A Pocketful of Platyπ

I haven't seen much point in writing about the inability to write, as that seems, to me, even duller than writing about writing. That's how it's been the last few days. The will is strong, but the words aren't flowing. Today may be different. We shall see. These things happen. Deadlines are irrelevant. The dry spells happen anyway; fortunately, they do not happen very fucking often.

Yesterday, we met Byron for Grindhouse, and while I'll readily admit that I've never been a particular aficionado of grindhouse cinema, I do love what Rodriguez and Tarantino have done here. While Planet of Terror was great, gory fun — and I know it says something awful about us that Spooky and I find a one-legged Rose McGowan even sexier than the bipedal version — I think I actually preferred Deathproof. I'm a sucker for Tarantino's dialogue, and the last half of the film plays out like a wonderfully twisted, frelled-up Powerpuff Girls episode, with Kurt Russell standing in as Mojo JoJo. I will even go so far as to say that Spooky and I found it empowering, and gods how I hate that word in that context. But there you go. Grindhouse kicks ass, and I think it was just exactly the thing I needed yesterday afternoon. Oh, if only Werewolf Women of the SS could be made in it's entirety....with Nicholas Cage as Fu Manchu. I would gladly pay twice full price for tickets to such a thing.

Back home, we watched Allen Coulter's Hollywoodland, which I liked a great deal. This is, I think, the sort of film that Brian De Palma's tremendously inferior The Black Dahlia wanted to be. Or maybe not. Regardless, I was impressed with Coulter's first feature film and hope there will be more. Adrien Brody just keeps impressing the hell out of me.

My thanks to the 115 people who took a moment to vote in the podcast poll. 101 yes votes, 3 no, and 11 indifferent. Which means, I suppose, that as soon as I have fully mastered the pertinent software, there will be at least one experimental podcast. I may not like doing them, after all. Also, I reserve the right to wear masks and heavy make-up, the right to wear no make-up at all (and to remove these damned annoying hazel-green contacts), and the right to allow Jean-Pierre the Existentialist Snail to play the part of me.

And really, I think that's it for now. It's time to see which sort of day today means to be.

Addendum: Vulgarity and I

These days I am trying so, so hard to be good and not berate "reviewers" who clearly cannot be bothered not to be idiots. But this evening I find that I am in need of some small bit of spleen venting, and so I would like to direct your attention to the following excerpt from a recent "Book Fetish" "review" of Daughter of Hounds:

The use of vulgarities throughout the chapters convey a lack of language skills from Kiernan however in times, I did find myself having to look up one or two words from the sheer unusual ways that they were being used as in the text. I found the cursing overdone because by knowing mere body language, a person would be able to be conveyed as a foul being.

Firstly, this excerpt, like most of the "review," is only marginally literate ("however in times", "the sheer unusual ways", and "used as in", for example, or that whole last sentence). Secondly, the author is an antonym ("evilpoet," Angela), significantly diminishing my opinion of himherit from the outset. Thirdly, didn't I just address this whole profanity thing a week or so ago?

Here's the deal. In large part, Daughter of Hounds is about people who make Mafia hit men look like choirboys, changelings who would just as soon shoot you in the face as give you the time of day. Stolen children raised by inhuman corpse-eating ghouls to be sociopathic killers. And I cannot even for a moment believe that Soldier and Odd Willie, Saben White and the Bailiff, would not be some of the most foul-mouthed motherfuckers imaginable. Period. To have written them any other way would have never rung true to me. Which is to say that my "use of vulgarities throughout the chapters" most certainly does not indicate a "lack of language skills," obviously, but, rather, decisions about characterisation. Otherwise, Emmie and Pearl and Madam Terpsichore, Miss Josephine and Esmeribetheda and Sadie Jasper would all have been just as foul-mouthed as the changelings. Capice? If you don't like the book, fine. Say that you don't like the book. But keep your moral outrage over my characters' colourful and indelicate vocabulary to yourself and, also, keep it from making you look foolish by drawing absurd conclusions as to my general "language skills," especially when you yourself are only just barely capable of writing coherent sentences.

There are other inane charges in the "review" which I will not bother to address. The profanity thing just really drives me to distraction. Also, I'm not linking to the "review." If you want to read the whole thing, I've given you enough information here to find it on your own.

Gods...there are days when the idiots just make me want to stick a very sharp No. 2 pencil (Ticonderoga, since 1913, of course) through my goddamn good eye and be done with it. There's a lot about writing I have to put up with, crap that just comes with the territory, but nowhere have I ever agreed to suffer fools gladly. And I shall not be entering into any such agreement anytime soon.