Numbers Game

In the Bible, Methuselah was Enoch son's and Noah's grandfather, a spry old fellow still fathering children past the century mark, who died at the age of 969, in the year of the Great Flood. (Bible doesn't say whether he drowned or not.)

In California, Methuselah is the name of a Great Bristlecone Pine tree that is estimated to have germinated in 2832 BC, making it more than 4800 years old, and the oldest non-clonal organism on the planet. (Prometheus was older, but got cut down in 1964 -- apparently somebody wanted to know how old it was and the corer used to collect a plug of the rings broke, so they just toppled the sucker and cut it up. The world is full of assholes.)

And, a champagne bottle that is eight times the size of a normal bottle is also called a Methuselah. For those of you who are curious, the standard champagne bottle sizes, in liters and percentages or multiples of the standard bottle are:

Quarter 18.75 cl 1/4
Half-Bottle 37.5 cl 1/2
Bottle 75 cl 1
Magnum 1.5 l 2
Jeroboam 3 l 4
Rehoboam 4.5 l 6
Methuselah 6 l 8
Salmanazar 9 l 12
Balthazar 12 l 16
Nebuchadnezzar 15 l 20

Some of the names you'll recognize. (The Magnum was apparently named after Tom's Selleck's TV character on his Hawaiian TV series, Magnum P.I., who knew? And did you know that Selleck was the actor originally picked to play Indiana Jones in the movies? The TV producers wouldn't let him out of his contract, and so Harrison Ford got the job. Hard to imagine anybody else in that role.)

I'd love to go to a restaurant and order a Nebuchadnezzar of the best French, if you please.

All of which is to say that I suddenly realized when I looked over my book list that I had lost count of how many I had done. I had thought it was somewhere in the mid-fifties, but, as it turns out, I am working on my sixtieth novel. If I can do one a year from now on, I can keep up with my age.

And, as Sonny Bono used say, the beat goes on ...

Working Shiftsuit

Want to see what camouflage should look like, done right?

You Want Fries With That Peking Duck?

If you need any evidence that we are living in strange and . . . interesting times, have a look here.

Right Brain, Left Brain

Here is an amusing little exercise: Click on the image, and see if it spins. Which way? Clockwise, or counter-clockwise?

Go here, and see what -- and maybe -- how you think ...

Champion of the Dead

(Tibetan, for "War Arts")

So, new day, new novel begun. I got a little literary, so it will be called Champion of the Dead, instead of Dead Man's Champion. A bit more passive voice, but since there are women involved, the former is more accurate. We do strive for accuracy.

There's an old saw in the fiction biz -- There are only two things worth writing about -- love and death. I'm a believer, and this one will be no exception.

And for the teaser, the Prologue:

Kane stood facing Yama, the Lord of Death, in a hell that seemed two parts fire and one part smoky limestone cave. It stank of rotten eggs and burned copper, but it wasn’t so bad as these places went. Sanjiva, maybe, or Kalasutra -- no worse than one of those.

The Death God looked up from his counting.

When you died, it was Yama who measured your karma, and decided what reward, or more likely, what punishment you merited. He was usually depicted as having three eyes, huge fangs, and a wide and stout body. In this instance, that was in the general vicinity, but not quite what Kane beheld. This version of Yama had three eyes, though the third one, in the middle of his forehead, was a pulsing red orb, no sign of a pupil. He wore the traditional crown of miniature skulls, his hair was jet, and long and flowing, but his naked and obviously-male form was that of a bodybuilder on steroids. Intricately patterned tattoos, all in dark red, pulsed and glowed against his blue skin from head to toes. You couldn’t risk looking at those patterns long -- they shifted, writhed, hypnotically drew you in, and if you didn’t pull your gaze away, you would be caught and paralyzed, to be harvested at Yama’s leisure. And he might wait a million years to get around to it as you stood frozen in place.

The smell of the oil on Yama’s glistening skin was patchouli and brimstone, sharp, musky, heady.

The Death God, who had been separating small black and white stones into two piles, counting the karma of some poor soul, glared at Kane. Then he smiled, and his fangs gleamed like old ivory. “Kane,” he said. “Ah ... ” It was the voice of a locomotive rolling full out, resonant, penetrating, filling the chamber.

Yama knew who he was.

Oh, shit ...

Kane was a martial arts expert, he carried a gleaming sword half his own height, and his spirit body here was young, strong, and fit. He had treked throught the bardo many times, fought and defeated many Wrathful Deities, from blood-drinkers to soul-renders, but -- Yama?

“Fuck this,” Kane said. He turned and ran.

He heard the laughter echoing all around him, the amused triumph of a malevolent god, and his only hope was that Yama didn’t feel like working up a sweat by chasing him. He hated to be interrupted in the middle of a stone-count, so the word had it, but maybe he would rather finish than have to start over.

Or, maybe not. What man could know the mind of a god?

Kane sprinted for all he was worth. Usually, there were rules, but a god of Yama’s stature could bend those if he wanted.

As hells went, this naraka was relatively mild. There were, in theory, as many hells as there were souls to experience them, but a lot of dead people either didn’t have much imagination or were willing to accept the standard models, of which there were sixteen -- eight cold and eight hot, and while these had been named and described pretty well in the Buddhist literature, there were a lot of small variations the scholars had missed even so. Things you found out when you got there.

Arbuda, for instance, was supposed to be so cold it raised blisters on the naked skin, and the amount of time you had to spend in it matched the time it took to empty a barrel of sesame by removing one seed every hundred years. But Kane had never met anybody in the place who had been there more than fifty or sixty years, local time. And it wasn’t that cold -- he’d never had a blister.

Time ran differently in the hells than it did on Earth. A year here could be a day there; now and again, time could more or less stop completely. You arrived, spent weeks shepherding a spirt through, toward his or her rebirth, and when you awoke, it was as if you had only blinked.

The other cold hells, in descending order of frigidity and the time you had to spend in them, were Nirarbuda, Atata, Hahava, Huhuva, Utpala, Padma, and Mahapadma. Mahapadma, that was cold. A pot of boiling lead thrown into the air would freeze solid before it hit the ground, and it took all of Kane’s tumo skill to stay warm in Mahapadma.

The eight hot hells, from a mere oven, to melting platinum, were Sanjiva, Kalasutra, Samghata, Raurava, Maharaurava, Tapana, Pratapana, and Avici. Those measured their stays in terms of trillions of years, too. Anybody having to serve the full stretch wouldn’t get to come back in this universe, but the next, or the one after.

Bad karma was a bitch to work off.

The only saving grace was that, eventually, you got to leave and be reincarnated, which made Buddhist hells somewhat better on the cosmic scale than the Christian hell. Eternity was something else.

Yama’s laughter faded behind him, and Kane slowed his run a little, to a fast jog. No point in wasting his energy. Yama wasn’t the only denizen down here, and he had a long trek before he could go home. If he was lucky.

