Spontaneous Musings

As an aside : the whole argument that the slayers have upset the balance and Twilight's aim to repair it by sacrificing them for the greater good makes him redeemable - reminds me a lot of a rather fascinating fanfic I just read entitled Necessary Evils by lj user rarhirah. In it, Willow's bringing Buffy back, along with Spike changing sides has upset the balance, so Willow chooses to power up/join forces with the First Evil to set the balance straight. To do so, she has to kill Dawn and Buffy - which is a small price to pay for saving the world. She surrounds herself with the First's minions and demons, also kills people - justifying her actions - stating that it is for the greater good. She is saving billions of lives. But the truth is she's getting off on being the one to do it, her pride (hubris) and the desire for power (which she now has in spades) is blinding her to what she is actually doing, so she does not see that there is another way. Twilight apparently is doing the exact same thing.

( Where in the frigging hell is Spike? An argument for Spike's importance in the Buffy S8 arc, spoilers on the Twilight reveal and for S8 Buffy. )

Bitterly cold today, apparently. I can tell because my apartment is currently at 69 degrees. It would be in the 70's if it were warmer. My landlord's had a baby this past year, so they are keeping the heat a bit more regulated than in previous years. The baby is a little boy, named, Mighty. I kid you not. I wonder sometimes when people name their kids if they've forgotten what it was like in school. OR maybe they figure they'll get all the teasing out of the way early on - sort of like that old Johnny Cash song - entitled a Boy Named Sue? Toughen the kid up?

Because it was cold, I decided it would be a good idea to make blueberry/raspberry muffins this morning, but I forgot the egg. No idea why I spaced putting the egg in, but I did. Oddly enough, the muffins are fine. A little on the gooey side, but otherwise quite tasty. I used 1/3 cup of locally bought organic honey instead of sugar. I'm thinking the egg would have made them more cakey and less spongey. At any rate salvageable, and an interesting alternative in case I have to make them for folks who can't have eggs.

I gave up on Cookie Cutter - after only reading approximately 200 pages of it. Handed it to Wales last night - we'll see how far she gets. She may get further than I did. Somewhere along the way, not quite sure when, I got picky about my reading material. The days in which I will read anything that crosses my path are apparently long-gone. This may be due to the huge amount of dry and technical material I read at work, as well as write. When I read on my own time - the words have to have a sort of resonance. They have to sing. Not like poetry exactly, not overly fond of poetry any more to be honest, sort of like prose poetry.

Anywho, for whatever the reason, I've started the book I picked up on a whim from Barnes and Noble two weeks back. Wales jots the names of books that look interesting in book stores into her cell phone, then goes to the library to look them up, order them, and check them out. Me? I impulse buy them at the book store. What can I say, I don't like library books - I'm allergic to the mold and dust inside them. So instead I buy the things - so they can gather mold and dust in my own apartment. Apparently I don't mind my own mold and dust, it's others dust and mold that makes me cranky. Am currently reading The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. We'll see how far I get. I've only started and dropped about five books in the last three months. I'm told this is a phase. I'm hoping it's a short phase. I miss falling into a good story and forgetting the passage of time.

Speaking of reading material - The Twilight craze continues. Overheard a woman talking about her love of the Twilight books on the train ride home one evening. She was a student, getting a degree in elementary education. (To be fair to the woman, she stated that she adored reading and had always loved to read. That is not something I take lightly, I love to read too - it's why I love New York City, most of the people in it are bookaphiles, like myself.)

I think there may be a woman in my building who is obsessed with Twilight - since the only two issues of Entertainment Weekly that I have not received - featured Twilight. I eventually got the issue with sparkly Edward on the cover. But never received the one dedicated to the film, with interviews and photos. That never came. Which leads me to suspect that Twilight lead someone in my vicinty to magazine theft. [It was either the landlord's wife, an actress studying to be a Protestant Minister who just had a baby (???) or the girlfriend of the guy who lives below me (I'm guessing the girlfriend - because he just doesn't seem the type - big hulking ex-solider from Iraq, who went to Harvard Business School??). Or maybe they swiped for their neice or a friend's teenage daughter? Or it was the old Italian neighbor's who live next door??? Got to say this about NY - every time I attempt to generalize about things, I look incredibly stupid - when some exception comes along and blows the generalization out of the water.] Don't mind the theft that much, the only bit of the magazine I missed was a Quantum of Solace review and a bit on Grey's Anatomy - which I read in a store.

