| What we need is solar fire |
[Oct. 14th, 2009|04:33 pm] |
First of all, let me just say that I am a huge fan of department meetings that are really just an excuse to have a glorified potluck lunch in the office. I don't know whose pasta salad I am full of, but I thank you.
And now, things!
1) I went in yesterday and renewed my phone plan with Verizon so I could get a kicky new phone for freeeeee. No rebates, no hassle. I just walked out of there with it. It's small and compact and lovely and doesn't have that little analog spike antenna...all digital now, baby! I only use my phone for (infrequent) talking and (more frequent) texting, so my phone plan is like the most basic bread-and-water setup imaginable. I just really don't need to make that leap to having web access from my phone all the time. Like, I'm wired enough as it is. In more ways than one. Best part of the whole phone renewal experience: the mega-cutie salesguy who "took care" of me, bwahaha. Shawty get loose, srsly.
2) I watched Shakespeare in Love for the first time ever last night, and I was not impressed! I actually thought it was kind of stupid, to be honest with you. I can't believe that not only did it win Best Picture over Elizabeth but Gwyneth Paltrow got Best Actress over CATE BLANCHETT WHY? It was good frothy fun, I suppose, but a great film? Certainly not. Really the only thing it truly has going for it is the interstellar HOTNESS of Joseph Fiennes. Also, I died a little when Ben Affleck appeared, and then died a little more when he actually turned out to be quite decent in his role, and with his accent. O.o
3) Tori Amos is releasing a Christmas album, which is kind of a "...buh?" moment for me. I've been dreading it, really. Her personal and professional image has become increasingly obnoxious the last several years, matching up with a general decline in the quality and substance of her music. Amazon finally put up clips from the holiday album (entitled MIDWINTER GRACES, thanks, Tori McKennitt), and at first listen, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. The majority of the songs seem to be intensely strings/piano-based. Hopefully, the upswing in production values that she began on the last album will continue to bloom. Of course, what gives me dread is the sound of some of her originals that will be on the album. "A Silent Night With You"? "Pink and Glitter"? Sigh. If you care, you can listen to the clips here.
I'm in a weird mood. I think it might be the early onset of post-novel-revision ennui. I'm so close to the end I can taste, smell, touch, and hear it. Meh. I really don't want to teach at 9:00 am tomorrow, either. |
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| All my bones are dolorous with vines |
[Oct. 9th, 2009|12:15 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | life, music, writing | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Emily" - Joanna Newsom | ] |
I have officially entered the endgame on revising The Serpent Bearer's Name. The existing prose, end to end, is now readable. The only thing left to do is go through the two pages of notes I made for myself while I was moving through the manuscript and do some tweaking. Some of this is small things like "reverse Thom and Van Linus's scenes in Chapter 4" or "remove all mention of Russet liking Thom", and some of it is rather large tasks like writing new scenes to fill in missing pieces or rewriting most of a chapter. I'm having to do this mostly because I changed my mind about a crucial plot point after the first draft was complete, and this change, while making the narrative LESS complicated, has made the revision process MORE so. I'm aiming to be done with these things by the end of October--that way I have a whole two months to relax, i.e. dream about and research and Plot Out the next project, which starts January 1. I'll probably do nothing all of November, then get fired up and do a lot of the preliminary legwork for the new book throughout December. I'm actually excited to start a new book. The Serpent Bearer's Name was my first novel, and while I am proud of it and like many things about it, it's certainly an apprentice work, and I feel like the lessons I learned while writing it and revising it will stand me in good stead for the new project (which, by the way, is titled Familiar, and has nothing to do with either witches or black cats, except for the fact that it is set in present-day mock!Salem).
All right. Let's go Friday. There was sleeping in. Then, there was exercise and a sandwich. Now, there will be tea and a little revision work. Then, grading. Later: dinner at The Filling Station and dancing at I-Bar. It's been too long.
P.S. These lines from Joanna Newsom's "Emily" hit me between the eyes earlier when I was listening to it on my run (outside in the 97-degree heat, fuck you, October):
"We could stand for a century, starin' with our heads cocked
in the broad daylight at this thing: joy, landlocked
in bodies that don't keep, dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
'til we don't be, told, 'Take this and eat this,'
told, 'The meteorite is the source of the light
and the meteor's just what we see,
and the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite's just what causes the light
and the meteor's how it's perceived,
and the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee.'" |
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| Being good is just so fucking boring |
[Oct. 7th, 2009|08:22 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | life, music, teaching | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | calm | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "When Did I Become Such a Bitch?" - Nerina Pallot | ] |
Today, I conquered my students with fashion. See, I'd heard that this month's group were an unruly bunch of attitudinal slackers. So, for my first lecture with them, I busted out the big guns and wore a TIE. You might think that this wouldn't make much difference, but it totally does. When Stacy and Clinton talk about how your clothes drastically alter people's perception and reaction to you, they're, um, kind of not kidding. And at my institution, that kind of thing creates even greater currency, because the general student body is of the "let me combine Hot Topic merchandise with high school hoodies" persuasion. Highly professional dress both gets their attention and puts them off their guard (also because many instructors at my institution, frequently including myself, don't bother to even tuck their shirts in). And let me tell you, my little trick worked. This supposedly hellacious class didn't give me a whit of trouble. Far from it: they were attentive and participatory. Of course, now I've shot myself in the foot, because having set up this fashion expectation, I should probably carry it out through the rest of the month, which sucks, because I HATE wearing ties with a fiery, purple passion.
In other news, I almost cussed out an exterminator yesterday. Ever since the couple who live in the apartment next to us had a new baby, we've MYSTERIOUSLY been having a massive cockroach problem. (This couldn't possibly be because mom is busy with baby and dad's too lazy to fucking clean up their goddamn apartment, right???) It's stupid, because for the two years that we lived in a different building in this same complex, we maybe saw TWO roaches. The entire time. Now, we're finding monstrous ones almost every day, and it's clearly not us, because nothing about our lifestyle or cleanliness habits have changed. I've complained twice to the front office, and twice they've sent an exterminator. The second time the guy came, yesterday, he had a downright ATTITUDE. He was all like, "Look, it's just Florida, and you're gonna see a few roaches, so deal." Which made me want to open his skull and stir his brain around with my finger. It's like, look dude, number one, we don't have to DEAL with ANYTHING. I'm not paying this kind of money to live in a fucking roach motel. Second of all, it's not just the weather, and it's not just the way things are. We've lived in central Florida for years, and never in any other apartment ever have we had this kind of problem. It's clearly someone around us, and by the way, why aren't they nuking the goddamn foundations and infrastructure of the entire building? Why aren't they forcibly spraying every apartment in the building? If this keeps up, I may have to Show My Ass at the front office. Well, either that or I'll send Josh to do it.
