How I Made an Ass of Myself in front of a Four-Time BSFA Winner

It's Sukkot again, and you know what that means. That's right, once again it is time for the Icon sci-fi and fantasy festival(s) at (and just next to) the Tel-Aviv Cinematheque! Among other events, last Wednesday I've attended a screening of The Prestige, which followed a discussion panel about magic, literature and cinema with British sci-fi author Christopher Priest and some douchey "psychological mentalist" whom I never really liked and now seriously despise (let's call him Nimmy, for he is now my arch-nemesis). As expected, the brilliant Mr. Priest was an absolute delight to behold when speaking, which unfortunately he didn't get do do much of, since Nimmy is one of those awful, awful people who are way too in love with the sound of their own voice to let anyone else talk in their presence. This joke of a performer then proceeded to perform a feat of so-called mentalism, which included tricking me into nodding my head slightly when asked to confirm that a specific word was in fact scribbled onto a small piece of paper, shown to me only briefly in a darkened room. Apparently psychological mentalism is just like magic, only stripped of all its style, showmanship and skill requirements, making it not much more than the art of being a good liar. Anyway, all that awful business was quickly forgotten once the screening and subsequent short Q&A session ended, and I have somehow mustered enough courage to approach Mr. Priest and nervously ask him to sign my old Hebrew copy of The Inverted World, using my usual combination of a nearly inaudible voice, a terrible accent and a stutter. Not only did he seem perfectly happy to sign it for me, he even offered to add a dedication and asked for my name! I repeat: for a few seconds in time, Christopher Priest, celebrated author of The Inverted World, The Space Machine, The Prestige and The Extremes actually knew and committed to paper my very own first name! And I even got a nice, firm handshake, followed by a wonderfully awkward series of reciprocal thank-you's! Mr. Priest, you are a gentleman and an absolute sweetheart, and I am never going to wash my right hand again, except maybe after using the bathroom, and before eating, and possibly if it gets too dirty, but other than that I'm going to leave it just as you had left it, covered with the shiny film of your mighty literary awesomeness.

The Inverted World by Christopher Priest, printed in Israel in 1980.

I'm totally saving the pen he used in an airtight plastic bag for all eternity.

The other movies I've seen for far at Icon TLV are as follows:

• Safety not Guaranteed, a very cool indie comedy about some dork who thinks he can time travel and save some hot chick who was nice to him once, starring the amazing Aubrey Plaza and that guy from The League.
• A Fantastic Fear of Everything, a hilariously dark comedy directed by Crispian Mills (of Kula Shaker fame) in which the mildly annoying Simon Pegg plays a children's author who suffers from a life debilitating phobia of laundromats, and also of 19th century serial killers.
• Dead Shadows, a French horror/sci-fi movie about an asteroid that turns French people into freaky tentacle monsters. I didn't really care much for any of the characters in the movie, but the body horror effects were definitely worth the price of admission.

Aubrey Plaza is as pretty as an extremely pretty young woman.

Finally, this Monday I'm going to attend a screening of Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg's first feature film, which he will attend himself. And oh yeah, apparently some dude is going to sit right next to me, as I have just found out on the ticket website. Fucking great. Not creepy at all, strange dude. Not creepy at all.

Please be a girl, please be a girl, please be a girl

Oh, and that other Icon festival, the one that isn't Icon TLV and takes place at the high school behind the cinematheque? Well, I did pay it a couple of quick visits, but since I much prefer sitting by myself in a dark room and staring into a big screen than actually interacting with my fellow geeks, it isn't really my thing. I will say this though: if you like them cute, pale and underage, the other Icon festival is definitely the place to be.

Haiku of the Day: Black and White Redheads are Still Pretty Amazing

My Kindle and I
We're growing closer as friends
Jacked off to E-ink.

I'm so used to going incognito that I totally forgot clearing your browser history was still a thing. Thank you Kloe Kane!

I Love You, My New Kindle Touch!

Yes, Kindle Touch. Yes, we should.

