Shmuel's Soapbox -- The Blog

Open Letter to Amazon.Com

2010-01-30T23:56:00.005-05:00

I just e-mailed this to Amazon:

I'm a fan of Amazon.Com. A very *vocal* fan of Amazon.Com. I've been buying books through your service for the past decade, and I have defended Amazon in any number of arguments. I have loudly declared that, given the choice of Amazon failing, or every brick-and-mortal bookstore in the land closing, I would rather keep Amazon.

Most specifically, I have said that the reason Amazon's increasing dominance is NOT a problem in the way that the dominance of chain bookstore has been is that Amazon sells EVERYTHING. Barnes and Noble, Borders, and so on are limited by the physical space available in shops, and necessarily have too much influence on whether books succeed or fail; Amazon, by making everything available, avoids that trap. And as I could envision no set of circumstances in which Amazon would fail to offer any legitimate book, I had no trouble heaping all of my eggs into its basket. In fact, I have bought at Amazon INSTEAD of offline retailers when possible specifically in order to support what I've thought of as my local bookstore.

I'm having second thoughts now. While I could easily understand not carrying copies of Macmillan's books for the Kindle if you were unable to reach an equitable agreement with them, removing the PHYSICAL copies of the books is another matter entirely. You've knocked the support out from my major reason to support you. I don't think I can trust you anymore.

And this saddens me more than I can say.

Holidailies Wrapup

2010-01-06T19:52:00.003-05:00

Well, I never did get to my post on Twitter spam, nor did I come close to posting every day of Holidailies... but I am beating last year's total by one post. And it's better than nothing, which is what I managed the rest of the year, and it's been nice being back in touch with people over here. So I'm scoring this as a win.

And now I need to go collapse, for such is the way my internal clock is currently functioning. Thanks once again to Jette and Chip for running Holidailies every year! I know I'm not the only one who greatly appreciates it, both as a writer and as a reader.

Holidailies Triolet VIII

2010-01-03T08:20:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Jette and Lisa for their comments on my previous entry... they've successfully convinced me to stay on the wagon. I'm still up for the occasional cup of tea, but I'm sticking with seltzer in general.

Diet Pepsi, I abjure thee!
Seltzer's good enough for me.
Although I may consent to tea,
Diet Pepsi, I abjure thee!
Henceforth I will ever flee
Your caffeinated tyranny.
Diet Pepsi, I abjure thee!
Seltzer's good enough for me.

I think the larger problem for my productivity may simply be that I'm working at home. I think an office would help... but I'm not really sure what to do about that.

Otherwise, I'd planned on a decade-end roundup, but I've been preoccupied by this for the past few days. (I've started working up an essay of my own on the subject of that link, but it hasn't quite jelled yet.)

But perhaps I can sum it up in a triolet:

A tiny basement studio,
And no idea of what's to come.
That's where I was ten years ago:
A tiny basement studio.
And ten years on, I'm back below.
My prospects suck. I'm feeling glum.
A tiny basement studio,
And no idea of what's to come.

(Last year's Holidailies triolets.)

O Irony

2009-12-28T08:45:00.000-05:00

Back in my last post, I was tending toward taking up Diet Pepsi again.

There are two reasons why I opted for Diet Pepsi in the first place. The first is that I liked the taste better than that of any other caffeinated, carbonated diet soft drink. The second is that it's historically been the only caffeinated, carbonated diet soft drink that didn't leave me with a horrible aspertame aftertaste even when downing two liters of it daily.

One thing I hadn't considered was that in addition to being almost caffeine-free for over a month, I've also been almost aspertame-free for the same period. Turns out that once having crossed that bridge, even half a cup of Diet Pepsi is enough to leave me with a cloying aftertaste.

I think I need a new plan. I'm not sure what that new plan ought to consist of. I switched to diet soft drinks in the first place in an attempt to do one thing right for my teeth, and I'd just as soon not go full circle...

Airing of Grievances: Decaf Edition

2009-12-24T05:30:00.003-05:00

Strictly speaking, Festivus has been over since midnight, but as far as I'm concerned, the day doesn't end till I go to bed. So. My grievance is directed at caffeine. Or perhaps at my inability to function properly without it.

I don't drink coffee. Back in my teens, when I might have been expected to acquire a taste for it, I refused to try the stuff, on the reasonable grounds that I didn't want to become addicted to caffeine. Years later, when that was a moot point, I sampled it on two occasions, both times getting a sip or two in before pouring the rest down the sink. It's too late for me and my taste buds.

What I got into instead was soft drinks. Which soft drink has varied over the years... Coca-Cola, C&C Cola (not as good, but much cheaper), Dr Pepper, Barq's root beer, eventually stopping at Diet Pepsi. I had a two-liter-a-day Diet Pepsi habit for years. Along the way, I discovered that this was no longer a choice, and that I was well and truly caffeine-dependent.

I disliked that as a matter of principle, but largely failed to do anything about it until recently. Over about a month and a half, starting in October, I gradually tapered my Diet Pepsi intake down to zero, replacing it with seltzer. While this was a lovely and really rather surprising achievement, it turns out that my productivity — not to mention the degree to which I'm been awake — has plummeted since. It's almost as if caffeine were a stimulant of some sort...