Years back, in his wildest dreams, Kane would never have imagined himself doing what he was doing now. Jogging through a Buddhist hell, looking for a lost soul.

Life -- and death -- how very strange they were ...

Mac Versus PC

Saw this on Sona's blog, and had to share it ...

Eternal Damnation

Many religions include versions of Hell -- Christian, Tibetian Buddhist, Hindu -- but if you want to see a really scary one, spend a Sunday morning at Chuck E. Cheese ...

We love seeing the grandsons, and my daughter's boys love Chuck E. Cheese.

If you have ever been, you know; if not, and you are a sinner, best hope you don't wind up being sent to such a place for eternity, because ten minutes feels like an eternity, and that's if you get there before the place fills up ...

Once

I don't get out to the movies as much as I used to, back in the day. I notice that something I want to see is on the silver screen, and I mean to go, but stuff gets in the way, and I miss it.

Fortunately, there is Pay-Per-View, and for what are called "little movies," where the story or characters are the engines and the EFX don't need to be seen wall-to-wall and thirty feet tall, that's a good option.

Last summer, the movie Once, about a Irish busker (street guitarist) and a Czech girl who sells flowers on the streets of Dublin, came out and kicked serious ass at Sundance. I wanted to catch it, but it came and went in a hurry.

Finally got around to it last night, and if you play music, especially acoustic guitar, and you haven't caught it, you really ought to. It's short, the accents are thick in spots, the camera shakes a bit here and there, but this is a jewel of a movie, sparkles like a fine black opal in the noon day sun, and the soundtrack is outstanding. (I got my copy via iTunes.)

I think it cost them about $4.95 to make, and is a testament to both style and substance compared to just about any big Hollywood blockbuster you want to point at.

It's a love story, but not quite what you expect, and nobody even has a name, save, of course, for the drummer. The credits say "Guy," "Girl," "Mom, "Dad," like that. The drummer is "Timmy."

It stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, as themselves, and they wrote and performed the music. Hansard you might have seen before, in the Irish rock movie, The Commitments which is another fine musical experience, viewing and soundtrack.

One of the Once songs has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Song, and I sure hope it wins.
If there is any justice in the world, it will.

Dissonance

Wonder of wonders, I came across another short I wrote recently, late last spring, apparently. It's another don't-let-them-give-you-to-the-women story, and I am completely fogged on why I did it.

Getting to the point where I can hide my own Easter Eggs ...

Dissonance

The piano tuner ran through ascending chords, enjoying the resistance of the heavy ivory keys. His balding head was bent forward, his eyes closed as he listened. The notes rose to the darkened ceiling of the recital hall near Warsaw's Old Market Square, then dissipated like smoke.
They even seemed to smell like smoke, Maria thought.
Pipe tobacco, perhaps ... ?
The man turned and looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
She nodded. “Perfecto, Sebastian. As always.”
Sebastian smiled. He looked back at the instrument, took a clean handkerchief from his pocket, and lightly wiped the keyboard, from base keys to trebles, producing a soft, rising musical sigh. This piano could out-thunder Thor, its forte was indeed grand, but even as quiet as a mouse, it sounded superb. Ian’s personal tuner, who knew exactly how his boss wanted the instrument to sing, Sebastian always made it sound superb.
Of course, he had much with which to work. Any Bösendorfer Imperial Grand Piano could roar or whisper on command -- nine feet, six inches long, the best woods, the finest craftsmanship, perfect German construction, they were top of the line. But this one? It was Ian’s baby, and it had extras that made it even more grande than grand. Nine sub-base notes to low C; ninety-seven keys, twelve hundred and fifty-five pounds of magic in wood, strings, ivory and ebony, it had cost more than a quarter of a million dollars, and Ian considered it cheap at that price.
Ian did not fly second class.
It had his name inlaid in gold over the center of the keyboard; not so large as to be ostentatious, but big enough for him to see every time he sat down to play. So that an adoring fan using opera glasses could read it from the center of the hall:
Ian Thomas Laurance.
The lettering copied from his perfect, artistic handwriting.
The Bösendorfer was Maria’s baby, too. She made sure it traveled in safety, fussed and worried over it, assured that it was packed so lovingly well that it would survive a fall from a tall building inside its shipping crate. And since it was insured for more than half a million dollars, the shippers never dropped it. They wouldn’t dare.
Ian. The man who had hands bigger than Rachmaninov -- huge, magic hands that could span almost two octaves. He could play things nobody else could, because nobody else could reach two notes so far apart. He had written especial music to showcase his skills, a concert only he could pull off. At the end of the third movement, there were two chords, impossible things, wildly dissonant, one under each hand, and nobody on a stage could hit them together except Ian. He could palm basketballs.
And when he had put his hands on her ... ?
For the six months they shared a bed on the road, it had been a kind of magic. There she was, Maria Vasquez, a lowly travel manager who had come from the mean streets of Madrid. Little Maria, whose brother Pablito had been a bomb-maker for the Basques until he had blown himself and half a building up by accident. A woman who had never dared hoped to be with man like Ian. But -- there she had been, Ian’s lover, sleeping each night next to the greatest pianist alive, perhaps the greatest who had ever lived, a man who loved this instrument more than he could ever love any woman. Sometimes, after sex, still covered in sweat and each other’s juices, he would talk about the piano as if it were a woman: How she sounded today; how her voice was; how her action under his fingers felt ...
Well. That was done. Over.
She should have quit once he had ended it. She could have gotten another job easily, people on the concert scene knew her, knew how well she took care of Ian and his instruments, somebody would have jumped at the chance to hire her. She knew that. But -- she had been weak. She kept hoping he would invite her back to his bed. She loved him. She thought he would see that, would respond to it.
She had been wrong.
She had shown up at his hotel room that evening as usual, and a naked woman had answered the door. A tall, redhead, maybe twenty-two or three, sleek, fit, smelling of musk.
Ian had stood behind the woman, also naked, and grinning.
Sorry, Maria, he had said. It’s time for me to learn a ... new piece ...
So fucking clever, Ian. Talented, rich, supremely self-confident. Nonchalantly sure that she wouldn’t quit. Life was his oyster, full of pearls, he was golden and invulnerable. He expected her to stay and reflect his glory -- and she had stayed.
Sebastian packed up his kit and went to find a pub and have a beer, Maria sat alone in the hall, perched on the piano’s bench, and stroked the keyboard cover softly. She loved this piano, but not like Ian did.
She sighed, and stood. She had plenty of time. Pablito had, before he had died, taught her things a young Spanish woman did not ordinarily learn. About circuits and wires and detonators.
Tonight, when Ian hit those two impossible chords, a circuit would be completed. Nobody else could do it, only Ian.
It wouldn’t be a big explosion. Nobody would be hurt. Just enough forte to turn the inside of the Bösendorfer into a smoking ruin. It would die under his hands -- he would kill it.
She wanted to be sure she found a place to stand where she could see his face. Where he could look up and see her face, and know.
Yes, indeed.

