NaNoWriMo in Retrospect

      Well, depending on your metrics, my first ever participation in National Novel Writing Month was either a colossal failure or a moderate success. If you go by word count (which is a lot of the point), then I failed miserably to reach the 50,000 word goal for the month. I was pretty sure I'd never be able to keep up the pace required to crank out that much material, and sure enough, by the end of week one, I was already hopelessly behind. Before Thanksgiving I got sick, then we traveled for the holiday, and blah, blah, blah, excuses, excuses, excuses. To make a long story short (pun intended), I ended up with less than 15,000 words produced.
      But. That's far more than I would usually produce in that time frame (I'm counting the time as about 2 1/2 weeks; after that, I worked on it almost not at all), because I've always been a terrible fiddler--I hate to commit stuff to the page that I know is going to get edited out later, and I spend way too much time finessing sentences as I go. Which takes forever, and leads to the discouragement of low output. With the artificial deadline of NaNoWriMo, I was compelled to go ahead and set some crap down, even knowing that it would never see the light of day, and that really helped push my story idea forward in a way I've never been able to accomplish before.
      So I didn't end up with anything approaching a completed book, but I did get the benefit of the mental exercise. Hopefully it will serve as a reminder as I go forward to "just write it down, stupid." Maybe I should get that printed up on a coffee mug, or better yet, a beer glass.

National Novel Writing Month: Day 1

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp So today was the first day of my first time to participate in the annual National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. It's a cool international initiative to get writers writing by creating the voluntary and intimidating deadline of committing 50,000 words of fiction to paper (or more likely, to the hard drive) in just 30 days. While such a grueling pace is unlikely to produce the most polished of prose, it's a wonderful exercise for excessive putzers like me to simply WRITE IT DOWN, STUPID. You can always go back and fix it later.
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp The NaNoWriMo website offers scads of resources and support for participants, even opportunities to get together with--or merely interact online with--other enthusiastic writers in your area or around the world. You can share your work, or your growing word count, or nothing at all with other participants, but even after one day I've found that a high bar, even a totally arbitrary one, will likely be a good thing for my writing. I've dusted off a story idea I've had lying around for ages, and I made more progress on it today than I have in years of staring at it in my "must get to someday" file. Today's count: 1,535 words--a little short of what I'll need to crank out each day if I want to end up w/ 50,000 on November 30th. I won't be posting the whole blessed thing daily, but I've added today's work after the "Read more" jump below--what will be the Prologue--for anyone foolish enough to be interested. It's tentatively titled "Working for the Man," and although it's still in the early throes of its infancy, please remember that this is still copyrighted work.

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It Might Get Loud (2008)

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp There's a pitch-perfect moment in It Might Get Loud, director Davis Guggenheim's loving homage to rock guitar and three of its more talented practitioners. It comes when the filmmaker follows Jimmy Page, the legendary lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin, into Page's music library, where he puts on one of his favorite 45's--"Rumble" by Link Wray. Up until this point Page has seemed quiet and cautious, secure in his status as one of rock's gods, but unwilling to give too much away. But from the moment Wray's vibrato surf-guitar growls from the speakers, Page's face lights up with glee, and he begins explaining to the cameraman what it is about Wray's performance that spoke to him as a young guitarist. He starts strumming an imaginary guitar, and when Wray rips off a particularly slow, nasty riff, Page laughs out loud over the audacity of it, his face the very picture of unadulterated joy. In that moment he ceases to be Jimmy Page, rock legend, and becomes one of us, just another guy playing air guitar in his bedroom, trying to explain to his buddy why this is the best goddamn guitar solo ever.

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Uriah Q. Muttonchop on Advancements & Breakthroughs in the Great Scientific Endeavor

      Dear Reader, those of you who rely upon this fine publication for news of Great Strides in the Scientific Endeavor have become accustomed in this space to find the byline of Dr. Phineas Fobswallow, Naturalist & Philosopher of Science. Due however to fiduciary constraints recently imposed upon The Picayune-Tattler, as well as certain unfortunate rumors concerning Dr. Fobswallow being bandied about by the so-called Fancy Gentlemen of this town's less reputable haunts, I will be adding the Technology Beat to my already groaning burden of journalistic duties for the foreseeable future.
      But what a month during which to be thrust into the hurly-burly of the scientific world! First, the Wonder Baked Goods Corporation astounded and delighted us all with the introduction of their ingenious Previously Sliced Bread Loaves, forever freeing the nation's womenfolk from the arduous and so often bloody task of slicing their family's Daily Bread. I predict that this development will be the benchmark against which all future great inventions are measured. Let me here add my personal and heartfelt "Huzzah!" to the laurels already heaped upon the brow of that truly Wonder-ful company.
      No sooner had the hubbub attending that remarkable breakthrough begun to wane when the boffins at the Apple Company announced, with their trademark blend of Hoopla and Foofaraw™, the introduction of their amazing new machine--The Fountain Pen, which for reasons still murky to this reporter, they have dubbed the iPen. Whatever its name, this ingenious device has forever eliminated the drudgery of repeatedly dipping one's quill in the inkpot by storing a continuous supply of ink in a reservoir intrinsic to the pen itself!
      How can I relate to you with mere words, dear Reader, the Technological Ecstacies to which I am transported by this device? Not only is the iPen a marvel of Utility and Engineering, but, as we have now come to expect from the folks at Apple, the iPen's form is so beauteous, so sensuous, so rife with Barely Suppressed Sensuality that even now as I use my new iPen to write these very words, I fair blush to think on it.
      It seems almost base to quibble about the pen's few shortcomings, but quibble I must, for the People's Edification is my Sacred Trust. I have already heard a rumor through Reliable Sources in the town, that Apple plans soon to introduce a new and improved version of the iPen with an even larger storage reservoir of ink, the iPen Two Ought. Thereby Apple rewards my loyalty by callously presenting me with Mr. Hobson's Choice: either I must lay out more of my precious spondoolicks to upgrade a pen from which the heady sheen of newness has barely faded, or I must suffer the indignity of having Davey the Copy Boy incessantly waggling his iPen Two Ought in a provocative and taunting manner every time he can contrive to catch my gaze.
      A second and even more vexing drawback is that the purchase of a new iPen further binds one into an exclusive contract with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company for the replenishment of one's ink supply. Even were it not obvious that such a monopoly will inevitably lead to an artificial inflation in the price of ink, I would still be trepidatious, for it has been this reporter's experience that that particular company would be hard pressed successfully to deliver a telegram free from errors of transcription, even so far as to its own corporate backside. And now that they have moved their Center for the Redress of Customer Grievances to their slaveholdings in the South Pacific, the simplest enquiry or complaint requires at least an eighteen-month overseas correspondence, usually in Pidgin. I do not relish the notion of trying to track down a missing shipment of ink with them: "Inky no come here, long time. Where inky now time, you tell?"
      But all these quibbles fade in the soft sensual glow that emanates from my beautiful new iPen. Once again Apple has pipped their competition at the post and come first to the market with a wondrous and elegant new product for the Betterment of Mankind. And a Little Birdy of Scientific Endeavour has already told this correspondent that Apple's next project is a new and improved sort of gramophone disc that will allow so much music to be recorded on a single platter, all of Herr Beethoven's Ninth Symphony could be transcribed on but five two-sided records. What a Brave New World that has such advancements in't!

