Focus on the Fundies: Nobody for President

Man, if the Democrats manage to fuck this up, there's just no hope.

Evangelicals find little to love in presidential field
...
Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg said that he has found "enormous confusion" among evangelical voters as they consider the GOP presidential field. Social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage remain fundamental for such voters -- but in an era of war and terrorism, "their concerns about national security have trumped their values concerns," Steinberg said.

"They'll say, 'I disagree with Rudy -- but I'm terribly concerned about national security and Islamo-fascism,'" Steinberg said. "Some people will say they will never vote for a pro-choice Republican, (yet) they're voting for him."

This is one reason why Newt Gingrich decided not to run -- in the eyes of the fundies, with his divorces and all, he's no better than Giuliani.

technorati: fundamentalists, evangelicals, presidential politics

Another fucking beautiful day

I'm not sure how many more of these gorgeous fall days I can take. I took a break from writing in the middle of the day and went home and sat in the garden with Cris for a few minutes. Milagrito the cat was out there with us, enjoying the family feeling. A bumblebee circled about.

Then I walked back to my office and did another 3000 words. This was a good weekend, over 5600.

Work avoidance, a wonderful thing

A Seattle resident found discarded confidential police files in an alley and turned them over to a local TV station. The files contained secret riot control plans, personnel information about suicidal and abusive cops, and all kinds of shit. (Courtesy Pogo Was Right, where almost daily you can read about this happening -- confidential information found in dumpsters and trash piles.)

A Girl Scout leader in Pensacola, Fla. pleaded guilty to stealing the identities of 15 Girl Scouts and using their Social Security numbers and other information to obtain $87,000 in illegal tax refunds.

Experiments

I am experimenting with a new internety thing called Tumblr, using it to manually clip interesting news stories: markpritchard.tumblr.com -- courtesy Alexis. Apparently you can use it to "clip" all sorts of things, but I can't figure out how to make the RSS feed from this blog -- which may well be broken -- appear in it.

I can also train its contents to appear here on this page -- but first I have to figure out a way to keep it from taking over half the page.

Meanwhile, a colleague at work -- I work as a technical writer at a giant software company large enough to have seven tech writers just in our division -- keeps asking me if I plan to do National Novel Writing Month. I said I'm not only already writing another novel as fast as I can, but the NaNo I started in November 2004 took me more than two years to finish and still needs a rewrite. In my opinion, National Novel Writing Month exists primarily to give people permission to start a novel -- and I'm past that point. I may not be past many points in my career as a novelist but I'm past that one.

technorati: writing, National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo

Small earthquake

We had a rumbling earthquake of no account a little after 8 pm. It was all vibration and no jolting. The duration was a little longer than most minor earthquakes but it never got serious and I remained sitting on the couch watching "Help!" on the Sundance Channel.

Apparently it was a little more startling in San Jose near the epicenter.

technorati: earthquake

Another bad retail experience

Cris wanted some photo paper, the kind you put in your desktop color printer, so I drove to the Walgreens at 24th and Potrero to get it. You can really tell the character of a neighborhood by evaluating the quality of the Walgreens at the center of it. There was exactly one (1) employee visible behind the cash registers at the front, and none other in the whole store, aside from the pharmacy. Because it's a ghetto Walgreens, all the expensive stuff is behind the counter, and that includes the photo paper. But the one guy at the cash register constantly had a line and there's no way he could help me... I finally had to drive to another Walgreens, this one on 30th and Mission. It's really no difference in the neighborhood, but at least there were more employees working there. When I got my receipt it had a long text printed on it about calling their 800 number and commenting on their service, you could win a $3000 prize. Unfortunately I didn't get a receipt at the first store where I was able to buy nothing at all.

technorati: Walgreens

Another sunny day

Here's another sunny day I'm spending indoors working on my book. In years past I used to hike all day long on Mount Tam on days like this. Especially in the fall, it's beautiful out there. Oh well, I also used to wonder why I wasn't writing. Now I am.

Focus on the Fundies: Swinging pendulum hits foamers

This NYT magazine article on the changing political winds among evangelical (formerly hard-right-wing) Christian churches is fascinating. Finally disenchanted with the Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys and perhaps becoming more sensitive to what their religion actually says about caring for poor people and the earth, the denizens of meagachurches can no longer be counted on to vote straight Republican. The more politicized see no presidential candidate to vote for; the less politicized realize they've sold their silk purse for a sow's ear.

Important milestones in the disillusionment include the fall of Ted Haggard and David Kuo's book about Rove's manipulation of Christians for political gain.

technorati: Republicans, fundamentalists, politics, churches

Deep autumn

End of another day of writing. I got a very late start, but once I got going it went well, and I wrote the scene I wanted to, about 2600 words. Now I think I'm going to do some thinking about what needs to be in the next chapter, so I can sleep on it and then get started tomorrow with a little more alacrity.

Last night we went to the symphony and I actually got an idea for the book's ending. It was generally not a fantastic night at the symphony but I was able to jot down a note and that felt really worth it.

Writing about where you're not

He often makes final revisions to his books on the veranda of his French home, with only oak forests, vineyards and sunflower fields to distract him. It's difficult to imagine a place farther from the pulsating streets of Bangkok.

"The distance forces the imagination to work," Mr. Burdett said. "It becomes an imaginative exercise rather than a factual research exercise. It's a good mental trick to play if you can."

--from a profile of author John Burdett,
whose mystery thrillers are set in Thailand but who owns a "villa" in France.

I guess that helps explain why it's easier for me, and perhaps most people, to write about an experience long after it's happened. For example, when I was in Japan teaching English, I found myself writing copiously about San Francisco. After I got back to SF, I found myself setting stories in Japan.

technorati: writers, John Burdett, writing

Flannery never liked digging too deeply

Here's Flannery O'Connor, writing to her correspondent "A" on why the bull had to gore a character in her story "Greenleaf":

What personal problems are worked out in the story must be unconscious. My preoccupations are technical. My preoccupation is how I am going to get the bull's horns into this woman's ribs. Of course why his horns belong in her ribs is something more fundamental but I can say I give [sic] it much thought. Perhaps you are able to see things in these stories that I can't see because if I did see I would be too frightened to write them. I have always insisted that there is a fine grain of stupidity required in the fiction writer.

