Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Unified Field Theory

Ask me why I write and I treat the question like a riddle. And riddles make me suspicious and defensive

I've yet to find my own satisfactory answer to the "why do you write" question. Christopher Hitchens got close with his Descartian "being a writer's what I am rather than what I do." Hitchens at that time was facing not just his own morality but the ability to to the thing he loves even before his body succumbed. I don't have either problem, so I don't view it so starkly. Orwell also provided a decent answer, but no one asking the question wants an essay-length response. And I don't want to give one. And he did it better than I could, anyway. 

This is all to say that the follow up to my first aois21's Creative Speaking video (viewable here) sees me squirm a bit before getting comfortable enough to offer a take on my favorite definition of writing: playing with the scribbles on the page. I'm happiest when parsing ideas and thoughts and phrasings to within an inch of their lives. Some people follow those passions all the way to law school. Luckily, I've had some excellent guidance in my life and avoided that trap. I use my powers for good, dammit.

And, growing up, as I read more and more--Orwell, Lewis, Moore, others who did well for themselves playing with scribbles--I decided that that was what I wanted to do with my life. As though a particularly ambitious sea slug watched Michael Jordan play basketball and said, "hey that looks like fun." Some people want there to be a grand and deep-sounding philosophical approach to the why of writing. Or at least I want that. It would be comforting to me. But the truth is that I write because I can and because it's fun and because it's consistently occasionally rewarding. Like drinking. And that, dear readers, is the origin of the name of this blog. 

These videos will continue to trickle out over the next year/few months. I'll let you know when they debut.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Heavy Seas Winter Storm

In a city that's also home to the likes of Brewer's Art and Union Craft, Heavy Seas could all too easily come off as the shallow yet popular kid among the more substantial Baltimore breweries. But as luck would have it, that title still belongs to Natty Boh,* allowing Heavy Seas to persist as the flashier brewery in town. Sadly, that flash obscures some decent brewing tradition. For all their overwrought pirate-imagery, much of Heavy Seas' output (their Rye Porter, their Small Craft Warning pils) is built for light palate-refreshers or, more likely, some early evening sessioning. Among the never-too-complex but perfectly-pleasant lineup, Winter Storm fits right in.

Winter Storm pours dark brown, a few shades shy of black, with a dense head (yes, ha ha, dense head).

It smells nutty, and a bit malty. Despite being labeled as an Imperial ESB, this one is introducing itself as a nut brown. Not that I'll ever complain about a brown ale.

Some surprisingly sweet malt is up first, followed by caramel, and then malt again. The taste is not so heavy on the alcohol.

Winter Storm rests medium-heavy. Somewhere between a fall and winter beer, making it about right for the weird November we're having.

My feelings on Christmas ales are pretty well-documented. The entire style could afford to turn the clock back a few weeks and take some notes from this ESB (maybe with a few more notes from the better porters, while being less... nutmegy). Malty with some satisfying heft, Winter Storm comes off like a sleepy pirate, wishing everybody happy holidays a few days too early. Fortunately, the beer is good enough that you don't really mind the seasonal creep.

Grade: B+

*Note to my fellow Marylanders: National Bohemian is now brewed in North Carolina and Georgia. So we can stop pretending that it possesses some kind of noble, local allure and accept that it is instead just a bland "eh, I'm already drunk" beer.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

The Gaping Maw of Hubris Incarnate


The baseball gods are, as we know, cruel. And petty. And though their brains are composed largely of syphilis clusters, they are not like to forget slights. Anything from banishing a goat from a stadium, to taking a simple bribe, to trading away the greatest player of his generation. It's always a seemingly simple affair, but one tug on that string can render future decades of toil futile. None of this is new information.

Why, then, did the hubristic souls who run the Washington Nationals' fourth inning Presidents Race decide, on the cusp of their first ever division title, to overturn years of carefully planned sideshows when everything had been going perfectly well? That's when the gods strike you down: when you think yourself as a shaper of the baseball narrative rather than a passive spectator. And then, with the evidence whipped out for all to see, dangling in their faces, they continued the farce for a further two years. And just recently, with a second division title under their belt, with Teddy having topped the leaderboard for the first time, they chose to have him win during the first game of the NLDS (Nats lost), and then not once but twice during the eighteen-inning marathon that was Game 2 (Nats lost... again). And something tells me if they hadn't been finished off in San Francisco, the organizers would have displayed a similarly suicidal lack of pattern recognition upon their return home.

Maybe it's not entirely fair to blame the PT Barnums of the world for giving the mob what they want. It was the fans, after all, who fast lined up behind Teddy, the underdog with the infectious smile. It was a natural fit: a franchise trying to forge an identity in a new city, with a new(ish) name, struggling to win--just as they had been in Montreal. People like saying that they like underdogs and with the President's Race--in the form of Teddy--Nationals fans had one. A guy you never expected much of and who never won, even though he really wanted to. Maybe not the best representative of one of the wealthiest, most insulated metro regions in the country, but well-suited to the look that a fledgling team and fledgling-er fanbase likes to imagine itself wearing. "Let Teddy Win," they demanded. "Teddy 2012!," they cried. Indeed.

It is at this point that I pause and wonder again just why Teddy was the loser-president for all those years. Theodore Roosevelt is, with no real exception, our most magnificent president. Not best, per se, but certainly the one that the others would be most terrified of being compared to. He could take every other president in a fight... and I don't mean one at a time. You've probably heard the story about the time Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin on his way to deliver a speech--and then went to deliver that speech before bothering to seek medical attention. If Theodore Roosevelt were a Batman villain, he'd be Bane, whose physicality makes you forget his nimble brain--he's almost too perfect. And yet, there Teddy was, for years on end--the butt of the jokes of the other three presidents (now four, for some reason). It's almost as though no serious thought was put into this mascot race whatsoever.

No longer. Teddy has been unleashed upon the Nationals' fortunes, carving their playoff stints into Panama Canals on two separate occasions (trust-busting was the better analogy there, wasn't it? Oh well, next time). And if his double-header win in Game 2 is any indication, the operators of the Presidents Race have stubbornly refused to acknowledge the gods' painfully clear signals.

So. Has it been worth it, Washington? Have the victories of your hydrocephalic god-king been worth this turn in fortunes for an emergent franchise? Will you continue to sacrifice promising young talent on this grotesque altar that you've built? Or do you now comprehend the needless horror that you've inflicted upon yourselves? Let him win no more. Wipe the record books clean. Only then may the gods see fit to smile upon Navy Yard.

Or maybe the Nationals just clinched the division too soon and went up against a still-loose Giants squad. I don't know. But it's definitely one of those.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Goose Island Matilda


It's helpful to remember that beer experimentation (or beerimentation, as no one calls it) predates the craft movement. If not for some German monks tossing hops into their beer 1,100 years ago, beer might've continued to look very different from what we know today (yes, the majority of beer's existence has been hop-less). Likewise, Belgian brewers, deviating from proud tradition, began toying around with their own pale ale style around World War II--recent enough to be new, but still several decades ahead of craft brew's love affair with the style. Chicago's Goose Island, perhaps as a result of their relationship with their ownership, tends to keep their experiments down the middle: nothing too unexpected but usually pleasantly palatable (all due respect to their exceptional Bourbon County line, which predates the new ownership). And they take an unsurprisingly low risk-high reward tack with their Belgian Pale Ale, Matilda: a beer that should, ideally, be a happy union of wheat and hops.

