It's where I talk to myself. Gaming, politics, and links I don't want to forget about.
Things I know to be true: Kip Manley can write, and City of Roses looks like it might be a really good textual equivalent of the webcomic form. Which is to say we’re getting back to serial literature, a la Dickens, except that Kip’s madly promised to post an installement every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so it’ll be a tad more frequent than Dickens. No standing on the docks waiting for the next installment for us.
Starting in September. Stay tuned.
It just goes on and on. Someone’s who’s actually seen Underworld posted a summary of the movie. Compare it to a summary of the short story upon which, in large part, White Wolf’s complaint rests. I’m far too much of a junkie for this stuff; if it goes to court I want to go watch the trial.
I read lengthy messageboard threads so you don’t have to. The only useful post on the White Wolf vs. Sony RPG.net thread is a summary of the Nancy Collins story. Probably not a substitute for reading the damned story yourself, but for those us who don’t want to go digging through used bookstores for some old White Wolf anthologies, this is the next best thing.
Warren, you’ll be missed. He saw that James Bond film, he saw his last album hit the shelves, and he saw his grandchildren born. I guess it was time.
Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned EMusic before. It’s the best and coolest deal in music downloads; you pay around 10 bucks a month and you can download all the MP3s you want. While you won’t get the latest releases, you will get a huge indie catalog and a pretty significant chunk of major label backlist. I’ve really enjoyed having a subscription.
This site is going to make me enjoy it even more. It’s mix tapes made up of songs you can get on EMusic. Since I can just download the songs, and they include links to make that simple, it’s an easy and convenient way to share mix tapes. Cool.
I’ve gotten my hands on the complaint in the White Wolf vs. Sony case. (Link to complaint back, since they redirected it to another server.) Be warned that there are big fat spoilers for Underworld in the complaint. Some notes, thusly.
The key White Wolf titles are Vampire: the Masquerade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Guide to the Camarilla, Guide to the Sabbat, The Book of Nod, Caine’s Chosen: The Black Hand, Under A Blood Red Moon, Children of the Night, Time of Thin Blood, and Transylvania Chronicles One: Dark Tides Rising. And, of course, Nancy Collins’ The Love of Monsters, which is apparently set in the World of Darkness.
There’s an extensive list of similarities between Underworld and various White Wolf titles. I have no doubt the similarities exist, but I think they’re on the same level as the similarities between L.A. Story and When Sally Met Harry. “Hey, the protagonists fell in love! And they live in major American cities!”
Some examples:
56. In the World of Darkness, some vampires are capable of amazing speed. In Underworld, some vampires move with amazing speed.
57. In the World of Darkness, vampires “have the strength of ten men.” In Underworld, vampires “have the strength of ten men.”
71. In the World of Darkness, the history of the vampires is written in an ancient text. In Underworld, the history of the vampires is written in ancient texts.
Cause, you know, histories of ancient secretive races are usually written in modern texts.
There are more specific correspondences, but nothing that doesn’t exist in prior art. White Wolf just doesn’t have the copyright on “tall and lithe” vampire assassins. Even female ones with “a dusky, classical tone to her skin and black hair.”
Comic book pick of the week: Scarlet Traces. Ian Edington wrote it, and D’Israeli did the art. The story is a nifty little murder mystery, and the gimmick is that it’s set in England ten years after Wells’ War Of The Worlds.
“The Martians’ unwitting bequest to their would-be slaves was a form of technology as then undreamt of by mankind. Within a decade our brightest minds had unravelled its secrets, their machineries of war and subjugation adapted and assimilated into our everyday usage. The noble steed — our companion and carriage for millenia is replaced by a clockwork toy! Homes are heated and lit by a version of the once-dreaded heat ray. The great mills and factories of the North are now vast, mechanized estates. The British Empire is now truly a world power without peer, but I cannot help but wonder if we have lost something in the process.”
It’s kind of pricy, at $15 for 72 pages of story, but I like the sturdy hardcover format. It actually rather reminds me of Tintin, which I suspect is no coincidence — Edington and D’Israeli use the same regular grid as Herge, and some of the characters have those distinctive accents Herge loved to use.
Plus the world is a completely cool concept. The big panoramic views of London are beautiful; you can see a few of them here. Very striking.
White Wolf is suing Sony Pictures over Underworld. Just thought you’d like to know. Anyone read the Nancy Collins story involved?
Clayton Cramer is fairly unhappy with Amazon because they’re selling a book entitled Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers. It is an apology piece for pedophilia, and I feel pretty comfortable assuming it’s utterly vile.
I also don’t think Amazon should stop selling it, because of their position as a huge bookstore. Cutting off the channels by which a book reaches its readers is not strictly speaking censorship, but it’s a kissing cousin. This will become less of an issue as the Internet becomes a better medium for transmitting information, but at the moment I think a bookstore the size of Amazon still has an obligation to sell books without discrimination, however justified that discrimination might be.
Cramer disagrees.
“If Amazon.com sold a book titled, Fagbashing for Fun and Profit: How to Kill Homosexuals and Get Away With It or 99 Ways to Rape Women and Beat the Rap in Court, I would be just as incensed—and liberals would be hollering for Jeff Bezos’ head on a platter, instead of making excuses for Amazon.com publishing this trash.”
He’s incorrect. Amazon sells The Protocols of Zion, Mein Kampf, and (if you’re feeling like being outraged from the right) The Communist Manifesto.
Without my TiVo, I’d never have gotten around to seeing Audition, which would have been a pity. I think. As is, I spent half the weekend severely creeped out. For a movie without any supernatural trappings, it was about the most horrific thing I’ve seen since The Blair Witch Project. (Pre-hype.)
Confessional: I normally find Japanese movies a bit slow. I know it’s part of the cinematic culture in Japan and all; I just don’t have the mental pathways I’d need to appreciate the style properly. I’d been hearing about this Takashi Miike guy for a while, though; he cranks out five or six movies a year, he’s supposed to be totally transgressive and daring, and people either love him or hate him. So I snagged Audition from the Sundance Channel, cause what could it hurt?
I expected it to be a pretty sloppy gore-fest. I figured Miike was infamous for the boundaries he crossed, rather than the skill with which he crossed them. I also expected yet another Japanese movie with moments of action mixed with long slow interludes of mood development. An hour into Audition, as I was appreciating the patient build and the elegant cinematography and the sharp interjections of tension — ah, that canvas bag — I’d learned different.
The movie starts out as a romantic tragedy. Shigeharu Aoyama’s wife dies, and seven years later, he’s still dealing with his grief. There’s not a hint of anything beyond a quiet little drama which could easily open up into a story about a man who finds love again; it’s incredibly restrained. Sure, it’s kind of creepy to stage a movie audition in order to find a new wife… but you feel for Aoyama, and maybe it’ll work out. And that’s the first hour of the movie. Could be any TV drama of the week, except skillfully filmed.
Then, without a bump in the transition, the movie takes a left turn into a deranged mix of David Lynch and Tobe Hooper. There’s no gore for gore’s sake, but the camera doesn’t turn away from the horror for a single second. The layered flashbacks and dream sequences are a much-needed counterpoint to the terrible things which happen in the present, but even in that escape you can see the seeds of the tragedy to come.
I can’t emphasize enough how nasty things get. Think Meet The Feebles, except much better technically, real actors, and more blood. I also can’t say enough good things about Miike’s evocation of Japanese relationships. It’s a hard contrast to wrap my mind around, because despite the occasional flashes of brilliance from Wes Craven, you don’t normally get real social commentary from a movie as bloody as Audition.
Fascinating movie, but watch it at your own risk.