Resolution Update, Part 6

My best month. My average daily word count for June was 1,079--even against the three days in which I wrote nothing while we were on vacation. Total for the month was the highest so far this year: 32,366.

Total so far for the year is 152,427, or an average of 842 words per day--83.5% of the way toward my goal.

However, I am not satisfied with my output. The novel is progressing well, and I have more short story ideas--and fragments--than I know what to do with. But so far I am a thriving vine with no fruit. July's only goal (besides 500 words per day) is to finish two short stories. (My previous declaration that I would finish "Proxy Fight" was undermined by successive work deadlines--oh, and laziness.)

Now playing: Puccini, "Vogliatemi bene," Madama Butterfly; Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker; RCA Italian Opera Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf. No matter how many times "Un bel di" is recorded, "Vogliatemi bene" is still the best part of Madama Butterfly.

An unlikely inheritor

According to The Wall Street Journal, Barry Gibb (yes, this Barry Gibb) has purchased Johnny Cash's home outside Nashville.

Philadelphia

So this trip, ostensibly work-related for Lera, turned out to be almost entirely about food. Here we are outside Monk's Cafe & Belgian Beer Emporium.


Here we discovered the joy of Lindemans Framboise Lambic. Think dessert meets beer. We also visited ourselves upon Tony Luke's for cheesesteak and Portofino, where I eschewed the typical Italian fare for nicely grilled duck breast (medium rare) and garlic risotto. My mouth is watering from the memory.

Of course we also had tourist things to do; here's Lera at Logan Square. We were the only people who did not come to bathe or swim in the fountain.



And here I am meeting Gustav Mahler.



Well, at least Mahler's head. One can encounter other famous heads, including Balzac and George Bernard Shaw, at the Rodin Museum.

Remember Clifford

Read The Washington Post's remembrance of Clifford Brown.

Now playing: Study in Brown

Returned

From a fine weekend in Philadelphia. Pictures forthcoming.

A few things:
The folks at DeepGenre had some nice things to say--and one very important criticism--of the first 13 lines of my short story, "Blessings of the King."

The Reds are only two games behind the Cardinals; if the season ended today, the Reds would, as the wild-card team, make the playoffs for the first time since 1995.

Scalzi has a great post on video-game criticism.

Now playing: "A View to a Kill," Duran Duran
Now reading: all that same stuff as before

Law of Unintended Consequences

In allowing any and all midshipmen to have laser eye surgery, the U.S. Navy has undermined its own ability to recruit top young officers to the submarine corps, according the The New York Times.

Under this same heading would fall the dust-up about F&SF's male/female author ratio, I think. I have nothing to say about this that others have not said already except that any sympathy I feel for the disenfranshised (intentionally so or not) is mitigated by my distaste for some of the smarmy and unnecessarily hateful statements (so seeming to me) that have been made about F&SF's editors.

And finally under this heading goes In the Eye of Heaven. David Keck has built a world in this book full of rich history and backstory. Thankfully, he goes to great lengths not to unburden himself by dumping the whole of his creation on you at once with laborious exposition. But I am about halfway through and I am wishing for a bit more dumping and a little less hinting. Perhaps this will all even out by the end. I'll let you know.

Now playing: Sibelius, Symphony No. 5, Boston Symphony, Sir Colin Davis

Thoughts on Cars

So we took Thing 1 to see Cars. He liked it, even though it's just a bit too long for a three-year-old. I was expecting Toy Story long; it was more like Nemo long.

And expecting Nemo-type story also left a sense of disappointment over the experience. Don't get me wrong. Cars is a good movie that is decently plotted and sufficiently (though only just) compelling.

But it's not anything new. Aside from its beautiful Pixar-ness, there is nothing here that has not been done before. Granted, it's hard to top Toy Story or Finding Nemo as far as story, especially for story that adults are going to tolerate enough to watch 1,000,000 times with their kids. It's just the straight-ahead "big-city car winds up stuck in the sticks and learns to be a decent guy" tale that's been done lots already.

Oh, and apparently there is a live-action version of Charlotte's Web coming. I am certain that we will see this one, too. But I have reservations. 1. Julia Roberts as Charlotte. I don't see it--or hear it, rather. 2. A cast of stars that includes cameos from Robert Redford and Oprah Winfrey. Uh huh.

