Helvetica

I picked up the documentary Helvetica from the library on campus today. I'm planning on watching it today or tomorrow, and I'm suuuuper excited about it. I've heard nothing but really positive stuff about it, and as a writer (and soon to be designer/editor), font is really interesting to me. Graphic design and the way it incorporates text influences every single aspect of our lives on a daily basis, whether we recognize it or not.

It will be interesting to get an in-depth look at that.

Books!
I got another one of my textbooks today (turns out I was 3 short when I got to school, thanks to the shitty textbook website not listing everything students need, presumably so they end up in a situation where they need the textbook asap and are forced to buy it from them -fortunately, such is not my situation).

The book I received today is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Eighth Edition, Volume 2. It's bigger than my head (not saying I have a big head, just giving you a point of reference. It's a big book). And honestly, for all Chegg's promises of quality, well-preserved books, blah blah, I'm not that impressed. Aside from the cover being scuffed and bent, the outside of the pages have writing all over them (Chelle <3s href="http://holiday-entertaining.suite101.com/article.cfm/halloween_costume_ideas_for_couples">Halloween Costume Ideas for Couples
Simple Halloween Crafts and Decorations
How to Publish Teen Writing
Simple Ways to Decorate a Dorm Room
Choosing the Best Tattoo Design
Taking Effective Notes in Class
How to Proofread an Academic Paper

From Examiner we have:
The Lost Symbol
Richard Wright
Alex Cross's Trial
Freakonomics
Stephenie Meyer's New Moon (if I could shake this, I would, it being my moneymaker)
Overcoming writer's block

Also, worst name for a product ever: Cummins Onan Generators. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, I'm so not explaining this one.

New Moon, The White Queen and other nonsense

This picture of my tattoo (which is reversed) relates to CAKE! Read on for more details.

I write about a lot of "other nonsense" -probably because my life is filled with nonsense. Nonsense is not bad. In fact, it's quite wonderful a good deal of the time. It just doesn't fall under the heading of the Reading Corner.

For instance, Jonah baked me a belated birthday cake with my tattoo done in the icing -not only is that awesome, the cake was also chocolate/peanut butter/hazelnut flavored. Is he the best or what? Or, another example, my little sister got a part in a local production of Seussical the Musical (she's a jungle creature).

Other examples include: what I'm wearing (as much as I love my fashion blogs, I do not follow their examples -jeans and tank tops are about all you'll get out of me. I am comfortable this way, and nobody is interested in seeing me get gussied up every day. Well... some people might be, but I don't have time to make myself look like a million bucks every time I walk out my front door. I'm cute enough as is. :P ), what I've eaten (this and drinks can be filled with one word: COFFEE. If I could eat coffee as a meal every day, I would -chocolate covered espresso beans do not a good meal make, sadly), where I've gone (unless it's the bookstore/library) or what I'm watching (unless I can make it work).

Fortunately, I tell you about most of those things anyway! That's why I allow myself room to write "other nonsense." Because I am more than my face in a book. Not much more, perhaps, but it doesn't hurt to know that I have stuff going on outside writing. It reminds me of it, anyway. I have a lot of cool things going on in my life. :)

So! Books.

New Moon the movie, as you well know, is coming out in November. Holy Jesus am I not excited about this occurring. As a backlash against the ever rising tides of Twilight-related hysteria that I'm seeing with the imminent release of the movie (which I'm sure will suck as much as the original), I wrote a review of the book New Moon and analyzed it from the (accurate) Edward-abuses-Bella (who is an idiot)-standpoint. Fun times!

I also reviewed another book I haven't read (and don't care to) called The White Queen. If you're into historical fiction, this is totally going to be your thing. If you don't give a rat's ass about it, it's probably not. I'm not into historical fiction -the reason for me being that if I want to learn about history, I'll read a history book. Rewriting history and fleshing out characters who were actual people with actual lives to make them best-selling fiction is not something that interests or pleases me. I like my history factual. Why the rewriting? Why the fictionalization? Is it just to get people interested? My high school history teachers did a decent job of getting me interested in history. Which is made up of facts.