Matilda pours pale orange, with a decent head for a Belgian.

She smells mostly of wine, perhaps a chardonnay (that's a kind of wine, right?), with a slight plummy aroma.

The plums return on the tongue, in concert with a wheaty, malty aftertaste. The tartness is accompanied by an unexpected fizziness--not quite hopiness (we're getting to that), but close enough that I mistook one for the other at first.

For all its flavor, Matilda retains a light body that's complimented by a medium-to-heavy hop profile that lends a bit of effervescence, ensuring some memorability, though at this point that's not totally necessary.

A happy, if not ecstatic, marriage of styles gives Matilda an even, balanced profile that's pleasant throughout, offering a welcome invitation to continue drinking, all the way through its 765 milliliters.

Grade: B+

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Harpoon Octoberfest

I'll probably never understand civilization's madness for pumpkin-flavored things. It's an aggressive, leathery taste, trying to be sweet and savory at the same time and failing at both. And yet it ends up in everything this time of year: pies, coffees, cupcakes, and, bleakest of all, beers. I agree that the closing of the sweat box that is August and September and the approach of October's humane crispness is worthy of celebration. But we've got to find a better flavor to mark that passage. Luckily, the Germans (yes, the Germans have beaten us in the flavor department... let that sink in) have found the perfect alternative, at least for beer (there may be no similar aid for pie) with the usually-welcome Märzen style. And it, represented here by Harpoon Octoberfest, is here to rescue us from the hegemony of the pumpkin.

Harpoon Octoberfest pours heady and darker than one usually sees in the style--promising some deeper flavor than we're likely to get.

Light caramel peppers the nose--sweet and dark--with strong hints of the malt that's to come.

Indeed, malt dominates the taste, along with some light hops. But it's the malt that's most present, perhaps at the expense of some of the other potential flavors, such as the aforementioned caramel.

Thin-to-medium bodied, Harpoon leans on a dry feel that forces your mouth to ask for more, whether or not you particularly want it.

A thin, though ultimately pleasant, beer, Harpoon hits the usual Märzen notes, but with little further exploration of the style's possibilities. And though Märzen typical has more to offer, Harpoon Octoberfest isn't entirely a disappointment and worth a glass or two before it disappears in the winter. And at least it's not bloody pumpkin.

Grade: B-

Happy Oktoberfest, everyone!

Monday, September 15, 2014

We Need To Talk About Scotland


So this independence thing may actually happen. I mean, good for Scotland, I guess. And good on them for the way they're doing it. But... it's complicated.

The only idea more romantic than an independent Scotland is the 300-year-old union to which it's bound. It's a relatively new creation, really, and probably not one that could've been expected to last forever. But it's been longer lived and more prosperous than any such union could ever fairly expect. For all their differences, England, Scotland, and Wales (and Ulster) have all made out exceedingly well over the last three centuries.

I get irritated when people refer to the UK as "England" because it's not all England. Not even kind of (okay, Wales kind of). One small part of Britain's charm for me is that England and Scotland are funny partners to be stuck together in the way they are, mostly out of ancient convenience. Even ancient-er than that convenience is a long history of not liking each other and not being too terribly similar despite sharing a border. And just because they get on now doesn't mean they've grown into one another culturally or politically. There are similarities, but they're no more stark than the similarities between Americans and Canadians (Mother Britain screwed us all up pretty good--but at least we're not Australia). So why stick together? Well, even Burnsians aren't immune to the allure of Empire. And nationally-unifying events like WWII tend to dampen feelings of alienation for a generation or two. And, in a very real way, it's the differences that make them work so well together. But now that common bonds have rusted, it's required some effort to find new ones and so Better Together has not had a lot to work with, I'm truly sorry to say.

To start with the up in the air logistics, there are some mildly compelling national security issues to consider. However, it's hard to hear the Brits asking "what about our place at the table?" without reflexively thinking, "oh, you still want that?" Moreover, if the Scots still cared for that sort of status (which, admittedly, disproportionately benefited Scots during the Empire years), they probably wouldn't be going through with this vote in the first place.

But you don't have to be a paranoid hyper-nationalist to feel the thumb in the eye of a Yes vote. The financial impact, at least in the short-term, will likely be what economists refer to as "not good." Sharing a currency with another nation invites comparison to the less than stable euro. And I've had enough personal experience with frustrated cashiers on both sides of the border to know that irritation with same-but-not-quite currencies is strong enough as is. That's probably why the unionists have placed their bets on the economic fallout, arguing that a splitting of the purse would create a shambles for both sides, perhaps especially for Scotland, which would no longer enjoy Westminster's relatively favorable largesse. And they might be right. Unfortunately, the Scots aren't looking at this as a business transaction. Not because they're overly emotional--as some have insultingly intimated--but because that's not how human beings conduct all of their affairs. Economies crest and dip, but identity is a trickier concept and a little short term pain for long term dignity and pride doesn't seem so bad a trade. If, in fact, that arrangement can be guaranteed. And it can't.

To be fair, Better Together's case is a difficult one to make without looking stodgy and out of touch. "You know you'd miss us" isn't terribly convincing as a plea, hence the fallback to dodgy economic forecasts (from both campaigns). But cash alone does not drive a movement. That tension you feel blowing from across the Atlantic? England's last ditch scrambling? Scotland's palpable anxiety? The apprehension from the EU and the US? The nervous hand-wringing in this very blog post? It's built on fear, excitement, uncertainty, and a particular viewpoint--of the UK and the wider world. In other words, things that are very difficult to quantify. There are more more logical ways to interpret independence, but to see things in those terms alone betrays a misunderstanding of the situation.

Losing Scotland would probably not be catastrophic. No, Scotland won't disappear and Lagavulin won't be cast into the phantom zone. Scotland would only cease to be a part of the union. I adore every corner of the British Isles, and those corners don't cease to exist just because there's a line down the center of the room. Ireland is no less fun that it would be as part of the UK. It just means passing through customs to get there, and even that might not be an issue. But all that doesn't mean it wouldn't also be sad.

The truth is, whatever happens, some constitutional re-considerations wouldn't be out of line are called for. Just because the union works better together doesn't mean this shouldn't be a wake up call. Some kind of federal system might be exciting, if ultimately a non-starter for those who want independence because now--and only now--is London taking a serious look at how to maintain an always-strange relationship. It's not as if England can't be accused of being less than enamored with their upstairs neighbors, so why not address the root of those feelings? For example, if No prevails, perhaps an English Parliament and a subsequent end to the West Lothian problem and its attendant incongruities just might clear some of the tension, allowing each nation some autonomy and dignity in its local matters, saving some energy for the bigger issues. The jurisdictional quirkiness might be "oh-so-British" but they also create logistical nightmares that benefit no one.


