4 Minutes after 127 Hours

Okay, raw, visceral, four-minutes-post reactions to 127 Hours, as reactions to 127 Hours should be.

What a fucking film.  Danny Boyle continues to impress and James Franco continues to make me feel inadequate as a human being.  I am currently caught in limbo between wanting to go biking in the desert (and it is considerably feasible for me to do so in my current habitat) and NEVER WANTING TO GO HIKING EVER AGAIN.  

Similar to Sunshine, Boyle did a commendable job of using cinematography to highlight the numinous quality of nature.  Sun, water, and rock are all revered as equally deadly and life-giving.

On the other hand, I did not really get what the triptych framing technique was supposed to be doing in the beginning.  It does work quite effectively towards the end, however, as a means of conveying Ralston's madness.

Silence is used really well in the scenes where it matters.

A nice balance is struck between emphasizing the pure dread of Ralston's predicament and keeping the film entertaining.  The subject matter is unconventional, largely trapped to one actor and one setting, but the script follows the standard three-act structure and is paced well-enough to avoid any moments of boredom.  This is a decidedly different approach from that of Gerry, which covers very similar territory.  I would have to watch that film again to comment on which movie better instills a sense of isolation and hopelessness, but I can say that I would much rather watch 127 Hours sooner than Gerry.

I would have given James Franco an Oscar over Colin Firth.  Without his horribly amusing approach to the gallows humor, this would have been a much worse film.

Despite the fact that I have never broken a bone, or perhaps because of it, the amputation scene had me squirming all around my seat.  I was pretty okay with sawing through flesh with a dull knife, but forcing one's arm to break is where I apparently draw the line.  Damn cathartic, though.

The soundtrack was excellent.  When my favorite Chopin Nocturne started playing in one of the flashbacks, I started tearing up.

The rescue scene uses Sigur Rós in a way rivaling (though not surpassing) The Life Aquatic in effectiveness.
EDIT: Post-rock!  Well-played, movie.  Well-played.

Okay, I just wanted to get those thoughts down as I was thinking of them.  I think I just have to watch The Kids are All Right and How to Train your Dragon to round out the 2010 films I still want to see.

Zelda Week Day 5: Too Busy Playing Oracle of Seasons

 

Zelda Week Day 4: Special Youtube Edition

When a franchise lasts 25 years, it really gets around.  Zelda is no exception, and its history is as colorful as its games are impressive.  Here, I want to look at the wonderful things which have nothing to do with the games.

First, the Legend of Zelda cartoon.  This was produced alongside the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and, although I definitely remember watching the latter, I am not sure if I ever saw Zelda in cartoon form.  If I did, this would have been my first introduction to the franchise (and perhaps why I have repressed that memory):

Second, the Zelda CD-i games.  In the mid-'90s, Nintendo thought it was a good idea to give Philips permission to use characters from The Legend of Zelda for their new game system, the CD-i.  It proved to be an extraordinary failure, and I honestly cannot imagine why:

The animation is in a class of its own, you actually get to play as Zelda, and these are unequivocally some of the funniest things I have ever watched.  Alas, poor CD-i.

(and anyone wondering why Link is still a silent protagonist need only watch the above videos)

Alright, let's move onto some fanworks.  This next video is a flash movie from the days when Newgrounds was my joint.   All things considered, this one aged pretty well; Ganon's monologue about Nabooru actually turned my nostalgic chuckle into a full laugh.

I liked this series because SASSY NAVI.  Aaaaaand yeah.

Moving onto the slightly more modern and less embarrassing Youtube scene, this is a really impressive and genuinely haunting rendition of the "Song of Healing":

Here's another thing I found a few days ago.  I may be biased, but I love when music that does not have lyrics is given lyrics for the sake of comedy.

Oh, I linked this on Facebook, but it deserves another mention here.   Consider the following: What if Zelda were made into a movie directed by John Hughes?  A. It would be awesome, and B. It would look something like this:

Finally, perhaps my favorite affectionate parody of Zelda is The Legend of Neil, a webseries which takes the "dude gets transported into a video game" trope and has a shit-ton of fun with it.  The premise is what hooked me right away: Neil gets stuck in The Legend of Zelda after he auto-erotically asphyxiates himself with an NES controller in the midst of drunkenly masturbating to the fairy that heals Link.  It's crass, but surprisingly well-written, professionally crafted, and often hilarious.  Plus, you can tell that the creators were true fans of the original game.  Their recreation of Hyrule and its residents, while obviously limited by the resources of a webseries, plays extremely well off of the low budget effects and costumes.  Unfortunately, I cannot embed the videos here, but all three seasons are collected on this page.  I recommend watching them sometime when you do not have a final exam the next day (after stumbling upon it, I ended up watching the first two seasons [which were all that existed at the time] back to back one night during finals week last spring, which, while not my smartest move, speaks to how engrossing the series is).

Zelda Week Day 3: A Concluded Retrospective

The Wind Waker (2003 - GC)

This is another game whose development I followed closely, and the big story then was the huge shitstorm summoned by the cel-shaded reveal.  Honestly, though, I thought those first screenshots of the game looked really cool, with coiled wisps of purple smoke swirling in front of big-headed beetle-eyed Link.  Cel-shaded or not, the graphics and art direction looked better with each update on the development, and, after the initial shock wore off, I think most people began to realize that this style may work after all.  I pre-ordered the game and got the bonus disc both versions of Ocarina of Time (regular and master quests) and several game trailers, one of which was for The Wind Waker.  It only took one viewing of that to erase all doubts from my mind, and I could barely wait to have the game in my hands.

