Be it resolved

Last year's New Year's Resolution was a rousing success for a change. There are lots of things I want to do this year (go to the gym at least three times a week, redo the kids' play yard out back, grow some roses, knock out all of the half-completed household projects), but I'm going to stick with only one resolution again this year. And again it's going to be about writing. (Imagine that.)

Although it took me more that seven years to write my first novel, I'm going to write two novels in 2007.

Now playing: Bach, Suite No. 1 in G, Yo-Yo Ma.
Now reading: My Love Affair with England, Susan Allen Toth; Rebel, Bernard Cornwell.
In the DVD player: Battlestar Galactica, Season One.
Final 2006 wordcount: 252,800 (693 per day)

Unkindest cut?

I have previously mentioned how excited I was about the Richard Donner cut of Superman II. The original version certainly has its faults, and the debacle surrounding the filming of the first two Superman movies gives one hope that allowing Donner to make the movie he intended would have ironed all that out.

Unfortunately, Donner did not get to make the movie he intended, even in this new version. You get a much leaner cut from Donner then from Richard Lester, with less development of the Superman-Lois Lane relationship. I guess Donner figures that everybody coming to this movie already has that down, so he spends a fraction of the time that Lester used to elaborate upon it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because the dialogue in the original Lester version is often melodramatic at best.

But neither does Donner afford you much in the way of development at all. Many of the scenes that establish Ursa, Zod and Non coming into their power and reveling in their destructive might are gone. Indeed, some of this in the original version was foolish: a Western saloon scene? I think this lack of development hurts the movie, though, especially pared with Donner's shorter scenes and quick reversals of setting: Metropolis, moon, Niagara Falls, Idaho, Niagara Falls, Idaho, Washington, Idaho, Fortress of Solitude, Washington, Fortress of Solitude, Washington, diner, etc. In the original you only had to keep track through maybe half of those.

And because Donner didn't get to shoot all of his preferred script (Mario Puzo's screenplay was a sprawling affair), here he includes the key Lois-realizes-Clark-is-Superman scene from a screen test of Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. On a good DVD edition of the original, they'd include this as an Easter egg. But this is the hinge on which Donner's story swings, and it's jarring to see the lower quality screen test in the middle of this. Which is not to say that the scene is bad. In fact, I much prefer this to the falling in the fireplace that occurs in the original version. Donner's screen test gives Lois credit for having her own functioning brain, savvy and daring. I wish it had been filmed. But that's almost the only part of this that I prefer to the original.

I can't figure out why many of Donner's scenes were not included in the first place. Why go back and reshoot scenes that are essentially the same, only with slightly different dialogue (Lester's is considered more humorous and campy, but really it's all pretty bad)? Donner's version includes a huge role for Marlon Brando, which more naturally follows his role in the first film (Brando and the studio argued over his money, so they replaced him with an actress playing Superman's mother). The fight sequences are minimal here, with few over Metropolis and none in the Fortress of Solitude.

This is an interesting companion to the original Superman II, but I don't think it's a complete story. Neither do I think that it is better that the original. That said, I would advise anyone who loves these movies to check this out.

Well why didn't you say so?

Obafemi Martins on Newcastle United's prospects over the course of the remaining season (via NUFC.com):

When Duff returns, we'll be unstoppable.

Sad but true

Here's what Football365 had to say about the Magpies in their A to Z review of 2006:

F is for Farce. In other words, Newcastle United. This was the year they lost yet another manager, employed one that wasn't qualified, lost their big multi-million pound player to injury and lost Kieron Dyer several times to his capacity to run into inanimate objects. A quiet year on Tyneside then.

The farce was the Boxing Day tie with Bolton. Srnicek was lost with four defenders in front of him who, as the fine folks at NUFC.com pointed out, were young enough to be his sons. So we get a moronic own-goal (even with the shove Ramage took in the back, Srnicek should have been there to stop it) and spend the next 55 minutes on our own end of the pitch. Yikes.

