Writing Excerpt: "Sir"

From a short story that's been skulking around in my notebooks for a while.

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“Got a lot going on today, Rich?” I asked, not entirely sure why I was giving him an opportunity to annoy me. But he just shook his head slightly, still facing his computer screen.

“Ah. Awful quiet over there, that’s all,” I tried.

“Unh.” Rich sounded startled. He was still glued to his computer, but from what I could see, he didn’t have any work open on it. He was gripping his mouse and apparently staring at nothing.

“Unh,” he said again, and stood up suddenly. He wasn’t looking too good. His usual demeanor, complete with a weird little smile that I always found a little creepy, was gone. His face was dull and carried no expression at all. He was pale, and noticeably sweating.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked. I didn’t like the guy, sure, but something seemed wrong. “Do you need any…”

“Going t’lunch,” he mumbled, and walked towards the office door. He limped, or swayed, or… something, as he went. There weren’t any of his usual awkward invitations to come with him. He lurched out of the office without another word or backward glance.

I thought about going after him. I went back to work, instead.

It was on my own lunch break when I finally noticed that something was really off. I left my building attached to my cell phone– Laura hadn’t answered my message about lunch, and I was leaving her a message to let her know where I was going in case she wanted to meet up.

I was already on the sidewalk outside when I looked around and took in how quiet it was. Aside from one or two lonely cars, there was nobody driving downtown. It was never as busy on the grid streets in the afternoon as it was on the highways in the morning, but I can’t remember ever seeing downtown that slow.

Though the occasional driver trundled sluggishly past, nobody at all was walking on the usually crowded sidewalks. I made my way towards my favorite Thai restaurant, a little confused. Was my lunch hour really that late? I checked my watch, and as I did I noticed the smell for the first time. Not the usual mélange of piss and dumpsters that graced the urban concrete, but something else that I couldn’t place. Acrid and smoky, but something of the synthetic, too. Electric. Unnatural, somehow. Like rotting plastic, or a hospital fire. Not too strong, but just enough to make me wonder what it was and where it was coming from.

I started walking a little faster, without really meaning to.

Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

This book is tailor-made for people who love to read. Strictly from a story perspective, The Thirteenth Tale tends to take itself a little too seriously at times, with the author's writing occasionally veering into the territory of pretentiousness. But despite the overblown moments that someone with an eye for criticism could take issue with, I savored every moment of this book.

The book establishes itself in the tradition of a gothic mystery, and a very obvious homage to Regency tales. Vida Winter, England's most celebrated novelist, has spent her life eluding those who want her life story. Each interview results in another tall tale. As she approaches the end of her life, though, she contacts Margaret Lea, a seller of rare books who has a marked preference for old tomes to actual people. Vida promises to tell her real story, if Margaret will faithfully record it. But as Margaret begins to transcribe Vida's tale of dark family secrets, fey twin girls, and a declining, haunted estate, deeper mysteries begin to appear. Not only does Vida's lost and elusive Thirteenth Tale start to emerge, but Margaret delves deeper into her own tragic history, as well.

Setterfield's writing is decadent. The prose is deliciously purple; the narrative frequently invites the reader to get lost inside descriptive passages with rich metaphors and evocative language. Mood is king, here. I immediately saw each setting as it was described, and felt each turn of melancholy as the characters did.

Speaking of the characters, those that inhabit the immediate story are somewhat pale and bland in comparison to the characters that sweep through Vida Winter's recollections. Though a number of small mysteries pop up throughout the book, all of the real suspense lies in how the strange, wild residents of Angelfield connect to the present. This mystery is drawn out just the right amount, and resolved in just the right fashion. The pace gets odd and jerky in places, but I was willing to forgive because I was lost in the haze of storytelling that Vida Winter insists upon.

