Still looking for the perfect Father’s Day gift? Well, these won’t come in time, but they may be right for you: English Eccentrics Mugs! Everyone needs the occasional reminder that D is actually Dalek. If you act now, you may still be able to pick up the Invisible Man Mugs from Penguin Classics–never popular, always in style.
Did you hear the one about the Norwegian and the Swede?
I had to sidle up to the banana bleachers at the grocery store tonight, because an elderly lady was front and center, working the entire display like a symphony conductor. She was selecting various bunches, pulling one banana off each, and placing them in her cart.
“I like to get a variety of expiration dates on my bananas,” she told me in confidence. “I hate it when they get too ripe.”
That’s what we Boomers have to look forward to, I thought to myself. Timing our bananas, like IEDs in Baghdad. Hello, retirement! On the other hand, by the time I retire they may have genetically altered bananas with little digital clocks on the stems.
In connection with Phil’s post about The Dangerous Book for Boys, here’s a fine article from today’s American Spectator Online, (link defunct) about contemporary childhood in England, by my friend Hal Colebatch. (Of course I realize I’m dropping names. I like dropping names. When I’m retired I’ll have leisure to drop names on a carefully timed schedule, like ripening bananas.)
Something I thought very weird (even eerie) happened on Saturday. As I drove to my favorite local Chinese place for lunch, I was listening (as I generally do) to the Northern Alliance Radio Network guys on our local talk radio station. They were doing live coverage of the dedication of a new World War II memorial at the Minnesota state capitol.
To fill time, they were talking about what else you could see on the grounds. They talked about two large statues in front of the capitol building, statues of prominent (now pretty much forgotten) politicians named Knute Nelson and John A. Johnson. One of the guys was reading information on the two men, probably from some kind of guide book.
So I get to the restaurant, sit down in my booth, and open the book I brought—Fifty Years In America by N. N. Rønning, a book I mentioned a couple days ago.
And what is right there, where I pick up my reading?
Character sketches of Knute Nelson and John A. Johnson.
(In case your wondering, Knute Nelson was, according to Rønning, “the first Norwegian[-American] politician who gained national recognition.” He was a Minnesota congressman, governor and U.S. senator. A Republican, though he broke with his party in not supporting protectionism.
John A. Johnson was a Swede and a Democrat. He hadn’t distinguished himself much before the 1904 Democratic state convention, but in a lackluster field he won the nomination for governor. As the campaign went on he began to find his voice as an orator, and started attracting popular support. His opponents uncovered a skeleton in his closet—his father had been a “drunkard.” After they published the story he responded with the greatest speech of his campaign. His opponents found that they had tarred their own image rather than his. The same year that the Republican Roosevelt won a landslide victory over William Jennings Bryan, Johnson was elected governor of Minnesota by 7,000 votes. He was reelected in 1906 and 1908. He was considered a serious presidential contender when he died unexpectedly in 1910.)
The coincidence of the radio program and my reading material shook me considerably. Although I theoretically believe in coincidences, it seemed too fortuitous to be mere chance.
On the other hand, what could it possibly mean?
I’m open to suggestions.
Crime and Punishment 2
Raskolnikov is back, and this time he’s not wasting his time philosophizing! In the long awaited sequel to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, terror strikes the heart of a sleepy Russian town . . . okay, I’m making that up, but there is a sequel to this novel, reviewed today in the Philly Inquirer.
Science in the Service of Christianity
Bryan Appleyard reviews physicist Frank Tipler’s book, The Physics of Christianity. Tipler argues that established theories in modern physics explain Christian history and doctrine.
Central to this argument is his conviction that there is no discontinuity between the insights of science and the revelations of the Gospels. Miracles, for example, are not, as is often claimed, sudden deformations or breaches of the natural order. They happen through known physical processes. Walking on water is accomplished through a particle beam and dematerialization through the multiple universe model implied by quantum theory. That they happen when they do is, of course, God’s will, but, in making them happen, he does not violate the order of his creation.
I can’t comment on Tipler’s specific claims, but I heartily agree that the popular perception of scientists is that they would rather find meaninglessness in the universe than purposeful creation. A natural belief. If mankind is for nothing but what we make for ourselves, then we have become gods. Is that what we’ve always wanted?
Those Good Ol’ Books of Yesteryear
Stefen Beck describes a curious West Virginia bookstore before praising what may be one of this summer’s bestsellers, The Dangerous Book for Boys. Have you heard about this one? Good Pete! The video promotion on Amazon.com is a seller.
