Sitting Around in a Twilight T-shirt Wearing a Star Wars helmet on my head

I'm fond of posting this picture whenever I make the assertion that I'm Not a Nerd: 

I bought this Twilight: New Moon t-shirt at a thrift store; I just couldn't believe how awesomely awful it was, and so snatched it up immediately. I've worn it only once, upon the occasion here depicted; I went over to a friend's house for a BBQ, thinking only folks I already knew were going to be there and that they would think the shirt Immensely Funny. 


Then some people I didn't know showed up. 

Everything I love comes together in an explosion of unicorns farting rainbows

Lately, it's like the world is designing things especially for me (magical thinking? what's that?). 

Joel McHale reflects on Supernatural: 



As The Onion AV Club puts it: you just don't get stuff like this on any other show:

“You're saying an octopus did this?” a Winchester asked the medical examiner. “Not just any octopus,” the guy replied. Later, once the brothers were beginning to get a vague sense of what was going on, Sam said, “Now, the question is, how did a unicorn come off this sketch and kill Billy's dad?” You just don't hear dialogue like this on the shows with some combination of CSI, NCIS, or Law & Order in their titles. Maybe if every show on TV did have dialogue like this, I wouldn't enjoy it so much when I get to hear it on Supernatural. An alternate possibility, at least as likely, is that if every show on TV had this kind of dialogue, I'd never leave my living room.

And earlier, Misha Collins shows up on The Soup and beats up Joel McHale!:



In conclusion: 

Thanks to here!

AND LOOK AT THIS PROMO:




And on Tuesday, Misha Collins will be on Ringer and then the Fug Girls will recap it and everything I have ever wanted will come true.  

(And, eeeeep, speaking of unicorns and rainbows...)

Supernatural 7.4 Recap: Ghost Cars Not Scary; Everyone Feels Guilty, Except Sam

If there's one thing I've learned from watching Supernatural -- and never let it be said that time spent watching this show has not taught me anything useful -- it's that haunted cars are not scary. 

Arguably the worst Supernatural episode ever (Yeah, yeah, I know) is "Route 666" from Season 1, in which the villain is a racist truck. Yes, a ghost truck. A ghost truck that is racist. A racist truck.

It's so bad that they even refer to it as the "racist truck" when they get all meta in Season 4 and discover that Supernatural is a series of cult books.

Dean: Everything is in here, from the racist truck to me having sex. I'm full frontal in here, dude.

When the Impala gets possessed in Season 6's episode "Mannequin 3: The Revenge" (yup, it's actually called that -- also the villain in that one is a haunted kidney!), they at least play it for laughs: 

  "It possesses sex dolls! This is not a sex doll!" 

Thanks to here for gifs

  So, you'd think if there was ONE thing anyone involved in Supernatural would know, it's this: haunted cars. Not scary.

Guess how S.7 episode four, "Defending Your Life," begins? 

 

Yup. Ghost car. 

Even the guy getting chased by the ghost car thinks its lame:

A ghost car? Really? It's not even a meta episode!

tl; dr intro to Supernatural recap

Okay, so I've been totally failing at recapping Supernatural. 

Why? Well... 

My Show Wins

Okay, so I'm obviously way behind in my Supernatural recaps, and my feelings about Season 7 have vacillated between



and 

For starters, it turns out that this? This flowchart I made? Stupid show proved me totally wrong: 

Damn it writers, what's next? Sam is gonna sleep with a girl and she's gonna LIVE? STOP SCREWING WITH MY EXPECTATIONS.

 But...I have to say that Show came back from break with the episode "Adventures in Babysitting" and...I lurved it! 

Hello, Hello Giggles

Hello and welcome there, anyone reading this who came over from Hello Giggles. I have Julia Gazdag to thank for hooking me up there (the beautiful story of our meeting is documented here). Anyway, I'm writing a column there called "Adventures in Thrifting," in which I document (mis)adventures in the glorious seedy underbelly of secondhand shopping. My last column was about winter coats; I caused some very minor controversy by suggesting that warmth shouldn't be your #1 concern while picking out winter coats. As an "outtake," here's a picture of me in one of my winter coats that didn't make it into the post:

Misha Collins is Awesome, and I am Surprisingly Emotional About It

So, you know how the Fug Girls are recapping Ringer? (I find this interaction particularly awesome/sweet, I have to say). And I was like, "Oh cute! Cause I am trying to totally not failing at recapping Supernatural! CW cheese 4evah!"

