* Today’s Strange Tales Spotlight: Jonathan Jay Lee. You might not have heard of him before–I hadn’t–but his work sure looks lovely.
* Beware the savage lure of Matt Wiegle’s 1984.
* Get this: Two Kentucky librarians refused to allow an 11-year-old to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because they thought it was “pornography”…and they got fired for it! Regardless of the wisdom of letting your 11-year-old read Alan Moore’s Mina Murray/Allan Quartermain May-December fanfic, you have to admit it’s delightful to see the kinds of nitwits who’d label this book “pornographic” get shitcanned for it.
* I’m not reading this until I see the movie, and god only knows when that will be (The Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, Zombieland, etc.), but for what it’s worth, the estimable Rich Juzwiak has titled his review of Paranormal Activity “Believe the hype”.
* I read Devin Friedman’s GQ profile of Von Dutch/Ed Hardy mastermind Christian Audigier in the pharmacy yesterday and realized that if you combine it with The New Yorker‘s James Cameron profile and Bronson Pinchot’s (ongoing!) tell-all interview(s), you get a sort of group portrait of contemporary Hollywood awfulness. (Pinchot link via Whitney Matheson.)
Sean, Paranormal Activity is turning out to be quite a divisive, love-it-or-hate-it movie. It tries to ratchet up tension gradually with relatively small effects, and whether you find it terrifying or disappointing really depends on how susceptible you are to that kind of thing.
Imagine a couple in bed. As they sleep, their bedroom door moves a few inches on its own–on camera, but without disturbing them enough to wake them up. If that sounds creepy, you may love PA. If it sounds boring, you’ll definitely hate it.
I went in pretty cold, without much idea what I was about to see, but I have a ferocious contempt for small, quiet, subtle horror of this sort, so as soon as I realized it was that kind of movie, I was a hostile audience the rest of the way through.
The Hurt Locker is one of the best and most affecting movies I’ve seen in years. Just seeing it on your to-do list makes me want to see it again
Fuck all that, now I want to watch Risky Business.
A few people in the comments section of the LoEG story said the two people fired weren’t actual librarians, but just paid help at the circulation desk.