coraline

Oh, what a lovely story! I much rather enjoyed that over American Gods, over all, in general, in a very wide sense of comparison. I must say, Coraline is a very brave girl indeed, much braver than I ever was - afraid of the dark, hiding under extremely hot blankets and sweating profusely and eventually giving up the fear in place of comfort. Then, I would finally throw off the blanket with my eyes still shut in hopes that there were no mangled ghosts standing at the foot of my bed.

7:04 PM | |

in the fog of things

Las Vegas has been enveloped in a thick, opaque fog since yesterday evening. No mountains are visible from the valley and the day is, indubitably, a grey one. It feels as if we are in a middle of a drizzly rain cloud; not so much a storm cloud, but a cloud that is fluffly and sort of wet around the edges, much like a wet sponge that has been squeezed off of excess water but is very much damp nonetheless. The visual is an oxymoron to the climate as one would expect 30 or even 20 degree weather in such a damp, grey day in in the middle of winter. But instead it remains at a warm 50° and has remained so for the last two days. I visualize Iceland in my mind and lolling about in the Blue Lagoon, while all around me the steam rises up to meet the cold air given off by the snow that lays idly on the ground, cooling the warm, volcanic earth. Perhaps there are Moomintrolls wondering about at the foot of the snowy mountains.

3:39 PM | |

bionicle

So. Another interesting thing where my money will be going. I've been interested in Bionicle for quite some time - I just never actually spent the time to look into it as there's much reading and catching up to do. I finally invested in my first Bionicle Pohatu, yesterday. The chronicles are pretty interesting and there's an entire world of creatures and things to put together, with various masks and powers and such. The Episodes are also fun to watch - some great animation. Although I'm still piecing the story together - I always encounter great difficulty when there's a LEXICON involved - means I'll have to look up a lot of things which I won't be able to understand the first go round. It's a great site and I'm having a time exploring and watching the little movies - looking forward to the feature animation which is scheduled for March. Can't wait to put Pohatu together - he even has his very own kicking stone! Tahu will be next.

3:15 PM | |

shadow lives

So, no one really dies, they just get forgotten, incarnated, float in the ether and are perhaps just ideas, visions, dreams in people's minds. Did I hate the book? No. Did I love it? Neither. Entertaining; love the idea of "American gods" per se, a great, lush background rooted in the history of American immigrants, interesting things about grifters and selling a cheap violin. But I felt myself looking for more, waiting for things to twist and untwist, for magic behind each door. What is that big let down of an ending? By then, I really wanted to read about Czernobog bashing Shadow's head in, marvel at each gory detailed description of blood and brains in a seedy, dusty, dirty appartment building in the middle of Chicago. Instead we have Shadow floating around the globe trying to escape bad places for gods. Phhhhttt. Yes, Gaiman is good at his craft, yes Gaiman has a truly vivid imagination, yes yes yes, he deserves all his awards and such. But. I think his journal is far more interesting at times. Onto Coraline.

10:20 AM | |

will it ever end?

Finally got round to reading American Gods. I'm down to the last few pages, and I hate to say it, but I began to get bored around chapter 17 or 18 and I'm hoping for an interesting twist or something to wake me up out of the slump of Shadow's death on the tree. It is an interesting read, and while I enjoyed it until the last few chapters and vividly visualize a lot of repeated characters from Gaiman's past, I suspect the book is meandering and taking too long a turn to the end. I don't know, perhaps a lot of the intrusions ("Coming to America...") are supposed to link back to the main story etc. etc., but I can't help but forget where I am exactly when I get back to Shadow's story. Perhaps I just have attention defecit, or the inability to follow the story through to its metaphors, allusions, blah, blah. Takes too much effort and I'm being a lazy reader. More on this when the book finally ends.

8:21 AM | |

children in films

There is something about young children in movies that tugs heavily at my heart strings and runs a gamut of emotions through my head by the end of the film. First, I am amazed at the power of a child to bring emotions to a screen. How do they possibly convey the sadness or joy of a contrived moment? Imagine adults in Hollywood all doing the same and failing miserable, then pan back to Andrej Chalimon in Kolya and it puts all the wannabes in Lala land to shame! The boy was born in 1990 making him around five or six when the film was shot, then imagine yourself as a five year old child trying to memorize lines or shoot the bathroom scene in which you pretend the phone shower IS a phone and you talk to your dead grandmother whom you miss so much it tears your heart apart. The film won an Academy for best foreign language film of 1997, and to my mind it deserved the award for the bathroom scene alone.

Second, I am baffled at how a child simply remembers what to say at the right moment. Victoire Thivisol talks as Ponette through the movie, delivers her lines flawlessly along with the perfect gestures and actions. Third, I am drawn near to tears when she suffers miserably at the death of her mother in the film, and at times you begin to wonder what it does to the real child behind the character. What does she really think of death and loss? What is her understanding of losing someone so vital in life, of grief? If we adults can barely make sense of the life we live, what then of the children we try to raise? The other children in the film were equally brilliant in their portrayals, seemingly unaware of the camera and going about life as usual. Victoire won the Venice Film Festival best Actress award for this film, and doubtless, fully deserved it.

