Only for fans of "The Life Aquatic"
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

I don't usually do long posts on IMDB since I tend not to read long posts, myself. But something must've crawled up my ass today. Must be all that freakin' Derrida. This isn't so much a proper blog as something I posted on IMDB in response to this:

"Dying to hear an explanation...

Did this movie have a deeper meaning, or was it meant just to be silly? I think I'm pretty good with film analysis (in general) but this left me puzzled! Either way, I loved it and it single handedly drew me into "off-beat" films (I also fell in love with Adaptation., I Heart Huckabees, and Eternal Sunshine soon after.)

So please, lemme know your thoughts on this movie."

Okay!

The Life Aquatic is about Steve Zissou's refusal to grow up and participate in the rightful order of life; to step aside and become a father to a son. This particularly strikes me in Eleanor's offhand comment about how "Steve shoots blanks" and that she thinks it has something to do with him spending so much time underwater. This conjures, for me anyway, an image of a floating Steve in stasis, who can't move on from what he considers the greatest age of his life - 11 & 1/2.

Outside forces have been conspiring to make Steve grow up for some time. When Ned confronts him with the fact that Steve had known about him all along, we see an opportunity for growth that Steve never took. The death of Esteban, the failure of his film chronicling that death (people sense it isn't honest, specifically illustrated by the heartless reporter: "Who're you gonna kill in your next movie?"), and the appearance of Ned set into motion the events that will conspire to make Steve face up to his responsibilities.

Not that Steve is entirely to blame - who are Steve's parents? He has father figures in the role of his oceanographer mentor (forgive me, the name escapes me), and Esteban, but no real father. Or mother. Eleanor has parents, but we never meet them, only their money. If you wanna get really psychoanalytical about it, you could say that Steve goes nuts when the sea, here symbolizing his mother, that which has always sustained him, the womb that he refuses to leave - eats his father, Esteban. Okay. Well - a big, glowy shark eats Esteban. But I think that the mother-figure image is further warranted by how all are awestruck by its beauty when they finally do see the Jaguar shark. And even further when Steve, not yet seen to break down, finally cries when confronting the shark, and wonders if it - despite the fact that the shark, let alone the ocean, isn't really a sentient being "remembers [him]."

It is because Steve couldn't rationally deal with the loss of a father at his mental age of 11 & 1/2 (real age? mid-fifties, I guess) that he sets off on a violent course to destroy the destroyer (heretofore the nourisher), though it's pointed out there's no scientific purpose to this scheme. He refuses to follow a course of logic which would lead him to an uncomfortable revelation: that Steve is responsible for his own actions, that he is an adult, a father, a grieving son, and growing old. We see the turning point in the middle of the bond company stooge rescue, when Steve hits his lowest point. When he admits defeat and decides to finally show the truth of who he is - a selfish, past-his-prime, perpectual adolescent - the seeds are planted for his salvation. Not only is Bill rescued, but also Steve's mirror image - Hennessey. Steve is both literally and figuratively facing those parts of himself that he dislikes and accepting, or rescuing them to create a cohesive whole (Hennessey's success in oceanography and with Eleanor, despite not being the macho homophobe that Steve is only further points out to Steve that he is himself neither successful or virile, hence the mirror image business).

However, a sacrifice remains to be paid. Steve's continued refusal to move on (or even just be responsible and keep up repairs on the copter) leads to another violent death, this time of his son (whether or no Ned is his biological son is moot). Though Steve changes, he must still deal with the repercussions of how he has lived his life. This is, I think, one of the great beauties of the film. Though it IS fun, and funny, and silly - which real life can be at the time - it is also sometimes pathetic, hard and cruel. Steve finally learns to accept that he can't have one without the other - can't have love without fidelity, true success without sincere work, or be a man without releasing the child-self.

