Tackling Betty White
Posted on | February 8, 2010 | No Comments
I was one of the over 106 million people who tuned in to watch TV commercials yesterday evening (surpassing the M*A*S*H finale as the most-watched program ever). I didn’t really care who won the game, though I had a mild affinity for the Saints. Good game — tough and close in the early going–it looked impossible to gain any yardage on the ground. Clean (except for the tussle after the brilliantly executed onside kick), hardly any penalties, no possession-changing fumbles, only one interception, strong defense, and exciting right to the end. The commercials on the other hand…not so impressed. The Betty White / Mars bar one made me laugh, and the geek in me appreciated the nod to Lost in a beer commercial, though I don’t recall which beer it was. I also picked out the actor who plays Marvin Candle in another commercial — you’d almost think it was ABC instead of CBS. And ho ho ho at Leno, Oprah and Dave.
The Who has never been one of my favorite groups. They have a handful of songs that I like a lot and other stuff I can barely stand to listen to. When I got my iPod a few years ago, I bought Live at Leeds and deleted it after a couple of times through. I did like their final album of the 20th century, which was released around 1982 (it had Emminence Front on it) and I stayed up late the night before my Christmas exam in Astronomy to watch the simulcast of their “farewell concert” from Toronto, probably that same year. My wife really liked their halftime performance yesterday. I thought it was just okay.
The image over yonder is the cover of Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, edited by Jennifer Brozek. It contains my contest-winning story “The Fingernail test.” The book is scheduled for release on April 4, 2010. You can pre-order at a special discounted price from Apex Publications here.
The first episode of Undercover Boss was pretty good, though I think next week’s will be even better since it is the CEO of Hooters.
We watched Amelia this weekend. I had no idea that Amelia Earheart was married to G.P. Putnam (the publisher, later Penguin-Putnam) or that she had a fling with Gore Vidal’s father. Hillary Swank is good as Earheart, but there’s something crucial missing from the film. It all seems on the surface, without any real emotional depth. I liked Doctor Who’s Christopher Eccleston as Fred Noonan, though his part was small. Interesting in terms of history but not memorable as a piece of dramatic filmmaking, in my opinion.
I’m about 100 pages into Black Hills. Turns out the ghost inhabiting the protagonist is General Custer (if I’d read the dust jacket I would have discovered that earlier) and that the protagonist plans to blow up Mount Rushmore, which was part of his vision as a child.
All my best ideas
Posted on | February 4, 2010 | 1 Comment
My interview with the Woodlands Villager, the community newspaper, made the front page. Not too shabby.
One of these days I’m going to figure out how to take notes while I’m in the shower. Some of my absolute best ideas have come to me there. I’ve usually just finished with my morning writing session and I guess my brain is still working. I know a waterproof computer is too much to ask for. Maybe some sort of dry erase board? I don’t know how many times I’ve had to stagger out of the stall, find a scrap of paper and a pen and scratch something down. Happened to me again this morning.
I started Black Hills by Dan Simmons last night. Only got a couple of chapters in, but it’s intriguing so far. Starts with a Native American being possessed by the ghost of a dead white soldier and then jumps ahead to the construction of the sculptures at Mt. Rushmore.
I’m not sure I buy the romance between Gibbs and the omnipresent attorney this season on NCIS. It seems forced. She’s always in his face, he always arranges to be alone with her whenever they want to talk, but I don’t sense a spark.
So, is Ray Romano’s character on Men of a Certain Age going to give up his party store and go on the senior circuit playing golf? I doubt it, but that might make things interesting. I’m starting to agree with Kelly Laymon that Scott Bakula’s character is the weak link of the show. Guy needs to grow up.
Puzzles
Posted on | February 3, 2010 | 4 Comments
The Stephen King Illustrated Companion made the preliminary ballot for the Stoker Award. This is not a nomination. The active membership of the HWA will now vote on this ballot to produce the list of nominees (with some help from the additions jury where necessary). I’m not sure exactly what the schedule for that round of voting is. Once the nominees are produced, there is a second round of voting to determine the winners, who will be announced at the Stoker banquet in Brighton, England at the end of March. Here’s a new interview from the local newspaper arising from news of my Edgar Award nomination.
The weather guru is predicting that we may get another blast of winter next week, with the possibility of sleet and/or snow. This really has been an unusual winter.
We usually start a jigsaw puzzle during the Christmas vacation. It’s something to do around the table while we’re visiting. This year’s was a 1500 piece challenger that featured an Italian trattoria with the rest of the colorful city visible in the background. Because I’m partly colorblind, I tend to go more by shape than by what’s actually on the pieces, so it takes me a while to finish a puzzle like this. Last night I finally put the last pieces into place. Quite a marathon.
