krylyr_blade's Xanga

Moving Day

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:15:39 GMT

For all of you reading, I'm going to be switching my blog permanently over to http://krylyr.livejournal.com. It will pretty much be the same thing I'm doing here, with a tad more emphasis on writing. I'm keeping this account, mostly because I still like reading everyone else blogs and I want to keep in touch with what's happening at the World's End. I hope to see you there, too.

"Can We Have Another? Please?" -- Last Respects Lives Again!!!

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:22:31 GMT

Last Respects is up at Apex Online and my, oh, my, does it look good on their site, if I do say so myself. Check it out.

I was talking to another writer friend last week about writing playlists. Usually, I create playlists on my ipod when I'm working on a story -- some good mood music for when I'm writing. But I realized today that I had not created a playlist for Last Respects. So I thought it might be fun to hear from everyone what songs *you* would put on the Last Respects Soundtrack. Thoughts?

Yes, Yes. Without the Oops

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:03:52 GMT

Last week I made a post about one of the young actor's claiming he never had the script or the story of the Kite Runner adaptation. Now the movie's director, Marc Foster, has debunked the claim. However, there's still fear that the child actors may be in danger, so the movie's release date has been shifted back over a month and the story painted now sounds far less oppurtunistic. In addition, "'The kids have been offered to come to the United States and stay out of the country for an extended period of time,' Megan Colligan, head of marketing at Paramount Vantage, told The Associated Press on Thursday."

I highly recommend checking out the book, if you haven't already. It's an exciting read that comes across both authentic and heart-felt.

BOSS!!! Emma is Magic!!!

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:24:20 GMT

Bruce Springsteen's Magic completely kicks ass. It's totally different than the last 3 albums he's put out (which were all totally different from each other). And with the exception of Radio Nowhere (far from my favorite song on the new album), this collection is more reminiscient of the Boss's Glory Days sound, when he was recording stuff like Dancing in the Dark, Born in the USA, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Thunder Road, Born to Run, and the River.

And Emma also kicks ass. While I was driving down to Conjecture on Saturday, she scored us tickets to see the Boss later on this month when he comes to LA. What better way to spend a night in late October than listening to Bruce sing about Magic?

Conjecture

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:10:57 GMT

This weekend was pretty busy, but also pretty freaking cool. Saturday, I got to go down to Conjecture and see Zak Jarvis and Sharon Mok be panelists! I also got to see Larry Niven, Tim Pratt Heather Shaw, Greg van Eekhout, Sherwood Smith, Howard Hendrix, and Shaun Farrell (whose podcast I've just added to my subscriptions). It was great to briefly meet some of them but I almost always feel like such a goober at these kinds of things because I'm such an introvert with people I don't know very well, but I'm really glad I went.

Tim, Heather, and Greg put on a killer collaborative ABC reading where they'd divvied up the alphabet and written pieces of flash SF/F to go with each every letter. There were faires shitting shimmering coffee beans, dream shrinks fighting off nightmares, and an apocalyptic time-travelling road-trip in Effingham (I think Effingham). It was one of the most entertaining and amusing readings I've seen in a while (although Greg's bits were often kind of depressing -- except for the one about the sandwiches).

One of the most interesting things was the pixel-stained technopeasantry panel with most of the above, but specifically Howard Hendrix. I'd never seen or read anything by Hendrix aside from his rant earlier this year, and so I was surprsised and pleased by how sharp and thoughtful he was, that he was completely willing to put himself out there on such a panel, and that he was willing to discuss what his rant was really about, even though I'm still pretty sure I don't agree with him. It was nice of him to apologize for calling people webscabs. Now I gotta find the Hendrix/Sigler debate...

Finally, I got to hook up with Mur Lafferty and Evan Goer Sunday, which was also killer and more than a little nostalgic for me. It's been almost exacly a year since I saw them last at VP, and I was really happy I got to spend a couple of hours catching up and hearing what they were up to.

Soundtracks

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:36:23 GMT

Yesterday, I bought Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild sountrack and it's amazing. Definitely more mellow than a lot of Pearl Jam's stuff, but it's got as much heart as anything his band's produced. You can almost imagine you're trekking through Alaska when you're listening it. Not to mention sometimes it seems like he's trying to channel Dylan's protest songs with "No More" and the live track of "Here's to the State."

Usually, I dig soundtracks with a bunch of different bands, more in the vein of Almost Famous, Pulp Fiction, and Garden State. I like the variety and it's hard to get one artist to do all of that. But this one rocks. What soundtracks hit you?

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:25:31 GMT

A lot of people have asked me what it feels like to be 30. I think what they're asking me is whether or not I feel old. No, not really. The only time in my life I felt old was when I was subbing high school and a kid called Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen sexy. (All I could think was, ew, Michelle?) Actually, I'm pretty stoked to be 30. I've heard the 30s kick the 20s ass, and I'm ready to do some ass-kicking. I'm like a good wine, I kick more ass with age.

