caveat: if you are approaching this "book review" because you are interested in reading this book,and are looking for an informed opinion, you should probably go read someone else's review. this is a review-challenge for a book i read at least fifteen years ago and remember very vaguely, and the parameters of the challenge, while fun, are not particularly useful to content-seekers. are you still reading this?

the challenge, from mariel to me:

Mariel My challenge!

I choose James Gunn's The Toy Collector.

Unless someone wants to chime in an additional ten things you'll have to do all of these to compete with Greg. Each is worth ten points.

Do a photo essay of action figures (any kind of toy) starring as the main characters of this book in a poignant moment.

Translate a paragraph into google translator and then back again into English using google translator.

Pick a fight with one of the brothers. Extra ten points if there are pictures.

Write about the book as if it were an episode of Law and Order or The Wire.

Make a cry for help.

Ask at least five rhetorical questions.

Do a top ten list of reasons why James Gunn wishes he was Joss Whedon.

Give advice on how they could've made a better drug selling business model.

Have a Waynes World moment over toys.

Be girlier than any thread of a Greg review. Extra ten points if there are pictures.

caveat deux: if you think this novel is about a gentleman who collects sex toys, you are incorrect. it was a total bummer to me to learn that it was just about some comic-book-nerd who hoarded superhero action
figures instead of bangmaster 6000's and blow-up mollys.

live and learn... and consider yourself warned.

1)alfonso, you are a turd.this is not necessarily part of the anti-shout-out, it is just a fact i am stating unsolicited-like.(that being said, it does not mean it should not be counted)

plot synopsis run through google master linguist:

This is a book about a man who loves Collecting Toys so much that he Risks it all to be able to afford to continue adding to his collection. He Steals pharmaceutical drugs from the hospital in which he is to sell only to finance its Addiction to Toys. A victim of the continued infantilizatyon of adult men in our culture, he continues to play as a child in both its social and private life as he Fantasizes on Toys at every opportunity instead of facing his problems as an adult.

why does the yiddish translator capitalize those words??

2)greg - those shoes make your butt look big

care for a taste?

so the veterinarian fixed the bird.
he rubbed some ointment on the wound and, on my suggestion, added a couple of stitches there as well. he dressed the broken wing in a sling of cloth. he braced the leg with two tongue depressors and wrapped it in tape.
when the job was finished, the vet handed us a bottle of medicine and said to place it on the wound twice a day to check any infection. he passed us some extra slings.
evelyn charged the seventy-five bucks to her mastercard. the vet nodded good-bye as we left.
the weather wasn't quite as hot as it had been. we got into evelyn's volvo and moved up broadway toward my apartment in harlem. the pigeon wheezed twice, loudly, and died.


and...scene.

and alfonso's sock puppet montage:

look at all the drugs i have stolen!! would you like to buy these drugs, kindly red panda??
now i have all this cash money!! what shall i buy??

toys, naturally!! i do so love toys!! they call me the toy collector, did you know that???


it is easy to make a photo montage of toy tableaux because i have so many toys myself. why do i have so many toys?? where do they all come from???seriously - why do i have so many toys?? greg was here the other day to hook up my dvd player (woot!) and he looked around and said "you have so many cute things here." his tone was envious, but the fact remains that i have so.many.toys.here. they are everywhere: on top of my stacks of books, on my bed, on my computer desk - i have a problem - everything in my house that is useful must also be cute. why do i have this compulsion to surround myself with toys?? i am not at the point where i am selling drugs to finance my toy habit, because my toys are cheap, but it is still an unseemly habit.

SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!!!

my new year's resolution is to stop buying toys and other childish things.


and tar - i am going to kick your ass!! i don't even remember your role in this book, except that you are a brother and i feel like that makes you worthy of an ass-kicking so if you get one step closer with that rom spaceknight action figure i am going to burl you. don't
point that thing at me, sir!! don't make it go all "cambloo cambloo" at me!! do you know who i am??i will sock you in the everlovin' face, i tell you!

DO NOT TRIFLE WITH THE KAREN!!!!

i need to interject here. karen doesn't know i am taking this over but when we were in the womb she used to totally kick me and bite me with her tiny toothless fetus-mouth like how cops beat their wives so the marks don't show. she was a criminal mastermind then, always trying to get me to go along with her schemes, and i was like, "we aren't even born yet!! patience!!" and then she would just bite me and sorta growl deep in the back of her babythroat.i have always tried, since then, not to piss her off; staying in the background so very few people even know i exist, but that girl is a self-hating-twin and she is nothing but bad news. please do not encourage her behavior.

3) eh!, i think you have a drinking problem and should stop being such a sex-toilet. you are living your life like some sort of kardashian and it is unfeminine. so, for you:

girlie interlude-intervention!


4) ariel. everyone saw what you did and they are all talking about it and we are all going to kick your ass on friday. you are just a terrible ungenerous person.

law and order interlude:

jesse l. martin is on the phone for this entire scene, leaving jerry orbach to interview the suspect. (why is jesse l. martin always on the phone??

