Thursday, November 5, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Link Roundup and General News
Michael Connolly's The Lincoln Lawyer is the best of his books I've read. Intricately plotted and compellingly narrated, it's interesting to see how an author's stories differ in the first and third person. Connolly's Harry Bosch series is told in third-person limited; it's good, but it's not nearly as engaging as his creation of Mickey Haller in the first person. Connolly, a former journalist, knows his legal procedure and, in the form of Haller, he's created a conflicted anti-hero (the dude's a defense attorney) whose bleak outlook on the world is both depressing and spot on. Hate to say that, as I'm a glass-half-filled kind of person, but I think Connolly's backlog of zany crime stories that he reported have since come alive in the passages of his fiction.
The book on the right side of the screen there has been a joy to get into. Kenneth Cameron's turn-of-the-century London is fascinating to explore with Denton, our American literary lion blundering through the city in his pursuit of a Ripper-style murderer. So far so good on The Frightened Man--review forthcoming.
Escapism is good when the storytelling is strong enough to suspend disbelief. I had the pleasure of experiencing a pair of narrative excursions this weekend when I watched Transformers II (2009) and The Last House on the Left (2009). The former squandered much of the goodwill it had established in the original with its hugely exaggerated fight scenes and stilted dialogue. It doesn't help that Bernie Mac passed on and couldn't lighten the mood as he did in the first. The CGI was clunky and the whole thing fell apart by the third act, I think. I don't know, because I didn't finish it. The animations stripped it of any worthwhile human emotion, and I couldn't get behind it enough to believe that things were really that bleak for the human race.
The latter, on the other hand, was too hard to take in spots. It's a simple premise. What would you do to the savages that hurt someone you loved? When a couple of Samaritans find that they've harbored their daughter's rapists, they answer the question with hammers, a handgun and, to gruesome effect, a microwave. Escaping into this film awakens some pretty grim emotions and, while the film isn't top shelf, it's effective. It doesn't pull any punches, and the cast pulls off a brutal story with appropriate gravity. I'd recommend watching it, if you enter into the experience knowing it'll be a hard watch.
The Oregon Ducks did a great job on Saturday against USC. I haven't seen an effort like that since last year's Civil War, and I couldn't be prouder of my team and my state. Stay humble and hungry, fellas, and let's get another win on the road this weekend in Palo Alto.
Lyla cut her first tooth on Saturday, just in time for her first Halloween. That kid is amazing, and a joy to be around. She's learning a lot, and is growing up so fast...
I'm revising my recent long project and had the good news that I placed a story with a journal I've been hoping to break into. I don't want to jinx anything until I sign a contract, but I hope to have some good specific news soon. I hope things are well where you are.
The book on the right side of the screen there has been a joy to get into. Kenneth Cameron's turn-of-the-century London is fascinating to explore with Denton, our American literary lion blundering through the city in his pursuit of a Ripper-style murderer. So far so good on The Frightened Man--review forthcoming.
Escapism is good when the storytelling is strong enough to suspend disbelief. I had the pleasure of experiencing a pair of narrative excursions this weekend when I watched Transformers II (2009) and The Last House on the Left (2009). The former squandered much of the goodwill it had established in the original with its hugely exaggerated fight scenes and stilted dialogue. It doesn't help that Bernie Mac passed on and couldn't lighten the mood as he did in the first. The CGI was clunky and the whole thing fell apart by the third act, I think. I don't know, because I didn't finish it. The animations stripped it of any worthwhile human emotion, and I couldn't get behind it enough to believe that things were really that bleak for the human race.
The latter, on the other hand, was too hard to take in spots. It's a simple premise. What would you do to the savages that hurt someone you loved? When a couple of Samaritans find that they've harbored their daughter's rapists, they answer the question with hammers, a handgun and, to gruesome effect, a microwave. Escaping into this film awakens some pretty grim emotions and, while the film isn't top shelf, it's effective. It doesn't pull any punches, and the cast pulls off a brutal story with appropriate gravity. I'd recommend watching it, if you enter into the experience knowing it'll be a hard watch.