More Things That Keep Me Up At Night

      If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, shouldn't I be investing heavily in hand-birds?

      I am God's gift to women. If they don't like me in this color or the size is wrong, they're still gonna need a receipt to return me. Right?

      Did Marco Polo really invent echo-location at sea, or is that game just apocryphal?

      Is it possible to overdose on cottage cheese? Cause man, I ate about half a tub of that stuff right before I lay down, and now my toes are numb.

Before there were more things that keep me up at night, there were of course simply things that keep me up at night.

Uriah Q. Muttonchop, Humble Chronicler of the Affairs of the Celebrated

      Dear Reader, as the Entertainment Correspondent for this fine periodical, The Picayune-Tattler, it is my great pleasure and privilege to wind my meandering course throughout this fair land’s many theatres, writing salons, and town square gazebos, rubbing elbows with the most talented Thespians, Singers, Orators and Writers our vibrant young country has to offer. Some of the more generous of them will graciously stand a drink or two for an Impecunious Scribbler, while a few even of the richest insist on The Dutchman's Treat. You know who you are, Mr. Van D--.
      But with great opportunity comes the equally great burden—nay, sacred duty—of the would-be chronicler of this land’s rich tapestry of entertainment: penning the Obituaries of the Celebrated—those dolorous dispatches that remind us yes, even for kings He comes, though one may be the very King of Popular Music.
      It was but a month ago that I first informed you, dear reader, of the passing of the beloved and internationally renowned Negro entertainer, Mr. Michael Jackson. I will never forget the sense of awe and child-like wonder invoked in me the first time I saw Mr. Jackson’s minstrel show on stage—the elaborate sets, the dozens of ballet-artists, and of course, his signature flourish, the Moon Walk. How my mind boggled at the feat! “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” I heard myself ejaculate. “To all outward appearances, he seems to be walking in a perfectly straightforward manner. And yet, see how he nevertheless is progressing not forward as one would naturally expect, but widdershins! What a Strange and Wondrous place the Moon must be if indeed its denizens perambulate in such a manner!”
      Perhaps some of us tutted at the troubled man-child’s Foibles and Eccentricities—the single gauntlet, the tinted spectacles he wore even at night, the pederasty. And even Mr. Jackson’s staunchest supporters in the Negro community bemoan the ill-advised Whiteface Routine he had incorporated into his performances in recent years. Mr. Jackson himself was so taken with the look that on more than one occasion this humble correspondent espied him about town in full costume and whiteface, as if he were perpetually performing on stage, no matter whither he went. Yet who among us cannot whistle at least one of his Famous Ditties, and who of us who witnessed his Opulent Funeral was not moved when that great golden sarcophagus was lowered into the mouldy earth, followed by his beloved pet elephant Jumbo, still mournfully trumpeting a lament for its Fallen Master as the tomb's lid sealed them together 'til that other, Final Trumpet does blast?
      Now yet again I put pen to paper with Heavy Heart, for I have the onerous task of informing you that during the very same month two more of our beloved idols have shuffled off this Mortal Coil, never again in this world to thrill us with their prodigious gifts or their derring-do.
      I dab now at the tears in my eyes as I write of the death of beloved charlatan William Mays. What housewife’s heart did not thrill to the noise of his shrill tenor as he arrived on her street in his horse and buggy, hollering his wares? How he eased the daily drudgery of her Domestic Rounds with his improbably Miraculous Nostrums! And if his snake oil could not always remove the blood and vomit from Father’s going-out shirts as efficaciously as promised, what lonely homemaker would begrudge the odd fib or two, if only it were shouted to her by one so Manly in Form and so Lush of Beard? Farewell, sweet Billy, and may flights of angels bellow thee to thy rest.
      My final charge in this litany of woe, dear reader, is to report that Mr. Stephen McNair, who once bestrode the football gridiron like Colossus, was brutally gunned down by his mistress in a Love Nest in the city. The Wicked Vixen—who it should be noted was of Foreign Extraction—gave vent to all the fury of her sex when scorned, before turning the Hellish Engine of Destruction upon her own tender breast. Though tragic, perhaps Mr. McNair’s fate might serve as a Lesson for Gentlemen to steer clear of the doxies, or at the very least to make certain said ladies remain ignorant of the Art of Shooting, a discipline which this Sad Affair makes clear should remain the exclusive Province of Men.

Top Ten Imaginary Reasons for Hypothetical Palin Divorce*

      Over the weekend, a rumor spread quickly across the internet that Sarah and Todd Palin were on the verge of getting divorced. The rumor was started by the Alaska-based blog "The Immoral Minority," but has since been vehemently denied by both Sarah Palin's lawyer and her spokesperson, and few major news outlets have touched the story with anything less than a ten-foot pole. But the boring truth has never hindered The Broken Stove from makin' stuff up before, and we couldn't help wondering: if Sarah and Todd Palin were to get a divorce, what might be the top ten reasons for them going their separate ways?

10) Stress caused by the media's insistence on quoting Sarah's actual words, as opposed to that much better thing she thought of as soon as she got home.
9) Staying together would simply be "marriage as usual," something Sarah swore she'd never do.
8) Sarah doesn't want kids to be saddled with lame duck mother.
7) "Once you 'go McCain,' there's no goin' back to plain."
6) Gay marriages in the sinful states have eroded fabric of once-sacred institution to the point where straight Palin marriage never had a chance.
5) Todd & Sarah just can't keep it in or out of their pants, respectively.
4) Let's face it; Todd just not First Man material.
3) Sarah sick of Todd constantly bugging her for sex act he calls "Shoot Me from the Helicopter."
2) Sarah is not quitting the marriage, she's simply repositioning herself to serve the marriage in other arenas.
...and the number one hypothetical reason why the Palins would hypothetically get a divorce:
1) It would be the Mavericky thing to do!

*Not actionable. Really. Don't even try it.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Plays the Dozens

      Last week Harvard prof Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested after breaking into his own home. The arresting officer's report indicates that when he told Gates he would speak to him outside, the famous scholar allegedly replied, "ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside." What happened when they both hit the street was the most vicious dozens beatdown that a Harvard professor of literary criticism has ever laid on a Cambridge police officer.

