I Want to See the Big Picture, I Do!

THE SET-UP:

As many of you know, we are amidst The Tribeca Film Festival until sometime next week. Act accordingly! I have to admit that I don't really care. As much as I love films; as much time as I spend juggling TCM and Netflix; as much as I'm always tempted to feed my paycheck to Amazon.com's open mouth in exchange for some classics-- I can't seem to be moved by any film festival really. Actually, I wish I could be over on the pacific, at the 1st ever TCM film festival, but even then I'm sure its a load of hype and ridiculous packages for limited unlimited access.

However, my Grouch tendencies aside, I am excited about one part of the Tribeca Film Festival which sort of ties in TCM. On Wednesday, 28-April/21010 the Clearview Cinema on Chelsea will be showing David Lean's epic film adaptation of Boris Pasternak's epic novel, Doctor Zhivago. Viewing this film, that carries with it a magnanimous reputation of being a masterpiece achievement in cinema; viewing this film which, mind you, I've never seen on a big screen or any screen for that matter; viewing this film for the first time in this manner makes me feel...I don't know what exactly but I feel...everything, at the same time, I feel everything!

The Inevitable Let Down:

I just hope its not a rip-off. I mean, its cool that they're showing Doctor Zhivago, granted I'd appreciate it in some way. But I want a big screen, David Lean's wide frame will find no justice or peace in some cozy little theatre with a chalk board screen. No offense to IFC or Sunshine Cinemas, and much love for showing older films but the rooms they're shown in gives one the impression of sitting in a weird living room with strangers watching a big TV set.

I remember when I saw There Will Be Blood at BAM. That was special. I knew something good was happening as this larger than life character was presented in the center of this beautiful theatre. most films don't feel like that. Like I said, a room with strangers watching a large TV. I'd love to see Lawrence of Arabia at Kips Bay, or Once Upon a Time in the West at the AMC in Times Square, both on the biggest screen the respective theatre has to offer.

One classic film a month, every theatre in NYC, every last week of the month in just one theatre...it doesn't even have to be all day, maybe just one or two showings per day...on the biggest screen. Really, New York City? It a little embarrassing that I have to ask for this.

Indirect Deposit

I'm going to let you folks in on a well guarded secret no one cares about.

It's not easy being me.

I repeat, its not easy being me. In fact, even I at times have difficulty managing such a show. Take for instance today, my first payday at the new job. Here, I must admit that the actual payday was Wednesday but no one bothered to tell me. This entire post would be about what I've blown my first paycheck on if that sweet slice of information were disclosed to me earlier enough to be convenient. Anyhow, I thought today was payday and when I got to work and asked my co-worker, East Euro T (real name withheld) about who I was to see concerning my check, he mumbled through whatever he was eating at the time. After a clearing and an extra moment for me to climb over his accent I realized he said, "We got paid Wednesday." He showed me who to ask and repeated how bi-weekly paydays function. I politely nodded and after receiving my check became excited about cashing it.

Its been so long, the last 2 1/2 months were financially awful. I was eager to get to a check cash place and buy a metrocard, some lunch, and walk around some more with that paranoid feeling that someone's going to rob me. I hadn't felt that last one in years, I haven't cashed a check since 2005. The plan was to avoid the bank and the account currently blooming in overdraft. At lunch time, however, I figure let me walk into the bank and see what the damage has been, I make it a point to ignore my account when its in poor shape.

"We all are, act accordingly..."

At the bank I discover my account is -$192. Not bad, I thought to myself, so then I got to further thinking. The wheels in my head were turning despite LeFou's warning of such a dangerous pass time. It shouldn't be too bad if I deposit the check here after all. I'd be saving a walk and a lot of bulky paranoia. I walk in.

I walk out, account with its belly full you would think.

