Recording session scheduled for tomorrow. MIDI will play drums, Mark will provide the other instrumentation, and Mom will do the yapping with perhaps Michelle harmonizing; the men in this house have very limited ability to stay on pitch.
Reading Jonathan Strange and M. Norrel. Easy read so far, but haven't decided if the potential entertainment value is worth the risk of reading 800+ pages only to have read The Magus over again.
Going to visit more relatives tomorrow, then taking care of Dad for the rest of the day - he plans on getting pretty sick.
Showing posts with label The Magus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Magus. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Not so great and pretty blah
Finished The Magus today. It was fairly disappointing, even more so because everyone else who's read it worships it like a golden cow. It's very much closer to an ordinary cow, one that tips over like the Titanic once you've eaten half of it. The book builds up a nice momentum of mystery and suspense, and then suddenly halfway through, swerves into ridiculousness. If Spiderman and Count Chocula suddenly showed up, it wouldn't make the book worse. Kidnappings on even pages, "is this real? Wait, what is real?" on odd pages, and an occasional full-out Halloween dress-up parade thrown in for good measure. The book eventually cops out with a sort of "oh, everyone except two characters don't actually have souls - that's why they can assume every personality, as well as none." The ending is of course inconclusive and unsatisfying, unless you stay until after the credits, and hear Samuel Jackson's parting Latin peroration. The line literally translates to: "Male Romantic Lead and Female Romantic Lead #6 eventually get back together," but really says: "you've just wasted some time you could have spent rereading Catch-22. Sucker!"
Saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army to clear my head. After 600 pages of golden cow, it was like going to the bathroom after a hot-dog eating competition (pure relief, not pure shit if that's what you were thinking). The plot is devastatingly simple: There's some dude who hasn't gotten a tan in thousands of years, and that REALLY pisses him off. To get revenge, he's summoned a bajillion gold-plated T1000's from the future. All he now needs is the golden party hat which allows the wearer to make the T1000's do his bidding - dance, play fetch, kill everyone on the planet - the usual. Hellboy finds this poor bastard, rips his face off, rips his head off, rips out his arms and legs, and enslaves his family. Now that's good old American fun.
Oh, forgot to tell you, this is a split-screen movie. While all this is happening on one side of the screen, Selma Blair showcases booty-shorts and full-coverage panties on the other. Booty to ass-kicking ratio is shamefully low, but hey, that's what the Internet's for.
Saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army to clear my head. After 600 pages of golden cow, it was like going to the bathroom after a hot-dog eating competition (pure relief, not pure shit if that's what you were thinking). The plot is devastatingly simple: There's some dude who hasn't gotten a tan in thousands of years, and that REALLY pisses him off. To get revenge, he's summoned a bajillion gold-plated T1000's from the future. All he now needs is the golden party hat which allows the wearer to make the T1000's do his bidding - dance, play fetch, kill everyone on the planet - the usual. Hellboy finds this poor bastard, rips his face off, rips his head off, rips out his arms and legs, and enslaves his family. Now that's good old American fun.
Oh, forgot to tell you, this is a split-screen movie. While all this is happening on one side of the screen, Selma Blair showcases booty-shorts and full-coverage panties on the other. Booty to ass-kicking ratio is shamefully low, but hey, that's what the Internet's for.
Improbable
Today defied all odds. First of all, I didn't get a root canal. Instead, I fell for the oldest trick in the dentist manual - first make them pay for a new filling in the doomed tooth, and then make them pay again a week later for a root canal. The first step of this new plan took place today, the second won't be long in waiting. The filling, which was supposed to allay sensitivity to cold - instead decided to not do that. Russian dentist #2 better watch his fingers next time he sticks them in my mouth.
The second odds-defying event was the lack of cinematic entertainment at the day's end. The problem is that Mom and Dad don't watch movies after the yoga lesson, but they do turn the selfishness dial to 11. I had several films lined up to be sacrificed, and even naively made some popcorn. Then, just as I approached the territory of the Play button with a practiced digit, Mom decided today was the day she was to begin her formal guitar training, and the setting was to be right between my headphones and my ears. And so she wouldn't be distracted by the popcorn while she played, she and Dad chomped it all before I could say "You Porkers!"
Went to Barnes and Noble's today, picked up a copy of The Magus and attempted to find where I left off at home in my library copy. Ten minutes of confusion later, I realized that I held a book version of a "director's cut" edition - complete with new scenes and revised old ones. Frustration and cursing ensued: unlike a DVD, this book didn't conveniently store the additions and revisions behind a separate menu item. Instead everything was interwoven with the original. I eventually found my place, but the book continued in an almost style alien to the one I had been reading. This would be even more annoying if it merited reading both versions.
Oh, forgot, some more whining: The Magus is slowly and disappointingly becoming less and less mysterious, magical, mythlike, and more Da-Vinci-Code-esque - a new twist, a new puzzle on each new page. I was wondering when the drama was winding down what could possibly take the next 200 pages, but it's obvious now - baloney and cheese.
The second odds-defying event was the lack of cinematic entertainment at the day's end. The problem is that Mom and Dad don't watch movies after the yoga lesson, but they do turn the selfishness dial to 11. I had several films lined up to be sacrificed, and even naively made some popcorn. Then, just as I approached the territory of the Play button with a practiced digit, Mom decided today was the day she was to begin her formal guitar training, and the setting was to be right between my headphones and my ears. And so she wouldn't be distracted by the popcorn while she played, she and Dad chomped it all before I could say "You Porkers!"
Went to Barnes and Noble's today, picked up a copy of The Magus and attempted to find where I left off at home in my library copy. Ten minutes of confusion later, I realized that I held a book version of a "director's cut" edition - complete with new scenes and revised old ones. Frustration and cursing ensued: unlike a DVD, this book didn't conveniently store the additions and revisions behind a separate menu item. Instead everything was interwoven with the original. I eventually found my place, but the book continued in an almost style alien to the one I had been reading. This would be even more annoying if it merited reading both versions.
Oh, forgot, some more whining: The Magus is slowly and disappointingly becoming less and less mysterious, magical, mythlike, and more Da-Vinci-Code-esque - a new twist, a new puzzle on each new page. I was wondering when the drama was winding down what could possibly take the next 200 pages, but it's obvious now - baloney and cheese.
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