The Top 5 K-pop Songs of 2009

I haven't had time to watch or listen to some of the most acclaimed films/albums of 2009, but what I have been able to do is get bombarded throughout the year by every hot Korean pop single without even trying. They're inescapable, ubiquitous. They follow me wherever I go: to the convenience to buy beer, smokes, and condoms (in that order!); when I'm out shopping; when Kmart and I are consuming a thieves' ransom -- avec 소주, 맥주, and the alcohol Voltron that is 소맥 --in fusion-food gastroforbestestinal glory; when I turn on the radio in a stolen car.

You learn to accept it. Sometimes, you learn to like it, and not in an ironic way. Just as there are five stages of culture shock, so too are there five steps to K-pop inundation: 1) That's so awful? Who listens to that?, 2) The girl in the middle is kinda cute, though, 3) [Googling for images of Lee Hyori], 4) Yeah, it's garbage, but whuddaryagonnado?, and 5) You know what, this is actually pretty good!.

Keep that in mind while we reminisce over the year that was, the soundtrack of (y)our lives:

(Also keep in mind that, while this list is chock full of girl groups, it's a sign of the times rather than Spakros perving out. Really. I could listen to these tracks without the videos, although I won't say I dislike them. No, I won't say that.)

5): Kara, "Mister"



4): Clazziquai, "Love Again"



3) Brown Eyed Girls, "Abracadabra"



2) SNSD, "Gee"



1) SNSD, "Genie (Tell Me Your Wish)"

The Hurt Locker -- Review

Pro or anti, what the hell difference does it make to the guy who gets his ass shot off? -- Sam Fuller

Pro or anti, I suppose Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is a war movie in the same way Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous is a musical or Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights is a porno. Set in Iraq in 2004*, a series of intense vignettes -- with almost no plot save for a countdown until the company's rotation -- depict the insanely dangerous missions of the three men of Bravo Company, a bomb-disposal unit.

Sounds like a war movie, doesn't it? But what Bigelow has done instead is craft an incredibly authentic allegory about addiction**, using the Iraq War as her backdrop.

The film opens with war correspondent Chris Hedges's quote that "war is a drug," and it certainly is for Sergeant First Class William James, played wonderfully by Jeremy Renner. James joins Bravo Company early in the film, and at first he appears to be a nice enough addition the unit; it doesn't take long, however, for his comrades in arms to realize just how reckless James can be. Undeniably skilled, yes, yet nevertheless reckless. Unlike other professions, bomb disposal doesn't allow for do-overs. Not only does James risk his own life, he risks those of fellow unit members Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie, Papa Doc from 8 Mile) and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). Is it really surprising, then, that when an opportunity presents itself Sanborn and Eldridge contemplate murdering him?

Explosives disposal is James's drug. He gets off on it. We see the almost sexual lust the danger provides him, like a junkie getting a fix. And while James revels in the Nirvana of his exploits, for the viewer the level of suspense raised during each mission is positively Hitchcockian. There's a reveal early in the film that is as goose bump-inducing as anything in modern horror.

Of course, with addiction comes abuse. James's craving might ultimately get himself killed, but before that comes a decline in mental function. There are only so many hits for a junkie, only so many drinks for an alcoholic. Eventually, substance abuse catches up with its abuser, and for William James this current deployment may be where the seams start to unravel. James is a high-fuctioning addict when he joins Bravo Company -- with fewer than than a couple of weeks left before rotation, not so much.

Credit Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal for making a film about substance abuse that is never heavy-handed or trite. Yes, The Hurt Locker reveals its hand at the beginning, but it isn't until late in the film that we understand just how literal Hedges's quote is and how it resonates when applied to William James. The slasher genre is often maligned for relying on tropes and having a lack of fresh ideas, but war films can be equally cliched, the difference being that instead of imaginatively created new breeds of killers/forms of onscreen murder, all a war movie needs to invigorate the genre is a new war, the more authentic the better.