Previously: Another instance in which O'Connor resisted interpretation of one of her stories.

technorati: Flannery O'Connor, fiction, literary criticism

Joan of Arc 23 years later

Twenty three years ago I did a performance art piece with my friends who had come from France the year before from Paris, Catherine (seen here) and Betty. It was a musical piece with songs and it was all about Joan of Arc, the fear of nuclear war, and my brother, who was a fighter pilot at the time.

Now tonight I'm going to see another musical theater piece about Joan of Arc with Catherine, and with Cris, who hasn't known me as long, that's how long I've known Catherine.

technorati: theater, performance art, Amanda Moody

R.I.P. Joey Bishop

Joey Bishop, last surviving core member of the Rat Pack and eternal symbol of the fifth wheel, finally died Wednesday at age 89.

My first novel Make Nice was largely about a fictionalized Joey Bishop, a man who became a huge star in the early 60s on Frank Sinatra's coat tails but who failed to make the transition to the cool comedy of the late 60s and 1970s. He was known as a very decent person, a teetotaler, someone who stayed married to the same woman for decades. I can't think of a Hollywood figure who is today's Joey Bishop. I don't think there's a place for one.

It's Bad Behavior Monday™! -- wanton acts of destruction edition

In the UK, a famous candy maker was forced to resign after being discovered ruining competitors' chocolates. Barry Colenso, the master chocolatier at Thornton's, was caught pressing his thumb into truffles being sold by a competitor in what was called "an extraordinary act of truffle-squishing."

It doesn't say whether he then licked his thumb.

Unilever, which makes soap and stuff, has been running a "real beauty" campaign for its Dove soap celebrating "women of all shapes and sizes, urging girls to reject the underfed and oversexualized images of women that dominate advertising." The same company is also advertising its Axe scented men's products with images of a fake rock band made up of girls dressed as strippers singing lyrics like "If you have that aroma on, you can have our whole band."

Axe is that stuff which, according to its ads, makes girls in your co-ed dorm swoon as you walk down the hall after a shower. Guys, you don't need products to have that effect. Just move to San Francisco. The ratio of straight women to straight men is intensely favorable to men. (In LA, apparently, the opposite is true, or at least rumored.)

In Tampa, Fla., a shoplifter was jailed for nearly two months for possession of methamphetamine that turned out to be powdered cat urine she said had purchased for her child's school science project. I guess if you spend your money on stuff like that, then you have to shoplift to make ends meet.

In the Southern California town of Pacific Beach, a driver who honked at a man crossing the street in front of him was dragged from his car and beaten. The 6'2" 190 pound pedestrian remains at large, while the driver was hospitalized with severe head trauma. That'll teach him to lock his car doors.

A new CBS horror/crime TV series suggests zombies are, basically, "ready to go all the time, heh heh." (Courtesy BoingBoing.)

Members of the Rolling Stones once pulled guns on each other backstage after Keith Richards started nagging Ron Wood for doing too many drugs. The revelation is in Woods' recently released memoir "Ronnie."

The Los Angeles Daily News had a six-part series on the San Fernando Valley's porn industry, a classic case of eating your cake and having it too, where a "scandalous" issue is "exposed" at length to boost sales and subscriptions.

Another progress report

I slogged through another weekend of working on my novel. I wasn't very inspired this weekend so I only managed about 4600 words for the two days, instead of the six or seven thousand I wish I had. At this rate it's going to be a little bit tight with the deadline, but on the other hand, I think the whole plot thing has settled into a groove. I hope.

Never letting go

I've always been fascinated with unusual jobs, and the NYT Magazine feature from tomorrow's issue, with portraits of those who cater to the very wealthy, is chock full of doozies. My favorite is the nutritionist who "'go(es) over the menus of restaurants they're expected to attend, say, in the upcoming week and tell them what to order,' says Klauer, also known as the Park Avenue Nutritionist. 'That way, there's no guesswork. Before they even step foot inside a restaurant, they know what they're going to eat.'"

One of the things I like about this is her weirdly inflated use of the passive tense: not "restaurants they plan to go to" but "restaurants they're expected to attend," as if a meal at a restaurant is, for the super-rich, always a matter of obligation. I also like this idea that being super-rich means paying someone to look over your shoulder and play the part of a superego, telling you what you are and are not allowed to do.

technorati: nutritionist, restaurants, rich people

What novels are about these days

I have a certain fascination with plot summaries and what they show about the presumed subjects that people want to read about -- presumed by publishers, that is. Here is a list of plot summaries from the New York Times bestseller list, with titles, authors and publishers removed.

A Colombian poet's love for a woman is tested.

A young man -- and an elephant -- save a Depression-era circus.

An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared under the Taliban.

An epic story about three generations of Greek-Americans, told by a hermaphrodite.

A doctor's decision to secretly send his newborn daughter, who has Down syndrome, to an institution haunts everyone involved.

Privileged 30-somethings try to make their way in literary New York just before 9/11.

A rift in an Amish community threatens to keep a courting couple apart.

A Spanish shepherd boy travels to Egypt in search of treasure.

A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.

Politics and treachery in the court of Henry VIII.

The lives of two women in 19th-century China.

An unlikely romance between a soldier and an idealistic young woman is tested in the aftermath of 9/11.

A girl sues her parents after learning they want her to donate a kidney to her sibling.

An Amish teenager goes on trial, accused of having a baby, then smothering it to death.

A team is dispatched to investigate the wreckage of a Soviet bomber that crashed 50 years ago, loaded with weaponized anthrax.

Romance blooms between a widower and a woman who's been teaching his brother, who has Down syndrome, to live independently.

The story, set mainly in northern India, of characters united by the legacy of colonialism.

A cafe manager falls for a Cary Grant-like charmer, then learns he has an 11-year-old daughter.

An American third-string quarterback joins the Italian National Football League's Parma Panthers.

How the choices made by a North Carolina man and the neighbor with whom he falls in love play out in their lives

Virgil Flowers investigates three murders in a small Minnesota town.

A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war.

An aspiring photographer working as a nanny has terrible visions.

The entangled lives of an upstate New York couple and their best friend.

Two young black men, adopted in childhood by the former mayor of Boston, encounter their birth mother and sister

Stone Barrington, the New York cop turned lawyer, tracks a rogue C.I.A. agent on a Caribbean island.

The dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden seeks vengeance against the orcs.

Someone is out to destroy a young chef's New market restaurant, poisoning food and setting off a bomb.