-30-

Temporary Euphoria

Those of you who have finished any long project that took you any serious amount of energy and creativity know there sometimes comes a sense of satisfaction when you are done that can be positively euphoric.

This is what happens to me when I finish a first-draft of a novel: I am tired, physically and mentally, because I tend to see the light at the end of the tunnel and haul ass. My word output generally doubles, sometimes trebles as I near the finish, and it is like sprinting at the end of a marathon. When I cross the line, I got nothing left.

But, even so, there is a smile-on-my-face satisfaction that, in essence, translates to: Done! Done, by God! Lived through another one!

(Lot of writers I know use the Writer's Prayer, usually about three-quarters of the way through a book -- Please don't let me die until I get this one done ...)

First draft is where the biggest joys and pains live. When you are at -30-, it's isn't over -- the rewrite looms, and those can be absolute bears, but there is a structure. If you got it, you can cut, paste, throw out big sections, write new ones, and it can be trying, but no real comparison.

Editing and rewriting are like rebuilding the engine, chopping, channeling, and putting nineteen coasts of hand-rubbed candy apple red metalflake paint on your '55 Chevy -- the basic car is there -- the rest is, for me, less exciting and much easier.

First draft is still primer-gray, but the sense of accomplishment comes in building it from scratch, that's the big fun. The not-knowing. After that, it is still interesting and you can take pleasure in the work, but it can't touch first draft.

Me, I don't get to bask in the euphoria long, there's aways another project waiting in the wings.

Come Monday, I'll start a new novel, and with luck, this one won't take so long from once-upon-a-time until -30-.

Stand still, the moss starts to grow on you ...

The Dreadnaught Steams Away

After three butt-numbing days in my office chair, including yesterday, that had a stretch from nine a.m. until two p.m. during which I never got up even to pee, the first draft on the fantasy novel is done. It should have taken me five or six days, but once you see the barn, the tendency to run is sometimes overwhelming.

My performance at silat class this week was crappy, and while I can't blame it all on the book, some I can -- I was awash in alien seas and my hands were cramped, and after five hours in the chair and another hour and a half on the road, I was lucky I could stand up, much less move.

I have sent the ms off to my collaborator, and to those of you who indicated an interest, it will be going out as an email attachment on the morrow. I'll ship it to the addresses you sent, and if your box chokes at anything over a meg and three-tenths, you won't get it. If it doesn't show up in the next day or so, and you asked to see it, drop me a line.

Traditionally, this is where the writer offers the usual pool-hustler's excuses -- the light was bad, my arm was tired, the table was warped, i.e., explanations as to things about which I might have qualms and reasons why I wasn't up to my best game.

Not offering those. It is first-draft, which is excuse enough, and it stands on its own or not without me explaining it.

For those of you who have an interest in such things, the map Reaves and I came up with, showing oceans, countries, major cities, lakes, all like that, is posted at the top of this entry. You can click on it, enlarge it, and download it if you want to refer to it, or check back here. (Some fantasy readers love these things, some don't, but probably we'll include a cleaned-up version for the novel when it comes out. We have other sketches we used to keep things clear in our minds, a city map, a drawing of the dreadnaught, like that, but you shouldn't need those, nor, really, the map.)

And now I'm going to go sit in the hot tub ...

Writing R Us

Edward George Earle Lytton (Bulwer-Lytton,) the 1st Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was a playwright, poet, novelist, and a politician. And very well thought of in his day in all these arenas. His book, The Coming Race (published 1870) is considered one of the earliest -- if not the first -- science fiction novel(s) -- as well as, some say, a blueprint and inspiration for the German Nazi Party.

Lord Lytton is responsible for the first-in-print use of such phrases as "the great unwashed," "pursuit of the almighty dollar," "the pen is mightier than the sword," and most infamously -- thanks to Snoopy -- "It was a dark and stormy night ..."

Today, aside from the pen-and-sword thing, alas, his fame rests upon being the inspiration for San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing. This is to select the best worse first line for a story.

Over the years, there have been some brilliant ones. It takes a certain amount of skill to pen a line that is to bad it is good. Sort of like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Reaves and I wrote a short book, Thong the Barbarian Meets the Cycle Sluts of Saturn, in which we insulted the memories of E.E. "Doc" Smith, R.E Howard, and H.P Lovecraft, one and all, and if there was a dreadful said-bookism or adverbial Swifty we missed, it was by accident. Long out-of-print, and signed copies are spendy but we, of course, think worth it.)

I bring this up because I had occasion this morning to do what is called a job-shadow for a couple of high school students interested in writing. Which basically amounted to meeting them and their teacher at the local Starbucks and answering questions until we ran out of steam.

One of the questions had to do with what one hopes to accomplish with one's writing. For me, this is simple: I want to write books that people pick up and can't put down. I want to grab them by the throat, to curse me if ever we should meet, thus: "Stupid son-of-a-bitch! I stayed up until two-thirty in the morning reading your damned book, I couldn't put it down, I had to finish it! I over-slept and was late for work!"

Guy walks into the 7-Eleven and has enough to buy a paperback I wrote or a couple six-packs of beer. If he decides to go with the book, I want, when he is done, to feel as if his money was well-spent. I don't want him wishing he'd bought the Schludwiller instead ...

Nobody knows what the ages will bring, and I've never tried to write for them. I'm pretty sure old Baron Lytton didn't envision that a hundred and some years after he died that his work would be the inspiration for a contest looking for bad writing. You just never know.

News Roundup

So my collaborator Reaves goes under the knife today. One of his electrodes needs to be jiggled or somesuch. Wonderful thing, surgery, but there's this terrible anticipation when they put you out: Either you wake up cured, or maybe you wake up dead ...

The dogs, after romping at the beach and in the agility barn, which is floored with fine dirt, save where it is damp and muddy, are filthy, and even though I prefer warm sunny days to bathe them, this is Oregon, so they get a bath today, come whatever fog/rain/sunshine there might be.

Last night, we had occasion to be out in the country, away from city lights, to see the total eclipse of the moon. Caught much of it, up to totality. Fascinating to watch. Made us wonder what it must have been like in a primitive culture when people much more attuned to the sky saw such things and wondered at the reason. The moon, brightest light in the night, turning orange and muddy -- then reappearing.

And, last, and probably least, the doorstop-fantasy nears the end of first draft. A few days more, less than a week, maybe by, say ... Tuesday. Those of you who have expressed some interest will get an email with an attached .RTF doc, which should be readable by Wintel or Mac machines.
(RTF is an MS Word format, but can be opened with most Mac word processing software, including AppleWorks, TextEdit, or Tom Bender's wonderful Tex-Edit Plus shareware that will open pretty much any text file a Mac can read. This last has saved my bacon a few times when I had files trashed in Word or AppleWorks, and I recommend that if you are Mac user, you get a copy. Fifteen bucks. Sometimes with Wintel boxes, you get some weird control characters before or after the text when opening .RTF, but those characters can be taken out easily enough, highlight and click -- we live in the future now ...)

