My good friend Brian Jenkins claimed there’s a correlation between number of episodes in a series and the quality of that series. He’s right. Mostly. (Wolf Lake notwithstanding.)

So what of Sherlock, which only has three episodes per season? It’s a watchable show, a touch too slick at times, not as intellectual as it could be, and you can sense the disagreements behind the camera; the editing overwhelms the direction, veering from sublime (blurred-around-the-edges establishing shots of London, clever dissolves) to gaudy (CSI-style zooms, jump cuts, and jet-engine-in-reverse sound effects). Still,  I plan on watching the second season, though I’m becoming a bit impatient with the show. Bored, at times. And nervous–maybe that’s overstating, but I get nervous when shows with great potential start to falter. I want them to stay perfect. I want them to improve upon perfection.

Here’s the good:  Performances, casting, locations, crimes, costumes, lighting, explanation of said crimes, sleuthing, music, motivations and…those moments when it becomes a “hang out” show (especially in episode 2, in the Baker Street apt., when Watson, his lady, Sherlock, and Mrs. Hudson are all present).

Not one character is miscast. Not one performance is grating (even Moriarty, folks). And the heart is the heart: Sherlock and Watson are terrific.

Here’s the bad: Whenever it switches from intelligent, efficient BBC-style to CSI-style. The aforementioned jump cuts, the “Sherlock’s-eye cam.” Blech. Feels like directorial masturbation. Feels too American. It cheapens. It bothers.

(Annoying type #36: The guy who insists all British productions are better than American productions. Effective defense: Cite “Benny Hill.”)

Let Sherlock ponder, and let us watch him. We don’t need to see through his eyes. We only need to hear his explanations. Instead, they insist on showing and telling, which makes both redundant, which wastes our time. I don’t know what I’m looking at when Sherlock spies a pinhole in someone’s forehead, and while I appreciate the opportunity to figure it out, the deck is stacked; nobody can figure it out because we’re not given enough. So why bother showing us? I take Sherlock at his word. I trust he’s seeing what is there. Give me a few glimpses. Nothing more, nothing more.

(This only applies to the “real-time” observations. Once he’s figured it out, do the voiceover-while-showing-the-clues thing. That works.)

As for Moriarty, yeah, he’s weird. But it’s a necessary weird. Sherlock and Mycroft fulfill the smooth-talking British type, complete with arched eyebrow and RP accent. We needed Moriarty to sound and act different. Jenkins was right, though. The chap reminded me of this creature.

Someone asked, so here it is. My first–and last–entry in the “Al Qaeda is now freelancing for Zagat Restaurant Guide” failed internet meme. I thought it would catch on. It did not.

Renowned restaurant guide Zagat just announced Al Qaeda will be a part-time contributor. From their review of Goldblatt’s Deli in Upper West: Infidels will love “the hot pastrami on rye with just a touch of mustardy kick” though be careful of “Jewish conspiracies to poison pickles using the blood of demonic pigs” and recommends you “take up the sword in the beloved name of Allah, driving all non-believers to the fiery wastes of their doom.” Make sure to try their “perfectly-balanced Reuben” using “just the right amount of buttery, nutty Swiss” and then “find the nearest Jewess and cut off her head” before completing your meal with “some of New York’s best cheesecake.”

The semester started and I am very, very happy to be back. You know what comes out next month? You’re guessing Micah Nathan’s story in the February issue of Glimmer Train? You are correct. GT will contain my short thriller “Quarry” (among other excellent stories by various excellent writers).

I read about bees being used as security guards and it doesn’t feel right. Leave them alone. They’ve done enough for us. Also, hornets would be so much more effective. Or rats. With scorpions mounted on their backs.

We were in Buffalo for two whole weeks, a nostalgia-laden trip sprinkled with just enough of the new: a photo shoot with the awesome Katie Ambrose, dinner at some excellent restaurants, and various wintry evenings around the fire. I discovered Settlers of Catan. I finished a book by Camus. I didn’t write a lick.

I also rummaged. Through my old boxes and dresser drawers, wherein I found some old love letters, high school essays, and the occasional hate note.

Hate note?

Indeed. I went through a brief hate note phase back in junior high–blame it on hormones and self-exploration of one’s outrage–and thankfully I still have copies of those notes. Including this one:

A transcript of the outrage, for the curious:

Sean,

When you and me [sic] first met, I thought we would stay friends for a long time, but I was wrong. You lie! Craig was the one who said Kevin was “Grinch who stole Christmas,” and I agreed. Craig made it up! I’m so mad at you, not at Kevin. I think I should fight you! Not Kevin. You can’t blame any of this on Kevin or me, it’s you! You seem to use “double-crossing” a lot. That’s stupid, its [sic] called betrayal. You switch sides when your’e [sic] mad at someone. First your [sic] on my side, then your [sic] on Kevin’s.

I’m sick of it!

You were never a friend! You used me!

Never call me, never talk to me, I don’t even want to see you!

