* * * * *

THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING
by Taylor Mali

Has this ever happened to you?
You work very very horde on a paper for English clash
And still  get a very glow raid – like a D or even a D=
and all because you are the liverwurst spoiler in the whale wide word.
Yes, proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence.

Now, this is a problem that affects manly, manly students all over the word.
I myself was such a bed spiller once upon a term
that my English torturer in my sophomoric year,
Mrs. Myth,  she said I would never get into a good colleague.
And that’s all I wanted, that’s all any kid wants at that age, just to get into a good colleague.
And not just anal community colleague, either,
because I’m not the kind of guy who would be happy at anal community colleague.
I needed a place that would offer me intellectual simulation,
I really need to be challenged, challenged menstrually.
I need a place that can offer me intellectual simulation.
So I know this probably makes me sound like a stereo,
but I really felt that I could get into an ivory legal colleague.
So if I did not improvement
then gone would be my dream of going to Harvard, Jail, or Prison
(you know, in Prison, New Jersey).

So I got myself a spell checker
and figured I was on Sleazy Street.

But there are several missed aches
that a spell checker can’t can’t catch catch.
For instant, if you accidentally leave out word
your spell checker won’t put it in you.
And God for billing purposes only
you should have serial problems with Tori Spelling
your spell Chekhov might replace a word
with one you had absolutely no detention of using.
Because, I mean, what do you want it to douche?
No, it only does what you tell it to douche.
You¹re the one sitting in front of the computer scream, with your hand on the mouth going clit, clit, clit.
It just goes to show you how embargo
one careless little clit of the mouth can be.

Which reminds me of this one time during my Junior Mint.
The teacher took the paper that I had written on A Sale of Two Titties
(no, I am cereal, I’m cereal!)
and she read it out loud in front of  all of my assmates.
It was, quite possibly, one of the most humidifying experiences I have ever had,
being laughed at like that pubically.

So do yourself a flavor and follow these two Pisces of advice:
One:  There is no prostitute for careful editing of your own work, no prostitute whatsoever.
And three:  When it comes to proofreading,
the red penis your friend.

(Spank you)

* * * * *

Technorati: funny, mali, poem, taylor, text, the the impotence of proofreading

Stephen King’s new book is named “Under the Dome” and it’s gonna be out on November 10, 2009… that’s Tuesday, next week.  Below is a short synopsis of what the book will be about, straight from Amazon.Com:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when–or if–it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens–town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing–even murder–to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

Sounds very interesting, doesn’t it?  Here’s another teaser review from Publisher’s Weekly, the people who almost always have something good to say about Stephen King’s work:

King’s return to supernatural horror is uncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling. When the smalltown of Chester’s Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome’s ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions. Readers will recognize themes and images from King’s earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn’t have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it’s a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Wow, sounds MIGHTY interesting, indeed!  From what I can see, this book seems to contain elements of at least two of his earlier works, the “mega” novel The Stand, and the novella The Mist.  The premise of ordinary people trapped in an extraordinary situation, trapped in a claustrophobic state, with the underlying fear of what is outside, of what is unknown, and of what is slowly approaching them.  A story that suggests a dichotomy of morals, of good versus evil, peppered with a giant cast and an even bigger dilemma.  Instead of a massive, roiling mist outside a grocery store that people want to keep out, we get a big dome that surrounds a small town keeping the inhabitants IN.

(Wait a minute, isn’t this very similar to the premise of the Simpsons movie?)

In any case, it sounds very interesting, and I will, once again, run (not walk) to my nearest bookstore and make sure that I get my gnarled, trembling hands on this damn book… as if I’m not behind on my book-reading already.  Hell, I just bought Robert Jordan’s The Gathering Storm last Saturday, with plans of reading the first eleven books in the series first so I’ll remember what the fuck is happening … so how the hell can I sneak this one into my reading schedule?

