More book ideas

My little progeny was throwing paper around, as he likes to do, and I realized one of my old notebooks somehow got within his reach. Actually it has been in that location for about a year now, only it was homeless for lack of a better place to put it. It had some book ideas in it! I can't remember just now off the top of my head what exactly those book ideas were, but it was fun reading my stuff from when I was young and stupid.

One cool thing that happened this weekend, I wrote to Max Barry, a great author if you haven't read his books suggesting some stuff I read in Seth Godin's blog, and he wrote back! It doesn't get much cooler than that. I'd like to visit him when I go to Australia, but I don't have a pretext yet.

I haven't put up the picture mentioned in my previous blog because... I'm not sure the guy is running for president? I think Guliani has a good shot, if you ask me. I'd vote for him, he seems tough.

I had some 'ideas' to put down into here, but can't remember what they are just now. Meaning over and above what I just added about finding some notes from when I was younger and dumber.

I'm reading The Beach, a bunch of people think it's a really great book. So far I'm not that sucked in, but it's easy reading and the story moves along pretty well. So far I'd take Shantaram. I'm vaguely glad that Johnny Depp is in the upcoming make, he seems like a good match.

your struly, end.

Politics

I worked a little yesterday on a silly picture of one of the presidential contenders, "Barack Obambam," as he may come to be known after I post the picture and millions of people lol and link back to me.

I think it's fitting in two ways. Before those two ways is just the fact it sounds funny and it's catchy. Anyone who doesn't want him to be president will easily remember it because it's catchy and derogatory at the same time.

• First reason: he's young and inexperienced, much like the baby Bam-bam.
• Second, he's got a big machine behind him, symbolized by Bam-bam's club. He has a force behind him that seems disproportionate to the amount of strength he should have. I take issue with the machine behind him. I think someone looked him over and said he would make a good show pony, how much does he cost?

It's like almost any industry in our free market society. Take movies for example. The better the market appeal, the more investment will be made in a movie, and if there's investment and market appeal, you can be sure the promoters are out in force promoting everywhere they can.

I'm annoyed by this senator because everywhere he goes, everything he does, there's a newspaper article about him. He gets much more coverage than the average senator especially for a first timer.

It's no surprise to me that he's running for president. It's a long shot, but at this point someone must have run the numbers and determined that there's enough margin of success to go ahead down that path.

Beauty

On beauty: First I'll start with a story. My wife and I were watching The Devil Wears Prada, which I mentioned in one other post this week to discuss Meryl Streep's Peter O'Toole rating (like a 6 or so.. which gets her up to about the bellybutton, starting with the boots), and the wife of mine made comment about the party dress, the black one, worn towards the end. She gets compliments on that dress! My response was that fashion has nothing to do with beauty. In a sense I'm pretty sure my knee-jerk response was close to the mark. I'm sure beauty has to be an ingredient, much like water is an ingredient in cologne, but compliments are never made on the water, but on the .01 percent olfactory chemical.

This morning I mentally added some ponderings on the relationship between beauty and youth. There was a girl on the green line who was clearly young and clearly pretty, so much so that I felt like a dirity old man just looking at her, and secretly hoped I would never have a daughter that looked like her. My next thought was of course, mental rubberband snapping on the wrist 'stop looking for beauty it's the path to sin you worthless bug.'

It's much easier for the young to look pretty or even beautyful, so youth must have something to do with it. Also fashion models are young and skinny.

This post is really going nowhere at the moment.. either I have to think more or I have to come to a point or both, and probably in that order.

One characteristic of writing a blog is the feeling that someone will come along and read it. Suddenly the writer must consider what his reader is thinking. Writing letters and emails to people I know I'm clearly a prattler and clearly not interested in the other person's reaction except that they understand most of what I am saying. Being understandable is the key.