A woman finds a skull in her garden, while in the 1830s, a medical student tracks a killer.

Nathan Zuckerman grapples with aging and desire.

In Lake Wobegon, a daughter learns about her mother's secret life.

Two sisters overcome their differences and claim their heritage when one returns to their North Carolina home.

Another Christmas story featuring the angels Shirley, Goodness and Mercy.

Note several themes:

• A large dose of wonderfulness, some of it seen in magical realism, some of it in mere exoticism.
• A fascination with Asia.
• Two different stories about Amish characters; I can tell you they're by different authors.
• Several stories emphasizing the vulnerability of babies.

technorati: books, novels, plots

Spam subject line of the month

Busty Wife Swinging glass earth

It came to the end sooner than expected

National Book Award nominees were announced today:

Fiction
Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown & Company)
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Jim Shepard, Like You'd Understand, Anyway (Alfred A. Knopf)

Nonfiction
Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying (Alfred A. Knopf)
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA)
Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf)
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday)

When I was in a Barnes and Noble last week I saw And Then We Came to the End on the remainders table. That's pretty bad if your novel is remaindered even before it gets a chance to be nominated for the National Book Award.

technorati: THIS, THAT, TOTHER

A weekend to concentrate

After returning to the city, I had a whole weekend in which to work on my book, and I happily wrote over 6000 words. Today I wrote about one of the strangest and most ironic sexual experiences of my life: The time when I went to bed with my girlfriend Stephanie and one of her co-workers from the Lusty Lady. I already wrote about this experience in a short autobiographical essay published in Best Sex Writing 2006, but in that essay I left out the most ironic part of the experience because it didn't reflect on the main point of the essay, which was about Stephanie. So I'm writing about it again in a work of fiction, but the description of the event is actually more complete, because I include the ironic part of the evening.

But I'll leave it at that, to whet the appetite of anyone who might be reading this.

Train ride

Thursday I drove with Cris down to Ojai, a little resort town in the mountains near Santa Barbara. Friday I came home, leaving her there with the car, by means of a taxi to Ventura, one train from Ventura to Santa Barbara, Amtrak's main line Coast Starlight to Oakland, the Amtrak bus from the remote Oakland train station to San Francisco's Ferry Building, and a short walk to a final taxi ride home. Total time in transit, about 14 hours. But it was a sparkling clear day and a beautiful ride, at least until the sun set. Then the slow poking through the South Bay and up to Oakland got a little interminable. I can imagine how much nicer it would have been in a sleeper car "suite," which is probably about the size of a handicap stall of a restroom but would have allowed some privacy from people's incessant cell phone calls. Even the seat-to-seat conversation got to be a little much. But on the plus side, you do see some gorgeous seaside views and then some absolutely beautiful coastal hills around San Luis Obispo when the train cuts inland. (See Google map and notice the twisty railroad.)

Today, instead of going to my office to write, I'll stay at home to write, because Cris isn't here to distract me, I'm going out this evening, and it's just easier.

technorati: Amtrak, train

Today's peak experience not so isolated

Today's NYT has a prominent feature on one of the dwindling corps of human (as opposed to robot) fire lookouts. It carefully catalogues the firewatch tower, one of thousands built in the 1930s by WPA workers, and name-checks the most famous fire watchman ever, Jack Kerouac.

Kerouac chronicled his summer of 1956 atop Desolation Peak in his novel Desolation Angels, which has become my favorite of his books. (He published a shorter description in "The Dharma Bums," a more widely read book.) A few years ago, an absolutely beautiful companion book, Poets on the Peaks by John Suiter, revisited Kerouac's outpost, along with those of fellow Beat writers Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, who also served as fire watchers during the 1950s and whose understanding of Zen Buddhism was greatly enhanced by their experience of solitude.

One of the most vivid passages in "Desolation Angels" is the anxious scene in which Kerouac, whose only pair of shoes had fallen to pieces during the summer, hastily descends the mountain with bleeding feet to a lake cove where a Forest Service boat would pick him up. The sequence makes clear how isolated the Desolation Peak outpost was -- reachable only on foot by a steep trail after a boat ride up a lake. (The trip to the isolated Holden Village retreat center, where I spent six weeks in 2003, is somewhat comparable, though you don't have to hike into it on foot.)

The writer of the Times article seems to suggest the lookout he visited is similarly isolated:

One travels back in time, road-wise, going from asphalt to dirt to a treacherous stone-filled path that acts as the lookout's driveway. And then you hike. Up past an outhouse, up past the spot where rattlesnakes like to sun themselves and up two flights of metal stairs...

But a close look at the photograph published with the NYT piece shows a truck parked only a couple hundred yards away:



The article doesn't say, but I'd bet that's one reason that particular lookout cabin has survived as a human-staffed lookout: its accessibility.

Novel 3,557, Bookshelves 2

I cut short my writing days yesterday and today so I could come home and work with Cris to put together some bookshelves we'd ordered a few weeks ago. They've been sitting in our living room in boxes for a couple weeks and this weekend was finally the time we were going to put them together. The first one took 6 hours, from 4:30 to 10:30 last night. The second one took 2.5 hours this afternoon starting about 4:00. We would have put the third and last one together then, but one of the pieces was damaged, and I have to go on the phone tomorrow morning and try to get them to ship another piece. Not looking forward to the phone call.

On the novel writing front, I did get 3,557 words in, which is about 2000 less than I would have preferred. I should get a lot done on the next two weekends, since Cris will be out of town, so I'm not too worried about my progress. I'm finally well into the meat of the book -- which may seem a strange thing to say after 40,000 words, but sometimes it takes a while. As for the shape of the book, I'm not sure what form it will finally take. It might turn into a 320 page monster. I sure am enjoying writing all the sex scenes, though.

It's Bad Behavior Saturday™! -- Don't tase me edition

An Oregon cop has been charged with threatening a teenager with "closing his eye" with a taser weapon, even though the youth was already sitting in the back of his patrol car on the way to the police station.

Workers with CalTrans -- the state Dept. of Highways and Transportation -- are supposed to properly dispose of animals killed on the highways, but instead they have been dumping the carcasses into a ravine near a wealthy suburban town for a decade.

A drunken brawl on a cruise ship put a man in a coma. You don't want to tangle with a drunk with a name like Kade McRae, do you? You can almost see the pickup truck and the Confederate flag.

