Listen, I know I don’t fit most of the ideological and behavioural criteria for being Jewish, even supposing there are criteria, and whoever wrote them can have the moral right to make that call. I don’t believe in G-d or in the divinity of the Torah; I don’t celebrate most Jewish holidays the way you’re supposed to; and support for Israel is not high on my list of political priorities. I avoid Jewish social events and Jewish media, I make vaguely anti-Semitic jokes*, and I find a lot to dislike in various Jewish political and ethical ideas. Yet I still call myself a Jew.

That seems strange to a lot of people. Read more »

You know what makes me feel super accomplished? Putting together IKEA furniture. An essay is just, “So what?”, because when you’re done, all you have is a slightly larger Word file on your computer, and you can never finish a story just the way you wanted it when you set out, but with IKEA, it’s like — hey, I made a table! And I can put my computer on it and type RIGHT NOW.

Um… yeah, short reviews. Read more »

So a few weeks ago, when my cousin Emily was visiting me in Toronto, we went to see the new movie by Banksy, Exit Through the Gift Shop. And it brought me to this conclusion: I don’t like art. Read more »

(Happy Victoria Day long weekend! And happy birthday, cousin M!)

What does it mean to say a story is “like fanfiction”?

The phrase is almost always used with derogatory intent. No one says a TV show, movie, or book is like fanfiction to highlight its attractive qualities, even though there are many excellent fanfiction writers out there. The implied comparison is with bad fanfiction, the stuff that fuels writers’ complaints that their characters are being manhandled by people not creative enough to come up with their own imaginary worlds but still able to invent entirely new ways to confuse “their”, “there”, and “they’re”.

True, occasionally, this comparison is made because the author is a well known figure in the fan community, and it’s only natural to compare his or her published work with the stories for which he or she is better known. For instance, some reviewers describe Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones series as fanfiction-like because Clare was a Big Name Fan who wrote Harry Potter fanfiction, and, with this knowledge, it’s easy to find ways that her characters mirror her versions of, say, Draco, Harry, and Hermione. Although this phenomenon is interesting in and of itself, it’s not really the type of “fanfiction-like” I want to talk about.

Instead, what I’m interested in are stories referred to as fanfiction-like because the reviewer feels they possess certain negative qualities. For instance, some dissatisfied fans give this unfortunate label to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and (of course, why else would I be writing this now?) the recent season 6 finale of House, M.D, “Help Me”. And I think we can narrow down the qualities that get these stories labelled “fanfiction-like” into six main points: Read more »

I hope she dies.

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about someone real. And what I’m actually talking about is why I love single-story media like books and movies so much more than I’ll ever love series media like TV, despite the way I get obsessed with TV shows. Which I’m going to illustrate by explaining who she is and why, although I like her, I really hope she doesn’t live past tomorrow night.

(In other words, yes, I promise there’s actual general sort-of-analysis of narrative and medium after all the crazy fan stuff!)

POTENTIAL  SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON FINALE AND ACTUAL SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON AFTER THE CUT FOR YOU-PROBABLY-KNOW-DARN-WELL-WHAT (what else do I even read/watch that might have spoilers?) Read more »

Or rather, I just want girls to have friends. In fiction, I mean. In case I’m not being perfectly clear, I would like to see brainy female characters in fiction that does not necessarily focus entirely on “the battle of the sexes”, women, or romance have the same social network the guys do.

Of course I’m thinking about this because of House again, and everyone knows it, so I might as well use the example that brought this to my interest. Read more »

“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?” – Hamlet, Hamlet II.ii

If you take a virtual stroll through an online fandom to which you don’t belong, it can be mind-boggling how passionate some fans get about fictional characters. From the outside, it’s ridiculous that actual people — presumably with real lives and real things to worry about — can get so worked up about the love life of someone who doesn’t, didn’t, and never will exist that they fling vicious slurs at those who disagree with them or spend hundreds of hours writing novel-length stories about how their star-crossed OTP finally hooked up, got married, and had a Brady-Bunch-full of kids.

After all, why should you or I or anyone else care what happens to House or Harry Potter? Read more »

Normally, I don’t do two entries of short reviews in a row, but this first one is the reason. Read more »

But first… (teaser beneath the cut): Read more »

In my head, the title of this entry is spoken with the same intonation as The Muppet Show’s “Pigs… In… Space!”

*ahem*

The title actually might as well be “Religion… In… Stories!”, but as I’m Jewish, this is really the only aspect of religion I’m somewhat qualified to blog on. Here’s my basic thesis: we need more stories with religion.

Now, hold on, my imaginary straw-you protests. Don’t we have enough religion making its way into things where it doesn’t belong? What’s wrong with a secular story? Read more »