But not quite. No, not at all so very quite. If I'm to follow through with the dining analogy, it was as if the food was prepared and served but the account was not to have a single bite until tomorrow...Tomorrow? But I just deposited the check...Look! Its right there, the remainder is right there, under the overdraft that appears to be the only thing available. Do I really have to wait a day? I spent the last 10 minutes before leaving my apartment this morning, combing my shelves for $2.25 in quarters; to pay for the single ride to get to work.

Maybe it just takes some hours to go through...Lets ask Google...Not good. Why? Are you serious? I have to wait a day? Fuck that I won't except it, I'll just go back after work and ask somebody, what the fuck does a search engine know anyway? A search engine doesn't even have a posable thumb...Its not even a real engine, how the hell did I expect it could motor the comprehension necessary to understand this ordeal?!

There was this one time...I was younger...I thought it'd be cool to pretend I'm drunk. I'd walk around carrying a drowsy disposition, slurring words and walks, laughing through lips and half shut eyelids. I put on the act for a few minutes when Snap! I caught a fish! My "friend" Spaceman bought into it, at least he was willing to entertain the notion. I was working for my Oscar nomination that night. Immersed into character, I let Spaceman take me to the neighboring block. Bad idea...but whoa was I ever a good drunk...subtle, not a caricature...more like a drunk person trying to act sober. I didn't even take the time to notice the first rock hurled at me, or the second for that matter. It was probably the third or forth that kissed my eye. Sharp pain, a flash of red and the sense of sober fear gripped me like a girlfriend. I thought my eye was hanging out the socket, I kept asking what happened and specifically asking if my eye was still in the socket...I felt stupid, once the pain was set in place, once the assessment of damage had been made, I only felt stupid; drunk with stupidity.

Moments like those...all you do afterwards is imagine that one decision that could've voided the rest of the accident from happening. An abortion that never came. I don't like dwelling on these phantom parallels, instead I just sit and swear to myself never to let it happen again. To always trust the first instinct that says "I don't want to do this." The problem with that instinct is that his voice is so weak and boring. No one wants to listen to that guy, especially while Cunning Logic is scatting and doing voice impressions of all your heroes and they're all convincing you that Instinct is just scared and not taking into consideration the spoils of success. It shouldn't surprise you that I listen to Cunning Logic too often, always attempting to take advantage of spontaneous situations. Sometimes I win, fewer times I lose. Today, just as back when my eye literally got rocked, I lost.

I had to play that move where you stand by the turn style in the subway and ask someone with an unlimited metrocard to swipe you through. I was lucky to find that Samaritan after asking just twice. She was sweet about it, a true saint and on my way home I regretted not asking her name since I was already planning to write this post. Thank you Samaritan.

Pac Man: Domestic Ghosts (Episode 001)

Pac Mac walks into his home. He can hear the kids running upstairs, the living room's a mess. Mrs. is cooking, she blows her husband a kiss. Pac Man smiles though he notes its no longer up to him. He smiles everyday when they repeat that same ritual. Mrs' kisses aren't even really there, they're just a reaction, like slapping the air for an annoying fly. Pac Man heads upstairs into the bathroom and sits at the corner of the tub's rim. Holding his breath for a good minute before letting it back out. Breathing heavily, like he used to when something exciting would happen to him.

How Far, Icarus, How Far?

FALL FOR GRACE

The story of Icarus is one that I've had as of late, very freshly in the fluency of thoughts. The story resonates an ongoing truth, analogously, about Man. We are that creature that will fly too close to the sun, regardless of how good a thing we have we will carelessly push passed safe and destroy even ourselves to savor happiness. At least that is my interpretation of the myth of Icarus applied philosophically to Man.

Found in any addiction, any vice or obsession, its the echo of Icarus' fall, cloud through cloud, ending in a death-pounding plunge into the Icarian Sea. He could not contend himself with flight, an achievement in itself so marvelous that following his father, Daedalus' instructions or precautions would have proven alone, a reward. The reward of flight. But Icarus took advantage, saw an opportunity and decided to withdraw the most he could from the experience. Of course, he paid with his life yet when he flew--Good God, how he flew! It could never be said that in comparison to Daedalus' flight, of the two it was certainly his son, Icarus who flew. Freely, with the confidence and command of a naturally winged creature, that is how Icarus flew; while Daedalus remained a human flapping wax wings and thereby remaining alive, survived his son.

