Heffalumps and Woozles: The Devil Crept in Book Review

INTRODUCTION
     I really had high hopes for this author. I did a Google search looking to see what the modern landscape offered for new authors and most things yielded surprisingly little, which is shocking, given one Amazon search yields millions. Ania showed up on a list, along with Mylo Carbia. I had hopes for Ania, but Mylo seemed more like a waste of time. My thoughts weren’t entirely unfounded, but sadly, they we’re not entirely accurate, either. So let us take a look at the book on a deeper level.

SYNOPSIS
     Two cousins, best friends, live in a small town called Deer Valley. It’s a weird place, ala Stephen King and Joe Hill, but there is something more afoot, something evil, perhaps and it isn’t long before both find themselves in for the fight of their lives.

CHARACTERS
     We are treated to one, really good developed character. Two piss poorly developed characters through too much told back story, The rest are, well, pretty much just cunts to elicit sympathy from the reader. Alcoholic abusive stepdaddy, cliché I don’t believe my child mom, The douchebag older brother, think Buzz in Home Alone, Kindly old convenience store man and an aunt with nothing interesting about her. Stevie is the main focus and he is built well. I like him as a character. Jude is slightly more relatable, if you were ever the kind of child that marched to the beat of your own drum, which I did, but sadly, Jude wasn’t much developed past that and pretty much just labeled a nuisance for such.I’m not going to discuss the other two characters, because I would give too much away, in case you still want to read it.

PROSE
     When she isn’t bogging us down with backstory, she can be pretty decent, albeit, sparse writer. She reminds me more of Stephen King, but not as evocative as King, in terms of imagery. I think the biggest problem I have is with this being professionally done novel, with an editor, who is clearly inept. A running theme is “But” starting a sentence, when the last sentence didn’t need to end. Sometimes, you see the sentence as it should have been written, with just the “but” being the bridge of the sentence with or without comma. The word Tic for a mannerism, is spelled Tick throughout. Add in a few awkward analogies and it makes it seem like they rushed to print or the editor, as I said, was too inept. I’m not going to fault her here, because she is Polish, so English may be her second language and for the fact it isn’t her native tongue, she shows a lot of competency.

SUBTEXT
     There is none, except for some autobiographical writing. Such as a woman immigrating from Poland and the fear of being a foreigner, a mention of an inability to write a romance novel, which if you read the acknowledgements, you will see the link to her and not to mention, I think there was fear about being a new mom, strewn throughout.

CONCLUSION
     If she can improve the imagery of the world she is building, heighten up the suspense to actually make it scary, evenly build the characters, fix the few flaws with the style or find a better editor and pull back that exposition dump, she is well on track to actually being the next Stephen King, as opposed to Mylo Cabina, who pretty much called herself that. Outside of these few technical flaws, my only gripe with the book comes down to being able to call the entire ending by page 50 and the fact she has two narratives going back to back by the middle of the book, which wasn’t needed at all. It would have been better to perhaps made the child birth scene a prologue and stuck to one narrative, which, even with the bog of backstory, to build up Jude, would of made the pace of the book move faster. Still, I bought three of her other books on Kindle and plan to pick up a couple others, because I really feel she has a lot of potential. Either way, she is worth watching to see how she grows as a writer.

     3 out of 5

Halloween Movie Novelization Book Review

INTRODUCTION
When I was a child, almost all movies had a novelization. Why? Most likely because Hollywood wanted to make more money and much like a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy, this was one more worthless item to shill to kids or fans of popular novels. Sadly, the novelization was almost always terrible prose, aimed at the lowest common denominator and forgotten about with glee, shortly after you bought it. Remember the heyday of these is pre-DVD, when extras weren’t as easy to come by via VHS and some audiences were clamoring for more of these favorite flicks, so you cannot really blame anyone for giving them a gander, as they weren’t all terrible, but they weren’t very good, either. My reason for buying these as a child, they often could give more insight into scenes that were cut from the movie, as well as hopefully develop characters past the confines of the movie, whilst giving us more depth in general as well. Few ever lived up to that, that is until Halloween 2018, went retro and made a novelization for its movie and that is one reason for me to buy it, as I am waiting for the DVD or a Double feature of this and the original 1978 classic to finally see it. So is this little gem worth it?

SYNOPSIS
Jason Micheal is accidentally released back into Haddonfield on the eve of his transfer, exactly 40 years to the day of the babysitter murders. Laurie, estranged from her family, finally gets a chance to end her nightmare that started back in 1978. Who will rise victorious? (Hint: it’s Hollywood, it’s almost never the bad guy.)

