I finished my first book of 2009 tonight and really enjoyed it. It was Postmodernist Fiction by Brian McHale and, sadly, I couldn’t write in it because it’s a library book. It’s pretty expensive to buy even used—around $40 for a fairly slim paperback. This is the only book I’ve read that tries to pin down postmodernist fiction and I guess McHale’s central thesis is fairly controversial. He argues that where modernist fiction was epistemologically based (trying to answer what humans ultimately can know), postmodernist fiction is ontologically based (focused on how humans experience life). The best analogy he uses is that modernist fiction is more or less like a mystery novel, where the protagonist tries to gather enough clues to piece together the Answer to the Mystery; postmodernist fiction is like a science-fiction novel, one that’s interested in revealing and describing different worlds (often a multiplicity of worlds).

Of course, there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Even though I haven’t read many of the authors McHale returns to repeatedly (Barthelme, Pynchon, Federman, Burroughs) I found myself continually being swayed by McHale’s points when he talked about authors I have read (Vonnegut, García Márquez, Borges), and I especially appreciated the significant crossover McHale sees between postmodernist fiction, science-fiction, the fantastic, and magical realism. So while it seems pretty clear that Barthelme and Pynchon are up to different things than Borges and García Márquez, McHale makes a pretty good case that they’re more similar to each other than to, say, Joyce and Hemingway.

Overall a very compelling read and, like the very best criticism/theory, it makes me think hard about my own writing.

The other thing I’m thinking very hard about is what to read on vacation. I got a ton of books for Christmas (go figure, books made up almost my entire list) and the initial plan was to stick with the criticism, namely Wendy Faris’ Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative, Faris and Zamora’s Magic Realism: Theory, History, Community and then go on a Latin American binge: Isabelle Allende’s House of the Spirits, Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch and Blow-Up and Other Stories, Carlos Fuentes’ The Death of Artemio Cruz, and Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo. But the other side of me wants to read everything but the Latin American stuff so I can pitch that as an independent study next fall, and instead switch over to Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, and maybe whatever Salman Rushdie I might get as an early birthday present.

I need to bring at least five books. I’ve been burned time and time again bringing fewer and then steaming through them due to long flight delays, and having nothing to read on the way home. Better to come back with a book or two too many than to run out too soon. Although this time I think academic texts are a pretty good defense against voracious reading anyway…

Current Mood: Decisions, Decisions |

Recap: Twenty-two guys (two teams, five subs each) on one field due to the other field being used for a kids’ tournament over break. The play was fast, fast, fast and the quality was very high.

Health Report: During the game okay, but I tweaked my back and I was stiff and sore much of last night and today.

Performance: Not very good. My touch was definitely off and the pace of the game burned my legs out early. After playing regularly now for the better part of a year, I now realize that closing down the ball quickly makes a huge difference. When my legs get tired, I can still control the ball and pass it around accurately as long as I get an extra second or two to steady myself. When I’m playing against fitter (i.e. younger) players, you don’t get that extra time and it makes a huge difference.

Rating: — Pretty poor by my standards. I had one, and exactly one, nice moment—a first-time shot with my left foot from way outside that beat the keeper, who had cheated up too far. Other than that, it was a mix of passes that 1) I either expect myself to make, or 2) botched badly, turning over possession. Shooting was almost non-existent except for one thundering header that the keeper pushed wide, which was disappointing because thundering headers are almost unheard of in the tight confines of indoor. I also tripped over the ball and fell down at least two, if not three times. Not a completely pathetic display, but overall I’d describe it as “bad.”

It’s the last day of 2008 and, overall, I can’t say that it was a fabulous year.

The highlights of the year were undoubtedly our trips to Spain (here) and Costa Rica (pictures forthcoming). We hadn’t planned for two international trips in one year, but our Costa Rica trip got pushed back a year due to tight finances and our Spain trip was celebrating Amy’s graduation from grad school, so it just kind of happened that way. No big trips for 2009 planned.