There's loot, and then there's treasure

I hope you all had as much fun this Christmas as we did.

Loot

Behold.







(But I still have nine borrowed books to read and Season One of Battlestar Galactica to get through before I am on to any of this. Except the corkscrew. I've already field tested that one.)

Pre-Christmas surprises

Casino Royale is quite possibly the best James Bond movie ever. At the very least, it is the James Bond movie whose plot makes the most sense. No absurdly complex, over-the-top technology on either side here, just an entirely plausible story about terrorist financing and what happens when you steal terrorists' money. Daniel Craig is outstanding. The movie drags a bit between the end of the poker game and the climax of the movie, but overall it hangs together quite well and manages to confound your expectations at nearly every turn. Well done.

Newcastle stomped on Spurs in the first half Saturday. Which is great, because in the second half they bordered on dysfunctional. How many passes went out of bounds, even when there was no pressure? What was the deal with passing back and forth in front of their own goal, only to have to pass back to Given to keep Tottenham away? Parker and Martins looked great, but Solano and Emre looked confused. I enjoyed this very much, but it seemed like Newcastle got lazy in the second half and that doesn't bode well.

Let me say also that I loathe Arjen Robben.

Poor diagnosis

Newcastle United want fans to attend away matches in stronger numbers. From a Bloomberg football-news summary:

SOCCER ON PUB TELEVISIONS

Newcastle and Middlesbrough are among clubs who want the Premier League to crack down on pubs showing live games via satellite from Asia and other regions, saying they reduce attendances, the Daily Mirror reported.

Newcastle says the number of fans traveling to away matches has fallen, while Boro reckons the channels are behind a drop in crowds at its Riverside stadium, the newspaper said.

Um...The reason fans aren't going to Newcastle away matches is that for the first half of the season Newcastle were in freefall to the relegation end of the table. To say nothing of the cost of attending an away match: admission at Chelsea (which would also entail a 3-hour, £90 train from Newcastle to London) is £45 ($88). As for Boro, they're only out of relegation on goal difference.

The Reds (that's Cincinnati, not Nottingham Forest) have tried such arguments in the past: come to the games because if you don't we won't be able to field a competitive team. Nonsense. J did a study of team attendance and records, finding that with few exceptions, only successful teams consistently enjoy strong attendance and rebounding teams don't enjoy strong attendance until the season following a winning one. I would imagine that much the same holds for the Premier League as it does for MLB. If Newcastle and Boro want butts in their seats they need to put three points on the table most every weekend.

2006 Review: Fiction (Short)

Again, these are short stories I read this year, not necessarily stories that appeared in print for the first time this year. Neither is this a "best of" list so much as it is a list of stories that captured my imagination and had me thinking about them quite a bit after I had read them.

"Girl Reporter," Stephanie Harrell in One Story. I hadn't heard of this one until I read elsewhere that it had won the 2005 Fountain Award. Thankfully the One Story folks were kind enough to offer this one up for free on their website. Comic books have gone to such lengths in recent years to give their heroes' flaws and to reverse and distort perspectives on them that the story of a Lois Lane-type frustrated with her local self-absorbed superhero could easily be stale. But Stephanie Harrell's story is true to the characters as we know them and as she invents them, and it's laugh-out-loud funny.

"iKlawa," Donald Mead in Fantasy & Science Fiction. Last year I asked if anyone had good examples of short fiction in a high-fantasy setting. I think Donald Mead's story fits that bill even though it takes place in a setting that few fantasy writers have explored: colonial Africa. Epic in its scale and concerned with the frustrations and ambitions of a few, the historical elements imbue the story with a sense of authenticity that makes it even more compelling.

"Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery," John Schoffstall in Strange Horizons. I read this one at work, and I laughed so hard that people looked in my office to see what was going on. By turns sublime, surreal, absurd and aching (look, Ma: alliteration), this is an unusual piece that, according to John's livejournal took a good bit of research into postal regulations. Not to be missed.

