Month: August 2003

Here’s something fun I saw over on Archipelapogo, and I figured I’d give it a shot. (Scott, ‘pogo‘s writer, is one of the fellows from Collaboratory.) What happens is this: he e-mailed me five questions, and I answer them below. Then, anyone who reads these and wants to take a whack, leave a note to that effect in my Comments for this post, and I will e-mail you with five questions of your own. Sort of like those “Friday Five” things that I used to see on blogs (though not so much anymore), but the questions are actually targeted to the person, as opposed to merely being five generic-type questions that might not even apply. Got that? OK, here are my answers to the questions Scott posed:

1) Where did you get the name Jaquandor? What is it’s special significance to you?

This is a bit of geekiness, and thus far I’ve only encountered one person who ever recognized the reference. “Jaquandor” is the name of a minor character in the 1980s comic book Six From Sirius, which was a four-issue limited-series put out by Marvel’s Epic Comics line. It’s a science-fiction story about a team of six elite agents who work for Sirius Swarm, the Galaxy’s dominant government. They basically go on space opera-ish James Bond type assignments. There was a sequel series, called Six From Sirius II. Both were written by Doug Moench and illustrated by Paul Gulacy. I always wished those guys would have done more series with those characters. (I could have used another name from that same series, Jakosa Lone, but that would have drawn cries of derision from certain quarters….) Anyway, I’ve been using the name online for about five years now; I started using it when I was active on Usenet.

2) If you could give one bit of fatherly advice to your daughter today for her to receive twenty years from now, what would it be?

The world is an amazing place; never stop being awed by it and never stop learning from it. Never lose the “sense of wonder”. Always look for beauty and knowledge. (And yes, that’s all one piece of advice.)

I’d love it if she went into a “creative” field, but really, I think I’ll be happy no matter what she does, as long as she always keeps learning and doesn’t slip into the trap of confusing her day-to-day minutiae with the entire world. (Well, I’ll probably be unhappy if she becomes Chair of the Republican National Committee. But you get the idea.)

3) What was it like having a college professor for a dad? What were the pros and cons?

Hmmmm…in general, my father has always been fairly laid-back about his academic background. He’s not one of those people who insists on being called “Dr.” by complete strangers, and he’s been known to teach classes in t-shirts. He was quite concerned about my academic performance, of course, but I don’t think he was any more concerned about that than other intelligent parents. (It’s the unintelligent parents you have to worry about.) Of course, there were the obligatory howls of consternation when I’d bring home a bad grade in his particular subject (mathematics), not really because he assumed I’d have a similar level of ability there but more because clearly I wouldn’t have actually asked him for help in long division or trig or whatever. Occasionally, when I would go to him for help with the math homework, he’d be appalled when he realized that I was being taught incorrectly (I think), and this would bring about the inevitable tirade about teachers and whatnot. But that didn’t happen all that often.

4) Which of the four Bills Super Bowl Losses was the toughest to stomach and why?

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh!!

I’d have to say the first one (Giants, 20-19), by a pretty wide margin. That’s the one the Bills absolutely should have won, and it’s almost unforgivable that they didn’t. As I think back to that game, it astounds me how badly the Bills were outcoached in that game. Their defensive philosophy of “bend but don’t break” (which, incidentally, I hold as the main culprit in all four of those losses) really hurt in the game against the Giants. That’s the game where they allowed a nine-and-half-minute scoring drive at the beginning of the third quarter, and when the Bills had the ball on offense for only nineteen total minutes. That’s the game where Thurman Thomas rushed for 135 yards, but only had 19 carries. If Marv Levy would simply have noticed how Thomas was cutting the Giants to ribbons and run him 30 or 35 times, there’s no way they would have lost that game. Yeah, Scott Norwood should have made the kick – – that’s what NFL placekickers are paid to do, after all – – but that game also should never have come down to a kicker never known for his distance being asked to make a low-percentage kick.

