Downer

It looks like The Wife's income is going to get cut in half next semester at The Other School on the Hill. I'll tell you, she didn't waste to much time. She's on the hustle, even now, looking at leads.

We're not gonna starve or anything, not even close (at least not for a couple of months). We may have to do without new high-end consumer electronics after the new year, but still...

EDIT: What is it with all these people conducting their business off-hours? When E got the email informing her about her one section being closed, it was dated Saturday afternoon. What, the dude was chilling out on his couch when he realized, "Ooh, damn...I knew I forgot something?"

And just now, well after business hours, she gets an email about a potential lead? I mean, I do freelance stuff, so I understand emailing at all hours, but jeez.

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Moonbase Beta

Thanks to Blogger beta, I...

• Got tags on posts going back to late '05. Still got a lot to go.
• Edited some tags
• Got updated versions of all the widgets I had on my old template

What can I say? It's some nifty stuff they got on here, now. I've had to slap my hand away from all the full length del.icio.us and YouTube widgets I could potentially cram into my sidebar.

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Alpha Beta Gaga, Part Deux

I have to admit, I was about to give up blogging. Not necessarily because I ran out of things to talk about. But, I needed to make this thing useful again, a means through which I can take care of my bid'ness.

After three years, it became pretty useless as a means of storing and linking information for me or anyone else to review later, unless you wanted to troll through the archive pages. Seriously, I was dreading putting anything potentially valuable on this thing for fear it'd just get lost...

...until Blogger in Beta came along.

Now, I almost don't need del.icio.us or Backpack anymore. Between effortlessly integrating third-party apps, manipulating the template, and organizing the output however I might want it with the labels feature...well, I might actually come here more often. This is my 146th post for '06. Look at those past years. Yeah, provided this thing helps me the way I want it to, I'll definitely be updating more often.

So, yes...there's a new look, new features, and all sorts of idiocy to be documented and catalogued. Eh, who needs WordPress, anyway?

Caveat Emptor:

1. I turned comment moderation on--sorry.
   
2. Be aware that the categories listed don't yet cover every single post.
   
3. Your browser's mileage my vary.

I gotta get to bed. I've got a long, early day tomorrow.

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Last Week's Reads

I admit it. This week I didn't even crack Nick Hornby's playbook open. I'm just winging it.

Last week, I read:

• Alan Dean Foster, "Venting"
  
• Isaac Szpindel, "From Gehenna"
  
• Brian W. Aldiss, "The Night That All Time Broke Out"
  
• Me, "The Evil of the Recidivist"
  
• Howard Rodman, "The Man Who Went to the Moon--Twice"
  
• Philip K. Dick, "Faith of Our Fathers

A few weeks ago, I shelled out $7.99 for a paperback anthology, SLIPSTREAMS, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & John Helfers. I was aquainted with some of the stories in the more "literary" end of the style, so I thought this would be a chance to see some things that were decidedly closer to the genre end.

The first tale I read, "Venting," was very straightforward and complete, if simple. The little I know about the main character is everything I need to. I didn't care much for "From Gehenna," but that wasn't Szpindel's fault. True, I saw the ending coming a mile away (especially with the "subtle" blurb on the back cover). But after last week's double shot of Jack the Ripper stories from DANGEROUS VISIONS by Bloch and Ellison, I was worn out.

Honestly, I'm not too thrilled about what I've read so far, but I'm only two stories in. The only reason the book interested me in the first place is because I'm interested in exploring the whole Slipstream style. Hence, the attempt that was made in "The Evil of the Recidivist." Though you could say that it failed to the extent that the story could be labeled strictly "sci-fi."

Maybe it was the week. It was hellish at work. Chalk it up to the inevitable atmosphere of an Ivy League school during finals week. That could be why "All Time Broke Out" was another one I didn't "get." Yes, I understood the plot, especially after reading the forward and afterward. But I really wasn't in the mood for a story about temporal physics gone awry.

"Went to the Moon" was my favorite of the bunch. The sci-fi element wasn't obvious until near the end, but that just goes to show how a compelling story can sometimes outweigh other considerations in the hands of a master.

"Faith of Our Fathers" is by far the most interesting "What If the Wrong Side Won the Cold War" stories I've ever read. The truth I took away from it concerns how, then and now, politics is sometimes the least of our problems.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK

"Ugh glumph hum herm morm glug humk," the woman muttered.

Which means, roughly translated from the Old Stone, "Why the heck does this always happen to mankind just when he's on the goddam point of getting civilised again?"