On a blog, there's another layer I've found and that is that being understandable is not enough. Now I will say clearly that there are a great number of blogs out there, most of them I think are Filipino, and by most I mean all of the 5 or 6 I have stumbled across by using the >next blog link, which are clearly beyond incomprehensible except to them and their friends. Then there's the vast majority that I wouldn't care about anyway. The additional layer is value to the reader, and in this case the specific quality of NOT recycling conventional wisdom. Even more specifically (so far the set (value to the reader) subset (wisdom)) something that came to me as an ephiphany that somehow once on paper sounds trite. That was the direction this opinion on beauty was going, which wet the fuse.

The hairdryer for this fuse would be something fresh and original, or at least the same ideas recycled in some fresh original way (isn't that pretty much everything in the world?). So my thought went to, what can I say about the connection between beauty, fashion, youth and compliments that might be fresh and interesting to a reader? Worse, something that might be interesting to me? I interest myself only to a certain extent. I like my off the cuff responses to my wife, but in discussion or dialogue my interest wears thin if there isn't some controversy. There's nothing controversial about youth being beautiful, nor models being skinny, unless you go down the path of Lolita or anorexia.

The most interesting part of this post then, is my mental flogging and my feeling of being a dirty old man just for looking, and my wish that I be over this whole phase of life looking at girls and appreciating their hair, eyes, makeup, nose, or some combination of everything, and move on to the good, harmless castrated lover of all and nothing. More about that later then, I suppose, since this post is long enough already.

More writing

More thoughts on my novel.

I really like Max Barry's writing, he is author of Syrup and Jennifer Government. I plan to visit him if and when I visit Australia. I'd be intersted to know if he's still writing. I think he should continue. I want to do something similar to what he did, a dystopia of capitalism gone horribly wrong, but do it better, do it well, like Nabokov did in Bend Sinister. I also want to use Tolkein's device in one book I read in which a boy is wandering the street living life as a pretty normal person, and there's a huckster with a bucket of water who says one dunk will change your life completely. The boy is eventually sucked into it, perhaps because of the reactions of the people who are walking away, I don't remember why, but he pays the small sum, and is dunked. As soon as his head is in the water, he is instantly transported to another world and another time. In that world and time, he has to save a princess and conquer a kingdom or some such thing, which goes on for most of the book, and for several years of life. He is then yanked back out of the water and finds himself back in the street just as he was when his head went in. I've always loved that device, only I might make it more modern? It's also a nod to Twain's Yankee in King Arthur's court, only in that book it was a humorous look at how technology which is simple to us now was not even imagined back in the day.

Among other things, I was musing this morning on the fact that so many career paths seem easy to follow as long as I'm following someone, such as my former roommate who works for Toll Brothers, or my former co-worker who is climbing up and up. I wandered into the realm of writing and thought about all the writers who were, well, writers before they published their name-making novels or works of serious literature. I can hardly go back and start over can I? Write for the college paper, then get hired into some smaller rag, then work my way up to a staff writer of some kind, at which point I produce a novel or non-fiction work, and make the decision to go on my own as a serious writer.

My wife sometimes complains that many people think that just because they decorated their house and it looks ok, they're suddenly qualified to hire themselves as an interior designer. I hope the same doesn't hold true for writing. I suppose that practice makes perfect, I mean, The Power and the Glory wasn't Graham Greene's first, or even second work. Then again, perfect practice makes perfect. Who will critique my work as I go along, to make sure I'm not just cranking out the same crap all the time?

This blog might be the place for it, but so far no one really gives comments. Besides I've seen the comments other people make on each other's blogs, it's usually something like "lol, u da man" which has good emotional value but a value value of -3 million.

To start writing... what and who to write for. I don't have to write poetry also, do I? I notice many writers are huge fans of poetry. I haven't really taken the time of late. But when I do read poetry, I will say, it's beautiful stuff. Even the broken bits in the book I'm reading are glimpses of beautiful well expressed evocations, less clumsy than the usual train tracks words usually make across the page.

different

Today on the wheely sardine can, I saw a guy who moved in an interesting way, caught my eye, and didn't look awful in the jacket or anything, but then I saw his pants, didn't finish on his shoes, and I saw his hair it was very thin. He was facing away from me so I have no idea what his features added for him, but could tell he had very thin hair, but it covered his head. The same hair appeared to cover his sideburns and hint of a cheek. It looked like a thinner lighter version of hemp, but his scalp was visible for the full 180 degrees.

