I'm on a reading kick. I'm always wanting to read, but for the past long while it seems like life and work were always precluding me from it. Between teaching, grading, and committees at school, then getting home to help out with the boys all evening, plus teaching an extra class and taking my voiceover classes on weekends and some nights, when free time rolled around all I could do was slouch helplessly on the couch, the willing thrall of TV (or occasionally the X-Box).
But we ditched the TV (again--we'll see how long this time), and since her pregnancy started Joanna has been on a voracious reading regimen. Her demand for good books (especially good fantasy fiction and not my dull treatises of Old English and medieval literature or Greek philosophy) quickly outstripped my personal library, so she's been getting books from me as presents for the last several holidays (St. Nicholas Day books, Christmas books, Valentine's Day books, Knute Day books...). She tears through a novel in two days if the boys cooperate by not killing one another, so her reading volume has been impressive. It's inspiring.
Coupled with that was my desire to go back and read some of my favorite fiction in order to kick-start the ol' writing engine; this has the added benefit of allowing me to examine these texts more critically to see how the author does what he or she does so well and makes me mad with jealousy. It's been nice to get back to reading regularly again, though I admit that my teaching and grading are starting to suffer (how can student autobiographical essays compare the the unutterable horrors and mysteries of Lavondyss?
I'm a writing snob (and a movie snob, and a music snob, and... okay, I'll stop there) and find most fantasy fiction to be pretentious, hokey, overdone, and/or annoying regurgitations of cliched themes, characters, and plots, so it's not easy to make my list. My heart goes dead reading Harry Potter novels--the writing is clean enough, but there's nothing really new, nothing that grabs me and makes me hunger for more. I'm annoyed by the fact that in the Potter universe, all you need to be a wizard is a store-bought wand and a few phrases of basic adulterated Latin. There's no magic in Harry Potter magic; it's a mishmash of fantasy and fable tropes and ideas from better works tied on to the back of a (let's admit it) fairly bland adolescent boy. Sorry, Potter fans--I just can't join you, try though I have. I'm of the opinion that any book based on D&D can safely be ripped apart by wild book-eating yaks the moment it comes off the presses. Galleys of books which will eventually end up with half-dressed, heaving, glistening women warriors on the cover should be burned before they ever reach the presses in the first place.
So I thought I'd share with you, dear readers, some of the books that I've been perusing lately and those that I think are the cream of the fantasy fiction crop.
Carpe Jugulum, Night Watch, and Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett--I'm an old Pratchett fan from way back, and it's fun to watch his Discworld evolve over time, watching characters from his various cycles grow and change (or, comfortingly, not change). I give a cheer whenever Granny Weatherwax shows up, and I wait each novel for Death to put in his requisite appearance. I have to admit that Pratchett goes stale for me from time to time, as a lot of his books have the same rhythm and sensibility--they just run out of funny, after a while. But going back to them after a break is always reviving, and his books go down easily. I'm still partial to his older work (Mort, Guards, Guards!, most of the witches books (for Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, mostly), Pyramids, and Small Gods, especially), though I was quite taken with Monstrous Regiment recently, and I've found a new favorite in Wee Free Men. The Nac Mac Feegle are coming close to being my all-time favorite characters from any fantasy work. They put in an appearance in Carpe Jugulum, but Wee Free Men and the "sequel," Hat Full of Sky entirely belong to them and our plucky heroine, Tiffany Aching. Any time a band of incredibly strong, fast, and rowdy blue-skinned, red-haired, six-inch tall magical Celts wants to come by my house and brawl with our squirrels, they are welcome (though they'd almost certainly be mortally disappointed in our lack of liquor). I've been shouting, "Ach, crivens!" at the slightest opportunity, and not soon shall I forget the pictsies' war cry of They can take our lives, but they'll never take our trousers! I'm thinking of giving the boys new nicknames like Rob Anybody and Slightly-Bigger-than-Wee-Jock-but-Not-as-Big-as-Big-Jock Jock, though I doubt Joanna would approve of nicknaming our daughter Daft Wullie... I'm shocked to find these listed as "young adult" books, as I enjoyed them as much as any other Discworld novels.
On the writing side, I realized long ago that I can't come close to Pratchett's style of humor. His comic timing and asides are extremely well done and stay witty, even when you can see them coming (though much of their charm comes from the fact that often you don't). I am not as fond of his consistent reference to the modern world and the subsequent effect it has on his fantasy world--it sometimes feels as if he's introducing new technology or social phenomena into Discworld just so he can make some political or cultural commentary, and that sits badly with me. These sometimes reduces his work to simple cleverness, which can't sustain my interest in a work for any great length of time. However, Pratchett's ability to weave together various storylines seemingly effortlessly, his sometimes inspired use of minor foreshadowing to bring about an "Aha!" moment later in the novel, and his fantastic dialogue are all inspirational (or would be to a better writer; for me, as always, it's just intimidating and depressing. But that's another post).