The Oregon Ducks did a great job on Saturday against USC. I haven't seen an effort like that since last year's Civil War, and I couldn't be prouder of my team and my state. Stay humble and hungry, fellas, and let's get another win on the road this weekend in Palo Alto.
Lyla cut her first tooth on Saturday, just in time for her first Halloween. That kid is amazing, and a joy to be around. She's learning a lot, and is growing up so fast...
I'm revising my recent long project and had the good news that I placed a story with a journal I've been hoping to break into. I don't want to jinx anything until I sign a contract, but I hope to have some good specific news soon. I hope things are well where you are.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Is Life More Dangerous in 2009?
Forgive me if this post seems a little heavy for the season. The Orange Park Police Department held a news conference yesterday outlining the profile of the suspected murderer of seven-year-old Somer Thompson.
It's a nasty word, "profile." It's one of those paranoid, suspicious terms that divide communities and diminish our shared humanity. Still, it's one of those terms that we see more frequently. In political terms, it haunts the stereotypes of Republicans and Democrats, often becoming a barrier to any meaningful discussion about the actual issues. The word "profile" has a special connotation in communities like Portland, Oregon, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jacksonville, Florida, where accusations of racial profiling have been levied against local law enforcement agencies. And, in the instance of Somer's murder, it's used as a tool to potentially identify an individual who has created an atmosphere of outrage and fear in a close-knit Florida community.
Mark Woods is a good writer. I like his outlook on life, and I admire his willingness to ask some good questions. Take a look at this article. The crux of his piece is an investigation into whether times have changed (in this case, taking a turn for the worse), or if the proliferation of information (amber alerts, blogs like the one you're reading, 24-hour cable news) has magnified the impression that we live in a dangerous world.
Woods's final summation is that the crimes haven't changed, but the technology used to discuss and investigate them have changed our perceptions of them.
I agree with him.
Michael Moore, lightning rod that he is, used the notion that our information-dissemination systems are trying to titillate and shock us in the interest of creating ad revenue as the thesis to his documentary Bowling for Columbine (2002). Portland television critic Pete Schulberg called it "fearful world syndrome" back in the early portion of this decade, and there are scads of articles in the academic world on what sociologists are calling "mean world syndrome."
I think depravity--true and shocking depravity, like the type we're seeing play out in Orange Park right now--is as original and enduring as our species' kinder impulses, such as compassion and community building.
Thankfully, there's far more of the latter than there is of the former.
I think the knee-jerk reaction is always to wax nostalgic when we compare generations and eras. Our personal biases color our views but, in my view, life is cyclical. Culture was outraged when Elvis Presley swiveled his hips on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was outraged in the '80s when Madonna made music videos that flaunted her sexuality. Culture grimaced when Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction in the Super Bowl.
No doubt, it will become outraged again soon. That said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
To bring this whole post full circle and put it, if ever so tangentially, into a writing context, I'll say that, while I thought King and Straub's novel Black House was decent, I can't write about violence against children. Just can't do it. It's a horror staple and a well-worn trope, but I've said before that part of my writing garden just doesn't bear fruit.
The birth of my daughter has changed my perceptions of such topics more drastically than I could have ever predicted. It's not that I can't look at films or read stories that feature such subjects, and I'm not a full fledged Disneybot or anything like that, but I will say that my impressions of such artistic works is far more critical and much less forgiving.
Sorry for the rambling post here, but I wanted to jot a few thoughts in here on the topic. It's an interesting question, I think. Is life more dangerous in 2009 than in previous eras?
It's a nasty word, "profile." It's one of those paranoid, suspicious terms that divide communities and diminish our shared humanity. Still, it's one of those terms that we see more frequently. In political terms, it haunts the stereotypes of Republicans and Democrats, often becoming a barrier to any meaningful discussion about the actual issues. The word "profile" has a special connotation in communities like Portland, Oregon, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jacksonville, Florida, where accusations of racial profiling have been levied against local law enforcement agencies. And, in the instance of Somer's murder, it's used as a tool to potentially identify an individual who has created an atmosphere of outrage and fear in a close-knit Florida community.
