Buffy Time: Review of Season Six

I know, it's been forever since I wrote a good Buffy review, and I'm sure you're all in withdrawal. One of the reasons for the hiatus is that I've been otherwise occupied. Denisa and I have just been too busy to have time for Buffy. But we've returned to our current favorite hobby: staying up too late devouring pop culture. And what a fun hobby it is.

Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has to be my personal favorite so far. The character arcs for all of the characters were really well done and mostly believable. The great thing about sticking with a show this long--a show that actually knows what it's doing--is that the payoffs just keep getting better. You know the characters, and you know their histories. Because of that, the actions of the characters mean a whole lot more. If someone betrays a friend, you understand just how harsh a betrayal that is. That's what really appealed to me about the later seasons of Lost, and it's what made this last season have such oomph for me.

Favorite (spoiler-free) parts?

Spike's arc was really well handled. As a character, he's been one of my favorites from the very beginning, and it's always entertaining to see where he ends up next.

The Trio as bad guys--consistently funny. I loved the endless stream of pop culture references. A lot of the time in my writing, I hold back on pop culture (despite how many people see nothing but pop culture in the end result). With the Trio, the writers held nothing back. Those guys are immersed in pop culture. The references were quick and as obscure as possible. Good times.

Anya--I really like her character and the set up of it. I enjoy her performances and was involved in her story every time it took

The core three--Buffy, Willow and Xander all had nice developments in this season. This isn't some static soap opera, where the same issues are dealt with week after week after endless week. Where in earlier seasons I had criticized the pacing at times--how it seemed some plot arcs took forever to develop and come to a resolution (Buffy and Angel, anyone?), in this season, everything seemed well placed. The writers never dwelt on a topic for too long, and they never ignored an issue for too long, either.

It all adds up to a great season. Not sure if it would be the same if I had started with this one, but that's okay. A show like this depends on faithful viewers. Buffy is worth the time investment, no doubt about it.

How I Got an Agent: Part III

Welcome back to another exciting entry into this series, started here and continued here. When last we met, I had admitted to being extraordinarily stupid. Not that that's anything particularly noteworthy for me, but in this case, the stupidity had to do with my approach to writing and trying to "break in." What approach?

The "write a book, submit it to an agent, get a nice rejection and write a new book" approach.

In my defense, I didn't just pursue this approach. Once my final draft was rejected, I sent it around to other places, as well. Not rabidly. I didn't send out hundreds of queries. I didn't query everyone in the book. I would send it to some agents I thought might be interested, and I would send it to some editors who also were open to queries. Over the years, I did have more nibbles. Some requests for full manuscripts, some more personalized rejections, but no Big Results.

So how was what I was doing stupid? For one thing, I wasn't approaching writing as I approached getting a library job. When I wanted a job badly, I sent out 50 applications in the space of about three months. I would have sent out more, but those were all the jobs I qualified for. And those applications took time and effort to seek out and complete. It was hard work. When it came time to query about getting a book published or getting an agent, I sent out sporadically. I'd send three or four, then wait a few weeks or few months and send a few more. I wasn't methodical, and I didn't devote a lot of time to it.

Would things have gone differently if I had? I can't say. What I can say is that I didn't approach it on a professional level, and so I got amateur results. If you're not willing to put in the time and effort to doing this as a business, it might always remain a hobby. That makes sense to me now, and I hope it will continue to do so. Then, I was too afraid of rejection--or at least that was my mental excuse. But come on--when the time came for me to get a job, I applied like crazy, rejection or not. You can't lose a game you don't play, but you also can't win, if you know what I mean.

The second stupid thing I did was not revise. I saw "no" and my brain shut down there. Are the five books I submitted bad books? No, I don't believe they are. They just weren't ready yet for the next step. They weren't at a high enough level. In this instance, I blame me being new at the whole writing thing. If you hike halfway up a mountain--higher than you've ever gone before--then you feel like you've accomplished something, and you have.

But you're still only halfway up the mountain.

What I should have done with those rejections from Joshua is looked at them, analyzed them, and then continued doing whatever it was I had been doing up to that point. Writing whatever book I was working on. Finished whatever project I had going. Then, when I had a bit of time to think and be more objective, I should have gone back to the rejections, reread the books, and done another draft of them. Polished them even more. Granted, nowhere did Joshua say "Please revise this and send it back to me." I would have done that if he had asked. But he also left the door open, saying he could see potential, but he couldn't decide if it would be worth my while to revise, or if I should just try something else.

Maybe I could have not revised one or two books, but five? I should have tried something different--actually revising--before I ever got to five submissions. Live and learn, right.

