Objective Criticism is Pointless (and Impossible!)

"I prefer a reviewer to be objective in their criticisms."

There's little else I hate hearing. Okay... there are some things that are worse (maybe a lot of things), but I need to make one thing clear as day -- there is no such thing as "objective criticism."

Have people covered this topic before? Yes. Do I care? No. I have too many things to say about it.

A little while ago, I got a text from my friend, asking, "What is a review? Of a game, movie, book, etc. Can you define for me?"

I said yes, of course. Who couldn't?

What I replied back was, and I quote, "A review is an oversight of the overall product, it's faults, and its triumphs, as a way of communicating to others the value as perceived by the reviewer."

I asked him why he wanted this from me and he told me that he was in a debate with his friend about how entertainment reviews (in this case, video games) should be handled. His friend said that all reviews should be "objective," and should detail the objective faults and achievements of the product (game).

I sighed. 

This biggest issue with this type of thinking is the fallacy that any single product has an established, impartial value. This is false. Write this down, kids -- value can only be determined by the standards of the people who obtain and distribute the product, how they utilize it, and what it means to them. All of these things are inherently subjective matters.

A good example of this is how our currency works. Our United States dollar is backed by nothing. Nothing. It used to have an equivalence in value to gold, with the paper dollar functioning sort of like an IOU. It was meant to represent the promise of gold in exchange for goods, and now that we aren't on the gold standard any longer, all that paper we have in our wallets is exactly what it looks like. Just paper. 

This system is able to work because our culture functions on the trade and circulation of product for currency. We assigned value to the money based on how we valued gold, and we only really ever valued gold based on preformed assumptions about it's magic power and rarity long long ago. So in a sense, our money was never truly worth anything.

And that's just it -- nothing is. Nature does not produce "worth" -- worth is something that is perceived. To put it simply, if you have long hair, then hair ties are likely worth something to you because you can use them. If you have short hair, then, well, why would you need a hair tie? The same can be said about literally anything. How many times have you thought to yourself, "I don't want that, that isn't useful to me." It's important to remember that whatever that "thing" was, it's useful to someone else. Now, how many times have you thought "I want that. No... I need it." This works both ways, people.

Taking this into account, we can understand better how human art functions. Art is intrinsically a human creation. Anything produced by people from external resources can be considered art. Therefore, art is very much a consequence of culture, and the people creating the art -- Pablo Picasso made grotesque, strangely-angled paintings that reflected his emotional well-being (or lack thereof). Fransisco Goya created The Black Paintings after years of conflict in his home country and suffering from deafness. Today they're still widely revered and respected as forms of the highest art. However, they still came from subjective sources. Objectively, all these paintings are, are chemicals and compounds mixed onto a canvas in patterns that resemble imagery. We project meaning onto it because the artist designed it that way. This means that the standards with which we judge the art do not exist innately -- they were conceived in our minds. 

My friend said this to me on the topic of music snobs; "If you go to a different culture and hear their music, you'd probably be shocked at how strange it sounds, and it could be hard to appreciate it. But to them, your own culture's music would be just as weird." 

Yet that culture's music is what they listen to. It's what they create, and what they see value in. It has no objective value, only objective traits. Those traits could be dependency on deer-hide drums, or choir chanting and the jawbone. Does that make it bad? Likewise, does autotune have any less value than acoustic guitar? Or are they simply different traits?

No art can actually, objectively, fail at presentation, because we judge presentation by our own preconceived, individual standards. These things don't grow on trees -- we have to think them up. They change over time because they come from our culture, which is fluid. What was acceptable in film thirty years ago doesn't reflect how we think of the medium today. The same can be said for how it will look in the future as well. So if I were to sit here and give you an "objective" review of a video game, I would give you;

1. The name of the game and the plot synopsis 

2. The gameplay mechanics

3. The type of graphics, age rating, and estimated playtime

4. The name of the studio that created it

None of that is my opinion. It would be pure fact. 

But it wouldn't be a review, or any type of criticism. Criticism has to involve a level of deeper thought, some kind of critical thinking...

However, as we know, the critical thought would be entirely based around our own subjective standards, expectations, and tastes. So, any criticisms we come up with would be creations of our own projection, and therefore don't reflect an objective truth about the thing we've criticized -- only that it appeals to us for various reasons, or not.

