David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 229
July 3, 2014
I Love Time Changes
I love time changes. Just adore the horrid little things. I love spending a bunch of time in a different time zone and then getting totally screwed up when I try to go home. Love it. Might not be a big thing, but I just can’t get enough of the putrid situation.
Take my recent morning back from Eastern time, for instance. It isn’t even a big change from my time zone, but it’s apparently enough. I set my alarm my first day back so I could get up for work. I woke up before my alarm and decided just to shut it off and get out of bed because it was so close.
Only, it wasn’t within a couple of minutes like I first thought. Once I fully woke up, I realized I didn’t need to get up for another half hour. I could have kept sleeping. However, by that point I was fully awake and my alarm was off. I had no choice but to get up.
It was just confusion from adjusting to the time difference, and utterly insignificant in any scheme of things, but it was such a joy. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Stupid time zones.
July 2, 2014
Vet Mistakes My Cat’s Body Language
My vet seems to know a lot about cats and have a good rapport with them, but I have doubts about his ability to read their body language. It works, so I won’t really question it, but he missed the obvious explanation.
One of my cats is littler than the others. She’s very passive, sweet in fact. Twice now we’ve had to take her in for shots. Once was immunizations and once was to get a steroid shot to minimize her allergies. Both times when the vet gave her the shot, the cat immediately turned and nuzzled him.
“Boy,” he said the first time, or something akin to that, “she forgives quickly.” “Man,” he said the second time, or something along those lines (reported by my wife since I wasn’t able to be there either time), “she really likes being petted.” I think he was wrong on both.
What the cat was doing seems pretty obvious. He gave her a shot and she immediately tried to cuddle up to him so he wouldn’t do it again. See how much I love you? You wouldn’t hurt me again, would you? It might not be the most effective strategy, but it’s the only one this cat has got. Seems pretty logical to me.
July 1, 2014
I’m Confused About The Barnes and Noble Nook News But Not Enough To Investigate
I was a little confused today to hear that Barnes and Noble was spinning off their Nook unit into a separate company. This primarily confused me because I thought they had done that already. Either way, it turns out that I’m not interested enough to sort it out.
Maybe it was just that someone else made the actual hardware devices and now they are fully going over to the e-book side of the operation being someone else as well. I don’t know. What’s more, I just can’t seem to care.
I never even really thought about getting a Nook. I got a Kindle, but only the cheapest I could actually get. Mine shows ads when I’m not doing something else. It doesn’t bother me, because I only use it to read public domain books, electronic review copies people sent me, and a rare Kindle only book. Everything else, I buy in print. As such, Nook was right out. I never even thought about it.
Apparently no one else did either.
Still, this must be news to somebody. It just seems like this already happened. Don’t worry Barnes and Noble, I’ll still buy real books at your stores sometimes…just not anywhere near as often as I will at Tattered Cover, Powells, or the like.
June 30, 2014
Shouldn’t We Do Something Different The Second Time Around If We Remake Movies?
There seem to have been a number of remakes in the last few years, movies that were perfectly fine when originally made but for some reason someone decided to do an entirely different version. Maybe there haven’t been any more than usual, but it seems like it to me.
And maybe there is a reason when this happens. People want to do it over again with better special effects, better acting. Something. But, as I understand it since I don’t end up seeing many of these, most seem just like newly filmed versions of the original.
If we’re going through all the work of remaking a movie, or watching a remake, shouldn’t we do something different the second (or third or more) time around? We have the chance to do something new, and we already have the old. Only so much use for an almost identical movie with just different people.
Just consider. We could do something like remake the Rocky movies but cast Henry Kissinger instead of Sylvester Stallone. He could talk in a monotone at people instead of hitting them, put them to sleep. It’d be hysterical. I’d definitely watch that.
See? Isn’t it just a waste of time doing the same movie over in the same way? My idea is much better. Too bad no one in Hollywood listens to me.
June 29, 2014
Pizza Bed Not As Good As It Looks
I got very excited when I heard about the pizza bed:
However, then I looked into it and realized it wasn’t as good as it looks. It’s just a cover that looks like pizza, not actual pizza. What a rip off.
It’s probably for the best, though. It seems like a great idea, but I doubt pizza would serve well long term as a bedding solution. Mess, rot, vermin, cholesterol, there are all kinds of potential problems that would have potentially come up had this been really real.
Besides…what if you have multiple people using the same bed? Would anyone be able to agree on what should be on the pizza bed? Topping issues could divide relationships permanently. Probably best that this is only a dream.
