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1.25

2012-02-11T00:12:47Z

In May 2013, I will graduate with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore (U.B.). That means I have just over a year (1.25 of a year) to do the following and to take stock of my life and my career:

revise any pre-2012 stories that I have written in the program and would like to consider for my thesis (to be done by the end of summer 2012),
revise my fall 2011 personal essays and decide if I should submit any of them or any of my stories (the ones I ultimately decide to take out of the running for my thesis) to literary magazines (to be done and potentially submitted by fall 2012),
write some new stories to consider for my thesis (during an advanced workshop in fall 2012),
compile—and then edit, workshop a final time, edit again, and copyedit—my thesis manuscript (over Christmas break and into early spring semester 2013: so, that’s mid-December 2012 to late February 2013),
apply for graduation (to be done by early 2013),
come up with a title for my thesis book (to be done by February 2013),
revise and finalize a cover letter (thanks to my Publishing Process class in spring 2011, I’ve already drafted a stock cover letter; to be done by January 2013),
design my book cover and lay out my book in InDesign (to be done by early spring 2013),
find a printer and have the book printed and bound (to be done, completely, by May 2013),
decide if I want to handmake some copies and what the design would be (to be done, and acted upon, by May 2013),
figure out if there’s a way I can (and if I want to) offer an e-version as well, perhaps offered as a package with the real book (to be done, completely, by May 2013),
decide on a pricing structure (to be done by May 2013),
implement a marketing/advertising strategy, or i.e., a nice setup for my 3×3 or so table space on the night of the final M.F.A. reading and book presentation (in May 2013),
choose an excerpt or a very short story to read in public, and then practice it (to be done by the final M.F.A. reading and book presentation in May 2013), and
do all my other homework, and try to live some sort of life, on top of all of this.

As you can see, it’s going to be a busy year+. But this is one of the most exciting and important times of my life thus far. Although this is self-publishing, I think the U.B. process is valid and valuable. I will be working with peers, and under the supervision of professors (all together, two for writing and another for design), so it’s not your typical self-publishing or vanity or subsidy press publication. I’ll have backup. I’ll have editors, to a degree, and design input. And at the end of it all, I’ll have a tangible (and possibly digital?) published book of short stories.

I didn’t realize how long I’ve wanted that until just now. Coming to U.B., I thought this program was a way of getting creative writing instruction and experience so I could do what I really wanted to do (write for television without wasting money on a highly specialized, limited, screenwriting degree), not necessarily so I could publish a book. But I’ve realized that I want it all. I do want to write for TV, but I also want to be an author. I want movies and novels and books of short stories and maybe even a memoir or two. I never knew, until I came here, how many ways I could write. Looking back, I know I should have realized my publishing aspirations much sooner. I used to make books as a kid, whether for school or fun. Now I’m doing it for both.

Part of my plan, outlined above in numbers 1 and 2, is getting some things into print that are not self-published (i.e., in literary magazines). This is part of an overall effort to get a “real”/traditional publisher’s attention one day, to get my writing career started—or try to anyway. And though I won’t be scheduling any time specifically for screenwriting in the next year, that will be on my mind as well.

After all of this, the hard part will be deciding what I want to do outside the dream world I’ve created for myself. While I try to make things happen, I need a day job. On that front, I’ve actually been lucky. Last year, almost a year ago exactly, in fact, I got a full-time position at an educational content development/publishing company. I’m a Project Administrator at Words & Numbers in Baltimore. I’m technically housed in the math department, but that’s a formality; I’ve worked in all kinds of areas, from math to science to Mandarin to social studies and more. I had an informal review in November. It went well and showed me what my future at Words & Numbers might look like. As was foreshadowed in this informal review, recently, I have taken more of an editorial role. For all intents and purposes, I am a Project-Administrator-Slash-Assistant-Editor and perhaps, over the next few weeks and months, will do away with the administration part, more or less.

So I’m enjoying what I do more and more, finally getting to edit and, thus, shape the educational content of the future, but how long will that sustain me? With this shift in focus, toward editorial, I can finally, honestly say that I love my job right now because I love to edit. I’m a grammar geek and a cogency king, enjoying all manner of writerly palaver, but when I think about where my heart lies, I have to say, it’s fiction, not education. For now, I enjoy my job; I could see doing it for several years, if everything went right. But there’s always that nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me to find a job in “real” publishing or get started as a screenwriter. Although I may just have to do that one day—may have to move to New York or Boston or (wince) L.A.—it’s nice to know that I can probably still maintain a relationship with Words & Numbers (the best job I’ve ever had), as a freelancer. And—thank you facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter—through social media.

This is a different world than the one I imagined as a kid. And a different life. For the most part, I’m okay with that.

Blog Stats for Dec. 2011 and All of 2011

2012-01-17T05:15:22Z

December notched 22.5% of all hits for the year 2011

As you can see, December 2011 was a big month for my blog, with 22.5% of all traffic for the year happening in December. In particular, the entry “Announcing the Summer 2011 to Spring 2012 Television Season” picked up a ton of traffic and was the top-viewed entry for the month and for the entire year. Actually, it’s the top-viewed blog entry since I bought this domain and switched to full hosting. I guess I need to write about TV more often.

*CAVEAT: I did make some changes to the blog design in December, which accounts for some of the extra hits (for some reason, it counts my views, but I don’t think it should), but that shouldn’t inflate anything by more than 20–40 hits.

P.S. Let the record state that this is my first real foray into Adobe Illustrator and professional-style infographics (as opposed to cookie-cutter Excel pie charts and bar graphs, etc.).

The Object of My Prepositions: A Search for Prince Charming

2011-12-17T21:07:59Z

**Assuming lone essays can have dedications, this one is partially for the creators and crew of ABC’s Once Upon a Time but mostly for Justin. Ich liebe dich—immer, ständig. **

In my Indiana childhood, on the edge of the Bible Belt, I invoked a constant, subconscious, and, for some, immoral vigil—always on the lookout for some Prince Charming to call my own. Stories told of a man who would fight a dragon and face an evil witch for his beloved. I found Prince Charming first in the pages of favorite fairy tales. He popped up under different names, peppered throughout the concepts and the very grammars of world literature. At the apex, he appeared in the story of Snow White; here, he was even called Prince Charming, and charming he was.

In many tales, he rode a horse and was adorned in the highest, richest fashion. Only later in life would I realize that I was attracted not only to the heroics of a brave man whom I would have loved to emulate but also to the actual image of the man on the page, the drawing of him. The perfect curve of his brush-stroked jawline. The shapes of the hats he wore and the swords he wielded. The unseen but ever-present heart beating in his noble, armored chest. I wanted to be with him; for reasons that were both obvious and somehow unclear to me, I loved Prince Charming.

Many years later, after receiving both my gay card and my B.A. in English from the all-male Wabash College, I moved to Baltimore, MD and enrolled in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program at the University of Baltimore. And while there, I met a man, a myth, a fashion designer. He was Prince Charming, but instead of a sword and hilt, his tools of the trade were a needle and thread. He had a passion for outfitting and repairing the many character costumes of his Six Flags America employer, and, in his spare time, he puttered and freelanced, designing dresses fit for the fairest Snow White. And even his own underwear.

Still in the writing program, and building a life with this wonderful man, fiction continues to be an important aspect of my life, and it always will be. I am a storyteller, after all, and a consumer of stories with which I can identify, on which I can project. In ABC’s most recent hit series Once Upon a Time, I have found a new iteration of the fictional Prince Charming. Josh Dallas’ Prince Charming is not gay and is, of course, no competition to the real thing in my life, but he is the next step down. Beautiful and masculine, he is the embodiment of every man who would die for his lover—and in the pilot, he almost did just that. Watching this moment, I teared up, and when he came back with the rest of the fairy tale characters in the form of an amnesiac John Doe in Storybrooke, ME, I felt elated. The tale of the prince would continue after all, feeding my need for well-told fiction and the universal love story. Someday, as all the viewers know, Snow White’s Prince Charming (not to mention her memory) will come back to her, as mine came to me two years ago. Once Upon a Time might very well be my favorite new show of the season, and I think it’s clear why.

All my life, I’ve had this need. To be around a Prince Charming, about him, of him, with him, and—as I grew older and more aware of myself sexually—to be on, over, under, and in him. In short, Prince Charming was and is the object of all my prepositions and the desire of my grammatically correct life. As a confused child, I was in love with a handsome myth, and until I came to Baltimore, he remained a myth. But in Baltimore, in the process of finding myself and my writing, I found him. I found my Prince Charming, both fictional and real.

Since I Last Blogged

2011-12-17T21:24:10Z

Since I last blogged, the world lost a chief inventor. Steve Jobs died a legend, for better or worse.

I’ll go with better.

Because since I last blogged, the emergency alert system at Virginia Tech rang out for the second time in four months; gunfire rang out for the second time in four years. Thirty-five have people died in two Virginia Tech shootings in four years. Is this the right to bare arms or the right to bear-arms? You, crushing life with unhuman power, without reason. With rage, without warning. Exactly what is the difference between “arms” and weapons? Between insanity and hate?

You and me?

Nothing. But since I last blogged, gay men across the world have been beaten or lit on fire or both. Mobbed, beaten and burned alive — to death. Like lit but unwanted cigarettes. “No thanks, I’m trying to quit,” you say, and press them into the ground. Lives forever changed, some snuffed out completely. Men (and women?), you, hiding behind masks, hoods, Bibles, anonymity. Mauling freedom with priggish prickery. Recording it, posting it for the world to see: hate incarnate.

Yeah…maybe you see this in the Bible, but it’s no Bible I’d care to own.

Since I last blogged, I’ve decided that nonfiction is just as reasonable as fiction. I can write it. What are the differences, anyway? None of this seems real, but it is.

Nonfiction is fiction is nonfiction.

Since I last blogged, you took my faith in humanity.

You stopped the world ahead of schedule.

And I haven’t blogged since.

Tickets to the Apocalypse

2011-12-17T21:23:02Z

BALTIMORE — It’s been kind of a crazy week on the East Coast, and in the world, for that matter. A 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit Mineral, VA on Tuesday, August 23rd and was felt in D.C., Maryland, New York, and probably even further than that. I felt it in Baltimore; I was at work when it happened, and although it was a little scary, it was brief and ended up being kind of awesome. It’s not that I want another one to happen, and I don’t think it was necessarily fun. But it was awesome nonetheless, a demonstration of the power of Mother Nature, and there is something to be said for that.

Wednesday, August 24th, Steve Jobs publicly announced that he was resigning as CEO of Apple, Inc., after having taken a leave of absence for most of this year due to his health, following a similar leave in 2009. The big question on everyone’s lips Wednesday evening was, What does this mean for Apple? The AAPL stock did its usual slight drop following an announcement from the company, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. AAPL will rebound, and so will Apple. Tim Cook, the new CEO, who has actually been acting CEO for much of the last two years, has been doing a fine job and will likely continue to do so. Jobs himself was clear on this.

And it’s not like Jobs is leaving the company entirely. The second question on everyone’s lips was, more or less, Does this mean Steve Jobs is dying? I think that is a bit premature and dramatic, and okay, so I sensationalized the response a smidge, but it’s tiring watching the Apple community fall apart every time the wind blows Jobs in an unexpected direction—and every time he makes an appearance and doesn’t look in perfect health. Jobs is well enough to continue as Chairman of the Board and will have some input into the company’s future, so it’s definitely not over for the Mac man. Jobs anticipates a bright future for Apple, even brighter than its present, and he looks forward to Cook’s reign at the helm.

