Stating the Obvious

It's been 2 weeks since I wrote anything here. Not that long, I suppose, but a lifetime for someone like me who is used to writing every day.

It's been a nice break. It will continue... and it won't...

I won't post here for the foreseeable future.

But if you want to talk baseball, come read what I'm writing at Pinstripe Alley.

And if you want to talk books, let's connect at Goodreads or LibraryThing, where I'll continue to post book reviews.

Giving Up on Goal #2

One thing that is clear to me, is that I was a bit... let us say "overambitious" for my 30 Before 30.

2. Finish the Modern Library's Top 10 List

I've read six of the top ten in the Modern Library's Top 100. This year, I want to read the other four: Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, Darkness at Noon, and Sons and Lovers.

In the last year, I've read The Sound and the Fury and Ulysses.

If I had really given the two books their due, they would each have been a separate item on a list of 30. It's not that I couldn't have read these four books within a year, but that I couldn't have read them and still kept up with all my other reading, the new and forthcoming books, the old favorites, the suggestions from friends. I wasn't willing to give that up.

So perhaps Darkness at Noon and Sons and Lovers will make my 31 Before 31.

30 Before 30 Reflection: Monthly To-Do Lists

New Year's Eve seems like the right time to reflect on a year, and #30 on my 30 Before 30 was to make and keep monthly to-do lists of projects around the house.

This ambition took on added significant in May when we bought a house. Funny how the "to-dos" pile up quickly.

I wasn't as diligent about keeping a written list as I might have been. Though, one result of this goal is that I now keep a pad of paper in my car, since Carol and I make most of our to-do lists while driving. It's a fun little exercise, and I suppose being away from home makes it easier to reflect on what needs to be done without racing off to do it.

The things we've done that made it onto various lists have ranged from the simple and mundane (pick up the bedroom and living room) to the ambitious (paint the shutters and front door) to the complicated (organize the linen closet led to re-organizing storage in the bedroom, the guest room and both bathrooms) to the skill building (replace all the dingy off-white switches and outlets in the house with new, white ones).

I may not have kept this goal as fastidiously as I'd have liked, but it's the one thing from my 30 Before 30 that really improved my life. And it's simple enough that I'd really encourage you to try it. It's so easy to look at a day spent cleaning or organizing or working around the house as a day lost, but it's not. Just 4 or 5 things each month really left us feeling accomplished and it helped us keep track of how much we achieved.

30 Before 30: Visit the National Aquarium

Since visiting Baltimore and the National Aquarium and taking photos of things all occupy important (and acheivable) spots on my 30 Before 30, here's a few pictures from our recent trip to the National Aquarium!

Happy (Black) Friday

Rather than try to be witty or fill the space with music, I'm just going to link to Joe Poz's article on what sort of days get "Black" attached to them.

My wife is at work, but I get the day off.

Things to be Thankful For

Friends, family, food.

I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Gun Power Treason and Plot

Remember, remember...

Have a Happy Thursday, Because, You Know...

Ban All the Classic Books

And the Washington Post for the win:

“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!”

Moby Dick

 

Happy Aaron Boone Day

This was ten years ago today.

I was sitting on my raised bunk in Middle Hall, trying to teach a girl about baseball. 3 outs, tagging up on an out, the double play, extra innings.

Boone swung, and I leapt up so high I cracked my head against the ceiling.

Ulysses and Intimidation

I would tell friends I was reading Ulysses, and they'd look at me and ask "Why?"

Sort of like climbing Everest, the answer seems (to me) self-evident.

But as I finished Molly's famous chapter over the weekend, I was struck by how misplaced the book's reputation is. The book is profoundly difficult reading; I especially struggled to force myself to slow down and really read the long section presented as dialogue and stage directions. I suppose everyone must have at least one section that makes them want to give up.

But somehow, book lovers tend to conflate "I understood it" with "I enjoyed it." But I feel that not understanding was part of the joy- it's like wonder over the ending to Inception or imagining how a cancelled series like Firefly would have turned out if given the time to develop.

I read it. I loved it. I think I got it, but I might be wrong (more on that tomorrow).

Happy Columbus Day

There's a lot of anti-Columbus going around.

....a despot who ruled his subjects with an iron fist...
...routinely tortured slaves and starved his subjects...
...forbade natives from baptism so they could used as slaves...

And I say, "So?" A guy in the 15th century conformed to the normal norms of the era, viewed people different from himself as less human, and sought to aggrandize himself and build a colony thousands of miles from "civilization" through autocratic rule. And I bet if you'd give that same opportunity to any number of European aristocrats, they'd have conducted themselves the same way.

Now, if you want to whitewash all of history, then yes, let's get rid of Columbus Day. Let's re-name Columbus Circle and the District of Columbia.

