Indecision 2008, Indeed

I'm not even certain I'm going to post this—it has more the character of a mental exercise than anything particularly useful to share. And I realize that by posting it I'm inviting the whirlwind onto my blog space.

But perhaps others can weigh in and sway me. Honestly, I'm in complete confusion when it comes to my vote for the presidency these days. I've been reading articles on the "undecided voter" which suggest that such folks are either (A) uneducated and therefore simply unable to process which way they ought to vote, or (B) secretly do know which way they will vote and just don't want to say. I don't think I'm uneducated, and I'm certainly not coy enough to play dumb. I just cannot make a decision that satisfies me.

For some folks, I know this choice is easy. The moral stance of McCain is, in many ways, a better fit for my own. But I do not know if I can, in good conscience, vote for a candidate whose morals match mine but whose leadership I doubt gravely, and whose choice of a running mate has continued to depress me more with each passing day. If Sarah Palin's style of "golly gee," simplistic, vitriolic, petty, and unprepared "from the cuff" leadership style is the future of the Republican party, I'm glad I abandoned ship for the independent label a long time ago. I am honestly scared about where our nation will head if the McCain/Palin ticket is sworn into office. I liked John McCain eight years ago—now he seems only a hollow simulacrum of that man, whose simplistic talking points, seeming inability to speak substantively, ineloquence, stubbornness, and short-sightedness frankly give me serious pause. I do not like the look of the world promised by McCain, and I have been sorely disappointed by the ugly tone of his campaign.

I do have concerns about Obama's inexperience, but after reading his book and listening to him, I think he is the far more reassuring leader. His stances on many social issues̶healthcare, taxation, the environment—match mine far better than McCain's. (And yes, I know that will come as a shock to many—or maybe not—but there it is.) And I admit that a spirit of optimism and bipartisanship appeals to me far more than McCain's brand of hard-edged fear. Obama's inspirational abilities, as well as his intelligent and thoughtful handling of issues, gives me far more confidence in his leadership abilities.

So why not just swing with Obama if he's so much more appealing? A couple of issues still nag. One is abortion. I am not a single-issue voter (obviously), but it is one of the more serious issues facing us, and McCain's stance is the right one. But, if Obama is to be believed, I am very impressed with his stance that, though abortion may be a woman's right in his opinion, he wants to work to reduce the number of abortions as far as possible. That stance seems more useful than absolute refusal to engage in the debate, leaving things just as they are now. (And I admit to being disappointed that social conservatives can tow the [again, correct] hard line against abortion, but do so little by way of assisting young mothers and children in difficulty.) Given that we are looking at an even more vast Democratic majority in the House and Senate, the president seems unlikely to have much chance to change abortion policy in any case.

The only other issue of note at the moment is the appointment of Supreme Court judges; I suspect I would approve more of McCain's appointments (assuming they made it to the bench through the tedious and partisan confirmation process) than Obama's. That is another serious consideration, but again, I am trying to balance that out against what I suspect would be a painful four years in which the discourse of the nation would become uglier and our nation's greatness lessened.

There's also this lingering suspicion that Obama might be the herald of the Antichrist, being so charismatic and all, but I don't know if that's a voting issue (and if it is, might as well usher in the End Times now, eh?).

I really ought to be writing for NaNoWriMo at the moment, but this has been bouncing about in my brain for too long, and I wanted to free it. I don't but doubt that my friends could have much to say on this subject, and there are far more detailed analyses to be made of the issues, but I solicit any (well reasoned and even-tempered) advice that anyone can offer before Tuesday. (Of course, given the poll numbers, it may not make much difference. But it just might...)

The True Meaning of Halloween

This doesn't in any way replace a "real" post, and I've been meaning to get on here and ask your help in deciding which presidential candidate I should dislike the least, but I found this video and it was too delightful to pass up. (Even if it's not your cup of tea, it's worth watching to the end.)


In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

We should do it for the children.

Red Tagged

I dunno—I just wanted a clever name for the post.

Frodo over at Mystery Cycles tagged me, and so I shall, sheeplike, follow. More people should do this kind of thing: even though it wastes just as much time and effort as an original post, it feels much easier.

Here are the rules:
1.Post the rules on your blog
2.Write 6 random things about yourself
3.Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4.If you are tagged, just do it, and pass the tag along!

1. I am, and have constantly been for most of my life, obsessed with finding "wilderness"—that is, areas untouched by man. I am coming to realize that I'm really looking for areas only lightly touched by man; in a totally wild area I'd probably be dead within a week. But I've always been saddened to think that there are no unmapped areas in our world, and few places man has not set his foot. I think this is part of why I've always loved fog: not only does it bespeak of the foul weather and cold temperatures I love, but also lends the world an air of mystery, of hidden-ness, the sense that there is much more out there than the normal pathways you tread. Even in my own house, the fog makes me feel isolated, independent, and somehow more alive.
   
   And that's at least a large part of my hiking obsession as well: the quest to find places where we have not marred the landscape beyond a simple trail. That there are so few of these areas left is a constant sorrow to me. I was reminded of this again when I came across a passage in John McPhee's Coming into the Country, about his collection of essays on Alaska. On meeting a grizzly in the woods, he says this:
   

   What mattered was not so much the bear himself as what the bear implied. He was the predominant thing in that country, and for him to be in it at all meant that there had to be more country like it in every direction and more of the same kind of country all around. He implied a world.

   
   That's at least part of what draws my heart northward. Here in Southern California, there just do not exist such places. On a narrow ridge of arid mountain, surrounded by city on all sides, it feels like we exist on an island of nature amidst urban seas, and their effluvia pollutes us. I thank God I live on that island rather than down in the muck, but still...


2. It strikes me that point Number 1 up there is self-serving, self-pitying, annoyingly mannered, and pointlessly baroque. That's how most of my writing strikes me, which is perhaps why I have such trouble with it. I cannot for the life of me figure out why something I profess to want to do, that I feel called to do, that has taken up so much of my breathing and thinking and desiring for so long, is something I cannot make myself do without threats and desperation. How can that be? Have I just convinced myself that I "should" be a writer, to the point that I can't let go of it? Is there any other pursuit that one must chain oneself to to get it done? Am I kidding myself?
   
   Rose is a gorgeous singer, and this semester at school she's taking a voice class. She loves going to class; she loves the practice; she loves the performances (or will do, when they come up next month). She doesn't claim to want to be a singer but constantly find other ways to amuse herself instead of practicing; she doesn't whine about how she wants to be professional singer but then refuse to actually pursue singing; she doesn't say that she's called to sing and then make constant excuses for doing anything but sing, or claim her job is "too hard" to leave her any time for singing.
   
   Something's not right here.


3. I appreciate climate control as much as the next person, but my office is so cold that I'm wearing a jacket at the moment and I keep making typing mistakes because I'm shivering and my fingers feel numb. Really, people—let the natural temperature have precedence once in a while, or at least TURN DOWN THE BLASTED AIR CONDITIONING.


4. As life continues I feel slightly more able at manual tasks that are required of me (i.e.: wielding a chainsaw, building a block wall, changing oil in the car), yet I'm constantly reminded of (a) how few things that really constitutes; (b) the many, many tasks that I cannot figure out (i.e.: fixing my leaking faucet, building stairs to my currently unusable back porch, locating my now-buried water main); and (c) how even those things I have learned I cannot reliably repeat because I don't do them often enough. I want to be a grown-up.


