I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
WHY AREN’T THERE ANY PREY MOVIES?
You would think that with almost 20 Prey books, many of which were best-sellers, somebody would make a movie. What’s the problem? My guess is that one of the issues is the dialogue. All the characters talk the same way. Tough cops talk like tough cops. Guys who aren’t cops talk like tough cops. Women who aren’t cops talk like tough cops. The books are suspenseful, well plotted, but the dialogue is sometimes horrible, like every character is a bad horny comedian. It’s not just a Prey problem; Rough Country was full of the same manly man dialogue. Yes, I know screenwriters change everything, but the bad dialogue in the books keeps them from standing out. When I finish a Prey book, I’ve been entertained, but I’ve never been floored, and I certainly have never said to myself, “Wow! That would make a great movie.”
Maybe some car chases and explosions would help.
DO TELEVISION MOVIES COUNT?
No.
Supposedly a cable network is making a Prey movie (I forget which one) with Mark Harmon as Lucas Davenport. I don’t picture Lucas Davenport as a Mark Harmon type, but who cares? They could have done much worse. It will all depend on the script.
WHY SHOULD I READ THIS ONE?
We’ve had a lot of Lucas Davenport books, and this time he realizes that he screwed up a case a long time ago, before John Sandford started writing books about him. It’s a good premise, but it’s not a case readers are familiar with. To me, it would have been more interesting if he had screwed up in an earlier novel, maybe one of the first ones (which I’ve read but don’t remember). There would be more emotional investment in it, especially if we had been rooting for the antagonist to get caught. Spoilers wouldn’t be too much of an issue because if Buried Prey were a reader’s first Lucas Davenport book, is that particular reader seriously going to go back to all 19(?) earlier installments? Not if he’s a dysfunctional literate, he won’t.
20 BOOKS? DOESN’T THAT BREAK RULE #3?
Rule #3 states that a dysfunctional literate shall not read more than three books in a series. The purpose of that rule is to avoid getting emotionally wrapped up in a story that goes nowhere (see A Song of Fire and Ice). These Lucas Davenport books are self-contained. You can pick up any one of them and not feel lost. Personally, I think three Prey books are enough, but to other readers , it’s kind of like a James Bond movie in that you know what you’re going to get and you’re probably going to like it (unless it’s Live and Let Die or A View to a Kill).
WHICH BOOKS AREN’T REAL, PREY TELL?
Which four books below are not John Sandford titles? Two should be obvious.
Rules of Prey
Hidden Prey
Eyes of Prey
Shadow Prey
Silent Prey
Winter Prey
Lettuce Prey
Night Prey
Mind Prey
Sudden Prey
Secret Prey
Certain Prey
Suppressed Prey
Easy Prey
Chosen Prey
Birds of Prey
Mortal Prey
Naked Prey
Shattered Prey
Broken Prey
Invisible Prey
Phantom Prey
Buried Prey
WILL MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY RUIN THE FIFTH WITNESS?
The Fifth Witness takes place after The Lincoln Lawyer (which I’ve neither read nor seen), so the question is: Can you read this book if you can’t stand Matthew McConaughey? I’m not here to debate the talent of Matthew McConaughey. That is for others who know and care more about movies than I do. However, I’m not a Matthew McConaughey fan, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t care for him. Luckily, the description of the main character early in The Fifth Witness helps me to visualize somebody who does not resemble Matthew McConaughey, and that helped me get through the entire novel. An added bonus is that I can understand what’s going on in The Fifth Witness without having read any of Michael Connelly’s other books. That’s pretty much all that a dysfunctional literate who doesn’t like Matthew McConaughey needs to know.
If you’re a dysfunctional literate who likes Matthew McConaughey, then you’ve got several books to read and a movie to watch (if you haven’t already done so).
BURIED PREY or THE FIFTH WITNESS?
The Fifth Witness. The main character is more interesting, the dialogue is better, and the plot is more unique.
By saying “Ann Coulter’s Demonic,” we mean Ann Coulter’s new book called Demonic, not that Ann Coulter is demonic. Some critics might claim that Ann Coulter is demonic, but that’s not what our title means.
