Saturday, April 10, 2004
I did 1,170 words on "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" yesterday. Though I wouldn't have thought it possible, the words were even more stubborn than on Thursday. A drop of blood per syllable, I believe. A grey hair for every sentence. But this story is coming along nicely, regardless. It's a very odd one. I shan't explain. You'll see, someday. I'm not sure how the writing will go today. There's research to be done before the next section can be written, so I may spend most of the day at the library and reading (Ambrose Bierce, I think), and such. It's frustrating to have to hit the brakes so near the end, but I'm tired of rushing things. Yesterday, I wrote to Peter Gabriel's Up, which I'll probably write to again today. It's a nice break from all the future pop I've been writing to lately.
Last night was Kid Night, of course, and we watched the particularly peculiar Q (1982) and Mario Bava's suprisingly stylish Terrore nello Spazio (1965; released to DVD as Planet of the Vampires). I think the Bava film has been overlooked as a significant influence on Ridley Scott's Alien. Not only is there a good deal of similarity between the two when it comes to tone, there are quite a few parallels in plot, as well. Like the Nostromo, the Argos responds to a mysterious acoustical beacon, lands on a ghostly planet (in many ways, Aura feels a lot like an anticipation of LV4-26), and discovers a derelict alien spacecraft complete with the fossilized skeletons of the giants that once piloted it. A nigh unstoppable, parasitic force proceeds to pick off the space travellers, one by one. The Argos' landing on Aura gave me shot-by-shot flashbacks to the Nostromo's descent. It: The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) has gotten so much attention as a direct influence on Alien (and rightly so), but I've never seen anyone point out the obvious debt that Alien owes to Terrore nello Spazio.
Okay, enough geekery. Though I will add that today is Haley Joel Osment's 16th birthday. That's just weird.
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