Perhaps the only fictionalized historical account I've ever enjoyed was Loving Frank. Mostly because a major portion of the book was comprised of actual letters and journal/diary entries, newspaper reports and other, similarly factual pieces of FACT.

I'm slowly edging onto my soapbox about this one. Can anyone defend historical fiction to me? I'm all for fiction writing, creative nonfiction (which includes some liberal amounts of truth-bending, believe you me) and what-have-you but historical fiction is a genre I just do not understand. Why take an actual story that other people lived a really long freaking time ago and add a bunch of fiction to it? Not only is it confusing and misleading, it seems to smack of intellectual laziness to me. If you're going to go to the trouble of researching a time period and specific individuals in order to write about them, why wouldn't you publish a nonfiction account of it? If the story is that super exciting, it shouldn't be much harder to sell copies.

I just don't like it. I'm not expressing it well, but the genre as a whole pisses me off a bit. I need coffee before I "accidentally" kick someone in the face.

In other news, I've been writing about Halloween. Have a significant other? Want to go to a Halloween party with them in a matching costume? This is the article for you. Want to not die while out trick or treating? This is the article for you.

I need to get something productive done. I haven't written yet today and my writer's guilt is kicking in. Or something.

Twilight fans are insane

Allow me to preface this story with a confession: I can be a bit of a snob. A jackass, if you will. When it comes to literature, I like to think I know my stuff -and to some extent, I believe that I do. I at least know enough to recognize good writing from bad. I have the ability to pick out themes and symbols and I can write some damn sharp commentary on how certain parts of a book relate to other things that might not even be in the book. I'm a creative writing major, for crying out loud. I know a little bit about writing.

So when I, from an informed viewpoint, say that Twilight sucks...I'm going to agree with myself. It does. If you want a detailed list of reasons, go to my review and read it (or e-mail me and I can send you an even longer, more expletive-filled list; I didn't feel I needed to get overly vitriolic in my already scathing review).

However, I will admit that I'm kind of a dick sometimes. I like pushing people's buttons, especially regarding Twilight. It's just funny to watch/read people getting all hot and bothered about a series of books that I don't like, because their defenses for the book are uniformly lame, unintelligent or illogical. And so it's a win-win situation for me: I get to piss someone off a bit, know that I'm right (at least in my mind) and get a belly laugh out of the whole thing. I've joined a few Twilight fan sites for that express purpose -that and promoting my review (the primary objective, of course).

There's one in particular that proved to be pretty fruitful, for about 3 days. I posted my link in a few relevant places, had some decent discussions and then kind of forgot all about it. I'm not so into hating Twilight that I make it a hobby. It's more of a spur-of-the-moment trolling. A drive by troll, if you will. I haven't actively promoted my Twilight review anywhere in about a month, and on the site this story concerns in over 2 months.

So imagine my surprise when, a mere 2 days ago before I went to see Inglourious Basterds (which I recommend you see, by the way, just because it's awesome) I get an e-mail telling me that someone named Rosalie Hale (one of the Twilight characters' names, for those of you fortunate enough not to have read the series) commented on my profile page. I have a Blackberry (I'm spoiled), so the e-mail came to my phone and my laptop. I don't do a lot of website stuff on my Blackberry unless I'm AFK, so I popped over to my laptop and signed into the website to check out this comment, which I was hoping would be filled with rage about the audacity of my review.

It was certainly filled with rage. And poor spelling, no sense whatsoever and a threat!

Clearly, I thought to myself, clearly this is an important comment.

I read it a few times, deciphering things like "wen" (when), "won" (won't) and there (their) before I was finally able to understand that Rosalie Hale is tired of Twilight haters coming onto the fan site and talking about not liking Twilight -and apparently she had taken it upon herself to track down each and every one of them to inform them that there are anti-Twilight websites they could get on so why not go there? This poorly spelled ramble was finished up with the following sentiment: "I would have my friend use the internet to track them down so I could kick there [sic] !@^$!$$^%^&*#!#%@ ass." I'm not sure what swear word that was supposed to be, but I would really like to find out. I'm sure it's devastating.