Taking this myth and applying to it, one of the current and more obvious areas of human ingenuity to which Icarus may play as a perfect analogy, I find myself conflicted. Conflicted because upon reflection to Man's daring and careless innovation, I at times feel like a Daedalus rather than that plunging, screaming, wingless man falling his last seconds of life away. The good example of today's "wax wings" is found in technology. The wax wings themselves were a technology and Daedalus, known for his ability as a master craftsman (earlier, he had designed the labyrinth for King Minos to trap the Minotaur). Technology alone is not the harmful flight. Tools are helpful by definition and their utilitarian function has helped to in turn, define Man. We are after all, a tool using animal. But so long has passed between the wheel, fire, and spear to maglev trains, space travel, and atom bombs; we are approaching a peak to the Information Age. We are approaching Singularity.

And there my friends, is when the sun is too close and we heed not the previous warnings or the consequence of flying farther and faster with wax wings. In the myth, I side with Icarus. I side with the idea that no limits should hinder experience; that Man must push beyond, regardless of what consequence may result. Even if you expire yourself in the process, you at least lived a moment to its fullest and most possibly, dangerous potential. This being my stand, one would furrow their brow to see me swiftly transformed into a scolding Daedalus when Singularity is brought up. My position changes, I believe, for a very valid purpose. Singularity is so perverse, so destructive to the idea of what Man has been as, that its hard to compare it lightly to a pair of wax wings when its more analogously accurate to compare Singularity to a highly evolved suicide method.

Of course, my conflict is much deeper. After all, a man with wings is just as perverse as downloading your mind into a computer. I am farther removed from the Icarus myth to be at all shocked by it but I assume part of the thrill in the story was applying Man domain over an unnatural and therefore exotic tool (wax wings). There is absolutely no difference between wax wings and Singularity. And still I am a practical Daedalus who sees only a minimal mean to an end, while Icarian engineers see a new playground, a new opening to peek through the eyes of a god, a careless creator.

Try as I will I cannot be upset with the Icaruses of my time because there is no separation. There is no division of Man, where this side is Icarus and the other Daedalus. Man is a unified experience of the Universe, what one man creates, all Man creates; what one man is bound to do all Man is bound to exercise. There is only the collective representation. So it is logical that I include myself as part of that Icarus that happens to be 21st Century Man. Elemental as I am to this 21st Century Icarus, one can see why I understand. I can pardon the reasons--reasons, which I feel need not be apologized for in the first place--but I mourn. I prepare myself for that fall. I mourn for everything that came before that descent, all the heights and cleverness that lead to the creation of wax wings. I mourn for that falling creature who flew too close to the sun; who had a good thing before becoming curious about what was further up and unsatisfied with playing it safe. Falling the last seconds of his life away.

It Looks Bleak

I really hate to sound like that dude everyone avoids because as Aesop says, he has "prophetic opinions but can't remember where his drink is." But a phone named Nexus One scares the hell out of me! Its just too cocky to name a phone Nexus One, as it is to name a phone Android. The next step would be to use the phone as the brain of an actual humanoid...And when the Nexus Six arrives there will be no Rick Deckards, and it will be far beyond the point where it was already too late.

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes."

A good friend once told me I have a love/hate relationship with technology where something like a new phone creeps me the hell out but the same innovation applied to an electric musical instrument bedazzles me into supernova sprinkles. This is true! Its my hypocritical cross to bear. Maybe I should ease up and not worry but I don't want to go out of fashion, I don't want humans be a thing of the past. Combine the Nexus One and Singularity, how much space is left for the flesh?!

