Not Crazy...Just Enthusiastic

2011-03-02T17:18:00.007-05:00

OK, so here's what happened. A year ago I had open heart surgery. That sort of put a crimp in my reading plan among other things. I didn't actually have a heart attack, but during a routine check-up I told my doctor I had been having some pain on my right side under my rib cage. I had thought it was IBS which I had before (during grad school) and though it used to be on the left and had moved to the right it seemed like the same type of pain. Cramping that radiated outward from an area under my ribcage near my gall bladder. Well, long story short, the doctor thought it sounded like IBS too, but in the interest of completeness scheduled me for a stress test and a colonoscopy. The stress test showed I had a blockage. A subsequent heart catherization showed it was substantial, and that it couldn't be stinted, so a few days later I was in the Cleveland Clinic getting cut open and pried apart for triple bypass. That all went pretty well (at least I got out of the colonoscopy). Until I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck, but because of allergies to most of the pain meds available I basically had to suck it up and suffer. Vicodin. I could take Vicodin.

I had, naively, thought my recovery would be a chance to kick back and catch up on my reading and DVD watching. Hah! Between the pain, the mind scrambling after-effects of the anaesthetic, and the Vicodin nod I was on I couldn't concentrate on anything as complicated as a toothpaste commercial let alone read a novel or watch a whole movie. So that sucked. But anyway I'm back and all better and it hasn't really taken me a year to get my shit back together, but I was never exactly super-blogger to begin with so, here we go again.

2010-01-31T14:38:00.004-05:00

Next from Apple!

On the heels of Steve Jobs launch of the iPad (insert feminine hygiene joke here) I have hot dish about the next big product from Apple. My internal sources guarantee me that the next big thing from Apple will be the iDon'tcare.

Take that huge successful corporation that everyone apparently loves.

2010-01-03T11:40:00.013-05:00

Judging by the Cover...This Book is Like a Total Freakout, Man.

I'm almost done with The Blue Star and will have some thoughts on it later (well I have thoughts now, but I 'll save them for later). But I wanted to do a quick post about the cover of the book. One thing that first attracted me to collecting the BAF series was the striking cover art. Amazing artists like Gevasio Gallardo, Bob Pepper, Robert LoGrippo, Dean Ellis, Sheryl Slavitt, and many others produced a series of beautiful wraparound cover art that, I think, set a standard for fantasy art.

That said the cover for The Blue Star, while striking, is rather atypical of the series. The painting by Ron Walotsky is uncredited, as are the first 8 or so covers in the series. But his signature does appear on the cover, so there is no mystery about the artist. I think this may have been his only cover in the series, but I'll check on that and get back to you if I'm wrong.

What, I think, makes it atypical is the psychedelic quality. It has the hard-edged hallucinatory look of a black-light poster you might have found in a head shop or dorm room back in 1969. So it seems to be more of it's period than many other covers in the series. Not that realism ruled the day in the rest of the series, but the acid tinged quality of Walotsky's work (in this case) looks like it could have come from a poster for a Dead concert at the Fillmore. Right down to the font used for the title. That rounded, bottom heavy, lettering seemed to be the default psychedelic lettering style of the late sixties. I know most of the kids in my 6th grade class could do a pretty good rendering. It turned up in alot of art class projects. (We were so damned groovy).

In addition to that, having now read all but 30 pages of The Blue Star, I don't find it particularly representative of anything in the story itself. Is suspect someone told Walotsky the story had witches and a blue jewel in it and he took it from there. I don't recall any cat or cauldrons in the book, but they are depicted prominently the back cover. At least I think that's a cat. Ditto for the bird (Phoenix?) on the front cover. Not in the story. He does depict a blue star, so it seems unlikely that this was just some painting they had lying around in the art department. I know this sometimes happened. It happened to my friend Dave Smith. One of his Oron books had a cover that was totally unrelated to anything in the story. Turned out "Vinnie" in the art department had bought up a bunch of paintings from an artist, and they needed to be used somehow.

I hope to discuss the cover art for the BAF as I move along. I'm not sure I'll always have something to say, and I'm sure I don't know anything about art. But why let that stop me. I don't really know anything about writing either. I just like readin' books n' stuff.

2010-01-01T16:59:00.007-05:00

The Journey of 1000 Miles Begins with the Turn of a Page

Began The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt this morning. This was the first title published in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series under the editorship of Lin Carter and carrying the distinctive Unicorn Head logo. The book was published with a date of May 1969, but actually hit newsstands in April. Of course Ballantine had already established a line of adult fantasy reprints beginning with the authorized paperback publication of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1965. This authorized edition was published in "response" to Ace Books unauthorized, yet legal, reprint that exploited a loophole in US copyright law which actually put Tolkien's trilogy in the public domain. Ballantine followed the growing success of its Tolkien titles in 1967 with reprints of The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison and it's several related titles (not exactly sequels), the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsey and works by Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn and A Fine and Private Place. These last two actually carried the designation "A Ballantine Adult Fantasy" on the cover, but lacked the Unicorn Head logo. Several of these titles were later reprinted with the Unicorn Head.

So, closely related as these titles are to the BAF, the series proper is considered to start with The Blue Star. In Imaginary Worlds Lin Carter lists the BAF titles starting with Pratt's book and it is the first to have an introduction by Carter. So that's where I'm starting and why.

But why read them in the order of publication? Isn't that sort of arbitrary? Well, consider the alternatives. I could read them in alphabetical order by author, but isn't the alphabet just as arbitrary, and then you run into what I call the William Morris problem. Delightful and entertaining as the books in the BAF are some do carry certain issues of archaic style and readability that can make them tough going. William Morris is an important part of the series and indeed according to Carter the founder of the Imaginary world fantasy tradition. A huge influence on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and other. But the pseudo-medieval style reminiscent of Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur is heavy going for the modern reader. Particularly this modern reader. I have not read all of the titles in the BAF. I'd guess I've read a quarter to a third mostly back in the 70's and 80's. I did read all of The Wood Beyond the World and the first half of The Well at the World's End. The story and imagery of these books remains surprisingly vivid in my mind, but I also remember struggling to read them and eventually bailing on The Well. If I tackled the series alphabetically and had to plow through four consecutive Morris titles I'm afraid my momentum would flag and I would risk a massive brain cramp in the bargain.

Obviously the Chronological approach is more logical, and has some apparent advantages, in offering an interesting historical perspective, but ultimately the Morris Problem rears it ugly head again. And, since several of the BAF titles are anthologies or omnibus volumes, the chronological approach would seem to entail a great deal of skipping around if you wanted to strictly adhere to it.

So, I opt to read the books in the order they were originally presented to the readers. Relying on Lin Carter to lay out the feast in a tasty and inviting manner, and with only one William Morris per year.

A quick glance at the list shows you that the series is heavily front loaded with James Branch Cabell. Three of the first twelve titles are by Cabell, and that may seem like an imbalance, but I have much affection for Cabell, and although his style is definitely ornamental and artificial it is much easier going than Morris, far earthier and full of sophistication, wit, and irony. So, I say bring of the JBC!

This may seem like over-thinking the whole enterprise, but I assure you all of this flashed through my mind in a second, and only in retrospect did bother parsing it all out. After all I have a whole year of this. I have to talk about something.

2009-12-28T17:49:00.005-05:00

Reading Under the Sign of the Unicorn Head

I'm reading a book called The Whole Five Feet by Christopher Beha about his attempt to read the entire Harvard Classics 5 foot shelf of books in one year. This is the kind of pointless, arbitrary, yet orderly challenge that appeals to me. Unfortunately, although I have owned 3 or 4 sets of the Harvard Classics over the years I have sold or given them all away. But it got me thinking about what kind of literary challenge I could set myself for the coming year. Not too easy, but not impossible over the next 12 months. Something I have on hand already, classic perhaps, but maybe more fun than the HC 5 foot shelf. Then It hit me. I had the perfect challenge collecting dust on the shelf.

I put together a complete set of The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series many years ago, but since then I haven't really spent much time reading them. The fun at the time was in tracking them down, and piling them up, and except for the occasional upgrade in condition I haven't really done much with them since I put that final elusive volume on the shelf. (What was the final volume anyway? I think it was Double Phoenix by Edmund Cooper and Roger Lancelyn Green but I'm not sure anymore. This was by no means considered the scarcest title in the series, but I had a hard time tracking it down. Of course this was all pre-internet.)

So that's it. Decided in haste and on the spur of the moment in 2010 I am going to read the entire BAF. That's 65 books, 63 titles, (The Night land by William Hope Hodgson and The Well at the World's End by William Morris were each split into two volumes), which I will be reading over the next 12 months. It seems daunting enough, but that is the least number I could read without being accused of cheating. There is some dispute among collectors about whether or not several titles should be counted, and perhaps I'll go into that in a future post. I have a whole year.

So for future reference and for those unfamiliar with the series here is the list as I will read it in the order they were published:

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series

1969

1. THE BLUE STAR, Fletcher Pratt. May.
2. THE KING OF ELFLAND'S DAUGHTER, Lord Dunsany. June.
3. THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD, William Morris. July.
4. THE SILVER STALLION, James Branch Cabell. August.
5. LILITH, George Macdonald. September.
6. DRAGONS, ELVES, AND HEROES, Lin Carter, ed. October.
7. THE YOUNG MAGICIANS, Lin Carter, ed. October.
8. FIGURES OF EARTH, James Branch Cabell. November.
9. THE SORCERER'S SHIP, Hannes Bok. December.

1970

10. LAND OF UNREASON, Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp. January.
11. THE HIGH PLACE, James Branch Cabell. February.
12. LUD-IN-THE-MIST, Hope Mirrlees. March.
13. AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, Lord Dunsany. March.
14. PHANTASTES, George Macdonald. April.
15. THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH, H.P. Lovecraft. May.
16. ZOTHIQUE, Clark Ashton Smith. June.
17. THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT, George Meredith. July.
18. THE ISLAND OF THE MIGHTY, Evangeline Walton. July.
19. DERYNI RISING, Katherine Kurtz. August.
20. THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END, Vol. 1, William Morris. August.
21. THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END, Vol. 2, William Morris. September.
22. GOLDEN CITIES, FAR, Lin Carter, ed. October.
23. BEYOND THE GOLDEN STAIR, Hannes Bok. November.

1971

24. THE BROKEN SWORD, Poul Anderson. January.
25. THE BOATS OF THE `GLEN CARRIG', William Hope Hodgson. February.
26. THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH, H.P. Lovecraft. February.
27. SOMETHING ABOUT EVE, James Branch Cabell. March.
28. RED MOON AND BLACK MOUNTAIN, Joy Chant. March.
29. HYPERBOREA, Clark Ashton Smith. April.
30. DON RODRIGUEZ: CHRONICLES OF SHADOW VALLEY, Lord Dunsany. May.
31. VATHEK, William Beckford. June.
32. THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, G.K. Chesterton. July.
33. THE CHILDREN OF LLYR, Evangeline Walton. August.
34. THE CREAM OF THE JEST, James Branch Cabell. September.
35. NEW WORLDS FOR OLD, Lin Carter, ed. September.
36. THE SPAWN OF CTHULHU, Lin Carter, ed. October.
37. DOUBLE PHOENIX, Edmund Cooper & Roger Lancelyn Green. November.
38. THE WATER OF THE WONDEROUS ISLES, William Morris. November.
39. KHALED, F. Marion Crawford. December.

1972

40. THE WORLD'S DESIRE, H. Rider Haggard & Andrew Lang. January.
41. XICCARPH, Clark Ashton Smith. February.
42. THE LOST CONTINENT, C.J. Cutcliffe-Hyne. February.
43. DISCOVERIES IN FANTASY, Lin Carter, ed. March.
44. DOMNEI, James Branch Cabell. March.
45. KAI LUNG'S GOLDEN HOURS, Ernest Bramah. April.
46. DERYNI CHECKMATE, Katherine Kurtz. May.
47. BEYOND THE FIELDS WE KNOW, Lord Dunsany. May.
48. THE THREE IMPOSTERS, Arthur Machen. June.
49. THE NIGHT LAND, Vol. 1, William Hope Hodgson. July.
50. THE NIGHT LAND, Vol. 2, William Hope Hodgson. July.
51. THE SONG OF RHIANNON, Evangeline Walton. August.
52. GREAT SHORT NOVELS OF ADULT FANTASY #1, Lin Carter, ed. September.
53. EVENOR, George Macdonald. November.

1973

54. ORLANDO FURIOSO: The Ring of Angelica, Volume 1, Translation by Richard Hodgens. January.
55. THE CHARWOMAN'S SHADOW, Lord Dunsany. February.
56. GREAT SHORT NOVELS OF ADULT FANTASY #2, Lin Carter, ed. March.
57. THE SUNDERING FLOOD, William Morris. May.

58. IMAGINARY WORLDS, Lin Carter. June.
59. POSEIDONIS, Clark Ashton Smith. July.
60. EXCALIBUR, Sanders Anne Laubenthal. August.
61. HIGH DERYNI, Katherine Kurtz. September.
62. HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA, Poul Anderson. October.
63. THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST, H. Rider Haggard. December.

1974

64. KAI LUNG UNROLLS HIS MAT, Ernest Bramah. February.
65. OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY, Lord Dunsany. April.

I'm actually reading IMAGINARY WORLDS by Lin Carter (#58) right now because it serves as an overview of the series as well as a history of imaginary world fantasy. Of course Lin Carter was the editor of the BAF series and wrote introductions to every volume. So more on him in the future as well.

2008-07-18T10:12:00.002-04:00

Found Poetry of the Hard-boiled Variety

I like what David Rachels is doing over at Pulp Poem of the Week

He is taking snippets from hard-boiled pulp and noir fiction and reformatting them so they read like poetry. He is only doing one a week so right now there aren't that many, but I think it will be worth checking back.

I especially like the one from 77 Rue Pardis by Gil Brewer about the snapshot of the girl in a bikini which ends:

She had

large breasts. She had been

unable to control them.

2008-07-16T09:45:00.004-04:00

Marshmallow Peeps at the Forefront of Space Exploration

Probably inspired by my cutting edge microwave research in smores technology using Marshmallow Peeps, the Adler Planetarium has taken the next logical step and launched Peeps into space .

Be sure to check out the exciting training montage.

Apparently their research involves some attempt at measuring the brightness of space using the luminosity and reflectivity of various colored peeps. I'm sure this is top notch stuff, but not likely to fire the imagination and enthusiasm of children for more peeps related space research. I would suggest further study into the effects of vacuum on elastic materials composed primarily of air pockets. Oh, the humanity!

We applaud these brave and delicious marshmallow confections as they continue to push the boundaries of science.

2008-07-16T09:19:00.012-04:00

Nerds of the World Arise!
Pulitzer Prize winner and certified otaku geek Junot Diaz had this recommendation for the manga thriller Monster by Naoki Urasawa over on Time Magazine's Famous Authors' Guilty Pleasures
summer reading feature.

I ran out to the Borders last night and picked up the first volume and read it. I get the pleasure but don't feel the guilt. Can't quite justify buying the next 17 installments for the library so I guess I'll just have to chip away at it over the rest of the summer.

2008-07-15T16:44:00.003-04:00

OK, Sarah. Here goes nuthin'

My jealous co-worker (I can listen to music at my desk and she can't) is giving me grief for not posting on my blog since 2006 (when she was probably still in high school). So here you go. A blog post about nothing. I'm listening to Coldplay, Viva La Vida, right now. Awesome for me. Sucks for you.

2006-12-07T16:09:00.000-05:00

Prague Top Ten

Before I post any of our more idiosyncratic shots of Prague I figure I should hit the Highlights that everyone who goes to Prague Simply Must See!

(Below) St Vitus Cathederal from the Bridge across the Stag Moat.

