Whatta Fiasco

I got to spend a little time downtown by myself this afternoon. The rain had finally let up for a bit and I walked down to ZenZero to get Thai spring rolls and some thom ka gai. On the way, I noticed that the empty storefront next to the sushi place was now sporting enormous signs exhorting diners to boycott Wa restaurant. As close as I could figure, the complaint was that the facade of the building had been redone to match the Japanese decor inside and it no longer matched the historic look of downtown. As if enormous and ugly boycott signs were going to improve downtown business? Gah.

Dinner was lovely and I made it in before the Saturday night rush hit full on. I sat in the window eating my soup and watching the people walk by.

I walked back down the other side of the street and saw the response that Wa had to the signs. They were advertising a special Boycott Wa sushi roll with a little tee-hee-ing smiley face on the sign. I don’t get in there very often, but I won’t be participating in the boycott.

A little further down the road, there was a dirty hippy street musician sitting on the sidewalk in front of the Christian bookstore. He was playing a folk ballad rendition of Itsy-Bitsy Spider to a small crowd, including one cute-as-a-bug two year old. Clearly she had decided that this, this was the music she had been waiting for all her life. This was the music to make her dance. Hip-shaking, gyrating, sidewalk happiness. As long as he was playing his guitar, she was going to dance.

Akira Kurosawa presents Toshiro Mifune as a foundry owner who is terrified of nuclear holocaust. He wants to take all of his funds and relocate the entire extended family to South America. A legal battle between the patriarch and his family ensues. The quality of the film has suffered in the process of being transferred first to laser disk and then DVD, but it’s still watchable. The quality of the subtitles however, is lamentable. At best, the english subtitles will give you a sense for what’s going on. To get any real nuance, you’ll have to watch the actors and fill in the dialog for yourself. Not a great, not even a terribly good film, but it has its points of interest.

I am far too fond of overly clever and self-referential books. This one is quite the tease, but part way through one of the characters lays out the keys to the structure. If gimmicky books make you want to throw them against the wall, then pass on this one. Personally, I enjoyed it.

[Powells]

Book two in a set of three. I wasn’t expecting it to be even better than the first one, but it was. Probably because the three books are a single novel split up. The first was all introduction. The second gave us some peril and laid out a central problem for our heroes, both human and dragon. Now I can just hope that the problem of civil rights for dragons is going to be resolved in the third book.

[amazon]

It’s another fun book, a follow up to The Atrocity Archives, which you really should read first. Light, summer fun with soul-eating demons and soul-sucking bureaucracy.

[amazon]

Yes, I’m definitely on something of an autobiographical graphic novel kick at the moment. This one is good too, just like the reviews said when it came out. She’s on my list.

[amzn]

Yet another case where the third of three books is quite a bit better than the second. The ending is a little much of a let’s wrap this all up quickly scenario, but mostly the characters were getting jerked around by the plot too quickly to let me really get a sense for them. Not a bad book for a quick read.

[mazon]

Things that have made me happy recently:

1. Swanning through the toll booths with my new KTag.
2. Finding out Emma Bull has a new book out and will be doing a signing here in town!
3. Looking forward to the list of books due out this week that I really want to read.
4. Smoked beef brisket.
5. Making pancakes and steamed broccoli for dinner at the request of Ms. K.
6. The look on Ms. K’s face when there was no syrup on the table.
7. The look on Ms. K’s face when I went and got the honey jar after all the broccoli was gone but before all the pancakes had diappeared.
8. Getting a copy of my mom’s weaving book in the mail!
9. Accidentally lifting over 60K lbs. in one hour and still feeling good afterwards.
10. A note fmor an old friend.

An aging death-metal rocker and his perky goth girlfriend have an unnerving run-in with a very nasty ghost. There’s a decent amount of suspense and more than enough gore. Horror isn’t my genre, but I’d been hearing promotions of this book from Subterranean press, and when I walked into the library, there was a brand new audiobook version sitting on the shelf. Brand new. No skipping. And there was much rejoicing. And it was a decent book to boot.

I’m still amazed by how much easier I find it to feel the pacing and structure of a book when listening to the audiobook as opposed to reading a hard copy.

[amazon]

Is there anyone else who does graphic novelish atobiography as well as Eddie Campbell? (Well, Alison Bechdel did a wonderful job, but apart from her.) This one is just as gorgeous as I had expected.

[amazon]