Chants from the Desert Brush

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:32:35 GMT

I think my 6-year-old is going to be a salesman. Here's the transcript of a conversation he had with my wife while they were doing their daily "10-minute-clean-up" :

Patch: "We have a lot of stuff, don't we mom."

Mom: (grimacing and grumbling) "Yes. Too much."

Patch: "We don't really have a place for all of it either. Some of it gets put away, but some of it has to go in the basement."

[note: he's referring to our unfinished basement, which is our official spot for all those random things that we don't really need all the time but don't know what to do with either.]

Mom: "Yes. Put those clothes that are too small for you into the bag so I can take them to the basement."

Patch: "Don't you wish we had something better than just a garbage bag to put them in."

Mom: "Sure. Whatever you say. Start picking up the clothes."

Kid: "We should get some vacuum bags! They're small enough to fit anywhere, and they have 4 layers of protection!"

I love it! I don't have a clue where he got that from. We don't get any TV reception at our house (the TV is used exclusively to watch DVD's), so it's not like he's had time to watch a hundred infomercials. But what's funny is he does this kind of stuff all the time.

A few weeks ago I was shopping for a new crock pot (Sam had pulled the old one off the counter and onto his head. He was okay, but the crock pot was dead). So I'm looking at the crock pots, trying to decide which size we ought to have and how much we have to spend, when Patch came up with this weird muffin-tin looking thing.

"Dad, we have to get this?"

"What is it? We already have a muffin pan."

"It's not a muffin pan. It's a pancake puffer maker."

"A what?"

"Dad, you like pancakes, right?"

"Sure ..."

"Well if you like pancakes, you'll love pancake puffs."

So, hopefully he'll go into marketing or advertising, make tons of money, and then he'll be able to buy himself a pancake puffer maker.

The greatest work of symphonic music of all time

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:14:35 GMT

I did it.

After literally years of looking, I finally found a recording of "Russian Christmas Music." (this is the piece I arranged and wrote lyrics to for my church choir to sing this past christmas).

You need Flash Player to listen, but Flash player is free.

Oh, and be warned it's 15 minutes long. But, oh my will that 15 minutes be worth it.

Here's the song

I hope you enjoy. I sure did.

Books that should be read by everyone - Part 1

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:04:47 GMT

shanra recently did a review of Diary of a Young Girl (a.k.a. The Diary of Anne Frank). In it she mentioned that it is a book that everyone ought to read. And that got me thinking about what books I think everyone ought to read.

And that has led to this list:

I actually don't like these kind of lists: With the amount of phenomenal books out there, I'm not sure anyone could even read all the "books that everyone should read." But I've thought of 8 that I believe could be referred to this way. Here's 4 of them:

All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque

I think most people want to fight for a good cause. Whether literal or metaphorical, it's the same. One of my good friends, a neighbor, is a police officer for Salt Lake City. A narcotics detective. His fight is against the people destroying others' lives with meth. Another neighbor was in the Marines and spent about 18 months in Iraq. His fight was to help the ordinary Iraqi people have better lives.

Of course, I'm neither in the military nor a police officer. But I still have my own fights and crusades.

But what if the fight turns out to be hollow? What if the crusade was built on a lie?

These are the questions that drive Remarque's novel forward. Paul Baumer is a German young man. At the outbreak of WWI, he and his classmates are happily recruited into the German army - anxious for the chance to help fight for the greatness of Germany. And then they actually experience the war. Months in the trenches. Battle after battle over 400 yards. Death. Death of his friends. Death of strangers. And deaths of their enemies. And finally Paul begins to understand that his youthful enthusiasm, his energy, was wasted on a hollow cause. They weren't fighting for anything; nor were the enemies.

It's a tragic story. Absolutely heartbreaking. And it's a wonderful word of caution to be careful about which causes and fights you engage in. Because once you see beyond the rhetoric and propaganda, things may be very different than what you had first thought.

I read this book 14 years ago, and several passages are still etched into my mind. It's one I'll never forget.

The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro's masterpiece: the story of an English butler traveling to meet an old acquaintance while at the same reliving the memories of serving his old master.

It is a simple, beautiful story. And perhaps the saddest I have ever read. The butler pushed aside every personal ambition, interest, and even his love in order to serve his master, Lord Darlington (who is trying to broker peace in Europe prior to the outbreak of WWII). And was it worth it? As the butler realizes everything he lost by serving so well, it's a question that not even he wants to face.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

I've read this book at leas 4 times, and I'm still not sure how to describe it. It's the story of a girl and her father. The story of a man who wants to fight injustice in the 1920's Deep South. It's the story of a man who believes that people are good. It's the love story between a little girl and a recluse who watches her play (I know that sounds creepy today, but it's not at all in this book).

And it's magnificent. There are several moments that I still talk about and love today: the part when Scout starts swearing and tells her father that she learned the words at school (she wants him to say she doesn't have to attend anymore); "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'." And the final scene, when Scout sees the world from Boo Radley's perspective and relives all her younger play from Boo's point of view. It's an American story, to be sure, but it is one of the best ever told.

Into That Darkness, by Gitta Sereny

Gitta Sereny interviews Franz Stangl, Kommandant of Treblinka, the largest Nazi extermination Camp, while Stangl serves a life sentence for his crimes against of humanity. Based on over 70 hours of interview, not to mention what must have been years of additional research, the result is astonishing.

An utterly chilling tale, and what comes out again and again is how normal Stangl is. It's a terrifying feeling of "that could be me, my neighbor, or a guy I went to school with." It's a terrifying account of how Stangl got into the Nazi SS, how he justified what was going on, how he kept himself from acknowledging what he was actually doing. Only at the end does he see and admit his own guilt. And he dies of a heart attack less than a day later.

Is the American Hogwarts in northern Utah?

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 07:34:36 GMT

I hate going to WalMart.

And as much as I'd like to say it's because I don't approve of the company's business practices (which I don't, at least some of the time), that isn't the real reason. Sadly, the truth is much less idealistic.

I hate shopping at WalMart because, from the moment I step in the store, I feel like white trash. Mostly because I feel like I'm surrounded by white trash. And honestly, I hate even admitting this. Talk about being judgemental (I know, and I'm appalled by myself - really, I am), but the truth is I feel how I feel.

Just the other day, there was this guy in a WalMart. He was a big dude: over 6 feet tall, probably over 300 pounds. And he was hairy.

How do I know this?

Because he was wearing dirty old overalls (complete with food stains) and no shirt. He had hair all over his arms, his chest, his shoulders, and his back. And he had this huge bushy beard that was wiry and all tangled up. And his hair would have fallen to his shoulders had it been washed recently. As it was, it stood 10 inches out in all directions.

And the guy's wife was a choice peach, too. A big lady wearing dirty grey sweat pants (WalMart women, I've noticed, seem to wear dirty grey sweat pants a lot), a T-shirt that once may have been white. And, of course, the T-shirt was WAY too small, so her chubby belly and love handles were exposed for us all to see. Oh, and she was wearing a purple or blue bra, that showed through the once-was-white T-shirt.

Only at WalMart, I thought.

And then I realized something. Seriously, I saw people like this only at WalMart. Where do they come from?

You see, I live in Davis County, Utah. It's a very conservative, very well-educated, primarily middle to upper-middle class demographic. Except for a few places in Layton and Clearfield, neighborhoods which are obviously a little poorer and a little rougher, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in the county that would obviously have people like this couple (and hundreds like them) in WalMart that day.

Seriously, if you walk up and down and through and around the neighborhoods in Davis County, they would all seem to be pretty much the same thing: conservative, ordinary, middle-class, well-maintained homes filled with conservative, educated, ordinary, middle-class people.

Where do all these WalMart people come from?

And i thought back to something my mom told me. She works at the children's hospital in Salt Lake City, and sadly an inordinate percentage of the kids in the hospital have parents who make you think: "oh hell, the poor kids." Some come from families where it's kind of expected and assumed that all males, from the time they turn 12 until their deaths, will spend their lives in and out of jail for petty crimes (bar fights, small-time drug charges, etc.). Or there was the kid who had a bloody nose, and whose dad (who looked all of 19) berated the poor guy for not being tough enough to beat the other kid up.

On a similar note, my wife (she teaches kids with emotional and behavior disorders) once had a student who mentioned on his 18th birthday that when he gets arrested next he'll be tried as an adult. Let's just say that was pretty much the last thing that occurred to me when I turned 18, but then I've never been arrested and don't expect I ever will (since as far as I know, I don't do anything illegal).

It's like there's all these parallel universes out there - filled with people living lives as different from mine as you can imagine, yet they're all walking down the same sidewalks, driving down the same streets, and living in the same little town as me. Yet our lives never intersect. Somehow, despite the fact that we are probably neighbors, our lives are so different that we never meet.

Except at WalMart.

I get really tired of incivility sometimes

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:26:33 GMT

There was a sad article in my local newspaper today. It was about a boy, 14 years old, who got a headache. At first neither he nor his parents thought anything of it, but it wouldn't go away. When the pain medicine stopped working, the worried boy asked his parents if he was going to die.

His dad reassured him that he would be okay.

The boy died.

Only after he died did the doctors find out what had happened: a rare amoeba had gotten into the boy's head and eaten his brain. The boy got the amoeba in him, it seems, while swimming in a lake by his home.

What a horrible thing. Horrible for the parents to witness. Horrible for the poor boy, terrified that he would die only to do so.

But saddest of all, I've decided, is that the online paper recently added a feature in which readers can add comments to the article.

One commenter wondered if President Bush swam in the same lake, because he obviously hasn't had a brain in years.

Another commenter stated that it's obviously a sign that God is punishing us for our sins.

And I'm just aghast that people put this kind of stuff up. A kid dies a horrible, sad way, and it's just another opportunity to make fun of Pres. Bush? Or it's an opportunity to tell others how God is going to kill us because we're sinning? Don't people have any decency? Are we that callow?