Sun! Sun

Glory of glories, the sun came out this weekend, first time in, like, eighteen years or so! We piled into the camper and went to the coast. Enjoyed it so much we almost didn't come home. Stayed an extra day.

There's a little park we like, near Tillamook, we went there. Ranger said they lost three hundred trees during the December storms. Still a lot of them piled up all over the campground, a lot of the survivors showing scars where big branches had been torn or shorn off.

The beach, normally reached by a short hike and down a little bluff, was another testament to Mother Nature's fury. Getting to the sand was a problem -- so much driftwood, ranging in size from pieces as big around as my little finger to pieces bigger around than me and forty or fifty feet long, had piled up so high and thick that it was impossible for stubby-legged dogs to negotiate. (Or somebody carrying a couple a couple stubby-legged dogs and worried about shifting underfoot to negotiate ...)

The swatch was forty or fifty feet wide in spots and laid up against the bluff as far as you could see. Enough to build a small village just in the stretch of half a mile or so where we were. We finally found a gap, but it wasn't easy. The image of me and the dogs gives you an idea -- that green in the background is the top of the bluff, and last time we were there, there was nothing between where I stood and that, save sand.

Makes you realize that if you'd been on that beach come the storm, you'd have stood a real good chance of being crushed ...

Expectations

J.D. and I had an interesting exchange of email this morning, and I thought what I said to him about a nice piece he has on his site -- go look -- might be worth mentioning here, to clarify my position on the upcoming presidential race:

Here's the pertinent point -- what I consider a reality check. Bear in mind, I like Obama and will vote for him if he gets the nomination:

... as much as I like what Obama has to say, and his manner of delivery, and I'd be happy with him running against McCain, I know to my core that he isn't going to be able to deliver everything he is promising. Carter couldn't do it, Bill Clinton couldn't do it, and they were both as smart as anybody since Jefferson. Hillary won't be able to, nor will McCain.

It's like wishing you could fly by jumping up in the air and waving your arms; it would be wonderful, but the aerodynamics aren't going to allow it on this planet.

The politics of hope are not the same as the politics of accomplishment.

This is Obama's biggest drawback. If he does get elected, the expectation level is astronomical. And while it is true that if you reach for the stars, you don't come up with a handful of mud, and that a man's reach should exceed his grasp, people who believe Obama is going to completely fix the broken state of the U.S. are living somewhere between Sleeping Beauty's Castle and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Yeah, if he gets the nomination, he has my vote. But I don't think he can walk on water. If it turns out I am wrong, then you'll see me hat in hand in a few years admitting it in public. But I wouldn't bet serious money that is going to happen.

Not cynical here, but realistic. We've never had a black man as President, true enough. But we've had plenty of bright and dedicated guys who held the job, and none of them were able to completely revamp the state of the nation for the better. We've had a few who have made it considerably worse: Witness Current Occupant. I think that Obama would work hard at it, but this isn't The Matrix, and he isn't The One, no matter how much people would like him to be.

Before anybody gets all excited and wants to hammer me over the head, remember, I will happily vote for the guy if it gets to that. And that I am an old hippie who would love nothing better than to see the Age of Aquarius get here before I shuffle off. Thing is, I've heard it all before, and yeah, he's different, but until I actually see him walking on water, live and in person, I'm not going to believe that he can.

Then and Now

I thought it would be amusing to show a side-by-side, or, in this case, an above-and-below comparison of Perry & Reaves through the ages.

First one is that picture I used on the posting just prior to this one. That one is circa 1983, me holding up Reaves. That was in my office, not long after we moved to this house. Somewhere we probably have older two-shots, but that's the one I came across.

Second one is the signing we did at Powell's in Beaverton about four months ago.

Mostly, we appear to be grayer, less fuzzy, and a bit more wrinkled. (That helmet of hair I was wearing back then is not quite as large as it appears -- most of it on my right side is actually a shadow on the wall behind us, but Lord knows, I used to have some flowing locks.)

In the second image, we are sitting down; however, even though he has gained a few pounds, I can still hoist him up if I have to. I, of course, weigh the same now as I did then, though a bit more of it is in muscle than used to be ...

Coming Around the Turn and into the Home Stretch ...

The door-stop fantasy ms draws nigh unto its end.

Book One - The Chronicles of Eilandia: The Dreadnaught will, if I can manage to stay alive for another week or ten days, and the End Times holding off, will get at least to a complete first draft. Which, as writers know, is the hard part -- staving off the End Times and staying alive ...

The novel, which began as a back-burner project twixt me and Reaves back in November of 2003, and which we paid scant attention to, save for a burst at the beginning and the latest attack, will be the longest running in-progress work I've done. Nothing else I've had cooking has taken four years to get finishsed.

I usually have at least two projects going at once, but the average time for a novel in my word processor is four or five months. I've had a couple go longer. (The quickest was a novelization of a movie script, which took eighteen working days, though I allowed the editor to think it took six weeks, because that's how much time he gave me.)

Those of you who have volunteered as readers -- I have your names on file -- will get an email with the ms attached, all things going well, in the next two weeks or so.

(The picture? Twenty-five or so years old, "Perry Carrying Reaves," which I always consider appropriate in our collaborations ...)

"You're Not an Ape -- Use a Tool!"

On a good night, maybe ten or so players show up for our silat class. Enough to fill Cotten's three-car garage. Some of these are newbies, most have been around for a while, a few for a very long time.

I fancy that I can give any of them enough to worry about, hand-to-hand, and if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on me to win, did push come to shove. Yeah, yeah, it sounds egotistical, but like Grampaw Sonnet used to say, "No brag, jest fact." As I see it ...

In the awful remake of Godzilla a few years back, they ran a series of teasers in theaters before the movie came out, and my favorite was wrapped around the phrase "Size matters."

Of course it does, else flyweight boxers would be stepping into the ring and beating heavyweights, and that doesn't happen. It's not all about size and strength, skill can void a lot of that, but with skill on both sides being anywhere close to equal, the itty-bitty guy is usually at a disadvantage. Note: I said "usually."

There are two women in our class, smallish people over whom I have nearly a foot in height and sixty or seventy pounds in weight, and one-on-one barehanded against either, I believe, he says euphemistically, that the match would, ah ... favor me. One is only a year or so deep in the stuff, so I'm bigger, stronger, and more skilled. The other knows as much as I do, probably more, but her skill is not so much greater that it offsets mine and my size in combination.

However, were either of these shrimpy women holding a knife, I would not like my chances barehanded against them so much. At the very least, I would expect to pay for a victory in my own blood and ethilon suture material, things that are not at the top of my list of Fun Things to Do.

