My Pen is Like...

This week in my creative writing class one of our prompts to write about for homework was "My Pen is Like..." I wrote the following very short horror story and I am posting it here because, what the hell. why not?

My pen is like a jackhammer it’s shaking so much as I write this.

I’ll try to leave this in a conspicuous location and I hope you’ll read it before you go further into the house.

What I’ve done is obvious, call this a confession if you want but please heed my warning.

DON’T GO IN THE BASEMENT.

It’s locked in there now, for some reason it doesn’t seem to be able to get through any closed door, when you lay eyes on it though it makes you do the most terrible things as you can see all around you.

              I don’t know how to deal with it, whether you need a SWAT team, a scientist or a priest but I know that I can’t help. I know you’d take me away if you could and I just can’t bear that.

              If you do get into the basement, you’ll find some books with very strange titles and a very large hole in the ground. I beg you, throw the books in and fill the hole. This lot should be condemned, certainly no one should live here again.

              As for me, you’ll find me in the upstairs bathroom. I’ll try not to make as much of a mess as I did on the main floor.

March 4, 2010

This was something I wrote for the creative writing class I am in right now. It's kind of rough but we are told not to do any editing in the class. We were given a writing prompt which was "I remember..." and obviously I was thinking about Nils since it was close to his birthday at the time. I thought I'd post it because it was fun for me to write.

 

              I remember when my wife’s water broke. She was 28 weeks pregnant. Kari was at work and I was on my way to work. I hadn’t made it far yet, I was at the bus stop just outside our house. Kari sent me a text message saying that something wasn’t right and I called her right back, we decided she should go immediately to the hospital. We only have one car so I would call a taxi and meet her there as soon as possible.

              When I arrived at the hospital, Kari was already in an examination room and had finished up her initial examination. We learned that her water had broken but that she didn’t seem to be having any contractions at the moment. Regardless, the baby could come at any time and Kari would be staying in the hospital until he arrived.

              Fifty years ago, a baby born at twenty-eight weeks gestation would have had pretty slim odds of making it. Even twenty years ago it would have been far from a sure thing. Today, the odds are much better and, assuming you have access to a good hospital and staff, there are very good odds that that same baby will live. It’s far from risk-free though, at that point in the womb the fetus is still hard at work finishing up his brain, eyes and lungs among other things.

              What we wanted to do, explained one of the many friendly nurses who we would grow to rely upon, was keep the baby from being born for as long as we could in order to allow for as much development as was possible. In order to delay labor, Kari would have to stay in bed at the hospital with various machines constantly attached to her to detect the earliest signs of contractions and to monitor the vital signs of our son. This was the rare hospital stay that you wanted to last as long as possible. Ideally, we were told, Kari would be in bed for eight weeks and then they would induce labor if it hadn’t begun by that point, thirty-six weeks is generally considered full term. We were told repeatedly in our time there, that the most important goal and the one we really had to hope for was thirty weeks. At that point generally, the brain and eyes are done forming and the lungs are at a stage where they are near finished.

              Kari was checked in and moved to her longer term room and what had been an exciting and terror-filled entrance into the hospital slowly turned into an intensely boring grind with occasional moments of adrenaline-spiked fear. The first few days in particular were full of moments where Nils’ heartbeat would drop to a very low rate and, when this would happen, our room would quickly fill up with nurses and the occasional doctor. There really wasn’t much they could do about it to make the heart rate go back up, sometimes they would ask Kari to roll over onto her stomach or back to her back or sit up or lay on her side but the overall feeling in the room was one of helplessness. The only reason they were there was to see if the heart rate would come back up or, if it stayed low, at some point they would pull the trigger and induce labor if it became more dangerous for Nils in the womb than out of it. I have no idea how many times this happened, a few times a day at least and I vaguely remember slowly waking up in the middle of the night a few times to see a gathering of nurses standing over my sleeping wife quietly but urgently discussing the readings on one of the several monitors next to her bed.

              We made it through all of these moments however and when it wasn’t scary, our time in the hospital was hopeful. We wanted a baby after all, we hadn’t been expecting all the surrounding drama of course and we felt woefully unprepared but we knew this would all be worth it in the long-run. I spent every night in the hospital and during the day went to work most days, I also took a few days off and spent a few of those running around town buying all of the things that we had, thus far, put off purchasing.

              As anyone who has spent any extended time in a hospital knows, boredom was also a major factor. Kari was constrained to her bed and so most of our time was spent watching TV, the Winter Olympics were on then and I spent more time watching them than I had ever before or ever will in the future. I don’t remember anything about it however as we were just filling the time until the next event or visitor. There’s a lot of simply filling time in the hospital.

              We had many visitors as well which was truly appreciated during our stay, brothers and sisters and friends all came to spend time with us and bring us some cheer and that really helped to make the time more bearable.

              After about a week into our stay, Nils’ heart rate spells had mostly stopped. We were told that the doctor had decided that it was now safe to inject Kari with a steroid that would help to speed up the development of the lungs. The steroid would take about forty-eight hours and as long as we made it through that time period, it has been shown to be very successful in helping to create healthy lungs. We had the steroid injected and, happily, made it through the two days.