5. I'm putting way too much thought into coming up with random thoughts, which kind of describes much of my approach to life. I cannot recall what show it was on, but in one sitcom a character is being derided for not being spontaneous. His response was along the lines of, "I like spontaneity, as long as it's controlled and planned out ahead of time." That's me, and that makes me sad.


6. I love the wind: the feeling of air rushing along my skin and ruffling my clothes, the sound of it roaring through the trees, the squall and scatter it causes on the ground. But nowadays that love it tainted with a constant fear of wildfire, and I find myself scanning the mountains every time I walk to or from class, looking for a line of smoke and wondering if we're going to get evacuated again. That's life in the West these days, I suppose.

I hesitate to post this at all—it seems my "random" thoughts today are taken up with the angry. This is the most complain-y thing I've put up for a long time, and it's just a kind of "blah" cycle, or an attack, or something. I was actually feeling pretty good this morning... Thanks a heap for tagging me and bringing up these painful thoughts, Frodo!

Oh—the people to whom I'm passing on this cursed electronic virus called tagging:

Slater
My Sis
Matt the Fox
Corrina
The Esteemed Mrs. Miller
Katie ('cause the last time she wrote was the last time I tagged her...)

I'm going to go teach. *grump*

Hope and Patience

Two things in short supply in my life at the moment.

We're in the midst of homeschool (since Rose [Joanna's code name, if mine is Samwise] is taking a voice class on Fridays and so is gone all day). So I've been running things during her absence for the last couple of weeks.

Legolas, if you're reading this: this is absolute confirmation that I should not teach second or third grade. Ever.

How Rose manages to keep her brain in one piece between cleaning, keeping Denver and Poncho on track, and keeping an eye on Born Dancin', I'll never know. I already knew it was an incredibly hard job, but sheesh. One kid is lolling out on the table, daydreaming; the other is tapping out mysterious rhythms with his pencil, and Born Dancin' has just emptied her water cup all over the living room carpet. Oh, yeah. Bring it on.

So I haven't posted forever, and I make no promises as to how often I'll pick it up again now. I'm trying to pare down things in my life as it is, and much as I love reading other people's blogs and feel free to chastise them for not posting, I'm coming to either (a) resent feeling guilty for not posting, and/or (b) spending too much time figuring out what I'm going to post. I've got endless amounts of other writing to do, and I've already given up World of Warcraft (only took me 3 months to come to rue buying that thing—entertaining time-waster extraordinaire) and other minor annoyances; most likely, we'll be getting rid of TV again this week. So I'll see you on here when I do.

Meanwhile, here's the wrap-up for the summer:

• Sequoia Camping—Our trip to the Sequoia National Monument went very well, despite a ten-hour drive home thanks to insane traffic. It was lovely up there, and, like a miracle, the fish-stocking folk from the Forest Service showed up again, netting us about 18 fish among the ten of us. Now the kids really do expect that is what fishing is like.


• Idaho—The long journey to Idaho was pretty fantastic. I'm always a fan of road trips, and the drive was excellent. We stopped by the Slaters' gorgeous house and had a blast for two days meandering through their idyllic country landscape at the foot of the Sierras. Grass Valley is a lovely place.
  
  Then it was on over the mountains to Nevada (and my deepest apologies to anyone who actually has to live there), then up through a corner of Oregon and on into Idaho. It was delightful to see the sister for a good solid week, though I think we wore her out and I can imagine the quiet after we departed was appreciated. We got to raft the river, go to a host of tasty restaurants, watch Grandma squirm while watching nature documentaries about cave lice and eyeless fish, and hang out among the charming Idahoans. We even got to visit my pseudo-relatives up in McCall, where I would move instantaneously if given the opportunity.
  
  The drive home was a little crazy and we got home one day before summer school started, but overall it was a lovely trip.


• Summer School—Speaking of summer school, don't.
  
  Eurgh. Due to issues with The Great Wall (discussed below), summer school was a kind of hell this year. I was behind constantly, missed too much class time, and basically felt as if I had been hollowed out and filled with poisonous millipedes all summer. It was a joy to be done, but some of the students still haunt me into this new semester.


• The Great Wall—Replacing our retaining wall has been the largest, most terrifying project I've ever taken on, and for several weeks there I thought we would literally be buried alive. Doing it ourselves was our only option (since our original contractor so severely underbid the job that we didn't have the funds to get professionals to do it). It seemed possible, but 100 feet of 4-foot wall was a monster. When the neighbors' yard filled up with pallet after pallet of 60-pound bricks, I almost fainted. God be praised, the army of friends and relatives mentioned in my previous post showed up to lend a hand, and through several weeks of toil, the vast majority of the wall arose. Yesterday we got the last load of capstones and I'll spend this weekend trying to finish the beast off to some extent. Now we just have to figure out how to get some stairs in here from the street...
  
  Oh—I forgot a couple of folks from my earlier list of helpers. Rose's sister and our niece and nephew spent at least one afternoon here lending a hand, and our former neighbor Debra spent so much time here in the early weeks of construction that I nearly forgot she didn't live here. Many thanks to them as well.


• The Neighborhood—Speaking of neighbors, don't.
  
  After having the house next door stand empty for half a year after the Claypools left, we got a herd of new people. Eight people in a house built for half that many. They're an interesting bunch. On first glance, the multiple tattoos, the incessant smoking, the fairly constant profanity, and the fleet of off-road vehicles did not inspire confidence. When the sheriff's officers showed up and had two of them on the ground in handcuffs with weapons drawn on the others, this did not improve our impression (Thankfully, this was mostly a misunderstanding, since someone had come and threatened them. Still, though...) However, they've proven to be very generous and easygoing folk, which was a blessing while we had their yard buried in bricks and since we have to tromp across their property to reach our house. Not an ideal situation, perhaps, but we're working things out. A lot of mental pressure there, whatever the case.


• The Present—(It ends soon, I promise.) So Fall semester is in full swing, and I feel more on top of things than I have for a while. (I'm still not anything like caught up, but I'm less behind than I have been lately.) I'm working on a murder party for my niece's 16th birthday, and I'm way behind on that. I dream daily of doing my own writing again (on the fancy new computer my wife brought back with her from her trip to Indiana for a week—all the children made it in one piece, which was a bonus) and not having much time to is frustrating. (And don't go pointing out that I could have done that rather than post here—this post has been cobbled together piecemeal over the last six hours whenever there was a pause in the homeschool regimen.) The yearning for a new place, for grasping a purpose and a plan beyond day-to-day survival is burning hot in me, and in Rose to some extent as well.

And that's about it. A giagantor post, but at least it's all out of my head now. I'll pop back in when I can, and God bless in the meantime to all my readers and fellow blogiteers.

Because This Is Easier than a Real Blog Post

First, I wanted to give my endless gratitude for all those who came and took a turn slaving on the Great Wall. It's now mostly finished, with just capstones and one tricky corner left to tackle. Most of the bricks are out of the neighbors' yard, and though the house is still a catastrophe, at least there isn't an insurmountable project hanging over us. So many, many thanks to Holly and Joseph, to Herr Eldevik, to Ben and Debbie, to Gimli and Frodo, and to my old man for helping out in various and highly needed ways.

