We Should See Other Blogs

While I was driving through an intersection, another car took a left turn in front of me, a left turn that would have probably killed us both were it not for my quick-braking reaction. I ended up stopped in the middle of the intersection like an idiot, staring at the person who, in another world, had caused my death.

Novels would have me wrapped in epiphany now, celebrating my new lease on life. It turns out that today looks a lot like yesterday. I thank God for not separating my spirit and my body, but other than that, I’m the same person.

This, of course, is the latest in a long line of things Gregory House has said that I agree with.

Attribution and License for the above photo.

Holy crap… Vernor Vinge has posted the entirety of his book, Rainbow’s End, online. So you can read it for free. And you should, because it will expand your mind. Despite its many, many flaws, Rainbow’s End is one of those books (along with Snow Crash, Accelerando, and another book I can’t remember right now) whose enormous breadth of vision can take your breath away. Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

Attribution and License for the above photo.

You know how some people dress up to the 9s? Yeah, well, I dress up to ELEVEN.

WHAT. UP.

Attribution and License

• I am unbelievably sick of people who always say things like, “Well, what are you doing about it?” It’s one of those cop-out phrases. Like how you can say “lighten up!” as a way of being a jerk. Or how you can say “deal with it!” as a way of avoiding having to deal with it. Either you agree or you don’t. If you say “put up or shut up!” then you follow your own advice.
• How do you know when you’ve drunk too much coffee? Where’s that point where you say enough?
• I’m having one of those days where everything is terribly busy and nothing seems to get done. Yeah, I’m blogging for a minute, but the rest of the day seems to be filled with doing things and more doing things, only when I look back I don’t see the results of having done any of those things.
• Laura and I had tacos for dinner last night. A simple, cheap, and delicious meal. I think we might do that more often.
• There’s a writer’s strike going on in TV land right now, in case you didn’t know. That means that all our favourite shows are over and done with, maybe or probably for the season. No more How I Met Your Mother, no more Big Bang Theory, no more House, no more Scrubs, no more Pushing Daisies. Sad times. But we can go back and watch things we missed, like 30 Rock, and… that’s about it. It’s one of my favourite new shows now.
• I would like my desktop to be able to follow me anywhere I go. Why is that not possible? Why can’t I call my desktop up securely on a public terminal? I know, the staggering technical hurdles and the nightmare of implementing this idea. But… super cool, right?
• I’m away from the Rumour Forum for a while, guys. Except for the boards I have access to, and they’re not much. But when I come roaring back to the fold, my pockets stuffed to overflowing with cash money dollars, it’ll be a day to celebrate.


Attribution / License

I’ve been visiting the Library lately, catching up on my reading before the holiday seasons hits as it inevitably will with titanic force (and by titanic, I refer to the original Titans, not the ill-fated ship). Even though it takes longer, sometimes a lot longer, to get the books I want, it’s free, and Mississauga has a nicely-implemented online catalogue; right now I have

• Away: A Novel
• Gomorrah
• I Am America (And So Can You!)
• The Kite Runner
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• Water For Elephants
• The World Without Us

on hold. Most of which I should have my hands on relatively soon. In the meantime, I’ve read a few books I’d like to tell you about.

The Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster, is an exploration of what happens when extreme grief strikes and an accidental obsession spills out. Like most Auster, it’s an odd combination of interesting observation and illusive characterisation. Which, I imagine, sounds a bit like I’m just making things up. If you read Paul Auster, though, I think you’ll know what I mean. And if you read Paul Auster, you’ll know this isn’t one of his strongest outings. It’s worth reading, yes; but it’s not a must-read.

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, is a vampire story. When you think of vampire stories, stately is not the first thing that comes to mind. The Historian is just that, though: at one stately, reserved, and really, really interesting. You should read this one.

