ClayGilbert

Annah

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:28:34 GMT

Different writers have, I suppose, different ways of sharing new projects. Some like to sit on things until there's a full draft done, and some like to sneak bits out to friends here and there. I guess I'm in that latter category, having spent a lot of years entranced with coming attractions trailers for new movies nearly as much as some of the main features, and having gotten glimpses of new books, too, in interviews with my favorite writers (such as Mr Sleep, the sequel to The Shining that Stephen King has been talking about lately). So it is that I'd like to share a little of what I hope will be a new novel...it's a science-fiction story, and a love story, and an ecological story, and political story. It's about a man who's given up on himself and his race, until he meets someone, of another race, on another world, who is alone in her desire to see beyond the confines of her people's own limited view. Here's a little taste, of something called Annah.

Probably nothing out here, Gary Holder thought, watching the ebb and flow of space around him through the observation window. That’s just fine. Sure as hell nothing for me back home. Sure they knew that when they stuck me with this.

Recon was about the worst gig you could hope to pull as a shipper, really. Not that it was dangerous, unless dying of boredom was a danger. The Big War was over; the latest one anyway—Holder thought it was funny how there’d been so many wars now they just passed the same name forward from one to the next—but Homegov still kept a border patrol active in case any old spacers who hadn’t gotten that memo happened by; that or the odd pirate out to skim a living off the top of Homegov’s private pot of gold. Holder’d thought about the pirate life himself more than once. Hell, more than twice.

What the hell was that?

Holder braced himself against the console as a second shockwave shook the ship.

Gravity ghost, I guess. From time to time, you ran into that—place where a planet had recently gone ‘nova and parts of its field remained, usually along with a dusting of space boulders with nowhere else to go. Every now and then, recon duty might mean you’d be part of a cleanup crew. Sometimes, if the job was big enough, Homesec might round up whatever old spacers they could find willing to take bad pay for a worse job.

A third shock rocked the pod. Fine way to go out, Holder thought. Smashed to death by space boulders or crushed in the clutch of a gravity ghost. Still, there was nothing else. There hadn’t been for quite a while. It’d been three years since Shannon, who he’d mistaken for the love of his life, had gotten tired of being a spacer’s wife and run off with a paper-pusher from one of Homesec’s branch offices. He’d sure never have bought it stuck somewhere in the middle of borderspace.

Don’t care, Holder thought. Fuck him. Fuck ‘em all. Rather go out in a blaze of starlight than rust my heart out down there in the dust.

Sometimes he wondered if his heart wasn’t rusted out already. He wondered it again just before his sight was swallowed by a starless dark.

* * * *

The Earth had smelled like this once, Holder imagined, before the nearsighted idiots called the human race had blacked it up with industry and bombed it out with wars. It smelled like new beginnings; like the greenhouse heat of musk and sweat and every messy side of themselves the human race tried hardest to forget. He took a long breath, and it was like inhaling a memory. The sights around him mirrored the smell. It looked as though the ship had nosedived into some kind of jungle, stretching as far as the eye could see. Maybe over the whole planet. Holder had heard of worlds like this; even dreamed of them once or twice. Hell, more than twice.

His brain felt scrambled, like a ship’s computer overrun by one of those pirate viruses those buggers used to disable things so they could board. He didn’t remember the crash at all; nothing between the last shockwave and the impact. Was I thrown from the ship? He did feel scratched up somewhat, and his neck felt like it’d been hugged on by one of those big beasts that lived in the Outer Edge systems; things some of the old spacers talked about but never seemed to have seen up close.

He’d started to crane his neck to see how bad the wreck had been when he felt the soft touch of fingers on his shoulder—though he saw nothing—and then there was a voice inside his head:

No. Don’t. You’ve already been hurt. I don’t want you to hurt anymore.

It sounded, for all he could tell, like the voice of a young woman. Attractive, too, from the sound of it, but then, he’d always had a thing for voices. And both the sound of her voice and what she said comforted him.

“Where am I?” Holder asked, momentarily disturbed. He’d heard stories of spacers who’d crashed on worlds where Earthfolk were either objects of hatred or of scientific curiosity, and never returned. This didn’t seem like that, but he wasn’t sure.

“Safe,” she said. “Now sleep.”

* * * * *

Holder awoke feeling as rested as he did after a long stint in hypersleep, only that felt artificial; dreamless, more a temporary death. This felt more like remembering what being alive felt like.

A chill breeze cut the morning air, and all at once Holder noticed that he was covered in one of the grey synthwool blankets from the hold of the ship. She must have done it, he thought.

“I did,” she said in his head. He found himself wishing he could hear her voice out loud.

“You wouldn’t understand me that way,” she said, and the sound he heard after the words was the apotheosis of laughter. “Maybe I’ll sing for you sometime.”

“I’d like that. But I want to see you.”

The laughter came again, but there was a shade to the sound that reminded Holder of the first time he’d seen Shannon naked. She’d been beautiful, but she hadn’t known it. She’d been so shy.

“Yes,” the voice said. “Shy.”

“That’s all right,” he said, his heart suddenly softening toward this being with a voice that sounded both ancient and young at once. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she said. “Soon. You should eat,” she added, and Holder noticed the small assortment of pale-green and lilac-colored round fruits—a visual cross between a watermelon and a grapefruit—sliced and spread out on a bed of moss. “These are—“she said the first word Holder had heard her speak in her own tongue, and Holder was instantly struck by how beautiful and incomprehensible the sound of it was—“but you would probably call them sweetglobes. They’re very good. They’ve been a favorite of mine since I was a bloomling.”

“A bloomling? I guess that’s what your folk call children.”

That laughter again, piercing him sweetly, like sugared daggers. “Yes. I’m not a bloomling anymore, though. Not really. I’m a—“she uttered another note of the word-music that was her native language. “You would say that as ‘seed-maiden.’ It’s something between those who are just beginning their becoming, and those who have fully gained it. And much younger than the Old Ones.”

Holder thought for a moment. “Sounds like what we might call a ‘teenager’, where I’m from.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Well, now,” Holder said. He was thirty-eight. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but it’s been quite a while since I was either a bloomling or a—“

“Seed-youth,” she supplied.

“Right. Anyway, where I come from, they’d never let someone like you and someone like me—“

“Let us do what?” she asked, and the sound of her voice told him she knew precisely what he meant.

“Never mind,” he said. I must be insane. Or been in space too long. Or alone too long. Or all of it. They weren’t doing anything; she was right. They were only talking. She wasn’t even human.

“Don’t be troubled, Holder,” she told him. “Yes, I know that is what you call yourself. We will do only what Spirit compels, you and I. What life-form could stand against that?”

Her words were comforting, if, Holder thought, a bit naïve. Where he came from, a lot could stand against it.

“What’s your name, then?”

She sang the word to him at first, and he felt the sound of it encompassed every experience or desire he had ever had.

“Annah,” she said.

