PSA

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let everybody know that this blog will be coming to an end. Sorry about that.

BUT! You should be pleased to know that I am continuing on over at Reviews From an English Major, where you can find pretty much everything that you've found here. Just... over there. haha.

I guess there isn't really a set reason for it other than that I'm kind of trying to move on past all the junk that's on here from my high school blogging days. I was kind of a dolt back then. I dunno.

Whatever.

Anyway. That's what I needed you all to know.

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

With love,
--Emily

Narrative Analysis Essay

For the record, I learned recently in my writing course that you should never really end an essay with someone else's words because it's like giving up your entire essay to somebody else and invalidating your own work--or... something along those lines. But I wrote this essay at 3.30 in the morning--around a fire alarm!--and by the time I got to the conclusion, I just didn't care anymore. I still got an A. And he didn't say a word about ending with a quote. So there.

'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind': A Narrative Analysis

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind begins with the assumed protagonist waking up and getting off of a hide-a-bed before, on impulse, skipping work to go to Montauk though he didn’t understand why. As the scene progresses, the viewer is introduced to the second central character, Clementine. Seventeen minutes into the movie, title credits and film score break in and completely cut off the movie in one fell, and relatively confusing, swoop.

From this point, Eternal Sunshine begins to work us backward through the story of Joel’s relationship with Clementine. There’s a lot of vagueness here, forcing the viewer to work to piece things together. Questions that came to mind about the first seventeen minutes: Was that a flashback? Or is that later plotline and we’re being slammed backward in the storyline and space?

We’re taken to a collection of scenes in the quite recent past depicting Joel talking to his friends about going to see Clementine to apologize, but she acted like she didn’t recognize him. His friends give him a card that says she had Joel’s memory wiped from her brain and they weren’t to ever mention her relationship to her.

In this fashion, the movie moves back and forth through the story space and timeline in an almost jarring manner. We move forward with Joel to the doctor’s office to discuss the situation, to his apartment to collect anything that would remind him of his ex-girlfriend, back to the doctor’s office, back to his apartment.

Via this memory-wiping procedure, we’re suddenly being dragged through this series of Joel’s memories that contain Clementine, and at first, the things we see are ugly, unhappy and give us a prejudice against his ex-girlfriend. The movie begins asking us to like her and then instantly turns it all around and requests that we dislike her.

In a manner, the opening of the movie serves as redemption for the next side of Clementine’s character, because it allows us to see that she is a round character, unpredictable and unstable, and it gives us more of her to hold onto. Despite the fact that we recognize from the very beginning that Clementine is at least half-crazy, fickle and eccentric, we do get the idea that she’s not volatile or caustic. Upon the inspection of Joel’s memories in backward motion, that idea is reversed, and we, as viewers, are no longer entirely sure of how to categorize Clementine’s role in Joel’s story.

While Eternal Sunshine takes us through Joel’s complicated relationship with Clementine, we’re introduced to a subplot involving the technicians Stan and Patrick, the company’s secretary Mary, and the doctor, Howard. We come to understand that Patrick stole a pair of Clementine’s panties when they wiped her memory the week previous and then that he was actively seeing her, using her memories of Joel—and Joel’s memories of her—to hold her attention.

Subplot two involves Stan and Mary, who are dating and proceed to get high while wiping Joel’s memory. The film alludes to the two having sex when the scene returns and they’re both naked as Stan realizes that things aren’t going as planned and has to call Howard, setting the two into a panic. When Howard arrives, this subplot stems to involve a history with Mary and Howard and we find out that not only does Mary have an interminable crush on the doctor, but they had, at one point, had an affair that Mary chose to have wiped from her memory.

While we travel back through Joel’s relationship with Clementine, we discover that he’s managed to remove himself in part from the process and he starts to change his mind. In order to attempt to hold onto something—anything—of this relationship, Joel tries to drag Clementine out of the memories as he remembers them, hoping that if he changes things, those changes might stay. The constant back and forth of plot from Joel’s rewinding memories to the present love triangles taking place beside his unconscious body continues to be somewhat jarring, but still manage to bring the story points into each other: points in Joel’s past explain portions of events taking place in the present; Joel keeps getting pieces of conversations taking place around his physical body that allow him to converse with mental images of people in his life, who are, while only extensions of himself, his mental recreation of his interpretation of those individuals’ behavioral patterns.

