Lessons in (il)Literacy: Ayn Rand

This post is the first in what I cynically expect hope will become a series of my favourite bad quotes in literature/academic writing. I have a few examples ready to go but hopefully I'll find more as I go along. Basically the idea is just to share the best examples of terrible writing by widely liked respected known authors. To start things off with a bang, I want to share an old favourite quote from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Slight disclaimer: I haven't actually read Atlas Shrugged in its entirety. I tried to get through it just to experience the batshit-crazy curious objectivist philosophy, mostly because my interest had been piqued by the game Bioshock. However, about 80 pages into the "timeless" classic I put the book down in disgust, partially at the politics but more so at the writing. It was just so... I'm not sure what the right word for it is. Pathetic, disgusting, amateur, horrendous, these are all words that come to mind, but none of them seem quite right. I'll just let the quote below speak to the general quality of the prose. It's always stood out to me as one of the most simultaneously painful and hilarious few sentences I've ever read, so hopefully you can get some sort of kick out of it too.

Eddie Willers shook his head, as the screech of a -rusty mechanism changing a traffic light stopped him on the edge of a curb. He felt anger at himself. There was no reason that he had to remember the oak tree tonight. It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness—and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark.

Max Landis' The Death and Return of Superman

Max Landis, son of director John Landis, is the writer behind the recently released Chronicle, a film about three high school friends who get superpowers and "make an amazing discovery." I haven't heard anything about the movie but its synopsis isn't exactly inspiring, and when I saw the trailer I initially thought I was watching an old ad for either Hancock or Heroes. Those are both bad signs. However the movie seems to be doing relatively well critically so maybe it's better than it looks. I'll probably check it out. But none of that is what I'm posting about today.

In (what I assume is) a move to support Chronicle, the younger Landis has released a short film in which he rants about the (apparently terrible) mid-90s comic series The Death and Return of Superman. In case you need the painfully obvious pointed out to you, it's a comic wherein Superman dies and then comes back to life. Because he wasn't already being compared to Jesus enough already. Anyway, the Death and Return storyline is generally panned as being emblematic of everything that was wrong with modern comics in the 90s, namely that they relied on big crossovers/events that shocked people into buying issues that lacked actual substance. So in the video Landis breaks down how terrible this Superman storyline is, point by (hilarious) point, and also discusses the underlying comic-industry-executives rationale behind the whole event. Meanwhile various celebrities (Mandy Moore, Elijah Wood, etc) act out what Landis describes in a similar fashion to the always incredible Drunk History videos.

If you've taken the time to read this far into the post then for your own sake please take 15 more minutes to watch the video below. It's hilarious, insightful, and kinda made me want to check out Chronicle. Also I promise to make this my last post about comics for a while, it's only now dawning on me that there have been a lot of them lately.

 

(Via Topless Robot)

Ugh x 1,000,000: DC Announces 'Before Watchmen'

Today DC comics finally gave in and announced its inevitable 'Before Watchmen' line, seven mini-series that will act as prequels to Allan Moore's classic Watchmen. Each mini-series will feature one of Moore's characters/groups as its central focus, with one depicting the history of Dr. Manhattan (wait, didn't we get that in the original series?) and another featuring the tale of the Crimson Corsair...

... Seriously? For real? As if this didn't seem enough like a cash-grab already, they actually had to go and dedicate an entire mini-series to the Crimson Corsair? Sigh... Only slightly less horrifying is the promo image for Rorschach #1 (seen below) that depicts the character in a sort of goon-like pose silhouetted on his own face... Yeah...

Anyway, I would link you directly to DC's press release but as of this writing the DC website seems to be down. Perhaps Anonymous lashed out at them in response to this news. Either way, I read about this at Topless Robot and/or /Film, but the news is everywhere.

They're Making Escape from New York In Space

Seriously. Watch this new trailer for Lockout, it's just Escape from New York but in space instead of New York. And that sounds absolutely awesome. John Carpenter's classic is one of my all times favourite films, and Lockout is written by Luc Besson, the guy responsible films like The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, and Taken. This movie is going to be derivative, superficial, possibly even forgettable, but I'm excited for it all the same. who doesn't like to see an archetypal badass break into a maximum security space prison to save the president's daughter?

 

The Liebster Awards

The other day an old friend of mine commented on a recent post saying he was nominating me for a Liebster Award. At first I took this as just a few kind words but upon further research I've discovered that the award is real! Sort of!

Stemming from the German word for "dearest," a Liebster is a pay-it-forward, feel-good award for under-known blogs (ouch?). Basically the system works like this:

1) You get nominated for the award
2) You make a post accepting said award (you're reading this now)
3) You nominate five other blogs you enjoy that are under read (less than 200 regular readers)
4) The cycle continues

A quick Google search reveals the many winners out there, and by definition they're sure to be awesome-but-unknown blogs. My friend John over at Tauroscatology nominated me on his blog, so I guess that means I can't nominate him. Regardless you should check his stuff out because he's a great writer, and I'm sure the other blogs he nominated are fantastic too!

On that note, here are my nominations (in no particular order):

1) The Daily Protagitron - My good friend Martha's awesome blog about awesome things like movies, beer, books, knitting, etc. I always enjoy keeping tabs on what she's up to via her blog and it's a great way to find out about new, interesting stuff I hadn't come across on my own. And again, she writes about movies, books, and beer people. It's great!

2) Textual Relations - Maybe the least regularly updated of the blogs I'm nominating, Textual Relations covers books, academia, feminism, and Internet culture. If you know/care about my blog/opinions enough to be reading this sentence then you can probably understand why I'd enjoy reading about all those things. If you're at all interested in any of those subjects then you'll love this blog.

3) JusticeBlawg (specifically posts by Johanna under the name lawunion) - I recently featured Johanna's post about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on this blog, and this seems like another good opportunity to mention her work. Johanna's quickly becoming one of my favourite voices to read on the Internet as she's both well thought out and opinionated (a sorely rare combination) AND approaches her subjects with a candour that is beyond refreshing (both in terms of its source and the context in which it arises). It's a bit on the academic/lengthy side (hell, so is this recommendation) but if you're into that this blog/author is well worth your time.

4) Experience Points - Not totally sure if this qualifies as an "under read" blog as per the Liebster rules, but I'm realizing now that I don't really gravitate towards unknown blogs. Insert self-reflective comment about "I shouldn't only pay attention to loud voices in a big crowd" here, etc. Anyway, Experience Points is a wonderful blog that takes an "intelligent but not humourless" look at video games. This blog has definitely helped inform some of my Games As Art posts in the past and continues to be a great source for serious commentary and discussion of one of my favourite mediums.

5) ... Ok I'm throwing in the towel now. I seriously cannot come up with any more blogs I know that are criminally under-read and shouldn't be. If I can think of another blog then I'll post an update to this later, but for now that's it for my Liebster nominations. I feel like on some level I've failed the Internet as a blogger today by not being more up on other awesome but unknown sites, and for that I apologize. I'll do better in the future, I promise.

As something of a compensation I am going to give props to one of my favourite (though definitely not unknown) blogs, Topless Robot. There Rob Bricken and his cohorts post hilarious, snarky comments on geek news, daily lists of amazing things you never knew you wanted to read about. It's a wonderful place to lose yourself for a few hours and come out on the other side more uselessly informed about nerd/pop/Japanese culture than you ever wanted/needed to be.

Anyway, that's it for my Liebster noms! Here's hoping you enjoy the blogs I've linked to, let me know in the comments if there are any I missed that I really ought to mention, I'm sure I'll think of some within moments of posting this piece!