It's that time of year again. It will happen seven or eight times between now and January. I'll be out shopping. The stores will be playing their usual blend of more-or-less hokey Christmas music. A new song comes on, and at the first words I tense up: "Have Yourself..." I can't help it. My ears are pricked, my mind derailed from whatever it was doing a minute ago. I just have to listen till I know. "...a merry little Christmas, / Let your heart be light." The next two words will determine my mood for the next 90 seconds. If I hear "From now on," I will roll my eyes, sniff a little, and frown while I shop and compose more of this rant in my head. But if perchance the words should be "Next year," I will smile with delighted surprise, and there will be a little more bounce in my step as I walk the aisles. They're actually playing the good version! I might even buy something extra from the store, as a reward for their good taste (I'm all about irrational recompense.)
I bet some of you didn't even know there were two versions of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Wikipedia will tell you everything you need to know about it. Suffice it to say, the original version (well, the second original version... Judy Garland put the kibosh on the original original) is a sweet, melancholy song, filled with the homesickness that marks all the best Christmas songs of the 20th century. The rewrite is a bunch of glib, saccharine tripe, filled with the tinselly hyper-optimism that marks all the other ones.
Not that I feel strongly about it.
I'm not going to talk about "the real meaning of Christmas"-- much. For my money, there's no subject more pregnant with poetry than this one idea: "God is born." But you don't have to sing about that. You can sing about home and family; you can sing about snow, though I'm going to have to ask you not to write any more songs about it; you can sing about winter, especially if you tie it to themes of death and rebirth or something nice and archetypical; you can sing about peace on earth and goodwill to men. But your songs about home and family will be most convincing if you're singing about how much you miss them, and your songs about peace on earth and goodwill to men will be most authentic if they recognize the ubiquity of war and hatred.
The other song I have a rant about it "What Child is This?" Last year I spent four hours searching iTunes for a recording which had the original second-verse chorus. A few of them include the proper third-verse chorus, instead of repeating "This, this is Christ the King" for all three verses, but none I could find had the second-verse. For those who haven't heard it, it goes like this:
Nails, spear shall pierce him through
The cross be borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the Word made flesh
The Babe, the son of Mary.
According to Wikipedia, this verse is typically left out "due to the rather unfestive content." I ask you, what's so unfestive about crucifixion?
Okay, bad question. Let me rather ask, Why does being festive mean pretending nothing bad happens? This is the real problem I have with the secularization of Christmas. A church festival is a celebration of an event in the past, and the implications it continues to have. So is nearly any other annual festival. In this way, most days we celebrate can allow for almost any mood and circumstance. Independence Day can be celebrated while we're at war, or in a depression. The tone of our celebration may vary, it may indeed be bitter, angry, or pained; but there's still a lot to say and think and feel about our country, and it's a day to do that. Even a birthday allows for melancholy, if that is what reflecting on one's life and aging arouses that year.
Christmas, though-- if it's not about the birth of Jesus, then no one seems to know what it is about. "Family, peace, goodwill" seem to be the best people can come up with... but these are unstable and elusive elements. How do you celebrate family if you can't stand to be near them, or if one of them has just died? How do you celebrate peace on earth with your eyes open? You can just manage it, if you focus on small graces, if you make up your mind to celebrate the isolated, illuminated moments where peace and goodwill are manifest amid the ugliness. But if you try to do it without acknowledging the ugliness, you just sound like you're kidding yourself and us.
And if you do acknowledge the ugliness, suddenly you're "not in the Christmas spirit." You're supposed to be happy at Christmas. Otherwise you join the ranks of lonely or cynical people that they make movies about, isolated from all the Christmas cheer, either wistfully making the best of it or grouchily Scroogeing everybody you can. (The people in the movies always find love, of course. Which only makes you feel worse.) You're not part of Christmas anymore, you're part of anti-Christmas.
Do what you like. If you want to keep writing and playing sappy tinsel-songs, that's your prerogative. If you want to spend one day of the year kidding yourself that all's right with the world, be my guest. But you will be doing yourself a favor if you find some other, stronger meaning to hang your Christmas on, something that will not evaporate one year when things become difficult. If you don't like my meaning, there are others you can try.
This is what my Christmas hangs on: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. / And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it. It is stirring to me, it is chilling. It encompasses family and love; it encompasses peace and charity; it encompasses the haunting beauty of winter and death and birth. And some year, when I have none of these things, when I am alone and desolate and heartbroken, it will still stand, the Word made flesh, the last thing I have to hold to. It is a song I can sing any day, any year.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
silent night
He was conceived less than 19 weeks ago. Last weekend his mother started cramping, then bleeding. By the time she came to the hospital it was too late to stop labor, so he died and was born. And because I work at that hospital, and because my mother was his mother's nurse, I got to see something most people never see.
He would just fit in the palm of a grown man's hand, with his head resting against the fingertips and his tiny heels brushing the wrist. His skin is a dark rose-color, faintly translucent; I can see shadows of organs underneath, and over his chest a ribbing of thread-thin pale lines.
His face is perfect. The eyes are closed, the head tucked over one shoulder, just the way a living newborn's head falls when he sleeps. His nose is just simply a baby's nose, rounded and soft, like the nose on a miniature baby doll, but sculpted to impossible detail. His mouth opens just a little when we pick him up to weigh him.
His head slopes high in the back-- his face and body have not yet caught up with his brain. His body is still very thin, his legs looking like the legs of a malnourished child in Africa, little more than bone and blood vessels under the skin. But his feet, like his nose, are perfect miniatures, and so are his hands, with the fingers fine as cherry-stems. We take his handprints and footprints, I holding the ink pad while my mother presses each small hand and foot against it. Living babies are only ever footprinted, because they curl their hands into tight fists. But his little palms are open, and so we have a row of prints, two hands next to two feet, each one the size of one of my fingerprints.
His weight (7 ounces) was needed for the hospital record, but the prints we took for the mother. She did not want to see him at first, but my mother convinced her to see him and hold him. This is important, because otherwise she might go home thinking that the last four months yielded nothing but blood and heartbreak. Now she can see what a strange, sweet little man has been growing all these weeks, and she will be free to love him and mourn him. She has named him John.
He has a sister who is ten years old-- the age I was when my youngest brother was born, three years older than I was when my twin brother and sister died in the womb. I wonder if he will stay with her as she grows up, if she will think at times, say once or twice a year, to how old he would be now and what he would be doing. (18-- just finishing their first semester of college. In my head, Amy plays soccer and William plays piano. The first night they're home for Christmas break, Amy will stay up all night telling me stories of boys she's gone on dates with-- she's quite the flirt.)
I saw other babies that night, living babies, pink and chubby and squalling heartily as the nurses cleaned them. But this tiny broken thing will not leave me, and I think-- I cannot begin to tell you why-- that he was more beautiful than any of them.
He would just fit in the palm of a grown man's hand, with his head resting against the fingertips and his tiny heels brushing the wrist. His skin is a dark rose-color, faintly translucent; I can see shadows of organs underneath, and over his chest a ribbing of thread-thin pale lines.
His face is perfect. The eyes are closed, the head tucked over one shoulder, just the way a living newborn's head falls when he sleeps. His nose is just simply a baby's nose, rounded and soft, like the nose on a miniature baby doll, but sculpted to impossible detail. His mouth opens just a little when we pick him up to weigh him.
His head slopes high in the back-- his face and body have not yet caught up with his brain. His body is still very thin, his legs looking like the legs of a malnourished child in Africa, little more than bone and blood vessels under the skin. But his feet, like his nose, are perfect miniatures, and so are his hands, with the fingers fine as cherry-stems. We take his handprints and footprints, I holding the ink pad while my mother presses each small hand and foot against it. Living babies are only ever footprinted, because they curl their hands into tight fists. But his little palms are open, and so we have a row of prints, two hands next to two feet, each one the size of one of my fingerprints.
His weight (7 ounces) was needed for the hospital record, but the prints we took for the mother. She did not want to see him at first, but my mother convinced her to see him and hold him. This is important, because otherwise she might go home thinking that the last four months yielded nothing but blood and heartbreak. Now she can see what a strange, sweet little man has been growing all these weeks, and she will be free to love him and mourn him. She has named him John.
He has a sister who is ten years old-- the age I was when my youngest brother was born, three years older than I was when my twin brother and sister died in the womb. I wonder if he will stay with her as she grows up, if she will think at times, say once or twice a year, to how old he would be now and what he would be doing. (18-- just finishing their first semester of college. In my head, Amy plays soccer and William plays piano. The first night they're home for Christmas break, Amy will stay up all night telling me stories of boys she's gone on dates with-- she's quite the flirt.)
I saw other babies that night, living babies, pink and chubby and squalling heartily as the nurses cleaned them. But this tiny broken thing will not leave me, and I think-- I cannot begin to tell you why-- that he was more beautiful than any of them.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
The spoiler policy
Leah asked about this, so I thought I'd post it here instead of burying it in the comments. With my discussions of movies, I will stick to what seems to be industry-standard spoiler policy: avoid giving away major plot points, especially things that occur near the end, but talk freely about general trends of action, or specific details of scenes that don't give away major plot points.
I'm always torn when faced with a review of movie I haven't seen. It's so rare to go into a movie clean-- knowing nothing more about it than you saw from posters and previews. This is pretty much how I watched Punch-Drunk Love, and I think it was a better experience because of it. But if you're going to do that, you have to either see movies as soon as they come out, or strenuously avoid reading and listening to lots of things you'd like to be reading and listening to. (Or, as happened with me and Punch-Drunk Love, wait so many years before seeing it that you've forgotten everything you'd heard about it.) Is it worth it? The consensus seems to be no, unless it's a movie where a surprise is an important part of the whole experience.
Which brings me to a tangent: what about those classic movies with a major spoiler, like Psycho and Citizen Kane? I haven't seen either, but I know the surprise in both, from numerous sources. There seems to be a point at which spoilers pass into the public domain, as it were, and it's no longer a social crime to reveal them. My real question is, when does this occur? When will it be okay to talk freely about the surprise in The Sixth Sense? It's not, yet, but there's a sense that the restriction is slackening. As fast as our culture moves, I expect it won't be many more years before the movie attains "classic" status, at least in that sense.
This gives rise to a number of interesting speculations for me... defining "classic," the pace of culture, reasons spoilers pass into the public domain, unwritten social contracts... but it's Thanksgiving, and I'm in charge of potatoes, both sweet and white. So I'll leave the discussion to be picked up by any of you who are interested.
I'm always torn when faced with a review of movie I haven't seen. It's so rare to go into a movie clean-- knowing nothing more about it than you saw from posters and previews. This is pretty much how I watched Punch-Drunk Love, and I think it was a better experience because of it. But if you're going to do that, you have to either see movies as soon as they come out, or strenuously avoid reading and listening to lots of things you'd like to be reading and listening to. (Or, as happened with me and Punch-Drunk Love, wait so many years before seeing it that you've forgotten everything you'd heard about it.) Is it worth it? The consensus seems to be no, unless it's a movie where a surprise is an important part of the whole experience.
Which brings me to a tangent: what about those classic movies with a major spoiler, like Psycho and Citizen Kane? I haven't seen either, but I know the surprise in both, from numerous sources. There seems to be a point at which spoilers pass into the public domain, as it were, and it's no longer a social crime to reveal them. My real question is, when does this occur? When will it be okay to talk freely about the surprise in The Sixth Sense? It's not, yet, but there's a sense that the restriction is slackening. As fast as our culture moves, I expect it won't be many more years before the movie attains "classic" status, at least in that sense.
This gives rise to a number of interesting speculations for me... defining "classic," the pace of culture, reasons spoilers pass into the public domain, unwritten social contracts... but it's Thanksgiving, and I'm in charge of potatoes, both sweet and white. So I'll leave the discussion to be picked up by any of you who are interested.
Monday, November 20, 2006
love in context: a double feature
-The movies: Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and Monsoon Wedding (2001)
-The link: They're both love stories. I didn't say the link had to be terribly specific.
-The comestibles: Gouda cheese, Clementines, and the leftover Shiraz from when Leah was here. I have no idea how these things are going to go together, or how they'll go with the movies, but they're what I had on hand, and tonight was kind of an afterthought. Plus, the wine really needs to be drunk.
-Thoughts and expectations: Monsoon Wedding is one of my favorite movies. Punch-Drunk Love is a movie I've wanted to see for a long time. Pretty much I walked into Blockbuster looking for a movie I that I hadn't seen, wanted to see, and could make a plausible pairing with Monsoon Wedding. I did say tonight was something of an afterthought. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
Now, for the movies.
