A few odds and ends seen on Twitter recently

I've been swamped with working two new jobs, buying a new car, and Holy Week observations, so some of these items may already be known by several.  But just in case, here's a few odds and ends over the past few weeks that have caught my attention.

Lost in the uproar over yet another underwhelming Hugo Award shortlist for Best Novel was the announcement that at the general meeting at the upcoming WorldCon there would be a motion to add Best Genre Poetry to the upcoming 2014 London WorldCon as a trial category.  UK-based critics such as Cheryl Morgan and Jonathan McCalmont had different reactions to this possible development, with McCalmont saying on Twitter that it was nigh hopeless to complain about the inevitability of this motion passing:

I guess complaining about Hugo poetry category is a bit like standing in the Amazon rainforest and complaining about the shitty begonias.
— Jonathan McCalmont (@RuthlessCult) March 31, 2013

Elsewhere, the ever-provocative blogger at Requires Only That You Hate announced Sunday that she would be changing the focus of her reviewing ire from self-published YA fantasies to the more sophisticated reviewing of My Little Pony episode and their deleterious effect on the so-called "bronies."  On Twitter, she gleefully said this after her announcement:

@esedia oh this will be fun
— Misandry Shrugs (@requireshate) March 31, 2013

As many of you know, Paul Smith and I have been posting substantive reviews over at Gogol's Overcoat.  Recently, Paul has decided that he cannot take my word for it and that he is going to sample the works of one of the greatest comedians/Continental philosophers of our generation.  On Twitter, he seems pretty sanguine about this potentially revolutionary writer:

I don't think the world is ready for a comedian with a routine consisting entirely of terrible Continental Philosophy jokes.
— Paul Smith (@Paul_C_Smith) March 25, 2013

And finally, Indian lit critic Aishwarya Subramanian announced on her blog this weekend that she was disappointed with Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou's recently-translated Black Bazaar (a shame, since I think it is one of the best translated books to come out in the past year or so) for its lack of development of the main character's "Buttologist" proclamation.  As she said sadly on Twitter:

"nothing to do with buttocks"
— Aisha(@ActuallyAisha) March 31, 2013

Hopefully Aisha will give Mabanckou another chance in the future despite the seeming misnomer.

Finally, a bit of non-Twitter-related news:  After three years of delays, Serbian illustrator Dunja Branovački (she designed the present blog header) and I will begin work this summer on a Kickstarter project for the previously-announced Squirrelpunk anthology of Squirrelist fictions.  We are uncertain what the goals or prizes will be, but we are thinking that perhaps the entry-level prize might be an autographed picture of a rabid squirrel leaping toward the camera as its picture was taken (sadly, the photographer succumbed to rabies a few days later) and perhaps there would be a rabid squirrel rave party for those who donate over $1000.  Feel free to suggest category prizes in the comments.

I am livetweeting my reactions to the last WoT book

Since it'll be a day or so before I bother writing a review of A Memory of Light, for those who want to see (mostly) spoiler-free reactions that I'm having to the book, you can follow this hashtag, #WoTTF, on Twitter.  Here are a few choice tweets that should give you a better sense of my reactions so far:

I feel like I'm reading non-erotic pornography as I read more WoT #WoTTF

Worst part is that I find myself reading much slower than normal in order to quote from this dreck. #WoTTF 


I think my access to reading squirrels has been blocked for this :( #WoTTF

I have lived for a little over 1.2 billion seconds. Too many have been wasted on bad novels. #WoTTF 

At the moment of writing this post, I've read about 1/4 of the novel, not including the reading of the final 50 pages, about which I'll say more later this week.  Let's just say that I won't be having my comments blurbed for the paperback edition anytime soon.
 

Twitter conversations influencing book purchases

Now that I'm out of work for a few months (unless I see a better-paying job before March, which is possible), I've had a lot more time for Twitter than I've had for 16 months.  I usually use it to keep up with certain news items, but occasionally some interesting discussions about literature will take place.  Earlier this morning, I was chatting with two Brazilian writers, Fábio Fernandes and Alex de Souza, about translation issues of stories going to/from Portuguese and English.  The talk shifted to certain poets.

Luís Vaz de Camões.

Antero Tarquinio de Quental.

Francesco Petrarca (surprisingly not available in Portuguese translation).

I was reminded that I needed to read more José Maria Eça de Queirós by reading their comments on certain Portuguese writers.

Then the topic shifted to how Camões was like the Portuguese Milton.  I noted that he was actually very popular in Elizabethan England and that Shakespeare (among others) almost certainly read him.  Then the topic shifted to other epic poets:

Torquato Tasso.

Lodovico Ariosto.

Matteo Maria Boiardo.

Lope de Vega (already owned an edition of his Spanish epic poetry)

And although I already owned some of these in translation, I ended up buying (most for free, some for $0.99, one for $4.99) nine of these in Portuguese or Italian editions.  Now I get to read (or in a few cases, re-read) these works and possibly review some, if not all of them, sometime next year.

Yes, Twitter can be a perilous place for reviewers/lovers of Renaissance epic poetry to visit and converse.  But at least I'm assured of several great reads in the weeks and months to come, all now stored on my Kindle for iPad app.