Goatcabin's Xanga

Two and a Half Years

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:15:57 GMT

Dear K.V.,

The world is not nearly as funny or as magical since you are gone.

J.L.S.

The Spirit Is Willing, but the Flesh Is Weak

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:33:03 GMT

I keep thinking, I need to post again. Now I have the time, just not the energy.

So...in lieu of a post, here is something I wrote before I got the flu: a review of the sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, And Another Thing...

Books I Am Never Tempted to Acquire Secondhand

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:25:35 GMT

Regardless of how clean and crisp it looks, I will never get a bathroom reader secondhand.

My Publishing Phenomenon

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:34:13 GMT

I'm not one to normally get swept away in publishing trends (or, really, any trends), but I have really enjoyed Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. I ignored Harry Potter. I shunned Twilight. But DWK strikes home, maybe because I identify a lot with Greg Heffley.

The fourth book in the series--Dog Days--was released this Monday, and it's actually pretty decent. The first book in the series is still the best, I think. The second book was uninspired. The third book was good. Anyway, that's my plug for Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Is it "great literature"? Probably not. Is it entertaining? Very much so. I don't understand why kids like the series so much; it's only after years of reflection that I can appreciate the "wimpy kid" days. Still, I recommend the series if you want a change to simple books that are a joy to read.

And to avoid spoilers, I won't type out my favorite passage from the most recent book, but I'll tell you that it's the first two paragraphs on page 72 and the accompanying drawing. Happy reading!

A Follow-Up

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:09:19 GMT

A follow-up to yesterday's post, a quote from the Good Earth Tropical Peach teabag:

"To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am." --Bernard M. Baruch, 1870-1965

A New Age Bracket

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:19:49 GMT

From a conversation with my five-year-old nephew.

N: I can ride a bike.

J: I've seen pictures of you on your bike. You are doing such a good job.

N: I can pop a wheelie.

J: Wow! I can't even pop a wheelie.

N: That's because you're old.

Flannery O'Connor on Story-Writing

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:30:11 GMT

"I think we have to begin thinking about stories at a much more fundamental level, so I want to talk about one quality of fiction which I think is its least common denominator--the fact that it is concrete. . . . The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions. It is a good deal easier for most people to state an abstract idea than to describe and thus re-create some object that they actually see. But the world of the fiction writer is full of matter, and this is what the beginning fiction writers are very loath to create. They are concerned primarily with unfleshed ideas and emotions. They are apt to be reformers and to want to write because they are possessed not by a story but by the bare bones of some abstract notion. They are conscious of problems, not of people, of questions and issues, not of the texture of existence, of case histories and of everything that has a sociological smack, instead of with all those concrete details of life that make actual the mystery of our position on earth."

--Flannery O'Connor, "The Nature and Aim of Fiction"

Advice in an Ailing Economy

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:26:10 GMT

From Muriel Spark's A Far Cry from Kensington:

"When you are looking for a job the best thing to do is to tell everyone, high and humble, and keep reminding them please to look out for you. This advice is not guaranteed to find you a job, but it is remarkable how suitable jobs can be found through the most unlikely people. For instance, if you are looking for a job as a management consultant or a television anouncer, and can do the job, you will naturally apply for the jobs available, advertised in the normal papers, known to the appropriate agencies and to friends in the field of business. But you should also tell the postman, the mechanic in the garage, the waiter in the restaurant, the hotel porter, the grocer, the butcher, the daily domestic help; you should tell everyone, including people you meet on the train.

"It is surprising how many people subterraneously believe in destiny. The word goes round, and in a relaxed moment a businessman will listen with interest to the barman or the doorman. Hearing of the very person he is looking for, he might well think that luck has come his way, and arrange to see the applicant next day. There is involved that fine feeling and boast: 'I just happened to be looking for an accountant, and do you know I got a first-class fellow through the barman at the Goat.' People love coincidence, destiny, a lucky chance. It is worth telling everyone if you want a job. In any case, while you are looking for a job you are always walking in the dark."

Bonus quote, unrelated to job hunting: "My editorial colleague's name was Connie, she with the port-wine birth-mark on her face and a timid vague air; try as I do, I can't recall her surname. Indeed, her very abstractedness and insubstantial personality seemed to say 'forget me'; she seemed to live in a parenthesis."

Time to Take a Stand (or Seat)

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:46:35 GMT

In my more eccentric days--specifically during my freshman year of college--I decided that the value of a handshake had gone down. Folks shook hands over everything, I felt, many times without even thinking about what they were doing. (Did I spend more time around adults? Was it just the graduation parties, etc., at which I had to shake everyone's hands? Was Pastor Eddie congregational-greeting happy?) No human contact should occur unexamined, I thought. So I was on a one-man mission to reinvest value and meaning in the handshake.

My plan was to shake hands using only two fingers when a handshake was merely a formality, reserving full, firm handshakes for occasions that truly merited it.

(Note: One might remember my exclamation point rant of yesteryear [too lazy to find, relink, use complete sentence] in which I suggested using ^ to symbolize the courtesy exclamation points that pepper our e-mails and reveal to the reader simply that you are, in fact, alive, using exclamation points only to express dynamic excitement/psychotic anger.)

This required courage, as this conviction took hold at a formative time in my life, when I would meet those who would potentially become my lifelong friends.

I assure you, I am just as bewildered as you as to how I made/have retained any of these friends.

I feel today that another complimentary gesture has reached the point of near meaninglessness: the standing ovation. Don't get me wrong, I like to offer compliments and congratulations as much as the next guy, but it seems like standing ovations are given willy-nilly and no longer designate that which is truly outstanding. A standing ovation at the end of a symphony is one thing, after a child's recital, another. I've noticed that those quick on their feet are typically old folks. Were standing ovations more common in days of yore?

Anyway, I finally got sick of standing ovations and have opted to take a stand by remaining seated. Unless something is truly stand-worthy, and there are occasions, though they are not as frequent as some may lead you to believe. My policy normally means that I look like a jerk (on numerous occasions, I've been asked, "What, you didn't like it?" "She didn't do a good job?" etc., questions injected with such pathos that no answer will be satisfactory), but I feel like when I do stand, I can look in the mirror afterward and not feel ashamed.

Still, in the situation, my practice generally produces panic, especially when a performance is just below the (arbitrary) line of the excellence that merits a standing ovation and everyone around me is standing. Group-think, the mob mentality, lemming mode--whatever you want to call it--pushes me to join, and like Seven of Nine, I shilly-shally with rejoining the collective (but my decision is normally not as dramatic as hers; then again, I'm not Jeri Ryan).

An Operating Principle for The Brothers Karamazov

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:09:05 GMT

"Each is responsible to all and for all."