Friday Fiction: Fall TV and Complimentary Books by Alex

When people talk about what eras they would ideally live in (the '60s for the counterculture and revolutions, the '70s for the music and drugs, the '20s for the arts scene in Paris, the 1880s for the wigs) I am always the person who plays the feminism/civil rights card; (Yep, I'm that guy!) I pick the present every time. I mean, I wouldn't kick a time machine out of bed or anything but I would not go back to live in a time when I had less rights just so I could chill with some lady-discriminating-against writers no matter how brilliant I think "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" is. Besides, TV is so damn good now. Miss Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Happy Endings, Parks and Recreation, The Wire, freaking Deadwood just so that I could be an active, willing participant in colonization? Hell no. I'll just stick to fighting the racist, oppressive patriarchy in the present, thank you, taking breaks to watch shows and read books. Sometimes, reading books that compliment those shows perfectly and vice versa:

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Friday Fiction: IFOA Edition by Alex

Ah, fall! Sweaters, long walks through crunchy multi-coloured leaves, pumpkin-flavoured everything (sadly no apple-flavoured stuff this season – t'was a bumper crop year : ((( ), the return of network TV, the stress of finding a (group) Halloween costume (Limp Bizkit backup dancers? The girls from The Craft? The Babysitter's Club? Agents Scully and Reyes? A binder full of women?) before just abandoning every idea to stay in and do nothing like the curmudgeon you're trying desperately to avoid becoming... Oh baby, it's my favourite time of year! It's also that magical time when droves (packs? schools? murders?) of authors descend upon Toronto for the International Festival of Authors. And this IFOA? This one is a doozey (<– I'm a good writer). Here are a few of my favourite authors who will giving interviews and readings at the festival.

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Friday Fiction: Real Talk by Alex

I don't read a lot of non-fiction. Since 2006, I've read 28 non-fiction books. A few memoirs, a couple essay collections, some on history, some on nature. Once I was even bamboozled into reading a book called Undertaking by Thomas Lynch that turned out to somehow be super anti-choice which wasn't revealed until the very end. Blah blah life is sacred, whatever, undertaker. There are the usual suspects in there as read by every White kid in their early 20's (Hunter S Thompson and Dave Eggers) plus Mary Roach, Gay Talese, John Krakauer, Sarah Vowell. You know, the non-fiction writers. But I never read any Gore Vidal. I read some letters that Jane Bowles wrote to him. And some she wrote to Tennessee Williams in which she mentions him. And I bought one of his books (Empire) and I have every intention of reading it some day. But now he's passed and he's another writer that I mourn without fully grasping the gravity of the loss, which is why I'm dedicating this week's Friday Fiction to the five non-fiction books I've read this year, in honour of Gore Vidal. His books might not be on the list but he, along with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese (and I'm sure some other people who were never published), helped pioneer the creative non-fiction genre. For that, I'm thankful. RIP Gore. 

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Friday Fiction: You Don't Know Me by Alex Snider

There was an episode of The Hills where Lauren Conrad, the ox-eyed heroine of the series, was confronted by wannabe megalomaniac villain Spencer's sister at a club. "You don't know me!" Lauren declared emphatically to sneering Stephanie, sibling to he of the flesh-coloured beard. It was an incredible moment in the series because it showed Conrad doing something other than rolling her eyes. Indeed, much like a fish, long since thought of as dead, that begins flopping around the bottom of the boat (before it gets a few whacks with a paddle), Lauren Conrad showed life that episode. It was beautiful. And who doesn't want to say that to someone in the heat of a confrontation? You don't know me! Real talk. End scene. Drop the mic.

You know who else could say that? All the anonymous narrators/protagonists in this week's Friday Fiction round-up. You know, because they're anonymous.

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Fridy Fiction: Summer Reads by Alex Snider

I am on vacation, although I prefer the term holiday, in Northern Ontario at the family cottage. It is unbelievably beautiful and serene and I sleep in a little screened in cabin on the water where I can hear the loons, the white-throated sparrow, the waves lap and the poplars rustle in the breeze. I even shared a moment with a deer this morning while I walked down the road, picking wild flowers. We looked into each other's eyes and for a brief moment I understood the universe. Then a car came and I had to yell at it to get off the damn road (the deer, not the car – I'm not in Toronto, on my bike). Anyway, it is wonderful and I am thisclose to being relaxed (it is a process, often uncomfortable). Since we're a couple days from July and the official 'start' of summer, kicked off by Canada Day and the 4th of July, I thought what better Friday Fiction than a list of summer reads. It will be a short list because the sun is hot and I will need to dive in the water pretty soon. /end brag

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Friday Fiction: Musical Novels by Alex Snider

NXNE is over and my ears have stopped ringing, my dogs have stopped barking and I've been drinking a shit-tonne of wheatgrass smoothies in an attempt to correct the liver damage but like any live music junky, I'm missing my fix. NXNE is the most magical time of year and despite the length of recovery time it takes (gets longer every year), I always go through withdrawal, missing the crushing crowds, the heat, the travelling from venue to venue and the music, man, the fuckin' music. This year, to deal with the withdrawal, I'm going to dip into my reserve of music novels for a less demanding, easier on the ears and liver rock experience.