We had a little shindig at my house this past weekend to celebrate that included margaritas, music, fajitas, and more margaritas. Somebody gave me a list about how you know you're not in your 20's anymore (which I've annotated):
1) You stop getting carded (Ha! Lies! No one carded me for the margaritas Saturday morning!)
2) You are referred to as sir/Mr. (Okay, but that happened when I was working as a substitute teacher so I'm not at all phased when kids like Matt Wallace call me sir)
3) Coffee becomes your drug of choice (Since I was about 17, I think)
4) People call at 9 pm and ask "Did I wake you?" (Okay. I got nothing)
5) You sing to elevator music (more embarrasing, I know the soundtrack to Annie and most of Raffi's lyrics)
6) You refer to college students as "kids" (So?)
7) "Getting Lucky" means you found your car in the parking lot (Absolutely NOT true. Getting lucky means I've found a parking spot.)
8) You have a party and your neighbors don't even notice. (touche)

Things seem to get better and better for me. I had a really good year at 29 but I'm expecting 30 to blow it away. I'm happy with my relationships, I'm happy with my accomplishments, and I'm not settling. I'm going to keep trying to do things better. Hopefully, I've got a lot of time to do that.

Oops: Hollywood Edition

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:20:21 GMT

There's an interesting article on CNN about the film adaptation of The Kite Runner, which I'm nearly done reading.

I'm of two minds about the article. First, why the hell wasn't the kid or the kid's family ever given the entire script to read before the filming started? The whole thing could've been avoided if the kid and his family said, "No, we don't like this scene" and the film crew could've moved on and found a different actor. It's cool that the director and producers decided to use Afghani actors, but it really comes across like they're treating them like props, not professionals. I mean, the "controversial" scene is the crux of the novel, or at least the action which causes everything else in the book to happen.  Why would it even be on the table for negotiation?

The more cynical side of my brain interprets the article as this: the actor's family is looking for a chance to immigrate to States and they're using the controversial scene as leverage. I have no real idea what life is like in Afghanistan -- my only experience is from books I've read (few and outdated) and news reports. I don't know what kind of harassment the kid would face from his peers in Afghanistan, or how it would compare to the kind of harassment he'd receive States-side for being in such a scene.  Does he need to immigrate for fear of retaliation and protection? It could very well be the case. But it sucks that the kid was forced to perform in a scene, a scene about a rape, and he had absolutely no idea it was going to happen until he showed up to shoot.

Still, the bottom-line is that it's ridiculous for the actor to not have access to the script, or a translation of the book, when he was hired on. If this had happened in the US, there'd be lawsuits. It sounds very much like Hollywood taking advantage of foreigners.

Clean-Up In Aisle 5

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 22:12:29 GMT

Our bedroom at home is getting built-in shelves this week to replace the IKEA bookshelves and wardrobe we had in there. The shelves are custom-made and the guy installing them suggest we spend a couple nights somewhere else if we could, since in addition to our bedroom being turned upside-down, they'll be laquering the wood. So we're at my in-laws for the next couple nights. (Actually, we were there last night, too, and I subjected them to a couple episodes of B5, one of which I mostly enjoyed. They both fell asleep.)

If you are a criminal and considering breaking into our house, please be advised you will have to deal with our fearsome guard cats: Bela and Woodrow. Man-eaters, for sure.

Emma's pretty sure the built-in bookshelves are going to be able to house the majority of our books, enough so that we can clean-out the bookshelves in the spare room office. I'm a little more skeptical. Still, I'm terrible when it comes to getting rid of books. There's books I keep that I may never read, books I keep that I absolutely hated (mostly to show off to friends "Check out how crappy this book is!), books I like that I'll probably never read again but still can't stand the thought of parting with, etc. Of course, whenever we talk about donating a bunch to our local library, I want to give away a lot of Emma's books and she wants to give away a lot of mine.

On the bright-side, cleaning out my wardrobe and a closet was pretty easy. I donated about 6 bags of clothes to Good Will. My clothes, of course. Not Emma's. I do value my life.

K-Ville

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:29:59 GMT

Shit. I really wanted to like this show. I love New Orleans, I love detective/cop stories set in New Orleans (see James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels), and when I heard they were filming a new cop-show set in Post-Katrina New Orleans it soared to the top of my new-shows-to-watch list. But aside from the opening scenes, this show really sucked. Hurricane Katrina is the greatest disaster to happen on American soil. A couple weeks ago, I saw a report with Anderson Cooper, on the 2nd anniversary of Katrina. The way the government has failed that city is unbelievable. There's 1.5 murders a day, people are getting sick living from living in the FEMA trailers for an extended amount of time due to the formaldehyde used in the particle boards. The local government does not want to work together. Really, a writer shouldn't have to work too hard to make an excellent drama with this material.

Unfortunately, the writers of K-Ville decided to go more of a Lethal Weapon route instead of staying with the real-life grit of what's really going on in that city. Aside from the effective opening scene, where the protagonist's partner deserts him during the immediate relief and rescue efforts post-Katrina, the writers decided they needed to put some artificial flavors in the gumbo like a drive-by shooting on charity events. Former special-ops mercenaries hired to shoot-to-miss. Real-Estate conspiracies headed by a woman who actually encourages the police to investigate her. And finally, there's the big reveal at the end of the episode *MAJOR SPOILER* The con who escaped from prison during Katrina, turned his life around, and became a cop.

I call bullshit.

There are some interesting things going on here, some interesting characters, enough to make me consider watching this show again. Specifically Anthony Anderson's cop who wants to reclaim his city. Cole Hauser's role as the the straight-shooting former Army Ranger could be interesting, although his character's reveal was completely botched (not to mention pretty unbelievable). And then there's the setting. There's so much grit and human interest and conflicted souls and hope, it should be impossible to so completely fuck-up this setting. But that's what's happened. Generally, it's insulting to New Orleans and the people affected by Katrina.