And Like The Prodigal Son, I've Returned

Sheepishly, tentatively, I make my way back to the Book Blog. Neglected like an irritating sibling and yet just as important, allow this post to mark my return to all things booky, bloggy, and Briany. I won't make excuses as to what happened or why I dropped out for several months. Instead, let us rejoice in the news that I have returned. Have it shouted from hither and tither. Ring the bells. Awake the sleeping wildebeest. Prepare tea. Cry havoc and let loose the blogs of... No, I won't go there.

So to catch up, I lost my job in January, enjoyed a few vacations on the cheap in Mammoth Cave, Ky, and Gatlinburg, Tn. I've indulged my yen for hot and spicy food, started taking karate, saw some movies, started smoking, quit smoking, enjoyed some frosty beverages, blew stuff up, loved, laughed, and started messing around with a bullwhip.

Oh, the reading, you ask. How is that going? Rather well, although slow at times. It's a regret that I don't read quite as much as I did ten years ago but I feel I do enough to keep the wordsmiths and publishers in filthy lucre.

I'm currently reading Smile When You're Lying by Chuck Thompson. Have you ever read travel books or magazine articles that lasciviously describe in orgasmic detail how much fun you'll have if you go to, say, Nantucket or Brazil or New Zealand? Perfect days drinking perfect drinks enjoying perfect venues before settling in for a perfect sunset, usually near some key perfect landmark, you know what I'm talking about. Believe it or not some of it is actual bunk. Y'see, travel writers don't write to entice you to engage your own curiosity, they write to entice you to spend wodges of cash at whatever tourist destination is paying them (or the magazine they write for) to hype up.

Not even travel is sacred. But as Mark Twain once said, sacred cows make the best hamburgers. That's what Thompson does between the covers of this hilarious, death defying, sweet, harrowing, and addictive book. You will, of course, judge for yourself, however, it is the most easy read of the year.

As for the writing, feh, don't ask.

For now, let us continue our appreciate of literature, reading, and things that go tome in the night.

PS Forgive me for my use of House of Pain lyrics for titles.

Hell, tis March!

My head hurts. This year is fastly marauding along the lathe of time.

I think I'll make some green tea.

Updates

Firstly, how many knew that Carrie Fisher was blogging?

As for me, I recently lost my job. I was considered a financial decision. Sad. I had been with the organization for just over five years and work with some really, really, really nice folks.

The only thing worse than having a job is looking for a job. Anyway, for hire: one creative writer. Apply within.

Lastly, I think I have the comings of another chest cold.

So... bleah.

President Obama

Apparently, the new president reads books. Doubtless, all of the presidents read books or else they wouldn't have be able reach the highest office in the nation. It's silly to suggest that Obama is going to be the first literate president. Hello, Thomas Jefferson.

But today does mark the end of the anti-intellectual years of George W. Bush and the beginning of a new era. That's not hyperbole, it is a new era, literally. There are more Democrats in Congress (assuming Kennedy and Byrd pull through), one in the White House. One wonders what will be different from when the Republicans controlled Congress and the White House for six years. And I don't mean that in a partisan tone. Look what one-party rule did for our nation before.

Obama and Congress have quite a large pile of debt, strife and ignominy to deal with. Let's hope, for us, they can put us back on track.

Not all football players are dumb

Some choose to put off a career on the grid iron for another sort of prestige.

Although, I must confess that "Rhodes scholar" always makes me think of this exchange from the TV show, Cheers.

Dr. Frasier Crane: [about Dr. Simon Finch-Royce] We were students together when I was a Rhodes scholar.

Woody Boyd: Wow, you were a Rhodes scholar?

[Frasier nods affirmatively]

Woody Boyd: Tell me this, how come the stuff they fill in the potholes with is darker than the rest of the road?

Dr. Frasier Crane: I don't know Woody. I missed that day.

Woody Boyd: And now it's come back to haunt you.

From the episode "Simon Says".

Death to a Dalek (operator)

This morning, I sadly doff my Whovian cap to the life of John Scott Martin who passed away January 6th from Parkinson's disease at the age of 82. Martin appeared in several Doctor Who stories from the sixties until 1989 often encased in some form of latex, fiberglass or other facial obscuring costumes: a Zarbi, a Mechanoid or as the ill-fated alien Kriz in The Brain of Morbius. He even got a bit of face time as Hughs in The Green Death and as a quickly-dispatched security guard in Tom Baker's first story, Robot. But he was best known as one of the many anonymous men who operated the Doctor's chief enemy, the Daleks.

He also managed to turn up in some non-Who productions. He played one of the employees/pirates of the Crimson Permanent A in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. He even popped up in the video for Peter Gabriel's Steam.

Below is a clip of excerpts from the documentary I Was A Doctor Who Monster. Martin pops up a few times discussing the intracies of operating a Daek and smashing into cameras while wearing giant ant costumes.

Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.

I happened along an interesting website this morning callled Daily Routine. This blog is dedicated to unveiling how writers and other artists partition out their creativity during a day, their habits and other bits of sparkling errata. It's minutiae but it is engrossing minutiae.

So if you're interested in how Willem de Kooning kept his milk cold or whether Truman Capote did his horizontally or when James Thurber's wife told him to stop writing, it's all here for you.

Enjoy.

Resolutely unresolved

So here it is, January 5th. Already. Three-hundred-sixty days are left in the year and it's obvious you haven't done a dern thing. Never fear, we here at NRABB2 (actually, I here) are accepting of your slack. It shows great spirit on your part to not want to conform or yield to want to improve yourself. Keep up your non-momentum.

Many people say it but I mean it: I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions. I find them rather pointless, hopelessly optimistic and prone to failure. "I declare that because of the rollover of the Julian calendar, itself a relative and arbitrary invention, I shall stop eating chocolates, quit smoking and promise to go rampage on a treadmill thrice weekly." It sounds silly, doesn't it?

Is that the point? Is it supposed to be something that we're ultimately doomed to flail and fail at? Perhaps not. There are certainly good reasons to quit smoking, lose weight and become more healthy but one should do it because one wants to and not because they see January 1st on the calendar as some sort of psychic tabula rasa. Struth, do it because it's a Wednesday afternoon and it'll mean the same thing.

That's not to say one shouldn't set goals, far be it me to say that. I have many goals for the coming year: continue writing, become a published writer, turn 40, enjoy music, sin intensely, drink, carouse... in other words, be myself or a next level of myself. Brian, with added oomph! But I'm doing that because it's what I'd rather do and not what I should do. Believe it or not, it's more fun living that way.

Certainly, we're beholden to a clock of some sort or a master of another or a boss of limited interference. Something pulls our string. But to have it be a calendar, that's not living. That's time management.

In summation: New Year's resolutions -- hate'em, don't do'em.

Coming up for 2009, more books and more offbeat postings. I've recently started All The President's Men by Woodward & Bernstein. Atypical material for me as I'm not into history (as yet) but interesting stuff regardless. After this book, I'm thinking on tackling Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Anything after that should be a doddle. Narf!

I'm happy to see my acquaintances at the Mercantile Library are blogging again. I did miss them over the holiday break and while it's not their sole work to amuse me, a day without their insight is a day bereft of... erm... insight from the staff of a local library. One thing I would like to do this year in addition to the above is to become more involved with that merry band of hardback bawdies.

All that and learn to play piano like Professor Longhair.



Until next time... fess!