KrazyKelt's Killer Karnival

From higher ed. contract negotiations to painting ferry boats--arguably not that different

2011-06-04T20:35:00.000-04:00

It's good to be home. And to be done with nearly 4 months of negotiations with the CMU administration.

That's right, it was a long haul, but the non-tenure track faculty at CMU have a four year contract. It wasn't easy, nor most of the time was it fun, but we did it. We didn't get everything we wanted (and deserved), but in this political and economic climate, we did fairly well. Now comes the implementation and enforcement of the contract. But first, starting Monday, we have to paint the Emerald Isle!

She's a big old girl, and the paint job takes a beating over the winter, so every year, five or six of us spend three or four long days painting her, from the top down (almost) to the waterline. My favorite part is using the raft to paint the green just above where the black hull paint begins. I think it is because of the whole Huck Finn thing.

Anyway, we're here, alternating between our little house (a spacious 8 feet by 12 feet) and Larissa's grandparents' place on the harbor. I have internet access in town, so that's when get to do fun stuff like blog a bit. With any luck, I should be able to post fairly regularly for most of the summer. So thanks for sticking with me if you are still there. I may have some news before long, but I can't be any more specific just yet. Until then, keep up the good fight.

Publishing News

2010-11-17T15:00:00.004-05:00

My most recent story, "Wit's Soul" can now be read on the exciting new online art and literature review, Ad-Hominem. Incidentally, Larissa is also the featured artist on Ad-Hominem right now, and some examples of her fine photography can be found there.

In addition, "Hard Winter," which may be my favorite of the stories I've written, is now available free of charge in a PDF version of Paradigm Volume One. It is dark story set on Beaver Island, and I apologize if anyone thinks they see themselves in it - it is purely coincidental. I did use mash-ups of real island names for flavor, but it was a random process. So if your see your first or last name on a character, rest assured, the character is nothing like you--it just means I like your name. I promise. On a side note, strangely enough, in the listing for Paradigm on the Poets and Writers magazine's markets page, I am listed as one of three "representative authors" for this journal, which I guess is a good thing, though I'm not entirely sure what it means.

Furthermore, my story, "Rumble Strip" can be found in the PDF version of Word River. This one is a bit racy, and so not for the faint of heart.

Thanks for reading!

Look at All Those Zeros!!! (the numbers, not the deans)

2010-10-22T09:22:00.001-04:00

In an article Wednesday explaining how the salaries of the five shiny new deans of the incipient medical school are already costing the university $1.37 million a year*, the Provost explained that the salaries are comparable to those of other medical schools. Isn’t it interesting how the inflation of administrative salaries is tied to what other universities are paying, and lacks any correlation to the cost of living?

Just like Wall Street, universities follow the creed that if you want the best, you have to pay as much as (or more than) the rest. Dean Yoder, at $385,000, makes about $6500 more than MSU’s dean, though I am fairly certain that the cost of living is significantly higher in East Lansing. In fact, you almost have to go to East Lansing to spend the kind of money we’re talking about. (Mt. Pleasant has some fine restaurants, but you just can’t burn through a $1000 in an evening here the way you can in more affluent areas.) I really do wonder how much of our administration’s salaries are spent locally. Ever tried to imagine President Ross and Provost Shapiro chatting while standing in line at Ric’s with full shopping carts?

What really got me to put down my grading pen and put on my social commentary hat (a fedora, by the way, with an obviously phony press pass in the band), though, was a second article which explained that Ross is not alone among university presidents in moonlighting at a for-profit company. Is it possible that—all evidence to the contrary—administrative salaries are not high enough? If Ross, who I’ve always thought of as one of those guys who doesn’t have to buy his suits at Goodwill—if he has to go out and get a second job to make ends meet, then perhaps $350,000 (plus up to $70,000 in bonuses) doesn’t go quite as far as I’ve always assumed.

Of course, the flipside is that, (gasp!) if he has so much time on his hands that he goes fishing for positions like this during his first year as president, maybe the work he is doing here isn’t, in fact, as demanding as the salary would suggest. Even though the position on the Furniture Brands International Board of Directors only involves “four annual meetings,” there must be some work involved between meetings for it to pay close to $50,000 a year.

Now, this may just sound like the bitter grumbling of someone who would count himself lucky to be making $45,000 a year, and to some extent, it is. For the last two years I have taught full time (12 credits/semester) for $24,600 a year (“temporary faculty” are one of those groups whose wage freezes helped the university cut $5.2 million from the budget this year, though no one asked us if we were willing to take one for the team). Unlike President Ross, I have no stipulation in my appointment letter that says I am entitled to a bonus of up to 20% of my salary each year if I perform up to expectations (isn’t that called doing your job?). In fact, one of the conditions of my employment is that I obtain permission from the chair of my department if I decide to take on another job while teaching at CMU. Throughout the summer I work full time at my other job (driving a forklift), which brings my total annual income to about $30,000. Now, I understand that I could have gone to school for something that would have proven more lucrative in the long run, but I made a decision not to do so, and I am happy with it.

