The Author's Corner

Troy: Bending the Past to the Modern Vision

2009-07-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

It's ironic to me that in an age where historical research has achieved a high level of rigor and accuracy, our popular media is rewriting it and watering it down for the general populace. Increasingly we have discovered through painstaking archeology and analysis more of the truth behind cultures that were previously only known through their literature and legacy, and yet at the same time, movies (in particular) take that increased knowledge and bludgeon it into a populist mold, removing a fact here, adding a myth there, sometimes with an almost breathtaking ease that suggests a powerful if subconscious arrogance, not to mention greed. This kind of 'art,' so called, is obviously influenced by what sells, and modern audiences seem to want to see films about people like themselves, even if they are historical or mythological characters quite different in worldview and context.

My comments are occasioned by the film Troy, an over-long and generally rather egregious attempt to put Homer on the screen. I had seen it once before, but it came up on the FX channel and I decided to record it just for fun. I got close, but I couldn't quite finish it. After Hector died and Erica Bana was no longer on screen, it just wasn't worth it anymore. The director of the film was at first planning to cut Helen from the story line, a move which seems very curious to me, since Helen provided the impetus for the whole war in the first place, even if the movie correctly shows that Agamemnon's reasons for war went far beyond the insult to his brother. Even as it stands, of course, Paris does not (in the film) steal Helen from Menelaus because Aphrodite has promised her to him on the condition that he nominate her the fairest of the goddesses, and the reason for this is simple: the director found the contributions of the gods to the story "silly and irrelevant," and so cut them from the plot entirely. I can understand him thinking them silly, from his perspective, but even I, who am no ancient scholar, can assure him that the Greeks did not. And if he takes them to be irrelevant, I begin to doubt that he read the original epic poem. Of course a modern film maker can explain all the actions of the gods in the story as natural phenomena, or simply dismiss the more outlandish-seeming things, like Athena appearing to Achilles to stop him from drawing his sword on Agamemnon in Book 1. But this is tantamount to slapping the ancient Greeks in the face. Disagreeing with their worldview is one thing, but refusing to present it truthfully is another.

The director has the right to make any kind of movie he wants, even if it is a butchery of Greek epic, but that does not stop Troy from being a bad movie. When Brad Pitt leans close to the annoying Briseis, for whom he has developed a love alien to Achilles' take on property and hostages, and tells her that "the gods envy us" because the knowledge of our mortality makes every moment precious, he is the mouthpiece of a 21st-century screenwriter, not a reflection of anything Homeric. The Greek deities were extrapolations from the natural world: the sun, the sky, the wind, the sea. It was a numinal religion, a polytheism based on respect for and fear of nature's power to destroy and heal, grow and wither, bless and curse. They may not have been envied, strictly, since their status was unattainable, and it is hard to envy something you cannot have. But they were certainly revered and idealized, even if they were also given human flaws in order to make them more accessible to their worshippers: more likely, perhaps, to be lenient, swayed by proper sacrifice. Certainly none of the mythologies I've run into indicate the notion of gods envying humans.

The habit of projecting our own cultural mores onto depictions of other cultures is well-ingrained, and I'm sure it isn't going away soon. But it seems to me only fair to any culture to present it as it is. One may present it and then judge it, for good or for bad, but everything should be judged for what it really is, not for what we want it to be. I find it amusing that, when we are often so dreadfully anxious to pay our respects to all present cultures, we cannibalize ancient cultures for the choicest bits, and like dishonest paleontologists, swap out the fossils we don't like for ones that make it look better. Exploding round shot? That looks cool. Ancient battle woad on a 13th-century Scot? Nobody checks up on that stuff anyway. Godless Greeks? Saves on CG, anyway. From costume design to worldview, it's hard to trust historical films to actually be true to history, or even to make an honest attempt at it.

I suppose that some people might argue, who cares if it makes for a fun movie? The people are dead anyway. But, without making any serious attempt to define art, which is a nearly impossible task for people with far more knowledge than I, I would argue that one of the purposes of art is to present truth. It is also, of course, to aim for beauty, for invention, for creativity, and many other things. But painting an utterly false picture of a past worldview strikes me as poor art, as a cheap vision. I believe in respecting the past--not agreeing with everything that was done in the past, but in striving to let their own voices speak, to present the clearest possible picture of what their lives were really like, whether good or bad, strange or familiar. In this way we can be challenged and instructed by those who have come before us, instead of insulting them by assuming that it would be better if they were all like us. For our culture too has many flaws as well as triumphs, and I want men 3000 years from now to look back on us and present us for what we really are: particular men and women in a particular time, who fought our own wars, composed our own music, drove our own vehicles, believed our own creeds, and spoke our own words. I don't think the ancient Greeks deserve less.

P.S. I have David to thank for many of the thoughts in this post. :-)

18 No More

2009-06-20T22:35:00.001-07:00

Well, I had quite a nice birthday here, just a day back from my sojourn in Michigan. In the morning I got to ride my new mountain bike for the first time since the day I received it, got my official high school diploma, and opened my grandparents' graduation card and gift (which consisted of $$, a very generous amount :D). Mom made pancakes and bacon, which was excellent. Then I had a nice long jaw with David in the early afternoon, which inspired me to start writing like a fiend. At about 5:00 I opened presents, which were:

--A splendid pair of brown formal Bostonian shoes from my grandparents.

--Season 1 of Burn Notice (yeah!).

--Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain).

--A promissory note for a bike helmet and bike shorts to ensure a degree of both safety and comfort once I hit the off-road trails.

--And a blue, 16 GB, 4th-generation iPod Nano. My current music could probably be multiplied by four or five before I maxed out that baby, and I have 2.5 days of music from 758 songs on iTunes. I will certainly not lack for the sound of music, at home or in the dorm. :D

I also have a gift en route from my bro. :-)

So for dinner we went to the Orange Counting Mining Company. For one reason or another they were rather backed up and we had to wait a considerable time for a seat, but once we were seated, it was quite a nice dining experience. A salad and soup bar, plus a New York steak with garlic mashed potatoes and root beer, was by no means unwelcome to the palette. :P Then we popped home, watched half of Appaloosa (our fiendish Blockbuster was completely scrubbed of anything having to do with Defiance, so I'll have to pick it up some other time or just get it through Netflix), and had the traditional and awesome chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and Breyer's mint chip ice cream.

And now I offer this to you, my first blog post penned at the age of 19. What an old geezer I've become, eh what?

Back At Last - My Doings, and the Eastern Front

2009-06-16T18:41:00.001-07:00

Well, well, here I am again! I have let that notorious Facebook distract me from this blog for quite some time. But really, Facebook is not ideally suited to lengthy posts: not, at least, with the easy suaveness of a blog. In case there is anyone who has been checking this blog for updates, has no access to my Facebook page, and is not a member of my family, here is a brief summation of my recent life.

On Friday, May 30 (I believe Friday was the 30th, but please correct me if I'm wrong), I graduated high school. Since none of my friends live within an easy distance of Southern California, I expected it to be a pretty saturnine affair, though that didn't bother me. So I was in the perfect mood for a surprise - not looking for big fireworks or expecting a whole army of friends at my door. Lo and behold, I come down to check on the progress of dinner, and my brother is sitting in the backyard! It turns out that my parents flew him down without my knowledge, expressly to celebrate my graduation. Needless to say, that was an extremely pleasant surprise. I also received two books from Robert (Moscow 1941 by Rodric Braithwaite and No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton) and from my parents, a stupendously cool mountain bike. Unfortunately, I have only been able to test-ride it once, but it is clearly built to last and well-engineered: it has good tires, very effective disk brakes, and a sort of paddle shifter like one finds in race cars.

The reason I was unable to try the bike out more than once is because, early the next morning I jetted away from Rancho and travelled, via Houston, to Detroit, and was then shuttled to Hillsdale College. I've been taking a 3-week summer class here, Introduction to Western Religion, which is very fascinating if very jam-packed (we're doing basically a semester of work in that time slot). That ends on Friday, at which I will return home, catch up on my beauty sleep, and then celebrate my birthday on Saturday. Believe it or not, this upcoming year will be my last year as a teen. I remember, about six years ago, just after my thirteenth birthday, when I noted the first story I had ever worked on as an official teenager. It was a goofy comedy I never finished, about a hapless lad who is entrusted with a virtually indestructible toad that proceeds to wreak havoc on everything in sight. My writing has changed a lot since then--I've changed a lot since then--but I'll tell you one thing, my comedies are still goofy. ;-)

So, that's about that for a brief update. There is a second thing I want to mention, and that is my love-hate relationship with my idea for an Eastern Front novel. You see, on the one hand, I love the idea because it has for its setting one of the most gritty, vast, terrifying and cathartic wars of all time, into which I can insert some very interesting characters. It will likely be, if I complete it, a very long novel, and a very intense novel. It deals with a war that saw unprecedented advancements in tank design, weapons development, and military tactics. It cost the Russians and Germans (and Ukranians, Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, etc.) more than 30 million lives--that's the population of California--in just five years. It catapulted Russia into power for the next 40 years. It has every opportunity for battle, intrigue, and tragedy--huge tank battles, brutal house-to-house fighting, aerial combat, months-long sieges, secret police, deserters and informants, partisan warfare, reprisals against civilians, ethnic genocide, and the megalomaniac wills of the two dictators who presided over the whole mess. And in that "mess" we have the ordinary soldiers and civilians reeling before a cataclysm like no other century has witnessed.

BUT, on the other hand, it's very difficult to know how to begin, and considerably more difficult to do the amount of research commensurate with the task. Researching the various aspects of the war and the people involved in it, which to serve in a novel could at least theoretically involve names, clothing and uniforms, weapons, vehicles, geography and place names, cultural icons (heroes, saints, movie stars, writers, etc.), social venues (sporting activities, clubs, cafes, theaters), typical house design, economic conditions, military tactics and strategy, dates, the actual detailed history of battles, troop movements, etc., military structure (squads, platoons, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, armies, fronts), typical military training, partisan warfare and tactics, and some idea of the current layout of at least Stalingrad, Moscow, and Berlin--all this feels rather like trying to fill out a sudoku puzzle on a 1,000 x 1,000 grid. And so this is one of those novels where I want to get at the plot by its horns, but, since it is an historical novel, the barriers are quite tall if I want to aim for a realistic and detailed portrayal.

I guess, like almost anything else, the best way to tackle the problem will be to take it head-on, one little step at a time. :-)

The Fantastic Two--Hellboy and Van Helsing

2009-05-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Note that "fantastic" in that context does not necessarily mean "dude, what a fantastic movie." It means that these movies have elements of the fantastical in them. :-)

We'll start with Hellboy, just because I feel like it. Starring Ron Perlman as a domesticated demon with a cocky attitude and a love for cigars and Red Bull energy drinks, the movie opens with a flashback to 1943. The origin of Hellboy is "explained" as a botched Nazi experimentation with the occult, in which a masked German assassin, a blonde Nazi chick without a shred of character to her credit, and a mysteriously resurrected Rasputin successfully open a portal to...somewhere, wherein they try to free the seven gods of chaos from their crystal prison, which has apparently been orbiting the earth all this time. These seven gods actually look more like PotC's Kraken created on a tighter budget, as they all have tentacles for some reason, but we'll let that slid for now.

So instead of these tentacled chaos gods popping through the portal as planned, a little baby boy demon comes through, is adopted by a company of G.I.'s and pacifist Catholic professor, and grows up sixty years later into Ron Perlman with prosthetics. Professor chap is now fixing to biff off to the other life within a few years, so he recruits a soppy FBI agent named Meyers to become Hellboy's new liaison. In the secret, underground government building where Hellboy lives, Meyers discovers not only the demon, but also a mutated semi-aquatic gentleman by the name of Abe (so-named because he was discovered on the day of Lincoln's assassination) and, later, a chick with pyrotechnic abilities who is Hellboy's true love, though she is unsure of whether she reciprocates the feeling.

So basically we have the X-Men, except not as many of them and with less cool powers. All of them are rather pathetic at fighting: Hellboy spends most of the movie getting the crap beaten out of him by the movie's mass-manufactured antagonist, a very odd quadrupedal-amphibian-thing that looks a bit like a mixture of Davy Jones, the alien from Alien, and an iguana, and which is known as the "Hound of the Resurrection" because it can, well, come back to life. In the mix we also have all the prologue figures: the Nazi assassin, Rasputin (why??) and his blonde-haired Nazi sidekick/lover, who once again has basically no role in the film.

The film did have its decent points, the best of which would be Hellboy's character, which was slightly less superficial than the supporting cast's, but even then his moral choice at the climax of the film was about as hard and complicated as choosing between chocolate cake and carrot cake for one's birthday. A character also manages to have her soul sucked out of her and then pop back to life twenty minutes later at the simple behest of another person, still seemingly be-souled. I wasn't quite clear on how that was supposed to work.

The cinematography was decent, the soundtrack I don't remember, and the character development virtually nonexistent. No one has much of a character even to begin with, so developing it would be a problem in any case. There are some occasional, generalized references to Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, but the movie is also philosophically pretty hollow, and the provocative idea of a righteous demon is not really explored in the kind of serious detail that might make for a very thoughtful action film. I give it a 4 out of 10.

Next we move to Van Helsing, a giant set-piece film that basically plops Hugh Jackman into the heart of every scrap of Eastern European horror-folklore that Bram Stoker and his rabid imitators ever dug up. Call me a Philistian fiend, I enjoyed watching most of it, but it was an extremely predictable film relying excessively on digital effects and rehashed Transylvanian legends watered down and made "cooler" for the benefit of a 21st century audience. Hugh Jackman plays Gabriel Van Helsing, a man evidently some four or five hundred years old despite looking to be in his mid-thirties and possessing no supernatural powers (how this was supposed to work I don't know, but Dracula claimed Van Helsing was the one who murdered him when he was still among the living, and that was four hundred years prior to the events of the film). The movie contains an improbable number of fantastical creatures, including Mr. Hyde--an immense troll-like creature for no reason whatsoever--the Frankenstein monster, a compendium of werewolves, a trio of vampire women, Dracula himself, and their immense brood, which are twice awakened only to promptly die about ten to twenty minutes later by some act of Van Helsing's heroism.

Van Helsing is a kind of anti-spiritual darkness knight working for a watchdog branch of the Vatican whose very existence remains a secret. He gets sent to Transylvania because: four hundred years earlier, the patriarch of some family there, I believe the Valerians or some such like, swore an oath that he and his descendants would never enter heaven until he had slain Dracula, and the Valerians are now down to two, a brother-sister duo who divide their time between fighting savage creatures and trying to look sexy. If these siblings are offed, then the entire family line for sixteen generations is looking at a one-way ticket to purgatory with no probation. It seems a silly oath, you know, on a par with Herod's promise to Salome and Jephthah's to God, but this film couldn't really bear the weight of its own backstory anyway.

Accompanied by David Wenham in a pathetic role as a simpering friar/scientific genius, Van Helsing takes his hideously anachronistic weapons cache with him to Romania. This weapons cache bears some mention. This film is supposed to take place in the late 1880s, yet VH owns contraptions that the technology to operate probably didn't exist until the 1950s or later, including a gas-powered fully automatic crossbow and a pair of spinning blades like circular saws, which apparently have some miniaturized on-board coal burning facility, because I don't think batteries were really around in any compressed or marketable form until at least the 1920s. And as for a gas-powered crossbow--hello? The first machine gun came out in 1881, so I really don't think Van Helsing could have gotten a hold of the technology to fire miniature bolts out of a rotating drum on a machine-bow.

Anyway, end of my weapons complaint. VH shows up in Transylvania, where after facing the inveterate populace and conducting a frosty conversation with the Valerian sister (overplayed by Kate Beckinsale), he deals with a triple vampire attack, slaying one with a crossbow bolt dipped in holy water. Beckinsale, who was completely trounced in the fight and would have almost assuredly died without VH's intervention, nevertheless still resents his coming, even though the most casual viewer can tell that she is completely worthless for the task at hand. From there the characters slog their way through a variety of dangers, spared countless times by the irresistible temptation all the bad creatures have to gloat, make speeches, and/or growl triumphantly over the good guys before finishing them off. Beckinsale's character, as a matter of fact, opines to a vampiress just after stabbing her through the heart with a stake, "next time, don't waste time talking to some one before you kill them"--a bit of advice that sounds almost self-apologetic in a movie like this one, and should probably have been written on a card and distributed to the entire cast and crew during pre-production.

