Episode 1174: Jee Leong Koh - Required Reading

Watching the blooper reels for Seasons 1 to 5 of How I Met Your Mother, after watching the one for Season 2 of Community yesterday. Hilarious! Maybe I should watch the bloopers from a drama, just to see if I'll find them as funny. Finished reading Jee Leong Koh's Seven Studies For A Self Portrait this morning before heading to the Kidz Klub meal, which ends with a masterful, lengthy sequence of ghazals. (Yay for a box of Maltesers, by the way! Thanks Sarah and Anna.) I just can't get away from how formally constructed his poems generally are, without feeling forced. Probably a bit clichéd to make the comparison to Thom Gunn, isn't it? Anyway, I was flipping at random through Poetry In Theory: An Anthology 1900-2000, edited by Jon Cook, and I'm starting to feel like I should be reading the whole thing from cover to cover, even if only a couple of the essays are actually going to be necessary for my essay eventually. I'll give it a go between services tomorrow, maybe even take the book home over the holidays. I've pretty much sorted out what books I'm taking home, for academic purposes and for relocation from one personal library to another. Cheekily overloading my carry-on suitcase, so I'm hoping the SIA counter staff won't weigh it. The suitcase that's going to be checked in is only a kilogramme or two over the weight limit, so I guess that should be fine, unless the person at the counter is being especially anal.

Episode 1173: Catching Up With Everyone's Favourite Serial Killer

Have been catching up on Dexter over the past couple of days, and I've reached Season 5 now. The Season 4 finale was pretty heartbreaking, but I can see why it had to happen, in terms of the show's overall story development. Should be able to catch up completely with this show over Christmas. Don't understand why I ever stopped in the first place! Read a bit of poetry today, Jee Leong Koh, whom I enjoy because he doesn't shy away from form and rhyme in his poems. (In fact, his first pamphlet Payday Loans was a sonnet sequence, quite traditional at least in terms of its rhyming patterns.) I've also read the first chapter of The Quantum Thief, which I absolutely loved! So Amazon UK got it right this time. Am now getting around to answering the first batch of questions for that interview on Eunoia Review, and it's a pretty comprehensive list, including some that I'm not really sure how to answer because they've never really occurred to me in the course of editing the journal. Not sure if I'll be able to get through all of them tonight, but I do want to finish them before I fly back to Singapore, so that the interviewer can go through the answers and formulate her second round of questions.

Episode 1172: Postmodern Pooh In The Post!

Can't quite remember if I've ever read it though, or is it just its predecessor, The Pooh Perplex, that I've read. I did finish reading Feed (might pop by the Writers' Room tomorrow afternoon to return it), and I guess the ending was okay. Personally, I'd have preferred if more questions had been answered by the end, specifically in relation to the state of the world that the story is set in, but I guess since the protagonist is this completely apathetic character, it makes sense not to get all those answers as a reader. Kind of limits the book, which ties in to what I said yesterday about its critiques not being particularly subtle. Am going to start reading Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief now, as Amazon UK has been relentlessly recommending that to me, presumably on the basis of all the other science fiction titles I've been buying. The reviews of it that I've looked at suggest that Rajaniemi's writing shares an interest with the likes of Greg Egan in integrating complex scientific concepts into the story, and I'm a total sucker for Egan's work. Anyway, it randomly occurred to me today that maybe I should jet back to Singapore for my 25th birthday, since that'll happen in the middle of Summer Term when I don't have lessons and all I'm doing everyday is slaving away at my dissertation. If I could redeem a flight, I might head back for, say, three weeks around that time? Might run the idea by my parents when I'm back over Christmas, since it's my dad's miles that I'd be using to redeem any tickets anyway.

Episode 1171: Interview Request For Eunoia Review!

Have been approached by an MFA candidate at Iowa State University about doing an interview on Eunoia Review for the university's resident literary journal, Flyway. As Laura pointed out on Facebook, I've done interviews before for the journal, which you can find at Duotrope's Digest and The Review Review. This is the first time, however, that I'm being approached directly, as opposed to me responding to a general call to editors who would like to request an interview. It's quite exciting that someone cares enough about what I'm doing as to want to interview me about it. Speaking of interviews, I should probably start thinking about how I want to go about mine with the Ceriph editors when I'm back in Singapore, especially if I want to do something face-to-face. Have begun reading M. T. Anderson's Feed, which is a breezy read, partly because the narrator has been made so intentionally vacuous. Anderson's critique of the increasing mediatisation of society isn't exactly subtle, but it doesn't make the point any less valid, I think. Will finish reading that by tomorrow, and aim to have a quick glance through the books that arrived today from Amazon UK, just to be sure that I won't regret accepting recommendations made to me by whatever algorithm Amazon uses to determine these things!

Episode 1170: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Have just been to the last WSC screening of the term, so I've finally made use of my crew status to watch something for free. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is definitely among the crazier shows that I've seen, but I loved it for that. This Finnish film tells the story of what happens when the 'real' Santa Claus is excavated in Korvatunturi, on the Russo-Finnish border, and turns out to be a nasty piece of work instead of a jolly gift-dispensing old man. Onni Tommila, who plays central character Pietari, is an adorable hero, and although the story logic is occasionally clunky, the film's still an enjoyable romp. A couple of trailers for films in next term's schedule were screened before the movie, and I realised that I want to watch every single one of them: Cowboys & Aliens, Contagion, Drive and In Time. On a side note, I completely understand why Ryan Gosling has risen to become Hollywood's newest 'golden boy'. What I don't understand is why people keep trying to make Olivia Wilde happen. (On another side note, how good was this week's episode of How I Met Your Mother? Not many shows could get away with that sort of double bait-and-switch, wrapping it all up in a big-hearted finish.)

