I just couldn’t stand them anymore.

There didn’t seem to be any obvious reason why. The writing is good on both sites and they post about subjects I’m interested in. I read many blogs of far, far worse technical quality.

Jezebel, of course, annoys with their occasional feminist-who-aren’t-us are stupid attitude. But the above-mentioned post was merely the last straw. The real problem? They post too much crap! They post random celebrity photos, aimless, unfocused entertainment commentary, and random semi-feminist ideas, seemingly without any goal. Sure, once in a while there’s a flash of genius, but I don’t have time to wade through the crap to find it. Besides, Feministing links to almost all of their interesting stuff.

wowOwow, on the other hand, is… far too impersonal. The writers are almost (or all they all?) professional journalist/writers, and they seemingly have no idea how to write a blog. Reading wowOwow mostly just reminded me why I can’t stand to read a traditional newspaper or watch TV anymore. They occasionally post something – like the interview with Rachel Maddow – that can’t be found elsewhere, but once again, it’s just not worth the effort.

In retrospect, the trouble with both of these blogs was simply that they posted too *much*. Jezebel posts around, what, 50, 60 posts a day? And wowOwow posts around 30 – I just get the feeling that neither of them can decide what is really important or interesting, so they just throw it out there and let the reader wade through it, just like a news magazine, or the evening TV news does. Put something in there for every kind of reader/viewer, and hope you get enough right to keep people watching. But on the Internet, we can all the options on earth. We don’t have to read anything that is uninteresting.

In other words, traditional publishing techniques simply don’t work on the web! Why do they even try?

(Side note – I wonder if that’s why small volume magazines, i.e. Bitch, some of those women-in-music ‘zines, etc. are having so much trouble? Perhaps they’re still thinking in paper print terms, even when they try to move partly to the web.)

Sigh…

I don’t understand this. Is it really true that a person’s enjoyment of a story could be dependent on not knowing what’s going to happen? Look – there’s only one ending to any story: “They died.” It doesn’t matter whether the story goes, “She lived happily ever after in a little house on the coast,” or “He was pushed off the cliff by a pack of wolves,” the end result is the same. “and then they died.” Okay, okay – I suppose, “they lived for eternity,” is a possible ending, but that make… two? You know how the story’s going to end already! This applies to Harry Potter too – guess what! He’s going to die, either now or later.

Get over it.

And the plots in the middle aren’t much better. I once read a Dickens novel (Hard Times, I think it was), which had an introduction containing this sentiment: (paraphrased) “Nobody but a small child would read this book to find out whether the [protagonist] foils the [antagonist]. Instead, we read it for the characters, the emotional meaning.” I think that this is true of everything. Remember Shakespeare? He’s supposed to be a pretty good writer, right? (I happen to think that he’s overrated, but still…) Get an edition of his plays containing plot summaries of each play, and just read the summaries. Than go read the ’soap update’ in TV Guide. Shakespeare’s plots suck! They really do! Now, I suppose you could make an argument that they were fresh and original when they were written, but I doubt it. Fortunately, we don’t watch and read Shakespeare for the plots – in his case, it’s the language that matters. And that goes for most other books. You read Austin and Tolstoy and Alcott for the characters, Asimov for the ideas, etc., etc., etc.

That’s not to say that plot only exists to provide a vehicle for characters and language, of course. I’ll argue all day that the plot is the main feature of The Handmaid’s Tale. (It’s mostly indirectly expository, but still plot) But in order for a plot to be worth caring about, it has to stand up to scrutiny, to bear repeated readings or watchings, not fall apart when you find out the ’secret’!

So please, people, don’t be so crazy about being ’spoiled’. If it was worth seeing in the first place, it won’t hurt anything to know about it beforehand.

Note: Spoilers for games are a legitimate worry – if you know the solution to a puzzle, it’s often not as much fun. But: 1. Puzzles are usually meant to only be solved once, and 2. These sorts of games are not literature!

Of course, there is a reason for all of this – real life is boring! We watch movies and TV shows to escape for reality or discover new insights about reality, not to see reality in its realistic boringness. So, common sense would say that few works will ever be really realistic, if the authors want anybody to watch it.

That said, I’ve always wanted to see something that is really realistic, that derives its insight not from plot contrivances (however subtle), not from ‘interesting’ characters, but by having a unique perspective on realistic situations. I suppose there are a few fictional ‘documentaries’, but I haven’t ever seen one that wasn’t overly bland.

So, I was excited after seeing the first two episodes of Anyone But Me. The first thing that I noticed was, that nothing really happens! Here’s the plot, spanning around fourteen minutes: There’s this girl. Her dad has a lung problem, thanks to being a firefighter during 9/11, so they have to leave New York. They move, she misses her girlfriend. She meets some new people.

The dialog is mostly rambling and information-sparse, just like real speech. A large amount of time is spent just watching her sit, or walk, thinking. That’s all there is too it!

Yet, somehow, it’s not boring. The characters are wonderful. I found myself was identifying with Vivian from the first 20 seconds; I really cared about what was happening to her. The slow pace is mostly just relaxing. After all, that’s often the pace that reality takes, especially when are going through a major life change. And the music, or rather the complete absence of music, allows the story to take place without distractions.

It’s basically the anti-soap opera. Soaps depend on crazy events, dramatic music, and insane characters to hold our attention. Anyone But Me seems to be relying on the absence of the above to tell us a story that we can really understand, really learn from.

Anyone But Me is off to a wonderful start. I hope they keep the mood they have set in these first two episodes, and resist the urge to turn it into another South of Nowhere!