Very hard not to be critical/judgmental of fans of the Twilight novels. Or make fun of them. Or make broad generalizations.

I shouldn't be. I know that. It's sort of hypocritical, for one thing. I went through my Nancy Drew/Harlequin/Barbara Cartlandt/Ann Rice/Ann McCaffrey stage after all. Not to mention my Spike craze (even if I like to think that was more complicated). Granted those books and characters were better written and more complex, if only slightly.

As far as I can tell the film Twilight, unlike Harry Potter, Buffy, or even Titantic and Dark Knight -is appealing mainly to one specific demographic or nitch audience -10-25 year old women who religiously read Harlequin romance novels, with a few minor exceptions. Men aren't into them at all, at least not seriously - the one who liked the film, a reviewer in AM, did purely as a campy entertainment. It made him laugh.

The woman speaking on the train couldn't have been much older than 22. I remember being similarily crazed over Kyle McLachlan doing Dune, when I was 14 or 15. Also was a bit nutty at one stage over Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (that was also at age 15 or 16). And of course, my passions for all things Star Wars and BattleStar Galatica (12-16)- hey, what can I say, I adored Space Operas. There was also, my very brief, Ike Eiseman stage - associated with the novels and films Escape to Witch Mountain and Return to Witch Mountain - both of which I drug my poor dear parents to - at the ripe old age of 10. Heck, I fell in love with cartoons as a wee child, such as Kimba, Robin Hood (the fox in the Diseny Film - was a bit obsessed with that film at age 6 or 7), and Battle of the Planets (I adored Mark from Battle of the Planets and Princess (a female fighter pilot).) That said? I still don't think I'd have been into Twilight as a kid. Too damsely-in-distress for my taste. Was never much of a fan of the Princess fairy-tale motif. Like I said, my favorite Disney film was Robin Hood not Cinderella or Snow White. The film as my mother put it, looks like a bore.
It does. I considered renting it, but now not so much. The films that I am looking forward to seeing over Thanksgiving Holidays are: "Australia", Quantum of Solace, and the family Thanksgiving film with John Leguizamo and Debra Messing which I can't remember the name of. After months of crappy films, some interesting fair is finally coming out.

Sigh. Too long again. And need to make lunch. No clue what I'm doing today. Planned on going shopping at L&T, but it's bitterly cold and I don't want to spend the money and my body has been off all week. Considered Yoga at 1:30, but not overly fond of yoga for a whole host of reasons that I will be tactful of the yoga enthusiasts on my flist and not go into. Maybe I'll just relax, read, watch tv, bake, work on my novel...it's been a really hard work week and I haven't felt that great during most of it...so a wee bit of relaxation is okay.

Also need to clean refrigerator and sort through my closet...so might do that as well.
Don't know. The day appears to be planning itself...which has been the case oddly enough most of this week for good or ill.

[For embers_log who was upset when I deleted my last post on this topic.]

Ran into a fellow novelist (actually a published one) on my way to the wine store this afternoon. He used to own a genre book store and ran a genre book club I'd joined in the late nineties until it disbanded like all book clubs eventually do. This one made it almost eight years before going the way of the Dodo.

At any rate, he told me he had an adventure tale, a la Indiana Jones coming out, as well as a novella entitled Chasing the Dragon. Then we chatted about the Stephanie Meyer phenomena otherwise known as Twilight for a bit, which he compared to The Da Vinci Code. Except of course for one teeny little detail, Da Vinci is better written. I was actually able to make it through the Da Vinic Code and enjoyed aspects of it (the movie's better by the way), not so much regarding Twilight. Hmm, if the film version of Da Vinci Code was better than the book - maybe the film version of Twilight will be better? Amazing as it might sound but there are some novels that actually translate better to the screen - The Godfather, The Exorcist, and Rosemary's Baby are examples. [Not to imply that The Godfather, the Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby weren't well written, they were, and in no other way shape or form compare to Twilight, well except for Rosemary's having a monster child...but outside of that...not so much.]
( Long opinionated piece about the Twilight hype and why it is stupid and yes I spoil the last book - although not quite sure how you could have avoided that spoiler. )