As a merely pictorial cover however, it doesn’t appeal to me much.
June 28, 2014
Have You Read My Short Fiction?
Have you read my short fiction? Would you like to? Here’s as many as I could find that were easily accessible online. Just click around and check out what you like:
- “In Pursuit of Art: Drinking NyQuil at Pharmacies” published May 23, 2014 at Paragraph Line.
- “I contemplate the humble potato” published April 14, 2014 at Cease, Cows.
- “There’s a rabbit living under my kitchen sink….” published January 3, 2014 in Paragraph Line.
- “Trying to Explain” published November 22, 2013 over at This Zine Will Change Your Life.
- “Turndown Service” published in the Spring 2014 issue of The Writing Disorder.
- “Home Improvement” published in issue #4 of C4: The Chamber Four Lit Mag.
- “Happy Trails” published June 10, 2013 in Martian Lit.
- “They’re All Out To Get Me” published in the April issue of The Fat City Review.
- “Changes for the Château” published in Issue 4 (May 2013) of Swamp Biscuits and Tea.
- “Cents of Wonder Rhymes With Orange” published March 2013 in issue no. 7 of Thrice Fiction.
- “The Unknowable Agenda of Ursines” published October 16, 2012 in issue 43 of Crack the Spine, page 6.
- “G-Men” published in the Summer 2012 issue of JMWW.
- “The War” published in the Winter 2012 issue of The Writing Disorder.
- “Counter Spring” published in Volume 6 of Interrobang?! Magazine.
- “Context Driven” published in the Spring 2012 issue of The Zodiac Review.
- “Domestic Ties” published in August 30, 2011 in Atticus Review.
- “Boys Chase Girls” published in issue #3 of Split Quarterly.
- “Stranger” published in issue #2 of C4: The Chamber Four Lit Mag.
June 27, 2014
Game Pieces That Suck
I admit it, I’ve always been a fan of products with game pieces. You know the sort of thing, a sticker on the product you can peel off to see if you’ve won. I remember McDonald’s running a big one of these for the summer Olympics back in the early 80s. I loved them. I was gullible enough to buy products just to get them.
However, more and more of these have turned into things where what you actually get is a code you enter online to enter the contest instead of an instant win or not. I’m not doing that.
Granted, there are some that still have an instant win and you only enter a code if you lose that to try to get on board for some other prize level. Still, I don’t much care for the direction this is going. I’m not entering a code from a game piece. I’m just not. I don’t care if it’s a quick QR code to scan, I’m not doing it.
My love for game pieces is dwindling as this becomes more common.
Of course, very few companies care what I think. I don’t even really think that they should. However, I do know that my emotional response to these game pieces is changing. If tearing off the sticker isn’t the dispositive step, it’s just not that cool.
June 26, 2014
I Apparently Don’t Know Who Ryan Gosling Is
I apparently don’t know who Ryan Gosling is. I realized this recently.
For a long time now, I kept hearing people talking about Ryan Gosling. For some reason, I kept thinking he was the guy from that reality show with the Kate woman about their life with all their kids. I knew the guy from that show was big in the news for a while in celebrity circles after him and Kate got divorced.
I don’t know why I thought this, but I did.
But then I remembered recently that the title of that show, which I never watched but was aware of, was Jon & Kate Plus 8. This clued me in to the fact that Ryan Gosling was apparently not that guy, given that Ryan isn’t named Jon. So I knew for certain I was thinking of the wrong guy.
However, that still didn’t clue me in to who Ryan Gosling is. I don’t know now…and I’m not really feeling it necessary to find out.
June 25, 2014
Koch Brothers Ruined!
This just in! The Koch brothers have been ruined! Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, wealthy industrialists and conservative political masterminds, have been tricked out of all their money! Sources point to a conspiracy involving Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, and frozen orange juice concentrate futures.
According to reports, the Koch brothers had a bet that they could turn a rich man poor and a poor man rich. As such, they manipulated Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd to turn Mr. Murphy into a stockbroker and Mr. Aykroyd into a prostitutes companion. However, Murphy and Aykroyd got wise and decided to turn the tables, working out a complex scheme involving a fraudulent crop report and the area of the stock market trading floor dedicated to frozen orange juice concentrate futures.
The Koch brothers were bankrupted.
It is unknown at this time what involvement Jamie Lee Curtis may have had in all of this, though rumors indicate that she played some part. However, there are always rumors about Curtis.
Frankly, the only hope that the Koch brothers have is that Eddie Murphy will at some point be an African prince who is trying to find a bride in America and needs to dispose of the petty cash that his assistant has ordered from the king without authorization. Only then could they be back in business.
