Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Blue Days, Black Nights.

2012-09-05T20:33:00.001-04:00

...Hello?

I miss you guys.

Hide and Seek in Flatland

2011-05-27T13:31:00.001-04:00

So, I’m clinically a psychopath, a friend impassively informed me over instant messenger. I got tested and stuff.

“Oh yeah?” I replied, equally coolly. “Congrats?”

Mhmm. You might wanna watch out. Apparently being close to a psychopath can ‘negatively impact your life.’

“I’m not too concerned. I can’t see you torturing and eating my pets any time soon, and I can handle anything else.”

I don’t need to torture animals for amusement; there’s an infinite amount of entertainment on the Internet. Plus they wouldn’t be very tasty. He paused for a moment in what seemed to be a thoughtful way. (Though, it’s hard to tell when your conversation partner exists solely as a screen name.) The best thing about this is that my parents have stopped asking if I feel guilty for making bad decisions that impact their lives.

I almost want to offload this review on him. I’m not sure I have the heart to stick to the Ask attitude for this blog, and he – being officially diagnosed with a chronic lack of empathy – could maintain that attitude well.

“Reality Hide and Seek” is written by Sheri: a woman with bipolar disorder in her early 50’s, who posts a mix of medical information, journal entries, baking, inspiration and the kind of comics that distant relatives leave in my inbox. She’s got a link to Cute Overload in her sidebar and spends her weekends on a hobby farm with her boyfriend, fer godssake. It’s as if my own grandmother asked me to beat her with a shoe every time her homemade soup turns out a little bland. I appreciate that people want honest feedback, but I’m more accustomed to judging spoiled twenty-somethings, not making a business of swearing at grandmothers who are battling mental health issues.

Fuck you for making me feel bad, Sheri.

At one point in the conversation with aforementioned friend I said, “Well it could be worse. At least you’re not bipolar or schizo. Those people come off as actually crazy, while you’ll just come off as kind of a dick.” Sheri doesn’t come off crazy, so much as frustrated and depressed. This is, in many ways, probably better for her personally, though it doesn’t make for very good reading material.

Sheri can write: she has a clear, crisp voice that makes her posts accessible, if somewhat distant. I guess the thing that’s missing is any sort of passion. A woman who has lived for over fifty years should have some experiences and stories to share. She should have some unique insights to offer the reader as a well-developed personality who has had a rich, long life. But, I certainly can’t blame Sheri for not having thrilling tales of adventure when it’s an accomplishment to shower every day. Instead we get what is essentially a public journal about how it sucks to have mental health issues.

There are occasional hints at something larger: an insight, a passionate description, a silly memory, an inspirational tale. I was surprised to find a single piece of fiction buried deep in the archives, and every now and then is a flash of poetry or some drawings. But, such things are sprinkled lightly throughout rather than being the majority. There is a fair bit of good, and very little bad, but the two are overwhelmed with a cascade of blank, distant writing that coaxes no emotion from my breast.

I know you can write, Sheri. You are smart, you have the creative talent, and you have a voice. Use them more often and you can build something that will touch the lives of others.

Addendum:
If I were to forcefully maul any one thing on this blog, it would be the template. The base of it is inoffensive enough, (where “inoffensive” means “modest and boring”) but the 20+ badges on the sidebar do that thing where they stretch the page to a ridiculous length. Your sidebar is literally over 7 feet long. I measured. So you could either trim some of that stuff away (your tag cloud could use a bit of spring cleaning), or arrange it in the footer or something so that your blog isn’t two feet taller than I am.

I Wanna Take You to a Gay Bar

2011-05-26T20:18:00.001-04:00

Whenever I write on my own blog I try to tell true stories. Sometimes I'm the main character, sometimes I'm trying to properly convey the character of someone I know or someone I met standing in line at the auto pound. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I fail. But my biggest concern, whenever I post anything--here or elsewhere--is can I prove to the internet that this person is flesh with feelings?

It's obvious that Cal, a glib little British puppy who's nearly 21, is also trying to creep into the world of storytellers. Reading his blog is like window shopping at Christmas. It's all snapshots of silliness and droll, nimble conversations lightly peppered with some distancing snark and I usually finished each post feeling glad but a bit lonely. There's very little scandal going on, unless you count being in a healthy homosexual relationship a scandal, like those assholes up in Wisconsin. I like him. I really, really like him. I even like his template, except for the centered column.

Cal's writing is calm and honest, conversational and hopeful, all about having good friends and goofy parents, and just...being twenty. Being twenty was awesome, wasn't it? The world is just spread out there for you, all shiny and rippled and just waiting to be fucked, and you haven't screwed anything up yet by falling into unflattering light.

The (Not So) Fabulous Life of Cal never really dives into raw emotion, but love is lingering in the alcoves. The main difference between Cal's writing and other blogs that focus on light daily life stories is the fact that he's not trying to impress readers with individuality and sassy banter. Of course there is sassy banter, but it's just friends dicking around. It comes across as more of a tribute to the people he loves. That's fucking valid.

The last couple of months on the blog are stretched like a chore. And that's my main criticism of Cal's blog: I was hoping his storytelling and characters would grow and develop, I was hoping to read about new jobs and uncharted waters and becoming an adult.

But he hasn't written on the blog since February, which is a big fat bummer. I want to know what he's up to. I want to introduce him to my friend's little brother, so Cal can show him a young, positive role model.

I don't know what's going on. I like everyone lately. Maybe I'm growing.

No One Cares What You Think

2011-05-24T11:07:00.004-04:00

I'm surprised that a grown woman doesn't know this already, but it's true. No one cares what you think. They might feel what you feel, if you give them a reason to, or they might hear your opinion, if it has value, but as it exists at present, the intrawebs will not be lessened, by one single degree, by your absence. In fact, it might be enriched.

Dirty Cowgirl, you write:

I hate being lied to. If someone lies to me they are gone from my life.
And I am always honest, to the point of causing offense at times. But if your arse is big, or you wanna know if you should leave your crap bitch of a girlfriend expect the truth.

I'm not going to lie to you, in fact, I'm going to give you truth with both barrels blasting, cowgirl style. You're not as literate, as witty, or as interesting as you think you are. Your blog is a horror.

I like opinion blogs. I read a few almost every day. One's a dating blog, another is a political blog. In both cases, the bloggers can be brutally blunt, and dismember someone in a sentence for getting it wrong. But, in both cases, the opinions that they are offering are informed by something. The dating blog is written by a career dating coach who draws on her own experiences, and the experiences of clients, to provide information and feedback to readers. The political blogger has literally years of crunching political policy and wonking it to the masses.

So, what are you serving up with your opinions? From what I can tell, you're a self-professed loud-mouthed middle-aged cunt with no particular skills.

You write:

I like swearing. A lot. My favourite word is Cunt.
In fact I am a cunt - and proud of it.
There is a post explaining why.

I tried really hard to read your blog, but it does not appeal. At all. Profanity doesn't bother me, but it needs to have a purpose. I don't care about your flatulence. I don't want to know about your pussy (the thought offends on some primal level). I don't care that you yowl like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Your blog template is ugly, the font too big, the background distracting, and the content abysmal.

This is doing blogging right.

I care about the opinions of these linked bloggers because their blogs are like a gift-wrapped serving of soul. These people are WRITERS. They are't the crazy person on the side of the road with a sign. You, on the other hand? Roadside crazy with a sign, thinking that the shriller and more profane you are, the more you will be liked.

As a woman in her mid-40s, I simply want to tell you: Grow the fuck up. The world is full-up on middle aged drama queens. Your blog is what's wrong with blogging these days, now that everyone and their mother is doing it. Not everyone with a loud voice is capable of saying things worth listening to.