As is usually the case, Charlie Brooker is the most reasonable commenter working: as an outsider, you'd prefer Scotland to vote No (for admittedly selfish reasons), but totally understand the itch for a divorce. If I were faced with looking at David Cameron for five more years, I'd be looking for the fire escape, too. It's almost too bad England doesn't have its own built-in exit. There's an argument Better Together hasn't tried: "Please, Scotland, don't leave us with them." And, honestly, if this split must happen, there's some humor to be taken in the fact that it came on Cameron's watch.

Cultural identity, history, geography etc, those are all wrapped up in the referendum. Nationality's got some to do with it, though less than anyone who wants to view this as a rebirth of old Celtic-Anglo battle-lines will admit. Nationality is much more slippery than that in the UK these days--one of modern Britain's better qualities. The union's cosmopolitanism is an enormous benefit to both nations--something young Scottish voters appreciate, even if they've long seemed more likely to side with independence. But politically, England and Scotland have been drifting apart since the end of the war and weren't much on solid ground before that. Westminster can make all the promises it wants now--and it is--but where were these gestures ten, fifteen, twenty years ago? Now they care. When it's a referendum on them. And much as I hate to diminish a movement that's been anywhere from ten to three-hundred years in the making, it's hard to imagine a better time for Scots to take a long look at the state of things. And that only makes this more difficult because, as much as I want Scotland to stay, it would be hard to blame them if they don't.

This is an unsatisfying position (even to me, and I'm the one assuming it): whatever they decide is for the best. If it's Yes, there's a lot of credit in doing it this way: bloodlessly, democratically--all those fun, fluffy adjectives that are easy to take for granted. But I'd prefer Scotland to vote No. In light of the evidence that probably qualifies me as a romantic. On the other hand, I also believe there's a difference between 'could' and 'should.' It's why I tend to believe the referendum will--narrowly--swing No. Scots are as good as anybody at soberly sizing up a situation (yes, soberly, lol). And if the decision is a firm and convincing Yes, it won't be because they spent the night bent over a whisky barrel with Braveheart on in the background (for the same reason that a No vote wouldn't be the result of a night spent counting their GDP and watching old newsreels of the Blitz). It's because all of us occasionally feel the need for a fresh start and the prospects of an independent Scotland are only slightly less certain than the prospects of a renewed United Kingdom (or the prospects of the US, or any one, really--it's been a rough summer).

Both options are rooted in a sludgy kind of sentiment and history and tradition and on and on. These are not meager things. Promises are made on the harder prospects: finance, government, etc, and yet remain at least as hard to quantify as all the other stuff. Some of those promises may hold up (however pretty the songs, they're all being sung by politicians, remember). The difference is that Yes offers a sure bet of losing something--Britain, for all its flaws--and only a hope that something will be gained--a thriving, independent Scotland.

For all the mawkishness of the idea--and the campaign trying desperately to preserve that idea--they really are better together.

(Image source)

Thursday, September 4, 2014

NFL 2014: The World's Worst Tyrant

One of these years, I'm going to make good on my yearly promise to quit torturing myself with football. It was one thing when it was just the concussions. And the bullying. And the tax-payer funded stadiums (to replace stadiums not even old enough to buy cigarettes). And the exploitation of even non-players. And Dan Snyder. The whole Washington enterprise, really.

We now have Ray Rice and his subsequent milquetoast punishment. Though apparently the next time this happens, we'll see a more "severe" penalty because the NFL could not have foreseen that people would be upset by their terrible decision had to maintain a low bar when they punished Jim Irsay. And it's not even as though Rice is the only player with a history of spousal abuse; it's tempting to make some kind of connection between these guys' day jobs and how more than a few of them handle their personal lives. But we wouldn't want to be irresponsible. Meanwhile, Josh Gordon is done for the year for testing positive for pot (granted, he's now a repeat offender, but his first suspension was for the same length as Rice's, so yeah). Roger Goodell is the world's worst tyrant, in that he is terrible at being a tyrant. Except that the empire he runs is extraordinarily good at winning--and keeping--the hearts and minds of the country. Occupying powers the world over drool at what the NFL has managed so seemingly effortlessly. We continue to consume their tainted (but oh so delicious) product in spite of ourselves. It's easy to shove in our faces and vastly more difficult to digest, but humans are, at heart, short-term thinkers.

If you're not a football fan, the current state of affairs looks horrific. If you are, it's horrific and deeply depressing, with a tendency toward heartburn-inducing (the Bears have a great offense, parts of a decent defense, and a difficult schedule, ensuring that I won't be sleeping much between now and when they're officially knocked out of playoff contention. So, thanks in advance, guys). We can't keep this up forever, NFL. How about this: I'll watch one more season, then I'll quit cold turkey. No backsies.

So, as I said in my baseball post this year, I could afford to have a lot more fun with these picks. Because it really does not matter. At all. Even a little. And there's no penalty for being wrong. But it's too easy to make them all joke picks. I'm going to have to find some kind of balance as I do these going forward, but for now here are my kind-of-serious-but-who-cares-go-fuck-yourself picks for 2014:

  • NFC North: Green Bay Detroit Minnes... fine, Green Bay
  • NFC East: Philadelphia 
  • NFC South: Carolina
  • NFC West: Richard Sherman
  • NFC Wild Cards: New Orleans, Chicago (who will not be allowed a starting defense in the playoffs, but will be allowed two starting offenses in an effort to finally exorcise Mike Ditka)
  • AFC North: Cincinnati
  • AFC East: Division is vacated because no one cares
  • AFC South: Houston
  • AFC West: Denver
  • AFC Wild Cards: FC Bayern Munich, Indianapolis
  • NFC Championship: Richard Sherman over Philadelphia
  • AFC Championship: Denver over Indianapolis
  • Super Bowl XLIX: Denver over Richard Sherman initially, but Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy beats them both in the long run

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Siren Maiden 2013

I don't care for barleywines on the whole. Too cloyingly sweet while at the same time too heavy on the palate and in the stomach. However, it remains a generally popular style with segments of the population and its hard not to see why: boozy and fruity is always a popular combination and, in a pinch, a glass of barleywine can easily replace a rich slice of cake for dessert. That said, it's not so grossly overrated as its dimwitted and nostalgia-fueled cousin, mead, which we will not speak of again.

Last year's offering celebrating the first anniversary of Berkshire's Siren Craft Brewery pours ruddy red and a tad watery.

The somewhat high ABV (11%) hits the nose immediately but does so fairly pleasantly--a rusty, well-worn booze smell that doesn't trend toward cloying the way other barleywines do.

Malty and very dry, the Maiden lands somewhat heavy on the tongue but not overly heavy, once again playing against type by not becoming a meal beer after a single glass. This light heaviness, unfortunately, is also just enough to hide the alcohol which, in this style, seems unnecessary.

The body sits less heavy in the stomach, allowing room for more, perhaps, if one feels the immediate need. I did not; maybe as winter advances it will call to me again (or perhaps I could obtain this year's model).

