stevengharms

I’ve added a consumed media section so that my “current media” side panels can be archived somewhere. Enjoy.

Over the last several days I read several books, bought some music, and watched my 3 Netflix DVDs. Media days! I shall now tell about some of these latest dishes. First up, music.

Back when I was having a terrible time with insomnia I would often see the Coheed & Cambria Video on MTV (yes, Virginia, they occasionally do play videos). I was struck by the awesome naming convention of their songs (“A Favor House Atlantic”) and albums (“In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3:”) and their dead-evident musicianship.

In the Venn diagram where Tool, Rush, a helium tank, Isaac Asimov, and the Deftones there is Coheed and Cambria.

I can’t say it’s necessarily easy music to listen to, but then again really good music doesn’t usually give up its secrets easily. Dostoyevsky ain’t JK Rowling and if it were it wouldn’t properly be Dostoyevksy.

I was chagrinned that the Best Buy in East Palo Alto had sold out of the new Interpol release and that iwll have to pick it up elsewhere. In lieu of that I grabbed the new CD by Vegas-area nouveau-new-wave band “The Killers”.

It’s pretty similar to the nouveau-new-wave-NYC band, Stellastarr* whose record, bought on a total whim, was such an unexpected pleasure. The hot single of the moment “Somebody Told Me” features an almost recursive looping chorus like Blur’s “Girls who dig boys..” which makes it gimmicky and hot, but could the rest of the album deliver? I’m happy to say yes! The rest of the tracks are syth-y and almost Duran Duran-ish at times. I’m very impressed and hope to see them hereabouts in the bay soon.

I get a Fiesta del Mar pitcher o’ Margaritas in my bloodstream.

Well, generally not a whole pitcher

Rumour is that Jim has a Mac. I have encouraged him to blog an entry about his new finer computing apparatus.

As a former iMac owner I remember the thrill of bringing the big box home, the smell, the hypermatte covering, viva Apple.

I get a Carl’s Junior Western Burger combination (#3!).

Yum.

No that subject isn’t an oxymoron.

I didn’t realized i had saved but not published so much. I’m going to be rolling it out now. Some of these may have been written many moons ago. I’m just changing the publishing time to make them the 1st of October. It’s not accurate, but it’s there.

Heck, I’m writing this one on the 3rd

I stand by my assertion that makes me hated by a certain person in Austin. I said, in November 2001, that I thought that, given that the goal of terrorism is to force a change in the way of life of the terrorized al-Qaeda etc. could be said to have “won”.

I was greeted by a harsh barrage of right-wing ideologue statements and an ad hominem for good measure, but I ask, how can it be otherwise? No terrorist organization has ever sought military victory (else they would be “an invading army” not “terrorists”, history gets written by the winners).

If a terrorist changes the culture of the terrorized, he has won. If he makes them live in fear, he wins, if he makes them afraid of their neighbors he wins. If he encourages them to weaken fundamental principles like habeas corpus he wins. If he makes them register previously anonymous citizens he wins. If he polarizes the electoral debate, he wins.

Has the US mentality changed since 9/11 Have the terrorists, under this definition, “won.” I must sadly assert that I think so. Here’s the case that I think cinches my argument.

Jose Padilla, whatever else he is (loathsome, a traitor, etc.) is still one very important thing - a U.S. citizen subject to the protections of the bill of rights. It’s apparent that the Constitutional guarantees of habeas corpus and a speedy trial are not being carried out for this citizen.

Thus, the attacks quickened a policy and an administrational attitude that has allowed the executive branch to act counter to our founding documents. Sigh. Causing the enemy to undermine his philosophical foundation - how can this be anything but a victory for the enemy?

Horribly underused, brilliant, and beautiful actress.

If you’re of a more Puritain viewpoint, you may want to pass over this post…No rough language, but just discussing the film, “The Girl Next Door”.

Here’s the IMDB link to start off.

What baffled me about this movie was the way the advertising and the plot conflicted and the way the movie’s threads’ messages conflicted with each other.

First about the advertising and plot mess.