What’s funny about the two games against the Cowboys is that I firmly believe the Bills could have won both of those games. Both times, their defense actually played tough in the opening half, and both times the Bills had early leads. And both times they were done in on turnovers.

In reality, the only time I think the Bills were actually beaten by a clearly superior team was the second one, when the Redskins beat them.

5) Which three books sparked or reinforced your passion for reading and writing? Pick one from childhood, one from adolescence, and one from adult life.

For our purposes here, I’ll define “childhood” as up to 13; “adolescence” to include college; and adult life to mean after college. (Hell, I’m not at all certain I’m an adult even now!)

Childhood is something of a toss-up, but I’d probably go with Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles. This was my first encounter with multi-volume fantasy series, set in imaginary worlds with a map inside the front cover. (I could as easily have chosen John Bellairs’s The House With a Clock In Its Walls, which cultivated my love of Gothic and horror fiction, and Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which began my love of written SF. And of course, it’s not a book, but the bedrock of my storytelling world has always been Star Wars.)

Adolescence: This is pretty hard, actually. Music actually eclipsed reading for a long time; I actually started college as a music major, and listening and performing were paramount. I suppose the book I’d pick here would be one I read during my sophomore year in college (during May Term, actually – – remember those, Sean?) when I’d go sit on a blanket under a tree reading it after class. This was Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. And actually, this is something of a cheat, since I had been transfixed by the television series when it had first aired during fourth grade. Maybe I’d instead choose John Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights, which kindled a fascination with the Arthurian legend that is still flowering in me to this day, in the form of the novel I’m writing. But actually, given my answer to #2 above, I’ll go with Cosmos.

Adulthood: This is even harder. Again, I’ll cheat by narrowing it to two: Guy Gavriel Kay’s three-volume Fionavar Tapestry and Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Aside from Arthuriana, my love of fantasy in general was pretty dormant until I encountered the Kay series (although it, too, is Arthuriana in part). And King’s book crystalized so many thoughts I’ve had about writing over the years. At one point in the book he says something like, “Do you really need a permission slip from me or something like that to call yourself a writer?” Funny, because in a way, that’s precisely how I’ve come to see that book.

OK, there are my answers. Anyone want me to ask? I won’t be asking about the air velocity of an unladen swallow….

Share This Post

You know, I really try to avoid making fun of the place, but just what is it with Texas, anyway?

(via Paul Riddell.)

Share This Post

Oh, goody! Via Matthew Yglesias I find that my list of annoying political words has a new entry: OBVIOUST. Yup, it’s another of those supposedly cute words whose meaning basically boils down to, “People who disagree with me don’t merely disagree; they are actually delusional for not endorsing what’s obvious.” Oh, and it’s an ugly word, to boot. What is it with making up new, ugly, and pretty-much-dumb words like “Obvioust” and “Idiotarian”? Doesn’t our English language afford people enough words to express themselves?

And I see that the guy who coined “Obvioust” also trots out the canard that the United States is not a democracy. Now, he leaves off the other end of the formulation, but I assume he’s one of those folks who, whenever America is characterized as a democracy, sagely leans forward and pronounces: “Ah, but America is a republic, not a democracy.” Of course, you never hear these folks stepping up to correct President Bush whenever he talks about the need for “democracy” in Iraq (“Excuse me, Mr. President, but don’t you think we should establish a republic in Iraq instead?”). This weirdo bit of wisdom is always irrelevant, because nobody actually uses the word “democracy” in the sense of, say, ancient Athenian democracy, anymore — unless they happen to be historians actually talking about ancient Athens. Invoking my handy Oxford Pocket Dictionary, I find that the first meaning of “democracy” given is this: “Government by the whole population, usually through elected representatives”. Saying “America’s a republic, not a democracy” is like saying “Britney is a woman, not a human”, and the only proper response is a loud, resounding “Duuuhhhh!”

The incongruity of a person who wants to adhere to a strict meaning of “democracy” also wanting to make up his very own ugly new word to describe his fairly run-of-the-mill political philosophy would be funny, if it weren’t headshake-inducing.