-Brian Aldiss, "The Night That All Time Broke Out"

Next week: I've been in a Charles Bukowski/Raymond Carver mood this past week. It's time to indulge, I think.

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I'm Gonna Add Some Bottom

Formerly Known As "My Weekly Personality Analysis," thanks to the new labels feature.

With which great bass player do you most identify? Jaco Pastorius Early career backing the Temptations and Supremes. Moved on to work with Pat Metheny and Weather Report. Probably the best technician ever to play the bass.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis...

no longer exists. Oh, I'll still be doing weekly memes and they'll be available wherever you see the personality analysis label.

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Alpha Beta Gaga

I made the switch to Blogger beta. I'll be exploring and fiddling, so forgive any mess that might ensue.

EDIT: I went back and tagged/labeled most of "My Weekly Personality Analysis" posts. But that's as far as I'm gonna go.

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Last Week's Reads

Dusting off, but not opening, choosing to go strictly by my fogged, hazy memories of Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you last week's reads.

When I was with the family over the Turkey Day holiday, E and I made the trip to Half-Price Books. There are a fair amount of used bookstores in Ithaca, some that really do re-sell books at half-off. But a lot of the prices at HPB are more than half-off, which is always nice on the wallet. Aside from an audiobook copy of Robert McKee's STORY, I picked up copies of Harlan Ellison's infamous anthologies DANGEROUS VISIONS and AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS. I was actually going to pick up a trade paperback copy of the former, but E suggested I pick up the hardback version with "the swanky cover," so I figured I might as well pick up the second one, too.



Anyway, everything last week came from DANGEROUS VISIONS, which I've been reading pretty much in order so far, except for having temporarily skipped the novella "Riders of the Purple Wage" by Philip José Farmer. Thus...

• Lester del Rey, "Evensong"
• Robert Silverberg, "Flies"
• Frederik Pohl, "The Day After the Day the Martians Came"
• Miriam Allen deFord, "The Malley System"
• Robert Bloch, "A Toy for Juliette"
• Harlan Ellison, "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World"

I know a lot of humanist-types who'd really get a kick out of the story "Evensong," the plot of which could be interpreted as showing the ultimate expression of the human potential. The spiritually-minded, however, could interpret that same plot as a caution of the consequences of the same.

"Flies" is undoubtedly the best human-altered-by-aliens story I've ever read, bar none. The elements are pretty shocking for something written in the sixties (which was the point of the anthology). I won't even describe them; you'll have to read it to believe it. I'd almost describe it as a horror story, but no one in the tale is as horrified as the reader.

What if, as Pohl wrote in his story's afterward (each story except for one has a forward by Ellison and an afterward by the author), sci-fi really can make all men to think of each other as brothers, "at least in the face of a very large universe which is very likely to contain creatures who are not men at all"? Don't be fooled, though. "The Day After the Day the Martians Came" doesn't convey that message directly. Rather, it clearly and succinctly illustrates the ugliness of man's often negative reactions to "the other."

It was refreshing to see a 40 year-old story written by a female (Remember: these stories were written in the 60s. You think sci-fi's dominated by males now, consider 1967.) that, in a graphic and pointed way, dealt with the "softer" sciences. This is exactly the sort of story that found the resurgence expressed in THE HARD SCI-FI RENAISSANCE. It's my favorite story of the lot, so far.

"A Toy for Juliette" was written at Ellison's behest as a sequel to a story Bloch wrote in 1943 called "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper." Ellison then responsed with a story that picked up where Bloch left off, "The Prolwer in the City..." which is a perfect example of the sort of "conversation" that today's writers like Link or Doctorow write about (pardon me for being too lazy to Google various examples).

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
I offer two, having failed to add one last time. First, in this week's reading...

The city was a complex artery, the people were the blood that flowed icily through the artery. They were a gestalt with one another, forming a unified whole. it was a city shining in permanence, eternal in concept, flinging itself up in a formed and molded statement of exaltation; most modern of all modern structures, conceived as the pluperfect residence for the perfect people. The final end-result of all sociological blueprints aimed at Utopia.

-Harlan Ellison, "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World"

Typically, I offer these snippets without comment, but in this case I just have to note that it's a description as succinctly written as that by Garc&iactute;a-Márquez in the opening of "Big Mama's Funeral," even if the styles are different. What I mean to say is, that same magic is there.

