Episode 1326: I'll Be In Unthology No. 3!

So that postal submission I sent to Unthank Books about two weeks ago? It's paid off. 'The Triptych Papers' (aka my EN236 portfolio) is going to be published in Unthology No. 3, 1 November 2012! I'm really excited about this because I enjoy the stuff Unthanks Books has been publishing, so it's a great honour to be included in the new anthology. Now I just need to figure out a way to come back to the UK for a holiday that coincides with the book launch at the Unthank Literary Festival in Norwich. (Either that, or save up enough money so that I can rent a place for a couple of months after my campus room let ends!) On the editing and reviewing side of things, today I managed to clear the submissions I've been sitting on for The Cadaverine and The Conium Review, as well as write that review of Squawk Back that I owe Richard for Sabotage Reviews. By pure coincidence, my delay in writing it means that the review of a milestone issue (#50) is going up in the month when Squawk Back marks one year since publishing its first issue, so I suppose that's a nice bit of dovetailing. Am also almost entirely caught up on my TV shows following the staycation, just have the new Game Of Thrones to go.

Episode 1325: What If Joss Whedon Ruled Tinseltown?

So I know I'm late to this (as I tend to be with movies), but dear America, can we please agree to let Joss Whedon make all your superhero movies in future until he's dead? I saw both The Avengers and The Cabin In The Woods this afternoon, and my conclusion is that Hollywood should just put itself on a silver platter and offer itself up as a sacrifice to Whedon immediately. Watched the former in a theatre with a handful of tweenagers. The girls in the row behind me, who couldn't have been older than 14, were clearly just hoping for Chris Evans to take his shirt off. (He didn't. There was practically no skin flashed in this movie, which considering the combined attractiveness of the cast, was no mean feat in itself.) They also clearly knew next to nothing about the Avengers, which is okay, since I'm not exactly 100% clued in either (always been more of an X-Men guy), but they kept us this running commentary of bewilderment. At one point, after a classic Whedonesque scene, one of them asked, 'What just happened?' Exact same question was asked again later by another one. Just watch the damn show and look everything up on Wikipedia later like the rest of us! Although I love how Whedon basically made a superhero film that simultaneously plays things straight and parodies the genre (right down to how characters behaved and interacted), my favourite moments were pretty much whenever Robert Downey Jr. spoke. I mean, I loved him as Sherlock, but if this is what Iron Man was like in both the movies that preceded The Avengers, I've clearly been missing out.

If the parodic nature of The Avengers could sail right over an audience (and rest assured, it definitely did for many people), no one could possibly have failed to realise what was up with The Cabin In The Woods. (I experienced a brief moment of hilarity when I realised that Chris Hemsworth was in this movie too.) With The Cabin In The Woods, the slasher film basically gets deconstructed, in a way that reminded me of how Community does its genre parodies with a wink and a nod. It's all wrapped up in a wacky cross between Whedon's Dollhouse (hello, Amy Acker!) and the supernatural elements of something like Stephen King's Pet Sematary or Clive Barker's Hellraiser (I hope at least someone else in the audience with me noted the resemblance of the item Hemsworth's character was handling to Lemarchand's box, before the appearance of the Pinhead-like character in the second half of the film). A bit too much is left unexplained by the end, regarding how the whole global outfit came into being, but that was okay, I guess. My point still stands. Hollywood, bow down to Whedon. Now. Between him and Dan Harmon, pop culture could be remade into something more intelligent than the cult of celebrity, I just know it!

Episode 1324: Massive BooksActually Haul

Finally met Shirley this afternoon to exchange an Innocent smoothie for all my stuff from BooksActually. Thanks for getting me an autographed copy of Alfian Sa'at's Malay Sketches for my birthday! Yet another book that I'm looking forward to reading, as Alfian's one of my favourite local writers, and I mean that for poetry, fiction and drama. Have caught up with Eunoia Review submissions, reading and scheduling, so tomorrow, I need to finally take care of that prose submission for The Cadaverine. Looks like all the pieces in it are fairly long, so that'll probably be the only thing I do tomorrow, apart from watching The Avengers and The Cabin In The Woods. Still haven't e-mailed Thumboo, but I'm thinking now that I've e-mailed one of the people who collated poems from the CAP participants, I'm going to see what she can tell me first, so that I can narrow down the scope of my questions for him. Still going to aim to get two reviews done by this weekend, since I've already read the material. Have to anyway, as it's coming up to mid-May soon, and I've got a 1000-word review due in then, of a poet whose work I've never encountered before, prior to accepting the book for review.

Episode 1323: Happy Birthday, Robert Browning!