My thought, upon observing all this was that if he shaved it all, no one would be able to tell how thin his hair was. I was then immediately defensive of him, why should anyone care that he had different hair (or some such defense) and I realized that there must be some natural inclination towards 'normal' and 'non-standoutishness' when in reality, we are all different.

My next T-shirt slogan: "I already know you're different"

Alternative Rubrics

I was explaining to my eternal companion my scale of actors, who are in my opinion better or worse, and why they might be A-list as opposed to B, C etc.
My scale is the Peter O'Toole scale of actors, with a given actor more or less like Peter. Had I been exposed to Richard Burton at an earlier age, however, I might have picked him, but then again I might not. I haven't really seen anything of Richard's I liked much unless it was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Liz Taylor. He was pretty good in that, but natually Liz was better, as she was better than he in The Taming of the Shrew another play they brought to the big screen. Richard does however score a high Peter mark for being a diva, for truly throwing himself into the role, and most of all for believing totally that this is what the audience wants to see, him flopping all over the screen like a mouse in a trap. I should say like a horse maybe, but I wanted to capture the energy without evoking the muscular structure of a horse. The problem with my similie is that a mouse is small, but Richard and Peter are both larger than life when they come onto the screen. They simply suck the marrow from the celluloid.

Let's take two similiar (in my mind) actresses, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep. I would give Glenn a higher Peter rating for her gravity, her divaness, and her scene chewing ability. Meryl on the other hand, I rank as a high B actress, someone who doesn't have the gravity, someone who at best is a housewife on a farm, badgered by forces she can't control. In Devil Wears Prada which I saw Saturday, she does a good job, but she's never truly evil. I think that's more the fault of the director and the screenwriter of course, so in a sense she wasn't allowed to be as cold as maybe she is capable of, but at the same time there's that elusive quality of 'gravity,' which I don't know how (yet) to explain better.

While we're on the topic of alternative rubrics, I had a rubric related to my reading on my commute. My commute at one time was approximately 30 pages long, measured by the number of pages I could read during the trip. Of course this wasn't very scientific but it was fun while it lasted, which was approximately 350 pages.

Ok I'm done now. I'm off to read Wil Wheaton's blog.

New Title!

Yikes the title of Gay Marriage has been at the top of my blog for a few days now, maybe a week? I should know the date if I'm going to refer to it, but that really and truly would be too much work.

Well Love in the Time of Cholera ended with two old people doing the dirty, and I'm sure in some paralell universe this is still a good book in spite of that fact, but honestly, I was still grossed out even though it's a little bit happily ever after and a little bit disaster waiting to happen. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the writing. Marquez has a good sense of description and a flair for flawed but likeable characters. It is the ability to describe which I hope to emulate.

Now I'm trying to finish up The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. I don't mind it as much as when I stopped reading. I think part of the reason being I understand it a little better now, since I tried to explain it a couple posts ago. The priest's fate is not his own, because he is a priest! I'm glad I don't have to do a book report on the book, but at the same time, I know a book report, of at least 20 pages 10 pt font and single spaced wouldn't be enough to explain why the book is good. And for me that would be a good exercise in what makes good writing. I could use the lessons learned in my own attempts.

But that's a lot of work.

Real Opinions

As I mention before, sometimes I wish I could just drop everything and convey my thoughts into the blog right away, complete with the perfect title and content, to be revised at leisure. Since that doesn't always happen, in fact it rarely happens, I think I'll need to start taking more notes, such as the notes I took a little while ago.

This reminds me a little of the notes I used to take when my now wife and I were writing emails and letters on a regular basis. I'd think of something I wanted to share with her and I had to keep track of it since I wasn't at a computer just then. Sometimes the list would only be 2 items long, but that's two items that weren't lost to the ether.

