Still Settling In

I mentioned last week that I decided to put my new HDTV on my dresser instead of mounting it on the wall. Since then, I'd inverted my sleeping position to watch TV, not exactly comfortable. Last night between Gran Torino and Leverage, my friends Matt Tedesco and John Ricotta helped swap the positions of my bed and bookcase, so the bed is farthest from the TV, and the room feels roomier. Thanks, guys.

GRAN TORINO

Bigoted Korean war vet Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) reluctantly helps the Hmong family next door, particularly timid son Thao, who's lost his father and is being hazed by his cousin's gang. As Walt gets to know the family, he becomes closer to them than he ever was with his two sons.

In case you haven't guessed, this isn't the most plausible movie. From beginning to end, Kowalski throws his weight around and the other characters yield to it. Similarly, if not for Eastwood's screen presence and directing touch, I may well have hated Walt and dismissed the movie as an afterschool special with profanity and racial invective for flavor.

If I may end the review here and begin the reflection, the first racial slur I recognized was said in jest by my first friend in high school. Others have not been so benign, and I've done my share of ignoring, becoming desensitized. Any minority learns to do this to survive. The dangerous result is that society is desensitized and invective is accepted into discourse as humor. Kowalski isn't rewarded for a life of close-mindedness, but I wonder how many viewers will see that point.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Despite the state of the economy, I have no ill feelings toward 2008. I believe fortune and misfortune happen in equal doses. What we do with them determines their longterm effects. I'm personally optimistic about the future because of all I've learned from the past. As for my country, I reserve celebration for when our elected officials actually succeed.

My two professional highlights of 2008 were the publication of The Lineup Issue 1 in July and attending my first Bouchercon in October, where I got to discuss The Lineup and meet so many people in the mystery community. No personal highlights, nothing like engagement, marriage, or the birth of a child. Then again, luckily, my work is personal to me.

Here are some things I'm looking forward to in 2009:

JANUARY

06: Mannix Season 2 on DVD
11: Fifth anniversary of this blog
20: The Rockford Files Season 6 on DVD

FEBRUARY

10: The Pelican Brief on Blu-ray
13: Dollhouse premieres on FOX

MARCH

03: Wonder Woman (DCAU) on Blu-ray and DVD
10: Family Ties Season 5 on DVD
17: JAG Season 8 on DVD, Reaper returns to The CW

MAY

01: X-Men Origins: Wolverine in theaters.

Getting Clued In to Tie-Ins

My latest column at Mysterical-E explores the field of media tie-ins.

HD-ified

We picked up a new cable box today, completing my upgrade to HD. To make room for it in the budget, we dropped the premium movie channels.

I've decided against a DVR. The ability to record shows isn't worth $9.95 a month when I'd eventually buy the full seasons on DVD.

I've Finally Seen: HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY

Competing for my summer movie dollar, Hellboy II narrowly lost to Iron Man and Indiana Jones. I had a chance to snap it up during DeepDiscount.com's annual DVD sale, but again it narrowly lost to TV series sets, so I was glad to receive the single-disc release as a Christmas present from my cousin Alan and family.

I haven't watched Hellboy in some time, so I can't say in detail how the two compare. I wasn't let down, nor would I say Hellboy II is clearly better. The sequel delivers on the essential character points of the returning cast while offering a more nuanced look at good and evil. The human bystanders Hellboy wants to be accepted by aren't all that innocent. The elven prince looking to wage war on humankind isn't such a bad guy.

While this felt like an episode in a Hellboy series primed to continue, writer-director Guillermo del Toro spends enough time on the details and makes the heroes and villains feel like people first.

Whadja get?

The family Christmas party this year was at my cousin David's house in the mountains of northern New Jersey. After a buffet-style lunch, the time for presents rolled around. You may recall my aunt declared there would be no gift exchange. Several members of the family didn't ask for clarification like I did, and so were in a bind when they realized we were still giving gifts. That's how two sets of cousins gave AMC movie passes.

Actually, the family scored closer to my interests than usual this year:

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Single Disc Edition): If I like it enough, I'll get the Blu-Ray.

Stargate, Stargate: Continuum, and Stargate: Ark of Truth on DVD

A Reader's Digest anthology of four condensed mystery novels

Emergency wind-up flashlight and radio. (They look like a phaser and tricorder. I'm calling them a phaser and tricorder.)

The Gift of Christmas

As a Catholic I take full advantage of Advent, but I wonder if we'd appreciate Christmas more if we didn't spend at least a month building expectations for a single day. Is it any wonder that day seldom lives up to the hype and our spirits take a dive come January?

I've learned to enjoy the things about Christmas no one plans, the fun had with friends, the unpredictable pace of the day. The best gifts are the ones we don't expect or think we deserve, but the ones we're given anyway.