Joel’s final memory is of meeting Clementine, and when it’s all over, we’re brought back to the beginning scene of the movie, which brings the story full circle, back to Valentine’s Day, 2004. Mary, who resigned her position, sent every patient the company had wiped a letter and a tape of their information. Joel and Clementine, who had begun to begin anew, suddenly were provided with a history they didn’t remember, but regretted anyway. The story and plot ends when the two decide to stick it out together, even though they know from history that she’ll get bored with him and he’ll get exasperated with her and it might not last forever. Herein lies an overwhelming theme of the movie, in that nothing lasts forever, nothing has to last forever. But to mourn something’s end is far better than to force yourself to forget it ever happened. There is experience and knowledge to be gained with every experience, and to cut out two years of your life because the ending was painful is harmful to yourself far more than to anybody else.

“How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot. / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.”

–Alexander Pope

Mise en Scene Essay

Mise en Scene is a French term that basically means everything that's already in a scene before the camera gets involved. Setting, lighting, costumes, placement of props, etc. I watched a British indy film for this paper and it was... an experience.
I did get half a point marked off for discussing the plot too much in this paper, but you'll get over it. hahaha.

An Analysis of Mise En Scène as Employed by “Fish Tank”

Fish Tank immediately thrusts us into the life of this girl named Mia, who is, most succinctly, volatile in demeanor.  Mia lives in Essex, one of London’s biggest counties and referred to as “London’s backyard.” Andrea Arnold, the director, explained her choice to set Fish Tank in Essex with “I drove out from east London and loved it straight away. The madness of the A13, the steaming factories and the open spaces, the wilderness.”

And Fish Tank definitely employs both of those sides of the city in its dark, largely run-down, claustrophobic flats and neighborhood streets and the enormous, agoraphobic, blindingly-bright green spaces around the urban areas. The film takes what is an otherwise ordinary location and spins into it mystique and charm via complex relationship developments, character interactions and perpetual conflict.

The tight spaces of the flats force a level of intimacy in familial relations and can easily work to incubate dysfunction. We find that Mia and her little sister Taylor have acquired from their mother a love of cheap convenience store alcohol as well as a set of violent defense mechanisms to mask emotional pain or vulnerability: Mia, Taylor and their mom automatically lash out viciously any time any one of them is upset, startled, confused or frightened. The instant one lashes out, the next returns the motion, and before long, all three members of the family unit are screaming and cursing at each other, calling each other “stupid cunts”, “fucking bitches,” or any other colorful thing they can come up with.

Once all of this violence has been sufficiently displayed, the film takes us up into Mia’s bedroom, where we are suddenly swathed in soft pastels—purples and greens with pokka-dots and flowers, a tiger poster on her door. Suddenly, Mia isn’t just a violent, angry 15-year-old, she’s a girl.

Alongside the pastels, we’re introduced to Mia’s deep-set devotion to and love of animals when she encounters a malnourished horse chained to a cinderblock and tries to free it until she’s caught. She returns later with a hammer to finish the job, but only has time to get close to the horse and really look at her before she’s found by two men who then try to rape her, bringing the hardness of violence back into the soft moment she takes refuge in.

Almost immediately, there’s a sense of sexual tension between Mia and Connor, Joann’s new, mysterious boyfriend. The tension is complicated, however, because it almost flip-flops between her physical attraction to him and her desire for a father figure, which allows the viewer to understand that what Mia’s really desperate for is someone to truly love her and actually demonstrate that affection because her family is incapable. The flip-flopping starts relatively distinctly—the compliment that sets the tension versus taking the family to the country—but then soon the lines between what’s sexual tension and what’s desire for love or family begin to blur.

All of this finally comes to a head in what is likely the most dramatic moment of the entire movie. It’s late at night and Connor puts her drunken mother to bed before she meets him downstairs in their living room, and she performs for him the dance that she’d been putting together for her live audition. The light from the street lamps and headlights outside the window create for the scene a honey-colored haze that makes an otherwise (for the viewer) awkward moment notably intimate, visibly seductive. This dance inevitably leads to the couple having sex on the couch. What should be disturbing to the viewer is suddenly made unnervingly beautiful and passionate, though when it’s over we all realize how dishonest that beauty and passion was.

The next morning, Connor leaves with no intention to return. When Mia tracks him down, she breaks into his house and then discovers that he has his own family that he had been keeping from them—a wife and a daughter probably half Mia’s age. Spiteful, Mia pees on his living room floor and then steals his daughter, but inevitably brings her back. Walking back home in the dark, Connor tracks her down, chases her through a field and then slaps her across the face, stares at her and then walks away without a trace.

Mia goes to her audition and finds a group of overly sexualized girls dancing like they want to be taken on stage and she walks out.

She goes to meet up with her boyfriend and finds out that the old horse she’d grown so fond of had gotten sick and they’d had to shoot her.