What concerns me is the message President Ross’s moonlighting sends. The idea that you can never have too much money is anything but new, but it’s unfortunate when an institution like CMU endorses it with such gusto. It is evident in the seemingly inexorable erosion of the intrinsic “value” of education in favor of its actual financial paybacks. This rift is plainly visible in the ongoing addition to the six-year-old Health Professions Building, while in the aging homes of less glamorous programs (Anspach, Brooks, and Pearce date from the 1960s—not old enough to be historic or charming, but old enough to be obsolete) the basic infrastructure crumbles.

There appears to be no remedy to these imbalances—after all, administrators are appointed by other administrators, and University presidents are appointed by the Board of Trustees, most of whom are moonlighting from their real jobs. My fear though, is that of all the lessons students take away from their time here at CMU, the one that sticks will be that money is success, and that you can never, ever have enough.

* I would like to take the opportunity to point out the glaringly obvious fact that the two male deans make $710,000 between them, while the three female deans make a total of only $660,000—I’m sure there is a reason that has nothing to do with gender—there always is.

New Years Wishes

2010-01-01T12:54:00.004-05:00

We made it to another one. Can you believe it? 2010?! That's like sci-fi territory! David Brin's The Postman takes place in the future still, but not for long (2015). We might have already passed Blade Runner. Anyway, this time of year, we typically find ourselves mired in regrets over things left unfinished (or those at which we outright failed), while hoping for something more and better for the coming year. I won't get into the former--neither you nor I have the time. I will, however, touch on some of my aspirations for the new year. Aside from the writing projects I hope/intend to complete (some of which are extensions on resolutions as far back as Y2K!), I have several other things in mind.

First, I want to be a better husband--less self-absorbed, more understanding, all that good stuff. I want to be the father I ought to be, but some of that is going to require me to be more disciplined with my time. I never really thought that having a job where half or more of my work can be done from home would be so difficult, but it has turned out to be so. I want to be more organized, more disciplined, more productive when I am working, and more present when I am not. I want to be a better son--hopefully we can get down to Florida this spring so my parents can see Lysander again. I want to send birthday cards to both my parents this year, and on time! Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day too, I suppose. I want to be a better friend to all those who deserve it (this might include a trip to Oshkosh). I want to be less awkward with my colleagues, and more reliable for my students. I want to read more and watch TV less. I want to blog more consistently so that it might actually be worth someone's while to check in at the Karnival now and again.

I could go on. Overall, I am trying to use my resolutions more for the general good than for specific things I want. Will it make them any more likely to be kept? Possibly: the guilt factor might be greater. Anyway, I wish you all the very best on this new years day.

A Modest Proposal Upon the Occasion of a Routine Medical Procedure Involving the Removal of a Small Piece of My Nephew

2009-09-16T16:08:00.006-04:00

First, let me get this out of the way: My name is Patrick, and I'm a circumcised man. Whew! That was easier than I thought it would be. But there it is, the bald truth. Why, you might find yourself wondering, did I feel it necessary to share this juicy bit of information with the 1.6 readers of this blog? Because I have a new nephew, and like me, he is circumcised, although the experience is for him, I'm sure, a much more vivid memory. Until my wife and I did some research into the topic prior to our son Lysander's birth, I never really thought about my missing foreskin. After all, how can I miss something I don't even remember having? Why has it become a standard procedure to remove most of a newborn boy's foreskin within days of his birth? Why do we insist on making an already stressful couple of days excruciatingly painful as well? There must be a good reason, right?

As the story goes, Moses brought the practice of circumcision out of Egypt and introduced it to the Jewish people as a rite of passage. It was part of a contract with God: in exchange for the sacrifice of a bit of nerve-rich skin, God would ensure the fertility of the tribes of Judea. At first, the procedure was performed with blades of flint, upon willing males who had reached the age of puberty and were ready to move into adulthood. As time went by, however, the ritual began to be performed on the eighth day after birth rather than at the start of puberty. Rather than being something a young man would choose to have done, it became something a child's parents would decide for him. Obviously, when the first generation of Jewish men, who had never even seen their own foreskin, grew up, they too chose to have their baby boys circumcised--it sure beat having it lopped off just as things started to get interesting. So how do we get from that point to my nephew? After all, we don't perform animal sacrifice anymore, but we still cut foreskins down like they were dandelions. This is where things get interesting.

Alexander the Great outlawed circumcision in the area 300 years before Christ's birth. And yet by the time the early Christian Church got rolling, male converts were required to be circumcised. Paul put a stop to it before long, however, citing the idea that the New Covenant (with Jesus) superseded the older Jewish arrangement with the big guy. Baptism replaced circumcision as the initial rite of passage for the faithful, and foreskins everywhere breathed a sigh of relief (except the Jewish and Muslim ones--they were still on the chopping block).