Okay, here’s where we break away to talk about Lost. On LiveJournal, this will be behind the cut. If you’re viewing this on my blog and you don’t want spoilers, look away!
The long wait was well worth it. What an episode! Instead of the two possible outcomes from the white screen at the end of Season 5 (it worked — Oceanic 815 makes it to L.A. | it didn’t work — they’re still stuck on the island), the writers found a way to have their cake and eat it, too. Except the Oceanic 815 that makes it to L.A. is not the same one that we saw in 2004. It’s mostly the same, except it has Desmond on board (albeit briefly?) and Shannon’s still in Australia. Hurley is now charmed instead of cursed, and Rose is the one consoling Jack through the turbulence instead of t’other way around. With a few notable exceptions, they’re a grim lot. Charlie’s suicidal. Kate’s still in chains. Jack’s distraught. Locke’s depressed and lying about his adventures. Not exactly the most brilliant outcome to their problems on the island…and things only get worse. Missing casket, missing knives, Kate on the run with Claire as an accidental hostage, Jin under arrest, Sun still lying about speaking English–or maybe she really can’t.
My assumption is that whatever happened at the end of Season Five (and there’s a chance that it wasn’t a nuclear explosion) caused a butterfly ripple effect around the world. Small changes that accumulated to cause the differences we saw–Hurley’s good fortune, for example. So it is entirely possible that Charlie isn’t a successful musician and that Sun can’t speak English. Most things are the same, but enough is different that we shouldn’t take anything for granted.
And then there’s the other timeline, which is now in 2007 on the island. Fake-Locke, who I’ve taken to calling Esau for Biblical reasons, finally shows his true colors, which means it’s time to go back and scrutinize every previous appearance of the smoke monster. What we assumed to be a mindless guardian with special powers proves to be something else altogether. And there’s still no guarantee that Jacob=good and Esau=bad. Esau wants to go home–but where the hell’s that? I’m also a little perplexed by the visionary people who have appeared on the island. Some of them were perhaps Esau’s attempts to connect with someone to do his bidding. Hurley’s imaginary friend. Eko’s brother. But what of Christian? Though Jack saw him briefly, he never approached Jack, and we actually saw him in Jacob’s cabin when it still had its protective ring of ash, which should have kept Esau at bay.
Plenty to think about. Is Sayeed himself after his resurrection? I knew he was going to come back to life, partly because he had to, and partly because Miles didn’t read anything from him after he was supposedly dead.
The Opening Credits Were Spoilers
Posted on | February 2, 2010 | No Comments
Saw this little guy on the median while I was out at lunchtime. No coyotes in sight, but two lanes of traffic zooming past him on either side. Roadrunners can fly, though they seem to prefer not to. I kept looking around for a big truck with an ACME sign on the side.
I finished my essay for the BOMC calendar this morning and sent it off to the editor. It turned out well, I think. The editor said it seemed fine with him, too.
I had one major problem with last night’s House. The episode had one ongoing mystery (besides the medical mystery, which is usually neither here nor there except as a catalyst for everything else that’s going on). The problem was that the opening credits spoiled the mystery. I recognized the name Michael Weston, mostly because the actor appeared on an episode of Burn Notice, where the protagonist’s name happens to be Michael Westen. However, when Cuddy’s boyfriend (and House’s erstwhile private detective) didn’t make an obvious appearance early in the episode, it was fairly obvious that he was the one behind the destructive pranks at Wilson’s condo. Other than that little detail, I thought it was a top-notch episode of the series.
I don’t think I mentioned previously that I posted my review of Joe Hill’s Horns recently. The review, however, came to the author’s attention and he links to it in his blog post today. So I’m linking back, to create some sort of Internet Gordian knot.
Tonight is, of course, Lost night. A one-hour warm-up followed by two hours of Lostly goodness. Can’t wait. Don’t bother to call–you’ll only get the machine. I have been avoiding absolutely everything and anything that might contain even a slight spoiler for the new season. Somewhat apropos of this, I had an idea whilst in the shower this morning (that happens a lot, actually) that led me to pitch an article idea to the editors of Lost magazine. I have no idea whether they will be even remotely interested, but I had to make the pitch, at least. Stay tuned.
Received an ARC of the next Dan Simmons novel, Black Hills, yesterday. It goes straight to the top of my TBR list. Sorry, Mr. Hogan. You’re down to #2.
