Balls and Walnuts

I've moved

2006-02-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

Yup, Blogger done buggered me one too many times. Come visit me at

For the time being, it will look bare-bones over there, but that will change. Update your links, folks. No telling when I might crash this place AGAIN. D.

My glamorous profession

2006-02-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Warning: don't read this on a full stomach. Did I ever mention that Alec Baldwin watched me to get into character for the movie Malice? It's true. And for my end-of-residency roast, I did a little stand-up comedy for my fellow residents and my attending physicians, wherein I showed this video clip from Malice: You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God. Stop video clip. Lights back on me. I'm shaking my head slowly, my mouth agape. Then, I say: It's uncanny. That is so . . . ME. Ah, well. You had to be there. Truth is, if we're playing God, then God has one messy, messy job. You know what I do more than anything else? I mean, as a simple percentage of time spent? I dig out ear wax. But that's not the messiest thing I do. I'm a PusBuster. Pus is one of the main reasons I'm late blogging today. That, and my son talked me into playing two games of chess with him, and of course I had to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In residency, I owned a tiny brown bottle full of oil of wintergreen. When it comes to pus, oil of wintergreen is your best friend. Schmear a bit of it under your nose and everything smells wonderful, even gangrene. Well, maybe not gangrene. Somewhere along the way, I lost my little brown bottle. Could have used it last week -- that pus shot two-and-a-half feet across the room. Thank heavens I wasn't in its path. My nurse, a woman in her mid-sixties, said that was the worst thing she'd ever smelled. For a nurse (especially one in her mid-sixties!) that's really saying something. I'm not complaining. I like busting pus, just as I like cleaning ear wax. Nothing satisfies quite like a good spill of the yellow poo or a big fat plug of the brown-and-hairy. These are some of the happiest patients: in the case of pus, they usually experience a rapid resolution of their pain and pressure symptoms; with ear wax, they can hear again. I've been hugged more than a few times. If I thought about complaining even for a moment, I would force myself to remember my comrades in general surgery, who regularly pull beer cans, beer bottles, and baseballs from people's rectums; my comrades in urology, who remove bobby pins and other delightful items from people's urethras; and my comrades in gynecology, who sometimes have to explain to their patients that, no, tampons do not dissolve, and it's a bad idea to stuff one in after the other. See? I have it easy. Only the eye docs have it better. We're medieval barbers, that's all we are. Sometimes I try to explain that to my patients. Usually, I stop myself before they get that glazed, wide-eyed look. D. PS: Here's the US Military's latest recruiting video (NOT). Hat tip to Daily Kos for linking to this biting satire.

We have a winner!

2006-02-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

Shelbi wins the drawing. Congratulations! Thank you, all of you who played. That was a delightful bit of self-stroking for me. If you missed out, don't feel bad -- I'll have another contest in April when I hit the one year mark. Shelbi, email me at azureus at harborside (dot) com, and send me your snail mail addie. If you would rather have a gift certificate than Borges's Collected Fictions, let me know. Thanks again, everyone. D.

Thirteen Dreams

2006-02-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

Thirteen Dreams from Doug Tales from the other third of my life (Other people's dreams are boring as hell. Let's see if I can make this work.)

 1. The earliest dream I can recall: a pixie lives in my closet, and she alerts me to her presence by playing on a tiny piano. She leads me into a room I had never seen, sunlit, full of toys, a world of safety and beauty.

2. My grandfather (he of the surgically removed horns, and the monkey in the attic) and I travel to the moon. It's so small, I could walk around it in a matter of minutes. I jump higher and higher in the low gravity while my grandfather scratches his bald head and mumbles in Yiddish.

3. Late at night, my parents talk quietly near the gas range. All the burners are on, not a pot in sight.

"With all of your problems," my father says, "it's a wonder you're not dead."

My mother falls to the kitchen floor, unconscious.

(What can I say -- she was a bit of a hypochondriac.)

4. I'm in a car with my brother and sister, and we're pulling away from a home construction site. We leave my mother behind. She wants to give me some food -- a Hershey's chocolate bar, no doubt -- and she runs after the car, holding it out for me to grab. She can't catch up.

That one recurred, haunting me for years for reasons I still don't understand.

5. I've had insomnia for as long as I can recall. I used to tell myself stories to pass the hour or two it would take to get to sleep. Sometimes, it's difficult to know the difference between a remembered dream or one of those stories. In one, I'm a secret agent, poisoning Hitler's carrot patch.

6. A woman wakes up in the night to an empty bed. She calls out for her husband, but no one answers. In a panic, she runs outside, calling his name. Terror surges; she passes out in the driveway. She wakes up the following morning in her own bed, and does not realize that the experience hours earlier was a waking dream.

This is not my dream.

7. A woman watches a chef boil a lobster. The lobster screams as it is lowered into the pot. He takes it out and removes its limbs, one by one.

This is not my dream, either.

8. I am amazed at how readily dreams can reprogram decades of memory. In one recurring dream with many variations, I'm back in that state of loneliness I lived in before meeting Karen. A girl or woman (depending upon how old I am in the dream) lets me know she's interested in me.

Together, we take the first step.

9. Oh, lordy, the student's dream. My favorite remains the one in which I'm late to the final, but I still have 20 or 30 minutes left. I look at the first question, then the second, then the third. Each and every question is nonsensical -- essay questions with numerical answers, mathematical equations with multiple choices covering the gamut from "honesty" to "betrayal."

10. I'm peeing, and I lose control of my aim. Soon, the ceiling and the walls are dripping in urine.

11. My teeth fall out.

12. I'm in a crashing plane, or a car attacked by gunmen, and in a last minute restoration of faith, I recite the Shema.

13. And then there's the one about the malt shop -- you know the kind, red-cushioned spinning stools beside a long, gleaming countertop. Twelve cheerleaders, sweaty from their last workout, sit atop the stools. They are a Godiva Deluxe Assortment of ethnicities, they are all beautiful, and none of them are wearing underwear.

Oh, wait. That's a fantasy, not a dream. My dreams are never that much fun.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens! (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

1. D. Challener Roe 2. Kate Rothwell 3. Write from Karen 4. Jona

5. Sapphire Writer 6. Amanda's 13 Favorite Movies

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D.

With apologies to vampire bats

2006-02-01T22:58:00.000-08:00

So President Bush is worried about human-animal chimerae: Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale. Well, Mr. Bush, aside from the fact that such a law would prevent the cloning of human genes into bacterial or viral vectors, thus crippling biomedical research for decades to come, I think you should clean house before implementing such a policy. You may begin with your Vice President. D.

Quickie poll

2006-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

Don't forget the Number 500 Giveaway! I hope to see several more entries before the evening is over.

***

I'm happy -- not about the state of the world, of course, but about my trilogy. In the last few hours, I did a bit of cosmetic surgery on the first novel, and the current word count stands at just under 90,000 words. Ideal! Not only that, but this first novel is one tight sumbitch, and I think anyone who finished it would have to buy the next book. But that's just me. I'm chucking the working title (The Brakan Correspondent) because it put the main character's father front and center. I want to keep Cree (the correspondent's daughter) center stage. All of the titles below refer to her, although they also have double meanings that spread to a few of the other characters as well. Tell me whether any one of these grabs your eye better than its neighbors: Nest Out of the Nest Fallen from the Nest Fledge Fledgling Thanks! D.

Funny thing is

2006-02-01T12:26:00.001-08:00

I own a Miata, which is almost the spittin' image of this car (except for color).

I'm a Honda S2000!

You live on the edge, and you live for the adrenaline rush. You don't need luxuries, snob appeal, or superfluous gadgets. You put your top down, get your motor revving, and take all the curves that life throws at you at full speed. So what if you spin out occasionally?

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

I found this quiz at Dean's place. By the way: don't forget to enter my 500th Post Giveaway, if you haven't done so already. D.

Cindy Sheehan arrested for wearing a tee shirt.

2006-02-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: San Jose Mercury News reports, Police Drop Charge Against Sheehan, Apologize. Gracias to Blue Gal for pointing me to John Nichols's editorial in The Nation, The War on T-Shirts. Here's a bit of meat: Is there really a law against wearing a political T-shirt to the State of the Union address? No. The Capitol Police, who on Wednesday dropped the charges against Sheehan, have acknowledged in an official statement that: "While officers acted in a manner consistent with the rules of decorum enforced by the department in the House Gallery for years, neither Mrs. Sheehan's manner of dress or initial conduct warranted law enforcement intervention." What they have not acknowledged, and what is truly troubling, is the evidence that Sheehan was singled out for rough justice. What follows is the entry I wrote this morning: Here's Cindy's story. Her shirt said, "2245 dead. How many more?" Read the whole story, but here's the part that gets me: I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

Bradblog has updates and pictures.

I don't know if I have many Bush supporters in my audience, but I'm speaking to you folks now. What will it take for you to wake up? That's all I'm asking. What will it take?

The rest of you, sorry for the political post, but it seems like something new pisses me off every single day.

Number 500: a giveaway

2006-01-31T22:00:00.000-08:00

Yup, this is my 500th post. I'd like to celebrate by giving away a copy of one of my favorite books, Jorge Luis Borges' Collected Fictions. If you already own it, or if you despise Borges, let me know, and I'll send you a gift certificate instead. The rules are easy. In the comments, tell me how you found your way here the very first time. I know the answer for some of you (the BBSers), but for most of you, I haven't a clue -- and I'm curious. Tomorrow night at this time, I'll write down the names of the commenters and draw one at random. The winner will need to email me with his or her snail mail addie.

***

Coming Attractions

Karen reads Kate Rothwell's Somebody Wonderful . . . in one day! Little Green Fascists tests the waters of poor taste . . . and finds them warm and inviting! And . . . I finally explain why you should belittle your children at every opportunity! Plus . . . Too many exclamation marks cause fingernail cancer!!! And more. D.

My little humorist

2006-01-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

More later. I thought I'd dash this off before fixing dinner. I've been teaching my son grammar from Strunk and White, and from Karen Gordon's books, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire and The New Well-Tempered Sentence. He finished reading Gordon's chapter on commas last week, so now I'm having him go back through it and write sentences demonstrating each of her major points. Here is what he has done so far, uncorrected by yours truly: Monday. He barfed, he heaved, he blew his nose. I barfed Sparky up, and I saw her half-digested tail wagging. Sparky didn't like being in Sam's stomach, but she liked his intestines. He wanted lunch and she wanted a heart. He always salted her before eating, but he thought she was bland all the same. [Eeeew.] I woke up covered in barf [I think I understand the theme of this composition] and said, "Let's go again! Let's go again!" Tuesday. Sam tumbled and splashed and rolled around in the radioactive waste. When the radio started saying, "Recently there has been a radioactive spill and we would just like to caution everybody from playing in it, that is all", he started drinking the foul liquid. Sam drank the water so that he would get 6 extra eyes. From the left, a boy rose up and Sam saw his tentacles. At dark he thought 30 tentacles were enough. Out of the murky water appeared a girl with 6 red eyes and 4 tentacles. I'll make him a blogger yet. D.

Too cute not to share

2006-01-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

With this morning's mail, I received a card from one of my patients. She doubles as my surrogate grandma. Here's her note: Dear Dr. Hoffman, When I think of you . . . "Appreciation" comes in view. Thank you for your care. Sending medical samples is kinda rare, But then, so is a doctor who can serve up a wickedly delicious "Latker!"* P.S. My Yiddish is kind of kiddish. *Okay, you have to love this forced rhyme: doctor and 'latker'. She's referring to my potato pancakes (latkes). Here's the recipe. No one has ever written me a poem before. D.

Why is Bush so awesome?

2006-01-30T22:54:00.000-08:00

Major tip of the hat to Jellio at YesButNoButYes for this hilarious video. Okay. Now I can get to sleep with a smile on my face. G'night. D.

Samuel Alito got me out of bed this morning

2006-01-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

. . . at 6 AM. I guarantee you, if I had set the alarm for 6 with the intention of spending an hour editing, or perhaps working out at the gym, I'd have groaned, turned over, and gone back to sleep. Nope, it took Sam Alito to motivate my ass out of bed. Something strange is happening inside my head; the neurons are rearranging themselves, like one of those old mosaic puzzles where you had to scoot squares around in order to unscramble the choo-choo train. I'm becoming more political. Yeah, I've written political posts, I've donated to lefty causes and campaigns, and I've even emailed my representatives in the past, but nothing compares to the all-out blitz against Alito that I -- we -- took part in over the weekend. Sure, we lost, but we picked up 23 votes against cloture that we didn't have when this all started. We know who our friends are, and we know who the Vichy Dems are, too. We have some sense of the clout we can wield as citizens of the net. And we did it all without support from the established liberal groups, like People for the American Way. Quote from Kos: But say what you will about blogs and the netroots, we are not effective organizers for this type of large-scale effort, with an opposition wielding tens of millions of dollars. That we got this much accomplished in the fact of that is simply incredible. And a rallying cry from Meteor Blades that, I swear to you, brought tears to my eyes (but then, I cry watching sitcoms, too): . . . But a battle is not a war. And, disappointing as it was, and as devastating as Alito's tenure on the court may turn out to be, giving up is simply not an option.

No matter what the odds, and no matter how few of our elected representatives we can count on to stand with us on this matter, and a hundred others, we have to keep up the fight. The war against Big Brotherization is as crucial as that for abolition, for women's suffrage, for civil rights.

In every case, the warriors in those wars suffered immense setbacks, repeatedly so, and found it hard to get the politicians to speak up and stand up for them. Eventually, however, because they refused to surrender, and because they took the fight beyond the electoral arena, they won.

We will, too.

Read the whole thing. One more inspirational link -- Jane, at firedoglake: We shook things up. Oh, yeah.

***

It may sound weird to you, but I finally feel like a citizen of this country. The other day, my son asked my wife -- and I'm paraphrasing here, cuz I wasn't present for the discussion -- whether we were just watching the world go to hell, or whether we were trying to do something to change it. It feels good to show him that we do more in this family than write checks to politicians, Amnesty International, and the ACLU. I don't think this is a flash in the pan, either. I keep popping over at my favorite political blogs, looking for marching orders. I've already pledged money and phone-calling time to Ned Lamont, the one dude who looks like he has a chance to unseat Windbag Lieberman in the primary. I'm angry. I want to do more. And I'm not alone.

***

Yeah, yeah. I know I promised you more self-esteem BS yesterday, but I'm not sure anyone cares about that but me. Right now, I'm having a hard time firing myself up over what used to be one of my pet peeves, since I'm too fired up about other things. Off topic: go say hi to Balls and Walnuts's newest friend, Mark Hoeschletter, an 82-year-old gentleman who just began blogging less than one week ago. Today, Mark has some important words for the young people of today. Finally, my apologies to all of you in the blogosphere whom I haven't visited this week. I'll do better, I promise. D.

The merits of poor self-esteem: Part I

2006-01-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

My mother, bless her labyrinthine heart, saved every scrap of writing and artwork I produced in elementary school, or at least she had saved every scrap until I moved out for college. Then, somehow, everything managed to fit into a single box in our garage. Some time between college and med school, I went through the box. It held no surprises for me -- I had been through it several times before, looking for answers that I hoped would be more palatable than the obvious ones I'd known from the beginning. Nope, nothing new. I saved the interesting stuff and tossed the rest. I kept my first grade report cards, quarter by quarter showing a teacher initially enchanted by me, ultimately exhausted. I kept a small folder of stories bound with three brass brads. And I kept another brad-bound folder from first grade, this one titled MY FAMILY. The frontispiece consists of a family portrait, hand-crayoned by yours truly. You know the type -- family in the foreground, names pencilled crudely under each, house in the background, smoking chimney, yatta yatta yatta. The smallest figure's legs are fused in one column, he's armless, and his head sits atop his body, an undifferentiated lump. That's me. I imagine any post-Benjamin Spock child shrink would have had palpitations over that drawing, and he would have been right. I was one fucked up kid. And look at me now.

Yeah, admit it. You missed that photo. (My son says, "You know, it's kind of obvious it's faked." To which I say: "What? What? What's fake about it?") I'm grappling for some image or memory to convey how self-hating I was as a kid, but you know something? So much of it was internal. I don't have it in me to be self-destructive, so I can't cough up any stories of drug abuse, insanely reckless behavior, or failed suicide attempts. Mostly, I stayed depressed. Fred Delse, my med school mentor I told you about in this post on ego boundaries, once said that it was nearly impossible to diagnosis major affective disorders in kids. I don't recall if he said, "It's impossible because they're all sick," but that's what I took home from that conversation. I thought: It's okay that you spent your whole childhood wishing you were anyplace but where you truly were. Other kids were undoubtedly more screwed up than you. Not surprisingly, I did have one addiction, schoolwork. I aced everything I touched. My one kernel of self-worth came from the knowledge that I was at the head of the pack. I earned this bit of self-esteem; I didn't have it foisted upon me by teachers eager to praise my every artistic, literary, or spoken turd. I clung to it like a life preserver, and in the end it did, indeed, save me.

***

Sometimes I worry that my son's childhood is too happy. I feel a little better after yesterday's brouhaha.

***

The fiction writer in me cringes. Show, don't tell, remember? But I can't show you, not while my parents are still alive and capable of reading my blog. Irrational as it may sound, my father's command to me in first grade still carries weight. I had blabbed to my first grade teacher. At our first open house, she asked my parents about the stories I'd told her. My dad denied everything, of course, but when he got me home, he laid down the law. Don't ever, ever talk about what happens in this house. So I can't show you. Some of these things you'll just have to take on faith. Besides -- when have I ever lied to you? But I'm still cringing. This is not effective writing.

***

I'm not here to whine about an unhappy childhood. In fact, my second choice title for today's post was, It's never too late to have an unhappy childhood. I never would have become who I am today if I hadn't been fueled by a ton of self-hatred. I couldn't continue being who I am and doing what I do if I didn't still have that hatred burning inside me, constantly requiring appeasement. My worst enemy is my best friend. And I am resolute in my belief that a groundless "high self-esteem" is a bad, bad thing. Tomorrow: Sociologists agree with me. D.

