I finished WALKING sometime this last weekend. So yesterday, I started on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. And I demand points for my bohemian mix of readings!

In any case. So far it has managed to slowly and comfortably hijack my imagination. I am curious how it will be different when reading the third book having not yet seen a movie adaptation of it.

Where the world of Harry Potter, is concerned, story can wait. I want to just continue reading about the wonderful people, places and things. It is a reading in which the plot is tolerated because it gives the nouns of the world a motion; the enchanted quality of life.

I recently picked up a copy of Henry David Thoreau's essay, WALKING. So, as a result, instead of lounging around in a coffee shop for lunch, like I normally do, I've been spending my lunches wandering the Ann Arbor downtown.

Wandering, in the literal sense. Paying only idle attention to what time I have left before I need to be back in the office.

And I have decided something that Thoreau seems unable (in his essay) to accept:

The urban environment is a forest with it's own mysteries and it's own wildness. But this is something that I've always believed to be so.

So last night, I was minding my own business, sitting amidst piles of boxes that anticipate the imminent move to take place in a couple of weeks, and reading Spiderwick Chronicles: The Seeing Stone (which was decent, incidentally) when there was a soft rapping at my door.

So I got up and looked through the viewing circle in the door. There was a guy on the other side of the door who I didn't recognize.

Curious, I opened the door. I realized too late my error-- he was selling something.

"Hi," he said. "Have you had the opportunity to go to college?"

"Yes." Immediately apprehensive. My mind was racing for a graceful way to ditch the guy.

"Well me too! I'm from California and I'm going to U of M and I'm in the neighborhood trying to raise funds to cover my out-of-state fees."

"Look, I'm sorry, I'm not interested in buying anything," I say and edge back, unable to come up with an excuse to just close the door.

He ignores me. "What we're doing is a book drive and I'm trying to get enough points to win. You know how many points I need to win?"

"No." Also I don't care. Why can't I just close the door!

"I just need 250!" He hands me a worn, folded piece of paper.

"Look, I'm really not interested--." Why did I take this from him? I push the paper back toward him. He backs away like the paper is dangerous and starts talking again. Now I'm not listening at all. I just want to get rid of the paper.

"Look man, I'm not interested." He's talking over me. He still won't take the paper. "Really. I'm not interested. I'm not going to buy anything."

His cheerful mask dissolves and he takes the paper. Disappointment. I know what that's like.

"Sorry man," I close the door.

Graceful. Real graceful. I feel like a fascist.

I'm doing a repost of a link I gleaned from Tyree's livejournal. Mostly because I found it to be a very interesting comparison of Fight Club and Calvin and Hobbes.

It reminds me that I should start working on my own analysis of The Matrix: "Because Neo thought Trinity was hot..."

I hate moving.

Chris dragged me out to see The Hulk a few weeks back.

The dragging was actually nessecary as I was certain of it's inherent failure before even seeing the film. And sometimes dragging a friend or sibling out to see a movie they're certain they don't want to see is just the kick in the ass they need.

Because I found The Hulk to be a pleasant film all told.

The story was okay. The acting was good. The lack of indiscriminate use of the big green guy by the director was also admirable.

But what really brought the film to life was the movie's awareness of format.

What I mean by this, is how the movie was aware it was adapting a comic book and the lengths the editing and directing went to accomodate this. A lot of the shots were framed. And often, in action sequences, the screen was broken up into panels with details of what was happening in the central panel.

The resultant effect was that a lot of the important scenes were gained a level of emphasis by the visual rhedundancy.

It shows an awareness of format that I haven't seen since The Maxx animated series.

Completed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Tuesday evening--late.

And I enjoyed it a great deal more than I expected to. Especially since I've seen the movie proper too many times and most people I speak to say the movie is a carbon of the book.

I do begin to see what all the hubbub is about.

I'll be reading through All Tomorow's Parties before continuing with the Potter series. I actually feel kinda lucky to have started Harry Potter with this much reading ahead of me before it's over.

I do not have a man-crush on Derek Kirk Kim, but I do admire his work a great deal. And really if you are a comics reader (especially one filled with regrets and self-doubt), you owe it to yourself to snag this boy's work in print.

Or at least read it online. The Xeric Grant does not lie!

And today I finished the First King of Shannara. It was an acceptable book to read. A little long. A little too forward with the plot and the character's internal dialouge. If I were to judge it on the prose alone, I would say it was a "bad" book.

But I must take into account an aspect of Terry Brooks' writing that I've always had quite a bit of respect for-- plot innovation. This aspect of the book allows the turn of a "bad" book into "an acceptable read."

But still not "good," mind you.

Things I like about Terry Brooks' writing:
- He still believes in magic, and you can tell
- He's not afraid to physically maim or kill a hero
- Druids are cool (when they're not stupid and political)

Now I begin Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Yes, for the first time.