Snapped a shot of this lovely little dragon sculpture over the weekend, and I liked it so much that I simply had to play with it in PhotoShop.
Halloreween
Whilst walking/jogging/limping/suffering around the local high school track on Sunday, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts as they dissected the Halloween movie franchise.
This is quite the bittersweet topic for me. I continue to consider John Carpenter’s original 1978 movie to be not just a horror classic but quite possibly one of the absolute finest that the horror genre has to offer. At the very least, I know that it’s in my top three (and if you ask me on the right day, it’s my number one favorite horror movie of all time).
That being said, the franchise itself is…well, “a bit shit” is probably the nicest way I can describe the rest of the Halloween franchise. With the exception of one or two of the sequels, which aren’t necessarily good but rather palatable in comparison with the rest of the franchise, I’d have to say it’s an embarrassing legacy to the macabre joy of Carpenter’s original offering. And don’t even get me started on Rob Zombie’s vulgar reboot. Actually, you don’t need to; I’ve already torn into that particular affront to my horror movie sensibilities.
A strange thing happened, however, as I listened to the guys discuss these movies: a funny little idea that, throughout the rest of my torturous time at the track, took root in my overly fertile imagination and bloomed into the following poster. I’m not even certain what moment sparked this idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I needed to make it happen. Plus, the fact that the original Michael Myers mask was an altered Captain Kirk mask makes this all the more humorous to this horror movie/sci-fi dork. After all, what better way to update the original than to make it another Trek icon’s face as the new mask?
As for the image of Patrick Stewart in a rather non-Picard outfit, I decided that I wanted him to look more like Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Sam Loomis than his TNG counterpart. For a nanosecond, I considered going with Malcolm McDowell as sort of a Dr. Soran/New Dr. Loomis crossover. But then I remembered my anger toward McDowell’s Loomis and quickly kaboshed that idea. Besides, we all know that Sir Patrick is the best choice anyway, right? Right.
Flashback Friday: Push Pops
I’m a sucker for a sucker. Well, I used to be. I used to be quite the sugar hound back in the day, actually. Again, there should be no surprise that there was quite a bit more of me back in the day as well.
Eating healthy and exercising, FTW.
Of course, I still do get cravings. This Sunday, for example, I’ll more than likely be indulging this secret love, which I hid from you all last year for utterly selfish reasons. Consider this my recompense. Just don’t forget. I’m not reminding you again.
So back to my sucker fetish. I like candy that’s going to stick around with you, give you the most bang for your buck. Push Pops definitely qualify in this regard. Unlike regular lollipops or Tootsie Pops, Push Pops aren’t just a tiny disc or orb of lickable candy. Oh no. These are solid sticks of candy pleasure, complete with plastic case and top for a lovely easy-to-retract storage option.
Of course, this isn’t completely true. Anyone who’s eaten a Push Pop knows that two things inevitably can happen with these funsticks that never happen with a regular lolly on a stick. One: You run the risk of having saliva drip down the Push Pop and pool briefly inside the plastic container before finally rushing down the finger inside the Push Pop and down your arm in a sugary deluge. I had this happen more often than I preferred when I was a wee wolf. I can assure you, it’s quite disgusting.
The second thing? Let’s say you decide you don’t want to finish your Push Pop, so you push it back inside its case and snap on the lid. You let it sit for a little while
Unleashing the Writer: Auto Eroticism
[Loba Note: That snarky little editor in my brain refuses to stay quiet. Makes it very difficult to write with such inane chatter going on at the same time. So I put myself to a challenge: In 30 minutes, write a complete story without stopping to self-edit along the way. This is what I came up with. Some people take lunch breaks during their workday. I take writing breaks 😉 I know it
BookBin2010: The Art of Racing in the Rain
Oh noes. Another book with a dog on the cover. A cute, adorable, fluffum-wuffum doggy. Loba’s literary kryptonite. Why is it that I can’t stay away from books with canines on the cover? It’s quite sad, really.
However, I must say that I have yet to be disappointed by the contents of such books. And Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain is definitely no exception to this rule.
First, let’s deal with a few things right up front. Yes, I picked up this novel because there was a dog on the cover. I’ve already confessed this particular weakness to you, so it’s not that surprising to hear again, right? Beyond the dog, however, I knew nothing of this story or its author. So imagine my surprise when I realized that it was a story told from the perspective of a linguistically erudite dog named Enzo who loved auto racing.
I kid you not.
To those of you who are cringing at one or more of the things I just wrote, let me reassure you now. First, reading a book written from a dog’s POV is not as disconcerting as you might initially think. In fact, such a story allowed me to discover the brilliance of Paul Auster. When in the right hands, such a story is a gift, pure and simple.