A lighter imitation of the style serves Maiden well, though will likely prove wanting for barleywine enthusiasts. Nevertheless, the style once again proves versatile, both for flavor and body, and while Maiden be as thin as barleywines go, there's not too much to be upset about here. Also not too much to recommend it, sadly.

Grade: B-

Friday, August 1, 2014

Revisiting The Dark Knight Rises

Two years ago, I watched and reviewed The Dark Knight Rises. Now, removed from the hype and most of the emotion, I look at it again.

Even if the rest of this movie sucked, it earns points for Tommy Carcetti/Littlefinger being the CIA agent at the beginning of the movie. The fact the neither of them could charm/connive their way past Bane is enough to make him worthy as a villain.

People, for whatever reason, don't like Anne Hathaway and I truly don't get that. Because she trades on affectations and haughtiness, I guess? Have these people never met actors before? Is Hathaway supposed to hide her true self? Not everyone can be Jennifer Lawrence. And, frankly, Lawrence is far too relatable and endearing for me not to be suspicious. Anyway, the only thing wrong with Hathaway's Catwoman is the heels, and that wasn't really her call. People who aren't won over by the information-trading scene in the bar were never going to cotton to this character.

John Blake knows who Batman is from the beginning (he even has a suspicion that Bats was involved in the death of Harvey Dent). In a movie where every other character gets nine minutes of exposition, we're just supposed to accept that Blake recognizes another orphan and correctly pegs him as Batman. You know what would've been amazing? An honest, effective cop like John Blake hunting down the Batman. The Dark Knight sets that story up and it's completely abandoned here. Yeah, he's been retired for eight years, but what if Blake is on the heels of Bruce Wayne, heightening the drama of his decision to put the cowl back on? You can keep Bane and most everything else, but what if Batman actually had to face the music? It's hard not to feel like the first two movies pointed that way, before the third opted for a standard super-villain plot.

Thomas Lennon plays the doctor who examines Bruce. He was also the doctor in Memento. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to imagine that he's the same character and that all of Christopher Nolan's movies take place in the same universe. Lennon does, anyway, and that's good enough for me.

Did this need to be another city-wide hostage movie? I get that you need a big threat for the final act, but note that the strongest movie of the trilogy is the one that doesn't threaten to blow up Gotham. And I also get the desire to bring this back around to the beginning with the League of Shadows, which wants Gotham reduced to rubble. But somewhere in here, there's a smaller, more intimate story to be told about the breakdown of the victorious--if compromised--Batman, against whom a shattered, weakened organization seeks to enact its swan song revenge. If you're thinking that's too bleak and too small scale for a summer blockbuster, I'd counter that it's also too bleak and too small scale for an Oscar bait stab-all-hope-to-death movie. It's not that I don't love the gritty reboot of the "some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" sequence (because I do), but Batman almost works best on the margins, without hype and without earth-shattering spectacle. In the dark, if you will.

Revisiting Bane's voice: the real problem is the inconsistency. In scenes like the plane heist or the speech out front of Blackgate, he's fine. But during the hit at the stock exchange, for example, it's like Sean Connery hepped up on painkillers. And it's especially a shame because Tom Hardy comes off genuinely imposing throughout his performance.

As long as we're talking about incoherence: Gordon's speech about institutions becoming shackles is almost entirely incomprehensible to me. Which is too bad because it sounds nice. But he whispers most of it over Hans Zimmer's characteristically bombastic soundtrack before transitioning into a yell at the end of it. It's an odd transition. And it seems so unlike Gary Oldman to make weird choices with his words.

Lastly, Bruce should've died. I mean, obviously, he can't hide anywhere in the world and his means for escaping are pretty meagerly defined. But even apart from that, there's an indulgent aspect of his surviving the blast. It worked for me at the time, but two years later, it just feels like the filmmakers are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Once again, there seem to be few real consequences to Bruce's decision to be Batman, a thematic decision that might work for some superhero stories, but this series has gone out of its way to underline that vigilantism casts some very dark shadows.

This dichotomy extends to Blake's inheritance of the cowl. While Robin's Blake's fate relies on the imagination of the viewer, a trilogy that took pains to outline the downsides of vigilantism can hardly expect to be able to promote any excitement around a potential new Batman. I wonder if Nolan & Co. were aiming for fan indulgence, rather than trying to make a lasting statement. At the end of a popularly received trilogy, it's hard not to take the bait of rewarding one's fans, but when you've made your bones on gritty realism plausibility, this ending is just too easy. I don't know what the answer is. Kill Batman outright? We could completely upend most of the story as I slip into fan fiction mode, but neither you or I want to go through that (short version: Bruce doesn't rehabilitate after his fight with Bane, but is found by Blake, who helps him strategize from the cave to help the cops fight the League of Shadows; maybe Batman shows up in an exoskeleton suit, ala Kingdom Come). As a broad arc, it fits the character nicely--take everything away from him, give him the worst possible situation, and he still Batmans his way out of it--but it almost belongs to another, less self-serious take on the character.

Previous grade: A
New grade: B

I still like it. And though it's the weakest of the three, I can watch the full trilogy without feeling like it goes out on a sour note (Rises was never going to top its predecessor). But without needing to love it like I did in 2012, an ending that seemed like it had struck a perfect balance before plays a little muddled to me now. A few flat notes among some strong, undeniably Batmany work hurt the film but don't drag it down entirely. Overall, it's a strong enough series that I don't need another Batman film ever again.

Not that I would refuse one...

Saturday, July 26, 2014

The Simpsons' Warm Glowing Warming Glow

Or, Dental Plan; Simpsons Fans Need Their Fix.



Some credit is due to whoever was honest enough to tell us that 24-hour Simpsons access will inevitably be bad for our (until now) functioning civilization, leaving us all little choice but to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside. I'd like to say that mainlining Simpsons episodes and being relatively productive in life are not mutually exclusive aims. But, then, I have over twenty years of experience. You might say that I am horrifyingly qualified to thrive in a world in which a Simpsons episode is playing somewhere in the background at all times. But it may be a rough transition for many others.

Simpsons World would come as happier news if over half of the show's now 552 episodes weren't coming from the bleak, post-Golden Age era. But that's a criticism you probably saw coming. Let's try again: those of us who grew up with the show, have seen every episode at least four times, and have the DVD box sets are the ones who'll be most grateful for such a thing. We're also the last people who need it. We can already run entire episodes in our heads and conjure memories of any scene for any reason no reason at all.

Somewhere, there are people sorely in need of this service (I still get sad when someone tells me they weren't allowed to watch The Simpsons as a kid--how do you even have conversations?). But they've had ample time to seek out the show and it seems unlikely to me that Simpsons World will finally make them do it. Maybe if it were bought up by Netflix or Amazon Prime, but even then...

Now, I need to be careful about how I use the first person plural here because I'm not sure to how many people this applies. The Internet makes our numbers appear larger than they are. But conversely, polite company makes us seem fewer than we are. However, there are at least several of us out there. Those of us who were raised by the show; who can quote whole episodes backward and forward; and can peg any freeze frame to a specific episode, naming the proper title of the episode and the season will be the ones embiggening ourselves through this cromulent new service (at one time, I could rattle off a few episode production codes; that's not bragging, it's just a sad, sad fact).