Yesterday I had some down time at work (gasp, I know) and I took some time to actually compose an entry, in txt. By the time it was time for me to get going and join a meeting I had quite a bit of stuff, I really can type pretty fast even with all my backspacing going on, and frankly most of it is just ramble scramble. There was a good bit about "why are there gays in the world again? I just don't get it" and some more about other stuff I just don't get and ramble about, but one area of interest I might actually post is about gay marriage and how I'm pretty sure I'm not for it, and I don't think anyone else should be for it either.

Side comment: I like to use words like 'pretty sure' and 'more than likely' and 'by all accounts' and so on, as a way of sounding humble, but I have to admit underlying those phrases is a simple stubbornness that resists change, even when I've left the topic on unblack-and-white terms. At work I have to go back and edit that sort of thing out, since early in this job I was called on it several times till I learned it's not what people want to see on serious .docs, .xls or .ppts (or .vsds for that matter). I also go back and edit for the same thing when writing in a professional manner to church people and more recently the condominium association members.

Also: In my writing I tend to use lists of things even when not needed, such as 'detailed and highly delineated,' when detailed would do as well. When talking espeically I sometimes say something has two reasons: 1) blah blah and 2) but at number two I'd have to scrounge up something because I haven't always come up with another reason it just sounded good to have more than one reason. This is less of a habit than what it used to be, but I know it's still there. I used to try to jam 3 or 4 reasons even.

I also have an account over at Vox, but seriously how many accounts do I really need. I'm wishing I was rich, I'd give myself a domain and moveable type and just have a blog that way. On the other hand at my stage I don't think there's a huge benefit in that, at least not yet.

Cheers!

More Love and Cholera

A couple of times while reading the book, Love in the Time of Cholera I thought it might descend into narrative reminiscent of The Plague but thus far that hasn't happened. The story remains focused on the love, and less focused on the cholera. However, I can see why the author included Cholera in his title, because of the sickness that accompanies love, the unexplained turns in health, the sudden recoveries and happinesses. It's strange but I can't help but like Florentino Ariza, even though he is ugly and has the demeanor of a whipped dog, and he is incredibly thin, and he's shorter than his German employer Thugut AND he's constipated. A fact I've not forgotten through all his adventures thus far. I can relate to him though, because I've been in situations where my love was not returned, and had no hope of being returned. Even though his case is in the extreme, that thread of connection allows me to go with him into his world of dissappointment and despair.

Equally engaging though are the happy couple. The ups and downs of each make them human, but their good match and good qualities make them beautiful. The author is skilled enough to use words I'll readily absorb and believe.

I don't have the quote from the spat that Fermina and Juvenal went through after 20 years of marriage, but it was amusing and alive with human nature at the time. I might never get around to putting that quote in.

Love in the Time of Cholera

I am on to a new book, after having read The Big Moo and not yet getting my previous book by Graham Greene back. I have it back now, but for the last week I started on Love in the Time of Cholera, which is really well written. We start with two friends, one of whom has committed suicide and has a mysterious past the other is then elabourated on and we are made to know that he is an amazing person, a doctor, and incredibly well respected and well known. We are then given a peep into his marriage to Fermina Daza. Interesting about this book, in at least half or more than half of the direct references to characters, the full names are used. I wonder if it's the culture of the setting that dictates the author use this device, or whether it's truly invented for the book.

Today's excerpt comes from Love and it is about the relationship the doctor and his wife have in their old age.

Little by little she had been discovering the uncertainty of her husband's step, his mood changes, the gaps in his memory, his recent habit of sobbing while he slept, but she did not identify these as the unequivocal signs of final decay but rather as a happy return to childhood. That was why she did not treat him like a difficult old man but as a senile baby, and that deception was providential for the two of them because it put them beyond the reach of pity.

I just realized as I was typing that that this was not the quote I had planned to use. I actually wanted to include the information about their mornings, and him getting up before her. I think I'll add it later.