CNN.com - Georgia bride-to-be fabricated abduction story - Apr 30, 2005

We’ve got a couple of montiors tuned to various news channels at work. This story has been on them, of course.

I make note of it only because of how frequently I overheard people say “The fiance definitely killed her.” The guy was convicted in the court of public opinion before he was even charged with anything!

(And I don’t mean to come off sounding holier-than-though…the thought crossed my mind, too. And I had something even meaner to say about the whole situation based on her pop-eyes…)

The friend who loaned me Heathers read my post and wrote me a wonderful email in response. With her permission it is posted in its entirety below:

Whoa — I think you disliked this movie a bit more than you let on.

Here’s what I think:

Sometimes I wonder if a great deal of the delight I took in first viewing this movie was the impact of its originality at the time. “Heathers” was not pretty in pink — it was somewhere between numbing amorality and heartfelt sap. It was released on the heels of a series of John Hughes teen-comedy/teen-angst films such as “The Breakfast Club”, “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” — fun, enjoyable comedies with broad appeal, including transitory themes of a more serious nature (all quickly resolved with pat answers).

The Heathers aren’t giggly, boy-crazy mall rats. They’re political animals in a disturbing world of high school feudalism. I don’t want to make more out of the movie than there is — in spite of its status as a cult classic (and possibly still as the reigning teen-queen of pitch-black comedies), it has plenty of flaws (notably Slater’s son-of-”The Shining” shtick and a loss of steam in the home stretch) — but I feel safe classifying it as a strangely hilarious morality play that pushed the envelope in its time. Every sacred, politically correct cow is skewered but the moral is traditional and well-loved: All men are created equal. Even the geeks.

At its best, “Heathers” is breathtakingly perverse and legitimately startling. A lighthearted, flip tone and bright colors contrast with the deepening guilt and growing awareness of the heroine, all the while maintaining a deliciously nasty tone with an (almost) relentless mean spirit — like some kind of demonic carnival ride.

The best black comedies provide a release that no other comedies can — you find yourself laughing helplessly at the most vicious plot turns, the wickedest jokes. “Heathers” is laced with brilliantly twisted lines, but it’s not realistic — it’s highly stylized and mannered. And then with a single shot of a weeping child, it pulls the rug out from under us and restores the value of life.

A comedy about teen suicide would seem to be reprehensible, especially one released after a rash of teenage suicides throughout the country. Some critics have said as much, but I think they missed the boat. The pointed satire doesn’t mock teen suicide, it mocks the gleeful frenzy of media coverage, the superficial social commentary and the martyrdom of victims — as well as the speed and dexterity with which most people retreat to comfortable topics and routines when faced with actions and statements of a serious or controversial nature. Veronica’s parents have the same conversation with her every day and the scenes are filmed like a lost episode of Ozzie and Harriet. The snippets of Big Fun’s song, “Teenage Suicide: Don’t Do It” are transposed sporadically over alternately flip and cruel or trite and mundane dialogue. Asked what she’s doing after the funeral, the heroine replies, “I don’t know. Mourn, maybe watch some TV.” When the heroine’s mother finally breaks routine to reveal an honest criticism of her daughter, she immediately reverts to formulaic conversation: “Want some pate?”

I guess I’d like to think “Heathers” wants the world to be a better place — but instead of a thoughtful drama presenting an idea of how that might happen, we get a scathing social commentary mocking the state of things instead.

However the film holds up sixteen years later, I think “Heathers” will always have a place in my heart. Okay, maybe that place is surrounded by signs reading “Caution!” and “Enter at Your Own Risk!” but it’s a place in my heart all the same.

As one of the film’s characters puts it, ”The extreme always seems to make an impression.”

[Sorry, comments are turned off on this post due to spammers loving it for some reason.]

A few days ago I went to the bookstore to get a stash of stories for my dear friend Sophia, who is just shy of 10. And one of the books I wanted to get her was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I’d read and loved it as a child and was delighted to find it was still in print.

But being a vile and selfish man, when I got it home I could not bear to give up my prize! So I sat down to read it before passing it along.

Now, I won’t say it was as wonderful as I’d remembered it, because that’s how memory is…everything gets either more amazing or more horrific as it receeds into the past. But it was an awful lot of fun. I’d really forgotten all the characters besides Milo. There’s Tock the Watchdog (who goes “TickTickTick” all day…his brother Tick goes “TockTockTock all day…it’s a long story and he’ll share it with you when you read the book) and the Humbug who’re Milo’s companions in his quest to free the Princesses Rhyme and Reason. Puns galore in the book, often in the form of the demons. For instance, The Senses Taker who tricks you with your sense of sound, sight and smell, but also robs you of you Sense of Purpose and your Sense of Duty. And he’s one of the more normal beings you’ll meet.

