IF YOU DON'T ANSWER, I'LL JUST RING IT OFF THE WALL

- It's sort of funny how songs that you otherwise hate can become a perfect excuse for dancing around like an idiot given certain circumstances. Case in point: the East semi on Friday, the music played was, for the most part, things I wouldn't listen to privately in a million years but as background rhythm to dumbing out, it's pretty good. Examples of this effect: "Single Ladies", "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" and "In The Ayer". One complaint: They didn't play "Jizz In My Pants", or "I'm On A Boat", or that techno remix of Christian Bale freaking out. I guess those are just TOO HARDCORE for a school function but they played the uncut version of "It's Goin' Down" and that uses the n-word, like, five times. By the way, that song continues to infuriate me 'lo these many years. What the hell is going down, Yung Joc? I assume it's a party or something, but you need to explain your self further.

At any rate, I had a fun time. I went there to dance and act like an idiot and that's what I did and I successfully avoided any stupid drama. I did have a slight regret that I didn't ask for a slow dance with a particular person, but you can't dwell on stuff like that. There's always next time. Also, I sort of looked like a parish priest because I used my kerchief to hold my shirt collar shut because I couldn't find a tie; it ended up looking kind like those collars they wear, when combined with my shirt, so, yeah.

- I'll avoid spoiling Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas, mostly for the benefit of one person who's reading this, except to say that it ends happily but there's some (okay, a lot) of tragedy to get there. The thing I liked about it most though is that, despite its polish of 21st century atmosphere, it's sort of defiantly old-fashioned, written without a trace of irony, skepticism or cynical wit. And, at heart, I'm sort of an old-fashioned guy: being hip and jaded can work sometimes (I love both the book and the movie of Fight Club, and those are filled with cynicism and irony and post-modern technique) but, to me, a romance requires the person writing it to be unafraid to be melodramatic and sentimental, because, as much as people would try to deny it, love is, by nature, sort of melodramatic and sentimental. My issue with a lot of more modern romances (more often it's romantic-comedies) is that they try to have it both ways; they try to be all hip and cynical about relationships but they also try to portray a convincing love story. To me, that just diminishes the impact of both of the elements. I'd be lying if I said that bitterness isn't sometimes appealing to me, I love the majority of Raymond Carver's work, for example, but the thing is that Carver, who often targeted love with his bitter ire, didn't play both sides, he knew what feelings and ideas he wanted to evoke and he did them very well. Similar story with Hemmingway (though I've never really liked his work that much because it just oozes misogyny at pretty much every turn). By the same token, the classic widescreen romances were all about wish fulfillment and sentimentality, they were what they were and they did what the did very well. I think it's partially an issue of the post-modern critical cache making terms like "sentimental" or "overblown" out to be the mark of the devil; I hate to quote Paul McCartney to prove something but I love his statement that "being sentimental means you like things". There's this prevailing attitude, primarily among literary-snob types, that embracing big emotions openly is somehow tantamount to sacrilege; that all writing should be post-modern and skeptical and emotionally numb. Although this raises an obvious question about the life experiences of those critics, that's an irrelevant cheap shot. The real question is: why are denying art that is purely emotionally satisfying and doesn't require a P.H.D in literary studies to understand? I think it's a two-pronged issue: 1) People like to feel smart, so, if someone tells them that they have to be able to "get" a creative work because it's "cerebral" or whatever, people are naturally going to make an effort to understand, or pretend to understand, the work in an attempt to one-up people around them. 2) At some point along the line "populist"got equated with "stupid". I blame Jerry Bruckheimer. A lot of dumb-ass things get really popular (*cough* Transformers *cough*) but being made with a wide appeal doesn't necessarily mean that something is dumbed down. One of those whipping boys for sentiment is Forrest Gump, but that movie isn't dumb; it's certainly intended to appeal to the widest possible audience but there's a good deal of complexity going on there.

But, back to romance: the other reason I see for the influx of 'have it both ways" in romantic comedies is that movies are trying to appeal to a much broader audience of people who's entertainment demands have changed. This is where populism can go bad, where something appeals to a broad audience not by its nature but by marketing design. It's why every action movie is now PG-13 and includes a romantic subplot. It's why romances now have tooth-grindingly bad comedic relief and hit obvious teenage-guy sex appeal buttons ("Hey, let's put some scantily-clad models in here"). I suppose this is an argument in favour of genre solidarity but I go to watch an action movie for the action and, in some cases such as superhero movies, the mythic narrative. I don't need a love story in the middle of that. On the flip side, I go to see a love story to forget about the fact that I'll never have a girlfriend for 2 hours. Obnoxious comedy and skin-flashing distract from that. I guess what I'm trying to say is : know your audience, or at least know the reasons people go to see a particular genre of film.

I was having it out with one of my female friends about this a couple months ago when Australia came out. She thought that the movie looked awful and I asked why. Her response was that it was that it looked really cheesy and unrealistic (Note: I sometimes remember things wrong, so, since I know that the person I'm talking about will read this, if I say something that isn't right, please correct me). My response was that I liked my romances as cheesy and widescreen and epic and unrealistic as possible. It's better to be overblown when you're dealing with an emotion as grandiose as love. I know of few other feelings that have caused so much to happen in human lives and history. Doesn't that emotion deserve to be rendered in a way that is as outsize as it feels when you experience it?

I also might have said that Australia was my sort of romance because the chances of me being in a relationship are so unlikely that I may as well watch something that's purely fantasy than something that's more realistic. Australia and, to choose a favourite of hers, Must Love Dogs are equally unlikely for me, one is just a lot more fun because it's so ridiculous.

Please note that I haven't actually seen Australia yet, and neither has she, this is just us going by the trailers and commercials. For all I know, she was right and the movie is terrible.

