Category Archives: Writing

Book Review: 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut

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2BR02B2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many parents of twins or triplets probably feel an odd mix of joy and terror, but what if you had to find someone to agree to die for ever child you brought into the world? What would you do if you were then surprised by twins? This is the clever premise of Vonnegut’s short story / novella. It’s set in a future where people can live forever unless they voluntarily decide to take themselves from the world.

It is typical Vonnegut, written with humor and a touch of darkness.

It’s a great read.

FYI – Pronounce 0 (zero) as “naught” and the name will make sense.

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BOOK REVIEW: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

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First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia RemembersFirst They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Warning: This is about as depressing a book as one can imagine reading. It is told from the author’s perspective as a child during the Khmer Rouge period of Cambodia’s history. Her father had been in the Lon Nol government, and this made life particularly perilous for their family. It follows the family from the day they are forced to leave their comfortable upper-middle-class existence in Phnom Penh through her move to the US. In between, you are shown what its like to be starving (literally), to be a child separated from one’s family, and to see a long string of man’s inhumanity to man.

While it is a sad story, it is well-written and candid.

I was often reminded about what Viktor Frankl wrote (much more eloquently than my paraphrase), that the sad fact that survivors have to live with is the knowledge that the best did not survive. The author tells of the actions that she was not proud of that she was driven to by starvation and life as an orphan.

I highly recommend this book, but be prepared to be sad.

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Book Review: SANCTUARY by Faulkner

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SanctuarySanctuary by William Faulkner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A debutante is kidnapped by a cold-eyed killer. A lawyer leaves his wife to return to his small-town home and gets caught up in the trial of a bootlegger accused of murder. This novel interweaves the tales of the two. It’s a story of murder and white slavery.

Faulkner’s employment of language is phenomenal, often poetic and always visceral. His slate of characters, virtually all of whom are fallen, is masterfully created. It’s immensely readable both with respect to the pace and  intensity of the story and the brilliant use of language.

If you haven’t gotten around to this one, I highly recommend this book.

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2013 Superhero Movies

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2013 will be a big year for superhero flicks. There will be two films in The Avengers domain. The third Iron Man film will be out at the beginning of the summer and Thor: The Dark World is out at year-end. Given my preference for superheroes that don’t wear tights as outer garments, I have to say that Iron Man 3 is shaping up to be my favorite. The Wolverine is also unlikely be in tights in this personification, but I’ll go into that one with low expectations. (Don’t disappoint me again, X-men. Actually, I liked First Class, but the others were making me consider a life of  super-villainy.) I’m not big on gods as heroes, but that’s just me.

I am serious about having high hopes for Iron Man 3. The trailer suggests they are putting Stark in his darkest hour. Hopefully, they won’t entirely lose the trademark humor of the franchise. Having said that, I think some enhanced tension could be good. I don’t know why they couldn’t find a Chinese guy to play Mandarin, but it’s a good arch-villain and will be mirrored by some brawn. (I’m not down on Ben Kingsley. I loved him in Ghandi. I just think we should have left casting Caucasians for non-Caucasian parts with 1950’s Westerns.)

I recently did a post on the Man of Steel. As I suggested, I like my superheroes more flawed and vincible (it’s  a word, and it doesn’t mean capable of being turned into a Vince.) It sounds like they’ve made efforts to build tension, but in the trailer we pretty much see that as superman v. man conflict (which doesn’t sound like a thrill-ride.)  I’m leaving room to be pleasantly surprised.

The most tight-lipped franchise is that of Kickass 2. I don’t know if that should be taken ominously or not. They may have been so surprised by response to the first that they don’t want to jinx things.

Iron Man 3 (May 3)

Man of Steel (June 14)

Kickass 2 (June 28)

The Wolverine (July 26)
(This is not a trailer, but it’s a summation of movie’s development that is humorous in places.)

Thor: The Dark World (Nov 8)
Also not a trailer

Book Review: We Are Soldiers Still

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We Are Soldiers StillWe Are Soldiers Still by Harold G. Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a mix of the story of meetings between American and Vietnamese military men a couple of decades after the war and a treatise on leadership and war –plus some filler material. It’s a follow-up to a book written by the same authors on the Battle of Ia Drang, We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. That book was the subject of a movie starring Mel Gibson.

Both parts of the book are interesting, but this book is at its best when it discusses the meetings with Vietnamese officers. General Moore (Lt. Col. at the time of Ia Drang) gets to meet with the opposing commander at Ia Drang, Lt. Gen. Nyugen Hu An, and get his perspective on the battle. While the meetings go from being tentative to cordial with changing political winds, one gets a feel for the tension and the melting away of those tensions. With the latter meetings, additional U.S. fighters from Ia Drang are present, and not all have as easy of a time letting bygones be bygones as Gen. Moore. The group of U.S. soldiers spends the night on the Ia Drang battlefield (in an area that was near the border and not entirely settled at the time of their return.)

I don’t wish to suggest that the second part, which talks about leadership strategies and views on war, is not worthwhile, but it very much felt like padding to get the book up to a salable thickness. Gen. Moore is obviously quite competent to address these subjects, but the shift in the book is glaring and jarring.