Unconvincing, bloated with CG, and placing characters who make the average brick wall seem alive with development and growth into random dangerous situations, Van Helsing suffers acutely from the many banes and fevers of the Hollywood fantasy action film (or shall I say, the Hollywood film, period). As another reviewer commented elsewhere, Jackman does okay with his part, he just doesn't have much of one. Beckinsale's character is there purely to be female and curvaceous and kind of sassy and go around wielding a sword and then utterly fail to actually be of any use except by sheer luck. The film also makes some vague nods to the Catholicism more or less inherent in the Dracula story (crucifices, the sign of the cross, holy water, etc.) but generally ends up mocking religious faith more than honoring it: David Wenham's silly character excuses both cursing and fornication by pleading that he is "just a friar" as opposed to a full-fledged monk, which is completely ridiculous and rather offensive. Despite the fact that I generally had fun watching it, I'll give Van Helsing a 3 out of 10.

I'll be reviewing X-Men Origins: Wolverine in a tad, and, God willing, get these bally things, as well as the many other reviews of both mine and David's making, on Tolle Lege before the world ends, at least. :-)

Pace Yourself, Connor: Or, Cross-Novelistic Similarities (and fight scenes)

2009-03-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

Using a bit of crude math off the top of my head, I discovered a curious thing today. I have been working on Faceless for approximately three months (I began it not long after the first of the year). It is almost fifty pages long.

The writing of Kiriana took me just a little under two years. It is approximately four hundred pages long.

The ghost of John Saxon spurring me on, I did a little calculating. Multiply three months (Faceless) by eight, and you get 24 months, or two years (Kiriana). Multiply fifty pages (Faceless) by eight, and you get 400 (Kiriana!).

I guess just a hair over sixteen pages a month about does it for me. :D Not that I wouldn't mind writing faster...now that I know this, it's a statistic just waiting to be beat, don't you think? I mean, come on, twenty pages a month? Not really beyond my grasp if I set myself to it.

I have had in mind for a little while now a fight scene (Faceless-related) that I would guess most of Hollywood would not like. Without revealing too much, here's why: I want this scene to emulate physical realities pretty closely. You see, at least to my fairly limited and theoretical knowledge of combat, even movies like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Ultimatum that profess to be "gritty" and "realistic" and "bone-crunching" don't really show you what a fight between even trained professionals would probably look like. First of all, to my knowledge, most punches don't sound like thwump-thwump-thwump, whizz, ker-thwack! Not only do most filmmakers add in punch-noises, which probably aren't really punch-noises, they also add in whizzing air, as if every punch were supersonic or something. Well, maybe in the Matrix they're supposed to be. You free your mind and suddenly Mach 3 kicks are within your capabilities. Not to mention having your back break concrete walls, instead of the other way around. But anyway. It's charming and all to have the hero be punched in the face, shot in the stomach, kneed in the groin, speared in the foot, gored in the shoulder, thrown from a cliff, and have his head repeatedly concussed against a brick wall, and then spit out the old tooth, wipe his mouth, get a determined expression, and somehow destroy the villain with ONE kick. But in real life even the toughest hero would probably just sink down and bleed to death. And then the "minor" punches--like the kind that would break my rib or yours--just make the hero take a step back, which is probably necessary anyway to maintain the choreographed beat of the fight.

I'm not averse to these kind of fights on all levels. In fact they're pretty interesting to watch, though at some point they can all begin to look alike (as the chorus goes haia-ho, haia-ho, hai-a! in the background). Also, I'm writing a book, not making a movie. Even so, I have taken a fancy to wondering what would happen if an actual person in the real world, say, had a bottle smashed over his head or got kicked really hard in the stomach by a chap who knew his way around fighting. I've gotten it into my head, for one reason or another, that fighting is hard, and usually makes you sweat, and bleed, and tire out quickly. That it can take eight or more shots to kill someone, and that this actually applies to villains as well as heroes. That, in a situation of more or less equal training and conditioning, a man will probably beat a woman in a straight fight. That the participants of a fight aren't thinking about being cool, but about not waking up in a morgue the next morning.

Keanu Reeves, Angelina Jolie, and Wesley Snipes will probably faint in horror if they ever read it, but that's okay. I'll just direct them to Kiriana, which does have a level of super-combat in it.
:-D

For what it's worth, I actually enjoy this scene. But it's also ridiculously unrealistic, and includes things like stopping a falchion with one's bare hands. ;-)

Oh, and at the end of the week I will be trotting off to Texico to visit the bro, which rhymes, at least sometimes. :D I am very much looking forward to it, and would appreciate your prayers for a bonny, convivial, turbulence-free flight.

Lithesome Protagonists and Goggling Extras

2009-03-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Sorry for not having updated in a rather long time, but I haven't been able to either think of or work up the gumption for a suitable post. I suppose I'll just make this one broad of topic and treat on some of the various happenings of mea vita. :-)

I've found miles of walking trails that can be walked to from my house. My longest hike so far has been about 3 hours and I haven't exhausted any trail system yet. Despite the signs warning of cougars and rattlesnakes, I have so far only seen a bucketload of rabbits, a few squirrels, a bunch of raptors that might be golden eagles (though I wouldn't know the first thing about bird identification of that precision) and a positive ubiquity of fuzzy caterpillars. I'd like to think the cougars wouldn't dare mess with me, but I suspect they're just aloof and shy by nature like any predatory animal. ;-) My three hour hike, by the way, thanked me for my pains with a ripping good case of sunburn that makes me look a bit like a roasted beet.

I watched the movie Godzilla yesterday: the 1998 Roland Emmerich remake. I shall be sure to review it on Tolle, as soon as revitalize the bally thing (sorry David!), but I'll make some comments on it here as well, just for fun. :D

Godzilla him- (or is it her?) self looks like a dork. If you've ever imagined a 500 ft. iguana with skinny legs and Stegosaurus plates, a sort of upside-down rectangular snout, and the intermittent-only-when-it's-convenient-for-Roland-Emmerich ability to breath fire, then you may have imagined something extremely similar to the nuclear lizard. The plot is so basic I may be able to sum it up in one sentence. Let's see: French nuclear tests in the French Polynesian Islands mutate a hitherto undiscovered dinosaur into a vast and virtually impregnable monster which swims around destroying fishing boats in search of its coveted food, and eventually ends up in New York, where it whallops the crap out of the Big Apple, performs a broad series of improbable actions which touch the lives of flat and silly characters, and lays about a billion young in Madison Square Garden.

Matthew Broderick takes about fifteen steps down from his hilarious role as Ferris Bueler to portray Niko Satopolos, or something like that, a former anti-nuclear activist now trying to effect "real change" by working on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission studying the effect of radiation on existing species. Somehow the filmmakers have managed to invent a job position perfectly suited to studying mutant monsters. Yeah.... Anyway, this cove exists primarily to chew up and spit out improbable pronouncements like "we're looking an incipient creature. The dawn of a new species. The first of its kind." Woo-hoo. His egregious ex-girlfriend, who becomes his current-girlfriend by the end of the film, is blond and shows it. After stupidly, predictably stealing a VHS tape from the military labelled TOP SECRET in order to get a one-up on her snotty boss and prove she can be a real reporter, she makes Broderick mad because her actions have ended up in getting him kicked off the team, because everyone thinks he leaked the information. Duh! She then performs one of the most fake sobbing sessions I've ever seen, one that might make Mel Gibson into the greatest tragedian of all time.

Roger Ebert quite sensibly pointed out some, er, aberrations between the laws of physics and the actual behavior of Godzilla. I'd like to point some out too, which may overlap with his list.

How does it remain underwater for hours without gills?
How do suspension cables on a bridge trap it in place when it can literally blast Godzilla-sized holes in steel skyscrapers and crush tanks like paper cups?
It can breathe fire in such a way as to blow up three or four cars at a time. The creature is also smart enough to evade and then lay a trap for a flight of three attack helicopters and lead a torpedo back toward the submarine that fired it. Nevertheless, when it has a carload of main characters trapped in a tunnel, it never even occurs to it to simply roast and incinerate the whole shebang and leave all four main characters as barbecued ash. It also never occurs to it to use this fire-breathing capacity against the military, even though this would probably be four times more effective than just stomping.
In one of the most improbable actions scenes in the film, why does it hold a flippin' taxi in its mouth for five minutes and give Broderick enough time to electrocute its mouth? It would be as easy as pie for a creature of that size to just EAT the taxi. Presumably a nuclear digestive system could take care of the metal parts--or maybe that's how it would die. I don't know, just don't hold it there like a dork because it has main characters inside!

Finally we must turn to the question of the Iuvenes Godzillae, the terrifying and monstrous Godzilla Juvenile Brigade! Now, Godzilla is big, but unless it had a womb the size of Central Park, I don't see how it could have laid several hundred 8-foot tall eggs in small clusters all around the bottom level of Madison Square Garden. Be that as it may, the movie tells us it did. Now, I fully realize that many animal babies are born far less dependent than any human baby, but nevertheless, gimme a break. The Godzilla-lets are 9 feet tall, agile, intelligent, buffed, and fully ready and capable to ingest a human at one minute old. It was hilariously obvious that this scene was copied by rote from the Velociraptor set-pieces in the two Jurassic Park films made prior to Godzilla. We have a Iuvenus Godzillus tap a door with its forehead in exploratory fashion, which swings out a bit and then swings back to bump it in the forehead; now convinced of the door's facility at swinging open, the beast gives it a hearty shove and stalks into the room. I happen to have seen the first Jurassic Park film a number of times, and I can assure you that when Timmy and Lex run into the kitchen toward the end of the film, one of the velociraptors does the exact same thing. There's even a scene of one plastering its face against a small glass window in a door, going eye-to-eye with a main character, which unsurprisingly also happens in Jurassic Park a couple minutes after the above-mentioned scene. Broderick manages to trip up about a half dozen of these creatures with basketballs and Jawbreaker candies, which is kind of funny in its own right.

But here's the deal. Something that permeated the whole film. When a monster wants to eat an extra, its physical prowess is in top form. Its bites have consistent and lethal accuracy. Its leaps are fantastically high, its intelligence works in some kind of predatorial hyper-mode that cancels out every attempt of human ingenuity to avoid being eaten. Come to think of it, though, it just as often poses for the camera in front of the extra while that extra goggles at it in impotent horror, and THEN it goes in for the kill. But when a monster wants to eat a protagonist, it is suddenly all bark and no bite. Its appearance of savagery and hunting capability trebles, but its actual success rate falls to about .0001%. As mentioned above, Godzilla takes about three minutes trying to decide whether to crunch a cab full of main characters when it had no compunction about chomping down on a HELICOPTER hard enough to make it explode earlier in the film. As for the juveniles, if they want to kill an expendable French dude (the French secret service is involved in this film, don't ask), they just bust through a door, slam into him, and start feasting. If they want to kill Matthew Broderick, he just can just go "whoah!" and kind of suck in his stomach, and their jaws will clamp shut on the empty air where his acrobatic navel was a millisecond before. These characters literally dart through crowds of these monsters, supposedly crowding them together in such confusion that they can't really be bitten. But even if these 'little' guys weren't pack-hunters by nature it doesn't take that much effort to just rip somebody's arm off when you're nine feet of sauropod ferocity.

Well. I had fun with that. There are other things I could mention about the film, but I'll leave it be for now. :P

I have some cool things coming up. In just a couple weeks I'll be off to Texas to visit Robert in his natural habitat. :-P A few days after that, David will be coming down here to visit. About a month after that, I'll probably be visiting the Deckers. Roughly two weeks after that, I'll be taking a summer class at Hillsdale. A month after that, I'll be in Italy. A month after that, I'll be back at Hillsdale for freshman year. Yipes! :D

Cheerio, peeps!

~Connor

Woot!

2009-03-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

After the Long Wait, so long that I had a good while since forgotten to even worry about it, I discovered today that I'm a National Merit Finalist. Sweet!

I also translated a small bit of the Domesday Book today, which was pretty cool for historical and nerdy value, but which intrinsically was actually quite boring. "This property had blah-de-blah ploughs, so many villeins, and their woodland was such and such. Oh, and then this property had blah-de-blah ploughs..." And so on for about five paragraphs. Tomorrow I'm starting on Pope Urban II's speech that sparked the First Crusade, though, so that ought to be more interesting.

Oh, yeah, and I finished Kiriana. :D 418 pages, although editing may either lengthen or shrink it slightly (depending on whether winnowing the chaff or patching the gaps ultimately wins out).

Summering the Winter Away in Rancho

2009-02-26T22:06:00.001-08:00

Tonight will be my third night down south, and life has been good. I'm settling in quite easily, I think (having already been here twice made it even easier, I'm sure). School has been going pretty well, so has writing. Change of place used to throw me off my game a bit, but that doesn't seem to be at all true here. I certainly don't mind the change!

The weather is beautiful here. It's been around 65-70 degrees, mostly clear and sunny with a few white clouds hither and thither. Somehow the whole atmosphere here seems very conducive to physical fitness, and as I had already planned to get my exercise back on track here, things look promising for my oft-neglected musculature. I won't be satisfied until I can say in a month or so that I've lived up to it, though.

I took a walk today. It was a really long one, long enough to leave me a bit pooped out by the end, but it was very worth it. I got to go through some very nice neighborhoods and make a circuit around Lago Santa Margarita, a nice little lake and evidently something of a social hotspot. I wisely took a camera, and here are some of the results:

The little neighborhood path that runs behind our house (complete with chin-up and bar-dip bars along the way!)

From what I can tell, a fairly typical Rancho street.

My cool sun shot. :)

I betcha I won't see too many of these around Hillsdale!

Rancho is surrounded by some bold hills; as you can see here, this one was doing something of a "Battle in the Clouds" effect during my walk, although I didn't see Hooker's corps.

Lago Santa Margarita.

And the other end of it...

And now looking along the shore (I think the eastern shore, given that the sun was setting at the time) toward the end shown in the first shot.

Pretty cool, huh? I've also been having fun starting on the pirate books David lent me (thanks!) and learning all about buccaneers, filibusters, privateers, and the whole scurvy lot of 'em. Oh, and I'm finally working in earnest on the last chapter of Kiriana. So much for my "end of January" predictions, but such rules are made to be broken. Or at least we tardy authors had better hope they are! :P

Cheerio, all.

Possible Faceless Theme

2009-02-19T13:41:00.000-08:00

This song is really beautiful, and I like the lyrics as well. I think it might make a good main theme for Faceless. Listen to it with the sound up a bit; it really opens up at the end. :-)

Not bad for a senior in high school.

2009-02-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

I'm of the age where old Corollas and Toyota Matrices are a good deal. When I get my own car it's not going to be anything fancy (or even respectably professional) until and if my authorial ship comes in and I'm not, for example, paying tribute into the collegiate coffers. I have, however, had the chance to drive some fancy cars since I started putting the pedal to the metal. I learned on Dad's car, a very fine and businesslike Toyota Avalon. Today, in the process of moving a truckload (literally) of books out of the house--more on that later--I got to take the tiller of this monster:

The Cadillac Escalade, to be precise. It's not exactly a lean mean fighting machine, being what one might call a gentleman's SUV, but it had a bit of a growl when one punched it up and was surprisingly lithe compared to what one might expect (or at least what I expected). I felt like I was driving a bus, though. I haven't looked down on the roofs of so many sedans for a long while. Anyway, I doubt it's the kind of car I'd ever want for myself (especially since its base price is slightly above $50,000), but it was corking good fun to drive. :D

Important Happenings

2009-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I believe it fair to say that I officially began Faceless, my latest novel project. I provisionally started it in January, but I found my opening page lifeless and scrapped it for the new prologue, which I find considerably more interesting. This novel is concerned with the life and times of an intriguing Japanese-American secret agent with a very special ability, and if God blesses the writing of it, it promises to be an extremely enjoyable (and perhaps in some ways slightly challenging) story to write. Right now I'm going to estimate its length at 300-350 pages, but that is about as an exact science as predicting how far the barometric pressure will fall tomorrow. (Doubtless there is someone out there who could predict that with relative accuracy, but I couldn't, and thus the analogy holds.) I've been deliberately cultivating a different tone and feel for this story, and so far I've been quite pleased with the result. I would say that I'm somewhat influenced by Cormac McCarthy, at least in some respects: for instance, gutting a lot of sentences of commas to give them a kind of spare and hard-edged force. Commas tend to soften things, I think. Periods or simply nothing harden. So far those who have heard the prologue have been confused as to what's going on, which I also consider a success, as that was my intent. :-)

On a different subject, I think it's time I sum this up on my blog, as I realized I have been giving this news out rather piecemeal. By the end of this month I shall have moved to Southern California, which will be my permanent residence until the end of August, at which time I shall drive two-thirds of the way across the country and live in Michigan for most of the year (but it is to So Cal that I shall return for breaks, though not exclusively, as I plan to revisit Oregon fairly often, to see my grandparents and keep contact with the Deckers and my very dear church). This is a general note, therefore, that after the beginning of March anyone combing the Northwest for my whereabouts is going to have a big headache and no Connor Hamilton by the end of the day. ;-) I do find it rather amusing that the county in which I'll be living is more than three-quarters the size of my home state. But California has no Columbia Gorge, no Mt. Hood, no proper winters, none of Portland's quaintness. I'm going to miss old Ore while I'm away--after all, I've never been out of the state for more than two weeks at a time for 18 years, as I can recall.

