Huh - should I be flattered?

All of a sudden, I have to word-verify my blog posts, because for some reason, "Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that [my] blog has characteristics of a spam blog."

According to Blogger's definition, a spam blog "can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text."

Um...well gee, that makes me feel just great, Blogger.

Rejected - FINALLY!

After SEVERAL months, I finally got a rejection from On Spec for my re-write of "Whiff." They said it was better, but that one of the plot points was still a little too convenient. I don't think so, so I'll try again with a few other magazines before I think of rewriting it.

Weird Al Yankovic! LIVE!

Yup - I heard only a few weeks ago that 'Weird Al' Yankovic, a musician and satirist of whom I've been a fan since that one time he sang about patterns on Sesame Street, was going to be performing live at the Exhibition, and that the price of going there and seeing him was only to pay the gate admission (read: $10!).

My first thought, of course, was HELL YEAH!

I got there about an hour early, and went right to the front (or at least five rows from the front - standing room only there) and talked with some random shirtless guys until the concert started. Everytime a roadie came on to arrange the instruments before the show, we all cheered anyway. And then the concert began.

He started with his latest Polka from his CD Straight Outta Lynnwood, and he rocked that accordion as only a true accordian player can. There was a video screen on the stage, and while he sang it showed the sped-up music videos of the songs he was polka-ing to, which made it pretty awesome. He played a lot of his classic songs, and condensed some of his cooler, newer ones into a medleys, and while he and his crew made costume changes the TV screen showed some of his old music videos and his AlTV spots, where he takes celebrity interview footage and changes the questions so that the answers are taken out of context. Some of the highlights:

-the song "Bob," which I'd never heard before - it's comprised entirely of palindrome lyrics - strange as they are ("Do geese see God?"), they still sound like Bob Dylan lyrics!

-during the song "Do I Creep You Out?" (a spoof of Taylor Hicks' "Do I Make You Proud"), Al took off his hood to reveal a Taylor Hicks' grey wig.

-during the song "You're Pitiful" (spoof of James Blunt's "Your Beautiful"), Al took off a succession of T-shirts - one of which says "Atlantic Records Sucks!" (they're the reason Al couldn't put the song on his record - James Blunt didn't mind the spoof at all!). By the end of the song, he's stripped down to a Spongebob T-shirt, his boxers, and a pink tutu.

-Weird Al to Kevin Federline: "What does it feel like to have a closetful of wifebeaters, but no wife?"

-Again, Weird Al to Kevin Federline: "How old were you when you discovered that you had absolutely no talent? ... Too soon?"

-Weird Al wearing a "fat suit" while singing "Fat" and the other musicians jolting upwards as Weird Al jumped up and down.

-Weird Al, during a fake interview with Michael Stipe from REM, asks him to write a lyric on the spot - Stipe says, "We all use cellphones, so c'mon, let's get real" - a song Weird Al uses as part of his encore, while the videoscreen shows the audience members waving their cellphones. It looked like a sea of little glowing squares, it was cool.

Basically, it was fantastic, I had a great time, and I'm definitely going to see him again if he ever comes back to Edmonton.

A catchy theme to listen to while reading the seventh book!

Enjoy.

D'oh!

There already IS a LOLceleb blog! (www.lolcelebs.com)

Yeah, next time I'll try to run a good websearch first.

So I made a new blog - The LOLstars (lolstars.wordpress.com). Check it out!

I have a new blog!

I had so much fun making he LOLcelebs, that I created a fanciful little number over at WordPress to publish them all. Be sure to go and check out the LOLCelebs - I'll make more, and I hope people will submit their own, too.

Harry Potter and the Selfish, Callous, Childhood Dismissing Edmonton Journal Bitch-Hack Journalists

*ahem* As you can guess, this is a bit of a rant. One of my siblings clued me in to the fact that The Edmonton Journal, the #1 paper for the capital of Alberta, posted the juiciest spoiler for Harry Potter's final adventure in the article's HEADLINE on the FUCKING FIRST PAGE OF THE PAPER. And by spoiler, I mean THE spoiler, that everyone from bookies to grade schoolers has been itching to find out - that is, who lives and who dies.

Pardon my Elvish, but FUCK YOU EDMONTON JOURNAL!