The game dominated my spring of 2003.  I loved everything about it.  The graphics and style looked amazing in real time.  The music was stellar as usual.  Combat was made infinitely more fun via the inclusion of parry attacks.  I also really liked the waterworld setting, and I was in the minority which did not mind the sailing portions.  The sense of space and emptiness it created was really important in establishing the scope of the disaster which had befallen Hyrule, and I appreciated the short periods of downtime during which I could vicariously enjoy the thrill of the open sea.

The way the game treated Ganon was the most interesting of the series too.  They actually turned him into a much more reflective, almost tragic character.  He really made some compelling points about the gods having not acted in Hyrule's best interests, about him having wished for a better life for his desert kingdom, and that it would be in everybody's best interests to restore Hyrule.  He was by no means a changed or good man, but his morality was painted in shades of grey instead of the unambiguous black of the other games.  He went batshit crazy at the end of course, but, given the circumstances, could he really be blamed for it?

Awesome, awesome game.  I even went so far as to complete the figurine collection, not really for the sake of competing it, but more so because playing the game was just too damn fun.

The Minish Cap (2005 - GBA)

This one was fun, but I think I ended up over-replaying it to the point where I do not have a desire to do so anymore, which is a strange thing for a Zelda game.  The Four Sword mechanic was neat, and the graphics were quite impressive for the GBA, but I think, personally, this is the most unremarkable Zelda game that I have played.  Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but when you are comparing it to the rest of the canon, it does not shine quite as bright.

Twilight Princess (2006 - GC/Wii)

I already wrote some about why I like this entry so much, so I will focus on my favorite thing and my least favorite thing.

Favorite thing: Midna.  I would argue that Midna is the best supporting character to grace a Zelda game (so far).  Although, to call her a supporting character is a bit unfair, since her story is actually what lies at the center of the narrative, and we experience it via the proxy Link.  The story isn't much to write home about (what Zelda story is?), but the strength of Midna's character is what shines through.  I love that her motives are hidden for the first half of the game, and that she makes it no secret she is only using Link for her own ends.  Her mischievous nature and alien appearance make it so that the player does not even know if she is an ally or enemy, only that Link is stuck with her, and that is a really interesting and unique dynamic for a Zelda game.  Unfortunately, her character development kind of stops for the second half of the game, and overall I feel like she was underutilized.  Still, I do not think the conclusion of any other game, Zelda or otherwise, felt quite like the punch to the gut that Twilight Princess' ending accomplished, and that was all due to Midna.  I have very mixed feelings about the possibility of her returning in a later sequel--on one hand, I really like the character and would love to learn more about her, but, on the other hand, I feel that Twilight Princess works as a closed, if somewhat unsatisfyingly so, story.  Well, I guess that's what fanfiction is for!

Least favorite thing: the items.  Not that any of the items were bad, but, more so than any other Zelda game, a lot of them felt really underutilized.  There were only a handful of areas where the Spinner or Dominion Rod were actually used and/or useful, and I think the game design could have been better in that regard.  It did not necessarily make the game less fun, but, similar to my feelings about Midna, it struck me as wasted potential.

Phantom Hourglass (2007 - DS)

One of the first games I played on the DS when I got one last spring, and probably my favorite.  I loved Wind Waker, and this played like a mini-Wind Waker, so what was not to like?  The touchscreen controls took some adjustment, but I was quite surprised at how natural they became.  Also, Linebeck receives a close second place for best supporting character in a Zelda game.  He is a lovable bastard.

The paper cut-out prologue and epilogue were awesome too.

The Temple of the Ocean King was the most annoying part, as anybody who has played the game will tell you, but it really wasn't as bad as most people make out.  This was the game which convinced me that my used DS Lite purchase was not in vain.

Spirit Tracks (2009 - DS)

Phantom Hourglass on a train.  I have to admit, I did not enjoy train travel as much as boat travel, but there were a lot of other things to like about the game.  It is definitely the most self-aware Zelda game, which results in some really funny "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" dialogue.  Having Zelda actually play an active role as the supporting character was great, since we got to see some development between her and Link beyond the standard Hero-Princess relationship.  I think the interface for controlling her movements could have been tweaked a bit, but it was amusing to see Link hitch a ride across lava pits on a big pink suit of armor.

Music, once again, was particularly standout in this game.  Figuring out the pan pipes was a bit of a chore, but they were fun to "play" once I got it down.  The overworld theme was boss, as was the final boss music.

Along with Phantom Hourglass, this game reminded me how good the Zelda series was, and, after a college career largely spent not playing any Zelda games, it sparked a resurgence in my love for the franchise.  A franchise I love enough to have played all of these games.  And I want to play them all over again.