PROSE
Finally, a novelization that does prose well. Holy shit! Not only is this guy hyper competent, but he adds a bit too much description. There is very little errors within this book, minus like one that you can discover for yourself should you read this. Not only is the description spot on, but the word use makes this one of the smartest novelizations ever. Mea Cupla for instance, is Latin. That is high brow for this type of book and I am very happy to see such. It also adds a bit of physics and quoting of Nietzsche. If all this sounds right up your alley, you will love this.

CHARACTERS
They’re developed enough, but not really in a memorable or you will care sort of way. Most the cast is simply there.

SUBTEXT/THEME
Not much, but they occasionally add a tiny insight when it comes to evil in the word and like I said, it’s a novelization.

CONCLUSION
While this book is sadly just relaying the movie with no real additions via different scenes or extrapolation to the world that is Haddonfield, the myth of Michael or developing the characters more, it still one of the better efforts that a novelization has ever undertaken, even if it lacks suspense, has kills which are weak and is longer than it should be. Overall, I think this and the movie are going to be worth your time.

3 ½ out of 5

Heffalumps and Woozles:The Raping of Ava Desantis, Book Review

INTRODUCTION

     I don’t what to think about this novel, whatsoever. I ordered it a few days ago, started it at 1pm today and just finished it about 8:30 pm. When I first looked up this novel, it was to investigate what it was about. Apparently it was a multi-award winner in 2015, but I never heard a damn thing about it, nor of the awards it won. It claims they’re industry related, but it is hard to have industry related awards when none of them are well known brands. I mean, I have an award for best critic of the year, but I made it up just now, so I’ll be like Donald Trump and Barrack Obama and put it on my book, just to sell more copies, because why merit anything when you can just pull bullshit out your ass, because the sorry ass consumers cannot be bother to do so much as the bare minimum of research in order to vote, never mind buy a fuckin’ novel. One “reviewer” claimed it made 50 shades of grey look like a training manual. Did that idiot even read either book or does he/she have rape fantasies? It isn’t even a horror novel. Goosebumps have more horror. So much seems wrong, but whatever, let us look at this novel a lot deeper than other “reviewers” have.

SYNOPSIS

     It is 1991, nerdy introvert needs to help jock type get good grades, invites her to frat party, even though cliché stock character doesn’t like her. The basic bros do too much drugs, and rape the chick to kingdom cum. The mother pays her off to keep, well, mum. She gets paid, but decides to avenge herself.

CHARACTERS
     This book isn’t black and white, but it isn’t color either. The only thing less developed than the characters in this book is the infrastructure the GOP keeps promising to fix. This book is like John Hughes took a copious amount of blow and forgot what he was able to accomplish, ala Steven King in the 1980’s.

PROSE
     Shallow, uneven, but with bits of competency as a writer, strewn throughout. It is super concise and can be read quickly. She knows how to paint a background, showcase humans, but everything else ultimately make this novel wonky at best. It is a debut novel, so perhaps she could be forgiven? Well, she claims to have been a Hollywood ghostwriter for years and to be fair, it shows, when she writes her onomatopoeia in all caps like this RING. In screenplay writing, you do that in order to show where the camera is to place emphasis. It is lost on most readers in this novel and doesn’t add anything.

THEMES AND SUBTEXT
     This isn’t the book to be looking for such, it is shallow as a puddle. I mean, we don’t even have a motive for why she is bothering to kill these people in the first place. The only thing I can gather is the following: 1. the writer has the mind of a man. 2. She is possibly bi-sexual. 3. She likes redheads, which I can relate to, but I still like brunettes and blondes too. 4. She has possibly engage in very weird, kinky sex or wants us to think that. 5. She has a fake publishing LLC just to post reviews of her own book and drum up publicity, including hiring actors. 6. The awards are dubious. 8. She clearly wants to be famous. 9. She is at least semi competent. 10. She will probably fare very well in the future.

CONCLUSION
     Mylo Carbia has managed to write an entire book that is like a episode of Seinfeld. I mean, nothing happens, yet, is has some appeal, or enough to have keep me reading it. It has uneven prose, zero suspense, shallow characters, a dumb double twist that was never set up nor is it actually a twist. The references are understandable, even to a younger audience. I mean, I’m confused as to if I enjoyed it, even with the flaws or not, to even recommend. Still, Mylo shows promise and clearly a drive to succeed, if you’re faking an organization just for reviews. With a few tweaks, she could have a hell of a lot of potential, even if she is the equivalent of a Millennial in GenX form.

3 out of 5.

A Word on KageGiving

Kageoween worked out pretty well for me, so I decided to do two more holidays, Kagegiving and Kagemas. While there is things I would like to fix and some stuff I wish I got to for Kageoween, I know next year will be a vast improvement over the inaugural year, as I have a lot planned out already for Halloween 2019.