Share This Post

Ach! damnable MeFi. Every so often there will be a food thread over there, and everyone will chime in with their thoughts or favorite brands of said food, the inevitable result of which is that I immediately want to go out and get some of it, like their infamous discussion of potato chips shortly before the Super Bowl this year.

Today, the subject is root beer, which I love and have not enjoyed in quite some time. Now I’ll probably have to go get some IBC, or maybe I’ll even spring for some Saranac (which is also a fine microbrewery for real beer).

By the way, the MeFi thread’s original poster says that root beer isn’t much known for mixed drinks, but here’s one that simulates the flavor of birch beer, for those who like that stuff (and I do): simply mix one shot of peppermint schnapps (preferably Rumpelminz) with 12 oz. of root beer (preferably IBC or Stewart’s, not A&W or Mug, although Barq’s is OK). Be careful you don’t use too much schnapps, though, because the result will taste strongly like Scope Mouthwash.

True story: a particularly dense supermarket cashier once carded me when I bought a six-pack of IBC root beer. Since I was under 21 at the time, she actually had to have the manager come over and OK the purchase, because, you know, the label said “beer” on it.

Share This Post

A couple of movie links, for those inclined:

:: I’ve never totally warmed up to the work of the Coen Brothers (those that I’ve seen anyway), but here’s a nice fan site for their films, which includes scripts to all of ’em. (Via I Love Everything.)

:: In the wake of Gigli, there’s this MSN list of the biggest bombs of all time. I haven’t seen all of these, either, but I’m mixed on the ones I have seen. Howard the Duck is one of the most unbelievable horrid things ever made, of course. I only saw Hudson Hawk once, and I’m pretty sure I was at least partially buzzed on beer at the time, but we found it kind of fun and goofy. I’ve never seen Cleopatra, but its score — by Alex North — is a film-music masterpiece that received a glorious restoration a few years ago on the Varese Sarabande label. I have to admit that I did enjoy The Postman when I rented it, although it’s chock-full of moments in which Kevin Costner wallows in self-indulgence. (I also seem to recall reading somewhere that the film made back its money in international release, but I’m not sure about that.) And Cutthroat Island really didn’t deserve its total critical drubbing — it’s a serviceable pirate flick that suffered from a lack of charisma in its leads. It probably bombed because pirate movies just weren’t on anybody’s radar back in 1996 or whenever it came out.

Share This Post

Reading notes today:

:: Figuring that it’s long past time I started digging into some of the really bedrock literature of the world, I began reading The Iliad yesterday, in a translation by Robert Fagles. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be following up with The Odyssey. This is literature I haven’t much encounted since my freshman year in college, when we read very small snippets in handout-form. I always found the whole “Read this two-page excerpt from this thousand-page work of literature” approach pretty much useless; rather than confer upon me some bit of familiarity with the work in question (the point of the whole “liberal arts” thing), I rather found it made for an “in one ear and out the other” effect, and thus my knowledge of The Iliad is confined to my very basic knowledge of the events at Troy and the fact that in some way the work depicts the Gods as being a fairly capricious and mean-spirited lot.

A more personal hang-up of mine regarding the Greek literature is that, for some reason, all the Greek names sound the same to me. Now, I can keep Tolkien’s cast of thousands in Lord of the Rings pretty much straight in my head; ditto George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire and a host of other works. But inevitably, when I start delving into Greek stuff, I have to keep referring back to see who certain people are. I don’t know, maybe it’s because so many of them end in ‘s’ — Achilles, Atrides, Atreus, et cetera — but that’s pretty much a personal stumbling block. It’s weird, the little “mental blocks” we form.

Anyway, I’m reading The Iliad in pretty small doses, so I expect it to take a while.

