pop culture | Multiple Enthusiasms

Category: pop culture (page 1 of 3)

September 13, 2012

A few weeks ago, my soon-to-be wife and I went out to a local mall to catch the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. I’d mostly looked forward to the flick, but only “mostly”–I didn’t enjoy the same rush of breathless anticipation I saw many others experience. I largely avoided most discussion of the movie, as I didn’t want either the storyline or the experience to be ruined, but I went in with hopes higher than I perhaps should have, for a very simple reason: I hoped watching the final installment and seeing the full story would cast new light and understanding on the second installment, The Dark Knight, which I’d found problematic for several reasons.

Sequels are notoriously difficult movies to make–it’s the rare sequel that turns out to be better than its predecessor. And where sequels are difficult, second installments in trilogies are nearly impossible. The few shining examples–The Empire Strikes Back, for example–only highlight how difficult it is to make a proper second installment.

March 30, 2011

Recently, a friend of mine, Nina Perez, who maintains Blog It Out B, decided to bite the bullet and publish her new novel without the backing of a major corporation or the “advocacy” of a literary agent. This coming Friday, her novel, The Twin Prophecies: Rebirth will launch, and I for one am looking forward to it. She’s been working with a guy named Steven Novak on design and illustration, as well as concentrating on formatting and lay-out.

Launching a novel, especially independently, is an anxiety-filled endeavor. Every author faces the stomach-churn that comes with the launch of a novel, but I’d stake a claim that anxiety is doubled for an independent author, who not only faces the daunting challenge of both reaching new readers and hoping those readers don’t respond negatively, but also faces the general negativity of the publishing industry–including literary agents and editors associated with corporate publishers–as a whole.

As Nina has been prepping her novel for publication, we–we being myself and several of her other friends–have been discussing writing and publishing. We’re a diverse group of writers still emerging, still building, still working, still aspiring. We don’t have contracts with big corporations. A couple of us don’t have books out. But we write, and that’s what counts.

And given that we write, and given that we’ve been discussing writing and publishing, lately, we’ve been discussing Amanda Hocking. How can an aspiring writer not, nevermind to what said writer aspires to. Regardless of whether a writer wants millions of dollars or millions of readers, Hocking seems exemplary of a case study of success.

Except.

(There’s always an “except,” isn’t there?)

Now, I’m going to break from discussion, because I’ll not put words in other writers’ mouths. But I’ve noticed Hocking, and her work, and her story, and I’ve gotten a couple samples of her work, and I’ve got to be honest: I don’t get it.

Then again, I didn’t get Twilight, either.

Still, a million teenage girls (and their moms) and the millions of dollars they spent can’t be wrong.

Or can they?

January 8, 2011

I wrote this as a comment elsewhere, but I think it deserves a spot of its own.

Isn’t one giant issue with the entire substitution that students aren’t going to know Huck used the word if their teachers don’t tell them he did?

Because they’re going to have to do so. Otherwise, Twain’s novel is changed completely. Doesn’t it entirely change the nature of the relationship between Huck and Jim? Doesn’t it entirely change Jim’s character and his motivations?

Do we really trust teachers to prequel every reading of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with that information?

Teacher: “Now class, we’re about to read what was once a very controversial novel, but we’ve made it more appropriate for your reading pleasure.”

Student: “How did you do that?”

Teacher: “We changed a word.”

Student: “Just one? Which one? Did Twain drop the f-bomb? I didn’t realize they had the f-bomb back then.”

Teacher: “No, it’s more egregious than the f-bomb.”

Student: “What’s ‘egregious’ mean?”

Teacher: “Bad. It was worse than the f-bomb.”

Student: “Worse than the f-bomb? What’s worse than the f-bomb? Did he say the c-word?”

Teacher: “Er. What’s the c-word?”

Student: “You know. The c-word. Rhymes with bunt.”

Teacher: “Where did you learn that word?! Er. But no. Not that one.”

Student: “Well which one? What’s the first letter?”

Teacher: “N.”

Student: “N? Er. What begins with ‘n’? Nincompoop? That’s not so bad.”

Teacher: “It wasn’t nincompoop.”

Student: “Um. Nutcracker?”

Teacher: “No. It was a word people used to call black people.”

Student: “Oh. You mean ‘nigger’?”

Teacher: “Yes, precisely. That’s what Huck used to call Jim. Now he calls him a ’slave.’”

Student: “But then that whole description of Jim’s having been a ‘free slave’ doesn’t make much sense.”

Teacher: “Well. Perhaps not. But we’ve avoided using a terrible word.”

Student: “‘Nigger’? Well, yeah, it’s awful, but Kanye and Tupac say it all the time. Why not Twain? It’s just his book. He was writing, like, 100 years ago. It was a lot different then, wasn’t it? It’s not like white folks go around dropping the world all willy-nilly now, is it? Honestly, you’ve wasted a lot of valuable time doing something trivial when we could have been discussing race in American in the 1800s and how it’s evolved, both in publishing and in culture, over the past century and a half. Honestly. What are you getting paid for, anyway?”