Good thing The Hurt Locker isn't a war movie, pro or anti***.

4/4 *_*


* Two anachronisms in the film: neither YouTube nor the Xbox 360 was around then.

** Vive alliteration!

*** What it is is possibly 2009's best film. I can't decide yet whether it or Inglourious Basterds (also a war-movie-that-isn't-a-war-movie) ranks at the top of the films I've watched this year. I haven't seen a lot of possible contenders (although I plan to), but for shits and giggles here's Herr Spakros's list of the best five films he's seen this year:

Honorable Mentions: Paranormal Activity, The Hangover

5) Up (a sublimely imaginative story Johnny marred only by its too-brief third act and an unconvincing villain)

4) District 9 (I will protest by drinking a two-liter bottle of soju and eating a Blue Russian cat if Sharlto Copely isn't given a Best Actor Oscar nod)

3) Watchmen: Director's Cut (my favorite movie of the year)

Tie for now: Inglourious Basterds (extreme tension by way of humans disposing humans, the payoff in the series of buildups before the carnage, save for its climax) and The Hurt Locker (extreme tension by way of humans disposing bombs set by other humans and a truly great analogy for the rush that comes from narrowly skirting death)

The PK 27 -- Game No. 16

Title

Seiken Densetsu 3 aka Secret of Mana 2 (as dubbed by fans)

Console

Super Famicom

Release Date

September, 1995 (Japan only)

Publisher

Square Co.

Genre

Action role-playing game

Why It Made the List

     Back in the autumn of 1993, Square released Secret of Mana with considerable fanfare, and for good reason; the game was, by all accounts, the epitome of digital excellence. At heart the story of a boy, a girl, and a magical midget, Square's title was the stuff dreams are made of  -sure, one could argue that anything with magical midgets basically develops itself, but whatever- and, furthermore, it satiated gamers' collective desire for something akin to The Legend of Zelda in form, except that in the case of Secret of Mana, the legend itself was challenged by incredible graphics, seductively engaging musical numbers, compelling storyline, and an intrinsically likable cast of cartoonish characters.

   Beyond that, you should also know that the game supported up to three players; and let me tell you, the first time I played through the game was in the company of two friends. Basically, we were (give or take a few hours) a sorry but diligent fellowship dedicated to destroying the Dark Lich and his cronies, and to this day I have fond memories of our trials, tribulations, and taco breaks. More than the technical and artistic merits of the game, it was the potential for comradery that affixed me to the Secret of Mana, and like all sensory-deprived children, I eagerly awaited what I had assumed to be the inevitable sequel, as it was far too popular a game to get left behind in the mire of mediocre Super Nintendo products, right?*

Right?


   Wrong. Seiken Densetsu 3 never saw the light of day outside of the Land of the Rising Sun for reason of...Well...There's never been, to my knowledge, a definitive answer given to that enigma. Some have blamed it upon programming quirks (also known as glitches) so glaring as to be far too time-consuming to remedy to warrant release to the world at large, while others attribute the project's abortion to an understaffed localization crew. Yet another hypothesis is that the nearly-simultaneous development (and subsequently underwhelming release) of Squaresoft's Secret of Evermore took precious resources away from the SD3 project or, in a slightly more acidic vein, that Squaresoft was rather bitter regarding the lukewarm response to Evermore and opted to 'punish' gamers by abandoning SD3. Rumors have persisted for years; I'm scarcely the one to put them to rest, suffice it to say that Seiken Densetsu 3 has never been officially released in English (or any second language, for that matter), ostensibly limiting it to those for whom Japanese is easily understood.

   Seiken Densetsu 3 has yet to be released in licensed fashion, but the story doesn't end there. At the turn of the millennium, a team of dedicated fans pooled their resources for the explicit purpose of making the game available to a much wider audience than ever before, and that's how we've arrived at where we are now.

   The game's on the list because it's amazingly fun and that it could -by all rights**- have remained nothing more than a sore spot within many-a-manchild's memory.





