/ Hey, good news! My contributor’s copies for the Sep/Oct issue of Cicada arrived in the mail today. Cicada’s harder to find than some other mags, but try looking in the children’s or young adult section of the magazine rack of your favorite bookseller. My story "A Change of Seasons" was written in week 3 of Clarion, presided over by Nancy Kress who praised it and encouraged me to submit it with only a few minor changes.

Of all the stories I’ve written, this is one of which I’m most proud so I’m thrilled to see it finally in print.

Current Mood: Very Happy |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Bootleg Series Vol. 7 - No Direction Home (Disc 2)”

That’s the opening line to the essay “Beowulf: Fiction or History?” which appears on a fundamentalist homeschooling website, which I was pointed to by John League via Making Light.

It’s a very weird essay that doesn’t really talk all that much about the poem, focusing instead on history and, curiously, etymology. The author tells a little about Grendel attacking the hall and some more about Beowulf’s achievements, and then describing [SPOILER!] how Beowulf kills Grendel by ripping off his arm [/SPOILER]. Now done discussing the work itself, the author concludes with this beauty of a paragraph:

Later in the story Beowulf killed Grendel’s mother also. He returned to Sweden and was king for fifty mostly peaceful years. He died while once again conquering a monster.

It’s a minor point, but I would like to point out that “later in the story” could also be referred to as “the second half of the story.” Good Lord, doesn’t anybody care about the rest of the thing? It might have some bearing on your conclusions about what the poet was trying to do.

The conclusions are delightfully looney. In a matter-of-fact tone, the author relates that Beowulf is historically true, that no one has adequately translated the poem, and that Noah took dinosaurs with him on the Ark. And no, I’m not kidding.

If you haven’t heard about Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s tearful pro-life bit on “The View,” you’re lucky.

This is another example of what I was talking about yesterday. No, moron, people aren’t objecting to Hasselbeck’s breakdown because the liberal media doesn’t want to give equal time to an opposing viewpoint. The problem is that Hasselbeck—former footwear designer, game show contestant, and now daytime talk host—is #$%^ing medically, factually wrong in what she said regarding Plan B. Or does truth in public dialogue even matter anymore?

My partner is a nurse who works in public health. She’s getting her nurse practitioner’s degree specializing in women’s health, so we have this talk around the dinner table quite a bit. She understands how quickly misinformation is spread and has seen, first-hand, how the result is unwanted pregnancies. What I find amazing is that many pro-lifers are also against sex education and contraception. One great way to lower the number of unwanted pregnancies (and therefore abortions) is to lower the number of pregnancies through education and contraception. Funny how that works…

Or to put it a slightly different way, rich white girls who have had life handed to them on a silver platter should not be the ones deciding whether or not the rest of the women in this country should have the choice to have an abortion. And pro-choicers are not marauding the streets waiting to smash baby’s heads like Gallagher eyeing a watermelon. Whether someone ought to have gotten pregnant and whether they ought to have a baby are things that the person in question must live with on a daily basis. For all the Christians in the house, let’s quote Matthew 7:1—”Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

It’s all fine and good to shame someone into having a child—or a third, or a fourth—that they’ll have difficulty caring for, but where do these same people go after the child is born? They turn around and rant about government waste and blame social problems on the welfare queen having babies just to milk the system. Believe me, they do not open their pocketbooks to help bankroll the child’s ongoing health and education. Good Christians working soup kitchens on Sundays do not bridge the gap. Or perhaps the dozens upon dozens of teenage girls my spouse worked with on Chicago’s west and south sides have somehow been tragically overlooked.

So cry all you want Elizabeth Hasselbeck. I’m sure if you had gotten knocked up at 18 you probably would have had a way to make it work. But that doesn’t mean you should make that choice for the rest of the women in this country, regardless if you think life begins at conception, penetration, or even imagination.

Yes, more thumbs down. I don’t want to point any fingers here, but just let me say in a very general way that it’s a really bad idea to try and dump work on and/or get new projects started with an employee who is working his last week. You see, the leaving employee does not care and is therefore blissfully unmotivated to do anything but pack up.

Current Mood: Still Pissed |

Just want to throw this out there because it’s been bothering me for awhile.

You don’t need me to tell you that the nation’s swung hard to the right ever since our esteemed Leader took over piloting the ship and has been looking for icebergs to ram ever since. I’m greatly troubled by the fact that a lot of the damage being done can’t be undone, or will take a long, long time to repair. This includes damaging the environment, intrusions on privacy, and warping the language. It’s that last one that I’ve been stewing over lately.

