I've read about two-thirds of Tom Wolfe's Hooking Up. It's fun. The title comes from the first piece, which is actually pretty short. But I guess it sounds more salacious than the other titles.

The piece about the formation of Silicon Valley was neat. The thing with Wolfe is, I can objectively see where his style would get annoying, but it works for me. His habit of including all sorts of personal details and odd anecdotes would be annoying if you want a straight factual history, but since I tend to retain facts a lot more easily if they're tied to that kind of trivia, I really appreciate it.

There are also four pieces about, well, art. Which I've been thinking about since. All of them, to some degree, are about naturalism in art -- and why Wolfe finds it superior to post-modern schools. I'm still mulling it over, but Wolfe basically points out that the Great and Beloved Works of Art are almost always naturalistic; when it gets overly clever and insular and abstract, only other artists care about it except as an investment. The final piece in this section is about the response to A Man in Full, and how John Updike, Norman Mailer, and John Irving had attacked the book when everyone else was giving it great reviews. Now, Wolfe is proud of the reviews, and while that can come off as arrogant, frankly, if I had The New York Times gushing about my work, I don't think I'd dismiss it.

Anyway, I need to reread those pieces and try to formulate some more coherent thoughts about it, but I tend to agree with him. I like wacky cross-referenced and overly complicated pieces of literature, but I don't know that they're Great Works. Wolfe argues that the books that continue to be respected and beloved for generations are those which capture a time and place in a naturalistic way. And I think he's got a good point. He also talks about the research he did for A Man in Full, which ties into the fact that he thinks a novelist has to be out experiencing how people live and reporting on it. And then he makes fun of Mailer & Updike & Irving a bit. I find that kind of thing terribly amusing. I admit, I don't particularly care about any of the targets, which makes it easier, but I've giggled over comments about authors I like, too. It's just funny to see these "literary giants" snipe at each other. As I said, I'll have to reread those parts and think about them some more. Look forward to my pontificating.

The last few pieces involve extensive mockery of The New Yorker (in its William Shawn days), and I enjoyed them just for their Spy feel, since they basically made fun of how rigid and ridiculous the New Yorker style had become as Shawn tried to pay homage to the magazine's founders.

And I'm past page 100 in Don Quixote. I'm mostly reading it before going to sleep, which is part of why it's going slowly. And it just goes slowly. Because a big book with long, long paragraphs. You know how that is. But it's very funny and surprisingly "modern" in tone and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Okay, campers, we've got a lot to talk about.

It was supposed to be a rainy, grey weekend, so I was in the mood for trash. Which is my excuse for renting Scream 3 and Mallrats. So I came home and watched Scream 3. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, so when Jay & Silent Bob had a quick cameo, I was briefly confused about which movie I'd put on. I still think Wes Craven's New Nightmare is cooler than all of the Scream movies, but anyway. It was... fine. I think the funny parts were better than the "scary" parts. Like the bit in the house, when everyone kept being startled by everyone else. I kinda think they should have just made it a comedy from start to finish instead of trying for scares, that would have been more appropriate.

And then I watched Farscape. Hey, they've got their own Servalan now! How funny is that?

After that, I watched a bit of the commentary for Scream 3, but it wasn't terribly amusing, so I switched to the Mallrats commentary, which is. Terribly amusing, I mean. And I finally had something that allowed me to use the "angle" button on my remote -- I hate feeling like I'm not getting the most out of my remote. So that was fun, and Jason Lee has once again jumped to the top of my crush list because he's Just So Adorable. Sigh. But yeah, in case you needed my endorsement, the commentary is a riot. Today I watched the deleted scenes and such, and boy, was dropping the extended intro a good move. Zzzz. I'll actually watch the move itself (I've seen it before, but it's been a long time) tomorrow, probably.

And then I went to the comic shop for my monthly splurge. I got:

• I Feel Sick # 1 & 2, by Jhonen Vasquez. So pretty! So glossy and shiny! I haven't finished the second issue yet, actually, but who cares. It's so pretty! Oh, and funny. If you're suffering from Invader Zim withdrawal, go look for this.

• The Thessaliad # 2-4, by Bill Willingham. I timed this pretty perfectly; last time I got the first issue, and now the rest of the limited series is out. Usually I manage to miss one when it's something like that, but the 4th issue was on the "new arrivals" rack. Yay! Um, it was fine. There were, once again, some odd similarities to American Gods, leading me to wonder why these things seem to run in waves. I mean, there's a bunch of old gods trying to survive, and they're in a funeral home, and... well. It's just odd. I liked the riff on Sandman's Death as a "seductive pouty-lipped Gothette babe" and all the other references. I didn't like the implication that Thessaly had a crush on the Fetch, nor the lack of explanation for who he was. Because that smells of a spin-off. Really, the Fetch was kind of annoying from start to finish. But it was breezy fun apart from him.

