RIP Freddie Hubbard, 1938-2008. He was probably the best trumpeter from the hard-bop era next to Miles Davis, though some poor choices starting in the '70s derailed a career that could have made him as much of a household name today.

But whatever. I'm going to put on Open Sesame and then Red Clay to work to this morning—not to mention that track "Zanzibar" from Billy Joel's 52nd Street where Hubbard lays down an amazing solo on the outro—and wish there were a heaven (or hell) where I could look forward to hearing him play like in his prime.

Still the best-ever vandalism of my Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Shunn&oldid=53906941

Who can outdo it?

So here at the WorkSpace, I've been writing a passage about a nanogoop-based painting that can fix itself if the image gets damaged. Here in the real world, there are some paintings with thick, ridged lines of textured paint on display in the hallway, and as I was walking to the kitchen for a glass of water just now I was tempted to grab one of the ridges and snap it off—like my protagonist had just done to his painting in my story. This is why I shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard. Or maybe near art.

Some questions for you other full-time writers out there. What are your work habits? How long a day do you write? Do you keep regular hours? Where do you work? How do you keep yourself going? What do you do when you get stuck?

I guess I'm not managing the transition well very yet, and I'm looking for some pointers.

I found myself applauding Timothy Egan's guest column "Typing Without a Clue" from Saturday's New York Times. Not that I, as the author of a "riveting memoir" unsold "after 10 years of toil," feel any bitterness on the topic:

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?

I didn’t think so. And I don’t want you writing books. Not when too many good novelists remain unpublished. Not when too many extraordinary histories remain unread. Not when too many riveting memoirs are kicked back at authors after 10 years of toil. Not when voices in Iran, North Korea or China struggle to get past a censor’s gate....

With a résumé full of failure, he now thinks he can join the profession of Mark Twain, George Orwell and Joan Didion....

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal....  [full article]

There is something to the notion that anyone should be able to write a book and have his or her voice heard, but there's also something to the notion that hard work, persistance, and the constant honing of one's craft should count for something as well. This is why I don't think I'm owed a juicy part in a big Hollywood blockbuster, or a spot in the starting lineup for the Chicago Bulls, or a cushy union sinecure. I haven't paid my dues as an actor, or a ball player, or a pipefitter.

But more to the point, are people really going to buy Joe the Plumber's autobiography? I'd like to think the answer is no, especially in the midst of a recession and the aftermath of an election his candidate lost, but only time will tell if we're that discerning. Well, at least if those of us who still read books are that discerning.

I busted a gut watching Marc Shaiman's short revue "Prop 8: The Musical." Among the many celebrity cameos herein, my favorite is Jack Black's, who may be my favorite Jesus since Graham Chapman didn't play him.

Hey, that was Gordon from Sesame Street on S5E4 of The Wire!

This may be heresy, but I just don't feel as much compulsion to blog now that it's my own time I'm stealing as I did when it was my employers'.

Friday night we headed over to the Landmark Theater at the Century Centre for a late-night showing of the Bruce Campbell–directed Bruce Campbell flick My Name Is Bruce. My review is over at SciFi.com.

If you have any scintilla of interest in the Campbell oeuvre, you should see this flick. Campbell is currently on a promotional tour, and you can check here to see if he's coming to your town (or, um, if he's already been and you missed it). His live, faux-hostile Q&A sessions after the movie are possibly more entertaining than the movie itself, and should not be missed.

We were lucky enough that Campbell's Burn Notice costar Jeffrey Donovan, who is in town appearing in Don't Dress for Dinner at the Royal George Theater, joined the Q&A here as a surprise guest. Laura, who is a big fan, just about lost her mind. Campbell and Donovan together were as funny and profane as fuck. My 13-year-old son, in town with us for Thanksgiving, was beside himself, and actually held his own with Campbell in an exchange about the movie Congo.

We had a fine, fine time at the SFWA mill-and-swill last night, saw tons of great people. But what we appreciated most about the evening was that when we got back to our hotel—not even drunk!—and found that room service wasn't answering its phone even though it will still supposed to be operating, we just walked around the corner to one of those all-night Greek diners and ordered a couple of gyro platters. Midnight dining in midtown, man. It really hit the spot.