This is not to say we shouldn't ever have standards -- heavens, no. I just want people to understand that there is no "good" or "bad" piece of art or entertainment. It may be that way to you, and for the ease of communication, it usually makes more sense to refer to it as such. But until you can prove to me that character development is inherently less important that setting, I'm going to keep the opinion I have now.

Thank you for staying with me through this rant, if you did. As always, keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading.

And I'll look down and whisper... "no."

Rorschach's Journal.  October 12th, 1985:

"Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach.  This city is afraid of me.  I have seen its true face.  The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.  The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"...

... and I'll look down, and whisper 'no.'"

I just finished the graphic novel, Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The hype was true -- it was honestly one of the best things I think I've ever read. I was blown away with just how meticulous the story was crafted, and how poignant it was as a whole, how honest.  

Without spending too much time on the premise of Watchmen, basically it's about a world that actually had superheroes, with everything about them portrayed as realistically as they possibly could be; in that they were just costumed vigilantes (with the exception of one). The story is about a lot of things and presents a lot of ideas, but its single-most important facet is that it entirely deconstructs the implications of actual heroism and all that comes with it -- the human psyche, the relationship with one's public, and the meaning of right and wrong (hint; it's not as simple as it sounds). 

The way it does this is exploring complex, multifaceted characters; characters we'd normally supposed to be able to latch onto in any run of the mill superhero story. Righteous citizens with a clear view of what is good and what is evil, who will stop at nothing to defend the people, serve, and protect. 

The heroes in Watchmen are not that straightforward. 

I could spend days writing about all of them, but of the core cast, I want to pick out and talk about the character that really stuck with me, more than the others -- Rorschach. (pictured above)

Already we can see just how fascinating he looks, and as seen in the first gif, that mask of his is not stationary. The ink blotches shift and change, miming an actual Rorschach test. As a character, he speaks in broken sentences, patrols the streets at night in his costume even after heroes are outlawed, and records the events of each day, keeping careful note of suspicions in the dark. The story opens with him investigating the supposed murder of a former comrade, and spilling his feelings of the world's injustice, as quoted. He's violent, vengeful, and sees the world in one of two shades -- good, and evil. 

Rorschach represents the hypocritical morality rampant among actual superheroes, and the fault of having such a black and white worldview. He takes the high ground in every scenario to a brutal degree, often delving into murder over contemporary beliefs formed in reaction to any number of offenses. He'll break into someone's home and destroy their property on virtue of them breaking the law themselves. This is a deliberate paradox, being that he constantly traverses the law to uphold it -- mirroring the blatant hypocrisy of figures like Batman, Superman, and virtually every other American superhero that has so much as trespassed, vandalized, and maimed in the name of "greater good." 

His visual motif, the Rorschach test, may alter and change (and as such, is internally inconsistent), but its colors never dip into anything other than the two extremes. No gray. Just black and white. The question this imagery entails, "What does it look like to you?" is a perfect way to encapsulate the implications of his actions. Sure, "evil" needs to be punished -- but his brand of punishment is so delegated to one school of thought that along the way he destroys whole acres of property, puts innocent lives in danger, and fatally wounds those who get in his way; even if they're also on the path of justice.

He also has a trait I have not ever seen in any kind of superhero, and that is asexuality. To some it could seem like Rorschach is misogynist, and to others it could seem like he's afraid of women, or at least uncomfortable around them -- and either one of these conclusions isn't entirely far from the truth. At the end of each chapter, there is a little bit of prose detailing events or details of the story that couldn't be reasonably done in the form of comic; be it a newspaper article, a bit from a memoir, or even a diary entry. One of these is Rorschach's psychiatric-patient file, included in which is something he drew as a child. A nightmare he had... about his mother having sex with a man. To him, they were but one creature, with a hideous, connected face, and four legs intertwined at the hips.

Given that he'd been seriously abused and grew up in such a loveless home, Rorschach's psychology molded around what he could piece together from his experiences. The only interaction he truly had with a woman was that of his mother, who was a prostitute who would bring abusive men into their home, and tell her son he was ugly, that she wished she'd never even had him. When he walks in on them, she continues the abuse, solidifying his negative view of women due to his lack of other examples. This is some very Freudian psychology -- his entire perception of women had been altered because of these experiences, and the ideas he generated stuck with his mindset and followed him into his crime-fighting career. We see it in effect with his comments, saying that he did not like Laurie Jupiter's (Silk Specter II, one of his comrades) very feminine costume, referring to women abroad as "whores," projecting his mother's actions onto all of them out of his yet-still black and white worldview. 