* * * *

He awakened some time later, without even realizing he’d fallen asleep. Those sweetglobes have about the same effect as dinner on Thanksgiving day, he thought, washed over for a moment with memories. He rarely celebrated holidays anymore. Didn’t see the point. “Annah?” he called.

“I’m here,” she said, from somewhere off in the trees, though the sound of her voice was as soft and close as a whisper against his ear.

“Where are your people?”

“All around us, in every stone and seed and patch of ground. But most are sleeping. The Old Ones spend much of their time sleeping, and there aren’t many young ones left.”

“So you’re not the only young one here?”

“No,” she said, “but I’m still alone.”

“Why?”

“None of the others are like me. They are all happy with the life of the root; the safety of trunk and stem. Theirs are the group-thoughts of the Grove-mind, and they do not dream of the greater Garden, of being planted, rootless, in the sea of stars.”

Holder realized she had looked into his thoughts while he slept; had seen him there. And he knew that for her, even the most routine Recon patrol would be an errand of delight.

“Annah, would you like to see it? The Sea of Stars, I mean?”

“Oh, I would,” she said, sounding amazed that he had even asked. “But they would never let me go.”

The Wisdom of Oz

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:12:02 GMT

Well, this is kind of an appropriate post for Samhain, the quintessential Witches' holiday....or Hallowe'en, if you must ;)   I've been spending most of my reading time lately (which is a lot, since I have a lot of time to read at my new job at Cariten Senior Health) delving back into L. Frank Baum's Oz novels. I read the first seven of them when I was growing up (Baum wrote fourteen, and there were an additional twenty or so writen after his death), but I came across a two volume, green-leather-bound set of the original Baum novels on Amazon, and couldn't resist.

*Why* is a sequential big-budget film series being made of the Narnia novels, but not Oz?   I've been surprised, going back through the books, at just how much depth there is. Baum, along with his wife, Maud Gage, was a feminist and general political and philosophical free-thinker. This strand of thought is pretty clear in the books, from General Jinjur and her army of women who try to lay siege to the Emerald City in the second novel, _The Marvelous Land of Oz_, to Scraps, heroine of _The Patchwork Girl of Oz_, who is created by the witch Mombi to be a slave, but,, surreptitiously given an extra dose of brains, wit, and curiosity by Mombi's helper-boy, ends up independent-willed, smart, curious, and possessed of a pride in being unique, despite an appearance that gets her called a 'freak' numerous times.

There's also the curious H.M.. Woggle-Bug, T.E. , who also figures in the second book, and is, as his name suggest, a bug--rather like in appearance to a giant praying mantis. The 'H.M.' in the Woggle-Bug's name stands for Highly Magnified, which seems to be meant by Baum to refer to the bug's sense of self-importance ;)   The 'T.E.', the Woggle-Bug says, stands for 'Totally Educated', and the Woggle-Bug does end up being Baum's metaphor for those people in society who have a lot of book-learning, but who nonetheless know a lot less of life than they think they do. He can also be seen as an image for the easy path to learning, since the Woggle-Bug ends up inventing a 'Knowledge Pill" that gives students all the academic knowledge they need, 'leaving their time free for athletic pursuits.'

Baum was as skilled with description as with satire, and the books are filled with vivid descriptions.   I find myself drawn to the memorable quotes throughout. I should have taken notes, but one memorable passage from _The Emerald City of Oz_, book six in the series, has Dorothy, the Wizard, Aunt Em, Uncle Henry and a couple of their Oz-ian friends the Shaggy Man and the Saw Horse arriving in a town whose citizens are called the Rigmaroles, because they talk and talk without saying really anything:

"Some of the college lecturers and ministers are certainly related to these people,' observed the Shaggy Man, 'and it seems to me the Land of Oz is a little ahead of the United States in some of its laws. For here, if one can't talk clearly, and straight to the point, they send him to Rigmarole Town, while Uncle Sam lets him roam around wild and free, to torture innocent people.'"

Another of my favorite quotes from the books so far is this one, from _The Lost Princess of Oz_:

"Girls are the fiercest soldiers of all. They are more brave than men and they have better nerves."

Take that, chauvinists ;)

I really do think the 1939 "Wizard of Oz" film, classic that it is, and wonderful, has unfortunately overshadowed the reputation of Baum's books (not that I don't love the film). For a movie that really represents Baum's Oz a bit more clearly, check out Walter Murch's 1985 "Return to Oz." But more to the point, read the books. A Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween to all.

The Wild Things

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:56:42 GMT

Just back from seeing the already-controversial-although-it-just-came-out-yesterday Where The Wild Things Are.  I've been looking forward to this one since production started on it about two years ago. I took my Mom with me to see it, which was nice, both since we are hardly ever on the same page about what makes a good movie anymore and because she read the Maurice Sendak book to me when I was a kid.

How's the movie? In a word, fantastic.   It's not going to be what undiscerning parents expect it to be, however: this is not a comfortable, no-rough-edges, one-dimensional 'kiddie movie'.   It's not a visual babysitter. However, that's not what I remember the book being, either.

The film made me think about the differences between the way kids perceive the world and the way adults perceive it. I don't think kids need to have explained to them that kids sometimes feel like monsters, too strange and out of place for the world around them; a world they are still trying on like a new set of clothes. Kids know these things. And so, it doesn't matter if Sendak's book is only about ten pages long; they *get* it, because it's *their world*, they're living it. They speak the language.

Jonze's film is a translation of the book--it retells the story for adults who may not remember the experience of being a child, and how being without responsibility and authority is not always the best or easiest way to be. I'm of the opinion that the best family films speak both to children and to adults, but this is rated PG for a reason: it's a film not all children will be equipped to deal with. I'm also of the opinion kids are smarter than adults often given them credit for, and I think Spike Jonze agrees. I do get the feeling, though, that this is a movie designed to re-teach adults the language of childhood. I wouldn't keep kids away from this one, certainly, but it's one the parents are going to have to prepare to discuss and explain. The little ones won't get it all, nor, I think, are they meant to. That doesn't mean they should be left at home.

Spike Jonze, the film adaptation's director, said in an interview recently that Sendak only had two expectations of him in making the book into a movie. Sendak said that he wanted the film to be 'dangerous and personal.'   I'm happy to say, I think it's both. It'll be dangerous to those who expect movies featuring children to be movies FOR children, and it'll be dangerous to those who think films for children shouldn't engage the darker aspects of life: questions of death, loneliness, loss, jealousy and anger.

It's a beautiful film, full of the joy of a child's imagination, full of furry monsters and mudball fights, woodland kingdoms--and the love of parents and friends.

It's also sad, touching on the need to follow through on the trust someone else places in you, whether you're someone's friend, someone's parent, someone's child, or someone's king. Breaking trust has consequences--and placing faith in someone is risky.

And it's also complicated and dark--the Wild Things speak often in the unfettered language of emotion--they're suspicious, angry, hurtful, joyful, loving, playful, gentle, vengeful, innocent and troubled all in turns.

I'm definitely going to see this one again.