I am looking forward to Steve Buscemi as Templeton the Rat.

Today's short story: "A Feast of Cousins," Beth Bernobich in Helix

Announcement

I will finish writing the short story "Proxy Fight" by June 21.

First line: When Jennifer got home, her brother Tiger was in the kitchen eating ice cream out of the carton.

That is all.


Now playing: Bach/Stokowski, "Come, Sweet Death," Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski
Now reading: Too much--Vellum; In the Eye of Heaven, David Keck; The Greatest Traitor, Ian Mortimer; Storyteller, Kate Wilhelm
Today's short story: "iKlawa," Donald Mead in April '06 F&SF (I'm a bit behind.)

Preliminary Thoughts on Vellum

I may never finish this book. But I think that's okay, because I also think I could read it over and over and over for, well, forever and never read the same thing twice. Kind of like the Vellum itself, I guess.

Lots of really smart people have written about the intricacy of this book, its variegated narrative and its sheer volume of invention, and I really don't have anything to add to that.

Books like this beg to be abandoned. They're often impenetrable to the point of authorly self-indulgence and are very hard to hang on to. But something about this one keeps reeling me back in. When I think I've had enough and I'm wasting my time, I still come back to the book and read another few pages. This is part of the reason that it has taken me so long to read the little I have.

Andrew Wheeler admires the book because he says it demonstrates Hal Duncan's fearlessness, an assesment with which I agree. I would suggest, however, that Duncan does have one fear: the quotation mark.

Recommended for the patient but adventuresome

Links o' fun

Part the First. The Reds are good. Nay sayers say, "Nay! The Cardinals are reeling without Pujols! It doesn't count!" To which I say, "Yea! The Reds did exactly what they had to do: pounced on a reeling St. Louis, kicked them in the groin and didn't stop kicking them until they were asking for their mother. That's what good teams do to teams that aren't."

Part the Second. Check out this photo from Trent Hergenrader's trip to Portugal. This has to be one the most amazing things I've ever seen.

Part the Third. Further proof that the Internet is one big self-referential, well, web: Sarah Monette links to my musings on Melusine. Sweet.

Now playing: Handel, Water Music, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Now reading: Vellum; The Princes in the Tower, Alison Weir.
Today's short story: "Cell Call," Mark Laidlaw in YBF&H 17.

Thoughts on High Lonesome

High Lonesome is substantial. Both as physical object, a retrospective (of sorts) and a collection, it is a significant book. Joyce Carol Oates' self-selected tales run the gamut from haunting tales of revenge to close studies of family and relationships. The volume includes 13 new stories plus a sampling of Oates' work extending back to the '60s.

The book itself is a beautiful specimen. Bibliophiles owe it to themselves to give the book a look just for its high production value.

All that said, one begins to tire of Oates' oft-seen subjects (sisters, mothers/daughters) in familiar milieu (upstate New York). This is not a fault of the individual stories themselves, but rather having them all bunched together in one spot.

But Oates has an impressive range of voice and style, including the two new stories "The Fish Factory" and the eponymous "High Lonesome," both exquisite.

Recommended in small doses

Now playing: Wynton Marsalis, Standard Time Vol. 3
Today's short story: "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery," John Schoffstall in Strange Horizons

Thoughts on Four & Twenty Blackbirds

South of the Ohio River there is no such thing as old news or ancient history.

That's the sort of sensibility that informs Cherie Priest's Four & Twenty Blackbirds. If you've ever been in one of those forlorn remote spaces of the South where the trees hum with birds and bugs of every stripe and the sun comes down a bright hot yellow that makes the shade seem even darker than it ought, Cherie Priest will probably sound like someone you know. If not, Cherie Priest is someone you should get to know.

There's a lot here to like. It's a ghost story, shaded and textured with a mish-mash of forgotten and shunned magics. It's about family, and the ties that brace, bind and strangle. And it's all colored with takes on race, the Old South/New South decay/rejuvenation and saucy observations of people and their own particular places.

