Tuesday, May 31

Publisher's Lunch

One constructive thing I've done -- as opposed to the numerous unconstructive things I've done -- since the writer's conference is pay closer attention to the book publishing industry. If I'm planning on someday soon slicing into a narrow sliver of that pie, I suppose it makes some sense (contrary to the thinking that I want a literary agent precisely so I don't have to worry about the business end of things). So I bookmarked a few industry sites, signed up for a few industry newsletters and started paying a bit of attention.

One thing I've noticed from reading the Publisher's Lunch newsletter is that it seems on an average day some 25 or 30 deals are made (and these are just the deals reported to this particular site). These are deals agents have made selling books to publishing houses. That's 125 a week. Or some 6,000 per year on the low end. It helps make the odds seem not so daunting… and the possibility of one of those in the next year or two being one of my books.

And that's a nice thought on those dark mornings when I sit and type and type and type and watch the sun stretch across the suburban prairie and wonder why I write.

Speaking of the industry

The big BEA -- Book Expo America -- takes place in New York later this week. I note this because my brother and a friend have been shopping a book of his essays and her illustrations on the seasons. The first publisher said thanks but no thanks, I guess, and he couldn't find contact info for the next publisher on his list. So he asked at his local bookstore.

And the owner said, yeah, they'd be perfect for your work, in fact let me talk to my buyer for you. And she did, and the buyer said sure, let me see some of it, so he's been pulling together a few samples for the bookstore owner to take with her to BEA this week to share with the publisher. See? Just like any other industry: It's who you know that can get your foot in the door, or at least the hard end of a shoelace (called an aglet, for those who care for obscure words). So here's to waiting for good news out of BEA.

Cold, wet holiday weekend

Saturday was nice and sunny, but Sunday and Monday were cold, wet, dreary and, on Monday at least, thundery. Household chores mostly, some movies, no writing. But the checkbook is balanced for the first time in months. The big young dog got bathed. We saw some more Prisoner and finally caught House of Flying Daggers. Did some shopping for our Norway trip. And the kids have a day and a half left of school. Come Wednesday afternoon, we'll be living with a high schooler. Yowsa!

Wednesday, May 25

First draft of query letter is done

This just in... just completed writing a first-draft of the query letter to send to the literary agent who asked to see 50 pages of Messiah's Sneaker. Progress!

Tuesday, May 24

GreNoFiNoMo group

The Greeley NanoWrimos met again tonight, and I must say 1) I had a good time and 2) I feel motivated. I've always been an antisocial type, which explains a lot about why I write, and have never felt motivated to join any sort of writers group, but I must say it does help (just like everyone says it does) to have a group of like-minded people to hang out with. None of us reported any writing, so we perhaps decided we were just a group, but we all seemed to commit to attempting some sort of big writing 50,000 word project again in November, and to recruit another person or two and so we plan to meet again in late August to help motivate each other up to and through the '05 NaNoWriMo.

Jared and I also shared a bit of our take-aways, as we Corporate Americans like to say, from the Pikes Peak Writers Conference we attended a month ago. I swung and missed on my deadline of having my agent query letter to show off (Jared mailed his off a few weeks back with his 50 pages), but I've had some things going on. It's moving closer to the top of my list, though. Maybe later this week. Maybe even later tonight I'll make a draft.

Books for lunch

The Publishers Lunch, reporting on an RR Bowker news release, says the total number of new books published last year increased 14 percent, to a new high of 195,000 titles. That's up from 135,000 titles only three years ago, though the latest increase is less than last year's 19 percent jump. But still. More books.

One hundred ninety five thousand -- thousand! -- titles. Not one of them by an author by the name of me. But still: that's a lot -- a freaking LOT -- of opportunity. Maybe the 2007 report (of 2006 results) will include one of my novels.

They went on to report that the 12 largest trade houses grew their lists by over 5 percent while a handful of the largest print on demand self-publishers accounted for approximately 20,000 titles on their own. So more books are being published, and more writers are becoming authors. That's good news for The Edge Of Nowhere's ambition to publish before he perishes.