The visuals, the performances, and the music are exquisite.

Settling Down

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:58:55 GMT

Well, after some difficulties due to money problems and job problems, I'm starting a new job at the Humana call center on Friday--they're a company that deals with prescriptions and medical insurance benefits. I'll just be taking incoming calls, I won't have to meet sales quotas, and it pays 11.50 an hour, much more reasonable than the ridiculous 7.50 I was getting at DialAmerica.

On October 16, I'll be starting my fall term course at Strayer, so that's even *more* money. Problem is, neither of these jobs is permanent...the term at Strayer ends Dec. 21, and the Humana job is supposed to end in February or March of 2010, whenever the company relocates, as it is expected to, to Texas. At least this'll buy me some time to find a permanent new job, hopefully in the teaching or writing field, and I can save back some of my earnings during this time period so if I *do* hit another period without a job, I'll have resources to draw on.

At the fall faculty meeting last night, I signed myself up for both tutoring and advising work, both of which pay rather well, and which I could still do even if they didn't have a course for me in the Spring.

The synopsis and sample chapters of Dark Road are back in New York now, and according to the agent, I should hear something in another four to six weeks. Fingers crossed, again, but the synopsis and the sample are, I think, both quite good--stronger than the query letter that garnered the initial positive response.

I'm currently back to work on _Cassie's Song_; I'd like to finish a draft of that by the end of the year, and then perhaps polish it up in Jan-Feb of 2010. Also going to do a few more touchups on my science-fiction 'dystopia with teenagers' novel, _Eternity_, and send that over to rhiannonhero , if she's willing to have a look at it.

Also looking forward to more Gilbert and Green music. One very good thing about the new job is it's Monday-Friday, and I'm off at 5 every day. I also have the weekends off. I anticipate actually starting to feel like a normal human--and I don't even know what that's like. Anyway...I'll write again soon.

Dragon*Con Wrap-Up 2009

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:37:50 GMT

Wow, I was sure I'd written more than one journal while I was at Dragon*Con, but apparently I didn't. This year's D*Con was another great one--the last *bad* year at D*Con for me was about ten years ago, so the track record lately is good ;)
The Dark Fantasy programming track I work for had, in particular, a strong year. I spent about 30 hours working over the course of the weekend, either moderating panels or stationed in the track room, observing panels and keeping an eye on the order of things, and it seemed like the room was always packed. Authors like Sherrilyn Kenyon and Charlaine Harris tend to pack 'em in, and my track director, Derek, and I continue to bemoan the fact that more 'literary' horror authors like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (who was at D*Con for a second straight year) do not. I felt like the Poe panel I moderated on Monday afternoon was a bit of a clusterfuck, but it wasn't due to anything I did, and no one else seemed to feel that way, so, onward :)

Fannishly, the two highlights for me, panel-wise, were the Leonard Nimoy/William Shatner shared panel (a dream come true, and freakin' hilarious too...look it up on YouTube) and the Babylon 5 cast reunion panel, which is a D*Con feature in one form or another every year.

I saw Emerald Rose play about six times, including one show at which I hung out with Danae Sullivan, the band's manager and wife of Logan Sullivan, their lead singer. I've been a friend of the band since I helped bring them to Columbia, SC to play a concert sponsored by USC's student Pagan organization, and they're always a fun bunch. They're great musicians and perhaps not 'stars' in the larger music world, although they deserve to be--but they're great *people*.

This years screening of Rocky Horror was even better than usual, given the appearance of Barry 'Brad Majors' Bostwick to start the proceedings and say a few words to the crowd. He clearly still loves the film and the fans after this many years....what a guy..and after being a Rocky Horror fan for a large portion of my life, it was nice to get to see, if not talk directly to, someone from the cast in person.

I also saw the Cruxshadows perform, one of the things every year at D*Con I just cannot miss. Since the Dead's tours have become an irregular thing these days, C'shadows shows have edged further into the higher ranks of my favorite live musical experiences. It's hard to explain, but the Cruxshadows seem to have a handle on transforming an audience into a community in a similar way to the Dead, and into turning the lyrics of songs into a mirror on a particular moment.And along with Emerald Rose, they're one of D*Con's two 'house bands'--the only two performing acts that return year after year. Unlike Emerald Rose, though, the C'shadows *are* 'rock stars' in the traditional sense--they're huge in Europe, and they do a steady touring business on the smaller theater scene in the States. They call Dragon*Con their 'home', though--they broke off a European tour in the middle to do this year's con, and besides the shows, they hang around the con all weekend. This year, their lead singer, Rogue, was on my Monday Poe panel, and listening to him describe the connection between the Gothic subculture and writers like Keats, Shelley, Hawthorne, and yes, Poe--was an eloquent reminder, if not, at least for me, a revelation. He also did a very dramatic spontaneous recitation of Poe's "Annabel Lee". ;)

Ah well...it was a good year at D*Con. And once again, I've already got my hotel reservations made for next year ;)

Delayed Feed....Now Live from DragonCon 2009!

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:33:03 GMT

Hey there....

Last night was crazy, and today's been crazy ;) We got to the con early Thursday, and last night I saw a fantastic-as-usual show by Emerald Rose. This morning, after going to bed near 3, I was up at 7 to go wait for the Nimoy/Shatner panel at 10 AM. :P My friend Gerry and I got in (John was still asleep when we left the room), and it was hilarious :P Well worth the wait.

I moderated a panel on mythology this afternoon, after a bit of time in the Dealer's Room, and I'm JUST back from another Emerald Rose show, and writing this in the Hyatt lobby on my way back down to work in the Dark Fantasy track room...Dragon*Con is busy, but a blast..my home away from home. I love it. I'll write more soon.

Dragon Con and "Dark Road" News

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:50:46 GMT

It's almost time for Dragon*Con again...wow, where the hell did the summer go?

Lots of stuff happening lately, but let me get the big thing out of the way. The agent I sent a query letter to about Dark Road close to, if not in fact, a month ago, finally wrote me back to say she's intrigued by the novel's premise and the short plot summary I included in my letter and wants to see the first fifty pages and a synopsis of the novel. She sounded pretty optimistic about it, far from the tone of the last correspondence I had with an agent about the book.

So, not an offer of representation or publication yet, but positive nonetheless. :) I'm a little excited ;)

I'm feeling inspired to get Cassie's Song finished, now.

I've been listening to a lot of Gilbert and Green music, too, and storing things to my hard drive. I'm hoping stephenhero and I can get at least one--if not a couple, given the volume of stuff we've recorded over the years--finished-sounding recording project done this year, and maybe some live shows. We haven't played live as Gilbert and Green since--93, was it?--and it's been a number of years since that UT English club mixer gig--with a few extra compatriots--as The Dead White Poets, too. I'm itching to see it happen again, while things seem to be happening.

I'll be teaching again at Strayer in October, and I have a couple of other decent job prospects, too. The people at Dial America are great, but the job itself sucks, and the pay is worse than bad.

