We’re fortunate to live along the path of the upcoming annular eclipse (Sunday evening in my vicinity), where the moon blocks the light from the middle of the sun but leaves a nice ring of fire around the edge. If we stay in our backyard, we’ll only see a partial eclipse, but it we drive 1 ½ hours we can be inside the zone where you get the full effect. Needless to say, we’re ready to roll.

Yesterday, we went to the Geology Dept of UC Davis to get our solar glasses, so we can actually look at the phenomenon rather than some crazy pinhole in a box. Thanks, Geology Dept!!! What a deal for $2 a pair. We ended up buying some for friends too – 6 pairs in all, and the combined price was almost certainly less than the cost of the case to get to Davis. A bargain considering that this is reportedly the first annular eclipse viewable in North America since 1994.

I will report back!! I still think I’ll cover one eye when I’m looking, just b/c I’m so freaking risk averse, but still, I can’t wait to see it.

Kate

p.s. I hardly ever use the STAR FEVER cover for my avatar/thumbnail on these posts, but it seemed perfect this time, yes? We've got the fever for sure!

A little late to the party, but yay! Great movie. 95 out of 100 popcorn points.

 If you’re a fan of these storylines, you should definitely see it in the theater. Actually, if you plan on seeing it at all, you should definitely see it in the theater. I can’t imagine any home video set-up, however stunning, giving you the full impact.

And there’s a lot of impact, since everyone fights with everyone about everything, over and over. That’s one of my tiny quibbles with this movie. But first the excellent stuff:

Loki – in the movie THOR, he was fine. In this movie? He’s amazing – perfect characterization and perfect performance. I loved the over-the-top arrogance and strutting, and while he’s all about the self-pity, he does that part well too. I give equal credit to Tom Hiddleston and to the creating/writing/directing team. Well done!

Stark – if you’ve read my Iron Man reviews, or worse, if you were stuck in an elevator with me when I was raving about those movies, you know how I feel about this guy. Best character ever. And sure, there are other best characters, but he’s the best character in a superhero-ish movie ever, and in the top ten of all movies, ever. Forget Superman, Spiderman, any man – Stark’s the man. Here, full credit goes to Robert Downey Jr. Sure, the writing is amazing, and Stan Lee and company get amazing props, but seriously – full credit to RDJr.

Scarlett Johannsonn – Perfect job as the Black Widow. So much depth and snark and talent – I wasn’t sold after Iron Man II. Now I’m a believer.

Chris Hemmsworth – U R Thor. And because U R Thor, Thor = amazing. In the wrong hands, I would have winced at this character. In your hands (okay, in your bulging muscles and deadpan delivery) Thor works. Unbelievably good job!!

The Hulk in Hulk form – loved him. So droll, so invincible, so surprisingly engaging, plus mean left jab.

Stellan Skarsgard – effective, especially considering the scant number of minutes.

Robin Scherbatsky – okay, I’m taking liberties here. This is actually Cobie Smulders playing a gov’t agent who runs the show for Fury. For those of us who have seen her other show, which is a sitcom – once good, now not-so – it took a few minutes to re-calibrate. But guess what? After that, she was good in the role.

Lots of hilarious one-liners, great delivery all around.

That’s it for the excellent stuff. Here’s what’s good enough to get the job done:

Fury, Hawk, special effects, the Hulk in non-Hulk form, Captain America (who was great in his own movie, but that movie was ultimately forgettable, and we had to try too hard here), and the plot. (Hopefully I’m not leaving an Avenger out. There were so many of them, and only three and ½ who lit the place up).

And so I’ve settled on 95 out of 100 points, which is pretty awesome. Those extra 5 points? Show me something I haven’t seen before. It’s almost impossible these days to do that, but “almost impossible” is not the same as impossible. In other words, in terms of plot and special effects (and indefinable elements) you didn’t take this to the next level, and I have to believe there’s a next level. Because there’s always a next level (otherwise, we’d be watching Star Wars and Citizen Kane all the time…)

I get it that there is an existing universe and fan base that must not be disturbed. Guess what? I love that existing universe. But as we know, universes can continue to expand/grow.

I don’t envy you, Joss Whedon and assorted wonder-folk. Since your plot here was basically – SPOILER ALERT!!!

