Pretty much.

Also, how awesome is Nick Hornby? I love his books.

What’s Making Me Happy This Week is an event that I attended last night, The Believer 10th Anniversary Party at (le) poisson rouge.  I could say that it made me happy because I am a fan of The Believer magazine, which is true.  I could say that it made me happy because Nick Hornby (a frequent contributor to the magazine) was there and he read a funny, autobiographical, unpublished essay to the audience. I could say that it made me happy because I was surprisingly both amused and informed by Believer co-founder Ed Park’s presentation on partial magic, which I will definitely write about at some point in the future.  But above all, the main reason the party made me happy was … free books!!

The magazine was kind enough to hold a raffle for all new subscribers, of which I’m now one.  The grand prize was a week of emailing between the winner and Hornby.  Sadly, I wasn’t the lucky winner of this prize, but I was a runner-up winner, taking home a haul of the four Hornby books published by The Believer – More Baths Less Talking, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, Shakespeare Wrote for Money, and The Polysyllabic Spree.  I already own and have read More Baths – it was the inspiration for my monthly column on “Stuff I’ve Been Reading,” (the first one covering More Baths itself) – but the other three books are new to me.  Any Hornby book is somewhere on my mental “to read” list, even one I’ve never heard of like Housekeeping, so this was a fun little prize.  Unfortunately, Mr. Hornby had to leave before the drawing so I could not get my books autographed (or get a chance to speak with him), which was a bit of  a disappointment, but hey … free books!!

Since I now own two copies of More Baths Less Talking, I’d like to pass along a portion of my winnings to one of you, my loyal readers.  I’m giving away a copy of the book (the new one of course!) to one lucky person chosen at random.  To enter the drawing, I ask that you do one of the following:

1. Comment on one of my posts (preferably your favorite one) telling me why you like it.  Be as brief or as wordy as you like.  This is not about me fishing for praise (OK, this is not solely about me fishing for praise) – I’m actually hoping to get some feedback about what people enjoy and don’t enjoy about my writing.
2. Tweet out a link to one of my posts (preferably your favorite one).  Follow me on twitter so that I know you sent it out and can enter your name in the drawing.

I’ll randomly choose a winner one week from today.  Thanks in advance  for helping me out … and good luck! It’s a terrific book. I’m glad I have the chance to give it away.

And that’s What’s Making Me Happy This Week.

‘A Long Way Down‘, tells the story of a group of strangers who coincidentally meet on the top of a London skyscraper on New Year’s Eve where they had individually gone to commit suicide.

Starring a stellar cast including former ‘James Bond‘ Pierce Brosnan, ‘Breaking Bad’ star Aaron Paul, Sam Neill, Tony Collette, Imogen Poots and Rosamund Pike. ‘A Long Way Down‘ is the fourth Hornby novel to be made into a film and we’re absolutely delighted, having created the title sequence for ‘High Fidelity‘, to announce that we have been awarded the titles for Pascal Chaumeil’s latest film.

‘A Long Way Down‘ has been produced by Academy Award nominees for ‘An Education‘ Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, through their company Wildgaze Films and has been financed by BBC Films and DCM Productions. Head of BBC Films Christine Langan commented:

Nick Hornby’s challenging yet heartwarming novel is safe in the hands of dynamic screenwriter Jack Thorne, dazzling director Pascal Chaumeil and accomplished producers, Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey. The alchemy is further reflected in the wonderfully talented, funny and brilliant cast they have brought together for this highly original movie and we are extremely proud to be part of it.

Work for us starts immediately and we are excited to get going. We look forward to working with the team and sharing with you our progress as we go… onwards and upward.

Lists are usually vertical, perpendicular. This is surely the best way to write a list, one item on top of the other as you don’t need to use punctuation marks and the app automatically capitalises each item to ensure all parts share equal importance. Make a list horizontal and you are immediately having to insert dreary commas, full stops and with only the first item starting with a capital letter your are in effect writing a sentence. So a list must start from the top and end at the bottom, one item per line.

So what makes a list interesting? Well, the first time I came across lists in earnest was on reading the book Hi Fidelity by Nick Hornby which was all about lists of old music and records for different circumstances and situations. Give a list a reason and suddenly it’s contents have purpose and meaning not just to its author but inspire thought and conflict in its readership. 10 songs to listen to when you’ve been dumped by your significant other…10 movies to watch which represent the modern zeitgeist (or something like that), it’s entirely your subjective call. No 2 lists will ever be the same or certainly will not be in the same order so there is something different to contemplate in every one.

So I have decided I am going to make lists myself. Not right now but soon enough even though I am itching to do one immediately. If you really want to…watch this space, I’m excited (mmmm, lists).

Best chair for readin’ at Howlin’

I got to spend a fun bit of time at Nashville’s newest bookstore, Howlin’ Books on Monday.  It is a bookshop in the best sense of the word:  not the upscale retail touted in other places, this is the Championship Vinyl of bookstores.  I mean that not just in reference to Nick Hornby.  Howlin’ shares its very cool renovated space with Grimey’s Too, so there really is a lot of vinyl to be found.  It also has an incredible soundtrack, cultured and friendly clerks, and a great sattelite Frothy Monkey in the back corner.

A table of new books about music in the front near the records

A shelf of gently loved reads in one of the back rooms

Located at 1702 8th Avenue South, Howlin’ Books makes a great stop before a show at Douglas Corner Cafe.  It’s out of the main hustle and bustle just enough that if you are the type who wants to get lost in a small bookstore, this is the place!

Pop in and have a listen, grab some more input, and shake it up with your favorite beverage.  

“The Broken Man in Cornforth, Hague Blue, Arsenic, Lush Pink, Incarnadine and Downpipe”

“Cityscapes are filled with objects which serve purposes and help you ‘do’,” said Nick Hornby, a native Londoner who usually produces sculptures in white. “These objects offer a slightly different perspective on what work a work of art does.”

Sinta Tantra, a muralist and colorist, agreed. “We wanted to play on the busy, corporate setting,” she said. “The exhibit adds a lot of humour to the stern atmosphere and its intervention with the space has proven popular with many people who work there.”

Indeed, receptionist Isabelle Fenton noticed the change in the atmosphere since the exhibit’s installment on Jan. 14. “People look around a lot more. They take in their surroundings.”

The combination of the sculpture and the color mediums affect viewers; the exhibit is contemporary and modern, while playing on the environment surrounding it. Nick Hornby and Sinta Tantra, friends from the Slade School of Fine Art, worked together to create these works of art. The collaborative practice was both a challenge and extremely rewarding.

