Truth.
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Thoughts about Blogs
Things I think about while watering plants:
The problem with blogs is that most of them–this one included–are self-centered, ego-driven missives of (hopefully) rather short length. Go see this movie/read this book because *I* liked it. Here’s what *I’m* thinking. In an era where we bemoan the entitlement feelings we see in our children, we simultaneously tell them that the world, yes, revolves around us. Is it any wonder they feel the center of their own universes? Some of that is, of course, just a normal growing up expansion of boundaries. But too many of us never outgrow it.
Perhaps this drive to share our own feelings is an expression of the child within all of us. “Look at me! See how well I can write!” That’s my own little voice. Perhaps yours says, “World! World! Let me tell what just happened to me!” or “Hey, wow, you gotta see this!” (which translates to: “Look at me! I saw it before you did!”). Even worse, though, are the marketing-driven blogs geared to surreptitiously sell us something. I feel dirty, used, when a blog sinks to that level. (An occasional mention of something doesn’t count here–I follow several authors’ blogs and I’m glad to know when they have a new book out. But if every blog started with “You can buy my books here and here and over there” I’d lose interest before I found the little x to close the site.)
Very few blogs cause us to think about things in new ways or teach us something. Note I didn’t say “lecture” anywhere in that sentence. If it’s not a teacher telling us what to do, it’s that damn little voice inside our heads. Most of us don’t need more lectures, just more learning.
Reaching out to see things from another point of view is difficult, especially when we’re all wrapped up in our own minds. Could I borrow your mind for a while? Just to see what it’s like. And, come to think of it, that might be the appeal of some blogs. I *can* see what you’re thinking suddenly. Or at least what you want me to think you’re thinking. I sense a do-loop in there somewhere.
And my last thought while watering plants? Damn mosquitoes.
Is it me?
In my current drive to be an individual, a character, and not just a sheep (or even worse, a mouse), I find myself striving to do things my way, and sometimes for no other reason than to simply declare my independence from that which is “normal” despite what commonsense tells me.
For example, I was/am trying to lose weight. For nigh onto a year, the dreaded pipsqueak voice on the wii told me, as soon as I stepped on, “That’s overweight.” Grrrrr. Like I didn’t know? A month or so ago, I stepped on (after a long hiatus from wii training), and it said, “That’s normal.” Suddenly, without warning, that little voice inside my head whispered, “Who wants to be normal?”–and the ice cream fell victim to my independence.
This morning, I logged onto my daily challenge (www.meyouhealth.com). For weeks now, I’ve been getting encouraging emails trying to get me to participate more, to earn more points by smiling at posts, completing simple challenges, replying with encouragement to the woes and tribulations of those in need. In each email, there was a counter that kept track. “Kathy C. earned the most points this week of all those in your group.” “Wanda R. smiled at the most points.” Wow, I thought, they must really be active. I should do better.” Finally, at long last, this week “Ann B. earned the most points.” Sheesh, I thought, you need to get a life.” Where was that envy I felt earlier, the feeling that all would be right in my world if only I had more…more points, more weight loss, more (God forbid) smiley faces?
And what is wrong with me that as soon as I get what I want, I no longer want it?
Thankfully, I came to my senses with the hot tub. “I want a hot tub,” I’ve said since we moved down here. “I miss my hot tub.” Whine, whine, whine. My 60th birthday popped up (as if it were unexpected) and Elliott started investigating hot tubs. We walked the porch, the back deck, everywhere to see where we could envision one. The back deck looked perfect. But there’s this problem…I’d have to walk out on the back deck in my altogether to get into it, and there’s this one corner where my next door neighbors–if they were sitting in a specific spot–could see me. OK, I could put on a swimsuit–but I’m lazy. I wouldn’t. Hot tubbing is too sensual to waste on a swimsuit. And spend that much money and still know it wasn’t the best it could be? Wouldn’t work. Starkers, or nothing. So one day at about 10:30 a.m. I told myself that if I couldn’t walk out on that deck right that minute, naked as the day I was born, then purchasing a hot tub would be a big mistake. And I couldn’t do it. I’m still not sure why. I’m not normally THAT modest or THAT embarrassed about my body. But I couldn’t do it. At night, maybe. But in the broad daylight, in front of God and everybody? Nope. And there went the dream of the hot tub.
