Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Honestly, at this point I buy so few comics that I don't usually
attend the comic conventions.
  

    
We're doofuses.  Or perhaps doofi.  Or at least I am, 'cause I totally
forgot about Michelle's wedding Monday.  So belatedly:

CONGRATULATIONS, MICHELLE AND KURT!!!!!!!

<hr>
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0111970/quotes

Freakazoid: Please, please, leave me alone. I'll give you anything,
anything you want, if you'll just go away. How about the just-written
script of Batman IV?

Fan Boy: Plucked it off the internet last night.

Freakazoid: An autographed picture of Stan Lee?

Fan Boy: Who's that?

Freakazoid: No idea. How about your very own Harlan Ellison?
  

    
So Neil really IS going to get to come out of a coffin!  Too funny.

Fox is sneaking up on me as my most-frequented network.  What with
_24_, the Sunday evening lineup, and now this, they're taking up the
slack as my NBC sitcoms are petering out.  If UPN axes _Enterprise_ and
Jesse Borrego doesn't stick around on _American Family_, I'll have
little reason ever to change channels anymore.
  

    
And I am such a doofus, that even after I read tinymonster's post
yesterday, I *still* forgot to say, 

Congratulations, Michelle and Kurt!

Squeaks Larson........has a nice ring to it!  Bad pun fully intended
;-)

Mary (who will most likely be dead of a stress-induced embolism any
minute.  I had forgotten how much directing makes me *nuts*)
  

    
What is it about doing theater that makes us keep going back even
after we know full well what it's like?

BTW, I am such a doofus, I don't even GET the bad pun!

-Christy, who silently yelped "And _Stargate SG-1_!  That too!" last
night
  

    
I forgot to say Congratulations Michelle and Kurt, too, so I came in
to, and did!  Wish you both all the best and many, many years of
happiness and good fortune.
  

    
I've been so busy with work that have become a grumpy old man this
week.

I will, however, give pause to that attitude while I wish years of
bliss to Michelle and Kurt.  
  

    
Went and read the Study in Emerald. Man! What a great story.
Especially if you're a Holmes fan.
  

    
I read the first four sections of it last night.  I love that way Neil
has of making the weirdness sort of slowly creep up on you where you
weren't looking.

And if I hadn't already said it, Neil, congrats on the Hugo
nomination!  I'm having a hard time keeping track.  ;)

On a lunchtime note, here is some of the world's cutest sushi: 
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~msittig/bento/
  

    
A friend said:

"I haven't read the Iliad!
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good, readable translation?"

And I thought this group of people might be able to suggest something.
  

    
g books
  

    
Oooh! Oooooooooh! I got my library READ poster of Neil Gaiman in the
mail today. Man what a good day. Got the LotR map of middle Earth
yesterday. Wow. Goodies abound.
  

    
My Neilposter and Sandman poster are framed and up in my classroom. 
I'm so tickled that he's listed as "author poet screenwriter" (sic). 
*Someday* maybe someone will edit that volume of poetry he keeps
talking about <<sigh>>.

Mary (reading Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card)
  

    
Neil, this is the sort of Web diversion you like: 
http://www.googlewar.com/

I have found that Terry Pratchett wins in a Googlewar against you, but
you pretty much trounce Dave McKean.  ;)
  

    
Hmmm... it claims Rocks beats scissors, and paper beats rocks, but
paper also beats scissors, and we know that can't be right.
  

    
Fortunately, Autobots beats Decepticons.
  

    
Blue fish apparently beats red fish as well.  And dogs win over cats.
  

    
LOL!  Only Neil would come downstairs for paper towels and end up
posting a poem.

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/05/things-that-make-you-blog-part-one.a
sp
  

    
That made me laugh immoderately.  In the computer lab.  With students.
 

They already think I'm mad.  Barking, as a matter of fact.

Um, saw Shrek 2, Van Helsing, and Troy over the weekend.  All good. 
All have something to recommend them.  Mostly that they allowed me not
to think about the pile of papers I wasn't grading for many hours.

Now I must go grade the aforementioned.......

Mary (reading Heartfire in my ongoing Orson Scott Card festival)
  

    
Many. Many. Hours. MUST see Van Helsing. The guy that played in LOTV
as Faramir plays the 'Q' guy, I'm told. A very different character.
Would like to see that if for nothing else. 

Would like to see Troy. Beefcake! Maybe I can talk a gal pal into
going with me. 

Might like seeing Shrek though it wasn't much to my taste the first
time around.

Would like to see Ella, Enchanted for some reason. Is it even still on


I haven't seen a movie in a long long time. Sigh.
  

    
Mmm... Wolfy/Leopold AND Faramir?  My "pro" list for that movie just
got a little bigger.

I'm glad I saw _Ella_ first and read the book second.  I enjoyed the
movie -- I think it could end up a funny cult film like _Princess
Bride_ -- but it really shares only some character names and a spell
with the book.  The book is good in its own right, but much more of a
"reading" story, involving a lot of letters and journal entries.  The
original story works much better as a book than it would have as a
film, which is probably why the filmmakers didn't even attempt to use
it.  If you're a stickler for movies following the books, than see one
or the other, but not both.

Here in the town where I work, little fairies flit about everywhere
you look, and the sound of cheap toy rain sticks fills the air.

I hear cicadas taste like asparagus.

(The last few weeks, it was cotton balls; dandelion?  Milkweed?  It
didn't look like either.  I kept trying to spit fluff out of my mouth
after driving home; it must have really been rough on people with
allergies.)
  

    
Cottonwood trees?
  

    
Thanks, Sharon.  Hmm, maybe... though a quick Web search doesn't seem
to place many of them in the Mid-Atlantic states.
  

    
Oh, that *was* Faramir!  Yeah, he's very different in this.  And of
course, Boromir is Odysseus in Troy.

Yes, it is official.  There is a great deal of beefcake in Troy. 
<<sigh>>

Actually, there's rather a lot of a *very* hot Hugh Jackman in Van
Helsing, too.  The last 15 minutes where he's shirtless?  Oh, yeah. And
Dracula?  Way cute. Perhaps this is why I saw them both on Saturday
;-)

OK, here's a question--if you were going to do a week teaching film
history from Citizen Kane to present, what films would you show
excerpts from?  I'm thinking of running Hero at the very end, after
exams.  I have the Hong Kong DVD.  If I haven't already said--go see
this movie in August when it's released here.  It's bloody brilliant.

Anyway, all suggestions welcome.  I'm better at Lumiere Bros.--1941
than I am 1941--1987.  I wish I could show some Satyajit Ray, too, and
early John Woo, and Jackie, and Le Chien Andalou, and..... I'm just
going to show short excerpts--class is only 45 minutes long, and
there's so much to cover!  I guess I'm looking for films that were
ground-breaking in some way that one doesn't have to watch the whole
film to grasp.  Does this make any sense at all?

Mary--off to do internet research, or play "Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire", whichever comes first. ;-)
  

    
We used to get movies and stuff in class. But I was taking a
Multimedia degree at the time so that's logical.

The one my teacher showed was 'Tornado' because even with all the
fancy dancy cuts people do these days, the only ones in tornado are
straight cuts. Increases the tension. Watch the scene in the red truck.
He's driving, soon to be ex in right seat, fiance in back. Chasing the
double tornados.