I leave for DragonCon this coming Thursday. I'll be moderating some panels again, and I'll be standing in ridiculous lines to see Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and others. That'll be worth it, though :) John's bringing his laptop again, so I'm sure I'll post from the con at least a couple of times.

That's about all from here for now...I'll write again, I'm sure, before I leave for Atlanta.

Seeds and Buds

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:00:30 GMT

...This is not a journal entry about marijuana, despite the title. (That would probably be 'stems and seeds', though..)

Just home from my second night at DialAmerica. Tomorrow night's my first night on the phones...so far, it seems a lot like Shriners, with a more rigorous verification process and, in my opinion, ill-organized scripting. I'll get it though; it's not terribly hard.

Dark Road is, as of today, on its way to New York to be looked at by another agent. I sent it to Merrillee Heifetz, an agent with Writers House Agency in NYC; according to Writer's Market, she specializes in horror, science fictio, and fantasy for the agency. I retooled the query letter like I retooled the manuscript, and I think things are looking sharp. We'll see what happens. This could be it. This could be a seed that grows into a bud, and from there comes to bloom.

About two weeks ago, I dropped by Jewelry Television, resume in hand, to ask if they had any call center openings. I was told by the human resources rep at the desk, a young woman I knew both from my initial hiring interview as well as my exit interview when I was laid off, that they weren't hiring for the call center. She did mention that there was an open position for a returns agent...she said she thought I'd be interested in it since 'you actually get to handle the stones and things'. The pay, as with most of JTV's non-call center jobs, is probably about $10/hr. And, at the time she told me about it, the job had just been posted, so mine may have been the first application in.

It made me optimistic, since at John's over the Fourth, I spoke with my friend Chris Dotson, who does IT work and advertising production for JTV, and was told that I'm still talked about at JTV, and remembered as 'the only sales and service rep in the call center who really knew anything about gemstones.'

Today I received a phone call from JTV asking if I'd come in and interview for the job on Thursday. Ummm...YES, I will. Hopefully I'll get the job, and be back at JTV--a company I did enjoy working for--and this time, not having to deal with customers bitching because a stone or necklace sold out ;P And hopefully making more money than I did as a sales agent. This might be a bud that bears fruit. I hope so, anyway :P

All these spring-y metaphors here in the late summer. Oh well, I suppose there are internal cycles as well as internal ones. Just glad to feel I'm moving forward again.

Re-Surfacing

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:19:23 GMT

Wow, an entry that, for once, isn't going to be about Let the Right One In.

I've been in sort of a 'batteries recharging' phase since I lost my Brinks job. It was a good job in some ways, and it was definitely a lot of money. But, looking back, I have to say that money isn't everything.

So, I've been applying for lots of other jobs, mostly teaching/writing/editing jobs. I've done a little freelance writing for a couple of different websites. I'll be back teaching with Strayer in the fall, teaching two courses this time. I'm still waiting to hear from ITT Tech about a job with them for the fall. And on Monday, I'm starting a new telemarketing job with Dial America. I'll be calling people about renewing magazine subscriptions, and I'm sure I'll get some unhappy campers, but it's a paycheck, while I'm keeping other irons in the fire.

Which includes writing, which I wasn't doing a whole lot of while I was at Brinks, and music--got to get back to working on music with Brian. We've got a lot of good stuff recorded; we just need to finish up some things and get them in finalized form.

Some day, I would like to stop going through all these cycles--for now, I'm dealing with them, as I always do, when things happen. Hell, maybe that's all any of us can do. Roll with the changes and move forward.

I've been rereading Stephen King's On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to read insights into the craft and the creative process from one of America's greatest living storytellers. I think I'm going to start setting aside a few hours in the morning for nothing but writing. Make it a practice and a ritual, and I'm thinking the discipline will help me get more done.

I've also been reading Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series--they're classics in the fantasy genre, and I've read some of Zelazny's other stuff, so I don't know how I missed out on Amber all these years...but I'm enjoying them now. I'm on book 2 of 10 now. Unfortunately, he passed away some years back, so when I'm done, I'm done. Damn.

Dragon*Con is coming up fast. I'm on staff again...this year there's a huge number of guests, from actors like Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and Malcolm McDowell to writers like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (again, yay!), Gene Wolfe, Alan Dean Foster, Peter David, and more. Hoping to get to do a panel or two with Yarbro again. At any rate, it'll be the breath of fresh and geeky air that it always is. I can't wait :)

Anyways, that's what's going on in Gilbert-land for now....more later.

MORE "Let Me In" casting news.

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:47:40 GMT

....And I thought I was done. From horror news site dreadcentral.com comes the news that the OTHER lead role in Let Me In, the English-language remake of Let the Right One In, has been cast. She's Abby, the 12 yr old vampire girl who Oskar (I guess they're still calling him Oskar) befriends and then falls in love with, following their meeting in the courtyard of their Colorado apartment complex. The young actress playing her is 12-yr old Chloe Moretz, who apparently was in the Amityville Horror remake of several years past. Here is a link to Moretz's audition tape. Fans of the original film will clearly recognize the scene Moretz is being asked to perform for the audition. A few subtle changes to the dialogue are the only thing that would tell you this wasn't the script to the previous film--it seems like almost a perfect recreation. I like Chloe's look and attitude for the role, but why did Reeves need to change Eli's name to Abby? Anyway, here's the link to the audition tape, hot off Dread Central's Twitter feed.

http://twitter.com/dreadcentral/status/2643753211

Postscript...

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:52:36 GMT

Perhaps proving that I have too much time on my hands, I took another look at that Let Me In poster art, and noticed a couple of interesting things: standing together in the snow, Eli and Oskar cast only a single shadow--and there is only one pair of footprints. Interesting.

"Let Me In" movie poster

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:17:43 GMT

...This is turning into an LJ about Let The Right One In, I swear. Today's bit of news about Let Me In, the LTROI remake, comes from Harry Knowles and the good folks over at aintitcoolnews.com, who just this morning posted the first promotional poster for the film. I think it looks nice, remembering that NONE of the original LTROI posters had both Eli and Oskar in them--and here, they're holding hands...awww. :)

Here's the link:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41690

Oskar Cast in "Right One" Remake...

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:10:33 GMT

Hmm...

Here's a link to a picture of the actor who seems to have been cast as Oskar in "Let Me In", Matt Reeves' American remake of "Let the Right One In." Doesn't look like a *horrible* choice; he has an expressive and interesting face, and not excessively 'cute'. Now, who will they cast as Eli?

Here's linkage:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/14597/smit-mc-phee-does-right-one-remake-

They're everywhere....

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:10:23 GMT

...fans of Let the Right One In, it seems....Here's a link to an article about some people who have built Eli and Oskar into a game of The Sims.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/Aceles/sims/love-her-anyway.png&imgrefurl=http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php%3Ftopic%3D12075.0&usg=__cAXHYECGG4Cpk4z32bzlNshTB8M=&h=567&w=739&sz=506&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=ivulOw_JTiNvKM:&tbnh=108&tbnw=141&prev=/images%3Fq%3Deli%2Boskar%2Blove%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

Interesting.

