It's a good time to be listening to LA bands sing about San Francisco

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You may still feel victimized by how many times I tweeted about another Foxygen song, but that doesn't mean you won't love "San Francisco":

I don't know if it's true elsewhere in the country, but this other song's getting pretty serious radioplay around here. And this song has about the happiest video I have ever seen:

Thank you, LA!

No matter what Giants fans say, we love you too.

The Next Big Thing: Interview with Theric Jepson

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"The Next Big Thing" is a network of self-interviews.

I was tagged last week by Professor Percival P. Pennywhistle.

When tagged, an artist posts the following questions (adjusted as necessary)---and their answers---then tags other artists, who post a week later. Thus, an evergrowing series of folk all writing about projects currently engaged in. Because the people want to know! Because they care about the future! So so much!

I've been in touch with a few potentials and the following have accepted my taggery: Sarah Dunster and Kohl Glass and Denise Gasser. I'll include more precise links in the comments below when I have more precise links. Anyway, they should all be posting next week somewhere.


TNBT: What is the working title of your project?

I've codenamed it JTh, in part because the title's in flux. It began life about eight years ago as a sort-of sequel to my just-now-finally-released novel Byuck and, until recently, was titled Byuck: A Sophomore Effort. But I'm abandoning that title. I might stick with "A Sophomore Effort" or I might not---such a title might be too clever for its own good.

TNBT: Where did the idea come from for the book?

I don't remember the precise genesis, but at one point I was thinking of a trio of books about the Them siblings, using their respective times at BYU as the focal point. For Dave (oldest) and Julie (youngest), that's their bachelors degrees. For Tom (middle) it's his MBA. No wonder Tom's is the one I've never really worked on.

TNBT: What genre does your book fall under?

It's an antiromance, methinks. Or maybe you mean the other sense of genre. Throw me that question again.

TNBT: What genre does your book fall under?

It's a novella. It's a short-story collection. It's complicated.

One reason I spent so long getting JTh started was because, when I first started on it in 2004 (the year before it takes place), it was grossly humorless sluggery. But the release of Byuck has energized me in unexpected ways. Running across old notes for other imagined projects while thinking about Julie's story changed the form of JTh immensely. So what we have now is a novella-length work made of ten short stories and an introduction. Each of which features Julie but, except for the introduction and final story, she is never the p-o-v character---sometimes she's pretty tertiary, in fact. So the reader's forced to triangulate her story from other character's stories. The bad news is, lots of information about the Them family and important elements from Julie's world (her visits to her cousins! Curses in town for the Byuck revival!) never make appearances in the novella because the people telling their stories don't care about those details of Julie's life. It's irrelevant to them.

That said, some of the individual stories are pretty great. I just hope the whole holds together.

TNBT: What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Is Myrna Loy available? Because if not, I ain't playing this game.

TNBT: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Girl, on inevitable quest for love, does the evitable.

TNBT: How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

A little over a month. But that doesn't include the eight-plus years of off-and-on thinking about it.

TNTB: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Um. Feminism? That's a good answer.

TNTB: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The most beautiful woman in the world might go out with you in this fictional universe. And that goes for everyone! Not just sad boys!

TNTB: Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

One reason I wrote JTh as a novella was to experiment with self-publishing. I'm planning on releasing it in October 2013, but in the meantime, I want to try and sell some of the individual stories to reputable lit rags. If that works out, I may push back my publication date.

TNTB: Tell us about your imaginings for the cover?

Oh, I already have that all figured out. Let's just say Matt Page will be involved.

TNTB: Before you go, why a codename? Why not just a working title?

Because my other big project right now has a codename too? It's a novel and I'm calling it YW because if I call it by its real title, I'll feel too committed to it. Or look creepy. But not as creepy as the original codenamed work in my ouevre. When people learn PENny's real title, I may lose friends. I just hope the future's on my side.

Professor Percival P. Pennywhistle

Sarah Dunster • Kohl Glass • Denise Gasser

The Orson Scott Card Stigma Part two: Painted with the Same Brush

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Yesterday I talked briefly about the rhetoric surrounding Orson Scott Card and gay rights. Which is a mess.

The main takeaway has to be that it doesn't matter whether or not OSC is in the right or in the wrong, public opinion is that he must be destroyed. And that opinion seems to be getting stronger and stronger with each controversy (real or manufactured) he's involved in.