I'm not sure what to do about this. Faced with a deadline at the end of November, I decided that I couldn't afford to stick with this entirely, and settled on a compromise: for the duration of the crisis, I'd brew myself some tea. This would give me some caffeine, but would also limit the amount I consumed. Unlike Diet Pepsi — or seltzer, a bottle of which is at my side as I type this — tea requires premeditation and effort. This is especially true if one works at home, lives alone, and lacks a samovar. One must fill the kettle, boil the water, steep the teabag, mix in the milk and sugar, and sip the results. I'm not likely to go through all that more than a couple of times a day. It was a reasonable compromise, and it worked, insofar as I got everything done in time. I then went back to seltzer. I haven't been getting much done.

Tentative conclusions after a month or so with very little caffeine: while my internal clock remains about as screwed up as ever, I do find it easier to fall asleep when I'm not caffeinated. And I'm less wired, and less jittery. On the other hand, I find it much harder to stay awake and get anything accomplished when I'm supposed to be up. Which is rather a problem.

I've been trying to ride this out on the theory that once I finish detoxing and my body adjusts to the new regime I might find myself with more energy, but I'm rapidly heading toward the conclusion that I'm not going to, and that it's not worth it. Caffeine works; that's why it's so popular. It's possible that shoving the crayon back up my nose is the most logical course of action.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Statistics 001

2009-12-22T21:12:00.000-05:00

I was surfing the Web and happened on Why Obama Has to Worry About Polls from TIME Magazine. This turned out to include a really amazing example of either spin taken too far, or -- more likely -- a reporter who has trouble with basic math:

Something has gone wrong on the long trail to historic health reform. For one thing, Americans no longer support what is going on. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 44% of the country believe it would be better not to pass any plan at all, while 41% said it would be better to pass the plan. As recently as October, the same poll showed those numbers practically reversed.

So... what he's saying here is that currently the number of Americans who would prefer not to pass any plan is essentially equal to the number of Americans who want it passed, almost certainly within the poll's margin of error... which is a tidal shift from October, when the number of Americans who wanted it passed was essentially equal to the number of Americans who would prefer not to pass any plan, almost certainly within the poll's margin of error.

Umm, hello?

I'm no fan of the way this administration has been going so far, but let's try to at least get the facts right, shall we?

A nut by any other name...

2009-12-19T22:02:00.001-05:00

In my idiolect, "almond" was always pronounced /aminned/, rhyming with "Hammond." That is, the "a" had the vowel sound found in "man," "plan," and "Spam," and the "l" was silent.

This is the way I pronounced "almond," and I consider it to be the normative pronunciation of "almond," for the simple reason that my mother pronounces it that way. If it's good enough for my mother, it ought to be good enough for anybody. And this state of affairs was just fine as long as I never had much call to use the word in talking to others.

Then, almost six years ago, I was introduced to my favorite mixed drink, the Toasted Almond. (Amaretto + Kahlua + either milk, cream, or Bailey's; essentially a White Russian with amaretto and no vodka. [Add vodka, and you get a Roasted Toasted Almond. (Seriously. It helps to keep in mind that the people who name these things tend to be toasted themselves.)]) It turns out that even in the best of circumstances, asking for a /tohstid aminned/ will get you a blank stare. Add a harried bartender and a noisy bar, and there really isn't any change of getting your drink unless you sigh inwardly and amend your order to a /tohstid ahlminned/. Which is what I've done.

I discovered last week, when considering a box of almond cookies that were on sale at the supermarket, that I now use the /ahlminned/ pronunciation in the privacy of my own head. I don't have any deep philosophical point to make here, but I find this disconcerting.

Not the best argument for virtual worlds

2009-12-17T23:30:00.003-05:00

Oh, Sis. You think Facebook games are a massive timesuck? Try Second Life.

Better yet, don't.

Second Life is a virtual world. Unlike, say, World of Warcraft or City of Heroes, there are no goals, except for those you set for yourself. There are no points. Like real life, or "First Life," it is what you make of it.

The major difference is that, unlike First Life, the sky is the limit. If you can imagine it, you can do it. In fact, if you can imagine it, somebody probably has done it. Want to tour a walk-through model of the Serenity spacecraft from Firefly? Multiple copies exist in-world. Would you rather walk along a quiet beach and watch the sun's light glisten off the waves? Plenty of options for that. Would you like to inhabit the body of a giant robot and dance the night away? Not a problem.

Some people like building things there, some people like running events there, some people like making clothes there, and some people like getting dressed up in clothes other people have made to attend events in places built by still other people. There's room for all sorts. You can be as social as you want. You can use all the skills and creativity you have, or just enjoy those of others. And it's hard to describe how immersive an experience it is... perhaps the one thing Second Life does best is that it conveys a sense of real presence. Your avatar feels like you, and you feel like you're walking around areas that actually exist.

Why am I there? There are any number of good reasons one might have for that, but in my case it comes down to escapism. Which is particularly alluring on two counts.