It was funny because just about everyone on the group who was with us in Prague had the same Dorling Kindersley guidebook about the city. And in there was a Top Ten list of things to see. Some people were apparently quite obsessive about checking off the Top Ten and Andreas our guide would often kid people about whether some site was in the Top Ten or not.

Charles Bridge looking toward the Old Town

Charles Bridge Looking back toward Hradcany and the Little Quarter

Well as much as Rhonda and I were interested in some obscure byways of Prague we were not immune to wanting to see the touristy highspots. Besides it would be pretty difficult to navigate around Prague and not walk across the Charles Bridge, and you would literally have to never look up to avoid seeing Hradcany and St Vitus Cathederal.

St. Vitus and Prague Castle seen from Vysherad (an older Castle) upriver along the Vlatava

Prague Castle from the Old Town near the Charles Bridge.

Jan Hus Monument on the Old Town Square

Church of Our Lady before Tyn which overlooks the Old Town Square.

The Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall

The Old Jewish Cemetery

in the Jewish Quarter.

Interior of St Nicholas (above)

Detail from the the ceiling in St Nicholas

(Below) View of the Dome of St Nicholas from Petrin Hill

(Below) the Narodni Divaldo (The National Theatre) .

So There you have the Top Ten (according to the Eyewitness Travel Guide). If you counted you may notice that we are minus two sites (Wallenstein Palace and Garden & St Agnes Convent). Wallenstein was close for the season, though we did circle it while walking in the Mala Strana (Little Quarter) and St. Agnes we missed because oddly it is in the Jewish Quarter, and so we were mostly focused on hitting Synygogues, Kafka & Golem sites and the Jewish Cemetary. I guess I didn't realize till too late that St Agnes was in the Josefov.

For those scoring at home the "Top Ten" sites we did see were Old Town Square, the National Theatre, Church of St Nicholas, Charles Bridge, Old Town Hall, Old Jewish Cemetary, St Vitus Cathederal, and Prague Castle. While these are all wonderful and worthy attractions I can't say they would constitute my personal Prague Top Ten, however our more personal favorites will have to wait for another day. For now I think I have maxed out the number of Pics I can upload for free.

2006-12-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

The Magical Mystery Tour of Prague

As anyone who has read the travel brochures knows Prague is a Magical city. A fairy tale metropolis blending ancient, medieval, baroque, and modern all preserved in a way possible only in a place that surrendered to the Nazis without a fight. (Just kidding. It's obviously a lot more complicated, but this is a blog not a dissertation. If brevity is the soul of wit, then perhaps glibness is the essence of blogging)

My wife and I traveled to Prague at the beginning of November, and it was everything they say and much more that you have to find out on your own. I was a little worried that a 9 day stay in one city might get redundant, but the longer we were there the more we realized how much we hadn't seen and wanted to see.

I took lots of pictures, and unlike my other trips some of these came out pretty good. This blog is supposed to concentrate on the literary so I will in the future point out some of Prague's more literary and writerly past and present, but in a city with a multiplicity of picturesque castles, palaces, churches, cathedrals, etc. I think my best pictures turned out to be of a wall covered in graffiti.

The John Lennon wall in the Mala Strana (The Little Quarter) started out as a tribute and a protest. Shortly after Lennon was shot, and the Communists still ruled Czechoslovakia, people began writing Beatle lyrics and painting pictures of John Lennon onto a wall behind the French Embassy, and the government kept painting over it, but the people persisted and eventually the French Ambassador asked the Czech Government to leave the graffiti alone because he liked looking at it.

So for over 25 years, and long after the overthrow of communism, people from all over the world continue to leave tributes to John Lennon who to the Czechs was an icon of the freedom that western democracy represented. (Nevermind that the FBI was spying on him and tried to deport him. We're talking symbolism here not reality).

The wall is about a block long and it's impossible to photograph the whole thing. These pictures are just a sampling, and from what I have seen of earlier pictures the wall is constantly changing, so if and when we go back I'm sure it will be very different. Next time I intend to bring a Sharpie.
There are places I remember, indeed.

2006-07-20T15:34:00.002-04:00

New Borders CEO Sounds Like a Real Bookguy

I don't want to cast aspersions, (I'm not even sure what aspersions look like or how far they can be thrown) but the new CEO of Borders doesn't strike me as a real bookish type. Here is a snippet from part of an interview on the Reading Shelf Awareness newsletter.

The View from the Top of Borders After Two Days

George Jones, the new CEO of Borders Group, struck a cautious, deliberate tone in an interview with the New York Times, written up in today's edition. He said that he wanted, as the paper put it, "to focus on learning more about how the business worked and executing Borders'
already announced strategy to put Seattle's Best Coffee shops and Paperchase stationery outlets into its stores." Still, he added, "I do think there might be opportunities to do things differently. What you can expect is that we will be an innovative company.

"This is not a broken business," Jones continued. "It's a company that has a strong foundation in businesses that I am passionate about." He said he plans no job cuts.

Jones told the Times he enjoys reading biographies, travel guides and John Grisham and James Patterson. The paper wrote, "He also loves music--classic rock like Steely Dan, the Beatles and the Eagles--and owns more than 1,000 movies on DVDs."

Observing that many Borders customers spend "a lot longer in a store than what I've been used to," he said there are opportunities to encourage those customers to spend more while in the stores.

Jones will be paid a base salary of $775,000 and be eligible for an annual bonus of up to $1.2 million, the paper said.

Does him saying customers spend "a lot longer in a store than what I've been used to," sound odd. Like if he was the new commisioner of baseball, and trying to figure out why people keep hanging around the ballpark after the beer stands close? Or is that just me.

Isn't Border one of the biggest booksellers in the country. A huge chunk of the market. Shouldn't the CEO of that company "get" the whole bookbuying experience. Or maybe he's hoping we are just there for the coffee and the stationary (and the DVDs and CDs and chocolates and Hello Kitty stuff).

The Friend who forwarded me this piece had this observation:

Ok. The business is not broken. No layoffs. They already have new coffee deal. Big plans: make people stay longer. Sounds like he is dull minded and is going to coast… James Patterson? Oy. For this, a couple of million a year.

Steve, we are in the wrong racket.

Coasting is right. And I could have told you her we were in the wrong racket. It's so wrong I don't even think we can legitimately call it a "racket". Libraries? C'mon? We're giving it away. No upselling. No point of purchase tchotskes. We are certainly not maximizing our price point. What a bunch of chumps.

And while I'm nitpicking what about:

"opportunities to encourage those customers to spend more while in the stores."

Maybe they could try what the old Showcase Books in downtown Warren tried and start to charge a browsing fee. Maybe he should at least turn up the thermostat on the air conditioning. It doesn't have to be as cold as meat locker in there. Does it? What with global warming and all. Though I suppose a piping hot cuppa Seattle's Best doesn't sound so appealing if it isn't 65 degrees or chillier in the store.

By the way George, FYI, that browsing fee thing never did catch on. You might try assessing damage charges on the items people manhandle while sipping their Seattle's Best. I couldn't find a copy of the new Alastair Reynolds novel Pushing Ice at my local Borders that wasn't mauled (though in fairness I'm pretty sure it was the staff that had read them not the customers), and that wasn't the first time I had to go elsewhere to get a decent copy of something. And once I picked up a copy of something off the shelf that was completely soaked with "joe" and the customer had just put it back on the shelf.

"He also loves music--classic rock like Steely Dan, the Beatles and the Eagles--and owns more than 1,000 movies on DVDs."

No wonder he doesn't spend that much time in the bookstores. 1000 movies x an average of 2 hours per movie is 2000 hours or almost a 40 hour week for a whole year. And I hate baby boomers who "love music" but only listen to "classic rock". He probably says he likes everything but rap or country but hasn't actually bought an album since Frampton Comes Alive or Rumours. Whatever, dude.

2006-01-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

The Book Gods Provide

So how's this for timing. I have one story left to read in Magic for Beginners, and I was looking through my "to be read" pile last night, so I wouldn't have any lag time, but I really couldn't decide what to start next. So I come into work this morning and sitting on my chair is a package from Cold Tonnage Books. My copy of 20th Century Ghosts arrived and not a moment too soon.

Another collection, and it looks good. I'm still in short story mode. I finished the Lucy Sussex book just as my wife finished Kelly Link so that worked well. This may be heresy but I'm not actually enjoying Magic for Beginners as much as the raves about it led me to think I would. The writing is first rate and funny, but there seems to be a sort of cumulative effect to the surreal plots that makes me care less about the whole thing than I want to. You know how if anything can happen then who cares what happens, and maybe things seem to be weird just for weirdness sake. So, although I know certain characters and images will stay with me (the All-nite Convenience with the zombie clientele; the TV show The Library, the affair that the wife made up then has trouble pretending never happened) I think I would be hard pressed right now to tell you exactly what happened in most of these stories or how they ended. I could tell you stuff that happened, but nothing like what might be mistaken for a plotline with an ending that I cared about. Certainly the endings were the weakest part for me. I'm sure it's just me. Salon & Time can't be wrong. And I would definitely read Kelly Link again. She is fun to read.

I really liked all of A Tour Guide in Utopia even if the stories did have plot logic and structure and made sense.

2005-12-29T13:30:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to Me

So it turned out to be The Martian Child, which was a very quick read and should make a good movie. I think John Cusack is pretty well cast since this book reads like an American style Nick Hornby story, despite the fact that it is autobiographical. I think John Cusack may be the American Huge Grant.

I went back and read the novelette version in the Nebula Awards 30 collection and it seems like the main difference (other than length) is that in the novel Gerrold basically drops the whole Martian thing, and just lets it sort of end up as a metaphor. I thought the story took it more seriously and didn't back away from the alien child idea. Not that one way was better than the other, but I don't think the novel could have won a Nebula since it really abandons the science fiction premise.

Of course that was last weeks reading. After The Martian Childs (The Martian Children?) I was in a short story mood, but couldn't decide between the Kelly Link story collection Magic for Beginners or the China Mieville collection Looking for Jake. Since my wife was also looking to start something new I took the cowards way out and let her pick between the two and so started reading Looking for Jake and then after she finishes we'll swap. But I finished ahead of her, and the day I finished reading Mieville (every story good by the way) I got a package in the mail from Australia that had the new collection by Lucy Sussex A Tour Guide in Utopia. On Jonathan Strahan's blog Notes from Coode Street he had recommended some holiday book ideas and said if you live in Australia go buy A Tour Guide in Utopia and if you live in the UK go buy 20th Century Ghosts (A Collection) by Joe Hill. Well that was all the suggestion I needed, so even though I don't live down under or in the UK (I already had Magic for Beginners which was his suggestion for the people living in the US), this is the 21st century man. I hopped on the internet and ordered them both. The amazing thing is that the book from Australia got here in about a week, and that was the week containing Christmas. I've read about 4 stories so far and they are all very good. One I had read before in F & SF (The Queen of Erewhon) which was also I think a Tiptree award shortlister or should have been. The first story (Matilda Told Such Dreadful Lies) would have benefited from some knowledge of the unofficial national anthem of Australia Waltzing Matilda, but I was able to get plenty of background from the internet after the fact. I would advise getting the info before the fact.

I should blow through this collection just in time for Rhonda to finish with Kelly Link or if not maybe my other package will arrive from the UK. Come on Royal Post the Australians are makin' you look bad, man.

In the meantime Black Hole is still daring me to read it. I'm not scared or anything. I just have a lot of other stuff on my list, you know. Would I shy away from teenage sex and strange orifices? No way man.

2005-12-19T16:50:00.000-05:00

Baby Steps

Rather than make promises about how I'm going to try really, really hard and post on my blog all the time, let me just say here I am now, and here is a short review of the book I just read.

The Limits of Enchantment (2005) by Graham Joyce

Main character Fern has learned the ways of hedgerow medicine and folk magic from her adopted mother Mammy. Mammy is the local midwife and wise-woman, but Fern doesn’t really believe in it, and many people in the English Midlands village circa 1966 view the old ways with suspicion and scorn. When a girl comes asking for help with an unwanted pregnancy Mammy gives her an herbal potion to terminate the pregnancy, but the girl dies. Mammy is attacked by drunken louts in the village, and lands in hospital. Now Fern, at twenty, is on her own for the first time. The time for the “Asking”, a sort of visionquest where she will learn of her spririt animal, is upon her, but hostile forces in the village and possibly in the spirit realm are blocking her and other paths beckon. Will she stay loyal to Mammy and follow in her footsteps, enter a course to become a government certified midwife, or perhaps take up with the local hippy commune or her erstwhile suitor Arthur? A magical coming-of-age story packed with wisdom and humor.

Next book: Oh Gosh! So many choices. Maybe Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman or another Graham Joyce, perhaps The Facts of Life or Smoking Poppy. But there sits Black Hole by Charles Burns daring me to read it. And I just got a copy of The Martian Child by David Gerrold in the mail today, and the movie version is coming out in 2006, and I want to read the book first in case the film sucks. I don't know why. It's just a theory (more of a gut feeling really) I have about the Book/Movie Dynamic. Seeing a Bad movie ruins good book unless you have read the book first. Check back.

2004-11-05T10:43:00.000-05:00

Just Kidding

My wife insists that I point out that in my last post I was being faceitious when I included "thrift" and "cleanliness" as virtues for which I strive. I thought it was obviously a joke, but for the sake of complete clarity "thrifty" and "clean" are not attributes which I can count in my skill set. I don't refer to personal hygiene. I think I am as well scrubbed and freshly powdered as the next guy (as long as the next guy isn't a raving metrosexual). But if clean is understood to mean tidy or neat then in the interest of full disclosure let me state for the record that I am a slob who is in serious need of someone to pick-up after me.

The fact that I have about five times as many books as I have bookshelf space would be a major contributing factor toward my inability to put everything away in its proper place. Unless you would consider a proper place to be a wobbly towering stacks of books on the floor or dining room table or a wobbly stack of boxes filled with books . As anyone with the bibliomaniac gene twisted into their double helix can attest storage space is usually the first casualty of biblioholism. Domestic bliss will be the next thing placed on the disabled list.

As for thrift. The less said the better. If by thrift you mean having two nickels to rub together.
Penny saved is a penny earned. Saving for a rainy day.

Recall the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. I have always identified with the grasshopper, and thought the ant was a bit of a prig and a killjoy. What can I say except that at least the grasshopper would have something to read while the ant was living off the hoard he had stored up for the winter. I assume the ant was left with a full belly just staring vacantly into space waiting for spring, until he could go back to work saving up for next winter. The ant was the personification of all work and no play. A very dull boy as anyone who has ever spent any time with ants is painfully aware. What a bunch of a-holes.

2004-11-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

As I was saying...

Ahem. Well It seems like it's time to crawl back into my shell, ignore the world at large, and escape into a bookish cocoon. I mean metaphorically. I won't be masticating any book paper and extruding an actual cocoon, although if you saw my library you might wonder.

What have I been reading lately? I had taken a detour into the world of non-fiction. I read a passel of the lefty political books (Molly Ivins, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Joe Conason, Greg Palast, etc.), but now that Bush is back in for another four years I think I'll go back to reading Horror fiction, since it is less scary.

The only thought I have on the election is that it only confirms for me (for the zillionth time) what I have known in my heart at least since elementary school: There is something wrong with me. For some reason, if normal is what the majority of people enjoy, do, or believe, then I am not like the majority of people, not normal. Every interest, every belief, every enthusiasm I have just seems to put me further and further out of the mainstream of, well, I don't know, the stream I guess.