Now we arrive at Saturday, August 27th, when Hurricane Irene is expected to hit the Baltimore area. This ruins not only Silopanna, a local musical festival that my co-worker Julie Cymek was going to play, but also production weekend for my first-ever issue as Production Manager of the U.B. Post. The University of Baltimore will shut down at 2 p.m. on Saturday, at which time my production assistants and I will head home and take shelter before the storm hits, locking everyone inside for most or all of Sunday. Monday, there won’t be a cloud in the sky, and it will be a beautiful, 81-degree day in Baltimore. The U.B. Post will most likely arrive on Friday, September 2nd, instead of Tuesday, August 30th.

But seriously, how many natural disasters must we have in one week? I would love to know. My roommate went to California last Saturday and was supposed to fly back in tomorrow night, but I doubt her flight will happen. It’s quite ridiculous that, during her absence, we will have had one major announcement from one of the most lucrative companies in the world, as well as two natural disasters on the East Coast.

I don’t think it’s official yet, but I heard it through the grapevine that some famous horsemen will be riding up and down Baltimore’s Charles Street a week from next Thursday. Pencil me in. Is it too late, or can I get tickets to the apocalypse?

“The whirlwind is in the thorntrees…when the man comes around…and hell followed with him.” ~ Johnny Cash

New Website, Only Two Months Late!

2011-12-17T21:23:04Z

I wanted to have this done about two months ago; clearly, I failed. Life just got in the way. And the kicker? It’s still not ready yet. The hypertext story is still in development (that’s a lot of pages to change!), but it will be back eventually. A few other parts are missing (e.g., the sidebar on the CV page is incomplete), I’m still making some tweaks to the design (by the way, this was my first time designing the graphics from scratch), and I’m doing everything I can to speed up the site. I know for a fact that the graphics are messed up because I tested it on my work computer and noticed that the background sizes to fit the screen, but my content box goes all askew. I need to rethink this.

For now, just check it out, and let me know what you think of the direction I’m headed in. I got sick of the old site and needed something fresh. This new one was inspired by my friend Julie’s band website, sweetleda.com, which you should also check out. When I have some time, after I finish the website itself, I’m going to freshen up the blog to make the design mesh a little better.

105

2011-07-23T00:13:55Z

It is disgustingly hot in Baltimore today. And I went to work only to have to come back and work from home because the servers and Internet were down. These two things are (probably) unrelated.

Who’s Stupid NOW?

2011-12-17T21:23:04Z

Just yesterday, Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine wrote that Apple will never sell an unlocked iPhone because there isn’t a market for it, because “Apple isn’t stupid.”

But who’s stupid now?

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but how embarrassing is this, to have to retract/note/caveat such an article? I guess some people really didn’t see this coming. I don’t really care, one way or the other. Until I’m a full-time jet-setter, traveling around the world every week or month, I have no need for an unlocked iPhone. But it’s nice to know there’s that option if I ever need it.

I’m more interested in the next device that’s coming out this September. This article suggests that the new iPhone is entering the final stages of development and will go into production soon, but it does get a thing or two wrong (for example, Apple already announced over-the-air updates). Someone hasn’t been doing his homework!

iMessages, Busyness, and the Future of My Computing

2011-12-17T21:23:04Z

I just read an interesting update on how iMessages works. I had been wondering about this. Would iMessages replace the old Messages app, and how would one send text messages to non-iPhone users? Well, the answers are “yes” and “very carefully.”

;-)

Here’s what COMPUTERWORLD had to say:

“If the recipient isn’t using an Apple device, then the message (or file) is sent by standard SMS, which is color-coded to green. iOS-to-iOS messages are blue and actually state ‘iMessages’ at the top of the message and in an empty text entry field. But wait, there’s more: The iMessages service syncs conversations between devices automatically, so you can start a conversation on the iPhone and pick it up later on an iPad if you want. ”

Now that’s nifty!

Every time I read something new about Lion, iOS, and iCloud, I get just a little bit more excited. I’m not prepared for July just yet (because I have a lot of things to do before June is over), but I will be happy to be in July when it does happen because that will mean that Lion is just days away. Likewise, I’m not ready for fall just yet, but when it does come, the cool-down and the new iOS/iPhone/iCloud will be welcome changes to my life.

Finally, this is a bit off-topic, but I’m considering buying a MacBook Air for my next laptop, so I have something light and compact to carry around (maybe then, I’ll actually take my laptop places rather than use it as a desktop, essentially). I would also buy an iMac for the home, and with the magic of iCloud, they’d both sync to the cloud, along with my iPhone. Oh, convenience, how I love you!

Besides, there’s just no point having a laptop for my home computer if I rarely take it anywhere. Wouldn’t it be better to have a computer with more power and a larger screen for my home computer? I’d get more for my money, for starters; laptops have always been and probably always will be more expensive than equivalent desktops, even for PCs. But then, of course, if I went this route, I’d have to pony up the cash for the Air as well. But that may have been inevitable anyway: a desktop and a laptop. The only difference is that it would be a lightweight laptop.

In the last week or so, I’ve considered saving up to buy the Air now, or relatively soon (after the next update comes), and then using it for work. It would be nice to have a Mac at work, let alone a second computer screen. I’ve asked the IT guy for a second screen for my PC, but I think he’s too busy to bother with it; I think he’s forgotten, and I don’t want to bug him again. So maybe I should just go for a second computer instead.

What to do?

New WWDC Developments

2011-12-17T21:23:04Z

I’ve been trying to keep up on some of the WWDC blogs and articles, and there were a few today that I wanted to share.

First, iOS 5 will bring the iTunes Tone Store. No longer will the iPhone be limited to the text message tones built in to the operating system. True, there were some additions earlier this year (if your phone is capable of accessing them; my iPhone 3G is too old to support them), but the Tones Store will add many, many more. This isn’t huge, but it’s something that wasn’t announced in the keynote, which makes since because it’s kind of a small-potatoes feature.

Second, BGR blogger Jonathan S. Geller wrote his impressions of iOS 5 and iCloud, and in that blog entry, he noted a couple of interesting new accessibility features that I have yet to see documented elsewhere. In iOS 5, it is possible to enable the LED flash on an iPhone 4 (or any subsequent iPhone with a flash) to blink during alerts. Small, but kind of cool. The next one is more interesting: iOS 5 brings the ability to create custom vibration patterns for specific contacts by tapping out patterns on the phone’s display. I’ll definitely be using that!

Finally, Brian X. Chen wrote an intriguing article about Apple’s “lock-in strategy.” I won’t go into detail on what that means, but it’s basically what I was saying in my previous blog: Apple is creating a tight-knit ecosystem of mostly wireless devices, and with each new update (no matter how long it takes to get small features like, ahem, cut and paste on the iPhone), Apple is making the devices increasingly more difficult to give up. It’s possible now to stock most of one’s household electronics simply by going to the Apple Store.

We just need that Apple high-def television set and sound system (and high-def music in the iTunes store), and we’ll have electronic entertainment pretty much covered.

UPDATE: Previously, I had said that the Tones store was for ringtones. This was a mistake. It is for text tones, and I knew that as I was writing it. For some reason, I shifted gears and started writing about ringtones. Sorry about that!

WWDC 2011: Favorites and Failures

2011-12-17T21:23:05Z

Apple made some big announcements on Tuesday, and while many people (Android enthusiasts, Apple haters, and well-balanced critics) are saying that most of the upcoming new features are, in fact, not new—that they are “unoriginal” or “stolen” or “copied” or “underwhelming” or whatever—I just think that’s they’re overdue. I’m not worried about the fact that most Android devices have had some of the upcoming iOS features for years now or that iCloud will not stream music like people thought it would (I have issues with music streaming on a mobile device, but I’ll get to them later). What I care about is that these features are coming soon and that, for the most part, they look beautiful and well-implemented (specifically, Notification Center for iOS).

And I also care about the price: $29 for OS X Lion and $24.99 for iTunes Match, with iCloud for free. I think price was the biggest bombshell of the keynote, all around. Apple is building an ecosystem of devices that are relatively expensive but are coming with more and more features built-in, which, to me, helps to justify the prices.

For me, the following are the features of Lion that were underwhelming or just not that exciting:

Full-screen apps
New multi-touch gestures (though I’m sure I’ll grow to love them)
Launchpad (I don’t quite see the utility, because I have Alfred, but we’ll see)
Mission Control (although, after watching several of Apple’s videos, it’s growing on me)
App Store distribution of Lion (until I saw how it was going to work…)

The following are the features that made me stand up and say, “That alone is worth the $29 price of Lion!“:

Resume (the stand-out feature, which allows you to run Software Updates and restart your computer without losing anything you have open)
Auto Save and Versions (a local Time Machine that only saves the changes you’ve made to a document, not the whole document, kind of like delta updates, which I’ll get to later)
Mail and iCal upgrades
App Store distribution of Lion (my reservation was that not having an install disc would hamper diagnostics and repairs, but Apple’s thought of that and included a recovery partition, which by and large makes e-deployment a respectable option, in addition to super-easy-peasy!)

As for iOS, I didn’t necessarily care about these features:

Newsstand
Safari upgrades (maybe they’ll come in handy some day, though)
Game Center upgrades
New Multi-Touch gestures in iPad (just as above; plus, I don’t have an iPad and still don’t see a reason yet to buy one)

These, however, are pretty cool/awesome:

Notification Center
iMessage (although it’s only for iOS users, that’s no different than Blackberry’s BBM feature)
Reminders with geo-location
Camera upgrades (volume up for shutter release and double-tap home for easy access to camera!)
Twitter integration
Mail and iCal upgrades
Completely PC-free distribution (i.e., you don’t have to have a computer to have an iPhone anymore)
Wi-Fi sync while you’re charging from the wall (no more plugging my iPhone into my computer: amazing!)
Delta updates (only downloading the changes to apps and other files, not the whole file: priceless!)
AirPlay mirroring between iPad and AppleTV (not that I have either of these, but it’s a great feature)

For iCloud, honestly, there wasn’t much that didn’t get me excited. First, the idea of a completely free, over-the-air syncing system has me pretty pumped. iCloud syncs photos, apps, books, calendars, e-mail, contacts, settings/preferences, documents, and music via iTunes in the Cloud (I’m still unclear on how to sync my music that isn’t from iTunes, because I still don’t know if I’ll be taking advantage of the iTunes Match program), and it costs nothing, which is an improvement over the $99 price tag of MobileMe. And you’ll still get an @me.com e-mail account and 5 GB of storage, toward which your apps, music, etc., will not count, so it really is a reasonable amount of space.

But anyway, I can’t wait until my iPhone is completely untethered from my computer. iCloud looks to be a huge improvement over MobileMe, and like I said before, I don’t even care that you can’t stream the music. In fact, streaming music over my iPhone wouldn’t really work for me because I live in the city and take public transportation (i.e., no Internet connection in the subway station or the subway car itself, so how would I listen to my music on the way to work?). I’m not sure that I’ll use iTunes Match or the iTunes in the Cloud features, but it’s nice to know they are there. Ironically, iTunes in the Cloud is the only feature that is available immediately, if you have an iPhone 3G S and above and you download the beta version of iTunes 10.3.

Now, I’m just waiting on the next iPhone so I can take full advantage of all of this. It should be coming out when iCloud is fully released this fall. OS X Lion comes out next month and will be distributed via the Mac App Store, which you should have if you have Snow Leopard. Otherwise, it’s still unclear how you’re going to upgrade. I guess you have to have Snow Leopard first, which is still not too bad because it was also only $29, since it was an incremental/small upgrade in terms of features. Apple was nice to us back when Snow Leopard came out, and they are being extremely nice to us now, in terms of getting what you pay for.

And it’s about time.