Bowker says that one catalyst for growth in 2004 was adult fiction -- hurrah! -- which jumped by 43 percent to 25,184 new titles. All of that increase and more came from the genres, as literary fiction actually declined -- boooo! -- 5.6 percent over 2003.

Monday, May 23

Not working doesn't help the blog

So I just re-read a few of the more recent postings and it seems very silly to keep a blog about writing and publishing a novel when the writer doesn't work on his novel and makes no attempt to sell it.

Just an observation.

Of course the point of The Edge of Nowhere was to report on my progress, thus forcing me to actually progress on my novel. Which hasn't happened at all in the two weeks since I celebrate all the progress I made over the past six months.

Funny world, this.

Daily life and sprinklers

So instead of writing, or working on my letter to the agent, I spent the weekend mucking about in the sprinkler system and doing other odd jobs around the house. Sigh. But tomorrow I'm scheduled to meet/hang out with the Greeley NaNoers to celebrate my friend Jared's sending of his novel to the literary agent he met in Colorado Springs a few weeks (a month now?) back. So we'll celebrate that and lament that mine isn't done yet or mailed yet. Oh well.

Saturday, May 21

Random stuff

Happy birthday to our dog. Yes, to our dog Westley. It's his birthday. He's one.

The kids are nearly celebrating, too, because they have 6 1/2 days of school left. Reade will finish seventh grade, and Connor eighth. That means, of course, that as of next Wednesday, our oldest will be a freshman. In high school. Ack.

It was hot yesterday, about 95, after being about 88 on Thursday. Sitting up here in the blue room overlooking the beautiful rooftops of northwest Greeley and I see our back yard is already toast. It looked so good last Saturday when I mowed. It needs water, and of course our sprinkler system is currently taken apart again.

Kristen's down at school helping organize a huge music-fundraising garage sale, where we'll be in a half-hour helping out. Once the kids wake up. And I eat. So off to the weekend! May the force be with you!

Friday, May 20

Nothing no news

As usual, nothing to report about my novel. Haven't worked on it. Haven't worked on the letter to the agent. Haven't done much of anything. Except, y'know, life life. Watch my kids play music. See Star Wars (my verdict: slightly disappointing). Play my guitar. Work. Pay bills. Oh, and the local newspaper opened up an online community, so I started another blog space over there, to track life on edge of nowhere, which was the original point of this blog, although this blog is better spent telling you about how much work I haven't done.

Tuesday, May 17

Story idea

And from another news report today, this sentence also allows itself to invite future fiction exploration. At least to me it does:

[ The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has taken the step of convening a commission of eminent experts known, without a hint of irony, as the Study Group Relating to the Prevention of Behaviour that Causes Discomfort Among Numerous People in Public Places. ]

Were the novel is headed

According to one guy, a MobyLives guest column by David Barringer. Study it, ponder it, do it.

Story idea

[ LONDON, England (AP) -- Hospital authorities caring for a patient who refuses to talk but willingly plays the piano for hours said Tuesday they are investigating a number of new leads on his identity. The tall, blond-haired man, who is in his 20s or early 30s, has not said a word since he was found, distressed and dressed in a dripping wet suit, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent county, southeast England, on April 7.

When staff at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham gave him writing materials, he drew detailed pictures of a grand piano and, when shown the piano in the hospital chapel, sat down and played for two hours, causing staff to nickname him "Piano Man." Baffled staff said their problems have been compounded by the fact that all the labels have been cut off the man's clothes. "That is a real twist -- and it's enough of a mystery without that," said Adrian Lowther, spokesman for the West Kent National Health Service Trust, which is caring for the man at a psychiatric unit in Dartford in north Kent. ]

I love this story, and stories like it (the film a Man Facing Southeast; the George Plimpton prank/novel The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, that Kevin Spacey film of a few years back which film name I cannot recall) and when I read it today noted it would be a great starting point, a great idea, for a solid piece of fiction. The outsider, lost or perhaps totally in control.


