Do first novels have the best stories?

I've read numerous first novels this year. Part of this is comparison: how does my own work stack up to these other first efforts? Another part of this is that I've noticed that any novel that can be extended into a series is usually best in its first iteration, at least from a story perspective. What do you think?

Part of this is simply the natural progress of a series. You reach a point where you just can't tell a different story, or you keep telling the same one over and over. Think Murder, She Wrote or anything by Alex Cross and the later books by Patricia Cornwell. Some series longevity defies common sense. That's part of the reason that Greg Rucka is taking a hiatus from Queen & Country. The main character, who acts essentially in real time with world events, has been an active covert operative for six years. And that's just not feasible.

Another thing: the first novel is often the one the author spent the most time with. It's probably the story they most desperately wanted to tell for the longest time, the tale that demanded telling. That's apparent in John Grisham's A Time to Kill. Far superior to The Firm, Tom Cruise or not. (Actually, the movie of A Time to Kill is pretty miserable, too.)

Of course, this is not to say that first novels are the best written. No, what I've noticed, at least from what I've read and especially in the mystery genre is that first novels have the best stories. C. J. Box's Open Season was great, but the blurb on his second book turned me off. Now granted, that's the blurb. But if you can't get people to read past the blurb. A is for Alibi was a re-read for me, and I remember enjoying the series quite a bit after that, but A was strongest in my memory and was strong on a second read. The Cater Street Hangman was compelling; its successor, Callander Square, was an awful bore from the beginning. David Skibbins' High Priestess, on the other hand, was both a better story AND better written, I think, than Eight of Swords.

John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades was a surprisingly strong sequel, though perhaps helped by not relating directly to its predecessor. I'm looking forward to picking up Robert Charles Wilson's Axis and seeing what's happening there.

I also wonder how many first published novels are really first written novels.

Playing: Copland, Symphony No. 3; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein. So far I've listened to about 90 CDs in my quest to make it through the whole collection. I've heard mostly classical so far, but that's the vast majority of what I've got. Next week I'll get more into the jazz and rock stuff.
Listening: Kingdom of Shadows, Alan Furst. I still plan to get a hard copy of Dark Star, but I need something to listen to at the gym.
Pipeline: The Second Novel has about 40,000 words and I can see the ending, which I am still trying to obstruct. We'll see. I've idled a bit on getting research together for the Third Novel, which starts on October 9 come hell or high water, but today I made my first research pile of articles, books and recordings that I need. This tower of sorts stands sentinel on the corner of my desk to remind to get cracking on the Second Novel because there's more to do.

You can't make this stuff up

First, Saddam Hussein murdered Nelson Mandela. Now, we have it from an official source: "childrens do learn." Lame duck, indeed.

An unexpected challenge

This morning the Second Novel reached a point where the action could begin leading directly to the climax. I was surprised, partly because it's about 10,000 words short of where I thought that would happen and partly because I don't feel done. In the past, however, I've taken this as a sign that the story "wants" to move to the end and so I go on and let it move to the end.

But that's what got me in trouble with "Electric Yarmulke," though on a smaller scale, and prompted the unforgettable "well, you know, most of your stories have that problem" from Faithful First Reader. The challenge then is to put an obstacle (or two) in the way of that pull to the end. If I do that right, I think it will heighten the suspense, anticipation, stakes, what have you.

I'm excited about this, both because I am enjoying writing this book and because I feel like I actually know what to do to make it work better. Wow, I guess writing the First Novel is paying dividends even if that book never sees the light of day.

Playing: Mozart, Concerto for Two Pianos; English Chamber Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim. This is the original "Mozart Effect" piece from Frances Rauscher's study. So far, not much smarter.
Reading: Beluthahatchie; The Man with a Load of Mischief, Martha Grimes; Rules for the Dance, Mary Oliver.
Wondering: What inspires Sam Allardyce and Steve McLaren to start Alan Smith? You can't want for a player who tries harder and is more, shall we say, assertive, but you can ask for a player who thinks before he touches the ball.

