Following my re-reading of Matt Beaumont’s e: A Novel, I discovered that he wrote a short sequel to it.  Further investigation revealed that it was made available digitally as a PDF from ebooks.com for a mere $4.25.  Sold!  All I needed was a handy reader for digital books (available free) and I was all set.  I don’t ever intend to own a Kindle or anything like that and prefer to hold a book in my hands, but this is a short 152 pages.  Not too hard to read on a laptop and much cheaper than the print version (which was going for a whopping $17).

The story begins in October 2000.  Following the tumultuous events in the first book, the new CEO has got her hands full with a Barbie campaign gone awry, new copywriters with attitude (and oddly, a complete lack of correct spelling), and a Christmas party that coincides with the Miller-Shanks European CEOs visiting the London branch.  Of course, that means David Crutton, the former London CEO will be making an appearance.

All of the old favorites are back in full form.  Suzi the crazy secretary  is more prominent this time and manages to step in it spectacularly.  Even Simon makes an appearance, which is awesome considering how he left the company in the previous book.

While it’s a shorter story and not nearly as good as the first, it’s nice to revisit these characters once more.  It’s especially fun to see Harriet step into the role of CEO and fall prey to the stresses of the job.  In retrospect, I’m now a little more sympathetic to David.

Overall, it was enjoyable and fun.  Apparently there’s another sequel, e Squared that has already been released in the UK and will be available here in January.  At this point, I’m invested enough in these characters to check it out.

I’m sure most of us have been introduced to the epistolary novel at some point.  Classic examples include Dracula, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liasons), The Color Purple — stories told exclusively through letters between characters.  This technique allows multiple viewpoints and narrators, often providing more than one version of events and truth.  This was especially used to great effect in Dangerous Liasons, with each letter presenting a facet of an elaborate and devious game.

Beaumont takes the spirit of the epistolary novel and the social intricacies found in Dangerous Liasons and updates it with emails sent back and forth in Miller-Shanks, a London advertising agency.

We’re first introduced to David Crutton, CEO of the London branch, as he sends a company-wide email reminding everyone that he intends to ring in the new millennium with rousing success.  Namely, he intends to land their biggest client, Coca-Cola.

Other characters soon follow: Pinki, a “hippie dipstick” copywriter who objects to everything she can.  Simon, a pretentious Creative Director who lapses into French phrasing mid-email in order to bolster his own importance and sophistication.  Suzi, Simon’s secretary and nosy drama queen of the highest order with an amazing superiority complex.  Harriet, a master of diplomacy and tact who is attempting to keep everyone from killing each other.

There are actually more characters than I can possibly list, enough to fill an office. While it’s hard to keep up with at first (I had to keep checking the names at the top of each email for a bit) I soon eased into it and began recognizing characters just from the content of their emails.  The rapid back and forth is entertaining, but the most enjoyable part is seeing just how far office politics and ass-kissing can go.  One character will eviscerate another for being creative, then turn around and spin it to the CEO as an example of his skills as a mentor.  Apparently Beaumont works as a copywriter, which explains his particular freakish knowledge of advertising and inter-office scheming.

Definitely recommended, especially for anyone who’s worked in an office setting.  Some parts of this book will seem painfully familiar, and it’s nice to be able to step back and giggle at the nonsense.

As I had mentioned earlier, I’m participating in Pajiba’s Cannonball Read this year, along with a whole slew of other participants.  And I’m starting with a book that I adore.  Yes, I’ve read it before, but I picked it back up yesterday for the express purpose of reviewing it.

They Call Me Mad Dog: A Story for Bitter, Lonely People by Erika Lopez

The main character, Tomato Rodriguez is an artist.  By which I mean she makes sculptures of the male anatomy that Babeland afficianados would squee over.  She’s also head over heels in love with her girlfriend, Hodie.  The easy, comfortable kind of lesbian love that consists of watching Matlock reruns in a hazy bliss of uncoolness and contentment.  The older, more experienced Hodie promises to love only  Tomato forever in the waiting room of the free clinic and they celebrate their newfound monogamy by throwing away the latex gloves.