Has this ever happened to you?

Have you ever felt the earth spin? It's late Sunday afternoon, and I'm playing catch with a tennis ball with Reade and her friend Caitlin in the front yard. I happened to look up and see a jet contrail straight across the center of the moon and stretching way across the big Colorado sky, from mountains to prairie. "Hey, you can see the moon," I said to the girls, who then looked up with me. "And look at the jet streak."

What we saw was the streak drifting away from the moon. At first, it looked simply like the wind was blowing it away. But the contrail was not disturbed at all: still sharp, still very straight, not wind blown. So we watched it drift away and pondered. My next thought was we were watching the moon move across the sky. But it wouldn't move that fast, right?. Within a minute it became clear that the contrail was staying put and we were actually seeing the earth rotating. Wild. Fun. Odd. Made me feel small, just a blip on a tiny blue-green planet, spinning in space.

OK, this has nothing to do with writing, but there you go.

Proud pop 3

Another night of dueling concerts, or something like that. Connor and two classmates performed an original Connor Anderson composition -- a world debut? -- as part of the middle school's music program finale, a piece Connor wrote for drums and two keyboards. Kinda cool, sort of Hearts-in-Space meets drum and bass, or at least drum and keyboards. Then I left him there to listen to 30 other songs written and performed by classmates and drove north over to Northridge to meet Kristen and her parents and listen to Reade playing with the Northridge High string orchestra and full orchestra do a great program, including bits from The King and I, Star Wars, the Carmen Suite and others. They did a great job. Pop was proud. Tomorrow night we'll all go hear Part II of the middle school extravaganza as Reade plays with her friends their piece.

Sunday, May 15

Movie nights

But first, I'm sitting in the dark here on the second floor, the ceiling lights off to help reduce the heat trapped up here (it was a warm sunny day, and this west-facing window sucks in the sun all afternoon and evening), and I'm staring at the ghost of myself staring back at me in my window reflection, each of us wearing a gray t-shirt, eerie shadows on my face as its lit from below (think camping flashlight under the chin) boo! Or think of my floating face there in space as a projected image, moviewise.

Speaking of which, so Friday night Connor and I went over to the Rialto Theater in Loveland to see the sixth Silver Spoon Film Festival, which is a showcase for young, local filmmakers. Most of the 15 movies we saw were made by teen-agers in the 14-19 age group -- the award winners from the 34 entries -- and a number of them were quite entertaining. As you can guess, if you know us, we were there scouting the process for entering next year. I think Connor intends to enter a film or two in the contest next spring. We'll of course keep you posted.

Saturday night we went and saw Kicking and Screaming, a typically cliche youth sports movie with exactly one redeeming feature: Will Farrell. The movie is nothing to write about (despite my doing so now), but Farrell is in classic form. It'll never be his best movie, but still I laughed so hard...

Nothing to report on the writing front. Sigh. But the lawns got mowed and I took Connor and three of his friends over to Devils Backbone in Loveland so Connor could film (see above) a couple of short parody westerns in that oh-so-Western looking spot, and we worked a bit (accomplishing nothing but spending more money) on fixing the sprinklers.

Thursday, May 12

Six months on the edge

Turns out I do have something to say: I just counted on my fingers and realized that today, May 12, is the six-month anniversary of the Edge of Nowhere.

This would be an appropriate time to take stock of what its accomplished, if I'm any closer to my goals, and my natural first reaction is nothing, I'm not. But wait. I am closer. Look at what I've done since November 12:

+ I finished the first draft of a novel that might be called The Edge of Nowhere (a working title at least), which is the magical memoir of 83-year-old Irene Reynolds, whose quiet death-bed reminiscing is interrupted by the arrival of a dreamy stranger, while her son and daughter-in-law confront their impassive suburban lives in different ways. While her son Brad considers and pursues a crush on a newcomer to his office, his wife launches an art-film theater and live music stage in an abandoned Quonset hut in Utopia, Colorado. (That's the first draft of a pitch for it....how's it sound?)

