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Oh, Centre, dear.

March 13, 2009 /

My alma mater is starfucking harder than ever before for its 2009 commencement speakers. At least when we randomly gave out a DHL to James Earl Jones in 2003, it was to a man who overcame a distinct handicap to become a respected actor. But Jerry Bruckheimer? Really?

I guess this is seen as a way to simultaneously give the students a treat and maybe earn a little donation kickback, in exchange for a piece of paper that nobody seriously believes is worth anything. If it were just Linda Bruckheimer, who actually has philanthropic ties to Kentucky, I’d be fine with it. But when you give someone a degree, even a worthless one, you’re endorsing their career and setting it as an example for students to follow. Spend your lives making hundreds of millions of dollars from empty spectacle without even providing any of the creative energy, kids! Bring the circus; let somebody else worry about the bread.

In which I pick on a universally-beloved mute cancer survivor

March 8, 2009 /

This essay presents me with problems, because I agree with its hypothesis, but not its premises or its conclusion, so, er.

I’ve said before that snarky writing is weak writing, after which a conversation with Holly led me to reduce my stance to “snarky writing is comorbid with weak writing.” Ebert and I concur on this. He goes on to state that blogs devoted to pure snark are dumb, and that gasping about the “gayest Oscars ever” because Hugh Jackman sat in Frank Langella’s lap is equally dumb; this is also true.

Then he defends Joaquin Phoenix’s current performance art spectacle as an “accomplishment,” and as “committing himself as an actor.” Sorry, Roger, but acting isn’t art in and of itself, and acting like a bewildered person with nothing to say, without letting other people in on the joke, is no achievement at all. (I have similar problems with Andy Kaufman, but at least he brought a Duchamp-like duplicity to the exercise.)

More essential to his argument is his assertion that the snarkers should leave! Oscar! Alone! Sorry again, but a critic of all people should understand that you don’t get to just declare that it’s not for you. Joaquin Phoenix and the self-righteous pomp of the Oscars deserve no better than snark, because they’re functioning on the same level. Scrape away the ornamentation, and there’s nothing worthwhile underneath.

But that doesn’t mean that snarkery is a noble satirical endeavor. Sumana (via John Hodgman) provides a better argument than Ebert: snark is just “meh” without the benefit of brevity.

On Reading

March 6, 2009 /

I’m reading my first Stephen King book, On Writing. I’m paying perhaps more attention than usual to its prose style as I go, since I am trying to concurrently parse his advice and decide whether he is a writer from whom advice is to be solicited. So far its defining quality is that it’s straightforward: there’s none of the sidelong poetry you get from Atwood and Wolfe or the little inline games you get from Adams and Pratchett. He just writes what he writes, albeit (in blessed concordance with Orwell) free of tired figures of speech.

I determined all this last night in bed. I had intended to knock out a chapter or two, until my eyes got sleepy; when I finally closed the book, I noticed that I had read a hundred pages.

I’m starting to get it, Stephen King fans.

Oh, I didn’t see you there

February 23, 2009 /

I’ve just now noticed that for some reason this story got an enormous, Penny Arcade-level traffic spike through Stumbleupon two weeks ago. (As with the PA bump, visitorship quickly returned to normal.) Was it on the front page or something? Nobody tells me these things!

Nebuchadnezzar

February 12, 2009 /

I still haven’t posted about this, have I?

I was supposed to be in this picture. Last September, I got my acceptance letter to Clarion South 2009, which I’d resolved to attend way back when I was still in London. I leapt about with glee, of course, and then set out saving enough money to defray the cost.

I failed, and in December I withdrew my application.

So there’s that story! Maybe in 2010 I’ll be in a position to reapply; maybe not. I am quite sure that whoever got my spot made good use of it, and I hope the short fiction economy survives long enough for me to read the results.

January 18, 2009 /

Got an interesting virus email today, this one claiming to be an invoice from United Airlines for a ticket purchased online. No bad links or anything, and the login it gave was one of my actual addresses; it was only when I saw that the “invoice attachment” was a zip file that I caught on.

Never, ever open zip files that you get in an email. People know that by now, right? It’s 2009.

(And never eat yellow snow. That’s a goodie from 1942. –Kara)