Letter to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

2006-01-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

(Feel free to use this yourselves. The DSCC's email addie is info@dscc.org. Now, I'm off to post this as a Kos diary. See ya later!) Dear Sirs, I am a registered Democrat, and my wife and I contributed heavily to the last Democratic Presidential campaign. In the 2006 election, we fully intend to contribute both time and money to help defeat the Republican majorities in Congress. However . . . It has become increasingly difficult to support a party that fails to show spine in opposing the Republicans and their imperial President. I am opposed to the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, because I feel he will push our country further from democracy, closer to fascism. Judge Alito has made clear his opinion regarding the unlimited range of Executive power. I feel that his opinions are discordant with my wishes and the wishes of a majority of my fellow citizens -- and even if most Americans wanted to be led down the path of fascism, I still don't think his confirmation would in any way be good for the country. It's the old, "If your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff too?" routine. I will not donate my money or time to a Party of Lemmings. Actually, lemmings are not that stupid. This is a myth, but it is also a useful metaphor. In reality, humans are this stupid. Let me be very clear: at this time, more than ever before, I expect to see leadership and resolve on the part of the Democratic Party. This may be the last chance we have to oppose an Imperial Presidency. Please, for the health of our democracy, get our Democratic Senators to vote to oppose cloture, and to support Senator Kerry's filibuster. Thank you. Douglas Hoffman

Is there a dog whisperer in the house?

2006-01-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

I had to share this with you. This morning, RaZen at YesButNoButYes brings us a video of a possessed dog. I think St. Francis needs a day or two a month, not just one day a year -- this dog needs to be blessed big time. You may not know this if you're sane, but dogs will acquire the psychopathology of their masters. I've seen it again and again. Mostly in my family. But I do have one family-safe story to tell regarding psycho canines. As some of you may recall, I volunteered at Napa State Mental Hospital for a few years, during my time at UC Berkeley. Napa had a halfway house on their grounds, a building that looked and functioned like a real home, nothing ward-y about it. Folks who were ready for the real world could spend a few weeks there, cooking in their own kitchen, using actual knives. The halfway house had a pet dog, one of those creatures that looks part poodle, part terrier, part chihuahua, and part Tasmanian devil, and this dog had a favorite pillow. After you've watched the possessed doggy video (linked above), imagine our runty little hero treating his pillow in just this manner. Just when you think he had given that pillow what-for, he would change tactics and hump the pillow. A minute or two of fruitless humping, and he'd back in full attack mode, snarling, biting, ravaging that poor pillow. I'd never met a dog with borderline personality disorder before, but I'm sure he had it.

***

For those of you who read my boogers blog, I've posted a long rant on ear wax. Just what you wanted with your Sunday coffee. D. PS: and this is partly a note-to-myself, so that I can find the links first thing Monday morning . . . Vichy Democrats has a one-stop resource in the fight against confirmation of Sam Alito: Senators' local phone numbers, fax numbers, email addies, web forms, plus where they stand on the cloture vote. Also, links to online petitions. For those of you wondering what all the fuss is about, Georgia at Kos says it better than I ever could. Many of us who oppose Alito do so because of his opinions regarding the powers of the Executive branch. In the context of the George W. Bush power grab, Alito is downright dangerous. This may be our best chance to block the Imperial Presidency, folks. Let your voice be heard, preferably over and over again. Tomorrow, I'll be getting up an hour early so that I can make lots of phone calls and send lots of faxes before my day begins. We can do this!

Oy, what am I doing wrong?

2006-01-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Here's what happened: One of Jake's pet millipedes died. He fusses over these critters to no end, spraying them once or twice a day with water, giving them bits of lettuce. He didn't seem too upset by the death, but he kept talking about it. He wanted to show his mom the dead millipede, and she refused, saying it was a yucky, dead, decaying millipede (based on Jake's description of brown stuff oozing out of its body). Jake got insulted and demanded an apology. Karen wouldn't apologize. Meanwhile, he was supposed to be reading his biology, and he kept turning the pages with his feet. Or something like that. I wasn't there, didn't see it happen. All I know is, I came upstairs, saw wrinkly pages in his nice new biology textbook, and said, "Um. You know, I wish you wouldn't mess up your new book." No anger. I didn't realize Karen had already said something to him about it. Next thing I know, we're in Tantrum Central. Then he kicks me in the shin. Now, I've almost never hit this kid. One little slap on the butt to get his attention (at about 18 months old), nothing since, and he's ten now. So I sent him to his room and told him if he DIDN'T get down to his room right away, no computer for a day. For three days. For a week. (I'm upping the ante because he's standing there, refusing to go downstairs.) I think he misunderstood me, because he thought he had to go to his room AND was getting booted off the computer. Next thing I know, he pops out of his room with his pillow, blanket, and flashlight. He leaves the house and begins running away. Slowly. My parenting skills are exhausted at this point. In the old days, you were supposed to just let the kid go, right? Let him have his temper tantrum and wander back sheepishly. But this isn't the old days, and besides, we live on a street where folks barrel down in their trucks at 50 MPH. Nevertheless, I had Karen come downstairs (her pelvis has mended well enough that she can get around with a cane, but still) so she could see Jake running away down the driveway in slow motion. "Go after him," she said. "Bring him back. I don't want him walking down the road." I met up with him at the entrance to the driveway. Another 'don't you think you're overreacting' speech, to no effect. He wouldn't come back. "I'll carry you back if I have to," I said, and he said, "You can try." I lifted him up and carried him back, with him kicking me in the shins as hard as he could all the way. We put him in his room and left him there. That was about an hour ago. Karen's thinking we should punish him extra (for all the shin-kicking): no computer, no TV. But I don't think we've seen the end of this insurrection. Look, folks. My parenting skills are for sh*t. As a kid, I didn't get much of an example, and neither did Karen for that matter. Dr. Phil me, people (tell me what to do). Thanks. D.

Support the Alito Filibuster

2006-01-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

Gilliard has coverage. Be warned: every Senate office number I called has the same message (this mailbox is full), so I had to resort to emailing as many Senators as I could. From Daily Kos, here is a great list of links to Senators' web forms. The main point to make, assuming this Senator is not your Senator: "My contributions of time and money to the DNC will depend on the outcome of the upcoming filibuster." Or words to that effect. Even if he or she is not your Senator, this message should still hit home. Update: here is the most recent action post from Daily Kos. We have 15 no votes for cloture -- up 3 votes from this morning. One easy thing you can do to help: sign the petition at SaveTheCourt.Org. D.

Your morning bwaahahahahaha

2006-01-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

The BEAST brings us the 50 Most Loathesome People in America of 2005, including a special punishment for each one. Warning: if you think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are great, wise, and wonderful human beings, stay away from this list. This BEAST article may be old news, but I just discovered it this morning, by -- how else? -- snooping around Technorati. My take? Michelle Malkin deserves to be much higher in the list than #49; Michael Brown and Scooter Libby got off too easy; Terry Schiavo -- cheap shot, not funny; most chilling entry: #4; person most conspicuously absent from the list: Tim Russert. I mean, really. They put Geraldo Rivera on the list, but not Russert? Rivera's a has-been. Okay, Hoffman, stop goofing off and get to work. D.

Fesenjan

2006-01-27T20:46:00.000-08:00

I've given you balls up to your ears; now, at long last, I shall deliver on my promise to give you walnuts. By necessity, I've learned how to cook ethnic. I can bake pita bread (since our grocery stores consider this too exotic), fix a mean baklava, do a delicious baba ganouj or hummus. My Chinese stir fries are passable, yet better than the local fare, and my Indian cuisine is excellent. One of our favorite dishes is leftover tandoori chicken stewed in a sauce of onions and cream. Tonight, I felt like doing something special with duck. Cassoulet takes days to prepare, and Peking duck at least a full day, so that meant either pan-seared duck breast or fesenjan. Karen opted for fesenjan. Ninety percent of the labor comes from boning the duck, so if you want to substitute boneless chicken thighs and breasts, be my guest. Fesenjan 1. Skin and bone the duck. (Use the carcass to make a quick stock, and render the fat from the skin. Fried duck skin is great all by itself, but it's also yummy on salads. Duck fat can be substituted for butter or olive oil for any savory dish. I use it to make chopped chicken liver.) Chop the meat into one-inch pieces and sprinkle the pieces with salt and freshly ground pepper. 2. Meanwhile, toast 2 cups of walnuts in the oven at 350F until, erm, toasty. Don't let 'em burn. Do let them cool, then grind them in a food processor. You want the mixture to be a little coarse. 3. In a heavy-bottomed pot (a Dutch oven works great), brown the duck meat in two or three tablespoons of butter. Set the browned meat aside in a glass bowl to catch the drippings. 4. Chop a large onion -- fine, coarse, doesn't really matter. Fry the onions in the leftover butter. If you'd like, add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the onions towards the end of the frying. You want the onions to be golden, or a little darker. 5. Add to the onions the duck and its drippings, the ground walnuts, about 1 cup of pomegranate paste, and 1 to 2 cups of stock. Start with one cup of stock, stir the ingredients, and add more stock until you get the desired consistency. (You know -- like stew!) Here's an online Persian Grocery that sells pomegranate paste and oh my heavens zereshk berries, too! Now I can make zereshk polo. 6. Add about 1 tablespoon of sugar, and adjust the salt to taste. Add more pomegranate paste if you'd like your stew a bit more sour, or (if you're like my wife) you just love pomegranate. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. 7. For tender meat, you want to brown the meat as quickly as possible, and then simmer as gently as possible. Remember, dark meat doesn't toughen up nearly as readily as white meat, so if you're using chicken, you may want to use nothing but thigh meat. 8. Serve over basmati rice. (Yes, that Persian Grocery sells basmati, too.) Best basmati rice: rinse a cup of rice, boil the rice in LOTS of salted water until it is not quite tender, then strain the rice. In a non-stick or heavy-bottomed pot, melt 2 to 4 tablespoons of butter. Layer the rice on top of the butter. Put the lid on the pot. Now, let the rice steam by keeping the pot over a very low heat for, I dunno, 15 to 30 minutes. It will be done long before 30 minutes, but that doesn't matter. If you do it right (and believe me, this is an art I still haven't quite mastered) you'll have a delicious golden brown crust of rice at the bottom of the pot. Any questions? D.

When Chihuahuas attack!

2006-01-27T16:47:00.000-08:00

First killer bees, now attack chihuahuas hungry for human flesh: The officer suffered minor injuries including bites to his ankle on Thursday when the five Chihuahuas escaped the 17-year-old boy's home and rushed the officer in the doorway, said Fremont detective Bill Veteran. Nor is this an isolated incident. According to this professional consultant who dresses his chihuahuas in camo gear, "Before they've had their morning coffee, attack Chihuahuas are not to be trifled with." Fortunately, for $44.95, you can warn neighbors and passersby that your attack Chihuahuas are on duty. So -- what do you think -- Worst? Photoshopping? Ever? More later. The Du Bist Deutschland campaign has given me ideas. D.

Will Gabriele or Darla . . .

2006-01-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

please come over here and tell me about the significance of Du Bist Deutschland and klowände? They are both top search terms at Technorati, but I can't find much of an explanation in English. I feel so out of the loop. D.

Late night variety pak

2006-01-26T22:39:00.000-08:00

It's late, I'm tired, and this is all ya get. Helen Wheels left one looooong response to my Sunday blog on the rise of fascism in America. I thought about reprinting it here, but it turns out Helen posted the more detailed version on her blog, yesterday. She quotes Lawrence W. Britt's article on fascism at length, to chilling effect. Here it is. Consider that a mighty shout.

***

Many thanks to Kate and her hubs for turning me on to Campbell & Reece Biology, Seventh Edition. Looks like this is going to be a great experience for my home schooler AND his dad. This beautiful textbook includes a CD with useful material (how rare is that?), and the online resources rock. Tests! They have tests! They sure know how to make home schooling easy. Jake dove into it with both feet. Right away, the book stimulated a useful discussion on embryogenesis, haploidy, diploidy, gastrulation, and neurulation. We had to backtrack a bit to talk about gametogenesis and fertilization, but I didn't mind. Damn it, if there's one thing I'm qualified to teach, it's biology. No, really, I have a PhD in this stuff (didn't know that, did ya?) I warmed to the discussion, eager to share my knowledge of meiosis and mitosis, spermatogenesis and seminal vesicles, ovulation and the menstrual cycle. Then, suitably enlightened, I guided Jake back towards the subjects of fertilization, implantation, and early embryonic development: initial cell divisions, morula (what the Germans call zellballen, IIRC), blastula, morula, gastrula, neurula, embyro. Me: Any questions? Jake: I still don't get how the sperm get up there. Me: Their tails spin round and round, like little motorboat propellers. They swim up there. Jake: But how do they get up there? Me: Well, during orgasm, muscular contractions in the uterus help draw the sperm upward. Jake: But how do they get up there? This clearly called for a visual aid. Moral of the story*: never take anything for granted. D. *That part of the story is false. Of course my ten-year-old already knows the basic mechanics of intercourse. He's my son, for heaven's sake. Moral of the story: never discount my willingness to pounce on a cheap visual joke.

A timely Thursday Thirteen

2006-01-25T21:59:00.000-08:00

Thirteen Things about Doug And, dammit, you'd better play this time, or next week, I'll tag your ass.

 1. Goethe, not Nietzsche, said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger." Three intervals in my life put this to the test, but I was not so much tempered by them as torn apart and put back together.

2. As a four-year-old, I was traumatized by a cantaloupe (AKA musk melon). This was not one of those desperate, ego-formative moments. I got over it.

3. My first memory: I'm two, nearly three, and my brother and sister are helping me get dressed in the back seat of my dad's car. (A blue Chevy, Sis?) It is the first day of my first Voyage of the Damned: summer vacation, driving from LA to Boston to see the rest of the family. It would not be my last such voyage.

4. I liked to get up when my parents got up. They would eat breakfast, drink coffee, and not yell at each other. I hid in the hallway with my back against the wall heater, listening to them talk. My mom didn't like this. She thought the wall heater would give me "arthuritis."

5. On that first Voyage of the Damned, we stopped for breakfast in Needles. I saw a red firetruck I dearly wanted. My mother wanted to buy it for me, but my father didn't. Much psychodrama ensued.

6. We took the southern route that year. One night, in a motel room in the Deep South, we woke up to find the room infested with giant water bugs. Trust me: you really don't want to click on that link.

7. Bliss for five-year-old me was a day at the beach . . . although I hated it when my mom would towel the sand from my back. Ow.

8. I had my first mathematical epiphany in kindergarten. I told my teacher, Mrs. Biyotch, "One and one are two!" and she replied, "One plus one equals two." Talk about buzz kills.

9. I loved my pediatrician, Dr. Johnson. Or maybe I just loved ripping off all my clothes as fast as I could.

10. I didn't like my next doctor, Dr. May. To this day, I don't understand why a doctor would feel the need to do a rectal exam on a ten-year-old boy (or younger) at every visit. Actually, I do understand, and I don't like it one bit.

11. Among other childhood fears, I was afraid of the dark, and of mysterious strangers coming into our house. My sister knows why. I didn't get over my fear of the dark until med school.

12. My grandfather groped me once, but I didn't hold it against him. (Hah! I love that gag.) No, this wasn't one of those ego-formative moments, either.

13. To some degree, I live in a constant state of breath-holding, waiting for the next traumatic interval.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens! (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) 1. Dariana 2. Jona 3. Jeni 4. D.C. Roe, a Varley fan 5. Kate 6. Caryn 7. Sapphirewriter

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

D.

Guess who's coming to dinner!

2006-01-25T19:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom and Dad¹, I didn't know quite how to break this to you, so I'm sending this picture instead. I've met someone new. You'd like her; she's ambitious (a nurse, as you can plainly see), and she wants a huge family, at least twelve kids. This shouldn't be as difficult as it sounds, though, since she already has eight! I can't tell you how excited I am by all this. I've always wanted tall children, and my gal will surely provide. You see, she has crouched down about six inches so that we could take this photo cheek-to-cheek. Isn't that awfully sweet of her? Jacob is thrilled as can be at the thought of so many new brothers and sisters to play with. Karen is taking it as well as can be expected. It's not as bad for her as you think, since we will all be moving to Utah and converting to Mormonism to take advantage of the bigamy thing. We're counting on your blessing! Love², Doug 1. I don't want you to get the impression that my parents are racist. They're not. They are, however, 80 years old (my dad) and approaching 80 (my mom) and their ability to roll with the punches ain't what it used to be. 2. As for the cruelty factor here, (1) they don't read my blog, and (2) let's just say I dish it to 'em every chance I get.

A Taste of L.A.

2006-01-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

Remember the nuclear devastation of Los Angeles in Terminator 2? Karen and I saw that movie in L.A., and we were the only two people who chortled over Linda Hamilton's dream of mushroom clouds. That's how much we liked L.A. Of course, that was before we lived in Texas, and that was also before we lived in the land of "Oh, God, please let that be a new restaurant, because our town really doesn't need a seventh auto parts store!" Without further ado, here are eight things I miss from Los Angeles, all food. (Sorry, Beth & all those other vegetarians out there, but I like meat.)

