Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

- Anne Enright

maybe it is, maybe this is all that’s left cos i’ve retold anything juicy to whoever matters a mere 20 times already. i’m all dry.

please note that the damage for that stash equals approximately RM145 (give or take with the fluctuating exchange rate). jyeeeeeeaah.

The monster who went east came to a village.

“Mr. Blacksmith, please give me your name.”

“You can’t give someone a name.”

“If you give me your name, I’ll jump into your stomach and make you strong in return.”

“Really? You’ll make me stronger? Okay, you can have my name.”

And the monster jumped into the blacksmith’s stomach. The monster became Otto the blacksmith. Otto was the strongest man in town. But one day, “Look at me, look at me, the monster inside me has grown this large.” CHOMP CHOMP, MUNCH MUNCH, GOBBLE GOBBLE, GULP! The hungry monster are Otto from the inside.

He went back to being a monster without a name.

He jumped into the stomach of Hans the shoemaker, but, CHOMP CHOMP, MUNCH MUNCH, GOBBLE GOBBLE, GULP! He went back to being a monster without a name.

He jumped into the stomach of Thomas the hunter, but, CHOMP CHOMP, MUNCH MUNCH, GOBBLE GOBBLE, GULP! And once again he was a monster without a name.

The monster went to the castle to look for a wonderful name.

“If you give me your name, I’ll make you strong.”

“If you’ll heal my sickness, I’ll give you my name.”

The monster jumped into the boy’s stomach. The boy became very healthy. The king was delighted.

“The prince is well. The prince is well.”

The monster liked the boy’s name. He liked living in the castle. So even when he was hungry, he stayed put. Everyday he was so hungry, but he stayed put.

But one day he was just too hungry.

“Look at me, look at me, the monster inside me has grown this large.”

CHOMP CHOMP, MUNCH MUNCH, GOBBLE GOBBLE, GULP!

The boy ate the king and all the servants.

One day, the boy met the monster who went west.

“I have a name, it’s a wonderful name.”

The monster who went west said “You don’t need a name. You can be happy without a name.”

“Because we are nameless monsters.”

CHOMP CHOMP, MUNCH MUNCH, GOBBLE GOBBLE, GULP!

The boy ate the monster who went west. Even though he finally found a name, there was no one around to call him by it.

Johan was such a wonderful name too.

pay less books sale

date: 5 – 7 december 2008
time: 10am – 7pm
venue: 3K inn subang jaya

if you need information (on what exactly, i can’t imagine), call 03-8066 2170 or email info@paylessbooks.com.my and yeah i could have just posted the e-flyer, but my god is it fugly.

]]> http://pata.ponchakapon.com/2008/11/pay-less-spend-more-on-webdesign-please/feed/ 2 http://pata.ponchakapon.com/2008/09/interworld-by-neil-gaiman-michael-reaves/ http://pata.ponchakapon.com/2008/09/interworld-by-neil-gaiman-michael-reaves/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:36:54 +0000 justine http://pata.ponchakapon.com/?p=434

i was very eager to sink my teeth into this book, especially while riding on a sandman-induced natural high (i knocked back the whole series + endless nights within 3 days).

and boy, was my excitement sorely misplaced.

the prose has none of gaiman’s easy-going cadence or charm which bugged me, but i thought “hey, it’s a collaboration – gaimanXreaves” and perhaps he role was somewhat more conceptual.

it did surprise me that michael reaves has been (according to the wiki) involved in many beloved animated cartoon series: batman, the animated series (totally rocked), teenage mutant ninja turtles (omg), he-man and the masters of the universe. so why would a gaiman-reaves partnership fall so short of the mark?

if anyone asks, i can never really admit to finishing the book. sure i know what happened. i know it was idiot savant saves the world. underdog turns accidental hero. clichéd and hackneyed, it was a book i couldn’t wait to put down.

you could accuse me of being a little harsh on a book targeted at 9-12 year olds, which is when i direct you to the very excellent coraline. while written for the kiddies, it still manages to be deliciously creepy, original (or a nice take on an old formula) and gripping without being written like a horror story “for kids.”

interworld’s premise was an interesting one: everytime a big decision is made, the course of action you do not choose creates another new world or alternate universe. and within these multiple millions of earths exists individuals who have the power to navigate between them, the Walkers. no prizes for guessing who has this innate talent. -_-”

and of course fighting for control of these worlds are two sets of baddies (one based in science, the other in magic) and the Walkers are part of a grander scheme of things to keep the balance of the cosmos in check.

and it still would have been a mighty interesting read seeing as how all the alternates of our protagonist (his name’s joey harker, but by the novel’s end you still won’t care) are not mirror-image knock-offs, but completely different entities – chicks with wings, chicks with claws, cybernetic shorties and uh… other forgettable characters.

warning, there is no character development. none.

you feel nary a stab in your black heart when joey tells his mom goodbye (what kind of mother lets their kid join the interworld army without question anyway? social services!) not an iota of feeling when jay dies. whoops, spoiler! and certainly we’re not cheering anyone on in this lame conquest of worlds by equally lame magic-based, pig-faced baddies.

so essentially the plot is: kid is lame.
kid has magic powers joins super guerilla team.
mission goes wrong, team captured.
kid gets memory erased and sent home cos he’s lame.
kid regains memory.
kid goes back and saves team, destroys baddies, saves the universe(s).
kid is still just damn lame.

neil gaiman and sci-fi… it really sucks.

but the silver flecks have been known to reside in either eye.

so is it a continuity error, or just characteristic of the youngest endless?

