Episode 1510: Full Circle

In what I suppose amounts to coming as full circle, Singaporean poet Jerrold Yam has asked me to review his upcoming collection from Math Paper Press, without realising that I'm also from Singapore. Our connection is that I'm publishing his poems in Eunoia Review from next Monday to Wednesday, all of which will also be in the new collection. (Do check them out, by the way, they're excellent!) This isn't the first review request to come my way via Eunoia Review (to be exact, it's the third within the past month), and once again, it's making me wonder if it would make sense after all to bring someone else on board to help run a reviews section, independent of the publication side of things. Incidentally, I've also completely caught up with my TV viewing. I would say it feels liberating, but then that would run the risk of mischaracterising things. It wasn't burdensome to get through all those dramas, comedies and dramadies, but it did take a lot of time, the sort of time that people can only afford to spend if they don't have to work. So in future, I'll almost certainly have to start being a lot more selective about what shows I actually follow on a weekly basis.

Episode 1509: Unthology No. 3 Launch!

Am down to just five episodes of television tonight, so I'm basically caught up with my viewing schedule. In completely unrelated news, I also purchased the newest title in the Angry Birds franchise, Angry Birds Star Wars. It's actually pretty cool, if a bit of a shameless marketing move on Rovio's part. Haven't explored enough to comment on any new game mechanics, although I did purchase a bonus pack of levels that features lightsaber-wielding birds, which was fun. Meanwhile, back in the UK, Unthology No. 3 is being launched at the UnLit Festival, which I really, really wish I could be at. I know I keep saying this, but it's absolutely true. So to make me feel better about not being there, everyone reading this should go buy the book! (Amazon UK here, US here.) It's full of brilliant stories, like the others in the series. There's a review of the book up at Sabotage Reviews as well, in which my story was singled out by the reviewer as her personal favourite. Made my day when I read the review, I have to confess.

Episode 1508: What's Up With Gossip Girl?

It continues to baffle me how most of the character relationships on Gossip Girl continue to circle in a holding pattern, given that the show is nearly halfway through its final season. This glacial pace would make more sense if the show had a full 22-episode order, but the writers have only been given 10 to wrap things up. I personally think The CW made a mistake here by overestimating the appeal of timeslot replacement The Carrie Diaries and that the ratings aren't going to be anything to shout about. On the other hand, I really hope Cult will succeed. Looks like it'll probably air on Friday, after Nikita, which means that the bar for ratings success will be lowered. Unless the network axes either Beauty & The Beast or Emily Owens, M.D.? Pros and cons both ways. The former is a procedural that diversifies the network's offerings, but it's also kind boring, especially airing after the whiplash-inducing plot twists of The Vampire Diaries. The latter pairs very, very well with Hart Of Dixie and Mamie Gummer is really likeable, but it's not exactly firing up the ratings for a newbie show and reinforces the image of The CW as only programming for the 18-49 Women demographic.

Episode 1507: Math Paper Press SWF Launch No. 4

Yeah, that title's no mistake. I just didn't make it to the launches on Sunday or Monday. Already picked up all the books though, when I went to the first one. Except Yeng Pway Ngon's Unrest, which I got today, along with a box set of his poems published by The Literary Centre in parallel English and Chinese text. Read the first volume of that (it's a set of five) a while ago, and really like Yeng's poetry, so since there was a single copy of the box set at the Festival Pavilion, I snapped it up. Anyway, I felt quite happy that I could understand what he was saying throughout the night, without translation. Also felt kind of inspired after he'd spoken to start reading more contemporary Chinese literature. Almost certainly not going to happen, if I'm being realistic, but at least it's something to aspire towards. Then I had an interesting chat on the MRT ride home with a Malay history teacher and fellow fan of Alvin Pang's writing. Was explaining how I sought to interpret the Merlion in my dissertation, and it was really nice to be met for a change with comprehension from a fellow Singaporean, rather than scepticism, which has pretty much been the default response when I've mentioned it in the past to people my age.

Episode 1506: When Meta Isn't Always Good

Depending on how far ahead a comedy like Partners is written and filmed, I'd say that this week's episode (which may have been aired out of order) was indicative of the show's going for broke, pun intended, as you'll soon see. CBS comedies aren't exactly famous for being meta, since that's more an NBC thing, although that network generally seems to be embarrassed by that brand of humour (see its treatment of critics' darling Community). This week, however, Partners seemed determined to rub its audience's faces in just how meta it could be, beginning with the episode's tongue-in-cheek title, '2 Broke Guys', an unsubtle reference to 2 Broke Girls, for which Partners is the lead-in. Then the show launched into an extended riff on Brandon Routh's turn as Superman (let's face it, probably still his best-known role). An NBC comedy could have pulled this off (yes, even insufferable The New Normal, I think), but on CBS, the meta moment just came off as forced, even if Routh's character is ironically the most likeable character on Partners.

Later on, the episode also gave us a slow motion-style scene of Routh and Sophia Bush's characters making sexy faces at the camera. Fairly lazy, as far as being meta goes, but hey, if the show had gone this direction right at the beginning of its run, it might've made it stand out in a year of fairly lacklustre TV debuts, if only for a week or two. (Yes, there's Revolution, which is still being hailed as an authentic hit of this TV season, but while I'm betting it's no one-and-done like FlashForward or The Event, I'm also convinced the show is hugely overrated and its ratings will reflect this when it comes back after its winter hiatus.) However, the real problem is that fundamentally, Partners isn't a show that is improved by being meta, the way that something like Community undoubtedly is. Partners is a relationship comedy, except the relationship at its core is a bromance, rather than the romantic endgames of something like How I Met Your Mother. As such, it works best when it's grounding itself in realism, albeit a heightened one where Michael Urie's witticisms are bookended by that staccato percussion line from Imagine Dragons 'On Top Of The World'. (Great song, by the way.)

