “Sure, sure, but what did you do for me YESTERDAY?”
S: “Er…”
D: “No, seriously, I want to know, what did you spent yesterday doing?
S: “Work?”
D: “And then?”
S: “Had dinner with a friend.”
D: “And then?”
S: (getting nervous) “Apprehended some criminals.”
D: “Yes, but, AND THEN?”
S: “Went to the opera…”
D: “Of course, of course, but what I want to know is what you did THEN?”
S: (beads of sweat on his forehead) “I, er, hmmm, ha, what DID I do? Hmmm, geez, I don’t, I don’t really remember… Oh, man, it’s hot in this room!”
D: “Why don’t I refresh your memory? You came out of the opera, went into your carriage, and found that, far from it being unoccupied, there was a person of the female persuasion waiting for you- the Duchesse de Grammont- and she asked if you could find a way to sneak her into the King’s bedroom one of these nights.”
S: “… All right, screw it, I quit. You’re obviously the real Chief of Police, not me.”
D: (smiles ravishingly) “As long as you’re aware of it. Anyway, as you can imagine, I am somewhat invested in not letting any other hussy get into the King’s bedroom. So guess what I went and did?”
S: “Hopefully nothing? Because that happened really late? And you needed your beauty sleep? Not that you need it, because you’re the most beautiful woman ever?”
D: “Turns out that just as I keep a very active police of my own, I also keep a whole bunch of hungry writers under my command. I never feed them, so they’re really really witty! Like, look, last night I had this one write an awesome play about a Chief of Police called Sartines, sort of like you! Act One: The Chief of Police, disguised as a lawyer, visits a certain lady on the Rue des Putains and gives her a hundred crowns… I wonder for what services?”
S: “Hey! That’s charity work! It’s a good deed!”
D: “Act Two! The Chief of Police, disguised as a nun, sneaks into the Convent of the Curious Underage Girls!”
S: “I was just going through a religious phase!
D: “And of course, Act Three, the Chief of Police, disguised as the Chief of Police, meets the Duchesse de Grammont on his squeaky, creaky carriage!”
S: “Madame!”
D: “It was a hilaaaarious play! Even funnier than that song you were just singing! I’ll show it to you tomorrow.”
S: “Why not right now?”
D: “Because right now the King is reading it! Louis is laughing his ass off, believe me.”
Sartines clasps his hands: “I’m ruined!”
D: “Oh, PLEASE! Don’t think of it as being ‘ruined’, think of it as being ‘celebrated in song.’ How do you think I deal? Oh, look, here’s one of the little poems I had written about YOU. It’s in the voice of the Duchesse of the Grammont:
Chief of Police,
You know how I please!
Now do this one thing:
Tell it to the King.””
Sartines is pacing the room: “These are all calumnies! And the King laughs at these little poems?”
D: “Are you kidding? He even helps me out with the rhymes. Oh, don’t worry about that song, I only printed ten thousand copies of it. Of COURSE, I coooould not release them...”
Sartines kneels before her: “Madame, I guarantee the Duchesse of Grammont won’t get within five miles of the King’s bedroom.”
D: (more ravishing smiles) “See, I’ll admit that’s nice to hear.”
S: “You are a queen beyond queens.”
D: “I’m not a queen, because I haven’t been presented at the court.”
S: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
D: “It’s ok. Just, you know, chin up, and start pulling your weight around here. Help my presentation. Abandon the side of the Choiseuls. Then, you will become my friend. And of course I would never DESTROY, OBLITERATE, or KILL a friend.”
S: “You don’t understand! There’s nothing I can do! There’s a conspiracy against you, to keep you from being presented! The Duke of Choiseul, the Duchesse de Grammont, the Dauphiness, the whole freaking court! I don’t know why you sent your sister Chon and your brother-in-law Jean to the country, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but it won’t work.”
D: “How do you know about that?”
S: (recovering some of his busted balls) “You’re not the only one with police.”
D: (she reflects) “Or spies.”
S: “Or spies.”
D: “You dare have spies in my apartments?”
S: “I have spies under your pillow!”
D: “That’s expected, and I forgive you. Now let’s be friends, and share the names. It’s that girl who washed my hair last week, isn’t it? I could tell she was trying to give me consumption! Traitor!”
S: “It’s not, but what would you do to her if it was?”
D: “Oh, nothing too terrible, just make sure she was never heard of again.”
S: “Oh, madame, you know as well as I do that we can’t let a little thing like betrayal get in the way of our friendships.”
The Countess Dubarry considers the face of Monsieur Sartines. A temporary truce. Finally she says:
D: “So I am a magnanimous victor. What is it you want?”
S: “Don’t mention anything to the king about the petitions to lower taxes on wheat.”
D: “Done. What do I get?”
S: “Oh…” (digging into a pocket casually) “Just this document drawn up by the peers of the kingdom protesting the presentation in court of certain individuals. I was supposed to give it to his Majesty.” (Giving it to her) “I sort of have, haven’t I?”
D: “I’ll make sure he gets it. At some point within the next millennia.”