This isn't about politics or religion—it's about being decent human beings. It's about responding to tragedies with sadness. Because that's how we're supposed to respond; that's how we're supposed to feel. And if anyone doesn't feel that way, then I think that maybe there's something wrong.

ALA and the "Banned Books List"

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:51:53 GMT

Well, I've read a bit from taram_42 and shanra talking about the ALA's Annual Banned Books List, and I decided, at the risk of everyone deciding that I'm some crazy nutcase, to put in my two cents. I thought about replying, but decided I just have too much to say for a reply here and there.

First of all: many of my favorite books are or have been on the "Banned Books List." Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird (in my opinion the second greatest book about childhood ever written, just behind Ender's Game), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, Farenheit 451, and on and on and on. Let's be honest - if you love to read and love good stories, a lot of your favorites are going to be on the list.

Second of all: I'm all for open-mindedness, public access to a variety of books and viewpoints. When I was 2 years old my mom took me to a rally at the Davis County Library, when a librarian was fired because she refused to remove an "offensive" book. (Actually, the better adjective for the book would be "poorly written," but the fact is it wasn't being challenged because of its mediocre writing - it was sexuality, language, "anti-Americanism," yada, yada, yada).

But I don't get nearly as riled up about the list as others do, and here's why:

1. Absolutely no book on the list is actually banned in the United States. They are found in virtually every bookstore, public library, etc. in the country. In fact, many of those are much, much, much easier to find than many books NOT on the list. I don't know if I've ever gotten over the fact that the ALA has called its list the "Banned Book List." To me, that is one of the most irresponsible uses of language I've ever known. It rivals the rhetorical drivel of most politicians. Let's be honest, the word "banned" is used for one reason only, and it's NOT because its definition most precisely meets the context: the word is used precisely to get people all riled up.

2. So what is the list precisely, then? It's a ranking of the books most challenged by people in the United States. By challenged, the most frequent situation is this: a parent discovers his or her child is reading some book that, because of its content or whatever, gets the parent upset. So the parent marches to the library or school issuing the book, points out the offensive material, and says: because of the content in this book, I don't think it's appropriate that kids have access to it without their parents' permission. In other words, the principle is that parents have a right to be informed when a school or library gives a "questionable" book to their kids. Actually, it's a bit stronger than this, even: Parents have a responsibility to know what their kids are up to.

And I'll be honest, I understand how they feel - even if I would react very differently. If my kids read Sex by Madonna, I'd like to know. Because, frankly, I'd really like the chance to put in my two cents about how maybe Madonna's opinion of sexuality isn't the most responsible in the world. I'd WANT the chance to talk to them about it.

3. The ALA's list, because of how it is tabulated, has some interesting omissions. For example, there is no way an American teacher could assign any novel from The Chronicles of Narnia to read as a class (trust me, I am certified to teach jr. high and high school English). Why? Because of its "Christian overtones." Some non-Christian parents would throw an absolute fit. But that series isn't on the list. Why not? Because the list only addresses one kind of "banning" - formal challenges given to libriarians. It doesn't address books suppressed in other ways.

And while you may argue that the purpose of the ALA's list is to advocate all intellectual freedom - that situations like the unspoken ban of Narnia from use as a class novel is included implicitly in the crusade - read a few reactions to the list and you'll see that's NOT what the list really accomplishes. The more frequent reaction is something like "stupid, bleeping homophobic prudes - who are they to decide what I can and can't read!?"

4. While this is certainly not always the case, often a challenge is issued from a sincere parent who's trying to just be a good parent. Think about it. Who ought to know a child best? A librarian? A teacher? A political activist? Or the kid's parent?

So who ought to be able to make the most informed choice about what a child is prepared, emotionally and cognitively, to deal with a given book?

And that's what many (certainly not all, but many) of the ALA's tabulated challenges are: a parent who recognizes that a certain book is not appropriate for his or her child, that the book may not be appropriate for other similar children too, and if that's the case, then maybe a book should require the parents' permission in order to be checked out by children under the age of 5 - or 8 - or 15 - or whatever.

Now I don't like this kind of reaction at all. I don't imagine myself EVER doing it. But that doesn't mean that I can't see the reasons behind it. And, to some degree, I sympathize.

Do I get annoyed when people challenge books? You bet I do. I still remember how mad I got when my best friend's mother got mad at me for suggesting he read Ender's Game. "This book is not welcome in my house," she snapped at me (she didn't like the profanity in it). I stomped out of their house, saying that if Ender's Game isn't welcome, then I might as well not be, either.

Do I disagree with anyone attempting to remove a book from a library shelf? Absolutely. Do I get annoyed when I look at the books on the ALA's list and the reasons they are challenged? Yes. Do I advocate intellectual freedom? Yes.

But ... let's be honest. None of the books on the list are really "banned." Although there are some instances when somebody wants a book removed from the shelf so nobody can read it, most of the time the challenges are not like this: they're about limiting access of "questionable" (whatever "questionable" might happen to be defined as at any given time) books to minors. And by limiting access, this means that kids can still get the book as long as the parent gives permission. If you want your kid to be able to read a book that has been "banned" in this way, it's really easy to make that possible.

I just think that parents should be given some benefit of the doubt. Being a parent is hard. Most parents screw up sometimes. Most parents overreact more than they'd like. I'd even suggest that most parents (myself included) overreact more than they are even aware.

It's easy to roll your eyes at people who are offended or upset for apparently brainless reasons, but it's much better to try to listen to them, understand their point of view, and then launch a crusade for intellectual freedom that allows some empathy for the reasons behind what they are doing.

I do not believe the ALA's "Banned Book List" does this, nor does it seem to inspire others to do so either.

Wow, pictures are always neat, eh?

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:12:26 GMT

Just for the heck of it, I posted some pictures up here. They're all friend-locked, but since pretty much everyone that looks at this journal is a friend, anyone who feels so inclined can look at them.

I friend-locked them because the idea of some unknown weirdo gaping over my kids really creeps me out.

The pictures are:

A bunch from my family's trip to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks last spring.
Some random family pictures.
A bunch of my favorite pictures of my kids.
A few pictures from Adams Canyon, which is about 2 miles from my house.
A few pictures from a trip to Nauvoo, Illinois a couple years ago.

I think that's all.

P.S. My favorite one of me is the one where Patch and I are playing the bongo drums. Or conga drums. I can never remember which is which.

Oh, those were the good old days ...

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:40:56 GMT

Well, annarti and ladylight had so much fun with it, I thought I'd give it a go:

10 random childhood memories ...

1. Age: about 9. A bunch of friends and I jammed my neighbor's mailbox full of fireworks and set them off, hoping to blow the mailbox up. We were hoping for something along the lines of the Death Star's explosion at the end of Return of the Jedi, and were sorely disappointed that it didn't happen. So, we started playing basketball in the neighbor's driveway (they had the only hoop in the culdesac) and were stunned when, 15 minutes later, two cop cars drove up.

2. Age: about 10. At my neighbor's basketball hoop again. We thought it would be really cool to drag my friend's trampoline over to my neighbor's driveway and then make a video of us doing these crazy slam dunks. And it was awesome until my buddy tried to backflip over the hoop but accidentally got his foot caught in the net and busted his arm. We were ordered to never put the tramp under the basketball hoop again. But we got some sweet footage and made a jammin' music video out of it.

3. Age: about 9. My friends and I decided to move the trampoline closer to the house so that we could climb on the roof and get really huge bounces. It was great until I landed on the tramp wrong and went spiraling out of control and slammed into the brick wall my friend had instead of a fence.

4. Age: 7-10. Every time we went to my Grandma's house my brother, my cousins, and I always played baseball in the back yard. And every time my Grandma gave us a stern lecture that she would NEVER let us play again if we hit one more ball over the fence. And then, of course, we all hit the ball over the fence as much as humanly possible (Even 7-year-olds' manhoods are at stake when playing baseball with a bunch of other guys).

5. Age: 9. My soccer team played for the league championship and lost 3-1, in a now infamous game played in the snow (in June!). My mom showed how great she was on the ride home when, amid my tears and broken heart, she simply let me rant and vent that the other team was a bunch of cheaters and the refs gave them all the calls and we would have won if I had been able to play striker during the first half instead of being relegated to defense. She made no interruptions and just let me feel miserable - which was exactly what I wanted.

6. Age: 10. I had a student teacher during my 5th grade year, Miss Khoury. Along with every other boy in my class, I fell hopelessly in love with her. We were all so despondent when Miss Khoury finished that I wouldn't talk to anyone civilly for about a week. My behavior was so off-the-wall that my mom was worried that I was being abused or something. But then I burst out that "Miss Khoury is leaving, and I don't want her to go!" and ran off to my room in a fit of tears. My mom then called several parents of my friends, and she found out that all the boys were acting the same way as me. That summer, Miss Khoury sent all her former students an invitation to her wedding reception. My buddy and I insisted we had to go, that our parents COULD NOT come with us, and that we had to get her a dynamite wedding present. Then I cried again that night, knowing that since she was married now, I had lost Miss Khoury forever.

7. Age: 11. My mom and I performed "Finlandia," arranged for four hands and two pianos, at church. I still remember how cocky and proud I felt afterward, when the people in charge of the music actually changed the program so that the congregation sang "Be Still My Soul" (which is set to the melody of "Finlandia") for the closing hymn.

8. Age: 12. My first time playing to the neighborhood Friday-night game of Spotlight Commandos (it was an unspoken rule that only kids 12 and older could play). It works like this: all 25 kids in the neighborhood gather at the local park. 4 of them took their places in the two jacked up pick-ups with those annoying spotlights on the roof. They drive to the quick-stop 1.5 miles away. The remaining 21 break up into little packs of 3 or 4 and start runninig through the back roads, the ravine, etc. toward the park at in the foothills, 3 miles away. After buying Cokes at the quick-stop, the 4 in the trucks drive back, trying to catch the rest of us before we can make it to the foothills. To make it to the foothills, we had to avoid the trucks, cross two highways, and trespass through a golf course (unless you really went the long way around). And we always started the game at about midnight. Strangely, I don't think any of us ever gave our parents a detailed description of what the game was all about.

