Richard Dansky's Blog, page 26
April 26, 2011
Bottom of the First...
Friday night, at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, and it's mostly stopped raining. Two hours of rain delay was enough; they rolled up the tarps and swept the water right off the field and trotted the teams out there, and Freddy Dolsi wasn't exactly having a good time of it for the Charlotte Knights. Oh, sure, he was hitting 94 on the gun, but his pitches went only two places: low and away from right-handed hitters, and back up through the box at high velocity.
I'm in the stands, in the second deck, almost directly behind home plate. Most of the fans who've stuck out the rain delay have huddled in the covered sections, though there are a few die-hards fortified with Yvengling tallboys trailing down the foul lines. One's over by the Bulls' bullpen, manfully orchestrating a very soggy, pixelated wave. It's cold out, 52 degrees and dropping, so maybe he's got the right idea waving his arms around. But even the "crowded" sections under cover are sparsely populated. Two hours on a cold Friday night will do that to a crowd. I've got a few NC State grad types in the row in front of me, talking Flyers hockey and chakras. I've got a couple to my left more interested in each other than the game. And behind me and over a little is a White Sox fan.
A big White Sox fan, mind you. This guy clearly works out. He works out a lot. He's wearing a Sox hat and a Sox jersey - black, in both cases - and his biceps have literally shoved their way out of the short sleeves. The cold, it would seem, is not bothering him. His wife, on the other hand, is huddled up in a Bears hoodie with a couple of youngsters I take to be their kids. And Sox fan is into it. As in, channeling Hawk Harrelson into it.
Hawk Harrelson, for those of you who haven't had the mitigated joy of listening to a White Sox broadcast, is the play by play guy for Chicago's AL team, and possibly the most unrepentant homer since the original wrote jingles for the Odysseus' Ithacan tourist board. The man's got two catchphrases, which he uses the way a short-order cook at a mall Chinese restaurant uses MSG, which is to say all the damn time. One is "He gone" when a Chicago pitcher strikes out an opposing batter. The other is "You can put it on the booooaaarrrdd" when a Sox batter hits a home run. He hasn't gotten a chance to use either a lot this season.
Giant White Sox fan, on the other hand, is taking every opportunity in the bottom of the first to make up for that. Just because Dolsi wasn't getting the ball anywhere near the plate didn't mean the Bulls weren't swinging at it. And with every strikeout, there's a bark of "He gone!" from the row behind me.
It's kind of cute, and kind of annoying, and the way Dolsi is throwing it's looking like I'd be hearing it a lot. Deep down, a little part of me thinks, "You know, it would be funny if one of the Bulls hit a homer and I could do the other Hawk Harrelson thing right back at him." This, I also think, is about as likely as the Bulls' starting pitcher cracking 92 with his fastball, which needed a still tailwind and a running start to have a prayer of ninety.
Then, suddenly, one of the Bulls catches up to a Dolsi fastball and parks it somewhere in the vicinity of the Tobacco Road Sports Bar, beyond the left field wall. The crowd, what there was of it, goes berserk. The giant bull down the left field like snorts, shoots smoke out its nostrils, and lets its eyes shine a sinister red.
And I turn around and say to Ginormous White Sox Fan, "You can put it on the booooooarrrrrdddd!"
Now, mind you, I have not actually turned around prior to this. I do not know that Giant White Sox Fan is in fact Titanic White Sox Fan. I have maybe one tenth of a second between when i turned around and seeing him and when my mouth actually starts making noise, to stop. And I think, as the words start coming out, "Oh, boy. He's gonna kill me."
He looks at me. Really looks at me. Eyes scrunched tight and everything as the crowd yells and the batter circles the bases and the PA system blares. And then his face just sort of collapses and he says an anguished, "No! That's not how it is!"
A couple more Bulls strike out. He doesn't say anything else when they do. And neither do I.