At that very moment, the folding doors are thrown open, and a PERSON OF AFRICAN ANCESTRY announces:
“The King!”
That’s Louis. Louis the 1 to the 5. The Pimp King.

(Oh, and if you thought this chapter was long and chatty: The original had 80% more verbal sparring!)

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: VISCOUNT JEAN

Dear Imaginary Reader: I try and try to pace myself but really that last chapter ended just when the blades were out shining and I just needed to find out what happened NEXT.
So here is what happened NEXT.
The entire village of Lachaussee has pretty much poured out to see Philip de Taverney step into the fray. The Innkeeper has tears of gratitude in his eyes, as he tells Philip:
“This gentleman is trying to steal the King’s horses!”
“I don’t believe you,” says Philip, eyeing Jean. “A gentleman would do no such thing.”
“I’m quite the gentleman, pally,” says Jean. “Come on, there’s sixty horses in there, the Dauphiness is only going to use eight, I only need three. Did everyone fail math in this town?”
“That’s not the point,” says Philip, firmly. “These horses aren’t yours. Let them be.”
“Listen, buddy, do yourself a favor, close your eyes, pretend you didn’t see me, and all will be swell.”
“Sir, I am ordered to escort the dauphiness, and on that service I will stand my ground. Who are you anyway?”
“I,” says Jean, all important-like, “I am the Viscount Jean Du Barry!”
Philip: “Then you are the brother of…”
“…Somebody who can get you sent to the Bastille if you keep on pissing me off!”

A-ha! That’s who Jean is: the brother of the Countess Du Barry, the King’s mistress! That must make Chon, in the carriage, the OTHER sister of the Du Barry family, and what they’re plotting is to get the Countess of Bearn into Paris so that the Countess of Bearn can officially introduce the Countess Du Barry to the court and have her be a legitimate fixture. It's complicated, but you'll see. It occurs me to I haven’t cast Jean- well, we need some French in this saga, so who’s our Porthos, our Obelix? Let’s have Gerard Depardieu! Who better as a blustery Frenchman?


Anyway, look at me babbling and meanwhile Jean and Philip are measuring how big their swords are.
“One more time,” says Philip, “step away from the horses, or I will be forced to arrest you.”
“Arrest me? I will kill you, you little…”
“We’ll see,” says Philip and BANG there they go, Jean crazily swinging his sword about, Philip calmly parrying, Jean howling and cursing and Philip deftly stepping aside, anticipating every move, and finally, like the well trained cool-headed warrior that he is, dipping in for the blood. The Viscount Jean Du Barry springs back, the ruffles of his shirt stained with blood; it runs down his fingers in large drops: he’s wounded in the arm.
Philip is like: “I sort of won.”
Jean: “No shit.” He lets his sword fall down. Philip gallantly retrieves it, hands it to him and says: “Don’t start fights like this again, PLEASE.”
“Whatever, whatever, take the horses! Chon! Heal my wounds please! Alright, I lost. I don’t even get the Arabian horse I wanted! Jesus, is NOTHING going to go my way today?”
Chon leads her brother to her carriage, puts a handkerchief on his wound, (suturing wounds, like sewing and singing, is a lady-like talent, then as now). Gilbert offers to examine the wound, but Jean is not in a friendly mood:
“Be nicer to him,” says Chon. “He knows the name of your enemy. It’s the Chevalier Philip de Taverney!”
Jean ponders this: “Maybe I won’t let my feelings of inadequacy out on the young philosopher after all.” Armed with this superior info, the Viscount leans out of the carriage and yells out: "Hey, Philip de Taverney!" (Just to see if Philip is impressed or scared that the Viscount knows his name.)
Philip: "Well, so you know my name, I know yours- guess we're introduced now."
And our handsome soldier goes back to taking care of horse business. So cool. Talking about horses, one such fine ARABIAN animal now gallops right by everyone, attracting much attention from the crowd that must be a little disappointed that no one died. And yes, the beautiful Italian rider cries out: "Avanti, Djerid, avanti!"
Jean squeezes his sister's hand: “Look, there it goes!”
Chon: “What, what?”
Jean: “That Arabian horse I wanted to buy! And look at the woman riding it!”
Chon: “She’s HAWT! Exotic looking!"
Jean: “I would pay a thousand crowns to get that horse.”
Chon: “How many crowns would you pay to get that woman?”
Jean: “The way I roll, bitches pay ME. But yeah, I’ll lay down two or 3 Gs for that.”
Chon: “We should try to get her into bed.”
Jean: “I just got wounded, sis. I need some time to recharge. Besides, we don’t know her!”