The first count is that my First Life sucks. Less so right at this moment; I actually have employment for a change, which ought to last me the rest of this month. For most of this year, I didn't. From January through August, I was largely holed up in my apartment, sending resumes spinning into the void. To say it was demoralizing would be something of an understatement. Even now, I'm back to being holed up in my apartment. My social life consists almost entirely of hanging out with My Sister the Graphic Designer on Thursdays. (Mind you, I'm glad I have that or I'd be totally off the rails by this point.)

The second count is that in Second Life, I get to be a girl. (This may be a subset of "my First Life sucks," but it seems significant enough to single out.)

As escapism goes, Second Life is hard to beat. You can be and do whatever you can only wish you could do in your First Life... and then you get to figure out what to do next. My Second Life avatar is pretty much my First Life avatar, just cuter, in better shape, and lacking a Y chromosome. She's also more outgoing and more patient than I am. In short, she's as close as I can get to my ideal me.

In Second Life, I have favorite designers, and can recognize their work on sight. In Second Life, I've had my favorite designer ask for my opinion on a new outfit before releasing it. In Second Life, I have an infinite closet with hundreds of outfits, many of which I don't even remember owning until I stumble across them. (In Second Life, I look good in them.)

In Second Life, I can have girl talk. In Second Life, I've had a small army of suitors from all the major genders. (I don't quite know how to get rid of them. This is not a problem I've had to deal with in First Life.)

In Second Life, I can fly. This counts for more than one would expect.

In Second Life, I've been around substantially longer than most residents. I know how the place works. Acting as my Second Life avatar, I have another rarely updated blog and frequently updated Twitter account. In that persona, I hang out elsewhere in the blogosphere, comment in online forums, sometimes work on other Web-based projects... and that just covers things I do outside of Second Life proper. In Second Life... well, to protect my avatar's identity I can't get into detail, but let's just say that I have way too many projects and activities on my agenda. (Which leads to many of them being attended to only sporadically. That much isn't so different from my First Life.)

In Second Life, I can't get seriously hurt. I don't need to eat, or sleep, or do anything else, really. And my rent amounts to about twenty bucks a month. It's almost a wonder I bother with First Life at all.

I wish I had a more compelling argument on the other side, is all.

Wait, where are they from?

2009-12-16T19:41:00.003-05:00

Shortly after Michael Jackson's passing, I was looking around for covers of his work. There are many. In keeping with Sturgeon's Law, most aren't very good. But then I hit paydirt, the track that made the entire search worthwhile: Texas Lightning's country cover of my favorite MJ song, "Man in the Mirror." This turned out to be one track from an entire album of covers, most of which were country covers of non-country originals.

Any project like that runs the risk of wearing out its welcome. Any given Me First and the Gimme Gimmes cover is fine, but I find that I lose interest after a few tracks. They all run together after awhile. The same goes for Richard Cheese. If you're into covers at all, you can probably think of any number of other examples. When the whole point of the cover is changing the genre for novelty value, the novelty quickly wears off.

But Texas Lightning's Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...[1] avoids this trap. It's a solid, hugely enjoyable country album, which works as a country album. It just so happens that until they came along, nobody knew that "Like a Virgin," "Dancing Queen," and "Walk on the Wild Side" were country songs. If you hadn't heard the originals, these versions would leave you with no reason to think they'd been in any other genre. The arrangements aren't repetitive, and are never forced. It's inventive, and brilliant, and I really can't praise it enough.

Based on the name, I assumed they were from Texas. The music certainly gave me no reason to assume otherwise. Turns out this isn't the case: they're German. (Born and bred, except the female lead singer, who's from Australia.) In fact, they represented Germany in the 2006 Eurovision song contest with an original song.

I'm now even more impressed than I already was. (Apparently, I'm not alone. According to Wikipedia, they were made honorary citizens of Texas in 2006.)

[Footnote 1: the album was rereleased with additional tracks as Meanwhile, Back at the Golden Ranch... There's also Meanwhile, Back at the Platinum Ranch... with even more tracks, but that seems to be available only on sites of questionable legality.[2])

[Footnote 2: I, of course, got my copy from a site of questionable legality. Were it not for such sites, I wouldn't have known the band existed, as their albums aren't readily available in the States. In fact, I tried to buy the MP3s of their latest album from a mainstream site, but they won't let you do that if you're not in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. I would happily PayPal them ten bucks if there were a way of doing so...]

A Tale of Two Fanfics

2009-12-13T01:54:00.001-05:00

I recently read two book-length fanfics, both of which were printed by major publishers and billed as the latest installments of the series they were based on. In both cases, they had to overcome the fact that the series in question had very definite endings. One of them is okay, even if it lacks the magic of the original. The other crashed and burned completely.

They are:

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, by David Benedictus, with decorations by Mark Burgess, a sequel to the Winnie the Pooh books by A.A. Milne.

And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, a sequel to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books by Douglas Adams.

(Note: massive spoilers for the original books follow. But only very minor spoilers for the sequels, such as are unavoidable in a book review.)