December 31, 2010

Seems like this week is always rather retrospective. Years in review, all that. Lots of sites running “Top Stories of 2010” posts, as though what wouldn’t have been news again last week suddenly is solely by virtue of when it was news. It’s like the East Coast blizzard froze the whole world, which is stuck hoping for thaw to begin tomorrow.

I thought about doing some best-of posts. The decade-best lists are some of the most popular posts on this site. Yesterday, however, I glanced through a list of movies that came out in 2011 and found precisely two I thought were remarkable: How to Train Your Dragon and The Social Network. The former was a surprise; it had a lot of heart and was a lot of fun, and it managed that rare thing of being a movie aimed at a younger audience that appealed across a wider age range without using irreverent humor and other such innuendo-based means. With Shrek, one of the things that increased its appeal was jokes that kids wouldn’t have gotten; it worked on multiple levels; Dragon, on the other hand, stuck mainly consistent in just trying to tell its story, and I think it was a better movie for it.

The Social Network demonstrates that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Panic Room were flukes from a guy who’s been getting better since the beginning, by which I mean that David Fincher had shown signs of improvement over his career and development as a director in years previous by making movies that were consistently better than the ones before. Se7en was fantastic after Alien³. The Game is underrated, and then there’s Fight Club, and then, just when you think that he’s got a style, signature shots, all that, Zodiac, which was the first time he just turned the camera on and followed the story (which isn’t to say his obvious style didn’t serve his other movies). And now The Social Network the rise and continued rise of Zuckerberg and Facebook, which was, on all levels, fantastic.

I read other movies people were raving about, but didn’t much like them when I sat down to check them out. Inception, in particular . . . just didn’t do it for me. Funny: I remember when The Matrix came out, and all the people who claimed not to “get it,” that it just never made sense to them, all that, and then watching Inception . . . my initial thought was “So it’s The Matrix but with dreams and less action?”

That thought never went away. It eventually became more negative, in fact, but one of my resolutions this year is to be more positive. Exciting is not about negativity, after all.

Other things that were exciting:

December 29, 2010

Yesterday, JA Konrath posted an interesting essay titled, simply, “You Should Self-Publish.”

I agree with him, for the most part.

I just wish he would drop that modifier.

Because forget it. You should publish.

You should publish essays on your website, tweets to Twitter, status updates on Facebook. You should use your Kindle to share quotes from books everywhere. You should join online forums filled with people who have similar interests–Konrath mentions the KindleBoards and how great they are for writers but sort of neglects how amazing they are for readers.

Which we all are. And we’re active readers. We’re better readers. We’re exciting readers.

I thought, for a long time, that what was so game-changing, what was so paradigm-shifting, was that we’re all now creators. We’re all publishing all the time. We’re all contributing new information to the cloud and the world.

I don’t think I was necessarily wrong about that. All those things mostly hold true.

But then I got to thinking, that’s not really what’s changed. That’s a by-product of more activity on our parts.

The biggest companies in the world right now are Google and Facebook. The former is, I think, the more important because it signals a new service. It’s a search engine. It took away passive Internet browsing. No longer was the Internet a place of CD-ROMs and free subscriptions to AOL and “You’ve Got Mail.” What Google changed was our ability to seek new and more information (as well as our ability to sift through it). Remember before Google? Back when we had AltaVista and Hotbot and Metacrawler?

No longer do we wait for information. That’s pretty huge.

We Google things. I have a Google search function on my phone. We go on Wikipedia, though we know the information we find there might be erroneous, but maybe we do that because we know that even if the information is erroneous, we can find more information right away. We can find better information. We can find commentary on that information.

We can contribute to that information, and we can change it, and we can create it.

And the faster all that occurs, the less likely traditional modes of media can keep up with it all.

It used to be, in ways, that media created culture. Radio and television delivered sounds and images to our living rooms, and our only control over what we received came in the form of dials and switches; we could change the channel or turn off the set, but that was about it. If we wanted books, we had to wait to see what corporate publishers had deemed worthy of our attention two years before. Movies, too: from optioning of screenplays to delivery of celluloid, at least a year would pass.

The time it takes to create something worthwhile might not have changed (and continues to vary), but the time it takes to access and manipulate it has. Do any of us merely read when we come online anymore? Or do we all go to news sites we frequent, share posts on Twitter and Facebook, contribute to commentary?

When was the last time you got news from CNN or MSNBC? How about the last time you got it from Twitter?

It seems like we’re moving into times of cultural responsibility, and we’re taking such responsibilities away from the people who traditional took control of them as we notice that many of those institutions gave up their reins. One of the biggest arguments people tend to make against so-called “self-publishing” is that it’s not vetted, there’s no quality control, etc.

And then they buy and publish A Shore Thing by Snooki.

We’re the upstart crows. We’re the Johannes Factotums. We are the creators and contributors, channels of inspiration and information. And we’re not just living in exciting times.

We’re exciting them.

February 4, 2009

Not long ago, I went to a Philly bar called Eulogy with my best friend. This bar is a Belgian sort of pub one feature of which is a private room with a table like a coffin, and this best friend is a guy earning his master’s in literature but who also moonlights as a keyboardist in one band and a lead guitarist in another, which I hope will intimate the overall atmosphere. If only because my buddy and I have the conversation where we discuss Derrida but totally admit to neither ever reading or understanding the guy.