We're back. Not five minutes on the street, as we're walking down Ninth Avenue, a guy leans out a car window and asks, "Do you know where the Latin Quarter is?"

So I put on my best wiseguy and say, "Yeah, it's in fuckin' New Orleans."

I know, it doesn't make any sense, what I said, but we're fucking back.

I'm not one to announce my daily word count, but I will say that progress is beginning to be made. Today it was made at a Starbucks on Greenview after I got my B₁₂ shot at the doctor's office. Yes, it turns out I have quite a B₁₂ deficiency, which might explain the tingling I sometimes feel in my back and legs, not to mention my frequent fatigue and general lack of energy. I think it's too early to chalk today's productivity up to the vitamin boost, though.

Of the Six Fundamental Machines inscribed by the Builder in the Cornerstone of Time, the Wheel and Axle lends itself to perhaps the most stupendous domain of potential recomplications. Picture the sky as a giant clockwork mechanism—each planet a semiprecious stone set in the rim of its own great wheel, ticking about the axis of a star that is in turn a chip of diamond studding the rim of its own greater wheel, one that inscribes a unique but interdependent path about the center of gravity of a galaxy that is itself less than a cog on a still greater wheel that in concert with hundreds of billions of others drives the engine of the Universe. Fractal geometry on a scale to beggar the imagination.

Now zoom in again to picture yourself on the rim of your own planetary wheel, observing the progress of a friend on the rim of another wheel in the same system. Assuming different rates of travel, to watch that friend is sometimes to see an apparent reversal in his course. This loop of retrogression, as it's known, stems from the fact that you the observer are yourself a passenger on a body in motion.

All things in the Builder's creation serve not only their own functions as objects but also as lessons for his children. Thus does the Wheel and Axle teach us that to move forward is sometimes to appear, perhaps even to ourselves, to slide back.

There are plenty of sources that list the distances of various stars from Earth, but does anyone know of a source for looking up the distances of stars from one another? If not, I may have to dust off some spherical geometry that I would rather leave in its rusty box.

Specifically, I need to know the distance between Tau Ceti and Van Maanen's Star.

---

Update:  I found the specific answer I needed—Tau Ceti and Van Maanen's Star are 6.2 light-years apart—but I'd still be happy to be pointed toward a more general resource.

"Hello, and what seems to be the problem with your 1-800-FLOWERS online order, sir?"

"Well, I'm not really sure. All the voicemail told me was there was a problem and I should call."

"All right, sir, I can help you with that. Let me just look up your order. One moment."

"Thank you."

"Okay, sir, um, well, it seems the problem is that the florist can't print that word on the card."

"Ah, makes sense, okay, I see."

"Is there, um, something we can change that word to, sir?"

"Well, how about just 'mothers'? Will that work?"

"Yes, sir, 'mothers' will work fine. Let me just make that change. We'll get this back to the florist and get your order out right away."

"Thank you very much."

"Thank you for using 1-800-FLOWERS, sir. Have a nice day."

No, Ella is not awaiting a date with the hangman. This is not a gallows but the new deck that's being constructed on the back of our house, and Ella is eagerly awaiting the day when the second level is complete and the back door out of our kitchen no longer opens on empty air.



Right now, Ella is mightily confused as to why we don't let her out the back door anymore.

Thanks to Netflix, I've been enjoying a steady diet of The Wire, an episode a day on average—um, sometimes two. I'm nearly to the end of the third season. I watched Episode 10 last Thursday. The fifth disc of Season Three, with the last two episodes, was supposed to arrive Friday.

Friday's mail came and went. No DVD.

I didn't start to panic until Saturday's mail had also come and gone with no sign of my re-up. Trembling a little, I logged into Netflix to report the disc lost. Netflix told me that occasional delays are to be expected, and that I would not be able to report the disc missing and request a replacement until Monday.

I began to sweat.

The first thing I did Monday morning, even though the day's mail was still hours away, was to at last report Season Three Disc Five of The Wire missing and to request a replacement. Not an hour later I received email from Netflix telling me that they had just processed the return of the disc I had reported missing.

