"Glee" at Sectionals

The last few episodes of "Glee" had my gleekiness, or whatever the cutesy hell it's called, floundering. I doubt anyone would call me homophobic, but no one needs three episodes of stern lecturing on how it's ok to be gay: if you're watching this, you already agree.
Worse, things had been catastrophically unfunny (Carole Burnett as Sue's Nazi-hunting Mom was a nadir). The musical numbers were still fantastic as per form, but their cues were tenuous at best: "I am so angry you stole my solo! It makes me want to sing, er..." (glance at Billboard chart) "...Katy Perry's 'Firework'!"



This episode at Sectionals won me back, by doing a few things right. There's a sweet funny sub-plot about Brittany's belief in the lucky powers of a magic comb with a surpise resolution. There's the return of Emma, the character that actually gave Mr. Schuester some semblance of being a human being and not an inspire-bot. There's the canny admission that just because Kurt moves to All-Gay-High it doesn't mean he automaticall fits in, and he may have lost what made him special to boot. (His new friends give him a canary trapped in a gilded cage, with all the symbolic heft of that bear on the Sopranos.) And there was the show-stopping musical half of the show- and the music is what reminds us why these kids have earned our love. In close sucession, Mike and the Mechanic's "The Living Years"; Train's "Hey, Soul Sister"; The Mark Ronson/Amy Winehouse version of the Zuton's "Valerie"; a joyful run through Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over"; and a scorching take on "(I've Had) The Time of my Life," which should remind everyone what a dirty dancing sex bomb Diana Agron is, should it have escaped your mind briefly even after that GQ brouhaha.



Not all was perfection: Rachel and Finn's break-up felt like forced drama. The low-point without a doubt was the beyond-awkward intro to the obligatory showtune. Rachel instructs Kurt: "You should sing a song about what it feels like to die and how they'll all feel guilty after you're dead, and there is only ONE song that captures that anger..."
I lean forward: "The Police's 'I Can't Stand Losing You'?!? This should be interesting!"
Her: "... "Don't Cry for Me Argentina."

REALLY, RACHEL? REALLY?

Because I may be wildly off-base here, but I'm pretty sure that song is about the wife of an Argentinean dictator reassuring the masses that despite her new position, she's still one of the people.
But I'll look past the Mad Libs approach to introducing the musical numbers. We "Gleeks" (Gleekies? Gleekkers?) are a tolerant bunch.

My Chemical Romance's "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys"

Look alive, motorbabies and crash queens and the such!



I've gone over my feelings for "The Black Parade" (and "The Black Parade is Dead"); My Chemical Romance is every geezer's favorite quasi-emo band because it offers comfortable reference points for a fan of the classics, which is what we all end up becoming with time. Here in one histrionic package we get Queen, the Who, some Bowie, and lots of Green Day and the Smashing Pumpkins (yes, Green Day and the Pumpkins are now classic rock). There also aren't too many troublesome new sounds to offend our aging ears.
And it's poppy stuff: The lead single from their new album "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys,"- "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na etc etc)"- is only one or two na's away from being a Pink song.



Fun as it is, (and if you approach it correctly, this is a pretty fun rock album) "Danger Days" feels like a step down in ambition from the grandiose "Parade." It's too loose as a concept album, (comparable to Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown." Most of the criticism I lobbed at Green Day applies here.)
Instead of Impressionistic morbidity, MCR has turned to a flashy-colored superhero "story." The music is also brighter than anything they've done to date, nodding to J-Rock rather than vaudeville ditties (no Liza Minelli cameos this time around). That's apt to turn off a few MCR followers in the wrist-slicer crowd, but it's a calculated risk: Gerard Way is bound to pick up even more comic book fans than he's done with his "Umbrella Academy" work. Comic auteur Grant Morrison even plays the bad guy in the videos.



The "plot" is suspiciously similar to the one in the Shooter Jennings/ Stephen King collabo "Black Ribbons" (more on THAT album very soon): it's the far-off year of 2019, in a "Mad Max" post-apocalypse, and DJ Doctor Death-Defying broadcasts news about the "pigs" in a corporation called Better Living Industries, (BL-IND, get it?!?) Better Living censors and harrasses the last rock and roll rebels, the Fabulous Killjoys, a band of superheros with names like Party Poison, Jet Star, Cobra Kid, and Fun-Ghoul.
These are all things that you glean from liner notes, accompanying videos, passing in-song references. MCR would never let an idea get in the way of a power anthem with a catchy chorus, and there's quite a few of those here: "Sing," (with its obvious invitation), "Bulletproof Heart", "The Only Hope for Me is You," "The Kids from Yesterday," and the eerie, soaring "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W." All these cell-phone-in-the-air moments are diluted with two or three fast rockers, of which "Party Poison" is the best. (Another one, the album-closer "Vampire Money," is reportedly a pretty direct response to the label that wanted MCR to contribute a track to the "New Moon" soundtrack, much to their distaste. No sci-fi there.)



When it does pop up, the superhero concept gives the lyrics a schizo charm. Just when everything appears to be sliding into familiarity, MCR will ruin their Top 40 chances by throwing a reference to laserguns or atomic explosions or whatever. Typical example: the chorus from "Bulletproof Heart."
"Gravity don't mean that much to me
I'm who I've got to be
These pigs are after me- after you."
Two heard-it-before lines that could be sung by X-number of bands in the "adult contemporary" chart, then a third line that pops in to WTF-you out of the mood.



I would say this album makes no converts, but that's not true: it will likely appeal to younger fans who like their rock ballads hidden between party hard anthems and might not necessarily want to hear lamentations about the corrosive effects of cancer. How long until the Broadway musical? Set your countdowns clocks for "DOOM."

John Lee Hancock's "The Blind Side"

D. W. Griffith, who directed "The Birth of a Nation," (that magnificent, questionable ode to the Ku Klux Klan) was positively SHOCKED when it was suggested to him that his movie was racist. Griffith, one of the great antebellum nostalgists, had seen no racism in the South. Everyone loved their slaves! They took care of them! They were like children!

Like children.
That was exactly the problem, wasn't it? The very definition of patronizing.

John Lee Hancock's "The Blind Side" is an appalling, patronizing movie about how good white Christian folks rescue a magical Negro from the horrors of living among other black people, and are in turn "changed" by his simple-minded subservience and his willingness to sacrifice himself for his magnanimous masters. So changed are they that they literally make him their "child" and put his bulk to good use as a profit-earning football player.


ABOVE: Gather 'round, children! Mama's gonna be reading from "Uncle Tom's Cabin" tonight!

