My Year in Books: 2011, part 5

WHITE LIKE ME — Late last year, I saw a talk on the concept of white privilege given by anti-racism advocate Tim Wise. The talk and the topic deserve a post of their own (at least), but suffice it to say that the talk opened my eyes to the subject in a way I badly wish they had been a long time ago. Having appreciated the insight in his talk, I started seeking out other speaking engagements on YouTube, and bought what seemed to me to be his “entry-level” book on the subject, a personal memoir of his own journey of realizing and understanding racism and privilege in American culture.

As a public speaker and advocate, he’s honed and refined many of his arguments and anecdotes for maximum effect and uses them often, so having watched many of his talks I was well familiar with some of his favorite ones, but there was a lot in here I hadn’t heard in his talks. Without becoming a scold, he communicates all the moments in his life — moments just about anyone in the middle-class could identify with — when he realized race was a factor he had never noticed before. By calling them out, it forces the reader to acknowledge and wrestle with them as well.

Or rather, it forces a reader who is white (like me) to do so. A non-white reader would be well familiar with the racial component of each and every one of those moments, and that’s kind of the point. It’s easy for me, even as someone with a number of non-white friends, to blithely assume that because racism isn’t a problem for me, it isn’t a problem. That’s wrong, and I intend to continue working to understand and overcome my own sense of privilege, so that I can be a better friend and a better person. And I intend to read more of Wise’s books in future. [Kindle Edition]

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE — Confession: before this I had not read any Vonnegut. I finally got around to reading this one, the name of which I’d heard but knew nothing else about, and was thrilled to discover what so many people already knew about Vonnegut. It’s funny, intelligent, even profound and heart-aching at times. I loved it and I’ve already recommended it to other friends who are just lately becoming pleasure readers. I’d recommend it to you, too, but in all likelihood you read it years ago, in your formative years, and I’m telling you nothing at all new here. [Kindle Edition]

HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST — I first heard about this book a while back when John August announced he had optioned it with the intention of developing the film version. The book leans heavily on the medium of the written word, so he’s got his work cut out for him, but being no stranger to the adaptation game — and considering that he took it upon himself to option it, rather than being approached by a producer — I’m sure he’s got a plan and I look forward to the adaptation.

It’s the story of a man who, with open (and hilarious) cynicism, sets out to write the quintessential Successful Book. Along the way he skewers the full range of hacky (and fantastic) novels and novel writers, and the writers’ pretensions of “artistry,” including excerpts of novels so spot-on I’m half-convinced I’ve actually read a few of them.

Funny, smart, well-written (and badly written well) with some unexpected emotional punch, I don’t see the movie in my head^[1], but I do see what would compel someone to want to make one, and I’ll definitely check it out when it’s out. Highly recommended, especially to you “readers” out there who will recognize a lot of the skewered tropes. [Kindle Edition]

A PRINCESS OF MARS — With JOHN CARTER coming out soon, I thought I’d take a look at the source material, considered by some to be one of the seminal works of modern science fiction.

I can certainly identify many of the trees that grew from this seed, but the seed itself is… the kindest word for it would be “quaint,” I think. From a time when men were Men and women were Property, John Carter the narrator is so hopelessly narcissistic and self-involved it almost goes all the way round to becoming charming again. Almost.

There is a good amount of imagination on display here, incorporating the contemporary belief that there were canals (and, therefore, canal-builders) on Mars, and Burroughs imagines an impressively detailed world, though it’s surprising the difference in sophistication of sci-fi (really, this is more fantasy) between now and then. It was, for example, apparently perfectly acceptable that John Carter got to Mars just… ‘cuz. No explanation ever given, he just sees Mars in the sky one night and then he’s there. It’s magic.

It also has no real story. Beyond the overarching “love” story of John wanting to save the titular Princess from having to do anything but be in his awesome presence, it’s just a series of events. There’s not building narrative, no thematic connection, earlier skirmishes only rarely raise their heads to antagonize him again. It’s just stuff happening, and stuff that’s been so heavily “borrowed” that it ends up feeling rather dull. If this was quintessential “sci-fi” in its time, no wonder the genre had a bad rap for so many years. [Kindle Edition]

BEFORE YOU SUFFOCATE YOUR OWN FOOL SELF — I used to have no patience for slice-of-life type stories, but I guess I’ve (gasp) matured or something. A collection of stories — mostly narrated by and about young black female characters trying to find their way in the world. In my pursuit of an English B.A. I read a number of black-female-coming-of-age stories, so it was a relief to read a book full of them none of which entail incestuous rape.

The author varies her writing style and approach enough to keep it fresh and interesting, tailoring the voice to the story — sometimes writing erudite and clever, sometimes going full-on The Novel Push By Sapphire and writing dialectically. I liked it, and if you like more “literary” fare this is a solid example. [Kindle Edition]

THE GRENDEL’S SHADOW — From what I can tell, Andrew Mayne seems to be a pretty successful and prolific Kindle author — he’s got a number of books on Amazon for $0.99, they keep popping up in suggestions and, I mean, it’s hard to say no to a book for a buck.

So I picked this one up and read it. It’s not bad, though not entirely what I expected. It’s a quick read — I read it in a day over the holidays — and inoffensive, but it also didn’t make a lasting impression on me. It’s very plot-driven, about an interstellar game hunter of sorts, and a journalist who is following him on one of his jobs. You don’t really get to know or connect with any of the characters, and so I had very little stake in them when things got dangerous. It had an alright plot, but no real story. Still, it was enough that I’m going to give Mayne another look at some point. [Kindle Only]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER — Seth Grahame-Smith is a genius. I don’t mean as a writer — although he’s quite good at that, as well — I mean as an ideas man. He started with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, capitalizing on the zombie craze^[2] and taking advantage of Pride and Prejudice being long in the public domain to create something great without expending a great deal of effort (compared to writing an entire book) to do so. A number of people have started to do the same, but as far as I can tell he thought of it first. Like I say, genius.

I’d probably be shittier about it, out of jealousy, if I didn’t know that he has the talent to write an entire novel on his own. Having read this book, I know that he does. The novel takes many of the facts of Abe Lincoln’s life and recasts them in the light of a secret vampire conspiracy threatening the nation, and Lincoln’s equally secret quest to stop it. It’s in the same vein as PP&Z — a new twist on an existing story — but it’s much more original story peppered through with some checkpoints of historical fact.

It’s hilarious in the same way that the Zombie Survival Guide is hilarious — that is to say, it’s funny largely because it approaches the subject with a completely straight face, and gets away with it. But, like Zombie Survival Guide, and even moreso its follow-up World War Z, it’s also a shockingly good novel, engaging and entertaining and — to use a cliche — tough to put down.

