No.

Yes.

Lee started a blog. It's called Thoughtful Gibberish.

The Dark Tower.

I finished reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series on the way back from South Dakota. He's said he's going to retire, at least from writing fiction, and now I understand. Maybe he won't be able to do it this time, but I can hope for him.

I love talking to Lee about this kind of stuff. He hasn't read the books, so I didn't tell him any of the plot, but I still worked out something by talking to him that I couldn't have worked out on my own.

The actual books that Stephen King wrote are like a story that Jorge Luis Borges would write about. For instance the one where the guy tries to rewrite Don Quixote, exactly as it already is, without reading the book himself.

Anyway, my thought:

There are two series of books going by the name The Dark Tower and using the same text. The first series of books is the series you read when you read the books the first time. The second series of books is the series you read after you've read the ending. These two series are congruent but not equivalent. After you see the ending of The Sixth Sense, the movie isn't the same. Like that, only better.

I think I've figured out the point where the ending didn't have to come out the way it did. It had to end the way it did--I get that--but I can see where it might have turned.

Here's to Stephen King's retirement!

Trip.

We drove back to South Dakota last week to see my brother Matt graduate from college.

We stopped in Vermillion on the way to Sioux Falls and tried to eat lunch at Marge's, but she's dead. It sounds like she must have died just after the last time we ate there. The world's best tater tots have gone west. They've put in a bike path by that little river you cross as you come down the big hill. Classy.

We went to the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls, saw work by a neat local artist, Carl Grupp, and the guy that took stop-motion pictures of the bullet going through cards and apples and whatnot, Harold Edgerton. The kids' science center is well worth the admission. My goodness, how did we get Ray out of there? Lee's brother Mike drove up from Pierre while we were staying at their mom's place. It's always nice to talk to someone who operates on the some of the same basic assumptions that you do. Always thinking, that guy.

Here's Matt: he got to graduation late, saw his line of people leaving for the floor, tried to join them but was shooed back by someone beaurocrat, ended up somehow in front of his supposed place in line, tripped on a cord in the back of the house, and ended up limping to the stage on a twisted ankle far too early for us to have our cameras out. He went back to his apartment and watched the rest of graduation on TV. Former Senator Tom Daschle spoke. My mother hates the guy. It's hard to understand hate for someone so...homey. Maybe it's just protective politician covering. I'm proud of him, anyway: someone from SD was the guy that would have been president if Clinton and Gore had been assassinated, anyway.

I'd met Matt's girlfriend when they came out for Easter. I still think she's all that and a bag of chips. I met her parents at the reception, though, and they were interesting, funny, and witty, too. Weird. Maybe they're all aliens.

After graduation, Lee convinced me that we could ditch everyone ("Face it. You're not the main attraction."), leave Ray with my folks, and drive back from Flandreau to Sioux Falls for a night out. We went to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,* which I liked and Lee hated.

The next day, May 1st, my birthday, was the day of the relatives. About 10 too many people showed up for me to handle. I had to leave the room at one point, because my mouth would have otherwise said something beyond the edge of consensus. Can't have that. It could have been worse. I did get to hear the story of how Matt and Erica met. Did you know that my brother was the Mystery Hottie Guy? I hadn't laughed so hard for weeks, and I laugh a lot.

On the way back to Colorado, we stopped at the Omaha Zoo. I love zoos. They've added stuff since the last time I've been there, a geodesic dome with a desert exhibit on top and "Kingdoms of the Night" underneath. (Kingdoms of the Night was cool and spooky. The first thing you see is this open pool, deeper than I am tall, with nothing to stop you from falling in. Lee stuck his foot in to see if there was glass. There wasn't. And the swamp with the gators and piped-in sound effects. One little girl had to be carried out.) They'd build a gorilla exhibit that looked wonderful, but they were all inside that day. They're working on an orangutan forest, too, which looks enjoyable. We stayed in Lincoln (HoJo's not recommended) and went home the next day.

Home. The place with the wonderful bed.




*If the guys had claimed to be from the BBC instead of MTV, people would have reacted better. It's like Midsummer Night's Dream. Nobody will make the perfect version.

Serenety.

I saw the screening on Thursday in Denver. Doyce got ten tickets and included Lee and myself on his guest list.

Again, thank you.

No spoilers will follow. I'm going to assume you've seen the series.

With a cool eye, this is the best thing Joss Whedon has written. Don't worry about being disappointed with the movie. It isn't going to go down in history as one of the Star Trek sequels--something you remember as being good to great, but see later with this sickening feeling of loss.

The beginning doesn't really bother to be an introduction so much as a disorientation. It's clever and effective--you understand the basics of what's going on without the Dune introduction scene. I remember something my mother said when we watched the movie for the first time: "I don't think I like movies that need an introduction."

After watching the filmed introduction that Joss Whedon made at the beginning of the screening, I have decided that I'd do him in a heartbeat. Lee says he'll forgive me for saying that.