His brand of morality is unrelenting, backing down for no obstacle and never, ever changing or maturing. His thoughts and actions are dependent on one of the two extremes, and no amount of uncertainty or gray area can actually convince him to change. And while that may be somewhat simple, how exactly he got to that point is very detailed and plausible. So already we can see just how complex this character actually is. And apply that complexity to every character in the story, the panel design, the use of color and contrast, the allegorical narrative, and the "comic within a comic" The Tales of Black Freighter told alongside pivotal scenes... and you still have only breached maybe 20% of what makes Watchmen truly that special. Rorschach is but one element, and even then I could still probably write a few more pages about his costume alone -- and then a few more about his lines, his appearance, (not to mention his astoundingly short height at 5'6, which is actually as tall as I am) and everything they entail. 

I seriously suggest that you give this graphic novel a read if you haven't already. I was blown away, and in a world where I hold media so near and dear, finding something that totally blew my previous favorites out of the water was an incredible experience. 

As always -- keep writing, keep watching, and most importantly, keep reading. 

Goodbye, Class E (A Love Letter)

My friend does this thing that really bugs me. When he finishes watching or reading something, he’ll usually say something like, “8/10 for how well the thing was actually made, 6/10 for enjoyment, because I thought it was a little boring,” or vice versa, and such. Very rarely do his two scores match. This bothers me for a variety of reasons – the first being that I subscribe to the idea that art is always subjective, and can’t have a “set” level of good or bad. As a consequence, if you like something, you must inherently find some level of value in it. I tried to tell him this, but he insists on going about thinking of things the previous way, and while I respect that, I definitely let him know that I disagreed.

Then, one day, I was looking for the dates that the manga I followed would get new volumes (in English), and, Assassination Classroom being one of them, I found the date for volume 21.  

“Oh,” I said, “this is the last one? That makes me a little sad.”

Then I saw the cover (pictured above.)

As you can see, it depicts Class E standing around their mountaintop classroom, observing the beautiful night sky… and one of them is pointing up at Koro Sensei’s (their teacher) face, imprinted in the stars.

If you're unfamiliar with Assassination Classroom, it's a manga (Japanese comic) series about a group of drop-out eighth graders who find themselves held hostage by an alien creature after he blows up the moon into a permanent crescent. This creature, who can move at mach 20 speed and transform his body at will, says that they have the school year to learn how to kill him, and if they can't, he'll destroy the Earth. Along the way, we learn that this creature (named Koro Sensei by his class, after the Japanese word for "kill") is not a monster at all, but a wonderful teacher, who, despite being able to always thwart their assassination attempts, does not want to hurt anyone -- he only wants to pass on his knowledge to kids that believe life has left them behind before his inevitable death.

In many ways that people get wake-up calls in their life, this volume's cover, for whatever reason, hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s over. Assassination Classroom has ended. I guess the pointers were always there; the students had only a single school year to succeed in their goal in assassinating Koro Sensei, and it’s not like time doesn’t pass (unless you’re Ash). But the thing is, it’s a Shonen Jump action manga. A cheesy, dorky, stupid comic about a bunch of kids trying to kill their alien teacher, and they were set up for failure in every chapter with his insane superpowers and their childish antics. So, despite reading so much, I never really paid mind to the idea that the series would truly… end.

And up until now, I looked at Assassination Classroom with relative fondness, but no real critical praise. It’s just alright. What you expect to happen happens. Good triumphs evil. Boob jokes. Crazy superpowers. "It's entertaining."

What I didn’t realize is how the story filled my life with things I could hold on to. I can’t say I’ve truly had issues making friends, but I certainly had issues fitting in. Going to class every day from grades 6-12 was a trip to stress-town, and in that state of mind, there’s the need for little “ropes” we can easily grasp. One of those ropes were my friends, who, despite the teasing and the bullshit, were there when I needed them. Another one of those ropes were the teachers who cared. We’ve all had ones that don’t – but the ones that do will do anything to help their students, be it with their grades, with their personal problems, or anything inbetween. That’s what educators are truly there for.

And of course, another little “rope,” was my favorite things to read.

The manga encompassed all of that. Stories about friendship twelve ways to Sunday -- touching, heartfelt stories about a teacher and his students, and silliness that reminded us of the good things in life -- and all of them delivered to the me in a comfortable, engaging way to read.

