Author Archives: Adam

‘Everything I Never Told You’ reviewed

'Everything I Never Told You'I picked up Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You because I saw it on a few Best of 2014 posts and because of the publisher’s description of the novel. It tells us the first line of the novel. It’s a good first line: “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.”

The publisher’s description goes on to say the novel is an exploration into an Asian-American family in the 1970s. That the death of Lydia – a high school aged girl who is half Chinese (she inherited her father’s dark hair) and half full-blooded American (inherits her mother’s bright blue eyes) – was a catalyst for the unravelling of the family.

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5 goals for 2015

Publish more: fiction or non-fiction. On my blog, of course, but also try to contribute to a magazine or website. Keep writing short stories and submitting them even if everyone rejects me.

Be healthy: doesn’t mean get skinny. It means eat right, drink less booze, and exercise. I’ve let myself get unhealthy enough to the point where I’m out of breath jogging upstairs. It’s nought about my weight, it’s about my health.

Get out of the country: I’d even accept Canada, but I really mean Europe. Three summers in a row of European excursions and then nothing. This isn’t okay. Shoot for March when everyone I know is in England still and not at work in Maine. Maybe finally go to France and Germany.

Be smarter about money: save! Don’t blow though cash just because I can. Grocery shop instead of going to bars. Set more aside per paycheck and set up monthly bill pay. Actually check bank account. Don’t loan people money just because I feel bad for them. Think first!

Start a master’s program: or at least start taking classes. Literature would be the best because I want to teach college, but this media and culture one is more in sync with what I personally love. Plus, it could still be beneficial. Better decide by April!

Top 10 television shows of 2014

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Here are ten television (streaming) shows I dug this year, in alphabetical order, and why I like them. I’m giving myself a tweet (140 characters) to explain why I like each release.

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Top 10 films of 2014

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Here are ten films I dug this year, in alphabetical order, and why I like them. I’m giving myself a tweet (140 characters) to explain why I like each release.

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5 more short stories you can – and should – read online right now

UPDATE 2: Yet another 5 short stories you can – and should – read online right now can be found here.

UPDATE: Another 5 short stories you can – and should – read online right now can be found here.

My friends over at Paste Magazine wrote an article called “5 Short Stories You Can – And Should – Read Online Right Now.” It’s good. It contains one from the 1880s, 1950s, and three that were written since 2010.

It got me thinking about short stories that I like. I started seeing if they were available for free – either legally or not. We know that there is a lot on the World Wide Web and it’s easy to find a lot of PDFs or just copy/pasted stories out there. Here are five that I like; in no particular order. Unsurprisingly, most of them come from my favorite source of short stories: The New Yorker.

“That Bus is Another World” by Stephen King – 2014 

I wouldn’t call myself a Stephen King fan (I’m not outside of Different Seasons and Misery). I’m not a fan of horror. But I am a fan of a suspenseful narrative. And that’s what this story is. You’ll have to read a PDF scan of Esquire to get this online, but it’s there. It follows a man named Wilson who is late to a meeting he flew into New York to take. In typical King fashion, the story is not what it appears. There’s a bus, obviously. What happens on that bus is definitely another world away from Wilson. It’s a breezy read that leaves you both wanting to know more, but begging that you’ll never find out.

“Cold Pastoral” by Marina Keegan – 2012

I have been obsessed with the late Marina Keegan as of late. Her story is tragic: a rising literary star who graduated from Yale with a job waiting for her at The New Yorker, only to have her life cut short at 22 by a car accident. Her family and writing mentor put together a collection called The Opposite of Loneliness (named for an essay she wrote shortly before commencement). “Cold Pastoral” is one of those stories. It eerily deals with death. In it, the narrator’s sort-of-boyfriend dies. The character is left with a feeling of emptiness, but also of anxiety. She wasn’t the love of his life; they were just consistently having sex. Keegan beautifully weaves in numerous emotions in such a short amount of space.

“Alma” by Junot Diaz – 2007

Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her collects nine interlinked stories surrounding the relationship between a young man named Yunior and his love interest Alma. This is the shortest in the collection with a word count under 1,000, but that doesn’t mean there is any less impact. Written in second person, you become Yunior. You’re called bad names as Alma claims horrific things about you. You’re sucked in almost instantly and aren’t let go until Alma decides to let you go. There’s a resounding punch to the gut that any man – or even woman – who reads this will take some time to recover.

“Story, With Bird” by Kevin Canty – 2014

This was published pretty recently. Admittedly, I don’t know much about Canty, but I love this story. It’s not a traditional story in the sense that it just delves into bits and pieces of a narrative, but leaves a lasting impression of those moments in time. It’s about a couple who likes to drink more than they like each other. It really impacted me because it was similar in tone and theme to a story I had been editing for a few weeks. If you want to read a good, atmospheric story, then this is one short on you definitely need to click.

