I finished Everyone Smokes in Hell. It is, oddly enough, a lot like Diva, if you've read that. Or if you saw the movie, which is also good. See, there's a kid who has a valuable recording (the last work of a rock star who's just killed himself), and the star's agent desperately wants to recover the tape. And the kid is also being chased by a number of thugs who want to recover some heroin that the kid's roommate stole. But the kid doesn't know about the heroin, so he thinks that the rock star's agent is sending hit men after him. So it's wacky, and tremendously violent. In a light-hearted way. Basically, it's a series of unpleasant things happening to mostly unpleasant people. Good times.

And then I picked up Titus Groan again, finally. Don't know why I wasn't in the mood for it before, but it's suiting me much better now. I'm down to the last hundred pages of it, so I'll probably start Gormenghast tonight.

I saw The Man Who Wasn't There last weekend. There was a trailer for Lord of the Rings before it, and this one did have Gollum, which made me happy. Not happy enough to see it, mind you. Poor little guy.

It was a matinee, and the theater was less than a quarter full, mostly older folks. It would have been better to see it in a larger crowd, just because it's funny, and snickering to yourself in public feels weird, even if it is because of a movie. Not that I was the only one snickering, but you know how it is. There's a difference between scattered chuckles and an entire audience laughing. Most of the jokes are based on juxtaposing Thorton's narration with images, so it won't do me much good to repeat them. But it is funny, honest.

It's also got a death scene that's rather horrific, and solely because of the sounds. This horrible gurgling that goes on and on, and I was starting to have trouble looking at the screen, just because of those noises, when the scene finally ended.

Like all Coen brothers movies, it's purty, and like all of them, there are secrets and hidden motives and the line, "Nobody knows anybody. Not that well," wouldn't be out of place. That's actually from Miller's Crossing, but I think it could be dropped into any of their movies and fit perfectly well. Actually, I'm not sure if anything I'm saying here applies to Raising Arizona, but I never liked that one much. I know, that's the one everybody loves, and it has moments, but I don't care for it. Maybe it's just all the babies.

There was something else I was going to talk about. Oh: E.T. A twentieth anniversary re-release with new footage and better sound and blah blah blah. Is every movie going to do this now? And c'mon: E.T.? Do people seriously still think that was good? I know, I know, I'm contrary, but I was underwhelmed when I was nine. I saw it with my family, and afterwards we came out and the consensus was, sure, it was entertaining, but what was with all the hype? Why were people seeing it again and again? I've never seen it since then, and don't have much interest in it. I do think it's funny that Spielberg doesn't like hearing that it's just a revamped Christ story, but that's not amusing enough to sit through it twice.

Finished the Bloch book a couple of days ago. Liked it a lot. Some of the stories were pretty clearly written because he thought of a punchline, or a final twist, and worked backwards, and there are a few terrible puns in there, but they were very fun. In the course of some random websurfing I learned that he wrote Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper and was generally keen on Ripper-lore, so that explains the Star Trek reference. And I'd known he wrote Psycho, but I didn't know he'd grown up within 50 (I think) miles of Ed Gein. So that sort of explains his interest in the matter. Oh, and he was sort of a protege of H.P. Lovecraft's, and a few of the stories have a definite Lovecraftian feel. I'm just rambling, but he seems like a neat guy. Eclectic. I recognized one of the stories, because it had been adapted for some TV anthology I saw -- I think it was Amazing Stories.

Which, since I'm in the mood to ramble, reminds me of a time I was watching Tales from the Dark Side at a friend's house. We weren't really paying attention, I think the TV was muted, actually, but at some point I noticed that the story featured a teddy bear. Which reminded me of a story by John Sladek that I like called Ursa Minor. So I started telling my friend about the story, which involves ghostly teddy bears and a bearskin rug and Indian legends, and Goldilocks. It's fun. And then we look at the TV again, and it's pretty clear by what's on screen that this is actually an adaptation of the same story. If I'd known, we could have just watched it. I'd have been curious to see how they managed to adapt it. I'm sure they cut the part about Jeremy Bentham.

I skimmed the Lennon book -- the autobiographical bits are interesting, the Joycean wordgames are fun for about a paragraph, and then they're just irritating. It's odd though, because when you read about Lennon, you end up thinking, "Nice guy, but very screwed up." When you read his take, you feel more, "Nice guy, very screwed up, but at least he's aware of it." He's fairly matter of fact about how he would get caught up with various packs of loons. Plus, he described "Power to the People" as "rather embarrassing."