An Arizona man who pleaded guilty to attempting to extort money from actor Tom Cruise killed himself rather than report to federal prison.

San Francisco police more or less accidentally caught some muggers when the perps stopped at a gas station not five minutes from their last robbery.

technorati: Caltrans, crime

BREAKING: Gingrich won't run

Evil Republican Newt Gingrich ended months of speculation today and announced he won't run for president in 2008.

Only this morning it had been written that he might announce the opposite as early as Monday.

New York Daily News, November 16, 1995
See also: CNN story

technorati: Newt Gingrich

Summer's over

After the unbelievably warm and comfortable evening at the ballpark on Wednesday, the summer ended for real today with a cool, cloudy day that devolved into drizzle in the evening. The radio said something shocking about low temperatures in the low 40s.

The experience Wednesday night stayed in my mind all week. There were some great articles in the paper -- a San Jose Mercury News story, a New York Times piece -- and then today I found this picture on Flickr: Bonds taking a final curtain call, and not a single teammate applauding. The same amateur photog has a great picture of Bonds' final swing.

From our seats along the 3rd base line, we watched the fly ball's flight from an ideal angle -- about 70 degrees. This allowed us to see the soaring trajectory, but it also looked from our angle as if the ball was disappearing into the night.


The fact that it was hit to the very deepest part of the park, more than 410 feet, meant it would have been a home run in many other ballparks. Alternatively, it meant that he hit it just a fraction of a second late; if he had been a bit quicker it would have gone over the right field fence and, ideally, into the bay.

But that's why it was perfect the way it was: it illustrated Bonds' declining skill. His lighting-fast swing has lost a fraction of a second; the ball is caught in center field instead of going out to right. His fielding has also declined, but much more. The eight-time Gold Glove winner was even charged with an error that night.

As illustrated by my many ambivalent (and sometimes downright hostile) postings about Bonds, I have mixed feelings about him. I appreciated his skill and I hated it when he didn't hustle, didn't get along, didn't seem to care. I cheered him Wednesday night, but I'm also glad he's gone and the Giants can get to rebuilding.

Man, a whole post about baseball.

technorati: San Francisco Giants,Barry Bonds, baseball

Today's fake: Woman who told of 9/11 survival

A woman who has gotten attention for several years telling a story of surviving the collapse of the World Trade Center while losing her fiancé turns out to be dubious. Strange mix of fantasies:

Her own life was saved, she said, by a selfless volunteer who stanched the flames on her burning clothes before she was helped down the stairs. It was a journey she said she had the strength to make because she kept thinking of a beautiful white dress she was to wear at her coming marriage ceremony to a man named Dave.
...
She has told people that she is the daughter of a diplomat, and is described on the Survivors' Network Web site as "a senior vice president for strategic alliances for an investment think tank."

Live-blogging Barry Bonds' last game

On Sep. 26, 2007, San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds played his final game. At the time it was regarded as his last home game, as the team was due to close out the season in Los Angeles. However, Bonds did not make the trip with the team, and with his contract expiring at the season's end, effectively quit. This account was created in real time at the game at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Barry Bonds standing in left field at AT&T Park during his last game on Sep. 27, 2007. Photo by Mark Pritchard

 

5:30 pm: The afternoon was unusually warm as fans gathered outside AT&T Park for the Giants' last home game of the season, featuring the last appearance of Barry Bonds in the home vanilla cream-colored uniform. About 500 fans were in line outside the main gate of the stadium before the gates opened two hours before game time. Most were wearing Giants gear, including some home-made t-shirt tributes to the team and their superstar slugger.

But by the time the gates opened, Bonds had long finished batting practice; reserve players were still taking hacks as most of the team lolled in the outfield. A large media contingent crowded in front of the Giants' dugout along the third base line. I recognized former player and Fox Sports Net announcer F.P. Santangelo, along with sports broadcasters from all the local stations.

As this is Bonds' final home game, it's the fans' last chance to say goodbye to him -- a chance they didn't get last night as Bonds changed out of his uniform early. Today on KNBR, the Giants' flagship radio station, his disappearing act was roundly denounced as classless, and some commentators were predicting he might even take a single at-bat tonight and then vanish. We'll see.


6:15 pm: As the visiting Padres finish batting practice an hour before gametime, the scoreboard begins a silent tribute to Bonds, listing his various records beginning with the home runs and extending to things like doubles and slugging percentage. Shadows fall over the outfield and local sports anchors do their last stand-ups from the warning track in front of the dugout.

This game is crucial to the Padres, whose lead in the Wild Card was saved by the Giants' bullpen collapsing last night in the 9th inning. For the Giants, on the other hand, it means little -- except to individual players like Matt Cain, who hoped to finally put some games in the win column.

In seasons past, much was made that the team had played very few "meaningless" games -- that is, they were in a race either for the division or the wild card until the last weekend of the season. But having been eliminated from contention weeks ago, and after the excitement over Bonds' home run chase and the All Star Game died down, the last few weeks have been largely about the young call-ups proving themselves. That's why it was surprising to see the aging Ryan Klesko play almost every game at 1st base. He didn't contribute much with his bat, so why didn't they use the opportunity to train Dan Ortmeier, who wants to convert from the outfield?


6:40 pm: Before the team announced last week that they would not re-sign Bonds for next season, the stands had been pretty empty. It wasn't difficult for me to get two face-value seats for the club level for tonight's game -- two weeks ago. Once the announcement was made, tickets started selling again, as evidenced by the crowd that was in the stands last night. Judging by the TV broadcast, the stands were about 85% full. They should be even fuller tonight.

The scoreboard has changed to a montage of Bonds' milestone home runs, this time accompanied by the TV announcers' calls. Meanwhile, a mild breeze has begun blowing from the west.


6:55 pm: The number of photographers and TV cameraman standing in front of the Giants' dugout numbers in the dozens. They've been there for 15 minutes just waiting for Barry to pop out. It almost makes you feel sorry for the guy.

On the other hand, he's making $19 million this year. I guess he can stand it.

The scoreboard is now showing every home run from Bonds' record-setting 2001 season, when he established the unbelievable figure of 73 home runs. The video comes complete with announcers' calls at full volume. Meanwhile the other players on the team quietly continue their warmups on the field. You have to wonder what's going through their minds. After a whole season of Bonds hoopla, do they just tune it out? I guess you’d have to.


