Monthly Archives: September 2016

McMillan’s Codex #54: The Abyss

14 Wednesday Sep 2016

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McMillan’s Codex #54 by C.T. McMillan

The Abyss

My favorite pastime is watching Jackass, The Eric Andre Show, and other people hurting each other for comedy. The appeal is seeing someone do the things I cannot and reveling in their stupidity. One could argue the Internet allows such content to thrive, and that we have an inherent desire to see people hurt themselves. Not often enough do we notice the depth of misery these individuals probably endure. Why would they self-harm unless they hated themselves, and wanted to feel something other than depression? Misery is inherent in YouTube comedians like BroTeamPill, but upon watching his Minecraft Story Mode videos, I saw something much darker.

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Story Mode is an episodic title based on Minecraft, a survival game with a heavy emphasis on creativity. The developer Tell Tale is best known for episodic games based on intellectual properties like Walking Dead, Fables, and Game of Thrones. In total transparency, I have never played a Tell Tale game, so I cannot attest to the accusation that the games’ choice system is meaningless. From what I have seen, no matter what decision you make, the outcome is always the same.

However, I can confirm that Story Mode can be played without playing. Most of the dialog choices and quick-time events are timed and if you choose not to press any button, the game will make the choice for you or you fail without consequence. You can miss a prompt and progress like nothing happened. In YouTube gamer culture, this is known as a “Fail-Through.”

Before uploading his videos on the game, BroTeam played Life is Strange, the acclaimed episodic series best known for including LGBT themes. To make his play-through interesting, he made up a drinking game where you take a swig when the characters said cringeworthy or stupid dialog. As a result, he became very intoxicated. Following the same formula he set out to play Story Mode, taking a drink when exposition was delivered as characters were walking in a hallway, when his predictions came true, when the game played itself, and when the characters were left in a room leaning against the environment.

The first video titled “A grown man decides to play Minecraft Story Mode” began as expected with wheezing laughter, many sips taken, and bathroom breaks between cuts. He intentionally failed the button prompts that would result in success regardless and picked the ellipses option in dialog that did not interfere with progression. In his commentary, BroTeam related not wanting to proofread a paper to the writing of the game and how older titles with fail-states gave him gratification as a kid.

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In the follow-up, “A grown man decides never to play Minecraft Story Mode,” his commentary did not change from the last video. As he continued to play, however, I noticed an escalation in BroTeam’s general despair. He knew what to expect with the lack of fail-states, bad writing, and story tropes, but his reactions came with a hint of hopelessness behind his reactions.

I thought nothing of it until Tell Tale released a fifth episode of Story Mode and BroTeam put up another video called “ok I played the minecraft stories again.” That was when I think he realized nothing would be good ever again. All the flaws of the game and those shared by others will always be there because that is what contemporary games have become. He has seen the seams that hold together modern gaming and could not help but unravel them. Underneath that skin of mediocrity, cut corners, and bad writing he found an abyss. In that abyss he saw the good old days were gone and future was just more of the same.

More dialog options and choices that led to the same outcome. More story tropes that were so formulaic Blake Snyder would approve. And no more fail-states that used to make games worth the challenge. Already affected by the superficiality of game culture that birthed his nihilism, BroTeam found himself in an endless nightmare where these ideas have become reality. Gamers would consume them without thought like mainstream news or fast food. They just like them because they are games and games are supposed to be fun, right?

The worst part is BroTeam did not stop playing them. Like a martyr punishing himself for the greater good, he played more episodes of Story Mode as they came out. While his reasoning is probably far beyond my own, I believe he played the game to point out the flaws. He wanted to show everyone what modern gaming has become to expose the mediocrity and criminal incompetence. By getting drunk playing terrible games, he showed us what must be fixed to restore games and the industry to their former glory.

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Perhaps I am thinking too much about simple highlight reels from live-streams of a fat Canadian getting smashed. I should not be surprised at BroTeamPill’s reactions because I have been a fan feeding off his misery for years. After so much delight, I finally felt bad for laughing. I would never subject anyone to play a videogame like Minecraft Story Mode, and I know that because of him. He stared into the abyss and returned with a dire warning that we must heed if we want games to be good again.

_______

CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

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Episode 223: Vu Tran!

10 Saturday Sep 2016

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Episode 223 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I talk to the novelist Vu Tran about the appeal of detective fiction, the importance of literary substance over style, the problem with femme fatale characters, the Iowa MFA experience, and many, many other things,

Vu Tran

plus Jared Silvia sings another Woody Guthrie number in honor of Labor Day, as part of his annual Labor Day musical project.

jared-silvia

TEXT DISCUSSED

Dragonfish

NOTES

  1. On September 30th, Richard Blanco is coming to Valencia College for the Winter Park Writers’ Festival.

Richard Blanco’s reading is FREE, but you MUST reserve a seat via the Festival’s Eventbrite page.

