Recently Read: Ready Player One

RPO

It’s got some good plot points. It’s fun to read. It has a few moments where I thought, “Yeah! That’s cool!” There were moments too where I couldn’t see how the excessive writing made any necessary addition to the story. Filler, I guess. Do all books have that? Stuff that gets in there that has nothing to do with the story, pointless fluff, or word-padding? It seemed like there was a fair amount of that in this book. And I haven’t seen the movie yet. I can’t say if the movie was a good representation.

One thing that makes this book stand out from others is that the ending has a good, well-thought-out climax. Have you ever read one of those stories where the main character gets the problem solved too easily? I felt like this one didn’t have that, and it’s all the better for it. I don’t want to read anything in which the solutions are fast and simple. Complicated is better. And although there were some moments within the climax that were definitely simple solutions, the overall feeling of the main character coming off as conqueror was satisfactory.

Ready Player One has one enormous thing in common with my novel Sound Distortion:

Pop-culture references.

While Sound Distortion focuses on musicians and musical references, Ready Player One deals with video game culture. I couldn’t help making comparisons. The main character in Sound Distortion, Djonny Desoto, is an inventor and a deejay. The main character in Ready Player One, Wade Watts, is an inventor and a video game fanatic. The side characters in Ready Player One are mostly new friends and acquaintances of the main character. The side characters in Sound Distortion are long-time friends. The bad-guy in Ready Player One is a super-rich, super-villain, Sorrento (I actually respected the bad guy, because he was written so well; Ernest Cline did a great job at defining his antagonist for this book). The bad-guy in Sound Distortion is just another kid, a student at the same school as the main character, and a persuasive psycho. With all of these similarities, there’s no question why B&N.com lists them both as, “People who like this also bought…”

In Ready Player One, I was thrilled with some of the video game references, bored with others. There are also some movie, cartoon, toy, and television show references, so that at times reading this book feels like a Simpsons episode.

In Ready Player One, I was a little disappointed at the idea of Wade Watts living in a cargo van, especially when I read the description of everything that was supposedly in there with him. I honestly don’t think all of that would fit in a cargo van. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cargo van to experiment on. Anyway, you have to read the book to know what I mean.

My overall impression was good. I could recommend this book. But you can’t read it if your naive and impressionable. You don’t have to have a vast knowledge of pop-culture trivia. You do have to have a firm grasp on reality. If you don’t, then I would probably recommend something else like: How To Lead A Life Of Crime by Kirsten Miller. Ha! So there!

Sick Day

AppleProductsOne aspect of writing is that you don’t have any excuses to take a day off. It’s not like being a carpenter. When you’re sick, you can still write. To claim a sick day as a writer, you’d have to go blind, AND lose your voice, AND lose the use of your hands in this technological age. Voice recognition technology is getting better and better—and it’s getting good enough that it can get most of your words right. You can record notes, dictate essays, or even waste time sending voice-to-text messages, if you have the right device with the right program. Not to distract you with that, but can you imagine actually needing to send voice-to-text messages? It seems a bit excessive or superfluous to me. I’m sure there’s a use for it. Maybe you don’t type so well. Maybe you need your hands for other operations. It could be convenient to have a hands-free method of sending messages. But then there has to be a limitation on the other end too, such as the person on the other end has to be unavailable or unable to hear your voice message. I mean, why would they need a text-based message versus a voice-based message if you can give them a voice message? Anyway, I’ll let that one rest now. As a writer, you can’t just use the “I’m not feeling well” excuse like many jobs. I mean, you’d really have to be incapacitated to not be able to screw a few word-planks together.

Creative Juices

thriftshoptruckIf you owned a business, what would you name it?

A wood cabinet refurbisher called: Jack the Stripper?

A museum called: Hands On Children Museum?

A chimney sweeping business called: Ash Wipe?

A book seller called: In The Margins?

A record store called: Vinyl Resting Place?

A gardening supply store called: The Dirty Hoe?

There are lots of ideas. You’ve had these ideas. “What if I started a hair salon and called it Curl Up and Dye? Wouldn’t that be funny?” They’re easy to do. Sometimes you get to them by thinking up a funny name for your favorite business. Sometimes you get the phrase first and then you think up what business would use that as their name.

Tranny Man? That’s a guy who does automotive repair, of course.