It was only due to Sister #2's warning that I didn't read the front page myself. It's only now that I realize that I really can't use the internet or watch TV or even talk to people (which should be hard, as I have to work at the Disney Store today and we're directly across from a Coles bookstore) if I don't want the ending ruined. I mean, I don't want to be one of those Internet idiots who's always screaming "spoiler alert!" over the littlest things, but I mean, c'mon! This is supposed to be on the last page of the last Harry Potter book!

I could (somewhat) understand the paper running an article like that maybe two weeks, maybe even one week after the book came out to discuss its meaning and the probable effect on its readers - because at least that would give some people a chance to read the book. But on the first day it's out? On the front page - the one that everyone reads? And in the freakin' headline??? I'm assuming some fucking intern got assigned to one of those "Midnight Harry Potter Madness" parties, bought the book at 12:05, skipped right to the ending, and passed the info onto the newspaper folks so they could cook up a last-minute article before press time.

It's not just because it's Harry Potter that I'm angry - I may sound cliched, but it's the principle of the thing. They deliberately printed the most important spoiler in the most-read part of the article (the headline) on the most-read page of the paper (the front page) on the morning of the very first day the book came out - and do you want to guess how many people were gifted with an advance copy of the seventh Harry Potter? Not a whole damn many - hell, even Stephen King hadn't managed to get himself one.

There may have been a few who, by now, have finished reading the book after buying it at midnight - but there are just as many kids, teens, and adults who didn't stay up past their bedtimes who are only now going out to get the copy. And they just might stop to read the first page of the paper before they leave the house.

Again - FUCK YOU EDMONTON JOURNAL.

I'm willing to bet any amount of money that tomorrow's editorial is going to be chock-full of pissed-off readers who are just as angry as I am that the Edmonton Journal let the fatass cat out of the bag in order to sell a few more copies of its paper. J.K. Rowling is a fantastic writer, and while her later books have succumbed somewhat to George Lucas Syndrome (i.e. - "he/she's so good/successful, we don't need to edit anything!"), she's still managed to cook up a great surprise, and it's always been a pleasure to read through the clues of the book only to have it revealed at the end - and it's almost always been both a) a real surprise, and b) one that's been established by actual clues and isn't just a red-herring deus ex machina.

I'm not saying I wouldn't have read the book if I'd had the ending spoiled - but you read a book differently when you know the ending than when you know nothing about the plot. Rereading a book you remember is about the journey to a destination you already know, but reading a new book is an exploration of completely unknown territory. I'd really like to have that experience with the seventh Harry Potter novel, and I'm sure a lot of people who read the front page of The Edmonton Journal would have wanted that too.

Fuck you, Edmonton Journal. Did you sell a lot of copies? I hope you're fucking happy.

The return of the LOLcelebs!

I lost mah shurt

I can haz anudder?

Mmmmm....

Mah thurst iz kwnched.

Yes, Sandy Clawz

Elijah Wud duz egzist!

The First Installment of: The LolCrushes!

What are LOLcrushes? They are actually derived from the ever-popular Internet LOLCat, which is defined by Urban Dictionary as:

The phenomenon of pasting captions in large text onto pictures of cats. The captions are a specific blend of:

1) txt msg text (shortcuts like "ur" for "your")

2) bad English-Asian translations (like the classic "all your base are belong to us")

3) common typing mistakes (like "!!!!1" and "ZOMG" and "teh")

4) misspellings (like "cheeze")

5) spam shortcuts (like substituting "5" for "S" and "3" for "e")

The Smart Bitches recently retooled that theme for their LOLHoff (as in, Hasselhoff) contest, which I recommend you see. My favourite? The winner - "Ah sex u. Yes?"

So I am retooling that standard for my crushes du jour. Why? For fun! Submit your own if you can, in my comments or by email!

*drumroll*

Silly? Yes. Border-line random? Of course. Fun - definitely!

More to come, once I have the time, and perhaps a better understanding of the LOL format.

I'm a redhead!

Yes, I dyed my hair red today and I did it ALL BY MAHSELF.

NEW RECORD!

Two, actually - first, for the most stories submitted in one day (that is, two - "Golden Opportunity" and, the fresh off the word processor "House Hunting"), and then for most stories under consideration at one time (four - On Spec did receive my story, and it's still under consideration, Clarkesworld Magazine, Baen's Universe, and now Strange Horizons). Hurrah! Maturing as a writer!

