The Wonder Of Words

This is the longest I've gone without posting since I started this blog, and for that I apologize. It was an incredibly hectic work week. The opportunity to post during the day never seemed to materialize and when I got home at night, I just wanted to sleep. But it's Sunday, which can only mean one thing:

But even with the urge to join Buk, I'm going to push forward and post another edition of The Sunday Review.

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-It was music tech week on Gizmodo last week, and it kind of got me obsessed with FLAC audio. I'm over it now (mostly), but there was one post in particular that caught my attention. Hearing that I had never really heard Sgt. Pepper unless I had heard it in mono was pretty distressing considering the amount of hours I've logged listening to it. So I did some searching and found an awesome bootleg by Purple Chick that is eight discs and packed with not only a stereo mix, various alternate mixes, monitor mixes, alternate takes and rehearsals, but also a mono mix--what I'm assuming is the original mono mix. And it's all FLAC too. I played both the stereo and the mono versions of "A Little Help From My Friends" for Danielle and her response was:

Why does it sound so much better?

If you're any kind of Beatles fan, getting your hands on this is worth it--and if you're not willing, fear not--apparently their entire catalog will be getting the remaster treatment and will be out in September.

-The baseball season is roughly 13 games old, which means it's the perfect time for writers like Bill Madden to start celebrating the success of small-market teams who are in first place. It's not even worth pointing out the fact that they've played roughly 8% of their schedule at this point (and Madden thinks they are "NL East contenders!"), because some people will stop at nothing to bash the Yankees. And make no mistake about it, that is the point of the article.

-As a writer, I've got a few rules/thoughts/tricks on writing that I swear by and will usually spout off about when given the chance. Indirect dialogue is one of those things that keeps me up at night, and usually finds its way into any editing I do of other people's work. What I love is seeing it in action in real life, because it justifies my telling people, "This is how real people talk in real life." In this weekend's NY Times Magazine, the "Questions for..." column asks Steven Chu some *ahem* tough questions (for those who don't know, he is the US Secretary of Energy), which are somewhat *ahem* interesting, but what got me was the last question and response:

I guess the president wants to keep you alive.

My wife is in favor of that as well.

That is such a great example of what I'm always talking about--it would work well in a situation where you wanted to emphasize the level of a character's devotion to his or her significant other. If, up until that point, the character was straight-forward and honest, we'd take it as a loving testament. If the character was sarcastic and self-deprecating, we'd see it as a disparaging remark. It's small moments like that that are the bane of my writing existence. Done properly, it will float right past the reader's immediate attention. The wonder of words.

-More anti-technology sentiment from Virginia Heffernan. This time, the object of her affection is Twitter. I swear, these people who keep knocking Twitter, haven't they got anything better to write about? Didn't they learn the Tipper Gore Theory--bringing attention, negative or not, to something will only make people more interested in it? Heffernan writes:

Twitter--the microblogging service that lets you post and read fragmentary communications at high speed--is fun, but it's embarrassing. You subscribe to the yawps of a bunch of people; they subscribe to your yawps; and you produce and consume yawps for the rest of your days.

What this is, plain and simple, is literary elitism. Virginia Heffernan doesn't like that I can write something negative about her on my blog, post a link to it on my twitter page, and in thirty seconds have just as many people reading my digs at her as those who read her article. I didn't need a journalism degree, I didn't need to get hired by the Times--it didn't cost me a penny. And while some people do tweet nonsense, some people don't. A lot of people don't, actually.

It's the future, Virginia. You're either with it or against it. And I can tell you now who wins.

-Interesting article by Charles McGrath about writers getting old and deciding whether or not to "retire." What got me most was this quote:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for example, at 82 has lately been at pains to quell rumors that he is retiring. "Not only is it not true" that he is quitting writing, he told reporters, "but the only thing I do is write."

Such inspiration for a young writer like myself. I get chills every time I read it.

-Waiting For Godot is one of the books that changed my life--it's on my list of books that made me say, "I didn't know you were allowed to write like that." It's opening at Studio 54 on April 30th with Nathan Lane as Estragon and John Goodman as Pozzo and I really think I want to go. This article about John Goodman and about the play is really fun to read and worth your time. Oh, and please read Beckett. Now.

-I never got a picture of this up last week, but Danielle made a wonderful zucchini and queso fresco frittata last week:

Paired with a nice side-salad and a couple of left-over pieces of Easter ham and some roasted tomatillo salsa--well, I'll just say it was a mighty fine dinner. And breakfast the next morning.

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I believe that's all I've got for now. Rangers are back at the Garden tomorrow night. I'm going to say it right now--if they win tomorrow, the series doesn't make it back to Washington. My Game 3 prediction though? Rangers lose in OT, but still win the series in 5.

What's wrong with Wang?

Will I ever finish the new Mary Robison book?

Does the new Yankee stadium really have a jet stream in right-center, or should we wait longer than, oh, 3 games before we decide how the stadium will "play?"

All this and more--coming this week.

Enjoy what's left of Sunday.

JS