Ok, Jean and Chon Du Barry. A little too friendly in their sex talk? Granted, their sister is like the most HIGH CLASS ESCORT in the country at the time, so it’s not like they’re straight from Jesus Camp, but am I the only one who thinks these too are a little perverted? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Gilbert- meekly- interrupts: “Hmmm. I know her. Her name is Lorenza. She’s the sorcerer’s wife.”
Jean and Chon: “The…Sorcerer’s..?”
Gilbert: “Joseph Balsamo. Duh.”
Jean and Chon exchange a glance that says: “Something interesting is going to come out of this.”

Joe Wright's "Atonement"

What do you want from me? You will get neither a high-brow critical defense of Ian McEwan's novel as it was blown into a "proudly presented" Hollywood movie, nor a low-brow rant a la: "my goodness what a boring artsy fartsy Brit shit-orama that was!" Nope.
The truth is sweeping love epics always get to me. I fell asleep through most of "The English Patient" but still cried at the end- (What would you do?!? Abandon the woman you love?!? Go looking for help? Wait until she dies so you can share those last moments?!?) My heart is still all scabby from that fictitious romance. I think it upset me more than most of my actual failed relationships.
(Which may be why they failed).
Until they remake "Dr. Zhivago" with Dane Cook I'll be a sucker for big romance.
So yeah, I liked this movie fine enough even at its running time of 874 minutes.
Still, I just don't know about Keira Knightley. Why is it that sometimes she reminds me of Wynona Rider and sometimes of Natalie Portman and sometimes of Jack Skellington? KK, hon, I know thin is in, I know meat is murder, but let's maybe venture into the unknown and visit your local Burger King, because in that scene when you get sopping wet, a gifted xylophonist could have have had fun with your ribs.
My advice: a burger. You can afford it. You totally can.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: IN WHICH A NEW PERSONAGE IS INTRODUCED

The Evangeline Lilly-ish lady who has just saved Gilbert has plans to stop and dine in the lovely, picturesque village of Lachaussee, with its capriciously scattered cottages. But none of these cottages are as picturesque (or as capricious, or scattered) as the man that now stands in the middle of the road that runs through the village. This is the “New Personage” Dumas is threatening us with, (in case the current cast of 3000 wasn’t epic enough). Dude is a “tall, stout man, with a ruddy complexion, a black beard, and large sinewy hands peeping out from fine lace ruffles. He wore a hat edged with gold lace, and set on crosswise, like those officers of the provinces who try to look fierce in the eyes of the poor Parisians.”
Anyway, this man is so detained in the road because he’s eyeing a BEAUTIFUL ARABIAN HORSE that’s hitched in front of a cabin. Remember one such horse in our story? Name of Djerid, wasn’t it? Belonging to Joseph Balsamo? Stolen by Lorenza Feliciani when she made her escape? Do you need me to hint any further?
“New Personage” is casting lusty looks at our maned friend, patting the animal’s sides and being otherwise inappropriate with other people’s property. Finally, a window opens in the cabin and a peasant pokes his head out:
“Do you MIND?”
“New Personage”: “I want this horse.”
Peasant: “Tough titty, not for sale. Go to the post-house, there’s sixty of the King’s Horses there.”
“New Personage”: “Maybe you have some hearing deficiency, so let me repeat. I NEED this horse. I’m GETTING this horse.”
Peasant: “It’s not mine, it belongs to a woman staying in this house, and she’s sleeping.”
“New Personage”: “Tell the woman she will receive 500 pistoles for her Arabian horse, and that it’s the King who orders this.”
Peasant: “You ain’t him.”
“New Personage”: “I’m close enough. Do you want to wake her now?”
Our New Personage whips out his…whip… and is ready to start lashing at the peasant’s windows, doors and face- when the carriage containing Gilbert and his benefactress rushes towards him in a cloud of dust; the horses are all foam and sweat. The New Personage is stopped in his horse-buying frenzy and lets out a happy yelp:
“Chon! Baby! Is that you at last?”
“Yes, Jean,” says “Chon”, the Evangeline Lilly-ish lady, somewhere between surprised and resigned. “What are YOU doing here?”
New Personage- Jean- jumps right on the carriage and starts covering Chon’s face with kisses until he looks down and notices that Gilbert is blushing right there.
“Who the hell is that?” Says Jean.
Chon is protective: “He’s a little philosopher I found on the road. He’s so cute when he starts talking about Rousseau!”
Jean: “Some other time maybe. Let’s talk about THE BUSINESS AT HAND!”
?
Chon: “All is settled with the Countess of Bearn! She will come to Paris! I told her that I was her lawyer’s daughter, passing through Verdun, and my ‘father’, (Monsieur Flageot, the above lawyer) needed her to make it to the capital for her to finally win her lawsuit! So she opened her little gray eyes, took a long pinch of snuff, said that Monsieur Flageot was the cleverest lawyer in the history of lawyery, and set out. She must be just behind us!”
Jean: “Bravo, my Dear Chon! And now let’s have breakfast right quick, because we need to get to Paris before the dauphiness.”
Gilbert is clueless about the above intrigue, but all will soon be cleared! They stop at the local inn, (there’s a local inn every 10 feet, and this one is right in front of the cabin with the Arabian horse), and there receive the unpleasant news that if they are to go on, they must do so with Chon’s old tired horses, because the innkeeper has no fresh ones.


