Anger is an Energy

Books I Don’t Think Are Worth Reading, But Understand Why People Do: Twilight

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So as a result of my request for female authors one of my off-line friends decided it would be a lark to say “you know, you really *should* read Stephanie Meyers.” And after the requisite laughter that follows such a suggestion, I said “yeah, right-o” and promptly organised to borrow a copy of Twilight from my sister (who had, in turn, borrowed it from a friend, and wishes it to be quite clear that this is not her book I am borrowing; she was lured into reading it by its popularity among non-reader friends, and her response to the novel are probably even more negative than most).

To be honest, the book wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I mean, it didn’t touch me anywhere inappropriate or threaten to eat my children or anything like that. It just kinda ambled along telling an familiar-if-unpretentious story for the first half in which Bella and Edward stay away from each other, then turned into overblown teenage angst which made me want to slap the characters as they referred to one another as heroin addictions and such, then had an inexplicable vampire-attack-chase-scene-watchamie to come to its unlikely conclusion without any real meaning ’cause, yo, the bad guy was just there to make for an ending, yeah?

Then there was prom.

I could gripe, because this is a very easy book to gripe about, but I figure there’s enough of that. And, honestly, after years of reading some of the more florid ends of the gothic romance I can even understand the appeal, especially if I were part of the target demographic. Lets just say it’s not my thing, and that I’d probably need some kind of bribery to convince me to continue with the series. Instead I’m just going to wander off and quietly contemplate how much more awesome this book could have been if it was written from the POV of, say, Billy or Tyler-who-cannot-drive-on-ice, becoming the friend and confidant of his neighbour Edward Cullen, who is in the process of going all Jay Gatsby for the new girl. ‘Cause I think Twilight by way of the Great Gatsby would have been awesome, and it would have spared me the interminable angst that made up the middle portion of the book. Plus, then, the stalkery stuff would actually be a literary homage rather than just plain creepy.

Female Appreciation Month

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So the erstwhile editor of Twelfth Planet Press, Girliejones, has dubbed this month Female Appreciation Month in response to the all-around sausagefest that was the Triple J Hottest One Hundred of all Time*. Being a fan of female musicians in various genres, my immediate thought was “sure, I’ll be in that” and I went and pulled about thirty-odd albums out of my collection to serve as my listening for the coming month. All involve either female singers or female songwriters.

Being the utter High Fidelity loving nerd that I am, I’m trying to resist the urge to blog at you about the absolute awesome of every single album on this list with top-five lists and random gushing. I may well break at some point. Until then, you’ll probably see a theme running through the Friday Youtubery posts. And I should be rocking out with a month full of XX chromosomal goodness.

*This list, incidentally, has completely cured me of this lingering desire I’ve developed to get a radio for the house. Not simply because of the overwhelming majority of men, which I’ve come to expect from such things, but for the general trends the list shows. I mean, I know he’s recently dead and all, but when you’re voting two Michael Jackson songs into the 100 best songs ever of an national alternative and youth radio network, you are all fucking dead to me. Hell, you were all dead to me the moment Elton John appeared on the list. Billie Jean I could probably live with, even if I appreciate far more when being covered, but seriously – Thriller? Tiny Fucking Dancer? WTF, people? I know I’m in danger of turning into a cranky old man and all, but seriously: Dead To Me. All of You.

More Horn-spotting

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This time as part of a three book review on Mondyboy’s blog covering a trio of Twelfth Planet releases – Horn, Dirk Flithart’s Angel Rising, and the New Ceres Nights anthology (featuring work by a whole bunch of worthy peeps including Dirk and Angela Slatter).

I’m officially locking myself away and doing minimalist blog posts until I’m done with the current Black Candy draft and the various trips to the hopital (and at the risk of being inappropriate I really hope the later resolves itself first – given the absence of euthanasia legislation in Australia we’re basically watching a family member dehydrate and starve to death, and frankly that’s bullshit).