Zelda Week Day 2: A Continued Retrospective

Ocarina of Time (1998 - N64)

I was really resistant to playing this for some reason.  It was 5th (I think) grade, and I had just been gifted an N64 from my cousin.  My first priority was to complete everything that had to do with Super Mario 64, which I lauded on the schoolgrounds.  When fellow classmates began talking about the new Zelda game, I declared Mario superior, in that brash and uninformed way indicative of the insecure child.  Although I had inherited OoT along with the N64, I refused to play it for months.  Then, one day, having grown bored of Mario 64, I switched cartridges to see what the hub-bub was about.

Ocarina of Time was my first experience with a Zelda game, and it hooked me in ten minutes flat.  That is not an exaggeration.  I was having fun just running around Kokiri Forest, finding money, throwing rocks, and talking to all of the characters.  These were simple things, but things I had not done before!  And you can imagine how much my eyes lit up when I found the sword and when I started making my way through the Great Deku Tree.  And when I saw how FUCKING HUGE Hyrule Field was.  And so on and so forth through the last battle with Ganon.

There is good reason that this game was so praised by critics and is still so fondly remembered by gamers everywhere.  If Super Mario 64 proved that platformers could work in 3D space, I think Ocarina of Time proved with finality that video games in general could work and excel in 3D space.  Similar to Final Fantasy VII, it created a fully-realized three-dimensional world which was immersive.  If 2D games lacked anything, it was the ability to recreate and, more importantly, reimagine the world around us with all of the depth we were used to.  These games represented an important step in getting there, providing us towns and landscapes with towering buildings and bumpy terrain, giving us characters which could not only speak, but use body language.  Link especially was finally able to communicate, not with words, but with motion and expression.  I probably am not well-versed enough in gaming history to make such sweeping statements, but I think there is at least some validity to them.

Of course, it also helped that the game was designed exquisitely, retaining much of the classic Zelda formula while introducing many new components which took advantage of the extra dimension.  The story, while nothing remarkably innovative, was still populated with plenty of colorful characters and surprises (I cannot remember whether or not Sheik's unveiling caught me off-guard, but I want to say it did).  Each dungeon had at least one thing that still sticks in my memory, and the best thing about them was how diverse they were.  Everything from the belly of a fish to the goddamned frightening bottom of a well.

This game made me Zelda fan.  It was the next game which solidified that status.

Majora's Mask (2000 - N64)

I pre-ordered this and got it on the day of release, but I was not allowed to play it until I finished some school project.  Probably a good thing in the long run, but it was tortuous at the time, and my only comfort was the reassurance from the lesbian couple next door that the game was, indeed, awesome.

When I finally did play it, I did not like it at first.

Along with most people, I was expecting another epic, open-ended adventure, so the three-day time constraint and atypical save feature turned me off.  But it was Zelda, and I kept playing it, and somewhere between the Clock Tower and the Deku Palace things clicked.

To date, Majora's Mask is my favorite Zelda game.  To fully explain why would take far more than a single entry, let alone part of one, so instead I will focus on the one mechanic that still embeds itself most prominently in my mind.  Ironically, it is the one that turned me off of the game to begin with--the 72 hour loop.  Using this unconventional game structure, the designers managed to create one of the most vivid fictional worlds to grace a video game.  And I mean vivid in a etymologically literal sense, that is "teeming with life."  The Castle Town of OoT was bustling, but static; every day NPCs followed the same routines with the same dialogue, as in many RPGs.  Majora's Mask actually let the player follow the lives of dozens of characters across a three-day period.  In fact, there were so many stories going on, it was impossible to help each character within one loop.  Some quests were in fact mutually exclusive--you could not please everybody.  Although the game's objective was no stranger to the Zelda series (collect a bunch of things to stop the bad guy), the depth of the sidequests and subplots is what separated it from pretty much every other game at the time.

The act of earning 24 masks was overshadowed by the fact that you were, at that point, intimately aware with the lives of a world's population, and that, at some point, you had made each of them a bit better.  Part of why I enjoyed Groundhog Day so much was because Bill Murray finds himself in an identical situation at the end of the film.  Both he and Link become god-like benefactors, and so it is no surprise that the last mask Link earns, as proof of his dominion, is a Fierce Deity.

Other highlights of the game include the gorgeous art direction, an original and unsettling protagonist, a very dark and moody yet no less whimsical story and atmosphere, a fantastic soundtrack, memorable dungeons and bosses, the mask mechanic, etc.  Majora's Mask took the Ocarina of Time formula and turned it into one of the games I would argue vehemently to be a jewel of the medium and a work of art.

3 DAYS...

Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons (2001 - GBC)

Oh man, when word got out that there were going to be not one, but two new and unique Zelda games for the Game Boy Color, that they were going to be released at the same time, and that they would be able to link-up to form one long quest, I was fucking stoked.  This was the period at which I had a monthly subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly, so I read each article and followed each update about the games religiously.  I bought Ages first, but I didn't wait too long to get Seasons.

These games basically operated on the same engine as Link's Awakening DX, which was not a bad thing at all.  It has been years since I have played either one, so I do not remember a whole lot about the plot or dungeons, but I remember the bosses being particularly fun.  Ages in particular had a real bastard of a boss that you could not attack directly, and instead you had to beat it by making parts of it run into each other...lemme see if I can find a video, because that will be infinitely clearer:

YEP, THAT'S THE SUNUVABITCH.  He was so annoying at the time, but, in retrospect, a Zelda boss which was more a puzzle than "hit the weak point for massive damage" was a really cool idea.  And that is why I liked Ages better overall, since it had more of an emphasis on puzzles, while Seasons was more combat-oriented.  Together, however, they sequestered quite a load of batteries from my Game Boy, and they rank up with Pokemon Silver as my favorite games for that handheld.