In an Amazon.com interview, the author says, “I think we’ve become aware that the whole ‘health and safety’ overprotective culture isn’t doing our sons any favors. Boys need to learn about risk.” Amen. He describes a British game called “conkers” which is the same game I made up when I was a boy, not with horse chestnuts but with our toy jeeps and figurines. Mounds of fun. And it has “Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know”? I’ve got to get hold of that.
It Could be Funny
Bill Reichart has filed his review of Evan Almighty. He likes it better than Bruce Almighty.
The agency of innocence
This poster from Despair.com embodies a vision I’m coming to embrace in my own life. In the spirit of that sentiment, I’ll discuss a question commenters Sherry and Kathleen Marie raised on my last post, which was (in essence), “How does a head case like you get an agent?”
The answer is, “Once, by luck. Probably never again.”
(I’m not going to name my agents, by the way. They’re good guys who agented part time and never made it to the top of the pile. They made some choices that probably weren’t optimal, but then so have I.)
I’ve sometimes referred to “my agent” in blog posts, but that was an abbreviation of convenience. In fact they were a two-man shop. I’ll call them Primus and Secundus. Primus was the senior partner, and I dealt with him mostly when I actually had book contracts. I dealt with Secundus when I was out in the cold, at the beginning and at the end.
I got acquainted with them (by correspondence; I’ve never actually met either man) back when I was writing short fantasy stories. They were editors for a certain prominent fantasy and science fiction magazine, and they immediately impressed me with their taste and good judgment (by buying the first short story I ever sent them).
After a couple fruitful years (in which I never managed to sell a story to anybody else) they announced they were resigning from the magazine and opening an agency. They asked me if I’d care to come on board, and I jumped at it, knowing that getting an agent in the first place is one of the biggest hurdles a prospective author faces.
Then followed about ten years of nothing. I dealt almost exclusively with Secundus during that period, and they sent my first manuscript, and then a second, off to one publisher after another. Each one bounced back, although I got some flattering rejections.
I noticed, as time passed, that the agency was… less than energetic. Very compatible with my own personal style, of course, but not what you really want in an agent. They’d send a book off to somebody, and a year and a half later I’d ask them whether they’d heard anything, and they’d say, “Oh yes, we’ll have to give them a call.” Then another year would pass before the final rejection came.
Finally Jim Baen of Baen Books took the bait, and I started dealing with Primus.
Four books later, Jim Baen invited me never to darken his transom again, and I was back with Secundus.
And the slow, measured rhythm of submissions resumed. And again I’d ask them after a year or two if they’d heard anything, and again I’d get the impression that they’d forgotten about me completely.
Then one day I e-mailed Primus (I forget why it was him and not Secundus), and got no response. When I e-mailed him again, he replied that I should contact Secundus.
And Secundus told me that a) Primus was in bad health, and b) they’d recently noticed that nobody was returning their calls or messages. They deduced from this fact that they were out of business.
But Secundus said that he’d been in contact with a woman from a major agency, and she was interested in hearing from me. So I carefully sent her an e-mail with my personal bibliography, along with sample chapters from an unpublished book as an attachment.
No response.
I’ve done some research on this agency, and I have my doubts. For one thing this agency proudly declares itself a pioneering feminist agency. It was begun for the express purpose of getting more women writers published.
This makes me wonder if, after all these years, Secundus has ever actually read one of my books. Maybe he thinks I’m a woman. It’s a little troubling when your own agent misunderstands you so fundamentally.
So here I am. I’ve asked a couple writer acquaintances for references, but the one contact I’ve gotten went into the hospital about the time I e-mailed him, and so nothing has happened to date.
As you’d expect, knowing me, my hopes aren’t high.
What I need to do is go to one of the agent sites (here and here) I shared a while back, buckle down and start sending out query letters.
Maybe when this bout of light-headedness (and heavy-bottomedness) is past.
Hope in the Heavenly Father
“It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing.” –Thomas a Kempis
Tony Connor’s Aftermath
According to Dana Gioia, poet Tony Connor’s “work is both original and entertaining …. Connor does not simply report events, he vividly recreates them, shaping each scene with the skill and care of a novelist …. his work remains clear-headed, intelligent and immensely readable.”
Take for example this poem of heros and apathy, “Aftermath”:
Slumped in a prickly armchair
on a humid summer night,
I listened dully to dogs
barking with brainless pleasure
far away and in this street
under the Victory flags.
The bronze eagles with spread wings,
flightless on walls and porches,
reflected the light from stars,
as my slow imaginings
moved between foreign corpses
and these Stars and Stripes of ours.
Susan Wise Bauer at BookExpo
Here’s a brief report with photos of BookExpoAmerica from the author of some great history books.