Crazy, Strange, Sad, and Somehow Wonderful

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:56:52 GMT

...I guess that sums up how I see the world most of the time, and especially on a day like today, when Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both left us in a twenty-four hour period.

I spent the evening tonight at the Prince Deli at an Eighties-themed birthday party for my friend McKay. There were other friends of mine there who I'd not seen in some time, and it was, in a strange way, like a family reunion and sort of a funeral too. Being all children of the Eighties, the Michael Jackson thing definitely seemed sad and surreal to all of us. There was karaoke at the party, and a great many songs people chose to do were, no surprise, Michael Jackson songs.

I don't know what to think of the man's life. I find the child-molestation allegations against him inconclusive and hard to believe, honestly, but there *were* so many of them. Alongside that, I think of the charity work he did and the many great songs he wrote. I guess I choose to remember the good things, and to hope the bad things weren't true.

I'm sure, for many, this death will have the impact that Jerry Garcia's death did on me back on August 9, 1995. I can still remember where I was, and how strange it felt. More bizarre was the fact that Jerry was only 53--very close to Jackson's age when he passed away today, and the cause of death was the same--an apparent heart attack.

Is it strange, then, that the next-to-last song anyone performed on karaoke tonight was the Grateful Dead's "Touch of Grey"? "I will survive...I will get by." Words to live by, for as long as you can.

Had some invigorating conversations tonight about writing and music. Almost felt like graduate school again--talking about some of the things I really live for.

For those of you who can make it, Let the Right One In is playing in downtown Knoxville at the Bijou tomorrow night at 9. I'll be there. It'll be wonderful to see Eli and Oskar on the big screen once more.

Hoof and Horn

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:06:33 GMT

Just got back from what I suppose was the first date I've been on since Kate and I split up nearly a year ago ;) Rivvy, who's a girl who used to work with me at JTV, and who I'd been thinking about going out with for a while now, messaged me earlier in the week and said she was going to this local Wiccan/Pagan gathering for the Summer Solstice, and would I like to go with her. Would I like to go....;)

So, yeah...it was a great night. It was nice to be out with someone *female* again--I don't know how to say that without sounding horribly sexist, and that's not how I mean it, but there it is--and nice that it was Rivvy. She's not only Wiccan, but she's a tremendous sci-fi/comic book geek like me...I mean, hell...she loves Batman, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Galactica, and also reads roughly as much and as fast as I do.

When she first picked me up, she asked me how I was, and if I'd 'heard from that bitch you were married to who left you'..Ha. Not maybe the exact term I'd use (I'm not that mean), but the sympathy was nice.

The gathering was nice too. It felt like the gatherings my old coven in Auburn would have for the Sabbats, and it was so *easy* falling into conversations with people I'd just met. It was cool, too, that Rivvy and I weren't always right up under one another....there were a few times when we'd each get caught up in separate conversations in separate places in the house, and, to my surprise, this was okay :P

The ritual was awesome too; much like the ones I used to write for Cerridwen's Grove back in Auburn. Summer Solstice--or Litha--is the time when the God accepts his role as husband of the Goddess, and accepts that, as She gives life to all things, He must sacrifice himself so that the land, the seasons and material life may continue. It's the idea of the young male (and female, for that matter) putting aside the sowing of wild oats, and taking on the sowing--and the reaping--of the seeds of a more mature life.

In the Circle tonight, we sang a traditional Wiccan chant that I've been hearing for as long as I've been involved with public rituals--both as participant and Priest.

"Hoof and horn,
hoof and horn
all that dies shall be reborn;

Corn and grain,
corn and grain,
all that falls shall rise again."

On our way back to my place, Rivvy's car blew a tire, and we ended up on the shoulder of the interstate, changing her tire and laughing and talking about a variety of things--it wasn't a disaster, just a bump in the road.

She mentioned she'd like to go out again, but if nothing else happens, it was a fun night--a step, for me, towards
getting things back into my life that seem to have been missing for a while. I don't want to make a bigger deal of it all than it was--but it was very nice, even if it only turns out to be one night, and one story to have told. I've learned not to look too far down the road. INot doing so makes the things that come down it, sometimes,a very pleasant surprise.

Letting the Right One In

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:36:24 GMT

Last night, I watched Let the Right One In with my friends stephenhero and rhiannonhero . This is mostly a response to Rhi's comments about the film posted today in her journal.

She and I talked about the un-wisdom of judging a film by the book that it's based on, or needing to 'reach outside the text' to justify one's interpretation of a book or film. My love for LTROI stems from the film, not the novel (although I did read it), and my interpretation of the movie--as a darkly romantic love story between two children who are both fundamentally damaged by and alienated from the world around them, and yet---or perhaps because of this--find acceptance for and love with one another--stems from the movie as well. Still having too much grad student in me though, I tend to hunt down interviews and things on subjects I really enjoy, and I did track down several interviews in which John Avidje Lindquist, the author of the original novel and the film's screenplay, offered these comments:

"My script is about being lifted out of the darkness by love. About going under and suddenly being rescued by a helping hand. A totally unexpected helping hand. It’s about a boy, Oskar. Intimidation and living in a dysfunctional home has made his life hell. He’s 12 and he wants revenge.

Above all it’s a love story. Of how Eli’s love releases Oskar, how she makes him look upon himself in a different light. Not as the scared one, not as the victim. How she gives him courage to stand up for himself. "

My apologies for that color business; it was like that on the website I cut-and-pasted the quote from.

I'm including Lindqvist's comments here partially to show authorial intent, but partially because I was glad, when I originally read them, to see that I wasn't alone in what I saw in the film.

Oskar and Eli have both, to some extent, lost some of their humanity, really. Oskar's has been submerged by the brutal abuse he faces daily at school, while Eli's has faded to an extent because of her long, lonely life and the isolation it makes a necessity. Through Oskar, Eli learns to belong to the human world again--she indulges her love for puzzles (shown in her playing alone in her apartment in the absence of her caretaker, Hakan, and in her delight in the golden Russian puzzle-egg/treasure box amidst a pile of trinkets on a table), she learns to remember *some* aspects of human hygiene, and she finds purpose in caring for another, even when some of her actions on behalf of him run entirely contrary to her own wellbeing. She *doesn't*, however, seem to care about wiping her mouth off after she eats. ;) (Old habits die hard, I guess.)

Oskar is the product of a broken home and vicious bullying, and although his mother shows some concern for him at various points in the film, particularly after the last murder occurs in their building, she still seems to treat him as something or someone to be managed and reacted to. His morbid fascination with serial killers and tragedy is macabre, to be sure, but I see it as a dark manifestation of a desire to be able to have some measure, any measure, of control or effect on the world around him--something kids his age simply rarely ever have. Eli shows him that someone else can care about him in a meaningful way, even save him from his own inaction and from his own peril at a moment when no one else is able to do so. She is for him something no one else in his life is able or willing to be--an unlikely source of light amidst great darkness. And he offers her unconditional acceptance, no matter what she is.