* Yeah, 'cause there's never been any manner of disappointment involving Nintendo. Never ever.

** Your mother's got nothing on the saucy bitch entitled Legality.

Piano

Open the door, wax the whistle. There are pies on sale here; peaches, too. Hungarian women in pink lingerie. Mulch. Cold sores. I wrote a map to Heaven on the back of a Bennegan's napkin. Pat can't say jack shit. Kids need to be taught that sometimes pickled olives have pits instead of pimentos, lest they break their teeth. Bring it to a boil. Knives with rubber handles are easily utilized, scissors with plastic ones not so much. Means. Ends. Little pills in a tiny translucent envelope. A gorilla eating custard. Foam. Curtis, you have sand in your ears. Fat gray hippos landing on airstrips. Wheat stalks as far as the eye can see, black clouds hovering like predatory ghosts. An ingrown eyelash. Test patterns from the Eastern Bloc. Golfing atop the Sears Tower! Cuttlefish. Boogers. Time comes, every life has a climax. Slowly; slower, please. Take this tie off me. You're going to enjoy a painful death, avec bacon. Push me, shake me, thrash me, throw me. There are two beady green lights in the dark office across the way, the eyes of a modem or an alien. Frosting. I knew a guy who thought he was joining a book club and ended up recruited into a cult. There is no destiny in Pac-Man. Leather goods for sale. Did you really sleep with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Lost, found, lost again. "The Last Time" sampled by gargoyles. You put on your sunglasses now, kiddo. Hello, James, your violin died yesterday. We are in space, surrounded by hostile elements: jagged chunks of asteroid matter, blue tubes of acid. When I wake up there better be a bowl of granola at the table. Fuck, no more cans of hairspray. Carrot. Try to pretend like you're having fun, Eugene. Chapped lips. Carp. A boat motor coughs its last breath. Put on your peonies and let's play some dodgeball. The prettier you get the uglier I get. The vacuum cleaner is broken. If you touch my bowling ball one more time I'll stab you in the belly button with this fork. Reggae. The grass is slick from the morning dew, framing Geoffry Andrews's corpse in a limp funeral of seasonal ambivalence. Waking up on winter mornings, when my ankles crack they sound like a beetle's exoskeleton snapping in half.

Spirits, Seasons

Happy Life Day, Constant Retards.

Pandora

Little nine-year-old Iggy Pierce wakes up at close to a quarter of four, only a few hours after he fell asleep while reading the second chapter of his Madeleine L'Engel book, the one that begins, "It was a dark and stormy night," the one present he was allowed to open on Christmas Eve.

The rest would have to wait until morning, his mother said. Tradition, she said, and Iggy knew it well. The Pierces spoiled their two sons, partly out of affection but mostly to keep up with the yuppie Joneses among whom they lived, who similarly heaped small mountains of gifts beneath and around the Christmas tree, mountains which appeared to double in size come the morning of December twenty-fifth, after Père Noël had deposited his usually wished-for -- or in rare cases unwanted -- cache of presents sometime in the night before slinking away like a benevolent phantom and leaving only trace cookie crumbs and half-drunk glasses of milk as testament to his visit.

This is unbearable to Iggy, an annual test of will. He knows he's not alone in his torment, that millions of children feel likewise. There's homework, trips to the dentist, waking up early on Sundays to sit through boring church sermons, department store shopping with his mother, long car rides cross country to see his grandparents; in all, a lot of waiting and a lot of unpleasant tasks. There's a pot of gold at the end of this particular rainbow, Iggy knows, but still it's unfair. He understands, has been told by his parents, teachers, and MTV, that there are kids in Ethiopia and other places who don't get Christmas presents because it's too hot or too far away for Santa to go there, kids who go days without food or water even, and he feels bad for them, he does, but he's only nine, and he's grown accustomed to the way things are here in Moncton, New Brunswick, not so far from the North Pole, not too far for privilege.

