About two weeks ago I watched an episode of the television show Criminal Minds for the first time.

I usually avoid police procedural show but I was interested because rock star Gavin Rossdale was guest-starring as a sort of strung-out vampire rock star (not that I’m exactly a Gavin Rossdale fan, but I liked him well enough in Constantine).

Watching the show I ended up being pretty impressed by androgynous boy genius Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) so yesterday when I saw there were reruns showing on several channels I ended up watching a couple episodes.

When not ogling Matthew Gray Gubler’s cheekbones, I was pleased to discover that Mandy Patinkin was on the earlier episodes of the show. I’ve had a thing for Mandy Patinkin for about 20 years—when I was in high school I listened obsessively to his recording of the musical Evita. Patinkin was gone in more recent episodes of the show, but I found myself surprised and unexpectedly pleased by another character, an FBI computer technician called Penelope Garcia (Kristen Vangsness).

Now I’ve always loved support staff type characters, from secretaries Marilyn (Northern Exposure) and Elaine (Ally McBeal) to sour techie Chloe (24) but in addition to her behind-the-scenes sort of position the thing about Garcia that really endeared her to me was that she was a female character on a mainstream television show who was not skinny. She was cute and sexy and curvy and plump and voluptuous. I don’t follow a lot of television shows but I honestly can’t think of the last time I saw a not skinny female character. Probably teenaged Sara Rue on Popular (she ended up slimming down for her own show Less Than Perfect).

I’ve watched a grand total of 3 ¾ episodes of Criminal Minds, so for all I know Garcia might be a totally stereotypical “overweight” character who does nothing but provide comic relief talk about diets but I don’t think so. It seemed to me like there was some sort of romantic thing going on between her and FBI agent, Morgan, and generally she seemed like someone who was really competent and well regarded by her peers. I’m really curious now to watch more of the show and she how she’s handled.

A couple super adorable pics of Kristen Vangsness as Penelope Garcia

I just finished watching season 1 of the television show Heroes and I can honestly say I’m a little obsessed. It’s not a great show but it is totally my kind of show, a sort of sprawling mishmash of elements from X-Men, Watchmen and the Manchurian Candidate and post 9/11 paranoia with lots of grandiose themes, moral ambiguity, family dysfunction and general angst.

I find myself particularly fascinated by the relationship between Peter and Nathan Petrelli. They’re brothers—Peter is a hospice nurse and Nathan is a lawyer running for Congress—but the intensity of their interactions makes them seem more like lovers.

I always wonder where stuff like (i.e. homoerotic and/or incestuous subtext) this comes from, is it intentional or just a quirk of chemistry? In some cases it’s conscious (on the DVD commentary for 28 Days Later for instance, Danny Boyle acknowledges that yet, Major Henry West is acting in a seductive manner towards Jim) I always wondered if while he was making Reservoir Dogs Quentin Tarantino told Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel to play Mr. Orange and Mr. White as a romance or if it just happened.

Some actors I’ve noticed just seem to have a particular gift for getting all over their male co-stars in a suggestive way. Viggo Mortensen (see him with William Hurt in A History of Violence or Vincent Cassel at the end of Eastern Promises) and Peter Stormare (Constantine, Prison Break, the Brothers Grimm) immediately come to mind but there are definitely others.

And speaking of slashy goodness…

Now that I’m done season 1 of Heroes I’ve started watching season 2 of the BBC show Merlin. Amusingly the season premiere starts off with scenes of Merlin rushing to a shirtless Arthur’s bedside and later Gwen doing the same for Morgana. In this series, I definitely think the homoerotic subtext is very conscious. There’s too much of it for it to be anything else.

I have mixed feelings about Merlin. On the one hand it feels like a rehash of the first couple seasons of Smallville in a medieval setting. Of course originality isn’t everything, but there’s a certain stagnancy to the show. It seems to tread water, never moving forward. Each episode seems to return it to a status quo. That said I do enjoy watching it because it’s so well done and beautiful to look at. The costumes and scenery and production design is wonderful. I’ve never seen a show with more vivid use of color. Katie Mcgrath and Angel Coulby, the young actresses who play Morgana and Gwen are absolutely exquisite. I could stare at Colin Morgan’s (Merlin’s) cheekbones all day and Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is wonderful and magnetic as the very ambiguous King Uther.

