James Hutchings Discusses Licensing for Aspiring Writers

Regular readers of this space will know that I'm starting (ever so slowly) to take my first steps into indie publishing.  I'm somewhat casually researching the steps necessary and prudent to get my work out there for public consumption, so imagine my surprise and delight to have encountered James Hutchings.  James is an emerging writer from Australia, who approached me recently for a review of his book (look for it here later this week).  In return, he generously provided a great guest post on the benefits of licensing your work for public use, and why you may not want to worry too much about sharing it for free.  Thanks, James!
-Jon
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Many writers, whether published or just starting out, are very nervous that someone else will steal their work, whether that be another writer using their ideas in their own stories, or someone making pirated copies of their books. When I put out a collection of my writing, I specifically gave permission for anyone at all to copy my ideas, or even to cut and paste whole stories. I also contacted the Pirate Party, a worldwide network that wants to lessen copyright, and told them that I was giving anyone permission to put my ebook on file-sharing sites. In this post I hope to show why I went against common wisdom.

Creative Commons
I used a free service called Creative Commons.  Creative Commons is useful for people who want to give the general public permission to use their work, but with restrictions. In my case I didn't mind people using my work for non-profit purposes, such as posting on a blog, but I didn't want to allow anyone to make money off it. Similarly I wanted anyone who used it to give me credit. I could have just listed these things myself. However I'm not a lawyer, and perhaps I would have worded it wrong so that someone could twist what I said to do more than I meant. Also I could have been unclear about what I was allowing and what I wasn't allowing. Sure, someone could email me and ask, but the whole purpose of having a written statement is so that people don't have to ask.

Creative Commons has a series of different licenses, which give permission to do different things. They're all legally 'tight', and they're all summarized in plain language. So all you have to do is go to their site and answer a series of questions, to get to the license that does what you want. In my case I used the Non-Commercial License.

Why?
That's what I did. But why? Common sense would suggest that I'm giving something away for free that I could be selling. However I believe that, in the long run, I'll be better off. The main reason is that I've seen how many people are, like me, trying to get their writing out there. Go to Smashwords and have a look at the latest ebooks. Then refresh the page ten minutes later, and you'll probably see a whole new lot. The problem that new writers face isn't that people want to steal your work; it's getting anyone to show an interest in your work at all. If someone passes on a pirated copy of my work, it might get to someone who's prepared to buy it - and that someone would probably have never heard of me otherwise. Even if they don't want to pay for what they read, I might come out with something else in the future, and perhaps paying 99c for it will be easier than hunting it down on a file-sharing site.  Science fiction writer Andrew Burt tells the story of someone who disliked his book, and to get back at him decided to put a copy on a file-sharing site. The effect was that he got a small 'spike' in sales immediately afterwards.

I also have some less selfish motives. Many people would assume that the purpose of copyright is to protect authors and creators. Leaving aside the fact that someone else often ends up with the rights (how many Disney shareholders created any of the Disney characters? How many shareholders in Microsoft have ever written a line of code?), that doesn't seem to have been the intention in the past. The US Constitution says that Congress has the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note that protecting 'intellectual property' isn't mentioned. The authors of the Constitution seemed to see the point as getting ideas out there where people can use them: almost the exact opposite of keeping them 'safe' and 'protected'.

The original idea of copyright seems to have been a sort of deal: you have an idea, and we want you to get it out into the world where it will do some good. To encourage you to do that, we'll give you a monopoly on its use for a limited time. After that, anybody can use it (it will enter the 'public domain').

A lot of people don't know that copyright used to give a lot less protection than it does now, especially in the United States. In the US, it used to be that works were copyrighted for a maximum of 56 years. Today copyright in the US can last for over 100 years. In fact Congress keeps extending the time. In practice, they're acting as if they never want ideas to go into the public domain.

This is great for the owners of 'intellectual property'. But it's hard to see how this "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts," or how forever is a "limited time." In a sense it's a theft from the public. Anyone who publishes work has accepted the deal that the law offers, of a limited monopoly in return for making their idea known. Congress has been giving them more and more extensions on that monopoly, but doesn't require them to do anything to earn it.

It probably doesn't matter that much that Disney still owns Mickey Mouse, or that Lord of the Rings is still under copyright. But remember that these laws don't just apply to the arts. They apply to science as well. So an invention that might save lives could be going unused, because its owner wants too much money for it, or because it's tied up in court while two companies fight about who owns it.

Conclusion
I'm far from an expert on either the law or the publishing industry. However I hope that I've given you, especially those of you who might be thinking about publishing some writing, a different take on the whole issue of whether authors should worry about their ideas being stolen. At least I hope I've shown you that there's a different way of thinking about it, and that that way doesn't require you to just give up on making money; in fact that it might be more profitable as well as better for society.

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James Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name 'Brad Pitt.' He specializes in short fantasy fiction. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, fiction365 and Enchanted Conversation among other markets. His ebook collection The New Death and Others, is now available from Amazon and Smashwords. He blogs daily at http://www.apolitical.info/teleleli.
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This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial License

Ed Gets Chopped!

