Episode 1286: Well, Two Out Of A Projected Four Isn't So Bad, Right?

I honestly meant to write another review tonight (it'd have been the third this week), but it just didn't happen and I think my sleep cycle has been out of whack for long enough, so I'm not going to try and stay up to make it happen. I have re-read the chapbook (Ben Stainton's The Backlists), so I'm going to try and make it to the Library tomorrow afternoon before church. I'm not a huge fan of working in the Library, but I find that when I really need to force myself to get something done, being surrounded by people who would definitely judge me for being Facebook (as they surreptitiously log onto their own Facebook profiles, of course) seems to do the trick. I think it's mostly because in the Library, I don't have access to three external HDDs full of TV shows of varying degrees of awesomeness, so there isn't really anything intrinsic about the Library that makes it particularly conducive as a working environment for me. Still, much as I hate to admit it, perhaps I should start spending more time there and getting work done. The coffee bar in there has closed for the holidays though, so it doesn't seem worth the effort. I mean, the only reason I do work in the Library is to randomly grab a flavoured latte or a bottle of vitaminwater (or both) at some point.

Anyway, for the past week or so, I've been reading Wena Poon's two short story collections, Lions In Winter and The Proper Care Of Foxes, and they're really incredible. My favourite line from the first (which happens to be available in the UK from Salt) is when a character in 'The Shooting Ranch' remembers her father's words, 'No one can hate a Singaporean as much as another Singaporean.' I suppose the sentiment isn't necessarily specific to Singapore, but it just resonated with me because sometimes I'm definitely guilty of feeling that way. On a related note, there's a poignant exchange in 'Vanilla Five' from the second collection when the protagonist ask, 'Why do you speak with a London accent sometimes?' and gets this reply (context being that this other character was abandoned by English parents and raised by a Japanese man): 'Same reason why I sound Japanese sometimes. [...] I know I'm not American. I'm trying to find the right voice for this face. I'm still trying.' I think for the first time, I might have found an acceptable explanation (to myself, if not necessarily others) for my mutable accent.

Episode 1285: A Spot Of TV Love

So basically, although I watch heaps of TV, there are presently only two shows that I'm fairly obsessive about, and they're Community and The Vampire Diaries. There are lots of other shows I love, so many that to list them would be quite meaningless, but these are the two that I wouldn't mind rewatching a couple of times. So it's nice that this week, they've both aired pretty incredible episodes (and that the ratings for Community have remained stable). I've been having a look at Price Peterson's photo recaps of The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle again, and they're hilarious because here's a guy who clearly is a fan but also recognises how ridiculous the storytelling frequently gets on both shows. Case in point? This week, the writers found a way to make it such that when an Original vampire dies, so do all the offspring of that vampiric bloodline. How convenient, right? I hope this just means that Claire Holt can be upgraded to the main cast for the inevitable Season 4, as she's pretty incredible. She's already lasted longer than most other guest/recurring characters that have been introduced over the show's three seasons, and since Matt Davis has to leave at some point to join the Cult pilot (which sounds like it'll be awesome enough to get picked up for a series), that leaves an opening in the cast for her to fill, right? Meanwhile, Community offered up the first of a two-parter, and blanket forts are so Season 2. It's all about the pillow fort now, clearly. Still not sure where John Goodman's arc as Greendale's Vice Dean is going, but this was a promising step. I secretly want it to somehow link up with the reappearance of Evil Abed from the darkest timeline of 'Remedial Chaos Theory'.

Episode 1284: That's Some Strong Coffee...

Woke up to an e-mail letting me know that I've won a copy of Phil Jourdan's Praise Of Motherhood via a Goodread's giveaway, and Scott's agreed that it would be a good book to review for The Cadaverine, so everything's hunky-dory on that front. Anyway, I always knew that 3-in-1 coffee we bought in Penang was pretty strong, but man, I am so hopped up on caffeine right now that the only thing I can do is play Words With Friends on my iPhone. It's a bit frustrating because I was planning to write the review of William Winfield Wright's Cosmonauts tonight, but hey, who knows? Maybe when the caffeine wears off a little, I'll be able to sit still long enough to finish it. I've already got half of the opening paragraph down, which is always the hardest bit for me, and I like the chapbook, so things should hum along nicely once I get going. If all else fails, I'll just force myself to write two reviews tomorrow! The rest of the day hasn't been very productive, despite there being far less TV than usual to watch, i.e. just three half-hour comedy episodes. One of these was the new episode of Happy Endings, and with this episode, I think that show has finally proven itself equal to Community, at least in my book, so I really hope it gets a third season.

