JustWords - Plinky Answers

My Newest Book

2011-10-14T18:07:58-06:00

I can't say enough wonderful things about my latest book, Owl's Rump. It's a heartwarming story about a young possum (or opossum, if you prefer,) nicknamed Owl by his siblings because he is nearsighted and spends all his time reading, so as a result he knows a great many things about a great many things, but he is sorely lacking in experience in the great big world, so when he finds himself through a series of missteps wandering about in the Dark Woods after dark, he relies on his wits and the knowledge he has gleaned from his reading to puzzle his way through adventures and, ultimately, to home and a new sense of identity, maturity and self-respect. Without giving too much of the plot away, I can reveal that the rump refers to Owl's own tuckus, which is subjected to repeated explorations by increasingly large and frightening Night Creatures who, again, without giving too much of the plot away, have their way with our poor possum, often more than once, bringing him to the unwonted and unexpected realization that the Great Big World is not always as benign as Owl's books would have him believe, and also the realization that the Dark Woods in the dark are not a good place, especially for a naive and nearsighted possum, and, of course, also to the realization that – well, perhaps that should be left for the reader to discover when he or she buys this marvelous book! We must keep one surprise, at least! Owl's Rump does not yet have a publisher, though I have submitted it to all the big names in young adult publishing, and in spite of its cute and yet shining prose and insightful allegory, and I have to say I've been a little surprised by how quickly most have expressed their lack of interest. With the right publisher, and perhaps with some delightfully ambiguous illustrations, this book is sure to fly off the shelves faster than you could say "Watership Down meets Coming of Age means The. Next. Blockbuster!" I've already started to lay plans for the book tour, and I'm starting work on a screenplay – I've never written one before, but with a story like this it just writes itself. I picture Daniel Radcliffe in the title role, with considerable makeup to make him look like a possum, and a variety of actors as the creatures in the Dark Woods. It's going to be a major movie hit, I just know it.

I'm a temperate person

2011-10-13T08:49:28-06:00

People adapt to where they live -- it's humanity's great strength. I'm sure I could live near the equator or near the arctic circle, but I like it mild, somewhere in between. I prefer cool to warm, cold to hot. One can always put on warmer clothes in cold weather, but one can only strip down just so far in the heat. As to extremes, let's ask one who said it better than most:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost 1920

I'm sticking with the newspaper.

2011-10-12T08:52:27-06:00

I'm old-fashioned – I like the morning paper. I page through it, front to back, reading more in the first section, next to nothing in the sports section. I read most of the weekly science section, and most of the op-ed page. The paper surprises me with things I wasn't looking for, and I put a high value on those serendipitous finds. Could neutrinos actually travel faster than light? What would that mean to our understanding of the universe? (The bartender says, "we don't serve faster-than-light particles in here." A neutrino walks into a bar.) Could that candidate honestly believe that evolution is a false theory or that global warming is not the result of human actions? What does that say about his or her intelligence, judgment and ability to lead? (Too sad for jokes.) That new cell phone is pretty remarkable. Is the company that makes it a good investment? The only part of the paper that leaves me cold is the sports section – I just don't care whether the sports team from my area beat the sports team from your area. If they did, I hope the people watching the game enjoyed the show, but I also hope they don't feel in some way better than the spectators from the other team's area. (How does the world-series-winning pitcher change a light bulb? He holds it up and the world revolves around him.) Finally, I have to ask how the news world is changing with the influence of television and the Internet. TV news has shortened news stories to five or six sentences – count them in the next news cast you watch. The choice of images has an enormous impact on the message of the story, and the tone of the reporter puts a subtle spin on every word. On the Internet, we only look at the stories we click on – we have to take action to read more than a headline. I think on average the population takes in less news today than twenty years ago, and we are strongly influenced by non-verbal elements than we realize. I'm sticking with the newspaper.

Quick, take this bucket and start bailing.

2011-10-11T10:11:28-06:00

Ladies and Gentlemen of the world: Use sunscreen. There are a lot of larger actions to suggest, because we are destroying our environment and our collective economy and we have no one to blame but ourselves, but using sunscreen is a good place to start. Larger actions include thinking, not just swallowing religious or political dogma. Blind belief lets one avoid difficult, sometimes painful thought and action, but it is powerfully destructive to knowledge and to relationships between individuals and groups. Another action is to want less and to consume less. Our collective demand for stuff and energy is the primary driver behind the destruction of our environment. Our refusal to pay the full cost of our consumption is destroying our collective economic health. In the end, we have only this one world to live on, and our economic sins are catching up with us. Our boat is sinking, and it’s up to us to start bailing in earnest. So, wear sunscreen, and start thinking and acting as though we can save ourselves from ourselves. There’s no one else who can do it for us.