My Furst experiment

I just finished Alan Furst's Blood of Victory. I had the audiobook version read by the incomparable George Guidall. I really liked this book, but I must admit to being somewhat disappointed in the non-resolution at the end. Folks complain that Furst is all style and little substance, but I loved both. The style and characterization in this book are amazing, and I think a big part of that is Guidall. The substance is a captivating period that got short shrift in every history course I ever took: Continental Europe between about 1934 and the beginning of World War II.

So my experiment: I plan to get an actual copy of Dark Star and read it. If I don't like it, I'll try it again in an audio version and see. I want to test whether Alan Furst is one of those fellows whose work comes off better in the voice of a skilled reader, rather than leaving the common book reader to his own devices.

This is the first audiobook I've heard from Guidall. Now I understand the lavish praise heaped upon the man. Wow. He goes on my list of people to whom I would listen reading the phone book, not because his voice is anything special (as is #1 on that list, James Earl Jones) but because I bet Guidall could make it seem witty. "Adams. Adamsky...A-dam-sleeey. Adamson. " I wonder if the Audible version, read by Alex Jennings, comes off as well (the audio sample they offer does not commend the recording; Guidall is on Recorded Books).

Playing: Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 1; Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy and Van Cliburn. I've never been much for Chopin's concerti, but Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is the second half of this recording, so I can be patient.
Today's short story: "Beluthahatchie," Andy Duncan. I had forgotten how much I LOVE this story.

Who's writing this story anyway?

Second Novel chugs along. Fred shows up. Says, "Hey, you need a scene that breaks up all this menace and angst." I say, "Why? I like my menace and angst." Fred rolls his eyes, says, "Just one chapter. If you don't like it, maybe you use it somewhere else." So I write the scene, people getting together on a Saturday to watch sports. And then all hell breaks loose--menace, threat, raised stakes. Good stuff. Thanks, Fred.

But I kind of wrote myself into a corner, led up to something for which I didn't really have a solution. Then this morning I knew how to solve it--at great peril and unexpected consequence to all characters.

Yeah, so I'm excited about this. (Which is nice, because one of my poems was rejected twice yesterday.)

Playing: Shostakovich, Violin Concerto No. 1; Royal Philharmonic, Andre Previn and Viktoria Mullova. I'm not much for solo violin music. Some things like the Bach D minor Partita are miraclulous, but much of the literature is the same whiny, fly-like twittering that birds to so much more naturally. Anyway, I really like this. I think it's a combination of the merits of the piece and of Mullova's sound which is strong and muscular without grating. Excellent.
Reading: Beluthahatchie, Andy Duncan

Projects and a sample of No

My classical-music binge has become a marathon: I want to listen to all 400-something of my CDs, plus the 75 LPs and unknown assorted cassettes. I've been reminded of a great deal of music that I had really forgotten about that is quite good so far, and I've found stuff that I see no reason to own nor for which I can recall any reason for wanting to own in the first place. This will also help, perhaps, get rid of some stuff squirreled away here and there. And we're all about throwing stuff away now. Kids haven't played with that toy in a few months? Pitch it! Didn't like that book when I read it? Off to the library! Through this morning, I've listened to 73 recordings, three of which are going away soon (and one recording of clarinet trios with Richard Stoltzman that I would chuck if I didn't think Lera would get hacked at me--not that she likes him all that much, but it's her CD, you see).

The first draft of the Second Novel stands at 29,994 words just past what I think is the halfway point. I'm still sticking with my Columbus Day deadline for this one, which means I need to get cracking. That's okay, because I've got a much better plan (that is, I actually have a plan) for the end than I had for the beginning. As I originally thought about the book, I meant for it to deal with fear, how we react to it and how we do or don't overcome it. As I've worked with the material, though, the book has become much more about relationships, especially how we form relationships based on expectations and our own previous relationships. That balance will probably shift a bit in further drafts, back to fear perhaps or in another as yet unseen direction, but it is interesting to me how the book I thought I was writing and the book I'm actually writing are not necessarily the same.