Episode 1283: How To Procrastinate (By Writing Something Else That Needs Writing)

Was in the Library today and I noticed there was a new book of critical essays on Kazuo Ishiguro, which I borrowed out of curiosity. I'm a huge Ishiguro fan, and I don't think he gets enough critical attention. If I did a PhD and could bring myself to write about novels instead of poetry, Ishiguro would be one of my top picks. Anyway, two days ago I was up trying to sort out the first paragraph of my review of Hope: A Tragedy. As usual, one paragraph led to another and I ended up staying up till I finished the review, which you can read here. That's one down of the four I plan to write this week, although I might scale that back to three. Then it's going to be one per week, two at most, for the rest of the holidays, as I need to start working on that conference paper. I figure if I start on that next week, it gives me an entire week in which I can listlessly type and retype my introduction, while I figure out how the paper needs to look. Then I'll have a fortnight to actually get it written. If that works, it also means that I could work at that pace on the other chapters of my dissertation, which is quite reassuring. Unless when my supervisor sees the draft of the conference paper, he declares it to be awful, in which case, well, back to the drawing board on how to go about assembling 16000 words. I feel like I'm being too cavalier about the whole matter, a dissertation being one of those 'serious things' and all, but at the same time, I don't want to turn into one of those students for whom academic work becomes the be all and end all of their existence. I want to do well, obviously. I just don't buy the typical Asian mentality that your work has to become an all-consuming object.

Episode 1282: Pleasantly Surprised...

Went to Leamington for an open mic night, but it wasn't that fantastic, so we relocated to a different pub along the Parade. Got a lift back to campus from David, which was great because I'd actually expected to have to get a cab back from Leamington. We chatted a bit about Eunoia Review, and I was saying that the volume of submissions has by no means been constant. Of course, that totally jinxed me and I switched my laptop on to find five submissions waiting in my inbox. I've dealt with all of them now, in my usual timely fashion. On a side note, I want to say that I'm really humbled by the reach this one-man operation is beginning to have. I'm not one of those editors who's swayed by whether a submitter has been published previously or how established they are as a writer, but I do look contributors up after I've issued an acceptance, either to follow them on Twitter (if they have an account) or just out of curiosity to see what else they've done. So imagine my surprise when I found out that the latest poet whose work I've accepted has done a book of translations that was published by Carcanet in 2006. It was like that moment a while back when I accepted poems from someone who turned out to be the head of department at an American university. I really, really want to know how these people are coming across what barely even qualifies as a shoestring operation, run entirely in my spare time (although I probably already spend too much time on it), considering that apart from following contributors on Google+ and Twitter, and pushing posts on the site to all my social media accounts, I don't really do that much to promote the journal, beyond getting it listed on a couple of sites that index literary journals. I was also pleased to see a comment from Carrie Etter on the latest poem published on Eunoia Review! I've met Carrie once at a reading in the Writers' Room, but I'd completely forgotten she was from Normal, IL, and it's amazing that she's a regular visitor to the coffeehouse that's the subject of the poem. Talk about synchronicity. I don't even know how she would have come across the journal, to be honest.

Episode 1281: New Music Roundup

Have been listening to new singles on YouTube because the first paragraph of this review isn't going so well. (Stayed up to finish reading Hope: A Tragedy, which I think is brilliantly controlled. Just when I thought the plot's Beckettian absurdity was starting to get frustrating, Auslander pulled the literary equivalent of a bait-and-switch.) I've listened to a bit of Justin Bieber's 'Boyfriend', out of curiosity to know what his post-puberty musical direction is going to be. Turns out it's basically a laughably derivative attempt at sounding like he's grown up, although it will undoubtedly further confirm his position as a bona fide pop star. I also had a listen to Kris Allen's new single, 'The Vision Of Love'. I know it's potentially controversial to say that I genuinely prefer Kris Allen to Adam Lambert, but I have to say, I really like the new single. I also loved the new single by Bright Light Bright Light, 'Waiting For The Feeling'. It's perfectly poised between pop and dance, which is where a lot of my favourite music resides, I think. Anyway, I think my head's sorted itself out regarding the first paragraph, so I'm going to try and get that down on the page before I go to bed!

Episode 1280: Reviews, Reviews, Reviews...