I mentioned yesterday that some people are actively distancing themselves from OSC---sometimes less because they disagree with him and more because it's bad for business to be associated with him.

The question for discussion now is this:

Are Mormon writers in general in danger of being so smeared with "Cardism" that we should distance ourselves as well?

After all, Orson Scott Card has been the most out-of-the-closet Mormon in American letters for decades. No one else is quite so Mormony as Mr Card. I wager if we did a phone survey asking Americans about American Mormon writers, Card would still beat out our Sandersons and Meyers and Hales and Udalls. He is, still, THE Mormon writer.

And the word "Mormon" is important here---some writers whose fame is closely tied to their Mormonism (Elna Baker, Neil LaBute, Brian Evenson, Walter Kirn) have cut their official ties to the faith with extreme publicity. And that's certainly an option if Prop 8 gives you the willies. Screw the Mormon writer thing. Ditch Mormonism entirely. Problem solved!

But before you allow your feelings about OSC to determine your future, pause a moment.

Here's what I tell people who aren't Mormon.

I'm Mormon.

Look at me.

This is what a Mormon looks like.

I'm out and I'm proud.

And here's what I tell people who are Mormon.

Hey.

I go around telling people I'm Mormon.

That I'm what a Mormon looks like.

If you don't like it, you'd better be as out as I am.

And I frankly don't care how other Mormons feel about that. I'm a 100% trueblue diedindawool Mormon. You can't tell me I'm not. I am.

If you want people to think Mormons are something else, be more obvious than I am.

And that's the same thing I'm proposing to Mormon writers---and artists of all types.

Whether you like OSC's persona or not, who cares?

If you want people to think Mormon artists look like you, show them what you look like.

Get out there.

Don't fret about what other people think about other people.

Stop worrying about what being associated with Orson Scott Card will do to your career. Let Orson Scott Card worry about how being associated with you will affect his career.

Geez. Do your own thing.

Be rational, be honest, be yourself.

Don't let other people define you, whether you agree with them or not.

Let the mob stigmatize all they want. You stand true.

The Orson Scott Card Stigma Part one: Fighting the Man

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Andrew Hall's recent post on the latest flareup in the ongoing OSC/gayrights controversy has alerted me to something I had not known. Not only are people peeved over OSC's very public political stance (and, let's be honest, his not so politic manner of discourse), they are blisteringly frothy in their anger.

Not everyone, of course. Spencer Ellsworth is on the can't-be-associated-no-mo' side of things, but comes off reasonable. (Though he does admit that his decision has as much to do with others' perceptions of and projections onto Card as his actual political [or artistic] disagreements with the man.)

James Goldberg made what I thought were reasonable comparisons to the OSC hunt and McCarthyism, but even if I'm right about him being reasonable, it doesn't matter. The lines are drawn and OSC is the enemy and these quasidefense has now marked Goldberg as an enemy colluder. Sucks to be you, Jimmy m'boy.

Let me pause for a moment and say I understand how OSC gets on people's nerves. He writes his opinions as absolute facts. Some of his more recent fiction is getting similarly didactic. He is decidedly against gay people having equal rights to the word marriage because he's certain such semantic equality will be destructive to society. His political opinions fail to fit into any simple box.

That last one seems confusing and almost as if it should inoculate him from kneejerk attacks of the sort this petition exemplifies.

But I think the opposite may be true.

When something is complicated in unusual ways, it's all the more necessary to fixate on the one issue that drives you bananas and then assume the rest. I think if you read this article you'll get a sense of what I mean. The author is interviewing Card and suffering from extended stereotype disconnect. OSC keeps yanking her out of her assumptions. And, in the end, she's forced to make a compromise. But her compromise isn't to draw a complex human being, but to narrow her subject down to two stereotypes and call it good enough.

Look: I think OSC's gay-stuff rhetoric is damaging not just to people's feelings but to the dialogue as a whole. But tarring him with slurs utterly fails to put anyone on high ground. And to do so with only the vaguest sense of what Card's fuller argument is (and failing to engage on said argument) only gives power when it's accompanied by volume.

Really, if you want to fight OSC's rhetoric, you have two options. You can ignore him or you can engage with him. Just yelling Homophobe! as loudly as you can makes you look like what you claim he looks like. And sure, maybe you WILL scare DC Comics away from working with him, but reigns of terror don't actually make new friends.

I know. What he says hurts, and when we're hurt we want to lash out.

In the words of another three-initial man, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."


Tomorrow, this link will lead somewhere.