Bah… does it matter?  It’s a Stephen King book… I’m on it like white on rice…

* * * * *

Technorati: 10, 2009, dome, king, mist, november, stand, stephen, the, under

I’ve known about the book’s impending release for a few months now, but when it was finally released last week, I had a somewhat lukewarm enthusiasm to run out to the nearest bookstore and buy it.  This was a far cry from several years ago, when I was even waiting for the bookstore to open so I can be one of the first to read it.  A lot of it stems from the way the series has progressed in the last three to four books.  The pace had slowed down to a crawl, there were more characters being introduced that it almost rivalled War and Peace, and the “beginning of the end” was nowhere in sight.  While I appreciate long, rich tales like The Lord of the Rings, The Sword of Truth and The Dark Tower series, I somehow felt that more than ten books and almost twenty years of telling that single story is really pushing it…  

* * * * *

The Eye of the World

I started reading The Wheel of Time in my second year of college in the Philippines (1992), and back then I had to take a long, hard commute to National Bookstore in Baclaran, which was the closest bookstore that carried fantasy books.  Back then I was deeply immersed in the works of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dan Simmons and Brian Lumley (to name a few), and the only “hard” fantasy fiction I have encountered was Tolkien’s Lord the Rings and Joel Rosenberg’s Sleeping Dragon.  Being someone who liked tales that spanned more than one book, I quickly took notice of a group of paperbacks at the bottom of the fantasy/horror shelf that had very interesting cover art. 

The three books that I saw were The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn – the first three books of the Wheel of Time series, written by someone called Robert Jordan.  Thinking that it was a trilogy a’la LoTR, I read the synopsis at the back, found it interesting, and quickly grabbed those three books and headed for the cashier.  When I got back to my dormitory in Cavite more than two hours later, just in time for dinner, I wolfed down my “college dinner”, quickly nabbed the first book, lay down my bed, and started reading… and reading… and I continued to read until I saw that the clock on the wall was telling me it was already 3am in the morning.  So I guess it would be an understatement to say that I was hooked – like a bad habit.

Suffice to say, I finished all three books in less than a week, and I had mixed feelings of fear and anticipation when I discovered that it was not really a trilogy, but instead the beginning of what would be a long, arduous journey into a fantasy world where magic, love, history, politics and war are the norm.  I waited later that year for the fourth one to come out, The Shadow Rising, and the following year, I was at the bookstore twice a week checking if the fifth book, The Fires of Heaven, is out on paperback yet…

(You would have to understand that I almost never bought hardcover books in college, mostly because [a] the bookstore only had fantasy fiction available on paperback and [b] even if they were available, I would have to use up a couple day’s worth of my measly college allowance just to be able to afford it… and I also had no way of knowing when a book I wanted to read will be coming out, coz there were no newsletters, and there was no Internet.)

By the time I graduated college in 1996, I had added Lord of Chaos to my collection, racking up the total to six WoT books in my ever-increasing shelf of fantasy/horror fiction (which included all, yes, ALL of Stephen King’s novels and story collections, about six of Clive Barker’s, and a whole cacophony of other books written by fiction writers that are too many (and some, too obscure) to mention.  Lord of Chaos is still one of my favorite WoT books, because that was when all hell started breaking loose, and that’s when the shit started hitting the fan.

And that was also the time when Robert Jordan’s “one-book-a-year” rule started flying out the window…

* * * * *

A Crown of Swords

When I worked for the Philippine Daily Inquirer in mid-1996, I was lucky to find out that there was a specialty bookstore just a couple miles from work.  And lo and behold, in one of the shelves, there was a hardcover book with the familiar cover art style, and it said A Crown of Swords.  That seventh book was the first fantasy hardcover book I ever bought, and since I was already working, I can now afford it… barely.  And when the paperback came out later that year, I also bought it, coz that hardcover book didn’t fit very well with the whole army of paperbacks it was bookending.

I moved to the United States the following year, and in 1998, A Path of Daggers, the eighth book, came out.  And bookstores in California were like restaurants in the Philippines – they were everywhere.  So I easily found the hardcover and continued reading about the lives of Rand Al’Thor, Perrin Aybara, Mat Cauthon, and the rest of the characters.  And that’s when I noticed the drastic change in pace… the story was starting to really slow down, and by the time I bought the ninth book, A Winter’s Heart, I realized that either Robert Jordan is at the mercy of his greedy publishers, or he doesn’t know how he’s gonna end his story and get out of the hundreds of holes he dug for himself.  Even though there were a series of huge events near the end of the book, it was almost not enough to compensate for the “drudgery” that peppered 90% of it.

But I continued reading, because like everyone else who still followed the series, I wanted to know how it’s gonna end.  I actually bought A Winter’s Heart during a book signing in a fantasy bookstore in Santa Monica, along with the first book so I can have Mister Jordan sign it for me.  He and his wife were sitting behind a long table, signing books and talking with the many fans who attended the event (the line was so long that it was threatening to round the whole block where that bookstore was).