First Scene Dissolve

Anonymous Love Letters to Athena

I'm so tired. My legs barely stand me and there is a hunger inside that echoes tumultuously, with tempest of most concrete vigor do I move about. Hatred is my propeller; my engine, a glowing heart erupting with magma and fumes of shame. The few times I saw you today (I try to see less and less), it was as if, my hatred were offered a compromise. As if noted by my palely apparent countenance, one of deprived honor and starved dignity, a pathetic hand was extended forward with a cupcake.

My sweet tooth and all its fallen graces!

Its an insult! One perfectly visible and recognized, yet how I long to reach for you; such a waist to not have.

I took a break and on a street, under a canopy, I stood. The rain was cold but the air warmer. I had space and my lungs went to work on the early night's dew. You walked out with a colleague, speaking. I wanted some water, it was raining all around me; I was the thirsty, drowning man. It took every bit of each lung to punch my chest forward; every wattage of street lights, to keep my eyes from parking on you.

You are all they have to offer me, and it is true that you are indeed a great offer; but I can't--it wears me out. My fake plastic love, do you understand? It wears me out. I need this hatred and these lungs to roar, snatch, claw, and tear at the winds that so eagerly wish to pass me by. I need my tension, my open eyes that sleep and cry very little but do only absorb, greedily, everything in its path.

Its with love that I must leave you, its with further hate that the action springs awake into motion.

Universally yours,

Une Ammiratore

My, How We Are Thirsty

Days of Lemons and Daffodils

Any night I find lemonade in the fridge, I can't figure out how not to revert into a crackhead. After one sip, all I can think of is another. Its too good to stop. Sleep is a passive aggressor and never convincing enough to deter me from the self-appointed mission, in such cases:

drink all the lemonade in the fridge.

Sure, tomorrow will proceed this night and my love for lemonade will not wane; and sure I could do, tomorrow, with some of the euphoria that sizzles in my brain when I drink the naturally squeezed sour-made-sweet drink; but why concern myself with tomorrow when the night and the lemonade are both here, presently.

Drink all the lemonade in the fridge.

It becomes a command, one which I take seriously. It becomes a law and I, its most faithful of officers. A nebulously, grayish-yellow liquid, as if a cloud of sun became a beverage that pours onto a cup like a god into a miracle; a holy communion becomes the quenching of a thirst. Only its not the thirst of a dry tongue or throat, not the deprivation or dehydration that can drain a body, like a fish out of water, and kill it. This thirst is not much like that, if at all. This is the thirst of addiction, of chemicals in the brain recognizing a familiar chemistry and associating with it, the most welcomed of lemonade memories. The sour-made-sweet yesterdays. Its sweetness and all its delights, excessively craved, sought, and possessed only for a few seconds before it fades as you sigh out a momentary satisfaction. But before you know it, the satisfaction is gone, for you can't have your lemonade and drink it too.

Still this doesn't stop me from trying, sometimes all night. Each time hoping some physical anomaly will take pity on me and allow me both, my possession and my drink.

Frozen Cast Away

What it Feels Like to be in Overdraft

So I'm on an island. I'm stranded there. I like the peace but it isn't a nice tropical island, abundant in food and resources; its more of a suspended iceberg, an island with a heavy layering of frosting. Everything that could truly be of use to me is buried under heavy, deep sheets of ice. I try to leave, I try to get out of there; even successfully built a raft after months of gathering parts from what I can. Its an awful looking raft but its all thats available.

Now, I've been trying to escape...but the waves. The waves push me back and I'm freezing. Its too cold and the waves crash and the further out I get, the larger and stronger they react. I, under their mercy, as they slam down on me like a hand to a mosquito. And its so cold. I've been trying week after week but to no avail, the waves are always there, proudly roaring. Yet, they pull back into the sea, as if calling me out to that calm escape I see miles away. Perhaps, they're taunting me.

I can't find a way out unless I travel under the waves. But how does one hold such a breath, or ignore such a cold? Surely, there are not enough resources available to transform my raft into a submarine. But it might be my only hope to try.