Are you lonely? Go back to school. Take some writing classes. Read some classic literature. If you want to write, start journaling, and do it every day until you have something on paper that is worth broadcasting to the world.

What you are doing right now is an embarrassment. And, that's the unvarnished truth, as I see it.

You get a flaming finger. Maybe you can use it to spice up your sex life and/or cauterize your weeping vagina. Either way, I don't see that you've given me much reason to care.

List of Portending Pain

2011-05-23T13:44:00.002-04:00

Left Alone With a Full Moon

The Not-So Fabulous Life of Cal

Reality Hide & Seek

Throw another shrimp on The Farbequeue

2011-05-20T20:53:00.003-04:00

It was darkly golden, the thing that was thrust into my hands with little ceremony. Harsh tendrils of semi-molten metal twisted about and obscured the core of indeterminable gems. It was weighty and sluggish as it sat slowly squirming in my palms. It felt… magical; it felt… meaningless. It was named The Far Queue , I was told, though that name seemed to lay fitfully on this strange object rather than being a true part of it. The thing was beautiful, at the very least. It would take further inspection to determine whether the beauty was superficial or born of unfathomable artistic function.

I won’t subject you to any more on that nonsense, but the above is what artsy blogs do to me when I read them for too long. Somewhat fortunately for TFQ, this review actually caught me in the middle of a melodramatic and misanthropic mood which TFQ managed to reflect; unfortunately for me (and you), it reflected well enough that it put me in that mood for a couple of days. Had it caught me in one of my more manic episodes I am unsure how I would have reacted, but I can guarantee it wouldn’t have had me writing soggy mush like that paragraph above, and I doubt I would have had the patience to push past my typical reaction to poetry blogs. (“Yeah, I get it, you’re angsty and everything sucks. Put down that rhyming dictionary. Aurgh.”)

Go look at it right now. I want to compare some notes with you. Go on, it’ll take but a moment. Gather your first impressions. Got ‘em? Good.

If your mind works anything like mine (you poor, poor fool), your experience was probably something like this: the first thing you notice is that the blog is beautiful. It has a dark, simple je ne sais quoi that only comes from actually planning a website and rarely appears in blog form. Of the aesthetics of the blog, I have nothing but good things to say, and so will say no more.

The second impression you got was something akin to, “What is all this bullshit?”
Over the days I was reviewing TFQ, there were five posts on the home page, each prominently featuring an image – mostly works of art, presumably not of the author’s making. Spread over these posts was two short poems and two uncontextualized, unrelated paragraphs that appeared to be excerpts from a larger story. Under each of these posts were rating boxes labeled subterranean, grounded and transcendent. (Did you giggle at those? Because I did.) The only explanatory or introductory text is found above the navigation menu: “ANTI-PROFIT/NON-PROPHET” which I can totally get behind, although at this point I’m really not sure how it has anything to do with anything.

The message being conveyed is “I am a deep, dark writer-type who likes to use words in surprising ways and I take myself very, very seriously. Also I am a huge asshat and I probably wear a fedora.” (To paraphrase my English teacher, “deep” and “dark” are reserved for oceans and pussies; I have no patience for the mystery wrapped in an enigma routine.)

I ended up staring blankly at the pleasantly dark background and then played with the hover effect on the navigation menu for a bit. The realization that the navigation menu is both more interesting and more comprehensible than the content of the blog is, I suspect, a tipping point for most visitors. This time I would not have the luxury of totally dismissing TFQ, so I forced myself to read on.

Bolstered by beer, I first visited the biography. It appears that our author uses a lesser-known definition of “biography,” as I was instead greeted with two thousand words on the history of South Africa before anything personal and relevant appeared. We eventually learn that "Pisces" is a creative atheist who likes music and apparently wrote a book. Super. I rather wish he'd just left it at a simple “I'm just zis guy, you know?” because it's infinitely more brief and just as accurate.

I then realized TFQ is very large. It spans across several domains like a web of dark gossamer silk (sorry) and its archives reach into the dim shadows of 2006. All the inter-linking between posts and indexes creates a novel website structure - more visually pleasing than the use of tags, at least - but the whole thing is terribly awkward to navigate. It's organized less like a website and more like a virtual hedge maze with short fiction at the center.

Oh yes, I finally found what the main strength of this blog is: short fiction posted in paragraphs at a time. (It is mixed in with copious poetry, a form of which I am neither a fan nor a critic, so I will let those alone) There is very little of anything bloggy on this blog – in my reading I didn't get any real sense of Pisces at all, aside from a few flashes of “this guy is a prat” while reading the comment sections of some older posts. Yet, you can clearly witness the development of Pisces over the years, from a sort of generic romantic-misanthropist to someone who actually has some fun without overthinking and forcing "deeper" meaning .

And I suppose that's the main gist of it, eh? It is a feat to walk that line between visionary and self-important twat. A sense of inflated artistic ego and the stench of overwrought depth hovers just above most of the posts on TFQ, occasionally descending to infest the writing itself. To be absolutely fair to TFQ, the cringe factor of the past couple of years is decidedly less than that of most similar blogs. To be absolutely honest, the cringe factor is still there.

So, the big question: is TFQ just another poetry blog? Well, in many aspects it is – a fair number of the posts I read were artistic fluff – inspirational quotes and non-original artwork. A large number was short poetry of the kind that is always in danger of having the multiple multi-syllabic words obscure the meaning. But every writer has their gold, and Pisces produces some intriguing short and micro fiction. Given that I didn't hate it, and that some parts were too good to bore me, I'm awarding two stars:

Use them well.

More Like A Quarter Pound of Splenda

2011-05-17T13:00:00.001-04:00

First of all, I am fucking pissed off that this review got deleted and now I have to write another, and I've forgotten most of my jokes and links, which are now probably hovering nervously over one of the gimpier, glibbier internet sectors that probably has pictures of cats speaking like twits, and my words are all, "O Shiner, why have you forsaken me" and I'm all "if you love something set it free" blah blah "come back here." Everyone gets that quote wrong anyway.

Everyone including Tinker Belle (in a post I linked before but totally don't feel like finding), our young author of Confessions of a Twenty-Something Drama Queen, the most redundant blog title ever, who rightly admits in her blog-blurb-beneath-the-title-thinger that her blog is about "Nothing, really. Just a walk through the world I exist in and observations of the people around. All with a little pinch of salt." I'm not sure if the salt was a late addition to the description, but it's definitely a late addition to the blog.

It's as if she wrote for two years with saccharine, chemically-sweet sentiments, actually read her own damp writing, realized she sounded like a fucking fifteen-year-old Twihard, started to try hard, and just salted the shit out of everything, instantly making things a little more delicious.

The best thing about this blog, by far, is watching Tinker Belle grow up. In the beginning, she's just another girl who uses too many exclamation points, wants a boyfriend, like, really bad, and everything is I'm-so-different-and-special, fanfic-styled stories, I'm-so-deep-because-you're-so-shallow, posts with nothing but soft-focus romancey pictures and horrible song lyrics, bad poetry, and emo heavily detailed updates about cleaning supplies.

But Tinker Belle's growth as a writer and a person becomes obvious as she slowly evolves from a boring, whiny, insecure, hopeless romantic to a layered, confident, honest, hopeless romantic. She turns her feelings into a story. Sometimes it can come across as cheeseball drama, but it works. She's trying new things with her writing, some good and some bad, but interesting.

Although I really fucking hate the posts that are just bad music videos and lyrics, one eye-rolling line about Tinker feeling sorry for herself, and her ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT LABELS. I would lose those lame posts because they're awful and stupid, but I know she likes them, and if I were her I would tell me to fuck off.