As mentioned above, both authors had to contend with the end of their respective series. The House at Pooh Corner ends with Christopher Robin outgrowing his stuffed animals; Mostly Harmless ends with the total obliteration of every possible Earth and of our protagonists. In both cases, I would contend, the original ending was satisfying, and undoing it would only weaken the original tale.

In the case of Pooh, one solution might have been to set the new tales during the period covered by the first two books. Instead, Benedictus opts for a stay of execution: the original ending is redefined as Christopher Robin going away to boarding school, but he comes back at the end of the term. Once this is gotten out of the way in the first story, he's free to get on with a collection of new tales.

And they're not bad. I don't think they're quite up to Milne's standard, but few things are. The characters generally behave as we'd expect them to, and the new character, Lottie the Otter, fits organically into the Hundred Acre Wood. This is a respectable effort from somebody who honors the integrity of the original books, and I don't really have any problems with its inclusion in the canon. (To the extent that it is. And the disarming introduction, in which Eeyore predicts that the new writer will get everything wrong, helps in that regard.)

Then there's Colfer's book. I should grant at the outset that there are people who didn't like the final Hitchhiker's book, Mostly Harmless, and especially its ending. Colfer was one of those people. I was not. The avowed mission of this book is to undo the previous one, which is a book I wholeheartedly love. This was never going to be an easy sell. Still, I was willing to put that aside and see where he went from there.

It's a mess. If Adams had written a sixth book in the trilogy before his untimely passing, I think it's safe to say that he would have disposed of the previous ending in a few pages flat, if he'd bothered to address it at all before getting on with the story. (He did just that in book 5, neatly ridding himself of Book 4's baggage by having Fenchurch suddenly disappear.) Colfer doesn't. Colfer spends the entire book writing his way out of the previous ending, except for a few bits meant to set up the sequels. Furthermore, everybody is out of character. Arthur, Trillian, Random, Zaphod, Ford, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, and even the bloody Vogons. None of them act remotely like the versions Douglas Adams wrote.

I'm actually looking for something nice to say about this, but I'm coming up blank. It's not even as if he has a intricate plot set up in which everything dovetails elegantly at the end, like, say, that of Mostly Harmless itself; instead, it lurches along haphazardly, like, say, the first couple of books in the series, just (a) without the charm and wit that carried those, and (b) with the burden of having a specific problem that needed to be solved, which those largely didn't have. And to compound the issue, did I mention the bit where he's clearly angling for sequels?

I suppose the one good thing I can note is that the introduction does characterize this book as a lesser work with poorer production values, which one might like if one liked the original. In keeping with that, if this had to be printed at all -- which I would, of course, contest -- it should have been billed as the first book in a new trilogy of indeterminate length, rather than the "part six of three" proudly proclaimed on the cover. At least set the bad fanfic apart from the real books.

I may have a slight problem with estimates.

2009-12-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

Note to Self: next time you're asked how long it'll take to do a project, any project, double the length of time in your first reaction. Then consider doubling it again.

I didn't do that, and I'm currently sleep-deprived and trying desperately to finish something by yesterday. Instead of, say, writing a proper introductory Holidailies entry. Which I don't have time for.

But briefly... hi, I'm Shmuel. Thirtysomething freelance editor: editor by choice, freelance by necessity, thirtysomething despite all efforts at denial.

More to come! Meanwhile, my slightly ill-timed introductory post at Neology is rather more interesting, so go read that. (More to come there too. I even have specific plans!)

Holdailies Triolet VII

2009-01-06T22:49:00.002-05:00

My total output stands at nine.
I fail at Holidailies.
I pledged I'd write here all the time—
My total output stands at nine.
I've naught to say of Palestine
Or even of Israelis
My total output stands at nine.
I fail at Holidailies.

(But at least I've kept my triolet tradition going...)

P.S.:

This project took a ton of work,
So thanks to Chip and Jette!
Recoding every portal quirk...
This project took a ton of work.
They toiled without a single perk;
I'm really in their debt.
This project took a ton of work,
So thanks to Chip and Jette!

On the bright side...

2009-01-06T12:30:00.002-05:00

...at around 7:30 PM last night, there was a discussion and book signing for Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, by Michael Davis, which I attended with My Sister The Graphic Designer. She picked up a copy of the book, which I am looking forward to reading once she gets through with it.

As exciting as it might have been to meet the guy who wrote a book about Sesame Street, I confess he was not the big draw. Also there was Christopher Cerf, whose resume is approximately five miles long. Random House editor, co-producer of Between the Lions, and writer of a couple hundred songs for Sesame Street, for starters. On any other night, he might have been the big draw...

...but also there was Roscoe Orman, who plays Gordon. Roscoe is one of the warmest people in the known universe. That my sister and I -- at the tail end of the line -- got out of there close to 11 PM was largely because he took the time and effort to make a personal connection with every single person there.

That said, he wasn't the big draw either, if only because I'd met him back in 2005, along with Sonia "Maria" Manzano -- who unexpectedly turned up in the audience last night -- and Loretta "Susan" Long. The big draw was somebody I hadn't met before.