And now, a first in JLOS history, a guest blog!  Ed Scheid is a friend who shares a passion for home brewing, good wine, and of course great food.  He's also a fantastic photographer.  Check it out at his website, http://www.scheidphoto.com/

Recently, Ed's wife Christi threw down the culinary gauntlet:  Cook an original, delicious meal with secret ingredients she picks out, a-la Chopped.  Below is his recounting of the challenge, not to mention fairly detailed instructions on how to recreate it (way to give away your secrets, man).  Thanks Ed!
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Christi and I have pretty much become addicted to Chopped on the Food Network. If you are not familiar with it, it is a contest where four chefs compete against each other for $10,000. There are three rounds and after each round a chef is eliminated. The first round is an appetizer, the second is an entree and finally a desert. In each round the chefs are given four secret ingredients to use and they are typically ingredients that are pretty far apart on the culinary spectrum.

I'm not sure what got into the wife but she decided to toss me a challenge. I couldn't let my manhood be called out like that so I gladly accepted. She went out and bought my secret ingredients, two for an appetizer, three for an entree and two for a dessert. We decided to wave the time limits since A) I'm not a trained chef and B) our kitchen isn't even remotely equipped for such a challenge.

She went out and purchased her secret ingredients and here is what she came back with:

Appetizer:

• Marcona almonds
• Gouda goat cheese

Entree

• Cornish Hens
• Fresh spinach
• Fresh cranberries

Desert:

• Mini bananas
• Whole Kona blend coffee beans

I'll admit that as soon as the challenge was presented the culinary gears in my head started to spin. All day yesterday I was thinking of different ingredients she might get and how I would prepare them. I probably had no less than a dozen recipes in my already figured out. Needless to say, it was all for not as she didn't come back with anything I expected.

The Appetizer

I figured Christi would get goat cheese since she loves it so much. Gouda goat cheese was a bit of a surprise but not too terribly different. A similar flavor but not crumbly. I like the almonds. They had a nice crunch and salty flavor. A salad instantly came to mind. For the first time I made my own dressing. It was a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette. I decided to expand on the flavor of the almonds and candied them with brown sugar and bourbon. The gouda goat cheese is great by itself so I just shredded it on to baby spring mix greens. The tanginess of the dressing went great with the sweetness of the almonds and the creaminess of the cheese tied it together nicely.

Final dish: Bourbon candied Marcona almonds and Gouda goat cheese on baby spring mix greens with a strawberry  pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette


Bourbon candied Marcona almonds and Gouda goat cheese on baby spring mix greens with a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette

 The Entree

I wasn't sure what Christi would have picked for a protein. I leaned towards fish but would have never expected she would have picked cornish hens. No big deal, they are just little chickens. The fresh cranberries worried me because of their tartness. I love raw spinach but wanted to try something different and cook it.

To add a third element to the entree I wanted to add a starch. Potato pancake came to mind but I didn't think it would tie in very well. Having some butternut squash on hand I decided to add sweet potato and make a butternut squash and sweet potato pancake. I seasoned it with cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar to give it that homey taste. To help bring together the pancake and hen I made a zinfandel cranberry applesauce.

I simply roasted the cornish hen with my typical poultry seasoning (fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh sage, garlic salt, pepper and olive oil). I made a glaze of a cranberry and merlot reduction and glazed the hens about half way through cooking. I had to add a bit of sugar to the glaze since the cranberries were so tart. The glazed turn out awesome.

The spinach was a different story. I had never cooked with fresh spinach but I liked the idea. I kept it simple by wilting it in some bacon drippings, shallots and roasted garlic. I tossed in the bacon bits at the end. It was o.k. at best. I'll probably stick with raw spinach.

Final dish: Cranberry merlot glazed cornish hen with butternut squash and sweet potato cakes, zinfandel cranberry applesauce and bacon and roasted garlic spinach


Cranberry merlot glazed cornish hen with butternut squash and sweet potato cakes, zinfandel cranberry applesauce and bacon and roasted garlic spinach

 The Dessert

Ahhh... dessert!!!! Mini bananas? Easy! Coffee beans with bananas? New to me! The first thing that came to mind was banana pudding. But how to pair the coffee beans? I know! Coffee whipped cream! To make sure I got the pudding right I actually referred to a recipe. Desserts aren't as forgiving when it comes to measuring. I used Alton Brown's banana pudding recipe (or at least 95%) of it. Basically it's vanilla pudding but I mashed up half of the mini bananas and mixed them in. To add another layer of flavor I took the other half of the bananas and mixed them with some caramel. I finely ground the coffee beans and added them to the whipped cream. I layered each of the elements in a wine glass and sprinkled in some Godiva milk chocolate. All I can say is that it was banana coffee love in a glass.

Final dish: Banana pudding with caramel bananas and coffee infused whipped cream


Banana pudding with caramel bananas and coffee infused whipped cream

Verdict

All in all I think I rose to the challenge. Every dish except the banana pudding was my own recipe and new ones at that. The only misstep was the spinach but everyone, except grumpus August loved the meal. I can't image the stress the chefs feel actually competing. I'm just a dude who likes to cook and I felt like I had to be on top of my game. Every meal I cook makes me appreciate the people who do this for a living even more. Now how do I spend that $10,000!!!

Eat This! Autumn Seasonal Beer Pairing

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a food blog, but not because I haven’t been cooking.  Just been waiting for an appropriate topic to cover here, and I think I’ve got it here.

