• At PoMoBa, Dorian writes “Why I Hate Vampires” Overall, I agree and have long failed to understand the intensity that vampire lore gets. His assessment of the Anne Rice novels matches mine, except that I’d add that the reverse exploitation feels edgy — partly for being unprecedented, partly for the table turning aspect.
• I see DC sold out another marketing gimmick book. Sigh, so the fans are rewarding DC for spending years pissing them off, teasing and then finally doing what they wanted. I think this, too, reveals the appeal of the Ultimate Marvel books for me. So far, the dead have stayed dead and these big moments felt big because they weren’t turned into marketing points.
• Another example of plot-point marketing, the Avengers Disassembled crossover gets spoiled. (Link via Precocious Curmudgeon.) Wow. Everything I’ve heard about that story has sounded pretty awful and this ending sounds even worse. I’m glad I didn’t give in to temptation when the story started.
• Heidi of the 101 Cookbooks, satisfies my love of meta jokes by writing about the searches made on her site. I’m surprised at the misspellings she gets, those seem pretty mundane compared to some of the ones I’ve made. (I still need to look up the spelling of zucchini before searching for any zucchini recipes.
• Don Asmussen is a very, very funny man. His Bad Reporter does a pre-election week special. Monday: last minute news, Tuesday’s a weak one (but I’m linking to it anyway), Wednesday: Cheyney Warns A Vote for Kerry is a Vote for Yeti, Thursday: biotech firms announce biologically engineered hypoallergenic Cat Stevens, Friday: study proves media bias pointing to high number of articles negative to Lex Luthor.
• Hm, I didn’t mean to go out on a political note… I’ll link once more to PoMoBa where Dorian does a much better job of explaining why I love The Ring…

I’ve had the craving for a while so when I saw that Alton Brown was making Jellies in a candy making Good Eats recipe, I jumped to the channel.

Alton’s recipe, which was for a lemon-lime flavored jelly, seemed easy enough to adapt to the candy I was craving… Pomegranate Jellies.

Whenever I use recipes that call for gelatin, I convert each envelope to 2 ½ tsp. ever since reading a Cooks’ Illustrated article that found inconsistencies in the quantities of Knox Gelatin envelopes. For this recipe that would have called for 24 tsp (or ½ cup), except that I realized, too late that I didn’t have that much gelatin at home. I ran out at 18 tsp. which I hoped was close enough.

For flavor, I substituted the lemon and lime juices with the juice from 2 pomegranates that I put through the food processor and strained.* I got a little more than 1 cup of juice. Alton’s Acid Jellies recipe softens the gelatin in 1 ¼ cup of liquid, so I added some leftover Zinfandel to bring the liquid up to 1 ¼ cup and proceeded with the rest of the recipe as instructed.

Overall, they came out pretty nicely, except that this recipe, which used a decent amount of ingredients, didn’t give a lot of candy. I’d recommend doubling the recipe if making it for a party.

My next experiment will be to adapt this recipe to lychees.

* I’m sure if you can find pomegranate juice, that’ll make the recipe much easier. Unfortunately, the grocery store by my office is pretty small.

My adapted recipe would translate to:

1 ¼ cups water
6 Tablespoons gelatin
1 ¼ cup pomegranate juice
1 ¼ cups sugar
¾ cup water
Non-stick spray, for greasing pan

In small saucepan, combine gelatin and pomegranate juice. Set aside.

In another small saucepan, place over medium heat, combine ¾ cup of water and 1 cup sugar and stir until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Remove lid and place candy thermometer on side of pan and cook until it reaches 300 degrees F. Remove from heat, add to gelatin mixture, return pan to low heat and stir constantly in order to dissolve gelatin completely. Pour mixture into greased 8-inch by 8-inch pan and cool to room temperature. Do not refrigerate.

Once cooled, cut into cubes and toss to coat in the remaining sugar. Store in airtight container for up to 4 days.

Okay, I scribble thoughts down a lot and then “Save as draft”, except that last time I forgot to turn that setting on. Sigh.