“We’ve been friends for over 10 years and it always seemed like a fun idea to do in the back of our heads,” said Tantra.

Through the process, the artists worked together by voicing opinions, negotiating outcomes and providing objective critique.

“Working out each decision and the final designs was extremely difficult,” said Hornby. “At times we set up logics; at times we contradicted them.”

“Production was very physical and time-consuming,” said Tantra.

The general stereotype of an artist is a brooding, egotistical type who answers only to the self. Tantra and Hornby, however, succeeded in breaking that stereotype, as they enjoyed collaborating with each other.

“Although our subject matters and mediums are polars apart, I think we share an aesthetic sensibility,” said Hornby.

The Horizon Comes in Chinese Blue, Hague Blue, Archive, Railings, Cornforth, Bubblicious and Firefly Red

“Collaborating made things easier as you were able to take risks with that another person,” said Tantra. She even went further to dispel the myth that artists are solitary workers. “Both of us work with assistants and sometimes with whole teams of people, so the idea of working closely with others is actually inherent in our existing practices already.”

Obviously, the collaboration was a success, and both Tantra and Hornby expressed their happiness with the results. They created sculptures such as “The Horizon Comes in Chinese Blue, Hague Blue, Archive, Railings, Cornforth, Bubblicious and Firefly Red,” a two-tiered sculpture as big as an archway and “The Broken Man in Cornforth, Hague Blue, Arsenic, Lush Pink, Incarnadine and Downpipe,” a tall sculpture that seems to twist around itself because of Tantra’s colorings. Each already intriguing sculpture was changed by Tantra’s blocks of color, which animated the three-dimensional forms into something dynamic.

About “The Broken Man,” Tantra said, “A lot of people are drawn to that one.” It stands in the corner of One Canada Square, right beside the stairs that lead to the wall. “I think it’s the figurative element and the vertical stance which makes it powerful.”

They agree that their artwork may unsettle or destabilize the viewer.

“It’s about creating tensions, creating dialogues… It’s about making you look at things twice, giving it a twist or different meaning altogether. As a viewer, you need to be open to this.”

When assessing the amount of instability in his work, Hornby said, “I prefer to keep my own interpretations out of the equation. But I would agree that often my sculptures have weak points and moments of insbaility.”

The exhibit also included one of each artist’s non-collaborative works to show their individuality and transformation through collaboration. Tantra’s “Le Bonheur II,” a vinyl mural on one of the Lobby windows which resembles a two-dimensional cube, was inspired by the Canary Wharf environment, including the towering business buildings and ever-changing sunlight. Hornby’s video “An Arch Never Sleeps” shows a line drawing for several sculptural pavilions, undergoing deconstruction and reconstruction and highlighting Hornby’s transformative process.

Both artists respect each other’s work ethic and medium. These towering sculptures overlaid with blocks of color symbolize not only their hard work as individual artists, but their hard work together.

Nick Hornby and Sinta Tantra also have their own exhibits and fixtures around the city of London and elsewhere. Sinta Tantra’s work features at Canterbury Christ Church University, Create KX London, Camden Borough, Canary Wharf and Liverpool Biennial. Nick Hornby’s work features in the collections of Andaz 5^th Avenue New York, Clifford Chance, Richard Greer, David Roberts and Selfridges and Sony BMG.

Sinta Tantra’s mural in Canary Wharf.

When asked if they would work together again, both Hornby and Tantra fervently agreed:

“I think this first project… rather than answering our questions opened up a huge box of worms which I’d like to investigate with Sinta… It’s a case of making time for this new collaborative practice.”

Tantra seemed excited about the prospect. “Nick and I are in fact thinking about doing a few projects abroad already!”

The two became artists for several reasons, and do not regret their choices.

“I think I sort of fell into it,” said Tantra. “Like anything, being an artist has its highs and lows, but generally speaking it’s wonderful being a creative.”

Hornby said he decided to become an artist “to enter into a dialogue” and that it was a “very” rewarding practice.

Nick Hornby and Sinta Tantra: Collaborative Works features in the lobby of One Canada Square in Canary Wharf. It will be open until March 15. Follow Nick Hornby at nickhornby.com or on Twitter at @nickhornbyart and Sinta Tantra at sintatantra.com on Twitter at @sintatantra.

I wrote this article for a journalism class this semester. Thanks so much to @sintatantra and @nickhornby for answering my questions! Contact me if you’d like any more information about the article. 

so with or without fanfare, i present my top 5 books.

5. Fargo Rock City-Chuck Klosterman

i actually checked this book out of the library and it was my first exposure to the genius that is Chuck Klosterman. his sharp witted essays about his love of Motley Crüe and the bleakness of North Dakota are brilliantly written and connect with the teenagers of the 80′s. he loves this genre of music and you can feel that passion come out in the book.

4. High Fidelity-Nick Hornby

what? books about music that are my favorites? i wonder why? if you know me, then you know that i love all things English and this extends to my literature. Nick Hornby is as inventive a writer as i’ve read. his characters are so very flawed and very British that you can’t help but hurt with and pull for them. actually the idea for “top lists” comes from this book as it is a theme that weaves throughout. the main character, Rob, is an audiophile and has an extensive collection of vinyl and that makes me smile. he continually ascribes songs to feelings and ideas. music is rich throughout this book and Hornby writes from a level of expertise in a wonderfully relational style. side note, i like John Cusack in the movie version, but i hate it when Hollywood takes English novels and “Americanize” them.

3. No Country For Old Men-Cormac McCarthy

oh, how i love Cormac McCarthy. i actually read a few of his books from the library. i started with All The Pretty Horses.  i picked this one up on a return trip and was mesmerized from the title page. Anton Chigur is the embodiment of evil. the character was so scary in the book that i had to remember that i was reading a work of fiction and not a real crime novel. the inner dialogue that Sherriff Ed Tom Bell provides in the interludes of action are beautifully rough and simple. i grew up in the region that the book is set in which makes it all the more real to me. when he describes the sheriff’s office in Sonora, or the open range where the drug deal gone wrong takes place, i can truly see it. masterful prose from a reclusive genius.