Although I have no idea where I'm going to end up after college, I do imagine I would fancy living in the Northwest again, so it's quite possible that in five or six years I'll be back where I started. We'll just have to trust God and see. :-)

Oh, I should also note that, God willing, I am now officially going to Italy this summer. :D Destinations: Rome, Pisa, Florence, Pompeii. Duration: 12 days. I'm not specifically very excited right now, oddly enough, but I imagine that as the summer draws closer that will change.

And now, I'd best go work some more on Faceless. Valete!

Ha!

2009-02-05T11:27:00.000-08:00

Kiriana has now reached 400 pages! In Merkhatin, one very enjoyable journey is about to end...in the streets of Washington D.C. and Tokyo, another is about to begin. :D

"Amusing, but pointless," as Ducard would say

2009-01-30T22:27:00.000-08:00

I can't say that this little quiz really advances world peace (or even whirled peas) at all, except that it may produce a good laugh, which is not usually a bad thing. :-) So, here goes...(the second to last one is the best! Ha!)

Rules:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, ipod,etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY? "Una Vela! Una Vela!"

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF? "Venus, The Bringer Of Peace"

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? "Cour D'Amours: Stetit Puella"

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? "Benedictus"

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? "Gente La Dentro!"

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO? "King Katchei's Infernal Dance"

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? "Fratres"

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? "A terra...si...nel livido fango"

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? "Prelude No. 4 in E Minor (Largo)"

WHAT IS 2 + 2? "Nocturne #20 in C Sharp Minor"

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? "Uranus, The Magician"

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? "Track 07"

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? "Ashes to Ashes"

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? "Introduce a Little Anarchy"

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? "Sequentia: Recordare, Jesu Pie"

Pseudo-Amazonic

2009-01-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

This scene, from the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, besides being cool in itself, is probably also the closest scene in setup and concept to an Amazonic duel that I've run across. The whole Chinese mystique is different, obviously, and their fighting style (or perhaps I should say the filming and editing style) rather different than what I would envision for the Amazoni, which is only to be expected. However, two women going at it hammer and tongs in a flat enclosed space with a rack of weapons to choose from is still a rather similar concept.

Interesting that I've never seen the film, nor had I stumbled across this clip until just yesterday.

Elana could have lifted that big battle-axe no problem, though. ;-)

Some Dates!

2009-01-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

God willing, these are some of the things I have to look forward to this year. :-D

End of January: I finish Kiriana.

February 2: I watch Groundhog Day.

April 1: I pull the biggest fast one on all my friends by not fooling anyone.

Late May: I finish high school. 0_o

June 20: I turn 19. (??!!!?!!?)

July 12: God willing and my essays impress, I begin a twelve-day sojourn in Italy, of all the awesome places.

Late August: I drive 2300 miles, do a doughnut on College St., and take a flying leap into my dorm to begin matriculation at Hillsdale College.

And of course after that, we assume, I'll be working my tail off most days. :)

Family, friends, and--band saws? :-)

2009-01-15T08:52:00.000-08:00

Last week I was able to bum around in California for 8 days, during which a lot of fun things happened. Some of the highlights include hanging out with Mom and Robert; seeing a very curious play called You, Nero; shopping at America's third largest shopping mall, the South Coast Plaza Shopping Center, and getting Walk the Line and a dandy sweater thereat; discovering that I could watch the latest Sarah Connor Chronicles online; and hanging out with the 'staffes in central California on my way back, which included a very large number of fun things, including a burst of Kirianic creativity, multiplicitous conversations, soccer, frisbee, bocce ball, and two visits to their family and friends. 'Twas a good trip whose main flaw was insufficient length. :-)

For the record, Kiriana is probably 2-3 chapters from completion. *pause* That's pretty awesome, now that I think about it. :D

As for the band saw part, my grandpa taught me some of the basics of using one yesterday, and it was quite fun. I cut up a nice pile of sticks and branches for future use as kindling, and lost no digits or limbs in the process, so I consider it a success. I am to learn some more of its complex secrets before long, and eventually, a variety of other skills related to woodworking, electricity, plumbing, and car maintenance. I'm hopeful that by the time I have my own house, I won't have to scratch my head and immediately call somebody if a light fixture goes out, or some such like. ;-)

By the way, as an afterthought, I think a movie of Kiriana would be rated R simply for body count, letting alone the actual level of violence. (Actually maybe not, considering that the Lord of the Rings body count is probably 500,000.) But still, I was writing a scene where the question of how many people my protagonist and her most potent ally have killed was raised--and it's a lot. A number that seems to be rivaled only by the number of individual wounds these characters have received in the process. :P

Cheerio!

2009-01-01T00:09:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, folks! Here's to a fine 2009. Keep safe if you have to be out on the roads tonight. God bless you all! :-)

2008-12-29T22:56:00.000-08:00

What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? Apply to college; drive above 10 mph; go to an attorney's office (a lot!); watch a Blu-ray movie; call 911.

Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Didn't make none as I recall. I think I have a couple general resolutions for this coming year, which is more than zero, so I suppose that's a yes.

Did anyone close to you give birth? A number of people at my church gave birth. They're close to me as members of the same church body, but I'm not really close friends with any of them. Most of my close friends aren't married yet, though I suspect that in another three to five years I could be seeing a "wave a' babies!". ;-)

Did anyone close to you die? Sadly, yes.

What countries did you visit? California could easily declare itself a country, but I visited no officially recognized nation-state beyond the borders of the U.S.A.

What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? 1/8 of a college education, a trip to the Mediterranean, more books, more muscle, more knowledge. :P

What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? November 16th, the day my father passed away.

What was your biggest achievement of the year? Probably getting accepted to Hillsdale, or successfully taking the SAT, or getting my driver's license.

What was your biggest failure? The first thing that comes to mind is having some big laziness problems as per schoolwork. :-)

Did you suffer illness or injury? If that was earlier this year...hm. I had a pretty atrocious case of pink eye a while back, but that may have been more than a year ago. As you can tell, no flesh-eating disease or anything.

What was the best thing you bought? That I bought personally? Oh boy...I don't know! Probably some book.

Where did most of your money go? My total earnings weren't that significant, as I am not gainfully employed, but most went either to the purchase of various media (books, CDs, movies) or to my bank account.

What did you get really, really, really excited about? Going to Hillsdale, Robert coming home, seeing Mom, hanging out with the Deckers.

What song will always remind you of 2008? I don't know. Songs don't typically remind me of years. Maybe "American Made" by George Thorogood, as I bought one of his CDs this year and that is one of my favorite songs from it.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

Thinner or fatter? Oh, I may have put on a touch of weight, though it wouldn't be very significant.

Richer or poorer? Richer.

What do you wish you'd done more of? School, writing, praying, Bible-reading, hanging out with Robert and Mom, exercising.

What do you wish you'd done less of? Slacking off, sorting through bills and insurance documents, going to the attorney's office, walking on slick ice.

How will you be spending/have you spent Christmas? Opening gifts and eating Christmas dinner with my family.

Did you fall in love in 2008? Yes. Her name is Tsukiko Takahashi and she's 41, a secret agent, and fictional. It's not a romantic sort of love, but the benevolent love of an author for a character who makes him happy. :-)

What was your favorite TV program? Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and House, M.D. Yes, I can cheat and name two.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Nope...I can't say that I hate anyone at all currently, and I hope to keep things that way. I have a newfound appreciation for several people, though.

What was the best book you read? Well, I think the one I enjoyed the most was Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-45. But then there's also The Fall of Berlin 1945, and So Brave, Young, and Handsome, and probably some other literature I'm not thinking of.

What was your greatest musical discovery? I discovered that I liked George Thorogood.

What did you want and get? The first season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles; a cool sweater; Black Hawk Down and its soundtrack; The Combat Leader's Field Guide; a sound system that docks an ipod; a Macbook; .22 ammunition.

What did you want and not get? A Taurus 24/7 compact .40 pistol; an Audi A8; $1,000,000; a sarkan; a chance to visit some friends.

What was your favorite film of this year? Well, I think I might choose The Dark Knight with David, but I also greatly enjoyed Walk the Line, Serenity, and some others.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was the big 18. I went to Sweet Tomatoes and opened some presents, and a day or so later bought some ammunition unaccompanied. :)

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Being a more faithful, righteous, and courageous servant of God.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? I'm not sure what language to use to describe a fashion concept. How about this: neat and tidy, occasionally dapper but not ostentatious.

What kept you sane? God, of course. And through him, family, friends, long phone conversations, hanging out and playing pool, those walks with Dad, and my great church body. Of course, as David said, I never felt in real danger of going insane, especially since I doubt that truly insane people really think of themselves as such. But the above things fortified my spirits.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Summer Glau.

What political issue stirred you the most? I guess the issue of abortion stirred me the most this year. I found or was recommended a website that really raised my hackles about it. Otherwise I have been interested but not hugely stirred by the political landscape.

Who did you miss? Tack an M onto that incorrect nominative pronoun and maybe I'll answer. Thank you. Robert and Mom.

Who was the best new person you met? I can't say, really. Perhaps the couple I met at a church family's house.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Life can change in an instant in dramatic ways. Put your trust in God and not in earthly things. However much you come to hang on the temporal things you love, they have neither the permanence nor the perfection necessary to bear that weight. Depend on Christ, and all the rest will be in its proper place. Even the worst experiences can make you a better person, and God really can work all things for good. Don't shun responsibility, because you never know when it may be thrust upon you. Stick your neck out. Be confident. Learn from your mistakes. Oh, and don't get tire chains hung up on your brakes! It's a pain. Trust me on this one. :D

2008-12-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! May your meditation and your celebrations be blessed as we commemorate the day the Word became flesh.

EDIT: From my gracious parents, grandparents, uncle, and aunt, I received the following:

--A fine Italian sweater with a rectangular decorative pattern in autumnal colors
--Gift cards to Barnes and Noble and Borders, my two favorite stores :D
--Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - The Complete First Season :)
--And the iHome, a bluetooth enabled ipod dock/alarm clock/radio/speakerphone: a compact little unit with good sound that will be perfect for a college dorm. And oh, hm, guess what? That's where I'm going to be living in 8 months. ;-)

Thanks to my awesome family! And never forget why we give gifts today.

Check out the views!

2008-12-14T01:41:00.000-08:00

Out in front; that's the tail end of my car blanketed in the white stuff on the right there.

Grandpa's garden in the back.

The back porch.

The garden shed.

Beautiful out there, isn't it? I just can't drive anywhere for, it looks like, most of this week. According to weather.com it's currently 29, feels like 19, and the real temperature is going to drop over the next few days. And we're apparently looking to get another snow storm on Wedesday! Other than missing church, though, I don't think I'm going to miss anything else important or tantalizing. Meanwhile, I'm just going to enjoy the severe weather--but please be sure to pray for anyone who has to make a commute or who may get stuck out in the cold without a warm house.

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

2008-12-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, what? Yes. Pardon the evil cackle. It's just that I solved another big piece of the Kirianic puzzle, one that may carry us to the very end. And that makes me happy--but work first, work first. Gregory of Tours awaits. :D

On the Grid Again

2008-12-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

We had a good Thanksgiving here--just finished up the last of the leftover turkey yesterday, in fact; it was a 22 lb. bruiser--and so far life has been progressing well. If anyone who reads this didn't hear from some other source, I have been admitted to Hillsdale College, my hands-down top choice, on a 1/2 tuition scholarship. That makes me exceeding happy. :D

I'm also finding the Venerable Bede a bit tricky to translate in spots, but that's ok. He can be that way. He'll just see if I care.

It's getting cold, finally: Grandpa estimated it was around 28 last night and I had to put de-icer on "my" car (Dad's leased car, which we'll be turning in, in anticipation of whatever car I do end up owning). For some time the weather has been unusually mild for November-December, and I'm ready for it to get cold for good until April. It should be nice and bracing for my walks, which because of the steep hills in this area will be deathly to calories.

Lastly, I've inherited a Motorola Razr from mea mater, which I've been very much enjoying. It's of a bold dark red in hue, and, to me the most fun part, I got it to play a theme from The Dark Knight soundtrack whenever someone calls me. So call me, ja? :D

Driving Test

2008-11-25T00:27:00.000-08:00

EDIT: I passed!!!

Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers: I was very blessed to see so many comments on my last post. I'm doing all right. As of now the strangest thing is how much my life has changed, by which I mean location, routines, future, all of that.

Perhaps at some point I'll update at greater length, if I feel it's right. Right now, though, I'd just like you all to pray for something considerably less important, but still of some significance, if you think of it. I'm taking my driver's test tomorrow in the hopes of obtaining my license. As long as I don't bomb out on the test, which I don't anticipate, I shall have the privilege of full Class C driving rights in just a little over 24 hours. :-)

Please Pray

2008-11-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

I don't think there's any way to say this except straight out. My dear father passed away this morning, apparently from a heart attack. Right now I'm just stunned. My family and I, of course, need your prayers greatly. I can't really give any more updates now, because this happened seven hours ago...again, please pray for us all. I can't even begin to imagine the impact of this loss yet.

Classical Festival

2008-11-11T17:49:00.001-08:00

Hey friends! I just wanted to post and say that my classical festival went pretty well, and I got an Honorable Mention, which makes me happy. :-) I also got to have a short little master class on my piece afterward.

I voted! And other matters.

2008-11-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

My sincere thanks to all the dear friends and ClassEd aunts who have been praying for the success of the Reformation Play. It went quite well, and everyone at church seemed to enjoy it greatly. No one forgot any lines, no one seemed especially nervous, and everything came off as planned. So, thank you! :-) A few people took cast photos, and I'm going to see if I can get a hold of those.

I would rather not post the manuscript on my blog publicly, so here's an idea: why don't you e-mail me if you'd like to read it? (merawin -at- gmail -dot- com.) That should be an easy solution without exposing my work to the vagaries of potentially unscrupulous internet prowlers. :D

And, on different subject, I voted yesterday! I'm not sure if I'll tip Oregon over the edge and make it a red state, but it's still an important and satisfying responsibility to exercise. Maybe I'll at least help defeat the various measures that would slather more than $400 million dollars in extra taxes on our county--for an arts center, our community college, and our zoo, my left foot! I ask you!

N.T.W.R.

That's my motto.

No Taxation Without Representation. And here's news for you, local government: I'm representing that I don't want to get taxed more for silly stuff. Got it? :P

I'll try to update afore long with some more of the happenings of my life, including long-delayed pictures from the trip my dad and I took to central Oregon in early September.

Cheerio!

Greetings, Hail, 'Sup, and Guten Tag.

2008-10-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

I suppose the squirrel is old news by now--long life and health to the little chap, so long as he lives it to the hilt away from our mantelpiece, thank you very much. :-)

I have not been posting primarily, I suppose, due to the combined fact that my days are fairly full, but do not especially lend themselves to an exciting public report, being as they are of a routine nature. I do have a fairly heavy 5-gallon-bucketful of books and movies to discuss, though, which portends well for Tolle's fortunes. :D These include My Antonia, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Old Man and the Sea; and Casino Royale, There Will be Blood, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight.

In the world of writing, I have developed an extremely exciting and heartening idea for Kiriana which will, I believe, galvanize my upcoming work thereon. Details would spoil the book rotten, so I'm going to be miserly about those, but it does have to do with the book's climactic scene.

Last, but not least, I have a decent handful of events over the horizon: lunch with a couple families from church, an airsoft war, spending a day or two at the Deckers', and the Reformation play on the 31st. Adieu for now! :-)

My Excitement for the Morning!

2008-09-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

I tell you, even after hearing scrabbling noises in one's chimney and assuming that either a bird or a squirrel is the cause, it is an unsettling feeling to see a large squirrel, black with soot, simply walk into the family room. This is especially unsettling for someone who's lived in a family which hasn't had a single pet in six or eight years, and who hardly likes squirrels, at least when they are in his home, freaked out, and crawling over his computer. After the little bugger ran roughshod for a bit, climbing onto the mantlepiece and onto chairs, walking over CD cases in front of our CD player, launching himself desperately at the window in the assumption that it led to freedom, knocking over a Kleenex box, and even having a go at playing our piano, he was finally coaxed to run out our front door, which I had opened.

So that was pretty weird! :P

What Every Author Wants

2008-09-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

EDIT: Meet Special Agent Tsukiko Takahashi. ;-) Click for a larger view.

