The Travails of the Astounding!

So if you thought the universe had tipped its hand, and you were unable to be wildly surprised/dismayed by The Possibilities, feast your eyes on this. That's right, this is a very real cover of a very real issue of a comic book that pairs that nefarious, vicious psychopath of modern American legend, and the Punisher.

Hey! "Steamboy" Katsuhiro Otomo's latest masterpiece is playing this week at the Harris, downtown Pittsburgh's ONLY movie theater.
YES, Pittsburgh that great metroplotan oasis in the middle of nowhere has but ONE movie theater and its playing a Japanese cartoon! Lucky you! Lucky us! Lucky Pittsburgh! Otomo is the same artistic genius behind Akira, and although I think it's a tad overblown, I also think its incredibly imaginative and very well done, and from what Ive read, Steamboy is that and THEN some. Cant wait, wanna join me? You should. But don't bring HIM.

Next: Anybody goin to New York by the end of the month, ole Larry needs to see the Tiger Lillies before they leave the country again. Those damned tickets are so expensive, Ive got to find a way to cut cost somewhere on this trip. Anyone got some ideas?

By the way, I recently had the opportunity to see a free screening of House of D. While I found aspects of it enjoyable, (including some very convincing performances by Robin Williams and young Anton Yelchin, I found David Duchovnys (previously of X-Files fame) writing and direction, a bit too contrived and obvious. He takes great care to lay a richly textured platform of emotional soil down before he proceeds to pluck each emotional string he can in a row. However if it lacks a sense of grace, than it excels in its sincerity. 3/5 Stars


SO early this morning I was leatrning how to weave leater strips together with human hair, when i noticed a most distracting tapping sound above my head. I looked upward in time to see one of the light bulbs that illuminates my room give one last exaserated flash then go dead. The tap-tapping sound persisted however. When I flashed a light in the direction of the light fixture I saw a bee had been doing some weird sort of bee-ramming thing with my light. He paid dearly for his daliances it would seem, beccause a few moments later, it dropped onto the light cover and shrveled up and passed away. Passed away, ugh, it died. The bee died. It didnt pass anything. Anyway, it humped my light til they both died. Thats my bee story.












Way Down In The Hole from the album "Beautiful Maladies" by Tom Waits