I guess finally understanding that Koro Sensei was going to die set in stone the shift in my life from high school to college – teen to adult. I won’t have those friends in my class anymore. I won’t have those teachers in my college professors, and as much as it’s making me just about to burst into tears writing it, someday soon, I won’t have Koro Sensei and his hilarious class anymore to escape to when the “ropes” in my life have, for whatever reason, been tugged away from me.

All good things must come to an end. And bad things too. Nothing lasts forever.

Likewise, absolutely having to have everything be critically flawless in order to enjoy it is a mindset I can’t fully subscribe to anymore.

It's still so clear to me -- the day I stumbled upon a series in my bookstore about a mysterious creature that destroyed the moon, and threatened to do the same to Earth if the under-appreciated Class E didn’t kill him first. In good times and bad times, I read about that creature teaching his class how to grow as human beings. I read about those kids acing their entrance exams, just as I was finishing my own high school experience. And as some of the most important friendships in my life drift away and I learn to truly become an adult, I read the second to last volume and... well, I won't ruin it here, but if the series has taken hold of you like it did me, you'll need some tissues.

This story helped me cope with so many things in my adolescence. Other stories are too heavy for times of stress. Others are just not even worth your patience in the best of times. But when I sat down and read Assassination Classroom, I knew Koro Sensei’s face would make me laugh. I knew the students would try, (and fail) to kill him, but they’d always learn something new, and improve on their former selves. True, they can somehow become better athletes than most Olympians in just a year, rebuild a school in a weekend, and even be sent to space and back, but I just don’t care. When I was feeling shitty because of something someone said, when I just finished my homework and wanted a break, and even when I just had a rough day and needed to laugh, I knew that big, dumb, yellow smile would be waiting for me. At the end of the day, that’s really all I was asking for.

Assassination Classroom was different. And now, it’s over. 

Nothing can replace it. 

Harry Potter and the Genius of the Boggart

Having grown up with the Harry Potter series, I, like a lot of people, tend to see it through rose-tinted glasses. The characters, the setting, oh, and the magic... what kid doesn't dream of going to a wizard school? With being forced to go to the mundane equivalent everyday (with such boring knowledge a lot of the time), it's absolutely no surprise that a fantasy series like Harry Potter captured the imaginations of not just kids, but adults as well. Everywhere, in fact -- the Harry Potter series has been translated into 68 languages and has sold 400 million copies worldwide (thanks Google!)

When you're a kid, you don't quite know what makes Harry Potter so special (or, at least, that was how I felt). However, I've loved the stories since I first saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Sorcerer's Stone on the TV in my old house almost two decades ago, and I love them all today just as much as I did then.

While there is an overabundance of things in the stories to fall head-over-heels for, one thing that really stood out to me on re-read and re-watch is just how clever the characterization is. Specifically in the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In both the film and the novel, students in Remus Lupin's Defense Against the Dark Arts class must be able to use the "Riddikulus" charm against a Boggart. Riddikulus (literally pronounced "ridiculous") is a task-specific spell meant to defend against the Boggarts (While they came from wider European mythology, in the Harry Potter universe, a Boggart is a shape-shifter, and can take the form of someone's most intense personal fears). 

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the student's are all roughly 13 years old, being in their third year at Hogwarts and all. The concept of the Boggart and the Riddikulus charm work in tandem to characterize them without being outright exposition; it shows their emotional priorities and weaknesses at such an impressionable age pretty frighteningly well. 

In the book (and the film), the first student to take the stage against the Boggart in class is none other than Neville Longbottom. Up until the fifth installment, Neville is quite the coward -- always being pushed around by the other students (even Hermione!) and not having any outward self-confidence. A lot of this personality is shown in what he fears when the Boggart is first revealed; 

"A jet of sparks shot from the end of Professor Lupin's wand and hit the doorknob. The wardrobe burst open. Hook-nosed and menacing, Professor Snape stepped out, his eyes flashing at Neville."

                       -- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, page 137 (US hardcover release) 

This passage makes indirect reference to what Neville fears most as a third year at Hogwarts: Snape. Throughout the series, while Snape is quite hostile to most everyone not in Slytherin house, he is particularly mean to Neville. By just writing a Boggart encounter the way she did, Rowling has told us in one paragraph that Neville's biggest fear is the way he's treated, specifically by a figure of authority. His peers treat him this way too, so it's important to note that his Boggart was not simply a reflection of the act of cruelty, it was specifically a teacher acting this way.