The nation will just have to wait and see.
June 24, 2014
Ten Things I Love About “The Great Gatsby”
(Note: a while ago a lit review site I do stuff for occasionally needed something quick to run in an emergency and they asked me to do the following post. Then, the emergency resolved before it ran and they didn’t end up needing it. They were going to work it in at some point, but there has just been too much actual content for them to run. Finally, I just decided to use it as a post here instead.)
It feels weird to site down and talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, kind of like a barbarian wandering into a cathedral for the first time. I even took off my shoes (seriously), because I heard a voice whisper that the ground upon which I walked was hallowed (okay, I’m playing around about the second part).
Now, anyone who knows me knows that I hate picking lists of favorite anything. I hate rankings in general. My mood simply changes over time and what I might pick one moment, presuming I could pick, would be different the next. That goes for books as well. I refuse all requests to say what my all time favorites are. Still, I do have a group of books that I consider shining more radiant than all other gems. Gatsby is definitely one of those.
However, I didn’t want to review Gatsby. I’ve seen such good reviews that I didn’t feel the need to. Even more than that, it was more than I thought I could chew. I preferred just to think about Gatsby once in a while, revel in it. But…I was willing to sit down and pick out things I loved about The Great Gatsby, so that is what I will do.
Mind you, this is not going to be a ranked list, or even a list of any kind. It will be a meandering set of thoughts because that is how I often think about Gatsby…and I do think about it often. Heck, it won’t even be exactly ten because I don’t like the rigidity of that. I’ll just blather on and you can count back later if you want.
One thing I love about this book is its hauntingly beautiful ache. The simultaneously hopeful yet inherently tragic quality of the story calls to me in ways few books do. Mind you, this includes much of Fitzgerald. Most of the time, his fiction is so depressing, yet extremely powerful, that I feel like I want to blow my brains out when I’m done reading. But, not Gatsby. This book is undeniably tragic, yet at the same time it reminds me of all that is best about humanity and life. We are doomed, but beautifully so. I can’t really put it any better than that.
Another think I love about The Great Gatsby is the way that it has utterly invaded my life. Not only do I sit back and think on it regularly, as well as re-read it again once every few years, but I even find myself responding to situations in life by attempting to quote the book. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made fun of someone by referring to him or her as an “Oggsford man.” There are few books that have worked their way into my brain’s processing cycles like that.
Next, I love the way that Fitzgerald made Gatsby’s love so thoroughly, thoroughly doomed. This isn’t just a love story that gets thwarted by surprise factors; this was rotten through and through. I don’t blame Daisy, but it’s a hard thing to get over that she needed Jay to be rich. She may have loved him, but not enough–certainly not as much as Jay loves her. No matter what, something was going to thwart things. There was just no question, no matter how much I hope each time that I read that it turned out otherwise.
Also, let’s talk about the emotional hammer Fitzgerald slips in from time to time. Consider the moment when Daisy wishes that her daughter turns out to be “a beautiful little fool.” BAM! That’s Fitzgerald hitting you in the forehead with a sniper round. It’s such a perfect moment that it smacks right into the reader’s emotional core and festers there.
Of course, I also love the way that this book has worked its way into non-reading culture. If a book is truly good, even people who don’t read know about it. Off the top of my head, I can immediately remember the South Park episode where the kids get tested for ADD by being read a passage of Gatsby and then asked what kind of car Gatsby had been driving. There are many, many others.
Further, I shouldn’t forget the way that Fitzgerald redeems Nick for me. Much of his function in the book as an observer, which would make him kind of worthless for me, but he doesn’t entirely stay that way. His shout of how Gatsby’s “worth the whole damn bunch of them put together” works wonders. Gatsby may be a crook, but he is one of the most human crooks I’ve ever seen. He is certainly more human than Daisy or Tom, or the rest. Observer novels often don’t have the observer take sides. This one does, just a little bit, and I think it needed to.
But, what I love most about The Great Gatsby is the way that it parallels my view of life. Who knows, maybe that’s where I get my view. I first read the book over twenty years ago and it made a big impression on me. My take on the entire book is entirely in the last passage. Human life is all about that fruitless striving for that green light. We know it will remain forever elusive, but someday… To that end “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Gatsby, Gatsby, Gatsby, Gatsby… What else can I say? What else would I need to say? All the talk in the world won’t convey what I love about this book to you. Either you’ll read it and understand yourself, or you won’t.