Seriously, though. How many labels does one need? I can understand having a great deal of labels if you're like, using them ironically instead of tagging posts with a new celebrity whenever you drop a name, which is the blog equivalent of a Tiger Beat locker collage. Don't put them on your blog at all. Get fucking rid of them. I'm not a big fan of the orange-on-rainy-window template - but just using a color other than orange would fix that. Try to let readers view more than one post at a time. Create an "About" page. And please, please, please change the title. Maybe "The Confessional" or "Emotional Salt" or something. Because yes, she does confess things. Yes, she's in her twenties. But she ain't no drama queen.

Take Half the Clothes and Twice the Money

2011-05-16T10:42:00.006-04:00

The other evening, over Thai food, the man looked at me across the table and said, "I wish I were trekking in Nepal right now."

I can't speak for Nepal, but a wave of wanderlust washed over me, and I rebutted with, "Well, I'd like to be hiking in Denali right now." And I would, and did, and still do. The wild open desolation without human in sight, where the land is so big your eyes feel too small to see it all, where cell phones stop working and you can only get where you're going on your own two feet--that place, it sings in my chest.

Plus, truthfully, I'd like to see another bear up close and personal, just for the sheer braggadocio of the thing.

Isn't that why we travel, really? The first why--to open our eyes and souls wide so we can absorb the entirety of new. The second why--for the stories we tell the people we've left behind, and the stories we retell with the companions on our journey. We take pictures along the way, of course, so we can remember what we've seen, tasted, heard, and felt; and so we can share our adventure.

Of course, the more interesting the destination, the grander the tale. So, what if you wrote a travel blog, but you only rarely traveled, and only told a tiny fraction of the tales, and never took any good pictures?

Such a blogger would be like a bloodless Edwardian era virgin who fondles your cock, strokes 10 or 12 times out of spiteful naughtiness, and then turns her attention to embroidery. There are no bears in your pictures, Heels, and no grand tales in your blog.

When I read a travel blog, I want to be swept away to a place of spices and mystery. I want to inhale cumin and cardamom and the clean biting smell of the forest. I want my eyes burnished with the dust from a red road clogged with an infinite variety of humans. I want the flavors of a Michelin 3 star restaurant to engorge my tongue. I want my calves to burn from the western slope of Denali, and my heart to pound from a close encounter with a bear.

Camping in Heels, YOU FUCKING TEASE.

Oh, you travel some. I've seen the pictures.

But, you don't tell the tales and you take terrible pictures. You go to Spain and give us boiled dinner in a British pub and a shopping trip to H&M. You eat the Michelin dinner, but don't describe the flavors. You tell us how to save for the journey, but you never take us with you.

Apparently, you think we want to hear about you. My god, you ninny, we want to hear where you've been. We want to go with you. Or rather, perhaps not you, because you strike me as a terribly dull traveling companion who rarely leaves the beaten path.

You go to the most wild and wonderful parts of the U.S. (Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the Olympus Peninsula--where I'll be hiking later this summer, on the beach), and you show us the Salt Lake City Airport.

Dude, really? Are you a travel blogger, or aren't you? If you are going to write a damn travel blog, then DO IT. Tell us what you saw, tasted, smelt, and felt, with details that let us experience it with you. Don't fill your blog with pictures of you sitting on a couch drinking a glass of beer, fill it with stories. Who did you meet? What did you see? How did it smell? What near-death experience did you have?

You have the ability to write, but you aren't doing it. You've created an idea, but you think it can be milked for money, without providing substance (or for that matter, sustenance).

Matt, actually, says more, with zero words, about how small and big this world is, how much we share with people a thousand miles away, and how beautiful it all is. There is wonder in that video, and mystery, and stories, and danger, and joy.

That's what a travel blog should be. I watch Matt dancing in a gorge with strangers in a land I can't even spell, and I want to grab my suitcase and go. I read your blog, and I want to take a nap.

I give you a meh.

Fix it. You have the capacity, but do you have the will?

From the frying pan, straight into the fire

2011-05-13T15:11:00.003-04:00

Yes, there will be reviews here next week, starting on Monday:

Confessions of a Twenty Something Drama Queen (oh, joy)

Camping in Heels (otherwise known as "improper preparation for adventure")

The Far Queue (always challenging to spell the word queue)

The bitch is back

2011-05-11T16:36:00.003-04:00

And, she missed you.

It's time for changes, yet again, at Ask.

You may or may not have noticed, but we need regular reviewers. Apply within.

Caveat: We need reviewers who can be counted on to write ONE REVIEW each week. If you can't, please don't waste my time. I really am not around enough to chase people down who don't really want to write on a regular basis.

Found: One Nutjobber, A Little Brevity-Challenged

2011-05-02T13:34:00.010-04:00

As part of my near-constant running monologue, I said “oppositty” out loud this morning and immediately earmarked it for further exploration, as you can well imagine, considering the almost-tactile fabulousness of such a verbal slip. Wildly enthused, I twisted it around on my tongue coolly, jabbing at various pronunciations, at varying volumes, in various locales, refining my plans for its eventual usage; I stroked it, comforted it, mollycoddled it until I had shaped it into “oppocity”, the ingenious foundation for what promised to be an incredibly clever blog-post contrasting cities I don’t live in with the qualities I find most enjoyable within the one I do, culminating in a tournament of oppositional juxtapositions that would eventually reveal the city to which I have the least reason to dwell, or my most “oppocity”, if you will. It turned out, however, that I not only didn’t inherently know very much about my own city, much less any other (thus necessitating research, which, ugh), but also that “oppocity”, as written, looked as though it was meant to rhyme with “atrocity”, which I felt to be contrary to the overall tenor of my proposed post. I also simultaneously came to the conclusion that my idea was actually pretty dumb – really, truly, spectacularly dumb, especially in retrospect – and viewed the decision to abandon the project as less a failure of creative fortitude than it was a triumph of mercy, figuring instead that “oppositty” was of more comedic value if simply used as a replacement of “opposite” in random discussions with soon-to-be aggravated friends.

The truth is that the etymology of “oppositty” is not nearly as interesting as inventing a series of conversational points that would allow me to orchestrate a dialogue heavy with dichotomous blather so that I could ultimately call my girlfriend at work and say, “Hey, honey – did you know that the hypotenuse is the side oppositty to the 90 degree angle in a right triangle?” Phile Not Found is like that: when one feels compelled to explain the joke – less a funny ha-ha, in this case, than an overwrought attempt at cleverness – it probably isn’t very funny, and exponentially less clever than intended. Or, one is talking to idiots who are incapable of understanding anything, much less the contrived inventiveness of a title like Phile Not Found, and judging from the About Me page I’m guessing Ms. Nanobeagletwonames presumes she’s engaged in the latter.

Our intellectually-ambitious blog-author uses a photo of a galaxy as “a constant reminder to be humble” on that About Me page – not because of some capitulation to the majesty of another unfathomably expansive universe extant entirely separate from our own that dwarves her (and everyone else’s) comparatively meager existence, but because she’ll “never be as smart as the folk who devised the instrument that took that photo”, which kind of makes me wonder why she uses said galaxy-photo and not one displaying the camera that took the picture itself... and though I imagine that aesthetic considerations such as these are to be applauded in some cases, despite the fact that, in this case, they seem a mite self-defeating in light of the above-mentioned and spurious justifications invoked in representing oneself as a galaxy, I prefer a more logical progression of symbolic personal-identification in my blogs.

I mean, obviously, right?

So, why this need for reminders of humility, you ask? Well, quoth the brainiac: “Sometimes I feel like I’m the smartest person on the internet”. This, needless to say, is an unfortunate turn of phrase, not only because it opens the door for petty nitpicking, but also because she misspells “suffix” not four sentences later – a pretty catastrophic faux pas when combined with the above assertion, even if made ambivalently, that colours any reading of the blog with the stain of arrogance. For instance, this is a research paper slapped up without regard for context, this is unnecessarily and almost startlingly condescending, and this contains a dialogue that reads

Someone: So, what degree program are you two in?