It's kind of hard to hate on such a sweet, well-meaning movie as "The Blind Side"- particularly one that stars Sandra Bullock at her kick-butt-take-charge folksy best- but I'm going to reach into the depths of my grinchy heart for this one, because film-makers, cast, and audiences seem to be unaware of the essential ugliness here. "The Blind Side" is based on a Michael Lewis book which was in turn based on the "inspiring" true story of the affluent Leahy family, who adopted troubled teen Michael Oher and fostered him into pro-football success.
Except I'm not sure what it's supposed to inspire people to DO. Are rich white folks suddenly going to scour the hoods for homeless black people to welcome into their homes? Doubtful. Should it inspire teens in the projects to daydream about millionaires that come to whisk them away to mansions? That's a set-up for despair.

This isn't "Birth of a Nation," of course. "The Blind Side"'s racism is not based on repulsive fantasies of white-woman-raping, watermelon-eating-tar-babies ruining America's freedoms, (although, HEY, go check out some YAHOO message boards some time and the posters there make D. W. Griffith look like W. E. B. Dubois.) Instead, the racism lies in its tacit acceptance of certain "realities." White means rich, black means poor. If you feel guilty about that, don't worry: once a decade, one rich white person does something nice for one poor black person. Also, African-American men have three choices in life: drug dealer, rapper, athlete.
I refuse to accept those "realities." I wanted the Leahys to teach Michael how to be a financial analyst, an architect, a hydraulic engineer, a banker, a lawyer, a podiatrist, the mayor of a town, I wanted them to teach him how to run a restaurant or ad agency or do pretty much ANYTHING that would destroy these racial "certainties" children in inner-cities are bombarded with.
I should know; I went to one of the crappiest public schools in one of the crappiest states for public school education- and we had a famous-enough basketball player from the Heat tell us his "inspiring" story about how he managed to avoid the inevitable life of crack-dealing by jumping to the equally inevitable life of hoop-shooting. "You don't have to be chained in the drug game, you don't have to be a criminal," he harangued us. "You can play basketball or football! You can do ANYTHING you want! Even be a rapper!"

A speech like that is a lynching of possibilities.


ABOVE: Just cruising for big black men I can take home and "mother".

The saddest thing is that I can actually pin-point the two things that make "The Blind Side" so heart-warming. The first one is that it feels practically like a plot twist to see people who claim to be Christians behave like ACTUAL Christians. The second is that we are filled with hope at the idea that somewhere out there a pretty white lady and a rich white businessman are calling a black man their son with pride, without an ounce of racism.
That we are brought to gratified tears because some people might have done a good thing is reason enough to cry some more.

Claudio Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo"

Claudio Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo" is not the first opera ever made. It's not even the first opera based on the Orpheus myth- there had been two "Euridices" a few years earlier.
It IS, however, the first GREAT opera, the first a non-scholar can sit through, the one that established what operas would look like for the next four centuries.



When it premiered in 1607, "L'Orfeo" bridged the Renaissance and the Baroque period. Like almost everything else that sprung out of the Renaissance, it came out of the enthusiastic re-discovery of Greco-Roman triumphs, specifically out of the mind-blowingly obvious realization that all those classic works by Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides had been largely MUSICAL performances: those masked Greek choruses had been SINGING.
Monteverdi debuted under the auspices of the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga, a talent magnet. Consider that, aside from Monteverdi, Gonzaga also gathered about himself Reubens, the painter; Torquato Tasso, the poet; and Galileo Galilei, the astronomer. That's a rather high concentration of genius. Miracles were likely to happen in Mantua, and "L'Orfeo" is pretty miraculous in its maturity. It doesn't stumble about like a new-born calf, even though it has every right to do so. "A Fable in Music," it's subtitled; and it's a prayer to "La Musica," which sings an appropriate if self-serving prologue about her own power.



Orfeo, a singer who could move stones with his laments, is finally happy, and marrying the love of his life, Euridice, much to the relief of his shepherd friends who have had it with his beers-and-tears ballads. But Euridice goes and gets bit by a snake on her wedding day. Devastated, Orfeo grabs his lyre and heads for Hades to bring his wife back to life. Caronte, the boatman of Styx, won't allow Orfeo to cross the river between worlds, what with him being still alive. Orfeo's lyre musically knocks Caronte out, and soon the poet is pleading his loving case before Plutone, who's not impressed, and his wife Proserpina, who luckily has a thing for young troubadours. Proserpina does some wifely lobbying and Plutone relents, allowing Euridice to exit the underground. BUT, as always with the gods, there's a catch: Orfeo can have her back, but first he has to lead her out of Hades without a single backward glance. Simple enough.
Of course Orfeo lets his doubts and his needs and is clinginess get the better of him, and he looks back, and Euridice is lost forevermore. A grieving Orfeo vows to never love again and then one of two things happen: there's either a happy ending, with Apollo picking up the poet and taking him to Heaven, or a crappy one, with a bunch of furious Maenads literally tearing him apart and throwing his body parts around the Hellenic world. (His "instrument" winds up in the isle of Lesbos, and inspires Sappho to never go near any "instruments" again and concentrate on writing poems.)



The story is familiar because we can't let go of it: the Orphic myth is perhaps the most resonant this side of Genesis, and it will always lure people who fancy themselves artistic (*cough cough* such as myself; forgive me, Dear Imaginary Reader, I was in love and therefore stupid). We have Sisyphus for futility, and Narcissus for vanity- but what DOESN'T Orpheus stand for?

It's about the power of Art to bring things to life.
It's about the artist who can move the world to tears but can't make the one person that matters come alive.
It's about losing a husband, a wife, a loved one.
It's about how getting what we want is simultaneous with losing it.
It's about how it takes a trip through Hell before one has a chance at Heaven.
It's about obeying the rules of the game, of course, in that "Lot's Wife" way.
And at its simplest and less majestic, it offers the wisest relationship advice: You have to trust your lover is there with you on the road. The moment you let suspicion or jealousy or hesitation creep in, the moment you question them, it's all over. If you have to ask where a relationship is going, the answer is that it isn't going anywhere.

Grab someone by the hand and don't ever look back. Do THAT, and you might just make it to the other side.

Here's a "greatest instrumental hits" rundown of Monteverdi's classic and an expansive pictorial history of the Orpheus myth to boot.

Chtulhu Calls

"And with strange aeons even Death will piss itself when it meeteth Chtulhu."
- H.P. Lovecraft

I am NOT a Lovecraft dork! I know you think I am, and I know the evidence is against me, but I am not. (More of a Robert E. Howard man myself.) Nonetheless, this link, courtesy of Fractionals, is great: a teacher read (or summarized, rather) some Lovecraft stories to children (where are the parents when these horrors go down?!?) and had the kids make drawings of the Chtuhlu mythos as they envisioned it.
And thus a fear beyond reckoning unfurls itself from darkest night unto a new generation of nerds.