OH, I almost forgot!  I totally wrote a story in the 7th or 8th grade based on the Tokay in Oracle of Ages.  It was for some creative writing assignment, and I have no idea what kind of story I concocted.  Now that I think about it, I wrote another Zelda-based story for some other English assignment.  And a story about the Electrolls from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage for an assignment where we had to emulate the Dr. Seuss tale about the Sneetches.  I wrote more fanfiction than I thought, which is good, I guess?

I'll stop there for today, since I need to finish my proposal's specific aims.  Ideally, I can get through the rest of the games tomorrow, and have some fun on Thursday with a new topic.  STAY TUNED.

Zelda Week Day 1: A Retrospective

I made the last post without realizing that the world was mere days away from celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series.  That day is today: on February 21, 1986, The Legend of Zelda graced the shores of Japan.

So far as my opinions and experiences go, Zelda is my favorite game franchise. It's the one to which I have been the most devoted, and for good reason.  Despite its evolution and all of its different iterations over the years, it has remained consistently fun and engaging, and I think the only other franchise that boasts comparable longevity and quality is the Mario series.  And, while I do love Mario, the Zelda series is more to my liking in terms of setting and gameplay.

I have spent quite a chunk of time playing these fantasy action-adventure-pseudo-RPGs, so, in the spirit of this occasion, I am going to deem this Zelda Week here at WaAtSoS.  Each day, I am going to (ideally) make a post about something Zelda-related.  Since I have played nearly every game of the main series, I am just going to start by talking a bit about my experiences with each game and bank on the hope that I think of some other topics in the meantime.

Also, I am doing these in chronological order by release date, rather than the order in which I played them, because I don't know.

The Legend of Zelda (1986 - NES)

This game is older than I am, and it took a while for me to get around to playing it.  My first attempt was actually with a used cartridge I bought at a GameCrazy and an NES that had belonged to my cousin.  I never was able to get past the title screen, probably because both pieces of hardware had suffered well over fifteen years of abuse (at least the cartridge was gold and shiny).  A couple years later, I bought the "classic revival" version for the GBA and played it.  It was fun, but it was hard.  Enemies could be merciless (it did not help that you started in the same place with three hearts no matter how far your progress was), later dungeons were almost impossible to beat in one try, and sometimes I just had no clue where to go in the over world.  Still, no matter how rough, the classic Zelda formula was there, and it was easy to imagine how innovative and sprawling a quest it would have been in 1986.  I think I got stuck somewhere in the middle of the "second quest" and moved shamefully onto something else.

The original is far from my favorite iteration of the series, not because it is a bad game, but because they have made significant leaps and bounds since then.  I still consider The Legend of Zelda a worthwhile playthrough, both because it is enjoyable on its own merit, and, more importantly to me, it provides insight into what made the Zelda series magical from the start.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987 - NES)

Although I had known about this game for years, I only got around to playing it last year on a DS-based emulator.  I knew it primarily for its reputation as the "black sheep" of the franchise, and most histories/reviews referred to it as the weirdest, if not worst iteration of Zelda.  Well, when I went into completionist mode to catch up on the Zelda games I had not played, I downloaded a ROM and tried it out on my handheld.  After all, it was only the second game, and the series did fine afterward, so how bad could it be?

Honestly, I liked it.  It was definitely different.  Hoo boy, was it different.  There were random encounters, battles and dungeons were sidescrolling, you literally collected experience to raise your level, life meter, and abilities, and combat was a complex balance of attacking and defending which more often than not boiled down to luck and guesswork.  I will be honest, I made extremely liberal use of the emulator's save states and rewind function, because I likely would have quit the game in frustration otherwise.  I cannot comment on whether the game's difficulty was a product of myself not having grown up with NES games, or just poor design on the creators' behalf, but it is definitely the hardest Zelda game I have played.  Not my favorite one either, but it was worth it for the experience, and I have to admit that the combat did become more fun the further I got into the game.  Having abilities like a downward and upward thrust provided enough variety to keep me going, and it was really satisfying to beat a particularly difficult enemy without taking damage, based purely on the 1337ness of my timing (and not the 14m3ness of my cheating)

It's reputation as a black sheep is deserved, but if you're a fan of the series, I would not shy away from it.  Except for the hardest of core, though, I would recommend taking advantage of an emulator with save states and time manipulation, just to save you some grey hairs.

A Link to the Past (1991 - SNES)

This is often lauded as the greatest of the the 2D Zeldas, and it is many fans' personal favorite.  Unfortunately, it has been a long, long time since I have played it, so my recollections are going to be short.  I never owned an SNES, so I did not get to play it until its GBA re-release in 2002.  I think what struck me more than anything else was the truly epic nature of the quest - two huge overworlds, twelve dungeons, and numerous gameplay innovations which would later prove to be staples of all later quests.