The best of both worlds

2011-10-10T08:26:53-06:00

The best of both worlds is my marvelous vintage device – a pocket-sized note-taker that carries a roll of adding machine thermal paper. You can write notes on the 2" screen using the twelve-key cellphone-style keyboard, and, if you want a paper record of the note, you can then print it out on the paper dot-matrix style. You synchronize the 8 Kb memory with your computer using the proprietary cable, and it fits handily in a bag or briefcase. The rechargeable battery powers it for two or three days, unless you print a lot. My friends tout their phones with voice memos and cloud-based note systems. They laugh when I use my Message-o-matic, but I say when you find something that works, you stick with it. My only complaint is that there are fewer and fewer pay phones around. What's up with that?

Deferring to wisdom

2011-10-09T09:08:33-06:00

We have read about the codger who goes skydiving for the first time on his 90th birthday, and we sympathize – we've always wanted to, but we've never, so to speak, taken the leap. We haven't read about any codgers bungee jumping for the first time on their 90th birthdays, and we suspect that codgers know a thing or two about thrills and risk-taking. Never having jumped with rubber ropes or parachutes ourselves, we think that we would go with the codgers and take the plane. The free fall and thrill would be far longer, and the risks – well, every day, we're closer to death anyway. Still, we think we'll wait until we are a codger. You never know.

I'd like to be part of something big.

2011-10-08T09:15:00-06:00

For fun, I'd join Stomp in almost anything they play. Energy! Noise! Rhythm! Sheer enthusiasm! On the other hand, for a transformative experience, I'd join the chorus in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Mahler's Second Symphony. Both pieces build the instrumentals through the first three movements, then introduce vocals in the last movement, ending with enormous, joyful, hopeful finales that would be wonderful to experience as part of the performance, not just part of the audience.

What luck!

2011-10-07T09:54:48-06:00

We all know a farmer can be outstanding in his field, and we've all be raised to believe that we are unique individuals, just like everyone else. How do I stand out? Sure, I'm tall, good-looking, brilliant, kind, gentle, and extremely modest – on the internet, no one knows that you're a dog. The truth is that I stand out most by being lucky to be born when and where I was. In a nation of the fortunate, fortune has given me more than I deserve in family, education, experience and love.

Don't know much about history.

2011-10-06T08:13:49-06:00

Dark clouds

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me. I suppose they weren't thinking ahead much. Still, when the time came, dark clouds scudded across the half-lit sky. Lightening struck a nearby church, setting the steeple aflame. The earth shuddered as I was born, and everything began. I don't remember much of that year – I was too busy trying to make sense out of this cacophony of sensation. It all could have turned out differently. Does anyone remember Tristram Shandy?

No ride -- this is about Plinky.

2009-09-13T09:51:45-06:00

Someone said that to write is to stand naked on a stage, meaning that you cannot write without exposing who you are, in all your true colors.

I started answering Plinky out of an urge to do something creative. A new and unpredictable prompt every day – what a great nudge! I could be straightforward or whacked out. I could adopt the voice of an aristocratic snob or a barely literate teen. I could write as creatively as I wanted, stretching my wings.

I worked on my Plinky answers, usually 15 or 20 minutes on each. I was usually proud of my answers – they showed thought, style, education, polish, and a little personality. I tried to write answers that carefully did not disclose my location or my gender, but no one could read those answers without forming an image of the sort of person I am.

I was writing for myself, really. I rarely looked at any other answers. I didn’t care what anyone else wrote, because I was just doing it to push myself. I wasn’t being a snob; I just wanted to use Plinky for my own benefit.

After a couple of weeks, a few people started to follow me. I was flattered – gosh, people like what I write! I must be doing something right! People like my writing, so in a way they like me! I’m ok! How great is that? What a nice ego boost!

How many people were following me? I started to pay attention. Hey, another new follower! I wondered how many followers other people have. I wondered why Plinky doesn’t display some sort of statistics. I wanted to know whether I had more followers than anyone else. I started to feel competitive. This wasn’t so much ego boost as pride.

There was another part of that pride. I did scan other answers. The majority of the answers to any prompt showed little thought, little style. I wondered why those people bothered to answer at all. In my uglier moments, I felt contempt for their lack of effort and ability. Pride is an insidious sin – it sneaks up on us even as we try to do our best, and it corrodes us.

I struggle with that demon, but there is another danger to Plinky, a danger common to any public forum like bulletin boards or blogs. That danger lies in interaction, and, like pride, it starts innocently enough.

I am married, very happily married. My wife is the true center of my life, as passionate as I am calm, as creative as I am precise. She is a wonderful muse, and I write almost as much for her as for my own pride.

Occasionally, a Plinky reader would comment on one of my answers. That was almost as nice as being followed. Gosh, someone liked what I wrote enough to post a public comment! How great is that? (Well, except for the person who posted “How OLD are you, anyway?”) Mostly, I didn’t respond. I wanted my answers to stand on their own.