All of this will make ever so much more sense once I get to Part IV, but there are a few things that need to happen for me to write that one, so I'll just end it here for now. Next week, Part IV will come.

Promise.

How I Got an Agent: Part II

In Part I, I talked about how I'd gone to a Con to mingle with editors and agents in the fantasy field, and how I'd ended up getting a phone call response to my book out of one of the connections I made there. I just want to note again how I don't feel like that description really does the process justice. On paper, it seems so cut and dry. I went to the con, mingled, got a good contact. It wasn't that way in real life. For one thing, I don't know if Joshua would have given me the time of day if it hadn't been for Brandon's introduction, although for the life of me I can't remember now if Brandon introduced me to Joshua personally when I first met him or not. Moot point.

What I mean to say is that I don't know if I can wholeheartedly endorse the Con approach to meeting PWMs. If you're naturally outgoing and can mingle with the best of them, then maybe it would work for you. I failed to note in my last post another key thing: I essentially crashed the Tor and Del Ray parties. I certainly didn't have an invite, and though I generally believe that the parties aren't "closed," it didn't do much to help me feel like I belonged, if that makes sense.

I did go to one more Con: WorldCon in LA the next summer. World Fantasy was more of an intimate Con. No hordes of fans, just a couple thousand. WorldCon . . . was much bigger. Very easy to feel lost in the mix there. I once again went with friends, and this helped somewhat. I once again went to parties. But in the end, I had a lukewarm feeling about cons. I personally am not a good enough extrovert to be able to go up to total strangers with the purpose of getting them to publish or represent my book. (Of course, I plan on going up to strangers and trying to get them to BUY my book, so perhaps I'm going to have to get more practice. One hopes that actually having a book makes a difference. Sort of a tangible piece of evidence that I am not crazy. Who knows?)

So . . . Cons can be very useful. You certainly get to see and talk with some of the movers and shakers in the industry. Could that be spun into a successful novel pitch and an eventual book deal? Theoretically. But keep in mind that there are tons of other aspiring authors doing the same thing. These poor editors and agents get a lot of requests. Some are just flat out crazy (trying to shove a manuscript to the editor while he's in a bathroom stall, for example). Some are weak. (My approach). None are guaranteed.

In my case, I sent Joshua the next 50 pages of my book and waited a few weeks. I got a very nice two page letter explaining what he saw as the flaws of the book, and how he would have to pass on this one, but also saying he was very interested in seeing more from me. A few days later, he even called again to see if I had any more questions for him. So while I didn't get an agent on my first submission, I did make a very good first impression.

So. He wanted to see something else. At that time, I was working on a very different book (Ichabod), but I wanted to send Joshua something similar to what he'd just seen. Building on the suggestions he'd made on the first book I sent him, I wrote a new one, workshopped it, and sent it off. Joshua passed on it, once again writing a very nice letter detailing the reasons why.

This set up a pattern for me. Over the next five years, I sent Joshua Weaver of Dreams, The Adventures of Barboy, Vodnik, Ichabod and Pawn of the Dead. Each one of them received pretty much the same answer--a letter saying there were things he enjoyed, but that ultimately it was another no from him. Each one felt like I was close enough that I just needed to make a few tweaks to my approach to writing, and I'd be solid for the next book. Each time I wrote a new book instead of revising the current one.

This was stupid for a number of reasons, some of which are obvious, some of which might not be.

But all of which will have to wait for Part III. I'm all out of lunch break, folks.

Internet Speeds and You

I'll have more info about how I got my agent in days to come, but I have to spread out the story a bit for reasons I can't get into at the moment. In the meantime, here's an important PSA (public service announcement) from yours truly, reposted from my entry over on my library blog.



In today's tech Tuesday post, I want to talk a bit about internet speeds, since many people I've talked to over the years seem not to understand them. They know there's "fast" and "slow", but that's about it. Allow me to explain. The slowest of the slow these days would be dial-up--using something like AOL or another internet provider to connect via your phone connection. This clocks in around 56 kbit/second (theoretically--in practice it's more like 40-50). This is very slow. Painfully slow.

Remember: painfully slow=50 kbit/second.

So what's fast? Blazingly fast in America these days would be around 50 mbit/second. This is about 1000 times as fast as dial up. It also is only available in large cities, and costs an arm and a leg to get. ($155/month)

Fact: you do not need internet speeds this fast.

So what's reasonable? Well, I get 3 mbit/sec at my house, and that's adequate. I'd like 4 or more, but such is life. It's a balance between cost and return. At work, I get something like 35 mbit/sec, which is very appreciated, especially when I have to download large files. Of course, there's the other side of the coin: upload speeds.

