Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Personal

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I read too fast for my own damned good. Yesterday i decided to go on a smallish shopping spree with my credit card to see how close i could get to maxing it out without being rejected from purchasing something. In the madness, i hit Borders and picked up Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon and a sweet oversized edition of Silence of the Lambs. I’m not sure what suddenly spurred this in me, but recently my girlfriend’s roommate has been powering through Lambs, and i always meant to read it, and i sorta want to go see Hannible. So, i suppose the plan was to get through the two of them soon enough to buy a non-movie edition of Hannibal to read before i go see the flick in a weekend or two. Or, as it turns out, maybe this weekend.

First of all, you have to understand my unholy hatred of movie-edition paperbacks. I hate them. Hate them. While having the image of a main character to aid me in visualization is always helpful, i’ve endured too many ugly movie-photos like the ones on the covers of The Beach or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, both of which previously featured superb cover work. Even worse, the new edition of Hannibal doesn’t even use the creepy zombie-like picture of Anthony Hopkins from the movie posters – instead it substitutes some awful and nearly amusing picture of him preening with a large straw hat on. It isn’t too threatening.

Borders had two copies of the non-movie edition, but i didn’t want to get ahead of myself. Paperbacks cost quite a lot now ($8 for a paperback? Does anyone else miss the 90’s yet?), and i didn’t want to sink nearly $30 into three books that i might not even like. So, i bought Red Dragon so i could finally read it & Silence of the Lambs, which looks nice if nothing else. I finished the dense 450 page Dragon in under 20 hours of intermittent reading; started around 4pm yesterday and completed noon today with rehearsal, sleep, and class coming inbetween. I was proud of myself. I’ve been known to finish 500 page books in well under eight hours in the past, but i tend to lose my momentum when i don’t read a large book all in a single sitting.

So far my impression is that Thomas Harris is a tremendous writer but a nearly equally inconsistent author who relies on too many plot devices and explicit histories in the place of actual suspense and horror. Much as in the movie of Silence of the Lambs, where you become excited by the chase rather than the whodunnit, this novel reveals the killer early on and becomes a book as much about him as about the protagonist (who’s a much better character). The protagonist is vivid, logical, and entangles himself and the reader frighteningly deep into each murder. On the other hand, the killer’s history is boring, contrived, evokes little pity, and surprisingly does nearly nothing to set the reader up for his near schizophrenic behaviour near the end of the novel. In fact, the book took a downturn as soon as it dropped the pretense and mainly focused on the murderer. And, i’ll never look at dentures the same way again.

Lambs is 350 pages in super-oversized soft-cover format, and it looks to be a bit more firmly put-together than Dragon. And, of course, it has a lot more of Hannibal Lecter in it. One thing i’ll hand to Harris as an author is that he crafted the ultimate chiller of a villain in Hannibal; in his new forward to the first novel he portrays the writing of Lecter’s first scene as though he viewed it from a corner where he was huddled in fear the entire time, fending off the urge to bolt out the door as well as the cackling of other inmates in the asylum. His description of writing Hannibal seems apropos, because i would hardly expect someone to deliberately conjure this sort of killer from the depths of their own imagination. A monster is hard to create, and much easier to develop in small strides as he crawls into the cracks of your psyche and makes you scared to even write him. Lecter definitely had that effect on his author, and now i can hardly wait to get Silence of the Lambs out of the way so i can run back to Borders tomorrow to buy a lovely copy of Hannibal.


Who knows, i might even wind up seeing it this weekend…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2296596/

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Eek…. i’m so used to hating Valentine’s Day and not buying anything for anyone that i sorta forget that i can actually take part in the greeting card industry’s favourite holiday after Christmas. I mean… i recognize its pointlessness in the same way i blow off Mother’s Day every year; either i’m appreciating my mother year ’round or the one day isn’t going to make much of a difference. However, i’ve always had a mother, but having a Valentine is an entirely new phenomenon. I’ll have to hit a Hallmark today when i go shopping…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2281300/

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You know, i sometimes get the idea that certain logs are illustrious and powerful just because i know their names. I mean… i don’t really actively seek out new blogs to read; i just happen upon the ones i happen upon. However, in my half a year of happenings i’ve seen a few names pop up more than i’ve seen others. Whether it be on PowerBlogger, or on the sidebar at blogger.com, or on other people’s lists of links, some names are just more visible than others. I think what eternally surprises me is what i find when i visit these sites; i expect them to be masterful works with strong narrative voice and a sense of direction, but most of the time the writers have a lot more in common with me than with my preconceived notion of them.