Me: I'm in Computer Science, and he is in Computer Engineering.

Someone: Oh, what's the difference?

when it should probably read

Someone: So, what degree program are you two in?

Me: I’m in Computer Science, and he is in Computer Engineering.

Someone: Ah.

Me: You see, the difference is―

Someone: Mm-hm. No, that’s great. I’m super, like, happy for you guys. Oop – gotta run.

This is prefaced with a warning that should be applied much more liberally, and though each one of these is heaving with salient points, they retain the faint but unmistakable sneer of adolescence, as though her personal awakening to the terrible manipulations of culture is one shared by the collective at this precise moment in time. As a fellow Canadian atheist whose worldview leans heavily on iconoclasm, I understand. In fact, I believe that a lot of the irritation I feel when reading this blog is a direct result of recognizing my own predilection for pomposity, for the irrational need to prove my stupendous and otherworldly intellect to the faceless masses of subterranean dolts who plague the interweb like a rotten pastiche of herpes scars, and this realization gives me pause; not enough to retract any of my criticisms, mind you, but enough to allow me to see Nanoo as, perhaps, a younger, more computer-savvy me... minus, of course, the staggering bravado and mind-blowing creativity that is so clearly evident in the construction of ideas such as “oppositty”.

If I, then, am forced by my own logic to use my 34-year-old self as a case-study for this 21-year-old student (which I am – shut up), I would have to conclude that her metamorphosis from self-absorbed youngster to slightly wince-inducing writer to absurd deconstructionist incapable of maintaining any kind of writing routine due to both the prevalence of a nineteen-month-old daughter and the delusion that any sort of prolonged concentration is feasible whilst warding off sippy-cup attacks and an alarming preoccupation with the movie Madagascar is a distinct possibility.

In that Phile Not Found is not horrible, I am awarding it one star:

I would also like to represent myself thusly:

This is not because I regard myself as a much-beloved marvel of form/function synergy, or equate myself with the manifest and intrinsic artistry emblematic of a freely-galloping horse, but because I know I’ll never be involved in anything as fundamentally useful as those ensconced in the horseshoe-manufacturing industry are.

Why I Am Not A Poet

2011-04-18T19:59:00.006-04:00

For awhile I hated poetry because I didn't understand it. All poetry was sensitive glitter, reserved for smug, self-important assholes, who were haughty and deep. Like Linda Lovelace. Or dungeons. Or secret dungeons. Or French people. French people who locked their souls in secret metaphorical dungeons, where their poetry was chained and whipped daily because it plundered baguettes, tongue-kissed Madame Dupont, and took the road less traveled by, but someday we will have jaunty berets (je ne sais pas) and be free from le tyrannical aristocracy, oui? Tres bien! Louis! Richelieu! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

So...that's what I think about when someone says "poetry."

One day, I discovered what became my favorite poem. Another day I went to France. You know what? I like smug and glittery when the constituent is sardonically aware of its own narcissism (this is more prevalent in poetry than in France).

And about half the time, that's what it's like over at From Quiet Thoughts. Brown is a poet from San Francisco with dreamy bedroom eyes, thoughtfully propped up against a pillow in his profile picture looking pensive and bored, as if porn just doesn't get him off anymore since the internet made it all socially acceptable to jerk it all the time. He could so be French, especially with all the cigarettes and wine.

Honestly, I fucking love about a third of his poems, I want to edit the hell out of another third, and the rest? Fucking dungeon, like he's trying to be a poet instead of just being poetic.

Because sometimes, this happens:

About Me: Increments of time, attach themselves to light, creating impassioned pixels of reality. We are what we see, feel and hope.

which sounds like lyrics to low-fi-electro-indie-rock and other things that are trucked with hyphens and pictures of mustaches that lack any real hair. What does this say about Brown, as a person? We're just particles fueled by our perception of reality, who can really know anyone, and if you can't figure it out then you don't deserve to know and all that priggish bullshit and SHUT THE HELL UP.

Which means Brown is a cheater. Fuck that distant, vague crap. He should do it better because I know he can, even though sometimes he could benefit from an editor, a little more self-awareness,

and a little less of that thing, you

know.

That thing that "poets" do, where lines are
separated
for no apparent reason, although
the idea is free verse
and the pauses between phrases can be inconsequential and

the result
is annoying.
(dungeon)

I'm a big fan of Rodin (OMG YOUR PROF PIC MATCHES YOUR HEADER OMG), so the header is fine, but poetry thrives on suggestion, aesthetics, and rhythm. Brown excels at the first, does a good job at the second, and needs to work on the third. Part of aesthetics is not just avid prose, but how the poem looks, and honestly, that template reminds me of fungus. Stop feeding shit to your template. Pick a paler, less offensive green for the words - that alone will improve things. Think about flow and meter. You know how to write. Do it better.

I applaud the flows of nonsense because he's practicing his attack. Sometimes the prose is a bit awkward and clunky, but he's exercising and I respect that, despite the overt naval-gazing, mostly because there isn't a lot of filler. There's just good and bad practice. Sometimes his spelling is fucking barbaric, he does the "your/you're" thing and if that shit is intentional to prove a point, like we're too hooked on grammar as a society or something, or if you purposely substituted "poured" with "pored" as a play on words, know this: that doesn't make any fucking sense, but I'm over it, because I read that one about the snail about 500 times.

I'm a sucker.

for effort and skill, but

because sometimes he sounds like he's trying to be a poet instead of just being himself.

Drivel for Nice People

2011-04-07T07:13:00.000-04:00

So I have this friend, Blubbering Vlad, who's the type of guy who you want to be around when there's trouble brewing. Not that he's all that handy, or good with his fists, or even all that smart; he's just a hell of a lot of fun. And he's likely to help keep the heat off your trail acting as a distraction to any authorities who may be inclined to give you a second glance.

Needless to say, when I go on the prowl, his place is one of the first stops I make on my way out of town.

But when the phone rings and the miracle of modern caller ID tells me that it's Blub, I will not ever pick up. Never. Because, fun and useful as he is out running through the swamps, trying to have an actual conversation with him on a phone is excruciatingly dull, dull, dull. The guy simply has nothing to say and uses way too many syllables to get that nothing conveyed.

Reading today's blog (A Hundred Indecisions) reminded me of my dear friend.

The author, who reveals her name very reluctantly and tells us virtually nothing at all about herself directly, is 24 year old Gini from Delhi, an architecture student, and .... Well, shit, that's kind of it. She writes in complete sentences. Complains about poor spelling in text messages. Seems to grouse regularly about the life she has laid out before her, as though she is powerless to effect a change. Hell for all I know, she is. But it seems pretty fucked up that she seems to have virtually nothing positive to say about becoming an architect for all the time she seems to devote to it.

What does that leave me with? I am left with another iteration of the same old question -- what the hell are you writing this for? You do not seem possessed of literary demons that must be unleashed, lest they eat you up inside. If anything, you seem to have literary kittens that occasionally need a ball of yarn to play with or to have their bellies scratched. I am not transported within your words, I am instead driven to fits of ADD. The remotest shiny bauble captures my attention over your words.

So. What the hell can you do about this? Is it so awful? No, not awful. Just dreadfully mundane. And I suspect that this is a direct result of Gini writing this blog before she has experienced anything.

No, that's not true. She has. As a newly hatched from the nest High School grad she traveled alone from her home in Delhi to Chennai, over two thousand km distant, and took up at school there, trying to fit into a culture very different from what she was used to. A writer would have wrested an entire novel from that setup alone.