I Feel so Tongue-Tied

My Monthly Aresian Horoscope

March 21 - April 19

My thoughts are misguided and a little naive. I twitch and I salivate like with myxomatosis...

At the end of the summer, a friend of mine was off to the west coast; a farm in northern California. Before he left we hung out a bit and he introduced me to the idea of Saturn Return. In astrology, this is a period in an individual's life that occurs approximately every 30 years coinciding with the full revolution of Saturn around the Sun.

I got edited, fucked up...strangled, beaten up...

Saturn takes about 10,759 Earth days (29.5 years) to orbit the Sun. So every 29.5 years Saturn is, hypothetically speaking, in the exact same degree of orbit that it was when you were born. In Astrology this is meant to signify a crossroad for the individual, a time when things break apart for the personality and are soon rebuilt, leaving behind that which hinders one from their blah blah blah (astrological end for which the astrological means are justified).

I saw A Serious Man yesterday and I met a woman named Tuesday on Friday. I am a person who finds conspiracies in all things but not rationally, that is, the information doesn't add to anything but an irrational future based on an irrational past. Yet, it is interesting to collect the information, each like random decorations. They are pretty to watch but these decorations never end, so there is no celebration only a perpetual preparation.

I sat in the cupboard--I wrote it down in neat, they were cheering and waving, cheering and waving, twitching and salivating like with myxomatosis...

Cheering and waving...

It all starts to fall in place, you find your pace and you're better able to sort out that which you've spend the full occupation of the past to wind yourself up in.

But everything is here, right now and I just can't hold on to anything...it all just passes through me. What's worse is that I am aware--my consciousness, like a lighthouse that watches the sea, spotlights every ship that passes by my shore. And the ships, never stopping regardless of how bright I light them. "You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity."

You should put me in a home or you should put me down. I got myxomatosis--I got myxomatosis...

It could be a Saturn Return but I'm not into the Stars as Psychiatrists, Jung was a man with some ideas and opinions and Saturn is a dense planet with a diameter about 9 times that of the Earth. Oskar is a drummer and I, a mongrol cat in a cupboard waiting for a nurse. I practice how magnificent I'm going to be when she pulls open the doors and beholds the pale ghost.

I would like to be A Serious Man, light a ship for the sole purpose of swimming out and catching it, or perhaps light the way for my own ship, out into the night's sea. Will it matter where Saturn watches me from?

Cheering and waving...twitching and salivating...

I don't know how, this is after all, my first time living. Still that isn't new, who's to say its ever gotten right. That it is gotten, is all we can be sure of, and its the best any of us can do.

Still, I'm just pulling at a thousand leads, bound by all the land I've wrapped around my lighthouse to keep it standing straight...the decades flying by but my--how the days are long!

Myxomatosis, I got myxomatosis.

Floggings for the Privileged

So I received a phone call earlier today. A call back from a job I applied for sometime in September. Its a retail store, specializing in women's interests. I applied for one of the overnight stock/receiving positions yet I suppose it doesn't matter as all applicants will be interviewed in groups, regardless of positions applied for. They have informed me of a specific set of directions, which I was suggested to write down as if it were a formula. I was to arrive at least 10 to 15 minutes early on this week's Thursday for an 11:00 group interview. I am to dress professionally (because retail is a profession?). I am to bring a copy of my resume and references so that in a small group, I may compete with others for a job that is nothing more than a check and a waste of my personal energy. So from here to Thursday it is my duty to sharpen my personality, blade-like, and indirectly dissect others open so that they're flaws may be as visible as my strengths. I hate this!

They dress the job up and make you go through all this hullabaloo, as if the job you're applying for is as important or even interesting as you're polishing yourself out to be for their benefit. Thats all they're after, they just want to screen out those who do not wish to cooperate and thoroughly inspect the sly ones, like myself, who do not agree but walk in with that sheep's wool and fangs hidden under lips. If you can get past them, they tend to not care that you do not agree, because you understand what it is they do not wish to see, that is, your mind. They probably feel the same way you do and so long as you know it isn't acceptable to express it in your work, they could care less about feelings, yours or theirs.