I also started, uh, there really isn't a good shorthand for it, is there? Heartbreaking? Staggering? I guess it would be amusing to tell people, "I started Staggering over the weekend." They'd probably tell me to go to a doctor.

I went to the store today, and the mondo book sale was still there. Damn them. But I did better, because three of the books I got were used library books, and were therefore going at the extra discount rate of three for $5. So I didn't have to be as discriminating, and bought some books I've read before. Such as:

• My Goodness, by Joe Queenan. It's not fabulous, but I really like Queenan, and it's certainly worth $1.66. (I'm sure he'd be gratified to hear that.)

• Kissing the Beehive, by Jonathan Carroll. I love some of Carroll's books, others I'm lukewarm about. I read this one a while ago and wasn't thrilled by it, but I like him enough to give it another try. Especially when it's this cheap.

• Everybody Smokes in Hell, by John Ridley. I think I remember seeing a review of this that sounded promising, which is why I picked it up. Although now I note that the copyright date is 1999, and I'm not sure I'd really remember a book review for that long. Maybe I would. Sometimes I save the reviews for a while so that I'll remember to pick up the book. It doesn't really matter. I started this today -- it's about Hollywood, and is nasty and mean-spirited and very, very funny. There's a disclaimer which reads, in part, "Any similarities between the miscreants in this story and the actual insipid degenerates who populate the city I hate more than cancer is purely coincidental." So it hopped to the top of my reading list on that basis.

• The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis, duh. I like rereading the Narnia books when I'm sick or just need something mindless. And now that I'm adult, they're kind of creepy! And this one is definitely the creepiest. I flipped to the end to look at the part where the kids all get the joyful news that they and their families have all died in a horrible train wreck, so they don't have to go back to the real world. Hooray! Brrr.

I caught most of Hollow Man last night. It's a lot like Deep Blue Sea, with Kevin Bacon as the shark. And without the best thing about Deep Blue Sea, which was that it featured a song from the shark's point of view. LL Cool J is a genius.

Anyway, Hollow Man was, unsurprisingly, ridiculous. But more ridiculous than I expected. I don't know how the characters survived to adulthood, since they seem to suffer from some serious mental defects. How many times do you let the invisible guy do spooky things before you start wearing your infrared goggles all the time? Especially when you're discussing how you should defeat his evil plans? One girl throws blood all over the floor so she can see his footprints. Except she only covers the space in front of her, because gee, what are the chances that he's already on the other side of the room? Pretty good, I'm guessing.

And the electromagnet! The heroine, trapped inside a freezer, makes an electromagnet which she uses to move the bolt on the door so that she can get out. The bolt is metal, sure... but so is the door.

Still, the best bit is definitely the traditional series of "he's dead -- whoops, no he isn't" fake-outs at the end. Bacon's character is:

• Set on fire with a homemade blow-torch. As in, flames repeatedly engulfing his body.

• Smashed on the head with a crowbar.

• Electrocuted.

And he still keeps on coming! None of these things even slow him down. Maybe I missed a part where being invisible also made you invulnerable. He also survives an explosion and resulting fireball that sends magically smokeless flames up an elevator shaft. But that doesn't kill the good guys either, so I guess it's only fair that he's not bothered by that.

It was pretty amazing.

I forgot -- I got one other book at the mondo book sale last weekend. It wasn't in the pile I was looking at when I was writing that last entry. Anyway, it's Skywriting by Word of Mouth, by John Lennon. Just wanted to be scrupulously accurate here.

I finished The Business last night. And only afterwards did I wonder if it's a bit of a take-off on The Firm. I haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I still don't know. But there's the title, and it has a protagonist who's rescued from poverty and goes to work for a massive corporation and then discovers corruption within it. And I have the impression The Firm is a bit like that. So I was probably missing some jokes, but I'm not sure any joke is worth reading Grisham, so I'll just deal with that.

There were other things going on as well, and It was odd -- every time I thought I knew what the story was going to be about, it changed directions on me. Which was nice.

And I started on the Robert Bloch stories. So far they're sort of hard-boiled crime stories, and remind me of some of Vachss' short stories. I've guessed the plot twists so far, but getting there is still fun. And there's some clever things. One story has a convict describing his wife: "Looks a lot like the dame who plays the dumb blonde on television -- what's-her-name -- you know the one I mean." That's brilliant, because that description won't ever date. The story was first published in 1956, and I'll bet there hasn't been a year since then when there wasn't a dumb blonde on television.