Over the course of (several) fine Belgian beers (Rochefort 10 ftw!), we started talking about Heath Ledger and The Dark Knight. Now, what you have to know, straight off, is that while we’re good buddies, he and I rarely agree on anything related to either music or movies. We both like music in general and good music in particular, but we have very different definitions as to what that exactly means.

So, Heath Ledger. The Dark Knight.
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January 19, 2009

It’s worth remembering:

(feed readers: swing by the blog to see)

Also worth remembering: that tomorrow is not so much a victory as an opportunity. That it is not nearly so much a culmination as it is a beginning. My greatest hope for the coming Obama administration is that it will help to remind us that the struggle hasn’t ended and may never be over, and that its burden is on our shoulders. That we shall not be lifted lest we lift each other up.

“Forgive that they teared down my soul
Bless them that they might grow old
A dream that’s forgotten may know
That it’s never too late.”
-“Madagascar,” lyrics by W. Axl Rose.

January 19, 2009

Todd, Gawiser: ‘How Barack Obama Won’ – White House transition- msnbc.com.

I mean, it should be, shouldn’t it? “By getting more electoral votes than the other guy.”

January 7, 2009

In the midst of all my traveling and holidaying, I think I missed that the Hollywood Foreign Press association had announced their nominations; they’ll name the winners on Sunday night, apparently. E! online has a full list of the nominees right here, if you’re interested.

I was, until I then read them, after which I felt decidedly less interested.

I admit I used to be into the Globes and the Oscars. I watched them every year during college. I generally recall very little about the winners; I remember the year Roberto Benigni stepped on Spielberg’s head as he made his way up to accept his acting award for Life is Beautiful, beating out the likes of Edward Norton (American History X), Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan), and Sir Ian McKellan (Gods and Monsters). He didn’t, unfortunately, beat Joseph Fiennes, who was basically the only person not nominated for Shakespeare in Love even though he was, in fact, Shakespeare in love. The only thing I remember about the Globes is the year Jack Nicholson gave part of his acceptance speech (As Good As It Gets, I think) out of his ass, a la Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.

So, this year’s Globes nominations.

December 30, 2008

Caught over at Gizmodo:

Reals: Real Life Superheroes On the Rise Really.

Links to Rolling Stone and the Times Online to discuss real-life superheroes.

By which they apparently mean people who got dressed up for comic book conventions but forgot to take off their costumes (not that you’d want them to). If there were a weight or age limit on spandex (there should be, except for functional purposes), these people would exceed them.

Then again, makes me think. I mean, I’m a reasonably in-shape guy. And I’ve got lots of training. Maybe I should come up with a costume and a name. I think I would just hope people would call me Awesome. It’s better than “That Short Guy with the Vigilante Complex,” which should be TMed, I think.

They (the costumed vigilantes/”superheroes”) attribute their cause to Obama and his call for “active citizenry,” to which I just want to say: don’t blame him. Seriously. Ain’t even in office yet.

December 30, 2008

A fun article:

Axl Rose’s favourite books | Books | guardian.co.uk.

What would Axl read, indeed. Somehow his list of four (?!) books surprises me a little, at least given the presence of Dick (whom I’ve always found a little weird) and Stephenson (whom I’ve always found a little baroque).

The article fixates on the similarities between Rose and J.D. Salinger, basically on the whole “reclusive genius” thing. Me, I just like that someone’s saying Rose is a genius. Too often, I think, people who create extraordinarily popular work are looked down on, which has never made sense to me; people acknowledge the Beatles are geniuses, but Stephen King is not?

NB- I would love to somehow get The Prodigal Hour into Rose’s hands. That’d be so rad.

November 12, 2008

During one of the classes when I mentioned Eddie Izzard, one of my students mentioned a documentary called Heckler. I went to look it up, because I love when comedians pwn hecklers.

Here’s Jamie Kennedy (who, coincidentally, produced the documentary):

Jimmy Carr does it extraordinarily well. Here’s one:

And here’s another:

But it’s not just comedians. Here’s Kevin Smith:

And even Bill Clinton pwning some idiot “9/11 truth conspiracy theorist”:

I mean, seriously. Some people are just douchebags.

Thing is, Heckler turns out to only ostensibly be about heckling; over the course of interviewing Jamie Kennedy, Carrot Top, and Bill Maher (among many others), it slowly became a rumination about criticism. In doing so, it raised some terrific points about critics and their relation to, for lack of a better word, “art,” and especially about the way the Internet has changed things. It featured appearances by writers from CHUD.com and Giant magazine and questioned the idea of random dudes commenting about cinema. Kathy Griffin made an analogy between Internet commenters and hecklers, which I thought was apt, except for one crucial difference:

At a comedy show, the comedian gets to be face to face, even if across a room, with the person.

On the other hand, the Internet allows a degree of cowardice when someone like Shecky Gangrene or, as is most often the case, Anonymous wants to crap on somebody. I swear, I’d often heard quotes attributed to Anonymous before, but the Internet exponentially increased Anonymous’ body of work, which is mostly restricted to little more than saliva-spattered vitriol. I’ve rarely seen Anonymous actually be supportive; usually Anonymous uses the old “I’m sorry, but I’ve just got to be honest with you” to make personal attacks and mostly horrifying comments they’d never make in real life to someone’s face.