9. Age: 13. I'll never forget this day as long as I live: the first time I ever beat my Grandma in a golf game. She had first taught me to play about three years earlier, and I finally beat her. Now she likes to reminisce about the good old days, when she "use't'could" beat me.

10. Age: 11. My brother and I got into a pillow fight. It started getting viscious, and he ran to the backyard, only to quickly return with my baseball bat. He took one swing at me, I dodged, and then proceeded to slam my pillow into his head repeatedly - probably 50 or more times - until my brother's eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor. Terrified, I picked my brother up and laid him on the couch, all the while thinking "He's dead. When mom finds out, she's going to KILL ME." Thankfully, my brother was only unconscious. Strangely, we have never told my mother this story.

Because all journeys to church must be done with dignity

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:30:06 GMT

This was awesome, and it perfectly illustrates why my wife is convinced that she married a perfect dweeb.

Sunday was a long day of church for me. At least it was supposed to be. But then ... well, read on. I'm not going give away the comical ending here at the beginning of the entry. ^_^

This is what my Sunday was supposed to be like:

7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. - Big meeting for all men in the Stake (a Mormon Stake is kind of like a Catholic diocese, it includes about 10 individual congregations and about 3000-5000 people)

8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. - Go back home and get the kids up, get them breakfast, and dressed.

10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. - Meeting for Cub Scouts (I'm the Cubmaster)

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m. - Choir practice (I'm also the pianist for the choir at my church)

12:00 p.m. - 12:30 p.m. - Rush home, get the kids, and walk with them to church

12:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. - Go to church.

Then I was to have the rest of the day for relaxation and sleep (My kids are laughing at that notion even as we speak).

Now, I had actually forgotten about the early morning meeting. I usually end up forgetting about those (I just don't put a lot of mental effort into remembering them, I suppose ^_~), but my neighbor called me the day before and asked if I wanted a ride with him, and since I was reminded I decided I really ought to go. So I did. I got all in my nice church clothes at 6:30 a.m. so I could get to the meeting on time.

Then I got home. I got a phone call. Scout meeting cancelled (Yay!). Another phone call. Choir practice cancelled (Yay!). Not that I don't like being the Cubmaster and the pianist, but it's a lot to do, and it is nice to have a break every now and then. So I got to have a nice mellow morning, free from running around, and it was nice. Then noon hit, and it was time to start walking to church (It's only about four blocks away, but my 2-year-old walks r ... e ... a ... l ... l ... y ....................... s ... l ... o ... w ...

So anyway, I'm walking to church. My wife is with the 5-year-old, and she goes on ahead. Then, after getting Patch in his class, she comes back to try to prod me and Sammy to go a little bit faster. And that's when she looks at my back for the first time.

I had a huge hole in my pants. I mean HUGE. From my butt to below my knee.

So I just went home and took a nap instead of going to church (all my pants were currently in the washing machine, so I conveniently had nothing to wear).

Now here's what really gets me. I had been wearing those pants all day. I can't remember snagging on anything (the hole looked like it had been ripped because of a snag), so I guess I had it when I went to the big meeting that morning. Surrounded by like 400 people. Then, as I walked to church, probably 20-30 people passed me by, coming from behind (remember, Sammy and I were walking really slow).

So, either 450ish people either didn't notice I had this gaping hole in the back of my pants, or else they didn't feel like telling me about it.

Oh well. It makes me laugh. And I had a nice relaxing Sunday - which is funny, because it originally looked busy as ... you-know-where (I probably shouldn't write hell when it's an entry about church, no?).

Christmas in Kaysville is going Russian

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:04:03 GMT

It's so dorky to be excited about something like this, but I can't help it. For a wannabe composer kicked out of the U of U's music program, I take what I can get.

The church choirs for two local congregations are going to combine together and perform one of my pieces for a concert in early December. The piece is an arrangement of "Russian Christmas Music," by Alfred Reed. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Unless you've been involved with high-caliber band and wind symphony, you have likely never heard of "Russian Christmas Music." But for those of us who have (I've played trombone since I was 12), we know exactly what the song is. The band composer Alfred Reed took a bunch of Christmas carols from Russia and the Eastern Orthodox church and arranged them into a kind of Overture or Tone Poem that is utterly magnificent. It's considered, in band circles, one of the absolute standards. If you've never heard it, just call around all the universities and colleges in the area. I guarantee one of them will be performing the piece during the year. I've performed it (with bands) 6 times.

Anyway, the ending of the piece is very grandiose, with the brasses blasting out a glorious hymn. Ever since I played the piece for the first time, I always wondered what it would be like to have an actual chorus (say 100 voices or more) singing along.

Well, three years ago I thought I would find out.

You see, my mother-in-law sings in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and I go to their Christmas concert every year. And this year, I looked on the program and Holy-Smee! they have "Russian Christmas Music" listed on the program. I was so excited. I was going to, at last, hear a version of the song with a 150-piece orchestra and 250-voice choir. I still get chills just thinking about the prospect.

So, for the entire concert I'm just waiting for this piece (it's scheduled for the end of the concert, of course). And then, it's finally time. The orchestra started in with the familiar haunting opening strains, and I thought I had just heard the sound of paradise. And then the narration began. Some guest speaker was telling some Christmas story over the top of the piece (the song, it turns out, was supposed to just be background music for the story). I just about died. They had just butchered my favorite piece of music in the world.

So, I decided right then that I was going to arrange my own version. And so I did. I bought the rights to do an arrangement, and I arranged it for a church choir and piano. We'll have probably 35-40 singers doing it, and me accompanying them. Not nearly as cool as the idea of the full orchestra and mega-choir, but it's still going to be really cool. My arrangement, my lyrics (obviously, the original version didn't have lyrics), and my favorite song. Ye hah!

Like I said, I feel kind of dorky for being excited, but excited I am.

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:31:58 GMT

A wildfire has been burning about 5 miles from my house - blazing the slopes of Farmington canyon. This is the same spot that burned in a fire 3 years ago. The new grass and baby trees wiped out instantly. Like the one 3 years ago, it appears the fire today was started by people.

Sunday, as I walked to church, all I could look at was the smoke pouring out of the canyon and the flames, creeping west across the mountain with the wind. It was awful. It seemed so hopeless - my hometown mountains being destroyed by fires started by people (I know I wrote about the Yellowstone fire and what it all looks like now, almost 20 years later, but it's hard to think so intellectually when you're watching the fires burning).

And so it was with that feeling that I took a pack of 6 Cub Scouts on a hike earlier this evening. I'm the Cubmaster, and I'm in charge of the kids' monthly pack meetings. And tonight, I had planned to do a treasure hunt and garbage collection clean-up in the hiking trails at a nearby park.

And it was funny how it went. The treasures they were looking for were their pinewood derby kits. These consist of a block of wood, 4 wheels, and 4 axels that the kids are supposed to transform into cars, which we'll then race next month. We do this race once a year, and it's just about the highlight of the entire Cub Scout year. They start talking about what shapes they're going to carve and what paint designs they're going to do months ahead of time. I've already been told by several of the Scouts that they're cars are going to beat mine (this actually won't shock me in the least - nobody has ever mistaken me for any kind of a woodsmith).

So you'd think that I would have to keep reminding the kids that we're not just looking for their kits - we're supposed to be picking up trash too. But that's not how it went. I had to keep telling the kids "You know, we're supposed to be looking for your kits." Every scrap of trash visible in those trails was nabbed up. They came up with inventive ways to get things that were hopelessly out of reach. They couldn't stop. And they all complained when I told them that it was time to go. And then, as the kids and their parents leave, I can't help thinking that these boys are our future. And maybe things aren't so hopeless after all.

And it's funny looking back. Five years ago my bishop called me into his office and asked if I would teach Sunday School for the eight-year-old kids. I said yes even though the thought terrified me. I had experience with teens, not kids. I had no idea what I would be doing. And for three years I taught the eight-year-olds (a different class each year), then I taught the eleven-year-olds (who were the kids I had taught during my first year, when they had been eight). I absolutely loved it. I just loved interacting with the kids.

And then my bishop called me into his office again, let me know that my time as a Sunday School teacher was over but that now he wanted me to be the Cubmaster for the neighborhood Cub Scout Pack. Again I was nervous (I had been an utterly awful and undedicated Scout when I was a kid). And here I am, surprised again at how rewarding it is and how much I love doing it.

And so, for five years now I've been teaching the kids in my neighborhood. I've become the official Halloween stop that ALL the kids just HAVE to do - which puts a lot of pressure on me to be creative each year. And I've been able to see a small group of people who are our future. And the future's okay. There's going to be problems, and there's always going to be people who mess things up - but it's nice to be reminded that there's also people who are going to be out in the ravines, more dedicated to picking up the trash others scatter around than searching for their pinewood derby kits.

... because it already changed color three times!

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:31:28 GMT

Well, it's been a crazy week. I was sick most of the time, feeling absolutely awful on Thursday and Friday morninig. By Friday evening I finally felt mostly better, and it was a good thing because my wife's water broke at about 8:30 p.m.

So, my baby girl was born 4:05 a.m. on Saturday, July 28th. Kid #4 (I have to call her #4 because my oldest boy, Patch, always insists that he can't be kid #1 because I'm the real kid #1). So though she's really the third child, the baby is labelled kid #4.

And if you're curious, when asked what kid # my wife is, Patch rolled his eyes at me: "Mom's not a kid. She's a real person." So there you have it.

The girl's name is Kimber Ioma Midget. The middle name, Ioma, is already causing great controversy on my side of the family (my mom despises it), but it's my wife's grandmother's name, and my wife REALLY wanted to use it. I figure that it's just a middle name.