Next is the auto racing angle. Yes, na
Feeling Wonder-ful
I know, I know. You wish you had this shirt, don’t you? Sorry, denizens. La Loba has to keep some secrets to herself…
Muses and Musings
She started whispering to me beneath the shade of our beach umbrella, during moments when I would unplug from whatever novel I was hungrily devouring that day. I’d stare out at the shimmering sea and simmering sands and I’d listen as this new muse shared with me her story.
It has been quite a while since I heard a muse speak to me, even prior to recent events that left a splintering silence within my mind. My most recent, Eddie, went quiet quite a while ago, which still saddens me. His was a funny, dark story that I very much enjoyed. I hope he comes back to me soon, to finish his tale.
So I made very certain to pay close attention to this new voice. She’s left me no name so far. That doesn’t really bother me much. She can remain nameless if that’s her preference. Beyond a strange hatred of sand, which admittedly I share with her, she seems surprisingly…normal. I’m not used to that.
I’m not typically drawn to “whole” characters. In both my own writing and the creations of others, I’m constantly drawn to and inevitably fall in love with the most damaged of the lot: the widowed CMO, the emotionally scarred ex-freedom fighter, the alcoholic Viper pilot with the damaged past, the brooding CSI with Diastema and dark secrets, the FBI agent whose entire life hinges on locating a sister missing since childhood. There is beauty in their flaws and fractures that I simply cannot resist.
So to have a character come to me with relatively no imperfections? I’m baffled. And a tad bit concerned. Can I do her justice? We’re always tasked as writers to “write what we know.” I know imperfection. Truth is, I prefer imperfection.
Then again, the “what I know” at the moment is too much for me to write right now.
I visited my mom’s grave for the first time on Sunday. Her body is buried slightly fewer than 50 miles away from me.
In weiter Ferne, so nah!
The veterans’ cemetery has yet to place a proper grave stone for her. I’m actually thankful. The thought of seeing both my parents’ names on a grave marker is a bit more than I want to handle at the moment. His must be there because he is the veteran. She simply happened to be the first casualty.
So for the first time, I stood on the ground above my mother’s grave and glimpsed the vastness of something to which I’m nowhere near edging closer. That vastness is more than I may ever be able to wrap myself around properly. At least not alone.
Here, in my lair, this public forum of private mourning, there is solace in knowing that others read my words, that I have somehow shared my sadness without actually having to ask for permission. I apologize for the passive aggressive nature of my sorrow, but I suppose, in some ways, this is how I reach out. I have never found asking for help to be an easy task. The thought at one time used to frighten me into vocal paralysis.
Introversion is a difficult mistress and she will ride you hard and put you away wet if you allow her the indignity of that indiscretion.
But to broach these feelings alone, in the solace of my small writer’s world? Not happening any time soon, I’m afraid.
So for now I lean closer and listen to the whispers of my newest muse. She’s already made her story known to me, but I’m listening for those little clues that will lead me closer to understanding her in ways that will let me give her a proper home. Perhaps she will finally be the story I complete this year. One never knows…
Flashback Friday: Extremis
I love it when actors (especially actors from my favorite genre shows) wander into the realm of singing. Or sing/speaking. Agent Scully is not the first to do this. Nor is she the most impressive. That title would, of course, go to the inimitable William Shatner. Don’t believe me? You’ve obviously never heard him speak “Rocket Man.” All I have to say to that is, Why The Hell Not?
Anyway. So back in the late 90s, when I was both deeply entrenched in the nerdy wonder of The X-Files as well as falling further and further down that rabbit hole of the spurious, subversive downloading culture (yes, I was a very naughty wolf in those glorious underground geek days of late-night raiding of FTP sites with a 56K modem and a 6-pack of Mountain Dew), I came across a track on someone’s site, labeled “Gillian Anderson Quattro Extreme.”
Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? Gillian Anderson, as in Dana Scully on a music track? Yes, please!
And so I downloaded the track. And fell in love. I would later learn that the version of this song that I first downloaded was slightly mislabeled and was, in fact, the Qattara remix of “Extremis,” a song by HaL that originally featured Ms. Anderson way more than the remix does. I love the remix a lot more than the original because it has that driving electronica beat that I love…the beat that has gotten me pulled over on more than one occasion for encouraging my lead foot to drop more precipitously than usual.
However, the link below is to the video for the original song. I had never seen the video until a few months ago. I don’t think it ever played on any mainstream video channels here in the States. Once you watch it, you’ll understand why. Agent Scully apparently had dreams of being a naughty wolf, too.
I’ve read a lot of criticisms of Anderson for this song as well as for the collection on which it was originally featured, Future: A Journey Through the Electronic Underground. This 2-disc set was compiled by Anderson to feature music and musicians that she was very much into at that point in her life. Agent Scully was into electronica? Who knew, right?