EVENT DETAILS

  • Location: Winter Park Campus, Valencia College, Rooms 237/2424
  • 4 PM: Community Writing Class with Richard Blanco
  • 5:30 PM: Open Mic Reading (Emceed by John King)
  • 7:00 PM: Richard Blanco Reading

2. Check out TDO’s latest video, the August installment of Loose Lips.

Episode 223 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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The Curator of Schlock #154: The Killer That Stalked New York

09 Friday Sep 2016

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The Curator of Schlock #154 by Jeff Shuster

The Killer That Stalked New York

It’s a 79-minute PSA for smallpox vaccinations.

bad-girls-of-film-noir

Okay. So I got this DVD box set called Bad Girls of Film Noir, Volume 1. I figure it’s about time I curated some film noir at this Museum of Schlock. What is film noir you may ask? Well, it’s movies about bad people doing bad things to other bad people and everyone ends up miserable at the end. This set comes with four films: The Killer That Stalked New York, Two of a Kind, Bad for Each Other, and The Glass Wall

I go through each one of these before the month is out so consider this month September Noir. If you stick Noir at the end of anything, it just sounds better. Warm Apple Crisp Noir. Inflatable Air Mattress Noir. Rollover Minutes Noir.

stalked1

Time to get down to brass tacks. So there’s this diamond smuggler named Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes) who’s being followed by a “T-man on the make.” Yes, we have a genuine New Yorker narrating the plot to us as the movie starts, giving the audience all the nitty gritty details such as Sheila is a killer, but doesn’t know it yet.  Also, phone calls only cost a nickel back in 1947. Anyway, the big faced T-man on the make wants to arrest Sheila for diamond smuggling, but all he does is follow her to some seedy motel.

Oh, and Sheila isn’t feeling too well. It seems she caught something while she was in Cuba and that something is smallpox! The bellhop offers to take her to a local doctor in exchange for a ten spot. She ends up at a family clinic and passes the small pox on to a sweet, little girl.

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The doc can’t tell she has smallpox, so he just gives her energy medicine and out the door she goes. Sheila decides to mail the diamonds to her husband, Matt, who is having an affair with Sheila’s sister. When Matt (Charles Korvin) gets the diamonds, he tries to fence them, but the local jeweler says he won’t take them for ten days because they’re too hot. Matt finds out from the jeweler that the feds are on to Sheila so he doesn’t return to their apartment.

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Meanwhile, there seems to be an outbreak of smallpox occurring in New York City. The authorities start vaccinating everyone in the city in an effort to stop the disease. This is where the movie metamorphosizes into a PSA for getting vaccinated. The narrator states how trendy it is to get “the big scratch.” Sheila goes wondering about the city, waiting for her husband to show back up at the jeweler’s. The feds figure out she’s the smallpox carrier and are desperate to find her

stalked2

Matt returns to Jeweler for the money, but he beats the jeweler to death with a club when the jeweler tries shorting him on the diamonds. Sheila arrives right after, sweaty and covered with boils. Matt falls off a ledge, cracking his head on another ledge before hitting the sidewalk. Sheila dies of smallpox. So does the little girl she gave it too. The mother cusses the doctor out. Happy story.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

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21st Century Brontë #24: The Value of Boredom

08 Thursday Sep 2016

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21st Century Brontë #24 by Brontë Bettencourt

The Value of Boredom

Whenever I tell someone that I will be driving to visit my mom, who lives three and a half hours away from me, I actually get condolences, as if I confessed something tragic.

“Ugh, how boring!” they say.

I don’t see driving as a bad thing. I am lucky enough to have a car.

Lately the trips to my mother’s house have been more frequent since my grandpa recently had to move in with her. I drive south and back for seven hours total on weekends, to help my family with this the transition.

Indeed, the trip is boring.

Florida is flat, with tall grass and electric poles stretching for miles. And miles. And miles. And–

The Drive Home - Pic 1

The highlight sometimes consists of a gradual bend in the road or the excitement of construction.

My friend Grant joins me when the trip falls on holiday breaks or long weekends. But lately I’ve been driving alone due to the frequency of the trips.

I actually prefer driving alone, at times (no offense, Grant).

To pass the time, I could listen to YouTube videos, but that’s an extreme demand on my data plan. I could call people, but conversation gets difficult after half an hour. And I’m up to date with all of my podcasts, especially The Drunken Odyssey.

