opera142

Well, I figured out my meltdown yesterday--- other than I have my moments of dipshittery. At 8:15 last night, I opened Driftless and less than a paragraph in, I zonked completely out, and slept until Moe nudged me at 5:45, and was like, are you getting up or what? All morning, I felt amazing. I felt taller. The plague must have taken more out of me than I realized.

Moe has been playing (and playing and playing) Age of Dragons, which means the TV has been hogged night after night. He's pokering now, so I went on a TiVo binge. Steph's really trying to get back on my good side--- the Precious is getting beatdown upon beatdown, including one particularily missionary-positioned one from Festus. With bonus!Punk lording over both while patting Festus on the head. Jericho faces DX in a handicapped match, yesyes. TNA does not have any endangered preciouii, however Super Dave Osbourne sorta-kinda makes up for it.

I joined the bookclub at work, despite fears of having to read dopey books when I don't even have enough free time to read all the books I found on my own. My fears were realized! Driftless. UGH. Ugh, I say. I'm 200 pages in, and honestly, I'd rather listen to Shannon Moore sound out the big words in Bread and Jam For Frances.

The book is so grody and 60's. The female characters are either sexy baby-makers or harpy rooners of splendid male dreams. The lead dude, July, is such a Mary Sue. Seriously, it's hilarious. He knows rock stars! He helps a pastor find God! He introduces lonely widower Jacob to the hot chick who likes to be naked. Still have 200 pages to go.


ETA: This probably violates the idea of F!S, but Twig did you write that secret?

-3000 MPH in Every Direction - Nick Mamatas, essays and short fiction. I liked the essays better. The stories were good too-- future fiction in particular, Mamatas does well with capturing how people, boring old everyday people would behave in societies with advanced tech. The essays have a strong POV - his- but it's never overbearing or preachy. There are opinions and solutions, but they get presented in ways that make me think.

-Kiss This - Gina Arnold, overview of Punk music. Lame and offensive. When discussing the rise of rap, Ms. Arnold says "Black is finally beautiful". The whole book is her pushing her "punk" credentials (pssst. if you have to tell someone, you aren't) and dividing everything into Punk or Not Punk categories. Her idea of punk is very white, over-educated, comfortably middle-class and prone to attending Lollapolooza.

-Writer's Notebook- - Various, meta writing craft. Some essays got stodgy and academic, and the one about the physical space writing takes up on a page sounded a lot like drunken conversations I had at Perkins while my friends and I tried to be deep and wise artists. I liked it, don't get me wrong but sometimes it strayed into murky theory when the idea was better served by tangible expressions. The book was the worthwhile read for the first two essays: Dorothy Allison's on Place, and Steve Almond's (I think) sex writing.

-Miss High Heels - Anonymous, pr0n. Bleh. This is the kind of porn I dislike the most: a main character so caught up in getting his own fantasies catered to that he never once lifts a finger to satisfy anyone else. Chapter after chapter of this guy getting his rocks off by not-so-forced crossed dressing and weak punishments, and never ever a single instance of giving pleasure back.

- Breath & Bone -- Carol Berg, fantasy. I loved this. The first chapter disappointed me because, as a sequel that picks up where the first book left off, I was very much looking forward to Val's new life as the indentured servant of the Evil Bastard Prince Osriel. Instead of lurid subtext and woe, it turns out Osriel is really a good guy with good intentions. I wanted lurid! But, the story soon provided even better villains, and the good guys didn't like each other, everyone was screwing everyone else over, and the magic was belivable. The ending felt rushed and a bit too pat. Someone needs to teach awesome fantasy writers to quit writing huge epics so that they're not so sick and tired of the story by the time they get to writing the endings.

- Wolf at the Dinner Table-- Augusten Burroughs, memoir. This felt very scraping the bottom of barrel-y. It doesn't necessarily contradict his previous stuff, and I realize that he upplayed or downplayed certain aspects of his life to aid the other stories, but it felt very contradictory to read about him being as gosh-gee little boy who wanted to play catch outside with his dad when his first few books over-characterized him as fussy and faux-elegant.

Oddly, my strongest reaction about this book happened while I was reading reviews on it at Amazon after I had finished it. Someone had accused Augusten of playing the victim, and stated that as long as he wasn't being tortured and had a roof over his head and food on his plate, that he wasn't being abused. BULLSHIT.