The point here? If you are a non-martial artist and you want to protect yourself, get an equalizer. Sharp steel is harder than flesh; unless you came from Krypton, you ain't bulletproof.

A knife or a gun go a long way to offsetting unarmed skills. A gun and a knife are even better.

Of course, a good martial artist is apt to be proficient with such things, too -- any who claim that they are streetworthy who cannot reliably use a stick, knife, or gun -- or all three -- is fooling himself. Guns are the rocks of our times, and the first tools past rocks and dull sticks, were pointed sticks, followed by the earliest incarnations of the axe and/or knife, so they've been around almost as long as we have. There is a reason for this -- the knife is as useful a tool as there is.

You don't have to be a expert to use one. If you have sliced a turkey or a carrot, you know which end goes where. Some small training is all you need to be able to deal with anybody short of Bruce Lee. A little bit more, and you could filet a Bruce-equivalent like a catfish and deep-fry him.

Just my small bit of useful advice for the day ...

Bye Bye Your Life, Good-Bye

Roy Scheider 1932 - 2008

Actor Roy Scheider has died. Probably he'll be remembered most for his line in Jaws: "We're gonna need a bigger boat." but he was in a bunch of movies, most of which I liked. Marathon Man, which did for dentists what Jaws did for sharks. Blue Thunder, a silly helicopter movie, with his response when asked by a pilot he detested if he thought he could handle it: "You flew it, didn't you?" And All that Jazz, my favorite musical of all time, for his take on Bob Fosse, in the movie about -- and made by -- Fosse.

He had busted-nose, no-nonsense man look about him and was always a pleasure to watch work.

Adios, Roy.

Basics

In our silat class, we have had recently an influx -- well, okay, maybe not so much an influx as a few -- new students joining. Since the classes aren't separated into beginners and advanced these days, we have been incorporating the new guys, and necessarily going back over basics of our art.

Every time we go back to the roots, I see them in a new way; but what doesn't seem to change is that the foundations' primary importance. No matter how many bells and whistles you add, regardless of the "advanced" techniques, when push comes to shove, you are apt to do the things that you have practiced and trained the longest. Yeah, I could do them before, but revisiting them with additional time in grade gives them a new sheen.

Drill it enough, it sticks. I woke up yesterday morning, and while still in that warm-under-the-covers-don't-want-to-get-up half-doze, for some reason my first Okinawa-te long form popped into my head. I was able to go through it mentally from beginning to end. Given that it is eighty moves long, has been forty years ago that I learned it, and probably ten years since I have actually done it, I found that interesting.

Maha Guru Plinck sometimes apologizes to the long-time students after a class focused on the newbies, but he needn't do that -- I learn as much from showing the new guy how to do a foundation drill as I do being shown a new move myself. When you have to articulate it and demonstrate it, you need to understand it. Especially if you want to hew to Turner's Rule: "A thing may be explained simply if the teller understands it properly."

If you need it, the basic tool is likely to be the first one to hand and the most useful. No surprise, that realization, but good to have reinforced now and then.

Whoo ...

Thanks to La Tricia for passing this one along ...

Diamond Lane and Your Silicone Lady

So, Dan'l mentioned the idea of using a sex doll to beat the carpool lane ticket.

Think these will pass?

If you have six or seven grand, you can certainly do that. Silicone sisters that are -- ahem -- anatomically-correct. And spooky. Have a look, if you are feeling kinky ...

(Oh, and to be fair, there are also silicone brothers ...)

Traffic

I am fortunate in that I get to work at home. I don't have to get up and fight rush hour traffic, going or coming, and I am thrilled at that.

My silat class is in Vancouver, and I do have to drive there once a week, and that's more than enough for me.

There are only two bridges to get from Portland to Vancouver, and both are miserable experiences between three and six p.m. weekdays.

On I-405 , the -- pardon the expression -- better of the two routes for me, there is a four-mile section of interstate between the Freemont and Columbia River Bridges known -- not affectionately -- as the "super slab." On a good day, with everything going well, no wrecks and a lucky break, you can average seventeen miles an hour along this strip.

On a bad day, it will take more than thirty minutes to travel the four miles -- that's slower than a so-so jogger can cover the same distance on foot. Eight miles an hour. Guy on a bicycle would blow past you like you were standing still. Which you will be for much of the time.

This is partially due to one of the three lanes being an HOV (diamond) lane, and restricted between three and six p.m. to "two-person carpools." If you are on a motorcyle, you can single it.

So there you are, bumper-to-bumper and in first gear in the middle lane, while the HOV lane is zipping along at fifty mph. I understand the theory, but the practice is that it doesn't help.
Probably half of the drivers have passengers; the other half are playing expensive-ticket roulette and hoping the police have business elsewhere.

I expect that a guy standing at the on-ramp downtown holding a bloody machete and a cardboard sign that says, "Will Kill for Fun." will get a ride so somebody can use the diamond lane. Hell, I'd probably pick him up ...

Which is to say that while the traffic in Portland isn't as bad as L.A., or Seattle, it's bad, and getting worse. They are talking about building a bigger bridge, but that bottleneck is only part of the problem. Maybe when gasoline gets to six bucks a gallon that'll help ...

Meanwhile, I leave two hours early, so I can be sure to get to class on time. Sad.

Double Dipping Chips

Piece in the paper a few days back about double-dipping chips into the communal guacamole bowl. What this means is, you dip your Dorito (there's a nice phrase to use as a euphemism sometime) into the bowl, take a bite, then dip it again. The question is, does so doing spread germs? Is there enough of a spit-swap so that it's like a Seinfeld routine, might as well shove your face into the bowl and blow bubbles ... ?

Turns out that the test-tube boys go with the germ theory. You essentially inoculate the dip, and the warmer it is, the faster the bugs grow. Long party, if there's still any of the melted cheese left after midnight and you eat it, you might as well let everybody in the room cough into your face.

I bring this up because I am usually fairly cavalier about party food and salad bars, which latter at least have sneeze-guards. But the folks at the event I attended last night put on a good spread, fruits, cookies, bread, cheese, meats, and several warming trays of chip and cracker dips. Seated toward the back, I was close to what started out as cheese fondue. Big pot, alcohol burner under it, a serving spoon. Hour or so into my stint as book-guy, I saw woman arrive at the fondue pot. She lifted the glass lid, stuck the serving spoon into the stuff, lifted it to her nose and sniffed it.

Okay, not so bad, at least the air flow was mostly away from the spoon, right?

Then she tasted it. Decided she didn't like it, and put the spoon back into the stuff.

Put the spoon back into the stuff ...

Yeah, at home, I drink from the same glass or double-dip chips and my wife and I risk each other's colds, but that's part of the married deal.

I would have had to have been really hungry at that point to try the party fondue. Really hungry. Sure, she looked okay, but ...

