I’m still jazzly jizzing over Sunday’s premiere episode of ‘Game of Thrones.’ Jazzly jizzing? It’s like, playing a trumpet and orgasming or something. So I’m totally jazzingly jizzing harder at the news that HBO has picked the show up for a second season! After one episode! Nice.

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If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, you need to get the fuck on it. If you have read it, and you’ve made your peace with our insatiable urge to adapt everything, this may be good news. If the novel is going to get adapted, there’s much worse ways than with HBO helming a television version.

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I’m probably alone on this, but I fucking miss The Wachowskis. Sure, the Matrix sequels were heartbreaking, but they essentially made V for Vendetta, and I thought Speed Racer was fucked-up, absurd madness. A  sugary mindfuck that seems like a progenitor to Scott Pilgrim.

So I’m pretty stoked at the news that they’ll be teaming up with Tom Hanks for ‘Cloud Atlas.’

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[photo via x-ray delta one]

Turn on some music as loud as possible. I’m not fuggin’ around – I want you to blast it. I suggest OM.

Tilt your head back. Keep your mouth shut. Through your nose, suck in as much air as possible. And hold it.

Wait.
Wait.
Wait.

Now, exhale as hard as you can. Don’t stop until you think you’re about to gag. Then keep going. Feel the muscles in the back of your throat writhe. Don’t close your mouth – the burps want to come out. By the way, keep going. Let the tears come to your eyes. Enjoy that pre-puke taste filling your gullet. Keep going. Bend over at the torso and the let the blood flow into your face. Keep going. And just when you think you’re going to pass out, swing upright and suck in more air.

Congratulations. You just reminded yourself that you’re amongst the living.

In 100 years, this likely won’t be the case.

So let’s enjoy some shit along the way. Hop aboard Monday Morning Commute so I can tell you what I’m up to. Then hit up the comments section and do the same.

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[photo by x-ray delta one]

No more than fifteen minutes ago, I came to the startling realization that my wireless connection was conking out. With the mission of delivering the Monday Morning Commute, there was only one choice. A grim, terrifying, dangerous choice.

Sneak into Caffeine Powered’s subterranean lair. Hack into his data-relay system. Deliver the lode. Get the fugg out.

So without further adieu, I present my weekly dose of beautiful brain damage. After checking out what entertainment I’ll be exploring, hit up the comments and share your own prospective travel plans.

–-

Wondering/Where’s Randy Savage?

[Where’s Randy Savage? Right here. And here. And here.]

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It’s still a bit of a mind-warp to contemplate that Trent Reznor won a fucking Oscar. Seeing him tanned and in a tuxedo was a trip for me, since I grew up watching him caterwauling into microphones about fucking people like animals and boring holes into heads and shit. However, this is even fucking crazier. Trent Reznor is going not only be composing the score for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, he’s going to be acting in it.

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Since looking it up the other day, I haven’t been able to get Jellyman Kelly out of my mind. Seriously. What does this say about the pervasive power of children’s programming? Shit, what would media theorist Neil Postman say?

In other words, the most important thing one learns is always something about how one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, we learn what we do. Television educates by teaching children to do what television-viewing requires of them. And that is as precisely remote from what a classroom requires of them as reading a book is from watching a stage show.

[Amusing Ourselves to Death – p. 144]

What does that mean? Not sure. But for some reason, I can’t stop singing and eating jelly.

While this may not exactly be nerdy news or the usual OL steez, I’ve been drooling over this news since last night and had to post. Mildred Pierce, one of the greatest tales of greed and sex from the oeuvre of roman noir, is getting a much-deserved treatment by HBO and director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven). The 1941 novel, by crime scribe god James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice) was originally adapted by Warner Bros. in 1945. That version, starring Joan Crawford, had its balls cut off to appease the censors and features none of the book’s complex narcissism or an ounce of its darkness.

Winslet is playing Mildred, a housewife turned pastry chef desperately trying to maintain her family’s social status during the Great Depression. She’s also desperately trying to win the acceptance of her ungrateful daughter, Veda (Evan Rachel Wood). She’s a total biotch. When Mildred falls in with dashing playboy Monty (Guy Pierce), a twisted tangling of wills begins between Mildred and Veda. Cain’s major works were always about sex and the fast-buck. While Midred Pierce isn’t my favorite of his work, it’s unarguably his most ambitious and “epic.”

Depression era LA looks abso-lutely gorgeous and Winslet definitely has the chops to pull of Mildred’s grim naivete. This pleases me.

Ok. Back to your regularly scheduled nerdiness and sexual euphemisms.

[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]

It is with the utmost respect and admiration that I present the following declaration:

Ray Bradbury is the official writer laureate of OCTOBERFEAST. The awarding of this position to Mr. Bradbury shouldn’t shock or surprise a single soul, as his work is the printed embodiment of the annual fright-festival. The bizarre, the ghastly, and the speculative synergize to convey a sense of wonder and possibility.

This year’s gala features Ray Bradbury’s The October Country.

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I worry about the death of physical books. I do, because I like beating them to a pulp, carrying them around with me, writing in the marginalia. My worrying today was exacerbated:

via boingboing:

Amazon today released an announcement boasting that sales of the Kindle device have tripled since the unit price dropped from $259 to $189. And with that, a related piece of news. Founder Jeff Bezos: “While our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books–astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.”

Sweet Jesus Christ. I simultaneously embrace and fear the forthcoming Intangible Apocalypse. I love the idea of collecting an entire library in a slab of plastic. But I also love physically flipping through books. I love the idea of electronically searching for a term at lightning speed. But I also love the smell of books, and writing in them. Actively engaging the text.

I’m torn.

In the end, I don’t think the decision is going to be left up to me.