I think some of the criticisms are unfounded. I do believe that the original version of “Extremis” is one of the weaker offerings from this compilation, but still has its merits. Plus, I really dig Anderson’s exquisite speaking voice. I also think that her selections are holistically strong and representative of what was a great cross-section of the electronica scene at that point in time: Fluke, Massive Attack, The Future Sound of London, The Chemical Brothers, Brian Eno, William Orbit (who would help reignite Madonna’s career on Ray of Light, which I still think is going to be her pinnacle). These are names that I would encounter many more times as I made my way through similar compilations and soundtracks, but I heard them all first thanks to Agent Scully and her crazy underground sound.
Of course, take what I say about music with a grain of salt. I once bought a Marilyn Manson CD and Debbie Gibson’s greatest hits at the same time.
So, hope you enjoy. If you don’t like the music, I at least hope you enjoy this wonderfully bizarre video. If anything, you can see how many times you can catch sight of Anderson’s beauty mark to the left and slightly below her nose. Chris Carter always insisted that it be covered by make-up when she was in character. Apparently, FBI agents aren’t supposed to have beauty marks. Again, who knew?
BookBin2010: Speak
There is a certain skill that very few authors can wield with such clarity of purpose. It’s the ability to strip a story down to its simplest, purest elements, to leave behind the flowery prose and the impressive vocabulary and, with the sparsest language, tell the most powerful story.
Laurie Halse Anderson has that skill and she flaunts it quite well in her 1999 novel, Speak.
I’m not saying that I think this book is simple in any way. It’s quite complex, actually, and the themes that Anderson captures are so resounding for anyone, regardless of age, ethnicity, or gender.
Yes, the story focuses on one traumatic event survived by the novel’s heroine, Melinda Sordino, and her journey back from the nadir of that moment to when she finally reclaims her voice. But it’s also the story of depression (not emo teen angst, but honest depression), not fitting in, not belonging, not being understood, not being heard because you don’t know how to be.
What teenager doesn’t understand these feelings? Hell, what adult doesn’t understand these feelings? I’m nearly 34 years old and I still feel as though some days I’m struggling to find my voice.
Anderson does an exemplary job of capturing all these emotions and moments, not in any overly sentimental or schlocky ways, and of creating one of the most extraordinarily human characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. I can honestly say, with all the books I have read and all the wonderful characters I have met throughout my literary perambulations, Melinda Sordino has earned her place as one of the few characters I didn’t want to leave. She was this beautiful, breathtaking combination of fractured and fierce, funny and heart-breaking. Very rarely do I wish that a book character was real, but such was the case with Melinda.
Perhaps that’s partially why I love the movie with equal fervor and why I’m also going to praise what I think is one of the finest book-to-film adaptations I’ve ever seen.
I’ve actually already talked a little bit about the movie version of Speak. It came in the form of what could be construed as a back-handed compliment to Kristen Stewart while unleashing my vitriol on Stephenie Meyer and the scourge of inanity she’s unleashed with her bullshit sparkly vampire stories.
[Loba Tangent 1: That reminds me. Another thing I spent considerable time doing at the beach this past weekend was flipping around all the copies of Meyer’s latest abomination so that no one could recognize it. I also flipped around a couple of displays so that people couldn’t see them either. Hell hath no fury like an offended literary snob.]
In my rant/review on Twilight, I mentioned how taken aback I’d been after seeing Stewart’s performance as Melinda Sordino. For that brief period of time, Melinda existed in such a believable, genuine way, gaining life through one of Stewart’s more inspired performances thus far.
[Loba Tangent 2: In his review of Adventureland, another of my recent favorite movie acquisitions, Roger Ebert wrote,
What surprised me was how much I admired Kristen Stewart, who in Twilight, was playing below her grade level. Here is an actress ready to do important things.
I can’t agree more with Ebert, and I can’t wait until she can finally put behind her these insipid Twilight movies and move on to do the important things I believe await her.]
Again, I have no children. But if I did, regardless of whether they were girls or boys, I’d give them this book to read and/or the movie to watch (although I think the movie sharpens the focus of the story, whereas the book is a little more inclusive of all outsiders). Anderson has done something so amazing with this novel: She has captured an astonishing array of overarching issues that affect so many teenagers, and brought them together in this perfectly crafted tale.
Final Verdict: Melinda Sordino will be staying in my collection, thank you. Although I don’t think I will be reading any further into Anderson’s oeuvre. I know this is going to sound strange, especially coming from as big a book geek as me, but this book resonated so strongly with me, not only for the complex simplicity (oh, yes, indeed) of the story, but for the absolutely beautiful way in which it was told…I can’t imagine Anderson ever topping the power of this novel.
What’s more, I don’t want her to. I want Melinda to remain the solitary spectacular gift that Anderson has given to my library. I know that sounds bizarre, but that’s the way I feel, at least right now. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.
BookBin2010: My Favorite Horror Story
I knew this was going to be a keeper the minute I picked it up and read the description: a collection of favorite horror stories as selected by some of the finest horror writers the genre has to offer. Um. Yes, please.
Then I saw the Table of Contents and was walking to the cashier before I’d even finished:
