| VLOG 001: And then literature curled up and cried. |
[22nd Mar. 2010 • 22:37] |
Scene: sunny room within a coffee shop, filled with all kinds of interesting knick-knacks, paintings, and books. In the middle of the frame sits Margaret, sporting a grin, a black eye that’s starting to turn green, and a rather large The Eleventh Hour t-shirt that could easily act as a dress. The couch that she sits on is lumpy but brightly-colored, if not well-loved with stains ahoy. The fact that the room is filled with such beautiful light given the timestamp betrays the fact that the video’s been edited before its post (albeit, for good reason). Other clues to the fact that Maggie’s spent a few hours on the end-product: some unobtrusive background music that savvy watchers would recognize from an early Termite Charmers album and the subtitles that run across the bottom of the screen as she begins to sign. Today, her movements are less exaggerated – probably because she’s trying to negotiate showing everyone a book in her lap in the interim. A note for everyone who’s watching (reading?) at home: double quotes means that yes, Maggie did just air quote. No, really. She is bringing that shit back like it’s hot.
‘So Erin seemed to like it the first time that I reviewed this God-awful series – enough, anyway, that she sent me the sequel. There are supposed to be “more” on the way, the story goes, since we all apparently need more books on the market that are the worst thing to simultaneously happen to literature, fantasy, and feminism since Twilight. It’s popcorn literature, they say, and a sign of the times or what have you, but I think that’s pushing it more than a little bit. Never mind the insult to your audience, for the love of –’ Vigorous hand-waving, head-shaking.
‘No no, I’m getting off-topic. Let me just read you a few snippets of Katy Creger’s The Phoenix Flight, the second in possibly millions of books in The Revenant Chronicles. For those of you not following along at home, living under a rock, are lucky, etcetera etcetera: this is the follow-up to Rebirths.’ A pause. ‘Sorry. I had to gather the bile in my throat and press it down from whence it came.’
A few minutes to flip through to her first chosen passage, then: ‘Still, I’ll offer up a brief plot summary for those fortunate enough to not know yet unfortunate enough to find out: girl meets inexplicably beautiful yet obviously scarred boy on her journey East. Boy struggles with having obvious moments with girl. By the tenth chapter, we abruptly discover that boy is actually a zombie – but no “ordinary” zombie. Oh, no: he’s a super-zombie, everyone, kissed with the beautiful gift of irradiation.’
Eye to the camera, as deadpan as possible given that the woman utilizes ASL: ‘Yeah. I know. I’m insulted too.’
Back to the book: ‘But at any rate – inexplicably, he is a noble undead, constantly struggling with her carnal desires whilst denying his. Those would be “brains,” by the way. Somehow, he turns out to be the hero by only licking her skull once, I guess, and here we are: finally in the Promised Land of the East, where we get such gems as this scene, where girl – er, Renee – confesses, “And then I sat in the den of—”’ An alarm goes off.
‘Oh. Could be late for class if I don’t wrap up now. Suppose this was getting a bit lengthy, anyway. I suppose this post is open for flames of those who are into Creger’s work, but I admit that I’m really more interested in those who can a: give me“excellent” quotes and b: help me convince the populace that The Phoenix Flight really, really sucks. I suppose that’s the benefit of having a narcissistic little corner on here all your own, yeah?’ End scene. |
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