I've been practicing the piano again. This is the first time I've practiced the piano since I did sixth-grade solo-&-ensemble accompaniments for Lera's students in 2003. Before that I probably hadn't actually practiced since '97. So this is familiar but new. Some things come back with relative ease (scales) and others not so much (shifting hand position and finding the next new place on the keyboard).

And some NOs.

No D. No O. No spine (from Making Light). As to the last one there, that's why I would vote for damn near anyone who insists on term limits for federal office.

Playing: Corigliano, String Quartet; Cleveland Quartet. I always liked the Cleveland Quartet. They had a clean sound (helped by Telarc's sonics) and gave direct and energetic readings in their recordings. This is their "farewell" recording from '96, the last before they disbanded. If I had to do it again, I don't know that I would buy this one. The Haydn on it is fine, but the Corigliano leaves me cold.
Reading: Three Bags Full
Today's short story: "Fugue," Rae Dawn Carson in Weird Tales
Pipeline: The Second Novel. There are two stories out now, and two poems. I've rearranged my work day according an honest to God schedule, which I hope will give me bigger blocks of time for reading and writing.

Feedback

Today I received comments on my story "Electric Yarmulke" from K.D. Wentworth, coordinating judge for the Writers of the Future Contest. First, I guess that makes me a semifinalist for the quarter or whatever they're calling that now. So good for me: a step in the appropriate direction. Second, the comments were more than welcome and quite helpful. That is, they pointed to flaws in the story of which I was not aware. That seems kind of obvious: if I'd known they were there I wouldn't have written them. But too often the (usually limited) feedback I get points to a problem I already knew I had. And in all honesty, my first reaction to these comments was something like "what are you talking about? Did you even read the story?" But about 90 seconds later the adrenaline rush had subsided and I was ready for some clearer thinking.

In discussing this with Faithful First Reader (aka Lera), I was informed, "Well, you know, most of your stories have that problem." It was like the heavens opened at that moment, but instead of sunlight shining down from on high it was a searchlight and the warden had found me.

And so we'll see. I doubt this is a miracle curative, but having this information is certainly better than NOT having it. Excelsior.

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul

Never underestimate humanity's innate capacity for ever-deeper humiliation.

Bush blames Hussein for murder of Nelson Mandela (who's still alive).

In honor of this remarkable reach of imagination and idiocy, I yield the floor for this:

Here and there

Jim Van Pelt shares some straightforward (but easy to forget) principles of revision.

Three Bags Full is quite amusing. I'm really not far enough in yet to know what kind of mystery it will turn out to be, but Leonie Swann's take on the sheep and the people around them is persuasive. This is obviously a solid example of writing something different. The stories and books I enjoy reading most--and I enjoy writing most--are the things that are slightly uncomfortable or juxtaposed.

I saw this yesterday on the Guardian website, but it's also available from Amazon in the U.S.: a USB turntable. You plug the turntable straight into your computer to transfer your vinyl to digital, and it even includes software that (supposedly) will wash the hiss from your digital transfer. This is not something I particularly need; I have a good bit of vinyl, but the only thing I would care to transfer for posterity that is not available on CD is Kenton Plays Wagner, and I'm not going to drop $130 to listen to Dick Shearer (who turns 67 today, by the by) et al. blast their way through Ride of the Valkyries. However, this is notable for the enormous leap in technology it represents. I daresay that to achieve this kind of transfer 10 years ago could easily have run you at least three or four times that amount, and it would certainly not have been as easy as "plug the turntable into the computer."