              We were there for another week as a matter of fact. The second week was a little less stressful than the first. Nils continued to have his spells but not nearly as often and by the end of the week Kari started having some smaller contractions relatively frequently. At first, she couldn’t feel them at all, we only knew she was having them because of the sensors hooked up to her but as the week wore on they became more pronounced.

              Nils was born on March 4, 2010. The contractions started late in the evening and before long it became obvious that he would arrive that night, we were then moved to a different floor to be closer to the delivery room. From there it went very quickly, I was given some hospital scrubs to wear and when it was close to time we were moved in to the delivery room. Once there, we waited just a moment for the doctor and when he arrived it took Kari basically one big push and Nils was born.

              He was still very small though, in fact he was so small that he almost literally was shot into this world. Kari probably never saw this but he came out so fast that just for a moment it looked like the doctor wasn’t ready, Nils shot right over the doctor’s waiting hands and for just a brief, horrifying moment it looked like he might fall to the floor. In retrospect, it’s a funny scene but at that moment it was anything but.

              Nils weighed just a tiny bit over two pounds when he was born. We weren’t able to hold him immediately, he was put directly into an isolette with oxygen and other life support mechanisms. I was able to stay by him but Kari wasn’t even able to really get a good look at him until a little bit later. They wheeled him out of the delivery room and into his waiting Neonatal Intensive Care Unit room right away. He stayed in that room for the next few weeks.

              Eventually, they moved him from the Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis to the one in St. Paul so he could be closer to our home and from there, after several more weeks, he came home.

              After he was born Nils has been nothing short of amazing, despite his tiny size he thrived basically from day one. He was breathing on his own within a day and he passed nearly all of the seemingly hundreds of tests they performed on him during his stay with flying colors. He gained weight and got bigger and bigger and after we got him home he continued to thrive. The care he received in the hospital both in the womb and out and after the hospital was truly fantastic and I will never be able to express fully the depth of my appreciation for all the nurses and doctors who were constantly there with us during his stay. Even more than that though I am thankful for my wonderful wife who went through so much to bring our son into this world.

              Nils is three years old today and is the most wonderful kid in the world as anyone who knows him can clearly see. Amazingly, he has not had one serious health problem as a result of his premature birth. He’s had colds and all of the normal stuff of course but it’s truly a testament to the doctors and nurses who helped him that he has only had to worry about the “normal stuff.” We have been assured that Nils will certainly need glasses at some point sooner rather than later but at his last eye appointment we were told that his eyes were actually better than at the appointment before that, so who knows? I certainly am ready to believe he is capable of anything at this point.

              Happy Birthday Nils!

Quick Review: Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell

Due to an unusual amount of time spent sitting in hospital rooms recently I've been getting a lot of reading done.  Thankfully the St. Paul library is only blocks away from the where I've been spending the majority of my time so I've been burning through a few books per week.  Here is the first of, hopefully, a few reviews.

Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell

This is the third book I've read by Woodrell and he has quickly become one of my favorite writers.  I've heard various terms to describe his style but the one I think I like the best is "country noir".  He comes across as a mix between William Faulkner and Elmore Leonard which is nowhere near as odd as it might seem.  His writing is amazingly atmospheric and his dialogue is among the best in fiction today.  Here is the first sentence of the book to give you an idea of what the style is like:

"You're no angel, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it's been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you're fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main, and the coed circle of bums gathered there spot you a beer, then a jug of tequila starts to rotate and the rain keeps comin' down with a miserable bluesy beat and there's two girls millin' about that probably can be had but they seem to like certain things and crank is one of those certain things, and a fistful of party straws tumble from a woven handbag somebody brung, the crank gets cut into lines, and the next time you notice the time it's three or four Sunday mornin' and you ain't slept since Thursday night and one of the girl voices, the one you want most and ain't had yet though her teeth are the size of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they'd taste sort of sour, suggests something to do, cause with crank you want something, anything, to do, and this cajoling voice suggests we all rob this certain house on this certain street in that rich area where folks can afford to wallow in their vices and likely have a bunch of recreational dope stashed around the mansion and goin' to waste since an article in The Scroll said the rich people whisked off to France or some such on a noteworthy vacation."

Tomato Red is one of Woodrell's earlier books but the one I read most recently.  It tells the story of Sammy Barlach, a young man in Missouri who meets up with a brother and sister while in the process of robbing a mansion.  The three find a certain affinity for a each other and become accomplices in a plot of the sister's to escape their desolate lifestyle. Nothing goes the way it was planned of course, the story has all the typical noir twists and turns which in the end are entirely satisfying but plot is never what makes Woodrell special.  What sets Woodrell apart from just about any other author is the setting and characters.  I've never read stories with casts of characters like you find in his books.  The main character here is a crank user and alcoholic who is prone to violence and the rest of the cast is made up of a "country queer", a prostitute and a pill popping teen-ager.  There is absolutely no judgement from the author, Woodrell doesn't seem to look down on his (very) lower-class cast, instead he brings to their lives an almost epic arc.  For them, to escape the lives they were born into is nearly impossible and they know it and will do almost anything to make it happen.  They aren't "anti-heroes" either the characters are easy to empathize with even if their life is as far removed from my own as is possible while living in the same country.