BULLSHIT.

One of the things that really, really messed me up as a kid was the truly fucking idiotic idea that abuse involves outlandish torture. Made-for-TV movies and Readers Digest articles were always showcasing the electric cords and the bathtub drownings. When you're a kid, and that's what TV is telling you is abuse, suddenly drunk-ass mom shoving you down the stairs or dad showing you a bullet with your name written on it doesn't compare. Which can only mean one thing: you really are a rotten kid who drives your parents who would be otherwise be caring (look how nicely they treat the neighbor kids) to oh-no-not-abusive at all acts. Bullshit.

- Rouge Pulp - Dorothy Barresi, poetry. Okay when she wrote about personal stuff and wasn't needlessly using $5 words. Boring when she tried to go for deep. Strippers pay an emotional price for what they do? Gosh, I didn't realize that. Vietnam was a tough war? Gosh, I didn't realize that.

The Rituals of Dinner-- the origins, evolutions and eccentricties of table manners Margaret Visser. UGH. Reading this book was a death march. I had to read some of the chapters in 10-page increments because that was all the boring, racism, and der? I could take. What frustrated me the most was the lack of women. I read a lot of food/cooking history because lots of time it's women's history. I get clues as to how women lived. There weren't many people in this book, but the few that showed were men. No fun facts anywhere in to put in my fiction, no interesting tidbits to inspire me to the next bit of history. Very Bad Book.

Supernatural Origins Graphic novel. Also terrible! The artwork was terrible-- everyone looked like melting zombies. The story was stupid. Why was John Winchester fighting Spring Heel Jack?

Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion. I love Joan's writing, there's weariness to it, and a sort of cynicism, but it never gets to the point of jaded-as-affectation. Shes direction and travel as descriptive techniques, which is either brilliant or sad reflection of how close-quartered the thinking of LA residents are. The essays here are old (some subjects: Joan Baez, hippies) but the strength of the writing keeps them interesting. There's a historical feel to them, glimpses of life then that let them feel like a reminder of life/people/politics/thinking then rather than dated pieces of stuff I don't care about.

Mesuline & The Virtu Sarah Monette. Holy cats, guys! I LOVED THESE. I picked up Mesuline on a lark. The cover art was a bit overwroughtedly romance novel, and I vowed that if any of the characters ended being vampires that I would punch shit. Instead of vampires, I got a balls awesome fantasy story.

The world builing was lovely. The place names *swoon* the place names. The Crown of Nails, the Mirador, Kekropia, Khloïdanikos, The Gardens of Nephele. The time-setting was much later than run-of-the-mill fantasy. V. early Victorian, maybe late whatever-came-before-Victorian (georgian?), which was refreshing and enchanting. The book is told from 2 povs, which normally annoys me because I end up liking one character or storyline better and the chapters about the other seem like interuptions. I liked both Felix and Mildmay (though Felix wore on me a bit once I got to The Virtu-- he's gets very MarySueish in places), and both had interesting stories.

The big villains were scary-fun, the minor villains sometimes came off cardboardy. Stupid or stubborn because it aided the plot rather than themselves. The minor characters were colorful and fun and real. The world the characters live in was the best part, and Mildmay has my affection. I ordered the next two books from Amazon and I'm very antsy for them to arrive. GO READ THESE BOOKS.

Man it was hard getting back on the reading horse after Bastard Out of Carolina. My brain went 'I'm satisfied by this story, emotionally, intellectually, ego-ly, for why do we need to read more?'

Because we will gets the dumbs if we don'ts.

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit. by Paula Danzinger. This sucked tremendous ass. No idea why this is still in print. It's so 1972, and not in a good "moment in time" way. It's dated, and I doubt it was a good story even then. The premise is a fat, snarky chick has low self-esteem. Enter hippie teacher who teaches her class "inter-personal communiciation". Buzzwords from 30 years ago for the fail! Teacher gets fired for being awesome, kids protest. Fat girl's dad does a heel turn--a totally off-base turn that seemed too much for the story, and way too much for the characters to be so nonchalant about it. Eventually, the PTA and assorted ilk get learned/served on the awesome of teacher. Teacher is all Screw You Guys Anyway. Fat chicks learns to wear her purple pantsuit (with matching necklace, bracelet and ring) with pride. LAME.