And while I’ve never gotten altogether much attention from Anonymous because I’m just a mostly unknown writer still making his way in his work, any attention from Anonymous can feel like too much. Most of the negativity I’ve encountered has come from Anonymous (who most often really, really doesn’t like me). Anonymous most often believes that the ends justify whatever means it is necessary to use, and frequently makes the case that anyone who has earned any degree of spotlight whatsoever must grin and bear it because it comes with the territory and one must develop thick skin.

To which I say: bullshit.

Bill Maher and Dr. Drew (ftw) address it best in the documentary by making two points: first, honesty does not excuse douchebaggery (that’s Dr. Drew), and second, as Maher notes, entertainers can’t develop thick skin. We need some degree of sensitivity because that’s our role in the culture we need to be part of.

Which I think is an awesome point.

The documentary is well worth checking out. Here’s the trailer:

I think my favorite part was the segment dedicated to director Uwe Boll, who challenged his critics to boxing matches and summarily beat the shit out of them. It’s absolutely hysterical to watch as the movie switches back and forth from idiot bloggers making asinine comments like “No, I’ve never watched one of his movies, but I’ve heard their awful” to selfsame bloggers falling to the canvas, culminating in a shot of a twenty-ish blogger lying on the curb, post-fight, wearing a tank top with Sharpie-written “Hi, Mom!” on its back while puking into the gutter.

November 10, 2008

Over here, I made a plea for Chinese Democracy, the first new Guns ‘N Roses CD since the two Use Your Illusion records (bypassing The Spaghetti Incident?, a covers CD).

Apparently, the Rock Gods heard my plea, and Rolling Stone has a review of Chinese Democracy, which will be out in a couple of weeks. David Fricke uses “Was It Worth the Wait” to lead but never really gets around to his own question, so I will:

abso-fucking-lutely

Chinese Democracy is an epic, sprawling CD that epitomizes for albums what some dude once said about novels; that they’re long fiction with flaws. Chinese Democracy (from what I’ve heard) isn’t flawless, but what great art is?

And yes, I’ll call it art. It’s a term I usually eschew, because most of the time I think it’s pretentious at best and absurd at worst, but I think it’s excellent for what it is. It’s not Beethoven’s 9th, but it is, approximately, Rose’s 5th, and it is absolutely excellent for what it is. It’s loud and blunt and rocking with little restraint, and that’s very much why it’s magic.

via Chinese Democracy : Guns N’ Roses : Review : Rolling Stone

November 8, 2008

I have to admit, I’ve not yet read a John Connolly novel, though by all accounts, his books seem right up my alley. He’s an Irish writer who writes ostensibly crime novels that have, according to his Wikipedia article, become in recent years increasingly concerned with the supernatural.

So yah, got to look me up some of those.

Dude’s won a bunch of genre-type awards: a Stoker for best first novel and a Shamus. And two of his books have apparently come with soundtracks, which is totally awesome (note to self: what is the soundtrack for my writing?).

Connolly recently posted a great blog on the old argument concerning ‘genre’ fiction versus ‘literary’ fiction. It’s well worth reading just to enjoy the pretension of some writers. I mean, holy shit, you think it’s a joke some writers think the way he portrays, and then you meet those writers who not only think that way but even speak that way, and you know for a fact those are the same damned annoying writers who appropriate agent/editor panels at writing conferences to ask deeply personal questions about their deeply personal pet projects and who believe the publishing world is totally against them because it’s a covert and Cabalistic cadre of secret societies and secreter handshakes one can only break into if one compromises one’s ‘artistic integrity.’

He makes a lot of points I agree a lot with, but the money one comes toward the end:

I believe that art and craft are not mutually exclusive. One works at one’s craft, and one hopes that, along the way, art may possibly emerge. Even if it does not, one can still take pride in the fact that one has done one’s best.

Because, seriously, totally

November 6, 2008

I know I got very wrapped up in the election and discussing it. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t meant to avoid it, exactly, but I hadn’t realized I would become so focused on it. I think I got so wrapped up in it because McCain/Palin scared me so much, and because I thought there was so much at stake.

A lot of it was wrapped up in my feelings about September 11th. I realized that before, but watching Obama’s acceptance speech drove it home. I’m only 30 and ain’t been alive long, arguably, and missed some major cultural milestones. I may be mistaken, but I don’t think any man has walked on the moon so long as I have been alive. The sixties are full of a lot of cultural imagery that will only ever be grainy footage to me; JFK and RFK and MLK. I came in at the tail end of the seventies, and missed free love and freer sex. While I enjoy the Beatles music in some ways, I still don’t see what the big fuss was about, and by the time I came around, Elvis was gone, too. I enjoy few movies made before 1980, Star Wars being the most notable example.

Still, the other night, watching Obama accept the presidency, I thought of what I have seen. I saw a black man become president of the United States, and while I know that racism is in many ways still alive and perhaps too healthy in America, I think it’s the surest sign there’s hope.