Why I Don't Need a Smartphone, Part II

For a long, long time I was convinced that I needed to get a smartphone, and that my life would never be complete without one. Smartphones are colorful and fun to play with and pretty to look at and they make your life a whole lot easier and much more enjoyable, and absolutely everybody seems to have them these days, to the point where not owning one makes you look like a big weirdo who is just too stubborn to get with the times and join the rest of civilized society. Unfortunately, my long time status as a less-than-productive human being meant that it was quite impossible for me to acquire a smartphone for myself, and since I never believed that things were going to change for me in the future, I was forced to accept my situation and somehow keep living my life without one. Recently, however, I got a chance to have a little hands-on experience with a few smartphones, if only for a short time, and guess what? Sure, I have to agree they are indeed very neat and flashy little things, but personally I found them to be overly complicated contraptions that are ultimately not worth the high prices, the ridiculous monthly fees, the annoying maintenance issues and all the stress that comes along with them. And so, for my upcoming birthday, I've decided that if I were to purchase a portable touchscreen device, I'll be much better off getting a nice, affordable e-reader. At least that way I'd be able to put my free time into something interesting and meaningful, instead of just fingering pretty stuff pointlessly for hours on end.

And yeah, all this also applies perfectly to the matter of getting myself a girlfriend.

Including the e-reader solution.

What I'm trying to say is, I can't wait to get my filthy paws on my brand new Kindle Touch next week!

If anyone needs me, I'll be spending the next 48 hours in front of my computer, fapping vigorously to that Kate Upton dance video. See you on the other side!

See also: Why I Don't Need a Smartphone, Part I

At least the vampires were cool

Earlier this week I went to see Priest, and I guess it was sort of fun, once I got past the total lack of originality. I mean, Paul Bettany is pretty hot, but in the spirit of last week's Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that is basically just a big scam set up by dairy farmers, Priest is a motion picture experience that is just about 100% pure cheese, and there are only so many curds I can take in one sitting. And fake 3D is still dumb, pointless and just plain evil. Oh well. At least the vampires in the movie were kinda cool, all big and slimy and with no eyes, and they don't talk, which in this case is a pretty big plus. What creeped me out the most about the movie was that Lily Collins, who was 21 when they shot it and played a character who's supposed to be 18 years old, looked about 13 to me, which made me physically cringe when she almost made out with this guy who's almost 30. I'm so bad at telling women's ages that if I were socially active at all, it could have gotten me into some pretty awkward and possibly criminal situations. So yeah, thank gawd I'm not, right?

I don't care how legal Lily Collins is or how nice her boobs are, she still looks like jailbait to me

In other news: a couple of days ago I was in Tel-Aviv, where I went through nine different used bookstores in under 90 minutes in search of a book I didn't really need. As I was looking for it in one of the stores, this guy who was sitting there there reading a book reached back, took a book off of a shelf behind him and motioned me to take it, without looking at me or saying anything. "Hmm?", I said. He just kept on motioning me to take it. "What?!", I said. He still kept on motioning me to take the book, not saying anything, not taking his eyes off the book he was reading. Reluctantly, I accepted the book, which turned out to be Dostoyevsky's Netochka Nezvanova and White Nights. Yeah. So I put the book down gently, and got the fuck out of there. It's so refreshing to meet people who are ever creepier than I am.

Ramona Flowers into a lovely young 2D woman

Well I've recently finished reading all the Scott Pilgrim books and the day before yesterday I went to see the movie for the second time and yesterday I received the first two books in the mail (I'll order the rest of them soon), and so the result shouldn't really surprise anyone as I'm definitely no stranger to developing deep and passionate crushes on indie comic book characters. Sigh.

Also, before I saw the movie again I went into this book store at the mall where the theater is and I was shocked and amazed to see the first Scott Pilgrim book on display, in Hebrew! And for some reason it was placed in the children's books section. People sure are retarded.

Pita makes you fat?!

Keep your filthy mitts off my Dexter!