Anyway, I’ll try again. Why I find The Ring, Spiral, The Omen, Tomie, Uzumaki and Night Gallery so scary…

The Ring
Based on Koji Suzuki’s amazing novel, this movie manages one of the most effective cultural translations. This film hits all the right notes with a tight screenplay (a vast improvement from Cohen’s previous work on Scream 3 and others), memorable performances from Naomi Watts, Brian Cox and Daveigh Chase and a creepy atmosphere stunningly rendered at Gore Verbinski’s hand. Essentially, it updates the tale of the vengeful ghost to the modern age, bringing a vengeful spirit who turns what now is a commonplace convenience into a danger. What drives the story is a mystery, as the source of the cursed videotape must be unraveled in order for Rachel Keller to save herself and the supernatural elements work nicely to make this an incredibly tense mystery. The elements of the story add up together nicely that The Ring is one of those movies that I found hard to stop thinking about, as so many of the seemingly throwaway elements fit so nicely into the big picture.

Damien: Omen II
(Director: Don Taylor, Performances by: William Holden and Lee Grant)
I know, the original is probably a better work, however, it was this sequel that I saw first so it scares me more. What makes this movie so terrifying for me is the nature of the deaths. There’s no serial killer hiding around the corner, this time the victims fall to freak accidents and the entire order of nature seems to conspire against the doomed ones who end up in Damien’s way. With the victims falling to freak accidents, the film creates an eerie “anything could do you in” atmosphere. The most unnerving end comes to Bill Atherton, who falls into an icy lake and pulled under by the tide.

Spiral
(Author: Koji Suzuki)
The major difference between Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Koji Suzuki’s Ring is one of those details that illustrate the strengths of film and prose in evoking terror. Suzuki’s sequel, Spiral, follows up on that difference, slowly revealing Sadako Yamamura as an unstoppable terror. Suzuki manages his reveal perfectly and turns out a skin crawling story.

Tomie
(Words and Art: Junji Ito)
The most disturbing horror is about something deeper than a boogeyman or some supernatural terror, it’s a monster that represents our greatest human weaknesses. With the siren Tomie, Junji Ito takes the human quest for beauty to drive people to madness. Tomie’s beauty drives people to desperate heights of obsession and murder in a desperate attempt to possess something beautiful, create beauty or be associated with someone beautiful. The frail pettiness is highlighted nicely by Ito.

Uzumaki
(Words and Art: Junji Ito)
Much like in The Omen, Junji Ito manages to take the mundane and make them horrific in this story. In a town where anything spiral-shaped can turn out to be part of a horrible curse, everyday life itself is fraught with threats. Ito creates a mood of doom in the story, but not one that leaves you feeling like giving up hope and putting the book down. Madness is another major theme as Ito provides a portrait of how difficult it would be to maintain your sanity in a world where everything has gone wrong.

There’s an episode of Night Gallery that I saw when I was young and the local Japanese TV station switched to English programming and had to fill its schedule with whatever it could get cheaply. At some point they aired three Night Gallery episodes as a movie (I’m pretty sure it’s Night Gallery – it had a guy talking about paintings throughout.) One of the vignettes always stuck with me… I’d provide the episode title if only I managed to find it in an episode guide. Lacking that, it featured a businessman walking towards what looks like an office building. He is approached by a ragged man, who tried to stop the businessman with some urgent message, but is brushed off. When the businessman enters the office building, however, he finds it empty, with the doors locked behind him. He tries to find a way out, but ends up trapped in even smaller quarters and we see his clothes fall apart and his face grow gaunt. At one point, he sets off something that sends a spiked wall towards him and he looks at the doom with longing – he has been starved and isolated to the point that he welcomes death. The wall recedes at the last moment and the businessman screams in anguish as death is denied him. Finally, a door opens and lets him out… only to see a clean, well-groomed businessman headed into that awful building. He tries to warn the businessman from entering the trapped building, but is brushed away.

I’ve always been haunted by that episode and I realize it’s influenced how I treat the homeless. I think the lesson I took from that episode is that you never know and cannot assume about how down-on-their luck people have found themselves in their current situation.

