St. Louis!

So as part of Mark and I's efforts to combat quarter-life-crisis-ness, and the general malaise brought about by the cultural void that is Carbondale, Illinois, we decided to make a day trip to St. Louis. Although we were both dreading the 4 hour round-trip drive, it turned out to be well worth it. LIKE REALLY WORTH IT.

We started our day in St. Louis at Iron Barley, a restaurant in south St. Louis that we heard about from the lovely Adam Richman on Man vs. Food. See this post if you need to be reminded how much we love Adam and his fine television program.

We walked in and immediately loved the atmosphere and the selection of beers on tap. We found ourselves a cozy two-person booth and prepared ourselves for the eating experience that awaited us. We knew we were going to love it when we saw this omen sitting directly on the wall to the left of Mark's head.

My apologies for the crumby quality. I only had my cellular device and 

I think it has a whopping 2 megapixel camera. 

It's Adam with the owners of Iron Barley. He wrote:

"Absolutely one of the best restaurants in the USA."

With Adam's blessing we ordered our food and let's just say that although we had high expectations, the food went above and beyond. I ordered the "Ballistic Elvis" which is (prepare yourself): strawberry preserves, cheddar cheese, peanut butter, banana, crushed red pepper and BACON between two slices of texas toast. It was the most intense sandwich (or sammiche, as Iron Barley calls 'em) that I've ever had and it was phenomenal. Mark got oak-roasted pork served with toasted barley. It was heavenly. We got, to share, the Monte Cristo dog as well because Adam spoke its praises on the episode we saw. We were not let down by these two hot dogs, served open-faced on buns smeared with strawberry preserves and covered with swiss cheese. We washed it all down with 6th Row Brewery's Strong Porter. If that paragraph above isn't food porn, I just don't know what is.

After lunch--the leftovers of which became dinner as well--we headed to the City Museum. I had heard wonderful things about this museum from numerous people and thought that Mark and I should check it out before we left the midwest. When we pulled up, we knew we were in for a treat:

 The parking lot and outside of the museum. This is not just a crazy facade to 
a museum, but a jungle gym as well. AMAZING.

The highlights of this fine establishment were (in no particular order):

• 10-story slide
• Man-made caves and caverns that adults are allowed to crawl and play in
• Werlitzer organ accompanying us on our trek to the top of the 10-story slide
• Old school photo booth where Mark and I got cutesy couply pictures
• WORLD'S LARGEST PENCIL
• 3-story slide
• Aquarium where Mark fell in love with an armadillo
• "Baleout"--a vintage clothing and accessories store (yes, inside the museum) where Mark got a new flannel and vest and I got a lovely sweater
• The crazy jungle gym

Also, as we were about to leave, we thought of having a beer at one of the many snackeries in the joint (all of which served alcohol...insane, right?) but we were met with a daunting crowd of Santas. Yes, Santas. We assumed they were having a Christmas party and instead of trying to bob and weave through 30 Clause's, we decided to walk down St. Louis' Washington Street to see if we could find a cool pub.

Not only did we find a cool pub, The Dubliner,  but along the way we found a hat-erie (aka--a store devoted to hats) where we tried on some fantastic styles, and we found out why the Santas had left their Christmas party at the City Museum and were not following us down the street. They were part of a yearly tradition in STL and other major cities entitled SANTARCHY. There was "Mad Santa", "Tranny Santa", "Super Clause" and many others that made our time at the Dubliner very entertaining. After a pint of Magner's with black currant (me) and a pint of Guinness (Mark), we decided to head home. Along the way we stopped at the Gelateria--where one of friends formerly worked--and got some lovely hot beverages (Mark: Peppermint Bark Mocha, Me: Mocha Bianca) to keep our cold selves warm on the way back to the car.

All in all, one of the best days I've had in a while and one of the best daytrips of all time!


Need more proof? Well I shall leave you with this:

Much to say...

No motivation to say it...


Perhaps tomorrow...

The Title of This Post: "I Don't Wanna"

Subtitle: Review of The Passage, chapters inconsequential-trivial

So Parker, up until now, has been the voice of pessimism regarding Mr. Cronin's opus. I have now realized that pessimism is sometimes reason's first cousin--and the one you really like, not the one you hate. In normal-people-terms? This book sucks.

Again, we are only up to Chapter 20 and this book has a million so it could improve, but realistically? I finally got invested in two of the characters and then Chapter 16 rolls around and we change point of view, location and time frame. Poof! Those two characters are gone and we have a new one--one that is exactly how Parker described the majority of Cronin's characters: STUPID! I would be down for a change in pace and perspective if I hadn't expended all my energy getting into the original point of view, location(s) and time frame. Bottom line: WTF?!

Here's what Parker had to say (I'm putting her whole email commentary here because both of our reviews have gotten quite pithy):

At some point maybe a person should give up.

But that is not me. I persevere.

Well, first I leave my kindle in the bottom of my bag. Not even touching it to read something else because of my guilt. Then the battery dies and I use that as an excuse for a while before I admit to being a total pussy.

"YOU GOT THROUGH THINGS FALL APART, YOU CAN DO THIS PARKER!"

Right.