Now, on to the easy bit:


From the blog, Very Good Taste

Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.


My results:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (Well, actually, alligator, but I consider another large, water-borne reptile close enough)
6. Black pudding (Ah, British cuisine... Bring it on.)
7. Cheese fondue (Is there anyone born in '70s America who hasn't had this?)
8. Carp
9. Borscht (Not quite stroganoff, but still good stuff.)
10. Baba ghanoush (I'm kind of shocked I haven't had this yet.)
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi (I might have had this at one of my visits to Indian restaurants in England, but if I can't remember for certain, I won't claim it. Sounds yummy.)
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses (Man—why haven't I had this yet?)
17. Black truffle (I wish.)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns (Huzzah for dim sum!)
20. Pistachio ice cream (But why pistachio? Is it magic or something?)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (Stealing blackberries from the neighbor's yard is fun.)
23. Foie gras (A bit cruel, but what can you do?)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (Can't say I'm all eager, but I'd give it a shot.)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (Wowsers!)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters (Actually haven't had these; again, I'm not going to run out and find them [especially after watching Mr. Bean eat them], but I'd try them out.)
29. Baklava (Oh, mama.)
30. Bagna cauda (Sounds yum.)
31. Wasabi peas (Though I can't imagine eating one again.)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (Yes!)
33. Salted lassi (Sounds weird, but okay.)
34. Sauerkraut (I don't generally eat it unless threatened, however.)
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (Sadly, not at the same time. Have to rectify that.)
37. Clotted cream tea (Oh, man. Don't get me started on clotted cream.)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (Never did a shooter. Can't quite see the point, since drunkenness is not my aim.)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (Do yourself a favor: eat this.)
41. Curried goat (Smelled it every day coming out of our apartment in Toronto, but never actually got around to eating it.)
42. Whole insects (On purpose? If pressed, I suppose.)
43. Phaal (Holy moly. Well, okay.)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (Not as of yet, but I'd sign on.)
46. Fugu (More of a legend than a dish; there's no way I'd ever afford this, but if someone I knew and trusted gave me some, okay.)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel (They used to raise these by the ton in the canals of Edinburgh, so how could I say no?)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (Waaay too sweet, but I've eaten them, yes.)
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi (Gah. Our Japanese exchange student had us try these, and laughed his head off at our reactions. If you like squishy, slimy balls of salt, knock yourself out.)
53. Abalone (Ah, but they weren't illegal when I was a boy. Not bad.)
54. Paneer (If it's cheese, please put it into my mouth.)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (Sadly, yes. Many a time.)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (Never done the martini thing. Gin and tonic works wonders, though, save that it puts me to sleep almost instantly.)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (I'd try it, but I'm no fan of beer.)
59. Poutine (Sounds like we're making a road trip now.)
60. Carob chips (Not sure why you'd want to, but yes.)
61. S’mores (Too sweet and messy. I eat the components separately, usually.)
62. Sweetbreads (Meh. Why not? Might take some mental gymnastics, but I'd put it in my mouth.)
63. Kaolin (This the one I came closest to crossing off. Just... Why? If you are not poor and mineral deficient or pregnant, then why?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian (Heard of this one—Guess I'd have to smell it to know for sure.)
66. Frogs’ legs (I'm pretty positive we had these in the South somewhere; if not, I'm still in.)
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (Yes, please.)
68. Haggis (So want to try this, and so jealous of all the Burns Dinner folks. Joanna wasn't quite up to it, though.)
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (Sir, I'll have you know that chitterlings kept my family alive during the War!)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (Not at the same time, though. Blini, yes—always. Caviar, only in tiny bits—in the immortal words of Scott Nelson, "It's like licking a pier.")
73. Louche absinthe (After watching Moulin Rouge, who wouldn't want to try this? Wee little Kylie Minogue fairy, here I come!)
74. Gjetost, or brunost (Cheese, so yes, please.)
75. Roadkill (Not yet, but kill a deer with a bullet or a bumper—it's all good.)
76. Baijiu (Don't see why not.)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (I sometimes suffer cravings that can only be satisfied by a Fruit Pie the Magician apple infusion.)
78. Snail (Eating escargot is like eating a sponge full of garlic butter.)
79. Lapsang souchong (Sounds excellent.)
80. Bellini (The Italian physicist? Oh, the drink. Well, sure.)
81. Tom yum (Getting past the prawn head would be the challenge, yes.)
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky (Heard of it, even seen it, but never had any of it.)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (I wish.)
85. Kobe beef (Again, I wish.)
86. Hare (Not yet. Rabbit's fine, but I hear this is a different beast entirely. Never got over to Wales for the rarebit.)
87. Goulash (Oh, yes.)
88. Flowers (Candied orchids at my Elizabethan murder party. Tasty, if a bit chewy. Also, we used to eat the vinka flowers from the garden.)
89. Horse (Garrett swears up and down that this is fantastic; I'd give it a try.)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (Are you kidding, Marilyn? A little fried Spam is heaven for breakfast. Or a lot of fried Spam. Spam eggs Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam and Spam for me!)
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (More willing to try this as my taste for hot things grows.)
94. Catfish (Not my favorite.)
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox (Once. Not again, save under duress.)
97. Lobster Thermidor (Oh, I wish.)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (Any coffee is good coffee.)
100. Snake (Rattlesnake is fine.)

Amidst the Sound of Jackhammers

You know, I'm going to coin a new phrase, meant to be used along the lines of, "Life is like a box of chocolates," only hopefully less inane. Mine runs like this:

You never know that your house's previous owners have filled the hollows of your retaining wall with cement until you begin to tear it down.

Life here is full of dust and madness as we attempt to tear down all our old walls and put up new, hopefully so that the hillside does not slide down and crush us all this winter. And once we started the demolition, we discovered that every space inside each block our apparently mortarless walls was filled with a solid column of concrete, with a nice little strand of rebar through the middle. Meaning that it was very strong, until it started to fail, and now it's just hellacious to break through. We've had to hire a couple of guys to come in with jackhammers to try and get the thing down. Meanwhile, I'm the pick-up-discarded-chunks-of-wall-and-cart-them-away guy, and it's never been more apparent that I'm a soft, flabby white teacher. I'm just on a break from that job now, and I had best get back.

Though our crisis is nowhere near on the level that so many others seem to be going through with family, health, job, and such issues, a prayer or two winged our way would not go amiss. I'll try to get some "before" pictures up so that the "after" pictures one day may have context.

Oh--and I have to grade in here, somewhere. Yeesh.

Back to hauling blocks!

This Comes as a Surprise to No One

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause. Batman, the Dark Knight 79% Neo, the "One" 67% Maximus 58% Indiana Jones 58% William Wallace 58% Lara Croft 54% El Zorro 54% Captain Jack Sparrow 50% James Bond, Agent 007 46% The Terminator 42% The Amazing Spider-Man 42%

We are alive and having a wild, crazy summer; I'll try to put up a real post soon.

Up-to-the-Minute Update

Just thought I'd drop in to apologize for not posting for so long and to try to catch you all up on what a mass of insanity our lives have been, and what insanity lies ahead. At least ours has been mostly self-chosen and positive.