Loki is an angry demi-god who wants to take his angst out on humans;, there are scary otherworlders out there; and the Avengers have to learn to play nicely with each other as a team or they’ll defeat themselves before they can save us –

and since Loki is possibly neutralized for the moment and the Avengers are now the best-est most camaraderie-laden team ever –

END SPOILER

what will you do for the next film? My suggestions? Get something going on the FX for sure, please, because I’m not even a gamer and I’ve seen all this before. As for characters, my first instinct was that you should downplay Captain America and concentrate on your heavy-hitters, but I know in my heart that’s too simple. The Captain was a great concept in his time, but as a provocative anachronism, I think he hit the mark in the 20^th century and misseshis window in terms of the 21^st century. Can’t you re-invent him as the same guy, but make him relevance-tinged-with-nostalgia, rather than vice versa?  Oh, and you should either make Hulk be a hulk all the time, or find a way to make his human form less whiney. Tortured, sure? But  

SPOILER ALERT #2

 When Mark Ruffalo said “I’m always angry” it didn’t ring true. Who/what is he angry at? If it’s the world, then yeah, he’s a scary dude. If he’s mad at himself, then that’s not anger, that’s depression. Ask anyone at Pop Psychology 101. So please, make him mad at the world, not at Mark Ruffalo. (And if you were trying for tortured, that’s Edward Norton, so either way, we’ve got some work to do)

END SPOILER

I know I sound critical, which is insane given how much I liked this show. But here’s the thing:

I want to love The Avengers II even more than I loved this one. So please…Make it so.

One of our rose bushes is going to seed (or something equally awful). In the past, it produced velvety, dark-red, ultra-fragrant blossoms, and we’ve gotten five or six of those this year, but the vast majority these days are freakishly fuchsia.

Oddly enough, they have their own soundtrack, namely Painting the Roses Red from the old Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. It plays in my head whenever I look at that bush.

I never actually read Lewis Carroll’s work, although we have a gorgeous illustrated copy of Through the Looking Glass around here somewhere. I blame that Jabberwocky poem – am I the only person in the world who wasn’t charmed by it?

And I’ve seen a couple of other movie versions of the story – animated or otherwise – but they didn’t really do it for me.

Anyway, according to Disney, the Red Queen liked red roses, but the guards planted white ones by accident, so they have to paint them red.

Makes sense to me! Plus, I really want to read The Hunger Games next, so Alice may have to wait.

Happy Mother’s Day!!!!

Kate

So a few days ago I predicted that Perfect Specimen II only needed four tweaks – weather, mountain, cave paintings, and something else that slips my mind at the moment.

Four tweaks? Make that four zillion! It was fun reading the first draft, and the early pages were smooth sailing, but after that – hmm, how can I put this? It was just a typical (for me) rough draft after all, needing fine tuning throughout and some serious work on a few scenes.

Luckily the bones were good – solid and (hopefully) unpredictable plot; workable pacing; fun characters. But like many novella-length stories, it suffered from too-much-detail/not-enough-detail syndrome.

Case in point – as archaeologists, these characters have immersed themselves in legends, myths, etc, and when they’re sitting around base camp in the middle of nowhere after dinner, they tend to spin some pretty great tales. I tried to capture the flavor of that, and probably spent a disproportionate amount time on it, considering I’m trying to keep it to novella, not epic, length.

So while it pained me to do it, I cut a couple of stories within the story. Ouch, there’s no ectomy worse than a tale-ectomy. (yes, I also ectomied bad puns like that from the draft, so no worries)

The good news is, even though the edits took a whole day rather than a breezy couple of hours, the new draft looks pretty cool.

I just printed it out, and now I’m going to read it. Here's hoping I’m really, truly at the tweaks-only stage this time!

~K
p.s. My horoscope today said to be businesslike. Maybe tomorrow the stars will have mercy!

I finished the draft for Perfect Specimen II last Friday with the intent of revising over the weekend, but then the line edits for the next Retro historical landed, so between editing and moon-watching, I'm just now settling down to read Brietta’s story.

There are some odd notes-2-self jotted on the pad beside my computer. This is what they say:

• Lightning
• Cave paintings
• Mt Ararat
• Cell phones

This is what they mean:

• Since lightning plays a role late in the story, it would be nice if I at least mentioned the weather at earlier points (weather is my equivalent of Seinfeld’s Newman… grrrr)
• The hero’s last archaeological dig was a cave with prehistoric painting, and I need to shore that up or drop it
• Mt Ararat is in the vicinity of the new dig, i.e. visible from the window of the plane at one point before they landed.  I haven’t decided just how close to make it though – for now I’ve just glossed over the issue, but it definitely needs more glossing if not some actual factoids to support it
• There’s no cell phone service at the dig. I’ve been assuming everyone guessed that without me saying it, but sheesh, it only takes a sentence, right?

I’m sure I’ll encounter other tweaks as I read through it, but for now, I’m feeling pretty good, because those are all so simple. This story truly wrote itself – I know we say that a lot, but for this one, it’s truer than ever.

Kate

Did you catch the much-heralded Super Moon on Saturday night? It was supposed to be bigger and brighter than a regular full moon due to being at perigee (closest position to Earth).