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Friday Fiction: Criminal Minds by Alex Snider

This is the Friday Fiction I've been wanting to write, in the immortal words of Squints, for-ev-er. For some reason Rebekah and I freaking love Criminal Minds (just kidding we know the reason: 'cause it's awesome!). We love Rossi's Cigar Afficianado personality, Morgan's extreme need to nurture and play saviour, the friendship between the gals, the quotes at the beginning and end of each episode (fun drinking game: guess the quotee!), Mandy Patinkin (we'll never stop missing you, Gideon!), the amazing guest stars they get to play super creepy unsubs (Keith Carradine – be still my heart – and Tim Curry and Number Six/Caprica), the excessive use of the word 'unsub'... Aaldf;jdslf;kdjfl;j it's so good!

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Friday Fiction: Mad Scientists or Experimental Fiction by Alex Snider

I write this lazily and as someone who isn't even sure she likes experimental fiction. Sure my favourite novel is on this list; Pale Fire, a novel which I will probably read a dozen or so times throughout my life (WHERE DID YOU LEAVE THE CROWN JEWELS, CHARLES??!). But aside from that the only other I've read is To the Lighthouse (and parts of Infinite Jest, which I started at quite possibly the worst time in a person's life to read about suicidal people). I am reading a Calvino right now, although not the one listed (If On a Winter's Night, a Traveler) and I am really digging it. And oddly enough, some of my favourite music is pretty experimental (Johnny Greenwood, Man Man, Einstürzende Neubauten). Same goes for movies and TV and visual art; I love it when creators messes with form and challenges expectations. 

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Friday Fiction: Black History Month Part Two by Alex Snider

It is a common for clueless privileged White people to plead "colourblind" when talking about racism today and the real ways in which it continues to hurt Black Canadians and Americans*. "Colourblind" means that one simply doesn't notice any differences between White and Black people, we're all the same. "Colourblindness" shuts down any conversation about racism and the disparities between racialized groups and White people. "Colourblindness" erases and silences. The Angry Black Woman wrote on her blog in response to a dude who was baying on about a dream of "total multiculturalism": "you’re hoping for a world where the differences between peoples will be erased and we’ll all just be a cultreless, raceless blob of sameness. Making everyone the same does not equate to racial harmony" (read the whole post, it is fantastic).

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Friday Fiction: Black History Month: Short Story Edition by Alex Snider

It's Black History Month, which both gives me a break from having to come up with vaguely clever Friday Fictions and a chance to focus solely on some really amazing Black writers. Problem being, there are so many amazing books that I want to talk about : (( Good thing there are four Fridays in February : )) (Roller coaster of emotions, guys!) This week: short story collections.

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Friday Fiction: The Worst People or Characters Who'd Make Great Republican Nominees by Alex Snider

In honour of the Ron Paul post last Friday at The Little Red Umbrella which has inspired an incredible backlash of Paulbots to flood the comments with their incoherent (hilarious) ramblings illustrating once and for all that extreme Republicans and Libertarians are the fucking worst, this Friday Fiction is a compilation of some characters who I think would give the current Republican contenders a real run for their money. 

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Friday Fiction: Comparative Lit 101 or If You Loved That You'll Love This or The Ouroburos Post by Alex Snider

I have this fantasy where I'm hanging out with some of my favourite American authors: James Dickey, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Penn Warren, Wallace Stegner, Ralph Ellison, John Steinbeck and Flannery O'Connor. William Faulkner would probably be there, too, but only because the rest of them are all of a certain school of writers and he was kind of the godfather of their movement. We'd be in a bar, most likely, given the number of drinkers in the group (although several of them would probably feel better around a campfire in the mountains) and the probable need for social lubricant. Wouldn't want it to just be a lot of awkward silences while Warren and Ralph, BFFs, whispered amongst themselves.

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Friday Fiction: Takin' Names and Bannin' Books by Alex Snider

This week is Banned Books Week, (as opposed to Book Banning Week which spans the rest of the year), which celebrates and raises awareness of persecuted writers, banned books and the freedom to read. There are so many books that remain banned in the world today, so many authors who are imprisoned, exiled or otherwise persecuted for their writings.