The Innkeeper's Song and Giant Bones, by Peter S. Beagle--I stumbled on The Innkeeper's Song as I was heading up to Eastern Washington University to start my master's degree--I needed a good book in the evenings and the cover art caught my eye. I've been a huge Beagle fan ever since reading it over the course of three nights; it was only later that I learned that most people know him from the cartoon of The Last Unicorn, which I have still never seen (I have yet to read the book, either, though I own it now).
I was tremendously impressed by The Innkeeper's Song, one of the only books I've ever read that made me cry at the end (and still does, actually, whenever I reread it--I'm normally highly resistant to all human emotion). Skipping among half a dozen character points of view, the story is affecting and involving in the extreme. There are a few scenes of frank sexuality (prompting Devin, to whom I had lent the book, to call and complain--though I note you still have the book, sir...) and I agree with some reviewers that occasionally the main characters are too formidable, but overall the book floored me.
I was especially impressed by the depth of the world Beagle creates; everything feels real, and references to cities, to peoples, to tales and songs and ideas are all handled deftly, becoming part of the background without drawing attention to themselves in big bold letters as SETTING DETAILS. I actually included this on my reading list for my master's thesis for that reason. Admittedly this can be overdone at times, but on the whole it is entirely convincing. Those of us always stymied by an obsessive need to define every aspect of a fantasy world before writing often blame J.R.R. Tolkien for our inability to write; imagine my chagrin, then, when Beagle, who comes as close to Tolkien's depth as anyone I've read, revealed that he planned out literally nothing of his world, and only filled in names of places and people he made up on the spot. Curses--another excuse gone.
Giant Bones is a series of short stories set in the same world, and they're also great. They are especially notable in that each has an entirely different style and tone. "The Last Song of Sirit Byar" is another story that can bring on the tears though it's got one of the gruffest narrators you're likely to meet; "The Magician of Karakosk" is a classic fantasy story done with incredible heart; "The Tragical History of the Jiril's Players" is a comic opera of medieval proportions; "Lal and Soukyan" brings back the only returning characters from The Innkeeper's Song and feature the only two elderly fantasy heroes I can recall who aren't wizards; and "Choushi Wai's Story" (told by a character from another story, no less) is a fable in the classical sense but still manages to surprise in the telling. Terrific stuff.
The Wizard of Earthsea books, by Ursula K. LeGuin--It had been a long time since I read the original Earthsea trilogy, recommended at the time by Chris Slater and Dan, and I recalled having enjoyed them but not much beyond that. There were wizards, and an island, and boats, and that was about all I could dredge up. I had a copy of the trilogy and pointed Joanna toward it--when she thoroughly devoured them, I decided to give them another read.
I'm always afraid to reread things I liked when I was younger for fear they'll turn out to be awful. This was the case with the works of Piers Anthony, for example--other than a few of the early Xanth novels (I still like A Spell for Chameleon), his stuff is really bad--fascinating to a twelve-year-old, yes, but they lose their luster quickly as adolescent interest in being titillated dries up (there's a whole treatise on male prurience here, but I'm not going to touch it). Terry Brooks' Landover novels have the same effect, as does Jack Chalker's River Gods series. I'm nervous about looking over anything by David Eddings again, as they were pretty borderline the first time I read them (and yet, horrifyingly, they are the novels I think most resemble something I would actually write. If being unimpressed with a writer most like you isn't a buzzkill, I don't know what is).
Imagine my delight, then, at finding the Earthsea books to be a good deal better than I remembered them. There are several more books now past the original trilogy (including Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea, and The Other Wind, which Joanna has burned through but I have yet to read), but I found myself caught in rereading the very first novel and haven't gotten past it yet. I read it through, then immediately turned back and started reading it again--The Innkeeper's Song is the only other book I've ever done this with. I'm trying to force myself to read Wizard of Earthsea slowly, deconstructing how in the world LeGuin created such an involving epic with such tremendous style. Her ability to weave in image with just a few phrases, her skill at creating dialogue that is at once iconic and believable, and her talent for conveying complex plot and character issues in a short space is nothing short of amazing. I have to admit I'm not a great fan of her other works (though, in truth, the only other of her works I've read have been her science fiction, a genre with which it is much harder to please me), but I was powerfully struck by her work. If you haven't read these before, do so right now. It's okay--I'll wait.
The Gunslinger, by Stephen King--By far my favorite work of King's to date. King gets a bad rap in literary circles; he was thoroughly reviled in my master's writing program for being "commercial," and that's a fair accusation. But King is, above all else, a terrific storyteller and you have to give the man credit for that. I've read several of his horror novels, and I had a great time reading The Stand in all its thousand-page glory, but I wouldn't list myself as a fan if it weren't for this little beauty (and his book about writing, but that'll go in another post).
By far my favorite of the Dark Tower books (thought admittedly I only read the first three), The Gunslinger is dark, enigmatic, and spooky. Again, I seem to have a particular liking for deep histories hinted at, vast tales touched upon lightly, and King has that all sewn up here. How terrific is it that we have essentially a cowboy in a fantasy setting, yet it never feels cheesy? That we can have wizards and demons, yet the player at the honkey tonk piano is playing "Hey, Jude"? Roland is one of the darkest "heroes" you're likely to find in fiction, but we're still on his side. How many authors could have their main character gun down an entire town and still have you rooting for them by the end, even if you're not a fan of Steven Segal and Jean Claude Van Damme? The austere characterization, the cryptic and clipped writing, and the sense of real human emotion are what carry this book so well.
