Holy crap: today is Live Free or Die Hard. I keep thinking it's off in Future Land, never to arrive with its title that's either really bad ... or just not really bad. I'll go see it.
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1408 is less than most scary movies. It abandons restraint pretty quickly and turns up the bombast. Nicely claustrophobic moments soon become tidal waves pouring from paintings of old ships. And so forth. Take a scene from the not all that great The Exorcism of Emily Rose: all it is is a lawyer in her apartment in the middle of the night, scared, and the score is strings sawing lower and lower and lower until the floor is about to drop out. Very creepy. 1408 rarely shows the same restraint, except early on. Jon Cusack appears to be phoning it in for the most part. Samuel Jackson does a fun, very jaunty turn as hotel manager attempting to talk Cusack out of staying away from room 1408. A little peek of the regular Jackson shows, finally, as he grows increasingly frustrated: "It's. An. Evil. Fucking. Room." That had to be the fun in casting him.
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No resolution yet on where I'll live. Were I a betting man, I'd put my money on that box I mentioned a few days ago. Hopefully I'll be surprised.
The English Department is helping but ultimately it's my responsibility and I don't have a lot of power to push hard, for lots of reasons.
It brings back or unsettles emotional junk left over from this past year's job search, the way some things played out. I'm very happy to be with West Georgia but I can't invest the kind of money I'd need to in a more permanent, tenure-track, situation. I wouldn't be choosing from nothing and almost nothing.
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Some good news: one of the panels I was asked to be on has been accepted for AWP. The Disabled Body Politic: moderated by Susannah Mintz, with Greg Fraser, Jim Ferris, and me in tow.
Of course, the bad news is the expectation I'm actually smart and articulate.
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1 comment:
Paul, Thank you. You just gave me the first chuckle of the day. It's been a crappy one. But reading that you doubt your articulateness made me laugh. I know that feeling. And even better yet the word verification letters below are fghud. I thought it amusing!
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