World Book Night

I would have posted these for World Book Day, but I didn't have much spare time today, so thankfully there's also World Book Night. Unfortunately I still don't have teleportation capabilities, but I can use technology to offer everyone who visits my blog a book!

I'm not sure about rights, etc, as these are PDFs that have been hunted down over a long period of time, so if I've made a boo-boo by putting a book up please let me know and I'll take it down ASAP.

Beware as they're all quite geeky, but definitely interesting!

Vertebrate Paleontology (3rd Edition)

Elementary Number Theory (William Stein)

Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines 

Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Xenology

Enjoy and spread the love [of books and other love of course]!

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Confessions of a Former Loo Reader

"Bad habits are hard to kick..."

The first half of the first thing a friend of mine ever said to me.  We met at a writing group.  He walked into the room where the group met ten minutes late, dressed in black from head to toe.  His black hair was frizzy.  A thin mustache and a pointed beard framed a friendly smile.  He looked like a smiling madman should look.  He looked like Rasputin, and even turned out to be half Russian.

We were sitting on the quai just behind Notre Dame.  He pointed out the drug dealers that passed by, disappointed they were only selling hash.  He tells me about a trip to the mountains of Lebanon.  Houses where walls were covered with pollen; the product of silk robed men beating marijuana plants hung from the rafters with sticks.  The silk clad men of the [omitted] mountains made the best hashish in the world.  The memory was so vivid that he could still recall the feel of the black soft bricks of hash he was offered melting between his fingertips like butter.

His uncle, a prominent figure of Beirut society had arranged the trip to help him beat his heroin habit.  He went into the details of how such things were arranged.  The logistics, I was disappointed to know, were handled with the efficiency of booking a spa vacation.  There was even a place on the compound where he could spend the mornings doing yoga.

He offered me a swig of what he was drinking.  He told me proudly that he was now up to two bottles of vodka a day.  He carried the vodka around with him in a one liter orange juice carton with a screw on top.  He made certain that I knew he didn't actually drink the orange juice.

We were with other friends, trying to discreetly roll and smoke joints on a nice summer evening.  Three of us had been to the Catacombs together.  We bonded over joints and bad poetry.  One of my friends, a German, is listening to Rasputin tell his story. He rolls joints silently, intently, and finds it difficult to answer questions while so focused.  I know he's listening because he's stopped suddenly.  He laughs, as if he had just processed the comment about the orange juice, though there had been a few minutes lull in the conversation.

I was sandwiched between a friend who had no deep, dark secrets and another friend who had a few but could eventually see the humor in his own bad habits.  A didn't drink a drop of alcohol, but he smoked weed all day, every day and though he rolled his joints with tobacco, he otherwise would never admit to being a smoker.

I am somewhere in the middle.  I smoke cigarettes and weed and drink champagne straight from the bottle.  As for deep dark secrets, no woman gets to my age without having a few, though I think it's rather bad manners for a lady to confess hers too readily.

"A writer should have a little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth.  Reveal a few secrets here." Quentin Tarantino

Today when I went to the bathroom I saw a book on top of a roll of toilet paper, specifically Henry Miller's Sexus, the first book of his Rosy Cruxifixtion.  For a moment I thought I should start a blog about the books Mr Z reads while in the john.

I used to read on the toilet, but then one day I guy I was dating told me why afterwards he couldn't touch those books anymore, how he thought of them as now dirty, and he explained it so well and with such rationality that he convinced me I should give up the habit.  It wasn't easy.  Especially since he started leaving books behind in the bathroom because somehow I'd made him consider that if the book was kept in the bathroom, his hands would get dirty anyways, and he'd just wash them after reading.

Anyways there was always this well-read copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the bathroom floor that tempted me.  Sometimes I cracked.

I ask Mr Z if he'd think it was weird if I blogged the books he reads while on the toilet and got a quick yes.  I guess knowing today's reading was Sexus is all I'm allowed to tell.