But I enjoy being in a small, enclosed space and working on a task that doesn’t require much brainpower. My mind can wander imaginatively, without the pressure of adding words to a page because I can’t generate a physical product without becoming a driving hazard. (I did try once, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other blindly scribbling on my squirming notebook on my lap). The thoughts are less focused on creating useable content, and more on keeping myself entertained.

One of my creative writing professors, David James Poissant, stated that in order to create, the artist has to allow himself or herself to feel bored. If the mind is constantly bombarded with other creations, it’s difficult to conceptualize anything new. A lot of the time I have to remind myself that I enjoy writing. During and even after my undergraduate years, the only goal seems to be turning out product, which would be nice, if that were happening more. But driving long distances help me shift the focus from reward to enjoyment.

I decided that I wanted to be a writer in fourth grade. On that day, the teacher was particularly nice to me, asking me to write a welcome note to those who would be visiting the classroom for a project. The teacher, who scolded me nearly every day for playing with markers in my desk instead of listening to the lesson, was asking me to create something.

The teacher later announced to the class that I was the only student in the school to earn a perfect score on the FCAT writing exam. The class applauded, and the teacher looked at me with a sense of pride. My mother and Grandpa were so proud, and I received an award signed by the president of the United States, which even to my nine-year-old mind was a pretty big deal.

president-awardI had to write that essay. I didn’t write with the intention of getting a perfect score. I just wrote about why my grandpa would be a great teacher, a topic that I cared about deeply. Public success was then only part of the reason why I chose to be a writer.

To me all that excess energy of playing in my desk had an outlet. And I was apparently good at it.

Now, I don’t play with markers. There are no looming deadlines (except for this damned blog). But whether stranded at a desk or in a car the ideas definitely flow when boredom can manifest.

I’ve developed an idea for a story because I frequent the highways. During one trip I happened to be on the road later than I anticipated. The lights of the Turnpike illuminated the sloping roads. Semi-trucks chugged along, gargantuan size intimidating everyone into the other lanes. Mustangs zipped around cars slower than 90mph.

I thought of how awesome it would be to skate on these roads if they were deserted, to have the wind whipping at my hair and clothes as I hurtled past the reflectors. Then I added logistics into the idea, like why a person couldn’t just drive, and a human’s durability against high speeds.

I arrived at My mother’s house eager to write about a high-speed, post-apocalyptic battle on a worn, suspended highway in the dead of the night. Mom’s lecture about late-night driving was a small price to pay for an awesome writing session.

road-home-sunsetBeing bored out of my mind, I eventually reach a worthy destination.

_______

21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34, Episode 221) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

 

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The Lists #30: Essential Pick Up Lines

08 Thursday Sep 2016

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The Lists #30 by Jason Roeder

Essential Pick Up Lines

“Meditation helps me achieve ego murder.”

“We could burn every book, and I’d sleep like a baby.”

“Nickname: Filth Town”

“I spy a fellow anti-circumcision activist!”

“I was named after Shark Tank.”

“I’m like the Grand Wizard of porn dependence.”

“It’s a hoot making cashiers cry.”

“Can I ask what you’re doing to fight our nation’s obesity epidemic?”

“My bod thrills to cigar burns.”

“I’m atop Natalie Merchant’s kill list, and it’s not even close.”

_______

Jason Roeder

Jason Roeder (Episode 24) was a former senior editor of The Onion, digital director for Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and writer/producer for adultswim.com. He is also a contributor to The New Yorker and the author of the satirical self-help manual Oh, the Humanity! A Gentle Guide To Social Interaction For The Feeble Young Introvert. He lives in Brooklyn and tweets at @jasonroeder.

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #38: Henry V (1944)

04 Sunday Sep 2016

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Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film

38. Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944)

So last week I barely endured all the shit-mongering of Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet, which seemed even worse this time than the previous times I’ve watched it. Rather than careen at Almereyda’s Cymbeline, I took pity on myself and watched something—anything—else.

What I picked was Olivier’s Henry V, which I remember not liking all that much, if compared to his Richard III.

Henry-V-film-1944-Riverfront-Theatre-Newport

Actually, I liked this movie far more than I did the last time I watched it years ago. I loved it.

Of course, my loyalties were originally to Branagh’s gritty and realistic iteration, which came out in 1989, whereas Olivier’s 1944 version seemed stilted and quaint to me at first.

Henry V 1

Odd, how Olivier seems the cultural epitome of classical Shakespeare, when he could be so cavalier in changing the text and the context of the work.