Primary Inversion, by Catheriner Asaro, is probably one of the worst sci-fi debacles I have ever stopped reading after 20 pages. It had a cool cover, and the jacket implied it had some cool ideas, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say both were dreadful lies. The writing is so pedestrian you can almost imagine how many editors blanched whilst reading the manuscript; on one page I noticed eleven (eleven!) references to people laughing, grinning, and smiling. All this in on extended dialogue. I imagine the people talking must have been grotesque in their never-ending jocularity, their lips forever stretching in a simulacrum of a smile, never able to achieve any other expression in the readers’ minds. Don’t read this book, whatever you do. Please. Think of the children.

Rule the Web, by Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder of Boing Boing, is a well-written introduction to the internet, or at least the most-visited subsection of the internet, the web. This book will be outdated in two years, so read it fast. If you consider yourself familiar with how the internet works, and what you can do with it, don’t bother. If you are reading this in 2009 and you’re pretty good at this interweb stuff, don’t bother. I’m sure O’Reilly has come out with a Web 4.0 Croudsynergy guide you’re like better.

Sound Designs: A Handbook of Musical Instrument Building, by Reinhold Banek, is just what it sounds like. Light on theory, heavy on implementation, this book isn’t really what I was looking for. But if you’re into building stuff, you might want to give this puppy a spin. If you’re into any other kind of sound design, this is not the book for you.

Travels in the Scriptorium, by Paul Auster, happens to come in at half the length of The Book of Illusions. It manages to be, in those few pages, much, much more rewarding. Paul Auster has always struck me as a sort of Lynchian literary figure, and Travels is where his weirdness shines, where the creepiness he can induce ebbs and flows. Beware, if you like books with resolution, this is not for you.

Vacuum Diagrams, by Stephen Baxter, proves relentlessly depressing. Baxter, while a good writer, pens a future history of the human race that becomes more bleak as the book goes one. The book, by the way, is essentially a bunch of short stories and vignettes tied together with baler twine Baxter calls “Eve”. I want to like this volume, but I really don’t. I read the whole thing cover to cover, and though I appreciate the scope of his vision (and appreciate that a lot of writers like Kevin J. Anderson, in the Saga of Seven Suns, have cribbed ideas from this book), I pretty much hate his vision and hate his implementation. That’s not to say you won’t find value in this book. I did and didn’t. You may or may not. That said, I’ve never read a future history of the human race that did a good job; I’m not sure it can be done. Either the separate stories become fragmented and your investment in the characters wanes, or the author’s vision overwhelms him and he ends the book with some contrived crap ex machina. For an example of the latter, read Charles Stross’s Accelerando, otherwise a wonderful book.

Eventually you get used to the crickets. They’re everywhere, invisible, but everywhere. You wake up to the sound of crickets, you go to sleep to the sound of crickets, you work all day to the sound of cricket, and when you finally get home, the sound of crickets bounces off every wall. I hate the word “cricket”. I hate the sound. Even though I barely notice them these days, sometimes they drive me crazy.

The crickets aren’t as bad as Them, though. Crickets don’t change much, always playing the same tune. They sometimes sound like opera, sometimes like machine guns, sometimes like a woman breathing into your ear.

The little man in the mirror can talk to the crickets and to Them. He tells me what they’re thinking, what they’re saying. I often think this is rather strange, but the little man in the mirror is a strange fellow. He has a dog’s head and can do things I can’t. Maybe I’m too big or too human something. He only appears on that side of the mirror, never this side. He tells me its too cold over here, even though he is covered in fur. But he still talks to me through the mirror, keeps me company when I’m shaving.

“Have you thought of a name for me yet?” he asks as I am cleaning stubble out of the sink. / “No,” I reply, as if this is obvious. “Why do you need a name?” / The little man shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “They say I need one.” / They. “Who are they?” / He frowns. “I told you yesterday-” / “I didn’t see you yesterday,” I interrupt. “You were gone.” / “The day before yesterday,” he tells me. “I told you the day before yesterday.” / “I don’t remember. Tell me again.” / “You have a very bad memory.” I don’t, of course. I just want to hear him say it again; sometimes I lie to see if he’ll say the same thing twice. I’m not entirely sure I can trust the little man in the mirror. When he smiles, it’s feral, like a German Shepherd. / “Them,” he replies, sighing, as if telling me these things again is a great burden he must bear. “They tell me that I need a name. They tell me that you’ll give me one.” / I think about this for a moment, while putting away my razor. “What will happen if I don’t?” / The little man in the mirror shrugs again. “Do you want to find out?” / “I suppose not,” I reply. “It’s not a big thing, giving you a name.” / “It is to me,” he says, shortly. Then he walks off to the side of the mirror. I wait for a few seconds, but he doesn’t come back.