I didn't read it myself, though I was tempted.  After all I did used to be the kind of person who would read whatever was handy while on the toilet.  The back of shampoo bottles; the bottom of the tissue box; and even when I was desperate and it became one of the "bathroom books", some book by Harlan Coben that I can't remember the title of now.

I try to think of other bad habits I kicked.  Are there habits I don't know I've kicked?  Are the habits that I consider bad because I'm still tempted by them?  I'm one hang nail from reverting to my fingernail chomping ways of olde.  The joy of emptying myself of my bodily wastes while reading Bukowski or John Fante still seems to me a thrill.

"Bad habits are hard to kick," he took a swig from his orange juice, "because we don't really want to."

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A Sensitive Guy - Bates Motel S01E04 1x04

Warning contains spoilers and a lot of nonsense due to this episode being rather shit, 

and well, I let my mind run as I made notes and thought for experimental purposes

to write a review as I watched, stream of consciousness style. 

I said nonsense. 

You've been warned.

This week's episode opens with Norman still in the deputy's porn dungeon.  Luckily for him, Dylan spotted Norman as he made his way to the deputy's house to steal the belt.  Dylan provides a diversion for his brother by ringing the deputy's bell for directions to the nearest gas station, giving Norman time to fight off the chained up Chinese girl Jao, and escape via the basement window.

Dylan confronts Norman in front of the house, but Norman isn't spilling.

The next morning Norman drops by Emma's house, but her father tells him she's sick, like really, really sick, but still she's just a regular girl, except she's really sick, so please Norman, be decent.  "I am decent," Norman tells him, but we know Norman's the really sick one.

And he's not the only one either.

Norma and Shelby meet up somewhere in town, just to drive back to the motel Norma owns to get it on in Room 4.  Pillow talk with Norma is creepily and perfectly romcomesque.  The cute remark about Shelby being pretty, but like an old woman, the mandatory "oh be quiet" before they both smile and kiss.  It's positively grotesque.  Could it be that Norma's falling in love?

This time Dylan's in front of the motel.

"Hello there Norma.  How are those new linens working out for you?"

Norma introduces Dylan to Deputy Shelby.  They exchange intense, threatening, and hyper aggressive looks.  Dylan looks worried.  Shelby on the other hand looks amused and gives Dylan a little smile before he drives away.  A little smile that says, 'I just f-cked your mom'.

Norman's soaping windows when he spies Bradley on the road.  There's something WASPy, iced like gin should be, and yet fragile and precious about Bradley.  Her walk down the road, clad in white, blond hair, big sunglasses, and a cardigan worn open over it was the Hitchcockiest Moment of this week's episode.  Her delicate silhouette echoes softly of Grace Kelly, though the way she walks reminds me of Novak.  Hitchcock's blonds had more in common than their just their hair colour, their perceived frigidity, and their pleasing looks.  They were all fragile - a porcelain doll at the top of the stairs, and it was Hitch who decided whether she would take an unexpected tumble or be allowed to descend from the steps dressed and shining like a goddess.

Bradly plants a cross hung with a wreath of flowers on the side of the road where her father crashed his car.  Norman offers his condolences and puts his arm around her when she starts to cry.  His face is absent any expression.  When Bradley burrows into Norman's chest, he turns his head, sniffs her hair, and mechanically turns away.

Shelby spots Norman trying to slink past him on the way home from the video store and hunts him down for a chat about how the profoundness of death, how sensitive a kid he thinks Norman is, that he likes his mom, and why it's a good, maybe necessary idea for him to teach Norman how to fish.  They're going to be pals, but "Oh hey Norman," he threatens, "don't run away from me."

Norman runs home to tell Norma about the girl in Shelby's basement, but Norma explains to her son that he sees and hears things that aren't really there and has for awhile.  It's no big deal though, she's going to protect him by going to the deputy's house and having sex with him.

