February 10, 2012

Lana Del Rey — Born to Die, Born to Love

By jasonb57

Album cover for Born to Die

Lana Del Rey’s debut album has finally arrived. I say ‘finally’ as the marketing engine behind Del Rey has been working overtime for several months that culminated with an appearance on Saturday Night Live.

Now that the album, titled Born to Die, is here does it live up to the grandiose expectations built by the same machine that landed her on SNL?

Pretty much, yes.

By now, most people know of Lana Del Rey’s recent public image troubles. The internet dropped a load of fetid schadenfreude on Twitter and the blog-o-sphere due to her poor live SNL performances (click through to watch one of them). Inexplicably, celebrities piled on. For example, Brian Williams, the face and voice of NBC news, felt compelled to make fun of her performance in an email to the website Gawker.

All this hub-bub over a nervous woman’s shaky performance piqued my interest in her music. I trawled YouTube to find more. What I found instantly mesmerized me. Her look and sound appeal to my wistful nature. For many of the same reasons I dig the look of the film LA Confidential, I like Lana Del Rey’s persona. Critics bemoan the artificiality of it all. I bemoan the hypocrisy of such criticism. She’s constructed a personality to fit the music. This is the same tactic used by popular acts such as Madonna and Lady Gaga.

I also enjoy the smoky lounge singer voice she affects through most of the album’s songs. If you like the singing of such a voice, then you will like Born to Die.

Having bought into the Lana Del Rey scene, I’d been quite disappointed if the album ended up sucking. I’m not a music expert, but I’ll go out on a limb here and say that this album is quite good.

Despite the nostalgic feel many of the songs evoke, there is a strong sense of youthfulness and light mocking peppered throughout. The song “National Anthem” focuses on America’s obsession with wealth. It’s catchy and silly. “Radio” plays like an Avril Lavigne song that doesn’t take itself too seriously. “Lolita” appears to be poking fun at our obsession of youth and pop princesses (though she’s obviously using this same obsession to build her own success).

“Video Games”, the one song you might have heard already (it’s been receiving heavy rotation on the radio), with it’s tickling dreamy harp-sound, is a song of love lost. It is a song of remembering better times. The drum march played in the last half of the song could be thought of as a metaphor that time marches on for all of us.

“Blue Jeans”, one of my favorites, seems to be a straight up appreciation of the 1950s. The lyrics calls out James Dean. White T-shirts. Etc. The twanging guitar intertwined with a slightly bizarre and rhythmic sample gives the old-timey  wistfulness a modern sound.

Way above and beyond anything else, my favorite song is “Off to the Races.” The song is the strongest lyrically, and Del Rey’s range is tested as she moves from husky lounge singer to playful, squeaky ingenue in quick succession.

“I’m your little Scarlet,
starlet,
singing in the garden,
kiss me on my open mouth,
ready for your…”

Okay, maybe I’m colored by coy, flirty nature she sings this lyric, but the song is jaunty and hella fun. Sadly, there isn’t an official video for “Off to the Races”, which leads me to think it’ll never be a radio single. A shame, really, this song beats the hell out of most pop princess efforts we’re fed through the airwaves.

You can listen to the song below.

If you’ve stuck with me to this point in the review, I ask that you watch her sing “Video Games” on Letterman. She owns it. And good for her. Dave asks her if she can come back tomorrow… and the next day.

2 comments | posted in Blog, Reviews

February 9, 2012

Dieter’s Guilt and Floppy Appendages

By jasonb57

On September 4, 2011, I decided to take control of my health. All summer I’d felt like crap due to weight-related health issues such as high blood pressure and acid reflux. It slowed me down. I even had to take several weeks off from Apex stuff!

Apexus interruptus is serious business!

Anyway, the diet and exercise routine has went on for close to six months. I’ve lost 34 pounds. Gained some muscles. I should be in much better shape for convention season. Especially if I can shed another 24 pounds to reach my goal of 200 pounds.

In the meantime, I’ve become addicted to dieting and exercising. Not that either makes me feel good. It’s more about guilt. If I cheat and eat too much my stomach aches with guilt. If I miss the gym I toss and turn in bed out of guilt.