You pushed our friendship too far, I have a very long wick on my temper, but it has ran out!!!! [sic]

You don’t deserve to see my signed name!

And there we have it.

Katie Ambrose made me laugh. She kept shooting while I laughed. I was embarrassed.

(Said photos are for a Buffalo Magazine profile, due in their February issue.)

A few days ago I laid on my back, on the local high school football field, and stared at the clouds. It was 60 degrees and sunny. A winter without snow seems aborted–my shed isn’t cozy, my writing is a slog, and I long for an excuse to wear long scarves. Yes, yes, the lamentations of the relatively-spoiled. I know. Let me lament anyway.

Non-fiction > Recommendation > Post Road Magazine

The Stories of John Cheever

It was almost something—anything—by Borges and then a brief flirtation with Capote, but I returned to my original love, my well-trod, easy love: The Stories of John Cheever.

I say “easy” because so many writers have cited Cheever’s work as canonical, but I’m finally past the age when the undiscovered is believed to be more authentic, and I don’t care that he’s sometimes criticized as a product of his era—the martini and cigarette era, we can call it—or that he’s the Cassandra of suburban angst, or that he could write superb short stories but his novels were mediocre. At his best—sober, focused—there was nobody better. He was not a titan like Hemingway or Faulkner, but there’s room in the pantheon for gods of all types. We reserve a temple for him.

The first time I read Cheever (fifteen years ago?) it felt like eavesdropping on an adult conversation, involving very serious, sad people who leave most of the important stuff unsaid, and I remember thinking how amazing that was: a writer could make his characters say everything without saying much. Even better, a writer could have faith in his reader’s ability to know what wasn’t said, and why. This was a revelation. It still is. Of course, he flexed his muscles when needed, and the results—especially to my twenty-year-old self—were equal parts devastation and joy:

Odette has black hair and black eyes. She is careful never to expose her white skin to the sun for long, so the striking contrast of blackness and pallor is not changed in the summer. She needs and deserves attention—it is the element that contents her—and she will flirt, unseriously, with any man.

-Goodbye, My Brother

The Stories of John Cheever keeps going. You wait for him to run out of ideas, to recycle a mood or a character, but he doesn’t. Someone leaves home, someone returns; a wife realizes her husband is a stranger; a businessman has an affair. Such stories are shiny with use—we’ve read them all before, and wonder what’s the point of reading them again. Until we pick up his stories. Then it’s all new, as if we’ve never read about love or loss, or heard someone describe a woman sighing behind a closed bedroom door.

Originally published in Post Road , issue #21

Some excellent news: Phil Noto will be contributing his considerable talent to JTB, and while my tone may seem sedate, it’s only because I usually avoid exclamation points. I am, in a word, thrilled. I’ve been a long-time fan of Phil’s work–from his covers to his comics–and I can’t wait to see what he cooks up.

The uproar over Amazon’s sponsor-a-retail-spy is understandable; yes, they made a big no-no in targeting indie bookstores, and yes, whatever sort of backlash they receive will provide a nice (if very small) boost for the small business set. But what’s the real issue? Is it that Amazon is trying to corner the market in books, by cutting out booksellers, agents, publishing houses, etc?

I don’t know. And I’m not sure I care all that much. Well, a part of me cares–the idealistic bibliophile, who thinks all books should be purchased from Dickensian shoppes–but another part of me (we’ll call him the shrugger) thinks that whatever gets folks buying books is ultimately good for the entire industry. Why? Because it’s an open marketplace. Because challenge often spurs change, and we can already see how Amazon’s muscle has forced traditional publishers into revealing sales figures to their authors (something that should’ve been done long ago).

The doomsday scenario, imagined by several hysterical-types, is that Amazon will smite indie bookstores into ruin, leaving the masses clueless as to what books to buy. Or that this over-centralization of the industry will degrade literature. I shrug at all of it, including the recent Slate article that lobbed some (misguided) grenades at the so-called “cult of indie bookstores.” Art–including books–is a type of product. That doesn’t make it bad art. It just means it’s not as fragile as the screamers would have us believe. As long as bookstores are well-run, and offer services that online shopping cannot, I’m optimistic about their survival. Hell–I guarantee it.

(Besides, if price and convenience were the ultimate factors in Where A Person Shops, outlet malls would obliterate all else, and record stores would…okay, bad example.)

The end of the status quo is always bemoaned; blame it on our collective terror of death. Book lovers are, by nature, conscientious and romantic–we’re willing to spend a few more bucks if it makes us feel good.  Shopping at local booksellers feels good. Browsing the shelves feels good. Getting recommendations from the staff feels good. And sometimes, when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re internetting and you stumble upon a particularly compelling title, there’s Amazon. Thank god for them. Thank god for all of them.

Shadowgun made Yahoo!’s (now that’s some odd grammatical structure) “best-looking iPhone games.”

Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t know. But still…I’m proud of this little guy. Here’s the Yahoo! slideshow.