Well, then there's this news: Misha Collins is going to guest-star on Ringer.

Supernatural 7.02 and 7.03: Everything Was So Awesome and Then Everything Sucked

Alrighty-roo, so obviously I'm waaaaay behind on Supernatural recaps. I'm going to do a compressed recap of 7.02 and 7.03, which is basically going to be a recap of just 7.02 because I REFUSE to do a full recap of the third episode. 

My reactions to the two episodes can be summed up by: 

Supernatural 7.01 Recap PART TWO: Villains That Will Kill You But Are Adorable

We then transition extremely subtly from Crowley's scotch glass to the cup of a blind beggar. A burn-y hand put money in the cup, so we guess that it's Cas, who earlier seemed to have had an Uncomfortable Burning Sensation in his hand.

Cas explains that the beggar is a true believer. "People say I'm wrathful, but I
only punish liars and those who forsake me. I am a just God." He then grants the beggar his sight.

Cas comes into focus, and the beggar spends a split second rejoicing over his miraculous restoration of sight before getting all judge-y on Cas, saying, "Your face! What's wrong with you?"

Supernatural 7.01 Recap: Villains That Will Kill You BUT ARE ADORABLE Part 1

Alright, so I already discussed the awesomeness of the new title card and Sam's hair; the other important item of business is "The Road So Far" Montage, which is set to Foghat's "Slow Ride." 

Supernatural 7.01 The pre-recap RECAP. (Recap implies spoilers, obvs)

Okay, so let's be honest. There were three things any good Supernatural fan was looking for in the Season Seven premiere:

An alarmingly large chunk of the average day

Okay, so, like I said -- Imma try and do Supernatural recaps when the new season starts up. We'll see. There's like eighty billion things I could say about Supernatural but I think it's vital to the success of this endeavor that I not say as much as I'd ideally want to. Nick Hornby has this great moment in Fever Pitch -- he's says, when you're really obsessed with something (in his case soccer, or "football"), often when you're asked, "What are you thinking?" you have to lie:

At this point I lie. I wasn't thinking about Martin Amis or Gerard Depardieu or the Labour party at all. But then, obsessives have no choice; they have to lie on occasions...If we told the truth every time, then we would be unable to maintain relationships with anyone from the real word. We would be left to rot with our Aresenal programmes or our collection of original blue-label Stax records or King Charles spaniels, and our two-minute daydreams would become longer and longer and longer until we lost our jobs and stopped bathing and shaving and eating, and would lie on the floor in our own filth rewinding the video again and again in an attempt to memorize by heart the whole of the commentary including David Pleat's expert analysis, for the night of 26th of May 1989 (You think I had to look that date up? Ha!) The truth is this: for alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron.

Substitute "Season 2 DVD commentary" in there and you get the picture.

For instance: complaining. I could do a lot of that; for instance, about Season Six. But there's already plenty of complaining out there, some of which I agree with and some of which makes me feel like this.

So, I'm going to limit myself. For instance, in this blog entry I'm only going to complain about promotional materials! No biggie. Everybody thinks about that stuff, right?

Okay, here goes, deep breath, etc. etc. etc.

I'm trying to get used to Blogger's new interface and not feel all old-fogey-y and resistant to change. Dude, Blogger, I use Blogger! I'm probably not exactly quick on the uptake in the ol' technology/web department, ya know?

I mean, I've pretty much just discovered gifs! Have a gif!

We Have A Winner!

Okay, so "The Time that the Apple Company Accused Me of Peeing on My Computer" won decisively, which was to be expected--I mean, the title is just so weird.

I think the only reason I was hesitant to post that story was because I'd told that story in person so many times. If you were a friend of mine who lived in Minneapolis around 2007-2008, you not only had to live through stages of the story with me, but you got to hear the story, like, more times than you probably wanted to. But but but! There are others out there who haven't heard it! AND SO I WILL TELL AGAIN AND HOPEFULLY TELL WELL.