Announcing the Summer 2011 to Spring 2012 Television Season

2011-12-17T21:23:05Z

Well, in terms of TV cancellations/number of shows ending, this season wasn’t as much of a bloodbath as last season, for me. I lost eight shows last year, including both returning and brand new shows. This year, perhaps because I restricted the number of new shows that I started, I only lost four that I watched regularly (ABC’s returning V and Brothers & Sisters, The CW’s returning Life Unexpected and Smallville) and one that I caught the pilot of (FOX’s brand new Lonestar) but didn’t have time to watch. These were the cancellations (of returning shows) that mattered to me, and I am happy to report that only one of the brand new shows that I started got cancelled (rather quickly, might I add). Poor Lonestar. It showed a lot of potential.

Last fall, I also started watching TV Land’s returning Hot in Cleveland (which had already aired its first season at the time) and AMC’s brand new The Walking Dead, and I was caught up on the former in time to watch the first half of the second season in January. The second half of Hot in Cleveland‘s second season starts next month (and following its established pattern, the first half of the third season will probably start in January 2012), and The Walking Dead‘s second season will air this fall. Last winter, I also watched Showtime’s brand new Shameless and Syfy’s brand new (remake of a British cult hit) Being Human, and both were picked up for second seasons, to air probably in early 2012. All four of these are very good shows.

Luckily, all the new shows that I started got picked up for second seasons, except for Lonestar, so the cancellations were mostly returning shows. I was very upset about Life Unexpected and Smallville (even though the latter needed to end and had a fantastic ending) and, to an extent, V. However, Brothers & Sisters actually got a satisfying conclusion, so I’m okay with its cancellation.

There are still several shows from the 2010 to 2011 season that I want to watch at some point (NBC’s No Ordinary Family and maybe Undercovers, The CW’s Nikita, and ABC’s Happy Endings, and FOX’s Raising Hope). Of those, Nikita, Happy Endings, and Raising Hope got a renewal for fall 2011, so the other two will be one-season wonders and, thus, easy to watch in one go, without worrying about getting caught up. I’ll probably wait on all of these, though, and watch some of the other shows in my backlog first (Twin Peaks and the old Battlestar Galactica and V series, for instance).

Now, here’s what I plan on watching this summer (besides watching my bucket list of classic and newer-but-unfortunately-canceled shows, on DVD or online):

Sundays
True Blood (HBO at 9) – fourth season premiers June 26th
Breaking Bad (AMC at 10) – fourth season premiers July 17th

Wednesdays
Hot in Cleveland (TVLand at 10) – second half of the second season begins June 15th

Okay, well, I guess that’s it. Technically, most of the other shows begin at the tail end of summer, but we usually consider it the fall premier, so I’ll stick to that model.

This fall, I’ll be watching the following:

Sundays
Dexter (Showtime at 9)
The Walking Dead (AMC at 10)

Mondays
Maybe nothing (but see note below)…

Tuesdays
Glee (FOX at 8)
Ringer (CW at 9) – brand new, starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Sarah Michelle Gellar, Life Unexpected‘s Kristoffer Polaha, and LOST‘s Nestor Carbonell
Parenthood (NBC at 10)

Wednesdays
Nothing, assuming I don’t get caught up on Happy Endings this summer…

Thursdays
The Vampire Diaries (CW at 8)
The Secret Circle (CW at 9) – brand new, starring Life Unexpected‘s Britney Robertson (the reason I’m watching the show!) and Heroes‘ Thomas Dekker
The Office (NBC at 9)

Fridays
Supernatural (CW at 9)

*NOTE: Also up for consideration on Mondays is Terra Nova at 8 on FOX. For Fridays, I would consider Grimm at 9 on NBC. For Sundays, I would consider Once Upon a Time at 8 on ABC.

In winter 2011–2012 and spring 2012, I’ll be watching the following returning shows, in addition to the above:

Sundays
Shameless (Showtime at 10)
Mad Men (AMC at 10)

Mondays
Being Human (Syfy at 9)

Tuesdays
No additions

Wednesdays
No additions

Thursdays
30 Rock (NBC)

Fridays
Spartacus: Blood and Sand (Starz at 10)

*NOTE: Also up for consideration are the following brand new shows: Good Christian Belles on ABC (because I love Kristen Chenoweth) and Alcatraz at 9 on FOX, while Terra Nova is taking a break. But we’ll see.

And that’s it, for now. I may not be able to sustain this schedule, but that’s why I have DVR and the Internet. And summer 2012. :-)

UPDATE: Unfortunately, not long after I posted this, Showtime announced that United States of Tara was canceled after season three, the current one. I will be very sad to see it go, and it is certainly added to the list of shows that I regret losing this year. It looks like this year wasn’t as easy as I thought it was.

First Reading, Website Update, Etc.

2011-12-17T21:24:39Z

I’m doing my first public reading next month! More details coming soon.

In other news, I hope to have my new website up and running in the next couple of weeks. I’m doing it in my spare time, and I’ve run into a couple of glitches because I’m doing it without tables or frames and with more reliance on CSS. Long story short: I’m learning some new stuff, and it’s tricky. I hope to have the site up and running before the reading next month.

The weekend after the reading, I’m planning on going to the Baltimore (GLBT) Pride Festival. One of my coworkers is in a band called Sweet Leda, and apparently, they are very well received in Maryland (they’ve been featured on A&E’s Random 1 as well as some indie movies, and they’re on the radio), and they’re going to play the festival. So I want to see that. Besides, I’ve been out of the closet since the 2009/2010 Christmas and New Year season, and partially out since summer 2008, and I’ve still never been to a pride festival. Or a gay club, but I don’t know that I’d really have any desire to go to a gay bar. Does anyone else feel that way? Gay but no gay bar? I’d rather just hang out at a friend’s place or my place, or at a “regular” bar. But anyway…

Regarding work, I signed my full contract recently, so I’m an official employee at Words & Numbers. It’s the first job I’ve had that I could really call a “real job.” I don’t mean that as “legitimate.” Rather, it’s the first job I’ve had that I could stick with for a while, without feeling like I’m wasting time. Burger King was my first job. AT&T was the second big one, but that was only meant to be a summer job. Which is good because I don’t think I would have made it any longer. It’s just not my kind of work. The stress involved is different than other jobs I’ve had, and I felt like I was in some kind of mafia the entire time. With this job, educational publishing, it could actually be a career if I wanted it to be. At some point after I finish my M.F.A., though, I’m going to be itching to get into the literature side of publishing and to try a new city. That’s a couple of years down the road, though. And yes, at Words & Numbers, there are confidentiality/mafia aspects because of the nature of the work (we’re writing/editing educational texts that won’t be published until next year or beyond) but they’re much easier to deal with.

Okay, time to go. I’ve already wasted half the day, and I need to get some things done. I’m making pizza (from scratch) this weekend. :-)

Finale

2011-05-13T04:29:43Z

It’s early, very early, Friday morning, May 13, 2011. That means that “tonight” is the two-hour series finale of Smallville. This is so weird for me; I kind of can’t believe it’s finally happening. I’m so grateful that the show was able to continue for this long and to get to this point in Clark’s journey toward becoming Superman. This show has been such a huge part of my life for ten years. I’ve always loved Superman and the idea of a super man, and this show has always delivered. This is going to be epic. I’m going to remember this moment forever.

The use of the original Superman score alone will probably turn me into a puddle.

So, who else is looking forward to the finale? What’s going to happen? What will be the final image of the show? Guesses? I’m guessing it has something to do with the suit, and maybe Clark will finally fly for real. I know they started out with the “no tights, no flights” rule, but I’m almost certain that was just because, ten years ago, they didn’t think they’d last this long.

It’s okay. Break the rule. Let Clark fly, and show us at least a hint of him wearing the suit.

I’m going to go to bed now, and when I wake up, I’m going to live my last day with Smallville still on the air. After that, I’ll be living in a different world.

Osama Bin Laden is Dead

2011-12-17T21:23:09Z

As I was watching Brothers & Sisters tonight on my DVR, I first found out via Twitter that Osama Bin Laden was dead. Minutes later, I received an AP alert on my phone. The news exploded even more on Twitter and Facebook after that, and then, my DVR caught up with the world, and a special report interrupted the show. President Obama just gave an address to the nation, the world, and confirmed that Bin Laden was dead, after an almost 10-year search.

Someone said on the news that it’s not usually natural to celebrate the death of someone but that, today, it feels right. And it does. It’s kind of boring, but I guess I’ll always remember that, when I found out Osama Bin Laden was dead, I was sitting in my bedroom in Baltimore, watching Brothers & Sisters and catching up on my tweets.

But now, the question is, What’s next? This won’t be the end of it, but it’s a good step for the world. It will be interesting to see the president’s next approval ratings.

Squirmy Change and Gay Sharing

2011-12-17T21:06:30Z

I’ve always had a weird attitude toward change, at least for most things (good changes include computer upgrades, lower gas prices, better recipes, etc.).

I don’t do well with spontaneity, for example; that’s very bad, and it’s a form of change. I don’t like to make choices on-the-spot (e.g., “Where do you feel like going for dinner?”). I hate that, whenever I go to the store, I have a million different choices to make, especially if I’m considering making a switch from something I’m not exactly in love with. As such, I could spend hours at the store if I didn’t just force myself to pick a brand/size/color/etc. and get the heck out of dodge.

Recently, I ran into another change in my daily life. My boyfriend stayed with me the other night, which is always great, and he used my shower supplies. That wasn’t the problem, per se. That wasn’t the change. I didn’t mind that I had to share, that he used my bathing products; in fact, while this doesn’t really apply in this case, I realized long ago that one of the advantages of being gay is that you get to share a lot more, without that sharing being just a bedtime ritual (i.e., a girl wears her boyfriend’s shirts and boxers to bed but wouldn’t dare wear them in public). I like the idea that, when we move in together, after I finish my M.F.A., our wardrobes will essentially double. Well, actually, mine would probably triple, and his would—well, there might be a 66% increase or so, not quite a doubling. He has a lot more clothes than I do, as he, a fashion designer, should.

But the change! Here it is: When I went to wash my hair tonight, I grabbed the bottle on the right, squeezed the liquid into my hand, and ran it through my hair. And it was weird. Hard to spread, almost dry. What had happened to my shampoo? Apparently, when my boyfriend put my shampoo and conditioner back, he put the shampoo on the left instead of the right. Upon realizing this, upon actually reading the bottles, I immediately rinsed the conditioner that was half spread on the crown of my head, and started over with the correct bottle.

I then put each bottle back in its proper place, of course. We are creatures of habit, and I, in particular, need my habits intact.

Moral of the story: Don’t touch my stuff, and if you do, put it back where you found it—unless you enjoy watching me squirm when something changes. ;-)

Site Redesign

2011-12-17T21:23:10Z

I’ve got a new site design that I’m pretty excited about working on. There will be big changes, there will be small changes; there will be changes. Right now, the site design is grounded in tropes of technology, but I am hoping to come closer to a medium between technology and art.

School is almost over for the semester. After that, I’ll start working on this.

I’m Still Here

2011-04-21T05:08:47Z

I haven’t posted in a while; it’s been a busy couple of months, but pretty soon, I will have a lot more free time, so I’ll try to start posting again. For those of you who don’t already know, I got a full-time job in February at an educational publishing company, and between work and school and trying to have a life and a boyfriend, I haven’t had very much time for things like Facebook and Twitter and blogging.

Class is going well, and we’re in the final stretch for the semester. I’ll tell you all about it in a couple of weeks. It’s been a great semester, actually, and there’s a lot to try to pack into a blog post or two.

Highlights to come. Pictures to come. Maybe even some stories or excerpts to come. And, if I can manage it, a website/blog redesign or some sort of update.

Just bear with me.

Literacy Falls

2011-01-29T17:24:11Z

I read an article for my Publishing Process class this week. Actually, it’s more of an abstract for the article; actually, the article is more of a long essay, a compelling report about the decline of reading, not only in younger generations but also in adults. The report is called Reading at Risk, and that title is highly evocative of the situation facing us, as reading is indeed at risk, which is very, very bad.