What I don't see, so much, is the idea that Eli is simply grooming him to take the place of her former caretaker, Hakan. Oskar is a child, like Eli, and, despite her size, Eli possesses much more physical strength than Oskar is likely ever to have, even as a man. There aren't a lot of real advantages to picking Oskar just for that purpose. However, even the spectre of this possibility raises the very human question: isn't there a point at which most, if not all of us, would kill to protect the ones we love? It's a question not explicitly answered in the film. Eli seems to have taken on Hakan, at some point, mainly because of what he could do for her. With Oskar, she appears to be choosing him in spite of the very real possibility he might be ineffective in that capacity from the very beginning.

I get the feeling, watching the film, that it's been a long time since either Eli or Oskar felt any sense of real affection or connection from anyone else. When Oskar hands Eli his Rubik's Cube for her to play with, she hesitantly reaches for it, looking at him as if she were being handed something that might bite her (or something of the kind). When he beckons her to follow him back to his apartment from the playground in one scene, she looks as if she wants to ask, 'Who, me?'

Oskar looks at the world from behind a wall; seemingly cold and indifferent in all but his interactions with Eli. I think this is the sad learned response of one who has found most of his interactions with his world to be met by scorn (in the case of the schoolyard bullies) or the benign indifference of adults too occupied with busy lives (his parents). Eli is an unknown, so he gives her a chance--as she does for him. And neither is disappointed.

I think Lindqvist's intention for the story is contained in four key scenes in the film: Oskar's first offering of the Rubik's cube, the bedroom scene where Eli and Oskar agree to 'go steady', the scene where Oskar challenges Eli to cross the threshold of his apartment uninvited, and the pool scene, at the end. Truly, though, all of Eli and Oskar's interactions show the subtle dance of two wary people trying to accept one another. I have to mention, as well, the scene where Oskar goes to Eli's apartment just after he has discovered she's a vampire, and she closes a glass door between them, refusing to come out from behind it until he's asked the questions she knows he's harboring about her. It's an excellent use of visual image to evoke thematic metaphor, something found throughout the film.

Eli and Oskar's relationship isn't neat, or pretty. They're definitely not Bella and Edward from Twilight, where at least *i* never really felt any real obstacles or 'outsider' nature. Oskar and Eli are outsiders in the purest sense, and they have, in the end, no one but each other to rely on.

And that ending. I think it's beautiful, and I think it's a happy ending. Lindqvist has written that he sees it that way too, but that doesn't fundamentally matter, I guess. I do agree with what several other fans of the film have written, though--that it may prove problematic for Eli and Oskar to just escape the chaos they've left behind them in Blackeberg (and I intend to address this in the fanfic I'm writing, hehe).

I think the rough-edged beauty and the moral ambiguity in the film are part of what makes it so beautiful and brilliant; the fact that you *can* read it more than one way. It's what makes art art, I think, this quality of openness. If I hate seeing it interpreted as 'vampire seduces human' or as any other thing than a love story, well--I'm a romantic. It's something this often-dark world has never managed to squelch in me. I think LTROI says to the audience--'Love may sometimes show its face in strange clothing; in a form we aren't prepared at first to understand or accept. But is the price of *rejecting* that love not ultimately heavier than the price of acceptance?"

That's what I see, at least. Your mileage may vary.

Here's a quote from a song that really, really reminds me of LTROI...a lot.

In fact, being hopelessly obsessed, I could almost divide these two verses into the words of different speakers:

Oskar: "I would dial the numbers just to listen to your breath,

and I would stand inside my hell and hold the hand of death."

Eli: "You don't know how far I'd go to ease this precious ache,

And you don't know how much I'd give, or how much I can take..

Just to reach you.."

--Melissa Etheridge, "Come to my Window"

...What a movie, eh? :)

As I've already said here, good art--be it film, books, music, or visual art---is complex enough to sustain multiple viewpoints. It's so rare that films even come along these days with that level of sophistication, but LTROI is definitely among their number.

The Wheel

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:18:15 GMT

Every so often, I start to feel as though I'm recycling journal entry titles...I'm not sure about this one, exactly, but if I am, it's an appropriate title to 're-cycle'. It's the name of one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs, and as it happens, the Dead are back out on the road as I write this, and in fact, I'm listening to the April 15 show. It's looking like I'm going to miss this tour; only the second tour I've missed since Jerry Garcia died, bringing the original configuration of the band to an end, in 1995 (I also was forced to miss the 2002 tour). Come to think of it, it's only the second tour the band's done since 1988 that I'll have missed entirely ;)

It makes me happy, though, that the Dead are still out there, a different beast than they were when Jerry was alive, but still in many ways the same--and I think it's worth noting that even though they're just 'The Dead' now, their current six-member configuration has four of the five original members of the band in it, a better head count than the currently-touring version of the Beach Boys, who've kept their name fully intact and yet have NO original members left. And while lead guitarist Warren Haynes isn't and never will be Jerry, he has a history with the band that goes back to the old days, and he's a good fit for the position.

I wasn't intending just to write about the Dead though, but about cycles. It's something I really struggle with, almost like the astrological recurrence of Mercury retrograde--the periods of inspiration where it seems everything flows with ease, and then the times when I can't seem to make myself do the things I need and want to do beyond the weekly grind of going to work and coming home.

I'm tired of setting the same goals for myself every time the year changes and seeing very little progress made. I know I've written this before. I do believe that things and people can change though, and I believe I can break past my own blocks to achieving goals and get them done. The first one I really need to attack is getting Dark Road published. I've finally gotten around to reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books, which I'd avoided for many reasons for quite a while, including wondering if they might block me from ever putting Dark Road into the world. I'm about 20 pages into the second book, New Moon, and I can say I'm no longer worried about that. Meyer's books, as Stephen King and others have noticed, aren't particularly well-written, nor particularly original--except for that whole 'vampires sparkling in sunlight' thing, which is pretty ridiculous. Most of the persistence of the vampire myth in human culture, I think, stems from the human fear of mortality, and the allure of a creature who can live forever.

I know that's certainly at play in Dark Road. Meyer's books are really more concerned with another human fear--the fear of loneliness, and the desire for the fulfillment of another human myth--an everlasting love. (I'm using myth here in the Joseph Campbell sense, not in the sense of 'something that isn't true', necessarily.) I guess Dark Road is a lot about that too, but it's far less idealistic than Meyer's treatment of the theme, and therefore probably destined to be a lot less broad in its appeal. But I don't have any wish to water things down just to get across to a big audience. I do need to get the book across to some gods-damned audience, though. Seriously. One more note about the Meyer books. Despite their cliches, I do find the characters interesting, and not just Bella and Edward. It is a lot like a written version of a soap opera, but that kind of thing is diverting, to an extent. I enjoy filet mignon, but I also enjoy some good junk food, too. I have to tell myself though, if McDonalds can serve millions, and a would-be gourmet chef can't get the prize steak off the grill, maybe we should be a little less hard on Mickey D's. A little note to myself, there.

