The Tough Guide to FantasyLand by Diana Wynne Jones

I heard about this book several years ago as a must have for anyone writing fantasy. I finally borrowed a copy from the library several months ago. It was so funny that I ordered a copy from the bookstore.

Even if your only knowledge of fantasy is The Lord of the Rings movie, I think you'll find this book really funny to read. And that is a bit odd because it is organized like a dictionary, but I read it front to back occassionally stopping because I couldn't breathe as I was laughing so hard.

A small taste of what's inside:

CLOTHING. Although this varies from place to place, there are two absolute rules:
1. Apart from ROBES, no garment thicker than a SHIRT ever has sleeves.
2. No one ever wears SOCKS.
See also CLOAKS, COSTUME, and KNITTING.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones; put it on your books to buy list.

Plot or Sequence of Events?

Recently I read a bit of historical fiction set during World War II. One of the subplots of the book got me to thinking about plot and the difference between plot and a sequence of events.

To summarize it, two pairs of nazi spies sneak into Jacksonville, Fl then proceed to create chaos by blowing things up. One pair heads west blowing things up until one of them screws up the timer. The bomb goes off early killing that pair. The other pair heads north blowing things up until one of them gets involved with a mob prostitute. An altercation with her mob boss ends up with the pair of spies being killed. Game over.

The thing is even though the bad guys end up dead and thus stopped from creating further chaos, the telling of it doesn't feel satisfying to me. There was no one actively trying to catch them. Those who were looking into the bombings dismissed it as not being the work of nazi spies. These spies did not have a goal that they were trying to achieve other than wander around the continental US and blow things up. And they encountered no real obstacles, in terms of local law enforcement, blowing up their targets. If these guys hadn't run into misfortune, they would still be running around blowing things up today with no one having a clue that they were doing so.

So what this really is is the telling of a sequence of events like one would read in a history book and not a plot or a story. And what turns a sequence of events into a plot or a story is having a goal and having obstacles to that goal. Otherwise what you get is they went here, they went there, they did this, they did that; all of it without purpose and no reason to keep reading unless one finds a recounting of events fascinating.

Tour de Turtles

Tour de Turtles: It's a sea turtle marathon race. "Created by Sea Turtle Conservancy, with help from sponsors and partners, this event follows the marathon migration of sea turtles, representing different species, from their nesting beaches to their foraging grounds. 2011 is the fourth year of the TdT and will follow the migration of 15 sea turtles, representing four different species."

If you have kids or know someone who has kids or if you're a kid at heart, this is pretty cool. You can find out all about it here.

"Your Life is Never Going to be the Same Again"

Watch this video of Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr's audition for America's Got Talent:



Surprising, isn't it? Not at all what you expect when you hit play. Even though we've seen it before with Susan Boyle and then the Korean man a few weeks ago, we still don't expect to hear that quality of voice. They come out of obscurity and blow you away with their talent.

As Howie said here, "Your life is never going to be the same again."

I guess I admire them because they didn't give up hope. How many people in similar situations to theirs have given up their dreams and their hope for a better life?

Don't give up. Never give up on your dreams.

Crows on the Beach

Hopefully, you can see this. Four crows on the beach.




What is odd about this is that crows are not shorebirds. They usually live in trees and are scavangers. Normally, you'll see them in parking lots where people have dumped trash on the ground.

But these guys are mutant crows. Not only are they hanging out on the beach, but they are eating coquina, a tiny bivalve sort of like a clam. They must have learned how to do this by watching the plovers or sandpipers, because they run out when the water recedes, grab a coquina, then somehow manage to crack it open with their beak.

They're rather amusing to watch, because they don't like getting their feet wet. If they don't pay attention and a wave rolls in around their feet, they launch themselves into the air. You can almost hear them saying, "Ack! Wet feet! Wet feet!"

Book Country

A few days ago on the Do Some Damage blog there was a guest post about a new site called Book Country.

Penguin launched the website. It is intended to help unpublished writers of genre fiction hone their skills. It's worth a look. You can find it here.

Attitude

I've been thinking about Lesli's response to my previous post. Particularly the part about the difficulty in starting a conversation with someone about art, books, poetry, etc. and hearing "No, because I'm just too stupid/uncultured/ignorant for that sort of thing!"

There is an insidious pervasive attitude in our culture to tear down and sneer at anything that is popular or light. My six year old nephew would say, "They got an attitude." It's cool to sneer at Twilight, Rowling, bestselling authors, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, pop music, Disney, etc.

If you're like me one of those uncool people who happens to enjoy those things, then when someone asks you about books, art, poetry, you're going to say, "No, because I'm just too stupid/uncultured/ignorant for that sort of thing!" Because who wants to get sneered at?

A few days ago, I met my brother's new girlfriend. At one point, we were both sitting on the couch reading (me a book. her her kindle.) So I asked her about the kindle. And then we started talking about books we liked. And at the beginning it was like two cats cautiously circling each other waiting for the other one to pounce, because we both like popular books, the ones you find on the bestseller lists, and we were waiting to see if the other one was going to sneer. Once we figured out that we had similar taste in books and authors and that the other one wasn't going to sneer at what we liked, we had a great conversation about books.

And you know what? Lesli is right. It is damn hard to start a conversation about books. That was the first time in a very long time that I had had a decent conversation about books. And even if it had turned out that we didn't like the same kind of books, I think we would have had a good conversation anyway, because neither one of us was going to sneer at the other.

Those that sneer at what others like cut themselves off from hearing what those others might have to say. If we're going to have good conversations with an exchange of ideas, then the sneering has to stop.

If someone wants to play around with alternative art forms, pushing the edge of the envelope, that's fine. And if you enjoy that kind of thing, that's fine. Just don't get an attitude about it.