P.S. Last night, we watched the old school Pygmalion with Leslie Howard, and let me tell you, it cannot TOUCH My Fair Lady. Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, F T W.
P.P.S. This song is my Anthem. It's official. |
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| To love you, love you, love you, love you... |
[Oct. 1st, 2009|09:07 pm] |
First of all, work can go die. We're launching the online incarnation of our class in roughly three weeks, and there is still a Lot of Shit to do, not the least of which is recording our lectures and making podcasts out of them. We were originally just going to record narration into the PowerPoints themselves, but GUESS WHAT, you can't do that on a Mac, because PowerPoint for Mac sucks. So, podcast, which is way more time consuming because you have to import the images FROM PowerPoint and then sync them up to the narration, and blah blah blah nobody cares but seriously I want just drink until I pass out. I can't wait for this month to be over.
Inversely, I am THIS CLOSE to being done with Draft #2 of The Serpent Bearer's Name. Like, only two pages away from the end of the epilogue. Of course, that's not really done because I have to go back in and add a lot of stuff, including a full-on rewrite of Chapter 5, which is going to suuuuuuuuuck, but seriously if I don't get this damn book in decent shape and off my burner so I can focus on something else, I'm going to have an apoplexy. I don't even care about it much right now one or the other, except that I want it to be readable and off my radar.
Re-reading favorite books has definitely helped me come to terms with my own prose quality and how to make it work for me. This week I've been submerging myselves in the hometown glory of Empire Falls. Empire Falls is one of those books that I love but I could never write. I'm just not wired to write a novel the way that Richard Russo does. (I AM wired to write a novel the way Donna Tartt does, which presents its own unique set of problems). His language is simple, even colloquial, his plots meandering, and the main thrust of the book is all about his vividly-drawn characters. Sometimes I worry that my characters aren't distinct enough from each other. Something to focus on for Book #2.
In other news, the weather is FINALLY starting to turn in Orlando, and man alive it couldn't be more welcome. I think I have seasonal affective disorder--I'm sullen and more impatient than usual all summer long, and then when fall hits I'm just much more...Zen. Relaxed. Generally happy. I feel like a completely different person. And let me tell you, going for a run this morning in the coolness with Florence blasting in my ears...that was bliss. I felt ready for anything. (And then, of course, work belted me in the eye).
P.S. Has anyone watched this show, Tell Me You Love Me? It only ran for one season on HBO--three couples all experiencing sex-related troubles, as mediated by therapist Jane Alexander. It's slow-moving, but pretty awesome, and I've just never heard anybody talk about it. (Actually, it's kind of disturbing to watch, in that "it's so real it's awkward and upsetting" way). The sex scenes are hella graphic, even for HBO. Also, there is bonus!Sonya Walger (Penny from Lost) in it! I get the feeling watching it, though, that it's probably a poor man's version of In Treatment, that other therapy show which has been sitting in my Netflix queue for over a year, at the recommendation of Nate. I'll probably buckle down and buzzsaw my way through that next.
...god, I have done absolutely nothing tonight.
P.P.S. Our year anniversary of having Pax was back in July. Love that little doggie! |
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| No one will wear my silver ring |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|08:51 pm] |
So, turns out that I had the fucking flu, which was awesome, and I've been quarantined for the most part until tonight, when I melodramatically declared "I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE" and we went to P.F. Chang's for dinner. Seriously, as much as I'm a nester and love being at home (alone, doing my own thing without being bothered by anyone), I can only be in here for so long before I start to go fucking nuts. I think I was HALLUCINATING last night, and not from the Tamiflu--although, let me tell you, Tamiflu + pseudophedrine = one fucked up combination! That shit makes you feel high! And pseudophedrine whacks me out enough, it really doesn't need another drug in the mix! Sunday, of course, I inevitably also contracted Josh's pink eye, so there was a whole 72 hours of me sleeping upstairs, him sleeping downstairs, desperately washing everything we've ever touched, EVER. I couldn't go back to work, and there's only so much I can do at home, and the house was turned upside down by both of us being ill--have you ever felt like your entire life was falling apart? I haven't, but I don't have to now, 'cause I know what it feels like.
(Also, the fuck-you finger on my right hand has been killing me all. fucking. day. Which makes typing really easy, you know. Jesus).
Today, though, I reasserted control of my life. I finished a major project for work--said major project being me transcribing all of my lectures into prose so I can read them aloud and record them for our online course, launching next month. I worked on novel revisions--so close to being done! I paid medical bills, reorganized the bank account, started a 500-word flash fiction challenge for writing group. I went for my first run in a solid week (at 11:00 am, like a dingbat) and was promptly killed dead by sun and still-recuperating body. There's something to be said for bed rest, ladies and gentlemen, except that when it interferes with my routine I want to be the worst, least restful patient in the history of the world.
You read that right. Routine > sickness. I should probably check out head doctors any time now.
(...heh heh. Head doctor). |
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| They say you were something in those formative years |
[Sep. 24th, 2009|02:51 pm] |
I'm not sure what's going on with Glee. The pilot was deliciously off-center and well-written, but with each new episode it seems to be a) veering away from the "outcasts in glee club" plot in favor of more standard high school drama fare, and b) sugarcoating tough situations, i.e. Kurt coming out to his father. Some people called that beautiful; I thought it was extremely unrealistic, especially given the way that they'd characterized the father throughout the episode. Also, I cannot stand Will's wife and that whole drama--totally unnecessary. There are things to love about it--Jane Lynch, though completely over-the-top and in no way realistic, steals every scene she's in, and Lea Michele is young Idina Menzel if she's anything--but I find myself unfulfilled by it. It's a good concept, but when you have your high-school dramedy bar set as high as it is by shows like Skins, Freaks and Geeks, and Popular, you should really be busting out all the stops.
I'll tell you the thing that bothers me most about it: Glee seems to be less an exercise in worthwhile storytelling and more about contriving opportunities for nascent viral music videos. I think it suffers from Pushing Daisies syndrome: high on concept but, beyond the pilot, short on lasting charm.
