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ecmyers

04:03 pm - Heisei-era Raccoon Dog War Pom Poko

The New York International Children's Film Festival is screening Studio Ghibli's Pom Poko (directed by Isao Takahata), the touching and bizarre story of ecologically-conscious magical racoons, or tanuki. Screenings are on December 12 and 13. I own the DVD--still shrinkwrapped, I think, until I can convince feiran to watch it--but I'm tempted to see it in the theater, even dubbed in English, just to witness everyone's reactions to the shapeshifting raccoon testicles. According to Wikipedia, the dub refers to them as "pouches," but still, who are they kidding?

They're also showing a lot of other cool stuff at the festival, including some Tezuka short films from Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, the latter which may have "inspired" Disney's The Lion King.

feiran

04:29 pm

It's November! You know what that means: NaNoWriMo.

Have I mentioned that I *hate* the word NaNoWriMo? It looks like a pre-teen's internet handle (throw in some tildes and you're golden) and it utterly fails to roll off the tongue. "NoWri" in particular feels clunky, and "WriMo" sounds like it should be some sort of social epithet. It's just ugly. On top of that, it's completely inescapable in November if you're on LJ/Twitter/Facebook. Also in late October. And early December. All of which (ARR!) drives me nuts.

All that aside: I'm (very) loosely participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, in that I am attempting to write regularly in November in the company of others who are shooting for the 50k deadline. My personal goal is 25,000 words, given how much I've been traveling (home only two days so far this month). Note I'm not knocking the event--just the word and its prevalence. Discipline, and creativity, are good. And I dig novels. Write me some YA! :)

Moving on: I forgot how much I loved traveling, plane phobia notwithstanding. It's been fun to go on interviews and assess cities for livability. St. Louis impressed me with its greenery, public park and free cultural opportunities, low rent prices, clean downtown area, and sparse traffic. Pittsburgh was almost as hilly as Wellington, and situated on three rivers, with plenty of outdoorsy water activities, and cheap rent. Montreal (a work trip, not an interview) was clean and pretty, with bilingual signage everywhere. Every time I spotted a French word I'd forgotten, it felt like running into an old friend. I wish I remembered the language better. Next stop: Cleveland, around Thanksgiving. I'm hoping to visit Quebec on business this spring.

In other news, I recently discovered the OK Cupid blog, which has fun info about the site's stats and its matching algorithm. This prompted me to create an OKCupid account of my own and waste hours on tests and questions. One of the first questions, amusingly, was whether you made an account to meet people or just to test the algorithm. For the purposes of separating we idle users from the people seeking dates, I guess. :)

I keep shocking myself on the computer at work, even though I try to ground myself before I touch it. Three times now, the shock has been strong enough to stop my mousepad and keyboard from working and necessitated a hard reset. Ugh.

Hrm. What else? I've been tinkering with Boot Camp in an attempt to play DDO, since I'm disinclined to resume WoW. My opera closes this weekend, and I'm looking forward to reclaiming Sat/Sun evenings. The rest of the year is looking pretty booked, with birthdays, lessons, parties, holidays, weddings, baby showers, and what have you. And another opera in December, I think.

Toodles!

~~*NaNoWriMo*~~

ecmyers

11:00 pm - this is ridiculous

And no amount of poking and prodding could convince him to move.

Current Mood: amused

ecmyers

12:34 am - return to sender

By the way, my review of Richard Kelly's new film, The Box, is now up at Tor.com. It's hard to say whether this film is worse than the direct-to-DVD S. Darko, mostly because I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the ill-conceived sequel to one of my favorite time travel movies. (I learned my lesson after sitting through The Butterfly Effect 2.) But at least Kelly knew enough to stay away from that one. As a devoted fan of The Twilight Zone and Richard Matheson's ouvre, I had higher hopes than anyone for The Box, but if there's one thing I've learned to live with, it's disappointment. At least I didn't have to pay to see the movie--unlike you, if you choose not to heed my warning.

ecmyers

01:03 pm - Hey, Jane Austen fans!

The Morgan Library in NYC has an exhibition through March on Austen's life and work. Anyone want to go? I'd be interested, but it will have to be sometime after November. No word on whether zombies, sea monsters, or vampires figure into the show or not.

Maybe by the time I go, I will have read more of her books. My love of Austen hinges solely on how much I adore the novel Pride and Prejudice. The BBC production's pretty good too. :)

ecmyers

12:15 pm - happy halloween!

I hope everyone is having a great Halloween so far. I'm having a terrific time at World Fantasy Con, despite the inevitable sleep deprivation. I should be getting more sleep (as usual), but no matter how late I go to bed or how tired I am, I'm strangely incapable of sleeping past 8am. Under other circumstances this would seem like a terrible curse, but I can probably manage another day or two with this affliction. Hopefully the switch back to East Coast time will be less painful as a result, though the Daylight Savings Time change tonight might throw everything out of whack.

My reading on Thursday night was surprisingly well attended and I think I did an okay job of it. I read a condensed version of a story called "The Chronicles of Gregory Ross", which will be published in an excellent online zine that will be mentioned when the contract arrives. Thank you to everyone who attended!

I haven't been attending many panels at the con yet, but I've been to a number of good readings and the parties and socializing have been fun. One of the highlights was finally meeting Ellen Klages at the Nightshade Books party and talking about WWII, the atom bomb, and her excellent books The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace. I've also reunited with some of my Clarion West class and met a lot of other recent graduates from both Clarions, new writers, blog-friends, and the assorted cool people I never see often enough.

Predictably enough, I'm not writing much here, but this is really a vacation for me so I'm content to just enjoy it. However, I have two new blog posts up at Tor.com that you could check out:

• To celebrate the holiday, a re-watch post on the not-so-good Star Trek Halloween episode, "Catspaw".
  
• And to celebrate Steampunk Month at Tor.com, my review of the anime film Steamboy.