• "Yo mama's girth is so prodigious, I was compelled to compensate my limo driver with overtime remuneration because of the time required to navigate to her good side."
• "Yo mama's intelligence is so feeble, she mistook football's "quarterback" position w/ a refund of 25¢, when in fact it has nothing to do with currency at all."
• "Yo mama's so advanced in years, a screening of the motion picture 'Jurassic Park' evoked in her a keen nostalgia for the days of her youth."
• "Yo mama's girth is so prodigious that, presuming you reside in a building with multiple floors, the safety notification posted by the responsible authority in your building's elevator reads MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY: 12 Passengers or Yo Mama."
• "Yo mama's physical appearance is so repulsive, that John Merrick, better known by his sobriquet 'The Elephant Man', because the combination of terrible deformities inflicted upon his body by a congenital disorder gave him what some witnesses perceived to be an elephantine appearance...of course his name was not really John at all, but Joseph; due to an unfortunate error of recall made in the memoirs of his one-time physician and guardian Frederick Treves, the mistaken name 'John' was perpetuated, and then reinforced in the contemporary public's mind by the Oscar-winning film 'The Elephant Man,' a fictionalized account of Merrick's life directed by avant-garde filmmaker David Lynch, who used Treves's memoir as source material. But none of this is really pertinent to my central thesis, to wit: yo mama's so ugly, the Elephant Man paid to see her."
• "Yo mama's intelligence is so feeble, she raised you, a high-handed authoritarian who believes that his position as an officer of the law empowers him to punish disrespect with imprisonment, even when the disrespect has been earned, and comes at the hands of an innocent man who has been humiliated in his own very expensive home, and who has committed no crime other than being in the wrong skin at the wrong time."

"H" Is for the Hurt Behind the Humor

      As I continue strolling through the songs on my iPod, I've made it up to the letter "H". I'm surprised to find that 230 or so songs on my iPod right now begin with "H", but not so many of them are among my most favorite. Oh, there's plenty of good stuff, but it feels like A-G had more songs that I return to again and again. So picking an "H" theme proved more difficult than some of the previous letters...until I noticed how many of my "H" songs were either silly, or sad, or a little bit of both. Which got me thinking about the idea that a lot of humor has its basis in sorrow or pain. Slapstick is the most obvious example, of course, where the humor lies almost entirely in observing another's painful discomfiture and being glad it's not you. A lot of what makes us laugh is the same thing that would make us curl up in a corner and sob like a baby if we couldn't figure out how to hang a comic face on it. In that spirit I offer up my "H" songs, most of which have humor with at least a little hurt behind it.
      The Rainmakers were a great Missouri band who played an odd mix of hilarious rave-ups and more serious social satire, but everything they did came wrapped in a tight, catchy rock and roll bow. Lead singer and songwriter Bob Walkenhorst has not only a unique voice but also a biting wit and a great sense of musical humor ("Big Fat Blonde" still ranks for me as one of the great silly party songs of all time). "Hoo Dee Hoo" mixes their trademark upbeat guitar rock with a nonsense chorus and a surprisingly touching lyric of nostalgia and regret.

      "Hank" is a bluesy story-song by the Boston bar band Treat Her Right (some of its members, including the late Mark Sandman, later spun off to form Morphine). The song's narrator imagines a cry-in-your-beer story to explain the message found written on a dollar bill: "She lost. You won. I love her. Hank."

      I've been laser-burning new pits in my copy of Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" with repeated listenings ever since it came out. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems harder and harder to find bands that are rock-solid musically and also produce songs with thoughtful lyrics about experiences from after college. Right now Wilco is my favorite band for grown-ups. "Hate it Here" is easily summarized by adding the line that immediately follows the title in the chorus, "since you're gone."

      And then there are the songs that just skip the humor altogether and go straight to the hurt. Sometimes the marriage of singer and song is so perfect that you just can't imagine the music and words in anyone else's voice. These final two "H" songs, "Has He Got a Friend for Me" performed by Maria McKee, and "Hurt" performed by Johnny Cash, are like that, though neither of these talented songwriters wrote the songs themselves (they were written by Richard Thompson and Trent Reznor, respectively). If someone had told me that Johnny Cash was going to cover Nine Inch Nails, and proceed to make the song his own, I probably would have thought it was some kind of joke. But watch the video. That one's Johnny's now.

CNN Helps Madonna Laugh in the Face of Death

      I know that online news--especially at the big organizations like CNN--can happen pretty quickly, and there's great pressure to get a breaking story online before the other guy does. But when you're one of the biggest news outlets in the world, you should probably have systems in place that would prevent the kind of thing that happened on Thursday.
      As I was casually browsing CNN's home page, I clicked a link for a story on an accidental death during the construction of a Madonna concert in France. It was a straightforward account of a sad accident, obviously based on early, sketchy reports. Fine. But the story was accompanied with a file picture of Madonna in concert. Here's the story as it originally appeared (this is an unaltered screen capture from my browser; click the photo for closer look):

      Yes, a story about a horrible accident that led to several injuries and one death is accompanied by a picture of Madonna giving the two-fisted finger to the world. "Yeah someone died," says Madonna in this version of the story, "but he was French, so who cares? That's just rock 'n' roll mother-f***ers!"
      Obviously, someone said, "Get me a picture of Madonna in concert to go with this story of an accident involving her stage set." But did no one actually look at this picture before uploading it to one of the biggest news sites in the world? Was someone playing a joke--someone who was hopefully shown the door that very hour? Yes, they replaced the photo within about fifteen minutes or so, but how did it ever get attached to that story? They should thank their lucky stars that printed news is dead; otherwise this one would be haunting them for years to come.

The Ancient Cat Toy Burial Ground

      I was putzing around in the kitchen earlier today when my foot struck one of the little flat bowls we use to feed the BHOC, and ZIPPO it slid under the oven like an air hockey puck. Sure, I was now up 1-0, but I knew for a fact that Donna had done exactly the same thing less than a week ago. And LEFT IT THERE. But I digress.
      Since I knew the cats had occasionally lost toys under there, and the stove hadn't been pulled out for cleaning in months, I girded up my loins and dragged it from its cubby. Let's just take a little...WHOA NELLIE BOZO! I'm thinking of calling the National Geographic, because I have discovered the fabled Ancient Cat Toy Burial Ground.
      That's Porter investigating the grisly remains, perhaps reconnecting with long-lost friends he thought were gone forever. You might have thought the other picture was of some child's box of cherished collectibles, a hoard of doodads whose pedigree and significance are known only to the little kid who lovingly squirreled them away and invested them with the mysterious power of keepsakes. But no, that's just all the crap I hauled out from under my stove, every single item an accidental goal in our cats' neverending game of kitchen air hockey. The cats have already dug around in the box and pulled out a couple of blasts from the past to play with, but here's a partial inventory of the rest:

• 10 actual cat toys--some whiffle golf balls, plastic jacks, tiny stuffed mice, and a couple of spiky plastic rolly thingies that look like undersea mines.
• Numerous homemade cat toys, like an empty thread spool, some wadded up bits of paper, bottlecaps (twist and flip), and a plastic milk cap ring.
• And many completely cat-improvised toys, including a grievously maimed origami kangaroo, two tiny Christmas ornaments, a walnut and an acorn, a pen, a clothespin, and an empty tube of Airborne® cold medicine.