Of course, this could just be illness making my inner curmudgeon blossom. Fevers yesterday and today, bit of sore throat. Josh has pink eye, too. Don't come over; this apartment is a hotbed of contagion. Staying home from work should entail getting a lot of random shit done, right? Except that it just took me several hours to get through five pages of revision because I kept stopping every few minutes to watch live performances by Florence and the Machine on YouTube.
Also new in my world: I gave up the ghost as far as growing my hair out. I just need to come to terms with the fact that the hair on the front of my head is irrevocably thinned/receding, and no amount of growing it out is going to cover that up, not at this stage in the game. And razoring my head all over with the same length guard doesn't work, because the "thick stubble in the back, nothing in the front" look is just as obnoxious as a comb over. So, I used a 1" on the top of my head and a bare razor on the sides/back, and what do you know, I actually look like I have a normal hair pattern. I don't know why, of all things, I'm self conscious about my hairline/hair thickness. It would be easier if I was self conscious about my pronounced Roman proboscis; at least there's surgery for that.
And now this song, which is usually an upper for me but I'm so annoyed by La Fori these days that I despair of her ever making music this good again. At least I have Amanda and Florence and Bat for Lashes. (And GaGa. XD) |
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| You don't relate to me, little girl |
[Sep. 21st, 2009|12:47 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | blah, movies, music, weekend | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  depressed | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Relator" - Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson | ] |
Weird, kind of shitty weekend. There were high points, of course. Happy hour is always happy, particularly when Susan and I sit around long after our beers are finished, talking about crap. We met Malyn and Jen Flynn at Stardust Lounge downtown, which is actually really cool and trendy, despite its dubious outward appearance. But Josh got on my nerves all weekend, and then we had to go to Jewish family dinner for Rosh Hashanah, which is always...interesting, so we didn't even really get to have a Saturday. I don't know, man, everything was just off. It got to the point yesterday where I just shut the cat and myself in the bedroom and played Final Fantasy IX for six hours because I couldn't and didn't want to deal with anyone. Things like this happen sometimes--a bad day, a bad weekend--and I always wonder, is it everything around me being shitty, or am I having a depressive episode? I know it's probably a combination. I don't fancy myself subject to writerly cliches like mood swings and functioning alcoholism, when in reality I'm like the Platonic ideal of some of those things.
I hoped that I would feel better when I woke up this morning, but no dice. Blah.
Netflixen viewed this past week include: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Network, and the second series of Skins. Cat was excellent, as expected, but also kind of surprising because it really is more about Paul Newman and Burl Ives than Elizabeth Taylor. She's almost like more of a supporting role. Skins was, of course, awesome, and leagues better than any American drama of its kind, but I think the final episode kind of fell flat. I'll have to buy it and watch it again to make sure. Network, I watched last night, and that was actually GREAT. I didn't know what to expect, really: I only rented it because of the multiple Oscars it won in '76. It's totally a satire/drama about the birth of television sensationalism and the dying husk of true TV journalism. It also painted a pretty vivid portrait of America in the late '70s, weary from Vietnam and Nixon and rife with domestic terrorism. And Faye Dunaway is awesome in it.
Also awesome: this Pete Yorn/Scarlett Johansson album. It's so lovely! |
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| Music in 2009: Imogen Heap, Ellipse |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|03:36 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | music.2009 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "First Train Home" - Imogen Heap | ] |
I think, after listening to Ellipse--Imogen Heap's four-years-in-the-making follow-up to her 2005 career resuscitator, Speak for Yourself--for almost a month, I've finally figured out how I feel about it.
Heap is a tricky figure to pin down in the ever-shifting world of indie/experimental electro-pop. She began her music career in the late '90s as a Tori/Alanis hybrid--that debut album, I Megaphone, barely made a ripple among the other, more accomplished female electro-rock albums of the time, including Tori's own From the Choirgirl Hotel and Alanis's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Despite the fact that the debut didn't make a huge initial splash, it developed a cult following over the intervening years, as Heap's musicianship and lyrics proved to have lasting appeal where other "angry girl" knock offs quickly biodegraded. And then, we kind of didn't hear anything from Imogen Heap for quite a while, until she resurfaced quite unexpectedly in 2004 as one half of Frou Frou, a duo also featuring the work of producer Guy Sigsworth, whose chilly, luscious electro-pop were a far cry from Heap's more strident debut and whose single, "Let Go", vaulted Heap back into the international music consciousness after featuring heavily in Zach Braff's generational-malaise drama, Garden State. Turns out that Heap had been slowly working--completely alone--on a follow-up album, doing all recording and production herself in her London flat, using Pro Tools. The attention from Frou Frou was just the beginning--not long after, a song from her in-progress follow up, the haunting vocoder ballad "Hide and Seek", was used in a sensational season finale of then-popular drama The OC. Heap soon found herself at the center of a miniature pop-culture explosion--suddenly, a new type and generation of music lovers were clamoring for her songs. The long-awaited new album, Speak for Yourself, was a slow-burning knockout more in the vein of Frou Frou than her own debut. Heap's solitary innovation paid off--her masterful melodies swum in an intricate sea of beeps and clicks and samples, a rolling patchwork of techno bells and whistles that somehow wove together in an organic whole.
Needless to say, as the furor over Speak for Yourself died down, fans eagerly turned their attention to her next project, hoping that they were in for a short wait and, possibly, another dramatic and innovative change in sound. When Ellipse was released last month, we got the former--a four year wait, as opposed to the six between I Megaphone and Speak for Yourself--but, to all appearances, not the latter. From a production standpoint, Ellipse sounds indistinguishable in many ways from Speak for Yourself--some of the details differ, but the same basic idea of self-produced clicks-and-whistles electropop seems unchanged from where she was at as a musician and producer four years ago. My initial reaction, upon hearing sleepy first single "First Train Home," was a completely negative one. Being a huge fan of both her other albums, I was eager to see what she would do next. Imagine my disappointment when I heard "First Train Home" and heard nothing but a Speak for Yourself rehash, a production palette that simply extended what had come before, rather then stepping forward onto new ground. Despite being much more enchanted by a second song released promotionally, an ominous Bjork-meets-Goldfrapp ditty called "Canvas", I kind of didn't care about Ellipse anymore. By the time the album came out, my anticipation for it had died down to a cool flame of polite interest.