In the next paragraph, where Neville casts the Riddikulus charm and the Snape-Boggart is forced to wear his grandmother's clothing, we also see what he finds humorous. By forcing an entity to appear this way, we see how exactly Neville would find Snape less intimidating. Now -- despite what we may be led to believe by this, the series eventually implies to us that Neville's grandmother is not a very kind person; not in an abusive way, but in her stern, commanding nature. A passage on the Harry Potter Wiki states; 

"Augusta was clearly strict with her grandson, who she initially feared was a Squib. Even after Neville proved to be a wizard, his grandmother was stern and demanding of him, sending him Howlers when his behavior displeased her and pressuring him to uphold the 'family honor'."

Much of the thesis of Neville's emotional state is redefined with the reveal of Neville's parents, Frank and Alice Longbottom. After being brutally tortured to the point of insanity, they were admitted to St. Mungos -- a wizarding hospital -- indefinitely. They're around in Neville's life, but they're not able to act as parents due to their heightened level of dementia. In fact, in the fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Neville is seen speaking to them in St. Mungo's, and they're entirely handicapped. This points to Neville's grandmother as his only actual guardian, and when she's stern the way she is, Neville only has Hogwarts to go to for positive contact with authority. And, with Snape being Snape, Neville is denied that positive reinforcement for at least one period of class every single day. 

TL:DR -- It is only reasonable to deduce that with the trauma in his life, figures of authority/guardians are a tender subject with Neville's character. 

So, with the whip of his wand, third-year Neville reduces the Boggart to something he found funny; Snape wearing Augusta's clothes. Mixing the two negative points in his life distilled their impact. In other words; My grandmother is mean to me, and Snape is too -- but if he's wearing her ridiculous clothes, he's not as scary! (it's also worth mentioning that Augusta Longbottom has a very strange sense of fashion)

Things get even more interesting when the Boggart turns on Harry -- it becomes a Dementor, a dark creature he encountered only earlier that school year (I'd hope you all know what a Dementor is). We've read the books and seen the movies (hopefully), so we know Lupin's hypothesis -- this means that Harry's biggest fear is fear itself. He was terrified during his first Dementor encounter because it resurfaced fears in him from probably his oldest memories -- the shriek of his mother, and a flash of green light as Voldemort struck (wanded? magic'd?) her down. Harry faced scary things in his two years before, but the fact that his Boggart took the shape of something that brought back those specific feelings gives us a better picture of his outlook altogether. 

The Boggart letimotif makes its return in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Molly Weasely (the Weasely family's mother) finds in in a closet in 12 Grimmauld Place. The form it took for her were the corpses of her family; her sons, Ron, Fred, and George, her husband Arthur, her daughter Ginny, and finally, Harry. 

This may have a simpler explanation than Neville's (Molly loves Harry like her own children), but it doesn't mean anything less of the Boggarts as a literary device -- they're a fantastic way to show the audience things about a character, and not tell them. 

The series is full of examples of these kinds of things, and it's honestly one of the reasons it's so widely loved -- a good story, for sure, but also a well written story. 

Until next time. Keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading.

Batman 1989 (Bat-A-Thon 1)

Not long ago I decided to watch all of the live action Batman films. As far as American superhero franchises are concerned, Batman has always distinctly been my favorite. He may be a lot of people's favorites, but I think there's a good reason for that. Batman characters are different from just "DC" characters. In a very broad, unique way, Batman manages to have interesting and unique villains that no one else even comes close to -- there's also no lack of distinct, tangible tone in Batman-related media, laying the groundwork for a setting as diverse and investing as Gotham city. 

It's honestly hard to go wrong with Batman. The Adam West (rest in peace) television series is a family-friendly classic, Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is masterful in every sense of the word, and even the worst of the Caped Crusader's two films, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, manage to recreate some of the campier Batman ideas well enough to be watched and enjoyed, even if it it's done ironically. 

To start off the Bat-A-Thon, here is my review of Tim Burton's Batman (1989)

--

Burton crafted a setting almost as iconic than the land of Oz out of Gotham (if not more so). The image of this seemingly 30’s behemoth of a city is intentionally polluted, Gothic, and unwelcoming in presentation, giving it a unique identity. Nothing can come close to the true noir-grittiness of this place; it begs to be saved, and begs to be feared, which makes it a perfect place for a dark hero like Bruce Wayne. To me, this makes Burton's Gotham possibly one of the best portrayals of a single, fictional location ever. Everything is uncut and murky, shady characters are lingering down dark alley streets, and fog is constantly sweeping the ground, clouding the residence in an eerie mist. 

