Distractions and Excuses

These are some of the most common excuses I’ve encountered while trying to justify to the rest of the world (but mostly my mother), as to why I am not yet an accomplished author. I also see these excuses pop up in conversation with other artistes, so it’s not all me.

1. Wildlife. Consider the little cockroach that decided to repeatedly attack me at Barnes & Noble. Why did it insist on charging at me, over and over again, Had it just arrived from a showing of “300,” inspired by the, ah, squirting testosterone? No, the little bastard knew I was trying to write. Wildlife resents us for being creative, either because it’s jealous, or because it wants attention (consider my dog, who overturned an entire table and broke a perfectly good tealight when I decided to write at home the other day). Naturally. I was more merciful than the Xerxes of the film (yes, I know, that’s not the real Xerxes, I know, I KNOW, give me a break, I’m not a complete idiot), I put it under my coffee cup, and when I left, I set it free. But I know what it was up to – I’m no idiot.

2. The Seasons. Spring is a particularly challenging time for overly-imaginative psychopaths (writers, in other words) – because, while it kisses away the winter blues, it is also so bloody distracting and tumultuous that it hurts. I don’t want to be stuck behind a desk and bent over my laptop, when I could be Artemis – running naked through the awakening forest and turning wankers who displease me into dogfood.

3. Flesh. People can be so thoughtlessly, and distractingly, beautiful. The obvious solution is to put all men in burlap burkhas and/or make them get really bad weaves.

4.  Food. I like eating better than working. Don’t you? Some also (slanderously) claim that I like drinking better than living. We shall not listen to those people. We shall keep on keeping on.

5. Professional jealousy. If you thought that it was hard out here for a pimp…

6.  Money. You try to sit down and write a couple of pages, and then think, “doesn’t it make more fiscal sense to be in marketing? Just a tiny bit? Yeah?”

7. Herd-instinct. You’re sitting there, being a genius (as always), and suddenly someone calls up and says, “let’s go out.” Human beings are social creatures. There are biological demands at work here. What’s even worse, however, is when someone doesn’t call, doesn’t say “let’s go out,”  – so that’s when you decide that the entire world hates you because you’re a genius, and you just want to smack some gum and hang out, and screw the magnum opus.

8. The corporate torture machine. I could be published tomorrow, I’m just not a corporate slut. Right right right. I hear this one in coffee-shops a lot.

9. Youth. It doesn’t matter than Yuri Lermontov published some of his best poetry at 17 years of age – some of us want to enjoy our professional childhood! Right?

10. The trolls. These are the odious little creatures that cause writer’s block. They are a bit like Pillow Pants, only with no comedic value whatsoever. Like that of zombies, their diet consists mostly of brain-matter.

Oh dear, oh dear

Having been tagged by JackGoff, I have to comply with the laws of the cyber-verse. If you thought Spartan law was tough…

Right. So. Five things no one (or almost no one) knows about me are:

1. I dig Enya.

2. I know a fair bit of Elvish. By “fair” I, of course, mean that I will never be able to impress my friends on the Barrowdowns, but whatever.*edit* Oh wait, like, everyone knows that. Hm. Well, there is something I hadn’t thought about lately, but here it is: I may dislike a person intensely, but the minute I look at a picture of them smiling, I want to believe that they have good in them. Case in point: those smiling portraits of George W. Bush. People make fun of them. I cannot. Perhaps this has to do with my endless quest for some sort of moral absolution, I am not sure. *edit*

3. I used to be very much into cooking – when I was small. I was very much into making jams and pies and broths with grandma, and then dreadful “creative insecurity” set in. Now I’m lucky if I bother with instant noodles. Everyone knows the latter part. Not everyone knows the former.

4. I used to have weird, nationalistic ideas about Russia – a country I never even lived in (although my heritage is half-Russian, and my first language is Russian, and a lot of my earliest and most fundamental literary influences are Russian). I was ashamed of the title “Ukrainian” and even “American.” I wanted to live in Moscow. I also wanted to have, like, eight blue-eyed kids.

5. I once got into a brawl with a bunch of boys in school, and ended up with a bloody nose. Of course, I also gave someone else a split lip. My parents chided me and made me cry. I was very resentful after that – I plotted to run away, and find myself a new parent, someone like Arnold Schwarznegger. Arnold would have appreciated me!

And now, from my lofty perch, I tag: Alex, Maryam, Rachel, Olechko, and Charlotte.

Come away, o human child… To be butchered in the wild

“You mean… They killed her?” asked David.
“They ate her,” said Brother Number One. “With porridge. That’s what ‘ran away and was never seen again’ means in these parts. It means ‘eaten.’ ”
“Um, and what about ‘happily ever after’?” asked David, a little uncertainly. “What does that mean?”
“Eaten quickly,” said Brother Number One.
And with that they reached the dwarf’s house.

