I get home last night and check my messages – except I can’t, because my phone is dead. That’s super. I check the demarcation box outside the house and it’s still dead, so the problem is with Bell’s network. It occurs to me that I haven’t paid a bill since I got my phone installed a month and a half ago, but that’s because I haven’t received a bill in the past month and a half. I managed to get in touch will Bell’s support line from the payphone in the rehearsal space, and the problem is not my unpaid bill – they don’t know what the problem is. They promise it’ll be fixed by tonight, so anyone who’s trying to reach me by phone – and I know there’s scads of you – be patient. Your call is important to me and I will be with you as soon as possible. Now hum some Billy Joel to yourself. There you go.

Finished watching Neverwhere last night. Man… even though the BBC series came first, the book was better. When I first read the book (it’s come back to me since my last post on the subject), I was struck by how similar Gaiman’s prose work was to his comic book work – maybe it’s because I’d been reading his stuff for almost a decade at that point, but I could and still can spot his style and his preferred archetypes a mile off. For someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the exotic and esoteric, he certainly has his favorite devices. The television series had its charm, but was handicapped by the low production values and rather unconvincing acting by the lead actor in the role of Richard Mayhew. He did succeed in looking like a young Paul McCartney, but little else. The quality of the rest of the cast ranged from very good (the Marquis De Carrabas, Mr Croup and Mr Vandemaar) to adequate (Door, Hunter). Maybe my chief complaint, and it’s not very fair to the show, I admit, is that compared to the visuals I’m used to accompanying Gaiman’s work, particularly Dave McKean’s unique style, the shot-to-video realism of the miniseries was just… drab. It would have been better if they’d gotten McKean to go over the whole thing Waking Life-style or something. Oh well. The ‘making of’ interview with Gaiman was pretty illuminating, though. If I get a chance, I may try and get through an episode commentary or two before it has to go back to the store.

Chart has a little chat with Mojave 3.

New Shins album today! Beulah show tonight! Huzzah!

np – Beulah / Yoko

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