I really can't recommend Woodrell highly enough.  Tomato Red is fantastic as are the other two books I've read by him "Give Us a Kiss" and "The Death of Sweet Mister".  The reason I started writing this blog was to, hopefully, make myself start thinking more about why I enjoy the art that I do and to hopefully share some of those things with others so give him a try if you like this sort of thing he is the best thing going in noir fiction today.

Twins!! Predictions!!

I'm looking forward to the beginning of the Twins' season this weekend and I thought now would be the perfect time to make some predictions. Because what's the point of having a blog if you don't make wild guesses about things with very little evidence to back you up?

The team seems to have put together the best club in recent memory this year and I think the Central is theirs for the taking. Perhaps I'm too optimistic but I think this is going to be a great year! These are my predictions for the coming year, feel free to list yours in the comments, I'd like to see if others are as positive about their chances as I am.

Twins MVP: Joe Mauer

This is easy. We all know he's the best catcher in baseball and it's not even close. He's one of the best all around hitters as well. He's worth every penny in that new contract

Rookie of the Year: Ben Revere

I just can't see the Twins playing this whole season without getting a second true centerfielder on the roster. Right now their outfield defense is looking pretty terrible and that's with Span (a pretty good fielder) on the field. On Span's days off they want to put Cuddyer in center? That has to be easily the worst defensive outfield in baseball with three far below average defensive players.

Revere looks to be a good player and I expect him to be on the team sooner rather than later.

3 Keys for the Twins:

1. Denard Span

As I said above, the biggest weak spot for the team this year is the outfield defense which is painful. An injury to Span would be catastrophic to the team. He's not their best player but he is playing an important position and one that the Twins are remarkably thin at. Span had a very good year last year and I think he is due for a breakout year, fresh off signing a new contract and at 26 years old he should be entering his prime right about now.

2. The New Guys

We need Hardy and Hudson to perform up to the levels that are expected. A second bad season in a row (which I don't expect) from Hardy or a big dropoff from Hudson would be tough to work through.

3. Francisco Liriano

He needs to be at least an average MLB pitcher and I think the Twins will be in good shape. If he gets anywhere near where he was his rookie season the could easily be one of the best teams in the AL.

Twins Record/Standings: I'm going with 91-71 for first place in the division. I think (hope?) they will have a solid, if not prohibitive, grip on the Central for most of the season and leave the White Sox and Tigers fighting it out for second.

That's all I've got. What do you think?

Just finished reading The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe over lunch today. What a relentlessly sad story. Very good though, I need to watch the movie again now.

Artists I Like: Michael Haneke (pretentiousness warning!)

"My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus."

Image via Wikipedia

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Michael Haneke is an Austrian director who has grown famous as a director of films which often are aimed at pointing out what he perceives to be problems and failures in modern society. He often shows the banality and tediousness of suburban life and intersperses that with extreme violence. This blend of boredom with terror sometimes leads to very conflicting critiques of his work. I have read often on the internet observations from "real people" who watched his films and felt they were terribly boring, "nothing happens" is a phrase you see over and over when reading user reviews on Netflix for example. On the other hand, professional critics, those who don't like his films anyway, often describe his films as overly violent, The New York Times described Funny Games as "a sophisticated act of cinema sadism." It's these exact same extremes that have made me a huge admirer of his work.

My introduction to his work was the U.S. version of Funny Games. This version of the film is a shot for shot remake of an earlier, Austrian one. The movie is the story of a well-to-do family visiting their lake house who are accosted by a couple of seemingly upper class young men who throughout the movie terrorize the family. The plot is similar to a number of "home invasion" films such as The Strangers or Them but Haneke's goal and style are much different. There is no onscreen violence in Funny Games at all, aside from one very important scene late in the movie but the effect of the violence when it does happen (offscreen) is chilling. The focus is on the people being hurt, their faces as they watch family members being terrorized or their reactions after the violence occurs. There are no action sequences, violence happens in short bursts but the impact lasts for several minutes after. The violence is never explained either, the antagonists throughout the story offer stories a few times but always immediately contradict themselves just moments later with an alternate reason for their terrible acts. In the end viewers have more questions than answers and are not offered a nice wrap-up that is normally given at the end of a thriller or horror movie.

Initially after seeing the movie I wasn't sure what to think and really didn't think I liked it at all. It took me several days to realize that I couldn't stop thinking about it and the effect it had on me. Funny Games is a film that is aiming to inspire a different sort of emotion in the viewer than your typical film. Generally speaking, movies are looking to amuse or thrill or possibly shock, Funny Games inspires a feeling of dread and, oddly, guilt. It's this difference that makes Haneke one of the most artistically successful filmmakers in the world. After having my interest piqued by Funny Games my wife and I decided to seek out a few other Haneke films. We started with the original version which had been made 10 years earlier in Austria. The original version is shot for shot the same movie as the American one and because this movie was always intended to be a critique of American cinema I prefer the U.S. version but both are great and even after the seeing the movie a second time I had almost the same reaction as the first time.

