Episode 1336: Making Progress (But Not Enough Of It)

Am just over halfway through Alan Brownjohn's The Saner Places: Selected Poems, and so far, there are some witty poems that I really like, but then there are also quite a few poems that just do nothing for me, although I suspect part of it is cultural, as the book draws from collections over several decades and I've read till around the 1980s so far. Slightly at a loss as to how to structure my review, for now anyway. Not sure I have enough material in mind to reach 1000 words! Hopefully, something will really bowl me over within the next 90-plus pages, as this review's technically already overdue. As are the next two that I'll be writing, come to think of it. Gosh, I've really fallen behind these holidays instead of catching up, haven't I? So much for trying to do lots of work and catch up on some novel reading. Guess that means I'll be lugging all the China Miéville stuff back to the UK? I've always had this tendency to be wildly optimistic about the amount of leisure reading that I'll actually do, either when in Singapore or back at Warwick. Given that I'll never be freer than I am now, as a university student, I think it's safe to say that I may never finish reading all the books that I own.

Episode 1335: Darkest Timeline Alert!

It's official. Dan Harmon won't be returning as showrunner for Season 4 of Community. Still, at least the guys taking over have worked on Happy Endings, which I consider to be the next best hope for American comedy, once Community goes down in a blaze of glory. (On a tangent, how awesome was the Season 2 finale of Nikita? Most underrated show on The CW, and with that finale, seriously vying with The Vampire Diaries for best show on the network. I hope the TV pundits are right and that a Season 3 pickup means Season 4 is practically a guarantee, purely to reach the required episode count for syndication purposes.) On a brighter note, a story I nominated for storySouth's Million Writers Award has been listed as one of the Notable Stories of 2011. The story's Heather Hall's 'Someone Else's Fairy Tale', and I'm really proud that it's been included in the list. Keeps me believing that the work I'm doing as an editor is worthwhile, you know? Also met up with Claudia for a bit of a wander around the National Museum, which then turned into a wander around town that went from Starbucks at The Cathay, to drinks at No. 5 Emerald Hill Cocktail Bar (although we left before 2-for-$16 martinis), to H&M (which I swear never to shop at), and finally, to Kinokuniya (where I picked up the three-volume Vintage International paperback of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, which I hadn't even realised was out). So all in all, a pretty good day, I guess, despite the Harmon thing.

Episode 1334: #sixseasonsandamovie

So with yesterday's trio of episodes that closed its third season, Community demonstrated why it's one of the most innovative comedies airing now. (Nick Chen, if you're reading this, there is absolutely no way that Party Down is funnier.) Of course, they also proved why the show has struggled to find the sort of audience that 'safer' comedy fare like The Big Bang Theory can garner. Yes, I'm calling it a 'safe' comedy. Given the stellar ratings this draws, it should be obvious it's hardly as demanding on its viewers as something like Community, where to some extent, the viewer has to do some work most of the time in order to really get the jokes, many of which work as self-referential, ongoing gags. Besides, it's not like US audiences are great arbiters of quality these days. For proof, just look at all the people watching 'reality' TV and the increasingly ridiculous competition shows. (Not that I'd consider Community to have 'sold out' if its ratings suddenly doubled. Obviously, it would just mean that a whole bunch of Nielsen families had suddenly got pieces of their brain injected back in by Walter Bishop, right?) There are rumblings online that Dan Harmon won't be coming back with Season 4 of Community, which has only been given a 13-episode order and also been shunted to Fridays on the assumption, openly stated by NBC, that its niche audience will follow (probably true, but clearly a shabby excuse for deliberately spiking a show's chances). That would be a shame, and despite the vanquishing of Dark Abed in this season's finale, would truly plunge us into our darkest timeline. One can only hope that should the rumours prove true, whoever takes over for the next (and final?) season will still manage to be as inventive as Harmon. (Oh, who am I kidding? Six seasons and a movie, I still believe!)

Episode 1333: A Reviews Section?