I flip the light switch and the bulb begins to power down, buzzing. It flickers and goes out.

There’s a knock on my apartment door, which of course means the bun lady is here. When I swing the door wide open the crickets let out a burst of noise as if annoyed. It echoes in my head as I say, “Hello,” to the bun lady. / Hello, she replies in her own way. Would you like some buns? / “Of course,” I say, accepting the basket. “Would you like some money?” / For you, she says, smiling kindly, no charge. Her teeth are very sharp; I can see them gleam as her mouth stretches out wide. Her mouth seems to go from ear to ear. / “Thank you,” I reply. The bun lady makes the best buns in the world and never charges me. “Would you like to come in?” / No, she says. Perhaps someday, but not now. She is looking at me with that thing in her eyes, that thing I sometimes think is desire. / “Oh.” Sadly. I would very much like to talk to her someday, and make her a meal. / You will make a good one, the bun lady says. I do not know what she means, but she has stopped smiling and is looking down the hall. I must go.

Edith walks past after the bun lady leaves. “Talking to the bun lady?” she asks, looking at me sympathetically. Edith has an odd way about her, always looking at things as if they are to be pitied. / “Yes,” I say, nodding. “She gave me more buns.” / Edith gazes down at my hand holding the basket of buns, and says, “Of course she did, honey, of course she did.” / But I do not like Edith, so I turn and walk back into my apartment. I close the door, and when I look through the tiny telescope, she has moved on.

Later, I eat the buns without butter — where can you get butter these days? — and they are, as always, delicious. I begin to feel drowsy off with the food in my stomach, and I crawl into bed. I doze off to the sound of crickets. In my last moments of consciousness, I know I will wake to them as well.

I dream of a world without sound.

A woman is smiling at me, a woman I know instantly as my wife, putting on a jacket. She mouths I love you, see you at six. When she leaves the house, opening and closing the door behind her, I catch a glimpse of the sprinkler watering the lawn. It moves in beautiful silent precision, thwack thwack thwack, until it reaches the end of its orbit and reverses rapidly to begin again where it started. A calm spring day. I see this in under a second. When I feel my son grab my leg, I am somehow not surprised. He is in the habit of grabbing my leg, because he is too short to grab my arm. I ruffle his dark hair without looking, careful not to get tangled in the curls. I am immensely happy in this moment, though I am aware that I do not have a job, and need to get one. But first, breakfast.

The crickets begin humming as I get out of bed, wiping the grit from my eyes. There is nothing to eat here, though I am ravenous. I think about all the food in that other kitchen, that place I can only go when I am elsewhere in dreams.

I stop by the cafe, walking from my apartment in the half-light of morning. Julie serves me with her usual silence; she is unlike anything else in the world, and I love her more than I should, I know. But I can hardly help it. She is good coffee and good food and an unusual lack of noise.

When I have stirred a bit of powdered cream into my coffee I ask, “What would you name a little man with a dog’s head?” / She blinks at me, as if I have said something odd. “I – I – I -” she says, her lips moving as if there are more words in there. / “You must have multiple personalities,” I say, making a joke. / She turns her head away, and her body follows, the void where she was standing suddenly filled with noise. They are laughing at me, not at my joke, but at something else. I am not sure.

I take the crickets home with me, it seems. As I reach my apartment building and push open the doors, they reach a crescendo, and I become annoyed with them as I haven’t in a long while. I enter quickly, padding my way over scuffed carpet to the elevator. Inside, the fan clicks and clicks and clicks as it spins, pushing more dirty air into the dirty air.