I'm in the stands, in the second deck, almost directly behind home plate. Most of the fans who've stuck out the rain delay have huddled in the covered sections, though there are a few die-hards fortified with Yvengling tallboys trailing down the foul lines. One's over by the Bulls' bullpen, manfully orchestrating a very soggy, pixelated wave. It's cold out, 52 degrees and dropping, so maybe he's got the right idea waving his arms around. But even the "crowded" sections under cover are sparsely populated. Two hours on a cold Friday night will do that to a crowd. I've got a few NC State grad types in the row in front of me, talking Flyers hockey and chakras. I've got a couple to my left more interested in each other than the game. And behind me and over a little is a White Sox fan.
A big White Sox fan, mind you. This guy clearly works out. He works out a lot. He's wearing a Sox hat and a Sox jersey - black, in both cases - and his biceps have literally shoved their way out of the short sleeves. The cold, it would seem, is not bothering him. His wife, on the other hand, is huddled up in a Bears hoodie with a couple of youngsters I take to be their kids. And Sox fan is into it. As in, channeling Hawk Harrelson into it.
Hawk Harrelson, for those of you who haven't had the mitigated joy of listening to a White Sox broadcast, is the play by play guy for Chicago's AL team, and possibly the most unrepentant homer since the original wrote jingles for the Odysseus' Ithacan tourist board. The man's got two catchphrases, which he uses the way a short-order cook at a mall Chinese restaurant uses MSG, which is to say all the damn time. One is "He gone" when a Chicago pitcher strikes out an opposing batter. The other is "You can put it on the booooaaarrrdd" when a Sox batter hits a home run. He hasn't gotten a chance to use either a lot this season.
Giant White Sox fan, on the other hand, is taking every opportunity in the bottom of the first to make up for that. Just because Dolsi wasn't getting the ball anywhere near the plate didn't mean the Bulls weren't swinging at it. And with every strikeout, there's a bark of "He gone!" from the row behind me.
It's kind of cute, and kind of annoying, and the way Dolsi is throwing it's looking like I'd be hearing it a lot. Deep down, a little part of me thinks, "You know, it would be funny if one of the Bulls hit a homer and I could do the other Hawk Harrelson thing right back at him." This, I also think, is about as likely as the Bulls' starting pitcher cracking 92 with his fastball, which needed a still tailwind and a running start to have a prayer of ninety.
Then, suddenly, one of the Bulls catches up to a Dolsi fastball and parks it somewhere in the vicinity of the Tobacco Road Sports Bar, beyond the left field wall. The crowd, what there was of it, goes berserk. The giant bull down the left field like snorts, shoots smoke out its nostrils, and lets its eyes shine a sinister red.
And I turn around and say to Ginormous White Sox Fan, "You can put it on the booooooarrrrrdddd!"
Now, mind you, I have not actually turned around prior to this. I do not know that Giant White Sox Fan is in fact Titanic White Sox Fan. I have maybe one tenth of a second between when i turned around and seeing him and when my mouth actually starts making noise, to stop. And I think, as the words start coming out, "Oh, boy. He's gonna kill me."
He looks at me. Really looks at me. Eyes scrunched tight and everything as the crowd yells and the batter circles the bases and the PA system blares. And then his face just sort of collapses and he says an anguished, "No! That's not how it is!"
A couple more Bulls strike out. He doesn't say anything else when they do. And neither do I.
April 25, 2011
Like Reading My Book Reviews? Of Course You Do.
And so that's why you'll want to swing over to Sleeping Hedgehog, to check out my takes on the Jack Vance mystery omnibus
Dangerous Ways
. When you're done with that, stick around for my take on Kevin Kosar's
Whiskey: A Global History
.