In honor of the time of the year, my favorite scary things:

The Ring

Damien: Omen II

Spiral

Tomie

Uzumaki

night gallery (homeless)

EDIT: Aw, [krunk] did I hit publish when I meant ti his “Save as draft” AGAIN?

Newsarama posts an interview with the writer the novel Battle Royale and the writer/artist of the manga adaptation. Having the two creators in an interview together brings some interesting insights but I was disappointed to see that the interviewer missed (most people do) what I think is a major difference between the two… the novel is set in an alternate present (I think there’s one, maybe two clues to this in the entire novel, so it is easy to miss) while the manga is set in the menacing “near future”. I have been very curious about the difference and a chat with both creators seem like an ideal place to discuss this, but the topic never even comes up. I almost wonder if the clues to the novel’s time period are a translator’s error. (Too bad if it does come from a poor translation.)

The interview does raise my interest in reading the manga version, but still not enough to plunk down money for it. I reviewed Battle Royale for the Gayleague last summer and enjoyed it as a well-plotted thriller with an extra kicker of brains and depth. The glances I’ve given to the manga so far haven’t really promised much of an added experience.

My biggest problem with the Battle Royale manga is the change of setting, a change that removes the accusatory introspection of the novel. The novel asked what Japan could have become while the manga takes the premise to dystopia #94,317. That’s not to say all dystopian premises are cliche, but the premise is common enough that avoiding triteness becomes an additional hurdle to pass. The potential is there, but I haven’t seen it.

I have almost as big a problem with the art. I guess it comes down to personal tastes, but I thought Masayuki Taguchi is too stylized for this story. The exaggerated expressions he gives the characters doesn’t serves this story well. A more realistic look could have made the cast seem more human, making the events of the story even more tragic. Instead, they come off as, from my glance, even bigger ciphers than in the novel. Also, while I’ve never figured out why, there’s something about the story’s violence as duplicated in the manga that has less impact than the novel. In the novel you felt quite a strong revulsion to the violence; when our hero makes his first kill I felt that creeping feeling of horrific realization of what he had done. I’ve read this scene in the manga and it just feels like the climax of an action scene.

Perhaps it’s because I already formed a strong mental picture from the novel or maybe it’s because I’m missing the best parts when I skim through the manga, but I still haven’t been won over to the manga.

I hear the City of Heroes team did a test of the Halloween event for 20 minutes on the Test Server today. From the sounds of it we get to go trick or treating in Atlas Park… knock on a door and get either a trick (mob to fight) or a treat (enhancement/inspiration). I finally created a test server shortcut for myself, but didn’t get home in time to see the test run.

However, this page has captures of the special villains that appeared during the test.

I really want to get my hand on that hat. I’d love to create a June Moon homage for the game. Oh, to dream of new costume options…

Hard Time #9: There’s not much I have to say about this one, except it’s a shining example of tight plotting. The story keeps moving, plots don’t get lost and characters don’t take long, noticeable disappearances. One of the most solid titles currently being published

Manhunter #3: Deconstructed, realistic superheroes usually comes of as pretty trite but so far this story is working for me. The main thing is that this doesn’t feel like Marc Andreyko thinks he’s created the next Watchmen, this is just a character he’s interested in exploring and she’s got a real life to deal with. It’s gritty but it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be called “gritty” and overall a comic that follows a style that usually ends up being cliche but dodges it nicely.

Ultimate X-Men #52: I really like this X-Men reboot and the two Ultimate books make a good argument in favor of reboots to me. Generally, I like the X-Men but I tend to avoid the franchise (with occasional exceptions) because of the tons of continuity. The Ultimate books have done a decent job playing with the X-continuity without making it the drag X-continuity usually is. More importantly, the series has mostly been handled by strong writers who’ve taken some of the annoyingly silly aspects of X-continuity and made them work nicely. Vaughn’s update of the von Struckers is a pretty interesting one, working in the kind of relevance that usually flounders in the traditional X-books.