Yes, I chose Strange Horizons again, but I've been reading it with fair regularity and I'm really enjoying it, and I think "House Hunting" would be a good fit. I'm kinda in love with "House Hunting," I currently think it's the best thing I've written so far, and I've never reread it and not thought, "Damn, I'm good."

I mean, I've felt that way about all my stories at some point, or else I never would have submitted them to magazines in the first place. But then after I've submitted them I think they're awful or immature and how embarrassing it will be for the editors to read it - but so far that hasn't happened with "House Hunting" yet.

I did include a cover letter this time, the standard issue for me - you know, the one where I say I'm a Senior reviewer for Green Man Review and yes, my fantasy novella DID get published by a professional magazine. I'd like to think it makes a difference, but I guess it all depends on the editor.

Submitted "Golden Opportunity"

I submitted "Golden Opportunity" to Baen's Universe today, in the Universe Slush Pile forum at Baen's Bar. Best case scenario - my story is plucked from murky oblivion and placed in a reputable e-zine that pays professional rates. Worst case scenario - I get some helpful comments and a chance to rewrite.

Now on to work with "House Hunting."

Rejected, and the Writing To-Do List

Heliotrope got back to me in less than a week to reject "Golden Opportunity" - that's either a very good or a very bad sign. There are still magazines out there - I'm thinking of trying Baen's Universe next because they have a special section for new writers and a forum that gives lots of feedback. So my writing checklist is as follows:

1. Submit "Golden Opportunity" to Baen's Universe

2. Prepare "House Hunting" for submission.

3. Rewrite "An Unmagical Age."

4. Rewrite "Joyful Noise."

5. Continue writing the first draft of "The Middle Child."

6. Keep plugging away at Reading 'The Willow King'.

Submitted - "Golden Opportunity" to Heliotrope Magazine

Thank you, Anonymous Commenter, for your advice - he/she suggested I try "Golden Opportunity" out at Heliotrope, a delightful magazine that not only can be read online (fave story so far: January Mortimer's "A Godmother's Gift"), but is currently accepting online submissions.

I've noticed a lot of magazines are now accepting online submissions - it didn't use to be so, did it? I wonder why...There are lots of reasons why, of course - the recent bump in U.S. postal rates might be one - but it seems like a sudden change to me. Maybe it's just that I didn't catch on to these magazines that now accept online submissions until recently. It does mean one has to be more careful, though. I don't know why it is, but I tend to read stuff on paper more carefully than words on a computer. E-mail is a fascinating messenger system, but it's still something of a casual system to me, if that makes any sense. There's something about sending a crisp, white manuscript in a manilla envelope with a white "postage paid" sticker on it that seems more formal than sending an attachment in an E-mail. I mean, my mother's friend sends attachments in E-mails, and more often than not they are videos of a man applying a Tazer to his reproductive organs for laughs. Not quite the same as a writer sending something out in the hopes of getting published.

There's also the Blackberry reason - people are reading on those now, but they still seem too small for me to read anything comfortable on. Still, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to handheld technology - I still use my parents' cell phone, and it doesn't take pictures or text or download or even fold in half like all the other ones do.

Still, it saves on both time and postage, so I have no complaints. I've recently sent E-mails to On Spec, since it's been four months since I submitted my story to them, and they're situated in the same city as me so it seems unlikely that the manuscript would have taken a horribly long time to get to them. I know they're very busy, but I did wait four months before E-mailing them. I just hope I don't have to wait another month for them to reply to the E-mail.

I also started another story, "The Middle Child." It's not a fairy-tale retelling, although it does have another misanthropic female teenage narrator. I seem to write a lot of them. I don't want to fall into a pattern, but a misanthropic female teenage narrator just seems the best fit for the particular story I have in mind (I got the idea from reading "A Godmother's Gift," although they're not alike at all). Maybe it's because I spent so much time being a misanthropic female teenage narrator myself.

Now I'm a misanthropic female twentysomething narrator.

Good gracious, I'm a twentysomething now, aren't I?

*cough* Moving on, I also finished the first draft of "Joyful Noise." It took a while, but I think it has a good foundation and could survive a couple of rewrites. It has some great actions scenes in it, I think.

Ah well, I'll just have to see how my writing turns out. I still have lots of ideas (I have one in mind about God's little brother and sister, which doesn't need a misanthropic female teenage narrator).

P.S.--> I apologize for posting the atrocious cover for Nicholas Nickelby - it was the best one that I could find on short notice.