Norma waits until the deputy's asleep post loving to make her way down to the basement.  Gone is the little bed and curtain and all the equipment.  Norma slides open the bolt on the door to a room with a work table and stacked boxes.  I hope she's wondering why someone would have a lock on a door that opens into a basement, but her thoughts are interrupted when Shelby creeps up behind her.

"Why are you in the basement in the middle of the night?"

Norma was snooping, giving herself a tour of the rest of the house.  They go back to bed.

Random shot of Norman's ankle.  At first I thought it was swollen or broken, but after looking at it a couple dozen times and having once had a dominatrix for a neighbour, I'm wondering if it isn't chaffing from ankle manacles?  And if so, is Norman self-bondaging (I am not sure if this has a term or not, I don't think I want to know either)? 

The possibility that part of Norman's fascination with the book is because when he experiences his fugue states, which Norma knew about, she knew well enough to shackle him up, though Norman himself is only subconsciously aware of it.  That could have made for some horrific similarities between Norma and Shelby as well and given their dynamic less of a 'Norma is banging him to protect her son/ultimately herself' more of a 'two monstrous people who like banging each other' thread to follow and develop, with their passion building as they, go all Natural Born Killers on White Pine Bay.


Norma shackling a fugue state Norman would be full of dark possibilities that could pepper the meat of these two central characters - Norma the Serial Killer Maker & Norman the Son.

I considered that maybe Norma had shackled him up before leaving for Shelby's, but no, they killed those darker, tastier possibilities pretty quick.  Norman confronts his mother only moments later , "I was up at 2, you weren't here". 


Norma tells Norman she brought an extra turkey pot pie over to Shelby's even though they both know she's sleeping with him.  Norman tells his mother to not trust the deputy.  He has a girl in the basement.  Norma tells him she saw the basement, that nothing was there, and that he's acting crazy.

He shows his ankle where the girl grabbed him as he was trying to get away as evidence.  Do you think I'd do this to myself?  (No, but I was so hoping.)

Norma thinks he did.

She commands him to go fishing with Zach.  Up until this point she had called him Shelby, now he's Zach.

Norman stomps off and Norma picks up her teacup and sighs in frustration.  Raising a psycho is just so hard.  Too bad she's too polite to put her weary feet up on the Mid Century coffee table.

Zach asks Norman about his past.  He tells Norman he's going to be in their life.  He wants to protect them.  Zach asks if they can trust each other.  Norman tells Zach he can trust him.  Zach gets a work-related call that cuts their time short - something needs deputying and that something is a severed hand in a bucket.  Summers hand was dredged from the deep by some fishermen with his watch still on his bloated wrist helping to identify it.

Later Bradley and Norman have hot fudge sundaes, talk about death and grief, and then she tells him, "they found a decomposing hand".  Norman rushes home to tell his mother, beating the deputy to their doorstep only by a couple of minutes.

At the station Romero tells Norma he's got real evidence.  Carpet fibers under the watch that can be matched to the carpet Norma pulled up.  Romero seems like an honest cop.  At least by this shows criteria, he hasn't done anything horrible yet.  He was looking for his friend, didn't force himself into the house when Norma told him to get a search warrant, and came back with a search warrant.  He seems to be on the up and up.

Norma and Norman go to get the carpet from the dumpster where they buried it, but it's gone.  Norma calls the company that handles emptying the dumpster who gives her the address of the town dump.  Problem is, the chain-link fencing that surrounds the dump is locked up.  Norma climbs the fence and shakes it with her entire body, screaming, more crazy than she has only just recently accused Norman of being, because the carpet is in there and she can't get at it to cover up the murder and because she doesn't know what bolt cutters are.  Norman reminds her that she should have just called the police in the first place like he told her to because she was after all, only defending herself.

"I killed the crap out of him!  I don't know why I did it, I was just so angry.  Angry that he would come into my home and angry that he would do that to me.  You don't understand Norman, my whole life I had to put up with things."