(I suppose it can be said that maybe not all people have this kind of expectation with new releases by favorite artists. I expect innovation and change in sound from those musicians whose art I get really invested in, because I want to see what else they can do with their gift. I don't want them to make the same great album ten different ways. More often than not, this expectation sets me up for disappointment. And hey, sometimes there are follow ups that turn out to be genius but don't do much different from the album that preceded them. Look at Under the Pink as it follows on from Little Earthquakes.)
Ellipse, though, is a lesson in longevity, and an example of those rare albums that don't make much of a first impression but inexorably pull you in with each repeated listen. The magic here, actually, has to do with Heap's songwriting. With each album, she has progressed melodically, and ESPECIALLY lyrically, to new and more satisfying heights. The debut was full of angry confessionalism; Speak for Yourself, a navel-gazing tempest of relationship woes. With Ellipse, Heap has expanded her lyrical focus to stranger and wilder...well, canvasses...in both the internal and external worlds. She runs the gamut: a Russian-inspired fantasy of consumerism and green-party hypocrisy in "Aha!"; a pensive meditation on the inadequacy of religion in "Polyfilla"*; and, in my favorite track, "Bad Body Double," an head-bobbing little jam full of wry self effacement and, of course, body image issues. Even the traditional "let me reflect on my relationship" types of songs--"Wait It Out", "Between Sheets", and "Half Life"--feel like they build from what she's done before. Heap's poetry has grown sharper--sometimes cutting--and more elegant. Perhaps the too-similar production sets us up for this by lulling us into complacency, but there are moments where you round a corner in the songs and a genius line you never saw coming hits you right between the eyes.
This is not to say, by the way, that the production is BAD, by the way. Just too similar. It is as intricate, precise, and accomplished--maybe even more so--than that of Speak for Yourself. This is also not to say that Ellipse doesn't have a few missteps. "Earth" is a clunker, musically and lyrically, and also unnecessary since its sentiments are by and large explored in "Polyfilla" and "Aha!" Near the end of the album, the pointless instrumental of "The Fire" feels like a stumbling block rather than a breather. But as I've always said, the success or failure of a piece of art relies on its ability to transcend its inevitable flaws, rather than succumb to them. Ellipse certainly belongs to the former category. I'm glad I gave it a chance.
"Bodies disengage, our mouths are fleshing over.
Is this an echo game? Irises retreat into ovals of white.
The urge to feel your face, and blood rushing to paint my handprint,
and Frisbee, one by one. You're vinyl on laminate,
desperate for some kind of contact.
...Temporal dead zone, where clocks are barely breathing.
Yet no one cares to notice--for all the yelling,
all-night glamor--to hold it together.
I want to Play-Doh wave forms in the hideaway.
I want to get on with getting on with things.
I want to run in fields, paint the kitchen, love someone,
and I can't do any of that here, can I?
..first train home, I've got to get on it,
first train home, I've got to get on it..."
* = The song's working title was "Polyfilla", but for the album was changed to "2-1". I have elected to continue to refer to it as "Polyfilla", as after a month of listening to the song, I can't for the life of me figure out why it would be called "2-1", whereas "Polyfilla" is an absolutely perfect title that sums up the song's content. |
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| You ram your hand in your bag for a little friendly substance |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|01:58 pm] |
We interrupt your regularly scheduled pop culture spongeing to bring you some nerdery.
1) The Chicago Tribue confirms the casting of Lena Headey (who impressed me in 300) as Cersei Lannister, Ice Queen Bitch of the Universe, in HBO's soon-to-be-filmed pilot for A Game of Thrones, a new show based on George R. R. Martin's epically awesome A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. I didn't even know casting had begun, and then I kept reading the article. HOLY MOLY. Jennifer Ehle as CATELYN STARK? That rules so hard it hurts. Sean Bean as Ned Stark is equally amazing. Peter Dinklage will be PERFECT as Tyrion, too. I really could not have hoped for better casting. I hope that the show turns out to be awesome--you couldn't ask for better source material. A Song of Ice and Fire--which is more like a brutally relentless, reinvented War of the Roses with a vague smattering of magic than it is like a typical epic fantasy--is hands down one of the best series, book to book, in existence. I can't wait. I mean, Elizabeth Bennet (the REAL Elizabeth Bennet, not the Keira Knightley travesty) as Catelyn Stark. You can't see it, but I'm making the "rock on" fingers.
2) Tori Amos, she of the Once-Genius-but-Now-Declining Output, is releasing an album of winter/solstice songs. Some of the tracks will be reinvented traditional carols, and some will be original compositions. They're mixing the album at the moment--the songs have been orchestrated with a full brass section, timpani, harpsichord, and concert bass drums. Now. I love me some Tori, and despite its problems, Abnormally Attracted to Sin did feel like a step in the right direction after a few backwards albums. I'm trying not to get my hopes up (I always say that), but it sounds kind of cool. As long as she doesn't title it something like A Very Tori XXXmas or Sinta Claus or something like that, I think we'll be fine.
And now, I'm supposed to be working from home, but all I've done so far is revise the novel, eat a sandwich, and...write this update. Oh, I went for a run, that was productive, I guess. |
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| Television in 2009: Dollhouse, Season 1 |
[Sep. 8th, 2009|08:34 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | television.2009 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  enthralled | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Liquid Diamonds" - Tori Amos | ] |
Okay. Enough. I have something to say. I just need to put it out there. Here goes.
...I am officially a Whedonite.
(The first step is admitting that you have a problem).
It's been an unconventional journey here. I mean, I have never seen a single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not one. I didn't even know Joss Whedon's name until he stopped working on Buffy and the pop culture world's head exploded. Even then, I didn't know what the big deal was. I just missed that whole Buffy train. I think you had to get on at the station somewhere in late adolescence, which was when I was still pretending that I liked paintball and WWF. Anyway. And I vaguely remember when Firefly was first on, and then the fan kerfuffle when it got cancelled (a kerfuffle that led to the making of Serenity). But still, I was never bothered to check it all out. Then, my cousin Miranda and her roommate, Monica, basically sat me down and made me watch Firefly. And oh man, I was hooked. Hooked from the first (unaired) episode. I bought it and watched it all, and then I rewatched it all again with Josh. Firefly was an utterly fantastic show that barely ever played a false note over thirteen episodes and a feature film. It combined a complex, detailed imaginary universe and mythology with character-driven storytelling that centered on emotionally complicated, morally ambiguous heroes and heroines. In short, it was Markness heaven.
