The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me

Last night, my wife and I watched The Muppets (2011). This got me thinking about one of the key songs in the Muppets’ milieu: Rainbow Connection.

There’s something important about this song. I’m not sure how to exactly explain it, but there’s something about this song that speaks to me on some level.

For those of you not familiar with the song, I urge you to find it somewhere and listen to it. Specifically, the last verse. As this post is discussing it, I feel that it’s fair use for me to write it out:

Have you been half asleep?

And have you heard voices?

I’ve heard them calling my name.

Is this the sweet sound

That called the young sailors?

The voice might be one in the same.

I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it.

It’s something I’m supposed to be.

Someday we’ll find it,

The rainbow connection.

The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually hear voices. This isn’t a schizophrenia thing. It’s more a subtle calling. The ancient Greeks called it a muse, the Romans a genius. The song opens a door somewhere in my psyche leading to an undiscovered, unexplored world, as expansive and endless as I allow it to be.

Much like that oft-used factoid^[1] regarding the brain, I feel that I’m only using 10% of my potential, or maybe not potential, but something. There’s something I’m not using to its fullest extent, it feels, in some ways, like I’m standing in a room that’s uncomfortably too small for me to move around freely. Like I have a pair of wings ready to sprout from my back, but they’re confined by something wrapped around me.

It’s important that you don’t think I’m crazy. This isn’t a delusion. I don’t honestly think I have wings ready to sprout from my back. It’s a metaphor. Or an analogy.

Nevertheless, I feel that there is something out there, something I’m supposed to be. Some prize I’m supposed to claim. It’s a road, like Bifrost, that leads to some hall of heroes, like Valhalla. It’s an elusive path, but I feel driven to find it, to traverse it, and to reach my goal.

Once again, I know that Bifrost is a mythological road, and that Asgard makes as much sense as Yggdrasill being the center of our cosmos.

But where is that first step?

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[1] Yes, I’m using factoid correctly here. Look it up.

Happy Birthday to Me

So, today happens to be a big day. If you’re living in France, it’s probably better known as Bastille Day. If you happen to know me and you don’t live in France, then it’s probably better known as my birthday. Everybody else probably better knows it as the Feast of Ulrich of Zell. Either way, it’s time for rejoicing!

Betwixt rejoicing, I’ll take this time to analyze the past, present, and future. Get your tea leaves ready!

Five Years Ago (2009)

I was living in Houston, working for NASA. This was my first year under a new subcontractor, and things were at times more difficult and at other times more simple. I wasn’t yet a father, but my wife and I had two cats and lived in an apartment ridiculously close to Johnson Space Center. It’s also around this time that Clear Lake Area Writers started blossoming into what it is now. At that time, it met at the Arts Alliance Center of Clear Lake.

Today (2014)

Now I’m living in Northeast Ohio, doing software development for a small company. Earlier this year, I worked for a major player in the Entertainment Content Management industry, before losing my job^[1]. I am the father of a delightful daughter, and my wife and I have one cat. We’re living in a house that started out as a dream, but is gradually becoming a nightmare. At least the commute is reasonable. Clear Lake Area Writers is under a new set of hands, and is running along smoothly, meeting at the Harris County Public Library Freeman Branch. Meanwhile I’ve only written one chapter in the novel I’m working on since moving to Ohio.

Five Years From Now (2019)

Well, I’ll be ramping up my bid to run for President. Hopefully my senate career hasn’t jaded me too much, and I can honestly promise change and transparency and actually deliver on it. I can formally renounce much of the power the executive branch has usurped, causing the system of checks and balances to be more about paper checks and market balances that it is about a nice distribution of power. I’ll actually shut down Guantanamo Bay, and make sure all the people there get fair and open trials with a presumption of innocence. I’ll make sure that the Constitution is enforced, and stop enforcing (from an executive level) any law that is in direct conflict to this document, and encourage Congress to repeal it and the Supreme Court to make a ruling on its constitutionality. I’ll also work to make real estate fraud a felony, because let’s be honest, it should be.

In a more realistic future, I’ll hope to have actually finished that novel, preferably no later than when my daughter is old enough to read. I hope to get some of my ideas implemented. I also hope to have all this nightmare with our house behind us. I worry, too, as our one cat is (in 2014) ten years old, and will be fifteen in 2019. While cat #1 lived past 20, I can’t be sure that any other cat will be so fortunate. That being said, I hope cat #2 will be alive still, and maybe just a bit lazier than she normally is.