The idea of pairing wine with food is a well-established culinary topic that everyone knows about, if few really understand.  But there’s no question that an excellent wine pairing can truly enhance a dish, unlocking portions of the flavor profile that would remain hidden if eaten alone, and magnifying the portions that are already present.  No arguments there.

However, it’s only been recently (like within the last 5-10 years) that the same type of attention has been paid to pairing beers with food, especially in the U.S.  For this I blame the big, yellow-fizzy macrobrews that were the only thing that most people for decades knew as “beer.”  These days the country has truly rediscovered its glorious, immigrant-driven brewing past (which was all but wiped out by Prohibition), and the availability of interesting, innovative, and rare artisan brews is widespread.  This offers a great opportunity to the modern amateur chef…can I craft a menu with craft beer specifically in mind? 

Well of course the answer is yes…you can find a beer that will pair with literally any dish, from burgers to foie gras.  But making the connections when there are literally thousands of possibilities is the difficult part.  Brewing aficionados will even go so far as to tell you that pairing beer properly can be more difficult than pairing wine because of the vast variety of styles that are completely different from one another, while one red wine shares a lot of the same baseline characteristics as most other reds.  (This is of course a matter of opinion…don’t think I’m some sort of uncultured rube.  Well, not for that reason anyway.  If you must think of me as a rube, focus on my incomprehension of musical theatre instead.)

Anyway, all of this is leading up to a meal I recently prepared for a group of friends.  The dinner was actually done as a charity event for outreach programs in my wife’s church, a type of dinner known as Dining For Dollars.  Everyone buys a ticket for a limited number of seats at the table, and my wife and I cooked.  Five courses following a theme of autumn seasonal flavors, with a specific beer paired to each.  We actually held a test run of the dinner a few weeks ago...some of the photos are actually from that occasion, but mostly the same stuff. 

Let’s talk about it!

Course 1:  Appetizers

This one was a little loose and free, so I hesitate to call it a “course,” but it was still an interesting opportunity to introduce the guests to the concept of examining the way beer pairs with food, while giving everyone a chance to mingle and get to know each other.  It was essentially a buffet-style spread of light, finger fair to roughly fit the theme.  Apples, pears, table grapes, as well as a variety of cheeses to cover a range of the palette, from a soft, “fragrant” Chaumes to hard aged cheddar.  A couple of dry Italian sausages rounded it out, a Sopressata and a red-wine salami, and various crackers and sour dough bread. 

The pairings for this course were fairly easy, since you just need something that can lightly accent all the different flavors without overpowering any of them.  In this case I chose Duvel blonde and a very nice kolsch from Reissdorff. 

The Belgian Duvel is dry and faintly floral, with a very slight bitter finish and virtually no malt.  I found that it worked beautifully with the fruit, and was still light and dry enough to cut through the heavy flavors of the meats and cheeses.  The Reissdorf kolsch is an excellent example of an admittedly wide-open style, on the malty side with a fair amount of body.  To taste it after the Duvel is to immediately recognize it as a very different beer, and yet it worked equally well with the food.  I was not as impressed with the match to the fruit, but it was a generally good pairing to the heavier appetizers.

Course 2:  Fall Salad

The first formal course was a complex little salad to highlight the season and touch on all the major flavors.  A bed of baby greens was accented with candied walnuts, dried cranberries and creamy Gorgonzola cheese, with a fresh-made raspberry vinaigrette.  Thus, one small plate contains bitter, sweet, salty, and sour elements, all pulled together by the subtle vinaigrette…an interesting pairing challenge.

The pairing chosen (after much deliberation) was Jolly Pumpkin brewery’s Calabaza Blanca.

This is a challenging beer for newbies especially, but a delightful surprise with the salad when first tasted.  It’s a Belgian “biere blanche,” literally white beer, wheat/barley malt spiced with coriander and orange peel and aged in oak casks.  It is one of the most complex tasting experiences I’ve ever encountered, running through several iterations from sip to swallow.  It starts with attention-grabbing tartness, not unlike a lambic or other sour ale, but this quick fades and is replaced with a dry spiciness that mellows as it finishes.  On the whole, the perfect way to draw and blend the various flavors of the salad without overpowering and engulfing any of them.

Course 3:  Smoky Squash Bisque with Crème Freche and Bacon

For the soup course, I’m going to the safety of a recipe I’ve presented here before, with a small aggressive twist.  The soup is a relatively simple combination of butternut squash, mirepoix, chicken stock and chipotle chile.  I used bacon at the front end (aromatics sweated in bacon drippings) and the back (rendered bacon as garnish), with the crème freche to smooth the whole experience out and add a bit of needed fat.  What results is a warm, hearty and savory soup, with a strong presence of heat from the chiles. 

The pairing chosen would seem to be fairly obvious, Weyerbacher’s Imperial Pumpkin Ale.

When pairing beer with spicy food, I find it’s best to go with a malty brew that allows the heat to dissipate from your tongue slowly, without short circuiting it entirely.  Since capsaicin (the chemical that makes chiles hot)  is alcohol soluble, that helps too, although too much and your body actually reacts the wrong way by opening up pores and letting the heat in too far.  Okay, maybe some of that is bullshit, but this imperial pumpkin ale works fantastic with the soup.  It’s not spiced so much that you can’t even taste the pumpkin, and is high enough alcohol content (around 8%) that it helps with the mouth-burn.  Squash notes still very present in the soup tie directly to their cousins in the ale, and everything just…works.

