The Good & the Bad: Classic Literature

Another in my series of posts where I talk about the things I like and the things I don't. This time, I'm looking at some of my favorites of classic literature - those books they make you read in school. I read a fair number of 'adult' books when I was a kid, but I mostly read science fiction and fantasy adventures. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is what really got me started as a reader (I've already discussed that here, so I won't bother including it on this list), and I definitely gravitated towards stories that held action and quicker pacing. When I read slower, more thoughtful works, I found them to be rather boring. Sure, I got their point, but often it seemed like they took far too long to say far too little. So here are some specific titles that worked for me, and some that didn't.

The Good

My favorite classic, and perhaps my favorite all-time book, is Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. I didn't want to read it. It was part of my AP English class, one of the books on the list for my independent project analyzing representations of greed in literature. I hadn't read any of the great Russian authors, and when I started Crime and Punishment I hated it. It was all in some guys head, talking and thinking about doing things with nothing really happening. It took real determination to keep reading, but at some point, perhaps a hundred pages in, it clicked for me. I got into Raskolnikov's character. I understood him. The writing burst to life and I finished the next seven hundred pages in two days.

That book led me to other great works by Dostoyevsky: The Double, Notes from Underground, The Prince. It also led me to other great Russian writers: Pushkin, Tolstoy, Turgenev. I loved their introspection, how they burrowed into the human psyche and revealed so many profound yet simple truths. I learned to appreciate action isn't always physical, and you can learn from characters that you would never want to emulate.

I do love Shakespeare though not all of his works equally. Hamlet is probably the greatest play, Much Ado About Nothing makes a better read, but most everything is enjoyable if only for the music in the words. For similar reasons, Nietzsche's works all number among my favorites though Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a work of philosophy/poetry/story-telling that is unequaled as far as I'm concerned.

Mostly I like good tales, interesting stories that transport me to a time and place, such as Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Cervantes' Don Quixote. A little more modern fave's with a speculative twist are Neil Gaiman's American Gods, Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, and Douglass Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And a special shout out to Iain M. Banks, whose prose inspires me more than any other.

The Bad

I have to start this list with Moby Dick. There are lots of classics that I've read and been unimpressed with, but I can still see the quality of the writing and understand why others think highly of it. Moby Dick isn't one of those. It bored the hell out of me. Sure, the story had potential, and Ahab is an interesting character, but the entire thing was weighted down with useless diversions into mundane details of whaling. The writing was overblown and the pace far from riveting. Ahab and his obsession felt wedged into an academic tome, and I never really cared much about him or any of the characters. Melville's writing didn't do anything for me so it was a good idea with bad execution.

Pride and Prejudice is another one that never connected with me. Perhaps it's because I read it at the same time as Crime & Punishment, but the writing felt weak and the characters shallow in comparison. The truths it explored, the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy, held no interest for me. If these were real people I would leave their company and have nothing to learn from them.

And in spite of my love for the Russians, they also disappoint me on occasion. The Brother's Karamozov is a perfect example: I went in expecting to find another Dostoyevsky masterpiece but had no interest in the themes at play. And while I loved War and Peace, Anna Karenina was rather meh.

A few other 'classics' that left me uninspired: The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye (though I do love the title), The Scarlet Letter, The Grapes of Wrath, and most of Dicken's works. Atlas Shrugged impressed me in high school, but up re-reading it as an adult I found it's message and delivery rather unsophisticated. And Victor Hugo deserves a mention as someone who's held in a reverence I just don't understand.

So how about you all? Do you agree with my choices? Want to show me the error of my ways? I'd love to hear what resonates with others and why.

The Good & the Bad: Ice Cream

If you're on Facebook (everyone is but we all secretly wish we weren't), I'm sure you've seen the many 'tests' that float around the newsfeeds. You know the ones, where after a couple questions they'll tell you what your real color is, who you were in a past life, or what Harry Potter you should date. No one takes them seriously and I don't have the time to bother. But then one popped up that claimed to tell you what kind of ice cream you are. Now it's personal.