So, let me leave you with a question and then a rating. First the question: Gini, when you sleep at night, what do you dream of?

And now for the rating.

Meh. Meh. Meh.

Figure out why you're doing this, and if you aren't doing it because your muse will fucking kill you in your sleep if you don't, don't submit for a review from a bunch of clove cigarette smoking, beret wearing, edgy, aging hipsters like us. We'll all be that much happier. I promise.

No, THIS is tellin' like it is

2011-03-25T04:01:00.007-04:00

You know what we haven't had around here for awhile? A mommy blog.

Fan-fucking-tastic. Am I not the perfect person to review this blog? The single, childless, 30-year-old. Woot woot.

Anyway, why the hell did this chick submit here? While we have people who happen to be parents affiliated with this site, I really don't think we're the audience she's looking for.

For instance, look at her word cloud:

Are you kidding me? The only time I willingly read shit like this is when I'm in the waiting room of a doctor's office and my only other option is Sports Illustrated.

I mean, this lady took the time to write a post about the evolution of her hair. And uploaded pictures at each stage. Who gives a shit about that? Other mommy bloggers and the ladies from her birthing class.

(Check out the results from the poll in the link above. It should give you an idea of her readership.)

She uploads tons of boring pictures of her kid. The only people who want to see pics like that are grandmas. Not just any grandmas, but the grandmas of the child in question.

About a month ago, she gave a play by play update on her kid's illness. Ended up being just a fucking COLD. Again, grandmas only care about that shit.

Now, one could claim I have nothing in common with this blogger, therefore her blog is not my cuppa and to just move on.

Fuck that.

I have plenty of mommy and a few daddy bloggers in my reader. There's a huge difference between those blogs and the blog up for review today. The bloggers I read haven't let their children completely define their existence. Their blogs aren't about being parents; they're about their real lives, which just happen to include parenting. They don't try to portray their lives as idyllic and Stepford-esque. The bloggers make me care about them and about their kids. They actually make me want to be a parent myself, even when they write about the kid getting into his own diaper and smearing poop on the walls.

Polka Dot Hippo makes me want to go out and get a hysterectomy. If parenthood equals zombies with no personality, who have no life and nothing to talk about besides their kid, I'll pass, thank you very much.

Wasted Words

2011-03-23T12:22:00.008-04:00

Tits. Tits. TITS. See, television is a great spectacle even if the people on it seem to take themselves way too seriously. In fact, the world is filled with people without a sense of humor, and that's never fun when you're trying to make a balloon animal out of someone's guts. "Oh human cruelty" this, "mother of five" that - party tricks aren't what they used to be. But on TV land, there's a show that simply doesn't give a fuck about this human concept of "reality" and is an orgy of tits, guts, blood and more tits. Yes, I'm plugging Spartacus, go watch it - it'll be a lot more entertaining than anything you'll see today. That dull pain I'm feeling is the sensation of a hot poker up my arse, a gentle reminder from Shiner that there's a review upon us.

So Astrodominie, welcome to fantasy island. I'm not sure Astrodominie means, and my gut tells me not to investigate. So let's pick a random letter and go with it - how's J? So J blogs on "The Thick Plottens", and aw shucks, ain't that clever? Says J - "I’m a 23-year-old girl living it up in India. That’s all you probably need to know". I'd be happy to cut my losses and move on, but she tells us more about herself anyway - in style reminiscent of a piss poor dating website from the past. Not that I would know, I was simply checking to see what the fuss was all about SHUT UP.

Just about every post on the blog is a list of some sort, and I hate lists. Lists are bad for a blog. They're an easy way out churn out words, add no cohesive thought and make the reader care very little about the post in its entirety. Take this and this. Cut the posts into half and mix them up. Does anything seem out of order? Will it hold a reader's attention? Will it make him/her care about the random shit that happened in your life last month?

I must admit, I liked the idea of using a line from a song as the title. I found myself scrolling down to catch the name of the song owing to the dim sounds of bells ringing in my head. But in doing so, I ended up skipping most of your generic posts one after another.

Now J, it might seem I'm sick of you and want to phone it in by tossing in a finger or two. But the thing is, I do like you. A little. Kinda. See, you're a 90s child and think much like I would. We're in the same age group, and of similar backgrounds. When I visit a blog I want to see something I can identify with but see it in a way I hadn't thought of before. Even though you cop out with your lists, you're clearly capable of sustaining a thought and writing about something that matters to you.

But you lose focus too soon. Going back in time through your blog, I see a clear pattern. There's a thought, an idea that leads to a post. Then there's another thought, a vague mashup of words that probably mean something to you, but really, waste a reader's time. Then there's silence on the radio, and you comeback with a stupid list.

J, when you finish writing, how about reading your post once more and guessing what a first time reader's reaction might be? If its "hmmm, so?", then don't hesitate to hit the delete button. Say nothing if you don't have anything worthwhile to write about. You clearly read more than I do, and that's always a positive when you're trying to flirt with writing. In fact, its when you talk about books you seem to hold your own and have something meaningful to say. Its not terribly original but I can see evidence of something I'd bother revisiting your blog for.

When I visit a blog, while I do appreciate familiarity with the subject, I want to read a different take on it. From this list, I actually chuckled at the idea of a single girl with a Harry Potter bawling her eyes out on a plane. Why couldn't this have been a single post? If you don't mind vague posts under 100 words, why not write something meaningful even if sacrifices word count?

There's a constant subplot about moving to Hyderabad for what I imagine was your first job, and then back(?) to Chennai for hmm, I don't know. so why not explore that in better detail? Instead of itemizing what you miss and what you don't, how about picking one and bitching the shit out of that motherfucker?

Too many questions J, and I'm not sure if taking it easy just to post on your blog will answer any of them.

For the occasional blip in the radar, you get a meh

For boring the shit out of me with juvenile lists

Wankers

2011-03-22T08:00:00.007-04:00

You are all a bunch of wankers. No, not today’s reviewee. YOU. The one sitting at there with your eyes glued to your screen of choice.

I got six pissing comments on my last review and three of those were from Shiner. Poor show, people, poor show. That is not to say that I don’t concede that my review may have been pissweak boring, but if you can’t rip the shit out of the reviewee, couldn’t you at least turn on me, telling me what a useless pile of pap my review was and make a day of it?

Pah-thetic.

I have nothing if not an ego that needs to be stroked, even if I put in a starfish performance, so I can tell you, it was an effort not to throw my hands up with a “Fuck the lot of ya’s” and bail on this review. (Insult must be said with broad Aussie accent or else it loses all effect) However, along with my need for validation I also have an overblown sense of responsibility, so here I am.

Fuck you Shiner. Fuck you cause I heart you so much and didn’t want to let you down, cause bugger me backwards – I had to spend an evening with this dickhead.

Kavisolo. You moron. Go back to the heathen shithole myspace den of iniquity from whence you came. (There is no real iniquity in your ‘blog’ – I just like the word) Far fucking out. Ugh. I don’t know who you are or what you do, except stick up youtube clips and photos of yourself. I do know that you have glasses and look like a nerd. Albeit an ironic hipster-ish type nerd. Book. Cover. Judged.

Are you Indian? Gay? That is what I can tell seven pages in but the little legs on my inferential skills are paddling like crazy to keep this semblance of a real person afloat.

Hold the phone – I FOUND something. Page 17. You left Australia fourteen years ago to live in Canada. Well there ya bloody go mate. And shit. I just saw that I was seventeen pages in and you were only in January of this year. I am sorry Kavisolo but even with your minimalist template and lack of side-crap, your stupid way of only being able to navigate from page to page sucks ass. Wait – hold that telephone receiver yet again my dear reader-come-telephonist. Here we go. Retarded Redpen just hit the archive button and lo and behold all is revealed. The archives appear in one damn funky looking collage. I like this bit.