So, when I heard about Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse (seriously, just read the first few paragraphs about it in Wikipedia, it's too complicated to explain succinctly here), I was tres excited. If it could even remotely live up to the standard of Firefly, then I knew we were all in for a treat. But then the negative publicity began--Whedon was obligated to scrap his intended pilot episode in favor of something less dark and complicated (fuck you, Fox), Fox put the show in a terrible Friday night time slot (the same slot where Firefly lived and died years earlier), and the critical response to the first few episodes screened was...politely interested, at best. All this before the show even came on, and so I didn't watch it. I absolutely couldn't deal with the possibility that such an amazing concept for a show, in the hands of a master storyteller, might never even get off the ground. So I ignored it, intending to just watch it in a gulp when it came out on DVD. If it was going to be painful, might as well rip the proverbial bandage off quickly. (Plus, when positive buzz started clustering around Dollhouse after the airing of its sixth episode, "Man on the Street", I was too busy hating what Team Darlton was doing to Lost to invest in something else, especially in the middle of a season's arc). Now, of course, months later, the DVDs are out, and anyone who stuck with the show in the spring has been bouncing on my head for weeks to WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT.
So we did.
O. M. G.
Now, it was a rocky start. Joss Whedon's intended pilot was, as expected, MUCH more awesome than the "pilot" that actually aired. And beyond that, the first several episodes were interesting but pedestrian--very much "Eliza Dushku's Mission of the Week" in format. But Episode 6 fucking kicked it into high gear, and each successive episode just built and built until it all culminated in a final two episodes that absolutely took my breath away. They were that good. Really. I defy you to find a show currently in production that combines elegant science-fiction mythmaking with a cast of such well-portrayed, awesome, interesting characters. And what was really funny about it, is that as we were buzzsawing through the last few episodes, I turned to Josh and said, "This makes me feel like the first few seasons of Lost made me feel. You know, before it became overtly metaphysical and started to suck." It's on that level of epic, cerebral drama. It's hard to pick what I like the most. There's so much greatness to choose from: the universe and mythology (which blossomed into a whole shitstorm of post-apocalyptic WTF in the last episode, "Epitaph One"); the head-spinning moral ambiguity (we find ourselves rooting for both the Dollhouse and for Tahmoh Penikett's self-righteous jerkface FBI agent, who is investigating them); the delicious slabs of dialogue served up by Whedon and his crack writing staff; and last but definitely not least, Eliza Dushku's subtly chameleonic lead performance as Echo (who knew this girl could act?).
So yeah. Now, not only am I totally jazzed for the Season 2 premiere, but I'm also totally a completely a Whedon fanboy. I will follow wherever you lead, sir, if the destinations continue to be made of this much Awesome.
P.S. Actually, Olivia Williams as Adelle DeWitt, leader of the Dollhouse and ice queen extraordinaire, is possibly my favorite. thing. ever. |
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| Movies in 2009: Inglourious Basterds |
[Sep. 5th, 2009|04:02 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | movies.2009 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  lethargic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Brandy Alexander" - Feist | ] |
Warning: spoilers.
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds should have had the following subtitle: "a fairy tale".
I mean, hey. The movie opens with "Once upon a time...in Nazi-occupied France." It makes use of fairy-tale motifs throughout the film (for example, in the beginning when Hans Landa refers to the dairyman's three daughters, each "lovelier than the last," or when Landa fits the bloody shoe on to the German actress in a sort of reverse-Cinderella moment). And, perhaps most importantly, it ends with a headscratching and historically-inaccurate happily ever after: the Basterds succeed in killing Hitler in a Parisian cinema, after being aided by the film's villain who has a surprising and improbable change of allegiance near the end of the story.
It seems like the kind of concept that would make for an amazing, entertaining, and appropriately controversial film--a reverse propaganda fable, Brad Pitt and his murderous band of Jews gleefully dispatching Nazis. And indeed, Inglourious Basterds is marvelously entertaining. Tarantino knows how to build tension, for sure.
The problem, unlike Tarantino gems Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs, is this: there doesn't seem to be anything under the fun. Tarantino's trademark--and what sets him apart from his misogynistic analogue, Robert Rodriguez--is his myth-making intellectualism. You come away from Kill Bill and feel like you just rode the wave of something epic, a blissfully attention-deficit exercise in unabashed storytelling. However, I came away from Inglourious Basterds feeling entertained but unsatisfied, like the movie's disparate elements didn't add up to anything. It's an unbalanced equation. There seems to be a tonal discrepancy between the two narrative strands of the film. The story of the Basterds has a pulpy, irreverent feel, but the story of Shoshanna is rendered with the subtlety and realism of a period piece. (Even Samuel L. Jackson's periodic voiceovers feel like a device that, because of its seeming randomness and infrequency, is an unnecessary throwaway). Further, the two narratives meet, but never entwine--Shoshanna and the Basterds never meet, never realize that they are plotting the same kind of action on the same night in the same place. The narrative strands glance against each other and then spiral away without much effect. Which leads me to ask: why were two narratives necessary, then? If you wanted to make a fun, grindhouse-y Nazi-killing flick, then just do that. Don't try and make it more...I don't know, legitimate...by including a "beautiful Jew takes her revenge on the Nazis" subplot that doesn't even wind up relating to what we're led to believe is the real story--the story of the Basterds. Hell, the Basterds aren't even on SCREEN that much. It's their movie and their story, ostensibly, but we don't even really see them DO that much.
I just have so many questions. Why does Hans Landa turn coat at the end of the film? Where did the Basterds get their name? Who is Aldo Raine, and why does he do what he do? What's the deal with the neck scar? I'm not saying that every small thing has to be explained--Kill Bill has lots of nuances and implications that never get fully explored. The difference, I think, is that Kill Bill leaves me with a great sense of satisfaction, that I glimpsed enough of the whole tableau of the Bride's story to resonate with it. I did not get the same sense from Inglourious Basterds. To me, it felt like watching the two-hour television edit of a four-hour epic. There are a lot of missing pieces. I hope that there's some kind of unedited cut on the DVD. It's the opposite of my usual complaint with contemporary movies. Usually, I feel like movies should have been cut more judiciously. Here, I think he cut it too far.