"The Baby in the Night Deposit Box," Megan Whalen Turner in Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 17. Like "Girl Reporter," this fairy tale could have come out of the oven stale. But I truly enjoyed it, helped by the author's note-perfect rendering of over-officious bureaucrats. Nicely done.

"Bones Like Black Sugar," Catherynne M. Valente in Fantasy Magazine. Another fairy-tale retelling, this one has two things going for it (three, if you count how compact it is). First is a unique appraisal of Hansel and Gretel. Second is Valente's evocative prose, more like poetry, that layers on like the complex flavor of a well-made dessert.

"The Incredible Appearing Man," Deborah Galyan in Best American Short Stories 1996. I wrote about this previously (and briefly), and I have read it several times over the years. But each time I like it a bit more. Well plotted and paced in the way the story's action and metaphor both unfold, it also has an element of the fantastic to it that pleases. Highly recommended.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Joe Hill's "My Father's Mask" (from his collection 20th Century Ghosts but which I read in the anthology Best New Fantasy) and Jeffrey Ford's forthcoming "The Bedroom Light," which he read at World Fantasy. Both are intriguing, beautifully built and surreal, and I have no idea how they get from beginning to end. These stories present a plot-hugging reader like me with significant challenges, but both are so captivating as to invite, nay demand, further scrutiny.

Christmas Newsletter

It's that time of year again: Vol. 4 of the League Christmas Newsletter is now available online.

Christmas Newsletter

Bemused

1. According the enormously addictive LibraryThing Unsuggester, the polar opposite of Philip Roth's bawdy Portnoy's Complaint is the complete works of Mercedes Lackey. Interesting.

2. I didn't get to see Newcastle lose to Chelsea again, but that's okay because it seems I saw this same game last week. Newcastle hold them off until Mourinho gets desperate and puts Drogba in, whereupon Drogba scores and Chelsea win 1-0. This says several things, I think. Newcastle can hold their own against quality competition. Newcastle can't stop top-flight competition. Chelsea should worry that the £300 million of team that isn't Drogba can't get a goal past the likes of Emre.

3. With friends like Pete Rose, Mark McGwire needs no enemies.

2006 Review: Fiction (Long)

There were a sufficient number of short stories that I enjoyed enough to comment upon specifically that I will break out long fiction (that is, novels) separately from short fiction (that is, not novels). Many of these were even new this year. Without further ado:

I redirect you to my previous comments (with a link there to Patrick Nielsen Hayden's comments) about Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, which won the Hugo for Best Novel. And well it should have. If you have not read this book yet you are doing yourself a disservice. That's about the highest praise I can give.


Lots has been made this year of how The Lies of Locke Lamora actually lives up to its hype, and I am not inclined to disagree. Scott Lynch does so much well, from worldbuilding to characterization to pacing to plot. I especially liked how he seeded both sides of his interleaved story with elements that would inform the novel's development and climax. A long book, but well worth it.


John Scalzi's Old Man's War strikes a unique balance. It's a thoughtful look at impact of technology on humans and humans' impact on the universe beyond Earth. It's also hilarious. I don't remember when I laughed so hard at so much stuff in one book.




The Empire of Ice Cream. I really can't add anything to what's been said about how great these stories are. Andy likes it better than The Fantasy Writer's Assistant, and I agree (even though the title story there is one of my very favorites). There are few writers whose new and forthcoming work I anticipate as much as Jeffrey Ford's. (Yeah, it's short stories, but it's a whole book, so it fits here.)



House of Leaves frustrated me. I'm one of those people who needs some sort of closure, who thinks that not everything in a story needs be open to interpretation. And I'm okay with that. But this was a truly remarkable book that I'm glad I read. A challenge that not all readers may put up with, but I wish they would. Highly recommended even though I'm still not sure what happened here. And maybe Mark Danielewski isn't either.