Mr. Creosote

1. Baci D'Alassio from Il Fornaio restaurant in South Pasadena. Think of Baci as two chocolate-hazelnut macaroons fused base-to-base with a dollop of semisweet chocolate. Here's the recipe, and here's a picture. 2. Fried smelt at Cafe Santorini in South Pasadena. Oh how I love my little fishies. I really, really don't want to look up the mercury content of smelt on Fanatic Cook's mercury chart. (Hah! They're not on the chart. They must be mercury-free.) Imagine a huge dish piled high with lightly battered smelt, fried to a golden crisp, sprinkled with finely chopped Italian parsley, and served with no shortage of lemon wedges. You eat these bad boys whole -- head, tail, fins, bones, everything. The crunch is part of the experience. Oh, lordy lordy lordy lordy. 3. Creme brulee at Cafe Santorini. Perfect creme brulee should have a warm, flawlessly crisped top, and a smooth, cold center. No damned bubbles. If there's bubbles in the puddin', the cook don't know WTF about creme brulee. Here's the Cook's Illustrated recipe -- I haven't tried it out yet, but I will very soon. My beloved has a yen. Karen, a creme brulee purist, hates to discover funky flavors on the first bite (Funky = anything other than vanilla). But I like a surprise. My favorite-ever creme brulee at Cafe Santorini featured a strong hint of bay leaf. 4. Basturma at Sahag's Deli on Sunset. Basturma is the king of cold cuts, the ur-pastrami. Food critic Jonathon Gold called it "less a foodstuff than a force of nature." It has the beefy intensity of bresaola, but the spice rub (hot paprika, fenugreek, and garlic) packs a wallop. Eat some basturma and give your unsuspecting Dearest a deep, deep kiss for a food sex memory that will last a lifetime. Here's Sahag's address. 5. Peking Duck at Quan Jude in Rosemead. World famous for their Peking Duck, Quan Jude sports photos of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon dining at their Beijing restaurant. You can eat any part of the duck here -- they even have duck tongue aspic on the menu (trust me -- stick to the Peking Duck). Here's the address. If you've never had Peking Duck, this needs to be on your list of Things I Must Eat Before I Die. The whole point of Peking Duck is to render the duck skin of its fat and elevate it to crispy snips of heaven. The skin is served with a bit of meat, a bit of green scallion, and a dollop of plum sauce (or is it hoisin?) all wrapped in a thin, rather tasteless pancake. The pancake ain't the point. 6. Pommes frites at Benita's Frites on the Santa Monica Boardwalk. Pommes frites are the basturma of French fries. 'Nuff said. What's so great about Benita's Frites? Not only do they get the frites just right, but they also have the greatest dipping sauces. My favorite was the sundried tomato aioli. Here's a write-up and a recipe, but I can't believe it's that easy. 7. Vietnamese iced coffee . . . anywhere. This stuff is ubiquitous. You can't walk into a Vietnamese restaurant and not get perfect iced coffee. Here's the idea: aqua regia-strong espresso combined with sweetened condensed milk, served over ice. Take a look at this pictorial essay. True fact: my evil wife once got my office staff addicted on this stuff to increase productivity. Who needs coca leaves? 8. Banh mi at any Vietnamese restaurant. I can think of many fine sandwiches: beef tongue on rye; hot pastrami on rye; Philly cheese steak sandwich. They all have their place in the Great Order of Sandwich Being, but even the best Jewish deli pastrami can't compete with an average banh mi. They're that good. Banh mi come in a variety of styles, but they all consist of a French or Italian roll slathered in mayo and/or liver pate, layered with cold cuts (thinly sliced roast pork is my favorite) and produce. It's the produce that makes the banh mi: cilantro, thinly julienned carrots and cucumbers (lightly pickled in nuoc cham), and a few julienned strips of hot green peppers. Assemble the sandwich and heat it up so that the crust gets crusty. Like great creme brulee, a perfect banh mi will be warm to hot on the outside, cool on the inside. Read more about banh mi at this link. You know what all of these things have in common? I can't eat any of them. (Well, I could eat the basturma without any bread, but where's the fun in that? And Peking Duck without the pancakes . . . the Chinese already think we're barbarians.) While living in L.A., I got up to my all-time max weight, 178 lbs. Take home message to me: be happy you're not living in L.A., or else you'd have ended up like poor Mr. Creosote. D.

Cry Baby Cry

2006-01-24T19:33:00.000-08:00

Wi'w Biww O'Weiwwy, he not happy wid dose mean weft wing bwoggas. On the January 23 O'Reilly Factor, Bill felt it necessary to attack "far-left websites" for "put[ting] out a fatwa against him" and Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, further claiming the websites engage in "organized terror." (See Media Matters link, above.) O'Reilly's hyperbolic rhetoric takes its place alongside Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Scarborough, who are trying to equate opposition to Bush with support for bin Laden. O'Reilly, however, adds a distinctly personal spin to the affair. O'Reilly is the target of the fatwa; O'Reilly is the victim of a terrorist campaign. Hey, Bill? Um, the same Bill who invited Al Qaeda to strike San Francisco? Tell you what. You send me your address, and I'll send you a box of tissues. Hat tip to Robot Buddha. D.

Support Jill Carroll

2006-01-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

I'd like to follow Blue Gal's lead and ask that you all give some thought (and prayer, if you're so minded) to the plight of kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, the Muslim community has been vocal in their support for Ms. Carroll: A delegation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations arrived in Baghdad Saturday, adding its voice to what is described as an unprecedented outpouring of Muslim support for the release of American reporter Jill Carroll.

"The kidnapping of Jill Carroll does not benefit the kidnappers," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based group that represents US mosques and Islamic associations. "She has been friendly and respectful of the Iraqi people, not an enemy," he added.

I don't think Blue Gal will mind if I shamelessly steal the rest of her post:

So here is my idea. Tell your blog readers you support Jill Carroll and link to the Monitor, just like I did. That's it. Not too dramatic but drama is not what we need or want right now, no matter how much it might serve the interests of the 24/7 news universe. Update: one reader had another good idea--to link to one of Jill's own articles. A leader of Hamas called for her release today. The Muslims are united on this. Amazing.

Let's keep Jill Carroll in the forefront of our web-consciousness until she is released. Thanks!

Identity

2006-01-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know what I enjoy most about this photo-booth portrait. Is it the Hawaiian print shirt with the plunging V-collar, or the pencil lead-thin moustache, trimmed off the Cupid's bow to match the fashion of my Hispanic high schoool friends? Is it the stoner eyelids (I've never been able to keep my eyes open for a flash), the full head of hair? No, man. It's the 'tude. July, 1977: you're catching me between my Sophomore and Junior years. I had not yet hooked up with GFv1.0, which means you're looking at one very depressed, lonely adolescent. Yeah, yeah. Aren't they all. You're also looking at a chameleon. Here I am in stoner mode. I could also be a brainiac among brainiacs, a cholo among cholos, a stoner among stoners. Many of the stoners I hung with had more wits about them than the brainiacs. They were well fumigated wits, but still. I didn't smoke much pot in high school. My best friend Sophomore year, he smoked a bushel, and I chose to learn from his example. Besides. I didn't enjoy smoking pot, and if I could fit in with the stoners without doing so, I did. They didn't mind if I passed -- more for them -- and they never challenged my credentials for hanging with them. Sure, they knew I took Advanced Placement classes, but they didn't care. They didn't pay attention to social status; they didn't pay attention to much of anything. I think that's why I liked them so much. It felt good to belong, and they made it easy. What made me unique, I think, was my ability to shift from one group to another. In P.E.*, I learned how to blend in with the Hispanic gangstas and the Asian ninja-wannabes. Having the right friends made bully-avoidance much easier. (And yes, Sis, the fact that Marvin had a crush on you helped, too.) But don't get the idea that self-preservation was my primary goal. I liked these guys. As far as I was concerned, for the 55 minutes we spent together in the weight room every day, they were my people. And then the bell would ring, and I would find myself in Trig with the smart kids who were supposed to be my peers but wanted nothing to do with me . . . with one exception. I sat behind a Junior, a Japanese girl who didn't seem to mind if I slid forward in my chair and gouged my knee into her ever-cushy butt cheek. Ah, forbidden love. I was a Sophomore, she was a Junior, and a cheerleader to boot. We never said a single word to each other. No matter how many times I revisit these memories, I can't get over it. Trig, Calculus, AP English and American History, Chemistry and Physics -- that's when I felt truly discombobulated. I looked at the other bright kids as though they were extraterrestrials. Sure, I had a few friends in those classes, but it was difficult. I was their competition, and they were my competition. But even that is too simplistic. My chameleon skills failed me. Somehow, the only type of kid I couldn't imitate was the kind I actually was. You would think, wouldn't you, that adulthood had frozen my mutability; but it hasn't. I see it happening with every patient who enters my exam room. My vocal inflections, diction, and mannerisms change. I suppose this makes me a more effective clinician, but it is far from intentional. There are times when I would dearly love to suppress it. Just ask my staff how I get when some needy depressive darkens my office. (We call 'em brainsuckers.) Like any photo-booth picture, the one you see above is part of a trio. Wouldn't you know it? I'm someone different in all three.

It's Borges, the other one, that things happen to. -- Jorge Luis Borges, "Borges and I"

D. *Physical education -- do non-Americans call it P.E.?

Synopsisisizing

2006-01-22T21:17:00.000-08:00

I wrote a synopsis of my first four chapters today. It took me 2,168 words to synopsize 23,177 words. A question for the more experienced writers in my li'l crowd: WTF is wrong with me? Should I keep it more concise, or is this 10% ratio typical for a synopsis? Long-winded explanation: I'm hoping this synopsis will make it easier for me to restructure book one. In other words, if I can boil things down to smaller, more easily grokkable units, I may be able to shuttle chapters this way and that, reshuffle things to obtain a prettier whole. I want to move one of my major storylines to book two. This will make book one tighter, and book two more of a unique experience (since readers will be introduced to a new cast of characters). I can do this because the two major storylines only intersect at the end of book three. Bottom line, I'm writing this synopsis to help me edit the trilogy, but I think it would be foolish not to create a document which, with a little massage, could serve as an agent-ready synopsis. If it were just for me, I wouldn't give a damn how big this thing is. I'm only wondering if it's too bloated for agents. Why, why couldn't I have had an idea for a 90K-word story? Yeah, I know there's no answer to that one (except, perhaps, inexperience). D.

Phone call for Al Coholic

2006-01-22T17:01:00.000-08:00

Hat tip to Sean Coon for this great slam on Bill O'Reilly. If, like me, you're slow . . . check out the correspondent's name. For more help, check this site. D.

On truthiness, propaganda, and the rise of fascism

2006-01-22T09:15:00.000-08:00

Today's NY Times Op Ed piece by Rich, "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito" (reprinted in full by Nevada Thunder) will be his last for a few months: To my readers: Starting next week, I will be on a book leave, writing nonfiction about our post-9/11 fictions. See you in the spring. Ah, me. What will I do without my regular infusion of Rich? Maureen Dowd may be the funnier pundit, but Rich is the more accurate marksman of the two. Today, he draws parallels between faux memoirist James Frey and faux salt-of-the-earth, regular guy Sam Alito. He begins with an allusion to Stephen Colbert's neologism, truthiness (thank heavens Rich knows the proper attribution for this word!) and moves on into more serious turf: It’s when truthiness moves beyond the realm of entertainment that it’s a potential peril. As Seth Mnookin, a rehab alumnus, has written in Slate, the macho portrayal of drug abuse in “Pieces” could deter readers battling actual addictions from seeking help. Ms. Winfrey’s blithe re-endorsement of the book is less laughable once you start to imagine some Holocaust denier using her imprimatur to discount Elie Wiesel’s incarceration at Auschwitz in her next book club selection, “Night.” In reality, some bright lights out there really are suggesting that Wiesel's dark, haunting Night is a fabrication. Let's all thank Oprah (never thought I'd write that) for drawing attention to one of the best Holocaust memoirs ever written. But, back to Rich. What’s remarkable is how much fictionalization plays a role in almost every national debate. Even after a big humbug is exposed as blatantly as Professor Marvel in “The Wizard of Oz” - FEMA’s heck of a job in New Orleans, for instance - we remain ready and eager to be duped by the next tall tale. It’s as if the country is living in a permanent state of suspension of disbelief. He continues with an analysis of the fictionalization of Sam Alito's history by Republicans and Democrats alike -- even by Alito himself. For the fiction-writers in my crowd, however, Rich's most resonant message comes early on (emphasis mine): Democrats who go berserk at their every political defeat still don’t understand this. They fault the public for not listening to their facts and arguments, as though facts and arguments would make a difference, even if the Democrats were coherent. It’s the power of the story that always counts first, and the selling of it that comes second. Accuracy is optional. Propaganda, that's what it's all about. Remember Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will? I can imagine Hitler (an unofficial executive producer of the film, according to Wikipedia) briefing Riefenstahl during the film's creation: "Give 'em a story they can believe in." Fascism does not emerge from a vacuum. It thrives on nationalistic sentiment, which in turn depends on powerful and convincing propaganda. Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and George W. Bush wouldn't exist if there weren't widespread hunger for their message: that we are Number One, that we stand for freedom worldwide, that we are beset by foes on all sides, that the enemy lives among us. People want to believe. But the message of Bush, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh is not for all Americans. As the recent 'War on Christmas' proves, it's not Americans who are beset on all sides, but Christian Americans, and, I would argue, White Christian Americans. Those of us who are not Christian, or who are gay, Liberal, or have the wrong pigmentation, are left wondering: Whose country is this? Hitler manipulated the German nation with the tools of fear and hate for many years before becoming its Führer. He had a simple message for his people: you are great, superior to all others; what keeps you down are those who are different. The Jews. The gays. Socialists, Liberals, Communists. Foes that live among us. It has become unfashionable to draw parallels between the rise of Nazism and present day America. Some folks think it's a non-starter, something which silences further debate (see Law, Godwin's). I think it's a conversation we must have if we are to avoid any further movement into Nationalist America. For example, we should consider whether September 11, 2001 was our Reichstag Fire. Let's ignore the many domestic conspiracy theories, and assume the official version of events is wholly accurate. Nevertheless, 9/11 led to the Patriot Act, our version of the Reichstag Fire Decree. As a Jewish kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, I lived and breathed the Holocaust. I was taught -- no, that's putting it lightly. I was lectured to, berated, shaken like a rag doll, and made to never forget that we must never forget. Remember Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Can't happen in America? Remember the Japanese internment camps. Remember Guantanamo. My wife, Karen, has a chilling angle on all of this: the Nazi analogy is inappropriate because Bush's America isn't all that different from business as usual. Compare President John Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts to President Bush's recent actions; we haven't come very far since 1798. Add to that our record vis a vis American Indians, immigrant Asians in the West, slavery, post-Civil War oppression of black Americans, and the abuses under Joseph McCarthy, and Bush & Co. begin to take their appropriate place in American history. Unfortunately, Americans are poorly educated in American history, never mind world history. It is no accident that our children's education lags way behind other developed nations. It makes it that much easier to write propaganda. D. Technorati tags: truthiness, propaganda, fascism, Frank Rich, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Hitler, Nazism, Reichstag, Bush

Various and Sundry

2006-01-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

The lovely and Demented Michelle is giving away two signed copies of Maureen McHugh's Mothers and Other Monsters. Hurry on over and throw your name into the virtual hat. Thanks to Blue Gal for cluing me in that the faux Alan Rickman and Mel Gibson now have competition from the Pope himself. Go, Joey the Ratz! Think I'll ask Professor Snape to go say hi, and Bare Rump, too, if she's up to it. (Note added: done and done. They both replied to His Holiness's Holy Sweat post.) In the last few days, Fanatic Cook has written several fine posts about the value of omega-3 fatty acids and the hazards of getting them from fish, mercury levels in fish and shellfish, and alternate sources of omega-3s. Since one of my New Years resolutions is to lose weight and eat healthier, I greatly appreciated Fanatic's posts. As long as I'm in "public service announcement" mode, please be on the lookout for the following wanted criminal. If you decide to attempt a citizen's arrest, please be warned: he doesn't go anywhere without a small army of dark-suited thugs. From glassgiant.com. D.

Early for Valentine's Day, but I'm not complaining

2006-01-21T15:05:00.000-08:00

Coming soon from fabu romance publishing company Glassgiant.com: Gee -- thanks, Kate! It's only fair to mention that Kate found the site from Merry. By the way, as flattered as I am to have Summer write a whole novel about me, I'm not sure I understand the back cover. At least I'm still above Creationists. D.

Woo-hoo! I totally rock with the ladies!

2006-01-20T22:40:00.000-08:00

Via Tamboblog. Think about it. You always knew I was Kirk. Consider the similarities: Kirk: wears a hairpiece. Doug: needs a hairpiece. Kirk: prefers to be the center of attention. Doug: ditto. Kirk: hammy enough to appear with Ricardo Montalban and still be the hammiest actor present. Doug: in first grade, I owned the role of Chicken Little. (Shaking fist: "Skyyyyyyy!") Kirk: made women, humans and green-skinned aliens alike, melt out of their spandex costumes. Doug: just give me a chance! Yeah, I could go on. D.

Thursday Thirteen, a day late

2006-01-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

Thirteen Things about Doug

 1. For as long as I can remember, I have had difficulty distinguishing Thursday from Friday.

2. I also had trouble telling my left from my right. My usual response was, "What difference does it make?" Fortunately, I learned the difference before becoming a surgeon.

3. I named my first frog Cyrus Molybdenum.

4. By the end of third grade, I had memorized the symbols for all of the chemical elements (103, at the time). Despite this Badge of Extreme Geekdom, I still had lots of friends.

5. My grandfather, a Polish immigrant, claimed he'd been born with horns. He often showed me the scars. He also claimed he kept a monkey in the attic, but would never let me see him.

6. Pre-1970, my favorite film was Mysterious Island. I can imitate giant bee noises to this very day.

7. At age two, I developed my first crush on an older woman. She was six, and I kept losing to her when we played King of the Hill. She wouldn't let me stand at the top of the hill, ever. Bitch.

8. The first dirty joke I ever learned was the Gomer Pyle joke.
Gomer: Daisy Mae, can I put my finger in your belly button?
Daisy Mae: Why, sho you may, Gomer!
Dramatic pause.
Daisy Mae: Gomer! That ain't my belly button!
Gomer: Well, surprise, surprise! That ain't my finger!
Yes, the exclamation points are all necessary.

9. In the early years of elementary school, with the Apollo missions all the rage, I wanted to be an astronomer when I grew up. Astronaut was the conventional response. Later, after I'd read a bit of science fiction, I decided I wanted to be a cryobiologist. Nobody knew what that word meant, and that was cool.

10. I used to fantasize about the Men in Black long before it became fashionable. Sinister men in dark suits and sunglasses would appear one day in our school's auditorium and whisper things to our principal. He would say, "Doug Hoffman? Can you come to the front of the room?" and I would comply. "These men say you're extremely important to our nation's security," he'd say quietly to me. "They want you to leave with them." And I'd say, "Heck, yeah!"

This was well before the era of extreme rendition.

11. I also had sexual fantasies long before I knew a thing about sex. In one, I stood on a pier and noticed that the Girl of My Dreams was drowning. I jumped off the pier, rescued her, and carried her dripping body back to shore. She would revive in my arms and say, "Oh, you are so special." The End.

The fact that I didn't know how to swim never entered into it. I was special, after all.

12. I haven't wet the bed since age two, I never set fires, and I never tortured any animals, large or small (unless you count tormenting red ants). I am thus better qualified to be President than George W. Bush.

13. And yet I have never, ever fantasized about becoming President of the United States.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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D.

Editing: How I do it

2006-01-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, one of y'all emailed me questions about writing. Me. The guy who has only published stories in e-zines and one, ONE, print mag, Continuum. I felt flattered, and more than a little like a charlatan, but then I remembered how many books I have picked up and put down because of inferior writing. Why should I have to be a published author to pontificate, when so many published authors so clearly suck at their craft? And I mean suck. Not naming any names, mind you. Then I realized: in surgery, we do this all the time. Folks with no academic experience whatsoever publish "How I Do It" articles, because the rest of us enjoy reading about a different perspective. You don't have to be Josef McBlough, III, PhD, MD from Haaaahvaaaahd to write one of these articles, and in fact, none of us private practice guys would listen to Joe McBlough because we all know he has residents to Do It. He couldn't take a tonsil out to save his soul. Before I launch into the How I Do It portion of our program, don't forget to check out PBW's Ten Things for Editing Novels, which includes links to Holly Lisle's articles, and PBW's article, too (her method is close to mine, with a few neurotic quirks on my part . . . more below). I haven't read all of those articles, by the way, and I'm not sure I will. (Frankly, Elizabeth Lyon's Can Your Novel Pass this Test? made me want to scream by question #2.) But, at least now you have a quickie link to other resources. By the way, don't forget to buy Renni Browne and Dave King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. This is one of my most-thumbed resource books. But back to my favorite subject (as Maureen likes to point out), me. How am I editing a 306,000 word manuscript? I never meant it to be that big. Really. I blocked it out on three-by-five cards, wrote out a modestly detailed outline (by chapters, not by scene), began writing, and promptly strayed from the outline. Halfway through the novel, I felt like Wile E. Coyote did when he raced out past the cliff's edge, paused, and realized gravity had something to say about all of this. With my ending riveted in my brain -- without that, I would have gotten lost -- I plunged on, trusting my muse, and she didn't fail me.