I considered removing the pot, or putting a sign on it, but I also watched people paw the cookies, and sort through the bread and crackers, so it was a lost cause. Guy sneezes, wipes his nose, then inspects the carrot sticks ...

Fortunately, the human digestive system can take a lot of abuse without seizing up -- most of the time. We don't have to eat sterile food, and the acid below decks kills a lot of bacteria. Most of the time. Some E. coli drink stomach acid and thrive. And if you haven't ever had the Tijuana Two-step, consider yourself blessed.

Funny thing was, as the gathering wound down, a couple of people came over, one of whom I knew, and an older guy I didn't know. I told the story. As I was doing so, the older guy opened the lid and began spooning the mostly-curdled fondue onto a saucer. My friend looked at him: "What, are you not listening?"

"Ah, doesn't bother me," the guy said. "I've lived this long and I'm older than you."

Don't ever let anybody tell you that fiction is stranger than truth ...

Sign of the Times

Hill or Rocky?

Got an email from a friend in California who is somewhat torn about today's primary -- Who would I vote for?

Here's essentially what I said:

I saw Hillary on the Letterman Show last night; she was tired, her voice almost gone. Smiling gamely, making jokes, but exhausted.

I have to say that I like her a lot more since she started looking human instead of being Super Mom. (And I like Bill and Hill's politics, whatever Slick Willie's wandering slick willie gets itself into. The hound thing kinda goes with being a southern politician. Guy getting laid and haid tends not to want to go to war so much.)

Obama isn't as seasoned, and while he is more charismatic and his politics are so close to Clinton's as to be almost identical, and it is obvious that the job can't be that hard, given the current Occupant, my sense is that Hillary has a slight edge in the ability to get things done on the ground. Maybe more than slight -- she knows the town better. Anybody who thinks being First Lady doesn't give you some chops doesn't know anything about power politics in D.C.

Especially when you are as smart as the President. At least as smart, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her a few points ahead of her hubby.

My wife has more empathy for Hillary -- working mom, having to put up with Bill's wandering weenie, the ability to make hard choices in the Senate. She says Obama reminds her of a Baptist preacher -- long on hope, fuzzy on specifics. Says we don't need a war-mongering dimwit like George, but not a cheerleader, either.

We don't vote for a long while, and by then, won't really have a choice, save to rubber stamp one or the other. (Oregon went for Kerry last time, which was one of the only things that gave me a ray of sunshine -- at least I am surrounded with people who Didn't Vote for George.) That's fine with me. Anybody but a Republican. Whatever that party stood for in Lincoln's day, that day has long passed. (I have, over nearly forty years as a voting citizen, been registered as a Republican, Democrat, and Independent, in that order.)

When Letterman asked Clinton last night which way people should vote, their hearts or their heads, she gave the right answer: Both.

Every election is about change, so I discount all that we-'re-gonna-change-the-world stuff. They all say that except the ones running for reëlection, and sometimes, even then.

If I had to vote today, I'd go with Hillary. A strong and tough woman might be able to do something in the role; the men have sure fucked it up a long damn time.

But I don't think Obama would be a bad choice, either. Can't really go wrong either way, in my opinion.

(And being older, I have to go with the idea that experience matters. Old and treacherous beats young and strong every time ...)

A Gift for an Old Friend

What to give somebody who is getting a bit long in the tooth?

The perfect thing?

Tanna leaves ...

Campaign Ad

Okay, I'm voting for Hill or Rocky, that's a given, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise. On a purely pragmatic basis, Clinton has an edge, but you gotta love that sense of hope that Obama leaves behind him where he goes.

Whichever one gets the nod has me, there's nobody on the Republican side who -- well, there's just nobody there, period.

But Hill or Rocky, this is a dynamite political ad, and good luck on the R side coming up with anything that can touch it. Good luck to the Clinton campaign, too ...

(Thanks to Mushtaq for posting this in his site, where I saw it. )

Now HERE is a Flashlight ...

Have a look: Anti-aircraft gun (aka Vampire Killer, Snow Shovel, or Light Saber ...)

Such Stuff As Dreams are Made Of ...

In the winter of 1978, my copy of the CoEvolution Quarterly arrived in the mail, a magazine that was a spin-off from The Whole Earth Catalog. This was a newsprint deal, not destined to last for the ages. Nonetheless, I carefully stored it away in a drawer. The paper has yellowed much since, but I saved it for the comic strip therein, written and drawn by Dan O'Neill. This was an eight-page story that spoke to the nature of dreams, still the best thing I've ever read on the subject, and one that always makes me smile at the last panel. Pure gold.

Upbeat, uplifting, and eminently satisfying, this is a tale that is the classic example of a protagonist overcoming obstacles to reach a goal.

O'Neill was an underground cartoonist, out of San Francisco, who was known for his series "Odd Bodkins,"and for a famous lawsuit brought against him and his collective of artists (the Air Pirates) by Disney, for their lampoon using Mickey Mouse. Other Disney characters, too, but mostly, it was The Mouse.

The artists held out for a long time, but Disney had the big guns. Real big guns ...

O'Neill apparently considers it a victory that he didn't wind up in jail. And while that is indeed a moral win of sorts, he came close to doing that, and there is a lesson here: You don't fuck with The Mouse. (Read more about it here.)

Or if you want, there's a whole book on it: The Pirates and the Mouse ...

The piece I liked so much is called "The Story of the Lone Ranger and the Difficulty at O'Leary's Birdcage Saloon ..."

I've tried to contact O'Neill, to find out where the piece might be found in a collection, but haven't been able to get through -- email keeps bouncing. Too bad, I'd like to point people at a place where they can buy this and put some money into his pocket. Try his site, maybe your browser works better -- and if you buy something, I expect you will enjoy it.

Copies of the CEQ issue (No. 20) are apparently available from collectors on the net, running $20 to $25 or so, and I think that is worth it for O'Neill's eight-page comic alone. The man is funny, sharp, and insightful.

No money back guarantee or anything, but if you get a copy and don't think it's worth it, lemme know. I'd be inclined to buy it so I'll have a back-up.

I Got Your Silat Right Here ...

There is a discussion going on on Bobbe's blog about pentjak (pencak) silat, and more specifically, the variant from west Java, Sera.

The discussion is somewhat contentious.

I used to engage a fair amount in the silat word-wars -- I got megabytes of files, ranging from online debates that have been fairly civil, to some that contain outright libel, and a number of published print articles and statements on web pages. Buncha martial artists get together and a fight breaks out -- what a surprise ...

I used to take these things seriously, but these days, I am inclined to allow the folks with whom I disagree to stew in their own juices. Karma comes round, and I've got enough to pay off; let them deal with their own.

But it's kind of like being a retired boxer watching a match -- you know the game, and it's always more fun to watch if you have that knowledge.

Duck and Cover

Duck and Cover was a drill we practiced at school when I was a boy. The deal was, when we saw the nuclear flash that indicated the Russians had just lobbed a big one into the Plant a couple miles away, we were supposed to hop under our desks ...