So if you are looking for me for the next four years or so I'll be over here at Not Crazy..Just Enthusiastic huddled against the shore (or is it the bank) of the stream, out of the swift moving current of the mainstream where I could be swept over the falls or dashed against the rocks. I'll just be clinging to the knobby little roots and branches of what I hold most precious: Traditional values like tolerance, intelligence, fairness, reading, compassion, beauty, wit, reading, open-mindedness, courtesy, kindness, and reading. We will strive to remain cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

2004-01-29T09:25:00.000-05:00

BUSTED!...Scandal Rocks Not Crazy...Just Enthusiastic

Mea Culpa. Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa. Alright you caught me (don't look so smug).
A Friend (?) wrote to point out that I double dipped on my top ten movie list. Well here I'll let him make his case:

"You know what a stickler I am for this--how can "Bubba" be an honorable
mention one year and on your top ten the next? ;-p"

Although I hang my head in shame when the little newsboys come up to me on the street and implore me to "Say it ain't so." I'm afraid that, Yes, it's true. I have had heartbreak in my life. I have made mistakes, and I did in fact list Bubba-Ho-Tep on my Top Ten for 2003 even though I saw it in 2002 and had included it in my Honorable Mentions for that year. Although I still contend that I never bet on Strat-o-Matic Baseball either while an active participant or after retiring from the game. (Sharp eyed [no pun intended] readers may have noticed that The Eye also appeared for a second time in the Honorable Mentions.

In my defense I only say that if you do the math you will find that 2003 was not as good a year as 2002, and that both the aforementioned films were listed here The Bubakar Awardsas eligible for 2003 best of honors. When I saw that I took the opportunity to relist them and who knew anyone would be reading let alone fact checking.

So, sadly, now I must join the ranks of the Stephen Glasses, the Jayson Blairs, The Pete Roses and all those other once admired public figures who's shame and human weakness become fodder for their critics who have nothing better to do but nitpick at the failings of their betters.

Yes, I think I know how Bill Clinton must have felt after being caught lying (to protect his wife and daughter) about receiving oral sex in a public building during working hours, or how Al Gore felt when his statements about sponsoring legislation to fund the internet were blown (no pun intended) out of proportion by a cynical Republican hate machine, or how Henry Kissinger must feel when people rattle on about his responsibility for the deaths of thousands of innocent women & children.

Mock on. Mock on. I will only be made stronger and more powerful by my tearful revelations to Diane Sawyer and my cover story in People or Us Weekly. I shall rise Phoenix like to once again share my love of books, reading, America, Apple Pie, and Motherhood with the underpriveledged, downtrodden, handicapped and speech- impaired.

As a penance (court-ordered) I will be working with the Make a Wish foundation to provide some sick or dying child a chance to become part of this Blog. It will be a dream come true, I'm sure, when the little nipper after patiently and agonizingly typing out his deepest thoughts and dreamiest dreams with a mouth stick presses that Post & Publish button and sees his words flash up on the screen and knows that other kids around the world in Haiti, Bangladesh, Somalia or East Timor with internet access can share in his painful,personal yet noble and ultimately life affirming blogging. God bless us everyone. And God Bless America.

2004-01-24T22:58:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Favorite TV Shows of 2003

Here at Not Crazy…Just Enthusiastic we received complaints (shocking, Huh?) that our Top Ten films are too obscure and hard to see, despite the fact that half of them probably played at a mall multiplex near you. And so as a service to you, our shut-in readers, we offer our Top Ten TV shows. Now anyone with a TV set and basic cable can play along at home, no need to leave the country, or the county, or the house.

1. Degrassi: The Next Generation (Nogin)

The show I am currently obsessed with, but maybe you need to know where I am coming from to decide if you would have any interest. I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer and My So Called Life are two of my favorite shows ever. Teen angst makes great drama. And at Degrassi you can cut the angst with a protractor. There is also a leavening of humor, but more Square Pegs than Saved by the Bell. Plus it’s Canadian, and filmed in Toronto. So an angsty Canadian teenage soap-opera set at a Toronto High School is tailor made to push all my buttons. I’m like a rat in a maze, and I found the lever that keeps the food pellets coming.

Somebody asked me, “Aren’t you a little old for that show?” Well by that reckoning I’m also too old for Thirtysomething. Am I supposed to eventually watch nothing but Matlock, Banaby Jones, and The Golden Girls?

2. Gilmore Girls (WB)

The story line on the Girls this season has moved at a glacial pace. Refurbishing the Inn is into its sixth month and I don’t even think they have picked out paint colors or wallpaper yet. On the BBC they accomplish this shit in one day on someone else’s house. And for someone going to Yale Rory spends a lot of time hanging around the house. But this show isn’t about plot. It’s about banter. And the banter flows as fast and funny and as chock full of obscure pop culture references as ever, so as long as the girls keep talking I’ll keep watching.

3. Line of Fire (ABC)

Sopranos lite with equal time for the law enforcement characters. So far the characters have seemed a little slow to develop except for David Paymer’s sociopathic mob boss and Leslie Hope’s chain smoking FBI field office head. But they seem to be willing to let the stories unfold naturally, and not rush to wrap things up neatly every hour and I respect that. Plus I guess now you can say “shit” on network broadcast television so the dialogue has a little more verisimilitude. And that’s that with that.

4. Alias (ABC) /24 (FOX)

Um, apparently Sydney is some sort of savior foretold of in the 16th century and she kicks high. Jack is a junkie and Nina is back. But does anyone really know what the hell is going on here? Does it matter as long as people fight and grimace and stuff blows up good? These are action shows and they have action. It ain’t Harold Pinter.

5. The Daily Show/w John Stewart (Comedy Central)

Still my primary source for humor, news and humorous news.

6. Tru Calling (FOX) /Dead Like Me (Showtime)

Tru Calling answers the question, “What if you worked in a morgue and every day was Groundhog Day and you had to keep someone from dying again?” Whereas Dead Like Me addresses the question, “What if you were dead already and your job was to be a Grim Reaper and make sure someone else died today?”

7. The Joe Schmo Show (SpikeTV) /Surf Girls (MTV) (

I have never seen a single episode of Survivor. I would rather plunge a narwhal horn into my eardrum than hear another warbler from American Idol. And I haven’t watched the Real World since everybody started getting naked and jumping in the hot tub on Day One. So what the hell do I know about what makes a good reality show? If you are a reality TV fan you probably won’t like these two shows. Don’t feel bad. I don’t think anyone else in America did. But if seeing a really nice guy mercilessly jerked around by a house full of actors pretending to be real people sounds like fun, or if you wouldn’t mind watching a dozen or so beautiful, athletic, emotionally unstable surfer girls travel around to some of the most beautiful spots on the Pacific Rim and surf then you might like these shows. I did. My wife did. I’ve never met one other person who did though, so you probably won’t.

8. The Shield (FX)

It has been nearly a year since Vic pummeled his last perp, so I can only say I am anxiously awaiting season three. Good rule breaking law enforcemnt fun.

9. Pet Keeping with Marc Morrone (Syndicated)

This pet advice show is in its second incarnation. It used to be called The Pet Shop, and it used to be better before it had a Martha Stewart makeover. When Marc Morrone is standing in his pseudo studio Pet shop with rabbits, chinchillas, guinea pigs, puppies, kittens, cats, hamsters, macaws, cockatiels, ferrets, prairie dogs, and more are scurrying around him, on him, over him, under him, and all over each other it is the most fun you can have with your TV set. More remotes, more guests, more actual advice have only taken away from what used to be a half hour of total all-out fluffy cuteness. Still even on the new show they do eventually get to the good stuff. There should just be a channel that shows his critters running around 24/7. You don’t even need him. Although I would miss not seeing the macaw occasionally try to eat his glasses.

10. Arrested Development (FOX)

I think this is the only network sitcom I watch. It is funny, but I’m afraid the writing is too smart for it to last. Of course, Frasier was on for like 17 years and had really good writng so maybe there is hope.

If my viewing habits are any barometer you can look for all these shows to be cancelled shortly. Among the new shows that I started watching this year were Skin, Tarzan, and Karen Sisco. They all were swiftly cancelled, except Karen Sisco which might be back in March. I'm just sayin'. Don't get too attatched. I know some of you are still recovering Buffy watchers. One day at a time friend and take reruns as needed.

2004-01-16T15:43:00.000-05:00

2003 Top Ten Favorite Films

I hate to say it but the last time I really posted anything substantial here was my 2002 Top Ten. Please don't hate me because I procrastinate.

Here is my list of favorites

1. American Splendor

I really, really liked it. I have been a fan of the comic American Splendor for almost 20 years and I really, really liked the way they adapted the original material for the screen. Really.

2. Whale Rider
3. Bend it Like Beckham

Real girl power from New Zealand and the U.K.

4. Touching the Void

An amazing survival story of two climbers trapped by a storm at the summit of a remote peak in Peru. Then one breaks his leg and the real trouble begins. A documentary that deftly intersperses gripping reenactments with gripping talking heads.

5. Dracula: Pages from a Virgins Diary

A film of a ballet based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. If that sounds good to you then you will love this. If that sounds weird to you then you will still love it.
Directed in a stylized pseudo-silent era film style by Guy Maddin, who also directed a near miss film for my list this year The Saddest Music in the World also in a sylized pseudo-silent era style.

6. The School of Rock

The laugh out loud funniest feel good movie of the year. Do I really need to say Jack Black Rules.

7. Lost in Translation

Poigniant, understated, and everybody's obligatory top ten film, so what do you need my two cents for.

8. Story of the Weeping Camel

A wonderful documentary made as a student project by a German film class in Mongolia. You get a wonderful cast of real people surviving in an isolated part of the world in large part due to the health of their camel herd. A mother camel rejects her calf and a muscian needs to be brought to perform the ceremony that will get them to bond, or the calf will starve. Unfortunately the nearest muscian who can perform the ceremony is 500 miles away. And yes, the baby lives, and the mother really does weep.

9. Bubba-ho-Tep

Bruce Campbell as Elvis and JFK (in the body of Ossie Davis) battle Egyptian mummies in a nursing home in Texas. What more do you need to know.

10. Ong Bak: Muy Thai Warrior
From Thailand comes the most fun, most spectacular, martial arts film since The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, and the star "insert unpronouncable name here" is certainly the next Jackie Chan and Jet Li rolled into one. All stunts seen are seen actual size. No Wires.
No special effects.

Honorable Mentions: The Saddest Music in the World Shattered Glass; Thirteen; Zatoichi; 28 Days Later; Swimming Pool; Fulltime Killer; The Legend of Suriyothai; The Eye.

If my list seems especially devoid of big Hollywood prestige Blockbusters such as Master and Commander, Mystic River, Lord of the Rings, Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, Seabiscuit, etc. Well that's because I didn't see them. None of them. I don't really even know why. I do fully intend to see The Lord of the Rings, but beyond that none of the usual Academy suspects this year really held much allure for me. I don't think they suck. I'm not against Hollywood movies per se. I just am at the point where I don't really feel obligated to see what I don't particularly want to see. If that means I'm missing alot of good films, well, I could give you a list a mile long of other good films I missed and you know life is short and movies are long, nowadays mostly way too long.

So as they used to say in Rome de gustibus non disputandum. I really feel strongly that in matters of taste it is silly, completely silly, to argue over someones likes and dislikes. If I like something that you thought was absolute drivel what am I supposed to do about that? "Sorry I guess I was wrong. I guess I really didn't enjoy that movie for whatever strange idiosyncratic reason. I guess that film really didn't appeal to my particular unique individual perspective."

Think of aesthetic preferences as if they were sexual fetishes. If leather boots or golden showers turn you on, then who am I to say they shouldn't. Hollywood movies are sort of like the missionary position with the lights off. The majority of people are doing it and they seem to be enjoying it. That doesn't mean your sex life can't be a four hour sub-titled epic set in a Soviet tractor factory, but it doesnt really make you better than everybody either.

If you prefer Happy Gilmore to The Sweet Hereafter what is that to me or you. We live in a world with a dizzying array of entertainment choices where Adam Sandler and Atom Egoyan can exist side by side and one doesn't need to kill the other.

Next: My top TV shows and Favorite Reads and why you should love them too.

2003-11-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

Happy Tofurkey Day

Having Thanksgiving in New Jersey and Showing my nephews the olde weblog. They will soon be blogging themselves.

2003-11-26T09:36:00.000-05:00

As Seen in Time Magazine

As was to be expected Not Crazy...Just Enthusiastic has launched me into a new venue as a pundit of all things literary. Read me quoted in Andrew Arnold's column in the online edition of Time Magazine . I think I hear the phone ringing. Could it be C-Span 2 calling?

If you are curious or masochistic here is the complete letter unedited as I originally sent it to Andrew Arnold in response to his Nov. 14th column. My letter makes slightly more sense if you read the column first.

Thanks for an interesting piece on Graphic Novels. As a Librarian I wrestled with the nomenclature and found that Graphic Novel although flawed and imprecise is the best term of a bad lot. I doubt the discussion will ever end (look at how the term "Science Fiction" is still debated, and embraced or shunned, i.e. Margret Atwood), but I think the war is over and we are stuck with Graphic Novel for better or worse. That is just what people call them now. I realize it seems unfair to lump X-men and Spawn with Maus and Jimmy Corrigan, but what the hell. The term "novel" can lump Danielle Steel and Nicholas Sparks with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy so where is the justice in that.
So, as much as I sympathize with Art Spiegelman and his desire not to shelved next to Marvels when he says, "because if you talk about [Chris Ware's] 'Jimmy Corrigan' as a graphic novel you'll have to explain that it's not manga or Marvel. Then you are left saying, 'well it's got a seriousness of purpose' that the phrase 'graphic novel' alone won't offer." he is just wrong. Of course some Graphic Novels have a "seriousness of purpose" that superheroes or some Manga don't have. Novels like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay or Fortress of Solitude have a seriousness of purpose that the latest Clive Cussler or Robert Ludlum™ doesn't have. Still they are all novels.
Speigelman seems to be making the same mistake that people who won't consider comics and Graphic Novels seriously make (I realize he really knows better) by associating a type of content with the form. Nobody says "Well Batman was a stupid TV show, so TV must be a waste of time, and therefore I won't watch The Sopranos." But I know many people make that very illogical mistake by dismissing the Graphic Novel form because they associate it with juvenile crap.
Whatever. This is my familiar rant (familiar to my coworkers, friends, and family anyway). I realize I'm preaching to the converted.
Thanks again for the piece.

You can see he edited and condensed my redundant ramblings, but he asked me permission first, and I only asked him not to make me sound like an idiot.

I wish everone a happy Tofurkey Day. Keep reading.

2003-10-15T11:23:00.000-04:00

2003-10-15T11:22:00.000-04:00

First Line Alert

Here is a really good first line from a new book by Steven Bochco called Death by Hollywood.

There used to be a writer by the name of Merle Miller, who wrote that people in Hollywood are always touching you-not because they like you, but because they want to see how soft you are before they eat you alive.

Steven Bochco is of course the creator of Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and NYPD Blue, but also the creator of Doogie Howser, MD, Hooperman, and Cop Rock. Interestingly, the author bio on the back dust jacket flap only mentions the first three.

2003-01-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Favorite Films of 2002

1. Atanarjuaat: The Fast Runner: A film with an all Inuit cast, written and directed by Inuits, and filmed mostly in the snow above the Arctic Circle sounds like it would be somthing more suited to an anthropology class. But Atanarjuaat is a epic tale of love, betrayal, murder, and revenge with an almost Shakespearean quality that made it riveting. I was literally on the edge of my seat (OK, so partly it was because the seats at the Cleveland Cinemateque are so uncomfortable) during a chase sequence as thrilling as anything from Bullitt or The French Connection. Only this chase is on foot. Two crazed murderers with knives and clubs chase a naked man over the ice. This film gave me everything I look for in a moviegoing experience: interesting characters, surprising plot twists, a unique setting beautifully photographed, and, most importantly, a new perspective. A thoughoughly unique and fascinating experience.