+ I met three or four times with fellow area novelists to try something new: a writer's group of which I've always been leery. We meet again in about ten days to celebrate one of our group's sending of his novel to a New York agent and (with luck) my sending off a query and the first 30 pages to another agent.

+ I attended a writer's conference and pitched a novel to a literary agent, who wants to see some pages of a different novel I pitched.

+ I learned the natural/appropriate process for seeking a literary agent at said writer's conference.

+ I read/edited a friend's novel, which was a great learning process for myself.

+ I've read (probably) 30 novels with an eye on style, tone, plot, voice and technique.

+ My brother read and gave me feedback on yet another of my novels, Balance (pitch yet to be developed) which really made me feel like I've got a chance, that this practice isn't entirely pointless.

+ And I started a very public process (namely this blog) of keeping the world (or at least three dedicated readers and myself) appraised of my quest to finish a novel, find an agent and get it published.

So -- shoot: Progress! Congratulate me. Let's have a party!

Thursday night nothing to say

Nothing to say. I'm here. I exist. I'm working on my novel and my query letter to the literary agent I met in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago. Trying to polish the first thirty pages of Messiah's Sneaker and finish up the letter in the next two weeks so I can get those mailed off. Progress, progress. It's a journey more than anything.

It's still pretty iffy on the weather around here. Rained quite a bit yesterday; never got very warm today although the sun was out, and I had a nice moment when I ate in my car with the window open over at the Missle Silo park that's not too far from where I work (yes, that kind of missle, the park is around a fenced in decommissioned ICBM underground missle site -- I guess they give tours, which would be kind of interesting, but I've never been.)

Connor played the drum set to accompany the entire fifth grade at school tonight as they did they music program. And next week we have our second double-bill conflicting performances on Tuesday as Reade plays with her string orchestra at Northridge High and Connor's music class performs their original compositions. Reade was supposed to play Tuesday night also -- two performances in two places -- but she talked to her music teacher and will get to do in on another night with another class. I think next week is the end of the music performances for this spring, as school is out June 1 and then only Reade's dance recitals remains on the calendar.

That's it: off to work a bit before it gets too late.

Wednesday, May 11

Dreary

What does Snoopy say? It was dark and stormy night. The Edge of Nowhere is covered with a flat gray sky, an easy drizzle is falling, the roads and lawns and trees are all soaked. Dogs are wet when they come in. A big thunderstorm rolled through yesterday afternoon, lots of hail, a few fairly big stones (one or two made ping-pong ball size) but mostly olive and popcorn sized. Lightning, of course; thunder. Much rain. I made a library run as it approached. Big random drops splattered. Driving back saw big rotation in a cloud, but no sign of tornadoes (I haven't checked the morning paper yet). And today is just chilly and gray. Blah.

Tuesday, May 10

And on the writing front

I'm happy to report I edited 18 pages of my novel yesterday. I'll take any sort of progress, and that counts. Off to work.

Proud pop alert 2

So we pulled it off: two places at once, hearing both kids play. Well, I did. K had to work. Dropped Reade off at Northridge, took Connor to University's theater, went back to Northridge and picked up a program, noted that Reade was playing in the third group of the night after the school's band and chorus, plus after two bits of awards, so drove back to University to hear Connor, since he said they were on first, but it turned out they were on first after the intermission, so stood there, waited, then caught his first song and the praise he received on stage from the band director for earning a superior rating at the solos & ensembles he played last month, then raced back over to Northridge to catch the end of the awards bit and listened to Reade play in a couple of pieces by the orchestra there. Reade also got public recognition when, during the awards portion, her conductor awarded her a "promising young musician" certificate for being the youngest person on stage (due to the fact that she's a seventh grader at a different school, not a high school student there). So proud pop all around!