The first problem in our viewing experience was those trees in our backyard, specifically the redwoods. We were watching our DVR’d programs from the week, and were caught up in my current fave, Once Upon A Time, but I kept pausing it to run outside.  Considering it was a super moon, I didn’t think it could be defeated by mere trees, but they obscured our view. We considered jumping in the car and driving someplace clearer, but the evil queen was being so evil…

Anyway, as it turned out, it didn’t seem any bigger than any other full moon -- a fact so annoying  it took a while to realize it really was brighter until I started getting pre-migraine twinges – a sure sign I’ve been staring into a blinding white light.**

I’ve been thinking a lot about that experience. Sure, bigger would have been better, but we’ve seen lots of those, right? Huge harvest moons in the Fall – which apparently are just an optical illusion, but big is big in my opinion. (Plus, the darned moon starts off pretty huge anyway, so at some point, we’re just talking perverse bragging rights…)

But a super bright moon? That's something new and different, so I declare super-moon night a complete success. Hope you had a chance to see it!

**Bad news for my afterlife prospects, right?

Angels: Look into the light, Kate

Me: But it hurts!

I love this day. Love it. Not only were the movies brilliant (okay technically – in my opinion – New Hope and Empire Strikes Back = brilliant, Phantom Menace /= it, and the others fall somewhere in between), but the underlying story, the overarching universe, and even the excesses work perfectly for me.

Plus, I envy George Lucas, but in a healthy way, where there’s a fair amount of cheering going on. He experienced the storyteller’s dream – of telling your story the way you want to tell it, in the order you want to tell it, with the resources to tell it at the right time, place and pace. Do I think this landed in his lap – some sort of lucky set of happenstances? Nope, I think he earned it through genius, hard work, self-confidence and a connection to primal human yearnings.

So yes I love Star Wars. I love Han as the ultimate reckless hero; Luke as the ultimate noble hero; Darth Vader as the best movie villain ever.

But I kind of love George Lucas himself too. Not that he’s some sort of paragon, or that he did it alone. The backstage accounts of how the scripts evolved are a lesson in how he sought, fought and embraced input, a fact which some regard as undermining his personal achievement, but to me, it’s just how something wondrous happened, made all the more amazing because it wasn’t a straight-line, slam dunk affair. It was creative process on steroids.

But again, what I really love/envy about him is that he told his story, his way.

Oh, and as far as the changes he made to his story even after it was released into the wild? Yeah, as a viewer that bugged me, and I didn’t think it improved anything, but I still kind of love it that he did it. Because it’s the ultimate proof he’s a storyteller. Before film and literacy, storytellers traveled around, telling and re-telling, and even though the story could be over – for one particular moment, with one particular audience, on one particular night – it kept evolving forever.  We lost a bit of that when we started binding our stories with glue and tape. Kudos to Lucas for taking his on the road, where stories were born.

May the Fourth be with you!!

Kate

p.s. And tomorrow, Cinco de Mayo – we’re on a roll, folks!  Pace yourselves.

No, not I.

It’s Paul who left this morning on his annual houseboat fishing trip. He and his buddies from high school [and beyond] have a full week of fishing and playing poker. Yay for them.

And yay for me, because in my version of this annual event, I take the week off from my law job,  wear pajamas, eat cereal/fruit, drink diet Pepsi, and write, write, write. It’s Lord of the Flies, Kate style. 

No schedule, no plan – but unbelievably productive since I can indulge my natural write/sleep rhythms. And meanwhile, no TV – that notorious but lovely time waster. Not even my favorite shows like Once Upon A Time or Game of Thrones.  Not this week.**

No doubt I’ll finish PerfectSpecimen II – I’m on the edge of my seat on that one. Then I’ll indulge any-and-all story whims until I hear the garage door opener.

Will I miss my guy? Will he miss me?  Hmmm, I know the politically correct answer, but the truth is, it’s just one week a year. And we each have a great time. So I’ll just say we always love the reuniting part, and we can’t have that without the temporary gone-ness.

Kate

**While DVR’ing them of course! I can only be so tough. The fact is, I never watch TV alone, since for me TV is a social activity. I also won’t usually eat alone, not even at the house, but I make exceptions during Houseboat Week. We can’t DVR meals yet, right? Wouldn’t that be cool?

When we bought a new house eleven years ago, the builder supplied the front landscaping, but the back yard was a bare-dirt canvass. It’s possible we went a little crazy with saplings – they’re so inexpensive when they’re in those modest one-gallon or five-gallon pots. And there were so many varieties we loved…

It’s gorgeous back there today – the redwoods, the pine and the birches are already towering over the place, and the Japanese maples, Japanese flower cherry trees, and various citrus and other fruits, are doing just fine. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Except one of them has launched a full out attack on my sinuses. Not cool, Tree. Not one bit. I’m practically your mother!

The allergy symptoms are miserable, but the timing couldn’t be better. I’m writing the sequel to PERFECT SPECIMEN, and the main character –Brietta – has a headache that she thinks is a sinus infection. If you’ve read the first book, you know it’s not sinus pain– it’s the work of those extraterrestrial geneticists.

Still, Brietta thinks it’s a sinus infection, so it’s amazingly convenient to be experiencing that along with her as I write her scenes.

Which means I should probably thank that tree. But I’m not going to. For one thing, it hurts! And more importantly, I can’t be 100% sure it’s the tree, and not some mad scientist, right?

Have a good weekend!
Kate