To Be Free

I have a (schoolgirl-like) confession to make. I like James McAvoy. A lot. I could go on watching Atonement forever, even if the story floors me, even if it breaks my heart. I laugh at the thought of him saying "I'm sorry" as he guns down a guy in a suit on Wanted. I'll even sit through parts of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the same reason. And don't make me start on The Last King of Scotland! Of course there are other films out there and series I haven't seen. I even have the discs for The Children of Dune that I never got to watch for years now. Maybe it's time to unearth them from my cabinet.

A couple of months ago I was flipping channels at home and caught him discoursing with a snout-nosed Christina Ricci via a one-sided mirror. Obviously I stayed on and watched. The film, Penelope, has started already by a good fifteen or so minutes but I didn't care. James McAvoy is there. Plus the adorable Christina Ricci. Oh ok, she'll always be the adorable Wednesday Addams, to me.

It's a story about a girl cursed with a pig face and her family's attempts at breaking the curse given to them by an angry, grief-driven old witch. It's quite easy for me to say that now given that yesterday I sat through and finish in less than a couple of hours the book version of the screenplay.

So yes, I really like James McAvoy enough to get the book version of the film so that I would know how it actually started. It also gave me the opportunity to relive the scenes from the flick. Yeah, call the doctors and have me institutionalized right now.

Penelope
Marilyn Kaye

It is a modern-day fairy tale, it says so on the back cover. Penelope became the accursed child of the Wilhern clan by default since she's the only girl born to the family for more than a hundred years. Her great-great-great-grandfather's fault really, for refusing to marry the love of his life, the very pregnant Clara because she's the help. Unfortunately, she's the daughter of a powerful witch who grieved over her daughter's suicide after the rebuke. Hence, the curse: the next female born of the Wilhern clan would have the face of a pig. Only when an aristocrat could accept the pig-girl as she was would the curse be broken.

Tough luck then that the Wilherns produced mainly male heirs until Penelope, in our time, came along. She grew up being told that her face isn't her real face. Hidden from view from the rest of the world, her mother now plans on interviewing young, blue blooded men for her daughter to marry so that the curse could be broken.

It's really a lighthearted, romantic comedy that has a strong, vibrant heart. If you're looking for lessons or is the type looking for morals at the end then you're in luck too. Because seeing Penelope grow into herself, meeting new people after escaping the clutches of her mother's controlling, marriage-focused attitude towards her, and finally accepting herself as she is, all that are a joy to watch. I mean read. Hahaha. Oh and yes, falling in love with the cute James McAvoy, I mean Max Campion, who's not really Max Campion. Ay, the plot thickens!

While the book version is actually based on the screenplay, the actual film is slightly different. Slightly better. Like the part where Penelope had to guess what musical instrument Max plays is quite delightful in the film and that's not on the book. And that's the good thing about translating the written word into visuals; you get to improve on them.

Early this week, while I was about to leave the house I caught Penelope again on Star. Darn it! I still missed the first part, I actually reached the part I've actually seen! Oh well, maybe someday I'd get to see the entire film. And if your cable subscription covers Star Movies, do check out Penelope if you can, you just might enjoy it. I'm just loony enough to read the book version too.

Have I told you guys I have Giles Foden's book The Last King of Scotland as well? This time though, the film was based on the book. Hahaha. And well, I got that not because of James McAvoy. Please believe me.

Death Whines A Lot

Death's Daughter
Amber Benson

If you're a fan of Joss Whedon's work then you understand a certain sense of loyalty to his stories, his characters and the actors that vividly portrayed them. So picking this up wasn't really a surprise as I somehow kept tabs with actors that appeared in Whedon's shows. In fact, this wasn't my first book by Amber Benson. I read the two novels under the Ghosts of Albion franchise (the animated series from BBC long ago). While she partnered with Christopher Golden on those two novels (as well as the series itself), this is the first novel that Benson wrote solo.