For example, the first half hour of the play is set in the open-aired “O” of The Globe, in Elizabethan London, using a huge, meticulous model of the city and a fairly good recreation of the theatrical space. The camera movement in the theater reminds one of Scorcese, and makes the space feel so intimate.

Henry V 2

The role of Henry does not seem as personal as Branagh, of course, but the perspective of the Olivier film is breathtaking, and, oddly, the laughter and reaction of the audience makes watching this portion of the film seem like watching a sitcom on television. The bridge between Elizabethan England and my own doesn’t seem that long.

Olivier makes the leap to France through a scrim and onto more cinematic sets, but once again, even though we are leaving the Elizabethan audience behind, and joining Henry on his medieval battles, the scenery is stylized to look like a combination of a fairy tale and the art of the Middle Ages. At times, the architectural perspectives look a bit like a funhouse.

Henry V 3

Despite all of this cinematic soundstage trickery, the battle scenes come off as credible.

Henry V Fight Scene

There are plenty of fine performances in this film, and no bad ones that seem to mar the whole bloody thing. And there is one actor whose presence fills this rogue’s heart with joy: Robert Newton, who here plays Pistol, the commoner and onetime associate of the king in his wilder, more youthful days.

Henry V Robert Newton

You might be familiar with him as Lukey in Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out from 1947, or as Long John Silver in Walt Disney’s Treasure Island in 1950. I found about his performance in Odd Man Out from reading Harold Pinter’s Old Times. Robert Newton is funny, yet so damned compelling, too.

Olivier found legitimate ways to inject humor into Henry V. Maybe this was a result, somehow, of making the film while World War II was happening–trying to find some lightness in such a dark, serious time.

If you watch this Henry V with the right set of eyes, it’s an absolute delight.

_______

1flip

John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

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Episode #222: Ryler Dustin!

03 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, Kerouac House, Poetry

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Episode 222 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I talk to the poet and novelist Ryler Dustin near the end of his residency at the Kerouac House in Orlando, after a weeklong tour of weddings.

Ryler Dustin

We speak about the horrors of what happens to poetry in educational environments, the dawning sense of contemporary poetry as a form of play and life, as opposed to some kind of stillborn puzzle. Ryler also talks about the poetic impulse overtaking him before he even knew what poetry was, and walks me through his experience in slam poetry and MFA life, and the creative writing PhD, and the drive to move beyond genres. For some reason, I bring up my favorite bit of dialogue from the movie Major League despite Bull Durham being a much better movie. The role of honesty and novelty in writing also brilliantly come up. (We were both sober.)

NOTES

  • On September 30th, Richard Blanco is headed to Valencia College for its 2016 Winter Park Writers Festival.
  • Rest in peace, Mr. Sundrop (Episode 213), or else let your caterwauls join the heavenly chorus.

Mr Sundrop

The dialogue I referenced in Major League begins around 38 seconds in.

Episode 222 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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The Curator of Schlock #153: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

02 Friday Sep 2016

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The Curator of Schlock #153 by Jeff Shuster

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

The greatest children’s movie of all time? Yes.

 As I’ve stated on this blog before, I had access to cable TV and a VCR when I was four years-old. I routinely watched Star Wars, Oliver, Fiddler on the Roof, and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. With the recent passing of Gene Wilder, I’ve decided to revisit that last one for this week’s blog. It’s been a long time since I gave this film my full attention, so let’s sees how it holds up. Better than Howard the Duck I hope.

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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was directed by Mel Stuart and was released in 1971 with tepid box office results. As a child, I never thought about when a movie was made while watching a movie. Here I was watching a ten year-old film crafted during the Nixon administration while I was living during the Reagan administration. It’s amazing how much the country had changed during those ten years (not that I knew anything about it at age four). Movies were just movies to me back then. I think I was just grateful to watch anything that wouldn’t give me nightmares like Creepshow or Raiders of the Lost Ark

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Of course, there are many of my generation who will cite Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as good old-fashioned nightmare fuel in the same vein as other movies such as The Never Ending Story or Labyrinth. I don’t know. I remember being slightly disconcerted over the tunnel scene with Mr. Wonka’s eerie, nonsensical singing coupled with those flying images of bugs, snakes, and chickens getting decapitated. And then there’s the fizzy lifting scene where Charlie and Grandpa Joe nearly get chopped to pieces by a ceiling fan. Other than those two scenes, I could never figure out what everyone was making so much of a fuss over.

Maybe it’s the fates of the other four children.

You know what?

