Inhuman Swill

Deception

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:11:00 -0500

This morning in the back window of the car I found a ladybug bleached bone-white and fragile under the glass, like a tiny skull. With eyespots faded almost to nothing, blinded by the sun, it was as if the creature had only slowly, and jealously, let go of the urge to outwit its predators.

Nice review

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:55:00 -0500

Via the PS Publishing newsroom, here are excerpts from Peter Tennant's recent Black Static review of my collaboration with Derryl Murphy, Cast a Cold Eye:

This short novella does many things right. For starters, its setting is immaculately captured on the page, with a real sense of rural Nebraska in 1921 coming over thanks to a wealth of tiny details, such as the ins and outs of photography or a look inside the house of a wealthy widow. There's a strong emotional grounding too, for both Luke and the society in which he is placed, an aching sense of despair undercut with a feeling that perhaps the worst is past, so people can look to the future with hope, an optimism confirmed in its denouement. Characterisation is spot on, with no-one who can be considered either evil or a criminal, just ordinary men and woman with all the flaws and virtues that implies.... The supernatural side of the story is suitably understated, so that we believe but also take on board the possibility that the ghosts could only exist inside the hearts and minds of the people who see them. With a subtext suggesting that the spectral world is just another aspect of life, wishing us neither good nor evil, but just there, a case could be made for Luke as the 'I see ghosts' boy from Sixth Sense picked up, rather like a reverse Dorothy, and put down in rural Nebraska, but that might be stretching things. In any event, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it without reservation.

Order yourself a copy, without reservation, here.

The giving trees

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:45:00 -0500

This morning is Plant a Tree day on WBEZ. If you pledge any amount today, they will plant a tree in your name anywhere in the world. "Anywhere?" said Laura. (We often talk back to the radio in the morning.). "I want them to plant a tree in my back yard." "I want them to plant a tree in Antarctica," I said. "It's pretty barren down there." Does this make us jerks?

Also, I would someday like to hear someone on public radio say: "Many of you out there listening have never pledged before. You've been copping a free public radio feel, but now it's time for you to pony up, go all the way, and lose your public radio virginity. Please be generous."

Nixon, that well-known socialist

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:41:00 -0500

In the March 8 New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg makes an interesting throwaway observation in the course of discussing the Republican disinformation campaign that has labeled Obama's health-care effort as "socialist":

The Democrats' bill more closely resembles Richard Nixon's health-care proposal—the one that Ted Kennedy went to his grave regretting he hadn't embraced—than it does Bill Clinton's, to say nothing of Harry Truman's. [full article]

It's clear that politicians who bloviate about the dangers of socialism in this country are either ignorant or lying. Do you think that when a smart guy like Newt Gingrich calls 1984 an argument against socialism, he doesn't know Orwell was himself a radical socialist? Do you think that when Jim DeMint calls "discredited socialist policies" the "enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world," he doesn't know that Europe and Canada are not exactly collapsing into anarchy and ruin as he speaks? No, they're not ignorant. What they're doing is putting Orwell to use in a different way—deploying careful buzzwords—socialism, totalitarianism, 1984, Big Brother—that have become freighted with decades of fear-inducing associations, words that slice through rational processing and detonate like smart bombs in the reptile brain. The worst indictment of socialist ideas I can think of is that our equitable, cooperative, socialist education system has so completely failed to instill in us the ability to see through all this doublespeak.

Sham shakes rock

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:48:00 -0500

And the links to other complaints about Shamrock Shakes just keep pouring in! Here's an oldie but goodie from The Onion: Sinn Fein Leaders Demand Year-Round Shamrock Shake Availability

Shamrock shock

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:52:00 -0500

See, Laura and I aren't the only ones upset about the new Shamrock Shakes. Marcus Leshock and Kyra Kyles from Chicago Now are both up in arms: 2010 Shamrock Shakes? More like SHAM Shakes! Shamrock Shakedown: Why I am Disappointed by McDonald's Shamrock Shake Thanks to pixelfish for pointing me toward these links.