When you're using the internet, sometimes you're getting information--you're watching a movie, looking at pictures, listening to music, etc. That's the speed people usually look at, and it's the one I've discussed so far. But sometimes you're giving information--putting pictures on Facebook, trying to Skype with a friend, playing a video game with other friends, etc. This is called upload speed, and it can be just as important, but as a rule, if you get a high download speed, you'll get a relatively high upload speed, as well.

So what people do is they call up their cable or phone company and say "I want fast internet." The cable or phone company cackles and hooks them up with "fast internet." Since people don't understand what fast is (or how to measure speed), they just accept the idea that they now have "fast" internet. It's certainly faster than dial-up, so why worry? This is crazy to me. If you're paying for a certain internet speed, you should be sure you're getting what you're paying for.

How do you tell?

Go to speedtest.net and follow the onscreen instructions.

Don't use anecdotal evidence. Don't assume that it "feels" fast, so it must be fast. Test it. Your internet service provider (ISP) should be obligated to provide you with consistent speeds at least 80% of what they're advertising. (Sometimes internet speeds can bog down, but if you're paying for 10 mbit/sec and only getting 1, there's a problem.) If you note a problem, contact your ISP. Complain. You're paying the money, they need to provide the services.

Why does it matter? If you don't notice you're slow, why care? I suppose if all you do is look at websites with no videos or Flash or the like, it doesn't. (But then, why are you paying for really fast internet?) If you're trying to play games, stream movies on Netflix, Skype with video and the like, a faster connection will give you a noticeable improvement.

In the end, this is just a message to encourage you to be aware of what you're paying for and what you're getting in return. Because a well-informed consumer is a happy consumer.

How I Got an Agent: Part I

It's official. After five years, I have an agent. Correct that--after five years of TRYING, I have an agent. I've been writing since 2000. Writing daily since about 2002 or so. How did I get said agent? Well, I can give the general outline right now, though some specifics might need to wait to come out later.

Back in 2003, I was invited to be in a writing group with Brandon Sanderson. Brandon was in the English MA program at BYU with me, and had a book deal in the works with Tor for Elantris. Anyway, he had been trying to get a second writing group going for a while, and I came into the scene then. It was a small group at first, but it eventually got to be about eight or nine by the time I left Utah in 2007. We met weekly, with submissions capped at about 5,000 words per week. Good times.

Anyway, Brandon often told us about how he got his first book contract. He'd taken a writing course at BYU from Dave Wolverton (I was actually in the same class, but I never spoke to Brandon then--he sat across the room from me.) Dave told him that it was time to start going to Cons. You've heard of some of them: ComicCon, DragonCon, WorldCon. Conventions with thousands of fantasy fans banding together. And not just fans. If you go to the right Cons, there are fantasy authors, agents and editors there, as well. There will be panels that focus on different aspects of the business, upcoming trends, etc. Anyway, Brandon started going to these Cons, going to parties and doing his best to sell his books. That's where he met his agent for the first time, and it's where he met his editor, too. So Brandon was a big believer in going to Cons.

He was gearing up to go to World Fantasy in Madison, Wisconsin in 2005, and he kept trying to convince some of us in writing group to come, too. I wasn't too keen on the idea. It would be a big expense, and the thought of trying to go up to a bunch of strangers to sell my book was about as appealing as the thought of performing open heart surgery on myself. At the last minute, I decided to bite--three weeks before the Con, I got the plane ticket, registered and got everything set up.

The Con was an interesting experience. I roomed with Brandon, Isaac Stewart (the guy who now does maps for Brandon's books) and Dave Wolverton. I went to panels on writing, went to bookstores with Brandon and Dave, and went to parties at night. The parties are where you have a good shot at meeting People Who Matter (we'll call them PWMs for short), or at least that's what I was told. There's free beer (and soda), and lots of schmoozing. I never felt quite so out of place. You could tell there were lots of other people there trying to do the same thing I was--people would walk around the room looking at everyone's name tag, looking for the PWMs. Since I don't drink, I didn't even have some liquid courage to get me to loosen up. I managed to squeak out something to two PWMs: an editor from Del Ray, and Joshua Bilmes, Brandon's agent. Joshua was very gracious and said I could send him the first three chapters of the book I had written, and then I fled the scene to try and regroup and stop hyperventilating. (Looking back at my journal, I still get tense just remembering it. Interesting side note--that party was November 4, the five year anniversary of my first date with Denisa. Kind of a strange coincidence.)