Cover of Cache (Hidden)

Next up we watched Cache (Hidden) which was, at the time, his most recent Austrian film. Like Funny Games, Cache is, on the surface, a straight forward thriller and really shows off Haneke's skills in cinematagrophy and building tension masterfully. The plot of Cache involves another terrorized family of three who discover one day, via a videotape left on their doorstep, that someone is watching them. Not long after the video tape the family begins receiving drawings that take the husband back to some events during his childhood.

Here again, Haneke is taking what could have been a relatively typical movie and inverting our expectations. The idea of who is the protagonist and antagonist in this film is a tough one as it flip flops a couple times during the movie. The last scene in particular is mysterious and casts doubts on nearly everything that had happened up to that point. Cache is easily Haneke's most critically acclaimed movie and it's easy to see why, everything about it executed to perfection. It's his best "looking" film with a great cast and, in a rarity for Haneke, it actually has a plot and a story to tell. Cache is presently being remade for American audiences and we'll see how that turns out.

We watched Le Temps Du Loup next which really reminded me more than anything of The Road, the novel by Cormac McCarthy. (Just to be clear though Le Temps came out years before The Road, it just so happens I had read The Road first). It's a dark, depressing story (that part could probably go without saying for Haneke) set in a post-apocalyptic future. A mother and father are attempting to navigate this new world with their two children and the story deals with their everyday life just trying to survive. This film is a good example of what a lot of people

Cover of Le Temps du loup [Region 2]

dislike about Haneke which is that he is, some would say, boring. I can see this point of view, for example in Les Temps there is a point in the film where he focuses his camera on a group of people at a funeral from the waist down and just leaves it there for three or four minutes. Nothing happens at all here, no talking, no music (there is almost never any music in a Haneke film) and no action, just standing. For me, by the time he starts pulling stuff like this in his films I have generally already bought into it completely. These scenes, and he does stuff like this frequently, add to the general sense of doom and dread that his movies inspire, others disagree and they say it's just boring and I guess I really don't have much argument for that but I do think there is a point to it which I believe he made very clear in his first film The Seventh Continent.

The Seventh Continent is Haneke's first movie but the last I watched and here again he is dealing with another relatively well-to-do family who are terrorized. The difference here is that they are not being terrorized by any outside forces, rather they are being gradually beat down over the course of three years by the sheer mundanity of their own lives. There are endless shots of members of the family eating breakfast or shopping or going through the car wash with little or no dialogue. Eventually small cracks start to appear, the mother begins crying for seemingly no reason for example. The family falls deeper and deeper into depression or "emotional glaciation" as I've read Haneke say in interviews about his early films. The movie builds to a climax which is in no way surprising but is still one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen in a movie. Haneke states in his description of The Seventh Continent that it is "a story of mental short-sightedness" which makes sense. His characters don't see any way out of their emotional rut aside from the extreme route they choose.

There are other Haneke films I've yet to see. I will work my way through them slowly, I would never subject anyone to a Haneke marathon. Just in the past couple weeks a new Haneke film was shown at Cannes, The White Ribbon, which won the Palme d'Or. If you've seen any Haneke let me know what you thought and if you haven't give it a shot some afternoon when you feel like something a little different, I can guarantee you won't have fun but you will definitely have an interesting experience.

Related articles by Zemant

• Palme d'Or winner Michael Haneke: cruel to his characters and to us (telegraph.co.uk)

Books of 2009 so far...continued

With only one exception so far this year (Rock, Paper, Scissors) every book I've read has been very good. These are the best four I've read so far and I would say all of them are excellent.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Murakami's books always have a dreamlike tone, it seems half the action takes place while the main characters are sleeping. Kafka, of the books I've read, makes the best use of this type of writing. Kafka on the Shore is the story of Kafka Tomura a 16 year old boy who has run away from home in order to escape an incestuous and murderous prophecy foretold by his father. Kafka runs to a small town in Japan where he meets a colorful cast of characters including a hemophiliac transvestite and a ghost of a young girl who may or may not be his mother. The book is intentionally vague with the story and messages but to me it is about destiny and our ability to choose our own way in life. There are parts of the book that, to me, were inexplicable but that did nothing to take away from the fact that the writing is great and even when I don't completely understand a characters actions I am still able to enjoy the ride.

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

I've already reviewed this book on this blog so I will just leave what I've already written. Denis Johnson is one of my favorites.

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

I just finished this book very recently and I absolutely loved it. Galchen's book is often compared to Murakami and like in Kafka above it's not always perfectly clear what exactly is happening in this book. There is a good reason for this however as it is written in the first person from the point of view of a man who is possibly insane. I have my own ideas about what is happening here but, regardless of that, what made this book work so much for me were the characters. I don't know what it says about me that I was able to empathize with the main character, Leo Liebenstein, more than just about any character in any book I've ever read. He is going crazy but in a way that seems perfectly logical to me, it was riveting and slightly scary to read about him falling further and further into his obsessions and into his own head. You really should read this book, it's a quick read and is highly entertaining.