You're not safe here -- no one is.

What I found more interesting, however, is how the dialogue in this film is incredibly subdued. The scenes are usually quiet, somber, and lie within a visual darkness, but that’s not really what I mean. The lines spoken by many of the characters are drowned out by background commotion and foreground imagery, rendering them somewhat unimportant. While this makes the film a little hard to follow, (I actually turned on the subtitles) it adds more of an artistic nihilism to the world around them. Like the city is just so loud with silence that what they say means nothing.

Unfortnately, the flow of this movie does not feel natural. The direction makes it feel more like a sequence of important events that are awkwardly flip-flopping between two sides of the same plot, only one of which being consistently interesting. There’s a lot of trashed potential in some of the extra characters in this story, mainly the wasted archetype of Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale, and the lackluster portrayal of Harvey Dent/Commissioner Gordon by Billy Dee Williams. I believe this film would benefit from much, much less of the story that revolved around Vale’s damsel in distress, and instead focused more on the psychology of the Joker vs. Batman and the creation of the two. In hindsight it does to an extent, but it’s overshadowed by what often takes center stage, that being Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale’s relationship.

As for the mains in their respective roles, Jack Nicholson makes a great psycho but his interpretation of The Joker doesn’t quite hit the mark with me. His demeanor and crimes are accurate in essence of the character, but his raw motives aren’t what drive the character traditionally, and that takes an esteemed fan like me somewhat out of the moment. I also have a bit of a hard time getting past his voice. Mark Hamill and John DiMaggio offer sort of a different take on the same zaniness. Ledger completely deconstructed the character altogether. But Nicholson? He doesn't quite have what it takes.

In similar vein, Michael Keaton plays a great Bruce Wayne but a somewhat unconvincing Batman. He excels with the small talk as his alter ego, and manages to make the prolonged and awkward Wayne/Vale scenes bearable. However, he’s not quite strong or brutal enough for me to sit and go, “Yeah, that’s totally Batman.” Instead, I sit with my hand on my chin and go, “Yeah, that guy in the Batman costume plays a good Batman." 

I don't thin these flaws make the film bad, but it holds it back. Batman stories have always had a lot of things to say, and this movie is no exception. I can admire how it looks, and how it presents that look, but there's better ways to experience this character and his stories.

Overall, Tim Burton’s Batman is a good film. It remains a pinnacle of setting and lacks somewhat in other departments, but is still a worthwhile watch.

Arbitrary score: 7/10

Paperback Problems

The loose stitching. The softened page edges. The white rub-off on the spine and corners of the cover.  If you read, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about paperbacks and their curse -- hold one too long, or in the wrong way (especially transporting them), they can get pretty ruined, and as Lemony Snicket wrote in The Wide Window, "There are few sights sadder than a ruined book."

And as true as that is, unless you're using a tablet (bless your poor soul), you're gonna have to hold your books to read them. None of us have unlocked the psychic-powers power up yet, unfortunately, so until then, it's gonna have to be with your hands. 

Some methods are worse than others -- my mother is guilty of folding paperbacks when she reads them so that the covers touch (just writing that made me shiver). That is one of the reasons my father's Piers Anthony novels look like hell... but not all people abuse books so much. Yet still, opening them creases the spine, which rubs off the print -- especially when the paperback is larger, which means it has to be held longer. The oils on your hands can get on the corners and edges and collect dirt, the pages get a little fluffy and dark, and overall books just get absolutely battered in bags. 

I may not have a solution to all these problems, but here are some of my tips in avoiding totally decimating your precious paperbacks. 

1. Improve how you transport them

When you tote around books, it can be hard to keep them from rubbing against the sides of your purse, backpack, or satchel -- and often, these things are made of material that likes to... harass paperbacks. My backpack has a little front pocket where I put my books, and it's made of a sort of lightweight canvas, which means it has a rough texture. This is book torture. Prolonged storage in a bag with this material (and purses/satchels are no exception) will rub your books apart, especially if, god forbid, you toss them in with things like your keys, pens, makeup, or what have you. To counter this, I started sandwiching my books between two sheets of cardboard to act as a sort of cushion, and put a large plastic Ziploc bag between them. Also make sure to drape the edges of the open bag over the cardboard, so it stays open. With this method, what pushed up against my books was the soft, non-harmful material of plastic, and the cardboard keeping the bag stiff absorbed much of the brunt of the canvas material of my backpack. It has really kept them looking good, too.