I’ve deeply drawn to the films of Lars Von Tier. There’s something about his worldview that validates the pessimism about human nature that I feel as a chronic depressive. Stephan Rylance’s review of Von Tier’s lastest movie, AntiChrist, really clarified this aspect of Von Tier’s work for me.

The Agonies of an Antichrist by Stephan Rylance

On the liter side is “Truly, Truly Outragous”, an article on Samantha Newark who was the speaking voice of Jem (Britta Phillips was her singing voice) on the 1980’s cartoon series Jem and the Holograms. Jem was a great show and the interview addresses it’s gay appeal and even mentions fan fiction.

Truly, Truly Outrageous by Noah Michelson

During August and September when I was still working at the supermarket I developed a daily after work ritual—I’d put on the soundtrack to Inglourios Basterds and polish off an entire bottle of wine while playing Farmville on Facebook. It’s only been a little more than a month but I already feel a combination of horror and deep nostalgia for that time in my life. The soundtrack however I have only enthusiasm for. It was recently posted on The American Nightmare, a music blog I sometimes follow and I would strongly recommend it.

Inglorious Basterds Soundtrack at The American Nightmare

I wrote most of this in August but only just got around to finishing it up. I’m currently into Season 3 of Dexter--

I recently watched the first two seasons of the Showtime series Dexter. At roughly the same time I was also reading the manga Death Note (I’m on volume 9 of 12) and I find myself sort of fascinated by the striking similarities and differences between these two series.

( cut for spoilers )

The Mad Men version of me.



(I am very much looking forward the the Season 3 premiere on Sunday).

The first season of True Blood came out on DVD a couple weeks ago and I’ve been re-watching it.

 

I watched True Blood when without having read any of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels on which it’s based.  Now though, having read several of them, the show really strikes me as a form of fan fiction.  The world of the books remains recognizable, the characters have the same names and many of the major events remain intact, but everything has been sexed up to the max and minor characters have been given personalities, histories and stories of their own in no way suggested by the source material. 

 

For instance in the series, Tara is Sookie’s best friend (with a long standing crush on Sookie’s brother Jason).  She works with Sookie at Merlotte's, has an affair with their boss Sam (Tara/Sam anyone), and is entangled with an alcoholic mother.  Yet Tara doesn’t actually appear In Dead Until Dark, the book the first season of True Blood is loosely based on.  Tara doesn’t make her appearance until the second book, Living Dead In Dallas, and then she appears only fleeting as an old friend of Sookie’s who is marginally connected with some unpleasant supernatural business, a bystander at best. 

 

The Sookie Stackhouse novels are told in first person from Sookie’s point of view, and tend to be very plot driven so expanding the roles of the minor characters like Tara, Jason, and Sam really serves the series well in many cases.  It makes for a more character driven version of the stories presented in the books and also offers more color and contrast. 

 

Except when in crashes and burns. 

 

There are more than a few sub-plots in True Blood that if they were fan fiction would be considered pure, unadulterated crack.  Some of the scenarios are so far out and extreme they’re just painful to watch.  Most of these involve Jason being remarkably stupid and having sex but the whole voodoo exorcism with Tara and the things with Bill’s “daughter” are also pretty bad. 

 

In fan fiction, there’s always the “out of character” factor to contend with, the question of whether or not the characters are true to the source material.  Watching True Blood after having read the books I do occasionally have moments where I find myself thinking “Sookie would not do that”, “Sookie would not wear that”, “Sookie would not masturbate on Bill’s steps”, or “Sookie would not use the f word in public”.  I suppose though that’s just part and parcel of an HBO (or Showtime) series.  In the realms of premium cable all characters cuss, dress scanty and are perpetually hot and bothered be they Miss Sookie Stackhouse or the King of England (see The Tudors). 

Based on the talent involved, the new FOX television series Dollhouse has the potential to extraordinary.  The show is created by Joss Whedon, who was responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly/Serenity, all of which I have a certain devotion to.  Further, Dollhouse stars the absolutely beguiling Eliza Dushku (Tru Calling, Faith in Buffy and Angel) who I would love to see have a chance to really shine in her own series.    

 

I like both Whedon and Dushku a great deal, so when I watched the first episode of Dollhouse, I was really hoping I could say that it was a great show.  Unfortunately it wasn’t.  It wasn’t bad, it was servicable hour of network television, more derivitive of successful shows than original, and not really that different than any other serviable hour of network television. 