Oh, Benson played Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And fans of Whedonverse will feel right at home with Calliope Reaper-Jones. If her surname's not indication enough, at least the title of the novel is clear: she is Death's daughter. Death, as in.

In present-day New York we encounter Callie living a normal life until her father's assistant Jarvis appeared and well, he's a faun! And if that's not shocking enough, it seems Callie did a Forgetting Charm on herself and only now remembers that she is indeed Death's daughter! Thing is, Death's been kidnapped, together with Callie's sister and the rest of the board members of Death, Inc. and it's time for Callie to come home and be there for the rest of her family: her mother and her younger sister. While there, she found out that the Devil and his protege are worming their way to usurp the family business so Callie steps in, albeit reluctantly, to fill in her father's shoes for the time being, in hopes of rescuing her father and her sister, keeping the business off the Devil, maintaining their immortality, and hopefully be back in one piece to retain her job in New York.

This is basically an easy read and probably something that younger women would be into. Short of saying if you're into serious tomes and in dire need of a sign that life is indeed worth living, then this book, which sometimes stray into fashion name-dropping and unfettered thoughts of a young woman lusting after virile men, might not be a good fit for you. This book is perfect for one boring summer day to spend, with no worries, just you and the beach and this book for a short time off. That's it. The word chick-lit comes to mind though it's not exactly that. I should've written that first. Hahaha.

I had fun with this yes. I like the cohesive view of the world where both Death, God, Evil, the gods and godesses, plus mythologies all seamlessly mix. I like Runt, the hound from Hell. I like the trips to Hell, in fact. Hahaha. And how the Devil can be devious and the godesses as charming and yet remained their shrewd selves.

But I'm on the fence on Callie. She rambles a lot. Well, I do ramble a lot as well but Callie's rambling gets a bit tiring after she whines her way to the three tasks she's supposed to do. I mean, I understand the rambling style as a way to convey a story, really. But in the end, she becomes more of a heroine by default and that's why I can't decide whether I like her or I'd like to wring her neck. Probably both. She's brave yes, if a bit reluctant, a crybaby for most of the time, and she seemed to have learned a lot by the end of the book, which is promising, considering that the series is a trilogy if I go by Benson's blog. But I had to get over the whining (though it was easy since her travels to Hell were enjoyable, not to mention the images of a castle made with... wait, no spoilers here.) Hahaha!

I read this last month, right after I finished Mary Roach's Stiff and what I find funny, in that funny way how the Fates align things in my life, is that Callie mentioned an exhibit of a process of preserving dead bodies by way of plasticine or something. And if I go by Roach's book from memory, she mentioned the same thing, an exhibit even of those bodies that has never been shown in the US (or some major city) at the time of writing of her book. Or something to that effect. Sorry I couldn't verify. My copy of both books are in the metro while I'm currently here in the province, waiting for the water crisis to stop.

Anyway. If you want a feel for the book, read an excerpt here.

Here's Amber Benson doing the Macarena. She did this after telling her Twitter followers that if reviews for this book in Amazon reaches 75 or something, she'd post a video of herself doing the Macarena. And well, the rest is history.

Oh and I'll read the next book and see if Callie matured a bit. But not right now as I'm into into serious tomes and in dire need of a sign that life is indeed worth living. Hahaha!

Other interesting point of view:

This To Say About That

Split Writers

I previously tweeted this a couple or so days ago when my bro pointed me to the I Write Like website.

I picked two blog posts for those results: P. G. Wodehouse and Mario Puzo. Oh dear, I have to say that I haven't finished the Puzo book I borrowed from a friend years ago (not that it wasn't good, I wasn't just in the mood for it - hahaha, an excuse, and short of saying I still have the book and my friend probably forgot all about it. Or not. Maybe that's why he hasn't lent me another book since then. Hahaha.) And Wodehouse always reminded me of Ask Jeeves and the cartoon on that website looks like a butler. Hence that tweet. For the life of me I haven't read a single thing Wodehouse wrote! And gee, his books are really expensive (trade paperback copies are at National Bookstore, if you're in the Philippines).