So I ask you, is it just me who doesn’t want something as soon as she (almost) gets it? Is this normal? Or am I trying to hard to be “different”? “Not normal?” (no, I didn’t say “abnormal…”) Normal has come to equate with “mediocre” rather than “sane, healthy.” The “normal” person reads at a sixth-grade level, we hear. So I definitely don’t want to be normal. When did normal become something bad?
Maybe if I had the courage to get out on the back deck in a mouselike manner and eat a tub of ice cream while refusing to send smiley faces I’d figure it out. (And thanks, Elliott, for all your patience with me while I flip-flop on issues of import that rank right up there with national security, world hunger, and global poverty.)
So, let me introduce you…
Today I shall blog! I’m a federal employee, I’ve cleared my desk of all the necessary work, and for the next 30 minutes I’ll be feeding the blog, which says something about the value I put on keeping in touch with… um, … with THE WORLD! Or, y’all… or …whatever.
The day before yesterday I had one of those unpleasantly instructive days where you rediscover a truth about yourself. It was this: I can be seriously thrown off balance by a tiny episode of personal embarassament. It doesn’t even need to be particularly public, like when Nixon threw up on Chairman Chou En Lai, or when Reagan joked into a live microphone about launching a nuclear assault on Soviet Russia. Or perhaps you “know someone” who farted noticeably on an elevator. That sort of thing…
The thing is, this was really nowhere near as bad as those gaffs, but still managed to leave me rattled to a point where I doubted my ability to unwrap and chew gum without injuring myself, or marring the furniture.
So what did I screw up? I was suddenly called upon to make an introduction, and then, without thinking, I extended a handshake to one of them, as if it was me who had been introduced. Yeah, I know, pretty clumsy… I don’t get a lot of practice at social graces, and this sort of thing has blindsided me before.
Lord knows, I’ve been a social twit all my days, so why do I worry about it, or keep trying? I mean, I really admire those gifted with that easy grace, so suave there’s never a sense that they so much as think of what to do in a social moment. It just comes naturally to them. I simply can’t trust myself to navigate those moments on autopilot, I dream someday I might. Big mistake.
What really alarms me is how much personal embarrassment AFFECTS me. I’m absolutely sure there are people who shrug off their clumsiness, social or otherwise, with nary a cough, shrug, nor blink, but why not me?
I even get upset at movies that depict people similarly plagued. If it ever came to torturing me to extract the location of the terrorist bomb, they need only lash me to a chair and force me to watch a Ben Stiller film. If they used ‘There’s Something About Mary’, I’d offer to ingest the plutonium to defuse the thing…
So my “misplaced” handshake left me shaken, in a cold sweat, and wanting to cower in a dark closet until my self-confidence might return, which it did the next day, albeit, with me being very careful not to undertake any introductions for a while. Y’all can just sort yourselves out without my help, thank you very much.
Marathons
I’ve signed up to do the Walt Disney World marathon/Goofy Challenge* in January 2012 with my younger sister Katie (younger as in almost 15 years younger–still a kid). Right now, 6:30 a.m. on a Tuesday in August, all I want to do is crawl into bed and ignore my impending doom. I *know* I have to train, I just don’t want to. It’s hot out there, and buggy. I have a corn on my toe and it won’t go away. I have lots of work to do, and I want to get some writing down. I even have to run to the grocery today, which always takes at least an hour out of an already packed day.
I know that by running (defined as slow jog for 1 minute, walk fast for 1 minute–yes, a slow jog and a fast walk are about the same speed. Don’t ask.) I’m doing all sorts of good things for my body. And probably my mental state (though you couldn’t prove it by my current attitude). Logically, this is stuff I know. Emotionally, I want to curl up with a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts still warm from the oven and say to myself, “Nobody lives forever. Enjoy it while you can.”
I need to find some path between these two extremes. I suppose what I’m doing could be considered somewhere in the middle–I could be running 5-minute miles, for example, instead of 13-minute miles. Still, it’s a balancing act. I guess it’s just a matter of priorities. Right now, today, I will run 3 miles. Tomorrow I might eat the Krispy Kreme donuts. One day at a time. And isn’t that what any of us do, all day long, every day?
