Elves, faeries, vampires, warlocks, werewolves, angels, demons and the nephilim...

Wow. What a busy week I've had, without even a single chance to share my thoughts with you. But do not fear, you'd definitely be updated by the end of this post!

Let's start off with some information on great opportunities to get hold of some great books and win awesome prizes.

The first is the Exclusivebooks.com pre-order campaign for The Gathering Storm, the new book in the Wheel of Time series. See it here.

The next promotion is the Midnight Feast promotion. Choose from various Twilightesque types of Young Adult fiction and stand a chance to win great prizes. See the details on their here.

I had the opportunity to finish 4 books this week, catching up on much needed reading time. The first three books actually form part of the abovementioned Midnight Feast campaign. So, for those of you who would like to know more...

The Mortal Instrument Series - Cassandra Clare

"A thousand years ago, the Angel Raziel mixed his blood with the blood of men and created the race of the Nephilim. Human-angel hybrids, they walk among us, unseen but ever-present, our invisible protectors.


They call themselves Shadowhunters."

This is by far one of the more entertaining Young Adult reads that I've read this year. Cassandra Clare created a believable, enchanting world with a storyline that grips you from start to finish. Clare developed a rich, well researched mythology incorporating many classic and contemporary myths and legends into a storyline that refuses to let you go.

Into this she introduces characters that are so human, each and every person can identify with them. In this story (all three books) I recognised so many aspects of my own life, I sometimes wondered whether these books were based on my diaries. From unrequited love between best friends, forbidden love between soul mates, anger, hurt, betrayal, true friendship, jealousy and lies, there is bound to be a situation a lot of us can identify with.

The icing on the cake for this series is the witty, sarcastic humour. I often found myself laughing out loud at some of the retorts in the book.

This series is definitely a must read for young and old. A relaxing, gripping tale that definitely leaves you wanting for more.

As for the elves, I'll be back later this week with the next book review for A Darkness Forged in Fire, Chris Evans' debut fantasy novel. An if you're lucky, I'd have finished book 2 in the  Iron Elves trilogy as well.

Keep it real!

Hitchiker's Guide Giveaway...

Head over to Dave's Blog for a fantastic giveaway. Dave has 5 copies of the new Hitchiker's Guide book (And another thing...) written by Eoin Colfer, as well as a set of the first 5 books to give away! 

Gamer - Why its one of my favourite movies of all time...

So I went to see Gamer on Saturday, and boy was it good. For once I sat through something that promised to be a mindless action movie (something I needed at the time), and left with a more meaningful understanding of society's need for control. Now for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, do so.

In a not too far future, billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C Hall) developed nanotechnology that replaces part of a human's brain, making it possible for them to be controlled. This was incorporated into two "games". One is called "Society", where people can control average people in a social setting. Kinda like real life Sims... The other game is called Slayers and lets the player control a deathrow inmate in a First-Person Shooter context. Survive 30 games and you win the inmate's freedom.

The Story revolves around Kable (Gerard Butler), the champion inmate of Slayers, and his quest for survival. But to me the storyline was second to the insights I got from the movie. When looking at the world of Society, you see a world driven by hedonism. And even worse, hedonism by proxy. The "world" of Society is filled with sex, drugs, nudity, parties etc., all experienced vicariously by rich kids and social misfits. The "actors" who willingly participate in "Society" as the contolled people, are the poor, and the outcasts, willing to sacrifice their individuality for money. They literally become slaves to the machine.

Slayers on the other hand is everything that people is worried about in violent video games. The players do not even realise that is real human beings they control. They know it, but its like knowing the sky is blue, who cares? The game has a worldwide following, with cities coming to a standstill when it is aired. Fascinated.

A lot of people will reason that Gamer is a very over the top depiction of modern society, but I ask the question: "Is it really?"

Are we really that different from the characters in the movie? We willingly conform to trends, willingly give ourselves over to the latest fad. Or we desperately seek to be in control of every little detail of our lives. We want fun, without the risk, we want instant pleasure and we want to get as much as we can, by doing as little as possible. Are we really that different from the characters in the movie?

Anyway, that's me for now. I'll be back tomorrow or so with my expectations of the upcoming movies for the summer holiday period as well as my Christmas Wishlist (As if anyone will pay attention...)

Anywho,

Keep it real!

Inglouriously Tarantino...

I was lucky enough to be invited to the South African premiere of Inglourious Bastards yesterday. Man! I just love my job! So there we were, sitting in the cinema at Hyde Park in Johannesburg, eating slightly stale popcorn and getting mesmerised by the film.