Then a friend of mine's result as well as my bro's were consistent. Just one writer. David Foster Wallace.

So a part of me wanted to be consistent, too. If I get another P.G. Wodehouse or Mario Puzo, even if I haven't actually read either of them, would be fine.

But no.

The third time I tried it, I got Cory Doctorow (for my post about spammers, just about thirty or so minutes ago).

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

The fourth time, Stephen King. The fifth time, David Foster Wallace. The sixth time, Dan Brown. Oh dear, I don't want to end with Dan Brown. So for the seventh time, I got Kurt Vonnegut. And I'll stop there. For now.

Since all my samples came from posts from this blog I think it's quite obvious that eh, I don't have a writing style. Hahaha!

If you're not into Mafia Wars as time-waster, what better way to do it that compare your writing selves with great and not-so great authors out there.

Excuse me while my other selves from my other posts itch to try out the site yet again.

Try it! What's your result?

In Moderation

I haven't been blogging regularly for the past year or so but there's something I have to get out of my chest, like right now. I'm very much baffled by the spam I get. Spam comments, I mean. Yeah, baffled.

Like hey, I barely blogged particularly the first quarter or so, I haven't visited nor left many comments on other sites and yet I get a handful of spam comments daily. Why oh why, spammers? Business is so bad you guys are targeting sites with just a handful of (barely) traffic?

To think I only placed comment moderation just for kicks. Now it's a lot of help. And a lot of laugh.

Like getting non-English comments are funny. I mean, if you're a legitimate uh, commenter, you might as well leave a comment that I can understand. That way I can respond or not, react or simply let it go. Ergo, comments in pure Chinese (Japanese, Korean, Thai, Russian, Arabic, what-have-you) characters are automatically rejected, whether or not your intentions in leaving messages are pure. Don't expect me to learn your language for you just so I could respond or react to whatever meaningful messages you tried to send. I say that with a lot of love.

I tend to laugh at spam that appear legitimate and yet sounds like the spammer picked up a book of quotes or something. Just this morning I rejected a comment that tells me something about being my best. I thank you for that, dear spammer and I would've published that had I been discussing Dollhouse in my post.

And what's with all the periods? Seriously funny. If you don't want to announce to the whole world you're sending spam try to make it appear proper and maybe some unsuspecting blog surfer would click it. That and improve your grammar. I don't have perfect grammar. I think before I type. English isn't my first language and yet I'd like to think my posts make sense, at least most of the times. Some of the times? And if you're sending spam you might as well convince people to click on your uh, links instead of them wishing you had better education. Because I do. Wish you had better education.

Maybe I should change the title of this post to "Advice to You, Spammers" instead.

Next time you want to spam me, try sending me the real thing:


Preferably with less sodium. Great for breakfast; with fried rice, scrambled eggs and a dollop of ketchup.

Goodbye, Harvey

I was watching CNN's weather report around lunch time earlier when my eye caught the ticker tape with news of Harvey Pekar's passing.

Harvey Pekar
October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010

The first thing that came to mind was his story called Hypothetical Quandary, illustrated by Robert Crumb, which I think is the best story I've read from a bunch among his American Splendor series. The second thing that came to mind was a thank you, belated or otherwise unheard, to a writer who made me appreciate the extraordinary in his mundane, daily, very ordinary comic series. I mean, he did comics, he writes stories fit for panels and panels of black and white drawings. They don't feature men in tights, capes and masks, which I know is a comic stereotype. In fact those panels mostly feature him, his life, his daily routine, his tirade against queueing behind old Jewish women at the counter, his failed romances, his record collections among other things. In short, his life.

It's not just his life you see, it's ours one way or another. We've been down in the dumps like him, duped and vice-versa, forgot to buy coffee, bought that perfect pair of secondhand shoes; things so ordinary and yet not quite so with his words.