Christian Europe was largely unfamiliar with circumcision, except as a mark of Jewish or Muslim faith, until the late 1800s when the medical establishment began to promote it as a health precaution. "Masturbatory insanity" is one of the health risks that circumcision was touted to prevent. The procedure caught on throughout the United Kingdom and many of the former British colonies in the early 1900s, though not so much on the Continent. The practice fell out of vogue in most of the former empire sometime after WWII, though it is still fairly standard in the United States. It should be noted that the ghoulish practice of female circumcision, which has received so much press of late under the title "female genital mutilation," was also popularized in the Western World in the early 1900s, also as a cure for masturbation. The question remains over why it is considered mutilation in one case and a standard procedure in another (I do realize that a clitorectomy usually involves the removal of the entire clitoris, which is considerably more drastic than your garden-variety circumcision, but in essence, they are both unnecessary surgery).

Let's take a moment here to be sure we all know exactly what we're talking about. The foreskin is a covering of loose skin over the glans of the penis. In an adult male, the foreskin rolls back to reveal the glans and forward to cover it. However, in an infant, the foreskin is not nearly as mobile--in fact, it is attached to the glans and essentially forms the outer layer of skin. By the end of late puberty, the foreskin separates from the glans and becomes retractable. This is the way it is supposed to go. In a neonatal circumcision, however, the doctor has to forcibly tear the foreskin back from the glans before it can be clamped into one of a variety of devices and cut away. Anyone cringing yet? In actuality, much of the major trauma from a circumcision may not be a result of the incision at all, but of the premature peeling of the glans. The raw wound left behind is prone to all sorts of irritation and infection in the weeks following the operation, and sometimes requires a pediatrician to repeatedly tear the remnant of the foreskin back from where it continually tries to heal onto the glans where it belongs. Whew. I'm just glad that it can only happen to a guy once!

Since the mid-twentieth century, medical science has disproved many of the claimed benefits of circumcision, though a study has indicated that circumcision may decrease the chances of HIV infection. And yet, circumcision continues. Why? Here's my guess: a father who has no foreskin of his own is unlikely to protest when his son's is removed, because (1.) it hasn't affected him, and (2.) he wouldn't know how to deal with it if his son had one. When Larissa and I started to discuss the issue, I was firmly on the pro-cutting side. I had no good reason, just some vague ideas about cleanliness and the possibility of being teased in the locker room. And yet, here I was, ready to have a piece of my son's penis sliced off within days of his introduction to this world of ours. "Welcome to the world, kid. You won't be needing that here." Snip!

The arguments for circumcision these days are pretty feeble: babies can't feel it, or at least won't remember how much it hurt; it might reduce the chances of them catching STD's fifteen years down the road; we don't want other kids to laugh at them in the shower. Anyone who has changed the diaper of a recently circumcised boy knows that they damn well can feel it, and if we're doing painful things to kids while they are young simply because we're pretty sure they won't remember them, why not open them up and get that pesky appendix out and root out those incipient wisdom teeth while we're at it? As for the STD issue, not only is the evidence scanty, but if that were our only motivation, wouldn't chopping off the whole thing work even better? And the shower thing...seriously?! We mutilate out children as a result of peer pressure?! Give me a break.

There are, it seems, only three truly valid medical reasons for circumcision, though even these come under fire when used to justify circumcision as a preventative: phimosis (a painfully tight foreskin on an infant), balanitis (inflammation of the foreskin due to irritation or infection), and a foreskin that makes sex painful for an adult man (I guess this one doesn't get a fancy name). That's it. One is a hygiene or soap allergy issue while the other two amount to a rare birth defect.

Let me take another stab at why men might decide to put their boys under the knife in this day and age: fear of the unknown, lack of empathy, and in some cases, perhaps even guilt. To some extent, we all fear what we don't know, but seriously, an uncircumcised infant or toddler is not scary, at least no more so than a circumcised one. On the other hand, some dads may think "Hey, it was good enough for me, why not for my son?" That backward rationale is the exact opposite of the hope most parents profess to have: don't we all want something better for our children? Still other parents may already have a circumcised boy and may be unwilling to say no to a repeat simply because they already put one kid through it, and they don't want to play favorites. Whatever the reason, it is almost always more about the parents' feelings than those of the helpless child whose future is being decided.

It is sad, really. My son is now almost a year-and-a-half old, and we have not had a single problem with his intact foreskin. We don't have to do anything special to keep it clean, it never causes him pain, and he never had to go through the extended and painful recovery following the operation. So my proposal is this: open your minds. We need not be stuck in the same ruts our parents and their parents were in. Think for yourself. Ask questions. Why do we do this? Why should we? You might be surprised by some of the answers you get. The worst case scenario is that your son will decide that he wants to be circumcised when he is old enough to do so, and will have it done himself, but at least then he will be the one making the choice.

