Episode 1246: The Ides Of March

I'm forcing myself to start and finish the 'abstract' for my dissertation that's part of the progress review. In the process of banging out those 1000 words, I've come to realise that maybe the field of semiotics needs to be explicitly engaged with in my dissertation. In the middle chapter, to be precise. Ideas from semiotics like the Merlion as a floating signifier already seem to underpin the things I've been trying to articulate to myself so far in relation to my dissertation research, so perhaps the way forward is to stop avoiding the heavyweight theory and just go for it. Let's see what my supervisor has to say about that when I meet him on Wednesday. Didn't think I'd actually get any work done tonight, having realised at around 6.30 pm that the WSC was screening The Ides Of March this evening, and obviously I had to go and see it, being a new convert to the awesomeness of Ryan Gosling. I had my reservations at first, since I'm not usually into films about politics, but I ended up enjoying the slow burn of this one, as Gosling's character went from wide-eyed idealism to hard-nosed cynicism. I think the balance might have been skewed too much in favour of the former state, since once things start going downhill for the character, the film seems to arrive at its ending rather quickly. Of course, it wouldn't be a WSC screening without being plagued by some technical error. Maybe I'm just really unlucky, but I'm pretty sure something's gone wrong every time I've been to see a film at the WSC this term.

Episode 1245: Found A Book I've Been Looking For For Ages!

Spent about an hour clearing the submissions I was forwarded this week to read for The Conium Review. Will start on the ones for Epicentre Magazine tomorrow! Just noticed that Paul Glennon's first book, How Did You Sleep?, is back in stock on Amazon UK, by which I mean there's just one copy remaining, which I've promptly snapped up. I must confess that over a year after I bought it, I've yet to finish reading his second book, The Dodecahedron: Or A Frame For Frames, but I like the concept of it very much, and on that basis, I've been trying to get hold of a copy of How Did You Sleep? that didn't cost too much, to see what Glennon's other work is like. As for what I've actually managed to read, for the past couple of days, I've been getting acquainted with Mathias Malzieu's The Boy With The Cuckoo-Clock Heart and it's lovely. It's been described as a whimsical fairytale for adults, and that's fairly accurate. Perhaps most interestingly, Malzieu is also the lead singer of French rock band Dionysos, and the band's made a concept album to accompany the book, which is also being made into an animated film. Malzieu's published a few other books, and I'm hoping that the others will eventually be translated into English. Although I suppose I could try reading them in French?

Episode 1244: Ears Ringing, But Pretty Worth It

So Kasbah last night was fun! My ears have almost stopped ringing. Got back at just past 4.30 am, which may have been the latest I've ever been out. We even found a pub that opens till 4.30 am, The Oak Inn, which was where we went after leaving Kasbah. Nothing to shout about, other than its late closing time, although the burger van guy right outside the pub was pretty cool. So on the whole, this was certainly among the more awesome 16 hours or so that I've spent at university. Definitely made the right choice to reschedule my haircut yesterday! Am now slowly catching up on the TV I've missed. Probably going to take until tomorrow, since I slept till nearly 3 pm today. Did manage to make it to the Post Room, where I was again disappointed not to be collecting a copy of the American paperback of China Miéville's Embassytown. I've sent an e-mail to The Book Depository and fully expect to be fobbed off with some excuse. Now that they've been acquired by Amazon though, I'm banking on some of the customer service from their new parent company filtering down. I'm getting my book, whatever it takes! (To add insult to injury, the UK paperback is currently retailing on Amazon UK for £2.99!) Also realised that I have the wrong edition of Cavafy's poems for next week's EN954 seminar, so I've placed an order on Amazon UK for the right one. Had to create a new account using my Warwick e-mail to get an Amazon Prime trial for the free one-day shipping, or the book wouldn't have arrived in time for me to read it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to return the book once the seminar is over, but in my defence, I do plan to get the paperback edition when it comes out in May!