It must be said that Setterfield herself doesn't quite live up to the mythology of her character, Vida Winter. Vida is set up as a literary wizard, which is a dangerous thing to do, because it feeds a certain set of expectations. When Setterfield harps upon a tired "twins are one person" motif or has her rich descriptive language fail her at key dramatic moments, as occasionally happens in this book, it makes me disbelieve Vida. And, thus, disbelieve the ponderous seriousness of this whole book.

But for me, that was a trivial and occasional problem. This hit all of the right notes for me. It was a Gothic mystery that was subdued and cerebral without being boring. A character study that didn't want for action or suspense. A Regency tale without all of the stilted bullcrap that Regency fans seem to love so much. I can see why some might be turned off by the melodrama of this whole affair, but surprisingly, I ate it up. This one goes on the favorites shelf.

Verdict: 5 out of 5

On turning 30 and being stupid.

I’m turning 30 this coming Sunday, and I’m surprisingly cool with that. Granted, my attention is more focused on the impending arrival of a shiny new human to feed and clothe, at the moment. But I’m fairly comfortable with the idea of being an official grownup, and I think it’s because I’ve come to terms with how much I don’t know.

A longtime friend of mine shared this link the other day, and the salient points within unearthed flashbacks of library school. This is usually the exact same jag I go on when somebody makes a flippant joke about needing a Master’s degree to shelve books; my job is not to provide answers, but to figure out what the question is. People generally operate within the confines of that first “educational ideal” pie chart, placing emphasis primarily on what they know and how to add to it. There’s no easy way of addressing information that you don’t know you’re lacking, however, and so I often have to tease out what the real information need is. A question about parenting could really be about child psychology. People who need information on a specific battle of a particular war will often just ask me where the history books are. I remember one person a while back who asked for exercise books, and as it turned out, she needed information on anaphylactic shock. She was following what her own experience told her, and honestly didn’t know where else to look or how else to ask for that information. Most of what a librarian does from day to day consists of asking questions and searching repositories of information to help someone sort out the difference between what they do know they don’t know, and what they don’t know they don’t know.

Of course, there are plenty of days where that sounds like bright-eyed nonsense. Particularly since the time spent on the glorious quest for knowledge is generally overshadowed by countless hours showing people how to use the printer, placing holds on the latest fad novel, and foiling people who concoct elaborate schemes to bypass their fines in order to continue their important work playing solitaire on our computers. But in a general sense, the heart of what I do is discovering the unexpressed information need behind the initial question, because for various reasons, there always is one.

The beneficial side effect of all this is that I appear to know what I’m doing. As that article points out, though, I spend most of my time feeling just about as clueless as the people who are asking me questions. I feel like a fraud sometimes, finding information through the same channels that they could have used, and being thanked effusively for it, as if I had doled out my tidbits of wisdom from on high. Scraps of knowledge from the Elysian table of your public library. Computer wizardry!

Though, I do learn something new every day through my patrons’ questions. So, that’s nice.

Anyway, I’ve become used to the idea that sitting underneath an “Information” sign doesn’t mean I know everything, or even most things, I’m asked about. I think that’s why I’ve taken such a cavalier attitude towards the slow encroachment of middle age. Although my adorable larva will spend eight to twelve years taking my parental omniscience as a given, I feel like I’ve finally been let on to the big secret of adulthood: we still don’t know what we’re doing. Probably never will. And it’s cool, man, it’s cool.

But it helps that I share the general opinion expressed in that article. I love discovering more about what I don’t know. It always ensures that I have another book to read, or another hobby at which I can be a fumbling beginner. That feels to me like the true hallmark of wisdom, rather than amassing a collection of facts (so wipe that smug smile off your goddamned face, Ken Jennings). It’s a hard sell for most people though, because acknowledging the vast ocean of stuff we don’t know makes us feel stupid. And if public service has taught me anything, it’s that people don’t like feeling stupid. The more stupid someone feels, the more likely they are to insist that the stupidity lies elsewhere. Seriously. The only people who ever get in my face at work are the ones who realize that I have caught on to, and am wholly unimpressed by, some ridiculous effort of theirs to work the system. But, you know, I’m the stupid one. For having those stupid rules they got caught breaking in the first place.