Course 4:  Porchetta and Boulangerie Beans with Potatoes and Leeks

The main event, and far and away the most difficult of the dishes to prepare (it should be that way, shouldn’t it?).  Porchetta translates from Italian as, roughly, “whole roasted pig,” and this recipe tries to recreate that with boneless pork loin and skin-on pork belly.  An earlier test of the dish revealed it to be pretty bland and fatty (fatty, really?  The hell, you say.)   This was solved quite handily by brining the pork belly for two days before assembling the porchetta, using Fergus Henderson’s recipe .  The result was a flavorful and moist (and yes, fatty, but in a good way) roast, accented by the fennel, garlic and orange worked into the roll, surrounded by that awesome, cracking skin. 

How about a couple more pictures, huh?

The roast is rustically sliced and served on a bed of boulangerie beans and potatoes, with leeks as a beautiful addition.  This is a version of a very classic French peasant dish—basically their version of Boston baked beans in terms of culinary anthropology.  And let me say this one thing:  I love leeks.  Leeks are just the bees’ knees.  Leeks are what onions could be if they’d just get off their ass and apply themselves.  And leeks with butter could win the Democratic presidential nomination (but not the Republican one…too “elitist,” like arugula).

The pairing here is another one that could be considered obvious, at least from a cultural and geographic consideration:  Saison DuPont

Yet another Belgian style (it wasn’t supposed to be the theme, that’s just what fell out), saison is a farmhouse ale, meant to be a table beer served with traditional “home-cooking.”  Crossing some national boundaries serving it with an Italian main course, but it fits pretty perfectly.  It’s actually cheating a little bit, because saisons will pair well with just about anything savory—heavier stuff like this, but also seafood, salads, you name it.  It's also one of my personal favorites.  The flavor profile is very complex but not as easy to separate out like our friend the Calabaza served with the salad, which suits the dish well. 

Course 5:  Dense Chocolate Tort with Salted Caramel Sauce

I will take no credit for the dessert course.  My wife, who happily cedes most of the cooking duties to me, takes great pleasure and pride in her desserts, and this one clearly reflects that.  The flourless tort is made with Irish butter, two different types of chocolate, and what I can only assume is some sort of black magic.  It is a bittersweet dream to behold.  The caramel sauce is made with a red sea salt from Hawaii that is one of her little secrets (sorry, babe, but the truth must be told).  Oh, and she also likes to do sugar art, as you can see from the photo above.  Amazing.

Such an amazing dessert deserves an amazing pairing that won’t total overpower or destroy it.  And yes, of course you can drink beer with dessert—stop thinking like a yellow-fizzy.  Southern Tier Crème Brulee Imperial Stout was the hands-down favorite.

Chocolate can go well with a lot of stouts and porters, or other malty styles, without much trouble.  But this beer, with its creamy texture and burnt-caramel notes, seemed designed specifically for this tort.  It’s made with dark caramel malt, real vanilla bean and lactose sugar, producing and incredibly smooth and mouth-heavy stout.  Creamy, stable head on top enhances the nose as well.  If you could make crème brulee drinkable, this is what you’d end up with.

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So that’s the meal.  It worked so well that I think I’m going to do it more often, with different themes.  Maybe a nice grillout with great summer ales and crisp IPA’s.  Or a meal of reconstructed Cincinnati favorites—Skyline, goetta, and Graeter’s anyone?—with the best of the reborn Cincinnati brewing scene for accent? 

Anyone have suggestions?  And if you want any of the recipes described here, just let me know and I’ll send them your way.

Book Review, One Second After, by William Fortschen

One Second After, by William Forstchen    

A lot of energy has been expended in the last decade discussing—and arguing—about how best to defend our nation against attack from unknown threats.  September 11^th changed the way a lot of Americans thought about not only our security, but about our uniquely “American” lifestyle, and how it plays to the rest of the world.  Some of the more radical have suggested that our pampered, affluent existence contributed to the sentiment behind the attacks, a few even suggesting that we deserved it.

 William Forstchen’s One Second After, while clearly told from a very conservative and classically patriotic viewpoint, tends ironically to reinforce those views.  The book is a work of speculative fiction, examining the aftermath of a massive and sudden EMP attack on the United States in the present day.  Set in Black Mountain, NC, a small exurb of Asheville, the book’s central character and sole point of view is John Matherson, ex-Army colonel and professor of history at the tiny Christian college in the town.  His life is bucolic and uneventful, though touched with melancholy over the death of his wife some years before and the ongoing struggles of his younger daughter Jennifer, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes.  

 It is during Jennifer’s 12^th birthday party that the disaster occurs, though no one will fully realize it for some time.  Initially considered just an annoying power outage, signs that something larger has happened begin to trickle into John’s consciousness:  every car on the freeway has stopped in place; there are no contrails in a sky normally crisscrossed by air traffic; several mysterious fires burn on distant mountainsides.  Most worrisome of all, no radio broadcasts can be heard, even on an ancient Ford Edsel radio.

Matherson, remembering some of the research he’d participated in as a professor at the Army War College, begins to suspect we’ve been the target of an “asymmetric strike.”  Gradually the townspeople begin to realize that something terrible has happened, and things begin to turn much darker.

And darker. 

And, oh GOD, even darker.

