Smeef of Small Hygenics
Reading: Firework by Eugene Marten. This isn’t published yet, it’s coming soon from Tyrant Books. Eugene wrote a book called Waste that is one of my favorite books; it’s full of grime and longing. This new one, the big one, Firework, is proving itself a weird gathering of mirrors and beer cans and thrownness.
I also read The Hollywood Economist, a nonfiction guidebook of sorts to motion picture studio wizardry. The MBAs continue to be savvy in the short term (franchise movies like Spiderman, Harry Potter), but I doubt they’ll be able to hold on to such an uptrend while distribution continues to shift; less than 6% of Americans see a movie every week in theatres, so that seemingly staple behavior is actually a niche behavior, and as the internet/streaming/cloud becomes the entertainment hub of every house (and it will), the power will reside with the telecom companies, who are already buying massive stakes in studios like Universal and Warner Brothers. Merlin Mann sums up my thinking nicely.
Watching: Branded to Kill. Weird and incalculable. Cheeks.
Playing: Final Fantasy XIII. Gorgeously rendered. Gameplay is rat-gets-the-pellet, but quick enough and light enough to be fun. I’m guessing I’ll lose interest once the main quest is over. Still: nothing beats this game. Nothing. I’m simultaneously engaged with and worried about the next ten years in videogame design.
Novel: Finished the first draft.
Else: Tense and lax.