Ice cream is a large part of my life and I take it very seriously. I grew up on it. I have very particular standards and very set likes and dislikes. From generic brands that surprise to premium to all-organic flavors that trigger waves of ecstasy, I try everything and rate it all. I once made it a goal to have ice cream at least once every day for an entire summer. Not when I was ten, but when I was thirty-five. I succeeded quite easily.

So when some silly internet meme claims it can tell what kind of ice cream I am, I have doubts. But I take the test anyway and it tells me I'm an 'Everything But the Kitchen Sink' ice cream. What? First, that doesn't even exist. Second, that sounds awful. So let me set the record straight.

The Good

My favorite flavor has changed over the years, but these days nothing beats a plain old vanilla. Not just any vanilla, but a real smooth and creamy vanilla bean flavor. Breyers recently changed their vanilla bean to 'natural' vanilla, but it's still my favorite. Alden's Vanilla Bean is right up there, but it tends to cost twice as much. (As much as I love ice cream, I still love not spending a ton of money on it even more).

As a kid, mint chocolate chip was my favorite. I still remember when the new neighbors moved in and first introduced me to the flavor. My whole life changed that summer day. Dreyers was the standard - as a kid I didn't have as discriminating a palate. These days, the best way to recreate that sensation is a Coldstone's Mint Ice Cream loaded with white chocolate chips - can you say sugar overload?

Recently we've been making our own ice cream at home, using all natural and organic ingredients, including eggs from our chickens. The flavors have been outstanding (Newman-O's Mint Cookie was a genius decision), but it's been hard to get the consistency perfect. It takes just the right temperature during the mixing, and then the freezer has a tendency to be a little too cold because it's a little too cold (with more than ice cream - lots of frozen veggies, I swear).

One of the flavors we copied was mushroom ice cream. Before you freak out in disgust, you have to try it first. Candy Cap mushrooms smell (and taste) exactly like fine maple syrup. Our local ice cream shop, Cowlicks, makes a version that is as sweet as anything and pure heaven for maple lovers. It's not my favorite flavor, and ours came out not quite as sweet, but the fact that we picked the mushrooms ourselves and made a good ice cream out of them felt very satisfying.

The Bad

Contrary to my test results, one of the things I really don't like in ice cream is a lot of different things all thrown together. I don't like fruit in my ice cream. I don't like nuts. I don't like to mix in contrasting flavors (chocolate and rum raisin - eww!). I don't like ice creams where the additives overwhelm the cream.

But there aren't really any bad ice creams, just flavors better suited to a different taster (like books for different readers).

How about you? What's your favorite ice cream? Or have you had any bad ice cream experiences?

The Good & the Bad: Sitcoms

Continuing on my series of post to share what I like and what I not-so-much. Let's look at sicoms. Situation Comedies. The name implies that they involve a set-up that is the source of the humor. Funny happenings in common environments, that we can all related to, like a nice guy who works at a boring job full of weird people, or a dad trying to raise a family of lovable, trouble-making kids. Good, light-hearted humor.

The truth is, sitcoms often go much deeper than that. They often use humor to help us relate to horrible situations (MASH), or deal with important societal issues (All in the Family, The Jeffersons). The great shows make us laugh and think a little bit, and for me it always starts with the writing.

I love clever writing. I like to catch the subtleties, the little quirks that make each character into a deep and real person, the quick lines that reference a joke from a season before, and some nice word-play that shows a mastery of language. It doesn't have to be sophisticated (Family Guy has some genius behind it's crudity), but it has to have some wit behind it.

The Good

Let's start with my favorite show of all time: Cheers. Great dialogue? Check. Real characters? Check. Profound social issues? Not so much. What I loved about Cheers wasn't the big picture. The show didn't hold a mirror up tot society, or make me consider hanging out in a bar in a different light. It occasionally had a nice social theme (when Sam's old team-mate turned out to be gay), but those episodes were rare and never the focus. The heart of the show was the family. Not your biological, we have to love each other in spite of our differences family, but your friends are the true family family.