This is what you see at the Mountains of Madness. When you're 8, anyway.

Paul Haggis' "The Next Three Days"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I officially became OLD the day I eagerly woke up at 6:00 a.m. so I could see a renowned economist discussing Third World microloans on "Charlie Rose."
And I ENJOYED it.



Charlie Rose quickly became a minor obsession of mine, like detailing Warhammer 40,000 figurines or fake-posting in the "ICarly" webforum as a predator-friendly 15-year old girl (my sn: TeenySparxxx). I wake up early for my PBS appointment: who will Charlie interview today? Will he interrupt his guests while ruminating to himself? Will he show up with an unexplained black eye like that one time he supposedly "fell" (into a fist?)



Anyway, so the other day Rose interviewed Russell Crowe, whom I really like- and Crowe admitted in roundabout fashion that sometimes he takes chances on scripts that aren't all that brilliant but have potential for him as an actor- then he went further and said that the only reason he took on Paul Haggis' "The Next Three Days" was because he dismissed the preposterous thriller it is and concentrated on it as a "love story." There, Crowe found HIS motivation. Unfortunately, WE can't concentrate on it as a love story and have to settle for the mechanical collision between "The Fugitive," "Presumed Innocent," (there's even a tiny role for Brian Dennehy!) and "Taken" (there's even a tiny role for Liam Neesom!).



Crowe plays one of those suburbanite family men who summon super-agent skills when driven to the "edge of darkness": his wife (Elizabeth Banks, in her biggest role yet) has been found guilty of a murder she may or may not have committed, and he decides to break her out of jail... by getting helpful instructions from meth dealers and YouTube. I love a good prison break, almost as much as I fear the idea of being unjustly sent to the slammer, and Crowe adds physical urgency to nearly every role he's in, but whatever "love story" he would have liked to star in has nothing to do with the superficial chase flick he's actually stuck in. Crowe (and I) would have prefered an exploration of a marriage divided by bars, or what happens to a "normal" woman when she's incarcerated, or how desperation can push a man into illicit territory.
But that would have been some boring indie shit. You know, for OLD PEOPLE who watch "Charlie Rose."

CHAPTER 121: THE WILL TO LIVE

Let us hurry back to our departing magician, Joseph Balsamo (Johnny Depp), astride Djerid the wonder stallion, abandoning a helpless woman to chase another. Sparks fly from Djerid's hooves, horse and rider are equally frantic and frothing, buildings and trees fade ghostly by the sides of this living meteor on its way out of Versailles.


ABOVE: Djerid, the coolest, most psychologically complex character in the entire Super Abridged Marie Antoinette Saga.

But more than speed is needed, and Balsamo makes the horse rear. "All the King's horses and all the King's men can't put this egg back together again! Lorenza has escaped, she's stolen my secrets, she plans to betray me to the Minister of Police, Monsieur de Sartines! What did I ever do to her, other than forcing her to marry me and imprisoning her in a secret cell and hypnotizing her constantly? Was she bothered by my need to explain things outloud all the time? Oh, if only I could shock her into magnetic sleep from a great distance!"
He gives this some thought:
"And who says I CAN'T? Let's face it, we're not being strictly scientific here!"
So he howls at the winds: "Lorenza! I order you! Sleep! Wherever you may be!"
Even if it worked, he has no way of knowing, does he?
Dejected, Balsamo allows his horse to make the rest of the way to the gates of Sevres at a more leisurely pace. There, they're intercepted by a character we've met, but all too briefly: Fritz, the capable German bodyguard played by Daniel Craig, who emerges from a nearby carriage entrance and says:
"Master, I have inquired as you wished."
"Fritz! Did you find out if Madame Dubarry is in Paris, or in her state in Luciennes?"
"She is in Paris."
Balsamo derives some joy from this: "Great! Have you come in Sultan?"
"I have him saddled right there," says Fritz and points to a random German horse who should be simultaneously proud and ashamed to be seen in the same episode as Djerid.


ABOVE: Sultan, Djerid's competition.

Balsamo then scribbles a quick note by the light of a lamp post while Fritz hops on Sultan.
"There, take this note to Madame Dubarry in person. Get there in half an hour. Then return to our place at the Rue Saint Claude, and Madame Lorenza will no doubt appear there briefly. Do not talk to her, or question her, or interrupt her, even if she seems to be a little dazed. Half an hour!"
Fritz and a spastic Sultan disappear, and something like composure returns to Balsamo's face as he too, rides on towards Paris.

---

He's right in not freaking out, and reflecting that no matter how fast Djerid is, only the magical, magnetic, attractive power of thoughts can stop Lorenza in her escape.
We have seen in Andree's vision how Lorenza (Monica Bellucci) has found all the secret buttons and jumped through all the secret hoops that have allowed her to run out of the house in the Rue Saint Claude.



That Italian maiden, who knows nothing of Paris, is most lost in the alien streets, and zig-zagging like a tourist whose map got stolen. To add to her exoticism, Lorenza is clutching Balsamo's boxful of Mason secrets, and dressed in an almost Oriental way: loose flowing robes in contrast with the cage-like constructions then favored by feminine fashion. About the only thing that has seeped through from the Vogue of the Jour is the very inconvenient usage of heels. To the dismay of male passersby, Lorenza's making a clackety noise and revealing a large part of her ANKLES.
It's not long before one of those passerby, a young gallant who's noticed her agitation, is throwing himself before her:
"My dear mademoiselle, you must be lost, and you chose a bad neighborhood to get lost in. Do you know your ANKLES are showing, in a delightful but scandalous manner? Let me be your protector for the night, your escort, your accompaniment!"
(He seems like an essentially nice guy, so don't worry for Lorenza. Dumas' strict rule: Only one horrifying rape per novel.)
Lorenza eyes him: "Si, signorino, you may. You're not an evil wizard, by any chance?"
"Baby, you keep on looking like that, I'll be whatever you want me to be."
"I need you to take me somewhere."
The young gallant can NOT believe how great this is turning out: "You name the party, we're gonna roll in there V.I.P. style!"
"I need you to take me to the police station!"
The gallant gulps: "The... what? With the cops and Monsieur de Sartines and all? That police station?"
"Si! I must speak to the lieutenant of police!"
And staring at this woman who clutches a mysterious box and whose wild eyes seem posessed by the desperate will to live, the young gallant realizes this is not going to be an easy pick-up after all.
"Ah, forgive me, my dear mademoiselle. This is the wrong neighborhood in any case, the hotel where M. de Sartines stays is in the Faubourg St. Germain. May I order a coach for you?"
"Do so! Subito!" Lorenza orders imperially, and the young gallant stops a cabby coach, pays the fare, and watches astonished as the beautiful Italian lady disappears in a hurry from his life, leaving him with a weird, pointless story to tell all his gallant buddies. His buddies won't even believe him.