It is also noteworthy that she regularly carries one of these, the Heckler & Koch P2000 Subcompact (in 9mm):

I met one of my characters today. Not in the Stranger Than Fiction sense, in which an actual novel character becomes embodied, but rather in the sense that a model in a women's clothing magazine my mom was looking at quite unknowingly resembled my mental image of my character. She looks the part of the protagonist of Faceless, that Japanese hitwoman story I've been talking about. Even the clothes aren't far off from what she might wear. The page itself was relatively irrelevant to the magazine as a whole, so Mom tore it out, and I'm going to see if I can scan it.

Besides that, I saw the movie Shooter tonight, starring Mark Wahlberg. It was a fairly conventional sort of Lone Well-Trained Ex-Military Guy Seeking Vengeance Against Corrupt Government Forces movie (Bourne, anyone?) but it was pretty fun: a "high-octane" film as some review proclaimed. When I actually get off my haunches and update Tolle Lege, I intend to review it.

The Ultimate Question Is, Can He Do It?

2008-09-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

*Joker voice* I'm going to try a little...social experiment.

Background info. So I'm caving. I think I'm going to start The Epidemic.

Now, before you start throwing full wine bottles at your computer screen, and wrap sweaty sheets around yourself at night, feverish with nightmares of Kiriana and Immortality gathering dust in obscure corners of warm, musty cellars beneath my expansive authorial den--before I become too ridiculously figurative--hear ye now my experiment, or plan, or whatever you like to call it. I intend, if possible, God willing, and barring unforeseen circumstances, to strive to write between 250 and 500 words a day, minimum, on these three novel projects. That would be a maximum minimum, so to speak, of 1500 words a day, or about three single-spaced pages. Of course there may be days when I pump out twice that, but this is to try to guard against two things: wasting good writing time, and letting perfectly interesting projects founder.

You have authorization to beat the tar out of me if I fail in this. Though I also have authorization to defend myself. :P

So, will it work? I hope so. It had better work, because this is how I want to run things when/if I am a professional author. No better time to start than right now.

Peace out, readership. ;-)

Oh Yeah, That's Just Great!

2008-09-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

Why is it that I have to come up with my most bizarrely curious story ideas RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A BIG BUCKETLOAD OF SCHOOL? :-P And why, pray tell, does this story idea have to wait until I finish Kirana AND Immortality and get started on the bally Epidemic? Well, okay, you're right, it doesn't HAVE to wait that long, but I can't just throw all my other projects in the dustbin, because they're very fun too and I've put a lot into them.

Just to give you an idea of how different this one is--again!--the protagonist is a 41 year-old Japanese hitwoman with a BIG secret. :D

P.S. Don't ask why 41 precisely, it just sounded right!

P.P.S. Anyone else noted the strong supernatural trend in my writing? It's interesting. tLoN is chock full of supernatural powers, the Amazoni have supernatural strength, Pelen is physically invincible, Mad Mariah features supernatural spiritual warfare, and both The Epidemic and this other story, not to mention Deus ex Homine, my latest short story, will all feature some kind of unique and otherwordly powers. I think my only major exceptions so far are The Motel and my failed Viking invasion of Ireland novel. :-D

Note to the World At Large

2008-09-12T15:02:00.001-07:00

I apologize, amici amicaeque, for the cataclysmic drop in my posting frequency standards, or PFS. Some rather difficult and confusing things happened at the end of summer, which kind of kicked my habit of working diligently, and now that school has started up I've been more or less skating thin ice. *wry grin* So I haven't had too much time for posting, or rather I haven't made that much time for it. I haven't even, for instance, posted any of the more than 300 pictures I took while on a trip to Central Oregon with my dad. I hope that shall soon be rectified. In the meantime, I hope everyone is doing well, anyone who wants to buy me a Smith and Wesson M&P is absolutely welcome to do so, and let it be known that I have the sober and distinguished appellation of Teaching Assistant this year, in the new iteration of my flagship lit class last year, AP English. These high school classes are starting to make me feel old: 15 or 16 didn't used to sound young to me, but now that I've reached the normal age for starting college, it feels a little strange. :P

Two Burglars Discuss Their Loot

2008-09-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Bob: Hey Rufus, 'dja get the goods?
Rufus: Sure did, pal.
Bob: Problems?
Rufus: Yeah, Maxwell rolled over once, opened one eye: I pretended to be a statue and I think he bought it.
Bob: Well, get it in the truck. We don't know that he bought it.
Rufus: Better read it first. Make sure it's the real deal.
Bob: All right, all right. Make it fast.

The result:

SEVEN THINGS IN YOUR ROOM:
1. Books
2. A bed
3. A painting of a Spanish mission
4. Glamdring
5. A Marlin .22 rifle
6. A kukri machete
7. A pen from Mozambique

SEVEN THINGS YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT:
1. God
2. Water
3. Food
4. Sunlight
5. Oxygen
6. My brain
7. A circulatory system

SEVEN THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. Become a more godly and righteous person
2. Marry
3. Raise children
4. Get published
5. Tour Europe from Ireland to the Urals, focusing on World War II battlefields
6. To the best of my ability, make better the lives of others
7. Drive a Dodge Charger SRT8

SEVEN OTHER THINGS:
Do You:
1. Believe in God? Yes.
2. Had a dream come true? Do you realize that this sentence, completed, would read “Do you had a dream come true?” That is appalling. As I recall, no, I haven’t had a dream come true. Fortunate for me, as I dreamt once I was being chased through my house by a velociraptor.
3. Read the newspaper? No, I find the internet to be an improvement for obtaining general national and world news. It’s faster, just as comprehensive, and free.
4. Pray? Yes.
5. Have a job? Not one that pays. :-)
6. Go to church? Yes.
7. Wish on shooting stars? I may have done so when I was younger, but I don’t think I have recently.

SEVEN THINGS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS:Have you...
1. Cried? No.
2. Had fun? Yes.
3. Been kissed? Yes, by my mom.
4. Felt stupid? Sure, yeah.
5. Talked to an ex? Don’t have one, bru.
6. Missed someone? Not actively.
7. Hugged someone? Mom.

TEN random things about me:
10. When I imagine scenes from my stories, the resultant mental image is typically very detailed, almost like a movie. I think in color and sound and often imagine an accompanying musical score.
09. I have a scar on my left forefinger left by a pruning saw.
08. I have little sympathy for men with families who attempt extremely dangerous mountain climbs for fun.
07. I think I enjoy Orwell’s essays more than his books.
06. As my family could easily tell you, I am very much not a pet person.
05. I find skeletons endlessly amusing.
04. My latest short story has been influenced to some degree by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
03. I have considered getting a scooter.
02. I drink up movie lines and recycle them for anyone who cares to listen, and I love to imitate voices.
01. On that note, I find that I can apply the Joker’s lines to a staggering amount of situations.

NINE ways to win my heart:
09. Be a growing and enthusiastic Christian.
08. Be a good communicator. That’s really, really important.
07. Be a caring and sensitive person.
06. Be willing to rebuke me when I’m doing something wrong.
05. Be willing to put up with movie imitations. :-P
04. Be a lover of literature.
03. Be a lover of writing.
02. Be a punctual, respectful, patient person.
01. Be more concerned with inner than with outer beauty.

SEVEN ways to annoy me:
07. Act like a typical college frat boy.
06. Write in “texting” language.
05. Insult a lady.
04. Be insensitive to the suffering of others.
03. Show no regard for artistic beauty or intellectual exercise.
02. Tickle me while I’m stretching.
01. Play music too loudly.

SIX things I believe in:
06. The reality and holiness of God.
05. The reality and unholiness of Satan.
04. The potential dangers of television and the internet.
03. The depravity of man.
02. The destructive power of gunfire.
01. The beauty of many parts of the natural world.

FIVE things I'm afraid of:
05. Sharks
04. Some dogs
03. Barack Obama
02. Failing to turn in schoolwork on time
01. Losing unsaved writing.

FOUR of my favorite items in my room:
04. My bed
03. My gun
02. My books
01. My CDs

THREE things I do everyday
03. Put on a belt.
02. Clip a KA-Bar Mule Folder to my pocket.
01. Turn on my computer.

TWO things I want to do right now:
02. Work on Kiriana.
01. Go to bed.

ONE person I want to see right now:
01. Sorry to count you all as one person, people--it’s just a way to cut corners on this quiz: Robert, David, Elisabeth, and Lindsey.

A trip!

2008-09-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

My dad and I are vacationing in the Bend/Sun River area in central Oregon this week, from Tuesday to Saturday. I'm excited! It's a beautiful area and I don't think I've been there in about five years. We're going to do a great deal of hiking and bike-riding, possibly some canoeing, and of course have some pizza and milkshakes in the little Sun River village. I will be sure to take my camera along and give ya'll a pictorial history when I return. :-)

In Which My Raincoat is Vanquished

2008-08-26T16:46:00.001-07:00

Two nights ago our area was lacerated by several hours of strong rain, and the clouds' grief just so happened to coincide with the entirety of our walk. I was formerly fairly confident of my raincoat's ability to do its part against the elements, but evidently it had never met this class of rainstorm before. I mean, really, it's made by Columbia Sportswear, you'd think it could keep my chest dry.

I suppose it didn't help that I decided late in the game to put up my hood, only to find that it had filled up with water, which promptly slid under my collar and down my chest. That was fun! :P

Perhaps going to Hillsdale will provide good excuse for procuring a more robust liquid-repelling garment. I fancy that a chilly February here will feel toasty compared to what Michigan can offer. To show what I mean: Detroit's average monthly high/low during January, according to Wikipedia, is 31/18. February is a roasting 34/20. For the same months, Portland averages 46/37 and 50/39. Yep, I'm going to need a bigger coat.

Drenching rainshowers. Sub-sixty-degree nights. At the end of August? Is someone toying with nukes over the Pacific? :-D But I'm not complaining: the weather is actually predicted to be very nice, and I would rather it be unusually cool than unusually hot.

Cheerio! Oh, and if you like, hop on over to my new "intellectual development" blog, The Quintessence of Dust. It will be expanded and further posted upon shortly, but by way of explanation this is a blog I am developing as part of an assignment for my AP English Language and Composition Class. I'm not going mad and trying to keep up three blogs just because. ;-)

Two Trailers: One Awful, One Interesting

2008-08-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

This trailer looks like another adaptation of a low-profile, dark graphic novel with a cult following: the sort of thing the movie industry turns to after they've run out of Batmen, Supermen, Spidermen, Iron Men, X-Men, and all other sorts of men. And when they're straining to reach that 18-25 immature males demographic which continues to drink up a healthy mix of dark (yet cheesy) revenge drama, highly improbable combat stunts and...gryphons. And of course women taking their tops off. Can't forget that.

I'll give this one a 8.5 on the King Kong-meter. It lacks the traditional pompous narrator and uninspired text headings, but the supernatural elements are...um...odd, to say the least.

This one, on the other hand, looks interesting--a bit reminiscent of 3:10 to Yuma in some ways, one of those newfangled "realistic" westerns. Plus it has Ed Harris, who is more or less an intrinsically cool actor. ;-) And Jeremy Irons occupying himself with something a lot more interesting than the Eragon movie.

Driving Milestone Numero 3

2008-08-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

The other two being learning how to drive at all and dipping onto the highway. This one was my first bout with that seven-headed beast, the manual transmission. And you know what? I shifted into first without stalling on my first try. (!) 'Course, the next time I tried it the call jolted to a halt and stalled out, but I still proved I could do it. 145-mph chases involving black Charger SRTs with converted six-speed manuals are only weeks away! ;-)

Libri Awesomi Sunt

2008-08-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

All right, how could I resist doing a quiz all about books? You're right, I couldn't. This is subject to David's same caveat about the Bible: it would apply to essentially all these categories, so it shall be assumed in the background as the ultimate book, but I shall consider non-inspired works in my answers.

1. One book that changed your life: The Iliad. I would never have written Immortality otherwise, nor would I have known about kleos or Diomedes' aristeia in Book V.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Peace Like a River.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The U.S. Army Survival Manual. :P Or if it were abundantly clear that even the best advice in the world would be of no avail, then...oh...dang, I have to choose one? The Complete Works of Shakespeare? I can count a collection of plays and poetry, right? I'm glad you agree.

4. One book that made you laugh: I could name any number of Wodehouse books and short stories, but Huckleberry Finn would also have a spot.

5. One book that made you cry: Out of the Silent Planet, of all things. I was in an odd, exceptionally sensitive phase and I was incredibly frustrated by the expressive gestures of the Huorn to call Ransom into the boat. It made me really sad to think of it being confused and trying everything it could think of to show him what it wanted.

6. One book that you wish had been written: Achilles: The Autobiography or I Really Am William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: One? How about the entire His Dark Materials series. Or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Or Hobbes' Leviathan. Or Flavia Bujor's The Prophecy of the Stones (a fantasy by a fifteen year-old where all good things are accomplished by communal will-power and the key city in the novel is Paris, and nothing really makes sense).

8. One book you’re currently reading: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

10. Tag five others: Any coves who haven't made the attempt yet. If you exceed five in number, I won't report you. I'm no rat. In a town this bad, who's there to rat to anyway? ;-)

Well, It's Done.

2008-08-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

I sent in my application to Hillsdale! *trumpets blare* Now one must simply wait for the result. :D

A Service Startlingly Interrupted

2008-08-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

EDIT: I suppose I can't say I don't know any of the circumstances whatsoever--I was given to understand from a churchgoer about as much as Kristoff guessed, that the man was a member who had some "angers" in his life. I believe the pastor explained the situation after the service, but we left quickly and I didn't hear it. I still don't know anything about the specific situation, like why he called everyone hypocrites, though--which did sound a lot like something out of a movie. :-P (end edit)

Today turned into the strangest church service I've ever attended. For more than an hour the service (not at our regular church) proceeded entirely as normal, but right before the end, during the singing of the last song, a man came up to the stage and hurled the entire communion table, with all the elements on it, bodily off the edge of the stage with a huge crash. I had been paying attention to the song and hadn't even seen him coming, so the first thing I knew about was the crash. The man began shouting, "You're hypocrites, all of you!" Then, as several of the men ran forward to take him away, he said, "No, you're going to hear this!" Four of the men wrestled him out through the side door, and that was all. We're not members of the church, so I don't know the circumstances, but it was certainly a strange and slightly unsettling interruption.

In other news, I'm going to drive on a highway for the first time today. So far, driving is progressing well and at a swift rate. It's easier than I thought it would be, but still, if there's any time you're feeling lazy, drive. The level of concentration you need to maintain will kick you into high energy mode in about five seconds. :-)

'ere's yer presents fur the bairns, lassie.

2008-08-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

Check this out. :-D

Just For Fun

2008-08-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

David's Latin rendering of his own work, and then Kait's Latin poem, spurred me to this effort. One hopes I haven't gotten too rusty--I had to look up a lot of words, some of which I should have known. :-P It certainly shows one how thoroughly we know our own language's grammatical structure without even having to think about it.

No solid guarantees of idiomatic correctness, absolute precision in inflection, etc. are given.

De Anglica:

But she had to run faster. Pelen was gaining on her. Almost without her knowing it, she put on a spurt of speed until her pace was nearly half again as fast as before. She really could go no swifter now: she was like a sprinter in the last straight, only this was not the last straight but a grueling contest of attrition for which nothing had prepared or could prepare her. It was a question of whether her lighter weight and the impulse of adrenaline could outlast his superior strength, fitness, and nearly invincible determination.
Those few who looked out curiously from their windows and saw them in that final sprint saw a thing rare to behold. Stephanie was in the flower of youth, light, nimble, and yet vulnerable, like a doe fleeing the hounds. And Pelen was the hound: powerful, savage, arrogant in his strength, and totally confident of ultimate victory. It was almost a thing of beauty, and yet dreadful, as in the myths when the god Apollo pursued the maiden Daphne to take her.

Ad Latinam:

Sed necesse est curre eum celerior. Pelen in eo increbrescebat. Paene sine ea id sciente, se incitat donec gradus eius erat prope dimidium iterum ut celer ut ante. Nunc vere non potest ire celerior: erat ut cursor in ultima directa, sed hic non erat ultima directa sed certamen difficilis attritus per quam nihil paraverat aut eam possit parere. Erat quaesitio utrum molis gravior eius impulsusque adrenalensis possint permanere potentem superiorem eius, valetudinem, et prope obstinationem invictam.
Illi parvi qui spectaverunt curiose de fenestris eis et eos viderunt in hoc cursu ultima viderunt rem infrequentem aspictu. Stefania erat in florem adulscentiae, levis, agilis, et tamen vulnerabilis, similis ad cervam fugentem canes. Et canis Pelen erat: potens, saevus, superbus in robore eius, omninoque confidens in victoria ultima. Prope res pulchritudinis erat, et tamen horribilis, sicut in fabulis cum deus Apollo virginem Daphne persequatur ut eam rapiat.

What Color Knight are You?

2008-08-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Perhaps no one will be tremendously shocked to hear that I enjoyed The Dark Knight considerably more the second time around. Somehow everything hung together much better. More later!