Suddenly, everything that Mia has, or had, is violently wrenched from her grasp and she’s left crying on the ground with no direction, no plans, no ideas—until her boyfriend invites her to go to Wales with her.

In the second-most moving scene of the movie, Mia goes home to pack her things and then dances with her mother in the living room when she announces she’s leaving. The dance represents the small element of sensitivity in otherwise unsympathetic characters and allows us to understand that it’s a reconciliation of sorts.

The movie ends when Mia escapes from her life and into a realm of something that she’s heretofore unfamiliar with: Hope. Hope in a new beginning.

Film Essay

Btw, in case anybody noticed that there are suddenly "two authors," there aren't. It's just me. On two different accounts. Because I started this blog AGES ago, back when I only had Hotmail. and Blogger REFUSES to let me make my gmail account the primary. Sooooo.... I just made my gmail account "another author" with admin power...?  I guess. Either way, both are me. hahaha.

So here's the deal. I write movie reviews sometimes, right? It's rare, but they happen. Anyway. So I've been taking ENGL 225, which is Intro to Film this semester, and I've been doing REALLY well in it. I seriously haven't gotten anything less than an A on any of my papers or tests. I  have another test tomorrow, but I'm not concerned about it.

So here's what I'ma do. Because I actually LIKE my film papers. I'm gonna post them! Because they're actually pretty informative. And they're interesting. At least I think so. (Jacobs seemed to think so. lol)

This is the most recent one. As in... the one I just got done writing... hahaha. There's only three. Unless I decide to share some of the weekly response papers...? Don't count on it. Unless you want to read them? Then sure. I'd be happy to oblige.

So here you are (it doesn't look like a 3 page paper when posted here. But it is. So there ya go.):

Cinematography Employed by ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’

Game of Shadows was produced in 2011, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law. Though it was a follow-up to Sherlock Holmes (2009), it was created to be a stand-alone film, requiring no existing knowledge of the previous film.

Approximately halfway through the film, Holmes, Watson, Simza and a few gypsies follow Professor Moriarty to Germany, where they uncover his plot to start a world war in order to make a fortune. Holmes is captured, tortured and interrogated; Watson is under fire from Moran. The group makes an escape from the warehouse, however, and flee through the forest under fire. Thus begins the discussion of what I may consider the best scene of any film I have ever seen to date.

The subsequent four minutes are shot in slow motion, time lapse and sped up cinematography styles (courtesy of Gavin Free). Cameras follow individuals in profile, keeping perfectly level with their heads while the environment around them moves—defined in technical terms as “sequence shots on Phantom Flex”—and then instantly switch to speeding up actions, immediately returning to stop-motion photography and back to sequence shots in varying orders, setting no pattern and no giving the viewer no opportunity to predict the next motion.

Our heroes, Holmes and Watson and Simza, are shown in alternating shots with the Germans firing upon them and Moran, who takes off in pursuit to kill them himself. Suddenly the Big Guns are brought out, and trees are exploding around people in slow motion—until suddenly time returns to normal speed, which seems fast because of the dedicatedly discombobulating manipulation of the very short time that passes.

To add a further layer to the scene, Hanz Zimmer creates a sound environment that lends itself to the innate drama of wounded heroes evading death. The beat is precise—adding to the addling time manipulation of these four short minutes that seem much longer than they are. The pulse of the brass instruments coupled with the intensity of the stringed instruments beneath them creates chords that are proven to invoke a certain sense of suspense in listeners (with or without any visuals to accompany them).

Interrupting the score are exaggerated air movements and the muted sound of wood shattering around bullets and cannons. The addition of surround sound takes these sounds which come from one finite point and place them all around you in order to swath you in the thrill of their panic, the suspense of their potential success or failure.

Displaying the miniscule and precise mechanical motions of the cannon, Little Hanzel, used by the Germans in order to hopefully destroy Holmes and his party, has a relatively similar effect. It draws the focus into the very small, very specific, simple motions that in themselves are perfectly innocuous but come together with the right final step to create mass chaos and destruction.

In this manner, this scene manages to metaphorically embody a major theme of the entire film in question: Mass chaos is generated by taking a series of innocuous, arbitrary, simple events and pulling them from the Jenga tower until the final move brings the entire game crashing to the ground. Sherlock Holmes has an extremely heightened logical capability that allows him to foresee events before they happen based on tiny, innocuous details that, in themselves, mean little to nothing at all. Together, however, these things add up to create something large, something indelibly complex, as life always is when most inopportune.

Cue the French horns and the first trumpets, who take turns playing two notes at a time as the world around us explodes into shards of splintery death should you be so unlucky as to be in the wrong spot at the wrong tenth of that second. We now move on Moran, who is still in pursuit, but shot by Watson with the aid of Holmes.

