FROM THE EMAIL

QM II -- Yukiko writes from Tokyo

Your post about the Queen Mary II (see Jan 15 '04) – I also noted the news, but mainly because of the point that the ship is, as you predicted, already cursed by the gods of the sea -- by deaths of 15 guests including a child/children who were invited last November for a special exhibition. A boarding bridge collapsed suddenly and they fell to their death off it. Maybe by now someone else may have told you this. I couldn't believe people were in a party mode so innocently at a place where 15 people died only a few months ago. But then again, the idea of the respect to the dead may be different in Japan from the West - the Japanese government STILL sends a ship every
year to Iwo Jima in order to collect bones of the dead soldiers and residents.

Or perhaps it's just the very rich in the West who have no respect.

RETRO FASCIST COOL & VAMPIRES -- From Henry Cabot Beck

There's a movie due this June called Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and the spectacular trailer lifts its imagery wholesale from the Superman Fleischer cartoons. Turns out the director's mother ( I think) was on staff at Fleischer at the time, and helped design the stuff. Takes place in 1937--retro-futurism. Angeline Jolie (small part), Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. And if you really want to get your kicks, check out the trailer for Van Helsing, starring beautiful vampires, vile, snarling werewolves, and the Frankenstein monster. Can't vouch for either picture, but the trailers are just fucking brilliant. Links follow...

http://www.skycaptain.com/home.html

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/van_helsing/large.html