Stuff in 2007: As if anyone cares.

I can't remember seeing any incredible movies in 2007. Yes they were there, but no, I didn't see them. The most fun I had at the movies this year was:

Knocked Up
Lars and the Real Girl

Other than that, I can't remember. Oh wait! I did see:

The Evening

and I enjoyed that. It didn't break a whole lot of new ground, but it was very watchable.

I also need to add The Darjeeling Limited. I can't seem to dislike anything Wes Anderson does. He's the Marc Jacobs of film, and they do indeed hang out. They and Sofia Coppola are like the holy trinity of cool.

Everything else, including Sweeny Todd, will have to wait for DVD. *Update -- I saw Sweeny Todd, and I really liked it. I didn't love it, I thought Depp was a little too all over the place, especially emotionally, and it didn't help that his look was so similar to Edward Scissorhands. I think that if Depp gets an award for this film, it will only be the replacement award for his role as Scissorhands, because the innocence he created with that role far outshines the brooding Todd, who doesn't really know what he wants. He wasn't evil enough for me, it seems. I haven't seen any other version of Todd, but it seems like Depp couldn't get a grasp on overwrought vs. blind rage. There were several funny moments, but I think the real star of this film, the real shiner, is Helena Bonham Carter. She fully embraces the role of...the meat pie maker, Mrs. Little? Or whatever her name is in the film. I usually love Depp, but he just didn't give it his all. There was something lacking, but it is hard to pinpoint. I think that he is just so sexy and enjoyable to watch that maybe Burton didn't catch the unevenness. It could also be an editing thing. I don't claim to be an expert. I'd like to see it again. Yes, it was bloody. But it was really fake, like 70s low budget horror.

I did see some good concerts in 2007, my favorite being:

Tori Amos: Back to back shows at the Grove in Anaheim and the Nokia theater reminded me that this is my favorite performer. For this tour Tori came out in different costumes representing different aspects of the female psyche, and for L.A. she showed up twice as the character Pip, who represents dark energy in the universe. I had my own dark experience on night one, when a small but agresive girl threw a full cup of beer on me, and then ran away, after I informed her and her large drunk boyfriend that I didn't appreciate them attempting to shove me out of the way 15 minutes into the set. That was probably a bad choice on my part, imagining that I was going to be able to reason with drunk people why their behavior irked me. So that boyfriend tried to get in my face, and I removed him from my immediate area with my hand around his throat. He eventually left, defeated and abandoned by his drink-tossing friend. So I like that this night has a story. The next night was superior, in that we had seats and were comfortable and not confronted by drunk rabble rousers. Tori Amos is a virtuoso, and when she takes the stage, my heart begins to hurt. It's a very intense experience.

Travis: I hadn't seen this band ever, although I have been a fan for a long time. I had a great time, and they were so fun!

KCRW's Evening Becomes Eclectic: This night was magical! Cold War Kids, The Shins, Lily Allen, Rodrigo y Gabriella...everyone was just great, and I really enjoyed this evening.

Me: hahahahahhhhahahaha.

Morrissey: He didn't disappoint. The whining was fabulous, as was Jack the Ripper, the Loop, Disappointed, The Queen is Dead, and other Smiths and Morrissey classics.

So it wasn't the most packed year, but there were some great ones in there. There wasn't a lot of new music that I thought was mind blowing, but I did like:

Band of Horses -- Cease to Begin
Ryan Adams -- Easy Tiger

I bought other music...but older.

This year was unusual. I had a "good" time, got hellishly sick, took a trip around America, went to Mexico, grew out my natural hair color (haven't seen it this grown out in..14 years!!!!), and almost got straight As, and bonded with Moby-Dick. Cheers to next year, and hope to see you there.

Spit it out. No wait...

So my one of my best friends had a baby in November, and Todd and I have been visiting her and her husband and the kids in Valley Center. Valley Center is out past Escondido, but before the animal park. Acres and acres of land that was mostly avacado groves is now mostly homes, and some trees remain. My friend opted to keep the trees on her property, and she has the best Hass avacados that never have brown spots or black flecks or those gross fibers. For the past couple of days I've been carrying her baby around, and I've been thrown up on several times. I'm not inclined to say "spit up," because babies can't spit, and it's not spit, it's milk, it's BREAST milk, and it's vomit. It's warm; it's sometimes a little coagulated; it's baby vomit. No, there's no heaving or blurghghghghgh noises, but it's not spit. I still like holding the baby, but babies need a little puke bucket around their necks or something.

While I was on my way down to their house I found out I got accepted at Cal State Dominguez Hills, so I was pretty excited about that. Now I have a definite future and not one obscured by admissions haze. Now to just get it right, and make sure I don't waste another semester. I'm revising my Moby-Dick essay, which is fun, but work. However, I should be able to go to the library on a real university campus now, which will help enormously.

I'm going to miss you people. I want to have a party, and I give really good fun parties, but it's after the holidays, and most people are partied out, at least I think, or holed-up with Oscar-worthy movies, or entertaining their conservative parents, or maybe playing Joseph at the local nativity, or maybe living down the street from me and I don't know what. Nah, Brandon is not old enough to play Joseph. Maybe he'll play a really pale Magi.