But I want to put a decent amount of energy into the post (yes, the story involves urine--well, no, actually, the story involves no urine that I knew about, ONLY THE ACCUSATION OF URINE) but to give you the full context would probably take awhile, although the punchline is sort of spoiled in the title.

And right now I am sick. "I'll baby-sit your sick child!" I said. "I never get sick!" I said. "Okay, I'm sick, I can still do stuff!" I said. "I'll just take some cold medicine!" I said. "I can still drink!" I said.

This cold or whatever it is--it's the Terminator of colds. It's the Terminator paparazzi robots in Britney Spear's "I Wanna Go" video:

I aggregate Writing is Hard stuff

Becky Tuch, of The Review Review (to which I contribute; you know, just FULL DISCLOSURE and everythin') recently wrote a post called "Writing. It's Hard." I really liked it. In the comments, I wrote "I'm share this on facebook, blog, etc. IMMEDIATELY"--apparently so excited over the post that I typo'd (I meant to write, "IMMA SHARE this").

Anyway, as a wriiiiiiter I of course have a special fondness for "Writing. It's hard" posts/articles, because they make one feel a little less alone/crazy. So I thought I'd aggregate of a few of my recent and/or easily accessible via web favorites.

1. "Writing. It's hard."  This is, like, so true for me! Except for the part about "For years, you've been getting up at six-thirty." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

2. "Peter Bognanni writes a blog post." Sample quote: "But then I couldn’t help thinking about how I actually work when I write. And how random and strange and totally un-process-like it is in every sense."

3. pamie, "Eyes on the Prize." Sample quote:

"One time I had gotten out of the shower having finally figured out an ending to a chapter, and the only thing I had to write on was an ATM receipt that was in the pocket of the clothes I’d been wearing before I got into the shower, and the only implement I had was my index finger, dipped in my own blood from a cut I’d given my shin with my razor in the shower.

It had better be the best damn chapter in the novel, because I wrote it in shinblood."

Sort of gives a new meaning to that oft-repeated quote about "Writing is easy. You just sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." In this case, "Writing is easy. You just cut yourself shaving, get struck with a good idea, and write out said idea on an ATM receipt in shinblood."

4. Solipsism.  

Speaking of typewriters. 

5. Referenced previously, Zadie Smith "That Crafty Feeling."

6. I had to. Yes, I have a problem. Even though this clip doesn't have my favorite lines: "If I'd known it was real, I would have done another pass" and "If I were a psychic, do you think I'd be writing? Writing is hard." (No worries: I transcribed that on my facebook page.)

7. Holy crap, I almost forgot this! 

8. ETA: continuing in the funny vein, Jason showed me this.

Signs of Life: Montreal Edition (Really Old Pictures of Not-Food)

I made another (terrible) attempt at Paintbrushing some pictures, with all due acknowledgment of my rip off inspiration by my girl crush fellow blogger hyperbole and a half.

This is a building near(ish) this guy's apartment in Montreal:

Seems fairly inoffensive. But let's look more closely at the French, shall we?

Sauna mixte = Sexy times!

Extermination = BUGS!

So let's look at this picture again:

Rage Distorts Creative Title Abilities: The Eurovision Song Contest Entry

Some time ago -- actually, (gulp!) this was nearly a year ago -- my parents were both highly amused over a New Yorker article on the Eurovision song contest and kept pressing me to read it.

I think my parents simply enjoyed the article as they had not thought about the Eurovision song contest in a long time, and it made them nostalgic about living in Europe/being European. Which is fine. But I simply couldn't stand this particular article, though I didn't take the time to deeply analyze why.

For your reference, most famous product of said contest:

When my parents asked what I found so objectionable about the article, all I could articulate was that I found it too condescending. It's all very well to write about something you affectionately find tacky or awful, but there's a fine line being light-heartedly snarky and simply being a patronizing ass.

Recently, a few things have brought the Eurovision song contest to my attention again, and I decided to write a blog about these new perspectives. But in order to do so, I had to go back and read the article online (bless you for your amazing online archives, New Yorker).

Reading the article again, I got so angry that a) my jaw actually popped, due to my unconscious clenching of it; b) at one point, I grabbed two chunks of my hair and pulled, causing myself physical pain. This article actually made me try to pull my hair out.