The vision of Lorena Feliciani, hurrying toward the hotel of Monsieur de Sartines, is what Andree saw in her trance, and what prompted Balsamo's mad dash.
Can the wizard stop his reluctant wife before she makes it to Monsieur de Sartines and reveals the contents of Balsamo's box?
And the answer is NO, because this chapter ends with Lorenza rushing into the portal of the hotel that doubles as police headquarters.
Is Balsamo ruined?
THAT we'll soon see.

Sam Kean's "The Dissapearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the Periodic Table"

Fun from Sam Kean's factoid factory in "The Disappearing Spoon":
Tryptophan in turkeys does NOT make you sleepy.
Urban legend.
Tryptophan IS a sedative, and there IS tryptophan in turkeys, but it's about the same level you will find in beef or chicken. To compare the effects, realize that your average turkey also carries a lot of arsenic (which is used, of all things, as a food additive because it kills parasites in poultry). And you don't die.
What makes you sleepy after eating turkey is the STUFFING and other carbohydrate-heavy crap surrounding your Thanksgiving gorge-fest; carbs help bind serotonin for that relaxing effect. Alcohol, if any, gives the little push into napland. Mr. Gobbler is not the culprit at all.
So have those leftovers and operate heavy machinery in all good conscience.



And they say you never learn anything in HALLUCINA!

From the Twitter Files of Yoko Ono

Dear Imaginary Reader:
Grab a catcher's mitt, 'cause I'm gonna pitch ya some timeless wisdom straight from Yoko Ono's Twitter. (It's alright, I'm fairly certain she's never strayed this way. If she does, I love your Twitter feed, Yoko, you band-breaking kook you!)



"Yes" and "Love." Have you thought about these positive things before? They are good.

Is a star just a balloon full of love in the sky?

Do not make war. Make love. Make love to war, until it is too aroused to fight.

Why say "no" when saying "yes" burns more calories?

Maybe an angel lives in every creature around us, except of course cockroaches.

Do not let posessions dirty your life. Also, buy new John Lennon 70th Anniversay teapot set at my website.

What if Jesus was just a misunderstood visitor from another planet? I bet no one ever thought that before.

You are a butterfly of beauty dreaming that it is wasting time reading Twitter.

Be original. March to the beat of your own drum because you are unique like a snow flake or a fingerprint.

Do not feel hatred. It is not good. (Just something to think about.)

Make ten wishes today, and tell them to the wind. But be loud, because sometimes the wind is a little deaf.

Have you said "yes" to the universe today?

Say "yes" three times in front of a mirror at midnight, and then "yes" will appear behind your shoulder and stab you.

Things I'm Thankful For:

1- Those lovable Pilgrims, the original illegal aliens! Waddup, Mayflower!
2- Love and Friendship.
3- Hope and Faith.
4- Law and Order- Criminal Intent.
5- The awfully "convenient" Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
6- The dilligent lobbyists who are keeping tryptophan legal.
7- Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright colored kettles, warm woollen mittens, that Julie Andrews hard-core-gagging video.
8- Sock puppets with astygmatism.
9- The Mark Twain Autobiography I'll pretend to read just like everyone else.
10- Susan Boyle beautifully singing Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" and having no clue about the words that come out of her own mouth.

Nicholas Stoller's "Get Him to the Greek"

ABOVE: "Run, or P. Diddy is gonna sample us!!!"

"Forgetting Sara Marshall" is one of my favorite recent comedies, having earned a progressively larger spot in my heart with time, (I now like it better than "Superbad" or "Pineapple Express", for instance). But the rushed spin-off "Get Him to the Greek" takes all the subtleties out of Russell Brand's "rock-star-in-oblivion" character, Aldous Snow. What we get is something more overtly vulgar and, to my taste, not as funny. Brand perfectly embodies his own shtick, but Jonah Hill is not particularly appealing as Aaron Green, a record company grunt who must guide the drug addled Snow through a "Hangover"-type weekend to a career-saving concert at the Greek Theatre.
Where the movie really falters is in tacking on the Judd Apatow formula, (vulgarity overlaid on sentimentalism). For the first time, it just feels insincere, as the movie pelts us with not one but three emotional dilemmas, all of which really harsh our buzzes. There's Green's chemistry-free relationship with Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss (in the epitome of a "thankless role" as a selfish nurse who talks her boyfriend into an three-way with the rock star, in an awkward, laugh-killing scene.) Then there's a really unexplored subplot with Snow's son and his promiscuous pop-star partner, Jackie Q ("Damages"' lovely Rose Byrne, barely recognizable under Lady Gaga-type make-up.)


ABOVE: Rose Byrne is barely in the movie, but honestly, not much excuse is needed for this picture.

Worst of all, Aldous Snow confronts his ne'er-do-well progenitor. As Snow's father, Colm Meany is perfectly cast, but we don't need a "fuck-you-daddy" scene where some sort of forgiveness might at least have justified this subplot, and we REALLY don't need our wacky characters psycho-analyzed.
By contrast, Sean Combs is pretty hilarious in his best role since "Made"- but when P. Diddy's cameo brings a movie's best laughs, I gotta say this is not top-tier Apatow product.
It's not un-amusing, you know, and I wouldn't mind seeing Aldous Snow again- but with a script that wasn't hastily scrawled on joint paper.
A greatest hits video collection, maybe?
REMEMBER, Y'ALL: DO SOMETHING! SODOMIZE INTOLERANCE!

Love Suzanne Vega

"He sounds like he's missing something or someone he knows he can't have now.
And if he isn't... I certainly am."

Alejandro Amenabar's "Agora"

Alejandro Amenabar has kept on surprising me. If you put Almodovar aside, Amenabar is the most important living Spanish film-maker. It's not because he's some artistic genius of great sensibility or anything of the sort. No. It's because despite all his genre changes, he's kept his simple mission statement. He even had a character (an scholastic villain) state it in "Tesis," his wonderful debut thriller, and a must for suspense lovers.
This is it:
Spanish movies suck. American movies rock. He wanted to make Spanish movies that looked like American movies. He didn't want to make Spanish movies that looked like French movies or Italian movies, and he certainly didn't want to make Spanish movies that looked like Spanish movies because, Jesus Christ, who wants THAT? No. American!
But Spanish movies are too off for America!
Amenabar reached a middle ground. "Tesis" was followed by "Abre Los Ojos," a weird plot-twisty movie that catapulted Penelope Cruz to fame (and got Americanized into the mediocre "Vanilla Sky"). Then he went (nearly) full Hollywood with the underrated "The Others," which at the time had people thinking of him as the Spanish M. Night Shyamalan. Then, instead of making more odd Hollywood movies, he went back to Spain and made "Mar Adentro," ("The Sea Inside") which netted him an Oscar. Then he laid very low.