Highly recommended: GOOD ENOUGH TO BUY

Not quite

I like Trader Joe's. It is a truly unique store that is also useful, which is an unusual combination. It is not, however, a substitute for an honest-to-God supermarket or even a much less extensive grocer (which is part of the reason why am I always so amused when people on Wall Street say that Trader Joe's is a competitive threat to Whole Foods; have they ever been in a Trader Joe's?).

But that's okay. Trader Joe's know what they do well, and they do it: prepared foods. Their Sweet & Savory Trail Mix is divine, as is their cheesecake. Nothing spectacular on either count, just straight ahead concert B-flat goodness.

So I was heartened to see that Trader Joe's has their own Hefeweizen. For $5.49. You can't beat that with a stick.

Except that in this regard, Trader Joe's does not quite understand what they have here. An excerpt from their flyer:

TJʼs Hefeweizen is a true, Bavarian-style Hefeweizen (that
translates roughly to “half-wheat”), meaning itʼs light-tasting
and very refreshing, with subtle hints of citrus, clove and
even banana.

Now I don't know about you, but I have no interest in beer with banana flavors therein. BANANA? The label on the bottle even refers to bubble gum flavors. WTF?

Wheat beer is wonderfully complex, which means I must allow that it could be possible to detect hints of such flavors. But that's missing the forest for the trees. A sip of wheat beer should be like drinking the earth, some sort of harvest-rite beverage drunk from ox horns while young people dance around a bonfire. It should not taste like Hubba Bubba.

For those so inclined, Sam Adams and Shiner both make a solid-if-not-spectacular, widely distributed wheat beer. But the jewel of domestically available wheat brews is Paulaner.

Enjoy one the next time you host an autumnal harvest celebration.

Birthday Loot

Ha, ha, Thieving Bastards! You are beaten YET AGAIN. My lovely wife, having seen my enthusiasm for the mere four tracks from Star Trek II on my new Best Of Star Trek CD, shelled out for the entire soundtrack for my birthday. Which is great on two levels: 1) it's Star Trek II, duh, and 2) my lovely wife is now complicit in filling out my list of "Music and Books I Must Have in My Hands Before I Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil." Yes, there is a list.

For more birthday loot, I spent an hour in Barnes & Noble--buying the last half hour from my daughter with bribes of strawberry cereal puffs. I got: In the Eye of Heaven, David Keck; The Lost Gospel Q, Marcus Borg; and (as suggested by footie freak Trent Hergenrader) the latest National Geographic Magazine, in which the love affair between soccer and the world-ex U.S. is explored. All in all, a good haul for under $30 new.


And Andy, I can't get Fred to shut up, either. This week he's piped up with good ideas for a short story I put into drydock several months ago and a new one called "Electric Yarmulke." And he insists on deeper motivations and personalities for the characters we've been talking about for six years in the novel. I don't like to dis Fred, but I wish somebody would get him a drink and make him mingle for a while.

Now playing: What else? Star Trek II soundtrack
Now reading: Same, though progress is being made
Today's short story: "A Night in Electric Squidland," Sarah Monette in Lone Star Stories

Resolution Update, Part 5

May has been the weakest month so far this year: only 21,177 words, for an average daily total of 683. This month's low total and average are the product of a conspiracy hatched by work and disease, who worked in tandem to give me strep throat when I had two deadlines back to back. Consequently, my string of consecutive 500-word writing days snapped at 124. In fact, there were three days last week where I wrote (don't tell) nothing.

From this I have discovered two things: it is very easy not to write once you get in the habit of not writing, and that it is never as hard as you think it is to go write anyway.

I am recovered now, but I took a day off work yesterday just to be sure. I sent my family to work and school, and enjoyed a very productive day of writing, laundry, yard work, writing, errands, bathroom cleaning, writing and making dinner. And now I am ready to be a person again.

My total word count for 2006 has reached 120,061, mostly on the novel. At my current pace I'll reach my goal of 182,500 on August 18. I will probably not be able to maintain my 800+ words per day pace as I get deeper into the novel and have to start revising more than writing anew. But I'm off to a good start and ready to finish.

Now playing: The Best of Star Trek: The Original Film Scores
Now reading: Vellum, High Lonesome, Four & Twenty Blackbirds