There are great moments in Inglourious Basterds. The opening scene, where the French dairyman is confronted by Hans Landa and gives up the Jewish family he's hiding, thus jumpstarting Shoshanna's eventual quest for revenge, is a sucker punch of a way to start the movie. And Shoshanna herself, played by Melanie Laurent, is a revelation of cold, beautiful fury on the verge of cracking. The thematic implication of the movie, in fact, is here. Shoshanna and Aldo Raine go after the Nazis with the same cold brutality that the Nazis inflict on others. To fight their enemy, they become them. But this most important and interesting psychological issue seems to be almost non-existent in the minds of the characters.
So, yes. A fairy tale. Like a fairy tale, a lot of things are glossed over, and the psychological complexities of the characters retreat in favor of the plot. Brad Pitt's performance as Aldo Raine is believable and authentic, but also one-note. (I fault Tarantino for this, either for not showing us more of Raine or for cutting out all the scenes where we learn more about him). More over, because we are not actually told flat-out from the beginning that this is some kind of fable (though I guess the "once upon a time" really should have been a clue), the moment that the Basterds kill Hitler--truly, reverse propaganda film--is both dissonant and kind of stupid. I think my problem is that the movie is filmed, for the most part, with highly-realistic costumes, dialogue, and scenery. I had no indication of what the movie's actual agenda was until it was pretty much over, and thus, kind of felt like I had been tricked. It's kind of disheartening. "Clumsy" is not an adjective I would ever have thought I would attach to a Quentin Tarantino movie, but there's always a first time.
In other news, we slept until 1:30 today, then got up and ate ourselves into a stupor at Cracker Barrel. Now, I might go back to sleep. Fantastic. |
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| We'll be long gone by then, and lackluster |
[Sep. 2nd, 2009|12:01 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | memes | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Wait It Out" - Imogen Heap | ] |
Guess what I'm doing instead of grading for my online class?
( The Proust Questionnaire! )
The only other thing I've done today is have an hour-long conversation with several co-workers about race, derogatory terms, and online dating.
And now it's time to go home. AWESOME. |
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| Furniture porn |
[Aug. 31st, 2009|10:21 pm] |
Look. I'm a nester. I like curling up in cozy, hidden corners (which is unfortunate, because in Florida summer, curling up in cozy, hidden corners is HOT. There's chafing. Yeah). And, awesomely enough, our new master bedroom has a windowed alcove that is RIPE for nesting in a "reading and drinking wine" sort of way. The only thing that was really preventing me from finalizing the space was an affordable-but-still-cost-prohibitive chaise from IKEA. However, after my last paycheck, I'd saved up enough in my "Tangible Goods" slot (seriously, don't ever ask me to explain how I budget, it's awesome but it would probably make your head explode) to get it. So, one painless trip to IKEA later, my reading nook is transformed! Pics:
( Click for chaise )
And, for kicks: Chewie the Kitteh Poop Machine!
( Click for kitty )
He actually hasn't had an episode in several days. I observed that he was only pooping in the downstairs living area whenever one of us wasn't in the room, or if we weren't home. So I just bring him into whatever room I'm in, and I put him in HIS room when we're out. This seems to be working so far. I've known it was behavioral all along, but trying to correct feline behavioral tics is like trying to reason with Republicans.
And now, to watch season one of Dollhouse. Joss Whedon is a god among men. I'm glad he included the actual two-hour pilot he first filmed on the DVD. It never aired. Fox can go fuck themselves, in this and in all things.
P.S. This song has been stuck in my head for days. I don't know why. My initial, ardent love affair with Joanna Newsom's Ys took place months ago, and yet the songs keep coming back. Its just such perfect music. I'd have to say, definitively, that it is my favorite album ever, in all the world, tied for that spot with Tori Amos's Scarlet's Walk. It is seriously that magical/genius/heartbreaking/awesome. If you haven't ever listened to it, your life isn't complete. I promise. It takes some getting used to, because the songs are not traditional in length or structure, but AAAAAH so fabulous. It's like music from a fantastic, undiscovered kingdom of rivers and woods, twilight and rain, love and destruction. Favorite lines from this particular song:
If you could hold up her threadbare coat
to the light where it's worn translucent in places,
you'd see spots where almost every night of the year,
Bear had been mending, suspending that baseness.
Now her coat drags through the water, bagging
with a life's worth of hunger; limitless minnows
in the magnetic embrace, balletic and glacial,
of Bear's insatiable shadow. |
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| Pinning all your hopes on the top dog of dreams |
[Aug. 28th, 2009|01:15 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | books, writing | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | creative | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Polyfilla" - Imogen Heap | ] |
Revision on The Serpent Bearer's Name has been going so well--not fast, per se, just more FLUID than it has been--that I'm actually allowing myself to start thinking seriously about what I'm going to write next. There's a still a lot of work to be done on Serpent, of course. I need to add several small scenes/beats for the purposes of pacing and foregrounding, and the climactic chapter of Part I needs a complete rewrite. But, once the main revision work is done, I'm going to take a break to a) get some distance from it and b) let my brain refill. Then, while I poke at the additional content, I'm going to start plotting/researching the next book.
The problem, of course, is that I have a LOT that I need to research for it.
This is where YOU come in.
If you can, take a few minutes out of your day and leave me a comment--you don't have to have a LiveJournal to comment, so people who are linked here from Facebook, you can leave an anonymous comment and just sign your name to it at the bottom so I know who it was from--telling me your MVP books on any of these subjects:
- the Millennial generation
- freshman burnout
- Egyptian mythology
- French folklore
- the history of New England
- the history of Salem, MA
- New England folklore
- tourism as an industry
- any mythology dealing with feline/canine deities, from any culture.
Much appreciated! The Millennial/freshman burnout stuff is especially important. The protagonist of the new book is an male honors student who inexplicably flunks out of his first year at a small, elite New England college. The action of the novel revolves around the summer after he returns and how he deals with the failure (among other things). I want to make sure I'm getting the psychology right. |
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| Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back |
[Aug. 26th, 2009|05:28 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fitness, pets, weather, writing | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "The Dog Days are Over" - Florence and the Machine | ] |
I have concluded that living with Pax and Chewie is like being in charge of an autistic child and an addlepated geriatric. Pax is socially retarded, chews dust in the corner, and sorts his kibble into piles of red and brown before eating them (NO, FOR REAL-REAL). Chewie wanders back and forth in the apartment, bitches about EVERYTHING, and shits himself when he doesn't know what else to do.