Yeah. That would help ...

So now, we have our own spy sats falling on us ...

It's always something ...

Over-Training

Got into a discussion on anther blog about over-training. I allowed as how the guy who was talking about his routine was getting a bit long in the tooth, and, as a fellow old-fart, I warned him against pushing too hard.

Whereupon a poster who is an expert trainer and far more knowledgeable than I, allowed as how there was no such thing as "over-training," only "under-recovery," and being "under-prepared."

I confess my first reaction was that this seemed to me like cutting a piece of rope off one end and then tying it to the other end to make the rope longer. I understand that the emphasis was more on an active recovery process rather than simply passive, but still ...

If your cat has kittens in the oven, that doesn't make them biscuits.

Without getting too anatomically-correct, the way the human body works to get stronger and fitter is by a process of overload and recovery, and the building of new muscle tissue needs both. If you overwork the system, either by too much exercise -- or too little rest and nutrition -- you don't get fitter, you burn out. There are signs and symptoms, and easy enough to recognize 'em. For a fairly inclusive list, look here. Basically, if you are tired, your heart rate is high, you have trouble sleeping and you are depressed and you are working out hard every day, probably you are doing too much -- or, to be fair -- too little on the other end.

So, I'm hearing all the latest thoughts on what constitutes "active" recovery, while I don't know what they all are, I kinda feel that I have a handle on it for my own system.

Over the years, I have done a fair amount of strenuous exercise. I was, at various times, a fairly serious swimmer, runner, martial artist, iron pumper, bicyclist, and even a yoga-wonk. Not so much any more, though I do manage to work up a sweat now and then.

Along those lines right now, I am admittedly less flexible than I should be. My bad. I should do better.

To aid in recovering from these sweat-making things, I've used assorted methods that have worked for me. Warming-up, warming-down; stretching; plenty of rest; good diet, supplemented with vitamins and minerals; drinking a lot of water. Got a hot tub/spa I use almost every day, and I get a deep tissue massage a couple times a month. Breathing stuff, too.
A little red wine before dinner.

Even so, I sometimes overdo it, and I've learned that -- Jack LaLanne notwithstanding -- you have to pay more attention to these things as you get older. Jack is in miraculous shape for ninety-two, but he isn't the man he was at fifty, much less thirty. Once you are on the downslope, you get to a point if diminishing returns -- you can't do as much as you used to.
Unless, as I said there, you know where Ponce de Leon hid the map, or Dorian Gray's portrait painter did a picture for you that you keep in the attic.

People who say "no limits!" have their hearts in the right place. If you reach for the stars and miss, at least you don't come up with a handful of mud. Thing is, them stars are a ways off, and your head needs to know this.

How many people you know that are, say, a hundred and fifty or sixty years old? If there were no limits to human physicality, there'd be some Methuselahs running around. I don't know of any. (Kind of like those Oil of Olay commercials where they show some twenty-something babe putting the cream on her face and everybody goes "Ooh, look how it gets rid of wrinkles!" Please. You want to impress people, bring out an eighty-year-old granny and smooth out those lines with a few days of cold cream ...

So I found it interesting that somebody seemed to be saying there is no such thing as over-training. Because from where I sit, if you go to the gym six hours a day and hit the weights and the treadmill and the stationary bike like gangbusters, you are apt to overdo it, and if you are on my side of fifty or sixty, there isn't enough time for you to recover from that, unless maybe you came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

As always, your mileage may vary. I could be wrong. I have to allow for the possibility ...

Unreality TV

There are two martial arts shows on the tube I've been watching of late. One is Human Weapon, on the History Channel; the other is newer, but essentially a clone of the first, called Fight Quest, on the Discovery Channel. Oddly enough, the second was put into production before the first one hit the screens. And I know of a third one that was on the drawing board months ago, being considered by the National Geographic Channel.

Great minds think alike.

Or, maybe not-so-great minds think alike ...

Um. If you haven't seen these, here's the deal. Two jock-y guys, one little and trained in MMA or kickboxing, and one bigger one, a wrestler-slash-other, fly into an exotic location, hook up with reps of the local indigenous martial art, split up, and commence to study for four or five days. At the end of this period, they go against the local champions, to test their new skills.

The local color is fun, the travelogue aspects interesting, but it's about as realistic as a Shakespeare play wherein all the characters are portrayed by hairy-legged men. Or maybe Noh theater ...

I mean, come on! You been doing this stuff day in, day out, for eight, ten years, and some round-eyed Yankee comes in, and after getting thumped and wrecking his body for four days trying to keep up, to the point he can barely stand, is going to turn around and kick your ass?

It was me, I'd be too embarrassed to show my face in that country for the rest of my life -- assuming I didn't find a bridge from which to jump after being shamed thus, so that said life would be mercifully short. If, of course, the matches were real ...

Sure, a good fighter can hold his own against the locals in a lot of arts, using what he already knows, but to pretend that he can come in and spend four days training in it and then use only that art to run with local guy who has years of experience? That's not just silly -- it's flat-out insulting.

And yet, the Discovery and History boys usually manage to take at least a round or two, and sometimes, fight a match to a draw!

Talk about quick studies.

Talk about utter crap.

If you are thinking that perhaps the locals pull their punches? Well, not to put too fine a point on, they surely fucking do.

Jeez, some of these guys ought to be on their Olympic diving teams the way they go down. I saw one silat guy on the History show get tapped by an instep that you might use to move your beloved kitten over so you wouldn't accidentally step on her, and the guy thus touched flew through the air like like frog with a Saturn rocket jammed up his ass. I nearly choked I laughed so hard. (At the end of the match, they did the replay in slowmo, and oh, how sad it was.)

I would not find it unbelievable to learn that money changes hands, and that somewhere in the future some of these karate-kung-fu-silat guys are going to be talking to their brothers saying they coulda been contenders, if they hadn't taken the money and laid down ...

Sans bribes, it must be from having a sense of leaving somebody face that the locals usually allow the TV stars to win one match, or a round, at least.

Not always. The Discovery boys, who -- gotta give it to them -- get the crap beat out of them pretty good and keep going, much more so than the History boys, got shut out in their silat matches against the mande muda players. This even though the locals were sticking legs out and leaving punches dangling like skinned rabbits hung up to ripen. I could have booked a flight from Beaverton to Jakarta, got there, landed, and hiked to the match in time to catch some of those kicks and punches.

From there I sat, the locals were either the worst silat players on God's green Earth, or they were completely dogging it for the cameras, and even so, they still won every round, which says something, I'm not sure what. Maybe that if the round-eyes couldn't win with all those gimmes, they deserved to get their asses kicked.

I can't watch these with my wife dozing in her chair in the room -- me yelling "Bullshit! Bullshit!" at the screen wakes her up.