***
Wow. What an interesting combination. I'd really love to write a separate blog entry on each one, but I don't have time. So we'll stick with a brief overview, with a particular eye to how they comment on each other.
I knew they were both love stories, and I had a hunch I'd be able to make the link more specific, but I didn't know enough about Punch-Drunk Love to be sure. Now, though, I can say that they're both love stories deeply embedded in a cultural context. The romance itself in each takes up a fairly small amount of screen time (in Monsoon Wedding, of course, there are several romances, as well as other storylines.) So you have a love story with lots of other stuff going on around it.
I'm struggling to define the culture that Punch-Drunk Love lives in. It's contemporary American, obviously, but it's more specific than that. It's a culture that hasn't been named, as far as I know, but it's very familiar to us. I might even say it's the default culture of Americans: if you don't have a group-- family, ethnic, religious, activist-- then you probably live in this culture. It's the culture of isolation and alienation. Its hallmarks are a craving for intimacy and a profound distrust of people and institutions alike. There is a desperate need to be heard, to be understood, to connect with someone, anyone, but the knowledge of how dangerous it is to reach out for that is crippling. And it's not paranoid: they really are out to get us... if not to crush us maliciously, at least to use whatever we give them for our own ends.
Punch-Drunk Love is not subtle on this point. Twice, early in the movie, Barry Egan tries to break out of his isolation. He knows the dangers. In both interactions he voices, repeatedly, his worries about what the other person might do with the information he is giving them. They assure him he's safe, protected, that this is confidential. They lie.
And this is the culture the movie lives in. How do you have a love story in this kind of world? The movie skirts this question, simply allowing, almost miraculously, that Barry meets a woman who does love him, protect him, and forgive him. He can't possibly reach out for her: the avenues he attempted earlier to break out of his isolation were both much more clinical, professional. He was looking for closeness, but a distant kind of closeness. The idea of actually looking for a woman, an intimate companion, was inconceivable to him. He did everything he could to avoid it. She found him, she pursued him, she made it safe for him to come to her.
So the hope-- I might even say the daydream-- is that a Lena Leonard will someday appear in our lives, and like us enough to persist through our weirdness until we can bear to trust her. Then we will no longer be alone... and on the strength of that astonishing, wondrous not-being-alone, we can brave and conquer all the other hostilities of our world.
The culture of Monsoon Wedding is, of course, a family in India. I don't know enough about India to judge where it fits into modern Indian culture, but I know plenty about families, so that's where I'm going to focus. Family comes with its own problems, and its own kind of isolation. Paranoia is not an issue... you pretty much know who you can rely on for what, and when there's a betrayal of trust it's shattering (as opposed to PDL, where it's expected.) But just as there is an isolation of solitude, there is an isolation of belonging. In PDL, Barry Egan says, "I don't know if there is anything wrong because I don't know how other people are." That's the isolation of solitude... you are horribly conscious of the gulf between your mind and anyone else's and you have no idea what's going on on the other side. You can't define yourself in terms of other people, as we all for some reason feel compelled to do, because other people are hopelessly distant from you.
In the isolation of belonging, you have no problem defining yourself in terms of other people. You can't escape it. Everybody in a family has their labels, and the family as a whole has an identity against the outside world. The isolation comes because you're not really defined by those labels, and you know it. You have your secrets, and you have the pieces of yourself that no-one sees. The torment here is to be in a room filled with people who know you well, and yet don't see who you are; to have someone give you a glance of understanding, and yet have no idea where your pain really comes from (I am thinking of the scene when Tej has just offered to fund Ria's education, and amid the celebration someone mentions Ria's father, and Ria's eyes fill with tears.)
In the love stories of both movies there is a moment of honesty, where one character reveals to the other something they've kept hidden. And it is that moment that forges a union between the lovers: suddenly they are no longer isolated individuals, but allies against the rest of the world, whether it is the cold, bare hostility of Punch-Drunk Love or the noisy, nosy crowd of Monsoon Wedding.
Monsoon Wedding, of course, doesn't stop there. Being about a family, it displays a range of relationships in many stages. And it is clear that the moment of honesty is not a one-time thing. As relationships continue over time, there is a continual ebb and flow of concealment and authenticity. Isolation-- reaching-- and rebuff or embrace, leading to further isolation or another moment of unity, solidarity, lasting for a while until the process starts over again. And in between? The patterns of family life, the everyday conventions we use in dealing with those close to us. The quality of these patterns largely determines whether family is a comfort or a misery, and also either facilitates or inhibits the moments of authenticity. But I have strayed now from talking about movies, so I will end here.
-The link: They're both love stories. I didn't say the link had to be terribly specific.
-The comestibles: Gouda cheese, Clementines, and the leftover Shiraz from when Leah was here. I have no idea how these things are going to go together, or how they'll go with the movies, but they're what I had on hand, and tonight was kind of an afterthought. Plus, the wine really needs to be drunk.
-Thoughts and expectations: Monsoon Wedding is one of my favorite movies. Punch-Drunk Love is a movie I've wanted to see for a long time. Pretty much I walked into Blockbuster looking for a movie I that I hadn't seen, wanted to see, and could make a plausible pairing with Monsoon Wedding. I did say tonight was something of an afterthought. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
Now, for the movies.
***
Wow. What an interesting combination. I'd really love to write a separate blog entry on each one, but I don't have time. So we'll stick with a brief overview, with a particular eye to how they comment on each other.
I knew they were both love stories, and I had a hunch I'd be able to make the link more specific, but I didn't know enough about Punch-Drunk Love to be sure. Now, though, I can say that they're both love stories deeply embedded in a cultural context. The romance itself in each takes up a fairly small amount of screen time (in Monsoon Wedding, of course, there are several romances, as well as other storylines.) So you have a love story with lots of other stuff going on around it.
I'm struggling to define the culture that Punch-Drunk Love lives in. It's contemporary American, obviously, but it's more specific than that. It's a culture that hasn't been named, as far as I know, but it's very familiar to us. I might even say it's the default culture of Americans: if you don't have a group-- family, ethnic, religious, activist-- then you probably live in this culture. It's the culture of isolation and alienation. Its hallmarks are a craving for intimacy and a profound distrust of people and institutions alike. There is a desperate need to be heard, to be understood, to connect with someone, anyone, but the knowledge of how dangerous it is to reach out for that is crippling. And it's not paranoid: they really are out to get us... if not to crush us maliciously, at least to use whatever we give them for our own ends.
Punch-Drunk Love is not subtle on this point. Twice, early in the movie, Barry Egan tries to break out of his isolation. He knows the dangers. In both interactions he voices, repeatedly, his worries about what the other person might do with the information he is giving them. They assure him he's safe, protected, that this is confidential. They lie.
And this is the culture the movie lives in. How do you have a love story in this kind of world? The movie skirts this question, simply allowing, almost miraculously, that Barry meets a woman who does love him, protect him, and forgive him. He can't possibly reach out for her: the avenues he attempted earlier to break out of his isolation were both much more clinical, professional. He was looking for closeness, but a distant kind of closeness. The idea of actually looking for a woman, an intimate companion, was inconceivable to him. He did everything he could to avoid it. She found him, she pursued him, she made it safe for him to come to her.
So the hope-- I might even say the daydream-- is that a Lena Leonard will someday appear in our lives, and like us enough to persist through our weirdness until we can bear to trust her. Then we will no longer be alone... and on the strength of that astonishing, wondrous not-being-alone, we can brave and conquer all the other hostilities of our world.
The culture of Monsoon Wedding is, of course, a family in India. I don't know enough about India to judge where it fits into modern Indian culture, but I know plenty about families, so that's where I'm going to focus. Family comes with its own problems, and its own kind of isolation. Paranoia is not an issue... you pretty much know who you can rely on for what, and when there's a betrayal of trust it's shattering (as opposed to PDL, where it's expected.) But just as there is an isolation of solitude, there is an isolation of belonging. In PDL, Barry Egan says, "I don't know if there is anything wrong because I don't know how other people are." That's the isolation of solitude... you are horribly conscious of the gulf between your mind and anyone else's and you have no idea what's going on on the other side. You can't define yourself in terms of other people, as we all for some reason feel compelled to do, because other people are hopelessly distant from you.
In the isolation of belonging, you have no problem defining yourself in terms of other people. You can't escape it. Everybody in a family has their labels, and the family as a whole has an identity against the outside world. The isolation comes because you're not really defined by those labels, and you know it. You have your secrets, and you have the pieces of yourself that no-one sees. The torment here is to be in a room filled with people who know you well, and yet don't see who you are; to have someone give you a glance of understanding, and yet have no idea where your pain really comes from (I am thinking of the scene when Tej has just offered to fund Ria's education, and amid the celebration someone mentions Ria's father, and Ria's eyes fill with tears.)
In the love stories of both movies there is a moment of honesty, where one character reveals to the other something they've kept hidden. And it is that moment that forges a union between the lovers: suddenly they are no longer isolated individuals, but allies against the rest of the world, whether it is the cold, bare hostility of Punch-Drunk Love or the noisy, nosy crowd of Monsoon Wedding.
Monsoon Wedding, of course, doesn't stop there. Being about a family, it displays a range of relationships in many stages. And it is clear that the moment of honesty is not a one-time thing. As relationships continue over time, there is a continual ebb and flow of concealment and authenticity. Isolation-- reaching-- and rebuff or embrace, leading to further isolation or another moment of unity, solidarity, lasting for a while until the process starts over again. And in between? The patterns of family life, the everyday conventions we use in dealing with those close to us. The quality of these patterns largely determines whether family is a comfort or a misery, and also either facilitates or inhibits the moments of authenticity. But I have strayed now from talking about movies, so I will end here.
Double feature: introduction
Here at a raid on the inarticulate, we like to introduce new features every so often, to continually improve the quality of blog our readers have come to...
Aw, who am I kidding? I pretty much post what I feel like posting, when I feel like it. Sometimes. If there's nothing more compelling to do. When a few kind individuals offered suggestions on how to increase my readership, I pointed out that if I increased my readership to any significant degree, it would probably involve creating expectations that I would, oh, post somewhat regularly, and with some continuity of content. And that's the very last thing I want to do.
However, I did have this really cool idea, and it involves a somewhat regular posting here, on a specific subject. And since I intend to make it a steady ritual in my life, there is some faint hope that this, the premiere, won't turn into a standalone post, as nearly all my other posts that were meant to be part of a series have.
Enough preamble. The ritual is Double Feature Night. This is where I watch two movies, with suitable accompaniment of food and drink, and then write about them a little. The parameters for the movie choice: 1- at least one has to be new to me. I'm going to try to make it both most of the time, but every so often I'll pair a movie I've seen before with a new one (as I'm doing tonight.) 2- they must be reputable movies, movies that have some claim to quality. This is not guilty-pleasure-movie night. I may occasionally break this rule if there's a good enough reason, such as pairing a high-brow movie with a low-brow movie on the same subject. Which brings me to 3- they must have something in common, or at least yield an interesting juxtaposition. This I expect will be rather easy to do, since almost any two works of art can yield an interesting juxtaposition if you want them to. Part of the fun will be in seeing what unexpected things come out of the pairings.
I expect three main benefits to come out of this new ritual. First, it will lend a bit of the whole regularity/content thing to this irregular and whim-based blog (my plan is to do this once a month. Maybe twice, if I feel like it.) Second, it will get me watching movies that have been on my list for way too long. Third, it reserves a night for me to do something I enjoy all by myself. And I need that, for reasons that are too complicated to go into here.
Final note: I am indebted for this idea to Sam and Stephen of All Movie Talk. They gave me the idea in quite a roundabout way, by twice mentioning in their show pairs of movies that I thought I'd like to watch back-to-back. The second time it happened I decided to make a ritual out of it. This paragraph really exists solely to be a plug for their podcast, by the way, so it'd be a shame if you didn't at least check it out.
Aw, who am I kidding? I pretty much post what I feel like posting, when I feel like it. Sometimes. If there's nothing more compelling to do. When a few kind individuals offered suggestions on how to increase my readership, I pointed out that if I increased my readership to any significant degree, it would probably involve creating expectations that I would, oh, post somewhat regularly, and with some continuity of content. And that's the very last thing I want to do.
However, I did have this really cool idea, and it involves a somewhat regular posting here, on a specific subject. And since I intend to make it a steady ritual in my life, there is some faint hope that this, the premiere, won't turn into a standalone post, as nearly all my other posts that were meant to be part of a series have.