Listen, if you’re a person who likes to sleep soundly and worry-free at night, just…just don’t read this book.  I’m not going to go into details about events in the book, because I’m not a spoiler reviewer.  But suffice to say that living in our society after the lights—and 99.9% of all vehicular transportation, and communications, and any semblance of sustainable modern medicine—have gone out is not pleasant or leisurely.  The world rediscovers the Dark Ages, and fast.  Like within weeks.  The consequences of the attack and its impact on society are dire and coldly logical in their conclusions.  Perhaps pessimistic, but to my mind not implausible.

As readability goes, One Second After is really quite good, if a little clunky and prone to data dumps.  A tendency to over-explain jokes and characters’ penchant for launching into long, improbably well thought-out monologues runs through the novel from beginning to end.  However, Forstchen focuses narrowly on one place and set of primary characters, which moves the story along briskly and is seldom disorienting.  He thus avoids a trap many post-apocalyptic novels tend to fall into by trying to tell the entire story of a global disaster.  The devastating impact of the event is felt at the local level—much like every single other thing in the country from now on, because globalization dies the instant the EMP strikes. 

Unfortunately, there is a big downfall, and it is one of message.  Forstchen, through Matherson and several other “realist” characters, repeatedly makes the point that the current generation is “the most pampered in our nation’s history,” citing such softening factors as cheap and easily accessible drinking water, widely-prescribed antidepressants, and ADD-inducing electronic devices.  No one seemed to realize these were so ingrained in our culture until faced with the reality that they were suddenly and permanently gone.  While this is certainly true enough, the same characters, sometimes in the same breath, also complain a lot about how the nation turned a blind eye to the risks involved in living such a life, until it was too late to do anything about it. 

This criticism is frustrating, because none of the characters, even the knowledge-font Matherson, offers any real preventative solutions that could have been taken.  Some vague discussion of “hardened” devices in use by the military is bandied about, but very little else.  Instead, the novel tends to mistily glorify the pre-solid state technology of the Greatest Generation—hardly a real option for most of us.  The novel is meant to be a warning for us to do something before it’s too late, but what?  Without offering possible solutions, Forstchen ends up sounding a bit like Abe Simpson, shaking his fist at the whippersnappers on his lawn, who should be using rotary telephones and medicating with bourbon, like in his day.

Rating:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Complaints from a Sore Fantasy Football Loser

Fantasy football is my white whale.  Every season, I’m called to join whatever league shows up on my social radar.  It all seems so hopeful in August.  The voices, Costner-like, tell me things that make me believe.

“This will be the year you draft the explosive, durable back that no one else knows about.”

“Former backup quarterbacks finally ‘getting their shot’ as a starter are a sure thing.”

“Kickers matter.”

And so I join a league.  Never a pay league…I’m not stupid.  Putting real money into what is effectively a glorified multi-player video game is not something I’ve ever considered.  But I’ll almost always jump in and make a team with a witty name recalling some isolated chapter of my life, like “Chile’s Legion” or “Team Kaos.”  Then the draft is announced, and all happiness begins to drain from my Sundays.

This is where I should mention that the leagues I always seem to play in are populated mostly by people much younger and less, let’s say, spoken-for than I.  This year it’s a league at work featuring mostly under-25 engineers, many without wives, children, or mortgages.  Other years it was with fraternity brothers who were mostly still active at college.  College, where napping at 2PM on any given Tuesday is perfectly plausible, and staying out all night the following Wednesday even more so.

You can see where this is going. 

League Commissioner:  “OK, the draft is going to be Tuesday night at 11:00!  Good luck everybody, or, if you’re a frail old man, set up your autopicks!”



Indeed I will!  Now, who still wears the leather helmets?  Those are the gents I want on my team...

That…doesn’t work for me, and never will.  Late weeknights are a thing of the distant past.  The last ones I remember involved walking a hallway at 3AM with a colicky baby, and truth be told I don’t clearly remember most of those (that’s probably a good thing, since if I did I’d probably scowl inexplicably at the boy way more often than I do now).  The concept of staying up well past midnight agonizing over which 3^rd year running back is going to peak in his contract year and which one is about to reach the median NFL retirement age doesn’t even register for me.  The following day at work would not be pretty, especially for any subordinates who have a problem I would normally cheerfully help them with.  So, live drafting with youngsters—not advisable.

That leaves the autopick feature, helpfully included in almost all fantasy sites.  The idea is simple:  before the draft, go through the available players, pick out the ones you’d most like to have and arrange them in descending order.  When your turn in the draft comes up, the site automatically picks the best one available on your list, filling the roster slots as it goes.  Or, even better, do nothing, since the fantasy nerds at the site already rank every NFL player by whatever arcane witchcraft they use anyway.  This idea was more attractive to me this year, since I doubt I know more than the nerdy witches, and in previous years every time I’ve tried to arrange my own list I’d end up with a bunch of Bengals because subliminally I’m a self-loathing diehard fan.  So that’s what I did…nothing.  I went to meet-the-teacher night at my kid’s school and let the draft gods do what they may that evening.



Allison Hannigan is like the 5th pic that shows up for a Google Image search of "nerdy witch."  And while I'm sure you agree that's awesome, I doubt she knows all that much about fantasy football.



The problem is, autopick is f-ing stupid.