We watched Whip It, the female roller derby movie directed by Drew Barrymore and starring Ellen Page last night. Also featuring Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern as her parents, and Juliette Lewis and Kristen Wiig as two of the other roller derby players. The film felt a little uneven in terms of pacing, but the roller derby scenes were choreographed extremely well, and the film managed to have a good blend of comedy and drama. The scenes between Harden and Page are particularly strong, but there are some other excellent moments, such as the one where Wiig attempts to set Page’s character back on the right path after some mis-steps. It wasn’t blown away by the movie, but I thought it was very well done.
The Monday night comedies were particularly funny last night, from How I Met Your Mother’s “perfect week” to The Big Bang Theory’s exploration of the dual nature of the electron in the molecular structure of graphene. How could that not be hilarious?
Radio Gaga
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | No Comments
We’ve all but decided to go up to New York for the Edgar banquet. I mean, what are the odds that I’ll ever be an Edgar nominee again? And on the ultra-remote possibility that I were to win (stranger things have happened, though not many) it would be a shame not to be there. We’re going to go to have a good time. Dress to the nines and mingle with high society with no expectations of anything more from the evening than a nice meal. (Seriously — it better be a good meal.)
I fnished Ridley Pearson’s Killer Summer this weekend. Review to come but in brief I thought the caper was overly complicated for what they hoped to achieve. What was the point of all that elaborate misdirection?
Picked up Gaiman’s Anansi Boys and finally got into it. I’m up to the point where the main character’s brother has just replaced him at work for the day, rummaged around in the computer and discovered some offshore accounts that he brandishes around to save his brother’s job.
Was asked to contribute an essay to the 2011 King desk calendar, so I came up with an idea, pitched it to the editor, and was given the green light. It’s a terrific gig — I got the first draft done this morning and should have the essay finished by the end of the week. The pay is very nice. Not enough to cover a trip to NYC, but it will definitely defray some of the trip.
Searched out all the Easter Eggs on the Lost Season Five DVD (not very many this time around) , so now I’m completely up to speed for tomorrow night’s Season Six debut. I have been studiously avoiding absolutely anything that might give away any of the plot, including reports of the sneak preview they had on the beach in Hawaii a couple of days ago.
Stumbled across an old Levinson/Link TV movie called Guilty Conscience this weekend. It stars Anthony Hopkins as a philandering criminal attorney who is trying to come up with a foolproof way to murder his wife (Blythe Danner). Each time he concocts a plan, he puts himself on trial and tries to poke holes in his story…usually successfully. Much to his surprise and chagrin, it appears that his wife has similar designs — and a willing co-conspirator: one of his current lovers, Swoozie Kurtz. The ending is a bit abrupt, but it just goes to show that you can overthink a problem sometimes.
Flamboyant piano-playing songwriter rockets to attention partly because of considerable talent and partly because of outlandish outfits. Almost 40 years ago, that was Elton John — in 2010 it’s Lady Gaga. I’ve been aware of the name for a while but only this weekend sought out some of her music. I found a brief concert performance/interview combo on our OnDemand system. I have to confess to being impressed by her savvy and her chops. Pairing her with Sir Elton seems like a no-brainer. Their performance on the Grammies wasn’t earth-shattering, but I enjoyed it. At some point, like Sir Elton, she’ll probably tire of the camp and the performance art and let her music speak for herself, but I don’t begrudge her the theatrics.
Ceci n’est pas une molécule
Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 1 Comment
I received my official congratulations letter from the MWA yesterday regarding my Edgar nomination. I’m still undecided about attending the banquet. Round-trip airfare is cheaper than the hotel!
So, who was Michael Westin channeling as the man in the fancy suit last night on Burn Notice? The devil or Clint Eastwood? Not a bad episode, though exactly what Michael expects to get by messing around with Gilroy remains unclear.
I don’t trot out my Ph. D. very often, but I’m dusting it off right now. It’s in chemistry, which makes me something of an expert on molecules. The ones on Fringe last night weren’t molecules. First of all, when Walter looked at the molecule and said it reminded him of hydrogen cyanide I went — what? Hydrogen cyanide is one of the simplest molecules in existence: H-C∈N. That’s it. Three atoms. The molecule that was ultimately displayed on the screen looked like some honking big protein. It very well may have had a cyano group in it somewhere. Secondly, that molecule was so huge that there’s no way it would disperse through the air with a little bit of hot water to perk it up. I don’t ask for much from my pseudoscientific shows, but at least a passing acknowledgement of rudimentary chemistry would be appreciated, thank you very much. And chromium trioxide, a controlled substance? It’s just the anhydride of chromic acid and anyone with a little bit of knowledge could make it by the boatload.
And don’t get me started on the carbon chain shaped like a seahorse that breaks just about every rule of chemical bonding known to mankind. Somewhere Linus Pauling is rolling over in his grave.
