Sortie : 2 Juillet 2009

Lancement : 90 000 exemplaires (30K PS3, 30K X360, 30K PC)

Prix public conseillé : 70€

Plan média : Mini-jeux sur Internet. A partir de Juin (sortie démo), communication sur Internet et presse spécialisée. Partenariat avec Allociné. Côté trade, des versions spéciales du jeu pour certaines enseignes de distribution comprenant des éléments de jeu bonus.

Source : JDLI, Juin 2009

I’m finished my polyphonic piece, now all that’s left to do is run my lines for the reading on Wednesday. And I’m nervous. Not about the presentation—but about my topic. So what’s my response to fear? Why, research, of course! How do you present queer writing to a straight audience? And an unsuspecting one, at that? So I typed in “presenting queer writing to an unsuspecting straight audience”. Nothing.

I told my girlfriend I wasn’t going to present, that I was planning to skip the last couple of days of class. But I changed my mind. I’ve got a lot more confidence in my piece now. But it still means speaking about something deeply personal, not to mention coming out explicitly to my whole class, in which I don’t think there is another queer person. Not that many of them don’t probably know all ready. I look queer. But still, there’s a big difference between the surface of my looks and what I’ve written about.

But I’ve decided to go for it whole hog, and I’ve included the most explicit parts.

This is in part because of something Ivan E Coyote wrote.

 “Rico…” I whispered, “I think we’re gonna have to change up our set a little. I think maybe we need to drop the Francis story and do the fishing story instead.”

The Francis story is a tale about a little boy who liked to wear dresses. I thought maybe a less faggy, more fishing-oriented piece might go over a little better with this crowd.

Richard took a breath and gave me his I-am-about-to-tell-you-something-for-your-own-good look.

“First of all,” he began, “the truck is parked right backstage. Second, artists are always allowed to talk about shit that other people would get punched out for bringing up, remember? It’s part of the deal.”

I nodded, because this was true. Richard inhaled again, obviously not finished yet.

“But most important of all is, don’t be a chickenshit, Coyote. Have some balls. What, you only going to tell that story to people who don’t need to hear it?”

Part of what has changed in me is my willingness to go for new experiences. I’m going to do it because otherwise I’d be missing out. My prof likes my poetry. She’s excited about it. She said I was the voice of the new “queer urban artist’s class”. I think that’s rediculous. But the experiences that I’ve written about and explored in this piece have been central in finding the voice that comes out in my poetry. It has also become one of the stronger prose pieces I’ve written, so why wouldn’t I want to share my success?

I said in my journal for the piece I’ll be presenting from that, if I had the choice, I wouldn’t have written about becoming butch. For one, it’s a very personal thing, and it’s still occurring. There are some bits in the piece that I don’t really identify with any more, and I only wrote them about a month ago. But I took the risk, I shared. I also didn’t want to write it because I’ve been reading so much queer writing—blogs, articles, books, papers, clips on YouTube—and mine just seems so… ordinary. Like my type of story has been told before, even if no one’s story is quite like mine. But I didn’t have a choice. This thing has been eating me alive. It’s all I can write about at any length. I must have thirty single-spaced pages written on it. And that’s a conservative estimate. But also, I’m glad I did it. Like I said, there’s stuff that I don’t identify with anymore. It’s like a record of my experience at this moment in time. I think I’ll be glad to have this when I’m 40 and I’ve been out for half my life and it’s all old hat and I’m settled and comfortable. When I don’t remember crawling in my skin or how scared I was to come out.

I’ve also been inspired by the spirit of National Coming Out Day, and the value of making yourself visible so that it becomes harder to discriminate. Not to mention, I feel there’s a ghettoization of queer writing, and it’s certainly something I’ve internalized. I mean, I didn’t want to present. Because it’s something queer, and, honestly, I think it’s something that will make my classmates uncomfortable, that it’s something they won’t want to hear about. I will be completely shocked, utterly agog, if anyone presents anything similar to mine.

I’m starting to get excited now. I want that shock effect, but I want them to see quality in my writing too, and to hear a story that’s maybe a little different from the queer narratives that they’ve been exposed to before. But I’m making a lot of assumptions about my audience, I suppose, because they won’t be self-selecting like other potential straight audiences who might attend queer readings. I have no idea if they’ll understand.

I gotta wonder how someone like Ivan feels about being consistently categorized as a “queer” writer. I wonder, does that bother Ivan? Getting invited mostly to gay pride events, or queer lit festivals? Because they’re a serious talent, both as a writer and a storyteller. I mean, I know this, but I found Ivan because they’re queer. How many people are listening to this amazing author for their talent rather than their gender or sexual orientation?