The article is careful to mention that there is not any one reason for the decline of reading, which is accurate to say. There are tons of reasons, and many but not all of them, I would conjecture, have to do with the proliferation and advancement of technology. People don’t want to read anymore; they don’t need to, because there are other things to do and other ways to get the “same” content or to make it better in some way. But is any of it fruitful? Do the emerging technologies and methods of disseminating information hold any real value?

These questions are difficult for me to answer because, while I am continually annoyed by technology, I am also a huge proponent of it, and I do get a certain joy out of seeing the digital possibilities for information. I am excited by the digital age, and I do find value in it. Nevertheless, reading this literacy report, ironically, makes me realize that I am one of those people who read less, these days, if we’re talking paperback/hardback books, not digital information. And that’s disheartening. I always make the excuse that I’m busy with work or school, perhaps reading something for homework, which doesn’t really count because I have to do it (although, admittedly, being in a creative writing program does mean I get to read something “fun” sometimes, even if it is assigned to me). To an extent, these excuses are valid; I am busy. But I’m sure there are ways I could make more time to read.

In fact, I do manage to make some time to read. Actually, I read all the time, for fun, don’t I? On my computer, on my iPhone. But it’s all Internet surfing. News articles reported by Joe Six Pack from his couch, malnourished tidbits of useless information, hundreds of anemic tweets and status updates, Google search after Google Search, and all that jazz. In the digital world, I rarely read fiction or historical essays or anything else of any significant weight, anything we would deem “literature,” at least not literature in an academic sense. Only in a pamphlet, brochure, take-thirty-seconds-to-skim-this kind of way. It’s the kind of information people want when they need to know more about something (a product, a college, a service, etc.), served in bullet points and incomplete sentences, no longer than a couple of pages in length, total.

“Do you have any literature on ___?” the people say.

Well, no, if you want to know the truth. There is nothing here for you! Why would I write literature on a product/service? ;-)

Okay, I’m being facetious, playing with the multiple meanings of the word “literature,” but look where we are these days, and maybe you’ll understand my childish pouting about semantics. This dire scenario – commercialism not only in terms of literature sales but also in terms of marketable content – could be where literature is headed. That’s scary. What happened to head-scratching, heartbreaking, profound, literary prose? One day, literature will all be product-centric, with heavy product placement just like television already has, and printable coupons (because we’ll be reading everything on e-devices). Literature will one day exist solely to feed the bank accounts and accentuate the abs of Taylor Lautner – or some other shmuck who gets involved in the entertainment “biz” that is rapidly swallowing everything into it, including literature, like a blackhole. Literature will be (and already is, in some ways) just one more way to sell sex, perhaps disguised as abstinence-charged wholesomeness for 9-year-old girls with vampire fetishes.

Reading used to be fun and challenging. Now, apparently, it’s just challenging. I never thought it would get to this point, that I would become one of those people, but I am beginning to surprise myself. What happened to me? When did I stop reading (as much) for fun and start becoming a zombie like many other people out there? As a kid, I read all the time – sometimes even got in trouble for it. Even after I had a computer, I still read quite a lot. Maybe I got burnt out on reading (and also had no time for it) during undergrad. As an English degree holder who went to a rigorous liberal arts college, I can see how that would happen.

But what’s my excuse now? I’ve been out of undergrad for two years, and I still don’t read as much as I used to, should, want to. Need to. As a fiction writer, I need all the practice I can get. I need to read more of the greats, maybe even some of the not-so-greats, just to reassure myself that I can recognize what’s bad.

For now – and in the future, I fear – I exist to spread information (useful or otherwise), and to stimulate the economy. I am a zombie dollar, living on the precipice of Literacy Falls and feeding off of stupidity.

When will this reading apocalypse end for me?

Queerness Is Multiplied

2011-12-17T21:06:32Z

There’s something of a GLBTQA presence at AWP, so when I go next week, I’d like to see what that’s all about. And while we’re on the subject, can we please not lump gay/lesbian, bi, transsexual/transgender, queer, and asexual into one massive, ugly string of letters? Who started that, anyway? I guess I can understand saying GBT, – maybe even GLBT, for those who believe vehemently that lesbians deserve their own categorization in the queer community, which is fair, but, as a feminism supporter myself, even I think it’s probably not offensive just to call them gay. It’s what they are, right? Bi, on the other hand, is something different altogether, but yes, it is closely related, and by some token, so is trans.

But is queer necessary? Is there some distinction of which I’m unaware, because I’ve always been under the impression that queer was the generally accepted term for the community as a whole. And then there’s asexual, the addition of which creates a subtle but powerful nuance, transforming what was once a group of oppressed but proud individuals into…basically just a group of sexual deviants, each of us defying the societal norms that have been sneakily coded into human sexuality by those who know better, or think they do. Perhaps the answers we seek lie in the conversation to which we were conveniently not invited, the one in which all of us queers simply became sexually charged objects (and by that, I mean libidinous maniacs with no feelings or selectivity, who hit on and are attracted to every possible person) rather than glorious human beacons who represent the very diversity of sexuality as an orientation, a way of being.

Not just a way of fucking.

AWP Approaches

2011-12-17T21:23:11Z

The annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference is next week in Washington D.C. I’m glad that it is so close (in proximity) this year; I went to the conference two years ago, when the conference was in Chicago and I was finishing up undergrad in Indiana, and I enjoyed it immensely. I didn’t get to go last year because it was in Denver and I was in Baltimore. But now I get to go again, and this time, I get to represent my M.F.A. program at the book fair. I’ll be doing that from noon to 2:00 p.m. on Friday. The rest of the time – with the exception of Thursday evening, since I have to be back in Baltimore for class, and maybe Saturday, since I don’t have an easy way to D.C. on the weekends – I’ll be attending panels and readings.

I plan to attend the following on Thursday:

Short Story to Novel, 9:00–10:15 a.m.
Memoir and Latinidad (featuring Dr. Joy Castro, my former English/creative writing professor and wonderful mentor at Wabash College), 10:30–11:45 a.m.
To Wave or Not to Wave: Writing the Female Body Across Generations, 12:00–1:15 p.m.
Representing the Erotic in Literary Fiction, 1:30–2:45 p.m.

For Friday, I’m looking at these:

Balancing Professional Writing with Your Creative Side, 9:00–10:15 a.m.
The Art of Rejection: Giving and Receiving, 10:30–11:45 a.m.
University of Baltimore’s M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts table at the book fair, 12:00–2:00 p.m.
Ask Not What the Internet Can Do for You: Shifting Our Perspective on Internet Publishing As an Alternative to Major Market Publishing, 3:00–4:15 p.m.
Building the Literary Robot: The Lit Journal As New Media, 4:30–5:45 p.m.
Various receptions being held, 5:45–8:15 p.m.
A Reading by Junot Díaz, 8:30–10:00 p.m.

I haven’t even looked at the Saturday schedule yet because I probably won’t be going on Saturday. A friend of mine is still deciding whether or not she is going at all – and what day(s) – and if she goes on Saturday, I may or may not tag along, for company. If that happens, I’ll have to make a quick scan through the Saturday list, but I’ll play it by ear because of my friend. She can choose.

By the way, if you haven’t the foggiest what you’re going to do and see when you go to AWP, I recommend going to the website and checking out the schedule. At least try to narrow it down to a few panels for each session. There are many, many panels taking place during each timeslot, so unfortunately, you will have to miss a lot. But don’t get me wrong; you will also get to see a lot of great things in those three days.

Happy conferencing! Maybe I’ll see you there.

Spring Semester Starts

2011-01-29T09:01:47Z

Well, the new semester has begun; already, we’ve missed out on a day of class because of snow. For much of the day on Thursday, it really wasn’t that bad, wasn’t even snowing, but it did get kind of “bad” later on, so I guess it’s okay. There was even some thunder, which was weird but kind of cool. Whatever happens this winter, I just don’t want a repeat of last year, where the University of Baltimore shut down for a week or two because of snow. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it every time I have occasion to: Baltimore (and perhaps Maryland in general) does not know how to handle snow.

Weather aside, the semester is getting off to a fantastic start. I’m taking The Publishing Process and Literary Publications. Both are shaping up to be really helpful, interesting, and fun classes. I’m going to be taking one short story from “previously workshopped” status to revised, workshopped again, and revised again. That means I should have a pretty solid story by the end of the semester, and I’m even required to write a commentary on the changes I make in the final revision, as well as a cover letter that I would then use to submit to a literary magazine (but submission is not required for the class). By the end of the semester, I will have created a submission tracker database to keep track of all the magazines/presses I send my work out to for consideration. And I will have written, edited, designed, and created several handmade books and magazines/journals (including 10 copies of my final project).

I love this program; I really do. I’ll try to remember to keep blogging about these classes as they go along. I think they are going to be two of the most important classes I take here – if not for the program itself, then for my future beyond the program.

Goals for 2011

2011-01-10T18:09:56Z

Okay, I’m a little late in posting this, since the year is already ten days down, but here goes. These are some things I would like to accomplish this year:

Find a (good) second part-time job, or even a full-time job (preferably related to the publishing industry in some way, but I won’t be too choosy right now)
Finish my individual work project by the end of January or beginning of February (updating the student lab assistant manual)
Revise at least half of my short stories, plus my screenplay and treatment
Write drafts for at least three new short stories, plus one new screenplay and treatment
Find a better motivation for blogging because TwitTV has not worked and is, alas, a failed experiment :-(
Find a good diet to use on a regular basis and work out more/tone up (possibly even put on some weight in the form of – gasp – muscle?)
Read more
Play PS3 more (not just for movies!)
Don’t stress out so much and maybe do something fun (go away for a weekend – New York, somewhere in New England, etc.)
Try to streamline my computer and TV habits, perhaps a daily/weekly allotment (yeah, like that’ll happen, but a guy can dream)

I’ve felt like a lazy bum lately, and it’s been kind of bringing me down. I tried a new job in December, but it was terrible and not worth the time I spent on it when you consider the way payment was rendered (pretty much all commission). So I’ve been watching movies and TV and trying to find another job. If I can’t find a job by the end of January, I’m seriously going to consider trying fast food again as a temporary measure; at least I’d have extra income coming in, and I could still keep looking for another job, a real job. Is there no Baltimore publishing firm out there that wants to hire an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts student with a B.A in English?

I won’t explain every goal in detail, but overall, I just want to waste less time (computer/TV/etc.) and spend more time doing things I should be doing or like to do but haven’t been doing (workouts/PS3/reading/etc.). Come next year, we’ll see how well (or how bad) I did.

Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!

Bad Rap, Bum Rap

2010-12-21T17:31:44Z

That last post reminded me that I wasn’t sure of the origins of the phrase “bad rap” or “bum rap.” In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure if it was “rap” or “rep” (re: reputation). I guess it’s rap.

If you’re curious, here’s what I found on “bum/bad rap”: hubpages.com/hub/Is-it-Bad-Rap-or-Bad-Wrap.

Isn’t that cool? Well, I think it is. Language is so interesting!

Holiday Activities on Track

2010-12-21T17:25:07Z

It’s been almost two weeks since my last class of the semester, and I’ve already made a huge dent in my holiday fun plans. I’ve watched Hot in Cleveland, The Walking Dead, The Office (British version), and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and last night, while I was waiting on the lunar eclipse, I started re-watching the first season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. All of these have been great. Cleveland is hysterical, The Walking Dead is well-crafted and emotionally challenging, The Office is subtly hilarious and surprisingly human (in contrast to the watered-down U.S. version), and Avatar is incredibly and surprisingly funny, grown-up, and emotional. That’s two cartoons/anime shows I’ve seen in their entirety now (Avatar and Code Geass), and one that I’ve seen parts of and will go back to (Sailor Moon), and they are always unexpectedly well done. Anime gets a bad rap for being “emo” and childish, and even if it is emotional, it’s nothing short of adult, in my limited experience. Give these shows a shot, if you ever get a chance – at least a few episodes to get to the meat of the stories.

