I'm still going slow...

Last night was a prime example as to how much useless knowledge I actually have in my head. Knowing who played the main character in both versions of "Get Carter" (Michael Caine and Sylvestor Stallone for the record), and also the dimensions of the Great Wall of China are both facts that I don't forsee contributing to me having a fuller life in any way, but they certainly helped win stuff I can't actually use in my daily life. All it really reaffirms that I would do really well in pubs doing the "Quiz".

Trivia masterness aside, I was able to catch Rogue Wave live on Friday night at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. They put on a great show, albeit mostly consisting of songs from their new album which of course makes sense. It was a 2:1 ratio of new songs to old songs, I was a really big fan of "Publish My Love" which I got to enjoy them rocking out especially on. I left before their encore just because the club was super stuffy, and I was eager to get back home and crash, but definitely a band worth catching live. I'd be careful about hanging out with people with black "X's" on their hands at places where booze is served as bouncers and security alike will be watching you like a hawk, and will create uncomfortable and awkward situations for you at some point.

Saturday I got to catch up on my movie watching and comic book reading. Getting to read the newest issue of "Dead Space" was one of such catching up endeavors, you can definitely tell that things are going in a pretty crazy direction as people are falling under the sway of the mysterious obelisk, and people are seeing ghosts at random. Religious cults and zealots have a way of bringing up the level of crazy a bit, but to get to the level of insane that the game will have some shit is going to have to get real weird in the next couple of issues. Good thing they still have another four issues to get there.

"City of the Lost Children" finally came in via NetFlix, a movie I had been wanting to see for quite some time. Not necessarily as if I had been building it up in my head, but sometimes you just need to watch something with visuals that try to be different. The last movie I had seen as a point of reference to the type of aesthetic I'm talking about would be the Neil Gaiman film "MirrorMask". The premise of the movie is pretty out there, the antagonist of the film cannot dream so he kidnaps children to try and steal their dreams. In the process of snatching kids, he snatches the character One's (played by Ron Perlman) little brother which leads him on an adventure to go get him back. Complete with talking brains, bionic cyclopses, and a trained flea that injects brain washing toxins into the heads of its victims, it's not really hard to say this movie was strange. It's worth watching, however, just to see these strange visuals. The story was interesting enough, but in terms of fantasy and science fiction films I'm not sure what audience it was aimed at. The first five minutes of the movie having multiple Santa Clauses is enough to give anyone nightmares afterall.

I found a way out of the closing night...

An Evening with Mo Rocca: An Expert’s Guide to Sounding Like an Expert

Last night I had the chance for free to catch former Daily Show correspondent and PBS program “Wishbone” Producer Mo Rocca give a lecture. The theme of the night was not difficult to discern from the slideshow of various photos with commentary from Rocca, that sounding like an expert on things is as easy as learning a few key facts and being able to recite them confidently. He is a noted political pundit and commentator in areas where he has no recognizable expertise (i.e. Iron Chef America, CNN, etc.), but people have valued his opinion on the programs he has been on regardless.

Now I don’t want to read too deeply into this, but it seemed like he was almost saying, don’t trust anyone that says they’re an expert just because they’re being presented as one. Chances are they’re just good at sounding like one as opposed to being one. Ending his lecture with a Q & A, where he was able to name the capitals to countries I have never heard of, you could tell that even though his presentation was meant to be the sarcastic personality that many people recognize from The Daily Show and the I Love the XX’s programs, whenever he was asked a serious question about anything from politics to a possible “Wishbone” comeback he gave a seemingly honest answer and dropped the character for a bit. He is a really intelligent guy, or at least he’s an expert at how to sound like one.

So returning home I have been a fiend of music I haven’t been able to find in stores lately, and being someone that still believes in buying the CD for whatever strange OCD’ness, trolling the ITunes store hurts a little bit when it’s the only place to find a particular album. I’ve had to do this with Milosh’s Meme as well as a few others, including Kate Havnevik’s Melankton.

I found myself passing out to Kate Havnevik’s album last night, the one with all the songs on Grey’s Anatomy. Now having never seen Grey’s Anatomy, I do not know how these songs work themselves into the story, I’m sure during the serious montage type scenes, but it’s very chill for lack of a better word. The album is so chill that I had a dream of listening to my Ipod in bed while I was actually listening to my Ipod in bed. That sounds pretty Zen to me; unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night because I was actually lying on my headphones which didn’t feel too great. I give a thumb up for the album though if you’re into Electronica-Pop or whatever the hell genre this happens to fall into.

My NetFlix should be serving me a hot portion of more movies I have never seen before come today or tomorrow. I spoke with my friend Evan who has a subscription to the service and is also into movies to the same degree I am (albeit different kinds). He said that eventually you run out of movies to watch, but at the moment my 70 movie long queue has a ways to go before I have to deal with that life changing event.

I’m looking forward to watching the French film, “City of the Lost Children” because the imagery looks crazy and it’s starring Ron Perlman, a guy who could rival Bruce Campbell in B Movie status had he not been starring as Hellboy in the new series of films seeing a mainstream release. I’m pretty excited to be seeing “City” in the near future, knowing full well that it has influenced many people in different industries where creativity is widely practiced. That’s part of the reason I want to see/read Stephen King’s “The Mist” knowing it played a big part in the story development of such landmark video games as Half-Life and Silent Hill. That fan boy gushing is for another time though.

You're some kind of booksmart devil...

