Dance & Drink & Screw

30 Days of Night has a terrible script, full of plotholes and cardboard characters that you wish to slap sense into rather than watch get killed by vampires. The hero always tries to save the day; the heroine always needs to be saved; the town loner comes to the town's rescue; and a whole lot of things are left unexplained by the end. However, I was completely sucked in and was terrified by the horrific vampires that invade an isolated Alaska town for a 30-day-long human carnage. Kudos goes to the director for injecting tons of suspense and gore into a film that could have easily got lost under a weak story.

I don't watch horror movies on the big screen very often so, when I do, I jump, cower, cover my face, suffer through heart palpitations and think of leaving a million times. I think it all boils down to when I was 5-years-old and my aunt convinced me to go into an amusement park's haunted house with her eventhough I was scared shitless. I've been chasing that combination of fear and excitement ever since.

I sat in the theatre between kixie and denalyia, while the boys - bottled_cat, his housemate and zenithed - flanked us. I actually felt part of the girls since there was a lot of jumping, mouth-covering and groans between the three of us. I even held hands with Kixie at one point! And, of course, we muttered and nearly shouted at the screen when characters did (the expected) stupid things that would call the vampires' attention to their hiding places. All in all, it was a really fun afternoon which I need to repeat more often. It's the closest I get to riding a roller coaster these days.

The trailer for an upcoming horror film, Shrooms, caught my attention. I've known so many people who've had bad experiences with magic shrooms, as well as heard some horror tales bordering on urban legends regarding bad trips, that it's actually a wonder nobody thought of making a movie about it before. If anyone feels like holding my hand through it, let me know!

The first draft of anything is shit.
- Hemingway

So, is anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year?

I'm torn. I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel: on one hand, I'm cold and lying naked on the floor - I promised myself last year I wouldn't put myself through a month-long sado-masochistic exercise again; on the other hand, I've never been able to complete the challenge - it would be nice if this year I hit 50,000 words in one month. I want to be that man brought to life.

Also, I'm unsure as to whether I should start with no idea in place, or get a plotline ready beforehand.

Here are some story ideas chugging at the back of my mind:

• A murder is committed in the ozbus. One of the 40 passengers did it. But who?


• The OzBus accidentally hits a time-travelling hotspot and all the passengers (including bus) are sent to Pangea Ultima. It's Planet of the Apes meets Jurassic Park.


• Every day, in the month of November, I visit a different diner in London and write about the place - the food, the characters, etc. 50,000 words split into 30 chapters. How hard can that be? (apart from hauling ass each day to a different location?)


• The choose-your-own-adventure idea which I came up with last year but never followed through.


• A horrific creature stalks London's canals, living off the innocent flesh that happens to walk (or cycle) by at night. It's up to a gang of hoodies to stop the monster (I wanted originally to make a short-film out of this, but maybe it deserves the NaNoWriMo treatment beforehand.) It helps that I live near canals, so can go for walks in search of inspiration.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Commiserations?

A suspected car bomb has been found in downtown London.

I don't know if I feel like using public transport today...

We are only 8 days away from the tube bombings anniversary.

Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, 2003
Azar Nafisi tells the story of her life in Iran before & after the Islamic revolution. She teaches English at the University of Tehran without wearing a veil until she's expelled (though she claims she resigned beforehand). She decides to run an English class in the privacy of her home, every Thursday, for a select group of women, so they can study various novels banned by the Iranian regime. She becomes close to these women, hears their tragic stories, then decides to bugger off to America with her family. The End.

This memoir is part unreliable narrator (which makes the title oh-so-ironic), part intriguing study of a woman's life under strict Islamic law, and part lit criticism on key Western novels (e.g. Lolita, Pride & Prejudice, and Great Gatsby.) It could have done with tighter editing and a more comprehensible chronology; it could have also done with less flights-of-fancy and more objectivity on the part of the author.

A decent introduction to Iran and its regime's nefarious persecution of women.

Crowds walk up and down the South Bank, a prelude to the Summer. The warm sun touches everything. Boat horns. Pigeons. A duck lies on the thin strip of sand by the Thames. Spotty teenagers from France carry backpacks and mementos. Gay couples size me up, horned out on Spring Fever. The elderly arrive for the matinee show of The Rose Tattoo, at the National Theatre.

This morning, on a side street close to the Mile End tube station, a woman slammed a guy with her red bag. She shoved him against her car; he shoved her back. Screams. Shouts. They were both in their 20s. Their relationship most definitely coming to an end this morning (lovers? housemates? siblings?) 'Give me the keys,' she said. 'No. I want to get my bag in the car,' he said. She was shaking. 'You fucking bastard. You fucking bastard,' he called her. I thought about calling the police, intervening. Others must have thought the same; but we just kept walking, unnerved.

A long weekend. Predicted warmth and clear skies. Potential visits to the park, art galleries, bookshops, cinemas, coffee shops -- my schedule open and flexible.

Let's begin to live our lives
I want to see all my friends tonight
~ Morrissey