I remember this, too:

Which was in 1987. Two years later, in August 1989, 28 years and one day after it was constructed, that wall came down:

I think a lot of us had that feeling first thing Wednesday morning, just after midnight.

The end of one era, and the beginning of a new one.

(I’ve just realized, too, that 28 years and three days after I was born, I left for USC. That’s kinda neat)

Because the other momentous thing I’ve seen during my lifetime is something that too often hurts too badly to talk about too much. A few weeks ago, I caught the premier for Life on Mars, a show by which I was singularly unimpressed save for a single moment:

I often feel like that day started a time of corruption and incompetence carried through 7 long years. Seven years during which America lost internationally most of what reputation it had, invaded countries it had no right to attack, ‘defending freedoms’ it had already taken away anyway.

I don’t know what Obama will do, nor what he will change. I don’t know that he will be a good president. But I think he has both dignity and integrity, two things the office of the presidency have been sorely lacking for a long, long time (and not just during this past administration. I like Clinton, but dignity and integrity are not words that come to mind when he does), and I feel comfortable enough with the next four years (at least) in his hands.

I don’t think much will change for a while; Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Berlin Wall didn’t fall the day after Mr. Reagan challenged Mr. Gorbachev. Then again, September 12th, 2001 saw the sun rise on a world completely changed from the one that had existed just 24 hours before, so who knows?

I don’t. But here’s the thing:

While I don’t remember much about the morning of September 11th up to, say, 8:50 or so, it is because that day at that point in my life was unremarkable, which means it was a good morning. It was a morning on which I woke up a little later than I wanted, brushed my teeth, walked a block up to the PATH station at Journal Square. It was a morning I walked from Herald Square at 34th and 7th to my office at 40th and Madison, and if I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary during that several block trek, I will claim it was a good one, because those walks were, back then. They weren’t all sunshine and roses, of course (not many rosebushes on the streets of Manhattan), but after that morning, those walks were different, and they disappeared all together several weeks later.

I cried when I watched Obama’s acceptance speech, just like I cried when Hillary Clinton spoke at the DNC. I cried when I watched McCain concede. Not because I was so happy, though there was that, but because I was feeling something with which I had been unfamiliar for so long. I watched the polls and results with hope but also with caution, and even posted over at Making Light that I would believe it only when he took the oath of office.

Because the thing is, when you’re so scared, when you feel so beaten down, when you get so wound up and anxious, if you feel that way long enough, it can be hard to give it up. Watching Obama speak, I started to give it up. I started to let the sun shine in again. I started to feel myself open again, and that’s something I haven’t felt in a long, long time. Watching Obama speak, I started to realize that things might not always be so dark as I felt they were.

Then again, I also know that I may well be projecting my personal feelings onto those of the country as a whole. I took this election more personally than I took the one in 2004 because I’ve changed in the years since. In 2004, I was working as an assistant editor and living in my parents’ basement; this just a couple of years after I had graduated college with all the promise in the world and gotten a great gig at a prestigious advertising agency. In a way, I think I felt I was going backward if I ever felt much at all, because I know at times I was going just to go, doing just to do, coasting through to get by. This year was personal because I don’t feel that way. I’m working and living and doing. I’ve stopped waiting around for life to happen and started to make things happen, and I think I projected some of that feeling onto the election. I think I felt as though, since I was changing, the world should, too, somehow, in however small or large a way.

I think, too, I felt ready.

I don’t know what the future will hold. I don’t know what tomorrow will be.

But just the hope of it makes me smile at the possibility.

For now, that is something. For now, it is enough.

November 4, 2008

Just to make it official, you know:

That’s called Barack and Roll.

October 31, 2008

When I was younger and first breaking from Catholicism, I became very interested in Wicca and paganism. Something about the more natural ways of thought and worship appealed a great deal to me: I am by ethnicity, like, Scotch-Welsh-Dutch (or something); I grew up as a Boy Scout and so was often camping or hiking, which was why I liked the idea of nature as the truest and most accurate expression of the divine (I don’t know about God or Jesus either way, but show me a new day and I know where I stand); and I liked the idea of not having to go to Church or receive Eucharist or pray to know the way of God.

By the time I got to college, that had begun again to change. Studying theology with Robert Kennedy, roshi, S.J. remains one of the most formative experiences of my life, with consequences and repercussions I am even still parsing. Back then, in the way of the arrogance and pretension that became my characteristic for several years, I declared myself a “Zen Christian Wiccan,” because I thought I had discovered over the years that there is, inherently, either no difference whatsoever between prayer, spells, and meditation, or that the differences we perceive between them, like the differences we perceive between Coca Cola and Pepsi, more a result of brilliant advertising campaigns and the placebo effect than anything else.

Nowadays, I know better how little I know.

October 29, 2008

Sad the news that the 11th Doctor is now on his way
To usurping the Tardis with companions new and d’verse.
Just a few specials before Tennant goes on his merry way
To other projects, other lands, and other roles.
I would call his portrayal of the Time Lord my favorite
But have I in fact on real frame of reference;
I’ve seen no other perform the role, the acts
of heroism and humanity for which I’ve come to know
the Doctor as played by Tennant. Not Eccleston nor
Atkinson, nor Bakers double, Pertwee, or Hartnell.
Indeed, Doctor Who was my favorite with twice
The Tennants in the house of Tardis, as always
Bigger without than within. Much like the show.