Back at home, Norma is sobbing in front of the mirror seated at her vanity table.  The sound travels through a grate in the wall between her bedroom and Norman's.  He is sitting on the edge of a neatly made bed, listening to his mother cry with sympathetic tears welling up in his eyes.  He goes outside to where Dylan is sitting in front of the motel.

Dylan offers his brother a swig off and Norman chokes because he's not used to the hard stuff.

"Don't laugh at me."

Dylan doesn't laugh as Norman tells him about everything.  The rape-slash-murder and thanks to Norma's confession, he admits what he knew but didn't want to admit - his mother lost it.  Norman wanted a new start too it seems, but every moment, every minute, every second since they've been in White Pine Bay it's been total fear.  Dylan promises to protect Norman, then teaches him what a booty call is because Dylan has taken it upon himself to teach Norman his own version of normal.  Girls.  Fun.  C'mon dumb ass.  He means go get your thingy touched.  Norman finally catches on.

Another romcom cliché.  Grief makes girls horny.  The awkward boy gets a pity bang that happens entirely under a sheet that billows like the gentle wave of a clear sea complete with post coital smiles from the satisfied Bradley.

(Honestly it was nicely shot, which of course given it was Norman Bates losing his virginity, made it all the more creepy.)

Back at Chez Bates Norma wakes up to find Norman gone and Dylan true to his word, protects Norman by telling his mother off.  He calls her crazy and Norma responds by well, acting crazy.

"What do you know about anything between me and Norman?"

"Enough to have him taken away from you."

Norma loses it a little more, but she still thinks she has the upper hand until Dylan reminds her that some other girl is taking Norman away from her right now.  She lunges at him, gets in a blow, but he pins her to the wall in a way I'd consider even sexual.  They're interrupted by the doorbell. 

Romero arrests Norma while Zach looks on.  Wonder how he's going to protect her now?

Stray Thoughts:

I wish there were other bones to pick clean from this episode, but it wasn't a good one.  The only thing I'm thinking now is, they would have been better off letting Norma get away with murder.  We know she's not innocent, so unless they're going to let Norman go Carrie on WPB to bust Norma out, I don't think I'll be reviewing this show much longer.

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Here's Norman! - Bates Motel Recap S01E03

On last week's episode of Bates Motel we learned that there are well-guarded pot fields, that the shed from Norman's manga really exists, that Deputy Shelby wasn't kidding when he said the citizens of White Pines were Hammurabi code devotees, and that Norman kind of sucks at killing his brother.

This week's episode begins with Dylan having a rather awkward Travis Bickle moment.  No, I shouldn't put the gun down the front of my pants, Dylan decides. Though we're not sure if it's because he wants to keep the gun hidden or because he doesn't want to accidentally shoot his bits off.

"Good morning Mr and Mrs Bates," Dylan greets Norma and Norman at the breakfast table.

Emma gives Norman some bullet points by his locker: a) being chased by men with guns kept her up all night and b) she feels guilty, which Norman doesn't understand because they didn't try to steal any of the pot.  Oh, she feels guilty about using the dead girl as a way to spend more time with Norman.  If only she knew, right?

Norman freaks out on Emma when he thinks she's thinks he's the one obsessed with the book.  And he is.  He imagines his teacher in her leather skirt tied up and passes out.

At the hospital the doctor tries to establish a history.  Has Norman had blackouts before?  "Why would you ask me that?" Norma asks defensively.  She denies it and we're not meant to believe her.  Not at all.

Dylan's got himself a kush-y new job.  $300 a day to "hang out"?  They can even sleep in shifts if they want.  There's $5 million worth of weed in the pot field.

Norman's watching an old movie in the hospital when Norma gets a call about the carpet.  Norma's so distracted she doesn't notice her nemesis for Norman's affections pass her in the hall.  Bradley regifts Norman with what looks like the same potted plant he brought her in the last episode.

"Death is awkward," Bradley tells Norman.  They bond over dead dads and share Norman's twin hospital bed.  Bradley just wants to be happy.