The music again begins to mount in intensity, creating a tension that is nigh tangible, until Moran leans against the tree and all falls silent, save for the sound of three deep breaths, depicted in slow motion, before the instant that he recollects his composure and, back to normal speed, loads a shell, raises his gun and shoots the only individual not yet in the train car.

A Game of Shadows introduced a method of cinematography that was hitherto largely unutilized, at least in the case of major film. Guy Ritchie, Gavin Free and Hans Zimmer together created a cinematic environment that was all-encompassing in its drama and suspense, but also highly illustrative of psychological patterns that chaos produces. The mind has a tendency to slow the world to a crawl and/or speed it up past comprehension in the midst of disarray; this notion is visually demonstrated so flawlessly that the need for an explanation of its mirroring effect is superfluous. The effects of continuous, methodical rhythm and beat of background music interspersed with the encompassing silence of the moment between fire and explosion creates just as much of that psychological involvement for the viewer, thereby making fully effectual the purpose of the scene individually and cohesively as a small piece of a much larger, beautiful, complex puzzle.

I Pulled On My Crabby Pants

Just now. I did. Because look at what I found! LOOKIT!

A 4th Matthew Swift book!

I thought there were 3. I'm not sure why I only thought there were 3 because I swear I've seen this cover before. But I was CERTAIN there were only 3.
But there are 4.
Why does this make me crabby, considering how extensively I adore this series? I don't know. I really don't. I should be thrilled because Matthew Swift is exciting! fun! interesting! peculiar! But... but I... I have so MANY books to read...

And I'm stupid so I pick up a book that I KNOW will have follow-ups (if they aren't already sitting on the shelf when I buy the book). So EVEN THOUGH I have like, 8 dozen books waiting to be read, I keep buying books under the assumption that EVENTUALLY I'll get to finish a series and be able to stop buying that line of novels. At least that's the theory.

So I guess I'm not really crabby that there's a 4th MS book, making my trilogy a quad. For all that, this won't be the end either, and I'm getting caught up in another "epic" like Anita Blake by Laurell K Hamilton. Unlikely, but altogether possible. I wouldn't fight it I guess. I might learn to be excited about it again.  I just buy too many books. hahaha.


I'm surprised by how much I'm reading lately.
I picked up Fury's Kiss, the 3rd Dorina Basarab book by Karen Chance when I went home for Thanksgiving and I already finished it. (=  Huzzah! I suppose I should blog about it for you, eh?

Except that I seem to be discussing series in groups lately considering that I'm sort of attempting to close them and it's better to just start from the top, eh?  Maybe. It's more informative anyway.  Kinda spoils some of the surprises if you intend to read them, but when all of the books are already published you don't REALLY worry about the main character(s) dying off every time they're in trouble. Hello; there's three more books to go. =P But the reason I say "except" is because it's been like, ~2 years or something since I read the last one and I don't even really remember what happened in it. I mean I sort of do, but... not THAT well.

The Neon Court (Kate Griffin) and A Trace of Moonlight (Allison Pang) should show up in the mail tomorrow, hopefully. They were SUPPOSED to get here today, but I live in North Dakota, so 2-day shipping is kind of a farce. hahaha. Oh well. I'm excited anyway.

I also need to go pick up books #17 and #18 in my Anita Blake series, since I'm starting in on #16, Blood Noir. I'm ALMOST caught up. Almost. I feel like I'm spacing them out a bit more with my other literature so that I can keep having material to catch up to without having to constantly wait for the next one, you know? So that I have a steady stream of Anita Blake at my disposal, whether I'm actively reading it or not.

I'm still waiting for that next Merry Gentry book that she promised us. Book 7, which was supposed to be the end, was too damn open-ended. There HAS to be another SOMETIME. Hopefully, anyway. hahaha.

Wasn't I just saying I need to stop buying books...?

Abby Sinclair, Books One and Two

I have just been reading up a storm lately!  I take books to work with me and I read on my breaks. Cumulatively, that's about an hour of reading every day that I'm at work. I mean, it's interrupted, of course, because I have to eat and people talk to me and stuff. But still. I get my books read bit by bit. I'm reading before classes and stuff too. Waiting for trains in the car. Just chillin in my room. It's great. It's like I've rediscovered the love or something.

I'm still writing like crazy, of course. I just finished part one and the interlude to my novel. I'm in the beginnings of part two now. It's hard to make it correlate to the first draft just because so much has changed, though. It's not like I try to make them stick together, just that I try to use the draft as a guide. And that's hard at the moment. hahaha. I barely used the Part One draft at all.

FYI, this post will almost certainly contain spoilers. But... you know... whatever.