The bun lady is standing in front of my apartment. I approach, and she reads the question in my eyes. / I know, she tells me, the faint smell of embarrassment about her. I don’t usually come here this early. / I unlock my apartment door, nodding. “Yes,” I say, still nodding. I am not sure what to say. “Yes.” / I need a favour. She smells of embarrassment still, but in her eyes is that something I call desire. A little something. / “You want some dinner finally?” I ask her, knowing full well I have nothing to give her. / Yes. No! she replies. Just a little something. A finger. / Confused, I say, “A finger?” / Whichever one you like the least. / “Second from the middle on my left hand,” I tell her, pointing with my other hand. “I’ve never cared for that one.” Later, I cannot recall why I chose that one. / I may have it? she asks, grinning her sharp-toothed grin. I may have it? / “I suppose,” I say, not quite sure what she means. / She is very quick, lifting my hand and biting the finger off. Perhaps I scream as she does this, perhaps I do not scream because of the shock. I can see my finger tucked into the corner of her mouth. Thank you, she says. She begins to run off, and almost as an afterthought drops a basket of buns on my floor like an offering.

The door across from mine opens and Jessica looks out, chewing on a pencil. “What’s going on?” she says, looking up and down the hall. I am staring in blunt horror at my hand, where a finger is missing, the stump where it was cauterised as if an iron had been pressed against it. “Are you all right?”

“My finger!” I squeal. I almost scream it out. Jessica, I realise, is wearing very little, just a slight robe, a funny sort of thing to notice when you’re in excruciating pain.

“You’ll be fine,” she says, laying a hand on my arm. “You’ll be fine.”

The pain abates for a moment. Jessica has dulled it, has made it go away. “I’ll be fine,” I repeat, nodding idiotically.

I close the door as the pain roars back. I lay down in bed and beg Them to make it stop. But They are apparently busy doing something else. When I think about them, I can almost hear a bowling alley. I have not thought of bowling alleys for a long time.

Much later that night I lapse into some sort of delirium, and dream of a world without pain.

A short point, here. Churches are called to be a light and salt in this world. This is not an ambiguous suggestion; it’s a clear command. There’s no fancy theological hand-waving that can conceal the facts as they stand.

Bring to bear the parable of the minas (or talents, or cash deposits, or whatever you like to call it) on the issue and you have a pretty damning condemnation of inwardly-focused churches.

Like a selfish person, an inwardly-focused church is more concerned with itself than with the world at large, when the world at large is the very thing Jesus came to redeem.

On Sunday Kristin and Andrew came to church with us in his ridiculously loud Volkswagen, and Joel Main spoke about giving.

Can I go off an a tangent here? Okay.[1] First off, I hate sermons about giving. They generally come off as thinly-veiled muggings, the preacher suddenly morphing into a salesman who is desperately trying to flog the money out of your pockets. That said, Laura and I have just migrated to Freshwater Church in Mississauga after a short stint at The Bridge Church in Burlington. I say short stint because we moved too far away to be a part of the church, but also because the church folded, citing amongst several reasons a lack of money. This came as a shock to me and Laura, as no-one had really actually said anything about money; maybe we missed those weeks, but there was a lack of transparency about it that bothered me afterwards.

This is why, even though I don’t particularly like them, I think sermons about money and frank discussions about money are good for a church. Actually, good for most organisations. Just be clear that the money isn’t going to the pastor’s slush fund. Be honest. Show what you’ve done with the cash. And be sure that you remind people that God doesn’t just want your cash and coin, but he wants those things you just can’t give him: your time, for instance. Or your talents. Or your ridiculously oversized SUV.

[1] Yes, I’m taking the piss out of Joel. Hope he doesn’t mind.

You’re static cacophony,
elastic trapped in amber;
cracked, backwards, fact
and fiction mixed, your standard

lines rhymes on the water’s surface.
Tension. Mismentioned finish.
A wink in history’s eye, dyed in
formaldehyde, somewhat diminished

and twisted. Flicked wrist and this
is that and that is this. The half-life
of hard to parse sentence and harsh
shadows. Perception by flash-light.

Your ecstatic dichotomy, amended,
inked in red, just like you intended.