The big draw was Caroll Spinney. Which is to say, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. I'm gonna let the photo do the talking here.

Squee!

Would you like some whine with that interview?

2009-01-06T02:00:00.004-05:00

So the good news is that I awoke this morning to see an e-mail from a company I'd sent a resume to, asking if I'd be available for a phone interview this afternoon. This was the first nibble of interest I'd gotten from anybody in well over a month. "Huzzah!" I thought. "The December drought is over, and somebody may want to hire me!" Furthermore, the company seemed a good fit; they wanted a copyeditor for a fast-paced Web site, and the job posting even went as far to note that a sense of humor would be a plus.

Then came the actual interview. I went down in flames.

Given a specific question, I can do pretty well. I may go on for a half-hour chasing down tangents in order to provide something resembling a complete answer, but it'll have some focus. Open-ended questions are another story. I freeze, I babble, I go round in aimless circles. It's even worse on the phone, where I have no visual cues to see how I'm going over.

"Describe your job experience."

[sigh]

I don't know what a good answer to that might sound like, but it sure wasn't what I came up with. I pretty much brought up every aspect of things I've done that don't resemble the job in question, while leaving out points of direct comparison.

(Would it have been acceptable for me to ask something like "Could you tell me a bit about what you're looking for first?" Because given some context, rather than a complete vacuum, I think I might have been able to formulate a coherent response...)

At any rate, it turned out that this was the first day of the first round of interviews, and that they were still advertising in hopes of getting a really large list of applicants they could whittle down over the next few weeks. I figure it's a safe bet I've been whittled away by now.

Later in the afternoon, I spent awhile wistfully watching and rewatching the Connected Venture office lip dub of "Flagpole Sitta". I know that video isn't representative of your typical office. I don't even believe it's representative of their office.

But I am so tired of being unemployed.

Mmm.

2008-12-15T20:12:00.001-05:00

I picked up some chocolate-covered mandelbrodt from the bakery department of a local kosher supermarket. I was a bit skeptical that it would be worth the bother, as the bakery is hit-or-miss; their seven layer cake is decent, but their cinnamon sticks are really quite awful. But one bite of the mandelbrodt and I practically swooned. Dense almond chocolate goodness, and atypically moist. (Mandelbrodt is usually dry and crisp. I regard this as an improvement.)

In other news, I'm working my way through the first season of Mork and Mindy, which I got on DVD by virtue of drinking an awful lot of Diet Pepsi. While a bit dated, and while Mork's character never was at all consistent -- he's just a framework for Robin Williams to do his shtick -- it's still entertaining.

Link Roundup

2008-12-10T20:34:00.002-05:00

I suppose this is a copout entry, but I should like to share a few links.

If you've read or seen Pride and Prejudice and you've used Facebook, hie thee immediately to Austenbook, which retells the novel in status lines. It's brilliantly executed. (Found via Jed.)

While updating my links page, I found a translation of "Baby Got Back" into American Sign Language. I'm sure I'd appreciate it much, much more if I knew any ASL, but it's still pretty funny without that knowledge. (The relevant bit starts around 1:20.)

If—and only if—you've seen many episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh!, check out Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. Despite the name, it's actually a parody that's both affectionate and merciless in shredding the series. Also see the wiki page, which lists some bonus episodes not found at that link. (I particularly like the "live action" one in which Little Kuriboh recites the entire first episode on camera, in response to YouTube taking the original down for copyright infringement.)

This is a couple of years old, but perhaps you haven't seen it... Library Smut, some gorgeous photos of libraries. I take no responsibility for drool shorting out your keyboard. (The photos are from this book.)

Finally, Jin Wicked has art for sale. As I write this, the clearance section has a couple of prints still left at the utterly absurd price of $1 apiece, which is definitely below her cost of production. She also has a bunch of eBay auctions underway. Please don't let one of my favorite artists starve...

All is revealed!

2008-12-09T20:45:00.000-05:00

And on to the facts behind Two Truths and a Lie.

I've played lead kazoo on "I Can See Clearly Now" in front of a day camp, backed up by a professional five-piece band. It was one of the best experiences in my life.

I was a staff member, not a camper, and I'm actually not sure how many instruments were in the band -- it may have been six or seven -- but this is true. I love music, and the kazoo is the only instrument I've mastered.

I'm not much of a dancer in general (to put it mildly), but I learned the kazatzka way back when. I dance it at weddings, and it tends to go over well.

This one is a lie. A friend tried to teach me the kazatzka as a child, but I was never able to get the hang of it. (As an aside, it wasn't until I went looking for a relevant link the other night that I discovered it's called the "Cossack dance" by some, suggesting an etymology for the term, presumably by way of Yiddish.)

In a graduate-level course at the University of Michigan, I wrote and sang a song about L.E.L.'s "Fairy of the Fountains," to the tune of "Coward of the County." This may have been one of the many, many factors involved in my leaving that program.

This is all too true. I was working on a term paper about the poem in question, and my mind is ruled by prosody. I couldn't stop noticing that the phrase "Fairy of the Fountains" had the exact same meter and alliteration as "Coward of the County"... I ultimately had to write two verses of the song just to get it out of my head so I could work on the paper. And having written the thing, I couldn't not share it... which I suppose means I ought to present it here as well.