I understand that there's a revised version published that takes away some of the mystery and ties The Gunslinger more closely to the following books, and I consider that a great pity. I did not care for the later books nearly as much, mainly because they became too big, too grand in scope and patchwork in quality, and lost a lot of the mystery that was so thrilling at the beginning. This nifty little dark tale of one man on a quest, filled with unfathomable depths of which we only glimpse the surface, remains my favorite King novel. If only he'd write more stuff without really knowing where he was headed.
Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock--Another work that I had read so long ago that I could only remember a sense of liking it without being able to pin down many other details. A guy exploring a modern forest that generates mythagos, archetypal figures from ages past. Another book I recommended to Joanna and she enjoyed, I also found this work stood the test of time relatively well. It was clumsier than I remembered--in this early work, Holdstock often overstates what seems obvious, or forces his main character to draw conclusions that are clearly erroneous only to bring on the obvious answer later as a shock--but this book was still a fine read. A complex and satisfying work overall, and I look forward to rereading the other works in the trilogy, Lavondyss and The Hollowing. If I recall aright, Dan liked these a good deal, too. I haven't read his other works, starting with Celtika, though now I'd like to.
And well done if you've made it this far. I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts on these books, and even more delighted if you have recommendations in the same vein. I suppose I ought to do some work now.
Ach, crivens!
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Friday, January 28, 2005
Long Gone
Darn blog thing.
It's a tough row to hoe. Like almost everything in my life, I'm torn when considering the blog. I want to be better about posting. I enjoy typing. Words are nice. But somehow getting on here and actually keeping up with this just doesn't happen. I have a long list of excuses: the start of a new semester and the continuation of the Winter quarter at CCC; the bad weather early in the month which meant more time on the road and frequent power outages; the boys really coming into their "three-ness" and being weasels in the weaseliest of ways. But as I so often point out to my students, "excuses" are not the same as "reasons."
I think there's something living in me that doesn't want to see me write. I don't know what it is or why it's there or why it won't leave me alone. I loathe it with a passion unequaled by much else in my life. It feels like my whole being is yearning out to write and this little hobgoblin beats it out of me every time. I can't tell you how much time I waste on insignifica--reading the 1,000th bad movie review on any of a dozen websites, reading magazine articles I'm not particularly interested in, playing solitaire on the computer (solitaire, of all things! What the heck? A la Comic Book Guy, could there be any greater waste of time and consciousness?). Every day I start out with a fervent desire to write, and every night I go to bed frustrated and bitter that another day has passed without me penning a single word. Surely, I have a cartload of important things to do during the day (teach, grade, interact with Joanna and the boys, keep up the house), but I also just waste so much time. I seem desperate to find anything to do other than write, even as I know that's what I most want to do. Grrr!
Is it possible to be built for one thing and be utterly unable to do that one thing? That's like taking the time and effort to build a windmill and then tying one blade to the ground so it can't spin. What's the point? Sometimes I get motivated and read books about writing, and make plans about writing, and even write in here as a kind of substitute for the kind of writing I really want to be doing. The one thing I never actually do is write. Sad, really.
The possible scenarios:
(1) I was never meant to write. My own hubris or Satanic influence has convinced me I need to do it. My struggles are my conscience and the Holy Spirit trying to get me to cut out this foolishness while my own pride wants desperately to hang on to the image of myself as a writer.
(2) I was meant to write, and the forces of laziness and fear (and that ol' Satanic influence again) that keep me back from my God-given mandate to use those talents I have in writing. My struggles arise from me fighting against what I know in my soul I ought to be doing.
(3) I'm kind of a messed-up guy with no motivation or work ethic. I have talent and desire but I can't figure out how to put them to good use.
(4) I'm more in love with the idea of being a writer than I am with writing. James Michener summed this up nicely: "Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print." Is this me? Yikes.
I know (3) and (4) are definitely a part of my problem. The question is if (1) or (2) resemble the truth in any sense and if so, which one? I've given my writing over to God because it's just too painful for me to deal with these days. I've prayed that if I'm not meant to write that He'll take away my desire to do so, and if I am meant to that He'll show me to be dedicated and motivated and devoted to the task. And I sit still in the same limbo I've been inhabiting for... oh, let's say ten years, to be charitable.
Imagine that every day you have the chance to spend time with the person you love most. Every morning you wake up and look over at that person, and smile, and promise them you'll do something that day. And every day, you fritter away your time on petty amusements and frivolous monkeyshine, while your beloved stands there, waiting. And every night when you go to bed, you curse yourself for having missed out on another day with him or her, and vow to make tomorrow different.
Imagine that every day.
Not a bad metaphor for how I treat God, actually. Now I feel doubly guilty.