Mostly it's his heart beat. Rapid, excited. The butterflies in his stomach, too. Minus the cottonmouth, he feels physically the same way he does whenever he has to make a speech at the front Mrs. Meyer's third-grade classroom, the same way he feels when he's sent to the principal's office or his bedroom and awaiting a scolding (Principal York) or a spanking (Steven Pierce). This is how Iggy understands irony.

His mind is likewise jumpy. Fidgety. Darting from one unfinished thought to the next like an obese lady hastily taking bites from every foodstuff on a buffet table. He speculates. He tries to stop speculating, but the attempt is folly, like wishing water into wine. It's a miracle that he was able to fall asleep, really. An aberration.

Iggy Pierce is going to go downstairs, to see his gift-wrapped bounty, but first he has to pee. He stands, waits, shivers, then shakes, mindful not to flush so as to avoid waking his snoring parents or the ghosts of his forebears who occupy the attic above which creaks and moans on hot summer nights and icy winter ones alike. The first mission of his campaign completed, he sneaks downstairs and into the dark living room where the Christmas tree stands and his treasure awaits like an undiscovered ore of childhood lust, the Christmas lights adorning the bushes outside his sole source of illumination to guide him.

He checks his stocking first, a fat sock full of sugary, chocolatey allure. Greedily, he eats two Ferrero Rocher and a giant Toblerone triangle the size of his palm. He thumbs through a book of crossword puzzles and opens a Life Savers Christmas Book to espy its riches. Butterscotch. Beautiful. When the stocking's contents are stuffed for the second time today into its wool casing, it resembles the gangrenous limb of a wounded man, bulging at the top and skinny at the bottom.

Iggy Pierce's eyes then feast upon the prodigious mound of gifts stacked neatly to the left side of the tree, a magical ejaculation of boxes from the beige carpet, a pyramid of fulfilled wishes that resembles the tree in its tiered conicity. Here and there are cards fastened by Scotch Tape that he'll read begrudgingly, "out of tradition," prompted by the dictators of a falling regime.

At first light, Iggy sets to work. Like his father, he can't wrap a present worth a damn, and he knows that opening each one -- quietly and carefully picking at myriad applications of tape like a grunt in a bomb disposal unit -- to reveal its hidden joy will hence result in a feeble attempt to rewrap it, but he doesn't care. His plan is to open them again in a few hours' time fast, before his folks can see the crumpled mess of piss-poor repackaging beneath each. This makes perfect sense to the smart boy.

The first gift he opens spoils the surprise of the one three levels beneath it, but Iggy is far from upset at the revelation. It's a video game cartridge, Kung Fu, for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The second is a Transformer, the one that turns into a gun but not Megatron, the guy who's stationed on Cybertron, the one with the cyclopean eye. This is turning out to be the best day of Iggy Pierce's young existence.

A box three feet long in width and four in length is the foundation of Mount Iggy, and this is to where the lad next turns his attention. Because it's big. The biggest. That doesn't always pay off, he knows; there might be a knitted sweater and a pair of ugly slacks inside, but in life young and old size hints at grandeur. The promise of expansive greatness.

This time, Iggy rips the gift open top-wise, consequences be damned. There's something in that box akin to enlightenment, he feverishly believes, an unseen blessing of beauty, a map to Heaven, perhaps.

Beneath sheer gift paper, coiled like an extension cord, is an angry serpent. A king cobra. It welcomes its liberator no more warmly than it would its captor, lunging at Iggy's wrist and biting hard. The boy recoils in pain and terror and dumbfound indignity, clutching his wrist and holding it to his breast in an expression almost resembling pride, not pain. The snake crooks its caped head over the box then slithers to the carpeted floor like oil poured onto water. It studies its offender then strikes.

Nutshell

Terra Damnata

"Hello, friend," Wesley Kerr spoke to the moon above, a pockmarked fat circle haloed in blurry mist. "Thought I might sit out here tonight, hold palaver with you while I eat these few remaining rations."