Smarter people than me have already pointed out that the language of politics has changed, where “liberal” is a dirty word, and being on the right is synonymous with being patriotic while being on the left is akin to being a traitor. We’re also distorting how we define ourselves as American. Instead of a melting pot of diversity, I guess we’re starting to believe that an American is white, Christian, and middle-class (even though the rich are getting richer while the rest of us the country remains stagnant.)

My big concern in this regard is the increasing number of attacks on “political correctness.” Just as being liberal has come to mean “ineffectual and weak,” political correctness has come to mean foolishness that tip-toes around the Truth. So if we, as a nation, no longer see the point of being p.c., that more or less gives the green light for racism and (less overtly) sexism.

Constructing the “other” gives those in power a lot of control, and right now membership to the “other” is pretty inclusive. The easiest way to qualify for being the “other” is to be non-Christian. If you’re non-religious then you’re also amoral (or outright immoral) and a danger to our Christian nation’s founding. If you’re Muslim, you’re one step removed from being a murderer. Another way to qualify as the “other” is to be non-white. Because we hear so much about the immigration policy, I guess it’s safe to assume that all Hispanics are illegals and ought not to be here. Or if your life was washed away by Katrina, we’ll give you some sympathy but not much else. Rebuild! That’s what we would do. Because the country is founded on personal responsibility, not receiving hand-outs. Oh, it almost goes without saying that if you live outside our nation’s borders, you’re an “other.” Unless you agree with all of our policies. Then you’re okay. For now.

Language has a lot to do with perceptions, and political correctness is a method by which you’re supposed to check your assumptions. To take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of the “other.” So when I see chain emails lauding the sheer stupidity of ignorant assholes it makes me sick. The fact that the good professor can’t distinguish between a religious faith on one hand and a violent political agenda on the other is disturbing; and the fact that he lumps all Muslims together as if they’re one homogeneous, unilaterally thinking group suggests he’s never known a Muslim, much less two. The tone in the email is unmistakeable as Wichman assumes the voice of dominance and authority as the “American” while the students cast in the role of the “other,” and his message is definitive: this is the way things are here.

The subtle shift in language has also spilled over into the abortion debate, where being “pro-choice” is rapidly becoming defined as “pro-death.” I fear that this battle looms on the horizon and I’m a bit uneasy in this era of the gung-ho “kill the killers” mentality we’ve got going on here.

In 1998, an abortion doctor was murdered in New York State. Gov. Pataki called it “terrorism” at the time but that word didn’t quite mean the same thing back then, did it? On these shores, the most politically active anti-choice (the language war goes both ways) groups are fundamentalist Christians who claim moral superiorty; they argue murdering an abortion provider saves countless lives and is therefore just in the eyes of God. Maybe I should go on a rampage lambasting Christians (as a homogeneous, unilaterally thinking group) the next time an abortion provider is murdered.

Political correctness doesn’t stop violent people from commiting violent acts. But learning to see the world through someone else’s eyes has a funny way of defusing that violent impulse. And heaven forbid we, as a culture, deplore violence as a legitimate (if not preferred) way for resolving a conflict.

But check that thought. There’s more money to be made by war than peace, we’re easier to control when the world is seen as black and white and when we’re made to believe everyone’s out to get us.

To think otherwise is positively un-American.

Current Mood: Pissed Off |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Modern Times”

So I’ve listened to Bob Dylan’s latest effort Modern Times a couple times through. It’s good. It’s not great. However you felt about Love and Theft is a good indicator of how you’ll feel about Modern Times.

In fact, I mentioned to Andy that I thought you could probably throw the 22 tracks from both albums in a hat, randomly pull them out, and have two albums that sound pretty similar. This isn’t a plus in my book, and I’ll echo Andy’s initial lament: there aren’t any songs that truly rock. “Nettie Moore” is an early candidate for my favorite song.

So the season/series finale of Deadwood came and went on Sunday night. Season three finished filming before network in-fighting doomed the show so the ending was incomplete. There will be two, two-hour movies to cap off the show since nothing was resolved.

What can I say about this show? I’d take three seasons of Deadwood over six seasons of The Sopranos any day. The Sopranos‘ first two seasons were incredibly good; they’ve been living off their reputation ever since. In contrast, Deadwood has enjoyed three remarkably strong seasons without so much as a bad episode. True, some episodes clip along faster than others and some plot lines don’t advance the wider story much, but like I said: not a bad episode among them.