What stands out in my memory is how lively and colorful this iteration of Hyrule was.  This is one of the first games I remember playing on my GBA SP, taking advantage of the backlit screen and running around fighting Armos and Stalfos well into the night.  I wish I could recall more, since it is definitely a classic, but I guess that just means I need to replay it sometime soon.

Link's Awakening (1993 - GB)

Well, I actually never played the original, only the deluxe version which came out for the Game Boy Color in 1998.  This game was my first exposure to the 2D side of Zelda, and I remember clearly my first experience with it was thanks to a friend who lived down the street from me.  He let me play his copy of the game a bit, although it was not until five or six years later that I was able to play through the entire thing (and many thanks to Elyse for generously lending it to me).

What I like most about Link's Awakening is the music--both the 8-bit compositions themselves and the importance that music played in the plot, which would set the standard for later games like Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker.  It was worth it to collect all eight instruments just to hear the full arrangment of "Ballad of the Wind Fish," although there is something sublimely haunting about the "a cappella" version:

Those high notes at the end still give me chills.

I actually replayed this pretty recently.  Well, most of it.  I got through Eagle's Tower and was on my way to the eighth dungeon when my save state got fucked somehow and I lost all of my progress, at which point I was nowhere near willing to do everything over again.  That sucked hard, but actually playing the game was a true treat.  One of my favorite things about the Zelda series was how well it translated both into a home console and portable handheld setting, each one having its own charm.


Before I go, Happy 25th Birthday to the Legend of Zelda!   Here's to another 25!

I got tired of not looking silly in front of the TV

I recently remembered that there, sitting in the living room, is a Wii which I had purchased largely for the purpose of playing it.  Well, I had been ignoring it for a while, so I decided to cheer it up and finish my playthrough of Twilight Princess.

I played Twilight Princess on the Gamecube first.  It was my "finally got me a college duh-gree" gift to myself, and I enjoyed it a lot.  Two months later, my Wii came with the owner's copy of TP, so I started replaying it in August and finally just got around to finishing it last night.  It isn't my favorite Zelda game (that distinction still belongs to Majora's Mask), but it is still one of the more fun games in my recent memory.  The Wii port was really well-executed, and I think the only motion-control frustrations arose when I was figuring out how to properly shield-bash.  Anything involving swordplay was more satisfying/fun/ridiculous on the Wii, especially the final battle, with this shaking up the surround sound:

Disappointingly, Nintendo never released a full official soundtrack for Twilight Princess, or ever did anything else with the music for that matter.  I thought it was a pretty excellent score.  I mean, I've never preferred ambient dungeon themes to the melodic ones of the 2D games (with the exception of a few from Ocarina of Time), but as far as town, overworld, character, battle, and cutscene music went, TP was alllllright.  The use of new and old leitmotifs was particularly nice, and the ending credits especially do a great job of highlighting a lot of the themes used throughout the game.

Well, in my post-game Googling last night, I learned that the ZREO guys have recently revealed the big secret project they have been alluding to for over a year.  Sure enough, it is a rearrangement of Twilight Princess' soundtrack for a full orchestra of live and sampled instruments and, potentially, a full choir, and the snippets with which they are teasing us sound awesome.  I say "potentially" an actual choir, because they are still in the process of raising money for it.  It's a good enough cause that I decided to pitch in, and I really hope they manage to raise enough.  Regardless, I am so looking forward to hearing it (hopefully) this summer.

Also, all this Zelda is making me even more impatient for Skyward Sword to be released.  Word is that the game is finishing up, and an autumn/winter 2011 release is most likely, which is a long ways away, but it is still better than 2012.

And how about that new album by the Radio Heads?

If you wish to make a blog from scratch, you must first invent the internet

Finally watched the last few episodes of Cosmos this past weekend.  I still want to be Carl Sagan when I grow up.

Impressed and inspired, I also watched Contact, the film based on the sci-fi book Sagan wrote in the '80s.  I am pretty sure my mom liked it a lot, and I vaguely remembered seeing the ending with her, but I had not ever seen the entire movie.  And it is gooood.  Definitely one of the more intelligently-written and thought-provoking science fiction films I have seen, and the CG looks purty darn inconspicuous for 1997.  It is far from perfect, but what struck me the most was that it could have so easily and blatantly ragged on religion, and, instead, it takes a much more interesting middle ground on the science vs. religion debate.  Granted, it largely does this through a love story which is the most clumsy portion of the narrative, but it's the kind of stuff that makes me love to think.  I am eager to compare it to the original novel, which I just received in the mail today.

Speaking of which, as far as buying books goes, finding used deals on Amazon that are eligible for free 2-day shipping is probably my favorite part of my Amazon Prime membership.  I've been using that to start filling my Japanese literature library, and I've been able to get a bunch of Mishima books for about 3 bucks each.  It's awesome.  I'm still on the lookout for a good used bookstore in Boulder, though.  I visited one today that had a nice selection, but the prices were a bit higher than I would have liked--not to say I won't be going back.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I read Junichiro Tanizaki's Naomi.  If I wanted to be overly reductionist, I would call it the Japanese equivalent of Venus in Furs, but in actuality it is a lot subtler than that.  As a look into a dominant/submissive relationship, I liked it a lot better than Venus in Furs, to be honest.  Masoch's novel--at least my first impression of it--struck me as weirdly silly, whereas the psychology of Naomi and Joji's interactions seemed a lot richer and more believable.  I don't know, if I wanted to compare them properly, I'd have to read both novels again, which I am not doing anytime soon.  I definitely recommend Naomi, though, if you want a portrait of Japan in the Roaring Twenties with some very interesting romance.

