Moving House →

June 11, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Someone recently gave me a piece of advice regarding savings and bad jobs: always have enough in the bank so that you can, at a moment’s notice, walk into your terrible job and say “fuck you, I quit.” It’s not a recommendation to actually take that action, of course, only that you have enough money to do it if things become absolutely dire.

With that in mind, uh, Tumblr: fuck you, I quit, and I’m moving this site to Squarespace.

I started using Tumblr in 2008. I’ve been using this platform for seven years. That’s nearly a third of my life. You know the concept of brand loyalty? That’s what that is. Tumblr has gone from bad to worse to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then throwing out the bathtub for good measure, because why the hell not, you’ve just thrown out your own offspring so you might as well commit to this terrible course of action.

Um.

This is all to say that I don’t like it here anymore. So much of this site is now geared toward something I’ll vaguely call “creators”, but I’m not including authors, or artists, or filmmakers in that description. It’s more suited for people creating glitch art, or GIFs of TV shows, or glorified Pinterest boards - which are all fine, but they are not me. I can count the number of people I follow who still keep straight-up blogs on this site on one hand, and god bless them, but this platform doesn’t belong to them.

I have 1,399 followers on here. My most popular post in the last month got 4 notes. There’s something hollow in seeing that disparity. I’d rather have a tiny but honest audience than a large level of casual disinterest.

All that said, posts will continue to appear here on Tumblr, if that’s your preferred method of consumption - they’ll look a little different, coming as they do from the new site, but there’s no harm in syndicating things here for those who might want to read it. Links to old posts, though, will point to the new site (where everything’s archived), and some extraneous stuff will go away.

The main thing is that I get to say goodbye to decisions like hiding blog controls from users, and awful boxed advertising, and recommendations for blogs that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. It feels great. I hope you check in every now and then.

June 11, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: Hellion (2014).I feel like there is some sort of through-line with this film, Short Term 12 and Smashed - all three chart the stories of individuals who are doing their best to make things work, fucking up in the ways that people inevitably… — **Watched:** *Hellion* (2014).
I feel like there is some sort of through-line with this film, *Short Term 12* and *Smashed* - all three chart the stories of individuals who are doing their best to make things work, fucking up in the ways that people inevitably fuck up, but managing to draw something good out of the whole mess. Here, the interplay that bears out that story is between Aaron Paul (*Breaking Bad* alumni and *Smashed* co-star) and Josh Wiggins as his rebellious, sometimes-unhinged son.
Aaron Paul’s stock-in-trade is tortured performances, so it’s no surprise that he performs well here, but Wiggins is a revelation; he creates a character who often lacks even basic consideration for others into a role filled with empathy, inner conflict and the understanding that the feelings of children are just as pure; they just lack the necessary tools to express them constructively. There’s a terrifying escalation toward the end of the movie, but even as things take a turn for the horrific, his performance keeps you rooted in his perspective, rather than throwing you out.

June 10, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: Pride (2014).I openly sobbed while watching this film, which doesn’t necessarily make it good (though I think it is), but does give you an idea of the tone of the film. In a sense, to make a film about gay rights and anti-Thatcherism so una… — **Watched:** *Pride* (2014).
I openly sobbed while watching this film, which doesn’t necessarily make it *good* (though I think it is), but does give you an idea of the tone of the film. In a sense, to make a film about gay rights and anti-Thatcherism so unabashedly populist is a powerful act, given that much of the audience for films with this kind of tone tend to occupy more socially conservative ground.
The film documents the efforts of a group of LGBT activists who, in the mid-eighties, banded together to raise money for the striking miners whose welfare benefits were being forcibly cut off by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Much of the narrative focuses on the two apparently disparate groups finding common ground and learning a lesson in tolerance, and there are often times where the larger political struggle takes a backseat to interpersonal drama.
At times, the tone is a bit strange. A casual look at Britain’s recent history will reveal the fact that the miners ultimately lost this fight - eventually, the union voted to return to work, and it was a significant blow to collective bargaining power in the UK, with the eventual result that mining was largely privatised and massively reduced - but this is underplayed in the film. There’s a third-act turn to focus almost exclusively on the LGBT activists and what they did next, and it just about saves the film from ending on a sour note.
It’s extremely funny sometimes, and the characters shine through, and it tells a story that deserves to be told in a way that the maximum number of people can appreciate. There’s value in all of that. Films like this matter.