But once Tomato finds out that Hodie’s been cattin’ around on her, revenge is the only thing on her mind.  A botched kidnapping leads to Tomato being framed for murder, and she passes time in jail while she tries to figure out what went wrong and where.

But that little plot summary isn’t really capturing what I love about this book. Lopez fills the pages with her crazy, weird illustrations.  The story is brimming with pop culture references and flashbacks that are at best embarrassing and at worst wildly inappropriate.  She compares Oprah and Jerry Springer as opposing ways of life, claiming that on Jerry’s show “whether we’re black, yellow, red, or American blue we can all be proud white trash on parade.”  She is irreverent, she is insane, but most of all, she is hilarious.

Lastly, I’m including a favorite passage from the book, on how to deal with anger:

We give tissues for tears, we give hugs for accomplishments, and we hand over teddy bears in the dark. But when you get angry, some people cower and think it’s all over between you, while others threaten to drive powder blue Cadillacs through your front door. Therapists tell you to sit and feel the electricity of angr burning through your extremities, while religion tells you to just go do something nice for someone. Give them a corn cob duck . . .
Because although there might be that sisterhood thing poking up its little fallopian tentacles everywhere, that gets tedious and boring the way most NAACP stuff gets, so then it really all comes down to simply looking good, doesn’t it? Lots and lots of glitter. Puerto Ricans and drag queens knew it all the time.

Really, check this one out.  Though it might not be available in your library, you can find it online and in bookstores.  And if you really can’t find a copy no matter how hard you try, give me a call.  I have two.

]]> http://thefunctionalweirdo.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/kicking-off-the-cannonball-read/feed/ 0 Sharon they call me mad dog http://thefunctionalweirdo.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/costumes-past/ http://thefunctionalweirdo.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/costumes-past/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:45:25 +0000 Sharon http://thefunctionalweirdo.wordpress.com/?p=657 ]]>

In the spirit of Halloween, I went scrounging through my old pictures to find out what I used to look like when I dressed up.
It’s pretty bad.  I mean, really.

First up, this wasn’t for a special occasion, this is what I wore EVERY DAY.

No, I’m not a tiny Amish nun but thank you for asking.  That Strawberry Shortcake towel is my luxurious, long hair. Obviously.  I wanted long hair and didn’t have it because (according to my mother) I refused to brush it.  If I refused to brush it, she refused to let me grow it out.  This apparently stayed in my subconscious when my hair reached my waist in high school.  Take that!!

Next we have: Little Bo Peep goes grocery shopping.

At least, that’s as near as I can figure it.  I’m wearing a dress and a matching freaking bonnet.  I’m not sure that’s even legal now. But in 1983, why not?

A year later: Another hideous dress!!  This time with a wee bit of costume jewelry!

Really, that dress is beyond me.  Did someone make it?  Who made it?  Were they blind?

Of course, I’m not much better at dressing myself.  This is what I came up with one year for a Mardi Gras parade.

Yes, that is indeed a purple sequin mesh/net shirt. Please note the addition of glitter war paint dramatically streaked across my cheeks and some heinous clip-on earrings.  That’s RIGHT.

I would like to point out that my father was willing to go along with it.  Not only did he allow this outfit, he played along.

As you can see, he used color hair spray to make his beard blue and pink.  Because that’s how we do.
You may ask yourself, “Where did you obtain such things as a purple sequin mesh/net shirt AND a gold sequin belt?”  Honestly, I have no clue.  It couldn’t have been from dance recitals, because that was all tutus and what not.  And the costume jewelry came from my grandmother, but I’m certain she didn’t have a stretchy sequin belt stashed away in her cellar from her youth.  It was the 80s, maybe this stuff was just commercially available everywhere.