The Plucker by Brom. This sucked too. The artwork was interesting, and the premise seemed interesting-- a horror-bent ToyStory. But it ended up being re-telling #134354 of Magical POC saving whitey from Ancient&Terrible Evil. Why did the A&T Evil use modern slang and elevated dictation? How come POC always gotta die to save whitey? Why is it stuff that toots its own edgy horn never edgy or surprizing?


Time to Write by Kelly Stone. Today's theme: Sucking. I read this on a recc for writer's block. Every single line was a variation on Writer's Name, author of Some Dumb Book, Probably a Thriller or Romance, used This Dumb Techinique while writing Some Other Book. Terrible writing.

O' Pioneers by Willa Cather. This sucked the least, and betrayed the hardest. The first couple of chapters were about Main Girl taking charge of the farm after her father passed on. It's the 1800s, she's smarter and more able than her brothers. They acknowledge this, but have some male bluster in them. Their farm is crappy, they're poor. Her brother uneasily, reluctantly agree to do things her way... awesome premise, right. I turn the page after the family agreement and the chapter started out like Seventeen years later, the farm and the family were succesful.

WHAT. NO. I wanted those 17 years. I wanted the stuggle and worry and the double-questioning one' self and self-doubt and all that good stuff. That's where the story was, Willa. Not in the dumb romances and infidelities and French boys dying of appendix attacks.

Why Things Burn by Daphne Gottlieb.

The short: Poetry

The poems I liked best mixed the mundane with poetic asides. In one, the author used CPR instructions, and added in details on kissing. Vivid and unique, and it worked. The poem conveyed the body's reaction to kissing very well.

Daphne has a clever outlook on like, snarky without sounding bitter, and her voice carried a lot of poems, the date rape ones especially, into readable, compelling, universal ground that I probably would have passed over.

The only clunkers were the suicide note poems. Suicide note poems, really? By an adult? Really? Maybe they were bones thrown to a favorite 14yo niece or something.

I'm reccing this to everyone, and I don't think I've recced (or even enjoyed) much poetry outside of lyrics. Daphne has a bold voice and takes risks in style.


Because They Wanted To by Mary Gaitskill

The short: short stories, lit genre

The long: Long ago, I read Gaitskill's Two Girls, Fat and Thin, and I loved it. Nice mix of lit-style writing with non-lit-style characters. This collection tried for that same blend, but usually failed. The characters, for the most part, never felt real (I'd read one story for about 30 pages before realizing the POV character was female, I thought he was a drag queen). A lot of them felt like the author slumming.

Maybe it's a problem inherent in short stories collections, but Gaitskill's flaws stood out as much as her good writing. Perhaps she has a kindly, eccentric benefactor who mails her 20 bucks each time she uses the word "inchoate".


The Story of English by R. McCrum, W.Craw, R. MacNeil

The short: Non-fiction, the history of the English language

The long: I was glad to see the last page of this book. A little more than I wanted to know about the subject, I guess. I would have liked more on the early history and less on its modern day divisions.

The book is a bit dated (1986), so it was funny to read predictions for the inclusion of the word "modem" into dictionaries. And the chapter on India never guessed at how the customer service industry would be affected.


A Fire in the Sun by George Effinger.

The short: cyberpunk novel

The long: First a rant of which I have ranted before. Dear SF/F writers. I want A story. One. I want to pick up a book and have it be its own contained story. Not part 45 of your 7852 part saga. That's my complaint with this book. I plucked it off of B&Ns shelves, it looked interesting. I brought it home, and 50 pages in realized it was part 2 of a still-not-sure-how-long series (I believe 3 or 4, but possibly 5). -___-

The book was okay on its own, its the story of a gangster in a futurized Islamic world, except that I would have enjoyed it more had I read the first one first, and there wasn't much of an ending because there's more books in the series. And, I figured out the over-ridding plot (5 bucks says it comes out in the next book that Marid the POV character was tricked into killing Umm Saad so that their Godfather could have her brain--- organ transplant technology is much improved in their world) so I'm not much interested in reading the next couple of book., though I might if I get low on reading material.


