The night is dark and full of terriers

Even though last week's opening scene was disturbing, Dogfriend was disappointed to learn that there would not be another Game of Thrones episode last night.

Yes, Dogfriend was hoping for comeuppances. But that will have to wait until next year.

WTFriday: Background checks

Today's is an interesting WTF rather than an exasperating WTF, but still. If you've checked the news (thank you, Shelf Awareness), you might know that Obama has recently selected a new deputy director for the CIA, and her name is Avril Danica Haines.

It turns out that Haines has been in various policy- and national security-related positions over the last few years, but most news sources are focusing on a different, um, position. Two decades ago, she opened a bookstore and organized (among other things) erotica readings.

What's interesting is that, of all the things Haines has done professionally, everyone is focused on the bookstore. And of all the things she did to run it, everyone is focused on the erotica readings.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's neat that she's had such a varied career, and it's refreshing that no one (yet) seems to be looking askance at her for her earlier work.

Image: A Reading in the Salon of Mme. Geoffrin, Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gitmo's library

So prisons have libraries, but I'd never thought of Guantánamo having a library. It turns out that it does. It also turns out that most of the books are in Arabic. 

There's a great Tumblr site with images from the library. Many of the books on display are recognizable and surprising.

Stop crapping on the grammar geeks

Novelist Sherman Alexie tweeted the following yesterday:

Grammar cops are rarely good writers. Imagination always disobeys.
— Sherman Alexie (@Sherman_Alexie) June 12, 2013

While GalleyCat posted a slew of amusing responses, sentiments like these always give me pause. Sure, contempt for authority is fashionable, and it's important to question and understand the purpose of the rules we're asked to follow, but not all rules are bad. No one likes to see flashing red lights in their rearview mirror, but it's better than anarchy.

Whenever people stick up their noses at "grammar police" (or members of any other branch of the grammarian forces), I always wonder how they define the term. After all, one man's "grammar cop" may simply be someone who knows the difference between "your" and "you're."

Grammar rules are about clarity. I believe in the tasteful use of a sentence fragment, but I also know that poorly-structured sentences and ambiguous punctuation obscure meaning. Clarity is like offensiveness; it's not what's intended that matters, but rather what's interpreted. Too often, a person shrugs off writing conventions because his meaning is clear to him in the sanctuary of his own mind.

And yes, I'll be honest, when I see they're/there/their confusion and plural's with apostrophe's, I judge. Just a little. I make mistakes, too, but a complete disregard for grammar basics sets off alarm bells. Writing is about first impressions. Writers don't usually get the chance to follow up with readers about the arguments they make or the stories they tell. Words are our stock in trade, which is why I don't trust a writer who can't form a sentence any more than I'd trust an accountant who can't add.

There's another problem with ungrammatical writing that also plagues those of a more charitable mindset. It's distracting. Language errors are like scratches in a record. They interrupt the flow of an idea, and instead of focusing on the writer's message, the reader begins to think about the anomaly.

I should be able to taste the pickle-flavored ice cream

At a local writers' meeting last night, one member shared a sample that involved a pregnant woman acting irritably pregnant. While there were some comedic moments in that scenario, the problem was that the character swung from one extreme to the next so quickly that she felt like a caricature of a pregnant woman more than a character. She wasn't believable.

The author responded that he'd been around for a couple of pregnancies himself, and the extremes he'd written were quite realistic.

Realism, however, isn't the issue. What matters isn't whether the events and characters in a novel could and would exist in real life, but whether they are conveyed to the reader in a vivid and convincing manner. Georgian era magicians and sandworm-riding nomads are not realistic, but they can be made believable.

Believability comes from clarity of description and action and depth of character. I have to get the sense that an angry pregnant woman is something other than angry and pregnant at times and that her anger comes from some transformative pit of physical pain and emotional turmoil, not that she is angry because PREGGERS.

I want to believe.

"Pickles and Ice Cream Cupcake" by Janet Hudson of Vegan Feast Catering.

They sometimes feel like "classux"

Have you ever had to admit that you really hated a book that other people love? Or, worse, that people consider a classic?

You are not alone.

Love Reading, Hate Books is a blog that collects one-star reviews of classics. If you've ever been labelled a philistine for giving up on James Joyce or wanting back the time you spent with Virginia Woolf, this is the place for you.

I'll be honest, I disliked The Grapes of Wrath or The Old Man and the Sea. And the only Dickens I really enjoyed was A Tale of Two Cities. See, you don't have to like everything.

Maybe I would have liked it more as The Pirate Queen and the Kraken-Infested Waters.

WTFriday: The book was better

The Atlantic is running an article titled "When Sci-Fi Crime Prevention Tactics Aren't Actually That Far-Fetched," and while this feels a little like link bait (...oops), what really gets me is that half of the films referenced in the article were books first.

Books like

 

and

also

I get that film stills are more exciting (and often more recognizable) than book covers, but a little acknowledgement would make the book nerd in me happier.