How to Fend Off a Shark, from the guys who wrote the guide to surviving worst case scenarios. In short, hit the shark back.
A Gorgeous Comedy of Classes
Yesterday, my wife and I saw Pixar’s Ratatouille on a digital screen at the Rave Theater in East Ridge. It was fantastic, hilarious, and heartening. The director describes it as a story about achieving impossible dreams, and maybe that’s the idea I was smiling so much about afterward, but I worded it differently. A food critic says that though everyone cannot be a great artist, a great artist can come from anywhere. As the story’s featured cookbook claims, “Anyone can cook.” That means you, especially if you see our society or select industries against you.
I heard an interview this week with a woman who said that while studying drama at Harvard in the ’70s she was encouraged to pursue children’s theater, “because women can’t direct theater.” Neither she nor the NPR interviewer wanted to believe such an idea was common at Harvard in those days. But that idea is everywhere, is it not? Someone may tell you that being the type of person you are prevents you from accomplishing your goal, but it ain’t necessarily so.
Dream your impossible dream. Work on it no matter what the chances of success, and do it all to the glory of your Lord and Savior. You may be a great artist–no matter who you are. You won’t find out unless you try.
A day too good to criticize
Just about a perfect day today. The temperature was precisely right for my personal comfort—which means it would probably be a little warm for most people. I’m a cold-blooded beast. The thermometer usually reads about 98.2 when the nurse pulls it from my mouth and reads it. I blame this condition for my inability to endure cold. When my brothers are thumping their chests and saying, “Isn’t this great? It’s so bracing!” I’m cupping my hands over my ears to keep them warm (cupping them very carefully, though. Touching them too forcefully might shatter them like cheap plastic cups from a convenience store pop machine).
We could use some rain, but if it were raining it wouldn’t be a perfect day, would it? “Seek not contrary pleasures,” said Dr. Johnson.
One disappointment I’ve suffered during my afternoon walks down to Crystal Lake and back has been the lack of girls in bikinis sunning themselves along the shore. Crystal Lake has been sorely deficient in the sunbathing girls department. More often the shore has been encircled by an unbroken ring of Hmong people, all of them with fishing poles, pulling sunfish 2 centimeters long out of the water for supper.
But today that was remedied. I didn’t get an ideal look at the girl (no doubt that was her intention) as she was lying on a fairly steep slope that runs down from the street to the water’s edge, but she seemed to be not ugly, and she was in a bikini.
Maybe it’ll be a good weekend.
There was another form of beauty too—butterflies. I suppose it’s unmanly of me, but I love butterflies. They seem to me an entirely useless addition to the environment. I’m sure their ecological niche could have been filled by something brown that looked like one of the more undistinguished moths. But God gave us flowers that flew, just as a treat.
That’s how I think of butterflies. They’re a gift. A grace note. A cherry on top of the sundae of summer.
Have a good weekend.
Don’t Bother Getting Published
“I’ve lost count of the number of emails I get asking for advice on how to get published. My initial reaction is ‘Why bother?’ when being unpublished is such fun and so satisfying,” writes Beth Webb. “Getting published by a mainstream company is great, but in all honesty, how many of us can really afford to give up the day job, even when we’ve signed that contract? Such a long, heartbreaking haul for what? The joy of writing should be just that – the writing.”
There’s something to this, but I don’t what. (via Books, Inq.)
Turn Off the News and Don’t Slug Your Barber
If you find yourself frustrated with politics or elections this year or next, I have two recommendations for you. First, turn off the news for a week. Sure the earth will probably burn at the poles because you aren’t staying informed, but that’s a risk you should take for your peace of mind. Turning off the news, especially TV news, will help you get your mind off bothersome things you can’t control and allow you to worry about personal things you can’t control. That’s called relaxation.
Second, read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “The Barber.” It’s a humorous little tale about a professor who feels compelled to argue politics with his thick-headed barber. Though the professor calls himself a liberal, I think the story will appeal to anyone who believes he has good reasons on his side and the opposition is all cliché.
I should say upfront I’m not sure of O’Connor’s main point in this story. You could easily take away the idea that arguing politics with anyone is worthless, as one character recommends, but I’m not willing to stop there. The professor’s passion and humiliation seem to better address the idea that it’s worthless to argue with some people. The barber is clearly a fool, and I’m sure O’Connor was familiar with the Proverbs on fools.
A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain,
but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.
Leave the presence of a fool,
for there you do not meet words of knowledge.
The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way,
but the folly of fools is deceiving. (Proverbs 14:6-8 ESV)
It may be just the story to entertain you when you’re frustrated with candidates and commenters, but whatever your position on the issues this year and no matter what your barber says to you, don’t sock him in the face, okay? As a great politician once said, it wouldn’t be prudent.
Focus on Character
If Flannery had a blog, she might post a bit of writing advice on occasion.
You would probably do just as well to get that plot business out of your head and start simply with a character or anything that you can make come alive…Wouldn’t it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write rather than to impose one? Nothing you write will lack meaning because the meaning is in you.
It’s called Dispatches from Outland
Roy Jacobsen, over at Dispatches from Outland, Dispatches from Outland, Dispatches from Outland (I repeat it three times in penance for getting it wrong last night) succumbed to my passive-aggressive hint and posted the pictures of me this morning, here.