I've enjoyed David Feintuch's books. Mostly. I gave up on one series when it dragged on too long. But, he's always been someone I check the shelves for when bookshopping. There's been nothing from him in ages. So the other day I Googled him, hoping to find a webpage with a Coming Soon! notice. Instead I found his Wiki and he died a few years ago. Rats.




1. What are your top five favorite pop songs from the 1980s?

"Black Wall" Limited Warranty
"Favorite Shirts" Haircut 100
"Kiss You When Its Dangerous" Eight Seconds
"Don't Change" Inxs
"Blue Monday," New Order

2. What song do you feel a 1980s mix absolutely must include?

"Purple Rain" Prince

3. What group/singer do you feel a 1980s mix absolutely must include?

Duran Duran

4. Which 1980s song are you most sick of hearing?

"I'll Stop the World and Melt With You"

5. Optional question: were you alive during the 1980s? Alive and kicking.

If you're wondering how to hasten your marriage into divorce court, here's a simple trick: spend a couple of hours putting up that plastic window-insulator stuff. Wow.

Winter reading thus far:

The Hypocrisy of Disco by Clane Hayward.

The short: A tweener deals with hippies parents, creepy caregivers, a troubled brother and puberty.

The long: Clane recounts her tweener years, first living with her whacked-out hippie mom. They squat in abandoned houses, they live in open fields and the forest. Hippie Mom doesn't like them going to school; she doesn't like them eating anything but brown rice. If the kids try to wear clean clothes she yells at them for being square.

Starvation, another kids' death, pure filth is all over this book. Like most memoirs of this kind, it gets a little repetitive. In some parts, it feels like chapters were cobbled together from a journal and timelines suffer. For the most part though, Clane did an excellent job of letting the horror be the horror. She didn't swamp it with melodramatic writing or mini-lectures.

Cowboys edited by Tom Graham.

The short: Porn featuring cowboys.

The long: I had super-duper high hopes for this. The first story A Heart Full of Scars by Hank Edwards is absolutely gorgeous. It's an Old West love story between a town's sheriff and the new doctor. It's touching, a little curtain-y but without mush or sappiness or needless angst.

Unfortunately, the rest of the stories ran from ok to terrible. The only reason I can't believe for any of "Bearmuffin"'s stories to have included were that BM must be a friend or mortgage holder of the editor.

The Sound on the Page by Ben Yagoda

The short: Meta discussion on style (writing).

The long: Very sludgy. Took me forever to get through it. Worth it though. It was less how-to, and more why. It explained why groups of three (usually) sound harmonious. It explained why you want to encourage or dodge that harmony.

It debated the merits of blending in versus standing out. It snickered at bad writer. It featured interviews with a variety of writers. If the writing itself had been a bit more lively, this would have been one of my favorite books on writing.

The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The short: a gay "romance" between flying trapeze artists.

The long: Repellent. Whenever a book features a character thinking I should have let him hit me. If that's what he needed. I can not, will not, call their love romantic. And it wasn't just one scene or one emotional moment. It happened throughout the book. In another scene, Mario (the hitter) pinned down Tommy (the hittee) and threatened to break his arm unless he said "I'm a cocksucker."

Replusive. It's abuse, pure and simple. Present it as non-con, as awful, as abusive and I'm in. Present it as omigod, he's hurting, his psyche is so fragile, and I want to scream.

Also, the writting was about as crappy as it gets. On one page the word "ragged" was used 3 times. Now, I'm all for repeating a word is there isn't a suitable alternative. Finger and wine are always better than digit or drink of the vine. But the repeated use of ragged just came off as lazy.

The slow-clap speeches about tolerance and the ok-ness of gay love and the beauty of trapeze flying were artless and made an already over-long story all the more tedious.

- Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

This should have been right up my alley-- sibling rivalry centering around a more beloved child, a fishing village on the bay, historical setting, and yet it sucked. Meant for teenagers, I guess which did the book no favors. A lot of talking down and glossing over and preaching. No real plot, a girl sulked because everyone like her sister more. Her brief crush on an old dude, then the shaming that follow was interesting but it got dropped. In the end she married a hillbilly and saved a baby's life by putting in an oven.