That’s an extreme example, but really, I see it all the time. People who need information and realize that they don’t really know what they’re looking for or how to find it come in two varieties. The first group is friendly, chatty, and is actually having fun trying to puzzle out what it is they need. The second group is visibly embarrassed, irritated at the library because this stupid building doesn’t have what they’re looking for on a dais at the entrance, and impatient with my dumb questions, because how are they supposed to know what they need? Isn’t that what I’m there for? Blargarabble taxes pay your salary blargh!

It’s taken me nearly 30 years to move from the second group into the first group. I’ve always placed so much importance on knowledge that I spent my formative years feeling inadequate if I didn’t have enough of it. Which, in turn, has led to all sorts of interesting scenarios that I kind of wish never happened. But I’m good, now. I’ve adjusted my pie chart, just in time for the gray hairs to start appearing.

Book Review: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith

All right, I admit it. I cheated with this one. This was the July selection for a Mystery Book Club that I head up, and we started our discussion of it by watching the first hour of the HBO televised version to compare. Naturally, in a respectful homage to my high school days, I forwent the written word in favor of passively soaking in the delicious cable goodness. I liked it enough to feel guilty for my transgression, and picked up the book afterward, but I think I’ve fallen prey to that time-tested warning against straying into bibliophile heresy: I saw the filmed version first, and I liked that version much better.

This book, the first in a fairly sprawling cozy mystery series, doesn’t seem to operate on a fixed, linear plot. Each chapter is its own self-contained story, with the only connection between each being a simple (and sometimes tenuous) chronological one. Precious Ramotswe sets herself up as the first and only woman detective in Botswana, defying traditional expectations after escaping an abusive marriage and mourning the death of her beloved father. A few chapters give some backstory, but the book largely lives in the present; she rents a building, hires a secretary, and begins solving the day-to-day mysteries of her friends and neighbors. There is one overarching plot thread revolving around a missing boy and a possible murder, but it can only be called a plot thread in that it’s introduced in the beginning, referred to a couple of times in the middle, and resolved (rather abruptly) at the end. While I’ve read and enjoyed other collections of vignettes that weave around a central story, this one never felt like it connected those loose ends; Precious gets established, cracks a few cases, and calls it a day.

Which is not to say that it isn’t an enjoyable read, if you’re looking for a short, light, tongue-in-cheek sort of mystery. I think the pull of this book (or any cozy, for that matter) is in its calm, affirming nature. For the most part, Precious doesn’t tackle anything dangerous or unusual. She is asked to discover relationship statuses, and help fellow business owners find proof of fraud. Her appeal as a heroine lies largely in her homespun approach to solving mysteries, which is a combination of feminine wiles, lifelong curiosity, and studious attention to an encyclopedia for amateur sleuths. The overall tone of the book places the thrill of the chase firmly in the backseat, and focuses more on the virtues of helping one’s community, finding validation in one's own skin, and simply caring and doing what one can. But I’ve never been too big on these sorts of literary homilies; the “oh, silly men” and “fat girls rule” themes have their audience, but didn’t really hook me for obvious reasons. This, combined with the lack of any central story, made the whole read more than a little boring. Again, though, most cozy mysteries are pleasantly boring. Which is why I don’t usually read them.

But there is a treasure trove of fun accent notes here, which the filmed version that I shamefully watched first and enjoyed more pulled out and focused on. The characters themselves are wonderfully fleshed out, and the novelty of an amateur detective agency in Botswana remains consistently interesting. Even though the mysteries themselves border on dullness, they resonate with verisimilitude, and are quick and sweet like the confections they are meant to be. While I was less than moved by the book on the whole, I can definitely understand why people like it.

Verdict: 2.5 out of 5

Smelling the Flowers.