Like any computer program, it’s limited by the parameters within which it is working.  This year, the parameters did not include the fact that Peyton Manning could barely turn his head from side to side, and as a result would miss at least the first 4 months of the season.  Autopick didn’t know this, he just saw that PM was rated #3 on the draft board this year, and pulled the trigger for me.  It went downhill from there.  6 running backs (most past their prime or still waiting for one that’s not going to show), zero usable quarterbacks, and several slot receivers filled my roster the next morning.  And since it’s a deep league, waiver pickin’s were slim (Kerry Collins?  Why sure!  Why the hell not?).  I am currently 0-5, with no end in sight.  Check out the results of last weekend’s titanic struggle:



Hey, great game Kolb.  The pundits assured me that Philly wasn't a fluke.  Chump.
You thought I was kidding about Team Kaos, didn't you?

Yeah, that's 118-38, and there are more scores like that behind it.  So, this year’s not my year, sweet August voices be damned.  But even in decent performance years, fantasy football is a burdensome yoke.  Take the time factor alone.  The draft is really just the tip of the iceberg there, since it’s over in a defined amount of time.  The week-to-week research quickly becomes unsustainable.  In case you’ve never watched an NFL game, it’s sort of a dangerous undertaking.  Hulking men who are also faster than you’ve ever been smash into each other hundreds of times in sometimes horrible environmental conditions.  This understandably results in injuries.  Lots of injuries, especially to the delicate skill position players your roster is full of.  So your whole world begins to revolve around the Wednesday injury report.  If Adrian Peterson didn’t practice on Wednesday, you’d better start second-guessing.  That will lead to further second guessing about the rest of the roster, based on their performance the previous week.  Will he have another monster game like he did against the Seahawks?  Of course not, everyone has a monster game against the Seahawks, you say.  But if you bench him and he has another monster?  You hate yourself until the following week.

Like all those stock brokers from the last few years, but with slightly less life-destroying.

The entire season is full of these little quandaries, which take on great meaning when we’re talking about pissing contests with your friends and colleagues.

But the worst is the problem of compromised allegiances.  I am an unfortunate Bengals fan, as referenced above.  Even though I grew up in Browns country, the allegiance still took hold when I was young—my older brother was a fan, the striped helmet was cool, Cincinnati seemed like a way cooler city than Cleveland (true enough).  Normally this is simple.  I sit on my couch with a beer and scream at the TV like any other fan, and enjoy a simple, uncompromising hatred of the Pittsburgh Steelers and everything they stand for.  But now superimpose a fantasy football team onto this idyllic scenario.  What if my primary RB is Rashard Mendenhall?  Who do I root for?  I can’t happily cheer for my team in full, because to do so successfully would limit one of my only fantasy horses.  And it’s worse when I have players from both teams.  It also forces me to give a damn about games for which I could happily care less.  Raiders-Broncos?  Not interested…except for Knowshon.  How’s he doing?  And you’ll find yourself getting irrationally pissed off when the little stat tracker graphic on the TV coverage doesn’t pop up after a complete pass.  I must know how many points he’s accrued!  My Sunday happiness demands it! 

That’s no way to watch football.

Why do I keep doing it?  Not chicks, that’s for sure…my wife thinks I’m an idiot when I complain about the kicker for the Vikings shanking a field goal attempt, or Arizona’s quarterback sailing a pass to the free safety.   I guess it’s for the same reasons lots of people do—a sense of camaraderie, the thrill of competition, the quest for glory. 

Now, while we’re on the subject of glory, would anyone like to deal a mid-ranked starting quarterback and a healthy kicker for two goal-line specialist running backs and the San Diego defense?  I’m telling you, it’ll pay off for you in the long run…just forget everything I’ve just written and think of the glory…

Our Edison is Gone...

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Whatever your opinion of Apple products, or the veritable cult that has grown around them, no one can dispute that the computer geek turned rock star that created them made a lasting impact on the world and the way we live in it.  Even if you narrow it down to only the iPod, the monumental shift in the way we listen to and buy music now would be enough to make him a historical icon.  Add in the iPhone, and the shift extends to telecommunications.  And go back far enough...the idea of a "personal computer"...amazing.

He'll be missed by a lot of people, and not just the nerds.

So long, sir.

1300 Words About How I Never Finished Huck Finn

Literati, please don't hate me.

A few months ago I alluded to a series of book-related pieces I was going to start writing about my favorite authors.  I still plan to do this, of course, since I want to talk about the authors I've really learned to love, especially in the interest of promoting some that many people may not be familiar with.  I'd like to think my reviews of indie authors in this space have increased their visibility just that little bit.

However, the first installment was going to be for an author that literally no one is not aware of.  Mark Twain (or, for the historically accurate, Samuel Clemens) is perhaps America's most celebrated writer.  He is our Shakespeare, our Hugo.  Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, endless satires, essays, stories...all are well-known to nearly every American high school English class.  And the work that has come to define him, and maybe the idea of the Great American Novel, is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I know for a fact that I have been assigned to read this book on at least two separate occasions:  10th grade English, and a British/American Novels class in college.  And I didn't read it either time.  (I'm sorry, Ms. Black and Dr. Tierney!  You were both formative teachers, honestly!)  Oh, I know the story well enough, and a certain knack for cultural observation--and my own natural bullshitting ability--allowed me to both write and talk about it with what sounded like some authority, so I don't think anybody knew at the time.  Besides, at least as far as the college class was concerned, it was an intellectual break from designing make-believe airplanes and pretending to understand quantum physics for a few hours each week, so I didn't approach it with perhaps the zeal I should have.