I’ve heard of people who grow addicted to working out. Not me. Every single workout I start out thinking there is no way I’ll endure a whole hour of weights and cardio. I go home exhausted wondering where the hell is the endorphin charge hiding.

I never thought guilt would be so damn powerful. To the dismay of family and friends, I seldom feel guilt for anything I do. Yet, the guilt is strong because I’ve dealt with more hunger, sore muscles, and too many random naked dudes in the gym locker room to let the pounds come back.

Parting shot. I have also learned too many dudes are too damn comfortable socializing while completely nude.

7 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Blog

February 3, 2012

I stopped believing…

By jasonb57

Hey, you remember back when Glee didn’t suck so much? When Jane Lynch was actually funny?

Eh, no? Me nither.

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February 1, 2012

Bossypants by Tina Fey

By jasonb57

Bossypants by Tina Fey

I must confess that I am pro-Tina Fey. In fact, I find her to be funny, smart, and quite pretty.

Yeah, I said you were pretty, Tina Fey. I know that pisses you off. You coming after me, ya New York City hard ass? I heard your rants and your lectures in Bossypants about your mono-brow, your freaky big toe that curves inward, and the disturbing stories of extra large maxi pads. You exposed the great big lie that are magazine photos. Between mark up artists and Photoshop, anyone can be made to look good. Wigs, make up, and good lighting works wonders for those on television.

You aren’t fooling me. You’re pretty. Deal with it.

I’ve finished reading (technically, listening) Bossypants, so pardon me if I’m feeling a bit empowered. Blame it on Tina Fey. As you might imagine from a person who has both stumbled upon and personally created much of her success, Fey’s force of nature personality jumps on top of the reader and slaps him/her around… especially if the reader is a him.

Bossypants is part feminist manifesto, part joke book, and part auto-biography. Like her NBC sitcom, 30 Rock, much of the material is hit or miss. However, two sections alone make the book worth the read. The first is when Fey answers “Fan Mail”, except that these fan letters are actually asinine anonymous website comments from the chickenshits we all know and love. Her level of snark and cutting humor had me in tears. The second was hilarious story she recounted about her honeymoon cruise.

While bringing the funny, Fey also gives us a peek into her Sarah Palin period, bring 30 Rock to life, her work with the Second City troupe in Chicago, and her adventures at SNL.

Unfortunately, about one-third of the book she dedicates to less interesting subjects. There is a lengthy chapter about just how awesome her daddy is. Heck, even Alec Baldwin and Lorne Michaels thought he was an impressive man. It’s good material for painting where Tina Fey gets her brains and personality, but in a book where she beats on the feminist drum loudly and proudly, it felt a bit out of place. Also, there is a chapter detailing her appearance. Literally, there is a section about her fat period, her skinny period, her mid-sized period, and on and on. Peppered throughout are non-joking nonsequitors with every last detail of why people should find her unattractive. I recognize that self-deprecation plays a large role in her humor, but I couldn’t find the funny in this case. Perhaps this isn’t a failure from Tina’s writing, just more a personal taste… humor can be so subjective.

The book drifts at times. Is it a self-help book? Is it a feminist bible? Is it an auto-biography? It’s a distraction, but not enough to be much of a bother.

The best part about buying the audio version of Bossypants is that Tina narrates. Tina Fey might not win a Best Actress Oscar anytime soon, but she is one hell of a performer.

Tina Fey is pretty.

She is also a helluva writer.

Bossypants is quite entertaining.

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January 30, 2012

Accents Publishing, Another Lexington Publisher!

By jasonb57

All my life, poetry has been a foreign language to me. I’ve always been a decent writer, but the times I’ve been forced to try my hand at writing a poem, results have been disastrous. My English professor in college accused me of cheating… he was certain someone else had written my poetry assignment because it sucked so much compared to my prose. I tried to woo a lady once ages ago with stanzas instead of paragraphs that ended in mockery.

I’ve always shied away from poetry while running Apex. I published Brandy Schwan’s collection (and a subsequent chapbook), but that was after a great amount of worry, and getting the opinion of editors with an ear for quality telling me the collection was good. There’s an occasional poem in Apex Magazine, but those were published at the discretion of the editor-in-chief (Lynne/Cat).

As an editor, I’m keenly aware of a narrative’s rhythm. How does it sound when read aloud? Does the flow match the mood or scene. Word choice is important. Especially in short form.