EDIT: Some thoughts from the second time around. The film seemed considerably more focused and coherent. The first time it seemed scattered, over-long, and somewhat pompous, somehow, but this time I didn't really feel that way about it. There are many plot elements, but they center around some key concepts and themes, and the Joker's hand is in the middle of it all. Although he is a master architect of mayhem, this nonetheless provides a kind of glue for all his machinations.

I still didn't like Gyllenhal's Dawes. She came across as cynical and irritating, and not really the type of woman to inspire such admiration, and the majority of her scenes (except her final one) seemed to be relatively extraneous to the plot. The Dent/Two-Face plot also still felt a bit miscalculated to me, and strained. In the first place, Dent's reaction doesn't seem very realistic--how could be possibly blame Gordon or Batman?--and in the second place, the Joker is such a toweringly successful villain that Dent's involvement, especially after the climactic face-off with the Joker, weakens the end a little. As a representative of the Joker's destructive power, he is important, and his involvement at the end does lead up to one of the movie's important themes/moral points, so it might be difficult to simply cut him out. He still seemed like a drag on the conflict, though, dramatically speaking.

The action was more intriguing and exciting, Batman's involvement seemed a bit more meaningful (helpful in a movie about him), the scene with the multiple Batman impersonators didn't completely confuse me, Ledger still delivered, and I paid more attention to the soundtrack, which I like (I find those brooding Batman themes more or less irresistible, as one with a strong taste for dramatic, non-cheesy film scores :D). Gordon is really cool. It's still sad they nuked the Tumbler.

There are a lot of things thematically that I liked about it, too. It seemed less unilaterally dark than I remembered. Even though the amount of evil in it is huge, we still get frequent little reminders of what the good guys are trying to preserve. I thought it made an important point that there are no 'shortcuts' to overcoming evil. The Joker, who seems more or less to be an impersonation of almost pure evil, manically delighting in destruction and negation for its own sake, can't be bullied, bribed, or ignored. Ultimately, those who wish to defeat him must do so by sacrificing themselves. Batman, as David pointed out, can only undo what was done to Dent by taking his crimes on himself. The passengers on the ferries can only foil the Joker's scheme by taking the ultimate chance that the other boat isn't similarly inclined. (I found the climax more climactic this time around. For what it's worth, I didn't notice last time that the big prisoner who throws away the detonator goes over and starts praying with five or six other inmates. Interesting, and pretty cool.)

One thing that rather confused me was Batman's statement almost at the end of the movie when he says that "sometimes people deserve more than the truth. They deserve to have their faith rewarded." This line is spoken in a pretty critical part of the film, so I assume the filmmakers were very intentional about this and meant for viewers to think about it. Is Batman intimating that the best way to reward someone's faith is with a lie? That's doubtful, and probably what he is more nearly saying is that, the citizens of Gotham deserve to have a beacon of hope (Dent); Batman will keep that illusion alive so that the memory of Dent's apparent sacrifice in the name of good will help raise Gotham from the depths, while Batman will be the fall guy. What Batman does here is noble, but this still seems like a bit of a dangerous way to word things. People in the Bible certainly lie to protect others from harm, but this opposing of truth and faith seems like something rather different. But perhaps I'm delving a little too deeply here. I'm confused about the philosophical implications, which means that I will probably misread or misinterpret it somehow if I try to go too far.

So, in sum, the movie was a lot more 'fun' the second time around, a lot more engaging. Despite the prevailing darkness, I found it more hopeful than I remembered. It manages to explore the really tough moral decisions that often need to be made trying to combat evil in a way that few or no other superhero movies have really done, at least in my experience. It has a good screenplay, a good soundtrack, and generally top-notch acting (except Gyllenhal). The ending, though perhaps a bit compromised by Dent, is nevertheless still powerful, closing off the movie nicely while leaving room for more. And the end credits music! Ahhhh.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the scene where Batman is interrogating the Joker at Gordon's place (MRU or whatever it was called) was really quite powerful. The visual imagery of Batman, muscled and armored, a symbol of savage power and unrestrained justice, clenching his fists in furious frustration while the Joker, so supremely confident in his insane worldview, fearless of physical intimidation, laughs hysterically at his feet, was pulled off really well. As The Joker says (paraphrasing): "All that strength, and you can't do anything. You've got nothing to threaten me with." Like I noted above, Batman's spiritual fiber is considerably more important than his martial arts or kevlar. Nolan certainly takes pains to make Batman a cool superhero, but he doesn't let all those forearm strikes supplant more metaphysical issues, and I think that's something that will make The Dark Knight a much more enduring superhero film than, say, X-Men or Spider-Man.

All right, this is getting really long. I'll just close with a thought rather incidental to any critical consideration of the movie, which is that some few parts of this reminded me a wee bit of Immortality--the dark tone, a metropolis troubled by corruption and violence, and a conflicted and unique protagonist.

So yeah, all that to say, it still had some weak points, but over all I liked it a lot more than the first time around. :-)

Austrian firearms + Mexican restaurants = Today

2008-07-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today in a nearby Mexican restaurant I saw a chap in civilian clothes carrying a very dandy Glock, probably a 17 or 22, on a belt holster, completely unconcealed. Evidently, as it turned out, he was a plainclothes cop, or some such like. I didn't quite work up the courage to ask him about or compliment him on it: I wasn't quite sure how he would take it, and whether he would want me to draw attention to his pistol in the middle of a public building. But it was slightly unsettling (never seen it before on someone not in police uniform) and also rather cool, in retrospect.

Pelenesque

2008-07-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a video of me driving. :-P I would hazard a good guess that this is, in fact, illegal, because the car does not appear to be on any kind of designated raceway. I don't, of course, endorse flouting the law or taking the obvious risks of going this fast. With that caveat:

For those blankly confused by this, the Dodge Charger SRT8 is the car of choice of the centerpiece character of my novel Immortality, and as such of unusual interest to me in the automotive world.

Connor movet ultra ambulatione

2008-07-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

EDIT II: ~~Evidently the Wikipedia link I gave didn't work, so, the car I'm learning on is a Toyota Avalon.~~ Never mind, it does show. Just don't include the period in the link when pasting it, like I did!

EDIT: I got up to 35 mph today and backed up into a parking space (though not at that same speed). I'm liking this driving thing! :D

Well, I moseyed over to the DMV today, passed my test, and got my learner's permit. I also got registered to vote. Woot! So when we go for our walk tonight Dad's going to let me take a (very slow) spin around the parking lot and get this here driving business started off on the right foot. Please pray that I don't shear off any side mirrors or scrape the bumper. :-P I look forward to seeing you on the road soon!

2008-07-22T22:01:00.001-07:00

On a quest for new walking routes, my parents and I ran across this fantastic house in a quiet little neighborhood about ten minutes' drive or so from us. I figure that if I make a good living from writing (and housing prices dip considerably) it would be a nice place to raise a family and have a quiet nook to peck away at a story. I would guess that as it stands it would sell for more than a million dollars, though, so I'm not sure how likely that is. Isn't it pretty, though?

Guns, Catch, and Pizza

2008-07-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to visit more friends this summer, this time going shooting with the Deckers. We had another gun in the mix this time, a Ruger revolver that can fire .357 Magnum, .38 Special, and 9mm. We only shot 9mm this time, but I hadn't fired any of the above rounds before, so it was new and fun. It was more powerful than I expected, too, though perhaps I only find it so because I'm the most used to .22. I also got to fire a 12-guage shotgun one-handed and use the same shotgun to rather spectacularly explode a water bottle.

I seem to remember a lot of movies where characters shoot guns while keeping the barrel on an entirely level plane. That has to mean they aren't really shooting anything. Revolvers and handguns buck when fired, however much you try to control it.

Anyway, after that we played frisbee and threw a baseball around for a while (it's amazing how consistently fun something as simple as catch can be). We ate pizza, Kristoff taught me some more martial arts moves, and then we watched the film Vantage Point, which had extremely simplistic character development--or, more accurately, no character development--but was a pretty fun action film. It was rather amusing to see Matthew Fox (Lost's Jack) playing a Secret Service agent. I had a good time. :-)

In other news, Monday will constitute what I hope to be a firm crackdown on my schedule so I can finish the Reformation Play and get plenty of piano practice done--and learn how to drive. Now that I'm 18 the restrictions go down somewhat, and I think it's about time I mastered the art. If anything especially interesting happens when I take the wheel, I'll let you know. ;-)

Cheerio!

The Dark Knight

2008-07-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Initial consensus: pretty disappointing. The movie must have had a huge budget, what with multiple explosions, car chases, about six fights, and of course its high-profile cast. It was well-made and all, as one would expect. The acting was good enough: Ledger definitely developed a pretty fearsome character in the Joker. But for all that, the movie was too long, somewhat disjointed, oppressively dark, anticlimactic, and actually rather short on the character who gave the film its name, the dark knight himself. Continuity with the last film is rather tenuous: while Batman Begins may have had its dark moments, this seemed more like a horror-thriller, focusing with wearisome intensity on the truly depraved character of The Joker. The film was like a morass of evil, and a lot of it was improbable: the Joker basically unravels the entire legal and law enforcement structure of a city at least the size of Chicago, and he manages to do so with almost perfect immunity because everything goes right for him.

Maybe it's a fair comparison to say that Batman Begins, though no lighthearted film, had a sense of balance. It was cool. It brought gravity to the character of Batman. The Dark Knight brought a kind of unpleasant gruesomness to the story and seemed more like a biopic on a psychopath than an action film. The moral message at the end was also unconvincing, probably rather unlikely, and failed to illuminate the almost unmitigated darkness of the film.

Maggie Gyllenhal seemed like even more of a throwaway character than in the first movie, a less convincing actress than Katie Holmes, who actually did an ok job with Rachel Dawes in Begins. Another character also makes a hugely implausible shift of demeanor, morality, and allegiance which was dealt with in an abrupt, almost off-hand way, made very little sense, and yet seemed to be taken with an enormous amount of seriousness by the filmmakers.

Was Ledger's performance Oscar-worthy? Maybe. But by and large I don't think I'd like to see a prestigious award given to this film which, when you really weigh it through all the explosions and dark camera shots, doesn't have much to offer other than the stark tale of a psychopath who raises the stakes so improbably high that it seems impossible anyone could make a third story in the same vein. I wish I could say it had some redeeming elements, but there aren't really very many. One or two scenes had some humor that rang true, but they are few and far between in this 2.5 hour endurance run which seemed to totter a little on the edge of its PG-13 rating.

Recommended? Nope, not really. I'll stick to Batman Begins and hope he ends here, or cleans up his act a little. If this is where Christopher Nolan wants to take the franchise, I'm not sure I want to follow along. In fact, let's just say it: the more I think about this movie, the less I like it. Can I have my seven bucks back now? Or 3 hours of my time, for that matter?

Summer Trip

2008-07-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

Over the past three and a half days, give or take, I had the opportunity to visit the Doorninks, which is more or less a once-a-year event. I had a really good time, better even than I had anticipated, and I have many a good memory to preserve. We played piano, walked on the beach, played Twenty Questions, played freeze tag, swam in the bay, had crazy one-sided phone conversations mainly centering around a fictional MI-6 agent I invented named Charlie Chivers, fun late evening conversations about overpriced and useless Lord of the Rings merchandise and other things (such as a movie of Kiriana in 3-D IMAX), and watched I Am David. Elisabeth and I also managed to read aloud the entirety of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens over two days (this was not entirely of our free will, as we had to have it done for a class, and I must say it seemed like one of the Bard's poorer efforts--I hope the speculation that it was unfinished is correct!). We crammed a lot into those days--and there was more than what I described--all without much of a fixed plan as to what we were going to do. I'm really glad I made the trip, and I'm looking forward to the next time we can get together. :-D My thanks to the whole family for making room for me and letting me have so much fun!

For the interested, here are a few pictures (click to enlarge).

Andrew on the guitar, Elisabeth, and Matthew.

Elisabeth and Stephanie on the beach.

Walking on the beach.

4/5 of the gang. :-)

On the Poulsbo docks.

In the car on the way back.

Rifles and Reformers

2008-07-05T23:16:00.001-07:00

As it is no longer Independence Day, I suppose I can post and note that I bought my own rifle ammunition, by myself, a few days ago. That was a purchase that made me happy. ;-)

I also intend to get going on this year's Reformation Play--time is running faster than it by rights ought--and I must decide whether Wycliffe or Huss or some other cove is to be the subject of the play. I shall try to update on its progress as it--well--progresses. :-)

Eleven Score and Twelve Years Ago...

2008-07-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

May God bless our nation today and all days. May this great experiment show more and more virtue, freedom, and prosperity, correcting its ills and walking on, even if it must stagger at times, to a brighter future under God's guidance.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

General Internet Note

2008-06-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

Our recalcitrant internet provider has been hit-and-miss of late (to the extent that I am typing this post from our local library), so if I miss or do not reply to an e-mail, or what have you, that is probably why. At least I'm not in the middle of the school year.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Lord's Day!

2008-06-24T21:01:00.001-07:00

Well, I suppose I ought to post something or other. It doesn't feel any different being 18 than it does being 17, except for the pleasant feeling of being able to buy one's own ammunition, which I will probably be doing soon. :-) My gifts were as follows:

--The Magic Flute, by Mozart (from Robert)
--A movie version of Twelfth Night, with Helena Bonham-Carter, Imogen Stubbs, and Nigel Hawthorne
--The Gladiator soundtrack (I've had the far inferior "More Music From Gladiator" CD for a while; this one is considerably better)
--Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse :D
--Several shirts and a really spiffy tie
--Some black dress shoes (from my grandparents)
--Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World: 3000 BC to AD 500 (from David--a very cool book, and useful as well)
--Otello, a filmed version at the Metropolitan Opera with Placido Domingo and Renee Fleming (from Lindsey)

A book from PaperBackSwap (an online book exchange service where one sells unwanted books for credits which can then be used to purchase any book another user has posted) also arrived a few days ago unexpectedly, so it was kind of like a birthday present: When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler by David M. Glantz. A very 'me' sort of book. ;-)

Beyond that, I've been doing usual stuff, having fun resuscitating Immortality yet again--it dies surprisingly often, given its title--and having not so much fun getting trounced by Robert at Axis and Allies. After I lost Moscow, London, and Washington, D.C. to Axis might, we started a World War III feud between Germany and Japan. Japan is losing, and, you guessed it, I am the proxy Hirohito. Alas...

I hope everyone else is well. Adieu for now!

Invida aetas fugit

2008-06-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Today is my last day before I reach Old Geezerdom, which being interpreted is the age of 18. I remember anticipating turning "sweet sixteen." Now I've almost passed (is it sour?) 17. It's been a pretty good year--friends over last summer, the Reformation Play, Latin V, AP English Lit, the SAT, visiting Hillsdale, the bulk of Kiriana so far. Certainly not a "sour" year, if that is indeed the moniker for 17! :D

Oh, and I learned at my piano lesson yesterday that I am definitely to be learning Rachmaninoff's G Minor Prelude over the summer, which happens to be one of the coolest pieces ever. I'm fairly stoked about that. ;-)

EDIT: Kiriana reached 300 pages and over 173,000 words today!

"Cast List"

2008-06-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

I copy David all the time simply because most of his ideas are good, so it's a compliment, not just shameless piracy. :-D David had the idea of listing actors and actresses who might play characters in his novel, were it to be made into a film. I believe I'll have a go at the same thing. ;-)

Toni Collette as Teya.

Naveen Andrews as Rashik (maybe). Mom is very much behind this choice because she thinks he's really cute as Sayid. :-)

Joaquin Phoenix as Ameth.

Naomi Harris as Lauthi.

Uma Thurman as Ranua.

Possibly Sienna Guillory as Elana.

Zooey Deschanel as the elusive Kiriana--a minor triumph for which credit goes to my brother. Almost every other actress I've looked up, wondering if she might take the role, has been repulsive to my mental image of her, and this is the first one that wasn't an instant "nope."

I have yet to find someone who would be suitable for Evah, Remon, and several others, but I'll let it rest there for the present.

The Double

2008-06-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

I just finished Dostoevsky's The Double today. It was an interesting, fantastic read, with one of the oddest protagonists I've ever run into. Yakov Petrovitch Goliadkin is a titular councilor living in Saint Petersburg, but he is also a helpless, pitiable wreck, self-absorbed, possibly schizophrenic, confused, self-doubting, hesitant, unable to find a place in the world. Entering his world is like entering a dream state, because it's rather difficult to figure out exactly what's going on in the book. Goliadkin thinks there is a vast conspiratorial web drawing tight around him, but whether that is really so or not is not so clear. He thinks he hears, thinks he's seen, forgets whether he has done something or not, and often receives confused impressions of what is happening to him. In short, it was a rather surreal and confusing book, but nonetheless very interesting. I was glad to find that some critic described the book as "painful, almost intolerable reading." I didn't really find it intolerable, but in some places it was frustrating to try to figure out exactly what was going on--I'm not sure the reader is supposed to, though. At least it suggests I am not alone in finding it difficult to figure out.