"Melancholy Elephants," though.

Religion.

I was talking to someone today about the new pope--he seems like a politico to me, whereas JPII seemed like a spiritual man who had to do some politics--when she started talking to me about how there will be no peace on earth this side of the final judgement, because of the power of Satan on earth to cause war, which is always evil, except that sometimes you have to do it anyway.

Dude.

I told her I didn't know about all that, only that the new pope didn't measure up to JPII.

Bad thing: When people use religious doctrine irrelevantly to justify an opinion, i.e., that Pope Benedict is a good guy. I'm oversimplifying the train of thought, but I think that was the intent.

Good thing: That I'm no longer a recovering Catholic. I'm not Catholic. I'm not Christian. (To me, it'd be like saying I believe in ratchets and nothing but ratchets when I have a whole box of tools.) But I'm not bitter about it anymore; I don't need to defend myself from conversations that become illogical when religion is mentioned. I don't have to get angry about it anymore.

Now, Focus on the Family is a different story. They're hateful jerks, and if I were Christian, they'd probably make me even more angry than they do now.

Matt! Maaaaattttt!

Ben Edlund to write more Tick.


(via Whedonesque.)

Caffeine.

One of the things I miss about drinking strong coffe is the caffeine buzz. It seemed to make life just a little bit easier, at times. Like today, when I have no inspiration to do anything. I could sit down, drink a pot of coffee, and the world would have sparkly edges. Everything would inspire me to something.

I'd never finish that stuff, though. Because I'd travel back to the land of after-coffee, and it'd be boring. Utterly boring.

Anyway, I've had a long run of uninspiring days. Stuff happens, but it does't feel important enough to write about. Made a new kind of chicken noodle soup, a pistou without the vegetables, I guess, and accidentally received an indoor grilling book from my cookbook club, which Lee was excited about, so I'll keep it. (Yes, I belong to a cookbook club. I don't usually cook using recipes, either.) I'm introducing Ray to the idea that letters make sounds, which make words. Lee's brother Mike stopped by on his way to see their brother Dale in Tucson; Mike wanted to know what tricks Ray could do. Heard about Dale being Dale; it sounds like he's dating someone who can relate to--not just laugh at--his stories. She only has one eye. I went to a potluck/open house celebrating the adoption of my boss's two new kids from the Ukraine. I finally read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I'm roasting chicken with homemade yakitori sauce. I read Song of Susannah yesterday, and I found it lacking compared to the other books in the series, probably because so much of it was a writerly trick to set up the last book. Did laundry. Survived another sinus infection. Changed the batteries in 20 cheap watches and only lost one screw.

But I did sit down today and promise myself that I'd write in my blog. I don't know why, but even the dull entries make me feel better, at heart, than drinking a pot of coffee. And not as twitchy, either.

Review.

Since this is what I've been doing for most of my free time this week, I'd better post one.

*A Short History of Nearly Everything
By Bill Bryson.

It's time to scrap our science textbooks. Not only are they wrong--and they know they're wrong--but they're bad. Electrons do not swirl around the nucleus of an atom like planets, but it'll take you until you're in college or the hands of a subversive high-school physics teacher to find out. Formulas considered too complex for a teenager to learn are dumbed down. Facts are left out, distorted, glossed over: theories are presented as laws, despite any contrary facts. Mostly what you learn from science classes until you hit college is to sit down and shut up.

It's an exciting time to learn science; the only problem is, you have to learn it in spite of your education.

Well, here you go. Bill Bryson won't tell you the real formulas, won't give you the true truth as concealed by highschool textbooks everywhere, but he will tell you how complex the situation is. And he'll put in the little, human details about scientific history that will make you laugh and shudder with how little we know, and how lucky we are to know what we do know.

I recommend this book to anyone who won't be angry about it, that is, the people who already know so much about science that this stuff will be old hat. Most of this stuff was old hat for me, but it was so well written and so well questioned that I enjoyed it anyway. Especially it seems like a good (if long!) idea for anyone in high school that's struggling with science. Why? They ask. Because, their teachers answer. Bill Bryson isn't a science writer--he mostly writes travel books--and makes things interesting and easy to grasp for the layman.

Gravity's Angel.

By Laurie Anderson.

...Well he was an ugly guy. With an ugly face.
An also ran in the human race.
And even God got sad just looking at him. And at his funeral
all his friends stood around looking sad. But they were really
thinking of all the ham and cheese sandwiches in the next room.
And everybody used to hang around him. And I know why.
They said: There but for the grace of the angels go I.
Why these mountains? Why this sky?...

...Why these mountains? Why this sky? This long road? This empty room?

(sample at Amazon.com)

Bleah.

Given that I've never installed a tile floor and there are probably practical reasons for this, still, bleah. I can't find M C Escher floor tiles anywhere.