Monday, May 9

Two places at once

Well, with two performing musicians living under our roof, it was bound to happen: Dueling concerts. And tonight's the night, the first time that's happened to us. Reade's playing with the Northridge high school orchestra she's part of tonight while a mile to the south Connor is playing percussion with the University middle school and high school bands. Plus, Kristen works. So I get to shuttle them back and forth and try to catch one or both of them playing. I'll probably start with Reade, since I saw Connor's jazz combo play last week, and he's playing again this Thursday night, while Reade won't perform again until a week from Friday, when she plays again with her string orchestra.

Sunday, May 8

Happy day

Happy day to all you mothers out there. We fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, uncles, granddads, guys and dudes appreciate all you do for your children. Here's hoping your day is full of just the kinds of things you want!

Saturday, May 7

Spring time

It's only mid-morning, and today we've already had rain, sun, thunder, hail and lightning but only a bit of wind. Right now the sky is full of white and gray and black big thermonuclear clouds spinning and spinning in the widening gyre, plus big patches of sunny Colorado blue sky visible above the rooftops and the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. The back yard -- full of swooping grackles -- is bathed in sunshine at the moment. Nothing to report, or say. Just been on the computer awaiting the first results from the Giro, and ordering a Troubled Hubble CD and t-shirt for Kristen, and e-mailing Murray and Nick, and I felt obligated to make a post. Mission accomplished. Now off to my novel for an hour or two. Bye.

Friday, May 6

Writers and agents

And, since this blog is supposed to be about my writing career, play-by-play of my efforts writing and editing fiction, my attempts to pursue an agent and a place for those of you in the future who wonder who the heck this eba guy is a place for me on the web, I guess a couple of updates are in order:

1 -- first and most importantly, congrats and good luck to my pal Jared who today told me he finished up his query packet and the clean first 50 pages of his novel Wrath and put it in the mail to the New York literary agent who asked to see it when Jared pitched it to him at the Pikes Peak Writer's Conference a few weeks back. He's taken that next step in this journey, and I'm proud of him and will use his success as motivation to get my package out soon so he doesn't get too far ahead of me... (You can find Jared's blog over there on the right side...)

2 -- also, I've been trading e-mail with the son of a friend who's landed an agent (the writer son) and is now in the process of shopping his novel around to publishers. It's good to hear how it's going for him, and to see that the process can work if you stick to it.

3 -- my brother has finished reading one of my novels, Balance, which was written during the '02 NaNoWriMo event. And he said it didn't suck. In fact, he said "For a first draft, it was pretty damn good." Yeah! He also pointed out a couple of things I need to revisit and look at again when I proof it next and give it a second draft. I can't tell you how thankful I am that he did this for me, but I'll try anyway: I'm so thankful. Thanks dude!

So, while I haven't written or edited a word in two weeks, I have made mental progress in moving forward, which I'll take. I'm motivated and ready for some action this weekend. And I'll take it.

Out and about

Things to do this weekend...

If you happen to be occupying meat space coordinates within a hundred miles of Leavenworth in central Washington state this weekend, check out my nephew's birdhouses -- well, don't just check 'em out, buy one! -- at the Leavenworth Spring Bird Festival. He'll be making and selling cool bird houses from 1-3 p.m. each day. Seek out Daniel's Home for Birds when you're there.

Speaking of nephews, if you happen to be anywhere else in the world, tune in via the web as my other nephew co-hosts his first 30 minute radio show about literature starting this Sunday. The show airs live, May 8, at 6:30 p.m. central time. You can listen at www.wnur.org. Nick's guest is a guy named Shawn Huelle, who writes regularly for The Neo-Futurists, a theater troupe downtown.

I myself will be following the Giro d'Italia, which begins Saturday morning with a prologue time trial at the tip of the boot as 3500k race for the maglia rosa gets under way. A good preview, for the zero of you who are interested, is at that link.

If you find yourself with nothing else to do, you can always come clean our garage...

Insurance and writers

In case you didn't know, when I'm not writing fiction, or worrying/dreaming about writing fiction, or any of a dozen other things (being a father, a bird nerd, a dog owner, a mower of lawns, etc. etc. etc.), I work for one of the world's largest insurance and financial services companies. I sit in a cubicle. Yes, it has been known to get me down (but only when my alterego Sarcasm Man (or my other alterego, Cynical Boy) isn't around).