Edit as you go

I'll never be able to write a "fast and dirty" rough draft. Misspellings, grammatical errors, tortured sentences, and even repeated words caused me physical pain. Once I noticed them, they HAD to be fixed. I reread every chapter after it was written, but by the time I'd finished the chapter, most of the basic errors were gone. Most of 'em never found their way onto the page in the first place.

Notes, notes, notes

As I wrote the first draft, problems surfaced which I knew had to be corrected. For the most part, I kept a To Do list for these items. In some cases, however, the problems were so irritating I had to go back and fix them NOW, DAMN IT! because the muse insisted. Lots of folks will tell you this is bad, that you must work through until you are done and then go back to the earlier material. I'm telling you different: it's far worse to piss off the muse.

Write for an audience

This may have nothing to do with editing, but it has everything to do with my method. I had a real, live audience for this novel, folks who stayed with me to the very end. Knowing that I had to keep them interested forced me to focus on narrative drive and a steady increase in tension. My audience kept me writing through the dark times. If I failed, I'd be disappointing more than just me. Jona, for one, would fly across the pond and do unspeakable things to me.

Before the first read-through

Working from my notes, I fixed what I thought were all of the major problems. Done, right? Hah!

The first read-through

I got twelve different-colored highlighters . . . Just kidding. I worked from a hard copy and corrected as I read, circling problems, writing notes here, there, and everywhere. I kept a new log of Major Problems (65 of 'em, at last count*) which I did not try to fix right away. I tried to identify consistency issues, which scenes I would slash, which scenes were missing, what didn't work, and what could work better.

The second read-through

That's where I am right now. Simultaneously, I work from the edited hard copy, and I read/edit on the computer. I call this a read-through because yes, I really do read everything (I'm not just skipping down to the next circled word or underlined sentence). I correct the 65 Major Problems as I go, but I also keep my eyes open for new problems I may have missed the first time through. Yes, I realize I could edit this to death, but I promise you: this is the last read-through. Ach, I'm tired. I'd tell you what comes next, but I haven't made it there yet. Wish me luck. D. *These vary from the trivial to the complex. For example: 39. Naka hunt: keep all the numbers straight! 44. Think about where to break into separate novels. 45. Change Mora's name at the end (the janitor). That #44, man. It's a bitch.

Breakfast sausage

2006-01-19T08:08:00.001-08:00

. . . the kind that come in links. Pat brings us a spectacular link from the Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA. So many beautiful images here, I don't know where to begin. Make sure you check out the Cat's Eye Nebula. Here's the Orion Nebula (per the site, okay for public use provided we give attribution to STSci/ESA): In case you missed yesterday's discussion in the comments, Mel Gibson is threatening to sue Mel Gibson. Head on over there and offer your support -- and advice, too, if you happen to be a lawyer. Jesus' General has lent a helping hand by reprinting a letter from an Angel of the Lord (Avenging, First Class) to the real Mel. Seems Jesus is none too happy with The Passion, and when Jesus is unhappy . . . firedoglake gives us the latest in Bill O'Reilly photoshopping goodness. Think Chippendale's. Have you missed the fuss over Kate O'Beirne's book, Women Who Make the World Worse? Ms. (I just know she would love that Ms.) O'Beirne's diatribe against feminism is taking it in the pink lace panties over at Amazon thanks to the efforts of Jesus' General, Crooks and Liars, firedoglake, and others. Even the New York Times Book Review (Ana Marie Cox in the January 15 NYTBR) slammed her book, although politely: Feminism isn't always pretty (see: underarm hair). Without it, however, Kate O'Beirne would have been unlikely to have this book published -- and most women would not have their own money to waste on it. Guess I should try and get some work done today. Don't forget to watch Jon Stewart's and Ed Helms's taint routine over at Crooks and Liars, and if you missed my post yesterday on Fractales, scroll down a few centimeters and keep reading. D.

Fractales: the ending (and rules)

2006-01-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

See this post for an explanation.

Flora held the Critter Keeper up to her eyes, shook the cage, and clucked softly. “Li’l feller’s kinda cute.” “Not a chance,” said Bob. He peeled back the foil from his Big Mac and polished off the burger in five bites. In the Critter Keeper, only a pink smudge remained. “You can try again,” said Flora. He patted his hands against his belly. “Yeah, better luck next time. So, Skinny -- how would you like to make love to a fat man?” Her mouth twitched into a smile. “You mean it?” “I’ve been itching to see you in that Cat Woman outfit for the last three weeks.” “You got a deal, Doughboy,” Flora said, and plastered him with sloppy kisses.

THE END ***

In case anyone's curious, these are the last 119 words of my short story "Sprouts," which hasn't sold, and is currently not out for consideration. I reserve the right to publish my own version of the story, which I completed in February 2005.

***

The Rules

1. Read the whole story chain before deciding how you wish to continue the story backwards. 2. Write however many words you please describing what happens before this snippet. I recommend 150 words or less. 3. Post your contribution on your blog. At the end of your contribution, write "Read what happens next!" (or something similar) and hyperlink it to this blog entry. 4. Cut and paste these rules to the end of your blog entry. It's that easy!

***

For those of you who are coming on board at the very beginning, rule #1 is irrelevant. If you've read this far, you've read the whole story. You'll notice I'm not tagging anyone, nor am I giving you a "tag so-many people" rule. If this is a crappy idea, I'd like it to die a natural death, without me flogging it along. Besides, if other folks think this idea is fun, it should take off on its own power -- like the blonde joke. Ready, set, go! D.

Fractales: here's the idea.

2006-01-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

Image produced using DavW's fractal tree generator -- cool toy!

Remember that dumb blonde joke? It led me to realize the power of the internet*. As blog memes go, the blonde joke possessed humor, originality, and minimal sting to its host -- all you had to do was post a bloody link, for heaven's sake, and rave about the joke. Easy**. Consequently, like any catchy meme, it spread like wildfire. But what did that meme produce? A single joke. I thought: you know, with a little extra effort, we might have had our own version of the Aristocrats gag, but it wouldn't have been one joke -- it would have been hundreds of them. Thousands. What we ought to do is tell a story. Tell a million of 'em. It will be just like a story chain, only we need to start at the end, not the beginning. If you think about that fractal tree image, you'll see the logic in this, since folks will want to follow the story forwards, not backwards. If we (the writers) work backwards, your audience will get to read the story forwards. Of course, some of them will want to add to the story, and they will do so by continuing the backwards writing process. I'm going to call this a fractale. Catchy, eh?*** This meme may die a cold, lonely death, but what do we have to lose? Go on, do it! Leave your mark on the tree. Above, I will post the end of the story and the rules of the game. The rest is up to you. D. *No, really. Why must you always assume I'm joking? **Not like some memes that ask you to name one hundred things you want to do before you die, your one hundred most favoritest songs, and so forth. "Item 99: I would like to finish this meme before I die." ***A cursory google tells me that 'fractale' is French for 'fractal.' I don't see anyone else using the term in this fashion.

Smell the taint

2006-01-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged about sex in ages. Kate has shamed me into it. Blame her. Jon Stewart had me in tears tonight. He played straight man to Ed Helms's extended double entendre on the 'taint in Washington.' If I can find a link to the video tomorrow, I'll post it here.

Yippee!

Here it is, at Crooks and Liars. Enjoy the taint -- it's there to give you pleasure, after all. Hmm? What's the taint? Oh, you know what the taint is -- it's the gooch, the durf, the chode, the grundel. Must I explain everything? By the way: if the odd hand gesture at the end of that skit looked unfamiliar to you, don't check the Urban Dictionary for shocker, especially if you're the kind of person who is easily offended by graphic descriptions of off-the-beaten-track sexual practices. I'm warning you, don't do it. And if you do, I can't be held accountable.

***

In other breaking news, CNN.com reports that an African grey parrot cued his owner in to the fact that his girlfriend had cheated on him with a guy named Gary: The African grey parrot kept squawking "I love you, Gary" as his owner, Chris Taylor, sat with girlfriend Suzy Collins on the sofa of their shared flat in Leeds, northern England.

But when Taylor saw Collins's embarrassed reaction, he realized she had been having an affair -- meeting her lover in the flat whilst Ziggy looked on, the UK's Press Association reported.

Ziggy even mimicked Collins's voice each time she answered her telephone, calling out "Hiya Gary," according to newspaper reports.

Having sex with some other guy in her #1 boyfriend's flat? That is low. No wonder Chris Taylor has made certain that everyone else in Leeds (and the world) will know, and tremble at, the name SUZY COLLINS.

***

Can you tell I ain't got bupkes tonight? Feeling cruddy, whine, whine. All I want is to take a shower and go lie down. See you tomorrow, fiends. D.

Sheila gets medieval on my . . .

2006-01-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

Blog. What did you think I was going to say? Thanks to PBW's liberal use of pliers and a blow torch, I hunkered down and did a good bit of editing today. I'm one chapter away from finishing the edit on book one, but that sounds like I'm closer than I really am. I still have the task of turning this into a stand-alone novel. That means either adding scenes or tweaking scenes to give book one at least a partial sense of closure. And that means finding resonance at every opportunity, and loading it into my final chapters. In Stein on Writing, Sol Stein devotes a whole chapter to resonance. He doesn't provide much of a definition: Resonance is a term borrowed from the world of music, where it means a prolonged response attributable to vibration. In writing it has come to mean an aura of significance beyond the components of a story. Stein gives examples of different ways of giving your work resonance: . . . by names, by reference to religious sources, by naming the parts of a book, by the use of aphorisms and epigraphs, and ideally by the writing itself, by the writer's skillful use of similes and metaphors. Perhaps I'm using the term incorrectly, but for me, resonance is an echo. Something in the novel makes me resonate -- perhaps by the techniques Stein lists, but more often through the author's use of repetition. Thoughts, dreams, lines of dialogue, and imagery introduced in the novel's earliest scenes reappear near the end, horribly, tragically altered*. For example, John le Carre used it to great effect in Absolute Friends. In the chapter I edited today (book one's penultimate chapter), I used a myth to achieve resonance (I hope). The night is a dome of blinding white light, but we see only darkness, for the sky is full of the shadows of those who came before us. Starlight peeks through between their crowded forms. Only on a moonless, windless night, can you hear their wings rustling**. My character has heard this all his life from his mother and father, but he never believed it. When tragedy befalls him, everything changes: Flying eastwards, he fought to keep his eyes open. Every time he closed them, the rustling noise built to a furious crescendo. Mother, Father? I hear them now. I hear their wings. You were wrong about the night sky. Any darkness will do. Chokes me up every time. Remains to be seen what it will do to the rest of you. Resonance by repetition may be a magic trick, but it's charged with power. Closure by return. If I do a respectable job of it, my readers will feel that sense of completeness even when faced with one whopping great cliffhanger. D. *That assumes you are writing tragedy. Comedy need not work so hard, but those of you who read Terry Pratchett might agree with me that his strongest novels are the ones which harbor, if not a grain of tragedy, then at least a bushel of poignancy: Night Watch, Feet of Clay . . . **These characters are intelligent black birds. Guess I should have mentioned that earlier, eh?

Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

2006-01-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Seattle Times has a huge feature, including student essays, civil rights quizzes, and a time line. Better, though -- shorter, punchier, and more moving -- is ReddHedd's tribute at firedoglake. Read it. It's impossible for me to disconnect my liberal-self from my writer-self, and so, as I read firedoglake's quotes from Dr. King, I can't help but admire the strength and beauty of MLK's writing. Parallelism is a powerful tool. I can only think of one other writer who lives on in this ethereal plane: Winston Churchill, who used parallelism, command of the language, and wit to make his point. D.

Note to self:

2006-01-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

. . . put this guy on your blogroll. And not just because he posts about spider-sex. It's because I still have a thang for Lois. D.

Wish he could have been my writing coach . . .

2006-01-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

Here's Nathanael West, author of Miss Lonelyhearts, The Day of the Locust, A Cool Million, and The Dream Life of Balso Snell, writing about writing: Forget the epic, the master work. In America fortunes do not accumulate, the soil does not grow, families have no history. Leave slow growth to the book reviewers, you only have time to explode. Remember William Carlos Williams' description of the pioneer women who shot their children against the wilderness like cannonballs. Do the same with your novels.

-From Some Notes on Miss L., in the Library of America collection.

Some writers* provide the know-how you need to get the job done; others, like West in this passage, or like John Gardner in The Art of Fiction, light a fire under your ass and demand that you get the job done. Both are useful. Right now, two days into my three-day weekend and not a single page edited, I'd take the pyromaniac over the technician. That's why I'm reading and rereading West's war cry. West and his wife Eileen died in a car accident in 1940. West was 37. D. *Writers who write about writing. Eh, you know what I mean.

Name dropping

2006-01-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, be honest: how often do you google yourself? I suppose I have a gargantuan ego, but it's a house built two stories too high, with umpteen code violations, termites in all the major supporting posts, and a cracked foundation. Thus, I think I've only googled myself a handful of times, and only to find out how easy it would be for old friends to find me. Because, you know, I want to be found. Google Douglas Hoffman, and top dude on this list is this Maui photographer. (Now, why couldn't I have thought of that? Sigh.) That Doug also takes the number two spot, and number three is a software guy. Of the next seven entries on page one, I have three. Okay -- so if my old pals google Douglas Hoffman, they shouldn't have much trouble finding me. Google Doug Hoffman, and the top dude is this race car driver. Okay, I'm glad I'm not that Doug Hoffman, even though I'll bet he has lots of groupies. Groupies are a Good Thing. Anyway, further down the list we see lots and lots of Doug Hoffmans that aren't me, including this really cool artist's website (check it out!) I show up near the bottom of page two, and again near the top of page three. Even if my old pals are googling Doug Hoffman, they would have to have an exceptionally tiny degree of resolve to miss me. I have to conclude that none of my old pals are looking for me. (Well, one of my friends from high school found me through this blog, and I've been bad about getting back in touch with him. I realized I didn't have much to say to him, and couldn't work up the desire to call.) I've decided I need to be more proactive. I'm going to hope some of you folks are out there googling yourselves. You'll find your way to this post, and then you'll stop in and say hi. Here are the folks I'd like to hear from: Sharon Albright. Best circulating nurse ever. Sorry, Sutter Coast nurses, it had to be said. When you see a nurse respond to gunshot wound after gunshot wound quickly, efficiently, without ever breaking a sweat, you build up a lot of respect. Besides that, Sharon Albright and I go way back to kindergarten. Old friends don't get any older than that. Jackie Smith. Remembering how you looked in 9th grade, I'll bet you became one hawt adult. Jackie falls under the category of Exceptionally Beautiful Girls Who Were Nice To Me And Didn't Have To Be. Lilli Sznaper. My on again, off again crush, Seventh through Ninth Grades. I'd like to know that you're okay. Sue Youmans. I never got you back for this, but it's never too late to try. Lest you think I only miss the women, here are the guys I'd like to hear from. My elementary school friends: Dan Baudino, Frank Howarth, and Jim Fonte. Even though I sucked at sports, and they were all about sports, they still liked me. My best friend from junior high and ninth grade, Bob Dean. We lost touch soon after I changed high schools. I hope you're doing well, Bob. Mike Imlay -- did you ever become a priest? Fellow scholars Brian Oherin and Kevin Wolf. Brian Oherin and I took informal Russian lessons from Mr. Grindell. Kevin Wolf and I go way back to kindergarten. I know you became a podiatrist, but I don't know much more than that. If I've forgotten anyone, I'm sorry. (But you won't find this post by googling your name, so there!) In case you have trouble remembering me, I used to be this guy: D. PS: I'm taking down the Michelle Malkin post. No one has complained. It's just . . . oh, heavens. She is too hideous to look at. Every time I pop open my blog and see her there, it makes me sick. I have to take it down.

Do you miss Candid Camera?

2006-01-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

Arkansas Gal at YesButNoButYes brings us this clip from the Jay Leno Show. If your computer can handle a hefty video, check it out. Here's the set-up: a photo booth at Universal Studios offers free portraits, provided you follow the Control Voice's instructions. The old Candid Camera had a cruel streak. It was the Fear Factor of its day. This skit, on the other hand, mines humor from the quirks of human nature, and only stoops to cruelty once or twice. . . . Or maybe three or four times. Depends on your definition of cruelty. D.

Because I am responsive to the needs of my audience . . .

2006-01-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

I've replied to Kate's question on Kechari Mudra* over at Wax, Boogers, and Phlegm. Any other strange queries? D. *The yogic practice of sticking one's tongue -- oh, just go read the thing, okay?

Speaking of religion . . .

2006-01-14T09:23:00.000-08:00

Props to Jellio at YesButNoButYes for finding this campaign site for Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, candidate for Governor of Minnesota in 2006: I am a Satanic Dark Priest, Sanguinarian Vampyre and a Hecate Witch. My Magikal Path name is: Lord Ares. Thanks for sharing. I despise and hate the Christian God the Father. He is my enemy. Hmm. That'll win you some votes. Why does he call himself "The Impaler"? From his platform: Any one found committing an act of terrorism in Minnesota will be IMPALED by me at the State Capital. If the US DOJ wants to prosecute me for it, then I will take my chances in Court, for I do not believe an American Jury will convict me of brutally killing a terrorist! I think this fellow is for real. The site goes on too long, with far too much unfunny material, for it to be anything but real. So: Kate might give you fur burgers and camel toes this morning, but only I give you vampiric politicians! Then again, you could just turn on CSPAN. D.

There are blonde jokes, and then there are blonde jokes

2006-01-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

But this one is the best ever. Make sure you read it to the very end. Oh. My. Gawd. D. PS: Stop Alito -- sign the petition!

If you're going to get on your biblical high horse, at least learn how to ride.