Some of those comments were thoughtful responses, perhaps even generous and caring. I started to feel a bit selfish in not responding and in not commenting on anyone else’s work. After all, if I felt an ego boost knowing that other people read, followed, and commented on my answers, I was being almost rude in ignoring them.

I knew that there was a risk in interaction, though. I knew that to comment and to respond to comments was to begin a conversation, to begin a relationship. However innocent those comments may be, they draw us into a relationship that has little to do with writing and much to do with emotion. Like pride drawing me in, playing on my need to feel good at writing, this interaction draws me in, playing on my bottomless need to be liked and loved.

My wonderful, extraordinary wife is my center, and I have pledged with all my heart always to work to strengthen our relationship and never to act in any way that would threaten it. Like pride, I know this risk when I feel it. I know my own weakness, and I know what is most important to me.

I will write answers to Plinky prompts, but I will keep them at home. I will focus on the writing, which is what I intended when I started this exercise. I wish you all the best – good prompts, good answers, and, to quote Hemingway, “When you see an adjective, kill it.”

May I ask you a question?

2009-09-09T08:00:59-06:00

Would it be so awful if I didn't have a favorite sandwich? Don't some people live to eat, and others eat to live? Might I enjoy many different sandwiches? Couldn't I make a better sandwich at home than I could buy anywhere?

Could I like a roast beef sandwich on toasted sourdough bread, with lettuce and tomato, mayo and grainy mustard? Or could I like a ham and cheese with mayo, mustard, and some spicy potato chips inside for crunch? Why wouldn't I microwave that sandwich for twenty seconds, just to melt the cheese a little?

Is just about every sandwich better with avocado? Isn't it more fun to make a different lunch every day? Do roll-ups count as sandwiches? How much fun is it to make a roll-up with lettuce, tomato, and a nice mushy ham salad, and to try to eat it without dropping the insides all over your lap?

Does anyone else think a fried egg sandwich is maybe the best lunch ever? Have you tried it with some salt and pepper, some bacon, a little cheese, all inside a toasted Bruegger's asiago-parmesan bagel? If you haven't, won't you consider making the pilgrimage just once to taste this little piece of heaven before you die?

Don't you agree that an inquiring mind is your greatest asset?

Back in the day

2009-09-08T13:21:08-06:00

I suppose I first heard music live -- voices chanting, sticks drumming on hollow logs, mouths blowing across gourds and bone flutes. Oh, the wild dances and bloody sacrifices! Sometimes we'd get so worked up we'd go massacre the tribe next door.

Ok, I'm not that old. Most of the music I heard in my childhood was on 33 rpm and 45 rpm vinyl disks. Most were made of black plastic, with the rare translucent red or blue. Some of those in my Dad's bookshelf were a heavier, hard black rubber compound. Almost all records had nicks and scratches, sometimes bad enough to jump the needle back so you'd hear the same 1.8 second clip over and over.

Some kids had transistor radios, some almost as small as a pack of cigarettes. They threw the word "transistor" in there to distinguish these radios from those with vacuum tubes, which were bigger than a toaster and almost as hot.

When I was in my teens, we had a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and we had a couple of dozen commercially recorded tapes. Great sound, but the tape would fatigue, sometimes imprinting an echo sound onto the layers on either side, and sometimes even breaking.

At that point, our car had an eight-track cassette tape player. Amazing how much they could squeeze onto a 1/4 inch tape, but clunky and prone to alignment issues.

Does anyone else remember the introduction of the Sony Walkman? Cassette tapes, then CDs, and now iPods and MP3 players. Next, they'll beam music directly into your head. You might hear voices now and then, and you really won't be able to tell whether it's the music or the government or God telling you to go massacre your neighbors.

One high school teacher made me think.

2009-09-07T08:43:32-06:00

Peter H. taught religion and philosophy, and he was an ordained Christian minister. He had a wonderful face, with dark, dark eyes, grey hair and a trimmed beard. He smiled easily and with great happiness, but he looked like an Irish devil.

His courses were loosely structured, allowing the class to focus on whatever material that engaged it. In one experimental course he had titled "Wonder and the Art of Silence," we spent a semester on the idea of Wonder and never got around to the second half of the course.

He encouraged me to think, instead of reciting, and to question the underpinnings of my thought process. Classes were discussions, sometimes even arguments, and I often left the room after class sorting out and chewing on new ideas.

I've only visited the school a couple of times since I graduated, and Peter was the one person I sought out. He died when he was in his late forties.

Another teacher deserves mention. Frank N. taught the first two years of French in 8th and 9th grades, and I was scared to death of him until I was in his class. He was fairly short and trim, and he had grey hair that was almost white. Outside of class, he was serious and firm, but in class he radiated such a joy and enthusiasm for the language that I caught on and started to enjoy it, too. He taught vowel sounds by having me cross my hands in front of my face, palms in, curving my fingers towards my ears, so that I would hear the sound from outside my head.

