Holiday Photos

It's only taken me a month, but I finally uploaded the photos that I took over the holidays. Probably not too incredible for anybody, but there are couple of cute shots in there of my family. Ah, transience. On the topic of transience:

• Three shots of my Holiday Special beerrow, "Holiday Stars". I don't why, but these stupid artworks of bottle caps arranged to whim seem to speak to me a lot. I've certainly had a problem with seeing each subtly different phase in my life as a disparate existence unto itself; born and reborn approximately every three months as I move again or I take different classes and deal with different problems and people. The beerrows, and I think that's what I'm going refer to them regardless of shape, become sign pointers along the way. I don't know what these "art pieces" say to those around me, but they say a lot to me of where I was and who I was when I made it. I don't know, does art need rationalization? Is arranging beer caps in amusing patterns, photographing them, then throwing them away, art? I guess.
• This is my 301st blog entry in Django. Not exactly special in any sense, particularly because I've certainly written much more than that (thanks to the "Great Website Crash" a few years ago), but a further transient reminder of where I've been.

Books of the Moment: Betancourt's Amber Prequels

Well, where I had hope following the faster paced denoument of The Dawn of Amber, I was pretty much entirely disappointed by the two following books which never seemed to live up to the possibilities promised by the last few chapters of the first and never really build any sort of depth to the characterizations, the politics, or particularly the first person narrator (a particularly loathsome offense in my not so humble opinion). Where the first half of Dawn felt like unneccessary retread the first half of Chaos and Amber felt like filler meant to pad the book to the page quota. Nothing really happens except perhaps a subtler rehash of the retread that was the first half of Dawn with the addition of bad attempts to prose-ify something of a description of the realms of Chaos. I'm not sure if this is just a sign of late in the process rewrites and reorganizations or if the author really was struggling that much to "start" the second book.

Tied to those same complaints are probably my biggest concerns with the novel. In this age of spell check automatons there is rarely a typo in sight, but it sometimes seems like it makes Editors all the more lax and miss more of the editing mistakes that actually matter (which is rather close to the same complaints Mark Twain made about the prevalence of dictionaries in the world of literature). I hate to mock the editing work when the editor is listed in the dedication to To Rule in Amber, but in the end the trilogy stands out as a superlative example of when books need editors. If the editor did in fact do enough work to warrant the dedication then I have to worry that the original drafts must have ...

Lebowski Fest Hits Seattle

While I was in Redmond I wore my Lebowski Fest "Achiever" shirt several times and got a wide variety of responses. Lo and behold the next Lebowski Fest in the West Coast will be Lebowski Fest Seattle. Maybe a few of the people I mentioned it to might even attend. (Coincidence enough the pre-bowling concert will be in The Showbox which was the last venue I visited before I left the Seattle area in the Fall.)

Train Fire: Is this an unfortunate accident or gross negligence?

CSX has derailed explosive chemicals just south of Louisville. The title is a loaded question, I'll admit. I've made it quite known that I believe the remaining commercial train companies are bankrupt shells that need to be shut down and the rail right of ways put to better use (truly prioritizing passenger travel this time). The rails that remain in this country are ill-kept and over-utilized for that poor state of repair. CSX just dropped a bombshell upon Bullitt County and I for one believe that this sort of a thing was inevitable. Had the train been only a few miles further north I wouldn't be in school right now and there might be huge devastation in terms of body count and economic impact.

Earlier today I had reason to mourn the failed T2 effort yet again and then I discovered this news... I should write a longer editorial and submit it to the paper. I hope that CSX is found guilty of screwing up big time, even if I don't think there are enough radicals like me to use it as a banner to fight for better mass transportation. I'd much rather have these rail lines that run so close to the heart of our city carrying passengers everyday rather than highly explosive chemicals any day!

Book of the Moment: The Dawn of Amber

I'm going to leave my full judgment of the work for when I finish the rest of the trilogy. So far I've been intrigued and entertained and yet I full well realize that I've fallen into the trap of comparing these books to those of Zelazny. Roger Zelazny's prose is as much of the magic that is Amber as is the actual pieces of the book. My initial gut reaction is that I'm disappointed that the hardiest chuckle I got was 120 pages into the paperback and I didn't see a single pun. I also realized that I don't think I can take reading any more explanations on the Trumps, Logrus, and Shadows. Zelazny himself did it twice and having the majority of this book being the third repetition of that pattern is a bit annoying. I understand it is a prequel, but I think it almost would be better had it been taken for granted all of the back story and instead opened about half-way into the family politics that are the real meat of the book.

All of the above perhaps sounds very negative, but it is merely the negatives that stand out the most. As I said, mostly I have to reserve a full judgment until after I've seen where the rest of the trilogy takes the story and how the author handles some of the next tasks in the journey. Taking it as a non-Zelazny book and a non-Amber book I can certainly say that is an average book that I enjoyed and do look forward to where the author goes with it.

Book of the Moment: A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

The book is a Physicist's exploration of two very polar opposites in the spectrum of Mathematics and yet their very similar duality of academic brilliance and worldly ignorance. On the one hand is Goedel who hammered at the very extreme edges of Mathematics and came up with the very definition of its walls, and yet he was plagued by hypochondria and paranoia. On the other is Turing who defended the world against fascism and fathered much of the modern computer's design and theory, and yet was socially inept and homosexual in an era that was hostile to such.

The book was a bit hard for me to read because I sympathize so much with the plights of the great men of the book, both for the giant quests for knowledge and the mortally human weaknesses and diseases.

The book is a work of fiction, but is never far from the little truths that make up history books...

Seeing Orange, or The Once and Goofy Quest for Nipple Tassles

It was the end of December and I was on the beach bathing my mind in the soothing sounds of that great atlantic ocean. Four of us stopped in Daytona for three nights, including New Year's Eve, as a relaxing detour on the way to Miami. In Miami we converged with just about 40,000 other fans for the Orange Bowl, which most everyone should know the results of by now. It felt like a crazy home game, and that was just what I wanted having watched most of the season by televised games or worse, such as keeping eye tuned to ESPN "Bottom Line" score bar "Priority Updates". Pre-game student tailgating was at the Calder Race Course, owned by Louisville's own Churchill Downs. We were greeted with free food and glimpses of actual races being run; the call to the post helped us feel so much at home. The short walk from Calder to the Dolphin's Stadium felt just about like our common walk from KFEC to PJCS. There was some rain on game day, but cleared just before kick off. We couldn't have asked for too much of a better game. Our seats were right on the end zone, only 28 rows from the field.

The whole trip might be characterized in several manners. I forgot to pack my (crappy) camera, so I don't have any photos of my own, so instead, as usual, I mainly have stories to tell. The important story to tell before I forget it is a mere tangent to the trip. The College Student Football Fan wont is often to express one's own eagerness for a team win through outrageous posters and displays. Some of my friends are more eager, or at least crazier, than others. One ...