Which is why I particularly like the interaction with Klaus's nephew at the end. We finally see the child that has been in Steve externalized. Furthermore, Steve consciously gives Ned's ring to Werner, whereas Ned had to receive it impersonally, through mail order. The award Steve received for this new film, this truer tale of his life, means little to him, and it is Werner that he picks up and carries away (supports!) on his shoulders - a reminder of things lost, a precious burden.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Currently reading : The God of Small Things By Arundhati Roy Release date: 01 May, 1998

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a particularly meandering and pointless one, but something, still
Current mood: fine

Does our connection to the sea presage the Darwinian revelation that we crawled out of it? Where does that idea even come from? Which evolutionary theorist or Saturday morning cartoon did I get it from? Is it simply based on the sort of mini-primordial soup that we gestate in before being thrust unceremoniously into the world? Is there any connection between the breach of "breached birth" and a whale "breaching"? Well, perhaps only in the case of my gigantic head.

I don't know. I can think of several artists, writers and musicians off-hand that have created works alluding to our littoral lineage, but they all come, if not always recently, at least after the Darwinian light bulb was clicked on in our dreary little chapels, enabling us to extinguish the goddamn candles, already.

If you want to get really fanciful about it, there're mermaids. People been talkin' about mermaids for donkeys years. But I don't want to go there. Because that'll just lead to mermen, and then I'll start talkin' merpeople, and the next thing you know I'll get all new-agey on ya where I start spouting off about magic, and even worse, spelling said "magic" with a "k". And no one needs that, right now.

SO, she asks in a falsely casual and cheery voice designed to divert you from the fact that the question is most likely a setup, DID YOU KNOW THAT…

Human brains are 75% water?
Human bones are 25% water?
Human blood is 83% water?

Which, if you do the math, means humans are less specifically, about 61%, 5% less than the 66%, or 2/3 numbers you always hear when someone wants to rattle off fun facts. Maybe that's just leaving out your skin; hide; pelt; Gatorade; whatever.

AND EVEN MORE INTERESTING, she adds brightly…

Our blood contains nearly a third as much salt as is contained in seawater! Fascinating!

There it is again – whenever you go poking around for the salinity content of the body or blood, you get those allusions to the sea.

"Some scientists have suggested that our need for salt is a legacy from when we first crawled out of the oceans." – www.saltinfo.com

See! There it is…I wasn't making it up. Somebody else made it up. I've been out of the ocean a good long time, now – haven't even been swimming in it (you seen that thing, lately? If we did come from some kind of viscous soup, the forerunner of our current oceans, from the looks of it I think the Pacific is trying to conjure up some new breed of wall-eyed fucker to spit out on the land and fend for itself any day now). But anyway, why would my hankerin' for salt have anything to do with having come from the sea? I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on ringing in my new year by the fireside, stirring my cinnamon stick in a hot, steaming cup of amniotic fluid (with or without a splash of brandy).

But it is tempting to imagine having come from the sea. And not some blank creature from the depths oozing up the beach, either. But being a mermaid (sorry, they will come up) trapped on land, a comically misunderstood sweet thing with a tail split in two and shoved into heels and the inability to communicate effectively not because I'm poorly socialized or some witch has stolen my voice but just because it sounds like I'm talking to you through water.

Did you ever play that game when you were a kid? 1…2…3! And then a big breath as you and your friend both plunge underwater. You say something and he listens. He shakes his head. You say it again. His features are doubly distorted by the water and his bewildered expression. Finally you both come gasping back out into the sunlight and he say to you, "Coconut bra?" and you daren't say, "No, I said 'I think I'm in love'!" so you say, "Yes, yes…coconut bra!" and you giggle somewhere between coquettishly and maniacally, and you try it again, maybe, if the moment hasn't become too awkward by then. But you know he's only going to say things like "ass" or "fart" and the pool's getting cold, anyway.