2006-01-13T19:27:00.000-08:00

Hat tip to Blue Gal for today's post, Best Bible Lesson Ever. BG has linked to a radio interview (or is it a podcast?) of Don Alexander, a former school principal who has written Darnia's Quest: A Spiritual Journey to Awaken Your Imagination. (Worst. Title. Ever?) He bills this as a Christian alternative to Harry Potter. Mind you, he has never read a single one of J.K. Rowling's books (you'll need to scroll to the bottom of that MyWestTexas article). He doesn't need to. And I doubt he has seen Brokeback Mountain, but he has made up his mind about that, too. It's also quite clear from the interview that he has read only one verse from Leviticus, but he's not afraid to use it to support his ~~all-consuming fear~~ ~~repressed shameful des -- oh, Lord, I can't say it!~~ hatred of homosexuals. Hmm. What do they have to say about Alexander's book over at Amazon?

Christian Alternative to the Harry Potter Series - Five Stars

Quite Simply the best Christian Book for kids out there right now. It has adventure, romance, and a plot so thick that you'll want to read it again and again. If your child reads Harry Potter, get them hooked on the Dar's Quest series--then they'll leave Harry. And so I asked myself: WWJGD? Jesus' General wouldn't take this lying down. He'd head on over there and post his own review. Thus:

Disturbing Homo-Erotic undertones - One Star

As a Christian Father of three impresionabel young children, mr.Alexander's BOok disturbed me greatly. Mind you, we only read (we Read A Loud) the first page, but that was enough to decide me. For shame, mr.Alexander!!! PS i understand from Your radio Interviws you never read a Harry Potter book, yet you say such bad things. So I dont feel to bad only reading one page of yours. I'll let you know if Amazon picks it up. In the meantime, you have your work cut out for you. D.

Bwahahahhahahahhahahahahha!

2006-01-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

Hate National Review Online's Jonah Goldberg? Think he shames the rest of the tribe? Read this great skit over at alicublog. By the way, we're talking about the uvula today over at Wax, Boogers, and Phlegm. Get to know your other "man in the boat." D.

Textbook question

2006-01-13T10:21:00.000-08:00

File under: shamelessly soliciting (advice) I'd like to buy a good college biology textbook for my son. My textbook was wonderful, but it also has a 1980 pub date. That might work for math or physics, but biology changes faster than that (especially phylogenetics . . . 1980 is pre-Archaebacteria, if I'm not mistaken). I'd also like to buy him an American History textbook, high school or college level. As long as I'm on this topic, we're going to get to European History after American History -- any suggestions for that? Thanks, folks. D.

PBW's new feature

2006-01-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

Paperback Writer starts a brand spankin' new gig: For this new feature, I'd like to do a weekly variation on the open thread: 20 Questions Friday. You post a writing- or industry-related question in comments, and I'd try to answer it, up to twenty questions max per Friday (any more than 20 and I'll never get any work done.) Damn me, all I can think of is something dumb like, "Do you have a pill that will get me to edit ten times faster?" Hopefully, some of you night owls will step in where I have failed. Pony up those questions, folks! This should be a great feature. D.

An introduction to tragedy

2006-01-12T21:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I caught the end of The Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin, and it made me think -- as it always does -- of a summer in the early 1970s, the livingroom of my first house, a slow morning, our old console hi-fi, Derek & the Dominoes' Layla (the original version, of course, not that acoustic horror Clapton later perpetrated), Nights in White Satin, and the end of John Christopher's The City of Gold and Lead. The City of Gold and Lead is the second of Christopher's Tripods trilogy, which was H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds written down for kids. (A reviewer over at Amazon made that observation, not me. But it irks me to have this pointed out to me thirty-some years later. Damn it, I should have noticed.) The story itself is unimportant. Earth has been subjugated by aliens who roam the planet in giant mechanical tripods. They live in domed cities and enslave human children. A group of friends, all young boys, enter one of the cities as part of a plot to defeat the Tripods . . . Spoiler alert. (But Christopher wrote the trilogy in the late 60s/early 70s. If you haven't read it yet, I doubt you will now.) . . . and some of the kids don't make it out. I'm finding it difficult to put into words the magic of that ending. You know how middle books in a trilogy are supposed to be the weakest of the three? Not this one, not for me. The first and third books combined didn't have one-tenth the impact of this book, all because I had never before read a book with such a sad ending. I'd read disturbing books before. Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead creeped me out, but had (as best I can recall) an uplifting ending. I'd read Golding's Lord of the Flies, but I don't think I understood the ending until I reread it as an older teenager. The only comparable experience I'd had was not with a book, but with Nicolas Roeg's film Walkabout, which I saw at its Los Angeles premiere in 1971 (hey, I got around. And, might I add, Jenny Agutter's naked body made quite the impression on 9-year-old me). If you've never seen Walkabout, I won't spoil it for you. Find it, rent it. It disturbed me for days. It still disturbs me. The ending of The City of Gold and Lead didn't pack the same emotional punch as Walkabout, but I have never forgotten my reaction: Sadness, of course. Surprise, that a book could end this way. More surprise, that a book could make me feel this way. It changed the way I looked at books. I began to realize how much I enjoyed the emotional reaction evoked in me by a good book, and how pleasurable it could be to feel such powerfully unpleasant emotions. I'd like to say this was the first of many such experiences, but sadly, for me such books have been few and far between. Yet the ones which have stuck with me are all tragedies. Your turn. D.

That was green eggs and ham . . .

2006-01-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

Not green ham and eggs. D.

The new crop

2006-01-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

For those of you who like fantasy, SF, and other spec fiction, Tangent has several new reviews: E. Sedia reviews "The Dope Fiend" by Lavie Tidhar (SCI FICTION), Aimee Poynter reviews "The Girl with the Heart of Stone" by Leah Bobet (Strange Horizons), Paul Abbamondi reviews Amazing Journeys Volume 2, Issue 10, and I review Challenging Destiny #21. That ought to keep you busy. D.

It's bloody sacrilege!

2006-01-11T18:21:00.000-08:00

Offensive language warning*. Skip this first blue passage if you're easily offended. Hell, skip the whole post.

"Defamer" at Yahoo! News reports, "Bloody Mary" Episode Ensures South Park Guys a Bungalow in Hell: Perhaps the most outrageous and offensive South Park episode of all time (and that's really saying something), "Bloody Mary," which first aired Dec. 7 as this season's finale, was pulled from the network schedule last night. Its plot involves a statue of the Virgin Mary, which appears to be miraculously bleeding from its rectum. Pope Benedict XVI is called in to investigate, and upon discovering the statue is instead hemorrhaging from its vagina, says, ahem, "A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time." Quoting from the E Online article, Somewhat predictably, the Catholic League was incensed by the satirical portrayal of the Virgin Mary and the pope and by the fact that the episode aired on the day before the Catholic Church celebrated its Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The conservative group demanded an apology from Viacom, Comedy Central's parent company, to Roman Catholics everywhere and "a pledge that this episode be permanently retired and not be made available on DVD." The Catholic League succeeded, apparently. We may never see this episode again. Was it tasteless? Yeah. South Park often is. Can I see how this would offend devout Catholics? Sure, but . . . why the hell are they watching South Park in the first place? And is Defamer right that this is "Perhaps the most outrageous and offensive South Park episode of all time"? Max from PGNX.net says it well: South Park lambasts homosexuals, transsexuals, Scientologists, vegans, Jews, Mormons, atheists and everyone else under the sun. But suddenly the Catholics are off limits? They've nailed the Catholics before; in "Red Hot Catholic Love," Trey and Matt skewered the Church on their hypocrisy vis a vis pedophilia. But they don't pick on the Catholics -- that's Max's point. They pick on everyone. My Japanese-American wife isn't offended by the Chinpokomon episode. I'm not offended by the fact Cartman slams Kyle for being Jewish in every single episode. In "Ike's Wee Wee", the writers dealt with circumcision, while in "Jewbilee", they misrepresented the whole religion. (Jews worship Moses, who appears in the sky as a spinning draedel and demands sacrifices of macaroni art.)

God Himself shows up from time to time on South Park. In case you haven't seen Him, He looks like this:

Devout Jews (like Moslems, too, if I'm not mistaken) don't want to see images of God (or Moses, for that matter), so any image is sacrilegious. Depicting God as a freak of genetic engineering? Well, that's just icing on the cake. Jesus is a regular character on the show, and (in "Red Sleigh Down") once used automatic weapons to gun down a bunch of Iraqis who had kidnapped Santa Claus. AND don't forget Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo.

There's something in South Park to offend everyone. Is there anyone in the English-speaking universe who doesn't already know this? I've been offended by them, too -- not for any of their Jewish jokes, but for their occasional support of questionable political positions. (For example, if I remember correctly, their "Rainforest Schmainforest" episode got my goat.) Usually, but not always, South Park is funny as hell. That buys them a lot of mileage in my opinion. Tasteless and humorless media deserves the fate it gets -- a rapid fall into a cultural black hole. (Does anyone but me remember Joan Rivers' movie Rabbit Test?) But if you're funny, hey, I'll cut you some slack. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when I watch South Park, but the show is also a wonderful demonstration of the First Amendment in action. Enjoy it while it lasts. Do we really need another voice to say, "If you don't like it, don't watch it"? D. *Maureen, to answer your question: since now.

Virgins, and panties, and mucus, oh my!

2006-01-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

The antidote to low hit rate suckage: equal parts virgins, panties, and mucus.

***

From Fukuyama Hiroaki, author of How to Talk Dirty in Japanese and English, we have this statement: With regard to recent postings about the sexual promiscuity of young Japanese ladies, I find it quite shocking. It seems to be the second part of an orchestrated racist campaign of Japan-bashing to tarnish the reputation of Japanese girls. This internet article, entitled "All Unmarried Japanese Girls are Virgins," purports to be an antidote to said "racist campaign." I'm not sure what good it will do to combat one sweeping generalization with another, but I do know that you forfeit the moral high ground with statements like this: Regarding the rape of the 12-year-old Okinawan child, I have been called upon to voice my opinion about the 12-year-old girl who was raped by three Afro-American savages. This was truly a great tragedy for the poor girl. Now she will never be able to get married and live a happy life. She is forever tainted in the eyes of Japanese society and no respectable Japanese man will have anything to do with her. Those three savages got off easy. Afro-American savages? Forever tainted? The rape did indeed happen, but why respond with racist slurs? And why hold it against the victim?

***

On a lighter note, Backless Lingerie offers specially designed panties which will allow you to show as many inches of butt crack as you'd like without showing any trace of underwear! Quote: Let's be frank: What if you could wear truly invisible panties with complete confidence – no peek-a-boo thongs, no panty lines, ever? Fashionistas from Vogue to Cosmo agree – visible thongs, once popular thanks to Christina Aguilera and Pink, are a thing of the past. Though the jeans keep getting lower, it's no longer cool to flaunt those g-strings. What's next? Man oh man. Butt crack, g-strings, peek-a-boo thongs, Christina Aguilera . . . soon, my hit counter will be burning a hole at the bottom of the page!

***

Yesterday, Michelle mentioned how a discussion of mucus boosted her hits. And I thought, why didn't I think of that? I'm the archbishop of mucus. But enough self-linkage. Surely there are other interesting mucus sites on the Web. This website explains how your cervical mucus changes during your fertility cycle. Wordspy has this definition for "mucus trooper": mucus trooper (MYOO.kus troo.pur) n. An employee with a cold or the flu who insists on showing up for work. —mucus troop v. That reminds me . . . no doubt you've all heard this, but a panel of linguists chose Stephen Colbert's neologism 'truthiness' as the 2005 Word of the Year, and they're not giving Colbert credit. He's been bitching about it this week on his show, and with good cause. How dare they not give a writer credit for his words! Back to mucus. For you paranormal romance writers, make sure you thoroughly understand ectoplasm -- ghostly mucus -- because without it, those cosmic copulations are hella painful. Although . . . I've heard you can use specially designed personal lubricants, such as Astral Glide.

***

My first case got bumped by an emergency. Can you tell? D.

It's a little early for Halloween . . .

2006-01-10T22:56:00.000-08:00

. . . but what the hell! CNN.com: Mummified Body Found in Front of TV Quote:

Johannas Pope had told her live-in caregiver that she didn't want to be buried and planned on returning after she died, Hamilton County Coroner O'Dell Owens said Monday.

Pope died in August 2003 at age 61. Her body was found last week in the upstairs of her home on a quiet street. Her daughter and granddaughter lived downstairs. They and Ms. Pope's caregiver all believed she would come back to life. I think I can forgive the three-year-old granddaughter for thinking that, but the other two? Here's how to make a mummy, circa 2006. Prop dead body in front of TV. Leave the air conditioner running -- forever. Enter room occasionally to spray body with Lysol. Don't let the air conditioner breakdown, 'cuz guess what, folks -- that's how the neighbors figured it out. D.

My life in baseball

2006-01-10T21:54:00.000-08:00

Before I get rolling, will some legal-type person tell me if I can get in trouble for writing a fake Alan Rickman blog? I know, I know -- I'm ruining the magic. But this way, I do get credit for convincing Maureen to take her clothes off.

***

My hatred for team sports is deep and abiding. Wait, let me qualify that. I used to enjoy watching team sports. As a ten-year-old, I liked going to high school football or basketball games, for I had discovered that I was the perfect height to collide with shorter high school girls' breasts. Crowds, man. They're a bitch. Participation, that's what got me down. I grew up at a time when sports defined the boy, and I had a narrow definition indeed. To appreciate my problem, one needs a sense of proportion.

Yes, I had a bat, and yes, my teensy mitt swam over my teensier fingers. Maybe my dad or my brother taught me how to hit and catch, but if they did, I don't remember it. I do remember being the last kid picked for a team, always, regardless of the sport -- even kickball. And I wasn't even half bad at kickball. Elementary school softball: nearly every time at bat, I would strike out. I'd pray the ball would hit me, because then I'd get the walk. Invariably, the team captains made me an outfielder. The other outfielder knew that if the ball popped my way, he would have to catch it or there would be a home run for sure. That went on all through elementary school and junior high school. In high school, we had several options for physical education. I took weight training every time, which allowed me to hang out with the stoners and the cholos and the ninja-wannabes -- other guys who hated team sports as much as I did. My people. I thought I had escaped the horrors of baseball, but in 10th grade I became involved in the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization. Our parents thought BBYO was a youth group designed to help nice young Jewish boys meet nice young Jewish girls. In reality, BBYO helped me meet other nice young Jewish boys who shared my burgeoning interest in pot and alcohol. But, wouldn't you know it, the bastards liked to play baseball on the weekends. Week after week, I dodged the invitation, and they would manage to round out their numbers by asking cousins, little brothers, or that kid across town who did pretty good in the Special Olympics. But one weekend, I couldn't escape; they made it a point of honor. I'd be letting my brothers down. And I thought: You're going to guilt trip me? You sons of bitches. I'll teach you what it means to let you down. They figured it out by the end of the first inning. By the third inning, their oft-repeated refrain had become music to my ears. I've repeated it to my son and my OR nurses -- it never fails to get a laugh. Thanks guys. I can still hear your warm words of encouragement.

HOFFMAN, YOU SUCK!

The other requisite baby photo

2006-01-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

Notice the look of keen intelligence on my face:

Click to enlarge.

I'm about to make either an earth-shaking discovery or a momentous poopie. One of the two. D.

New toy!

2006-01-09T21:55:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's seasonal affective disorder, our interminable rain, overwork, not enough sleep, lack of exercise, or crappy diet, but I needed a new toy to cheer me up, so I bought myself a scanner. We had a scanner, a decrepit creature abandoned by its maker (we couldn't find a driver for Windows XP). But this new puppy is state of the art: an HP Scanjet 4850. Not top o' the line, but more scanner than I need. I debated with myself what to give you first. A photo of my dad's parents dancing cheek to cheek? Perhaps a photo of my parents at half my present age, sitting next to one another on the beach? Maybe I should put up the photo of my mom's dad in a Nazi uniform. (Nope. Gonna save that story for another day.) No, I decided to post clear-cut evidence of my early attempts to ruin my son's liver.

Be honest. You have a picture of your son or daughter like this, don't you? It's one of those irresistible photo opportunities. That's Carta Blanca, by the way -- damn near unavailable in Northern California, but it's our favorite beer. And Jake's, too, by the look on his face. Disclaimer for the humor-impaired, the gullible, and the meddlesome: the bottle was empty. Nearly. D.

Nose to the electron gun

2006-01-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

I had hopes that yesterday's post would vault my hits into, if not four-digit territory, at least above-250-hits-a-day territory, but no, I gave you Alan Rickman, and what do you do? You stay away from your computers. You spend time with your families. The nerve. Mind you, the post itself was a shmata, chazzerai, but the comments . . . oy! To die for. I spent the day catching up on my Tangent assignment. With the way my work days have been, I knew that if I didn't post my review today, I wouldn't finish it until next weekend. I'm already late on it, but Eugie is such a sweetie, she hasn't even griped. I can't believe tomorrow is already Monday. I am so not into this work thing. D.

A singular lack of faith

2006-01-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

Here's how my mind works. I'm thinking about all the various spoof blogs I know: Madonna's Personal Blog, Harriet Miers's Blog!!!, and Mel's Musings (Mel Gibson's Blog), and I'm wondering, what other famous people have fake blogs in their honor? If anyone deserves a Harriet Miers-style blog, it's George W. Bush. Google George Bush's Blog and you'll get this defunct site (last update, June 6, 2001). Then there's Bush Blog!, which at least updates a bit more regularly (last entry, December 17, 2005). GOP.com, the Republican National Committee's official blog, is the funniest of the three. With a headline like Economy Continues to Thrive, you know they have writers who will give The Daily Show a run for its money. After that, I get the bright idea of looking for God's blog. Turns out, He has several, like this one, or this one, which I rather like. Maybe I just dig the idea of God singing a Barry Manilow song for Jesus' birthday.

"His name was Rico He wore a diamond He was escorted to his chair He saw Lola dancing there . . ."

But what really gets me is this one, called Godblog. On June 3, 2002, someone named Steve Jones set up Godblog on Blogspot. His tag reads, Some of the amazing stories that people have told me or I have experienced about God doing stuff. and his one and only entry reads, Some stories of God's amazingness No link. Nada. Talk about a let-down. So, Steve? Put up or shut up. If you don't want to run Godblog, that's cool. It's easy as pie to destroy your blog -- believe me, I know. But leaving up a blog that reads Some stories of God's amazingness with nothing else to back it up depresses the hell out of me, and I'm agnostic. Anyway, what we really need is for one of the God's Blog guys to start leaving entries on George Bush's blog. You know, to mess with his mind. GEORGE (the Lord, like Death in Terry Pratchett's novels, should always write in caps) YOU'VE DONE QUITE ENOUGH, GEORGE. TIME TO STEP DOWN NOW, BEFORE LUCIFER AND I ARE FORCED TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING WORSE THAN HELL. J. Yeah, something like that. D.