I predict a very cold, lonely winter. I predict preparation and fatigue, taxing efforts and hatred as fuel, love as negative space, I predict exclusivity of myself from others and the continual exercise of shortening the passage from mind to mouth. If all goes well, I'll smile at you on the other side, on that lovely spring from which I first arose. I'll look upon you and reward you, I'll know exactly what to tell you and everything will be fine. Fine, but I'll be twice as lost, four times as free, and certainly not concerned with the thoughts that are going to bother the hell out of me from now 'til Thursday and even more so if I actually do get the job.

Dear October, iHate the Robots

Ladies and Gentlemen, set your mood organs to "congratulatory enthusiasm" and "spring glee". Then you can successfully deny that the future is going to be a scary place. To make matters worst, if I may quote a friend, "if the future isn't now, I don't know when it'll be!"

FAKE WOMEN

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Incase anyone is curious where I stand on this: This is not good!

IRREPLACEABLE:

Sleepwalker

While the City Sleeps - (1956) Directed by Fritz Lang;

Starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders

Just saw this little picture. I missed it the last time it was on. Now that I've seen it I won't mind so much missing it the next time around.

If My Mind Has Been On My Phone All Day And My Phone Is Lost Then My Mind...

So I've misplaced my cellphone today. Its in my apartment because I haven't left the front door today until about 15 minutes ago for a breath of less steamy air, which is apparently all thats available in my apartment. I noticed that the cellphone was misplaced sometime this afternoon, it is now 10:18 PM. I remember waking and unplugging the little cretin from the charger, resurrecting the mini-christ from the death that disconnected me from my friend the night before. I remember reading the text sent by that friend asking about my disappearance, as I went stealth, a crucified silence. I got up at about 11:12 AM, my first trip to the bathroom was met by failure as it was occupied so I visited my niece in another room before heading back to the direction of the living room and distracting myself in some form of thought. I may or may not have relocated my copy of the novel I'm currently reading; this may or may not be a clue to reproduce that mysterious strand of memory that is giggling in some dark recess of cranium.

I'm upset. Much less at the possibility of a missed call or text or desire to, myself, text or call someone. I'm sure there were no calls as I'm sure there is no one I'm in any particular need of contacting. In the case that I would really worry about either, I could easily email or use the house phone. No, the possibility of a missed contact doesn't do much for my disposition. My issue is more about not being able to find a piece of personal property. It is my cellphone, my possession and I should know where it is, it should be in my memory which is also of my disposal to recall such information. Not being capable to do so, exhibits within me, a paranoid manifestation of self-consciousness and lack of self-control; not being able to know where your possessions are, and not being able to establish an adequate mean for retrieving these belongings.

A vexation that has taxed me all throughout the day under a scorning sun that has dismissed a sky of clouds and a ground of shade. At the end of my thinning tether with no more success than the night has had against the heat the sun left behind, I have finally decided to write about it. How frustrating to be played into a puzzle one can't ignore? For I must find my phone, especially since its misplaced location is so limited. It could only be in the apartment from which I, and the others who were approximately about at the time of the victim's disappearance, have not left. Its a simple enough crime with only a few likely suspects, that I have thoroughly interrogated with both hands and eyes, both who wore trench coats and hats with a shared, antiseptic, cold, film noir wit. However, to no avail. My room, the bathroom, and my mother's bedroom are these suspects, and apparently, I am Inspector Clousseau.

I've become tired of searching the same areas over, and all the more so angry at the discouraging result this strategy is so hurriedly committed to repeat. Regardless of my stubborn inclination to review these re-searched areas to obtain a fresh look that may now be less attached emotionally than earlier when the incident occurred, these areas insist on offering me no success. Apparently things remain missing in the same places from which they were missing, regardless of how mad you are or aren't.