When it was my turn, I asked Mister Jordan to sign my two books, and then I asked him the question that he has probably heard a thousand times already:  ”Mister Jordan, when will we see the end?”

He smiled, and his wife laughed beside him.  After signing my books, he shook my hand and said, “I don’t know, but it will…”

* * * * *

The snail-like pace of The Wheel of Time series didn’t improve with the 2003 release of the tenth book, Crossroads of Twilight.  For the first time since I started reading The Wheel of Time, I was getting bored, annoyed and indifferent to the story.  I wanted it to end right then and there.  I was sick of reading about the PMS-like outbursts of the Aes Sedai, the dozens of subplots spanning dozens of chapters, and the lack of focus on the main protagonist himself, Rand Al’Thor.  I was compelled to skip chapters, skim through dialogues and sometimes peek at the end.  It was worse than pulling teeth or watching paint dry.  Robert Jordan seemed lost, and it showed in his story.

(Heck, he even wrote a prequel, A New Spring.  As if he isn’t busy enough already with the present, existing ones…)

I felt that there needed to be a fresh approach to the story, coz it appeared to me that Mister Jordan waded in too deep and was having a hard time swimming back, hence he was too busy tying off subplots instead of resolving the main plot itself.  And introducing NEW subplots didn’t help, either.  This was why, when I bought the eleventh book, Knife of Dreams, I didn’t get past the first three chapters.

Yeah, for the first time, I couldn’t finish a Wheel of Time book.  It was just too convoluted for me.  So I sat there, an unfinished hardcover on my lap, wondering when, or if, I should read it again.  I vowed that it was gonna be the last WoT book I’ll buy and read if the trend continues.

And then, last year, Robert Jordan died… and when I read the news, I can almost hear a million voices suddenly crying out in frustration and resignation, and suddenly silenced…

* * * * *

The Gathering Storm

So how do you finish a story that was nowhere near to being finished after its writer dies?  You either write off the series as one of the most colossal disappointments in fantasy literature, or you get a new writer to continue it.

Robert Jordan’s widow chose the latter, entrusting the continuation to a little-heard writer named Brandon Sanderson.  And the poor guy is now thrust into the shoulders of the 800-pound gorilla – how do you finish a story that even the original writer doesn’t want to finish?  Luckily, Jordan left behind some notes on his thoughts about how the story should end, a compilation named “A Memory of Light”, and from this resource, Mister Sanderson began the craft the beginning of the end… at long last.  The fresh approach has finally arrived, albeit under inopportune circumstances.

Because of the sheer size of the reference material, the last book was split into three, with the first one being named The Gathering Storm, the second one tentatively named Towers of Midnight, and the last one tentatively named A Memory of Light – all scheduled to be released one year after the other.  Like the old times.

(Kinda funny that most disgruntled fans have said that the world would end sooner than the Wheel of Time saga…  since the last book is slated for a 2011 release, it would beat the doomsayers’ predictions.  That is, if you believe the world would end on 2012…)

* * * * *

So ultimately, Tarmon Gaidon, the final battle, will commence and end in three books.  Three last books that I’ll be reading with the same excitement that I had when I read the first three books in the series, almost thirteen years ago.  My experience with The Wheel of Time will (appropriately) come full circle. ..

So, as I hold The Gathering Storm in my hand, I am filled with excitement and anxiety.  The longest story I have ever read will finally come to an end two years from now.  The satisfaction and contentment I had after I finished Stephen King’s last Dark Tower book, or the anti-climax I experienced when I finished the last book of the Sword of Truth series, will be brought to bear on the last three books of Robert Jordan’s magnum opus…

The storm is finally gathering, and I can’t wait till it’s finally done…

* * * * *

Technorati: book, brandon, eye, gathering, jordan, light, of, robert, sanderson, storm, terrie, the, time, twelve, wheel, world

Anyway, I have spent the last few weeks reading (or rather, RE-reading) the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I have just finished Book 5 (Fires of Heaven) and I will be starting on Book 6 (Lord of Chaos) tomorrow. So far, the series has reached its tenth book and the eleventh is rumored to be released in 2005. So I’m basically just keeping myself abreast of the story.

