I’m 3/4 done with “Laxdaela Saga” and I’m finding it to be incredibly moving even though it follows the same pattern as some other sagas, most notably “Njal’s Saga.” In both cases, two of Iceland’s finest men who are close friends get caught up in complex web of betrayals and revenge and, at the heart of it, is beautiful Gudrun, married to the man she does not love. It’s absolutely tragic in the way it unravels because it’s entirely believable–this indeed is how life works, where bad decisions made based on bad information can haunt you and leave you wondering what could have been. “Laxdaela Saga” is one of those books I don’t want to end.

I also like how this so closely mirrors the saga of the Volsungs and the love triangles there. It just goes to show how a culture’s mythologies become intertwined with their realities because although not all of “Laxdaela Saga” can possibly be historically accurate, certainly large chunks did happen and the larger than life characters actually walked the fields of Iceland. Where does the myth rub off on reality and vice versa?

The structure of the saga is a testament to its greatness. We get chapter titles like “Bolli Returns to Iceland” followed immediately by a chapter entitled “Gudrun Marries,” which leaves no question as to what will happen in that chapter. Still, the story is compelling enough that you’re drawn in and you want to see how things come to pass. I think my heart broke when Gudrun talks Kjartan’s wife into showing her the wedding headdress that should have rightfully been hers:

Gudrun unfolded the coif and looked at the headdress a while, but said no word of praise or blame. After that Hrefna put it back, and they went to their places, and after that all was joy and amusement.

The understatement is masterfully done. The sagas are similar to Greek tragedies where the reader knows what’s going to happen–we don’t read the Orestia to figure out what’s going to become of Agamemnon, nor Oedipus the King to find out what Oedipus’ secret might be–and we read it anyway to see how this poet tells the tale.

Not sure what to read next. I think I’ll move to Jeff Ford’s “Physiognomy” next and then work my way back to another medieval text, maybe the “Kalevala,” maybe “King Hrolf Kraki’s Saga.”

Good lord, just when I think MLS might be coming around…

But before the moaning begins, I’ll start on a positive. MLS Cup is turning into a consistently good event. Kansas City’s opening bomb freed the game up and the DC United goal-blitz that followed was almost too incredible to believe. The ejection of Dema Kovalenko was warranted but it also killed the pace as DC succeeded in taking the air out of the ball. And while I’m not a big fan of the play-off structure (a purist, me) I have to admit that the LA-Colorado series and DC-New England were good, good stuff. So bravo, MLS! The season ended with a bang, not a whimper.

I’m already annoyed by next season though. Two new teams enter the ring; Chivas USA in Los Angeles (an idea that I think is going to shake up MLS in a good way and create a true derby atmosphere with the Galaxy) and…Real Salt Lake. That’s pronounced Ree-Al Salt Lake. “Real” means “royal” in Spanish, like the superteam Real Madrid. Which makes sense for them because 1) they’re a Spanish team so it makes sense that they’d have a Spanish name, and 2) they’ve been historically affiliated with the Spanish monarchy.

Two reasons which make it an utterly stupid name for a team based in Salt Lake City. Real Salt Lake? Are they trying to kill this league? Will anybody not in soccer circles understand why they’d pick this name? And finally, is this any better than a U12 girls team calling themselves Manchester United because that’s their favorite team?

The answer, of course, is no. Look, thumbs up to DC United for taking a classic European soccer moniker and making it their own. It would be ten times better for there to be a second “united” team rather than a first “real” team. Or even Salt Lake SC would have some class. But Real Salt Lake takes the cake for all-time stupid MLS names. I can hear the sports writers making fun of it even now…

Close on the heels of this fiasco is the Dallas Burn switching their name to FC Dallas. FC Dallas is a hell of a lot better than Real Dallas, or Inter Dallas, or Dallas City or some other name that reaches across the pond to try to steal some history–but that doesn’t mean it’s a good name.

FC Dallas is, of course, the Cowboys. They play in the NFL. In this country, that’s football. SC Dallas or, hell, even AC Dallas (soccer club or athletic club) would be better. But Football Club Dallas? This makes zero sense.

I know , I know they’re trying to appeal to the soccer enthusiast rather than trying to convert the general sports fan. You don’t get much more enthusiast than me yet I find these names insulting and an embarassment to the league.

People, look…it’s one thing wanting to emulate the big European league like a little brother admiring an older sibling, it’s quite another to don that older sibling’s suit that’s four sizes too big and think we’re all grown up. t’s idiotic. The names “Real” and “FC” are part of a European tradition rooted in other languages.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Keeping busy these days. I suggested a reading forum for my Clarion buddies and a good four or five people have jumped in. We’re reading stories from big fantasy and sci-fi mags and commenting on them. It’s good to know that I’m not alone in scratching my head on some of the stories. I’ve always wondered if it was just me that thought many of the stories in them were crap–now I know I’m not alone.

My first big post-Clarion story is coming along but not as fast as I would like. Right now my verdict is that it’s going to be long and relatively boring. I have the outline fleshed out; I have the cast of characters, timeline of events, and how the story unfolds. There’s a story in here somewhere. It’s just must tougher trying to isolate the parts that will make it compelling and moving and then writing it so it’s…well, compelling and moving. I started another one that’s coming along much more freely but I’m not sure it’s very unique. We’ll see which gets done first. Both stories are somewhat dark, somewhat hopeless.