Meanwhile Norma's having an all around shitty day.  Norman's in the hospital, the carpet delivery isn't right, and Sheriff Romero is back with a search warrant.  Norma leaves the scene to check Norman out of the hospital.  As Norma gripes about the inconvenience, Norman looks worried.  Back at home he looks under the bed, finds the belt missing, and cries, "What's wrong with me?"

Norman goes downstairs to tell mother the bad news.  "Why would you want to keep such a thing?" 

Cries At Strip Clubs and Dylan have a gossip back at the pot field.  It's what keeps the town alive, CASC tells Dylan.  Then they go pheasant hunting.

Emma is like a dog with a bone.  Her and Norman examine the pipes in Room 4 and find a Chinese character under the sink.

Norma is really out of her depth with Deputy Shelby.  She thinks Sheriff Romero is the enemy, but after a chat she figures out that Shelby knows what happened and accepts his invitation to dinner so they can talk.  Turns out he has the belt and didn't tell the sheriff about it.  Everything is going to be fine, he's going to protect her, Shelby assures Norma. 

Dylan and CASC are BBQ'ing some pheasant and having a chat.  CASC laughs when Dylan says he doesn't know where his mother is from and admits he isn't close to his half brother.  He goes home and gives Norman some brotherly advice.  Turns out Dr Dylan just thinks Norman needs some perspective.  Norman doesn't remember going after Dylan with the meat tenderizer.

"Sorry I tried to kill you," Norman says.

"It's cool," Dylan tells him.

When Norma finally comes home from humping her way into the deputy's good graces she tells Norman not to worry.  The deputy will protect them.  She asks again why he would keep something like that, what he calls "mementos".  Norma tells him you keep mementos of good times, but not your mother's sexual assault in the same way a mother might explain to a 5 year old why they shouldn't eat glue or steal another kid's toy.

Emma and Yahoo Answers have identified the Chinese character on the bottom of the sink - it's the Chinese character for beautiful.

Emma wants to go the police, and Norman freaks out.  "She's still going to be dead, you're still going to be sick, and I'm still going to be who I am."

Later on Norman tells his mother he knows something is wrong with him and she tells him he knows what he needs to do, so the deputy can't control them and force them to do things they don't want to do.  Only thing is, mother isn't really there.

He breaks into the deputy's house, gets attacked by Deputy Fido, and goes down into the basement.

The deputy is keeping some pretty scary secrets.  There's some lights he stole from a rollerskating rink, a bed, and a camera set up.  Behind another door Norman finds a nearly comatose Chinese girl.  She has the same character from under the sink on a pendant around her neck.

Worth noting:

Norma worries about her business before she worries about her boy.  It's always in this order. 

Norma picked the wrong man again.  Sure Sheriff Romero was after her about Summers, but she's aligned herself with another sicko.

The implication this week is that Norman's already going into his "fugue" states and doing things he doesn't remember.  Attacking Dylan, seeing a mother that isn't there, breaking into the deputy's house.

I didn't catch the old film references in this week's episode, did you?

What if Norma didn't kill Norman's father, but Norman did to stop him "from making them do things they didn't want to do"?  I really don't like this idea, but what would be interesting is if Norman's imagined late night visit from mother is based on other real late night visits, and that Norman has been talked into protecting mother before.

We now know that of the 4 Chinese girls talked about in the book, 1 is dead and 1 is in the deputy's basement.  Where are the other two?  Who do you think has them?

And what else is the deputy keeping from the sheriff?

Here's the promo clip for next week's episode, which raises more questions.  Does Norma not want to admit she's slept with a *cough* psycho?  What did Norma do that is enough to get Norman taken away from her?  What else does Dylan know?  The promo clip says you can download "her" book to get the back story of the girl in Shelby's basement and the pic for the link says "Jao's Sketchbook" right on it.  You can download it via iTunes here.  It's pretty interesting and has links to translate the Chinese writing as well.

What do you think is really going on in White Pines?  And how many people do you think Norman has killed already?  Or Norma for that matter? 

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