All in all, an absolutely lousy year for writing. My one and only sale happened in January and was for a reprint. I had a measly twenty-six submissions on the year—that’s twenty-six, my lowest output since 2004, the year I really started writing—and a lot of those were older stories that were circulating through my top markets. Compare that with the previous two years (51 subs and 39 subs, respectively) and it’s no wonder I haven’t sold anything recently.

On the brighter side, I did see my story “The Hodag” published in Black Static #7 and “Of Silver Bullets and Golden Teeth” in The Beast Within, an anthology by Graveside Press. I also received an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror for my story “Black Jack Davy,” and I was also mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s introduction to the book. So those things buoy me somewhat. But now that my coursework is winding down, I hope (hope, hope) to regain some time for writing.

My books read list was 54 this year, down from 64 in 2007. The highlight in this area was being introduced to the work of Louise Erdrich, as I read seven of her books in 2008. I also read seven books by Cormac McCarthy, but I still count Blood Meridian (which I reread) as being head and shoulders above the rest. Other high points include Wild Indians and Other Creatures by Adrian Louis, Fools Crow by James Welch, The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus, The Journalist by Harry Matthews, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

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2008 was an indifferent year for the teams I support. Tottenham won the League Cup but had an abysmal league season and, for the season currently underway, hover just above the drop zone. Also, Dish Network dropped GolTV, depriving me of watching the Spanish league and I find it much harder to keep focused on it now that I can’t see the action on a weekly basis. No doubt about it though, the highpoint of the soccer year was watching Spain slice apart the competition in Euro 2008. It’s so very rare that my absolute favorite teams accomplish anything, so it was a great joy to see Spain finally get their just rewards on the international stage.

Let’s not even talk about football. The Packers went from being a few plays away from the Super Bowl to being 6-10 under dolts Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson. Letting Favre go was probably the right move, but they couldn’t have handled it much worse. The Badgers were truly awful this year and it’s remarkable they started the year so highly rated.

I took some very good classes in 2008 and I like to think I did some good work. Over this year I got a good grip on two major areas of study—Global postmodern fiction focusing on magical realism, the surreal, and the fantastic, and Native American lit—and plan on fleshing out the third (something to do with the aesthetics of texts and visual narratives) in 2009. Best of all, I got a teaching position and survived my first semester of English 101, which means (in theory) I have a lot of teaching options open in the next couple years.

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And of course, I can’t talk about 2008 without mentioning the passing of our kitty Heineken. It still tears me up to write about it and we miss him terribly. His death cast a pall over the entire year as it always seemed like something was missing as we transitioned from season to season, and the house still feels a little empty without him. Rabbits have taken up residence in his garden, and we need him now more than ever. We love you Heiner.

His sister Athena turns five in February and is just as goofy and crazy as ever. Nothing to report with her, except that she made a fantastic haul this Christmas, receiving an unprecedented number of toys. Good work Bean, you deserve it!

To whoever reads this space, thanks very much! Blog hits rose again in 2008 (probably because of the four-year archive I’ve built up) which is a nice thing. Hopefully the trend will continue in 2009. See you all on the other side!

Current Mood: Singing Auld Lang Syne |

Giving out pot shots, of course.

If I was the kind of person to burn someone in effigy, I would be constructing a dummy resembling Mike Sherman. Once again, the Packers were winning and were successfully coached into the ground. How many times did they have the game won on Monday night, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? McCarthy has to be complimented for finding new and unusual ways to lose.

Two utterly predictable headlines from MLS:
* Parkhurst to join Denmark’s FC Nordsjaelland
* Hip surgery to sideline Ljungberg for 10-12 weeks

For laughs, read the comments for the article on Parkhurst where people apparently try and convince each other that the Danish league is better than MLS, most MLS teams are the caliber of the English League One, and that Parkhurst is making this move for competitive reasons. Funny, funnier, and downright wrong. Parkhurst is probably doubling his salary by moving to Denmark; that’s the long and short of it. Back in 1998, I remember players transferring to semi-professional Belgian teams were making more than guys in MLS. Ten years later, it’s a very safe bet that first division teams in the lesser leagues are still able to pay far, far better and with the salary situation being what it is in MLS, the Revs are always going to spend more of their meager money on a striker (Twellman) than a defender (Parkhurst).

