Josh Greenfield's "Cutting Through the Knot" is the type of book that gives self-publishing a bad name.

Greenfield's book wouldn't be quite so bad... if it had a plot. Instead, it's a mind numbing 156 page ramble.

The synopsis on the back of the book reads:

"A humorous coming of age story, told in conversational first person voice, recounting a young man's adventures in overcoming mental illness."

Doesn't sound too bad, right? Wrong.

I've read freshman creative writing stories written better than this piece. Pages and pages of misspellings, grammar errors and unformulated paragraphs are not funny. They're distracting.

Greenfield begins the book by giving a summary of the book. He finishes the paragraph with,

"It makes for a good story if I can tell it right."

I'm not convinced. Any book that likens being "manic depressive" and "O.C.D." as having two scoops of ice cream, one vanilla and the other butter pecan, should stay safely buried in a computer's hard drive until it's had several massive revisions.

Win tickets to Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Thanks to the largess of Cartoon Network’s foremost pair of comedic Dadaists, the Vanguard is offering 10 (!) free pairs of tickets to Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! show this Tuesday (Jan. 13) at the Crystal Ballroom.

To win two of these ticket just send an email to arts@dailyvanguard.com with a description of what you would do given a green-screen and an otherwise unoccupied afternoon

The 10 most interesting/frightening responses will win a pair of free tickets to Tuesday’s show, which is sure to be every bit as awesome and terrifying as the duo’s regular Adult Swim spots.

Up Okkervil River

I've sort of lost track of Okkervil River over their last couple albums and this makes me regret it/confirm my previous convictions.

The balls to the wall emoting that originally attracted me to Will Sheff and the boys is still there but at the same time I feel like it hasn't gone in many interesting directions.



Does some own The Stand Ins? Is it worth the price of admission?

Harry Potter gets watered down

Via MTV:

“Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” seems to be on a crash course to disappointing the Harry Potter fanbase. First, there were usual rumblings about changes to the story and characters, and then came the awful decision to delay “Half-Blood Prince by more than a year.

Now, Rope of Silicon reveals that the movie has finally been given the rating by the MPAA — and it has earned a rather soft rating of PG. As fans know, the books continue to grow darker as Voldemort’s power grows, and there are scenes of intense violence in “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince."

I think my geeky/creepy fandom of the Harry Potter series has increased in direct proportion to the "darkness" of J.K. Rowling's content. Therefore, it's really disappointing to see what could have been one of the most brutal and disturbing films of the series get stripped of its potential to revel in the emotion gray spaces in which it (impressively) started to venture.

Of course these predictions could prove to be horribly off the mark but the fact that the studio behind this film would even shoot for a PG rating puts me on edge.

Sigh. If this is in any way due to the influence of "Twilight" I am going to launch an official war on the tweens/lonely older women of America.

New Gimmick: Artistic or Lazy?

At this point I think we can all agree that M. Ward is more or less a good thing. However, the promotional hoo-ha for his latest album (one Hold Time) is raising some interesting questions, most specifically the question of whether it is subtly ARTISTIC or just kind of LAZY?

In what may be an ongoing gimmick I pose this question to you regarding the following video:



So, whaddaya think?

More Pineapple, more Express

Was this movie funny? Everyone seems to think so but this clip disagrees apparently.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Now I know where Christmas trees go when they die...

...Into the bellies of tusked beasts.



From National Geographic:

"January 4, 2007—Holiday leftovers aren't just for humans. Elephant calf Thabo-Umasai at Germany's Zoo Dresden joined camels, deer, and sheep in a traditional new-year feast of Christmas trees yesterday. "Elephants around the country will enjoy a delicious lunch today consisting of about five Christmas trees each," Ragnar Kuehne of Zoo Berlin told the Reuters news service on January 3 (Germany map).

Unlike the pie, pudding, and honeyed ham that may be haunting your fridge, though, pine trees' unique oils may actually help some animals' digestion, Kuehne said."

(Hat tip goes to Slog).