And now, my favorite costume of all time.  One year, age 8, I tell my mother that I want to be a witch.  Okay!  She’s going to make me a skirt.  With pointed edges, because pointy-edged skirts are what witches wear.  And black stockings!  Yes!

The result, though, looks less like I’m about to stir a cauldron and more like I’m a tiny woman of the night.  Boy, those skirt slits went higher than we anticipated.  And those are fishnets, by the way.  And yes, I grabbed a magic wand from the magic supply closet, but at that angle it’s looking a little like a cigarette holder. AWESOME.  I can’t believe I was allowed to leave the house like this.

The weather’s been really nice lately. And in our efforts to bring our electric bill way down while we have the chance, we’ve been keeping the A/C off and opening the windows. Especially the back door — we have only the screen door up almost all day and night.

And then, last night. I was in the kitchen while C was sitting in the living room. It was about 2 in the morning? I hear this massive crash. Our cat has seen another cat on the porch, attacked, and pushed the screen door right out. Not the screen, the entire door.

I run into the living room as C pulls the sliding door closed. Looking around, I ask where the cat is. We have a small disagreement about whether or not the cat would go outside. C says she never tries to go outside and I argue that maybe through sheer momentum, she couldn’t help it. We look inside for the cat, including all her favorite hiding places. Nothing.

At this point, I’m maybe freaking out just a little. I like this cat, I’m quite fond of her, and I don’t really fancy losing her. C goes outside with a flashlight, in the rain, and starts patrolling the green space behind our apartment. I stay on the back porch in case the cat comes back. After 30 minutes of this, I’m freaking out a little more because really? This is the day I lose my cat?

I run back inside to grab some catfood to shake around, and as I approach the back door I see a streak of white and C waving frantically. The cat has just rushed by our porch and is slinking through bushes. C finally grabs her and hands her over the rail to me.

My cat was wet, muddy, and kind of freaking out herself. But she’s home.

A Pajiba friend has been posting some of his ghost experiences, and they inspired me to tell my own. It’s the Halloween season, I guess.

It’s not as exciting or vivid as his, but it sure scared the hell out of me when it happened.

The first one happened in my bedroom of the house I grew up in (on Westminster). My bed faced the window, which faced nothing, really. Just the fence and a narrow strip of side yard. And one night, as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, I saw something.

It didn’t look like much at first. Just a shadow. But the shadow looked . . . wrong somehow. If you lie in a bed and stare at a window for that many years, you get pretty familiar with where the light hits in any given situation. This shadow just didnt make sense. It seemed detached, set apart from the fence, and it didn’t fall like any shadow I had ever seen.

Just as I was puzzling over this, the shadow moved. And the best I can explain it is that the shadow seemed to ripple slightly and move through my window. I was terrified, unable to move or cry out or do anything except stare at it in rapt horror.

I remember lying there, crying and unblinking as I felt a kind of malevolence  rush over me.  The room was thrumming with it. And all I could think to do, frozen as I was, was to silently pray.  My relationship with the church by then was tenuous at best, but some habits and faith will stick with you no matter what. I fervently sent up every plea I could think of, shivering the entire time as the room grew colder and the shadow hovered first in the window, then past it, and then moved closer to me. And as I lay there, I watched the shadow suddenly dissolve. I bolted upright and ran to the bathroom where I huddled in a towel and tried to convince myself that I had been dreaming.

But I knew I hadn’t been asleep. Not at all. And I didn’t sleep in my room for a week.

Starting in November, I’ll be participating in Pajiba’s Cannonball Read, which has been changed this year from 100 books read in a year to 52.  Which means that when I read a book, I’m going to write and post a review of it on this here blog.

You might wonder what I’ll be reading.  Well, I always felt like a terrible English major for not reading certain classic books. This might help me take care of that.  I might go shopping at M’s house (really, she has a LOT of books) and see what interests me.  There have been some Shakespeare plays I always meant to get to, the ones that weren’t addressed in my classes. Who knows! But I’m really tired of reading research articles for my thesis. And I need something to do when I take a break other than watching old episodes of The Office or playing stupid games.