He produced a flattened candy bar, still in its wrapper, from his parka's inner breast pocket. A small carton of chocolate milk was placed between legs akimbo. With numb fingers he opened the carton first then the candy bar wrapper, placing the cracked chocolate oblong widthwise over the carton's gaping mouth before saying a prayer to his deaf-mute god. His lips moved spasmodically, near imperceptibly, like those of a man speaking in dreams, and to an observer only the crisp, sputtering whiteness of his breath revealed any effort at sonorousness.

That futile task completed, he reduced the candy bar by half in a single bite. He gulped down the chocolate milk and prodded his molars for remaining bits of peanut and nougat with his tongue. His appetite ambivalent, he tossed the rest of the candy bar aside, where it landed on the pavement like a skipping stone on a frozen lake.

"Know I'm gonna do it," he said to the bleached satellite. "Knew it for a long time. Fixing up the courage used to be the obstacle. 'Courage' isn't the right word, I guess, 'cowardice' is more like it, but from where I sit both are pretty near the same."

"S'funny, actually. When I was a kid I used to imagine living in a world all by myself, one where I could go to the mall and take any damn toy from Toys 'R' Us I pleased. Such a shame that when fantasy became reality I wasn't interested in toys no more. I suppose that's what they call irony."

The moon is patient in the sky, listening to Wesley Kerr's sermon.

"I read Robinson Crusoe when I was in grade school. Jack London's 'To Build a Fire' when I was in my senior year. Fantastic fucking stories of survival, they are, even if the guy in 'To Build a Fire' dies eventually, though not by lack of trying. That knowledge didn't help a lick when all the power went out and the water got poisoned, however. Wish someone woulda wrote a manual about how to survive this mess is what I'm saying. Wish somebody woulda told me I might someday be Robert Neville without the vampires. Probably other folk out there like me, but I ain't care to look more, done my share of scouting. I'm just a ghost haunting gas stations and convenience stores for water, vittles, and the occasional smut mag is what I am nowadays."

A bird chirps in the woods behind like a loose plucked guitar string.

"Times are hard, sure. The hardest. But it's not all bad. Today I drove a motorboat! Never imagined I'd do that. Never imagined I'd do a lot of things I've done these past two weeks."

"But I gotta tell you, there's not too much fight left in Reggie Kerr's son, no there isn't. My tank is empty, I reckon and acknowledge. Pretty soon I'm going to be the same as these ballooned dummies I see all over, and that's when the horror will stop. Hopefully. I have no business fighting the inevitable any longer. It's not in my DNA. Were I the protagonist in a Tom Clancy book or the leading man in a Hollywood movie I might have the gumption to recreate the world, but I'm not and I can't. I can't even keep myself from sneaking sips of whiskey when I wake up in the middle of the night, cold and desperate. No, what I have planned is easy, fast, and painless, like a trip to the dentist, or so they say..."

The mid-December chill blanketed Wesley Kerr in an arthritic hold. He coughed and shivered. His sneaker-clad feet felt like appendages a world away. He tried wriggling his toes and wasn't surprised by their lack of feedback. His fingers were mostly unresponsive. The Walther in his parka glowed. It's not so hard to pull a gun trigger, even for a man with frost bite. The easiest thing in the world, in fact. That in mind, Wesley closed his eyes and waited for nature or instinct to make its move.

He fell into a hypothermic sleep before either could.

---

"Wake up," a bloated man says.

It's morning and the sky is gray and Wesley is still alive, barely.

"I said wake up," and the man kicks him.

Eyes crusted by sleep or pall of death, Roger Kerr's grandson opens his to a chubby monolith of hope. Here is a man, here is a savior.

"Get up and let's go," the man says. He fishes a crooked cigarette from his jeans pocket and lights it with a gold Zippo.

"Are you real?" Wesley asks, nonplussed.

"I'd ask you the same thing if I didn't already know better."

"Do you have a name?"

