That Vitamin C Song (#30/30)

[Prompt for today: "30. That's All Folks: Write a poem where something (big or small) comes to an end." this is particularly fitting because I am going to be graduating this weekend and I wanted to write about how i'm feeling in the days before.] Blogging has taught me to let go of my perfectionism. These months of self-directed writing no deadlines save the ones i suggest to myself have taught me to just get it out finish it up write what you feel not what you think Graduation has taught me to let go when I thought I already had. Walking through the Diag to get tickets for commencement for the Big House for the end and there is a surprising lump in my throat I thought I was done thought I was ok but watching students walk my walk from months ago thinking i'll never walk that again not the same way and it scares me, this ending i'm afraid that i won't know how to begin again

APR - John Dies At The End

April review for the Eclectic Reader's Book Challenge 2013: John Dies At The End by David Wong, 2009. [Urban Fantasy category]

This book is difficult to review without giving everything away. It is not a typical book where I can start at the beginning and muddle through the middle but stop before giving away the ending: the title alone makes that impossible. A rising cult classic for sure, John Dies at the End by David Wong is a beast of its own class. David, both the protagonist and a pseudonym for Jason Pargin, senior editor at Cracked.com, invites us into a horror-comedy about two twenty-something fuck-ups who somehow stumble their way into being a sort of Ghostbuster/Clerks/Supernatural type of mash-up. A friend had suggested the book to me and made me watch the Coscarelli film (2011), which I thoroughly enjoyed, and since this friend doesn't read too much but raved about this particular volume, I decided to give it a shot. I'm not sure exactly what I expected going in, but it certainly wasn't that.

Needless to say, I heartily enjoyed it. The characters, while neither particularly heroic or even likable in the traditional sense of the word, are real, their thoughts raw and unpolished coming directly from David's internal POV. The storyline(s) are so far-fetched yet intriguing that we as readers desperately want to believe in them. The major thrust is that of a wrathful alien invasion of which most of the populace is unaware, but the book is broken up temporally by a frame story, one that involves Dave and a bumbling reporter meeting at a back-alley Chinese restaurant for Dave to convince said reporter of his story--and subsequently, his (relative) sanity. The reporter, Arnie Blondestone, acts on behalf of the reader, calling Dave on his inconsistencies and asking the very obvious questions, all the while sitting back in a state of half disbelief, half intrigue. Some reviewers have pointed to the books original status as web serials that might allow for the contradictions, and while I see that is a valid point, I also like to think that it's something Dave has woven in of his own accord. This is a book trying to show "actual, soul-sucking lunacy," as one reviewer said, and the mind of the lunatic we get is rife with the unimaginable; it is only logical that his brain might fail in the description of it.

That being said, some parts of the story are actually acknowledged as possibly ill-reported, mostly because they come secondhand from John, the other half of this monster-fighting duo. Though John claims the title and most of the spotlight, his story is still told through Dave's intimacy with the reader, his raw point of view. Dave sees himself as a sort of shadow of John, but in that humility lies an honesty that is both endearing and grounded, and while neither of the characters is particularly heroic or even likable in the traditional sense of the word, as David is quick to point out--but then, nothing about this book makes sense in the traditional sense of the word.

In any elaborate created world, there is always a "set piece," a sort of touchstone that defines the rules of the universe: the One Ring in Lord of the Rings, the TARDIS in Doctor Who, In this case, it is the Soy Sauce. It is almost sentient, and it seems to be an adequate metaphor for the story itself. Wong started publishing his story that would become John Dies serially online where it took on a cult force of its own and has eventually made it into the hands of horror-comedy filmmaker genius Dan Coscarelli, the mind responsible for works like Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)--you know, the one about Elvis in a senior home fighting demons. A certain brand of crazy has taken seed in this genre, a hyperabsurdity that breathes itself into every aspect of the story and makes it somehow more real, like Amy's phantom hand syndrome that can open the ghost door because neither of them is actually there.

The ghost door(s) is a good example of how John Dies fits under the umbrella of Urban Fantasy. Some parts of the internet define urban fantasy as "sub-genre of fantasy defined by its place...a prerequisite is it must take place in a city." The world of the boys' hometown, Undisclosed, is just enough like the reader's reality to make us comfortable, but with minor differences like the ghost doors and talking bratwursts. Also the fact that the differences are unseen by many--like typical fantasy--contributes more to the hyperabsurdity of the whole deal and the outsider's view of David's crumpling sanity. Because Dave keeps so much under his hat, changing things or only saying them in his head--like calling his hometown "Undisclosed" so much that it becomes a place in and of itself--he gives a power not only to his own world but to the world he is laying out for Arnie Blondestone. The "undisclosed" nature of Undisclosed. how it sort of circumvents the typical definition of "urban fantasy" by circumventing the typical definition of "city," and like many aspects of this book, therefore becomes more tantalizing.