The Con was overall a mixed bag for me. I felt like I'd learned some, made some better connections with a few people, but I felt like I'd really failed at the whole "being proactive" thing. Whenever I tried to talk to strangers, I just panicked. I couldn't think of anything really good to say, and I was sure I seemed like a complete idiot. But I got home, I got the chapters together, and I sent them off to Joshua. They were the first things I ever sent anywhere. I'd heard the horror stories: I was convinced it would take hundreds of such letters before I got any real interest from anyone.

Joshua called me on the phone less than two months later.

I was sick, lying in bed and playing World of Warcraft when Denisa walked in with my phone. "It's Joshua," she said. I stared at her. "Joshua who?" and then it clicked. I spoke with him. He liked the piece I'd sent very much, and agreed to see the next 50 pages before he made up his mind. He had some reservations about it, and wondered if they would turn into bigger problems. I'll leave off the narrative there for now, since I'm about out of time. (No worries, though--I'll take it up next time I blog about this).

The moral of the story? I met my agent by being proactive. By forcing myself to talk to people, even though I was terrified of doing it. By deciding at the last minute to follow other people's advice, even if it involved traveling halfway across the country. I've heard people talk about how they "broke in" to publishing for years, and the only thing everyone has in common is that no two stories are alike. Well, that and the fact that they were all willing to put a great deal of effort into something they felt passionate about.

But we'll get to the "great deal of effort" in a later post.

Book Review: The Ask and the Answer

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


You never quite know what you're going to get when you open up a sequel. In the case of The Knife of Never Letting Go, the ending was such a cliffhanger that you almost had to read the second book before you could properly review the first. (Sort of like how you don't know what you scored with a strike until you've bowled the next two frames. Look at that--I just managed to incorporate bowling into a book review. It's been that sort of a day.)

In any case, I've now read the sequel to Patrick Ness's original, and it was just as good as the first, maybe better. One of the things I liked so much about the first was how well Ness handled his character. You see things from Todd's point of view so clearly, and the choices he has to make all have huge implications, but those choices aren't handled cavalierly or from an author-moving-chess-pieces-around sort of approach. Todd makes the decisions Todd would make. Always. The second book extends that, involving Viola's POV, as well. Once again, Viola stays just as consistent as Todd.

Throughout the book, the two make hard choices. They have to deal with issues that have no clear right or wrong answers--heavy issues that I was genuinely interested to see how they reacted to them. In fact, one of the criticisms I've heard of the first book is that it's too much of a boy's book--Todd's POV is so strong that it can alienate girl readers. This might be the case, but if that's so, then the sequel should solve some of that, since Todd's viewpoint is now only half the book. Viola has her own unique way of looking at things, and the views are distinct and each handled well.

Again, I don't want to delve into spoilers. The basics are that Todd and Viola find themselves caught between two violently opposed factions, and they each take sides as they try to cope with what's at play. Some themes include what makes it possible for a tyrant to come to power, how is the best way to deal with tyranny, and where is the line where resistance to tyranny becomes just as bad as the tyranny itself. Deep, but action packed. Suffice it to say that it's a great book. If you liked the first, you'll like this one. If you were so so about the first (but finished it), definitely pick this one up and give it a shot.



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What Kind of Geek are You?

 

So according to this, I'm a film geek, tech geek, pop culture geek, book geek, video game geek, World of Warcraft geek, food geek, theater geek, music geek, computer geek, internet geek and academic geek. I'm only missing a handful until I become Geekimus Maximus and rule the geek world forever. Don't know if I'll ever get there, though. I just can't bring myself to become a Glee geek.

How about you? What sort of geek are you?

Phone Calls and Bryce

I'm a chronically chatty person by nature. I'm the person who spent more than seven hours on the phone talking to my family on Mother's Day while I was on my mission (count 'em: seven. We get two phone calls a year as missionaries: Mother's Day and Christmas. I made them count. Plus I had two families to talk to.) In high school, I was often found chatting away on the phone with my friends for hours on end. (Almost always girls--I didn't talk to guys that much on the phone. Go figure.) Anyway, this is just to say that I'm comfortable on the phone.

Usually.

If I don't know the person I'm calling, or if I'm at all nervous about potential rejection, I am deathly afraid of telephones. In high school, this led to some long drawn out sessions while I tried to gather the courage to call someone up to ask her on a date. I remember writing down different scenarios, making notes about what I could say, just in case something went wrong. Yeah. I was that kind of guy.