So this cheers me up: Noted writers who spend their daytimes, or much of them at least, toiling in the same uncreative corporate world as I, include...

Franz Kafka (that explains a LOT) -- Franz Kafka may be regarded as one of the literary titans of the 20th century, but to make a living Franz worked for the Workers’ Accident Insurance Company of the Kingdom of Bohemia, only leaving the company near the end of his life when his tuberculosis forced him to take workers’ compensation. Though he worked in the insurance office during the day, at night and weekends and holidays he created some of the most harrowing literary masterpieces of the 20th century.

Thomas Mann -- Like Kafka, Thomas Mann worked in insurance while striving to become a writer, but unlike Kafka, he was able to leave his job at the German Fire Insurance Company to devote himself fulltime to writing. His experience in insurance is occasionally reflected in his writing, most importantly in 'The Magic Mountain.'

Wallace Stevens -- Far and away the most important American literary figure to work in insurance -- so far! -- was the poet Wallace Stevens. Stevens is remarkable for the fact that he achieved great success both as a poet and an insurance executive, becoming executive vice president of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and authoring a number of important publications on insurance theory. He developed the habit of walking to work, during which time he would compose verses in his head. Stevens’s company one summer hired a college student as an intern, who was also a fan of poetry, and found it fascinating that one of the executives of the company had the same name as one of his favorite poets. It never occurred to him that the two could be the same Wallace Stevens.

Personally, I've always been oddly proud that Kurt Vonnegut spent a dozen years or so doing PR writing (like I do) for General Electric (not where I work). Of course, he got out after less than ten years; I'm going on year 17 or 18 for my current employer.

Thursday, May 5

What's Vader say about it?

This totally cracks me up: Darth Vader's Blog.

Proud pop alert

We heard Connor and his school jazz combos and choirs play last night, and Connor was surprised on stage by receiving awards from his performances last week at the UNC/Greeley Jazz Festival. He was given two special citations for outstanding musicianship -- one for his work backing up the choir on Thursday and the other for his work in the combo on Friday -- by the IAJE, the International Association of Jazz Educators, the college professors/adjudicators who sit in back, watch/"grade" and work with each group after they perform. So that was pretty swell and we're quite proud of him. (He earned one last year for his drum solos at the jazz festival.)

Monday, May 2

Two things...

If you're at all interested in selling your book, or publishing and marketing your novel, check out the essay at the top left corner of MobyLives today. This is what you should expect (minus the huge success $$$ of his first novel, of course). Still interested? Go for it. (Later: here's a hard link to the essay...)

Item the second: We're about a half hour away from tip-off of the Nuggets game four vs. San Antonio. The Spurs have made the Nugs look like a middle school team the past two games, so tonight's is do or die. I'm wanting a big 114-92 win for the Nuggets to even the series at 2-2 and guarantee another game back in Denver. I'm expecting another humbling 83-78 lackluster loss and certain doom Wednesday back in Texas.

Sunday, May 1

Peace on lawns

So we fertilized our lawn -- and by we I mean Kristen did -- last weekend? Or a few days before it? Whatever. And it's been mostly raining and snowing since. So I really had to mow today after this morning's flurries dried up and before it snows again tonight. And/but in the garage I noticed we still had half-a-spreader full of yellow fertilizer. So we hatched a plan, the four of us.

Don't tell anyone -- but at dusk tonight, Connor and I took a 25-foot rope and the spreader of fertilizer over to the school yard we share a fence with and laid down a few layers ExtraGrow in the shape of a 50-foot peace sign. We still had a bit left over, so we made an even larger squiggly circle around the outside of that. It's sort of our own reverse crop circle.

Hitchhiker's Guide

Beautiful, perfectly executed film. Thumbs up. The scene in the planet factory is expert. The over-the-top Sam Rockwell nails it as the President. The Henson shop creature -- like the Volgons -- are right on. The singable song at the beginning -- winning. We saw it earlier tonight and I say yes.