I don’t know how I feel about Timur “WANTED” Bekmambetov directing the film adaptation — on the one hand, his overblown and ridiculous style could be perfect; on the other, he’s very self-consciously over-the-top and the book’s strength, as I said, is in playing it as straightforward as possible. Either way, I recommend the book. [Kindle Edition]

A FEAST FOR CROWS — Apparently this book and the latest one, A Dance with Dragons, were intended to be one volume but got a bit out of control and had to be split into two. This one focuses on what’s going on in King’s Landing and around the Seven Kingdoms, leaving the Wall, the North, and the Free Cities (across the sea, mostly Daenerys and her dragons) to A Dance with Dragons.

If I’d had to wait the five years between books that long-time readers have, I bet this would have frustrated me a great deal. As it is, knowing I could read at least one more book any time I chose, I enjoyed this part of the story, especially the promise of certain characters getting their just desserts.

I missed Tyrion, who appears in Dragons instead, and found my eyes glazing over a little every time I got to a Brienne chapter (fans of the show, but not the books, will meet her in April). Her part of the story just isn’t that interesting to me — she just wanders around, being mocked by everyone, thinking about how ugly she is, and pining endlessly over [possible Clash of Kings/Season 2 spoiler redacted]. I have enjoyed the arc that has developed in Jaime’s story. I’m not sure if it’s entirely plausible, but by contrast with Brienne his chapters make me sit up and pay attention.

I’m reading Dance with Dragons right now (concurrent with a few other books), so I’m almost ready to join the long-time fans in the (possibly eternal^[3]) wait for the next book. [Kindle Edition]

I AM A GENIUS OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL AND I WANT TO BE YOUR CLASS PRESIDENT — A young evil (secret) genius uses his limitless wealth (accrued by playing the stocks, naturally) to attempt to rig his school elections. Another fairly quick read, well-written and amusing. I doubt it will show up on any “Classics of English Literature” lists down the line, but not every book needs to. Made for a good literary palate cleanser to round out my year. [Kindle Edition]

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1. Unless he changes it to How I Became a Famous Filmmaker and makes it about a guy who sets out to make the quintessential Oscar-bait indie film. That could be one way to translate it.

2. There are a lot of zombie novels out there for Kindle.

3. I know it’s shitty to just say it outright like this, but I hope Martin’s made some pretty comprehensive notes in case he dies before finishing, so someone can finish it as was necessary with Wheel of Time.

My Year In Books: 2011, Part 4

THE SORROW KING^† — A rash of suicides among the young residents of a small town are the tip of the iceberg for a sinister supernatural plot of some kind. I don’t know what kind because I stopped reading at the halfway point. Presumably it involves some evil entity for which the novel is named. The story premise is just interesting enough that I kept trying to read it, thinking maybe it could make the basis for a good low-budget film, but the prose and plotting is just uneven enough that I eventually gave up on it. It has some bright spots — the banter between the main POV character and his father is pretty good taken on its own — but overall I just couldn’t stick with it. [Kindle Edition]

ALICE IN QUANTUMLAND^† — A work of attempted science popularization, describing the weird and wacky concepts of quantum mechanics using Alice in Wonderland as a basis. The sensibility of Alice is uniquely suited to the task, with quantum mechanics being so full of seeming nonsense and apparently impossible things, but I somehow couldn’t be bothered to finish it.

The issue, for me, is that the concepts remain abstract. It describes the bizarre things photons and electrons and protons etc. do… but it doesn’t bother explaining how these things are applicable at the non-quantum level. How does this affect me? How has knowing this changed our world? I’m sure it has, but the book doesn’t bother describing any of it, unless it was in the last few chapters I didn’t read. It leaves quantum mechanics a mystifying novelty, squandering a solid metaphorical conceit by not using it to clarify the subject to this layperson in a meaningful way. [Kindle Edition]

GOD, NO! — I don’t always agree with Penn Jillette. It might even be that I disagree more often than not, but I haven’t done the math. But it’s still hard to dislike the guy. His book is a fun — if occasionally frustrating — read, and provides plenty of interesting insight into the way his mind works. Not just about atheism, it also talks about sexuality, the life of being a magician, and (blissfully little) politics. [Kindle Edition]

THE SHINING — It’s been a long time since I read a Stephen King book. I used to read damn near nothing else, but I just felt so burned on the end of the Dark Tower series. I did read Cell, his first post-“retirement” horror novel, and it was pretty good, but I still just lost my taste for the brand for a while.

But in preparation for a Down in Front episode for the Kubrick adaptation, I went back to re-read The Shining, and goddammit, when King is on, he’s really on. This just might be his best work, being the one of his stories with a concise and satisfying beginning, middle, and end. He’s had a lot of satisfying beginning-middles, but has a tendency to not quite stick the landing, at least in my opinion; his endings have a tendency to feel anticlimactic or like a sudden left turn. But Shining delivers, and may well be one of, if not his best novel.^[1]

After remembering what I liked about King in the first place, I think maybe I’m ready to read some of his newer stuff, to which I’ve been resistant. In fact I’ve just downloaded 11/22/63 via Audible. You’re on probation, Steve. [Kindle Edition]

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN (VOL. 1) — Rambling and often hilarious, as Twain intended. It is a gigantic motherfucker of a book in physical form, so I suggest the Kindle edition or audiobook if you actually want to do more than just display it on your coffee table. [Kindle Edition]

THE SERIAL KILLERS CLUB — A loser with no friends inadvertently joins a support group for serial killers, and finds himself having to kill them one-by-one before they figure out the truth. Bizarre and funny, with a very well-executed Unreliable Narrator. There’s one plot twist that didn’t land for me but I’d still say it’s worth reading. [Kindle Edition]

STEVE JOBS — An imperfect portrait of an imperfect man who was, ironically enough, obsessed with perfection. Worth reading for his story, but it really could have done with the extra few months of editorial work I’m assuming it didn’t get when his death put this on the fast track to publication. The same ground was covered more than once, anecdotes repeated^[2] and certain repetitive phrases started to stand out.^[3] But as it’s the most comprehensive biography on the man that’s ever likely to be published — not overly obsequious, and in some places pretty damning, it doesn’t leave room for a future exposé of the “untold history of Apple” or anything like that — if you’re interested in the man, you’ll be interested in the book. [Kindle Edition]

ON WRITING — Having revisited King I thought I’d revisit his memoir on becoming and being a writer. I wish he didn’t have such a disdain for plot — he’s quite proud of the fact that he writes without any idea of where he’s going, which I think explains why most of his stories start out strong and then run out of steam and/or conclude abruptly. Not to mention the twenty-five-year Dark Tower faceplant.^[4] And, corollary, why — with the exception of those guided by Frank Darabont — his stories tend not to adapt well into the visual medium. I wonder if his open admiration for the Harry Potter series has given him pause or cause to rethink his position. Anyway, a nice perspective on the life of a writer. [Kindle Edition]

A CLASH OF KINGS / A STORM OF SWORDS — I wanted to stagger the reading between Song of Ice and Fire books, but with everyone talking about what a shit-storm the third book is, never mind the swords, I had to roll straight from book 2 to book 3.