2. Chasing Francis-Ian Morgan Cron

this book was recommended by Randy Elrod and i actually got to sit with the author at a SuperBowl party in Nashville in 2010 and talk about how awesome Led Zeppelin is. this book details the journey of a pastor named Chase who becomes disillusioned with his church and accepts an invite to visit his uncle in Italy where he has some supernatural experiences in the areas where St. Francis of Assisi lived and worked. it is a rich novel and Cron weaves beautiful ideas about life and God into the fictional story of this man who is struggling with who he thinks God is. you might also want to check out Cron’s book Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me (a memoir of sorts)

1. The Chronicles of Narnia-The Last Battle-C.S. Lewis

i fell in love with this series at a young age. there was an old linen bound collection at the Dublin Public Library, and i spent the summer between fourth and fifth grade becoming well accustomed to the wilds of Narnia. actually the whole series is precious to me, but this book especially has my heart. because in this book, Aslan, my favorite literary character of all time, reaches the culmination of who he really is throughout the series. don’t laugh, but i seriously cry when Aslan appears in the books. some of my favorite prose that Lewis wrote is in this book.

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

so tell me your top 5. what do you like to read? and give me ideas for future top 5′s.

Synopsis (from Amazon)

‘Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block?’ 

For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer’s pretty simple: he has, in his own words, ‘pissed his life away’. And on New Year’s Eve he’s going to end it all . . . but not, as it happens, alone. Because first single-mum Maureen, then eighteen-year-old Jess and lastly American rock-god JJ turn up and crash Martin’s private party. They’ve stolen his idea – but brought their own reasons.

Yet it’s hard to jump when you’ve got an audience queuing impatiently behind you. A few heated words and some slices if cold pizza later and these four strangers are suddenly allies. But is their unlikely friendship a good enough reason to carry on living?

Review.

Previous novels which I’ve read by Nick Hornby have both been books where I’vd seen the films previously (you can see my reviews of Nick Hornby’s other works by using his tag) I’m not entirely sure what effect this has had on my reading of them, I enjoyed both so I certainly wouldn’t say it had a negative impact but it did give me some expectations.

I’ve been meaning to read some other of his novels for some time but was unsure where to go. A Long Way Down probably wouldn’t have been my first choice except that it was in the 12 days of kindle deals after Christmas so it seemed sensible.

Why wouldn’t I have gone with A Long Way Down? Well, my experience with funny suicide novels is not the best. I didn’t get on well with A Spot of Bother, and I wasn’t that enamoured with The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim either, but I did enjoy A Matter of Death and Life. I did know though that it’s Nick Hornby’s forte to manage to write light novels about serious subjects.

Well as far as funny suicide novels go it was pretty good. It did make me laugh, sometimes to the point that I felt a little bad about laughing, it was absurd but maybe believable. However I did feel it skimped a bit on the emotion. I never felt particularly attached to the characters, or especially emphatic- although my empathy did grow a little as I got to know them better.

There was only one character that I really felt had a halfway decent reason to want to commit suicide, but strangely she was also the one who I wanted to succeed the least.

3/5

Buy it:

Kindle (£6.99)

Paperback (£6.74)

Other reviews:

The Eye of Loni’s Storm

If you have reviewed this book leave me a link and I will add it here.

Epileptic by David B. (Pantheon Books, 2005)

Epileptic has been rather elusive, so when my friend Star and I saw the last two copies being sold at the shiny renovated NBS Glorietta, we immediately grabbed them. This graphic memoir tackles the childhood of the author, when his whole family was shuttling to one macrobiotic commune to another. His brother was diagnosed with epilepsy and his parents believed that an alternative lifestyle was the best cure for the condition. Aside from the curious way that the author’s parents wanted their family to live, it was also interesting to read about David B.’s rich inner life as a child. I haven’t finished this weird little graphic memoir, since I keep forgetting it at my parents’ house but eventually I’ll get there, especially since summer vacation is just around the corner.

A colleague saw this book on my desk the day after I bought it, and she was immediately curious. She flipped through it and declared the book too thick to be interesting. She was so surprised that it was a “comic book,” although she thought the art was “too dark and morbid.” She asked me if this was a sort of local manga, but I didn’t have the heart (or the snooty predisposition) to tell her that it’s not, and that this book is more emotionally evocative than most of the things she had ever read in her life.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012 deluxe pocket edition)

This lovely little volume of The Hobbit has been keeping me company at “my” coffee shop. I read it bit by bit after freelance work or after checking papers. It’s been a nice vacation (or adventure?) for my brain, but sometimes I want to slap Bilbo around for having full-sized histrionics in his halfling body.

Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin’s Press, 2006)

This one was an impulse buy from the nearby BookSale. I’ve been on the look-out for a good memoirist/essayist recently–I’ve lost most of my appetite for fiction anyway (except for the very good ones that can take me by surprise), and poetry I tend to  take in relatively small doses. “Top 10″ lists on the Internet recommended Augusten Burroughs, and I honestly though this book was going to be compelling (well, I’m basing my judgment on the movie Running with Scissors and a couple of chapters of A Wolf at the Table). It was all right, I guess. Burroughs shows off his technical skills in this book, but it gets kind of boring. My thoughts, according to my notebook, were: “tedious yet showing unnecessary restraint. Boring.” There is an attempt to imitate Sedaris in this collection of essays–there might be a hint of bias here, but Sedaris never felt tedious, even when he’s talking about the most mundane of events.

I moved on to another book after a couple of essays, because I was so thisclose to pulling my eyebrows out in frustration. Maybe I’ll get back to this book when I’m less likely to be frustrated.

Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby (McSweeney’s, 2008)

I like Nick Hornby’s little columns on reading in the Believer magazine. They’re witty and self-deprecating, and each show the reader that reading is a very integral part of the author’s life. The essays could be inspiring, especially for a reading polygamist for me. However, I have serious reservations about the blurb “utterly hysterical.” How about you let me decide for myself, you judging little blurb. (My decision so far: with his dry British humor and cleverness, he could be funny. But dear Jesus, “hysterical” is an overstatement, especially if you supersize it with “utterly.”)

The First Four Books of Poems by Louise Glück (Ecco, 1999)

I’ve been roped into advising for and judging thesis proposals, and I’ve never felt so tired of reading prose. Glück is always a favorite, and I hope that she will give my eyes a much needed break from the research papers that will assault me this month.

–

Epileptic is from NBS Glorietta (P809), The Hobbit is from NBS Greenbelt 1 (P799), Possible Side Effects is from BookSale (P115), Shakespeare Wrote for Money is from Powerbooks Greenbelt 4 (P540), and The First Four Books of Poems is from The Book Depository ($15).