June 9, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: Mission Impossible: III (2006).In the five years between this and the film’s predecessor, a few things have changed: MI:3, for all its flaws (and it has a few), feels considerably more coherent. There’s an arc here, rather than a simple esc… — **Watched:** *Mission Impossible: III* (2006).
In the five years between this and the film’s predecessor, a few things have changed: *MI:3*, for all its flaws (and it has a few), feels considerably more coherent. There’s an arc here, rather than a simple escalation, and while it’s one that involves the death of one major female character and the kidnapping of another, it is at least *something*.
Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is beckoned out of retirement at the start of this one - at some point in the last five years he’s managed to get engaged and settle down, without much explanation as to how the hell that happened - and from there the film largely follows the similar setup of a charismatic villain (here, in the series’ best so far, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), chased across the globe, with one or two MacGuffins thrown in the mix. The only key difference here is that there are some elements of narrative subversion that don’t just rely on convincing face masks - in fact, one of the subversions comes from being given the foreknowledge to know exactly what’s going on when Philip Seymour Hoffman runs into Philip Seymour Hoffman in a public bathroom, rather than guessing identities.
The narrative twists and turns largely work, and genuinely did surprise me (though maybe I was just gullible, or excited to see Simon Pegg in a blockbuster). Philip Seymour Hoffman is incredible, and Tom Cruise gets to flash his winning, terrifying smile at least a handful of times. I just wish they hadn’t damseled Michelle Monaghan. She deserved better.

June 8, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Read: The Martian, by Andy Weir.It’s funny - having read a few reviews of this book (which exploded in popularity after the author first released it serially for free on his website), people seem to be attacking it for the exact same reason that oth… — **Read:** *The Martian*, by Andy Weir.
It’s funny - having read a few reviews of this book (which exploded in popularity after the author first released it serially for free on his website), people seem to be attacking it for the exact same reason that others hold it up as a classic: *The Martian*, regardless of which way you look at it, doesn’t really have time for solid character building or intimate moments. It’s a one-man-against-the-elements story, with a strong commitment to scientific fact, and it makes for curious reading.
It can be extremely dry at points, delving into hard science so much that you forget you’re reading a work of fiction, not an actual NASA report. The protagonist, Mark Watney, is mostly there to be buffeted around by the elements and to make a few jokes to deal with his grim situation, but you never really gain any insight into his head. Likewise, the characters back on Earth feel like thinly sketched characters, often only appearing for as long as the exposition needs them.
And I say *curious* reading because I really *did* enjoy this book, even though it lacks a lot of what I usually look for in genre literature. Hell, I criticized *The Strain* for this exact same style of writing, and I’m not sure I can say why it works so much better here. Perhaps because it fully commits - there is maybe a novel here about Mark Watney’s PTSD and the neuroses that his crew eventually suffer from on the way back to Earth, but it’s one that Weir didn’t go with, to his credit. Either way, it makes for an interesting read, and one that I struggled to put down. I’m just not sure why.

June 7, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: Mr. Turner (2014).I understand what people mean when they say that they felt like they could smell this film - there’s a grubby, earthy tone to it that is sometimes at odds with the subject matter, but more often than not complements it. Th… — **Watched:** *Mr. Turner* (2014).
I understand what people mean when they say that they felt like they could smell this film - there’s a grubby, earthy tone to it that is sometimes at odds with the subject matter, but more often than not complements it. There’s a real commitment to the period, both in the environments Mike Leigh painstakingly recreates and in smaller details, like the particulars of treatment for infectious diseases.
None of this is to say that it’s a realist enterprise, necessarily - while Timothy Spall evidently researched his subject, it’s probably fair to say that his Turner is more of a general embodiment that he plies to great effect, disappearing into the role. There’s a painterly attitude toward the directing of the film, too - often, Leigh will happily settle on a gorgeous vista for upwards of a minute, forcing the reader to take in the natural transcendence of it all.
As for Turner himself, he’s a fascinating character, often communicating in powerfully evocative grunts, half-smiles, and groans, with Spall lending the man an overwhelming physicality that never obscures his sensitivity and shrewd mindset. It’s easily one of the best performances of the last year, and the film might be one of the most innovative period pieces I’ve seen, simply by virtue of the fact that it skirts regency drama in favor of something far more exciting.