The Mouse House Rules

After a month working for the Mouse, I guess it's about time I started blogging about it. We sell just about everything with Disney character on it -- from striped Tigger jumpers for babies to Tinkerbell jewelery for adults to Hannah Montana pillows. It's bright and colourful and aimed mostly at children, but with some adult toys thrown in, like our collectable snowglobes and coffee mugs.

I've found that working there is an extremely tiring, but not unentertaining experience. While adults do come in looking for merchandise for themselves, the majority of customers are accompanied by small children and babies. The store has especially wide aisles to accomodate the caravans of tricked-out strollers and carriages, but during our busiest times I often wish those aisles came equipped with traffic lights and crossing guards to manage the crush.

And the children. There are so many of them - and they're not all on their best behaviour (although I've yet to encounter a true monster) - but they've provided me with so much writing material on parenting that it's totally worth it. In a month, I've encountered so many different types of parenting attitudes, I could fuel a hundred stories. I've seen children kept on leashes, children with those tiny sandals that make a loud squeaky-toy sound with every step so their parents know where they are, children who are refused a toy by a strict parent only to receive it from the indulgent grandmother two steps behind. We've had parents ignore the "over three" warning on toy labels because their toddlers are "smart." We've even had unaccompanied children whose parents are shopping in the next shop over who've mistaken our store for a free day-care centre.

I've seen a few "don't touch anything, and I mean it" parents, but for the most part the spirit is one of indulgence and spoiling, with the difference being in the scale. Parents end up buying birthday presents, other kids' birthday presents, "today's a sale and who knows when everything'll be this cheap again and my kids will only be kids once" presents, "just shut up already" presents, "we're going to Disneyland so we might as well get the same stuff in advance here while they're cheaper" presents, and "my children literally have everything else in the store" presents. I kid you not, I had to guest-service a grandmother who couldn't find a birthday present for her twin grandsons because everything I pointed out, they had already. "Spoiled rotten, they are," she growled, with the annoyance of a bear who's found out someone got to that picnic basket first.

Sure, the kids are loud, but you can understand the parents' need to drop the cash when you see a kid's reaction to a particular toy. Kids five and over tend to scream their appreciation - usually the character's name rather than the type of toy itself - ie, a boy receiving a Cars bubble machine will not go, "Cool, a bubble machine!" but rather, "LIGHTNING MCQUEEEEEN!" or a girl with a new Disney Princess swimsuit will shriek, "CinderELLA! CinderELLLLAAAAAAA!" Toddlers, oddly enough, are quiet when they get presents, which probably explains why they are getting them in the first place. My favourite scenes in the store are when a parent introduces a doll or a stuffed animal to a baby or toddler, and it ends up being the Huggies version of Love At First Sight. If the toy is satisfactory, the child will go completely silent, take the toy in their arms, and hug it so tight while smiling at everyone as if she'd spent all, what, two and half years of her life looking for this one toy.

Of course, once she and her mom or dad get to the till it's another story - the moment they take that toy out of her hands to ring it in she'll start screeching like a cheap car alarm and the Cast Member on till will have to manhandle a toy coated in loving baby saliva to look for the UPC tag that seven times out of ten has already been torn off. Delightful.

And of course, there are the annoyances that accompany any job in retail. For instances, the irresistible temptation for customers to pick out a bunch of stuff, realize they don't want it, and leave it wherever the hell they want. Or customers who start a till interaction (which we can't close without voiding everything) only to leave it in the middle to go shopping for something else while a line builds up behind. Or customers who don't see the blue ribbons that mark where the till line-up should be, so they line up in an aisle and get pissy when they realize they have to go all the way to the back of the real line before we can serve them. Or the customers who line up after those aforementioned people and are even pissier.

Customers who smell bad (either bad food or too-heavy perfume).

Customers who let their kids run buck wild.

Customers who enter the store two minutes to closing time to "just browse."

Customers who bring in coffee, drinks, and food, and then leave said garbage in the store.

Customers who come in to the Disney Store (which carries only DISNEY BRAND PRODUCTS) asking for Dora the Explorer, Madascar characters, Shrek, and Spider-Man (???).