The cold spell has arrived. A front moved through in the early morning hours bringing lots of rain. After it did, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and we’re on the way to the mid-30s tonight.
What do they know?
Posted on | January 28, 2010 | No Comments
I’m sure that most of you also receive e-mail alerts from Amazon advising you of the availability of titles that might be of interest. Today’s recommendation was for A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. A reasonably astute suggestion, except for some reason they want me to buy the Large Print edition. I know my vision is getting worse — my wife knows my vision is getting worse — how does Amazon know? (Really, it’s not that bad!)
Last night I finished my homework for the new season of Lost. I watched “The Incident” and most of the special features on the DVD. I still have to find all the Easter Eggs. I’m always fascinated by the creative process — how certain shots are constructed. It destroys some of the magic, but I’m still interested. Michael Emerson’s tour of the Disney offices was fun, too. “To do: Kill Ben,” Damon and Carlton have written on their white board when he enters the room.
I’m interested in seeing the new Mel Gibson film, Edge of Darkness, but I’m even more interested in seeing the original BBC miniseries. I see it’s now out on DVD so I just ordered a copy. It was very well reviewed at the time and it has an Eric Clapton soundtrack.
I always find it interesting when my day job and my writing life intersect. For the most part they run in parallel, but every now and then something happens to bring them together momentarily. The first time it happened was way back in the 1990s when I was a computer programmer. Our platform of choice in those days was the VAX with VMS operating system. I subscribed to various VAX/VMS mailing lists and became familiar with a guy who posted as GoatHunter…who I would later get to know as Hunter Goatley, the guy who runs Robert McCammon’s web site. This morning I received a day-job-related e-mail about a new message board someone was trying out to see if we were interested in participating. He mentioned another implementation of the software, which allows people to ask questions and vote for good answers. In the example he cited, the top-rated answerer just happened to be an old acquaintance of mine from back in the alt.books.stephen-king days. How random is that?
Had a physical yesterday. All my specs are within tolerance (though my cholesterol hit 200 for the first time ever) except it seems that my red blood cells are overweight.
The Talented Mr. Ridley
Posted on | January 27, 2010 | No Comments
Ridley Pearson was at the local Barnes & Noble last night promoting his latest YA novel, The Academy. A significant fraction of attendees were young’uns, some of them very enthusiastic about his books. He arrived about fifteen minutes early and immediately sat with those already present and talked, answered questions, made jokes, recounted anecdotes. He has cowritten several Peter Pan novels with Dave Barry and is writing a series of YA thrillers set in Disney theme parks. He’s self depracating (“this series has 12 fans, as opposed to that one, which has nine,” he said at one point) and enthusiastic. His deal with Disney gives him full access to all of their theme parks at any time — he’d just gotten back from a trip to Florida where he was on some of the rides at 5 a.m. Creepy place when there’s no one else around, he said.
The idea for doing the Peter Pan books came from his young daughter who, according to his legend, stopped him in the middle of reading to her to ask where Peter had first met the pirates and other questions not answered in the Barrie novel. Turns out that Peter Pan is in the public domain most places, except in England where an act of Parliament preserved the copyright. The recipient of proceeds is the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London, as stipulated in Barrie’s will. Pearson said that about 90% of the money from the European editions of their books goes to this hospital.
Pearson is doing a lot of multimedia tie-ins with his work, including ARGs (which he called Augmented Reality instead of the more traditional Alternate Realigy), websites with interactive videos, etc. I think it’s the Peter Pan novels that have been adapted as a stage production that was workshopped in hopes of landing it on Broadway at some point.
He talked a little about the Rock Bottom Remainders. He said that during their first tour, for which they rented Aretha Franklin’s tour bus, they stopped somewhere in Alabama at about 4 a.m. to refuel. Before they were able to leave, he said, about five people showed up with copies of The Stand for King to sign. Imagine the logistics, he said. Someone had to recognize King, make some phone calls, these people had to stagger out of bed, find their copies of the book and drive to the gas station all in the length of time it took to refuel a bus! This was the same tour with the infamous incident where he and Dave Barry saw someone in the audience in front of King with all ten fingernails on fire. “I never want to be that famous,” Pearson said to Barry at the time–after Barry picked himself up off the floor having fallen there in astonishment. The Remainders are preparing to do another tour shortly, he said.
I bought a copy of his most recent adult thriller, Killer Summer, and read about 30 pages or so. I’ve only read one other of his thrillers, Parallel Lies, which I thought was decent enough if lacking a bit in characterization. He also signed my copy of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, signing both as himself and as Joyce Reardon, the putative editor of the diary.