      Now I've got to find some place to keep all this junk, so it once again can be doled out piece by piece to thrill and exercise the kitties. At least for the ten minutes it takes them to maneuver back into the kitchen and light the red light. GOOAAALLLLLLLLLL!

Captain Ahab's Lost Twitter Log Sees Light of Day

      At long last, the lost Twitter log of famed whaler and monomaniac Captain Ahab is available for viewing, thanks to the fine folks at Yankee Pot Roast. From Hell's heart, he'll stab at thy funny bone.

Family Court Circus

Family Court artist Bill Keane is off this week, so Little Billy is filling in with his observations.

Trending Twitter Topics--Catnip for Comics

      If you've ever Twittered away your time online, you're probably familiar with the "Trending Topics" list on the right-hand side of your Twitter home page that identifies the words and phrases that are appearing most often on the social networking site. The trending topics list usually reflects the news of the hour, but it also serves as a sort of meme mine, and often facilitates--for better or worse--a certain brand of flashmob comedy writing. Tonight someone started the topic #coolbandsmadeuncool, which essentially involved changing famous band names to their near--but very disappointing--analogues. The Broken Stove is feeling pleased enough with its own contributions to reprint them here for your delectation.

#coolbandsmadeuncool

• The Snuggle Pistols
• Telegraphhead
• The Butthole Smurfers
• They Might Be Padres
• Dead Coolidges
• and my personal favorite, Public Enema

addenda

• Burkha-Clad Ladies
• RUN DMV
• Dr. Drédel [Yiddish mother voice] "Such a nice young man...AND a doctor!"[/Yiddish mother voice]

P.S. The musically-challenged among you should feel free to request a key to the original cool band names. But then I'll know either a) you're not cool, or b) I'm not as clever as I thought I was. Probably it's a).

Father's Day After Dad (Not to Get Too Maudlin or Anything)

      Every year on Mother's and Father's Days I feel a vague sense of aimlessness and resentment, based on the fact that I no longer have either a mother or a father to whom to make the obligatory phone call, or to send the expected card. The resentment isn't with my parents for having checked out at relatively young ages (cancer both times), but rather with the world at large for so cheerfully reminding me at least twice a year, via the power of advertising, that Mom & Dad are no longer accepting their obeisances, and in fact aren't even available for a nice chat. Of course that isn't the world's fault any more than it is my parents', but feelings certainly don't need to be rational to be real.
      On Father's Day at least I have my father-in-law, a semi-retired American Baptist minister, a counsellor, a lover of books and history, and by any objective standard a swell guy. In most particulars, he and my own father couldn't have been more different--my father was bald from his thirties; my father-in-law still sports a shocking and impenetrably thick pelt which, even in its current complete whiteness, could be the envy of any 25 year-old. My father once let me assist him in the construction of a dot matrix printer for his computer--from a kit that actually required the soldering of components onto the circuit board from a schematic diagram; my father-in-law can still become lost in the wilds of his email program. In any group of strangers my father became shy and retiring and said little; my father-in-law comes to life with strangers, asks them about their lives, regales them with his formidable collection of personal anecdotes, and generally makes them feel special, appreciated, and better off for having met him, however briefly. My father-in-law is now the one with whom I can commiserate about the shameful play of the Mets and Pirates, and to whom I will happily listen as he decries the breaking of sports rules which haven't been in effect since the early 70's (Do not get him started on breaking the plane of the goal line. Just don't go there.). Happy Father's Day Don, you white-haired smoothie, you.
      But since Father's Day has me wishing I could have Dad over for a nice steak off the grill he bought for my first house-warming, and since he's not around to become embarrassed, I feel free to tell one of my favorite tales of one of his less brilliant moments as head of the Waldron gang. In his defense, I will begin the tale by informing dear reader that I do have four brothers, and the oldest is only seven years older than I, the youngest. So the pace of life for my parents in the days of my youth probably hovered somewhere between "dull roar" and "riot control," depending upon our sugar levels. And generally speaking, my mother was the one to take us to the doctor when germs, or hurled rocks, or the simple fact that gravity works made such a visit necessary. So my father was already out of his element when he had to take my six year-old self to the doctor's office to deal with one of the dozens and dozens of ear infections our germy little clan no doubt contracted in those days.
      There we sat at the nurse's reception desk, Dad in front and I kicking my heels on a too-tall chair behind. The nurse needed my particulars of course, so she bent over her form and tossed my dad what she probably thought would be an easy one, just to get warmed up. "Patient's name?" There was a pause. The nurse looked up at my father and tried again. "The patient's name?" Another pause. OK, I thought, this is totally understandable. He's got the five of us and, ha, ha, he's forgotten which one he's got in tow this time. That's pretty funny. Now he'll have to turn around to check. And he did turn around. And stared at me. Blankly. It was the look of a man who had begun some sort of errand or other, but then had wandered into a completely unrelated train of thought, or maybe gotten a song stuck in his head, and now no longer had any idea of why he had left the house. I had innocently expected that seeing my face would have snapped him back to his errand--or at least provided him with the required name--but no dice. The stare became uncomfortable, in both its length and total blankness. "Peter," I offered helpfully. He turned to the nurse. "His name's Peter," he said redundantly, and on we went.
      I suppose some folks end up in therapy over such things--"he couldn't even remember my name boo hoo"--but even at age six I had enough sympathy to be nothing but amused. I still don't know how my parents survived the five of us; just the thought of it makes me want to go lie down. How does anyone shoulder a responsibility that can weary and distract you to the point where you can stare at your own child and not know who the hell he is? But somehow Dad and Mom did it, and we all have college degrees, and we're all happily married, and none of us has spent the night in jail, and the other four even have kids of their own, bless their hearts. So Happy Father's Day, guys! And Happy Father's Day, Dad; the next steak will be for you.

Pittsburgh Hoists Stanley Cup, Prepares Parade They Can't Afford

      With a couple of excellent last-second saves by Marc-Andre Fleury, the Pittsburgh Penguins wrested the Stanley Cup from the multi-championship-beringed fingers of the Red Wings on Detroit's home ice in Game 7 of the playoffs tonight, and set the stage for a victory parade they'll be paying for with bond issues for years to come. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that parade "will begin at noon Monday at the intersection of Grant Street and Seventh Avenue, Downtown."
      Just before the game began, I heard several sports analysts say things pretty much like, "I don't think the Penguins can win in Joe Louis Arena." WRONG. "Pittsburgh will need to get big games from their stars Malkin and Crosby to have any hope of winning this game." WRONG--Max Talbot (pictured at left) was tonight's hero. "Pittsburgh needs Fleury to have a near-perfect game and outplay Osgood for them to have a chance." WRON...no wait. That one was right, and was exactly what happened. Up by just one goal with seconds left, the Penguins lost a crucial faceoff in their own end, which led to a Red Wings shot, a dangerous rebound, another Red Wings shot, another dangerous rebound, and a brilliant, diving recovery by Fleury to block the third, last-second shot, which would have meant overtime and a big advantage for Detroit at home.
      So it's been a great year to be a fan of Pittsburgh sports. The Steelers won the Super Bowl, the Pens have taken the Stanley Cup, so now all the Pirates have to do is...BWAH HA HA HA HA! Oh, dear (*wiping tears from eyes*)! I thought I could pull that off with a straight face, but no. It'll still be a great year.