Plastic Man #11: Looking around the blogosphere, it feels like I’m the only one, but I usually get a few good chuckles out of this title. It’s no Why I Hate Saturn or I Die At Midnight, but it makes me laugh enough to be worth the price of admission. My favorite bit:

Luthor: Don’t you usually break through a wall or the ceiling or tunnel in through the ground?

Superman: I’m trying not to destroy so much taxpayer property these days. The whole Identity Crisis Saga has made me reexamine my values and habits.

Luthor: I know nothing about it. I’m waiting for the paperback collection.

So maybe it’s just if you have a weakness for meta-jokes…

It’s soundling like we’ll be fighting Nazi zombies in Paragon City this Halloween.

While there are so many things great about Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans series, my favorite part is the opening sequence with music by Puffy Amiyumi.

It turns out Cartoon Network’s is getting ready to debut , debuting November 19. Thankfully this looks much better than the last time a popular Japanese music duo tried to spin their success off into a TV show. (Check out the Dis-Harmony clip!)

The Chronicle writes about Jon Stewart in light of his recent appearance on Crossfire. The article goes on about how much young people believe in him and how much his endorsement of Kerry means for Kerry, but fails to spend much time examining why the comedian has become such a trusted news source to younger voters.

Perhaps it’s a topic too painful for the Chronicle to deal with, Rolling Stone summarized why people turn to Stewart in the first few paragraphs of it’s recent cover story on Stewart:

It has not escaped the notice of Stewart and his team that Allawi’s speech had an oddly familiar ring to it. The comedic tone of The Daily Show is all deadpan irony, but the mood behind the scenes is one of intense youthful passion, and even fury. Right now the team’s indignation stems from the transparent fact that Allawi’s address was a thinly veiled gloss on Bush’s stump speech. “That speech was written by the United States,” cries Ben Karlin, the show’s thirty-three-year-old executive producer. “Yeah,” Stewart says, “Allawi literally said, ‘It’s morning in Iraq.’ ”

“My favorite one was” — Karlin adopts a Texas twang — ” ‘Iraq is safer, the United States is safer, the world is safer.’ They didn’t even try to disguise the voice! And I guarantee you nobody is going to call that out!”

And no one does. The network news anchors, and the twenty-four-hour news channels — CNN, MSNBC, Fox — all fail to connect the dots on the telltale ghostwriting echoes, which, when you think about it, is a shame. Or a disgrace, given that this was the American public’s first opportunity to hear Iraq’s interim leader speak with the freedom we attacked his country to guarantee him. Instead, we got a rose-tinted campaign speech for Bush, clearly penned by the people who also put words in the president’s mouth. For Stewart and the comedy activists at The Daily Show, this was too much. All morning the show’s researchers trawled video of recent Bush speeches and located instances where the president used the precise words that Allawi did (”Iraq is safer,” “The United States is safer”), and cut them into a rapid montage.

Al Franken summed it up nicely in Lies and Lying Liars when he said that the media’s biggest bias is one in favor of laziness and the Bush administration has taken advantage of that to aN extreme. It’s not just a matter of not fact checking, there’s been a number of times when they don’t stick to the same story and yet we rarely see reporters questioning those statements. It’s become a trademark gag (which can be sampled online in their “Bush vs Bush” segment) of The Daily Show to run footage of Bush administration officials making conflicting statements — so why is The Daily Show the only one calling them on it? Shouldn’t someone at those press conferences be saying “How do you reconcile your statement with the one made a few days ago by your college?” Why have the people charged with keeping our leaders honest given up their duty and left it in the hands of a bunch of comedians?

But instead of even touching these issues that would bring up discussion of journalistic competence, the article talks about young people who adore Jon Stewart and why they adore him so, what he said on Crossfire and what Tucker Carlson said back and what a sensation Stewart’s Crossfire appearance was (inaccurately naming the number of times the video has been downloaded). In the second to the last paragraph, the article finally mentions an Annenberg Center’s study that showed Daily Show viewers more knowledgeable on campaign issues than people who got their news from any other source, too late to discuss the study and its meaning.