Today I watched the final episode of the fourth season of Dexter, and was instantly shattered into a million tiny little pieces of meat by the last three minutes. I really like Dexter, in a rather intense and emotional way. He may be a little warmer and fuzzier than your average serial killer, but his adorable social inadequacies and quirky homicidal tendencies have completely captured my cold raisin heart. He's just so hopelessly damaged, you just want to stuff him full of cotton wool and make a big leathery teddy bear out of him. Definitely the sort of guy I'd like to have a beer with, maybe later beat a teenager or two into a bloody pulp for being too loud and annoying. The first season of Dexter was really cool, and pretty traditionally structured. There was the whole Ice Truck Killer plot, but mostly it was about the kill of the week, which was just fine by me. The second season, however, is where it really started to get to me. There was the police finding all the neatly chopped-up body parts he's been dumping at sea all this time, and that mean ol' detective dude who's always had it in for poor little Dexter, and that crazy British broad ("pardon my tits") he was banging behind his boring girlfriend's back, and it was all so intense that I could physically feel every bit of stress he was under in my own private bones. The third season was also really good, with that dude from L.A. Law playing a lawyer or something in which Dexter finds a friend of sorts. Among other things it has taught me that even when you're utterly desperate for companionship it is sometimes better to be on your own, and that you should never trust anyone with your deepest darkest secrets, unless, that is, if it's really really funny. The season ended in a wholly heartwarming scene, with Dexter getting married and fathering a child and finally coming to terms with his place in the world, so as I was watching the last episode of the new season today I was expecting pretty much the same thing. Boy, was I wrong. The fourth season was all about the Trinity Killer, portrayed by the awesome and mighty John Lithgow. I'm pretty sure I've only seen him before in 3rd Rock as a goofy alien with a scary old witch for a girlfriend, but now I'm totally convinced that he is fully capable of bludgeoning me to death with a stainless steel hammer. We got the usual cat and mouse bit between Dexter and him, which was just as fun and effective as anything I've come to expect from the show, but absolutely nothing could have prepared me for that one final scene, after which nothing in Dexter's world will ever be the same. It was utterly heartbreaking, but also kind of exciting, because I can't even begin to imagine what the next season is going to look like or what this new Dexter, forged once again by this overwhelming tragedy, is going to be like. I really do hope he finds a way to get over it and move on some day, somehow. *sniff*

Darla will indeed be missed

Dexter is based on a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay, two of which I've read a couple of years ago, Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter. I guess they were sort of OK, but the TV show is just so much better. The problem is that Book-Dexter comes across as somewhat of an obnoxious dick who thinks he's hilarious even though he obviously isn't. Not nearly as adorable as TV-Dexter. Also, by the end of the first book Dexter's sister finds out about his true nature, and it doesn't really seem to bother her all that much. Are we going to get something like that in season five, now that Debra knows where her brother came from? I guess I'll have to wait about nine months to find out. Ugh.

Does Robo-Lincoln dream of freeing electric slaves?

This week I finished reading Philip K. Dick's We Can Build You after a few months of reader's block, during which I battled with a 600 page book that turned out to be pretty boring, despite having a pretty interesting premise. I have to start by saying that I own 25 books by Philip K. Dick, and that I absolutely love each and every one of them. There really is nothing quite like curling up in bed with a good old Dick between your hands. We Can Build You is about a small electronics firm that takes on the job of producing realistic androids (aka simulacra) based on Civil War figures, starting with Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln, complete memory and psychological makeup included. The thing is, that's just on the outside. This fine novel actually deals with the most terrifying creature known to modern man, which is far worse than any mechanical creation that may be brought to life out of mere metal and silicon. What We Can Build You is really about is one man's descent into complete and utter madness as a result of falling in love with an 18 year old schizoid chick. That's right. Yet another PKD book that's basically an extremely well written cautionary tale about the dangers of getting involved with a total crazy bitch. Even the parts that are all about questioning the nature of reality, of the sort that's present in virtually all of Philip K. Dick's work, remain in the purely psychological realm. So instead of getting any 'real' reality shifts, it's more about the development of good old fashioned schizophrenia in the poor guy, a man whose only fault is having fully functional male genitalia. If there's one thing that PKD has taught me over the years it's that women are the enemy. The women in his stories are confident, powerful, cold blooded and highly sexual, and Pris Frauenzimmer here is no different. She's cold, calculating, mean, dangerous, and like most of Dick's female love interests, endowed with a lovely set of small, high breasts. I've read somewhere once that Philip K. Dick could never describe a woman's appearance without mentioning her boobs, and while not completely accurate, there's definitely some truth to it. I guess that the moral of the story is: never fall for chicks you're attracted to, because it's nothing but a clear recipe for disaster. Words to live by indeed.