Mark Woods is a good writer. I like his outlook on life, and I admire his willingness to ask some good questions. Take a look at this article. The crux of his piece is an investigation into whether times have changed (in this case, taking a turn for the worse), or if the proliferation of information (amber alerts, blogs like the one you're reading, 24-hour cable news) has magnified the impression that we live in a dangerous world.
Woods's final summation is that the crimes haven't changed, but the technology used to discuss and investigate them have changed our perceptions of them.
I agree with him.
Michael Moore, lightning rod that he is, used the notion that our information-dissemination systems are trying to titillate and shock us in the interest of creating ad revenue as the thesis to his documentary Bowling for Columbine (2002). Portland television critic Pete Schulberg called it "fearful world syndrome" back in the early portion of this decade, and there are scads of articles in the academic world on what sociologists are calling "mean world syndrome."
I think depravity--true and shocking depravity, like the type we're seeing play out in Orange Park right now--is as original and enduring as our species' kinder impulses, such as compassion and community building.
Thankfully, there's far more of the latter than there is of the former.
I think the knee-jerk reaction is always to wax nostalgic when we compare generations and eras. Our personal biases color our views but, in my view, life is cyclical. Culture was outraged when Elvis Presley swiveled his hips on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was outraged in the '80s when Madonna made music videos that flaunted her sexuality. Culture grimaced when Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction in the Super Bowl.
No doubt, it will become outraged again soon. That said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
To bring this whole post full circle and put it, if ever so tangentially, into a writing context, I'll say that, while I thought King and Straub's novel Black House was decent, I can't write about violence against children. Just can't do it. It's a horror staple and a well-worn trope, but I've said before that part of my writing garden just doesn't bear fruit.
The birth of my daughter has changed my perceptions of such topics more drastically than I could have ever predicted. It's not that I can't look at films or read stories that feature such subjects, and I'm not a full fledged Disneybot or anything like that, but I will say that my impressions of such artistic works is far more critical and much less forgiving.
Sorry for the rambling post here, but I wanted to jot a few thoughts in here on the topic. It's an interesting question, I think. Is life more dangerous in 2009 than in previous eras?
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Go Ducks!
So the University of Oregon is now 6-1 on the year. We had a dominating 43-19 victory tonight against our most-hated rival, the evil and spurious University of Washington. Yes, they are spurious.
The Ducks' win, another game when we pull our QB prior to the fourth quarter, has aligned us with a game at Autzen against the hated Trojans.
Bring them on.
BRING. THEM. ON!
This Oregon team knows how to play football. I've never been more impressed with an Oregon team, or more happy with the way they are being coached. I like that our defense and special teams are actually our strengths, and I'm amazed by the fact that our offense is still evolving.
Thanks LaMichael James. Thanks JM. Thanks Coach Kelly. Thanks fans of Oregon.
Lets keep this thing rolling!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Alas, Babylon and Apex Magazine
I don't know how I got this far along in my life without reading Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon. The novel, published in 1959, is purportedly one of the best selling works of apocalyptic science fiction--and for good reason. It's a ripping yarn and a sobering political narrative, populated by round characters and creative plot developments.
Frank, the pen name of journalist and government consultant Harry Hart, writes actively, with a simple approach to sentence structure. The novel is heavy on good dialogue, the Cold War-era phrasing adding a measure of grim realism to the novel.
Frank touches on sentimentality (the joy of hot coffee and the importance of a gallon of gasoline) without becoming sentimental. To the contrary, some sympathetic characters in this one don't survive the nuclear annihilation that wipes out half of America's population (the new capital is Denver, Colorado).
In one typically chilling passage, the head of Fort Repose's bank tries to push a telegram through to the regional Federal Reserve branch in Jacksonville.
Florence rose and walked to the counter with Edgar's message. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Quisenberry," she said, "but I can't send this. Jackosnville doesn't seem to be there any more."
It's this spare prose, in the revelation of just how complete the Russians' annihilation of the United States really is, that gives this text its edge. I won't reveal who won the war, but it's not a spoiler to include this final sentiment in a quick nod to the book's impact:
The engine started and Randy turned away to face the thousand-year night.
