Magical and redemptive

Hoping for blogdemption:
I've fallen off the review wagon. These things happen. The holidays come around, the Law and Order marathons add up, you start actually planning that whole wedding thing, and suddenly you've read 20 books and haven't reviewed a single one of them. If by you I mean me, anyway. This makes writing a blog entry doubly hard because if I don't review books what exactly is this blog here to do? Ideally I'd have found a niche by now. Probably said niche can be found in same place I keep thinking I'm headed before I get distracted by other things and shy of public forums: awkwardness+customer oriented community-based vocation. That is to say: Awkward Librarianism. Again.


So here is an awkward transition to a discussion about pop culture featuring a quote from Sherman Alexie.


This brings me to Magical?

So Paul was certainly not addicted to the present day. on the contrary, Paul believed that the present, past, and future were all happening simultaneously, and that any era's pop culture was his pop culture. And sure, pop culture could be crass and manipulative, and sometimes evil, but it could also be magical and redemptive.

From "The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless" in "War Dances" by Sherman Alexie.



Maybe it is the anthropologist in me, but do you know what I love to imagine? I love to imagine people reading popular contemporary authors being read in classrooms and lecture halls and analyzed as "classics." I think that the Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts, as fun and palatable as they are, will not endure to that point. However, I like to think the Nick Hornbys, Sherman Alexies, and Audrey Niffeneggers (well, at least TTW) might just make it to that point.

The truth is, of course, I have no idea what piece of our pop culture will become a piece of future pop culture. It could be someone as yet undiscovered who is discovered to have written amazing pieces about now 10 years after they die. It could be that not a single title published in the past ten years is ever discussed by anyone 100 years from now. The zombiepocalypse may have happened and their may be no one left to discuss much of anything. Or maybe everyone will be reading Harry Potter and Twilight 500 years from now and making vast sweeping generalizations about everyone who was around at the end of the last millennium or the beginning of this one based on Hogwart's Sorting Cap and Bella Swan's insatiable use of adverbs.

But really, this is all just my awkward way of saying that I really liked the collection of short stories in War Dances. I like Sherman Alexie and I hope that his works endure and become part of the pop culture of the ages. Because, his books and stories don't just give me an escape for a few moments, but instead leaving me twisting with the ideas behind them and the characters and situations in them.

Whew, tied it all together there in the end, I hope.

The real fans? or Twilight Poseurs

Everyone is talking about Twilight. Ah, duh. I keep awkwardly talking about it with other librarians and teenagers. At my first Teen Council meeting it was suggested that I do something "Twilight" themed. And, probably the next Twilight thing that gets released I will. It seems likely that more movies will come out. Based on this interview. Everyone has been talking about Twilight for years now and it doesn't seem like anyone is going to be stopping soon. I think I have plenty of time for a Twilight prom or party.
The phenomena first hit me while I was in Library School. In my kids' lit class no less than 6 students booktalked it as a part of our "booktalk two-three books to a selected audience" assignment. 6! Out of a class of maybe 15-20 people. I had to check these books out. So I put myself on the waiting list at my public library. And, I got swept up, because Jane Eyre was my favorite book at 13. Despite the fact that I think Bella needs to shut up about how not great she is already. Jane was the same way, and I grew up thinking that is what would attract the attention of broodingly handsome (and potentially insane)rich men. Guess what, self-esteem that low isn't attractive! It is cause for theraputic intervention to get to the root of self-loathing! Bella has issues! Jeez, you'd think at least Dr. Cullen would get that but he doesn't say a word. Maybe vampires just don't even notice whiny humans prattling on about how not good enough they are. Of, course I know (and it seems that most teens see through this as well) the device's purpose. It is to convince us all, no matter how not pretty and not special we feeel, that one day our brooding hot-as-icy hell vampire prince Rochester boyfriend will find us. Even those of us who are nearly 30 (or 40, or whatever) and already have perfectly stunning but normal relationships, get swept into this fantasy.
So I have to wonder about the director of the movie in an interview she did with MTV that went like this:

MTV: Did you enjoy taping "MTV Spoilers" the other night and doing the Q&A with all those die-hard Twilighters?

Catherine Hardwicke: Yeah, let's have the real fans! Those people were not faking it. They were into it.

I'm sorry, what? What do you mean "real fans" and "not faking it?" Is there a legion of teenaged "Twilight Poseurs" out there, pretending to love trashy vampire romance because their friends do? Because, I find that hard to believe. Not impossible, peer pressure is a powerful thing, but I find it hard to imagine it being powerful enough to generate this level of craziness. I'd like for other people to weigh in on this topic. Are thousands of people just pretending to love The Twilight Saga when secretly they think it is drek? Or is the idea behind the story and the tropes behind the characters so strong that all these fans are "real fans?" How are we even defining real fans? the ones who will buy into any promotion and marketing and merchandize that remotely stinks of vampire? The ones who love every second of the books and re-read them over and over again, but never buy another thing, never post to a forum, never engage in internet warfare over the Jacob/Edward debate? The ones who write involved fanfic but got the books from the library? I love fandom as particpatory culture, and I'm glad some fans got to meet the director and ask questions. But real fans versus fake fans seems alienating to me for any sort of fandom. And as a fan (and occasionally FAN) of many things, I resent the implications.

And thus ends my awkwardly long post about the nature of the fandom beast and the Twilight juggernaut.