The last book that I read from this series was Book 8, Path of Daggers (back in 1998), and the book had been so awfully uneventful and dragging that I had to put it down, and I haven’t read the series again until now. Why did I suddenly regain the interest to read it at this time? I dunno … boredom maybe … or probably because I haven’t read a book that is not related to computing and web design for almost 4 years.

Back in high school, I used up about six library cards, because I kept taking home book after book and finishing it in one or two days. I consider myself a pretty fast reader, but I also devote a lot of time on the books, sometimes reading it for seven or eight hours straight. Back then, I considered sleeping and eating a distraction when I’m reading a pretty involving book – I could finish a 700-page book in one day if I’m not doing anything significant.

In college, I was obsessed with Stephen King. My bookshelf at home was full of paperbacks of all his novels, from Carrie to Rose Madder, and my college thesis was actually a content analysis of a few of his books. Joel Rosenberg’s “The Sleeping Dragon” introduced me to escapist fiction, which then led to my obsession with horror fiction, collecting books by King, Clive Barker, Dan Simmons, Dean Koontz and Brian Lumley. Fantasy fiction then came next – I never read Lord of the Rings until I was already in 3rd year college, and I have been aware of that series since grade school. I have always been a sucker for epic fantasy, and that’s where it led me to Robert Jordan.

I consider the Wheel of Time series an excellent epic, but there are times when I feel that Mr. Jordan does not know how to end the story arc. After ten books, Tarmon Gaidon (the final battle) is nowhere in sight, and I can’t blame some of his ardent readers for abandoning the series entirely because of impatience and frustration. The long, drawn-out descriptions in the latter books do not help, as well as the introduction of more new characters and the recycling of dead ones. I mean, it seemed that 80% of Book 8 was conversations, with just a bit of action thrown in as filler. This was what discouraged me from finishing it in the first place.

So why am I pursuing the series again. I’m not sure. Maybe I just want to regain the feeling of wonder and excitement back when I was still a rabid fantasy reader. Maybe I just want to be reminded of how much I loved reading these kinds of books. Or maybe because the world has become so cynic and depressing that reading books that transport me to a world where good and evil are clearly marked has helped in making the waking world more bearable.

Or maybe, as I said, I just got so fuckin’ bored

Technorati: jordan, of, robert, time, wheel

I first read this book when I was a highschool freshman. It has actually been in my dad’s shelf for two years, just gathering dust, until one day I got bored and was looking for something to read. The book had a very cool cover (a dragon with people in front of it), so I took it from the shelf, dusted it, and began reading….

… and seven hours later, I was still reading it. I didn’t put the book down for more than an hour (unless I was sleeping, of course). After I finished reading it, I read it again.

The Sleeping Dragon formally introduced me to the world of fantasy literature. Before that all I was reading were Hardy Boys, Three Investigators, and other adolescent bubblegum books. The only book that had an escapist quality to it that I have read before The Sleeping Dragon was the novelization of E.T. The Extraterrestrial (one of the books in my dad’s shelf). The Sleeping Dragon was a wakeup call to me, and it opened my senses to a bigger world of literary appreciation – a new literary universe that was not discussed in school.

The Sleeping Dragon, in a nutshell, was a story of a group of college friends who played Dungeons and Dragons every night in campus, until that night when they were transported into the supposedly fantasy campaign they were playing, and assuming the roles – and appearances – of the characters they were playing. And realizing that it was not a game anymore.

During that time, the theme itself was not really original (there have been a couple of films and even an animated series of ordinary people being transported into an imaginary world), but what made Rosenberg’s book different and more endearing was the fusion of mundane life into fantasy. Imagine college kids talking about how to get away from the Slaver’s guild, or rationalizing on their decision to save a chained dragon in the sewers. We got young cynics discussing life and death in a world where dragons and sorcery are commonplace. The thing I liked about it best is that it is very easy to relate to the young characters, as they try to find their way home – if they can.

The Sleeping Dragon was the first book in Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series (which is comprised of seven books so far). This beginning foray into the series was undeniably the best, and is still the most memorable book I have read. It paved the way for my appreciation of fantasy and science fiction, not only in literature but in movies and gaming…

The book itself was selling for as low as $3 (used) at Amazon … Did I buy it? Of course…

Technorati: amazon, dragon, flame, guardians, joel, rosenberg, sleeping