In tribute to Tennant with dedication to Tate,
In recognition of the BBC and the departure of Doctor Ten:

With apologies for the bastardization/bardolization. But seriously, there are few things in the world better than either Doctor Who or Shakespeare, and the combination of the two?

Rad.

I’m sad to hear Tennant is leaving (after a critically acclaimed turn as Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, mind), if only because he’s the only doctor I’ve ever known. That’s a deliberate choice, too, because he’s the sort of character I want to be. I love the tenth doctor for his childlike glee, for his unflappability, for his grin and his humour. He is one of my all time favorite characters in any medium. Up there with House and the brothers Winchester, not to mention Tristran Thorn, Richard Mayhew, and Fat Charlie.

(characters from, respectively, House, M.D., Supernatural, Stardust, Neverwhere, and Anansi Boys)

October 27, 2008

No, no, really.

All based on this picture:

Yes, that’s Animal.

And apparently, he was speeding. In an Audi TT.

Actually, what really seems to be happening is that there’s a British driver speeding past cameras in Bavaria. But since he (or she) is British, his (or her) steering wheel’s on the wrong side of the car, so that the cameras, which are set up to catch the driver’s side of the car, are actually catching the passenger’s side. Which would be neat enough, because if dude (or dudette) left it as it was, those crazy Kraut police would be trying to slap the invisible man with some speeding tickets.

But no. Because dude (or dudette) is awesome, and instead of just letting the cameras capture an empty passenger seat, he (or she) is driving with a freakin’ Muppet!.

I would totally pay real, cash money to see a cop pull said car over and then approach the window only to find himself talking to a Muppet.

I wonder if the driver (or driverette) is also taking advantage of the carpool lane.

At least he (or she) chose the right Muppet. I mean, Animal? Totally:

But, like, one would never expect, say, Gonzo or Scooter to be speeding.

Because, of course, Scooter would be riding a scooter.

And Gonzo? He’s airborne. On a motorcycle:

‘Cause that’s how he rolls.

(via)

October 27, 2008

Big publishing industry news this week: Oprah endorsed Amazon’s Kindle reading device, having “fallen in love with it.”

Which is not unusual; I’ve heard very little criticism concerning the Kindle. People may not rave over it like they raved about the iPod when it first came out, but the Kindle seems, for many intents and purposes, rad. Awesome. Exciting.

Which makes one wonder: if it’s so awesome and exciting, shouldn’t Entrekin be available for it?

Why yes, yes it should be:

Ain’t it purdy? You can click that link to find its shiny new Amazon page.

The timing couldn’t be better, nor, I think, any less coincidental. I’ve been working on the Kindle version since back in August. Not that it took that long, but I mentioned I was going to be changing things up toward the end of October.

I still go back and forth on Lulu. The reason I put Entrekin on the Kindle was that the digital downloads have been so extraordinarily successful, with more than a thousand across the various stories. I like that Lulu allows me to offer the DRM-free .pdfs, not to mention that it also allows for the tangible book for anyone who wants a souvenir. I had a bad experience in Lulu’s community, but then again I’ve realized that if I simply decide to use Lulu solely as the printing press I’d always meant it to be, it does still serve my purposes pretty well, its forums, policies, and customer service notwithstanding (more on those three later, and elsewhere).

So no, I’m not done yet. I’m still curious about a lot of aspects of publishing and the ways it’s changing, so it looks like Entrekin will still be around for a bit. As always, you can get it here.

Thanks to everyone who’s made it such a success so far, and remember to keep telling your friends about it.

Especially if, you know, your friends own Kindles.

(because, really, here, so far, I’m at a loss; where and how does one market to Kindle owners?)

October 25, 2008

There are few things that excite me more than ambition. A lot of music critics complained that The Killers’ Sam’s Town was too Springsteen-esque/epic, and while I’d be the first to admit it is, in places, sprawling and messy, well, so is sex a lot of the time, and I think we can all agree ain’t nothing wrong with that. “Read My Mind” is one of my favorite songs in recent memory:

And now a new Killers’ CD on the horizon, comin’ up soon: Day & Age drops in late November (the 25th to be exact), and I simply can’t imagine I’m the only one totally looking forward to it.

I’m a bit late, I think, but I caught their video for the CD’s first single, “Human”, which, unfortunately, won’t embed, probably because Universal Music Group is being all greedy with their rights and such, so here’s a direct link to the YouTube video.

pay my respects to grace and virtue
send my condolences to good
give my regards to soul and romance
they always did the best they could
and so long to devotion, you taught me everything I know
wave good bye, wish me well.

Fuck yah.

So now there are two CDs that are going to make the world a better place: this one and Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy.

And Winter is going to rock.