The real star of the show is Ian McShane as Al Swearengen. The first season set the series up as a morality play pitting the good (Timothy Olyphant as sherriff Seth Bullock) versus the evil, as personified as Swearengen. But it soon became clear that Swearengen/McShane was a far more fascinating character than Bullock/Olyphant. In truth, Olyphant has done only a serviceable job in his portrayal of Bullock, the sherriff prone to losing his cool. His simmering rage often comes across as constipation. McShane, however, has made Swearengen a character worthy of a spin-off show.

I’m eager to watch the first season again because I distinctly remember the “old” Al being much darker and crueller than the one we’ve seen in much of the second and third seasons. In those first episodes his mere presence freezes Calamity Jane, and his main scheme is the attempted murder the child Sophia. Season Two began with a brawl with Bullock that induced a stroke from which Al eventually recovers, but emerges as a somewhat changed man. I was glad to see the return of the “old” Al, the one capable of anything, for a brief moment in Season Three’s finale.

Another thing that the show does remarkably well is inventive use of soliloquy. Sometimes the plot gets so complex, the characters must to speak their thoughts so the viewer fully understands what’s going on. The potential for making this a disaster is huge but the show does it smoothly. We get Alma speaking her thoughts in pretext of conversation with Sophia as she combs the child’s hair; the opium-addicted Leon confronts his stoned reflection in a mud puddle; Swearengen schemes aloud as he’s serviced by one of his whores, or he addressses the boxed head of an indian chief as he strategizes; Ellsworth talks to his dog about his domestic arrangements. It’s all very natural, all very real when it could be so, so bad—like The Sopranos‘ now-tired use of the dream sequence; effective as minute-long vignettes expressing Tony’s guilt and self-doubt in the first two seasons, the idea bloated this last season in a dream sequence spanning episodes as Tony struggles to come out of a coma.

Deadwood’s writing is snappy and clever (although sometimes anachronistic) and the characters multi-dimensional and interesting. The sub-plots are always worthwhile (although I do have to say I’m least interested in the whole business around the livery, Dan the drunk, and the ex-slave General Fields; and the episode with the Earp brothers felt forced) and even the minor characters are terrific: E.B. Farnum, Charlie Utter, Doc Cochran, and literally all the rest. If Deadwood has any true fault, it’s coming up with too many great characters for a one-hour show. As a result, some major characters (like Cy Tolliver played by Powers Boothe) got shunted to the side this season.

But Deadwood’s race is almost run and I’ll be sad to see it go. From the opening episodes with Wild Bill Hickock to the final showdown with George Hearst, the show has kept me riveted to the tube every Sunday night. It gives me hope that such television exists, and the fact that its life was cut short is just another reminder that we all live in a sad, fallen world.

Current Mood: Tuesday, Not Friday |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Modern Times”

Via Bill Shunn:

English Genius You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 86% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can’t find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don’t. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you’re not afraid to use it properly! Way to go! Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it! For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Beginner You scored higher than 99% on Intermediate You scored higher than 99% on Advanced You scored higher than 99% on Expert

Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on OkCupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

By the way, that 86% in the expert section is misleading. Some of the questions and answers were weighted so that’s how one can get an 86% for a 10-question section. So I got 39/40 correct with partial credit for the one I got wrong, and that was the one I didn’t feel real comfortable with.

There were no questions regarding ending sentences with prepositions.

Plenty to blab about this Monday morning. Last week of work, praise the Lord.

At long last, UHR 2000 pictures have been posted. This was the one that got the ball rolling. Jed and Skip came out to Washington State for a backpacking trip in spring of 2000 in the North Cascades Nat’l Park. During this trip we kicked around the idea of doing an annual backpacking trip. Since our post-college years had scattered us around the country we only saw each other at weddings, and that would end once everyone got hitched. We all liked the outdoors and backpacking, so it seemed like a good thing to bring us guys together. All it needed was a cheesy handle (Ultimate Hiking Reunion!) and the UHR was born.

In all honesty, it’s been a complete success. Some have been in grander locations than others but they’ve all been a blast. The UHR has survived marriages, grad school, babies, and unemployment. This last trip on the Superior Hiking Trail marked our seventh (!) year getting together.

This pictures of UHR 2000 aren’t great (too many backlit photos with dark shadows) and they’re further compromised by the fact that they’ve been scanned in, but now the set is complete. Go to the pictures page and scroll down to see other years (2006 forthcoming.)

Put good time into Don Quixote this weekend and should be done this week. My attention has wandered a little (it’s about as thick as a phone book) but I’ve still really enjoyed it. I’ve got lots of thoughts about it as well but I’ll wait until I’m done to post any.

Got the Oct/Nov F&SF in the mail and it looks good. I’m excited to read Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Pop Squad” as well as Charlie Finlay’s and Peter Beagle’s latest efforts. I have to say the last several issues have not blown me away, so I’m hoping this one does.