Episode 1169: library.nu!

With this week's episode, Once Upon A Time has officially joined Revenge as one of my favourite freshman dramas. Didn't quite get why Emma was so appalled when she found out Sheriff Graham was sleeping with Regina. I get that Emma and the Sheriff have some sort of chemistry, but her reaction was a bit overboard, given what we've seen of them together so far. Also, pretty glad that there wasn't much of Henry in this episode. He doesn't really seem to do much on the show at the moment apart from constantly insisting that Emma needs to help everyone remember their fairytale selves, right? On a more academic note, Emma Mason mentioned library.nu to us during today's seminar, which is a fantastic site where you can find electronic copies of academic texts. I've literally found most of the books that've been sitting unread on my table this term, so now they can occupy the virtual space of my hard drive instead! Seriously though, if you're a current university student, it's well worth checking out, especially for those times when there's only one circulating copy of a book and everyone seems to want it. (Frustratingly, there isn't yet a copy of The Postcolonial Unconscious available, presumably because it's way too new to have been digitised by someone and uploaded.)

Episode 1168: Who Knew Lady Gaga Could Be So...Normal?

Finally ordered copies of Frederick Crews The Pooh Perplex and Postmodern Pooh, which I've already read before (why does the Library even have copies of them?), but they were so funny that I want copies of my own. I've also been re-reading the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, which even at the age of 24, I still find incredibly charming. Randomly, I'm also watching A Very Gaga Thanksgiving, a couple of days late. She's so, well, normal in this TV special for ABC. Ken Tucker at EW.com called it 'disarmingly direct, sincere, and unpretentious', and I have to say, it was actually refreshing to see this side of Lady Gaga. I suppose the fact that the audience she was performing for comprised friends and family also called for her usual brand of insanity to be dialled down more than a couple of notches. I mean, she was still quirky, but for the first time in a long, long while, it was possible to think of Lady Gaga as a human being, as opposed to this overwrought work of art. (Also, the way Lady Gaga was styled in this, didn't you think she looked a bit like Sarah Michelle Gellar's character on Ringer? It's really a bit weird.) I suppose what I enjoyed most was the reworking of songs for live performance like 'Born This Way' and 'Judas', whose studio versions can grate because of all the sonic wizardry being piled on them. Even 'Bad Romance' (still her best song for me) was given a slight spin with an actual drumbeat being thrown into the mix.

Episode 1167: (Briefly) Piercing The Bubble

Christian Bök's Crystallography and Eunoia arrived today, so I went to the Post Room to collect them and ended up being late meeting people in Birmingham. Yeah, I left the Bubble to pay the Christmas Market a visit! It was really crowded today because it was the Family Day promotion, with discounts at the various stalls. I got some marzipan, candied nuts and a chocolate apple, so I'm happy. Would've bought more stuff as Christmas presents for people, except I did that a few years back on the first time I visited the market, so kind of out of ideas where presents are concerned. Guess I'll just buy presents when I'm back in Singapore, since I'm trying to devote as much of my luggage space as possible to carting back books I don't need with me anymore. Incidentally, this week's episode of A Gifted Man was actually pretty good, so it's a shame that show is clearly going to be cancelled. It's had three additional episodes ordered on top of its original 13-episode run, but compared to other CBS shows, its ratings mean the network's probably just looking to have material to air before spring premieres, rather than demonstrating actual faith in the show. Ah well. I guess the show has strayed too far from its initial premise anyway, which was basically Ghost Whisperer-meets-House. Now it's pretty much devolved into only being a standard case-of-the-week medical procedural, i.e. it's House but blander.

Episode 1166: Leamington, I've Missed You

Just got back from the Singapore Society Christmas Dinner in Leamington, so that's the second time I've left campus this term! Although I kind of miss living in Leamington, it still doesn't really bother me that my life has kind of narrowed down this way though. Not sure what reasons would impel me to venture to Coventry or Leamington anyway, at least on any sort of regular basis. The libraries maybe, although I've got a mini-library of my own in my room (which I'm trying to trim by bringing some books back when I fly home for Christmas), and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what the Library on campus has to offer anyway. I've almost finished reading the latest issue of Anon, so those'll all go back with Cake and Popshot Magazine in the suitcase. I'm not really sure if I'll bring anything new over in terms of reading material this time. I guess possibly the three Bloodaxe anthologies, Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human, although now that the Library has copies of all of them, I'm not sure there's much of a point in doing that. Ditto for the absolutely crazy idea of bringing over all my Thomas Hardy novels. Given my track record (and the amount of stuff I actually need as opposed to want to read), whatever I've got on the bookshelves in my room now could easily keep me occupied for the remaining eight months when I get back in January. There's always Amazon UK in the unlikely event that it doesn't!

Episode 1165: One Week Later, Still (Sort Of) Sick

I mentioned a while ago that I would put up links to my two latest reviews, so here and here they are. Also decided to give myself a metaphorical kick in the butt and finish writing that review of Armour instead of procrastinating further, so it's now winging its way to Craig on the electronic superhighway. Had a bit of a milestone for Eunoia Review recently as well, as the site had a record number of views for the month of November. 3075! I think taking things to the next level for the journal would have to involve creating more ways for contributors and readers to interact, maybe branch into getting other people to write original literary articles for the site, start building a community around the whole thing. Sounds fantastic, but I just don't know if I'd actually have the time to manage stuff like that! It also kind of moves away from the journal being the sort of thing you can dip into as and when you like, since it's perpetually putting new stuff up. I guess I just want to figure out how to get more exposure for the writers I publish without having to become too visible as the editor? I think it's partly because I feel like a bit of an upstart, as far as being an editor goes, although my editorial judgements don't seem to have gone too far off the rails, if I might say so, judging by readers' comments on the work being published.