Re-reading Story of O right now, which is GOOD TIMES.  I really blazed through it on my first reading, and being patient with it is definitely more rewarding (if you wish to call it that).  Shit's fucked, but it is too interesting and too well-written to not contemplate.  

This isn't really my reaction to the novel, but I just want to post this video because I have been laughing at it nonstop for the past half-hour.

The Decemberists/Mountain Man at the Boulder Theater 02/09/2011

The Decemberists and I have a relatively short history together, but it is still longer than most.  They were one of the first bands I started listening to that were not video game soundtrack composers, and Her Majesty may have been the first "indie" album that I actually ended up owning.  I do not think it was until I heard both The Tain and The Crane Wife in 2006, however, that my appreciation and admiration of the band solidified, and I was able to go into their back catalogue and truly love what I heard.  I loved their baroque pop, their sea shanties, and their prog rock tunes in equal measures.  I still do, so I jumped on the chance to see them right in my hometown (ticket's were 'spensive, but I probably owe them more for all the piracy).

Despite arriving 45 minutes after the doors opened, I managed to secure a spot about five feet/two rows of people back from the center of the stage.  At 8 o'clock on the nose, three girls walked out to the center of a stage.  I do not know what I was expecting from a band called "Mountain Man," but this ensemble was not it, and even less so when they broke out singing what sounded like a Southern hymn in a cappella three-part harmony.  The audience went dead silent, and the sound of their voices filling the theater felt absolutely ethereal.  It set the tone for the rest of their set, which, aside from the occasional minimal acoustic guitar accompaniment, was characterized by the quiet admiration of the interweaving of these three voices.  It was the kind of music so good and unexpected that I could not help but smile for most of their set, and it helped that the girls were quite personable, engaging the audience intimately.  The farthest to my right, who seemed the most out of place with a very punk hairstyle, entertained the audience in between songs with stories of her hostel days in Boulder and dedicated the last song to "the twelve-year-old boys in the front."  I would have loved to have seen them in a venue a tenth the size of this theater.  Their set lasted a painfully quick half-hour, filled with folk inspired and vocal-driven songs which sounded like they would have been sung by the villagers of a remote mountain town.  The highlight was when punk girl said they were going to play a Tom Waits cover, which was met with cheering and followed by a solo a cappella rendition of "Green Grass."  Her light, pleasant voice was a far cry from Waits' gravel, but the song sounded no less haunting in her hands, which spoke both to Waits' talent as a songwriter and her talent as a musician.

Elyse, if you are not listening these girls, you should be.  That goes for everyone else, too.

The minimalism of Mountain Man provided some decent contrast for The Decemberists' stage preparations, where a keyboard, organ, accordion, drum kit, double bass, bass guitar, violin, at least ten guitars, and other instruments I am sure to be forgetting lay.  At 9 o'clock, we were greeted by the voice of Portland's mayor, who invited us to meet the people around us and wave to the poor souls in the balcony.  Little did I know, audience participation would become a pretty consistent theme throughout the show, and I it made the concert a lot more fun.  But I get ahead of myself.  After a brief exercise in imagination, the band assumed their positions on stage and proceeded to play the opening track, "Apology Song," a.k.a. the one that begins with "I'm really sorry, Steven."  Having the one track that features my name be the first one in the set seemed like divine providence, and it set the tone for what was to be an amazing show.

Colin Meloy was a great frontman.  Much like the opening act, he did not shy away from interacting with the audience.  He commented often about the proximity of the audience, at one point asking, "Were you always this close to me?"  In response to being called awesome, he introduced the "sixth member" of The Decemberists, a girl playing violin in the background who, as I just found out, is also a member of Nickel Creek.  At one point, he even switched the hats of two boys standing next to the stage.  His amicability, and the good time that the rest of the band members seemed to be having, made for a warm atmosphere and really let the audience have a good time as well.

After "Apology Song," the band, expectedly, played some tracks from The King is Dead.  I haven't listened to this album much yet.  Though I do like it, so far it does not begin to compare to Her Majesty, Picaresque, or The Crane Wife.  Energy-wise, these new songs also were the low points of the set for me.  It was only when they explored their back catalogue that the show picked up in intensity and enjoyment.  The first of the old tracks, this rendition of "We Both Go Down Together" was positively tame compared to what awaited us.

Picaresque turned out to get a lot of playtime, and no complaints here.  Also, check out how good my spot was!  The very next track they played was "The Bagman's Gambit," which featured an entire audience crying, "No, they'll never catch me now!", Colin Meloy hilariously stonefaced and standing at the edge of the stage, and a ruthless and spine-tingling climax of noise.  From there, the band transitioned into hard rock mode, playing "Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)," with Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek performing wonderfully as Margaret.  My initial appraisal of The Hazards of Love was pretty lukewarm, but it has been growing on me a lot lately, especially as I have taken the time to listen to the entire thing nonstop.  This track in particular is standout, and hearing it live solidified that, and made me wish that I could have seen the entire album played live back when they toured for it.  This small taste was too tantalizing, and perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was no sign of "The Rake's Song."