"Agora" is his new surprise- not only had I not heard of the movie when I stumbled upon it, I didn't know one it was made by one of my favorite directors. This is a suicide movie in American theaters, made from a fiercely intelligent, unusual historical perspective. No one's talking about it because, well, it's about how science is threatened by religion. it may be the first movie ever made that attempts to tell the truth about early Christianity- but not from the Cardinal Wiseman's "Fabiola" side- but from the PAGAN side.
You don't REALLY believe Christianity spread through peace, love, flowers, and purity rings, do you? When Jesus said he didn't come to bring peace, he came to bring the sword, he was just being realistic. Religions are imposed through violence.
"Agora" is the history of science threatened by religion, and Hypatia, one of the earliest feminist heroes.
You don't know Hypatia? She was the brilliant, influential female scholar, a mathematician and Pagan philosopher who even tolerated some of those irrational Christians among her students at Alexandria. Hypatia became respected and admired at a time when women were pretty much sperm depositories- she could think better than most men! Imagine! But in one of the single most embarrassing, darkest moments of early Christianity, Hypatia was dragged by a Christian mob through the streets of Alexandria, stripped naked and murdered. Christian historians of the time quickly admitted to the snafu, and were quick to prause her, but this did Hypatia's mangled body no good.
Rachel Weiz plays her, in the best role of her career so far.
GO WATCH NOW, but expect to be shocked by the protrayal of Christianity- and Amenabar's clear intentions to establish links between then and now.

Fair Enough

Fun at Miami Book Fair International. Got to meet Jaime Hernandez, a highlight of... I would like to say "the day" but "the last six months" is sadly just as accurate. The man draws women better than God. He's unassuming and soft-spoken, and the room was practically empty and I wanted to shake him and be like: "Do you know how awesome 'Love and Rockets' is?!? STOP BEING HUMBLE!!! Please start punching people in this room!!! You've earned the right!!!" Go get Todd Hignite's "The Art of Jaime Hernandez" right now, it's one of the best looking coffee-table books out there.



Most of the time was spent in the panel with HALLUCINA regulars Greg Rucka (promoting a "Queen and Country" novel) and James W. Hall (with his last Thorn novel, "Silencer," which I haven't read yet.) Ridley Pearson (a.k.a. Dave Barry's butt-monkey and fellow Rock Bottom Remainder, along with Scott Turow and Stephen King and Amy Tan and an ever-changing crew) was also there, as was Jeff Lindsay.

Ridley Pearson is kind of a hack. Someone who starts out with competent suspense novels and then gives up and goes into writing "Kingdom Keeper Mysteries" for the sweet Disney money is a sell-out, and earns my idealistic, youthful disrespect. But Greg Rucka and James W. Hall are awesome commercial writers: their job is to craft entertaining genre stories and they go and do it with clear eyes and without embarrassing themselves. They seem resigned to what their audience demands from their thrillers. It's Jeff Lindsay, though, the one I kind of feel for. Lindsay created the "Dexter" character- it was supposed to be a one time gimmick, and the success of the show means he's stuck with a character he wishes he could kill. The truth is: would you buy a Jeff Lindsay novel that WASN'T about Dexter? ("No" is the answer Lindsay knows and dreads.)

Tom McGrath's "Megamind"

It's no secret that the quality of American's computer-animated movies is routinely surpassing the quality of its live-action equivalents. By "Toy Story 3" standards, "Megamind" may flirt with mediocrity, but it is tighter, funnier, more visually commanding than, say, "Hancock" or "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" or any number of second-tier superhero comedies. As a surprising matter of fact, accidental back-to-back viewing of "Megamind" and "Spiderman 3" made me realize how much better the former movie is- its action scenes more exciting and believable, its dialogue far smarter and funnier.



This isn't to say that "Megamind" aspires to greatness- but rather that we've reached a technical level of accomplishment in the animation field that allows for even the hackiest of Dreamwork's pop-culture blend-a-thons to offer a higher level of quality than similarly hacky flicks that have to deal with the ugly human face, the vicissitudes of light, the limitations of their director's compositional abilities. Animated movies face none of these problems: they look exactly how their filmmakers want them to look, with none of the rebellious surprises of the real world.
---

My favorite moment in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" comes immediately after a tree is felled. It is an act of destruction and death, but then a playful, slightly confused squirrel jumps up on the stump. What a miracle that is, a perfect metaphor for life and its resilience, for nature's ability to surprise us with beauty even after a disaster!
Except that Bergman intended no such thing: the squirrel was an entirely unplanned accident.



Entirely unplanned accidents are impossible in the controlled world of "Megamind"- but we're also spared the disastrous editing of an abortion like "Jonah Hex." The plot is not bad, either; although the super-hero-parody field is oversaturated (and, it pains me to say it, it suggests that it's about time America grew up), the ideas behind "Megamind" are neat: what happens when a supervillain actually WINS? What pleasure can there be in not having a superhero to thwart your dastardly plans? And what about love? Can love turn a supervillain into a superhero?
Will Ferrell chooses a very non-Ron-Burgundy voice for the character of Megamind, a blue-skinned macrocephalic alien perpetually at odds with Metroman (Brad Pitt). Megamind has plenty of plans for causing havoc in Metro City (he pronounces it as if it rhymed with "atrocity"), usually involving the kidnapping of Lois-Lane-ish reporter Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey), but when one of the plans actually seems to work and Metroman is put out of commission, Megamind realizes that there's no point in gaining the world if you lose yourself. With the help of his minion, (a fish called Minion whose aquarium rests on a robotic body and voiced by David Cross), Megamind works at creating a NEW superhero to "nemesize": His target is a cameraman voice by Jonah Hill, whom he transforms into "Tighten," but this dude is smitten with Roxanne and uses his newfound superpowers in oafish wooing that involves dropping the reporter from great heights and rescuing her at the last terrifying moment.
Meanwhile, Megamind accepts the fact that he himself is falling for Roxanne.
There's something faintly cruel in the idea that a good woman can fix a bad man- it sounds exhausting for that good woman who would be better off looking for a good man in the first place. How many good men are expected to change bad women? I don't know that a good woman can fix a bad man, but I'm more than willing to admit she can do wonders for a mediocre one.
At least in the perfect-pixel world of "Megamind."

Clock's A-Tickin'- I'm Getting a Kid.