Oscar Golf: My results

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First, a couple notes.

I forgot to rank short live-action, so I punished myself with a five. I decided, with the tie, that everyone should get the lower of their two scores. Adjust yours as needed.

Anyway, without further ado, my score:

60

(Ran out of ink there at the end.....)

Charlie Brown, meet Inigo Montoya.

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Lots a classics this time around, folks. Nothing but one might say.

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021) The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 by Charles M. Schulz, finished February 22

More excellence from the inimitable Sparky. Some new characters (and I can't recall meeting Maynard and Tapioca the first time around, so fun for me).

Here are a few highlights.

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

a month



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020) The Princess Bride: S. Morgensetern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, the "Good Parts" version abridged by by William Goldman, finished February 20

Someone bought a hundred or more copies of this book for the textbook room a few years back and no one has taught it yet. So, darn it, I decided to teach it. My freshman are reading the first 100 pages over this week off.

The version we have is the 30th-anniversary edition which includes two new introductions and an after-the-novel abridgment of the first chapter of Morgenstern's sequel and many many many cameos by Stephen King. All of which are a bit enjoyable and none of which add enough to the original to bother with.

One of the most fascinating things to me about The Princess Bride is all the metafictional elements. Another most fascinating thing is comparing the novel to the movie of fifteen years later. Some changes are obviously to cram the novel into a reasonable running time. Other elements seem like distinct improvement, rewrites I imagine Goldman wishes he could make to the novel. Another interesting bit I did not remember when I assigned the book to poor impressionable freshmen is how deliberately sexist the novel presents it as. The character Goldman displays misogynistic attitudes and Morgenstern---and especially his characters---astound with their unenlightened attitudes. I'm a bit nervous to discuss this with the kiddos. I'll be interested to hear their take on suchall.

Given the metafictional real-world structuring of the novel, it won't surprise you that in this edition, instead of writing the publisher for the excised scene, you can go to a website and request it. The crazy thing is that Harcourt failed to pay the bill on PrincessBrideBook.com. Astonishing. Anyway, the form's still online, but it's at http://www.harcourtbooks.com/PrincessBride/request.asp, which is what it is. Maroons. But you should fill it out and get the scene. And note the copyright notice which is a slightly hilarious example of lawyers' inability to appreciate irony.

Finally, a bit of hmmm from the included sequel chapter:

six days





Previously in 2013 . . . . :

Books 14 - 19

019) Magic Tree House #10: Ghost Town at Sundown by Mary Pope Osborne, finished February 17
018) The Report Card by Andrew Clements, finished February 17
017) Justice (volume one) by AUTHOR, finished February 16
016) The Green Mile by Stephen King, finished February 15
015) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl, finished February 12
014) The Silver Cord: Book One ~ Nephilim by Kevin Kelly et al., finished February 7

Books 8 - 13

013) Teen Titans: The Prime of Life by JT Krul and Nicola Scott, finished February 2
012) Batman: Vampire by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones and John Beatty and Malcolm Jone III, finished February second
011) Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor by Isaac Asimov, finished January 26
010) Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, Perfect Collection 1 by Hayao Miyazaki, finished January 22
009) The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984 by Charles M. Schulz, finished January 21
008) My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson, finished January 21

Books 1 - 7

007) Spacecave One by Jake Parker, finished January 19
006) The Antler Boy and Other Stories by Jake Parker, finished January 19
005) The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, finished January 14
004) The Crab with the Golden Claws by Hergé, finished January 14
003) The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure by Hergé, finished January 11
002) Using the Common Core State Standards... edited by Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Ed.D., finished January 10
001) Jellaby by Kean Soo, finished January 8

Lost Songs: "Looking Through Patient Eyes" by P.M. Dawn

.

I remember visiting Idaho during high school, staying with my cousins who owned, basically, the exact same 300 cds but refused to merge their collections. That's how I learned who sang this song. Because it was both their favorites. And I had to hear it on both cds.

Kids books and murderers and miracles and stuff

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019) Magic Tree House #10: Ghost Town at Sundown by Mary Pope Osborne, finished February 17

This book doesn't really qualify for this list as per the rules, but I want to be sure and document how Magic Tree House was the first books to really catch the Big O's imagination and that he's passing that passion down to his brothers. So thank you, Mary Pope Osborne.