The first two verses of this song are mostly as written and presented in 2002; I amended a few awkward phrases and wrote the final verse just now. I would note that my entire paper was about the fact that while earlier versions of this story served to impute a higher, fairy lineage to the French royal family, L.E.L.'s version is all about the dire consequences of mixing fairy and (fallen) human blood.

Everyone considered her the fairy of the fountains
If she appeared, you knew the king wouldn't last too long
Her name was Melusina, but folks called her "the fairy,"
But something always told me they were reading Mellie wrong.

She was just a few days old when her dad surprised her mother
His armor, crown, and all the rest gave her the creeps, they say.
I still recall the final words her mom said to her father
"Thy suspicion's parted us for ever; wo the day!"

And she said:
"Promise me, Mel, not to cast a fairy spell
Submit yourself to Jesus if you can
It's a sin for you to mix
Human blood with magic tricks
So daughter mine, I hope you understand
Leave fairy stuff alone, 'cause you're half man."

She was just past puberty when she stuffed Dad in a mountain
Her Mom read her the riot act, and said "You are perverse!
Each seventh day from here on out, you'll have to be half-serpent
Unless you find a man whose trust will someday break your curse."

Mel hung 'round the fountain, and soon was wooed by Raymond
He courted her a year and more, and asked her for her hand
She said, "I'd be delighted, but there's one small condition.
A spell's been laid upon me, so try to understand."

And she said:
"Promise me, Ray, that on the seventh day
You'll step aside, let me go off alone.
Put away your doubts and fears
'Cause it's just for seven years
So husband mine, I hope this is okay
Each seventh day be sure to stay away."

Raymond tried to keep his word, but jealousy consumed him
The fancies that arose in him, they set his brain on fire.
He had to know where she would go; he couldn't live with doubting,
One fateful day, he followed her, though this made him a liar.

Untold months of waiting were bottled up inside him;
No longer was he holding back, he walked into her cell.
Her upper half was human, but her lower coils were scaly!
She shrieked when she beheld him, and that was her farewell.

But she might have said:
"You promised me, Ray, that on the seventh day
You'd step aside, let me go off alone.
But your fears came to the fore
Now I'm cursed forevermore
I'll cry for your descendants through the years
For both our sins, I'll never dry my tears."

Everyone considered her the fairy of the fountains...

On Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme

2008-12-08T17:20:00.003-05:00

Calvin Trillin's columns are a lot of fun to read.
He writes of food, and parking spots, and politicians' greed.
His narrative persona is unique, you can't deny:
A Kansas City New York Jew who thinks he's Everyguy.
His quirky brand of humor draws on subtle observations;
The nuances of daily life, and all of its frustrations.

I went to see him Tuesday; he arrived there close to eight
(At a reading called for seven, but The Daily Show ran late).
His newest book, it turns out, is about the past election.
A narrative account of the eventual selection
For president of our great land, of a man who shuns teh drama:
The senator from Illinois, Barack Hussein Obama.

The problem with this picture is he wrote the thing in rhyme.
It's almost all in couplets, and I can't say they're sublime.
As a nonce work, it's okay; I mean, I'll grant it's kind of cute,
But the shtick gets old too fast, and there's nothing that's astute.
So while I like his prose about Manhattan bourgeoisie,
When it comes to lightweight verse... heck, he's not as good as me.

Two Truths and a Lie

2008-12-07T01:24:00.001-05:00

This is a last-minute replacement entry; I've been offline for the past six hours or so due to what I devoutly hope was the final installment from a week of technology-related mishaps. Those following my Twitter feed have the general idea of that; I'll probably have a full report here over the next few days. I wanna go to sleep, but I refuse to miss Day #2 of Holidailies, so instead I'm going to follow my sister's lead. Of the following three claims, two are true. One is not. Give me your best guess in the comments... you stand to win absolutely nothing if you're correct!

One: I've played lead kazoo on "I Can See Clearly Now" in front of a day camp, backed up by a professional five-piece band. It was one of the best experiences in my life.

Two: I'm not much of a dancer in general (to put it mildly), but I learned the kazatzka way back when. I dance it at weddings, and it tends to go over well.

Three: In a graduate-level course at the University of Michigan, I wrote and sang a song about L.E.L.'s "Fairy of the Fountains," to the tune of "Coward of the County." This may have been one of the many, many factors involved in my leaving that program.

(Clarification for new readers: No, Erin's not technically my sister.)

Holidailies Introduction

2008-12-05T21:12:00.006-05:00

It's time once again for Holidailies, in which journallers attempt to update their journals every day for a month. This year, we're kicking off on December 5th for a change.

I'm Shmuel. Apparently I've made it to middle-aged, even if I keep celebrating my 19th birthday every year. When I started this journal in 1999, I lived in Queens. Since then, I've spent time in Ann Arbor and Boston before returning to New York City this summer. I'm now in a basement apartment in Brooklyn. It's tiny, and there are issues with mold, insects, and things that go bump in the night, but it's the best I can do just now. (Most of my stuff is in storage back in Massachusetts. I miss my stuff.)