ABOVE: People Used to Be Mean to Horsies and Enslave Them. Now we Only Use Them for Their Salty Meat.

Jean: “Hey, what gives! The rules are you must ALWAYS have fresh horses! You’re breaking the law.” (This Jean has a preferred seat at his Anger Management meetings.)
Innkeeper: “No, the law says I need to have at least 15 fresh horses, and I have 18 fresh horses, so I am NOT breaking the law.”
Jean: “Great! All we need is three fresh horses!”
Innkeeper: “I’m out of fresh horses.”
Jean: “Chon, dear, avert your head while I murder the innkeeper.”
Chon: “Jean, calm down!”
Jean does his “Serenity Prayer”, talks himself down: “Are you telling me there are no horses in your stable?”
Innkeeper: “If you find a single horse, it’s yours for free.”
Jean eyes the stable, has another mini-embolism: “There’s like sixty horses in there!”
Innkeeper: “Oh, but they are the King’s horses, therefore it’s as though they weren’t there. They are there waiting for the Dauphiness, who should pass by here shortly.”
Jean ignores this, walks right by the innkeeper and calmly (as calm as “New Personage” gets) harnesses three of the King’s Horses, in preparation for stealing them- “borrowing them”- while Chon is doing her best to hide in the depths of her seat. The innkeeper is ready to lay the smack down on Jean, but Jean is a tallish, imposing fellow and elbows him in the stomach. Chon yells out: “Brother, brother, no!”
At this, Gilbert exhales in relief: “YES! He’s only a super affectionate brother!!! I’m in like Flint!”
By now, there’s some noticeable ruckus awaking the town of Lachaussee; across the road, the cabin window opens once again but instead of an unimportant extra we see a lovely, dark haired woman who some of my patient habituees will remember as Joseph Balsamo’s sequestered maiden.
“Oh, hey,” says Jean, taking advantage of a moment in which the innkeeper is gasping for air and looking for a pitchfork or some such suitable weapon, “You’re that woman! Who was sleeping! Who owns the Arabian horse! Sell it to me!”
“Hmmm,” she thinks about it for .5 seconds. “No.” Closes the window. That “no”? She does it in an Italian accent, in case the reader was still not sure she's Lorenza Feliciani.
“Oh yeah?” Jean unsheathes his sword. “Screw you all! I’m taking all the horses I want! The ones I don’t want, I’m going to kill!” The innkeeper calls out for his stable boys and they all have pikes and sticks and want to make puree of our belligerent horse-thief. Jean isn’t intimidated: “Come on, sister, throw a stone at them or something! Hey, little philosopher, stop being a pussy and come fight with me.” He starts swinging his blade around. The stable boys surround the carriage.
Chon sighs: “Great, he’s getting us all killed.” And prepares herself for an unfortunate, premature ending- because the scene is about to turn violent-er, when the Innkeeper screams:
“Help in the name of the King!”
And that’s when the cavalry shows up to save the day!
Except that instead of the cavalry there is only one handsome cavalier who rides his horse heroically right into the middle of this shindig. The horse rears and Jean and his foes back away from the (no doubt heroic) cloud of dust it stomps out of the ground.
Who’s this brave handsome cavalier?
Well, you know, and I know, and Gilbert knows too, because he whispers: “It’s Philip de Taverney!”
And Chon, who misses absolutely nothing, specially if it wears a uniform, makes a little mental note: “Philip de Taverney…You don’t say.”
Well, we do say, Chon. We do.