But the rest sucks. It is all poser crap with ‘I’m-so-clever-cos-I can-find-quotes’ fraudery (it’s a word because I said so) and no writing, at least none that I can be arsed finding.

All style (kinda) and no substance. You miff me in your need to be reviewed. Is it a postmodern joke that I don’t get?

Whatever.

That's What She Said

2011-03-17T22:04:00.003-04:00

I'm usually pretty perceptive. At least I am when I'm tuned in and paying attention. I can walk into a room and sense the vibe going on pretty accurately most of the time. And I can open a blog and pick up pretty much from the get go what sort of experience I'm in for.

Are there lots of crappy little doo-dads scattered around the perimeter? Hundreds of blog awards? Pukey pink background? Massive header screaming out for attention? Maybe a few links here and there to crappy writing that's been "published" in an ezine or via some vanity press? Yeah, guess what - that fucker's gonna be a chore.

So imagine what I thought when I first arrived at the home of one Laura Jane Williams, with her pink background, her name in 106 point type across the top, a shameless declaration that her high self-esteem was my problem, and links down the side to her magazine. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Attention whore. The type of person who prefers volume to subtlety.

And I was sorely afraid.

So I rolled up my sleeves, prepared to brush the foul taste from my mouth soon enough. And I read the first entry. A fairly amusing description of some guttersnipe trying to pick her up in the street and clearly failing miserably. So I read on. And I happened on one after another reasonably amusing anecdote of life as a young woman in Britain after another.

It was a moment of severe cognitive dissonance. A blog that starts out like this is supposed to suck from the git go. And, aside from the header, this kind of doesn't suck.

Although it comes across as pretty Bridget Jonesy on the whole (and I have more in common with Bridget's father than Bridget herself), it is all well enough written, well enough thought out, etc, that I found myself cognitively humming along before too long.

Would I come back on a regular basis? Sure. Would I read it every day? No. I find this sort of thing to be a pleasant enough distraction, but when I read post after post that has the same sort of sour-sweet sassiness that this has, I find myself needing to cleanse the pallete with something a bit more weighty.

Now for the funny part. As I read, I was having the hardest time with some of the entries as she kept referring to her being in school for her undergrad degree. And although I know that there are all sorts of students out there, the photo of herself had me thinking that she was a mid-thirties aged crazy-cat-lady-in-the-making. And I was having the biggest trouble imagining why she was describing the life of a woman in her early twenties. It wasn't till I wandered to her video page that I discovered that Laura Jane Williams is not really who she appears to be at first. She appears to be putting her worst foot forward on purpose. Like a little sort of performance art.

Bravo.

By now you'll have noticed that I am including very few links to anything specific. I think that the biggest reason for that is that, although there really aren't any clunkers in the mix (she does occasionally repeat a thing once or twice too often -- like the "Quote, End Quote" thing, but the ones I read were all reasonably amusing), there exists also a dearth of "holy shit, you must read this now" posts. It's all pretty evenly keeled.

So, to give you all a taste, here are a few random posts you may want to check out...

On being offered money for sex. She thinks.
On being an unintentional racist. And having OCD.
On being ridiculed by her boyfriend and her flatmates. At the same time.
On lacking cake for tea.
On being very self deprecating.
On the love of a dog.
On parental acceptance.

Etc.

I don't have any specific advice on how to improve. This seems to be working for you. Keep it up if you're still fed by it.

Two Stars. Because one is too few and three is too many. And because I said so, that's why.

Oh! The Places That Are There That You Will Point Towards!

2011-03-15T13:43:00.017-04:00

I have a favorite coffee shop. It's pretty standard, as far as coffee shops go. The owner/barista has a tattoo of a fox curling around his ear, with the tail tracing underneath his jaw and I am in love with him. He eyes me with pleasured surprise, tickles my palm with the tips of his fingers when he hands me my change, brushes eyes with me at the exact moment of contact and grins wickedly. I hold my breath, blushing like a proper whore. He is the most charming man I've ever met. No force can shatter our lusty, caffeinated kinship. That shit is spiritual. I turn shyly to catch the next customer getting the same treasured gaze, and it smells like cinnamon and desire and I'm sure he douses his carrot cake with aphrodisiacs and I'm proud to be a part of his business, because that dude is sexy as hell.

Caryn also has a favorite coffee shop, but I don't really understand why. It just sounds like another coffee shop. She's a Jewish ESFJ who likes a tidy little Sunday, having a boyfriend, and reading her Kindle and eating giant tins of popcorn, but who doesn't like Holiday popcorn? Fucking everybody likes Holiday popcorn. Except for the haters, who can suck it.

But you see, Balance Overload is not really so much about the story of Caryn as it is about stuff, and stuff that is very safe, and her advice about stuff that is safe. Since she's a college career counselor, this is unsurprising. But as we all know: the information a blogger chooses to omit says just as much about them as what they include. Her mom reads her blog, poor thing. Caryn, honestly, what the fuck were you thinking?

Yeah, I know, your mom is your best friend and you tell her like everything, you fucking liar. You write with bland assurance and mechanical perfection, you give us at least one adorable aside per post and you end with questions intended to illicit small discussion. Clockwork. It's the sort of masked dynamic that makes me angry and then very, very sad, as if you want to articulate something important about yourself, but you don't want to reveal too much so you say it about the fucking Bachelor instead.

It's shit like that that brings me to my next point, which is integral: it is more important to me to defend the honor of Cottonelle over Charmin than it is to hear about your "religious odyssey", and my reasons are twofold:

1. Cottonelle is like wiping my ass with rainbows after shitting gold.
2. You give me no explanation as to why you and JB were conflicted in your interfaith relationship. I sense no tension in your words, I can find no reason for wasting your time on counseling. You are speaking in generalities. If I want to read generalities on interfaith relationships I will buy a book written by a fucking expert. But I want to hear about YOU, nancy-girl.

Your most telling entry, and your best, is this, and I like it so much I will link it twice. This is who you are. You are energized by simple pleasures and conclusions, and I dig that because it's personal and it fits you. It also tells me you're concerned with the destination rather than the journey. Yes, you are. YES YOU ARE. Don't argue with me, I'm right. Your blog is about general conclusions you make about stuff, with nothing detailing how you got there.

Unfortunately, that's not at all what I care about.

Jambo

2011-03-10T09:00:00.006-05:00

People like to make connections. Diving head first into Blonde’s little list on herself I noticed she used to speak Swahili. My dear old mum speaks Swahili. Blonde has been to Tanzania. And I have been to Tanzania. Snap! So with those little connections Blonde wormed her way into my affections. A little bit.

Her ‘cast’ is long and all edgy 30-something TV show. Really? If I had to cast my mates and exes it would be all ‘Dude Who Didn’t Age Well At All – SUCK IT!’ and ‘Clingy Bitch Who Dumped Me Cos I Didn’t Visit Her in London When She Lived There – HELLO I Was a Student Back Then!’ See? Definitely not as cool as her mates.

I got the distinct feeling I am not as smart as her. Look, I don’t mind coming to my own conclusion that my grey matter is not as well stocked as someone else’s but when I feel I am being gently taunted with it, I get all pissy and insecure and jealous and write reviews that possibly turn into a bitch-fest. Maybe. We’ll see.

Blonde writes well, but she writes like a chic-lit novel. With a blog, more so than in a novel, the reader expects to connect (there’s that ‘c’ word again) with the actual real-life author, as well as get a good story. I felt that sometimes her style of writing, while wry and funny, held me at a distance. She doesn’t have to be the slatternly Bridget Jones type of gal but being so self-contained must be tiring.

Blonde is champagne – she is witty, crisp, urbane and very consistent – she is certainly advocating a good ‘brand’ but after a while she clagged on my tongue and I felt like something a little more down to earth. Like Coca-Cola.

