From The Morgue

Finally saw Kong last week – at the Embassy, which was as good a venue for it as I’d hoped. There was a lot to love in the film, and I enjoyed it, but it doesn’t tap into the mythic like it wants to. I don’t know why not. Some confluence of elements in the original that don’t work the same way here? In any case, the thing that I enjoyed the most about it was the character of Ann Darrow.
Ann is a fascinating character. She almost abandons everything – spirals away from language, and civilisation, incredibly quickly. She was broken by society, smashed by it, and didn’t want to come back to it. Naomi Watts performs her with insight and affection, deconstructing her to the point where the final act, in which Ann has virtually no dialogue, feels perfect because the character has progressed beyond anything that can be conveyed in words.
(I’d love to know how much Watts thought through her performance, because it comes across as something very raw and devoid of strategy. There are things going on in Ann Darrow conveyed by Watts that I suspect she couldn’t articulate.)
I can’t remember the last film I’ve seen that finishes by utterly destroying its heroine.
Any romance with Driscoll is doomed, she might be with him and marry him, but she’ll never be able to love him, because she’s already lost to the world.
The moments in the film that got me – the moment when Ann’s being rescued, and you see in her the desire to not be rescued, to go back into the island with Kong. And, after Kong falls to his death, when she stands looking down and the temptation to follow him over the edge plays right through her.
Loved the effects. Kong was great. Too long, but not by much – I’d only shave about ten minutes out of it. (The whole first mate-cabin boy relationship can go, and apart from that I’d just shorten a lot of shots from three seconds to two seconds – do that enough times and you’ve got five minutes out of the film.)
Jack Black didn’t hit all the right notes. Which I’m sad about, I was confident he’d do a great job, but he just didn’t sell it to me. Particularly that final line, originally intended for Fay Wray, which clunked out as the worst piece of dialogue in the whole film.
Overall: Go see it, if you haven’t already. It delivers the monkey action.
——-
“For me the whole thing that gave the 1933 King Kong its poignancy was that he was an artefact, he was not real. My feeling is that in all of us there is a wild untameable doomed thing that will always be shot down in the end. When King Kong tenderly puts Fay Wray down on a safe ledge and goes to his death, it moves us, because we know what it is that’s happening. Because we know that that thing in us which is always doomed to be shot down, is being shot down. And when you have a realistic gorilla, it ain’t gonna work.”
– Russell Hoban on why he’s not going to see the new King Kong

This past weekend was Kapcon XV. It was grand fun. I had a great time seeing loads of good people and doing some catching-up (well, more like doing some ‘let’s catch up soon’ stuff because it was a busy weekend) and generally feeling happy to be here with such great friends.
Did I mention how good it was to see everyone again? Well, it was this good:

Big write-up of the whole thing, behind the cut.

Continue reading Kapcon Report

The fifteenth Kapcon, Wellington’s annual roleplaying convention and (in my ‘umble opinion) the best damn smallish con around, is on this weekend. ‘ray!
It’s a con that emphasises the games, to the point where that’s pretty much all it is – lots and lots of games. No dealers room, no auction, no seminar track.
It’s great fun though. The games are always good, and the traditional Big Live Game on Saturday night is always a stunner. This year’s game is set in the Victorian era and the local costume shops have been doing a roaring trade kitting people out for the big night. (Hmm. Live Game. That’s an odd contraction. I guess it would count as new language. It’s a big roleplaying event where everyone is physically in character. )
What a lovely con it is. And I can say that with some authority, now, having been to conventions in… hmmm… seven countries.
I’m going to be running some a/state. It gives me an excuse to wear my Contested Ground Studios t-shirt, after all.
Anyway. That’s where I’m at this weekend.

I found this amongst my many, many stacks of paper. I just checked movie release dates on IMDB, and I think this must be from exactly ten years ago. I present it complete and unexpurgated.
THINGS TO DO
(1) Hunt 5-foot chickens for beer.
(2) See Goldeneye
(3) Play sega
(4) Listen to Sonic Youth
(5) Meet Alicia Silverstone
(6) Eat something
(7) Meet attractive and interesting women.