Dystopolis is $2.99 for the next week →

June 7, 2015 Eimear Fallon

To celebrate the kinda-sorta-recent release of High Strange Horror (which features a brand new story by me called The Lights Are Off), my last book is over 50% off the usual list price over on Amazon. Here’s a synopsis, that I wrote, which makes me putting it in block quotes a little weird:

Two hundred years after a catastrophe that ruined the planet, humanity re-emerges with a whole new purpose and ideology. In the newly-built city of Stopfordia, a traffic cop is embroiled in a murder mystery. A chef at a diner on the edge of town turns to androids to satisfy his basest desires. An assassin, facing exile, finds her whole life transformed. A farmer finds himself on trial in front of a jury of thousands for a crime of horrific proportions. A journalist, facing unemployment, turns to a life of crime to keep the stories bleeding in. And a sex worker peers behind the curtain, only to discover that life in Stopfordia is not as it seems. This is the world of Dystopolis: where the pursuit of a perfect life can take you to places you’d never expect to end up.

Get it here! Support independent authors, and by “independent authors” I mean me!

June 6, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Season 1 (2013-2014).This is my first time in a while watching a standard-run American network show (that is, more than 20 episodes, hewing to commercial breaks, staying just family friendly enough that kids walki… — **Watched:** *Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD*, *Season 1* (2013-2014).
This is my first time in a while watching a standard-run American network show (that is, more than 20 episodes, hewing to commercial breaks, staying just family friendly enough that kids walking in on the show won’t be traumatised for life), and as such the trappings of the format stood out like a sore thumb. No-one swears. Quips are always perfectly timed, putting me in mind of Buffy more than anything else (no surprise, given the show’s co-creator). Entertainment always comes first, with depth of plot and character a secondary consideration.
All that said, given that this is a Marvel property, it makes for a more interesting TV drama than most, and the events of *Captain America: The Winter Soldier* really lift the show out of the mud and morph it into something interesting. Over the course of a couple of weeks - the event in between being Cap 2′s release - SHIELD goes from being a fairly comfortable government institution that goes around dealing with an endless succession of yawn-worthy monsters of the week to a scattered group of fugitives on the run from the organization they once trusted to keep them safe. It’s a brilliant move on Marvel’s part, and the quality of the latter third of the season soars above and beyond the rest.
That’s not to say that episodes one through sixteen were dull, exactly: while there are some definite archetypes on display, there’s some fun writing, especially between the two British scientists (nicknamed Fitzsimmons thanks to a portmanteau of their last names), who go from wacky side characters to some of the most rounded of the cast (in part because they don’t have as much to do as far as the series grand mythology goes - they’re really just along for the ride).
Overall, it’s a mixed bag, but it’s fun, and that’s what I was hoping for; something pulpy, with enough humor and something resembling a narrative arc to keep me interested. On those fronts, and on a few more, this show more than delivers.

June 5, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Played: Jenny LeClue - Playable Teaser (2015).First: this is free, and won’t take more than 20 minutes to play, so you should grab it either here for computers (Windows/Mac/Linux) or here on iOS. In terms of its substance, it’s less of a game than a… — **Played:** *Jenny LeClue - Playable Teaser* (2015).
First: this is free, and won’t take more than 20 minutes to play, so you should grab it either here for computers (Windows/Mac/Linux) or here on iOS. In terms of its substance, it’s less of a game than an extremely-slick interactive preview of *Jenny LeClue*, *Detectivú*, a Kickstarted adventure game marked by impressively slick visuals, great comic timing, and a genuinely interesting story (that, guess what, I backed). Check it out, and if you enjoy it, consider preordering the game. I have a feeling you won’t regret it.