Related to the yesterday's post on the lack of contemporary composers in orchestral programming, what is it with orchestras programming the same music? And not just your Classical Top 40, either. I mean, every orchestra can be expected to perform two Beethoven symphonies per season. But consider: National, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, three significant U.S. orchestras all within a morning's drive of each other are ALL playing Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 this season. WHAT? I love Sibelius 7; it's my favorite of all Sibelius' pieces. But really. Is there nothing else that fits this same niche: late Romantic sounding, 25-to-30 minutes long, well but not tightly structured? Nothing? Or perhaps this is the late Romantic shorter piece du jour. Next season no one will remember it. (Full disclosure: Whatever my dismay, I plan on hearing the Baltimore Sibelius 7 in June, paired with Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto. I'm not that dismayed.)

And Leicester City does right by Nottingham Forest--and just to prove karma works, Leicester wins anyway.

Ah, '72--good year for concerti

It's standard practice on many concert programs to include the birth and death years of composers. In the case where a composer is still alive at the time of performance, often his birth year is included, as is the year in which the composition was written. I wish that this last bit--the year of composition--was a more regular feature of programs, even for dead composers. This would be especially useful on CDs. Then I wouldn't have to flip through the liner notes to know whether Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms was written before or after, say, Petrushka.

The real problem here, though, is that concert programs feature too few living composers. Consider last night's six-hour program on BBC Radio 3's Through the Night program. The most recently deceased composer represented died in 1959. Below are the years of death for the composers on the program:

1827
1849
1897
1750
1857
1936
1959
1594
1836
1719
1764
1762
1613
1809
1856
1791
1840
1904
1767

This makes the average composer on this program dead for the past 200 years. Granted, Through the Night presents a cross-section of music, and to its credit it follows Heitor Villa-Lobos with Palestrina. And I confess that I personally own little music from living composers. So do I own and does the BBC program little contemporary music (and I use that in the sense of time, not in the sense of style) because no one wants to hear it, or does no one want to hear it because few own it and the BBC doesn't program it? Or because Deutsche Grammophon doesn't sell it?

It's a blade that cuts both ways, I think. I have more thoughts on this on a larger scale than just programming and listening habits for another day, but for now I'm taking a cue from the BBC and following Penderecki with Haydn.

Get them while you can

Just a note to point you to the surprising availability of the Star Trek II soundtrack from Amazon. I raved for two years about how IDIOTIC Paramount was for letting this go out of print, but finally I succumbed and persuaded Lera to pay an exorbitant price for a used copy. I am not sorry I did not wait, and I am considering buying this as a Christmas present for several people just to encourage Paramount in this right-thinking release.

To be honest, I had hoped for a remastered version with the complete score, a la the 20th anniversary edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is the 25th anniversary year of Star Trek II, after all. If anyone has information on that they'd like to share, I welcome it.

Playing: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 1; Chicago Symphony, Claudio Abbado. Over time, I built up this entire collection of Abbado-Chicago recordings of Tchaikovsky symphonies. I'm not entirely sure why. They're all solid recordings, but not particularly outstanding in most any respect.
Reading: Three Bags Full, Leonie Swann
Coveting: Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 1; Chicago Symphony, Fritz Reiner and Byron Janis. During my recent classical music binge I realized that I would not recognize Rachmaninoff's First Concerto if it jumped up and bit me. Sure, I'd recognize it as Rachmaninoff, but I don't actually know this piece. And that is not acceptable.
Ignoring: Newcastle United and Michael Owen, who spent tonight proving that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Watching: Fort Apache. Seriously, it is just too weird to see Shirley Temple in a movie as an adult.

Banner day

So. Let's see. Dell screws up on the new monitor, sending me ANOTHER of the one I have already, the one that doesn't work. Newcastle seem bent on losing to DERBY. Our car went in for repair and wound up being TWICE as much as expected. And I got a letter from the IRS about our 2005 tax return. Fun city.

All that said, my life is great. It is way too easy to let these things pull and tear at me. There is too much else that is damn good about what's going on now to let these things bother me. I get to work from home, my kids are healthy and my smart, beautiful wife loves me. Don't think I haven't given Dell an earful today, but that was just for fun really. I am truly fortunate and no amount of ineptitude on the part of Newcastle United is going to undermine that.

