Currently Reading and Watching

"Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the d'Urbervilles" by Kim Newman. One of the better spoofs on Sherlock Holmes, with Thomas Hardy as collateral damage. Told from the point of view of the hapless Colonel Sebastian Moran, the gory and sometimes hilarious adventures of the criminal mastermind cleverly reference and parallel the Canon. The inimitable Irene Adler made an appearance and became the woman who is forever referred to by the professor as "that bitch."

"Wanderers" by Knut Hamsun. I can't seem to shake his spell.

Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" is a curious mixture of various subjects: psychosis in youth (possibly the first sign of schizophrenia), dysfunctional but common mother-daughter relationship (more common in Asian than western families), arrested psychosexual development with links to both perfectionism and ballet, sex and art/dance. They are not entirely tied up in a perfect bow but the connections are there. Aronofsky may be suggesting that arrested psychosexual development in beautiful young women is linked to both a distorted, prudish, and obsessive parental point of view, and that the ideals of ballet may unconsciously represent such a parental view in the audience, which conflicts with the inherent sex appeal in the dance/performance aspect. Art is sex, even the somewhat frigid framework of ballet.