July 28, 2010
Judith Fitzgerald took a tumble down some stairs, but she's still healthy enough to
write an essay about it.It's got some good information about what writers (and other sedentary folks, who make up most of the population now) can do to keep from ending up like her. (Tip:
Books, Inq.)
Clippings
The talented Graham Greene had some siblings
who were equally as accomplished. Well, most of them anyway. (Tip:
Jessa Crispin)
Janet Evanovich find a new home
at Random House. Not surprisingly, Sarah Weinman is there to explain what it's all about,
who wins and who could lose.
While Evanovich vs St. Martin's fades, the Random House vs. Andrew Wylie battle
heats up over on Twitter.
Today's episode of Refrigerator Poetry will have to be a bit grimmer than usual, I'm afraid:
The cat was the cause of the doggeral. That's Natasha. She's about 16, and she came back from the vet today. We had noticed she had been losing weight, so she was brought in today. We're still awaiting test results, but at best it's a thyroid problem (a lifetime of pills, twice a day).
At its worse: cancer.
We had to break the news to the kids, of course, and while one pivoted from one possible future to another -- "Aw, we'll be down to two kitties. Can we get a kitten?" -- the other one later crouched in front of the fridge and came up with this.
But as you can see, Natasha is still with us. She lays down a lot, and she's been breathing heavily. Her heart's beating rapidly, and her kidneys don't look too good. When we told the vet that her brother died from kidney problems years before, his prognosis turned much grimmer.
But we're hoping for the best. Vanessa the Mighty Huntress had shown similar symptoms that was successfully treated with thyroid pills, while Natasha's brother, Boris, (yes, named for the Rocky and Bullwinkle characters), when he had the kidney problems, he ballooned from retaining so much fluid.
We'll find out tomorrow.
In the meantime, here's another, earlier, work in the realm of cat poetry:
That verse was inspired by the behavior of one Ivan, aka "the Terrible," who willingly lays on his back in your arms until he's done, and then all the pointy bits come out.
July 27, 2010
Every once in awhile, my children surprise me.
On the fridge in the kitchen are a bunch of magnetic letters, the kind toddlers get. We've had them for a donkey's years and they're still there because no one's been bothered to take them down and put them away. Much like the collection of magnetic business cards for the Realtor who helped us buy our house (although we haven't seen her for a decade), and from businesses that we have no intention of using.
One day last week, I'd come into the kitchen in the late morning and found these, a reference to our cats: Ivan the Terrible, Olga and Natasha (who, by the way, are no longer kittens):
More to come.
Literary birthdays
It should be noted that today (July 27) is the birthday of these celebrated writers: Alexandre Dumas (fils), novelist, playwright, Paris, 1824; Hilaire Belloc, poet, historian, essayist, La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, 1870; Joseph Mitchell, essayist, Iona, N.C., 1908; and Hubert Selby Jr., novelist, screenwriter, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1928.
Tomorrow, we'll get to celebrate the birthday of William T. Vollmann, who was born in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1959, which makes him 51. In honor of his prolific career, he should be feted with 51 birthday cakes.
Journalism Highs and Lows
There's nothing to a copy editor like the supreme pleasure of knocking a headline out of the park, and Charles Apple found this one from the Beaver County Times regarding BP's CEO finding himself
shoved out the door on a greased skid.
Unfortunately, the spoil-sport commenters pointed out that the Times also made two major misspellings in the others headlines, which must diminish the pleasure.
July 26, 2010
Just dropping in at the moment since I received an interesting e-mail from Pierce Martin of the SR Education Group, linking to a neat infographic on the CSI Effect. If you're interested in criminology and television, this is a pretty good example of the distortion TV shows such as CSI can introduce.
Here's a sample of the graphic. Clink on it to see the original.
In the meantime, I've been working on another project, and working on the marketing of "Writers Gone Wild." In the coming months, there will be some serious changes going on here, so I hope y'all will stay tuned. I'll be back.