Veruca

They got what was coming to them. If getting stuck in a pipe or turning into a blueberry or shrinking terrifies you, you’re a rotten child. Sorry. If you follow the rules and listen to Mr. Wonka, you’ll be fine. If you act like a spoiled brat, you’ll be classified as a bad egg and sent to the furnace. I didn’t write the rules. They were written long ago.

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In some ways, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is not so different from the movies of the Saw series.

I mean you have a mad genius who designs a series of traps meant to test individuals with severe character flaws. Of course, Mr. Wonka’s tests aren’t lethal. Or are they? We never find out what happens to the bad egg kids in the film. I guess we just have to take Mr. Wonka’s word that they’re okay. I did discover something disturbing upon my re-watch. Willy Wonka knew that one child and family member were not going to make it out of the garden of sweet delights. The river boat only had eight seats on it! He knew one of the children wouldn’t survive.

Gene Wilder

June 11, 1933 to August 29, 2016

GENE WILDER WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)

Gosh, I don’t what to say. I think you were the first actor I saw as a child playing multiple roles. It wasn’t long after Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory that I watched Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. Your performances in the movies delighted me then, and will delight generations to come. Not a bad legacy if you ask me. Rest in peace, Gene.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 3

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

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21st Century Brontë #23: My First Reading

01 Thursday Sep 2016

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21st Century Brontë #23 by Brontë Bettencourt

My First Reading

On August 9th, I participated in There Will Be Words. That was the first time I read my work before an audience, and this particular reading focused on fanfiction. Months ago, My editor approached me to join this show. I said yes before the anxiety could set in.

A few weeks before the event, I realized that I wasn’t feeling any of the Marvel fanfiction I wrote. I delved into my free write archives, and encountered my fanfiction for Frozen.

Frozen

Like millions, including some of you, I expect, I came down with Frozen Fever in November of 2013. I adored the relationship between the sisters, and how imperfectly realistic their personalities felt. My piece was borne from my attachment to Elsa, and how her and Anna’s tragic upbringing felt under-explored by the film.

You can listen to my reading here.

So on the little stage at The Gallery at Avalon Island, I read. I trusted the words to get me through the reading. I know how to read. I know how to read out loud. My friends were in the audience. I did not psyche myself out. I did not lose control of my powers.

There Will Be Words Bronte

I scurried off the stage during what felt like a very long applause from strangers, if also from the friends I invited to the event. (My friends comprised a crowd.) My demeanor remained cool despite my tangled nerves. Months of anticipation ended in less than fifteen minutes, and I wondered why I felt so anxious to read in the first place.

The likelihood of being booed off the stage coupled with airborne tomatoes was minor. The fact that I was specifically invited to read my work suggested that my writing probably would not disappoint.

I’m not sure when the transition occurred to having an audience, of willing readers and listeners. People had been wincing whenever I so much as mention my writing occupation. Back when I worked with a forensics company, another employee and I were tasked with delivering equipment. The two men who we dealt with spent a considerable amount of time asking about my coworker’s major. He was a computer engineer, and questions of his career path and schooling were abundant. While it was awesome to listen to a passionate conversation about servers, I had nothing of value to say on the topic.

When of the workers asked about my major, I proudly announced that I was pursuing a degree in Creative Writing. The silence was downright soggy, until the men asked me if I wanted to be a teacher, and if I wrote the delivery completion forms.

I guess people have a hard time figuring out what a writer does, and if they should take the obvious answer seriously. The eagerness to talk about my writing diminished over time.

Hell, I carried a much longer conversation about my job in unemployment law to several individuals with IT degrees. Over dinner we debated about the rights that an employer should have, and I relayed several outlandish cases that entertained everyone. I didn’t even mention that I was a writer because I knew conversation would sputter out, and I really didn’t want to talk about teaching.

In the anxious build-up, of course, I forgot that the audience at There Will Be Words was comprised of writers, and people who wanted to be there. There were individuals who cared about what I had to say. The applause did not validate my piece, but–there I was, reading my work and mingling with writers in an art gallery in the downtown area. I learned about other local events. I partook in mutual conversations about writing. I listened to other writers read their work without the desire to compete with their work.

Writers unpacked emotions that audiences of the chosen franchises don’t get to see in the canon universe. One of the stories focused on Jason Todd of the Batman universe, recovering from the physical and psychological damage that the Joker’s attempted murder inflicted on him. Another writer somehow fused the psychologies of The Mighty Ducks and Fatal Attraction. I no longer felt insecure about delving into Elsa and Anna’s heads, since others were also thinking deeply on topics that would seem arbitrary to other occupations.

Frozen

Instead of politely holding conversation, I shared ideas. I didn’t need to hide a part of who I was.

_______

Bronte as a Bag with Legs

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

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