It's not a story about the how or the why, but more about the what if? What would happen to our culture? How would the survivors go on with their lives?
It's chilling and absorbing and more than a little frightening. After reading the chapter where Frank details the failure of the paper-money system, I was tempted to go out and invest in gold (but that only gets its worth because people say it has some, so it's not much different).
In terms of online magazines doing great work, I can't say enough good things about Apex Magazine. This magazine features some of the freshest fiction on the internet. Give it a read (and look at the archives--lots of fine stories published in the last three issues) and drop them a comment if you enjoy it.
Frank, the pen name of journalist and government consultant Harry Hart, writes actively, with a simple approach to sentence structure. The novel is heavy on good dialogue, the Cold War-era phrasing adding a measure of grim realism to the novel.
Frank touches on sentimentality (the joy of hot coffee and the importance of a gallon of gasoline) without becoming sentimental. To the contrary, some sympathetic characters in this one don't survive the nuclear annihilation that wipes out half of America's population (the new capital is Denver, Colorado).
In one typically chilling passage, the head of Fort Repose's bank tries to push a telegram through to the regional Federal Reserve branch in Jacksonville.
Florence rose and walked to the counter with Edgar's message. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Quisenberry," she said, "but I can't send this. Jackosnville doesn't seem to be there any more."
It's this spare prose, in the revelation of just how complete the Russians' annihilation of the United States really is, that gives this text its edge. I won't reveal who won the war, but it's not a spoiler to include this final sentiment in a quick nod to the book's impact:
The engine started and Randy turned away to face the thousand-year night.
It's not a story about the how or the why, but more about the what if? What would happen to our culture? How would the survivors go on with their lives?
It's chilling and absorbing and more than a little frightening. After reading the chapter where Frank details the failure of the paper-money system, I was tempted to go out and invest in gold (but that only gets its worth because people say it has some, so it's not much different).
In terms of online magazines doing great work, I can't say enough good things about Apex Magazine. This magazine features some of the freshest fiction on the internet. Give it a read (and look at the archives--lots of fine stories published in the last three issues) and drop them a comment if you enjoy it.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Zombieland
From time to time, a director will come along and take the best of a popular tradition of storytelling, tweak it slightly to add a few fresh nuances, then package the whole thing together in a crowd-pleasing format. Despite the mixed critical appraisal of Zack Snyder's 300 (2006), I think that film is a fine example of such an artistic hodge-podge.
Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland is similarly delightful.
The casting in this film was top notch. Woody Harrelson is a damned hoot as the zombie-ass-kicking Tallahassee. A brutal butcher of blood-soaked brain brunchers, Harrelson also has a soft side. His losses in the wake of the zombpocalypse, revealed late in the film, are substantial and heart-breaking. Plus, the man simply longs for a twinkie. It's the carrot that drives him--life's simplicities.
Jesse Eisenberg is perfect as the neurotic Columbus, whose rules for survival literally flash on and off the screen throughout the film. He's got the dork thing down pat, but he rises to the occasion when needed. Eisenberg shows some promise; I think he might have more chops than the rest of the Micheal Cera, Jonah Hill set.
Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin are solid as a couple of hard-as-nails sisters with "trust issues." They hold up well against their male counterparts, though it's certainly not their film.
Oh, and there's a cameo in this one that simply slays. I won't bust it out on the blog, and stay away from IMDB if you want to enjoy that surprise. It's awesome (stick around for the quick post-credits deleted scene).
These zombies look like Romero's dead-eyed scourge, but they run like Danny Boyle's faster creatures--hence Columbus's first rule to survival: cardio.
It's an entertaining, fast-paced romp through the United States of Zombieland, at times a touching buddy comedy, at times a sad ode to existentialism. Fleischer gets in, gets messy and keeps the action moving forward. At a little over eighty minutes in length, the film blazes by.
Oh, and check out the effects on Columbus's rule about seat belts. I've never seen anything like it, and I'm not talking about all the pre-pubescent zombie girls hanging off the minivan, folks. Killer effect.
Zombieland earns an 'A'. Nice to see some quality films coming coming down the pipeline of late...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
