Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: May 2006
It snuck up on me
The Book Thief
by
Markus Zusak
The Book Thief makes me think of so many things: of being ten, having to write a book report for English, and thinking of nothing better than, “This book was really good. You should read it”; of being a Jewish kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, getting force-fed the Holocaust to the point that I couldn’t take it any more.
All right, already, I wanted to tell my Hebrew School teachers. I won’t forget.
Why do fools fall in love?
What amazes me the most about Groundhog Day is that I love it as much as I do, even though Andie MacDowell and Bill Murray are light-years away from my ideal vision of romantic leads. Goes to show what a kickass script can do for a film. More on Groundhog Day in a moment.
As you folks know from yesterday’s post, my muse has decided she wants to write a romance. Or a romantica. Or an erotica. The muse doesn’t get out a lot, hasn’t read much from any of those genres, doesn’t care about the distinctions between them. But she has a story to tell and damn it she’s going to tell it. From past experience, I know better than to get in her way, but I also know she needs proper nutrition. Hence this evening’s post.
If it’s romance the muse is writing, my protags ought to fall in love, right? But, but, but . . . why?
Why do people fall in love?
Who wants to read the first 3500 words . . .
of my ‘romantica’ story, Sloppy Firsts?
Already I see a problem. 3500 words, and no one has gotten laid. I’m thinking I don’t understand this genre, which isn’t surprising, since I’ve never read this genre.
This is Miss Kate’s idea, by the way. She’s the one who encouraged this. She and my muse, whom I gave permission to write about anything today, and what does she do? 3500 words. Damn. For me, that’s a pretty fine day’s work.
If you’re at all interested, let me know. Especially if you WRITE this stuff yourself. Email me (azureus at harborside dot com.) If I’m way off base, I’d like to know before I invest much more time in this project.
On the other hand, I haven’t had this much fun with writing in months.
D.
Memorial Day & more
The General says it better than I can. He let his Inner Frenchman write today’s Memorial Day post. Snippet:
I watched the documentary, Control Room, again last night. One of the scenes featured an Al Jazeera reporter, Hassan Ibrahim, discussing the run-up to the war with a number of Iraqi intellectuals. He told them that he did not believe that the American people would allow the war to happen. He said that we were a rational people and a people who revered justice above all else. I once thought that too. With all of our faults, I believed that we were a people who truly believed in reason, justice, and the principles of democracy, and maybe we did, but it is no longer true.
We became vengeful and bloodthirsty, striking out against the innocent and the weak to ease our groundless fears. We are now Fox News. We are a nation of Malkins, Hewitts, and Charles Johnsons, frightened of everything that is different or alien to us and reacting violently.
My America is dead. Or perhaps more accurately, The America I believed in, and the people Ibrahim thought he knew, never existed. As saddened as I am at this realization, I now understand that I must fight even harder to ensure that we do not lose our way again.
***
Elsewhere in the ‘osphere . . .
I’m not quite sure what to make of Huffington Post‘s prominently featured link to a Yahoo News story on William Shatner. The headline reads: “Shatner: ‘Therapeutic [Horseback] Riding’ Can Help Middle East Peace . . .” Seems sarcastic, mocking. Look at what our silly celebs are doing now. But if you read the story, what Shatner is doing isn’t all that unreasonable:
Shatner said that placing injured people on horseback has been shown to improve their conditions. “We know that the use of a horse in their therapy takes them beyond their handicapped body, their injured body, and into another area of health,” he said.
Shatner has long been involved with “Ahead for Horses,” a Los Angeles charity that works with physically and mentally disabled children through horseback riding.
He hopes his new fund, launched with the nonprofit Jewish National Fund, will contribute to Mideast peace. He stressed that every citizen of Israel, as well as Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians, will be encouraged to participate.
Does anyone see anything wrong with that? Any reason for mockery? I don’t.
I promised my muse I’d write today . . . about anything she wants. I had better make good on the promise.
D.
Agent behaving badly
Just checked my hit counter and . . . sucky Sunday! I should be whoring my little loins off with a Technorati-laden post, but I don’t have the heart for it today. Instead, I would like to follow Beard’s lead and talk about the latest Barbara Bauer brouhaha.
Eureka!
What I learned in my Ancient Civilizations class at Berkeley: you’re supposed to pronounce it Oy-reka. Cyrus King of Persia should be pronounced Surrus, and Darius, Dar-yoosh.
Oy-reka!
We saw elk on the way down and on the way back. Here are a few females.
We never made it to the kinetic sculpture races. We did, however, make it to CostCo and PetCo. Tells you something about our priorities. Two other things:
- I finished The Book Thief today. I cried all the way through the last 60 pages of this sumbitch. It deserves a much more comprehensive review than that, so I’m going to save it for another day. It’s GOOD, though, REALLY GOOD. Check it out over at Barnes and Noble.
- I had a great conversation with a cobbler this morning. He told me his life story, and it was a corker. The guy used to be a PhD/MPH researcher, but he gave it all up in the 70s to become a cobbler, a trade he had learned from his father and grandfather. I’d say more about him, but I do have a few local readers. I feel a little funny spilling all the stories he told me this morning. (Dummy! I could have asked his permission.) Cool guy. Meeting him was the highlight of my one-day vacation.
Did I mention yet that I passed my treadmill test with flying colors? And did you know that they had to shave off bits of my torso to attach the EKG electrodes? All weekend, I’ve been scratching my chest and belly. The remaining hair tickles the shaved areas. It’s maddening.
So I shaved it all off earlier this evening. I must look awfully weird, with my monkey arms and monkey back and naked chest & belly. Weirdest of all, though, is the fact I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I’ve never seen this body before. The last time my body was this bare, I weighed 100 pounds.
Strange stuff. Karen, to her credit, did not laugh, but even if she did, it would have been worth it. I’m not itchy any more.
D.
Friday night reading material
Paperback Writer recently discussed posting short stories on one’s blog. You can blame her for this.
Here’s a link to “The Mechanic,” a story I published in 2004 at a small but very cool crime zine, Crime Scene Scotland. Of all my shorts, it’s my favorite. Best characters, best narrative drive, best ending. What, that isn’t enough? But wait, there’s more:
Pickle deep-throating!
Spanking!
Automotive violence!
I might turn it into a novel one of these days (I would flash forward twenty years and have my two protagonists meet again). Who knows.
Use this post as your comment thread on the story, if you’d like.
D.
For you frogger wannabes
I guess my faux FAQ on poison dart frogs didn’t answer all your questions. Here’s a real FAQ for you would-be froggers.
I’m in a frog-buying mood
We’ll get to the frogs in a moment. First, I wanted to ask you guys why my hit counter is going nuts with searches for this image:
Billy Munster all grown up, you say? No, it’s Justin Theroux, and he’s obviously supposed to be a bad boy. Aaaah, I get it: Theroux will be playing Detective Larry Zito in Michael Mann’s upcoming movie version of Miami Vice. Karen and I saw a trailer for Vice last weekend, when we saw The Da Vinci Code. Looks good, although if I were creating a Vice trailer, I would have placed Gong Li front and center.
Mmmmm. Gong Li.
Back to the frogs we want to buy. This is kinda sorta my father’s day present. If Karen gets to keep 40 tarantulas, I should be allowed to buy six more dart frogs. It’s only fair.
Pix below the cut.