So, the past couple of weeks have included

• The end of the semester for me, including trying to deal with a student who plagiarized a paper, was given a second chance (a circumstance that will not be repeated for any future students), and plagiarized a second time


• The boys ending school, freeing them up to be wild monkeys on a full-time basis


• A Cub Scout hike/campout dinner, at which the boys graduated to being Wolf Scouts (for those of you out of the Cub Scout loop for some years, there are now four gradations: Bobcat, Tiger, Wolf, and Bear. I am convinced that these were added in order to make parents pay for four sets of hats, belt buckles, neckerchiefs, and slides during their sons' Cub Scout career). Also, Born Dancin' once again showed her propensity to become instantly covered in grime (in this case, a combination of dirt, popcorn cheese, fried chicken grease, and s'mores)


• Speaking of, Born Dancin' turned three last week, and we had her birthday party today during which she showed her propensity to become instantly covered in grime (in this case, a combination of bubble gum and stolen lollypops, bubble blowing solution, sand, dirt, and Play-Dough)


• I attended the Audio Publishers Association conference (thanks to all the generous contributors who got me there), and it was pretty great. I spent the day trying to chat up audio publishers and fellow narrators, and there were some excellent panel discussions and demonstrations. It was much better than I thought it might be—now I just need to get my demo shaped up and sent out. Pippin is helping me with my website and has up my current demo if you want a listen. (I may add a track or two, if I can get my wee home recording set-up to emulate the fancy-pants recording studio within which the original tracks were recorded


• As Frodo reported, I have brought the evil that is World of Warcraft into my home, and had the audacity to drag several of those I care about with me. Now Gimli, Frodo, Joanna, and I have played many an hour. Thankfully, the charm is starting to wear off, so I can occasionally drag myself away.


• I'm beginning to work on the murder party my niece requested for her sixteenth birthday. It's a Civil War affair (actually, I'm setting it in the Reconstruction, just so's we don't have to have people kill one another instantly), and I've never done such a thing for teenagers before, so it's challenging but interesting

Now, given all that, if the summer held the promise of some cooling-down time and relaxation, some broad swaths of calm, that would be nice. But a partial list of the schedule for the coming months:

• We leave tomorrow for five days of camping in the Sequoias with a friend's family. It's a beautiful spot and a fun trip, but always exhausting. Born Dancin', no doubt, will display her propensity to become instantly covered in grime, several times a day


• When we return, we'll have four days, and then we pile everyone back in the ol' minivan to head up first to Pippin's house for a day or so, and then on to Kathie's place for almost two weeks. She thinks she's ready for this; we shall see. I know that will be a great time, and it'll be terrific to finally see this new palatial mansion she's moved in to. If that "bonus room" isn't the bee's knees, I shall be sorely put out


• We'll get back just a couple of days before summer school starts, so that will keep me pretty well booked for six weeks. It'll be hard to get back into the swing of things since I took last summer off


• Partway through July comes a Cub Scout camp, which will be intense but fun; then a trip to Mammoth with the folks, because how can you turn down Mammoth?


• August brings us to the end of summer school and Joanna heading back east to visit her family and friends for a week, leaving me with solo dad duty. It'll definitely be the longest either of us has been away all at once, and by far the longest we've been without mom (though she was away with Born Dancin' nearly that long a couple of years ago), so it'll be an educational experience for us all, no doubt


• Denver and Poncho turn seven in August as well, so there'll be birthday madness to plan all over again. Thanks to watching Mommy and Daddy play World of Warcraft, no doubt they'll want a Tauren and Draenei party (though, given their almost-seven-year-old natures, that's likely to change a dozen times in the next two months)


• And then, one week after summer school ends, the fall semester begins in mid-August. Egads.

So that's what's up at the Slusser household. If you don't hear from me often over the summer, you'll know why, but I'll certainly be trying to put forth a better effort once we return from the wilderness.

Digging Out

Still working on that ol' grading. I'll have to give some thoughts to Ornery's Wife's question from my last post. It's a toughie.

Meanwhile, because Eowyn posted a song on her blog, I thought I'd do the same here. Behold the delight that is "The Future Soon," by Jonathan Coulton as posted on YouTube and animated using World of Warcraft machinima by Spiffworld:



This was far too close to many of my junior high fantasies. Oh, if only Amy Farrell could have known all that I had planned, maybe she wouldn't have been so cruel...

I was put onto these videos by Frodo; if you enjoyed that, make sure to check out some of his others. I particularly recommend "Skullcrusher Mountain", "re: Your Brains", "Creepy Doll", and "Chiron Beta Prime". Great stuff.

Also, thought they're odd and disturbing, I can't help laughing at the entire series of videos under the title of The Potter Puppet Pals, which I was introduced to via this strange video:



There are several more, all of which are well worth wasting your time on.

But enough of time wasting for me! Back to grading!

Opportunity, Opinion, and Oath

Three things today:

1. Thanks to the generous donations of several wonderful folks, I will be attending the Audio Publishers Association conferences at the end of this month; in fact, due to their pricing schedule, I am now an official member of the APA as a voice talent (so I can attend their swanky mixers in New York someday). Many thanks to those who sent their support and prayers my way; now I need prayer that great things will come of it, and that I'll have the courage to actually (gulp!) talk to people...


2. I know I ramble on here a good bit about teaching and all its tribulations. If you want a real look at what the job is like, I cannot recommend enough reading this article, sent to me by an instructor friend who knows whereof he speaks. Save for the fact that I'm not an adjunct instructor (thank you, Lord), this article is so eerily on target that it's like "Professor X" crawled inside my life... I had a "Ms. L" just this semester, in fact. And I can't shake that the professor's thoughts on universal college attendance are dead on.


3. My finals were given last Friday, so though the mountain of grading still looms over me, I am at last free of the need to actually instruct for some time. More important, this opens up my schedule enough that I can finally write again. I am vowing to do so every day, because I need to do so. I am excited and worried all over again, almost as though I was starting over from scratch, save that I've got a good 2/3 of the novel already laid down. Discipline is my watchword.

Simple Things

First off, if you like Veggie Tales or are interested in producing Christian media content, or you just want a good read, go check out Phil Vischer's website. I wandered over there yesterday (prompted by something I cannot remember) because I've always wondered about those rumors I'd heard about Phil and Big Idea Productions going bankrupt and lawsuits with distributors and such. Phil has a thorough description of all those things (somewhat long, but very engagingly written—apparently he wrote a book, Me, Myself, and Bob, which details the experience more fully), as well as news on what he's up to now, the state of Christian media in general, and other interesting oddities.

While reading his post about what he's working on, he mentioned an idea that is very popular and shows up in all kinds of places: finding your calling. And, of course, I'm always talking on about calling on here. For whatever reason, the very simple way he talked about his own journey struck home to me (even though it is basic to a lot of programs—heck, even LGCC had their SHAPE class that covered the same thing). In two paragraphs, he talked about his own burden (what he had a heart to do) and his gifting (what talents he had). That intersection, he suggested, was his ministry.

It can take me a long time to figure things out, I know, but that clicked in my head.

So I share just my jottings in response to that (very rough and off the top of my head). I don't know what they mean, or they point toward exactly, or anything, but the rumination is going on.

What is my burden?