Plus. The books are much more interesting than I expected. And I like how instead of perfect simulacrums of each other, the books proceed. First a subseries with a specific goal. Then the kids get a new goal that they pursue in the next subseries. Et cetera. Pretty great idea. Nicely done.

bedtime



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018) The Report Card by Andrew Clements, finished February 17

So I loved his famous Frindle and picked this up somewhere to someday give a child. The giving time ended up being this past Christmas and the Big O so loved the book he insisted Lady Steed and I both read it. Which I've done and I agree with him.

Based on these two books, I'm just gonna generalize and say Clements loves empowering kids. Clements loves showing kids the humanity of teachers and the goals they share with students.

As a teacher, I particularly love this book's digs at the emphasis placed upon standardized testing. And am depressed to see this book's almost ten years old and, if anything, things have gotten worse.

We have to stop judging the breadth of a child with such narrow instruments.

Hoorah for Clements!

I want to share this book with everyone.

Let's start with you. Read it. Return. Report.

one night



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017) Justice (volume one) by AUTHOR, finished February 16

This book has two serious flaws. First, it requires believing too much silliness, even for a superhero book. Second, it requires too much in-depth knowledge of (and built-in emotion for) the DC Universe for anyone other than dieharders. A third law is, without clear marking on the cover, it only includes one third of the story. A fourth flaw---and let's make this one serious as well---it is utterly confusing for the majority of its length. Chronology is screwy nad just barely is getting sorted out when the story ends. I'll never assume I'll like something again just because Alex Ross is involved. Kingdom Come is looking like a one-shot.

a few days



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016) The Green Mile by Stephen King, finished February 15

This book deserves its oversized reputation. It does have occasional awkwardnesses, but, overall, King handled the problems of serial fiction with remarkable aplomb. The whole thing works on so many symbolic levels, and does it with fully realized characters and some of the most believable miracles I've ever read. As a writer, this book is a master course in plotting, characterization, keeping a million balls in the air, first-person, you name it.

Great book. If you're looking for your first Stephen King book, consider this one.

five months



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015) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl, finished February 12

When I was a kid, I liked Great Glass Elevator better than the Chocolate Factory. (Perhaps because I never quite signed on to the movie?) In reading the books to my kids, I'm not sure why that may have been. Perhaps because I knew the Chocolate Factory (or perhaps because the book didn't match what I did know from the movie) while Great Glass Elevator was totally novel. Maybe because Great Glass Elevator is simply more madcap and nonsensical. I don't know.

This time around I am amazed that I liked it as much as I did. Not because I disliked it this time around but because its chaotic illogical nonsense was as offputting as funny.

Which makes me sad. I always loved nonsense.

I fear I may have grown up.

Sad face.

(In other news, congrats to Quentin Blake for getting knighted!)

about two months



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014) The Silver Cord: Book One ~ Nephilim by Kevin Kelly et al., finished February 7

This is a book by a number of people under the helm of Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly. It uses quantum computers and angels to get into the old science-fiction trope: can machines have souls?

Nothing incredibly original here (teenager hiding from both heritage and future sets off on hero's journey) and I don't like the art (it's of the type I always think of as overwrought and underpolished), but the story is enjoyable all the same. the second half was funded on Kickstarter but I don't know if I'll still care by the time it rolls out. As I said: nothing that novel here. But if you've never read one of these stories before, this is as good a place to start as ever.

One aspect of my reading I should address was my inability to keep from mormoning the text. Even though this novel uses a cosmology of angels entirely different from the Mormon one, the story constantly hit on important Mormon ideas like agency and a brief mortality with life stretching off in either direction endlessly.

about a week



Previously in 2013 . . . . :

Books 8 - 12

013) Teen Titans: The Prime of Life by JT Krul and Nicola Scott, finished February 2
012) Batman: Vampire by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones and John Beatty and Malcolm Jone III, finished February second
011) Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor by Isaac Asimov, finished January 26
010) Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, Perfect Collection 1 by Hayao Miyazaki, finished January 22
009) The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984 by Charles M. Schulz, finished January 21
008) My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson, finished January 21

Books 1 - 7

007) Spacecave One by Jake Parker, finished January 19
006) The Antler Boy and Other Stories by Jake Parker, finished January 19
005) The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, finished January 14
004) The Crab with the Golden Claws by Hergé, finished January 14
003) The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure by Hergé, finished January 11
002) Using the Common Core State Standards... edited by Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Ed.D., finished January 10
001) Jellaby by Kean Soo, finished January 8

Join me for a round of Oscar Golf?