If you have any interest in all in the series I’m sure you’ve already heard all the things I could tell you; if you’ve seen or read GAME OF THRONES, it’s like that but moreso. Everything ratchets up a notch in 2, and exponentially in 3: the brutality, the sexuality, the magic, and the shocking and abrupt killing-off of characters — heroes and villains alike — who would be “safe” in any traditional narrative.

What especially stood out to me as I got deeper into the story was the depth of the world Martin created. He’s created thousands of years of history, true — wars, family lineages, alliances and betrayals — but that’s pretty much de rigeur for a modern fantasy series. What he’s done that really brings the world to life above and beyond other would-be successors to Tolkien is create thousands of years of culture as well. In the jargon of Tolkien scholarship, he hasn’t just created a mythopoeia, but an extensive in-world legendarium as well. Martin doesn’t go so far as to actually create functional languages for his varied races the way Tolkien did,^[5] but every culture has its own way of doing things, its own (sometimes quite detailed) reasons for doing so, its mythologies and folktales, its ballads and idioms. It also manages to feel completely thought out, without the in-your-face “look how much I thought this out!” attitude of many lesser series.^[6] [Kindle Edition / Kindle Edition]

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1. I want to say The Stand but man, the ending is just so abrupt and unsatisfying. The first half to three-quarters are probably his best writing, though.

2. His father told him about a cabinet-maker who finished the back of the cabinet to the same standard of quality as the rest even though it would be facing the wall and never seen because a true craftsman has Standards, Dammit™. And this mentality infused a lot of the decisions he made throughout his professional life. Cool. I got it. You don’t have to repeat the whole anecdote each time it comes up.

3. Take a drink every time a variation of “focused on producing great products” pops up.

4. I know, I really need to get over it. But, you know, fuck. Dark Tower 5-7 is the literary Star Wars I-III, and people have yet to stop bemoaning those turds, either.

5. Although I have to assume that the similarity in some words and names like valar, morghulis, and Drogo are deliberate homage.

6. My personal rule of thumb: an appendix is fine, but if you have to provide a glossary, you’re trying too hard.

My Year in Books: 2011, Part 3

PARANORMALITY — Richard Wiseman has written a book which, as a companion piece to Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World, should be considered the primer for skeptical thought. Where Sagan’s book focuses on the social and personal value of skepticism, and how skeptical thought is important for finding the truth about the universe around us, Wiseman’s book focuses on the idiosyncrasies of human psychology and human perception which are the reason such skeptical inquiry is so important. Written with wit and flair, this ought to be required reading. [Kindle Edition]

THE DIRTY PARTS OF THE BIBLE — A fun and funny, occasionally slightly raunchy coming-of-age-in-the-rural-South novel. Well-written, witty, with great characters. It takes a sudden sharp turn into magical reality near the end, and just as sharply comes back out of it, but it wasn’t enough to ruin the book for me. Not a must-read or anything, but an enjoyable diversion from heavy literature or sci-fi/fantasy. [Kindle Edition]

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL — Anthony Bourdain’s memoir of his rock-n-roll days as a chef, and the life’s journey of appreciating and enjoying food that would later lead him to eat a rattlesnake’s heart and a wild boar’s lower colon (on separate occasions) in the name of culinary adventure. I like Bourdain’s show No Reservations and I like him as a writer, and his exploits were fun to read about, as well as the peeks behind the curtain at what really goes on in some restaurant kitchens. [Kindle Edition]

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING — As I said yesterday, I’d read The Hobbit many times growing up, or more precisely I had it read to me by my father as a serialized bedtime story. It wasn’t the only book we read this way, but it is one of the only ones I can recall — Alice in Wonderland being the other — probably because those are the ones we both enjoyed enough to revisit repeatedly.

Once, and only once, we attempted to move on to The Fellowship of the Ring. As I recall, we got only about halfway through the Prologue (which is comprised of a discourse of the origin and lineages of Hobbits, the different kinds of pipe-weed grown in the Shire, the political organization of the Shire, and a synopsis of The Hobbit) before aborting the mission.

I had been reticent to move into the trilogy at all, since I knew from a friend of mine who had read it that my beloved Bilbo was relegated to a side character, in favor of some upstart punk called Frodo. And then when I was willing to give it a shot, instead of a story — The Hobbit hits the ground running — I got a social studies lecture. I just wasn’t having it.

Some years later, when the film version loomed on the horizon, I took a deep breath and waded back in. I found it incredibly difficult to read, over-descriptive and dull, and had to struggle to finish it in time for the film while feeling like I’d only absorbed half of it.

But that was ten years ago(!), and with talk of a HOBBIT film finally underway, I figured it was time to revisit the books.

Doubtlessly thanks to a decade-long familiarity with said films, not to mention being a decade older, reading Fellowship this time around was a breeze. While certainly less lighthearted and quick-paced (one might be tempted to say superficial, but not disparagingly) than Hobbit, it’s much better, more nuanced and entertaining prose than I remembered. I discovered I had indeed failed to absorb, or failed to remember, a good half of the book, particularly some of the subtle ways in which it deviates from the film. For the most part, I think the film made very smart choices in the course of the adaptation — in what to alter or elide — but there are certainly scenes I would have loved to see onscreen.

No, not Tom Bombadil. Fuck that guy. [Kindle Edition]

SLEIGHTS OF MIND — A scientific investigation of the way magicians use the quirks and foibles of the our brains work (including a number of the same ones addressed in Paranormality) to trick us. Magicians have known certain methods to be effective for centuries, but this book represents what may be the first time we understand — with more than just anecdotal data — why. It’s accessible, fairly well-written, and for someone with an interest in magic and science it was a pretty cool read. It does, necessarily, reveal the secrets methods of a number of illusions, but if you’re the kind who doesn’t like to be spoiled, they kindly rope off the secrets so you know which paragraphs to skip over. [Kindle Edition]

CONTACT — Carl Sagan’s only foray into fiction, I gave my impressions of the book in my MWIM review of the movie. [No Kindle Edition]

MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE^† — I picked this up because it was three bucks at Borders’ Sadface Super Sale over the summer, and I liked the pull-quote on the back cover: “I wanted to do things to Richard that would make the sun grow cold with horror.” For the story of a corporate schlub returned from the dead to exact revenge on the coworkers he hated, that kind of pulpy melodramatic prose struck me as being juuuust right.