July 13, 2010
John McIntyre, the fired-copy-desk-chief-since-rehired at the Baltimore Sun, rages
over a reporter's misuse of the common comma in the phrase:
his wife Gertrude:
If Gertrude were a daughter and the construction were his daughter Gertrude, we could infer that the man has more than one daughter and we are singling out the one named Gertrude. If the construction were his daughter, Gertrude, we could infer that the man has one daughter, whose name we are supplying parenthetically.
Now, what can we infer from his wife Gertrude? (1) He has more than one wife, and we are focusing on the one named Gertrude, or (2) Our writer has a cloudy understanding of what commas are for.
I tried leaving a comment, but The Baltimore Sun site didn't seem to want it. Clicking "Post" took me to a review screen. When I tried to post, I missed the CAPTCHA box. It warned me that I had to prove my human bona fides, and blocked further attempts to post, despite my following the instructions to the letter.
So here is my response:
"Or, (3), the writer is confident in the reader's cultural understanding that there's only one wife, and will only be one wife unless the subject of the article is a fundamentalist Mormon or a character on "Big Love," or that the reader will never recognize what the comma signals in this construction.
"Note: Much as I'm on your side in this issue -- or at least the side of logic and conformity to grammar rules -- there is a rebellious part of me that wonders how much this really matters."
June 25, 2010
The Unscratchables. Cornelius Kane.
Cats and dogs don’t live together in “The Unscratchables,” a parody police procedural that deftly and punnily mixes the tropes of the genre with a world in which dogs are downtrodden curs segregated from the cream of cat society, but they do rub along in a way that’ll raise the hairs on the back on anyone’s neck.
The story is told through the color-blind eyes of Crusher McNash, a bull terrier detective for the San Bernardo Slaughter Unit. The short-tempered mutt who bears a temperamental resemblance to Mickey Spillaine’s Mike Hammer goes ballistic when the possible involvement of a cat in a series of dismemberment murders he’s working on gets him assigned a partner: Cassius Lap from the Feline Bureau of Investigation.
There’s a lot of reasons for McNash to hate Lap. The well-bred kitty from Kathattan is intelligent, well-dressed and imperturbable. He is also Siamese, and McNash remembers how he was captured and tortured during the recent war with Siam (yeah, Kane is referencing Vietnam). And Lap, who studied dog psychology in college, knows all the right words to make McNash obey his orders.
Fans of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s books will also see a certain resemblance between Lap and their Southern-fried detective hero, FBI Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendegrast (in fact, it seemed like I could read his dialogue in the same cadences Scott Brick uses in his audio versions of the series).
The rest of the book follows McNash and Lap through the underbelly and behind the ears of society as they investigate the killings. They encounter the media magnate Phineas Reynard, and McNash falls hard for the fox’s glamour wife that leads to an assignation in a hotel room. There’s political pressure from above to drop the case as the duo works with Lap’s former partner, the serial killer Quentin Riossiti (think Hannibal Lecter), as they realize that they’re uncovering a conspiracy that reaches those who pull the leash.
As you can see, it’s easy to get into the spirit of the book. Kane ─ actually Australian literary thriller writer Anthony O’Neill ─ peppers puns and animal-associated words in every page, and his freshness and inventiveness is on a part with Jasper Fforde.
I don’t know if McNash and Lap will return, and while the reader in me hopes so, the writer in me hopes not. Kane has created a perfect mix of noir and parody, that it would be a shame to dilute it with sequels. “The Unscratchables” is a shaggy-dog story with not a flea on its glossy coat.
May 25, 2010
Is there something primeval about providing for your family? We’re taught in movies and books ─ typically with frontier subjects ─ about the pleasures in wresting a living from the land, building something that wasn’t there before, and succeeding in fulfilling your dream.
These days, the thrill doesn’t seem to be there when it means spending eight hours in the same place doing what you’re told. Maybe it’s too easy, the pleasures too accessible. Or maybe you just have to work harder at it, or set a higher goal.
