Very tempted to do an Anacrusis for each of Dresden Codak’s twists.
Page 31 of 181
not falling down: a blog about things I think are stupid
If it weren’t so dry and poorly punctuated, I would honestly believe that John T. Jones’s Writing 101: Research that Novel was a Story Hacks-like joke. As it is, you can learn more about how not to write from it than all the Story Hacks combined. From a former professor and editor! With a PhD!
“Don’t call your Viking raider, Joe.
Try Eric the Mad or some such.”
I already know what you’re thinking: a book about Joe the Viking raider is immediately more interesting than one about Eric the Mad. But that’s his advice on research? To make up a thing that sounds like what you read once in The Far Side, “or some such?”
“If you met a man in Walgreen wearing a silver body-tight jumpsuit and having antenna sticking out of a gold helmet, you would think: That guy isn’t from here!“
Clearly Dr. Jones and I shop at different Walgreens! Yuk yuk! Also, what the hell does that have to do with writing?
“Each character needs characteristics. You may never mention most of them but you must know them. These are the things that in combination make your character distinct from all other characters in the world. Take Superman for instance or Henry the Eighth.”
That’s such a beautiful non sequitur (and no, I’m not editing out his explanation; that’s the whole paragraph) that I’m tempted to revise my stance on whether this whole thing is pure deadpan humor. I’m also tempted to submit it to the Lyttle Lyttons.
“It’s a good idea to know your subject, your location (setting), and your characters before you start writing the novel. Well, don’t let that stop you. You can fill in the blanks later.”
What. What. That paragraph actually needs clarification to just to reach the level of “meaningless platitude.”
“Just don’t let some bold character take over your book.”
God forbid! You are right, John T. Jones, PhD. After all, when you were writing Revenge on the Mogollon Rim (which seems to be a western and not, in fact, a cent-per-word story from a 1952 issue of Astounding), I’m willing to bet you didn’t let bold characters get in the way. You kept yourself focused on what really matters: absolute verisimilitude with regard to the Mogollon Rim.
This has been Brendan Is Mean About Something on the Internet! I now return to my usual activity of whimpering and typing “how the fuck do I research anything” into Google.
Via Uncle John
A gentleman named Philip Nagle, from my father’s hometown of Tipp City, is trying to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by bicycling through 48 states in 48 days. Okay, Internet, you got my attention.
I couldn’t get through the whole thing without a Studio 60 joke! I’m sorry. It’s in paragraph seven.
Ready for another screed about how a television show has failed to satisfy me? You are? You are ready for some unexpected things!
I wanted to like Cupid ’09! I did. I loved Cupid ’98 and I loved Veronica Mars, so Rob Thomas + more exposure + more money had to add up to something good, right? No! Cupid ’09 is a stupid television show that is bad. Tonight I had to turn it off halfway through. I have identified three reasons for this, listed in order of increasing subtlety.
First, the writing is bad. Advertising bad. Not freecreditreport.com commercial bad, but easily eHarmony bad. I have no way of accounting for this. Rob Thomas has demonstrated repeatedly that he can write, and indeed manage a writing team well; has he concentrated so hard on that that he has forgotten how to read?
Second, the shooting style is weird and elliptic. They seem to have fewer ad breaks than a typical show, but they try to deal with that by throwing in B-roll with lots of lens flare. It ends up looking like a documentary with pretensions instead of a comic drama. (Speaking of which, it also seems to have no dramatic or comedic elements, but that goes back to #1.)
Third–and honestly, this is the killer–Bobby Cannavale isn’t Jeremy Piven. He’s a good actor, and Jeremy Piven isn’t the only guy who would be capable of taking on the role, but to make Cupid work, Trevor has to be kind of a jackass. Cannavale’s Trevor is ripped, deep-voiced, gentle, well-dressed, polite and full of faith in human nature. Piven’s was horny, cynical, scruffy and smirking. Piven was playing Han Solo, writ short; Cannavale seems to think he’s in Touched by an Angel.
Fourth, it is impossible to stop hating Cannavale’s fauxhawk, which appears in 80% of the shots. He had a fauxhawk while in the mental hospital. No. No.
Point three there is indicative of a larger issue, which is that the cast has no chemistry. They’re all about as lively as shellshocked deer. Sarah Paulsen’s lone facial expression already helped sink Studio 60, of course, but Jeffrey D. Sams’s seething bouncer roommate created just as many sparks as Paula Marshall’s Claire; Rick Gomez’s stand-in seems to deal with Trevor by simply turning to Valium.
Absent any conflict among the regulars, the show has to lean on its match-of-the-week for interest, and nobody cares about them. Nobody did before, either. We just liked seeing how they illuminated the tension between Claire and Trevor, but this time, there’s nothing there to see.
Aaand back to bitterness
Old media : “-gate” :: new media : “-fail.”
Also, “scandal” shorthand : reasoned discussion :: firebomb : toothpick bridge. Which is not to say reasoned discussion is always particularly warranted.
I’m going to start a microblog just for analogies
Victorianism : passive aggression :: contemporary Western culture : irony.
I feel a certain measure of confidence in pronouncing this vaporware
Wow. Wow. The guy who founded WebTV (you remember WebTV, right? Your grandmother failed to use the Internet on it) and the guy who got fired from Eidos (you remember Eidos from 2000-2005, right? You didn’t buy any of their Tomb Raider sequels) have decided to revolutionize the video gaming industry! They’re going to let you play hideously compressed PC games from 2007 without a keyboard or a mouse on a computer with no disc drive, hard drive or video card! Guess who sat around a lot of hotel rooms staring blankly at the N64 controller on the set-top box? (I bet you already guessed!)
To their credit, they have been able to startle some wide-eyed journalists by showing them closed tests on a cloud system with nobody on it, from which they disallowed screen caps or video. That puts them one step ahead of Infinium Labs. You remember Infinium, right? They failed to make the stupid fucking Phantom.
Oh, Centre, dear.
My alma mater is starfucking harder than ever before for its 2009 commencement speakers. At least when we randomly gave out a DHL to James Earl Jones in 2003, it was to a man who overcame a distinct handicap to become a respected actor. But Jerry Bruckheimer? Really?
I guess this is seen as a way to simultaneously give the students a treat and maybe earn a little donation kickback, in exchange for a piece of paper that nobody seriously believes is worth anything. If it were just Linda Bruckheimer, who actually has philanthropic ties to Kentucky, I’d be fine with it. But when you give someone a degree, even a worthless one, you’re endorsing their career and setting it as an example for students to follow. Spend your lives making hundreds of millions of dollars from empty spectacle without even providing any of the creative energy, kids! Bring the circus; let somebody else worry about the bread.