Our housecleaning included going through a bunch of elementary and secondary school report cards, a project that both amused me and made me mad. Looking back, I believe I received a poor education from the Green Bay Public Schools. I have the benefit of twenty-odd years (some very odd) and maybe hindsight’s 20/20, but year after year the story remains the same: I start strong, get bored, slough off, and get reprimanded for being the class clown. My SRA scores were consistently above the 90th percentile yet teachers couldn’t figure out (or chose not to) why I wasn’t trying very hard. The answer? Boredom.

The number one thing I remember about my schooling is being bored. All the time. I tend not to do well when I get bored—it’s a problem I still have to this day. If I’m genuinely interested in something, look out. I obsess. I used writing as a creative outlet but I don’t ever remember being encouraged by any of my teachers. Writing stories was akin to memorizing sports stats—a quirk to be noted but nothing more. In my twelve years of schooling, K through 12, I had exactly one teacher who encouraged me to take writing seriously, even after I’d won the public schools writing contest three times. Is it any wonder I didn’t take my own writing seriously until I was well out of college?

So that pisses me off. I understand that teachers have a rough job and can’t change their lesson plans to suit each student. What makes me mad is how language arts (which is what they were called) were consistently devalued by my teachers, even the ones who taught reading classes. Students were recruited for science competitions and were pushed into AP math whereas I signed myself up for writing contests. The whole institution basically told me that what I was most interested in wasn’t important; it didn’t matter if I had a natural inclination for reading and writing or not.

Would things have been drastically different for me career wise? Probably not. But I would have been a hell of a lot happier in high school knowing that writing was worthwhile in and of itself. Instead of my guidance counselor telling me that the armed forces was always an option and advising me to go to UW-Oshkosh so I wouldn’t be so far (<1 hr.) from home. Pissed? Bitter? Me? Never.

Tottenham looked like utter, utter crap against Everton this weekend. The less said about it, the better. In better news, the Ars* also lost 1-0 to Man City which pleases me greatly. Who’d have thought that both the Ars* and Chelski would have losses in their first three games against modest opposition?

You may have noticed that I signed players from teams I can’t stand on my fantasy EPL team. I do this to stay happy. So while I’m unhappy Chelski beat Blackburn, Petr Cech kept a clean sheet and earned me 16 points. Elsewhere, my striker Terry Henry blew chance after chance which sucks for my fantasy team but meant the Ars* lost. I’ll take it.

Current Mood: Five Days to Go |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Modern Times” ()

Reminder for those footie inclined: Tottenham Hotspur faces Everton tomorrow, televised LIVE on Fox Soccer Channel @ 9:00 am central time. I believe it’s the first time Spurs will be broadcast on these shores this season. Should be a cracker as Everton isn’t half bad.

GolTv has a nice slate of La Liga games in the next few days as well. Santander vs. Atlético Madrid noon CT Saturday, Bilbao vs Real Sociedad on Sunday, and then champs Barcelona open vs. Celta Vigo on Monday @ 2:00 CT as the best of these three.

Real Madrid opens the season against Villarreal on Saturday but, alas, I don’t get World Sport HD. Footie in HD is an ethereal experience but unfortunately it’s not worth the extra dosh a month to upgrade for a tier of crappy channels that I’ll never watch.

I’d say excuse me for being self-indulgent but, after all, this is my blog; what better place to be self-indulgent?

Anyway, the unearthing of old photos is pretty much complete and I thought I’d do some before-and-after comparisons between me as a high school student and some more recent photos to demonstrate how, like a fine wine, I’ve matured.

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				This is a fine example of what I’m talking about. Look at that ruddy-cheeked fellow on the left. Would you trust him with your car? Now look at the distinguished philosopher on the right. A figure you might climb a mountain to consult regarding life’s greatest mysteries.
1992 young and foolish		2003 thoughtful, reserved

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	And look at this example. On the left, the young man tries to look tough but would this pose strike fear in the heart of anyone? At a mere 130 lbs. the lad looks like he’d have a difficult time opening a jar of pickles much less kicking someone’s ass. On the right, the gentleman’s face, weathered by years of working a desk job, is elongated by an overgrown goatee running wild down the chin. The body is filled out to the point of being flabby around the waistline, but at least he looks like he could take a punch.
1991 "Here’s my milk money, please don’t hurt me…"		2003 "I’ve got chunks of guys like you in my stool!"

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Current Mood: When Will This Week End? |
Currently Listening To - Queensrÿche - “Operation: Mindcrime”

Per usual, Phil Ball hits all the nails on the head in his preview of La Liga. The man has a knack for capturing all that is Spain and all that is footie.

