Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Exploring the Rabbit's Hole

Oh, I tell you, it was going to be beautiful; an ass-ripping like has never been seen. There would be pumpkin muffins, crow-bars, ‘praise’ and sharts flying hither and thither in the comments. You would have been proud to be part of the Ask and Ye Shall Receive Mutual Admiration and Procuring of New Bum-hole Society

I even had my first line worked out. It went ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no!’ in the vein the Fairy Godmother in Shrek 2 when she is flipping through her fairytale library trying to find a story in which the Ogre has a happily-ever-after with a Princess.

However, alas, alack, and woe is you, the imminent reviewee got cold feet and made her blog private. And then in the words of our fearless leader and word maker-upperer, Shiner, she ‘unprivateded it’. Well fuck me if I can be bothered by that shit. In the meantime I was given a different blog to review.

Unfortunately I didn’t hate this blog nearly as much. It was neat and clean in, what my uncultured eye would peg as, an art deco style. It had a classy selection of badges and thingamebobs in the side-bar and....

Okay. This is where you find out I am real person rather than a gory cartoon avatar; my internet at home pooped itself, only coming back on line the day before the review was due. I will now regale you with my quickly put together notes on a thoroughly read blog. Keep up if you can:

From the shadows of the comments, to the limelight of the reviewee’s position, I introduce to you, Miss Ash.

  • She is rather thorough here, we like that round these parts.
  • Dear Lord, you have to be shitting me! Perhaps it will get better. She has been doing this for a while and we all need to find our feet in the early stages. 
  • Interesting, lacking in context. Is it supposed to be metaphorical? I want more sauce.
  • Still dry.
  • Ooh, getting juicier. (I was going to say wetter, but well, we all know where you lot will take that)
  • There seems to be a LOT of caps lock going on to EMPHASIZE certain POINTS.
  • This is cute, though still elusive. I am not really getting enough of a picture of her yet.
  • Who is Amber to Miss Ash, if anything? I was confused at Miss Ash’s role in this drama and who was speaking. (Ah, further on – a glimmer, a glimpse!)
  • This is indulgent, only in that it is interesting but could have been fleshed out more, and she left us high and dry.
  • Why so much ‘she’, ‘they’, ‘you’? I feel like she is holding me at bay. Give people some names; own them, their actions and emotions, even if pseudonyms are used.
  • Fuck – really? Then this sombitch is in a whole world of hurt, if I could muster up the energy to give a shit.
  • I guess I pictured this, like you asked, but the clumsy ending was a spit bubble in the corner of my smile.
  • Controversial – I like what you don’t say here.
  • Cute – even though cats are evil, evil animals.
  • I like the ‘light’ touch of this.
  • Wholeheartedly I agree we all need these types of relationships. But show it to me – make me jealous or wistful or happy that I too, have this.
  • I can totally get on board with this – are you in my head, Miss Ash?
  • Nice imagery.
  • Oh, I am all about the air biscuits lady, but you didn’t even raise a smile here. Shame. Love a good fart story. (Did you know, that the sort of thing you find amusing is supposedly indicative of your intelligence level? Shit.)
  • Short and not so sweet – evocative.
  • Again, you seem to say what I feel at times. I recognise it.
  • This is lovely, but in a WHOLE four year blog, I have only had flashes of her situation, so when it comes down to it, I think ‘Aw, how sweet!’ when really I should be wiping away a tear, shouldn’t I? I don’t know, you tell me Miss Ash - the kid could be the next Damien.
  • Hilarious first paragraph here.

Now, dear reader and armchair reviewer, I would like you to get off your metaphorical date-hole and do some work for once. (Geez, I am making free with the holes this review)
1) Go to Miss Ash’s archives.
2) Select the month of your birthday, in any year available.
3) Find a post closest to your birth date.
4) Give it a read.
5) In the comments here, give a seasoned opinion on said piece, perhaps providing a link if you have the technological aptitude, and even a score out of 10 if you feel so inclined.

Here. I will do one for you. (By the way – if I was clever I would be able to make it actually look like a comment box here etc etc but you know the drill. I am a writer daaahling, not a fucking IT specialist)
           
On March 18th 2008, Miss Ash wrote this post, about decision making, consequences and such. I give it a 4 out of 10 because it was preachy and boring. Instead of saying this: “I could name a thousand different things I learned, and I do feel confident that when I acknowledged a behavior that wasn’t working,” she should have manned up and told me some of the juicy stuff because I wanted to identify with her, rather than get lectured.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit more complicated than the game I want you to play but you pick up what I am putting down, yes?
                                                                                                       
As you can see, my birthday is not terribly far away – enough for a savings plan to be put in place.  Feel free to send presents; Shiner will undoubtedly pass them on after they have been rifled through.

Miss Ash, you write well – you are more than literate but I feel that even though you have this mystic, spiritual thang going on, you hold me at arm’s length, when in order to benefit from your thoughts and wisdom, I need to nestle against your breast.

Let us in, Miss Ash.

