Lara Zielin

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: This “documentary” about Saved by the Bell’s Rod Belding. I watched it in its entirety, twice, because I loved it so.

After breezing through THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and really enjoying it, I was excited to pick up THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE.

But only a few pages in, something wasn’t sitting right with me. I put the book down and tried explaining my discontent to Rob. But all I could vent about was the fact that the author had given the heroine, Lisbeth Salander, a boob job.

Then I read Entertainment Weekly columnist Missy Schwartz’s take on the novel in the June 25 issue, and a lightbulb went off. Larsson (the author), she says, was supposed to be a feminist, but Schwartz herself has a “hard time reconciling  his ostensibly feminist agenda with all the male fantasy coursing through the books.” I concur! The protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, is a turn-on for every woman on every page. Puke. Whatever. And even though Schwartz doesn’t say this, I took issue with how every woman in the books was portrayed as not only hot and heavy for Blomkvist, but also as having some kind of alternative sex life. From multiple partners to  promiscuity to playing for both teams, no woman was ever just content being in a single, satisfying relationship.

Oh, wait. Maybe one was. But she was murdered.

What’s more, the violence committed against women in the books is atrocious. Schwartz says that while you can argue that’s the point — “bring it out into the open, try to prevent it from happening again” — she’s unsettled by exploiting it for storytelling purposes. Yes again. I concur.

But the point I really got behind was Schwartz’s take on Larsson’s treatment of Lisbeth herself. She gets a boob job and we’re told the quality of her life improves. She never “accepts her imperfections.” And therein lies the rub. We are none of us perfect. Unfortunately, like Heidi Montag, Lisbeth winds up thinking that altering her imperfections will bring her satisfaction.

But that’s just not true. And as a result, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE is laying on my floor, half read, and I’ll never finish it.

Dear NASA,

While it’s true that I would rather watch Sex and the City than The Right Stuff, I have recently been made aware of some facts that you, too, probably ought to know:

1.) BP is run by monkeys
2.) We’ve let these monkeys fu*k up the planet

Because I know many of you are concerned with big ideas like string theory, whether or not the universe is being pushed together or pulled apart, and where that Mars rover got off to a few years back, you may not have read the papers recently. You may not know that there is an oil spill the size of Delaware—and growing—in the Gulf of Mexico.

How we let ourselves get to this place is a whole different topic that I won’t go into right now. But the thing is, we are here. And BP can’t seem to fix their epic fail.

Not that they haven’t tried, if you can call nuking the Gulf with enough toxic Oil-b-Gone to kill every last sea turtle ever, trying. Their most recent fix had to do with underwater robots and some diamond saws or something. Which, I don’t know about you, but I’m just waiting for them to announce that, next, they propose sharks with laser beams on their heads.

So, here’s my point. I’ve seen Apollo Thirteen. I know that when a spacecraft is breaking down IN OUTER SPACE, you can fix it in real time and bring everyone on board home safely. Not even Bill Paxton could keep that lesson from coming through loud and clear. I know the whole Apollo Thirteen thing happened a while ago but, as far as I know, you’re still flying rockets and taking pictures of exploding stars and repairing space stations.

In sum: you guys know how to get sh*t done.

So, like, could you maybe help BP out and find a solution to all that oil gushing into the water?

I bet you could. I mean, you guys are the ones who can never really say, “Well, it’s not like it’s rocket science,” because guess what? To you, it’s rocket science.

I know it’s really easy to think that it’s not a NASA thing, to plug a gushing hole deep underwater. You guys usually tilt your heads and look up, not down.

But if I ever have kids—and, again, that’s a whole different topic I won’t go into right now—I’d like them to be able to see a brown pelican. And watch dolphins swim. And eat fish that won’t kill them. Even if I don’t have kids, I want that stuff for my nieces and nephews, and, okay, even the brats with bad manners at the supermarket. Even them. Because this sh*t’s real. And we need big brainpower—I mean BIG—to find a solution.