It happens every couple of years. Ann Coulter writes a new book, annoys a bunch of people while promoting it, and her critics pan her book without reading it. Coulter will say some mean things about liberals, and then liberals will say even worse things about her and unintentionally prove her point. She’s been accused of plagiarizing (Who would she plagiarize from? Nobody else writes like her.), and critics have tried to shove pies into her face. As soon as her new book comes out, a bunch of anti-fans will leave one-star reviews of her book without having read it.
To us at Dysfunctional Literacy, it seems pretty simple. If you’re a conservative, you’ll probably like Ann Coulter’s book. If you’re a liberal, you’ll probably hate it. If you’re a moderate, you’re probably more interested in Snookie’s book.
Snookie wrote a book?
THE BENEFITS OF SNOOKIE
The problem with Snookie’s novel (which shall go unnamed here) is that it was supposedly ghostwritten. What’s the point of that? If I want Snookie, I want straightforward stupidity, not mediocrity from an unknown professional. I might have paid money to read a book that Snookie had actually written (preferably without the assistance of an editor). It would have been entertaining to count the mistakes sentence by sentence (misspelling, subject-verb agreement problem, used “I” when she should have used “me,” used “me” when she should have used “I,” made up a word, wrote “of” when she should have written “have,” used a word incorrectly, sentence fragment, sentence fragment, sentence fragment). It would have been like Ulysses without the artistry. If this book had both grammatical mistakes and true stories of drunken lewdness, then it could have been THE BEST MEMOIR EVER!
The publishers screwed up a great opportunity.
BEST BOOK SIGNING TEAM-UP EVER!!
Ann Coulter and Snookie! That would be a great book signing combination.
For the right price, Ann Coulter would let you put a pie in her face, and Snookie would let you put your face in her… ugh, I can’t even finish the thought.
*****
Aaarrgh! I know this is a lame blog post. As tempting as it is to delete it (and it’s tempting), I’m leaving it up to show my development as a blogger/writer. Keep in mind that some of the people mentioned were public figure in 2011, and there was some crazy stuff going on with them. Back then I saw this blog as practice because I knew nobody was reading it and I could experiment a little. Now I can see that some experiments go horribly wrong.
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
Remember the good old days when we could make fun of the longwinded nature of Russian authors who would never use ten words when a hundred could say the same thing? But then Tom Clancy came around and ruined it. A Russian author who would use 100 words instead of 10 words to say something is way better than an American author who uses 100 pages to say absolutely nothing. The longest novel I ever read that said nothing was… aw, I can’t even remember which Tom Clancy super-long epic it was (the one where Jack Ryan becomes president, I think).
At least War and Peace had a point (at least that’s what those who have claimed to have read it say).
WAR AND PEACE vs. TOM CLANCY
War and Peace: Numerous characters with long Russian names can be confusing to non-Russian readers (please, no jokes about the phrase “Russian readers” being an oxymoron).
Tom Clancy novels: numerous weapons with long-winded explanations can be confusing to readers who know nothing about modern weaponry that may or may not really exist.
War and Peace: Still relevant 150 years after publication.
Tom Clancy novels: Because of the quick movements of current events and changes in technology, irrelevant as soon as they are published.
War and Peace: Any problems with the novel can be blamed on the translation.
Tom Clancy novels: Any problems with the novel (like bad dialogue) can be blamed squarely on the author.
War and Peace: I wish I could say with pride that I’ve read the whole thing, but I can’t because I haven’t.
Tom Clancy novels: I’ve read several, but I wish I could say with pride that I haven’t. To be fair, I liked Clear and Present Danger.
War and Peace: This novel will continue to be read hundreds of years from now.
Tom Clancy novels: These novels will be forgotten in a few decades, but Tom Clancy has made a ton of money, so who cares? I would love to make millions of dollars writing novels that will soon be forgotten.
War and Peace: It breaks Dysfunctional Literacy Rule #3, but we know that we should read it anyway because it’s (supposedly) one the BEST BOOKS EVER!
Tom Clancy novels: They break both rules #2 and 3, but we read them anyway because they came out before we had rules for dysfunctional literates.
THE CASE AGAINST READING WAR AND PEACE
It’s written in Russian. Okay.