Atelier Iris

While all the trendsters of the world salivate over the next technological advance that will finally obliterate the need to stare at other people's faces, I honor the spirits of Emerson and Thoreau by playing a bunch of forgotten RPGs for the PS2. I've just finished, for instance, "Atelier Iris".

That's right, from the olden days of '05. When we still believed that alchemy and cute anime faces could solve the problems of a Mana-depleted world.

Miranda July's "No One Belongs Here More Than You"

To fall in love with Miranda July is to file a restraining order against Miranda July. You know, I've been told I let my emotions carry me away, (perhaps, perhaps, perhaps), but Miranda July's feelings redefine "sensitivity". It makes for some great stories, but I honestly wonder how she manages to get out of bed in the morning without just being DEVASTATED by the way her pillow contorts around her head as though it were the cottony hand of a God placed there just to remind her that love is woven into all, and ready to greet us as we WAKE UP TO THE FRAGILE WONDER OF EVERYTHING AND...
You saw "Me and You and Everyone we Know", didn't you?

You can sort of get a crush on her, but you know how it goes down: You wake up in the middle of the night and there she is hovering above you in the darkness, and you gasp, and she says: "I was just looking at your eyelashes, sand-encrusted- did you dream of me? I want to EAT your eyelashes! I took all your clothes and sewed tiny "MJ"s on them, almost impossible to see, I want you to look for them throughout the day, just so that I can feel a part of you is always seeking me out."

Yup. That sort of girl.

Assemble!

If the Fantastic Four were about an elemental family, and the X-Men about making it through high school despite geekiness, body issues and/or sexual confusion, then the Avengers- with a rotating cast as baffling as that of ER- seems to me about the insecurity of belonging to a large corporation whose rules keep on shifting and whose members keep on quitting, being fired, or going postal on their own.
Not that I'm projecting anything there.
(Thanks to Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited, I get to see what the big deal was about Jack Kirby's work on "The Avengers", and BIG is the operative word: bold-lined frog-like faces that want to pop out of every panel as though two super-hero dimensions just weren't enough to contain them.)

15 Ways to Leave Your Lover

A few conversational starters to help scare off your insignificant other.

1- Haha, no, it’s definitely you.
2- According to this course in Transcendental Solipsism I’ve been taking, there IS no you.
3- Let's get married! Wait, where are you going? Let me get your digits first!
4- Ever seen "Some Like it Hot?" No? "M. Butterfly."? "The Crying Game"? No? Hmmm, I think we have to go to the video store before this conversation can continue.
5- We’ve grown apart as people. I’m sorry, I meant to say you’ve grown fat as people.
6- I think we’re intimate enough to introduce you to my Internet alter-ego, PedoClowny666.
7- Does the name L. Ron Hubbard mean anything to you? 'Cause it means EVERYTHING to me!
8- I just don’t think your love for Battlestar Galactica matches MY love for Battlestar Galactica.
9- You’ve been so tolerant with my bestiality fetish that I think we can take it to the next level. Meet Simba, the Horny Lion.
10- Are you familiar with the tragic events of September 11, 2001? Yup, that was me.
11- Are you familiar with the tragic events of April 15, 1912? That was me, too.
12- You know how some people are REALLY into “Star Trek”? I’m just like that, but with the KKK.
13- This whole “incest” thing is not as much fun as it once was.
14- I just feel like we’re in different stages of Super Mario Galaxy.
15- Honey, I’m pregnant! By an alien entity, though. So pack your shit.

"Hitman"

You know the old trope, the videogame is always better than the movie.

Although this was 2% less hideous than I expected it to be, I still have to say this:
Agent 47! That bar code on the back of your shiny bald head makes you the most conspicuous target ever! Come on, you know better than that! Hit "WigWorld" already!