Surces:
Male Health

Wikipedia

History of Circumcision

The rebirth of the Novel?

2009-09-09T22:44:00.004-04:00

I am always on the lookout for anything that articulates my own feelings about writing and reading better than I can articulate them myself. This evening, I came across this impressive and comprehensive article about plot and the novel (and more generally, in all fiction). I once wrote an application letter for a scholarship, in which I lamented the death of plot in contemporary literary fiction and vowed to commit my remaining years to righting that egregious wrong. I got the scholarship (thanks Ari!), but I still haven't made much in the way of progress. But luckily, I am not the only one working on the problem. I've never read a more unpretentious and straightforward assessment of the state of things in the biz than Lev Grossman's article for The Wall Street Journal. Grossman has, this blogger believes, hit the old nail squarely on the head. But don't take my word for it.

Check it out for yourself:

"Good Novels Don't Have to Be Hard"

Michael Chabon...at long last.

2009-05-06T13:32:00.005-04:00

Chabon, Michael. (2002) Summerland. New York: Hyperion.

I consider myself a fairly well-read individual, though perhaps a bit heavy on the classics and speculative fiction and a bit light on more contemporary mainstream/literary authors. I have long lists of books I want to read, as well as authors I know I ought to read. The trouble is, it seems I rarely have the time anymore to read any of the books on the first list, and as for those on the second list, well…I have a sort of native stubbornness which usually prevents me from approaching any of them.

“Ought” is just one of those words that brings out the mule in me. Michael Chabon has long been a resident on the second list. People have told me “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is amazing—you have to read it,” for years. I never have, but maybe I will…someday...or maybe not. There is just something in me that rebels at gushing recommendations from almost any source, and the more I hear about a single book, the less likely I am to read it until long after it becomes uncool.

So Chabon was, it seemed, destined to remain in the dusty Ought-To pile in the back of my cobwebby cranium (just behind the piano I still intend to learn to play and the fly-rod I ought to use more often). That is just how it was until I took a young adult literature class last year, for which I had to choose half a dozen titles as “choice reads.” When I saw Summerland on the library shelf, I knew Chabon’s number had finally come up. Here was the chance to fulfill an assignment and take an author off my “Ought-To-Read” list, all of this while still avoiding reading Kavalier and Clay—I couldn’t lose.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, Chabon is clearly a tad bit enamored with his own voice, but what writer isn’t now and again? What he’s got here is a terrific story, which, frankly, I never expected. Even for someone like me, who couldn’t care less about baseball, Summerland was a joy. A mix of nostalgia, baseball, Norse and Native American mythology, American tall tales, and a coming of age story, it has a little something for everyone. I wish I could sum up the plot in a pithy sentence or two, but every time I try I get something like this: three kids discover that the real world is only one of four worlds connected and supported by a great old tree which is about to be threatened by the mysterious red-headed figure (why are we always the bad guys?) known alternately as Coyote, Trickster, and the Prince of Lies; and so they must take their Volvo dirigible and, with the help of a miniature baseball player, a female sasquatch, an ensorcelled giant the size of an eight year old boy, and a wererat, risk everything to stop Coyote from destroying the world by poisoning the roots of the world tree with black phlegm from a giant catfish’s gut. Whew!

Though the main characters are between nine and eleven, and the story might well appeal to that age group, this book was clearly written to be enjoyed by a somewhat older audience. The writing is a bit dense, and at five hundred pages with adult-fiction sized font, it would make a good doorstop if you could put it down long enough. It took me a whopping two weeks to read, partly because it starts out rather slowly, and partly because there are just a lot of words to deal with. My only real complaint actually, aside from the length, which seemed a tad excessive—a bit of judicious trimming would not likely have hurt the book at all—was the inordinate number of serious typos. Especially toward the end of the book, the errors really began to pile up, often making mincemeat out of whatever sense was intended for a given sentence. I guess when you are Michael Chabon, even the editors are in awe—which unfortunately stopped one of them from doing his or her job. All in all, Summerland is still a good read, so long as you can spare the time. Dare I say, you really ought to check it out?

Neil Giaman's Creepy Button-Eye Folk

2009-04-29T16:45:00.012-04:00

Gaiman, Neil. (2002). Coraline. New York: HarperCollins.

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is the story of a young girl who is bored with the way her summer vacation is winding down. Both of her parents work from home, each at his or her own computer in his or her own study. Coraline enjoys exploring the gardens surrounding the old house in which her family rents a flat, but a late summer rainstorm puts a stop to her expeditions. Both parents are busy, and her mother tells her to explore the house, which is how she finds the bricked-up door in the parlor. Which is where the book actually begins, revealing the background situation in a smoothly woven tapestry of mini-scenes and flashbacks. Coraline has a delicious “through the looking glass” feel that is at once familiar, and yet utterly unpredictable.