By now, spots were swimming before my eyes. They had received the missing disc?! The only scenario I could construct that could explain this is that the post office had somehow delivered the DVD on Friday to the wrong house, where that good citizen had recognized the error and straightaway put the disc back in the mail.

I started to feel nauseous. How close had my re-up come? Had it ended up miles away, or had it come to rest as close as next door?

I had to stop thinking about it. That way lay madness.

But hope still remained. Tuesday. There is a Netflix processing center right here in Chicago, which meant that at least I would have my replacement disc Tuesday. I only had to wait one more day. I wet my cracked lips as best I could with my blistered tongue. One more day.

I soon received email confirmation that my re-up had indeed shipped. It would arrive ... what? What the fuck? Wednesday? Why are you busting my fucking balls with this Wednesday shit, Netflix? That's no way to fucking do business! Wednesday?

Sorry, pal. Wednesday's the best we can do. Veteran's Day, you know. No mail.

Aw, shit fucccin mutherfuafhuoahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_&^$+@~%@%^%&^@!_#(&^%------------

Um, yeah, it's not a "condo" if it's for "rent."

I don't know about you, but I am incensed about the LDS Church's over-the-pulpit exhortation of its members to mobilize and help pass California's Proposition 8, banning gay marriage. When I first heard about it, in fact, my first reaction was, "Damn, they need to have their tax-exempt status revoked."

Now you can help urge the IRS to make that happen. Here are all the instructions and supporting documents you need in order to:

File a Complaint Asking the IRS to Revoke the LDS Church's Tax-Exempt Status

If the Church is going to jump into the political arena (yes, okay, they've never not been a player in the political arena) and try to legislate a segment of our population out of their legal rights, then it's only fair that they as a corporation should share this country's tax burden. They pulled this same kind of nonsense 30 years ago to help defeat the Equal Rights Amendment,* and who knows what they'll try next if their actions are left legally unchallenged?

I will never understand the idea that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples somehow threatens the institution of marriage. "Defense of marriage" makes no more sense than, say, "defense of Sunday," the idea that your belief in the sanctity of your Sabbath should mean the I can't buy a beer that day. In a pluralistic society, that's just a ridiculous, backward, and fearful proposition. Observe your Sabbath the way you see fit, and feel free to restrict the definition of a sanctified marriage inside the walls of your own church. But don't try to extend that limited thinking into the public sphere—at least, not without seeing your organization transformed into a de facto political action committee.

Mormons at large seem unable to equate their anti-gay activism (and let's be honest, the Church can equivocate all it wants, but in pushing this legislation against gay marriage, it is supporting discrimination against gays) with the anti-Mormon persecution they suffered throughout much of their early history. Mormons only wanted to be able to practice their odd little religion and their uncommon marital practices in peace, but state after state ran them out with torches and guns. (Okay, again it was more complicated than that, and had more than a little to do with the early political goals of the Church and how threatening those sounded to their neighbors, but let's take it as a given for the sake of this discussion that the persecution was entirely unprovoked.) If anyone in the world should be more sympathetic to the goal of earning society's approval for an unconventional brand of marriage, it should be the Mormons. I mean, come on. They are the sorest losers I've ever seen.

John Stewart is much funnier on the topic than I am:


By the way, people claiming to be Mormons attacked and beat several Proposition 8 protesters outside the Los Angeles temple last Friday. Here's news video from KTLA. I think most of the Mormons I know would be appalled by this behavior, but it demonstrates to me the dangerous lack of proportion that can take root in some people's minds when the dominant social force in their lives tells them it's okay to discriminate.

A revocation of the Church's tax-exempt status will likely never come to pass, but at least your IRS complaint can send a small message.

---

* The Boston Phoenix article to which I linked on the subject of the ERA was mainly an assessment of Mitt Romney's chances as a presidential candidate. So you don't have to scan the whole thing, I've reproduced the relevant passages here:

( A crash course in Mormon political power )

The red states voted and voted until they were blue in the face.