Hornby tells you how to try to be good, how not to be good and, ultimately, how to stop trying to be good. However, he does not tell you How to be Good. In this witty novel, Hornby forms a caricature of family life in the 21st century and the reader follows Kate, as she tries to make a decision: whether or not to leave her husband.

Kate is a successful GP and married to David, a sarcastic writer for the local paper, with a column ‘the Angriest Man in Holloway’. Frustrated, she begins to explore what her life would be like as a single woman, just as her husband meets a local faith healer called Dr. GoodNews. At which point, David transforms from a pessimist into the ultimate optimist and do-gooder. Frankly, which is more irritating?

Hornby’s ability to establish realistic characters creates a family full of flaws and total honesty. However, Kate’s constant criticism of David, her friends and children, becomes annoying… very annoying. This isn’t a great work of literature but a fantastic light read.

First published in 2001, How to be Good became a No. 1 bestseller. Sitting alongside his other novels Fever Pitch, About a Boy and High Fidelity, Hornby is one of my favourite contemporary writers.

Rating: 5/10

Next Week: Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi

And that a certain book, “wasn’t just up my street; it was actually knocking on my front door and peering through the letterbox to see if I was in.”

You see why I have a crush on this man?

In 2000, it was adapted into a film starring John Cusack and in 2003 was listed on the BBC’s survey The Big Read.  It has sold more than 1 million copies since its publication.

Hornsby is also the author of the novel A Long Way Down, Fever Pitch and About a Boy.  He has been the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E. M. Forster Award and the winner of the 2003 Orange Word International Writers’ London Award. A film written by Hornsby, An Education, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, to great acclaim and was later distributed by Sony later that year.

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Read High Fidelity:

1. Rob Fleming

The reason why I love Rob is because he’s good with music.  Relationships?  Not so much.  He sells music the old fashioned way and it’s not the only ar

ea where he is having trouble adapting – he just can’t seem to ma

ke the transition into adulthood.  He’s the same insecure, overly sensitive, too-much-in-their-own-head-for-their-own-good kinda person we all are.  And it makes for fantastic empathizing.

2. Reality

This is an instant classic because it explains men to women and men to men.  It is simultaneously a romance, and single life, told from the perspective of a thirty-something single male.  How often does that happen?

High Fidelity comes as close to portraying single life and romance as it actually happens rather than the larger-than-life Hollywood version.  It talks about all the things we decide to do in relationships – how much we choose to reveal, how often our feelings change, how we waver, and even how we only come to realize the preciousness of a relationship once it is over.  It captures so well the moments of loneliness and pointlessness we’ve all felt at one time or the other.

3. It is an ode to pop music.

All of the top five lists introduced me (or reintroduced me) to great, fantastic and utterly catchy pop music.  Some Marvin Gaye, anyone?

 4. It is extremely well written.

 This book is basically one extended monologue.  Althou

gh Rob interacts with other characters, the events of the story are filtered mostly through his own analysis of relationships and his own philosophies and neuroses.  Such a way of telling a story should get tiring buy Hornby manages to

make Rob seem

vulnerable and confused, rather than whiny, which is a masterful accomplishment in its own right.

5. Old Rob to Young Rob

 “I’m sorry, I’ve let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.”

Read this if you enjoyed:

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

Well, after battling both demons and angels for a little over forty-five minutes, after losing every single team save for P-san’s, after constant spamming of gun-run-heal tactics, I finally did it. Victory was mine, earned with sweat, devotion, new strategies, the use of the Drain skill, and various sacrifices. I beat that mission in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked that has repeatedly kicked my ass these last few days, constructing a roadblock of sorts. With the angels and demons defeated, P-san and his friends Atsuro, Yuzu, and Midori escaped the lockdown, bringing Honda and his frantic buddies along with us for good measure. Y’all welcome.

However, immediately upon exiting, a strange lighting storm appears over the lockdown. The angels, who P-san was beginning to side with, declared that the lockdown was a failure and decided to kill everyone inside it with lightning. Pew pew pew. For those outside the lockdown–namely, P-san and friends and remaining family members–the angels have declared humanity to be in default of their responsibilities as children of God, and an angelic army appears to enslave the world. Anyone who is not immediately subservient is killed outright, and the remainder are stripped of their free will. This is all told via text on the screen, which is then promptly followed by the words “Mission Failed,” sending you back to the main menu to load from a previous save.

It’s heart-wrenching, and not necessarily from a storyline perspective, but the suddenness of a GAME OVER screen after all that story and choice and time spent battling monsters and trying to survive to live another half hour really does leave something to be desired. I mean, this whole time, we’re trying to escape the lockdown, and now you get the chance to, and if you do it YOU LOSE. The logic behind is severely flawed. Evidently, you are supposed to the fight demons and angels and then attack the humans to break their COMPs while also protecting them from the previously mentioned angels and demons who can, in one hit, take them out, and any civilian dying is a mission fail status. So the easiest option of kill everything and run for it results in death, despair, and dropping you back to the start screen.

Evidently, there are six endings in Devil Summoner Overclocked, and of them, one is literally called “the Early Bad Ending,” which is obtained by breaking through the barricades of the Lockdown on Day 6 and escaping after defeating both the angels and demons in your way. I had no idea about this as I played; I was just playing, making the choices that seemed right and logical, like escaping the demon-filled lockdown at first chance. For that, I felt like I should have been rewarded, but instead I was punished.

When the “Mission Failed” text came up, I literally started at it for over a minute, mouth agape and heart-rate increasing. I just couldn’t believe it. This game loves to waste your time and test your patience, and despite how patient I actually am, I’m over it. I took Devil Summoner Overclocked out of my 3DS and tossed it back into my cartridge bag; now, if I was truly over it, I would have put the cartridge back in its case and then on the shelf to sit untouched for the remainder of days. But there’s a sick part of me. It’s hungry and demanding and greedy and covered in dirt. There’s a sickness within me, and this side still wants to see how things are supposed to go down (or one of five possibilities) before deeming the experience over. I mean, after thirty-seven hours am I just suppose to accept an early bad ending as the final say in this story? Especially now that I know what I’m supposed to do to “beat” the mission correctly.

I’ll try again, I will. Devil Summoner Overclocked and I just need some space, the kind you build after everything breaks down. I’ll end this fail-driven blog post by quoting Nick Hornby’s fail-driven High Fidelity, which I think does a good job of summing up this Day 6 battle set on the fringe of the lockdown that literally tore me apart: “What went wrong? Nothing and everything.”