Out of the movies I mentioned in a recent post, I’ve watched A Christmas Story, 3 Ninjas, Christmas Vacation, Christine, and then several movies not on that list. I still have several to go but plenty of time.

In between watching TV and movies, I’ve been working, but it’s been a shit job. I’m done. Door-to-door sales/marketing, in Baltimore, is not for me. Maybe if I were someplace friendlier, like the Midwest, or just somewhere outside Baltimore, it would have been okay. So, back to the drawing board on the job front.

Although I’ve watched a lot, I haven’t done much reading yet. Yesterday, I started working on Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew collection again. I read “Nona.” Today, I plan to continue working on that collection (and then go back and read the first story in the book, the longest one: “The Mist,” which happens to have a fantastic movie adaptation, by the way, which usually doesn’t happen with Stephen King’s stories, for some reason).

Okay, I guess that’s it for now. Just an update on what I’ve been doing, how I’ve been spending/wasting my time. It feels good to be able to waste time. I’m excited for next semester (Literary Publications, A.K.A. bookmaking, and The Publishing Process), but this is a much-needed break from class.

REB #49: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

2010-12-06T07:11:40Z

– Winston Churchill

Aaaaannnd….that’s it! This is the last post I will be making on this blog. It’s early Monday morning, so technically, our last class is tonight; this blog has served its purpose.

To my fellow classmates, best of luck on your final projects, presentations, and so on. I’ll be seeing you

To anyone who wants more from me, remember that you can go to rogermarket.com to read my regular blog and drafts of my stories and essays, but also to access my hypertext narrative (the final project for this class). I will definitely continue to make updates to the website. I do have a personal Facebook account, and I’ll accept you if I know you. For everyone else, because of this class, I now also have a public page that markets me as a writer/artist, so feel free to Like it (updates and changes are forthcoming). I also have a special Facebook page for my hypertext narrative; join that page in order to receive updates about the hypertext story and/or to provide feedback on it. I need all the help I can get to make it better.

Now, I bid adieu to Blogger.com for the time being.

*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.

REB #48: “Pat Downs don’t want anything to do with your junk.”

2010-12-06T06:49:11Z

– Chris Rodell, MSNBC

Apparently, airport pat-downs have caused a lot of controversy recently. And a lot of bad/amazing puns.

REB #47: “What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”

2010-12-06T05:22:10Z

– Larry Elder

The semester’s almost over. I’m putting the finishing touches on my paper for Electronic Publishing, and then I’ll just have to print out my final poster designs, and mount them, for Typography. Yay! It’s been an interesting semester, heavy on the publishing part of the M.F.A. degree, but I’ll be glad to have some time off.

As evidenced by my previous posts, I’ve got lots of shows, movies, and books to watch/read during that time off, but I’m also going to be working, so that list may not be feasible. I’ve started a new job, so for the first time since August 2009, I’ll be working full time (though it’s commission-based). I’m also still working part time for O.T.S. at U.B., although I’ll actually be working from home for a couple of weeks, updating the student lab assistant manual, and after that’s done, I won’t be working much for O.T.S. until February. Then there’s the U.B. Post; I still plan on doing layout for the Post, in order to gain work experience in my field.

With all of this work going on, my career goal for 2010 is to make enough money that I’ll actually end up having to pay taxes for my 2011 return. You see, I’ve never worked enough to have to pay; I’ve always gotten everything back on my tax return because I’ve never earned more than $7,000 in a year, which is below the limit for paying taxes. Although I’ll end up losing part of my income to taxes if/when I meet this goal, at least I’ll be making a living wage (and then some)! I just wish I could have found a full time job in my field; that’s the next step.

REB #46: “Approximately 5.9 million U.S. adults own an eReader.”

2010-12-06T05:26:02Z

– Paul Biba, TeleRead.com

I read an article the other day about e-readers. Apparently, ownership of electronic reading devices has soared from 2.1 million people (in the March to October period of 2009) to 5.9 million people (in the same period of 2010), an increase of about 180% in a year’s time. Previously, male users outnumbered female users 56% to 44%, but now, the numbers have almost evened out, with men at 49% and women now in the lead at 51%, mirroring the world population. These numbers do not include tablet computers (i.e., iPads, netbooks, laptops, etc.), only dedicated e-readers.

And then tonight, I found out that one of my friends got a Kindle in October and likes it a lot.

Argh!

I know it’s inevitable: soon enough, I’m going to be part of these statistics. But right now, I’m still resisting.

REB #45: “So, that notion of hypertext seemed to me immediately obvious because footnotes were already the ideas wriggling, struggling to get free, like a cat trying to get out of your arms.”

2010-11-30T04:54:55Z

– Ted Nelson

This evening, I decided to take Jenny up on her offer: instead of going to class to work, I worked from home. I write better when I’m not surrounded by other people who are working on their own things (and all different types of projects), talking, making computer noises, etc. Nothing against anyone in particular, I just work better in silence, or at least when I can control the noise around me (e.g., playing classical music).

That said, I didn’t actually get started until about 9:00 p.m because I couldn’t get motivated, but I did ultimately manage to finish the last two sections of my hypertext narrative. So, the first draft of the entire story is now live at www.rogermarket.com; just go there, and then click on Hypertext to get started. In making this narrative, I’ve come to realize one fatal flaw in using the frames method on my website: I can’t link directly to the narrative, or any page other than the main page, for that matter. Oh well. Moving on…

I realize there are still a lot of problems with the story, but I wanted to get a basic framework. I hope it isn’t unbearable. Anyway, I have set up a Facebook page for everyone (not just classmates but everyone) to interact with the story. Tell me what’s wrong with it, what’s right with it, if there’s a broken link or typo, and so on.

I hope to mold this, over time, into a well-written, successful, meaningful hypertext narrative. But to do that, I’ll need feedback along the way. When I make changes, I’ll update the Facebook page so everyone knows. I’ll also be sure to update the datestamp (if that’s not a word, I’m making it one; there’s such a thing as a timestamp, so why not a datestamp?) on the main page of the narrative every time I make changes. Right now, the latest update is 29 November 2010.

Now, I just have to write the 2- 3-page paper, and I’ll be done with my work for this class!

REB #44: “There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.”

2010-11-28T02:20:27Z

– G.K. Chesteron

Here are some of the

BOOKS I’M THINKING ABOUT READING OVER BREAK

The Untelling by Tayari Jones
Between Camelots by David Harris Ebenbach
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Skeleton Key by Stephen King (already started it, though; short stories)

REB #43: “A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.”

2010-11-28T02:21:17Z

– Orson Welle

Here is my growing list of movies that I might watch over Christmas break. I’ll start with

HOLIDAY CLASSICS AND MOVIES I’VE ALREADY SEEN

A Christmas Story
The Wizard of Oz
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
National Lampoon’s Vacation
Stranger Than Fiction
3 Ninjas

And here are

MOVIES I HAVEN’T SEEN YET

Glue
Ju Dou
Fallen (seen part 1 but not the follow-ups)
Some Like It Hot
Gladiator
Planet of the Apes
Christine (only seen parts of it)

Does it annoy anyone else that Netflix takes movies/shows off of streaming for a while? Maybe the company needs a better server.

Books are coming up next!

REB #42: “By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education…. From television, the child will have learned how to pick a lock, commit a fairly elaborate bank holdup, prevent wetness all day long, get the laundry twice as white, and kill people with a variety of sophisticated armaments.”

2010-11-28T01:57:49Z

– Russell Baker

My last class for the semester will be on December 8, 2010, and after that, I’ll have about 6.5 weeks off. We all will, in fact. Won’t that be nice?

But right now, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do in that 6.5 weeks. Besides work, I have a growing list of TV shows, movies, books, and other things that I would like to focus on. There are several

SHOWS I HAVEN’T STARTED WATCHING YET

The Walking Dead
The Office (British version)
Hot in Cleveland
Avatar: The Last Airbender (seen a few random episodes)
Twin Peaks

And probably more that I can’t even think of right now! But even with just that list, that’s going to be a total of 120 episodes (83 of them half-hours, 37 of them hourlongs, for a grand total of 78.5 hours). That might last me a week or two, tops. There are also a couple of

SHOWS/SEASONS I WANT TO RE-WATCH

Spartacus: Blood and Sand (season 1)
True Blood (season 1)

That’s 25 episodes, 25 hours. So, a few more days of viewing

At top (but still socially reasonable) speed, I could get through all that in less than two weeks, but I’ll probably try to make it last a little longer (and I may not even watch all of them; I may opt to watch more movies and read more books, so I can save a show or two for next summer). In any case, my TV and movie viewing list will probably last at least three or four weeks this Christmas break, maybe longer, especially because I’d like to try to do some reading in between shows/episodes/daily life. I also want to get back to playing Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time on my PS3. I had to quit playing when I moved downtown in August, and I never found time to get back to it, with school starting back up.

What are you going to be doing with your holiday break? Any special plans or to do/to watch/to play/to read lists?

Movies, books, and possibly more to come in future posts!

REB #41: “You’ll shoot your eye out, you’ll shoot your eye out…”

2011-12-17T21:06:34Z

– half the characters in A Christmas Story, telling Ralphie why he shouldn’t ask for a gun

Justin and I have been together almost a year now. I met his mom, dad, and brother this past August. He met my mom and one of my sisters, who came for a visit, on November 11th. Now, on Thanksgiving, it’s time to meet the rest of his family (the local ones, anyway). I’m not really nervous about it; they’re people, just like my family. But it’s going to be different.

In years past, I’ve known everyone (or at least almost everyone) at the Thanksgiving table, as I’ve usually been at home in Indiana. Two years ago, I spent Thanksgiving in London with Wabash College professors and classmates (my first-ever Thanksgiving not spent with family) because I was on an Immersion Trip for my senior seminar on Dickens and Hardy. We ate at a really good Italian place; it was a great time. And even last year, when I spent Thanksgiving at a (French) friend’s place in Pennsylvania, where we had a raclette dinner (which was amazing, by the way), I knew 50-75% of the people beforehand.

This year, for the first time ever, I’ll only know a few of the people I’m dining with on Thanksgiving. It’s not a bad thing…just different. I guess it’s time to start new traditions. I hate the word “partner,” in a gay context, but I suppose that’s what’s going on here. I’m a partner in this relationship, and that means spending holidays with family – his and mine. It feels kind of nice, actually; I haven’t had anything like this for a few years now, not since I was “straight.”

I really do love this time of year. Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet, and I’ve already got Christmas on the brain (sorry Kari; I know you don’t care for it). I’ve been listening to the Glee Christmas album, and I’m this close to grabbing my DVD of A Christmas Story and putting it on repeat. If nothing else, it would remind me of Christmas in small-town Indiana, where I’m from, since that’s where the movie takes place – but, weirdly, it was shot in Lori‘s neck of the woods (Cleveland).

In any case, “the holidays” are here, and that means finals are just around the corner. Good luck, everyone!

REB #40: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

2010-11-22T05:30:46Z

– Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Originally, I was going to blog about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today, but I’ve had two obstacles this weekend preventing me from seeing the movie: Saturday, I walked over to the Maryland Science Center (because there’s no way I’m not seeing this thing in IMAX!) and found signs on the door that said sold out for the rest of the day. The website had not been updated to reflect this, so I was annoyed. Sometimes, I hate technology, particularly when I find myself relying on it too much.

Lesson learned.

