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

.

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.

.



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?

.

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

.

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

on Keane

.

Keane's a great band. And their stuff lately sounds a bit like a cross between The Killers and Coldplay. So why aren't they huge?

Then I was watching Killers videos and noticing how darned handsome Brandon Flowers in and decided to do lead-singer comparison between the three bands. Behold:

Hmm.

on Advance Praise

.

[Now that we've begun bumping into postpublication praise, we should have that discussion on advance praise I promised.]

.

I suppose it's true I know a lot of people. But I don't know a lot of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists anxious to blurb my first novel. Which is all for the better, because I suspect most of those blurbs are thrown out without, shall we say, much close reading.

Both the folks providing the backcover-printed advance praise for Byuck originally approached me and asked if they could read my book. Since that time I've gone on to work extensively with one of them and to be in continuous periodic contact with the other.

I might not exist to many people without the assistance of Moriah Jovan, without whom it's hard to say how much of my last-five-years career would even exist. I owe her immensely and now I owe her even more. But she first read Byuck before she knew me for the parasite I would become.

Laura Craner on the other hand is a coblogger over at A Motley Vision and her promotion of Byuck when she barely knew my name is a big part of the reason it's in print today.

So, without further ado:

With humor and affection, Theric Jepson creates a story that gleans the best from both the romantic comedy tradition and the literary LDS tradition. Snappy dialogue and quirky characters make Byuck an enjoyable read for book clubs and Mormon literature enthusiasts.

Laura Craner

If you ever wanted to know what would have happened if Godot had shown up, read Byuck, wherein coffee tables are transgressive and Billy Joel claims to be innocent. I LOL'd. For real. Not like you do online where you just kind of huff with a mouth twitch. No, I totally LOL'd. Woke up the cat.

Moriah Jovan

First interview, first review

.

So Scott Hales has both interviewed me re Byuck and become the first person to review the novel. This means everyone now knows how full of myself I am . . . and how justified I am in being so.

(You may all roll your eyes.)

Allow me to share the links:

Original (abridged) posting of the interview

Accompanying book-giveaway contest

Full posting of the interview

Review

Starting 2013 off right

.

007) Spacecave One by Jake Parker, finished January 19
006) The Antler Boy and Other Stories by Jake Parker, finished January 19

Jake's Kickstarter was a massive success and I suppose I get a little credit for that. I did not remember before opening my package that I had pledged at a level to get the sketchbook as well as the collection. (Honestly, I'm not sure I did but I'm too lazy to check. I'm not sure I would rather believe I gave Jake more money or that he gave me a book just because he loves me.)

(Also, I should maybe admit in case I'm coming off disingenuous, Jake gave me a bit of credit in the acknowledgements for talking him into making "The Star Thrower"---but that's a bit ridiculous since I totally underpaid him. You're a good sport, Jake! Thanks for playing! Someday I'll be actually worth your time monetarily!)

Anyway, we opened the package at which point I was constrained to read Antler Boy without delay. We read straight through all the stories, most if not all of which the boys had not heard before. And they loved each one.

Jake's a major talent.

But I think he'll be most pleased by the Big O's reaction.

After looking through Spacecave One, Biggo now wants to spend more time drawing.

He did the dishes so he could stay up late with his pencils and pens.

(If you're in Southern California, meet Jake.)

immediately



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005) The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, finished January 14

I had an ambivalent reaction to the first novel, and if I hadn't been lent this one at the same time, I would never have bothered seeking it out, cliffhanger or no. And given it took me almost six months to read the first fifty pages, I think we can safely say the only reason I finished the book is because the person who loaned it me is graduating.

Just as I did not care about the frame story in book one, I cared even less for the newly introduced main character. Not returning to our cliffhangered pilgrims for twenty pages? Bad form, Mr Simmons! Then making the new guy I don't care about more and more and more and more important. Grumph.

Anyway, in the end, I'm impressed with the book's ambition. It really does try to be about everything---life, death, technology, religion, god, God, the past, the future, poetry, politics, the universe---you name it. Like Asimov's Foundation series, the book is trapped firmly in the age it was written. The Hyperion Cantos is only twenty years old (compared to Foundation's sixty) but already it's showing its age. Granted, it is aging well---it sounds quite similar to a world that might be predicted in a novel published this year---but lists of ancient authors or composers or whatever that is composed primarily of the same people under discussion today just makes the occasional "future ancient" writer emphasize the artificiality of the whole thing. (This is just one example. The common use of Christian metaphors---important for the novel's message---by people in a world where Christianity has been near forgotten for centuries is another. I could list more, but why?)

If you like ambitious science fiction that tries to be about everything ever, read these books. And they do make sincere attempts at artistry with occasional success.

But I was more disappointed than pleased in the end.