In regards to Kagegiving, I wasn’t quite sure how I would go about this, since Thanksgiving doesn’t really lend itself to a lot of material for book, movie or tv reviews. So I have decided to make Kagegiving all about discovery of new material that I can find, between youtube, kindle or else, I’m going to look for the some of the best stuff I can find and give it a write up. The format may change at some point, but for now, this seems apt. I think I will do leading right up to the holiday, a week of thanksgiving, to see how this fares at first.

So if you’re reading this and have any ideas on what to watch, read, ect, feel free to comment below and I will see what I can get to.

The Man Who Invented Christmas Move Review

INTRODUCTION
     I have always loved A Christmas Carol. It was one of my favorite Dickens tales and one of my top ten books of all time. It is the original Christmas tale, not counting the story of Jesus or Santa Clause himself.
The movie is a basic concept about Charles Dickens being down on his luck and really needing a bestselling book. Which of us don’t, though? The rest of the movie is a search for inspiration and the struggle against writers block, combined with a weird rendition of the novel itself, don’t in bits and pieces, sewn throughout.

STORY
     There isn’t a real story here. At least not a very interesting one, anyways. Writer needs inspiration, writer finds inspiration, and writer publishes. Most of us that are writers go through this on a day to day basis, so it makes me really wonder who this is for. Is it for writers, creators, family or Victorian era England aficionados?

     I loved all the little Easter eggs to the Dickens other works,such as the orphanage that a young Charles Dickens was forced to labor in, when his after was arrested, leaving Charles stranded, the inspiration for Oliver Twist. I love the meeting with a Constable, named David Copperfield. The language coming directly from the world around Charles Dickens and the fun, but most likely, overly exaggerated way he worked.

T     he problem is, who is going to care if Charles Dickens is going to finish A Christmas Carol? What happens if he doesn’t publish it, besides being in debt?

     Nothing in this film is really of the essence and none of it is really going to draw us into the story and watch this for over an hour. Thankfully the screenplay was well written, so at the very least, we didn’t fall asleep during the middle of it.

ACTING
     The acting is superb. Not a single bad actor in the lot and all did a very good job at their individual roles. The two break away performances belong to Scrooge himself, slicing at Dickens with his acerbic wit and Dickens himself. An honorable mention goes to the character of the young Irish house maid, whose emotional investment in Charles Dickens book is the desire of every writer to have and also the soul of every single one of us when we finish a good book.

VISUALS
     Beautiful lighting, fantastic sets, it really looked like the embodiment of the area that we’re accustomed to seeing. The CGI is on point and I think it will hold up in the years to come.

CONCLUSION
     This movie is probably not for everyone. If you’re a Dicken’s buff, a fan of his work or a writer yourself, then you’ll absolutely will appreciate this the most. Even if you’re not a fan, it is decent enough to hold your attention for the duration of the movie. It is hardly a terrible movie, but to be honest, it is one that I don’t think we really needed, either. Regardless, it is a rousing Christmas romp that isn’t a horrible way to spend a night with the wife and kids, if you’re looking for family fare.

3 ½ out of 5 stars.

In favor of the Universal Basic Income

INTRODUCTION
     Social programs are all the rage with the leftist. They say these things are for people, because life is what happens and you cannot account for most things that come up, like injury for instance. While their argument there is sound, they don’t factor human nature into it and these programs actually hurt those with the greatest needs for them, whilst allowing for parasitic waste of flesh and oxygen to suck from the system and to breed their maleficent genetics into the world destroying the American Ecosystem.

WHAT IS AN ECOSYSTEM?
     An ecosystem is a system filled with many different species, all of which should, ideally, live in a harmonious environment among one another, where everything adds, rather than detracts from the system. The ocean is one such ecosystem, where species cohabitate among one another, with a hierarchical structure of predator, prey, producers, consumers and decomposers. These complex systems are dependent on producers to create the vertebrae that keeps the system afloat. Humans also follow these patterns as well and we can break down how each establishes itself into our country. Producers are the job creators, movers and shakers of this world. A producer need not be a businessman, since the arts are also producers, but primarily, businessmen and woman will be the glue that holds the economy together. Consumers are exactly what one would expect, they consume. In biology, consumers are organisms that create no food of their own, much like the general populace, they’re entire being is dependent on being able to get food from the producers.

     Now, we should, in capitalistic society, be based on mutualism, in which relationships are formed with benefit. The role between job provider and employee for example, is one such form of mutualism. Commensalism is where one organism benefits and the other isn’t harmed, exhibited by the roles of parents with their children. The other is parasitic, where the parasite benefits at the expense of the host, but doesn’t kill it, since a non-living organism wouldn’t be beneficial to the parasite, exhibited by government dependents and government themselves, ironically, forming an exclusive form of mutualism, the benefits both, but no one else within the ecosystem.