The Pale Horseman is another triumph of historical consideration from Bernard Cornwell. There are two things that strike me about Cornwell: his ability to spin impossibly long but not tiring sentences and his ability to screw with your expectations. Even when dealing with historical fact (here everyone knows that Alfred is going to become king of Saxon England), Cornwell manages to surprise, confound and twist the knife in your expectations.

Other books I read this year and enjoyed much:
The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner
Melusine, Sarah Monette
Midnighters, Scott Westerfeld (series)

2006 Review: Me

This is the first year in memory that I have actually kept a New Year's Resolution. I committed to 500 words per day (182,500 words for the year), and it looks like I'll wind up with about 710 words per day on average (and 260,000 words). So that's 142% of my resolution.

I'm tired.

Most of that came January through June with another good push through September. When I finished the novel, though, my daily average took a nosedive. BUT I FINISHED THE NOVEL. And I sent it out.

I also sent out five short stories. That's not much, but my short-fiction output this year was what I squeezed in between the heavy lifting on the novel. Much of it was unfocused play, but in the past few weeks I've written some of my best short pieces yet and sent those out. One of my 2007 goals will be to work through the backlog of half-finished and barely begun short stories that slipped through the cracks this year.

I did not read all that much more this year than I did last year, volume-wise. I read far more short fiction ('06 review forthcoming) this year and a bit less non-fiction (see here). My "To Read" list stands at over 160 books now, and that's just the ones I have written down so I don't forget.

On the work front, I could not be happier with my new position, my new (old) boss or the work we are doing. It is a joy to be able to "work" at something that is engaging and fun. I am very fortunate, and am even more fortunate to be able to work from home.

At some point I will own up to at least one, maybe two resolutions for 2007, but for now it's enough to look back on a productive and tumultuous year and say "Can I go to bed now?"

New anti-telemarketing tactic

I swear by all the is good and holy that the very next telemarketer who begins a call with "This is a courtesy call from your financial department" will be greeted with a cry of "LIAR! LIIIAARR!" a la Carol Kane in The Princess Bride.

Not bad

But Newcastle aren't especially good, either.

The 1-0 loss at Stamford Bridge is being billed as one of those "moral victories." Eh. It took Drogba to beat them, true, with a goal that was one of those perfectly placed balls that could not have reached the net if its line had taken it six inches in another direction. And it's not like losing away to Chelsea is something new: Newcastle United haven't won at Stamford Bridge in more than two decades, and they haven't scored there since the 2000-2001 season. And it's not like Chelsea ever lose at home any more. And Newcastle's injury list could make a decent Premiership side all by itself (Owen, Ameobi, Dyer, Duff, Emre, N'Zogbia, Bramble, Solano, Sibierski, Moore, Harper, Carr).

But you can't score if you don't put your men near the other guy's goal. Despite having players both speedy (Martins), scrappy (Rossi) and strong (Milner), Newcastle have NOTHING in attack. It's striking how much they miss Damien Duff, which is saying something.

At least I got something out of this: I transferred for Drogba on my Premiership fantasy team this week. Van Der Sar had appreciated quite a bit since I picked him up, so I swapped him out for the now-healed and (until Chelsea) unbeaten-since-return Shay Given, who was quite a bit less expensive than he was at the start of the season. I used the extra points to swap Andrew Johnson for Drogba. Hopefully this will help me claw my way out of last place in the league.

Faith-based arrogance, stupidity and misogyny (not necessarily in that order)

(Via Nick Mamatas.)

You all know about Left Behind, right? Some of you might have been unfortunate enough to read one of the books (hopefully very few of you). For all its deficiencies, Left Behind has been unimaginably lucrative, spawning myriad spinoff and tie-in books, as well as movies.

They also have a video game. In fact, they have a video game company, which purports to be a "publisher of quality interactive entertainment products that perpetuate positive values and appeal to mainstream and faith-based audiences."