2. Spirited Away: One word: Miyazaki! The only thing that kept this film from being # 1 was Atanarjaat. All the elements are here and if I didn't think it was quite as good for me as Princess Mononoke that only show up some deficiency in me as a filmgoer. Miyazaki is a master.
3. Y tu Mama Tambien: One of the most powerful coming of age stories I have seen. With a superb cast, sharp poigniant writing, beautiful cinematography and a very sexy, yet almost painfully realistic and awkward teenage male sexual awakening story that took it to much higher level well out realm of silly American teenage sex movies.
4. Bowling for Columbine: Michael Moore takes on Americans an their obsession with guns. And he makes it hilariously funny. Probably funnier and more angry than Roger and Me and it couldn't have come at a better time.
5. Kytice (Wild Flowers): Highly stylized Czech film that retells six (or was it seven? It's been a while) Czech fairy tales with a beauty and maturity that made it one of the best fantasy films of the year or really of any year.
6. The Good Girl: Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhall are both great in this bittersweet story of love and infidelity. John C. Reilly and Tim Blake Nelson are alternately hilarious and revolting as her stoner husband and his goofy stoner friend with an unexpected dark side.
7. Nine Queens: A Spanish thriller in the David Mamet "who's conning who?" genre of House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner and every bit as good as those two.
8. The Quiet American: Look for Michael Caine at Oscar time. He is brilliant, and by the way so was Graham Greene, who saw it all coming in Vietnam way ahead of the curve.
9. Secretary: A kinky fairy-tale-office-romance-comedy that gets maybe a little to silly near the end, but has great performances by Maggie Gyllenhall and James Spader. They walk a tightrope with this material between camp, farce, and eroticism that keeps the viewer off balance in a slightly painful yet pleasurable way.
10.Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: Saw this one late, but it bumped Far from Heaven to the Honorable Mentions because it was so much more fun to watch while oddly enough working some of the same period territory, and playing with some of the same surface vs. reality tension of the 50's and 60's that made America so great and so fucked up. You end up admiring Far from Heaven, but scene by scene you will enjoy Confession more.

Near Misses and Guilty Pleasures: Far from Heaven, Monsoon Wedding, 13 Conversations about One Thing, Rabbit-Proof Fence, About a Boy, Bubba-Ho-Tep, The Eye.

2003-01-05T13:23:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Favorite TV Shows of 2002

I started out working on my Ten favorite Films of 2002, but there are still a few possibles that haven't made it to the area yet. In the meantime I did a Top Ten TV Shows for 2002. One thing may have skewed my list slightly. I have sattelite dish service, but am unable to receive local channels via the dish. However my local reception is lousy, and so I applied to the Networks for waviers, but was only granted them for ABC and FOX. I can also get the WB and UPN via satelite, but that means anything on NBC or CBS I just don't watch. This means I have never seen CSI or The West Wing, and I can't watch Friends or Frasier (is it even still on?). So, it's not that I don't like 'em, I just can't watch 'em. Serves them right, anyway the wavier denying bastards.

I was going to say something about my general bias against serious TV drama (i.e. Doctor, Lawyer, and Police shows), but I think a look at my list will make my bias apparent. In other words it would be pointless for me to make a list of my TV Guilty Pleasures, since from most peoples standpoint they are all guilty pleasures. The only difference is I don't feel guilty about it.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (UPN) Although dipping slightly in quality since the WB years still the most fun, most addictive, best wisecracking kick-ass chick show on TV.

2. Gilmore Girls (WB) My favorite wisecracking chicks who don’t kick ass.

3. Alias (ABC) Kick ass chick, but less wisecracking more paranoia, angst, and cooler outfits.

4. The Daily Show with John Stewart (Comedy Central) Not much on TV makes me laugh hard as consistently as The Daily Show. Also my primary news source.

5. John Doe (UPN) As a Buffy fan I was excited about Firefly (now soon departing), but ended up hooked on this Fugitive derivative that aired immediately after Firefly. Starting off like the The Bourne Identity meets Beat the Geeks it has developed into an interesting hybrid thriller-cop-sci-fi show that could now go convincingly in any direction with it’s lead. Let’s hope they actually have a plan, and aren’t just making it up and complicating stuff as they go along only to wind-up taking a Twin Peaks/X-Files style nose dive.

6. The Dead Zone (USA) Who would have thought Anthony Michael Hall could walk in Christopher Walken’s shoes. Wisely sticking closely to the original Stephen King source material while carefully expanding the scope, and exploring the character relationships.

7. The Shield (F/X) My newest favorite show. Ultra-violent wisecracking cops abusing their authority and sometimes doing the right thing. I hope Vic Mackey isn’t for real, but I’m glad someone invented him for my amusement. I’m currently catching up via the six day marathon, and am looking forward to the Season Two Premiere Tuesday Jan. 7.

8. Powerpuff Girls / Sponge Bob Square Pants (Cartoon Network/Nickolodeon) Sometimes you just want something silly but not stupid.

9. Hamtaro / Tokyo Pig (Cartoon Network/ABC Family) Sometimes you just want something cute and Japanese.

10. BattleBots (Comedy Central) And sometimes you just want Robots smashing each other. Alas, too long since the last new season.

And what would be the point of TV without reruns. Especially those older shows that are now on every day several times a day so that you can watch until are sick of them.

Reruns currently in Heavy Rotation at Chez Not Crazy…Just Entusiastic

 Daria (on Nogin) "I don't have low self-esteem. I just have low esteem for other people"
 Thunderbirds (on Tech TV) Espeically nice with the information pop-ups provided by Tech TV to point out interesting background stuff and bloopers.
 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons One through Six (on seemingly everywhere at all times) I will stop whatever I am doing at any time to watch the "Evil Vampire Willow" episodes one more time.

2003-01-03T18:24:00.000-05:00

PERSONALITY POINTERS

Since it is just after New Years and some of you may not have actually broken your resolutions yet or maybe you haven’t made any yet (Try "This year I’ll stop Procrastinating") I thought I would share something I found today in a book called Personality Pointers by Jill Edwards bought this morning at the Easter Seals Rummage Sale. This is one of those pocketbook size hardbacks published by Permabooks (# P73) in the early 50’s. The cover blurb calls it "A practical guide to individual attractiveness and an aid to artistic, musical, and literary culture, written by an experienced practitioner of charm." Think of it as the literary equivalent of those classroom Mental Hygiene films you were subjected to about First Dates, Good Posture, and How to be Popular.

PESONALITY POINTERS
CREED FOR THE VALIANT LIFE

Sevenfold Technique

I believe it is my duty to myself to develop a well-rounded effective personality, using the abilities which I possess within myself.

1. I shall do something today about my health, my figure, my appearance, my voice, and my speech.

2. I shall learn something today because I believe in the state of joyous growth.

3. I shall employ the light touch today and bring joy and laughter to at least one person.

4. I shall use the gracious ways today in my contact with others.

5. I shall develop my senses a little today in the appreciation of beauty.

6. I shall have faith today in the Great Creative Force and realize that I am an important part of a great plan.

7. I shall live valiantly today.

I believe that if I develop a daily rhythm of habits in these seven fields of activity, I sahll achieve a dynamic personality and a new joy in living and I believe that by so doing I shall contribute my share toward the progress of mankind.

Words to live by people.

Valiantly yours -

2002-12-27T11:03:00.000-05:00

Two Towers..and a partridge in a Pear Tree

Saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on Chrismas day, and since you will see it too there isn't much that needs to be said. Except what anyone familiar with the pseudo-medieval epic quest fantasy trilogy genre already knows: The middle volume of the trilogy is ALL middle. You may experience reversals and betrayals, signs and portents, oaths and battles, despair and renewed hope, but one thing you won't get is an ending. Closure. And since you already know the beginning, the nature of the quest having been revealed in part one, part two almost inevitably ends where it began. Every man, woman, and hobbit, if they have survived this far may be wearier and wiser, but they are still just on the way.

Of course since a quest is supposed to be about the journey, not the destination, maybe the middle is the true heart of the story and the need to wrap it up in part three anti-climactic. We'll see. Actually, I look forward to it.

2002-12-21T09:29:00.000-05:00

Opening Day of the Season

With Friday my last day of work before Christmas I feel like now the season can really begin. The fact that I actually have all my shopping done makes it easier to get into the spirit, since I don't have to contend with the hordes of holiday shoppers.

This morning I had a simultaneous experiences that I hope will set the tone for the Holidays. I was sitting and watching what may be my favorite Chiristmas movie. No not It's a Wonderful Life. No not Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story. I was watching (am watching actually since it is still on in the mext room) The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young. Based on a book by an unfortunately forgotten, or at least neglected writer, Robert Nathan, who wrote a slew of these sort's of light fantasies back in the 30's, 40's and on up through the 70's. Probably his best known book is Portrait of Jennie (I own a very nice first edition in jacket), and also a wonderful movie, starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton.

Anyway The Bishop's Wife (for those who don't know it check your local listing, since it should be in heavy rotation for the next week), of course features Cary Grant as an Angel sent to earth to assist a burned out Bishop (Niven), who is neglecting his beautiful wife (Young), and caught up in his administrative duties, particularly the fund raising for the building of a new Cathedral. I was watching the scene early in the film when the Bishop has promised to take his wife Christmas shopping, but a day of dreary meetings has caused him to cancel. Cary Grant by contrast arrives full of energy and enthusiasm not only for his duties as Bishop's assistant (the prospect of organizing the card file fills him with joy), but simply with joy in the people around him and the wonder being alive in the world.

It's a very infectious enthusiam, although the Bishop hasn't caught it yet, and sitting on the couch I look up to the window in the dining room where my black cat Jet is on her ledge looking out the window and it is snowing outside. Her tail is twitching with excitement (actually her tail is almost always twitching) and she is watching the snow with a coiled intensity. Her head whipping back and forth watching individual snowflakes as they streak past the window. I watch her for a long while as she sits and just watches it snow, soon I look past her and I am also just watching it snow. I let my mind empty and the try to become as catlike as I can (far from empty headed however) and my cat and I sit together and watch the miracle of snow as it happens for our own amusment.

This I think (losing my catlike state of mind) is the way I want to be this Christmas. Like a cat. Like an Angel just come to earth. Open and full of wonder. Looking at everything with fresh eyes as if I'm seing it for the first time. Not just the snow, but also the people, especially the ones I have seen many times before. Reaching out to them with an open mind and a heart full of wonder. It's worth a try.

Then I come over to the computer to type this, and while I am typing Jet jumps up on the diningroom table behind me and knocks down the big plastic tub of bunny pellets onto the floor where the rabbit is now feasting on her pellets, which I suppose I should go pick up before she eats herself sick.

2002-12-18T15:32:00.000-05:00

Mencken Speaks

As a sort of follow up to yesterday's rant I wanted to mention a piece that I heard this morning on NPR about H. L. Mencken. I think Mencken's skepticism may just the antidote to the lack of critical thinking and inattention to languge thet seems rampant today.

Check out the story on Mencken in real audio . The NPR piece begins by saying "For people who are often convinced they are surrounded by idiots H.L. Mencken is just the ticket." And who isn't convinced of that. I think it gives you a quick overview of Mencken warts and all. I liked the excerpts from the only existing recording of Mencken and one of the things he said showed him at his most grumpy:

"The volume of mail that comes in to a mazgazine, newspaper or radio station is no index of anything except that you happen to attract a lot of idiots because most people who that write letters to the newspaper are fools."

That observation may help explain why so much talk radio is right wing. Nowadays who writes letters? Easier just to pick up the phone.

Mencken is grumpy, bitter, funny, frank, and inciteful and no idealogue so he should irritate and enlighten all points of view in equal measure.

2002-12-17T19:01:00.000-05:00

What’s the Mood Like There On the Ground?

I don’t want to go political on you but there are some current trends that I find irritating if not out and out disturbing. I don’t know if the media is Liberal or Conservative (when I listen to Rush’s uninterrupted daily 3 hour rant though I tend to think it might lean a little to the right since I can’t think of a Liberal voice with a similar platform), but I know one thing that crosses party and ideological lines and bugs the hell out of me, and that is the lock step fashion in which the media adopt the buzz words and jargon of the organizations and agencies they cover.

Why the hell do all reporters, anchors, and talking head pundits feel it necessary to clarify that inspectors, or troops or law enforcement, or whoever the subject of a story in a particular location happen to be are there “on the ground”. Inspectors aren’t just “in Iraq” they are inevitably “on the ground in Iraq”. Why? Was it possible we thought they were “in the water,” or “underground,” or “hovering just above sea level” in Iraq? No, of course not. If they are “in Iraq” then they are de facto “on the ground in Iraq”. If they are “in the air” in a plane en route too Iraq then they aren’t in Iraq. They are “on the way” not “on the ground”. Until they are on the ground no normal person would say they had arrived in Iraq. So why the knee-jerk use of the phrase?

Remember last summer before the mass distraction of potential war had drawn our attention from corporate corruption, and the Bush Administration was making a few show arrests of corporate CEO’s and the key photo op was the “perp walk”, when the evil white male captain of commerce was led off in handcuffs so that the media could indulge in their accustomed frenzy. I must have heard that phrase “perp walk” several hundred times in the space of a few weeks. I remember one talking head cable news show where the various pundits were throwing the phrase “perp walk” around like a bunch of 4th grade boys who had just learned a new cuss word. Remember “hanging-chads”? How quickly jargon becomes overkill.

Or think about sportscasters. Every season (especially football) sports announcers seems to latch onto some new piece of coaching jargon and use it like they were collecting royalties on it. I remember a time when no one talking sports said, “hang time” or “fully-extended”, when we didn’t “take it to the next level”, when the “Jim Thomes and the Omar Vizquels” were singular not plural, and the “point of attack” was just the line of scrimmage.

So why does any of this matter? Because language matters. Language is thought and language controls thought. Think Benjamin Whorf. Think Orwell.

Now I realize that in the case of sports coverage it is probably a good thing that fans feel more immersed in the action when the announcers give them a little of the technicalities that coaches and players use to talk about the game. As long as it doesn’t become too off-putting to the casual fan or neophyte. And as long as sportscasters don’t start talking so much like the players that they sign off by saying “A lot of people didn’t think we could make this broadcast. We proved the naysayers wrong. I’d like to thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ and give a shout out to my homeys. Hi Mom.”

But if crime reporters start to talk and think too much like cops, or if war correspondents are seduced by the Tom Clancyesque military-techno babble of the generals, then I think it becomes increasingly difficult for them to stay objective and (I hate to say it) to think outside the box.

And “on the ground” sounds to me like the sort of overly precise redundancy that you hear at military briefings. And so reporters like the sound of it. It sounds a little macho, a little sexy, a little bit “inside baseball”, and the next thing you know they’ll be talking about how many shoppers were “on the ground” at the Mall the day after Thanksgiving, and how the mood was “irrationally exuberant”.

But “Really,” I hear you say “so what. Isn’t this just a matter of style and not substance?” I’ll admit that it is the style that I mostly find irritating, but I’ll give you an example of where the terminology has driven the debate, or at least given a “course correction” in favor of the administration.

“Weapons of Mass Destruction” is the operative phrase, put into play by the administration to describe the potential threat from Saddam Hussein. He has them, or at least he can get them, and he has shown that he will use them. After all he gassed his own people (back when he was our pal with gas we helped provide, but that’s beside my point). Weapons of Mass Destruction is a phrase that has a focus group tested feel to it that seems calculated to strike fear and conjure up visions of the World Trade Center crumbling and smoldering. And Hussein has these weapons, and he has used them. But hold on there Mr. President. What is a “weapon of mass destruction.”? I think we can agree that “mass destruction” is buildings falling, fires raging, smoke rising, people dying. You know “The Big One!" Nuclear Weapons, or maybe box cutters. Is that what Hussein has? Is that what he has used in the past? Is that what Gas, or Chemical, or Biological weapons or Neutron Bombs for that matter do? No. They kill people, but they don’t destroy stuff. They are strictly speaking “weapons of mass death.”

