I’m home today due to my professor’s unexpected flu bug, which means I just have to be in Milwaukee tomorrow for this week. It snowed a couple inches today so a long drive, while doable, would not have been ideal. Good timing flu bug!

I’m now about 1/3rd done with my Spanish course and I feel like all my knowledge has completely evaporated. I understand this is somewhat normal but it’s disconcerting nonetheless. During this week’s 30-minute session this morning I did fine but my brain feels like I’m moving through mud. Even simple stuff has become elusive. The brain is a strange device.

I’ve now had Pan’s Labyrinth recommended to me by two people in four days. Hmmm…magic realism during the Spanish Civil War? And to think that would interest moi?

Erm. Yes. Greatly.

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I need to write a story for my fiction workshop by the end of February. Though the course is titled “Magic and Wonder,” it’s a much more mainstream kind of magic and wonder than I’m used to, which is fine. But the story idea that I’m working with is a potential powder keg since I plan to incorporate a number of stereotypes which people may find offensive. Or worse, they may just think I’m a hack who needs to use stereotypes, but I’m thinking of this story as being about stereotype management. The story title is “Root the Mountain Down” and it’s loosely based on the folk song “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground.” It will be an interesting experiment and hopefully won’t get me thrown out of the program…

I’ve been listening to lots of old folk stuff lately and I have two new favorite songs: Willie Moore and Dry Bones. You can actually listen to the song if you follow that link. Same thing with “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” above.

Current Mood: So so |

Via the Frostburg, MD Science Fiction Society, via the inimitable Andy Duncan:

I am: Kurt Vonnegut For years, this unique creator of absurd and haunting tales denied that he had anything to do with science fiction.

Which science fiction writer are you?

I play pick-up footie indoors every Monday and Friday—Wednesdays I’m lamentably in class—and it’s approximately the same group of 30 or so guys. One nice dude who plays all the time is English, and after playing today we started chatting about player development in countries like England, Mexico, and the United States. He made a number of cogent points about how today’s American players tend to be sterile and over-coached.

“There’s no creativity there,” he says. “Today America is producing technically good players but it’s all very predictable. But when you can just tell when players haven’t been coached. You for instance,” he says, (cue drum roll for impending compliment) “No offense intended, but you haven’t been coached, have you? You can just tell.” (blushes)

That’s a weird thing to take as a compliment, but that’s how it was intended and that’s how I took it. But let me self-deprecate for a moment. I play much differently today than I did when I was a kid due to two factors: one, I’m slower and fatter; and two, I’ve watched a lot of footie over the years. When I played in my teens, the most important thing was going fast. Everything had to be done at a sprint. Now, I’m much more about making passes that aren’t obvious. This means cutting the ball back sharply against the run of play or squeezing it through a pack of players. I also float around and always try to give the guy on the a ball an option.

As a consequence, I get the ball a lot and spread it around. I’ve had a few guys say they like playing with me, and that’s probably why. I’m really not that good anymore, but I do understand that game and that makes a big difference. That’s one of my theses about American soccer: one reason we will always be behind the world is because watching a ton of footie changes your perspective on the game, and not enough young players watch enough footie. (You may remember from my writing page that I used to write a regular “Soccer on Television” column in a youth soccer publication; this is the very reason.)

Anyway, I love my footie so it’s nice to get a compliment, even if it means the damning of an entire generation of American players.

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Yesterday I finished Vine Deloria’s Custer Died For Your Sins and Tom Disch’s Camp Concentration. I’m also about 1/3rd done with Moby Dick.

Deloria’s book is thought-provoking. Subtitled “An Indian Manifesto,” Deloria outlines how natives can be successful in claiming what’s rightfully theirs in modern American society. The chapter where he rakes anthropologists and academics over the coals was the best, where he bluntly says the reason why the Sioux are struggling isn’t because they are “warriors without weapons” (as one anthro catch-phrase says) but rather that they’ve been stripped of their resources and are poor, having no infrastructure from which to build an economic base.

More intriguing are his comments about the failure of Western culture as a whole (where the individual reigns supreme to the detriment of the society), Christians (for not practicing what they preach), politicians (for being lying bastards—both Dems and Repubs), and his pointed comments aimed at blacks and the Civil Rights movement. For a sample, Deloria says it would have been better for blacks to have been put on reservations after emancipation so they could have discovered their unique culture instead of being scattered across the country, each person trying to find that culture individually. Interesting and inflammatory stuff.

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Disch’s Camp Concentration was likewise a real brain churner but for different reasons. I’m really looking forward to discussing this one on Wednesday for class. The general idea, without spoilers, is that the US is engaged in global war and we’re experimenting with bio-warfare, including injecting a group of guinea pig prisoners with a syphilitic parasite that turns the recipient into a genius but also (oops!) kills them. Saying too much would almost certainly spoil the ending, where Disch turns the whole story inside out. It’s not gimmicky nor is it a trick, and I didn’t see it coming at all. I found it dragged a bit about 3/4ths through and found myself expecting the ending to redeem the slow part; it did.