We'll try maybe for spring break. That way you'll have missed me some, and may be ready to down some cocktails during the mid-semester doldrums. I'll have stories to tell, from my Compton campus, I'm sure.

I'm tempted to start making 2007 lists, but somehow, it just doesn't seem right. This year ends with a whimper.

Pondering the Current State of American Fiction

On my trip to Cancun, I of course took along a couple of novels to catch up on some reading. I brought Snow Falling on Cedars, a bestseller, and The Sea, a novel by one of my favorite writers, John Banville. I started the American novel first, and for the second time (the first being The Time Traveler's Wife) I am underwhelmed and a little miffed. Snow was a best-seller; I remember a time when this book was all over the Barnes and Noble crowd's lips, and no one could get enough of it. I suppose several people were somewhat clueless about the Japanese concentration camps of WWII -- the camps that were in America, and this book served to tell a kind of story about the camps, although they weren't the focus of the story, and really didn't illuminate the experience.

It is not that I didn't like the book. Well, maybe I didn't like it. I can't think of anything I particularly liked about it, unless you count thinking of Ethan Hawke as the character Ishmael counts, because I did remember him playing a character in the film adaptation, and thinking of Ethan Hawke is enjoyable, for reasons I can't really relate. He's not my favorite actor, but I did rather enjoy the Sunrise/Sunset movies, and I liked Gattaca and Great Expectations, although I think it is that I relate to him, more than admire him. But back to the book. The romantic lead was named Ishmael, and he was missing a limb, an arm. A homosexual relationship was flirted with, but not state explicitly, and I would venture that such was not good writing or suggestive writing, as other sexuality was stated with matter of fact openness. All of the women in the novel were mysterious, and difficult to fathom. Fishing was the main source of income, and death occurs on boat. Moby-Dick was brought up in the book outrageously, trying to force irony on to a blatently derivative plot and character layout. Other classical works of literature were referenced, either directly or indirectly, and the last words of the book were in effect a direct rip off of the qoute that has been on Blythe's myspace forever, "The heart of another is dark forest always," or something like that; the end of Snow saying something like,"the heart of the ones we love are as mysterious as dark forests..." I hate reading something and then wanting to repossess all the time spent reading.

So I'm back to David Foster Wallace; I'm' going to read Infinite Jest again, ro reclaim my sanity and see what I can get out of it after not reading it for about ten years.

Then, we'll talk about reclaiming American Fiction.

La mala oveja vuelve de Cacun.

I know that a vacation to Cancun, the snake nest, the strip of resorts and hotels, only different from a one sided Las Vegas because gambling is not legal in QROO, doesn't sound especially cool, or even all that relaxing, yet, I had a good time. I like seeing the ruins, and this time we journeyed to Talum, the blue walled Mayan village/city on the cliff, where the elite of the population lived within walls, quite fresh for oh so long ago. These people were incredible. That much has been documented. And as much as I sort of dislike having to ride in a bus on a tour, I do love to get to see this kind of stuff. It's nice. The Caribbean ocean is so beautiful, and snorkeling is so fun. At one of the Palace Resorts we visited there were animal sanctuaries, and we saw some monkeys and cats, as well as some deer and turtles, and even crocodiles. Monkeys are so silly. A friend in our large extended family group casually mentioned that monkeys can rape you, and for the rest of the trip he couldn't distance himself from constant harassment concerning his ape-rape phobia, as we would creep up behind him and make monkey noises, because nothing is funnier than a man afraid of rape by monkey. The trip was good: no puking, no blackouts, no fighting, and no major injuries. Just an almost death by bad buffet food, but we made it home in time.

This little trip was over far too fast, and it's back to end of semester business right away. I hope everyone is getting their grading in, and that their semesters were okay. I know Blythe was put off by her drop rate, and I hope everyone makes up for it in the Spring. It's still iffy where I'm headed, so I plan to get that figured out next week.

In other news, back to back Tori Amos shows this weekend! I'm very excited and can't wait to see her again. She's my favorite. This will be something like my twentieth time seeing her perform. She is so talented. It should be a blast.

You better think twice, you better do right by me.

As the lights from landing and embarking aeroplanes wink at me from sixteen floors, I imagine that it is always nice to be either beginning or ending some sort of journey, and how physical and metaphysical jaunts are similar. Tyler Durden is about to commit suicide (or the other guy murder; depends on how you look at it), in the beginning of Fight Club, and probably scores of other stories begin with the ending and/or vice versa.

I have wanted to do something wonderful for my beloved instructors before transfer, and I think it is a good idea, this having a celebration of both the beginning and the end, with those that have not only facilitated my education, but also done that extraordinary thing: believed in me;f had faith in that which I was not aware existed. I thank you, and will hopefully get to share with you a roasted chicken, of which I am most fond of making, and hopefully you are fond of eating, or something.

I think I'm gonna be sad, I think it's today, yeh. The girl that driving me mad, is going away, yeh. She's got a ticket to ride, and she don't care.