In Closing

I’ll try to remember to do something like this each year. And maybe look back and see how well I did.^[2]

That being said, if there are any trends you’d like to see on my blog, feel free to let me know. While I post about whatever strikes my fancy at the time, I’m not above listening to my readers’ (or is it reader’s?) opinions (or is it opinion?).

Thank you.

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[1] This was mostly attributed to a lack of bidirectional communication between myself and management, but it’s a long story I don’t want to get into here.

[2] I wouldn’t complain if I got some write-in nominations.

Book Miner - The Shapeshifters' Library: Released by Amber Polo - Chapter 7

Moving right along to Chapter 7 of The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released by Amber Polo.

Synopsis

Cutter’s bright mood is dissipated when she discovers that several books are unaccounted for. More specifically, a whole lot of dog books are missing. She tells Chronus who in turn has his librarians look into. Since werewolves are unable to enter the library, this is met with a modicum of skepticism.

Analysis

Okay, so when perusing reviews for this book, someone said that the Dewey-speak was annoying. I agree.

Dewey-speak is replacing certain words with their Dewey decimal number. In the book, Polo renders it as “Cut the 631.8 (Dewey number for compost)...” which is visually distracting and interrupts the inner narrator’s voice. This would be less annoying were the lookups rendered as footnotes.

Also, according to dewey.info, the following numbers used in this section have this actual definition:

Number	Polo	Dewey.info
631.8	compost	fertilizers, soil conditioners, growth regulators
299.935	devil	anthroposophy
291.23	hell	[unassigned] (usually used for “death” elsewhere)

That being said, it makes what Cutter says 100% more hilarious:

CUTTER	Cut the fertilizers, soil conditioners, and growth regulators and tell me what the anthroposophy is wrong.
MCCASSON	Books are missing. Not on the shelf. Not checked out.
CUTTER	Nonsense. The library has only been open for one week. There is no way in death there can be a great problem.

(I must also present my frustration for another topic as I was looking these up, and that’s the walled garden that is the Dewey Decimal System, but this isn’t Polo’s fault.)

Book Miner - The Shapeshifters' Library: Released by Amber Polo - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is next in The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released by Amber Polo.

Synopsis

Sybilla Dinzelbacher opens her new restaurant to great acclaim. Just about every important person from Ohio is there. She has a confrontation with Dustbunnie, but gets an earful from the Alpha.

Meanwhile, Chronus and reminisces on the students and faculty of his school while he prepares to teach his next class. He hears complaints from some faculty, doing his best to resolve them with the resources he has at hand (or paw). He also reflects on his lost friendship to another dog shapeshifter who fell in love with a werewolf, eventually fathering Harold Dinzelbacher, revealed to be a half-dog/half-werewolf.

Analysis

This is an example of what I was discussing in my last post on this book, talking about how entire chapters (or, here, half-chapters) are dedicated to events that are not happening on the page. Sybilla Dinzelbacher basically walks into the restaurant, grumps at her husband, and then grumps at Dustbunnie, and then gets an exposition on werewolf history, including more library fires. Chronus basically walks down the hallway and peeks into the different classrooms, all while reflecting on dog shapeshifter history.

All in all, nothing really happens. Everything has already happened.

And, yes, I will keep complaining about this.

Also, as I mentioned before, I doubt that the “glitterati” of Ohio would all make the trek down to the southwest Ohio to go to a fancy restaurant (In fact, the general impression of Cincinnati up here in Cleveland is that it might as well be in Kentucky). Maybe people from Columbus would be there, but most likely nobody from Cleveland. In fact, I would be willing to wager that the “three baseball players” that showed up were all Reds, and no Indians.

Keep in mind, I’m not hating on Cincinnati (or even Kentucky), I’m just expressing the general view of people in Cleveland. Keep in mind that up here in Cleveland, there’s even a dichotomy between east Clevelanders and west Clevelanders, where it’s actually noteworthy when they meet someone from the other side.

In fact, Cincinnati-style chili happens to be my favorite. Just don’t tell the people I know in Texas know...

Book Miner - The Shapeshifters' Library: Released by Amber Polo - Chapter 5

Now we cover Chapter 5 of The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released by Amber Polo.

Synopsis

Cutter has finally finished the work to open the brand new Shipsfeather Public Library. It’s been too long since she’s seen Chronus, but he’s been helping in the background, even if he hasn’t been socializing with her. She’s denied a grand opening so as it won’t interfere with Sybilla Dinzelbacher’s restaurant’s grand opening.