Yes…teeth like pearls and coral lips and waves mirrored in the fall of your hair down your back. What woman wouldn't want that? But in ruminating on the sea here in my own ebb tide, I find myself turning to more tangled, seaweed thoughts about the brackish smell of the seaside, hoping that stench isn't among the charms I've inherited from an aquatic ancestor. Thoughts like blind fishes swimming behind eyes red rimmed and salty with tears; the heart already pickled in brine but still beating; ovum like lost continents at opposite poles, their insides encrusted in cabochon whorls with living, priceless caviar shuttled through pink coral tubes by sprightly bonedelicate seahorses – cradled in curling nonequine tails, seed pearls lit from within by their own phosphorescence, only to be shed by the tides' pull in a monthly moon-orchestrated cataract of salty, salty blood.

We are delicious, start to finish, friends. To be savored.

Currently reading : The Sea (Man Booker Prize) By John Banville Release date: 01 November, 2005

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Busy is not a mood
Current mood: busy

I know, I know...I've missed me, too.

The only reason I'm on here right now is I should be working on a paper that examines Neil Gaiman's Stardust, Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, and Nancy Garden's Annie On My Mind through the feminist and post-structuralist critical lenses. But why would I want to do that? So I can get a good grade? From a feminist and post-structuralist point of view, I think that grades are arbitrary goals designed by the patriarchy to make us believe we can never, ever be good enough. What is an A, anyway? How can I assign one meaning to such a symbol? I destroy meaning as I create it by assigning a value to myself as dictated by a letter grade.

What can I say? Rather than doing my homework, I've been reading Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, and I'm pretty sure I'm a better person for it. I'm going to crack open the ol' King Lear tonight in order to better compare/contrast. Yep. That's the rest of my Wednesday evening. Well, that, and America's Next Top Model, which ye olde Tivo had better best recorded.

Sorry. That's all I got till at least a week into winter break.

Currently reading : A Thousand Acres By Jane Smiley Release date: 23 October, 1991

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Irishosity
Current mood: okay

I hung out with the Irish this weekend, only this time on my turf. At least, on my soil. And I coined a new phrase, which I'm going to translate into Irish at some point, and put on a plaque, and hang said plaque in the bathroom and it will say: My heart may be Irish, but my bladder sure isn't. It's pretty disruptive to the flow of craic when you hafta keep leaping up every 20 minutes to take a whiz.

And when I say craic, I'm not talking about, though I'm kinda talking about this tshirt slogan:



Sometimes, if you're real lucky, you'll find a craic-related tshirt that refers sophomorically to ASS crack, with art reminiscent of those old "Look at my Johnson"- type tshirts favored by frat boys and usually depicting some guy dressed up like a fireman and holding an extra long hose which he's using to A) Quench his own Johnson or B) Get the Delta Gamma Ray or whatever-the-fuck sorority's wet tshirt contest started.

But if you don't already know, craic is just a word used to describe getting drunk and talking shit and telling stories and singing songs and having an all-around good time. At least, that's what it means as far as I can tell. One might say, "It was great craic last night, wa'n't?" And depending on just how hung over you were, you'd either say yes or moan softly to yourself (though this is also, in its way, an expression of agreement).

So, the best thing about an Irish Language Weekend, in which you spend several hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday pickling your brain not only with alcohol but with the mothertruckingest tongue-twister of a language that could only have been invented by people as perverse as the Irish...is the craic. And the best part about the craic is if you can corner an old Irishman, buy him a pint, and get him to telling stories. At least, it's the best part as far as I'm concerned.

I poked around for stories in Gleann Cholm Cille this past summer. I asked Liam, whom I think of as the King of Gleann, who grew up there and all, if there were any old guys I should talk to about the local folklore. His answer was this: "Well, you could talk to old Paddy over there, but whatever you do, don't go into his house." When I asked why, he answered "Two years ago now, there were a coupla girls interested in the folklore and they went back to Paddy's house for a cup of tea, and came out ten minutes later screaming...something about Paddy and no pants."