Had no idea that I share a birthday with Robert Browning. Not exactly one of my favourite poets, but I don't dislike his work either, and I do find his relationship with his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, somewhat inspirational. Also, congratulations to François Hollande on being voted into office by the French people (well, slightly over 51% of those who voted anyway), giving the country its first Socialist president since another François, François Mitterrand, was elected in 1988. I am going to miss Nicolas Sarkozy's really crisp pronunciation though. My French tutor used to recommend that we listen to his presidential speeches as training for listening. No idea if she agreed with his politics though! On another birthday-related note, my order from YesYes Books arrived today, so that Thomas Patrick Levy's I Don't Mind If You're Feeling Alone, Gregory Sherl's Heavy Petting, and Nate Slawson's Panic Attack, USA that'll be keeping me company for the next couple of days, when I'm not writing my reviews. (Of course, I'm going to finish reading Smith Journal first!)

Episode 1322: Stomach Flu Woes...

Finished reading Robopocalypse, which was definitely reminding me of Falling Skies by the end. It was a nice touch, the revelation of Archos's motivations for starting the New War. I'd more or less figured that was going to be the explanation for its actions, but I liked how in Wilson's novel, it didn't feel like technology was being demonised, given the crucial role played by cybernetically enhanced transhumans and sentient humanoid robots in defeating Archos. The structure of the novel also seemed like it would lend itself really well to TV adaptation, although science fiction fare tends to struggle to find an audience these days, at least on the American Big 5 networks. I suppose a film adaptation would work too, but it would have to be handled by someone who can be really smart about genre, like Joss Whedon. (Really want to see The Cabin In The Woods and The Avengers!) Am now returning to Leo Benedictus's The Afterparty because the family's on a staycation at the Swissôtel Merchant Court. Suffering from a bout of stomach flu at the moment, so couldn't really enjoy the lunch buffet earlier today. Also using not feeling well as an excuse to put off writing my outstanding reviews, but I should hopefully be back on the job in a day or two. Going to use this week to catch up, and then I'll spend the rest of the month getting on with essay and dissertation reading. Not sure if I'm going to actually aim to write anything before I get back to the UK. I really should, I suppose, so maybe just a few thousand words to expand on sections of my conference paper? Going to have to look into visiting the National Archives at some point, to try and find documents relating to the creation of the Merlion. Would be nice to be able to cite primary source material like that in the introduction of my dissertation, right?

Episode 1321: Yuppie Living

Met up with some JC friends for lunch and coffee today. The funny story behind that is that Claudia somehow managed to save my mobile number under Vivien's name, so for a day or so after I'd got back to Singapore, Claudia thought she was arranging to meet Vivien for lunch, until I chatted with her online. It's like a subplot straight out of Happy Endings or something! We had coffee at Maison Ikkoku after lunch, which is one of those quirky/stylish coffee places that've been popping up in Singapore lately as an alternative to chains like Starbucks. The place is pretty small, so there isn't much seating, though it actually spans two storeys (the upstairs section sells menswear and turns into a cocktail bar come evening). It's basically quite a yuppie sort of place, I guess. Nothing wrong with that though. Like I was saying to Claudia and Tsz San, maybe we should just own our yuppieness. The whole of Haji Lane is this weird mix of indie and ultra-trendy shops. Don't go there often myself, but I can see the appeal. It's unthreateningly bohemian, that's how I'd describe it. Like an antidote to capitalist machinations, but I suspect a significant percentage of the people flocking to it are in fact pretty well-heeled, considering the prices in one of the menswear shops we stepped into after coffee. (They were selling copies of Math Paper Press's Babette's Feast chapbooks though, so I approve.) Finished reading Jim Butcher's Side Jobs today as well, a companion collection of short stories to his ongoing Dresden Files series of novels. Can't wait for the next novel! There's something compulsively readable about Butcher's prose, especially the way he's managed to give Harry Dresden a really distinctive voice. I've yet to pick up another urban fantasy series, though I've owned Mike Carey's novels for ages now. I'm interested to see how they stack up, so I might just make those my mandatory holiday reading, once I'm done with Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse.