I want to show that God is relevant and satisfyingly complex in the worlds of artistry and academics. The art and writing made by His people, for His people and the world at large, can be of a quality as great or greater than that produced by the secular world. I want people to be swept up into stories and experiences larger than themselves and to be given hope and delight and vision and passion and encouragement on their journey.

What is my gifting?

Writing. Storytelling. Creativity. Research. World-building. Humor. Academics.

That's all I've got right now.

Man and Animal

It was a crazy weekend, full of family events (Joanna's folks on Friday, the new Andy and Christina Glenn's wedding on Saturday, and my parents and grandparents on Sunday. (And you haven't lived until you've seen my grandparents bowl on the Wii, or mom nearly wetting herself laughing at my grandparents bowl on the Wii.)

The "Man" in the title refers to my dump-running escapade on Saturday. The Hazardous Waste Disposal people were up at Heap's Peak on Saturday, so I figured I needed to run over all that oil I drained out of the cars last month. That turned into an all-day event of emptying out the van, loading it up with all the wood from our recent home projects (removing the old gas wall heater, replacing the back door, replacing the toilet in the boys' bathroom, tearing down the old, useless compost bin), cutting the old back door, unused closet doors, and broken tables in half with a chainsaw (whoo hoo!), dragging out the pounds and pounds of shards from our glass patio table that shattered in the winds this past winter, and a few cubic yards of other junk, and hauling it away. It was good to get the yard and back porch cleared out, and though it took no skill at all, it was sort of empowering anyway.

The "Animal" part comes from the menagerie that passed through our yard this weekend. I came home from the two-hour cleaning of the van after the dump run to see this:

Yes, indeed: a three-foot tall peahen was strutting through our front yard and honking at me.

We called up the animal rescue folks and were contemplating how to catch a bird that big (a bed sheet and a trash can were being considered) when we discovered that it in fact lives with our neighbor. I can't say he "owns" the bird because it adopted him. He keeps chickens under his deck, and one day about a year ago the peahen just showed up and has been living with them ever since. Apparently, some folks in Lake Arrowhead keep them around their grounds for atmosphere (driving the neighbors crazy); my guess is this is an escapee. Why she never showed up in our yard before, or even made a noise we heard, I cannot say.

Then, on Saturday night, our bear came through. (I don't know which of the half-dozen bears we've seen in the past few years it might be, but we feel a sense of ownership.) Of course, he dumped over all our garbage cans and spread the trash far and wide; this time, he also visited our new compost bin, knocking it a few feet off its base and emptying the thing out. (I can imagine a bear eating some of the leftovers, but even most of the potting soil was gone—do bears eat dirt regularly?)

Isn't all that interesting? It was to me, so therefore I assume it was for you, too. You're welcome.

Swimming for the Surface

I meant to post yesterday, but between getting back into the swing of things after a weekend away, being under a pile of grading, and having the Raingutter Regatta last night, it just didn't happen. I've been wiped out enough to fall asleep while trying to put Born Dancin' down, which has been unfortunate, though I suppose I needed the sleep.

The weekend went pretty well. I hadn't had much real contact with—and certainly no classes on—the audiobook industry for nearly three years, and a huge amount has changed in the industry. The upshot was good and bad news (mostly good for me): because of the upsurge in downloadable audiobooks (the industry's growing at about 35% a year, compared to about 6% for traditional audio), fees paid to readers are down—but the number of readers needed is increasing rapidly. We had much talk of the industry and the changing role of the narrators in the business; we also got to get into the studio to record under 3 different directors. I ended up doing trimmed-down versions of the earlier-listed excerpts from Thomas the Rhymer (directed by Pat, who helped me work out the voice separation and counseled me that it was a "girl book"), East of Eden (directed by Hillary, who liked it and could make me flatten out my read so that Steinbeck is the one who came through, not me), and Buttercup's Baby (directed by Stephan Rudnicki, who's a huge name in the industry and by far the most direct and uncompromising director we had, but who liked my reading). In a week or two I should get the edited demo from Pat and Pippin avows to put it up on my website so y'all can take a listen. No job offers were forthcoming (though I'm still praying on that score), but it was an encouraging time. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get out to the Audio Publishers Association Conference at the end of this month (which is a big deal and a great place to make contacts, and only shows up in LA once every few years, but which costs an arm and at least part of a leg to get in).

Sadly, now I must return to my actual work. Two weeks until the end of the semester (public school teachers, don't hate me) and all the joy (at the short duration) and pain (at the vast workload before it's all over) that brings. I'm off to jump on that right now.

Choices, Choices

So here they are: in my typical overwrought fashion, I have managed to find 30 excerpts that might be possible for this upcoming weekend.

And, of course, I am only allowed 4.

It's your chance to cast your vote—I'd love to hear which of these were most interesting to folks outside of my head. (Joanna, for instance, found some of my early potential choices less than interesting. Whatever.) I've marked my current favorites with a "†", but I'm not married to them. Some of these are probably crazy, but all of them are hopefully interesting. And yes, these are edited and reworked; for the demo, that is acceptable. If I've eviscerated your favorite piece of prose, I apologize, but I can't go over 60 seconds. Think of it as a movie trailer, but for a book.

A couple of those guidelines for the selections:

1. At least one should be first-person, and at least one should be third-person;


2. One should feature back-and-forth dialogue;


3. I'd like one non-fiction piece, but probably not more than one (The non-fiction pieces are at the end, beginning with Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories");


4. If you're tossed up between a British piece and an American one, go American;


5. The excerpt need not be a self-contained story, but it should be engaging and make you want to hear more.

List your favorites in the comments by about 5pm tomorrow (or later today, Friday, May 2, by the time I post this), and you may get a say in my future career!

Thanks in advance, all.

• From East of Eden, by John Steinbeck:†
  

  He could hear her moving quietly about behind the door. A drawer was opened, and the thought leaped in him—she's going to stay.
  
  When her voice came, it was so near that he jerked his head back. “Dear,” she said softly, “I didn't know you would take it so. I'm sorry, Adam.”
  
  His hand trembled, trying to turn the key, and it fell out on the floor. He pushed the door open. She stood three feet away. In her right hand she held his .44 Colt, and the black hole in the barrel pointed at him. He saw the hammer was back.
  
  She shot him. The heavy slug struck him in the shoulder. The flash and roar smothered him, and he staggered back and fell to the floor. She moved slowly toward him, cautiously, as she might toward a wounded animal. Her eyes inspected him impersonally. Then she tossed the pistol on the floor beside him and walked out of the house.



• From Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock:†
  

  Christian crouched back down in the ditch. “It's part boar, part man, elements of other beasts from the wildwood. But it's the old man's mythago. Oh God, how he must have hated us to have imposed such terror on the thing.”
  
  A moment later, he said, “When you run, run for the edge. Don't stop. And when you get out of the wood, don't come back. There is no way out for me, now. I'm trapped in this wood as surely as if I were a mythago myself. Don't come back here, Steve.”
  
  “Chris—” I began, but it was too late. He had thrown back the covering and was running. Moments later the enormous shape passed overhead, one huge, black foot landing just inches from me and passing by in a split second. But as I scrambled from the hole and began to run I glanced back and the creature, hearing me, glanced back too; and in that instant, I saw the face that had been painted across the blackened features of the boar.
  
  The Urscumug opened its mouth to roar, and my father seemed to leer at me.