I studied French for another eight years, and I became reasonably proficient. I could do simultaneous translation, but I could never have passed for French. One of Frank's great prides was that he could travel anywhere in France, and people would ask him what part of France he was from -- pas d'ici, peut-etre, mais c'etait sur qu'il etait Francais. Not bad for a Brooklyn boy.

I visited Frank about every five years until he passed away in his late eighties a few years ago. I think only a few students stayed in touch with him, and he always seemed to enjoy catching up. I'd scramble to keep up with his flawless French, and he would always graciously help me out.

Why couldn't my robot answer Plinky prompts?

2009-09-06T11:29:40-06:00

After answering 36,499 prompts, I will have honed my writing process to the point where a robot will answer just as I would. Unlike Max Headroom, the robot that compiles my answers would, of course, pass the Turing test, and its answers would be indistinguishable from those of a person. It would never make spelling errors, and every answer would meet my personal criteria:

1) The answer should have no information that would enable the reader to identify me, my location, or even my gender.

2) If a prompt merits a personal answer, it should be honest and more than surface-deep, without violating criterion number 1.

3) If a prompt allows for more, the answer should be creative, the more elaborate the better.

4) Style should vary from one answer to the next.

Other desirable features to answers include occasionally inserting derisive references to Michael Jackson, likening most contemporary musical performers to the Pitiful Shags, using an outsider point of view to turn a prompt on its head, and a touch of loopy self-reference ference ference.

'Mahler's first symphony' reminds me of my father.

2009-09-05T08:47:31-06:00

Mahler's first symphony by any performance

We used to listen to it on an eight-track tape on long drives. After hearing it (or any other piece of music) often enough, the music sinks in and becomes a familiar landscape. Those long drives are part of the landscape for this piece for me.

You're So Vain by Carly Simon

reminds me of a college friend, Andy. We were hacking around in a physics lab and plugged this song into an oscilloscope. Carly Simon has a beautiful, clear voice, and it was amazing to see just how pure her tones really are.

Vierne's Carillon de Westminster by Robert Havery

Bob's performance was the best I've ever heard. He's a masterful organist, an excellent teacher, and a fine person.

Lord, spare me.

2009-09-04T20:43:25-06:00

After a lifetime's unlimited supply, I would revile any candy, no matter how delectable it might seem today. Chocolate, that mixable malleable miracle, would become as repulsive and tasteless as axle grease, and I've had axle grease -- it doesn't taste like much, but it really cleans out the system. Don't try it.

The problem is two-fold. The first fold is the nature of desire, which values what we don't have more than what we have. A lifetime supply would make the nectar of the gods taste like water, or worse, simply because it would be at my fingers day and night. "Oh, no, nectar of the gods again! I'd rather gargle liquefied argyle socks."

The second fold is the physical desensitization of our sensory apparatus. The first time I tasted chocolate, (this was right after I was released from my Skinner box at age 27,) I did not fall on my knees and proclaim a new religion. That happened the second time. No, the first time was a new experience. Specialized nerves in my tongue and nose sent signals to my brain, specifically to the anterior cingulate and the hypothalamus, which are critical to the formation of new matrices of sensation, emotion, and chemical signatures. Those regions in turn created short term memories that were later relayed along the usual sodium-calcium pathways to other parts of the cortex, where they were labeled with words "chocolate" and "deliriously happy," and issued ISBNs and color-coördinated bar codes, which were accessed and reinforced during later tastings.

A lifetime supply would reinforce those sodium-calcium pathways for a time, but eventually the constant reinforcing would begin to burn out those channels. It would take more and more chocolate stimuli to reignite that flame, until finally those beta-endorphins would simply refuse to go to work in the morning, preferring to hang out watching reruns of National League highlights.

So that's the biology of the psychology of it. If you want to ruin someone's enjoyment of something, have Bob Barker award him a lifetime supply of it. For me, though, the next time you come over, you'd better bring chocolate if you want to get to first base.

Why are there no kangaroo superheroes?

2009-09-04T20:38:31-06:00

Snakes seem gracefully evil, armed with venom and deception. They slither and twist, hypnotizing prey with swirling, dead eyes. Kangaroos have ADD, bounding left, right, kicking and stomping, boxing and boasting.

It starts accidentally. Kangaroo, on the move, thumps down by Snake, who, startled from his sunny doze, rears back to strike. Kangaroo jumps back, "So, you want a piece of me? That what you want?"

Kangaroo stomps one huge flat foot; Snake dives to the left, hissing and trying to gather his coils to strike. Kangaroo spits and chortles. "I'monna flatten you flatter'na pancake, flatter'na inkblot."

Kangaroo snorts, shifts his weight, feints right, ready to stomp with his left foot. Snake lashes out, knowing he's too far away, but hoping to startle Kangaroo.