I’m waiting for the time, which may or may not come, where people can talk about a unique experience to them, like being gay, or genderqueer or whatever, when , if someone writes about a queer character, realistically or not, it doesn’t become the focus of straight reviewers and queer arguments, when writing does not get ghettoized into the “queer lit” section, or when queer literature is no longer in the ghetto; straight people will be checking that shelf out for the best, smartest, most challenging writing being produced.

But until that happens, I have the responsibility of speaking out. So, my plan is to go in looking as queer as a three dollar bill, and handsome as hell. I’m gonna present with confidence and pizzaz, and everyone is going to think it’s fantastic. I’m gonna knock ‘em dead.

Don’t be a chickenshit. I’m going to tell my story to people who need to hear it.

Wealth planning: what an odd phrase. How can you plan for wealth? It seems to be something that just comes to you or you were born with, right? On the contrary, wealth planning can be something used by you or any other person in order to achieve financial freedom.
Naturally, it is true that there are some individuals who are born into wealth, and there are only a few exceptional individuals who have made their way to the top. While those are both true, it is also that if one uses proper wealth planning, they are able to set the path for a more prosperous future.
There are three people that are wroth thinking about when examining your possibility of achieving financial freedom. Those people are Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, and Steve Jobs. If you go into the background of these three, you will find that they all share three acquired that have guided them on their road to financial success. Those three qualities are as follows: vision, passion, and persistence.
The first thing you need, of course, when starting your wealth planning is vision. It is defining what wealth is for you, it is defining your goal, it is discovering what you want in your life, and it is analyzing what standard of living would suit you. Once you have finally clarified your goals, you are then able to set your sites and use your following tools to get on your own track towards your financial freedom.
Next you need to get working. While wealth planning is something that is appealing to everyone, it requires those with a strong drive and the willingness to continue the wealth planning process for the rest of your life. This is the time in which you decide where your true passion lies. If you don’t have passion in what you’re doing, success will be very difficult to achieve, and even more difficult to continue to pursue for the rest of your life.
Finally, be positive and persistent. Wealth planning is not a linear process. You will inevitably face setbacks. But if you face them with a positive attitude”and if you stay true to your vision”your wealth planning is bound to pay off.

Clearly, strategic planning is no panacea. Strategic planning is simply a set of concepts, procedures, and tools designed to help leaders, managers, and planners think and act strategically. Used in wise and skillful ways by a “coalition of the willing,” strategic planning can help organizations focus on producing effective decisions and actions that further the organization’s mission, meet in mandates, and satisfy key stakeholders. But strategic planning is not a substitute for strategic thinking and acting. Only caring and committed people can do that. And when used thoughtlessly, strategic planning can actually drive out precisely the kind of strategic thought and action it is supposed to promote.

Furthermore, strategic planning is not a substitute for leadership. There is simply no substitute for leadership when it comes to using strategic planning to enhance organizational performance. At least some key decision makers and process champions must be committed to the strategic planning process, or any attempts to use it are bound to fail.

In addition, strategic planning is not synonymous with creating an organizational strategy. Organizational strategies have numerous sources, both planned and unplanned. Strategic planning is likely to result in statement of organizational intentions, but what is realized in practice will be some combination of what is intended and what emerges along the way. Strategic planning can help organizations develop and implement effective strategies, but they should also remain open to unforeseen opportunities. Too much attention to strategic planning and excessive reverence for strategic plans can build organizations to other unplanned and unexpected—yet incredibly useful—sources of information, insight, and action.

The discipline necessary for strategic planning can be of two sorts. The first harkens back to Latin root of the word “discipline,” emphasizing instruction, training, education, and learning. The second embodies later interpretations of the word, emphasizing order, control, and punishment. Emphasis should be placed on education and learning, although there clearly are occasions when imposing order, taking control, and enforcing appropriate sanctions are appropriate. Certainly, key leaders, managers, and planners can best use strategic planning as an educational and learning tool, to help them figure out what is really important and what should be done about it. Sometimes this means following a particular sequence of steps and preparing formal strategic plans, but not necessarily. The ultimate goal of strategic planning should not be a rigid adherence to a particular process or an instance on the production of plans. Instead, strategic planning should promote wise strategic thought and action on behalf of an organization and its key stakeholders. What steps to follow, in what sequence, and whether or not to prepare formal plans are subsidiary concerns.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

I’ve had a pretty steady “love-love” relationship with the filmmakers, Larry and Andy Wachowski. Their first major stab at writing/directing, BOUND, was a magnificent thriller/noir movie that just happened to feature women as both the anti-hero(ine) and the femme fatale. With a great performance from both women (Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, respectively), and the main villain of the piece, Caesar (played by the irascible Joe Pantoliono, who I have followed and loved through his career, in the similar role of the pimp in RISKY BUSINESS, to the sidekick of Tommy Lee Jones’ Federal Marshall in the THE FUGITIVE movies, and finally to his appearance in the Wachowski’s THE MATRIX.), the movie is stylish, sleek and most of all gave us the introduction to these movie-makers that I don’t know if their previous screen-writing venture did, in ASSASSINS.

