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James O'Barr's The Crow, Wagner & Mireault's Grendel: The Devil Inside

The Crow , recently back in print, is at once great and terrible. It is the comicbook equivalent of a John Cartpenter movie if Carpenter were a goth art-school grad from Detroit. It reeks of the '80s and silly, but serious goth-drama. It has a scene where the lead character cuts his arms in mock suicide, bandages them up like a martial artist, and then performs a page or two of dance (in front of his cat), presumably all out of sadness. It is gleefully violent. It doesn't really bother explaining itself, but tosses in poems and acute musical references at whim. It finishes up with a 'coda' from someone uninvolved in the making of the book, which stands as one of the silliest pieces of pan-religious paganism I've ever read. To top it off, the author seems oblivious to the campiness of his work. If Wikipedia can be trusted, he has said of it, "There is pure anger on each page." Regardless of that quote's authenticity or context, The Crow seems unaware...

And now, the keyboard breaks.

After a week of training a useless middle aged woman with no experience in coffee, customer service, casheiring, or food prep; after 10 days of work, including a 60 hour workweek; after dropping $75 to get my own computer back up on the net, I find my keyboard is broken, and I need a new one. The relacement must be a USB board, and must have a USB hub unless I want to buy one of those, too. So there goes a fair amount of that money I made doing loathesome amounts of work. I don't see the point.

Zionists think Anti-Zionism is racist, but the reverse is also true.

For example this is the story of an English-Arab who went to the UN Durban conference on racism and found himself allied with anti-Zionist hardcore practicing Jews, who (like him) considered Zionism to be racist. I don't think the guy ever mentions that his efforts to get the UN to once more declare Zionism to be racist (as had been done in 1979, and then repealed in 1991) failed. Nevetheless, his tale is a little entertaining and of some interest.

Art House Lament

It is a shame for fans of westerns, great film, or Nick Cave that The Proposition has not been given a wider release. It is awesome, and deserves greater attention than it has been afforded. The score, acting, cinematography, sound editing, and direction are all masterful. The script's not bad, either. If you have the chance to see and don't, you will be doing yourself great disservice.