Kangaroo rears back, startled. "Fwah! Think you're so quick?" Kangaroo jabs right-left-right, dances a quick shuffle, swinging his heavy tail for balance. Snake rears and weaves back and forth, eyes empty, implacable, waiting for an opening.

Kangaroo hops on both feet, left right, left, right, each time a little closer. "Time's up, inkblot," he snorts, "Come an' get it!"

Snake lashes out at a hairy toe, fangs combing two furrows in the fur but not reaching skin. "Hah!" Kangaroo curses, unleashing a flurry of stomps. Snake rolls, dodges, and slithers around a rock. Kangaroo snickers, "I call that the Michael Flatley, get it?"

Kangaroo stomps on the rock. Snake twists and sinks his fangs deep in the foot, pouring hot venom into the wound.

"Aieee" screams Kangaroo, jerking his foot back, dragging the snake back into the open. Kangaroo stomps the wriggling body again and again until the dust is black with snake blood and the body, once lithe and curvaceous, now a twitching ribbon.

Kangaroo falls on one knee, pain radiating up his leg and suffusing his body. "Tis neither so deep as a well nor so wide as a barn door, but 'twill suffice," he declaims in a quavering voice. "Remember me as one who loved not wisely, but too well." Kangaroo collapses beside the snake and with a hiccup, expires.

Flies, scorpions and vultures descend on the two corpses that, mortal enemies in life, are now equals and companions in eternity.

"A plague on both your houses," exclaims a distraught but magisterial turtle nearby. "I must find Aesop and tell him about this."

Who spilled the beans?

2009-09-02T12:36:07-06:00

Ok, ok, gotta keep my cool. "Ahem, why yes, I do think scientists will identify alien life within my lifetime, most likely a bacterial form in Europa's internal oceans." Ok, that seems to be keeping them happy so far. "Of course, there's only an infinitesimally small chance that we might discover intelligent life out there -- what with the speed of light limiting our ability to detect intelligent life forms to those time frames that would correspond exactly with our receiving signals in the last fifty years." Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe if I sound even more eggheady, they'll lose interest. "While Carl Sagan liked to point to the billions and billions of probable planets in our galaxy and others, the distances involved make it impossible for us to establish any real communication or interaction. We should be devoting our research dollars to a more productive line of discovery, such as detecting the Higgs boson or identifying dark matter and dark energy."

Whew! They bought it. That was close. And ironic. How weird is that, to have them talking about alien life when they themselves are the aliens? Not one species on this planet has a proper flixit or blorg, and this dominant human species is ugly beyond belief! It's been a real struggle for me to blend in since I landed 2 years ago (4.7 earth orbits to our year, of course.) More than once I've been astounded by their inability to cooperate for their collective well-being, or even for their own species' survival. They multiply faster than tribbles, they pollute their living areas, and one by one they kill off every species they consume. They are mindlessly violent, especially against others of their species, and they smell bad.

On the plus side, I'm starting to understand some of the aesthetic structure of their practice "music," a temporal sculpting of sound. This serves no survival purpose, but it sometimes has curiously compelling effects on them, and, I admit, on me. A Splegan who landed some 50 earth years ago took advantage of that Splegan capacity to adapt to bizarre cultures, and she assimilated so well that she was hailed by the humans as a master of this music. She died recently, after adding a number of compositions to the human collection, including works titled "Thriller" and "Billie Jean." I'm still studying those, but I doubt I'll ever fully understand their impact on the locals.

Frankly, I can't wait for the end of my tour of duty. All this pretending takes its toll.

'So, how's life in your part of New York?'

2009-09-01T09:30:21-06:00

So, how's life in your part of New York?
One set of great-great-grandparents was well established in New York. The Civil War was over, and they were working hard to get ahead. At least, I hope so. It would be interesting to learn about how they lived, and to hear how their speech patterns differed from ours.

Eh bien, comment ca va au votre coin d'Alsace?
Some of my great-great-grandparents were Hugenots living in Alsace, which was sometimes part of France and sometimes part of Germany. It would be interesting to about learn how they lived, and to hear how their speech patterns differed from ours. (Those French have a different word for EVERYTHING.)

So, what are you doing to ensure that I am born and have as many advantages as possible?
Let's get down to the really important stuff. All those sixteen pairs of great-great-grandparents existed to produce my eight great-grandparents, who existed to produce my four grandparents, who existed to produce my parents, whose raison d'etre was to produce me, the flower of humanity, evolution's crowning achievement, the crown jewel of existence. Everything that has happened since the explosive creation of the universe has been focused on that one goal, and what a victorious culmination of all that work! Never has there been one such as I, and never again will there be! From here out, it's all downhill. The climate will deteriorate, civilization will collapse, the remaining human tribes will die off, either through internecine wars or succumbing to faster-evolving viruses and bacteria. The sun will vaporize the earth and eventually burn out. The galaxies will lose sight of each other as space-time expands endlessly, until in a trillion years all the stars will have burned out and the universe will be cold and black. This is the highpoint of it all, folks, and I'm it. How great is that?!

