Patrick Kurp writes about those single lines of beauty or clarity within otherwise unremarkable poems. He boils it down to this: “Art is the least democratic and most ruthless of masters. It doesn’t recognize sensitivity, fairness or anyone’s good intentions – writer’s, reader’s, critic’s. Nothing else, only the work, counts.”
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Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand
Lars has already reviewed Mark Bertrand’s detective novel, Back on Murder, so it may already be on your To-Read list. I finished it Friday and loved it. At the start of the novel, Roland March is “a suicide cop,” the officer in the homicide department who does the legwork no one wants to do after a fellow officer kills himself. Though March made a name for himself years ago and had the respect of whole department, his one famous case killed a part of him and has been dragging him down ever since. When a house full of gang members is found shot up, March notices a detail that sticks with him, irritating him into taking risks that only further distance him his teammates. But will those risks pay off?
Layer onto the murder case the disappearance of a beautiful blond teenager, one who looks like the other good-looking teenagers you’ve seen on national news, but this one is the daughter of godly widow, a pillar of her Houston mega-church. Is it possible the two are related, or is March just hoping for another high-profile case to put his career back on track?
The novel’s title sums up the detective’s ambition, that is, to be fully restored in the Homicide department, no longer a burn-out and convenient scapegoat for odd police jobs. He wants respect. He wants to be trusted as the lead on another murder case, not just suicide clean-up work.
As the story develops, we see the great pain March carries and shares with his wife, Charlotte. He’s continually dropping hints about it, and the narrative gradually reveals without telling too much. It’s impressive really. Bertrand has a strong novel here, and I look forward to the next two. March definitely has staying power.
Gay is Not the New Black
Touching again on a controversial topic this week, let me link to Voddie Baucham’s article arguing that homosexual marriage cannot be considered a civil rights issue. For one thing, race and gender can be determined by heritage and blood work. Homosexuality is undeterminable outside of self-identification, and even there, we have problems. “How about men who are extremely effeminate but prefer women, or those who once were practicing homosexuals but have since come out of the lifestyle?” What about Jerry Sandusky? Who is and who isn’t a homosexual? Do we have only their word to go on?
Baucham goes on:
Perhaps the most damning aspect of the civil rights argument is logical unsustainability. If sexual orientation/identity is the basis for (1) classification as a minority group, and (2) legal grounds for the redefinition of marriage, then what’s to stop the “bisexual” from fighting for the ability to marry a man and a woman simultaneously since his “orientation” is, by definition, directed toward both sexes? What about the member of NAMBLA whose orientation is toward young boys? Where do we stop, and on what basis?
In short, gay is not the new black. It’s another front in a morality war.
Not Quitting Their Day Jobs
Dave Astor describes the gainful employment of many authors, not as professors and journalists, but as clerks and anthropologists. For example, Anthony Trollope worked in the British post office. (via Books, Inq.)
The Piano Guys: Bourne Vivaldi
If Necessary, Use a Real Quote
Glenn Stanton writes about a popular quotation that isn’t something he actually said: FactChecker: Misquoting Francis of Assisi. Francis preached the gospel with words often, but he did emphasize the need for personal devotion before preaching, so that his true passion for the Lord will pour forth in his public speech and actions.
Batman, the Sacrificial Hero
Kevin Marks writes about the struggles in The Dark Knight and No Country for Old Men on Reel Spirituality: “Batman, a creature of the night anyway, becomes now ‘the dark knight,’ assuming the blame for the evil unleashed upon Gotham by The Joker, in order that faith be restored in a criminal justice system, and the fear that grips those who walk home in the dark can at least be alleviated by knowing that the police are back in power, and are now chasing the bizarro Batman/savior figure for his crime of turning against those he had sworn to protect.”
Heroic sacrifice is an epic theme. It was touched on in the Spiderman movies, though not hammered like the responsibility angle. It’s what Saving Private Ryan tried to tell us. Perhaps we’ll see the theme carry the story in the next Batman movie.
The Internet Will Drop for Some on Monday
The FBI busted some bad guys a while back after they took over 4,000,000 computers with malware that redirected their Internet pointers. Get the gory details here. (via Dave Lull)
On Ray Bradbury
Stephen Andrew Hiltner, a fact-checker for The Paris Review, talks about working on the journal’s interview of Ray Bradbury. “[W]hat I found in the interview were things that had escaped me for much of my undergraduate and graduate years—years spent earning a supposedly literary education. He promotes friendship, love, self-discovery, the daily intake of poetry. He instructs us to read from every kind of literature we feel drawn to…. He talks about the ‘fiction of ideas’…” And there’s a story about the author’s life-long inspiration which cannot be verified and yet must be true.
Stamina, Willpower
Novelist Haruki Murakami writes, “Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.” He says it’s important to push yourself to create your vision and to train yourself to push.