I am severely looking forward to reading the sequel and keeping up with David Wong's future endeavors. The man is funny, and he makes me laugh in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time. Like this article on Cracked that includes not one, but two tongue-in-cheek, quasi-hysterical reviews of his very own book. But somehow, it doesn't make him seem like a huge tool.

some of my favorite (and more colorful) blurbs about John Dies At The End:

"John Dies at the End...[is] a case of the author trying to depict actual, soul-sucking lunacy, and succeeding with flying colors." --Fangoria

"Reads as if Bill Murray's world-weary Ghosbuster and sassy Buffy the Vampire Slayer spawned a slacker child--like Clerks with monsters. . . . Surprising, disturbing, and inventive." --Herald Sun (Australia)

other reviews I enjoyed:
"The Designer's Drugs" at Second Supper

Tweet tweet (#29/30)

[prompt was to write a poem in less than 140 characters, as if it were on twitter]

A bar is a strange place in the daytime.
The outside world invades with the 2pm sunbeams,
stabbing into your bubble,
not letting you forget.

Asparagus (#28/30)

[I made asparagus today for the first time in years, and it reminded me of this moment when my best friend and i were kids and her mom told us the secret to asparagus]

Sunday afternoon asparagus experiment

long green stalks with pinecone heads
on my plate
send me back.
me and maddie, the girl around the corner
best friends since birth
eating lunch with her mother,
purveyor of fart jokes and bodily wisdom
from all her years as a floater nurse.
we wouldn't touch the green stringy things
no way, they looked gross, no
we wanted candy.
not until she told us
The Secret.

"The funny thing about asparagus," Julia said,
"is that if you eat enough of it,
you pee green!"
She giggled as we turned to each other
eyes wide as our still-full plates
sucking in a breath for a beat before
diving into the icky greens before us,
all thoughts of sugary goodness banished
and in our infinite wisdom and knowledge
of the human digestive system,
we ran straight to the bathrooms
once we greedily slurped down our last conquered string
to watch the magic happen

after a few minutes,
we met back in the living room,
frowns as droopy as the twizzlers we'd been tricked out of eating
Julia laughed from her perch on the kitchen counter and told us
like any good magic,
this one comes
with waiting.

Motor City Nightmares (#27/30)

[Today I went to Motor City Nightmares, a horror convention in Novi, MI. I went to rep 3CC but I was also a bright-eyed first timer, soaking up all the horror I could get my hands on]

bright-eyed first-timer
twenty-two years of new experiences
and still my voice shakes as I wait in line.
Heather Langenkamp, the girl who taught me
you can kick ass even in embroidered pajamas
even when no one will listen to you
even when you can't see what's coming.

a newborn horror hound
still not sure if this is my scene.
when i was six years old,
my best friend tied me to a chair
and made me watch goosebumps.
i haven't let myself be scared since then.
the helplessness was something i hate
but Nancy taught me
that even when the world tells you you're helpless,
that there's nothing you can do because it's all in your head
you can still win.

nervous little promotional director
dutifully taking down contact info
still feeling myself into this world,
how it fits around me.
eventually my smile comes out
blooms like a sunrise that marks triumph over the shadows
and I forget the rest
arm wrestle Chris Hahn, even though his bicep is wider than my head,
pose with a shiny machete with Ari Lehman--don't give me that fake plastic ax--
die by the hands of the Horror Hotties in the photobooth, zombies with bikini bodies
stop hiding behind sixteen years of angst

bright-eyed first-timer
newborn horror hound
nervous little promotional director
I am coming into myself here.

Riot Prom (#26/30)

[Riot Prom was a party theme my friends and i made up, where we could "get dressed up in your Sunday best and we will do riot-y things that involve fire! Or something. Suggestions welcome."]

Riot Prom. Dress up, act grunge.
electric blue body dress, black combat boots.
red lipstick, black biker gloves.
Spike the riot punch--
the green one is more of a trip.
Firecrackers in the street
alarm bells in the window
take back this friday night

Sick Day (#25/30)

lying in bed all day
with a tickle in my throat
watching Veronica Mars reruns
I feel like a little kid again.

With no classes to skip,
no work scheduled,
I can let my eyes close again and again,
slip down into that warm cocoon

but with no parent to take care of me,
no one to remind me to go to bed--
even though I slept til 2--
no one to remind me to eat--
more than the two popsicles i had
to ease the itch that just won't cough out--
I have to get up
I have to buy groceries
do laundry
generally be a grown-ass woman.

Every once in a while,
however,
it's nice to pull the blankets over your head
and shut the world out for a day.