 

Back in 2001, I used to watch the J. J. Abrams series Alias  I have have to say, the set-up of Dollhouse bears more than a passing resemblence.  In fact during the opening scene I thought for a minute that the sinister yet glamourous older woman with the European accent was Lena Olin (she was actually Olivia Williams).  Along with the precence of Amy Acker, this was the most superficial resemblence between the two shows, the others ran a bit deeper. 

 

In Alias Jennifer Garner played Sydney Bristow, a young  woman who was an agent of a shadowy covert organization.  When on assignment, Bristow would go undercover.  She might wear a wig and be a club kid or wear glasses and a suit and be a scientist.  Echo (Dushku), the central character in Dollhouse does something similar.  She is affliated with the shadowing organization Dollhouse, which sends her on assignments.  In the first episode we see her as a free spirit riding a motorcycle and dancing with abandon in a white mini-dress.  Later she is a high power hostage negotiator (with the suit and glasses). 

 

Just as Sydney Bristow was assisted by a handler Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and African-American ex-Marine, Echo is looked after by Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) an African-American ex-cop.  And of course back at base, both women receive technical support from an endearing geeky type (Kevin Weisman as Marshall Finkman on Alias, Fran Kranz as Topher Brink on Dollhouse). 

 

The key difference of course is that Sydney Bristow always knew when she was playing a role whereas Echo is implanted with memories and believes she is a different person on each assignment.  When back in the Dollhouse she’s stripped of memories, an empty vessal, a blank slate. 

 

Much of Alias’ arose not from Sydney Bristow’s espiionage chrades but from the time between them.  In the field, she moved effortlessly from persona to persona but when she was Sydney Bristow she tended to find herself tangled up by conflicting loyalties and family ties. 

 

Being vancant, Echo isn’t really faced with issues of this kind so the first episode of Dollhouse focused more on her when she was “in character”, on assignment as a hostage negotiator trying to save a little girl who had been kidnaped.  This storyline  played out as a sort of condensed episode of Profiler or The Inside (a shortlived Fox series created by frequent Whedon collaborator Tim Minear), with the negotitor coming face to face with her dark past but mananging the gave the young girl from a similar fate.  Overall it was a compatent but uninsired mini-thriller, but I rather hope Dollhouse isn’t going to become a “genre of the week” series because it seems like it could be much more. 

 

The premise of Dollhouse sounds a little convuluted but it does raise questions and contain themes that merit in-depth analysis. 

 

I have a deep-seated dislike of Meridith Brook’s song “Bitch”, which cheerfully prepeuated this idea with lyrics like “I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother” and “I’m a bitch, I’m a tease, I’m a Godess you my knees.”  Even more chilling is “Sex (I’m a)” by Berlin.  Female vocalist Terri Nunn goes down a long, highly sexualized list of all the things she is which includes a slut, a drug, a blue movie, a virgin, a godess (no doubt on her knees), a little girl, a one night stand and your mother.  At the same time a male vocalist intones ad nauseum “I’m a man.”  A man is what he is, the song seems to say.  A woman is whatever you want her to be.  

 

The idea that a woman is like a Barbie doll and can become whatever you dress her as isn’t restricted to pop music or the science fiction world of Dollhouse.  Based on the articles in women’s magizines and the things written and said about promient women, it seems to me that if you’re female your expected to be many things to many people—successful in your career, a devoted mother, partner and friend, attractive, physically fit, dignified, sexually reception and adventurous.  Female nature we are told, is something of a smorguous board.  Women aren’t really anything and therefore can become anything.  And yet aren’t all these expectations better than all the restrictions women faced in past?  Is this freedom or madness? 

 

Artists like Tori Amos, who took on different personas for each on on her Strange Little Girls album and created several characters for American Doll Posse have examined this idea of woman as Barbie Doll, played with it and deconstructed it.  I have reason to believe that, if it isn’t cancelled after a handful of episodes (which based on Fox’s track record it probably will be) Dollhouse will in it’s own way examine this idea of feminine identedy instead of just accepting it as a given.  After all, Joss Whedon has touched upon this theme before. 