Of course, then THE MATRIX, and it’s sequels, came along and changed everything. It changed the state of science fiction movies, the way action was done – either earnestly or as satire, and most of all these two men, sparked another filmic universe; that has really been equalled in my eyes by Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino and Alfred Hitchcock. (I’m sure there’s more, but those are the main ones I could think of.) You can tell a movie made by the Wachowski Brothers, from the way certain things are shot, from dialogue (in the Wachowski’s case, there always tends to be the quasi-zen, bullshit philosophy), and a repeating of certain actors. Whether it’s Pantoliono, Hugo Weaving (MATRIX and V FOR VENDETTA), Randall Duk Kim (MATRIX SEQUELS) and now the Korean pop star Rain, who was featured in SPEED RACER and now is the lead in the Wachowski Brothers’ produced, James McTeigue directed (same setup as V FOR VENDETTA, only the Wachowski’s didn’t write this screenplay) NINJA ASSASSIN.

It’s necessary to mention the V FOR VENDETTA setup, because this gives us our second – or third if you count the apparent refilming of the Nicole Kidman movie THE INVASION, which is a remake of  the tried and true idea of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS – look at the directing chops of McTeigue. V FOR VENDETTA also stands out as the Wachowski’s foray into literal adaptation – as their no arguing that their previous movie were “inspired by” other’s works before, V FOR VENDETTA was based off the great graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. The action moved away from the patented Wachowski-inspired look of bullet time, and instead gave us blade lines. A tradition stooped in comic book art, but something that took what had become played out, and added another level to it. V FOR VENDETTA has become my favorite movie of these filmmakers; despite it’s going astray of the comic book’s intentions; and being more vital than their own work in THE MATRIX universe. (It might be said that the sequels lessened the impact or tainted the work of the original, but I just think that VENDETTA is more about trying to create a new world, and THE MATRIX is more about destroying an old one. And there is a fine line, and possibly a non-sensical viewpoint in that opinion.)

Written from an original story by Matthew Sand, and then gone over again by screen-comic book-television writer J. Michael Straczynski, NINJA ASSASSIN sadly lacks some of the finer points that we’ve gotten in the past from the creative minds behind this movie (and oddly, that even includes Strazcynski’s previous Oscar contender, CHANGELING). There’s certainly the action, the stylized violence – that most closely resembles V FOR VENDETTA – and there’s a little of the dialogue that I’ve come to expect (something about how a tattoo reveals not who the man is, but what kind of man he is…Not completely sure), but the storytelling is off. Even without it being a movie with the creative pedigree it has, there’s a fine action movie here, but there’s just something in the incorporation of the woman government agent out of her depth, the needless training montage of our hero in his apartment alone flinging around throwing stars and blades on chains, and even some of the hackneyed plot devices, that makes the movie less than the sum of it’s parts.

The movie only really works in it’s basest form. The action, and fight scenes between good ninja and bad ninja, ninja against military forces, and the numerous training flashbacks showing us this secret clan that kidnaps children turning them into deadly assassins. The opening five minutes of the movie really are kind of the peak of the piece. The top of a man’s head is chopped off, leaving us to see his lower jaw and tongue flopping, before he falls down dead and a flurry of super-speed throwing stars come through and eviscerate an entire gang of incessant, wannabe gangsters. I thought that this was a setup for a movie that would continue to raise the stakes, and take us even further into the world of, well, ninja assassins. Instead we cut from that to two government agents talking about ninjas; played by the ever watchable – both for talent and for looks – Naomie Harris (who you might not recognize from the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies and Michael Mann’s MIAMI VICE retread) and Ben Miles, who was the television secretary for the government, Dascomb, in V FOR VENDETTA. From there we cut to a scene of Raizo (Rain), doing laundry and a vague fight, that we only see a few moments of and then the vague outcome. Then it’s back to the Europol agents, talking. Then Raizo again, in his apartment, training. Needless to say, I understand that the movie can’t be wall-to-wall ninja mayhem, but this really kind of killed the flow of the movie.