So, just to recap: this is a website that I used for 3 days, tops. I posted in 4 threads and all in all commented approximately 20 times, then left. After over 2 months, Rosalie Hale decides I'm a nuisance and should have my !@^$!$$^%^&*#!#%@ing ass kicked.

I returned her comment by asking what her comment was in reference to and why she thought threatening me would get her anything. I received a flood of comments, most of which were the word I, and which sent my phone into a vibrating frenzy, since each comment = 1 email to my phone. There were around 17 of these strange comments before she said anything else of relevance to my question, replying that she's tired of "u stupid haters" getting on to bug fans about how stupid Twilight is.

Well, I thought. Well, well, well. Here we go.

I returned her comment again, entering snotty mode. Basically I said that Twilight haters have every right to be on a fan site expressing themselves, and that fan sites are nothing but a gigantic circle-jerk for people who like Twilight anyway (I actually did use the phrase circle-jerk), so she could pretty much just quit telling me not to talk, since I hadn't said anything to her personally and she got on and told me to shut up when I hadn't even been active.

This story, by the way, is relevant only in that I like how irrational people get about stuff like Twilight. It's amusing to me. I am aware that not all fans of Twilight are insane teenagers who like to threaten people they don't even know over a series of books, but it's surprising how many are. And how many of them manage to find me (online, not in real life. Otherwise I'd be keeping a tally of how many little girls I'd gotten locked up for assault and/or battery).

Onward we go!

After remarking that Twilight fan sites are open to non-fans as well and she had no place attempting to curtail my free speech, she replied by telling me that the only reason "haters are on this site is because 1. they are total jerks and like to bother ppl or 2. they have nothing better to do with their lifes or 3. they havent read the books and are already judgeing it [sic] [sic] [sic] [sic] and [sic]." I'm sure I missed a few [sic]s in there, but we'll live. So you see what I was dealing with?

Not only does she not understand that I'm using her website solely to promote my review (and be a jerk) but she can't even argue with a semblance of intelligence, good grammar or logic. My reply was essentially that yes, I'm a jerk. But I've also read the books, know enough about them to argue with any fan and can do so intelligently and with better grammar. I told her (again) that I was inactive on the site and therefore still did not understand her apparently overwhelming desire to do me physical harm.

I received the reply that "this is a fan site there r sites for haaters [sic] [sic]." etc. and "just because someone says the books sucks doesn't mean it dose [so much sic]."

What?

So I laid out a few reasons that the books suck, reminded her that I'm not an active user, don't define myself as a hater (I don't participate in the so-called "war" that rages betwixt those who worship the ground Stephanie Meyer walks on and those who hate the books. I just hate the books all by myself -I don't need people to commiserate with) and never did anything to her to provoke this unjustified attack, and if I had, I'd have done so with impeccable grammar and spelling.

I was told that I have serious mental problems and need to check myself into a hospital.

"Look, Rosalie. I'm a perfectly normal person (okay, so that's a bit of a lie), but I'm not the one who has issues here. You threatened me for no reason, used poor grammar to do so and can't even come up with a reason why other than that the haters on the site bother you. I'm not one of them, so what's the deal?" This is not an exact quote, but that's the gist of what I told her.

I find out that she has "anger problems" and her mom taught her "never to take shit from ppl [sic]" and she's sick of haters getting onto random threads and talking about how bad Twilight is because there are hater sites for people to "bicth" about hating the books, etc. etc.

I replied without using all caps, which impressed me, because at that point I became aware that this was the sort of person on whom caps lock would have made an impression. Still calm, laughing quietly to myself over the clatter of my keyboard, I replied that she never took any shit from me to begin with. She attacked me, completely unprovoked by anything I had done or said, and all I wanted to know was why.

Her reply? "Why do u think they made anti sites? [sic]"

This person, this "Rosalie Hale," is off the charts batshit insane. The best kind of person to converse with, bar none.