Enough preamble. The ritual is Double Feature Night. This is where I watch two movies, with suitable accompaniment of food and drink, and then write about them a little. The parameters for the movie choice: 1- at least one has to be new to me. I'm going to try to make it both most of the time, but every so often I'll pair a movie I've seen before with a new one (as I'm doing tonight.) 2- they must be reputable movies, movies that have some claim to quality. This is not guilty-pleasure-movie night. I may occasionally break this rule if there's a good enough reason, such as pairing a high-brow movie with a low-brow movie on the same subject. Which brings me to 3- they must have something in common, or at least yield an interesting juxtaposition. This I expect will be rather easy to do, since almost any two works of art can yield an interesting juxtaposition if you want them to. Part of the fun will be in seeing what unexpected things come out of the pairings.
I expect three main benefits to come out of this new ritual. First, it will lend a bit of the whole regularity/content thing to this irregular and whim-based blog (my plan is to do this once a month. Maybe twice, if I feel like it.) Second, it will get me watching movies that have been on my list for way too long. Third, it reserves a night for me to do something I enjoy all by myself. And I need that, for reasons that are too complicated to go into here.
Final note: I am indebted for this idea to Sam and Stephen of All Movie Talk. They gave me the idea in quite a roundabout way, by twice mentioning in their show pairs of movies that I thought I'd like to watch back-to-back. The second time it happened I decided to make a ritual out of it. This paragraph really exists solely to be a plug for their podcast, by the way, so it'd be a shame if you didn't at least check it out.
Monday, November 13, 2006
an explanation, and a break in precedent
So my last post was more than a post. It was a boat-burning. It was the seal on a decision. Now I can say the decision is made, and I've done something to cement it.
My last post was also the beginning of my most recent law school essay attempt. Which is why posting it here was a boat-burning. If I was actually going to submit it to any schools, I wouldn't have posted it here. So my having posted it makes it final that I'm not going to submit it.
But wait-- there's more. Not only am I not going to submit that essay, I am not going to submit any other essay, written or yet-to-be written. This year. Which is a fancy way of saying, I'm not applying to law school this year.
Wow. Writing it feels weird. I've been pretty settled in the decision, but actually typing and publishing it (for all the world to see, right?) is a different thing. It's real now. Kind of like when I cut my hair... I'd been imagining and thinking of it short for two weeks, but actually seeing it short was still pretty dramatic.
Oh yeah, I cut off all my hair. That was the "thing I'm doing on Friday," for those of you keeping score at home. It's short now. I'm just starting to get used to it.
But I digress. By most counts, deciding not to apply-- yet-- to law school is more momentous than the sudden breeze at the back of my neck (though I am knitting up a new crop of scarves to get me through the winter.) And some of you probably want to know why (actually, some of you probably want to know why I cut my hair, too. But we're focusing here. On law school. Not the hair.)
It started when I was trying to write my second essay, which ended up being the one I just posted. I had weeks and weeks of false starts, though, and that's usually a bad sign. I can have problems in writing, when I'm lazy or unfocused or just not in a writing mood... and at those times one of two tactics fixes the problem: either just gritting my teeth and writing until it starts to flow, or putting it to rest for an hour or a day until I'm in a better place. But when I've tried, day after day and week after week, and pushed through actually getting words on the page, but still can't manage to hit my stride, then it's usually a sign that something else is wrong. "Something else" might be the topic I'm trying to write on, or some emotional issue that needs to be written out before I can devote creative energy to anything else... but something is wrong, and just sitting and writing won't fix it.
So I started to get this sense of something wrong, but several topic shifts weren't taking care of it. At last I managed to get an essay out, and kind of a cool one I thought. So I submitted it to my review board. (Again, for those of you keeping score at home, I did not in fact string them up by their toenails, though I wanted to for a minute or two.) They came back with basically the same response that the first essay received: great writing, interesting enough, gives insight into who you are, but not a compelling reason to admit you to my law school. (Neither of them has a law school by the way; though if they did I'd totally go.)
So after a lengthy text-message argument, which served nicely to pass the first four or five hours of my shift at work that night, I got to thinking. Then I went home and thought some more, while I was supposed to be asleep. And the end of all my thinking was: Maybe I shouldn't apply to law school yet.
It was one of those decisions I talked about in my post a couple weeks ago on decisions. I kinda knew right away that it was the right thing. But I thought about it more, because I don't trust these impulses, and also because I've been planning my entire life around being at law school next year. Only the more I thought, the more good reasons I came up with for not going yet.
The reason, in brief, is that I'm not ready yet. There are things I want to do to prepare. I'll talk about some of those later, but that's the gist of it. I put off college for the same reason, and it was one of the better decisions I've made in my life. When I went, I knew who I was and what I was about. Of course, all of that changed through my four years there, but I went in poised and focused, and that was good.
If I enter law school next year, it will be with a firm but vague conviction that that's what I want to do. And that's not enough. That's not how I do things. Nothing about the process, right now, sits well with me. My plan was to apply to a bunch of schools that seemed good to me, and then investigate them further once I'd found out whether or not I got in. But that's not how I do things either. I figure out what I want, and what steps will best help me get there, then I take them. None of this scattershot method of choosing where I'll spend three difficult years. So one of the things I need to do to prepare is visit law schools... all the ones on my list and others that seem worth investigation (anyone want to road-trip to Chicago or New York in the next seven months?)
This is good. I'm excited about it. It's a little sad, putting off returning to an academic environment for another year, but there's plenty for me to study on my own (Russian is next on the list.) And I won't mind having my intellectual freedom for a little longer. It's going to be hard for me, especially at first, to let go of all the fun things I like to do with my brain to focus on law. I want to make sure I'm fully ready before I attempt it.
So that's that. I will be entering law school no earlier than the fall of 2008. I'm pretty confident that it's the right decision, and anyway it's made. And, as I've been learning, sometimes to have a decision made is more important than having it be the right one.
My last post was also the beginning of my most recent law school essay attempt. Which is why posting it here was a boat-burning. If I was actually going to submit it to any schools, I wouldn't have posted it here. So my having posted it makes it final that I'm not going to submit it.
But wait-- there's more. Not only am I not going to submit that essay, I am not going to submit any other essay, written or yet-to-be written. This year. Which is a fancy way of saying, I'm not applying to law school this year.
Wow. Writing it feels weird. I've been pretty settled in the decision, but actually typing and publishing it (for all the world to see, right?) is a different thing. It's real now. Kind of like when I cut my hair... I'd been imagining and thinking of it short for two weeks, but actually seeing it short was still pretty dramatic.
Oh yeah, I cut off all my hair. That was the "thing I'm doing on Friday," for those of you keeping score at home. It's short now. I'm just starting to get used to it.
But I digress. By most counts, deciding not to apply-- yet-- to law school is more momentous than the sudden breeze at the back of my neck (though I am knitting up a new crop of scarves to get me through the winter.) And some of you probably want to know why (actually, some of you probably want to know why I cut my hair, too. But we're focusing here. On law school. Not the hair.)
It started when I was trying to write my second essay, which ended up being the one I just posted. I had weeks and weeks of false starts, though, and that's usually a bad sign. I can have problems in writing, when I'm lazy or unfocused or just not in a writing mood... and at those times one of two tactics fixes the problem: either just gritting my teeth and writing until it starts to flow, or putting it to rest for an hour or a day until I'm in a better place. But when I've tried, day after day and week after week, and pushed through actually getting words on the page, but still can't manage to hit my stride, then it's usually a sign that something else is wrong. "Something else" might be the topic I'm trying to write on, or some emotional issue that needs to be written out before I can devote creative energy to anything else... but something is wrong, and just sitting and writing won't fix it.
So I started to get this sense of something wrong, but several topic shifts weren't taking care of it. At last I managed to get an essay out, and kind of a cool one I thought. So I submitted it to my review board. (Again, for those of you keeping score at home, I did not in fact string them up by their toenails, though I wanted to for a minute or two.) They came back with basically the same response that the first essay received: great writing, interesting enough, gives insight into who you are, but not a compelling reason to admit you to my law school. (Neither of them has a law school by the way; though if they did I'd totally go.)
So after a lengthy text-message argument, which served nicely to pass the first four or five hours of my shift at work that night, I got to thinking. Then I went home and thought some more, while I was supposed to be asleep. And the end of all my thinking was: Maybe I shouldn't apply to law school yet.
It was one of those decisions I talked about in my post a couple weeks ago on decisions. I kinda knew right away that it was the right thing. But I thought about it more, because I don't trust these impulses, and also because I've been planning my entire life around being at law school next year. Only the more I thought, the more good reasons I came up with for not going yet.
The reason, in brief, is that I'm not ready yet. There are things I want to do to prepare. I'll talk about some of those later, but that's the gist of it. I put off college for the same reason, and it was one of the better decisions I've made in my life. When I went, I knew who I was and what I was about. Of course, all of that changed through my four years there, but I went in poised and focused, and that was good.
If I enter law school next year, it will be with a firm but vague conviction that that's what I want to do. And that's not enough. That's not how I do things. Nothing about the process, right now, sits well with me. My plan was to apply to a bunch of schools that seemed good to me, and then investigate them further once I'd found out whether or not I got in. But that's not how I do things either. I figure out what I want, and what steps will best help me get there, then I take them. None of this scattershot method of choosing where I'll spend three difficult years. So one of the things I need to do to prepare is visit law schools... all the ones on my list and others that seem worth investigation (anyone want to road-trip to Chicago or New York in the next seven months?)
This is good. I'm excited about it. It's a little sad, putting off returning to an academic environment for another year, but there's plenty for me to study on my own (Russian is next on the list.) And I won't mind having my intellectual freedom for a little longer. It's going to be hard for me, especially at first, to let go of all the fun things I like to do with my brain to focus on law. I want to make sure I'm fully ready before I attempt it.
So that's that. I will be entering law school no earlier than the fall of 2008. I'm pretty confident that it's the right decision, and anyway it's made. And, as I've been learning, sometimes to have a decision made is more important than having it be the right one.
On self-discipline
This post is more than a post. I will explain in my next post. If I actually manage to break my habit of failing to write posts that I foreshadow.
I have a problem with self-discipline. People often assume, when they hear I was homeschooled through high school, that my self-discipline must be powerful; the reasoning, I suppose, is that powerful self-discipline would be required in order to do all the work one normally does in high school without the external motivators of grades and class pressure. And they’re probably right. The flaw lies in the assumption that I actually did all the work one normally does in high school. I didn’t. In fact, at the age of sixteen I essentially dropped out of school (it’s hard to tell when you’re homeschooled, but my parents and I knew) to work full-time. When I decided I was ready for college, I took a few months to brush up on those areas of study my father and I felt I was behind in (chiefly math), and then I applied.
Even before I dropped out, my education was not the arduous, time-intensive march I see most high school students conscripted into. I studied mostly what was interesting, and occasionally what was necessary. What was interesting to me ranged from botany to Greek mythology to the Lizzie Borden trial. As I pursued these and other interests, I picked up a wealth of knowledge on any number of topics most high-school students never study. The question which my parents held with anxiety as I entered college classes for the first time was, Is it enough? Are there major holes in her education, areas where she’ll be hopelessly behind her peers?
There proved to be only one, and it wasn’t an area of study so much as a mental muscle. I found that most of my classmates, unlike myself, knew how to do boring work. They could sit at a computer screen under the weight of some assignment that they weren’t interested in, and trudge through it till it was done. I could not do this; my mind rebelled. If it was mechanical, calculative work I could manage it, but to expend creative effort on a project that didn’t interest me proved impossible.
This, of course, presented a problem, as many of the paper topics and research projects assigned to me were not of my choosing and not inherently interesting to me. But I was determined to excel in college. I suppose I could have learned self-discipline, even at that age, but I didn’t want to. My mind was free and fertile, it delighted in weaving stories and unraveling riddles. Why would I subject it to drudgery? Part of my resistance was simple distaste for an unpleasant task, and part of it was fear of losing the joy of thought that had characterized my life till then.
So I found a different way of coping. Instead of forcing my mind to bend to uninteresting work, I simply forced it to figure out how the work was interesting. This proved easier than I would have thought: it turns out that nearly everything is interesting. Some exploratory thought on a paper topic would show its relation to a question I had been thinking about, and then I could address both questions in my work. Each paper I wrote, then, both pursued my already-existing interests and expanded my ideas of what was interesting. A rich, interconnected web of questions began to form in my mind. As the web grew, the connections extended farther, until in my senior year I was seeing fractals in the novels of Nabokov. Instead of subjecting my mind to tedium, I had discovered a glorious playground of ideas, and how delightfully each question speaks to another.