I brought this story up to Liam this weekend, and he said, "Ah, but then you stood up to get another pint, and I thought, there's a big, strong girl - she'll have not trouble with Paddy." And he squeezed my excessively fleshy upper arm.

Er, um, thanks, Liam. I'm glad I'm too big and scary for all the old men of Ireland. That makes me feel better. And reminds me to work on my triceps.


This is Liam. And though you can't see it, I guarantee he's wearin' pants.

But a very pleasant, pipe-smoking man from Connemara told me this story this weekend, in public and fully clothed:

"My da' used to collect the life insurance policies from the people in our town, East and West on the main road (there was only one road, besides) on a Monday and a Tuesday. East on Monday, West on Tuesday. Anyway, these policies were paid by the young people on their aging parents, just a shilling thruppence, you know, but it was a good idea, because when an old one would go, at least you'd have the money set by to wake and bury them with.

One man he was after collecting a policy on who lived just East of us, and who was a great reader of books, and my da', Mairtín Mór, or Big Martin, as we called him, often lent him books. One day, and I was only five or six at the time, the man came by to return a great stack of books. I remember him, maybe, because he rode a bike we called a racer - thin with handle bars that curved under, you know, and three speeds. But after he was after seeing us he went to visit some family down the road. And he was there till after night fell, and he left his hosts at the door, they closed it behind him, and he walked down the path to his racer. But he'd only gone a few steps when he was struck with an epileptic fit and fell face down in a puddle in the lane. No one found him till the next morning, much too late to do anything. He died by drowning in that puddle.

So the next day there was the wake, and the day after that the mass and the burial, and my father attended all three. The burial was on a Sunday. And on the following Monday, my da' set out East on the main street, to start his collections. As he neared the dead man's house, he saw none other than the deceased himself standing up in the middle of the road, looking about him, confused. My da', not knowing quite what to do, didn't address him, but heard him say, as if to himself, "Now, where's my bicycle got to?" and he walked toward his own front door, but as he came to it, he just disappeared. Into thin air. Or so my da' said."

Currently reading : Lon Anama: Poems for Prayer from the Irish Tradition: Cnuasach de Dhanta Craifeacha Gaeilge Maille Le Haistriuchain I Mbearla = a Release date: January, 2005

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My Record's Clean
Current mood: amused

Yeah, so I know, I been in Ireland a month, and my first order of business oughta be to write about all my adventures dancing hornpipes with leperchauns around standing stones at Lughnasa-tide and all that, but I don't quite feel up to it yet, somehow. It might be that terrific knock on the noggin I got while exploring the Hill of Slane where St. Patrick lit the Easter fires in blahblahblah in defiance of Blah Blah, High King of Ireland at Tara, who in turn blah-blah-blahed. I'm reasonably sure that I'm still bleeding internally.

Sorry no Ireland stories tonight, honey, I have a headache.

So I'm on here simply to mention this exchange I just had in Tower Records, because as is usual of my interactions with my fellow man, I found myself both annoyed and amused. I would like to state for the record that security and/or employees of retail establishments have been tailing me in their stores since I was fourteen years old, and I've never lifted, or pondered lifting, a single thing. Now when I was fourteen, I really didn't mind that much. The young are always under suspicion, and even more so if they're carrying around a backpack that looks to be both half their size and half their bodyweight. In my case, it was because I needed to lug the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy plus the Silmarillion around with me wherever I went, on top of numerous Cure and Smiths and mix tapes (Can you say dated?) and my portable casette player/AM radio (further datage). Rawk.

