How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Sometimes, during the course of reading something or watching something, I'll get annoyed by something a character does and put the book down or turn off the television show. Permanently. when that happens, I'm usually thinking "whatever. Character X would never do that!" Let me give you an example--a long, long time ago, in a land far far away, I used to watch a show called Joan of Arcadia. If you didn't see it, the plot's not really important,* but what is important is that there was a guy who liked her named Adam. Adam was a really sweet kid, an artist, kind of spacey and dreamy, so much so that he called Joan "Jane" for most of the show, but a basically awesome kid. And eventually over the course of the show's two seasons, Adam and Joan end up being a couple. Then, at some point in the show's second season, Adam cheats on Joan. And not just "I kissed this girl and it will never happen again," but totally "I used thi...

1. Despite the incredibly kitsch and awkward name of the band that sings it, the song "Sometime Around Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event is a beautiful song about the first time you see the person you used to love after you broke up. It's just perfect. 2. I saw Watchmen this weekend. No spoilers here (in case you care), but I have just one thing to say: a comic book? IS NOT A STORYBOARD. It is a totally different medium , and you, director Zak Snyder, really need to learn how to tell a story on film if that's what you're going to be doing with your life. 3. While I am happy that spring has sprung in Ohio, I'm a little concerned that the road I drove yesterday at 7 pm to get home from the movie theater is, as of this morning, underwater. I could have died coming home from the Watchmen .* 4. NEW PROJECT! Too new to talk about here, obvs, but I'm SUPER EXCITED about it. In fact, that's what I will call it from now on--the Super Exciting ...

Roger Sutton has a post here about giving up on a book that's just not clicking with you as a reader. I have to say that I fully support this. Life is finite, you know? I'm not going to stick with a book or a movie or a television show that I feel is a waste of my time.* Of course, there are some things that are worth the time--David Foster Wallace for me, Faulkner for my friend Anonymous, we all have our little ballywicks--and I believe in giving a book a fair chance. A book under 200 pages gets at least 50 to get moving for me, and a book over 200 pages gets at least a 100, but if I'm not interested by then?* Forget it. I'm not going to be interested. Another factor that sometimes comes into play is how long it takes me to read the pages. I'm normally a very fast reader. Fifty pages of your average level adult fiction won't take me a half hour, even if (or especially if) I like it.** If it takes me an hour, or two, or three, I don't like the book....

1. America's Best Dance Crew is a highly entertaining show. It started as just another American Idol ripoff show, complete with the three judges and everything, but the actual dance crews are really talented and do some amazing stuff. I wasn't aware that there was even such a thing as a dance crew, but apparently there is, and they are good .* 2. Sometimes, I proctor SAT and ACT tests on the weekend, which I find provides me with opportunities to observe my potential readers in their (semi-)natural habitats. This weekend, I watched a high school junior girl flirt with a high school junior boy by sitting on his test booklet during a break. I don't know what I'm going to do with that, but I'm going to do something. 3. Maggie Stiefvater is fast becoming one of my favorite blogging writers. Take a look at her Meme of Evil , aka 25 Types of Evil Villains. My favorite ones include number 11 ("I'm evil because I'm lava"), number 25 ("I...

I've seen two episodes of Joss's new show Dollhouse , now, and I'm cautiously optimistic. The show is about an agency--the Dollhouse, natch--where people go and have their minds erased and re-programmed, temporarily, with new personalities and skills at the behest of rich clients. They're, like, made-to-order hookers. Sensing a theme, here? Yeah, so obviously the premise is a teeny bit troubling from a feminist perspective, but it is a sci-fi show and if every sci-fi show that was troubling was disregarded for that reason, there wouldn't be a lot of sci-fi on the air.* And I think that Whedon is taking a little pre-emptive heat for this because of his self-proclaimed feminist viewpoint. But anyway, back to the actual show. The main character, played by Eliza Dushku, is Echo, one of the dolls whose reasons for joining the Dollhouse are unclear. In the first two episodes, she plays a party girl, a hostage negotiator, and a wilderness survival girl. Sex is involv...

I was psyched when I learned that Joss Whedon was going to have a new show coming out called Firefly . Although I didn't really understand the premise--cowboys in outer space? ...okay...--I had learned through my experience with Buffy to put my trust in Joss, so I was willing to go with it.* So I watched Firefly. And hated it. The poor treatment that Firefly got at the hands of the Fox network is well documented--episodes aired out of order, schedule changes, excessive notes--so I'm sure part of my problem with the show is that it was pretty confusing trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on, but I've seen the show in its entirety several times on DVD, and I've seen the movie based on the show, and, yeah, I don't care for it. This is why.** In her post (which is rather long), Allecto critiques the many many problems that Firefly has with its female characters. And while I do not agree with everything she says--Allecto has a radical feminist viewpoint t...

This week, I'm going to do something slightly different--in light of the intense media coverage of Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse, I'm going to talk a little bit about my reactions to some of his shows. So there may not be a lot of writing stuff this week (unless I work up some extra posts), but I promise I'll get back to it. A couple of things I want to get straight, right up front: 1. I haven't seen Dr. Horrible (although I want to), so I have nothing to say about it. Except that Neil Patrick Harris has a charming singing voice in the clip I heard on NPR the other day. Other than that--nothing. 2. ...okay maybe I just had one thing I wanted to get straight. 3. Oh, no, wait! One other thing--I didn't read the Buffy graphic novels, either. I prefer to stick to the original cultural artifact, and also didn't have the energy to track them down. So nothing I say here is influenced by them, either. 4. Oh, and another thing--I never got Angel . I didn...