Anyway. Here we are. To the designated content.

A Brush of Shadows (Abby Sinclair, Book #1): Allison Pang

Two things:
1. I've already blogged about this book. Wayyyyyy back. In like, March of 2011. hahahaha. (Good luck finding it. (All it takes is scrolling. (It's probably not worth your time.)))
2. I don't recall her ever wearing anything in the book like what's depicted on the cover. hahaha. Except that necklace, which isn't really important yet.

So here's the deal.
Abby is the TouchStone for the Fae Protectorate, who is actually a princess, though I don't recall if that's stated right off the bat. So that could probably be a spoiler. Oh well.

This incubus named Brystion (nicknamed Ion) shows up and asks her to help him find his sister (a succubus, in case that didn't occur to you) but "off the radar" in a manner of speaking.  There's some real shady business goin on and because the three paths (Heaven, Hell, Fae (who are apparently a middle ground or something if I recall correctly?)) are not exactly on the BEST of terms, things should be kept on the down-low.

Things get complicated, as they always do; Abby turns out to be a Dreamer, which is something that he explains the meaning of but we still don't really get to see it (even by the end of book 2) because Abby hasn't learned how to control it yet. She's haunted by some pretty severe nightmares, though; nightmares she can't let go.

The bad guy here is Maurice. It's been too long since reading it for me to tell you most accurately what the deal is here. But he basically, like, painted Brystion's sister (and then Abby and I think a couple other people?) into these ugly ass paintings. And Abby ends up stuck in this painting with sharks (her biggest fear (which is totally irrational since she's never even seen one)) and she almost dies and there's a whole bunch of really tense drama and stuff. And then blah blah blah she's saved and whatever.

Brystion and Abby have this super heated love affair--go figure--but it's... it's... I liked it. I mean, it was nice. beautiful, in a way. passionate. But he left her anyway. That pissed me off. But she gave him a place in her Heart of Dreaming or whatever, so... I mean... there's that. (He can't have one because he's an incubus.)

A Sliver of Shadow (Abby Sinclair, Book #2): Allison Pang

As an aside, this model has a different facial structure (and body frame) than the last one. I'm not sure how I feel about it... Also, all of her hair is pink and purple in this one instead of just her bangs... Meh.

So here we go again. Sorta.

Maurice is in jail but the Queen is going insane and the Fae court is kind of a wreck. Moira's baby is in Abby's care until she hands him off to his father (which is a scandal!) to take care of stuff.
Now there's romantic stuff brewing with her body guard Talivar, who turns out to be the prince and Moira's half-brother.

Clusterfuck after clusterfuck. The Queen shuts down the CrossRoads, which puts the entire metaphysical community afluster, strands some, kills others, etc. The Demons actually threaten war on the Fae, which is actually where this one kinda leaves off. Because Talivar and Abby accidentally start it and then Abby pulls a stupid in order to save him and Brystion--who have a weird love triangle thing going with Abby now, which is... strange... but amusing and interesting nonetheless.

I was VERY unhappy about where this book ended. Very unhappy indeed. If you're unhappy because I just said a whole ton of nothing, I apparently grew weary of typing this post. And there's too much that counts as serious plot spoilers. And I don't wanna ruin TOO much. I already dropped a couple huge things there, even if you don't realize it yet.

So the third one is published as of October 30th, which is good, because now I need to read it.

A Trace of Moonlight (Abby Sinclair, Book #3): Allison Pang

At least they stuck with the same blasted model this time.

I am praying that the Barnes & Noble in Minot has this one, since they don't have The Neon Court (the other book I'm attempting to acquire and may just have to order from Ferguson books here anyway. I at least get a free used book out of 'em for it.)

I really want to know where all this shit is going. This book  better address it or I'm going to be cranky. And go insane. Who knows.

So this is on the "BUY ME!! XD" list. Go figure.

They're fun to read, guys, honestly. There's all kinds of weird drama and shit but it's at least amusing. And Pang makes all these connections to random shit via Abby. She quotes all these movies and games and shows--no shit, she actually makes reference to Portal. ("The cake is a lie," she muttered at one point. It was great)--and half of her analogies are like, real-life references. She hits up LotR a lot... It's fun. (=

Matthew Swift

A Madness of Angels; Or, The Resurrection of Matthew Swift
Kate Griffin

And so it begins.

Matthew Swift is a sorcerer in London, but it is immediately apparent that he is more than that. He has been resurrected after having been dead for approximately two years.

Before the night is out, Matthew is attacked by a "litterbug" (a summoned monster composed of, you guessed it, garbage. Which, for the record, he defeats with a dustbin. Not to ruin it. It's a marvelous scene.