Ah, that awkward state of affairs when you have reviews pending for all your editors and something new comes in to you for review. I'm starting to get more review requests coming directly to me, almost all via Eunoia Review. For some reason, I guess people seem to be under the impression that the journal publishes reviews, although I've never run one before and there's no section for it anywhere on the site. It's beginning to make me think that maybe I might as well start one, but I'm still resisting the idea for now because it isn't exactly what I envisioned with the journal. Not to mention if I was going to be implementing something new on Eunoia Review, I'd rather it be that idea of featuring audio-only work. At least I have friends who are up for handling that side of things, whereas adding a reviews section would just be giving myself more work that I don't need right now. I suppose I could find people to handle it as well, but at the moment, the only people whose judgement I trust enough when it comes to reviews are all tied up in projects of their own too. In any case, unless the volume of unsolicited reviews goes up even further, I should still be able to get by with offering to write the reviews and have them published instead in the places I currently review for anyway.

Episode 1332: Ditto...

Day began with a weird e-mail from someone withdrawing a submission I'd already rejected. Is this why I have so many incomplete reports on Duotrope's Digest? Are these would-be contributors just not getting my replies, be they acceptances or rejections? Felt bad when I did it, but I sent an e-mail back to this lady, explaining that a reply had already been sent to her, within 12 hours of my receiving her submission. (Yeah, that's usually the true turnaround time for a submission to Eunoia Review, believe it or not. It's actually a small source of pride and satisfaction that since the journal gained enough reported responses to be eligible for inclusion, it's never fallen out of the top 25 Swiftest Poetry/Fiction Markets. Hasn't taken a monumental amount of effort, but to be fair, that's partly because I'm not a working adult yet.) Anyway, regarding the potential review I mentioned yesterday, I've managed to get Craig at Rum & Reviews Magazine to ask around if anyone else on the reviewing team would be up for that environmental fiction debut novel, so fingers crossed he'll find someone and I can put the author in touch with him. Much as I want to do the review myself since I was approached personally, I really can't afford to take on another review, especially of a full-length novel!

Episode 1331: Still Procrastinating (But Not For Much Longer)

Went with the MA anthologies, and I'm on the third of the four that I own. Could move on after these to that series of Ox-Tales short story anthologies from Oxfam that I bought more than a year ago (ironically, they weren't new copies but donations to an Oxfam in London), but I really need to clear my reviewing backlog. If I do no other work while I'm back in Singapore (as looks increasingly likely), at least I want to have done that! I counted yesterday, and I have six pending reviews for five editors, albeit some with no fixed deadline. This isn't counting two batches of stuff that I expect to be waiting for me by the time I get back to the UK, which could well double the number of reviews I need to do. I'm thinking once these are all done, I should take a break until my dissertation's finished in September, or at least pass on more reviewing opportunities than not. I've sort of made a start on that by not acquiescing to a request for a review that was sent to me in my capacity as editor of Eunoia Review. In the past, I'd have tried to shop the review to one of my editors, and if anyone expressed interest in running the review, only then would I accept the request. I'm thinking I might still refer the guy to someone, just to help him out.

Episode 1330: What To Read Next (For Procrastination)?

Continuing my streak of finishing up books that I've been meaning to finish since forever (and avoiding doing any real work), I've read Leo Benedictus's The Afterparty. I like it, and I think it lands on the right side of postmodern pretension. Just. It plays with fonts to distinguish between narrators, which isn't as outré as it sounds once you've read Mark Z. Danielewski's House Of Leaves, and it wraps its novel-within-a-novel in a framing narrative composed of e-mails that explains the genesis of the overall work. I think it's an entertaining read, regardless of how you feel about its tricks, and I'm looking forward to Benedictus's next work. The question now is what I should read next. For procrastination, I mean. I've started reading the Warwick MA in Writing anthologies that I have, but I could just as easily start reading The Warwick Review. Or another of China Miéville's novels, though I'm thinking of bringing those back to the UK. Or I could sort of combine work and pleasure by reading Mark Doty's My Alexandria. It probably isn't going to make it into my EN954 essay, since I'd already decided to focus on Thom Gunn and Paul Monette for that, but as a collection of AIDS elegies, it might be tangentially relevant, I guess.