La Liga’s back this weekend, a bit later than everyone else of course, but this is Spain. The early bird may indeed catch the worm, but as the Spanish say - ‘Let him’. Besides, in terms of Europe, the self-styled Liga de Las Estrellas (League of the Stars) couldn’t possibly do something so undignified as to take first bow on the stage…

There’s not too much to argue with the rest of Ball’s assessments. Real Madrid look good but not good enough to topple a remarkable Barcelona. Atlético Madrid look awesome on paper (per usual) but never seem to live up to their potential; this could be their year to hang at the top “just so long as they can manage to get over changing their kit for the first time in 90 years.”

People often say England’s the best the league in the world but I’m not so sure. Spain over England in European competition last year: Barca beats Ars*nal in the Champions League final, Sevilla thrashes Middlesbrough for the UEFA Cup. For me, these leagues are neck and neck.

Tottenham gets their first win of the season courtesy of a classy dismantling of newcomers Sheffield United. Haven’t seen the highlights yet but match reports suggest that it was a one-sided affair. Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock described the electric Aaron Lennon as “unplayable” at times. Are you listening Steve McClaren?

And lest I forget to mention it, can you believe Boro beat Chelski? As long as teams view the Russians as vulnerable there’s a chance the race for the title will still be open come spring. Man Ure putting on back-to-back pastings (5-1 vs. Fulham, 3-0 vs. Charlton) bodes well for the league at least being interesting.

The only team expected to sniff around the top of the table that I truly like is Liverpool. Building your team around a nucleus of classy Spaniards? There are worse things.

/
I stumbled across the graphic adaptation of the 9/11 report on Slate last night. It’s a graphic novel by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón and should put to rest the notion that the “comic book” can’t be a serious medium. I read most of the first section without blinking, I think, and couldn’t go any further.

I have an odd relationship with the event of 9/11. It still upsets me to the point where I’m not ready for art about it. I haven’t seen United 93 or World Trade Center, and I couldn’t make it through Rick Bowes’ award-winning There’s a Hole in the City on SCI FICTION.

Why? I get too distracted. I can’t separate the art from my own memories, it seems. I don’t like remembering those days, even though at that time I’d never been to New York City and knew only few people who lived there. But like lots of people, the tragedy of that day would unexpectedly wash over me for months to come. What I find strange is that I visited NYC in August of 2003, went to Ground Zero, and felt nothing. No tears, no tightness in the chest. Nothing. No catharsis whatsoever.

I’m not sure what I ought to feel at this point, five years later. I can talk about that day, argue about it, read accounts of what happened, all without a problem. But art? Art crosses some line that separates my reason from my emotions and taps into a deep reservoir of sorrow.

Speaking of memories, we’re using the couple weeks before school starts to organize our basement. We finished the room about a year ago but never got around to actually moving stuff from boxes onto the cabinet shelves, so the last couple nights we’ve been unearthing boxes we never unpacked and examining the contents.

Lots of pictures and photo albums. We used a lot of film before the digital era but the prints have been buried for the last several years. It’s a massive blast from the past (as you can expect) and a lot of fun. Pictures of my first trip to Europe as a 20-year-old. Our ‘96 trip to Greece, our ‘98 trip to Tanzania, and our six-week excursion through Spain, France, and Italy in ‘02. Our wedding in 2000. And lots and lots of backpacking pictures from our time in Washington State.

If I find the time I’d like to scan some of these in and post them just for kicks. My mom (who is a photo album nut and has recently brought her madness to the Internet) also burned a CD of old childhood and high school photos for me while we were visiting them in Aiken. They’re a hoot. Is 32 the age nostagliga starts to kick in?

Musically, I’m totally stuck in the 90’s. I can’t stop listening to Oasis and Liz Phair, and the weird thing is I never gave either of them a serious listen until a month ago.

PT recently posted about bands you used to love that now make your skin crawl, but there’s also music that’s stood the test of time remarkably well. I’ve been listening to a lot of 90’s punk music lately and I was planning on blogging the groups and the albums that most influenced me in those formative high school and college years, but that’ll have to wait.

Right now I’ve got Queensrÿche’s “Operation: Mindcrime” on, and it still rocks 18 years since its release.

12 days until school starts, 7 more days on the job. Thank God. The only problem with giving 8 weeks notice is that it feels like an eternity until you’re actually gone.

I’ll post my classes’ syllabi and reading lists once I get them. Right now only one class has the book list available.

Current Mood: Eyeing the Weekend |
Currently Listening To - Queensrÿche - “Operation: Mindcrime”