I replied that I had no idea, probably because they could. Anti-Twilight sites, I told her, are as much circle-jerks for people who don't like Twilight as fan sites are for those who do. I have no need to sit around and agree with a bunch of people online about not liking a series of books. That's even more pointless than, oh, say, threatening someone who never said a damn thing to or about you because there is a difference of opinion.

I think I finally got through with that comment, because she backtracked, saying only that she is sick of the fighting and people arguing all the time.

So your solution, I asked her, was to threaten me? That's how you thought to defuse the Twilight debates? By threatening to kick the ass of an inactive site member? Bullshit.

She fled, leaving me with a comment that I imagine would have been sobbed if spoken. "I'm so tired of this. I'm giving my sister my account. Rose out."

Yes. That all just happened.

Take a few deep breaths. This was a long one. I won't inflict much more on you, readers, but just let all of this sink in. That was the logic of a Twilight fan -the logic of the many who comment on my review.

"First," they must think, "I'll try to intimidate you into shutting up about my beloved books, then I'll attempt to out-logic you using circular or flawed reasoning"- (we didn't even discuss the books all that much), "then I'll act like a pitiable little puppy and run away feeling like a victim."

Her sister commented on my profile shortly after Rosalie deleted all relevant comments and asked what the deal was. I told her that Rosalie had first tried to scare me and failed, then tried to argue with me, and lost. It happens a lot.

Any takers? I'm spoiling for a fight.

Why Twilight pisses me off

Okay, okay. I know I've ranted about this over 9,000 times (anyone who knows me IRL should know better than to get me started on Twilight at this point), but I came across something that really irked me the other day. Twilight...is being used...to drum up publicity for Wuthering Heights.

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

Twilight, the shitty series of novels aimed at pre-teen girls with an IQ of 40 and no sense whatsoever*, is being used to promote one of the finest pieces of English literature in existence. I don't care if you didn't like the book when you read it in high school, it's an amazingly complex and worthwhile piece of fiction. And it needs the help of Stephanie f#cking Meyer to get people to read it?

Give. Me. A. Break.

I'd say more about that, but I'm afraid I'd have an apoplectic fit and fall over dead. The absolute atrocity of the entire situation is enough to have me sputtering curses and shaking my fists at my computer screen.

I love me some books and all, and you all know how much I like to trash Twilight, but this is just ridiculous. Since when have the mighty fallen thus far? I am irked. Severely irked.


In other news, I wrote 2 articles about symbolism in The Scarlet Letter that should be up later today. Check back for links. Sometime in the near future there will also be an article about Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Ohhhh yeahhh.

Here they are!:

Religious Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
Social Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter


* Just as a disclaimer, I am in no way implying that all readers of Twilight are tasteless idiots with an IQ of 40 or are lacking in sense, just that the books are aimed at (and read by) a large group that fits that description.

The living dead

I'm a big fan of the show True Blood. I don't have HBO at my house, sadly, so I have to watch grainy videos of it online the day after each episode comes out. Yes I'm that dedicated, shut up. I'm not missing that much of the season just because I don't get the right channel! It's a fun show -by which I mean it's nasty, snarky and full of violence and blood -and not a little sex. The characters are good, the acting is better than what I expect and it's just a nice mindless way to spend an hour every week.

The books the show is based on are not that great; I'll be honest. I like them a lot, but as far as literature goes? They're trashy. They're trashy, low-brow, simply written, easily read little books. And that is what makes them great. They're just good enough to merit being read for pleasure. And unlike some books, they don't pretend to be the next big thing in literary history. They're just there for fun, sort of like that one friend who always wants to go out and party -fun for a while. It's the coffeeshop books you go to for substance (real, capital L Literary books like Jane Eyre or Rebecca), and it's these books you go to when you need a mental break and something light to read.

Thus, today's review: Living Dead in Dallas (aka season 2 of True Blood). Awesome. Get on it.