Even so, if I was a single gal about London, I would probably want to be her, first world gripes and all.

Two stars because she writes well, as a PR person should.

The guilt. She suffers, I suffer. There are some things a teaching stint in Africa can't assuage.

Hi-Tech Hate

2011-03-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

Sigh. If a review opens with a sigh, chances are, things aren't getting any better in the near future. See, English isn't everyone's first language and it's a concept that takes some getting used to. Yeah yeah, the dotted ones claim to use English as their first language - but don't you deny it - it's not what your racist granma uses to complain about your tan looking girlfriend. It's not the language your movie stars use to shill for "fairness creams".

But the thing is, the language has a few easy to understand, and follow, rules. Mind you, I don't care too much about grammar - that's a beast very few have tamed. But the Queen's tongue does lend itself to simplicity at the worst of times, if you tell yourself -

I will always say I, not i
Capital letters are great, when used correctly and WHEN NOT LIKE THIS
Commas break a sentence like this, and this, but do not end it like this,
Those red wiggly lines you see are might look like they're somewhat annoyed, but in reality what they're saying is HOLY FUCKNUTS BATMAN!! THIS IS A FULL SIZED KEYBOARD THAT YOU CAN TYPE FULL SIZED WORDS ON, SO COME ON TAKE A GODDAMNED CHANCE!!!
You typing is not the same as you talking. If you mix up the two, chances are most of us don't want either

Anyhow, when was the last time we saw an IFLY? When was the last time someone published something on my reader? Oh wait, I don't know - I haven't logged in for the last 3 months. So it angers me to no end to see a blog with semi-regular new posts (or so I think - I can't figure out the bloody site navigation) that has nothing but useless drivel.

In the past, I'd rip on blogs called XYZ Journal, useless updates, and simply missing the point about blogging. But now, 2 minutes away from the next day, I simply don't care. I'm not even sure if my idea of blogging holds up anymore. I thought it was a place to weave stories, to conjure posts with the magic of words. But perhaps it is a medium to vomit what you can't fit into 140 characters. If the meek shall inherit the earth, maybe the lame will keep the blogs alive.

This was supposed to be a review but I'll end with a plea instead. Shakti, and the others still "blogging". Read a book. Just one. Any one. Please?

I'm Not Dead Yet

2011-03-08T16:34:00.008-05:00

I haven't written anything on my personal blog since, oh . . .Christmas. I have nothing to say. Nothing even remotely interesting has happened to me. So, I just decided not to post until it's worthwhile.

I wish my reviewee would have done the same.

This is what's supposed to inspire me to write? A damn photo blog? The only writing is lame captions written in poor English. Aces. Ours is a blog that reviews WRITING. What in God's name am I supposed to do with this shit?

So yeah, Jidhu? Thanks for bothering to read the FAQ before submitting. Or any of the past reviews. Also, thanks for using us to get hits. You know what happens when asshats use us to get hits? I don't link anything other than the original link to the blog.

I don't know what to do right now. I'm here to review writing. I'm a "writer" (note the quotes), not a photographer. What the hell do I know about photography? I mean, I was the photographer for my junior high school newspaper 15 years ago. I got some awesome shots of the JV Boys Basketball game. I took a photography class in college and spent my time shooting gravestones at this old ass cemetery. Yeah, pre-emo, baby.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm not a photographer. So here's a layman's critique of your photography, Jidhu. It SUCKS.

Your minimal "About Me" says this blog is for you to express your feelings, ideas and interests. What feeling does this express? (Yeah, I linked. Sue me.) Your caption "Guys repairing pipes" is RIVETING. Does the photo mean something to you? Was your father a mechanic and you spent weekends working him, so there's some sentimental value to the picture? Does your "interest" in those guys bring up romantic "feelings"?

What the picture expresses to me is that you went out into the parking lot and took a picture of some shit, just to have something to post on your pretentious blog.

I'm done. I estimate there are more words written in this review than in the entire blog reviewed.

We have had one of these for awhile, so you get a . . .

Q Cue Queue Que

2011-03-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

BLOG: Que the Lights
AUTHOR: Xavier Burgin a.k.a. Xay B., college student at University of Alabama

The first time I pulled this site up, the first thing that ran through my head was "Oh my god, why the hell is this header image so big?" The second thought was equally critical and went something like this "What the hell is a 'Que'? It's spelled 'Queue' or 'Cue,' depending on your meaning, but I don't think I've ever seen 'Que' before."

Xay never explains why he made his header image so big that it pushes all of his content below the fold on my screen (and I'm at a 1650x1080 resolution -- there's really no excuse for it), but he does address the whole Que thing. I guess. (Sorry, I'm still not okay with it, and I think that you'll see why shortly.) Which leads me into my first substantive concern with the content of this blog. Unless you are involved in or interested in the greek life at the University of Alabama, much of the subject matter on this site is going to fly over your head or under your crotch or around your big fat gut, or somewhere unintended. Even when I was a young man in my late teens and early twenties, the allure of greek life completely eluded me. So, although I get that many young people love to have a place where they belong and all of that, I still felt as though I was standing off to the side observing rituals of a group that I could (and in truth, would) never be a part of.

Frat life aside, Xay is an aspiring filmmaker and photographer. Que the Lights is meant to serve as his online portfolio. This is an area I was hoping to find some commonality of experience. I've never studied, but I have been dabbling in the visual arts, photography, and aspects of film for years, primarily as a screenwriter, but also in the realm of some light directorial work. I was actually looking forward to reviewing this site, big ass header aside. I love short artistic student films. Generally.

So, my next biggest complaint is that there aren't more of these films. Instead, he spends an inordinate amount of time talking about what he's working on, or what he's interested in and why, but this writing comes off like a required school assignment. So, I want to go back to the films now...

I like watching the technical growth. Sure, not all were to my liking. The advertisements for frat events weren't really meant for me. Nor were the rap duels. But the films that told a story showed promise. And I would be very interested in seeing where this goes.

His photography is pretty amazing too. He does a lot of photographing people, something that I am not very good at. I feel that in order to photograph a person, really capture the essence of that person, you have to establish a very intimate bond with him/her. That intimacy is clearly on display in his photographs of people. My only quibble with the photography content is that his photography posts had way too many photos. They swiftly became overwhelming, diluting their individual impact. A lightbox style gallery that shows just one image at a time would be a much more suitable showcase for this work.

To tell the truth, the best part of Xay's filmmaking is the visual aspect. Sound sometimes was lacking, story sometimes vague or obtuse, could have used a bit less generosity in the editing process, but the visuals were almost always striking. Xay, if you were to ask me, I'd say focus on cinematography. I really think you have a gift there.

So, about the blog. What could you be doing better?

Edit your writing. I know, I say that almost every time. But in this case, you have interesting ideas, but too often a word selection is enough off the mark to yank me right out of reader mode and into red-pen wielding editor mode.
Shrink the header image. It should be 1/3 the height it is. Or less.
If you are serious about using this site as your portfolio, remember that a lot of folks who you want to see your work and look on it favorably won't be in your fraternity and so won't know what "Roo to the people" (or "Roo the people" as you say about 1/3 of the time) is supposed to mean. I still don't. I assume that this is not a statement of love for the offspring of Kanga in Winnie-the-Pooh. Correct?
Your use of tabs is confusing. The top row works, where it serves as an entry point to a page on your blog about that topic, but the second row? I was annoyed that clicking on those took me out of the blog to an external site without really warning me that was going to happen. It would be clearer if you were to use the YouTube logo or something instead of a tab.

Okay, that's enough for today.

Four stars for your photos.

And three stars for your completed videos.