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I'm having a child.



It wasn't an easy decision, it took a lot of praying and pondering. I kept on returning to that Biblical commandment to go forth and multiply, I kept listening to the demanding ticks of my biological clock, I kept dreaming of the happy pitter-patter of feet running toward a Christmas tree, and I had to recognize there was an aching emptiness inside me. Overpopulation be damned, I too want a succesor.
But first I would have to get a girlfriend, and then she would make me watch "America's Next Top Model" and movies with Katherine Heigl. Ugh. Then I would have to get through the hassle of marrying her and building a "traditional" family, and she'll want to discuss her swollen ankles and cravings for anchovies on ice cream, like somehow I should care. No no no. I want to cut through that red tape, slide by the freakshow of pregnancy, and get to the whole procreating point: the kid itself.
So I wanna go right to being a single dad. Hey, many wonderful women do it, the gays are doing it, celebrities are doing it, why not me? I know I have the potential and affection, and I want a baby.
I've though about it. I specifically want a baby girl, I will call her Rachel, after the character in "Friends." (I'm telling you, this isn't some spur-of-the-moment thing, it's been brewing for a while. Phoebe and Monica are possible names too.)
Of course, a baby has its own set of complications, and I'm not really too captivated by the idea of dealing with a fleshy blob of tears who just shits and vomits 24/7. So I figure, if I'm skipping the wife and the pregnancy, why not skip the baby stage too?
So I'm going to adopt a little girl, preferably one called Rachel, but I know a lot of the girls that go up for adoption are Asian, so I'm totally flexible on the Rachel thing. And when one thinks about it, let's be honest: little girls can be more than a little annoying. There's the terrible twos and the troublesome threes and the frantic fours, and really that whole childhood part is a nightmare, and they can get hurt easily, and toys are so expensive these days.
If I'm cutting corners, why not just adopt a girl that goes to school? After all, it's what I'm good at: there's this nurturing teaching aspect to me that is basically what parenthood is about. I wanna help little Rachel with homework, guide her through the difficult years of adolescence.
But then right away I noticed the problem there: teenage girls are- let's face it- crazy bitches. I don't know if it's the hormones or something, but all they do is scream and be rebellious and hang out at the mall doing things I don't even want to imagine with high school boys. What's the point of being a dad to someone who thinks you're the most embarrassing thing on Earth and always has you drop her off three blocks away from the place where she's actually meeting her friends? It seems like I would be jumping straight into a problematic period.
If I'm going to have a daughter, the smart, natural thing to do is go ahead and get an older, more mature one, someone who's worked out her teenage issues and is prepared to show some actual gratefulness and affection to her father.
So I'm just gonna do this. If you know of any woman, age 18-45, who is looking for an instant father figure, give her my e-mail. She doesn't have to be called Rachel. Any ethnicity is fine.
At the end of the day, my heart just longs to hear those magical words: "I love you, Daddy." Preferably from the mouth of an attractive chick.
There might be some spanking involved. That's just how the miracle of life works.

Jimmy Hayward's "Jonah Hex"

Clearly better than "Toy Story 3" or "All About Eve"- although not as indelible as "27 Dresses"- "Jonah Hex" contains more in its scant 70 minutes than the entire Civil War did in however many years THAT took. Whereas "Toy Story" cowardly shied away from criticizing Wall Street greed and contains hardly any references to Israel's ongoing policies of Palestinian genocide, "Jonah Hex" boldly contains instructions for constructing low-range explosives- which we all know to be the first line of political integrity. "Hex" also analyzes questions of sin and innocence, war and peace, sexuality and gender, redemption and perdition, morality and anarchy, guilt and revenge, some thing and some other thing.
But even if it didn't deconstruct genre practices with the esprit of a Peckinpah movie, even if its soundtrack didn't have the rambunctious wit of Cee-Lo's "Fuck You" or the range of Mahler's 5th, the movie would still have Megan Fox, who cunningly seems to stand in a world of masculine strife with the brilliant self-assertion of a Valerie Solanas who will not be reduced to the routinary objectification of Hollywood, and will not be made impure by the lecherous male gaze. But let's admit it: Megan is a MEGA Fox. Get it?
Time will tell whether "Jonah Hex" will only win this year's Best Picture Academy Award, or if we will simply concede that it should automatically win EVERY year from here on out. Beautiful and brilliant. It is a "hex" of a good movie! Death, be not proud: "Hex" is immune to thy sting.



And this, my friends, is why Armond White and the trolling school of criticism need to fuck off already.

Lee Unkrich's "Toy Story 3"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I cried pretty much non-stop for the last 20 minutes of "Toy Story 3." I don't know why. Nothing ostentatiously sad happens: no one gets Lou Gehrig's disease or freezes to death in the North Atlantic while an unhelpful lover looks on; no Icelandic pixie gets sentenced to death by brutal, pitiless Americans. Mufasa doesn't get run over.
It is, in technical ways, a happy ending.
And yet...



I guess I can't help but think of all we lose, all the wonder we shed with the years. All the friends we leave behind. The ones we betray. I don't understand how we can lose so much.

What made us fall out, Andy Pandy? You proud dream guardian, you King of Pandalanda? At what time did your undying friendship become a source of shame?



And I'm sorry, Michelangelo with Accompanying Nunchucks. One day we were having pizza together, flirting with April, cowabungaing our way through sewers, young mutated heroes, us against the world (and Shredder).
Now you're just an ugly-ass piece of plastic to me. I can't explain how things have come to this. Something died between us, I guess.



GO WATCH "Toy Story 3" NOW! Wait for a cameo from Hayao Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro."

Carl Hiaasen's "Star Island"

Star Island is very much a real place in Miami, ten minutes and 100 million dollars away from my house: a little forbidding oval of wealth that has housed the likes of Shaq, Rosie O'Donnell, A-Rod, P. Diddy, Madonna and- as if you had to wonder- Gloria Estefan. This compression of celebrity-dom is the perfect metaphor for Carl Hiaasen's latest, "Star Island," a rundown of celebrity obsessions that feels a little dated on arrival but has plenty of shallow laughs.
Cherry Pye, nee Cheryl Bunterman, is an addled, slutty roll-up of Lindsay and Britney and Jessica and Miley etc etc. Claude Bang Abbott is the soap-adverse paparazzo who finds himself in the unlikely position of being pleasured by Cherry. Chemo is the gigantic bodyguard in charge of keeping Cherry on track- even if he has to use the weed-whacker implanted in his arm. Ann DeLusia is Cherry's undercover body double- the girl who walks out the front door of the hotel while an OD'ing Cherry is whisked out by paramedics in the back. Axl Rose's head- with the body of a zebra- is the inconvenient tattoo on Cherry's neck.
This barely begins to cover the cast of weirdoes, but- typical of our South Florida satirists like Dave Barry or Tim Dorsey- that's all the book is: a bunch of crazy one-note characters checking off easy targets. The plot? It's floundering on a swamp somewhere, being nibbled on by alligators.