I'd recommend it, as long as you don't mind a narrative that is more cerebral than plot-driven, and may leave you confused or at least working hard to understand it many times. A very curious story.

Allow me to introduce my friends...

2008-06-13T18:17:00.001-07:00

Mr. and Mrs. John Donne :-D

A Riff on Writing

2008-06-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

It is certainly no longer the anniversary of D-Day, and I got some inspiration for a subject on which to post. This blog is styled the Author's Corner, and I figure that I ought to write about writing some time. And why not now? :-)

Writing is a uniquely scrutinized field (along with acting and political speechmaking) because, unlike a shipwright or a software designer, an author's work is not only widely distributed--if he's blessed with popularity, anyway--but also a large window into his own worldview. This is not to demean any other profession, and not to say that any product of work is not an expression of one's worldview. If Dan Brown had been a software engineer, though, his programs might cause consumers headaches, but they would not have the potential to lead anyone astray. Communication of any kind can be a powerful tool, and an author is someone who, for one reason or another, wants to make a job out of communicating his opinions and his imagination through the written word. A respected author can consequently have a lot of influence for good or ill.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the Christian author, but also a great responsibility. As humble readers of the Word of God, we can be confident that we are imitators of the best possible example. But even comic book superheroes know that "with great power comes great responsibility." Winsome writing and good craft is not enough, just as eloquence is not sufficient for a pastor. A good writer will strive to write well, but he will also, and much more importantly, have something good to write about. He will recognize that style is useless without good content; unless the foundation for a compelling novel or a persuasive essay is as near the solid truth as he can get, then the finished product is a well-painted and well-packaged piece of junk (a bit like the Xbox). Not only must there be content; there must be good content as well. The core worldview in an author's work must be as close as to Biblical truth, and therefore to the truth of the real world, as he can by God's grace make it. This requires a commitment to theological humility, studying the Scriptures, and living out one's beliefs, for a good writer is not a hypocritical one.

One need not have a college degree or an encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare to write well. The Apostle Peter probably had no knowledge of The Iliad or The Epic of Gilgamesh, but he certainly managed to turn out some pretty fine letters. There is a difference, however, between amassing intellectual knowledge and being a good thinker. No one should let his mind stay lazy, and this is certainly true for a writer. If you want to speak truth to the world, to address many complex issues in your writing, to challenge or even astonish your readers with the philosophy you hold up in opposition to the vain philosophies of the world, that takes work. Language is a metaphor for thought, so it should make sense that it is useless to try to write well before having thought well. One only need listen to a few political speeches to hear what it sounds like to speak interestingly, authoritatively, sometimes even persuasively about nothing much.

I suspect it's common for people to wonder exactly what one wants to accomplish as an author. That's not a bad question, really, if you are considering an author as only a craftsman of words. But an author is also a bit of a lay theologian, a philosopher, an historian, a grammarian, a linguist, a psychologist, a sociologist, a political analyst, a scientist, and a mathematician--at least some of these--if he wishes to write widely and well. Writing draws on a host of fields, so a good author is an eager learner and a thorough researcher. And above all he must be a humble recipient of the Truth that will inform how we weave stories and change minds in the world. It is my hope that all who write, whether vocationally or as part of some other job, will be able to look back on their work decades from now and be able to say, I am not ashamed of what I have written. If men's minds have been changed by it, they have been changed for the better.

Let's Go.

2008-06-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the 64th anniversary of D-Day. Here's to all the courageous soldiers who took part in it, and the freedom it helped to create!

2008-06-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, Robert! :-)

Summer Reading Challenge 2008

2008-06-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

My mom, over at her blog, has been hosting seasonal reading challenges for some time, and I figure I ought to get on board! Already, compiling books to read, I agree with her that intentional reading produces better results, even if the list is not fully finished. I fancy I will be adding more to this after my birthday, provided some of my presents are of the bookish kind, which I'm sure some will be. I may have to subtract one or two to make room. I cannot guarantee in what order I will actually read them, but here is the list:

--So Brave, Young, and Handsome (Leif Enger)
--The Language of God (Ron Julian, David Crabtree, Jack Crabtree)
--Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand)
--A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)
--The Master of Ballantrae (Robert Louis Stevenson)
--Night (Elie Wiesel)
--The Double (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
--The Gambler (Dostoyevsky)
--Piccadilly Jim (P.G. Wodehouse)
--To the Last Man: A Novel of World War I (Jeff Shaara)
--The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Bronte)
--A Bridge Too Far (Cornelius Ryan)
--The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)
--Cymbeline (William Shakespeare--all below by the same author)
--Othello
--Henry VIII
--King John
--Pericles, Prince of Tyre
--Timon of Athens
--Titus Andronicus
--Troilus and Cressida
--Two Gentlemen of Verona

If you weren't already planning to join said challenge, you should consider it. Reading is wonderful! :-)

Kicks and Giggles

2008-06-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

Major universities are beginning to recognize me--and they're so eager about it, they're rushing to get their word in more than two weeks in advance. Very, very oddly, I just received a birthday card from the honors program at Texas A&M University. Mom can confirm that I'm not going insane. I suppose it's probably a ploy to make me feel special, but it's still rather amusing. :D

Recital

2008-05-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

EDIT: It turns out this was one of the better recitals my teacher's studio has had, I think (it's my fourth one with her, I believe). Most of the playing was good, and the venue was amazing. Not only did the audience like my piece, but I was pretty happy with it too! I did make a few mistakes, but they weren't noticeable, and I really got "in" the interpretation. So hoorah for that! Go to Mom's blog to see some more details and a picture of me trying out the piano with a different piece before the recital started. I'm sure I looked pretty much the same for the Rachmaninoff, except my hands never cross in it. (End edit).

My spring recital is later this afternoon, in which I'll be playing the Prelude in C# Minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff. If you happen to think of it, please pray for my teacher (it must be nerve-wracking to watch your own nervous students) and all the students participating. :-)

In another news, yesterday was my last official day of school. I have some things to finish off today, but after that, my schoolwork load will drop to almost nil (a day or two of science to finish off, my Summer Shakespeare class, maybe a bit of self-taught Greek). I am hopeful that a lot of writing will house in those suddenly untenanted hours.

Cheerio!

A Character's Quiz (Stolen from David)

2008-05-29T13:38:00.001-07:00

I am Elana, Captain of the Amazoni.
I want this plan to go with perfect smoothness.
I wish the time and place were right to enact the plan right now.
I hate all traitors and especially one with golden hair.
I love being feared.
I miss the valley right now, though I would deny this in public.
I fear any reduction in power.
I hear the sound of birds and running feet.
I regret that I have not had a lover in over two months.
I am not easily frightened.
I dance superbly and love to show it off.
I sing war chants, mostly. And vulgar songs.
I cr(ied) last when I was about sixteen--that is, approximately 134 years ago.
I make very little noise unless I wish to.
I write in small, neat cursive, on sheepskin parchment.
I confuse enemies trying to anticipate my next move.
I need to find more Amazoni to replace those I have lost.
I should spar with Ranua tonight.
I start to become very still when I am thinking hard.
I finish what I have begun. Or else.

Ah, dreams.

2008-05-28T10:29:00.001-07:00

Last night I dreamt that I met Barack Obama. He was feeding a small animal--a duck or a squirrel or something--that was swimming around in a swimming pool, and a huge crocodile later turned up in the same body of water. Mom uncovered a massive inconsistency in his campaign, leaving him to sputter "Well...um...I...uh..." in response. It later turned out the reason for this inconsistency was that Mr. Obama had received a full hemispherectomy--which operation I received, and then Mom woke me up. :D

Stuff (and maybe Nonsense!)

2008-05-21T20:17:00.001-07:00

First, I seem to have fallen into the predictable habit of posting every other day. It suits me fine, so long as I have something to say, but it's strange, because I haven't been doing it all along. :-P

Second, if I really pursued everything in my head right now, I'd have six writing projects going at once: four short stories and two novels. Story ideas are great, but really...I should get a mental secretary to put these things on hold.

And finally, take my euphoria over Gutenberg with a bit of a grain of salt. If I go to a college with many fine attributes (and Gutenberg does have many fine attributes) it's always "the best" when I'm in the middle of visiting. In retrospect there are always pros and cons. So, it would be wrong to get the impression that I didn't like the school, or to think it's not still on my list of possibles. But my unmixed crowing about it may have been a little premature. :-)

Greetings from Eugene!

2008-05-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from a hotel room a half mile or so from the University of Oregon, which means half a mile or so from Gutenberg College. I sat in on four classes today, and it was fantastic! The quality and quantity of discussion in the classes here is quite amazing. The town is very pretty, and the students are courteous, hospitable, and respectful learners and discussioners, from what I can tell. We're leaving around lunch time tomorrow, so I'll probably whip up a more detailed post with a few pictures before the week is out.

To quote you, David, "I may be obliged to convince you at gunpoint" to come here. :D

Ah, well.

2008-05-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Story: Mad Mariah
Publication petitioned: Relief
Status: Rejected

:-/

A Quiz

2008-05-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Having not filled out one of those little internet quizzes in many months, I figured that pirating one from Breanna's Blog, especially since it seems that she pirated it from someone in her turn, would be an amusing pastime. Barring some egregious spelling errors, I was generally right.

1. Full Name: Connor James Hamilton.

2. Who were you named after?: Connor MacLeod, from the movie Highlander.

3. Which finger is your favorite?: Probably my right index finger, if I had to choose one. One can point at things, scratch behind the ears, rub the eyes and press “play” all with this versatile digit.

4. Have you ever sang into a hairbrush?: No, and I can think of no plausible reason why one would do so. I might sing an ode to good spelling, however, o mismanager of verb forms.

5. When did you last cry?: Well, I don’t remember for certain. The last time I clearly remember doing so is when I listened to Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech. It really got to me.

6. Do you like your handwriting?: It serves me well enough.

7. What is your favorite lunch meat?: Tuna. It’s a lunch meat for me...

8. Any bad habits?: Well, sure. Wasting time is a big one. Also secretly prowling the countryside at night, hanging up Confederate flags and painting black Xs on people’s doors to frighten them. (Wait, did I just give myself away??) :-)

9. What is your most embarrassing CD on the shelf?: I don’t think I’m particularly embarrassed by any CD I own.

10. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?: I don’t know; the question is so hypothetical that an accurate answer would be impossible. I don’t think I’d mind myself terribly, though.

11. Are you a daredevil?: No, not at all. Risking my life does not thrill me.

12. Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell?: Hm...I think when I was about twelve someone told me he had a crush on a girl, asked me not to tell anyone, and I mentioned it to my parents, knowing they wouldn't spread it around. But I don’t think I ‘swore’ not to tell it.

13. Do you own any burnt CD's?: Yep, a couple of music from my brother’s CDs.

14. Have you ever said a word and it sounded absolutely stupid?: If I repeat almost any word often enough, or read it multiple times in print, it looks silly.

15. Do you think there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?: Does anyone? No, rainbows are the refraction of white light through moisture in the air. Pots of gold couldn’t hang suspended at the end of one, and in any case, who would put them there?

16. Do fish have feelings?: I seriously doubt it: not anywhere near the level humans do, for sure. Not being privy to an animal’s mental states, I suppose the presence of, say, an alligator might trigger a general wave of alarm. But I wouldn’t know.

17. Do you like school?: Yes, but I’m glad it’s winding down for the summer.

18. Do you ever say never?: I think just a few days ago I said, “I would never vote for Obama…” so yes. :)

19. Where is your second home?: Well, there’s the summer house in Sicily and the winter house in the Florida Keys, as well as the Bungalow outside Bombay…:-P Really, though, home is home. I don’t really have a second one.

20. Do you trust others easily?: Fairly easily, I think, though it would depend on the circumstances. One can’t be naive.

21.What was your favorite toy as a child?: Legos or Playmobile, I suppose.

22. What class in school do you think is totally useless?: I think there are very few disciplines that are actually useless. Math and physics have the least direct bearing on what I plan to do, but science is fairly interesting and math does have merit.

23. Do you have a journal?: No.

24. Do you use sarcasm a lot?: Hm. I don’t actually know. Probably a decent bit.

25. Do you have a crush on a lad or girl at the minute?: Nay, all my friends are just friends at present.

26. What do you want in a boy or girl?: A lady fairly similar in age, with a beautiful soul, conservative Christian doctrine, a generational outlook, homeschooling aspirations, an appreciation for the liberal arts and no aversion to living in the Northwest. :-)

27. Do you get along better with girls or boys?: I get along fine with both, although I often find girls more talkative--but often less approachable, though that may be just my problem.

28. Would you ever bungee jump?: Probably only if it were a matter of life and death. Not recreationally.

29. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?: Not most of the time.

30. Do you think you're strong?: In what sense? Physically I suppose I’m decently strong, though I have much room for improvement.

31. What's your favorite ice cream flavor?: Breyer’s mint chocolate chip.

32. What's your favorite color?: Most earthy colors (red, blue, green, purple, orange, brown, golden, etc.) can be rendered in attractive hues. My favorites would probably not be found among neons, bright pinks, pastels, etc.

33. Are you in love with any one?: In the more general sense, I love my family and my friends, and I strive, often unsuccessfully, I fear, to love my fellow men. But I am not stricken i’th’ amatory way at present.

34. How many wisdom teeth do you have?: Wisdom teeth...I think some might be trying to rudely butt in somewhere. I don’t know how many there are.

35. Are you organized?: Not incredibly so, although I don’t usually leave a positive hurricane in my wake.

36. How many people have a crush on you right now?: I find this question impertinent, and in any case I couldn't know for certain.

37. Who do you miss right now?: Dad and my brother. Should be ‘whom.’

38. What food do you most want to eat right now?: Oh...a bowl of cereal and half of an English muffin with peanut butter and honey.

39. Where do you most want to be right now?: Except Heaven, right here at home.

40. Do you ever make up your own words?: Yes, often.

41. Do you find it easy to forgive?: This capacity hasn’t been severely tested, but I think generally so, yes.

42. What was the last thing you ate?: A grilled sandwich with chips and applesauce.

43. How are you today?: Tired, a bit sun-stunned (it’s jumped from the 60s to high 70s/early 80s and we were out a lot in the yard today), but not at all unhappy. You?

44. Favorite alcoholic drink?: I haven’t tried too many, but a few kinds of wine are agreeable.

45. Siblings and their ages?: Robert, 22.

46. Favorite fast food?: Baja Fresh.

47. What are three things you love about yourself?: Dear me, is this an invitation to arrogance? I think I’ll offer three things I’m grateful for: the family I was born in, the country I live in, and the joys of writing.

48. What is one thing that you hate about yourself?: My propensity to sin.

49. Favorite time of the year?: Well, it depends on what is happening. I like most days...weather-wise, this time is fairly splendid, though.

50. Are you too shy to ask someone out?: Being inexpertus in this area, I don’t know yet. I suspect I would be nervous, but not incapable of doing it.

51. Scary movies or happy endings?: False dilemma. I don’t mind suspense in a movie at all, but if it is scary merely for the sake of thrills, I don’t like that as much. I appreciate happy endings, but not if they’re forced.

52. Summer or winter?: Summer, I suppose.

53. Hugs or kisses?: How about both?

Yeah...

2008-05-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

I found this really cool watch that's more in my price range (the first one on the list).

Find it here.

Author in Town

2008-05-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

N. D. Wilson, son of Douglas Wilson and author of Leepike Ridge and 100 Cupboards, came to our local Barnes and Noble this evening, and we went over to hear him talk and get our copy of 100 Cupboards signed. He gave a nice little talk, and inadvertently gave me some good writing advice. He talked about his methods of note-taking and planning, and provided some insight on the editing and publishing world. For instance, he said that he has final control over the actual content of the book, but the cover is considered a marketing decision and is entirely up to the agency.

He remembered me when I brought up that I'd met him at NSA, and said my face looked familiar. That was eight months ago, so he has a pretty good memory. :-P It was a fun little event, and it's inspired to take better notes--or rather to start taking notes in general--and to work harder pounding my little sledgehammer against the adamant gates of agents and publishing houses.

The Collegiate Adventure II: Grove City

2008-05-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Predictably, the drive across Ohio was rather monotonous after a point, although it was somewhat enlivened by the presence of service plazas, posh Ohioan versions of what in Oregon we call rest stops. Paid for by the tolls from turnpikes (another unusual thing for an Oregonian, but we still have no sales tax, ha!), these are architecturally pleasant edifices with two or three restaurants, a travel mart of sorts, restrooms, a gas station, and someone, likely funded by the state, on hand to provide help to befuddled travelers. One may find these every 25 miles, and they are most welcome to people musing about lunch or glancing with concern at their gas tank meters.