2666 by Roberto Bolano

2666 is easily the best book I've read this year. It's quite a time investment, the version I received as a gift came as three separate paperback books. It took me a few months to read as I read one of the books then a couple other books and then the next which was a great way to read this book in my opinion. The book tells the stories of a large cast of characters who all either have or develop ties to the fictional city of Santa Teresa in Mexico. Santa Teresa in the novel is a stand-in for the real city of Juarez where, in the last twenty years, over a thousand women have been murdered in unsolved crimes. The book explores the madness that could lead to such a situation. Bolano writes about a group of critics who are obsessed with a reclusive writer, Achimboldi, who they believe is in Santa Teresa. They travel to the city to find him and all have different reactions to the atmosphere of degradation in the city and the cheapness of life there. Also in the book are stories of a professor in the city, an american reporter who visits to cover a boxing match and the police in the city who work in a dysfunctional system that really, for many reasons, has no interest in ever solving the crimes. Lastly, there is a section about Archimboldi, the mysterious writer mentioned above that (sort of) serves to tie the whole thing together.

I loved every section of this book, it's absolutely full of amazing characters and great writing. The Part About the Crimes in particular is fantastic and unlike anything I've ever read. This section is written in a police blotter type style with cold hard facts about each of the murders laid out in shocking detail interspersed with scenes of the personal lives of the police who are working the crimes and the suspects in the crimes.

2666 is a great novel that, I believe, will stand the test of time as a classic and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Books of 2009 so far...

My wife and I joined two book clubs this year which has led to me getting in quite a bit of reading this year. Because I'm a big fan of making lists and also because it is something to do I thought I'd make a list of the books I've read so far this year with a few thoughts about each one. I'm ranking in order of preference because that's just the way I am, I rank everything.

Rock, Paper, Scissors by Len Fisher

This book wasn't very good. I read it for the Big Bang Book Club which is a non-fiction science related book club I attend. It sounded interesting, it's about Game Theory something I knew next to nothing about before reading this book but in the end I found the book to be more annoying than anything else. The writer's attempts to be funny fell flat for me nearly every time and his examples for explaining the theories discussed were weak. Not recommended, if you're interested in Game Theory there has to be something better out there than this.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

This was another book I read for a book club, Books and Bars, but this time I'm glad I did. The book is basically what the title implies, a mashup of the original novel Pride and Prejudice and a zombie movie. The idea is comedy gold and it did have quite a few funny scenes but in the end the zombie stuff was pretty uninteresting and the only thing keeping me reading was the original story which I had never read before. I had been meaning to try and read an Austen novel already and now I've read one (sort of) and, honestly, probably won't be reading any more. It wasn't bad or anything just not my cup of tea. The book club discussion was great though! Books and Bars was able to set up a Skype video chat with the author Grahame-Smith which was a lot of fun. He seemed like a genuinely funny and thoughtful guy and I will defintely check out his next book to see if it's funnier. His next book by the way is apparently another mashup of sorts, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map is the story of a cholera outbreak in London in the 1850's and the people who worked to discover the cause. Lot's of good stuff in here about the history of disease and medicine and also the history of cities and the problems that come with people living close together. This isn't for the squeamish though this book has endless passages of people shitting and tainted water supplies and just other generally disgusting subjects. London in the 1850's does not sound pleasant at all!

Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa

This is the first book on the list that I read outside of a bookclub! I was contacted by the author of this book, who apparently must have seen some book reviews I posted somewhere or something. He asked if I would be interested in reading his first novel and writing some reviews for a couple websites. Obviously, this is a sweet deal for me! He sent me a free copy of his book (an electronic copy) which I read nearly right away. This is the review I wrote on Amazon:

Dirty Little Angels is the story of Hailey, a young girl living in New Orleans, and her (very) dysfunctional family. The book details her growing detachment from reality and her struggles to attain something of a normal life. The content here is thoroughly depressing I suppose and some of the other reviewers here commented on how dark the book is based on the story but I guess I had the opposite reaction. Yes, the story is dark but what kept me reading was the style which I found to be exciting and often darkly funny. Tusa writes with a gritty, noir-ish style which reminds me quite a bit of one of my favorite authors, Daniel Woodrell. I really enjoyed all of the phrasing and great lines in the book. Sure, a lot of lines didn't really work for me but there is so much clever writing here that if you don't like one line the next one will probably work for you. I read this book in one sitting without even thinking about the time spent and I would think a lot of readers will do the same thing. Based on story alone I would have rated this only a three but Tusa has style in spades here and I am really looking forward to his future works.

Bonk by Mary Roach

Mary Roach is really funny. This is the second book by her that I have read, Stiff being the other one, and from now on I'm on board with whatever she does next. Her books may not be the most substantial books in the world scientifically but they are packed with information and top-quality writing. I don't know what else you could ask for from popular non-fiction. This book is about sex research and the places she goes and the things she does in order to write this book are truly impressive. I don't know what else to say but you really should just read the book, it's a quick read and it's very entertaining and informative, a perfect mix.