"so, you like to play with dolls, eh??"

"they aren't dolls, they are collectible action figures"

(makes that jerry orbach face that looks at once exhausted and amused) "hey, it's all geek to me..."

elliott stabler, inexplicably, enters the room.(do dolls count as "special victims"??) "so, you like to keep your toys in boxes?? that make you feel powerful?? like a big man???

suspect quakes with fear - he knows elliott is going through his third divorce from the same woman and is likely to snap for no reason in particular.

olivia benson saunters in the room wearing a tight sweater and a forced-sincere expression, "maybe you felt like you were keeping them safe?? so no one could hurt them or break them?? is that what you were doing??"

"yes, that's it - i...i was just protecting them! i am their GOD!!!"

from the background, sam waterston yells "justice!!!" and a noise that sounds like "dunh dunh"

look, i don't know how to move product. i have seen the wire, but i don't know that i could write a better business plan than this hospital orderly. i know about cutting the product and i know you probably should get a cool orange couch,
(wouldn't that couch be gross after the first rain??)but it's a tricky business, and it involves guns and burners and hoppers and g-packs, and i just don't have the fortitude or the vocabulary to sustain it. instead, i am going to share some tips i have learned from retail. i am sure they are equally applicable to the sale of narcotics. make exciting endcaps. people like to see the merchandise. keeping it all bottled up will not show off its pretty colors and shapes. people love mosaics. make pretty patterns with similar-colored pills to lure in the visually oriented. put pills together whose goals are compatible: appetite suppressants next to uppers, viagra with heart medicines - make a bouquet garni of pills, wrap them in those little mesh bags they put jordan almonds in at weddings and tie a little ribbon around it.offer a membership
card which gives its holder discounts on the narcotics they most frequently use, and also send emails periodically to entice them to broaden their narcotic experience. "hey, member, have you tried clomiPRAMINE hydrochloride?? it is pretty awesome and this week only,
save 15%!!"

embarrass greg?? sure, i would love to. greg gave this movie five stars on netflix.com:



various reasons james gunn envies joss whedon:

1) james gunn's creations have never inspired a graphic
novel spin-off
2)ain't nobody dressing as his characters for halloween
3) "james" vs "joss"... one rhymes with "lames" - one rhymes with "boss"
4)joss whedon: wrote the screenplay to serenity.
james gunn: wrote the screenplay to scooby doo.
5)james gunn's audience is "people who go out of their way to buy out of print books." joss whedon's audience ranges from young saucy teenage girls to straight white middle aged men with d&d cloaks in their closets and everything in between, excluding myself.
6)

7)astrologically, joss whedon is a cancer:they are excellent business people and investors because of their intuitive and psychic ability and their creative forward thinking mind, they are able to predict future trends. they attract wealth very well. james gunn is a pouty leo: if leo's audience does not provide the needed appreciation, leo is too proud to ask for it and they will suffer a hurt ego, but no one will ever know and they will suffer in silence. The secret of the leo is that they need to be needed.(and he is still waiting on that second book deal)
8) no one ever mistakes joss whedon for tim gunn, and then has a disappointed face when their mistake is corrected.
9)joss whedon is older and could probably still win at arm-wrestling
10)

pause for more photos:
(i googled pseudo-witty jokes, so i know these are accurate - the first one can count as an additional rhetorical question, so - score!!)

i encourage you to take a stand against alfonso's reign of terror w/r/t book challenges. don't vote for this review, lest it encourage him to greater heights of whackassery: cut off a limb and take a picture of it being used as a bookmark for this book! what is the greenest thing you have ever thought about while pooping?? or some other bizarre shit. it needs to end here - they just don't make the review field large enough to sustain this madness.

i don't know if this counts as a dirty secret, but i learned last night that it is unusual to like this song, but i do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUn0vv.... i am not the kind of person who has secrets that they have never told anyone - i am kind of a blabbermouth with no boundaries or sense of what people want to hear about. i tell complete strangers that i wet myself when i have seizures because i think it is funny and i have an underdeveloped sense of shame. oh, and i like this song,too - but i'm pretty sure it should be shameful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6WwjX.... but i am singing along now and no one can stop me - and i am making wizard-y gestures with my hands - wait it's going to get all guitar-y now -shhhhoooommm. oh, and i love chris deburgh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kNwvI.... i appreciate the theatrical elements of "rock and roll". also, littry.

and finally, i just want to take a moment to apologize for my ancestors. they lived in france, they had sexual intercourse, they moved to canada, they continued to breed and continued to be french and their children were canadian and continued to be canadian and i suppose they could have moved again - perhaps somewhere like finland or bruges, but they did not. and eventually, i came squirting out with my fingers and toes (and tail) and i was just filled with so much frenchness. and canadianness. and i could have changed - i could have
stopped at any time. but i chose not to. and for that, i sincerely apologize. for my "decent."