So the advertising told us that a bookish middle class kid in suburbia has a surprise when the very hot girl next door moves in. The advertising put us in the dramatic irony bucket with the secret that she was formerly in adult films.

If you think for a moment about this, that would mean she must at least be 18 (assume that things are legal) and that she must have made some amazingly fast inroads instead of going to high school. This is kinda sad.

Now if you want to take this sad away, let’s make her 20, in which case the liason between her and her neighbor is a little less prone to malaise.

OK, so now I’m thinking we’re watching something like a Porky’s. A boy and his suburbanite friends are going to be fumbling voyeurs in pursuit of the hot girl. I’m expected a cross house/window undressing viewing scene (delivered), some skinny dipping hijinx (delivered), showing up the jocks at prom (delivered)

OK - I’m watching some “American Pie” teen nakedy drama. Ready for laughs!

It then turns into a “I’m going to help you really live life, not be soo bookish” thing. OK, that’s fine. So now it’s like “Risky Business”. Cool. “Risky..” opened up kinda horndog and then went kinda “Be more than you were”. But the sadness and desperation of the situation were tacitly painted and never let to run over the main drama of the movie.

In any case, our hero decides to put the moves on her after finding out her past and a lot of urging from his friends, she gets upset (justifiably), and he feels horrible.

Now hang on, the ads were titilating me because of this characters’ past, now you’re making me feel bad about it? I thought this was a comedy? Why are you making me feel bad about myself? When Elisha Cuthbert delivers a line about I like the way you look at me, you don’t objectify me, etc. Wait, huh, the ads told me i should objectify you, huh what? I’m such a scumbag!

And then comes the hammer, the information comes out that she’s going back to her old ways, because that’s all she’ll ever be to anyone. OK, now I’m really feeling bad about having been interested by the advertising for this movie.

So there you have it - the advertising makes you feel bad once you start watching the movie.

That said, it was a good movie to watch, but what the message was, or what I, as a viewer, was supposed to think, was a complete muddle. Left to my own devices I feel bad for having watched the movie — and that’s no way to encourage word of mouth.

But to the second point, that the movies’ threads conflict with one another, well so now that we’ve decided that the industry is bad and the girls are victims - our hero’s way out of the hijinx is to produce a movie? Wait huh? You have me thinking that there is nothing but exploitation, but the hero, that we’re supposed to like, is going to get out of his various jams by exploiting? Huh? Wait? What?

I didn’t get it, still don’t.

isn’t Ladytron’s Light and Magic the most perfect song to imagine Pattern Recognition by? I recently watched a docmentary on William Gibson (“No Maps For these Territories”) and was thinking about that fine book and how fortunate I was to read that on the cold morning caltrain from SF to Mountain View with those crisp synthesized tones of Ladytron.

Maybe because while I was away, fall fell on the bay.

( I had this post stored, but not posted)

First things first Harry is but the latest in the lengthy history of San Francisco vigilanteism. One of the major streets in South of Market (Brannan) is named after one of the first lynch mob leaders. So it’s the right city, right, time, right actor.

I never thought anyone looked good in a brown suit - to me it visuall smacks of sleazy used car salesman (although that genre of individual seems to prefer polo shirts and khakis these days) - but big bad Clint pulls it off.

And really, just how badass is Clint Eastwood. He can look like a mean dude in a powder blue windbreaker and sunglasses. Not many people can pull that off.

He’s bad. Bad like Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle bad.

This period of late 70s, San Francisco, total nihilist, cinema was really quite a movement. In Harry everyone dies - the hero doesn’t rescue anyone from Scorpio - the only thing that’s worth anything is retribution and vengeance. Even at the same time Gene Hackman’s character in The Conversation is moving into a state of total paranoio but a few districts away as the watchers become the watched and trust melts into oblivion.

I suppose this is the natural consequence of the Vietnam era, blood and distrust were the only vocabulary for the masses. How sad. I suppose this is why the “Morning in America” schtick of Reagan and the rise of the next generation on the silver screen (i.e. the John Hughes / Ringwald / St. Elmo’s fire juggernaut) was so successful when it came…