Essentially, Simpsons World acts as a specialized content provider, giving users every episode, along with clips, playlists, etc. Viewers can even construct their own playlists and have episodes and clips suggested for them. Meanwhile, FXX (the availability of which will, like Simpsons World, be dependent on one's cable provider having a deal with the original FX), will have broadcast rights for all episodes, and will likely air lengthier marathons in sync with new episodes being broadcast over on Fox--if an upcoming episode revolves around Krusty, for example, FXX will air a bunch of old Krusty episodes, reminding viewers of a time when they loved Krusty. In celebration of this arrangement, FXX will be running a twelve-day marathon of all 552 episodes.

So, for the cost of also having FXX grafted onto our cable packages (we still need the bundles in order to watch things, apparently), it almost seems more trouble than it's worth. Especially if, as stated, we're prepared to cling to our box sets until physical media dies. However, the playlists might make this thing worth it on their own. Many of us already have themed marathons in our heads; Simpsons World will just make them easier to construct for ourselves and others to watch. That said, I'm not sure what Simpsons fan needs recommendations.

The twelve-day marathon is intriguing, but is really nothing more than an extended version of what Simpsons fans have been doing themselves since the olden days. In those days, "binging" was called "marathoning" and nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. In college, I myself once marathoned season three all the way through solely because I was bored and had no girlfriend; that may have been kind of a chicken-and-the-egg situation. And, anyway, would it be worth sticking around much beyond day three or four, if the episodes are run chronologically? Yes, there's the easy knock again. Sorry, it's a reflex.

But that reflex may prove a point: we can't let it go. The show has entwined itself with our DNA, changing us, like when you stand next to a microwave for too long (I don't know how microwaves work). The show is a part of the way we think and a part of the way we engage with the world. And for the same reason that we can't reflect on either old or new episodes without reflexively adding "too bad the new episodes suck" we cannot turn down Simpsons swag, in whatever form it presents itself. Like moths to flame. Or Lisa to the Corey hotline. So we don't need Simpsons World. But damned if we won't use it.

It's a canny move for a fledgling network (which itself seems wholly unnecessary, but I suppose FX needs more time to show movies with director's commentary). They know we can't won't turn away. Why, once we no longer have to get up to change the discs, it won't be long before we're washing ourselves with rags on sticks.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Snowpiercer

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Snowpiercer is the closest thing the world will ever see to a Bioshock movie. And in all likelihood, it works even better than a straight adaptation ever would. Director Joon-ho Bong presents forth a fairly straightforward journey from the tail of a train to the head of it that's never less than visually fascinating. Meanwhile, the simplicity of that forward momentum provides plenty of room for a story that is at turns gruesome, darkly funny, infuriating, and heart-wrenching.

Seventeen years after the world's botched attempt to reverse climate change, the last of our species is stuck aboard a perpetual momentum train, traveling across a dead and frozen Earth. A long, steel box houses a few drops of human decency struggling against the most corrupted, degraded tendencies of our species. The difference between the two factions doesn't even have the courtesy to be distinguishable by class, which, while clearly demarcated, does not necessarily confer morality or decency on one side or the other (the citizens of the tail come off slightly better, if only because they have the misfortune to be aware of their miserable lives while the well-off citizens of the head thrive in ignorance of those consigned to the rear cars). These would be somewhat less bleak equations, if the occupants of the train didn't also happen to be the last of humankind.

Chris Evans' Curtis leads a team of rebels to take the engine of the train. Car by car, they fight for the dignity of their comrades in the tail and the children that are, now and again, taken to help run the engine. They bloodily force their way out of the slums of the tail, through the kitchen (where they learn what their food is made from), and into the opulent digs of the upper class, which includes a terrifying indoctrination center for the children of the head, where Curtis guns down a delightfully repugnant Tilda Swinton.

I'm not sure when exactly I started thinking that Joon-ho Bong was perfect for a theoretical Bioshock adaptation, but by the time Curtis and his surviving rebels are making their way through the upper class cars at the front of the train--decadent, beautifully-appointed, totally at odds with the way people in an enclosed and delicate ecosystem should be able to live--I realized this was that adaptation. And it's not too long before Ed Harris' Andrew Ryan Wilford shows up, completing the parallel. Snowpiercer, happily, chooses to end not long after killing its mad god-king.

Instead, it turns out that Curtis' revolution is just the most recent in a long line of orchestrated uprisings to maintain the delicate balance of population and resources. Curtis, at least for a time, was being led by the very forces he was trying to undermine (would you kindly...). Realizing that there is no future for the people in the tail, or any hope for any interruption to the rotten status quo, Curtis opts for the last best hope. And instead of a scavenger hunt and a disappointing boss battle, we get an uplifting sequence in which the train crashes and a couple of surviving children stumble out into the cold, spying a polar bear in the distance (which I think symbolizes good eatin').

There's a balancing act to a story that relies on humankind being its worst. In particular, it's difficult to stick the landing in a satisfying way. It can be all too easy to close out on a hopelessly bleak note or go for the contrived and improbable hopeful ending. Bioshock gave players a choice between the two. Snowpiercer wisely opts for the least crushing finale possible. Yona and Tim (seventeen and five, respectively, with little-to-know working knowledge of the planet they've never set foot on) are not set up very well. And it's only a few lines of dialogue spoken twenty minutes before the end that gives the audience any hope for the Earth itself having any hope for survival. But they've survived the train--no great environment for a kid--and, if Curtis' uprising represents anything, it's that a chance of a hope is better than giving in. At least there's some humanity in that.

Grade: A

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

In Which I Look Awkward on Camera

As part of my partnership with aois21, here is the first of several promotional videos for Nos Populus and The Half-Drunken Scribe. For regular readers, there's not a lot here that's new, but you get to see my t-shirt with its stretched-out collar and hear my Tracey Ullman-era Homer Simpson voice* talking about my writing. And blinking... so much blinking.

My apologies to aois21 for not having prepared for this any better. I could've at least worn a decent shirt. I can't take myself anywhere. If I had prepared more, I would've had more to say, but I'm not all that eloquent when on the spot. I tend to just let syllables fall out of my mouth and hope for the best.

I'll probably definitely think of some more footnotes later but just to start: I was glib in talking about the difficulty of making politics seem more absurd than they are. I'd shudder if I heard that kind of oversimplification coming out of someone else. So if I can be given a chance to explain (which, hey, I have been): Congress is terrible. We all agree? Good, moving on. No, I don't choose difficult targets. But my fear while writing Nos Populus was that transcribing real speeches and documenting real events (which might've been possible in this context) wouldn't have translated and probably would've come off boring, instead of clownish and nauseating. So I decided to amplify the inanity that already was/is, subsequently creating more work for myself.