The antagonist is Coraline’s Other Mother (doesn't every kid dreamed of having one of those now and then?), a twisted parody of her real mother who lives in a warped mirror image of Coraline’s real family’s flat. Like some great psychic spider, the Other Mother has spun a web of illusion to entice Coraline to stay with her on the other side of the parlor door forever (and also like a spider, she has a nasty tendency to suck the life out of her guests). When Coraline refuses and returns to her own flat, her parents disappear, sending her back through the parlor door to rescue them. Not only that, Coraline learns, but this is not the first time the Other Mother has lured a child into the faux world she’s created. Three ghosts, children whose souls have been taken by the other mother, are trapped in a cell behind a mirror, and they warn Coraline of the Other Mother’s true intentions. With the help of a cat who is able to cross from one world to the other at will, Coraline sets out to find her parents, along with the ghosts’ stolen souls.

This book is very tightly plotted, and Gaiman cauterizes most of the loose ends nicely in the end, though the fundamental explanation for the Other Mother’s existence is left to the imagination, as it should be. The characterization is particularly vivid, with Coraline obviously being the most fully realized. Her parents are rather sparsely depicted, but that serves the theme of the book, which is a sort of cautionary tale. “Be careful what you wish for,” it murmurs in your ear “because you might not like what you end up with.” Coraline yearns outwardly for adventure, and inwardly for parents (especially a mother) who pay her more attention. She gets both in the Other Mother, but soon realizes that what she had to start with was actually pretty good. This sort of wish fulfillment/cautionary tale hybrid works especially well for young adults, hauling them along on a journey of maturation along with the protagonist, and Coraline is an especially enjoyable example of the type.

Coraline, which won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, was one of the first young adult novels by this incredibly prolific author, who’s Graveyard Book has since garnered him a Newberry Award. Stardust, an illustrated novel (as opposed to a graphic novel), won the Alex Award in 2000. Gaiman has also published numerous adult novels, including Neverwhere and American Gods, as well as the popular and critically acclaimed Sandman series of graphic novels. Henry Selick’s stop-motion film based on Coraline was released in February 2009.

Sherman Alexie's Manifesto for Hope

2009-04-27T11:43:00.005-04:00

Alexie, Sherman. (2007) The Absolutely True Diary of a part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown & Co.

Sherman Alexie’s 2007 YA title The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a spirited (pardon the pun, if you will) look at a particular life in a very particular situation. Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, is a Spokane Indian born and raised in Wellpinit, Washington, who undergoes a painful transition from being a full-time reservation kid to "part-time Indian" when he decides to attend a predominantly white highschool in a nearby town. Alexie's credits include the collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and the novel Reservation Blues, among many others, as well as the screenplays for Smoke Signals, and The Business of Fancydancing, not to mention several collections of poetry and short fiction. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian garnered numerous awards and landed on countless "best books" lists in 2007 and 2008.

Junior, who narrates his coming of age tale, begins the story by cataloging his extensive list of deficiencies and faults, including hydrocephalus, poor vision, and speech issues. Nothing like laying all of your cards out on the table right away. Junior proves to be highly likable, despite (or possibly because of) those very faults. From the under-funded rez school in Wellpinit, he travels to the public school in neighboring Reardan in pursuit of an education—or perhaps just looking for a challenge. Either way, his decision changes his life and the lives of his family. Walking the line between the white world and the rez, Junior has to come to terms with who he is, as well as who he wants to be. He imagines the rez as a concentration camp where no one leaves, not because walls or sentinels keep them in, but because hope is so scarce, they can’t be bothered to try for anything better.

The book has the feel of a journal, and is told in the past tense, although there is so much deft manipulation of time that it becomes difficult to even remember that the main thread is not told in the present tense. We know that the narrator is telling the story from some time after that first year at Reardan, but we are never sure how long after. What is clear, however, is that Junior's voice is a powerful element of this novel—he is intelligent, insightful, self-deprecating, irreverent, and really funny. He is equally at home recounting his grandmother’s funeral as he is discussing his own chronic masturbation.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is too good to allow a prudish impulse to keep it out of kids’ hands, however. One of the best things about it is the way it deals with its theme. It is, at least in part, about daring to hope, and when there is no hope to be found at home, daring to go out looking for it somewhere else. In the hospital following Junior’s concussion, his coach quotes Vince Lombardi, who said: “The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.” You can’t just hope, the story tells us, you also have to work hard with a goal firmly in mind. Hoping is the first part of the equation, and acting on that hope is the second part, which is how Junior begins to separate himself from the rez and its destructive environment.