A panel from Hypothetical Quandary

This is also a good time as any to say that while I find those panels for Hypothetical Quandary the best story of his that I've read, I still haven't gotten around to finishing the entire thing (the collected American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar) so that when I read that ticker tape news, the third thing that came to mind was actually guilt. I felt a little bit guilty for not finishing the thick book. I know that "ordinary life is pretty complex stuff" (according to my book cover), but maybe I'll get to finish it in the future.

Pensive

When you're three-fourths of the way through a thoroughly engrossing story, you feel you both want it to end and not end at the same time. You pause, gather your thoughts, skim back to previous pages, previous chapters, hoping you're still somehow at the start, a third through, midway through instead of where you are right now. But no. You have to move on and read. You have to know what happens next. And somehow, you reserve a curse in advance if things start its eventual downfall. Because you simply can't accept the fact that the book you're holding, with only a handful of chapters left unread, is really that good.

Excuse me while I get back to that book.

The Dead Tell Tales

I grew up in a house where I relished reading everything I could get my hands on at a very young age. I probably was the only kid ever who squealed with delight upon receiving a big, hardbound illustrated dictionary as a gift. While other kids would rather play outside, I was indoors learning what a tureen is and drawing my own version of it. Of course I'm kidding. I mean, I also went out and played, of course I wanted Lego and other toys as gifts, too. But I was more of a reader.

I also love science though we had a falling out that started in my computing errors in chemistry and physics exams. Once, way back then, I had a dream of becoming a scientist, nurtured by cartoons of old of an evil mastermind. I mean, well a scientist is a good dream as any as a kid, right? But we can't always get what we want. Thank goodness!

Ok, that long introduction means I'll be posting about a book that blends my love of reading with my other love, science.

A couple or so years back I probably read a handful of references to Mary Roach and her books from other bloggers out there. So I waited until I finally found a copy of this in my favorite bookstore. And after reading this, gee, please Philippine bookstore owners, bring her other books here! But I'm getting ahead.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Mary Roach

First off, a caveat. From the title and cover alone you'll see it's about cadavers. That alone would put off a handful of readers. It's a good thing if you grew up reading everything. Unfamiliar things such as this are welcome opportunities to further broaden your brain thirsting for a boost or two of new knowledge.

Second, Mary Roach may not be your type of writer. She's frank, she's funny, she asks questions you probably wouldn't even dream of asking, she's irreverent, she's witty and very observant. And she strings her observations and interviews with words that are frank, funny, uncomfortable, irreverent, and witty. Ergo, she's my type of writer.

Ok, that's out of the way. Let's see, what do I have to say about the book? Read this! Read this! Read this!

I mean, ok, the book deals with the dead and the handful of things we don't even know about them. Divided into chapters that deal with those specific things: as a tool for medical students in anatomy class, as a crash test dummy, as an organ donor, among other things we are all familiar with. Then the other stuff we aren't and I won't mention them here. You have to see for yourself. I mean, gee, it's the first time I heard of a honeyed cadaver for goodness' sake!

It's a well-researched, well-written and well-intentioned book that made me laugh and think over and over again, though I have to say half of my friends probably won't pick this up and I understand that. In this predominantly Christian (mostly Catholic), third-world country of mine we treat the dead with saintly reverence. And I recognize that there is nothing wrong with that belief system, unless of course the righteous few should prevent those of us from reading books such as this.

A part of me learned a lot from the book if I set aside the fact that I laughed so hard at least half the time. I never thought actual cadavers were used as crash test dummies and yet it's understandable that safety researchers would. I know of the not-quite dead donors, bodies kept alive prior to harvesting organs for other patients in need. I've heard of experiments preserving the bodies to show the human anatomy as is and of doctors and scientists of the Victorian age trying to reanimate the dead. But I never heard of freeze-drying cadavers until now. To me, that chapter was the most thought-provoking and I end up nodding along the entire thing.

What did I say earlier? Read this! Read this! Read this! Here's a link to some excerpts.