*The Goofy Challenge is 13.1 miles on Saturday (3.5 hour time limit) and 26.2 miles the next day (7 hour time limit). I’ve done it twice before, once within the time limits and once not quite so fast. My fastest ever marathon time was 6 hrs 43 min. I’m aiming for 6 hrs 30 min this time.
‘All Clear’ by Connie Willis – a review
This feels awkward, because ‘All Clear’ is not so much a sequel, but is in fact a second half of its counterpart, the earlier novel, ‘Blackout’, which I reviewed prevously here. My assessment of ‘Blackout’, could be described as “tepidly enthusiastic”. I was so enthralled by her work,’To Say Nothing of the Dog’, and was primed for some wild kind of “book-gasm” with ‘Blackout’. Well, I was disappointed, but hopeful as I launched into ‘All Clear’.
When I wrote my little review of ‘Blackout’, I should explain that I had no conception of Ms. Willis’ stature and success in the SF/F genre. Holy cow! Ten Hugo Awards, seven Nebula Awards, (which INCLUDES the award for ‘Blackout/All Clear’), and a flotilla of nominations besides. So why, I ask myself, does this monumental and highly regarded dyptych still leave me unimpressed, and, frankly, a bit confused?
I think it comes down to this: that some “genre writing” (as one author recently referred to a conglomerate of SF/F/YA books) doesn’t necessarilly require nor focus on STORY as its main staple for the reader, or maybe a tight, well-crafted story. The Aristotelian model of beginning, middle, end, with lovely, crisp story-arcs, that sail and rebound like the path of a tennis ball in a spirited volley; THAT is what I was left craving as I read through the 1000+ pages of Willis’ masterpiece. This book hinges much more on setting, atmosphere, the ephemera of bric-a-brac, costuming, the tinge of colors borrowed from other literature of the time and place of which she is writing. It IS brilliant, and wonderful in its way, and necessitates a wholly different approach to the reading of it to extract and enjoy its savor.
Alas, it requires work and patience.
Two other comparisons come to mind: these books flow and feel a bit like quest-gaming. Reading them reminds me of my hours spent in the world of Zelda-Twilight Princess. There’s such sumptuous detail, and a grinding journey through a hazardous world. The other comparison I would make is that of listening to complex music. You cannot breeze through a 40 minute sax improv by John Coltrane, and you cannot breeze through ‘Blackout/All Clear’, but you would do very well to devote the energy and attention to either.
The fault in my earlier take is one of learning to appreciate a different kind of reading. I will try to get better at it, for it does have its rewards…
Jasper Fforde – ‘One of Our Thursdays is Missing’
One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In the wake of reading the most recent Thursday Next novel, ‘One of Our Thursdays is Missing’, I found myself reaching for an earlier volume,’First Among Sequels’ and re-reading it, in doing so, I discovered that ‘One of our Thursdays…’ is actually a kind of re-boot of ‘First Among Sequels'(TN-5).
This is interesting, because I hadn’t realized that the practice was becoming commonplace, or could work so well, but I’ve noted it in the work of at least one other writer in my reading of late (John Scalzi’s ‘Zoe’s Tale’, as a re-working and re-release of ‘The Last Colony’).
And in this case, Fforde hasn’t actually re-written TN-5, but he HAS appropriated a lion’s share of the groundwork of the earlier novel, and re-imagined it afresh. In ‘One of Our Thursdays…’ he provided yet another construction of his BookWorld, with vast interconnected islands of the genres, transit between them in flying taxis, the mechanics of life for its populace, to include the sundries of life as a book character, the politics of the place, and the special role of his heroine, Thursday, in stabilizing it all.
The real Thursday Next is, as you probably know, an Outlander; not of the BookWorld, but deeply concerned with safeguarding it. Then there are the various iterations of the “written” Thursday Next. Both of these novels hinge deeply on the relationship and interaction of the real Thursday and her written representations.
All of this material is the mortar and brickwork of the newest TN novel. Re-visiting ‘First Among Sequels’ has made that much clear to me. That said, I’m also delighted to report that the additional work does no harm to the earlier book, and magically avoids feeling stale or repetitious in the new one. The whole TN canon is a wonder of imaginative, playful, literary delights. My hope is that Fforde tries this approach again.
‘True Grit’ ; the Coen brothers ride again!