This is a long, self-pitying rant, I realize. The scary thing is it might not change a thing about how I live my life, even though I can see the problem and know of the solution. How would we feel about someone who has a disease and can see the treatment and knows what to do to get rid of the sickness and could avail themselves of the cure but simply doesn't? I would find myself lacking sympathy for that person, which suggests that I deserve none myself. Most likely true.
Grrrrr.
"You can't want to be a writer, you have to be one."
--Paul Theroux
It's a tough row to hoe. Like almost everything in my life, I'm torn when considering the blog. I want to be better about posting. I enjoy typing. Words are nice. But somehow getting on here and actually keeping up with this just doesn't happen. I have a long list of excuses: the start of a new semester and the continuation of the Winter quarter at CCC; the bad weather early in the month which meant more time on the road and frequent power outages; the boys really coming into their "three-ness" and being weasels in the weaseliest of ways. But as I so often point out to my students, "excuses" are not the same as "reasons."
I think there's something living in me that doesn't want to see me write. I don't know what it is or why it's there or why it won't leave me alone. I loathe it with a passion unequaled by much else in my life. It feels like my whole being is yearning out to write and this little hobgoblin beats it out of me every time. I can't tell you how much time I waste on insignifica--reading the 1,000th bad movie review on any of a dozen websites, reading magazine articles I'm not particularly interested in, playing solitaire on the computer (solitaire, of all things! What the heck? A la Comic Book Guy, could there be any greater waste of time and consciousness?). Every day I start out with a fervent desire to write, and every night I go to bed frustrated and bitter that another day has passed without me penning a single word. Surely, I have a cartload of important things to do during the day (teach, grade, interact with Joanna and the boys, keep up the house), but I also just waste so much time. I seem desperate to find anything to do other than write, even as I know that's what I most want to do. Grrr!
Is it possible to be built for one thing and be utterly unable to do that one thing? That's like taking the time and effort to build a windmill and then tying one blade to the ground so it can't spin. What's the point? Sometimes I get motivated and read books about writing, and make plans about writing, and even write in here as a kind of substitute for the kind of writing I really want to be doing. The one thing I never actually do is write. Sad, really.
The possible scenarios:
(1) I was never meant to write. My own hubris or Satanic influence has convinced me I need to do it. My struggles are my conscience and the Holy Spirit trying to get me to cut out this foolishness while my own pride wants desperately to hang on to the image of myself as a writer.
(2) I was meant to write, and the forces of laziness and fear (and that ol' Satanic influence again) that keep me back from my God-given mandate to use those talents I have in writing. My struggles arise from me fighting against what I know in my soul I ought to be doing.
(3) I'm kind of a messed-up guy with no motivation or work ethic. I have talent and desire but I can't figure out how to put them to good use.
(4) I'm more in love with the idea of being a writer than I am with writing. James Michener summed this up nicely: "Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print." Is this me? Yikes.
I know (3) and (4) are definitely a part of my problem. The question is if (1) or (2) resemble the truth in any sense and if so, which one? I've given my writing over to God because it's just too painful for me to deal with these days. I've prayed that if I'm not meant to write that He'll take away my desire to do so, and if I am meant to that He'll show me to be dedicated and motivated and devoted to the task. And I sit still in the same limbo I've been inhabiting for... oh, let's say ten years, to be charitable.
Imagine that every day you have the chance to spend time with the person you love most. Every morning you wake up and look over at that person, and smile, and promise them you'll do something that day. And every day, you fritter away your time on petty amusements and frivolous monkeyshine, while your beloved stands there, waiting. And every night when you go to bed, you curse yourself for having missed out on another day with him or her, and vow to make tomorrow different.
Imagine that every day.
Not a bad metaphor for how I treat God, actually. Now I feel doubly guilty.
This is a long, self-pitying rant, I realize. The scary thing is it might not change a thing about how I live my life, even though I can see the problem and know of the solution. How would we feel about someone who has a disease and can see the treatment and knows what to do to get rid of the sickness and could avail themselves of the cure but simply doesn't? I would find myself lacking sympathy for that person, which suggests that I deserve none myself. Most likely true.
Grrrrr.
"You can't want to be a writer, you have to be one."
--Paul Theroux
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Snow and I
I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about snow at the moment.
We're buried right now. A good three feet of snow lies all around, higher where it's mounded up on our stairs. The berms are up to my chin on the road. We've got a couple of days of respite, and then there's more snow for half a week (if the meteorologists are on target, which is always a gamble).
I've been shoveling snow for four days. Yesterday and today, I was shoveling ice, hurling 20-pound chunks of the stuff across the road because there's no more room on our side unless I want to toss it onto our roof. I'm kind of tired of it, and generally just tired (which probably speaks more to my being out of shape than my hard work, but still). Part of me, at these moments, thinks that it's crazy to live in a place where this is necessary.
But I can't imagine living in a place where there wasn't snow. We get it relatively rarely up here (say, a couple of times a month during the winter), and whenever we don't have snow, I find myself gazing enviously at the parts of the country on the weather map that are being deluged. I love the white stuff despite what a pain it is. I don't know if it's some holdover from my childhood (when it was just fun and didn't require a lot of effort on my part to deal with), or some odd masochistic part of my personality, but even at its worst I can't wish for less snow.