June 4, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: This Is Spinal Tap (1984).After watching Better Call Saul, which I saw before this, I feel sorry for how badly Michael McKean has aged (though he still has just as fine comic acting). I also completely understand why Americans think that Br… — **Watched:** *This Is Spinal Tap* (1984).
After watching *Better Call Saul*, which I saw before this, I feel sorry for how badly Michael McKean has aged (though he still has just as fine comic acting). I also completely understand why Americans think that British people talk the way they think they talk.
Anyway: not much to say about this one, in part because I’m extremely late to the party and it’s already been said. It’s an incredibly funny, skewering take on the egocentrism of rockstars, the bullshit that encircles the entertainment industry, and is instantly quotable, mostly thanks to Christopher Guest’s Nigel Tufnel and his outright absurd outlook on life. It shares a lot of the comic sensibility and absurd satire of Guest’s later film, *Best In Show*, which I could watch again and again.
The music’s pretty good too, if you can get past lyrics like “sex farm woman, I’m gonna mow you down”. Which might be difficult. But I gather that’s the point.

June 3, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: The Theory of Everything (2014).This was a strange film, marked by incredible performances and a script that often felt muddled at best. Eddie Redmayne is transformational in the truest sense of the word, here - you’re never once reminded t… — **Watched:** *The Theory of Everything* (2014).
This was a strange film, marked by incredible performances and a script that often felt muddled at best. Eddie Redmayne is transformational in the truest sense of the word, here - you’re never once reminded that he’s actually a handsome young actor inhabiting the role of Stephen Hawking, and as the film charts the spread of the effects of Hawking’s motor neurone disease, Redmayne occupies the role with dignity and a great deal of character. Felicity Jones is similarly charismatic - she’s really the window into the film, and a lot of the emotional beats of the film belong to her.
That’s largely where the film fell down for me, though, narratively speaking - it’s based on Jane Wilde’s memoir about her marriage to Hawking, and as such it’s rooted in her experience even as the major events of Hawking’s life play out. That’s not to say that the relationship between the two is important - it is, absolutely - but so are Hawking’s discoveries, and a lot of the script tended to focus on the pitfalls of living with a genius, rather than the intrinsic quality of genius itself.
There’s also this weird obsession throughout the film about what Hawking’s discoveries have to say about God (answer: really not much, unless you’re reaching), and it’s presented as a genuinely insightful discussion, rather than the emotional twaddle that it is. Hawking, an atheist, is blunt on the topic when it comes up, but he’s never one to raise it - and it’s moments like these, where the script and camera’s sympathies clearly lie with Wilde, that are the hardest to take seriously. It’s less that Hawking’s discoveries raise metaphysical questions - they do, I guess - and more that the actual science is so oversimplified and understated that, based on this film, you’d be fooled into thinking that Hawking isn’t that smart after all.
Maybe I’m being hypercritical, though - and, it’s worth saying, there’s a possibility that I’m discounting Wilde’s perspective far more than I should. Regardless of where the flaws lie, though, the performances in this are marked by brilliance, and it’s worth seeing for those alone.

June 2, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: Blue Velvet (1986).Why am I less uncomfortable with this film than Wild At Heart? My guess, and it’s as good as anyone’s, is that Blue Velvet fully commits to establishing a surreal tone whereas the aforementioned film doesn’t, exactly - he… — **Watched:** *Blue Velvet* (1986).
Why am I less uncomfortable with this film than *Wild At Heart*? My guess, and it’s as good as anyone’s, is that *Blue Velvet* fully commits to establishing a surreal tone whereas the aforementioned film doesn’t, exactly - here, there’s a key narrative thread that feels solid enough that chaos can swirl around it without it breaking.
So yes, there’s a scene in this film who is subjected to an extremely degrading sexual assault (so, uh, big ol’ content warning for this one), and the theme of sexual slavery is there throughout, but so is the idea of encountering the grim world of adulthood for the first time, and grappling with events you don’t quite understand, and finding light in the darkness against all odds. There is a *point* to it all here, whereas *Wild At Heart* sometimes felt like an exercise in puerile nihilism.
It took a while to come to this point, though. I’ve realised that when violence against women (of any kind) is depicted on-screen, I’m not exactly sensitive to it, but I will be quicker to dismiss the potentially-redeeming qualities of an otherwise good piece of work. That’s partially because I’m close to a number of people who suffer from PTSD for whom this kind of media can trigger flashbacks, but it’s also because rape and violence against women is often a crutch for (white, male) film directors who don’t know how to otherwise create a grim atmosphere.
Here, though, there is a *point*, and not just one that serves a facile end. Sex is bound up in this film, coercive or otherwise, and to take it away would make for a much less nuanced piece. There’s a brilliant line in this - “I don’t know whether you’re a detective or a pervert” - and that doesn’t work if the idea of being perverse is implausible in the world of the film.
If you want to read something else that isn’t just me grappling hamfistedly with the film, try this - a back-and-forth correspondence in *Stylus* magazine between two people who fell on very different sides of the fence when it came to whether or not *Blue Velvet* is misogynistic, a point of contention that I still can’t fully commit to either way. Having spent some time thinking about it, I’m inclined to say it isn’t, but it’s potentially muddled by Lynch’s other less accomplished work.