RiffTrax Contest

      There's still time (if it's not yet 11:59PM Friday the 12th) to get in on this contest from the very funny folks at RiffTrax (they're some of the same people who brought you Mystery Science Theater 3000). The premise is simple:

THE CHALLENGE: Make an existing comedy into a drama, or vice-versa.
DETAILS: Pick an actual movie, from any era. Re-pitch it as a comedy if it’s considered a drama, OR if you’ve chosen a drama, re-pitch it as a comedy. Stick as closely as possible to the actual characters and plot of the real movie, but completely change the tone…. and do it in 150 words maximum.

It's just that easy.
      For the record, here are my entries--one is drama to comedy, and the other is the other.

Rick was fed up with the rat race, so he dropped out, bought the bar of his dreams, and started spending time with his feet in the sand and a drink in his hand. Life was great… (*sound of needle scratching across record*) until his ex walked in! With a hunky new boyfriend! Who’s on the lam from a bumbling band of Hitler’s hitmen! Two’s company, but three will make you laugh out loud in CASABLANCA!
Ingrid Bergman wants what only Humphrey Bogart can give her…a one-way ticket out of town. But Sydney Greenstreet--the funny fat man who split your sides in THE MALTESE FALCON--and Claude Rains–the kookiest collaborator since Benedict Arnold--have plans of their own.
Of all the gin joints in all the world, this one is the most full of laughs! Get the Dooley Wilson single, “As Time Goes By” on Warner Bros. Records.

Edwina’s a no-nonsense cop with a promising future; H.I. is the three-time loser and petty crook who has stolen her heart. But their newfound happiness together is shattered when they discover that her womb is a rocky place, where his seed can find no purchase. Yearning to build the family that nature has denied them, they make a desperate decision that will CHANGE THEIR LIVES FOREVER (cue pounding drums). Now they’re on the run--from the law, from a ruthless pair of escaped convicts, and from a dark and unrelenting agent of vengeance, a warthog from hell that may be of H.I.’s own creating. With the greatest chase sequence since THE FRENCH CONNECTION, Ed and H.I. are raising hell, raising the stakes, and RAISING ARIZONA. All they have is an empty gun, a box of Huggies, and each other.
(cut to Nic Cage) “Well, it ain’t Ozzie and Harriet.”

BTW, the prize is your pick of one of the movies from their catalogue of RiffTrax.

Fate, Coincidence, and the Twitterpated--Curmudgeon's Corner (10)

      Smokey Burner, the Broken Stove's resident curmudgeon, has been Twittering for a while now, and mostly he likes it. Twitter lets him keep up with the daily doings of his friends, and also allows him to brush up against the goings-on of various other people he finds interesting. In moderation, it's a good thing.
      But Twitter also has the unfortunate side effect of reminding Smokey that, as a friend once explained to him, the masses are asses (Smokey already knew this instinctively, but he had never before heard his belief so artfully encapsulated in words). Today, Twitter is all aflutter with the sad story of Johanna Gunthaler, an Italian woman who escaped death on Air France Flight 447 by arriving late at the counter, only to be killed today in a car crash in Austria.
      "Fate," intone a distressingly large number of the tweets on the subject, "she couldn't escape Fate," "it was her time to die," "it's just like the Final Destination movies," and on and on and on. Of course what these purblind doomsters fail to mention, or even notice, is that her husband didn't die in the car crash. Shouldn't he be doomed as well? And I seem to recall reading that there were a handful of other would-be passengers of Flight 447 who only avoided being on the plane by the coincidence of being bumped, or waiting for a later flight, or whatever. Why aren't these people hurtling off various roads in their ill-fated cars? What's the statute of limitations on Inescapable Fated Death? If they die of heart attacks in three years, will people still tsk and say, "they were meant to die on that plane"?
      Don't be so twitterpated. "A" happens. Then "B" happens. It does not automatically follow that "B" was directly caused by "A", no matter how oddly reminiscent of "A" that "B" turns out to be. Johanna Gunthaler's story is strange and sad, but it's not Fate Writ Large.

Bilbo Baggins at Group

      Hey, everyone. My name is Bilbo Baggins, and I’m a ring of power addict.
      Hi Bilbo!
      Yeah, hi. It’s been 5 months and ummm 12 days since I last wore a ring of power. My nephew and some friends staged an intervention and they took away my stash, so I had to go cold turkey. Frodo--that’s my nephew--he got religion or something and joined up with that Gandalf cult. They cornered me in my hole and went on and on for like, hours, about how if I kept wearing the ring that Satan, or Sauron--or whoever their major evil dude is--was gonna sweep all through the land with his armies of darkness and the whole world would fall into some kind of age of shadow or something.
      Whatever.
      I just knew that if I kept on wraithing it was gonna end bad. It got to where I was getting invisible like two, three times a day—as soon as I woke up I was reaching for the ring. The first few days without it were pretty rough. I tried wearing like ten mood rings at once, but they didn’t do jack, not even a buzz. By day three I was hiding behind bushes and just pretending I was invisible, which, hearing it out loud right now, sounds really pathetic. Every day’s a struggle, but I’m getting better.
      Bruce here says that I won’t really be well till I apologize to everyone for all the bad stuff I did to them when I was wraithing. So here goes. Umm, Lobelia…wow, this is hard…Lobelia, remember how you thought those immigrant elves down the hollow were using one of their weird enchantments so you never caught them stripping your fruit trees? Yeah, actually that was me who stole your fruit when I was invisible. Sorry. No, I never knew you went down to confront them about it. That must have been pretty awkward. Is that why they put that spell on your donkey? Man, I have never seen so much manure in my life…no, you’re right; it wasn’t funny. Did you ever find out how they got him in your kitchen? Sorry about that.
      What else? Oh right, Toby. Toby, pretty much every weekend I’d get hammered on Barleywine, then put on my ring, sneak into your place, and watch you and Violet rock the ol’ hobbit hole. That time that you thought the dog had gotten onto the bed but then you couldn’t find him? That was me. But man! Your family’s not called Proudhammer for nothing! Wow! Yeah, no, that was totally…I’m sorry, Tobe, I’m sorry. Bruce, let him go now; it’s OK. Sorry, man. It was the ring. I was powerless, you know?
      There’s a lot of other stuff…no, right Bruce. I’ll save some for next week. Anyway, thanks for listening, everybody. Hey man, that’s a sweet cloak brooch—does it have any kind of magi…no, no, of course not.
      Sorry. Sorry.

