Carl Sagan: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

One of the things Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday was a gift card for Borders. One nice thing I just discovered is that I can redeem it online. Of course, now the big question is, do I go for the Looney Tunes set or the Lord of the Rings special edition. One of them is just about the same as the value of the gift card, the other requires some extra cash. Hmmm, decisions decisions.

Philip Pullman has a great essay in the Op-Ed section of the NYTimes today.

Why I Don’t Believe In Ghosts

By Philip Pullman

Oxford, England
Tonight is Halloween, All Hallows’ Eve, a time of ghosts and spirits walking by night . . . which leads me naturally to think about literary realism, and about politics. How can you write in a truthful and realistic way about something that doesn’t exist?

I don’t take much notice of critics, except when they praise me extravagantly. But one of the remarks they sometimes make about my work does coincide with a mild puzzlement I feel about it myself: in common with some other writers whose work is read by children, I am chided for writing fantasy, because fantasy is a lesser form than realism, and everyone knows that there are no such things as elves or hobbits or, for that matter, ghosts and disembodied spirits, so nothing interesting or truthful can be said about them.

My usual response to that is to deny that I’m writing fantasy at all, and to maintain that all my work is stark realism. But that implicitly accepts the basic stance of the critic: that fantasy is a lesser kind of thing, and that realism is the highest form of literary art. [NYTimes]

I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts or not. I think on most levels I don’t, but there’s still a part of me that thinks they might exist. Just enough that I get easily creeped out and sometimes have to sleep with the lights on. I can be horribly afraid of things that go bump and creak and “greg I’m going to kill you” in the night.

My parents came up this afternoon to take me out for dinner for my birthday a day early. We went to a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try for a while called Salts. It was amazing, it’s definitely going on my list of favorite restaurants in Cambridge. For my appetizer I had the Venison Pierogi with toasted caraway, black pepper, and butternut squash, which was really yummy. My mom had Smoked Wild Surgeon with fresh horseradish, potato blini and caviar and dad had the Fresh Rabbit Sausage with a pistachio crust and cape cranberries. I have to say that I wish I got the rabbit sausage because I had a taste and it was amazing.

For the main entree I had Mixed Grill of Niman Ranch, maple braised beef short ribs and pork tenderloin with poppy spaetzle with veggies. It was amazing, and quite filling. I think I liked the beef a little bit better than the pork, but both were amazing. My mom had the Long Island Duckling with toasted cinnamon gastric, poached figs and sugar pumpkin flan. I had a taste of that and it was amazing. It looked like it was a good half a duck’s worth of meat. And my dad had the Pan Roasted Native Cod with a potato mousseline, cepes, and chives. Which was pretty good, but not my favorite of what I tasted. I was too stuffed for desert, but mom had the maple sugar creme brulee and said it was great.

It was really nice to see them. My parents really are immensely cool and so it was great to see them. And it’s always fun going out to eat with them. And now it’s time for me to kick back and try and figure out what movie to watch tonight.

George Santayana: “There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.” [Quotes of the Day]

The other day I was looking through the upcoming DVD releases from Amazon and saw one called Death Bed – The Bed That Eats. Being a curious type I just had to take a look. While the movie didn’t look that appealing to me (I’ve never been a big fan of horror movies), the sole comment about it was. The reviewer is someone who is writing a book on horror movies and was talking about when he first saw the movies and how he tried to track down who exactly made it.

I first saw Death Bed: The Bed That Eats in 1988: a friend had discovered it whilst browsing at a cheap video sale and decided to spring the film on me. I was smitten by its weird aura right there and then, and mystified too. Who on Earth made it? What was the director playing at? How did such a movie get made? Death Bed, with its cheesy cover and ‘you’re kidding me’ title, was devoid of any credits, save for the words “(c) George Barry 1977.” The mystery of Death Bed’s origins was intensified as the film gathered momentum, from creepy comedy to poetic folk-tale to surreal horror: its mood ricocheted between registers in a way that defied categorisation, either as mind-warped outsider art, insane student project, or exploitation film gone awry….[Amazon.com – Death Bed Customer Reviews]

And of course, I also just realized where I’d heard the reviewer’s name, Stephen Thrower, before. It’s the same Setphen Thrower who was part of Coil.

Of course the point of this post was going to be that that Amazon’s reviews are full of all kinds of obscure information that one might not normally run into, but it’s also showing how you never know who you might run into reviewing a book or movie there.