The second news bit is hilariously predictable. Freddie Ljunberg, in his days with Ars*nal, was a force to be reckoned with, a dynamic exciting player who could set a league like MLS alight. However, the reason he’s no longer playing in England? A series of serious injuries. MLS is nowhere as fast or skillful as England, but in terms of the rough stuff, it’s in the neighborhood. How many games until he’s out? Ten? Less?

Merry Christmas Eve to all. We’re with family, warm, and happy.

Current Mood: Content |

Recap: About twenty-two guys and two women today, meaning we had two full fields for a short time until a few people left, then we were left on one large field with too many subs. The quality of play was generally pretty good, although for streaks there was too much long ball.

Health Report: Good. I got a whack across the shin and one across the calf, but nothing major.

Performance: Not hot. I scored on a pretty lob, had one mazy run followed by a zipping assist, and one lovely give-and-go that the keeper brilliantly saved with his foot. The rest of the ninety minutes? Pretty much dog dirt.

Rating: — Yeah, when one of my pick-up buddies says afterwords, “Kinda off today, huh?” and when two others were laughing about how I remarkably failed to pick either of them out on a break, that tells you the kind of day I had. The ball always bobbled for me, I was mishitting passes left and right, and the shooting radar was spotty at best. I wasn’t terrible but I certainly was sub-par. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been eating like crap and boozing it up since finishing school and now have to hold my breath to get in a couple pairs of pants. Totally coincidental, I bet.

I finished my remaining school work yesterday and submitted grades from my English 101 section. That means I’m done with official school business until January 26th. Yay.

Obviously, one of my great passions is to watch live football and, perhaps unsurprisingly, this is best done when you’re not actually reading or writing and only looking up when the announcers shout. So I was really looking forward to seeing what my first “free” Saturday had on the docket. Of course, it doesn’t get much worse than this:

Bolton vs. Pompey
Blackburn vs. Stoke
Fulham vs. Boro
Hull vs. Sunderland
West Ham vs. Villa

My God, that’s dreadful. I believe the first and last games are on FSC, and the Hammers versus the Villans is clearly the best of the bunch so I shouldn’t complain too much.

And more importantly, both Liverpool vs. Ars*nal and Spurs vs. Newcastle are on Sunday, so that’s more than pretty okay.

I’ve 1/5th through the audio book version of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and I have to say, it isn’t doing too terribly much for me. This is a magic realism cornerstone that I was looking forward to reading but I just haven’t hit a groove with it. Yet. It’s interesting, but not as compelling as I would have hoped.

And lo! I started (re)writing a short story today. It’s the same premise of a story I wrote several years back entitled “Souls Unbound” that my first-readers all more or less liked for the concept but felt it was too heavy-handed, and I agreed. I never sent it anywhere, and I was going to attempt to revise but the changes are so wholesale that I ended up starting from scratch, including a new title: “Eskhara.”

The first stop is going to be JJA’s new anthology Federations, as I thought of this story when I first saw the guidelines. I don’t know how or why or whether or where it’s working, but it sure does feel good to sit down and write for a change.

Current Mood: Pleased |
Currently Listening To - Wilco - “Summerteeth”

Another co-ed indoor game last night. If you remember, I missed the first game where we lost 10-2. Last week, my first game with the team, we lost 11-2. Last night, we had a 10:30 pm kickoff (ugh) and lost 11-5. In case you’re not counting, that’s 9 goals for and 32 goals against for a -21 goal differential. Can you say Derby County?

The reasons for the pitiless maulings seems pretty clear to me, and here they are in order of importance:

* Conditioning: Having played more competitive, league-based soccer in the last six months than I have in the last six years, I have a new-found appreciation for conditioning. This factors in to pickup as well, but there you can dog it if you want since no one’s really keeping score and you’re really not letting anyone down. On an organized team, there are subs waiting to get in and people do track the results, so it’s a bit different.