In true Tarantino style the movie contains the right balance between blood, gore, action, humour and drama. Enough to keep you interested without revolting you, or boring you to tears. Two actors really stand out in this film. One is Brad Pitt with his hilariously funny accent, and the other is Christoff Waltz. Waltz' character varied between creeping the living shit out of me, and driving me to hysterics.

My judgement on the character of Hitler in this film was coloured by the numerous videos of "Hitler finds out..." I've watched on Youtube. For those of you who are not familiar with these videos, they are made by youtuber who replace the subtitles in a German film called "Der Untergang" in which Hitler throws a bitch fit. Now imagine the hilarity when the first glimpse you have of Hitler in Inglourious Basterds is of him having a bitch fit...

The start of the movie confused me slightly, and only by the middle of it did I piece together the story. This is standard practise for me when watching a Tarantino movie for the first time. But this never detracted anything from the enjoyability of the movie.

Definitely worth a watch.

Keep it real,

The Fun Theory

The Fun Theory is most probably one of the cleverest initiatives I've come across in a while. I was plotting along on Facebook and saw a link my cousin posted a couple of days back. It was a link to a Youtube video about the “Fun Theory”. Intrigued I clicked on it. I loved it! The whole concept was amazing. But you have to see it for yourself. Below is three of the “Fun Theory” initiatives, as displayed on the website.








Why would this intrigue me, I wonder? I do believe in conservation, to an extent, but I’m not fanatical about it. I will most certainly not chain myself to a tree to stop someone from chopping it down. I don’t give money to animal shelters, poor people, beggars or AIDS orphans. Then why did this grab my attention?

I think it’s the behaviour modification bit. Does this prove that we can “force” people to do the morally correct thing, like throwing trash in a bin, just by making it fun? Can we stop crime this way? If we fine people for breaking the law, can we not pay them for not breaking it? Some insurance companies here in SA, refunds you a part of your total instalments if you have been claim free for a period of time, rewarding you because someone else did not break the law. (Or, because you actually took the time to learn how to reverse without demolishing anything…)

Can we change our own behaviour by making it fun for ourselves? Feeling fat? Would you rather gym, or dance? Want to learn to play a musical instrument? Would you rather take lessons from a strange old lady, or pester a friend into divulging some secrets? The list is endless. By implementing the “Fun Theory” in our own lives, we might be able to attain some form of fleeting happiness.


Keep it real...

Hedonism vs Masochism

Striving to perfection has long been a hobby of mine, to the extent that I actually made myself sick with expectations. My other problem was that I denied myself meaning and happiness through my search for meaning and happiness.

Take for example the idea that wealth and success leads to happiness. For many a year I've been under that same impression. In my striving to a wealthy and successful life, I've missed out on small pleasures along the way.

Another idea was that to be completely happy, one needs to be in a healthy fulfilling relationship. But many people, myself included, suffered from this delusion. The contrary is however true for some of us (especially those who doggedly seek perfection), true happiness is when you are in a place where you can control the level of perfection.

This leads me to the African concept of Ubuntu. Ubuntu as a life philosophy, can be roughly explained as "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" or "people are people through other people". Its wrong. There is no such an idea that any person can consciously affect your human-ness. A more apt description of this would rather be "people are people through their perception of other people".

The concept of Ubuntu also has reflections in Western philosophy. Martin Buber, in his writings on the "I-Thou Relationship". He said : "Let no attempt be made to sap the strength from the meaning of the relation: relation is mutual." This again emphasizes that without our perception of the influence of others their attempt at defining a person's humanness is useless.

This, in short, means that through their perceptions of other people (and to an extent their world around them) people define their humanness (and by extent, their happiness). This would essentially explain a lot of the social and psychological phenomena that a lot of people try to define. Take for instance the idea of battered-wife-syndrome. Even though the woman in question is severely maltreated, she still experiences a level of happiness to the extent that she loves her partner. This is because she experiences her partner as a loving caring person, and perceives their general interaction as pleasurable.

My point, and I do have one, is that a lot of people mistake masochism for a type of hedonism. And don't get me wrong, there are people out there who thrive on masochism and are very happy for it. At the end of the day there are just too many people who do not truly know themselves, and by extent do not know what would make them happy. These people strive towards socially created goals in a futile attempt at obtaining happiness, and they end up miserable and sad. And they've done it to themselves.

Twi-ing very hard to not be Robsessed

Now this is really, and I mean really enough! I’ve had it! What am I ranting about, would you ask? Twilight. There, I’ve said it! Twi-fucking-light.