I have a problem with self-discipline, if self-discipline means forcing the mind, or the body, or the heart, to do something it was not meant to do. The consequences are evident in the world of physical exertion: there is a tremendous difference between athletes who train in cooperation with the body’s strengths and internal rhythms, and those who drive their bodies by brute force of will. Both are working hard, but one is building strength and increasing capability, while the other is working toward physical breakdown. I firmly believe that it is the same with any activity of the mind. Work, by all means, but work with your mind, not against it. Instead of working toward getting the project done, work toward the ignition of interest; then you will find that the project is never done, even when completed, because the questions and ideas it has raised have been woven into your mental framework.
I have a problem with self-discipline. People often assume, when they hear I was homeschooled through high school, that my self-discipline must be powerful; the reasoning, I suppose, is that powerful self-discipline would be required in order to do all the work one normally does in high school without the external motivators of grades and class pressure. And they’re probably right. The flaw lies in the assumption that I actually did all the work one normally does in high school. I didn’t. In fact, at the age of sixteen I essentially dropped out of school (it’s hard to tell when you’re homeschooled, but my parents and I knew) to work full-time. When I decided I was ready for college, I took a few months to brush up on those areas of study my father and I felt I was behind in (chiefly math), and then I applied.
Even before I dropped out, my education was not the arduous, time-intensive march I see most high school students conscripted into. I studied mostly what was interesting, and occasionally what was necessary. What was interesting to me ranged from botany to Greek mythology to the Lizzie Borden trial. As I pursued these and other interests, I picked up a wealth of knowledge on any number of topics most high-school students never study. The question which my parents held with anxiety as I entered college classes for the first time was, Is it enough? Are there major holes in her education, areas where she’ll be hopelessly behind her peers?
There proved to be only one, and it wasn’t an area of study so much as a mental muscle. I found that most of my classmates, unlike myself, knew how to do boring work. They could sit at a computer screen under the weight of some assignment that they weren’t interested in, and trudge through it till it was done. I could not do this; my mind rebelled. If it was mechanical, calculative work I could manage it, but to expend creative effort on a project that didn’t interest me proved impossible.
This, of course, presented a problem, as many of the paper topics and research projects assigned to me were not of my choosing and not inherently interesting to me. But I was determined to excel in college. I suppose I could have learned self-discipline, even at that age, but I didn’t want to. My mind was free and fertile, it delighted in weaving stories and unraveling riddles. Why would I subject it to drudgery? Part of my resistance was simple distaste for an unpleasant task, and part of it was fear of losing the joy of thought that had characterized my life till then.
So I found a different way of coping. Instead of forcing my mind to bend to uninteresting work, I simply forced it to figure out how the work was interesting. This proved easier than I would have thought: it turns out that nearly everything is interesting. Some exploratory thought on a paper topic would show its relation to a question I had been thinking about, and then I could address both questions in my work. Each paper I wrote, then, both pursued my already-existing interests and expanded my ideas of what was interesting. A rich, interconnected web of questions began to form in my mind. As the web grew, the connections extended farther, until in my senior year I was seeing fractals in the novels of Nabokov. Instead of subjecting my mind to tedium, I had discovered a glorious playground of ideas, and how delightfully each question speaks to another.
I have a problem with self-discipline, if self-discipline means forcing the mind, or the body, or the heart, to do something it was not meant to do. The consequences are evident in the world of physical exertion: there is a tremendous difference between athletes who train in cooperation with the body’s strengths and internal rhythms, and those who drive their bodies by brute force of will. Both are working hard, but one is building strength and increasing capability, while the other is working toward physical breakdown. I firmly believe that it is the same with any activity of the mind. Work, by all means, but work with your mind, not against it. Instead of working toward getting the project done, work toward the ignition of interest; then you will find that the project is never done, even when completed, because the questions and ideas it has raised have been woven into your mental framework.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Lessons from a dysfunctional relationship: communication
These are thoughts I've kept for years. It's time for them to begin to emerge. I can only guess at how they might be received by my various readers, but to two people at least I have things to say. To one: don't worry. What you see here is not a change in me, but a reawakening of parts of me that were asleep when we met. To the other: I love you; and I know that I am not telling the whole story. But this is the part of it that, right now, is crying out to be told.
Whoever talks the most loses. If I bare my soul to you freely and without prompting, and you reveal your thoughts rarely and only after much coaxing, then you are the winner.
First, you are the winner by simple economics. If a good is flowing liberally from me to you, and only scantily from you to me, it follows that I am being steadily impoverished.
Second, you are the winner because in both exchanges I am the one betraying need. I need to share with you, and I need you to share with me. You, apparently, need neither, since you neither solicit communication from me nor volunteer information on your own. So I am weak, because I need, and you are strong, because you do not-- and you have power over me, because you control whether my needs are met.
Third, you are the winner because you have the power of superior information. You know things about me, and you can-- and do-- use them against me, while you remain impervious. You understand me, and I do not understand you. You are a cipher, I am transparent. And this is exactly how you want it.
With regard to the first, I did in time learn to stem the flow of communication. I learned to talk, if I must talk, to a notebook, or to a tree, or to God. I learned-- and I thank you for this-- that I can be a whole person unseen, unshared. I can be real without being reflected in another's eyes.
Learning not to need your communication was another matter. It was complicated because I knew that your independence was an illusion. In truth, you needed to tell me things much more than I needed to hear them... but you could hardly bring yourself to share, let alone to admit that you needed to. And so, my love, I continued to need your words-- continued to draw them out with hours of painstaking questions, bracing against rebuffs. It looked, to one watching, as if I was letting you make a fool of me, subjecting me to this mortifying ritual of supplication for your confidence. But by that time I didn't much care about foolishness.
In the end, you found other ears, and I was freed, first to be silent, then to begin to rebuild a sane pattern of communication. We talk, now, like friends. And the real measure of grace is that much of the time I don't even remember what a gift that is. The lack of astonishment in our dialogue is the most startling and beautiful thing of all.
But these things I learned from you have gone deep. The good and the bad in them are wound so closely-- independence, circumspection; constraint, frigidity-- that I hardly know how I ought to shape myself, even if I could master the fear of being exposed like that again. It is such a mixed legacy that time of ours has given me; so many twisted lessons I have learned. It is time, at the very least, to bring them into the light. This is the first.
Whoever talks the most loses. If I bare my soul to you freely and without prompting, and you reveal your thoughts rarely and only after much coaxing, then you are the winner.
First, you are the winner by simple economics. If a good is flowing liberally from me to you, and only scantily from you to me, it follows that I am being steadily impoverished.
Second, you are the winner because in both exchanges I am the one betraying need. I need to share with you, and I need you to share with me. You, apparently, need neither, since you neither solicit communication from me nor volunteer information on your own. So I am weak, because I need, and you are strong, because you do not-- and you have power over me, because you control whether my needs are met.
Third, you are the winner because you have the power of superior information. You know things about me, and you can-- and do-- use them against me, while you remain impervious. You understand me, and I do not understand you. You are a cipher, I am transparent. And this is exactly how you want it.
With regard to the first, I did in time learn to stem the flow of communication. I learned to talk, if I must talk, to a notebook, or to a tree, or to God. I learned-- and I thank you for this-- that I can be a whole person unseen, unshared. I can be real without being reflected in another's eyes.
Learning not to need your communication was another matter. It was complicated because I knew that your independence was an illusion. In truth, you needed to tell me things much more than I needed to hear them... but you could hardly bring yourself to share, let alone to admit that you needed to. And so, my love, I continued to need your words-- continued to draw them out with hours of painstaking questions, bracing against rebuffs. It looked, to one watching, as if I was letting you make a fool of me, subjecting me to this mortifying ritual of supplication for your confidence. But by that time I didn't much care about foolishness.
In the end, you found other ears, and I was freed, first to be silent, then to begin to rebuild a sane pattern of communication. We talk, now, like friends. And the real measure of grace is that much of the time I don't even remember what a gift that is. The lack of astonishment in our dialogue is the most startling and beautiful thing of all.
But these things I learned from you have gone deep. The good and the bad in them are wound so closely-- independence, circumspection; constraint, frigidity-- that I hardly know how I ought to shape myself, even if I could master the fear of being exposed like that again. It is such a mixed legacy that time of ours has given me; so many twisted lessons I have learned. It is time, at the very least, to bring them into the light. This is the first.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
On decisions
I will not be doing NaNo this year.
Some decisions are made through deliberation and calculation. Some are made in a moment; as soon as the thought occurs you know it is the right one. You may consider it afterward, weighing the consequences, but you know, as you knew from the first moment, that the decision has already been made, and everything else is just getting comfortable with it. So it was with my decision to go to law school. So it was with my decision to do what I'm doing on Friday (you'll know it when you see it... don't worry, it's not that momentous, but it is somehow important to me.) Decisions like that are not so much about what to do as about who you are. You come to a moment of definition, and you realize that your priorities and desires lead you to this path, and no other. The only decision, then, is to accept it, casting away what must be cast away and embracing what must be embraced, or to reject it, stubbornly clinging to an older self which has already died.
So it is with my decision not to do NaNo. (If you don't remember what Nano is, this post should refresh your memory.) I really wanted to do it, this probably being the last year I'll be able to commit to two thousand words a day with any trace of realism. Law school will certainly forbid it, and who knows what my life after that will be like? And last year I won for the first time, and I really wanted to enter this year knowing I can do it, and adding another victory to prove the first one wasn't a fluke. And there's this story I can't wait to write...
All of those are good reasons, but as it turns out they're not enough, because my heart isn't in it. And I've learned better than to commit to a significant investment when my heart isn't in it, no matter how many good reasons there are. (Not to say I won't ever make that mistake again, but I certainly have learned better.) I realized it while finishing my law school essay this morning (yes friends, the essay is done! assuming my review board approves it... and even if they don't, I may just string them up by their toenails and send it off anyway.) The essay is about self-discipline and intellectual freedom, as I have experienced it, and after writing a few hundred words on that subject the truth was plain: I am not going to do NaNo this year. I could try it, making a half-hearted attempt, becoming frustrated, and giving up around the 16th or 17th, or I could spend those weeks engaging in tasks that will be fruitful, because I'm truly committed to them.
So what am I going to do in November? Begin studying Russian. Get better at go. Read four or five great books (maybe more... since I started War and Peace I've forgotten how long it takes me to read a normal book.) Finish the skirt I'm embroidering for Gretchen, and maybe even Peter's afghan. And start posting to this blog again.
So goodbye, NaNo... you have been a beautiful and difficult part of my life for the last five years, and I shall miss you. But it's time to move on.
Some decisions are made through deliberation and calculation. Some are made in a moment; as soon as the thought occurs you know it is the right one. You may consider it afterward, weighing the consequences, but you know, as you knew from the first moment, that the decision has already been made, and everything else is just getting comfortable with it. So it was with my decision to go to law school. So it was with my decision to do what I'm doing on Friday (you'll know it when you see it... don't worry, it's not that momentous, but it is somehow important to me.) Decisions like that are not so much about what to do as about who you are. You come to a moment of definition, and you realize that your priorities and desires lead you to this path, and no other. The only decision, then, is to accept it, casting away what must be cast away and embracing what must be embraced, or to reject it, stubbornly clinging to an older self which has already died.
So it is with my decision not to do NaNo. (If you don't remember what Nano is, this post should refresh your memory.) I really wanted to do it, this probably being the last year I'll be able to commit to two thousand words a day with any trace of realism. Law school will certainly forbid it, and who knows what my life after that will be like? And last year I won for the first time, and I really wanted to enter this year knowing I can do it, and adding another victory to prove the first one wasn't a fluke. And there's this story I can't wait to write...
All of those are good reasons, but as it turns out they're not enough, because my heart isn't in it. And I've learned better than to commit to a significant investment when my heart isn't in it, no matter how many good reasons there are. (Not to say I won't ever make that mistake again, but I certainly have learned better.) I realized it while finishing my law school essay this morning (yes friends, the essay is done! assuming my review board approves it... and even if they don't, I may just string them up by their toenails and send it off anyway.) The essay is about self-discipline and intellectual freedom, as I have experienced it, and after writing a few hundred words on that subject the truth was plain: I am not going to do NaNo this year. I could try it, making a half-hearted attempt, becoming frustrated, and giving up around the 16th or 17th, or I could spend those weeks engaging in tasks that will be fruitful, because I'm truly committed to them.
So what am I going to do in November? Begin studying Russian. Get better at go. Read four or five great books (maybe more... since I started War and Peace I've forgotten how long it takes me to read a normal book.) Finish the skirt I'm embroidering for Gretchen, and maybe even Peter's afghan. And start posting to this blog again.