This PC Gamer link has the skinny on one vile aspect of the game (although it doesn't touch on the fact that many of the "bad guys" having seemingly Arabic names, because, as one company executive put it, it's "so obvious" that Muslims aren't followers of Jesus so they can't win the game). But for those of you too busy to click through, here it is.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces has you going around to convert others to your cause, ostensibly preventing the annihilation of humanity by the minions of Satan or some such. This is not so bad in a relative sense. There are video games with worse premises. When you finally turn one of these converts into a "friend," you set them up in a "job" that will further your cause: musician, soldier, evangelist, etc. UNLESS YOU CONVERT A WOMAN, who, naturally can only be a nurse or a musician. Because, well, she's a woman. And you know God don't want no uppity women in the pulpit or shooting guns (because they might use them!).

So, smart guys at Left Behind Games, tell me what aspect of misogyny is mainstream or faith-based. What aspect of religious discrimination or racism is mainstream or faith-based? Please tell me where in the New Testament I can read about Jesus mowing down Arabs WITH A MACHINE GUN. Cite me scripture where Jesus warns against obstacles to achieving the kingdom of heaven like women working outside the home, which I'm sure came right after his warnings about wealth and disregard for the poor.

Conan the Venerated

I've often wondered how long publishers could sustain Conan books. There are only so many appropriate nouns that can fit "Conan the ______." And between Howard, Jordan and de Camp, they've used up most of the likely ones: Barbarian, Cimmerian, Destroyer, King, etc. (Dark Horse has combated this dearth of Conan-appropriate nouns by titling their Conan comics "Conan and the ____.")

Today's article on Conan and Robert E. Howard in, yes, The Wall Street Journal opens a whole new avenue for Conan descriptors. Consider:

• Conan the Trader
• Conan the Banker
• Conan the Mid-Level Manager
  
• Conan the Venture Capitalist
• Conan the Angel Investor
• Conan the Robber Baron

"Conan the Robber Baron" sounds authentic, almost. Maybe. If I didn't picture a black-and-white photo of Cornelius Vanderbilt every time I hear "robber baron."

Flammis acribus addictis

So here's the thing. All of my files and pictures and what not from the dead hard drive have been returned to me. This includes the four chapters of the novel that I need to send. It's ready. Proper manuscript format. Cover letter. Synopsis (which I'll come back to later in this post). Envelope.

I have never been more terrified of something.

Anyway, the thing goes out tomorrow come hell or high water. But it hurts just to think about. I read part of it yesterday and cringed (literally cringed) at what I read there. Now objectively I know that it is not as bad as all that. Still, part of me wants to hide in a dark corner of the basement clutching my manuscript to my chest. Fortunately there is another part of me that wants to throw sunflower seeds at the manuscript-clutching part while it hides.

In other news, the synopsis thing. Everyone who will accept unsolicited manuscripts or queries wants a synopsis. Publishers, agents, they all ask for this synopsis thing. NOWHERE in the piles of writing books that I own does anyone talk about writing a synopsis. Only that you'll have to write one. It's not even in the index of most books on writing, including books like Writer's Market. Obviously, a synopsis tells what happens in the story, and its level of detail will be constrained by the requested length. However, I find it exceptionally odd that in an industry where we break down the writing of cover letters and the formatting of manuscripts to a regimented and unquestionable standard we have no guidance on synopses, WHICH APPARENTLY ACCOMPANY EVERY MANUSCRIPT.

Now playing: E. Power Biggs plays Bach
Now reading: The Empire of Ice Cream. What Works On Wall Street, James O'Shaughnessy.
Pipeline: The submission packet is ready. Chapter 13 (of 30) is revised. Probably no more work coming on short stories this year until I finish giving the novel its last going over.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum

Because who doesn't need more Latin and Mozart in their diet?



Photo courtesy of Alfred Eisenstaedt of Frankfort, Kentucky.

Liber scriptus proferetur in quo totum continetur

The International Mozart Foundation is now providing Mozart's complete works on its website. To its immense credit, the foundation has proffered an authoritative edition (Barenreiter) that is fully indexed and searchable. Demand was immediate and enthusiastic, with 45,000 hits on the site in the first two hours. Since then, the site has been inaccessible, crashed by unexpected interest in cyber-Mozartiana.

