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Messages - Shrain

Pages: 1 ... 132 133 [134] 135 136
1996
Rants and Stuff / Re: More Grumpiness
« on: November 14, 2005, 04:10:29 PM »
Yeah, e, what is this "pants money" of which you speak?

1997
Rants and Stuff / Re: Gotta Love These "Author Signing" Guidelines
« on: November 14, 2005, 04:07:58 PM »
Oh? Do tell! Now I'm curious.
Originally, I wanted to go to Cascadiacon. But I just wasn't able to make it up there because I was right in the middle of moving cross-country (uck, I don't want to do that again for a while!).

1998
Rants and Stuff / Gotta Love These "Author Signing" Guidelines
« on: November 14, 2005, 12:08:55 PM »
Okay, so I've been doing the assigned reading for my book pub overview class. My prof sent us a bunch of PDF articles, one of which was written by an old student of his as a directed study project. ("Book Marketing & Promotion: Reinventing the Wheel Every Time
How Publishers Market Adult Trade Fiction
by Shannon Edwards)
It's been MUCH more interesting, actually, than a lot of the other marketing stuff he's "blessed" us with. (Sheesh, I'm bad with numbers!) Then I ran into this lovely set of guidelines for authors who are making an appearance at a bookstore. They gave me a chuckle, particularly #2, 7, and 10. So, I thought I might as well share the mirth. Enjoy.

Bookstore Signing/Appearance (Author Rules)
1. Make eye contact with all visitors
2. Be happy if no one shows, show enthusiasm for it
3. If booksellers like you, they will sell your books in the future
4. When reading from your work, pick an entertaining passage and practice
beforehand
5. Small groups – sit and chat about writing!
6. Be honest about being nervous!
7. Don’t drink alcohol
8. Invite sales reps or other publisher reps for a drink or snack afterwards
9. Send thank you notes to those who coordinated signing
10. If the bookstore offers you a free book, don’t pick the most expensive book in the store!

1999
Rants and Stuff / Re: Call for Happy Things, again.
« on: November 14, 2005, 11:29:37 AM »
Yep, cute little girls can get away with lots of stuff, huh.  ;)
Of course, this could be a promising sign that your 2 yo is destined for SF greatness, you know, what with her sneaking off with a fancy little USB drive for some imaginary playtime!

2000
Rants and Stuff / Re: More Grumpiness
« on: November 14, 2005, 11:26:41 AM »
What, so little faith in your own kind, e?
Okay, okay, I admit that your delightful simile gave me a hearty laugh. It's so... true, sad to say, which is why I couldn't help laugh out loud. (Ah, now maybe I'm in a good enough mood to make myself read those book marketing chapters for class tonight...)
However, to be fair, perhaps the whole anorexia issue kind of overshadowed the mention of a "crush" in that post, eh?

2001
Movies and TV / Re: King Kong
« on: November 14, 2005, 11:14:44 AM »
Quote
Truce called and observed.  (although the word calls up more acrimony than either of us felt I think )  


Uh-huh. But, hey, what's the use of being a writer if you can't act a tad overly dramatic now and again, right? ;)

2002
Rants and Stuff / Re: More Grumpiness
« on: November 14, 2005, 11:00:28 AM »
Quote
I'm grumpy because I'd like to say "Only a guy could miss something like that based on her talking about her crush" but I'll be jumped upon for my gross generalizations. ...


Right on, fuzzy. That's exactly what I thought. lol.  ;)

2003
Rants and Stuff / Re: Call for Happy Things, again.
« on: November 14, 2005, 10:51:27 AM »
e, that's great! Where'd you find it, anyway?

2004
Everything Else / Re: Best Quote lately
« on: November 13, 2005, 09:22:51 PM »
“If psychology has not made of [the] conjuring power of food as much as it might, literature on the other hand has been its diligent observer.”
—Kim Chernin, The Hungry Self

“[F]ood is a strong ‘edible dynamic’ binding present and past, individual and society, private household and world economy, palate and power.”
—Warren J. Belasco, Appetite for Change

2005
Rants and Stuff / Re: Call for Happy Things, again.
« on: November 13, 2005, 08:45:13 PM »
Kudos.  :)
I, too, know the recent joy of getting more settled in. I finally got the rest of my stuff unpacked, including a bunch of my antique inkwells and poison bottles that I decided to bring with me instead of put in storage. Now I feel much more cozy and at home. Okay, my desk is still a wreck, but all my cool stuff is sitting happily on various shelves. :D

Edit: Oh, yeah, and my cuddly Wickett is out of his box, too. He's sitting high atop a bookshelf contemplating my room. It's for his own good, really, because he's far, far, out of reach of my roomie's dogs who just love eating plush, squishy toys.

2006
Rants and Stuff / Re: More Grumpiness
« on: November 13, 2005, 08:37:29 PM »
Quote
I was accused of having an eating disorder tonight. . . . she said, "Are you eating? You look thin." . . . .My London friend said, "But your face looks thinner, too." Then she turned to the guy I was talking to (who happens to be my crush) and said, "Make sure she's eating!"

Great. Now my crush thinks I'm anorexic. Just what I wanted.  :P


Oh, dear. That's no fun at all. I've never personally had that problem, yet my good friend/ex-coworker/ex-fellow grad student, Korri, has the same problem. She's very thin, and so people are constantly trying to get her to confess to being anorexic. It's definitely frustrating for her.