Reading at Hopleaf tomorrow, March 2nd

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:32:00 -0500

Hey, Chicagoans! I have a reading coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, as part of Chicago's Tuesday Funk Reading Series at Hopleaf. It's my fourth appearance at Tuesday Funk, where I'll be appearing alongside Lisa Chalem, Reinhardt Suarez and (my Writers Workspace colleague) "Etiquette Bitch" Marianna Swallow. I'll be reading a segment from my collaboration with Derryl Murphy, Cast a Cold Eye. The event takes place in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf, which opens at 7:00 pm. The reading itself begins at 7:30 pm. The address is:

Hopleaf Bar
5148 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60660

That's just south of Foster, in the Andersonville neighborhood. Hopleaf is one of my very favorite bars, specializing in Belgian ales but with a menu of over 600 craft beers from around the world. (It's cash only at the upstairs bar, which features a smaller but still extensive beer list.) All that and excellent Belgian food too. The readings are always excellent and varied, and I hope to see you there!

Meet the new voice, (almost the) same as the old voice

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:13:00 -0500

On Tuesday I plan to sit down and watch The Oprah Winfrey Show for the first time, ever. I've seen bits and pieces before, but this will be the first time I watch the whole thing in a premeditated fashion. Hey, I want to hear Roger Ebert's new/old voice. Ebert's new voice has been synthesized (and is being further refined) from DVD commentary tracks he recorded for a handful of movies. The Scottish company behind the voice is CereProc, which specializes in text-to-speech synthesizers that speak in a variety of accents. It's fun to play around with their live demo and make voices from all around the British Isles say vulgar and juvenile things. As more and more of us litter the intertubes with extensive examples of our speaking voices, the easier it will be for convincing artificial versions of our voices to be cobbled together. I suppose the technology will have matured when it can pass a sort of text-to-speech Turing test—when someone can call your close friends or relatives by telephone or Skype or whatever and fool them into thinking they're talking to you. Damn, I just got an idea for a story.

It looks like a trap to me, Scoob

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:25:00 -0500

No, I'm sure the pile of Milk-Bone® dog snacks that Ella and I stumbled across in the park yesterday morning did not conceal a boobytrapped pit in the ground, nor a tripwire that would drop a steel cage around us, nor a noose that would tighten around our ankles and hoist us upside-down into the air. But I still wouldn't have let her go near it, even if it had interested her (which it did not). I probably would have been suspicious at the best of times to find what looked like an entire giant-size box of Milk-Bones, complete with a coupon good for your next purchase, emptied out onto the snow. But we're in the midst of one of those neighborhood panics where citizen complaints have spurred the police into cracking down hard on owners who don't keep their dogs on-leash at the park. My first thought on seeing the pile of biscuits was that some angry person had poisoned them. The idea that someone was just trying to get rid of some extra dog treats before they went bad came in a distant second. Scooby-Doo jokes limped across the finish line in third. It's no fun to have your walk in the park marred by the thought that someone might be upset and unbalanced enough to try to murder your dog at random. So I laughed it off, and I won't worry about it again until I see a tempting platter of roasted turkey and mashed potatoes sliding across the field on fishing line toward a suspiciously rustling bush.

R.I.P. Ryan Maguire's Ale House

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:09:00 -0500

Fans of the monthly New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series in Manhattan are used to gathering for good food, good whiskey, and good beer at Ryan Maguire's Ale House, on Cliff Street near the South Street Seaport. Unfortunately, Ryan Maguire's was destroyed by a fire early this morning: It's great that no one was hurt, but this is a real loss. It was a warm, welcoming place, and I always looked forward to heading there with Jim Freund and a big, interesting, varied crowd after readings while Laura and I still lived in New York. I'm glad I had a chance to go there one last time, in January, when Paul Witcover and I read together at NYRSF. RIP.

Shamrock sharks

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:30:00 -0500

Lest anyone unfamiliar with the phenomenon assume I am overstating the fanaticism of Shamrock Shake devotees, let me direct your attention to... ShamrockShake.com ...a message board for confirmed Shamrock Shake sightings around the country. Believe. (One of the saddest recent reports from Illinois, echoing Laura's disappointment, reads: "got one with whipped cream...it was only half-full of the glorious green stuff...I was very sad.")

UPDATE: Okay, that disappointed message-board entry I just quoted? Turns out it was posted by none other than Laura herself! Small world here on the intertubes.