I no longer make notes, but I still am terrified of phone rejection. What's up with that? How can I go from being this phone-confident person to being this guy who can barely bring himself to hit the numbers? I try to avoid calling customer service reps unless I'm really angry--that's the only way to really combat the nerves that I've found, but it's not like I can get angry any time I need to call someone. Maybe I'm the Incredible Hulk of the phone world . . .

I assume I'm not alone in this regard. Anyone else have any phone horror stories they'd like to share?

DVD Collecting

It's autumn, and that means I have new funds to buy DVDs at the library. I look forward to this time, mainly because I no longer buy any DVDs for my personal collection. (Netflix has made that kind of redundant.) But at the library? I have a good chunk of change to devote to the collection each year, and that makes me happy. When I first came on board, the film collection was sort of just languishing there. They had money set aside for it, but no one was really guiding the collection. The result was a very fragmented array of films. Library staff would ask film professors what movies they wanted, and so the collection was like an overview of the various niche classes being taught at the university. I'm not saying that's not important--it's vital that at a small university library such as mine, we focus on supporting the curriculum. But at the same time, I also have strong feelings that such a support be given the proper setting. Students should be able to view the classics--have a variety of films to choose from to give context to the other films they're watching in class. At least, that's the general approach I've taken as I've been adding to the collection the past three years. The first year, I added the essentials in American cinema. The next, I went with foreign films. The next, I went on to flesh out some of the genres and other movies I'd missed. This year . . . I'm cleaning house.

We have something like 350 or more VHS tapes. 350. Yikes. I've been wanting to get rid of 'em since I got here, but I didn't want to clean everything out until there was something to put in its place. Now that I've fleshed out the DVDs a bit, the VHS can start to go. Not that I'm just tossing them--I'm getting rid of the ones that haven't checked out in years and years, but I'm replacing the ones I can that have checked out a fair bit, exchanging them for their DVD counterparts. It feels odd, replacing old materials with a format that's already dated, but at least DVDs will play in Bluray players. (You have to realize that not many people out in rural Maine have made the switch to Bluray yet. Some of them haven't even switched to DVD.)

Of course, there are some VHS that just don't exist in DVD format yet, so . . . I'm going to have to hold on to some of them for a while longer, it seems. I'm certainly not going to toss them just because they're in a dated format. Not yet, at least. But there comes a day when really old formats have to go. Such is life. We don't have LPs or 8 Tracks or even any audio cassettes in the collection now. One day, the same will be true of VHS.

Book Review: Incarceron

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a decent book that could have been better. Should have been better, really. The concept's a cool one (although it seems to have been done some before in the past): a boy wakes up in a prison with no memory of how he got there, and only vague memories of his past. Coupled with this is another plotline: a girl who's betrothed to the next king, in a world very unlike the world the boy finds himself in. Of course, we find out the two worlds are connected. The girl's world created what was supposed to be a paradise controlled by a computer. The boy lives in that "paradise," where everything went wrong and the happiness disappeared a long time ago.


So, what did I like? The plot was brisk enough, moving forward in a sort of "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" way. The characters were fairly engaging, and the conflict engrossing. You'll note that I'm using disclaimers here--I clearly wasn't blown away by the book. It took me three weeks to finish, which I think is a sign right there: I just wasn't captivated enough to be swept away and dive into the book.


So what didn't I like? My biggest complaint is that the book is riddled with poor use of magic/sci-fi elements. In a good fantasy/sci-fi book, the rules are clearly established. You can't just do "anything"--the author shows early on what is possible and impossible in the world, and then those rules are adhered to religiously. Not so in this book. The author constantly disclosed elements that conveniently caused trouble or--worse still--solved conflict. It's hard to get involved in the action when the action is solved by a "oh wait--I have this magic ______ that will solve this for us" technique.


Another complaint stems from this: often the description of what was going on was just too vague for me. The fantasy and sci-fi elements were nebulous. I had a hard time picturing what was being described and how it was affecting our characters.


Really, in light of these two critiques, it's a testament to how good the rest of the book was that I still gave it three stars. In other words, if you're not as big of a stickler for fantasy as I am, you might very well really enjoy this book. :-)
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House Update

It's been a while since I told you all what I was up to with my various house projects, and it's time for me to report back on how they all went. Let me run them down, one by one.

First: scraping, sanding and staining the barn/garage--Denisa and I have finished the front, and we're almost done with the side. That means 2 out of 3 sides will be done this year. The back . . . is going to have to wait until next year, I think. It's getting to be too cold to paint, and I don't want to scrape it and then leave it unpainted for a winter. That's okay--the back is in small enough chunks that I think we can handle it with a couple of ladders and some planks. No need for scaffolding/pump jacks.

