Rev. Paul T. McCain, over at Cyberbrethren, posted this meme today. Then he had the temerity to say, “If you’re reading this, you’re tagged.” I’d object strongly to the highhandedness of such naked link-seeking, except that it saves me the trouble of coming up with an idea for tonight’s post. So without further ado…
Book Confessions Meme Continue reading Book confessions meme
Tonight’s dyspeptic screed concerns the essential dishonesty of movies.
Which I mean in the most positive sense.
I’m not going to go off on a classic Christian Fundamentalist jeremiad against Hollywood as the Whore of Babylon, the cancer that is slowing destroying our culture.
(Although, when I read those old denunciations, I’m struck by two things: 1) they were in general factually correct, and 2) all the bad effects the critics predicted that movies would bring about have in fact come to pass. You can’t fault them as prophets.)
But my subject is the dishonesty that is inherent (it seems to me) in the medium.
Christians of a legalistic bent often complain that fiction is, by definition, “just lying stories.”
Without getting into that argument, I think I’m justified in saying that novels are scrupulously truthful when compared to movies. Continue reading Cinema: the devil’s zoetrope
When I have an earworm, you must suffer.
Actually, the earworm’s a pretty good one. “Solace,” (also known as “Mexican Serenade”) by Scott Joplin. I picked up a cheap DVD of the movie, “The Sting,” and watched it Sunday, and now the song’s stuck in my brain (I was going to embed a YouTube performance, but couldn’t find one I liked).
“The Sting” got me thinking about the general falseness of the film medium in general, and the general awfulness of con men in particular. I’ll leave my deathless thoughts on movies for tomorrow. My subject tonight is con men.
One of the standard dishonesties of the cinema is to make us like somebody by putting them up against somebody even worse. The Man With No Name in the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, for instance, wasn’t particularly admirable, but he was an absolute saint compared to the desperadoes he gunned down. In the same way, the makers of “The Sting” got us to tolerate—even delight in—the dishonesty of the protagonists by making them the little guys, trying to get some revenge on the vicious crime lord, The Big Mick, who killed their friend Luther. Continue reading The cons of Cons
I think I’m beginning to recover from Daylight Savings Time-Lag. This morning I found myself 5 minutes ahead of schedule getting dressed and breakfasted, and I still don’t know what part of my morning routine I forgot to do (and yes, I had put on my pants, thank you very much).
Today is the day of the Great Snowstorm. Well, it’s great up where Roy Jacobsen lives (or so I understand), but down here it’s a storm without enthusiasm, an ambivalent storm where the snowflakes come down still uncertain whether they want to be snow or rain, and opt for rain once they hit the pavement. It’s cooling down now, so I suppose we’ll get some accumulation, but I’m not counting on a snow day off from work tomorrow.
I meant to do a second post last night, but the idea I’d been working on all day flew out of my mind entirely (blame Daylight Savings Time). Let’s try this again:
Over at The American Spectator, Daniel Oliver posted a column yesterday about a few common political quotations which weren’t (or can’t be proven to have been) said by the people who generally get credit for them. Apparently nobody said them.
Wait. Somebody must have said them. Continue reading You may quote me, whether I said it or not
Our friend Loren Eaton meditates on the question of whether writers are happy or unhappy people (and if unhappy, whether that’s a necessary condition). And he links to a good article by Nathan Bransford, literary agent, on how to be happy though creative.
Happy or sad? Happy or sad?
I’m thinking. I’m thinking.
According to this report, Hillary Clinton “dropped a brick” (as the English say) when she met with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. She’d had her crack staff put together a joke red button that was supposed to have the word “Reset” printed on it in Russian.
Instead, the word inscribed on the item by the Best and Brightest was one that means “overloaded.”
OK, I’ll cop to it. It’s all my fault.
In their zeal for equal opportunity, the State Department chose not to hire an actual Russian interpreter for this translating exercise, because Russian speakers have an unfair and undemocratic lock on such jobs.
Instead, in a bold affirmative action move, they broke the glass ceiling by hiring a Norwegian translator instead. And that translator was me.