Shamrock shuck

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:42:00 -0500

Laura and I go to McDonald's together, on average, once a year. Like many of you, I'm sure, we've both been lovers of the Shamrock Shake since childhood. It was hard if not impossible to find a McDonald's in New York City that carried those minty cold treasures, so one of the upsides of moving to Chicago was the realization that the advent of the St. Patrick's season once again meant Shamrock Shakes within reach of our greedy little mitts. Still, we didn't intend to embark on Shamrock Shake Quest 2010 this past Sunday afternoon. My plan was to dedicate the full day to a small freelance programming project I'm working on, but a minor eyeglass-frame emergency derailed that. (Turns out it screws with one's ability to effectively view through progressive lenses when one of your earpieces breaks off.) We rushed down to Lincoln Square to order a pair of replacement frames. It was only as we were returning home that Laura spied the happy gospel proclaimed from a McDonald's sign on Western Avenue. "Shamrock Shakes are back!" she exclaimed. "Shall we stop?" I asked. "Do you have to ask?" We pulled into the McDonald's drive-thru behind three or four other cars. We were giggled and bounced in our seats, anticipating the cool rush of wintery flavor, as we inched forward through the line. According to the menu board, a small shake ran (if I'm remembering correctly) $1.99, a medium $2.59. When our turn came, I order one small and one medium. "I'm sorry," said the disembodied voice from the speaker, "but our machine isn't working." We felt so punctured and deflated that I think our tires even lost a few p.s.i. "Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "We may as well just kill ourselves now," I said to the speaker, "we're so sad." The voice on the speaker laughed, and we drove away. "Well, that was a blow," said Laura. "There's another McDonald's over on Clark Street," I said. "Where?" she said with breathless hope. "Just north of Bryn Mawr." She made a get-moving gesture. "What are we waiting for?" We sped the mile or two northwest to Andersonville, our palates more primed than ever. But when we made it to the menu board at our second McDonald's drive-thru, we were shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that a small shake was $2.39 and a medium $2.99! "That's crazy," I said. "What do we do?" said Laura. "What can we do?" Who would have predicted such a price disparity such a small distance away? But we had come this far. I ordered us a small and a medium. And the voice on the speaker threw us a curve ball. "Would you like whipped cream?" Whipped cream? I looked at Laura. Who ever heard of whipped cream on a Shamrock Shake? It's a crime against nature! But Laura was nodding her head eagerly, so I answered, "Okay, whipped cream on the small, but no whipped cream on the medium." "Pull forward please." But there were more shocks to come after we forked over nearly six bucks in ransom for our frozen treats. First, the shakes came in clear plastic cups instead of the old familiar opaque paper cups. That was enough of a startlement, but second . . . "It's half whipped cream!!!" Laura exclaimed as I pulled away. "Look at this!" Bitterly she held up her shake. Indeed, despite the fact that her cup (unlike mine) was capped with a domed lid meant to house the whipped cream without decreasing the volume of the shake, her cup was filled only halfway with the thick, treefrog-green elixir. The rest was whipped cream. Oh, yeah, with a mocking cherry on top. "What a ripoff!" I said. "Do you want to go complain?" Laura sighed. "No, it's okay." "You can have some of mine," I said. My medium-sized cup was filled with shake right up to its properly flat lid. "No," she said dejectedly. "I'll just look at it as portion control." And that's the story of how McDonald's killed our joy. The irony is, we might not even have realized what a shuck they were pulling on us if they'd only stuck with opaque paper cups. Silly product managers. Will we be back next year? I don't know. What do you think the chances are they'll come up with Shamrock Shake methadone in the next twelve months?

Upcoming readings

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:15:00 -0500

I'll have more info as these events get closer, but I'm scheduled to participate in a couple of local readings coming up here in Chicago. On Tuesday, March 2, I'll once again be part of Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf. And on Monday, April 19, I'll make my second appearance in Essay Fiesta at The Book Cellar. Mark your calendar. I hope to see you there!

