Pete Peterson writes about the shape of good stories. “So what makes a story work? … Transformers—didn’t work. District 9—did work. Star Wars—worked. Battle Beyond the Stars—didn’t work. Interview with a Vampire—worked. Twilight—well…I say it didn’t work. It’s harder to play this game with books because books that don’t work quickly fade into obscurity and we never even hear of them, but trust me, for every Gilead there’s another diary-based memoir out there that’s an interminable bore.”

I wasted a couple hours of my life watching Battle Beyond the Stars. I’m sure I saw an edited for TV version, because looking back on it, it looks much worse than the slock I remember. On the other side of the spectrum, I stopped reading Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, because the pacing is just too slow. Don’t look at me that way. I know I’m losing my English major street cred. I’m not happy about it.

There’s a play performed in North Carolina about an early American colony on Roanoke Island. It tells the story of the attempt to settle an English colony on that island, and their mysterious end. One of their leaders, John White, left the colony to get necessary supplies from England and was unable to return for a few years. When we made it back, the colony was gone. The only sign hinting at where the people went is the curious wreckage of what is believed to be the world’s first aircraft and a toddler being raised by friendly, English-speaking wolves.

Now, Researchers say they have discerned the meaning of a patch to “the ‘Virginea Pars’ map of Virginia and North Carolina” created by explorer John White in the 1580s and owned by the British Museum since 1866… [T]he discovery of the fort symbol offers the first new clue in centuries about what happened to the 95 or so settlers, experts said Thursday. And researchers at the British Museum discovered it because Brent Lane, a member of the board of the First Colony Foundation, asked a seemingly obvious question: What’s under those two patches?”

Made it through the first day of Minnesota’s annual diversity binge, The Festival of Nations in St. Paul. Today was the easiest day—only 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The next three days will be 9:30 to 10:00. If there’s such a thing as Death by Crowd, I may be in danger of it.

Today was the first of the student days, reserved for elementary through high school kids. Tomorrow is also a student day till 4:00, at which point the doors will be thrown open to taxpayers. As in past years, the students exhibited an undiminished enthusiasm for buying vuvuzelas and those little bird-shaped whistles that make warbling sounds. If you suspect that this noise might be irritating, you are correct. Sombreros are also popular souvenirs, though the felt pizza hat seems to be declining in public favor.

The best thing about the festival, so far, is that they moved our exhibit to a spot right next to the Men’s Room and the water fountain. I find that that’s about all I really need in life, at this age.

The great disappointment was a technical problem with our photo printer, which prevented us from taking people’s pictures in Viking garb and selling them the prints. This has been a major earner for us in the past, and I hope we get that straightened out tomorrow.

Ah yes, I sold a few books, too. So I came out ahead for the day, even considering the cost of food in the International Food Court.

Tomorrow I’ll drag home sometime around 11:00 p.m., so I expect I won’t be posting anything.

Several people have reviewed Lars’ latest novel in various avenues, but only one review has been posted to Lulu.com, the main ebook publishing site for the book. If your review is on Amazon, for example, copy it here. Of course, if you have not reviewed the book, but you have read it, please take a few minutes to post your thoughts on Lulu and Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, that MySpace page you haven’t updated since 2004, your wife’s Pinterest boards, and your local newspaper. Need any more ideas?

Thank you, I’m a little better tonight. Not well, but capable of functioning at a minimal level.

The most insidious thing about depression (I know I’ve written about this before) is the false sense of clarity it gives you. “Now, at last,” you feel, “I’ve cast aside the self-delusion and the rose-colored glasses. Now I see the world plainly, as it is, and I understand that it’s all death and corruption and doom.”

Naturalism in art, as generally practiced, I think, is almost a cultural form of depression. The Naturalist artist prides himself on painting (or writing about) decaying corpses and deformed children, congratulating himself that he has pierced the veil of illusion to portray the world as it actually is.

This same artist, however, very likely has a spouse or lover on whom he dotes, and children who delight him. But he will not include those things in his art, except in order to set the the viewer or reader up for some shock. He’s not a hypocrite, but he’s as delusional as the Pollyannas of this world, only from the other side. His view of reality is one-dimensional and consciously selective.