7:11 pm: The starting lineups are announced:

Roberts, cf
Frandsen, 2b
Winn, rf
Bonds, lf
Molina, c
Klesko, 1b
Feliz, 3b
Visquel, ss
Misch, p

Public address announcer Renel Brooks' delivery is unusually emphatic, and she calls Bonds "The King of Swing." Wasn't that Benny Goodman? I ask Anna.

"No, he was the Swing King. Someone else was the King of Swing."

Bonds has still not emerged from the dugout.


7:18 pm: Two minutes before game time, Bonds emerges from the dugout without pausing to pose for photographs, pushes through the photogs' scrum, and trots out to the field, waving to the crowd. He stands out there waving as the fans give him a standing ovation; he literally hops up and down, unwittingly proving just how ready to hit he was last night. Meanwhile a full moon rises behind him. "It's orange!" Anna says.

The game actually begins two minutes early. They run this stadium on a timetable by the second.

The game begins and the Padres go down 1-2-3 in the first without a ball being hit to the outfield.

By the way, Dan Ortmeier has replaced Klesko in the starting lineup.


7:26 pm: The first two Giants make outs, and as Randy Winn steps into the batter's box, Bonds comes out on deck. He stands in the on deck circle swinging a weighted bat over his head like Thor, then picks up his black game bat. Then Winn homers to the right field pavilion, a powerful line drive.

Bonds steps up to the plate. The crowd rises, cheering, chanting his name.

The count goes 0-2, then Bonds bounces a foul ball up the first base line. After a moment the cheers and chanting resume.

He waggles the bat behind his shoulder, looking ready to cream the ball. The pitcher throws two in the dirt outside.

On the 6th pitch, Bonds drives another foul through the coach's box up the 1st base line. Then he fouls one back. Finally, he dribbles a weak grounder to the first baseman.


7:33 pm: After Bonds makes the third out in the first inning, everyone watches to see if he'll go back to the outfield -- maybe, as some predicted today, that's it. But he takes his position. As he reaches left field the fans in the bleachers greet him with wild cheers, and the scoreboard shows another two minutes of Bonds highlights.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, Randy Winn homered to make it 1-0. Winn has been unbelievably hot this month.

But in the top of the second inning, the Padres quickly take the lead on a single, then two doubles to the gap.


7:47 pm: In the top of the 3rd inning, Bonds gets his first chance in left field. Trotting easily about twenty yards to his left, he makes a stylish swipe-catch, and the fans cheer.

Looks like he's getting a scoreboard tribute every time he takes the field. Also before the bottom of the third... They're showing exclusively home runs, which is kind of a shame, because in his day Bonds was a great outfielder and a dangerous base stealer.

OK, they just showed one thing that was not a home run -- an assist from left field.

A woman behind me asks her friend: "When he's gone are they gonna take down all this '756' crap?" -- referring to the numerous signs and banners commemorating Bonds' record-breaking home run earlier in the year.


7:58 pm: Giants pitcher Pat Misch reaches when a throw from the third baseman pulls the first baseman off the bag. (Correction -- they gave him a hit.) But Dave Roberts erases that when he grounds into a double play. Frandsen grounds out too, and the game is one-third over.

The scoreboard announces there will be a "Post Game Video Tribute" to Barry Bonds. Since they've been showing highlights all evening long, you have to wonder what remains to be shown. I guess they haven't shown all 762 home runs.

It's still very warm, and the breeze has died down. The flags in right center field are stirring listlessly.


8:03 pm: Barry is due up second in the bottom of the 4th inning, but first Randy Winn has to hit. He takes his swings in the on deck circle as a relatively quiet interview with Bonds plays on the scoreboard. When Winn is announced and enters the batter's box, there's barely a smattering of applause despite his home run in the first.

Winn grounds out to second base, and Bonds is announced. Most of the crowd stands -- not everyone like the first time.

He takes a big cut, and dribbles out to the pitcher.

The next batter, Bengie Molina, quietly grounds out. Almost no one notices.

That's three outs. Then the excitement starts... on the scoreboard.


8:28 pm: In the top of the 5th inning, rookie pitcher Misch falls apart, and the Padres score five... make that six runs. At one point a ball is hit in Bonds' direction. It looks like it's going to bounce in front of him, but he goes into a slide -- unnecessarily, since in my opinion he has no chance to catch it. He makes it close, but then rolls over the ball, which dribbles away from him. Two runs score. (Later: Bonds was charged an error on the play.)

By the time the inning ends, the Padres lead 8-1. The video highlights seem a little more hollow now.


8:36 pm: By the bottom of the 5th inning it's clear that the park is almost full. The wind stops blowing completely, then a gentle breeze resumes. There are a lot of people watching the game for free through the fence in right field.

The Giants make a bit of noise with a single, then Ray Durham pinch-hits and advances a runner to third. Then with one out, Nate Schierholtz pinch-hits in the pitcher's spot. He drives a ball deep to center and the runner from third tags and scores. Dave Roberts ends the rally by lining out to the first baseman. The score is now Padres 8, Giants 2.


8:40 pm: As Bonds takes the field in the top of the 6th, a drunken middle-aged lady (or perhaps a man in a blond wig) runs out to greet him. Bonds stands still as security people yank her off the field. Uniformed San Francisco cops sprint across the field from the right field line with their hands on their billy clubs.

After the woman is removed, the crowd chants "Barry! Barry!" for the first time in half an hour.


8:52 pm: With Bonds due up third in the bottom of the 6th, the crowd is growing tense. Meanwhile the Padres score another run in the top of the inning on a ball hit deep to the left field corner. Almost nobody would be able to catch that ball, and Bonds doesn't try. He lopes into the corner, plays it off the wall, and then throws a seed to the cutoff man to try to nab the runner scoring from first. Kevin Frandsen's throw is a second or two too late, but it was closer than you expected.

It strikes me that Bonds has been playing this way just about all season: instead of risking injury by diving after balls, he plays them on a bounce, or off the wall, and holds the runner to a double. In doing this he usually appears not to hustle; what he's really doing is being as economical with his energy as possible. He knows the runner will reach 2nd base no matter how much of a show he puts on, so he takes his time and makes the smart play.

The inning ends with only the one run scoring -- I think. As soon as it ends the scoreboard starts playing home runs again. This is becoming more and more purgatorial: all home runs, all the time.