So goodbye, NaNo... you have been a beautiful and difficult part of my life for the last five years, and I shall miss you. But it's time to move on.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
to the woman who somehow thought she could make a U-turn from the center lane
It is a rare and precious moment, when such things happen, and we are for a moment face to face, staring at each other through our windows, seeing a person instead of a driver. And what strikes me most is how perfectly your expression mirrored mine: not guilt for you and outrage for me, but both of us stricken, shocked, and frightened, because something happened that we did not expect. There are people who will react in such a moment with outrage, because they have decided already that the other person is always to blame; but that is not you, and that is not me. Only afterwards did we understand what had happened, and I began to feel angry, and you perhaps to feel ashamed. In the moment, all we could realize was that something had gone wrong, and in that shock we were, for that glance, sisters.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
two high compliments for SUFJAN, a musician of unusual quality, in more senses than one
I don't know that you'd like Sufjan Stevens; and it wouldn't help if you told me what kind of music you like. I'm not familiar enough with the off-off-Broadway of the music world to know how to describe him to those who are, and to the rest of you, he will be as inexplicable and description-defying as he is to me.
At the very least, though, I recommend checking out his CD next time you're in the record store. Not buying it; just reading the back. Seven Swans won't get you anywhere, but if you can find a copy of Illinois or Michigan, just read the song titles. That should give you a clue for whether you should even begin to think about buying one of the CDs. Also, they're really fun and they make me grin.
But I have these two things to say about Sufjan, inexplicable though he may be: First, when I put a CD of his into my car player, I don't usually take it out again for about a week. Second, he has written a song which I hate to listen to, but which I can't turn off if it begins to play.
And that's what I have to say about that.
At the very least, though, I recommend checking out his CD next time you're in the record store. Not buying it; just reading the back. Seven Swans won't get you anywhere, but if you can find a copy of Illinois or Michigan, just read the song titles. That should give you a clue for whether you should even begin to think about buying one of the CDs. Also, they're really fun and they make me grin.
But I have these two things to say about Sufjan, inexplicable though he may be: First, when I put a CD of his into my car player, I don't usually take it out again for about a week. Second, he has written a song which I hate to listen to, but which I can't turn off if it begins to play.
And that's what I have to say about that.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Black and white: more newfound loves
It's taken me exactly this long to be able to declare confidently that Ben Folds is my favorite currently-recording musician. Back in school, when one's musical loves were the essence of self-definition, I was troubled by my inability to find an artist that adequately captured the voice of my inmost self. It sounds silly, writing that now, but that's the kind of project we embarked upon in school, and I can't say we're fully over it now. We evolve from "what's your favorite color?" to "who's your favorite musician?" but the object is still the same: tell me who you are, by reference to some commonly-known entity. I haven't decided yet whether "what do you do?" is the same question in the adult world, or whether most adults have just given up the need for self-definition. And if they have, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. But that's not the blog I wanted to write today anyway.
Ben Folds. Ben Folds was a troubling artist to love because he does not often write introspectively. And how can you say "this person's songs express who I am" when this person's songs don't even express who he is? Not directly anyway; not like Adam Duritz's, for example. Ben Folds writes stories and scenes and characters. Even when he's singing in the first person, it's clear that some of the time, at least, it's an adopted voice, and not a statement about himself. In that respect, he's much more like a novelist: his writing doesn't let you see inside his head, it lets you see outside, through his eyes.
Well, it should have been obvious to me, but as I said, it's taken me this long to realize that it's that very thing that makes him my perfect "favorite musician." I know the dangers of overindulging in introspective expression. First of all, it's something of a contradiction in terms, and impossible to do with complete honesty: second, you will, if you go on too long, inevitably become boring. We who are chronically self-conscious need to develop the ability of talking more about what we see than what we feel... and Ben Folds seems to have done this.
But we all know that that's just an excuse. A very necessary one, but an excuse nonetheless. You have to have reasons for liking your favorite musician, or there's nowhere for the conversation to go. But we all know the real reason I love Ben Folds: the piano.
Why I have to be in love with such an inconvenient instrument as the piano is beyond me. Most of the time I'm piano-less, and there's not much I can do about it, and I don't really play that well anyway. But you can sit at that bench and start rocking those keys and I don't care what you're singing about: you've just won my heart. When I started learning to play, I thought it was a very generic, unromantic instrument. Then I began to love it, but I thought it was only because it was the instrument I knew how to play. Now I know that it's more than that.
And this is one of those inarticulate things that I fear my powers will be insufficient to capture. I love the piano's versatility, and its self-sufficiency. I know of no other instrument that so easily converses with itself in melody, harmony, and rhythm. It can convey nearly any mood that other instruments can... though I have never heard a piano sound despairing. But it can laugh better than any of them. I love the spread of fingers playing it, and the way the tendons in the hand move running up and down the keys (they almost mirror the hammers inside.) But these are only reasons, and the truth of my love runs much deeper than that.
At any rate, I love the piano; and Ben Folds loves the piano; and I love Ben Folds. And when the three of us get together, via my CD player, there is joy.
My other new love is the game Go. It's frequently described as the Eastern equivalent of chess: a complex strategic game with an ancient heritage and analogies to warfare. It involves the placement of black and white stones on a board, in such a way as to establish territory and surround and capture your opponent. I could explain the rules to you in five minutes... but it's taken me several weeks to grasp the strategy enough to play a game with some understanding of my own moves.
It's an elegant game, extreme simplicity yielding vast complexity. I like that about it, and I like that it involves playing with patterns and shapes. I watched a game between two players today, and most of the time I could only vaguely read the meanings behind each move, but I could begin to see how the board might look to me after I've been playing for a while, with patterns and possibilities readable at a glance.
It seems strange and presumptuous of me to attempt a comparison between go and chess, since I have such a limited understanding of both games... but what are private blogs for but to wax eloquent on subjects we're underqualified in? It seems to me, then, that they're on a roughly equal plane of complexity, but it comes from very different sources. Chess requires more raw analytical power: processing moves and their consequences far in advance. Go uses this as well, but it's less critical to good play. There are so many different styles and strategies that can be used toward victory, that it requires more of creativity and flexibility than chess does; at least, that's how it appears to my novice eyes.
In chess the pieces are distinct from each other, and combine into fairly rigid power structures; in go every piece is identical, and the meaning and role of each piece depends on the shape of the stones around it. This means that a given stone or group of stones may play several different roles in the course of a game, and you have to keep alert to the fluidity of possibilities.
Yeah... so I'm hooked.
Ben Folds. Ben Folds was a troubling artist to love because he does not often write introspectively. And how can you say "this person's songs express who I am" when this person's songs don't even express who he is? Not directly anyway; not like Adam Duritz's, for example. Ben Folds writes stories and scenes and characters. Even when he's singing in the first person, it's clear that some of the time, at least, it's an adopted voice, and not a statement about himself. In that respect, he's much more like a novelist: his writing doesn't let you see inside his head, it lets you see outside, through his eyes.
Well, it should have been obvious to me, but as I said, it's taken me this long to realize that it's that very thing that makes him my perfect "favorite musician." I know the dangers of overindulging in introspective expression. First of all, it's something of a contradiction in terms, and impossible to do with complete honesty: second, you will, if you go on too long, inevitably become boring. We who are chronically self-conscious need to develop the ability of talking more about what we see than what we feel... and Ben Folds seems to have done this.
But we all know that that's just an excuse. A very necessary one, but an excuse nonetheless. You have to have reasons for liking your favorite musician, or there's nowhere for the conversation to go. But we all know the real reason I love Ben Folds: the piano.
Why I have to be in love with such an inconvenient instrument as the piano is beyond me. Most of the time I'm piano-less, and there's not much I can do about it, and I don't really play that well anyway. But you can sit at that bench and start rocking those keys and I don't care what you're singing about: you've just won my heart. When I started learning to play, I thought it was a very generic, unromantic instrument. Then I began to love it, but I thought it was only because it was the instrument I knew how to play. Now I know that it's more than that.
And this is one of those inarticulate things that I fear my powers will be insufficient to capture. I love the piano's versatility, and its self-sufficiency. I know of no other instrument that so easily converses with itself in melody, harmony, and rhythm. It can convey nearly any mood that other instruments can... though I have never heard a piano sound despairing. But it can laugh better than any of them. I love the spread of fingers playing it, and the way the tendons in the hand move running up and down the keys (they almost mirror the hammers inside.) But these are only reasons, and the truth of my love runs much deeper than that.
At any rate, I love the piano; and Ben Folds loves the piano; and I love Ben Folds. And when the three of us get together, via my CD player, there is joy.
My other new love is the game Go. It's frequently described as the Eastern equivalent of chess: a complex strategic game with an ancient heritage and analogies to warfare. It involves the placement of black and white stones on a board, in such a way as to establish territory and surround and capture your opponent. I could explain the rules to you in five minutes... but it's taken me several weeks to grasp the strategy enough to play a game with some understanding of my own moves.
It's an elegant game, extreme simplicity yielding vast complexity. I like that about it, and I like that it involves playing with patterns and shapes. I watched a game between two players today, and most of the time I could only vaguely read the meanings behind each move, but I could begin to see how the board might look to me after I've been playing for a while, with patterns and possibilities readable at a glance.
It seems strange and presumptuous of me to attempt a comparison between go and chess, since I have such a limited understanding of both games... but what are private blogs for but to wax eloquent on subjects we're underqualified in? It seems to me, then, that they're on a roughly equal plane of complexity, but it comes from very different sources. Chess requires more raw analytical power: processing moves and their consequences far in advance. Go uses this as well, but it's less critical to good play. There are so many different styles and strategies that can be used toward victory, that it requires more of creativity and flexibility than chess does; at least, that's how it appears to my novice eyes.
In chess the pieces are distinct from each other, and combine into fairly rigid power structures; in go every piece is identical, and the meaning and role of each piece depends on the shape of the stones around it. This means that a given stone or group of stones may play several different roles in the course of a game, and you have to keep alert to the fluidity of possibilities.
Yeah... so I'm hooked.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
On sequels
I love the new Dr. Who.
I know I'm a little behind the times, the Brits are winding up their second season, but the first was only just released on DVD and I only just borrowed the set from my rabid-fanatic sister.
Sometimes I forget that my rabid-fanatic sister and I come from the same gene pool. Then something like this comes along, and I remember.
No, but really. I love the new Dr. Who. I didn't dare hope it would be as good as it is.
And this is the really great thing: not only does it not disappoint-- and there was a lot of room for disappointment-- not only does it stay true to the old show and carry on faithfully where the old one left off... but it's good. Really good. You just want to keep watching it. At least if you're me. It's not just the old show revisited; it's alive, it's rooted and growing, it's a real show in its own right. It's terribly exciting.
And that's what a good sequel needs to be. I used to be much more conservative about sequels. I wanted them to stay tied to the original, without going much beyond the bounds of what the original established. But that's no way to write a story. For a sequel to be great, it needs to make the characters and history from the original story grow beyond what they were. It needs to be organic, it needs to be true to what was established, but then it needs to go further.
Here's another great sequel: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. And it's great for the same reason. It's not afraid to plow new ground. All three of its main characters (as well as two secondary characters) develop new qualities and new struggles... but the seeds of each quality and struggle were there in the first movie.
In a bad sequel, the characters face new problems, but they handle them in the exact same way. In a very bad sequel, characters go completely off the wall and do things utterly discordant with their earlier selves. But in a great sequel, characters face problems and situations that they can't handle in the old way, and the ways they find to handle them reveal new things about them-- to themselves and to us.
What Elizabeth does at the end of Pirates II ranks as one of my favorite character moments of all time. It's completely unexpected and shocking, and yet completely true to what she's been before. And it opens up vast new prospects on who she is and what she's capable of. I'm very excited to see what happens with her in the next movie... it's got so much potential, and I'm reasonably confident in Ted and Terry to write it out.
So yay for good sequels. And yay for the seven remaining Dr. Who episodes I have waiting for me at home.
I know I'm a little behind the times, the Brits are winding up their second season, but the first was only just released on DVD and I only just borrowed the set from my rabid-fanatic sister.
Sometimes I forget that my rabid-fanatic sister and I come from the same gene pool. Then something like this comes along, and I remember.
No, but really. I love the new Dr. Who. I didn't dare hope it would be as good as it is.
And this is the really great thing: not only does it not disappoint-- and there was a lot of room for disappointment-- not only does it stay true to the old show and carry on faithfully where the old one left off... but it's good. Really good. You just want to keep watching it. At least if you're me. It's not just the old show revisited; it's alive, it's rooted and growing, it's a real show in its own right. It's terribly exciting.