Newly resurrected, Swift's sole missions are to (a) find his murderer and return the favor, and (b) find who resurrected him, find out why, and then, quite likely, kill them as well.

So the novel progresses and you learn more and more peculiar things about this Swift, but things are still left unsaid, left in the dark and unexplained, leaving an air of mystery and suspense until finally the truth is spilled--but not all of it. Only one set of truths. The rest take the entire duration of the novel to be uncovered, but that's a large part of what moves it.

The prose is marvelous and intriguing; Griffin doesn't write in chapters. Sections are broken up with white space or " *  *  * "; larger sections are broken up as "Part One: [Title]", "The First Interlude: [Title]". It's fascinating. I love it--partially because it proves to me that I am perfectly capable of publishing material that isn't in the typical, structured format, and that makes me happy. hahaha.  But there's also a number of places where the writing totally breaks into stream of consciousness style, which is also terribly moving in-context. (Also because I know things you don't. hahaha.) It just fits in the way that she does it.  Some of the paragraphs are these great, barely-connected run-on sentences (one or two sentences total in the paragraph) and it's just... magnetic. It really keeps you moving through the material because it's different, because it keeps switching up the style of prose. Besides the fact that it's just intriguing and fun material.

The Midnight Mayor; Or, The Inauguration of Matthew Swift
Kate Griffin

And so it continues.

Surprise! Swift survived the first novel. It got a bit hairy back there what with all the fighting and the murderous intentions. Secret societies, organizations pitted against magic (for "religious reasons"), psychotic colleagues, etc.

This novel opens just as suddenly as the last one did.
Matthew answered a public phone (because he will always answer the phone when it rings; it's part of who he is) and was blasted back down the street. And now he's being attacked by spectres, which are particularly rare for London. All I'll tell you is that the tools for their demise include beer and a cigarette. Happy imaginings. =]

Let me give you a visual of a spectre:
You've ever been strolling around a city and you see that kid shuffling along in a hoodie with the hood up and headphones going in, bobbing along to a beat that only they can hear? Now imagine said kid without a face. Just a gaseous space holding clothes in the proper shape. Now you've got a spectre--but you can hear their beats, and not all spectres bob to the same rhythm.

It's been said that, should the Ravens ever leave the Tower of London, should the Stone ever break, should the Wall be defaced, the city of London shall be damned. The Midnight Mayor's job is to protect the city--provided the Midnight Mayor actually exists, since Swift seems terribly skeptical--but if the city requires a protector, clearly there are things it requires protection from. Correct?
I am sure you have already deduced a few things with the help of the above paragraph coupled with the title. Namely, that the Midnight Mayor has died, that the position has been transferred to Matthew Swift, and that the city is in pretty deep shit.

Suddenly, the phrase "GIVE ME BACK MY HAT" is graffitti'ed across the city, written on the London Wall, on the wall where the Ravens were killed, on the window of the business housing the broken Stone--everywhere. Significant? You bet your ass.



Griffin does such a marvelous job creating suspense and then systematically untying knots that tie more knots until finally the whole thing comes undone at the end. You can't help but be drawn in, but be captivated by her vivid imagery and intense, peculiar descriptions of things. She uses such unexpected language that catches you off guard but gives you a perfectly exact picture of what it is you're looking at and it's amazing. She has swiftly (hahahaha) become one of my very favorite and most inspiring authors--and it only took two novels. (One, actually, but we'll say two.)

I do not have possession of book three, pictured below. I can't afford to go buy it right now either. Yay being broke. hahaha.

I have enough other books that I should read first anyway. But, if you read books, you should know just exactly how well THAT goes. That's the problem with series. I think I'll try to read the rest of my current Laurell K Hamilton book first, anyway. I need to catch up, preferably before the next one comes out. I think she's working on 21 now? Oi. But I'm on 15! And I have the next one. So once I start 16 I'll go buy the next two. Because I have to keep up that way.
I'm really excited to start reading The Neon Court though, even if the subtitle is "Or, The Betrayal of Matthew Swift". Because "Betrayal" makes me terribly worried, indeed. I am afraid of book 3's events but too intrigued to avoid it. Go figure.

Blaqk Audio

Okayyyyyyy sooooooo... I didn't post when I said I was gonna. I'm sorry. My bad.
But I'm here now!

I don't think anyone even cares anymore. =/ I guess that's what happens when you're super unreliable, eh? Oh well. I'll keep babbling away, just in case it does anybody any good.

Blaqk Audio: Welcome to Bright Black Heaven

Having waited 5 years for Blaqk Audio to release a second album, I can tell you that there was a lot of build up and a LOT of expectations for this album. At least for me.