So.. finally something happens. But could it be any more boring? I have no idea what page the break out finally occurs on (b/c I have a kindle) but I imagine its page 100 or so. For 100 pages I've been telling myself, “they are going to break out”. By the time it happens, I don't even CARE anymore. I've been reading ahead and reading reviews and the virals/glowsticks/incrediblyunhotvampires are supposed to have something that remains of themselves inside. Certain qualities are enhanced (Babcock's constant gibbering) while others are abandoned but some sort of identity remains within. The body and brain are hijacked by a virus. THE SOUL REMAINS. *vomit*

Yet in the break out none of this is even alluded to. Does Anthony attempt to slowly think about the situation? Does he realize that eating people is bad mmkay? No. He flies/jumps around like a frog on speed and eats them. BAM. Your head taste of ideas! YUMMY. SWOOSH. Your arm is a twizzler of fun! THWAP. Your hip implant has become stuck in my teeth. Do you have any floss?

But let’s talk about the worst part of all of this. Good ole Little Miss Lacey-the-Nun appears on top of the government fortified and protected mountain base. How did she get here? She walked. How did she know where to go? SHE JUST DID.

What?

This part is TOTALLY GLOSSED. (I’m going to paraphrase this because I can’t be bothered to pick up my kindle and scroll thru tiny screens) “I followed my feet.” (pssst, Rachel.. that’s from A Knight’s Tale) ((You’re right self, that is much too good for Cronin to have come up with)) How about, “Something told me where to go.” Fuck it. Whatever. So the nun had a PTSD event in a zoo. Then she got up, and decided to stalk the little girl by wandering around the HUGE expanse that is America until she just happened to arrive at the base. Maybe she has special powers and this will be explained.

Oh.. what Mr Cronin? She appeared, got shot at and miraculously missed, only to do nothing but run around like as ass, jump into AND THEN IMMEDIATELY OUT OF a car and then eaten by Anthony?

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID THE CHARACTER EVEN SHOW UP? (heaving ranty breaths…)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh.. because you needed a person on the other side of the grate to help Mr. Sadmcsadpants hoist Amy to freedom? But.. Mr. Sleepswithcollegegirls was totally on that. Plus he already had a plausible reason for being at the base BEING DETAINED ALONG WITH THE MAIN CHARACTERS. Oh.. but he gets eaten too. Fine. Fuck. You . That still doesn’t make any sense. Why do you need another random character to show up to help? Because you just free wrote this shit without outlining anything? Fine.  Kill the nun. Kill the promiscuous partner. Now what?

Well.. now that we’ve escaped with a sweet ride and all the glowsticks have eaten everyone and escaped into the treetops like rabid gibbons lets go camping.

HAHA.. WHAT?

So then I read about a million pages of camping. In a cabin. Amy has some sort of mental connection with the vamps. She can repel or attract them.  Blah blah blah.. a trillion pages later someone lets off a nuclear bomb nearby. The camping continues. Mr. Sadmcsadpants gets radiation poisoning and dies.

HURRAY. That was a nice story. But the book is only 25% done. Joy.

Flash forward 100 years . I’m suddenly back in Myst and I’m reading a journal by someone named Auntie. She tells us of her escape from Philly as a small girl. She meets up with her cousin. They take trains with other refugee children West. Most don’t make it. They get to quarantine/military base somewhere in the desert. They begin a colony under a bubble of light. BLAH FUGGITY BLAH. MADMAX. BLAH BLAH. WATERWORLD. BLAAHHHHHH RESIDENT EVIL. BLAH.

Then we go back in time a few years and we get a whole new batch of characters with very little education who have lived in the little isolated compound for 3 or 4 generations. There’s a governing document that lets me know fuck all. When people are taken and turned into vamps they often come back to the compound. There is a tradition of standing vigil on the wall for a relative if t hey are taken and killing them all dead if they show up.

Lemme guess. Amy shows up b/c she is clearly going to be immortal or something but she will not be an adult I promise. She attracts all the vamps. Maybe even babcock or something. Somebody(bodies) get all mindcontrolled to open the doors. EVERYONE IS ON THE RUN THRU THE DESERT. They find other small settlements. They hate each other, no one trusts anyone. Somebody lame pairs up with Amy. They find an antidote for the virals but it probably kills them instead of turning them back human. Maybe it turns them human first then kills them b/c I really want Anthony to show up again to go.. “Don’t know why I ate those people. I just did.”

The End?

Not yet?

FUCK.

So, as you can see, Parker and I are just about finished reading this book and we're not even a quarter done.  Uf. The worst part about this book for me is that not only is the plot sort of boring (and when it's not boring it is completely unbelievable), but it is poorly written in my opinion. Using simple declarative sentences 99% of the time does not an interesting book make. And the characters! WHY DO I CARE?! Oh right, I don't. Parker doesn't. But you know who does?

Terry Brooks.

Who the eff is that? Yeah I didn't know either. But Parker did, so that means he's important to the sci-fi/fantasy genre and nerds everywhere. Wikipedia tells me he is actually very important. Check it out for yourself. Back to the point:

He gave The Passage a thumbs up. Parker was dismayed: "I'm very dissapointed in Terry Brooks. While it is true that Cronin's timeline and large cast are interesting.. thats like saying a cardboard cake looks really good. DOES IT TASTE GOOD TERRY?" Parker is so witty. And right.

If you don't want to write this book off just yet, here is an interview that Parker found between a GoodReads person and Justin Cronin. It's about as enthralling as The Passage. You've been warned.

Alright. Negative blog post complete. Let's hope that next time I update this blog with a review of The Passage I'll have something nice to say. Because, as we all know, if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.


PS--In case you were wondering, and just to hit it home, Parker's review email was entitled: "The Passage write up. I did this one like a bandaid and just fucking wrote it. Didn't delineate the chapters b/c looking to see what happens in which chapter make me want to die." Yep. That sums it up.