This is why Al Gore invented the Internet: one of the pillars of Western culture's musical inheritance, fully accessible to anyone, anywhere with an Internet connection. One can only hope that other composer's trusts will follow the Mozarteum's example. (Rachmaninoff's works reach the public domain in 2018; Richard Strauss' in 2024; Vaughan Williams in 2033.)

It's still rock and roll to me

I had forgotten about this until I saw it over at Andy Duncan's blog: The Seminole Tribe has acquired all of the Hard Rock Cafe properties. This is yet another one of those unusual corporate ownership situations. My other favorites, past and present, include Coach (the luxury handbag maker was until 2000 owned by frozen-pound-cake purveyor Sara Lee), Godiva Chocolatier (owned by Campbell Soup) and Crayola (privately owned by the folks who franchise Hallmark greeting cards and stores). Seminole ownership of Hard Rock Cafe isn't nearly as unlikely, given their enormous gaming operation. But it is an interesting chapter in the (mostly miserable) tale of Native Americans in the U.S.

And if you're curious, I've been to three Hard Rock Cafes (Chicago, London and the Toronto Skydome), where I did buy garments with the name of the city printed thereupon because that was the height of worldliness when I was in high school.

Disgusted and intrigued

Call me naive, but I was really hoping that no one wanted Barry Bonds. And that if they did, no one wanted him for $16 million. He can barely move! Which I suppose is his just reward for injecting himself with bovine growth hormone. (The barely moving part, not the $16 million).

And call me foolish, but the Reds deal for troubled Josh Hamilton could turn out to be the best Rule 5 pickup ever. Or it could be another chapter in Hamilton's sordid story. I think everyone, even the Devil Rays, is wishing for the former.

2006 Review: Non-Fiction

Being a brief list of my favorite non-fiction books read during 2006. Note that says "read" during 2006, not "released" during 2006. Savvy? Onward.

(UPDATED, 12/9, to include Bull)

1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry. I am an unabashed Anglophile, and as such I have read more books about British history than I have about American history. I also know just enough about history to be a danger to myself and others, but I know my limits. Still, I think it is arguable that the Norman invasion of England in 1066 is one of those few events in world history that marks an inflection point, one at which everything that came after it was informed by it. The Bayeux Tapestry is an impressive historical and textilic artifact that forms the basis of much of what historians know or think they know about the Norman invasion.

Andrew Bridgeford is one of those chaps who probably drove his teachers crazy in school asking questions like, "But how do we know that's what really happened?" Here, Bridgeford reconsiders everything that is accepted about the tapestry and presses each point with questions until they confess to their fallacies or clam up. Thankfully, his book is also the only I know of that examines how the tapestry survived for 900 years through the tumult of history.

The Greatest Traitor is yet another work of British history, but one that reads more like a political thriller. Sir Roger Mortimer--the only man besides the Conqueror in 1066 to lead a successful invasion of England--is one of history's villains, but all villains are the heroes of the other side. Here is the other side, although one that author Ian Mortimer (no relation) does not hesitate to skewer for its own self-serving and hypocritical acts. A fine read with a bit of surprising conjecture about the fate of Edward II, whom Mortimer deposed in favor of the king's son.

I've written about Six Frigates recently, so I'll only mention it here briefly. But well worth a look for those with any interest in the navy and the United States of the period between the Revolutionary War and the end of Napoleon.




Reading the Bible Again for the First Time is best described by its subtitle: "Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally." Marcus Borg examines each major section of the Christian Bible, looking at its original context, purpose and audience, and offers his thoughts on what such ancient messages might mean in this age. A thorough, passionate and thoughtful work that I recommend to anyone with any interest in modern spirituality.

