weirdI have a copy of The Martian Chronicles I need to send away to Poppy. I picked it up Thursday afternoon at Borders. I'll send her another package tomorrow. Last night, we had a hard, long walk after dinner (bats, a cat we hadn't met before, a huge red moon just rising above the trees), then watched The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I liked it much more than I'd expected to. I was afraid that I'd hate it, having loved earlier incarnations of the story so much, but it was actually pretty good. Does anyone use the word "madcap" anymore? They should. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a madcap adventure. The planet factory left me absolutely breathless. Alan Rickman was a fine choice for the voice of Marvin. And I still think Zaphod is sexy (which shows what poor taste I've always had in men). Spooky liked the mice best of all; they evoked from her uproarious gales of laughter. I was pleased that they chose actors who looked like people instead of pretty actors who looked like unnaturally pretty people, as that surely would have killed the film. Afterwards, I played a little Final Fantasy X-2, but the impending arrival of Final Fantasy X is distracting, and I wound up going to bed and (speaking of unnaturally pretty people) reading volumes Two and Three of Sang-Sun Park's The Tarot Café (TokyoPop). I still can't believe these things are being marketed to ages 13 and up; a shame 13-year-olds weren't encouraged to read stuff like this when I was 13 (don't bother; you'll need a calculator).
I awoke about 7 a.m. from one of the most detailed and bizarre dreams that I've had in quite some time. And it was undoubtedly one of the most elaborate, lengthy, and peculiar sex dreams I've ever had. I'm unsure if I should even write about it here, as I don't usually get into such private things publicly. I'm not even sure if I can explain it. I'm sure lots and lots will be lost in the translation. Let's see. The promoters of a local fetish club (I won't name names) had convinced me and Spooky to put on a sex show to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina (see, already it's offensive). We were to perform a play recounting an attack by La Bete du Gevaudan upon a sleeping shepherdess. I was the beast. Spooky was the shepherdess. It as being staged in the old Boutwell Coliseum in Birmingham, Alabama. Don't ask me why. I suppose Atlanta had no appropriate venues for smutty werewolf sex shows. There were hundreds if not thousands of people in attendance. I was crawling about on the concrete floor of the coliseum, entirely nude, growling, snarling, and being generally beast-like...okay. Yeah, that's probably more than enough. I will leave the rest for your nimble imaginations. I awoke, as I've said, about 7 a.m. The sun was just coming up. I was incredibly sore — my neck, my back — and Spooky wasn't in bed (she'd gone to the bathroom). And this is what I get for reading The Tarot Café immediately before I fall asleep.
Er...however do I follow that? Well, I did want to say that in my list of highly anticipated forthcoming films the other day I neglected to mention both The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (December 9th) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (November). The movies-I'm-willing-to-see-in-theatres drought seems to be ending for a time. I begin to think we're living in a Golden Age of Fantasy Films.