Here is a bit of Aikido-related writing I did a few months back, which was just published in our dojo newsletter.

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There is a certain milestone that everyone reaches when they are Aikido beginners, where all of the basics of ukemi, stance, attacks, and blends begin to become second nature, and a wider sense of what is possible in the art first presents itself. For me, this happened about six months or so after I first started training. I don’t remember what exact technique I was working on, but I remember having a sudden flash of insight: if I moved that way instead of this way, I could have done a different technique. And if uke punched instead of grabbed, I miraculously had yet another technique waiting in the wings.

This is a fantastic place to reach in Aikido, especially for the first time. However, for me, it was also fraught with anxiety; instead of the rote 1-2-3 sequences I had entered into an uneasy alliance with, I was now aware (on a very basic level) of a more complicated algebra. With this new knowledge came my usual self-defeating tendency to over-analyze, and suddenly my Aikido became a lot more difficult. Pleasantly difficult, but still difficult. In order to proceed from there, I added a new tool to my toolbox.

Before every class, I use my time sitting in seiza before bowing in to meditate and clear my mind of the various irritations and tensions that have accumulated throughout the day. Though I’m not particularly a Zen adherent, I find that stepping onto the mat with a mind as serene as I can make it allows me to train harder and better. One of the things I started doing in order to get myself into a calm state of mind was to stare at the flowers arranged on the shomen, and attempt to smell them. I would concentrate on the color and texture of each flower until their aroma seemingly wafted into my nose; if I didn’t know what a particular flower smelled like, my brain would fill in the gap with a floral scent I did know. This exercise not only calmed me, but made me feel as if I were stretching my awareness across the dojo, preparing me to do the same as I trained.

As I progressed from an absolute beginner to a slightly more experienced beginner, I used this trick to help codify the blossoming variety of techniques that were imprinting themselves into my muscle memory. To avoid waiting for an attack and trying to think of a way to respond, I began considering how I “smelled” the flowers each night. Of course, I couldn’t really smell the flowers from where I sat, but I could approximate it by that combination of reaching my awareness out as far as it could go and letting my instinct take over. Similarly, I could not predict exactly how my partner would attack, but by remaining hyper-aware and operating from what my body already knew, I could effectively predict how I should react.

As it turned out, though, translating my flower-sniffing to the mat is a little more complicated than I initially thought. The problem lies in expectation. I have preconceived notions of what certain flowers smell like, and my own interpretations of what the aroma of an unknown flower could be. Thus, this exercise became fantastic for honing my awareness, but perhaps a little detrimental to developing my instinct.

When training, we are often warned against "working from a script”: engaging with the expectation of a certain, fixed outcome. By increasingly attempting to predict what would come next, this is the exact trap I began to fall into. As my toolkit grew, I naturally gravitated towards certain movements and techniques that felt more natural to me. As a result, I too often found myself hoping for specific resolutions to each engagement: this movement should ideally resolve as that attack, and that attack should ideally be answered with this technique, etc. The key word in that last sentence is “ideally.” Most situations are not ideal, which is why we place such a high importance on blending. Asking for specific attacks and forcing a specific technique are very important tools for learning the basics of that technique, but they increasingly got me in trouble during more intense, freeform practice. After all, just because I want the flower to smell like jasmine doesn’t mean it actually does.

Therefore, I’ve lately added a little twist to my meditation. I still breathe deeply to calm myself before class, but as I regard the flowers on the shomen, I attempt to perceive their aroma as something it should never be. Fresh paint, for instance, or a hot pizza. That way, I can mentally prepare myself for accepting and blending with the unexpected. My natural reaction of “there’s no way that flower could smell like a pizza, and if it did, that would be strange and disgusting!” gives way to “sure, a pizzaflower. Why not?” By immersing my mind with this sort of openness and aversion to prejudice, I find myself much more capable of dealing with unanticipated situations during training, be it a surprise attack, a technique that must change midway through, or even avoiding injury from wayward ukemi.

