Grumpy days, grumpy days...

I walked by a dead rat on the street yesterday, which basically sums up my entire week.

( Whinging )

To stop complaining about everything, here is Happy List #5462

1. I have jeans with sparkly things down the sides, and they are cute and sparkly and flare!

2. Finding that I actually really like Have His Carcase so far after reading 2 1/2 Sayers books and failing miserably at liking them.

3. Frog socks! I'm sure it's been on the list before, but they still make me happy.

4. Saiyuki Gaiden reincarnation fic from edonohana! Actually, it more broke my heart than made me happy. But in a good way.

5. I help paint a house tomorrow! I am strangely intrigued by this, given that I never did much house-fix-it type stuff as a kid.

6. I spilled a little Shanghai on myself this morning when putting it on, so I can still smell the lovely lemongrass-tea-honeysuckle-ness of it now.

7. I finished my first crochet piece of clothing! It is beautiful! I am also too lazy to weave in all the ends, but oh well.

8. I think I shall go to Michael's today to buy yarn for sophia_helix and to get myself crochet thread to start a new project! Whoo!

What's made you happy lately?

Capote (2006)

I haven't read In Cold Blood, and I really don't know much about Truman Capote at all.

I didn't expect to adore the movie; my co-workers and I occasionally go out to catch a movie, and I think everyone just wanted to go and didn't focus too much on what we were going to see.

But it just had me thinking about the sometimes narrow line between fiction and non-fiction and the role of the writer. I always used to be amused by the fact that everyone in Avonlea was horrified by writers (who knew what they would be taking from your life!), and of course, LM Montgomery is gentle about it. Only here, with Capote, the writer really is a horrifying figure (in the movie! I am not generalizing to all writers).

He does feel something for the killer, I've no doubt of that. But there's so much self-interest in there, so much contradiction. He wants and needs them to die so he can finish his book, even though he likes Perry. He wants to respect Perry's boundaries and not ask about the murder, but he needs it for his book. He lies about the title and how it reflects on the killers. It's so unclear how much is friendship and how much is self-interest; the movie rightly never tries to answer. People are hypocrites, Capote is a hypocrite, but he's also human, and he does hurt.

But Perry is hurt more, and Capote knows that as well.

Of course, even outside of the questionable ethics about using people's lives as fodder for non-fiction, particularly within the realm of friendship, there's the disturbing fact that Capote (and the movie audience) is much closer to the killer than to those killed. He seems to know Perry inside-out, though even that is cast into doubt in the end, but the family is relegated to flashback and still bodies splashed with blood.

I don't really have any conclusions or arguments, but am just thinking over it.