Writing can be painful, and I’m not talking about the pain produced by digging deep into your core and revealing horrible truths. I’m talking about the process. Like when you sit in front of your computer, armed with what you’re absolutely sure are great ideas, and as soon as your hands hover over the keyboard, your mind goes blank and you find yourself, like the most idiotic blob, staring at the screen, dangerously close to drooling all over yourself.

That’s been happening to me more often than I’d like to admit, but instead of succumbing to extreme drooling or despair, I duplicate my media consumption. So here are a few comments, because I don’t have anything else to write about.

 

Books

I read William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy. I don’t know what it is about cyberpunk that resonates so much with me but no cyberpunk material had ever trapped me as much as Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. I loved being able to identify the elements within Neuromancer that inspired other works. The best of the three is definitely Neuromancer, and it is now my favorite book.

One thing that made the experience even better was reading these books while listening to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. There’s no better match than that.

 

Movies
The Rite: I thought it was a good drama that suffered from bad marketing and ridiculous expectations stemming from 1973´s the Exorcist. Anthony Hopkins is still the man.
Hereafter: Lovely film.
Tamara Drewe: Cute, but kind of none eventful.
The Informant!: Hilarious. Mark Whitacre is the biggest unapologetic fool I’ve ever seen on film.
Sherlock Holmes: Aesthetically beautiful. Great fun. But it was too damn long.
The Runaways: It was good but kind of slow. The music was great, obviously. Despite Cherie Currie and Joan Jet being the main characters, but Scout Taylor-Compton did so good as Lita Ford that she was the one that stood out for me.
So that’s the grand total of movies I’ve seen in the last two weeks. Not that many, really, but only because of—

 

Carnivale


I watched the whole two seasons again. I considered blogging about it, decided not to, and changed my mind again, so the big Carnivale blogathon is coming, only because I want to watch every episode again.
Also, Daniel Knauf (Carnivale’s mastermind) has teamed up with Trent Reznor to finally bring Year Zero to our screens, a piece of information I learned about recently and somewhat restored by faith in HBO and humanity, because I am one of those Carnivale fans that still holds a grudge against HBO for cancelling it.

What a divine show. It was canceled too soon, but it was also too complex to find a bigger audience.
And that’s all for now. Next week, the Carnivale blogathon begins.