So you will have to settle for this pretty famous book by Nick Hornby until I get a bit better… We lay our scene in London (1993) and we get to follow a coming of age story for a kid and an adult. We get to follow Marcus (the kid) and Will (the adult) and their unusual lives from their perspective in the book. Will is living the dream life with money to drown in and an obsession with getting the new things straight from the stores. Meanwhile Marcus is the introverted kid with a strange family and very strange personality.

The book started out slow… so slow that I missed the fact that there were two main characters for about 1/3 of the book. That was probably partly due to the fever but the book was really slow and I never really think that that changed. You got used to it and every once in a while something happened to make you keep you interest.

The genres in this book were not suitable for my taste at all, drama-comedy did not resemble the feeling I got from reading it at all. The drama was boring and the comedy aspects where no comedy at all in my eyes, it was just more dram and I can’t remember a single funny thing from the book.

The two characters were good in the beginning. It was a nice twist to the common story and I liked how their livers were described in the book. Tough I did not like many of the characters actions or thought and the writing techniques the author used did not capture me at all.

The book also had an ending that I like to believe most people are tired of today. It did fit the book and the purpose of it but that last thing I wanted the book to end with was the happily ever after scenario adapted in a real life situation.

I may have disliked this book a lot but I do think that the movie adaption will be better; this seems like the kind of story that should be in a movie to me. So I am looking forward to that at least. 3 / 10

I hate the cover, but there are better ones out there.

Mhairi McFarlane

‘You Had Me At Hello’ - Yes

Pete Townshend

‘Who I am’ - Disappointment

Maggie O’Farrell

‘The Hand That First Held Mine’ – Touching

‘After You’d Gone’ - Bereft

Nick Hornby

‘Everyone’s Reading Bastard …’ -Bitch

Jojo Moyes

‘The Girl You Left Behind’ - Stunner

‘Ship Of Brides’ – Epic

‘Silver Bay’ - Convincing

‘The Peacock Emporium’ – Tiresome

Danny Baker

‘Going To Sea  In A Sieve’ - Affirmation

Paul Myers

‘A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio’ - Genius

David Nichols

‘A Wizard A True Star: The Unusual Career Of Todd Rundgren’ - Unreadable

John O’Farrell

‘This Is Your Life’ – Implausible

‘The Man Who Forgot His Wife’ – Read

‘May Contain Nuts’ – Nuts

Anne Tyler

‘The Ladder Of Years’ -Minutiae

Ken Follett

‘Fall Of Giants’ - Masterstoryteller

‘Winter Of The World’ - Masterstoryteller#2

Chris Welch

Genesis: The Complete Guide – Shite

P G Wodehouse

‘Jeeves Omnibus’ - Spiffing

© Andy Daly 2013

Melvin and Carol, As Good as It Gets

James L. Brooks’s 1997 comedy/drama gave us one of the most problematic movie couples in recent memory: a socially inept, obsessive-compulsive novelist and a single mother who is like one big, exposed nerve. The fact that they weren’t compatible, that Melvin seemed equipped only to say the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong moment, is part of what gives the picture its atypical tension; it’s also why the halfhearted happy ending that puts them together feels so phony and false, negating everything we actually think and feel about the couple at the picture’s center. “Melvin is not a man ever destined to find lasting happiness,” noted Roger Ebert, “and the movie’s happy ending feels like a blackout, seconds before more unhappiness begins.”

Ben and Alison, Knocked Up

We’re not going to reopen the old debate over whether the obvious disparity in their conventional physical attractiveness rendered Ben and Alison an unbelievable couple — a debate that is sort of offensive to all of us who were lucky enough to land partners who rather trump us, looks-wise. It happens, is the point. The credibility issue in Knocked Up (a film that we love in spite of its lapses) is about their long-term viability. What, we’re supposed to believe that because Ben finally got around to reading the baby books, and got a job, and put up an Eternal Sunshine poster in his spare bedroom, that somehow means he and Alison have something in common besides their spawn? Because we still don’t see it.

Andie and Blaine, Pretty in Pink

A generation of wacky outcasts were permanently scarred by the ending of the John Hughes-written, Howard Deutch-directed 1986 rom-com Pretty in Pink, in which Molly Ringwald’s Andie is given the choice between handsome rich preppie Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) and charming, funny Otis Redding fan Duckie (Jon Cryer) — and she picks the Ken doll. We’ve got a feeling it’s a choice she’d come to regret as much as her creators did (Hughes and Deutch collaborated the next year on Some Kind of Wonderful, which is basically a sex-changed remake of Pink, but with the proper outcome).

Lelaina and Troy, Reality Bites

We’ve got a feeling this is one that has something to do with age — i.e., you go back and watch Reality Bites these days and can’t believe that Lelaina ends up with Troy, when she’s so obviously a better fit with Michael (Ben Stiller). Oh, sure, Michael wears a suit and works for cable television, and okay, he lets them sculpt her navel-gazing “documentary” into Real World-style trash. This is the turning point that dooms Michael in here eyes, but let’s face it: Troy does far worse, and gets away with it because he’s got that soulful goateed “truth teller” thing happening. When Lelaina outgrows her taste for that, Troy’s gone like last week’s garbage.

Ben and Elaine, The Graduate

Credit where due: the closing shots of The Graduate acknowledge the somewhat sticky and perhaps less-than-arbitrarily-happy nature of the film’s ending, as Benjamin and Elaine, who have just fled her wedding, exchange nervous looks in the back seat of that bus and realize what they’ve done. We give them a year and a half, tops. If Ben had his head on straight, he’d have stuck with that sexy older lady.

Rob and Laura, High Fidelity

Like The Graduate, part of what’s great about the closing scenes of High Fidelity is their subtle acknowledgment of the fact that maybe, just maybe, these two kids aren’t going to make it. Coming right out and saying it is a bit of a bummer, considering how much of the movie we’ve spent waiting for the two of them to get back together, but there is something unsettling about the way Rob responds to that cute music writer (Natasha Gregson Wagner — and BTW, where the hell did she go?) and sets about making her a tape. Our skepticism about their future is apparently shared by Nick Hornby, who wrote the book the film is based on (when asked at a screening if they’d make it, “he laughed and said he had his doubts”). But what’s great about High Fidelity, unlike most of its rom-com brethren, is that it’s actually about much more than whether the two of them end up together, or for how long.