A Memory

This morning, while shaving (my face) I remembered my second-favorite scheme from college. I used to strategize the sexiest “entrance” for girls coming to my apartment.

(“Entrance” might not be the best word because they were the ones entering, while I waited to receive them. Like a king. A foolish king, but a king, nonetheless.)

Sometimes I’d pretend to be sleeping on my couch, with Aristotle’s Poetics lying on my chest. Other times I’d be finishing a set of push-ups. But my ultimate “entrance” involved shaving; after watching one of those Braun ads–where the hot girl snakes behind the hot guy and rubs his freshly-shorn face–I was convinced that men look their best while shaving.

So I filled a large bowl with hot water, set it on the dining room table, lathered up, propped a mirror against the wall, and started shaving the moment I heard that unfortunate girl pull into my driveway. It was…weird. A kid standing shirtless in his living room, shaving out of a large metal mixing bowl just isn’t the same as one of those stubbly TV models.

Anyway, Shadowgun is awesome. Buy it.

How was your Thanksgiving? We did it proper-like here in Boston–dinner at a friend’s house, complete with a 25 lbs. home-brined turkey and the usual culinary excellence I’ve come to expect from Dave and Kara.

Which brings me to Hellboy; not those lousy movies, but Mignola’s graphic novels. (The movies are lousy, with none of that chunky gothic feel that Mignola and his various guest artists bring. Hellboy works because of his insouciant pathos–he knows he’s the harbinger of doom, yet continues fighting evil. I hesitate to use that old “blue-collar” work ethic cliche, but Hellboy’s got it. The movies don’t capture that pathos, and the insouciance degrades into snark.)

Here’s the thing about Hellboy: every story pretty much ends the same. Spoiler alert: Hellboy wins. The stakes, therefore, would seem low. I’ve always insisted that if our protagonist isn’t ever in real danger–see: James Bond, et al.–then we lose interest.

But Mignola solves this problem via both existential danger–Hellboy doesn’t want to accept his destiny as the Right Hand of Doom–and by putting our entire world at risk. Hellboy can’t die (at least, thus far) but our world can. So every issue is a struggle against the world ending. Big stakes? You bet.

A careful reader might ask: Fine, the world could end and all that, but why should we care about the story itself if Hellboy always wins? To which I respond: because Mignola is so good at creating contemporary myths that we don’t notice and don’t care.

Thor always won, right? Every giant, every troll–he’d bash ‘em all. Until the very end. But I kept reading because it was so damn fun. As it is with Hellboy.

Start here. Keep reading. Pay extra attention to this.

Oh, also: Mignola proves that Lovecraft’s greatest gift was developing myths for better writers to expand/contract/modify.

Last week I pitched my retrospective on Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” to a well-known film journal. The first paragraph:

Which brings me to Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut,” a film I stubbornly defended for years, never having enjoyed it all that much yet insisting its meandering pace was atmospheric brilliance, it’s performances purposefully off-rhythm, and it’s overall themes (the first sign that something was amiss: when we search for theme it usually indicates the story left us feeling dissatisfied) were “courageous” and—a sure sign of my bullshit—“open to interpretation.”

Notice anything wrong? Yep–the old its vs. it’s mistake. I’ve railed against this grammatical error for years, and while I don’t consider myself a full-on grammar snob (read: I consider public correction of grammatical mistakes–especially in a non-academic context–the lowest form of passive-aggressiveness) I am a bit of a written grammar tyrant. Words are our tools. (Thus begins my hokey metaphor.) They must be kept sharp and clean, and we must know how to use them. Confusing their/they’re/there drives me batty. As does using “could of” instead of “could have.”

Browse the Comments section of any Yahoo! article and–besides losing faith in the inherent goodness of man–you’ll find all sorts of rage-inciting writing errors that reaffirm the whole ignorance/intolerance connection. So how did I become a part of this? How could I submit such a poorly-edited opening paragraph to a well-known film journal about a subject I know very well?

Simple: I was multitasking when I wrote it. Specifically: I was watching Ninja Warrior. Add to this a subconscious arrogance about my abilities, and conditions were perfect.

Gasp. Shock. Horror. Always edit, always edit. Then edit some more.

Two quickies:

1. My story “One Act” (published in The Gettysburg Review last month) is available on their site for a limited time.

2. SHADOWGUN is about to crack the top 10 in U.S. sales. It launched in Apple, and now you can get it for the Droid. Five bucks, folks. Who doesn’t want to blow stuff up and shotgun mutants in the face for five bucks?

That’s all. Back to the UFC.

When are you going to update your long bio? How am I supposed to kill time at work if you never change the damn thing?

- Aaron

P.S.: Sy Snootles. Who doesn’t know that?

Funny you should ask, because last week I just changed the damn thing and didn’t upload it. So now it’s uploaded. Happy?

And I’m not impressed. Google has removed all stature from trivia-hounds. At least tell me something obscure about Miss Snootles. Like her secret past as a Hutt assassin…