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February 01, 2003
Day one. Airborne
No idea what time it is, but we are just going over the international date line. SO, no matter what time it is, it is now tomorrow. We're at 37k feet, and it is -61 F. 4:37 from Tokyo. It is 3:36pm, 7:36 in Toronto, and some other time in Tokyo. And I wonder why I get confused. It would be nice if it was the same time everywhere. But then it would no doubt cause a large number of people to go insane. I'm sitting in seat 24A, and C. The lady who was in C ran away as soon as I arrived, with barely a nod. She's now in 23 D, E, and F. Plane's not filled, as you can guess. Mr 24 D (and only D for this sedentary gentleman) is on the way to meet his girlfriend in Thailand. But everyone else is stretched out and snoozing. Just finished watching the Bourne identity. Stupid movie. Watched Vin Desel in TripleX earlier. A less stupid movie. Strangely enough. Bourne recognized nothing beyond how cool and dangerous the CIA is. Fine. Be that way. Europe's just a place for us to play politics, right. Ugh. Triple X at least gets intertextually confused. Not merely is Vin a guy playing a superHero robinhood Xtreme sports hunk, who gets to pretend to be a spy, but he says that he learned his skills by playing video games. As Ben says, ""It's a rich tapestry."" Going to read an Anne Rice novel. It is a tradition. Back in 1989, I think, before flying to Japan with yuka, it would have been to meet her parents (first time for me), we stopped at the Coles bookstore (now part of the Chapters/Indigo hegemony) to get something to read for the trip. Yuka (seriously, it wasn't me) pointed towards two books: Interview with a Vampire, and The Vampire Lestat as something that we might both read on the flight. I'd never read, to my knowledge, any vampire stories then, and I was reticent, knowing the types of people who read that stuff. When I was in teacher's college Sue had traded me one of Rice's works of erotica as collateral for an Astronomy textbook. It was a very bad trade. I read one on the flight, and almost finished the second. Read them again in Japan, and got ""Queen of the Damned"" while I was over there as well. Rice isn't much of a writer. And the stories are pretty stupid. Actually, she writes like a late medieval writer... all about food and clothes and the luxuries of the rich and undead. Still, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read one more. Pretty much the same story about a bunch of queer vampires who fight over straight women. I know the term 'faghag' but I don't know the reverse term. At least Rice is more honest this time... Merrick's a witch from NewOrleans who manipulates the codpieces off the poor vampires to get what she wants. And what she wants is to be 'one of the boys': ""All my life I've been afraid of things, as a child and a woman must be. I like about it naturally. I fancied myself a witch and walked in the dark streets to punish myself for my doubts. But I knew what it meant to be afraid. And now, in this darkness, I fear nothing. You can't know a woman's vulnerability. You can't know the sense of power that belongs to me now."" Finally, a character who is not a frock-coated ponce crying over the mean twist of fate that has separated him from mankind with this 'dark gift'. But I'm sure that in the next novel she'll go back to focusing on her lamenting lads. The romantic period is so lame. And to be a romantic, period, for all eternity is just punishment. Oh, then the plane landed. I tried to call Alan to arrange dinner. And got no answer with all the various permutations I tried. Found out later that I'd written it down wrong again."
Posted by jason at February 1, 2003 06:51 PM