dr_phil_physics | Entries tagged with criticism

What Does Unemployment Look Like?

It looks like some biowarfare map of an airborne Ebola or just plain ol' H1N1 epidemic. But someone has made an animated map of the US showing the wave of unemployment county by county over the last two years. Note that most of Michigan starts off in the purple-black range.

"Houston, we've lost a country."

Of Course...

10% unemployment also means 90% employment -- though even that feel-good stat doesn't translate any of the subtlety of quality employment, suitable health care coverage, job satisfaction, worker portability or underemployment.

Dammit, reality sucks.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: bitchy

In Case, Like Me, You Don't Know What's Going On

In my previous post, I talked about the huge midnight success of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the second movie based on the series of books by Stephenie Meyer.

Now as I said, I haven't read the books and I haven't seen either movie. But online friend

jeffsoesbe provided a link to

glvalentine's post on New Moon and I think it very worthwhile for all to read. Now I don't know Genevieve Valentine, but this review (with spoilers) is hilarious and very educational. (grin)

Okay, so it's an outrageous snarkfest and sure to irritate anyone who is a Twilight fan. (evil-grin) The one saving grace is that

glvalentine felt that the audience laughed at some of the ineptitude of the film and wonders whether the appeal is more one of camp than Serious Love. Otherwise, one worries for the self-image and sanity for a whole generation of young women...

My job, I think, is done here.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: amused

Twilight Of The Sparkly Midnight New Moon

Say what you will about Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books, but they are popular. And the two movies? Huge.

To give you some idea, let's point out that the Grand Rapids area biggest line this week was not at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Woodland Mall. No, we're talking about the midnight showings for Twilight: New Moon.

Long considered the staple of SF/F and Star Wars and Star Trek geeks, the midnight showings locally were taken over by a largely female crowd of all ages. Only a teen phenomenon? Oh, puh-leese. Pictures on the local news and in the Grand Rapids Press showed many middle-aged women who were not all mothers chaperoning their teens or pre-teens.

When Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened on 19 May 1999, Studio 28 had a midnight showing in Theatre 1, then had it running in 3 other theatres for the first 24 hours. Fast forward to 2009 and while Studio 28 is gone, the same chain's Celebration North mulitiplex opened New Moon in all 17 non-IMAX theatres at midnight -- over 3500 seats -- and sold out. Systemwide, they sold something like 14,200 midnight tickets, exceeded only by one of the Harry Potter's at 14,600 (and Celebration North opened it in 14 theatres at midnight).

While some of this is marketing and choosing to open extra theatres and offer more seats for the midnight showings, one needs to point out another set of interesting factoids about West Michigan: (1) this was on a school night and (2) with (most?) West Michigan schools on trimesters, final exams start like on Friday. And still the teens contributed to the surge.

The Inevitable Complaints

Last Sunday, I showed up for part of a 10am panel at WindyCon 36 on "Rowling and Meyer" and what young readers are reading. J.K. Rowling's writing poor and predictable? Stephenie Meyer can't write either and her vampires aren't (sniff) canonical? Does not seem to be hurting the sales, folks. Even the NPR news quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on Saturday tried to argue that all these Twilight fans are going to be unprepared to go up against real vampires. (grin)

Look, I haven't read any of the Twilight novels or seen the movies. And I know some people who have and their heads didn't explode -- some of them really like them. But they are successful and I won't begrudge either writer, stars or studio their success. Did I mention that Mister Werewolf in New Moon is a local boy from Michigan? (grin) While not all these readers and moviegoers are going to become lifelong SF/F fans of all genres, there will be some who go on to read more books and see more movies.

A rising tide raises all boats. Wrestling a tsunami is a little harder. (grin)

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: complacent

Disappearing For An Hour Or So

There are days when I wonder why I bother to write a blog, because so few postings get comments, compared to some of the blogs I follow. But that's crap -- I write because I want to write. It's a journal that just happens to be online. That few people comment isn't that big a deal because I know that only a small fraction of readers tend to comment anyway.

Even worse, though, I cannot figure out how one can survive when you regularly get hundreds or even over a thousand comments on a particular post. One of the reasons I don't spend a lot of time at the Nielsen Hayden's Making Light is because I just can't afford the time to wade through all the comments -- because some of them are interesting.

Now, there is a point to all this.

That Old Literary Versus Genre "Debate"

It's been going on for a long time, and the current one I've run into a couple of times in the last few days, but have resisted going deep into it. But... one writer I follow on LiveJournal is

nihilistic_kid Nick Mamatas. I've mentioned Nick before and he's an acquired taste, but I appreciate the way he uses language as precisely as he can, though not everyone appreciates that.

So this is all part of a much larger discussion literary versus genre, but I found this gem from Nick starting here and working south:

2. I'd contend that SF/F requires enormous amounts of work on the part of the reader. The ability to sit through lengthy infodumps on means of propulsion, the neologisms, the immense casts of characters and endless 800-page volumes that take place over the course of generations, the many references to earlier literature, outright didacticism on everything from statecraft to sexual politics, and the topic of science in general require significant synoptic facilities and patience from readers. Many many readers simply slam shut a book when the first page contains many crazy terms and weird names--for these readers complex or unusual sentences about the everyday is LESS work than trying to read SF/F. This may be one reason why many adult SF/F readers come to the hobby as children while relatively few people start reading SF/F as adults--one needs years of experience to read the contemporary material in the field.

Okay, Forget The Topical Debate (grin)

To me this is a nice statement both on why some people really get into SF/F and why some can't. I look at my own novel I am currently editing and realize that I do ask my future readers to work some. Whether it is sellable, whether anyone else will think it's any good -- or at least entertaining -- I am too close to my own writing to say.

But it's a statement I can resonate with.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: amused

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Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Those Who Lie In Wait, Dream Deep

Entries tagged with criticism

A Map Of Unemployment

A Blazing New Moon Crashes And Burns

A Blazing New Moon Erupts

I Should Know Better Than To Get Into This

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April 2016

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