June 1, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Played: Life Is Strange, Episode Three: Chaos Theory (2015).(See, previously: 1, 2.)Did you ever watch the movie The Butterfly Effect? That’s not a facile question, believe it or not; there’s more common ground between the two than the idea of chaos… — **Played:** *Life Is Strange, Episode Three: Chaos Theory* (2015).
(See, previously: 1, 2.)
Did you ever watch the movie *The Butterfly Effect*? That’s not a facile question, believe it or not; there’s more common ground between the two than the idea of chaos theory and time manipulation. Also integral to both the film and this episode is the idea of focusing on an otherwise-normal kid (or man-like kid, as Ashton Kutcher was) in an extraordinary situation. The problem with the film is that it escalated past the point of being a thriller and ended up being just *weird* (though I still have a soft spot for it, don’t tell anyone); it remains to be seen what this game, which has two episodes left to wrap up a *lot* of loose threads, will end up doing with the conceit.
The greatest thing about this game, though, is the small stuff - there are countless little character interactions you can miss if you blast through the puzzles (which are usually character-based, too), and an environment that feels brilliantly-crafted (the visual style on display here is incredible). Occasionally, the juxtaposition of big science fiction beats with a mundane college existence feels a little off, but by and large it’s really refreshing. We’ll see where we end up.

May 31, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Played: Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry (2014).This is a spin-off to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (which I wrote about at considerable length here), focusing on Adewale, a former slave who joins the Assassins to further the cause of emancipation on… — **Played:** *Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry* (2014).
This is a spin-off to *Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag* (which I wrote about at considerable length here), focusing on Adewale, a former slave who joins the Assassins to further the cause of emancipation on his own terms. That makes for a curious game, here - on the one hand, it’s a joy to see a character who doesn’t fit the usual narrative existing in this environment, but it also fails when it comes to *Black Flag*’s key narrative strength: Adewale, for all his earnestness, just isn’t a very engaging character.
Unlike Edward Kenway, the main game’s protagonist, Adewale has little nuance. That’s chiefly because he’s more of an embodied ideology than an actual person. He gets good banter - with the owner of a brothel (before you roll your eyes, she gets some of the best dialogue, and actually *does* receive a decent degree of character development), the first mate of his ship, and an assortment of characters whose chief reason for existing is to pass on the next quest. Beyond that, though, there’s little indication - either here or in *Black Flag* - as to Adewale’s inner life, beyond a need to free more slaves.
Maybe that’s enough, though. There is definitely something to be said for a protagonist who isn’t another white savior, and while it’s a shame that the *Assassin’s Creed* franchise has historically shoehorned minority characters into secondary media, I’ll concede that the fact that it exists at all is probably a good thing.
As for the gameplay, it’s basically *Black Flag* all over again. But that’s fine. It just means I don’t have to write about it twice.

May 30, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Spotted in an episode of Agents of SHIELD - a man somehow managed to make every traffic light at an intersection turn green by playing a video file on his phone. Technology is incredible.(Also, I’m so curious as to what “cops and robbers.mp4″ does.) — Spotted in an episode of *Agents of SHIELD* - a man somehow managed to make every traffic light at an intersection turn green by playing a video file on his phone. Technology is incredible.
(Also, I’m so curious as to what “cops and robbers.mp4″ does.)