After discovering a stack of somewhat mutilated books in the library, she goes on a small tour, trying to identify potential werewolves in her staff. Unable to identify a single one, she eventually discovers a more innocuous cause of the book mutilation: a library patron’s teething puppy.

Chronus meets up with her and the two catch up. They discuss the problems Cutter had in funding the library and the over-the-top measures Harold Dinzelbacher has been trying to enforce to ensure that the library would not be safe from fire and arson. In the end, they reminisce on family, especially Cutter’s lack thereof, having been orphaned and raised by aunts.

Analysis

So, if I knew of the existence of book-burning werewolves, and some guy was doing almost everything he could to ensure that my library was a stray spark away from becoming a literary inferno, I’d start to suspect him. I mean, Harold Dinzelbacher might as well be demanding that the fire suppression heads be filled with gasoline. And nobody catches that?

You would think, even though the town is effectively run by werewolves, that someone on the county or state level would step up and enforce code. While I may not like Kasich’s anti-Libertarian attempts, I highly doubt he’s a werewolf… And iff he is, someone needs to explain to him the difference between a “libertarian” and a “librarian”.

The most irritating thing about this book though are not things solved by my actually suspending my disbelief for a moment, but rather the fact that most of the events that are described in the book happen in the past relative to the events in the book. An entire chapter may involve someone walking across a hallway, but will take up several pages as that character reminisces on the history of each thing he or she sees. This can be annoying for a reader such as I, as I’m painfully aware of “showy” versus “telly” writing (hint: showing is better than telling).

That is to say there are not places where telling gets things across. Many great writers do that. In fact, the first chapter of The Hobbit is practically Bilbo’s family history (and takes about an hour to read aloud). It just takes a bit of finesse to make it work. In Released, it’s not working.

Book Miner - The Shapeshifters' Library: Released by Amber Polo - Chapter 4

Moving on to Chapter 4 in The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released by Amber Polo.

Synopsis

In this chapter, Chronus makes himself known to Cutter, revealing the ancient history of shapeshifters, the presence of dog shapeshifters in the basements of the building, and their recent battle with the book-burning werewolves. Cutter takes a moment for it all to sink in, but finally accepts it. Chronus leaves her for a few days while construction commences on the academy to fully transform it into the new library.

Analysis

It is at this point that something completely unrelated to the prose has come to bother me. It’s the print. The printers used some sort of dot-based printer. Now I can’t help but notice the individual dots of each letter as I read the book. Ugh.

Besides that, though, I felt that this chapter existed solely to bring the reader (through Cutter) up to speed on what’s going on. There are shapeshifters, and they have existed since forever, and the dogs decided to become librarians to help catalog wisdom. The wolves have become book burners, dedicated to squashing ideas. And that’s what it’s been like until now. In some ways I’m reminded of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I found it funny that the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the destruction of the Maya codices was blamed on werewolves, as were lesser problems, like the deeds of grumpy librarians and ill-informed parents who want to prevent their kids from reading The Catcher in the Rye. I think those events have something else in common, and it’s not werewolves… (with possible exception of the Library of Alexandria, but the jury’s still out)

All in all, each chapter has left me more “meh” than anything else. I read it because it has more pages, and that’s about it.

Terrifying Children's Literature - The Thingumajig Book of Manners

My wife and I were discussing blankets recently, and how no matter how hot it is, we need a blanket covering some part of us to fall asleep. I only need a blanket covering my feet, and I can tell you why.

It was in the mid eighties, and I was learning to read. I started with a book about a cat who tries, and fails, to mimic what he sees on TV (I can’t honestly remember what this book is called). However, shortly after I started reading, I acquired a book called The Thingumajig Book of Manners by Irene and Dick Keller. Just looking at the cover sends shivers down my spine.

There’s something about the way they’re drawn that’s unsettling, but the most unsettling part was near the end (forgive me for not getting it right. I’d rather not actually look at the book anymore), about how they would eat your feet or toes. It could have even been them eating their own toenails. I have no clue.

I distinctly remember, as a young child, making sure my blanket was covering my feet, and tucked under the bottom of the foot of mattress. I would drift off to sleep, staring down towards the foot of my bed, terrified that a Thingumajig would pop its long-nosed, dark-haired head over the edge of my bed, give a sadistic, shrieking  laugh, and then begin to gobble my toes. Shudder.

And that probably explains me.