Second, in an upcoming video, I mention Sinclair Lewis as an influence. For completeness' sake, this is the book that first sparked the idea that would become Nos Populus, an influence I've mentioned before. Sad to say, that book is not one of Lewis' best (there's a reason it was out of print for so many years). Instead, I'd suggest starting with Main Street, a book that got Lewis into some trouble, forcing him to create the fictional city of Zenith, Winnemac, so he could have a setting for his yarns that didn't offend the thin-skinned reading public of the 1920s (we're bigger than that now). 

That's it for now. More videos to come.

*The voice was initially based on Walter Matthau, but it always sounded to me like Matthau talking into a dimwit filter. Which, in a way...

Monday, June 30, 2014

So I Can Be Batman Now?

In light of what many of us grudgingly anticipated, corporations (which, as we know, are people, with hearts and brains and souls) can now exercise their religious convictions and flout democratically-enacted law whenever it interferes with the practice of said faith (even when that faith proves inconsistent with itself). To celebrate this new freedom, I plan to now break several different anti-vigilantism statutes as I don the cape and cowl in the name of Our Lord, Batman. Because that is my faith and I will brook no infringement upon it.

The fact that Antonin Scalia looks kind of like The Penguin leads me to believe that I should start at the Supreme Court. I'll teach him the meaning of Original Intent... Of Fear.

Batman out.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sorry, Brazil (World Cup 2014)

 
I enjoy the Olympics theoretically. Spectacle is good, controversy is mildly better, but the athletics feel like filler. It's not that it's not impressive--it totally is and I couldn't dream of performing any of it even at an amateur level against asthmatic kindergartners. I'm just not terribly invested in people running or swimming or whatever the hell else is going on. The thing's a damp squib.

The World Cup, on the other hand, is about a sport I actually like and understand. And that makes all the difference. You still have spectacle, of course. And controversy: if you haven't already seen John Oliver's take on FIFA's truly Herculean corruption, it's worth thirteen minutes of your time. I, for one, am patiently waiting for Qatar 2022 to totally implode. And on top of all that, we also get a genuinely exciting game to watch with it.

Admittedly, part of me looks forward to the Cup because somewhere a Fox News personality is dusting off his incredulous face for all the attention the World Cup will get. "But it's soccer," he'll sneer (and it'll be a "he") and that just makes me want to watch more. More than that, though, it's surprisingly easy to get caught up in something when everyone around you is really, really into it. Even the most defiantly contrarian among us notice when a religious fervor sweeps through our peers, regardless of other identifying factors. You may not necessarily glom on to the thing in question, but only a terminally incurious person doesn't at least take a look for themselves. Deign to travel abroad and the American will find that, true to stereotype, that thing is soccer.

I came home with the foreign malady some years back, and it's hard to maintain the symptoms when the conditions for the virus aren't around you all the time (a shiny donkey to whoever who can point out exactly where I stretched that analogy too thin). The World Cup is a booster shot, gearing even apathetic Yanks back into the game. That's why I don't begrudge the bandwagoners. Half the reason I root for the USMNT is in the quixotic hope that a U.S. win will keep the celebration going and supplant other athletic fixations with the beautiful game (I mean, do we need hockey?). Knowing that even that won't do it allows me to cheer for England on the side without much guilt, another largely fruitless endeavor (I have my reasons). And though we're nothing if not hopeful, a lot of Americans develop an easy secondary attachment in soccer--Brazil, or Spain, or somebody else who may actually win. And it's not just international tournaments either--how many people prefer MLS to La Liga or the Premier League? That bet-hedging and internationalism probably does nothing to improve soccer's standing among its American detractors. And if I thought anything was likely to bring them around, I'd suggest we quit it.

So it's left to the rest of us to absorb the dichotomy of our love for this great sport and the organization that runs it. Sure, the NFL can be impressively shady, but it's a girl scout compared to FIFA. You'd think the reflexively anti-soccer crowd would cite FIFA or Sepp Blatter in their arguments, but that would involve rather more effort. And anyway, it hardly addresses the quality of the on-field portion of the sport. Still, whether it's the Olympics, the Super Bowl, or the World Cup, hosts get stiffed with a staggering bill and not much in terms of benefits. You know, aside from the fun of figuring out what do to with all those new stadiums and villages and airports. And the pride. Can't forget the pride. $11 billion worth of pride. SPORTS!

As for picking a winner, a kinder, sensitive soul might think Brazil is the way to go. After all the money they've spent and the nightmares they've endured, it just seems to give them a little ray of light, doesn't it? But then the ray of light is the story and everyone forgets how shitty it is to host such an event and no one--anywhere--learns any kind of lesson (no, I don't know why I feel people should be learning something). So I'm going with Portugal, because then you have a soccer megapower throwing a party for its former imperial overlord and the enormity of what's happened can't help but dawn on everybody. Also, Portugal at least has a shot at winning. Otherwise, for maximum facepalm, you choose somebody like Iran. Sorry to make you the fall guy, Brazil, it really isn't personal (I love churrasco!).

Enjoy the matches, everyone. 

(Image via Project Babb)

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Gotham

Far be it from me to lay into a series that hasn't yet aired.


There's so much that might be good here.

A Gotham Central-esque show could be fantastic. A slowly crumbling city, served by a still barely above board police department, that can work as a conduit for any crime story you want to tell. It's also some fertile soil for original stories and ideas because pre-Batman Gotham remains fairly well uncovered. I'm not sure audiences realize how amazing a character Jim Gordon can be, but he is well worthy of a central role in a TV show. And people love procedurals--just give viewers sixteen of those every year while slyly feeding us an overarching tale of decay. Like The Wire, but with occasional hints of Batman. Plus, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock? Bill Rawls as... someone?! Yes, yes. Oh God yes.

And it could still be all of that. But.

Just after the one minute mark of the trailer, we see a freshly-orphaned Bruce Wayne hanging out, talking to Gordon. Nothing alarming so far. But then he's... standing on the roof of Wayne Manor? Prepping his rooftop posing routines? No. What? Why? Now those "occasional hints" are brushing against the backbone of the story, which is worrying because Batman's origin is a story that's not only already been told, but has already been told very well. It's precisely because we know what's coming that we don't need to dive into it immediately. There's something original and unique waiting to be told and it's very quickly succumbing to familiar yarns. Or worse, dull ones. Pubescent Bruce is about as un-Batman as Bruce gets. Maybe we'll delve deep into his goth phase.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: season one's finale opens with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne and closes with Detective Gordon--a few months into his tenure in Gotham, a little less naive and a little more prepared to drag his adopted city out of the sewer--comforting young Bruce. If we have to wait to see that, it means the show has enough other things going on that it hopefully won't be using Lil' Batman as a crutch.)

Meanwhile, foreboding text shouts weird promises at us: "before Penguin," "before Catwoman," "before Riddler," "before Poison Ivy" in between smash cuts of the junior rogues because Fox is grittily rebooting the definition of "before," apparently. I wouldn't even mind, since these characters are a part of this universe in one form or another. An up-and-comer on the black market named Oswald Cobblepot, for example, could very easily be the focus of a strong season one plot line. But inside of two minutes we get written confirmation of four future villains, with Batman still some ten years from debuting in Gotham. Stay tuned for season two, when Joe Kerr, an albino child with a flair for card tricks and purple suits, confounds the GCPD's psychological profilers.