May 25, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Watched: The Imitation Game (2014).I was curious as to how this would end, given the tragic trajectory of Alan Turing’s life (he was sentenced for homosexual indecency and chemically castrated, leading to his suicide two years later); ultimately, it… — **Watched:** *The Imitation Game* (2014).
I was curious as to how this would end, given the tragic trajectory of Alan Turing’s life (he was sentenced for homosexual indecency and chemically castrated, leading to his suicide two years later); ultimately, it’s the ending that’s weakest, flashing back to the final moments between the team that cracked the Enigma code before they went their separate ways, as a series of biographical notes appear along the bottom of the screen. It’s sweet, but it’s also kind of rote.
A good thing, then, that the rest of the film is so well-crafted. A fair number of critics lumped Benedict Cumberbatch’s interpretation of Alan Turing in with his Sherlock Holmes, and I don’t think that’s fair - the man in this film is much better-defined, brilliantly intelligent but inarticulate rather than cold when it comes to his own emotions.
Much of the discussion at the time seemed to revolve around the fact that this film contributed to LGBT erasure by portraying his relationship with Joan Clarke so strongly; with respect, I don’t think that critique holds up to much scrutiny. Ultimately, the strongest emotional thread that I got was of Turing’s attempt to create a lasting legacy of his late first love, Christopher Morcom, and the flashbacks to his childhood stand out to me as the emotional touchstones of the film. The portrayed relationship with Joan never struck me as anything more than a platonic meeting of minds, and I can’t help but feel like critics arguing against its inclusion would rather the filmmakers invented a male character with whom Turing could have a perfectly happy, proud, utterly implausible love affair instead.
It’s a film not without its flaws - even ignoring the ending, sometimes the emotional beats are more mawkish than sentimental, and Charles Dance’s military commander is a bit one-note - but it’s a worthwhile portrayal of an incredible man, and maybe that’s enough.

May 24, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Read: In Love and Trouble, by Alice Walker.The original subtitle for this book was “stories of black women”, and I wonder why this edition decided to truncate it; after all, the stories in this (fairly small) collection are rooted in a series of ver… — **Read:** *In Love and Trouble*, by Alice Walker.
The original subtitle for this book was “stories of black women”, and I wonder why this edition decided to truncate it; after all, the stories in this (fairly small) collection are rooted in a series of very specific perspectives that, speaking as someone who can’t claim expertise on any of the pithy descriptors on the jacket copy (not a woman, not black, not from the southern states of the USA), felt profoundly different to my own experience and the experiences of those around me.
Maybe that’s the point, though - after all, I couldn’t help but notice that the stories Alice Walker writes are, funnily enough, in a similar style to stories we’d often see from countless privileged white men. There’s a strong emotional focus and a relatability to her protagonists that might offer an unpleasant description while remaining wholly sympathetic. Stories like these act as a tool of validation - a way to say that experiences of the people who don’t necessarily dominate public discourse are just as important as the experiences of those who do, if not more so given the saturation of the market when it comes to men wanting to be the next Jack Kerouac, or Ernest Hemingway, or Hunter S. Thompson.
The political angle of a collection like this, though, is only one facet, even if it is an important (and apparently conscious) one. There’s an easy, sparkling style to Walker’s writing, often communicating an entire mood with a few words, scoping her stories perfectly, holding the reader’s interest even on topics that with duller authors would provoke yawns.
One story in particular sticks in my mind - that of a married woman who suspects her intellectual husband is cheating on her, who goes around town, aggressively trying to find out who the focus of his affections might be. With a less deft hand, a story like this might condescend, or become a righteous, sanctimonious sermon; instead, Walker blends tragedy and comedy, recognising the absurdity of the situation while staying in touch with the emotions that her protagonist can’t quite articulate. Walker doesn’t edify her characters, but neither does she cast them in one-dimensional roles. Even the villains have depth. This book was incredible.

May 23, 2015 Eimear Fallon

Read: Pines, by Blake Crouch.There’s a TV adaptation of this book, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, currently airing on Fox; without reservation, I think that’s a good thing, because this book is perfect TV fodder. In some respects, it felt like a le… — **Read:** *Pines*, by Blake Crouch.
There’s a TV adaptation of this book, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, currently airing on Fox; without reservation, I think that’s a good thing, because this book is perfect TV fodder. In some respects, it felt like a less frantic version of *The Maze Runner*, in that there’s nothing special about the writing but the story moves along at such a steady clip that you don’t really notice.
The setup is simple enough: Special Agent Ethan Burke wakes up in the smallest of small-towns, Wayward Pines, bruised and bloodied and barely remembering his objective - to track down two other associates who went missing en route to the town. Things develop from there in a number of directions, escalating to a conclusion so bonkers that I couldn’t help but wonder where the second and third books take the story.
Lately, I’ve been craving books like this - pulpy, non-literary, high-concept blockbuster nonsense. Studying English at university has a tendency to hammer all the fun out of reading, but even more so it cultivates a certain level of snobbishness when it comes to literature; there’s an idea that so-called “low culture” just isn’t worth your time. That’s not true, though - there’s a sense of fun to books that ignore literary ambition that their higher-minded cousins just don’t have, no matter how well they’re written. Reading something like this makes me hopeful for my own work, too, which skews more toward simplicity than impenetrable metaphor.