October 22, 2008

(pretend there’s a little accent thingy over that ‘e’, please, because I think there should be one there. I could be wrong)

Wired‘s Paul Boutin notes that “blogging is so 2004.” Basically, Boutin seems to think that Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook have not so much rendered blogs obsolete as taken their thunder. Why blog when we can micro-Twitter and Flickr to our hearts’ content? His first paragraph indicates I need to quit blogging, because it just ain’t worth it, and I’ll never reach a level of, say, Gizmodo, the popular gadgets blog with a team of writers producing dozens of posts per day.

He’s probably correct. I think I hope he’s correct, in fact. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with blogging, I’ll admit, for personal reasons; while I do love to do it, and I love the instantaneous and often-collaborative nature of it, I feel like . . . well, I feel a lot like it takes away from my real writing. And I hate to say this isn’t my ‘real writing,’ but I’ve never thought of it that way, probably because I use different writing ‘muscles’ to blog than to write . . . well, pretty much everything else. I’ve been discussing with my students the idea of frameworks in writing, and I’ve always thought blogs have a different framework than anything else, probably because everything has its own framework.

Then again, that may be just me.

October 17, 2008

Over at The Fractal Hall, Madeley is delineating major (so-far DC) superheroes, according to what is essential to their stories.

It’s fascinating. Even if you’re not into comics or Superman or the Dark Knight, it’s really neat in terms of story and character.

This is the first one, on Batman. Others in the days following.

I’m hoping Madeley will continue through many.

October 17, 2008

Malcolm Gladwell, of The Tipping Point and Blink fame, has a really interesting article in the latest New Yorker, concerning “literary genius.” The main examples he makes use of are Ben Fountain and Jonathan Safran Foer, but he also mentions Picasso, Cezanne, Hitchcock, and Twain.

(via Galleycat)

I wonder about some of it. At least in terms of the two examples he uses, as both authors are still reasonably early in their careers (lives notwithstanding). Also: I know that part of Gladwell’s schtick, so to speak, is the whole Blink effect; that we decide everything right away, and I wonder if that conflicts with Chris Anderson’s idea of the long tail, i.e., selling less of more. Gladwell’s theories seem to work best on a short-term level; Hollywood blockbusters, first impressions, that kind of thing, but consider the opposite: the movie that has a modest opening but goes forever. It’s rare nowadays mainly because of quirks in distribution, but the idea of the sleeper hit used to be rather more common, I think.

Then again, maybe I wonder because I’m on the closer side to 31, which makes me feel a bit like a late bloomer. I started the novel that became The Prodigal Hour during my senior year of college, for all intents and purposes (though I’d begun the story years before), and I only actually finished it this past, what, July? August? Something like that. Over that decade, there were drafts and revisions and rewrites, over and over again.

Then again, I’m really only 30. I could still make that thirty under 35 list, and I still have a good few years for a shot at it.

But really, I think that what Gladwell misses is that it’s not a binary thing. It’s not an either/or situation, and I neither do I think it’s related to the writer, or the way writers create.

I think it’s related to the story. Some stories simply necessarily take longer than others, in telling and in execution, at least in doing them justice. Some stories take a while for gestation, and some even need to wait until you’ve got the craft to support your talent. During my twenties, I was often told I had a lot of raw talent, and really, I think it took more careful study of craft, not to mention greater discipline, to begin to refine it.

Me, I don’t worry about the timing, so much, most of the time. Most of the time I try not to think too much about the ultimate grail quest of getting published, mainly for the reason that so little of that quest is under my control. Gladwell mentions the market in his essay, which is an important consideration. Especially from my perspective: being a new and unpublished writer, I keep reading doom-and-gloom articles that the current state of the economy means fewer and fewer publishers are willing to take a chance on writers like me.

Then again, I look at that statement and I think: how is that different from usual?

October 2, 2008

I dig Bill Maher, mostly. Like his stuff. I mean, he’s neither Eddie Izzard nor Jon Stewart, but I do appreciate both his candor and his challenge. I agree with him often, but often mostly in the sense that I agree with Jon Stewart: not in the sense that I’m lefty or liberal or whathaveyou, but more in the sense that I just find the whole system and process completely absurd, as well as many of the participants therein.

I don’t really watch television, though, so I rarely catch Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. I’m sure I could catch recaps, somehow, but I’m rarely so inclined.

I’ll tell you, though: I’m totally inclined to see his new “mock documentary,” Religulous.

I may even start using religulous as an adjective. Seems like, on the hierarchy scale, things would be first ridiculous, and then totally ludicrous, and then absolutely religulous.

Trailer after the Continue reading

September 27, 2008

Through most of my life, at various times, various people have remarked I look like others. Just a few weeks ago, during an orientation, one of my colleagues decided I reminded her of the lost Baldwin brother. Back when I used to be a substitute teacher, I’d often hear, amid a flurry of giggles, that I looked just like the guy from N’Sync. I’ve reminded people of Jack from Will & Grace and Tom Cruise, Dean Cain back when he was Superman, and even Superman himself.

My favorite, though, has always been and will always be when someone tells me I remind them of a young Paul Newman.

Because, seriously, is there, and has there ever been, and will there ever be, a cooler man?

September 22, 2008

Just caught this video:

via Needcoffee.com.

Which I thought was awesome and highly recommend, though warning for the sensitive ears; there’s some, like, language. And not language like big words or excrement or incest, but words people think are naughty.