:: Over the weekend I plowed through my first ever novel by F. Paul Wilson, Conspiracies. This novel features a character named Repairman Jack, a secretive soul with a very shadowy background who uses his treasured anonymity to go around solving problems. Sort of a one-man “A Team”, blended with Frank Black from Millennium. In Conspiracies, Jack is hired by a husband whose wife has fallen in with an organization of way-out conspiracy theorists (the book is worth reading just to catch up on most of the biggie conspiracy theories of today) and since disappeared. Along the way, a lot of supernatural stuff starts happening; this is apparently the third novel to feature Repairman Jack, but I hadn’t read the first two. This didn’t pose much of a problem to me, since the novel seems to give whatever information about previous events is necessary to understanding what’s going on here. Wilson keeps the plot moving, he has a good eye for detail, and the book is by turns funny and scary. My only complaint was the ending. There isn’t one. It’s like the old feeling I used to get when I’d watch the first part of a two-part episode of a favorite TV show, but I wasn’t aware that it was a two-part episode beforehand, and with five minutes to go I’d suddenly realize, “They can’t resolve all this by the end of the hour.” Oh well — at least I know that the follow-up novel has already come out, so it’s not like I have to wait a year or anything.

:: I should also note that I read Catherine Asaro’s Primary Inversion a week or so ago. This is the first in a series of hard-SF space operas set in Asaro’s “Skolian Empire”. I enjoyed it, although it’s a bit clunky at times and meandering in its plot. It was good enough, though, that I definitely want to read more of this series. It’s a stand-alone novel, but I’m not sure if all the “Skolian Empire” novels are stand-alones or not.

Share This Post

When I attended a summer music camp during my high school years (and later as a counselor during my college days), there was a guy there who each year would tell a long and involved “Ferdinand Feghoot”-style tale* that was somehow musically-relevant. Here, with apologies, is one of the ones he told:

:: Once upon a time, in a small village in the Italian Alps, there was a small village orchestra that was the pride of the village. This small orchestra gave several concerts each year, and every concert was attended by hundreds of people from villages all around, even though the orchestra was one of those where the quality of playing wasn’t so much the point as was drinking wine under the stars and listening to the lovely music. Well, one year, the orchestra’s conductor, a kindly old man, decided to celebrate the orchestra’s hundredth anniversary by taking on an immense challenge: they would perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Nothing so grand had ever been attempted by this orchestra, and a chorus was hastily put together for the performance, but everyone was thrilled beyond compare with the idea of performing one of the very greatest masterpieces of all time. It would be the greatest event in the history of this tiny village since one of Hannibal’s own elephants had stopped in the local stream to take a drink. Hours upon hours were spent in rehearsal, with the old conductor shaping his not-terribly-talented but incredibly enthusiastic ensemble into one capable of giving a grand performance of the Ninth, whose four movements require more than an hour to play. And as the day of the concert drew near, everyone in the village and all the other villages in the valley became more and more excited.

Everyone, that is, except for the orchestra’s two double-bass players, Meriadoc and Peregrin.

You see, Beethoven’s Ninth is a terribly demanding piece for the entire orchestra and chorus – – except for the basses, who only play the first few pages of the first movement, and then must remain silent until the very last page of the last movement, when they finally rejoin their mates. This, of course, made for an excruciatingly boring series of rehearsals for these two men, and the concert would be worse: they would simply stand there, on stage and with nothing at all to do, for more than an hour.

Thus was born, in the minds of Meriadoc and Peregrin, a Plan.

“What we’ll do, Pippin, is this,” said Meriadoc – – for “Pippin” was Peregrin’s nickname. “We can’t just stand there on stage; we’ll go mad with boredom. So we’ll slip away right after we’re done with our stuff at the beginning, and have a beer or two backstage. Then, we’ll just slip back onstage at the end for our last bit.”

“But Merry,” said Pippin, “how will we know how to come back? Especially if we drink too much?”

They thought on this for a time, and what they came up with was this: Merry would get a piece of string and tie together the last two pages of the Maestro’s score. Thus, when he reached that point in the concert, he would find himself unable to turn to the last page of the Ninth, and therefore he would have to stop the orchestra whilst he untied the bound pages. Then he would take up the baton again and lead the concert to completion. Merry and Pippin, of course, would notice the stopping of the orchestra, and slip in for their final moments on stage.

