dreamshelves

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Adore my PaintShop and its shelves of books and brain/soul food, its Dollar Store curtain rods of zip-tied carded action figures, its boxes of bagged and boarded comics from each of my collecting / procurement eras, then/now/in-between – love it but were I to consider the ideal (as I'm going to do now), I'd be surrounded by floor to ceiling shelves (ok, maybe one large wall open for original art and lobby cards for old horror flicks), dreamshelves, each tall and deep enough to hold everything from the smallest issue of isolarii to the burgeoning vinyl collection to the largest comics Omnibus / Absolute edition (or Ware's BUILDING STORIES - think that's the tallest but I'm not sure - that Taschen book on Magic is up there, as are the FAR SIDE and CALVIN AND HOBBES and NEW YORKER collections) and everything in between organized alphabetically by author and, most importantly, irrespective of the medium: vinyl between Blu-Ray Bergman doorstop boxsets and umpteen editions of HEAT and THE GODFATHER and MULHOLLAND DRIVE between books between bagged and boarded writers' runs on a particular comics series between Universal Monster VHS sub-organized within by year of release and, in the middle of it all, in the middle of a room wide enough to contain both these walls of dreamshelves AND toil upon both of its not-inconsiderable sides, KaijuDesk – or, hell, how about all four sides (it's called KaijuDesk for a reason) – spaced for optimal pacing and chair leaning underneath aforementioned and requisite Dollar Store curtain rods of ziptied action figures from on high like Mr. Choo-Choo's private car (though I wouldn't depend on them to prevent falling), memories and inspirations above and on all sides.

THE PAPER TIGERS (Tran, 2020)

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(Directed by Tran Quoc Bao from a script by Tran; starring Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, Mykel Shannon Jenkins, Jae Suh Park, Matthew Page, and Roger Yuan. Released 07 May 2021; watched sun/20230129 via Netflix)

A happy surprise thanks to Polygon's list of films leaving streaming services at the end of the month: a feel-good revenge story (this may be my first time writing that) featuring a memorable cast of characters - all of whom (including Carter) I miss now that the movie's over – whose travails through middle age stand toe-to-toe with COBRA KAI on reckoning with lost glories, nostalgia for times that used to be but never were, and the gift of someone willing to help you down the path to being a good, virtuous person. Leaves Netflix 04 February, so catch it this week. Loved it.

Update/20230205: It’s no longer available on Netflix, though you can either rent it or keep abreast of its streaming availability via Just Watch. More than worth the rental.

a word re: commenting

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I’ve set my comment system here to require an email address for all comments. Take heed, though: your address isn’t made public nor is it used for anything other than notifying both of to replies on our threads. As always, you don’t need to sign up or login for anything to comment. As soon as I’m able to turn that option off, I will. Name and email is all that’s required.

Peake / Robinson: synthesis

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Finding my way to something in the MainFictionThing by having a document open on the Infinite Canvas based on the Reveries section of Mervyn Peake's TITUS GROAN (currently reading and loving: Gormenghast will be the first fantasy series I've completed): the internal thoughts of all the characters at Titus's birthday breakfast before the next turn happens. Useful exercise even if it's doubtful that I'll use it in the final thing, find the rhythm of characters' thoughts, etc etc.

Combining with something Kim Stanley Robinson said in a recent City Arts and Lectures episode : that the novel (paraphrasing here) isn't a tool for self-expression but rather a way to get inside the heads of your characters, of other people. Playing that up here – not that I'm writing a novel – at least I don't think I'm writing a novel but who knows: maybe this is the inversion of the seven-year paragraph – or maybe a brief flash of getting somewhere before it all comes to a(nother) halt. Whatever it is, I'm going to run with it until I fall flat on my face.

parking lot kindle

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Spent a bit of time waiting in a parking lot (grocery store: my wife got solo grocery shopping down to a science during the pandemic so we’ve decided not to fuck with perfection) this morning and took the opportunity to use it as a case study in my effort to use my Kindle Paperwhite with greater frequency: Economist and NYRB subscriptions show up there now; HOW TO TAKE SMART NOTES in there, too - a book I don't necessarily want to read in my daily reading blocks but do want to peruse in times outside (such as titular parking lot). While the PW's shit for reading comics, it's great for reading manga - ASTRO BOY, LONE WOLF AND CUB, and the third volume of BLACK JACK dwell there as well. That it still had 76% battery life after being buried under piles of books and Bergman / Varda Blu-Ray doorstop sets for three months is an added bonus… she’s seriously got it down to a science: I was in that parking lot for all of 20 minutes, maybe. Respect.