Off Week

I'm having an off week--haven't felt like reading, haven't felt like blogging. I've been so off, in fact, that when I took the Myers-Briggs test linked at JenClair's, I manged for the first time in my life not to score as an INTP. Memo to self: don't take personality tests while migraining. I've been migraining a lot this week due to the weather, which probably has a lot to do with why I haven't felt like reading, haven't felt like blogging.

But I did want to mention that there's a stop-motion animation version of The Street of Crocodiles on The Brothers Quay Collection ($70 used at Amazon, but available at Netflix). It's

based on themes and images from Schulz's autobiographical oeuvre, rather than a
direct adaptation of the story itself. The film opens with an old man, a
caretaker of some kind, entering a decrepit room, a museum, perhaps. He
approaches a kinetoscope--one of the first motion picture devices and lets a gob
of spit fall into the machine. This brief introductory scene is filmed in a kind
of pixillated live-action: while an actor and an actual set are employed, there
is a jerkiness to the representation of motion that imparts a sense of unreality
to the scene. The camera then descends into the machine as it stirs to life.
Gears turn, string travels along a vast network of pulleys, and the main
"character" appears, a puppet with a face that is both frightened and sinister.
As this figure explores the surroundings, which resemble the cluttered old shops
and warehouses of Schulz's stories, other figures appear, objects move of their
own accord, and scenes are enacted that make more or less direct reference to
Schulz's writings.

I might watch it at some point after the Slaves of Golconda discussion on January 31. It sounds like just the thing to watch when you have a migraine and feel out of sorts anyway.