Two Publishing Tycoons

Concepts that seems crucial to editing and understanding short fiction would seem to apply to poetry. If they do, I’m not able to grok them.

This leads me to the gist of the post (yay, five paragraphs in!). I want to introduce Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. She’s notable to me because she’s from Lexington. She also operates a successful literary poetry press named Accents Publishing.

How Accents has escaped my notice for this long befuddles me. I really need to get out more.

Katerina is an awesome person. She’s originally from Bulgaria and has a cool reading voice. Accents Publishing produces nice looking books. The poetry inside of them sounds great when read, and others give it praise (because my praise should not be trusted in this case). I hope you check out Accents.

Accents Website: http://www.accents-publishing.com/
Katerina’s Personal Website: http://www.katerinaklemer.com/

A poem written by Katerina.

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January 25, 2012

The Day in the Life of a Publisher

By jasonb57

Being a publisher is a glamorous job. You wield the power to bring tears to the strong. You have the power to give the weak a reason for moving forward.

As Mari Adkins likes to say: “I like it when I make them cry.”

Okay, I’m being facetious.

I’m often asked what it’s like being a ‘big shot’ publisher/editor. I thought I’d share with you a snapshot of a day in the life of a small press guy.

9am–Read emails. Overnight finds twenty-three new emails in my box. Three of them are queries…

“I know your guidelines say your word limit is a firm 5,000 words, but would you consider 5,023 words? I simply cannot cut twenty-three more words without ruining the integrity of my work.”

“I have a 140,000 word high fantasy novel that I feel would be perfect for Apex. Would you like to see it? I know your (sic) closed to novel subs, but we met at Context and you seemed interested…”

“What do you define as dark SF? Would a story about an elf meeting a bisexual vampire in space count?”

Five more are spam. Apparently I’ve been added to a couple of spam lists for some self-pubbers. There’s another from a “PR firm” that mail blasts millions of accounts for the low, low price of $1,499.

While reading email, I get a phone call. My phone sings the theme to Lost in Space.

“Hello, this is Jason Sizemore.”

“Who is this!?”

“Jason Sizemore.”

“Who?”

“Jason SIZEMORE.”

“Is this Apex Publications?”

“Yes.”

“Is this the editor-in-chief?”

“Yes.”

“Jason Sizemore, right?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“I’m a retired cop from New Jersey. I’ve written a book about the spiritual journal of a crack whore who lives in the slums of New York. She meets a nice priest who helps her find Christ. They have an affair and he’s kicked out of the Church–”

“Sir, wait.”

“…they raise three orphans–”

“Sir, we’re not open to novel submissions.”

“This isn’t a novel. It’s a true story.”

Frown. “We’re not accepting any new books.”

“Says here in this book I got at the used bookstore that you’re accepting book pitches.”

“Sorry, you should check our website. We’re not accepting any new books.”

“The book I wrote is titled A Crack in Heaven. The Archbishop–”

“No! I am not interested in your book.”

“Perhaps you can suggest a publisher? Are you friends with anybody who might help out?”

“No!” Twitch.

“Asshole. You sound like a fucking dumb hick hillbilly.” Click.

After he hangs up on me, I go back to my email. Is is now 9:30am. There are two new messages. One is spam. The other is from a writer whose story I rejected yesterday. I open the email from the writer.

“Dear Mr. Sizemore,

Let me just say “Your Loss.” My stories have been published professionally and the story you just rejected has been bought by a better publisher.

Good luck with you7r (sic) fanzine. Asshole.”

I sigh, forward the email to my slush master and put the guy on the black list.

Oh, the phone is ringing again…I decide to forward the rest of my calls and email to somebody like Maurice Broaddus for the rest of the day…

Maybe the job’s not so glamorous, but the evil aspect can be quite fun.

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January 23, 2012

Let the Right One In movie review (original… not the Hollywood remake)

By jasonb57

As a horror fan, I’ve been reading issues of Rue Morgue and Fangoria whenever I remember to buy them at my local Barnes & Noble. Both do a great job covering several aspects of the horror field (those being film, fiction, gaming, special effects, and music) and invariably they lead me to interesting horror films that I might not have otherwise heard about through my daily perusing of the Entertainment Weekly pop blog.