The other thing I’d forgotten, or more likely never noticed, is what the book is trying to instill on us, and that is a love of knowing things. Milo learns that Knowing Things is important and that you never know when knowledge will come in useful. It was a gentle enough lesson that I didn’t pick up on it when I was a child, but it makes me ever more happy to pass it on to my young friend.

I also should note that this edition still has the wonderful illustrations by Jules Feiffer. Towards the end of the book is a spread illustration showing all the demons chasing our heros. I remember staring at that picture for a LONG time as a kid, trying to identify each demon in it.

Finally, a trivia note. Years before anyone was talking about Chaos Theory and The Butterfly Effect, the Princess of Reasons explains to Milo how everything is connected, saying

Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world;

Interesting, eh?

If you’ve got a young reader to buy for, or if you’re just in the mood for a dose of nostalgia, pick this book up. Its wonderful.

A friend at work loaned me her copy of Heathers and I just got finished watching it.

And man, is my head screwed up.

This was one dark, dark teen-angst movie. I can’t decide if it was funny or disturbing. Probably both. First of all, it drips “80’s”, which makes sense since it was made in 1989, but the print of the movie even feels 80-ish in its grainyness. On the other hand, its widescreen and has a THX audio track makes it feel like a ‘modern’ DVD print.

Second thing is, this guy Christian Slater…I’ll admit I’m not familiar with him but he was doing this “Geez, I really really really REALLY want to be a young Jack Nicholson” thing that was just fucking surreal. Maybe he’s always like that…I dunno. But it really was creeping me out.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the story. Winona Ryder stars as Veronica, who is one of the hardcore popular clique of girls in Sherwood High School. The other three are all named Heather, ergo the title. Veronica is the only one with a dribble or so of conscience (while the other three are complete bitches to everyone around them..will there every be a movie where the popular girls are, y’know, liked by their classmates?), and essentially she hates her friends and wishes they were dead. And guess what? She gets her wish. But I won’t go farther into it. Let’s just say suicide becomes the hot new trend at Sherwood High.

Best quote, and I have to paraphrase, is Veronica’s mom telling her “You want to be treated like a grown-up? What do you think, being grown up is all about doubles tennis? Usually a teenager says she wants to be treated like a grown-up exactly WHEN she is being treated like a grown-up.” OK, I’ve butchered it, but it was a great quote.

Really dark, really strange, funny in a sort of shocking “oh my gawd!” way… actually funny isn’t even the word. Amusing would be better. Like when you watch a video clip of some poor kid wiping out spectacularly on his motocross bike and for some reason you cringe and kind of laugh, even though you know the poor bastard probably just broke his leg…. well, Heathers is 90 minutes of that feeling.

estimating the frog:pond ratio - “What works for me may not work for you.”

OK, I made up the title, but there’s some good stuff for the struggling writer in this post.

Thanks to Cat from OWW-SFF for pointing this out to me!

Oh, and the author is Elizabeth Bear.

Every so often something happens to restore your faith in mankind…

Yesterday my S.O. managed to lose her laptop. She’d had it at her mom’s house, where she and the kids were visiting, and somehow it never got home. Much frantic searching ensued. Her mom searched her house, my S.O. searched hers. Nothing.

Where could it have gone? No one had a clue.

And then she got an email. Turns out a letter-carrier had found it in the street. SO had dropped the kids off at their dad’s on the way home and I guess in the chaos of transition, 2 kids AND 1 laptop tumbled out of the car. And no one noticed.

Said letter carrier took the laptop home with her, turned it on, find SO’s email address and emailed her with a phone number. And this morning the laptop was returned safe and sound.

Now how cool is that? It would’ve been such an easy thing to sell on eBay. Or the letter carrier could’ve just taken it back to the post office and left it in lost and found. But instead she went the extra step and found the rightful owner and returned it. Very cool indeed.

Our final proposal was knocked down by Paramount. We will not see a season five for Star Trek Enterprise. All money as I stated earlier will be refunded starting Monday or Tuesday of this week. We will not allow people bashing our efforts on our own forums. Please keep in mind that our members are fans just like you are. If you feel the need to rejoice over this

Read the whole message.

What a shame. Granted it was a long shot, but these guys got pretty damned serious about trying to save the show. And in case you haven’t been watching Enterprise, this last season has been pretty good. I’ll miss it.

So I need to know, am I a freak, or just a bit too anal?

I’m reading Eragon, which is a Young Adult fantasy. (Please don’t tell anyone I’m not a Young Adult) and I came across something that just stuck in my craw.

On one page is this sentence:

At dawn the sun’s rays streamed through the window, warming Eragon’s face.

Fair enough. It’s a warm day. The characters awake and break their fasts and then its time to go work in the fields and we read:

The sun was cold and pale. providing little comfort.

WTF? So now it seems like a winter sun. What kind of day has the sun getting cooler as the day goes on?

And why in the world does this bother me? I read it yesterday and this morning its still bugging me. Maybe its the editor in me or something. But does that kind of thing bug other readers, too?