Hahaha...I watched Let the Right One In with my cousin Margaret and her husband Jeffrey while they were in town for Easter last week. They were both fairly disturbed, apparently too disturbed to actually be honest to me about their reaction to the film ;) My mom gave me the real scoop. More or less what I expected, although I suppose I'd hoped for a bit more from Margaret, since the last time she was in town, a couple of years ago, she quite cheerfully made Kate endure a four-film marathon of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies. (Yes, of course, I was there too, but we're not talking about me, for the moment..hehe.)

It was nice to see Margaret again, and Jeffrey certainly seems like a good guy. All the tension that from time to time reared its head during Margaret's last visit was noticeably absent this time. She never did approve of my marriage to Kate, and I can't help thinking that made the difference.

I'm hoping to see stephenhero today, when he gets off work, either to work on music or just hang out, whatever he has time for. It's been a while. I still want to have a movie night with him, rhiannonhero , and get to see what Cecily has been up to lately, as well. Work--especially my more 'normal' 5-day schedule at Brinks---has a way of sucking everything else into its vortex.

My Favorite Obsessions

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:52:56 GMT

...Thanks to the brilliant Richard O'Brien for providing the title of this journal in a line from one of the songs in the likewise brilliant Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of the aforementioned obsessions said title refers to. ;) I wonder about myself sometimes, because in the sense of the movies, books, and music I love, I tend to manifest what some people might term an 'addictive personality'.

I've seen some of my favorite movies an obscene amount of times--Rocky Horror nearly nine hundred, a good five hundred of which I actually paid for at midnight screenings; the 1933 King Kong somewhere around a hundred....hell, even though I've only owned Let the Right One In for right around a month, I'm already closing in on around ten viewings of that. Many of my favorite novels, like Moby Dick, Dune, or Lord of the Rings (Tolkien meant them to be a single book, so deal with it), a similarly outrageous number of times.

I don't want to even contemplate the number of times I've heard some of my favorite songs or CDs--the prospect is maddening. ;)

It's like there are these isolated island-nations of art whose unique idiosyncrasies and environments I find so entrancing I just want to walk around in them, swim in them---and, to the best of my ability, I do. ;)

I have no interest in the humdrum varieties of addiction--I've smoked clove cigarettes once or twice and a cigar once, and although I do enjoy smoking pot from time to time (and I mean maybe a couple times a year), its just not something I would go out of my way to do. Alcohol...I don't really much even like the taste, with the exception of Guinness Stout or a nice red wine. And again, not something I go out of my way to do.

I don't say this from any elitism. It's mainly a puzzlement to me how I can be so obsessive about creative things, and not at all about the sort of things one is more commonly, in our society, 'obsessed by'/'addicted to'.

It sometimes goes in phases...this week, for instance, I am madly in love with the music of Sarah McLachlan (whose work I've always enjoyed, but wow, this week...hehe), and the process of trying to write SOMETHING every day, and yes, that little Swedish vampire movie I keep talking about, like some glaze-eyed crackhead, to anyone who'll listen for a moment.

Oh well.

It's been a while since I've posted any poetry, so, having been inspired by shadesong 's musings on oracles over on her journal--well, inspired enough to dig up my own poem on that theme, written long before I read hers--here it is.

Dispatch from Delphi: the Oracle Files a Complaint

I’m tired of visions. I want them to stop.

I want to clear my path of potentials,

of possibilities, because they all

belong to someone else’s future—none

of the voices I hear ever really

speak to me, but through me, as if I were

just a switchboard—no one ever

leaves a message for the messenger.

Sometimes, I think I’m even less than a

switchboard, lacking the electricity,

the charge carried by currents and wires,

and more a blackboard of desire for the

gods to write on—my will never seems to

be my own, my dreams are letters sent

to me, but meant for someone else.

I want something for myself. I’m so tired

of hearing what other people need, seeing

the gifts others receive, the words of fire

I’m allowed to speak, but never to hear.

Nightswimming

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:08:04 GMT

I got picked up from work by the bus early tonight, so I'm at home, listening to my favorite R.E.M. song, and doing a little writing on the fanfic I've been working on, having not been able to get my story ideas out of my head any more than I can banish Let the Right One In itself from my imagination. I honestly don't think I've been this haunted by a film since the first time I saw Rocky Horror, a long time ago. And while Right One hasn't eclipsed Rocky (or the 1933 King Kong, for that matter) in my list of filmic loves, it has managed to scale its way into the upper part of the list.

It's fun playing in the universe of characters I love as much as these. stephenhero and rhiannonhero , you two need to see this movie, too :P I'm not completely sure it'll be up your collective alley, but it is a damn sight better than Twilight, I assure you.

Anyways, back to a little writing....

whoops...

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:25:05 GMT

That sharp change in letter size at the end of my last entry was accidental, not indicative of any change in tone or a perverse desire on my part to administer an unofficial vision test. Just so you know ;P

Let The Old Dreams Die

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:22:11 GMT

I'm posting from the Brinks breakroom as I wait for the CAC bus to pick me up in about an hour. And no, the title of this journal doesn't reflect some kind of depressed mood on my part--the job is actually going well. I'm just doing something I never thought I would do, namely writing a fanfic, a sequel to Let The Right One In, the vampire movie I still can't get out of my head. I thought that writing this might a) get the movie out of my head for a few days and b) get me in the mood to go back to Dark Road and Cassie's Song, since Eli, the principal vampire character of LTROI and LTODD, is very different from Martin, Catherine, or Cassie. The fact I had a ready-made title (the second line of the Morrissey song that inspired the title of the first film and the novel it was based on), as well as a few ideas about what might have happened after the book and film end, led me to going ahead with this craziness. It'll be fun, probably not more than fifty or so pages in length, and a good primer for getting back to my own vampires.

On an odder note, two nights ago, I met an interesting red-haired young woman on the bus--named Cassandra. (Last name Sweet, not Edwards. Hehe.) We had a nice talk, but who knows if I'll run into her again, My name isn't Martin ;P

One more thing: starting in April, I'm going to be teaching a one-day-a-week English class for Strayer University, on Saturdays. I'll be busy from April-June, since on Saturdays I'll have to get the bus to run me straight from Strayer to Brinks, but getting back in the teaching game is a good thing, and it's more than a month's worth of work.

Going to see Watchmen tomorrow. Can't freaking wait.

To stephenhero, rhiannonhero, and Cecily: Enjoy Cabo and be safe--can't wait to see you guys when you get home.

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:57:45 GMT

Well, I'm in the middle of my first week at Brinks Home Security Systems' call center, and, while I haven't actually done anything yet but training classes, I can say I think it'll be a good place to be. The call center is as nice as the Talbots one was, and the job is something that actually will help people. I've also gotten on Knoxville's CAC JobRide program, so a bus picks me up in the mornings right at my door, takes me to work, then picks me back up and brings me home (again, right to my door). All for $40 a month, which I happen to think is a bargain.

