Empty Cage

Most people who know me know of my unhealthy love of all things Alice in Wonderland. A fandom that is generally a ragtag bunch that has never made much of a splash on the internet. But, whatever, right, I can sit and fangirl over pretty much anything I like. Of course, now that Tim Burton has turned his sights on Alice everyone else is paying attention again.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to make of this film. On one hand, I’m a secret Tim Burton fan (secret because I have this phobia of being one of those gloomy emo kids). Yes, I USED to come pretty close to that classification in the good old day (though, for the record I was pretty sure I was a goth and never wore skinny jeans), but I like to think I’ve cheered up a bit. Inversely, his dark-artistic-goodness never fails to please the part of me that still wears black boots that lace up to my knees. And I know I know, ‘all his movies are the same thing’ its so full of ‘dark side gimmicks’ it makes you a bit ill, but damnit, I like Alice and I like darkness so why am I not allowed to enjoy the hell out of this film?

I’ve been saving watching the trailer of this movie for quite awhile now. I wanted it to be at the perfect time. I still haven’t seen it, but I’m starting to think that waiting is going to build it up as something more than a clip reel of the only scenes worth watching. I will fucking cry if this movie sucks, just a warning. Like actually cry, in the open. And I know, Tim Burton, don’t get hopes up… but really. I want for it to be good so badly.

Unfortunately I don’t know many people who are as excited about all things Alice as I am. But one of them has been plotting an Alice website with me for awhile, and I think now would be the time to make it if ever we are going to.

Oh, what shall I do if this movie is crap?

Far be it from me to do more hate-mongering on the internet, as it is already one of those scary places where I am one of the few people left asking if we could ‘Give Peace a Chance’, but I do have to finally and openly express something that I truly hate more than anything else, and that something is Movie Tie-In Covers.

Go to your nearest bookstore (print this entry out if need be) and start looking at book covers. Notice, for the most part how pretty they are, they’re supposed to entice you to buy the book by expressing the whole essence of the book in a single image. It is debatable as to how successful a process this is, but at the very least the cover tries to sell the book based on its own merits as a piece of fiction.

So when they slap a movie poster on the cover of a perfectly good piece of fiction I get irrationally angry. The movie is never as good as the book, and really the poster serves to identify the good looking actors in the movie (who don’t appear in the book, only the characters do–a bit of a let down for some I’m sure).

The exception is Sookie Stackhouse, she can KEEP her movie/TV show tie in covers.

Come on, why do I always get inspired to design when I need to sleep?

I really don’t need a new domain but, while looking for a name for my online portfolio. (Because if I’m going to design for other people showing them my whiny blog is not the best idea.) I came across madhattery.com (though I vastly prefer the .net extension .com is easier for the neo-luddites to remember). I can’t decide if it’s good or not really “professional” enough for a portfolio.

Either way, I really enjoy the look of it. And Crystal and I were going to start an Alice in Wonderland site. Though, I think we wanted Dream-Caravan.com/net/org for that. What would I do with Mad Hattery…

When people first hear about my job in a bookstore they get this starry far-away look and talk about how that it “probably their dream job, or something”. And every time I shoot whoever I’m working with a knowing smile and just say nothing. Sometimes looking pretty is the best you can legitimately hope for in such a situation. Of course, given I had permission to say what I thought on the matter my list might go something like this. (These are probably mutually exclusive to independent booksellers — support them damn you)