The story was okay. He exacts his vengeance in amusingly horrific ways, but the story — really a short novella — introduces a lot of concepts that it never bothers to explain or pay off, and it seems like it’s making a concerted effort to be pulpy rather than just letting it flow. Unsatisfying overall. I did finish the titular story, but it made up only the first third or so of the book, followed by two other stories I wasn’t inclined to read. Insert witticism about work indeed remaining undone. [Kindle Edition]

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING — A legitimately useful collection of writing advice marred by the author’s decision to be “edgy” and immature in delivering it. Look, I don’t mind vulgarity, as I’m sure my completely uncalled-for attack on Tom Bombadil demonstrated. But there’s a difference between not being afraid to be vulgar, and being positively fixated on doing so. Your mileage may vary, but in my view, not every piece of writing advice needs a dildo-related metaphor. It feels affected and, besides making it a hard book for me to recommend due to its potential to offend unnecessarily, after the first 50 Things or so, it just gets obnoxious. [Kindle Only]

THE UNSINKABLE WALKER BEAN — This one’s a graphic novel I picked up at Comic-Con because the eponymous Walker, striking an epic pose on the cover, looked amusingly like me. Only after doing so did I flip through and discover he spends almost the entire book crying like a goddamn sissy-boy. Flip to almost any page and he’s got tears streaming down his face, no matter what else he may be doing. Serves me right for forgetting the axiom about books and covers.

The story itself is entertainingly odd, with a magic skull that can tell the future and colossal sea-witches in pursuit of it, but the artwork is occasionally so muddy it becomes incoherent, and the story also just kind of flails around, although there are some legitimately strong moments. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to pick up a copy, though.

THE TWO TOWERS / THE RETURN OF THE KING — I had the benefit in 2001 of reading both these books after having seen FELLOWSHIP theatrically, which for whatever reason made my experience much more smooth and pleasant, much as my re-visit of Fellowship would be earlier in the year. As with Fellowship, I enjoyed re-discovering the source material and how it differed from the adaptation.

I think the one objection I have with the film — and I remember having it in 2002, as well — is the change in Faramir’s character. It’s a significant point in the novel that Faramir is not tempted by the Ring in the way Boromir was, but in the film he’s made as weak as anyone else. For a hardcore fan, that’s probably almost as bad as the way TITANIC portrays that one boatswain killing himself out of shame and horror when the actual man never did any such thing. Of course, the boatswain was a real guy and Faramir never was, but all being fanboys and girls here we know how we can get. I’m significantly less annoyed by the Elves arriving at Helm’s Deep. [Kindle Edition / Kindle Edition]

My Year in Books: 2011, Part 2

UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW — Dawkins responds to critics of The Selfish Gene, who accused him of taking all the wonder and mystery out of the world by insisting on reducing things to their scientific explanations, or who despaired that a world without magical explanations was a world without wonder. The title refers to a similar accusation by the poet Keats, that too much understanding of the nature of reality removes it of its poetry, that to “unweave the rainbow” was to destroy its beauty.

By way of response, Dawkins spends a good chunk of the book literally discussing the scientific unweaving of the rainbow — i.e. the study of the electromagnetic spectrum — and making the case that by doing so, by insisting on understanding, we’ve not only advanced human civilization but found more that is wondrous and beautiful about it than when we cowered and thought it magic. Other chapters not directly referencing the “rainbow” are also on the theme of satisfying our craving for wonder while also satisfying our curiosity, finding poetry in discovery rather than manufacturing mystery. Like Selfish Gene, well worth reading for anyone, and probably slightly more accessible. [Kindle Edition]

THE NASTY LITTLE WRITING BOOK^† — A satire of writing advice books, its one gag — it tells you to do exactly the opposite of everything you actually should do — wears thin quickly, and the Kindle edition^[1] is so poorly formatted that it really becomes tiresome to read all around. I’m sure it was cathartic for the author — a literary agent — to get all the biting sarcasms she wants to say to would-be clients out of her system, but it really is a little too nasty for my taste, and has little that I recall in the way of original or eye-opening advice once you’ve run it through the “everything is opposite” decoder ring.

WRITING A NOVEL WITH SCRIVENER — I reviewed Scrivener once, years ago. Since then, it’s come out with a 2.0 version, a Windows version that just moved from beta to release, and (finally) has an iPad version in development. It has remained my tool of choice for any writing project — be it a script, short story, or even blog post — from inception to completed first draft, and sometimes beyond, and if you are a writer or fancy you would like to be one it is the best $45 you will ever, ever spend.

It’s also a tremendously robust program, which can make it daunting. David Hewson to the rescue. I haven’t yet read any of his novels, but just having someone highlight the functions he commonly uses, and functions he doesn’t use but can see how they’d be useful, helped open my eyes to a better way to work with the program. Even after several years of constant work with it, the program had wells of power I had left untapped — just getting my head around Scrivener’s ability to work in scenes was, if you’ll pardon the unbelievably overused cliche, a game-changer for me.

So let me revise my previous statement: if you’re a writer or fancy you would like to be one, a Scrivener license and a copy of Hewson’s (Kindle-only) book are the best $50.99 you’ll ever spend pursuing it.

THE WAY HOLLYWOOD TELLS IT: STORY AND STYLE IN MODERN MOVIES — I read this book expecting to get another perspective on the usual Hollywood storytelling formula, a la Syd Field, Robert McKee, Blake Snyder, et al. It was a welcome surprise, then, to find that it was actually an academic discourse on the evolution and execution of visual storytelling in American cinema. I found it to be a really great resource and worth reading and mulling over for anyone interested in filmmaking (which I expect is most of the people who would be reading this). [Kindle Edition]

THE ROAD — I think the most perplexing part of this book is that someone decided to make a big-budget, wide-release movie out of it (which I have not yet seen). I guess it could be as simple as Cormac McCarthy’s name on the cover. “The last one we did won Best Picture! Greenlight!”

It’s not a bad book, mind. It’s actually quite a good one on the prose side, especially if Hemingway is your thing. And I guess if Hemingway is your thing you also probably don’t mind that things just kind of happen and it’s harsh and upsetting until finally the book stops telling you about them. But overall I just found it frustrating and depressing. Then again a lot of “great” contemporary literature has left me that way. [Kindle Edition]

THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY — Taking the conceit that The Odyssey was assembled in the same way as the Christian Bible — from many sources and traditions, some of them very different or even openly contradictory, which eventually solidified into the modern “canon” — this book claims to bring to light for the first time some of the “apocrypha” that did not become part of The Odyssey as we know it today. I say claims, but it’s not as though the author actually intends to get this accepted at an academic level. It’s a metafiction, allowing him to play some literary jazz, riffing off The Odyssey, experimenting with alternate themes, characterizations, motivations, plotlines. Many of them clearly expect, even require, a familiarity with the “canon” Odyssey in order to appreciate the deviation, but they’re all fun to read and consider. Just the reinterpretation of Odysseus as a coward would make this one worthwhile for any fan of classical mythology. [Kindle Edition]

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST — As I mentioned in my blurb on Played with Fire, this book is much more entertaining and satisfying as a whole, wrapping up the loose ends introduced in the previous books with some clever twists and turns along the way. Having read the full trilogy I still couldn’t really say what made these books such an apparent phenomenon, but they’re entertaining enough. Certainly more of a commitment than the Hunger Games books, but they also tie up better in the end.