Pinatas in the market, Oaxaca
10pinatasoaxaca.jpg, 114K
Oaxaca was a big town in southern Mexico with a sizable foreigner population and a fair amount of tourist throughput. Still, it wasn’t hard to get away from the foreign beat – I walked a few blocks out from the main centre to hit the huge local market, and there wasn’t another one of me to be seen.
It’s hard to emphasise just how big this market was – three or four huge warehouse spaces, crammed full of stalls divided by narrow crowded alleys. Everything you could think of was in there somewhere. I wandered through it for a while, bought some Mexican hip hop from the bootleg CD area, smelled the incredible scents in the spices area, peered at the footwear in the shoes area, then came upon the party-gear area. There were about six stalls jammed full of beautiful, colourful pinatas, all clearly hand-made.
It’s hard not to take a fun picture of these things. They’re fish-in-a-barrel for the travel photographer looking for a good photo, but dammit, I liked them, and I like this picture.

I’m blogging again, apparently.
I’ve been back in NZ for over three weeks. How the hell did that happen?
Trying to piece together the last three years’ worth of cultural conversation. It isn’t straightforward. A lot of little things have changed, a lot of big things have moved forward.
Two weeks ago I pulled my old stereo out of the cupboard. It ran beautifully for six days, then decided it didn’t believe in such things as CDs, then three days after that decided okay, yes, it did believe in CDs and would play them again.
So I’m listening to a bunch of CDs I haven’t listened to since mid-2002, living in a place I haven’t lived in since 1997, seeing a surprising number of people I met on the other side of the world, and generally experiencing time in a fucked-up sort of way.
Today, while out walking, I understood that I am now every previous me.

On Saturday night, after a grooving salsa concert at the Gardens, George and I cut through the rose garden area on our way to the city. That function venue there had something on so, being curious wee buggers, we wandered up to check it out.
It was a wedding reception. The bride and groom were nowhere to be seen, so they must already have disappeared off into honeymoonland. We pegged one of the people dancing as the best man, and an older woman who joined them on the dancefloor was obviously the groom’s mother; a guy we ID’d as groom’s father was on the edge of the dancefloor kicking out some truly inspired and individual dance moves by himself. There were two bridesmaids on the dancefloor, one of them blonde and the other dark-haired, and best man clearly wanted to get with blondie. He was doing the making-a-fool-of-himself thing, and making conversation with everyone else who got near to him except for her. I’m just waiting for the right moment. And then I will strike! Watch me dance, I’m a legend! She, for her part, was clearly waiting for him to make a move on her, any move – I’m a bridesmaid, how can any man resist me? (If I can’t pull as a bridesmaid, does that mean something is wrong with me?) – and waiting and waiting, talking to a few other guys who fancied their chances but clearly weren’t in the running.
We watched this unfolding for over half an hour. We could have watched more. It was pretty obvious that bestman and blondie weren’t going to hook up, because his right moment was never going to arrive in a form that he’d recognise, and she was already making all the moves she knew how to make by wearing a pretty dress and smiling at him. Sad, really – both keen but absolutely unable to put it together. But haven’t we all been there?
Rule of thumb for girls wanting boys: be way more obvious than you ever imagined needing to be. If you maintain plausible deniability, he won’t get it. (Or just bloody well make the move yourself, of course.)
Rule of thumb for boys wanting girls: be way more forward than you are comfortable with. If you’re comfortable, then you’re not actually making a move.
Bonus explanation of other stuff: This is, of course, part of the reason why there’s this guy-mythology that girls love assholes. Really, it isn’t that girls love assholes, its that girls fall for guys that actually make a move on them. Ye asshole, possessed of unwarranted self-confidence (itself born of lack of insight), he maketh the move, and he getteth the girl.
Tomorrow: morgue explains Relations Between The Generations using for illustration a mildly amusing experience he had at the supermarket.