I need a vacation. I've had a lovely break from some things, but it's not the same thing as actually getting away and having a change of scenery. Though breaks are necessary, too. Breaks from work, from people, and certainly from your artistic and fitness regimens. Western culture really doesn't understand the cyclical nature of all things, a cycle of activity and inactivity, neither of which can flourish or are even necessary without the other. You spend a period of inactivity resting and building up a well of energy, and then you spend a (limited) period being active and expending that energy, doing things that fulfill and challenge you. Then, you take a break, and the cycle just keeps going. None of us has endless reserves of energy to throw at everything all the time. A long conversation with Amber yesterday about life and energy and friendships and art really brought that home for me. Me, in particular. I have to budget my energy for things, and the only thing that refills it is being alone and in silence. That's really when I can hear myself think, when things start to brew and bubble. The same is true, I guess, of exercise. I can run and run and run and continue to improve my time and distance, but your body gets used to things. A certain type of exercise stops being as effective as it once was, which is a sign to either change up your routine or take a break. And let's face it--I stay active, but I'm an inherently lazy person and running is seriously the only thing that I actually enjoy doing for exercise. I'm excited to start running again in a few weeks; hopefully, the weather will have started to wind down towards our trademark balmy Florida autumn.
(I'm really, really sick of the heat, you guys. I see blog posts from people living in other parts of the country and they're all like, "Cool weather, OMG!" and I'm like, "Die").
Meanwhile, as I'm starting my (so far, painless) revisions of Chapter 11, my brain seems to think that it's time to start plotting and charting and making connections for the new novel. Oh, and lists of research to be done, too. And I'm like, "Hey, guess what, brain, why do you always want to be doing anything but what you're SUPPOSED to be doing?" It's a good sign, I suppose, to be this excited and inspired to being a new project, but seriously, let me get this one off the burner first. |
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| Pearly whites, touchdown smile, absent creases around the eyes |
[Aug. 24th, 2009|04:57 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | writing | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Little Bird" - Imogen Heap | ] |
I took a revision vacation last week, and today, I jumped back into the fray. And...I don't know. Maybe it was just the break, or maybe it was reading Guy Gavriel Kay's The Last Light of the Sun, but I think that maybe a large part of my difficulty so far with revising this novel has to do with the fact that I am WAY too hard on my prose quality. So hard, in fact, that I may have been strangling the prose this whole time, instead of enhancing it. Or maybe my hypercritical word-level attention is justified. Whatever. All I know is that today's revision went much more easily, quickly, and pleasantly than it has in a while. And I don't think it really has to do with the break. I think it may have to do with the fact that today I found myself working with the prose, instead of against it. |
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| Blood rushing to paint my handprint |
[Aug. 23rd, 2009|05:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | family, television | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | hungry | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "First Train Home" - Imogen Heap | ] |
Yesterday I attended my cousin Miranda's wedding to her awesome fiance, David, in which the preacher used a scene from the movie Glory as an anecdotal metaphor for marital love. No, for real. That shit was bananas.
We'll talk about the wedding/family stuff later, though. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon and soon there will be baked ziti to stuff my face with. So, instead of an actual entry, how about a list? Ready?
The Top 5 Reasons Why True Blood is Infinitely Superior to Twilight
1) Sookie Stackhouse. There are a LOT of reasons I utterly despise the Twilight saga and am troubled by its popularity among young women, but chief among them has to do with the Stephanie Meyer's heroine, Bella Swan. Look, I'm totally down with a hero/heroine that it's hard to root for sometimes, or one whose sympathetic qualities flicker in and out. I mean, hey, that's everyone you know, right? But I really just can't bring myself to cheer for Bella Swan. In the books, she's a frigid, unfriendly bitch for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. ALL THE TIME. Even that might be interesting, except that the other characters in the books (with a few exceptions) constantly fall all over themselves to be nice to her and get into her good graces. WHY? She never does anything on the page to merit the attention she gets. (This is what we call a Mary Sue, kids). Sookie Stackhouse, on the other hand, couldn't BE more fascinating. She has a special trait that is RIPE for Mary-Sue-style abuse--she can read thoughts--but even this is depicted in layered, psychologically-complex ways. She espouses Southern belle values of gentility and lady-like conduct, but regularly undercuts them by dressing like a white-trash ho or doing something rash/impulsive/outright dumb. She's naive and sharply observant, by turns, in ways that make sense for her character. And hello, she's played by Anna Paquin, who rules.
2) The concept. The vampires of True Blood don't sparkle, THANK GOD. They have to avoid silver and sunlight, but other vampire tropes--crucifixes, garlic--don't matter to them. The vampires in this scenario know and acknowledge the pop culture profile of the vampire, and even admit to spreading the false folklore around themselves, to keep the public disinformed and unaware (like the "vampires have no reflection" thing). Furthermore, the whole show hinges on the conceit that Japanese scientists have successfully manufactured a synthetic, alternative form of nourishment for vampires so that they don't have to feed on human blood. There's conflict in the vampire community between those who want to accept their public life and the synthetic alternative ("mainstreamers") and those (usually older) vampires who want no part of this and still view humans as inferior to themselves. The concept goes on and on, increasing in awesomeness and complexity, including humans who are essentially vampire "groupies" and humans who harvest vampire blood and take it as a hallucinogenic drug.
3) Jason Stackhouse's inability to keep his clothes on. SRSLY.
4) Tara. The "sassy black friend" is a contemporary storytelling trope that needs to Die in a Fire post-haste, BUT. I think that Tara narrowly avoids falling into this trope because of how much attention the writers give to her own flaws and struggles. She's a fully-realized three-dimensional character, and her relationship with Sookie (and everyone else on the show) is troubled and fraught with resentment. Also, the actress who plays her is awesome, and kind of steals the spotlight every time she's on screen. Or maybe that's just because I like sassy black women.
5) The relationship between Bill and Sookie. In Twilight, Bella's obsession with Edward--and his obsession with her--always struck me as creepy and bizarre in a Heavenly Creatures kind of way, but the narrative treats their co-dependent, self-destructive attachment as normal and desirable. In True Blood, Bill and Sookie are drawn to each other, but their relationship is far from certain, and there are numerous obstacles--external and internal--that they face as their relationship blossoms. And even though Sookie wants Bill, she still shows a lot of natural, initial hesitance to falling in with a vampire. You know--like a NORMAL HUMAN BEING would do.