At length we arrived in Grove City, a 'town' of sorts out in the boondocks of Pennsylvania. Its population is circa 8,000, almost identical to Hillsdale's. About the town of Hillsdale I can say little, because I merely passed through it, but Grove City became a familiar locale for us, as our hotel was in the town, not on campus, and we had more time to burn. As one who lives in a fertile valley, I was tempted to cry, "where's the green?" and as a suburban creature I was tempted to moan, "where are all the people?" I told Mom I figured the trees must get their leaves around mid-July there before falling off in September after a month and a half of fleeting glory! The key attractions of Grove City are an outlet mall (which, may it be said to its credit, provided me with four perfectly suitable Dover Thrift editions of some decent literature) and the college.

But enough of venting mild wrath on the city. It wasn't really its fault for being small and having a brown countryside (especially since it is in a somewhat economically depressed region), although some of the people out in the country could have cleaned up their homes/trailers a little.

The college itself was a disappointment. Granted, I came flush from Hillsdale challenging GCC to live up to that experience, which may have had some hand in my reactions. I found the college much less satisfying than I had anticipated, however. The grounds themselves were beautiful, including a massive (and green!) quad:

The buildings were well-built and featured great architecture, particularly Crawford Hall:

and their chapel, which is one of the nicer worship buildings I've personally seen:

As for my actual experience of the place, I suppose I had better start, as so many Wodehouse characters urge, at the beginning. The following morning, we arrived at the college about 9:00 o'clock and entered Crawford Hall to see the admissions people. The lady at the desk noted that I had an interview at 10:00; we mentioned that we had been scheduled to see a chapel service, and so she told us we could go over there and see it. Perhaps we were unfair to expect someone to show us over there, as it was about a minute's walk away, but it had been scheduled as part of our visit--and I suspect Hillsdale would have sent over a guide of some sort.

In any case, we came in a little late for the chapel service, but we didn't appear to miss much: the entirety of the service that we saw was a bell choir that lasted about ten minutes. We were later told that there are usually speakers at these events, but our experience didn't much comfort me that chapel is required sixteen times per semester. (I also object to this on the ground that I don't prefer a college that legislates its students' spiritual activities. I want to go to church or chapel because I believe I should, not because my college demands it.)

After chapel, I went and waited a few minutes to have my interview, which lasted about twenty-five minutes (as compared to roughly two hours at Hillsdale). Literature that I have read about interviews warns one not to judge a college's interest by the length of an interview, and I think that's generally true, but the example times the author used were 30 and 45 minutes; a disparity of fifteen rather than 95 minutes. I was asked about my favorite books, my test scores, and some other typical things. The only question that threw me a loop was (I paraphrase), "could you describe to me some kind of service that you have performed, and what you learned from the experience?" I haven't done much in the way of physical service, like cleaning up dirty streets or volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. Both such services would be worthy things, and it may be to my discredit that I haven't had much experience there. In any case, I had to struggle to answer that question. I did mention that I want to serve through my writing, but I don't know what she thought of that.

I asked my interviewer about GCC's lack of classics department, and the fact that my 6 years of high school Latin would count for nothing there. She explained that their language courses were all of living languages and intended for practical purposes, I presume things like ministry and teaching abroad. (Latin is practical!!) She told me that she personally wanted to see a classics program at the college, and that "if the college made a decision, it could happen really fast." Yes, but what if the college made that decision the day after graduation? It wouldn't be of any consequence to me how fast it happened...

After my interview, a senior student took me, Mom, two other families and someone newly hired by the school on a walk-around tour of campus, which lasted about an hour or so. She was talkative and very ready to answer questions. It was interesting to note, however, that when talking about visitation policies between the sexes, the reason she gave for liking these was that it gave you private time to yourself, because your roommates' boyfriends/girlfriends wouldn't be hanging around all the time. I thought those policies were in place to prevent extramarital relations or the appearance of evil...

All the buildings were roughly comparable to Hillsdale's as far as function, unsurprisingly, except that there were more dorms to accommodate 1,000 more students. Some highlights include a women's dorm:

The science building:

The student union:

The Hall of Arts and Letters (humanities classrooms):

And the library:

After the tour (during which I saw many shirtless men and girls in shorts and bikini tops soaking up the sun, mildly surprising at a Christian college, though perhaps it shouldn't have been), we had approximately two and a half hours until the one class that had been scheduled for me (compared to the three that had been scheduled for me at Hillsdale). This when I spent two and a half days at GCC verses one and a half at Hillsdale. We were left to kill those two and half hours ourselves, and we spent them sitting on a bench, checking out the library (which, if a little stuffy and claustrophobic, was copiously supplied with much good literature), and attempting to mooch off the library's wi-fi. This proved impossible, as one needs a password supplied only to students, but I was able to use a desktop computer placed in the library for public use.

So the class finally rolled around: a modern European history class, in this instance on the post-World War I years and how they led up to World War II. This was the best of the three classes, and the professor went over quite a few aspects of this era, such as the lack of hero figures in World War I, how the stated aims of the governments involved changed as the course of the war itself changed, the deterioration of the German economy, and a particular Hitlerian propaganda film that he was going to show the class the next time, and what themes and ideas it stressed.

So that was a pretty good class. After that, as I recall, we went back to the hotel, visited the outlet malls, and did something or other. We did a lot of time-filling there, and the exact order of events I do not recall. At one point, I think it was the night before, we were casting about for something to do and ended up watching a forgettable and ham-fisted natural disaster film called Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones in one of his most forgettable roles. Another different night we saw the Truman Show, though, which is always good, though it was cut for TV.

That evening we had dinner with the Marsch family (Dr. Marsch is a professor at GCC, and his eldest daughter attends there). That was the highlight of this part of the trip, with good food and conversation. I believe our families hit it off well, and had circumstances been different, and the hour not late, I would have liked to have stayed there longer. The next day we visited two classes, but only because Dr. Marsch and Abbie, his daughter, were able to get us into the classes they taught/attended, respectively--not because of a change of plans on the part of the admissions team there. I found both classes pretty elementary for college-level instruction. The first class, a core English class, dealt with a couple poems of Yeats and a short story by Joyce. The lecture was fairly spoon-fed, and the depth of instruction didn't seem noticeably greater than that in English classes I was taking two years ago.

I fancy the other class (an integrated science core class for humanities majors) would have been much more interesting if Dr. Marsch had been the one lecturing, but he shared teaching of the class with another professor, who gave a boring and lackluster talk on potential problems with evolution and Intelligent Design, and the arguments each raises to counter the other. Most of this could have been discovered in reading a couple of books over the summer. I had hoped the students would interact in Socratic-style dialogue and delve spiritedly into questions about the assumptions on both sides and the validity of their arguments, but this did not happen.

The rest of the day we had even more time to kill, some of which we spent driving around the area and exploring the somewhat cheerless countryside, where a few nice houses are dotted amongst run-down dwellings and trailers. I thought I was one who went more for solitude, but I discovered on this trip that, though I do not like big noisy parties or a rushed lifestyle, I do like having plenty of neighbors. I felt like one would be mighty lonely out here, sixty miles and more from anything of size and importance. (Mental note: Eugene has 150,000 people. Gutenberg is in Eugene. *ponders*)

Mom and I were getting a bit cynical and wry at this point, so when we passed an establishment simply called "Ultimate Renewal," my joke about a man walking in and asking if he could get all his belongings mysteriously "renewed" provoked much laughter. :-)

The following morning, we finally broke our moorings and blasted out of town, westward back across Ohio. This drive was mainly uneventful, except for one incident where our GPS, Matrix-like, conspired to undermine us. When we duly exited in accordance to its instructions, it immediately recalculated and sent us south. We were in southern Michigan and needed to head toward Detroit. Extraordinarily reassured by the reliability of artificial intelligence, we parked in some random restaurant's parking lot and reset the bally thing, after which it worked as expected, although we remained suspicious of its motives. It was rather amusing once we were reassured that some mishap was not going to leave us stranded in an unknown area of Michigan and make us miss our flight.

And then a gentlemanly 757 hauled us and a couple hundred people back here. We were most grateful to be home!

After all, 18 is a landmark year.

2008-05-05T10:52:00.001-07:00

My birthday is coming up in about a month and a half, so I figure I might as well make public what I want. The list price is a little steep, but it's heavily discounted!

:D

I actually got a watch of my own for about .1 % of the list price of the above item, and I'm sure what I have is way cooler than that diamond-encrusted travesty. It also runs on sunlight and never needs a battery replacement! We likes it greatly.

The Collegiate Adventure I: Hillsdale

2008-04-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

Before too much time slips by, I figure I had best condense my college trip into a post here. Query me if you are parched for any further details. :-)

Our flights were safe and uneventful. Our drives were also safe, but not quite so uneventful--for Mom and me, it was our first drive with a GPS system, which Dad had insisted on since we would be driving several hundred miles on completely unfamiliar roads. It turned out to be a wise decision. Since we arrived in Detroit somewhere around 6:00 p.m. on Monday, it was late evening by the time we reached Hillsdale, about 90 miles away. Both colleges we visited are extremely rural, and people in the midwest seem to have a pathological aversion to outside lighting. We were, therefore, in the dark, without any prior experience to help us find our bearings. Even with the GPS Mom took a wrong turning (or else the GPS whacked out - which happened later, as you will learn), and after it "recalculated" it took us on some unpaved and bumpy roads, on one of which I saw a goat jump out of the way of our headlights. We were rather nervous, but lo and behold, we finally reached civilization in the form of the college itself.

We didn't explore the college that night, it being late, but we did get to have a good, long conversation with David and his mom, whom we met in person for the first time just then. It was a fine conversation, ranging over race, discrimination, politics, and probably some other things that I've forgotten.

The following morning was our main day at Hillsdale. After breakfast we came to the admissions office in the impressive Central Hall, Hillsdale's landmark building.

We were there met by Brian, our exceedingly courteous campus ambassador, who took David and me to our first class, Rhetoric and Great Books. This is one of the core English classes, so its format was that of a literary survey. In this particular class the professor covered some rules of MLA citation (his students were writing a paper) and talked about a work by Rousseau, and then about Wordsworth and Hawthorne as examples of the light and dark Romantics respectively. He mentioned Young Goodman Brown, and I think I was the only person there who'd read it! Which was kind of cool. :)

After this class Brian gave us a tour of the campus, which is fairly small for a college and localized enough that I suspect one could become thoroughly familiar with it in a week or so. Central Hall, Lane and Kendall Hall (the two main classroom halls), Delp Hall (mostly administrative and faculty offices), and the science building surround the main quad, with the Student Union and Dow Center (a conference area and hotel) near by. The dorms are a little farther out, and then across an intersecting street are a number of fraternity and sorority houses, and the Sage Center for the Arts and the Roche Sports Complex. There are other buildings, but such were the main highlights that we were shown.

Our next classes were different, that is, David went to one and I to another at the same time. Mine was on modern American history, in this particular instance economic and social developments in the 1970s in the context of the 'social revolution' of the 1960s. This was an enjoyable class, and informative too. I learned some interesting things about inflation and discrimination in the workplace, among other topics.

As I recall, we next proceeded to the Slayton Arboretum, a fine park-like area just a wee walk from campus (and owned by the college, as far I know). It has two lakes, of which one below:

and these excellent little gazebo sort of buildings made out of stone, which looked very
medieval:

In the sister building of that shown above, I had Mom snap a picture of David and me:

After that, we linked up with Brian again for dinner, and he, quite of his own initiative, discovered an event going on that evening, so we would have something to occupy ourselves with. We went to a talk on Reagan and economics, which might have been very interesting, but a) I couldn't follow all of it very well and b) the speaker was limited to half an hour, and though he took about ten minutes' liberty with that he didn't flesh out his points too much, at least to me. In any case, we asked him some questions after word, and that was very pleasant.

That night, David and I got to stay in a dorm room together--common utilitarian fare, but it had just about everything a college student would require. Below is the front half of the room: there is another desk and bed behind it, along with closet space, two dressers and a sink.

We declined meeting other gentlemen in the dorm because we had a lot to talk about ourselves. We stayed up until past 2:00. :-) The conversation included C.S. Lewis, writing in an archaic style and how modern publishers might react to this, Harry Potter, Tolle Lege, writing in general, and I'm sure quite a few other things. Can you fill in some extra blanks here, David?

The next morning we sat in on another class together, this time Roman Civilization. This was all about the ins and outs of "Romanization," the phenomenon of Roman-influenced architecture in civilizations that Rome conquered, and vice-versa: foreign fads or the adoption of local stylings in Roman buildings and art. The professor (who was very animated and reminded me of J.E.B. Stuart :P) also talked a lot about literature from some particular period or other in Roman history--post Vergilian--and that was all pretty fascinating.

After that class we--eheu!--had to leave, finding little or nothing to dislike about our experience at Hillsdale, and not terribly happy about having to leave so soon. From there David and his mom went home, while my mom and I set off on the 200+ mile drive across northern Ohio to the fastnesses of Grove City, PA. Of which, more to come...

If there is one animal that need fear no cheeseburger...

2008-04-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

it is the common jaguar. I dare a chef to make a meal too thick for this animal.

I thought that was a pretty classic photo. :D

2008-04-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton is speaking right now 3/5 of a mile away from our house, at Liberty High School. I thought about going, but I decided against it. Interesting, what? :-P

Stuff in General

2008-03-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

I feel like I now have several things to say that may all be interesting to read about. The first is that my interest, rather negligible up until now, in Gutenberg College has been considerably piqued. It is a very small (48 students) liberal arts college in Eugene, Oregon (2 hours south of us). It features a unique liberal arts education--the same for all students--including in-depth study and discussion of the Great Books from the Bible and Homer to Tolstoy and Joyce, mandatory 2 years of classical Greek and 2 years of German, art classes, music classes, science and mathematics, and other things. What's different about the science and math classes is that they do not focus on lab work and problem-solving so much as on learning how discoveries and theories in these fields, such as the Theory of Relativity, have influenced thought. For someone like me, who doesn't have aspirations for a technical scientific or mathematical field, this would be close to ideal.

I was initially leery of the college because it offers only one major. I was suspicious of this mainly because it was different and unusual, not because I had really considered it. On further inspection, I think it is a rigorous and broad program that would, by God's grace and provided I worked hard, make a quantum leap in my ability to write, reason, and speak. Since that is exactly what I want to do, the curriculum is attractive. :-)

I also get the benefits of being able to come home on any holiday and even weekends if I want, and the University of Oregon's 2.3 million volume library. That could make any book-lover salivate. :D

I will also be visiting my other two primary schools under consideration, Hillsdale and Grove City, in two weeks or so, and at Hillsdale I will meet David (the two "David's...blog"s over on the links bar), and Ashton, both good friends whom I have never met in person. :-)

And, last but not least, I've begun another historical tome on the fall of Berlin, by modern historian Antony Beevor. It staggers my mind, every time I read about it, what monumental agony and mayhem Europe went through considerably less than an average lifetime before now. 7 million German civilians were displaced. The Red Army, over the course of the whole war, lost 9 million men--more than double the population of Oregon, or more than triple the amount of the entire active and reserve forces of the current U.S. military.

King Kong goes green...

2008-03-26T18:38:00.001-07:00

But not quite in the environmentalist sort of way. Alert level...7, I'll say. Points for Edward Norton, because he seems to do well and is cool (as far as acting goes, at least). Major detraction for heavy reliance on CG monsters over plot development and the Neo/Agent Smith street showdown. At least they didn't have a narrator.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/theincrediblehulk/

Correction

2008-03-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Actually it turns out I am not doing the PHC drama camp. Flights to the right airport at the right time are simply prohibitively expensive. I would have looked forward to it had it been practical, I think, but fortunately I haven't a huge stake in the venture. :-)

SAT Scores

2008-03-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, my scores came in today, and they were pleasant to my senses. :-) They are definitely above the cut-off point for the scholarship at Hillsdale that I am hoping for, so praise God for that!

I was also confirmed today as registered in Patrick Henry College's summer drama camp, which means seven days in Virginia and (one hopes) slightly better acting and a better grasp of drama on my part. That should be fun! I'll also be 18 when it happens. Gadzooks! I should start checking my temples for gray hairs now. ;-)

Carry On, My Wayward Short Story

2008-03-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

I just sent Mad Mariah in to Relief (a Christian literary publication) this evening. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated! Relief's response time is moderately large--not terribly unusual, but for anxious writers a month or more is a long time--but I'll be sure to update ya'll on what happens. I should be submitting some more stuff in a little while, too, of which I shall inform you as it happens. :-)

I wish I could write as well as Flannery O'Connor.