I love Jeff Corwin

2006-01-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

. . . with a quiet, manly kind of love. You know, the way John Ireland loved Montgomery Clift in Red River -- no, wait, that's not quite right. I dig Corwin the way Sal Mineo dug Jimmy Dean in Rebel Without a Cause . . . no, no, no, that's not it either.

Maybe I love him the way Claude Rains loves Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca -- hey, wait, you mean that's gay, too? (See David Thomson's essay, Film Studies: Gay films? Well there's 'Raging Bull' and 'The Godfather' for starters...) Well, I certainly don't love him the way Laurence Olivier loves Tony Curtis in Spartacus, or the way Jake Gyllenhaal loves Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. Damn it all, aren't there any role models in Hollywood for good, beefy, MASCULINE love? Hmm. Maybe I love him the way Jake Barnes loves his fishin' buddy Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises. I can always count on Papa Hemingway for confidently heterosexual male-male bonding, right? Right. Anyway, I owe this gush of enthusiasm for Jeff Corwin to my son, who found this repository of Jeff Corwin video clips. They're all great, but we especially enjoyed Jeff's "Never before seen movie segments!" So, Jeff, I love ya 'cuz your heart is in the right place, you care about animals, you're a ham like me, and you're funny as hell. That and the fact you're so damned hawt.

Jeff, I wish I knew how to quit you. D. P.S.: If you want a serious treatment of the history of gay themes in Hollywood cinema, you can do no better than The Celluloid Closet, 1995. Great stuff.

A fun meme (for a change)

2006-01-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

From Maureen: "In lieu of an actual post, I stole this meme from Miss Snark's Blog this morning. 1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions. 5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you." I'm having Jake read The Golden Compass, and it really is right next to me. Here's the sentence: But her mind was on John Faa and the parley room, and before long she slipped away up the cobbles again to the Zaal. Beneath that book, I have Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions. Page 123 puts us smack dab inside "The Garden of Forking Paths," one of my favorite fantasy short stories. Sentence five: That was why unconsciously I had fully given myself over to it. Fun and easy. I'd do Strunk and White, too, but there's no page 123. I tag the first five people who read this post ;o) D.

Closeness

2006-01-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

We held the interview in a small conference room in the administrative wing of the hospital's locked psych ward. I remember a sunny day, and a warm roomer that would soon feel much warmer. My mentor, a psychiatrist in his late 40s, wore an ill-fitting brown sports jacket. He sat to one side, as invisible as he could manage to be, and never once interrupted me or my subject. She was fifteen or sixteen, a kid who had bought herself a psych eval by attempting suicide. (It disturbs me how we punish failed suicides, but that's another story.) I had a certain amount of ground to cover and I had fifty minutes to do it. Psych histories are precise things, as precise as anything can be in psychiatry, so by the end of my fifty minute hour my success or failure would be obvious to me and my mentor. Any medical history is a Rashomon-like experience, psychiatric histories most of all. There is no truth, only the patient's understanding of the truth. (One of my wife's neurologists once told his students, "You should never forget that when you are talking to your patient, you are speaking to a sick brain.") Bottom line, even though I was only a first year medical student, I grasped this idea -- I inhabited this idea. For me, a merely adequate history would have meant failure. I wanted this girl's version of the truth. I established rapport gradually, effortlessly. Before ten minutes had passed, we were no longer med student and patient; we were patient and fellow patient. We were in this together.

***

After watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Karen said to me, "You know what your problem is? You know how to talk to women, but you don't know how to seduce them." Damn it. Like usual, she was right. I've never seduced anyone, not even accidentally. Karen, I overwhelmed with my cooking ability and my stories, badgered her with the wonder of me so that she never had a chance. This was not seduction, but an effective propaganda campaign. J in the dorms -- the one who fell for Tall Blond Blue-Eyed Jesus -- bought me little gifts, left me notes, and laughed at my jokes, but when it came to physical contact, I was Quasimodo. D stayed up late with me working on Physics 5 homework, and the way she bitched me out reminded me of GFv1.0. Surely, she would be interested? No, she only had eyes for some guy from the soccer team, who only liked her as a fellow soccer player, and not that way. Carmela -- and I know I've told this story before, but that's how much I love it -- Carmela told me on our first date that her father the longshoreman would kill her if she married a non-Catholic, or got pregnant, or, I imagine, came home smelling like lox and cream cheese. I couldn't even steal a kiss from Carmela, that's how frightened she was. By the end of college, I had become used to the idea that women don't see me that way, and it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if they'd refused to associate with me altogether. But I have had a different fate. Women like me. They pour out their hearts; they volunteer their sexual histories whether I want them to or not. At first, this was a cool power, like Superman's X-ray vision. I learned in my twenties how to minimize myself, appear receptive, and ask the right kind of questions. I say "learned," but all of this seemed to happen without any effort on my part. Eventually, it started annoying the hell out of me when women I didn't like coughed up their deepest-darkests. I learned how to turn it off in residency. By then, I had become too tired, too busy, and too emotionally drained to hear this stuff. Heaven only knows how many great stories I forfeited. Oh, I hadn't lost it; I remember a phone conversation in which I teased out sexual kinks from J (you know who you are, you beer-swiggin' vixen) she didn't even know she had. Most of the time, though, I kept my li'l empathy feelers safely tucked away. Back in my first year of med school, however, I was still flushed with The Power. I figured I was a natural born psychiatrist.

***

I did it to my mother once. No, no, no, not the sexual history stuff. Eeew. Here's how it played out: one evening, my mother, my father, and I drove down I-5 from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. My father slept in the back while I drove. Later, I found out from him that he'd only pretended to be asleep. I think I got bits of history out of my mom that even he didn't know. It was a creepy experience, equal parts exhilarating and disturbing. I wouldn't recommend it.

***

My subject realized before I did that our fifty-minute hour was coming to a close. She had been animated, pleasant, generous with information. Now, as they say in the biz, she'd clammed up. By the end of our time together, she answered my questions with "yes" and "no," nothing more. She wouldn't shake my hand at the end, wouldn't even look at me as she left the room. "What was that all about?" I asked my mentor. "We were getting along great!" "Don't you understand what happened?" "No." "She just said, 'Fuck you.'" "Huh?" "You got too close. You're nothing to her -- you're not family, you're not a friend. You're not even her doctor. Here you are, you're with her for less than an hour. After that, you'll never see her again. You're nothing to her, and yet she let you in." He shrugged. "It pisses her off." "You're good, though," he said.

***

If I'd gone into psychiatry, that man might have been Yoda to my Luke Skywalker. He had all kinds of cute, pithy phrases, like, "That's logical, but it's not psychological." He seemed thoroughly comfortable and secure in a profession that attracted the unsettled and the disturbed. It took me a few years, but eventually I figured out psychiatry wasn't good for me. It's a problem with boundaries. Okay, if I'm not careful, I'm going to get all Jane Fonda on you, but here it is. I'm good at crossing over the boundaries between people because my own boundaries are tissue-thin. In a perfect world, I would soothe the troubled soul like ice on a burn. In reality, I knew I would be like that empathy chick on the old Star Trek. She can heal others, but only by absorbing their damage. Hey, I'm burning out on snot and ear wax. How do you think I'd handle an office full of folks with major depression? D.

2006 Bloggie Nominations are open

2006-01-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

Nominate your favorites here. Did I nominate myself? You betcha. As I have pointed out previously, I play the lottery, too.

***

My parents' reaction to Brokeback Mountain was disappointingly tame. "It was too long," my dad said. "So these two cowboys love each other. They needed over two hours to show me two cowboys in love with each other?" My mom said, "Feh," or words to that effect. Back to work. D.

This should be good.

2006-01-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

My 80-year-old dad and my 77-year-old mom went to see Brokeback Mountain the other day. They thought they were going to see a traditional Hollywood Western. I've been too busy to call them, but when I do, I'll say, "So. How was the movie?"

***

Here's how today went: Up at 6:30 AM. Operating from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM. Catching up on office work, surfing, and blogging: 3:30 to 6:00. Hospital committee meeting: 6:00 to 8:00. Home at about 8:20. Chess with Jake until 10:00. I'm going to type up Jake's homework for tomorrow, and then I'm going to crash. G'night, moon. D.

Help me earn that blogwhore of the year award!

2006-01-04T15:31:00.001-08:00

Jona nominated me for Blogwhore of the Year over at The Best of Blogs, so I thought, weeell, hell, I'd better do me some good whoring. The real reason for this post: lately, several new names and faces have shown up in the comments. Some of you don't even want to rip me a new one. Anyway, if you'd like to do some reciprocal blogrolling, let me know. You need only ask. And if you're a lurker, it wouldn't kill you to say hi. By the way: I only drop people from my blogroll for two reasons. One, they haven't updated in forever; two, they say something hateful or racist in their blog. (I don't think I've dropped anyone for that reason, but it did keep me from listing someone.) If I've dropped you by accident, let me know.

***

Waking up from anesthesia, one of my patients today said, "Who are you?" "I'm your doctor." "You're full of shit." You know the best thing about these conversations? Repeating them back to the patient days later. It's so tasty.

***

If you haven't seen it yet, One Good Move has the video of O'Falafel's interview with Dave Letterman. I love it when O'Falafel drinks his coffee ;o)

***

The General puts a human face on our government's civil rights abuses. I feel so much safer now. D.

Name that book

2006-01-03T18:14:00.000-08:00

Buggery Blogger is only part of the reason I haven't been posting much lately. It's back-to-work week, and my mind and body agree that waking up early sucks. I feel like crap, and even Edna Mode can't cheer me up. This comes from Bookseller Chick: Since you've read lots of Harlequin Presents, would you maybe have any recollections of a book I'm trying to find? --A girl gets together with a guy in a van during a snowstorm. They are complete strangers. To keep warm, they may or may not have sex. Through most of the book, he thinks she is all too promiscuous. This tortures him. Of course she is actually a bookworm and introvert. He just happens to see her a second time after she has just had a makeover and is wearing a form-fitting sweater. The cover features a brunette wearing a yellow sweater and maybe a plaid skirt. It's a plain white background. Published before 1996 I believe but newer than the early 80s ones where nothing happens before marriage. Can you help? If any of you can name that book, go help out the BSC, okay? Link above. Here's one of my own: Pub date, 1970s. Science Fiction. A guy wakes up one day to find himself in a 12-year-old body -- his own, about thirty years ago. Somehow, he's living out the fantasy of being a kid again "with all I know now." He turns the tables on his flirtatious cousin who used to make his life hell, and he rakes in the dough on horseraces (conveniently, he remembers some key race results). The mob gets wind of his success and wants to know how he does it. Eventually, he gets gunned down by the mob. He wakes up on a space ship. Aliens have granted him three wishes, and he just screwed up his first wish. The next two-thirds of the book concern his other wishes. In one, he's back in his 40-something-year-old body, but with superhuman strength and amazing sexual powers. Trouble is, his physiology is different, so alcohol makes him violently ill. Things end badly after he throws up on an important business client.

Does anyone recognize this?

***

While I have Bookseller Chick's attention . . . Yesterday in the grocery store, I picked up a paperback edition of Tuesdays with Morrie. I remembered reading something about this in a magazine, and it sounded like a cool idea for a book. In the store, I looked at the acknowledgements. Author Mitch Albom acknowledges, among other people, a rabbi. Okay, so that's good. Next, I read the first two pages. The writing is a bit too slick and a bit too cute, but still, the guy writes a good hook. I'm a millimeter away from buying this thing, but then I get to the deal-breaker. You see, I'm curious about this "wisdom" thing. If Morrie is so full of wisdom, says I, I ought to be able to open the book at random and find some of that wisdom. I did just that, and soon realized that all dialog in the book is written like this: "Here's me saying something." That's Morrie. No 'Morrie said,' nothin'. And here's the author saying something back. No quotes. No 'I said.' Albom distinguishes between his voice and Morrie's by the use of quotes or the lack of quotes. No saids at all. I'm not saying it was intelligent or rational to put the book back on the rack, but I did. Maybe it's a wonderful book. I'll never know. Looking at that single page of dialog, I knew a whole book of that would drive me nuts. I have other quirks, too. Pretentiousness is a deal-breaker for me; I've never made it past the first page of Unbearable Lightness of Being. I liked the first sentence of Stephen King's The Gunslinger, The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. but after the second sentence, I put it back on the shelf: The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what might have been parsecs in all directions. First I'm looking at a crisp cinematic image (good), then I'm looking at King tap-tapping at his keyboard (not good). The first paperback I ever bought with my own money (for fifty cents, I think), The Path Beyond the Stars, had as its first line, It was axiomatic, Jon Wood groused. How do I remember that? Because my brother, who thought it ridiculous for a six-year-old to spend his money on paperbacks, snatched the book from my hands and said, "Look at that! There's two words in the first sentence you can't possibly understand." Never mind that he didn't know the meaning of axiomatic or groused either. This was a dare and, dammit, I read the whole thing. And remembered that first sentence foreverenever. But I'm not six anymore. For adult Doug, if an author wants to throw apotheosis around, he'd damn well better have a good reason to do it. Call me snobbish or neurotic or a miserable little prick. I deserve it. All I'm saying is, these are deal-breakers for me, and I'm one of the guys in your book-buying audience. What are your deal-breakers? Bookseller Chick, do you have any thoughts about this? D.

Grumble grumble

2006-01-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

Blogger crashed for me earlier this evening. I had something in mind. Really, I did. But I'm tired now, so instead of Balls and Walnuts' usual high quality entertainment, I offer you tonight's post over at Wax, Boogers, and Phlegm. Get a load of the hate mail I get from ear candling fanatics. (And this one is mild.) More tomorrow, Blogger willing. D.

Personal growth

2006-01-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

Shaving* naked in front of the mirror last night, looking at the new roundishness of my abdomen -- a pregnant muchness that wasn't there three months ago, back before my gym closed -- I thought of personal growth, the kind of growth that derives its substance from too many bags of microwave popcorn and too many Christmas cookies and too many pieces of Belgian chocolate (oh thank you very much, my beloved patients, but don't you realize that if you kill me, I won't be here to take care of you?) Turning this way and that, trying to find some angle where I didn't look like Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair, only, you know, hairy, suppressing the urge to take a scalpel to my flesh because what the hell good is it being a surgeon anyway if I can't even fix blubber belly, I reflected (in the mirror, get it?) that this was why I loved writing. Think about it. Friends drift away, love affairs fly apart, bodies go to hell, and yet our writing chugs on, barring hard drive crashes, fire, floods, and fiction-hating dogs, of course. Every bit of writing we do improves us as writers. Well, that one month foray into screenwriting put me into an extended writer's block, but I still learned from that, didn't I? (Yeah. You learned not to fuck with me, sailor. -- Doug's muse.) And I may have spent my first two years and 100K words of 'serious' writing on a project that went nowhere fast, but if I hadn't done that, could I have written a 300K word novel that actually went somewhere? I don't think so. What's my problem with scale, anyway? I've sold flash fiction and stories in the 4K to 6K range, and I've written a humongous novel, but I can't manage to turn out a modest 90K novel. But I digress. Writing is the one compartment of my life where I feel like things are getting better**. I may be getting poorer thanks to this money pit of a house, and I may be getting older and fatter and balder, but at least with writing, if I put out the effort, I have something to show for it: not just the words on the page, but also an internal maturation which makes it possible to do that much more the next time my fingers hit the keyboard. So I'm shaving, looking at that 4-month-preggers so-not-a-six-pack of mine, and I'm thinking, Maybe there is something growing in there. Maybe I could take that 2001-2002 project of mine, Karakoram, and turn it into something 90K-ish, tight, interesting, funny, poignant -- in short, everything I wanted it to be when I first got started. Maybe I can do that now. Yeah. D. *My face. Detail added for Maureen's benefit. **Before you ask: no, there's nothing wrong with my marriage. Knockingonwood knockingonwood knockingonwood.

Ear wax for Candy

2006-01-01T14:49:00.000-08:00

Ear wax may be good for some things*, but it doesn't provide the most fertile ground for humor. Four times a day, sometimes more, I'll be cleaning someone's ear and the patient or his spouse will say, "Ooh, can you see through to the other side?" Gawd, I hate that joke. It ranks right up there with "Huh?" in response to, "How's your hearing?" However, I do have one good ear story, which I dedicate to the lovely Candy for thinking of me today, even if you don't think enough of me to enter Kate's contest. Grumble. In college, I racked up enough credits to take time off for an internship. I thought I wanted to be a chemist, so I opted for a six month organic chemistry fellowship at Stauffer Chemical Company in Richmond, California. Stauffer manufactured herbicides. Most likely corporate mission statement: Stauffer. We take all the lovely green things in the world and kill them. The State of California owns that place now; it's part of the Department of Toxic Substances Control. Ironic, eh? One of the PhD chemists was a grizzly old man who would have made a damned good Scrooge. This guy was filthy -- physically, morally, and spiritually filthy. Why, he was so filthy the Mitchell Brothers gave the guy an honorary chair at their theater. With his name on it. In gold lettering. It's what you would call a well endowed chair. I suppose he might have landed himself in a world of trouble for sexual harassment, but the women he worked with didn't take him seriously. A day or two in his presence and you became calloused to his bottomless pit of linguistic ooze. Even Maria, a sweet Catholic woman in her late 20s, tended to smile at his profane stories and look the other way. One day, he launched into some weird diatribe about one of the new Vietnamese PhDs down at the chemical engineering end of the building. He had seen shoe-prints on the toilet seat -- that's what set him off -- and, yes, you can add racism to his list of sins. After the thirtieth or fortieth "fuckin' this fuckin' that," Maria said, "Oh! My virgin ears." To which our hero replied, "Wassamatter? Ain't you never got it in your ear before?" See, Candy? You never can tell what will jog my memory. D. *True fact: some heroin addicts use ear wax to grease their syringes. Now, that's American ingenuity in action!