One of the characters in We Can Build You is a mutant whose eyes are located under his nose and his mouth right above it. Here's what Philip K. Dick might have looked like if his own face were upside down:

Upside down PKD and a furry friend

The next Dick I'll be reading is going to be Galactic Pot Healer. And after that I'm going to have to get some more. I always need more. Even when all the various plots and characters start to mix together in my head. Especially when that happens. One can never have too much Dick.

You may have your faults, but at least you've got pants on

Today I finished watching the second season of True Blood. I love True Blood. It's delicious, nourishing and no one has to die to make it. The show is really good too. You just can't not like a show with that much sex, blood and Anna Paquin nudity. Six Feet Under, Alan Ball's last TV show, was just OK. I guess I sort of enjoyed parts of it, and I do own a couple of seasons on DVD, but mostly it was just a really depressing relationship drama, the kind I usually find rather pointless. Before True Blood aired Mr. Ball has claimed that he has never watched an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which means that he's either a liar or a man of very poor taste, and that wasn't a very good sign. As it turned out, True Blood is actually an extremely fun show, with the kind of bloody, sleazy, pleasurable style that couldn't be further from that of SFU. I really like movies and TV shows that take place in an alternate reality to out own, and the world of True Blood is a very cool one, with vampires and all sorts of supernatural beings roaming the streets, consuming synthetic plasma substitutes and not hiding in the shadows. At least not all the time. And the fact that the lovely Anna Paquin seems to be flaunting her unnaturally perky boobs whenever possible doesn't hurt the show one bit. The romantic scenes are pretty much lost on me, but most of it is very good stuff. While the first season revolved around a cool little whodunit, season 2 is where all the really crazy shit really starts to happen, with Suki dealing with the kidnapping of some übervamp by an anti-vampire church and an evil goddess turning Bon Temps into a nuthouse for the hornily insane. It's quite possible that most of the season's budget went into black contact lenses. It was pretty hilarious to see that pretty little chick who used to let Marilyn Manson stick it to her on a semi-weekly basis playing a lusty vampire queen, a role I'm guessing wasn't too much of a stretch for her. The last episode ended with a cliffhanger, just like the first season did, but at this point I don't really mind it anymore. I think Season 3 should be worth the wait.

To hide her grey streak, Rogue decided to dye her hair blonde

Now that I've finished watching the first two season of True Blood, it's time to start reading the Southern Vampire book series on which the show is based. I've already ordered the first two books from a UK-based store like a month ago, but haven't received them yet. Limey bastards.

Plastic is sexy!

Today I went to see Surrogates, and I kind of liked it, but not really. It's the kind of movie that makes you wish there were more movies like it, more sci-fi thrillers, so maybe some of them could actually be good. It's enjoyable enough, but there's very little originality to it. The basic concept of mechanical human surrogates is pretty interesting, if a little silly (everybody can afford life-size robots? Really?). It's been done much better in David Brin's Kiln People and many other books, with much more depth and much more interesting ideas. There are a few moments in this movie that make you think there could be more to it than pretty shiny robots, like the look Bruce Willis' wife (in her surrogate) gets when she bumps into the real him in the hallway, and takes a second to realize it's not his surrogate, but most of it doesn't stray too far from the old sci-fi-whodunit formula. They did a really good job with the surrogates, a really pretty mix of makeup and CGI that truly makes them look like perfectly designed constructs. They even got rid of Radha Mitchell's signature mole, the one on the bridge of her now, between her eyes. And then there was the "real" her, and for those brief scenes they managed to make her "ugly", which in Movie World means that her skin looks like a regular person's skin, her teeth look normal, not straightened, her hair doesn't look like she just stepped out of a hair salon, and her posture is just as crappy as everyone else's. Real people really are horribly disgusting. When they finally start making and selling robot-girlfriends that are lifelike enough to take out on dates and bring home to meet you parents and stuff I'm totally going to be first in line. And the weirdest thing about the movie? The gorgeous (and Jewish, sort of) Elizabeth Banks gets an executive producer credit in the opening titles! I wouldn't mind getting a robo-girlfriend who looks like her, if you know what I mean. And I do mean that I'd like to put my peepee in an animatronic puppet constructed of metal and latex that sort of resembles the lovely Miss Banks. Oh yeah. That's pretty damn hot.