Episode 1505: 10 Episodes!

Suddenly remembered this morning that I'm meant to do a writing test tomorrow, but I might still call to reschedule if my cold isn't better tomorrow morning. After all, the e-mail did say that if I'm experiencing flu-like symptoms or unwell, I should inform them and they'll reschedule the test accordingly. On the other hand, there's a good chance I could rally by tomorrow, as I've actually felt better all day today than I did last night, and I would like to get the writing test out of the way, since it's already been arranged. Meanwhile, I've temporarily brought the number of outstanding TV episodes down to 10, but it's going to shoot up again tomorrow, of course. On a related note, I watched this week's episode of The Walking Dead, and was very satisfied that there were plot developments that Phil and I had forecasted, right at the beginning of this third season. Like Carl shooting Lori! I read an interview with Sarah Wayne Callies, who played Lori, and it was interesting to see what she had to say about filming her final episode, especially in terms of working with Chandler Riggs, the young actor who plays Carl.

Episode 1504: It's Been A While Since I've Had A Cold

Urgh. Am now definitely sick, which makes it hard to focus on reading anything. Going to skip tomorrow's launch of another two Math Paper Press titles, and probably Wednesday's as well, if I don't recover, but hey, at least watching TV doesn't require me to switch my brain on all that much (not even if I'm trying to be snarky about how ridiculous a show is), so I'll be doing plenty of that between sniffles. I kind of knew where the sore throat was headed anyway. It's pretty standard for me. I get a scratch throat, and a day or two after, it turns into a dripping nose. If I'm lucky, it clears up within a day or two after that. If not, I could be down for up to a week. Anyway, a clutch of solid submissions came in for Eunoia Review, so the publication queue is now pretty much five months long. At this point, what I really want to do is figure out how to continue growing the journal's audience. As I write this, the WordPress site has just reached 88888 all-time views. In monthly terms, viewership has also more or less stabilised/plateaued. I think to take it to the next level would require getting volunteers to come in to handle the social media side of the journal, since a decent proportion of the readership is funnelled to the site via Facebook and Twitter, but I obviously can't be as engaged with that as I'd like. I've also yet to tap into a steady audience from English-speaking countries outside the United States, so there's clearly room for getting more eyeballs on the work being published, which is what matters to me at the end of the day.

Episode 1503: One More For The Unofficial Blacklist

Another mildly infuriating submitter this morning. I think I've rejected 10 stories of his within the past month, and he finally fired back a request for me to point him to the 'best' story I've published in the past year. (Yes, 'best' in inverted commas, which seemed a little sarcastic, if you ask me.) One friend had the brilliant suggestion of just sending back the journal's URL and telling him that this was the best I've published all year and that he should read all of it. I'm not naïve enough to think that there aren't people who submit to me purely for the sake of chalking up another publication credit, with no interest in the rest of the journal's material, but at least don't make your ambition so naked. Plus there's just something about his stories that tend to rub me the wrong way. From his self-inserted copyright symbol (and let's not get into how amateurish that makes him look), I can tell that most of the stories are more than a decade old. They also read as if they've been filtered through the worldview of a businessman, which given the bragging in his attached biographical note, is entirely plausible as a conjecture. Well, he's another one headed for the unofficial blacklist, I'm afraid.

Episode 1502: Math Paper Press SWF Launch No. 1

Went to the launch of Alfian Sa'at's The Invisible Manuscript and Cyril Wong's Straw, Sticks, Brick, both published by Math Paper Press. Also bought all the other books save one that Kenny will be launching during the rest of the SWF, but that was through careless omission rather than choice, so I'll grab it when I pop by for the other launches on Monday and Wednesday. Probably buy other books as well, as a couple of things caught my eye in passing, but I was focusing on getting the Math Paper Press stuff. Also ran into Mohan from my RI choir days at the launch, which was nice because it meant I knew someone there other than Kenny and Alvin Pang. Serendipity, as he put it. Then I had a bit of an annoying e-mail exchange with a submitter on my way home. He'd basically sent me the same story that I'd already declined back in June, except when I pointed this out, his somewhat defensive reply was that he'd never received a rejection, only a message that his submission had no attachment, which was incidentally also what happened this time around. Debated replying to him and setting him straight with forwarded sent e-mails from June, but decided that this would've been unnecessarily petty on my part. Still, chalk one more up for the list of people from whom submissions will be viewed with a particularly sceptical eye, given their past behaviour.

Episode 1501: Now It's 20...

So I'm feeling better today, which somehow translated into me sending off a couple of submissions, something that I haven't done in a while. Also e-mailed Edwin Thumboo my completed dissertation, so it'll be interesting to see what he has to say about it. As for TV, I'm down to 20 episodes, aided by a decision to drop Vegas from my regular viewing schedule. It's been given a full series order by CBS, so it's going to be around for some time yet (although there's also no guarantee it'll make it to a second season), but there just hasn't been enough to grip me in the first three episodes that I've seen so far, especially given how crowded this year has become for me in terms of television. I'm aiming to catch up with all my shows by the weekend, although that might be tricky, given that I'm planning to attend a string of Math Paper Press launches in the coming days and I have a wedding ceremony and dinner to attend on Saturday. Have to devote time to catching up on my reading too, which I keep talking about and failing to actually do!