Read: Berlin: City of Stones – Book One by Jason Lutes (Drawn and Quarterly, 2004)
T and Warren gifted this lovely book to me when they came through town recently. T found it in a graphic novel place and took a chance, because she knows of my deep affection for the city of Berlin. It was a good decision – it’s wonderful.
It collects the first eight issues of a serial named ‘Berlin’. Across these eight issues, Lutes introduces a large cast of characters scattered through the social milieu of Berlin in 1928-1929, with occasional flashbacks to events in 1918. A lot of the book’s action is driven by the Communist movement and the conflicts around it, with characters lining up both for and against the Reds (and a goodly number keeping their noses well clear).
The two keystone characters are journalist Kurt Severing and Marthe Muller, whose gently-unfolding relationship is the emotional core of the tale. A second major throughline is the story of Gudrun, who leaves her husband with her two young daughters and tries to find her way without him.
It’s beautiful stuff, skipping from character to character to explore the complexities of inter-war German society, written with great restraint and sensitivity.
The art is unaffected, with a good clean line and an eye for detail. Time Magazine’s quote on the book compares it to Herge, and like Herge Lutes’ backgrounds and establishing shots are evocative and full of small delights; but Herge relied on simple human figures to suggest the universal, whereas the people in Berlin are drawn with more weight, worn and subtle and singular.
The people are the story, here, and Lutes’ patient investigation into their hearts and minds makes for a memorable achievement. Highly recommended.
Amazon Link

Wow. My first earthquake since coming back into the country.
Scared the crap out of me. I’d forgotten what they felt like.
It ripped a hole in the clouds, too – rainstorm started up outside a few moments after the shaking stopped. Cool.
Huh. It’s 4.30am. Maybe I should go to bed soon.

Today I was looking through photographs taken while I was gone. A bunch of family events now have visuals, which is cool. When I was done with that I had a look at the video shelf, which holds a bunch of videos taken over the last fifteen years or so.
And I find one entitled ‘Morgan and Katrina (Pre-Ball)’.
Oh my god. I remember that night.
I put it in and watch it and after about one minute I am laughing so hard that I can’t breathe properly. It’s agony, it’s beautiful, it’s so amazing to see… oh, man.
Katrina was my first girlfriend, but this was long before we were going out. I barely knew her at the time – just before her big 7th-form ball, the guy she was going with had to pull out and I was the friend-of-a-friend ring-in. But hey, I was up for it. Why the hell not?
It’s late in ’92, I’m 16 years old. The video is taken at my place, where the picking-me-up process had all gone a bit wrong. Because everyone wanted to see the girl in the dress, and me in the tux, and somehow everyone ended up inside and kind of got stuck there.
It all takes place in our front room, and it’s a whole lot of lovely happy chat, but it’s not me or Katrina doing the chatting. It’s our parents, both sets, plus my grandparents. And hey, my sisters are both in there as well, gawking away for all they’re worth, and look! My baby sister’s friend is there too! And I think my brother was in there for part of it. We have, like, an audience of eight people. A freaking audience.
I’m standing by the door, in my tuxedo (which was Percy’s actually and somehow fit me quite well), in absolute agony. In agony. I just want to be gone. Can I please be gone? I don’t know how to stand. I’m trying to find a place to put my hands and I have this weird please-lord-strike-me-dead look on my face, a needles-in-the-eye-would-be-preferable-actually-go-on-STICKMESTICKMENOW sort of look.
And it just goes on and on and on. And then on some more. And I’m in agony the whole time.
It’s like this: the camera shows the families chatting, and then the camera pans up to show me dying there. And then it goes back to the family. And then it goes back to me, where if you look carefully you can see me trying to use my psychic powers to explode my head or something so I don’t have to stand there one second longer.
And, of course, the camera shows Katrina, too. She looks absolutely stunning, which I remember didn’t help matters (SO out of my league). Not to mention the fact that I hardly knew her, and I sure wasn’t going to do the getting-to-know-you song and dance in front of the families. Although with her dad and Percy talking railways there was no chance for us to do anything but stand there and listen. And stand there. And listen.
Early in the video she pulls on her coat, but the hint didn’t drop too well because five minutes later we’re both still in exactly the same place. I know she was wanting to get the hell out of there too but you’d never know it to look at her – she’s got that actor/dancer thing happening, with the happy smile and the not-freaked-by-people-staring attitude, and