What’s funny is that i exist on the other side of that notion sometimes too. I mean, this log has been around long enough to give people the chance to see it linked from various placed without actually reading it, and the fact that some of them might come here with the sense that i’m in some way important is pretty boggling. Of course, maybe no one does that sort of thing but me; it wouldn’t be the first time.

Last night one of my best friends turned to me and said “I was sorta afraid to talk to you, because i figured you wouldn’t really be interested in someone like me.” It wasn’t that she thought i was too cool, or anything like that, she just made the assumption that i had enough friends as it was and to try to be befriend me was not worth the effort.


I couldn’t even believe my ears as i had this explained to me, because when i comes down to it i’m a very isolated person with very few friends who i actually talk to daily, and she just assumed that i didn’t need anyone else like that in my life. Well, i did, and thank god we actually wound up talking eventually, because i don’t know what i’d be doing without her at this point.

Moral? I don’t know. How about we try this: today go to your favourite log that always struck you as being famous and popular and groovy, and send the author an email telling them how much you appreciate their writing. You’d be amazed at the response you get, whether you get to see it or not. I’m on my way to my favourite famous-log now; you better be doing to same!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2280880/

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I really think i might be trying to fail out of school this semester. Of course, by this point i think we’ve established that failing out for me would be equivalent to getting a C in any one subject.

I’m not in class right now. I’m in the building where class is held, i have no physical restraints to attending class, but i’m not there. None of my classes are holding my attention, it’s as simple as that. I’ve managed to pull straight A’s in Literature attending half the lectures and reading a third of the books, my public speaking class is so useless that i honestly think i’m getting worse at speaking publicly, i haven’t learned anything in recording for two weeks (although that’s entirely my own dumb fault for being so tired in class all the time), and i couldn’t even go to Aural Skills last week because i couldn’t hear or sing through my headcold.

Am i trying to fail? Is it just that i already got my role in the play and my co-op position and just don’t want to fight for anything else? Are my classes all so easy that i think the only way i could possibly have to work for them is if i only attend once or twice a week? I’m really not sure, but something’s gonna change – and it’s either going to be my behaviour or my grade point average.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2280491/

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I am nothing if not a whore for links, so here’s a little something to catch y’all up on who else has been wasting time on my page. Firstly, longtime favourite Matt Pollard sent me some lovely linky love out of nowhere last week, and i never let Matt’s love go unreturned. Also, continuing link-love exists from Matt, DayZero, ClosetBoy, SavvyMel, & the darling May. Oh, plus Rabi still knows i exist, and she covered yesterday’s inclement weather much better than i did (which was not at all).

Next, i was randomly totally flattered by this site, which lists me as one of the writer’s top10 favourite blogs. Isn’t that sweet? I honestly thought all my visitors were my friends snooping around trying to pick up tidbits about my girlfriend that i won’t tell them in real life…

In the realm of SurvivorBlog2, we just got linked from my all-time favourite omni-present homosexual british net-guru Tom@PlasticBag. So, maybe that somehow sorta-kinda means he might know who i am in an obscure and indifferent way. And, that makes me all tingly inside. Fellow sBlogger Ryan actually has my link featured prominently on his splash page, which rocks! Ditto for Alayna (who i’m madly in love with) & Erik (who even used my link button!), Finally, KevRock from Fury.com (also from the Sblog2 Peanut Gallery) linked a whole bunch of my content without actually leaving any love for my own site, but i’ll take any mention i can get in the midst of his sexy mix of technology and, um, sexiness.

Finally, i’d like to just wish Re from Beautiful Freak the best as she takes a little break from logging. We’ll still love you when you come back, babe.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2266330/