From among the chapters in the book, I am most familiar with the one used for human anatomy classes for medical students (sorry, I left my copy of the book at home so I won't be posting my favorite lines or funny lines, some of which can be found in her footnotes). My sister's a doctor, you see. When she was a medical student I dropped by her school a handful of times and then there was this one time I saw a former classmate of mine after classes were over and he was about to enter the anatomy laboratory for some stuff he left behind and asked me to join him. He probably thought I'd freak out. I didn't. That's when I first saw a human cadaver in mid-dissection. I think I even asked about the nerves and muscles and stuff.

So it didn't even come as a shock that one day my sister and her groupmates in class brought home a brain steeped in alcohol for further dissection at home. It's my own version of a brain in a vat (around the time we were discussing brains in vats for my philosophy class - you know, what if we're all just brains in vats, imagine The Matrix as real). I probably made up a lot of stories in my head as to what kind of person the owner of the brain was when s/he was still living; among them a wraith or something searching for its brain, and the brain is in our unit slowly being dissected. Yeah, horror stories in my head. No wonder I read everything. But I digress.

Learn something new, keep an open mind. Read this.

Other interesting points of view:

A Striped Armchair
Books I Done Read
Bookshelves of Doom
Capricious Reader
Confessions of a Bibliophile
Fizzy Thoughts
Mike Battista's Blog
Rebecca Reads
Sophisticated Dorkiness
The Bookworm Collective

Unite and Take Over*

The Anxiety of Everyday Objects
Aurelie Sheehan

All good secretaries will eventually find truth in the hearts of men.

While I still ponder what it feels like to actually work in a law firm, the main character of this book, Winona Bartlett, lives and breathes it. She's not a lawyer but a secretary for a New York law firm of Grecko Mauster and Crill: a reliable, trusted one at that. She makes sure that everything is in perfect order - be it the coffee for the partners of the firm, the papers that go in and out of her little space, the routine call collecting fees from clients who don't pay - name it, she does it! And to say that she revels in it is partly true. For her, there is a certain sense of stability in taking down notes, drafting them to coherent form for lawyers to sign, photocopying documents, little things that make life a little bit easier for her bosses. She takes pride in little rewards such as M&M's for a job well done! If we all could be happy with tiny chocolate pieces as a reward for job well done this world would be a much better place.

Of course there's a different side to Winona. She dreams of becoming a filmmaker. There's a movie in her head titled The Anxiety of Everyday Objects and it's basically about meaning of words and how it can easily be misconstrued.

Her world takes on a different turn when the firm hires a blind lawyer, the gorgeous Sandy Spires. For the first time someone in the firm recognizes her efficiency. With the ensuing promotion comes trouble, obviously. And it's up for our heroine to come to terms with herself and of what she has become to pull through from the mess she had a hand in making.

Even the smallest meeting can be perfect. You can sit next to someone on the train and comment on the coldness of the chrome and chuckle together about the trainmaster and that's it, that's perfect. Or you can talk to someone about, say, Casablanca on a plane from New York to Chicago, and it can be the most heartfelt conversation in the world and you will never see that person again, you don't even know her name, but it was still a perfect hour over beer and peanuts at thirty-thousand feet. Or you can have a longer conversation, one that takes days, weeks, years.

Hmmm. It's quite difficult to write a summary about a book that deals with eh, real life. I mean if this were a mystery I'd start with the crime, right? But real life is messy and shocking and ordinary and life-changing and gee, a lot of things. It's writing about a character that is like someone we know, or quite similar to us. And maybe that's why I'm having difficulty writing about Winona right now. I'm a bit like her, except the part she wants to be a filmmaker. Or the fact that she's a secretary. Rather, I'm like her in the little (big) things; probably the fact that I won't be able to say no to my sister, or the fact that allows for valid excuses, or even being happy with tiny pieces of chocolates as a reward for a job well done. Also the fact that I can be manipulated because I'm easily awed by someone strong and powerful, and that I'd probably hurt a handful of people without my knowing them. Oh well, real life.

What I mean to say is this: I never thought I'd find such heart in such a short book.

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*Was listening to a Smiths song while typing this, hence the title. Except of course this post doesn't refer to shoplifters.