And if anyone has suggestions of books they love, please send them my way. You know how when you go to a bookstore or a library, every idea you ever had about books you wanted just flies away? That happens to me all the time. I don’t even know where to start, except by looking through my own bookcases and grabbing the stuff I’ve been ignoring for years. So help a girl out.

I’ve decided to move all of my recipes and cooking posts from this site over to the other blog, Fixin’ to Eat.  It might take  a couple of days, but it will all go, including the printer-friendly versions.  So be patient!  And make sure to bookmark the other site.

So . . . this is probably the most unexpected, awesome thing.  Dr. Frankenstein has arrived to fix my household appliances.

My friends Heather and Casey came to town to visit (yay!).  Upon arriving, I informed Casey how upset I was that my very expensive, overly loved primo bar blender I got for Christmas 2 years ago has been dead, died, kaput.  For a while now.  Casey, being the guy that he is, asks if he can tinker with it.  Sure, I say.  Go nuts.

He informs me, after a brief inspection, that my blender has blown some fuse inside.  He holds it up victoriously and I say disbelievingly, “That was the problem??”

So after dinner, Casey takes a trip out to Walmart to see if they have a fuse.  He also picks up new vacuum cleaner belts that he happens to find there because I had been bitching how I couldn’t find any yesterday at Target.  He officially rocks.

Upon his return  the following happens.
Casey: Okay.  They didn’t have the fuse but . . . they had a $5 surge protector.  And some soldering material.  And a lighter that might do the job.  So, uh, I can try this and if I totally blow it up I swear I’ll buy you a new one. But it’s not currently working anyway, right?
Me: What are you asking me exactly?
C: Well, if this works, and it’s gonna work, you can use your blender.  It might glow a really neat light when you use it. Are you okay with that?
Me: What??

After 10 minutes, of asking if it’s going to blow me up or catch my kitchen on fire if I try to use it once they leave, accusing him of being a fly-by-night weirdo who makes explosive devices in the kitchens of friends, I agree to let him do it.  Heather assures me that after 2 years of living with him, she’s not been killed.

And he does the following (I had to quote him because I couldn’t possibly summarize this):  “I sharded a surge protector, cut out the fuse, soldered it in where the blender fuse used to be, heat-shrinked it, and turned it on.  And if the fuse blows out again, just open it up and flip the switch.”

Lo and behold, I have a blender again.  I admit to being a little terrified of using it, but I’m gonna have the fire extinguisher handy.  And it doesn’t glow, but I’m kind of okay with that.  That might have made me even more nervous.

If he didn’t have such a good job already, I would tell him he has a prolific, if scary and weird, new career.

My new obsession? Egg Radio. It’s a great online radio station with a weird, eclectic mix.  There’s a rating system, and members can upload songs to the library. I’ve been uploading like a champ.  Spender, the man with the plan, even sent me a message telling me he was about to play “Total Eclipse” by Billy Cobham.  This made my day since I personally strive to make every man, woman, and child a fan of Mr. Cobham.  He will show you the way, kids. I swear it.  You know how kids are supposed to listen to Beethoven and get better at math?  Listening to Cobham (or many other funk bands) instantly makes you cooler and more socially viable.

And there’s my shout out for the day.

What else is going on?  Umm, a couple of friends are headed into town this weekend to attend the Cake Wrecks book signing downtown.  I’m supposed to be cleaning the apartment.  If you know me, you know exactly how much I’ve accomplished thus far (the answer is 5%).  You know, if I could just get C to do the floors, I’ll do the rest.  Because I hate vacuuming and mopping more than anything.  I’d even rather clean the tub, and that’s saying something considering that by the time I’m done my knees are kind of bruised and disgusting looking.

This is turning into a really boring post, isn’t it?  I wish I had some funny story or weird insight to share.  Give me a week, I’ll try to come up with something better.