David Fincher's "The Social Network"

"Zeitgeist" is the German word for "poltergeist"- and David Fincher's "The Social Network" captures today's ghostly disturbances like few recent movies("Wall Street 2"'s attempts notwithstanding.)



From the fantastic opening scene- a wretched date between Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg from "Zombieland") and his then girlfriend Erica Albright, (Rooney Mara, the future Lisbeth Salander)- "The Social Network" is propelled by the unrelenting, sometimes exhausting rhythms that are screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's trademark. ("Dating you is like dating a Stair Master"- says Erica to Mark accusingly, and one suspects Sorkin may have borrowed the line from his own experiences.)
Eisenberg plays Mark as the kind of obliviously anti-social asshole who broadcasts a break-up over Livejournal, (been there, shamefully done that, although in much kinder terms). Later, ackowledging his excesses, he says: "I was kidding, for God's sake, doesn't anyone have a sense of humor?" The Academy may not notice, (even though he doesn't go "full retard") but this is Eisenberg as "Rainman," as vivid a portrayal of sui-generis genius as Tom Hulce's in "Amadeus." Zuckerberg's hacking and coding are Art, make no mistake- this is some real "agony and ecstasy" stuff.

Eisenberg is backed by a preppy cast: there's Justin Timberlake as Napster's Sean Parker, Rashida Jones, (from "Parks and Recreation") as an awed paralegal, and next-Spiderman Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, the "business end" of Facebook. Saverin went to Miami's Gulliver Prep along with some slightly less wealthy acquaintances of mine and was, by all accounts, kind of an entitled dick, like many a good genius: upon his break with once-best-friend Zuckerberg, Saverin was the principal source for "The Accidental Millionaires," the book by Ben Mezrich in which "The Social Network" is based. (There's been a subsequent billionaire settlement between the buds).



David Fincher's fluid direction keeps Sorkin's dialogue from losing us with its potentially alienating blend of legalese and techno-talk. This is a compelling document that will be hard to ignore come Oscar time.



Genius comes often (I hesitate to say always but it's what I suspect) from the socially invalid: correct observations are mostly made from a distance and a height. What you lose in anthropological immersion you gain in objectiveness. An anthropologist must ward from enthusiasm, and Zuckerberg is an anthropologist without any joy, his winning observations motivated by the obtuse driving of his ego. He guessed at the satisfaction of changing your "single" status on Facebook without actually having to inform anyone in particular: If Facebook is a threat to personal interaction, the visionary who created it couldn't care less, because personal interactions were never his forte.
But this is what "The Social Network" ultimately understands: there is no emptier victory than the one you can't share with other human beings.

Deb Hagan's "College"- "Glory Daze" Pilot

ABOVE: We are not the cast of "Superbad", we just play it on TV.

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I didn't go to college.
Oh, I went to some sort of "learning institution" that called itself a university, and have a supposed education that allows me to sort of make out what Shakespeare is going on about, and I went to some parties that were blessed by kegs, and (after much begging) got somewhat laid here and there, but college? Like on the movies? With the girls gone wild and the dorm room orgies and the hijinking fraternities and the stern deans and the Mexican midgets passing out LSD? No siree. I was on the newspaper staff, thank you very much.
Both the "Superbad" knock-off "College" and TBS' attempt at dramedy "Glory Daze" run through eerily similar cliches, (the ones delineated above.) What's forgivable in a shitty late night movie like "College," (whose proudest achievement is that it doesn't have "American Pie" or "National Lampoon" prefixing the title) is far more painful in a show like "Glory Daze" that threatens to be with us for at least a season, as a prelude to "Conan."


ABOVE: We are not the cast of "Superbad." We are not even the cast of "College."

"Glory Daze" takes place in 1986, although it no more recalls 1986 than 1996, except for some Reagan/ Young Republican jokes and the mind-numbingly predictable "I Love the '80s" soundtrack. Talking Heads? Duran Duran? Spandau Ballet? They're all dutifully checked. Drug scene? You can bet it will be set to "White Rabbit." It's all a pity, because I am enthusiastically rooting for that vicarious frosh experience I was denied.

Never mind "Animal House"; "Undeclared"! Greatest college show ever! How I mourn you! You were the Keats of television greatness, dead much too young.


ABOVE: We are not the cast of "Superbad"- we are waaay better.

Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" Volume 1: Swann's Way

Dear Imaginary Reader:
Let's talk about long hard books.
When I was unfortunately too young, I read the first half of "War and Peace" (and I remember very little of it except some funny bits involving a dancing bear). The task doesn't count, and must be redone. Soon after I read "Moby Dick" and thought it was pretty rip-roaring except for the downer (literally) ending. I was unconcerned by deconstructing Puritanical ideas of sin, and unbothered by Melville's deliberate obtuseness because, as a young reader, I had not yet decided what pompous sounded like. A full 80% of that novel must have swum right by me. Then I read "The Bible" (a somewhat censored book in my country at that time)



Digressive Summary: Genesis is cool and freaky and so insular it's funny, the first half of Exodus is exciting, the second not so much; Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are pretty worthless; the historical books are inaccurate propaganda mixed with outright lies, interrupted by awesome sex and violence; the Psalms are ok in small doses; Proverbs and Ecclesiastes have a lot of Jewish wisdom; the Song of Songs is SEXXXY; Job may well be the only book in the Bible that I would recommend to anyone as a piece of philosophical fiction to enjoy and think about; of the major prophets, Isaiah is the only tolerable writer, the minor prophets are boring ranters interesting only to crazies; in the New Testament, the Gospels are really cool and readable. The Acts are like an action adventure book. Paul's marketing instructions to his seven church franchises are intructive on how to start a religion but vary between poetic and boring; the general epistles are lame and unimportant; Revelations is the coolest of them all! What a way to end, it's like Milton and William S. Burroughs and Pink Floyd all rolled into one!
Other big ones.
"The Fountainhead." That one was just sort of painful to go through. Ayn Rand was such a mean bitch and pretty Subjective if you ask me. I loved "Les Miserables" beyond words- even the boring bits- as anyone who's talked to me for more than an hour can figure out. "Infinite Jest" may join this list in the future, but I'm not sure. Is there reward enough for the effort?