The second is from last week's "Guy de Maupassant" by Isaac Babel, his most popular quote, in context:

I began to speak of style, of the army of words, of the army in which all kinds of weapons may come into play. No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place. She listened with her head down and her painted lips half open. In her hair, pressed smooth, divided by a parting and looking like patent leather, shone a dark gleam. Her legs in tight-fitting stockings, with their strong soft calves, were planted wide apart on the carpet.

Next week: More from DANGEROUS VISIONS with maybe one or two other things mixed in.

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Miscellany

1
All of my electronics have now moved into the 21st century. I can backup my laptop five times over. And I can plug a total of 8 USB devices into it, including my video/mp3/FM radio player.

I don't know how I ever got by with that 128MB piece of crap player I had. This thing has been my saving grace in a crowded space with the family during Turkey Day, on bus rides with stressed out students from the Big Red School on the Hill, not to mention zoo-like grocery stores.

2
Nonfiction audiobooks...I'm now addicted.

3
There's a nearby group, apparently (I may have mentioned this before) who apparently work out at a local facility with sticks and wearing sarongs. My co-worker who works out there approached them and told them about someone who might be interested (namely me). They tried, it seemed, to put him off first, probably thinking I was someone from "Kim's Ninja School" at the mall or something. They lightened up a bit when he told them I was someone who had a bit of experience with what they were doing. Anyway, they were supposed to give my co-worker information to give me, but on the night they were going to do that, they blew him off.

Eh, screw it. I work with someone who knows this guy and who offered to put in a word for me. He's in Cortland, but that's not too, too far away.

4
This next week, I'm told, will absolutely suck at work. That's okay, though. Like I always say, that's why they call it work.

5
Steven Barnes already said it, so I don't have to...

I don’t know about Michael Richard’s actions, aside from doing something that has probably damaged his life and career. He may be an actual raving racist…but in my experience, most real racists are more careful with their speech. They believe they are walking in enemy territory, where the Jews run the media, using Blacks as footsoldiers. They don’t openly rant like that. Of course, maybe he’s just a STUPID racist. My mind is open to possibilities.

6
There is NOOOO...number 6.

7
They all laughed at me after Timothy Treadwell and they thought what happened to Steve Irwin was a mere accident. But I've said it before and I'll say it again--the animals are rising up!

Orca returns to S.D. tank after attack
By ALLISON HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 30, 6:36 PM ET

SAN DIEGO - Some days, killer whales just wake up on the wrong side of the pool. A 2 1/2-ton orca that dragged a trainer underwater during a show at SeaWorld may have been put out by a spat with another whale, grumpy because of the weather or just irritable from a stomach ache, according to marine mammal experts.

Or, maybe it's letting us know just how close the revolution is.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

I only lie for the sake of consistency. Anyway...

You are the Hanged Man

Self-sacrifice, Sacrifice, Devotion, Bound.

With the Hanged man there is often a sense of fatalism, waiting for something to happen. Or a fear of loss from a situation, rather than gain.

The Hanged Man is perhaps the most fascinating card in the deck. It reflects the story of Odin who offered himself as a sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. Hanging from the world tree, wounded by a spear, given no bread or mead, he hung for nine days. On the last day, he saw on the ground runes that had fallen from the tree, understood their meaning, and, coming down, scooped them up for his own. All knowledge is to be found in these runes.

The Hanged Man, in similar fashion, is a card about suspension, not life or death. It signifies selflessness, sacrifice and prophecy. You make yourself vulnerable and in doing so, gain illumination. You see the world differently, with almost mystical insights.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

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Last Week's Reads

You'll forgive me if my weekly copying/butchering of Nick Hornby's playbook is a little sparse this week with the holiday and all.

This year I'll spare all of you the sarcasm about the celebration of colonial White oppression. No rants on the great U.S. of A.'s foundations on the principles of rejected religious extremists. No, not even "Happy Thanksgiving--have a blanket!" jokes. Just last week's reads:

• Isaac Babel, "My First Goose"
  
• Orson Scott Card, "A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon"
  
• Carrie Richerson, "...With By Good Intentions"
  
• Isaac Babel, "Guy de Maupassant"
  

Two Book Sales ago, I got an old edition of Isaac Babel's COLLECTED STORIES. This was back when I got hooked on Raymond Carver, someone who worshipped Babel. It all seemed beyond me at first and it wasn't until I read Lessing's "Homage to Isaac Babel" last week that I had a context in which to finally open up one of Babel's story and actually get it. It's not for nothing that folks often quote "No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place." from Babel's "Guy de Maupassant."