And then, of course - there's the big screen at the back of the store that plays the same hour-long tape of trailers, Lilo & Stitch sing alongs, Little Mermaid song clips, and Disney Channel advertisements. I've seen the Ratatouille trailer and behind-the-scenes clips about a million times - luckily, I still want to see the movie itself, and my experience at the Movie Theatre (which also played a 40-minute trailer video non-stop) helped me to ignore it.

But so far I'm loving it, the pay and hours are good, and so far I don't seem to be screwing up too badly. So I think I'll stick around.

Trailer Talk

Saw a few new movie trailers today - thought I'd discuss:

Bee Movie: Yeah, sure - the few couple of live-action teasers were funny, but they didn't really explain a whole lot about the movie. The new, animated trailer (the story: a honey bee wants to explore the world, go fig) looks great, visually - and I think I might even be interested in seeing it, despite the fact that Dreamworks' computer animated movies have a tendency to be shallow, toy-coloured, artificially hip pop culture gags that suck ass (see: Shrek 2, the reviews for Shrek 3, Madagascar, wait - who made Barnyard again?).

Another trailer that just came out is for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium - which looks to be in the style of Willy Wonka but without the cumbersome literary origin to be true to in adaptation. Dustin Hoffman has weird hair, Natalie Portman is cute as a button, and thank God Jason Bateman's getting work after Arrested Development! Plus, it's set in a magical toy store - which I can relate to.

Not that my toy store is magical - unless you are referring to the magic of Disney. But man - it's hard enough running after babies and kids in a place that sells ordinary clothes, toys, and dishware - imagine doing it in a place where stuffed animals hug you and dragons breathe fire? Looks good, but it has the misfortune to be out on American Thanksgiving, and that's the time I'm devoting to obsessing over Enchanted.

"A Princess of Roumania" by Paul Park

It's been a time-honoured tradition for little girls and boys in doorstop-thick fantasy novels to turn out to be princes and princesses in exile. They may have believed their lives were meant to be lived as orphans, pigkeepers, valley girls, or beggars, but whisk them off to a magical land, and they're suddenly royalty. Such fantasy tropes, like any other aspect of fantasy, can contribute to an excellent story when done well -- but they are done so often that the tedious, uninspired stories always outnumber the truly good ones.

Well, thank goodness for Paul Park, then. His A Princess of Roumania seems rote when described on paper. Miranda, an orphaned girl adopted by American parents from an orphanage in Romania, is whisked off to an alternate world, where she is really Princess Miranda Popescu, the one shining hope for alternate Roumania's uncertain future.

However, the punch of the story comes from the details that follow after the logline: Miranda, with her friends Peter (a troubled one-armed kid from school) and Andromeda (her outrageously popular, blond, BFF) are whisked into said alternate world only to discover that the supposedly "real world" of shopping malls, colonized American states, and a thriving United Kingdom was actually a fictional creation written by Miranda's aunt Aegypta and ninety of her best scholars to protect Miranda from her enemies. Romania's Communist despot Nicolae Ceaucescu, in a quirky bit of metahumour, turns out to have been named after Aegypta's enemy the Baroness Nicola Ceaucescu. The real world, it seems, is still sunk in a hellish 19th-century rut, the Germans are gaining power, and the British Empire has been all but annihilated by a tidal wave.

Meanwhile, the Baroness Nicola Ceaucescu, partially responsible for how Miranda and her friends were pulled out of the book Aegypta put her in, finds her problems mounting when Miranda does not magically materialize in Roumania (as Nicola planned), but instead arrives in a Massachusetts populated by savage British refugees. The impoverished and debt-ridden Baroness was set on selling Miranda to the Germans currently threatening Roumania, and with that avenue closed to her, tries to manipulate the Germans to disastrous effect.

So yes, Miranda is a princess -- one important enough to merit a host of baddies intent on her death or capture, as well as a covert league of allies loyal to her family. But Park adds so many bizarre, subtle details and plot twists (a murder mystery, a stolen gem, a boy who grows an extra arm that isn't his) that I have no idea what direction this trilogy is going in, only that it stands to be a good one, if this beautifully written introductory book is any indication.

Crush Du Jour Rating:
Thoughtful Adam
("Deceptively simple, original use of a tattered fantasy stereotype. A-.")

"If You Could See Me Now" by Cecelia Ahern

Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is the book I got at a bargain book store for the sole reason that I'd heard Hugh Jackman was going to be in a film adaptation of it. I hadn't read Cecelia Ahern before, but the idea behind the book appeared cool at first glance: a woman caring for her sister's child ends up falling in love with his imaginary friend (to be played by Jackman in the movie, I'm guessing).