 

In season 5 of Buffy, Warren Mears (Adam Busch) created a perfect robot girl-friend for himself as well as a robot version of Buffy for Spike.   In the next season, Warren tries to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Katrina (Amelinda Embry)- who broke up with him after she found out about his previous relationship with the robot girlfriend- by using a mind control spell on her.  It is explicitely stated that Warren’s attempt to initiate a sexual relationship via mind control are attempted rape and Warren kills Katrina, so this storyline very much showed the dark, misogynictic underbelly of the perfect woman fantasy.    I can’t help but wonder if there’s a similar streak of violence and rage lurking behind the geeky smile of Dollhouse’s seemingly harmless Topher. 

 

Episode 1 wasn’t spectatuatar, but it had it’s moments.  There was even a flash of lesboliocious subtext between Echo and Amy Acker’s character Dr. Saunders.  For that alone I’m going to continue to give Dollhouse a chance.  It’s not as good as I would have liked it to be but the potential is still there.   

I’ve really been immersing myself in the world of True Blood lately.  In addition to watching each new episode of the television show as soon as I can download it I’ve also read three of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire novels (the series on which True Blood is based) and am currently well into a fourth. 

I’ve watched the first three episodes of Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball’s new HBO series True Blood and I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far. 

 

True Blood is based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries, a series of novels by Charlaine Harris.  The show is set in a world were vampires actually exist.  After centuries of secretly existing alongside and feeding off of humans the creation of a synthetic blood replacement (the True Blood of the title) has allowed them to “come out of the coffin” and make their existence known. 

 

This is where things get complicated.

 

There are some humans who consider vampires inherently evil and some vampires who still prefer actual human blood to the synthetic replacement.  As with black/white and gay/straight interaction, the new coexistence between humans and vampire is a tense mess of fear, stereotypes, prejudices and fantasies (many of them sexual) on both sides. 

 

Against this tangled backdrop we’re introduced to Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) a young waitress gifted or cursed with the ability to read minds.  Sookie lives in the small Southern town of Bon Temps and most of the local populace is wary when an out vampire, Bill Compton (Stephan Moyer), takes up residence.  Sookie however is immediately drawn to the 175 year old Bill.  He doesn’t just have old-fashioned manners and brooding good looks.  He’s also immune to her telepathy.  She doesn’t need to work to close out his thoughts and she is both exhilarated and frightening by the possibility of relating to someone on this hitherto unexplored level. 

 

The idea of Sookie having an undead beau is cause for considerable trepidation among her friends and family including her protective best friend Tara (the striking newcomer Rutina Wesley), her boss Sam (Sam Trammell) who’s in love with Sookie- unfortunately not something you can easily hide from a mind reader- and her dumb-ass brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten).  Only Sookie’s grandmother Adele (Lois Smith) seems willing to give Bill the benefit of the doubt, stand back and let things develop between the mortal girl and the vampire. 

 

It’s definitely a high-risk relationship.  Vampires can be very dangerous to humans it quickly becomes clear that humans can be just as dangerous to vampires, not to mention their fellow man. 

 

Even in sleepy little Bon Temps the bodies start to pile up. 

 

Earlier this year, I read the first three volumes of Stephanie Meyer’s very popular Twilight series and found myself wondering if after 20+ years I’d finally outgrown my interest in vampire stories.  True Blood has reminded me that it’s not so much the vampires in and of themselves but what you do with them.  Twilight and True Blood do share several key ingredients—good and evil vampires living in uncomfortable proximity with humans, a romance between a virginal human girl and a handsome vampire, telepathic powers, and a mysterious vampire hierarchy.  True Blood however also brings atmosphere, wit and social relevance into the mix as well as a genuine erotic spark between the lead couple and characters that you actually care about.  Also, frankly as a heroine Sookie is infinitely more engaging than Twilight’s more or less useless ingénue Bella Swan.  In Twilight, the leading man Edward Cullen is not only a vampire but he’s the one with the telepathic powers.  It’s rather telling that in True Blood the human woman is given some powers of her own.  In the first episode, it’s a chain wielding Sookie that rescue a helpless Bill from a nasty redneck couple set on draining his blood to sell as a black-market aphrodisiac.  Given that Bella Swan can’t even go shopping or get to school without putting her life in danger I found this more than a little refreshing. 

