Coming Attractions

September 10

So, what’s going on?

Lots of unadulterated niftiness, for the most part. I’m presently re-reading Dune, and then my housemate Lynne is going to read it for the first time, and then me and Lynne and Scott are going to rent David Lynch’s confusing opus and watch that-- all in preparation for the Sci Fi Channel’s six-hour miniseries presentation of Dune. That way, we can be total Dune geeks-- “Gurney Halleck tuned his baliset incorrectly in the last scene” and “That chrysknife is an inch shorter than it should be” and “That worm looks suspiciously like claymation” and, of course, “I think the mini-series Chani is far hotter than the Lynch Chani, though of course neither can surpass the Chani who dwells forever in my mind.”

We’re excited about it... though the mini-series doesn’t begin until December 3rd, alas.

I’m also excited about the upcoming Radiohead CD, Kid A, which I hear is both brilliant and commercial suicide-- I can’t wait. That’s coming out in early October-- not too terribly long, and I shall reserve time to lay back on my bed and listen....

And even sooner, on this Tuesday, Ellen Bass is coming to the Bookshop Santa Cruz to give a reading. Bass is one of my very most favorite poets-- when I saw the flier announcing that she was coming, I jumped up and down on the sidewalk, doing a spontaneous dance of exuberation. I only own one of her books-- 1977’s Of Separateness & Merging, but I’ve read a couple of her other collections, and of course her poems pop up in anthologies (including quite often her poem “In Celebration,” one of the most fun and sexy poems ever written-- when I teach workshops, I use that poem as an example of the awesome power of metaphor). I even mention one of her books in the novel I’m currently revising, Raveling (also known as Ladies, for those of you who’ve heard me talk about that book-- I finally decided which title to use). My protagonist gives her sister a copy of Bass’s I’m Not Your Laughing Daughter, which is a moving and powerful book of poetry that approaches some of the same themes I try to tackle in Raveling. So I’m looking forward to the reading, and I hope to get Of Separateness signed...

Other things I’m looking forward to... well, I was looking forward to seeing Neil LaBute’s new flick, Nurse Betty, but then last night I went to see it, so now I’m looking back on it fondly. The movie is violent and funny and moving by turns, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. I have some quibbles, of course-- it’s not a perfect film-- but it’s the best role Morgan Freeman’s had in a while, Chris Rock is admirably restrained except for those times when his screaming energy is appropriate, Renee Zellweger is (in the words of David Letterman) “cuter than homemade shoes,” Greg Kinnear does a fine job, and the rest of the cast is pretty dead-on, too. The plot cannot be easily encapsulated-- one could reduce it to a single line, but then you’d have to add “Oh, yeah, and there’s also these hitmen, see...” I like movies that push and challenge things (as long as they do so for the sake of telling an interesting and engaging story that could not be told in a conventional way, and not just for the sake of being different), and this one manages to use many of the techniques of a romantic comedy without succumbing to either the hearts-and-flowers or tragic-heartbreak-which-is-overcome stock endings. It’s also good to see LaBute doing a movie that’s more than a brutal, cynical depiction of Gender Warfare and Relationships Gone Nasty-- but then, he didn’t write Betty, unlike his other films...

So that’s an attraction that done came already, but only just barely, so I don’t mind mentioning it.

Soon I will read Jim (Jim! I love Jim) Morrow’s The Eternal Footman, the last book in the Godhead Trilogy, and also I’ll read Straub’s The Hellfire Club, and Matt Ruff’s Fool on the Hill and Joe Lansdale’s Freezer Burn... I read pretty quickly, but having a job (the job’s going great, by the way) considerably slows down my reading-speed, so I won’t be burning through books at my accustomed four-or-five-a-week pace anymore, especially what with all the writing I’m trying to do...

The biggest coming attraction (and by now all chronology, backward or otherwise, has been dispensed with) is Meg’s visit in mid-October. It will be so, so good to see her again, and it’s only five weeks away...

I hope you all have lots to look forward to. And, for that matter, lots to look around at.