• From Buttercup's Baby, by William Goldman:†
  

  The country of Despair was hard to find on the map, not because cartographers didn't know of its existence, but because when they visited to measure its borders, they became so depressed they began to drink and question everything, most notably why would anyone want to be a stupid cartographer? Since wars were always changing boundaries, why bother? There grew up, then, a gentleman's agreement among mapmakers to keep the place secret, lest tourists flock there and die.
  
  Everything about Despair was depressing. Nothing grew in the ground and what fell from the skies did not provoke happy conversation. The entire country was damp and dank, and why the locals did not all flee was not only a good question, it was the only question. Locals talked about nothing else. “Why don't we move?” husbands would say to wives, and wives would answer, “God, I don't know, let's,” and children would jump and shout, “Hooray hooray, we're out of here,” but then nothing would happen. There was comfort in knowing that things couldn't get any worse. “We have endured everything,” locals would tell themselves. “Whereas if we pick up and go, say, to Paris, we would get gout and be insulted by Parisians all day.”



• From “Some of Us Have Been Threatening Our Friend Colby,” by Donald Barthelme:
  

  Some of us have been threatening our friend Colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him. Colby argued that just because he had gone too far did not mean he should be subjected to hanging. Going too far, he said, was something everybody did sometimes. We didn't pay much attention to this argument. We asked him what sort of music he would like played at his hanging. He said he'd think about it but it would take him a while to decide. I pointed out that we'd have to know soon, because Howard, who is a conductor, would have to hire and rehearse the musicians and he couldn't begin until he knew what the music was going to be. Colby said he'd always been fond of Ives' Fourth Symphony. Howard said that this was a “delaying tactic” and that everybody knew that Ives was almost impossible to perform and would involve weeks of rehearsal, and that the size of the orchestra and chorus would put us way over the music budget. “Be reasonable,” he said to Colby. Colby said he's try to think of something a little less exacting.



• From “The Blue Flame of Vengeance,” by Robert Howard:
  

  The man's face was long, smooth-shaven and of a strange dark pallor which together with the sunken cheeks lent him an almost corpse-like appearance—until one looked at the eyes. These gleamed with vibrant life and dynamic vitality, pent deep and ironly controlled.
  
  The stranger's clothing was severely plain. His hat was a black slouch, featherless. From heel to neck he was clad in close-fitting garments of sombre hue, unrelieved by any ornament or jewel, only broken by a wide silk sash of Oriental workmanship knotted about his waist. Its color was a sinister virulent green, and from it projected a dark hilt and the black butts of two heavy pistols.
  
  “How came you here?” asked Jack bluntly. “And how is it that I saw you not until you spoke?”
  
  “I came here as all honest men come, young sir,” Solomon Kane answered in a deep voice. “on my two legs—as for the other: men engrossed in their own affairs see neither their friends—to their shame—nor their foes—to their harm.”



• From Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett:
  

  Teppic's mother had been a pleasant woman and as self-centered as a gyroscope. She'd liked cats. She didn't just venerate them—everyone in the kingdom did that—but she actually liked them, too. It was traditional in river kingdoms to approve of cats, but he suspected that usually the animals in question were graceful, stately creatures; his mother's cats were small, spitting, yellow-eyed maniacs.
  
  His father, the pharaoh, spent a lot of time worrying about the kingdom and occasionally declaring that he was a seagull, although this was probably from general forgetfulness. Teppic had often speculated about his own conception, since his parents were rarely in the same frame of reference, let alone the same state of mind.
  
  But it had apparently happened and he was left to bring himself up, mildly hindered and occasionally enlivened by a succession of tutors. The ones hired by his father were best, especially on those days when he was flying as high as he could, and for one glorious winter Teppic had as his tutor an elderly ibis poacher who had in fact wandered into the royal gardens in search of a stray arrow.



• From Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott:
  

  The new champion struck the shield of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight whom he had thus defied to mortal combat.
  
  “Have you confessed yourself, brother,” said the Templar, “and have you heard mass this morning, that you peril your life so frankly?”
  
  “I am fitter to meet death than thou art,” answered the Disinherited Knight.
  
  “Then take your place in the lists,” said Bois-Guilbert, “and look your last upon the sun; for this night thou shalt sleep in paradise.”
  
  “Gramercy for thy courtesy,” replied the Disinherited Knight; “I advise thee to take a fresh horse and a new lance, for by my honor you will need both.”
  
  The trumpets no sooner gave the signal than the champions charged with the speed of lightning, and met with the shock of a thunderbolt. The lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and it seemed that both knights had fallen, for the shock had made each horse recoil backward upon its haunches. But the riders recovered their steeds and each received a fresh lance from the attendants.



• From Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner:
  

  There is no one behind the broken window; only eddies of snow drift across the bare floorboards. The owners of the coats of arms have long since abandoned the claims to the house they crest, and moved up to the Hill. No king rules there any more, for good or ill. From the Hill, Riverside is a tiny splotch between two riverbanks, an unsavory quarter in the prosperous city. The people who live there now like to think of themselves as evil, but they're really no worse than anyone else. And already this morning more than one drop of blood has been shed.
  
  The blood lies now on the snow of a formal winter garden, now trampled and muddy. A man lies dead, the snow filling up the hollows of his eyes, while another man is twisted up, grunting, sweating frog-ponds on the frozen earth, waiting for someone to come and help him. The hero of this little tableau has just vaulted the garden wall and is running like mad into the darkness while the darkness lasts.



• From Thomas the Rhymer, by Ellen Kushner:†
  

  “I am the Queen of Elfland, Thomas.”
  
  “I know,” I heard myself say, my voice thin and tinny in my ears.
  
  “I am not made for your earthly lust,” she said, her white teeth sharp, her eyes cruel with pity. “You were best turn now and walk away.”
  
  I took a step towards her. Her horse was calm and still, cropping grass. She leaned low over the saddle bow.
  
  “Will you have one kiss of me? It will be dearly bought.” Light danced on the sweetness of her lips. “Dare to kiss my lips, and know that your body follows.”
  
  I smiled crookedly, the breath hard in my throat. “That is to be hoped for, is it not?”
  
  “Is it? You will be mine, Thomas. Let me be sure of you.”
  
  I pulled her to my mouth, and tasted fruit and flesh undreamed of. She quenched my thirst, and at the same time filled me with hunger I knew would never leave me. For just one moment my mind cleared as I thought, I am lost.



• From The Gunslinger, by Stephen King:
  

  The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
  
  The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that had cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.



• From “On Fairy-Stories,” by J.R.R. Tolkien:
  

  I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure. Faërie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. And overbold I may be accounted, for though I have been a lover of fairy-stories since I learned to read, I have not studied them professionally. I have been hardly more than a wandering explorer in the land, full of wonder but not of information.
  
  The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of the traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.



• From “On Fairy-Stories,” by J.R.R. Tolkien:
  

  Fantasy is a natural activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific veracity. On the contrary. The keener and clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If ever men could not perceive truth, Fantasy would languish until they were cured.
  
  Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done, be put to evil uses, even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors' own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made in the image and likeness of a Maker.



• From No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty:
  

  When I actually sat down to write my first novel back in 1999, I discovered that my ideas about novel writing were woefully mistaken. You don't need a plot before you write a novel, nor do you need an evocative sense of place or a winsome, engaging cast. You don't need coffee.
  