Robert Jordan

I owe Robert Jordan.

My good friend Chris gave me a copy of The Eye of the World to read in September 1998. I read the prologue and was intrigued but circumstances conspired to prevent me from devoting any time to it that fall. When Lera and I went to see her parents in Florida over Christmas break, I took The Eye of the World along "just in case" I finished with the other things I was doing and reading.

As it happened, one afternoon I found myself without another diversion and so began to read The Eye of the World in earnest. How vividly I remember it: this is truly strange, because how many times do you remember where you were as you read a book? But I recall sitting on the swing beside the pool and reading. And reading. And reading.

In two weeks, I finished all eight books that made up the series at that time. Frustration has waxed and waned over the intervening nine years, but however much I might have despaired over the series ever being finished I bought every book the very day it came out. And likely will with the final installment when (hopefully not if) it comes out.

It was this book that led me to George R. R. Martin, renewed my interest in Tolkien and Arthuriana, the latter of which led to Bernard Cornwell and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and so and on. It was that this book did not come to a timely conclusion that I first wanted to write stories for myself, and, not to overstate the matter, that led ultimately to a change of career and focus from music to writing.

I've not thought of these things in this way until now. Mine is doubtless one of many such tributes offered today. Would that we had all acknowledged such debts under happier circumstances.

Expectations management

To say that the UofL-Kentucky game was a debacle is to say that Mrs. Lincoln didn't like the play. But this is inordinately frustrating because of missed opportunities. Actually, on both sides of the ball, each team had a chance to put the game out of reach. Kentucky simply made fewer mistakes than UofL, and that's not the kind of game anyone enjoys watching. (Although I daresay that most Kentucky fans were perfectly content to see their team win, regardless.)

One expects that a top 10 team will bring off certain things without incident: the fumble on the opening kickoff set the tone for the whole game. One expects a top 10 team to be able to get the ball into the end zone from the one-yard line. One does not expect a top 10 team to throw an interception in the end zone on the first drive of the game. This would be easier to accept if Kentucky simply had pushed Louisville off the ball on every play. Didn't happen. Instead, UofL's consistent inability to defend and shaky start on offense doomed them.

This goes back to the point I made last week that it is ridiculous to even have a poll this early in the season. As Michigan and Notre Dame have proven and UofL verifies, these polls mean nothing. Obviously, UofL is not the team it was last season. Much is made of the fact that Kentucky beat a ranked opponent for the first time since 1977 and a top 10 opponent for the first time since 1972. But who cares? UofL, judged on their record and performance, is not a top 10 team.

All of which matters little regardless of spin. UofL partisans will point out that while this almost necessarily precludes them from the national-championship game (many other teams would need to collapse ahead of them and UofL--and Kentucky--would need to run the table to boost UofL's BCS score sufficiently) it does not affect their conference record and potential subsequent place in a BCS bowl. To which I say, ha! Even if UofL had won against Kentucky, and even if they had gone 12-0, I don't see ANY team beating LSU for the national championship. They are truly impressive. And second, how can anyone contend with a straight face that the team that lost to Kentucky last night will beat West Virginia at Morgantown? (I'm giving UofL a victory over Rutgers: it's at Louisville and it's about revenge for last season.)

As you can tell, I am engaged in active expectations management. It's easy to be swept away with team pride, and it's just as easy to feast on sour grapes when your team disappoints. But Lera and I have now had too many evenings damaged by teenagers playing football not to confront our demons. Thankfully, Cindy and Andy joined us for golf and conversation last night to blunt the harder edges of our dismay. In future, we'll have to do the job ourselves, so I'm shifting my hope into a lower gear. I don't know if Lera can do that or not.

Studied ambivalence

I've yet to fully migrate my iTunes files to the new computer. But in this interim period of laziness I have been listening to classical CDs that did not make into iTunes on the old computer and were therefore not part of my normal work mix. This was not something I did on the old computer because the optical drive was so damn loud. This one is nearly silent.