Francis Lawrence's "I Am Legend". Francis Lawrence made a bunch of cool MTV music videos. Remember music videos? They were rad.

Just came back from New York, which may add resonance to those scenes in “I Am Legend” that feature feral deer roaming down a deserted Broadway, or the endless lines of unpeopled cars, or the dust of obsolescence gathering on Times Square.

Of all the cities in the U.S., (heck, in the world), New York seems to be the most mythological target of destruction, (Washington the close second)- and these fantasies are shared by Jihadists, by idle-talkers of all political wings, and by Hollywood producers who need the proper backdrops for mass scale explosions. One could easily read too much into that, (envy and hatred of its waning economical sway and showy displays of wealth), but I suspect it’s mostly the secret joy that all kids share on seeing big buildings go boom- and buildings don’t get much bigger than they do in New York.
It’s almost as if we humans love to envision our communal ends in as much detail as possible- a tradition that encompasses everything from The Book of Revelation to Mad Max movies, “The Stand”, "Y The Last Man”, George Romero’s Living Dead sagas, “28 Days Later”, "Children of Men", and those twin odes to Kevin Costner’s hubris: “Waterworld” and “The Postman”.
Still, it’s not the Millenial vibe- (Post-Millenial?)- that makes “I Am Legend” work: You’ve seen one Apocalypse, you’ve seen them all. It’s Will Smith, in his most affecting performance in a career that actually contains its fair share of great roles. (It may have taken me “Hot Fuzz” to release that I actually have a secret fondness for “Bad Boys 2”. Ok, 1/3 of “Bad Boys 2”)
“I Am Legend” is, after all, about the ability of one man to stand alone against a universe that is actively bent on destroying him. How DOES Will Smith do it? Well, he paces himself through survival in much the same way we ALL do: He builds his reality out of the daily rituals he clings to. Notice the way he follows the dictates of his alarm clock, the way he chants the mantra of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”, the way he visits the video store and watches EVERYTHING alphabetically- (he’s halfway though the G’s). The routines keep him sane. In that way, “I Am Legend” is the knowing antithesis to the Thoreau-romanticism of “Into the Wild”. Not only do you NOT have to escape into the uncaring savagery of Nature to find yourself: Nature it’s eventually going to come for YOUR ass, and eat you whole.

Warning! Sex!

Oh, Ang Lee, you're such a trickster! I rented this so-called "Lust! Caution!" movie of yours because I was in the mood for hot Asians going wild, but instead I got old ladies playing mah-jong and a complex plot about the Sino-Japanese struggle, and there was espionage, and repressed feelings, and politics and this and that, and conflicting emotions... where was the poontang?!? I had to fast forward to find, like, that one little scene!



Oh, I see, there must have been a mixup at the Blockbuster! I guess I got a wonderful restrained piece of period film-making while the Chinese Government got the Me Love You Long Time extravaganza I was hoping for.
It's the only way I can make sense of the fact that the wonderful actress Tang Wei was just blacklisted by Communist China. TV ads in which she appears have been banned because her role in the movie was "sexually explicit and politically sensitive".

See? This week it's those YouTube-banning, Tibet-opressing Chinese that are pissing me off. I'm an equal opportunity hater.
Who's next?
ESKIMOS.
Those motherfuckers have been quiet waaaaaaay too long, I just KNOW they're up to something.

THE TILT # 36 (AND FINAL)

The Thing That I Learned Today #36 is that I skipped from The Thing That I Learned Today #33 to the Thing That I Learned Today #35. What happened to THE TILT #34?
This is inadmissible, an abortion, an abomination, a disgrace, a denial of everything THE TILT stood for.
There must be atonement.
THE TILT is shame-faced, it bows, kneels, faces the eastern corner of its bloggy room, produces a long blade out of its kimono, (the blade whistles as it cuts through the moonlight), and the TILT performs harakiri.
All those wondrous learned things spill out of its guts.
Dead but dignified, THE TILT goes on to join other dead samurai.

Not to Worry.
New Feature To Be Added In the Very Very VERY NEAR future.
Future feature:

?

Black Cat the Anime Series

Oh, you know how that old trope goes, "the manga's better than the anime."
Today's TILT # 35 is courtesy of Ellery Queen's "Mystery of the Roman Hat" and is "bakadori", Japanese for foolish birds.
Baka.
That's my Japanese. Baka. Mushi Mushi.