And zero stars for your writing, which should have been two, but my inner editor redacted two. Sorry. It happens.

Be Happy: It's One Way of Being Wise

2011-03-01T11:33:00.002-05:00

People don't describe me as sweet, chill, laid-back, someone with a good sense of humor. More would say a poor sense of humor, someone who is inconsistent and hard to please. The whole situation is arcane at the least, because for me to genuinely like something, anything, I must be surprised. Surprised at its beauty, its horror, wit, insanity, humility, romance, hysteria, darkness, splendor - just give me a fucking adjective and shock me into using it to describe you. Okay? Please. Because reviewing blogs is fucking exhausting. Why do you think we took such a break?

It began in the Diminuitive Corner of Her Mind, as many other reviews do: with severe annoyance. There's no profile for our blogger, who calls herself $$ (the blogger formerly known as Shalini Surendran) which at first seems contradictory to a template flourished with aged parchment romanticism and a golden ornamental header, but that shit's very hip right now so never mind. Worldly old souls, the polarizing wisdom of antique keys and modern technology and all that. Honestly, I love that shit. I really do.

Even though she sometimes traps herself into posting a sentence beneath an inspirational photo of a tree in the sunset, DollahDollah can write superbeautifully, with a hazy glow or solid awareness. Sometimes she shitbombs her prose with alternating text colors, and sometimes she's meandering cheese, and sometimes she uses too many explanation points, but the words work so in the end that's just aesthetics. I am pleasantly impressed with her. Surprise!

In fact, I really like her, even though she's not a feminist (although I suspect, as I find with many women, that she really cannot define feminism. Feminists are like hipsters: the original social movement has lost all meaning and credibility because motherfuckers don't what the snot they're talking about) I know. I know. What the fuck. Who am I.

Most of her crowded posts could be punched out of their meh-ness. There's a great deal of purple prose and utter crap, but she's got enough gall to keep me reading. But what I love, and I do love this about her, is her uncompromising thankful dreaminess, full of hope and love. She is so genuine and infectiously pleased that I have to like her, I don't think I have a choice. It's rare that I find a blog where someone claims to be happy and I just believe them because their words smell like joy.

So DollahDollah, well done. Two stars and a very happy puppy.

Tally Ho!

2011-02-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

I can’t believe it. I am an anal retentive bastard who never forgets, misses or is late for anything, and I totally fell prey to the curse that is Shiner’s List of Doom. Granted, the internerd in my part of town has gone all crazy spaz so I didn’t even know I had a review to do, but even so, I hang my head in shame.

But finally, here we are. Now, a little while back, someone joked about/suggested doing reviews as Haikus. Even as skilled as I am, I wouldn’t dare attempt that but I thought I would go down the Mr London Street and give the 100 Word Post a bash here. I wouldn’t want Becky to feel ripped off with a scarcity of words, so if requested, I will cheat a little and elucidate in the comments. . .

Pish Posh and Such: A 100 Word Review

Becky, when I dug back into your archives you didn’t charm me. It was travel updates and ‘this place is soooo beautiful’. Blah and meh. When you started drawing, I was charmed. I felt young, silly, guilty and nosey. Delighted I remained at your off-beat style of cartoon and your whimsical, everyday observations. I could almost forgive that you spelled obesity as obesidy and salute as solute.

Alas - where are your fans? Many a muppety reviewee has legions while someone actually worth liking, such as yourself, is bereft of comments. I hope this review can change that for you.

PS: ‘4 Stars’ is not included in my 100 words, just in case you were wondering. Or counting. Neither is the title.

PPS: Do you like how my Intro of Shame is longer than the actual review?

Clinical

2011-01-27T15:49:00.002-05:00

Several months ago, in this space, I had occasion to review the ramblings of an antipodean young lady who self-described herself as "crazy." Among her other sins, I took a bit of offense to this self label. It was inaccurate and signaled an underlying disregard for the identification of the correct descriptor. I berated her for choosing "crazy" because what she meant was "impulsive" and "impetuous." If I may quote myself, I told that young lady at the time "Real crazy and real insane is actually scary and dangerous. Not fun. Real crazy is hanging off the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge or hearing voices that aren’t there telling you to kill John Lennon."

Jacki, if you are still reading here, today's reviewee is somewhat close to the epitome of who I was talking about in that review. (Also, Jacki, if you are still reading here today, I encourage you to submit for a re-review. You have corrected your egregious sins. You would likely get a much improved review today.)

Pandora has been dealing with mental illness for years, and Confessions of a Serial Insomniac is where she records the trials and tribulations of what goes along with that.

She has a very full About Me section. Pages and pages and pages of orienting material. A glossary of terms and acronyms. A run down of who all the major players are and what her relationship to them is. Full background on what she has been able to identify as the inciting cause behind her initial breakdowns.

And let there be no question -- assuming that this is all honest and true (and there's no reason to doubt that's the case as far as I can tell), whatever mental illness she is experiencing is well earned and owned. Go through what she has and you'd likely be mentally ill as well.

Pandora generally writes clearly, yet very clinically. She conveys the facts of her mental illness very well, but only rarely seems to give real insight into what it feels like. It reads like a bit of a case study in a text book. And if the purpose of this is to serve as a record of a life or as a resource for others who are going through similar trials and tribulations, that may very well be appropriate. It wasn't what I was hoping for when I first saw the topic, and maybe that's just prurient selfishness on my part. Hard to say. But as one who's deepest experience with mental illness is a very occasional bout with Seasonal Affective Disorder and or mild depression, I wasn't able to latch onto this material the way I really wanted to.

The thing is, it seems to be something that she struggles with in her therapy sessions as well:

“OK,” Paul said, “but what did you feel?”
Not an easy question to answer. I thought about how the way in which I’d described the incident here, but in the moment, that didn’t really seem to ‘get’ it.

So what can I say? That I'd like to see more catharsis? Feh. Easy for me to say from my comfortable house with my complete LACK of mental illness and trauma. Still, what I'm saying would probably make the individual entries a bit more compelling. The fact is, she doesn't glamorize or romanticize any of it -- she factualizes it. And perhaps that's a good thing to do. I'm not qualified to say anything about the illness part. But take a look at this, because this is more like what we're looking for here.

Okay, then. So what can she work on?

The entries are too long. If I were hired as her editor, the first thing I would tell her is to cut everything to 1/3 of the currrent length.
Lose the goddamned "Read More" links. Yeah, okay, they're probably there because the posts are so long, but I hate (hate, HATE, HATE!!!!) them. I probably didn't read as much of this as I should have partially because of that. (Partially because I have a deadline. Deal with it.)
Too much crap in the sidebar. At least the sidebar isn't longer than the page content. But there's still a hell of a lot going on, and the stuff I was looking for (archives) was hard to find in that haystack.
Reconsider the white text, black background. Although it doesn't bother me as much this time as usual because it kind of fits the subject matter, white text on a black background is hard on my eyes.

My final word of advise is going to come across as a bit condescending, maybe. I don't mean it to, but will understand why it is interpreted that way. I am trying to figure out why Pandora is writing this blog. What is the goal? Is it simply a diary of her mental illness? Is it to serve as a form of advocacy? And because that goal wasn't clear to me, it was very hard to assess whether she was successfully achieving her goal. Which is one of the key things I try to assess in these reviews. It seemed to me that she may be writing "just because" without a clear goal in mind. If that's the case, I might encourage her to find a goal for this and strive toward it. If it's NOT the case, and she has a goal, I might encourage her to identify that goal for the readers.

And that's that.

For what it's worth, I bet I know several people in real life who could have written this blog, except for the residing in Ireland part, and I like them all. So, in the end, I am willing to bet that if I were to know Pandora in real life, I'd probably consider her a friend.

Pandora's rating: One star.