Why is thirteen-year old Selina Kyle dressing up as a cat burglar and standing on the edge of a rooftop (more rooftop brooding--is nothing sacred)? And what does it have to do with Jim Gordon? I'm going to have to watch to find out, aren't I? They're going to make me watch this thing, aren't they?

All we have is a trailer and already the Easter eggs are cloying. Like the worst excesses of Smallville (except Clark already had his powers). Or the shaky foundation of needless foreshadowing that the Star Wars prequels were built on. There is an assumption that we care about these characters from the start when in fact we need to be given a reason to care. And even when we do care, cramming them all together gives no one time to breathe and makes a lush, complex world achingly small. The more disparate elements you drag in, the less it resembles Gotham Central and the more it resembles Batman Babies.

Comic book mythologies are bloated because they've been developed over decades by dozens or hundreds of creators. The best stories pick a single conceit (or a couple of simple ones) and follow it to a new conclusion, inadvertently creating more mythology. They don't throw everything at the wall, desperately reminding fans that they haven't forgotten about everyone's favorite corner of the canon. They also don't shout out to the casual fans: "hey, don't worry, you already know this story," because they understand that those fans can sometimes care, even if they don't know exactly what's going on from the outset.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: GCPD Cyber Crime specialist Eddie Nashton grows slowly disgruntled as his efforts go unappreciated and starts a few elicit side projects trying to earn a name for himself. Casual fans get caught up in his slow turn from smarmy good guy to obnoxious quasi-villain before realizing who he's going to be. Meanwhile, diehard fans shit themselves upon recognition of his name--that's the kind of balance the Marvel movies excel at.)

Am I a pedant for reading too much into a trailer for pilot that's only just been picked up for a series? No. I'm a pedant for other reasons. Since this show is going to happen anyway, I can make but a simple request to an uncaring universe. I'm looking at something that could be a landmark for Batman storytelling getting bogged down in canon-service. Good Batman stories have already been told. Good Catwoman stories have already been told. Tell a good Jim Gordon story. Tell a good Harvey Bullock story. Tell a good Gotham story. And let the fans wind that into the rest of the mythology on their own.

Monday, April 21, 2014

How To Fight Presidents

"The desire to be president is a currently undiagnosed but very specific form of insanity. Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, "Yeah. I should be in charge of that." Only a lunatic would look at a job where you get slandered and scrutinized and attacked by the media and sometimes even assassinated and say, 'Sign me up!'"
--Daniel O'Brien, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country
The worst aspect of school is that I don't get much time to read for pleasure. I mean, I do still read for pleasure. I just feel guilty about it in a way that I didn't before.

With How To Fight Presidents, Cracked's Dan O'Brien has constructed a better written, more entertaining counterpoint to Christopher Hitchens' assertion about voters getting the mad, narcissistic politicians they deserve. Not in the sense that Hitchens was wrong, just that we might as well embrace the inevitable. As long as this land has a job with that much responsibility and people who are "crazy ambitious and obsessed with power to an unhealthy degree," this is the system we're going to have. Not that this is always a good thing--and O'Brien is quick to lambast the likes of Van Buren, Fillmore, and Buchanan--but at least it's sometimes an entertaining thing. In the long run. You know, after we've had time to process their horrific insanity.

Unfortunately, that process takes so long that by the time we've done it, we've also thoroughly sanitized these men (all men, so far--I wonder if part of the appeal of a female president is to see if the insanity manifests any differently). By the time we're ready to learn about an historic figure, we've eliminated all of the worthwhile information, shamefully cutting the most savory chunks of history from our cultural awareness. By bringing tidbits such as Zachary Taylor's bizarre cherry-fueled death to the masses in digestible form, O'Brien is truly doing the Lord's work.

O'Brien highlights a lot of facts about presidents that the dutiful nerd already knows. Like Andrew Jackson's crazed duel lust (that is, a lust for dueling and violence more generally). Or William Howard Taft and the bathtub. Or the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was basically President Batman, while his fifth cousin, Franklin Delano, was Iron Man (making James Madison... Ant Man? O'Brien never says).

However, I was less familiar with Calvin Coolidge's Norman Batesian disposition. Or John Quincy Adams' disturbing fondness for literal self-flagellation. And while I could've surmised LBJ's dick-centric egotism (who couldn't have?), O'Brien presents a few juicy more details to back that up (okay, I'll give you one: Johnson would casually pee on secret service agents' legs when it was a convenient solution).

If any of these revelations are surprising, it's only because of the aforementioned sanitized history that we were all fed in school. We get the dull falsehood about George Washington and the cherry tree, not the discomforting admission that Washington enjoyed being shot at while in battle. This is the most demanding, scrutinized, personally devastating job on the planet and not only do these men think they can do the job, they think they can get a majority of the electorate to agree with them.

Presidents are insane. We need them to be or we'd have no one else willing to do the job. It's our solemn, patriotic duty to enjoy the ride.

Grade: A-

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Two Half-Drunken Years


This past Sunday was the 75th birthday of the world's greatest fictional character. Two days later, I mark a somewhat less momentous occasion for a somewhat less momentous creation: the second anniversary of this here blog-space.

My second year was not as fruitful as my first (a snap presidential election would help me out, if anyone knows how to get one of those off the ground), but there were a few good posts, I think. Right? No? Well, here are some highlights, anyway:


What a strange, meandering year it's been. Let us never speak of it again. 

One last thing: aois21 publications--my new marketing guys--have themselves a Kickstarter campaign to expand their business helping self-published authors and launch a couple of journals. Go help them out, it'll be fun.

Friday, March 28, 2014

The Cubs Are The Reason I Drink... In The Summer

This winter has been horrifying. I usually like winter (I never got on well with hot weather), but goddamn if the last few months haven't been unapologetically awful. Not only has it sucked, it's still going. But now we have baseball back. And baseball thaws out winter. Not literally, of course. I've been to at least one game during which the wind chill was hovering in the mid 30s. And I was sitting in the upper deck. And it started raining as I was leaving the stadium after a drizzly, lifeless 2-0 Cubs loss.

Speaking of whom...

The Cubs have a second straight first year manager. There have been some injuries. And they've fallen back to 23rd on the payroll rankings, which doesn't mean anything on its own except that we can probably expect an even longer rebuilding process as they bring guys up through the system. The most exciting thing about 2014 will be Wrigley's 100th birthday. Love the park all you want (I do), but the stadium should not be the most exciting aspect of your franchise for the better part of the last century. I'll be happy if the Cubs top 70 wins. On the other hand, I chose Pittsburgh on a lark last year and it worked pretty well for them. So it can't hurt. Anyway, there are literally zero consequences for being wrong here. I could have the Cleveland Spiders win the AL West, if I wanted. Or the Montreal Alouettes. And nobody could do a thing about it. 