 

Not that True Blood is perfect.  The show has a very strong exploitation bend.  Sookie’s a good Christian girl who none the less wears short shorts and in one scene a dress that reveals her lime green bra.  Shots of a road crew resemble Tom of Finland gay porn.  While a certain degree of trashiness is part of the fun things do have a tendency to get downright skanky, especially in scenes involving Sookie’s brother Jason.  To me, Jason is kind of a weak link in the show.  He’s not even really a character he’s just sort of a walking hard-on.  He’s stupid and disgusting and I’m especially turned off by a sub-plot that has the whip smart, gorgeous Tara pining for this her best friend’s idiot brother.  I have heard that in the novels, Jason is a more appealing character so maybe he’ll show some depth after a few episodes (or get bitten). 

 

If Jason is True Bloods least convincing character, Sookie’s grandmother Adele is probably it’s most real and complex.  Already she seems to me to be very much the heart of the series.  Given the attitudes of most Hollywood insiders (and Alan Ball is very much a Hollywood insider) an older woman, especially a pious small town southerner, seems a likely target for ridicule.  However Adele is far from a stereotypical repressed, repressive small-minded bigot.  She’s not sophisticated, yet she’s willing to open her home to outsiders and reserve judgment.   She’s protective and defensive of her loved ones but she also sees them for what they are.  I feel like her character is written and acted really well.  There’s a dignity to everything she does.  For instance, when she wants Bill to speak at her Daughters of the Confederacy meeting it’s funny but it’s also sweet in a way, she’s trying to find a common ground with him and also to share in her granddaughter’s excitement about him.  

 

And of course I have to conclude with a mention of the opening credits.  I love True Blood’s opening credits.  It’s a good show that will hopefully become better but the opening credits are the best part.  An overheated montage of images-- grindhouse sleaze, roadkill, snakes, a billboard that reads “God Hates Fangs”, and religious revivals--  unfolds as Jace Everett croons “before the night is through I wanna do bad things with you.” 

True Blood opening credits.

When you see this, post another Buffy quote in your LJ. Let's see how long this can go on.

"I'm so evil and ... skanky. And I think I'm kinda gay."
Willow

One of my favorite Buffy quotes. Not only is it hilarious it turns out to be kind of prophetic...

The other day I picked up the first two issues of Serenity: Better Days, a comic book mini-series published by Dark Horse Comics.  It's written by series creators Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews and set between the end of the Firefly television show and the Serenity film.  Overall it’s pretty entertaining though it has the same problem I’ve noticed in the Whedon penned issues of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 comic book—mainly that his dialogue works best when delivered by actors and doesn’t always make sense when seen on the page. 

 

There is however one bit that really stuck me as untrue to the characters.  Throughout issue two, the members of Serenity’s crew are relate their fantasies of what they would do if they had the proverbial shitload of money. 

 

This is Wash’s fantasy:

 

Based on my understanding of Wash I could see him fantasizing about flying a fancy ship.  It’s been firmly established that he wants children so I can totally see him daydreaming about having a cute lil’ baby to play dinosaurs with.  But a domesticated, maternal Zoe in a dress?   No.  Just no.  I’m sure this is supposed to be sweet and all because Wash is dead and never got any of this (and who's fault is that Joss Whedon) however it just doesn’t ring true.  It makes it seem like Wash wants to see Zoe tamed, but my interpretation of their relationship is that Wash loves that Zoe is a warrior.  He doesn’t want her to be the little wifey—that’s his job.  He’s completely turned on by it and he’s too much of a letch to ever give that up.  Something like all of them looking at the stars while he holds baby (and maybe Zoe in a dominatrix solider outfit) seems like it would have been more like Wash. 

 

Of course I do like River’s fantasy…



As you can see, the art by Will Conrad and the coloring by Michelle Madsen is pretty nice.

I’ve developed something of a passion for the manga of Ai Yazawa, mostly Nana (I’ve devoured the first eight volumes) and also Paradise Kiss (which I’ve read the first volume of). 

 

Her series Nana was recommended to me based on a bit of Princess Tutu yuri I’d written and right before I lost my second job at Biff’s office I decided to take a chance and secured copies of the first eight volumes of the series from e-bay.  A rather significant risk, I might have hated the series, but as luck would have it Nana turns out to be one of the better manga series I’ve ever read. 

 

Basically it’s about two very different 20-year-old women, both named Nana who come to Tokyo, meet and whose lives become increasingly intertwined.   No science-fiction or supernatural elements, just a pair of girls trying to build their lives and become themselves. 