Episode 1243: Chicken Rice Brawl

As promised, here's my review of Noughties for The Cadaverine. I had an epic afternoon in the Dirty Duck with a bunch of my coursemates. Went there straight from our seminar and stayed in the pub for six hours. So much literary banter and in-jokes traded during that time, it was great. I think the consensus by the time we left was why we hadn't done drinks sooner than the middle of Spring Term. We ended up leaving the pub at around 6 pm, having already agreed to reconvene later at night for Kasbah, which was perfect since I killed those couple of hours watching Chicken Rice Brawl. I'm now in my room, waiting for the 12 everyone else is on to arrive on campus. The SingSoc production was okay, I guess. One of the male leads had this weird tendency to deliver all his lines on a rising intonation, so they sounded like either questions or exclamations. Made it a bit hard to buy the crucial plot point concerning how he was supposed to make a great Romeo for the play-within-a-play. In fact, I suppose that was the main problem for me, line delivery from most of the cast generally being too one-note. There's injecting Singaporean flavour, and then there's sinking into caricature. I guess our production from two years ago has yet to be topped. Haha!

Episode 1242: What To Review Next?

This has got to be my favourite passage from the Hannah Arendt reading I'm doing right now for tomorrow's seminar. It's from Chapter 11 of The Human Condition: 'The point then is not that there is a lack of public admiration for poetry and philosophy in the modern world, but that such admiration does not constitute a space in which things are saved from destruction by time. The futility of public admiration, which daily is consumed in ever greater quantities, on the contrary, is such that monetary reward, one of the most futile things there is, can become more "objective" and more real.' Think I'll just let that quote stand without further comment. I did manage to finish the review of Noughties before my seminar today, although I cut it pretty close. It should be up in a day or so, and I'll post a link then. (The line about the book being a cross between The Secret History and Dazed & Aroused did make it in.) Now that this one's in, I've got a choice of what to work on next. It's either going to be a review of this really short e-book for Sabotage Reviews that I need to send in by the end of the month, or one of the things I said I'd review for The Conium Review, most likely Jason Erik Lundberg's Red Dot Irreal.

Episode 1241: Stupid Fire Alarm!

So I've just about finished reading Ben Masters's Noughties, which I've ultimately decided I really like, and which I still maintain is sort of the literary equivalent of crossing Donna Tartt's The Secret History with Gavin James Bower's Dazed & Aroused. Won't write the review tonight, even though that's what I'd originally planned to do, but I figure I can dash off a solid one tomorrow before my seminar. Really, I blame the fire alarm caused by the Flat 76 kitchen this morning for throwing my whole day off. Didn't make it all the way to the fire assembly point because en route, one of my flatmates and I decided to just duck into the entrance of a Heronbank West Court block and stay there until the alarm stopped. Ended up falling back into bed for another two hours, although really, I suppose I could have stayed awake and got more done. It's just that I was really looking forward to having a proper lie-in on a Wednesday and I would not be denied. Apparently, there was a fire alarm on Monday too, but I wasn't in my room to be caught by it. Bet you anything it was another false alarm caused by someone's stupidity and/or laziness!

Episode 1240: And One More...

Woke up to find an invitation in my inbox to be a Guest Editor for the next issue of The Conium Review, which I happily accepted. Since I'll only be reading submissions until June, the additional workload is temporary. It's also the first time that I'll be working on a print publication (excluding that issue of tapfactory when I was an undergraduate), so that's exciting in its own way. Between this and Epicentre Magazine, 2012 is off to a good start where my non-academic life is concerned. Got to use the rest of the term to rebalance the academic side of things though, especially in terms of doing my dissertation research. I feel like once the Easter holidays, I'll definitely get back on top of things, but I'd like to start writing something before the end of this term, just to show my supervisor. That's what I put down in my work timeline anyway. Right now though, what I really need to do is finish reading Noughties, so that I can write my review by the end of tomorrow. Don't have to go to church tomorrow to do administrative stuff for Kidz Klub because it's half-term in the schools, so I'll either have a few extra hours to lie in bed or a few extra hours to finish reading/start writing the review. Sneak preview: I actually really like the book. It kind of reminds me of Gavin James Bower's first novel, Dazed & Aroused, except the people being skewered aren't models but students of English literature. I should totally make that point in my review actually.