This actually didn't bother me too much for a long time.  There were lots books I was assigned to read in various classes over the years that I didn't read, partly because I hate reading on a schedule, and partly because a lot of them simply didn't interest me in the slightest.  For instance, I will never, ever read Pride and Prejudice.  Like, ever, no matter what my sister says about it.  But recently a passing news story about Huck Finn rekindled my interest (and some latent guilt, it seems) in the book. 

One of the reasons the book has remained so culturally significant more than 125 years after it was first published is the way it deals with race relations in the Midwest in the mid-19th century.  The book frequently uses the n-word in a casual manner when referring to people of color, especially one of the chief characters and centers of conflict in the story, Jim.  (By the way, we all know what n-word I'm talking about, but I will not print it here.)  Anyway, the issue has popped up now and again for years, especially since the civil rights victories in the 1960's, specifically relating to whether the book should be banned from schools. 

Back in January (okay, so it wasn't that recent), the media lit up with the arrival of a new edition of Huck that replaced all instances of the word with "slave."  A couple of well-meaning scholars had produced the edited version of the classic in an effort to keep it off the banned book lists in so many high schools (not mine thankfully, though I didn't show much gratitude, see above).  This of course touched off a minor--or major, depending on how deep into the world of American literature you are--controversy about whether our society has finally reached the point of no return on the PC issue.  This is the usual sort of thing that happens when an issue this sensitive is brought out into the light for everyone to notice again, but a very interesting, and I think important question emerged from the chatter:  is Huck Finn a racist book?  Is there good reason for it to be banned?

Now, I can't begin to answer that question here, as I'm  not qualified and I don't write in this space to solve thorny societal questions...hence all the columns about cartoons.  For what it's worth, my opinion is that Huck Finn is not racist, meaning it doesn't have a racist agenda.  Twain wasn't condoning the system his characters lived in, and I have the feeling he was shining a light on the uglier part of the institutional racism entrenched in the still very wild Mississippi valley in the mid-19th century.  These were the thoughts I had when I heard the story about the "slave" edition, but I felt it was necessary to back them up, grow up little bit, and read it.  So I did...

...or I tried.  I bought a nicely unabridged Kindle version of the book (so I couldn't even read it in a public place and get credit for it!), and began.  As another small confession, I've never actually read Tom Sawyer either (though again, pop culture, bullshitting, yada-yada), so there was some initial confusion at the beginning since Huck Finn is technically a sequel, even making the reference in the opening line.  But this didn't stop me from getting into the story initially, since Huck is an interesting character with somewhat unusual motivations, caught squarely between opposing forces vying for his soul.  His moral compass is somewhat flawed, but the best heroes' always are, and besides, he looks to be doing the right thing as he eventually aids the runaway slave Jim. 

But my progress gradually bogged down until about 45% in, when I couldn't go on, for the stupidest of reasons:  I simply got tired of translating.  Reading the dialogue in this book is exhausting.  You ever watch an episode of Swamp People on the History Channel?  You know how even though those guys are ostensibly speaking English, HC helpfully puts subtitles along the bottom or else all of us Yankees would be hopelessly lost?  Yeah, Twain didn't use any subtitles.  Trying to figure out what Jim and Huck are saying to each other requires rereading and analyzing every truncated syllable, and that's not counting when Huck's drunkard father starts talking.  I got about as far as the Hatfields and McCoys-style feud that Huck managed to get himself involved in before I gave up.  However, Wikipedia assures me that many adventures and hijinks were had before the final, happy, ending.

Am I ashamed of this dismal failure to appreciate one of Americana's most treasured masterpieces?  A little, yes.  I always feel bad when I can't finish a book, even books I hate.  And I certainly don't hate this book--I just find it too tiring.  This was one of the first novels to embrace "dialect" writing, meaning the characters didn't speak Oxford English for the Earth-shattering reason that they weren't from Oxford.  This was something of a revolution at the time of the book's publishing, so maybe I'm not alone in my issues.  There are plenty of dead literature critics that agreed with me.

But did I answer the question for myself?  Is Huck Finn racist?  Twain approached the issue of racial inequality with a good deal of common sense at a time (less than 20 years post-Civil War) when everyone still viewed the practice as some sort of God-given law.  For that reason alone, I have to go with "no."  Also, Mark Twain was known to be a brilliant man.  I've personally never met a smart racist, and don't think they exist. 

One last question:  should it be read in high schools?  Of course it should...no book should ever be banned from a school.  Even Mein Kampf has importance when read with the right perspective (the right perspective being that of a wackaloon with daddy issues and terrible painting skills).  Maybe if some of the hand-wringers who've had Huck Finn banned had read 45% of it first, there'd be a little more racial understanding in the world.

Kids’ Shows That Don’t Suck: Vol 2

This is sort of cheating a little bit, but the fact is that the first list of kids’ shows that I like to watch with my kid is the most popular blog post I’ve ever written.  And since it’s been almost a year, we watch a lot of different shows now, some of them brand new.  Sure, we'll always watch Spongebob and The Clone Wars, but there are so many new things to try that we're both growing in to.

