http://www.davekiersh.com/2007/08/neverland-part-1.html 1:22 PM >>> 1 comments

http://www.lynchdocumentary.com/ 8:09 PM >>> 0 comments

About the first two-thirds of The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt was one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. Unfortunately, like a lot of books centered around a mystery, once the truth comes out, the book tends to lose some steam. In this case, after ripping towards the end, things seemed to get more and more bogged down, with explanations and a couple of clunky passages, that I wasn't able to finish the book as satisfied as I would have liked - even though the book does have a real ending - unlike the same author's Slan, which I also read recently. Nonetheless, there is so much compelling reading over the course of the book - that I have no problem recommending it, and highly. For me it was also interesting to see how much Philip K. Dick must have been influenced by this book - which originally appeared in 1949 - and which seems to be the template for so many of Dick's best works (which obviously appeared much later). You've got a sort of everyman main character, who quickly learns (not really a spoiler - it's at the end of the first chapter) that all his memories all false and that he's not as ordinary as all that after all, meets up with a seemingly neurotic but quite sharp woman, (spoilers) who just happens to be the president's daughter - while two (or three) different philosophical approaches to life battle it out for supremacy across at least two planets. Uh - I guess it's a lot more complicated than that, though. The book is full of twists, truths that aren't truths, double and triple dealing characters - and is a really fast moving page turner over most of its length. Definitely a must read for fans of early-SF, that still feels pretty modern. 12:53 PM >>> 5 comments

Video game bars in Tokyo! 1:54 PM >>> 0 comments

11:29 AM >>> 0 comments

Jeux d'enfant is the first comic book I've read by Q-ta Minami. What drew me into the book the most, was the simple (on the surface), sketchy, speedy artwork - that keeps things visually minimal, but balanced and interesting to look at. That's kind of artwork I probably find most attractive and appealing. You can see some sample pages here, although those samples don't really show of her artwork when it's at its best (her style does vary a bit in quality throughout the book). The stories are equally minimal - seven chapters (probably autobiographical) that explore brief episodes in a life - from teenage girl first crushes, to school pressures, romantic entanglements, college dropout, working as a bartender, breaking into manga (first as an assistant than creating her own story that is nominated for a prize), and finally having a child of her own. Each chapter never really tells a complete story, more just shows a fragment of that time, but it all adds up to a very nice, drifty picture of some of what makes up one person's turning into an adult years. 1:03 PM >>> 4 comments

Metal Gear Solid 3: Substance - one of the best games I've ever played (and beat). The story is complex and entertaining. The gameplay is unique and with just the right amount of challenge mixed with variety. The graphics are good (though I'd love to see a high-def update - they probably looked great a couple of years ago). I don't know... I was just so into this as I played through - it was totally involving - I even enjoyed the lengthy cut scenes (more than a movie's worth) - and I really enjoyed the games humorous moments - that's what really keeps the game from getting bogged down. And I really liked the games length - twenty-two hours to play through the first time, twenty-two hours that barely dragged at all. I just loved sneaking around the jungle, spying out the location of enemies and trying to sneak past them without being seen, or sneaking behind them and slitting their throats (or knocking them out), or later, using the sniper rifle to get guys in the distance (particularly when climbing that mountain peak). The boss fight with The End was also particularly memorable, and I also liked the strangeness of "battling" The Sorrow. I'm almost ready for to play it again and to try to find and do some of the many things hidden throughout the game that I'm sure to have missed in the first run. Oh damn - now I really REALLY can't wait for MGS4. 11:05 AM >>> 0 comments

Every time I look at UBUWEB, there are more and more amazing things on there - I don't know how they do it. I mean, Robert Frank's film Me and My Brother? That's an incredibly rare film - which I've only seen once, a decade ago in Portland. I'm so happy I get to see its weirdness again, at my own leisure. Scroll down past Pull My Daisy and you can stream it or download an avi. Scroll down one more and there's Energy and How to Get It - a film I'd never even heard of - apparently written by the great Rudy Wurlitzer (Two-Lane Blacktop, Nog etc...), with William Burroughs - what the hell... 8:52 PM >>> 0 comments

I think it's pretty impressive that you can now subscribe to an English language version of Cahiers du Cinema online. A demo of how the system works can be seen here. The price seems in the realm of fair, but I guess you'd have to be pretty obsessed to want to read a whole magazine sitting in front of your computer. 1:21 PM >>> 0 comments

http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/131/work_712.htm 4:48 PM >>> 0 comments

One more Tezuka, because I just read the first volume of Histoires Pour Tous, the first book of a twenty book(!) series being published by Delcourt (in French), collecting various shorter works Tezuka drew between his longer series, mostly during the 70s - and I must say - this first issue has some of the best Tezuka comics I've read yet. First, I think I prefer shorter comics - these ran generally around 40 pages - and that length feels really good to me. The focus in this first book was mostly autobiographical (I think only the first, slightly gimmicky story isn't), which was really interesting - these were the comics by Tezuka that I was most hoping to read, after seeing some excerpts in the four volume biography. Although he covers serious times - his life growing up in Japan during and after the WWII years - Tezuka emphasizes the humorous aspects of growing up in a challenging era, as sort of a nerdy, manga-obsessed, undersized kid. The artwork is particularly fluid and a pleasure to look at - his pure-humor style of drawing is great, really active, and really funny. The exaggerated comedy actually works perfectly here in combination with the more serious undertones to the stories - the fear, hatred and struggle of living through the war years. The balance is perfect and quite stunning. I can't really think of any other stories that I've yet read that are more harrowing, while also being as amusing at the same time. It's my understanding that this book contains the bulk, if not all, of Osamu Tezuka's autobiographical comics, which is a little disappointing, because when something is so good, so interesting, you can't help but with for more. Lots more! 10:34 AM >>> 0 comments

I really enjoyed reading all four volumes of this Osamu Tezuka biography in comic book form. It makes a huge friggin unique book, and provides tons of interesting detail on the life, work, and working methods of Tezuka while he created 150,000 pages of comics and countless animated films over the course of his relatively brief life (1928-1989, a mere sixty years). The biography gives a very good overview of his comics, hitting on (I'd imagine) most of the major series. But it's not a critical biography, more of a loving tribute - which in this case, seems fine to me. I was especially interested when reading about his early years, going to school during WWII, the internal struggle trying to decide if he wanted to devote his life to medicine or drawing comics, and his seemingly endless resource of creativity. A lot of the book is spent describing his amazing pace of work and how it stunned those surrounding him - how he would draw for days straight to meet deadlines - draw in cars, trains, airplanes and hotel rooms when traveling - drawing hundreds of pages a month, multiple stories at the same time - how he would be drawing one story and dictating the script for another one at the same time. It was more than a bit insane! Those deadlines too - with editors camping out in his house, his office, and chasing him around Japan - seemed especially cruel. The final book concentrates more on the various prizes he bagan to frequently receive towards the end of his years - it feels like a just reward. If I had one complaint with the books, it's that the artwork is a little too sterile, a little too focused on being functional and at times becomes a bit boring to look at for so many pages straight. Luckily, they do excerpt a fair amount of Tezuka's own artwork, which helps break up the book - and is always a pleasure to see. Anyhow, for me, this in-depth biography made for an incredibly inspiring read. It not only made me want to read more Tezuka, but to track down and learn more about the work of some of his contemporaries, and definitely to spend more time on my own work too. 10:08 AM >>> 0 comments