Festivus 2022: For the Rest of Us

Shunning the commercialization of Christmas*/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Santaween/Chrismukkah, we’re again celebrating Festivus (for the rest of us) here at The Irresponsible Reader.

Let’s begin our observance!

Here I am with my Festivus pole. I really appreciate the very high strength-to-weight ratio, it’s a mighty fine pole.

Note the lack of distracting tinsel. It’s very important.

And now, let the Airing of Grievances begin.

Yes, some of these are only slightly revised from previous Festivus posts. Which is to be expected, it’s not like the entire universe fixed itself after I posted one lil’ post. I’ve got to keep up the pressure.

AI’s takeover of publishing, from covers, to audiobook narrations, to writing and illustrating! It’s just too much. This is about human creativity, not close approximations of it. Also, you’d think that people who publish/sell/read dystopian fiction and SF would know better than to give the reins of anything to an AI.

The Goodreads “update” or “upgrade” or “redesign” or whatever they’re calling it. It’s uglier, it’s flakier, it’s less functional, and just plain worse. I don’t disagree that the site needed a makeover and improvements, but what we got wasn’t what we needed.

I have a grievance with the book publishing/selling/marketing industry. It’s 2022, why are we still placing stickers on books? If we have to do that, why hasn’t Science come up with a sticker that doesn’t leave a gummy residue behind? C’mon, Science, if you can’t give us a cure for cancer, a pill so people with Celiac disease can eat bread, or an Oreo that will help me lose weight—at least you can give us stickers that don’t leave gunk on our books! Especially, especially when it covers the ISBN number for those of us trying to scan them.

What’s worse than stickers are those things that look like stickers, but aren’t. Just stupid, garish circles that have been printed on the cover and really only serve to obscure the image. What’s the point?

I have a grievance with Movie/TV covers on books. C’mon people, this is stupid. Sure, it maybe helps sell more copies of the books—but has any book been improved by one of these covers? No! Knock it off! And especially, stop it with sticking pictures of actors on books in a series that haven’t been adapted, just because some have (yeah, I’m looking at you, Longmire).

Similarly, what’s up with publishers changing the look of series covers—and or the height of the books—in a series? I like when they match and I resent having to go buy second copies of the old ones to have a nice matching set. (which I generally avoid, but I think about doing it a lot).

It’s another year without the next installment from Rothfuss/Martin. No, my grievance isn’t with them, it’s with the entitled “fan” of the work, whinging at every conceivable moment about how long it’s taking them. Because there’s nothing else around to read? Let ’em get it right and use that energy to support someone whose books could use it.

(still—Martin, Rothfuss, Lynch…c’mon…)

Whether it’s from a mainstream publisher, indie press, or a self-pubbed book, we have the technology and (theoretically??) the education so there’s no reason for there to be missing/extra punctuation or misspelled words in books.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to book blog posts. No one paid for these.

I have a grievance with the Book Blogging Community. There are way too many good book bloggers out there to keep up with. Some of you need to write less often! Also, you make the rest of us look bad.

I’ve got a grievance with running out of places to put books and bookshelves that aren’t like a bag of holding or TARDIS and can’t take an increasing number of books. So…physics, I guess. Yeah, that’s right, Laws of the Physics, I’m calling you out. Get your act together!

And what’s more…I lost my train of thought. Still, I managed to get a little off my chest, that felt good.

And now, the Feats of Strength…

This is going to be a doozy. Possibly my greatest Festivus Feat of Strength to date.

For my Feat of Strength, I’m going to watch the Netflix movie, Spenser Confidential. Theoretically based on Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland by Ace Atkins, directed by Peter Berg, with a screenplay by Sean O’Keefe and Brian Helgeland, and starring Mark Wahlberg, Winston Duke, Alan Arkin, and Iliza Shlesinger. That’s not a big deal, really, I endured it before.

However…this time I’m going to do it without complaining to anyone—friend, stranger, wife, child, or dog—while doing so. I will not write about the experience, post anything on the Internet or social media (beyond this post), or do anything of a similar nature. I will keep all of my comments, complaints, criticisms, or comparisons to the novels or previous TV/film adaptations to myself. Furthermore, I shall endeavor to enjoy the experience. I honestly don’t know if I can pull this off, but I will attempt it.

Let’s see how the rest of you do with your feats.

* I’ve gotten a little feedback about this—it’s pretty clear I’m a Christian. So why do I do a Festivus post instead of something about Christmas? While I do think that believers have the liberty to celebrate the Nativity if they desire to, I’m ambivalent toward the day, and hesitant to make a big deal out of it. So, I don’t. If you’re curious, I thought this episode of The Heidelcast did a decent job of articulating many of the issues (without getting nasty about it).

On the other hand, Festivus is just silly fun. Hope you don’t mind…