2. Hold them differently

My hands sometimes get pretty sweaty, and sweat is a prime source of book torture. It shreds printing on most traditional paperbacks -- maybe no so much on plastic-covered ones, but that's not the case on the paper ones. This is especially true on their spines. Another problem is when I sit at a table or desk and rest my book there. It can end up folding the little bit at the bottom of the spine too, and that drives me nuts. A countermeasure for this is to just not hold the book by its spine. Hold the covers, and rest the spine on something soft and cushioned, like a folded blanket or pillow. It honestly works wonders, and siting with a pillow in your lap is a pretty comfortable way to read. 

3. Be careful putting them back on and taking them off of the shelf  

Scooting books around on the shelf can peel the edges of the spine and roughen the paper. If you want your paperbacks to be in peak condition, then minimize how often you move them this way. Better yet, just don't move them this way at all. Lift them off the shelf, set them down nicely, and then rearrange in the same fashion. Slow and steady wins the race.

Obviously, you can't protect every single book form every single little dent and tear, but being diligent and careful is at least a step in the right direction. I'm sure all of us wish books were just impervious from harm, but paper and paper materials just don't work that way, so we need to make an effort to acknowledge what to do about the issue, and work toward fixing it one little bent cover at a time.

Until next time, keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading. 

The Struggle for Meaningful Content

I've been trying desperately to establish an author platform for a while now. From pretty much... every source I've read or seen on bringing yourself some traffic, there seems to be a need for a kind of regular content relating to your actual label.

Given that I have an end goal of getting published to a larger audience, I'm trying to, of course, attract attention. But not the attention of just anyone, I mean the attention of people who would be likely to buy and read a book in the first place. And, as I've heard, the best way to start is social media. Of course! Why wouldn't it be? People are constantly on social media, and have been for years. So, for years of neglecting the lifestyle, I hopped on to try and whore out advertise myself.

My first foray into the game was a Twitter page, which can be found here. For its credit, it did attract a decent amount of attention at first, and I don't tend to lose followers (like SOME platform I can think of). But it's also not like anyone else has been following, or even so much as liking my tweets. This is alright. None of my tweets actually need to be liked, or seen, nor do I really need to be followed - but there's definitely some importance on being "out there" for the beginning of a career. A part of it may be the first strategy, which was shallowly following hashtags -- those got... some attention, and they still do if I post in writing hashtags, but not the kind of stuff I needed. 

Then it was Facebook. This is a more personal web space (I guess), and it's only been a way to connect with family and friends. Obvious, obvious, but just in case, I keep my profile public and post all of my Instagram photos there just in case

Next, I tried YouTube. Please don't make me talk about that. 

When that didn't work so well (I didn't try very hard, but I quickly realized that I hated everything that had to do with video creation) I went to Instagram. Now, Instagram happened to be the best platform for things I enjoyed making, which was amateur book photography. I don't pretend like any of those pictures are any more than a quick setup with a book and my phone, but despite their nonprofessional appearance, I happen to like creating them quite a bit. And I won't lie, I've gotten a teensy bit of traffic from most of them. But what hurts a bit every time I post one is the amount of people that actually like them is made up of people I know, not people looking to find an interesting new photo of a book (and possibly following as a consequence, and one day seeing news of my newly published story). Not to mention the types that tend to follow are accounts that just want others to follow them, and leave if you don't.

But the largest issue with this is that, despite the pictures not being top tier pieces of art, they take time to plan, money to create (with props and whatnot, let alone buying the book), and they demand locations -- locations that I'm running out of. Plus, with my measly traffic, I am not going to go driving out everywhere further than two or three miles for some silly phone photograph. 

So here's the gist. Content from creators has to be "meaningful," but what is "meaningful" in the first place? 

Pretty much all that I can offer (for the time being) from social media can be found better in other places, but this won't be true forever. I do not, by any means, see this blog attracting any attention at all, and that is also okay. It's mainly for me right now, to have an excuse to write a few times a month about things without a limited scope. After all, on sites like Goodreads, IMDB, etc., the type of writing published has exclusively to do with reviews. This is a given, and it's not like I don't enjoy writing a good review here and there, but is it "meaningful" to anyone but me? That is the million dollar question.