I went through a good Bruce Springsteen phase over the past month or so, listening to “The Rising” a number of times. It’s a complete joke that this album lost to Norah Jones for a Grammy a few years back. I like Norah Jones as soothing background music but “The Rising” is something else entirely. It’s the perfect remedy for a post 9/11 broken heart. That got me listening to more of the boss and I’m finding that I like him more than I realized. A number of his lesser hits like “Dead Man Walking,” “The River,” and especially “Atlantic City” hooked my brain. Good stuff.

But the most exciting news for me on the music front is my overdue discovery of both Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt. I’m a Wilco fan but I find that Jeff Tweedy tends to write lots of whiny songs and I find myself fastforwarding through a lot of Wilco’s stuff. Uncle Tupelo, though–good God, this stuff is good. Did they make a bad song? And where have I been not giving them a listen? I’ve only given Jay Farrar’s Son Volt albums cursory listens but there’s a lot of stuff that sticks–”Strands,” “Drown,” and “Windfall” all spring to mind.

I’ve only got one story out right now and I should be hearing back on it shortly. This needs to change. I need to get more stuff out, pronto. Hopefully things will settle down enough with winter setting in that I can pump some of things out. It’s tough deciding what needs a post-Clarion overhaul and what just needs a little massaging. Some of my older stories have been received fairly well by the Clarion crit group–sadly only four guys, though. Can’t figure out why the group hasn’t preserved more of its vibrancy but it’s a little disappointing. Still, four more people reading my stuff is great so I can’t complain.

This weekend we rented Michael Moore’s “Roger & Me” and Alexandra Pelosi’s “Travels With George.” Both were frustrating documentaries.

I don’t know what was worse in Moore’s film: watching the deterioration of Flint, MI or having to relive the 80’s. I loved how this film could have been made last week–American corporations outsourcing jobs to foreign countries so they can pay workers less and not have to worry about pesky things like labor laws or safe work environments. Nice to see that while hairstyles and music change, same things stay the same.

“Travels With George” was almost entirely uninteresting. It’s somewhat sickening to see how the media really operate in a complete pack mentality without a hint of objectivity, but Ms. Pelosi was more interested in inserting herself into every frame of the documentary and appearing cute and whimsical that making a piece with any sort of substance. I also love how the idiots on Amazon say this movie is good despite Pelosi being liberal–this film was just short of saying “Bush is really a great, great guy.” Some liberal media.

Spent Friday deathly ill for half the day, then tagged Amy who was up half the night getting sick herself. Residual soreness, lethargy, and permaheadache today. We sold our tickets to the last UW football game for the season for $100 and elected to watch it from home, a decision I do not regret despite the fact Wisconsin trounced Minnesota to go 9-0 on the season. Amazing stuff. Who knew they had it in them?

I am currently watching what the announcers on Fox Sports World have correctly labeled “one the best MLS playoff matches of all time” between DC and New England. Sometimes I fear for MLS because of the inconsistent nature of league games that have a tendancy to ebb to a low quality, but this match has been scintillating stuff. 3-3 at the moment and I’m rooting for DC so Freddy Adu has a chance to play in the final in his first season. Overtime coming.

Laxdaela Saga is getting quite good. Twenty-four chapters in and the main characters are just now coming to the fore. It makes me want to read them all over again now that I have a better idea of how the sagas fit together, like a mosaic. Laxdaela Saga, for instance, has characters from Eyrbyggia Saga, Egil’s Saga, The Saga of Erik the Red, and Njal’s Saga. Everytime I walk into my office, though, I pick up “The Physiognomy” and read the back cover. Too much stuff to read, not enough time.

Do other countries’ news channels “call” elections when 0% of the vote has been reported? Or does CNN poll the first ten people to walk out of the voting booth before calling the state. Seriously, where’s the drama? I got extrememly tired of hearing Chris Matthews pronounce the state as “Missour-ah” as though he was Granpa Simpson. Boring, boring, boring. Why not just have the election in eight states and get it over with?

The good news, for me at least, is that I won my election pool. Out of fifty states and one precinct, I guessed the outcomes of fifty correctly. I only missed Iowa, which I had going to Kerry. Still, that’s a 98% success rate. How come I don’t have my own talk show?

My first real post-Clarion story, “The Wendigo Killers,” is coming s l o w l y. I think I ‘ve inflated this story in my mind and it’s not going to live up to my expectations. Especially when I can’t figure out whether the ending has any sort of resonance whatsoever. Maybe I’ll know when I get there. I wrote a story at Clarion where I didn’t quite know how it went together, so I just wrote the four major scenes and cheaply strung them together. I find myself not quite knowing where to turn with TWK so I just write what comes. I have a feeling it’s terribly disjointed.

I checked out “Leviathan 3″ from the library, an anthology that contains Jeffrey Ford’s story “The Weight of Words.” This story was up for a Nebula award but was beaten out by…another Jeffrey Ford story, “Creation,” which happens to be one of my favorites. So I’m interested in seeing what TWOW is all about.

In the last bit of news, Van Halen’s “5150″ is perhaps the most underrated Van Hagar song out there. And sadly, as of today, Joe Strummer is still dead.

Tonight there was a power cut in the city of madness
All conversations died in the burst of a solar flare
In the darkness an angel won the beauty pagent
And stroboscopic snowflakes fell from the stratosphere
And all the neon blew down funky Broadway
And shorted out the eastern shore
Only saxophones and beach trombones
Were left to shout out ‘we all need a little more!

And I’m waiting for the rays of the morning sun
Somebody tell me clearly has the new world begun?
Let all the wailing wail, let the drummer drum
We’re waiting for the rays of the morning sun
Has anybody seen the morning sun?