Episode 1239: Drive, An Art House Action Movie

I've joined Epicentre Magazine as Assistant Poetry Editor, and I replied to my first submission today. Within minutes of sending the reply, I became sucked into a back-and-forth exchange with a writer who was very persistent, to put it diplomatically. That and somehow her e-mails always sounded like they'd been generated by a chatbot, which was a very odd feeling to have. Funniest moment of the day, however, was when my mum sent me a Facebook message, asking if I was seriously running a marathon. No, I'm not. I'm just 'attending' my friend's Facebook fundraising event. Incidentally, Drive last night was excellent! It was basically an art house action movie, with sporadic but highly aestheticised violence. That scene in the lift where the Driver (Ryan Gosling) passionately kisses Irene (Carey Mulligan) before stamping a flunky's brains out was phenomenal. The minimal use of dialogue and careful soundtrack choices were also highly appreciated by yours truly, and I think after last night, it's safe to say that in the future, I will basically watch whatever film Gosling acts in or that Nicolas Winding Refn directs. So it's quite exciting that they're collaborating on not one, but two films. Only God Forgives is currently being shot in Bangkok, and they're also doing a remake of Logan's Run together.

Episode 1238: Done And Dusted...

Having stayed up last night till I finished the story, my day got off to a late start. By the time I decided to go to the Library to work on my commentary, partly to avoid being distracted by all the TV shows on my hard drive, partly to get some food, it was mid-afternoon. Ended up running into a couple of coursemates in the Library coffee bar, also working on essays due tomorrow. Forcing myself to work in the Library paid off on this occasion though. Took me slightly over four hours, but I got the commentary done, everything printed off and handed in. The commentary does get quite slapdash towards the end, as it's just me slinging a lot of quotes about that admittedly are relevant, although I may have overstated the case for the significance of my story in relation to those quotes. Ah well. The commentary carries less weightage than the portfolio anyway, so I guess things can't go that badly! Am now rewarding myself by catching Drive at the WSC, so that's three nights in a row that I'm seeing something there. All for free too! After four years as a member, I'm finally making use of my Crew status.

Episode 1237: Story's Almost Done!

I've almost reached the minimum word count for the portfolio, which is technically 7200, thanks to the +/- 10% rule the department operates with. I'm going to try and get as close as possible to 8000, just because I don't want to shortchange my storytelling any more than I already am by doing it just over 36 hours before everything's due. I'm not even sure if the narrative voice I'm using would be considered appropriate for a YA story, but I'm past caring at this point. I don't think it's really my fault for not being able to imagine what words a 15-year-old can be expected to know and understand. Damn it, they should be expected to look it up in a dictionary! That's what I would have done at that age. My vocabulary was precocious, even if I wasn't necessarily so. (Controversial!) If I'm being honest, I'm also tired of feeling like I have to age the storytelling downwards all the time, despite Microsoft Word still informing that readers even younger than what I'm targeting will actually have no trouble understanding the story I've written, and you'd expect an American piece of software like Word to err on the side of stupidity. I don't know if I want to spin this story out into the novel that I originally had in mind though. I find writing long fiction exhausting, and on a personal level, not particularly rewarding when compared to poetry. My not-so-secret ambition is to write a science fiction novel, but I would happily trade that accomplishment for having a volume of my poetry published by a respectable press. It's a good thing, I suppose, that I don't have to make a living off my writing, at least until I'm in my earlier 30s because that's when my bond ends and life-changing decisions will have to be made. Or won't be, as the case may be. I'd be terrible at it. Making a living off my writing, I mean. Life-changing decisions I can generally cope with.