At the moment, I'm a freelance editing professional... or an unemployed editor, take your pick. Though if you're interesting in starting or continuing a collection of almanacs with my name in the credits, the fourth in that series (and the first at this franchise) is now on sale. Meanwhile, I'm looking for work, like so many others in these dark times.

One side effect of being unemployed is that I've been without medical insurance for close to two years. As a direct result, I haven't been to a doctor or a dentist -- the latter is an issue -- and I've gone off my anxiety meds. I'd say I'm holding up pretty well, all things considered.

My social life remains close to nonexistent, outside of Second Life... except that now that I'm back in New York, I've been hanging out with My Sister The Graphic Designer most Thursday evenings. So that's something.

You may, if you wish, compare this with last year's introduction.

Eleventh-Hour Election Post

2008-11-03T20:43:00.003-05:00

Election Day is tomorrow. I suppose it's past time I posted my take on it...

All things considered, I'm feeling really good about this election. Four years ago, I explained why I wasn't going to vote for any of the major-party candidates. (In the end, I did write in "Al Sharpton" as my protest vote.)

There are, of course, intelligent positions for wanting either George Bush or John Kerry to be running the country for the next four years. If you think that either of them is well suited for the job -- if you really and truly want either of them running the country, as opposed to merely preferring one over the other -- then by all means, I encourage you to go ahead and vote for the one of your choice. That's the way the process is supposed to work.

If, on the other hand, you don't think either is an especially good choice, but you're planning to vote for the one of the two whom you dislike the least, I would strenously suggest that you be a part of the solution, rather than perpetuating the problem.

As it stood, I was unhappy that Dubya won, but equally relieved that Kerry lost. Both of those feelings have remained strong in the four years that followed.

By contrast, this time around we've somehow been blessed with two major-party candidates who appear capable of doing the job competently. Short of one of them dropping dead and promoting one of the potential veeps—down the rabbit hole of what-ifs lies madness—there's no bad outcome here. No matter what happens tomorrow, the country wins.

This assessment is predicated on the assumption (hope?) that, once past the election, the candidates will snap out of campaign mode and revert to their normal selves. Judging either Obama or McCain on the drivel they and their campaigns have been spewing for months now, I'd have to conclude that they're just a pair of dirty lying politicians and go through yet another election cycle voting for someone other than the top two choices. (Calling McCain a clone of Dubya is as ludicrous as calling Obama a socialist, and vice-versa.) But I'd rather believe that each candidate has concluded that it's impossible to win a U.S. presidential election by fighting fair. If I were more cynical, I might even conclude that they were right; as it stands, while both have disappointed me, I'm inclined to judge them by their non-campaign modes.

There's more to go on in McCain's case, and I suspect that he's actually better equipped to be an effective president than Obama is at this point. He does have more experience: in general, in Washington, and in working across party lines. And if Obama is elected, I am going to be fervently hoping the conservative members of the SCOTUS hang in there until a non-litmus-test based administration gets in. Still, there are legitimate policy disagreements between McCain and Obama, I prefer the latter's positions more often than not, and I do think he'd be competent at the job... so tomorrow I plan on gritting my teeth and muttering darkly while flipping the little lever next to his name.

But after that, I'm going to be happy no matter what. It's nice to feel able to vote for a major-party candidate for only the second time in five presidential elections. It's even nicer to have both candidates be somebody I could see myself voting for.

Some days, it's nice to be an American. I think this one's worth celebrating.

Oh, for Christ's sake.

2008-10-13T00:33:00.005-04:00

From the Los Angeles Times, regarding a McCain rally in Iowa:

Before McCain spoke, a Christian pastor offered a prayer that seemed to ask for divine intervention on his behalf. "There are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons," Pastor Arnold Conrad said. "And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens."

What I'm struck by isn't that there's some pastor out there making a mockery out of his own religion, but that this was at a rally McCain was at... If we were to apply the standards his own campaign wants to use for Obama, this would indicate that McCain himself is likely opposed to Hindus, Buddhists, and Moslems, and that he believes that God Himself will be terribly embarrassed if McCain doesn't win, so He'd better step up. Heck, by the standards of his campaign, it wouldn't even matter if McCain had come straight out and said it wasn't so.

I wouldn't say any such thing, of course, because those standards are ridiculous. But it'd be nice if somebody would say it ain't so. All the campaign has said in response is...

"While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates only serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama's judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief," Wendy Riemann, McCain's Iowa spokeswoman, said.

...which, you'll note, stops far short of disagreeing with anything Pastor Conrad said. It doesn't at all address the question of whether God's reputation is on the line here. All it does is say that while there may indeed be questions about Obama's religious background, they're not as important as his other flaws.

Speaking as a theist, it's hard to express how disgusted I am by this. Because I do believe God's reputation can be affected by current events... not by which side in a given contest wins or loses, but by the behavior of those who profess to follow Him. This sort of thing isn't doing Him any favors.

