Month: June 2012

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John Dies at the End, review on Goodreads

John Dies at the EndJohn Dies at the End by David Wong

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The (somewhat obtuse) review will begin by talking about Britney Spears, who has nothing whatsoever to do with this book. I only mention it in case it chases some people away. Bye!

I realized one day that when people buy a BS album, they’re not just getting a collection of songs, they’re also purchasing permission to participate in the whole BS zeitgeist. They get to talk BS and read BS online and at the grocery store checkstand. They get to enjoy BS movies on a whole different level, get to watch BS videos and think about not just the BS song they heard but also the BS life they’ve been watching and talking about.

Sure, there’s a real Britney Spears who sings songs. But BS is more than that. BS is all of the everything, the stuff that a person could make into a hobby or even a career. Britney Spears makes money, but BS makes money for other people too.

Same’s true for some book experiences. I was a little more than halfway through John Dies at the End, and I knew nothing except that it was a book. I took a friend to the airport, and was telling her about it. But all I could manage to do was say it reminded me of Danielewski’s House of Leaves. Nothing about the two books are the same: different writing style, different story-telling method, different mood, different everything. But both books are very weird. And House of Leaves has all of that BS-esqueness going for it. It’s not just a book, but a manuscript that was online for a while, cobbled together, shared via word-of-mouth. There’s music about it and discussion boards and this whole cult-like following.

Just finished JDitE, and it turns out my comparison was spot-on. David Wong’s “novel” was cobbled together, shared via the internet, and now there’s a film version, and a sequal. Turn’s our David Wong’s a pseudonym. Turns out there’s an ARG associated with the next book. You see what I’m saying? You read this book, and you get to participate in a whole big thing.

Not interested? Just want to know if it’s a good read or not? It’s not bad. Competent writer, interesting characters, funny in places, clever in places. Mostly it’s just very very weird. Remarkably creative, imagery that will make you real, deus ex machina abused to the point of being respectable, but in the end, mostly just very very weird.

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Open Letter to a Dear Friend

Note: I am going to post this email to you on my blog.

Hey G. Been meaning to send you an email for a Loooong time now. My excuse was “but it’s HIS turn!” How lame. How very very lame of me to use THAT as an excuse. I mean, when has waiting my turn ever kept me from just blabbering on. Never.

So why now, then, maybe you are asking. Well I had a dream about you last night. I don’t recall exactly what it was. Something about a swimming pool, and your hair was jet black. Doesn’t really matter. Personally, I don’ think dreams have meaning. Now, I don’t begrudge people who DO think dreams have meaning. I just go with the theory that dreams are merely the reflection of short term memories moving into long term memories. And that’s memories on, for want of a better phrase, a microscopic scale. You see a bug, and your brain registers that it was shiny. And then decides that the shininess of bugs would be good to keep around. So it moves that into long term memory while you sleep, and you have a dream where “shiny” and “bug” cascade around other associative memories, and there’s headlights on a Volkswagen beetle sending Morse code to a guy you knew in Junior High.

And if that inspires you to look up the guy on Facebook, so be it. I mean maybe it IS Jungian. Fine. And here’s me writing to you. Saw some picture someone posted on Facebook recently, you in front of a cake covered in candles, guys in the background playing ping pong. Was it your birthday? I am ashamed to admit I don’t know when your birthday is. This is especially bad, since last time I saw you was on/around MY birthday, and you gave me those excellent cookies.

But let’s not wax maudlin about how bad I am as a friend. This email is meant to entertain and inspire you to, if you feel like it, write back. That would be lovely. We miss you like the dickens, and when I say we, it’s not the royal we, it’s the me and the wife and a few others friends who are going to go nameless since I am making this an open letter (and never fear. Unless you explicitly request it, I won’t put any reply you give me on my blog).

Questions: whatcha reading these days? How’s the velocipede? How’s your chosen city of dwelling treating you? Going to any of the music festivals on the horizon, the ones I know you’ve been to and enjoyed in the past? Any chance you’ll be up in our neck of the woods soon and we can have you over for adult beverages?

As for me, just so you know, I’m not reading as much as I should, I’ve been hit or miss with my own chosen form of exercise, this city’s rounding the corner on Spring and turning lovely, and the arts will be seeing us seeing King Tut’s exhibit, the Lewis Black play, and The Cabin in the Woods. No plans to hop down to your side of the state line, but I think we should make some, and soon.

At any rate, I hope this finds you well. In all of the those Facebook pictures, you are smiling. This makes us (royal us) extremely pleased, just so you know.

Shall pursue a fine bourbon this weekend and raise it to your health. Hope to hear from you soon!

Jason

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What Would Andy Rooney Write? (Or: My Transistor Radio is a Cat)

Remember Andy Rooney? I think he died. Not sure. After I write this I’ll go to Wikipiedia and link his name. But by then I’ll have written this, and I don’t feel much like editing. Which might be more introspection than is readable, but then that’s the point of this post.

I saw Andy Rooney on Sixty Minutes a few times, and my point of view on him is the one of the popular and uninformed, the PoV fit for creating parody: that he was a rambling bafoon. Part of that is a reactionary disposition, one that rebels against good old fashioned Americana. You know, the same PoV that makes fun of Norman Rockwell and members of the VFW who wear suspenders. We’re such (young) curmudgeons (we’ll be fun to make fun of when we’re old (if we don’t all die of heroin overdoses first (or limp bizkit overdoses (because it is now ironic to listen to limp bizkit (good god time is getting compressed, innit))))).

My transistor radio, which I bought just to listen to AM stations, doesn’t get the best reception all of the time. Or any of the time, now that I think about it. Sometimes, the only place where it doesn’t whine and click is sitting right in front of me, between me and the keyboard. Which is fine if I’m just surfing. But if I want to type (crap) like right now.

“So turn it off!” I can hear you say (and here “you” is a fake person, since no one reads this blog, and if someone does, that person is a crazy person, who understands a little well why the radio can’t be turned off). Well, that’s not going to happen. I abhor silences. One of the (many) reasons I talk all the time.

The point of all of this of course is that I need to write more, a common lament that comes from me, a chronic dirge that comes after a derth of blogging. Blogging… that’s just extemporaneous writing that I’m not ashamed enough to not share in a publically accessible way. And yes, whining that I whine too much has become de rigueur of late as well. So what. Would that have stopped Andy Rooney? A veteran of opinion writing, a professional, a man with a storied career and thousands of fans possessed of and respectful of his intelligence?

I have no idea; I have not read that Wikipedia article yet (and this one-line Dave Barry wannabe end of article zinger is hereby ruined by my pointing out that it’s a failed Dave Barry-esque zinger, if only to say next time: instead of not writing anything like Andy Rooney I’ll try and I’ll fail at emulating Dave Barry).