For sometime, I’d been hearing about this Swedish film called Let the Right One In. Both magazines proclaimed it to be one of the best vampire movies ever made. Granted, to earn this honor from me would be simple. I can’t say I’ve seen many vampire movies that moved me in any way (no, I’ve not seen Nosferatu). Still, Let the Right One In had better be damn good or my trust in Rue Morgue and Fangoria was going to be permanently dumped in the bin.

The movie is fantastic.

A bullied twelve-year-old boy named Oskar is living in Blackeberg (a suburb of Stockholm) where he stumbles into an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young girl named Eli. Eli, it turns out, has moved in next door with an older man named Håkan. Oskar lives a lonely life with his mother and over time he and Eli form a bond that is both moving and surreal.

The film does something that few horror movies succeed at doing. You care about what is going to happen to Eli and Oskar. Eli, in a sense is a monster and does some horrific things in the movie, but the viewer senses there is more here than just normal vampiric violence. You recognize that these kids are awkward social beings on the verge of adolescence, something all of us dealt with at one time in our lives. They have no family, only each other, yet as kids how can they survive without adults.

Let the Right One In is a quiet film. The dialog is as sparse as the landscape of Blackeberg. There are some truly frightening scenes, plenty of gore, and a final set piece that now stands as one of the most memorable movie scenes I’ve witnessed. The way that the director, Tomas Alfredson, handles vampiric mythology is smart and plays well with the plot.

The movie is derived from the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist

I give Let the Right One In high praise. Not only did it overcome my built-in distrust of anything ‘vampire’, it also proved to be an effective horror story about being a lonely child.

1 comment   |  tags: , | posted in Blog, Reviews

January 21, 2012

Watching Watchmen, not so bad, after all

By jasonb57

I’ve known Justin Stewart for a long time. I’m guessing close to ten years. To me, he’s the arbiter of ‘cool.’ He is the only person I know who can wear a pink t-shirt bearing an image of unicorns making…love…and be considered cool for it. So, it was to my detriment that I ignored Justin’s cries for me to read the Watchmen graphic novel over the past decade.

Fair warning–if you haven’t read Watchmen, then read no further. Spoilers abound!

On a personal scale of one to five, one equaling any entry in the Left Behind series and five equaling a genre classic such as The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, I give the Watchmen graphic novel a solid four.

Perhaps this causes you to cry out in accusatory blasphemy. How can I not give the seminal graphic comic work of all time a five? Watchmen has been called the best graphic novel of all time by Justin Stewart (and many other well-versed comic geeks). It won a Hugo. It’s on the Time list of 100 best novels of the twentieth century. When a book earns that much critical praise, it usually deserves it. Part of me agrees with all this. The intricate plotting, the deep characterizations, and the eye-catching artwork and panel design are all exceptional. Rorschach is one of literature’s great anti-heroes. The narrative tension is unmatched.

But…certain aspects of the novel didn’t gel for me. Most importantly, the comic-within-a-comic story, Tales of the Black Freighter, bored me senseless. I realize its allegorical implications, but here’s a situation of art over form really drowning the genius of the main plot arc. I’d argue here that maybe it’s just too much. There are times when a work gets bogged down in its own cleverness, and I’m afraid Tales of the Black Freighter being included in Watchmen felt like one of these times for me.

Secondly, the giant, genetically-created squid that Adrian Veidt uses to destroy New York is just plain hokie. Even as a science fiction fanboy who enjoys his mutated monsters, the creation and execution of Veidt’s masterplan lost a bit of impact due to this contrived and forced science fiction (or one could argue ‘comic book’) element.

Third, the newsstand bits, or as I like to call them–The Funny Papers: Life on the Streets–did little to enhance the novel’s experience. All the commentary made by these scenes were done so better in the other parallel plot threads.

I found the movie to be superior to the graphic novel. I’ve not been able to reconcile the critical dislike with what I saw on the screen. I easily give the movie version of Watchmen a strong four, teetering to a low five.