So if you can’t handle the word ‘fuck,’ don’t watch that shit, yo.

It is, apparently, a video representation of an old Onion article.

September 19, 2008

Back in the day, I used to read Hot Chicks with Douchebags, which I think is a site best enjoyed in small doses; continued reading results in SNL-sketch syndrome, the Internet equivalent of an overextended joke.

But it was through Hot Chicks with Douchebags that I discovered Ram Jam and “Black Betty”.

This is Ram Jam playing “Black Betty,” a video which may be the most cliched 70s-tastic thing I have ever seen. I mean, look at his sweater:

September 13, 2008

In the spirit of lightening things up here a bit, I figured I’d post something more cheerful. To quote Tom Hanks in That Thing You Do! (which is certainly one of the most underrated movies of all time), I thought I’d give you something happy, something poppy.

Because it’s a perfect day for a ride, ain’t it?

***

I should really just sell the damned thing. Manhattan just isn’t a place for such a beast, much less the Village. New York’s a walking town. A subway town. Sometimes a bus town, and some other times still a taxi town. It’s a bustling town and a jogging town, a drinking and dancing and staying-out-till-4-am town, and in fact it’s a different kind of town just about every minute for just about every person in it, but it’s not so much a driving town. There are too many cabs, too many long limousines with precious celebrity cargo, too many delivery trucks and big buses, too many Lincoln Town Cars shuttling CEOs to the office and back. The air is too bright and the sounds are too vibrant and the color is too loud to be shuttered away from the world by four windows and a growling engine, but still I keep the dilapidated duster.

I tell myself I keep it because I wouldn’t get much for it. The old lady who used to own it never did know much about anything she put a key into, and the engine’s hoarse in her memory. The duck tape on the torn cloth top; the old, nearly bald tires; the muffler that might as well not exist—selling it might cover a month’s rent or a fancy night on the City, but not much more.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

But I know the truth. I don’t keep it because selling it wouldn’t make enough; I keep it for days like this.

September 7, 2008

The town spreads out below us, looks up to us, admires,
Wishing that it could be where we are for a moment.
We’re on top of the world, blessed in our youth;
We’d better enjoy our positions while we can.
The stars look down on us without our condescension;
They all wonder what happened to God.
They see what we have done and are doing
But never realize that we can change.

The moon shines down on us its scornful eye;
We are uncomfortable though others are less moral.
It is only half there, but where the rest is I cannot say.
Perhaps it is with God, waning philosophic.
The wind moans against wood and our flesh,
The same sweet nothings we whispered earlier.
And when it howls like fury through the darkness,
It almost seems like it knows how we feel.

Moisture like morning dew beads blades of grass;
Tiny, clear jewels of dripping condensation.
The whole world smells primal and visceral,
And it glistens in what little light there is here.
There are sounds all around us, some loud and some not,
From furtive, unknown sources in the darkness.
They seem to be everywhere at once and yet nowhere at all,
And isn’t that exactly how we are sometimes?

There is night all around us, overhead, up above,
Silk and satin and dark to the touch.
It is almost oppressive but somehow refrains;
It shows more restraint than we did, earlier.
And so we stare down at the town with a smirk on our lips,
And look up at the stars and feel less than we are.
We throw an ‘up yours’ in a scream at the moon,
And whisper nothing in reply to the wind.
We let the moisture bead and then drip off our skin,
And the sounds gradually become unnerving.
But we live this night, my lady, on Inspiration Point,
Despite darkness’ trying to steal the only one we’ve got.

***

Yesterday, Lisa said:

That poem reminds me of countless nights I looked up at the stars with Chad. Times when we wanted so badly some recognition for our efforts, times when we both felt like it was an endless cycle of repetative days. Times I wanted to shout and scream at the moon, because I felt so damn tired. We both were looking for inspiration.

Which, I think, is pretty awesome.

It’s kind of amazing how you can try for one thing but achieve something else entirely.

To wit: I wrote “Inspiration Point” when I was a sophomore in college (which probably shows through in ways, I think), and its inspiration was “Thunder Road,” by Bruce Springsteen. My then roommate was a huge fan of the Boss, and he played “Thunder Road” one night, and, while I liked the song, my more visceral reaction was closer to, “Man, I want to do that.”

And so I tried (ain’t sayin’ I succeeded, mind you, just I tried. Then again: man’s reach should exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?).

Here’s some Bruce, because come on, nobody does it better:

It’s a bit crappy, video-wise, but I love the story (“This is the land of peace, love, justice, and no mercy.”). Also, hey, another Jersey boy doin’ it right (also, we see where I get my predilection for tank tops, though, admittedly, the Boss pulls it off better than I do). Unfortunately, I got no guitar, but sometimes I get my pen goin’.

And again: the poem is from my collection, the proceeds from which benefit the United Way NYC in honor of those we lost on September 11th, 2001, and in the days following. If you took advantage of the free download, now’s a good chance to help make a difference, and let’s not forget, it would make a great Christmas gift for the booklover you love.

Multiple Enthusiasms

Infinite jest. Excellent fancy. Flashes of merriment.

Category: pop culture (page 1 of 3)