Now, I’m not here to defend weapons of mass death. Let me go on record as saying death is bad destruction is bad and weapons are bad. But if we are having a debate about engaging in a war of mass death and destruction let’s try to keep it as rational and precise and truthful as possible and let’s choose our language carefully.

I, of course, believe the Bush Administration chose very carefully for maximum effect. Why do you think these wars all have names like cheesy action movie? Desert Storm. Infinite Justice. Enduring Freedom. Because as corny as it all sounds in our media savvy post-ironic culture it apparently works. Part of the effect of the repetition of the phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in connection with Iraq is that by implication and connotation we tie Iraq to the "destruction" and conjure up visions of teh World Trade Center without actually stating it, and thus making the connection really hard to refute. We certainly haven't seen or heard any proof of a connection. It is tricky bringing these sorts of unstated assumptions and connotative language to the forefront. This isn't normally the stuff of political debate. It is the stuff of literary criticism and English class. I suppose it would be hard to engage in a decontruction of the imagery and diction of a poltitical speech on a Cable News show. But, hey, isn't language supposed to be the stock in trade of the talking head pundit and print media sweat shops?

So, what does the liberal media do with this loaded language? They pick it up and run with it. They swallow it hook, line, and sinker and regurgitate it with regularity. They beat it to death with a little stick. It sounds scary. It sells papers and keeps people glued to Cable TV News watching “Countdown to War” or “Showdown in Iraq” or whatever.

I’m no policy wonk. I don’t have the answers for World Peace or the Middle East Crisis or World Hunger. I can barely formulate the questions. I will admit that the distinction I make is subtle and hardly earth-shaking, but the language of “mass destruction” has gotten inside people’s heads, and I think it is stirring passions that would be better shaken not stirred. Shaken by the enormity of the possibility of war and not stirred by the inflammatory language used to incite it.

My example may betray my liberal bias (No, really, do you think so?), but my point is not to criticize the Bush Administration. They have their agenda, and I guess it is their responsibility to pursue it. After all we elected them (sort of...Oh!...It still Hurts). I'm sure the Limbaugh loving conservatives out there could point out numerous example of loaded lefty rhetoric. My point is that language is the tool of the news media, whether TV anchor or a print reporter. Shouldn't we expect a little more care in their choice of tools than we would from the average Joe. If a plumber comes to your house to fix your sink and instead of using his own specialized tools he took your sink apart with a butter knife you had lying on the kitchen counter you might start to worry. If I fix my exhaust system with a coke can, black electrical tape and a wire coat hangar that may get the job done temporarily, but I want Midas to use real pipes and hangers and weld the damn thing. So, should the chattering classes just pick up any old phrase that the newsmakers leave lying around for them, or should we expect more sophistication about their choice of language? Jargon might sound wonky, sexy, and cool, and using it might make you sound like a press secretary, or a tank commander, or whatever, but if you are a reporter maybe you shouldn't sound and speak just like the people you are reporting on.

2002-12-13T13:11:00.000-05:00

Interlibrary Loan Rocks the House!

Rrecently I have been taking advantage of our ILL service at work to read some pretty obscure, expensive, hard-to-find items . Things that would have cost $100s and in some cases $1000s of dollars to buy on the antiquarian market are mine for the asking through interlibrary loan. The only difficulty is parting with the books when it is time to send them back from whence they came. So far I have had no luck corrupting our ILL librarian, but I think my latest request may have her seeing the light.

I wanted to read David Goodis's first novel from 1939 Retreat from Oblivion, but the approximately $2000 price tag for a Very Good copy has always seemed a bit more than I could justify (at least to my wife). And I couldn't afford it anyway. I did offer one Book dealer $100 if he would let me read his copy, but I think he thought I was kidding, or that I might spill coffee on it. So I thought what the heck I'll try and get the book through ILL. Well today we got back an acknowledgement from a large university library saying that they would send it out for a $15 fee. Well hell yeah! Send it on out. I wonder how much they would charge if I happened to "lose" it, or "drop it in the tub"? I told the ILL person what it would cost to buy a copy, and I think I finally saw a glint of larceny in her eyes. I couldn't get her to crack on the copy of E.H. Visiak's horror novel from 1929 Medusa, but that one was only worth about $300-400. I certainly couldn't get her to cave on the copy of One Man's Muddle by E. Baker Quinn a forgotten (unjustly in my opinion, now that I have read it and you haven't) British hard-boiled mystery from the late 30's. (By the way that E. stands for Eleanor. Add her to the list of great Lady Noir writers) That one is only about a $150 book, but both it and Medusa seem to come up for sale very infrequently. Ditto for a 1900 collection of spy stories set in French diplomatic circles called A Diplomatic Woman by Huan Mee. I have never found a copy for sale, so I actually have no idea how much it would sell for, but I read an ILL copy from a women's college library in Texas, and since that one is way in the public domain I felt no compunction xeroxing the whole book as well. If I can ever get my free scanner to work I'll put it into e-book format and pass it along to Project Gutenberg because that's the kind of guy I am. It's all about paying it forward, and since I don't really have any talent except for ferreting out oddball old books by any means necessary, it's the least I can do. No, really, it is the very least.

Of course I am ready to dash off a check for the loan of the David Goodis book which for all I know may be really bad, since most Goodis books came back into print starting in the 80's during the Noir fiction boomlet at Black Lizard/Creative Arts, but this, his first, remains unreprinted. I don't even know if it ever had a paperback edition. Most other Goodis books did at some point. In fact most David Goodis books were paperback originals, and never saw hardcover. So great books (or at least great titles) like The Moon in the Gutter, The Blond on the Street Corner, The Wounded and the Slain, and Fire in the Flesh languished in obscurity. I find it impossible to believe that there are not other equally great books, and authors languishing out in the flea markets, garage sales, paperback exchanges, and thrift stores awaiting rediscovery (or in most cases just plain old discovery, since they went undiscovered the first go-round and sank from site without a ripple). So, I am out there spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of pulp. Sometimes experiencing the thrill of discovery, and sometimes the agony of cheap reads. But always searching for the human drama of, well, human drama. You know. The good stuff.

2002-12-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

A Day in the Life

What does a bibliomaniac do with his free saturday you might ask. Well here is a glimpse inside the dull and wretched life of the final stage bookoholic.

Woke up got out of bed. Dragged my sorry ass downstairs, and had a bowl of Honey Nut Shredded Wheat with chocolate soy milk. While my wife got ready to go to her Pilates class at 10AM, I prepared for a day of solo booking in the heartland. That preparation mostly consisted of gathering up some stuff that I thought I might be able to trade for credit and thus avoid spending any cash.

I headed to Alliance and E & C Books where I had a few items to swap for credit, and if I am lucky maybe a little cash deposited direct to my PayPal account where it is striclty off the books as far as any joint community property is concerned. Scott and Joe, the friendly proprietors, were both there when I arrived, and some lady who has an antique shop down the street was just bringing them some coffee of which there was an extra that they gave me. Antiquarian bookstores are like that. You don't go into Borders and have them hand you a big coffee because you just happened to show up.

Much of the bookbuying process involves bullshitting and swapping booking stories and E & C is no exception. The fact is that I have spent enough time browsing in there that I could probably draw you a diagram and fill in about 75% of the titles in stock. At least the ones I am interested in. So the first thing I usually ask is "any thing new or interesting? " Of course Scott and Joe know what I like and so will edit out the stuff that I wouldn't be interested in and give me a run down of their latest acquisitons both new and used. I then begin a mental calculation readjusting my mental want list of what I know they had from before and integrating the new stuff and coming up with a sort of preliminary list of the most urgently needed items all the while carrying on a breezy conversational tour of books, authors, publisher, bookselling and bookcollecting acquantainces, conventions, and maybe even a brief stop in "how's-your-wife-and-kids town". I found out that a Youngstown bookstore is soon closing. Twice-Loved Books has been around for about 20 years, but Scott tells me they are currently having a 40% off going-out-of-business sale. It was all I could do at that point to keep from dropping everything, beating feet out of the store and burning rubber all the way to Youngstown. I think I still have unused credit there. It's pretty sad really. A good store (two big houses side by side both full of books), and nice people.

Eventually I have circled the shop several times all the while talking and listening and building a little pile on the counter of the things that I would probably violate several Commandments to acquire, but will try and act casual about, so as not to drive the price up with my overeagerness. (actually E & C is very reputable and prices are reasonable and reasonably firm). Some bookdealers will have items unpriced on the shelves, and this is the bane of the book collectors exixtence (one of the banes anyway). A simple grasp of the laws of supply and demand tells you that if you ask about the price, then the fact that you are asking has just driven up the demand while of course the supply is usually just the 1 copy you are holding. Luckily if you put it back and come back another time you are likely to get a different price, and if the owner is not there and his mother or girlfriend is watching the store you may get a really good price. "This old paperback? Who is David Goodis? I never heard of him. Well, it looks like the price is twenty-five cents. How about half?" Of course you also run the risk of having him recall that someone asked about that same book before, but not remembering that it was you, and so concluding that it must be a really hot item thus driving the price up even higher.

I ended up leaving a box of stuff for Scott to research (including a pretty nice first in jacket of What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, so call him if you are interested), and he'll give me a combination trade credit/cash offer, but they know me well enough that I took a couple items with me and they will charge them against any credit I get. I had some credit from before and had asked them to hold a copy of a book for me that they had sold out and restocked: Ray Bradbury: An Illustrated Life. That wiped out my credit from previously and I picked-up 5 more things 4 new and 1 used.

Total E & C Haul

Ray Bradbury: An Illustrated Life by Tom Heist
The Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers by Lee Server
Vols. #4, #6, and #7 (I alredy have 1,2, 3,& 5) of Dark Horses reprint of the Japanese manga Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
and Brass Knuckles by Frank Gruber a hardcover reprint from the 70's of the Oliver Quade Human Encyclopedia pulp mystery stories mainly from Black Mask Magazine of the 30's.

I had been circling the Gruber book for about a year, and had fallen behind on the Astro Boy, I had them holding the Bradbury for me, so the real find was the Pulp Writer reference book, just out from Facts on File, and that was so much up my alley that it was a complete no-brainer. They had me at "Hello" on that one. Lee Server has done several other books on pulp fiction that I refer to quite often.

This might seem like a modest haul for two hours plus browsing and bullshitting, but remember I have to get back in the house with this stuff and Christmas is coming so I can't treat myself too much.

Where to next?

The next stop was actually Rodman Public Library in Alliance because I had determined via their web-catalog that they owned a copy of the reference book 1001 Midnights by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller. My library doesn't own this and I would very much like to buy a copy, but even though the thing was published in 1985 for $39.95, it is out of print and copies start around $120 dollars. So until I can find it I apparently need to drive 45 minutes just to look at it, since Rodman's copy is reference only and does not circulate. But I found what I wanted in there and made some photocopies.

I was soon on my way to Ravenna with a quick stop at the Burger Hut in Alliance where I usually get lunch. The weird thing about the Burger Hut is that in addition to French Fries and Onion Rings as a side they also have Sauerkraut Balls, so I just get two orders of those and I'm on my way. I don't even know what's in them beside Sauerkraut, and something tells me I don't want to know, so don't e-mail me with the ingredients. (Perhaps they will be included in the book I am planning called The Oblivious Vegetarian that will give you all the things you can eat that don't seem like they would have meat in them, but really do, so that you can plead ingnorance to your aggressively vegan friends.)

Next stop The Book Corner in Ravenna Ohio. A paperback exchange, and a pretty good one because he is not overburdened with arcane rules and regulations and minimum prices for popular genres. If something has a $.40 cover price then you pay $.20. No hassle, no bullshit. Of couse a $15.00 trade PB costs $7.50, but them's the breaks. And of course your $.50 paperback would only get you $.12 1/2 trade-in credit, but who would be dumb enough to trade that in anyway. Well someone, I hope, because his older stuff is getting pretty well mined out. Once, about 12-15 years ago, I found a VG+ copy of Charles Willeford's original Belmont paperbackThe Machine in Ward Eleven in there, now a $40-50 book, but I'm afraid those days are over. So, I am forced to make up for the drop in quality by an increase in quantity. Well "forced" might not be quite the right word. "Driven"? "Compelled"? "Psychotically Obsessive-Compulsive"? I still can't seem to shake the feeling that there has got to be some gem buried in the crap.

Paperback Exchanges have been losing favor with me as hunting grounds for vintage paperback, and I am certainly not unique in this feeling. I would blame the internet for hipping everyone to the "collectible" paperback, if the trend hadn't been in full swing by the late 80's thanks to various Price Guides, most of them wildly optimistic toward the sellers point-of-view, and to the fact that most Used Paperback store owners have NO clue of the concept of later printings or grading condition. If the price guide says $125 for a mint copy of the first printing of The Brass Cupcake then good luck trying to explain to the romance reading Christian lady with the big hair and scary mole that the cat-piss stained copy with the $.60 cover price is not even worth $1.25.

But luckily the guy at the Book Corner is not one of the clueless inhabitants of romance-land. He has attended and organized SF Conventions and mostly sits hunkered over his computer while you shop, but he is a nice guy, and just takes the trade-ins that he can use and hands back the ones he can't instead of trying to devise and post a Talmudic Tablet of rules and regulations about what he will and won't take. Hey, it's his store he doesn't have to take anything he doesn't want, and I don't need a sign saying "No Garage Sale Books, No Ex-Library Books, No Harlequin Romaces under a $1.00, No Cat-Piss stains, etc. etc." One, now defunct, store in Warren had a list of 14 rules painted on a sign above the cash register, and a variety of corallaries and amendments tacked up around it. A simple "can't use it" would have been sufficient. At least for me. Maybe people thought the store was obligated to take any old crap they dragged in there. Now that I think of it that probably is why they had to post all that stuff. Working with the Public sucks!

So what was the best thing I found in Ravenna. Were my hour-plus efforts ferreting and rooting rewarded, or would I have been better off going back to the Easter Seals sale here in town this weekend to rummage through the 4/$1.00 paperbacks that I rummaged through yesterday? And which were mostly the ones I rummaged at the last sale in September?

Let's see here...No that's Junk...just crap...what was I thinking!!?..Oh, wait, here is something interesting: a Leisure Books "Mens' Adventure" series title from 1974 called Ryker #3: The Terrorists. It looks just like any of the other Executioner knock-offs that flooded the racks in the 60's & 70's, only this one was written by Nelson DeMille. Now a best-selling author he obviously needed to pay the rent back in the day by cranking out paperback original pulp fiction for the surrogate penis set. "The Terrorists splashed the streets with innocent blood. It was Ryker's job to seek and destroy them - one by one," says the front cover blurb and the back cover adds the surprising fact that "Ryker is not just an ordinary cop." Really? You mean he isn't one of those ordinary street-smart, rule-breaking, authority-flaunting, shoot-first-ask-later, Dirty Harry clones that populate titles like The Executioner, The Butcher, Death Merchant, & The Destroyer, (actually the Destroyer is a diamond in the rough of "Men's Action")? Well, then, maybe he is an out-of-the-ordinary, non-violent, civilly-disobedient, just-reason-with-the-perp-and-appeal-to-his-innate-humanity-and-wounded-inner-child sort of cop. Oh, wait, no, look here it says he will "use any means-leagal or illegal-to rid the streets of degenerate criminal scum". Well I'll check it out it anyway. Who knows maybe DeMille will use any means necessary to rid the racks of the usual degenerate hack-writing scum.