I even like it despite the difficulties it causes here in the mountains--in fact, I like it far more. In Toronto and Spokane, I still got the snow, but the flatness was depressing.
Friends of ours have been trying to lure us up to the northwest, which is an area I am seriously in love with, especially the west coast of Oregon and Washington (which is where they are, actually). Everything about it--the 230 cloudy days a year, the fantastic amount of rainfall, the average high temperature of 65 degrees--makes my hair tingle. But the lack of (1) steepness (no mountains or even high hills to speak of) and (2) snow, or the possibility of snow, are serious hinderances. Not insurmountable ones if I could find a good job, but hinderances all the same.
There's something about the mountains, about the landscape and climate itself that I seem dependent on. I always miss it when I'm away and I rarely feel the urge to be anywhere else. There are many things I would modify about our mountains were I given the power: much higher rainfall, more dense foliage, more animals, fewer people, more geographical distance from major cities. The Rockies and the Cascades strongly appeal to me for the abundance of these things. But I feel blessed to live where I do, and to have lived here most of my life.
Now I really am rambling. The upshot is that, despite a desire to complain about a lot of shoveling, I wouldn't trade it. Next time, maybe I'll enthrall you with the internal ethical debate I go through evey time I rev up the snowblower. I know you'll be waiting for that one. I hope tonight finds you wherever you like it most.
We're buried right now. A good three feet of snow lies all around, higher where it's mounded up on our stairs. The berms are up to my chin on the road. We've got a couple of days of respite, and then there's more snow for half a week (if the meteorologists are on target, which is always a gamble).
I've been shoveling snow for four days. Yesterday and today, I was shoveling ice, hurling 20-pound chunks of the stuff across the road because there's no more room on our side unless I want to toss it onto our roof. I'm kind of tired of it, and generally just tired (which probably speaks more to my being out of shape than my hard work, but still). Part of me, at these moments, thinks that it's crazy to live in a place where this is necessary.
But I can't imagine living in a place where there wasn't snow. We get it relatively rarely up here (say, a couple of times a month during the winter), and whenever we don't have snow, I find myself gazing enviously at the parts of the country on the weather map that are being deluged. I love the white stuff despite what a pain it is. I don't know if it's some holdover from my childhood (when it was just fun and didn't require a lot of effort on my part to deal with), or some odd masochistic part of my personality, but even at its worst I can't wish for less snow.
I even like it despite the difficulties it causes here in the mountains--in fact, I like it far more. In Toronto and Spokane, I still got the snow, but the flatness was depressing.
Friends of ours have been trying to lure us up to the northwest, which is an area I am seriously in love with, especially the west coast of Oregon and Washington (which is where they are, actually). Everything about it--the 230 cloudy days a year, the fantastic amount of rainfall, the average high temperature of 65 degrees--makes my hair tingle. But the lack of (1) steepness (no mountains or even high hills to speak of) and (2) snow, or the possibility of snow, are serious hinderances. Not insurmountable ones if I could find a good job, but hinderances all the same.
There's something about the mountains, about the landscape and climate itself that I seem dependent on. I always miss it when I'm away and I rarely feel the urge to be anywhere else. There are many things I would modify about our mountains were I given the power: much higher rainfall, more dense foliage, more animals, fewer people, more geographical distance from major cities. The Rockies and the Cascades strongly appeal to me for the abundance of these things. But I feel blessed to live where I do, and to have lived here most of my life.
Now I really am rambling. The upshot is that, despite a desire to complain about a lot of shoveling, I wouldn't trade it. Next time, maybe I'll enthrall you with the internal ethical debate I go through evey time I rev up the snowblower. I know you'll be waiting for that one. I hope tonight finds you wherever you like it most.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
In Reference to Resolutions
I found the following PvP comic far too apropos to the last topic to pass up:
PvP for 1/1/05
PvP--a comic revolving around the staff of a gaming magazine ("PvP" stands for "player vs. player," which I didn't know, either, until I read the comic)--is the only online comic I check out regularly. I'm certain there are many more deserving comics out there, but I don't really need more sites into which to get sucked. It's usually fun and sometimes great. Scott Kurtz, the artist, has some odd opinions and seems to be the focus of more than a few debates. Currently, he's offering his online comic free to traditional press papers in exchange for retaining the licensing rights--a very different system than the comics syndicates currently follow and one that has a lot of comic strippers up in arms. No, really.
In any case, take his views with a grain of salt, but the comic is worth checking out, especially if you're a roleplaying or computer game geek.
PvP for 1/1/05
PvP--a comic revolving around the staff of a gaming magazine ("PvP" stands for "player vs. player," which I didn't know, either, until I read the comic)--is the only online comic I check out regularly. I'm certain there are many more deserving comics out there, but I don't really need more sites into which to get sucked. It's usually fun and sometimes great. Scott Kurtz, the artist, has some odd opinions and seems to be the focus of more than a few debates. Currently, he's offering his online comic free to traditional press papers in exchange for retaining the licensing rights--a very different system than the comics syndicates currently follow and one that has a lot of comic strippers up in arms. No, really.