Episode 1320: Dissecting TV

So that was a pretty epic episode of The Vampire Diaries, even by that show's standards. Am interested to see how the storylines pan out in the season finale next week, and what's going to be set up for Season 4. (The Secret Circle wasn't too bad, but I think I've mentioned before that that show has finally started to come into its own. Here's hoping it'll get a renewal!) On a related note, The CW has also announced renewals for Supernatural (no surprise there) and 90210 (not really surprising, I guess). I'm assuming these are full season pickups, although I'm sceptical about another 22 episodes of 90210's storytelling. This week, it definitely showed signs of becoming like Gossip Girl, in that I can't tell if the writers are being self-aware and taking digs at the show's plotting, or they're just incredibly lazy and bad writers. I think with Gossip Girl, it's become clear that the writers are demonstrating self-awareness because while everyone else's storylines are pretty much random and pointless now, Blair's have been consistently interesting, barring the whole royal wedding fiasco. It helps that Leighton Meester seems to be the only cast member still committed to portraying her character and the craziness of a teen-turned-adult soap, as opposed to just phoning it in like Blake Lively seems to have been doing for a season or more now. Also didn't think this week's episode of Community quite justified the death last week, which seemed more like a plot contrivance to set up the storylines that will close the season, but as long as the remaining four episodes are zany, I'll let it slide. Hopefully, the fact that NBC rescheduled the last three episodes to air on the same night means that they're actually connected enough to form a three-part mega season finale. Community has always been good with madcap finales, right?

Episode 1319: Not Too Jetlagged, Surprisingly

Have been reading the new issue of Lucky Peach. So far, it hasn't really grabbed me the way the first two did, partly because it's focused on cooks and chefs, as opposed to particular foods like ramen or desserts, and the subject doesn't quite appeal to me in the same way. I mean, it's still an interesting read, which is practically a given for anything coming out of the McSweeney's publishing empire, just not a consistently hunger-inducing one. Only sporadically. Definitely renewing my subscription though! Have yet to subscribe to the other magazines in the McSweeney's family because I was considering one of the combo subscriptions after I'd picked up all back issues of The Believer, but I've looked and they don't seem to offer those on the site anymore. Guess I'll just have to take out individual subscriptions then. Once I'm done reading Lucky Peach, I'm going to have a look at Smith Journal, the counterpart for men to Australian magazine Frankie. It feels hefty for a magazine, which is perhaps a bit clichédly masculine as a design element, but its matte pages do make for a welcome visual change from the glossies. Haven't got any work done today, obviously, although I did reply to a couple of e-mails, so more like housekeeping stuff than actual work. (So basically, I don't think I'm going to be contacting Thumboo again until after this weekend.)

Episode 1318: ...Temporary Return

It's so weird that download speeds from all the usual file hosting sites are so slow when I'm in Singapore, but Netload, which used to be fantastic wherever I was, but is now excruciatingly slow in the UK, is actually sort of okay in Singapore. I'm sure it's related to where all the various servers are housed, but still, it's ridiculous that apart from MediaFire, nothing seems to work when accessed from Singapore. Unless I buy a premium account, I suppose. Anyway, I'm back in Singapore for a month, and I'm already beginning to wilt under the tropical heat. Also, it turns out that my copy of the first issue of Smith Journal did arrive, and it was just Natalie not checking properly. Not sure what I'm going to do with the replacement copy when it arrives now. Maybe find someone to buy it off me, or give it away as a present? Speaking of spare copies, I do still have a paperback of China Miéville's Embassytown up for grabs, in case anyone's interested! It was the duplicate when my initial order from The Book Depository took ages to arrive, and then right after I inquired about its whereabouts and a replacement was dispatched, the original book turned up in the post. Obviously I wasn't going to send it back at my expense, since the mess was entirely not my fault.

Episode 1317: ...In Transit...

Carry-on wasn't weighed, so score! Entire row to myself, so that I could actually lie down for a nap, also score! Wasn't as impressed by the in-flight movies on this flight though. I started off with Underworld: Awakening, which pretty much looked like it was directed by Michael Bay, except it wasn't. Was slightly confused by why Kate Beckinsale's character could walk in the sun, but I looked it up on Wikipedia and realised she did receive the ability as a gift from Alexander Corvinus in Underworld: Evolution. Way more perplexing was her ability to revive a dead vampire, though I did initially think it was a bold move to kill off Theo James's character, who was obviously meant to be the attractive (supernatural) male lead to Beckinsale's PVC-clad Selene. Ending of the film was clearly angling for a sequel, but really, I think that would be flogging a dead horse. Maybe even flogging the skeleton of that dead horse. A much more satisfying film was L'homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa Vie (The Big Picture), based on the Douglas Kennedy novel and starring Romain Duris. I'll admit I only decided to watch it because I try to watch one French film, so it was either this or La Délicatesse (Delicacy) with Audrey Tautou. I don't quite know how to describe the film other than that it was very 'French'. The last film I saw was Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which was just a harmless romp. Of course, its plot could never stand up to a reality check, but it clearly isn't intended to anyway, so criticising it for that would be churlish, right?