My bad.
The little video Phil posted below advertises a fantasy game set in a sort of imaginary Viking world.
One thing that caught my attention was that the hero wears one of those over-the-shoulder back scabbards.
Allow me to rant about those for a moment. Continue reading Bad buttons and shabby sheaths
It occurs to me that you might be interested to know the inside story on the glamorous, high-energy process of getting a book published. So I’ll tell you where I am as of today with West Oversea (available soon wherever fine books are sold. Ask for it by name).
A couple days back I got e-mails from my publisher and my editor, asking for input on the actual production of the physical book.
I got a .pdf of the manuscript as it’s been laid out, and the editor wanted my opinions on some issues. Would I mind if they moved the List of Characters from the back to the front? (Not at all.) What did I think of the “Kells” font? (I love it with a love that is more than love, but I think the body of the back cover copy should be in something more immediately readable.) Can I get some kind of blurb for this book, to supplement the reviews of older books? (Yes, I can. In fact I was amazed at the enthusiasm with which a couple fairly prominent personages, whom I know only by e-mail, agreed to read the galleys and write something for us. One guy I’d really hoped for isn’t answering my e-mails, but you can’t have everything.)
I mailed her a sheaf of copies of my old reviews yesterday, along with a copy of The Year of the Warrior, because she’d like this volume to resemble that earlier volume a little. (Which is nice.)
She notes that I’ll have to make some changes in the Afterword, where I thank people. That’s more true than she knows. I wrote the Afterword back in 2002, and at least one (very likely two; I’m not sure yet) of the people I thanked have passed away in the intervening Seven Lean Years. And I suspect I’ll want to thank her too, before I’m done.
This is one of the best parts of the process. I can’t wait to see the cover art. And looking forward to holding the actual, bound book in my hands is—well, I won’t say it’s like waiting for your child to be born. The two things aren’t even in the same ballpark (from all I hear). Let’s say it’s like waiting for the puppies to be born.
Master thriller writer Frederick Forsyth stumbled into a genuine political coup on a recent research trip to Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.
From the Associated Press:
Hours before he touched down in the West African nation, a bomb hidden under a staircase blew apart the armed forces chief. Hours later the president was gunned down, and according to Forsyth, hacked to pieces.
He said he has stopped inventing fictional places “because the world is so weird and so scary, you might as well use the real ones.”
Read the rest here.
Robert Crais, in my opinion, is getting to be a better and deeper novelist with each book.
Chasing Darkness is a departure from his recent novels in that he tones down the violence a bit. He’s been prone lately to having his main characters (private eye Elvis Cole and his associate Joe Pike) end up seriously wounded and hospitalized after a harrowing life-or-death battle, but this time it’s all about the mystery and the characters, with the final bloodletting somewhat less comprehensive. And I don’t think he loses anything by that.
The story begins in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, during a wildfire evacuation. Policemen sent in to evacuate residents discover a dead man, an apparent suicide, sitting over a photo album containing photographs of female murder victims—photographs that could only have been taken before the police got to the scenes.
Suddenly Elvis Cole is the target of investigation by the police, and threats from one of the victims’ families. Because he worked for the dead man’s lawyer and helped get him acquitted on one of these murders.
Elvis doesn’t like being pushed, and he knows for a fact that the guy couldn’t have committed the murder. So he reopens his investigation. In this he is assisted (off the record) by his police detective friend Carol Starkey, and of course Joe Pike, the best guy in the world to have watching your back.
What he discovers is corruption, depravity and cover-up at the highest levels of city government. And then he gets a surprise, and the whole game changes.
I liked Chasing Darkness a lot. It’s a cerebral, tragic, character-driven story, concentrating on the costs of crime to those who care about the victims.
Recommended for grownups.
Roy Jacobsen, of Writing Clear and Simple, alerts us that tomorrow is National Grammar Day.
Update: On closer examination, I note that National Grammar Day is actually today.
Unless you’re reading this tomorrow, of course, in which case it’s yesterday.