But let's be reasonable: Thanksgiving wasn't the pastoral gathering we learned about in grade school, and George Washington was a slave-owner, too. It's easy to be judgmental in retrospect. But that doesn't make it fair.

Rewriting Shakespeare's Histories

I dislike Shakespeare.

Glad I got that off my chest.

I understand the reverence in which he is held to an extent. He is, for an early modern playwright, remarkably accessible. And his writings cover a range with more talent than anyone else in the era. If you want one many for histories and tragedies and comedies and sonnets, well, you can do no better than Shakespeare.

But, and I know this is not a new or original critique, if you want one thing executed perfectly, never look to Shakespeare. None of Shakespeare's tragedies can touch Marlowe's Edward II (which I suppose is more properly a history) or Faustus. I prefer Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle and Johnson's Alchemist for comedies, and I favor Donne and Milton as poets.

So maybe the proper thing to say is not, "I dislike Shakespeare" but "I disagree with the notion that he is the greatest playwright of his era, let alone the argument that he is the greatest ever."

All the same, I'm always a little appalled when someone tries to re-write Shakespeare, and especially appalled when that person is a homophobic whacko. It has been demonstrated time and again that the internet was specifically designed to mock people like that.

But the Scott Lynch piece I linked above reminded me that just a couple weeks ago, a friend and I were working on a five act adaption of Henry IV 1, IV 2 and Henry V.

Ulysses, First Thoughts on a Second Reading

I'm determined to read Ulysses as part of my 30 Before 30. It's one of the 4 books I've never read in the Modern Library's Top 100.

Though it's disingenuous to say I never read Ulysses, because I did read more than half of it during Spring Break of my senior year of college. I read it for fun, so there are plenty of plot points I missed then, and I'm sure there are some I'm still missing, but that's not why I'm reading it.

To read Ulysses for the plot seems a little like listening to Mozart to analyze the chord progression; sure, I could do it, but isn't that missing the larger point?

One of my favorite professors once told me that the proper way to read Joyce's masterpiece is aloud while drinking Jameson or Guinness. He is a wise man.

It's the sounds I love most, the tongue twisters and the smooth sections. But I also love the graphic side of Ulysses too: the headlines that punctuate the scene in the newspaper shop and the end of the second section which becomes a play, complete with dialogue and stage directions. I feel that if James Joyce were alive today, he'd be a big fan of Christopher Ware.

I'm nearly done with the second section, which is where I recall running out of time in college and having to return my copy to the library. This weekend, I dive into uncharted territory in one of the greatest works of literature. Life is such fun.

"Eventually" at Red Fez

One of my 30 Before 30 goals was to submit poems to 6 publications this year. I'm half way to my goal, and one of my poems (Eventually) has been accepted for issue 60 of Red Fez.

Check it out (and all the other poems and fiction in issue 60, too).

30 Before 30 Update: Submit or be Conquered

Goal #15 on my 30 Before 30 is to submit poems to 6 publications. This week, I heard back from locations 2 and 3, both of whom want one of the poems I offered to them.

When I set this goal, I thought that going 0 for 6 was a real possibility, which is why I made my goal submissions and not publications.

It was, frankly, a real possibility. But if I'm 0 for 3 with my remaining submissions, I'll still be ecstatic to have this two poems in print.

*** Helpful advice: the image results for a Google search on "submit or be conquered" are Not Safe For Work. Do not look for an image to accompany your blog post on this topic during your lunch hour.

30 Before 30: #25 Take More Pictures

Happy birthday, sweets.

The Bright Side of the CSA

CSA= Community Supported Agriculture

That's locally grown beats in a sweet & sour glaze, beat greens made spicy with red pepper and olive oil, and egg fried rice with chorizo and local onion diced in. Ain't it colorful?

Yeah, you should be jealous.

One of my 30 before 30 goals is to lose 30 pounds, and my strategy is to eat a little healthier: second helpings of veggies instead of starch, a little less meat, a little less beer, plus more exercise. I'm actually pretty sure I won't make it, since I'm unwilling to go on a stricter diet. But I've lost some weight, and I'm in better shape than ever.

And I'm pretty happy with that.

Happy Friday! The Vacation Edition

Is there a less productive day than the day before a (well earned) vacation?
Must... focus... on... work...

Seeing the Strings

It's no secret I dislike Dickens because Dickens hates a loose end, so everything ties up nice and neat.

And that's the worst, when you can see the strings that connect the characters to the author. Michael Crichton was guilty of it, too (it seemed like his novels were thrilling for 280 pages, and then he remembered that he promised his editor he'd wrap it up in 300 pages, so the novel just stopped).

Saturday night I saw a one act play (For the Record by Bernie Appugliese at the Oakland Center for the Arts) that was all loose ends. And it was fantastic.