Today, I was going to go see it at 8 p.m., but before that, I was going to have to wait for the Dish Network people to set up satellite at my condo – not necessarily at my behest, as I could live just fine without cable TV, but my roommates wanted it, so that was that. I’ll use it, though, especially while Dexter is airing its final episodes of the season. And I love having a DVR! If we didn’t get cable, I was going to buy a TiVo anyway and just use it with my antenna TV. Dish Network with DVR is the next best thing (not the best because I actually have to pay for satellite every month, whereas antenna TV is free). Anyway, back to the point: the installation got started later than expected, and it took much longer than expected – basically because Comcast sucks. We’ll pin this one on Comcast, because of the way they wired our place. It’s just not satellite-friendly.

But anyway, the dish is installed, the DVR is mostly set, I got to watch Dexter because of 3 months of free Showtime and HBO, and now it’s time for bed. Maybe I’ll see Harry Potter on Tuesday, when I don’t have class. Any takers? I have no problem going alone, though. ;-)

P.S. I so need to read the Harry Potter books again! Maybe next summer.

REB #39: “Oh, yes, veddy good price, ah tink. Don’t fuhget da teep.”

2010-11-21T06:01:21Z

– Cabbie, in draft one of my hypertext narrative (which will be live soon at rogermarket.com)

It’s been painful forcing myself to work on my hypertext narrative today (I had taken a break for a week or two before starting on the second major version), but I’m excited about what is coming out of it. I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off, but I think I’ve got a story with multiple layers that reveal themselves as the reader makes his or her decisions. One reading might have more revelations than others, more insight into the two main characters – Miriam and Cooper (and if you noticed that name coincidence, yes, it’s purposeful). No reading will be definitive, however, so I will certainly invite the reader to go through the story multiple times if he or she wants to know a little more about the characters.

I’d also like to write a screenplay version of the story, which would then be one of the choices the reader has to make (prose or screenplay), but that will most likely come after this class. Because, yes, I do want to continue to work on this story afterwards. As this is only a first draft, I think it will need a lot of work, and as each week, month, and year goes by, I’ll probably want to make some changes. Maybe one day, I will call it complete, but that day is far from soon. For now, it’s just an Electronic Publishing assignment; one day, though, I hope it will officially be considered one of the stories in my body of work.

P.S. I have started a Facebook page (called Roger William Market’s Hypertext Narrative) to act as a supplement to my hypertext narrative – for any pictures/videos I may or may not decide to use, as well as reader feedback, questions, etc. It’s already live, so you can Like it now if you want to, and the narrative will be up soon as well.

REB #38: “Hereafter…has the same effect as an encounter with a phony physic – it keeps delivering just enough to tantalize, never has a real payoff and eventually makes you realize that you’ve been conned.”

2010-11-14T18:24:45Z

– Richard Knight Jr.

Mike wrote about Hereafter on his class blog a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen it at the time, but I agreed that what he described didn’t sound very enthralling.

Now, I’ve seen it, and I can wholeheartedly agree that Hereafter is incredibly disappointing. The most climactic scene happens in the first five minutes of the movie, and then there are about two hours of separate stories that really only connect in the end, and even then, I don’t think there is a payoff. I won’t describe the plot or go into much detail, because Mike already did that.

I guess I would only add that I think this could have been a fantastic movie, but almost every time the writer and producers had a choice to make, they chose something that I would consider bad (as Mike put it, they played it safe; they didn’t take any risks). I would have been more interested in seeing the movie that I thought I was going to see based on just the first five minutes of the movie; that’s when things changed drastically, for the worse. I would have been interested in seeing a movie about the twin brothers. Even the psychic angle could have been engaging, in either of these options. But the makers of Hereaftercombined two or three usable plots into one tangled mess of a movie, with no life in it. Ironic, eh?

REB #37: “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”

2010-11-14T18:00:00Z

– William James

My mom and sister came to visit me on Thursday.

It was a good but long weekend. My sister had never been to Baltimore before, so we did the tourist thing all day, showed her Baltimore in all its glory and lack thereof. We took the MARC train to D.C. on Friday and did more touristy stuff, and then had a get together that night at my place. Saturday, we went shopping, and then to a drive-in movie at Bengie’s, the largest theater screen in America. During this trip, they met some of my friends in the Baltimore/D.C. area. It was a good trip.

But now it’s time to get back to the real world. I have a ton of homework to do, some of it before classes this week, some of it in the next couple of weeks. I have errands I need to run, and I have a bunch of shows I need to get caught up on. I have a lot to do in just a few weeks; it’s stressful.

One of those stressful items on my to do list is to finish my hypertext story for this class. I’ve got one version (with two endings) written down, but I still have yet to write the other version. It’s every bit as much work as I thought it would be, and more so. Is anyone else struggling to finish their assignments on time? Do you have any suggestions for how to block out the world and get shit done? After a work-free weekend, the last thing I want to do is homework.

But, unfortunately, it’s the first thing I need to do. This should be fun…

RED #36: “Let’s go all the way tonight / No regrets / Just love / We can dance until we die / You and I / Will be young forever”

2011-12-17T21:06:39Z

– “Teenage Dream,” here performed by recurring members of the Glee cast (originally by Katy Perry)

So, Glee was awesome this week. (Read this ONLY if you’re caught up on Glee, or if you don’t watch it in the first place; otherwise, you’ll be “spoiled”).

I don’t want to write a whole lot about this, but I just want to say that I think what they are doing on the show is really important and timely. With so many (gay) kids/teenagers committing suicide recently because they couldn’t stand being bullied, now more than ever is the time to say something about it.

But more importantly, it’s time to do something. I’d like to see the show reach out in other ways, behind the scenes. I’m sure there are dozens of ways they can help the cause, and with approximately 12 million regular (live) viewers, there’s sure to be a significant audience for this.

As for the storyline itself, I must admit that I was a little taken aback. I wasn’t expecting what happened to happen – with Kurt, Blaine, and the bully – but I think it opens the door for an interesting new coming out story that will be even more painful and important than Kurt’s was/is. Well, maybe not necessarily more important, but it just goes to show that we never really know people, not even when we “know” them well. People hide things really well, sometimes, and that can be self-destructive.

I should, kind of, know. While I wasn’t very aware that I was gay until my senior year of college, I think part of me knew way before that, and that part of me lived in fear for most of my life. It affected how I acted, my communication skills, my self-image. It affected who I was. Today, I’m a very different person than I was even just last year, or the year before! I have time and an ever-growing maturity to thank for that, as most people do, but more importantly, I have coming out to thank, as well as several people in my life (and a couple that are no longer in my life, regrettably). You know who you are. You’ve helped me be me, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Back to Kurt and Blaine real quick: I can’t wait to see how this turns out, especially with the bully in the mix. Blaine is already poised to be a series regular, probably starting with season three, so he’s definitely going to be sticking around. It’ll be nice for Kurt to have someone he can relate to. Someone like Blaine, who can turn Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” into a great a capella glee club number (well, it should have been a cappella; they shouldn’t have had background music, darn it!). I love that it was an all-male choir performing the song and that they weren’t all gay.

If there’s one overall message in Glee, it’s that we shouldn’t always expect the expected. There’s always some notion to deconstruct.

This was one of my favorite episodes, so far.

P.S. The Coach Beist/Mr. Shue kiss was sweet too. Great scene!

REB #35: “This November, 12 brides will compete in the only reality show where the winner gets cut.”

2010-11-07T21:52:29Z

– tagline for Bridalplasty, the newest reality show from E!

I was at a friend’s house the other day and saw the trailer for this new “reality” TV show, Bridalplasty.

The premise is that 12 brides-to-be are in competition for plastic surgery. The winner receives full plastic surgery and the wedding of her dreams.

But what about the man? Is he in on it? Is he one of the prizes (and if so, wow, what a catch; please note sarcasm), or does each woman bring her own man to the show, hoping to win a pretty face for him? Again, what a catch! Oh, and what happens to the other 11 women, the losers?

When I saw this trailer, I thought it was a joke. Unfortunately, it’s not.

I think the critics are right: this could very well be “the final TV show ever made before mankind slips quietly into the dust.” It’s times like these that make me dislike the world, especially America. Why do we need this trash on TV, for all to see, and what kind of message is it sending?

I guess our next step is to prepare for alien invasion because anyone out there receiving this broadcast is sure to think we are a bunch of narcissistic, cannibalistic, unrealistic, misogynistic, sadistic, and masochistic pieces of shit that need a full-scale intervention á la “White Man’s Burden” – and stat!

TwitTV: Smallville, 10×06, “Harvest”

2010-11-16T03:45:30Z

Right off the bat, we actually hear Clark say that he is an alien. I love this because it’s not often that we think of Superman or Clark as an alien, per se. He’s just a superhero. Of course, Clark isn’t Superman yet, but he will be soon! And for Lois, even now, she thinks that being with Clark is “like dating a god or…Bono.” I love their interactions in the opening scene, with Lois questioning Clark about the things she’s seen, situations they’ve been in: was this Kryptonian? Was that Kryptonian? My favorite is the reference to the Phantom Zone. Ah, that was a great premier!

Outside of dialogue, one of the first things I notice while watching this episode is the car. A few minutes into the episode, I realize that Clark has never had a car – let alone a convertible – forgetting that it is probably Lois’. I guess I just don’t see it often enough to recognize it.

Anyway, when the tire blows and Clark goes off for help, he comes back to find that Lois has vanished. Almost immediately, we find out that his powers are gone, as he gets a cut when he is trying to put the tire back into the trunk (at least I think that’s what he’s doing). We don’t know it yet, but this is because of the police officer who has spotted Clark stranded on the side of the road and come up to help him. Later on, we learn the cause of Clark’s sudden power fade: blue Kryptonite in the local drinking water has infected/blessed everyone, including this cop.

For some reason, as I watch this episode, it strikes me yet again that Smallville‘s inventiveness is on overdrive this season. While some aspects of the most recent episodes are old hat (e.g., infected land/water yields meteor “freaks”), I feel like the show is handling them more adeptly, more creatively, and more maturely this season. ”Harvest” in particular is a very dark episode, rife with political and religious commentary (“This was your last supper.”), and it is quite organic to the story of a vigilante superhero on the rise. The episode’s use of Kryptonite is so very Smallville, but what the writers do with the Kryptonite takes the episode, and the show, to a whole new level. Lois as a human sacrifice for good crops and a healthy village – well, this is downright creepy and does a good job of questioning the idea of faith and how people perceive it. The blue fire is haunting, as it rains down on Clark, scarring his back, and reminds me of a time not so long ago, when society was performing despicable acts on black Americans, Jews, witches, etc., and this is all still relevant today, to an extent, especially in the GLBT and modern pagan communities. The subtle parallel between Kryptonians and Jews is very interesting: now that Lois knows Clark’s secret, and it’s all out in the open, the first thing she does is learn Kryptonian guilt.

Beautiful writing.

On a lighter note, Alexander’s story is progressing much quicker in this episode, which mirrors his rapid aging process. One thing, though: how did he manage to get so many friends, considering that he’s been locked up with Tess all these weeks? Not to mention his rapid aging, which no regular child/friend would be able to understand. What happens next week, when Alexander is 20 years old? When his friends come over to play, will Tess just have to say, “I’m sorry. Alexander doesn’t live here anymore”? This is such an interesting storyline, and the final moment of it for this episode, which also happens to be the final scene of the episode, is eerie and gives us a throwback to the first season of Smallville: bald Lex. Thus, it’s seem like this season, we’re getting back to the roots of Smallville itself, while also digging into the roots of Superman’s real beginnings. Lex Luthor is coming back, even if Michael Rosenbaum can’t/won’t. I love the idea of an ever-present Lex in this season, even without Rosenbaum, because it really does work for this character, because we all know about Lex’s cloning research.