It's hard for me to imagine my own child in such a discipline, when all he wants to do is what he wants to do. He would not be one for film, but perhaps other things he may excell (one can hope) in. Simply put, there are many children of extraordinary talent out loose in the world, it's a matter of finding them and putting them on the right projects (such as these two films). I firmly believe that at times, children outshine any adult endeavor on so many levels that it's mind-blowing.

10:15 AM | |

blood, everywhere

Went into Icebox Canyon this weekend, over in Red Rock territory. Haven't been out hiking in so long, so this was just glorious - slightly overcast day, chill breeze, sun beginning to yellow in the east - finally moving the body that hasn't been doing much but sitting, sitting, sitting. Icebox Canyon is one of those rewarding walks that has something at the end. It's not too long of a hike but a lot of loose rocks, a bit of overgrowth and truly minimal scrambling. It starts out with a clear trail where some maintenance has been done, so there are carved steps shaped with stones into the dirt, after the clarity, the paths then meander all over the place, but all eventually lead up to the same place. Some parts of the path (simply because trees and shrub block the path) force you out into the small gorge where, I suppose water would pass if we ever did get that kind of rain fall or snow fall in Las Vegas. Our dog Marley loves these walks and can't help but lead, as if he knew the way, but really, it's just the millions of scents he picks up that pushes him on, forward and into the wild as the smells intensify and pull him as if with an invisible leash. Was trying out new Scarpas and tested them out climbing mini rock faces and they were pretty rubbery and smeared nicely against the walls although my fear of heights was overpowering the shoes' performance. It's quite a thing when your body decides to freeze in motion as you think what your next move will be when you've got a bunch of jutting rocks to fall on if you happen to loose your hand grip, or if your shoes fail to stick to the rock wall. In that kind of moment you either scream for your husband to come pull you up, or you try to kill the moment with speed and try to climb the rock as fast as humanly possible. Of course, the fall wouldn't have killed me or even broken any bones. It would have simply hurt and mangle my skin just a bit, but fear is fear.

Had just watched Ravenous the night before and was thinking of eating human beings, blood and gore, when i suddenly noticed red blotches on the stones I was walking over. It was drying blood, and I figured it was recent as it still had the brightness of newly spilled blood. Walking on ahead, the bloody spots became more frequent until it became the trail I was following (husband is oblivious until I loudly point out "there's blood everywhere!!!" to which he answers, "they must have hurt themselves, and despite it, labored on"). The stains were not of dripping blood, more like smears and splashes from a bleeding body part not being held too far above the rocks. In some parts, the blood stains were larger than others. Then there was a rock that acted as a step going up onto a big boulder where a lot of blood seemed to have splashed and smeared around, as if something bloody had fallen on that rock. Images of carnage and of Robert Carlyle carrying around body parts while munching on them as he walked through Icebox Canyon filled my head. I had seen some cave-like parts of the rock wall along the way, also happened upon very warm areas of the gorge that seemed to emanate unnatural heat (it was an overcast chill day after all). Then I thought, who would know we were even in this canyon. Who would know if we got killed and eaten up in this canyon. Your scream wouldn't even rise up and out of the canyon. No one would find your body or what would remain of it after Carlyle had gorged on it for lunch. It was very quiet and more blood and gore quickly blocked out my view when we suddenly stopped.

At the end of the path, literally a dead end, was a cove of rock - a conical part of a room where the narrow opening up at the top is where the water would gush down (if we ever did get that kind of rain fall or snow fall in Las Vegas) into the small pool below, then trickle down into the smaller pool about 6 feet below. At the moment, there was a steady drip of water coming from the top, which ran into a thin trickle into the first pool, then gradually trickled down to the second pool below. Marley found it impossible to climb the slick rock faces and slowly, helplessly as a dog only can, descended into the smaller pool with a splash and couldn't for the life of him get out of it - the edges were inclined steeply and were covered with slippery moss. The poor dog looked like he was digging into the edge of the pool and going nowhere. He wanted to join us, as we were already up at the second pool. There was an easier way out, meaning he would have to get out at the opposite end of the pool and go around, but dogs don't seem to think of things as easy or hard. Dino had to rescue him and the poor dog had four bleeding paws by the time he made it the higher pool. Some of his nails had broken off and as he stood wet and shivering on the edge of the higher pool, his paws trickled their own stream of thinned blood and water. But like most dogs, he was resillient and managed to play a game of fetch the water bottle in the pool. We snacked then I noticed Marley violently shivering from the ice cold water and decided we should head homeward. Marley led off, leaving his own trail of blood which I followed and managed to stain the seat of my pants and shoes with, and soon I forgot about ravenous human flesh appetites. We cleaned him up, got him home and the next day, he was ready for another adventure, bloody paws or not.

8:08 AM | |