Even though Blaqk Audio is a side project for the vocalist and lead guitarist of AFI, Davey Havok and Jade Puget, and even though during the time gap between albums AFI produced a new album as well, waiting five years was still kind of annoying, especially considering how many times there were rumors that B.A. was working on something new.

All that aside, I am going to tell you right now that my expectations were met. Jade uses his experience with guitar pretty heavily when writing B.A. music, which is largely electronica and digital with some keyboard, among other things. Davey wrote lyrics that are moving, interesting, provocative, and/or insightful. Lines like "Everything's warm when your heart grows cold" from Deconstructing Gods and "When the act is black you'll remember me / We can be so discreet" from Everybody's Friends; "Oh, your smile, it hurts me 'cause I still clearly can see who you are" from Ill Lit Ships and "Who needs forgiveness when we all speak fluent lies?" from The Witness, just to mention a few.

Something I did notice, perhaps just because of the extent to which I listen to AFI/B.A., there are certain patterns that occur in the lyrics/vocals in ALL of Davey's songs. Like, certain 'hooks' you could call them. There's just a handful of things that he does a lot, regardless of which band he's singing for. It doesn't get to feeling repetitive, really, I just realized it the other day listening to the album.

All in all, the album was a complete success, even if it DID take half a decade to come to fruition. I'm thoroughly satisfied.

Aaaaaaaaaaand Another [Book Review]!!

Gasp. I'm back. Yes, fo' realz.
In a new post and everything. I thought it would be more fun that way.

I read another book almost in entirety on Wednesday night before I moved. I pulled it out of my box of things for packing for college and made the mistake of opening it. I then power read all but the last chapter and a half that night. Which, ftr, pissed off my mama. hahaha. Oh well. I got packed in plenty of time.

By the way, there are def spoilers involved here. Just thought I'd warn you ahead of time.

Anyway. So I power-read a book. Called Jerk, California by Jonatahn Friesen.

Jerk, California is about a boy in Minnesota with Tourrette's syndrome. And of course his stepdad loved him and all was great until he developed his "disease" and then Bill realized that Sam won't be able to take over the concrete business. And suddenly Sam becomes a monster.

Anyway, there's a lot of self-loathing in this book. I'm telling you, a lot. But there's a lot of other here, as well. Sam, whose given name is actually Jack [somethingorother but super Irish] ends up working for a guy the townspeople refer to as The Coot. Some affectionately, others not so much. You know how it goes in small towns. But he's actually a pretty cool guy. And there's, of course, a girl involved.
So after not very long at all, George (the Coot) dies of a heart attack right in front of Jack. And then Jack inherits ALL of George's stuff. Land, house, everything.
George sends Jack on a trip across the country to a location in California called Jerk with several stops along the way and directions to stay a couple of days in each place. Jack's dad built or refurbished windmills. That was kind of his thing.

I don't know. I really liked this book when I read it at the time, but like, thinking back on it, I'm kind of over it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's really interesting, largely because of Jack's struggle with identity and self-confidence and self-loathing and this girl who is totally... bipolar. Not really, just pregnant (early in). Long story. Anyway. It WAS interesting. But... meh. I don't know. Looking back I just don't.... like... feel all that strongly about it now.  I kind of did at the time. If you read the last blog post I did about Will Grayson, Will Grayson, before I get into the novel I have this HUGE spiel about little things that change your life and whatever, and this one kind of did that at the time. But... I dunno. Maybe now that I'm here it's not such a big deal? I don't know how to explain it.
It's possible that this heat is just skewing my care-meter. In fact highly likely. It's been super hot lately and my dorm doesn't have air conditioning and my allergies are in "murderous bitch" mode so I'm super short tempered and my face hurts and I've just been in a bad mood. Relatively. I dunno.
Anyway, it's a good book, save the ending. The ending kinda... well, it kinda sucked. It doesn't really end! It just sorta stops! And not like an on-purpose thing, either. At least not as far as I can tell. Though I could definitely be wrong. I dunno.

It's not a long read, or a difficult read. I almost cried a few times. I laughed quite a bit. I hated people frequently. It's a moving book, at least. Maybe I was just particularly movable at the time. No idea. But I liked it.  I give it probs 3.5 stars? Maybe? I dunno. 3 just doesn't seem right but 4 almost seems too much. So. There you are.

Two blog posts in a day! Can you believe it? After a month hiatus! Sorry. It'll probs be awhile again. Oops.

Book Review

It has officially been one month exactly since I last posted on this blog. My sincere apologies. But it's been awhile since I posted in either other now as well. So. Whatever. You know how I work.

Anyway. I literally just finished reading a book like, 3.47 minutes ago.