If you don’t read Russian, then you have to read a translation, and no matter how good the translation is, it’s going to miss much of the subtleties that made Tolstoy a great writer. There are also a lot of references to Russian society that might require some research. That’s a lot of work just to read a huge novel.
THE CASE FOR READING WAR AND PEACE
You can brag about it after you finish it.
THE CASE FOR READING TOM CLANCY NOVELS
The good guys always win, and the good guys are almost always the U.S.A. Since there are few subtleties in Tom Clancy’s writing, these books are probably very easy to translate into Russian, but because the Russians are often portrayed negatively, there might not be a market for translated Tom Clancy novels in Russia.
THE CASE AGAINST READING TOM CLANCY NOVELS
You can watch the movies which are usually better and take up less time in your life.
TOM CLANCY WRITES WAR AND PEACE
This is either a great idea or a horrible idea. Tom Clancy should get a synopsis of War and Peace and then retell the story in his Clancyesque style. Pierre Bezhukov could be renamed Peter Ryan. Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky would be renamed Prince Andy Brewer. You get the idea. The characters are still Russian, but the names are Americanized to help us keep up. Every weapon from the early 19th century could be described with intricate detail. A bunch of ironically dismissive comments about the growing United States could be made by both French and Russian characters. The book could be called Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace by Tom Clancy, just like Tom Clancy lends his name to projects that he allegedly barely looks at. If Clancy could keep his version to under 500 pages (get rid of all the characters’ inner turmoil), we might just read it. But we wouldn’t brag about it later.
DO RUSSIANS WISH THEY COULD READ MOBY DICK?
War and Peace is kind of like the Russian version of Moby Dick for dysfunctional literates. We’d like to be able to read it, but it takes a lot of work, and we’re not sure it’s worth the time. Do Russian dysfunctional literates wish they could read Moby Dick? How does Moby Dick even translate into Russian? If you translate the title Moby Dick into Russian, do Russian teenagers laugh? If you say, “Moby Dick was a sperm whale,” in Russian, do they giggle? Does the Russian vocabulary have the subtlety for Hermann Melville’s language? Or is the idea of a long novel about an American whale hunter so abhorrent in today’s international community that no Russian would want to read Moby Dick in the first place? Do Russians even want to read War and Peace anymore? These are questions that we at Dysfunctional Literacy seriously do not know the answers to.
Any insight (other than our own) would be appreciated.
If Chuck Norris thinks this Chuck Norris joke is funny, who are you to disagree? Image via Wikipedia
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris were invited speakers at a science fiction/ comic book/ geek convention. Arnold was there because of his roles as Conan and the Terminator. Chuck was there because he’s Chuck Norris.
While Arnold was speaking to the crowd, he noticed that somebody had taken his Conan the Barbarian sword from the display case. Angrily, he addressed the crowd.
“I am going to leave this voom vor vun minute. Vhen I veturn, iv the svord is not veturned to the display case, by Crom, I vill kill you vith my bare hands! I vill veast upon your bones over your gravesights. I vill enslave your wives and vornicate your daughters. Or I vill enslave your daughters and vornicate your wives. Or I vill enslave and vornicate your wives and daughters! You have vun minute until… I’ll… be… back!”
The crowd cheered wildly at his performance (despite his mixing of roles in mid-sentence). Arnold thought he had regained his acting chops, his gravitas, but when he returned to the conference room, the display case was still empty. There was no sword.
Somebody from the crowd called out, “Vhen you left, did you vather any children out of vedlock?” and the crowd snickered and then fell silent.
Arnold was humiliated. The audience was embarrassed, but nobody said anything. The room was quiet, with lots of fanboys looking at the floor or at their phones.
Chuck Norris had seen enough. He stormed to the stage and grabbed the microphone. “Enough, pencil necks,” he growled at the audience. “Somebody stole my Walker, Texas Ranger hat once.”
The crowd gasped.
“That’s right. I was at a geek convention in Omaha, just like this one, and somebody swiped my very own, original, one-and-only Walker, Texas Ranger hat when I was talking to a group just like you.”
The audience stared at Chuck Norris in stunned, respectful silence.
“I’m not proud of what I had to do that day, but I did what needed to be done, and I’ll do it again if I have to. Arnold and I will leave the room one more time for one minute. If the sword hasn’t been returned when we get back, I’ll have to do what I did in Omaha.”