May 22, 2015 Eimear Fallon

This is what I look like these days. My hair is longer than it’s been in years; sometimes it falls just right, like today, and other days it just piles up in an unflattering bird’s nest on top of my head. I feel like this photo puts undue emphasis o… — This is what I look like these days. My hair is longer than it’s been in years; sometimes it falls just right, like today, and other days it just piles up in an unflattering bird’s nest on top of my head. I feel like this photo puts undue emphasis on the (comparatively) large size of my nose. I am starting to look more like an adult, and it terrifies me.

Catching Up

May 22, 2015 Eimear Fallon

This is the last time I used this blog to say anything remotely personal. It’s over two months old, and that feels strange. I’ve had a personal blog for so long that when I don’t write confessionally in a public space I start to get an itch, and the last couple of months I’ve been noticing it’s there, while doing nothing about it. What I get from that is a faint, background discomfort - never so bad that I do something about it, but still there.

So here I am. Scratching the itch.

The last two weeks saw the arrival and departure of my sister, Nicola. I hadn’t seen her in a year, though that doesn’t necessarily feel relevant; I probably spent more time with her over the course of two weeks than I did for the entire year preceding my departure for the US. I was quite withdrawn as I geared up to leave, back in 2013. Maybe I was creating a shell so that I wouldn’t be quite so emotionally bruised when I landed here. Whatever it was, it’s recognisable in hindsight but something that developed unconsciously at the time.

She’s doing well, I think - she has a decent graduate job, and prospects, and an idea of where she wants the future to take her. We’ve grown in quite different directions (though we were never the kind of siblings who act like peas in a pod, anyway). My parents are coming to visit in July, and with that will come a host of different feelings.

There’s a hump you get when you emigrate, often months after you leave, where you’re consumed by thoughts of the past, of ways your life could have gone differently, of local haunts you spent your formative years, of high school bullies and trains into the city and friends and lovers whose appearance you’d probably get wrong if you were to sit down and sketch them from memory now. It’s not nostalgia, exactly, but more of a crisis of imagination; the place you live in now is already there, and it’s overwhelming and hard to take in as your new reality, so you escape inward, trying to return to something you once saw as normal as some way of coping with the sensory overload of living and working in a completely different country.

And I think I got over this recently. There was no dramatic cut-off, but I am learning to accept and understand the contours of this new life. Maybe it would have come faster if I hadn’t moved here for love - love is wonderful, but also powerful, and it can muddy the waters if there are other things to figure out. The love hasn’t gone away - it’s still just as strong as it always was - but it’s consistently strong, and the ripples are uniform enough now that I can see things more clearly.

This doesn’t mean that I have a lease on a new apartment (I don’t), or a job that pays me above the poverty line (I so, so don’t), or even a car (working on it), but it puts me in a place where I can approach this stuff without feeling like someone’s grabbed my shoulders and spun me around half a dozen times. There are a series of constants in my life, and I’m figuring out how to hold on to them for dear life.

Postscripts:

As my about page will soon reflect, I’m shelving the plans to write a novel for now and returning to the short story format. More on this in a separate post as I develop ideas, but the crux of it is that I’m not sure I have the mental discipline to write a novel right now (and also I have a justifiable excuse to self-publish short stories, because very few publishers actually considers publishing a collection of short stories from a new writer.)
Media-related things you won’t see me post about, because there’s either no end point or not enough to say: I’ve been playing a lot of the weird fiction-inspired MMORPG The Secret World lately, as well as listening to the remastered and re-recorded Grim Fandango soundtrack.
I’ve been using Twitter a bit more lately - come find me over there!