And Kimber ... well, it's just a name my wife liked. Me? It was actually the original name of Alicia Ghundie, from my novel Resurrecting the Scarlet Avenger. I changed that character's name (obviously), for my daughter's sake, but I'll always be able to tell her "that's who you're named after."

And this is about all the time I have. I've got to get the house cleaned up before everyone comes back from the hospital.

P.S. The title is from Bill Cosby, himself, which is a standup routine Bill Cosby did in Toronto sometime around 1980 (I think). In part of it, he talks about the birth of his first child. Once it finally pops out, he goes to his wife and tells her: "Congratulations. You just gave birth to a lizard, because it already changed color three times." I never really understood that until my first child was born, and I realize that baby's come out purple. Weird, but true.

A Bit o' Music

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 06:38:13 GMT

When I first graduated from high school and scuttled on to the amazing world of college, I declared myself a Chemical Engineering major. That lasted one week.

I realized rather quickly that, though I was decent at math, I didn't share my fellow majors' fetish with cosines and integrals. Nor was I really keen on the idea of spending 5 years in school so that I could get a job for a petroleum company ( o_O!!!!!).

No blooping way!

So I changed to what I was really interested in: creative writing and music composition. That lasted two years, before I was unceremoniously booted from the music program (a long story for another time). But my love for music never died. I just put up a little website for my little music compositions. And since - who knows! - some of you may be interested in my dabbles into the world of music, here's a couple of songs I've recorded:

Cold Memories

So here's the truth: my brother wrote this song. But he did for so a vocalist accompanied by a guitar. So I took the melody and accompaniment and turned them into this piano arrangement. I'm actually really fond of it (though my brother says I get it all wrong).

Once Upon a Time

This is a piece I wrote for my wife. Since I've never been happy with the lyrics, and because I'm an utterly atrocious singer, all you're going to get here is the accompaniment.

Religion and fantasy

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:25:28 GMT

Religion's just about one of the hardest topics for me to discuss. On one hand, I get so tired of how negatively it is often viewed today: if you trust just the soundbites and blog-rants, then it appears Christianitiy is fundamentally about being a bigot (which happens to be just about the most evil word in the English language, but that's a topic for another time), Islam is fundamentally about blowing people (including yourself) up, Judaism is fundamentally about squishing Muslims that want to squish them, and on and on and on. But having been a religious fellow living in a very religious community my whole life, I know that these caricatures are grossly inaccurate. As my mom likes to say, just because someone's loud doesn't mean he or she represents the majority.

But at the same time, understanding and characterizing religion well is, in my opinion, extremely difficult.

I hated learning about other religions in school. I still don't like it. Maybe I'm just a schmuck, but let me try to explain: what I hated was how absurd other religious beliefs seemed when reading about them in summary. I remember thinking, when first learning about Hinduism, "people actually believe that they may be reincarnated into a cow?" But I instinctively knew that these kind of summaries really didn't get what it was like to be a practicing Hindu. It got some of the facts, but absolutely none of the feeling. Because of this, learning about other religions - in summary - only ended up belittling those who believed in the religions.

And I realized, on my mission, that this is hardly an attribute of "other" religions. I remember trying to explain Mormonism to others, particularly to those who were antagonistic to me, and I could tell how absurd and ridiculous everything I said sounded to them. Finally I realized something:

Any belief, when told to the unbeliever, tends to sound absurd.

Because beliefs, including religious beliefs, are not founded on pure logic. They're founded on personal life experiences, willing leaps of faith, and feelings. And to really get someone else's beliefs, you need to somehow be able to understand the things on which they are founded. Textbooks don't get this. Newspaper articles don't get this. Encyclopedias and National Geographics don't get this.

So, what does all this have to do with religion in fantasy - particularly in my fantasy worlds? I guess it brings out the challenge of including religion. Because religion isn't really a set of rituals or official doctrinal tenets. It's something at once greater and smaller, bigger yet more personal. A way of life. A way of thinking about life. A way of thinking about yourself and others.

I don't have a uniform set of religous beliefs in my worlds. There are not even uniform beliefs in my home congregation, so I can't fathom an entire world in which the beliefs are uniform. The religions I create for my worlds tend to be a combination of polytheism and natural world worship. I guess I find them more interesting to write about and, in a way, more challenging for me to do a good job with. Because I don't want any religious beliefs to come across like Hinduism did in my textbook. I want to get the feeling and the majesty of belief.

Like being near a Muslim when it's time to pray toward Mecca. It may seem odd to read in a textbook that Muslims "have to" pray 5 times a day, at a specific time, toward their city, but it's completely different to be with someone doing it, knowing that half a billion other believers are doing the same thing at the same time. The experience, even as just an observer, was almost magic.

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:40:01 GMT

Not that my opinion actually matters that much, but if any of my international friends decided to take a trip to the United States and asked what I recommend they spend time seeing, I could answer without a moment of hesitation: Yellowstone and Zions National Parks. Trust me, you would never regret it - but for Smee's sake, don't go on a tour!

This post is more about Yellowstone, but I'll briefly say that Zions is for those who REALLY like a good adrenaline rush. And anyone who writes a story that takes place in a fantasy world desert ought to be required by law to at least look through a gaggle of Zions photos (this guy's gallery rocks - seriously, spend some time browsing around).

Angel's Landing: The hike climbs 2000 feet in 2.5 miles, and the final half mile is over a small neck of rock 2 feet wide, a 2000 foot drop-off on one side and a 1500 foot dropoff on the other (chains are provided for your convenience ^_^).

The Subway: My favorite hike ever. 10 miles, easy rapelling, wading (and swimming) through hypothermia inducing water, and a canyon that narrows to just 3-feet wide at one point. This video shows what the hike is really like - and note that they are on the "trail" the entire time - even when riding down the waterslide.

Orderville Canyon: A subway-like hike for those who prefer a gentle stroll into the park rather than a drive. My favorite point is the boulder stuck in a slot canyon 15 feet off the ground with trees growing on it.

But anyway, on to the real meat of my entry: The Yellowstone Fire of 1988. saltnester, you made me think of this. Thanks.

I first visited Yellowstone National park in 1986, when I was nine. My family went back the next two years, as well. From the beginning, I knew that the park was a magical place - from the geysers and hot pools to the canyons and waterfalls to the open valleys of the north to the mountains to the lakes to the mammoth springs. Every inch of the place felt like God's personal garden.

But then, shortly after my visit in 1988, lighning struck in a remote area of the park. It burned a couple hundred acres that day. As was long-standing policy for naturally starting fires, it was allowed to burn and take its course.

But something different happened with this fire - it didn't stop burning. It grew, joining several others, and soon nearly 100,000 acres were burning. And it still didn't stop. On one day, August 20th, high winds swept the fires across an additional 150,000 acres. And it still didn't stop.

I remember watching the fires on the news everyday, horrified that my Paradise was dying. I remember my parents, my neighbors, my teachers - everyone I knew - horrified that the National Park Service had just let the fires burn for so long. I remember praying, thanking God that I was able to see Yellowstone before the fires had destroyed it.

Finally, in November, heavy snow put out the fires. More than 750,000 acres had burned. More than a third of the entire park.

I returned to Yellowstone the next year. Most of the areas I had known were black - full of dead trees and ash. I spent hours that trip scouring through the hiking book and map of the burrned areas, desperate to find a good hike that was unaffected by the fires. I found very few.

I've returned to Yellowstone many times since then, but the most profound was just three years ago. It had been 7 years since my last visit.

And just like always, driving through the park meant driving through the burned areas. But they looked different. Beneath the tall, lifeless, still-charred trunks of the old trees grew millions upon millions of young lodgepole pines, not one more than three feet high. The earth was covered with them like a blanket of green wool.

You see, the seeds of lodgepole pines are usually sealed shut by sap and rosin. New trees cannot grow unless an intense fire blazes through, killing the old lodgepoles, melting the hardened sap, and popping the seeds out, and refertilizing the soil. Without fire the old trees would eventually die anyway, but no new ones could ever grow.

In another 30 years, so estimates run, the Yellowstone forests will again be thick and tall. Within 100 years the new lodgepolse, and their ecosystem, will have matured enough for the oaks and firs to return. And then the aspen. And, in yet another 150 years, the forest will be the same as it was in my childhood - filled with old trees, dried out brush beneath, and worn out soil. Time for another fire.

And I'm grateful, now, for the Yellowstone I have seen in my lifetime. I will never see the forest in its past glory, that is true, but I have seen something more rare. I have seen an old forest die in flames and then watched it be reborn - by those same flames. The myth of the phoenix, it seems, was never really just a myth.

Everything I need to know I learned in Canada: 2

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:19:24 GMT

rosiphelee, you're a peach. You know why. Let's all hear it for level-headedness (a quality I, unfortunately, haven't mastered nearly as much as I wish).

And here's another story from my Mormon mission. Not a very happy one at all, but one that I don't think I'll ever forget.

Elder Heiner and I were teaching a man named Larry - a rather depressed fellow whose parents had died in a car accident a year previous. The first few times we had been in his home teaching him, he really brightened up - something we were saying was really connecting with him. I had hope that what we were sharing would help him out.

But that morning something was really odd. The bishop of the Mormon congregation in Burlington was with us, and the entire appointment was a disaster. Out of nowhere, Larry started yelling incoherently at the bishop. Occasionally, when responding to a question, Larry started muttering curses at us under his breath. Finally, the bishop had to go to work. A few minutes later, completely baffled by the appointment yet still trying vainly to get something of the meeting, E. Heiner and I got up to leave. As we walked down the stairs to the door, I suddenly saw Larry flying past me - I honestly thought he had jumped off the top of the stairs and was trying to tackle E. Heiner to the ground.

Thankfully, Larry missed E. Heiner, but he did end up smacking his head on the doorknob. After that, Larry slumped to the floor, unconscious and blood gooshing out of a huge cut on his forehead. After a terrifying, silent, frozen moment, E. Heiner and I rushed to the unconscious man. We could smell his breath, which reeked of alcohol. He must have been drunk (at 10:00 a.m.!).