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Trust nobody’s opinion but your own: that’s the lesson I’ve learned regarding classics. I’ve rarely heard a nice word spoken about Moby Dick; I’d even heard that it was a long-winded Christian allegory, and that’s enough to make anyone shudder. Melville’s work is nothing of the sort. Sure, there’s a lot of Christianity thrown around but c’mon, it’s a 19th-century novel. It’s not like it’s an overly long The Old Man and the Sea or anything (which Hemingway mercifully kept short.)

The long digressions away from the central story do sap the patience a bit—the sections where Ishmael defends whaling as a noble profession and, worse yet, the “cetology” chapter (the science of whales) were hard to get through—but that doesn’t take away from ominous undertow Melville’s worked in. Queequeg is an awesome character, never mind that he’s a composite of about a dozen different races. The obsessed Ahab is more understated than I expected.

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Remember Pocket Classics? These were classic books cut down for the juvenile reader and dotted with illustrations. We had a bunch of them, including A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Moby Dick. I’d like to get my hands on one again because, some twenty years on, it seems like they were remarkably well done. I vividly remember the illustrations of Queequeg in his Ramadan trance and Ahab nailing the gold doubloon to the mast.

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And how’s about this for an endorsement from your new boss:
Ronaldo is not fat. He’s just big-boned.

Current Mood: Neutral |
Currently Listening To - Joe Strummer - “Earthquake Weather”

I walked into my local book peddler yesterday to pick up one final text for class when lo! I saw that the new Realms of Fantasy has hit the shelves. This is the April 2007 edition which features:

* A Touch of Hell by Richard Parks * The Rope: by Noreen Doyle * Stephanie Shrugs by Josh Rountree * Black Jack Davy by Trent Hergenrader * Red by Jackie Kessler * Bottles by Samantha Henderson * The Tao of Crocodiles by Euan Harvey

Go check it out and let me know what you think. Unless it’s mean. Then keep it to yourself.

And you may or may not find this interesting after reading it.

Current Mood: Gassed from Soccer |

I’m taking three classes this spring for my MA in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The prognosis? Lots of work, but the prognosis is good. Actually, I should add emphasis: lots of work, but the prognosis is really good. Here’s what I’m taking:

Native American Humor
Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia
Narrative Craft and Theory: Magic and Wonder

All the classes meet once a week for two hours and forty minutes. Read on if you’re interested in the reading list and course work for these classes. (more…)

Today I finished both books I’d been reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Sound and the Fury.

After an initial bad reaction to The Sound and the Fury, I ended up quite liking it. In truth, I listened to this one instead of reading it and more than one person said that might be the problem. I liked Quentin’s part more than Benjy’s, but I loved Jason’s chapter. He’s just such a complete and shameless dick; it’s great. I’d wager this book fairly blew people’s minds back in 1929, and I’ll take back most of the not nice things I originally said about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ready to rush out and pick up Absalom! Absalom!; it’s just I’d reread TSATF, and that must mean it’s a good book.

And what a perfect segue to One Hundred Years of Solitude! If wanting to reread a book is a mark of quality, then OHYOS must be the best book in the universe because I can tell it’s going to take two or three readings just to get a grip on what’s going on. At first I didn’t know how much of the story I was remembering, but when I checked the wikipedia summary I realized that I remembered everything pretty well. I will say that I found José Arcadio Buendía, Úrsula Iguarán and their immediate offspring (being Colonel Aureliano, José Arcadio, and Amaranta) to be the most engaging. Colonel Aureliano Buendía was the character I was most interested in, and I’d like to reread the sections about him and the civil war most carefully.

Next up on audio: Moby Dick. I’ve listened to the first fifteen minutes and found it tolerable. I had a hard time getting into Charles Dickens on audio (although I’d like to try it again) and I thought maybe I would have to throw out the entire 19th century. The big MD should test my tolerance.

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. It also happens to be the first day of class for spring. Posting may be less frequent for the next four months.

Current Mood: Okay |
Currently Listening To - Johnny Cash - “Live at Fulsom and San Quentin”

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It snowed quite a little yesterday and required two rounds of shoveling. 5″ or 6″ inches I would guess. So I took Athena out while I tooled around on my x-country skis. Here are some (not so great) photos:

I realize now I should have been bracketing the pictures to get a better white on that snow instead of all the gray. Taking a pro photography course: one of the many things on my life’s to-do list. I’ve learned a little about photography (framing shots, etc.) and that little often helps. For instance, did you know that the pop-up flash on your camera often results in worse pictures? Shots don’t turn out bad if you find the right range but you can often get better colors if you suppress the flash and hold still.

Look at these two shots of cousin Hobbes I took last weekend with my new digital camera. I saved them as low quality for posting, but look at the difference in colors. The one on the left is with the flash, the one on the right with the flash suppressed:

Or take a look at this example:

In both cases the pictures on the left look washed out. Look at the difference in Hobbes’ coat—in the pictures on the right, he’s actually a golden retriever! And look at the difference in the color of the floors and walls, too. The only difference between the two sets is that on the first has the flash and the second does not. Same lighting, same distance, same angle, same everything.