As a side note, this may have been just as prevalent in the prior two books, but I only noticed it in this one: Larsson mentions his characters drinking coffee a lot. Like, pathologically a lot. Any time characters meet, part, or walk from one room to another he mentions them offering each other coffee, purchasing coffee, pouring coffee, sipping coffee. I asked The Swedish Person I Know if coffee is as fetishized in Swedish culture as its omnipresence in the novel would imply, if maybe you’ve committed some serious social taboo by not offering a guest coffee or whatever, and he told me not really, no. So I guess Larsson was just obsessed. [Kindle Edition]

THE FOREVER WAR — Joe Haldeman’s The Accidental Time Machine was one of the first books I read on Kindle, but not because I knew who he was. It was just one of the books that happened to be temporarily free when I got my Kindle. Only later did I find out that he had written a novel which was considered one of the major works of late-twentieth century science fiction, called The Forever War. For a while it was out of print and unavailable on Kindle (both since rectified), so it wasn’t until I signed up with Audible that I remembered it and decided to read it.^[2]

The premise seemed rife with potential: mankind is embroiled in a war with an alien race, but the battles are fought across such distances that warships and troops must travel at relativistic speeds, meaning a “retaliatory” strike might occur hundreds or even thousands of years after the event for which it is retaliating. I thought it might be an interesting exploration of the foolishness of generational grudges and retaliation, with the singleminded military commanding forces perhaps serving only to repeatedly start new wars after centuries of peace. Such a novel might have taken on new impact post-9/11, and post-Iraq War II, considering the madness and broad-brushed ignorant hatred that possessed and continues to possess people on both sides.

But Haldeman is less interested in contemporary commentary than in thought experiment. Like Accidental Time Machine, his narrator takes progressively larger forward leaps in time and in each case is left to confront a world and a culture that has evolved in his absence. It doesn’t really get at anything other than, I suppose, perhaps being a metaphor for the culture shock all young men and women no doubt experience when they’ve been away at war for a long time and discover the “home” they’ve been fighting for no longer exists. That life went on without them. But the storytelling, by and large, is dry, more a series of events than a story developing and building to something. Maybe that’s also a comment on the meaninglessness of war. Or maybe it just wasn’t my thing. [Kindle Edition]

THE HOBBIT — I read this book more times than I could count growing up. Nonetheless, the last time I read it would have been over ten years ago, just before the first LORD OF THE RINGS movie came out in theatres. And, going back to read it this year, I discovered I remembered almost nothing. I remembered Gollum and the riddles in the dark, I remembered Smaug on his mountain of treasure, and that his bit of the story came to an end rather anticlimactically (which hopefully the upcoming film will change) — and that was really pretty much it. So getting to read this again was a real treat, because it was like reading it for the first time.

The Hobbit still feels like a fresh and contemporary piece of fantasy literature, needing no handicap for “well, you have to think of it in terms of what else was around at the time” to explain its popularity, then and now. The scope of imagination is stunning — even in a novel which Tolkien himself apparently considered disposable, never intending to tie it into Arda mythopoeia which he was already developing — and the story is as brisk and exciting as I ever found it as a child. [Kindle Edition]

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1. Which, strangely, no longer seems to exist.

2. That’s right. If the audiobook is unabridged, I consider listening to said audiobook to be the same as “reading” the book and refer to it as such. Come at me bro.

My Year in Books: 2011, Part 1

Along with the My Week in Movies posts, I’ve kept track of how many books I read over the course of the last year, with a view toward giving a quick review of them at the end of the year. Missed that window so now it’s the beginning. Credit for the inspiration goes to Kuri at To Try A New Sword on a Chance Wayfarer, who does a similar thing on his blog. They’re listed in the order I finished reading them.

Books marked with a ^† are books of which I read a significant portion (more than half), but opted not to finish. I’m pleased to note there aren’t many, but I’m also pleased to note there are a few. I used to have a hang-up about always finishing a book once I’d started it.^[1] But after a look at my post-“Borders bankruptcy sale” bookshelves, and a cataloguing of my eBook library, I’ve realized I will not live long enough to read even half of what I’d like to, if I insist on torturing myself with every half-coherent collection of words that finds its way into my hands.^[2]

Toward the end of the year, I simply stopped reading books after 25 pages printed — or 5% on Kindle — if they failed to convince me the effort was going to be worthwhile. In the cases I determined it would not, the reason was always clumsy prose. Some of the books seemed to have very interesting premises, but by that point I knew that I would just be miserable and resentful trying to extract the ideas from the words on the page.

The books I abandoned so early are not mentioned here, because I’m sure many of the authors (largely the self-pubbers) are googling them regularly, and that would just be mean and unconstructive.

Most of the books, you’ll notice, have a Kindle edition, since I read most of them on Kindle. You do not need a Kindle to read Kindle books (they have reader apps for Mac, Windows, Android and iOS), but the newest Kindles are so stupid cheap that if you’re a heavy reader, it really is at the point where you can’t afford not to get one. Especially with Lendle and the Kindle lending library giving access to so many books, legitimately, for free. (I upgraded over Christmas from my second-gen to the Kindle Touch and I’m loving it.)

Anyway, without further ado, let’s begin a review of My Year in Books: 2011.

THE SELFISH GENE — Richard Dawkins is famous these days as an outspoken atheist — and sadly most famous as the rude, cruel, aggressive and snide caricature that people have as their mental picture of the man. It’s a caricature which in no way reflects the actual character of his writings and public appearances, but his (largely religious) opponents have constructed a narrative which most people who hear it (even many non-religious people) are strangely happy to accept and repeat. Even those who actually read some of Dawkins’ work or hear him speak, confronted with the contradiction, will say “Well, yeah, he was fine there, but generally…”

Still, the very tenacity of the caricature, in a strange way, only goes to show that Dawkins was wildly ahead of his time when in 1976 he coined the term meme to refer to the unit of reproduction, and evolution, of an idea in the social consciousness. Like many such notions, what is accepted as fact today was radical in its time, was was the larger argument of the book itself — that the gene, not the organism or the group, was the actual unit by which evolution and natural selection take place.

The book is not, it should be stated, what many who have not read it have assumed and asserted it to be: an argument that we have a gene which makes us selfish. It is not Dawkins’ argument that we have a selfishness gene; quite to the contrary, it’s his contention that the gene itself is “selfishly” concerned only with reproducing itself or its copies, which may in fact have the result of selfless action at the level of the organism which contains the gene.