Back on the skiffy/fantasy tip, I dug out another one from Card's MAPS IN A MIRROR anthology. Even a casual reader could look at the title "A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon" and dread the hundred-and-one different things that could go wrong with a story with that premise. Thing is that any problems the story had, IMO, didn't have much to do with the premise. Just things that seemed unlikely to me, even in a fantasy tale.

The one thing that "Nixon" and the story "...With By Good Intentions" from the Oct/Nov F&SF had in common were the simple plots and premises drawn into simple, crafted tales. One might debate whether they were good or bad--I liked them both. But I'll be damned if Card and Richerson made it look so damn easy it almost made me sick.

Next week: probably some stuff from Harlan Ellison's DANGEROUS VISIONS anthology.

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Movin' On Up

ITEM ONE
It's taken a couple of years, but The Wife and I seem to have achieved a semblance of financial stability. Of course, it has to happen right before the holidays. We're simultaneously overjoyed and dismayed to find ourselves in a new consumer bracket, one that includes small pieces of antique (but functional) furniture, home appliances, and consumer electronics. Namely, a MacBook Pro for her and a 250GB external drive for me.

We're still close enough to our previous austere life to feel apprehensive shelling out considerable sums of money for things other than utilities. But when you've been working with old and busted second hand computers for as long as she has, or when you've already suffered near-catastrophic data failure like I have, all of a sudden these things really do start looking like investments, especially when our dreams and goals basically revolve around producing things as efficiently as possible. In the 21st century, you just can't do that with crap.

It's just a wierd feeling, is all.

ITEM TWO
Because, I'm just not used to being able to buy enough storage to backup my laptop six times over and be able to pick up a couple of cool CDs at the same time.

powered by frazy.com

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Last Week's Reads

Shamelessly copying from Nick Hornby's playbook, and doing a botched job at that, I give you last week's reads:

• Carol Emshwiller, "Killers"
  
• Joyce Carol Oates, "Thanksgiving"
  
• Harlan Ellison, "The Few, the Proud"
  
• Jonathan Lethem, "Access Fantasy"
  
• Doris Lessing, "Outside the Ministry"
  
• Doris Lessing, "Homage for Isaac Babel"
  

I loved "Killers" from the Oct/Nov issue of F&SF. After reading it, though, I have a better understanding of the arguments of those who bemoan the fact that some stories that make their way into the mags nowadays don't have clear fantasy/sci-fi elements. You had to read between the lines of "Killer" to make out what those elements are and they're vague enough that you might be mistaken. My personal feeling is that it takes skill to do that, but that's just me.

It was the same with "Thanksgiving" by Joyce Carol Oates. I didn't plan to read it because of the upcoming holiday. It really was the next one on tap from her collection HAUNTED: TALES OF THE GROTESQUE. And it so happened that this was another story of some kind of possibly post-apocalyptic world featuring characters with all sorts of fears that seem reasonable to them, but go unexplained to us.

Needed something "manly," I read some Ellison. But I had no way of knowing what "The Few, the Proud" was about until I started reading. Sure, I guess some right-wing nut could label this story as anti-military propaganda, but the events in the tale are the sorts of things one intuits as having a ring of truth about them.

One thing I've learned about Jonathan Lethem's stories is that, IMO, you can't worry about the plot holes or you'll miss the payoff. This story is a perfect example of that. Most folks would go "WTF?" if I just tried to simply outline the plot. But then they'd end up missing the point of the protagonist's predicament, not to mention Lethem's opinions about the direction of society.

I was fed up with the Doris Lessing story I had been reading, but because I've continued to promise to read one, I went through her collection STORIES to pick out a shorter story. I read two short ones instead, the four-page "Homage for Isaac Babel" and "Outside the Ministry" which came after it. I didn't much care for the latter, between the confusing political intrigue and the fact that the story consisted of four men talking over the course of a half-hour. But the story gave me a valuable lesson on time when contrasted with "Homage," which was half the length, yet took place over the course of a week.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK
No explanation, no context. Just the writing that grabbed me.

...and so they went down below the Undermall to the underground corridors, long echoey halls of tile, not so glamorous as upstairs, not nice at all really, the lengths apartment people went never to have to step out onto the street and see car people being really appalling sometimes.

Jonathan Lethem, "Access Fantasy"

Next week: I need me some Card and some Link, I think. And maybe something from out there on the world wide internets.

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Fan Mail

Hot damn, who'da thunk? This was forwarded to me from the offices of AMERICAN NERD.