Edward and Vivian, Pretty Woman

Granted, it’s kind of an easy target, but the conclusion of Garry Marshall’s blockbuster 1990 comedy has always seemed about as credible as the fairy tales it’s emulating. Sure, the two of them look great together, have good sex, and apparently make a fine shopping team. But that’s about all these two have in common, and if you think a one-percenter like Edward only has one sleazy colleague who’d play the whore card with Vivian, we’ve got a Carol Channing wig to sell you.

Sam and Annie, Sleepless in Seattle

There’s a whole subset of romantic comedies that are centered on the gimmick of taking two hours to merely put the couple together; Sleepless in Seattle was far and away the most commercially successful, but you can also see the trope at work in The Night We Never Met, Next Stop Wonderland, and others. Putting them together for the first time at the end of the picture allows the filmmakers to dodge some pretty basic questions: what if they actually don’t hit it off? What if they don’t have anything in common? What if they’re sexually incompatible? And in the case of Sleepless, what if Annie quickly realizes what an obnoxious brat Sam’s kid is?

Ariel and Eric, The Little Mermaid

Look, we know a fairy tale’s a fairy tale and all, but the fact of the matter is, couples who fall in love when one of them doesn’t have the power of speech don’t exactly have a sky-high success rate. It says something about their priorities, understand; the kind of guy who’ll go for a girl based (quite literally) solely on her appearance probably won’t reveal himself to be the best listener further down the line. And it’s not like Ariel investigated Eric much, personality-wise, before giving away her voice to land him. We see a couple months of surface happiness before devolving into a for-show marriage, full of scandals and adultery.

Isaac and Tracy, Manhattan

Woody Allen’s 1979 masterpiece deserves points for its honest handling of Isaac and Mary’s relationship; it was a refuge for a couple of slightly damaged souls, a way station but not a destination. But we’re not wild about the film’s conclusion that Isaac would find true happiness with his way-younger girlfriend Tracy, either. I mean, seriously, what kind of a creepy future would a guy like Woody Allen have with a teenager?

Those are the “happily ever after”s that we don’t buy; what are yours? Let us know in the comments!

I didn’t know Beach House until this album got huge raves in end of the year lists.  I decided to investigate it and I was really pleasantly surprised by the album’s Cocteau Twins meets My Bloody valentine feel.  I have recently read that their first two albums were not quite as big and full and orchestral as this album, which meant that this one marked a recording (but not necessarily song stylistic) change for the band.  Part of me wants to hear what the earlier, more homemade version of the band sounds like, and yet I like the full almost orchestrated feel of this album so much that I can’t imagine going back to a less big sound.

The album opens with a delicately reverbed guitar riff—it feels warm and summery and then the angelic voices kick in and the ahhhs launch the song into the stratosphere.  And it pretty much stays there for the whole album.  There’s virtually no bass and only the slightest hints of drums (time-keeping measures rather than percussion).  Well, okay, “Better Times” has drums but even they are mild.  Victoria Legrand’s voice just soars, sometimes in staccato bursts, but mostly in otherworldly seeming falsetto (with occasion moments when she sounds kind of masculine and yet still angelic–it’s an amazing range).  There’s mostly reverbed guitars but on some tracks like “Used to Be” there are keyboards as well.  They’re even more prevalent (and more 80s sounding) on “Lover of Mine.”

Despite the sameness of the songs, the album doesn’t feel like one song repeated over.  The melodies are unique and the composition of the songs really shows a lot of diversity within a format.  Like “10 Mile Stereo” which has a faster pace than the other but still maintains that ethereal vibe.  Or “Real Love” which introduces a piano into the mix, and the song feels a little less ethereal, but only a little.  The album is also not too long.  It’s like a wonderful blast of summer.

The CD comes with a DVD with videos for each song, although I have not watched them yet.

[READ: February 11, 2013] Click

I discovered this story because it was listed in Roddy Doyle’s bibliography on Wikipedia.  I’m somewhat surprised that I’d never heard of it as I know so many of the authors that were involved (indeed, several of them are involved in the 39 Clues, another multiple author series).  This book is billed as a YA book and I guess it is as many of the sections are about teenagers, but some characters grow old and there’s some talk of the bombing of Hiroshima which may be a bit intense (there’s no pictures and no detailed descriptions, but still…).  It is a quick read though, so I guess it can qualify as YA.

The story is about a photographer named Gee (real name George Keane) and how he impacted so many lives.  In the first story/chapter (each chapter is like a short story that contributes to the overall picture and each one of these is written by someone different), written by Linda Sue Park, we learn that Gee has just died.  He left his granddaughter Maggie (who I came to think of as the “main” character, even though she doesn’t appear in every story) a box with seven compartments.  In each compartment was a shell with a clue, suggesting that she should take all of the shells back to where they came from–a subtle encouragement to travel the world.  But Maggie is utterly distressed by Gee’s death and she can’t get off the couch where she used to spend time with him.  Eventually her parents offer to take her to one of those locations–Japan–getting her life started at last.

David Almond wrote the second one which  is an odd little story about a girl named Annie.  Annie’s mother is a great storyteller and she tells Annie a story about her birth–that her father (whom Annie doesn’t know) was  really a creature from the sea.  Gee happens upon them while they are talking and he takes a candid photo–one which later in the story proves to be very powerful.  This is the only story with vaguely magical properties to it and it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest.

The third story is about Jason.  Jason is Maggie’s stepbrother.  He recently learned he was adopted and he hates his adoptive family.  He is right now biding his time working in a crappy pizza place (as what appears to be a singing leprechaun) to get money to visit his father whom he believes is on the tropics (based on the one postcard he received from the man).  Jason is sullen and angry and focused only on getting away.  He even stole something from Gee to get some money for his trip.  He doesn’t understand why Gee gave Maggie the worthless shells when he gave Jason some amazing photos that he took and which were autographed (Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali and more).  But he decides he’s going to sell the photos–they must be worth a fortune.  The pawn guy won’t give him much for them (all celebs sign autographs looking to make a quick buck), but he says he’ll give a lot for Gee’s old camera.  Jason decides to steal that too (the old man is dead after all, and no one ill miss it), but when he gets to the hiding spot, something makes him rethink his decision.  This one (by Eoin Colfer) was very moving and one of my favorites.