This week’s NCIS was really good. I guessed that the husband had something to do with the contract on their whistleblower early on, but that didn’t detract from the overall fun storyline. The Shatner reference was funny, as were the references to snakes on a plane. I wonder what the deal was with Gibbs getting whapped by the car at the end. Maybe he had some real-life injury they need to work into filming the way they did with Reid on Criminal Minds, who had to get shot to cover the fact that the actor had bunged up his knee.
Negative publishing
Posted on | January 26, 2010 | No Comments
So far this year, I’ve had two stories that I considered to be “in the pipeline” fall off the cliff. The first case I’ve already mentioned — and it is by far the weirdest. The story was accepted for a themed anthology last September and then the table of contents was released without any mention of my story. When I queried the editor it was like he’d never heard of me. He rummaged through his office and ultimately relocated my story, but he decided he couldn’t add to the TOC at that point. Weird.
This week, a small press closed up shop, taking with it a planned southern gothic anthology to which I had submitted a story by invitation. That leaves the anthology homeless. Now the editor has to pound the streets and see if he can interest anyone else in the book. Having learned my lesson some years ago, I do not submit to anthologies that don’t have publishers, but there’s no way to guard against publishers fizzling before a book comes out. I have the option of withdrawing the story and subbing it again or giving the editor some time to see what he can work out elsewhere. I’m in no rush to make a decision about it, but I now consider the story available rather than in the pipeline.
A nice comment about The Stephen King Illustrated Companion from Kev Quigley, who runs the Charnel House website. He says that the book “was a first-of-its kind for King fanatics, featuring removable documents that reprinted unpublished King stories and early drafts from his novels. At once, it became one of the best books on King ever published.”
I received a questionnaire from the MWA yesterday, something I need to fill out for the publicist hired for the Edgar Awards. I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to attend the ceremony or not. It might be fun, but NYC is so expensive, even just for one night.
It was only a matter of time before House tackled a psychopath, and of course it would have to be someone where the psychopathy was a curable symptom. Remy Hadley brings a lot to the show, and more than just good looks–she is the perfect foil for House. They seem to have forgotten that she’s sick lately, though. Guess her meds are working well.
Castle was great again this week. A nice, convoluted storyline that the cops and Castle worked through a bit at a time, following the leads where they took them. Essentially good police work with a few flashes of insight. What’s more, despite the fact that the media is portraying them as dating, I think something more fundamental is going on between Castle and Beckett: they’re becoming good friends. Of course “it’s complicated,” but their friendship is a nice thing to see develop.
Going off to see Ridley Pearson this evening. Wonder if he’ll sign my Ellen Rimbauer book?
More than a wee dram of Lost
Posted on | January 25, 2010 | No Comments
That’s no ordinary pizza. It is an abomination known as a haggis pizza, which some places are offering for Robbie Burns day. Even Dominos in Scotland is making them. If that doesn’t drive a person to drink, I don’t know what will.
I come from Scottish stock on my mother’s side. McCormacks they were, from the Isle of Arran, who were given 100 acre land grants in northern New Brunswick in 1832. My parents always attended the Robbie Burns banquet, the central feature of which was the piping in of the haggis. My only experiences with Scotch have led to the worst hangovers I’ve ever suffered, so I don’t think I’ll be raising a glass in Burns’ honor tonight. And I don’t think the local Dominos would know what to do if I (heaven forbid) should order a haggis pizza.
To prepare for the forthcoming Season Six of Lost, I watched almost all of Season Five this weekend. Made it through the first four DVDs, leaving only the two-hour conclusion to be seen, along with the extra features. I’m glad I refreshed my memory, as there were some events that had escaped my recollection. It was also interesting to watch the last several episodes knowing the truth behind Locke’s ressurection, insofar as we know the truth. A lot of dialog takes on different meaning.
I posted my reviews of The Spire by Richard North Patterson, The Night Monster by James Swain, and Horns by Joe Hill. I liked Horns a lot. The other two, well…
Ridley Pearson is going to be at the local B&N tomorrow night. I think he’s also going to be at Murder By the Book, but this is much more convenient so I might drop over to see him. We don’t often get the really big-name authors in our community. The last one I recall seeing was Kathy Reichs a few years ago.
About
Bev Vincent is the author of The Road to the Dark Tower, the Bram Stoker Award nominated companion to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, which was nominated for a 2010 Edgar® Award.
His short fiction has appeared in places like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, From the Borderlands and The Blue Religion. He is a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance magazine and a member of the Storytellers Unplugged blogging community. He also writes book reviews for Onyx Reviews.