HUMAN NATURE
     Human beings are considered a complex system, albeit, we’re not really that complex to understand. Humans fall into all different sets of people, but one look to our brethren in the wild and we’re not really that different from the animals we claim to have dominion over. Like an ecosystem, we’re filled with producers and consumers ourselves that fall into other subcategories as well, such as altruist acting, cheats, reciprocators and other types of beings you can read about in The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

     What we’re going to look at here just those that would come about in regards to social programs as they currently are. Cheats from a selfish gene point of view are animals that benefit in a commensalism nature. To borrow directly, but not verbatim, from the book, some apes groom each other to remove parasitic animals that would otherwise harm the host, even if it doesn’t kill it. Cheats will benefit from this by getting themselves groomed, but not returning the favor, thus the commensalism aspect of the relationship, where one organism benefits, but the other isn’t harm, maybe just it just hurt feelings. When someone doesn’t pay their taxes, they’re referred to as a cheat, because this is the exact type of relationship I am discussing. One of the arguments against welfare is steeped in exactly this type of reasoning and it isn’t erroneous. Welfare leaves rooms for cheats to benefit. The social programs we currently have, almost never actually benefit those who need them most and while welfare fraud is at a very low frequency, that hasn’t stopped some people from being cheats, even if it is rarity in regards to welfare benefits, let’s take a closer look at human nature and that is the perception department.

     The golden ratio deals with humans forms of attractiveness, the higher you are in this ratio, the more symmetrical you are and the more beautiful you are perceived as. You are also viewed as having good genetics and there is a lot of privilege that comes with such beauty. To borrow from Michio Kaku, if you go to the doctors and they ask you what’s wrong, you’re registering good genetics. Humans gauge people on these looks every day and it is partially how we interact with one another for everything from sex to work and beyond. More attractive people are often deemed smarter than their less attractive counterparts, which can negatively impact intelligence quotient scores and perhaps erroneously inflate them as well.

     Currently we don’t have a database that deals with the number of highly attractive people there are in the world, just studies showcasing beautiful privilege, regardless of skin color, this will hold concurrent across races. In other words, subjectivity in regards to race would have little bearing in such. I bring this up because I want to discuss one welfare program, called disability, which is where this will be a huge hurdle for people to clear, when they’re high up on the golden ratio. Just because you’re born attractive, does not mean you cannot have something bad happen to you and this factor comes into play when they go to approve you for disability, seeing attractive people as abled bodies. Often times these people that need it the most will be turned away, while inferior genetics easily get on and for very easy things, such as depression or gender dysmorphia, because them being less attractive makes their plight seem more believable, even when others, with innumerable amount of evidence proving their disability, cannot. Whilst anecdotal, I’ve had friends who were rejected for this very reason, while living in a town where lazy people are ushered into the program and then working the second they get their lavish back pay. A video in regards to this has cropped up on Youtube some years ago and can be found very easy.

FIXING THE SYSTEM
     While we can never know the true extent of fraud that goes on in regards to these programs, we can prove that faulty human nature will err by way of sheer incompetence making the decisions, time and time again. So how can we fix the system and make the world a better place, while seeing both sides of the coin? We need to look at the Universal Basic Income. I know it is a very un-libertarian idea, but it makes sense from all angles, including fiscally conservative. First, studies have shown that when a populace is giving a UBI, more people become entrepreneurs, which creates more producers, making the backbone of our ecosystem stronger. Why is this? Well, some people are trepid and unable to take risk without a safety net. While I cannot have sympathy for these types, I can understand they’re different from me in that regard. The other factor in this, is it is fair to those born with good genetics, who may land on times of hardships and not just subsides genetics that wouldn’t otherwise breed in a Darwinian society. If we look to the number of government programs we spend on each year, the amount is quite costly, without factoring in the lack of yearly revenue from companies missing out on employable people. A UBI would almost certainly be cheaper in the long run and give a bigger boost to the economy than anything that has come before it. Furthermore, a UBI can be given to everyone, including the affluent, without discrimination. It levels the playing field between all types of Americans, reduces the stigma for those who truly need the help and even alleviates the strain on neurotic types that need stability to produce, like with Lazlo’s hierarchy of needs. The benefits, both macro and micro are too many to count and ultimately lead to a more productive society.

RECAPITULATION OR TL;DR
     The economy is an ecosystem, as with any ecosystem, is has it rules and all different types of organism, each with their own set of rules. The rules that govern humans do not work for social programs of most types, as they might be in direct violation of an individual’s personality or a person genetics might impede them form gaining such. The only way to fix this is to look at the Universal Basic Income as a way to impede human nature from harming innocents and causing a rift between leftist and conservatives alike.