The fourth story (by Deborah Ellis) was confusing because it starts talking about Lev.  Lev is a young prisoner in Russia.  It really derails a lot of the momentum because we learn about what a hard time Lev is having in the prison–the gruel he eats most of the time and the abuse he takes as the youngest prisoner in the cell.  But soon, we see that Gee is visiting Lev in prison for pictures for Newsweek–because Americans want to see what prisons are like in other countries.  Gee talks with them and learns that each prisoner makes something in the cell–just to have something to do.  Gee wants to buy everything from them and he returns a few weeks later with all kinds of good stuff for prisoners.  The item that Lev made plays a huge role in the story and the way it was explained and tied everything together was fantastic.

Nick Hornby reintroduces us to Maggie in the fifth section.  The story goes in a really weird direction.  First we see that Maggie no longer spends all her time moping about Gee.  Although that makes her feel bad for different reasons.  When her family decides to look through his pictures again, she discovers photos of a woman–too many photos for her to not have meant something to Gee.  And, with a little help from Google, Maggie discovers that Gee was married and a had family in France–something that no one knew.  I’m not a huge fan of this plot because it doesn’t seem relevant to the rest of the book, but what Hornby does with it is really nice and brings an unexpected depth to the story.

Roddy Doyle probably has the most fun with his story.  (I wondered if his story would be very Irish and indeed it is–that’s a very cool thing about this book, the authors keep their own voices even if I can’t always tell them apart). This story relates to the Muhammad Ali photo.   For Gee was on hand when Ali fought in Croke Park.  And the story follows Vinnie, a young boy who met Gee before the match and who hung around with him for a time before and after the match.  This included climbing the barbed wire fence and sneaking Gee into Croke Park the night before the match.  When Gee meets Vinnie’s grandma (a wonderfully funny old lady), she sits with him and dispenses wisdom.  She sees his future and that he will have children and even grandchildren who will be named Maggie and Jason–which brings a whole new insight into the Ali photo. Later, the granny admits she was just making things up, but Vinnie knows that she had the gift.

The next chapter is about Min.  Tim Wynne-Jones opened this story in a very confusing way, making this my least favorite story.  Until, that is, it started to come into focus and then it became my favorite one in the book.  Jason is back, and he has his grandfather’s camera.  His life has been unexpectedly altered by Gee and he is becoming an amateur photographer.   He was taking  a picture of what sounds like some kind of glass dumping area and he sees a girl (who was at a party at the pizza place–nice synchronicity there) reflected in one of the panes.  He decides that she is his muse and he convinces her to let him follow her around taking her picture.  But this story is really about Min and Min’s story is far more complex.  She has climbed into her shell and wants to be invisible.  But this boy won’t leave her alone.  By the end, when all of the details of her recent past are revealed, the story becomes very powerful.

Ruth Ozeki brings the story to Japan (I mentioned Hiroshima).  The story is about Jiro, whose older brother Taro had his legs blown off in the war.  Taro keeps his spirits up, but has to push himself around on a dolly.  Then one day Jiro sees Gee taking pictures of the bomb victims.  Jiro instantly hates the man for documenting their pain.  But soon after  Gee sees Taro wheel his dolly into the street in front of a that truck can’t see him.  Gee reacts quickly and saves his life.  And even Jiro accepts that not all Americans are evil   The story of their friendship is really sweet–with Taro, who knows some English  communicating with Gee and explaining what’s going on.  When they go to the sea of Japan to the boys’ ancestral home, we see Gee receive the first shell that he will eventually give to Maggie.  Again, I loved the way these stories connected.

The second to last story travels to Australia.  Margo Lanagan introduces us to Afela, a young girl who believes that she can peel off parts of her life when things are not going well and that those other versions of herself will have a much better existence.  Afela is on vacation, and she feels bad for herself because her vacation is cheap and it’s with all of her extended family while the rich girls in school go on fancy holiday.  She tries to escape the family so she and her cousin (and his dumb dog) go for a walk on the beach.  Soon, the dog runs after and attacks a woman walking on the beach.  ( I feel that perhaps this scene was a little unrealistic as it surely would have been much more hysterical and litigious  unless I’m thinking too American about it).  Anyhow, before the ambulance comes, Afela learns that the woman is Maggie (as an adult, now called Margaret) and she has finally made it to Australia.  We also learn that Jason was on an assignment of some sort and was killed right here in the seas.  It’s a brief story but it ties up some threads nicely and shows that this story which went as far back as the 1940s will also head into the future.

Gregory Maguire concludes the book in the year 2030.  Margaret is with her niece, Iona, in Nutu (which is New York City Two–after the catastrophe the city was re-visioned).  She is staging a gallery opening for three generations of photographers–Gee, Jason and Iona, all photographers with wonderful skill.  This gives Margaret a chance to go through some of the photos of scenes that we have read about and to let us bring our insight into the photos.  I’m not sure that we need the crazy sci-fi future (clones are legal and recognized as human) I mean, it’s only 27 years in the future from the time of the writing.  But it’s an interesting and somewhat amusing backdrop for this wonderful conclusion to the story, one that wraps up the elements nicely.  I liked that the conclusion wasn’t over the top–all of the people ion the pictures aren’t united in some way and not every question is answered–rather, it’s a nice family story where even they don’t have all the answers.  As the book ends we see that the saga that Margaret has been on all her life will not end with her.

The one thing this story doesn’t do is explain the set up.  I may be the only person who cares about this sort of thing, but I’m interested–did each author pick who they wanted to write about?  Were they given a basic outline to follow?  Did one person come up with the idea and give them all of the details they needed to include?  I’m fascinated by this sort of thing, but I guess I’ll never know.  But that’s okay as the novel itself was really enjoyable.

Synopsis from back of book:

Katie Carr, doctor (and self-declared ‘good person’), has just had an affair. It’s not really her fault–she is, after all, married to David: angry, cynical, negative (though undeniably funny) and a real pain to live with. But then David meets DJ GoodNews, astonishingly effective faith healer and do-gooder of the unbearably smug kind. And now David is good. Too good, actually–’a liberal’s worst nightmare’, he starts to put theory into practice, giving away all their kids’ toys, reaching out to the hopeless and homeless in a very personal and, for Katie, disturbing way. It seems to her that if charity begins at home, it may be time to move…

I’m about halfway through, and one of the story’s many poignant observations is the fact that so many of us live with way more than we really need–extra computers and TVs, multiple cars, spare rooms, etc.–when there are people who have very little or none of those things a few blocks or miles away. Why not put these ‘extras’ to better use and give them to someone who really needs them? In the book, David starts a campaign on his own street where he invites all his neighbors to have a homeless person live in their spare bedrooms for one year. It’s extreme, but it’s actually pretty logical. You don’t need it, someone else does, give it to them.