What else do I have here. Well I did find a couple of Gold Medals unfortunately they are the Sam Durrell Assignment series by Edward S. Aarons: the black jelly beans of the Gold Medal paperbacks. Always the last ones left after all the tasty ones are taken.
I I have four here. Assignment - Lowlands from 1961 is a first printing with the familiar yellow spine and the Gold Medal logo at the base. The others are all later printing from the mid 60's Assigment - Treason; Assignment - Sorrento Siren;, and Assignment - School for Spies.

Probably the most embarrassingly Freudian of all the "Men's" series is (or hopefully was), The Penetrator by Lionel Derrick. I wouldn't normally indulge such an obvious and politically incorrect vice but what the hey, I found #1 The Penetrator: The Target is H so how could I resist, especially with the big phallic gun thrusting from the front cover. The book introduces Mark Hardin (more easy pickings for the double entendre hunters among you) The Penetrator who is "at war against the L.A. Heroin trade" and who is surprisingly enough "bound by no rules but his own".

Leaving the realm of male power fantasy I did manage to pick up some not so guilty pleasures. Two Brit Noir titles Blood Rights by Mike Phillips and Rift by Liza Cody. Both in nice shape. Neither is a PB original, but both are by solid writers, and both titles are currently OOP. So I was glad to pick them up.

Anything else I'm not too embarassed to mention here? I did pick up trade PB editions of The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki and Advertisements for Myself by Mailer. Both tight and bright, the Mailer was only $1.95, and in surprisingly good shape. Both nice reading copies. Tanizaki satisfies my current yen for Japanese fiction (no pun intended, but I'll take it) and the Mailer contains some classic essays, including "The White Negro", an early look at the Beat sensibility.

Also picked up an ARC of Break and Enter by Colin Harrison. This is his debut novel, and he has since gone on to bestsellerdom with Manhattan Nocturne and Afterburn among others. Haven't researched it yet, but maybe I can trade it at E&C on my next booking excusion.

So I dragged home 23 paperbacks from Ravenna. I had some trade-in credit to defray the cost, so I got out for around $20.

And then home, where I found my wife snuggled in her chair, wrapped in her pink afghan, cat in her lap having just finished reading "Green Requiem" which I told her she would like, and she did. I had to wonder if I had really spent my day in a fashion to maximize my booking pleasure. Browsing time 3 hours+, driving time about 2 hours, reading time 0. Something seems wrong with this equation, but I can't see quite what it is.

I think I'm going to watch some TV and unwind.

2002-12-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

Bloody Hell!

Despite my protestations to the contrary I apparently haven't posted anything for a month. I know I promised regularity, punctuality, and prolificity, but (as usual) I was full of crap.

So what have I been doing? Well I went to see me mum over Thanksgiving, she is very well thank you, and my youngest brother had a suprise 40th birthday party thrown by his wife. Don't you think there is something just a little bit cruel and sadistic and smaking of veiled agression about a surprise birthday party? Especially when the object is to lure the victim in, and then mercilessly roast them for being old and weird, while pointing out all their flaws and idiosyncracies. Well this was the spirit in which we celebrated my youngest brother's 40th, and count me among the cruelly sadistic aggressors because it was a hell of a good time. His wife made a sort of "This is Your Life" video, and also sang him a torch song she had written about his fishing obsession to the tune of "Bad to the Bone". My other brother gave him a variety of humiliating gag gifts like a years supply of condoms (3), and to skewer his reliance on some over the counter weight loss formula called Stacker 2 he relabelled a container of Whoppers chocolate malt balls "Slacker 2".

For my part I had not planned to do anything in advance, but when his wife asked me to say the grace and make a toast, I came up with something the jist of which was that since whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger we older brothers had done our best to make him as strong as possible, and should take the credit for any success he has had since for not killing him when he was an annoying pain in the ass as a little brother.

Hey, I said it had to be spur of the moment. Were you expecting Georgie Jessel?

I also mentioned his obsession with how our pillows smelled when we were teenagers. I'm not sure why he was trying to bug us by saying our pillow smelled, but It worked and we had to pound him quite often. Now of course he could easily kick my ass, but luckily has abandoned pillow sniffing.

I have been reading some and buying lots, but with no real pattern. I went on a mini kick with Japanese Science Fictio, of which there is surprisingly little in English. I interlibrary loaned three small books one by Shinichi Hoshi who had the first Japanese SF story translated into English and published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction back in like 1963. That story was titled "Bokko-Chan" and it was one of about 30 mostly short-shorts on the collection The Spiteful Planet and Other Stories . They were mostly shorts with twist endings in a Twilight Zone mode, and for the most part pretty clever and original. The other two books were both by Moroto Asai and were really novellas published by The Kodansha English Library in a smaller that standard paperback format intended for Japanese students studying English. "A Trip to the the Stars" was a fairly standard Ruritanian space adventure/mystery about a young girl who wants to leave Earth for adventures in space and does so disguised as her brother with his stolen passport. She immediately gets in the middle of some off-planet political intrigue and by pluck and grit saves the day. The other, much more interesting and ambitious story was called "Green Requiem", was a love story involving a Japanese grad student and an alien girl who is really more plant-like than human, but has been altered to blend into human society although at first she is unaware own history and the dangerous power she posesses. I found it very touching. But, of course, I am a sentimental softy.

One last thought about my brother's party. When your youngest brother turns 40 it can make you reflect on the fleeting years and your own encroaching age, decrepitude, and senescence. Well after a fleeting glimpse of my own impending ending, I realized I don't really feel it. I mean being there with my brothers and sisters, mother and cousins I felt much closer to the kid I was, and very far away from any grown-up old codger I am probably on the way to becoming. I don't mean that I am any kind of eternally youthful Dorian Gray, but only that I usually feel very close to my inner child. My selfish, impulsive, curious, distractable, cheeky, mischevious, annoying, sweet, innocent, inner child, who at any moment might throw himself on the floor and have one of those screaming, twisting, arched-back fits of temper that would get him dragged out of W.T Grants by the ear or who might spend a whole afternoon day-dreaming in his room with nothing but a book and the whole wide world and heaven and angels to contemplate. Anyway, chronology certainly doesn't equal anything when it comes to how old you are. I'll gladly give up the years gone by if I can keep the wonder and joy for the years to come.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Chris. You surprised the hell out of us and turned out to be a real man.

2002-11-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

Giant Last and First Lines Clearance

Here at NC..JE we spare no expense to bring you the best in trivial nonsense. Right now our Last and First Lines research department is overstocked with opening lines from obscure hard-boiled detective fiction and our loss is your gain. We are giving away 10 opening lines from ten seldom or rarely reprinted forgotten pulp noir fiction "classics" for the low low price of...well, nothing. I said giveaway and I meant it. Check these out and if any makes you want to read on good luck because some of these babies are hard to find, and they could really cost you.

Remember it's First Lines Only for a limited time, but if you act now and e-mail me you will recieve the last lines at no additonal cost. But really you must act now. E-mail before midnite tonight. That's tonight as you are reading this not midnight of when I am posting because it's already almost 9PM EST, so chances are you won't even read this until tomorrow or the next day. Friday midnight is long gone. Friday may already be last week for you, or last month. Man, you are living in the future and you don't even know it. Weird, huh?

"As soon as Charlie Mock Duck saw Sam Lee he pointed a thirty-two calibre bulldog revolver at him, shut his eyes tight, and pulled the trigger as fast as he could."

Louis Beretti (1929) by Donald Henderson Clarke

"I sat between the two dicks who had been my friends."

Once too Often (1938) by Whitman Chambers

"Helen Brent had the best looking legs at the inquest."

Deadlier than the Male (1942) by James Gunn

"You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do."

The Screaming Mimi (1949) by Fredric Brown

"It began, like almost everything in New York, with a phone call."

The Diary (1952) by William Ard

"I chopped, grubbed, and shoveled, and the deeper I dug the keener I felt it: I was being watched."

Galatea (1953) by James M. Cain

"A Jew was dead in the street"

The Damned Lovely (1954) by Jack Webb (no not that Jack Webb)

"On Ruxton Street, at ten past ten, the Chinese girl was flat on her back in the gutter."

Street of the Lost (1952) by David Goodis

"It never pays to resist arrest."

Tall, Dark and Deadly (1956) by Harold Q. Masur

"Grofield opened his right eye, and there was a girl climbing in the window."

The Damsel (1967) by Richard Stark a.k.a. Donald Westlake

And finally the answer to yesterday's L & FL: Darker than Amber by John D. MacDonald. The series is of course the great Travis McGee series, and Darker than Amber was originally published in 1966 and was the seventh book in the series. It's really amazing how quickly MacDonald produced the early books and still kept the quality so high. The Travis McGee books are still in print, and deservedly so. All of MacDonald should be in print, but that's a lotta books.

2002-11-07T20:43:00.000-05:00

New Last and First Lines

Here is another opening and finale of the hard-boiled variety. This is from a book written in the mid 60's and part of a long-running series. I think it is one of sneakiest opening hooks I've ever read. A real sucker punch.

First Line: We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.

Last Line: I think I sat right there for a long time.
Just smiling.

I'm not going to say I'll be back tomorrow with the answer. But...

2002-11-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

OK, so I took a little longer to post the answer to the previous Last and First than I promised. Actually it's a cute story. Sometimes I lose things. Sometimes I don't know how I can lose them so fast, but one minute I am reading a book or watching a video and the next minute it's gone.

This one time not that long ago (last month) I bought a DVD of The Heroic Trio (great Hong Kong Action Flick with three amazing women action stars Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung, and Michelle Yeoh). I bought it to give my wife for Sweetest Day because she likes stuff where women kick male butt (e.g. Buffy, Xena, Bird of Prey etc.), and so I hid it where she wouldn't see it until I was ready to give it to her. Only a few days later my friend, who manages a chain of video departments for a major grocery store chain, gave me a preview screener of the same film. So I figure I'll return the DVD, and get something different and we can still watch women kick butt, only there will be an occasional crawl along the bottom of the screen telling me to call the FBI and report my friend if he sold or rented me this tape.

Just one problem. I couldn't remember where I hid the DVD. I looked everywhere I could think of. Including both cars, work, attic, basement, library, office, closets, whatever. I looked for about a week. I even found the reciept, but still no DVD. I started to get paranoind, and even thought my wife might have found it and hidden it from me. I don't know why she would do that, but I was starting to get pretty freaked-out. I figured if I didn't find it in 30 days I wouldn't be able to return it. (Interesting Sidebar: I work with someone who also works at Borders. I had bought it from evil Borders. She said since I found the reciept I could return it anytime Apparently there is no statute of limitations on returns as long as you save the receipt. However they won't refund your money if all you have is the receipt)

So long story short (oops, already too late for that) I went out and bought another DVD, Near Dark, and hoped I would find Heroic Trio eventually, and not lose the receipt in the meantime. Turned out we liked it so much we decided to keep the DVD anyway, which I found at the bottom of a box of ex-library withdrawn books that I had brought home from work.

What does this have to do with the quote? Well I lost the book. Had it right next to the computer, right on top of the unstable tower of manuals, CD-ROMs, papers, old catalogs and, of course, books, and then it was gone. Of course I knew the name of the book and author, but I had wanted to quote from the book cover because I think it is one of the worst spoilers I have ever seen on a book and totally ruins the tension of the opening lines. So eventually I ended up buying another copy at the Flea Market for $.20 because it had to be an older copy with the same cover blurb. So if you want to read this let me know because now I have an extra copy.

The book is The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon. However for some reason in the 50's and 60's when it was reprinted in paperback they changed the title to The Synthetic Man. That new title alone might be giving too much away, but read this blurb from the back cover (in all it's original capitalized glory).

THEY FOUND HORTY FREAKING OUT UNDER THE BLEACHERS
His name was Horty and he was eating ants.
Horty ate ants because every once in a while he just had to.
It wasn't generally known but Horty had these unusual cravings because he wasn't human.
Horty himself had no idea he was different than other people-not even when he lost three fingers and they grew back.
But then he discovered the truth about himself-and the truth blew his alien mind...

Ok, so Horty was eating ants under the bleachers. This blurb is a little different than the one on my older paperback from the 50's, but it still blows the surprise before you even know there is one, so when you read "They caught the kid doing something disgusting..." you just shrug and say "Oh yeah. He's eating ants. I knew that." Since this is the sixties Horty has to be "FREAKING OUT" and have his alien mind blown, but the end result is the same. Sturgeon's carefully modulated opening teaser is completely deflated.

Still that only gives away a suprise that comes on page 4 anyway, of course the fact that he is not human comes later, so they blow that for you as well. Still The Dreaming Jewels is well worth reading. There are plenty of treasures to discover and some damn fine writing in Sturgeon's first novel from 1950. Turns out to be fairly autobiographical because Horty runs away and joins the carny which is also an something Sturgeon actually did. As far as I know he never FREAKED OUT and ate ants. Still he might blow your alien mind!

2002-10-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

Return of Last and First Lines

OK. Let me get right to this. These opening and closing lines come from a science fiction novel of the 50s by a writer who I think may be on the verge of the kind of breakthrough Philip K. Dick had in the 80's. At least he should be. This is one of my favorite openings. Ever. You want a narrative hook? Check this shit out.

First Lines: They caught the kid doing something disgusting under the bleachers at the high-school stadium, and he was sent home from the grammar school across the street. He was eight years old then. He'd been doing it for years.

Last Lines: I have a feeling - I can almost put my finger on it - it's sort of a half memory about loving somebody who was very, very good. But maybe I made that up. Now you're laughing at me. . .

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think you can read those lines without needing to know just what the kid was doing under the bleachers. Some stories hook you with action, or suspense. Some pose an intriguing puzzle or intellectual problem, but this story goes right for everyone's weak spot: Morbid Curiosity! There is no way I am stopping until I find out what kind of disgusting something was being done by an eight year old at the high-school stadium. The ickier the better. Don't you just have to know?

OK. Tomorrow I'll tell you what book you can read to find out. Oh, hell! I can't do that to you. Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you what the kid was doing. You find out about 4 pages in anyway.

2002-10-22T18:40:00.000-04:00

Book Recommendation Alert

Although I am constanly blathering on about some great book I have read, or heard about, or want to read, or saw reviewed, or found and bought, or found and need to buy, or need to find (or so people tell me), I really am reluctant to make generalized recommendations about what people should read. There are just too many books, too many types of readers, and different tastes to think that even a small portion of people will like the same book. And, of course, if I liked it that is likely to be the kiss of death for mass popularity. More likely the book is going to be some weird niche cult item with limited appeal. Mainly limited to me and other trashy/pulpy/mystery/science fiction/slipstream/literary type readers.

So it is with great trepidation that I am going to recommend a book to everyone for the holiday season. No! not a Christmas book. I mean the Halloween season.

I have an annual ritual that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys good stories. Autumn is my favorite time of the year, and every fall, I revisit The October Country by Ray Bradbury. In nineteen weirdly wonderful tales, a master of the short story captures that special place " . . .where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger and midnights stay." You will meet a dwarf obsessed with funhouse mirrors, a man afraid of his own skeleton, a man pursued by the wind, the Crowd that shows up to gawk at every accident, a mother convinced her newborn baby is trying to kill her and many others. Long after you have returned from The October Country, the chill will stay with you.

2002-10-22T17:45:00.000-04:00

Not Crazy... Just Lazy

Sorry for the lacunae, but I think this time I am back for real. I won't spend too much time explaining. In fact, one of my pet peeves is when people, who "owe" you a letter (odd concept now that I think of it: to owe someone a letter), write to you and then spend the whole letter apologizing and explaining why they haven't written sooner. (Another of my pet peeves is when the band exhorts people to get up and dance. Hey, if your music doesn't inspire people get up and dance I don't think they need someone trying to guilt trip them onto the dance floor. But I digress).