And as a perennial student, you can still often find me in stores with a backpack, though neither so large nor so heavy, because I'm OLD, dammit. But today, I didn't have a backpack. Today, I had the big, green herniated cow's bladder that my sister-in-law gave me last Christmas. You laymen may know it as a leather purse. But I guess "the cow" and all-American good looks are enough to inspire the aged hippie manager of Tower Records to consign his pock-marked teen task force to the floor on a special mission to stalk me. And by task force I mean the one sad, awkward teenager forced to work there with the 50-somethings on a beautiful, sunny Monday afternoon in California whilst the Creedence is forcefed with a blunt and splintered wooden shovel into his delicate, peach-fuzz kissed and stud-bedecked ears. So I took my sweet time in the World Music section just to fuck with him. And then slowly made a tour of the whole store, feigning interest in the new Christina Aguilera album, and casually rummaging through "the cow" while dangling the CDs in my hand tenuously above its gaping maw. I wonder, do they get some kind of prize if they do catch someone stealing something? That's the only thing I can think of that would motivate some kid to tail me as hot as this one was.

Anyway, the same kid rang me up when I finally did purchase something (which, for my more detail-oriented and discerning readers were the Rome dvd, season one, and a copy of Bust magazine). To his credit, I think the kid felt kinda bad for not thinking I was a legitimate Marin County yuppie. But I couldn't resist, when he tried to bag my stuff stopping him and saying, "No, save your bag. I'll just put them here in my HUGE purse. That way I can have that clean, just-shoplifted feeling without going to all the trouble of douching." And then I winked. I actually fucking winked. Which is something I've warned everyone (at least male everyones) under the age of say, 55, never to do. But I did it.

Because I've turned into a mean old woman with an oversized handbag, and when a teenage boy blushes, you can't even see his acne anymore. Bless him.

Currently reading : The Mists of Avalon By Marion Zimmer Bradley Release date: 12 May, 1987

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Salvation is just two blocks past the Whole Foods
Current mood: contemplative

I'm reading this book called Where the Lightning Strikes by Peter Nabokov, all about places sacred to Native Americans throughout the United States. I skipped straight to the section on the West of the country because, what can I say? I'm self-centered.

I live within sight of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. It wouldn't be hyperbole, in fact, to say that it's a "stone's throw" away. I've been here for a year now, and though I've explored a lot of the surrounding area, done a ton of hiking, hugged some trees in Muir Woods and enjoyed watching my dog experience the ocean for the first time in his furry, little, sheltered life, I've yet to climb Mt. Tam.

There is a small section on Mt. Tam in Where the Lightning Strikes. The gist of it is that because the mountain has become such a focal point for the conveniently tailored spirituality of the yuppie inhabitants of Whiteville, U.S.A., it is "relatively unencumbered by remembered usage or present importance to Miwok Indians...few outsiders take note of its native past." Tam has hosted a slew of music festivals and, shudder, "happenings" since the baby boomers and later, the internet boomers, started moving in and racheting up the price of real estate, simultaneously racheting down the indigenous spirituality of the land by imposing immigrant faiths and spiritual pursuits, from Christianity and Buddhism to "temple of the body" obsessions like Bikram Yoga and cycling in suspiciously yellow jerseys. Those little "Live Strong" rubber bracelets have become nothing less than the demarcation of an intensely aerobicized cult.

All this in the shadow of a mountain whose pre-Anglo history is ignored:

"There may be darker reasons for leaving Tam to its secrets. Fragments of Indian commentary gathered by anthroplogist Bev Ortiz suggest a shadow side to the mountain's personality. From one Miwok leader she heard rumors of its being a "poison" place, where malevolent shamans sought power to harm rather than cure. When one reviews the written record on California Indian spirituality there is no avoiding the fact that many prayers and rituals were preoccupied with deflecting or defending against the worst that unpredictable fate or intentional evil can bring - and both might erupt from the landscape" (Nabokov).

See, you think you'd be safe living at the foot of Mt. Tamalpais - "the sleeping lady." Safer, anyway, than at the foot of the Mt. Diablo, forty miles to the east. As it turns out, there's nothing demonic about Diablo in native lore. It's my neighbor, Mt. Tam, that has the agenda.