Anyway, here it is. It was so anger-making that it derailed my entire post, which was simply going to be a few links to different perspectives on the Eurovision contest. Instead, the other articles and links and perspective will be incorporated within this rant. You've been warned: it's a rant. I'm about to get all polemical up in here.

Meattreal

Montreal, Part Deux!

My basic reaction to Montreal:

These hearts are outside the Fine Arts (sorry "Beaux Arts") Museum (Musee des) where this guy and I saw an exhibition of contemporary surrealist art called "The world is blue like an orange" (which we went to full of skepticism but it turned out to be awesome).

So I'm doing post #2 about Montreal, even though this guy claims not to read anybody's blog, as they are all "masturbatory." I tried to explain that my blog is not masturbatory but rather narcissistic and insecure. Subtle but distinct difference.

It Lives!

I have a short story up on The Fiddleback. It's called "Witness My Hand and Seal" and you can read it here.

And because you should never say that I didn't give you nothin', here's some pictures of Montreal Food.

It's Poutine! This type of Poutine is called L'eau a la Bush. I don't know if that means it subscribes to the Bush Doctrine or what. This Poutine comes with steak, oignons, and champignons. That's steak, onions, and mushrooms, for those not familiar with all that Frenchy Froggy Montrealy funny business:

Poutine is now such A Thing that they serve it at Burger King all over Canada. I saw this sign in at the bus station in Barrie, Ontario:

This is Poutine a la Mexican, and it is not from Burger King, but rather from the Secret Menu at Frite Alors:

Yeah, that's Salsa. Viva la Mexican et la Poutine!*

*I'm from everywhere.

Poutine looks really gross, huh? And I went to eat it after 1) Eating a smoked meat sandwich; 2) Then going to hot yoga. So I was like, "Non! Non! Le Gravy and le cheese curds on les frites make me sick! I desire only le side salad!"

Then I took a bite and discovered that it was, as this guy puts it, "Not un-tasty." Quite the reverse, actually.

More on smoked meat sandwiches, Montreal, thoughts, and sunshiney mornings, coming soon!

I write about Nick Hornby too much, I think

ETA: Ha! That totally read "I write about Nick Horny too much, I think." I fixed it now. Also: Nick Hornby is SO lucky he did not grow up in the US. He would have been tortured over that name.

Here's a review I wrote for The Minneapolis Star Tribune that went up ages ago: The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy (not to be confused with Kate Spindler nee Kennedy). Anyway, I compared Kennedy's writing to Nick Hornby's and I realized I did this, too, when I interviewed Peter Bognanni for the dislocate blog.

It's odd because I don't think of Nick Hornby as being particularly relevant to me as a writer. Like, if you asked me, "Who are your favorite/most influential/whatever/whatever writers?" I'd never think to say "Nick Hornby." But he seems to come up almost immediately as a reference point for me when trying to discuss/articulate something about the writing of others, particularly if they are at all: a) funny; b) contemporary and set in contemporary times; c) write in a more-or-less "realist" mode; d) streak in larger social issues/concerns with small-scale, contemporary, funny stories.

And, really, maybe I wouldn't say "Nick Hornby" when asked about my influences because -- I dunno. Because he's an older British dude, because he writes a lot about masculinity, and maybe because he's so popular and I want more street-cred or something. But really, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, and About a Boy*, not to mention his series of essays on reading for The Believer and some of his other non-fiction, are a tremendous influence.

*But there you go -- all these books have become big Hollywood movies. And High Fidelity and About a Boy were pretty good movies (Fever Pitch, not so much). But when you mention them as favorite books, you feel a bit silly, like you're someone who only reads novelizations of popular TV shows or movies.

"But what is wrong with popular TV shows and movies, Easy O?" you might ask. "Do not you love these things? Are you not committed to the Fusion of High and Low--or, less problematically, Popular and Literary (this phrasing is still problematic, but let's move on) forms of art? Did you not write a novel fusing in the structure and themes of popular Romance Novels with a literary style and plot? Isn't that, in a phrase, Sort of Your Bag?"

Well, yes, I would reply. But--But--

....But I still want to sound smart at intellectual cocktail parties! And answering "Marilynne Robinson" when some impressive person dressed in hipster-chic peers at me over their plastic cup of cheap wine just makes me feel more impressive than saying "Nick Hornby." And it's not untrue! I DO like Marilynne Robinson!