Martyrs

Also, I did pick up Martyrs and watched it again.

Two-thirds of the way through I had my knees pulled up to my chest, tears streaming down my face, and I was asking myself why the fuck I was putting myself through it again. Yes, it's that powerful.

If you're wondering what precise part of the film prompted that reaction, it was the moment when Anna drapes the black towel over the woman in the bathtub's head to shield her eyes from the light, and for that second it looked like a black hood.

I had a similar reaction to the bus scene last time I saw Children of Men.

Like I said, my head is full of little else right now. I am having a very hard time grappling with the fact that these atrocities were committed in my name, by my government.

I feel complicit.

Must... Post... More...

I'm not sure what direction I want to take this blog in, and quite frankly right now my head is full of this torture shit, so I've been a bit reluctant to post too much of that here.

I did go to the Jonathan Coulton concert tonight. He was quite droll, as were Paul & Storm, and I needed the laugh.

Here's a video for a song he didn't sing tonight.

My Sadly No! Impression

Shorter Jim Manzi:

We beat the fucking Nazis and Commies without resorting to torture, you assholes, but now you think we need it to deal with a rag-tag bunch of towel heads? Are you for fucking real?



This has been another Famous Blogger Impression.

Martyrs Is Out On DVD

At least IMDB and Amazon claim it is... I think I'll find out tonight.

It's one of those horror films that managed to perfectly plug itself into the world's subconscious. As I said in my review at the time:

"What Anna suffers is awful and unthinkable and evil, but it's awful and unthinkable and evil not because she randomly walked into the wrong campground but because the world is sometimes an awful, unthinkable, evil place, and because people can coldly and logically justify awful, unthinkable, evil things."

I don't believe I was even aware of the existence of the OLC memos when I wrote that.

Sitting in an Internet Cafe

As I watch the street from my little table at the local internet cafe, I am once again struck by how generally pretty people are in T'rana.

I sometimes think the average dating-age woman up here would pull a 6.5 on the traditional 1-10 scale (the menfolk too, if I dated and rated guys.) My personal theory is that T'rana pulls in the best of most of the rest of the country (although the 9.5's and better are extremely rare, probably because most of them head for New York and LA), which drastically pulls up the median.

We're like a really good Triple-A ballclub, which (to continue the metaphor well past the point where it makes any sense at all, at all) is a problem if you expect an All-Star major leaguer at every position, but is just fine if all you want is a fun an entertaining ballgame.

A Busy Week?

Tonight I'm torn between hitting Neu+ral after the Jays game (which might give me an opportunity to check out Derek Holland, whose name has come up in trade talks in one of my fantasy leagues) and walking over to Tequila Sunrise for a birthday party. Said birthday party will also be spilling over into Wednesday at the Fox & Fiddle, though, a spot I haven't visited since they sacked their awesomely misanthropic host.

Also, I better have this thing down next time I head out to sing with the Gamines, or there will be consequences.

Humanz is Teh Awezum

Saw this on Sullivan. A more devastating refutation of Ayn Rand's crap I cannot imagine. Our capacity for empathy and cooperation is a feature, not a bug.

As individuals, 99.99% of humanity rules. The problem is what happens when we get together in large groups. And that .01%.