How many seconds is .47ths of a minute? I'm not going to do the math.

Anyway.

The one thought I need to say right now before I lose it is this:

People seem to have this notion in their heads that anything life-changing has to be something monumental, and that seriously isn't the case. The things that change our lives and/or who we are as individuals, the way that we see/view life. Even the way that we view ourselves. View, see, feel about, believe in--all relevant and included in this discussion.  But the thing is that the things that are life-altering don't HAVE to be big. They don't HAVE to be monumental. They don't have to be major events in our lives. Sometimes it's the smallest of things that have the biggest impact. When you read a book that addresses life in a way that you haven't ever thought about. Or maybe that you have thought about but never articulated in the manner presented to you.  When you hear a song that moves you and the lights shine brighter, the air tastes better, people smile more beautifully. The world views differently because you are different because of something so radically simple--or complex, but small nonetheless has triggered a reaction in your brain that, regardless of its manner of existence.

And so you sit there going "Oh my gosh," but you don't really know how to articulate what you're going through because nobody else has experienced the thing that you just experienced, and you can't just look at your roommate and say "I just experienced a life-changing event" because she was sitting here 4 feet away from you for the last 20 minutes and nothing actually happened. And people just don't get it, least of all when you can't explain it.

Andbutso I think we've established that I've HAD one of these moments just now upon the completion of this book. I have these moments quite frequently, actually.  You'd think that after awhile it gets old, that things stop amazing or changing me. But that's the beauty of my outlook: these things never get old. I like that I never stop changing. I like that I still allow myself to be so thoroughly moved by things so small, seemingly inconsequential.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson: John Green & David Levithan

Will Grayson 1 has a gay best friend who is a mountain of a teenager and goes by the name Tiny Cooper.  They've been best friends since third grade and since before being gay really had anything to do with liking boys.

Will Grayson 2 is a self-deprecating teenage boy with friends he doesn't really consider friends because he kind of hates himself and his life and everything that is. Except for Isaac, a boy he met online and has been talking to for a year.

Will Grayson 1 is straight but doesn't date because he prefers to avoid all the drama. Will Grayson 2 is gay but totally in the closet. Not because he is ashamed of this but because he (rightly) doesn't think it's anybody else's goddamned business.

As the story progresses we learn more and more about each of these characters and more characters come into the mix. Tiny Cooper's main focus is on a musical that he wrote called Tiny Dancer, which is, go figure, about him. He is also a member of the school's "Gay Straight Alliance" and wants Tiny Dancer to receive funding from the student council in order to become a reality.

There's also a cute girl named Jane involved here? And there's a lot of drama with her and Will Grayson 1 kind of sort of but not really liking each other? It's complicated.

There is a lot of other plot information here that's relatively relevant but which I shan't be discussing simply because A) I don't feel like it and B) ...er... never mind.

Anyway.  So Will Grayson 2 is going to meet up with Isaac in Chicago Friday night, only he gets to the place he's supposed to go to and it's a porn shop called Frenchy's. This is where he meets Will Grayson 1, who is also underage and attempting to buy a porn magazine as a memento for his friends who actually left him to go to a Maybe Dead Cats concert in a bar--WG1's fake ID was a total fail, which actually made for an amusing moment there in aforementioned porn shop--and one thing leads to another and Will Grayson 1 meets Will Grayson 2.

So then there's a bunch of stuff and then Will Grayson 2 ends up with Tiny Cooper and then they actually sorta make out and stuff.

So from here we have a number of things progressing. For example, Will Grayson 1 is replaced in Tiny Cooper's life by Will Grayson 2, which kind of pisses off and hurts the feelings of WG1. Only all of this is complicated and there's a bunch of stuff with Jane, who sort of gets back with her ex-boyfriend only then she dumps him because she can't get WG1 out of her head and so then they kind of get together and that's good.

And like, Tiny and WG2 go out sort of for awhile, but then Will kind of hates on stuff too much and pisses of Tiny and they kind of break up. And they both feel totally like shit about it.

There are a lot of things about this book that I really liked. The prose exhibited by both authors, for example. The plot points. Also a lot of the subtext, the concepts that they put forth. Like, for example, sometimes people fall in love with an aspect of who you are, not necessarily you yourself. Like, sometimes, we don't keep quiet about things because we're ashamed of them or because we are afraid of being judged, but because it's nobody else's goddamned business, and that's okay. Also, that no relationship is perfect, and that one factoid, in itself, makes every relationship perfect.
Actually, I don't think that last one was really in the book... whatever. Take it how you will.
I loved it. A lot.  I even gave it 5 stars on GoodReads. (=  So there ya go.