Junior's final reconciliation with his friend Rowdy represents a coming to terms with the fact that while change cannot be reversed, it can be coped with. This book shows Junior emerging from a harrowing experience, armed with a new knowledge and wisdom with which to face whatever will come next. Alexie sends readers down a perilous road along with Junior, but it brings us back up at the end so that we too can go forth armed with new way to interact with and understand the world. The Absolutely True Diary of a part-Time Indian is a compelling tale that just might make you rethink your own life, and maybe even dare you to hope for more.

More to come!

2009-04-27T09:54:00.001-04:00

This is just a heads up if anyone is paying attention. Later today, I will be posting the first in a series of book reviews. They are not the newest books, but they might be new to you. There will be some YA, some fantasy, some mainstream, and some hard to categorize stuff as well. So come on back and check it out.

Hopefully this is me, turning over a new leaf and becoming much more attentive to this blog. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose.

The Bees Knees

2008-08-13T12:19:00.007-04:00

Well, it has been a while. I apologize, most sincerely, for my tardiness, but it seems that living in the woods without electricity and working 10 hour days doesn't leave much time for doing anything more than keeping up a minimal e-mail correspondence with a few friends and colleagues. Summer is almost over, and I hate to say it, but as usual I'm glad. I need a break from this kind of vacation. Someday I hope that my summers on the island will be a break for me just to be a writer, but until then, I grit my teeth and forge ahead until classes resume.

Speaking of gritting my teeth, I had an interesting drive home last night. Larissa and I watched A Room With a View in town, and headed out to the cabin at 10:00 or so at night. About halfway down Westside Drive, we came upon a log in the road. It was a six foot long section of a dead birch tree that had for some reason chosen to fall on a windless day. Moths swung and dove through the converging cones of light cast by our headlights. Being both a manly man and a gentleman, I got out to clear the road for other drivers.

By the light of the high beams, I could see that the log was punky and that the impact of the fall had split the papery bark along the top like an overcooked hot dog. I pushed it once with my foot, to see if it was light enough to pick up, or if I'd have to roll it instead. It was not all that heavy, but it was barely holding together enough to lift. Taking hold of the end of the log, I lifted and began to drag it from the roadway.

Perhaps if I had not been so intent on looking studly for my wife, I would have noticed that not all of the things flying through the beams of light were moths. If the car hadn't been running, I might have heard the angry buzzing earlier. As it was, it took me a moment to put the two facts together. "There shouldn't be so many flies out at night," I thought just before my instincts took over. Of course, you, Dear Reader, in the comfort of your soft chair, know exactly what I had failed to realize until it was seemingly too late.

Needless to say, I was no longer concerned about appearing macho as I fled down the road past the car waving my arms like an excited schoolgirl. Stopping a car length behind the rear of our Ford Escort, I watched the angry bees swarming in the headlights. I knew that the windows had been up, so I wasn't worried about bees getting into the car with Larissa and the baby, but it took me a moment to get the courage to sprint back to the driver's side door and hurry inside. Gravel scattered behind us as I accelerated, swerving around the log.

Here, faithful reader, is where the tragic hero reveals his fatal flaw--that one part of his personality that inevitably leads to his downfall. As we continued on our way, I thought to myself with a twinge of regret "This would have made a much better story if I had actually been stung once or twice." You see, I am a writer, and I fancy myself something of a story teller, and as such, I know that "near miss" stories almost never pack the punch that a "bullseye" does, metaphorically speaking. So here I was, after having narrowly escaped being stung within an inch of my life, and I was disappointed that the story would have been better if I hadn't gotten away so easily.

Well, the universe has a way of giving folks what they deserve sometimes, and as I drove along, my heart pounding, my mind racing, I got what I deserved. It started as a tickle inside my right pant-leg, which I attributed to that peculiar sort of hyper-sensitivity that often follows a close call. Then I felt another just above my right hip, beneath my shirt. Just as I reached to scratch it, the sharp stinger pierced my skin, giving me that odd chill that insect stings and hypodermic needles have in common. Swatting at my side like a mad man, I continued to drive, the car fishtailing as I jerked about in the driver's seat. When I finally understood what had happened, I hit the brakes and we skidded to a stop. I jumped out shook the side of my shirt. "Here it is," Larissa called, pointing to the motionless figure of the dead bee on the seat. I was reaching in to brush it away when felt another sting on the back of my neck. I fled into the illumination of the headlights, tearing my T-shirt off and waving it like a soccer player who has just scored the game-winning goal. A sting on my leg sent me hopping and slapping at my pant legs. After a moment, I decided that there was no way that any bees left inside my pants could have survived the bludgeoning, and I returned to the car, still cursing. A chilling thought occurred to me as I reached for the door handle: what if there had been more bees on me, but some had stayed in the car when I got out?