He makes his case very clearly and cogently, and indeed his view has become the accepted mainstream biological view of genetics and much of what he argues for almost defensively seems common knowledge even to an interested layperson like myself. But it is also a very informationally dense book; being a scientist, and dealing in evidence, Dawkins bolsters all his arguments with multiple case examples. Making this book one of the first I read this year is one of the reasons I thought I might not get through too many, because it’s a book that takes a pretty serious time and concentration commitment. It’s the kind of book I need to set aside every few pages — every few paragraphs, in some places — to let my brain contemplate and assimilate what I’ve learned. Still, it’s well worth the effort, and highly recommended. [Kindle Edition]

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE — The sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, in which the eponymous Girl actually becomes the focus of the story, as opposed to the first volume in which, despite being the titular character^[3] had very little to do with the murder mystery at its core. I actually would have liked it better if it had kept up that formula, though — if Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist had become a latter-day Holmes and Watson (which is which to be the subject of many a senior thesis, no doubt), solving crimes with their various and varied resources, both material and mental, while wrestling with their own complicated relationship and equally complicated pasts.

Perhaps that was Stieg Larsson’s intention for future The Girl W— installments, had he not died and had he in fact intended to write any. As it stands, this book focuses on the intrigue of Lisbeth Salander’s past and her connection to a massive conspiracy of government corruption and organized crime, but really functions primarily as a set-up for the third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. On its own, it’s not really very good. It’s reasonably well-written — although I think it’s quite evidently edited with a lighter hand than would have been the case if Larsson had not been deceased, and could really stand to be tightened and polished — and is a prerequisite to understand the twists and turns of the more satisfying Hornet’s Nest, but rather unsatisfying on its own, especially considering what a brick of a book it is. [Kindle Edition]

THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY (THE HUNGER GAMES/CATCHING FIRE/MOCKINGJAY) — Pretty much the only time this year I went and wrote a standalone review, so I’ll let that stand as my thoughts on the topic. [Kindle Edition]

BOSSYPANTS — I’ve previously discussed my entirely inappropriate love for Tina Fey, so it should come as no surprise that I loved her book, a memoir of her life (more professional than personal) filled with the self-deprecating humor which makes her comedic voice so recognizable and, for me, delightful. If you like Tina Fey, you’ll love Bossypants. If you don’t, we’ve got bigger problems than Bossypants, you and I. [Kindle Edition]

ALPHA BETA — A history of the modern (“Roman”) alphabet, how it developed and how it (and written language in general) changed the world. Some really fascinating stuff here in terms of the sociopolitical implications of language (assuming that’s the kind of stuff that fascinates you, as it does me), and some delightful revelations about how certain characters came to look, sound, and carry the names they do today. Ironically, I read this book to take a break from the largely scientific/skeptical topics I’d been reading throughout 2010 — before Selfish Gene I’d re-read The Demon-Haunted World — only to find the author referencing Dawkins and Sagan! That said, while the author is pretty evidently a fellow skeptic, when religion is mentioned, it is done purely in reference to the fact of religion’s undeniably powerful role in the spread of written language, with no editorializing on the truth (or otherwise) of the information the language was being used to disseminate. A great read for those interested in language and linguistics. [Kindle Edition]

THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES — Maybe it’s unfair to compare the author of this book to Aaron Sorkin, who adapted it into Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK, but I think even on its own the book leaves a great deal to be desired. It isn’t just that it lacks the polish, poetry and pace that makes Sorkin’s fingerprint so distinct; the fingerprint it does have is that of a writer who has a thesaurus and is not afraid to use it. I wish more writers understood the excessive use of unusual or obscure synonyms for common things is not the same thing as a good turn of phrase. As I said on Twitter at the time, I find it a sign of insecurity and not sophistication when a writer describes everything as azure, cyan, or aquamarine. A confident writer knows it’s okay to just say blue. If you’ve seen SOCIAL NETWORK, you already got the story and it’s told more skillfully. Don’t bother with the “source material.” [Kindle Edition]

THE CHILDREN OF MEN — Speaking of source material, Alfonso Cuarón’s CHILDREN OF MEN is easily one of my all-time favorite films, so I was curious to see how similar the original novel was. The answer: hardly at all. The filmmakers did almost entirely their own thing with it, to the point that it sometimes feels like they just heard the premise of the book, drew some of the names randomly from a hat, and did their own thing from there. I suppose if I were a fan of the original book I’d probably be pissed, but I was a fan of the film first and, in my opinion, the film is superior. The book is darker in some ways, and it’s an interesting exploration of the premise, but doesn’t really go anywhere, plot- or theme-wise. Unlike Accidental Billionaires, I did find this to be well-written and is perhaps worth reading if pondering the choices made between book and film interests you. [Kindle Edition]

A GAME OF THRONES — Source material again, this time for a ten-episode (i.e. ten hour) HBO series adaptation. I’ve had friends recommend this series to me for years, but only as the adaptation approached and the advertising intrigued me did I finally jump into the series.^[4]

Unlike the HARRY POTTER films, which adapted with varying degrees of success but which never really communicated the depth of the world and of the underlying story — much of which never made it to the screen — if you saw the HBO series, you’re good on A Game of Thrones. Not only did much of the story make it to the screen verbatim, with lines of dialogue straight from the page and certain shots and even cuts playing out exactly as in the novel, but the luxury of time had the show actually adding new scenes that allowed them to get more information — character, backstory, nuances of the world — out of the narration or a character’s internal monologue and into dialogue, organically. I was extremely impressed.

That’s not to say Game of Thrones isn’t still worth reading, if you delight as I do in a well-turned phrase, or you want to read the bits that were still too expensive or intense to make it on the screen, or discover even more the depth of the world and its vast history (or just get more Tyrion — never enough Tyrion). But if you wanted to get the jump on season two or beyond by reading A Clash of Kings, you could go straight from the HBO series to the second book and have missed very little. Which is as much a testament to the clarity of Martin’s storytelling as it is to the skill of those adapting it. [Kindle Edition]

THE COLOR CORRECTION HANDBOOK — Should I count technical books? I suppose there could be an argument against, but I read it this year so here it is.

When it comes to color correction, I’ve long known, as the saying goes, “enough to be dangerous.” Both in the sense that I know enough to be able to do my own thing on my own projects without having to spend a lot of money, and in the sense that I’m capable of opening the hood just enough to monumentally fuck things up. This book has helped and will continue to help me become more of the first kind of dangerous and less of the second. I’m going to have to re-read it occasionally to really learn and understand it, but even what I’ve absorbed so far was well worth the price. (I finally “get” the power of the curve tool!) [Kindle Edition]

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1. And likewise finishing a series — I never did get around to reviewing Eclipse or Breaking Dawn, but oh yes, I read them.

2. Especially in the age of the eBook, when even the quality gatekeeping of a publisher — hardly foolproof in the first place — has been cast aside. Some of them are good, even extraordinary. The vast, vastmajority are dreadful. (Feel free to throw this remark in my face when I inevitably self-publish.)

3. In the English translation, that is; the original Swedish title translates to Men Who Hate Women. And while I can’t decide if the sexification, objectification and infantilization of the nominal heroine in the English title misses the mark thematically, or is meant to underscore it, I have to admit it isa better title.

