Here’s a book that won’t make it to the best-seller list, but it could be just the right stocking stuffer for a friend or enemy: Monster Spotter’s Guide to North America. The author, Scott Francis, blogs at MySpace.
You’ll probably just want to skip this post
The family reunion went great. Fine weather, good turnout. Everyone was genial, and nobody said anything to offend me.
And yet I went home miserable.
Well, what do you expect? I’m me.
It started out fine. I drove down early to catch the 9:00 a.m. service at my old home church. Even when I got corralled into joining an impromptu quartet of relatives to sing “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” for the special music, I figured the experience couldn’t have been much worse for us who had to sing than for those who had to listen to us. Attendance was summer light, but the church was comfortable and I enjoyed the sermon. (The theme was “Be ye faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life,” in case you’re checking up on me.)
Then I drove out to the farm where the reunion is held nowadays. We had a couple hours yet before lunch, but I helped set up chairs and chatted with a few cousins.
Then people started arriving, and it got more difficult. Not bad. I was doing OK, though there are only three questions anyone asks me:
1. “Making any more trips to Norway?” (Answer: “No. I’m house-poor now. I may never get back to Norway again.”)
2. “Writing any more books?” (Answer: “Yes, but my publisher dumped me and my agent went belly up, so I’m back at square one.”)
3. (This one was only asked once, but was unquestionably posed silently by many:) “Now that Cousin X has surprised us all by getting married after all these years, are you gonna surprise us too?” (Answer: “Probably not, because I’m crazy in a way that women find particularly off-putting.”)
But I was holding up OK, until my brother Moloch casually mentioned something he said I’d said a long time ago, that I didn’t remember saying, and of which I’m ashamed now that I know about it.
That was when the trapdoor opened, and I plunged down—not into emptiness but into sewage, a noxious mixture of fear of other people and loathing of myself. I pretty much shut down for the rest of the afternoon, mostly just speaking when spoken to (which means, in all probability, nobody noticed any difference).
I drove home as soon as I could get away, and went to bed early.
I can’t even handle a pleasant afternoon with family. I wonder if I’m sliding toward complete agoraphobia. Which would be a bad thing for someone who doesn’t have anyone to sponge off for his upkeep.
I’m somewhat better today. It was a low fall and a quick bounce-back. But of course the bounce-back always ends up a little lower than the place where you started.
Athol Dickson in Infuze
Here’s an author interview with Athol Dickson in Infuze magazine.
We Claim This Land, Deep Under the Arctic
Those crazy Russians–this is too funny to ignore. Orange Jack points to reporting on Russia’s claim on the wealth of the Arctic by staking a flag on the ocean floor. Canada had a response, but that’s not as funny as what Reuters tried to pull.
Seven Keys to Gag Yourself
Jared has a new blog, The Gospel-Driven Church, and he points out 
Joel Osteen‘s latest effort: Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day. I’m having a hard time posting this to the non-fiction category, but I’m sure there’s some value to the book. Some value somewhere.
Beyond dispute
Tonight Hugh Hewitt (who obviously hates me) messed up my evening walk by broadcasting a debate between David Allen White and Christopher Hitchens over the existence of God.
This isn’t what I want in an exercise partly designed to lower my blood pressure. So I had to switch to the cassette function of my Walkman. I climbed down in the basement to find a cassette that hadn’t flaked off all its oxidation. I found an acceptable Sissel tape, and so saved the walk.
I hate arguments. If the Calvinists are right, and I’m not among the elect, I expect Hell to be a room full of people arguing at the tops of their voices forever. I shrink inside when people argue. I don’t have to be one of them. My fetal-position instinct kicks in.
I admire logic and disputation. I have immense respect for men like C. S. Lewis, who could go at an argument with a colleague for hours, then laugh and share a beer with him. That’s the way it ought to be. Questions should be talked out to the bitter end, all permutations nailed down, and there should be either consensus or an agreement to disagree. And no one should bear hard feelings.
Wish I could do it.
In harmony with this theme, my doorbell rang tonight, and there was a young woman “organizing the neighborhood for NARAL.” Last year they sent a tattooed, one-armed lesbian with her female “bodyguard.” This year’s representative was more presentable, though she avoided avoiding a cliché by having a stud in her nose. No visible bodyguard.
How does she dare go out alone like that, in a country steeped in rape and violence against women?
Anyway, I told her I wasn’t interested and backed away. She asked me why not, and I told her, “I’m pro-life.”
“I’m a sexist pig,” I added, as I closed the door.
That’s my zinger. I pull out the insult I expect from my opponent, and I use it on myself, to disarm them. “Your feeble bullets have no power over me, because I just shot myself!”
It doesn’t even make sense to me.
But let’s not argue about it.
Have a good weekend. I’m down to Kenyon for the biennial (semiannual?) every two year Walker Family Reunion on Sunday.
I thought of saying I’d share pictures, and then I thought, “Why?”
“Absurd, Ridiculous and Mind-bogglingly Insensitive”
But that’s the New York Times for you. Opinion Journal points out an article on the NYT website by Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt, who asks, “If you were a terrorist, how would you attack?”
Now, that question alone is a little shocking, but more importantly, it’s the same type of question the Pentagon asked in 2003 to the Times’ harsh criticism. “The insensitivity of the idea boggles the mind. . . . The project’s theoretical underpinnings are equally absurd,” they said back then. Now they must think it’s an acceptable query.
James Taranto concludes, “Has the Times become more sensible since 2003? The question answers itself. Thus it must be that the Times has become more absurd, ridiculous and mind-bogglingly insensitive.”
Are Zombies Better Than Fantastic Heros?
Mark Bertrand can make zombie movies sound sophisticated. He blogs, “I felt a little bit like I did that first time I read ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ and realized how much the coolest parts of Close Encounters of the Third Kind were ripped off from Lovecraft.”
Emergency Reading in the Trunk
This is hilarious. Brian Doyle asked several people what books they keep in the trunks of their cars, just in case they find themselves unprepared for a reading opportunity. He reports, “A woman in Alaska had every single book she owned because she was moving from one apartment to another. . . . A friend in California had books on alcoholism and Lutheranism.”
Amy points this out, saying it may be a good way to her to read James Joyce. I don’t live by my car enough to make this work for me. The only times I’ve had a strong need for reading material is while stuck at a car shop waiting for my car to be returned. (via Books, Inq.)
Editor Trumpets New Literary Voice
Random House states that their man David Fickling, whom they praise for discovering and editing Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, has found a new literary talent–Jenny Downham. Fickling will be releasing her first young adult novel, Before I Die, next month.
How does that strike you? Does the news that the first editor of popular books encourage you to believe a new book passed through his hands with his blessing will be just as good as the others?