Well, that was a long-winded way of making an obscure point. To summarize, Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas is a good book and if you need something that'll make you feel halfway decent about life, you should read it. Also, "sentimental" isn't a four-letter word, or, at least, it shouldn't be.

- Quick Lost bit to wrap this up: Last week's episode was decent but kind of slow. Also, not nearly enough Sayid. Next episode is all Locke, all the time, it should be awesome.


Final thing: All of my blog post titles are quotes from song lyrics. If you can spot what this post's title is taken from you will know what song I always liked but never truly understood until this weekend.

I HAVEN'T SEEN SANDY, AND JOHNNY OR MARY

- 24 was sort-of boring last night, not a whole lot really happened and overall it just felt like an episode of the writers moving all the pieces into place for the next set of episodes. But this sort of downtime is necessary to set up the more action-packed episodes, so, I remain hopeful for next week. Also, Janeane Garafalo was particularly sexy this week (mostly because she was all pissed off at everyone) and I'm willing to forgive a lot for that.

- SHOOT THE GLASS

- Hans brings sexy back

- There are few things better on Youtube than this

- This article says a lot of what I was trying to say about Mad Men in a much more intelligent way (even if I disagree with the somewhat blunt assessment of the show's characterization of its female characters as misogynistic)

- Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas persists in being pretty good stuff. Some of the language is a bit too flowery for its own good and the characters seem to speak in poem a lot of the time but I still like it a lot.

God, I don't have very much to write about today. Somebody needs to give me a topic to go off on.

JUST A LITTLE LATE, YOU FOUND ME

- Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas is a really good book so far (I'm about halfway through it). I think that Patterson has a really deft touch with whatever he's writing and it's odd but the rhythms of his writing style really works in the context of a romance. It's like he's writing chick-lit as a suspense thriller, if that makes any sense. I guess it's just because Patterson honed his craft doing all those Alex Cross novels but he knows how to make you keep turning pages, even if the concerns are less crazy kidnapper masterminds and more heart-rending emotional moments. He's certainly not high art but he knows pop-lit like nobody's business. Small annoyance: "It's not you, it's me" is used at one point. I'm waiting for "it's not me, it's you", which I'll probably have said to me at least once in my life.

- Hannibal, the book, sort of sucks. Not as much as the movie, but, still. Thomas Harris is a brilliant writer in a technical sense but I seriously think that he doesn't understand his characters, or at least their appeals, at all. Here's a hint: Hannibal Lecter is interesting because he's never explained (or, as he puts it, in Silence Of The Lambs, "Nothing happened to me, I happened"), tacking on a stupid backstory about his dead sister only weakens him by providing a pat psychological explanation for his crimes (and don't even get me started about Hannibal Rising). Also, part of the terror of Hannibal is that we never see what he does to his victims; the brain scene and the mirror scene might work as gross-out moments and/or dark comedy but they seriously weaken Lecter's capacity to frighten. And his dialogue often crosses the line from "darkly funny" to "campy".

Furthermore, while I buy that Clarice would be burned out after ten years in the FBI, I don't buy that she would become Hannibal's lover to get away from that life. There's certainly a romantic underpinning to their relationship but as full-on romantic companions, I just don't see it happening. Though this may only be because I want Clarice Starling to always be single because she's my dream girl and I like to feel like I have some weird "chance" with her (even though she's, you know, fictional and all that), I dunno.

I sort of have to give Harris credit for sticking all manners of insane shit into the novel, though. I know of few writers who would think it's a good idea to have a guy cut his face off with a mirror and feed it to his dogs, or have that same dude get killed by having an electric eel stuffed down his throat by his lesbian sister who he used to molest with candy bars as a kid. And you have to respect an author who can get away with that and call it legitimate literature, to some degree.

- 24 was pretty sweet last night. Highlights:
- Colm Feore getting his finger lopped off
- Jack's brilliant retort to Larry ("The rules are what make us better" "Not today")
- Dubacku's conversation with his girlfriend ("You're kind enough for the both of us")
- Jack speeding into oncoming traffic
- Renne being a hardass ("I will shoot you where you stand"), and being very attractive while doing it, I might add.
- Presdient Taylor being a hardass (I might also add that it's interesting to see the typical spouse-kidnapping plot having the genders reversed), not looking as pretty while doing it
- Jack deploying his white-fu against a corrupt Secret Serivce agent
- Jack imitating Chow Yun-Fat while taking out a group of terrorists.
- A car getting blown-up with an RPG
- Janeane Garafalo being all sexy when she gets pissed off at that weaselly computer programmer guy. Let me tell you two things: 1) Janeane Garafalo can critique my work habits any day of the week, if you catch my drift and 2) That guy, and Larry, to a lesser extent, are stone cold idiots; they've got Janeane Garafalo (who is, presumably, single) there and they're ignoring her in favour of cheating on their wife with an FBI programmer in an uncomfortably short skirt and pining over a girl who is presumed dead, respectively; morons.

My only real complaints were that Dubacku leaving right before Jack burst in was a little too convenient for my taste, that, yet again, the terrorist hideout is in the back of a store and I still wonder how they're gonna keep going, given that the terrorists have zero leverage over the White House now. Also, they (maybe?) killed Colm Feore, this makes me sad.

- Those Robin Hudson mysteries are really good if you're looking for a relatively light read. They're short, they're funny and they're femme-noir (my new term I just made up for a film noir-esque thing with woman as the main character). And, really, is there anything more sexy than a red-headed lady journalist solving mysteries and being all wittily cynical about everything? Yes, but only if that lady journalist is also Janeane Garafalo.

That's all I've got to say for now, I'm seeing Gran Torino tonight and I'll report back on that tomorrow. Leave a comment if you'd like.