8:55 pm: For possibly the last time, Bonds comes up to bat. Kevin Frandsen has grounded out, and Randy Winn popped out to the shortstop.

Bonds is announced and the crowd rises as one. The cheer is loud but not frantic -- I imagine it's somehow gently reflective.

The man behind me says, "Barry, you’re a son of a bitch, but you sure can hit a baseball."

The first two pitches are low. Thinking the pitcher is avoiding Bonds, the crowd boos.

Then Bonds swings mightily and the crowd roars. The ball goes soaring into deep right center field to the warning track. But it's in the park, in Death Valley, where home runs go to die.

That's the third out. Bonds leaves the field walking, doffing his helmet, waving.

Fred Lewis takes left field and the scoreboard camera switches to a shot of the dugout. Bonds is accepting hugs and handshakes and high fives from the players. Dramatic common-man-fanfare music is playing on the P.A. system. The crowd cheers and remains standing -- it strikes me that the stadium is, at this moment, almost completely full.

After about 90 seconds, Bonds comes out for a curtain call. He stands before the dugout as photographers cluster, waves to the crowd and points to someone. There are loud cheers, but again, not tumultuous.

Then he disappears into the dugout, and the camera shows him vanishing down the tunnel to the clubhouse.


9:50 pm: The Giants -- the lineup by the end of the game full of scrubs and callups -- managed to put another run across, and the fans who remained -- and why not remain, it was still a beautiful warm night -- were starting to make noise. I even saw a few rally caps. But the veterans quickly restored a sense of reality to the proceedings. With two on, no out and a run in, Pedro Feliz struck out swinging at the worst pitch I ever saw, and then Ray Durham grounded into a double play to end the game.

Then the final scoreboard tribute to Bonds -- with the honoree nowhere near the field -- took place: a montage of Greatest Hits set to the tune of Frank Sinatra singing "My Way." I thought I heard him singing "I've already changed out of my uniform, and I'm... on... the... highway."

Then Giants players came out onto the field and, without explanation, threw a bunch of balls into the stands. Since they could only carry about five balls each, this was quickly over with, and the players disappeared again into the dugout, looking not all that happy about the extra work.

Final score: 11-3, with the Padres getting 17 (!) hits.

Liveblogging from AT&T Park

I'm liveblogging from the ballpark tonight as the Giants play their last home game of the season and Barry Bonds plays his last game as a Giant in San Francisco.

technorati: Barry Bonds, San Francisco Giants, baseball

It's Bad Bahavior Tuesday™! -- Fuck a Duck Edition

A 26-year-old Denver man was under arrest on charges of felony animal cruelty after he allegedly walked into the lobby of a Minneapolis hotel, "cornered" one of the ducks that live in the lobby, and ripped its head off. When arrested, he is said to have protested: "What's the big deal? It's just a fucking duck!"

Notorious head case Milton Bradley, who plays baseball with the San Diego Padres, tore his ACL during an argument with an umpire and will miss the rest of the season.

You can't go wrong with the headline LOVESICK TEEN DEATH LEAP. An 18-year-old NYU freshman and heir to a dot-com fortune freaked out after discovering a text message to another lad on the cellphone of his ex-girlfriend, who was visiting him. By leaping to his death from the dorm roof, the kid was simply following an NYU tradition, raising the question just how short a time you actually have to be enrolled at the school before you feel like committing suicide -- he had only been there a month. Or perhaps the school is unwittingly selecting students who are already suicidal when they enroll. Weird! (By the way -- style points subtracted for a suicide note that quoted Kurt Cobain, who killed himself when the kid was like 2 years old. Talk about lame.)

Bonus: Fox News presenter Bill O'Reilly went to a restaurant in Harlem and was surprised 'no one was screaming "M-Fer, I want some more iced tea"' and that "there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." (Courtesy Gawker)

Keepin' on

According to my little chart over there on the right, I'm halfway through the first draft of my new novel after 8 weeks (really 8 weekends). My goal is really more like 90K words, not 75K, because it will allow me to cut, so I'm not celebrating yet. But it's good to make constant progress.

One of the little jokes I'm playing on myself is taking a character and situation from my recently completed (yet still to be rewritten one more time) novel about an American girl in India and using them in the new book, which has a completely different focus and setting. One of the minor characters in the India book appears in the new one. This would be a sort of shared joke with readers, except that the India novel has no readers yet.

Speaking of the India novel, it was called Dear Prudence. But my agent -- who has asked for a rewrite with a certain focus -- said the title didn't do anything for her, and she got the reference, too. So the title of that book, which I will rewrite next spring after I finish the current project, shall henceforth be Bangalored.

Tough guy

MSNBC presenter Keith Olbermann, who became better known last year after launching a series of bitterly critical commentary of Bush administration officials, suffered a ruptured appendix on Wednesday but still went on the air the next evening to anchor coverage of Bush's Iraq war speech, before undergoing appendectomy surgery. (Courtesy Publisher's Marketplace)

technorati: Keith Olbermann

Unable to say no

The Houston Chronicle did a story about the difficulty of getting tickets to a teenybopper concert and the emotional and economic dilemma parents put themselves in. A quote from one pathetic mother says it all:

It was supposed to be something light-hearted and fun, and it's turned into something more expensive than our monthly mortgage," Isget said. "My son has no knowledge of us going into credit-card debt to get the tickets. I thought it would be worth it -- that it would compensate for my own mental anguish -- but it leaves me with such a bad feeling. I'd promised him. How far am I willing to go to keep that promise. If I refused, that only hurts him.

This is an 8-year-old kid she couldn't say no to. Talk about "mental anguish."

How much did she pay for two tickets to a show in an enormous arena with 70,000 other screaming kids? $629. Plus the cost of 153-mile drive from some little back-ass town in Texas to some slightly less back-ass town in Louisiana where the concert is.

This is the kind of person who goes on one of those Judge Judy shows to make a fool of themselves. As long as someone's holding up a microphone or a camera, they'll basically do anything.

With Frey's new book deal, people are pissed afresh

James Frey, who made quarter-million readers throw up when he admitted that the harrowing details of his drug-addled youth, as chronicled in "A Million Little Pieces," were mostly made up, signed a book deal last week for a novel. Since that's what his first book should have been characterized as, you might think he'd get a little credit, but it just made people pissed off all over again. Alexander Chee and friends comment.

