Vintage Review: Shock Totem #4 - September 4, 2011

The glossy cover of Shock Totem #4 is striking. More like a high-quality paperback or graphic novel than a magazine, it holds its place on the shelf with confidence. This publication will never be found in the recycle bin, nor filed away for later reference as market research, like some of my other fiction magazines. The art design and layout is to be applauded; inside, creepy black-and-white images accent the text.

But content is what counts in a publication, and thankfully Shock Totem #4 is brimming. With approximately one-hundred and thirty pages, there are nine short stories, two interviews and a number of non-fiction pieces. They are worth the time.

I was looking forward to Lee Thompson’s story Beneath the Weeping Willow, and wasn’t disappointed. Told in second-person POV, it is the experiences of a twelve-year-old autistic boy as his family tries to handle his condition. The piece is beautiful and moving, and I cannot recall a better use of second-person POV. I can't put it better than K. Allen Wood, Shock Totem's editor-in-chief did in the Editor's Note: "as you read it, you will realize it is the only way it could have been told." This is the first work of fiction in the issue, and sets the bar high.

Other stories which stood out were Rennie Sparks's Web of Gold, the tale of a sociopathic temp; Full Dental by Tom Bordonaro, a hilarious look at what happens to office workers and the Demons of Hell under the influence of today's PC-panicked HR departments; and, The Many Ghosts of Annie Orens by A. C Wise, about how chronic visitations by ghosts influence a woman through her life.

The interviews by Mercedes M. Yardley and Nick Contor, of Rennie Sparks and Kathe Koja respectively, are insightful and amusing. Shock Totem's crew also review a number of books, movies and albums in the section Strange Goods and Other Oddities. The writing is vibrant, and though reviews of Doom Metal and Power Metal albums are not usually my thing, the two by K. Allen Wood and Alex Mull were both of interest, and Mull actually raised a chuckle from my skeptical self. The book and film reviews were well-presented, enthusiastic and often amusing, irrespective of their subject--particularly Ryan Bridger's idiosyncratic look at the graphic novel Harbor Moon.

K. Allen Wood's essay Living Dead: A Personal Apocalypse reads like fiction. Good fiction. A gripping piece about his father, it is poignant, grim and redemptive. I've read it several times now, and it still holds my attention.

My favorite section is Howling through the Keyhole, in which the writers featured in the issue present "The stories behind the stories". As a writer, it is both fascinating and educational to read what writer thinks about their work, to hear the inspiration for an individual piece. The fact that several columns are lovely to read, or outright funny doesn't hurt.

Overall, I am well pleased with Shock Totem #4, and will be saving my pennies for the both the next issue and the three previous.

Spring!

 

Big Dog and Littler Dog say "Happy Spring-related Holiday-of-your-choosing!"

Vintage Reviews: Amazon and Goodreads

No doubt you've heard about Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads.

I mostly use Goodreads for reviews (reading and posting) and as a giant book list. I've tried to be more involved with the communities there, but just never found the time. But I visit the site every few days (at least once a week), and appreciated it, in large part because it wasn't attached to a site like Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It was nice to go to place that was about the books, not making the sale.

My view: Monopolies are not good things. Amazon is damn close to one now, and shows no interest in halting its growth, particularly in regards to the publishing industry. I also don't like the language they've used in regards to user data and potential changes at Goodreads. I hear a lot of "in the short term", for my comfort.

So, what to do?

Well, every few weeks I'll be posting one of my old Goodreads reviews here. I'll pull most of the text on each Goodreads review, leaving a paragraph on the site and adding a link to the post here. I'll be heading them under Vintage Reviews, with the original post date. I started posting links on Goodreads for new reviews this year, but with this merger, I decided to go do my 2011-2012 reviews as well. This way, my Reviews page here will no longer link to Goodreads, I get a little traffic to my blog rather than simply giving Amazon/Goodreads content and hits and I'm still not removing reviews for books I want to support.

I don't shop at Amazon because I don't like their business practices. (Now with more Nazis!) I think they are more-than-averagely mercenary in their pursuit of profit and are too opaque about their operations. YMMV (Seriously, I don't hold it against anyone who uses Amazon's services, particularly self-pub authors. Things are hard enough without cutting out a giant chunk of your potential audience.) My stance on Goodreads is slightly less stringent and I'll continue to post links to my new reviews to help support the books and industry, but I won't be using it with the easiness I did before.

So you'll see a Vintage Review go up now and then until I've minimized my presence on Goodreads.

UPDATE: A couple of links, one regarding Amazon/Goodreads and one about Amazon's business practices.

Review: Goldenland Past Dark

 

Quote:

 

"Only a child would choose a warped mirror over one that showed him the truth."