Week Beginning 4/7/08:

I'm not sure exactly what it is about Mondays, but no other day of the week has me dragging ass as bad as today. I wish there was some kind of sordid tale of me being out at all hours of the night, completely pissed drunk and causing random acts of vandalism, but last night consisted of me folding laundry and pondering whether or not the X-Box 360 Wireless Adaptor would be worth $100 (verdict still says, "no").

In Art/Culture:
Now I really haven't incredibly inspired lately, so I am in need of a cultural kick in the ass; an injection of inspiration to get me back on track with designing and writing music again. There are steps I'm taking to remedy the situation, one of which being a long forgotten periodical I always said I would subscribe to but of course bailed out on. I just started up a subscription with Juxtapoz: Art & Culture magazine as a first step, and I am looking for the other publication that I picked up at a Dedham T Station that focuses on design and being proactive about various causes. Seeing the work of others, especially when I know it's something I can do, always seems to motivate me the most over and above anything else.

In Gaming:
In other news, I have been picking up packs of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game in the hopes that I may never have to play another human being. The fear of being annihilated in a game of skill by someone who is way more socially inept than I have ever been is far from being irrational, but I feel playing the raid deck with someone against what is effectively a Dungeon Master would make me feel a little bit better about it. At least if I go down playing against a DM, I'm taking people with me. I'll attempt to play this at some point in the near future in the hopes that I won't get completely embarassed.


In Comics:

I've also been on the hunt for the newest issue of "The Mice Templar" which was supposed to drop in March but I haven't seen it. The Official website still has Issue#3 listed as the "Current Issue" and even acknowledges that the next issue would be due out in March. The long and short of it being where the hell is Issue #4? The already have the summary up for both Issue #4 and #5 on Oeming's site here. As I have only recently been getting back into Graphic Novels and comics, I'm surprised with the advent of the internet that many publishers do not give the chance to order comics direct, but instead tell you where in your area you can buy their books. They're operating like some kind of strange wholesaler, most likely because being able to buy direct would put many privately owned comic shops out of business, and nobody would like that.

A potential all-star...

Week of 3/28:

Cycling back and forth through the stacks of comic books/graphic novels at the local Newbury Comics is quite the task. As you move from left to right in a logical A-Z order, somewhere in the middle it resets back to a random letter you had thought you previously passed. Keep in mind that every path my brain tends to go down to try and put some order to the chaos that is the comics rack seems to end up in some kind of Winchester home-esque hallway.

Basically I am trying to find a copy of Image Comics' "Pax Romana". The first issue is available for your reading purposes on Hickman's website here. It has some pretty over the top graphic design elements, and for people who like to know EVERYTHING there is to know about characters you may very well never see again, this comic will make you run down the street giving out high fives to strangers. In all seriousness, the artwork is certainly engaging albeit a bit busy at times given the random brushstrokes and the total absence of any kind of background artwork.

I'll be checking out Baron's in Bridgewater to see if there's anything else that I have not been able to find in the disorganized mess that is the Newbury's rack.

I'm looking for a dead end song...

Week In Review 3/21/08:


In Comics:
So I finally managed to get a hold of Image Comics' Issue 1 of "Dead Space". For those of you out there have seen horror or thiller movies that are set in space (ie. "Event Horizon", "Alien", "Sunshine", etc.), the creepiness factor is somehow magnified. Whether it be because space is a cold, dark place, or if it is because there is so much that is uknown about the dark reaches of the galaxy, having anything set in space amps up the scare factor quite a bit.

Enter this interesting comic, which explains the backstory for the upcoming Halloween '08 release of the Electronic Arts game of the same name. If you have managed to catch the trailer, you know that at some point, for some reason, something on a ship named the "Ishimura" went terribly wrong. What used to be a vastly populated craft now has a sole survivor, the individual you control in the game. What is not quite revealed is the reason why there are dead people/things floating around in zero g. That is where this short comic series comes into play. This first issue does not accomplish a great deal, and naturally it is difficult to connect the dots in the story this early. It does, however, definitely lay the groundwork for the next five issues to expand on.

So far, the story breaks down like this: A privately owned space station on an unknown planet is populated by miners mining for whatever it is miners mine for in the future. To the surprise of many people in the station, an obelisk of some value to a newly developed and popular religion is discovered by an archealogical team. All the while, two detectives are investigating the rash of violence that is rearing its ugly head throughout the station since the discovery of the obelisk. There are also those wacky religious zealots seeking to tap into the power of this new found artifact, who are bound to unleash something great and horrible onto the populace, which based on the creatures seen in the Dead Space Trailer, are pretty spooky.

The artwork is fantastic, and fans of the "30 Days of Night" graphic novel series or Ben Templesmith in general will feel right at home with its slightly exaggerated character features and lack of coloring (except some very bold reds). I was left feeling curious as to what would happen next, but I have not yet been engrossed with the story (like with "Mice Templar" or "Walking Dead"). Hopefully the next few issues will draw me into the story enough to want to play the video game when it releases in October, I'll pick things up with Issue #2 though for sure!

Seal of Approval: YES
Artwork: 4.5/5
Writing: 3/5
Replayability: 3.5/5
Buy It: YES
Mini-Review: Worth picking up if you're a fan of survival horror video games and/or the lore that surround them, or if you're just a fan of Ben Templesmith's style, the story definitely has potential to go somewhere, let's hope it gets there.