Update for Paul: Yeah, I think Daniel would enjoy it. There's some crazy stuff I can picture him laughing at. The little robot guy will make him smile. There's plenty of special effects and the the pace of the movie is pretty quick. He might not figure out everything, but visually it's fun to watch and it moves along nicely .

Last five...

Last five books:

+ The Stupidest Angel - By Christopher Moore
+ Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
+ The Twenty-seventh City - Jonathan Franzen
+ The amateur Marraige - Anne Tyler
+ The Motorcycle Diaires - Che Guevara
+ Plus, I've been reading Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee between Fever Pitch and The Stupidest Angel, and I've started Windows on the World, a 9/11 novel by some French dude.

Last five movies:
+ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
+ Fever Pitch
+ Million Dollar Baby
+ Hitch
+ The Pacifier.

Last five TV shows:
+Nuggets playoff losses (ugh)
+ Most Extreme Elimination
+ The Prisoner (via Netflix)
+ The Weather Channel
+ Televisded Rockies bullpen collapses (ugh)

Franzen's book's the best of that list -- and it was his first novel, too. Wow. Daunting. Big. Worldly. Aloft has amazing writing, too, but I haven't gotten much past the first three chapters yet so can't tell you too much about it.

I picked up the Moore book because down at Colorado Springs last weekend, his name came up in conversations a few times, and neither Jared nor I had heard of him. Turns out my nephew read him in high school. Go figure. Someone in the Springs told me he was like Tom Robbins, who I like a lot, but I would a say a cheaper, TV-movie version of Robbins perhaps. I suppose this particular book is hilarious, but it didn't make me laugh that much but for a few grins. (Still, I read it in three sittings, including nearly an hour waiting for the Grease Monkey guys to change the oil in my car -- [the best part of that waiting room was when one of the workers came in and asked who had the Pathfinder, and a guy next to me said he did, and the worker asked what the trick was to get the car started, and the owner said nothing, and then the guy said do you have to like twist the steering wheel or something, and then the owner admitted yeah you did, and then -- I was listening to all of this with my eyes buried in my book -- when I looked over when the owner got up to follow the Grease Monkey outside, I see the owner has a hook for a hand, a genuine steel hook, something you don't see very often on the Edge of nowhere, or at least the little paths I tend to wear into the planet making my rounds between home, school, work and the few stores I visit.]

We saw Fever Pitch before I read it, altho' I'm a Hornby fan and see several of his books here on the shelf next to me. I liked the movie a lot, but then I'm a sucker for baseball movies, and I like both Jimmy F and Drew B. quite a bit too. It worked. The book is about soccer, of course, English football, and nothing at all like the movie, as the book is a nonfiction personal account of Nick's obsession with Arsenal, the big north London team. I saw Hitch and Eastwood's boxing movie back to back in a mall in Arizona in early April when I was stuck down there for work. [The most interesting part of that night, aside from the popcorn meal I had, was in the food court when I spied just before the mall cops did a guy with a handgun in a holster on his hip, in clear sight (not concealed in anyway, which I suppose is as legal there as here, although not something I see, well, ever) and then I watched the mall cops -- security teens -- talk nervously to each other with the shoulder-mounted mics on their walkie-talkies and slowly surround and walk in to talk to him. I pictured the worse, of course, and slowly made my way to a safe distance literally out of the line of fire.]

Geese fly by

In response to Paul's post two days ago, my own poem for poetry month, a day late:


The geese fly by
twice now
in the thin
slice of gray
morning
sky I can see
over the beige
cubicle wall
geese fly by

at a distance
slow enough
to count to fourteen
then four more and
then four more
dropping down
to the circle of
open water on
the corporate pond

then up close
just beyond the
fourth floor glass
geese fly by

beating their wings,
climbing the high sky
the little reverse smear
of white down visible
below their
outfielder eyes.




[05.04.05 - edited & tightened based on comments below]

May day, May day

Danger Will Robinson, danger Will Robinson.

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