Chime in if I’ve missed one that is awesome.  Or if you prefer, decry my selections as offensive or ridiculous.  I’m open to interpretations other than mine...even if they're wrong.

Phineas and Ferb

I suspect this Disney product was created for adults, and kids just happened to glom on to it.  The title characters are two suburban boy geniuses who pass the time by inventing amazing devices, and trying to avoid being “busted” by their shrewish teenage sister.  This, while interesting at times, fades to the background when we get into the show's subplot, the super-spy adventures of their pet platypus Perry.



Feathered, not furred.



Perry the Platypus could be the next great animated superstar.  Who knows, he may already be.  Case in point, months ago, I was shopping for kid pajamas with the boy (for the boy, you weirdos), and we saw the character on a shirt.  On first glance, it appeared to be one of the Angry Birds, and I said so.  I was told slowly, with clear annunciation as if to a slower person that you don’t wish to offend,  “No Dad, that’s Perry.”  Perry lives a secret life as Agent P, the arch nemesis of the...evil?...and brilliant Dr. Doofenshmirtz, whose dastardly machines are forever threatening the boring existence of the suburban summer.  Yes it sounds dumb, but it's so not.

Thundercats

Come on, children of the 80’s.  You remember the Thundercats.  I fondly remember running around a playground screaming “Ho-ooooh!” at the top of my lungs (an activity that would get you into a significant amount of trouble today.  Especially at my age).  We’ve recently rewatched the first season of the classic series, and while the boy really loves them, I’ve discovered that I can’t abide watching it.  Whether it’s the indifferent (at best) hand-drawn animation, or the fact that Lion-O has a serious case of Inner Monologue Deficiency, or IMD (“My hand…it’s…burning!”), watching the show now is an exercise in flagellating yourself for being such an idiot at 6 years old. 

The new Thundercats on Cartoon Network seeks to modernize the classic series by taking it to a darker, somewhat more sophisticated setting.  The one-hour pilot, which aired in July 2011, was a legitimately great piece of television.  A compelling overarching storyline, characters that have a little depth—though most are still pretty one-note at this point, it is a kids’ show after all—and very good but subtle anime touches make it appointment TV in our house.  And the new Snarf sort of reminds me of my cat, Max.



The resemblance is passing, sure, but it should be noted that the photo on the right was not posed in any way.



The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That

We watch a lot of PBS in our house, especially in that 5-7 PM kid-heavy block, because the guilt modern parents feel for letting their kids watch too much television is alleviated somewhat when the shows are deemed “educational.”  The newest incarnation of Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat is a great example of a show that is fun and engaging to watch, while still providing lessons that stick.  To say the chief character is “beloved” is to dance with cliché, and the new version, voiced by an ever youthful-sounding Martin Short, seems to embrace the character while winking at the absurdness of it all.  Mike Myers’ attempt at this in the retched live-action movie was...rather less successful.



Gah!

The animation in the PBS version is a delightfully low-tech play on the familiar illustration style of the books, and the dialogue isn't stilted or oversimplified, tactics that tend to bore parents and insult smarter kids.  The lessons lean toward science and nature topics, but a great deal of time is spent in teaching social interaction and the art of being curious about stuff.  Also, there are lots of ludicrous made-up words that nonetheless are applicable to daily life.



"To the Thingamajigger!"

Dinosaur Train

Dinosaur Train would seem to be based on the decision that resulted from a Friday afternoon brainstorming session.

Boss-like Figure:  “Okay, we need a show to pitch to the network Monday morning, so let’s get thinking.  Edwards, what do kids like?”

Edwards, startled:  “Uh…like, dinosaurs?”

BLF:  “Great!  Hanrahan, what else?”

Hanrahan, visibly irritated:  “I don’t know…trains?”  <sullenly checks Red Sox score>

BLF:  “Super!  Throw some time-travel in there and we’ve got a show!  Get some concept art and story boards together over the weekend.  I’m heading to the Hamptons!”



Ta-Da!



And so we have another entry in the PBS block.  The show is actually very straightforward about teaching basic paleontology and exploration of known dinosaur species, and this works beautifully because startled Edwards was right…kids have loved dinosaurs unconditionally for as long as the word has existed.  But blended deftly into the stories are great teaching moments about acceptance of those who are different—one of the chief characters is a T-Rex adopted into a pteranodon family—and the scientific method of deducing facts through observation.  The time traveling train is simply a plot device to allow them to see the entire Mezozoic Era--so the juxtaposition isn't stupid at all! 

The one thing the show really skirts around though is where meat eating dinosaurs, um, acquire the meat.





"He's gonna eat the Goldblum?"

 

Veggie Tales

Yes, the show has a specific religious message, so take that any way you'd like.  While the older episodes were more overtly Christian in their delivery, the more recent feature-length films feel much more secular in the story-telling, saving the evangelizing for the end (so you can skip it if you want). 

The best features are the parodies of existing blockbuster films.  "The Lord of the Beans," "Sheerluck Holmes," and "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" are among our favorites.  The saccharine sweet wholesomeness of the stories and lessons are cut nicely by a very acidic knowledge of pop culture and the absurdities sometimes found there, with a nice bitter aftertaste provided by the curmudgeonly Pa Grape.

I suppose you're right, Y-U guy, I suppose you're right.  But it still works.

Enjoy TV with your kids, everybody!