Leverage: "The Miracle Job"

Nate's friend Fr. Paul (D.B. Sweeney) is on his way to petition the city council to save his church when he's attacked by thugs. Behind the attack is the developer poised to use the church land for a shopping plaza. To help Fr. Paul, Nate and the team fake a miracle, but in the resulting notoriety, the developer envisions a theme park built around the church.

This Christmas Eve eve episode was written by my friend Christine Boylan, and I saw flashes of her personality all through it, just as I hoped. (Sophie Devereaux as Willy Loman? Brilliant.) This was the deepest, juiciest episode so far. Good luck to Christine and Leverage. Take care of her, Rogers.

3rd Annual Graham Powell Appreciation Day

December 22 was the day chosen in 2006 by the grateful bloggers tracked on CrimeSpot.net to salute the site's creator, Graham Powell:



...on my list of Favorite Powells up there with Megan Powell, and of course Jamie Powell:

Happy Hiatus

What better time to take down my TV/VCR bracket than the start of broadcast TV's winter hiatus? I'm not sure when the aforementioned 32-inch Toshiba LCD HDTV will be up and running. In the meantime at least I won't fall asleep to TV. Maybe I'll get some reading done.

(UPDATE (12/23/08 6:09 AM): Late last night, my brother helped me set up the aforementioned HDTV on a Lazy Susan at one end of my dresser and hooked up his Christmas present to me, a CD/DVD/Blu-ray player (also known as a PlayStation 3). I can just swivel my desk chair to watch from a healthy distance. A cable box isn't set up yet, but if viewing is good from other favorite spots in the room, the TV will stay where it is. No mounting, no wires up the wall. We'll see.

Shuffling the Deck

I had the urge to redo my work portfolio in the left sidebar. The new version is streamlined, but shows both print and online works. A catalog of my complete works is at Gerald So's Desk.

Nerve Cowboy #26

...just arrived, featuring my poem "Should I marry her?"

Thanks to my mail carrier saving me a trek to the box this snowy day, and thanks again to Joseph Shields and Jerry Hagins.

2008 Best of Me Awards

In the Comments, tell me which of my online stories and/or poems first published in 2008 was your favorite.

Fiction

"Should old acquaintance be forgot?" (S.J. Rozan's Six Word Stories)

"Another Life" (Shred of Evidence)

"Connect the Dots" (Love Hurts Blog Event)

"Smithee Claus"

"Just To Be Different (Shifting Gears Blog Event)

"Decoys" (Yellow Mama)

"Soup of the Day" (Fall Flash Fiction Challenge)

"Only For Good" (Fall Flash Fiction Challenge)


Poetry

"Impression" (My Favorite Bullet)

"Root" (Contemporary Rhyme)

"The Box" (The Hiss Quarterly)

"Another Birthday" (The Hiss Quarterly)

"The Gum-Chewing Girl of My Dreams" (The Hiss Quarterly)

"An English Teacher Rediscovers..." (Asinine Poetry)

"July 7, 2007" (Mouth Full of Bullets)

"Grandpa's Mythology" (Red Fez)

"George Carlin Goes to... ?" (Asinine Poetry)

"Tomatophilia" (Asinine Poetry)

"Jalapeñophobia" (Asinine Poetry)

"In Love with a Stripper Named Lynn" (Asinine Poetry)

"F**k the Figurative" (Asinine Poetry)

"Not Responsible For Typographical Errors" (Defenestration)

"Keeping Up Appearances" (Mannequin Envy)

"After Life" (Radiant Turnstile)

"Sharpening the Sword" (Radiant Turnstile)

"Set For Life" (Radiant Turnstile)

NCIS: "Silent Night"

Three days before Christmas, Gibbs and his team track a former Navy corpsman (Peter Coyote) believed to have died seventeen years earlier, now suspected in the murders of an elderly couple. Adding interest, the investigating officer from Metro is married to one of DiNozzo's ex-girlfriends, and thanks to her prominent father, he's set for life.

Kay Lenz also starred as the suspect's ex-wife but had no scenes with her former Reasonable Doubts love interest Mark Harmon.

Facespotting: Rick Hoffman

On last night's episode of Leverage, he played a New York investor who killed nine horses by fire to collect an insurance payout. Rick Hoffman is one of my favorite character actors whose name I've just discovered after years of calling him "The Beaver" in my head.

It turns out he's just four years my senior, grew up on Long Island, and went to high school at my polling place, so I may have known him even longer.

The Big Bang Theory: "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis"

At the beginning of the season, Penny balked at dating Leonard, thinking she wasn't smart enough for him. It was good to see Leonard take a stand in this Christmas episode, after Penny dates Leonard's smarter, cooler colleague (Michael Trucco).