That list was supposed to be ten things, not five, but I'm tired. XD |
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| I hear that stuff's a bitch to get rid of |
[Aug. 19th, 2009|10:16 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, pets, work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | worried | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Bad Body Double" - Imogen Heap | ] |
I'm at my wit's end regarding the Feline Latrine Drama of 2009. Wit, ended. End of my wit. This has been going on since before we moved, at the end of MAY. It started in our old apartment; when we started packing and getting ready to move, it wigged him out and he started pooping in our closet and pissing on the bathroom rug. Then, we moved. He peed twice in Josh's office closet, and then THANKFULLY all urine-related problems ceased (and thank God for small favors, because as obnoxious as the pooping is, it's nothing compared to cat pee everywhere. I can't even imagine. I'd have to rip up the carpet with my own bare hands, lay down laminate, and suffer the apartment complex's wrath at their leisure). However, he just won't stop pooping in our dining nook.
A breakdown of what we've done so far:
* taken him to the vet to make sure he's not sick (he's not, it's behavioral).
* cleaned the box/changed the litter (this is definitely not the problem).
* used an enzyme cleaner on the areas where he goes (he doesn't go on that particular spot again, but will go right NEXT to it).
* blocked the area off for two weeks. During those two weeks, he used the litter box like a prince, but when we took the barricade down, he went right back to pooping in the corner. I can't barricade off my dining nook for the rest of my life.
* at the suggestion of the vet and others, we kept him in the bathroom with his food, water, litter box, and toys for seven days, to "retrain" him to use the litter box. He just went right back to his old ways when we let him out.
I seriously don't know what to do. It's driving me crazy. Something about it makes me disproportionately angry and freaked-out, to the point that I don't think I'll ever get another cat after this if there's even a REMOTE possibility that this might happen again.
Solutions we've yet to try:
* spraying some kind of repellent spray around the area--something lemon-scented or specially designed for this purpose
* laying down squares of tin foil on the area (recommended on a lot of cat behavior forums)
* In the last extremity, I suppose we'll put the litter box in the area where he's pooping (THE DINING NOOK) and gradually move it back to where it was before (through our living room, down the hall past the bar, and into the guest bathroom). I really, really don't want to do this, since it means a week or more of having the litter box just sitting out in the open, but if nothing else works, I've gotta try something.
As if that weren't enough, today I woke up and I have a pimple on my ass the size of a quarter. No, for real.
This song is so great it makes me feel better, though. AND we found out at work that the course I teach is going online in November, NOT October, so that makes my life significantly less stressed out. |
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| A foxtrot above my head, a sockhop beneath my bed |
[Aug. 16th, 2009|12:41 pm] |
The cat has developed a disturbing habit. If we sleep in past our alarms, he shows his displeasure at our laziness by voiding his bowels on the carpet instead of in his litter box. Awesome. Result? I get up at the first alarm to feed him and Pay Homage to His Greatness, then crawl back in bed. I should practice the same kind of consequences to get Josh to be on time. I wonder if that would result in punctuality, or divorce.
The same morning that the Poop Alarm started his work, the knob to my closet door stuck and I couldn't get in. You know...to where my CLOTHES ARE. All my work shirts and slacks are in there. I went into teach in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved v-neck. IN FLORIDA. IN AUGUST. A maintenance request put in to the front office has yielded no repair, as of yet. I propped the door open with a shoe, and I'm still waiting for the moment that I round the corner too fast and break all five toes on the half-open door.
This was ALSO the day that Malyn and I went to Hummus House for lunch, which was a much bigger success that day than feline latrine habits or access to the boudoir. I don't know if their hummus is homemade or store-bought or what; I just know that it was GOOD. Sadly, Josh and I tried another food experiment--Pom Pom's Teahouse and Sandwicheria--for brunch this morning, and it was Made of So Much Fail that we had to stop at Bagel King on the way home. They didn't even serve coffee! I mean, yes, I know it says "TEA HOUSE" in the name of the restaurant, but still! If you live in Orlando and you're into brunch, never stray from Dexter's or First Watch. It's just not worth it.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) artsychickucf and I, along with Josh and Melissa, are exercising our Right to Cultural Bandwagonism and totally immersing ourselves in Season 1 of True Blood. Okay, let me just say--I wasn't super-interested in True Blood when I first heard about it. I mean, really, does the world need yet ANOTHER vampire story? Haven't we all suffered enough under the Regime of Edward Cullen? Even when I decided to Netflix True Blood's first season at the insistence of several friends and critics, I didn't have high hopes for it. BOY HOWDY, was I wrong. It's soooooo deliciously good. Both in a seamy, pulp-fiction kind of way, and also in a quality writing/acting/storytelling/sociological commentary/large amounts of Naked kind of way. It's definitely frothier than some of HBO's grittier shows, but that's good, in a way. It sets it apart, and it doesn't really pretend to be anything more than what it is: a excellently-made, totally enthralling soap opera.
While we're on the subject of clever, quality viewing: go see District 9! Between that movie and Moon, it seems like there's a sci-fi renaissance going on in 2009. Both District 9 and Moon took science fiction tropes and successfully reinvented them/turned them on their heads, while delivering a fresh and satisfying character-driven story experience at the same time.
We won't talk about work. My online students go through an orientation and basic Mac training, and they still apparently don't know how to compress a file.
The song of the week is "Fireflies" by Owl City. Friday night at I-Bar redeemed itself with some amazing new music, this song included. Starry eyes. It's kind of like Execution-era Rilo Kiley, but with a male singer and phatter beatz.
MARTINIS AND DON DRAPER TONIGHT WITH THE HOLICS. Yesssssss.
P.S. "You're kind of like Julie Andrews meets Hannibal Lecter." --Chris Schober in high school, on me. |
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| You drop yourself a bomb |
[Aug. 12th, 2009|05:31 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | writing, wtf | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  moody | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Fake is the New Real" - Alice Smith | ] |
1) I was looking through my novel stuff and thought for a second that I had somehow lost or deleted the climactic chapter and I SERIOUSLY LOST MY SHIT, like, Hemingway-style, before I looked more carefully and realized that I'm just dumb and wrote that chapter out of order so that it LOOKED like the end cut off when really, it didn't.
2) The sooner I make peace with the fact that I'm a slow writer--slow at drafting, slow at revision--I'll be a much happier, more professionally-contented human being. For real. |
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