I love that a group of random people bonded together (in a bar of all places) to care about each other in a way that defines family for me. People who stand together no matter what. People who know each other's failings and care despite them. People who tease and laugh and love regardless of what else is happening in the outside world. I loved that about Cheers and can enjoy any episode as I watch it for the dozenth time. And Coach is my favorite character of all time.

More modernly, 30 Rock did the same thing for me. Set in your classic dysfunctional work environment, what made the show stand out was the quality of the writing and over-the-top performances by Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan. It was larger than real life but almost every episode came back to these strange people showing their love for each other, the craziness only emphasizing the real humanity at its heart.

Some of my other favorites include: Arrested Development - the very best at continuing jokes and themes throughout multiple episodes and tying things together in unpredictable ways; Archer - beneath the drunken ramblings and crass sexual innuendo, there's some really good manipulation of the English language; Coupling (the British version, not the insipid American fail) - the model for Friends, but with more courage and real life situations. And I'll finish off the list with The Mindy Project - once again a family in practice, but all the characters are new and fresh, and the skewed perspective of modern life comes shining through.

The Bad

On the other side of the coin, what makes a sitcom bad? Sure, there are the ones that completely lack humor (Cop Rock, 2 Broke Girls, Mama's Family), but that's too easy. What about those that do have humor, that manage to last for years and gain a large audience? Some of the most popular shows are also my least-liked, often because the way to appeal to the masses is to be broad. The Big Bang Theory has some good writing and acting, but the humor revolves around stereotypes that are completely inaccurate and rather belittling. Everybody Loves Raymond had a universal setting - the horrible inlaws - but I never connected with people who may have loved each other but in practice treated each other poorly. There's a point where the love doesn't make up for the pain, and that's not funny to me.

A couple of shows really put me on the fence. Every once in a while I catch a South Park episode that knocks it out of the park. Sharp, biting criticism of hypocrisy and the ridiculousness of our popular culture (see what I mean at The Washington Post). Sometimes it's a bunch of uninspired fart jokes. Modern Family definitely has the love between misfit characters working, but somehow it doesn't inspire me most of the time. Maybe it tries to hard to make the quirky fit.

So there are some of my favorite shows, and some that I really can't stand. Do you agree? Any favorites you want to share? Any sitcoms that make you run screaming for the hills? Let me know.

The Good & the Bad: Teen Movies

In an effort to share a little more about myself (I'm an introvert in real life), I've decided to start a series called The Good & the Bad. The idea is to let my readers know the kind of things I like and the kind of things I don't. And why. The why is important, for the reasons we do things matter far more than the things themselves. And I'll probably focus more on the good, because that's where the fun is.

So we're going to start with some movies, and this time I'm looking at teen movies. What makes a good teen movie and what ruins one.

The Good

One of my favorite movies in the past several years is Brick. There's a good chance that most of you haven't even heard or it. It got some nice critical praise, but never released why or saw much commercial success. It's a shame, because it puts a lot of the recent YA fair to shame.

Brick is about a high school kid (played so well by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, pre-Inception and Dark Knight) who investigates the disappearance of his semi-girlfriend. It's film noir, a hard-boiled detective story with modern day teenagers. That could fail big time, but what makes it work is that it hold to the genre tropes - plot twists, strong silent MC, dangerous dames, and a satisfying dreary but honest ending - but it does it with real kids. It doesn't have kids trying to act like film noir characters, but using modern archetypes (social loner, girl craving attention, meat-head jock, drug-dealing scum) to fill in the roles. It has an authenticity and individuality that's just plain fun to watch. (Joseph Gordon-Levitt's The Lookout almost made this list, but it's more properly New Adult aged than teen).

