"I Went Down To Saint James Infirmary"

I watched the second half of the anime series Serial Experiments Lain the other night. I'd purchased the entire 13 episode series a month or so back, and watched the first half. Then other things vied for my attention and time, and the second half of the series languished on the shelf until Tuesday evening.

I have to admit, the way the series ended surprised me a bit. I was expecting something...darker, I guess. The whole series was dark, with this sense of overwhelming loneliness to it. There were several scenes where the only noise was the hum of power lines or the background noise of lots of voices, none of which were speaking to the main character (the titular Lain). There was a feel of...isolation to the whole thing, of her being separate and apart from everyone and everything she encountered.

Yet the ending was affirming, with a sense of peace and contentment. Lain finds who and what she is, and she reconciles herself to that knowledge. She smiles at the end, something she really hadn't done much throughout the whole series.

But the rest of the series was dark and disturbing as hell. Not the sort of thing that's really good to watch by yourself in the dead of night, even though that's exactly what I did. Felt like I needed a hug afterwards.

Also finished up watching Martian Successor Nadesico this week (on Monday, actually). An anime and a mirror of anime, Nadesico was at turns lighthearted, whimsical, sad, meloncholy, and angsty. You sorta got the feeling while you watched it that a big part of it was just a continuously running in-joke, and since I've watched a fair amount of anime over the past five or six years, I caught a lot of it. I just wish the ending of the series were more...final, y'know? It's a weakness a lot of anime series have--the endings don't really feel like endings. There's no conclusion or sense of closure. Admittedly, there is a Nadesico movie available, and I've watched it (well, a subtitled bootleg version way back before it was officially released here, so there's a good chance the sub wasn't even really that good, and it was on my computer, so I couldn't always see what was going on), but I'm not sure it answers anymore questions, and it certainly raises several more (which is another bad habit in anime).

Beyond cutting a swath through anime lately, I finished reading Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon this afternoon. Had a good twist at the end. Now I need to go rent the movie (yes, I know, it's crazy that I've never seen The Maltese Falcon. But hey, until about a year ago, I hadn't seen Casablanca, either. It's taken awhile for me to get to the point where I can appreciate the classics a little more, but I think I'm finally there).

Tonight is Writing Club. I about doubled the amount I have finished on the story I took last week, and I'm still just getting into the beginning of the whole sordid debacle. I'm looking forward to seeing where my story goes, actually.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Opening Theme, Serial Experiments Lain