Full Stop? A highway barricade manufacturer.

Blade Runner? Custom knife delivery.

What would a company named Invitational Gas do, or sell?

What would a company named Blammo do, or sell?

What about some of the cartoon companies like Acme, or Spacely Sprockets, or Strickland Propane? Are those too obvious?

And then there are the sci-fi companies like Tessier-Ashpool, or the Tyrell Corporation. What do they do? How did they get their start?

Fake and creative business names are fun to make. They’re funny to hear, when you hear a new one. And they keep the creative juices flowing. Speaking of…Creative Juices, LLC?

 

Real vs. Fantasy

realvsfantasy

Could it be that surreal art is more real than attempts at realism?

I have a deep respect for any artist who can make a landscape, or a portrait, look like the original view, but the longer I live, the more it seems to me that surrealism is more accurate.

For example, go inside any building, even a modern one that’s been built with high-tech equipment and methods and see if every corner in that building is perfectly angled. Most of the buildings I visit don’t have any such perfection. Perfect angles and perfect circles seem to be out of our grasp. Tile work drifts as it gets laid. Wood gets warped after being cut. Metal gets bent in the process of installation.

A perfect picture might not be something we can make either. Just about any artist will say they are their own worst critic. They can take the compliments they receive from others, and accept the compliments, but they’ll have a list of things they notice that are wrong with their art. Show an artist something they created and they’ll be able to pick out the flaws instantly. An objective eye can say the art is beautiful, even though the one who created it is dissatisfied.

Even nature though, can make beautiful mistakes. Our realities our immersed in the unreal. A rose is one of many things in nature that is pleasing to the eye, but not necessarily symmetrical. And a tattoo of a rose? Don’t even get me started on that. And how about a photo of a tattooed rose? Ha! Three degrees of separation there, and we still recognize the intended form. Whether or not any of it is appealing is up to the person looking.

That’s a digression of sorts. This isn’t about appealing versus non-appealing. It’s about real versus fantasy. I’m of the opinion that the more fantastic a realistic piece gets, the more it mimics the actual world.

People’s faces are another thing. If you painted someone symmetrically, with all sides of their face proportional, and all the attachments of that face the same size, the picture would only be a representation. People have different sizes of ears, different sizes of nostrils, different landscapes of brow and cheek and chin on either side of their face—on the same face. Even their skulls have asymmetrical sides, so why not the flesh that covers it? And people get more uneven the older they get. They lose teeth. They lose hair. They gain hair in odd places. They get blemishes and scars and moles and pimples. There are so many things that change a face, we might even say that the changes are surreal. The end from the beginning certainly is. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying through their false teeth.

Hemp vs. Marijuana

fractal-2067420__480

Let me start by saying I don’t feel like what I’m about to write is political. It has more of a healthy-lifestyle-choice vibe for me. I just want to voice my opinion on hemp and marijuana. Hemp has a variety of uses. You can make clothing out of hemp. You can make paper out of hemp. You can make fuel out of hemp. You can make FOOD out of hemp. Hemp has an excellent balance of proteins and fiber to make it one of the most beneficial grains. Marijuana, on the other hand, (it’s a different variety of the cannabis plant, by the way), is a sad misused plant. Some people want to smoke it. Sad. I’ve watched otherwise healthy people turn into THC addicts and turn into low-energy, mindless zombies. Have you ever seen a stoner get up and run? I haven’t. I don’t think they can. Chronic smokers of weed have low motivation, low willpower, and low intellect. They’re sad lumps of giggling flesh who crave pork rinds, candy, and soda. Isn’t it ironic that they don’t crave hemp to eat? If they wanted something healthy, that would be remarkable, but they want to eat junk food; further proof that smoking pot rots your brain. If marijuana is to be used medicinally, then it can be regulated by doctors and pharmacies—not vape shops. People who vape-o-mist cherry blossoms and essence of tube socks around their heads don’t have many brain cells at their command anyway, so we shouldn’t encourage them to lose more. Not only that, but the lack of hygiene these vapor users exhibit will only be degraded with the use of skunk-weed. It’s called skunk-weed because it smells of skunk, especially when burned. Combine that with human funk and get skunk-funk, an odor so offensive it could be militarized and used by SWAT teams in case they run out of tear gas. Oh yeah, did I mention hemp is good for food?