4. Like my hang-up about finishing books once I start them, I also tend to have a hang-up about reading a book before I see the adaptation. I don’t always manage to do so, especially when I don’t know until the credits roll that the film or show wasbased on a book, but I still try to make the effort.

My Week in Movies — Year End 2011

Before starting on my 2012 viewings, a wrap-up on the handful of movies I had the chance to watch at the end of 2011:

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS* — The film is an apparently true story about a secret U.S. Army project to try to create psychic spies — and, later, psychic assassins. The movie approaches it appropriately tongue-in-cheek (rather than the way, say, a History channel “documentary” would do), and it’s got some great performances. As a side note, the people in the program refer to themselves as “Jedi warriors,” which is kind of distracting in a movie starring Ewan MacGregor (although I did get a laugh out of his character asking, with genuine befuddlement, “What’s a Jedi warrior?”).

PAUL — A road movie, a stoner movie, a geek movie and a raunchy variation on E.T. written by and starring the Shaun of the Dead guys which manages, disappointingly, to be somehow less than the some of its parts. There were some great moments here and there, a lot of geeky in-jokes, but somehow I failed to fall completely in love. I liked it fine, but not enough to watch it again or insist on showing it to friends.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE — I literally had no idea what this movie was, going in. Anthony and I wanted to see a movie one day, we saw this had a high Tomatometer score and was playing nearby, so we went to see it without knowing so much as the logline.

It’s an indie film about a young woman who escapes from a cult and tries to return to a “normal” life, and her inability to re-assimilate, and her paranoia that the cult might be coming to reclaim her. It’s tense and well-made, and does an amazing job of showing the kind of psychological manipulation that goes on in cult environments. The movie gets you in the same head-space as the main character — at times cult life is so appealing and real life so strange and unpleasant, you find yourself almost thinking she really would be better off going back, at which point cult life inevitably crosses the line. In cult life, when those moments happen, you’re left with a choice: recoil, or rationalize. The audience member has the luxury of recoiling, but being so involved by the film means understanding how someone with nowhere else to go could make the choice to rationalize. Really powerful and a film for which I expect to see an Oscar nomination.

THE MUPPETS — Early on in the film, in which the Muppets have all long since gone their separate ways but need to get the gang back together for One More Show, there’s a scene where Kermit (and his new friends Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and Segel’s Marty Stu muppet stand-in Walter) find Fozzie (his voice somewhat off due to Frank Oz’s declining to participate in the film) singing with a knock-off Muppet cover band (the “Moopets”) in Reno. As he comes offstage, they greet him with forced, grimacey smiles and say (paraphrased) “Hey, your show was… it was great. Really good to see you.” They don’t mean the first part. But they mean the second with all their hearts.

The scene perfectly encapsulates my feelings about the film, as well as the film itself. The gang isn’t back together — some of them are the original members but several signifiant ones are impersonators (although, to be fair, much more credible ones than the Moopets); the original members, I care deeply about, and it hurts a little to see them veer so close to self-parody. The film is far too self-aware for my taste. It tries to be an 80s movie, complete with evil corporate villain whom they have to defeat by Putting On a Show, but it’s constantly nudge-winking the audience going “Hey, remember these movies? They were silly, right? We’re too cool for this room, you and me, but let’s play along, let them have their fun.” For a film that thematically tries to make a point of rejecting cynicism, it’s a really jarring tonal choice.

I’m not against self-aware humor — CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, which I adore, is wall-to-wall with it — and I know that the Muppets have always been self-aware. But it feels less that the Muppets are self-aware about themselves, than that the movie feels self-aware about the Muppets being in it. It’s a subtle distinction, and maybe a distinction without a difference, but it just didn’t generally feel like the Muppets were in on the joke.

It feels weird to be giving this film what amounts to a negative review when critics have praised it almost unanimously — lo, I am become Armond White, destroyer of flawless tomatometers. This is, to be sure, a far less demeaning film than MUPPETS IN SPACE appeared to be (I could not even bring myself to see that one). This is a film that sprang, very clearly, from a place of deep love and affection, not one of simply monetizing a piece of intellectual property. Jason Segel loves the Muppets, he adores the Muppets, and I don’t begrudge him spending his get-things-made Hollywood capital to bring them back and share them with the world. But it feels like so much fan fiction, a fan film in which he’s inserted himself into Muppet canon and talked the Muppets into appearing as themselves (and Disney into bankrolling it).

And again, I don’t begrudge him. It’s inspiring, in a way, to see him live what I have no doubt was exactly the childhood dream he wrote as Walter’s, inspiring to see a film that feels like Segel reaching out to me and saying “You and I, we get this. These guys are awesome. Isn’t this awesome?” I don’t even watch How I Met Your Mother and I’ve barely seen Segel in anything, but I still feel like a buddy of mine got his dearest wish and I’m proud for him. You can see how much this means to him, even when he isn’t flat-out telling you so through Walter. Yet as with SUPER 8, it expends more effort reminding me of how awesome the other stuff is than actually being awesome itself. I don’t want movies to keep making me nostalgic for 20 years ago. I want movies that I can be nostalgic for 20 years from now.

At its best, the Muppets feel like themselves again (even when they’re not). The recreated Muppet Show intro number is truly moving, brief as it is. But when Segel/Walter and their story insist on stepping into the spotlight, the Muppets feel like they’re being commanded to behave in a different way, commanded to serve the film instead of the film serving them. For the first time in my life, I watched the Muppets and they felt like puppets.

This isn’t their lowest point, and it might even be the start of a new era. It’s a major Hollywood big-budget release, not some trashy Reno lounge; but it still isn’t quite where I would have wanted to find them, not what I’d want to see them having to do to prove their continued relevance, not after what they’ve meant to me. But goddammit, Muppets, for all of that: it’s really good to see you.

HUGO — I want to give this a thumbs up just for bringing Georges Méliès — the first visual effects artist and fantasy filmmaker — into the broader popular culture. But I would rather have a Scorsese-directed documentary on the subject than a movie that tries to build a narrative about him and just feels like it’s wasting a lot of time. Besides Méliès, I didn’t find any of the characters or their arcs particularly interesting — especially not Sasha Baron Cohen’s Station Inspector, who gets way more screen time than his function in the story (almost none) deserves — and the movie pretty much forgets it’s supposed to be about Hugo Cabret about halfway through. Also, I heard a lot of noise about Scorsese really “getting” 3D and doing some new and exciting stuff with it — and I didn’t see anything that particularly knocked my socks off. In fact, it was the first 3D movie that has ever given me a headache.

GREEN LANTERN — I had my fingers a little crossed for this movie — a lot of people were dismissing it just based on the trailers, but I kind of liked the look. I liked the idea of a superhero movie straddling the line between the kind of film a modern audience expects in scope and scale, but embracing its comic book roots rather than trying to go dark and gritty and realistic with it.