Luckily, we then get the insight into where Raizo came from, the harsh conditions he was trained in – and this movie spares no children the brunt of physical violence – and then finally, it seems the inevitable meeting between Harris’ agent, Mika, and Raizo. When we do get our first glimpses of the ninja, momentarily in the opening scene, and then in the attack on Mika; there’s some awesome cinematic and special effects tricks used to show the stealthiness of how the ninjas move and blend into shadows. There’s a touch of fantasy in the way they turn into blurs and seem to move faster than the camera – or eye – can see; how they can materialize out of shadows that shouldn’t be able to contain a human form, and of course the mass amounts of mayhem.

One thing that came to mind as I watched masses of both ninja and military forced being dismembered and shredded to pieces either by bullets or bladed weapons, was the difference in how I felt about the violence; especially in contrast to say 2012, where we’re basically treated to the obliteration of the human (and I’d dare say all life’s) population. In that movie it was really disconcerting to see all this destruction on a screen (rated PG-13, nonetheless), and the main point of view we followed was the near hijinks of a few – argumentatively undeserving – souls, outrunning earthquakes, falling skyscrapers and big wave surfing aircraft carriers. In NINJA ASSASSIN, we see every person that dies, on-screen, or we see the results of this violence in the form of (barely) survivors being carried away from the battlefield.  It was a strange feeling, and I’m not entirely sure what, or how I feel about it.

But, NINJA ASSASSIN is worth seeing if you love ninjas, oceans of blood and body parts; but if you’re looking for a real story – even one as ham-handed as the Wachowskis can be – probably better to pop in that V FOR VENDETTA dvd again, instead. It’s a far more rewarding experience.

**And as much as one of my favorite moments in the trailer is the ninja being run over by the car, at the end, that whole scene is just ridiculous to think that ninjas wouldn’t think of a better way of catching their prey, than by running through the streets of a major city. Just seemed silly.

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Free Stock Photos: Old Japanese book from meiji period with chopsticks and Japanese maple leaf.

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We are all bound by the laws of time and space.

Well, at least the physical body (hence the root word of physical).

The soul is free after death. At least, I think it is.

A watch and a black wristband would be the best symbols for anyone who conforms to this philosophy. Maybe. We are all confined by time, and by space. The day I take them off (aside from occasions where they might get dirty, or are being replaced) will be the day I die, or when someone figures out how to break the laws of physics.

In fact, I actually enjoy being trapped by the chains of physical laws.

Now, something else.

The end of all existence would be something like what Bleedman (or rather, one of his modified characters) has said in his comic, Grim TaleFrom Down Under. I don’t remember the exact wording, but the Demonreaper, a creature who feeds on souls, will devour every soul on a plane, transfer to the next plane, and continue until there are no more planes- then starve to death.

I would like to derive my- the- definition of end of existence from that.

Every existence is like a ripple in a pool- influencing other ripples, and being influenced by other ripples.

What if every single existence became one- just one object? Volume doesn’t matter, as long as it’s made of the same stuff.

There would be nothing to influence- nothing to be influenced by.

The true end of existence does not destroy. If my physics knowledge is correct, entropy will do this eventually. I’ll type up details some other time, as I cannot keep using this computer.

-Oh, and I hate Ayn Rand.

Jonathan Ferxist

Baptized in – the blackest blood
Teufelsnacht – burn in hell
Resurrection – in splendour
Das Szepter der Lende – steht steif empor

Sathans witched – have gathered
Bound to flesh – erection
Flames so high – of desire
Relinquish my seed – through torment

Fuck you, u fucking whore…

Hail the new flesh
Auf den Schwingen des Todes
Demonic domination
Der Heiligenschein, zerfetzt

[Lead: Helmuth]

Temptation – so pure
Der dunkle Tanz – der Endzeit
Copulating – phallus fire
Straguliert, gepeitscht – erregt

Sathans witched – have gathered
Bound to flesh – erection
Flams so high – of desire
Relinquish my seed – through torment

Fuck you, u fucking slut – fuck you…

The much anticipated release of DOCS Bondage Thriller is coming out soon, here is the first few snap shots from the film, stay tuned for the official release date.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 4 Episode 9 – Bound?

Episode Synopsis:

Lex gets wrapped up in a sex/murder scandal. Clark gets Lionel’s help to get Lex out of trouble. Lana meets Jason’s mother, whom she has seen before in a dream, which was set in the 1600’s.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.