Anniversaries

Six years ago yesterday the Missus formally became the Missus in a ceremony that was as wonderful as it was wet (we had an enormous storm that day, which I've heard means a strong marriage.  So far it seems to be 100% true).  Since then every anniversary has been pretty low-profile: we're not much for big parties of get-togethers, so it usually boils down to a few gifts, a nice dinner, and general romance-y things (which I'll not go into here...perv).

I'm a fairly traditional guy, so we decided that for gifts we would stick to the traditional list of anniversary gift ideas.  Year Six is Candy/Iron, so I went with a box of Godiva chocolates and a nice wrought-iron picture frame, along with a few other assorted gifts.  Nothing fancy, and nothing too shocking in its ingenuity, I'll admit, but the Missus seemed pleased enough.

Using an almost ridiculous amount of forethought and ingenuity, my wife decided she would eschew her normal gift ideas (clothes, clothes and, uh, clothes) and instead focus on the things I love that I've lately been using to distract myself from all the nonsense that's been going on at work and in our personal lives.  Inside a Stephen Colbert book bag was a hardcover Iron Man comic, a Captain America graphic novel, a new biography of Shakespeare by Bill Bryson and a compact collection of Shakespeare's sonnets.

There was no candy, but the ideas behind the gifts were sweet enough.

Due to work (her, not me) we maybe saw each other for three hours yesterday, and all but 20 minutes of that was spent trying to control our son, who was determined to create havoc at every opportunity, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless.

Happy Anniversary, honey.  I would've wrote this yesterday but you know what a heck of a day it was.

Book #46: Plan of Attack

Bob Woodward is one of the rare reporters who can take nonfiction, especially investigative journalism, and make it sing like a novel.  Plan of Attack is Book #2 in his Bush at War series, and the focus here is on the decisions both public and private that launched the United States into the Iraq War.  Structured like a modern thriller, Woodward weaves together an enormous cast of characters with secret meetings, press interviews, and on-the-ground action to show everything - good and bad - that went into the planning and execution of the Iraq Invasion.

The surprising element in all of this is Bush, who Woodward takes pains to paint as neutral as possible.  We see a leader with deep convictions that clearly wants to keep America safe, and has a concrete notion of what "safe" means to him.  By now we know many of the ramifications of invading, but Woodward is more concerned with what into the decision.  The portrait he paints of secret factions (Rumsfeld and Cheney vs. Powell), CIA groundsmen, and military strategists revising and re-drafting war plans that are increasingly limiting the prep time as well as the forces needed is a classic example of a downward spiral.  The benefit of hindsight lets us see the damage some of these plans cause while they're being created.

As we come to the ending days of the Bush Presidenecy, it's books like Woodward's that really bring home just how crazy these past eioght years has been.  Great book, great series not to be missed.

Book #45: The Name of the Wind

Holy. Crap.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that my fantasy chops haven't quite caught up to what's hip and new in the genre (as this post so ably pointed out), and maybe it's a case of "first-ies" (new term Copyright 2008 by Geek Monkey) where the first thing you read becomes by default the comparative stick used to measure all others, but mein gott! Patrick Rothfuss hath wrought something pretty frickin' amazing with his debut novel, the first in a planned trilogy called The Kingkiller Chronicle.

The Name of the Wind is the story of Kvothe, "pronounced nearly the same as "quothe,"" as he says early in the novel. We meet him in the present times, a quiet innkeeper in a quiet, unassuming town. Wanting nothing more than to be left alone, his plans are changed by the arrival of the Chronicler, a famous scribe whose goal is to lern the truth of the matter of the larger-than-life and presumed dead hero, a man of many names and even more stories. Spanning the course of a single day, Kvothe begins to tell o fhis life, from his early days with his family as Edema Ruh, a renowned traveling troupe and the horror of the Chandrian, who murders his family and forces him into the streets and finally to the University, the learned city where magic and knowledge in its many forms are kept and, to those worthy, are shared.

All of this is set against the backdrop of the actual telling of the story, where an evil is beginning to present itself once again, and Kvothe will undoubtedly be called upon to be the person he once was. The problem is, as we find out, is that person has slowly and mysteriously been almost completely forgotten.

There is so much that is great about The Name of the Wind it's hard to know where to start. Rothfuss sets out to demolish the stereotype of the hero and, in the process, rebuild him into something that rises above what we've always come to think of when using the term. He places an equal focus on action and character development to the point where you can't decide which is better. The world he's created has been meticulously thought out - its geography, its cultures and especially the mechanics behind what's considered "magic" is beautifully worked out. It's probably the first instance where I've 100% bought into how magic could actually exist in a world, as opposed to simply buying into its existence in a given world (which is perfectly fine in its won right - it's just that this was the first novel to make me see that the explanation can be more magical than the magic itself).

As a character Kvothe is a vibrant wonder, equal parts Harry Potter and Holden Caufield. We're constantly reminded through both his actual exploits and those that have been exaggerated that his is, if anything, desperately human, and prone to all the glories and pitfalls that occur to all all, whether it's the glowing pride of a selfless act to the burning embarrassment of committing a selfish one.

In the end Rothfuss sets up a bevy of unanswered questions both in Kvothe's history as well as the present day descending darkness that left me dying to read the next chapter. Without falling into the traps that waylay lesser writers, The Name of the Wind is a finely crafted novel that wraps itself in the gauze of fantasy because it absolutely has to, and not for any other reason. Definitely on my Best Of 2008 list.