Anyway, we had the opposite experience growing up. She'd be teased for being so waif-like and I'd be teased for being whale-like. :-/ Ah, kids can be such jerks to each other.

The thing is, her rail-thin physique runs in the family. Most of her siblings and a bunch of relatives are tall and thin, too.  Besides, Korri has such a sweet tooth that even Willie Wonka himself would be in awe! ;)  Also, she has a normal diet and doesn't exercise all that much. Yet there she is, extremely petite, no matter what she eats. Ah, if only I had such a metabolism.

But, nope, I had to work dang hard to lose the weight I've lost in the past year. (90 pounds!! ;D). Still, I sympathize with anyone who has the opposite problem. Food and the act of eating are such complex signifiers of so many different aspects of our culture--both positive and negative. I actually wrote my master's thesis about food. Okay, it's a little more complex than that, of course. I guess I might as well give my title: Along a Postmodern "Food Trajectory": Cornucopia and Corporeal Corporia in Roth's American Pastoral and Rosen's Eve's Apple").  

Shameless plug: This fascinating, lively master's thesis is available now at the HBLL! Don't delay, check it out today! Then when I come home to UT for the holidays, I'll get the blessed thrill of seeing that my thesis was actually checked out by someone!

Anyway... here's hoping that the guy you're interested in won't take that girl's comments seriously!



2007
Movies and TV / Re: King Kong
« on: November 12, 2005, 02:56:29 PM »
lol. Yeah, that would've been tons of fun. With any luck, it'll be part of the extra features on the DVD: King Kong Revisited: Jack Black Monkeys Around.  ;D

2008
Rants and Stuff / Re: Call for Happy Things, again.
« on: November 12, 2005, 02:08:32 PM »
Quote
Thanks shrain for your nice post.  :)


Sure. I hope we'll be seeing another "Happy Things" post from you on the subject before Thanksgiving rolls around. ;)

Anyway, I'm happy because I found a super cute, black skirt plus some comfy and festive flannel pajamas at Old Navy yesterday! I also went on a cleaning rampage at my apartment and feel much more at "one" with my surroundings.  :)

2009
Movies and TV / Re: King Kong
« on: November 12, 2005, 01:57:21 PM »
Quote
Shrain.  My entire point was that your very accusations/concerns of racism were racist. . . .
If you approach an analysis of the film from a neutral perspective there are plenty of explanations that do not involve racism.  Yet you passed those over without a thought in order to call white folks racist. . . .

You're probably used to being called open-minded and tolerant when you assume white people are racist and judge them on that basis, . . .

And it doesn't matter at all that there actually were prevalent racist attitudes when that film was first made. . . .


Skar.  Thanks for clarifying your objection. In other words, you're saying that I should've said nothing about racism being a possibility because merely suggesting the possibility based on the timperiod assumes that all white people back then were racist. That's a good point.

Here's what you need to know: first, I did have other reasons besides the timperiod to support my concerns that I didn't make clear earlier (see below); second, I'm not racist nor am I "sold" on the idea that the film must be racist simply because I approached the movie with a "stereotypical" skepticism about the underlying messages of ethnicity.

The only things I can say in my defense is that while 1) I realize that it's all too easy to wonder if all films created during a certain time are racist, 2) the fact remains that the POSSIBILITY of a film being racist--esp. one featuring two ethnic groups of such widely disparate cultural lifestyles--is not automatically invalid.

Intellectually, I should've done more research to see what else besides the following were grounds for concern: a) the timeperiod, b) the two strikingly different cultures, and c) the stereotypically blonde, blue-eyed Arian beauty.

HOWEVER, I think it's best to simply call a truce, agree to disagree, and give everyone else a break. You know, talk about the actors and the special effects and the quality of writing and other interesting, less volatile stuff. ;)

2010
Movies and TV / Re: King Kong
« on: November 12, 2005, 02:08:56 AM »
Quote
I dunno, I think that putting off having to sacrifice one of their own is plenty good enough reason. If this strange new toy is the one, so be it.

Besides, their own women hadn't stopped him, so why not try something different? I don't see at all why there has to be a logic of "she's innately superior to our own women" behind their motivation. I think that's projecting a racism on to it that isn't suggested in the text as I know it.

If they say "She's more beautiful than any of our women because she's white and ours aren't" that's one thing. But even if they say she's more beautiful on the basis of being strange and different, being the first white chick they've ever seen, I think you're pushing the use of the racism card.


Thanks for your explanation, e. Very interesting and clear. I'll be the first to say that I'd much rather think "King Kong" -isn't- driven by ulterior racism. So I'm glad to get your thoughts.
The whole "something different" scenario is right on track. That reasoning was sort of the back of my head all along though I didn't state it outright. But I completely agree that the idea of "difference" translating into superiority is certainly less "provable."
I'm entirely willing to admit that I could be basing my concerns too much on the time period in which the film was written. After seeing the trailer, I was reminded of the issues of primitivism and racism that Ishmael Reed explores in his novel Mumbo Jumbo, set during the jazz craze of the early 20th century. To me, in regards to the movie, it didn't seem entirely implausible to consider that "difference" (whiteness) = superiority.
All in all, I brought it up in this forum because I was hoping that my concerns with the film would turn out to be largely unfounded. As I said, I'm excited to see the movie. Yet, rather than ignore something that I've been wondering about, I figured I'd get some other perspectives. Thanks.  :)

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