I enjoyed your article in defense of 80s Chicago. I could have written it myself. I'm almost done with a doctorate in music composition (all but dissertation) and I've always appreciated all eras of Chicago, early, eighties, and even recent. I think the misunderstanding about the "jazz-rock band that sold out" meme is that they were never devoted to the "jazz-rock" hybridization like Blood, Sweat and Tears or 70s fusion bands in the first place.

To me, they're a "craft band." Every song they record is an expression of musical craft. There is as much craft in "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" as there is in "If You Leave Me Now," and, as you point out, "Hard Habit to Break." The fact that they shifted idioms from jazz to pop rock in order to express their musical craftsmanship
is only secondary.

Bravo on a well-written and pointed article about a misunderstood and vastly underappreciated band.

Robert [redacted]

This was a brand-new experience. I'm simultaneously thrilled and apprehensive. For where there's fan mail, hate mail is always a possibility.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

I never claimed to be Honest Abe.

You Are A Little Honest

Sometimes you do the right thing, but not often You prefer to look out for yourself most of the time But sometimes honesty does get the better of you Here's hoping you answered this quiz honestly

How Honest Are You?

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Last Week's Reads

Once again, bastardizing Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you the stuff I read last week

• John Cheever, "The Enormous Radio"
  
• Joyce Carol Oates, "Poor Bibi"
  
• Cory Doctorow, "Return to Pleasure Island"
  
• Alison Lurie, "Counting Sheep"
  
• Kelly Link, "Some Zombie Contingency Plans"
  

I know what I said and I have been reading some Doris Lessing this week. I just couldn't git 'r' done, unfortunately.

I was off to a good start with Cheever's "The Enormous Radio," the first of his work that I've read (at least I can't recall if I have before). "Chekhov of the suburbs" is right. I picked it because it's referred to in a few places as an example of magical realism. It's not García-Márquez (it's not meant to be) but it does use those elements to deliver an uncomfortable truth or two.

If two weeks ago, I had the experience of finding the story I now love the most, then this week I found the story I loathe. Hey, not every story will click with folks. I know this and Alison Lurie and Joyce Carol Oates certainly understand this. "Counting Sheep" was solid, and ironically, is the story that has my Passage of the Week. But when I got to the end, I found myself asking, "Are you serious?" That's not the story I loathe, though. By the end of "Poor Bibi," I felt that I just got my chain jerked. It was a case of when you think you've figured out the ending of a story and you're given clues to indicate that you're probably wrong, but then you find out you were right all along.

I'm not 100% sure what "Pleasure Island" was about. Oh, I understood the plot (I think). And, I definitely like the way Doctorow seamlessly wove in disparate, unexplained sci-fi and fantasy elements into his story. Seriously, if I tried listing these elements separately, you'd think it was something he bogarted from Timothy Leary. But I can't say I got it on the first read. I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to giving it a second one.

Kelly Link, as always, didn't let me down. There's nothing I can say about this story that I haven't said about her writing in general, already. Yet again, I was left with the feeling of "Why the fcuk do I bother?" One thing I will say about "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" is that the shoe that finally drops isn't necessarily the one you're expecting and I loved the way she pulled it off.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:

Whenever you tried to go for a walk or a picnic in the Lake District, the sheep had always got there first. Anywhere you might want to sit down, the turf had been churned by their muddy hooves and littered with their droppings, like greasy brown bunches of grapes.

-Alison Lurie, "Counting Sheep"

Next week: that freaking Lessing story already. Probably some Ellison, too.

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Threes

Ed Bradley's passing was sad. Hearing about Jack Palance was sad, too; this was a piece of my childhood gone this time (If I saw THE EXORCIST at 8, you don't think I would've seen SHANE?). But, now Gerald?? "Casanova" pretty much defined my love life in the late 80s.

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Enough Putzing

Have you voted yet? Go on, go. I'll wait.

Last week was the work week from hell (So far it's better this week, thanks for asking) that started off badly when I got some bad news from the Old Neighborhood. Yeah, that whole youthful I'm Gonna Live Forever vibe? Gone. Oh, it'd been slowly wearing away anyhow, what with drinking herbal tea, listening to Satanic smooth jazz, and bitching about local tax rates. Let's just say that when someone your own age passes away, someone with more to live for than I do (and I've got a LOT), it definitely puts things into perspective. Which is why, during what is hopefully my first in a long line of annual physical exams, I got the sort of exam that they say guys in their thirties need to start having. Not to mention getting a cholesterol test. I shudder at the possible results. What can I say, I'm from Cleveland, Land of perogis and smoked meats.

