I'm still insanely busy...

[sabotabby]

The "it's a small city" update:

When I was in high school, one of my friends wrote this really hilarious story about a Goth girl who worked at HMV and how he wanted to prove his love for her by blowing up the store. She's in NOW Magazine this week in My Style and she looks exactly the same.

Then, there's the explicit story about a vasectomy penned by one of my graphic design teachers. I thought everyone in Love & Sex used a pseudonym.

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Books! Books in the mail! Thank you, springheel_jack!

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Since none of you can stop talking about V for Vendetta for more than 30 seconds, here are a few links that you might like:
gordonzola's review.
nihilistic_kid's review.
If you think I was being over-the-top about the politics of the movie, these guys totally have me beat. WTF? Relax, it's just a movie. (That goes for you, too, anarchists.)
PNH's more serious post about comic books.

Comments

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

Someone once described to me, in explicit detail, the steps in performing a vasectomy. It was a lot of "Ew! Ew! EW! Gross!" I'd never let anyone do that to my weed whacker!

Are there any links to your friends' stories?

[sabotabby]

Well, any surgery tends to be gross. I'm all for people making their own reproductive choices. I'm just very, very squeamish, and I'd rather not hear the details.

Thea Faulds may not realize that she was the subject of my friend's youthful anarchist fantasies.

Abigail Pugh, with her unbeatable fashion sense and lilting Welsh accent, made everyone pay attention during her lectures. I think that this article may disappoint all of the het boys from my class.

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links!

Also, I found out that vasectomies are NOT 100% effective. It turns out that some men will heal up to the point where their little sperm armies can wiggle out again. Man, it would really suck to go through all of that, just to have it fail on you!

[pretzelsalt.livejournal.com]

A freind of mine had one and he was in and out within 20 min. He had very little healing pain (a few days of tenderness).

The worst part was waiting to work the equipment again.

The fear, he said, was a lot more painful then any of the procedure.

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

The description I got was the finer points of the operation, what they do with all the little hoses inside and everything. (Obviously I'm using layman's terms here...) It was all "Ew ew ew!"

[wlach.livejournal.com]

Your post inspired (heh) me to take another look at Now's "My Style" section archive. Reassuring to see that some things don't change while you're gone: it's still just as insipid as I remember it.

I'm going to save the story about the vasectomy for later. :)

[sabotabby]

Come on, there's nothing prettier than goths and fashion students! (That's mildly unfair. They once featured mr_flabulous.)

The vasectomy story is really gross.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Woah. Marvel and DC are trying to patent the word Super-hero? WTF???

Where was it I just read about some pharma company trying to patent the idea of a correlation between two chemicals, so that you'd be committing a violation just by thinking about the idea? Oh yes, that's where I read it.

They'll be attaching electrodes to our heads connected to our bank accounts to pay royalties whenever we think patented thoughts. We're gonna need that Vendetta guy sooner than we think.

[sabotabby]

Apparently, this is old news and they've been trying for awhile. It's still sick, though, as is the article to which you linked.

[groovitude.livejournal.com]

I think the V in the movie is a neo-Luddite, a cyberpunk, and definitely not simply an anarchist.

[sabotabby]

How can one be a neo-Luddite and a cyberpunk?

[groovitude.livejournal.com]

All cyberpunks are neo-Luddites.

[groovitude.livejournal.com]

To elaborate, cyberpunk character is usually a computer hacker who is paranoid about technology being used to deprive people of their liberties, freedoms and personhood. Actually, I don't know how much that can apply to V in the movie.

[groovitude.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I could see the argument a bit more for the graphic novel, where it turns out that he's been [SPOILER]ing the [SPOILER] the whole time. Less so with the movie, because they took out the whole Eye, Ear, Voice, etc. thing, and it isn't as though movie-Norsefire even needed high-tech surveillance to carry out their evil plans.

RE: V

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

These fine reviews put my effort to shame.

I liked the V for Vendetta movie okay, but The Battle of Algiers was better.

Re: V

[sabotabby]

Aww, that's not a fair comparison. The Battle of Algiers is one of my absolute favourite movies.

Re: V

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I finally saw it.

And speaking of catching up, I finally read Persepolis.

Re: V

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

The author, Marjane Satrapi, is simply brilliant - Not to mention incredibly hawt!

Re: V

[sabotabby]

Oh, she really is!

Re: V

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

well, the Battle of Algiers was actually a serious movie.

Re: V

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Yes, but they are both about bombing and I saw both this weekend.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I thought you might like this.

[sabotabby]

I don't suppose they've set up a way to donate money, have they?

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

No idea. The snippet is from this article - I suppose you could contact the author.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

c'mon Sabby, your review was great. I agree with dobrovolets that the conspiracy vs. political theory point you made was reallly important.

[sabotabby]

It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. But I also have a tendency to read too much into cheesy Hollywood movies.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

you know, It's only because I just got home from the bar that I followed your link to anarchists. ugh. I hate online politics.

[sabotabby]

That's the best time to start a drunken flamewar.

[emak-bakia.livejournal.com]

it's never just a movie. even the most innocuous romantic comedy upholds the dominant ideologies of the society in which it is made. a hollywood film about "anarchism" calls for serious analysis, i think.

[sabotabby]

Thus the case for cultural studies. I'm not sure that the movie was actually about anarchism, though, or even "anarchism."