"Sure do. Blake Blevin. Now get in the car. But before you do, please take off that stupid hat."

Beyond the Valley of the Dome

[Note: this post contains very mild spoilers (basic plot description and minor character analyses) of Stephen King's Under the Dome.]

I have a suspicion that Stephen King (No. 9 on my GNOAT list*) made a bet with someone, possibly Kristy Swanson, that he could pull off writing an epic novel over a thousand pages in length with a male protagonist named Barbie. If so, King needs to collect on that wager.

There are a ton of characters in King's latest book. The novel is even prefaced by a daunting list of its principal players. But none is more central than Dale Barbara, a.k.a. "Barbie."

And perhaps that's fitting. After all, the concept of the novel is the exact same as The Simpsons Movie: a town is cut off from the outside world by a barrier. Chalk it up to poor timing on King's part (he claims he's never seen The Simpsons Movie, although I'm more than a little dubious that Uncle Stevie never heard about the film's premise). Regardless, the novel's plot is the culmination of years (King wrote 450 pages of a novel with a similar concept, set in an apartment block, titled The Cannibals, before abandoning the manuscript in the mid-80s), a genius for crafting memorable, archetypical characters (only The Simpsons and The Wire can claim such a feat), and an innate, Rod Serlingesque gift for conjuring up what-if scenarios sifted with a light layer of social criticism**. King is a red-blooded sub-genre fanatic to the core, but while artists in other medium such as Beck and Quentin Tarantino receive praise -- as well as their share of detractors, admittedly -- for their influences, Stephen King is more likely than not relegated to airport novelist status by his contemporaries, his champions regarded as peons without the God-ordained talent to spot a shoddy writer. When King was announced to receive the National Book Awards lifetime achievement award in 2003, Harold Bloom called him an "immensely inadequate writer," comparing his work to penny dreadfuls***. Ironically, Harold Bloom has a dog named Spot and a cat named Tabby****.

So Under the Dome's main character is Barbie, a short-order cook honorably discharged from the U.S. Army. Pass Go, collect two-hundred dollars. I'm with you so far, Stevie. The antagonist is James "Big Jim" Rennie, the town's 2nd selectman, a rotund, power-hungry opportunist. If you don't catch the Bush-Cheney, Red State-Blue State conflict in the book's first couple hundred pages, you're pretty much a dumbass, but it won't affect your enjoyment of the novel one bit.

In no way is Under the Dome heavy-handed in its underlying message, however. It's overt, sure, but never does it swerve into parable. The tale is what matters most, in this case. I believe the novel will survive and flourish*****, because all well told stories do, over time; and the greatness of Under the Dome is defined by its characters and not its concept, one which is inherently Kingsian yet for the most part window dressing. There is a supernatural presence that has placed these people beneath a microscope, but you're not concerned with what caused this clusterforbes as much as you are worried about how the town of Chester's Mill will pull through it.

Trust me, while Under the Dome is at times as predictable as peanut butter and strawberry jam******, there are change-ups; characters you have pegged as key players in the "plot*******" might meet a surprising demise, while hitherto unassuming characters might make an unexpected return. And that's fair, because it's anything goes under the Dome********, and in storytelling the storyteller is king. In this case King.

What an awesome novel. Make sure you pick it up. It's available everywhere: bookstores, airports, Mars, Bundang. You won't put it down if you do.

Unless, that is, you're in outer space.

[canned laughter]

And when I say I'm picking my seat, it means I'm scratching my arse. Going to the movies, get it?

Neither do I.


* Now there's a spoiler. And while you're here -- don't worry, the text above isn't going anywhere; sit down and split a can of Welch's Grape with me, how's about? -- I should probably explain that GNOAT (Greatest Novelist of All Time) includes more than a few non-novelists. Heck, I have Shakespeare at No. 1! Let's just say that the list, if or when I ever complete it, isn't exactly objective. If it were, Roger Ebert wouldn't be at No. 11 (more spoilers!). I just thought that GNOAT rolled off the tongue a little better than GWOAT. And I was kinda drunk, kinda in this case meaning my brain was drenched in alcoholic beverages (beer, soju, Calvin Klein's Eternity). Regardless, when everything's said and done, it'll all make sense. You have my solemn word.