But we didn't have time to even think about that. I kicked off my shoes, pulled off my socks, and pressed them against the gash in Larry's head, trying to stop the bleeding. E. Heiner ran upstairs to the phone and called 911. I remember just sitting on the floor, holding Larry's head, watching the blood seep through my socks, and thinking that if nobody came soon I wouldn't know what to do.

Thankfully, paramedics arrived just a few minutes later. When they got there, they got a bandage to Larry's head, put him on a stretcher, and wheeled him out to the ambulance. I felt relief, and a little proud of E. Heiner and I for doing what was necessary to save Larry from bleeding to death.

And then the paramedic gave me a lecture. He told me how dumb I had been to stop the bleeding without first protecting myself from potential HIV, Hepatitis, etc. contamination. He told me that I should think about what I was doing before trying to be a hero. I just stood there, bare-footed and blood covering my white shirt and hands, and apologized to the paramedic. Then the he left, driving the ambulance to the nearest ER.

Feeling stupid and hopeless, E. Heiner and I cleaned ourselves up the best we could and washed the blood off the floor, walls, and door. Then we left.

We walked about an hour back to our apartment building. I needed new clothes. I also needed to sit down. But right before we could walk inside the building, a 9-year-old girl ran up to us, calling our names. She was very upset. We asked what was wrong, but she didn't answer - she just grabbed our hands and pulled us just around a corner.

There, laying face down on the asphalt, was a body. He had no head. He had, we found out later, been at a BBQ on the 15th floor and accidentally stumbled over the side of the balcony. His head had exploded on impact. The 9-year-old girl had watched the entire thing happen, and we were the first ones there at the scene.

A bunch of other people got there just seconds. Soon police officers and an ambulance arrived. While they talked to the other people, E. Heiner and I took the girl away from the scene and to her parents' house. She cried the entire way there. Neither E. Heiner nor I spoke. What could we possibly say? All we could do was tell the girl's mother what had happened, and then walk back to our apartment again.

I don't remember anything else about that day, except that I broke down and cried once we finally got in our apartment. I think we may have just gone to bed and slept. There was nothing else we could do.

You know, I don't know why I'm remembering this awful day right now. And I have to be honest, no matter how awful it was to me, it was nothing compared to Larry's day, to the 9-year-old's day, to the day of the fallen man's friends and family.

I remember feeling so helpless. I went on my Mormon mission to help people - because I believe that life, despite its sometimes cruddy moments, is meant to be lived and enjoyed. And looking back, I feel very grateful for all the times I was able to help people.

But on that day, I couldn't help anyone. Yes, we may have saved Larry's life that morning, but that was it. He never let us in his house again. And there was nothing to be done for the fallen man or the girl. Nothing at all.

And I guess that's what I learned - that sometimes, despite all the best intentions in the world, despite every hope of doing something good, sometimes there's nothing that can be done. And in those cases, it's best to just go home, cry, and go to bed.

Of a recovered Laptop and a 2-year-old's bathroom habits

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:29:40 GMT

Now I'm really back to my old EW browsing, LJ-participating, Aldora-building self. Because now I have my computer again.

You see, once I returned home from Bear Lake (I'll post some pics soon), although I wanted to get back to my fantasy, fiction-loving self, I couldn't. My brother had stolen my laptop and taken it to San Diego. Oh he cited all sorts of crazy excuses ("We only have one laptop between the two of us, and I needed it more"), but nothing could change the fact that he had my computer and I was rendered a bit helpless for the past 5 days.

But now I have it back, and I'm able to do work again (in a 95 degree office since the damn air conditioner busted and the landlord's being unbelievably slow in fixing it).

My mom loves to tell stories about my brother and I. Especially about when we were younger, and especially if they somehow involve church. Well, here's my favorite:

We were in the middle of church, and someone was up at the podium giving a talk (I was about 6 and my brother was 3). Everyone's quiet because they are either 1. Listening to the speaker (about 10%), 2. Silently wondering if church will get out 15 minutes early (35%) 3. or asleep (55%). Well, in the middle of all this, my brother suddenly decided that he had to go to the bathroom. So my mom starts working her way to the aisle (we were in the middle of the pews) with him, when he suddenly shouts to her:

"Mom, I want to pee standing up like my brother!"

Well, that got everyone's attention. My mom nodded and tried to quietly tell my brother that everything would be take care of, but he didn't get it. He though she hadn't heard. So he shouted again, making sure to be extra loud this time:

"No Mom! I want to pee standing up like my brother!"

And he repeated it again, and again, and again - louder, louder, and louder - until my mom finally got him out of the chapel and into the hall, heading toward the bathrooms.

That story always cracks me up. But now I have my own version to add to it.

My 2-year-old wants to pee standing up like his brother. But there are some complications - Sammy's still in diapers, and he doesn't get the whole going to the bathroom thing yet. But he's remarkably creative, and he's figured out a way to make himself happy. Here's the transcript:

- He walks into the bathroom, raises the lid of the toilet, and steps in front.
- He pulls up his shirt
- He grabs his belly button, pulls it out, and aims it at the open toilet
- He stands there for a few seconds
- He lets go of his belly button, pulls his shirt back down, and flushes the toilet
- After closing the lid, he walks to the kitchen, pulls a chair back to the bathroom, stands on the chair, turns on the sink, and runs his hands through the water
- He shuts off the water, steps down, and takes the chair back to the kitchen
- He then finds either me or my wife and proudly proclaims: " 'ammy go potty. Belly Button."

And that, ladies and gents, is how my two-year-old shows his desire to go pee standing up like his brother. Amazing isn't it?

Sadness, Goodbyes ... Utah will love you forever, Fish

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:04:57 GMT

You know how it is when you're on vacation - you totally get out of the loop of everything that's going on in the world (or even in your home state).

So imagine my shock to look at my paper this afternoon and see that the Jazz have just released Derek Fisher. It's unbelievable. I don't even know what to say. But read on, my friends, for the greatest, most heartbreaking, unbelievable sports story I've ever heard in my life. I don't know if Lou Gehrig's goodbye speech can even match this:

So, particularly to my international friends who don't know a lick about basketball, I hope this all makes sense.

The Utah Jazz (my basketball team) made a trade last summer for Derek Fisher. Everyone was excited about the trade. The Jazz were a very young and inexperienced team, but one with a lot of talent. All they needed was a mature guy to help the young team learn what it takes to be winners. By all accounts, Fish was going to be the guy. He had a reputation around the NBA as one of the best locker room guys in the league, a real leader.

And it worked. Fisher mentored the Jazz's hotshot 2nd year point guard, gave the team real stability and confidence, and the Jazz made the playoffs for the first time in 4 years. Life seemed good.

But then things got really crazy.

During the final few days of the Jazz first playoff series, Fisher suddenly disappeared from all practices. The Jazz PR dudes gave no explanation, just that Fisher was attending to "personal matters."

Well, the Jazz won that first series, and went on to the next round of the playoffs. In the first game of the next series, Fisher was missing. Again, the official word was that he was attending to "personal matters." No other explanation.

Then he missed the next two practices.

Then he's gone for game two. So what happens in game 2? Deron Williams (the Jazz hotshot point guard) gets two fouls in the first 50 seconds. So he's taken out of the game. Since Fisher's gone (he's usually the guy that backs up Williams), the Jazz put in Dee Brown, their 3rd stringer. 3 minutes later, Brown gets into a freak collision with a teammate that ends up putting Brown on a stretcher headed to the nearest hospital because of a neck injury (thankfully there was no permanent injury. Honestly it looked like Brown's neck snapped in the collision).

For a while everyone was freaked out that Brown would be paralyzed, but soon the report came that the X-rays were negative, and it's just a sprained neck, not a snapped spinal cord. So relief sinks in, only to be tempered by the knowledge that the Jazz have no point guard (the most important position in basketball). Williams is on the bench because of foul trouble, Brown's in the hospital, and who knows where the hell Fisher is. And this awful dread starts to sink in, because the Jazz are losing and if they lose this game, everybody thinks the other team's going to win the series.

And then, just after half-time, just as Williams gets sent to the bench for foul trouble again, this enormous roar erupts from the crowd (I got chills watching the game on TV), and the camera focuses on ... Derek Fisher entering the arena. The Jazz coach takes one look at him and sends him out to play - no warmup, nothing. And slowly, but surely, the game starts to turn around. The Jazz are back in it. For the rest of the second half the teams battle back and forth.

Then, with about 15 seconds left in the game and the Jazz down by 2 points, Derek Fisher forces the other team's star player to step out of bounds. Jazz ball. They get it to Williams, who scores a running shot to tie the game, and it goes to overtime.

Then in overtime, Fisher hits a huge 3-pointer to give the Jazz the lead for good. Jazz win. They would have lost had Fisher not shown up at half-time.

Then Fisher drops the bomb on the post-game interview: he's been in New York for the past 5 days because his 9-month old daughter has been diagnosed with an extremely rare and bizarre cancer behind her eye. The first major surgery on her eye was that morning. As soon as it was over and everything looked good, Fisher's wife convinced him to jump on the first plane to Salt Lake City and get to the game. Which he did.

So, during the rest of the playoffs Fisher is commuting between New York and Salt Lake, scared to death that his daughter's going to lose her eye (likely) or even die (very possible). So how does Fisher play during the rest of this series? He scores 20 and 21 points in games 3 & 4, eventually leading the Jazz to win the series in 5 games. And so the Jazz go to the Western Conference finals for the first time in 9 years (where they lose to San Antonio).

Well, now it's the off-season. Apparently Fisher had a talk with his daughters doctors and asked what hospitals and medical staff would be qualified to continue the treatment on his daughter. They give a list of about 5 different places, none of which is in Salt Lake City. So Fisher immediately goes to the Jazz owner and asks to be released from his contract.

That's right - Fisher gave up the final $24 million dollars on his contract so that he can move to a city that has the right doctors for his daughter.