1. Just to dispel any initial illusions I have yet to meet someone in a bookstore who has time to read on the job. Ever. Maybe flip through a book, perhaps read the back but I don’t think a full novel has ever been read in a store whilst said store was open. And if you were reading, you’d better believe your coworkers are planning mutiny because they must be doing the work.
2. You will never meet someone with the same taste as you. No one will read a book you liked and agree with you, ever. This may be a problem exclusive to me ‘Little Miss American Psycho-Battle Royale-Fight Club’. But nine times out of ten you will be asked what someone should get for their 12 year old niece. (And none of the aforementioned books ever cut it)
3. To tie into that, you have to love every book ever even if the idea of it makes your skin crawl. Why? Because you must sell every book ever. Be all things to all people, let them know (in my case as diplomatically as you can muster) that Twilight is ‘a really hot seller’. And that ‘sure, you loved it, and would recommend it to anyone’ You cannot be sarcastic or mean about it. You have no idea how many veins I’ve popped telling people terrible books are wonderful. But you have to, because you’re a sales person. You can try to distract them with something less painful but this smoke screen has rarely helped my efforts.
4. Furthermore, you have to know everything about every genre. Which in turn, seems to require you know everything about everything. From Fantasy to… Sports. ‘What’s a good book on plants? Does it include detailed information on where to plant my hostas? What do you MEAN you don’t know?” Very few people will legitimately believe that you have not read every book in the store.
5. You must be open to the usual plight of one working in customer service and consent to being treated like an idiot every single day. This is sort of a general law, but I figured I should include it, just to remind you. At twenty you get treated no better in a bookstore than at McDonald’s.
6. There are more stupid labour detail intensive time draining jobs in a bookstore then any other place I’ve worked. Starting with receiving the books (which used to require typing every ISBN to cross our doorstep into the computer — and even occasionally all the the book’s information such as the title and author, we’ve advanced since then but not much), labeling each book (and not with just a generic label, a specific label is needed to be matched to each one), attaching special orders to the right books or shelving them. A hideously extensive process just to get the books on the shelves. You also have to do inventory yearly (which involves putting your hand on every book in the store), and a return several times a year (which involves also touching every book in the store as well as scanning and shipping out old inventory– ordeal doesn’t begin to describe it) We actually just finished a return which is why I am so bitter today.
7. Special Orders are always mayhem, and you will never have the right book in stock. The only person who will have the right book is sitting eating Cheerios in their little Belgian publishing house. Or it’s a self pub, or out of print, or out of stock indefinitely. Even though the customer KNOWS they saw it at Chapters yesterday. Or they really need it… tomorrow. And well, they don’t know the title or the author but they will kill the next twenty minutes of your time telling you all about the plot. Because, as I said earlier, you have of COURSE read every book in the store. And every book ever written.
8. This is not really part of the list of why you don’t want to work in a bookstore, but what the hell — Amazon wants to sell ad space in Kindle E-book Readers? Because my brain isn’t already permanently jelly-ized by the other millions of commercials I see daily. If I’m buying an e-book reader and a book then damnit, I don’t want advertisers blinking in the corner of my eye. Myself being a grumpy old man aside. What is with commercials at movies? I’m only paying 20 bucks so you can blind me with fifteen minutes of ads. Okay, grumpy old man REALLY aside now.
9. If they come in the store at five to close they are a browser. There is no exception to this rule in recorded history.
10. Sometimes you learn more than you want to about your customers when they decide to buy that copy of the Kama Sutra. And they are seventy. And they have a suspicious looking drugstore bag. And usually no teeth.

Okay, my momentum has died, but I think that’s a good start, don’t you?

So I’m off breaking the rules right now and reading other people’s blogs to figure out how “grown-ups” go about reporting their mundane lives like every second is action packed. I am, of course, starting to seriously consider lying to get an interesting blog. In fact, I’ve been planning for awhile the thought of a blog that is actually completely fanciful, but written completely seriously sort of like.

I talked to my pal Ghnugh from Mars the other day. Sheeeet. He says the food in Mongolia is terrible, and really, I’m not too shocked by this meaningful revaluation. Perhaps I am dead on the inside. In other news, I broke into the innermost vault at the Royal Bank of Canada to find all they store in there is bananas with seeds. Go figure right?

Etcetera. Etcetera. That was before I realised that I’m missing the point. These bloggers take themselves just as seriously as I do. I spend almost as much time as they do scraping together the little details of my life into something legitimately readable. For me its more an attempt to take stock of how sardonic my take on the world is before I start turning into a bleary angry mole person. That and if I ever want to write my best seller which I will totally post on the internet because that is the only publicity… man… I need all the practise I can get. (Whoops, my bad, taking a shot at the ‘Author Bloggers’ again). Here I am working on stopping my hate fest and I just can’t do it.

The problem is I am a totally schizophrenic blogger. Some days I want to be the ‘oh woe is me, this is my internet outlet, hear me whine’ writer then the next I’ve decided to be the ‘professional purpose driven, look I even have a mission statement’ reporter. Between those two comes the ‘hate filled everyone if stupid but me’ blog which usually has a perky review the next day. So, basically Empty Cage is a big huge steaming poo most of the time because I have no focus whatsoever.

Of course then I sit around thinking “Well, Jesus, I should just pick one and build me a niche” (preferably by violently clawing competition out of the niche and cuddling my blogger’s bottom in there). But then, I would need several other blogs to accommodate all of my mood swings, and really, I don’t update this (or my defunct livejournal) enough to legitimately need another blog. We happily return to square one.

I think my writer’s “voice” is best suited to a critical blog. My reviews and rants tend to be more interesting then when I try to make an interesting case for reading about my day, but even that is perilous because then you need to both have something to write about, as well as be in a constant state of either rage, disdain or both. And while this is usually the case for me I wouldn’t want to enragggggge any customers because I one day decided to mention how much I lovey-wuv my life. And by customers I mean readers, and by lovey-wuv I mean don’t hate.

At least I haven’t sold out and started paid-blogging yet. I can keep my goatee and indie scarf a few more months yet. Maaaaaaan. (More being mean to real bloggers — wheeee!) But maybe I should I could do with writing a comedic piece on some randomly selected keywords. Shit, maybe I need to stop.

What does all this circle talking mean? Mostly that we should be watching for me trying on different blogging hats for the next few weeks/months/years until people actually read my blog. Righto.