SO STOKED!

Follow-Up: Amazonian Intrigue

As far as I can tell there won't be much more information coming regarding the Amazon "glitch" that lit Twitter on fire and sent the company stumbling through controversy this past weekend. In addition to the company's claims of "cataloging error," a hacker has also claimed responsibility for the problem on his blog.

I remain skeptical of both explanations, and in the end we may never know what really happened. Here's hoping the situation is rectified in a hurry, no matter the cause.

Read a thorough summary of the story in the New York Times today here.

Roswell vs. Twilight: BATTLE ROYALE

Way back in August, I wrote this post about the similarities between Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and the old TV show Roswell that used to air on the WB and later UPN. That single post has drawn more readers from web searches than any other post from this entire year. Clearly, I was on to something.

Today, Mike Moody over at the TVSquad (cheers, Mike) went up with a side by side comparison of the Roswell series and the Twilight movie. Check out his excellent post here.

While I have been very hard on Twilight on this site (this was my original review of the book) I do think there is something encouraging about its smashing success. According to Box Office Mojo Twilight raked in a near $70 million on its opening weekend, a bigger opening than Quantum of Solace the most recent James Bond effort. That's some big money.

Why is it encouraging? Because it demonstrates, yet again, that young women have buying power and that they are a demographic worthy of the attention of publishers and studios alike. And for someone like me, a writer of fiction with a decidedly female bent, that is nothing but good news.

I still hold that the comparison between Roswell and Twilight simply reveals the formulaic foundation upon which they are each built. And it's to that formula, the teen love rescue gambit, that I attribute the success of both. Women (and pre-teens, tweens, teens, whatever) enjoy a good romance now and again, and if you combine that with some creativity, and some quality writing (hopefully) you're increasing your odds of success in that market.

So who is the winner in the Roswell/Twilight showdown? Well, I know which way I vote, but the bottom line is, we all win.

Planning in Advance? What's That?

As it happens, Vroman's Bookstore had already given away all of their Lewis Black tickets by the time I was leaving work, so I wasn't able to attend the reading. Just another reminder to PLAN IN ADVANCE. I'm going to have to work on that.

However, I did spend the remainder of the weekend blissfully ensconced in central air conditioning with three generations of my family, all trying to stay cool. It was that happy grouping that resulted in a family viewing of Singin' in the Rain, the Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor classic.

If you've never seen this movie, you should. I assure you, it will make you laugh. So for your viewing pleasure, I give you, the never to be duplicated, Gene Kelly.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

I have finally come to the end of the rabbity journey that was Watership Down by Richard Adams. Overall, I found the book delightful. On its surface it is a thrilling survival adventure, but it's also a story about community, faith, fearlessness, and oral histories.

Throughout the narrative, Adams pauses to allow the bunnies to tell stories of their bunny ancestors. I think it would be easy to dismiss these narrative breaks as momentum killers or unnecessary nuisances, but for me they added a complexity to the story that made the rabbit characters feel more real and more alive than if it had simply been a children's-book-style narrative with complex human thoughts ascribed directly to the animal characters.

It actually reminded me of the original epic poems that A.S. Byatt wrote for Possession and ascribed to her Victorian era epic poet characters. By taking the time to write and include those, it added a completeness to the book that would have been missing if she simply referred to single lines here and there.

Watership Down wasn't at all what I was expecting, and while the ending thrilled me, it left me with that bitter sweetness that I would never spend any more time with those characters.

Goodnight, Hazel-rah.

Daily Harpoon to the Cerebellum

In a moment of excessive enthusiasm I decided to read Moby Dick by Herman Melville as my introduction to the DailyLit service. DailyLit, if you recall, is a subscription service that sends users a daily portion of a book of their choice via e-mail or RSS feed.

I scheduled my daily portion of Moby Dick to arrive in my inbox every day at 4:30. I now dread 4:30. I'm five portions behind, and the e-mails are taunting me.

At this point, I'm not ready to blame the DailyLit service. It's all Melville's fault. I'm nine chapters in and Ishmael is not even on the boat yet. It's just... moody.

A friend has repeatedly called my decision to read Moby Dick masochistic. I've been insistent that it's not that bad, thank you very much, Monsieur de Sade.

But yes, it is that bad. In fact, it's torture, and not of the sublime kind. As a result, Moby Dick is being temporarily suspended until I'm ready to embrace my inner masochist.

Textual Inspiration #5 & DailyLit Follow-Up

If you may recall from this post, I am testing out the site DailyLit, a website that sends daily portions of books to subscribers' inboxes. I chose Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Perhaps not the wisest choice, however, I'd never read it before, and it being an American classic, it felt important to tuck it under my belt.

I confess to being only on portion number eight of 260. It's gonna be a long read. However, very early on, this passage struck me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I have bolded my favorite phrase. It's the first paragraph:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.