It's been a slow couple of weeks for me, reading-wise. The library's shittiness is finally catching up with me, and I seem to have run out of steam. I'm still reading Zadie Smith's book White Teeth (slowly but surely) and I have a few other things out...but on the whole, I think I need a bit of a breather. I'm trying to build up a log of reviews for when I go back to school and yet here I sit with something akin to writer's block. It's very frustrating. Like someone has cut off my arm, or denied me coffee. I know the best solution to writer's block is just to write, so I have been -every day, writing something. But none of it is really breaking through the review block I seem to have developed.

I have a book on curing writer's block (which is sort of a funny thing when you think about it -the idea of writing a book about how to be able to write when you can't. I don't know. I'm amused), but it's largely geared toward fiction writing, which I do...but which doesn't offer much help in writing reviews. I don't need to create believable characters with human depths and flaws in them to write a review, I just need to write about the characters other people have already created. Normally that's not a problem. The problem is that I'm not reading as much, as fast or with as much pleasure.

And for that I blame the library. I have 4 new books coming in the mail from Amazon; hopefully they'll be here within the next week. That will give me some motivation to read/write again, so there's definitely a light at the end of this particular tunnel. For the time being, I'm just going to keep plugging through the same stale offerings at my public library and attempting to find some sparks there.

It's Caturday!

LOLCats. They have either ruined the internets, or made them incomparably more awesome. I'm never sure which, although there was a rendition of Wasteland makes my day every time I read it. (If you haven't read Wasteland, it wouldn't make much sense. In fact, it probably won't make any. But it's a good place to get started on the poem, because a] it's read by LOLCats and b] it's really really funny). However, the link appears to have died. :( So I can no longer post it for you. If I find it again (or anyone knows where it is), I'll link you to it. It's great.

Right now I'm reading Brave New World. I started it about two weeks ago and put it aside in favor of The Things That Matter (which I am currently in the process of reviewing; it's going to be a review in 8 parts, so holy hell is that taking forever to do. It's basically an academic paper at this point, but since I am a Literature Examiner, that's my job. And I enjoy it.); now that I've picked BNW back up, I regret having put it down. It's just amazing. I'll be writing another lengthy review of that, I can already tell.

I still need ideas of books to read! Bring 'em on, bring 'em on. As with my musical criteria (well, criterion): I will read anything that doesn't suck. And if it does...I just get to write a nasty review.

Here's something funny I've noticed about the comments I get on my Twilight review. The ones that aren't agreeing with me but aren't totally illiterate still aren't disagreeing with me. They're calling me names, or saying I'm jealous of Meyer. "Say whatnow?" is generally my reaction to that buffoonery. If I were jealous of Meyer, I wouldn't have the ability to write a review, because I'd be too busy off writing a better series of novels than Twilight. It's not like it'd be hard -it's been done a million times before, and will be done a million times hence. I just think it's sort of sad that people are so defensive of Twilight they have to automatically assume that anyone who doesn't like it either sucks as a person or is a struggling and therefore jealous writer.

Sorry I'm not jealous of something that wasn't worth reading in the first place, kiddies.

Those comments also get deleted, because they generally are full of other inappropriate insults. One offered to print of the review and have a dog bescumber it.

Anyway, /rant again. That review just makes me laugh. People get so pissy!

Off I go to enjoy my weekend!

The learning curve

I learn a lot of interesting things from comments on my reviews -most of them about myself.
For example, "ur r a low life wanna be" was one I received today. I was unaware that I are anything of the sort. :P I also apparently lack imagination, have never been in love, don't know what love is, can't judge other people's taste in books because they like it, so I should keep my opinion to myself (I clearly need some lessons in logic) and I've never written anything in my life and have no idea how hard it is to be a writer.

Seeing as I've written, to date, 3 completed novels and 1 unfinished novel, that one flies out the window pretty quickly. (A side note -if you go looking for these comments, some of them have been deleted as they were accompanied by threats of physical violence. As much as I'd like to engage in a good match of fisticuffs with anyone who wants to go at it, I won't have threats on my page. It's not ladylike). I'd also say that, having written 3 1/2 novels -as well as countless short stories/essays and, oh hey, reviews!, I've got a pretty good sized imagination.