Sixteen-year-old Webern Bell's spine is twisted, his body small. He is a dreamer and an artist, a clown as bent on expressing the intangible as he is amusing his audience. With all the spirit of youth, he wants to be not just a clown but a king of clowns. As Goldenland Past Dark opens, Chandler Klang Smith presents the tableau of Webern's ambitions, colorful and expressive, painting her landscape with precise strokes. Webern travels not with a fancy and flush big top, but with Dr. Show and his band of freaks and middling talent, performing in a dingy and rundown traveling show, soldiering on in poverty with the rest of them. Webern does his best with what he has, and suffers the jabs and teasing of his fellow performers with mostly good humor. He nurses his affections for the fierce-tongued Lizard Girl, Nepenthe, quietly worshiping her from the lowly position of clown and circus gofer. Clowning is Webern's escape, his passion and his most eloquent form of expression. When words fail, he articulates his deepest longings through pantomime, his hopes and dreams, his grief, love and deep sadness, to himself as much as his audience. He takes solace in the ritual of performance, no matter how small or rundown the ring, how small the crowd, escaping his awkwardness.

Dr. Show, a blowhard and perhaps a cheat, a former magician and bombastic ringmaster, plays a surrogate for Webern's disconnected father. Prone to bouts of Shakespeare quotes and empty gestures, he is a fading figure in the world, and unsurprisingly, he is the last to realize it. As his performers rebel and their pitiful little show hobbles on, he sees the truth far too late. Dr. Show's past catches up with him, the company suffers the consequences, and before long, kindhearted Webern must choose where his path lies.

Goldenland Past Dark's story is one of mystery and pain, the story of Webern's childhood and self-deception as much as his future. Just who is Webern's childhood friend, the mischievous and volatile Wags? The author does not shy from this profoundly sad yet never maudlin tale, choosing the warped mirror and the tragedy beneath the clown's façade to frame universal truths while revealing the depths of her characters' souls. Smith's colorful cast is diverse and deeply drawn, a showcase of the hearts within the freak show shells. Smith decorates her narrative with masks and images of perfection, a fun-house mirror's reflection of Webern's hunchback and sideshow acts made center, giving her readers something deeper to ponder while weaving descriptions as melancholic as they are unsettling and beautiful.

A piece about alienation and humanity, infused with compassion, Goldenland Past Dark is a redemptive narrative of love, loss, and inner demons. If certain elements prove predictable there is little to forgive, for what end could the sad clown have, but one layered with bittersweet? Highlighting the hopelessness of the clown's fate, Smith stops short of snuffing out Webern's buoyancy, and asks, what is life but the journey?

Quote:

 

"It was hopeless, of course. So what? A clown's quests always were." 

 
From the Clown King struggling to return to his two-dimensional throne, to the lachrymose image of a weather-beaten jester suspended high in the air, Webern's destiny is one of mournful inevitability, no less riveting or beautiful because of it. Readers intrigued by intelligent narratives and complex themes should not hesitate to seek out this haunting debut novel. I suspect we may anticipate great things from this author.

Saturday Night Live and Transphobia/Gender Issues

So I expected people to be all over this, but I haven't seen anything about it, so I'll have a go--even though I'm not an expert in trans/genderqueer issues.

This week, Saturday Night Live was hosted by Justin Timberlake, a host I generally enjoy and the show was decent--not great, but decent.

That is, until the last sketches, which I found disturbing. (Even more than usual. SNL skates close to racism/misogyny/homophobia/transphobia rather a lot.)

I'll start with the one I found less offensive, a sketch featuring two female cast members playing stupid and/or intoxicated porn stars shilling for a cheap champagne. My real objection to this one is the fact that it made me realize how few and the quality of the roles SNL seems to be giving its female cast. Timberlake also plays a porn star, but is portrayed as a victim of an inappropriate childhood relationship with a male gym teacher and sounds neither wasted or (overly) stupid. I watch SNL intermittently, both because I like sleep and simply because the writing quality seems to have slipped (especially since Samberg left), but I was shocked to realize just how far the writing for its female cast has fallen. Increasingly the actresses are reduced to playing token pieces designed to set up the male actors to deliver the punchlines or portraying stereotypical roles we are meant purely to laugh at. I'd also point out in an otherwise amusing sketch featuring iconic SNL hosts, Candice Bergen was the only woman, had about one line and it was about putting the toilet seat down.