** When he's hitting on all cylinders, I mean. The man certainly has his share of dookies in his oeuvre (see: From a Buick 8, The Tommyknockers, the conclusion of The Dark Tower series).

*** Oh shit, Bloom probably hates on Alexandre Dumas, too, No. 6 on the GNOAT list!

**** I made that up. If you're still here -- sipping on your fizzy grape soda -- you probably don't care.

***** HBO has already optioned it for a mini-series. Can't wait to see that fucker. Fan-wank casting: Chris Evans as Barbie, Noble Willingham's resurrected corpse as Jim Rennie (failing that, Thomas F. Wilson), Patrick Wilson as Andy Sanders, Jackie Earle Haley as Chef Bushey, Vin from season six of Hell's Kitchen as Carter Thibodeau, me as Horace the clairvoyant dog...

****** DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT CLIMAX SPOILERS, EVEN THOUGH, WITH KING, YOU KNEW, AS ASSUREDLY AS A CANINE PISSES ON A CARPET, IT WAS COMING: there's an explosion. A big one, perhaps the biggest. I've criticized King's tropes on this blog and face to face with like-minded -- read: constantly retarded -- folks, yet King pulls it off spectacularly. However milquetoast you might compare King's writing from old to new, past to present, he thrusts down the carnage hammer in the book's climax, saving only a chosen few from its wrath. Toward the novel's end, King is an Old Testament God, punishing the wicked and virtuous alike, turning the character of Ollie Dinsmore into his Job.

******* Stephan King plots books like I make life decisions, which is to say that he makes it up on the fly, then goes back to correct his mistakes, if possible.

******** Admittedly, the book's "good guys" get far more shine than its baddies. The chess board pieces are positioned early on, and while some on the dark side are pulled into the ivory, no one from the White crosses over into the Ebony (or the Crimson, in King's world). Please don't call me a racist for that analogy. I'm skirting spoilers like land mines and using chess metaphors like a high school dropout. Go easy.

Wendsday

Wednesday, December 16

Weather: clowdee

A man was in the kitchen this morning. Christie saw him too. She had an earache and wanted to watch cartoons. She woke me up but I was cold and wanted to sleep more. I gave her a shove like the ones daddy does with his friends when football is on and they get excited. Christie didn't like it. She cried. She said the man in the kitchen didn't have any pants. She's such a baby sometimes. Always is more like it.

I like Christie alot but I don't always show it Mom says. She says I will when we get grown and our agediffer doesn't matter. Dad says like a bees knees she will and he laughs. Dad likes to laugh. So do I and so does Mom and little Christie. I love them all alot.

I feel bad right now because Christie was right. There was a man in the kitchen and like Christie said he didn't have any pants. He didn't have a shirt either. He was as naked as the day he was born is what Mom would have said if she saw him. But Mom was pfast asleep. Dad too. Only me and Christie saw him.

He wasn't a bad man. Bad people take things and hurt people. There are alot of bad mans but he wasn'T one of them. He was just hungry. I think he was starving because he ate a whole box of special K and the baskin robbins icecream and the rolls on the table and the butter. He scared Christie, but she doesn't know yet how to trust people. She thinks Grover is scary and he's not. Now that I'm older I know he just was hungry. Maybe his Mom never gave him anything good to eat.

When Christie started crying he ran outside. He looked really sad. I wanted to give him a scarf because he would be so cold outside without pants or a shirt. But he left before I could.

Dad asked me who drank the eggnog when he got up. I said I didn't but Christie did. She poured it down the kitchen sink i said.

When we grow up I'm gonna hug Christie and tell her all the bad things I said don't matter anymore because we're grown up and better people. THat's what big sisters are for!