Well, so it's been a while, and in the way of a summer saga of reading, not much has happened. After completing Vonnegut's Player Piano, I moved on to Larry Niven's Ringworld, based on the recommendation of my fine fellow friend Trev. An incredible read, one that is definitely reminiscent of Greg Bear or Gregory Benford. That is, it's heavy on the descriptive technical portions with a noticeable different style of writing in regards to character and plot development. I liked it. The concept of being on a "world" that is a million miles wide and circles all the way around a star at a distance of 90+ million miles makes for great food for the imagination. I was going to continue the series (I think there are three more books), but I had bought a book that I'd owned in the past, and had never made it through, and I wanted to start it.
I speak of Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson; his first book in the Baroque Cycle which is a historical fiction set in three large volumes of over a 1000 pages each. How can you pass that up? Well, I began it with a fervor to make it through, knowing full well that in the past, I'd only made it to the 100th page or so before wanting to read something else. Something was holding me back but I didn't know what. I still don't know, but I've petered out already. I've been captured by a MMORPG, which hasn't let go yet, causing my reading to suffer. I'm going on vacation this Friday, though, so I'll have plenty of time to catch up on my reading.
Life Goal Update: Still working on it.
August 29, 2007
August 13, 2007
Passerby
Darkness full of purity
shines from 'finity.
Through coldest night
Of deepest hue,
Bespeckled pinpricks
cloud my view.
There, sights abound,
Like loose night mares;
To travel there?
Bah! Who would dare?
Trapped in endless wells,
It saunters into sight
Of form and composition
That's not in all a blight.
'Twixt sun and space,
Moon and star,
Behold! It's tail strewn,
Like cracks in icy ponds
Of bright, and whitest blue.
The dark will flee
And light will come
It's path is plain to see;
Why did you come?
To hear its plea?
It's known to only some.
"With e'ry pass I lose myself,"
It wails most desperately.
"No escape unless I run
Into some poor body."
Passing by, it moves along,
I watch it for a while.
Withdrawn I go to look again,
Too late, the time is dawn.
shines from 'finity.
Through coldest night
Of deepest hue,
Bespeckled pinpricks
cloud my view.
There, sights abound,
Like loose night mares;
To travel there?
Bah! Who would dare?
Trapped in endless wells,
It saunters into sight
Of form and composition
That's not in all a blight.
'Twixt sun and space,
Moon and star,
Behold! It's tail strewn,
Like cracks in icy ponds
Of bright, and whitest blue.
The dark will flee
And light will come
It's path is plain to see;
Why did you come?
To hear its plea?
It's known to only some.
"With e'ry pass I lose myself,"
It wails most desperately.
"No escape unless I run
Into some poor body."
Passing by, it moves along,
I watch it for a while.
Withdrawn I go to look again,
Too late, the time is dawn.
August 10, 2007
Jumbled Thought
If terhe is atninyhg I've lrneaed form my hamun erxeenecpis and htsrioy in gnreael, it's taht plpeoe hvae to do semintohg teslehmevs boerfe tyeh'll tlury urantdesnd. Taht, and taht ppleoe hvae an ucnnany alibtiy to poucrde good berveaegs, thguoh the frmoer is mroe porfunod.
If you wnat to konw waht a book is lkie, no aunomt of pploee tlielng you auobt it can paprere you for wehn you aluatcly raed the book. The smae is ture of food; it dseon't awyals tstae lkie waht you eecxpt. Joreynus and jbos, avnuedetrrs and aritnahcss; teyh're ntihong lkie waht you ecpxet and noihtng lkie waht ppeole try to tlel you auobt tehm brefnaheod. For taht is waht mkeas lfie wrtoh linvig. The erixpecnee. The act of gnianig the klwedonge and exrieencpe frtahnisd is by far a difennig apscet of hmnautiy. God gvein fere wlil.
Adtoaldiinly, in csae you hdan't ntcoied, yuo've been raidneg tihs wtih ervey wrod oevr fuor ltretes msplesiled. How auobt taht?
If you wnat to konw waht a book is lkie, no aunomt of pploee tlielng you auobt it can paprere you for wehn you aluatcly raed the book. The smae is ture of food; it dseon't awyals tstae lkie waht you eecxpt. Joreynus and jbos, avnuedetrrs and aritnahcss; teyh're ntihong lkie waht you ecpxet and noihtng lkie waht ppeole try to tlel you auobt tehm brefnaheod. For taht is waht mkeas lfie wrtoh linvig. The erixpecnee. The act of gnianig the klwedonge and exrieencpe frtahnisd is by far a difennig apscet of hmnautiy. God gvein fere wlil.
Adtoaldiinly, in csae you hdan't ntcoied, yuo've been raidneg tihs wtih ervey wrod oevr fuor ltretes msplesiled. How auobt taht?