  • NL East: Washington
  • NL Central: Chicago 
  • NL West: Los Angeles
  • NL Wild Cards: St. Louis, Atlanta
  • AL East: Boston 
  • AL Central: Kansas City
  • AL West: Cleveland Spiders
  • AL Wild Cards: Oakland, Texas 
  • World Series: Los Angeles over Boston 

By the way, love baseball's slow embrace of 20th Century technology. In another fifty years maybe we'll finally have the robo-umpires we should've had in 2010. And they'll all look like Bud Selig.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

New Stores Now Open

As promised, Nos Populus is now available at a much wider array of stores. You can find the list over there on the right. But if you're like me and the distinction between left and right eludes you (and frankly seems arbitrary, anyway), here's the master list:

Amazon (for paperback and Kindle)
aois21 (for paperback and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (for Nook)
Google Books (for e-book) and also available at Google Play
Kobo (for e-book)
Smashwords (for e-book)

The iBookstore will have it available soon, as well.

Barnes & Noble provides a really nice preview sample (all bright and shiny, with words you can read and such), and you can find more of those here and here. You can check out more about the inspiration of and influences on Nos Populus (as well as James Reso's vampiric qualities) here. You can read about my alma mater's complicated influence (and the slow deterioration of my fondness for politics) here. And the origins of President Dennis Ward here. You can also click the "Nos Populus" tag below for more.

I know I've been writing about my book a lot the last few weeks. I don't usually mean to be this self-indulgent, but the aois21 deal made a lot of things happen very quickly and I wanted to get the word out while that was still hot. Fresh material is on the way, I promise. In the meantime...

Monday, March 17, 2014

St. Paddy's 2014


I'm susceptible to cultural cringe from any number of directions, but the reinforcin' o' the stereotypes remains particularly galling.

I once said that "if you're the type to hit up an Irish pub on St. Paddy's, you're begging for an underwhelming night (you may also be a tool)." That last bit may have been harsh since, if you've attempted to engage an Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day (or in the preceding weekend, as the calendar has conspired to do this year--we can't all live in Boston), you've suffered enough without being called names.

Why do we require such a thin excuse in order to get plastered? We're adults--if we want to knock back a few at 11am on March 17th, let's go for it. But that's socially unacceptable unless we can peg it to a reason--holidays, weddings, not guilty verdicts, etc. The temperance movement may have lost, but it managed to leave behind acres of bad wiring in our cultural brain. It's a complicated relationship, but that's probably unavoidable. We're talking about a substance that tastes great and makes us feel temporarily invulnerable, before occasionally destroying us. In deference to that, let's acknowledge that hanging our binge drinking urge on a civilization that was partially devastated (and partially saved) by booze may be something like tempting fate. At the very least, and especially if you know you're a lightweight, don't pretend to be Irish while you're coughing up that half-curdled carbomb. It's embarrassing for everyone.

But I don't want to be gloomy on St. Patrick's Day. I really don't. To that end, I was happy to read that Sam Adams, Heineken, and Guinness (along with some local politicians) have pulled out of parades in New York and Boston today on the grounds that the Irish dons' long-standing stonewalling of the LBGT community is disgusting. Which it is. Check out the pious statement from the organizers of the Boston parade: "we must maintain our guidelines to insure the enjoyment and public safety of our spectators." As though anyone has ever enjoyed a parade. Anyway, this basic recognition of human decency seems a small thing, after an historic last few years for gay equality. But after such tidal waves, we may now have to measure these things in the micro-sense. And each one of those small things will be reason enough to hoist a pint. Or three.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Good News, Half-Drunken fans!

As of yesterday, Nos Populus is under the guardianship of aois21 publishing. aois21 is a marketing company, providing distribution and promotion for emerging writers and I couldn't be happier to be working with them. And not just because they made me the subject of a press release that didn't come from the police and says nothing about petty larceny (making my 8th grade French teacher's bold prognostication two-thirds wrong).

Nos Populus will soon be available at places other than Amazon (though it will remain at Amazon too). I've been looking for a way to do that for almost... two years? Really? Wow, I'm bad at this. Anyway, Nos Populus is available for pre-order through aois21. It'll be available (in e-book format) at Smashwords by Friday and at Kobo by Monday. And at some point in the near future, it'll also be available at Barnes & Noble, meaning the book will finally be Nook-ready. I will update and provide links to all of that as it happens.

I spent some time last week bemoaning the lack of progress on my first novel and how self-publishing--for all its charms--can be a draining, deflating process. That's mostly still true, but a few rays of hope can at least make the situation look nicer. I owe a huge thanks to Keith Shovlin, who provided me with this opportunity even though I only threatened him a little. He's a self-published author, too, so he knows what this means as much as--or perhaps more than--I do. That's why aois21 exists, after all.

Anyway, that's it for now. Updates to come. As you were, people.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

I'd Call Myself "DVR-Man"

Please tell me that Nos Populus' description doesn't read like this:
The Clueless Dead is written as a vampire story from the male perspective and to counter a large number of annoying themes that have become prevalent in several works of vampire fiction. My character is an ordinary guy, a professional musician (but not a rockstar). He is transformed into a vampire as a result of a series of coincidences. He then must deal with the consequences of having vampire powers as well as the temptations involved in possessing the ability to mentally manipulate people, besides the spiritual quandary of being a vampire and a Christian.
To the guy who wrote that, to Keith Greenwood, author of The Clueless Dead: well done. Seriously. You put yourself out there, didn't pull your punches. Me? I draped myself in inches-thick armor and tried to look just enigmatic enough for surely-jaded agents and publishers. They're not as cruel as the Internet, but they have a fair bit more power over your dreams, so the way you carry yourself ends up looking just as awkward. Only weeks after self-publishing Nos Populus, I realized the vampiric route might've been more successful. At least then I could say I had really gone for it.

No one wants to read something written by a 25-year old. I get that. I spent seven years on Nos Populus and if it wasn't in shape to publish at that stage, it was never going to be. But if after seven years of work, my only other option was to let it rot on a flash drive that will itself be outmoded inside of ten years... well.

Self-publishing, like writing, is an honorable and demeaning bitch goddess. No reasonable person would ever say that the people who do it deserve more respect than proper-published authors. But they go for it, knowing full well that lesser writing is getting obscene advances and that they themselves will probably never make it. It's a special kind of delusion and they're doing everything in their power to materialize a goal that would've been far more absurd just twenty years ago.

I have few regrets about publishing my practice novel. A few syntax errors. My plot structure wasn't ideal, either. But I don't think it's bad. Sometimes Frequently, the most noble option is to keep walking. Worry about finding a direction later. I'm not done with Nos Populus just yet (still for sale) and I'm going to be trying something new with it; I'll let you know about that. But close to two years on, I have to focus on what's next.

Now if only I could freeze time. Ooh, and maybe I could also reverse time. And make it go forward. Just manipulating time in minor chunks, basically. On the order of a couple of hours each direction. Not enough to truly screw things up, but enough to stop (cause?) crime. That would be so sweet.

... Tangents like these don't help the writing process much, do they?