And that's it. The whole story.

From the heroics in the playoffs to walking away from basketball - possibly forever (though not likely - some team's going to sign him, though for not even remotely close to $24 million).

With all the putzes in the world of sports - all the self-absorbed, disgustingly rich SOB's - it is wonderful to know that there are some people who still have their priorities right. To know that there are guys still rooted to real life enough that they make the right decision without even thinking about it.

So goodbye, Fish. Utah will miss you. But we all hope and pray for your daughter. And we all respect you even that much more for what you walked away from.

I'm home ... and nobody in my wife's family has killed me

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 06:55:18 GMT

There's this part in My Big Fat Greek Wedding that really cracks me up. It's when Toula is talking to Ian about her family. She asks him if he has any cousins, and he says he has two in Wisconsin. Then she exclaims: "I have 23 first cousins. First cousins alone!"

Well, how about this: My wife has 68 first cousins. 68 First Cousins Alone! (for reference, I have 17 first cousins, and I consider my family to be fairly small - maybe this is just another example about how Hollywood may be *gasp* out of touch with ordinary people's lives).

So, I was up at Bear Lake, enjoying myself with my wife's grandparents, 10 of their 11 children (and spouses) and about ... 35 (I think) of my wife's cousins. The sad part is that Emilee's cousins who are about our age are married, poor, and living far away (Texas and Maryland), so they weren't able to come. That was sad. But at least her Aunt Kristy (who is 14 months younger than me) was there. She's a hoot (as is her husband, Jason). We spent a good bit of time making fun of Kristy's more serious and older siblings who got really ornery yesterday about whether we were going to have spaghetti or leftovers for dinner.

And despite all the fun, I was able to make it through without being strangled by anyone. You see, we're all Mormon, and my wife's family is very, very, very serious about our religion. And while I'm a believer through and through and honestly try to be devout ... (most of the time ^_~) ... I've also got this awful, wicked, sacrilegous sense of humor that really grates on her family sometimes.

I kept it in line most of the time. Except for when I complained that God really botched the mountains around Bear Lake because there just wasn't a pristine lookout that gave a nice view of the entire lake - rocks and cliffs and stuff kept blocking my view. Unfortunately some of my wife's relatives didn't understand that I was being funny. It really was funny. I promise, if they would have lightened up just a bit, it would have been laugh-out-loud funny. *sigh*

But oh well. I did manage to not get too sacrilegous during the trip, and my wife can live another year knowing that she hasn't been disowned for marrying me. ^_~

Halleluja!

O, the Tales in my head

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:09:15 GMT

Just for the fun of it, I decided to write up short descriptions of all the major novels that I have in my head and hope to, one day, finish. The first two listed, Legend of the Whisper Wood and Resurrecting the Scarlet Avenger are the ones I am actively working on right now. I hope to have Whisper Wood finished right around the new year (since it's rather short), and then I'll look at moving on.

Since I have no idea what I'll work on next, if you have any preferences, you can let me know. I may not do it (I never know where my muse is going to lead me next), but you never know: I may. Anyway, I hope the short blurbs for these are moderately interesting.

Legend of the Whisper Wood

(A working title - I really want to come up with a different one)

A fairy tale from my mythical Whisper Wood - where the people fly and live in the tops of 10,000-foot trees, where the Dryads appear at the forest bed at every sunset, where dragons roam the far mountains.

Actually, I don't know how to describe this without giving things away (that's what happens when the premise is shown bit-by-bit as the story progresses). Let's just say that it's the story of Princess Fauna, a farmer named Paladin, a king, a Dryad, and a nameless dragon lord.

Novels of Aldora:

Aldora is the world for the web community I designed and started. If anyone is really curious about the world, you can find out all the basic stuff here. I've also designed a rudimentary map that shows the basics of the world's layouts. Below are the novels I hope to write that take place in this world:

Resurrecting the Scarlet Avenger:

This novel takes place about 25 years after an enormoush war between the Elves of Horeti and the Humans of the Demurran Empire. The war was an utter disaster for both sides and ended in armistice: that is, the fighters simply dropped their weapons and went home. The consequences of the war fractured the human nations, and human civilization, for the most part, fell apart. The larger cities remained fairly stable, but most rural areas became completely isolated.

A man from an isolated town in the mountains of northern Heath returned from the war with an infant elf he calls Martin. He gave no explanation. As the novel begins, Martin (now 25 years old) arrives in the town to visit his father only to discover that his father has been murdered. Exiled from his home, Martin (and a childhood friend, Alicia, whose family died at the same time Martin's family was murdered) travel back to the land of the elves, where they stumble in the middle of a small war between two elvish tribes struggling to rediscover the technology and mysteries of the lost elvish civilization of Ancient Elisar.

The novel focuses primarily on 1) Martin's and Alicia's attempts to reconstruct the life stories of their parents, relying only on their memories, 2) Martin's newfound friendship with the leaders of one of the two elvish tribes, a man who is attempting to "resurrect" the old elvish legend of the Scarlet Avenger to help his tribe win the war, and 3) the effects the two tribes experience as they spend all their resources trying to reclaim the mysteries of the great elvish civilization, which fell more than 3000 years ago.

A Night of Fallen Stars:

The story of Prince Jaren, and takes place in the desert nation of Devenney. He's kind of a spoiled brat who's involved with an underground revolution to overthrow his father (he's involved, not out of ideology, but simply because he feels like being "anti-king"). As the revolution starts to make its first plans, however, an infamous half-blood witch sweeps into the capital city and assassinates the crown prince. In a rage, the king orders Jaren to hunt down and brinig the witch back for execution.

The novel focuses on Jaren's relationship with the half-blood witch, the truth of her origins, and how these two things end up inspiring the Queen of Devenney (two generations later) to make her nation the first in Aldora to officially recognize the rights of the half-bloods and grant them full citizenship.

A Song for the Fallen Angels:

My unbelievably poor attempt at an epic fantasy (I've really had a hard time writing this, even though I want to). A young woman has magical powers, even though she isn't a half-blood (in Aldora, this is totally against nature). She's found by a society of sorcerers who take her back to their little enclave and end up working to suck her into something really sinister going on behind the scenes.

The story is actually that of the woman's younger brother, a young man with absolutely no significant abilities other than a really nice singing voice and a good sense of poetry. He gets taken with his sister to the enclave, watches her get sucked in, discovers the things really going on, and then has to figure out a way to stop it because, even though he's got nothing to fight with, he's the only one who has seen what's going on.

The Achuri War:

During the high point of Elvish civilization, the elves discover another tribe (the Achuri) that settled at some far off isles. The main elves decide that the Achuri have become degenerate and barbaric, and they launch a campaign to exterminate them, which ultimately succeeds. However, one of the military leaders of the main elves disagrees with the war, commits treason, and leads the Achuri forces against the elvish onslaught. The military leader, and all those who went with him, is killed with the Achuri tribe.

This novel actually takes place about 10 years after the war, when a group of elvish researchers are sent to the isles of the Achuri to gather information, map out the islands, etc. While they are there, they discover the journal of the treasonous military leader. The novel details the researchers' exploration of the islands, as well as what they learn as they read through in the journal about the military leader's reasons for committing treason, his experiences with the now extinct Achuri, his efforts at leading what he knew was a doomed cause, and his final thoughts and actions before his death and the final extermination of the Achuri.

Novels from a Dystopian Earth, about 3 centuries in the future

In my dystopia, all the nations of earth have been united under a single political system (though obviously, the world is too big for complete political or social homogeny). A less extreme Nazi-ish class system has developed, with distinct upper, middle, and lower classes. The economic and education systems are tightly controlled, so the upper class always go to schools that teach them business and political government and management, the middle class schools train people for the ordinary jobs and lives, and the lower class schools train people for the undesirable positions in society. Undesirables are euthanized. There is no movement up, but people can be moved down for violating rules.

Exploration and colonization of other solar systems has just begun, and the upper classes are given exclusive opportunities to colonize, while the middle and lower classes are stuck on the polluted, worn out earth. This colonization makes the potentially violent resentment of the middle and lower classes, which had been barely suppressed to this point, begin to erupt.

Utopia:

(Note: that's a working title that I absolutely hate. I'll come up with something better someday

Two middle-class young men attending a middle-class college become friends. Both hopelessly idealistic, they start a kind of underground organization of fellow students from around the world. Their mission: steal a colonizing star ship and start a new, ideal society on a new world.

In the beginning, as they plan what an ideal society should be like - socially, structurally, governmentally, environmentally, etc. (all aspects) - they decide to have a two-pronged approach. A large group goes in the colonizing ship, while a small group stays behind in the hopes that, eventually and likely over centuries, they can change earth's society to the ideal.

Then they steal the ship, and leave, their whereabouts known only to the few who remain behind. The bulk of the novel will be after the colonizing ship reaches its destination and will detail the efforts at building this ideal society - the struggles, the triumphs, the parts that ultimately fail, and the parts that ultimately succeed. At the same time, they receive periodic messages from those who remained behind (who have also long-since died - the effects of relativity, and the fact that even the transmissions can only go so fast). Of the original two young college students, one goes on the ship, and the other stays behind.

Voyage of the Salutrades:

Inspired by the theft of the colonizing ship in the story above (the powers-that-be attempt to keep the incident mum, but only partially succeed), another group of young, idealistic middle and lower classes attempt a similar plot, though less well-organized.

They infiltrate a colonizing starship (mostly as mechanics, janitors, etc.) and, mid-flight, attempt to hijack the ship. The initial plan was to take over the ship and force the upper-class colonists in a shuttle back to earth. But during the hijack attempt, things go very wrong, the shuttles are destroyed, the ship is irrevocably damaged, and they end up being hurtled into space without aim.

Amid all the damage, it appears that the ship will lose life-support functions within 10-15 years. The novel is about those 10-15 years: how the hijackers and colonists are able to make ammends (or not, depending on the individuals), what kind of lives the people choose over those years, how they react to the certainty of death in the not-so-distant future, and so forth. I've had the ending scene to this novel in my head for about 10 years now.

