peeping tom

The most enduring and disturbing part is that our dear cameraman antihero is not the offending party -- only its vehicle for the duration of the film. His violent, self-inflicted death leaves us with no relief. We remain impaled on our own fear and disgust long after the projector reaches the end of the reel. It's almost worse that he's dead; now that the aggressor is disembodied, we have no reference with which to control or anchor or mediate this instinct, the niggling, floating sense of a most profoundly unsettling anxiety (referent). It goes from image to sound to instinct, progressing into increasingly intrinsic and uncapturable forms until it's just an empty screen, washed in red light.

I really wish I hadn't seen it.

p53 and apoptosis: master guardian and executioner of the cell

The Biology of Cancer is perhaps my favorite science text of all time. Not only does it present the material with clear writing and helpful diagrams... but these extra Easter Eggs: surprising vocabulary, cheesy sub-headings, quotations from Shelley's Frankenstein in his chapterly epigraphs. Prof. M may have his issues with Bob Weinberg's "flowery language," but there are no problems here. Seriously? "Mdm2 and ARF battle over the fate of p53"? In my mind, I can distinctly hear his earnest, quivering tenor, one finger readjusting his coke-bottle glasses as he dramatically narrates a game of Dungeons and Dragons: The Cancerous Cell (against himself, in his mother's basement, etc). How could I ever forget this stuff?

say "what" again, i dare you

Pulp Fiction. I can't believe I've lived so long without watching it properly. There is not enough explosive agreement in the world "love" to satisfactorily explain my feelings. It is perhaps my favorite movie ever. No, that's unfair to Inglourious Basterds and Reservoir Dogs, both of which I've seen in the last month-ish.

Tarantino's films are an utter shit-fest, violently mashing together all the miscellaneous pop cultural crap he can think of, and YET, he somehow makes it taste so amazing -- I can't even believe how offensively delicious. They are the impossibly personable pigs that are acceptable for Samuel L. Jackson's consumption. When I stop to really think about what exactly his films are made of, I throw up a little in my mouth, but it doesn't stop me from rushing to see every film he's ever made (a woefully short list, if you ask me). And that is such evil, evil genius.


P.S. And the choice of music! Always perfect. The supplementary example of "perfect" used in dictionaries. <3




[An aside: Kaufman's Adaptation. is an uncommonly vicious species of mobius-stripping, flatworm Ouroboros that embeds itself in your skull where it denucleates all your neurons so as to fill a pool full of your brain-cell carcasses and pee in it.]

american news coverage is the best

three-hundred miles

When I get homesick, I pull out the guitar and crappily strum my way through some old John Denver songs from my youth. My dad was something of a fan, so on long drives, we'd listen to Mister Denver on cassette tape along with The Carpenters, The Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel. These were the only acceptable non-Classical musicians in our household, and I learned to love them in a familiar and unimpressed way -- not like the fearful reverence I was taught to harbor for the "true masters," but a deep and lasting affection, nevertheless.

I'm not much for making music except that it's soothing and good company on when home feels far. Neither would I ever count myself as a country music lover, but there's something in these catchy tunes about clear skies and mountains that strangely help me feel a little closer to the smoggy LA skyline.

i hate you so much

for thine is

Thee, God, I come from, to thee go,
All day long, I like fountain flow
From thy hand out, swayed about
Mote-like in thy mighty glow.

What I know of thee I bless,
As acknowledging thy stress
On my being and as seeing
Something of thy holiness.

Once I turned from thee and hid,
Bound on what thou hadst forbid;
Sow the wind I would; I sinned:
I repent of what I did.

Bad I am, but yet thy child.
Father, be thou reconciled.
Spare thou me, since I see
With thy might that thou art mild.

I have life left with me still
And thy purpose to fulfill;
Yea a debt to pay thee yet:
Help me, sir, and so I will.

But thou bidst, and just thou art,
Me shew mercy from my heart
Towards my brother, every other
Man my mate and counterpart.


. . .
Jesus Christ sacrificed
On the cross


Moulded, he, in maiden's womb,
Lived and died and from the tomb
Rose in power and is our
Judge that comes to deal our doom.


-G M Hopkins, "Thee, God, I come from"