Bruce Willis' new plastic face

In other news, I've finally started reading a new book, after a really long time I've been too lazy to pick one up. Since July I've only read three books! Lazy Ben. So today I started reading Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and so far it's pretty good. I hate getting reader's block. There's this short story I've read once in an old sci-fi magazine about a guy whose job is to give book recommendations. This woman comes to him and says she has serious reader's block, that nothing can hold her attention anymore. So he gives her this Stephen King book, and she really doesn't like the idea. A few days later she calls him up and tells him that it was one of the stupidest things she's ever read, but the point was that she actually read it. So maybe this tale of a Jewish comic book duo can help me get to some heavier stuff later on. And by heavier stuff I mean KW Jeter's Glass Hammer. Only 615 more pages to go!

A-tone-of crap is more like it

Well, Yom-Kippur (aka The Day of Atonement) is finally over. This year is was mostly about taking naps and reading Sam Kieth's Zero Girl - Full Circle, the second Zero Girl book. The Zero Girl books are all about how circles are good, squares are bad, and 15 year old girls shouldn't fall in love with grownups, and this one was really really really good, just like the first one. Thank Jebus for teenage lesbos. Sam Kieth is my all time favorite comic book writer/artist, and has been so since I first watched The Maxx TV serial on MTV's Oddities (MTV used to be so cool in the '90s, wasn't it? There was Beavis and Butthead, Æon Flux, The Head, Daria, Liquid Television... not to mention some actual music. It sure has come a long way since then, into the wasteland of nothingness it is today), based of the first 13 issues of The Maxx, way before I had even read one page. The Maxx tells the story of a big purple homeless guy and the social worker who looks after him, but it's also about the other world, Pangea, where Maxx is a superhero who protects his jungle queen, while the evil Mr. Gone is being a total asshole. The TV show absolutely blew my mind. Absolutely nothing on TV or anywhere else was better than or as good as The Maxx. The Maxx was a god to me. The problem was, it was the mid-'90s, and the whole internet thing was just getting started over here, not to mention any actual comic book stores. So I did what I could and ordered issue #1 of Friends of Maxx (a spin-off of The Maxx) from this weird catalog-based operation in Jerusalem, I think, and then forgot about the whole thing for a couple of years, until the entire series came out in TPB format and the first comic book store was opened in Tel-Aviv. I couldn't be more excited to be the proud daddy of all five Maxx TPBs. The Maxx is truely the awesomest comic book series ever. Kieth's art is extremely original, mixing several styles and techniques flawlessly, never lacking that unique Kiethian magic I'm so in love with. And the stories are absolutely fantastic, almost like a very emotional version of Philip K. Dick on LSD (PKD was never that big a druggy, in contrast to popular belief). Then there were the Zero Girl books, and Four Women, and Ojo, and a couple of Batman serials, and more recently My Inner Bimbo, all truely great stuff. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

The sounds in my head have started again. Good.

And here's a fun fact: David Feiss (creator of Cow and Chicken) and Sam Kieth are cousins! Feiss even did a weird little story (in rhymes!) in one of the first Maxx issues. Now if someone could please just put the Maxx TV show of DVD (it was animated digitally, so no remastering is needed) then I could finally die happy.