Every now and again, though, I go back to simply trying to smell the flowers. Thinking too hard, after all, is still one of my greatest weaknesses, and sometimes I have to remind myself that it is simply enough to relax, take a few deep breaths, and be as aware as I can.

How Not to Be a Good Librarian.

Gail Sweet, Library Director for the Burlington County Library System, has decided that she is the sole source of moral sanity in a gay rainstorm (a gaynstorm, if you will) of depravity. Or, at the very least, displayed her appalling lack of backbone in the face of criticism.

According to School Library Journal, Sweet has removed an anthology of LGBT teen essays from her library shelves, with the only official reason being her opinion that it is “child pornography.” Apparently, there was no formal complaint from a library patron about the book. Instead, this library director took this course of action after receiving a crotchety email from an elderly member of Glenn Beck’s “9.12” nutbags. Who, incidentally, have targeted this book at other libraries before.

Naturally, people are free to be offended by whatever they choose. I choose to be deeply offended that Gail Sweet is working in the information profession at all, never mind in a director’s position, when she is so cavalier with the core ideals of the library profession. I’m almost as offended that a fellow librarian would tarnish my Scotty-like image as a magical fact-finding wizard by offering such flawed reasoning for her unilateral decision. Child pornography? Really? Well, I found the Go Ask Alice Book of Answers in the Burlington catalog. Is that going away, too? How about the myriad teen fiction books that portray sexual awakenings among heterosexual teens; are those also breaking child porn laws? Is the director going to send cryptic emails about removing adult mysteries and thrillers that reference or depict illegal sexual behavior?

Now, if the community that the library serves demanded that the book be removed, and it was clear that nobody in the community was reading it or checking it out, that would be one thing. If the removal was the result of a formal review process overseen by more people than the director, her deputy, and a shit-stirring book-burner, that would be another thing. But the way this was handled not only betrays what librarians are supposed to be about, but encourages the ravings of like-minded lunatics who besiege libraries every day with attempts to control what everybody reads. Or, even worse, encourages similar, heretofore restrained lunatics who work in libraries and already have responsibility for shepherding information.

I mean, if I had my way, I’d take all of Glenn Beck’s insipid books off of my shelves, cut the pages into little pieces, rearrange the words into gay erotic haiku, and slip them back into the covers for kicks. Instead, I happily direct patrons who ask for them to where they sit, sliming up my political shelves. You know, because of that pesky code of ethics that reassures library patrons that I won’t inject my personal opinion into their information search.

And it’s certainly not as if the idea of somebody panicking about “THE CHILDRENZ!!1!” learning about sex is a new one. It’s pretty common knowledge that sex raises more hackles than violence among the ignorant and self-righteous. Just ask Fox News’s Diedre Behar, who is shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, that a teenaged actress admitted to masturbating. Rantings about the “perversion” of allowing gay youth to read something that reassures them and teaches them about themselves should not be news to anyone who works in libraries. If we torched every book that someone decided other people shouldn’t read, we wouldn’t have any books on our shelves worth reading.

Librarians are not supposed to display this kind of hypocrisy. Library directors are certainly not supposed to display this kind of hypocrisy. We’re supposed to fight for the free dissemination of information, and encourage people to read things that strangers tell them they shouldn’t. Come on, Gail, we just got some indie cred from NPR; don’t fuck this up for us.

Still Alive

Just not updating at the moment. Hope to rectify soon!

Seriously, though, I've found myself to be evolving with the times. Despite my numerous past instances of bemoaning the shortening attention spans of today's youth, exacerbated by text messaging and instant gratification, I'm finding the Facebook status and Twitter post to be a much more succinct and efficient way of "plugging in" online. The other side of this is that it makes my past mainstays of email, message board posting, and blogging more profound, since I shy away from the extra time it takes unless I actually have something to say.

Though, obviously, this is an unfortunate exception.