Lots of books have influenced me, but what is

2009-08-31T08:11:52-06:00

A number of books remain on my shelves because I found something compelling in them. In no particular order:

Annie Dillard - Teaching a Stone to Talk
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth
Norton Juster - Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys
Norton Juster - The Dot and the Line
C. S. Lewis - Perelandra
C. S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces
William Styron -- Sophie's Choice
T. H. White -- The Once and Future King
John Fowles -- The Ebony Tower, The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Gardiner -- Grendel
James Clavell -- Shogun
Norman Maclean -- A River Runs Through It
James Michener -- The Drifters
Susan Scott - Fierce Conversations
Martin Gardiner - All his collections of Scientific American Mathematical Games columns
Jorge Luis Borges - All his short story collections
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Robert Heinlein - practically anything he wrote

No book helped me through a particular crisis, but all of these books have had a lasting influence on the way I think and write. Only three are non-fiction. Hmmm.

I should be one of the Pitiful Shags.

2009-08-30T11:07:15-06:00

I wish I had been one of the Pitiful Shags, I don’t care which one. I have a lot of ideas for songs that could have really juiced their repertoire, and I’ve had some great suggestions for alternative names, like The Shagadelics or Shag Jam or Shagalicious or Bobby and the Shags. I know, I know, they named themselves after our hometown, Pitiful, WV, but who says all bands have to have their hometown in their name?

The thing is, the Pitiful Shags have had such an interesting life, on the road staying in nice hotels and playing everywhere from Beebe to Shockeysville. I mean, Beebe is practically in Ohio! I’ve never been that far. I can just picture the great places where they performed – they’d be up on a stage with lights on them and everything. They’d probably have electric outlets on the floor, instead of the tangle of extension cords we have at OK Joe’s here in Pitiful center, and they’d probably have a crowd that appreciated how great they really are.

If I were in the band, I’d keep everyone: Mickey, with that sleepy look in his eyes and his blond hair long in back makes a great lead singer. Sally and Sam and Billy-Joe are all great musicians. I’d probably have to learn the saxophone so I could add something that way.

We’d travel and sing and be great friends, and I’d see some more of the world than what we have here. And if Mickey went and hooked up with one of those groupies they probably have everywhere, maybe a blonde like Kate Hudson, you bet I’d be madder’n a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat, but we’d work it out in the end.

I should be in the band.

The Mom & Pop Stop is my favorite 'Mom & Pop' shop

2009-08-29T14:45:19-06:00

I bought my first set so long ago that I don't even remember it. They were pretty good parents for a kid in elementary school, playing Candyland for hours with me, helping with homework, taking me to the playground, that sort of thing. They did make the mistake of having another child, though, which put them on probation with me.

When I hit high school, I found that they weren't growing with me. They kept teaming up to tie me down. I had to do homework before we could go to the mall. I had to clean my room if I wanted my allowance. My father was both strict and ignorant, and my mother sided with him all the time. I finally made the decision when I was 15, when I persuaded them to come downtown with me. A quick detour to that cute Mom & Pop Stop, and I exchanged them for a new pair.

These parents were pretty cool. They fancied themselves aging hippies, and they practically encouraged me to smoke weed with them, have beer or wine with dinner, and have sex before I was emotionally ready. In fact, that last bit soured me on them long before I would have normally traded them in. I still have some emotional scars from that first time, and it's their fault, honestly.

Another trip down to the Mom & Pop Stop, and I had a new set. These were more hands off, not pushing me one way or the other, letting me make mistakes and helping me learn from them. I grew a lot with them, learning to make my own decisions. They were liberal with the allowance, and they let me borrow the car whenever I wanted. Pop was a little annoyed when I borrowed his MG instead of the station wagon, but I always left it clean and full, so he didn't mind too much.

I decided I needed new parents when we were going through the college guides and I realized I needed parents with a bankroll. I was shocked to learn that these two had never saved up any money for my education. What were they thinking? Off to the Mom & Pop Stop, and problem solved.

I've kept these for a while now. College is done and paid for, and they've been pretty good about helping me get furniture for my apartment. I call these two Ma and Da, and I'm actually impressed by how much Da knows about how the world works. Unlike the pair I had in junior high, these two let me do things without putting conditions on me. Unlike the pair I had in high school, Ma and Da have helped me see the downsides to the way some of my old friends liked to live. I'm happy with this set, and I think I'll keep them for a while.

I want to put in a good word for the folks at the Mom & Pop Stop. They've been great about helping me select the kind of parents I want, and they've given me great trade-in values on the old ones. I don't know what they do with the old ones, and I don't really want to know. I hear there is a market for used parents, but I'd never consider buying them for myself. Maybe they send the used ones to countries where the standards aren't so high. I hear that in Cuba, they have kept old ones running for fifty years or more. I know, I know, good maintenance can keep them going practically forever. Still, I like a set with that fresh smell and that full wallet -- no way to fake that. So, next time you're looking to trade in your old set, visit the folks at the Mom & Pop Stop. You won't regret it.