Also, accelerated mitosis? Really? That’s how they choose to explain it? I’m no science expert, but this is one instance where I feel like the writers are dropping the ball. Of course there is cell division involved in what’s happening, but there’s so much more to it than that! The writers are simplifying the biology of what’s happening to Alexander/Lex by saying that it is “accelerated mitosis.” But, this being a TV show, I guess that’s all I should realistically be able to expect. It irks me a bit, but I can’t really say that I know what they should be calling it, so maybe I should just let it go.

Back to Lois and Clark: in the second half of this episode, in which Lois and Clark are getting closer than ever before, they share an important truth when she reveals to him that she is the one who pulled the blue dagger out of him after he fell from the rooftop. “You saved me,” he says. This is such a great scene. I can just feel the love! On that note, Erica Durance’s reactions as Lois, when she has to watch Clark “die,” are phenomenal. Her speech to the villagers is quite moving, showing her love for Clark, her belief in America, and her open recognition of reasonable faiths. When she first ends up in the village, she sees it as quaint and a viable way of life that perhaps just isn’t for her. But when she is tied up, forced to watch her boyfriend be murdered (or so she thinks), and then almost sacrificed under a rain of liquid blue fire – well, the villagers are no longer reasonable, now are they? “I have faith,” Lois says, countering the leader’s accusations. Just not your kind of faith. ;-)

Finally, I just want to comment quickly on the last scene of the episode, when Lois and Clark are back home, safe and sound (well, I’ve already mentioned the very last scene, which is just Alexander shaving his head to look more like the Lex he is becoming). Anyway, it was one of the best, most beautiful, most moving love scenes I’ve ever encountered. The situation (having just returned from several near-death experiences in a creepy cult village), the lighting, the atmosphere of where they are, and, of course, the actors themselves: all of these combine to make this a fantastic sex scene. And that’s exactly how it should have been for their first time. Each episode brings Lois and Clark closer than ever, and I think this was the right time for them to make love. I can’t wait to see the rest of the season!

Notable Quotes:

“These holy rollers from hell want to make me a human sacrifice so they can grow bigger tomatoes.” ~ Lois

“What do ya say you…speed us away from these Children of the Corn…honey?” ~ Lois

“He’s not just a clone. He is Lex Luthor.” ~ Tess

“I want you to know me completely with no secrets, because you’re the one. Always will be.” ~ Clark, giving her the journal he got from Dr. Virgil Swann (R.I.P. Christopher Reeve)

REB #34: “Perhaps I’ll cut HIS head off, thought Alice to herself.”

2010-11-04T23:22:58Z

– voiceover from Alice, adapted from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I found this on Netflix one day and, despite the fact that it had a 2.7 star rating, put it in my instant viewing queue. Besides, it has 4 stars on Amazon and a 7.5/10 on IMDB, and anything in that ballpark is usually pretty good, sometimes even great, so I took the risk. It just depends on how unorthodox the film is, how far it strays from lowest common denominator.

Today, I finally watched the movie. Despite my reservations about the voiceover (as it does get repetitive), I liked it overall. So Netflix’s rating, in this case, was mostly wrong.

Alice is a surrealist retelling of the classic postmodern story about a little girl named Alice who finds herself in a strange place called Wonderland, where she has wonderful and sometimes scary adventures with eccentric characters, most of them animalistic. In this version, I don’t recall actually hearing the word “Wonderland,” but there are references to Mary Ann, if that sways any of you purists out there.

Two of the most interesting and original aspects of this movie are the use of stop-motion video to capture the Wonderland creatures/characters and the way each character is (and many random objects are) reflected in the real world. The rabbit is actually Alice’s own stuffed rabbit. The caterpillar is a sock with eyes in this version of Wonderland, and if I looked hard enough, I’m sure I’d notice a sock lying around somewhere in the real-world shots. And the list goes on.

At times, this movie is beautiful. At times, it is quite disgusting, and that quality comes from both the visuals and the sound effects. For instance, when the rabbit starts eating his own stuffing (sawdust), the crunch is so vivid, and the visuals are so startlingly in-your-face, that it makes me kind of uncomfortable, almost sick. While I thought the voice for the English dub was going to be annoying (and yes, the close-ups of Alice’s mouth are annoying), instead, I found that the girl who voices the narrator/Alice does a fantastic job of mirroring the sound effects and reflecting the sometimes disturbing visuals of each scene.

The final shot is one of my favorites, as we get one last look at Alice’s room in the real world and – well, I won’t spoil any more than I already have, but I recommend this film if you love the Alice story and its adaptations, especially if you were disappointed in Burton’s latest one, or even if you weren’t. At the very least, this Alice is something new to try.

Except, at 22 years old, it’s actually almost as old as I am.

REB #33: “But people that are worried about unborn babies are the same ones that vote against kindergarten programs in Indiana or school lunch funds out of the federal government.”

2010-11-02T23:12:57Z

– Birch Bayh (yeah, an unfortunate name…)

I started doing some work on my hypertext narrative the other day, and when I went back to it today, I got excited. This is such a fun story to write! I love the way the characters interact; I don’t usually write characters like this. Furthermore, I’ve never really written anything about Indiana, on a conscious level anyway, so it’s refreshing to get to “go” back home while I work.

Anyway, here’s a sneak peak of my hypertext narrative, sans the choices you’d get online, one of which is whether the main characters are traveling from their hometown of Baltimore to an event in Rockville, Indiana – like in this version – or from their hometown in Indiana to an event in Baltimore.

For now, I’m calling this story

Lost Things

The cab ride from the Indianapolis airport to Rockville had been long and, at $122.50, obscenely expensive. Miriam, Paula, and Cooper stepped out of the taxi alone, sleep-deprived, and darn near penniless. On this trip, they were doing nothing, it seemed, but grieving for lost things. Now, Cooper was paying the fare, and then they would be off to meet the family members they’d only ever heard about in passing.

Miriam was fair skinned, with ultra-short red hair and a temperament to match. On top, she wore a thrifty but chic maternity shirt, which perfectly matched her “previously loved” designer jeans. Both ensured that she was constantly aware of the life growing inside her, and as she thought about it for the thirty-seventh time that day, she subconsciously rested her hand on the small of her back.

“Damn.” Cooper said, as he slammed the door shut and watched the cab drive away. “Our boy grew up in this hood?” Breaking his gaze on the lone yellow car, which was headed back to Indianapolis, he observed the quaint little town square with the same amount of interest that a dog might show a fly in a country basement on a cold winter’s day – which is to say hardly any at all. For a moment, Miriam thought she could actually hear his heartbeat slow to a crawl. He pushed his longish black hair out of his eyes before continuing: “What a dump. I guess I see why he went and offed –”

“Dump?” Miriam said, stepping closer, the better to face him off. “You ever left the city, Cooper? Ever? Baldamore’s a fuckin’ sty compared to this.” With her free hand, she pointed at the courthouse and smiled. “Just look how pretty. No graffiti, no grime spots, no nothin’. It’s fuckin’ beautiful here. Paradise, almost.”

“Yeah, but I see where he’s coming from, hon,” Paula interjected. Then she waved her hands vigorously in front of her to indicate something large and meaty. Paula was black, and Miriam had always found that that, when black people waved their hands, she had to listen and – usually – agree. “I mean….Baldamore’s a city at least. There’s nothing here; we’re in a ghost town for cripe’s sake. Beautiful or not, it’s just plain creepy.” As Paula finished, she put her arms back down at her sides and picked at the seams of her bluejeans, like she always did when she was nervous about something. It was a tell and was very helpful for avoiding arguments, which is why Miriam had never mentioned it to her. Besides, it was cute.

“Yeah, maybe.” Miriam spun around, slowly, taking everything in, her top teeth softly, affectionately biting her bottom lip. As if stifling a giddy burst of emotion. From where she stood on the town square, she saw the courthouse in the middle, of course, a small mom-n-pop variety store called G & M, a local bank branch, a couple of antique stores, a church, an old theater, a privately-owned grocery, and several other places she couldn’t figure out. “Creepy, but I like it. It’s different.”

“Whatever,” Cooper said. “Let’s just do this and get the fuck –”

“Don’t say fuck!” Paula shouted.

“– outta here. Why she can say fuck and I can’t?”

“We have an understanding: no drama, no controlling, no alpha-female baloney. It’s all in the contract.” She punched Cooper’s shoulder and winked. “Besides, she does what she wants, and that’s what I love about her. You, on the other hand…you’s just a straight-up thug!”

Cooper glared at her through squinted eyelids. “Let’s just do this, okay?” He looked around, chose a direction, and walked.

Miriam put her arm around Paula. “See, baby? We got this.” She kissed Paula on the cheek, and they too started walking.

REB #32: “And crawling on the planet’s face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space…and meaning.”

2010-10-31T21:09:36Z

– The Criminologist in Rocky Horror

The end of Rocky Horror is perhaps one of the most interesting, provocative mind fraks I’ve ever seen. Indeed, even after seeing it done three different ways (if you count Glee‘s), I’m still not entirely sure what it means.

Frank says something about taking the aliens, and Riff-Raff interjects that only he and Magenta will be going back home – to the planet Transsexual, in the distant galaxy Transylvania. But then there’s the line about transporting all of Earth to Transylvania, so the ending, with Brad and Janet crawling around in fishnets, is kind of confusing. Are they still on Earth? Did they escape the mansion in time for it to disappear and transport to Transylvania, or did Riff-Raff, in fact, move all of Earth to a distant galaxy? I guess the question is did he change his mind? Or perhaps he simply meant that he was going to kill the other aliens first (or at least Frank) before transporting Earth to Transylvania.

In any case, I love an ending that can make me think, and even more so, I love an “unhappy” ending. That’s not to say that everything should end tragically because, while I think happy endings are good for some shows/stories, others require something with a little more meat. More risk.

I have ideas for three different television dramas that each tie together, and each one would ideally end in a similar fashion to Rocky Horror: in a sort of what-the-hell-just-happened kind of way. Back when LOSTended, I was kind of in that mode but not necessarily in a good way. It was such a shocking ending because it seemed like the ending should have been more substantial that it was. With a little time to think about it, I decided that I really did like it; it just wasn’t what I had expected. And I know that ending was incredibly divisive among fans, some of my friends included.

As such, I don’t ever want to end a story quite like that, but it makes me wonder: where do I draw the line? What exactly is it that makes one “frakked-up” story ending amazing and another one bullshit?

Does anyone out there have any opinions? What makes a good story ending? What makes a bad story ending?

REB #31: “It’s astounding / Time is fleeting / Madness takes its toll…”

2010-10-31T21:08:45Z

– From The Rocky Horror Show‘s “Time Warp” (here, performed by the cast of Glee)

Until last Monday, I was a Rocky Horror virgin. I’d always wanted to watch it and just hadn’t ever gotten around to it. But with Glee doing aRocky Horror episode last week, I decided it was time to take the plunge: I streamed The Rocky Horror Picture Show via Netflix on Monday night, watched Glee on Tuesday night, and then went to a live production of the show on Friday night, in Brooklyn, MD.

I loved all three shows

The differences from version to version are interesting, but I think that what’s always the same, always front-and-center, are the music and the “for outcasts” nature of the production.

I loved the movie version because, aside from the quirky, fun, weirdly entertaining storyline, we have Tim Cury’s amazing performance as transvestite and leader of the aliens Frank-N-Furter. And while Susan Surandon (as Janet) isn’t particularly phenomenal, she doesn’t exactly suck either. Well…she might have sucked in that scene with Frank, but that was kind of vague. ;-) Anyway, I won’t talk about the whole cast, but I will just say that, generally, it is a good one. Moving on…

I liked the Glee episode because, as usual, they managed to tie the themes of the music into the themes and storylines of the TV show itself. Emma’s rendition of “Toucha Touch Me” is one of my favorite covers from the episode; I think she kind of stole the show, actually. Who knew actress Jayma Mays could do that? As far as I can remember, she hasn’t sung on the show until this episode. And, of course, having Britney and Santana step in as Columbia and Magenta was just perfect!