Terminator Salvation: Morning Drill

My Monthly Aresian Horoscope

March 21 - April 19

and so begins

man vs. machine

Aries, today they were drilling your neighbor's drive way and sidewalk. And you, Aries, do you not sleep towards the front of the apartment? Wasn't it true that here the noise was at its proudest volume? In the dining room, for this is where you sleep, is it not Aries? In this dining room that keeps the living room company at the front of the apartment through a doorless threshold, like two mouths opened at the connection of a kiss, at this border, was not the drilling a tad, let us say, unpleasant? Did not these mischievous immigrants of sound hop this border to pursue countless vocations to sustain the divorce between yourself and Madame Rest.

In fact let us be honest Aries, was not the drilling impressionably close? Impressionably crass and rude, or impressionably insulting. Surely it was, was it not, impressionably perverted against innocent Silence in her Evangelical skirts. Could not the drilling be said to almost be in the apartment? Audibly, it was! Audibly it was practically paying rent with a hole torn right through the lease where the drilling signed its name. Might as well! While we're here Aries, lets add to the "might-as-wells." The drilling might as well have used your bathroom and called you honey, might as well have fixed up a fine mess of a breakfast plate and on the seldom utilized dining table, commented on the weather while enjoying waffles and a morning fruit shake. Yes Aries, Drill would say this and more, all with the same hard stutter, rolling that same "R" 'til Kingdom Come; rolling far into the applications of infinity.

Anything Less Would Be Uncivilized

Is it just my opinion that Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in the X-Men films is non-other than the equivalent of John Stamos' Uncle Jessie in Full House. The sideburns and meticulously moussed, carefully conspired hairdo, the leather jacket, the boots and the whole "born to be bad" thing; Uncle Wolvie and The Rippers.

Nothing against Hugh Jackman, I like him as an actor. Something against whoever casted Wolverine as a neat hipster who occasionally gets angry and apparently displays great leadership skills (is there even a single scene with Cyclops actually leading the X-Men in any of the 3 films?) Granted, The Ol' Can Knucklehead has always been a favorite in the Marvel world, highly popular and successful in his own right but after three films that basically were Wolverine and the X-Men, we are told that a Wolverine spin-off movie is soon to hit theatres and are furthermore, expected to be impressed.


"Great, A Wolverine movie! Its going to be dark and gritty almost a film noir where we get to see Logan's attitudes and rages explored; where he's allowed free focus without the guilt felt when that same free focus was monopolized on him during the X-Films."

"Uh, not quite. Its actually a quick origin movie and we're going to throw in a bunch of other mutants that are more than unnecessary to tell Logan's story because we don't know how to focus the spotlight on Wolverine unless he's stealing it from other under-developed characters."

Zack Snyder should have directed this film. I did not like The Watchmen but what worked for 300 and even Rorschach, would've worked well for Wolverine. Violence, adrenaline, gore, and uncompromising righteousness. I would love to see a misanthropic, napoleon complexed, scraggily voiced, hairy, canadian runt with adamantium claws and a reason to use them; when you see the character on screen you should be able to almost smell the cigarettes and beer, you should feel aversion on the outside but secretly, an envy to the loss of inhibition and primal freedom for which wolverine is a walking metaphor. I want to see the black and gold stripe costume, the cowl, the grunts and growls; anything less would be uncivilized.

Happy Belated Valentines Day

Stupid Kiss
by A.E. Paulino


I texted her.
a n g r i l y.
i wanted to
see her/
its been long
since last
we've done
any seeing of
one another.
t h u r s d a y,
she wrote.
excited i wait/
and she doesn't
show at all,
t h u r s d a y.
friday, she's gone
no reply no text.
i thought she died.
she has lung
p r o b l e m s,
she could die.
I wouldn't know.
s a t u r d a y
she texts,
i'm not dead,
but she is.
she is and
she can't
c o n v i n c e
me other,
to that wise...

Too Gentlemen

words: Azrael Encarnación
drawing: Mike DeNicola