Mahfouz, del Toro, and resetting the alarm clock

My cultural life is now interrupt-driven. Or, putting it in English less heavily-laden with silicon metaphors: I now only read, watch movies and listen to music in thin slices sandwiched in between more pressing tasks—or do so while doing something else.

It's not a total wash, tho'. Actually got through a fair bit of Mahfouz' Adrift on the Nile while standing by for my daughter's swimming lesson this weekend, and watched all of The Devil's Backbone (or El Espinazo del diablo,) while putting the littlest one to sleep yestereve (he's little enough and was asleep enough that this activity was not incompatible with my watching such a thing).

The Mahfouz is interesting, so far. I've heard a little of Nasser's Egypt from having Egyptian in-laws and reading the odd bit of history on the subject, so Mahfouz' depiction of life at the time adds a little meat to those bones for me.

As to the film: my call is see it. Ver' neat little thing that borrows a bit of the gothic (yes, there's a ghost) without really qualifying as horror. Reaching for the genre, a bit, it's more a 'tales of atrocities on the homefront' thing—what war (specifically the Spanish civil war, in this case) can do to a nation outside its effects on those who actually take up arms... And it's beautifully stylish, haunting in several senses.

If you go in expecting Alien-type kinetic jump-out-of-your-seat horror, sorry, no, it ain't that. I'd go further and say: don't even expect to be particularly terrified, either. It ain't about that. But it's still well worth seeing.

Thinkin', tho', about that interrupt-driven thing, that I'm gonna commit to setting my alarm early again for a while. Got stuff I gotta get done, and it isn't gonna happen any other way. Looks like it's time to wreck much of what remains of my sleep cycle again, and start doing that ugly crack-of-dawn thing. Otherwise, stuff's just not gonna get written