I must be getting thinner right this very minute.

2009-08-28T08:31:43-06:00

Surfing the internet, watching TV, reading a book -- you're burning fuel to keep your fingers clicking and your brain ticking. A Google search on "Brain calories" will show that your brain uses roughly 30% of your total energy consumption, roughly 1/10th of a calorie per minute, considerably more if you are actively learning a new task or concept. That's 144 calories a day, minimum, or more if you're truly thinking hard.

I'm a very thoughtful person, so I'd better eat a cookie so I don't waste away.

It started with a wriggle and a hop

2009-08-27T18:30:29-06:00

It started with a wriggle and a hop, but something went wrong. I was near the center of the dance floor at my favorite club in the Zone -- this was about a year ago. The DJ had been playing some fast beats, and Justine and I had been really hot, so hot that some people had edged back to give us space. On one side, they all just stopped and watched. I love it when they do that; it gives us so much more energy. Then, the DJ switched tempos, one of his signature jumps from one song to another, and I tried to flip into that different feel. What actually happened was that I did this sort of wriggle and a hop and I slipped -- I ended up flat on my stomach with my arms straight down my sides. With everyone watching, I had to make it good, so I did that full body wave from head to foot about three times, and everyone cheered. Next thing you know, everyone is down on their stomachs, doing the Worm for the rest of the night! Fast tempos, slow tempos, we were figuring out how to get it into everything. In a week it was all over the city, and in six months, it was all over the country. When Time magazine wrote it up, even my older brother was impressed, although they didn't credit me. Of course, down in the Zone, they're all looking at me for the next big thing. Maybe if I came wearing swim fins?

"Uh, Ed, can I borrow your bucket, and can Chrissy come out to work on my truck with me?"

2009-08-26T09:12:23-06:00

Uh, Ed, can I borrow your bucket, and can Chrissy come out to work on my truck with me?
Honestly -- "Can I borrow your bucket?" Chrissy was 18 at the time. Ed, her father, was an intimidating guy who had a one-man machine shop down near the waterfront. He'd had one or two eager young fellows work for him as apprentices, but that never lasted long. Ed was a mechanical genius. He could make absolutely anything, it seemed. He was the go-to guy, the resource of last resort, but everyone was scared of him.

"Can I borrow your bucket" wasn't suave. Funny thing, though: it worked. Maybe it was that everyone else was too scared even to try.

A review of an unwatched film.

2009-08-25T14:08:01-06:00

Two months ago, we netflixed "The Front," a 1976 film with Woody Allen. We haven't seen it yet, but Plinky asks us to write a review. No problem.

"The Front" is an amusing, if pedestrian, introduction to a series that will eventually include seven other films: The Left Side, The Right Side, The Back, The Top, The Bottom, The Inside, and The Outside. Together, they will be an oeuvre of staggering ambition, depicting, through a series of touchingly human stories, nothing less than the whole of existence, the meaning of life, and what happens when the popcorn runs out.

This first episode will revolve around the classic Woody Allen character, a nebbish, insecure, neurotic, and hoping to get the girl who seems way out of his class. He will have many amusing one-liners, and the girl will find him oddly attractive, something the audience won't quite understand.

When the film reaches the home rental market, a few intrepid connoisseurs will rent it, and, depending on what else is going on, possibly even watch it.

In our case, summer means family activities, friends coming to stay, fun in the sun until absurdly late in the evening. In the past two months, we've gone to no cinemas, watched no films, and had the TV on for perhaps a total of three or four hours. Do we miss it? Not when there are beach cook-outs with lobster rolls, mussels steamed in wine, and fresh bluefish burgers calling us.

Eternity!

2009-08-24T07:40:23-06:00

The possibilities for temporary tattoos are endless.

"Eternity!" -- Nothing says permanence like a temporary tattoo.

"This is a temporary tattoo." -- Might as well be straightforward.

"I'm so tough I got this tattoo." -- Maybe cover that over towards the end of the week when the letters start to fade.

An image of the license plate of the car of the guy who I think killed my wife and robbed me of my short term memory, along with the words "Don't trust him."

How about a small, discreet butterfly on my ankle? If I grow fat and bloated in the course of the week, my ankle will probably not be so fat that the butterfly is unrecognizable.

I'd cover my entire body and face with complex images of dragons, unicorns, Harleys, mermaids, Trojan warriors, wizards, dolphins, volcanoes, beaches, mountains, crucifixes, skiers, power boats, surfers, devils, the words "Why Not?," sunsets, drag racers, hot air balloons, nudes, magnificent sequoias, angels, the Last Supper, gnomes, and the complete text of E. B. White's "The Elements of Style." That should about do it.