I've heard a lot of music that I forgot I liked or simply didn't have in my regular play rotation because it's quite long. This includes the following (with links, because they're really good):

Sibelius, Symphony No. 7
Lutoslawski, Concerto for Orchestra
Barber, Symphony No. 1
Strauss, Ein Heldenleben
Shostakovich, Symphony No. 11

Alas, this also includes these other pieces and CDs, about which I can generate little enthusiasm. I concede that it may be that these would hold up better under closer scrutiny. Still, for all their acclaim, they're not things to which I'll give much recreational play.

Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 1
Prokofiev, Symphony No. 5
Shostakovich, Symphony No. 9
Sibelius, Symphony No. 5
Strauss, Death and Transfiguration
Smetana, Ma Vlast
Rachmaninoff, Symphony No. 3

Yes, I know. There's a Rachmaninoff in my ambivalence. But I can't summon much enthusiasm for it. It's lacking the things about his compositions that I like best: the continual stretching and extending melodies and progressions. This is not unexpected, considering that most of his compositional output occurred between 1892 and 1917, while the Third Symphony was written in 1935. As far as composition goes, the man was somewhat out of practice, had not honed his skills on many other pieces in the interim and was near the end of a life haunted by a country, flawed as it was, that had been his inspiration and was in 1935, for all intents and purposes, destroyed.

Who are you and what have you done with Michael Owen?

Hot damn. Michael Owen is on fire. (For now.) I'm glad for him and glad for England, but mostly I want to see him do this for Newcastle. I also want to see writers in the U.K. come up with a different way to describe his scoring: "clinical finishing" and similar euphemisms are quite exhausted already.

I was trying to explain to Lera why Owen's recent displays were so happy-making. I tried to find an analogy with another sport.


Me: Imagine that Ken Griffey, Jr., one of the very best baseball players of the age, joined the Reds, but got injured right after a middling first season or so and then never returned to form.

Lera: Isn't that what happened to Griffey for real?

Me: Yes, but imagine that he started hitting the cover off the ball again this year.

Lera: Doesn't he have 30 home runs this year?

Me: Yes, but imagine that it mattered.

Lera: Oh.


Playing: Bach, Partita in D minor; Rachel Podger on BBC Radio 3.

There is no average, there is only Zul

The weather needs lithium. Monday it was 90°; I despaired of my grass ever actually growing again. The ground was rock hard and gray, if you believe it. Then last night it rained. And today we had a glorious cloudlessly 72° day.

And that's really the thing about the weather. No matter how often TV meteorologists compare today's weather to the "average," it still doesn't mean anything. We have days that are uncomfortably hot followed soon by days that are uncomfortably cooler. Add all those together over time and you get an average that never really exists--except for rare days like today, which somehow validates the weatherman's harping on today's "average" temperature.

The stock market is the same way. I just finished James O'Shaughnessy's Predicting the Markets of Tomorrow. I enjoyed his What Works On Wall Street, which benefited from allowing the data to speak for itself. Predicting is, alas, prescriptive, and in that it fails, largely because O'Shaughnessy assumes that everyone has 20 years to invest and that at the end of 20 years will be satisfied with merely the average return available over that time. Over the past five years, the S&P 500 Index has returned -22.2% (that's negative 22.2%), 28.5%, 10.7%, 4.8% and 15.6% (2002-2006). That's an average of 7.5%, an historically reasonable return, according to O'Shaughnessy. The problem, of course, is that most people bailed out after losing one-fifth of their investment in 2002, assuming they'd not already lost a ton the year before. O'Shaughnessy offers some ways to beat this performance over 20 years, but again, over that period you're going to encounter times where even his strategies are going to sock you for unpleasant losses that frankly most people won't--or worse, can't--tolerate.

