1. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a hastily uploaded picture of a plane at the departure gate.”
2. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I tweeted my followers to ask which I should take.”
I love these. Read more at 501 Places
Eat like a Viking, regurgitate, repeat
In case you’re wondering how I’m doing on the Virtual Book Tour I’ve been working on for my publisher, I think I can say it’s been going well. I’ve finished one blog post and several interviews for various literature-related blogs. And yes, I’ll let you know where to look for them, once they appear (assuming I find out myself).
I’m nearly finished with the first batch of interviews. I understand more are coming. Today the publicist asked me how I felt about writing a food-related post for a blog that talks to authors about their favorite recipes.
Now on the surface that doesn’t make much sense, me being a certified microwave-dependent bachelor (though I do make a mean scratch chocolate chip cookie when the fit is on me). But the idea of writing about Viking food, and relating it to West Oversea (buy it here) is intriguing. I’ve decided to do it, and I’ve made arrangements to borrow a recipe from a reenactor friend.
(And yes, in case you wondered, I will give her credit for it.)
I feel confident I can produce a post unlike any this particular blog has seen before. A hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners exposé of genuine Viking cuisine, featuring such delights as rotten shark (a delicacy in Iceland which reportedly made that Chef Gordon Ramsey throw up), and sheep’s head (also popular in Iceland. The eyeballs, I’m told, are especially relished). Many is the joke that’s been made about lutefisk over the years, but the Norwegians’ beloved lutefisk is just a pale, ghostly remnant of the true Nightmare On Elm Street mealtime horrors of the Scandinavian past.
Because we’re talking about a marginal economy, where taste places a far distant second to survival.
People sometimes ask me whether I wish I had been born in the Viking Age.
My answer is no, for three reasons.
One, I was a sickly child who would in all probability have been exposed on a hillside for the wolves at birth.
Two, the plumbing was awful.
Three, the food was inedible to the modern palate.
I’ve written a time travel book (still unpublished at this date) in which a father and daughter get the opportunity to go back to Viking Age Norway and stay there. She points out that if they did, they’d never get to eat chocolate again.
I call that an excellent point.
Merry Christmas, Gromit
Britain’s Wallace and Gromit are now stars in Royal Mail stamps. I wonder if I can get some of these.
Interactive Fiction: Is It the Future?
Keith Stuart asks if interactive fiction is the future of books. “For example,” Mr. Stuart writes, “clues could be unlocked by shaking the screen so that most of the words ‘fall off’ revealing hidden codes. Other narrative elements could be unveiled by opening the book while in a specific geographic location.” He goes on to describe what is already online for interactive fiction and why a cool idea may not work for previously published novels.
Writing Contests
Jane Friedman has a list of national writing contests with not entry fee.
Man-Kzin Wars XI, by Hal Colebatch, Matthew Joseph Harrington, and Larry Niven
I reviewed Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War a while back. This is the sequel. My friend Hal Colebatch, who wrote all the stories of the previous volume, contributes the bulk of Man-Kzin Wars XI
The background (these books are set in Larry Niven’s Ringworld
You Can't Say 'Nazi,' But Us?
Political signs with Nazi words, symbols, or overtones showed up a rally during that past week, and the media yawned. Maybe they were tired from all of their outrage a few weeks ago. Larry O’Connor reports, “What is truly scandalous about the traditional media’s apparent obliviousness is the fact that unlike the Tea Parties — which are often spontaneous, unorganized events with no direct affiliation to a politician or a political party — this protest has been directly liked to Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, and her campaign has been caught in a series of misleading statements regarding that involvement.”
Is it worse that such signs appear at an organized rally or at an unorganized one? Is it exhausting to hear outrage about one and not the other, a news cycles about one and nothing about the other?
Of course, the illustration here is not from one of the posters, but it is a curious bit of Nazi propaganda, is it not? Having they been called christians of a sort in your hearing? This isn’t a Christian poster.
Fun and Books with Jasper Fforde
In this interview from a few years ago, author Jasper Fforde, who has a new novel coming next year
Of course, one always thinks ‘wouldn’t it be great to be published?’ But I was always thinking ‘oh, it’d be great to be published but it’s not likely, but I’m having fun, so I’m going to write what I want to write.’ So when I did actually speak to people about my project, they thought it was a pile of rubbish.
Freedom–You Don't Want It
D.G. Myers criticizes the new Jonathan Franzen novel, Freedom. Apparently, the author’s idea behind the title is closer to tyranny than liberty. Myers notes how thoroughly liberal, as in the American political left, this novel is. “Franzen’s references to his title leave small doubt that he holds the Leftist view that freedom is the problem, not a political solution to much of anything,” he writes and goes on to describes scenes in which the word freedom appears. The last of these scenes refers to the freedom a pet loses when collared by its owner. (via Frank Wilson)
Buy Freedom: A Novel
By way of taking all the fun of this, look at what Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary has on freedom: “A state of exemption from the power or control of another; liberty; exemption from slavery, servitude or confinement. Freedom is personal, civil, political, and religious. [See Liberty.]” That’s the summary. Much more is under liberty, explaining specifics of natural, civil, religious, political, and other types of liberty.
My first ukelele-inspired post, I think
Over at Grim’s Hall (we seem to be doing a lot of profitable cross-pollination between our two blogs these days) Grim posted this amusing clip of the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain doing a number you’ll… probably recognize.
This is a lot of fun, and I’m glad there are people doing silly things like this in the world.
And yet, as I mentioned in the comments, it’s not a great thing in itself. It’s great in being unique in its sub-genre, excelling in a field in which there’s little competition. I remember an old Peter Sellers movie, “The Bobo,” in which he played “The World’s Only Singing Matador.” Not the best matador, not even a very good matador, just the only one who sang.
I once saw a poster on the University of Minnesota campus, back in my college days. It advertised a movie about the struggles of Labor. It proudly proclaimed that this was the first film ever produced purely on Collectivist principles. Every detail of scripting, production, casting, and filming was decided by a vote of all the workers involved.
Needless to say, I did not go to see this masterpiece. I’m fairly sure I’d rather have the insides of my eyelids tattooed by a prison inmate than see that film.
Because any work of art that says, “See me for some reason other than that I’m a good piece of work” can pretty much be counted on to be very bad.
And that applies to Christian art, too.
Even mine.
(Which does not in any way mean the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain isn’t really, really cool.)