The only caveat is that you have to hold especially still when not using the flash otherwise images will turn out blurry. In low-light conditions you may have to use the flash. Another trick is to suppress the flash and use the camera’s timer, either putting it on a tripod or immovable object like a table to hold it steady. It becomes difficult if you’re trying to take pictures of moving objects like dogs or kids, but in the digital age, you might as well burn a half-dozen pictures trying it because memory is free. I keep a cheap mini tripod in my camera bag at all times for this purpose.

Not a great photography tip, I know, but maybe it’ll help somebody.

Current Mood: Fair |

Odd. I woke up at 6:00 this morning with a story burning in my head. I got up and wrote it. It’s about 1200 words and is entitled “The Crapshooter’s Funeral.” It’s strange how often I wake up with a story in my head that needs to be written, and usually I don’t have any memory of a dream that would have inspired it. For instance, I woke up this morning from a dream but it had nothing to do with the story I just wrote.

I’ve had in my head that I’d like to write a story using Blind Willie McTell’s “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” as a rough inspiration. But that’s been in the back of my head, and when I woke up there was a kernel of a story very much in the front of my head. That ever happen to you?

Maybe this isn’t a stand-alone 1200 word story, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the start of a longer story. But it’s what I had when I woke up and I wrote it in one sitting and the words just flowed.

It’s snowing this morning! Big, fluffy snow. While I may come to regret saying this, I’m thrilled. We had snow earlier in the week but I didn’t get a chance to go out and play in it, and I’ve been dying to break out the x-country skis. The snow wasn’t so fresh after a couple of days and I was beginning to think I’d lost my opportunity.

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Massive day in footie, most notably in England. Man Ure plays the Arse today after Liverpool stuffed Chelski yesterday. I still think it’s a two-horse race between Man Ure and Chelski since ‘Pool and the Arse are 11 points adrift, but no matter today’s result, it’s going to make things interesting. Only 14 more games after today, and Man Ure will either be 9, 7, or 6 points ahead of Chelski.

Spain is also turning out to be fascinating this season. Barcelona, Sevilla, and (despite reports claiming the club is in free fall) Real Madrid are all very much alive in the title hunt. Even Atletico Madrid are hanging around in the top four. It’s great stuff. The real question is whether Sevilla can keep it up and whether Barcelona can hit stride. Real is still the dark horse here because they can never seem to play well for more than a week at a time and Atletico will invariably collapse, but could it be Sevilla’s year? That would be a nice change.

And while I’m mentioning Real Madrid, I need to mention something that’s been bugging me. GolTV unfortunately has Ray Hudson and Phil Schoen doing their commentary for La Liga, and during Real’s shambolic loss to Espanyol Hudson was saying how it’s a shame how the club has fallen apart, and how you need to go back to the 60’s and 70’s to really find a great Madrid team.

Erm. If memory serves, a certain team from Madrid won the Champions League in 1998, 2000, and 2002; they also won the league in 2001 and 2003. Five major trophies in six years?

15 minutes in to the Arse vs. Man Ure and Eboue just tried to goad Wayne Rooney into getting a card by smacking him in the head and then acting like he’d been poleaxed when Rooney pushed him. Pure class. God, do I hate Ars*nal.

Current Mood: Productive |
Currently Listening To - Leadbelly - “Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In”

So much for my plan to listen to a bunch of 20th century American Classics during my commute. Here’s a list of what Audible.com doesn’t have that I want, in the order I want them:

John Dos Passos, U.S.A. Trilogy
Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Richard Wright, Native Son
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

Seriously, forget the Henry Miller and Saul Bellow for now and look at those other ones. Not a sniff of Dos Passos. They have Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie but not An American Tragedy? And the most mind-blowing, neither Native Son nor The Invisible Man? WTF? Wasn’t it just Martin Luther King Day? Oh, by the way, that hack Toni Morrison only has one book, Beloved (thanks Oprah) but at least they do have Their Eyes Were Watching God, thank God.

(Don’t worry, the collected works of Dan Brown and John Grisham are at my disposal, should I ever have an urge.)

This isn’t to say that Audible lacks things I’m interested in. There’s a decent amount of Vonnegut that I might try as well as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and I’ve had both Herodotus and Thucydides on my classics shelf for years now that I’ve been meaning to read. They’re each over 20 hours, so they’d keep me busy. I’ve only read about 1/4 of Les Miserables, and there’s also The Decameron…

I don’t expect Audible to have everything, just everything I want. And damn it, those exclusions above are downright boggling, aren’t they? I wanted to shore up my 1900-1960ish American literature during the impending commute, but it looks like I’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way.

Current Mood: Annoyed |
Currently Listening To - The Carter Family - “The Carter Family 1927-1934 (Disc C)”