Siblings
Sibling relationships can be truly bizarre things. People talk all the time about how a certain friend is like a brother or sister to them, meaning that their affection and closeness rivals the ties of blood. In many cases, these same people have actual brothers or sisters that they aren’t particularly close to, or don’t care for, or actively dislike. I know many people who talk shit about their siblings constantly, only to vociferously defend the siblings to others who do the same. It’s weird.
A Trip to the Butcher
For the first time in my life, I went to an honest-to-god butcher. I was driven to do so by reading Alton Brown’s Good Eats: The Early Years, where he lobbies hard for people to find local butchers, and an article Lady Aravan posted about growth hormones in meat. Afterwards, I decided I would find one near me. I did, and Lady Aravan and I took a trip up there. I was intimidated, I have to admit. After a lifetime of just grabbing whatever I wanted from little individually-wrapped packages, here was someone waiting for me to tell them what kind of cut of meat I was looking for. I choked, and the man kindly suggested that he had a really nice piece of sirlion. I said that would be great, and got a steak that he said would feed four people (I assumed that might be enough for Lady Aravan and I). He cut it, weighed it and wrapped it, then I talked about pulled pork and he suggested something else (a pork butt that he deboned). They sell Boar’s Head products, which Lady Aravan and I both love, so we ended up getting a pound of bacon – cut from a slab – along with Boar’s Head mustard, hot dogs, pepperoni, and bleu cheese.
Writing Slumps
God, I hate getting into a writing slump. Some days, writing is the easiest thing in the world, you already have the sentences you want to write fully-formed in your mind and they just flow in the natural course of writing. Other days, everything you write sounds like the most godawful piece of shit string of random characters that have ever been put into a sentence. Today is one of the later for me. Everything I write looks and sounds like shit, doesn’t convey what I mean, is utterly lifeless and boring. I am doubting not only what I am writing now, but everything I have ever written. God I hate days like this.
Five Zombie Things for Wednesday, May 12
1. I was asked not long ago whether I thought Zombieland was the funniest zombie movie of all time. I said it wasn’t; I still think Shaun of the Dead is the best zombie comedy ever. My opinion was met with disbelief and indignation, but I haven’t changed my mind. Zombieland is very funny, absolutely; I laughed out loud a lot, enjoyed Bill Murray’s cameo (to a point, see below), loved Woody Harrelson and the Rules. The reason I like Shaun better is primarily the reason why I prefer British to American comedy styles overall. For the most part, Shaun is clever rather than slapstick and over-the-top, a bit more subtle overall. There is something in every scene to notice and store away, because it’ll get referenced later. The people involved aren’t ridiculously gorgeous (typical American movie issue, though), and the whole is a nice, seamless zombie movie that also happens to be funny. My main two problems with Zombieland that knock it from the top spot: fast zombies, and the “joke” Bill Murray pulls that gets him killed. No one would do that to a person heavily armed and in a zombie apocalypse. Again, I get it, it’s a joke, haha, but it jarred me out of the suspension of disbelief I happily had going until then.
The Curse of Troius: A Zombie Fantasy Novel
That’s my book! Buy it on Amazon, CreateSpace, or other online retailers! Join the Facebook page for excerpts and other news! Woot!
Five Things for Monday, May 10th
1. My novel is now on sale at Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s website, even a couple of Indian websites and a couple of Asian ones. Crazy. Before I did it, I said I’d be pleased if I sold a dozen copies. I’ve sold 15, so I am now officially happy. I’ve set up a Facebook page for it and already have over 40 fans, a couple of whom I don’t know and never met. It’s cool. I was afraid to set one up, feeling like the world’s biggest narcissist, but Lady Aravan had a good point: I want to write for a living, and I need to promote the thing as best I can. She’s right. Now I just need to stop checking the page incessantly.
Food Review: Virginia BBQ, Middletown, DE
I love barbeque. Pulled pork is one of my 5 food groups. I make it myself as well, but love sampling others just as much. I like different varieties of sauce, from the tomato-based to Carolina vinegar based to mustard based (my personal favorite). On a recommendation, Lady Aravan, myself, and a friend all took a short road trip down to try a place called Virgina BBQ, a chain barbeque joint.
The Power of the Media
I’ve read two articles recently that struck me, both illustrating the power of the media to distort truth and damage lives. Growing up, I seem to remember thinking the news was pretty impartial, stating facts and pretty much leaving it at that. The editorials section of the paper had some opiniated pieces, sure, but on the whole, the facts were presented with the reader left to conclude what it meant. Now, it seems all we have are editorialists, and we tune into Fox or MSNBC to get the slant we most generally agree with. Maybe I’m wrong, and the “golden age” of impartial journalism never existed.
A lot of us know about Ben Roethlisberger’s idiotic drunken escapade. We’ve heard the story about that night. But what most of us didn’t know the first story, the one that came out the night of the incident:
“13. THE ACCUSER HERSELF WAS UNCERTAIN ABOUT THE MATTER. When the officer on the spot said “I need to talk to the alleged victim, not [the sorority sisters],” he asked the accuser if Roethlisberger had raped her. She said:
(A). “No.” (DA news conference; PART 2, starts 2:42, key point: about 4:10: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/index.html [also at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaRGdYizw7g])
(B) When asked if the two had sex, she said “well, I’m not sure.” (DA interview, PART 2, starts 2:42, key point: about 4:20: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/index.html [also at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaRGdYizw7g]).
- (Blash also said she seemed inebriated, incoherent, “nonchalant,” and at times seemed to to want to tell someone that “y’all did whatever.”)”
Holding Your Novel
I got the proofing copy of my novel in the mail yesterday. Holding your own book in your hands for the first time is surreal. So is flipping it open and looking at words that you vaguely remember writing, but still feel alien and strange. Some of it seemed like it was written by someone else – I literally cannot remember writing those words, even though I know exactly the scene it represented. Flipping it open to a random page, I would see phrases that chunked like a frozen brick on a sidewalk, while others that sounded almost literary.
Winter in Derenemyn 