In any case, take his views with a grain of salt, but the comic is worth checking out, especially if you're a roleplaying or computer game geek.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Auld Lang Syne
I just wanted some title other than Happy New Year!!!!!! :)
Here it is: January 1, 2005. I shall be writing the wrong date on checks for two months. We can now easily divide the date by 5 again--a feat not to be repeated for half a decade. The icy hand of death draws one year nearer (though I'm watching a Twilight Zone marathon as I type this, so the pure nostalgia is making that threat seem less onerous--besides, Death will probably offer me some strange deal and I'll end up saving myself, but only at the cost of someone dear to me).
That last sentence, by the way, is an example of the sort of thing I'm not editing in this blog. You have my condolences.
I've been mulling over the idea of resolutions this week. I don't know what to think about them these days. The concept of New Year's resolutions seems dull and staid, more of a joke than an actual event, and yet the idea of taking vows at the change of a calendar year has a strong draw for me. I've always been a sucker for ceremony and tradition, and I really want such oaths to mean something. I have, in the past, made very solemn vows upon a New Year's Eve.
And not one resolution have I kept in these many years. It's almost become an exercise in self-doubt and defeat, a chance for me to feel bad about myself rather than providing goals for which to strive. Not, as is probably clear by now, I need any such excuse.
I am therefore putting up this list of... let's call them ideals for 2005. That sounds more flimsy, I realize, than "resolutions," and provides thereby more chance for weasling out of them (like my "near-daily" vow), but what the heck. Perhaps having some degree of accountability to you folks will help me out.
Here, then, in something of an order of importance:
There are gallons more--keeping up the house more, being a better father and husband, working harder on my voiceover training, becoming a more competent and organized teacher--but I'll be surprised if you folk made it this far. I'll end by wishing you all a blessed year full of the things you most need, and that we all become more of the creatures we are intended to be.
Here it is: January 1, 2005. I shall be writing the wrong date on checks for two months. We can now easily divide the date by 5 again--a feat not to be repeated for half a decade. The icy hand of death draws one year nearer (though I'm watching a Twilight Zone marathon as I type this, so the pure nostalgia is making that threat seem less onerous--besides, Death will probably offer me some strange deal and I'll end up saving myself, but only at the cost of someone dear to me).
That last sentence, by the way, is an example of the sort of thing I'm not editing in this blog. You have my condolences.
I've been mulling over the idea of resolutions this week. I don't know what to think about them these days. The concept of New Year's resolutions seems dull and staid, more of a joke than an actual event, and yet the idea of taking vows at the change of a calendar year has a strong draw for me. I've always been a sucker for ceremony and tradition, and I really want such oaths to mean something. I have, in the past, made very solemn vows upon a New Year's Eve.
And not one resolution have I kept in these many years. It's almost become an exercise in self-doubt and defeat, a chance for me to feel bad about myself rather than providing goals for which to strive. Not, as is probably clear by now, I need any such excuse.
I am therefore putting up this list of... let's call them ideals for 2005. That sounds more flimsy, I realize, than "resolutions," and provides thereby more chance for weasling out of them (like my "near-daily" vow), but what the heck. Perhaps having some degree of accountability to you folks will help me out.
Here, then, in something of an order of importance:
- Spend more time with God--This seems to be the universal resolution of every Christian I know. Somehow I seem to lose sight of Christ in my daily life, even as I most make an effort to keep Him foremost. I know I need a daily prayer time. In the past I've sought closeness with God for my own ends--as if, were I to spend some requisite time near Him, the things I really want would happen as a result. I realize at this late stage that the closeness with God is the thing I really want. The other stuff is ephemera, I know, but it seems to loom so large in the moment. So some spiritual consistency is my greatest need this year (and beyond, of course).
- Write!--My wife has more than once suggested that I'm going through my midlife crisis somewhat early. That may well be true. I have felt more strongly in the past months that I am meant to be doing something more, and I am much convinced that that thing is writing. Yet there are few things I avoid more assidiously. I wrote three pages last week--it's the first I've done for non-roleplaying purposes in longer than I can recall. I know Senor Devin has struggled with this in the past regarding his artwork: how can the one thing I most want to do be the one thing I most avoid? Got to get past that. The good news: I've been more inclined this direction in the last few weeks. The bad news: I've yet to do anything about it. Again.
- Lose Some Weight--Great ooka-mooka, but I'm a large man. These past few years I know I've not been in the shape I should be (really, for most of my life, but it's in the last few years that I've begun to feel it). I feel lifeless and slow, physical exertion is far too taxing, and I'm becoming more self-conscious about it rather than less. I really don't want it to take something drastic (like diabetes or a heart attack) to get me to change my ways. Joanna and I had some luck a few years back (before the boys) with Weight Watchers, so I'm starting that up tomorrow. Well, later today, actually. It's hard to find time to get an exercise routine going, what with the boys to look after and Joanna seeing so little of me anyway, but that's needful, too.