  What you really need is a secret weapon.
  
  You need a superpowered, diabolical device that will transform you into a bastion of literary accomplishment. And I'm happy to report that this implement is just waiting for you to pick it up.
  
  Without hyperbole, I can say that this tool is the most awesome catalyst that has ever been unleashed on the worlds of art and commerce. Nearly every beautiful and useful thing you've ever touched or witnessed was born in its mighty forge. It's portable, affordable, and nonpolluting.
  
  It's also invisible.
  
  What you need to write a novel, of course, is a deadline.



• From “A Reflection on White Geese,” by Barry Lopez:
  

  The staging of white geese at Tule Lake in northern California in November is one of the most imposing—and dependable—wildlife spectacles in the world. At first one thinks of it only as a phenomenon of numbers—it's been possible in recent years to see as many as three hundred thousand geese here at one time. What a visitor finds startling, however, is the great synchronicity of their movements: the long skeins of white unfurl brilliantly against blue skies and dark cumulonimbus thunderheads, birds riding the towering wash of winds. They rise from the water or fall from the sky with balletic grace, with a booming noise like rattled sheets of corrugated tin, with a furious and unmitigated energy. It is the life of them that takes such hold of you.



• From “A Presentation of Whales,” by Barry Lopez:
  

  The sperm whale is the most awesome creature of the open seas. Imagine a forty-five-year-old male fifty feet long, a slim, shiny black animal with a white jaw and marbled belly cutting the surface of green ocean water at twenty knots. Sunlight sparkles in rivulets running off folds in its corrugated back. At fifty tons it is the largest carnivore on earth. Its massive head, a third of its body length, is scarred with the beak, sucker, and claw marks of giant squid, snatched out of subterranean canyons a mile below, in a region without light, and brought writhing to the surface. Imagine a four-hundred pound heart the size of a chest of drawers driving five gallons of blood at a stroke through its aorta: a meal of forty salmon moving slowly down twelve-hundred feet of intestine; producing sounds more shrill than we can hear—like children shouting on a distant playground.



• From “Against Abolishing Christianity,” by Jonathan Swift:
  

  Another Advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity, is, the clear Gain of one Day in Seven, which is now entirely lost; beside the Loss to the Publick of so many stately Structures now in the Hands of the Clergy; which might be converted into Theatres, Exchanges, Market-houses, and other publick Edifices.
  
  I readily own there hath been an old Custom, for People to assemble in the Churches every Sunday, and that Shops are still frequently shut; in order, as it is conceived, to preserve the Memory of that antient Practice; but how this can prove a Hindrance to Business, or Pleasure, is hard to imagine. Are not the Taverns and Coffee-Houses open? Is not that the chief Day for Traders to sum up the Accounts of the Week; and for Lawyers to prepare their Briefs? But I would fain know how it can be pretended, that the Churches are misapplied. Where are more Appointments and Rendezvouzes of Gallantry? Where more Meetings for Business? Where more Bargains driven of all Sorts? And where so many Conveniences, or Incitements to sleep?

EDIT: So I combed through ditched all those choices that were unworkable, wouldn't be appropriate, or I just wasn't good on with further reading. A wise friend wrote the following message by email: "Are you spending too much time picking and not enough practicing? Pull the trigger, man!" Yes, I suppose I am...

Page Under Construction

So as you can see, there have been some changes around here, prompted by the generous Sir Slater. It's a super-cool look, I think, but it'll take some poking around to get it to sit right. In the meantime, I have grading! There are only three weeks or so left in the semester, and that audio book event is this upcoming weekend, so it's getting to be rather hectic. I'll get to this as soon as possible.

My advice for today: Don't start watching anything about conspiracy theories on YouTube or you'll soon find your whole day sucked away into a world of bizarre weirdness.

Birwhale the Avenger!

I was watching A Bit of Fry & Laurie the other day and saw this sketch, which made me laugh very hard. I fully intend to use this on the boys when they come of age:



Warning: This clip contains the medical term for male genitalia, so make sure your Victorian great aunt isn't in the room when you play it, or she might swoon or come down with the vapors...

Your Advice Solicited!

For my upcoming audio book workshop/demo recording session, I need to come up with four one-minute excerpts to read. The idea is to demonstrate my skills and the kind of works that would be excellent given my reading style and vocal qualities. I'm sitting here with a stack of books, trying to figure out which ones might be best, and I thought I'd enlist your aid in the matter.

If anyone has any ideas of a book that you'd enjoy hearing read in my dulcet tones, I'm all ears to hear about it. (If you haven't heard my dulcet tones for a while, you can give a listen to my wee commercial demo here. [Man, but it's weird to hear that again after many months of pretending it doesn't exist.]) Below is a list of the kinds of works that are most popular in audio format these days:

1. Mystery and Suspense


2. Fiction (New Fiction, Best Seller, Science Fiction)


3. Classic (Fiction or Fact)


4. Nonfiction (Fact, History, Science, Biography, Memoirs, Political)


5. Humor, Poetry and Drama


6. Young Adult (Contemporary, Children's Collections)


7. Instructional (Philosophy, Education, Business, Management)


8. Personal Growth (Self Help, Health, Diet, Exercise, Spiritual, Motivational)

A few other guidelines:

• It doesn't have to be a work no one's recorded before.


• While any work is open, I should probably stick to American works (as the word is that there are plenty of real Brits lined up to record British fiction).


• If you have any suggestions for particular events or passages of the novel that really strike you as being fantastic, that would be excellent to know.


• I'm supposed to find one work with first-person narration, one with third-person, and the third is open (but might be a useful slot for non-fiction).


• If I've read the book, that's a large bonus. (Or, alternatively, if it is a work I could read in the next week or so, that might be manageable as well.)


• If it falls within my purview of specialty (like a non-fiction work about literature, writing, or Christian apologetics, or historical, rural, humor, fantasy, or science fiction on the fiction side), this is also a bonus. On the other hand, I'm probably not going to rock at urban fiction or medical texts, for example.

I will certainly have this together by next weekend in any case, but any clever ideas you people have would be most appreciated, especially because my ability to tell what kind of work would suit my voice is often lacking. I thank you in advance.

My Street Cred Just Went Up

Today I had the privilege of seeing Conspiracy of Thought, our friend Ben Stewart's band, live here at Valley College. (Make sure to check the volume level on your computer before you click that link—it'll automatically start playing one of their songs, and if you have too much bass in your speakers, it might blow out your windows.) It took absolutely Herculean efforts to get them here—apparently, if you're not playing folk music, polkas, or classical music, SBVC's insurance doesn't cover you. Plus some administration folk are clearly still living in the 1940's when it comes to their sensibility about what students might want to hear... A little socially conscious hard rock was good to see, and a live music performance is always a hoot.

I had a few students in attendance who were surprised to see me there—their shock was audible when they saw me go up and hang out with Ben. (He's the one with the goat horns of hair, in case you haven't met him.) So now maybe the laughter won't be quite so uproarious when I tell my classes I'm "down with the street."

I'm getting over some kind of weird sinus thing, so not much else to report at this point. The semester is drawing to a close, so grading is mounting but the end is in sight. I should get back to that grading now, actually. Ciao.