Lush Life by Richard Price

Lush Life is like the novelization of HBO's The Wire and in my opinion you couldn't possibly have a better review of a crime novel. I love The Wire and so I also loved this book. Richard Price's previous novels are said to have been the main inspiration in the creation of the show and eventually he was brought on to write several episodes and you can see the connections in this book. It's the story of a murder in New York and it is told from several points of view, the murderer, friends of the victim, witnesses and the police who are working the case. Highly recommended for fans of The Wire.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

I had been meaning to read this for a long time but been putting it off because I had the impression that Dawkins was sort of an asshole. After reading the book though my mind was changed (somewhat) he comes across as pretty funny and welcoming to me. I'm sure a lot of people have no interest in the book or would possibly find it offensive but I don't think that is what he was going for here. He simply makes his argument for his understanding of the world in a calm and joking way. It probably helps that I basically agree with him in most ways but I think even some of those who don't would be interested in the thought processes of one of the most highly-respected biologists in the world.

That's it for now, there's more and I will add those in another post later in the week.

My Top 10 Movies of 2008

I'm a person who likes to make lists and ranking things. I think that's all the explanation that's necessary here. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am here.

10. Hellboy 2 - The first of two comic book movies on this list. Not as great a film as Del Toro's last film Pan's Labyrinth but every bit as beautiful to look at. A lot of the jokes fall flat but a lot of them work too and the action and cinematography more than make up for sometimes weak dialogue.

9. Religulous - Bill Maher's documentary about religion didn't have much new information for me, in fact he was pretty much preaching to the choir here (which is a totally inappropriate metaphor when discussing this movie but it fits). I agree with virtually everything stated in this movie and Maher actually doesn't come across as a total prick in the film which he almost always does on TV. The movie is a genuinely funny and, in the end, scary look at religion in America today.

8. Burn After Reading - I like almost everything the Coen Brothers have done and this movie is no exception. It's not close to the level of their absolute best films in my opinion (No Country, Lebowski and Raising Arizona) but it is a strong second tier entry. A good comedy with some shocking twists and tons of great actors made for a very enjoyable experience.

7. Wall-E - I'm a fan of Pixar films and this is without a doubt their best film. Maybe it's a little too long but the first half of the movie is near perfect and the satire in the second half is spot on even if it does get a bit tiring by the end. Obviously, it's great looking and I really enjoyed all the physical, non-verbal comedy in the movie.

6. Iron Man - The best superhero movie of the year. Robert Downey Jr. is perfect as Iron Man and the supporting cast is great as well. The story is lightweight to be sure but it's clever enough with lots of good scenes. The action was excellent and Iron Man just looked really cool. I'm a little upset that they fired Terrence Howard for the sequel but I still have very high hopes.

5. Doomsday - The biggest surprise of the year for me. A completely whacked-out, insanely violent science-fiction movie in the vein of the Road Warrior. I was absolutely entertained from the beginning to the end of this movie, I don't know how well it will hold-up to repeat viewings but it's fun to watch a movie like this where I had no clue what is going to happen next.

4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - It wasn't a very good year for comedies. This was, by far, the funniest movie I saw during the year. Alduous Snow (the British guy) might be my favorite character of the year.

3. The Wrestler - Mickey Rourke rules in this movie. I'm sure he will win the Oscar and he deserves it. The movie is just really well made with great acting and a great script.

2. Transsiberian - A thriller set on the train of the title. It's a classic story that could easily have been a Hitchcock film. It feels like something made in the 60's or 70's, a great script, great actors and an amazing location for a movie. This movie didn't seem to get a lot of attention and I really don't know why. It's a story about a couple travelling by train through Russia that get mixed up with drug smugglers and eventually the Russian police. The movie is very intense and unpredictable but still makes sense. Just really great film making on every level.

1. Funny Games - My favorite movie of the year by a long ways. It's the scariest movie I've ever seen. The acting is great and the concept is even better. The idea is to make the audience second-guess why they watch scary and/or violent films and it definitely worked on me. Your mileage may vary. It's a remake of a German movie by the same director Michael Haneke. He chose to shoot the movie exactly the same shot for shot. The movie was always aimed at American culture and I think works best in English (although I did watch the German version as well).

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

I discovered Denis Johnson first through the movie adaptation of his novella Jesus' Son. It's one of my personal favorite movies and once I found out it was based on a book I was compelled to read it pretty quickly. I'm glad I did as it also became one of my favorite books, and I was encouraged to seek out other books by him. Since then I have read another great novella The Name of the World and now, recently, Tree of Smoke.

Tree of Smoke, unlike the first two books, is a full length novel. Whereas the Jesus' Son and The Name of the World clock in under 200 pages each this one runs to over 700. What it has in common with those other two though is the language Johnson uses, he also a quite prolific poet wih several books published and that really comes through in the writing. The descriptive scenes are fantastic with amazing settings and fabulous characters.