“A perfect plan!” they cheered, and indeed it was.

So on the morning of the concert, Merry and Pippin followed the Maestro around until just the moment when he set down his score to the Ninth; this they grabbed, and used a bit of twine to tie together those last two pages. And then, undetected, they slipped away. And at last the concert came around, and Merry and Pippin took their position at stage left, behind the cellists, and awaited the Maestro’s downbeat. They had already hidden some bottles of beer behind the concert pavilion, and they grinned at each other as the hundreds of people gathered on the lawn applauded the concert’s beginning. Down came the Maestro’s baton, and so began the strains of Beethoven’s Ninth. And just one minute into the great seventy-minute work, Merry and Pippin were done until the end. So they set down their great double-basses and slipped out backstage and thence to the spot where their beers awaited. These they drank in a great hurry, five apiece, while the heavenly strains of Beethoven’s greatest symphony echoed around them and through the Italian Alps.

But then, as the last movement came near its close, the Maestro reached the bottom of his score and tried to turn his last page – – and found that he could not. Someone had tied the last two pages together! Not knowing what to do, he signaled for the orchestra to stop, and they did; the crowd became confused at the stoppage, and the Maestro fumbled with arthritic fingers to untie the dolorous knot.

“I think – – hic! – – it’sh time,” Merry drawled from backstage, hearing that the music had stopped.

“Yesh,” agreed Pippin. “Hic! We should get back on shtage.”

Both men liked to drink, but five beers in an hour, on an empty stomach no less, had taken its toll. As they made their way back to the wings of the pavilion and out onstage. But as they picked up their giant double-basses, they hit each other on the head and fell forward, into the midst of the cellists. Two of these poor cello-playing fellows, sadly, were very close to the edge of the stage, and the impact of their bass-playing friends behind them was all they needed to fall off the stage and onto the ground, hitting their heads together and in the process knocking them unconscious. And even worse, a cello – – being hollow – – makes a loud banging noise, when dropped from even a small height; and hearing this BANG, someone in the audience screamed, “A gunshot! A gunshot!” At this, everyone began screaming at once and running every which way, trying to get out of the park lest they take the imaginary bullets in the heart. And in the middle of it all, the Maestro stood, trying to work the knot that was too tight.

“I don’t think – – hic! – – the plan worked,” said Merry.

“Of courshe it did,” replied Pippin. “Jusht look – – hic! – – at the crowd!”

Now, we must step back to place this scene in perspective for the reader:

The crowd’s gone wild, because it’s the bottom of the Ninth, two men are out, the basses are loaded, and the score is tied.

—FINIS—

(* A “Ferdinand Feghoot” story is a brief tale which is simply a giant set-up for an incredibly lame pun. A properly-spun Feghoot will make its audience groan in near-agony. Oh, and by the way, the bit about the double-basses not playing for almost the entirety of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is pure license. In reality, they play as much as the rest of the strings.)

Share This Post

AHHHHH!!! My long search for a really good fan site for The West Wing has finally reached a triumphant conclusion:

Bartlet4America.org.

I, for one, am not jumping off the ship yet. John Wells, who has taken over the show after Aaron Sorkin’s departure, has a long history of doing quality work on television. I’m sure the tone will be different, but you know, that may be fine.

Share This Post

Over on Reflections in d minor, Lynn has a hilarious take on how to write a commentary on classical music. It is too true, sad to say.

(BTW, Lynn, can I safely assume that your favorite classical work is Mozart’s Requiem? The clues seem to point that way!)

Share This Post

Fellow Collaborator Jason Streed has his own blog now: Finches’ Wings. Judging from his interest in literary matters, I expect that to be a big focus of his. Check him out. He’s only brand new, and thus has only a handful of posts up. But he’ll be a good one. (And I didn’t even have to beat him into doing a blog, unlike some people….)

Share This Post