And that's what a good sequel needs to be. I used to be much more conservative about sequels. I wanted them to stay tied to the original, without going much beyond the bounds of what the original established. But that's no way to write a story. For a sequel to be great, it needs to make the characters and history from the original story grow beyond what they were. It needs to be organic, it needs to be true to what was established, but then it needs to go further.
Here's another great sequel: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. And it's great for the same reason. It's not afraid to plow new ground. All three of its main characters (as well as two secondary characters) develop new qualities and new struggles... but the seeds of each quality and struggle were there in the first movie.
In a bad sequel, the characters face new problems, but they handle them in the exact same way. In a very bad sequel, characters go completely off the wall and do things utterly discordant with their earlier selves. But in a great sequel, characters face problems and situations that they can't handle in the old way, and the ways they find to handle them reveal new things about them-- to themselves and to us.
What Elizabeth does at the end of Pirates II ranks as one of my favorite character moments of all time. It's completely unexpected and shocking, and yet completely true to what she's been before. And it opens up vast new prospects on who she is and what she's capable of. I'm very excited to see what happens with her in the next movie... it's got so much potential, and I'm reasonably confident in Ted and Terry to write it out.
So yay for good sequels. And yay for the seven remaining Dr. Who episodes I have waiting for me at home.
Monday, April 24, 2006
a quartet of book reviews: II
The second book I read was The Wizard Test, by Hilari Bell. I read it all the way through, and was moderately entertained as I did so. Bell has some strengths; the world she wrote in was neatly drawn, though not remarkable, and she created a couple of pretty good characters. The secondary character, in particular, was very engaging. But still I didn't find the book worthy of the hearty endorsement Uncle Orson gave it. It seemed altogether too lightweight: not in themes or content, but in execution. It was a book I could have written, without giving it too much sweat. In fact I would guess Hilari Bell is at about the same level I am as a writer. Difference is I mean to get a lot better before trying to have anything published.
There's a lot of inventiveness in the book, and good details holding images together. There's a nicely constructed social system, with soldiers, who are held in high honor, and wizards, who are considered unreliable and looked on with scorn. The main character is an aspiring soldier who's found, to his dismay, to have aptitude for magic. He's an interesting enough character, with strong desires. It's not his fault he's named Dayven, which sounds far too much like an uber-trendy baby name of the present day (though I admit my perspective was already turned that way, having read that the main character of another of her books is named Makenna.) And the writer creates both some good, tight situations and some interesting moments.
The problem? I was not remotely moved or captivated by anything in the book. I was, as Dave Lister would say, completely ungripped. I read it, and was entertained enough to keep reading, but if every copy of the book in the world, including mine, had spontaneously combusted while I was in the middle of it, it wouldn't have disturbed me for a minute.
Actually, that's a great test to put a book to: the spontaneous combustion test. If every copy spontaneously combusted while someone was in the middle of reading it, thereby preventing them from ever finishing, how upset would they be? My mind scans over a list of old favorites: Emma-- greatly upset. Crime and Punishment-- greatly upset (except when I was writing my paper on it. Then I would have been ecstatic-- but by then I had finished it anyway, so never mind.) Lord of the Rings-- greatly upset. Ender's Game-- just about frantic.
Anyway, for all its mild virtues, The Wizard Test utterly fails the spontaneous combustion test. Not only did it not hold me in any kind of suspense, it failed to move me in any way. I can only think of one moment in the book that aroused any kind of emotion in me. And it's not the fault of the plot: there's lots of great issues, like loyalty and friendship, an interesting moral dilemma, war and peace and destruction of the land.
I've read books that had this problem before. Some of them came from one of my favorite authors, Lloyd Alexander. Many of his later books just seem lackluster, like he's skimming the surface of a good story, but never quite diving down into it (and thus not allowing the reader to dive into it either.) I don't know what this comes from, but I suspect it is laziness: a writer knows how to string together a good plot, and does it smoothly, almost mechanically. A story doesn't come alive, though, by a smooth mechanical process. It takes wrestling, wrestling with characters and details, and it takes flexibility, a willingness to let go of your first ideas so that they can bloom into new shapes. That's what I think, anyway.
For someone like Alexander, he can get away with writing a lightweight book because he's already such a big name in the genre that they'll publish anything he writes. Now I'm interested to read Bell's other books, to see if they all suffer from the same problem or if she wrote The Wizard Test coasting on an earlier, much more difficult book.
Lessons learned:
1) Don't be lazy. Work harder to know your characters, to make them come to life. Think more freely and loosely about your plot; when something's not working, be truly creative with your new ideas. Don't be afraid to go into difficult places. If it doesn't hurt a little, it's not great writing.
There's a lot of inventiveness in the book, and good details holding images together. There's a nicely constructed social system, with soldiers, who are held in high honor, and wizards, who are considered unreliable and looked on with scorn. The main character is an aspiring soldier who's found, to his dismay, to have aptitude for magic. He's an interesting enough character, with strong desires. It's not his fault he's named Dayven, which sounds far too much like an uber-trendy baby name of the present day (though I admit my perspective was already turned that way, having read that the main character of another of her books is named Makenna.) And the writer creates both some good, tight situations and some interesting moments.
The problem? I was not remotely moved or captivated by anything in the book. I was, as Dave Lister would say, completely ungripped. I read it, and was entertained enough to keep reading, but if every copy of the book in the world, including mine, had spontaneously combusted while I was in the middle of it, it wouldn't have disturbed me for a minute.
Actually, that's a great test to put a book to: the spontaneous combustion test. If every copy spontaneously combusted while someone was in the middle of reading it, thereby preventing them from ever finishing, how upset would they be? My mind scans over a list of old favorites: Emma-- greatly upset. Crime and Punishment-- greatly upset (except when I was writing my paper on it. Then I would have been ecstatic-- but by then I had finished it anyway, so never mind.) Lord of the Rings-- greatly upset. Ender's Game-- just about frantic.
Anyway, for all its mild virtues, The Wizard Test utterly fails the spontaneous combustion test. Not only did it not hold me in any kind of suspense, it failed to move me in any way. I can only think of one moment in the book that aroused any kind of emotion in me. And it's not the fault of the plot: there's lots of great issues, like loyalty and friendship, an interesting moral dilemma, war and peace and destruction of the land.
I've read books that had this problem before. Some of them came from one of my favorite authors, Lloyd Alexander. Many of his later books just seem lackluster, like he's skimming the surface of a good story, but never quite diving down into it (and thus not allowing the reader to dive into it either.) I don't know what this comes from, but I suspect it is laziness: a writer knows how to string together a good plot, and does it smoothly, almost mechanically. A story doesn't come alive, though, by a smooth mechanical process. It takes wrestling, wrestling with characters and details, and it takes flexibility, a willingness to let go of your first ideas so that they can bloom into new shapes. That's what I think, anyway.
For someone like Alexander, he can get away with writing a lightweight book because he's already such a big name in the genre that they'll publish anything he writes. Now I'm interested to read Bell's other books, to see if they all suffer from the same problem or if she wrote The Wizard Test coasting on an earlier, much more difficult book.
Lessons learned:
1) Don't be lazy. Work harder to know your characters, to make them come to life. Think more freely and loosely about your plot; when something's not working, be truly creative with your new ideas. Don't be afraid to go into difficult places. If it doesn't hurt a little, it's not great writing.
a quartet of book reviews: I
One of the coolest things about my job (my aspiring-novelist job, that is, not any of the others that I occasionally hold) is that part of the job is keeping up on the most recent books in my field. The upshot of that is that I get to consider it a duty to read lots of JFIC and YA fantasy novels... which is pretty much my favorite thing to do anyway.
Conveniently, Uncle Orson is a big fan of this genre as well, and has reviewed quite a few books recently. I picked up Megan Whalen Turner's Eugenides books not long ago on his recommendation, and enjoyed them so much I went combing through his past reviews for other recommendations. I picked out four, all from different authors, put them on hold at my library, and have diligently been plowing through them over the last week.
It's a mixed bag. He's an interesting reviewer, is Uncle Orson... I tend to agree with him in principle on what makes a great story, but I've found I often disagree with him when it comes to how well a particular book or movie does in fulfilling the principles. All four of the books I got received high praise, but I found one of them unpalatable, one weak, and one good but not nearly as momentous as he made it out to be. I've learned a good bit already about my craft, though, from reading them.
The unpalatable one was Mira, Mirror, by Mette Ivie Harrison. I was very excited about this one: it's a spinoff of Snow White, telling the story of a girl who was betrayed and trapped in a magic mirror. What a cool concept! To my disappointment, though, the Snow White story was barely touched on, and finished off, as far as I can tell, in the first chapter. The rest of the story seems to be entirely unrelated to the fairy tale, and instead tells the story of the mirror-girl's own redemption. I say "seems" because I only got a few chapters in. The promise of seeing a new and intriguing twist on the familiar story held my interest during the prologue, but once it became apparent that we weren't going to deal with Snow White, I found little reason to keep reading.
Two factors combined for this book's downfall. First, it's unpleasant. Magical power, in this story, comes from absorbing the life-force of another, usually by being present as he, she, or it dies. Apparently the more painful the death, the more power it gives. This doesn't make for a world I'm anxious to spend a lot of time in.
Unpleasantness alone, though, isn't enough to make a book off-putting. A book in an unpleasant world, or dealing with unpleasant things, can be very compelling. But it has to be compelling. This book, as far as I read it, simply... isn't. In fact, on the whole, I found it pretty dull. The world seems to be generic fairy-tale land, a woodsy medieval society without any distinguishing features other than the death=magic idea. And the main character is even duller. She starts out weak and innocent, and becomes weak and guilty. After being trapped in a mirror for a hundred-odd years, she has few scruples about doing what it takes to get herself out, from killing a huntsman to deceiving a lost peasant girl.
It is hard to be sympathetic to a character who behaves cruelly. It is even harder to be sympathetic to a character who behaves cruelly out of weakness. She does the things she does because she is desperate, but there's no power even in her desperation. There's no strength anywhere in her to make her interesting, no potent conflict. She doesn't agonize over the huntsman she kills to keep herself alive; she just feels vaguely sorry but tells herself she had no choice, and lets it go.
This illustrates for me something writing teachers have always said: characters need to be strong. They can be nice or they can be mean, they can be powerful or powerless, but there needs to be strength. Passion. Conflict. Something. If she's going to rationalize her behavior, let her rationalize passionately. Whatever she's doing, let her struggle. If this character had been sweet and pleasant and kind, I might have kept reading, but I would still have been bored. But an unpleasant and dull character gives me no reason at all to keep going.
The peasant girl who the mirror-girl seizes on as her ticket to freedom is, as far as I can tell, a sweet and pleasant and dull character. From the shape of the first few chapters, I could tell you how the story will proceed: the nasty and dull mirror-girl will continue trying to take advantage of the sweet and dull peasant girl, until the peasant girl's sweetness begins to penetrate and the mirror-girl has a change of heart. Maybe at some point some intensity will gather somewhere, and the book will become interesting. I don't really care to find out.
Lessons learned:
1) A fascinating biography, remarkable predicament, or link to an interesting subject are not enough to make a character interesting. If there is no spark or strength or struggle, the character is going to be boring, and that is that.
2) If you're going to make your story or your setting unpleasant, you've got to work extra hard to make it worth reading.
3) No one owes you a reading. You have to earn the readers' interest, and you have to earn it from the beginning, or they will get bored and quit. It doesn't matter how powerful and fascinating your ending is, if you lose half your readers at the beginning.
Conveniently, Uncle Orson is a big fan of this genre as well, and has reviewed quite a few books recently. I picked up Megan Whalen Turner's Eugenides books not long ago on his recommendation, and enjoyed them so much I went combing through his past reviews for other recommendations. I picked out four, all from different authors, put them on hold at my library, and have diligently been plowing through them over the last week.
It's a mixed bag. He's an interesting reviewer, is Uncle Orson... I tend to agree with him in principle on what makes a great story, but I've found I often disagree with him when it comes to how well a particular book or movie does in fulfilling the principles. All four of the books I got received high praise, but I found one of them unpalatable, one weak, and one good but not nearly as momentous as he made it out to be. I've learned a good bit already about my craft, though, from reading them.
The unpalatable one was Mira, Mirror, by Mette Ivie Harrison. I was very excited about this one: it's a spinoff of Snow White, telling the story of a girl who was betrayed and trapped in a magic mirror. What a cool concept! To my disappointment, though, the Snow White story was barely touched on, and finished off, as far as I can tell, in the first chapter. The rest of the story seems to be entirely unrelated to the fairy tale, and instead tells the story of the mirror-girl's own redemption. I say "seems" because I only got a few chapters in. The promise of seeing a new and intriguing twist on the familiar story held my interest during the prologue, but once it became apparent that we weren't going to deal with Snow White, I found little reason to keep reading.