Looking Backward

2005-12-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

I'd hate to plot this on the same scale as the YesButNoButYes gang's graph, but I'm happy with it, just the same. I can't remember why or how I started Shatter (AKA Balls and Walnuts). Who turned me on to Blogger? I'm far too much of a technological nincompoop to find something like that on my own. Blogging gives me the illusion of writerly discipline. Look at me, I'm writing every day -- sometimes two or three times a day! Perhaps I had hoped that discipline would carry over into my more serious literary pursuits, but it hasn't. If I had channeled all of this effort into my manuscript, I would have finished it months ago. But then I wouldn't have met all of y'all. My first real post (April 9) concerned my short story, "My Troll Lover", which reminds me: damn, that's a fine story. I really ought to buff it and send it out. Again. The big traffic bump in May came courtesy of John Scalzi. What amazed me, though, was the way my June traffic didn't fall back to April levels. Smart Bitches didn't discover me until July, so I really can't account for my June numbers. The rest of the growth I attribute to regular posting, persistent schmoozing, and shameless Technorati blogwhoring (my bloggenitals were particularly sore in October). Don't know if I can continue this growth rate, but you know something? I don't care. I'm having fun, and I like my gang of readers. Happy New Year, everyone. D.

The Anti-Lewis

2005-12-31T16:46:00.000-08:00

Pop quiz: what contemporary author called C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories "morally loathsome," and in a 1998 essay for the Guardian, "The Dark Side of Narnia," derided "the misognyny, the racism, the sado-masochistic relish for violence that permeates the whole cycle"? Hint 1: the author was the subject of a Peter Hitchens essay entitled, "This Is the Most Dangerous Author in Britain." Hint 2: the author also said, "'The Lord of the Rings' is fundamentally an infantile work. Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other. He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes." Give up? Go sit under a cold shower for ten minutes if you answered J.K. Rowling, because the author in question is Philip Pullman, author of (among other things) the "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Laura Miller in The New Yorker (Dec. 26, 2005 & Jan. 2, 2006) has a wonderful piece on Pullman, which you can read online here. Miller provides a three-dimensional glimpse of Pullman and his work. Her article is one of the best literary focus pieces I've read in a very long time. Okay, time to get to work on dinner. D.

Best of the Best-ofs

2005-12-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

Once again, Steve Gilliard says it better than I ever could. Over at HuffPo, Seth Greenland gives us Dubya's top 10 New Year's Resolutions. I've learned to make resolutions which are within the realm of possibility. Thus: 1. Lose five pounds. 2. Sign up at another gym (my favorite one closed) and, um, like, actually use the place. 3. Lose my temper with my son 25% less. 4. Finish editing TBC and send out queries. 5. Write my congressmen (yeah, they're all guys) every time I think my head might explode. And because I really really hate living in a warehouse . . . 6. Get flooring and countertops! We'll revisit this next year. To all of my readers: you're my friends. Well, not that nasty-assed guy who kept posting crap when I wrote about the neo-Nazi blonde singing duo, but the rest of you, yeah. I wish all the best for you and your families. Happy New Year! D.

Personal myth

2005-12-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

Some kids have to share their moms with brothers and sisters. Since I'm the youngest by seven years, I had my mother all to myself. No sibling rivalry here. Except for Chi Chi. I can imagine a pre-Doug time when it was just my mom and Chi Chi. Knowing how my mom is with dogs, Chi Chi must have lived in a state of bliss. She would have garnered my mother's full attention and love, and she wouldn't have had a care in the world. Then I came onto the scene, and Chi Chi's life changed forever. How she must have hated me! Here was this squealing, pooping, puking creature; such a shameful sight, no self-respecting pup would ever put on a display like that. How could my mother tolerate it? Growing up, Chi Chi fascinated me, all the more because she was untouchable. If I came within six feet of her, she would bare her teeth and growl. I wanted to make her happy, but even gifts of table scraps had no impact on her demeanor. She was a bitter, depressed, hateful old bitch who could not be pleased by anything I did or said. Only one person could thaw her -- my mother, of course. I did the only thing I could do. I begged my mother to pet Chi Chi and praise her. Mom would oblige, but she seemed to tire of it quickly. Nevertheless, for those brief moments in time, Chi Chi was happy, energetic, young again. When I was five, my parents bought a male Chihuahua whom they named Chico (their names for pets have never strained the imagination). From Chico and Chi Chi I learned that sex involves a lot of yelping, and couples always end up back-to-back before it's over. Anyway, Chi Chi became pregnant, gave birth at home, fell asleep on top of her puppies, and smothered them all. This did little to help her mood. When I was twelve, she developed a cough. The vet called it a "heart cough," which means something to me now, but bewildered me back then. I never had a very good grasp on sickness or death, and my apparent callousness landed me in trouble on more than one occasion -- but that's another story. Chi Chi became weak. She needed help getting off and on her pillow. We moved her pillow next to the back door so that she could be close to her food, water, and potty stomping-grounds. She woke me up one night with her coughing. Sickness had mellowed her, and she had long since decided I wasn't worth the energy it took to growl; she allowed me to help her off the pillow -- that's what I'm trying to say. All she wanted was a drink of water. Afterwards, I helped her back onto her pillow. In the morning, I checked her, and she was dead. I would carry on about the burden of guilt we feel towards our pets, but Jurassic Pork covered that poignantly in recent weeks. I don't think I can add much. What interests me more is the depth of grief I felt for Chi Chi. It sounds horrible, but her death touched me far more than the deaths of any of my grandparents. Nowadays, I think about my grandparents more often than I do Chi Chi, but at the time, Chi Chi's death really got me where I lived. I had grown up with her. Am I alone in creating a personal creation myth? I don't know if my mother bought Chi Chi before or after I was born, but in my myth, I tell myself: It was before. She was lonely, but the dog didn't cut it. So she discovered the wondrous magic of pinholes in condoms, and that's how I came to be. Little Dougie: because a dog wasn't good enough. My parents deny all of this, naturally, but I am unperturbed, and I will not listen to their objections. Myths lose power when subjected to close scrutiny. D.

Breakfast links

2005-12-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm just making myself more depressed. Media Matters has posted its Most Outrageous Statements of 2005. My favorite: Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson: Same-sex marriage would lead to "marriage between daddies and little girls ... between a man and his donkey." What's your favorite? Heart-sickening-to-the-core: This Modern World discusses the latest torture memos (via Atrios); the General captures the rot at the apple's core with a single image. My favorite Guerilla Woman from Tennessee has reprinted in full today's Op-Ed piece from Paul Krugman. Here's the punchline: A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest. A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians and pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the president isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we know when it comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if you're a Republican. To my US readers: write your Representatives and Senators. Use those links at the top of my sidebar -- it's easy. And don't let 'em set cookies. After that nauseating dive into today's news (and I haven't even checked Kos yet), I need a little recharge. Here is a World of Warcraft Broadway show tune for y'all. The graphics stink, but the music rocks. And if that doesn't do it for you, check out the latest photos from Antarctica. Oh, my! Mel Gibson has a blog. Gabriele, I'm counting on you to correct his Latin. Now, if you'll all please excuse me while I go put a knife in my gut . . . D.

2001, five years later

2005-12-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Five years, or thirty-seven, thirty-eight . . . who's counting?

This morning, Karen watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on TV while I read through Miss Snark's Crap-o-meter critiques of novel synopses. This juxtaposition led me to wonder how I would write a synopsis for the 2001 story. Think about it. If you focus on the main story arc, your bullet summary will be: An alien artifact acts as a catalyst to human evolution. You would leave out the HAL 9000 subplot because it has nothing to do with the rest of the story. It doesn't further the plot. It even lacks a thematic connection to the rest of the movie. The trouble is, I like character-driven drama. HAL is the best character in the story, and the HAL subplot contains the movie's most poignant moments. Yet if your bullet summary reads: A sentient computer develops a paranoid streak and becomes a homicidal maniac, what will the agent or publisher make of the remaining 3/4 of the story?

I've been conflicted about this movie ever since I saw it in the theatre as a seven-year-old. Afterwards, I remember feeling bored, bewildered, and perhaps a little stoned. I can still hear my mother yelling at my brother, "What's wrong? What's the matter with him? Why is he acting like that?" Nothing wrong with me at all, except I had no idea what the ending meant, and when I read Arthur C. Clarke's book the following year, I was convinced Clarke didn't understand the ending, either. Opinions about this movie vary wildly. Pauline Kael, who never met a Kubrick movie she didn't execrate*, called 2001 "the biggest amateur movie of them all, complete even to the amateur-movie obligatory scene -- the director's little daughter (in curls) telling daddy what kind of present she wants." Over at IMDB, a Finnish fellow writes, "One has to be ready for it, or it cannot be understood. In fact I don't think it can be understood at all, at least not all of it at once. It is a philosophical journey to the infinite and beyond, a masterpiece of it's genre . . ." You won't find many reviews which are in-between. The film ranks #87 in IMDB's top 250. Read through the 1000+ reader comments if you like. Most are gushingly positive**. Well, folks, I fall in between. Yes, the movie is beautiful, right down to the non-whooshing*** spacecraft and HAL's glowing soul. The spacecraft special effects are so damned gorgeous, I'm willing to forgive Kubrick the LSD trip at the end. I'll even forgive him the Star Child.

Yes, HAL's story carries as much dramatic heft now as it did in 1968. Yes, it is ambitious and brave and noble to try to make a movie about enlightenment (Karen's theory re: the ending). But, holy cow, the story does not hang together. Without HAL, we have majesty and mystery, but precious little drama. Without the monolith, we have a fine space opera, but one which lacks a beginning or an ending. With HAL and the monolith, we have the cinematic equivalent of a grafted cactus. Samuel R. Delany, a writer for whom I have great respect, tried to pull it all together in this essay, but I don't think he's successful. Another Golden Age SF writer, Lester Del Rey, slammed the film in his 1968 review. What did Kubrick have to say about 2001? The man hated explaining his movies. I suspect the best we'll get is his endorsement of 15-year-old Margaret Stackhouse's notes on the film: "Margaret Stackhouse's speculations on the film are perhaps the most intelligent that I've read anywhere, and I am, of course, including all the reviews and the articles that have appeared on the film and the many hundreds of letters that I have received. What a first-rate intelligence!" I've read Stackhouse's notes, and you know what? I still don't think Kubrick is telling a coherent story. There. Glad I got that off my chest. In HAL's words, "I feel much better now, I really do." D. *Sorry for the two-bit word, but if you read Kael's review, you'll see that the words hate and detest are far too mild. **If you're interested in reading a more scholarly appraisal of the critical reaction to 2001, read this superb essay at 2001: A Space Odyssey Internet Resource Archive. This excellent website also has an excellent compendium of other resources on the web. ***In space, no one can hear you whoosh. PS: Craving more Kubrick? Here's another cool link.

Who says they're cold-blooded?

2005-12-28T15:28:00.000-08:00

In the February 2006 issue of Reptiles*, Jim Pether, owner/manager of a reptile park in the Canary Islands, shares his experiences breeding Komodo dragons (Komodos: A Breeding Project With Teeth). His initial attempts were nearly disastrous: "Then, one day when I was not at the park, a visitor ran and told my wife Christine that one dragon was attacking another. She ran down to find the male chewing the female's leg off and bravely (or stupidly, depending on your view) jumped in and began beating him over the head with a broom." She manages to rescue the female by luring the male away with a dead rat. The vet saved the female's leg. Not willing to press his luck, Pether sent the female to the Rotterdam Zoo. He had one more female to try out. "Nervous at first, the female ran away and hid in her burrow . . ." Word gets around. "but after a few days got used to the male's presence. They were soon basking together." On to the action. "Actual mating began when the male started tongue flicking the female's cloacal area, presumably to test if she was ovulating and releasing pheromones. The male then raked her back with his long claws and tongue flicked her body. He then positioned his body parallel to hers and tongue-flicked her neck. Using a rear leg, he lifted her tail to mate with her." Was it good for you, too? D. *Available at pet stores near you!

No one-liners in today's Dowd Op-Ed

2005-12-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

Full text of today's Maureen Dowd NYT Op-Ed, Vice Axes That 70s Show, is up at The Peking Duck (thanks, PD!) She hasn't given us much new material, I'm afraid; only one interesting bit of recent history: As attorney general, John Ashcroft clamped down on the Freedom of Information Act. For two years, the Pentagon has been sitting on a request from The Times's Jeff Gerth to cough up a secret 500-page document prepared by Halliburton on what to do with Iraq's oil industry - a plan it wrote several months before the invasion of Iraq, and before it got a no-bid contract to implement the plan (and overbill the U.S.) . . . and one bit of ancient history: Consider this: when Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, supported by President Ford, pushed a plan to have the government help develop alternative sources of energy and reduce our dependence on oil and Saudi Arabia, guess who helped scotch it? Oy. When are the leaders of our country going to get their heads out of their oil wells? D. Technorati tag: dowd

Synopsisysessss . . .

2005-12-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

Most of you know about this already, but just in case you haven't heard, Miss Snark is doing her synopsis crap-o-meter extravaganza this week. Check it out. Wish I could have participated, but life here has not been very orderly. D.

Serenity and the Dungeons & Dragons guide to character development

2005-12-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

We watched Serenity last night. As usual, Jake walked in well after the movie had started and wanted to know what was happening. I found myself falling back on Dungeons & Dragons alignment terminology to explain the characters and their actions: "That's the captain of the Serenity and his crew. They're all unlawful neutrals. That guy there? He's an assassin for the Empire, or whatever they're called. He's lawful evil. If this movie runs true to form, before the movie is over the unlawful neutrals will be forced by circumstances to become unlawful goods . . ." Or that's what I would have said, if it weren't for Jake saying, "Huh? What? I don't know what you're talking about." Which is a shame, really, because the Dungeons & Dragons alignment scheme provides a fast and accurate means of typing a character. Moreover, for writers, it's a convenient way to get a quick understanding of a newly created character. For those of you not wise in the ways of D&D, here's how it works. Alignment involves two variables, each of which have three possible values. A character can be lawful (law-abiding), neutral (self-serving), or chaotic (or 'unlawful,' actively seeking to overturn the social order). A character can also be good, neutral, or evil. By combining these parameters, you have nine possible character types. Quick quiz: Han Solo is . . . ? Getting old and paunchy, yes, but he's also unlawful neutral at the beginning of Star Wars. Just like the crew of the Serenity, Han is forced by circumstances and a freeze-drier to become unlawful good. Luke Skywalker is . . . ? Unlawful good, but he's really weak on the "unlawful" part. In a marginally not-bad Empire, you just know the little priss would be lawful good. The only reason Luke is unlawful is the fact that the law -- the Empire -- is so damned eeevil. Back to character creation. This website provides a 36-question quiz to help you determine your character's alignment. I took it with one of my main characters in mind, and came up with "Neutral," which is just about how I think of him. Tui cares more about an abstract (the Truth, capital T and all) than his own family. He's not evil, but neither is he good. I haven't tried taking the quiz with my rogue, Boron, in mind, but he'd better turn out unlawful neutral, or I don't know my Boron. Why is this a worthwhile exercise? Because two of the things that make a novel fun are characters who change, and characters in conflict. If you want your characters to change, you need to make sure the change isn't too drastic. When I analyze my NiP, most of the changes are plausibly close. Like Han Solo, Boron must become unlawful good. Tui stays doggedly neutral, but it takes him a mammoth effort to do so. Tui's wife Sul is my biggest problem child. In the rough draft, she was lawful evil all the way. When I wrote the novel, though, I became more and more fond of her. My villain became a tragic heroine. I asked her to change from lawful evil to unlawful good. Well, as Maureen and my wife will tell you (Jona has been more forgiving), this proved to be too great a leap. I had major motivation problems. Sul's transformation feels artificial, forced. I was asking too much of her. Now that I'm editing, I'm toning the evil way down, mostly by making Sul's initial alliance with evil seem far more innocent and plausible. The reader should think, "Yes, in those circumstances, I might make a deal with the devil, too," particularly since the "devil" seems eminently reasonable (although scary, just the same). Sul is, after all, a powerful female willing to fight beak-and-talon for her family's best interest. Sul wouldn't go to a male authority figure with her problems; no, she'd go to the most politically powerful female in the land. Thus, instead of "lawful evil becomes unlawful good," Sul's transformation will be "lawful good to unlawful good" -- which is a much more believable change. How about conflict? As Star Wars and Serenity demonstrate, Lawful Evil vs. Unlawful Good is an entertaining pair-off. I think audiences today like a little ambiguity in their heroes and villains, and that's what LE vs. UG provides. If you want Unlawful Evil vs. Lawful Good, you'll have to mine the videostore shelves for some old Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne movies. (And not all of Wayne's characters were Lawful Good -- not by a long shot.) As for Serenity, I guessed right. The captain has a change of heart, becomes Unlawful Good, and defeats the Lawful Evil forces of the star system. There, I ruined it for you. The movie had one other surprise -- Hello Kitty videos are evil -- but you knew that already. D.

Spidercat

2005-12-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

Um, just so we are all on the same page . . . This is our ceiling. D.

Tagline: The hardest trick is making them stay

2005-12-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

. . . in the theater. Guess that movie. Give up? Here's a clue. Picture John Cusack looking tired, depressed, and constipated. Need help? I didn't realize that the movie's title, Must Love Dogs, was a metaphor. Right from the opening frames, you know you're in trouble. The screenwriter, filching from When Harry Met Sally, opens with a few lifeless interviews of folks talking about how they meet people of the opposite sex. The humor ranges from strained to painful. Fortunately, the editor must have realized this because a few seconds later, we are thrust into some unnamed family gathering in which protag Diane Lane's relatives try to fix her up. She's newly divorced, or widowed, or slow. I'm not sure which, because the screenplay lost me that fast. I think that's a new personal record: two minutes into the movie, and I'm already telling Karen, "Let's give it 'til Cusack shows up, okay?" Once again, the editor reads my mind, and in the very next scene we find John Cusack (also recently divorced -- and I only remember that because he's talking to his divorce lawyer in this scene) waxing poetic over his wooden boats. Except that, no matter how hard Cusack and the screenwriter struggle, dammit, Cusack looks pained to be here. Boat-splinters up every fingernail pained, that's how pained. Less than five minutes into the movie, and we're already popping out the DVD. If you don't believe my review, read the opinion of someone who sat through the whole thing. On to DVD number two. Unlike Must Love Dogs, The Baxter sinks its hooks into you right from the first few lines. We're given the set-up, and indeed the ending, in the first scene: Elliot (played by writer and director Michael Showalter) is a Baxter. That's what his mom called the bland, generically nice guys whom women dump in order to run off with dashing, handsome, dangerous types like this guy: That's Justin Theroux, who plays Bradley, Elliot's chief rival for the affections of Caroline (Elizabeth Banks). (Yes, after watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I had to watch another Elizabeth Banks movie.) Caroline dumps Elliot at the altar in the first minute of the movie, and what's left -- nearly the entire movie -- is back story. That's not supposed to work, but it does. What amazes me the most is that this works despite the fact that Elliot is not a likable guy. He's a geeky, stuffy Ivy Leaguer who rapidly shifts romantic gears from his new temp Cecil (Michelle Williams, cute and vibrant despite the fugly hair style) to new client Caroline. He's a heel, really, and it's hard to see what Caroline or Cecil see in him. I gave this a lot of thought, afterwards. Why does The Baxter fly and Must Love Dogs sink? What it comes down to is personality, or soul. Watching The Baxter, I could sense that Showalter had thrown himself into the creation of this movie. Arguably, he threw a little too much of himself into the movie, since his performance is the weakest of the crew. Hard not to imagine what someone else, anyone else, would have done with that role. Whereas, watching Must Love Dogs, I felt that the writers had reduced movie romances to their formulaic roots, then plugged in new values for the variables Mad Lib-fashion to come up with what can only be called, not a film, but a 'product.'