That’s one of the reasons I appreciate the Bible.

You’ll often run into people (especially on the Net, particularly on Facebook) who will delightedly point out all kinds of awful things somebody (usually not they themselves) found in the Bible—atrocities and rapes and injustices—and natter about how the Bible is really pornography and anybody who takes it seriously must be some kind of deviant.

These people are as superficial as the Christian Triumphalists, whose understanding of Scripture is frequently shaped, not by actually reading the Book, but by books of Biblical Principles written by religious celebrities. Or just some celebrity preacher’s TV sermons.

I wrestle with many things I find in the Bible, and I cannot claim to have solved its mysteries (I’ve written about how I deal with those things elsewhere, and won’t address that subject tonight). But when I go to the Bible I come away with the sense that I’ve encountered something entirely true to life. It is not a happy book about bunnies, nor is it a “realistic” novel by Zola. It contains real pain, real tragedy, and real hope.

Some Christians may be glib. The Bible, whatever else you may say about it, is not that.

I may or may not post tomorrow. I plan to be at The Festival of Nations at the River Centre in St. Paul, as has been my wont in recent years. It closes early tomorrow afternoon, so I may get time to post something, if only a scream from the heart of an overtaxed introvert. Or not.

Jonah Lehrer writes:

If nothing is learned, why are students and parents so desperate to get into the best schools? Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University and author of the forthcoming book “The Case Against Education,” argues that colleges are more about certifying their students than actually teaching them useful skills. Their primary function is to provide “signals” of intelligence and competency, which is why they put students through a variety of mostly arbitrary and useless academic hoops. “Good students tend to be smart, hardworking and conformist—three crucial traits for almost any job,” writes Dr. Caplan. “When a student excels in school, then, employers correctly infer that he’s likely to be a good worker.”

This is discouraging and challenging. I will likely not have the money to send my children to my alma mater or another suitable school, and I have begun to fear that it would a waste of money to do so. I loved my college experience, but I don’t know that I can offer a similar one to my children.

I’m deeply, profoundly depressed tonight, and not up to thinking up a post.

Instead, a picture of a dragonfly. Because I like them. I thought of doing a butterfly, but I’m in more of a dragonfly mood.



Photo credit: André Karwath

I’m not sure when I’ll do my next book review, as I recently downloaded a huge book on the Vikings in Scotland, The Viking Highlands: The Norse Age in the Highlands, by D. Rognvald Kelday, and it’ll take me a while to plow through it. But I’ll comment on something the author says right now.

Almost at the very beginning the author, who seems to have otherwise done commendable research, makes the following statement:

Norway, the land of the ‘north way’, had witnessed a rapid rise in population in the early part of the seventh century, leading eventually to a lack of land for some and a lack of opportunities for others.

This is certainly a view which may be found, prominently, in many books on the Viking Age. Most authors, though, are content to list overpopulation as one of several possible causes for the increase in Norse raiding. Kelday chooses to state flatly that overpopulation was the sole cause.

The problem with this statement is that it’s entirely false, and known to be false.

As my friend Prof. Torgrim Titlestad of the University of Stavanger writes in his book, Viking Norway (sadly out of print for now), archaeology has discovered no—that is zero—evidence for the overpopulation theory. Norwegian archaeologists report that iron ore extraction declined significantly in the Viking Age, and that moose and reindeer trapping also declined. These are the opposite of what would be expected in a situation where population was increasing and new sources of foodstuffs required. In fact, it was during the Viking Age that the Medieval Warming Period was getting under way, and there was plenty of food pretty much everywhere in Europe.

So why do historians cling to the overpopulation theory, in the teeth of actual archaeological evidence? Titlestad identifies the reason in Viking Norway:

It is also not insignificant that the overpopulation theory was tailor-made for a materialist/Marxist historical outlook…. (p. 359)

Titlestad reports, reassuringly, that the Marxist view is diminishing in influence in historical circles (something that’s news to me) and that other explanations are beginning to get more serious consideration at last.