August 6, 2007
Wanderer
O Wandering soul, with sorrowed eyes,
Filled with the hope of mystery solved,
But still cast down from fate and from lies,
With no foretelling a time resolved.
What end is it that drives you to wander
With back bent low and voice a murmur.
You toil on roads that cause you to ponder,
Life's mysterious ebbs and fervors.
Separate's your lot? More can you see,
Or so some might say if they would but look.
You're not to be stuck, like the ground to the tree
But to wander free, by hook or by crook.
How can I help or what gift could I send?
Fitting in is the plant that I seed.
But you help me; it's how you say friend,
A time of trouble, you meet my need.
Now you've moved on and still I've wondered
How you changed me and not the other.
To the road you turned with eyes 'gain sundered
With bent back still; a wandering brother.
Filled with the hope of mystery solved,
But still cast down from fate and from lies,
With no foretelling a time resolved.
What end is it that drives you to wander
With back bent low and voice a murmur.
You toil on roads that cause you to ponder,
Life's mysterious ebbs and fervors.
Separate's your lot? More can you see,
Or so some might say if they would but look.
You're not to be stuck, like the ground to the tree
But to wander free, by hook or by crook.
How can I help or what gift could I send?
Fitting in is the plant that I seed.
But you help me; it's how you say friend,
A time of trouble, you meet my need.
Now you've moved on and still I've wondered
How you changed me and not the other.
To the road you turned with eyes 'gain sundered
With bent back still; a wandering brother.
August 3, 2007
Satiated
LORD have mercy! I've had a thorn in my side the size of a New England clam as of late; a thorn that screams at me to write something (quite literally, and therefore, verbally). It's akin to an insatiable desire for turkey on the fourth Thursday of November, ham on the 25th of December, green Guinness on St Patty's Day, and endless kisses and romantic schmoozing on February 14th. How does one go about relieving these covetous wants and needs? They act on them! Yes! Go out and gobble that gobbler, pork out on that ham, drown the desire in an Irish drink, and love your love with an unending love! In my case, though, write, and write about whatever. Here I pluck the thorn out.
In the weeks leading up to my current summer reading blockade, I've been feeling like I should/could write a short story. Something fantasy based or simple in it's telling; sort of a dog and his boy kind of story, but not. I don't know if the style I would use in a narrative would be worth reading or comparable to some of my favorite authors (I, of course, speak of Vonnegut, Lawhead, Crichton, and Adams [or, for the more classical, Lewis, Orwell, Hugo, and Dickens]), but I think I could make an interesting story. The question then becomes, how long should it be? Or more importantly, who would read it?
I'm naturally a shy person and not outgoing except at need. A short story, to be read in the court of public opinion (my core of friends), falls most assuredly in the outgoing category. Recently, I was joking with Trev and Amanda, and perhaps others or not the former two at all, regarding having a game of sorts in regards to writing. We would take a title, something vague yet specific, and all write our own short stories. Something brief, like 3 or 4 pages but no more than 5. I think it's a wonderful idea and I'd like to inquire of my friends if they'd like to try it out in our free times. Thoughts? (Note: this is the shy guy's way of trying to not prominently display his work, but hiding it amongst others, and still getting attention).
P.S. The 22° halo pictured in the previous blog is one of the most beautiful, naturally occurring phenomena to me. It's caused by hexagonal ice crystals in the atmosphere reflecting light and typically occur with cirrus clouds. I want to get married during one.
In the weeks leading up to my current summer reading blockade, I've been feeling like I should/could write a short story. Something fantasy based or simple in it's telling; sort of a dog and his boy kind of story, but not. I don't know if the style I would use in a narrative would be worth reading or comparable to some of my favorite authors (I, of course, speak of Vonnegut, Lawhead, Crichton, and Adams [or, for the more classical, Lewis, Orwell, Hugo, and Dickens]), but I think I could make an interesting story. The question then becomes, how long should it be? Or more importantly, who would read it?
I'm naturally a shy person and not outgoing except at need. A short story, to be read in the court of public opinion (my core of friends), falls most assuredly in the outgoing category. Recently, I was joking with Trev and Amanda, and perhaps others or not the former two at all, regarding having a game of sorts in regards to writing. We would take a title, something vague yet specific, and all write our own short stories. Something brief, like 3 or 4 pages but no more than 5. I think it's a wonderful idea and I'd like to inquire of my friends if they'd like to try it out in our free times. Thoughts? (Note: this is the shy guy's way of trying to not prominently display his work, but hiding it amongst others, and still getting attention).
P.S. The 22° halo pictured in the previous blog is one of the most beautiful, naturally occurring phenomena to me. It's caused by hexagonal ice crystals in the atmosphere reflecting light and typically occur with cirrus clouds. I want to get married during one.
August 1, 2007
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