- Use My Time More Wisely--I do waste so much time. Not just staying-up-until-2am-playing-Halo time, but each actual moment. I spend far too much of my day reading pointless things on the web (I have now read more movie reviews than I have seen actual movies), playing goofy little computer games, staring at the television, or staring off into space, lamenting my inability to get things done. I don't know how one achieves self-discipline without first having self-discipline, but I need to know the secret. Now!
There are gallons more--keeping up the house more, being a better father and husband, working harder on my voiceover training, becoming a more competent and organized teacher--but I'll be surprised if you folk made it this far. I'll end by wishing you all a blessed year full of the things you most need, and that we all become more of the creatures we are intended to be.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
A Few Links
I posted a few new links, pretty much at random. Just 'cause.
I've got the mini-web-ring links to Devin and Marilyn, Laura, and Christina as always (besides Dan and possibly Chris, I think they're my only audience--feel free to correct me with a comment if I'm wrong); they're nice and fairly hygienic as far as I know.
Lileks.com is, as has been mentioned over at Wordhord, a fine humor site with daily updates from a great writer. I despise and envy him for his talent.
Snopes is the place to check out urban legends of various kinds, and the first stop people should make before sending me mass e-mails on nearly any subject (calls for aid for lost and/or sick children, political screeds, alarming warnings, and viruses all included). A fun site just to peruse--I often assign my students to do work on the site as part of their research training (you want to be in my English 101 class now, don't you?).
The Onion is a delightfully wicked news parody site that's so dead-on they're sometimes mistaken for actual news. Sometimes distressingly liberal (and that from a fairly politically liberal guy) and occasionally containing off-color language, they can nevertheless almost always make me laugh. And the AV Club is a "real" media review site, with movie, video, book, and music reviews, as well as interviews and other features that are intelligent and entertaining. For reals.
I've got the mini-web-ring links to Devin and Marilyn, Laura, and Christina as always (besides Dan and possibly Chris, I think they're my only audience--feel free to correct me with a comment if I'm wrong); they're nice and fairly hygienic as far as I know.
Lileks.com is, as has been mentioned over at Wordhord, a fine humor site with daily updates from a great writer. I despise and envy him for his talent.
Snopes is the place to check out urban legends of various kinds, and the first stop people should make before sending me mass e-mails on nearly any subject (calls for aid for lost and/or sick children, political screeds, alarming warnings, and viruses all included). A fun site just to peruse--I often assign my students to do work on the site as part of their research training (you want to be in my English 101 class now, don't you?).
The Onion is a delightfully wicked news parody site that's so dead-on they're sometimes mistaken for actual news. Sometimes distressingly liberal (and that from a fairly politically liberal guy) and occasionally containing off-color language, they can nevertheless almost always make me laugh. And the AV Club is a "real" media review site, with movie, video, book, and music reviews, as well as interviews and other features that are intelligent and entertaining. For reals.
A Roaring Start
"Oh, well done," I hear some of you cry. "Way to keep your word. Here you promise to post near-daily [I do so enjoy that phrase--maybe I can copyright it] and then fall down on the job on the very first day. Good job, Ace."
See? Even on a blog I display my paranoia and guilt complex. I always imagine that any observer of my actions will see them in the worst possible light.
At any rate, I have a fine excuse for not posting; by the time the boys went to bed and I had a chance to post, we were experiencing a power outage. We had several short ones through the night and I didn't want to keep the computer on during such unreliable service. Even now, as our house is blanketed in three inches of snow and counting, we might lose it again at any moment. Annoying, but I'm taking the risk to keep my word. Kind of, anyway.
We're still surrounded by the fallout from Christmas. This year my parents really did go overboard--they're wonderfully and incredibly generous, but the accumulated goods are overwhelming. Admittedly, the living room floor is currently covered with an enormous model train layout for which they bear no guilt--it's a set we've been accumulating bit by bit for a year now, and it's a grip of fun (it's from Fisher Price, called GeoTracks, and it's a fabulous buy for young kids who like trains as it's easy to assemble and can withstand much punishment); the boys don't quite yet appreciate the fantastic extent of the layout, choosing consistently to fight over one particular corner, but it'll come to them one day. Between our few gifts to them, the truckload of gifts from my parents, and the many more from friends and extended family, we're going to have to donate all their old toys to make the new ones fit.
There's a discussion of the "True Meaning of Christmas" lurking in here somewhere, but I don't have the energy to tackle that at 7:30 in the morning (especially after being up until 2am playing Halo 2 from my excellent wife--yes, the power outages did play havoc with that; I lost a significant amount of progress thanks to power cutouts during play before I finally gave up). Suffice it to say that there has been an agreement forged between generations that next year the number of presents needs to be severely cut back--I want the boys to appreciate what they get, not just see the day as an endless gift-fest. I think the damage can be contained, as the boys are young enough that they won't appreciate the reason for Christmas until next year, and they likely won't remember the flood of presents from this year.
We had a fine Christmas all told, and I am looking forward to spending a few days without teaching and trying to clean out the bedroom and the office (both currently given over to enormous piles of stuff--we need the folks from Clean Sweep in here with a vengeance).