When the books first came out, way before the movie, I read them, or at least the first one. The story was ok, slightly boring. In short it was chastity porn. With the hype that surrounded the release of Breaking Dawn (the August(?) before the movie) I gave the series the benefit of the doubt, and read it again. It was ok. Stephanie Meyer is no Austen, and never will she be a Man Booker Prize winner for this, but it was a good YA fiction read.




Then some backwater studio from the middle of nowhere got the idea that this would make a good movie. Summit was virtually unknown before this. Their official site lists a full 6 movies available on DVD, with gems such as Sex Drive: Unrated and Cream-filled.



Twilight exploded. Us poor people in the book trade were flooded with requests for “that book the Twilight movie was based on” and inundated with enquiries such as “there is more than one book?!”, “When’s the next movie coming out”, “Why is that book so thick? I’ll never finish it before the fourth movie comes out!”

And here every bookseller’s personal hell began. For more than a year now, the Twilight series has been bestsellers across the world. Very rarely has it actually left the top 10 (certainly in SA). Not a day goes by that people in the book industry do not hear about Stephanie Meyer, Twilight or Edward Cullen.

I saw a Facebook status update of a friend recently that said: “You know you’re obsessed with Twilight when you look at your boyfriend and think: “Sparkle, you bastard! Sparkle!” We have coined terms describing these girls that just absolutely have to own every piece of Twilight merchandise: Twihards. Their Robert Pattinson obsession? Robsession Thos mom’s who just can’t get enough? Twimoms. We gave them their own convention, Twicon and the list goes on. Collectable cards, sure. The director’s notebook? It exists. Posters, stickers, shirts, calendars? Buy now! Do you need a Twilight Book Companion? Movie Companion? For sale now! Rober Pattinson’s Biography? Available.

And then there are the more dubious items.

Hand painted Twilight Shoes and wineglasses that make you look like a vampire? Here.

 

A Edward Cullen Shadow cutout for your wall? Here.

Fake blood. Here

And the best, or worst. A twilight inspired dildo. It sparkles in the sunlight and you can put it in the freezer for that authentic “undead” experience.

There you have it. Ridiculous.

So what's next?

Till next time… Keep it real!

WISIWYG - What I See Is What You Get

Good morning fellow cave dwellers and welcome to my blog. For those of you with keen eyes, and a moderate amount of brainpower, you'll see that this blog is new, like really new, like I created it this morning new.

The idea for the blog basically evolved out of my need to give people my opinion, the fact that a good friend launched his new blog which got me excited to start blogging myself, since it looked like a lot of fun as well as one of those extremely inspirational moments that us Gemini's sometimes get.

The idea for the name (for the blog, not my name, which I will probably cover in a later post) refers to:
a) The fact that I'm blogging from my room, which I call my cave (It actually resembles a nest sometimes), and
b) My understanding of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Now for those of you who have no idea what the Cave allegory refers to, read the wiki article and then come back. And don't fret, you'll only have to read the opening paragraph to understand where I'm coming from.

So this blog is basically my interpretation of the shadows against the wall. I will in no way or form claim to be a philosopher (unless I'm drunk, or stoned), since I do actually know a couple of philosophers and respect their great, and sometimes hard to follow, theories and trains of thought. But back to my cave wall. If our perception of reality is affected by the relative position of the fire behind our backs, then this blog is my interpretation of the shadows against the wall. (Hence the title of the post. See? There is method to the madnesss that is me!)

I will be covering such a range of topics in this blog, it would be hard to list them all. My main focus will be on whatever is happening in my life at the moment, so be sure to hear a lot from the entertainment media retail environment (I work in the books, games, movies and music retail industry) with the odd book and movie review (because I can), musings on politics and religion (because I find the discussion surrounding that enlightning), bitching and moaning about idiots (I really, really dislike stupid people) and general life in sunny South Africa.

Just a general warning: I'm like using profanities, that's just me, so skip over them if you don't like reading them. And don't flame me about them, I'll just delete your flame, or better yet, direct the profanities at you.

Another warning (and you might have noticed this), I write from a first person, train of thought perspective. And believe me, I derail quickly. So I apologise for some of the posts beforehand, they might make little sense! Ooh look! Roadkill!

I won't make any promises as to the regularity of my posts, since I cannot create my own inspiration. I'll just wait for the world to happen, and then comment on it.

Let me take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday to Dave (remember the blog I mentioned earlier? That's his...)! I hope you have a good one!

Well, that's all from me for now,

Be good, be awesome,