Finally, while the movie and Glee versions are great to watch and even sing along to if one feels so inclined (and knows the words), the live show is a whole different beast. It’s completely interactive. You get a prop bag and have to do things like pop a balloon, cover your head with a newspaper, wave a glow stick in the air, throw a sponge on the stage, and so on. You’ll hear people in the audience shouting out lines and talking to the cast, and the cast will shoot witty responses right back. And you’ll get to do the Time Warp, which, while I’m not a fan of dancing, is kind of fun to learn if you’re a newbie.

Going into this week, I’ve still got the songs stuck in my head. I imagine they’ll fade with time, but come next Halloween season, I’ll be ready again.

REB #30: “I believe that the so-called writing block is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance…It doesn’t make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you’ve done it.”

2010-10-31T20:34:28Z

– William Stafford

It’s not that I have writer’s block, per se; I just don’t have time to write anything more than what’s required of me for class. At least not in November, when NaNoWriMo starts up.

For one thing, I haven’t had time to come up with a novel idea. I’ve had a few sparks but nothing that I could write 50,000 words on. If I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo, I want to get some significant work done on a novel. So, I’m going to have to pass on it this year; maybe next summer I’ll come up with a project to do next November.

As of now, I’m taking two classes, doing work study in O.T.S. at U.B., doing layout for the school paper (for which I get paid a very small stipend), and now (hopefully) working part-time at another place. I need the money, so I’m hoping that, when I get the call sometime this week, it’s good news. The woman I interviewed with seemed very optimistic that she’ll hire me. She was impressed with my résumé and fascinated by the story of how I came to be in a creative writing program. If things go well, I might actually have some spending money this holiday season – and subsequently, for that matter.

Having two part-time jobs, and one volunteer/stipend job that I’m using solely for publishing experience for my résumé, is far from ideal. I’d much rather have a full-time job but, as Samantha wrote recently, can’t seem to find anything in (or close to) Baltimore.

I’ll stick with this for a while, but sooner or later, I’ll have to go back to the drawing board and find myself a career job.

TwitTV: Smallville, 3×05, “Isis”

2010-10-27T20:47:35Z

Following “Homecoming,” this week’s (or last week’s, by the time you read this) “Isis” episode had a lot to live up to. While there is some filler here, Smallville almost always manages to make it seem important by the end of the episode – and, sometimes, end of the season – and “Isis” is no exception. It’s worth watching, though, especially the final scene.

We start off with one of my favorite Tess lines ever (“Oliver, you’re better than Christmas”). There isn’t really much more to say about this scene, except that it introduces the catalyst that sets the episode plot in motion (the Isis artifact is missing). Tess will come into play again later on.

Next, we see Lois performing practice speeches on how to tell Clark that she knows he’s The Blur. There are some sweet sentiments here, and a wonderful tilt shot to reveal the Isis artifact in Lois’ bag, but this scene sure makes me wonder how the artifact came to be in Lois’ possession in the first place. She obviously didn’t know it was there. Did it follow her when she came back from Egypt? Can it do that? I guess we’ll never know (that or I just don’t know a key part of the Isis mythology). The transition scene after this has Clark saying to Oliver, “I’m telling Lois my secret,” before we get to the moment of truth at the Daily Planet: Both Lois and Clark dance around the idea of bringing up the truth, but it seems neither one can manage it. Both are awkward, and of course, Cat’s reintro adds to this, as her desk crunches up next to the desks of our dynamic duo. Buzzkill.

Lois is instantly bitchy, and I love it. Her jealousy is showing through, but is she jealous of Cat because of Clark or because Cat is her competition at the Planet? Or a mixture of both? Or perhaps she’s not jealous at all. Whatever it is, it’s pure Lois Lane, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Clark and Lois plan to meet on the roof of the Planet to talk in private. Before Clark gets up there, though, Lois triggers the artifact, summoning the Greek goddess Isis into her body. What I love most about this scene is Erica Durance’s voice, which reminds me of a similar feeling I had when watching the 4th season Charmed episode “A Paige fromt the Past,” in which I was blown away by newcomer Rose McGowan’s performance. And it was mostly to do with the way she projected her voice. Fantastic stuff! Anyway, Durance does the same thing here: she finds a way to make her voice different. It’s deeper, slightly menacing, and very confident. Isis is powerful and knows it, unlike Lois, who can fake it with the best of them (on the outside) but is still self-conscious underneath. Isis is on a mission to bring back her husband Osiris so they can be reunited, and judging by the streak of golden light as she flies across the sky, away from Clark, she won’t be taking any prisoners.

Well…except she does. Later, when Clark shows up to stop her from bringing her lover back from hell, Isis manages to bind him down with some kind of magical rope, and she begins the sacrifice ritual: she is going to kill Clark in order to bring forth Osiris and, in the process, “literally unleash hell on Earth.” This being Smallville, we of course get an ethics speech from Clark about the selfishness involved in doing such a thing. The lives of many for the happiness of two? It’s not fair. Even though Clark loves Lois, he would never make such a sacrifice, and he knows that she wouldn’t let him. When Oliver shows up as Green Arrow to help Clark defeat Isis, Clark’s heat vision power serves a pretty nifty purpose, acting as a ray of sunlight passing through the artifact (a necklace with a gem), which is the only thing that can send Isis packing.

Meanwhile, Cat Grant is lurking in the shadows in this episode – both literally and figuratively – erroneously trying to expose Lois (with her newfound powers) as The Blur. And she is gutsy in this episode, just like the last one. Cat will do (almost?) anything for a story, even stare down the face of her accused. In this episode, Cat follows Lois/Isis to a warehouse, where she uses her phone as a camera; gets super-sped away by Clark when she is about to take a picture; gets thrown into a coffin by Green Arrow at one point; and finally, when it’s all said and done, claims to have video proof of Lois the Blur, performing some sick ritual. She informs Tess that Lois is The Blur (and Tess’ reaction – a loud, joyful laugh – is fantastic in every aspect), and then later goes to Clark and Lois to make her accusations directly, once she has proof. Lois and Clark insist that Lois is not The Blur; she was just possessed by a goddess, which gave her superpowers. Again, great reactions, especially Lois’ line about this being Metropolis, where “weird things happen all the time.”

As for Tess, when she’s not trading witty Christmas banter with Oliver or laughing hysterically at Cat’s detective work, she’s actually helping out. I love that Tess is part of the team in this episode, protecting Clark as well as the world. Where she has tried to help Clark out before and actually done quite a bit of good, she has been cast as a pseudovillian since her introduction to the show in season 8. This time, however, I really do feel like she’s part of the team, so what a great surprise when Clark and Oliver later offer Tess the position of Watchtower. This is such a nice moment. “Welcome to the team.” :-)

Tess’ final scene in “Isis” has her reading a book to Alexander. Peter Pan, which she had mentioned earlier because she thought someone (perhaps Oliver) needed “Peter Pan and chicken soup” to cheer him/her up. Anyway, this is such a sweet moment for Tess – and Alexander, for that matter – as it is not only a throwback to an earlier point in the episode but also a terrific parallel to the situation with Alexander, who is growing older every day, and not just in the normal way. He has grown several inches in just 5 weeks. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it agan: Cassidy Freeman can act. She has become one of my favorite actors, with Tess being one of my favorite characters, in her 2.23 seasons on the show so far. Her reading of Peter Pan, while holding Alexander, nearly brings me to tears. “All children, except one, grow up,” Tess says. And all children, except Alexander, grow at a normal rate. The implication here is quite profound and is one of my favorite uses of literature in all of Smallville, and we know there have been a lot of those in the show, with the well-educated, well-moneyed Luthors around. The line that really gets me, though, is Alexander’s “I love you, Tess.” And I think it touches Tess as well, and we can tell because Freeman is such a wonderful actor.

Finally, we get one of the scenes we have all been waiting for: Clark finally reveals to Lois that he’s The Blur, and she jumps in his arms. Really, literally. That’s what happens. Actually, maybe I should rephrase: she doesn’t so much jump into his arms as pounce on him and knock him to the floor, but whatever. Semantics. The point is that it’s done in such a way that, now, I can’t imagine anything different. It’s not really cheesy. It’s sweet, it’s romantic, it’s iconic, and it’s one of the key moments in the span of any Superman story. It’s quintessential and inevitable. “What took you so long?” Lois says, as she has known for about 5 weeks, at this point – and really, probably, definitely should have known for even longer, but TV isn’t good without long, dramatic secrets. So, we end the episode with a beautiful shot of the newly “completely” honest coupling kissing.

And we know that more greatness is yet to come in this final season of Smallville.

Speaking of “yet to come,” don’t miss the latest new episode, this Friday, October 29, 2010, at 8 p.m. on The CW. It’s called “Harvest,” and I’m hearing it’s got some amazing stuff in it.

REB #29: “If it weren’t for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn’t have any ideas at all.”

2010-10-25T03:39:05Z

– Donald E. Westlake

Remember when I wrote about Smashwords, the e-book publishing company? Well, I read today that Smashwords has surpassed a billion published words – nine weeks ahead of schedule. In about October of last year (2009), the company had published 150 million words. It then set a crazy goal to reach one billion by the end of 2010.

On October 21, 2010, the company reached that goal

And it succeeded because of people like this. Because more and more frustrated authors or would-be authors are turning to modern technology. Because people are realizing that, with more people than ever on the planet, there is more competition and just aren’t enough book deals to go around.

That said, I think they hit the nail on the head: not just anyone can and should publish electronically. One absolutely must be a good writer, because most of the time, the star editing treatment is no where to be found in these electronic publishing companies. That’s one of their downfalls.

Even so, it’s encouraging to see people getting (e-)published.

REB #28: “I’ll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.”

2010-10-24T22:09:37Z

– Unknown author/coiner, but I found it on Quote Garden

The fall equinox was exactly 31 days ago, and yet it’s supposed to be 76 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday. Is this normal for Maryland? I don’t remember what last year was like, but even so, that was only one year out of – well, since the beginning of temperature records in Maryland – and could have been a fluke. Is this year a fluke? I guess I’m not complaining. It’s not exactly hot outside these days, and I’ve got visitors coming soon, so I’m hoping some of the warmth will actually stick around so we can go exploring in Baltimore and D.C. without freezing or sweating to death!

Meanwhile, Halloween is coming up next weekend, and I still don’t know if I should dress up when we go to Fells on Saturday night – or what I want to be. It sucks being relatively poor, but I guess it encourages creativity; maybe I should just make something and/or use things I already have. And who says I have to be something? Couldn’t I just embody Halloween itself?

REB #27: “If you must leave your woman alone, be sure to tie her down…”

2010-10-24T19:46:01Z

– from “Chandler’s Shop” by The O’Danny Girls

Looking through my footage from Renn Fest yesterday, I’ve decided that, since the joust was the most exciting part, I’m going to be using it quite a bit in my mini movie. I’d like to feature small clips from some of the other Renn Fest shows, as well as a few that take place outside Renn Fest.

For instance, today, I shot some footage at the harbor. I got a few people walking by (at different angles), some ships coming in, and even a few seconds of the pirate ship that floats around the harbor. I’m thinking this video is going to be some kind of journey through time, since I’ve got Rennaissance events, pirate ships, modern ships, etc., and since many people (myself included) at Renn Fest were dressed in “normal,” modern clothing, there is a bridge between time periods. An anachronism, of course, but still, there is a bridge. I’m not sure what to do with that just yet.

In any case, before today, I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to have anything to work with on Monday, but now, with the additional footage I shot, I think I’ll be okay. I still don’t know if it will be useful for my final project or not, though, because I still need to come up with my story for the hypertext narrative.

More to come on all of this in the next few weeks! Stay tuned.