I grant you,

     

24 comments:

  1. I really like her blog, it's like being inside the random whirl of thoughts. This one sentence post exudes so much with very little writing: Apathy

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  2. Oh, and I have no fuckin' clue how to link to anything. But I did like the post on my birthday. It was like she had been following me around when I was 21 and then wrote about it with perfection.

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  3. And, just in case anyone is wondering if this is really me since I'm being all lovey dovey wonderful bunderful:

    Fuck off.

    Pumpkin muffin? Anyone?

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  4. I had to search long & hard for that theme. I effing loved it, too. And doesn't the red AAYSR look good there, too? It's like it was meant to be.

    Also, someone please go check on Mongo. She has a fever.

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  5. http://www.perilouslyprecocious.com/pulling-from-all-directions

    I went and read one that was close to my b-day, as directed, linked above. Miss Ash & I are connected personally, I have bias, but the word that comes to me in this blog, as well as others, is "human." You make me remember that very important thing, the human-ness of existence. And that is a gift. Thank you, Love.

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  6. Anon above...is that you El? I know you and Miss Ash are good buddies......

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  7. So who is gonna point out I swap from 'her' to 'you' 3/4s of the way down the dot points?

    Gah.

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  8. I just thought you were trying to hold me at bay, RPR.

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  9. Reaper, I'm with you 100%. Eloquent, smooth, insightful, but slightly generic and vague. I don't feel her anywhere. Creating descriptive snapshots of a scene without really caring one way or another about the scene itself - like she knows it's important to talk about it, and she feels it's worth mentioning but she doesn't know why.

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  10. Then again, I think she's going for the anonymous passing observation thing, which is fine enough, just not my thing.

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  11. I was thinking about that yesterday...
    My single greatest error when I began this blog was to tell people who actually _know_ me.

    One of those posts you linked to? My brother didn't speak to me for a year because of it. (Dana's Dead) - I changed the names and put the post back up... that whole thing made me weary of giving details.

    So, ya'll... what would you do? Migrate over and start over, trying to build the readership that has been building for 4 years? Suck it up and say stuff that people I know won't like?

    In all seriousness, I want your opinions. I know you're also bloggers elsewhere. What would you do?

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  12. Miss Ash,

    Lots of people here have alter egos and blogs other than their primary ones. Just email all the people you want to know about the second one. Or do it from scratch. I don't think you'll have a problem attracting readers, especially if you can go a little deeper without fear of repercussion. I did this recently and have loved writing without having to worry about family or friends reading it.
    --HIF

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  13. You want to start over, but you don't want to get rid of your title. That's it, isn't it?

    I get that.

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  14. I can do that. (I say this now, while trying to imagine what the hell that looks like.)

    Yeah, I mean... I pay for my own domain. And I've worked my way "up" to the point where if you google "Miss Ash" or "Into the Rabbit Hole," then *poof* I'm right there. Which is no small feat for little bloggers like myself.

    Welp... I had guts enough to take it like a man if ya'll whipped me (okay, so I might've liked that a little, too), then I s'pose I better keep on moving forward and bring a little more sincerity to the plate.

    Wish me luck... And partial beatings if I fall on my face at first.

    Thanks.

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  15. Also, another way around this conundrum?
    Writing for other sites. Hmmm.

    So, for those of you who are writers, Indie Ink is a pretty bad ass place to write, and if you need to, you can write anonymously.

    I didn't have to write anonymously, though. Instead I didn't link to the posts that I didn't want my dad to read.

    Like so:

    http://indieink.org/2010/11/08/exculpation/

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  16. I think I like this girl. Gimmie a sec to make sure... and if you folks could wait with bated breath that'd be super.

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  17. No worries NutJ, we can wait all day.

    I have sniffed around Miss Ash before - she has some cool stuff - though I agree - bit 'distanced'

    It can be hard when ppl you know read but I live by the theory that I don't write anything that I wouldn't tell my boss after a couple of drinks.

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  18. She's just now "found her voice", so I'm feeling pretty good about her ending up pretty good, writing-wise.

    I'm afraid I am fresh out of zingers - used 'em all up yesterday, I'm afraid. Round these parts, we call that "Zinger Monday".

    [no we don't]

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  19. I've never waited with bated breath for anyone.
    OK, I'm lying.
    I'm actually waiting with bated breath for El to come to my house, donation can in hand, begging me to crap in it.
    Alas, I think I'm up for a long wait.

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  20. A note about "open" blogging.
    I think it is truly rare when someone can write to their fullest potential while knowing friends and family have the URL to their blog. And, honestly, I think it's what sunk my personal blog. I tried to 'grow a pair' and keep at it, but just couldn't make it happen. There were just some things that I couldn't bring myself to post as long as I lacked the level of anonymity that worked for me to do so.

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  21. I will El would come around again and be all "El-like". It would give me a very nice opportunity regain balance after all of this nice bullshit I seem to be motivated toward. I could make rank comments about shitting in cans and feel all better.
    Alas, it looks like I'm just going to have to beat someone up.

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Grow a pair.