Mind you, I’m certainly not condeming the entire book because of this one faux pas. In fact I’m enjoying it so far. This post is more about introspection than critiquing the book. Why can’t I let stuff like this go!!!??

I make a decent wage, but back in my youth I was just really, really stupid. At one point I was carrying around close to $40K in credit card debt. I should’ve just declared bankruptcy back when that was so easy to do, but my mom’s dirt-farmer/fisherfolk work ethic was too deeply ingrained in me (ironic since like 123 of my 289 cousins have declared bankruptcy at some point).

A new theme, called, in fact, Almost Spring, and provided to Wordpress users by the talented and generous Becca Wei. What do ya think?

Well, against all odds I actually finished a book: Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide. So what can I say about this book that hasn’t been said a zillion times before? Probably nothing.

OK, backing up, this is the third book in Card’s series about Ender Wiggins. The series started in Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead and ends in Children of the Mind. Then there are the ‘parallel’ books starting with Ender’s Shadow and, gosh, I could go on all day. Just head over to The Official Web Site of Orson Scott Card and click on OSC Library.

So what to say about it. It took me a LONG time to read. I kept putting it down and going on to something else. I’m not sure why that is. Well… I ‘read’ the first two books in audiobook format and I wonder if that caused some kind of ‘culture shock’ when I transitioned to actually reading it myself. Or maybe its because each book gets…deeper? More contemplative? Ender’s Game was flat out fun stuff. Lots of motion. Speaker for the Dead got a bit more…still, but there was still some amazing character development. Xenocide was really compact, and almost sessile. It just felt a bit too long for the story, or something…

But anyway, now I’ve finished it and I have to say, the ending was a dissapointment. There were some rather deus ex machina events that felt like they existed only to give Card an avenue for sequels. And the ending didn’t end. Which is ok for me since Children of the Mind is on my ToBeRead pile, but I wasn’t expecting it. I remember the first two books having a complete ending.

Ah well. None of this is to say I didn’t like the book, and aside from the nits picked above, the second half was good stuff (once I got to about the half-way point, I read the rest straight through). If you haven’t read the first two books, do so. I really, highly, super-ultra recommend Ender’s Game in particular (and I guess they’re finally making a movie version, so hurry and read it before Hollywood rips its soul out). And if you’ve read the first two books, plot them on a graph with ‘fun’ on one axis amd ‘contemplative’ on the other, and understand that Xenocide follows that curve. If the curve is heading in a direction you’re comfortable with, then the book is worth picking up.

Hello, faithful readers! *waits for the shouts back, frowns at the silence and continues*

I just wanted to note a few changes to the blog. First, I’ve cleaned up my book list. I’m no longer listing everything that happens to be laying on my bedside table. Just the stuff that I’m actually reading.

Second, I won’t be talking much about games here anymore, since I’m starting a new site for that. The Games Roundtable is a place that, I hope, myself and some old friends will talk about games, post reviews and news, and that kind of thing. There’s a forum there too. So in a way, The Games Roundtable combines the games-related posts from here, and the discussion board from Jaded’s Pub, which after, what? eight years? I’m finally closing down.

Since a LOT of the content here was games-focused, it means I’m either going to have to think more, or post less. Let’s hope the former turns out to be true, since I can hardly post less than I have been lately.

Engadget has a nice step-by-step article on web-surfing on your PSP. They’ve even gone so far as to set up a DNS proxy for we — the geeky public — to use. Sweet.

Yeah, I’m playing fast and loose with the word ‘family’ but in some senses I think of the denizens of online role-playing environments as a big, somewhat dysfunctional family. Or club maybe…dare I say cult?

Anyway, I never met Candace Bolter, to the best of my knowledge, but she seems to have been a very nice person. More importantly to me, is the fact that people who never met her face-to-face liked her, and now miss her and remember her fondly. Its so easy to write off ‘in-game’ friendships as somehow no more real than our avatars…easy, that is, until we lose someone, and know we’ve lost them.

How many other virtual friends have slipped away with us assuming they just got tired of playing? Its a disturbing thought, isn’t it?

In Memory of Candace Bolter, aka Kale

So for some reason I was over at 1UP.COM and I decided to read some of their message boards. I’m digging my PSP like nobody’s business so that was the section I made a beeline for.

The very first thread on the board was: ATTN: Trolls, Flamers, Fantards, Et Al.

Now I’m not in public relations, but is that really the right way to welcome new users to your site? This was posted by the kid (please god let it be a kid) that moderates that section. Beyond the tone, the term Fantard seems awfully…ick, to me. But maybe its just me. I guesss we’re moving away from “gay” being the ultimate put-down and moving on to “retarded.” I dunno, maybe its a good thing. The folks who’re mentally handicapped are probably less likely to be spending their time on gaming boards than folks who’re attracted to people of their own gender…

Anyway, for grins I clicked on the “report abuse” link in the message. No doubt the kid who moderates the board will just call me a fucktard and move on…