The Prophetess:

(Another working title)

As the colonization continues, a woman from the poorest middle-class areas in earth, suddenly claims that she has had revelations from God (Earth is almost completely secular in my version of the future) and has been instructed to organize a new religion. Her life - though certainly NOT the religion she establishes - will be LOOSELY based on the life of Joseph Smith.

The novel is from the POV of a skeptic, who nevertheless can't help but be drawn toward the woman and her seemingly unbelievable claims. He eventually becomes the prophetess's most trusted helper (even though he never decides whether he believes her or not) and ends up leading the fledgling religion to colonize a several planets (they develop the skills and resources by themselves to do the colonizing even without the approval and resources of the upper-class powers-that-be).

The two things that appeal to me are the faith/skepticism of the main character (I have never understood absolute, unwaverable faith. But I completely understand wavering, uncertain, and fragile faith), and the sheer fun of inventing a completely new religion, independent of previous religious beliefs (this is why I want the dystopian world to be very secular). What fun if I can pull it off well and believably.

So there they are: the Opi of Jon Midget. Hopefully I'll get to them all someday.

So I guess I must be illiterate

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:10:22 GMT

I'm guessing that I'm not the only one who's ever been treated like this, but it really pissed me off.

Some lady sent me an email regarding Aldora that pretty much dissed me (and my publishing company) because (a) my company is small and (b) I'm from Utah. And actually the most obnoxious rip was about me. She stated that she would never trust anyone who studied English at the University of Utah - that she'd be terrified to see what I consider good literature and grammar. She also scoffed at the idea that my co. is going to publish a book of the best short stories on Aldora because it won't be distributed as much as, say, a book published by Tor.

I didn't respond, because anything I said would just sound like the rant of a petty, defensive yahoo. But it did make me feel petty, defensive, and yahoo-ish.

So, because I'm from Utah, apparently I'm illiterate, eh? I'd like her to compare the literacy rates of the Salt Lake City area with, say, the overall literacy rate of New York City. Or Detroit. That would be good.

And, I suppose, the University of Utah must be a cruddy school. Maybe I should give her the email addresses for Prof. Horwitz (Ph.D. U California), Prof. Osherow (Ph.D. Princeton - B.A. Harvard (Magna Cum Laude)), Prof. Camois (Ph.D. UMass), Prof. Matheson (Ph.D. Oxford) so this woman can tell them how uneducated and illiterate they all are.

Fact: US World and New Report ranked the University of Utah as tied for 16th best creative writing program in the United States (2005 survey). Now I know these rankings are rather bogus, but one of the major criteria is the reputation of a given program. Obviously, within the ranks of creative writing academia, my beloved U of U is rather reputable. What's more the U of U is a flagship University, one of the few in the world that offer a Ph.D. specifically in creative writing. Eat your heart out lady.

As for the other rant, yes my co. is small. Yes we have only enough money to print about 6 titles, 3000 copies each. But so what. As the books sell, we'll do more printings and circulation will get bigger. Besides, 95% of the literary magazines in the U.S. have a circulation of fewer than 2000. Does anyone start dissing these? Do authors shun them? Is there no prestige to being published in one of these?

Hell no! You ask any creative writing instructor in the world and they'll tell you that these lit magazines are a great place to start. They're the way to start gaining publishing credentials and becoming a known, well-regarded author. They have prestige. So why is my expected Aldora book any different? No, we're not going to have 15 million pre-orders like the final Harry Potter book, but neither J.K. Rowling's first one.

So, there's my rant.

It annoys me that my company was dissed. But it aggravated me even more that for some reason, because I'm from Utah and studied at the University of Utah, some people apparently think I'm an illiterate bumpkin incapable of producing either a coherent sentence or a cohesive plot.

Oh well. I feel better now. Even if it did take a bit of defensive, petty, yahoo-ishness to get it off my chest.

Everything I need to know I learned in Canada: 1

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:38:08 GMT

These "...I learned in Canada" entries are mostly for me, since I actually don't know if they'd interest anyone else. Though if you find them interesting, then I'll be thrilled and happy to hear. Anyway, here's what it's about:

Ten years ago I was an LDS (Mormon) missionary in Ontario, Canada. I was there for 2 years, and spent my time in Chatham (2 months), Hamilton/Stoney Creek (4 months), Brantford (5 months), Brampton (7 months), and Burlington (6 months). It was an amazing 2 years, the time in my life that I learned most of what I know about Life, the Universe, and Everything (according to me).

Now, 10 years later, one of my best friends was sent to the exact same place for her mission. And so it's gotten me thinking about my time there. Particularly because, even though Katie's been there for just a short time now, she's already written about crazy experiences that just make me nod my head and say "I remember times like that."

So here's the beginning of my memories and things I learned in Canada.

The most important person to my mission, without question, is a woman named Alice. She's kind of the main story of my entire two years there (or at least 22 months of them). But I won't get into all that right now. This is just a small bit of my time teaching her.

She was from the Philippines. She had lived in Canada for about 10 years when I met her. She worked as a housekeeper in a nursing home. A hard job of long hours, lots of weekends spent at work, and not a lot of pay. She wished she could have more time to spend with her children (two daughters, 14 and 12 at the time).

One day, I was chatting with her and I asked about her life back in the Philippines. She started talking about her family, going to school - all the stuff I expected to hear about. Then she told me about her job that she had held: the CFO of a small non-profit organization that helped get books into the some of isolated and poverty-stricken schools.

I was stunned. And then I was ashamed that I was stunned.

You see, nothing about Alice's story had been really surprising to me up to that point. She spoke with a Tagalog accent, she worked as a housekeeper, she didn't have a lot of money or time. I mean, that's the story of dark-skinned immigrants, isn't it? They have a cruddy life back in the homeland, they come to the Americas, and work hard jobs the rest of their lives, just happy to know that their children will have a better life.

I had never even realized how I had so thoughtlessly pushed Alice's life into this stereotyped story. I certainly didn't think of her as just "some immigrant" or anything like that. I knew her as a person. But her life had been mentally categorized and stored away in my mind.

And then she shattered the story. I suddenly really understood that she was educated, that she had held more prestigious jobs in the past, that her position as a housekeeper didn't really tell her story. I had to revise what I thought about her, and I'm still ashamed about how much I had to revise.

I had never considered myself a racist. I have always considered myself a rather open-minded fellow. But I was, in some ways, just fooling myself. Because I try to fit people into categories just as much as the next person. Because I accepted bogus, stereotyped little narratives as people's life stories just as much as anyone else.

But the experience also gave me a bit of hope. Maybe being a decent person, someone who fights against things like racism and all its ugly siblings, isn't a matter of miraculously being above such pettiness. Maybe it's a matter of recognizing everyone's impulse accept stereotypes (including my own) and then working to confront, violate, and break those stereotypes down.

Alice is a wonderful person. My opinion of her went even higher when I learned more about her life in the Philippines. I wish it hadn't - I wish I had thought so highly even before I knew about her CFO position - but it did. And I think I'm the better for it.

Fiction from the Gods: The Tombs of Atuan

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:14:27 GMT

I mentioned to ladylight that one day I'll do the granddaddy of all Stupid Book Competitions: Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time vs. Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth. The subtitle for this competition would be: "the awful, way-too-long, completely screwed up series that killed my belief in fantasy vs. the other awful, way-too-long, completely screwed up series that killed my belief in fantasy." But, as I said, that competition is for another day (one in which I have a LONG time to write).

But right now I'm going to write about a different book. A wonderful little book. One that is absolutely connected to the two awful series listed above because when I read it, six years after giving up on fantasy completely, I believed again.

Title: The Tombs of Atuan
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Reason to Start: Because it's the first non-hack fantasy I had read in more than a decade.
Reason to Finish: Music in every sentence. Thought behind every plot movement. Character development in every interaction. Realizing there's more to fantasy than killing the evil warlord.

Maybe I'm too literary-literate (that's a word?). Maybe I shouldn't have studied creative writing at a University. Maybe I shouldn't have studied at as such a well-regarded a creative writing program as I did.

That's what I thought sometimes.

Because, you see, I wanted to write about magic. About elves. About myths and legends. And you just can't write about those kind of things in a prestigious creative writing program and not get bullied about. But I can't really blame my professors. I had a lot to learn. And what I learned, although it wasn't in a formal lesson, was how awful the best-selling fantasy of the day really was. It was hopeless, derivative, a pale shadow of a brilliant original. It was the same (the EXACT SAME) damn story told over and over and over again. It was filled with characters who I liked because the author told me to like them, villains who were evil because "evil" was the adjective appendaged to them, boy+girl=sex masquerading as romance and real relationships. Novels, characters, philosophy, ideas, and even magic made out of cardboard and papier mache.

And so, fantasy was a dead genre, as far as I could tell. When I tried to write it, I did so without faith because I believed nobody would ever be interested in my original ideas. They just wanted hack xeroxes of brainless hack fantasy. My professors tried to help me: tried to steer me to 'literary fiction,' tried to help me find a way to fit magic into more serious stuff. But it was a failure. I can't write a story about lesbian grad students talking in a cafe about how postmodern they are. I just CAN'T DO IT! I tried so hard to make myself fit in. I sent out a dozen applications to MFA creative writing programs, all to be rejected.

And what did I expect? I knew I could write well, but I also knew that if I tried to do fantasy, I was a lone wolf doomed to write what nobody else wanted to read, but if I tried to write 'literary fiction' it was doomed to fail because nobody can really write what their passion is not into.

So what did I do? I went to a different school and studied physics.

But something else happened. In my final creative writing class at the University of Utah, after I learned that I wasn't going to be working on an MFA anytime soon, my professor mentioned Ursula K. Le Guin. According to my professor, she wrote 'literary fiction' but borrowed elements from fantasy and sci-fi. But don't get her wrong, my prof warned us, she's a 'literary fiction' writer.