From hard rock, they veered straight into prog rock with the opening riff of "The Island," hands down my favorite track from The Crane Wife and one of my favorite Decemberists tracks period.  They played the entire fucking thing, uncut and unbridled.  Words cannot describe how awesome that was, seeing Colin Meloy not ten feet away from me singing, "Produced my pistol, then my sabre.  Said 'make no whistle, or thou will be murdered.' LA HAAAAAA!"  I sung along too, of course.  As did most people around me.  The only thing that would have topped this would have been for the band to play The Tain in its entirety.

"Los Angeles, I'm Yours," was a pleasant surprise from Her Majesty, which still holds a dear place in my collection.  I really wanted them to play "The Gymnast High Above the Ground," which I believe was the first Decemberists song I ever heard, but that turned out to be the only Her Majesty track of the night.  Still, the audience, and myself included, appreciated this brief foray into their sophomore album.  Meloy's voice is as distinctive and impressive in person, but to hear him say lines like "an ocean's garbled vomit" and "has left me wretched, retching on the floor" in a live setting really enhances the impact of his lyricism and vocals.

They played a few more tracks from TKID, which, again, were well-received, but the highlight here was the inclusion of "16 Military Wives" in the middle.  The song has a great beat for getting the audience bouncing, but the real fun came towards the end, when Meloy let the audience take over singing the "La di da di da didadidadi dum" part, cuing us to sing louder, then softer, then in a whisper, then to just think it, then to get louder again, then to shout it, then to let him sing it by himself, which nobody let him do.

Midway through the show, some guy made his way to the front and placed something on the stage.  After he finished playing whatever song it was, Meloy picked up the cardboard sign and said, "Oh, Boulder..."  He turned the sign so the audience could read "Play Row Jim" scrawled in marker, referring to the cover of the Grateful Dead song "Row Jimmy" that graced the B-side of their "January Hymn" single.  He made some quips about how they were not prepared to play it at all and, tossing the sign aside, continued with the set.  Well, guess what their first encore was?

I am no Dead Head, but that was an awesome moment.  Still, nothing compared to the next song, which I, and many other I am sure, was looking forward to from the beginning--"The Mariner's Revenge Song."  Before playing, Meloy explained that the audience would have to provide a sound effect for a particular part of the song, and that was to be the screams of people being eaten by a whale.  We had a practice run as the guitarist prowled up and down stage, using his arms to mime the jaws of hungry whale.  When the band starting playing, the song was as much a theatrical performance as a piece of music.  Meloy was our humble and vengeful narrator, the accordionist sang the ghostly words of the dead mother, and other members joined in from time to time.  Particularly entertaining was the bassist, who, after playing a great solo on his upright, proceeded to fall, bass and all, to the ground with the rest of the band as the whale rose up to devour the ship.  And, of course, we were all screaming at the top of our lungs, as instructed.  Prior to that, we had been dancing to the shanty, swaying in unison in 3/4 time, and singing along.  The song was the climax of the night, and the climax of the song was the very end, as the instrumental outro prompted jumping and clapping from the entire audience, which grew more heated and frantic as the tempo increased to ludicrous extremes before the final double attack.  I don't have a video, and the audio I captured sounds like absolute shit, because I had too much fun to worry about anything else during that song.

After another brief interlude of clapping and cheering, The Decemberists returned to the stage a final time to play their second encore, "June Hymn."  After the nigh-exhausting frenzy that was "The Mariner's Revenge Song," this track, although melancholic, provided a nice period of denouement, giving me the space to appreciate the show I had just seen.  If you haven't gathered such from my ramblings yet, these guys are amazing live, and I heartily recommend you see them as soon as possible.

Visit the quaint Ash Tree Lane

Finished House of Leaves.  It is a weird book that does weird things, impressing and perplexing, I don't know what to make of it, and so it succeeds.  I want to read it again, but not soon.  In a few years.  It has a place on my bookshelf until then.

I suppose I should confess that, while I first heard of the book a good while ago (I want to say from Lupe's LJ, although it is always possible I am incorrect.  In which case, though, I have no idea why I have been aware of it for that long.), it was my readings into the Slender Man mythos that prompted my decision to acquire the book finally.  Having read it, I can understand quite easily why it would be so attractive a book to the amateur filmmaker, since it does center on a homemade documentary about freaky shit happening to normal people, i.e. every Slender Man Youtube series ever.

I definitely recommend it.  As a reading experience, I doubt there is anything quite like it.  I mean, I am far from well-versed in experimental fiction, but, well, what other books have you read that look like this?:

Don't let the formatting discourage you either, because it did for me initially.  Switching between the different sections of text and footnotes takes some getting used to, granted, but it does not take very long for the book to start sprinting away, and, desperate to catch up, you end up reading over 90% of it and finishing in less than two days.  It's not easy to read, but it's difficult in a very enjoyable way, akin to a Rubik's Cube or similar puzzle.

The supernatural/unnatural/cosmic horror quality actually works too, but the novel is so much more than a horror story.  It's a love story.  It's a shaggy dog story.  It's a celebration and satire of literary criticism.  It's good and unsettling.  Read it.  Enter the house.