The audience’s collective jaw dropped in fear.
“I don’t want to do what I did in Omaha. Don’t make me do what I did in Omaha. Don’t… make… me… do… it.”
With that said, Chuck Norris left the room, and Arnold followed him. When they returned a minute later, the sword was back in the display case. And the audience was much relieved (some in their own pants).
As Arnold and Chuck left the convention hall, Arnold tapped Chuck on the shoulder and said, “I must know. Vhat did you do in Omaha?”
Chuck Norris shrugged his shoulders and said, “I bought a new hat.”
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
President Bush explains to Obama and Clinton that he too can write his own memoir. Yes, he really can!! Image via Wikipedia
Decision Points by George W. Bush
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
BEST POLITICAL DISCUSSION STARTER EVER!
Read President Obama’s Dreams from My Father with a Decision Points book jacket over it. When some wise-acre says something derisive like, “Worst president ever,” you whip off the jacket and retort, “Yes! Yes, he is!”
This set-up can also work in reverse, with a Dreams from My Father jacket covering a Decision Points book.
Whether you think Bush sucks or Obama sucks, whether you think of Bush as the worst president ever or Obama as the worst president ever, this trick is the BEST POLITICAL CONVERSATION STARTER EVER!
WHICH PRESIDENTS REALLY WROTE THEIR OWN MEMOIRS?
Whenever a famous person writes a memoir, there is speculation and debate about whether or not that celebrity truly wrote the book. That happens because ghostwriting seems to be kind of accepted in the memoir business. So now there are those who question whether both our previous and current presidents wrote their respective memoirs, Decision Points and Dreams from My Father. In President Bush’s case, some people are skeptical that he can write at all, much less finish a 500 page page-turner. With President Obama, it was the flowery prose and poetic imagery that made conspiracy theorists shake their heads.
Here at Dysfunctional Literacy, we have a simple technique to determine if a famous person truly wrote his or her book. We read the words aloud, and if we can picture the alleged author speaking, if we can hear his voice along with the words, then we figure that the celebrity actually wrote the book.
First is a short excerpt from Decision Points by George Bush, from the first page of Chapter 1.
“I have a habitual personality. I smoked cigarettes for about nine years, starting in college. I quit smoking by dipping snuff. I quit that by chewing long-leaf tobacco. Eventually I got down to cigars.”
When you read that, can you picture President Bush uttering those words? The verdict from the staff at Dysfunctional Literacy is… yes. We proudly declare that President Bush is the true author of Decision Points. That was a no-brainer.
Next is a short excerpt from Dreams from My Father, from the first page of Chapter 1.
“I was living in New York at the time, on Ninety-fourth between Second and First, part of that unnamed, shifting border between East Harlem and the rest of Manhattan. It was an uninviting block, treeless and barren, lined with soot-colored walk-ups that cast heavy shadows for most of the day. The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.”
When you read that excerpt, can you hear President Obama uttering those same words? We at Dysfunctional Literacy weren’t so certain. Something just didn’t seem quite right. Maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama did have a ghostwriter for his memoir. Then we thought, how arrogant can you be, to not only write a memoir before you become famous but then to also hire a ghostwriter to pen it for you? That is the height of youthful narcissism! Perhaps the conspiracy theorists were on to something!
Then we realized what the problem was. The editors probably made a slight change to Obama’s original text that completely altered his voice. Here is what the excerpt might have looked like before the editors changed it.
“Uh, let me be clear. I was living in New York at the time, on Ninety-fourth between Second and First, part of that unnamed, uh, shifting border between East Harlem and the rest of Manhattan. Let me be frank, it was an uninviting block, treeless and barren, uh, lined with soot-colored walk-ups that cast heavy shadows for most of the day. The apartment was small, uh, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, uh, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where, let me be clear, a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around, uh, an empty beer bottle.”
Okay, now that sounds like the President Obama we try to tune out every day. We at Dysfunctional Literacy proudly declare that Barack Obama is truly the author of Dreams from My Father!
And shame on all of you that would doubt the literary integrity of our Commanders in Chief.
Dysfunctional Literacy 