Things That Keep Me Up At Night

      I wonder if Murphy really wanted that Law named after him, or was that just one more damn thing that went wrong?

      If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, who the hell cares? It's a TREE. In a FOREST. Which means there are lots more of them. Get over it.

      Sometimes, my dog smells like Fritos. Which makes me wonder what the Fritos people might be hiding from us.

The Lost Twitter Log of Captain Ahab

UPDATE: Captain Ahab's Twitter Log will soon be run by the fine folks at Yankee Pot Roast. I'll update with a direct link as soon as they post it.
And here it is.

Great Moments in Film á la Xtranormal (Rocky, 1976)

      OK, Xtranormal.com owes me another 30 minutes of my life back. This time, in honor of risk-averse Hollywood, rather than create my own original idea I've simply rebooted a popular classic. This way, I don't have to do any original work to create goodwill in my audience; nostalgia will do it for me! If I just remember to include enough of the taglines and iconic images from the original, I'm guaranteed to at least break even at the box office. First up, the final scene of Sylvester Stallone's beloved chump-to-champ crowd-pleaser, Rocky.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

      Quite nicely, thank you. August will mark the beginning of our tenth year here in Fuquay, which means both Donna and I have lived here longer than either of us has lived in any other one place in our lives. Our house may be tiny, but we've got a great, roomy lot, full of trees and bordered by some thriving green spaces (our back yard descends to what used to be a farm pond, and what is now a lovely wetland with frogs, turtles, deer walk-throughs, and all manner of happy, chirpy wildlife).
      Slowly--one corner, one perennial, one fruit tree at a time--we've been building the yard (organically!) into the peaceful haven that head gardener Donna was able to envision when we first saw the place. It's been a lot of work, but the results are increasingly rewarding. Donna is the true gardener in the family; for her, the actual work in the dirt is an end in itself, green therapy for the daily pressures of her job. I'm not a gardener so much as the hired help, and my gratification is delayed. For me, the digging and planting and weeding are pretty much a chore. The real pleasure comes as the plants mature and fill in, and I finally get to see in front of me what Donna saw in her head all along. I highly recommend it.
      I've posted some pictures at Flickr, including a couple of "time lapse" shots that show how things have progressed over the years. It's pretty remarkable to see how far it's come when I look back at the older pics.
      We're not at all interested in having a "lawn," by the way, though that's what many homeowners seem to obsess over. Grass holds little interest for us, and the mowable bits of the property are probably 75% weeds. It's all green when you mow it. The plants are the thing!

How Did I Get Here? Only Ninja Kitty Knows.

      Well the BHOC (Black Hole of Cuteness) has been settling in quite nicely--she's getting along with her siblings, happily crunching dry kitten food, and primly making use of the low-rider litter box we've provided her. So far, so good. Right now we're leaning towards Donna's suggestion for her real name: Cricket. It seems to fit her little black bug appearance as well as her tiny chirping meow. Of course she won't be tiny forever (or even for long), but Cricket seems to suit.
      Or perhaps we should call her Enigma, the Ninja Cat of Secret Stealth. I left the critters alone together this morning to go get some strawberries and veggies at Hilltop Farms, the CSA we belong to. When I got home, Greta and Porter greeted me as usual, but Cricket was nowhere to be found. I looked into all the places to which she has gravitated in her first few days with us, but nothing. She can barely jump high enough to grab and pull herself up into a kitchen chair, she wasn't on the floor or any of the low furniture, and I was beginning to get worried. Had she somehow sneaked out the door behind me when I left? Finally, me eyes rose a little bit, and there she was.

















      How did she do it? As you can see in the picture, there's nothing next to that tall bookshelf to leap from, and as I said, she can't really leap yet anyway. Look at her peeking out from behind the day-by-day calendar, (you can see her little eyes glowing from the top shelf in the picture on the right) smug in the knowledge that she's blown my mind with her mad ninja kitty skills. Spooky.
      Except I'm pretty sure she's going to need me to get her down.

Do You Know What My Name Is?

      The day before yesterday was a beautiful Spring day here, so all the windows and the front door were open all day. And from time to time, I kept hearing the unmistakable "Help" cry of a tiny kitten. But every time I went out the front door to try to track down its whereabouts, the mewing stopped. When Donna got home from work and stepped out of the car, she heard it too, and the hunt was on. After a few minutes of intermittent cries, we were finally able to triangulate the signal and take a bearing. Broadcast origin--under the rosemary bush in our front garden.
      This is what we found:
      Do not attempt to look directly into the cuteness without goggles--you will go blind. The vet reckons she's about 4-5 weeks old and in good health. The vet also agreed with us that she's a veritable black hole of cuteness, in whom the cute matter is collapsed so densely into one 16 oz. point, that no cuteness can escape her gravitational pull. As of yet she has no name and is referred to only by her astronomical designation, Black Hole Cygnus X-1.
      We've been slowly introducing her to her step-siblings Porter and Greta (yes, of course we're keeping her), who are fortunately two of the most amiable animals on the planet. As you can see from the footage below, although Cygnus X-1 has yet to be in the house for a full 48 hours, Porter has decided that--as far as stepsisters go--she'll do.

Honoring Earth Day

      Hey fellow earthlings, today is Earth Day. You know, Mother Earth only gets this one special day every year, so how about honoring your one and only place to live by taking her out for a special dinner, or maybe picking up after yourself without being asked JUST THIS ONCE ALREADY?! Flowers are an entirely inappropriate gift for Earth Day, as they simply remind Mother Earth of her own mortality. Kind of like giving your mother a lovely bouquet of her own hair and nail clippings.
      And guys, don't get her lingerie; Mother Earth does not want lingerie for Earth Day. This is her special day, not yours.

The Broken Stove Recycles Actual Broken Stove (With Help from THE CLAW)

      A friend of The Broken Stove needed help--and my pickup truck--to get to the local metal scrap recycling center with her totally non-metaphorical broken stove. At first I thought it would be just a typical favor from a friend with a truck to a friend without one. Not a big chore, but not exactly a barrelful of monkeys. But then I saw THE CLAW (see picture).
      It turns out that at the center you can pull in with your bed full of scrap (just one stove in our case), get weighed, pull up to THE CLAW, and THE CLAW WILL REACH DOWN TO YOUR TRUCK like the Harvester in Terminator Salvation, and effortlessly lift your scrap away. It was very cool. Then you get weighed again on the way out and paid based on the difference in weight. My friend got four whole American dollars! OK, not much, but as she pointed out, it beats paying the county for the privilege of throwing it in their pile.
      Now I find myself looking around the house for stuff that I can break, just so I can OFFER IT TO THE CLAW. "[It] has been chosen, [it] must goooo!"