That brings us to the "She Has A Dick" sketch. A prerecorded "film preview" of a romantic comedy supposedly starring Justin Timberlake. Perhaps (and given SNL's track record, I'm being very generous here and sincerely doubt it) this was meant as commentary about the way people who express gender outside the binary norms are treated, but if that were the case it fails spectacularly. The concept is Timberlake meets the perfect woman, pretty, funny, etc., the twist being, you guessed it, she has a penis. (Kenan Thompson plays the "confused black friend" who repeatedly asks questions about the physicality of Timberlake's girlfriend and ends the segment with "Can I see it?".) Timberlake eventually overcomes his (rather minor) misgivings and says it doesn't matter, that he loves all of her. Which is great, in and of itself.

What is glossed over is the profound threat trans/genderqueer people face, and the fact that this is not a light matter--the threat of violence is erased entirely from this Rom-com take of an often overlooked issue in mainstream television/film. As I was watching, I was far from amused because all I could think of was how frightening it must be to reveal something so intimate with someone you care about, but don't really know how they'll react. And to face that uncertainty and chance at rejection with the knowledge that some men will react violently.

But what disturbs me most was the live audience's reaction, specifically when they laughed. The laughter read to me as laughing at the idea of a perfect girl with a penis, at the very concept of someone who does not fall neatly into the boxes we've made for them. The whole sketch feeds into our binary view of gender and gender expression, that because someone falls outside these lines, they are somehow a point of humor in and of themselves. If people are laughing for apparently bigoted reasons, I think we can say the comedy has failed.

Truly, I think the intention of this sketch can only be interpreted as ridiculing trans/genderqueer individuals. This has been agitating me since Saturday night; it makes me a bit sick to my stomach, frankly. "Humor" and hate go hand in hand far too often and hate is a hairsbreadth from violence. Needless to say, this has rather put me off SNL. I don't think I'm overreacting, but as I said I'm not an expert in this area. I would love some feedback from the community as to how transgender/genderqueer persons feel about this.

But I do know I definitely did not find this funny.

***UPDATE*** An alternate take on the skit: http://www.dyssonance.com/the-snl-skit/ (Thx, Tracie Welser for the link!)

I already tweeted a link to this, but there's also some interesting points in the comments here.

A Review and A Giveaway

My last review for The Bag and The Crow is up! I'm so happy to go out reviewing the excellent collection The Inner City by Karen Heuler. Plus, if you leave a comment on the review, you'll be entered to win an e-edition. See the bottom of the review page for details, but hurry, you only have until 9pm EST Monday.

Many thanks to anyone who spreads the word about the giveaway and review! ;-)

News from the Reviewing Front and Glitter (as always, contains Madness*)

After much thought, I have decided my next review (of The Inner City by Karen Hueler) will be my last on The Bag and The Crow (formerly The Crow's Caw).

Although I've completely enjoyed my experience as a member of The Bag and The Crow team, time is ever in short supply and with a year and thirteen reviews under my belt, I decided I needed to reprioritize in favor of my own fiction. I'll still review books here quite often, of course, but the books won't be so focused in genre and the frequency will fluctuate.

It's been great to have my name alongside Bob Freeman, Nick Cato, Jordan Norton, and Sheri White and I'm grateful to Jassen Bailey (proprietor of The Bad and The Crow) for the opportunity. I wish him and his team all the best.

Of course, this means Jassen is looking for a reliable reviewer with a taste for dark fiction. If you think you might be interested contact him.

On another matter, if you've somehow missed it, there's a nifty Kickstarter running for another six days (until Feb. 16th) for a speculative anthology called Glitter and Madness***UPDATE: Name of the anthology has since been changed to Glitter and Mayhem***to be edited by Hugo award-winners John Klima (editor at Electric Velocipede), Lynne M. Thomas (head editor at Apex Magazine) and Michael Damian Thomas (managing editor at Apex), and published by Apex Publications.


The prompt:

"Roller Derby, nightclubs, glam aliens, (literal) party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, debauchery, etc."

There's a million brilliant writers (well, not quite that many, but a lot), including Damien Walters Grintalis, Kat Howard, and Seanan McGuire, already attached to this, and some great incentives for backers. They've made it past the half-way mark and are now open for submissions. (I'll be reading slush for this, as well as EV, btw!) It's an entertaining idea, and if you have the means, please consider contributing. ***UPDATE: GLITTER AND MAYHEM IS FUNDED!***And if you have a fab, glittery and mad, nightclubby story with glam aliens or roller derby party monsters, (up to 6,000w), may I suggest submitting it? (deadline March 15th)

I'll be writing my review of The Inner City over the next few days so my final Bag and Crow review should be up on the site fairly soon. I'll keep you posted. ;-)

*Yes, the post title is a feeble attempt to be amusing. I LAUGHED IT IS SO FUNNY SHUT UP