-Right as Rain by George Pelacanos.

Crime fiction by one of the best. Though this was not one of his best. It was a study in the damage authorial ruts can do. In George's case, his character's musical tastes (60s and 70's soul gets talked about endlessly) and the ways it can be difficult for blacks and whites to trust each other. It felt a little re-tready in this book, which was unfortunate because the crime was interesting (meth dealers doing bad things)but it got bogged down in teh_lectures.

-Play It As It Lays Joan Didion

I like Joan's essay writing. I don't always agree with her views, but I admire her forthrightness and her ability to show gritty details without relying on gimmick. I probably would have liked this book more if I were a product of its time period. The book was a 60's update of the 50's depressed heroine. Drug use and gay people and sleeping around unremorselessly not really all that shocking anymore. There was more to the book than shock value, but the datedness, for me anyway, blocked any message.

-The Nightbirds by Thomas Maltman.

Moe thought I would like this. He was wrong. The story is a pioneer family who lives in harmony then not in harmony with the local Native Americans. I figured out the twist on page 24-- the kid narrator is the actually the son of "Aunt" Hazel. There is way too much boring flashback, and the author crammed in way too much backstory and fanfic-like melodrama. Oh noes, mean momma spilled Aunt Hazel's meds and now she will have teh_seizures!

-French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

I don't know what I was expecting, but what I got was a diet book. A shitty one at that. Mostly a long boring ad for her champagne company, and sometimes filled with laughable "advice" Want to lose weight quickly? Eat nothing but boiled onions. Also, exercise is gross. Don't engage in it if you want to be chic.

-Some Writers Deserve to Starve by Elaura Niles

Writing advice. A lot of it was common sense, and I don't really remember much about it.

-Fondling Your Muse by John Warner

Dumb. I thought it would be a snarky antidote to the usual perky writing advice. Not funny, not helpful. Those unfunny, long-winded, repetitive jokes your Uncle Greg likes to bore everyone with at Thanksgiving... imagine they are about writing, and you will have this book. I got it for free and I feel ripped off.

-Spy Girl by Amy Gray.

Memoir of a chick who worked at a detective agency. MarySueish and vapid (I fit in with the Goths when I wore my Doc Martens!), and calling oneself a spy when all one did was skiptrace is lame-o.

-A Lion's Tale by Chris Jericho.

This deserves its own post, really. Second only to Foley's first book in terms of wrestling biographies. It's good as a generic autobiography--Jericho's lived an interesting life. I did not know his mom was paralyzed. I didn't know he had a close relationship with his dad. But the book shines as a wrestling book. His stories from Mexico ran the gauntlet-- terrifying mugging in the middle of the desert, close friend dying, first taste of sucess, gringo in a strange place. More of the same concerning Japan. Snark from the WCW. Really touching stuff about Eddie and Benoit. Go buy this one. It's not fluff.

-A Late Dinner by Paul Richardson.

Really liked it, Spanish cooking was examined in a socio-economic context. Migas to El Bulli were discussed, and I plan to steal lots of details when I write my fantasy epic.

-Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni

Poems about the Black experience. Nikki's voice came out loud and clear in this, which is something that doesn't always happen in poetry-- a lot of it sounds too 7th grade English class. She relies a little too much on personal history, and I can't decide if that's good thing or bad. It's like I admire her for saying stuff, for putting her thoughts out there, but I need a little something to hook me into the experience. Unless that's the point: you don't get it white girl and you won't ever.

-Cinderella by Titian Beresford.

Pr0N. I'm not big on femdom on males fiction. Mostly because it reeks so strongly of male fantasy. The women are still objects, they just have scarier costumes. It's still all about male pleasure first. (just a reminder, I'm discussing fiction. Not commenting on r/l. Go on with the habits that make you happy and horny).

The story was re-telling of the Cinderella fairy tale. The fairy godmother was a dominatrix, and Cinderella was whore. Go get your subby prince, honey. Some sex scenes-- the one where Victoria plugged a fat dude with a pig's tail, rode around on his back and made him find her "truffle" and the fairy godmother having her way with a chained giant--- were made of hot. Others, all the tedious jack off scenes and the wtfness of the magically shrunk dude napping in vaginas, were made of yawn.