“Just Before Black” by James Franco – 2010

This may not be the best story by the actor-turned-director-turned-curator-turned-writer. Franco might not even be a good writer. But this was my first introduction to the actor’s stories and it stuck with me. It was nice to read a story by someone who wasn’t a “writer.” Not yet anyway. Reading it again four years later, I understand why not everyone was in love with Franco’s early work. Yet, it’s still interesting to read if you like how his views on suburbia developed; especially in his collection Palo Alto.

‘Homeland:’ what it was and what it is now

Showtime’s Homeland was about a bipolar CIA agent convinced that an American POW that was rescued was really turned by a terrorist group. If you haven’t watched any of the Emmy-winning show, stop reading now.

HomelandThat was the initial premise of the first season. Then politics got in the way. No, not on the show; in real life. Carrie and Brody’s chemistry (Claire Danes and Damien Lewis, respectively) was undeniable. It wasn’t the most important aspect of the show, but it became one of – if not the most – luring and enduring. While the first season premise was only supposed to be the first season, people got it in their ehads that this POW storyline was what the plot was supposed to be. Like it was going to focus on Walter White breaking bad.

 

No, it never was supposed to be about Brody. That just happened because of Emmy wins and chemistry. Brody was supposed to die at the end of season one, but creators realized they had something in the Carrie+Brody storyline that they could explore. So Homeland seasons two and three became the last two parts of a trilogy of the initial premise. Brody wasn’t supposed to last that long. Now that he’s gone, the fourth season can finally do what the second season was supposed to do: show Carrie doing what she does for homeland security.

Carrie is in Kubal running drone strikes. Saul is in the private sector. Quinn is in Islamabad. Brody is dead.

There are still remnants of where the show wandered and lost its way. Carrie has Brody’s child; only the newborn is back in America with Carrie’s sister. This will be an insufferable plot because Carrie shouldn’t have kids and we all know it. Yet, it is already certain that it will be a reoccurring character development that is going to hinder the show’s political plots.

The aspects that hindered the previous seasons, particularly Brody’s family, are gone. Now the show can move on. What Homeland is now is not what it once was, but what it should have been. It’s a shell of it’s former self, but like Cheers it could be considered two shows in one. (For example: Cheers was able to rehash and last so long because it was really two shows: the Diane Years and the Rebecca Years.) This former Emmy queen might never be able to reclaim its crown, but it can climb back into contention. The show can become a smart political thriller with remnants of a love triangle.

Homeland premiered on October 5 with back to back episodes you can watch via YouTube below. It airs weekly on Sundays at 9pm via Showtime.

‘The Skeleton Twins’ reviewed

The Skeleton Twins wasn’t the best film I’ve seen this year, but it may be tied for the most influencing (Boyhood being the other). I jokingly said that I was about to watch the Adam and Ashley Story, joking that the two leads mirror the lives that my sister and I are currently in the middle of navigating. Take away a few plot points and get right down to the thematic basis for the characters and that’s what I mean.

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“The Point”

The following as a short piece of fiction adapted from the episode “Double Double Date” of the ABC series The Wonder Years. The dialogue and a portion of the narration was taken directly from the episode written by Sy Rosen and Mark B. Perry.

We had just run off from both of our dates at the school dance. The night was warm and the sky was clear. Stars sparkled over the placid town that nurtured me my entire life. We parked in my parents’ car at a make-out spot on a cliff, known as the Point, overlooking the town in my tux and her in a ravishing pale dress. The effect the dress had by contrasting with her skin drove me wild. We couldn’t believe we ran off, but we had no choice. It was as if the stars, and the universe, and destiny had bound us together.

I moved to her and put my arm around her shoulders, but my cufflink had gotten caught in her corsage. Her face turned from total infatuation to total confusion in an instant. I leaned over and struggled to fix the problem. I was closer to her than ever before, and I didn’t want to break free. As I fiddled with my silver hook and her lilies, I awkwardly relayed a story about two people kissing and getting their braces stuck together. She made fun of me for believing that they had to go to the hospital, but when I finally dislodged from her, I saw her looking deep into my eyes, mouth agape and breathing heavy.

“Maybe I’ll just stay here for a while,” I said with my arm still around her. She was pushed into me; accepting the fact I would never let her go.

“You’re so cute,” she said, her eyes never breaking from mine. “You’ve always been cute.”

I wanted her again. We had been torn apart for too long. I gently took her chin to guide her eyes back to mine once more.