(An aside: O'Shaughnessy's book also suffers from being slightly out of date. He bemoans the rich valuations of the market at the time of publication--late 2005, I think--which his research says will return about 8% on average over the next 20 years. But according to this same research, the 20-year period that begins from current levels in 2007 should generate returns of 10.5% on average. That's an enormous difference when compounded over the whole 20 years. In his defense, he has a newer book out, The New Rules for Investing Now, which could be more timely--but I'm not likely to buy all the same.)

Playing: Shostakovich, Symphony No. 11; Houston Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski.
Not Watching: Derailed. It starts slowly, but I like Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston. Then it moves rapidly from despicable to abominable. True, I cringe at the actions of the characters, but that's not why I hate this movie. The despicable actions are in no way related to what the movie has set up about the characters. They give you a scene at the beginning where Clive Owen (ostensibly) is in prison, recounting the tale into a journal. This is bait, so you'll hang on long enough to find out why he's in jail. I refused the bait. What a damn awful movie.

Fixed?

Dell is sending me a new (and much larger) monitor. All it took was an investment of an hour and a half in technical support and another half hour (mostly on hold) in the returns department. I doubt this will fix the actual problem, but the bigger monitor should add some flexibility.

Steven Taylor and Newcastle United are back in contract talks. We'll see. Michael Owen is scoring with regularity. Again, we'll see.

The Second Novel got its in-progress revision and is ready for some new writing today. Already doubts about whether the book "works" or not are cropping up, but I take that as a positive contrarian indicator. I notice that my mind constructs the wildest resistance to truly good but new or untested things.

Kenny Rogers returns to give Detroit's playoff hopes a shot in the arm, while Rick Ankiel is apparently all too familiar with shots in the arm. Read Jayson Stark's sometimes insightful piece about Ankiel, HGH and double standards. I say "sometimes insightful" because Stark can't seem to write on anything that touches even tangentially on Barry Bonds without at least some quiet strain of apologetics for the bloated basher playing in the background. Maybe that's just me, since I can't seem to write anything touching even tangentially on Barry Bonds without unloading on the bastard with both barrels.

And what the...? Germany 11, Argentina 0 to open Women's World Cup.

Amazon is testing the waters for a new e-book reader. BusinessWeek blasts the move as half-hearted. I'm pretty ambivalent: I will likely ALWAYS read deadtree versions of texts, but as more content comes out in digital form only, I'll still probably wait for the Apple iRead (or whatever it is) in another few years.

Playing: Lutoslawski, Concerto for Orchestra; BBC Philharmonic, Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Open question

Dear Dell,

If you're going to sell me a monitor with a native resolution of 1440x900, why would you package that with a computer whose standard video card WON'T SUPPORT that resolution?

Annoyed and blurry,
John League

Two sides of several coins

1. My new computer is all set up, and it's really spiffy. Widescreen monitor, super fast, Vista looks nice. BUT why is it so damn hard to move things from one machine to another or get your router to cooperate with your computer? For as much as people pay for these things, they ought to work more intuitively. Like moving your iTunes library. Yuck.

2. UofL has decided against defense. They don't believe in it. Like Santa Claus. The only thing that saved them on defense last night is that, as a "big" program, they have more depth. With some exceptions, it is likely that the athletic specimens at #2 or #3 on UofL's depth chart are as good as--if not better--than most of Middle Tennessee's #1s. Come the third quarter when defenses got tired, UofL could refresh with better players. And it showed in the near total shutdown of the MTSU offense after about five minutes into the second half. But that first half was an absolute fiasco. And so was the commentary. I enjoy Bill Curry's insights on football and sports--he's something of an old-school contrarian fellow--and he is regarded as one of the kindest humans on the planet, but his repeated insistence that he had never seen the likes of UofL's sagging defense is laughable. He was the coach at KENTUCKY for crying out loud.