Unfortunately, this movie is just… stupid. It tries to do too much and winds up just wandering around with a lost look on its face. I don’t really buy most of the characters’ reactions to anything, I don’t especially like Hal Jordan except by virtue of liking Ryan Reynolds, what is even the point of Peter Skarsgaard’s character, how does nobody on Oa see that Sinestro is clearly evil, the immortal Guardians are easily-manipulated idiots… despite the entire planet being at stake, the universe even, at no point did I feel any sense of tension. When your villain is the living manifestation of fear, you better scare me at least once.

Some decent effects work, though. Parallax in particular I thought was generally well-done. The full-CG suit didn’t really bother me — it was probably easier to do than to try to add energy effects to a practical suit — and I was impressed with how well-tracked it was. I don’t remember feeling any moments of the bobble-head syndrome that afflicted, for example, the Clonetroopers.

But overall, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground in calling this a terrible, dull, ridiculous film. An inauspicious end to my 2011 film experience.

We’ll start on my 2012 films (so far, DRAGON TATTOO and TINTIN) next week.

Why I Won’t Vote for Ron Paul

I don’t know what kind of magic dust gets blown in people’s faces that gives them a slavering priapism for Ron Paul, but to date it has not been blown in mine. Paul is doing better in this GOP Presidential primary than he ever has before, because all but one of the other candidates are openly lunatics and the one that isn’t is Mitt Romney.

With progressives massively disappointed in Obama, Ron Paul’s friendly guy-from-UP face and Winnie the Pooh voice advocating an end to our endless campaign of senseless overseas warfare, and the equally senseless domestic “war on drugs,” plus his stated desire to focus on the Constitution, makes him seem like he’s the candidate that would get America back on track.

Thing is, the track he’d get us back on is one we had to fight long and hard to get off of. Ron Paul is not a friend to progressives, and I’m glad there’s finally a concise collected summary of his noxious views. Of course, his non-alliance with progressive values should be obvious even from the simple fact that he identifies with the Republican party and not the Democrats or the Greens or what-have-you.

A man who opposes protection of women’s and minority rights? Whose solution to our economic problems is simply to travel back in time without regard to the current global economic climate? Who would effectively dismantle the federal government and make the “United” in “United States of America” purely poetical? I’m sorry, that’s not the lesser of two evils in most of the plausible election scenarios I can imagine. His supporters say he’s been “consistent” as though that’s a good thing. Aside from his stance on overseas war, the values he’s “consistently” upheld are downright toxic.

Also, consistency in the face of conflicting evidence is not a virtue. We’re still in one of the worst recessions in history and are staying out of full-on depression by the merest skin of our teeth, due to poor regulation and out-of-control greed in our financial system. To believe that the “free market” will work toward the best interests of all people and not just the interests of the people running the market, that “market forces” will have the tendency and power to balance and correct against any shenanigans — to truly believe such things, if indeed he does, isn’t just naïve; at this moment in history, it’s downright insane.

Ron Paul is not the best option for America. Fact is, he might be the one of the worst. He’s certainly the most dangerous. At least you can see how crazy the other ones are just by looking at them.

Pingu’s The Thing

I’m not familiar with Pingu, but claymation penguins re-enacting THE THING — especially so accurately — pushes all the right buttons for me.

I bet if I did know Pingu this would really blow my mind though. I imagine it’s like seeing the Teletubbies doing REQUIEM FOR A DREAM.

Either way, dude who made this is terrifyingly talented. I think my favorite part is the music over the end credits.

(via SlashFilm)

Happy 2012!

I’m a few days late with this, but I hope you all wrapped up 2011 with a safe-ish bang and have hit the ground running in 2012. I’ve said before, I don’t generally make resolutions, but for some reason I’m coming into this year unusually full of the proverbial piss and vinegar to make 2012 a great and productive year.

Maybe because this could be the last year before the world is destroyed by a rogue planet or whatever Americans think the Mayans believed but didn’t at all. Or maybe because I’m closer to 30 than I am to 20 and I’m having a pre-mid-life crisis. Whatever the reason, I’m focused.

Along with adjustments to my personal and professional goals, I’m going to make it my goal to post to the blog as often as possible this year — daily, if I can maintain the discipline. I’ve tried the quality over quantity thing and neither wound up happening. So I’m going to do the quantity thing and you can let me know if the quality becomes too abysmal. New year, new strategy.

And I know, I know: I’ve said this before too. Many times. But This Time, I Mean It™.

Because really, I don’t have excuses for not posting. I tweet constantly, I participate in discussions on forums and email — I write a lot on any given day, I have no good reason I can’t put some of it here. And I wrote many of the posts from the second half of 2011 (few as they were) on my iPad, on the go. So I know that works. No more excuses.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (probably all of you reading this, at least at the time of writing) will probably be seeing some overlap in what I tweet about and what I blog about. To date I’ve avoided blogging about anything I’ve tweeted, but I’m coming to realize that might be silly. For one thing, it leaves me with very little to blog about and therefore very little blogging done. Not only can I express my opinion at more length here than on Twitter, but a lot of the stuff I tweet is stuff I find interesting and would prefer to be able to find again without scouring my extensive Twitter feed. So, moving forward, I’ll be using the blog on a fairly regular basis to give interesting stuff a permanent home.

The My Week in Movies posts were pretty successful and well-received — by a mostly silent readership, but the posts announced on Twitter always saw a solid spike in site visits — and they also compelled me to see more movies when I got the chance, to have something to write about. I still need to write a post to wrap up the end of 2011, which I’ll be putting up in the next few days.

Moving into 2012, I’m not only subscribed to Netflix streaming and Blockbuster for disc-by-mail — Netflix lost my money on that service after their misguided Quixter announcement, and failed to regain my confidence by withdrawing it — but being fortunate enough to live in Los Angeles I’m also in a beta market for MoviePass — something rather like Netflix for films still in (participating) theaters. So I expect to see even more films this year than last. Fans of the MWIM posts, stay tuned.

I’ve read a lot of books in the last year for which I should have written reviews as I went, but didn’t. So I’ve got a My Year in Books series of posts coming next week to cover them. Throughout 2012 I intend to post reviews as I go, rather than in bulk.

I also plan to once more revive Skeptical Sunday posts. To keep them on a regular schedule, I’ll be sharing and highlighting videos or news stories from the skeptical, scientific, and/or atheist community on the occasions I can’t write a substantial post of my own.

I’m also — Flying Spaghetti Monster help me — planning to return to my essays on The Case for a Creator, which I left off dissecting almost three years ago. Creationism seems to have gone on the wane in those three years, certainly in terms of its political power, but I said I’d do the whole book and by golly I intend to.

2012 is also, of course, an election year here in ’Murrica, so expect some politics, and expect it to reach something of a fever pitch in the autumn. I apologize in advance to non-American readers who couldn’t give a tin shit about our country’s politics.

So, anyway. Noses to grindstones, boots to asses, whatever your idiom of choice. Let’s do this 2012 thing.