The Man Who Wasn't There

Things I'm looking forward to in Jan/Feb:

Stephen King's new novel

The Bedlam in Goliath by The Mars Volta

Finally seeing The Nines and Sunshine.

Trying to ignore the hype (not to mention supposed shots of the monster) and then actually seeing Cloverfield.

My brother's next fight in which he's headlining.

Lost Odyssey and Devil May Cry 4.

THE Concert of the Year which also happens to be the same day as ...another guilty musical pleasure.

So, I lied. I do have a couple things to talk about. Nothing too big, though. One of my Xmas gifts was the book Fangland by John Marks. What a fascinating novel. I'm really enjoying it. It's kind of a modern day, post 9/11 retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

It's about Evangeline Harker, a young producer for The Hour, a hit TV news show. Recently engaged, she's sent off to Romania to meet with an arms dealer named Torgu. The events leading up to the meeting are ominous and speak to what's going to happen in the coming pages. When she meets him, he's very off and the events seem very similar to Dracula. She's locked in his giant hotel as he's gone "on business" during the day. He also wants to use Harker as a way to get to New York. I'm not very far into it, but it's definitely an exciting novel with a kind of cheesy name (though the name refers, at least partially, to the environment Harker works in at The Hour; a kind of dog-eat-dog world). It's written in the epistolary format, just like the original Dracula, and is actually pretty intense. I'd definitely recommend it to fans of vampires/Bram Stoker's novel. I'm sure I'll have more as I get further into it.

I brought Rock Band over to my parent's house yesterday so we could jam for a bit. It's funny, when I first brought it over back at Thanksgiving, I thought my dad would be good at it and my mom would barely get by. I was shocked to find out it's the opposite. Especially yesterday. My dad was struggling to get 60-70% on either the bass or the lead guitar (and in fact said that the reason he was doing poorly on the lead was because he "couldn't hear his part" so he switched to the bass). On a couple songs we had to save him and bring him back. Conversely, my mom was rocking it out with high 80s and some 90s.

The best part was when my dad switched to the drums so I could mess around on the guitar. At one point, he was just smashing away and his sticks went flying. All three of us broke down into laughter to the point my mom was coughing. I'm not sure what caused it exactly, but the simple act of seeing the drum sticks go flying and my dad's confused "how did that happen?" look was priceless. Definitely worth the hassle of carting around all of the equipment.

Apparently, The Golden Compass is Godless and hopeless. So says the Vatican.

"In Pullman's world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events," the editorial said.

I don't know about anyone else, but that sentence strikes me as odd. Personally, the entire series is filled with hope and nothing but hope. But that's not the part that drew my raised eyebrow. It was the the second part concerning "individualistic capacity to control the situation..."

I used to work with someone who is a very devout Catholic and who loved having his thoughts about whatever subject be known. To him, Lord of the Rings is a work that espouses Catholic beliefs and it was a story about good versus evil. Alright. Well, let's take a look at that series. It concerns a Hobbit named Frodo who prevails against adversity, evilness and death to destroy the Ring, a Ring that destroys the concept of free will, in a sense, and turns all those who touch it evil.

In other words, it's about the individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events to bring forth an outcome that frees the world from a tyrannous villain who wants to control someone's free will and subjugate everyone to his nefarious plans. Now, change the words "tyrannous villain" with "the Magisterium" and you have the exact same plot as The Golden Compass. Additionally, you could change the words to ones that reflect Narnia, and again you'd have a very similar situation.