But if you need a good laugh, watch the episodes they did, or plan to on your art. It will be passing funny, trust me ...

Music R Us

For most of the last couple years, I've been working on my playing when I pick up the guitar -- mostly finger-picking kinda stuff. I'm not good at it, but I am better.

So I've been adding in some vocals to go with the instrumentals from time to time, and if I had to work up a set-list and fill an hour, I have enough stuff I can passably play. Here's what I've been singing to the walls and the dogs the last couple weeks. Pretty much I can do all these, save for "Year of the Cat," which I just started learning today. A week or so, I should have that one down. Too bad I don't have the keyboards, bass, and sax to go with the guitar ...

Latest Set List - Guitar/with Vocals

1. We Just Disagree - Dave Mason
2. No Nookie Song - Perry
3. Long, Long Time - Gary White/Linda Ronstadt
4. Sail Away - Randy Newman
5. Never Be a Country Singer - Perry
6. Year of the Cat - Al Stewart
7. Different Drum - Stone Poneys
8. Way Down in the Hole - Tom Waits
9. Stagolee - Traditional
10. Sixteen Tons - Merle Travis
11. Science Fiction - Richard O’Brien/Rocky Horror
12. Blackbird - Paul McCarney
13. In My Life - John Lennon
14. Time Was - Perry
15. The Second Time Around - Perry
16. Black-Hearted Soul - Perry
17. Layla - Eric Clapton/Derek & the Dominoes
18. Lola - Ray Davies/Kinks
19. Angel From Montgomery - John Prine
20. Whitebread Blues - Perry

Manuscript Biz

Okay, the doorstop-fantasy isn't done yet, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I believe we are talking weeks now instead of months ...

Here's how it's supposed to work: I get the draft done and shoot it to my collaborator, Michael. He applies himself to it, cuts, adds, fiddles, fixes, and when he is done, sends it back to me. Whereupon I will make one more quick pass, mostly to be sure of continuity, to catch typos or other small glitches, and to revenge-kill some of his darlings as he did mine.

I then ship it to my agent, she casts our novel upon the waters, and in short order, a book company offers us big bucks, with a contract for the next two in the trilogy/dekology ...

That's the theory, anyhow.

Normally, when I finish a novel, either on my own or in collaboration, it's already contracted-for and on a tight deadline. Book is due on Friday, it gets done on Wednesday, and that's the name of that tune. No space to send it around for comments.

This go-round, however, we have a luxury we aren't used to having -- time. No deadline, nobody tapping their foot -- well, unless you count Michael -- and this will allow something that is now and again useful for writers: first readers.

My books never turn out as good as I envisioned them going in. Nature of the beast -- I'm a better writer in my own mind than I am on paper, alas. Even so, I am usually pleased enough to let them out of the house.

Sometimes, there arise questions, the two primary ones of which are these: 1) Did I tell the story I wanted to tell? and, 2) Did I tell it well? If I did those, I'm good.

Readers sometimes spot things that writers -- none of whom are objective about their own work, in my experience -- miss. Things that would bear some attention. I know what I think I said, but sometimes, I didn't say it as clearly as I thought. They are sorry things, words, when it comes to telling a story, but they are what we have.

To help, and because we have time, I am looking for a few first readers. No literary expertise is necessary -- I don't write for critics, but folks who are gonna plunk down their beer money for a book. I'm talking about my draft here, before Michael finishes his. Useful suggestions will be passed along to him, and I'll plug others in when I do the final draft.

Here's what usually determines useful: If half a dozen people all balk at the same sequence, probably it needs to be fixed. If all six of them have different gripes and there is no pattern, then those comments need to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Example: Billy Bob thinks the swordfight scene with the prince is the best sequence since Rob Roy's duel with the fop assassin in that movie. Mary Jane thinks that scene is unspeakably cruel and it made her want to throw up. Whichever one comes closer to what I think will probably get the nod.

There are a few caveats: You need to be somebody I know, either personally, or with some degree of interaction online. I don't want the manuscript going out into the void for general consumption, and that is part of the deal: You get to read it, but not pass it around, and since I'm trusting you on this, I need to know who you are.

You need to be somebody who dips into the science fiction/fantasy genre often enough to be familiar with the basic tropes of such tales. If you think magic and wizards and like that are all totally silly? No point in reading this -- I already know that and I write the stuff anyhow.

What I am looking for is simple: Did the story work for you or not? If so, you needn't expound on it at length, although if there are gems that sparkled, why, I'm always happy to hear about those.

If it doesn't work for you, say so, and why, as best you can. (I fancy that I don't need writing lessons per se, I'm not doing this for Mrs. Cowsar's English IV class, so you can skip the basic grammar and construction stuff -- that's what the copy editor gets paid to do.)

Address the book that is -- no point in telling me that instead of writing a fantasy novel with a steamship dreadnaught set on an alternate world, I should have written one about marines fighting alien invaders in New York City. Doesn't help because I didn't write that one, and I'm not going to toss this one out and do so, either.

Talk as you would about plot, character, setting, whatever strikes you. No holds barred.

Be timely. If you are a slow reader and can't get it read in a month or so, chances are we'll be done and late input won't help. What you'll get is a .RTF doc, which is readable by either Macs, or Wintel machines running MS Word. Read it onscreen or print it out, up to you.

For your efforts, you get our gratitude and a mention in the acknowledgments. Plus you can tell your friends when the book comes out, "Oh that? I read it a year ago. I helped them with it ... "

If you have any interest in this, drop me a note and an email box address, I'll put you on the list, and send the ms when it is done.

I'll warn you first ...

As Long as We are Here (Pachelbel's Canon)

My favorite versions of Johann's little ditty:



And:



And if you act right now:



But wait! Now how much would you pay?



And one more ...

Jude and Layla

So, our dogs are named for rock songs. Long ago and far away, first time we heard those songs, but here's why:



So young and earnest we all were ...

And from Derek and the Dominoes:



Although this is the version I play -- or try to:



My kind of music. We get another dog, we'll have to name her Silver Girl, from Bridge Over Troubled Water ...

The Dark Ages

Power went out here a little after noon. No doubt connected to the snow and icky weather -- somebody probably plowed into a substation or power pole somewhere. Rarely happens here, because our lines are all underground, so when it does, it's something of a surprise.

Eating lunch, poof! dark!

Fortunately, there was a break in the clouds so that opening blinds allowed me to move around without having to hunt up the hurricane lanterns. Phones worked to call out, though they wouldn't ring if somebody called in. I dialed up PGE, got the phone tree and after punching buttons, determined that power was out to four thousand customers in my area, ten percent of whom had already called it in.

It should be repaired in an hour and a half or thereabouts, the recording told me.

So, I played guitar, and after an hour and a bit, the juice came back on. I reset the electronic clocks, and had no more excuse not to work. Foo ...

What's Black and White All Over?

Corgis in the snow ...

Have Trouble Parallel Parking?