So my questions today: How can we help people in need during this process of simplifying our lives? Do we really need that extra car, TV, coat, microwave, computer, bed, set of sheets, bike…… bedroom? Do you know or have you heard about someone who could benefit from something you own? Ask around. Search Craigslist ‘wanted’ ads. Contact local shelters and charities. Start small today and give away some things you don’t use much anyway. Then raise the stakes and give away something you love but could live without. You never know what it may mean to someone else. Instead of thinking in terms of losing your belongings, if that makes you nervous, it might help to think in terms of how many ways you can improves the lives of others.

A few quotes from the book:

“It seems to me now that the plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don’t need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.”

“We don’t care enough. We look after ourselves and ignore the weak and the poor. We despise our politicians for doing nothing, and think that this is somehow enough to show we care, and meanwhile we live in centrally heated houses that are too big for us… We have a spare bedroom, and a study, and meanwhile people are sleeping outside on pavements. We scrape perfectly edible food into our compost maker, and meanwhile people at the end of our road are begging for the price of a cup of tea and a bag of chips.”

“Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.”

“Love, it turns out, is as undemocratic as money, so it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already.”

After reading the novel, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. I guess I expected it to have a feel-good ending to a gloomy story. It didn’t have that. Well, it had an ending, of course, but I’m not sure what kind it is. I do, however, respect the story and its author for being so… I guess real is the right word. Yes, for being so real.

Anyway, just in case it isn’t obvious by now, I have to tell you that one of my absolute favorite moments in life is discovering wonderful words, sentences and quotes. This book has a couple of them and I’d like to share them with you.

Wanting to die seems like it might be a part of being alive. (p.28)

The trouble with my generation is that we all think we’re fucking geniuses. Making something isn’t good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. It’s our inalienable right, as citizens of the twenty-first century. (p.30)

It felt like I’d been walking down a tunnel that was getting narrower and narrower, and darker and darker, and had started shipping water, and I was all hunched up, and there was a wall of rocks in front of me and the only tools I had were my fingernails. And maybe everyone feels that way, but that’s no reason to stick with it. (p.31)

Is that so terrible, to be so positive about something? (p.202)

Being alive seemed worth celebrating. (p.230)

We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can’t have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we’re so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they’re not looks like a bad move. Go on, say what you want… The truth shall set you free. Either that or it’ll get you a punch in the nose. (p.257)

Sometimes it’s moments like that, real complicated moments, absorbing moments, that make you realize that even hard times have things in them that make you feel alive. (p.299)

Perhaps getting something you want is never a coincidence. (p.309)

It’s rare to find words that trigger something in me. I don’t always know what that something is, but I know it’s always the kind that makes you feel like you’ve just become part of something big. The third and seventh ones, in particular, literally gave me goosebumps when I read those last lines.  I can’t explain why. But I hope you understand.

Good Morning, CNY! Before the storm.

Because I lived in LA, where the slightest rainfall created pandemonium (for the news team!), I am familiar with dealing with disaster before disaster befalls and so this megastorm of the century that hasn’t arrived and has already cancelled thousands of flights on the east coast feels very familiar.

So, I find myself tuning into KTLA-5 in LA, their live feed. There’s my news crew chatting up LA things, a rodeo, a cop killer, a soul sucking pile up on the 15, and I think to myself…self, you are NOT missing LA. That is NOT what is happening. It started this morning with Nick Hornby posting news about his book About A Boy becoming a TV show that Jason Katims is developing. Jason Katims my next door neighbor in Pacific Palisades. Jason Katims, the sweet, quiet hulk of a man who lived next to me in LA. LA. LA.

I lived next to one of the most successful show runners of the decade for years and years and years and barely said “hi” to him in Starbucks. Yes, I did for a hot LA second fantasize that he’d leave his lovely wife and walk next door to my shabby cottage and take care of me for awhile…but this was a short lived stage as I looked myself in the mirror over the toothbrush in the morning and said, get the fuck OVER stealing your neighbor’s husband who doesn’t even know you are alive and isn’t writing Parenthood with you as a muse you pathetic dumb ASS.

Anyway, Jason is still hugely successful and I am still single but now I’m writing a book in my head (Dunga Brook Diary) that needs to be a television show that he runs and yeah, you get it…still delusional.

So, this is a picture of Dunga Brook, what she looks like BEFORE THE MEGASTORM. Hopefully, this is what she will look like during and after, too. If the east coast news casters are anything like the west coast news casters…we will be just fine. And yes, that is a relative term.

I don’t have this dilemma anymore, as I have enough interesting data to stun a subadult moose. But I still have to decide how to allocate my time between grants and manuscripts. I’m referring to the nuggets of time when I’m not teaching and advising.

Based on what I have in progress, I think I can get two, maybe three, papers out before the summer field season, if I suspend grantwriting ambitions until the fall (when I have a brand new set of exciting data from the summer). I have one grant pending, and I’m co-PI on another going out in a month or so. So I do have an iron in the fire, though I don’t know if the fire is hot enough to press my shirts when I remove it (that is what you do with the irons in the fire, right?).

I would much rather submit a paper than submit a grant, but I would much rather a grant gets funded than a paper get accepted. On a related note, a couple years ago I went to a Nick Hornby book signing. He was asked about the differences between novels and screenplays for movies. He said he was done with writing screenplays, because of the frustration tied to wasted effort. He estimated that a contracted screenplay makes it to production about 10% of the time. He mentioned that he finished a screenplay for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius  [loud gasps of delight fill the spacious room], and that he was convinced it would never make it to production [widespread groans of despair]. I imagine it would have been a gorgeous movie.

I feel about grantwriting like Nick Hornby feels about screenwriting. However, Nick Hornby will continue to ply his trade as novelist without writing screenplays. Without grants, my trade as a tropical field biologist will promptly wither. I’m not paying postdocs or grad students, but I do have to get myself down there along with some students. My hard drive has a number of finished grants which will never get funded. But the list of finished but never-to-be-published manuscripts is incredibly short.

So I’ll be working on the manuscript because I’m just more excited about the fact that it will come to completion and find its audience. All scientists go through cycles of grant writing, manuscript writing and data collection. I just don’t know what the optimal periodicity of each of those cycles should be to maximize productivity.