Maggie Mahar's Bull is a comprehensive look at the seemingly inexorable rise of the U.S. stock market between 1982 and 2000. Rather than focus on the various technological, economic and market factors that gave this extended run its wind, Mahar concentrates her story in the people who observed and moved the market. Thus the book moves quickly despite its length and does not lose itself in market esoterica that could befog the casual market watcher. As I mentioned when I originally wrote about the book, Mahar's advice to investors that concludes the book is suspect in some cases, but on the whole the book is fascinating.

Also deserving of a mention is Making the Most of Shade, the best book on shade gardening I've read yet. But I'm not quite yet finished, so I can't yet give it my full endorsement. I'll keep you apprised.

All told, 20 non-fiction books read this year, which is down slightly from last year's 22. I did read fewer non-fiction books that I thought were total bunk this year, largely because I stopped reading the ARCs of investment and personal finance books that publicists send me. As in all things, I must quantify my production, so my goal for 2007 is 25 non-fiction books. I'll keep you apprised on that front, too.

Nice shootin', Tex

Go easy on the amount of sugar you put in your tomato sauce. That's all I'm saying.

Holy infused oil, Batman!

Harold McGee has a blog! And a column in the New York Times. With bibliography! (Okay, that last bit is just a bit of geekery that impresses but does not really interest me. I mean, when I am going to look up an '05 issue of Poultry Science? Where do you even find copies of Poultry Science?)

And on that subject (cooking, not library science--or poultry science, for that matter) I'm going to make a lasagna now. From scratch. Yes, even the sauce (but not the pasta). No I can't share the recipe with you (yet) because I honestly don't know what's going in it. If I remember to write it down, I'll share.

Now playing: WUOL broadcast stream
Now reading: The Empire of Ice Cream, Jeffrey Ford.
Now coveting: In the Forest of Forgetting, Theodora Goss. Alas, I have promised myself that I will not buy any books (for myself) until I have read ALL of the books I own but have not read. That's 43 books, or about 80% of what I've read all this year.
Pipeline: Now that the first four chapters of the novel are on the way back to me I am trying to buckle down and fill in the one remaining plot hole. I'm also working on the Flying Dutchman story again, hoping to submit it for one of the pirate anthologies that's reading now.

Year's best

We've all seen lots of the "I'm in ur [location], [gerund] ur [noun]" formulation recently. The very best one, perhaps ever, was quoth today by Cherie Priest.

Redeemed

The saintly folk at Gillware were able to recover most everything lost in the Great Hard Drive Collapse of 2006. This means that all of my pictures and the lost chapters of the novel are on their way back to me as we speak. Ecstatic does not begin to describe me at the moment.

Thanks, Karen.

Studio 60; also, the Hole that isn't there

I'm aggravated enough with Studio 60 to give it a post of its own this week (at least part of one). First, there are sufficiently many musicians of impressive talent in the universe (and probably in Los Angeles) that there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER to employ people to go on TV shows and pretend to play instruments. NONE. The arrangement of "O Holy Night" was jaw-dropping outstanding, but the performance was marred by the guys on stage OBVIOUSLY faking it. Now it could be that these were indeed the musicians that played what we heard, but during taping they were instructed to just go through the motions. But still...YUCK.

Second, being an adult who generally pays attention and picks up on things, I could see the whole Danny/Jordan thing coming a mile away. But it felt rushed all the same. I needed at least one more episode of Danny making an idiot out of himself before he told Jordan he loved her. Sorry. The pacing was off here.

Third, this was a transition show, most of it setting up what is coming after the brief Christmas hiatus. And I hate shows like that. Studio 60 had a great first three episodes, largely because they were linked together in a continuing story. That's what these shows are: they're primetime soap operas, and the stories have to flow from one to the next. That's why the whole "Nevada Day" thing was so annoying, despite all the great exposition the writers got to cram into a two-part episode. This is yet another one of those shows where the writers should have been required to say, "We have...well, let's see...looks like 18 episodes worth of story. Okay, good. Then we'll do 15 and be done." Not so much, I guess.