Director Zack Snyder excised the three main problems I had with the novel and produced an astounding and smart action movie. The movie isn’t without flaws (the handling of Bubastis, heavy-handed action scene editing, weak performance by Matthew Goode), but much of the critics pans were things that didn’t bother me. Manhattan’s big blue penis wasn’t a giant distraction. In fact, I hardly noticed it (I swear!). The Nite Owl/Silk Spectre II sex scene in Archie didn’t seem odd or forced to me. Rorschach’s narration was on the money and helped make some sense of the dense plot.

This is one of the few times I can remember where I enjoyed the movie version of the book better than the book. Anyone else have the same conclusion? Or am I a regular ol’ Walter Kovacs…a complete anti-social freak who just doesn’t fit in with society?

Don’t answer that.

4 comments   |  tags: , | posted in Blog, Reviews

January 19, 2012

Flood by Stephen Baxter

By jasonb57

The clock is ticking down to the End Times, people. Gather up your family, your pets, a stash of food and water, because when the reckoning comes, you need to be ready.

What shape will the reckoning take? There are many options: nano-virus, swine flu, global warming, zombie outbreak, alien invasion, Cthulu, and others. Stephen Baxter decides to postulate our potential end via an old-fashioned flood. And if Noah thought the flood that hit him back in Biblical times was a ‘big deal’, then he should get a load of the rising waters in Baxter’s Flood.

Flood hooks the reader with a strong opening sequence that introduces and ties all the major players in one action packed set piece. Our protagonists have been hostages at the hands of a militant religious fundamentlist group for five years. An entreprising, wealthy man stages a successful rescue that frees the hostages and brings them (and the reader) into a world in the beginning stages of death by water.

The book focuses on this core of characters as they struggle to deal with the disasters created by the flood. It quickly becomes apparent the water is not going to stop rising and humanity will be pressed close to the point of extinction. Baxter masterfully lets this sense of impending doom seep into the story. There are no last-minute heroics here. Just people dealing with the situation and dying as they’re pushed higher and higher while dry land grows more sparse.

The book is clinical in its detailing of the stages of the flood. These parts are fascinating and frightening. Unfortunately, Baxter keeps us at too far a distance from the effects of the disaster on humankind for the reader to feel true horror, as the plot stays near the hostage survivors who are always cordoned off safely with their wealthy savior. There are also massive time jumps that jerks you out of the current situation and places you ten, fifteen years later with introductions to new characters and settings that make you want to scan through the pages to meet back with the characters you care about. Unfortunately, Baxter has made a decision to skimp on the character development in service of the plot, and I feel it weakens the impact of the book.

Overall, this is a nice work of dark science fiction. I’d recommend it to science fiction readers in a heartbeat.

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January 18, 2012

An Asshat and a New Fan

By jasonb57

This past Saturday, a young lady who goes by the stage name of Lana Del Rey had a pair of terrible performances on Saturday Night Live. The two songs that she sang, “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” are soulful, moody pieces that require quite a vocal range. She was off-tune and stiff, quite visibly nervous. To make matters worse, it seemed her backing band refused to slow down or speed up or do anything to help their lead singer during the second song (“Blue Jeans”).

Here is one of the poor performances.

Then the internet exploded.

People who have no platform to criticize ripped into Lana Del Ray. An actress named Juliette Lewis… someone who was relevant maybe fifteen years ago in the film industry and has struggled to gain any traction in her musical “career” had a few things to say. Asshats on Twitter and commenters on entertainment sites decided to say things like “Rather watch Ashlee Simpson pretend to sing live than this two-bit ditch pig open her mouth.”

I decided to look into Lana Del Rey’s work. She’s basically a YouTube sensation who has an amazing publicist that got her a gig on SNL. Or she is rich and has rich friends (as I’ve seen remarked here and there). That’s a double whammy of schadenfreude fuel.

Have you listened to her songs on YouTube? They’re quite awesome. I’d call her music a cross-pollination of early Tori Amos and the husky soul of Adele. Perhaps the experienced hand of a music producer polished her work (in the book business that job is called ‘editor’). There is a reason she was on SNL. I’m just surprised Lorne Michael had her on since she’s yet to release a full length album and has very few live performances under her belt.

So I’d like to thank the asshat who called Lana Del Rey a two-bit ditch pig. Your anonymous and brave insult encouraged me to take a minute to research her music a bit more, and now Lana Del Rey can count me as a new fan. Stay classy, bro.

I leave you with the official version of ‘Blue Jeans’.

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