The woodshed--Is almost totally done. All that remains is to put the clapboard up and then caulk and stain it. The clapboard should happen this week or next, and the staining will happen at the same time. We're already putting wood into it, and it's serving its purpose well. Oh--a light needs to be installed, but that shouldn't take too much time . . .

Clean the garage--Done. Denisa's mom did this one practically all on her own while she was out visiting us. Thank you!

Cut down the silver maple--Not sure if we're going to do this now or not. We priced it out and had several people come look at it, and it looks like it's just been dropping branches due to wind damage, not due to the health of the tree. We might still have it come down in November, but . . . we'll see.

Entryway floor--Done a long time ago. Still very pleased with how it turned out.

Garden--Quite successful, although you'd have to ask Denisa for a report back on that. I think I went out and dug once or twice, but when it comes to gardens, Denisa's in charge.

Ordering and stacking the wood--Currently have 3.5 cord on hand, with another cord coming. Had stacked it out front while the woodshed was being built. Have to restack it in the woodshed now.

And . . . there you have it. It's been a busy fall (which is when we finished most of these things), but as I look back on it all, it's been a very successful fall, too. Go us!

Movie Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Woody Allen. Most people I've talked to either love his movies or hate them. I fall into the love category. I think he makes Films that are both deep and accessible, a combination you don't find every day in modern cinema. You either have popcorn flicks or "serious movies." You don't get both.

Woody Allen is the exception to the rule, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona is actually fairly un-Woody Allen-like. It doesn't star him, for starters, it takes place in Barcelona, not New York, and it isn't full of quirky characters doing quirky things. That said, I still adored it.

 Before I go further with the review, a disclaimer. It's PG-13, but I don't think it's a movie that's really great for 13 year olds. For one thing, a large part of the film details a relationship between a man and two women, all sharing the same house, room, etc. I'm being polite here, but you get my drift. And it presents this triangle of a relationship in perfectly normal, ordinary terms--as if it's completely acceptable. Call me Puritan (and some of you no doubt will), but I personally don't find such a relationship to be acceptable. If you're sufficiently mature, I think you can watch the film and think about the aspects of relationships that Allen is exploring. If you're not mature enough, I think you could quickly become confused about right and wrong.

Of course, this leads me to feel the need to justify my personal belief system in what's right and what's wrong. I mean, I can easily see someone objecting to my statement above. If a film can portray a nonstandard relationship as perfectly acceptable and normal, who am I to say such a relationship is "wrong." If I were to explore such an inquiry, we'd quickly devolve into belief systems, and from there we're just a hop away from religion, and then I'm defending my faith, something which I feel no need to do in a movie review. And so that's all I'll say about that for now.

On to the review.

Denisa and I watched this together, and we both really enjoyed it. What's not to enjoy? The cinematography is breathtaking, and makes you want to book a trip to Barcelona tomorrow. The acting is fantastic. Penelope Cruz won an Oscar for her role, and it was very deserved. Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem both put in star performances, as well. The soundtrack is wonderfully appropriate (if perhaps a tad too catchy--you'll be humming it for hours afterward). And the subject is substantial.

The premise is simple: two friends travel to Barcelona for the summer. One is engaged and firmly rooted in the real. She's practical above all, and knows just what she wants out of life. The other is prone to the dramatic and constantly searching for More. They meet a man who invites them to come with him on a trip to a different city. Drama ensues.

To me, this movie is all about relationships. What makes a good one work, and what makes another one fall apart? What is love, and how should it be treated in real life? What makes this film stand out to me is that the characters in it feel real--not like stereotypes. They make real decisions with real consequences, and they stick to those decisions, avoiding Hollywood tropes and endings tied up in a bow. I challenge you to watch this with your significant other and not have it serve as a launching point for deep discussion.

Anyway. With the caveats listed above, I heartily recommend this one. Four stars, and it makes me want to do a Woody Allen post at some point, listing all the movies of his I've seen, and what I've thought of them. Maybe one day . . .

It's a Crazy World We Live In

So I just read this story about Google developing self-driving cars. Google. Self-driving cars. And this is for some reason news that's relegated to an afterthought of a tech blog? Why am I not reading about this on CNN or Fox? A car that drives itself! And it's already logged 140,000 miles, with the only accident being getting rear ended by another car. Am I the only one to think this sounds just too cool? I mean, I don't know if I'd trust a computer to drive me on the freeway at 65mph, but I know I'd trust a computer a whole lot more than I trust some of the other drivers on the road.