So, last weekend I caved and went to a local NaNoWriMo meetup and started something that I eventually titled EXPERIMENTAL PHASES. I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep going with it, though. My Writer side (the side that's the antithesis of everything NaNoWriMo stands for) has been pestering me with, "You've got two shorts to finish and one you haven't submitted yet! Get to it, NOW!" I got the submission in. But, instead of finishing the shorts, I'm blogging before work. Hey, baby steps, right?

Anyway, I've got my plans, I've got my time mapped out and...oh geez, 10 minutes before work, apparently.

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Last Week's Reads

Again, borrowing--then crossing out lines with a black Sharpie, writing notes on the side, and adding my own rules to--Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you what I read last week.

• Sarah Zettel, "Kinds of Strangers"
  
• Jonathan Lethem, "The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door"
  
• Harlan Ellison, "Chatting With Anubis"
  
• Neil Gaiman, "The Daughter of Owls"
  
• Neil Gaiman "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar"
  
• Gabriel García-Márquez, "Big Mama's Funeral"
  
• Orson Scott Card, "Unaccompanied Sonata"

I hadn't heard of Sarah Zettel except through my copy of THE HARD SCI-FI RENAISSANCE. Her story was a solid example of everything that compilation stands for. It's a straightforward genre plot about a ship in deep space but the emphasis isn't so much on the science of space travel as much as the science of psychology.

"The Dystopianist" is your typical Lethem fare (that's not an insult, btw). It's a simple well-written story with one theme being, basically, about self-examination.

I got two Gaiman stories in because they were short and followed one another. I'd call "The Daughter of Owls" pleasantly grisly (Note to self: I think there's a comic adaptation of this around somewhere that I should check out). "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar," yes, refers to that Shoggoth and is set in Innsmouth. Truth be told, they were written as well as Gaiman's usual, but the stories were...well, okay.

Ellison's "Chatting With Anubis" and Card's "Unaccompanied Sonata" had some pretty straightforward plots as well. In them, the protagonists go through some pretty profound changes and not necessarily for the better. True, most like stories where a hero acts heroic and wins big. Some like the hero to lose, but still be a hero; more people can identify with a hero like that. But stories where the hero loses himself? Those stories, stories like these, can be a little harder for some people to stomach.

The story that blew me away was "Big Mama's Funeral." This is now, hands down, my favorite short story. The mechanics are nearly flawless and the language (at least insofar as the translation) is beautiful. García-Márquez's attitude toward the subject matter, i.e. his truth, isn't readily apparent until near the end, though reading it makes the last line of my choice for Passage of the Week more relevant.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK

Now that the nation, which was shaken to its vitals, has recovered its balance; now that the bagpipers of San Jacinto, the smugglers of Guajira, the rice planters of Sinú, the prostitutes of Caucamayal, the wizards of Sierpe, the banana workers of Aracataca have folded up their tents to recover from the exhausting vigil and have regained their serenity, and the President of the Republic and his Ministers and all those who represented the public and supernatural powers on the most magnificent funeral occasion recorded in the annals of history have regained control of their estates; now that the Holy Pontiff has risen up to Heaven in body and soul; and now that it is impossible to walk around in Macondo because of the empty bottles, the cigarette butts, the gnawed bones, the cans and rags and excrement that the crowd which came to the burial left behind; now is the time to lean a stool against the front door and relate from the beginning the details of this national commotion, before the historians have a chance to get at it.

Gabriel García-Márquez, "Big Mama's Funeral"

This was only one of about five that I could've chosen. I still get shivers.

Next time: Maybe some of that Doris Lessing I promised last time and possibly a comment or two about Satrapi's PERSEPOLIS, should I decide to include comics in my weekly reading list.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

See? That's twice in a row, so it's weekly again. (Well, at least for now.)

You know, I put my counseling/mental health books away a long time ago, but from what I remember, these results don't seem right. Then again, a cold-reading from a psychic hotline often produces better results than one of these online things.

Maslow Inventory Results

Physiological Needs (34%) you appear to have everything you need to survive physically. Safety Needs (44%) you appear to have an adequately secure environment. Love Needs (50%) you appear to be semi-content with the quality of your social connections. Esteem Needs (50%) you appear to have a medium level of skill competence. Self-Actualization (60%) you appear to have an average level of individual development.

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