The book revolves around Vietnam and one central character, The Colonel, who is employed by the CIA and has his hand in almost everything happening to the other characters in the book. The Colonel's story isn't straightforward at all however as it is mostly told through all of the other characters and he is a man of myth as much as reality so, especially at the end, the reader never really knows what to believe. Speaking of the end, it DOES get a little goofy there in the last few chapters and there are parts that I can't really say I "got" (and from what I have read from some of the critics, I'm not alone there) but the very last chapter is good and everything leading up to the end is absolutely great.

The word "funk" is lame...

... especially when used as a replacement for the word "fuck." You see this all the time on signs protesting something or other, it might say "Funk the War" (I saw this today), "Funk Drugs", "Funk Racism" or any other obvious social problem. Oftentimes it's not just a statement but an announcement of some sort of fundraising event for a given cause, frequently at these events there may also be a band or bands playing whose music you could describe as funky (but I would rather you didn't).

My problem with this use of the word is the incredibly weak spine it implies about the person making the statement, to me it says, "I'm really against the war and I'm totally willing to deface this (building, lamp post, mailbox) with my lame sticker, but I'm not about to use curse words!"

The word is being used solely for shock value but the messenger wants to have benefits of the shock without actually using the shocking word and that's fucking stupid.

Exceptions to this rule: The word when used to describe an odor.  Also, the song "Funky Days are Back Again" by Cornershop.

So I'm the 10 Millionth Person to Say The Road is a Really Good Book...

but its true.  The book was pretty great, I didn't cry but this is as close as I will ever get to crying while reading a book.  It will crush your soul.  I just finished it this morning.  It's the third Cormac McCarthy book I've read and far and away the best.  Plenty of really damn smart people have said this book is a classic so I don't have much else to add to the conversation I guess but it is very highly recommended.

The 5 Greatest Songs in the World (this week)

5. Let the Beat Build by Lil Wayne

I can't ever get this head out of my head. Ever. I also can't stop myself from listening to

 it nearly every day on my way to work.

4. Jack Killed Mom by Jenny Lewis

Just heard this for the first time the other day, I got her album based solely on a good review in Rolling Stone, the song is great.

3. At Least That's What You Said by Wilco

I've been listening to this one regularly for a couple years now (since the album came out) but never considered it one of my favorite songs on the album (A Ghost is Born) but for some reason I've found myself listening to this pretty much every day this month.  The guitar solo owns me.

2. Skullcrusher Mountain by Jonathan Coulton

This is only on here because of Rock Band 2 I would never have heard this song otherwise but I really, really like it.  It amuses me.

1. Cold Son by Stephen Malkmus

This is the greatest song in the world (this week).

Hollow Earth by David Standish

There has always been something about stories set inside the Earth that really captures my imagination. The comic series, The World Below has always been one of my favorites of all time (apparently I'm about the only one who feels this way as the sales were famously terrible) and I also have always enjoyed the long tradition in mainstream comics of villains (and heroes) coming up from inside the planet.

In the book Hollow Earth, David Standish takes a look at the history of the idea of a world within our world and does so to very entertaining effect.  The book is subtitled "The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface" and although that is most definitely an absurdly long subtitle it's also a very accurate description of what's inside. Based on that subtitle in addition to the great illustration on the cover of a map of the world's interior from an old fantasy novel I was instantly sold on this book.

Inside Standish starts from the beginning and shows how stories of a hollow earth stem from what was at one time a (relatively) respected scientific theory.  Edmond Halley (yeah the comet dude) based on some erroneous math as well as some logical (but incorrect) thinking determined the earth was hollow and that within there were several smaller rings which potentially could be inhabited.  

With this jumping off point the book goes into tales of the hollow earth of all different kinds from the serious explorers and scientists who wanted to go there to the pulp writers of the last several decades who simply want an excuse to have their hero fight a dinosuar.  There was even a religion, Koreshanity, that was relatively popular in the late 19th and early 20th century that held as one of it's fundamental beliefs that not only was the Earth hollow but we also are ALREADY living inside it!!

My interest in hollow earth stories stems mostly from my love of pulp sci-fi and comic books so I was most interested in reading about the stories and ideas which have come from this concept and I was not let down here at all.  Standish details stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne as well as countless other lesser known writers and uses these stories as an excuse to include short biographies of many of the writers which I really enjoyed.

Although this book seemingly is aimed at a very specific group of people I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who is even slightly interested in 19th century science or science fiction in addition to those who have an interest in how social values can effect the ideas in popular fiction you see American Imperialism as well as racism and nuclear panic all rear their heads in stories set inside the Earth.  

Great stuff and highly recommended.

Also check this out, funny.

Dudes in blue shirts with white collars...

I know it says pop culture reviews in the description of this site but I'm gonna go ahead and, on occasion review people, mainly people that annoy me of course.  

First on my list are dudes that wear blue shirts with white collars (hereafter referred to as BSWWC), I hate these guys.  Now, I completely understand that my hatred of men in BSWWC is mainly a personal thing and, possibly, it means that I am insane but I just can't shake it.  Every guy I see wearing one of these shirts comes off to me as an overconfident, greasy haired, slickster.  Maybe it is wrong of me to assign personal characteristics based on the shirt you wear but maybe you should stop trying to dress like Donald fucking Trump.  You look like an asshole and I'm going to just assume that this is the case.  