Our protagonist, Elizabeth Egan, is a severely repressed control freak interior designer who specializes in calm, unthreatening colours and designs. Oh, and who obsessively cleans when she's bothered, which is a lot. Her rampant personal problems are related mostly to a series of over-familiar fiction tropes: 1) She wasn't loved enough as a child, 2) she's been secretly repressing a dark family secret, and 3) she's basically sacrificed any hope of a social life in her small Irish town due to her abusively selfish, alcoholic (and most likely mentally ill) sister Saoirse (pronounced Sear-sha).

Our other protagonist, Ivan (who bears a striking resemblance to Hugh Jackman...) is a professional imaginary friend. Yup - he has a boss and coworkers and meetings and everything. His last best friendship has recently ended (as most of his friendships are bound to), and he finds himself attached to a cute six-year-old named Luke. Luke's a pretty well-adjusted kid, considering that his mother Saoirse barely acknowledges his existance and his aunt Elizabeth (his legal guardian) has a pretty low tolerance for the chaos of childhood and child-raising in her rigidly ordered life.

At first, Ivan thinks this is just another case of play-with-kid, give-kid-tips-on-life, kid-stops-seeing-him kind of deal -- but that stops Elizabeth, an adult, starts detecting his presence. As Elizabeth eventually starts to see him, as well, Ivan realizes his assignment may not be to help Luke, but Elizabeth, overcome personal problems and learn how to adjust to life.

As a novel, If You Could See Me Now is a quick, easy read, but it's the kind of book where I think a movie adaptation might actually be a better fit for the story than the original novel. For one thing, there is a lot of redundant introspection in this book on Elizabeth's part, most of it dealing with her feelings of failure with her crazy-ass mess of a sister, her fears that she might fail Luke in the same way, and her unanswered questions about why her mother could never stay and take care of her for more than three weeks at a time. Her actions and reactions to events around her demonstrate these feelings and needs perfectly well, and a visual narrative would tidily eliminate the navel-gazing narrative that gets repetitive pretty quickly.

It might also make Elizabeth and Ivan's romance a little easier to believe. According to the description, Ivan's an unusual imaginary friend in that he looks like a slightly unshaven, adult man (most of his coworkers look like kids or pets) - but his narration reads like he has the mindset of a seven-year-old. It makes sense to his character, as he relates to kids very easily this way, and it's his job to be, psychologically, at their level, but this makes his suddenly adult yearnings for Elizabeth a little bizarre, especially as he describes his feelings for Elizabeth in his characteristic childish fashion ("Elizabeth is my most favourite," etc.).

The story's also painted with a fair number of broad strokes, and the narrative is hampered by a total dependence on unrealistic coincidences. There's a scene where Luke shows Elizabeth a picture he drew of his imaginary friend, and she's surprised that Luke's friend doesn't appear to be a child like himself, but a six-foot-tall man. She sees this as an odd fact, and then promptly forgets it, which seems uncharacteristic. Elizabeth is (repeatedly) described as someone who renounces all magic and imagination (as her own dreams never came true, *tear, tear*) so if I were in her shoes and found out my kid had a "secret friendship" with a strange adult, I'd have been at the police station asking for descriptions of nearby sex offenders faster than you can blink.

Especially once Elizabeth starts seeing Ivan for real. The book leans her obliviousness on the shaky excuse that Elizabeth has rendered herself deaf and blind to fantasy, but the fact that it takes so long for her to put two and two together (Luke's imaginary friend = six-foot-tall Ivan --> Mysterious stranger = also named Ivan, also six feet tall and buff) strained my disbelief to the limit. She spends almost the entire novel convinced that Ivan is the concerned father of one of Luke's school friends, despite the fact that Ivan makes several attempts to correct her and that no one else in town seems to see him. Elizabeth just conveeeeeniently misunderstands everything Ivan and her friends and coworkers say about her conversations with apparently empty air. And those same coworkers and friends just as conveeeeniently misinterpret her one-sided conversations, so that she conveeeeeniently isn't ordered to endure psychiatric counselling.