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I haven't done my once-traditional Oscar posts for some years now. No preannouncement game, no Oscar Wisdom Frothing. But I still find myself enchanted with the Oscars even though I take issue with pretty much every stage of the whole shmroll.

Anyway, I came across Oscar Golf somewhere on the great wide web and I made up sheets for this year.

To play, fill in the form and post it somewhere. Take a photo, make a scan, just copy/paste/fill/post somewhere. Whatever. And link back here in the comments section.

Lowest score wins.

What should the prize be? I dunno. What do you want? Make suggestions in the comments.

So what are you waiting for? Let's play!

A Big Box of Byuck

Apparently the comics drought is over #pun

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013) Teen Titans: The Prime of Life by JT Krul and Nicola Scott, finished February 2

I like Teen Titans. I'm not a big fan of Tim (my favorite Robin) having become a brooding miniBats and sometimes the romantic entanglements get a bit tiring, but overall, I'm always charmed. I liked the story based on Hindu mythology. I didn't much like the one that was based in DC mythology I had ignored. That's all.

an evening



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012) Batman: Vampire by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones and John Beatty and Malcolm Jone III, finished February second

This had some ideas in it and ended with more corpses than Hamlet, but somehow never quite reached the tragic heights of, say, Hamlet. Terribly disappointing.

If, however, you enjoy absurdly sexy women drawn by men who can't draw faces that well, this is the book for you. If you want to see the batsignal shooting out from between Batman's thighs---and Batman apparently grasping it mastabatorially, then this is the book for you.

Structurally, this was a well designed story. And it did have moments and it certainly played new games with the Batman mythos, but I've been passing on it for twenty years no. Then I just saw it sitting there at the library and somehow read the whole thing. Kept trying to stop, but kept coming back.

Beware!

Also, as regards that cover image? Is that his knee? his chest? What is that anatomy Batman's got there?

a week or so



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011) Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor by Isaac Asimov, finished January 26

Asimov simply astonishes. Besides all his science fiction and fact books and tomes on Shakespeare and a zillion other topics, he was apparently a total card as well. This book is light and fun and collects 640 of his favorite jokes, along with a running commentary on the philosophy and theory of joke structure and telling. That he collected the jokes simply by jotting them down as they came to mind blows mine. That he wrote an even longer sequel is incomprehensible.

If you, like me, see this at a thrift store for $1.99, you won't go wrong picking it up. Most of the jokes are still valid and it's a fascinating glimpse into midcentury liberal American culture. I'm into women's lib, Asimov insists, but if women won't tell jokes then they'll continue being the butts of men's jokes.

It's like a trip back through time. A funny trip back through time. Which is the best trip back through time of all.

two or three months



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010) Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, Perfect Collection 1 by Hayao Miyazaki, finished January 22

Nausicaä is a Miyazaki I've been aware of but I don't know much about it. I hear he drew the comic because he wanted to show that manga could do things anime couldn't. Then he got ambitious and wanted to prove he could turn it into a movie. Which is pretty awesome.

What I didn't know is that the book is plain awesome. I knew people loved it, but that doesn't mean I would too. But I did.

This book was the first two volumes. I have the third also. I'm afraid to look up how many there are total.

Crap. Just looked.

Seven.

That's a big commitment.

about three days



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009) The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984 by Charles M. Schulz, finished January 21

Leonard Maltin just wrote one of the best introductions in the series. And once again I feel like saying Schulz Is Hitting His Stride! as if he hasn't been there for decades.

How did he do it? What other artistic acheivements compare to his fifty years of daily excellence?

almost a month



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008) My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson, finished January 21

Although this book is unquestionably too short to qualify for this list, I enjoyed it too much not to share.

Just ten of Emily's poems which you've probably read before, the new hero here is the illustrations from Isabelle Arsenault who understands this poems and interprets them with a beautiful clarity I can't recommend enough. If you like Emily Dickinson, pick this one up. It's gorgeous.

quickly



Previously in 2013 . . . . :

Books 1 - 7

007) Spacecave One by Jake Parker, finished January 19
006) The Antler Boy and Other Stories by Jake Parker, finished January 19
005) The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, finished January 14
004) The Crab with the Golden Claws by Hergé, finished January 14
003) The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure by Hergé, finished January 11
002) Using the Common Core State Standards... edited by Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Ed.D., finished January 10
001) Jellaby by Kean Soo, finished January 8