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Friday Fiction: Ancient Texts, Modern Retellings by Alex Snider

Poor Pentheus: Getting torn apart by his Bacchus-mad mama and auntie
(mythological ladies, be buggin' 'cept for Penelope) 

There are a lot of genres out there. A lot of sub-genres. Too many some would argue. I don't know where I stand on that, or why I even wrote it but I did so let's just move on. One sub-genre of literary fiction is parallel fiction: where one author takes a character, scene, or remnant from a previous work and writes a new work around that element. Think of it like a music cover but for books. Sort of. There are good examples (the list below), bad examples (the garbage spewing forth from the gutter outside of publishing houses mashing up monsters and Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies ect.); parallel fiction taken from loooooong ago written work (the list below) and from books written by authors of whom we have photos of (March by Geraldine Brooks = Little Women, Wide Sargossa Sea by Jean Rhys = Jane Eyre, The Hours by Michael Cunningham = Mrs Dalloway). Done right, it can be a thing of beauty, shed new light on an old story and refresh interest in the original work. The following are novels that have been built on ancient texts and mythologies, from Homer to the Bible by some of our favourite authors here at What Fresh Hell:

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Friday Fiction: Optimism Not Despair by Alex Snider

The death of Jack Layton this week has shaken me to the core. Like many Canadians, the loss is so tremendous and overwhelming considering the success of the last election. He spent 30 years in politics as the underdog, getting tonnes accomplished from the back-benches, it staggers the mind to think of what he would have accomplished as the leader of the opposition. It's just really not fucking fair.

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Friday Fiction: Everything is NOT Alright by Alex Snider

(Gah, again with the delayed Friday Fiction! I'm sorry! I had two migraines in one week! That's a total of five days out of seven spent with an ice pack over my face listening to all five seasons of Dexter. You'd think the migraines would be bad enough without Julia fucking Stiles' voice thrown into the mix. She is the WORST. But here we go: Friday Fiction on a Monday oh man, Tuesday.)

Have you ever been cruising down an Australian river, relaxing and taking in the sights, thinking, "this, this here, is the life", when your boat is rammed by a massive crocodile? An crocodile it turns out you ran over last summer and left for dead on the side of the road? An crocodile with a deadly thirst? A deadly thirst for revenge? Then you've probably lived through my soon to be completed fan-fic mash-up of I Know What You Did Last Summer and Rogue, a charming Aussie thriller about, you guessed it, a giant crocodile with separation anxiety (it's anxious about separating you from it's stomach). Also, this is a pretty awesome analogy of life and incidentally, this week's Friday Fiction, that is: everything is all fine and dandy until it isn't and then it turns out it hasn't ever really been fine and dandy; ignorance is bliss, life sux, you don't love me anymore, blah blah "my eyes are tired from crying" blah.

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Friday Fiction (On a Monday): The Homecoming by Alex Snider

Well, after all my whining about missing my family, in a few days I'm finally headed back to Winnipeg to see them. Although, I'm counting down the minutes until I get to see them all, there is always this anxiety about going back that sits in the back of my throat -- the homecoming jitters. There always will be changes (that new Shoppers where the old pool hall was) and yet things always stay the same. Have I changed? Has my family changed? Will everything be different? Partly it's because I'm a bit of an outsider now, having lived away from them for so long but mostly it's just having to go back and face my childhood, my roots.

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Friday Fiction: A Toast to the Fictional Bar by Alex Snider

Whew, summer, amirite? About what you ask? About all the patio time, the money spent and the amount of booze consumed! All for the greater good (ie super fun hangouts and, in my and Rebekah's case, a reprieve from the volcanic heat of our apartment) of course but shit yo, I've been imbibing a lot lately. I'm drinking right now actually! On a patio! Fun times had by all (except it's just me. But I'm expecting. More people! Haha).

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Friday Fiction: Overly Ambitious or NABO-KOOOOV by Alex Snider

The other day I talked to someone who suggested that although they liked my Friday Fiction, it might be a bit "ambitious". I was like, "challenge accepted!" and have decided to out "Friday Fiction" Friday Fiction by listing the last one hundred books* I read and how they made me feel. I'll try and keep it short and sweet but, you guys know me -- short and sweet, never! Interesting side-note, though, all my life (since I was like fifteen or so) I thought I was 5'4" I'm actually taller! So literally, neither short nor sweet. Fun fact.

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Friday Fiction: Happy Barfday, Canada! by Alex Snider

How convenient that Canada Day has fallen on a Friday! I can't be the only one who is feeling like they're living in a Tim Horton's or Canadian commercial? Right?! So, if we can just side-step the long history of genocide and betrayals and broken treaties that led to the creation of the Dominion of Canada (and we manage to the rest of the year so why not today, too, right?!), a country located on stolen land called Turtle Island, I would like to use this opportunity to list some wonderful Canadian reads, and hey, I've got the platform so I'll be taking that opportunity! Huzzah!

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