Worried- as usual- by death, I decided to tackle another heavy.
So yeah, I just finished the first volume of "Remembrance of Things Past"- Swann's Way. I am not sure what the fates have in store for this enterprise, but all I can say so far is that I haven't been in such awe of a book since "The Executioner's Song." When one puts aside some of the endless sentences scarred by comas and lousy with parentheticals, (and of course Proust is not alone in this style) you find a fairly lucid, straight ahead prose, and encyclopedic observational talents.

Yes, I prefer "Remembrance of Things Past" (with its Shakespearian allusion) to the literalized "In Search of Lost Time". Of course Proust meant no Anglican nod, but the "Search" sounds to me too short, not quite capturing the investigation and recapturing "recherche" suggests- and "lost time" just sounds like it was wasted. Not that I have any better suggesstions: "To the Rescue of Times Gone By?" "Gone With the Wind"? "Remembrance of Things Past" sounds fine to me.

CHAPTER 120: CATALEPSY

Entranced, abandoned, frozen except for the sudden spasms that shake her naked limbs, Andree stands in the park. Joseph Balsamo has fled, forgetting to wake her from her statue state.
But to Gilbert, who hides nearby and understands nothing about "magnetic sleep," Andree isn't hypnotized: she must have been left in the dreamy pose of love, love that will never be for him. Unable to hear the conversation, he's certain Balsamo and Andree have had a romantic quarrel.
And he assumes the pain from the quarrel is what now makes Andree stumble about, as if in a seizure, then seemingly faint, then fall.
Or begin to fall, rather, because Gilbert runs to her, receives her defenseless body in his arms, then picks her up with effortless zeal and, like a groom before a threshold, carries the object of his obsession back into her house, past all the doors that have been left unsecured, up to her room, while thunder and lightning, always there in ominous moments, punctuate Gilbert's movements.
Once in Andree's room, Gilbert lowers the inaminate, beloved body onto the sofa in which she recently prayed.
Fever overtakes his body, as Andree barely breathes below him. He's never been this close to her, she's never been more accepting of him. His first thought is to revive her, wetting her unconscious face with some water from the glass which waits conveniently on the night table.
As he begins to do so, he hears a sound like a step outside the chamber - a step firm and yet furtive, which cannot belong to the fleeing Nicole or the departed Balsamo.
It has to be a stranger.
And in his agitation at being surprised like this, alone with Andree, Gilbert HIDES once again, in a little closet with a stained glass door through which he can watch, (and listen) unseen.
There, he summons his courage and his breath.
The storm, Gilbert-like, watches from the outside, pressing itself against the window of Andree's room.
A man has entered, confidently whispering: "Nicole? Anyone here?"
And lightning, once again substituting for the uninvented lightbulb, illuminates the room, making Gilbert's heart stop in his chest.
He has recognized the man that hovers above Andree's motionless form.
That man is the King.
Gilbert understands everything then: the money that has passed from Richelieu to Nicole and Beausire, the shameless plot that has led to His Majesty entering the young woman's private life.
And more: he understands what the King is about to do to Andree's body.
He wants to scream, to open the door and punch the man into a royal pulp.
But that man is Louis XV, and that would be regicide, a sacrilege, that would be like pounding at God.
Louis XV, who examines Andree: the way one of her legs rests on a cushion, the other hanging over the edge of the sofa; the way the white muslim of her nightdress fades into her skin. A delighted smile lights up the King's face as he rests the palm of his hand on Andree's exposed thigh.
Shockingly, an expression equally interested, equally perverse appears on Gilbert's face at the sight, and his eyes follow that hand as it moves up.
The King kneels and presses his lips against the spot which his hand has just touched. Sweat covers Gilbert's brow.
The King, having felt the chill of Andree's skin, begins to rub her, his arms surround her as he caresses the lifeless puppet, all the while mumbling reassuring words in her ear.
Can Andree hear?
Is she horrified?
The King does not seem to wonder.
When the King's lips get too close to Andree's, Gilbert slides a hand into his pocket- one hesitates to wonder why- and finding there the knife he uses to pare the hedges in his position as a gardener, he extracts the knife, first with surprise at the discovery, then with a sense of purpose.
The hilt on his hand seems to burn and Gilbert, who's remembered words like "honor," prepares to spring out of the closet.
He doesn't have to: the King suddenly stands up.
"Enough of this mime act, Andree! Why are you so cold? You have to move a little, otherwise it's no fun!"
It's almost as if the King is growing alarmed. He begins to rub her arms, legs, this time not as a lecher, but as a doctor. The King mutters to himself: "What is wrong with her?"
And when he rips open her dress, exposing her breasts, it's nothing but a desperate search for a heartbeat. The King listens against her bossom, but there's no heaving there: it is a glacial tomb.
Seeing the King's move, Andree's nakedness, Gilbert raises the knife and prepares for an attack.
But that's when Louis XV jumps back as far as the room will allow and says:
"She's DEAD!"
He paces the room in a panic, overwhelmed by the idea that he's just felt up a corpse: "This is so wrong! Oh, man. Oh, MAN! I'm freaking out! This can NOT be happening again. I gotta get out of here!"
And that leader of nations ducks out of the room he's schemed so hard to get into.



Gilbert opens his stained-glass door and walks up to the frozen woman. He examines the purple lips, half open. He puts one finger against her beautiful neck. After a second, he exhales.
It's a profound sleep, but Andree is alive.
He stares down at her, this woman he's loved for years, who's rained nothing but contempt upon him. She's half-naked now; if her body is cold, how is that any different from her eternal coldness toward him?
He thinks. He feels. What he feels is not for us to know. Perhaps that is for the best.
After some moments of contemplation, of hesitating between the door, the knife in his hands, and the fever in his body, Gilbert makes a decision. He whispers:
"Andree... This is what my love has come to, what you've driven it to. I will no longer watch while others have you. Tonight, you'll be mine."
And, slowly, he walks towards the couch where she lies, asleep, helpless.
Let the door close on what happens next.

Top Ten List of Things I'm Doing Wrong

Over at "Culture Sandwich," Caroline has a very helpful list that gives away too many secrets about what makes her blog so cool and popular, and also explains why mine sucks.

"Gurren Lagann" and "Soul Eater"

All the good ideas have been done, goes the anime-mourner's cant. When we've covered everything from Wagner's "Ring" to Balzac adaptations to Anne freakin' Frank, sporadically retreating to the genre's staples (fighting sagas/ mecha sagas/ harem comedies) produces welcome results. "Gurren Laggan" and "Soul Eater" are credited with revitalizing the mecha and action genres, respectively. "Gurren Lagann" does it by mixing the sensibilities of two of Studio Gainax's most distinctive hits, "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and the manic "FLCL." "Soul Eater" does it with kooky Tim-Burtonesque designs and a sense of humor far nimbler than that of a behemoth like "Bleach."