It eventuallys gets to be too beyond belief. It's redeemed a little by the end, which keeps the novel from falling completely into the fairy-tale abyss, but it's Ivan who actually keeps the story going. Yes, his narration sounds a little youngish, but his observations are cute and his interactions and reactions to Elizabeth are quite entertaining. While I enjoyed the concept of a woman falling in love with an imaginary friend, the redundant description, poorly-explained dark secret, broad characters, and unrealistic happenstance kept me from enjoying the book completely.
Crush du Jour Rating:


Cute Hugh ("Sweet, funny...and I'll wait for the movie. B-.")

Movie Review: "Knocked Up"

There are plenty of times when I've walked into a movie theatre with high expectations for a movie, and I'm sorry to say there have been many times when I've discovered that my enthusiasm was wholly unfounded (I'm still scarred for life from watching Monkeybone). I'm ecstatic to say that this wasn't the case with director Judd Apatow's first movie after The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

In many ways, Knocked Up can be seen as the de facto sequel of Virgin. While Virgin taught us the wonders of (finally) having sex as we watched the blossoming of a chaste romance, Knocked Up follows up with a story about the results of sex turning into a somewhat less than chaste romance. Seth Rogen stars as Ben Stone, a character not dissimilar to his Virgin role as Cal. An illegal Canadian immigrant living in a pot-smoke-marinated house with a bunch of equally stoned-out buddies, Ben lucks out when he scores a drunken one night stand with ambitious E! News correspondent Allison (Katherine Heigl, in a refreshingly un-crazy-blonde role). His luck peters out when a misunderstanding results in Allison's pregnancy.

It turns out that under Ben's dazed, unshaven, chubby exterior beats a pretty decent heart, and he agrees to give it a go with Allison, relationship wise, for the baby's sake. It's not easy, and a great deal of the film's verbal comedy comes from the characters growing and changing and adapting to their partners. Along with Rogen and Heigl, Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd star as Allison's sister and brother-in-law, a couple who married due to pregnancy and whose fracturing relationship does not bode well for the direction Ben and Allison's is headed in.

There are a lot of similarities with Virgin, and most of them are good ones. Many Virgin cast members return (including Steve Carell in a neat cameo), along with alums from Apatow's Freaks And Geeks days. Like Virgin, the core storyline revolves around the hilarious, painful, but ultimately positive changes the protagonist undergoes to earn the love of a woman. Ben, with his perpetual drug use, unemployment, and dependence on a dwindling amount of Canadian government money, seems a far cry from being worthy of a glowing, blonde career woman like Allison, but of course, if he was a stud, there wouldn't be much of a movie, now would there?

And, like Virgin, the movie's concept succeeds because the characters, for all their crude humour and flaws, are genuinely likeable, realistic, and good-natured people. The reason Knocked Up proceeds past the first fifteen minutes is because Ben is willing to live up to his responsibilities and is capable of understanding the significance of fathering a child. There are far too many rom-coms out there that rely on the tired tactic of making their protagonists artificially quirky or uncharacteristically cruel or selfish in an effort to make the repetitive plots entertaining and interesting. Apatow, instead, takes a well-worn relic of a plot (opposites attract) and spices it up with relatable realism combined with blink-and-you'll-miss it conversational humour.

Plus, it's seriously funny. True, while there are visual gags aplenty, Knocked Up appears to be, before all else, a listening comedy. The characters talk to each other, articulately and at length, and people munching loudly on their popcorn while waiting for Rogen to be hit in the groin with a football are going to walk away sadly disappointed.

For those of us with ears open, this was a real treat.

Crush du Jour Rating:

Elijah's super-keen! (Translation: "Never doubt the soothing, sensual powers of dorks! A!")

"Golden Opportunity" rejected by Interzone

But I got an interesting personally written rejection. The editor encouraged me to send another story in November, but basically outlined that neither editors at Interzone wanted to accept fairy-tale retellings, for the reason that they receive so many, and so many are crap, and so many are basically the same story with different trappings, that even if they accept the really, really good ones, they're just going to get a billion more sub-par ones in the mail.

Which I can understand.

The editor said to feel free to send another story which is not (their emphasis) a fairy-tale retelling in November.

The first day I got this, I ranted, "It wasn't a fairy-tale retelling! It's an exploration of a fairy-tale trope!" And then I came to my senses. It doesn't matter what I think the story is - it matters what the editor thinks it is. If the editor identified it as a retelling, than my arguing over specifics isn't going to change anything. I'm still going to send it out somewhere else, but the question remains: where?