I'm over my cold now, so I'm hoping to get back to the Gilbert and Green sessions once stephenhero and rhiannonhero return from their vacation. Best of luck to Rhi, too, on the story she's currently working on. My obsession with the Swedish vampire film "Let the Right One In" has inspired me to get Dark Road to Paradise circulating again. It's about damn time.

Discovered today that the title of the film and novel were inspired by the lyrics of the song "Let the Right One Slip In" by Morrissey. I'm always interested in the crosscurrents of music and literature. Here are those lyrics:

"Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They cannot
They cannot
They cannot do what you want them to do

Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They do not
They do not
They do not see what you want them to

Let the right one in
Let the old things fade
Put the tricks and schemes (for good) away

Ah ... I will advise
Ah ... until my mouth dries
Ah ... I will advise you to ...

Ah ... let the right one slip in
Slip in
Slip in

And when at last it does
I'd say you were within your rights to bite
The right one and say, "what kept you so long ? "
"what kept you so long ? "

Let the Right One In

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:48:23 GMT

Warning: Spoilers galore for the film "Let the Right One In."

Just back from seeing the Swedish horror film "Let the Right One In" over at Downtown West. The film's been pitched as the 'anti-Twilight", and even still having neither seen that film nor read the book, I can see why. "Right One" is the story of a twelve year old boy named Oskar, who lives with his parents in a suburb of Stockholm and suffers from serious bully problems--really fairly savage and, near the film's end, life-threatening bully problems--concerning kids at his school.

In the courtyard of the apartment complex where he lives, Oskar meets a dark-haired, pale-skinned girl named Eli, who we eventually learn is his age (sort of), but isn't able to tell Oskar her exact birthday when he asks, because she's 'been twelve for a long time.' Initially, Eli tells Oskar she can't be his friend; nevertheless, the two end up not only forging a friendship during the course of the film, but eventually the beginnings of an unlikely romance emerge.

And that, I'm fairly sure, is where the similarities to "Twilight" end. The vampire mythology here is fairly traditional: Eli kills when she feeds, unless (as happens at least once in the film), she's interrupted. Sunlight will kill her instantly. The urge to drink blood isn't pretty or sexy; it's violent, animalistic, and, at least in Eli's case, appears to evoke regret and remorse in the vampire. One final nod to traditional vampire lore: Eli can't cross the boundary of a dwelling without being given permission to enter. There's an interesting and arresting scene where she shows Oskar precisely what happens if she tries.

This isn't a movie about plot twists, though. It's a movie about needing acceptance and love, and holding onto it as much as possible when it's offered, even in unlikely circumstances. Both the violence and the relationship between the two young people are handled unflinchingly. There are the sweet moments, like Eli and Oskar tapping Morse-code messages to one another through the wall between their adjoining apartments, and the scene where Eli curls her fingers though Oskar's after he asks her if she wants to 'go steady', as they lie together in bed (in a scene that powerfully traces the adolescent borderline between affection and a sexuality that is present, yet unexpressed). There's another cute bit in which Eli, leaving Oskar's apartment shortly before daybreak, leaves him a note saying 'Wanna hang out tonight? I really like you. Yours, Eli."

Not merely the romantic undercurrents, but also the friendship between the two is expressed powerfully here. Eli both sympathizes with Oskar's bully troubles and gives him the strength to defend himself. Eventually, he protects her as well.

There's a good bit of ambiguity in the movie, particularly in the ending. It's an ending that my thesis director at USC, Janette Turner Hospital, would have liked a lot. We're also never told how exactly Eli became a vampire. I don't really think we need to know.

This film doesn't pull punches. It's tough, rough-edged and full of moral quandaries. But it's also tender, intelligent and highly emotionally satisfying. For a lover (and a writer) of vampire tales, THIS is 'the right one' to let in.

Wishing Well

wgilbert99@yahoo.com — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:19:39 GMT

I'm tired of winter. Really, really tired of it.

I'm STILL getting over the cold/respiratory ickiness crap I've had going on most of this month, which has basically made me not feel like doing anything this week. I was going to get together with stephenhero for another session of Gilbert and Green music, since I've got some clear ideas of where to go with the pieces we've been recording, but I've been coughing and stuffy-headed and just not up to the task, even though mentally, I'm excited about it. I'm also conscious of not wanting to get Cecily, stephenhero, or rhiannonhero sick, so, hopefully next week.

I did have an interview yesterday with Strayer University about doing some adjunct teaching for them, if my new schedule at Brinks allows for it. They won't, apparently, give full-time employment to people who don't hold a PhD, so I can't afford not to take the Brinks job, sorry, Strayer.

I'm thinking of going to a midnight screening of the new Friday the 13th remake/franchise reboot, but we'll see if that happens.

I was just reading a post about friendships on rhiannonhero 's journal, and it occurred to me that contact with friends is both one of the most important things to me and also, sometimes, one of the least actively-tended-to things. I don't often pick up the phone and call as often as I should, particularly if I'm sick or busy or tired (or some combination of the three).

Last year, at DragonCon, I had a discussion with my friend Gerry (who I'd been out of touch with for several years before then) about friendships. He said the long silences from certain friends, like myself, don't bother him because he 'always feels, somehow, that they will still be part of his life, and the thread can be picked up again.' And, as long as life lasts, that's true, as rhiannonhero pointed out in the post I read. It's a comforting fact. I think, sometimes, the best we can do is let people know they're important and to keep the thread connected as much and as often as we can--even if, sometimes, that's not as often as we'd like.

While I was reading that journal entry, a song came on--Black Sabbath's "Wishing Well"-- that's always been one of my favorite songs about love and the connection between two people--even when that connection is fractured or severed, as it appears to be in the lyrics of the song. The lyrics are a little romantic in their outlook, but so am I a lot of the time, and much of the sentiment here has held true for me for many years, and still does..

Wishing Well (as performed by Black Sabbath; music by Tony Iommi, lyrics by Ronnie James Dio)

Throw me a penny and I'll make you a dream
You find that life's not always what it seems, no no
Then think of a rainbow and I'll make it come real
Roll me, I'm a never ending wheel
I'll give you a star
So you know just where you are
Don't you know that I might be
Your wishing well
Your wishing well
Look in the water, tell me what do you see
Reflections of the love you give to me
Love isn't money, it's not something you buy
So let me fill myself with tears you cry, why?
Time is a never ending journey
Love is a never ending smile
Give me a sign to build a dream on
Dream on...
Throw me a penny and I'll make you a dream
You'll find that life's not always what it seems, no no
Love isn't money, it's not something you buy
So let me fill myself with tears you cry
I'll give you a star
So you know just where you are
Someday, some way, you'll feel the things I say
Dream for a while
Of the things that make you smile
'Cause you know
Don't you know
Oh, you know
That I'm your wishing well
Your wishing well
Your wishing well
I wish you well....
I'm your wishing well