somthing I find hard to understand about people. The automatic rejection of any theme which professes to deal with the larger-than-life. Larger than life images, larger that life themes, larger than life worlds. Of course, if a medium does'nt outright profess to be larger thatn life, but manages to stretch the boundaries of imagination and reality in its own establishment way, noone seems to care. This is how you end up with scenarios where people dismiss fantasy and sience fiction and comics as kid's fare, but are more than happy to see Clive Cussler's "Dirk Pitt" rappell off an airplane, on to a zeppelin, kill all the neo nazis on the zeppelin with a tuning fork, then jump off and detonate the zeppelin with abovementioned tuning fork.
Well, watch out Dirk Boy, fantasy and science fiction are making a comeback. The Lord of the Rings movies and the Matrix trilogy (okay, please dont make me go into the actual quality of the latter) are making people open up their eyes to the inherent metaphor within the "absurd". I mean, after seeing the matrix, people are actually starting to ask, "what if?". Some of them are even trying philosophy. This is why, leaving aside the actual quality of the matrix trilogy, I mark it down as something of an influence.
As for comics, as you can see, most of the marvel heroes are at last getting their turn on the limelight (and also, in the case of Daredevil, getting totally raped by it), and raking in huge bucks by the look of it. And soon , it'll be the turn of Dark Horse's Hellboy to enter the fray. Now, if there's one movie I've been meaning to watch, it would be Hellboy. What a brilliant concept, the antichrist as the saviour of mankind, ragnarok betrayed, metaphor extreme.
Of course, it is possible that all this commercialisation of fantasy and science fiction will destroy its earlier purity and beauty and pulpify it for mass consumption (as one of my friends argues about everything from computer games to art, basically doesnt like sharing). I dont deny the possibility that the return to public consumption for fantasy/sf could change its shape, but who are the elite to say what shape it should take? the purpose of fantasy/sf is to provide to use the world, unadulterated and undiluted, through its own fractured lens, so we may see the beauty and the horror of that which happens around us with that much clearer an eye.
If that be the strange fruit of this union, then so be it borne.
pop philosophy? maybe. But its still food for thought.
March 24, 2004
The Return of the Things
January 02, 2004
Really cool unusual blog
When I set up this weblog, I had no idea what the hell I was doing ( a fact you will find amply evident from my first entry).
Now, about 3 months and innumerable template tweaks into this experiment, I can confidently say that I still dont know what the hell I'm doing, I'm just doing it with a bit more panache.
But Ms Belle Du Jour certianly has a pretty clear picture of what she's doing. I chanced upon this site while checking out the Guardian's 3 best written blogs. It's a brilliant, offbeat and in places quite hilarious look at the soft and slightly ticklish underbelly of the prostitution racket (kinda cool, cause the prostitution business itself is supposed to be a bit of a soft underbelly itself, isnt it, so what wer'e looking at is an underbelly's underbelly, and... ok, i digress). Not only do you get rather witty photo quality word sketches of London life, you get the inside stuff on hair removal, golden showers and the Jennicam. What I love most is this person's frank and impassive look at sexual 'perversions' de jour, from an insider's perspective. oh, by the way, dont go if you dont appreciate comic accounts of threesomes or bikini lin waxing, cause if that isnt your thing, then this definitely isnt your thing. The links lead to some of Belle du Jour's sisterbloggers, but again be warned, these are raher more raunchy than the rather plain and simple blle du jour's site.
At any rate, for a witty insider's perspective on one of the really old professions (isnt it supposed to be the oldest?), please take a look at belle du jour
December 24, 2003
My Personality Disorders
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid: | Moderate |
| Schizoid: | Low |
| Schizotypal: | Moderate |
| Antisocial: | Low |
| Borderline: | Low |
| Histrionic: | Moderate |
| Narcissistic: | Moderate |
| Avoidant: | Low |
| Dependent: | Moderate |
| Obsessive-Compulsive: | Low |
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- | |
December 18, 2003
Whe I was very young, I used to have these strange fantasies.
I used to wish that one day, all the dirt, the grime, the sludge, all the muck in the world would suddenly levitate, fly up into the air, hover over the atmosphere and then disappear, and everything would be spotless, clean and... nice.
When I grew older I saw this article in the paper. It was an interview with this Serbian (or was it Bosnian?, or Slovak? I dont remember). He was talking about how he used to kill mothers and children in a small mountain town thereabouts. At long range.
First, he would get them in their sights.
The mother would probably be running, with her child held protectively in front of her.
Then, he would take careful aim.
Shoot
And get the child in the stomach. So he wouldnt die instantly.
Then, he would watch the mother in agony while she screamed and her child's lifeblood drained away in jerks and shivers.
Then he would shoot her in the head.
I think it was that night when I went to bed and dreamed that somehow, all the bad men, the evil men, they were suddenly levitated, lifted high into the sky, and then, somehow, in the midst of all the screaming and the moaning and the wailing, they were ripped, spliced, shredded into particulate matter, and a fine rain of blood, and a fine snow of bones would fall over the earth.
And everything would be perfect. No bad men left in the world. No more evil. Nice.
Why did I share this with you? I dont know. I just had that same dream again recently, and all the "bad people" had faces I could recognise. They weren't necessarily people I knew, but I knew their faces. They were faceless when I was younger. Why can I recognise them now?
December 17, 2003
Douglas Adams, As Always
Here's a speech of Douglas Adams' about the internet. If any of your grandparents, friends, parents, whatever, think the internet is the first sign of the coming of the Antichrist, give this to them. He's fun, he's witty, he's irreverent, and, in my opinion, scarily prophetic. And the quiet measured reasoning that comes through the chaos is my favourite thing about him. Hats off, if i wore a hat. Doulglas Adams on the Internet