Today I Am a Man

After much harrowing struggle, yesterday I defeated my mechanical foes. Yes, I changed the oil in not one but two cars, and managed not to destroy myself (or either car, as far as I know) in the process.

After church was over, I said my prayers and descended to our lower driveway to assault the beast that is my Subaru. Being my mother's son, I was highly over-prepared, but I didn't want to be found missing anything. I think I'm coming to realize that, for me, at least, being overprepared is an indicator of my lack of confidence in myself. I'm terrified I'll fail, so buying every possible piece of equipment ahead of time, reading and re-reading the instructions (and rechecking them at nearly every stage of the process), and heading in with a negative attitude are all ways to make up for my self-perceived ineptitude and inability to cope. (Not good, I know, but there you are.)

I was nearly stymied before I'd properly begun: no matter what I did, I could not loosen the bolt on the bottom of the oil pan. After a few trips to the hardware store for different wrenches and one to the auto parts store for "penetrating oil," I finally managed to wring that monster free. (In case you ever need to change the oil on a '99 Subaru Legacy-Outback, get an 11/16" combo wrench. Save yourself the pain of trying to pry off an old rounded-off nut with an adjustable wrench.) Once that part got done, the rest went pretty smoothly, and I only got covered in oil once. (It was just my hand, but it was pretty impressive.) I also only dropped the bolt into the used oil once. I did go through about 2/3 of a roll of shop towels, but other than that, it was all clear sailing.

The minivan was a bit trickier, what with the odd placement of the oil filter and having to jack the thing up due to its low deck. It, too, had a monstrously stubborn nut (the auto parts clerk said that if you've had your oil changed by shop guys on a rack, they can get a lot more torque on the thing than you can lying on your back underneath the car)—if you have a 2000 Toyota Sienna, get yourself a number 14 metric socket. (You're welcome.) But that, too, proved surmountable, and as far as I know, both the vehicles are running fine. I had nightmares about walking out and seeing a lake of oil under the cars this morning, but all appears to be going fine.

I don't know that I now feel like an auto expert, and it took me far longer than it really should have, but it was good to know that when I attempt something with my hands it won't always blow up in my face, and that—given a large swath of time and many options—I can work my way around obstacles. Granted, I will normally find the slowest, most painful and difficult way to do something, but I can get it done.

Heated Debate

Back on Wednesday I attended a book discussion at school. These are usually sparsely attended (especially the ones I lead: one person showed up for my discussion of the excellent World War Z, and two came for the talk about the satirical delight that is I Am America (And So Can You!)) and the level of discussion is kept on the surface: people talk about what they liked and didn't like, which events made them happy or sad, and usually connect the plot points to personal issues they with which they are dealing. Real "literary" discussion almost never takes place.

Those of you who noted that the sidebar contained the book The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox may have wondered why it was there: it certainly isn't the kind of novel I'd normally pick up for myself. Well, the book discussion was the answer. (I most likely would have skipped it, save that these discussions count toward my "professional development" hours for the college, and attending is easier than actual work.)

The book is fine. There's nothing extraordinary, but it is interesting. It was easy to get through its 200-some-odd pages, the characters had some development, and the plot (about a woman who discovers she has a great-aunt of whom she has never before heard and who has spent the last sixty years in a mental institution) clipped along. The discussion (attended by six people) was much like all the others we've had.

One issue, though, kept rearing its head. There are some surprising turns in the novel (I won't mention them, on the off chance that one of you readers might pick the book up yourself someday—they are somewhat critical to the story), and I argued that these weren't justified by the character's actions. Many of those present thought this was unfair, and that they could fully identify with and understand the character's actions. What began to emerge was that these other readers were willing to accept the actions because they, themselves, could fill in the emotions the character must have been feeling and the logic she must have used. On my part, I kept insisting that it wasn't our job to "fill in" the character work for the author; it is the author's job to lay the groundwork so that, when a character acts in a surprising way, we aren't totally confused as to why she has done so. This is especially true because the novel delves extensively into the thoughts and feelings of each of the characters—it wasn't even possible to argue (as these folks claimed) that we can't know what goes on in a person's head, because that's exactly what the novel purports to show us.

It's a bit like a murder mystery in which you might follow a detective as he tracks down all the leads, and then in the end someone we've never heard of comes forward and says, "Oh, I did it; he was my former business partner twenty years ago and I decided to do him in." I don't need everything spelled out for me (trust me—I'm a huge fan of books that are subtle, difficult, and even abstruse), and having a character act in a surprising way is fantastic when the foundation for that action is laid earlier in the work. It's like getting to the end of The Sixth Sense and seeing all the pieces you watched earlier fall into place: the movie earns the surprise by building it into the fabric of the story that comes before.

At any rate, this made me realize that most folk are reading books to see something within themselves confirmed by a story; at best, they work with the bare plot elements and characters and insert their own understanding where it is not made clear by the author. A plot outline and character sketches would probably be just as effective for them, because they will substitute their own emotions and thoughts as needed. This is probably also why most books don't need to have much literary merit (much to my sadness): the quality of the writing isn't as important as events and characters people can identify with.

All this made me think of C.S. Lewis' excellent An Experiment in Criticism (which I've mentioned many a time and oft before) and his discussion of the differences between how the "many" and how the "few" look at art. It's a fascinating inquiry into why there are popular tastes and why only a small population of readers/viewers/observers prefer works of a difficulty or quality for which the "many" do not care. (Ask the average class of community college students if they like Shakespeare and count how many assents you get, for example. I'd peg the number at between 5% and 10%. Not that anyone has to like Shakespeare in particular, but the class of people who consider his work brilliant and artful is always small.)

In brief, Lewis' thesis is that the many look to "do" things with art, while the few look to have something "done to" them by art. I'll let his much more refined and interesting words end this long post:

This attitude... might almost be defined as 'using' pictures. While you retain this attitude you treat the picture—or rather a hasty and unconscious selection of elements in the picture—as a self-starter for certain imaginative and emotional activities of your own. In other words, you 'do things with it'. You don't lay yourself open to what it, by being in its totality precisely the thing it is, can do to you.

You are thus offering to the picture the treatment which would be exactly right for two other sorts of representational object; namely the ikon and the toy. (I am not here using the word ikon in the strict sense given it by the Eastern Church; I mean any representational object, whether in two dimensions or three, which is intended as an aid to devotion.)

A particular toy or a particular ikon may be itself a work of art, but that is logically accidental; its artistic merits will not make it a better toy or a better ikon. They may make it a worse one. For its purpose is, not to fix attention upon itself, but to simulate and liberate certain activities in the child or the worshipper. The Teddy-bear exists in order that the child may endow it with imaginary life and personality and enter into a quasi-social relationship with it. That is what 'playing with it' means. The better this activity succeeds the less the actual appearance of the object will matter. Too close or prolonged attention to its changeless and expressionless face impedes the play. A crucifix exists in order to direct the worshipper's thought and affections to the Passion. It had better not have any excellencies, subtleties, or originalities which will fix attention upon itself. hence devout people may, for this purpose, prefer the crudest and emptiest ikon. The emptier, the more permeable; and they want, as it were, to pass through the material image and go beyond. For the same reason it is often not the costliest and most lifelike toy that wins the child's love...

The distinction can hardly be better expressed than by saying that the many use art and the few receive it."