• Midnight Nation #10, by J. M. Straczynski. I liked Satan's (or whoever's) speech about how terrible hope was a lot more than I liked his earlier philosophizing. I'm not so much into love conquering all, which seems to be where this is headed. When the run is over (I think there will be 13 issues?) I'll reread it all in one gulp and see how I feel about it.

• Tommorrow Stories #12, by Alan Moore. Hee! Tee hee hee! Snicker! It's all so silly. I don't like Jack B. Quick as much as some of the others, but it's all so funny that I don't care too much which silliness in particular is in an issue. Also: a revelation about Greyshirt! But not much of a revelation, since it's been fairly obvious. Okay, call it a confirmation about Greyshirt. Speaking of whom...

• Greyshirt #4, by Rick Veitch. I just love this comic! The continuity and plotting dazzles me, I tell you! As soon as I sign off here, I'm going to reread all four issues and remind myself of who everyone is. I think I've mentioned that the storyline skips around, with lots of flashbacks and exposition, so I want to make sure I know how everyone relates to each other. Come on, it's got alien monsters and magic crystals and mobster infighting and satiric Soparanos references and then fake comic strips in the back, it's just so much fun to read. Whee!

Oh yeah. And then I went to bed and watched a little bit of Dark City before falling asleep. It's my new "movie to sleep by," I guess. Which is bad, because the visuals are more interesting than the dialogue, and the whole point is to put something on that I can pay attention to while I close my eyes and drift off. Because otherwise I start on some train of thought and stay awake for hours instead of sleeping. For a while i was watching MST3K videos, which was ideal because you can listen to that like it's the radio. But I've watched all the ones I have too often for them to entertain me without keeping me awake once I'm sleepy.

The other advantage to watching videos as I fall asleep is that when the tape ends, the TV shuts off. I would just leave the TV on, but then it'll wake me up eventually when a new show starts or something. Maybe I should put my Farscape tapes on to fall asleep to; that might give me interesting dreams.

Watched The Virgin Suicides, because I have to return the DVD tomorrow. I liked it. Didn't love it -- I'll probably read the book, but I don't feel compelled to. I guess I'd give it a B. Thinking about it, I feel as if the parts were greater than the whole -- it had lots of neat little moments and funny scenes and there was nothing about it that I didn't like, but afterwards I don't know what I came away with.

And now I've got all kinds of Styx songs playing in my head, because of the damned soundtrack. My brother had a bunch of Styx albums, and so growing up I heard them a lot, and to this day I can probably recite 90% of Paradise Theater. Which comes in handy when I want to terrify people.

Oh, but do you know who was in that movie as grown-up Trip? Michael fucking Pare! From The Greatest American Hero! I saw his name in the credits and had to go back and stare at him. Gosh, he's old. I'm old. We're all going to crumble away into dust soon. That's my happy thought for the day.

I'm so tired, you have no idea. And I shouldn't be, which is annoying. I know I got a decent amount of sleep last night, because I woke up immediately when the alarm went off, instead of only gradually awaking upon realizing that it had shut off automatically after playing for an hour. Tired. Yup. Wacky thought: maybe I'll go to bed now. Zzzz.

So I watched two-thirds of Dateline tonight. You know, the show that screams, "This is a hard-hitting news show, not a sleazy tabloid! Coming up next, scare-mongering and violence!" Yeah. Well tonight was apparently a special theme show about how teenagers are psychopathic monsters. They call this news? Sorry, I'll try to rein in my cynicism.

Unfortunately I missed the first segment, which was about how teenage girls enforce their pecking order. Which is a shame, since that's something that Sars wrote about recently, and there's also been a discussion about high school what-passes-for-socialization over at Chicklit. On the other hand, looking over that article, maybe it's just as well that I missed it. "And so we watch them grow up, these innocents, from dolls to dating." Yup, that's all there is to being female. What assholes.

Anyway, when I tuned in, they were discussing a ground-breaking psychological experiment which revealed, much to everyone's surprise, that being rejected makes kids feel angry. Yeah, I think I picked the wrong time to rein in my cynicism. The short version is that they told groups of kids that they were working on teams and could pick a partner. Then they were isolated, and members of the experimental group was told that no one wanted to be their partner. Blah blah, those kids were more aggressive toward the others when playing a game that was vaguely reminiscent of the Milgram Study. The only vaguely notable thing about it was that teens who were "rejected" were more aggressive toward everyone -- complete strangers as well as those who'd supposedly rejected them. Still not exactly surprising, but at least it wasn't self-evident.

Here's one of the things that bugged me. The screaming-for-attention angle here was that teenagers are dangerous beasts. So the study was done on teens -- I think they were college kids. Now, does anybody thing adults would have reacted differently? Yeah, me neither. But it's nicer to pretend that teens are these alien creatures and how they behave is completely unlike the way rational adults react to situations.