(Incidentally, the books' covers are an example of my beef with faces I was just talking about. The Shrike, as pictured on the books, doesn't quite look like the Shrike as described in the book. Missing a couple arms for example. Yet all my mental images are defined first by the cover image. Fail.)

about six months but mostly in the last two weeks



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004) The Crab with the Golden Claws by Hergé, finished January 14

Everything I say below about Tintin holds true here. Though this one seems a bit less polished. He got better!

bedtime



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003) The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure by Hergé, finished January 11

I tried to get into Tintin as a kid and failed. I tried again more recently and failed. But Tintin's all the rage among the smartset these days and my nine-year-old is as taken as any of them. So all his younger not-yet-reading brothers pick them up and read them because the Big O can't stop laughing while he reads and talking them up when he doesn't. So I picked this one up and read it to them.

As for me, I'm still not quite sold. But reading it with enthusiastic kids certainly did wonders for my enjoyment.

two noncontiguous nights



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002) Using the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts With Gifted and Advanced Learners edited by Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Ed.D., finished January 10

Note: This book was provided to me by the publisher free of charge

You might think---and you would be right---that as a teacher of English to advanced kids in a state moving to the Common Core that I would be open to listening to sound notions on how to move in this Exciting New Direction.

But alas, this committee-written book is just eighty-eight pages of stating the obvious followed by strings of jargon followed by some what's-hip-now-in-education. Plus charts not that different than are available everywhere.

Then there's the whole (poorly addressed) question of why should "advanced" kids require better instruction. This aspect will rankle anyone with the slightest liberal streak.

over a month



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001) Jellaby by Kean Soo, finished January 8

I've been aware of this character for a long time---read some shorter works---and so I picked up this book (the first in a series) and checked it out. The quotes from Jeff Smith (!) and Scott McCloud (!) taste vaguely like friends-giving-favors, but the book was fine.

It's clearly heavily influenced by Calvin and Hobbes. And sure! who isn't of this generation of cartoonists? But Soo has deliberately made his book seems as C&H-like as possible. Check out some of these images:

You can see it, right? From the proportions of the kids to the gestures and expressions to the woods behind the house---everything points to Calvin and Hobbes. The first food Portia feeds Jellaby? A tuna sandwich. Case closed.

Portia is not much like Calvin though. She's more like Susie Derkins. And, being Susie, and this being a Modern Take on a Classic, the imaginary creature is real and we're embarking into a world of real magic and real adventure etc. Because, you know, can't beat Watterson at imagination so we'll have to beat him in the real world.

Other influences I think I noticed are Millionaire and Herriman---a deliberate nod to Crockett Johnson---etc. Good things all.

At the end of book one I'm not overwhelmed with desire to read on, but I suspect my kids will like it more than I do. The storytelling wasn't tight or sensible enough for my taste, but I do like some things Soo did. For instance:

Cool, right?

Anyway. A nice book but not worth suffering to find.

snatches of one evening

I am a Modern Mormon Man

.

[evidence]

Chief Keef

.

Thanks to Chief Keef, I've been listening to kids singing this every day for months now (don't roll over if you don't want to see lyrics both vulgar and stupid):

I gets lotsa commas
I can fuck yo mama
I ain't with the drama
You can meet my llama

I've flirted many times with writing about the horrifyingly obscene things I hear kids reciting in class (in class!) but this relatively (relatively!) benign one is what's stuck around the longest. Plus, it's spawned a bunch of YouTube parodies that are, for a generous definition of hilarious, hilarious.

Anyway, poor Chief Keef is headed to juvenile hall. He's on probation for pointing a gun at a police officer and part of his probation means no using guns. Which he did. On camera. For Pitchfork.

Idiot.

Anyway, part of the prosecution's evidence was Keef's music, which is, you know, violent and gross.

Keef's response?

. . . the person people are trying to make me out to be is not who I am.

I think "people" in this sentence is Chief Keef.

Nerd.

Let us sing of covers

.

Now that Byuck is available on paper, it's time to discuss its cover, work of the inestimable Matt Page.

The first thing you should know about Matt is that the man is a workhorse. He can generate ideas and polish them and throw them out in less time than your average designer can figure out how to turn on the espresso machine. I highly recommend him.

This post will be more narrative than salespitch, and as such we must go way back in time to 1999, when Byuck was just a few scenes from a barely-begun play---and I created my first image. I'm not going to look through boxes for a copy of this anthropormorphized Y with a B and an eye on one side and an UCK and an eye on the other side. Suffice it to say it was ugly. I was pleased with it though and showed it to this designer girl I knew who promptly vomited. Somehow she blocked it out and we married, with the side effect that I developed some taste. Lucky.

When [Publisher X] was on the cusp of publishing Byuck in 2007, I was mocking up covers and marketing plans for them. I was pleased with my designs from an aesthetic standpoint, but they failed to make any comedic statements and so were ultimately deadends.

Here's my favorite idea from the time, remade in Paint to negate any awesomeness.

Maybe throw a lacrosse stick against the fence, and voila!

But I'm sure you can see the issues here.

(Mountains' source.)