Let Sleeping Ladies Lie


Suffice it to say, I've taken this bit of information and run with it. I am now using it as the excuse for why I haven't been hiking on Mt. Tam. I'm just in tune with nature to the extent that I sensed its evil before having confirmed it in print. Turns out it has nothing to do with my being a lazy asshole. What a relief.

This is the quote that has most struck me from Where the Lightning Strikes so far: "...symbolic linkages connected humans to places and animals through sympathetic bonds of story and kinship."

It made me think about what it is we're connected to, where our sympathetic bonds lie these days. Whereas Native Californians, even as recently as the turn of the century, marked their "neighborhoods" by certain trees, stones or creeks, I mark mine by where things are in relation to the 7-11, the Safeway, and the Jamba Juice. I know that all things pass, but don't strip malls have a shorter shelf-life than, say, Half-Dome? I mean, if our personal geography is constructed of cheap drywall and corporate signage, maybe we're in a wee spot of trouble. If you're going to be surrounded by impermanence, at least have the sense to put your faith in something that's been around since before you, and will probably be around for a good long time after you.

Like plastics.

Currently reading : Where the Lightning Strikes : The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places By Peter Nabokov Release date: 19 January, 2006

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Another Lazy Post
Current mood: lazy

1. Grab the nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.

5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

From The King of Ireland's Son by Padraic Colum:

"They knew about far countries, and strange paths and passes, but they did not know about the doings of other creatures as the Fox did. The Fox used to come in the evening and stay until nearly morning whether Gilly fell asleep or kept awake. The Fox was a very good talker."

Currently reading : One Man's Owl : (Abridged Edition) By Bernd Heinrich Release date: 13 December, 1993

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BoomBoomBoom
Current mood: Whatever

Why, oh why, can I not stop listening to Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill?" The day has come to just stop fighting it and make myself a shirt that says "Prog Rock Rules." It was inevitable. Be checking your mailboxes for your Jethro Tull/Peter Gabriel-era Genesis/Kate Bush (for the ladies) mixes which I will commence burning momentarily.


Don't give up, because you have friends...friends that will burn you cds you really don't want.


If you were Peter Gabriel and I were Kate Bush, I would share herbal tea and art rock insights with you, in studio.


Seriously. Is anyone out there familiar with Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights?" I mean, it's a song about a novel, and it was like, ..1 in the U.K. Does that even happen in the United States? When was the last major pop hit written about Huckleberry Finn? I'm just sayin'.

Currently listening : Hit By Peter Gabriel Release date: 04 November, 2003

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The agony and the irony
Current mood: sympathetic

I had to take this picture w/my crummy phone. It does not come close to evoking something that is simultaneously pitiful and...well...hilarious.



Poor puppa.

Currently listening : Hair of the Dog By Nazareth Release date: 25 October, 1990

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Queen Dork
Current mood: dorky

Right. So, I just finished reading King Dork by "The Mr. T Experience" frontman "Dr." Frank Portman, and I'm wondering:

Who the hell else is reading this?

Because apparently, a lot of people are reading it. The SF Chronicle published a lengthy and laudatory article regarding King Dork, which I'll admit, spurred me to go out and get it and see what all the fuss is about . Somebody's buying this book or it wouldn't, as noted by the intrepid Jane Ganahl on the SFGATE web pages, be "in its fifth printing after two months on the shelves."

Now, if you're unfamiliar with King Dork and you're not committed enough to this blog entry to follow the above link to the article, let me break it down for you. It's a coming-of-age novel for today's misguided young man (and at 13 through roughly, say, 300 years of age, they're all misguided young men) loosely centered around its anti-focal point, another coming-of-age novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Anti-focal, because the main character - Tom or Chi-Mo or King Dork - whichever incarnation you prefer, kind of hates Catcher, which in itself I find extremely refreshing. But a physical copy of The Catcher in the Rye owned by Tom's deceased father when he, too, was around fourteen, becomes one piece of a question natural to a young man who lost his father when he was eight-years-old: Who was my father? And maybe more importantly, was he less, as or more fucked up than me when he was my age?