The “western” in Amercan cinema was never one of my favorite genres in my youth. My father had a taste for “cowboy shows” on television back then, and I never much cared for them. I think the stylization and falseness of the archetypical towns, “good guys”, indians, crooks, cavalry, et al, just added up in my kid’s mind to so much phony dreck.
Since then, there have been a number of western films that have won me over: ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ comes to mind, along with ‘Silverado’, and ‘Jeremiah Johnson’. To those, I can now emphatically add the Coen brothers’ ‘True Grit’. It has a clarity and honesty throughout that just never lapses. The settings, costuming, language, action, story and music are convincing and with a “rightness” that is nearly flawless.
I was surprised to read on wikipedia that it was filmed, edited and brought to market in very short order, with a shooting schedule that started in March of 2010, in time for a “Christmas” release on December 22 that same year. The notes in wikipedia, however, don’t report exactly when set construction or any of the other heavy lifting of other pre-production began. The project was rumored as early as February, 2008.
My admiration for the flick derives almost entirely from the authenticity of these western characters, and, too, how clearly this is a western story told from a young woman’s perspective, or, more accurately, a precocious child pressed into early adulthood through unfortunate circumstances. It is Mattie Ross’ “true grit” which drives the story, not the force of Marshal Rooster Cogburn’s fading “grit”, or the staunch honor of the Texas ranger, LaBoeuf. Mattie is beautifully played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, Cogburn by Jeff Bridges, and LaBoeuf by Matt Damon. While Steinfeld and Bridges both scored Academy nominations (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress), it was Matt Damon who better deserved an honor for transforming himself within his role. He was not recognizably himself, and became the spit and image of the rough but knightly Ranger LaBoeuf.
If an honest “western” is your thing, and you missed this one, or if you, like me, cannot let one of the Coen Bros. films pass you by, be sure to see this one when you can. The dvd/blu-ray disc was released on June 7th. And if you know of other western films you think I might like, please put it in a comment to me below, and I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
3.14 – Happy Pi Day!
What happens when you ascribe notes to pi, carried to 31 decimal places, and then play it?
‘Blackout’ by Connie Willis – a review
‘Blackout’ by Connie Willis
I’ve got to begin by saying that it took more than one start at the preceding work, ‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’, before I came to appreciate and love that book. (see this review ) In that instance I decided that my initial resistance derived from the distinctly quirky characters combined with the slow pacing in that work. Both of those qualities eventually become advantageous, especially in counterpoint to numerous plot turns and prat-falls that leap at you in it.
Willis’ follow-up, ‘Blackout’ does not lack for quirky characters and slow-pacing, but, alas, the cook seems to have left out a necessary sufficiency of cunning plot-turns and prat-falls. There is action, but very little sense of forward movement in this novel. A set of characters does have a very significant, shared problem, and individual subsidiary problems engendered by the MAIN problem, which is that they are all time-traveling historians trapped in wartime England during The Blitz, but these characters are so ponderously slow to comprehend and act on their situation, I kept finding myself snarling advice at the leaves of my copy, or pleading with them to change direction. They didn’t listen.
Set aside the plot problems, Willis DOES have an historian’s love and eye for detail, and this work is resplendent with it. And, too, she has an historian’s love for History, itself. The history her characters are living through is the real center of this work, and the central story is one of a besieged citizenry waging war by sheer endurance, courage, and good humor. That is a story worth telling, but it’s a story of gritty daily privation and nightly fearful hiding away from the bombs in shelters. It’s difficult to incorporate any kind of quest within that story. The time-travelers’ problem of returning “home” to 21st century Oxford, along with their angst that one or more of them may have altered time’s fabric is too hackneyed to serve the need for a unifying quest, especially in a novel approaching 500 pages, and closing with an aggravating, “…To be continued!”.
Alas. Yes, the novel does NOT conclude in any way shape or form when you reach the final page. I had this exact problem with another bulky science fiction work I read recently, ‘The Dreaming Void’ by Peter F. Hamilton (see the review ). It’s not insignificant that both books were gifts from the same daughter, (Hmm…) but to the girl’s credit she also gave me the sequel, Willis’ ‘All Clear’. I started it just last night, and have hunkered down in the shelter of my armchair to transit the 600-some pages it offers. I am placing my faith and hope in Willis drawing all the threads into place, and hope to report that it proves to be a tapestry worthy of the The National Gallery in London.
Magnum opus, anyone?