Two factors combined for this book's downfall. First, it's unpleasant. Magical power, in this story, comes from absorbing the life-force of another, usually by being present as he, she, or it dies. Apparently the more painful the death, the more power it gives. This doesn't make for a world I'm anxious to spend a lot of time in.
Unpleasantness alone, though, isn't enough to make a book off-putting. A book in an unpleasant world, or dealing with unpleasant things, can be very compelling. But it has to be compelling. This book, as far as I read it, simply... isn't. In fact, on the whole, I found it pretty dull. The world seems to be generic fairy-tale land, a woodsy medieval society without any distinguishing features other than the death=magic idea. And the main character is even duller. She starts out weak and innocent, and becomes weak and guilty. After being trapped in a mirror for a hundred-odd years, she has few scruples about doing what it takes to get herself out, from killing a huntsman to deceiving a lost peasant girl.
It is hard to be sympathetic to a character who behaves cruelly. It is even harder to be sympathetic to a character who behaves cruelly out of weakness. She does the things she does because she is desperate, but there's no power even in her desperation. There's no strength anywhere in her to make her interesting, no potent conflict. She doesn't agonize over the huntsman she kills to keep herself alive; she just feels vaguely sorry but tells herself she had no choice, and lets it go.
This illustrates for me something writing teachers have always said: characters need to be strong. They can be nice or they can be mean, they can be powerful or powerless, but there needs to be strength. Passion. Conflict. Something. If she's going to rationalize her behavior, let her rationalize passionately. Whatever she's doing, let her struggle. If this character had been sweet and pleasant and kind, I might have kept reading, but I would still have been bored. But an unpleasant and dull character gives me no reason at all to keep going.
The peasant girl who the mirror-girl seizes on as her ticket to freedom is, as far as I can tell, a sweet and pleasant and dull character. From the shape of the first few chapters, I could tell you how the story will proceed: the nasty and dull mirror-girl will continue trying to take advantage of the sweet and dull peasant girl, until the peasant girl's sweetness begins to penetrate and the mirror-girl has a change of heart. Maybe at some point some intensity will gather somewhere, and the book will become interesting. I don't really care to find out.
Lessons learned:
1) A fascinating biography, remarkable predicament, or link to an interesting subject are not enough to make a character interesting. If there is no spark or strength or struggle, the character is going to be boring, and that is that.
2) If you're going to make your story or your setting unpleasant, you've got to work extra hard to make it worth reading.
3) No one owes you a reading. You have to earn the readers' interest, and you have to earn it from the beginning, or they will get bored and quit. It doesn't matter how powerful and fascinating your ending is, if you lose half your readers at the beginning.
Friday, April 14, 2006
a poem by someone else, for today
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only cure is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's, curse
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
-T. S. Eliot
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only cure is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's, curse
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
-T. S. Eliot
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
a parable
There was a great temple court, with many people walking around in it. And as I looked, I saw that each person, in their hands, held one or more stones. Some of them held common pebbles; some held lovely-colored rocks; some held pearls, sapphires, and rubies. And every now and again someone would approach the altar, kneel in prayer, and, sometimes with merely a sigh, sometimes with tears of anguish, would drop whatever stone he or she held. That person would kneel empty-handed for a moment-- though sometimes, watching them, it felt much longer-- and then a wonderful thing happened. A new stone appeared in the person's open hands, and the new stone was always of greater value than the one the person had released.
Now as I watched, two men caught my attention. The first was tall, neatly dressed, with an air of wisdom about him. And the stone in his hand was very lovely indeed-- I believe it was an emerald. And as he walked about the temple court, many people approached him, asking for his insight or assistance, and he always gave it gladly, and his words were always wise. I watched this man for a long time-- it seemed sometimes many years-- and in time something struck me. In all his walkings about the court, he never went near the altar. And it seemed to me, though I may have been imagining it, that he even avoided looking at it, except out of the corner of his eye.
As I saw and puzzled over this, a second man approached near where I stood. He looked very poor indeed, dirty and tired. I looked to his hands, and saw that they held only dripping mud. It dripped everywhere he went, and its stains were covering his clothes. He came to the altar very slowly, on halting feet, and knelt as an old man kneels. Then he stayed motionless, mud still dripping, even staining the ground near the altar. At last he cried out in a loud voice, "Father, I cannot drop it! But take it from me if you will."
I left the temple soon after that, and have never returned. But I think sometimes of those two men, and wonder which of the two stands nearer to God's heart? And if I returned, which one would I now see more richly blessed?
Now as I watched, two men caught my attention. The first was tall, neatly dressed, with an air of wisdom about him. And the stone in his hand was very lovely indeed-- I believe it was an emerald. And as he walked about the temple court, many people approached him, asking for his insight or assistance, and he always gave it gladly, and his words were always wise. I watched this man for a long time-- it seemed sometimes many years-- and in time something struck me. In all his walkings about the court, he never went near the altar. And it seemed to me, though I may have been imagining it, that he even avoided looking at it, except out of the corner of his eye.
As I saw and puzzled over this, a second man approached near where I stood. He looked very poor indeed, dirty and tired. I looked to his hands, and saw that they held only dripping mud. It dripped everywhere he went, and its stains were covering his clothes. He came to the altar very slowly, on halting feet, and knelt as an old man kneels. Then he stayed motionless, mud still dripping, even staining the ground near the altar. At last he cried out in a loud voice, "Father, I cannot drop it! But take it from me if you will."
I left the temple soon after that, and have never returned. But I think sometimes of those two men, and wonder which of the two stands nearer to God's heart? And if I returned, which one would I now see more richly blessed?
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
On Lazarus
Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend.
Of all the mysteries of God and love, this is one of the strangest to me. Jesus already knew he was going to raise Lazarus: he'd said to his disciples, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." He already knew-- he was there to heal-- but he wept.
Why? I've never quite understood it... but I think it's related to something in my earlier post. Death is a product of evil, a destruction of what is precious to the heart of God, and he grieves over it...
...even while he prepares to restore it.
Of all the mysteries of God and love, this is one of the strangest to me. Jesus already knew he was going to raise Lazarus: he'd said to his disciples, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." He already knew-- he was there to heal-- but he wept.
Why? I've never quite understood it... but I think it's related to something in my earlier post. Death is a product of evil, a destruction of what is precious to the heart of God, and he grieves over it...
...even while he prepares to restore it.
a poem by someone else
O yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not one moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
-Tennyson
***
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
These truths are not written for the times when they are easy to believe.
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not one moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
-Tennyson
***
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
These truths are not written for the times when they are easy to believe.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
O death
Recently I was listening to a song-- a hymn I think-- talking about how Christ's sacrifice has conquered death. And for a moment it was hard for me to relate to. I am not accustomed to thinking of death as a bad thing. Death, for us, is a release, it's going home. "To die is gain." I understood, of course, that it would not be that way unless Jesus had died and come to life again... that death is, inherently, an abomination. But the sting of death being removed, I found it hard for a moment to receive as a present comfort the reminder that Christ has conquered death.
Then I thought some more, as is my wont. And this hit me: death-- literal, physical death-- is only the culmination of the lifelong process of dying which we all undergo. We are dying every day, you and I. It was the truth, when God said to Adam, "On the day you eat that fruit you will surely die." They died that day, and every day afterward, for hundreds of years, until the final death came upon them.
It was death to feel shame in their nakedness. It was death, a terrible death, to hear the footsteps of their Lord and maker and be afraid. It was death to be driven from the garden. All these deaths they died then and there... and then went out into the world outside the garden, where death was ever-present.
It was death to me to leave my beloved friends in Atlanta. It was death, when I was five years old, when I left a beloved stuffed raccoon at a park and never found it again (I still remember the grief, and my mother's inability to comfort me.) Everywhere around us, beloved, beautiful things are being lost or destroyed. Loss, great and small, is so common that we even forget that it was never meant to be. We say "that's the way life is." But it's not. That's the way death is, and we live in a world which is ruled by death.
But Christ has conquered death. Not only the last death, but all the smaller deaths that we die before it. Even the ones that we force ourselves to accept because they're "the right thing." They're not the right thing... the best of all possible evils is still an evil. They may be absolutely necessary... they may be the best thing to do... but they're still deaths.
I've just finished listening through the Chronicles of Narnia. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Reepicheep goes off at the very end to seek the utter East. And it's a good thing-- it's his dream and his destiny, and he rejoices to do it. But it means leaving his friends and traveling companions. And we miss him! It's the right thing to happen, but it's sad. Literature is full of this sort of thing. Every good story (give me a counterexample if you can) features at least one death, in this sense. Often it's a "good death." It's the right thing to happen in the story... but it's still a death.
C. S. Lewis takes us a little further than most literature, though. He takes us beyond death. In The Last Battle, our friends Peter and Edmund and Lucy (who were previously told they could never go back to Narnia... another death) and the other friends of Narnia are walking through Aslan's country. And who walks out of the gate to meet them... Reepicheep! And all the other heroes of Narnia who died, of old age or in battle. Death is undone, even the so-called "good deaths." All is made right, right in a way our death-accustomed minds can barely imagine. Blessing is poured on blessing. There are no mixed joys, no bittersweet victories.
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."
Then I thought some more, as is my wont. And this hit me: death-- literal, physical death-- is only the culmination of the lifelong process of dying which we all undergo. We are dying every day, you and I. It was the truth, when God said to Adam, "On the day you eat that fruit you will surely die." They died that day, and every day afterward, for hundreds of years, until the final death came upon them.
It was death to feel shame in their nakedness. It was death, a terrible death, to hear the footsteps of their Lord and maker and be afraid. It was death to be driven from the garden. All these deaths they died then and there... and then went out into the world outside the garden, where death was ever-present.
It was death to me to leave my beloved friends in Atlanta. It was death, when I was five years old, when I left a beloved stuffed raccoon at a park and never found it again (I still remember the grief, and my mother's inability to comfort me.) Everywhere around us, beloved, beautiful things are being lost or destroyed. Loss, great and small, is so common that we even forget that it was never meant to be. We say "that's the way life is." But it's not. That's the way death is, and we live in a world which is ruled by death.
But Christ has conquered death. Not only the last death, but all the smaller deaths that we die before it. Even the ones that we force ourselves to accept because they're "the right thing." They're not the right thing... the best of all possible evils is still an evil. They may be absolutely necessary... they may be the best thing to do... but they're still deaths.
I've just finished listening through the Chronicles of Narnia. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Reepicheep goes off at the very end to seek the utter East. And it's a good thing-- it's his dream and his destiny, and he rejoices to do it. But it means leaving his friends and traveling companions. And we miss him! It's the right thing to happen, but it's sad. Literature is full of this sort of thing. Every good story (give me a counterexample if you can) features at least one death, in this sense. Often it's a "good death." It's the right thing to happen in the story... but it's still a death.
C. S. Lewis takes us a little further than most literature, though. He takes us beyond death. In The Last Battle, our friends Peter and Edmund and Lucy (who were previously told they could never go back to Narnia... another death) and the other friends of Narnia are walking through Aslan's country. And who walks out of the gate to meet them... Reepicheep! And all the other heroes of Narnia who died, of old age or in battle. Death is undone, even the so-called "good deaths." All is made right, right in a way our death-accustomed minds can barely imagine. Blessing is poured on blessing. There are no mixed joys, no bittersweet victories.
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."
Monday, January 16, 2006
On hope, part two
I don't like hope very much. Maybe it's because my mind dwells near-exclusively in the future, and my heart is much more responsive to what might be than to what is. Whatever the reason, I don't like hope very much.
When I looked up, in an online concordance, occurances of the word 'hope' in the Bible, the first one was from Ruth. The second was from Ezra. The next fifteen were from Job.
That's right, folks, barely a mention in the first third of the Bible, and then it's all over Job. The pattern continues, too. The word is scattered all through the psalms and the prophets-- then it all but disappears in the Gospels. Barely a mention of hope when Jesus is present. There wouldn't be, of course... he is the fulfillment. What need for hope when the bridegroom is present? Hope returns, though, starting in Acts and all through the letters.
This should tell you something about hope. Hope comes with pain, with loss, with incompleteness. It has to. There's no need for it otherwise. Is it any wonder I'm not a big fan?
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
Those of us who like to avoid pain would do well to shun hope. As I experienced in the football game, the higher the hope, the more bitter the letdown. Sure, it pays off beautifully if the hope is fulfilled-- in fact nothing, no experience, is more beautiful to me than seeing an agonized, uncertain hope fulfilled. But it's a gamble, and I am no gambler.