Heathers. It's a little old in some ways, but I think it still holds up. For those too young to remember it, it's Mean Girls with more mean (and more snark). What works about it is that it's satire - it gets crazier and crazier to the point that it's ridiculous (especially Christian Slater channeling Jack Nicholson), but the underlying truth is so real. The social hierarchy in high school is brutal, and people do crazy, despicable things to get ahead. But once you're in you're still not safe. Nobody is safe and no-one has it easy.

Another cult hit that seems to live on and even grow in renown is Donnie Darko. It's a hard movie to describe, and even harder to defend, but it worked for me. Once again, it was the real-ness of the characters instead of the storyline that sold me. Donnie's sense of loneliness, the nature of outsiders in high school, the youth understanding the hypocrisy of the adults, all felt real. I've watched the director's cut which focuses more on the time travel elements and felt it took away the heart of the movie. Sometimes the studio folks know better.

A few other teen movies worth mentioning. Easy A, Juno, Rushmore . Classics like My Bodyguard, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Say Anything. Silly fun like Bring It On, American Pie, Valley Girl.

The Bad

There are an endless number of bad teen films, most of them guilty of nothing more than trying to be cheap entertainment. I don't fault mindless entertainment for being just that, so I'm going to stick to movies that should have been good - or at least had the budget and players to be good.

I'm sure I'll get some flack here, but I thought Twilight was a bad movie. (Thought the same of the book). While it's a vivid world, and I think the movie does a good job highlighting the scenery and giving a sense of the connection between characters, the fundamental principle is too flawed for me. A dreamy girl who thinks of herself as plain but is adored by everyone somehow wins the heart (instantly) of a hundred year old man. Pedophilia anyone? Insulting gender roles and stereotypes much? I know it kicked off a craze; I know umpteen millions loved it. It's still not a good story on many levels and the movie-making was very trite and formulaic. Teens (and everyone who was once a teen) deserve better.

A movie that I wanted to like, and thought I would, was Swimfan. It had a dark angle to it and I know a number of people that really enjoyed it. But somehow it fell flat for me. I thought it tried too hard - it wanted to be realistic and scary, but I didn't quite buy into the obsession enough. It felt more like the characters were acting in a way to move the plot instead of a natural way that lead to a story. But if you bought into it, I can see how it would work, and I certainly won't fault anyone for liking it.

Sometimes movies are bad but I still enjoy them. Jennifer's Body would fall into that category. What's good about it is the relationship between the two girls. Amanda Seyfried somehow pulls off the awkward friend who still has her own personality. And while Megan Fox won't win any acting awards from me, she worked in this role. The crazier parts of this story actually had the same self-aware satire nature of Heathers, but I think that was missed by lots of people - especially those who marketed it. It's problem was that it tried too hard to be a real movie about a possessed teen, but it's strengths lay in the context underneath. It just got too buried under the gore and slow-mo shots of Megan's hips swaying. But if you don't mind a little camp, check it out and look at it from that angle and see if it doesn't shine a little.

How about you? Agree or disagree with my choices? Have any favorites that you recommend? Any hit movies that you hated? Feel free to share in the comments.

Timeless Art: Elfquest

I don't read a lot of graphic novels. I probably should, because I've found them to include some great works of art, both visually and creatively. There are some great stories to be found in the format and great art is great art, whatever the form.

When I was young, my older brother was into comics. He still collects to this day. I used to read his when I had nothing better around, but didn't really have any of my own. Except for ElfQuest. I loved ElfQuest. The artwork was so bold and the stories deep and rich. But as a young child I mostly loved the little elves that rode wolves and fought fiercely. That became my vision of elves, an image in my mind that even Tolkien's slender and aristocratic fae couldn't replace.

Well, my brother recently sent me a copy of the newly released ElfQuest Collection, Volume 1. It's just as good now as it ever was, and holds up next to anything that's being done in the medium today. Great stories, great art, hold up in a way that transcends form. And I'm very happy to be spending some time with Cutter, Skywise, and the rest of the Wolfriders.