Anyway suffice it to say that I have been not posting for a variety of lame reasons mostly having to do with the deadly sin of sloth. Plus, after the inititial thrill, I think I was a little bit weirded-out when I found out someone I didn't even know was reading my blog. I was sort of intimidated by the whole idea, and I think I got bloggers block. Whatever. I think I'm over it now (the self-conciousness, not the sloth).

The only good reason that I have is that my rabbit did eat through the cords of my keyboard, mouse, and phone line to the computer, really, but that only happened about a week and a half ago so prior to that I was just goofing off. I have now replaced the keyboard, mouse and phone line and tried to bunny-proof better around the computer.

2002-09-12T23:19:00.000-04:00

Back From Toronto

I'm back and I hope to be posting some comments on the films we saw in Toronto. But right now I only have time for a quick post before bedtime.

First I would like to thank Jaquandor, who apparently has been reading my blog. He is the only reader I didn't personally harangue. He e-mailed me with some help on how to solve my italics problem. His suggestion did the trick, and now I suggest you all bop over to take a look at his blog Byzantium's Shores. It is a veritable stately pleasure dome, especially when compared to my little tree fort clubhouse over here. You'll like it. He reads, and he can write.

A major component of the Toronto Film Festival involves queueing up, and unlike here in the States you see many people reading while standing on line. My wife and I were looking at a day with some very long waits for particularly popular films and found ourselves with nothing to read. Luckily we were in Toronto where if there isn't a bookstore on the block then the next block will probably have two, so it was a simple matter for us to duck out of line and into a discount remainder store to pick up a couple of beater copies of something that we wouldn't mind bending or shoving in a purse or pocket.

She picked up A Killing Frost,, third book in the Tomorrow series by Australian writer John Marsden. We hadn't read any of the other books in the series, but it caught my eye because Marsden had written the text for an incredible picture book, The Rabbits, illustrated by the Australian artist Shaun Tan.

Shaun Tan's books are inexplicably unavailable in the US . Find them somehow. Order them from Australia if you must. It is cheaper than you think. US dollars are worth almost double what the Australian dollar is worth, so you can basically cut the prices in half. Dymocks has The Lost Thing and The Red Tree available. Both written and illustrated by Shaun Tan. Both wonderful. Both truly all-ages appropriate. Adults will find depths that the kids will miss, but the kids will probably notice stuff that the adults didn't see.

A Killing Frost originally titled The Third Day, The Frost was aimed at a Young Adult readership, but my wife says it isn't written down. The series is up to seven books, and all have been published or will be published in the US. A handful of Australian teenagers return from a camping trip in the bush to find an invading army has occupied their country. Now they must struggle to survive and ultimately fight back. The first book was Tomorrow, When the War Began, but starting with book three didn't seem to be a problem.

I grabbed the Blue Murder series reissue of Michael Avallone's Shock Corridor for $1.50 Canadian. It is an adaptation of Sam Fuller's screenplay. And what pulpy fun it is. If you don't know the film the premise is fairly simple. Journalist Johnny Barrett feigns an incestuous desire for his sister, actually his singing stripper girlfriend posing as his sister, so he can get himself committed and investigate a murder that took place in the State Mental Hospital. A sample will suffice to represent the whole.

I think my favorite scene is when Johnny accidentally stumbles into the "nympho ward". Avallone really works it. Imagine the terror of all that lusting female flesh.

"The damp press of bodies against him was delerium. Breasts crushed his face. Wet mouths suckled at his shoulders, tore at his uniform. He felt teeth sink into his exposed neck. He screamed and hit out. Somebody cursed. Another laughed. A gorgeous nympho with straggly hair."

"A gorgeous face loomed before him. Wild eyes beseeched him. 'You're mine, mine, mine, all mine-'"

"The gorgeous nympho pressed her body to his face, butting him with her exposed breasts."

"The world reeled dizzily, urged on by the hoarse shouts of the women of the nympho ward"

Any way you get the idea. Johnny does survive that encounter. The whole scene reminded me of something our friend Bret had said the day before. Walking past The Brass Rail on Yonge Street and seeing a sign proclaiming "142 All Nude Lap Dancers" he said, "that would crush a normal man."

Blame it on Reagan. His cutbacks emptied the Nympho Wards in the early 80's. Where did they expect all those poor gorgeous sex mad cuties with their "crushing" and "butting" breasts to go? I guess it was about creating jobs after all. (insert your own "trickle down" joke here).

2002-09-05T23:20:00.000-04:00

Last and First Lines

I don't really have time for preamble as I am scrambling to get ready for Toronto, but before I go on a brief hiatus I will give the source for yesterday's Last and First Lines. They are from A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell. Published in 1977 It is perhaps her darkest book. Although since I have read no other Ruth Rendell I am relying on the kindness of strangers for that information. I also saw a filmed adaptation a few years ago at the Cleveland Film festival titled The Ceremony directed by Claude Chabrol, who directed the classic Diabolique (the original).

I hope to post from Toronto, but If not I will return after Sept. 10. I also hope to figure out why all the previous posts in September are suddenly in italics. Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

2002-09-04T22:01:00.000-04:00

Last and First Lines

Some of you may have recognized yesterday's lines by the helpful hint of the character's name in the last line. If not then I'll tell you Cora Papadakis, was married to that greasy Greek, Nick Papadakis, and conspired to murder him with Frank Chambers (who is the first person narrator). In the movie these two "lovers" (they end up turning on each other) were played by Lana Turner and John Garfield or Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson (depending on how old you are). The book is of course The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.

That first line drops you into Frank's story in medias res as they used to say in ancient Rome, and from there the story takes off, or actually spirals downward, at top speed. Tom Wolfe in the introduction to Cain X 3, which reprinted Postman.. along with Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity , said that what Cain had like nobody else was "acceleration". At least until the final pathetic end on death row where Frank, headed for the gas chamber, still hopes to be together with Cora "wherever it is" (the sap) . Well, your looking at a murder rap pal. I think we all know "wherever". Ain't love grand!

Today's lines are from another mystery, rather more recent, British, and written by a women, but no less noir than Cain's classic. And as an added bonus the first line also helps point out the importance of literacy.

First Line: "Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she couldn't read or write."

Last Line "Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach."

2002-09-03T22:58:00.000-04:00

Last and First Lines

As I said before the first thing an opening line needs to do is take hold of you and propel you. I have a few in mind that I thought notable for the way they impel you forward into the story. Here is the first from a hard-boiled classic.

First line: "They threw me off the hay truck about noon."

Last Lines: "Here they come. Father McConnell says prayers help. If you've got this far, send one up for me, and Cora, and make it that we're together, wherever it is."

2002-09-03T16:12:00.000-04:00

Quotation is the Sincerest Form Of Flattery

I have always loved a good quotation. My history of quoting, alluding, paraphrasing, and parodying goes back to childhood. Even before I was a reader (and I started rather late in life) I would constantly pepper my conversation (which tended to be one-sided) with catchphases, movie lines, song lyrics, comedy routines, and any other scrap of word, phrase, or line that had managed to stick to my brain. I don't think this made me unusual. It did make me annoying. And when I did become a reader in High School that just gave me more of a verbal junk drawer to draw on.

I don't think this makes me special. Most readers I know are like this. It's one of the things that makes them fun and interesting people to talk to, and one of the more beneficial things about being widely read is that you have that much more stuff to draw on to colour your language and conversation and writing and that much more you "get" in the talk and writing of other people. That is all good. Imagine reading T.S. Eliot with out a clue to all of the myriad other works of literature to which he is alluding. It's just not possible. "The Wasteland" is a poem with footnotes for God's sake!

I recall, only partially, a quotation that sums up what I mean (I am desperately looking for the exact quote and the source by the way if you have any ideas let me know). It goes something like "there are only two types of conversation of any interest: conversation between lovers and conversation between book-lovers. And the lovers conversation is only of interest to them."

Of course, in college I had a way of quoting and footnoting in the course of the conversation that may have been a little excessive. People came to expect esoteric and trivial references from me, so if I would actually manage to coin an original phrase my girlfriend would still always ask me "Who said that?"

What I would like to start doing here is drop in the occassional quotation, usually from my current reading, but also the occasional oldie but goody from memory, or commonplace book (which I have never been vary dilligent about keeping), or written on a scrap of paper I have stuck in an box or drawer somewhere.

Right now I am reading The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, and I came across this passage which says something pertinent to the sharing of a love of books.

"Sir Philip and his daughter had a new common interest; they could now discuss books and the making of books and the feel and the smell and the essence of books - a mighty bond this, and one full of enchantment."

We should all be so lucky to find such a person to share with. By the way someday I'll tell you my feelings about the "smell of books". Such bliss we can derive from all aspects of books! Shantih shantih shantih.

2002-09-02T00:17:00.000-04:00

Department of Last and First Lines

Let's review. Yesterday we had two quotations, the first and last lines, from a literary work. You have had time to ponder, and now I shall reveal the source. The lines are from Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future by Olaf Stapledon.

Published in 1931 Last and First Men covers the entire 5 Billion years of future human history beginning with our own war torn present and ending with the dying of the Last Men on Neptune. In 5 Billion years, of course, alot can happen, and Humanity continues to evolve and change nearly beyond recognition. I once read an interview with Robin Williams where he referred to reading Stapledon as "metaphysical therapy", and you will certainly have your perspective expanded by reading Last and First Men.

The sort of sequel to Last and First Men , and probably Stapledon's masterpiece, is Star Maker. The five billion years of the earlier book are just a blip in the dizzying sweep of Star Maker, which is a sort of history of intellegence in the universe.

Not really novels in the conventional sense, these two works are filled with enough invention, speculation, profound mysticism, science, and philosophy to fuel hundreds of less ambitious works. And, in fact, they probably have. Science fiction writers have, knowingly or unknowingly, been riffing on or ripping off Stapledon's work now for nearly 75 years.

The choice of this work as my first Last and First Lines selection was, of course, my own little in-joke for myself. Yeah, I know. Lame.

Tomorrow look for another installment from the Department of Last and First Lines.

2002-09-01T01:49:00.000-04:00

Department of Last and First Lines

Often the most important part of a book is that first line. Immediately you know if you are in good hands if the first or opening lines grab you and propel you forward. The opening can instantly set the scene or the mood with a few deft strokes. It can give you a character, who you just have to know. A situation that you must see through to the end. Some times a few lines can open a theme or start a train of though that will build like a symphony, but it is those first few notes (to continue the musical analogy which I will now, mercifully, drop) that hook you and lead you on to a hopefully satisfying resolution.

And resolution is what last lines are all about. You have made the journey, stayed the course, seen the sights (to start a travel analogy which I will not belabor) and at the end of the road you need a summing up, a conclusion that will put the whole story in perspective, or perhaps give it one final twist. Or maybe you need a philosophical reflection to leave you satisfied with the outcome of the story; something to mull over when you close the cover. Maybe the author doesn't want to give you that catharsis. Maybe you will be left with some bitter irony to chew on. Still a good ending should feel right, satisfying, but should also send you off on your own to ponder what you have just read. It is a start as well as a finish.

In the best books you are in dialogue with the author. He or she gives you something that he thinks is worth your while. Worth your time. Worth your money even. But in return you can take off from there. Bring something from your life, your experience, your sensibility, and make it your own, more personal, more significant to you, however intangible it may be.

Sometimes, even though I can remember almost nothing particular about a book I have read, the reading of it still exists for me as a whole thing. Not solid or tangible, but still real. A noun or a verb, I'm not sure which, like a color beyond the visible spectrum that you can't describe in words, but is there all the same. An event that has formed you, and in turn also been formed by you.

OK, enough of that airy nonsense. What I really meant to do was introduce a new feature in to the Weblog. One day I will give you the first and last line or lines from a book. You can play "Guess the Title"if you like. The next day I will give you the title, and perhaps say something apropos of the book and/or the quotations. Some lines may be well known, or at least from well known books. Others will almost certainly be obscure, and no one needs to feel dumb because they didn't know from whence they came. This is meant to be fun and entertaining. Please, no wagering.

Today's lines are from a classic science fiction work by a British author.

First line: "Observe now your own epoch as it appears to the Last Men."

Last line: "For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man."

2002-08-31T00:11:00.000-04:00

O, TO be in Canada/Now that Fall is there

The summer is drawing to an end and as September approaches a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of film. That’s right the Toronto Film Festival announced its 2002 Schedule this week and all over North America film lovers with disposable income were anxiously awaiting the FedEx delivery man.

This rite of Fall consists of the arrival via overnight delivery of a Film Program guide as thick as the old Sears Wish Book Christmas Catalog and a Schedule booklet with more possible permutations than the Power Ball Multi-State Lottery. Luckily almost all of the possible combinations in Toronto are winners.

Still, Wednesday morning Festival Pass holders were pouring over the film schedule like race track punters studying the Racing Form looking to bet the housekeeping on the Trifecta.

I have participated in this ritual myself, but this year I will have to take my chances with the box office and the rush lines (with a little help from my friends), since I have no Pass and will only be going for a four day weekend. Still I look forward to many delightful hours in the dark.

Some Highlights of this years festival that I am especially excited about:

Hayao Mizaki’s Spirited Away. The new animated film by the greatest director of animated films ever. Probably my favorite Toronto memory was attending the screening of Princess Mononoke at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival at the Elgin Theatre with Miyazaki there to present his masterpiece. The audience erupted into a spontaneous and heartfelt standing ovation and he humbly accepted the love. No one went away disappointed by Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away is said to be an even greater film.

Bowling For Columbine. Michael Moore takes on America’s obsession with guns in another docu-comedy that blew away audiences in Cannes.

The Quiet American. Philip Noyce’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s precient classic about French and American involvement in Southeast Asia. Post 9/11 jingoism may make it impossible to release this film, critical of American foreign policy, in the States. See it in Canada where they love stuff that makes America look stupid. One of two new films from director Noyce.

Rabbit-Proof Fence: Also directed by Philip Noyce and starring Kenneth Branagh. Based on the true account of three Australian Aborigine girls trying to escape from the British by traveling over 1000 miles of the Australian outback. Their only guide is to follow the rabbit-proof fence built to keep the rabbits (brought by the British) from overrunning the countryside.

Heaven: New film by Tom Tykwer director of Run, Lola, Run based on a script by Krystof Kieslowski writer/director of The Decalogue and the Trois Colouers Trilogie.

Bubba-Ho-Tep: One of the Midnight Madness films. Features Bruce Campbell (of Evil Dead fame) as Elvis, not dead but in a nursing home in Texas where an ancient mummy is sucking the souls from the residents. Elvis teams with a wheelchair-bound resident (Ossie Davis) who believes he is John F. Kennedy, and the geriatric duo devises a plan to blast the Egyptian monster back to the sands from whence it came.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger: In a documentary, inspired by Christopher Hitchens's eponymous book, producer Alex Gibney and filmmaker Eugene Jarecki detail Kissinger's war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hitchens is already well know for his attacks on Princess Diana and Mother Theresa. Kissinger should make a much easier target.

Shaolin Soccer: A Hong Kong Kung Fu Action Comedy directed by its star Chinese comedy sensation Stephen Chow. Using high flying martial arts wire work and state of the art CGI the Shaolin brothers apply the art of Kung Fu to the sport of soccer to defeat the Superhuman Evil Team assembled by soccer kingpin Hung.

Real Women Have Curves: A warm and funny chick flick that was a big hit with Sundance audiences. With a talented and primarily Hispanic cast. Based on a stage play by Josefina Lopez, and directed by first time director Patricia Cardosa.