So it looks as if my one-week break from doing academic work is about to extend into two weeks instead! The plan is currently to write four reviews by the end of this week, which is entirely possible, given that I've already read most of what I need to review. Notwithstanding this, I've already agreed to do another four reviews, although hopefully I'll be able to space those out better. I mean, at some point, I do have to write the conference paper, even if no other bit of my dissertation gets done over this vacation. By the way, speaking of reviews, check out my latest, which I've been told is a milestone of sorts for Sabotage Reviews, being the site's 200th post! Pretty exciting. I also finally started watching Press PausePlay, which is this film Alex told me about a while ago, which seeks to answer the question of whether 'democratized culture mean[s] better art or is true talent instead drowned out'. (Haven't seen the whole film, but I'm guessing the conclusion will be that the jury's still out on this one.) Discovered Icelandic neoclassical artiste Ólafur Arnalds through that, so I've got pretty much all his music now.

Episode 1279: The Woman In Black (Film Version)

Having seen two productions of the play and now the 2012 film, I feel almost obliged to read Susan Hill's original novel, for the sake of completeness. While I respect that the film is its own creature, I'm still going to say that I don't think it's as good as the play. The problem is actually really straightforward; the film doesn't trust its audience to become scared. So where the play (and I imagine the novel too) relies predominantly on the verbal to ramp up the tension, thereby making the moments when we actually see the titular woman all the more terrifying, the film persistently teases the audience with fleeting glimpses of her, and when it's actually time to show her in close-up, the soundtrack really rams the moment in your face. You feel the jolt of adrenaline, but you also realise how completely ridiculous the 'scare' is, as evidenced by the laughter and tittering in the cinema tonight. It reminds me of when I went to see The Eye 2 in the cinema back in Singapore, and everyone laughed whenever something supposedly scary happened precisely because they were able to predict its occurrence. (With one exception, and that moment in the film was likely the only one that succeeded in shocking people.) In a post-Exorcist mediascape, where the rise of body horror and torture porn as film genres has inured and desensitised us as viewers, such tactics like using loud noises just won't work, at least not without generating that audience self-awareness that leads to amusement rather than fright. Didn't really like the way the story had been changed for the film too, especially the frustratingly 'Hollywood' ending. I also found it slightly difficult to buy Daniel Radcliffe as a father, permanent five o'clock shadow notwithstanding. The kid who plays his son was exceedingly adorable though, I'll concede that. Turns out he's actually Radcliffe's real-life godson.

Episode 1278: Why We Love The Sitcom

‎'Films, perhaps, show us who we want to be, and literature shows us who we actually are. Sitcoms, if they show us anything, show us people we might like to know. Because of this, the sitcom is a medium designed to reassure. The more reassuring the sitcom, the better its chances become at winding up in the financial promised land of syndication, where multi-camera sitcoms fare far better than their single-camera brethren. Most sitcoms are about families, and for the millions who watch them, a sitcom becomes a kind of mental family. Week after week, your couch faces the couch of characters you feel you know, characters whose problems can never quite get solved.' That's a paragraph from an essay by Tom Bissell called 'A Simple Medium: Chuck Lorre and the American Sitcom', which is this week's Small Chair offering from McSweeney's. While I'm not a fan of any of Lorre's sitcoms (The Big Bang Theory has been on for too long for me to get into it, for now), and he apparently frowns upon the manic antics of more recent comedic incarnations like Community, Happy Endings and Suburgatory that I love, the point Bissell makes about the nature of sitcoms seems valid to me. On a related note, slightly gutted that the ratings for the second post-hiatus episode of Community have slumped. To above pre-hiatus levels, admittedly, but still not a good sign.

Episode 1277: So I'm Kind Of Over Thought Catalog...

Two reviews in as many days. I am a machine! Here's the link to the one I wrote yesterday, about the book version of I Wrote This For You. In other news, I'm so over The Sims Social (about damn time!) and curiously enough, Thought Catalog. The former's stopped being fun for me and has just morphed into a huge waste of time, whereas the latter simply isn't as intelligent as I think it's supposed to be pretending to be. It's a massive love-hate relationship because the articles are all so bite-sized and clearly targeted at the demographic (I like to think) I'm part of, i.e. 'young readers with money to spend and time to burn', as this Forbes article calls us. What's surprising is how quickly I've gone from being a fan to being vaguely irritated by Thought Catalog. I swear it hasn't been more than a month since I first became aware of it! As I explained to Bella, Thought Catalog actually reads to me like a watered down version of some of the columns you can find on McSweeney's Internet Tendency. It's a bit like junk food, addictive but with not much actual substance. Anyway, since this has been a pretty link-heavy entry, I'm just going to end off with one more, which begins in a way that I think summarises my (unarticulated) sentiments towards my undergraduate years: ‎'When I was an undergraduate at Oligarch University [i.e. Yale] I, and I suspect many of my peers, had three desires that were utterly in conflict: to be invisible, to be free and to be special.' (Yes, I'm embarrassed that it's true.)