Picket fences are a controlling image from the book, but they don't really SAY much on their own. Or, rather, what such fences generally mean doesn't apply here. So it's a bust.

My other idea I couldn't draw to save my life: a ballpoint pen, a keyboard, and a lacrosse stick crossed like the swords behind a coat of arms.

Anyway, the whole publication fell through so I put those ideas to rest.

Fastforward almost five years to Strange Violin contacting me and, ultimately, to Matt Page being sent the manuscript.

Matt and I already had some history. He had refused to be part of the Sunstone comics issue no matter how I cajoled. He later regretted that which is part of why he did so much awesome work on Monsters & Mormons. Then add the incredible cover he did for Strange Violin's A Short Stay in Hell and I decided not to give him any suggestions and just see what he would come up with. Which resulted in this:

Which, even though there's nothing wrong with it, I didn't like? Why not?

Two main reasons. First, it looks too YA. But more importantly, due to philosophical/aesthetic reasons, Byuck's main characters are underdescribed. Dave and Ref only look like this to Matt. With the exception of what Ref's wearing, none of this is in the text.

I'm aiming for universality. So I underdescribe main characters as a matter of aesthetic necessity. Readers will fill in the blanks from two dots and a line.

And I don't want them beholden to what the cover says they look like.

You can tell I feel strongly about this.

Anyway, I mentioned the picket fence idea and Matt came up with this:

Mountains in the background was just one of the ideas I'd fittered with for the picket fence idea; Matt chose to add them on his own.

I never quite figured out what I didn't like about this cover---probably because I liked many thing about it---and Matt tried multiple other variations: more text, boxes, different fonts, etc. Here are a couple favorites:

At which point the publisher and I selected our favorite (basically the brown version of that last one) and we were ready to go to press.

Which is when Matt threw the entire concept out. Why? Because, he said, it was too suggestive of pioneer themes.

That's it! That's the problem! Mt Timp is utterly irrelevant to the story at hand! I mean, sure, at one point a couple characters go up Provo Canyon, but in general, no. Irrelevant. Misleading. It's not that kind of Mormon book.

Plus, what's funny about this? And Matt's a funny guy.

Most impressively, Matt came upon this insight when his brain was so fried

You know how sometimes you look at a word for too long it seems absurd and doesn't even look like a real word? Well this is the first time that has happened where I am actually right that it isn't a real word.

We had a long gchat and I shared some of my ideas. Before he came back with some takes on those though, he tried to sell us once more on faces.

But I wasn't budging though this cover I am actually quite fond of.

Finally we reached the conclusive set of options:

All of these were good. We ended up choosing the teal (albeit with a white border which worked better with the spine) though it's always hard for me not to choose orange when it's an option. But we were out of time and I was told I had used up my persnickety allowance.

I began broadcasting the image at this point (sometimes, I admit, the orange one) and it immediately started getting compliments. My favorite from Stephen Carter who said it looked like something out of McSweeney's catalogue. Which I take as high praise indeed. They're the best in the business, no question.

Before you look at the full cover, I'm constrained to point out the photo was not my idea. The publisher found it. Somewhere.

Be careful what you put on the intervebz, kids.

I think that covers the story of the cover.

In the end, we got something great.

With handcrafted type.

That says funny.

What more could a boy ask for?

Next time, I'll tell stories of that "advance praise" you can't quite read..

Lost Songs: “Love Is All Around” by Wet Wet Wet

.

When I started Lost Songs, I thought what would happen is I would catch myself singing a song I hadn't heard in at least three years then pause and write about it. What I didn't expect is that I would catch myself singing a song that hadn't even shown up on my internal jukebox in that long.

But that happened yesterday. I came out of the bathroom to an external hallway, my fingers slightly damp from being washed, and I heard a girl complain about how cold it was. And it was cold. The passing wind had latched onto my fingers. And I suddenly started singing:

I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes

Which to me will always be the Wet Wet Wet version first. I really dug this song when it came out. (Before you judge, remember: The whole world did.) I'm pretty sure I bought the album on tape, even, just before my mission.

I know, right?

Lost Songs: "Everybody Plays the Fool" by Aaron Neville

.

This is one of the songs from my teen years that had the right mix of sentimentality and earnestness and fun that kept me up listening to my clock radio hoping it would suddenly appear. I'm not ashamed. I still think it's a great song. And I don't think I can overstate how much I liked it its first couple years on the radio.

The funny thing is, in my imagination, Aaron Neville had always been a betuxed scrawny white guy. A cross between Harry Connick Jr and old Sinatra caricatures. So the first time I saw him---a ripped black guy in torn denim and pencil stache---that was a funny feeling. And I think it taught me something, though I don't want to read too much into the experience.

All that said, I still think that Aaron Neville is the king of the falsettos. Yes, yes, Frankie Valli and Barry Gibb can have honorable mentions, but as far as enjoyable to listen to (rather than just fun to sing along with), Mr Neville wins that race.

C'mon. You know you love him.

Maybe not this video, though.