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Friday, November 26, 2004

Whaddya Mean There's No Turkey?

Well I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving yesterday and that quality time with the family wasn't too painful.

We actually ate ham at my house this year. Which is fine by me, because I don't really like turkey. But it was amazing to me. Whenever I told people, they took it as a personal attack to their idea of Thanksgiving. "Wh..What! You can't have Thanksgiving without Turkey!"

Well, I'm here to tell you that you can.

So alongside the ham it was a pretty enjoyable day. My mom wouldn't let me help in any way except to clean all the bathrooms. So, after cleaning them for the 3rd time, I looked out the window and watched the wind tear apart the rain clouds that had dominated the skies here the last several days. The sun popped out and it was quite a nice surprise. It became so bright for awhile it was hard to look outside. I dragged out my journal and started to just write down what I was looking at, and somehow it started to turn into a story about a holiday party. Very odd segueway, but the holiday party itself looks to be promising. The real odd part is that I wrote it in 2nd person (you drank enough punch to get drunk off your ass as opposed to he drank enough punch to get drunk off his ass). I can't remember the last time I wrote in that point of view, but it's kind of fun for a switch. I'm debating over making it one of those rambling narratives I complained about in Black Clock, or if I want it to have actual dialogue. We'll see how it goes the next couple of days. I'm trying to keep it short, so I should know before long.

After dinner I ended up watching Dreamcatcher, based on the Stephen King book. It was fun for the most part. I enjoyed the very non-Hollywood pacing in the early part of the film, and there are some cool parts. One character is taken over by an alien entity, and the director really had a lot of fun with that by having the character watch the actions of his own body through window in his own mind. Although I haven't read it, I have the feeling it followed the book pretty well. It had that odd balance of really good writing and hackish slop that few but King seem able to achieve. I really, really, really didn't buy Lt. Owen (played by Tom Sizemore) at all. He bought into some wacked out theories pretty quickly (So you're telling me your childhood friend with a speech impediment gave you telepathy so you could defend the Earth from an alien invasion? Ok, let's go!). I also have a hard time believing an experienced military man would really try to take on a fully armed helicopter with nothing but a machine gun when he's standing in wide-open terrain.

Not too bright.

Excelsior.




6 comments:

LadyLitBlitzin said...

Yep, I've had ham at Thanksgiving in the past. One of my uncles always insists there has to be ham... well, alongside turkey. It's funny though, that you had such reactions. I guess people don't call it "Turkey Day" for nothing. Still, I don't understand why people would think it patently offensive! Ha.

Second-person narrative is interesting. I saw a story recently that was written in second person and I liked it a lot.

I've seen "Dreamcatcher." It was an odd movie -- it really did change pace about halfway through. And talk about an uncomfortable moment involving "asses." Geez! But the second half unraveled a bit for me.

Hebdomeros said...

I had the same reaction to the ending. Fun concept, but ended a little lame. The "ass stuff" reminded me of that 80's Gremlins Ripoff, Groulies.

LadyLitBlitzin said...

Did that movie have an ass scene? I don't remember it very well, though I know I saw it. In fact, I remember nothing about it whatsoever, come to think of it!

BTW, I looked for Delany in Borders today. I found "Hogg" in Literature and "Dhalgren" in sci-fi/fantasy, which just goes to show exactly what you spoke of before, his difficulty to pinpoint. I got "Dhalgren," as I remembered that was your recommendation -- "Hogg" looked a bit much for me for my first taste of Delany.

However, I also picked up a bunch of other reading too... so I'm not sure when I'll get to it! But I'm pretty excited about all my purchases!

Hebdomeros said...

I don't remember any ass shots like in Dreamcatcher, but the tagline for the movie was Groulies: They'll Get You in the End. I don't remember it too well except that one guy got bit while seated on the porcelain throne.

I'm actually shocked Hogg's in stores. I have a pretty high tolerance level for grapic violence, but it even go to me. Dhalgren's a good choice. It's a very writerly kind of book. When I bought it had a fun intro by William Gibson, talking about living in Dupont Circle while he first read Dhalgren. Hope you like it.

LadyLitBlitzin said...

Yeah, when I read the back of Hogg, I realized it might be too much for my intro to him. I'll read Dhalgren and then maybe move onto Hogg. I have a high threshold too, but hearing from you that you have a high threshold and still had some problems, it sounds good that I steered clear for now. I am looking forward to Dhalgren -- and did see that the foreword was by William Gibson, didn't know it was from when he was living in Dupont Circle -- cool!

Anonymous said...

Well, as you know, you're not the only one who didn't have turkey for Thanksgiving. Granted, turkey was an option at mine, but the joy of having Thanksgiving with family friends who are caterers is that you get treated to a succulent duck in your choice of black cherry or orange sauce and other divine, non-traditional goodies. The family alone did have a more traditional turkey dinner the next night (but simplified -stove top stuffing, gravy from a jar, canned yams, etc. Nobody felt like going all out after the previous evening) So yay for variations on an old theme!

As to Delany, didn't you say that Hogg had been banned from some states? Or something along those lines. I still have your copy of Dhalgren, and I'll get to it eventually. I promise!

-L