I had read Le Guin before. I had read A Wizard of Earthsea. But though I thought it was interesting, I didn't really like it. It just didn't quite work.

But if Le Guin had the approval of my creative writing professors, then maybe she was worth a second look. At least it might give me a hint of how I could possibly make my stories, the kind of fantasy I wanted to write, work.

So I picked up the sequel to Wizard, a little novel called The Tombs of Atuan.

Within the first 2 pages I knew I had discovered something wonderful. Le Guin knew how to write. She knew how to make prose sound like music, how to describe a little girl running among apple trees in such a way that I felt like I was dancing too, how to briefly show the heartbreak of two parents doomed to lose this little girl forever in such a way that I felt like crying. I wanted to shout for joy: she was a fantasy writer who actually did all the little nuances I had spent 5 years studying.

And then I read on. The story was new. No evil tyrant who needed to be thwarted. No magic sword. No long-bearded wizard giving arcane and obscure advice. No squabbling twenty-somethings who were going to end up in a steamy sex scene one chapter later. No magic sword. No noble thief. No heroic, good-hearted prostitute. No peasant with a secret, hidden destiny to be king. It was new.

So what's it about? A girl, taken from her home at about 4-5 years old, taken to Atuan to become the high priestess of an ancient religion that nobody even believes in anymore. She loses her family, and even her name, to become Ahra, the Eaten One, the priestess reborn. And she grows up in Atuan, learns that the other high-priestesses don't even believe in the religion anymore. They believe only in power and maintaining it. And she gets angry, because in the Tombs of Atuan there IS a presence there. The Old Powers. The Nameless Ones. There in the dark, where only she can go, they are really there. And, she believes, they must be worshipped.

And then one day a young man, a wizard, Ged, breaks into the tombs to steal its greatest treasure. And as Ahra learns what he's doing, she has to revise everything she knows about the Nameless Ones, she has to decide what she really believes in, and in the end she has to rediscover her name: Tenar.

It is a magnificent story. It's about good vs. evil, but there are no labels. It's a love story, though there are no sex scenes, there is no romance, and the protagonists don't end up together. It's a moral story, about right and wrong, but there is no lesson to summarize.

And when I read it, I felt like shouting. Yes, there is a place for what I want to write. Yes, the great fantasy stories have NOT already been told. Yes, great stories can be about magic.

And I believed again.

And that set me on the path where I am today. I joined Elfwood, I created Aldora, I'm writing the story of Martin, Alicia, Kailar, and Raya, the story of Paladin, Fauna, Damarion, and Nameless, the story of Seraph, Delaran, Kalis, Sierra, Aloria, and Delira, hell, I'm writing this Live Journal, I'm a member of talechasing, I've become friends with fellow Elfwood writers—I'm doing all these things because I read that one book.

Thank you Ms. Le Guin. Thank you for Tombs of Atuan.

Turning the Hack into something Magic

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:33:13 GMT

There's few things as comforting as knowing that I've no EW or LJ friends that write hack fantasy. We all know the kind: instead of conflict there's violence; instead of theme there's cliche; instead of moral complexity there's superficiality; instead of characters there are cariacatures; instead of emotional engage there's sentimentality.

These are the kinds of books that made me, about 10 years ago, turn away from fantasy. I believed it could do nothing for me anymore.

Thankfully I've learned to believe again. I've learned that the complexity of fantasy has only barely begun to be realized, that most of the great stories have yet to be told.

But I want to turn to hack fantasy. Imagine a very traditional story: Someone has to save the world. Demonic creatures are hunting the hero at every turn. The hero develops a romance with someone of the opposite sex. Etc., etc., etc. We all know the type.

Well, I had an idea to make it better. To add something to it that I've never encountered before in traditional, epic, run-of-the-mill fantasy.

You see, I took my 5-year-old on a hike last Friday. The trailhead's about 5 minutes away from my house, and it follows a stream up the canyon. It's about 2 miles long, climbs about 1500 feet, involves a couple entertaining rock-climbing instances, and ends at a 40-foot waterfall. Patch, my son, did remarkably well. It usually takes me about 2 hours to do the hike, and it only took 3 hours with him coming with me. But there was one moment that really struck me:

We were on our way down, and we had to go down a steep dirt slope. Patch slipped, pulling me down too. We both started sliding down toward a little drop-off that leads right to the creek. I grabbed onto Patch's arm with one hand and tried to steady myself with the other, but it wasn't working. We only slowed, we weren't stopping. As we kept sliding I realized that if I let go of Patch I could easily stop myself and stand back up, but then he'd go tumbling into the creek. But if I didn't let go, I wasn't sure if either of us could avoid getting wet.

Now we were hardly in real danger. From the drop-off it was about 3 feet to the creek, which was all of about 8 inches deep. But we'd get wet, and the stream was cold (it's snow run-off), and Patch would probably scrape a knee or something and get really upset, and the rest of the hike out of the canyon would be miserable.

We made it out okay. I was able to grab a tree and pull both of us back to our feet, but it made me really start thinking:

What if the hero in this traditional fantasy story wasn't a single, 20-something. What if it was a father. What if it was a widower. What if he was about 45 (still WAY older than me, no matter what my wife may claim), had married late, and had two children, 6 and 3 years old. What if he had to take them with him. What if the evil creatures lurking around every corner went after his kids first. What if he spent most of the travel-time switching off which of the two he carried and which sat on a little pack pony. And what if he spent the entire story terrified that he'll have to choose whether to save the world or save his children.

Now THAT is a run-of-the-mill fantasy story I want to read. Actually, it's one that I want to write someday. I really want to get into the realism of the situation: traveling with two kids, trying to help them stay happy even though the father knows how tired they are, watching the kids sleep by a small campfire and being too afraid to sleep.

I think I will write it. Maybe after I finish Whisper Wood and Scarlet Avenger. And maybe I'll even let the story be as traditional, world-saving as they come (if you've read much of my stuff you'll know that that's saying something: I just dont' write that kind of stuff).

And I want to know what you think. What kind of realism twist would you love to read or write about in a traditional fantasy story? How would you change a traditional, almost cliche story into something new, emotionally relevant, thematically complex, and freshly engaging?

I'd love to know what you all think.

Fiction from the Gods: Ender's Game

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:00:47 GMT

Jason said it best. "Once we read Ender's Game our fate was sealed. We were going to be writers."

And so I'm back in the Pantheon. This is one of my top 3 books ever.

Title: Ender's Game
Author: Orson Scott Card
Reason to Start: "The teacher's are the enemy"
Reason to Finish: To find out how a broken, manipulated, self-loathing, kid who has committed the most atrocious act in the history of mankind can actually come to terms with himself

I've heard that adults sometimes don't like this book. So thank goodness I discovered it when I was 12 years old.

Like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Ender's Game, in summary, sounds stupid: A boy-genius saves mankind from the aliens. So what makes it good? Let's get down to the nitty gritties:

Childhood = Loneliness. I've never read another book, ever, that understands this as well. Nothing in childhood dominates our lives like school. And the purpose in education is 1) to give people broad, general knowledge in all relevant subjects, and 2) to give individuals the opportunity to discover and then perfect talents. But to be good at something is to be alone, because you're always afraid that others are really better; because those you are better than are always intimidated by you; because true excellence requires persistence to the point of antisocial obsession; because friendship requires dink-around - time that gets in the way of perfection. And so, we spend our lives mostly alone.

Ender's Game gets this. Ender is the genius of geniuses. He's sent to Battle School at age 6 with the intent that he will become the greatest military leader in the history of mankind. And once he's there, he is completely on his own. The instructors deliberately isolate him, give him enemies, poison peers against him, manipulate him, and do whatever it takes to make Ender's genius come out. Which is utterly heartbreaking because, above all else, Ender's genius is his ability to understand his enemies so well that he loves them. He desperately wants the connection to other people, and he occasionally gets them: Alai, Dink, Bean, Petra, and above all else, his sister Valentine. But the connections don't last forever.

When Ender cries in his bed, alone, after killing an older boy - an awful boy, no doubt, one who was determined to murder Ender - I cry too. When Ender is ready to give up, I almost wish he would. When Ender is pushed beyond what anyone could ever endure - when he starts chewing on his hand in his sleep until it bleeds, I feel the awful burden he's feeling. When the teachers remove him from friend after friend, filling his lives with enemy after enemy, I want to save him.

But the miracle is that, in the end, Ender turns out to be okay. He's human. He can look himself in the mirror, with all his mistakes, and say "okay, that is me."

This is the greatest book about childhood that I have ever read. The sequel, Speaker for the Dead is probably a better novel. It's definitely more refined. Less harsh.

But I read Ender's Game when I was 12. I was a kid. I was Ender. Not as smart; not as hurt; not as scared; not as alone, this is true. But I was a kid. And so was Ender. And so Ender's story became mine. And, despite it all, I can't help but admire Ender. I admire him for his genius. I admire him for figuring out how to exterminate the buggers, even though that turned out to be his greatest shame. I have read this novel about 25 times, and I never get tired of it.

I love this book.

Quotes:

" 'I know what you're thinking, Ender. You're thinking that I'm trying to control you just as much as Peter or Graff or any of the others.'
" 'It crossed my mind.'
"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.' "

"If we had kissed, it would have been the miracle to make us human in each other's eyes. Instead we killed each other."

"Dink was right, [the teachers] were the enemy, they loved nothing and cared for nothing and he was not going to do what they wanted, he was damn well not going to anything for them. He had had only one memory that was safe, one good thing, and those bastards had plowed it into him with the rest of the manure - and so he was finished, he wasn't going to play."

" 'I told you, Ender's isolation can't be broken. He can never come to believe that anybody will ever help him out, ever. If he thinks there's an easy way out, he's wrecked.' "

" 'I've been trying to figure out why I hate myself so badly ... it came down to this: In the moment when I truly undersstand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them -'
" 'You beat them.'
" 'No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist.' "