 

Nana Komatsu is an exuberant but essentially aimless young woman.  Good hearted but clueless she allows herself to drift through life in the wake of whoever she happens to be in love with.  When her friends, including her boyfriend, move to Tokyo to attend art school, she follows them.  On the train to the city she meets the other Nana, Nana Osaki.

 

Nana Osaki is a punk rock singer with very definite goals.  Her previous band, Blast, was a local success in the small city she is from but that ended when their bassist Ren left to join the major label band Trapnest.  Ren was also Nana’s lover and he asked her to come with him but she declined as it would have meant being relegated to “rock star’s girlfriend.”  Their affair was put on hold and in Tokyo, Nana O is determined to become a success at least equal to Ren, with her new band.    

 

Nano O is guarded as Nana K is open, sharing little about her painful childhood or her personal life.  Yet her music has the ability to move people deeply.  Through her music, she seems to speak for them. 

 

While there’s some cutesy stuff, overall Nana is much more adult- as in grown-up, than most manga I’ve read.  Also it’s more novelistic, things seem to develop, grow and deepen with each installment. 

 

Also it has a sensibility I love. 

 

While so much manga seems to focus on students in school uniforms who aspire to the student council, Yazawa’s characters are hip bohemians, artist and musicians in Nana, an enclave of edgy fashion designers in Paradise Kiss.   They shop at thrift stores and vintage shops and garner inspiration from the Sex Pistols and Velvet Goldmine- definitely my kind of scene.  In a way Nana reminds me somewhat painfully of my college years, especially Nana K’s desire to be included in Nana O’s circle of punk musicians.  

 

Though I’m quite late to the party, I’ve started watching the BBC series Torchwood.  I polished off the first season on DVD and am two episodes into season 2 via downloads.  Overall I like it quite a bit.  Season One was fairly uneven.  There were some good episodes but some truly baffling suspensions of logic were required (I’m sorry, but any solution that involves reading the complete works of Emily Dickinson aloud is not acceptable).   Still, it’s amazing what you can forgive of a show that makes just about everybody in its entire cast more or less bisexual.    

 

And when I say everyone I mean everyone.  The leader of Torchwood (an alien hunting organization that’s sort of the UK equivalent to Men In Black) Captain Jack Harkness  openly admits to lovers of both sexes, is sexually involved with a member of his team but still manages to have a kind of “unresolved sexual tension” thing going with Gwen.  In addition to holding up her part of the UST with Jack, Gwen has a boyfriend and has an affair with the team’s medic Owen.  This doesn’t stop her from kissing a woman processed by an alien in the second episode of the show.  Computer expert Toshiko, who seems to have a crush on Owen has an affair with an alien who is female in human form.    An episode is devoted to another team member, Ianto’s efforts to resurrect his girlfriend but it’s gradually revealed in future episodes that he’s become involved with Jack.  Even Owen, a compulsive womanizer and seemingly the straightest member of Torchwood makes out with a guy in the series premiere and during an apocalyptic moment suggests that both Ianto and Toshiko have end of the world sex with him. 

 

I sort of love this kind of stuff. 

 

Season One had a lot of promise which I hope Season Two will deliver on.  It definitely seemed to be off to a good start in the first episode (appropriately titled “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” when Spike (yes, that Spike—Buffy Spike) shows up looking for Jack to be his Drusilla.  Okay, it’s not Spike.  His name is Captain John Hart.  He’s brunette and American.  And he’s not a vampire, he’s some sort of time agent thing that I’d know about if I’d actually watched Dr. Who before watching the spin-off but basically it’s Spike engaging in violent making out with a really cute (if full of himself) guy and in my book, that is pretty stunning. 

 

On the literary front I just finished reading Sarah Water’s novel Fingersmith.  It’s the third novel I’ve read by Waters (I admit it, I have a thing for Victorian lesbians).  The others were Tipping the Velvet (my favorite) and Affinity.   

 

I’d seen a BBC adaptation of Fingersmith a couple of years ago so I knew the basic outlines of the plot, which is probably a good thing.  I’m less concerned with being surprised than I am with knowing what’s going on and Fingersmith is full of the sort of twists and turns and reversals that often times confuse the hell out of me.  Knowing where the story was going freed me up to focus on the characters, the wonderful period dialogue and the rich atmosphere that Water’s evokes.  This atmosphere is by turns sensual and sickening.  Water has a way of making you smell the 19^th century and what with chamberpots and close rooms on rainy nights reeking of dog and unwashed bodies it doesn’t always smell good. 