My heart has been sickened too many times by the deferral of hope. It's too much. Far, far easier to make my expectations subside. There's a little game I learned to play with myself, when I found out I was hoping too much for something that was too uncertain. I would quickly come up with a list of all the good things that could not happen if the hope was fulfilled, and set myself to hoping for them too. That way, I had hedged my bets. Either outcome was okay now. There was no bad result, no disappointment to be had. I was safe. And I like safe.
To allow hope is to admit that I live in Job and not in John. It's to admit the existence of pain, loss, and incompleteness. You might say, "Well of course there's pain, of course there's incompleteness... what difference does it make whether or not you admit it?" But that would be vastly underestimating the power of the mental gymnastics I am capable of. I can command contentment in nearly any situation. Just stick me in a prison cell and watch what I do with it. Give me a couple of hours to think over the situation, and you'll find me quite at home. Just don't make me hope for release. That would be agony.
And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
It's a lie, of course. And I don't like lies. Also it allows me to fall into a deceptively gentle complacency. I could live my entire life this way, calming my expectations, denying pain where there is pain, insisting so loud and so long on my utter satisfaction with the situation that I begin to believe it. I could do it. I am quite capable of that much stubbornness.
But it's a lie. And more, it's crippling. For I find, when I refuse to hope for anything on earth, I rob myself of the ability to hope for anything in heaven either. I'm okay with hoping for heaven: that is a certain hope. It's the one thing I allow myself to depend on. But that hope becomes pale, shadowy, hollow and distant, when I am deadening all earthly hopes in my heart. So, too, does any expectation I have from God in the here and now. I cannot abide in Him... cannot receive any comfort or joy or strength from Him... when I am refusing to hope. Why this is I'm not entirely sure, but it seems that, for my spiritual health, I must submit to the ebb and flow, the throbbing of hope and disappointment and, sometimes, fulfillment.
I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
This is not easy. It requires constant dependence on the God from whom all blessings flow. (Dependence, by the way, is another thing I'm not too keen on.) More than that, it requires the continual surrender of the protective complacency that I know is there for me, ready to be called up at a moment's notice. It's stepping into the fire, again and again.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore will I hope in Him."
The good news is this: there is ultimate fulfillment. In the end, it will not be disappointment for me, not looking back over dashed and futile hopes. In the end, it will be victory, it will be joy, it will be that elation that only comes after a night of sorrow. In the meantime? The Lord is my portion. I may, and shall (for I am commanded) hope for many earthly things, but at the beginning of the day and at its end, I know where my good lies. When blessings fall, I shall receive them with praise. When they are taken away, I shall weep before the Lord. And my eyes shall behold him. The Lord is my portion.
"Safe? Of course he's not safe...
...but he's good."
When I looked up, in an online concordance, occurances of the word 'hope' in the Bible, the first one was from Ruth. The second was from Ezra. The next fifteen were from Job.
That's right, folks, barely a mention in the first third of the Bible, and then it's all over Job. The pattern continues, too. The word is scattered all through the psalms and the prophets-- then it all but disappears in the Gospels. Barely a mention of hope when Jesus is present. There wouldn't be, of course... he is the fulfillment. What need for hope when the bridegroom is present? Hope returns, though, starting in Acts and all through the letters.
This should tell you something about hope. Hope comes with pain, with loss, with incompleteness. It has to. There's no need for it otherwise. Is it any wonder I'm not a big fan?
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
Those of us who like to avoid pain would do well to shun hope. As I experienced in the football game, the higher the hope, the more bitter the letdown. Sure, it pays off beautifully if the hope is fulfilled-- in fact nothing, no experience, is more beautiful to me than seeing an agonized, uncertain hope fulfilled. But it's a gamble, and I am no gambler.
My heart has been sickened too many times by the deferral of hope. It's too much. Far, far easier to make my expectations subside. There's a little game I learned to play with myself, when I found out I was hoping too much for something that was too uncertain. I would quickly come up with a list of all the good things that could not happen if the hope was fulfilled, and set myself to hoping for them too. That way, I had hedged my bets. Either outcome was okay now. There was no bad result, no disappointment to be had. I was safe. And I like safe.
To allow hope is to admit that I live in Job and not in John. It's to admit the existence of pain, loss, and incompleteness. You might say, "Well of course there's pain, of course there's incompleteness... what difference does it make whether or not you admit it?" But that would be vastly underestimating the power of the mental gymnastics I am capable of. I can command contentment in nearly any situation. Just stick me in a prison cell and watch what I do with it. Give me a couple of hours to think over the situation, and you'll find me quite at home. Just don't make me hope for release. That would be agony.
And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
It's a lie, of course. And I don't like lies. Also it allows me to fall into a deceptively gentle complacency. I could live my entire life this way, calming my expectations, denying pain where there is pain, insisting so loud and so long on my utter satisfaction with the situation that I begin to believe it. I could do it. I am quite capable of that much stubbornness.
But it's a lie. And more, it's crippling. For I find, when I refuse to hope for anything on earth, I rob myself of the ability to hope for anything in heaven either. I'm okay with hoping for heaven: that is a certain hope. It's the one thing I allow myself to depend on. But that hope becomes pale, shadowy, hollow and distant, when I am deadening all earthly hopes in my heart. So, too, does any expectation I have from God in the here and now. I cannot abide in Him... cannot receive any comfort or joy or strength from Him... when I am refusing to hope. Why this is I'm not entirely sure, but it seems that, for my spiritual health, I must submit to the ebb and flow, the throbbing of hope and disappointment and, sometimes, fulfillment.
I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
This is not easy. It requires constant dependence on the God from whom all blessings flow. (Dependence, by the way, is another thing I'm not too keen on.) More than that, it requires the continual surrender of the protective complacency that I know is there for me, ready to be called up at a moment's notice. It's stepping into the fire, again and again.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore will I hope in Him."
The good news is this: there is ultimate fulfillment. In the end, it will not be disappointment for me, not looking back over dashed and futile hopes. In the end, it will be victory, it will be joy, it will be that elation that only comes after a night of sorrow. In the meantime? The Lord is my portion. I may, and shall (for I am commanded) hope for many earthly things, but at the beginning of the day and at its end, I know where my good lies. When blessings fall, I shall receive them with praise. When they are taken away, I shall weep before the Lord. And my eyes shall behold him. The Lord is my portion.
"Safe? Of course he's not safe...
...but he's good."
Sunday, January 15, 2006
On hope, part one
We came into the game with restrained expectations. They were one of the best teams in the league, and we had just barely squeaked into the playoffs. My family of devoted Redskins fans was just happy we'd gotten so far-- mostly. There was, of course, a slender and not impossible hope that we might win this game, and having won it, the football experts in the family (i.e. Dad and the brothers) didn't see why we shouldn't go all the way.
It was a beautiful game. We scored first. It took us most of the first quarter to do it, but we got our three points on the board. Everybody was playing tightly. Our guys were on today (as they most definitely weren't in the first half of last week's game). Our hopes began to rise. Coming into a game, statistics and records seem very important, but after the first ten minutes, all history melts away. Never mind what they've done other weeks, other seasons. Which team is better now, here, today? And in this game, it quickly became clear that both teams were very, very good.
We remained suspended, on edge, hoping, for the next hour. The Seahawks overtook us, and the initial surge of hope fell down. But all was not lost. We hung on-- no one lost patience, no one lost focus, no one threw in the towel. Coming into the fourth quarter, it didn't look good for us, but it was a game that we could win if we did just a little better and they did just a little worse. I said as much to my dad. And then, not two minutes after I said it, we had a gorgeous scoring drive, putting us only a touchdown behind. Hope rose higher. We might pull this one out. With the momentum on our side, we might manage a tremendous upset. It was within our grasp.
It had been decided that I would make hit and harden sauce for dessert, but I refused to begin until I knew whether it was celebratory sauce or consolatory sauce. I had figured that I'd be able to get up and make the sauce about halfway through the fourth quarter. Usually you know by then. You can relax in victory or relax in defeat. You can begin to detach emotionally from the game, start to care about other stuff again.
Not so with this game. We were behind, and soon behind by two scores, but not until the last minute could I get up and make my consolatory hit and harden sauce. I was proud of our guys-- they made the Seahawks fight until the bitter end for their victory.
This is both my favorite and my least favorite kind of game. It's clearly the best kind... where's the fun if it's plain, early on, who will win? But it is also by far the most brutal. Oh, the long extension of hope-- the rise and fall, the endless calculations to see if some, some certainty can be reached about the outcome. It can't, of course. The game must be played, moment by moment, each new play bringing, perhaps, a new turn of fortunes. And the higher and longer our hopes are raised, the more painful we know it will be if, at the end, there is no victory.
And if you think it's bad when the Redskins play, you should see me at my brother's basketball games.
It was a beautiful game. We scored first. It took us most of the first quarter to do it, but we got our three points on the board. Everybody was playing tightly. Our guys were on today (as they most definitely weren't in the first half of last week's game). Our hopes began to rise. Coming into a game, statistics and records seem very important, but after the first ten minutes, all history melts away. Never mind what they've done other weeks, other seasons. Which team is better now, here, today? And in this game, it quickly became clear that both teams were very, very good.
We remained suspended, on edge, hoping, for the next hour. The Seahawks overtook us, and the initial surge of hope fell down. But all was not lost. We hung on-- no one lost patience, no one lost focus, no one threw in the towel. Coming into the fourth quarter, it didn't look good for us, but it was a game that we could win if we did just a little better and they did just a little worse. I said as much to my dad. And then, not two minutes after I said it, we had a gorgeous scoring drive, putting us only a touchdown behind. Hope rose higher. We might pull this one out. With the momentum on our side, we might manage a tremendous upset. It was within our grasp.
It had been decided that I would make hit and harden sauce for dessert, but I refused to begin until I knew whether it was celebratory sauce or consolatory sauce. I had figured that I'd be able to get up and make the sauce about halfway through the fourth quarter. Usually you know by then. You can relax in victory or relax in defeat. You can begin to detach emotionally from the game, start to care about other stuff again.
Not so with this game. We were behind, and soon behind by two scores, but not until the last minute could I get up and make my consolatory hit and harden sauce. I was proud of our guys-- they made the Seahawks fight until the bitter end for their victory.
This is both my favorite and my least favorite kind of game. It's clearly the best kind... where's the fun if it's plain, early on, who will win? But it is also by far the most brutal. Oh, the long extension of hope-- the rise and fall, the endless calculations to see if some, some certainty can be reached about the outcome. It can't, of course. The game must be played, moment by moment, each new play bringing, perhaps, a new turn of fortunes. And the higher and longer our hopes are raised, the more painful we know it will be if, at the end, there is no victory.
And if you think it's bad when the Redskins play, you should see me at my brother's basketball games.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
something fun
I have a couple of deep and profound posts I'll put up eventually... but not today. Today, I have for all my loyal fans, a quiz! Specifically, a movie/TV quotes quiz. Behold, sixteen quotes from movies and shows that I like, yours for the identifying! Some are very familiar, some are rather obscure... but I've tried to take familiar quotes from obscure movies and obscure quotes from familiar movies. Go ahead and comment on the ones you think you know... we'll see who gets the most (just don't read anybody else's comments before making your guess. Not that you'd do such a thing.)
Let the games begin.
1: Everybody's dead, Dave.
2: If you value your lives, be somewhere else.
3: I will call you if anyone anywhere gets drunk.
4: The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers.
5: Forgive me for not leaping for joy, bad back you know.
6: Some things in here don't react well to bullets.
7: These days you have to think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.
8: I hope your mango's ripe.
9: Was you ever bit by a dead bee?
10: I'll go put these in some rubbing alcohol.
11: Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't.
12: If you come back on Easter, you can burn down my apartment.
13: Somebody help me, I'm being spontaneous!
14: I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.
15: If you are a Scottish lord, then I am Mickey Mouse!
16: Can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?
Let the games begin.
1: Everybody's dead, Dave.
2: If you value your lives, be somewhere else.
3: I will call you if anyone anywhere gets drunk.
4: The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers.
5: Forgive me for not leaping for joy, bad back you know.
6: Some things in here don't react well to bullets.
7: These days you have to think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.
8: I hope your mango's ripe.
9: Was you ever bit by a dead bee?
10: I'll go put these in some rubbing alcohol.
11: Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't.
12: If you come back on Easter, you can burn down my apartment.
13: Somebody help me, I'm being spontaneous!
14: I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.
15: If you are a Scottish lord, then I am Mickey Mouse!
16: Can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?
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