Anyway, thanks for reading and, if you see him, please tell Buzz Aldrin I liked him on 30 Rock.

Sincerely,

Lara Zielin

Hey all,
I think there was a problem with the comments lately — but hopefully it’s been fixed. So if you tried to post a comment and couldn’t, I apologize and hopefully you can now post away, Merrill. Post away.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I watched this Sting song sung by Linus from the Peanuts three times yesterday. And, look at that, it’s playing in the background again right now.

Books can and do have intended audiences. Women flock to Janet Evanovich; guys dig Vince Flynn. For teen audiences, we know girls are likely to pick up Sarah Dessen; guys might run with Eric Luper.

But after gender, how do audiences get broken down? And is it a good thing?

I ask this because many of the reviews for DONUT DAYS call it a Christian book, even though my publisher, Putnam, is not a Christian publisher, nor did I ever set out to write a so-called Christian book. Some readers have said, “I wasn’t the intended audience for this book…” or “I am not a Christian so I couldn’t relate to it…” One reader even flat out refused to finish it for moral reasons.

To which I sort of have to blink and say, Really?

Is Emma a Christian? Yes. Do many of her problems happen to center around the drama happening in her parents’ church? Yes. But does that make this a Christian book? For the record, Emma wrestles with many universal issues including fighting with her best friend, figuring out her feelings about a guy, deciding what to to with school, and more. Faith is just one of those issues.

Dude, can you imagine if I picked up Malinda Lo’s book ASH, a gorgeous lesbian re-telling of Cinderella, and said, “I can’t read this because I’m not gay”? Or what if I said that I couldn’t relate to Christopher Paul Curtis’s book, ELIJAH OF BUXTON, because I’m neither a slave nor black?

It’s ridiculous, right? But why is it that while our culture wants us to keep an open mind about some things, it’s okay to slam it shut about others? Religion is so totally one of those things. Another might be politics. If I wrote about a Republican teen trying to help get a certain gun-toting Alaska governor elected president, you can bet I’d have a firestorm of readers saying they couldn’t read the book because they were opposed to it.

But isn’t the whole point of books (or at least one of them) to enter worlds we don’t know, and learn something about which we were previously ignorant? Aren’t books supposed to help us to have an open mind?

I don’t have Tourette Syndrome, but I still read JERK CALIFORNIA by Jonathan Friesen.

I don’t have a friend who killed herself, but I still read 13 REASONS WHY by Jay Asher.

The list goes on.

I’m cool if you dislike my book because you think the plot sucked, or the characters were lame, or the writing was bad. You can hate the cover art, my author photo, the pacing, the dialogue.

But don’t discount DONUT DAYS just because the main character has a different religion than you, or because it represented a point of view that forced you out of your comfort zone.

Dear Brett,

You know me from that time we met in my head. You entered the room wearing Levis and no shirt, and I’d just finished eating a bowl of nachos covered in Wisconsin cheese. It was the greatest fantasy ever. And then you had to go and ruin  it by signing with the Vikings.

The Vikings.

As in Minnesota. As in the most ridonkulous, loser team this side of the Lions.

I thought you were supposed to be retired, yo. I thought your career was over. I thought going to New York was enough of a Charlie Foxtrot for you. Apparently, I thought wrong.

I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I’m washing my hands of you. Nay, I’m getting out the St. Ives body scrub (on sale at Target for those of us who didn’t just get $12 million for letting the devil suck out our soul like a flipping Death Eater) and rinsing my whole self of you. For good.

Have fun in Minnesota, you 40-year-old, wishy-washy, fantasy-ending pigskinbot. I hope you get shut out of the locker room in January in your stupid Hanes tighty-whities and freeze your hotdish off.

Sincerely,
Lara

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Rob found this one about bionic penguins. Really. It might be funny if it wasn’t so … take-over-the-world-y.

So, on Thursday, my favorite mug in the entire world broke. It had donuts on it and it featured in both YouTube videos Rob and I made recently. Stupidly, I left it in the back of my car, where it rolled to the far side and when I pulled the door open, it fell out and shattered.