I also enjoyed seeing what presents Penny, Leonard, and Sheldon exchanged. Presents can convey the closeness of relationships and how well we pay attention to each other at non-gift-giving times of the year.

Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by this episode's longer-than-usual tag, appropriate to the gift-giving.

My Christmas Album

I will call it So, This Is Christmas. So, You Better Watch Out... Hark, The Gerald.

Here are some previously published works with a Christmas theme or mention:

"A Courtship in Cuts"
"Christmas Snapshot"
"It's getting to be that time of year"
"Smithee Claus"

Finally Through the Turnstile

Three of my poems appear in Radiant Turnstile V3. Thanks again to editor Joseph R. Trombatore.

Six Months Notice

Tod Goldberg's second Burn Notice tie-in novel is due out May 5:



We don't have to wait six months for TV's Burn Notice, though. That resumes its second season Thursday, January 22.

2008 Journal Meme

This year's edition of a meme from John Schramm:

Copy and paste the first sentence of your first blog entry for each month this year.

JANUARY

I'm not one for new year's resolutions.

FEBRUARY

The entry title is taken from the last lines of my poem "Root", just published at Contemporary Rhyme, and incidentally sums up my feelings about a January that flipped me off on its way out.

MARCH

Patrick Shawn Bagley, Richie Narvaez, Anthony Rainone, and I have finished scoring submissions for the inaugural issue of The Lineup: Poems on Crime, which will be a 6x9-inch, 40 to 44-page chapbook of work by 14 poets.

APRIL

Today marks ten years online for Kevin Burton Smith's Thrilling Detective Web Site.

MAY

I've added a Twitter widget to the right sidebar.

JUNE

I was all practiced and prepared, sitting just left of the altar to read the Prayer of the Faithful at my cousin Gene's wedding when the overeager first reader bounded up to the podium and read my part.

JULY

The entry title is my way of announcing my two latest poems at AsininePoetry.com, "George Carlin Goes to... ?" and "Tomatophilia".

AUGUST

Now up at AsininePoetry.com, my loose sequel to "Tomatophilia," "Jalapeñophobia".

SEPTEMBER

You haven't watched The Middleman this summer?!

OCTOBER

Fed up with metaphors?

NOVEMBER

My virtual costume for Halloween '08:

DECEMBER

The highest compliment I can pay Quantum of Solace is I believed the conceit that it picks up twenty minutes after Casino Royale.

SAG Strike Possibility Details

Richard Verrier of the Los Angeles Times breaks down SAG's move toward a strike (via Zap2it.com):

...The Screen Actors Guild will mail out strike referendum ballots will be mailed out Jan. 2, with the results due three weeks later, the guild said Wednesday morning.

...A positive strike vote requires 75 percent approval from those who vote and gives the union's board authority to call a strike if all efforts at reaching a contract with the studios fail. Ballots will be tabulated at Integrity Voting Systems in Everett, Wash. Results of the vote will be announced Jan. 23. The national board, which meets on Jan. 24, will have final say on whether to stage a walkout.

The Best of 2008

Best Read (Novel) of 2008:

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler - A lived-in, distinctly-Gischler vision of the future that invites you to forget genres and come along for the ride.

Money Shot by Christa Faust - Hard Case Crime's first female author makes her mark with this engaging, fast, fulfilling read reminiscent of Kill Bill.

Trigger City by Sean Chercover - Following the praiseworthy Big City, Bad Blood with a deeper, better-paced read, Chercover is writing a P.I. series all of today's fans should be reading.

Best Read (Story) of 2008:

"The Quick Brown Fox" by Robert S. Levinson - A once-famous mystery writer tries to revive his career by plagiarizing the work of two prison inmates. Any writer can relate to this story, featuring not one but two nasty twists.

"Hungry Enough" by Cornelia Read - An inventive use of viewpoint and homage to one of P.I. fiction's giants. Well deserving of the PWA's Shamus for Best Short Story.

"Slice of Pie" by Bill Cameron - This slice-of-life story, my introduction to Cameron's fiction, is an example of the best effects of character personality, viewpoint limitation, and stark realism.

Best Movie Seen in 2008:

Iron Man - The casting was a gamble, in my opinion, but Robert Downey Jr. stepped up to make this one of the best-executed, bar-raising superhero movies. Batman, Schmatman.

Kung Fu Panda - Another surprise to me, with a script that shines.

The Forbidden Kingdom - Jackie Chan and Jet Li's first movie together delivers on its hype. Excellent modern take on a timeless story.

Best Writing Experience of 2008:

"Paperback Lover" - I was finally able to express my appreciation for softcovers in a poem appropriate to the economy, too. I'm currently shopping this one around.