Word Count

Taken together with the other previously written sections I'm incorporating into the larger story, I'm about 12,000 words into my NaNoWriMo novel.  It's absolute crap, and the urge to continuously go back and edit myself out of existence is an ever-present one.  At this point I should be at about 20,000 words, so I'm a little behind.  Making matters worse, on Tuesday I had a kind of writer's epiphany where I had a clear and concise idea as to what the novel should be, how it would be constructed, how it would begin and end.  It was right there, clear as day.

Only problem is, it's completely different than what I had spent the last 8,000+ words writing.

So today I figured out a way to write as many sections of this new novel that I can, and have it roughly fit within the (now altered) scope of the original novel I was writing, knowing that the goal of NaNoWriMo is to just get the words out and revise and refine later.

I'm working on a way to insert an author link to the widget in the upper-right corner of this blog; in the meantime you can see my stats and read an excerpt from my immense piece of crap at the link below.

My NaNoWriMo Profile

Don't worry.  I'm completely fine with my low opinion of what I have so far.  When I dig through the crap I've written, I still see shards of something good and pure, and something I know I can mold into shape after this month is over.  For now it's just getting the words down, throwing all the feces at the wall (sorry for all the dung jokes) and worrying about what sticks later.

From time to time I'll change the excerpt to reflect sections I've just written.  Now sorry, but I have to get back.  These things don't write themselves, you know!

Book #44: The Pitchfork 500

Pitchfork Media, the über-hip music web publication that acts as the Final Word on music for an entire generation of hipster/indie/underground/annoying kids, has put out a book. A list of the 500 greatest songs from 1977 to 2006.

A little history on my relationship with Pitchfork: It was brought to my attention via a couple of friends whose passions coincidentally mirror the very music Pitchfork was created to champion. My friend mentioned in passing that one of his friends was annoying him, because every musical opinion he had seemingly stemmed directly from whatever Pitchfork was touting at the moment.

Pitchfork? What was this? I'm immediately set on edge. Despite my all-encompassing love for lists, reviews and the like, I pride myself on (hopefully) being able to use them for what they are - opinions and guides to direct me to find interesting and new expressions - whether it be music, film, or anything else. This, coupled with the fact that at the time (roughly three 3 years ago) my exposure to what I'll call "independent music" for lack of a better term was limited and based largely on music I was adverse to in the first place caused me to shun the site and the people who read it as petulant elitists who weren't worth my time or energy.

Yes, I understand the inherent hypocrisy in the above sentence.

Anyway, time, fatherhood, and more (and better) exposure to many different types of music from my friends started to wear me down, and about a year ago I started casually reading Pitchfork to check for any mention of the bands I was being introduced to. And, lo and behold, I started to warm up it. In a world where mainstream publications like Rolling Stone are increasingly losing touch and becoming the dinosaurs of the critical world, Pitchfork and other online publications are rising up as distinct voices, unafraid to firmly state their opinions in language that is unencumbered by politeness or stodgy standards. I still wasn't fully embracing Pitchfork, but I was happy to let it exist and not get offended. Just as long as they didn't fall into the trap of considering themselves an authority by releasing some type of Best Of...

Aw, crap (gleeful Hellboy reference, as HELLBOY II was released yesterday Yipee!).

Let's (finally) get to the book, which is the point of this increasingly long missive. The cover lacks any pretentious statement like "The Definitive" or even "The Best." Instead, they come across as just a bunch of easy-going folks, claiming that the list is simply "their" guide to the greatest songs from roughly 1977 to 2006. Still, the bossy, opinionated little person I typically manage to stuff down deep (only to explode whenever there's talk about, well things like this) was bursting forth, ready to throw down the glove and sever any and all ties with this young upstart who had the audacity - nay, the balls, the cojones - to publish a list of the best songs without including what I knew in my soul to be mandatory entries like Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" or Radiohead's "Paranoid Android."

Ah... oh. They're in there. In fact, "The Passenger" is the second song listed in the book. Fine. Kid gloves are coming off. Time to get a little more personal. After all, everyone loves those songs, and both Iggy Pop and Radiohead are standard entries in any "best of" list. But if there's no Elvis Costello in there I'm going to throw this right in the...

Holy crap. Two songs make the list! "Radio Radio" is the obvious choice, but frickin' "Beyond Belief?" Besides being an awesome song, they actually get why it's so good, and why Imperial Bedroom was a career-changing album for him.

Hopefully you're starting to see what I'm getting at. I was startled by how much of what I wanted to see was in there, sometimes surprisingly so. For metal you have the real obvious entries like Metallica and current media darlings Mastodon, but to also include Napalm Death and Darkthrone? Darkthrone?! Even I was shocked. Bands you expect to see, you do, but sometimes the song choice is surprising (Sex Pistols are represented by "God Save the Queen"). And every genre is considered, with special attention being paid to the innovators and masters of established sounds, so seeing Italian Disco mixed with lo-fi rock or Top 40 sitting in the same book as Boogie Down Productions is exciting and just goes to show how wide Pitchfork's embrace actually is.

It may not tickle the music itch you have, but I was incredibly surprised at the thoroughness and diversity on offer in the Pitchfork 500. For the record I have approximately 165 songs on the list (yes, I counted), and plan on checking out more of the selections. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there are also entries on my favorite Björk song of all time ("Joga") and three of my contenders for Best Pop Song EVER ("There She Goes" by the La's, "She Bangs the Drum" by the Stone Roses, and "Mr. Blue Sky" by ELO).

Pitchfork, you have used your wily charms on me. Just don't push your luck for a while, okay?