I think all this stuff is great. I like all the coming to terms with identity in the context of family. I like that Tom's burgeoning, natural and healthy sexuality (as well as an obsession with seriously good music and making his own seriously bad music) is what turns him away from pondering the whys and wherefores of a parent's untimely demise, "Choosing Life!" if not the "gay little blue and white George Michael shorts" to go with it.

But still, who is reading this book? I read the article in the Chronicle the day it came out, and that same day was turned away from two bookstores in the area that had "just sold their last copies an hour ago." Now don't tell me that fourteen-year-old boys are reading the fucking Chronicle. Reading The Chronicles of Narnia, maybe. Watching The Chronicles of Riddick, unfortunately. But perusing the SF Chronicle whilst huffing aerosol from trashbags or engaging in self-abuse on the toilet? That's about as plausible as Tom "Chi-Mo" Henderson recognizing what it took me well into my twenties to realize: that The Who is the greatest rock and roll band of all time.

So a couple of things worry me about this book.

Maybe it's just hipsters (and I'm not putting myself above this ridicule, here) wanting to stay in touch with "what the kids are reading" going out and seeing what the fuss is. Maybe it's just a bunch of relatively harmless "The Mr. T Experience" fans.

But maybe, prior to the SF Gate article, it was just aimless young men. And maybe when I forget that the high school by my supermarket has open campus at lunchtime, and I find myself in that awkward morass of teenage phermones-gone-wild purchasing themselves Safeway Sushi with the money they stole from their grandmothers for lunch when all I wanna do is get some milk, maybe at least they'll be wearing "The Small Faces" or "The Jam" t-shirts instead of friggin' "My Chemical Romance." They can carry King Dork around till it looks like my own sad, dilapidated copy of Catcher if I can have at least that satisfaction.

Except.

Girls are cruel in King Dork. And I admit that this is how it often seems, and this is how it more often is. But ultimately, most girls in the book (except for Mom and Sis, because they're sacrosanct) are good for two things: blow-jobs, and inspiring the kind of pity that makes for sensitive rock lyrics. As a girl, I'm a little offended by this. But as a reader of young adult fiction, I'm pretty impressed with how in touch Portman, at 41, is with his inner fourteen-year-old. If I had had this book when I was a goofy fourteen-year-old girl, it could have helped me avoid and/or navigate some painful adolescent situations. So girls, if you're not reading King Dork yet, get it. It's kind of like Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus sans being completely retarded. The most important lesson? If you're giving some guy blow-jobs, you're probably not the only one.

Now, if I'm even a little nervous about the blow-jobs and murder and (gasp!) cursing in a young-adult novel, that's saying something. I mean, if I'm a little nervous about it, how's this lady gonna handle it? I mean, sure there's some witchcraft and "snogging" in Harry Potter, but you don't see Hermione sneaking Harry's invisibility cloak into "Charms" class so she can give Ron hand jobs, do you?

So if it's kids' parents who are reading these books, or starting to read these books, or realizing that their children are reading these books so they'd better get cracking, then the shitstorm is about to commence.


With a face like this, I think we are safe in assuming that she approves neither of HP or BJ

I mean, Ms. Laura Mallory of Gwinnett County (above) doesn't even have to read HP to know it's of the devil. And "blow-job" is like, on the first page of Dork. That's like handing her the Cliff's Notes. She won't even hafta work up to being righteously indignant. I mean, if the word "wizard" gets her into such a lather that she's trying to get the best thing that's happened to children's lit in the past coupla decades banned, "blow-job" may just make her spontaneously combust.

We can only pray.

Currently reading : King Dork By Frank Portman Release date: 11 April, 2006

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