"Turn on the light!" I shouted through the closed window. Larissa misunderstood me and shut off the headlights. Darkness dropped like a curtain. "No! The overhead light!" The headlights came back on. Finally I managed to make clear what I meant: "The map light!" Both of the little lights came on, and sure enough, they revealed another bee, circling the ceiling of the car angrily. I wrapped my hand in my T-shirt, as though I were preparing for a knife fight and opened the door. I swatted at the agitated insect, and then tried to pin it to the ceiling. I shook my shirt out away from the car, but when I turned back the bee was walking across the driver's seat. I pounded him once and then did my best to grind him between the seat and the shirt. Shaking my shirt out again, it appeared that the crisis was over. Nonetheless, I drove home somewhat more quickly than I normally would, and then had Larissa take Lysander inside while I stripped down, just in case.

Three stings wasn't too bad, considering what might have happened. The rest of the evening, while alternating between sipping from a beer and holding the cool can against my wounds, I flinched every time I heard the slightest buzz from a fly on the window. It rained on the clothes I left outside, including my shoes. This morning, the stings felt better, but I was still afraid that there would be more bees in the car. There were none. On our way to town, I was relieved to see that the county trucks had already been out grading the road, and that the birch log had been shoved aside by the heavy steel scraper blade.

I love honey, and I worry about the fate of bees as their numbers dwindle due to the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder. If I weren't so scared of them, I'd even try to have a hive or two on our property. I'd be interested to see if the Disorder has affected Island bees as well, or if they are protected by the quarantine imposed by all that water. Pollinators are good--we all need them far more than we might realize. But damn, they can put a hurt on you if you aren't careful. So here I am, looking forward to the end of summer, the return of the rhythms of the school year, and being far away from angry bees.

And so, dear Reader, I leave you with this cool shot of a honey-tree, as our good old friend Pooh called them. "Tut, tut, it looks like rain."

Better Late Than Later

2008-07-02T10:20:00.006-04:00

At long last, photographic proof of my reproductive capacity! I've been meaning to get a few photos up here for weeks now, so here they are. This is Lysander, who is now 5 weeks old, but was younger (and thinner) in these shots.

I've also been meaning to scratch together an interview for you all, but nothing is ready yet. I've also been working on a review to try and get my foot in the door over at The Greenman Review, but it has been slow going so far. Things at the Boat Dock have already gotten crazy, what with U.S. Independence Day coming up this week. Larissa and I are working at moving out of town this week, but as always, projects are taking me longer than I anticipated. The window is in, but I have to put everything back where it belongs (siding and such) before we can set up our bed in the loft again. I also want to install a railing of some sort to keep anyone from taking a header out of the loft in the middle of the night. Then comes some plumbing to get the sink ready for use. Oh, and we planted Lysander's tree a week or so ago, and the deer have already been nibbling on it, so I had to put up a little fence around it. Hopefully that will give it a chance to take hold. It has Lysander's placenta buried underneath it, so it would be a shame if it died (we could just plant another tree in the same hole, but still...). So today I'll be going back out there to get some more done, with the hope that we'll be sleeping in our own little place tonight for the first time this year.

So there it is. I haven't written much, nor have I done any work on the classes I'll be teaching in the fall, but as usual, I'm hoping that things will get better soon.

If nothing else, I can always play with the baby! Until next time then.

I'm not much for merchandising, but...

2008-06-20T10:25:00.003-04:00

I was just checking in on one of the most intriguing fantasy artists I know of, and came across this picture, which I had to share.

If you don't recognize these lil' fellas, they are straight out of the pages of Froud's collaboration with a colleague of mine at CMU, Ari Berk, which is entitled, appropriately, Goblins!. You really should check it out if you haven't already. I have actually had two professors in my career who were acquainted with the Devonshire artist. The first was Valiant Norman, at Lexington Community College. He apparently did a stint as a shepherd near Froud's home, and they became pals--this was long before The Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal brought Froud to international attention. Val also worked as a stage hand on Bewitched--who says college professors are stuffy?

Anyway, check out Ari's periodic "Folkroots" column in Realms of Fantasy, as well as his many other fine writings, which include a couple more collaborations with the Devonshire Dervish. He's also a member of Endicott Studios which is in my blog list to the left. Check out Brian Froud and his wife Wendy (and their son Toby, who was the bald little baby of the same name in The Labyrinth, and who is now a man -- which makes me feel quite old) at his website World of Froud. I may be trying to wrangle an interview with Ari Berk before too long, so keep checking in. That is all for now.

Morning coffee and a hot fire...oh yeah.

2008-06-19T09:11:00.005-04:00

We've been on Beaver Island for a full week as of today. It is good to be home, and yet there's something skewed about it--or about me. It is not something I'm noticing for the first time; it is only that it is stronger each year. There comes, with growing up, a shedding of the veil of innocence, which everyone goes through, to some extent. But it is almost as if the Island has also grown up while I was away, and not only do I now see the sometimes nasty truth behind the shiny veneer of things, but that truth has itself shed some of the innocence it once held. It seems then that the shift is not only in the observer, but also in the observed. John Works, who I used to work for in high school, told me the other day "The Island isn't the same place you grew up," and he was right.