Tiny accomplishments

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:42:00 -0500

I've been a fan of Roger Ebert's writing (as opposed to his television presence) since I first ran across it on the web, which was probably not long after the Chicago Sun-Times starting publishing his film reviews online. Which was a long time ago. As much as his insightful criticism, it was droll, tossed-off observations like this one (from his new review of Happy Tears, emphasis mine) that won me over:

[Happy Tears] takes on an eerie resonance with the performance by Rip Torn as the aging father. He was recently in the news for being arrested, at age 78, for breaking into a bank while intoxicated and carrying a firearm. To be sure, it was late at night, he had apparently forgotten he had the firearm, and after all, the bank looked a lot like his house. Nor is senility his problem. He is now in rehab and I wish him good fortune because he is a fine actor. Ann Landers used to write about the danger signals of alcoholism. His arrest in the bank surely would be one of them. Still, to stir up such a scandal at 78 is perhaps even a tiny accomplishment, when so many his age are no longer physically able to break into banks. [full review]

This is all by way of recommending not just his reviews and his blog, not just his continuous championing of liberalism and rational free thought, but also the new Esquire profile of Ebert, "The Essential Man," written by Chris Jones. I knew about his battles with cancer and his various surgeries, but had no idea of their extent or aftermath. Read it, and read also Ebert's own generous thoughts on the article. I can't think of many writers so well-rounded as people, and so unendingly prolific, and that he continues to be so in the face of his health problems is not just an inspiration. It's a more than tiny accomplishment.

The devil at the end of my bed

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:59:00 -0500

I watched Paranormal Activity yesterday evening on DVD while waiting for Laura to get home from work. I found the movie deeply, thrillingly, and realistically frightening—not because I believe in ghosts or demons, but because it returned me to a time in my life when I did. Between the ages of ten and sixteen or so, I experienced a few episodes of what I realize now must have been sleep paralysis. This occurs when the brain rouses from REM sleep but the body essentially remains asleep. You're fully awake and aware, but you can't move a muscle. That's exactly what happened to me maybe half a dozen times that I remember. I would wake up in the darkness of my bedroom unable to move, terrified by the certain convinction that the Devil himself was holding me immobile, and that he was going to kill me. I would struggle to move for what seemed like an hour, to no avail. I would struggle to form words, to shout for help, also to no avail. I would struggle not to fall back to sleep, because I knew if I fell asleep I would die. I would silently pray to God for deliverance from my assailant, deliverance that only came when I did fall back into unwilling unconsciousness. On one very memorable occasion, when I was an older teenager, this happened on a visit to my uncle's house in Los Angeles, while I was cocooned in sleeping bag on his living room floor. My father was in a sleeping bag not six feet away, but I couldn't make the tiniest peep to wake him up so he could save me. I've never talked about this with anyone, so I know that any conclusions I drew about what was going on with these night episodes were completely mine. And the conclusion I drew was that I had somehow, through bad actions and thoughts, opened myself up to the power of evil. (It also did not help that an episode in Mormon mythology has Joseph Smith overwhelmed and held immobile by Satan while he prays to God to learn which church he should join. In a strange way, I convinced myself that Satan would not bother with me unless I had some fantastic destiny to fulfill. And that scared me too.) The comforting thing I discovered many, many years later, after reading about sleep paralysis, is that my experience was normal for sufferers of this disorder. The paralysis is usually accompanied by panic and a sense of severe threat, and many, many people sense the illusion of a threatening presence during episodes. I'm far from the only person to wake up believing a demon or devil is holding them captive. Which leads me back to Paranormal Activity. The movie is not about sleep paralysis, but it is about a demon haunting. The build-up of eerie events takes place slowly and with excruciating restraint, which resulted in me hugging my knees on the couch and at moments clambering backward in fright. I think it was probably much more effective playing in a darkened living room that it would have been in a movie theater, at least for me. But as freaked out as the movie made me, it also left me feeling exhilarated. There was the joy of seeing skilled moviemaking play out, yes, but there was also the shivery return to an age when I truly believed I had brought demons into my home—tempered by the realization that at the end of the movie I could safely return to the reality in which demons are nothing more than a story for scaring gullible children (and adults). Laura came home before the movie was over, and I gushingly enthused to her about how to the movie was affecting me. Then we went to bed, and I slept like a baby.