 

In Fingersmith, Waters seems to deliberately set out to write a sort of post-modern  Dickensonian novel brimming over with melodramatic contrivances such as switched babies, ghastly uncles, and dastardly plots as well as expanding Dickens social themes to include issues of gender and sexuality as well as wealth and class. 

 

Another bit of post-modern pseudo-Victoriana I’ve indulged in lately is Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige, about a pair of rival illusionists.  This was my second viewing of The Prestige.  I have to admit my first left me rather baffled.  As I said, I’m not so good a following plots and The Prestige is extremely complicated, a puzzle of a movie in much the same way Nolan’s Memento was.

 

The film’s complexity is encapsulated by its framing device—much of the movie concerns a man reading another man’s diary about reading his own diary.  Follow?  Of course both diaries were intended to be read and are full of deliberate misinformation.  Appropriate for a film that’s central themes are doubles, the creation of illusion and how things are not what they seem to be.  I definitely got much more out of the Prestige by seeing it a second time and I’d like to watch it again just to clear up some details I didn’t really follow.  Also having watched it, I’d rather like to see Nolan’s contribution to the Batman mythology.  I’ve been intensely interested in Batman as a sort of masculine   archetype since I was a teenager but somehow I never got around to seeing Batman Begins. 

During the winter when I can’t exercise outside I watch DVD’s of television shows and anime while I work out inside.  I find things like the fixed scene length (for the purpose of commercials) and the repetition of the theme song and closing credits very reassuring. 

So far this year since I put my bike away in November I’ve worked my way through two cancelled American network television series-- Twin Peaks (both seasons) and Birds of Prey (a 2002 WB adaptation of the DC comic book that only aired for 13 episodes)—as well as the Japanese animated series The Rose of Versailles (aka Lady Oscar) and am currently about halfway through Princess Tutu. 

( cut for spoilers and pictures... )

Still watching the Twin Peaks box set—I’m at the point where Fox Mulder shows up wearing a dress. 

 

I watched Caligula the other night.  Wee Malcolm McDowell as the mad Roman emperor—it was every bit as horrific as I’ve always heard it was but at least I now know where my favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer character, Drusilla gets her name from Caligula’s sister/wife.  How is it that I just figured this out?  I re-read Robert Graves’ Claudius novels in 2002, how could I have missed it? 

I’ve always looked to stories-- books, films and even comics and television shows-- to guide me in my life.  Right now one of the stories that really seems to be speaking to me is the short lived television series Wonderfalls. 

 

I’d watched a few episodes when it originally aired a few years ago and wasn’t especially taken by it.  Recently however I’ve been influenced by my boss Biff who’s a firm believer in following any project involving people who have worked with Joss Whedon.  Since Wonderfalls is produced by Tim Minear, who wrote and directed Angel and Firefly and also features the very lililicious Jewel Staite (Firefly’s Kaylee) in a supporting role I decided to give it another look.  This time around, I find myself relating very much to the main character, Jaye. 

 

Jaye is, like me, a very negative, pessimistic person.  Despite being a Brown graduate she works in a gift shop with a high school kid as her supervisor.  She’s estranged from her conservative family whose values she doesn’t share.  Her depressing and generally unsatisfying existence is interrupted by either fate or psychosis when inanimate objects (a red wax lion, pink flamingos in her parents front yard, a monkey on a bookend, a fish mounted on a wall) start talking to her, forcing her to step out of her shell (personified by her home, an areostream trailer) and interact with people. 

 

Jaye is forced by the relentless nagging of talking animals to participate in a world she doesn’t want to have anything to do with, to change and grow whether or not she wants to.   After my therapy session yesterday I feel like I’m in a similar place.  My manifestation of psychosis, my eating disorder, isn’t going to stop hounding me unless I change and grow, move beyond my comfort zone and start taking part in life again.

 

I look at the person I’ve become and I really don’t like what I see.  I don’t bother trying to make friends or have a relationship because I figure I’ll either be rejected or that things are bound to end badly.  I don’t go anywhere or do anything because I figure I’m incapable of enjoying things.  I don’t even visit my sister’s family much because I feel like they don’t want to deal with me and that I’ll say something wrong and be a negative influence on the kids.  I really need to reverse this, to move outward even though I really don’t want to.