He mentioned it in the comments on my last post, but I’m saying it out here in the sunlight to make sure YOU NOTICE IT.
Man, I love attention. That might surprise some people, because I make a fetish of not calling attention to myself or promoting myself, but all the time I’m trying to find oblique ways to get that notice, either by some achievement or other, or by passive aggression.
So thanks, Roy, for being my enabler.
(The blog is called Dispatches from Outland.)
So, the immigration bill went down in flames.
I never knew what to think about that issue. Most of the talk shows are against it, but when Michael Medved came on to defend it, I thought he made a lot of sense too. So I was utterly at sea, and not sure enough of any position to badger my senator.
But here’s what I do think.
I think there’s a movement (not a conspiracy. No council of plutocrats is strategizing in a secret room. It’s more of a state of mind abroad in the land) that wants America to be anything but what it has been in the past.
The people who hold this view love America, but they love it in their own way. They love America the way parents love a drug-addicted teenager—“You’ll always be our son and we’ll always love you, but you have to clean up your act.”
These people don’t love America’s origins. They don’t love its history. They don’t love its traditions (especially its religion).
What they love about America is what they see as its potential to become something they could be proud of.
Because they hate America’s history and traditions, they see no reason why anyone should be expected to go through a regularized naturalization process, to learn about America. Why learn about something we’re going to erase anyway?
Because they hate America’s culture, they don’t want immigrants to assimilate. They want to see Balcanization—a country built up of thousands of ethnic enclaves, peopled by folks who can’t communicate with one another, because there’s no common language.
Because they’re ashamed of America’s history, they want to enable (not cause, but open the door to) the partition of America, so that the Old Southwest either goes back to Mexico or becomes an independent Hispanic nation.
I think they lost a fight today, but they win a little by carrying on the status quo too. So I’m not celebrating.
You know what I see for the future (putting on my prophet’s hat here)? I see—certainly in Europe and very possibly in America—ethnic conflict on a scale never before seen in history. Bloodbaths, deportations, genocide and terrorism.
Until somebody charismatic and ruthless rides in on a white horse to impose order.
And I don’t like the thought of him either.
Why Should He Know Her Name?
I just learned of a new fantasy novel, Auralia’s Colors, coming this summer from WaterBrook Press. It could be interesting, engaging, even good. I see that Books & Culture’s John Wilson calls it “a vivid and continuous dream.” You can read the first chapter on the author’s site.
At this point, I should probably shut up, but we talk about the craft of writing every now and then on BwB, so in that vein, what do you think of these opening lines?
Auralia lay still as death, like a discarded doll, in a burgundy tangle of rushes and spineweed on the bank of a bend in the River Throanscall, when she was discovered by an old man who did not know her name.
She bore no scars, no broken bones, just the stain of inkblack soil. Contentedly, she cooed, whispered, and babbled, learning the river’s language, and focused her gaze on the stormy dance of evening sky roiling purple clouds edged with blood red. The old man surmised she was waiting and listening for whoever, or whatever, had forsaken her there.
So the little girl lay there cooing and babbling as still as death? How does that work? Wasn’t she moving her mouth? And she was discovered by an old man who did not know her name? Why should he know her name? He’s just discovered her. I would be surprised if he knew her beforehand.
Still a little peanut butter in the jar
I’m really milking this weekend for material. It wasn’t spectacularly eventful, but it was more memorable than my mental activity has been in the days since. So I’ll squeeze out a few more notes, because I know how you all live vicariously through me.
I made a marvelous discovery during my (roughly) eight hours of driving. Or I think I did. It appears (I haven’t proved it to the level of scientific demonstration, but it looks promising) that my vehicle is one of those that actually get better mileage with the windows shut and the air conditioning on, than with the A/C off and the windows open. This is wonderful. Not only is it more comfortable to drive that way, but I can actually hear my Sissel CDs.
I had a visit in the Viking encampment from Roy Jacobsen of Writing, Clear and Simple and Dispatches from Outland. He took a picture, but so far it hasn’t appeared on either of his blogs.
On the other hand, when I see it I may be sorry I brought it up. I keep forgetting I’m old and fat now.
A woman who’d bought a couple of my books the last time I was at the Hjemkomst Festival came by to tell me she’d enjoyed them very much, and she wants me to speak at a Scandinavian cultural conference in Wisconsin next winter. She said they’d pay me and everything.
Almost the most beautiful words in the English language.
Here’s an interesting article. It appears they’ve found an Incan skeleton in a Norwegian grave dated to 1,000 AD (that’s Erling Skjalgsson’s period). (Hat tip: Mirabilis)
If that’s not a mistake, it’s earthshaking. The Incans lived in Peru, which is on the whole other side of South America. Man, there’s a novel in that. I wrote an (unpublished) book about Erling in which he went to Vinland, but I didn’t have the nerve to send him further south than somewhere around Connecticut.
Update: I have corrected the name of Roy Jacobsen’s 2nd blog, “Dispatches From Outland.” The error was due to a brain charleyhorse, an increasingly common problem for me. ljw
I Won’t Lead with a Paris Hilton Story
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski won’t lead the news with a story on Paris Hilton getting out of jail. This is remarkable. Her bosses had better treat her well.