Never did get around to talking about Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, did I? Well, I didn’t really like it that much. I didn’t mind the violence. I didn’t even find it very distressing. Yeah, there’s a lengthy scene during which a young woman gets electrocuted. I’ve seen True Lies; you can’t faze me. I also didn’t have any objection to the theme of the movie — “the desire for vengeance reduces everyone to the same primitive level.” ...

_You get a shiver in the dark _ _It’s been raining in the park but meantime _ South of the river you stop and you hold everything. So here’s what I said last year at this time. Kinda sucks to use up all the best words early; but I burn with a fierce bright joy in this moment, realizing that I was right, so very right, simply off by a year in the one small detail that matters most of all. ...

I just can’t let go tonight. Unsurprisingly. Check out the Nike commercial (original).

I’m gonna tell you a story I’m gonna tell you about my town I’m gonna tell you a big bad story, baby Aww, it’s all about my town Yeah, down by the river Down by the banks of the river Charles (aw, that’s what’s happenin’ baby) That’s where you’ll find me Along with lovers, fuggers, and thieves (aw, but they’re cool people) Well I love that dirty water Oh, Boston, you’re my home (oh, you’re the Number One place) ...

Can’t blog, Schilling’s pitching.

It appears to be the case that Jandek played at a festival in Glasgow yesterday. Whoa. (Thanks for the pointer, Chris!)

Eric Raymond flips allll the way over into the cult of tradition with a resounding thud (original): “A deadly genius is a talent so impressive that he can break and remake all the rules of the form, and seduce others into trying to emulate his disruptive brilliance — even when those followers lack the raw ability or grounding to make art in the new idiom the the genius has defined.” He then goes on to explain that Picasso, Coltrane, Joyce, Schoenberg, and Brancusi killed their respective fields by being so brilliant. For bonus points, he posits that the problem was caused by the death of the patronage system. You see, once artists were permitted to do whatever they liked, some of them produced deadly work. ...

My random book pickup for the weekend was Colours in the Steel by K. J. Parker. It’s an elegant little book, sort of like Swordspoint without the manners aspect and a dose of Glen Cook to liven things up a bit. Bardas Loredan is a fencer-at-law, which is essentially a formalized duellist, who has to save the city of Perimadeia. There is a more or less unexplained system of magic, which isn’t fully understood even by the practitioners. There are horse-riding fantasy tribes. Not really a lot of novel newness. ...

I have achieved very little of the Boston Fantastic Film Festival, to my regret: two weeks of extended brutal workload at work is to blame. I was late to Infernal Affairs on Friday, late enough so that I decided to recover instead of seeing the movie — I was up late Thursday thanks to Saw. and since I didn’t leave work until 11:30 PM on Wednesday I had no reserves. I skipped Appleseed and The Bottled Fool on Saturday in hopes that I’d have some margin left today. I may have been wrong. ...

Gmail tweaks, noted for my own reference — I haven’t tested these. POP3 Gmail access Import existing mail into GMail GMail alerts in your Windows taskbar GMail as your mailto: handler