In other news, the hole between Chapters 13 and 20 in the novel, the giant plot hole, is filled in. That is, I know how to fill it in. And it doesn't require an extensive rewrite. Just some moving things about. Now I have to do it.

Now playing: Bruckner, Symphony No. 4; Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim.

(Non-)Required Reading

I read The Wall Street Journal every day. You can't write about financial markets if you don't. But I refuse to read the opinion pages: the Journal's editorial board too often embraces the same kind of blind partisan devotion that they often assail at more-liberal editorial boards, and too infrequently gives more than grudging chastisement to the excesses of their own principles' standard bearers.

That said, the rest of the paper is an excellent source of news and with the advent of the Saturday edition of the Journal has become one of the week's consistently interesting reads, specifically its "Pursuits" section.

Now let's be clear about what we're reading here. The "Style" section of Saturday's "Pursuits" had pieces on pricier neckties (that is, ranging from $79.50 to $1,200.00--as if) and something called "Casual Fur Day." Needless to say I skipped those.

But on the front page of the section was a fascinating article on how top chefs in some of the most highly regarded and expensive restaurants in the U.S. are using canned or pre-packaged ingredients in their haute cuisine. For example, Chicago's Blackbird restaurant uses Snyder's of Hanover Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips in its Salt and Vinegar Walleyed Pike. The list is quite extensive beyond that.

Also, "Pursuits" has a splendid two-page books section. This past week's diverse coverage included a profile of British poet John Betjeman, Michael Crichton's new novel, a selection of classic U.S. humor from Weekly Standard editor Andrew Ferguson, two glossy photo-heavy books (one on Ellis Island and another on bank vaults), and another four reviews (two fiction, two non-fiction).

Nothing here is as exhaustive as what you'd find in The New York Times Book Review or The Washington Post Book World, or even during the week in the Journal. But should you find yourself hankering for some unusual (and light) reading this weekend, check out the Journal. (Except for you, Dad, because... well, you can't buy the Journal at a newsstand in Frankfort. At least you couldn't last Christmas, remember? I'll save mine for you when you come visit.)

N.B. I would post links to all of this for you, but the Journal's website is subscribers-only. Sorry.

Surviving the weekend

This weekend I painted a small hallway in our basement that gives access to the guest room, bathroom and laundry room. For over a year the wall around the guest room door has been marred by the remains of the drywall compound that the guys who finished that room for us used, but we didn't give them time to finish because Madeleine arrived. Anyway, I sanded off the drywall compound (whose fine, powdery dust the smoke detector mistook for, well, smoke) and put on two coats of primer and two coats of white paint. It looks pretty good for a hallway painted white.

The purpose of relating all this to you is to impart a bit of unsolicited but needful advice. When you finish a room, be it a basement or any other room that involves the installation of door and frame, USE A LEVEL. Only in trying to paint the narrow gap between doorframe and soffit did I realize how cockeyed one of these doors is. It's not something that we did or that the fellows who finished our guest room did. It was something done many moons ago when they first finished the basement. And it's wrong. Looking at the door now makes you feel like you're on the deck of the precariously angled Titanic. Yikes.

And I would be remiss if I did not hail West Virginia for their thoroughly uninspiring but effective performance in knocking off Rutgers. On to the Orange Bowl! And yeah, Wisconsin got screwed. At least we don't have to suffer through another Michigan-Ohio State game.

You can't make this stuff up

So let's say I'm going to write a spy thriller. There's this former Soviet spy who has been a thorn in the new Kremlin's side. Suddenly he becomes inexplicably sick. Come to find out he has radiation poisoning, which was carried out by a rogue faction of the Russian government. But the assassins were sloppy and killed a former prime minister, too, and managed to contaminate just about every surface they touched as they made their way across Europe, potentially exposing countless people to this same virulent radiation.

Oh, wait. That one's been done.

Okay. Stop me if you've heard this one. Leonardo da Vinci was head of this secret society...