Joan Acocella's "Twenty Eight Artists and Two Saints"

"Princess Tutu" aside, I just can't quite overcome whatever cultural hurdle one has to overcome to like ballet.
Leotards are just so faggy!
But if there's a writer that could make me take Baryshnikov seriously- and I can't take Baryshnikov seriously after "Sex and the City"- it would be Joan Acocella.

She's mainly known as a dance critic for the New Yorker, so there's a sizable chunk at the center of "28 Artists and 2 Saints" devoted to writhing bodies and the flame within the corporeal, but whether she's writing about dancers or writers or Mary Magdalene and the Gnostic Gospels, the recurring theme in these essays is artistry as a madenning force that MUST BE CONTROLLED lest it consume.

What is creativity? Why are great artists always such druggies, alkies, crazies? Why does art seem to spring from unhapiness, why does it seem to be so tangled with madness, sexual rejection, depression, disappointment?
I mulled this over, and then I realized:
Dude.
This is, like, EVERYBODY.
EVERYBODY'S LIVES SUCK.
Everyone deals with wacky diseases and bad blows of fate and unrequited love and all that jazz, it's just that them crazy Van Gogh/Britney Spears types are built to EXPRESS THESE EMOTIONS!
Writers get depressed in exactly the same way the tax lawyer down the bar gets depressed, and they drink the same whiskey, the only difference is that the writer is likely to BLAB about it in "The Paris Review"! That's ALL. There ain't NOBODY on God's green Earth that ain't end up with the blues one day, that didn't have trouble to deal with, and I GUARANTEE YOU we're all dying tragically at some point.

MYTH LAID TO REST.
ARTISTS AREN'T CRAZY WEIRDOES.
EVERYBODY IS A CRAZY WEIRDO!!!
ARTISTS JUST HAPPEN TO MAKE SOMETHING GREAT OUT OF THAT MADNESS.

I Understand the Concept of Branding...

... But can we just get together and retroactively admit that the games should be called the GODDAMNED LEGENDS OF LINK?!?



Just started playing this and it's already replete with those moments of gaming brilliance in which you FIGURE SOMETHING OUT and the heavens happily part. YES YES YES, I should indeed use the hawk to get the cradle from the monkey so the pregnant lady would give me the fishing rod so I could get the fish so that the cat would eat it and go back to the storekeeper and then she would sell me the slingshot!!! YES!!!

THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS!!!

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN Recap of Chapters 1- 20.

We've met the mysterious Baron Joseph Balsamo (Johnny Depp.) It’s 1770. Joseph has taken control of a worldwide cabal that makes the Freemasons look like your high school’s glee club. Joseph wants to steer the world in a certain direction, he has fingers in all the meat pies. He, in turn, is guided by the wizardly Althotas (Richard Harris!) Althotas is a million years old and THIS close to obtaining the elixir of life and death. Joseph is traveling towards Paris with Althotas and an Italian woman called Lorenza Feliciani (Monica Belluci!). They’re riding in a huge creepy carriage when lightning strikes them, forcing them to stop. Lorenza escapes with Joseph’s Arabian horse, Djerid. Apparently she’s in fear of her life. Balsamo meets Gilbert, (Joseph Gordon-Levitt!) Gilbert is a young peasant with a philosopher’s mind, who leads Joseph to the crumbling Chateau of Taverney. Here we meet the Baron of Taverney (in retrospect, I'm casting Gene Hackman, in his best role ever as a batty right winger). Can you see him?

The Baron of Taverney reluctantly agrees to let Joseph in from the storm and gives him an earful of his reactionary old man ideas, but Joseph is mostly studying Gilbert, who’s kept outside like a servant, and the two lovely young girls in the Taverney mansion. Andree of Taverney (Keira Knightley) is a sweet beautiful young thing obviously stiffled intellectually by her father’s company. Nicole Legay (played by Kirsten Dunst) is the waiting maid, a calculating little thing that likes Gilbert, because he's her best prospect around, while Gilbert likes Andree, who is out of his league.
Well, now that Joseph Balsamo is in the household all sort of strange things happen: he claims to be able to move his soul from body to body, to see the future, and he forces Andree into a trance that allows her to see that Lorenza Feliciani is riding towards Paris. While in this trance, Balsamo also forces Andree to see her soldierly brother, Philip de Taverney (Heath Ledger), who is escorting the one and only dauphiness, Marie Antoinette, towards Taverney. Marie Antoinette happens to be the spitting image of Nicole Legay (I wonder if this will come into play in the future). Anyway, the dauphiness stops by the Taverney chateau, where she is both creeped out by Balsamo's magic-show-fortune-telling and charmed by the Taverneys. Marie Antoinette decides to pluck the whole family out of its humble country home and take them with her to Versailles.
So here's what's you need to know to be up to date:

Marie Antoinette is heading towards her wedding; the Taverney household is with her. But trailing Marie Antoinette is a mysterious young woman (Evangeline Lilly) who wants desperately to get to the Court before Marie Antoinette. Gilbert is bumming a ride with her.
Who is this new lady?