Coincidentally, San Francisco writer Stephen Elliott published an essay in the Chronicle's books section yesterday called Focus On the Book, Not On the Writer. He says it doesn't matter there was no real J.T. LeRoy.

I can't agree. I regularly excoriated and mocked the LeRoy hoaxers, as well as other fakes, last year. Charlie Anders, on the other hand, agrees with Elliott.

technorati: writers, hoaxes,JT LeRoy,James Frey

Mission District late afternoon

After working on my book today, I walked home along Harrison and Alabama Streets, taking in the newly-painted mural -- it's actually version 2.0, the first one having faded away over the years -- on the side of the laundromat on 24th and Harrison. This is just one little detail from the very detailed depiction -- or fantasy -- of scenes from Mexican history.

technorati: Mission District, San Francisco, murals

Spreading American values abroad

I was amused by this story from the Sydney Morning Herald about "an American chastity evangelist" whose show includes plenty of stories of bad behavior that his tearful listeners soak up before pledging not to imitate them. This is a classic American approach, letting its audience revel in that which it purports to warn against, as seen in hundreds of Hollywood "anti-war" movies. The preacher, one Denny Pattyn, says he thinks Australia is ripe for his message. It would be depressing if it weren't so stupid and obviously doomed to fail.

In Japan, a filmmaker has made a Japanese version of a spaghetti western, called Sukiyaki Western Django. The actors speak in "ornately colloquial dialogue that rolls out of monolingual mouths like someone reciting the Gettysburg Address while gargling water."

technorati: evangelicals, chastity, evangelists, Christians, missionaries, TOTHER

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! Fakes and freaks edition

Yes, this feature has returned, for today at least. Because I couldn't resist the first story.

A former ABC News "consultant" (?) not only faked a degree from the Sorbonne but also entire interviews with Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Gates and others. (Courtesy Mediabistro.)Since he was fired by ABC in June, he's worked "as a senior fellow for national security and terrorism at the Nixon Center in Washington," telling lies about Iran and its military capabilities, among other things. Nice work if you can get it.

Speaking of hoaxes, sorry to disappoint you, but the website Marry Our Daughter is a hoax. A good one, too -- a friend showed it to me last weekend and we couldn't tell it actually wasn't serious -- which says more about the quality of reality and truthiness today than it does about our judgment, I hope.

And in Muncie, Indiana -- where just living is already doing time -- a woman named Shawnda K. Hatfield had her own obituary printed in the local paper to try to get out of -- of course -- a forgery charge.

And if you missed it, there's that story about the guy who committed suicide with a guillotine he built himself. I printed out that story and put it on the bulletin board at work with the headline ENGINEER OF THE MONTH.

In the South in September, nobody cares about baseball

"About 400" people watched a major league baseball game between the Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals earlier this Wednesday afternoon at Dolphins Stadium in Miami (Washington Post story). Former SF Giants player Todd Linden, hitting .226 for the season, won the game for the Fish in the 12th inning, a game one of the players described (if you believe the article) as "friggin' miserable." I have the feeling he used stronger language.

Update: The box score shows 10,000 tickets were sold, not the actual attendance, and a total of 16 pitchers -- 9 for the Nationals, 7 for the Fish. Can you imagine being a Nationals outfielder when they stop the game for a pitching change for the seventh time??

Lit liars in the news

Coincidentally, two of last year's most disgraced authors were in the news today. The filthy rich parents of Kaavya Viswanathan, whose name was attached to a largely plagiarized novel "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed" etc., bought a $3.2 million condo in Manhattan. And Galleycat reports that James Frey has recovered enough from his national humiliation on Oprah to pen a novel. Man, that's one book that's going to be combed for lice like a first grader's head.

technorati: James Frey, Kaavya, hoaxes, writers

Another tragic bagel-cutting injury

"Bagel-cutting injuries are one of the most under-reported accidents of our time." -- Elaine Josephson, M.D.

Man Builds Guillotine to Kill Himself

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

(09-12) 14:05 PDT Allen Park, Mich. (AP) -- The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said. The man, from the Detroit suburb of Melvindale, was discovered Monday by workers from a shopping center near his home.

Allen Park Deputy Police Chief Dale Covert said the roughly six-foot tall guillotine was bolted to a tree and included a swing arm. Covert said police also found several store receipts detailing the materials used to assemble the device.

"I can't even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct," he said. "This man obviously was very determined to end his life."

Uneasiness

Today's New York Times has one of their regular, pleasantly voyeuristic articles about a bizarre medical condition -- this time Capgras Syndrome, a form of psychosis in which the sufferer becomes convinced that their family and regular acquaintances have been replaced by doppelgängers -- inexact copies of the genuine people, sinister duplicates who, while resembling their real loved ones, somehow are not them. It's as if the sufferers have been dropped into the first half hour of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," where a Chinese laundryman insists to Donald Sutherland, "That not my wife!"

Sometimes I have that feeling about our country. In many ways it looks like the country I grew up in, feverishly rushing into the future while constantly evoking nostalgia for its past -- now that the 1940s and the late 1960s have been thoroughly mined for nostalgia, it's the early 1960s that are being polished and put on display, what with AMC's "Mad Men" and the hoopla around the 50th anniversary of "On the Road." We continue being willing to sell anything to anybody, stopping only when the evidence that it's killing them is incontrovertible. We continue filling the earth with tons of shiny crap and living like there's no tomorrow. That sure hasn't changed.

But in many sinister ways, this country has changed. When I was a kid, there were one or two things we thought set our country apart from our enemies -- special characteristics that were reinforced in the movies over and over again. We treated prisoners of war humanely -- better than ours were treated. We didn't torture people. And most of all, we didn't invade another country for purely cynical reasons.

Of course, to varying degrees, those myths were false, even in the 1960s when I was a kid. But it was still possible to believe them. Who today can even pretend those things are still true?

I also grew up with the idea that the Constitution, with its protections against any branch of the government becoming too powerful and against invasions of privacy, was inviolate. During the last six years the President and his administration have acted as if those protections did not exist. We don't even yet know all the ways the shadowy men like Addington have quietly knocked the props from beneath the Bill of Rights. We will only find out in the years to come. (Read the July 3, 2007 New Yorker piece on Addington, called the force behind the administration's most egregious assaults on the Constitution and this country's reputation around the world.)