As for keeping my opinion to myself...let me think about that one. No.
It's my job to be opinionated. And I happen to be able to back up my opinions, unlike some people, whose only defense for the series is that...they like it, so I should shut up. Yeah. Not gonna happen.

With regards to having been in love, if they can be in love with Edward Cullen, I can be in love with Mr. Darcy. And Mr. Rochester. And Dr. Juvenal Urbino.
What? I like me some literary men, so sue me. ;)

Also, and this is a new one. I am a crazy psycho. I really can't argue with that, except in the context of my article. Sorry I happen to be right, teenagers on the internet who can neither spell properly nor form a coherent argument so as to prove that I am in fact a crazy psycho/wrong!

In addition, as I learned on another review, I am a goddess. Talk about an ego boost!

Then come the facts that really don't make a damn bit of sense, like the ones I got claiming the author/actress/all around badass of a woman Colette was actually a man. Seriously, what? Are...are you out in your backyard watching for UFOs, too? How many times have you seen Elvis? Or gotten Jesus on your toast? Colette was not a man, sorry to burst your bubble. I looked into it. There's zero evidence anywhere (but if you -any of you- can come up with it, I'd be pretty interested, actually. Especially since she, you know, had a child and numerous sexual partners of both genders and was wildly popular and performed nearly nude onstage multiple times. You'd think someone would have noticed).

The things you learn on the internet can hardly be described. Most of them, however, just prove that people are really, really, really stupid.

Eileen Favorite is...not my favorite. Forgive me.

I always feel vaguely dirty when I make puns, as though I have somehow sinned against the collective intelligence of all of the people who read this blog (however many of you there are, know that I adore you for coming back!). Puns are just distasteful in some way, and a good deal of the time. Rarely do I come across a pun that makes me go "Ahhh, I see. That was clever." Puns are about as subtle as a pie in the face, and as enjoyable.

Onto the point. I just wrote my second most vitriolic review! Second only to my rage against the Twilight machine is my review of Eileen Favorite's book The Heroines. Basically, it's no good and I'm sorry I bought it. If anyone would like to purchase it from me, let me know, har har. Seriously, go read the review. I guarantee you won't want to read it after that, or I haven't done my job, or you're just being perverse.

In other news, I was mentioned by name in a question on Yahoo! Answers yesterday. I am apparently well known there for my dislike of Twilight and my irritating habit of jumping on 99% of the Twilight questions, saying "mean" things about the books and posting a link to my review. I'm not sure what's worse: that I'm known for that, or that I found out about it because it was a Twilight related question and I was answering it so I could say mean things about Twilight and post a link to my review.......... You decide.

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen, is one of the most fantastic books I've read in a very long time. Read my review of it here. It's a book worth buying, because reading it just once will definitely not be satisfying.
Good books aren't as rare as I sometimes think...I look around at all the copies of Twilight and the unfortunate knock-offs that have emerged as a result, and I get really depressed regarding the future of literature. There's so much media hype attached to everything anymore. I don't understand the need for the frenzy created by things like Twilight. It's not worth it. Where is the excitement over books like The Elegance of the Hedgehog? It's one of the most heart-wrenching, mind-bending books I've ever read, but so few people even know it's out there.
It bothers me to no end that what becomes popular is inevitably shallow, boring, watered down or just plain worthless.

That's why, when I find books like Water for Elephants or The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I shove them at people. I say "READ THIS. Because it will change you, and in the best way."

Welcome to the Reading Corner

This is a place to come to read and talk about books, literature, grammar -pretty much anything involving books and language. I am a passionate reader and writer, so expect this to be updated pretty regularly. I'm also very opinionated, but I welcome discussion/argument/debate, as long as it stays within reason.

For my first topic, I'm going to just refer you to a review I wrote. I'll connect you to a lot of reviews, author websites, etc. as I write, but this particular entry is just to get you started on my writing style and a few of my opinions.

Check it out: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-13594-Cleveland-Literature-Examiner~y2009m6d10-Twilight-isnt-worth-a-second-read

Also, be sure to check out the comment section. Some of them are funny, some of them are interesting and some of them are just plain sad!