CHAPTER TWENTY: GILBERT RECOVERS THE LOSS OF HIS CROWN

Last we heard, young Gilbert had been in a little fender bender: his philosophical ass had been hungry and hallucinating on the road when he almost got run over by a speeding carriage. If you think there are too many speeding carriages in the Marie Antoinette saga, you have to put things in context: this was the "back then" equivalent of a Michael Bay "cut to the carriage chase" blockbuster. So whenever you hear about two carriages pursuing each other and you think "pretty horses around Central Park"- NO! You're supposed to be thinking "Fast and the Furious"!

(That's Michelle Rodriguez making out with Vin Diesel above and therefore creating a vortex of non-sexiness)
Anyway, Gilbert awakes from his fainting-spell and looks up and sees a young lady of "about five-and-twenty, with large gray eyes, a nose slightly retrousse, cheeks embrowned by a southern sun, and a delicately formed little mouth, which added to the naturally cheerful and laughing expression of her face something of circumspection and finesse. Her neck and arms, which were beautifully formed, were displayed to advantage by a closely-fitting bodice of violet-colored velvet with golden buttons, while the skirt of her dress of gray silk was so enormously wide as to fill almost the entire carriage."
I was just complaining that Evangeline Lilly doesn't get enough to do. WELL, she has just been cast here!

Hotdamn!!! Look-at-THAT!!! I feel tempted to neglect my writing duties, if you know what I mean.

"There IS a Heaven," says Gilbert upon first sight.

The young lady inquires as to why Gilbert is walking around in the middle of the road like a loon, and Gilbert explains that he's traveling from Taverney to Versailles after a) the dauphiness and b) Mademoiselle Andree, and the young lady doesn't give a hoot about b) but is suspiciously interested in getting to Versailles before a)! She promises to give the postilion a small barony or something if he breaks the cariage on this race to the court.
The carriage is jostling them around and Gilbert keeps accidentally getting his face lodged on the lady's pronounced bossom: "Sorry, mademoiselle!"
"I don't mind too much," says she. She's a party girl. "What's your name?"
"Gilbert!"
"Gilbert what?"
"Gilbert nothing," he says proudly. He has one name, like Cher.
The lady is impressed by the young man's cockiness: "Very well, Mister Nothing, aren't you a little young to be wandering around like this?"
"I'm a free spirit. I'm the pre-incarnation of Jack Kerouac. Except instead of booze and drugs I'm high on philosophical musings."
"Is that why you ran into the way of my carriage?"
"That and the fact that I'm on the anorexic diet."
"Poor thing, you look famished!"
"Oh, but I have my pride and my honor to comfort me! Although my recent experiences with being abandoned and hungry and walking around and thinking depressing thoughts suggests to me that whenever our corporal presence is denied certain foodstuffs we are likely to see the world in a negative light, so I wonder if maybe we are just chemical compounds easily altered by imbalances of vitamins, and we are really toys of these situations. If you put certain chemicals in your food or beverage, you can force someone to fall in love, or become depressed, so that really 'emotions' are little more than the end result of our body being flooded by drugs and vitamins and hormones which signify to us that if we are unhappy we must strive to make a change in our dietary/ social/ psychological situations..."
Lady: "STOP STOP STOP! Half of the words you're using won't even be invented for centuries!"
Gilbert: "Sometimes I wish my brain would shut up."
Lady: "I kind of like your smarty-pants way. You would make a good physician."

TUM-TUM!!! Remember, Dear Imaginary Reader: this segment of the "Marie Antoinette" Saga is called "Memoirs of a Physician"... could it be that Gilbert is the curious young soul through whose eyes we will view the wide historical panorama unfold? Stick around: heads will roll, there will be blood, I promise. But in future chapters. All that happens here is that Gilbert gets to be petted back to health by this pretty lady, who I suspect we will get to know much much more in the near future!!!