In all honestly I should be thankful for guys in BSWWC as it is a sure sign of who to avoid, much like animals in the wild will avoid a brightly colored spider, I am able pick my way through a crowd of assholes by looking for their distinguishing characteristics: leather jackets, BSWWC, pleated pants and so forth.

I guess I don't have much else to say about this but I also would like to point out that, just a moment ago I was looking around on the internet for a picture of dude in BSWWC to post here and, on a whim, typed in to Google "blue shirt white collar asshole" and sure enough found several other people making very similar comments to the ones I just typed.  To be honest, this sort of takes the wind out of my sails as I lost my enthusiasm for writing what has already been written many times but it also reassures me that others out there in the wilderness are aware of these tools.

New Ways to Die 1 - 3, Amazing Spider-Man

In the monthly Amazing Spider-Man the character Peter Parker has (relatively) recently gone through some major changes.  As a result of a story which was far too convoluted and terrible to convey here he is basically back to his traditionally normal status quo of the 60's, 70's and into the 80's.  This means that his marriage to Mary Jane has disappeared, friends that had died are back and generally most every change made in the last 20 years is out the window.  If you ask me, this is a good change even if it took some really poor writing to get here.  Also gone is writer J. Michael Straczynski which is a good thing as I never warmed up to his writing at all.

The latest story which has been coming out weekly for the last 3 weeks is New Ways to Die, it is the first major story published since the "reset" and so far I'm really enjoying it.  Written by Dan Slott with art by the John Romita Jr. (who is the greatest Spider-Man artist of all time in my opinion) this story reintroduces Spidey to Norman Osborne and Venom both of whom over the last year or so have become "good guys" themselves as members of The Thunderbolts who track down unregistered heros.  Of course Spider-Man is an unregistered hero and therein lies the conflict.  It's a very traditional ASM story where Parker is fighting the good fight while losing the public relations battle but is written with a very modern style.  The art is fantastic as is always the case with JR Jr. so I would say, if you are into super-hero comics at all this is highly recommended (at least for the life of this story and hopefully past that.)

Excellent!! Now let's make some LSD.

I just finished watching episode one of the new Fox series Fringe and I have to say I was impressed.  The story was a good mix of horror and science fiction and was along the lines of other J.J Abrams success stories like Lost and Alias.  This first episode was catchy and I'm sure will be popular but I hope it can keep up the momentum and that the story keeps moving.  Abrams' other shows thus far have always hooked me right away but I have yet to stick one out for the long haul as it always feels to me after just a few weeks that's it all just filler.

The set up is a good one, closer to Alias than Lost, in that it involves a group of people working together against a big bad guy.  In this case it looks, so far, like the antagonist will be a large corporation, Massive Dynamics, but I'm sure that will change several times throughout the season.  I really enjoyed Alias for quite some time as I found the soap opera and comedic elements blended well with some of the best action on TV at the time and this looks like it could offer similar opportunities.  My hope is that it won't get too bogged in the larger story right away and is more free just to show us smaller stories in the way X-Files did for years.

All in all the first episode was a lot of fun and I am cautiously optimistic about the series in the long run.

Plus, it's got Daniels from The Wire and that guy is awesome!

I was downtown St. Paul today... (more pics)

A few more pictures that I took.  

I was downtown St. Paul today...

I took a few pictures while there.  There were TONS of riot police completely surrounding these people that were protesting.  From everything I witnessed it was a peaceful protest despite the fact the Fox News reporter pictured below seemed to be implying there was some sort of dangerous environment there.

Nixon's Pals

If you ask me Joe Casey is, bar none, the best comic writer working over the last several years.  His work in Cable, Wildcats, Godland etc. is, for my tastes, a perfect blend of old-school superhero wackiness and more modern storytelling techniques.  On my most recent trip to the comic store I picked up his graphic novel, Nixon's Pals, based solely on an advertisement I saw in another comic, I knew nothing about the story and was basing my purchase only on Casey's name. I'm glad I did.  Nixon's Pals isn't treading any new territory for Casey, he had a sort of similar type concept in his series Codeflesh, but it sure is an entertaining idea.

Nixon is a supervillain parole officer and in this graphic novel we follow him around on his job as he tries to keep track of his special brand of lowlife.  Within the first few pages, to set the stage, we see Nixon visit one of his clients only to discover that he has built an inter-dimensional portal in his apartment which he has been using to violate parole.  

Casey's imagination is usually a stong point and this work is no exception, there are throw away characters in this book that many writers would base entire stories around (the radioactive restaurant owner for example) and Casey uses some of them for only a few panels.  The art work is solid, to me it looks like some of the better work out of Avatar comics artists like Jacen Burroughs.  The story isn't quite as good as the high-concept but it is definitely entertaining and I would like to see another story or two set in this world.

Casey continues to be, for me, really the only "can't miss" writer working in comics these days and as long as he keeps turing out entertaining, original stories like this I will continue to buy them based solely on his name on the cover.