“I guess that’s why you’ve been crazy about me since the day we met.”

“I was not,” she responded. She couldn’t stop staring and smiling. “You were crazy about me.”

Now I couldn’t stop staring and smiling. “You’re right.”

And that’s when it happened. At that moment, all the feelings that she and I had been trying to bottle up finally came rushing to the surface. We couldn’t hide our passions anymore. I stroked her face and felt her soft lips. Her breath was warm on my fingers. So I leaned in closer and kissed her… Right on the eye.

I pulled away and our eyes locked. Hers broke away for a moment, but returned with a fire. And then she kissed me… On my eye.

I stroked the back of her head. Feeling her velvety, midnight black hair and whispered, “What happened?”

She looked at me wide-eyed and just as nervous as I was before telling me, “I’m not sure.”

And the thing was neither of us knew. Maybe our aim was off. Or maybe it was something else.

Our glances broke again, but she spoke.

“I was just thinking about the first time we ever met.”

“Yeah,” I barely was about to get the word out of my throat. “You were wearing a little yellow raincoat, and that stupid yellow rain hat.”

Her smile grew. Our faces were inches from each other and she said, “You were soaking wet.”

“My brother told me my folks got me a horse,” I revealed to her part of the story she never knew. “When I ran outside, he locked the door.”

“You came to my house to dry off.”

“Yeah. Right,” I said, always whispering as quietly as she was. “So,” I paused to notice the beauty in her deep chocolate eyes, “Do you want to try that again?”

Without missing a beat, she informed me, “I’d like to think about it for a little while.”

Even though I was hurt because I wanted nothing more than to kiss her, I agreed with her and said that’s what I wanted. She nuzzled her head against me, resting it on my shoulder. Maybe she wanted to kiss, and I know I did. We sat there holding each other as I waited passionately. The long cuddle continued. But the thing was that’s all we did. Maybe it was happening too fast. Maybe we wanted to hold on to what we had. Or maybe we both knew there were things we had to find before we found each other.

All we really knew for sure was, as we sat there looking out over the lights of the town where we had grown up together, it all felt right. It all felt… Perfect.

RIP Robin Williams

Two of the most influential roles I have ever watched both belong to Robin Williams. Sure, I first met him as the voice of Genie in Aladdin and he was my hero as Peter Pan in Hook, but I’m talking about two of his most serious roles.

Robin Williams

 

In 1989, the year I was born, a film about a teacher who taught his students to seize the day was released. It would be over a decade until I saw it. Early in my college career, when I first decided to become a teacher, I saw it because of another film role of Williams that I’ll talk about in a few words. I knew what teacher I wanted to be when I finally saw Williams as John Keating. I wanted to teach literature and writing, but I wanted to inspire my students to live and be good humans. Every Friday I remind my 11th and 12th grade students to make good decisions. Whatever they decide, I hope they look back and say that they did good. They are at a transition in their life and one they I want them to look back and of course say that they did well in school and were successful. But more importantly I want them to have done some good as well. Good for themselves and good for society.

Earlier this year, a girl in my first hour asked me if I had seen Dead Poets Society. In a sarcastic was I respond like I normally do when I assume everyone should have seen a film or read a book or even had a certain food: “Of course. I’m human.” She laughed, but then got a little more serious.

“You remind me of that teacher in it.”

Goosebumps. Instant goosebumps.

I sincerely thanked her and told her that character influenced how I talked and treated students. Sometimes I know I don’t hold up to those standards and admit that I have not had such an impact on my students as John Keating had in Dead Poets Society. But I do hope that I have had some impact on them.

The other role Williams acted in that I consider one of my favorites is as Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. I saw this early in my “critically acclaimed only” snob phase. Of course I’m glad I did see it. The film taught me a lot about life. It reminded me to never be okay with anything. It taught me to strive every day. I’m not saying I did that, but I’m saying I know I should have. The character is very similar to John Keating. He’s comforting and guiding while being genuine and witty.

If Keating was who I want to be now, Maguire is who I want to be years from now. Hardened by loss, but not defeated. A disdain for giving up, but never disappointed in those who try and fail. Having so much sympathy, but never apathy. I want my students to understand that caring is ‘cool’ and that they will never look back and say that they cared too much, but will look back and wish they weren’t so nonchalant with so many aspects of life.

In short, I am deeply saddened by the loss of Robin Williams. His death will be talked heavily about in the next few days. I am not going to go into mental health and depression now. I just wanted to have a place where I reminded myself of an actor who did what all actors want: leave an emotional connection through his craft.

Robin Williams will always stay with me. No matter what.