A Disappointing Day
Well, I am really behind on the novel again. I am now officially more days behind than there are days left to work on the novel. I will be writing a lot today because Sarah says if I finish the novel on time I can run out and get Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. If I don’t finish on time, she says she will tell my parents that it’s on my “Christmas List,” which will effectively keep me from buying it at all. (She is a cunning one, that one).
But yesterday I had two disappointments and I am expecting a third.
First disappointment: the World’s Best D&D Campaign ™ did not happen again. Our gaming group missed its fifth consecutive meeting. This really bugs the hell out of me. Do you know how hard it is to find a good gaming group? So Sarah and I sat around and chatted with the GM while he taunted me with his ownership of the aforementioned Vice City.
The second disappointment was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I mean, I enjoyed it OK but it wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be. I am glad Chris Columbus is not directing the third; hopefully Alfonso Cuarón (director of y tu mamá también) will use less wild takes and clumsy exposition than Chris Columbus (Director of Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire). Everything in the book coheres very well and seems to make sense, but in Columbus’s movie version there seems to be an awful lot of deus ex machina moments. MST3K Cannons Primed and Ready, Captain!
The third potential disappointment is Tori Amos’s Scarlet’s Walk. I used to be a dedicated Tori Amos fan, but her recent albums have left me pretty cold. After the sparse, emotional Little Earthquakes I had very high hopes for her. Under the Pink was excellent if more emotionally distant and occasionally arcane. Boys for Pele was almost an art rock album, her lyrics descended even further into gibberish, and the music sounded as though she had decided she was too talented to edit her first drafts. When I couldn’t consciously get through From the Choirgirl Hotel I had decided she had finally fallen off the pretension deep end. She was no longer the shy southern girl playing piano and singing about about social isolation, awkward romances, and spiritual self-flaggelation. She had become Angry Queen Mab squawking out Fairy Lyrics about Jackie Onassis while drum machines and over-produced sound effects sought out and destroyed any intimacy that dared show its face in the album. So I snoozed when To Venus and Back came out and positively snored when Strange Little Girls (”I’ll sing guys’ rock songs about women but sing them sarcastically!”) came out.
I don’t know what possessed me to buy Scarlet’s Walk last night. Spending Fever, I guess. I’ve heard a couple of tracks and it sound like it’s more piano and more coherent lyrics, but I have a feeling she’ll let me down again. If so, to the used CD store with this one. Or maybe I’ll give it to Glen, who somehow still manages to hear things in Tori Amos that I do not. Anyway, I haven’t listened to the thing yet. I’ll give it a fair try, and then I’ll report back here.