It was about seven or years ago, in a gallery in Lewes, Del., we saw a painting by Rob Gonsalves. If you’ve never seen any of his work, imagine someone who takes M.C. Escher’s manipulation of perspective and subject and apply it to more accessible subjects.
Anyway, his “On the Upswing” caught our eye, because it seemed to perfectly encapsulate the personalities of two of our children. They were about the age of the children in the painting, and on the rusty passed-along swingset in the backyart, the Princess was already accomplished enough to push the swing to the limit. Chains creaking, supports screaming, she'd whip herself higher and higher until she could jump off at the top of the arc, much to the consternation of her parents.
Meanwhile, the Bun would swing just as vigorously, but with more caution, more watchfulness. And he'd never jump off at the time.
Here’s a detail from the painting.
We couldn’t afford "On the Upswing." The best I could do was print a small color copy, pin it on the office wall, and dream.
Years passed. I wrote and sold a book. The check came in, and I decided to have fun with some of it. I started checking art galleries on the Internet, hoping to find the 16-inch-by-14-inch print. It was expensive, but that wad of cash wasn’t going to spend itself, and we really, really wanted the painting.
Trouble was, in the intervening years, many people also wanted the painting in that size. Many galleries didn’t have it.
One did, and I fired off an e-mail. The gentleman called and we reached an agreement.
Then he called back with bad news: they couldn’t find a copy, either. However . . . perhaps we could make a deal for the larger size?
I gulped. Between my wife’s art degree and my experience in photography, we both knew the larger size is much more preferable. The details are bigger, the finish product closer to what the artist worked with. All in all, a better experience. All in all, a much larger price.
Ah, but times are tough. Art is not a necessity to most people. The gallery had a firm offer and would be reluctant to see us walk out the door, symbolically.
He named a figure. I gulped. It was larger than the price for the smaller painting, but not really by much.
“Is that with shipping included?” I cagily asked. Of course, he said.
Sold.
The painting came rolled, and we sent it off to the framer. For what would be the centerpiece of the house, we didn’t want to trust it to a chain store, so we took it down the road to
Maplenut Creations.
It took a couple of months. They had some problems with getting the right bars for the back of the painting. Phone calls were made. Bars were shipped and returned. Then there was the effort in doing the frame. They were a bit startled at my wife’s request: matt it in black with a white frame. They weren’t sure if it would turn out right.
I knew it would be fine. Years of marriage have taught me that my wife sees things I can’t. When it comes to design, trust her.
Now, “On the Upswing” is back and hanging on the wall of our dining room. Dominating the wall. The ceilings are barely seven feet high.
I acquired a lot of possessions in my life, some a lot more expensive than “On the Upswing,” but none of them fills me with something I never though I’d feel.
Accomplished.
May 22, 2010
It’s Saturday and I have a lot to catch up on, but I wanted to raise me head above the parapet and pass along these lovely links, which contain more mental protein than the sausages you’d find in a school cafeteria.
* The New Republic takes a look at
Shirley Jackson’s writing career.
* Book Bitch Blog lets Michael Atkinson talk abut
using Hemingway as a mystery detective.
* Meanwhile, Chuck Palahniuk is using blowup dolls as
props for a book signing.
* This has been around for a bit, but Jason Pinter discusses the Joe Konrath effect,
will new technology ruin talented authors. Short answer from myself: no. Editing authors is a 20th century concept. Who edited Dickens? Or Conan Doyle? Or Stephen Crane? An author who doesn’t recognize that might falter on their own, but that’s their lookout, innit? (Thanks,
SlushPile.net)
* If you need new blogs to read, there’s the
top 10 UK literature blogs.
* While this is meant to be links to literature, I have to pass along Frank Wilson’s recommendation for contemporary classical music by Lou Harrison.
Listening to this was an ear-opening experience.
In the meantime, 