And how crazy is it that Google of all companies is the one to be spearheading this? Wouldn't you think an automobile company would be on top of this, instead? Oh yeah--they're all bankrupt. Oh well--far be it for me to criticize who's coming up with the new innovations. I'm just looking forward to being able to be driven down to Pennsylvania overnight. Cross country trips where you don't need a hotel? You just sleep in your car and wake up to sight see in the next spot. Google, while you're doing this, could you also please develop a flying car and a robot maid? Because I'd really like to live in the Jetsons world at last. Also, please send me a dog that talks and answers to the name "Astro."

The Knife of Never Letting Go

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There's a big, growing genre in YA right now: dystopian science fiction. Basically, it's bleak sci-fi set in a world that's often post-apocalyptic. Worlds that are ruled by totalitarian regimes, have strict laws about what can and can't be done. That sort of stuff. You might recognize other books in this vein: The Hunger Games, The Giver, Uglies, The City of Ember, Feed--I could rattle off quite a few from the top of my head. Books that share the same basic concept, and then focus on how characters deal with living in that situation. I enjoy them all.

Add another great one to the list.

The Knife of Never Letting Go has a fascinating premise: a group of people colonize a planet, but soon after colonizing it, they start to be able to hear what other people are thinking. Not some of the time, either. A constant barrage of thoughts from everyone. They call it Noise. What's worse, the women of the colony all died from an apparent alien disease. The protagonist of the story is Todd Hewitt, the youngest boy of the colony. The only boy, at this point. With no women, there have been no more children, so one by one, the boys have grown up and become men. In a month, Todd will become a man himself, going through with the initiation rites his people have developed.

I don't want to get into too many details, because I don't want to spoil things for you, but the book was utterly fantastic. Todd is thrown into some very difficult situations, but he deals with them all in a realistic manner. There are no convenient plot points--no miraculous saves by the author. Patrick Ness (the author) puts Todd into a mess, and it's up to Todd to get himself out. I read this book in a flash, and I loved every second of it.

Better yet, Mantor is adding the entire trilogy very soon. Look for it in the new books section. But you'll have to fight me for the next one.



View all my reviews

The Creative Process across the Arts

I've been thinking a lot the last few days about the creative process. I have quite a bit of experience on the writing side of things--I know firsthand the sort of effort that goes into writing a novel, how that differs from the approach you have to take when writing a short story, how to develop themes and plot arcs and the like. I also know a fair bit about the efforts that go into making a film: how the director, screenwriter, actors, editor, cinematographer, composer and all work together to come up with a final product.

And then there's music itself. I'm studying Beethoven this semester, and it's been really  interesting to hear my professor talk about the different themes in Beethoven's music--how they're developed, how they change from one movement to the next, how they're introduced and how they're resolved. That sort of stuff. I've always been a fan of classical music, but I've usually approached it from a performer's point of view. How did the bassoon part fit into the piece? Yes, I've kept an ear out for other parts, but I've never really thought of music in the same way that I've thought about writing.

All of these thoughts have left me wondering how much the creative process differs across the arts. For me, writing is almost a group activity at times. Yes, I can closet myself away and work on a novel, not bringing it into the light of day until it's finished, but even then, I still rely on other people reading it and giving me input so I can decide what to change and how best to edit it. Does that happen in painting? Does an artist take his/her canvas to a group of peers and ask for input on it? And what about composers? Do they have test runs of symphonies where they can decide what's working and what's not? Maybe other arts do have these sort of test runs, and I'm just woefully ignorant.

If anyone out there is a sculptor or painter or composer, would you mind sharing the steps you go through to create a new piece?

Inquiring minds want to know . . .

Waiting

With some things, I'm a pro at waiting. Putting off something around that house that needs to be done sometime? I can do that. Postponing a haircut? No problem. Chores are something I excel at waiting for. But in other areas of waiting, I'm down right impatient. I tend to obsess over things, and I really like to get something done as quickly as I can, if it's something that I start to worry at all about. I'm probably not alone in this regard, but I write about this today mainly because there's something on the horizon that I have to wait for, and there's nothing to be done until Thursday. In the meantime, I'm finding it hard to concentrate on things. There's plenty to be done between now and Thursday. The front side of our garage is now scraped, sanded and painted, and we have to do the same to the side and the back. The woodshed needs clapboard put on, and then it needs to be painted, too. It's just hard to get that all done when I keep pausing every five minutes to think about that thing that's happening on Thursday.