So what does all of this have to do with coffee and a fire? Only that I am sitting here this morning in my wife's grandparents' cabin on the harbor, a mug of hot coffee at my right hand, and a roaring fire in the fireplace. The day outside is gray and cool--the mercury still dawdling below the fifty degree mark, and I can see already that I'm going to have to split more wood before lunch. Today is my day off. I have plenty to do, here in town as well as out at our property, and here I sit, musing about how my home town has tarnished over the years.

I should point out that, even though I grew up (for the most part) on the Island, my parents have since sold their place, and so for a while I was relegated to being a visitor only. My beautiful wife and I bought 12 acres a few years back (though we're still paying for it), on which we hope to build a home and a pottery studio. I'd like to live here year round, but work--good work--is especially scarce here. CMU has a biological station where I could teach summer English classes, but I'd still have to go back to Mt. Pleasant to teach in the fall (which I'm doing now anyway). I also considered teaching at the high school here, but the time demands are more than I could stand for long.

So I am a summer person--that peculiar breed of folk I was always vaguely suspicious of as a youth. Right now we are in town, but that will only last a few weeks more. Then it will be out to the mosquitoes and mice. We brought Frodo, my gimpy old cat so hopefully this year the mice will not be as much of a problem as they have been. Our "cabin" is a one-room, 8' x 12' structure with a small loft. We bought it from a carpenter friend who built it out of left-over building materials which had begun to clutter up his barn. It is sturdy, tight, and well-insulated, and we love it. Last year I built a ladder and made a kitchen counter and shelving area. This year I plan to install a gray water system so we can use the sink for dishes and baby baths (we don't have a well yet--we were going to get one this summer, but we got a baby instead. Go figure!). I'll also be putting in a window in the loft and a screen door downstairs for improved ventilation in the heat of the summer. I'm also hoping to sort out our solar power situation, so that the mini-fridge will keep the beer and milk frosty cold (as you may have guessed, we're off the grid too). On top of all that, we have the old 20' sail boat my father-in-law gave us, which we're renaming Ol' Snaporaz after Marcello Mastroianni's character in City of Women, among other films. It needs to be cleaned, repainted, and partially re-rigged. I've been reading up on sailing so maybe this year we'll actually give it a try.

Apart from the Island stuff I have planned, I have to get a proposal ready for Arcadia, and now it appears that I'll be working on a separate book with the Historical Society. I still have to finish my syllabi for Basic Writing and Fiction Workshop as well. Oh, and I'd hoped to have a rough draft of my novel done by fall. So it looks to be a busy summer. And sometimes all I want to do is sit down in front of a warm fire with a hot cup of coffee and a good book. But I really should get to work on those last few chapters of my novel...ah well, maybe just one more cup, and I'd better throw another log on the fire. Be well.

Forklifts + Baby = X

2008-06-18T08:10:00.004-04:00

Unfortunately, I'm not doing much real work yet this summer. I have been back on a forklift at the ferry dock for a week now, and with our new baby (three weeks old now), I haven't really gotten into a consistent writing schedule yet. I have had some disappointing news about the Arcadia book I've been planning to write. The director of the Historical Society told me yesterday that unless I allow them to be my publisher (through a vanity press, I'm sure) instead of Arcadia, I will not have access to their archives of photographs. I suspect that there is something fishy about that, and I really don't want to self-publish, even if it is the Historical Society who foots the bill. It's just that after my experience at Ram's Head Bookshop, where I worked during graduate school, I realized that no one cares about a book that is not well presented and professionally published. The staff (including myself) loathed and pitied most of the local authors who were perpetually "checking in" to see if we had sold any of their overpriced, shoddy books. What the Historical Society seems to want is a larger share of a smaller profit, which seems somewhat backward to me. I may end up doing two separate books: one through Arcadia with the private Archive I've already been granted permission to use, and another through the Historical Society. We'll see how it all shakes down. Until we meet again then...Cheers.

Welcome...and please don't eat the soap.

2008-06-17T21:32:00.002-04:00

Well...beginnings can be as difficult as endings, can't they. Welcome to my new blogspace in the blogosphere, where folks get together to blog each other. What the blog?! "Blog" has, it appears, just become one of those rare words that can be used as any part of speech and in any situation, much like my old favorite, "smurf." Maybe that's just in my head though. Anyway, this is my bloggin blog, and if you disagree, you can just go blog yourself with a blogged blog. Bloggin-A!

Okay, if anyone has bothered to read past that, you should realize that we can only go up from here. I'm not exactly sure what my next step is as a motherblogging blogger (the author apologizes for the misuse of the word "blog;" the copy editor in charge of catching such occurrences has just been sacked and replaced by a llama), but it promises to be at least somewhat more entertaining than...well...more entertaining than something, I'm sure. Don't get your hopes up too high, though. Until the next go-round, Cheers!