A Darkly Animated Night of the Soul, or Siccing God on Santa

      OK, you know you have too much time on your hands when you spend about an hour and a half at (an admittedly very fun) website called Xtranormal.com creating an existential, text-based, minute-long "movie" about God and Santa. If you're a normal, busy, productive person, I beg you not to click the link. It's a total timesuck. Nevertheless, GretaPorter Productions proudly presents: "A Crisis of Faith: Santa vs. God."

"G" is for "Genuine"

gen•u•ine

--adjective

1) possessing the claimed or attributed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic; real: genuine sympathy; a genuine antique.

2) properly so called: a genuine case of smallpox.

3) free from pretense, affectation, or hypocrisy; sincere: a genuine person.

--from Dictionary.com, emphasis mine

      As I continue my extremely intermittent alphabetical stroll through the music in my iPod, I now find myself at the songs that begin with the letter "G." There are 148 such songs on my iPod right now, and as has been true for most of the other letters, they represent a broad range of my musical interests and vary in quality from disposable to indispensable. As I searched through the titles for some kind of unifying theme to wrap this post around--good, goodbye, ghost, give?--I was instead struck by a word that didn't actually appear in the titles at all: "genuine."
      "Genuine" is a pretty slippery term to toss around in music criticism--or any other kind of criticism for that matter--because its evaluation depends upon purely subjective criteria, and its application doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the quality, good or bad, of the music being discussed. The pop songs of Miley Cyrus may be catchy, good pop songs (though not my thing), but few, I think, would apply the adjective "genuine" to what she does. She and her songs are mass market products, slickly produced, tested, and marketed to a very specific demographic by a powerful entertainment company that knows its business. The Sex Pistols, on the other hand (also not my thing), though they could barely play their instruments, were "genuine." Their music may have sounded like their instruments were being sawed to pieces by angry, tone-deaf sociopaths, but they were an organic product of--and reaction to--the musical and cultural scenes of their day.
      With that in mind, here is my list of the most "genuine" G-songs from my iPod, songs that seem to me to best fulfill the above definition in that they are free from pretense, affectation, or hypocrisy, and, like Linus's pumpkin patch, absolutely drip with sincerity.

"Good Work (If You Can Get It)" by BoDeans  The BoDeans were one of my favorite bands in my college and grad school days, and while I don't have them on "heavy rotation" anymore, I can still pull out their first few albums from time to time and marvel at the freshness they've maintained. They attracted a lot of critical attention for their straight-forward roots rock sound when they debuted with "Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams," but though they've always been a college radio mainstay, they never were able to make a big mark on the charts. The video here, terrible sound notwithstanding, shows them at the height of their powers in the late 80's, tearing through a Berry-esque raveup with David Letterman's band. Paul Shaffer even gets excited enough to put his foot to the keyboard á la The Killer. Genuine three chord rock and roll.


"Goddamn Lonely Love" by Drive-by Truckers  Drive-by Truckers is a country rock band that manages to avoid the worst excesses of a genre they share with the likes of .38 Special and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Song-writing duties are shared and the lineup changes, but their albums nevertheless maintain a signature sound and mood that make them something like Alabama's Bruce Springsteen--which, if you're not sure, is a good thing. If you can't get past the "goddamn," you'll miss a haunting song of yearning and regret that sounds like it was written on a beer-stained napkin at a really dingy bar at closing time. Occasionally, a profanity is just the best word for the job. "I could take a Greyhound home; when I got there it’d be gone, along with everything a home is made up of/ So I’ll take two of what you’re having, I’ll take all of what you've got to kill this goddamn lonely love."


"God Give Me Strength" by Elvis Costello  Now you might think that performing a song with a full orchestra and Burt Bacharach on piano could violate the "no affectation" clause of my "genuine" definition. But you'd be wrong. "God Give Me Strength" comes from Costello's collaborative album with Bacharach, "Painted From Memory," and while the arrangements may be lush, the songs are none the less genuine for it. Bacharach may have that whole schmaltzy vibe, but he's a talented artist (see my Neil Sedaka discussion), and there's no doubting the feeling behind Elvis's performance in the video here. "I want him to hurt!"


"Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine" by The White Stripes  Once again my iPod discussions lead me back to The White Stripes. Rock doesn't get much more "genuine" than when it's stripped down to a guitar and a drum set, and unlike the songs on all of my local radio stations, Jack and Meg's creativity and originality keep me from feeling old. There's still great music being made out there, fellow 40-somethings, but unless you're in a huge market or have a good community-supported station, it's probably not being played on your radio. But look...here's some right here! Spank that high hat, Meg, it's been very naughty!

Meeting Cute: A Story Which, to an Extent Surprising Even to Myself, Is True

      OK, this might be a bit late for Valentine's, but not long ago I was going through some old writing files when I came across this piece that I first wrote in a slightly different form back in the 90's. It was for some kind of essay contest about "First Love" sponsored by Random House (didn't win, but got Honorable Mention). If you hate stories about couples "meeting cute," you should avert your eyes at this point.

      There are people who don’t believe in love at first sight, who simply can’t credit the notion that such a life-altering experience can happen in the same time it takes to decide between paper or plastic. Many of these same people are fully capable of forming an instant dislike of someone—God knows I can—but somehow that leap in the opposite direction seems too farfetched. These people are idiots. Here’s how I know.
      The first time we ever spoke, she ran up to me frantically, grabbed the front of my shirt, and said, “Make it work! You've got to make it work!” There are, I suppose, some situations in which this could be viewed as a downright promising way to begin a relationship. The truth, however, was far from romantic. Like me she was an English Lit graduate student, only she was hopped up on Diet Pepsi and M&M’s, staring a major paper deadline in the face. As she clutched a fistful of my shirt in despair we stood in the computer writing lab, where I tutored semi-literate freshmen and baby-sat the bank of computers and printers that were available for the students' use.
      I followed her glare to where one of the printers gloated in malevolent silence, refusing to spit out the last five pages of her research paper. Her eyes cut to the clock on the wall. Five minutes until class. Five minutes to get those five pages. Her tone shifted, uncomfortably, from supplication to menace: “Make. It. WORK!”
      Fortunately for me and my shirt, the problem proved easy enough to fix; soon she was gathering up her paper and running out the door. On the way out, however, she shot me The Smile--a loquacious smile, I thought, bursting with meaning. “Sorry I was so rude,” the smile said; “Thank you,” it said; “My hero,” it said. And I still maintain that, as a sort of coda, the smile even added, “You're kinda cute.” My spirit instantly grew to a ridiculous height, and I fell in love.
      A Happy Ending, however, proved unlikely. We had a mutual acquaintance whom I literally chased down that day. “So-oo-o... has she got a boyfriend?” I asked nonchalantly, pretending that my every hope for a happy future did not hang on the answer.
      Oh yes. Long time. Very serious. Expected to marry.
      My spirit fell from its enormous height and made a nasty mess on the sidewalk.
      But all was not lost. She was back in the writing lab the very next day. And, as a “thank you/I’m sorry” present, she brought me a little bag of gumballs tied up with a red ribbon. Gumballs! The most romantic token of affection one can give short of an outright proposal. Better than diamonds. She had noticed me! I was no longer just an anonymous computer geek. Suddenly, I existed in her world as someone to whom you might give gumballs. My broken spirit leapt back up from its heap on the sidewalk and danced a little happy dance. I had a chance!
      So go right on denouncing love at first sight, you sad, lonely, dateless cynics out there, but know this: we celebrate our eighteenth wedding anniversary this week, and the printer on our home computer works just fine.