“There are many kingdoms that might exist, and many kings,” said the wolf-man.
“You will not rule here,” said the Woodsman. “If you try, I will kill you and all of your brothers and sisters.”
The wolf-man opened its jaws and snarled. David trembled, but the Woodsman didn’t move an inch.
“It seems you have already begun. Was that your handiwork back in the forest?” asked the wolf-man, almost carelessly.
“These are my woods. My handiwork is all over them.”
“I am referring to the body of poor Ferdinand, my scout. He appears to have lost his head.”
“Was that his name? I never had the chance to ask. He was too intent on tearing out my throat for us to engage in idle chitchat.”
The wolf-man licked his lips. “He was hungry,” he said. “We are all hungry.”

– John Connolly. The Book of Lost Things.

Connolly is an accomplished thriller writer, which makes perfect sense, in a way. One of the central themes in this book has to do with crimes against children: stolen children, corrupted children, eaten children. Continue reading “Come away, o human child… To be butchered in the wild”

Because Ahmadinejad is doing great things for Persian culture and all

Morons, “300” is based on a Frank Miller comic book – it’s not an original creation by the evil Hollywood puppeteers – get your stereotypes straight.

Anyway, since when do hard-line pseudo-Islamic governments stand up for filthy pagans? Oh, right, when it’s politically convenient.

I don’t really think that it’s abnormal for people to have these reactions – this is myth, at its core, and myths are morally ambiguous and, let’s face it, more than a little biased and jarring and insiduous and creepy. But the minute some governing entity steps in and starts trying to decide what is or isn’t acceptable when it comes to myth, that’s when I have to tell them to GO BACK TO THE SHADOW, to the FIERY CHASM FROM WHENCE YOU CAME.

And when you get there, rent a copy of “Borat.”

The good news is – if there’s a fatwa out on Gerry Butler, he can come and hide out in my skirt. What? It’s flowy, dammit.

Because this is more fun than writing my own reviews

Oh what the hell – I’ll link to Stephanie Zacharek’s review of “300.”

The world may wonder which character in this computer-generated extravaganza is President Bush’s stand-in — but that’s the wrong question to ask.

Yes.

But the film has a poreless, waxen quality, as if all sensuality had been P.airbrushed out of it: The actors struggle valiantly to take hold of their characters, but deep down they know they’ve donated their bodies, and their faces, to science.

No.

Dude, you got turned on by that “hair” scene in “Possession” (I know it was, like, years ago, but I have the memory of an elephant), and now you’re telling me this?

To each their own, I guess.

Spartan he-men spout declarative sentences like “Only Spartan women give birth to real men!”

No.

Queen Gorgo said that. That quote is actually historically attributed to her. Well, supposedly. I wasn’t there at the time.

…and sneer at their fellow city-staters, the Athenians, calling them — with straight faces — “boy lovers.”

Yes.

I’ve read that Spartan culture tended to be more heterosexual than Athenian culture – at least by the Ancient Greek definition. I’ve also read that there was definitely some sneering between the two cities, and that the biggest sneerer was actually Aristotle. Though then again, I wasn’t there at the time.

“300,” even with its impressive vistas of computer-generated soldiers, is just a throwaway epic.

Yeah, and this is coming from someone who thought that “White Noise” had a genuine element of spookiness to it. Riiiight. Us elephants – we never forget.

Seriously, has no one picked up on what the genuinely bad elements are in this movie? I’ll make it easy on the planet, it’s basically two things: 1) David Wenham’s narrating – I like films with narrating, but he is trying to do some sort of weird pirate voice… I keep expecting him to bust out with an “arrrr! Shiver me timbers!” He sort of makes up for it by looking, to put it mildly, architecturally impressive, but this element still, ah, rubs me the wrong way. 2) The sex scene. Now, I’m probably biased, because I thought it was going to be mind-blowing after Gerard Butler said something to that extent. I can see how it could have been mind-blowing (and grinding, and *cough*), and the fact that it didn’t work has nothing to do with the actors, who were very much on top (yes, I meant to write that). No, the problem has to do with the fade-outs, the music, and the slow motion. It just doesn’t grab me because of the way that it was put together – although my standards are ridiculously high in this regard. As high as Mr. Mackie when he attempts to run away to India, in fact.

Alright, I’m done now, I swear.

P.S. Let’s give Stephanie Zacharek some credit, though, at least she doesn’t imply that “300” fans are a bunch of brainwashed Nazis. In this sense – her review is refreshing.