:)

loved to see the way jeph’s style (may i call you jeph, mister jacques?) transitioned over 5 years. check out the vast difference between marten circa 2003 and marten today.

so alright, i enjoy actually being able to notice the subtle changes and refinements he made and also the sometimes huge leaps he made with the character designs.

my new hero *gush* had a music meme in one early post.

The following is my List. You may post Lists of your own in similar format, but if you talk shit about my List I am going to delete your comments because disagreeing with an opinion posted on the internet wastes my time and yours. The rules are that each component of your List can only contain five bands, so make your opinions count. You may not list a band on more than one category.

here are mine:

SOME BANDS THAT ARE GOOD
Interpol
Daft Punk
The Smiths
The Beatles
Röyksopp

SOME BANDS THAT ARE AWFUL
My Chemical Romance
Black Eyed Peas
Simple Plan (i hate hate hate them with every fibre of my being)
Linkin Park
Kanye West (aka Kanyena West)

SOME BANDS THAT ARE VASTLY OVERRATED
Broken Social Scene
Bright Eyes (yeah technically it’s just one dude, but)
Marié Digby (talentless cookie cutter LIAR)
Björk (trying too hard)
The Dave Matthews Band (boooooooooring)

SOME BANDS THAT ARE VASTLY UNDERRATED
Jack Conte – my favourite digg discovery so far (yeah yeah yeah)
KokoKaina – homegrown malaysian talent writing original songs (what marié digby wishes she was)
Lapsap – local eclectic-electro duo
Amiina – ethereal icelandic tinkling (yeah, they’re not obscure, but they’re passed over too much in favour of Sigur Rós)
Caroline – sweet, raw, tinkly

SOME BANDS THAT I USED TO THINK WERE AWESOME BUT AM NOW SORT OF BURNED OUT ON
Weezer
Goo Goo Dolls
any punk band i ever listened to
The Servant
System Of A Down

sandman goes mythical japanese folklore. an old release, i know, but i’ve only just been introduced to it.

and i’m in love with neil gaiman all over again.

it’s not easy or maybe not even possible to articulate how i feel about his words since i’m not a “real” writer/reviewer like zedeck siew. perhaps not everyone will share my sentiments about eggers, the way my opinion of the sharanyas and priyas and bernices of the world seem to differ from every other living, breathing person in this country.

i’ll not cheapen it by gushing. one man’s “sensual, mercurial starlet” is another’s poison.
begone, read it yourself.

What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes

Like the fur of a chinchilla. Like the cleanest tooth. Yes, the fishes say, this is what it feels like. People always ask the fishes, ‘What does the water feel like to you?’ and the fishes are always happy to oblige. Like feathers are to other feathers, they say. Like powder touching ash. We smile and nod. When the fishes tell us these things, we begin to understand. We begin to think we know what the water feels like to the fishes. But it’s not always like fur and ash and the cleanest tooth. At night, they say, the water can be different. At night, when it’s very cold, it can be like the tongue of a cat. At night, when it’s very very cold, it’s like cracked glass. Or honey. Or forgiveness, they say, ha ha. When the fishes answer these questions – which they are happy to do – they also ask why. They are curious things, fish are, and thus they ask, ‘Why? Why do you want to know what the water feels like to the fishes?’ And we are never quite sure. The fishes press further. ‘Do you breathe air?’ they ask. The answer is yes. Well then, they say, ‘What does the air feel like to you?’ And we do not know. We think of air and we think of wind, but that’s another thing. Wind is air in action, air on the move, and the fishes know this. Well then, they ask again, ‘What does the air feel like?’ And we have to think about this. Air feels like air, we say, and the fishes laugh mirthlessly. ‘Think!’ they say. ‘Think,’ they say, now gentler. And we think and we guess that air feels like hair, thousands of hairs, swaying ever so slightly in breezes microscopic. The fishes laugh again. ‘Do better, think harder,’ they say, encouraging us. It feels like language, we say, and they are impressed. ‘Keep going,’ they say. It feels like blood, we say, and they say, ‘No, no, now you’re getting colder.’ The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like being pushed and pulled and yanked, punched and slapped and misunderstood and loved, we say, and the fishes sigh and touch our forearm sympathetically.

also making my way through the gaiman/pratchett liaison “good omens.” not particularly fond of it but have managed to swallow at least half of it so far. it makes for so-so reading room material.

i’d die to get my grubby little hands on the roald dahl omnibus which B lent to suet. he later rubbed my face in the fact that it has a few never-published-anywhere-else stories. i only half believed it till he recommended the “pig” as a good starter, true enough, i’d never read it. goddamnit.

also just finished “snuff” by chuck palahniuk. a bit disappointing. of course i love his spewing of random sick facts. but the choice of topic just seemed a little too convenient and expected. ending was a farce. ptui.

should do more detailed reviews once my memory starts working properly again.

edit: nyeeaaseng. recycling stories for “fragile things” is not on, neil!