The "American Scientist" to be Removed from Endangered List

      Update: This story has been picked up by The Science Creative Quarterly. Click the above link many times to increase my apparent popularity in their eyes. After a couple of days on the front page, it'll move to the archives, here.

100 Book Meme Leaves Me at 47*

      I picked up this book meme created by the BBC from my friend Ken at kenmorefield.blogspot.com. It's a strange list of books--some from the classic "Great White Canon," some from newer books that are popular with reading groups, and a few strays from somebody's head. You're supposed to mark which ones you've read and count the total. The BBC figures for some reason that most folks will have read just 6 of the 100. How will you stack up?

Instructions:

1. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. [Note; I've adopted Ken's modifications, to wit: I put a 'y' by those I have read in part but not in full. I put an 'xx' next to those I have read multiple times, though the number of x's is not equivalent to the number of reads.]
2. Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3. Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4. Tally your total at the bottom.
5. Put in a note with your total in the subject.
6. Cut and paste to notes and link me in too please...

The BBC's list
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien xx+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte x
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling y
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible y
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell x
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman x
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens x
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller y
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare yxx
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien xx
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks x
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot x
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald x
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams xx+
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky *
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll y
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame x
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis xx
34 Emma- Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis xx
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres xx+
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne x
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell x
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez x+
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving x+
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding x
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan *
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel x
52 Dune - Frank Herbert xx+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley x
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez x+
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck xx+
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie y
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville x
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker y
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce x
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt x
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens xx
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker x
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro x+
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White x
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle xx+
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad x
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery x
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole xx+
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare xx
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl x
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo y*+ (still reading unabridged a bit at a time)

* I think that's 47. I guess I don't get to count The Complete Shakespeare or The Bible because there are bits of both that I've never read. But who's read "Coriolanus" or "The Book of Numbers" anyway? Honestly.

Yankees Sign Designated Apologizer to 5-Year Deal Worth $35 Million

      Addressing what was long perceived to be a hole in their lineup, the Yankees today signed designated apologizer Miguel Culpa to a 5-year, $35 million contract. Culpa, a left-handed power apologizer from Venezuela, comes off a year in the minors during which his apologies to the fans and the press had an acceptance rate of .870, the best in the league.
      Culpa is aware, however, that apologizing in the major leagues--especially to the notoriously unforgiving fans and press of New York--will be a lot different from his work in the minors. "I'm really going to have to step up my sincerity to a whole new level," said Culpa. "In the minors, mostly you apologize for guys yelling at the ump or showing up drunk for the game. But in the bigs, man, these guys really know how to piss fans off. And the Yankees, wow! But I'm ready for this challenge, and let me say right now that if I ever let the fans or my teammates down, I'm very, very sorry."
      Although Culpa's contract guarantees him $7 million a year, he's likely to make a good deal more than that with bonuses. Successfully apologizing for a player's extramarital affair reportedly will earn Culpa an extra $50K, smoothing over reports of domestic abuse is worth $100K, and if the Yankees fail to make the playoffs and Culpa is forced to apologize for the entire team, he's scheduled to make another $500K. Apologies for each loss to the Red Sox earn him $10K, but Coach Girardi has already assured Culpa that he doesn't expect him ever to have those accepted. "The guy's an ace," explained Girardi, "but he's not a miracle-worker."
      Player reaction to Culpa's signing was overwhelmingly positive, with the most effusive praise coming from 3rd baseman Alex Rodriguez, who has yet to pull off his own successful apology as a Yankee. "I only wish Miguel had been on board earlier for all that Madonna business," said Rodriguez, "and now all of this steroid stuff has hit the fan. I've never been able to figure out what the hell Yankees fans expect me to do or say. It's going to be great knowing that Miguel's got my back, so I can feel free just to go out there and fuck up."

Other Baseball Notes:
Citi Field Ball Park Set for Opening Day: New York Mets look forward to first pitch, first homer, first late-season collapse in beautiful new stadium.
Pitchers and Catchers Report to Spring Training: Spring training officially opens on Friday when pitchers and catchers report; on Tuesday the Pittsburgh Pirates are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

A Huddle in Which Coach Wade Phillips Could Have Used Christian Bale

      Umm, guys. Yeah, huddle up please. No, you too please T.O. I want everyone in on this. Yes, I am serious. Please join us.
      Well, I don't want to name any names, but as a group, gosh darn it we're just not playing very well out there. Now I know everyone's tired and these guys are pretty good, but I'm asking you fellas to all pull together as a team and do a more professional job out there.
      Again, I don't want to pick on anybody, but Flozell that third holding call really hurt us. Remember what we talked about? No, not the ice cream pizza thing. Today. After the first two holding calls. Yeah, you kinda promised me that it wouldn't happen again. I know, I know, he is very big and fast, but golly that was a crucial ten yards there and, if you'll recall, he sacked Tony anyway. Yes he did, Flozell, he hit Tony very, very hard.
      Well T.O., I don't really think you should be chuckling at Flozell right now; this hasn't exactly been your greatest game either. What I'm "referring to," T.O. is that last first down pass you dropped over the middle there. Yes, I realize that you weren't going to be able to score on that particular play, but holy cow we really can't afford to throw the little fish back at this point. I agree that the safety did have a certain unpleasant gleam in his eye as he noticed you crossing the middle of the field, but you would have had a first down before he got there, and well, you know, we kind of pay you a lot of money to do that sort of thing. Well then, let's just agree to disagree.
      Now I know we're down 44-3, but I feel like, if we all pull together and do our jobs out there, we can still save this thing. OK, I'm not gonna ask who threw that. You know who you are, and I'm sure the shame that you're feeling right now is worse than any punishment I could come up with. C'mon now guys! Cowboy pride! Go out there and win one for...for somebody that you may have cared deeply about once.
      *sigh*
      Yes, T.O., it can be you if you want.

a tip o' the helmet to kenmorefield.blogspot.com for the inspiration.