2008-03-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

I have had her collected short stories for some months now, but I only got around to seriously reading them yesterday, I believe. I've already read the first five (out of 31), and so far they are amazing, especially considering that the first six are actually her Master's thesis. She published her first short story when she was 21, so I guess there's hope for me!

Here's an awesome beginning:

"Miss Willerton always crumbed the table. It was her particular household accomplishment and she did it with great thoroughness. Lucia and Bertha did the dishes and Garner went into the parlor and did the Morning Press crossword puzzle. That left Miss Willerton in the dining room by herself and that was all right with Miss Willerton. Whew! Breakfast in the house was always an ordeal."

~The Crop

And some cool dialogue:

"What you got there, Joe?" one of the men in the back called, "one of them goodgovermint boys?"

"Yeah, the barber said. "He's gonna make a speech."

"I've heard too many of that kind already," the man said.

"You ain't heard one by Rayber," the barber said. "Rayber's all right. He don't know how to vote, but he's all right."

Rayber reddened. Two of the men strolled up. "This is no speech," Rayber said. "I only want to discuss it with you--sanely."

"Come on over here, Roy," the barber yelled.

"What are you trying to make of this?" Rayber muttered; then he said suddenly, "If you're calling everybody else, why don't you call your boy, George. You afraid to have him listen?"

~The Barber

I hope it inspires me to write better short stories, something I may have some time to do this week, as I am on limited spring break, which means that school is done much earlier than normal. :-)

~Connor

So I'm Convinced. Thoroughly.

2008-03-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

I am most happy to relate that I have converted from a long-time PC user to an enthusiastic fan of Macbooks. The reason? I have one. :-)

It may seem a rather abrupt purchase--and it was--but the reasoning behind it is sound. My computers to date have all been hand-me-downs. They were valuable and good while they lasted, but one got to be over ten years old, and ran on Windows 95, and had no internet access, while the other two got the rheumatic and the fever n' ague after a while. My latest one crashed a couple days ago and started giving me blue screens of death.

So I now have a new one, what is (we hope) to be my computer for college and likely beyond. It's my first brand new computer, and so far I've found little not to love. It has about 93 gigabytes more space than my previous computer, runs smoothly and quietly, and does everything I want it to and more. I'm happy!

The Original Carpe Diem Poem

2008-03-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ode 1.11

Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas), quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios

temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati!
Seu pluris hiemes, seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,

quae nunc opposites debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sabias, vina liques et spatio brevi

spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

~Horace

More or less:

Do not seek (it is a crime to know) what limit the gods have

given to me, to you, Leuconoe, and do not try the Babylonian

numbers. Whatever it will be, how much better to endure it!

Whether Juppiter has allotted you many winters or this is your last

one, which now weakens the Tyrrhenian sea with opposing pumice

stones: be wise, drink wine, and because of our brief space,

cut away your long hope. While we speak, the jealous age

will have fled: seize the day, trusting the next as little as possible.

--------------

It was pretty cool to run across the very first one!

SAT Aftermath

2008-03-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it's done, and I hope this will be the last time I have to do it. It was surprisingly less stressful and overwhelming than I had expected, although it was certainly long (5 hours of testing, including three breaks that totalled 11 minutes altogether). It was actually a close-run thing, arriving on time, though through no fault of our own. My admission ticket gave Sunset High School as the testing center. We duly trotted over there on the fateful morning, only to find the place nearly deserted, except for band practice and "Saturday School." No signs advertising the SAT. No queues of students. Not even very many lights on. We and four or five other befuddled kids walked round the place looking for something hopeful, until a person evidently connected to the Saturday School informed us that the testing center had been moved to Westview High School.

Well, think we, many thanks to the College Board for informing us of the change. And so we hussle off to Westview, scooting in near the end of the line, and there turned out to be no trouble getting in.

500 students were taking the test at the high school that day, but fortunately we were siphoned off into classrooms, giving me only 29 fellow testers. With my tan slacks and wine-red turtleneck, I didn't consider myself dressed to the nines, but it rather looked like that by comparison. One young man was wearing what were obviously plaid pajama pants, several girls had slippers on, and another was wearing something like athletic tights or long underwear, ripped at the knee. Not a particularly unexpected wardrobe, but still rather sad.

After being informed of all the various SAT misdemeanors and felonies that could result in immediate expulsion and cancellation of scores, we slogged on through the test. The essay prompt was fairly easy, fortunately, as I was able to include an example from The Remains of the Day, which I recently finished reading, and bring up the RUF from the Sierra Leone Civil War, as I had just watched half of Blood Diamond the evening before. I was also able to slip in the word "evitable," which I had just learned about in Thoreau's Walden a day or so earlier. So lots of things worked out well there. :-) It's possible I focused more on the negative side of my point than on the positive side, but that is, of course, impossible to edit.

The verbal and writing sections were generally quite easy, and though some math problems certainly posed a difficulty, I was able to do all of them, which is more than I can say for some of my practice tests. All in all, I felt quite positive about the whole thing. So praise God for that, and many thanks for all your prayers!

Now I just have to wait until the 20th to see if my impressions are confirmed. :-)

It's Better than Flogging Round the Fleet, but...

2008-02-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

I could think of less stressful ways to spend a Saturday morning. :-D The SAT is a mere two days away for me. I have the chance to take it again if my score is poor, but of course I want to give it my best shot the first time around, and as those of you who have already taken it know, it's a long process and a bit mentally grueling. Your prayers are appreciated, and anyone who is taking it Saturday will have my prayers as well!

Note that I have been reading War and Peace, but falling miserably short of my quota. I guess that's not surprising, given school and writing...but a little discipline is all it would take. :-P

A Mighty Big Project

2008-02-22T22:25:00.001-08:00

Well, as my sidebar indicates, I've undertaken to read War and Peace. I got it for Christmas, as the venerable Pevear and Volokhonsky team had not long hence released a translation of it. It was your example in large part, David, that inspired me to take it up now, with a couple school books out of the way. I intend to set myself between at least 30 to 50 pages at day, so that I can finish it in about a month. I'm 20 pages in, and it's already quite fascinating. The translators have obligingly put a list of major characters at the beginning, so I hope I shan't grow too confused as I buzz-saw through the rest of its 1216 pages. :-P

In other news, I am considering taking Patrick Henry's summer drama class in late June, provided it doesn't conflict with any other summer plans. That should be fun, if I do decide to do it. More near in the calendar, I will be visiting Hillsdale and Grove City this April, and will at last get to meet David in person, which is of course most exciting. :)

Collegiate Schizophrenia

2008-02-14T12:23:00.001-08:00

A thought struck me today. Colleges are most incongruous in their attitudes and actions toward prospective students. The scenario goes something like this.

Fresh-faced high schooler: All right! PSAT's out of the way. I hope colleges like my scores.

Sycophantic Director of Admissions: Mr. Smith, we feel sure that you are just the right fit for our academically broad, culturally rich, ethnically diverse college! We live in the ABSOLUTE MOST BEAUTIFUL AREA OF THE WORLD. Our professors will blow your socks off with their talents, which the survey America's Best Colleges has raved about as "pure genius" and "the nonpareil tour de force of all academia." We have a 2:1 student to faculty ratio, societies named after every letter combination of the Greek alphabet, a world-class sports team in every known sport from football to Sorry! to go-moku, a 25,000 acre botanical garden, guaranteed five minute bus ride access to nine symphony halls, thirty eight restaurants, fourteen shopping malls, over sixty brew pubs and 499 of the Fortune 500 headquarters (internships abound here!!). Our students come from all 50 states and every country except Antarctica. They hold to every known world religion and ideology (including the largest Ba'hai and animistic fellowships on any campus). We also offer superb need-based financial aid, which allows people from the ENTIRE spectrum of backgrounds to attend. With over 1,200 courses in everything from nuclear physics to an ROTC in the Swedish milita, you can set out on an unparalleled career path, and become a better world citizen.

Feel like challenging the norm? Want to be an achiever? Like being exposed to people different from you? This may be the college for you!! Just go online with your user name and password and request the booklet I've written, 87 things you need to know for your college search. Johnny, we can't wait to hear from you!

Fresh-faced high schooler: Boy oh boy, that sounds great! I think I'll apply there.

--Six months pass--

Suddenly purple-faced Director of Admission: All right, pencil-neck. The burden is on YOU to prove that you're qualified for this college. You'd sure better be able to encapsulate all your life's struggles, your greatest weaknesses, and what measley skills you can contribute to this college in a five hundred word essay, and throw together a bally good transcript, or by Jingo, this is the last you'll hear from us! Do I make myself clear? You may think you're a jolly good student. You might think your academic accomplishments have marked you for greatness. Yeah? Prove it! We don't have time for slackers!!

Fresh-faced high schooler: Um...I just wanted to play Sorry! in your 25,000 acre botanical garden...

Has anyone else been getting deluges of e-mails and letters from colleges? It can be rather amusing. ;-)

King Kong Alert Level 9!

2008-02-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Wow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4pWuFv48Zk

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rz5NekSUTM

Enza Ousted by Government Forces After Short Coup

2008-02-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your prayers, my friends! The Gorgon Enza is relinquishing her hold with extreme reluctance, but that she is relinquishing it is beyond question. :) We missed church as a family today for the first time in about 14 years, barring trips (on which we've tried to find a local church anyway) and one closed highway. That was unfortunate, but I'm thankful that we are healthy and safe enough to go as regularly as we do!

I'm having to catch up on some school over this weekend, but 'tis not a monumental amount, and not much of it requires exceptional concentration or acumen. I'm finding The Scarlet Letter interesting. Being a 19th century romantic novel, it feels heavily overblown compared to modern writing, and the symbolism and foreshadowing is often so obvious that Hawthorne can feel like a sneaky reviewer spoiling his own plot--but it's rather fun, nevertheless, despite its rather skewed vision of the Puritans. Hawthorne does seem to be a fairly good observer of human nature, and his style, which is a deliberate throwback to the 17th century, is chock full of long sentences, archaic language and phrasing, and spellings like "clew" for clue. I don't know if readers in Hawthorne's day were just not expected to be as perceptive as now, or if keeping readers guessing wasn't the point--but in any case, it's an interesting read.

I'm also having a lot of fun with Kiriana...I think this chapter I just finished (except for a bit of editing) is going to be the last really peaceful one for quite a while!

2008-02-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

Eheu! Enza flew in a couple days ago...Dad got it first, and so has turned a corner, but Mom and I are both tired and achey. :-( Your prayers that we would all recover quickly would be greatly appreciated.

Who else is watching Groundhog Day tomorrow? ;-)

Book Finished

2008-01-29T20:02:00.001-08:00

Title: Life of Pi.
Verdict: weird, interesting. Decently written. Violent.
Review: pending.

:-)

King Kong Alert

2008-01-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

This alert would be a level...oh, 7 or so? Except for a deep-voiced narrator, there are few modern movie flaws this trailer fails to deliver: CG monsters, cheesy taglines, an unconvincing love story, heathen temples, big messy battles--the lot. Experience the ice-age goofiness here.

2008-01-25T14:34:00.001-08:00

Our internet connection, normally robust and dependable, has taken the palsey, or contracted influenza, or some such like. Which is to say that if you send me an e-mail or make a comment that merits a response, and I say nothing, it is likely because I can't access it. ;-)

Trailer!

2008-01-23T12:26:00.000-08:00

A piercing violin note. The Universal Studios logo appears, then fades out. A drum. Cut to a ship of the line flying the Union Jack. Cut to the same ship laying alongside an American merchantman. Fade-out with another drum. Cut to a struggling American sailor, held by two marines.

American Sailor: Please, sir, I haven’t done no wrong!

British Lieutenant: Just come aboard, young man, be a good sport. You’re in the his majesty’s service now—and that means discipline!

Cut to the American sailor being whipped by a cat o’ nine tails. Scream. Fade out.

Cut to James Madison at his desk, a note in his hands.

Madison: These impressments must stop!

He slams the desk.

Narrator (As American soldiers run down a street): This summer, a fledgling nation…

Cut to cannons lined on a battlefield.

will pit itself against the greatest empire…

Cut to a CG shot, starting at the front of the line and then receding to reveal oncoming hordes of marching Redcoats kicking up dust.

the world had ever known.

Madison (pacing in front of a line of soldiers): At times like these, you have to ask yourself—is democracy worth fighting for? What will you give for your country? Are you ready—are you ready—to die for the cause? They may take our lives, but they will never take…OUR FREEDOM!

Cut to Lake Champlain, where a British and American ship exchange furious broadsides. Cue choral music. Cut to the burning of Washington, D.C. Cut to soldiers struggling through a swamp during the invasion of Canada. Cut to a scalping. Cut to cannon fire. Cut to a pioneer woman looking at her husband with an expression of emotional pain.

Cut to Andrew Jackson, standing on a hilltop.

Andrew Jackson: They want to test the mettle of Americans? Let ‘em try.

Cannon shells are falling around.

Aide: General Jackson, you should take cover, sir.

Jackson: Damn the cover! No American should take cover.

Cannon shot blasts the aide off the hill.

Second Aide: General Jackson, sir…

Jackson: He died for his country. That’s enough.

Choral music restarts. Cut to a ship turning in rough seas, sending up sheets of spray. Cut to an American soldier passionately making out with a pioneer woman, whose dress, just barely out of frame, seems to be coming off. Cut to a fusillade of shots. Cut to an exploding fruit cart. Cut to an Indian brandishing a bloody hatchet.

Jackson: This is your chance to show them the true mettle of a frontiersman!

Sudden silence. Cut to a British invasion fleet making an amphibious assault. Boatloads of men are rowing in dead silence toward the shore. With them is a detachment of trolls and several CG sharks, who appear to be on the British side. An American watchman sights the invasion force and stares, ashen-faced and wide-eyed.

Watchman: What the he—

Hands appear out of the darkness and muffle his scream. Cue serious cello theme, with bass drum accompaniment every first beat.

NO COMPROMISE

Jackson draws his saber.

NO RETREAT

Madison: By all the powers of Hades, I charge you men to stand your ground!

NO MERCY

Cut to a group of Indians in full war paint leering at a calm and peaceful frontier fort.

Indian: Heap big scalps.

Other Indians grin maliciously.

IT WAS A WAR LIKE NONE OTHER

Cut to Andrew Jackson and a British envoy, atop a fort wall in New Orleans looking over the Gulf of Mexico.

Envoy: General, you are outnumbered. The only gentlemanly option left to you is surrender.

Jackson: Surrender! By Jingo, if you so much as mention the word again…

Envoy: You refuse to…eh, capitulate?

Jackson: I think that’s a foregone conclusion. We fight!

Envoy: But—but this is bloody madness!

Pause. Jackson glares out of the side of his eyes.

Jackson: Madness? No. This – is – America!

Kick. Envoy takes a dive.

Screen goes black. One by one, with a thundering boom, each massive red letter appears:

1
8
1
2

Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, Keifer Sutherland, Paris Hilton and Sir Ian Mckellan in: 1812: A War Like None Other. Coming to theaters nationwide on July 22nd.

Farewell, Mr. Ledger

2008-01-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

Actor Heath Ledger died today, likely from a drug overdose. He was 28. He left a young daughter behind. I never even came close to knowing him, never saw him in real life, but I feel pity for the man. One of the main things I know him for is portraying a homosexual character in Brokeback Mountain. From what I have heard of him, he did not profess Christ. I hope, some time before he died, that he was drawn to the only way of salvation.

Death comes to us all. I pray it did not come upon Mr. Ledger unawares.

I have a piano student!

2008-01-13T20:11:00.001-08:00

That student being the six year-old son of our neighbors across the street. :-) I am a little nervous, but it should be very exciting to guide someone through what I myself was learning seven or eight years ago. It also pays, which never hurts.

I have also added Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, and A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finish Winter War of 1939-1940 by William R. Trotter, to my reading--the former for school and the latter for pleasure/research.

2008-01-08T21:44:00.000-08:00

I find it curious that, just about when I switched over to Blogger, I can now think of little to post that would actually be worth the ATPs of energy burnt by typing the keys. :-) Maybe it's the fact that posting trivial things on Blogger seems somehow more incongruous than on Xanga, likely because of its more formal format. That is likely a good thing.

I suppose the chief news of any kind that may be of interest is two-fold: one, that I am re-reading Huckleberry Finn for my English class, having once read it on my own, and the interesting-looking Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose; and two, that after next week I will no longer be taking any classes with the Star Torrey Academy. After a generally excellent experience last year, this year has taken a turn for the worse--I now feel like the writing assignments are below my level, the administration is disorganized and inflexible, the discussion is not very profitable, and the general course of learning lacks sufficient depth.

I'm also loving Latin and piano, and writing is going very well. Adieu!

2008-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Happy new year! If you have made any resolutions, and they are worthy ones, I hope you hold to them. :-)