Bah. I was hard up for something to write about last night. I think it's important to write everyday. What I've read that writers have said about learning to write is that it's important to get in the habit of writing all the time. Always wanted to have a web site, but thought I would wait till I had something to say. Now I'm writing everyday till I have something to say instead. Like meditation the point is just the practice--as soon as you're doing it for a particular reason it's no longer meditation. So the reason for writing is just to learn how to write or just to be writing.

Anyway, last night's post made me feel kind of sleazy so I took it off. If I'm going to gossip it's going to be about me and not some people I don't know, or don't care to know.

I'm sitting here at Juices Fountain on Vine in Hollywood drinking a number ten. After that I'll have another cigarette then head down to the library to check my email and post/edit this spastic attempt at writing. Then make the rounds looking for work.

I've almost completely given up paper books. I'm only reading stuff that I can get onto my pocket computer. At that though I'm being fairly successful. It feels weird to be reading some of this stuff. Right now for instance I'm reading a play by Aristophanes "Lysistrata". It's about women in Greece that conspire to end war by cutting of their men from the pussy. It feels weird reading something that was written 400 bc on a pocket computer. I guess most people looking at what I'm doing think I'm playing a video game or watching a portable tv. Secret intellectual. Part of the fun of carrying around a book is in the reactions you get from people when they see what you're reading. Sometimes it leads to interesting conversations.

You can find out a lot about people by what they read. I think so anyway. People gave me a lot of shit for carry around [and reading] a copy of Nabokov's "Lolita". Most people hadn't read it, but there were many who had some idea about it being a pervert book of some kind and they felt free to tell me such. I guess it kind of is, but what a great book. I'm sure I will read it again. Such beautiful prose--artfully (and insidiously) constructed to get you to following the main character while he falls in love with a twelve year old girl. A horror novel in some sense I suppose, but also one of the best love stories I have read. Kind of like the film "The Crying Game". In the "Crying Game" you're lead along as the protagonist falls in love only to find later that she is a man. My theory about the controversy over the film is that it didn't come out of the subject matter so much as people (men) felt betrayed and tricked into falling in love with a man. That's how films work (when they work) they trick you into experiencing the emotions that are protrayed. In a way that other media cannot do.

Soon I'll be reading some Kafka. "The Trial" I think. That Lem book "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" was very Kafkaesque. Consciously so I think. Lem doing Kafka. Interesting book but it only made me want to read more Kafka.

Ran into Andy a couple days ago. He says he's Lem's nephew and I don't have any reason to dispute this. He seems to know a lot about him anyway. We talked a bit about how Lem hated both film versions of his book "Solaris" and how it was pretty much impossible to turn great books into great movies. Or anyway if one is a fan of a book how likely one is to be disappointed with a film version of it. I still have not seen the latest film version of "Solaris" but seeing the first one made me read the book, so I can appreciate it for that anyway. I've read the book three times now and I'm sure I will read it a few more. While I'm on this subject I have to say I really appreciate the balls it took of Soderbergh and Clooney to make the film. They weren't expecting to make any money from it (and said as much on an interview with Charlie Rose) and just did it because they loved the material. They made it to bring it to a wider audience. I saw Clooney saying pretty much the same thing about "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". Actors making a film because they love the characters and the material. These are the kind of films that interest me. David Cronenberg has said that it's basically impossible to turn a good book into a good movie. All you can really do is to try and be true to the original intent of the author. What you get of course is their take on what the author was trying to say. Never the same of course, but sometimes pretty good. Cronenberg's "Dead Zone" is one of my favorite movies. Kubrick's "The Shining" is another film that I really like a lot. Both of these films got me to grudgingly admit that Steven King can tell a good story.

Read an essay by Lem recently where he talked about his writing style. He said that when he started "Solaris" as Kelvin was flying his space ship over the planet, preparing to land at the station he (Lem) had no idea that the planet was covered by a vast sentient ocean. It seems as though the book was planned and written but it just kind of flowed out. I find this very interesting. Lem described this as "writing as a reader". In other words he was just as amazed as the reader was at what was to occur.

Been taking a break from the scatology of this Marquis de Sade book. Some of it's pretty funny, but it's all very gross. I'm glad to read something of his finally but I'll be glad to finish it too. One of the things I'm reading as I said above is this play by Aristophanes "Lysistrata". It's about women conspiring to end war by cutting their men off from pussy. I like this bit:

CLEONICE: But if they beat us?

LYSISTRATA: Then yield to their wishes, but with a bad grace; there is no pleasure in it for them, when they do it by force. Besides, there are a thousand ways of tormenting them. Never fear, they'll soon tire of the game; there's no satisfaction for a man, unless the woman shares it.

Boy, he got that right...

It seems I can't get away from scatological references:

MAGISTRATE (jumping nervously, then striving manfully to regain his dignity): Really, my fine lady! Where is my officer? I want him to tie that woman's hands behind her back.

LYSISTRATA: By Artemis, the virgin goddess! if he touches me with the tip of his finger, officer of the public peace though he be, let him look out for himself!

                         (The first Scythian defecates in terror.)

MAGISTRATE (to another officer): How now, are you afraid? Seize her, I tell you, round the body. Two of you at her, and have done with it!

CLEONICE: By Pandrosos! if you lay a hand on her, Ill trample you underfoot till the crap comes out of you!

                        (The second Scythian defecates in terror.)

MAGISTRATE: Look at the mess you've made! Where is there another officer? (To the third Scythian) Bind that minx first, the one who speaks so prettily!

MYRRHINE: By Phoebe, if you touch her with one finger, you'd better call quick for a surgeon! (The third Scythian defecates in terror.)

MAGISTRATE: What's that? Where's the officer? (To the fourth Scythian) Lay hold of her. Oh! but I'm going to stop your foolishness for you all

CLEONICE: By the Tauric Artemis, if you go near her, I'll pull out your hair, scream as you like. (The fourth Scythian defecates in terror.)

That's a lot of Scythian's shitting. I wonder if they had special effects back in 410 b.c. or did they really crap on stage?

LYSISTRATA by Aristophanes