To Daddy…
“I like your foots.”

…

- age 3 years 6 months 2 weeks

I love it when a pic comes together.

Sometimes the camera sees what the eye does not. Sometimes it does so in a way that enhances the intended poignance. What a fine moment this is!

You may or may not like the above pic, but this is one of those moments. I saw the clouds, I liked them, I clicked. I thought they looked a bit like the trail of an incoming alien spaceship. With my eyes, I didn’t notice the dangling branches, but the camera spotted them and they became the tentacles of the invaders. The invaders who had already arrived. And more were coming. God help the sleepy village of their destination…

Beautiful! Well I thought so.

(did I mention it was taken on a cheapy mobile phone?)

Why did The Running Lady, at the risk of missing her train, go for the end carriage rather than the nearest one?

I fear I will never know…

Listening to NiN’s The Wretched (of which the title of this piece is a lyrical snippet), I drift onto thoughts of why I like listening to NiN. Yes I know I have travelled this path previously on this here blog, but bare with me…

While listening, I am reading Dean Koontz’s What the Night Knows, in which a character has just mulled on the meaning of perspicacity – that being “having keen insight” or an almost uncanny ability to see through – and to comprehend – what is dark and obscure. Which pretty much explains my love of Nine Inch Nails. And the work that I do.

Ka!

Listening to Nine Inch Nails’ Where is Everybody?, walking to the station to catch my morning train, a little smile arises. It is darkish, the streets are empty, and my writer-ish imagination says this could be the opening scene to a zombie movie – not least of all because Where is Everybody? is from the NiN album, The Fragile, being the soundtrack to a zombie rock opera I have created in my head.

A crow flies overhead… the staple of zombie movies…

For an inexplicable reason I am compelled to check the details of the song on my phone. Specifically the year of its release. 1999. Thirteen years ago. It occurs to me that none of the boys in my class were yet born upon The Fragile‘s release. This wonderful, desperate, angry music of my… um… youth… ish.

Cripes.

How dare thee weteth my socks!

Aunt Bessie -
What a Jessie!

I feel bereft without my book! Especially when I have little more than 100 pages left of the entire Dark Tower series and I am eager to see how it all turns out. In the spirit of 2012 , however, resolutions still being fresh in my mind and all that, I will endeavor to “not sweat the small stuff” (my overarching 2012 resolution, as illustrated, laminated and stuck on a window of my class, alongside those of my students) and do something else in those times when I might otherwise have picked up The Dark Tower IV: The Dark Tower. Such as, for example, write a review of Super 8 – back in a tick!

…

Being a product of J.J. Abrams and Stephen Spielberg, I had high expectations. I was not, on the whole, disappointed – the film undoubtedly entertained – however…

It left me feeling a bit hmm.

Abrams being the writer/director, I was thinking Lost, MI3, Alias – ie. excitement and high production values, but also intrigue, mystery and not knowing what the hell is going on half the time. Well the excitement and high production values were certainly there – ramped up by Spielberg’s additional years of experience with such things – and there was some mystery and intrigue. Some. But nowhere near what I have come to expect from J.J. Which is sad, because the trailer gave very little away with regards to what exactly was captured on the Super 8 film of the title and the consequences thereof – whereas in the film, it is pretty obvious what is going on, all but a few details, from about the halfway point.

So it wasn’t very Abrams-y.

If one considers Super 8 as a Spielberg film, however, one is less likely to be disappointed. If one considers it as a Spielberg film of 30 years ago, it is perfection – because that is what it feels like. Super 8 is set shortly after the birth of the Rubiks Cube (if you have no conception of when that is, Google it). There are scenes which could have been pulled straight out of E.T. – kids on bikes haring around suburban middle America, for example. Also a fresh-faced boy communing with a misunderstood alien – although the alien in this case is a darned sight uglier and meaner than the phone-obsessed friend of Elliot, and the Super 8 version of Elliot is a little (but only a little) less fresh-faced and innocent than his fellow alien-befriender. Other than these minor-ish points, however, you would be forgiven for thinking that Super 8 is a more gruesome, slightly more sweary version of the 80s Spielberg classic, albeit with an extra-terrestrial who is more Giger than Frank Oz (again I invite you to Google these names if they are lost on you).

There is a definite nostalgic feel to this film. Not just because of the time in which it is set, but also its style, the fact that it stars a bunch of kids and the classic Spielberg-ish morality (it’s not about aliens or government conspiracies, it’s about love, forgiveness, family loyalty and letting go of the past). So if the idea of going back three decades into the past and seeing the-lost-Spielberg-film gets you all goosebumpy, then Super 8 will be a real treat for you. If however you have already pre-ordered season 12 (or whatever) of Lost and you are constantly badgering whoever you can find to be badgered on a slew of online forums about the unsatisfying conclusion of Alias, then I am afraid Super 8 may leave you feeling a little… well… lost.

1056 h: sitting on our patio eating soda farls and sausages… in January – lovely!

*

9jan12

Can you believe I nodded off during Justin’s House?

…

Btw, Wii Fit age of 21 last night! Altho there was a bit of cheating (ish) involved…

…

I am a writer, but I don’t want to feel the need to write about everything.

…

I admit it, I want Mr Tumble‘s spotty bag.

…

Someone appeared to make a Christmas decoration out of a drying rack, but it was just the mottled glass.

*

11jan12

Doing some New Year consolidating: texts, notes, photos, emails, bookmarks, to do list, blogs. Can I consolidate my brain?

Persuasion.

Knowing.

The lightsabre of the mind.

Logic and freedom.

Feathers and axes.

Science friction.

Don’t be afraid.

Hide!

Jekyll.

Half a boiled egg.

It’s dark when you’re a quark.

Slash! Slash! Slash! with the Wii remote.

So dark…

“Mind the gap”

These are not the droids you are looking for.