Persistence

As much as I appreciate the openness of blogging, there has to be some value in private writings.  At the very least, it creates an interesting question of what divides what I choose to let virtually anybody read and what I choose to read by myself.  They are two distinct actions, the writing and the reading, working towards the same end.  I enjoy and hate them both, particularly when I am writing for myself.  It is a much more difficult exercise, and that is perhaps why I really have not done it appreciably since my trip to Germany and the Czech Republic.

Recreating dialogue from memory is a fucking difficult exercise, too.  It's something I tend to think about when a first-person narrator is recounting a particular scene, say in a novel for instance.  Unless there was a tape recorder involved, it strikes me as impossible for the dialogue to be recreated word-for-word, with all of the appropriate responses and nuances.  So am I supposed to suspend my disbelief and allow the author that degree of freedom?  Or I am supposed to take a certain degree of uncertainty and bias into whatever the narrator "writes."  I like the second interpretation better, but it is not always clear if the author is working along the same lines of thought.  And if I do take the second approach, how am I even supposed to begin to glean a semblance of consistency and purpose in how the narrator constructs the dialogue unless I begin vigorously examining a novel's worth of speech, at which point the exercise lapses from intrigue into tedium.

I guess my point is that, as I try to recreate my own dialogue, I am inevitably omitting and embellishing, both consciously and unawares, and I don't like that.  The persistence of memory indeed.  I understand why everything is melted and distorted and barren now.  I've been seeing that painting on a regular basis since I was five years old, and only now does that make sense to me.  Why did that take so long?  What good am I as a writer if I cannot accurately recreate 20 seconds of dialogue?

I am working more reading and writing back into my schedule.  Forget everything else.

Skepticism & Logic Questionnaire

Ben asked me to do this questionnaire for his skepticism & logic class, and I think it is interesting enough to put here.

Of the following:

ghosts
psychics
voodoo
aliens
myths
magic
con artists
superstitions
witchcraft
poltergeists
hypnosis
ouija boards
dream catchers
crop circles
vampires
urban legends
sacrifices
nostradamus
deja vu
ancient encounters
time travel
subliminal messages
mood rings
weather predictions
reincarnation
coincidence
curses
psychokinesis
telepathy
monsters
tarot cards

1. Which do you believe in and why?

2. Which are "obviously" not true and why?

Steve likes Nic Cage: Face/Off and Bad Lieutenant

I gotta learn not to write so much.  Or, if I am going to write an essay, not forget an entire education in the English language and maybe start outlining an entry with things like a thesis and arguments and cohesion.

I've mentioned before that I really like Nicolas Cage, and The Cinema Snob (if you aren't familiar with his work, you should be--plus, he's a fellow Jones, so how can you go wrong?) has been reminding me of that recently.  I have to admit, though, that I am pretty woefully unfamiliar with his complete film catalogue.  In my defense, he has been in a hell of a lot of movies, but I do want to start chipping away at my number of unseen ones.

I started with Face/Off, which I have seen before, but it was long enough ago and foggy enough in my memory that I did not want to count it.  I am glad I did watch it again, because it was the kind of thoroughly enjoyable action flick that I had not seen since probably Inception.  Like Inception, it succeeds at being more cerebral than the run-of-the-mill action movie without forgetting how to be over-the-top and mindlessly entertaining.  The premise is absurd, but the script treats the psychological and sociological implications of such a swap with enough gravity that I am more than willing to ignore the gross medical inaccuracy.  Also, Travolta and Cage give fucking amazing performances.  This movie would fall apart if Nic Cage was not so good at playing John Travolta trying to play Nic Cage.  John Travolta pretty much just gets to act like Nic Cage for most of the movie, which is fun to watch too.  I think it is pretty brilliant, too, how Castor-as-Archer is actually a better husband, better father, and overall more likable guy than Archer, if we were to ignore his more sociopathic tendencies.  Likewise, the growth in character we see in Archer-as-Castor makes this identity switch probably the best thing to happen to Archer as a person.  The film is filled with subtle nuances like these, and they elevate Face/Off to a pleasantly puzzling piece of cinema, despite John Woo's sometimes questionable directing.

Next, at the recommendation of The Cinema Snob, I checked out the much more recent (2009) Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans.  This film felt strangely amorphous; it is definitely a character study, as opposed to a plot-driven story.  Rather, several small subplots run throughout the movie, which is a little jarring at first, but I really enjoyed the movie, mostly due to Nic Cage's performance.  The character of the crooked, drug-addicted cop is nothing novel, but Cage really turns the character into something entirely his.  He is not the manic, wide-eyed Nic Cage a la Face/Off.  He is still crazy, granted, but it is much more sinister and reserved, addled by drugs and fueled by intelligence, which makes for a lot of compelling and unforgettable scenes.  I love that you never quite know what he is thinking, and that he frankly seems to cock everything up, until he finally pulls off some fucking brilliant move and you realize what he had been up to the entire time.  Definitely recommended.

I am creating a "Nic Cage" tag, because I think I'll turn this into a somewhat regular feature, i.e. watch a Nic Cage movie, write about it (I'll go back and tag The Wicker Man entry too).  It's fun so far!