And why is it that none of the Democratic candidates for President have spoken out about the assaults on the Constitution by the Bush administration? Why haven't any of them detailed the ways they will, in their first days in office, roll back these changes? Because they, too, want to take advantage of them. They aren't stupid. They realize how much easier their job will be -- if by "their job" you mean protecting the privileges of companies and corporations over those of individual people -- if they hang onto these expanded powers.

That's why I am suffering a bit from Capgras Syndrome today, the 6th anniversary of the plane crashes of 2001. My country looks somewhat the same. But in many fundamental ways, it is not my country anymore.

technorati: Constitution, Bill of Rights, nostalgia, David Addington, 9/11, privacy

Live the life of a writer!

Via Publisher's Lunch:

I was speaking to a friend recently and telling him I was going to Italy this summer with my family to work on a book there and he said, "Tell me, sometime, how one gets a lifestyle like that." I wanted to tell him that what you have to do is write for ten or twelve years not knowing if anyone else in the world will ever want to read it, and then be fortunate enough to get a book published, and have a good wife who understands your need to do that, and then be able to deal with the fact that you have about five thousand dollars' worth of bills in the in-basket, and about three thousand dollars in the bank, and you have no idea when the next dollar is coming, or where it's coming from, and you go upstairs with that worry swirling in your mind, and you sit down at a desk that has pictures of your kids on it, and you make up stories that you think will move other people ... but it didn't sound right somehow, so I just shrugged and made a joke.

For other people it's not going to a party on Saturday night and staying home and writing. For others it's looking your mom or dad in the eyes and saying you know they put you through college, and you appreciate it, but instead of going on to pharmacy school, which was their dream for you, you've decided to live in a crappy apartment someplace with your girlfriend and write a book. For others it's facing all the little madhouses inside themselves and writing about that, all the self-doubt and negative voices, all your other failures and half-successes, all the comments of the practical-minded folks you love. Or all of the above.

-- novelist Roland Murillo, in an interview in Quay Journal

technorati: writing, writers, lifestyle

Obfuscate and subvert

In a wonderful example of a company tricking people into giving up information about themselves, Google has added a "feature" to its Book Search function "allowing" users to tell Google all the books they own.

I refrain from writing paranoid little posts every time some company announces something like this, but in this case I want to point out that whenever the government tries to do this by force -- asking a library to turn over records of books its patrons have checked out, for example -- everyone is outraged. How much easier it would be if Mr. Citizen compiles the list himself and throws it out there on the web for everyone to view, or registers it with Google, Library Thing or another such service.

I don't mean to be paranoid. But in this culture where everything is thrown out onto the internet for public consumption by anybody -- people you would feel comfortable sharing personal details with, and (much more likely) people you wouldn't -- I get uneasy from time to time. Not that my own website isn't crammed with personal details.

What I would like is a subversive movement in which people register all sorts of completely random books with Google Book Search and make their database utterly useless. I doubt anyone would do that, although it would be nice if some hacker would write an automated program to do it.

technorati: Google, Book Search, privacy

Focus on the Fundies: Love gets demonstrated

The leader of a San Antonio "Faith Outreach Center" and a 20-year-old staffer at a "Christian Boot Camp" called Love Demonstrated Ministries are free on $100,000 bond (via Christianity Today) after being charged with aggravated assault for dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van at the "boot camp." The "Faith Outreach Center" leader, a former Air Force "instructor" (it doesn't say drill instructor or what), had this to say: "I want to thank God I'm no longer in jail." Could be a temporary state.

technorati: Fundamentalists, Christians, Charles Flowers

Progress report

Despite getting an eye infection, not being able to work at all yesterday, and having to work on my book at home today while dealing with the electrician, I managed to go over the 25,000 word mark, keeping my weekly average over 5000 words per week. Maybe it's a little early to make predictions based on the first five weeks, but at that rate I should finish the first draft by Thanksgiving and have the next six weeks for reworking. That's the basic plan.

The next challenge will be drawing out the material to book length. Ten more chapters of five or six thousand words each still sounds like an awful lot, especially since most of them will take place in a single setting (which I have spent the first four chapters getting the characters to). But for now, it's fun.

technorati: writing, novel writing

Study: Men prefer beauties but are still 'less choosy' than women

Researchers monitored the behavior and choices of 26 men and 20 women in Munich (?) and found that men often didn't choose women who fit their pre-stated criteria, instead going for the best-looking women.

Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold, Todd said.

Women's actual choices, like men's, did not reflect their stated preferences, but they made more discriminating choices, the researchers found... "Women made offers to men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women's self-rated attractiveness. They didn't greatly overshoot their attractiveness... [but] they didn't go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level."

So reminiscent of high school, where status is linked mainly to whether an attractive person will date you.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, researchers discovered that even the worst pickup lines have an evolutionary purpose.

Waiting for the electrician

He said he would come at 9:30. We called him at 10:10. He said he would be here at 11:30.

Contractors! They're all alike. It's a wonder anything gets done.

There's your problem

The New York Times has this "Times Reader" application, separate from a browser, that downloads stories from the NYT so you can read them offline. It looks like this -- here's a shot from this morning:

Here's a full-size copy of the picture and caption:

I guess the interpreter is the one squirming in the dirt, but what really struck me is that the sheiks are indistinguishable from US troops.

I kid! Clearly it's the wrong caption for the photo.

Make it new

Scene: This morning at Whole Foods.

Checker, about 30 years old: So, any big plans for today?
Me: Gonna work on my novel.
Checker: Oh, good for you!... Is it fiction?

Another sign of the Apocalypse

There's this blogger Fred Clark, who writes the blog Slactivist where, among other interests, he has been going through the book Left Behind scene by scene. It's a long book and he has been at it literally for years -- and this is just the first volume. He goes through it to show just how completely stupid it is from a genuine Christian perspective. (Nonbelievers probably assume the book's prattle is standard Christian belief, which is just what the authors would like everyone to think. But most Christian denominations do not support belief in "the Rapture" or the system of millenialist beliefs espoused in the book and others like it, such as "The Late Great Planet Earth," the late 1960s-era book that pushed millenialist theology into the mainstream. Even the arch-conservative Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, which supports a literal reading of scripture, has officially taken a position against Left Behind.) Clark's writing is crisp and entertaining and the whole project is IMO an amazing act of literary and social criticism.

I mention him today because his latest post manages to link the events in the 1995 book with Burning Man. Worth reading through the whole long post just for the joke.

technorati: Left Behind, Burning Man