This is very different kind of book than its predecessor. If you are expecting a tale of war, that’s not what you’ll find. If you are interested about how mortal enemies can be come close friends, you’ll find this book intriguing.

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10 of My Favorite Quotes on Writing

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Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. –Kurt Vonnegut

 

Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for. –Mark Twain

 

The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.  –Ray Bradbury

 

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. –Elmore Leonard

 

The first draft of anything is shit.—Ernest Hemingway.

 

Omit needless words. –William Strunk

 

The only rule for writing I have is to leave it while I’m still hot… –William Faulkner

 

Whoever wants to tell a story of a sainted grandmother, unless you can find some old love letters, and get a new grandfather?  –Robert Penn Warren

 

When you write the thing through once, you find out what the end is. Then you can go back to the first chapter and put in a lot of those foreshadowings. –Flannery O’Connor

 

As far as I’m concerned the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.  –Neil Gaiman

Book Review: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1)The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) follows an earthling, Arthur Dent, as he is introduced to galactic hitchhiking by a Betegeusian named Ford Prefect. This duo joins the other sole-remaining human and the Galactic president aboard a stolen ship. Along with a chronically depressed robot, the group gets to the bottom of life’s grandest questions.

I just finished re-reading this book. I wouldn’t have figured there was any reason to review a 34-year-old book. To my knowledge, there isn’t another movie in the works. Surely, everyone who is likely to read it already has, right? Young people like new stuff, and if you’re… let’s say… youthfulness-challenged and haven’t gotten around to it then it’s probably not your cup of tea (which, sad so say, means you are likely devoid of a sense of humor.)

Then I saw a “best in 2012” list by genre, and H2G2 was on it. Yes, I realize that “best-seller” lists are a euphemism for “most-printed” and are not a perfect indicator. Of course, when I went to look for said list, I was unable to re-discover it. It may have been the “top 20 books used to prop up the corner of a coffee table” for all I can prove. However, in looking for the list, I did find H2G2 on a lot of other lists including best-selling books of all time and most popular sci-fi of all time.

In short, read this book.

I don’t want to give a lot of spoilers, but here are just a few of the things H2G2 will do for you:

-It tells you the answer to life, the universe, and everything. (Now everything else will be anti-climactic and thus stress-free.)

-You’ll never look at a mouse the same way.

-It tells you what you need in order to hitchhike through the Milky Way (Spoiler alert: a towel.)

What more could one want from a book? (If you say vampires or zombies, I’ll choke you through your USB port.)

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Wisdom in 5 Simple Lessons

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Confucius statue at the Confucian Temple, Beijing

Confucius statue at the Confucian Temple, Beijing

1.) Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle –Plato

2.) If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you need blame no man.  –Epictetus

3.) …the greatest carver does the least cutting.  –Lao Tzu

4.) If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures.  –Martin Luther King Jr

5.) A gentleman wishes to be slow to speak and quick to do.  –Confucius

Angkor Photos, Part 2

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More photos from my October 2012 visit to Angkor in Cambodia.

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Thommanom

Thommanom

Ta Som

Ta Som

Ta Som? or perhaps Preah Khan

Ta Som? or perhaps Preah Khan

Neak Pean

Neak Pean

Ta Som (I think)

Ta Som (I think)

Ta Som (I'm not sure how this happened, it was a purely accidental effect.)

Ta Som (I’m not sure how this happened, it was a purely accidental effect.)

Ta Som

Ta Som

Rice paddies near the East Baray

Rice paddies near the East Baray

Buddha near Srah Srang

Buddha near Srah Srang

Pre Rup

Pre Rup

NASA Finds Poetry by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings.

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The poetry of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England was thought to have been completely lost when the Earth was demolished to make way for an interstellar expressway. However, a scrap was found adrift in space. Scientists believe the sheer awfulness of the poem may have made it impervious to incineration, which is to say that the rays of the Vogon demolition beams refused to land upon the piece.  

 

Your Love

Your love, it warms me
like a midsummer’s flatulence.
I reel like a sorority girl in her
first instance of crapulence

I’m cocooned in an embrace
that reeks of tepid tapioca.
Tapioca, all lumps and fangs
fangs so very, very… very pointy.

[INTERPRETIVE INTERLUDE:  Herein the reader is encouraged to recreate their own impression of the first two stanzas through a capella interpretive dance…

Well, that should be quite enough, shouldn’t it? You got a bit carried away, I should say.]

Your squarish face squishes in my Winnebago memories
I’m a steel town girl on a Wednesday night that is so dim, dimmish, darkid.
Fluffernutter is like butter but jaundiced by mallowy goodness
Spreading it on pickled herring makes a treat that smells like feet

–          a quart of milk

–          lima beans

–          three frozen pizzas

–          hemorrhoid crème (not the mint kind this time)

And brings out the wicked amour of one who is without more, sans  more.
But I need more; I must have… something, something [you get the drift.]

In summary, you are the wind above my wings.

[Dear estate of Douglas Adams, Please do not sue me. I am so very, very… very poor. That goes for the estates of Bette Midler and Hall and Oates as well…  (Oh, you say those people are alive? Really?)]