And no, I can't share with you what it is. It's nothing life and death, so don't you start worrying about it, too. Instead, let's talk about something to take my mind off the waiting. What are the best movies you've seen where waiting is essential to the plot? Here are some off the top of my head, all of which I recommend:

High Noon
3:10 to Yuma
Christmas Story
Groundhog Day
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Forrest Gump

I'm sure there are many many more. I haven't even touched on horror films, and that's gotta have a ton. But for some reason, I'm having trouble concentrating . . . Please, add to the list.

Movie Review: One, Two, Three

I'm here with a doozy of a movie for you this week. It's a great example of a film I had never even heard of, but which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm betting that if I never heard of it, you haven't either. That's my favorite kind of movie to find, really. The film in question this time? One, Two, Three. It stars James Cagney as a Coca Cola executive in Berlin right before the wall goes up. And it's a comedy. Not just any kind of comedy--total slapstick. The premise is fairly simple. Cagney wants to move up in the Coca Cola world, and the boss's daughter comes to Berlin for a two week stay. All Cagney has to do is keep her under control. Easy enough, he thinks. Then she slips across the border and marries a card carrying Commie. Hilarity ensues. The movie takes its time getting everything set up, but once it pulls the trigger, it's nonstop action and humor right up until the end. Denisa and I both really enjoyed it. Oh--and did I mention it's directed by Billy Wilder? He better be a name in your director book: Sabrina, Stalag 17, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Blvd., Double Indemnity--all of them classics. Check this one out--it's on instant streaming on Netflix.

On a side note, it was also fascinating to see the portrayal of the Cold War conflict well before it got really Cold. In fact, the Berlin Wall went up during the filming of this movie--that had to finish filming elsewhere because of the politics involved.

My Experiences with Raiders of the Lost Ark

NOTE: Today's post is brought to you by Browsing Room, my library blog that I keep updated as part of my job. I was happy with today's entry and thought I'd share it with you all, too. Enjoy!

So today's movie review isn't much of a review. I mean, I assume it goes without saying that virtually everyone in the world has seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. You have, haven't you? (If not, could you please tell me why not?) So what's the point in reviewing a movie most people have already seen, and the majority of the film world views as a classic?


Instead, I'm going to talk about the impact that movie has made on me. Because we all know reviews are all about the reviewer anyway, so why pretend they're about anything else?*


My earliest Raiders memories are quite vivid in my mind for a number of reasons. Number one, my family rented it from the movie store, and I dropped it down the stairs, breaking the video tape. The movie came out in 1981, so I figure I was probably in first grade or so by the time I dropped it down the stairs, although I suppose I might have been a bit older. I remember pretending to be Indiana Jones on the playground. In my mind, this consisted of rubbing my face a lot in contemplation, and then pretending to whip just about everything in sight. All I was missing was some facial stubble.


And of course, there's one other reason Raiders stood out in my elementary school mind: people's faces melted in it. Literally melted. Like, you could see their bones and everything. How cool was that? To think I lived in an age where I could see people's faces melt . . . beyond awesome. Looking back at that memory, I kind of wonder what the heck my parents were thinking, letting me see it. I mean, I think my son's still a year or two off from being able to watch it, but maybe I'm just more of a stickler than my parents were.


In any case, Indiana Jones was a pinnacle in my mind from a very early age. Since then, I've watched the movie many many times. I own the box set of the trilogy, and I enjoy seeing it each time. For more nitty-gritty details on the movie, check out the excellent imdb page on the movie. I love that site, and have spent many hours happily immersed in movie trivia and behind the scenes tidbits. (For example, did you know Raiders was Alfred Molina's first film? Or that the screenplay was done by the same guy who did the screenplay for another classic: Empire Strikes Back? Stuff like that just fascinates me. Gotta love the movie connections.)


My question to you all is this: what are your first Raiders memories? Please share, if you're willing. I'd love to hear them. And if (gasp!) you've never seen the movie, it's waiting here in Mantor for you to check out. Come on by and pick it up, then tell me what you think.


Happy Friday, all!



*To explain--Reviews vary wildly based on the reviewer. One person may love a film, another may hate it. I'm sure there are people out there who have never seen Raiders, or who wish they'd never seen it to begin with. That's okay. There are people who don't like bratwurst, either. The trick with reviews is to find a reviewer whose taste are close to your own, then listen to that reviewer and ignore everybody else. Who cares if 99% of reviewers hated a movie, so long as you loved it? Today, with Rottentomatoes and the like, people seem to want to defend their tastes. They're upset if other people disagree with them. That's silly. I can love a movie; you can hate it. I can't tell you that you're wrong, and vice versa. There's no right or wrong when it comes to taste.


Except with Raiders of the Lost Ark. :-)