The teams we’re playing can outrun us almost from the kickoff, and this typically means more time on the ball. More time on the ball means you can pick your passes, which translates to more possession and goals. Conversely, the bad is compounded when you’re being outrun. You blow your legs chasing the ball, it’s hard to move the ball fast when you’re tired, and it’s hard for people to get in good positions for passes. Age, in my mind, plays a large part in this since we appear to be older than most of the teams we play too.

* Skill levels: Generally speaking, the guys we’re playing with are better on the whole than our guys, and their women are better than our women. Not by a ton in most cases, and it’s pronounced when you factor in the above point. At equal levels of conditioning I think these games would be tight but we’d probably still lose; add a slight margin of skill to an overwhelming advantage in conditioning and you get lopsided results.

* One-touch passing and movement: This gets third because both of the above play a big part. One-touch passing makes all the difference in the world in soccer as you move the ball so much faster and the opposition has little time to react. For our team, the ball moves slowly and that gives the other team (who is fitter anyone) ample time to regroup. We ship so many goals precisely because the teams we play against play the ball quickly when they get it, and we’re too slow to react.

I sense that some of the guys on my team think that we’re losing because of bad decision-making, the ball not bouncing the right way, or lack of effort. We’re not. The problem, quite simply, is that we’re playing in Division I against good teams who are fitter and better than us. Experience has taught me that teams that are a little worse but are in better condition can often beat you. Teams that are a little better across the board but are in better condition? They pound you.

So, what has my tactical acumen revealed? That when you’re old, slow, and can’t pass the ball well against superior, fitter opponents you find yourself on the wrong side of lopsided defeats. Hand me my Manager of the Month award now, please.

Current Mood: Exhausted |

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It’s gotten mighty cold here in Wisconsin, as we haven’t seen double-digit temps for a few days now. Yesterday I’m not sure it got much above zero and today isn’t much better. I neglected to take the dog to play yesterday, hoping (naively) that today would be warmer. It isn’t.

As I was dressing and undressing for the big occasion, I thought I should document the layering required to stay reasonably warm while throwing a frisbee for a crazy dog.

Larger pictures and descriptions below:
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned this season, it’s that I’m unwilling to watch the Badgers play god-awful football week in and week out whereas I feel it’s almost an obligation to watch my beloved Packers stumble to a losing season.

Mike McCarthy is not a good coach and unfortunately Ted Thompson, the man who can correct the situation, is a bigger moron. How many close games do the Packers have to lose this season before someone wakes up and realizes that McCarthy and his team of coaches is a huge part of the problem. Lousy defense, excessive penalties, awful special teams, and horrible play calling have killed the Packers this season and all of that points to bad coaching.

That last one is especially true today. How many times have we seen the Packers in a short yardage situation with a down or two, where they line up clearly showing a run up the middle and then fail to get it? It happened at least twice today, and Rodgers narrowly QB sneaked a third. Erm, if it hasn’t worked all season, might you not try to switch things up? McCarthy is an idiot.

I’m working on my assignment sequence for next semester and I plan on incorporating some online component, a space where students post things to a secure course discussion board and then comment on each others’ writing. Studies show that if you do this the right way, students get really involved and pitch in with ideas they might be hesitant to say in class. However, if you do it the wrong way then students don’t interact, they just post random responses without engaging each other. And there’s definitely risk involved: one study suggests that online first-year comp courses take 85% more time to teach. I didn’t find any results for hybrid courses (some online content mixed with classroom time) but that stat is enough to give anyone pause.

It’s amusing to think back to my undergrad years when I would complain about TAs and professors making students sign up to lead discussion for one class period. I felt this was a cop-out, a way for them to get out of work. Now that I’m on the other side of the fence I see that’s only partially true. One theory behind having students lead class discussion is that students are more likely to chip in and add to the discussion when it’s one of their peers struggling to get people to talk, whereas they’re far more likely to fold their arms and clam up when it’s the course instructor attempting to spark discussion. My class this semester was good about talking, but I teach later in the afternoon next semester and folks have told me that it’s hard to keep students engaged later in the day.

I just finished up my final final paper moments ago, coming in at a cool 18.5 pages. I’m so close to being done for the semester I can taste it. And boy, won’t that be nice.

Current Mood: Fine |