Bewildered? I'd rather be Bond, James Bond.

2009-08-23T08:33:58-06:00

I was four. It would have been so much more interesting like this:

Standing outside the terminal, I could see my reflection in the tinted plate glass -- tall, fit and lean for a four-year-old, dressed in a snappy dark suit from Barney's, with black wing-tips and a new fedora. I tipped the driver as he placed my bags on the curb, and I nodded to the porter as he picked them up. That's the way I roll -- look cool, and let others do the heavy lifting.

I followed the porter into the terminal, icy air-conditioning giving me momentary goosebumps. We walked straight up to the VIP desk, casually glancing at the huddled masses standing in the chump line. Bright, perky music played unobtrusively on the PA system, a dumbed-down version of one of the popular hits of the year before, something about a one-eyed, one-armed flying purple people eater that had given me nightmares for a month. No more, I thought to myself. Tonight, I'll try not to dream about the house burning down again, and I'll really try not to put it out with the only hose at hand.

Moments later, ticket in hand, I strode confidently past the magazine stands and shoe-shine men, ignoring their suggestions that I could spiff up those wing-tips before the flight. "Not today, lads," I smiled, "Time's a little short." "Huh, you are, too," said one of them. I stopped in my tracks, and the music went silent. Slowly I turned to face him, casually tucking the ticket in my inner breast pocket. The poor fellow stammered, "Uh, I mean, you know, you'll be late for your plane, sir." The PA started again, this time with a scratchy version of "Don't Be Cruel." I made a mental note of his name, turned on my heel, and walked on, shoes cracking like gunshots on the bright linoleum.

At the gate, I handed my ticket up to the steward. He bowed over the desk to greet me. "Nice to see you again, sir," he groveled. I gave him a half smile, and I winked at the mini-skirted stewardess at his side. I knew whose side she'd be on in a few minutes. "Right this way, sir," she said, escorting me onto the tarmac and up the stairs to the shiny new DC-8. "Would you like your regular seat?" The smile in her eyes told me this would be a more-than-pleasant flight.

And so on.

The real Atlantis beckons

2009-08-22T09:31:50-06:00

Atlantis, larger than Libya and Asia together, home to a civilization far older than our own. Plato tells us that the continent sank below the waves in a day and a night of earthquakes, so the population, until then gods and supermen, must have immediately evolved to survive under the sea.

I am sure they would welcome tourists, both as an opportunity to share their fantastic wealth and culture and as a financial resource. I imagine they have already set up undersea tour buses, t-shirt shops, and knick-knack stands with coffee mugs, keychains, ashtrays and paperweights. They should probably put out more public trash cans, and it would be nice to have public rest rooms everywhere. They'd better all learn to speak American, too.

Their daily palace feasts must be beyond our conception -- exquisite sushi and sashimi, delicately spiced seaweed salads, oysters on the half-shell, served by beautiful topless mermaids whose long red hair swirls gracefully while they sing hypnotic songs of longing for the world above. I'm not sure what they drink with their meals -- probably a fairly dry wine.

I demand a decent hotel room, of course, with cable and a wide-screen TV. They probably watch a lot of Flipper reruns, and they probably get a big laugh out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the Poseidon Adventure. I expect a pool with a hot tub, and I like to take a bath before bed every night.

Tell them to be ready, ok?

Kaleidoscope

2009-08-21T08:37:11-06:00

I almost never turn the TV on, but when I do, I like to watch Kaleidoscope, an hour of the most unusual programming anywhere. To begin with, its hosts are good-looking people, but not impossibly handsome. They seem to use little makeup, and their wardrobes appear to be casual, affordable chic. They seem to like each other, but they don't share a smirky insider humor that leaves viewers wishing they were part of the club.

The content is usually broken into three parts. In the first part, they bring in a panel of articulate experts to discuss one of the major topics of the day. The experts come from all professions, and they break issues down into clear and intuitive elements. By the end of the segment, the viewer has come to an informed and rational opinion free of the bias of the media elite.

In the second half of the program, Kaleidoscope reviews an important and current element of the arts, which may mean an in-depth review of the work of an artist or a musician, or which may mean a detailed critique of a theater production or a museum. They rarely interview performers, because most such interviews are virtually empty of content.

The most entertaining portion is the third half, which recognizes that the brain has an animal side. This portion offers high-quality music and video of one or two naturally attractive people doing naturally attractive and compelling things, always shown tastefully but with a teasing, titillating edge that keeps one rewinding for one more view.

The whole program is made even better by the complete absence of advertising, including network promotions of other programs. After an hour of Kaleidoscope, regular television seems squeezed in between intrusive ads and overlays.

Kaleidoscope grows on you, and the more you watch it, the less interest you find in the rest of TV-land. I'm still hoping that some inspired, intelligent broadcast executive makes the decision to produce and broadcast it some day.