"Connect the Dots" - My story for Patti Abbott's Love Hurts blog event.


This was the year of my first Bouchercon. It was aces all around and I hope to have the chance to attend more.

A Marshmallow Blog

With his talents for gardening and origami, my father put up one heck of a Christmas display with fewer lights than our neighbors, it seemed. We've decorated more modestly since he passed. I don't know that we'll do it at all this year, so I've decided to decorate my blog for the holidays. What do you think?

Of course, I believe having the holiday spirit within is more important than any display, and we have that despite the frosty economy. Peace and good will to all. May this season remind us to cherish all we have and hearten us for the future.

Get Some LEVERAGE

I'll be watching the commercial-free premiere of Leverage tonight at 10 on TNT. "The series follows a team of thieves, hackers and grifters who act as modern-day Robin Hoods, taking revenge against those who use power and wealth to victimize others."

The show sounds right up my alley, but also, my friend Christine Boylan is on the writing staff.

UPDATE (12:00 AM): Claiming his designs have been stolen, an airline CEO (Saul Rubinek) hires a hacker, some muscle, and a female daredevil (Aldis Hodge, Christian Kane, and Beth Riesgraf respectively) to steal them back. He appeals to ex-insurance investigator Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton) to run the team. When the team realizes they've been scammed, they decide to run a scam in return.

Leverage is a fast-paced show with characters who are distinct enough and yet have good chemistry together, and the whole dish is served with a sense of fun. The series moves to Tuesdays 10 PM this week, and I will follow.

Friday's Forgotten Book: MAKING SHAPELY FICTION by Jerome Stern

One of my teachers at Queens College, Jeffery Renard Allen, included this book on the suggested reading list for his graduate fiction workshop. By that time I had written several stories of the kind that hit in bolts of inspiration. I wasn't consciously aware of the forms stories could take, so the concept of Stern's book appealed to me, and the book itself delivered. I read and absorbed much of it at the time and just rediscovered it reorganizing my shelves this week.

Making Shapely Fiction not only illustrates how classic story types work, it also has a pragmatically brief section of coaching, a glossary of literary terms, and its own suggested reading list. I recommend it if you're not sure your idea is a story, or as you decide what structure your story should take.

Reaper Returns March 17

Details from Zap2it.com.

A Sensible Move

About six years ago, my dad's projection TV shorted out for the last time. My brother (DVD enthusiast long before I) said the TV room actually wasn't good for TV, so we never got around to replacing it.

I'm hanging a 32-inch Toshiba HD TV in my bedroom/home office in the near future, which means I'll be watching most DVDs in said room. Today I've begun switching books from the case in my bedroom for DVDs in what used to be the TV room.

Your Mileage May Vary

Yesterday on First Offenders, Alison Gaylin asked for e-mail pet peeves. I commented:

I'm peeved when people treat e-mail and blogging more casually than "real writing". Any writing is more formal than talking because we all have the chance to polish our writing. Each of us chooses to take that chance or not. If you don't polish your writing, you shouldn't be surprised if people think you lazy or ignorant. Rosie O'Donnell's blog entry on the failure of her variety special comes to mind:

"There will b no more[...]still a thrill 4 me"

I start e-mail conversations with a salutation. With a friend, I might just use her name. This reminds me of the chance I have to craft my language. For a continuing conversation, I quote what I want to reply to, skip a line, and reply. As an e-list moderator, I've seen how many people simply quote entire (and sometimes several) messages with no regard for a recipient's download speed.

I do distinguish texting from blogging and e-mail. Texting is faster, so more errors are made, and abbreviating can make for fewer total messages, saving money.


I admit I've corrected two typos from my original comment. I mention them in follow-up comments on First Offenders.

I've Finally Seen: QUANTUM OF SOLACE

The highest compliment I can pay Quantum of Solace is I believed the conceit that it picks up twenty minutes after Casino Royale. Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and the other returning actors are on their game. The overarching mission to uncover the organization behind Mr. White drives the action at the same breathless pace. I wouldn't mind if all Craig's Bond movies kept this continuity.

That said, Quantum of Solace doesn't make much of a mark on its own. Bond is so driven it's difficult not to see the new characters Camille and Agent Fields as plot devices. Mathieu Amalric as villain Dominic Greene unfortunately reminded me of a cross between Ioan Gruffudd and Paul Reubens. Director Marc Forster makes some odd stylistic choices (Intercutting Bond chasing down a traitor with a horse race? Intrusive location titles a la Fringe?), but these stick out because the rest of the tone is maintained between the two movies.

Quantum of Solace won't disappoint those who enjoyed Casino Royale, neither will it convert those who didn't.