I'm with Diane Duane on this: "I also really wish I could email stuff like this to C.S. Lewis. Imagine the response."

Apparently, my life is a B movie.

2008-10-12T20:25:00.000-04:00

Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...

Roger Corman

Your film will be 41% romantic, 27% comedy, 42% complex plot, and a $ 24 million budget.

An action-complex tale about a complex character that is you. Corman was responsible for a very early Jack Nicholson film, 1963's The Terror (Francis Coppola was associate producer), filmed in three days! The actor who plays you will emote complexity like Jack ... maybe Christian Slater or Gwyneth Paltrow. Also, Roger filmed the original Little Shop of Horrors film -- which in the 1980s was the basis for a hit Broadway musical and another film. All his films were shot for mere thousands of dollars, sometimes completed within the week. Roger knows talent, and knows how to keep costs down with complex stories such as your life story. His versions of Edgar Allen Poe stories are considered classics (The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum), and also directed Deathsport and Bloody Mama in the 1970s. Oh, yeah, man, this guy will make your film a cult classic!

Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy

Online Encore

2008-10-09T21:58:00.018-04:00

Over on my favorite word blog, Neology, Jed Hartman's proposed an online version of the game Encore, with a twist.

[In the usual game,] one person suggests a word and other people try to come up with a song whose lyrics contain that word.

But just thinking of the song isn't enough; for it to count, someone has to be able to sing at least eight consecutive words of the song, including the specified word.

Depending on how you're playing, players can take turns trying to come up with more songs that contain the given word, until nobody can think of any more.

In the usual version, relatively common words tend to be chosen, as having everything sit around trying to think of the one song that has a really obscure term would be both frustrating and boring, while bouncing back and forth between teams trying to think of unused songs with the word "red" is a lot more engaging. But, he points out, in an online game, this can work differently.

But one of the things that appeals to me most about the game in the abstract (though this makes it a rather different game, and probably less fun to play in person) is coming up with words that don't appear in very many songs--possibly even a word that's a hapax legomenon within the space of all song lyrics. I mean, okay, there are really an awful lot of songs, so the chances of a given word appearing in only one are very low. But when I hear a particularly unusual word in a song, I often think "That would be a good Encore word."

So he came up with a list of 26 words, from A to Z, and invited people to play. A few days later, Vardibidian offered his own list. You're encouraged to go check them out and take on the words left unsolved there... meanwhile, I'm jumping in as well.

Rules: For each of the words listed below, come up with a song whose lyrics contain the word. (In each case, I do have one in mind.) For it to count, you have to be able to sing (or, rather, type) eight consecutive words of the song, including the specified word. Repetitive lyrics count; that is, for our purposes, "Love me, love me, say that you love me" is nine words.

No fair using Google, checking your CD collection, and so on. Let's keep it honest.

One additional rule in my case, which I do not recommend for anybody else wanting to try this, for it proved to be a pain in the neck: none of the songs I have in mind contain the word in question in its title. So, for example, the song I'm thinking of that contains the word "frequency" is not REM's "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"

Scoring is entirely meaningless, but nevertheless is as follows: you get one point for a successful answer that's not the song I had in mind. You get two points for a successful answer that is the song I had in mind. And, at my sole discretion, you get three points for a song that's not the one I had in mind, but which I totally should have thought of. (This would include any song I've sung at karaoke; it wouldn't include a song I heard on the radio a zillion times but never actually knew the words to.) In each case, I can think of only one song with the lyrics offhand, but I haven't given it that much thought and my knowledge is hardly encyclopedic. If people have already found two songs with a given word, best to give it a rest and move on to the other words.

None of my songs are wildly obscure.

The list:

anaconda
bitterness
caffeinated
Dubuque
eclair
frequency
gravedigger
haver
islets of Langerhans
Jeremiah
ka-dingity
luxury
Milwaukee
naught
overcoat
potential
question^[1]
reminisce
shebang
tantric
unemployed
vitriolic
workfare
xenon^[2]
yarmulke
zinfandel

(As guesses come in, bolded words will indicate that nobody's come up with a lyric for it, italicized words will indicate that somebody's come up with a lyric that wasn't the one I had in mind, and just plain words will indicate a direct hit.)

Footnote 1: There are probably way too many songs with question, but I gave up on finding anything particularly unique. I do have something in mind, though...

Footnote 2: Truth be told, while there's an obvious song containing xenon, I can't quote eight straight words from it including that word among them. But I would like to think somebody can; if so, that person gets five -- five! -- meaningless points and extra bragging rights.

Put your entries in the comments, and have fun! And should you make a list of your own -- which doesn't have to be alphabetical -- let us know that as well.

(All done! See the comments.)

Just discovered this while on the job...

2008-09-29T19:12:00.002-04:00

For years, I've been calling for the addition of a "None of the Above" option in elections, with such votes not actually affecting the outcome, except insofar as expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo while directly combating claims of voter apathy. It turns out Nevada enacted this in 1975. Go Nevada!

(In the 2004 presidential election, 3,688 Nevadans opted for "None of These Candidates.")