Friday, January 20, 2006

Some self-referential naval-gazing. Or just updates and comments re: previous posts. The glass half empty/full/drinking itself

So then!

Earlier, I mentioned some movies that are coming out this year. BondGirl kindly pointed this way, and a commenter over that way mentioned that the guy behind Donnie Darko also has a new movie scheduled for this year. Southland Tales. The tagline is listed on IMDB as "Warning: you are entering a domain of chaos." which is nice and all, but check out this cast: Seann William Scott? Sarah Michelle Gellar? Mandy Moore? The Rock!?! Justin fucking Timberlake? Seriously, what the hell? None of that makes any sense at all.

It's going to be awesome.

And then, well, uhm. I don't even know what to make of this:

Writer–director Paul Thomas Anderson is in advanced talks to produce and direct There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a turn-of-the-century Texas oil prospector in the early days of the oil business. The sprawling period piece, which Anderson has spent several years writing, is loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!

Budgeted at more than $25 million, Blood will be jointly financed and distributed by Paramount’s specialty films division and Miramax Films, according to Paramount specialty division president John Lesher. "It's an ambitious film and a compelling, relevant story about family, greed, religion and oil," Lesher said. "Paul is an incredible talent, exactly the kind of filmmaker the new division wants to be in business with."


Yeah, I know. What the hell. At least I think this one won't be out until not 2006, because what with the Lynch and the Aronofsky and the Donnie Darko guy, yeah. Sorry. The mindsploding plate is full.

Okay, back to books: the Mary Gaitskill interview I recently mentioned is up on the mobile-intarweb-podcast-net you kids are all AJAXed up about and is now also on my computer, waiting for me to completely forget to ever listen to it, though I mean to. Which is awesome.

And then, also, recently, I referred to some newspaper guy as being not too bright. Erin O'Brien (whose blog is consistently entertaining and who will be talking the writing business this weekend at a local library, for those of you who are in the area, interested in the writing business, and who are physically capable of waking up during daylight hours on Saturdays) kindly fact-checked my statement, and the facts are highly amusing, I say.

And when I said that "four more books are on the way this week" at the LBC, did you think I was lying? Did you think I was crazy? Cuz, I wasn't, and I ain't. Shockingly, I've actually heard of three of the titles, which either means they're slacking off, or I'm spending way too much time on the Web anymore. The fact that I've read none of the selected titles pretty much negates all of the above, though, and just makes me want to get to work and get to reading. Oh, literature. Why can't I quit you?

I'm sorry. That was uncalled for.

Okay anyway. Next to last: I finished Oblivion tonight, which means I might stop writing like a bargain-basement DFW 15th generation photocopy sometime in the next few months. I was thinking of immediately re-reading Infinite Jest right now, but I've already broken one of you, and I'm going to say that's a good month's work right there and call it a night. That and I mentally and physically couldn't handle that right now. I have more to say (which I may or may not ever get around to saying, as the case here usually is) but for now I'll just hint that, a), DFW is sometimes really awfully heartbreakingly good and it hurts hurts hurts, and b), that I'm almost certain DFW is a Stephen Dixon fan, at least enough to have picked up and deployed the occasional verbal-linguistic tic; you'd know if you saw it, I think, unless I'm wrong, then, you wouldn't see it at all.

And finally, so long as we're on the hot topic of me, no, that's not a trick of the light in my profile pic. Rather, that gray hair is authentic and real and verifiable by science. Genetics are a funny thing.

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