There's certainly no sense in extending that idea so far to wonder if maybe similar effects can be found in the way nations interact. That would have no bearing on anything going on the world now, right? So skip it. Sigh.

And that's why I don't watch Dateline. Well, one of the reasons. I'm just trying to wind this up and move on to cheerier topics...

...Like, say, demon possession and gruesome violence! I rented the Evil Dead DVD on Sunday because it's chock full o' extras. A commentary track with Campbell, and another one with Raimi and Tapert. Both of which are amusing -- most of Raimi's comments are about how terribly irresponsible they were during the production, what with the firing of actual shotguns through actual windows and so on. Heh. Oh, those crazy kids.

It also had Campbell's "Fanalysis" documentary, which I'd wanted to see. He's way too nice to those people, you know. Although I was also thinking that he's kind of a strange case, because I think he's famous as himself rather than famous as a character. My impression -- and if you asked me I couldn't tell you where I came up with this -- is that Campbell's fans have this pseudo friendship with him, because he seems like a guy you might know. So you see his movies because hey, it's like having someone you know in a movie! Which is a little different from being a fan of a character or a show or a movie. Don't go spoiling my theory with facts now, because I'm attached to it.

Wait, one more thing! I read Daniel Handler's Watch Your Mouth. It was pretty odd. Although not as odd as I thought it would be from the descriptions I'd seen, actually. I mean, when you hear that it's a story about incest told as an opera, featuring Jewish mysticism, you can't be blamed for thinking it's going to be a 10 on the oddness scale. It was more like a 7. Oh, and I liked it. I did get a little worried three-quarters of the way through, when it seemed like it was going to be very similar to The Basic Eight. It turned out to be different, though. I'm being vague because it seems likely that most people haven't read it, and you should. If you don't mind black comedies about incest. I realize that's a specialized taste.

Oh yeah, and now I've started Tom Wolfe's Hookng Up, which so far is about... how wacky teenagers are! I might be overdosing on this theme, but it wasn't planned, I swear. But as usual with Wolfe, it's just rambling and lots of odd little historical facts and social commentary blurring together in a way I enjoy. Right now the transistor is being invented! In the book, I mean. I wonder how that will turn out!

I don't buy albums much because I already have a lot of CD's I don't listen to very much and I hate feeling like I'm not getting my money out of them. But I was unable to resist the lure of The White Stripes "Fell in Love with a Girl" any longer. The video is lego-tastic! And the song is all catchy and stuff. So I bought it, and now I've been listening to it more or less continuously all day (with a break for Futurama & the rest). It's just as much fun as hoped. Hooray! And at long last, there's a reason to head-bang to the "There is a man/ a certain man," ditty from Citizen Kane.

Anyway, bearing in mind that even I don't respect my taste in music, it's good stuff. Sorta Violent Femmes-y. Or maybe that's just me.

Mmmm, Farscape.

I'm way beyond fried because I've been keeping strange hours all week. By the time I got home I felt very crabby and nothing's more annoying than knowing that you're only grumpy because you're tired. At least to me. But Farscape made it all better. Okay, the Guinness might have helped, too. Anyway, I mostly wanted to mention that it was kind of disconcerting to be watching an episode without knowing what would happen next. (This was the first new episode since last August. Jesus.)

Fun. There was much strangeness and I loved the interplay between Rigel and Scorpius, because A) they're just an odd combination that works really well, and B) Rigel wasn't dumb. It makes me so happy when the characters aren't dumb just to make the plot move in a particular direction. And I was pleased that the writers managed to add another name to the list of "characters we've killed this season" -- and it wasn't one I anticipated.

And just to ramble... and add a few more items to the "Why I love Farscape list... A couple of times I could guess what the "twist" would be -- and then the characters would reveal the twist a few minutes later. Which is far preferable to waiting till the last five minutes of the show to tell you things you'd already figured out. And the HSQ is still pretty damn high -- both of Talyn's attacks surprised the hell out of me.

Okay, I think that's all. Must sleep now.

I had an unusually hectic weekend of socializing and Farscape and DVD-ness and also, of course, candy! Mmm. Prior to all that, on Friday, I was overcome with the urge to spend money, so I went to Borders. And found both Harlan Ellison's Troublemakers and The Essential Ellison. I had a hard time deciding which to get, a problem I eventually solved by getting both. Yeay.

And then, having crashed early on Sunday after all the festivities, I stayed up most of the night reading. So when I finally fell asleep, between the sleep deprivation and the influence of reading things like "Lonelyache" and "The Deathbird," I had some deeply strange dreams. The part where I was at a party at Harlan Ellison's house was cool, but the part where his house started melting was kind of unpleasant.

Still great books, though. Just get enough sleep afterwards. More when I'm done, probably.