Episode 1329: Characters Welcome

So Common Law has finally premiered on the USA Network. To some extent, it really is another paint-by-numbers, 'blue sky' dramedy, joining programming like Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, White Collar, Covert Affairs, Fairly Legal, Suits, and Necessary Roughness. The cable channel has insanely consistent branding, much like the way The CW still tends to be associated with nothing but teen dramas, despite airing fare like Nikita and Supernatural. So it's easy to like a show like Common Law, since practically all original programming from USA seems genetically engineered to be likeable. On the other hand, it isn't exactly the most innovative of buddy cop dramas, but I guess it's not really trying to be anyway? So to criticise it on that basis, as several TV critics have been doing, seems to miss the point of USA's programming entirely. I mean, it's surely more anodyne fare than lots of network stuff. I personally love the light-hearted silliness of USA's dramedies, which make for perfect summer television viewing. Anyway, I stayed up last night to finish reading SJ Watson's Before I Go To Sleep, which is a decent thriller, even though it takes a while to really get going. Felt somewhat cheated by the ending, which seemed a little too contrived. There's apparently a film adaptation in development, and oddly enough, I somehow think the twist in the ending would work better on the big screen, whereas the novel's prose verges on tedious by the end. It seems that this novel was a huge deal when it came out, but having read it myself, I'm now inclined to consider it overhyped.

Episode 1328: Lots Of Catching Up To Do...

Have spent the week reading books that I didn't have to. Started off with the YesYes Books, so that was Thomas Patrick Levy's I Don't Mind If You're Feeling Alone, Nate Slawson's Panic Attack, USA, and Gregory Sherl's Heavy Petting. Glad I bought them, might look at getting the poetry ebooks next, especially if I'm getting an iPad. Also finished reading Alfian Sa'at's Malay Sketches last night, which didn't disappoint. They're mostly flash fictions, accompanied by illustrations, so they make for quick reads, perfectly suited to people starved for attention spans. Another book just arrived for me to review, so that's gone onto the pile of stuff that I need to catch up on. Top of the to-read pile at the moment is Alan Brownjohn's The Saner Places: Selected Poems, which I've started on but keep putting down because I get distracted. In TV-related news, it's a shame that GCB and The Secret Circle have been cancelled. I felt both shows were finally beginning to hit their stride, but at least ABC has finally announced it's renewing Happy Endings and The CW has granted more seasons for Hart Of Dixie and Nikita! I hope that Phoebe Tonkin gets cast in something else soon though. If The Secret Circle could be said to have a breakout star, she was it, without a doubt. Surprised the show got axed, as I'd thought it was getting a decent percentage of the coveted 18-49 demographic for something airing on The CW, and that's pretty much the metric by which a TV show rises or falls these days. Guess the numbers were just too weak for something getting the best lead-in on the network (i.e. The Vampire Diaries)?

Episode 1327: Community's Been Renewed!

So it's that time of year when the shows that premiered in autumn or winter are airing their finales. Have to say, the finales for The Secret Circle and The Vampire Diaries were pretty epic. It's particularly surprising for the former show, which has really struggled creatively in its freshman season. Surprisingly, online buzz suggests that it might be in danger of cancellation, despite being a sister show to The Vampire Diaries, by far The CW's best-performing show. Still, I like how the show's mythology is finally starting to open up, although at times it's hard to swallow just because of how pedestrian the show's initial episodes were. The finale of The Vampire Diaries, on the other hand, was a complete game-changer! Not sure what it means for the show's storylines going into Season 4, but on a side note, The CW now absolutely has to order Cult to series, just to keep Matt Davis on our screens. Community has also been renewed by NBC, albeit for a shortened 13-episode run. The word is that with a fresh slate of comedy pilots, NBC is picking up its returning comedies for 13-episode runs across the board. Let's hope some of the new comedies crash and burn so badly in comparison to Community that the network executives reconsider and order a full season midway through the 2012/13 TV season!