As a last, utterly unrelated note, did anyone else see the story about the woman who is serving as the surrogate mother to her own grandchildren? I know this isn't the first time this has occurred, but does anyone else find this quite creepy?
See? Even on a blog I display my paranoia and guilt complex. I always imagine that any observer of my actions will see them in the worst possible light.
At any rate, I have a fine excuse for not posting; by the time the boys went to bed and I had a chance to post, we were experiencing a power outage. We had several short ones through the night and I didn't want to keep the computer on during such unreliable service. Even now, as our house is blanketed in three inches of snow and counting, we might lose it again at any moment. Annoying, but I'm taking the risk to keep my word. Kind of, anyway.
We're still surrounded by the fallout from Christmas. This year my parents really did go overboard--they're wonderfully and incredibly generous, but the accumulated goods are overwhelming. Admittedly, the living room floor is currently covered with an enormous model train layout for which they bear no guilt--it's a set we've been accumulating bit by bit for a year now, and it's a grip of fun (it's from Fisher Price, called GeoTracks, and it's a fabulous buy for young kids who like trains as it's easy to assemble and can withstand much punishment); the boys don't quite yet appreciate the fantastic extent of the layout, choosing consistently to fight over one particular corner, but it'll come to them one day. Between our few gifts to them, the truckload of gifts from my parents, and the many more from friends and extended family, we're going to have to donate all their old toys to make the new ones fit.
There's a discussion of the "True Meaning of Christmas" lurking in here somewhere, but I don't have the energy to tackle that at 7:30 in the morning (especially after being up until 2am playing Halo 2 from my excellent wife--yes, the power outages did play havoc with that; I lost a significant amount of progress thanks to power cutouts during play before I finally gave up). Suffice it to say that there has been an agreement forged between generations that next year the number of presents needs to be severely cut back--I want the boys to appreciate what they get, not just see the day as an endless gift-fest. I think the damage can be contained, as the boys are young enough that they won't appreciate the reason for Christmas until next year, and they likely won't remember the flood of presents from this year.
We had a fine Christmas all told, and I am looking forward to spending a few days without teaching and trying to clean out the bedroom and the office (both currently given over to enormous piles of stuff--we need the folks from Clean Sweep in here with a vengeance).
As a last, utterly unrelated note, did anyone else see the story about the woman who is serving as the surrogate mother to her own grandchildren? I know this isn't the first time this has occurred, but does anyone else find this quite creepy?
Monday, December 27, 2004
Yet Another Start
A few weeks ago at the faculty orientation for Community Christian College (where I'm currently teaching a class), John Harbison, a fine Old Testament scholar, was discussing with me differing kinds of workers; specifically, he mentioned that people can be classed into "starters" and "maintainers."
While it's clear that I have a terrible time starting much of anything, I seem to be far more a starter than maintainer, as I find it easier to just begin new blogs rather than updating the ones I've already got. I don't know anyone else with a head so big that they have multiple blogs, but here I am. Maybe I can try for some world record for most blogs which say almost nothing.
At any rate, I have grown weary of not posting on my blogs, yet I'm still resistant to using the ones I've got for daily "journal"-type entries. I want to keep Wordhord for literary/thoughtful musings and Feral Donkey for my random entertainment and oddity-related issues. Both of those are blogs where (when they come out) I want to spend some time crafting good writing as well as just expressing myself. But that takes a long time. From thence comes this: the daily "I'm not doing anything interesting but I'll make you read about it anyway"-type blog. So in exchange for less-crafted stuff on dull topics, you get more consistent updates. Perhaps one day I can learn to harmonize all these strains, but until then I'll stick to choking the blogsphere with a trio of publishing spots.
My goal (I hesitate to call it a resolution) is to post here near daily. I'll mention when there are updates to the other blogs, so those handful of people who are at all interested can just check here. Sound fair? Then here we go.
While it's clear that I have a terrible time starting much of anything, I seem to be far more a starter than maintainer, as I find it easier to just begin new blogs rather than updating the ones I've already got. I don't know anyone else with a head so big that they have multiple blogs, but here I am. Maybe I can try for some world record for most blogs which say almost nothing.
At any rate, I have grown weary of not posting on my blogs, yet I'm still resistant to using the ones I've got for daily "journal"-type entries. I want to keep Wordhord for literary/thoughtful musings and Feral Donkey for my random entertainment and oddity-related issues. Both of those are blogs where (when they come out) I want to spend some time crafting good writing as well as just expressing myself. But that takes a long time. From thence comes this: the daily "I'm not doing anything interesting but I'll make you read about it anyway"-type blog. So in exchange for less-crafted stuff on dull topics, you get more consistent updates. Perhaps one day I can learn to harmonize all these strains, but until then I'll stick to choking the blogsphere with a trio of publishing spots.
My goal (I hesitate to call it a resolution) is to post here near daily. I'll mention when there are updates to the other blogs, so those handful of people who are at all interested can just check here. Sound fair? Then here we go.