I have been searching in vain for a new replacement, but the only thing I’ve found that’s come close is this little ditty. It’s the same shape, the same colors, and if it only had a donut on it instead of a cupcake, we’d be golden.

If anyone comes across a donut mug like this one, please let me know. Or buy it and I’ll pay you back. I really miss my little ceramic pal.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Pictures where you have to work really hard to figure out what’s going on. If you even do. Good luck is all I’m saying.

Hey, look what came in the mail today!

Really? OMG! I can write kid’s books? For rizzle? (Isn’t that what the kids are saying? Or is it “for drizzle” now? Gosh, I’ll have to upload the Google and look at that when I MyFace.) Golly gee, I can be a children’s book author! If the mail says it, it must be true!

STATUS: Wishing I was as tan as I was in that James Earl Jones photo. Man, that was some deep skin tone right there.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Tiny baby animals that are so cute I want to scream my fool head off. Actually, don’t mind if I do. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagg!!!!

Goop.com is Gwyneth Paltrow’s perplexing website. On the surface, it seems like it wants to teach us fun “live your best life” secrets of the stars, but instead she just talks about how she’s friends with Mario Batalli and you’re not and how, while you were a kid getting marbles stuck up your nose, she was being carted of to Paris to stay at fancy schmancy hotels with her dad.

In explaining the site, Gwyneth recently told People magazine: “I think the people who are criticizing it or criticizing the idea of it, don’t really get it, because if they did, they would like it…”

Let me just say that if you are a writer, this is a really dangerous thought.

I fully admit I had this thought once. I will say that the entire time I had it, no publishers would go near my book.

Unless you’re gosh, lucky enough to be Gwyneth, you might want to harken to what the masses are saying about your work.

STATUS: Finally getting caught up on Battlestar Galactica, season 4.0. It started off slow, but now it’s back to its crack-level status. More. Must have more.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The next time you’re asked a stupid question, type the question into Let me Google that for you and it will create a URL that you can then send back to the person who asked you the initial (stupid) question. So, for example, if someone asks you, “When is the presidential inauguration?” you can type that into LMGTFY and it will create a URL that you can send back to the inaugural ignoramus, with a presentation of just how easy it is to type that question into Google and get a result. Brilliant.

Rob and I were out shopping yesterday at a store that will remain nameless … okay, no it won’t. We were totally at Home Goods getting last-minute holiday gifts, when we spotted a piece of furniture that hammered home the fact that five times more people will see a movie this year than read a book.

So, here’s the little table thingy we spotted in the furniture section, which is made to look like it houses classic novels.

See the issue? No? Let me point it out for you.

That book? The title is PEARL HARBER. So, okay, so not only did they spell Pearl Harbor wrong, but dude, Pearl Harbor is a location, not a novel. It was the site of an attack. Many people have gone on to write about what happened in Hawaii that day in 1941 — and Ben Affleck starred in a movie about it in 2001 that you could see if you wanted the historically ridiculous version — but it’s not a novel. Especially not one in league with The Three Musketeers or Jane Eyre.

Epic furniture fail.

STATUS: Irritated that Heidi rewarded all the Project Runway designers’ bad outfits by allowing them to make entire collections. Whatever.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Lord of the Rings clips showcasing really bad foreign subtitles.

So, remember the beginning part in Team America: World Police where terrorists have a WMD in Paris and Team America arrives on the scene to stop them? And remember how Team America blows up everything — from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre — and then concludes “Everything is bon”?

Well, call me Joe Sixpack and color me a taxpayer, but I think that’s exactly what this $700 billion bailout is like. We’re the citizens of France, only instead of watching our national treasures explode, we’re watching our economy implode. And the government is Team America wading in with their $700 billion bailout and saying, “Everything is bon! We’ve saved you!”

Uh, thanks but no thanks. I’ll take my chances with the WMD.