Personal Velocity: Three stories of three women (played by Kyra Sedgewick, Parker Posey, and Fairuza Balk) are subtly and playfully intertwined by director Rebecca Miller. Her screenplay is based on her own eponymous (its a good day when you can use the word "eponymous" twice in a single blog posting) book of short stories. Her first feature Angela was a haunting family story of a single mother, her two daughters and angels.

Well that is just the first weekend and those ten films are just the tip of a very big iceberg. Ten films would be a good number to shoot for in a three day festival binge, since after all in Toronto there are many great bookstores to wile away your time and money as well.

2002-08-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

Coincidence or Total Cosmic Convergence!?!

The other morning before work I was reading Queer Pulp by Susan Stryker (why I was reading it will have to wait for another time). I had on NPR's Morning Editon and Karl Castle was reading the days top stories, but I wasn't really paying close attention. I was reading the chapter on lesbian pulp fiction writers of the 50/60's: Tereska Torres, Vin Packer, March Hasting, Ann Bannon, et al., when I heard Karl say, "In Germany they are piling sandbags on top of rain soaked dykes." Whoa. Talk about your lesbian pulp fiction.

I think I know how Roy Neary, Richard Dreyfuss's character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind , must have felt staring down at his mashed potato mountain. I could hear his nasal whine. "Ronnie, this is important. This means something!" Ah! Enigmatic Syncronicity!

2002-08-24T23:15:00.000-04:00

"One of the most stupidest Pez tie-ins"

(for Mary Lu who first suggested it)

Visiting the various discontinued consumer product graveyards like Everything for a Dollar, Big Lots, Odd Lots, Dollar General, Family Dollar, or whatever local variant you have is one of the best things about living in modern America. The other day my wife and I were killing time with a friend in Everything for a Dollar while waiting for our movie to start seating, when I saw something above me on a shelf that reached out to me like a voice from a burning bush, like a chorus of seraphim, like a grail-shaped beacon: Pez Flavored Popcorn.

“Hey, Pez is not a flavor,” I hear you saying. And you are right. Pez flavored Popcorn comes in four very un-pez like flavors: Grape, Lemon, Strawberry and Orange. I can hear you saying "Yuck! that sounds disgusting" right now. That was what my wife and our friend said when I excitedly dragged them over to the Pezcorn. It was only 2/$1.00, and I had to beg my wife to get four boxes.

But I have a theory about food. If something unadulterated like snails or seaweed sounds disgusting to you, and people try to tell you it is edible, go with your instinct. Don't eat it. But when combinations of food sound weird, like popcorn and Pez dispensable candy, don't be too quick to judge.

Just about everything you eat is a combination of unlikely sounding ingredients that fuse together to form an entirely new and probably satisfying whole. I mean everything.

Take water. (Huh?!? Oxygen & Hydrogen? They're both highly flammable you know. You want me to drink that? Haven't you heard of the Von Hindenberg? Oh God, the Humanity! I'll probably flame on like Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, lighting his farts. Oh, twwooo parts hydrogen. Well, that's different.)

Or Pizza. (OK, you are going to take some flour and water mix it with some yeast. Hello! Yeast infection? OK, then what? Put tomatoes turned into a liquid sauce and milk turned into a curdled solid on top of the yeasty wheat & water, and baked until the solid sour milk melts. Wouldn't it be easier to just pour the milk on the tomato juice and infected wheat mess and save a step?)

For that matter even carmel popcorn, from which Pezcorn is obviously descended, sounds fairly unlikely. Whoever thought of putting burnt sugar syrup on their exploded corn was a genius, but I bet they had to overcome some strong sales resistance from the skeptics.

So I am always willing to try weird or unusual sounding combinations. Occasionally you get burned. Pineapple on pizza? I don't think so.

But somebody must have liked it, and that is the safety net of my theory. Just picking up a snail or grabbing some seaweed or one of the many edible parts of the pine tree and starting to nosh is easy. But, would someone go to all the trouble of concocting some exotic combination of ingredients if the end result was going to make you chunder? Would someone risk making that combination of strange stuff a selection on the menu of their high-class restaurant or invest the millions of dollars it takes to manufacture, package, market and distribute a product if it was likely to be anything less than wonderful?

Well, OK, apparently sometimes, yes. Which brings us back to Pezcorn. The stuff isn't terrible; in fact I kind of liked the lemon and grape. My wife even grudgingly admitted to liking the strawberry. But obviously if it was for sale in that "Island of Misfit Toys” of consumer culture the Everything for a Dollar Store, then it failed to impress a substantial portion of the buying public or at least the test sampling public.

Everything that ends up for sale at the odd lots stores (or the “remainder stores” as my book-oriented wife calls them) represents some kind of failure. A failure to connect with the taste of the masses. A failure to comprehend the needs or desires of people with too much disposable income to spend. Though, apparently still not disposable enough to spend it on Pezcorn.

All the discontinued, ill-conceived, inexplicably produced or imported, and abandoned misfits of the richest, most wasteful, most novelty hungry culture on earth end up there, and that is why I find the place so fascinating. It is as if you stepped into an alternate reality where Pezcorn exists (because I have never seen it at the K-mart or the Giant Eagle), or somehow a gross of some artifact from a slightly askew universe has fallen off an inter-dimensional truck and landed on the top shelf of Aisle 3 between the Chunky Style Apricot Cranberry Salsa and the Ren & Stimpy Gummi Boogers.

Big Lots is the Philip K. Dick of shopping. Check it out and have your reality shifted.

If you want to try Pezcorn (not available in stores, but now like everything else in the universe a collectible), then visit The Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia Online Store for Collectors where you can buy one box of each flavor (a high fiber sugar-high inducing total of four) for $10.00. Or just go take a look. Scroll down about 2/3 of the page. The boxes are shown in all their vibrant consumer-friendly primary colors.

If you don’t want to have the unmediated experience, then at least visit this cached auction listing (just for the four empty boxes [pictured] the unfortunate had already eaten the corn) from the Yahoo SOLD.co.au auction site, which should help explain why the people voted “No” with their dollars. I quote in part, “Well this would have had to be one of the most stupidest Pez tie-ins as the popcorn did not taste like pez nor did it have a pez dispencer in it”.[sic] And that covers a lot of Pez tie-ins including Pez Lip Balm and Pez Circus Snow Domes. And while you are there please do me a favor and look at the Pez critters shown on the boxes. I recognize the surfing alligator Pez, the hornblowing umbrella wielding clown Pez, and the hoop swinging beany wearing parrot Pez, but can someone tell me what that hybrid Purple Dino Duck on the skateboard thing is supposed to be. It looks like Barney and the Pittsburgh Pirates mascot had a baby in Flatland.

Stop by the Official Pez Site to see what’s available at the Pez Store, find out Stuff About Pez and enjoy other Pez Fun.

2002-08-24T00:22:00.000-04:00

The Stuff

OK. Enough dithering it’s time to get down to the important topics: Books, movies, books, comics, books, TV, books, cartoons, books, weird stuff from the flea market and dollar store, books, childhood traumas, books, weird people I have known, books, annoying stuff I feel compelled to rant about, books, libraries, bookstores, vintage paperback books, booksellers, science fiction books, noir mystery books, pulp fiction, and books about books.

That is the syllabus. My vital statistics go something like this:

Age: 45

Race/Nationality: Lithuanian/Slovak mix, but I have been mistaken for Italian, Jewish, Greek, British (in a pub in Cambridge much to my Anglophile then girlfriend’s annoyance), Russian, Polish, Middle Eastern, and my last name appears to have been taken from an eyechart on Ellis Island.

Sex: Straight Guy, although I have been thought to be gay and also told I should be a priest.

Occupation: Librarian. Although I have an MLS I have only worked the reference desk in dire emergencies, have never cataloged a book, and never conducted a story time. I seem to have carved out some weird niche as an outreach/bookmobile/only guy on staff who knows anything about comics or rare books /only guy who knows the answer to that annoying perennial reference question about the book that ends with the word mayonnaise (Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan) sort of librarian.

I guess that pretty much gets you up to speed on the who. Now for some what.

What am I reading now

I just finished a trio of William Faulkner books with a focus on crime, sex, and depravity. Sanctuary, Pylon, and The Wild Palms (Now commonly published under Faulkner’s original title If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem). These (with the possible exception of Sanctuary) are considered minor works. If only I had been required to read these in college instead of As I Lay Dying (“My mother is a Fish” nuff said), The Sound and the Fury (As if stream of consciousness wasn’t bad enough. Now I have to follow the thoughts of a retard watching a golf game through a fence? As if Golf wasn’t bad enough), and most painfully Sartoris. (Miss Vincent explained that the dull and languorous style was meant to convey the boredom and languor of the decaying southern aristocracy. Well I suppose if you were enough of a literary genius you could devise a style that would convey the languor, stench, and boredom of watching meat decay, but I’m not sure it would be worth the effort. I am sure Sartoris wasn’t worth the effort. Sorry Miss Vincent.)

But these three I just read, well, there was some good stuff in there. Rape, murder, adultery, botched abortion, sex, voyeurism, impotence, menage a trois, corruption, cover-ups, prostitution, airplane crashes, (well, OK, I think Sartoris did have an airplane crash. It just came way too late to save the book), floods, rescues, escape from a chain gang, alcoholism, bootlegging. That’s quite a catalog of deadly sins. That’s the way to portray dissolution and decay, baby. To paraphrase Thomas DeQuincy, it is only a short step from murder, rape, bootlegging, adultery, and voyeurism to Sabbath-breaking and procrastination. It's a slippery slope. The inevitable downward spiral. These folks sure didn’t have time for languor or boredom.

Sanctuary certainly would have made a better choice for college students if for no other reason than that it is probably the best argument against collegiate binge drinking ever written. Gowan Stevens gets roaring drunk and takes his date, Temple Drake, to the backwoods farm of his bootlegger, then leaves her there where she witnesses a murder, is raped (with a corn cob), abducted, and taken to live in a whore house, by a psychopathic gangster, who is impotent, forces her to have sex with another man so he can watch, and then kills the other man.

Umm. HEY! Can I have a rebate on the time I spent reading Faulkner in college. Cause I was robbed. (Well, OK, I never actually finished The Sound and the Fury because the night I was going to finish it my roommate dropped acid, and I had to spend the night in the men’s bathroom making sure he stayed on planet Earth and didn’t choke on his own vomit, while listening to him alternately puke and describe the kaleidoscopic fracturing of a row of urinals. Come to think of it if he had read Sanctuary he might have been scared straight, and none of that would have happened. Of course, if he had read Sartoris he would have been bored to death, and none of that would have happened either.)

And funny. I especially liked the two goofballs in Sanctuary who go to Memphis to attend barber college, and spend their nights visiting brothels and, afraid of scandalizing the landlady, sneaking back into their boarding house unaware that their landlady is a madam and they are living in a whore house. But the funeral scene in the barroom where a drunken riot beaks out and the casket is knocked over and the corpse falls out and the wax plug in the bullet hole in his head pops out was also very funny in a very black humored way.

The “Old Man” sections of The Wild Palms also provided much-needed comic relief from the grim story of the two adulterous lovers. I especially like the “tall convict” dragging the boat around with him and trying to surrender, but with no success. And finally after being swept away by the raging Mississippi flood, and saving the pregnant woman, and helping to deliver her baby, and then returning to the Parchman prison farm, and turning himself in he is given ten more years on his sentence for trying to escape.

And oh yeah one other thing I have learned since college. It is OK to skim. Or at least don’t worry if every single word doesn’t seem to make sense right away. Faulkner does tend to go on a bit. If you don’t catch something the first time don’t worry. He’ll probably repeat it again. And again.

2002-08-23T11:17:00.000-04:00

Last of the Naming Stuff

More about the Blog name, then I promise I'll never bring it up again. I checked with Josh down at the comic shop and he assured me Warren Ellis had never used "Warning: Contains Language" or some variant as a title for a book, column, comic, weblog or any other form of communication. So I poked around a little more and a Google search turned up this: Warning:Contains Language

So it was a Neil Gaiman spoken word CD that used the title. Well, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Alan Moore, what's the difference. They're all British, all write comics, all brilliant.

So that solves that riddle (as if anyone but me cared). But I'm keeping the new name anyway.

However this blog will continue to contain language, embrace language, celebrate language, in fact we may occasionally plunge into a sea of language and frolic like a pod of dolphins. Words good. m'kay.

If that seems frightening or merely tedious to you, then you are dismissed. I'll be happy to sign your drop/add slip, and you can go visit a nice site that has nothing but pictures and occasional pointing and grunting.

2002-08-18T00:21:00.000-04:00

Name Change

Today I realize that the previous name for this Blog "Warning: The Following May Contain Language" is already being used as the name of a column written by Warren Ellis. At least something like that. I'll have to check with Josh my comic book Guru down at the comic shop, but I'm pretty sure I recall something using that title.

Actually I intended the reference to be to the opening sequence of Alan Moore's Big Numbers where a girl asleep on a train is awakened by a rock thrown through the train window and shouts a startled expletive. An elderly couple seated across from her says something like "Well there's no need to use language is there." To which I think she responds "Huh? No need for language?" or something like that.

Maybe Warren Ellis had the same sequence in mind. I just thought it up on the spur of the moment (or thought I thought it up) because I needed a title to start posting. Anyway, I'm sure I'm flying way below Warren Ellis's radar, but sorry Warren. Dont sue me.

New Name

So the possible need for a name change was at the back of my mind today when we (my wife and I) went up to the Palace Theatre on Playhouse Square in Cleveland to see King Kong on the big screen. Well worth the trip. Perhaps more on that later.

Anyway near the beginning of the film, after setting sail from New York, Jack Driscoll and Captain Englehorn are discussing Carl Denham and his exedition. They finally decide he's "not crazy just enthusiastic." Well that was it. I hope. Anyway I hope RKO or Merian C. Cooper's &/or Edgar Wallace's literary estates can't sue me or issue a cease and desist order or something.

So "Not Crazy...Just Enthusiastic" is, I hope, a perfect title for what will be a chance for me to wax enthusiastic on what will probably seem like a crazy assortment of subjects, beliefs, opinions, pet peeves, and just plain weird stuff. It should be nothing if not eclectic, but I hope never less than entertaining.

2002-08-16T15:00:00.000-04:00

This morning I cut my nose shaving.

And so I decided to start a blog.

Is my experience unique? Then I owe it to humanity to record it. Wouldn't it be a pity to lose my unique experience of the world because I was too lazy or ashamed to share it?

Maybe my experience is not unique, perhaps it is even commonplace, then sharing it may bring us all closer together. Or comfort the afflicted, or reassure the merely klutzy.

Either way my main motivation is to tell the world that this morning I cut my nose while shaving.

I’m not a morning person, but this was a less auspicious start than usual.

Maybe I am a little too flamboyant on the upstroke when shaving. A little too Leonard Bernsteinesque. Maybe I fell asleep in the shower (I shave in the shower). I know it’s tricky working without a mirror. But I think I have a pretty good sense of where my nose is located. Even with my eyes closed I think I could point to it right now. I know my nose isn’t small either. But really can there be a loving god in a universe where I can cut my nose while shaving.

I mean I cut it pretty good too. Not just the underside, or on the septum, but all the way out on the tip. It was bleeding and wouldn’t stop. I had to use a band-aid, so I rummaged around in the drawer beside the sink, and all I could find was a Powerpuff Girls Band-Aid. No I don’t have kids. I like the Powerpuffs, OK. But I never really expected to have to wear Bubbles (the “scardiest” Powerpuff) on the end of my nose while at work in the library!

At least my quirks are well enough known to my coworkers that wearing a Powerpuff Girls Band-Aid on the end of my nose didn’t really require anyone to revise their opinion of me.

Actually there is more to my life than shaving mishaps, but I don’t want to burden anyone on the first day.

Perhaps tomorrow we’ll look at the curriculum vitae, pass out the syllabus, and go over the required reading.