3. I understand Steven Taylor's point. (This one, anyway. I'm still hacked off about the whole "we perform better against good sides" nonsense.) He is the only returning defensive starter, he's the England Under-21 captain and he's from Newcastle's academy, making him a local favorite. He should be signed for a fairly ridiculous amount of money. On the other hand, he is the England Under-21 captain, and that means he is young--and therefore prone to boneheaded mistakes, the likes of which we saw several times last year. He was our best defender, but that's not saying much. Our second-best defender was Nobby Solano, a midfielder. And God forbid Taylor should get injured, not only for our defense but also for his hopes of squeezing more money out of Sam & Co. I hope this all works out.

4. Sorry, I'm going to make fun of Larry Craig now. OK, let's just leave out what he actually did in Minneapolis. Let's just look at all of the after-the-fact stuff. Pleads guilty hoping to keep everything quiet. Story breaks anyway, so he declares that he plead guilty in error and will fight to keep his seat. Then his peers throw him under the bus, and he says he'll resign. And THEN he comes back and says that his decision to resign was not firm, and that he would reconsider. Regardless of whether he tried to pick up a cop in a bathroom, are these examples of conscientious decision making and judicious consideration characteristics that anyone in Idaho wants in a senator?

UPDATE: 5. Pavarotti was too big for everything, yes. (In the video below he's too big to bow.) His ego and demands were enormous, yada yada yada. His voice darkened as he aged, and he was the only person who didn't know it, fine. But come on. Just listen to the man sing. That's the point.

Yet another reason why preseason polls are useless

So Michigan falls from #5 to #nothing. Big deal. It wasn't like they had, I don't know, played any games yet or anything. The only teams that deserve any sort of accolades after one week in the season are LSU (much as I hate to say that), Wisconsin, California, Georgia and UCLA, all of whom played decent Division I opponents. That would be a real top 5 right there, with no team that ran over a Division I-AA team (including Louisville) even touching a ranking of any kind.

Vin Scully is the greatest

Filched from David Pinto, Scully describes the crowd at Wrigley Field as the Dodgers beat on the Cubs 11-2:

The crowd is sullen if not mutinous.

When was the last time you heard the words "sullen" or "mutinous" from the mouth of a sports broadcaster?

Firsts

Today is Reed's first day of kindergarten. He was ready. "Am I going to the new school today?" Me, not so much with the ready. He went right in and waited with his teacher to take him back to the classroom (the school wisely forbids parents to escort their children back to the classrooms). So we'll see.

Michael Owen scores his first league goal since 2005. I wondered if Michael Owen had not lost his touch in his nearly two-year injury fiasco. He was not "Michael Owen" when he came back from Spain, and then he and Alan Shearer never seemed to click before he was injured. He may never be the same player he was at Liverpool, but it says something that his goal against Wigan (thanks to a typically weak Titus Bramble clearance) was opportunistic and came in the 87th minute. Well done.

A first good poem? One of the poems I committed last week was submitted and promptly rejected (no real surprise there), but it did receive positive comments from the editor. My poetic efforts are largely practice to serve the needs of the Second Novel, so it's nice to know that these things I'm writing are not repugnant and might add to the novel as intended.

A U.S. commercial with Thierry Henry (and it's not for Wallbangers). So the new Gillette Fusion commercial features Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Thierry Henry all singing the praises of a close shave. I wish I could remember during what program I saw this, but I think I was just flipping channels. Maybe it was during the U.S. Open. But this is an unusual trio: the world's best golfer, the world's best tennis player and an outstanding football player from a place where football means soccer not John Madden. All right, boys and girls. One of these things is not like the others. Can you tell me which one?

Playing: Wagner, Prelude to Act I and Karfreitagszauber from Parsifal; Royal Conertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haintink on BBC Radio 3
Reading: Best American Poetry 1999; Collected Sonnets, Edna St. Vincent Millay; Swords and Deviltry
Pipeline: I wrote 20,000 words on the Second Novel, at which point I had exhausted my ability to skip over details and plot that required some thought. So I've gone back and figured out how to pare down my 20,000 words into about 17,000 and tighten the story some. And I'll work more here once I am past work deadlines and new-computer setup. (Yes, a new computer arrives this week.) And I now have two poems submitted. Go figure.