***

I've read precious few romances, so it's always a magic act for me to write a Smart Bitches Day post for Beth. Watching these two movies (okay, okay, so really I only watched one of 'em . . .) I decided that I had something important to say about the act of writing in general, and of writing romance in particular. Here, let's put it in bold face for emphasis: Genre formula alone might give you a sale, but it won't guarantee fine work. Yuck. Negative declarations have such little aphoristic heft. Lemme try again: To create a work with soul, you have to bleed a bit of yourself into the page. A bit vampiric, but I think it captures what I'm trying to say. Warning: this bleeding business can be overdone. Watch out that you don't create autistic prose (stories that provide you with an intense emotional experience; meanwhile, the rest of your readers scratch their heads and say, "Huh?") Like any diary, cathartic writing is best left under lock and key. You know what I think our goal as writers should be? Our bare minimum, "at least I've accomplished this much," D minus, thank-the-Lord-I've-passed, goal? That our readers will come away from the novel (short story, poem, movie) never once questioning the fact that an individual wrote this, a human being, not a committee, or a software package, or a crew of monkeys typing typing typing. Although, some days I suspect the monkeys could do a better job. D.

Let's see if this works.

2005-12-25T17:54:00.001-08:00

I'll give her toys

2005-12-25T17:22:00.000-08:00

Mom, Dad, do you really want to know why I never dated Jewish girls? Because I never met one like Sarah Silverman, that's why. All I ever met in the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization were girls who couldn't stop talking about how much their dads made or how much their homes were worth. A BBG girl's idea of teen success: hearing that someone half the valley away said something nice about her, and she doesn't even know me! They were the Typhoid Marys of niceness. Whereas Sarah, bless her heart, is nasty and funny and oh my god I need another fix of Sarah . . . Ah, that's better. My eternal thanks go out to YesButNoButYes for the next two links. Don't mean to kvetch, but this has been a mighty depressing Hannukah. Not even our temple's Hannukah party could perk me up. I can't do parties without Karen. Cannot, cannot, cannot. I only get more depressed. Anyway, thank you, YBNBY, for giving me a much needed laugh. On to the linkage. If you click on nothing else, check out Sarah's video, Give the Jew Girl Toys. I used to be a big fan of Adam Sandler's Hannukah Song, but Adam? Sorry, bro. That animated Hannukah movie you did, it sucked big ones. Sarah's my home girl now. After you've watched Sarah dish it to Santa, if you still can't get enough of her, check out this interview in which Sarah plays with a dreidel and eats latkes. (Thank YesButNoButYes for this one, too.) Excuse me. I need to go search the web for all things Sarah. D.

Faith and politics on Christmas morning

2005-12-25T09:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Blue Gal for pointing out GQ's interview with Jimmy Carter (a partial transcript is available online). Quote from the beginning: You call yourself a born-again evangelical Christian, but you draw the line at the word fundamentalist. Can you define those terms?

I define fundamentalism as a group of invariably male leaders who consider themselves superior to other believers. The fundamentalists believe they have a special relationship with God. Therefore their beliefs are inherently correct, being those of God, and anyone who disagrees with them are first of all wrong, and second inferior, and in extreme cases even subhuman. Also, fundamentalists don’t relish any challenge to their positions. They believe any deviation from their own God-ordained truth is a derogation of their own responsibility. So compromise or negotiating with others, or considering the opinion of others that might be different, is a violation of their faith. It makes a great exhibition of rigidity and superiority and exclusion.

I've admired Jimmy Carter for a long, long time. Even though I don't agree with him on every issue, I've always felt his heart was in the right place. Consistently, Carter's actions have mirrored the teachings of his faith . . . unlike certain other politicians whose words and deed are diametrically opposed.

Harper's Magazine is not exactly a fundamentalist-friendly place (see, for example, Jeff Sharlet's Jesus Plus Nothing, a captivating look at the twisted version of Christianity which drives many of today's politicians), so biblical literalists won't be very happy with Erik Reece's December 2005 article, Jesus without the Miracles: Jefferson's Bible and the Gospel of Thomas. For a critique from a self-described 'theological conservative,' read this post at Distilled Eye.

I don't intend to argue about the miraculous aspects of Jesus' life and resurrection -- you either believe in this as a matter of faith, or you don't, and nothing I say will make a bit of difference. I would like to give you an outsider's perspective. What I find most off-putting about modern American Christianity is its emphasis on the carrot-and-stick damnation/heaven, sin/salvation meme, the obsession with the miraculous aspects of Jesus' life, and, most of all, the de-emphasis on Jesus' ethical teachings*.

That's where the Jeffersonian Bible comes in. Per Reece's article, after Jefferson edited the New Testament, he was left with the following principles (quoting Reece):

Be just; justice comes from virtue, which comes from the heart.
Treat people the way we want them to treat us.
Always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion.
Consider valuable the things that have no material value.
Do not judge others.
Do not bear grudges.
Be modest and unpretentious.
Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid.

Although I don't consider myself Christian, I try my best to embrace these principles. Well, I have a lot of trouble with Do not judge others, and the Do not bear grudges thing REALLY gives me fits, but still, I see the value in these teachings. I'd like to point out that these principles, these values, are also (to the limit of my understanding) consistent with Talmudic Judaism. But, like many Christians, modern Jews have a problem living up to the ideals of their faith. That returning violence with compassion bit -- well, Israel and the United States both have a wee problem with that one, don't they? I find it all very depressing. Ordinary people have a hard time living up to those principles, and their politicians do far worse. It's painfully obvious the world would be a better place if this were not so. Can a politician practice these principles and survive? Which brings me back to Jimmy Carter. In trying to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis, he used limited force -- unsuccessfully -- and avoided going to war, largely because his religious/ethical beliefs told him it would be wrong to do so. (I'm basing that statement on his recent interview with Jon Stewart, by the way.) And what did America do? They voted him out of office, first chance they got, and vilified him for years to come. It busts my chops. D. *I'm sure many of you can give me examples to the contrary -- congregations where the ethical precepts are placed first and foremost, individuals and organiziations who really do practice what they preach. No doubt these folks are doing great work, and I don't mean to slight them. But the politically dominant breed of American Christian (the Bushes, Dobsons, Robertsons, and Falwells of this country) not only ignores these precepts, but actively subverts them.

Editing update and a question

2005-12-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

This morning, I shuffled chapters and came up with a 20-chapter first-book-of-the-trilogy consisting of 104K words. A bit big for a first book, but it's not a deal-breaker (like, um, a 304K-word novel). Only one problem: the first book will end with one hell of a cliffhanger. I don't think this is a problem, but remember, I have NOVICE tattooed on my forehead. I can't imagine a publisher buying the first book without buying the second and third, too. They're similar in style, humor, and quality. If anything, the second two books will be better than the first. So, here's my thinking: if they buy the first, they'll buy all three, and they'll follow up on the first book's publication with publication of the second and third in the coming year. Readers will know this, and they'll forgive me for the cliffhanger. Won't they? D.

Kudos and Kvetches: The 40-Year Old Virgin

2005-12-23T17:52:00.000-08:00

The premise: unbelievable? Not at all. We encounter many 40-year-old virgins in medicine. Oddly enough, all of them are doctors. Never forget that medical school selects for social misfits, and that no sane person voluntarily becomes a doctor. Given that, is it any wonder that many doctors are 40-year-old (and older) virgins? Who is that lovely blonde, and what is the chance she might come visit your blog? Glad you asked. That is the gorgeous and talented Elizabeth Banks, whom you may remember from Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Sea Biscuit. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, she plays cleanliness-obsessed secondary love interest Beth. As for whether she might visit my blog, I see this as slightly more likely than me winning the Super Lotto. I buy tickets twice a week. Do you know how I know you're gay? No. How? One photo: 'Nuff said. Anyway, what did you like about the movie? Well, Paul Rudd (pictured above) (the good-looking one, not the doofus with his shirt off) rocked. I thought that whole "Do you know how I know you're gay?" banter penetrated some of our darkest male fears, opening a dialog on the existential desperation of self-absorbed heterosexual angst. Just kidding. That stuff was funny as hell, though. You know what else I liked? The fact that this gal, actress Catherine Keener, Steve Carell's main love interest, was born in 1960. (Catherine, you're welcome here any time, too.) Honestly, aren't you at least a little squicked out when Jack Nicholson (born 4/22/37) nuzzles up to Helen Hunt (born 6/15/63)? Back to Ms. Keener. I love the fact that Judd Apatow cast an age-appropriate woman in this role. He even made her character a grandma. This is not a screenplay which shies away from the fact that the protagonists are middle-aged. In other words, this is a movie for us forty-somethings. Yay! Aside from that, I really, really liked Ms. Keener's performance. I understood Andy's instant attraction to her. I even understood why he would prefer Catherine Keener to Elizabeth Banks. And, by the way, there's more chemistry between Keener and Carell than in any movie romance I've seen for a long time. So what are you kvetching about? One thing, and one thing only. Same thing I touched on in my last Smart Bitches Day column. If you feel genre-bound to include a boy-loses-girl plot twist, please make it believable, okay? In Grosse Point Blank, the monkey wrench flows naturally from the plot. There's a tiny bit of coincidence involved (Debi shows up at just the wrong time), but that's forgivable, in my opinion. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the argument which temporarily divides our protagonists seems forced. I felt like I was watching the writer jam a square peg into a round hole. If that wasn't bad enough, Apatow felt compelled to put some weird-ass chase scene in there, with Andy chasing after Trish on his bicycle. Ugh! Other than that, this movie gets an unqualified thumbs-up from both of my hands. I'll have my eye out for other Apatow projects. (Just checked IMDB: Judd Apatow co-executive produced one of my all time favorite sit coms, The Larry Sanders Show. Show of hands: who remembers David Duchovny's repeated appearances on that show? I do, I do!) D. P.S.: Michelle has blogged about The 40-Year-Old Virgin, too. Let's have a 40-Year-Old Virgin party, everyone!

Will someone please tell me to get a life?

2005-12-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

Photoshopping: an insidious addiction. Here's another one for Blogenfreude:

Dr. Wilhelm O'Goebbels, Chief Propagandist for the Bush Regime

Blogenfreude, if this doesn't get Bill's goat, nothing will. D. tags: bill o'reilly fox news o'reilly enemies list

Senator Joseph McFalafel

2005-12-22T19:56:00.000-08:00

This one is for Blogenfreude at Agitprop.

Senator Joseph McFalafel nails the smear merchants.

D. tags: bill o'reilly fox news o'reilly enemies list

Doc Otter is back!

2005-12-22T18:10:00.000-08:00

And he's still on the side of the angels. Go give him your best wishes. D.

Rugelach

2005-12-22T16:55:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to give this rugelach recipe from Ruby Glen an unqualified thumbs-up, but I can't. It tweaks me when I discover that the baking time is 2 to 3 times what the recipe claims it is, and I hate having to figure out how to roll out the damned dough without it sticking to the rolling pin. Fortunately for you, I'm here to perfect the recipe. Those of you who boggle at bagels may not be familiar with rugelach. They are a horn-shaped pastry made from a cream cheese, butter, and flour dough. You can fill them with fruit, nuts, chocolate, you name it. They're delicious and easy to make (or rather, they should be easy to make). There are two important bits missing from the Ruby Glen recipe: 1. I had to bake mine 45 minutes to an hour before they were golden brown. The recipe calls for 16 to 19 minutes. Grrr. 2. Even a well chilled dough is sticky beyond belief. I sprayed two large squares of parchment paper with non-stick cooking oil spray, and I rolled out my dough between the squares. I did this on a marble pastry board, so the dough stayed cold and remained pliant. I rolled out another ball of dough between ungreased layers of parchment, but this flopped miserably. The dough stuck to the paper. Only by freezing the paper/dough sandwich could I peel off the paper, and then my dough was too hard to roll. I made it work, but oh, what a mess. My filling: I followed Ruby Glen's recipe (using pecans), and I added a quarter cup of milk chocolate chips before grinding the whole thing in a blender. Rugelach: yum. D.

Are Men Necessary? The critical brouhaha.

2005-12-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

Ron at Galley Cat has an interesting post on the recent hubbub over Kathryn Harrison's review of Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary? Snip: . . . a colleague of mine from the book reviewing world passed along an interesting question: "Should a critic be considered 'conflicted' if the 'conflict' consists solely of the potential subject having said something unpleasant about the critic in the past?" Back to that in a moment; first, a recap. Last month, Editor and Publisher ran a concise summary of the highlights. Chronologically: In 1997, Dowd in a column called “Banks for the Memories” described Harrison's book “The Kiss”—-a controversial memoir of her consensual four-year sexual affair with her own father--as an example of a trendy genre: "Creepy people talking about creepy people." Then, this year, the New York Times Book Review allowed Harrison to review Dowd's new book, Are Men Necessary? Harrison slammed the book, saying, among other things, Dowd's skill as a columnist "does not enable her to produce a book-length exploration of a topic as complex as the relations between the sexes." Arianna Huffington subsequently wrote an editorial accusing the NY Times of violating their own ethical bylaws, and the story exploded into the blogosphere. Now, back to the Galley Cat post. The author's opinion seems best summarized in this sentence: . . . it simply isn't very charitable to suggest that an author is incapable of reviewing another author's work without her perspective being colored by personal vendetta. but read the whole post (linked above) and see what you think. He also raises the nasty issue of blog sniping -- in other words, is a reviewer conflicted if he has been reamed in the author's blog? The writer of the Galley Cat post thinks not. I disagree. I suspect this is something that can only be solved on a case-by-case basis. Some critics might be able to give an unbiased review in this circumstance, but I believe it's human nature to hold a grudge. Rising above that prejudice takes considerable effort. I doubt all reviewers are up to that challenge. Perhaps we should give reviewers the benefit of the doubt and assume professionalism on their part, but I don't think editors should make this assumption lightly. If the review seems a trifle too bile-laced, perhaps the editor should ask questions. I'm curious whether any of this matters. What is worse: to get slammed by the New York Times Book Review, or to get ignored by them? A week or two ago, Maureen Dowd appeared on The Colbert Report. She was funny, beautiful, and played well with Stephen Colbert. They hyped her book (twice, I think?) which raises another question: who gets more viewers/readers -- The Colbert Report, or the New York Times Book Review? I suspect Colbert trumps NYTBR, but that's just a hunch. D. Technorati tags: maureen dowd, New York Times Book Review

To my reader in Massachusetts, who found me

2005-12-21T15:38:00.000-08:00

by searching Yahoo for ball squeezing sex play You know, if you want that sort of thing, you need only ask.

***

But not right now. No one's balls are getting squeezed, not even my own. My back aches, I haven't even begun to think about what I'm going to make for dinner tonight, and I'm tired, even though all I've done is

one load of laundry
washed last night's dishes
cleaned the litter box -- AGAIN (what is it about cats? Don't they ever stop?)
threw out several million bags of trash
unpacked one of the remaining moving boxes so that Jake could play Impossible Creatures

I've caught up on all of your blogs, commented on many of them, and haven't even cracked open my manuscript. Here I thought I'd be editing like crazy in my time off. Here's a question: Have any of you NaNoWriMo-ers hit perma-snag with your manuscript? I can't find the motivation to reread it, let alone finish it. I'd like to think this is because I'm so disciplined, I'd rather edit Brakan Correspondent, but see two paragraphs ago. One last thought before I brave the supermarket. Go over to Atrios and take the "Does President Bush deserve to be impeached" MSNBC opinion poll. 89% say yes! Too bad the poll is unscientific. D.

Fun stuff over at Kate's place

2005-12-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

I have to give this one a shout: A Biographical Contest. Kate, you may have my babies any time you want. You too, Maureen. D.

The Saugeen Stripper was good for me. Was she good for you, too?

2005-12-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

The sight of double-vision Elmos bouncing off the Saugeen Stripper's breasts sent my blog counter through the roof this last weekend. I must have tapped into something special: that quintessential sadness of innocence encountering carnality, or perhaps the joy of using nubile breasts as trampolines. Or maybe there really are that many horny guys out there hoping I would provide a link to the video.

Breasts, though: are they ever mesmerizing. My regulars have already read The Sociobiology of Boobage, but you trespassers would do well to follow that link. (Fine cleavage there. You won't be disappointed, and you might even learn something.) I saw my first up-close-and-personal, bare nekkid boobies at Yellowstone National Park, at the concession stand near Old Faithful. A girl in line to buy hot dogs wore something that sort of fell open at the sides. Honestly, I have no idea what she had on. I wasn't looking at what she wore, for heaven's sake. Sure, I'd seen 'em in the movies, and I'd glimpsed a few Playboys over the years. I'd even copped more than a few feels. At recess and lunch in 5th and 6th grade, we played co-ed touch football, and I'm afraid I took the touch part literally. Nowadays, when kindergarteners are counseled on sexual harassment, I suspect I'd be locked up. Back then, I escaped with an angry, "Hoffman, you pervert!" Back to the Saugeen Stripper. If you haven't seen the photos, the most remarkable thing is the blasé expression on the guys' faces. This young, beautiful woman is giving them lap dances, and they look like they're posing for high school football pictures. Unbelievable. But, back to me. I'm not a kiss-and-tell kinda guy, so let's skip over high school. The nicest-looking breasts I saw in college were in my Psych 101 textbook, a black-and-white photo of a woman nursing her infant. I don't think I ever made it past that chapter. Close runner-up for best collegiate boobage: my pack of Asian Beauty playing cards, purchased at a schlocky Chinatown gift shop. And what do I get nowadays? Patient (typically a woman in her sixties or older, someone who has for many decades baked herself medium-well in the Southern California sun -- remember Magda in There's Something About Mary?) : Dr. Hoffman, I have this rash. Then, so fast I have no chance to object, she lifts her sweater and gloop, there they are. I'm an ENT. Ear, nose, and throat. If I was breast, ear, nose, and throat, I'd be BENT. And you all know I'm not BENT. D.