For those more print-inclined, there's the new issue of Bull Spec , complete with superb Richard Case cover. (and if you don't know who Richard Case is, stop reading this right now, and run out and get some of his excellent work on Sandman or Doom Patrol , among others.). I've got a few pieces in it, specifically reviews of the Martin/Dozois-edited anthology Songs of the Dying Earth (a Jack Vance tribute), and David Halperin's Journal of a UFO Investigato r . Professor Halperin was also kind enough to sit still for an interview, which is included in the issue as well. I'd also highly recommend a couple of stories in the issue, specifically Marc Blake's "Absinthe Fish" and Rebecca Gomez Farrell's "Bother". And then there's pieces from Tim Pratt and Cat Rambo, and...OK, my stuff is probably the least of the reasons you should pick up the new Bull Spec, but hey, it's my blog so I have to start somewhere.
Coming soon More fiction. More reviews (Blaylock, Sniegoski, etc.). And a trip to World Horror Convention.
For those more print-inclined, there's the new issue of Bull Spec , complete with superb Richard Case cover. (and if you don't know who Richard Case is, stop reading this right now, and run out and get some of his excellent work on Sandman or Doom Patrol , among others.). I've got a few pieces in it, specifically reviews of the Martin/Dozois-edited anthology Songs of the Dying Earth (a Jack Vance tribute), and David Halperin's Journal of a UFO Investigato r . Professor Halperin was also kind enough to sit still for an interview, which is included in the issue as well. I'd also highly recommend a couple of stories in the issue, specifically Marc Blake's "Absinthe Fish" and Rebecca Gomez Farrell's "Bother". And then there's pieces from Tim Pratt and Cat Rambo, and...OK, my stuff is probably the least of the reasons you should pick up the new Bull Spec, but hey, it's my blog so I have to start somewhere.
Coming soon More fiction. More reviews (Blaylock, Sniegoski, etc.). And a trip to World Horror Convention.
April 18, 2011
rdansky @ 2011-04-18T01:10:00
Wow.
Returned to LJ tonight now that the DDoS foofaraw had settled down, in the vain hope that the extremely lengthy post I wrote mid-foofarawing about going to my first Jays game in Toronto would be lurking in the buffer. Or the ether, whichever was closer.
Sadly, I had no such luck, and no time to rewrite it. Too much other work, some of it actually paying, that I have to attend to is on the docket, starting with a review of a trio of mystery novels by Jack Vance.
(I'll let that sink in for a minute.)
So instead I'll leave you with one thought: that I can now say that I've seen Kouzmanoff bat against Rzepczynski, because both managers apparently hate the play by play guys and anyone using scorecards.
Kouzmanoff, for the record, grounded out to a triple word score. And as I left the stadium after the Jays won, the PA was playing Tom Cochrane.
Returned to LJ tonight now that the DDoS foofaraw had settled down, in the vain hope that the extremely lengthy post I wrote mid-foofarawing about going to my first Jays game in Toronto would be lurking in the buffer. Or the ether, whichever was closer.
Sadly, I had no such luck, and no time to rewrite it. Too much other work, some of it actually paying, that I have to attend to is on the docket, starting with a review of a trio of mystery novels by Jack Vance.
(I'll let that sink in for a minute.)
So instead I'll leave you with one thought: that I can now say that I've seen Kouzmanoff bat against Rzepczynski, because both managers apparently hate the play by play guys and anyone using scorecards.
Kouzmanoff, for the record, grounded out to a triple word score. And as I left the stadium after the Jays won, the PA was playing Tom Cochrane.
April 6, 2011
It Is Not Often I Can Truthfully Say This
But I have been able to vanquish a thousand words of stubbornly persistent exposition from a short story with the precise and indelicate application of a crowbar.
That is all.
That is all.
April 4, 2011
Double Shot of Lansdale
My two-fisted review of two Joe Lansdale books - the anthology Crucified Dreams, and the pulpy goodness of Flaming Zeppelins - is up over at Green Man. If you're curious, the link is here.
April 3, 2011
Is All Our Company Met?
So a Midsummer Night's Dream is gone.
Not my copy of the play, of course. It's got illustrations by Arthur Rackham, and nobody in their right mind gets rid of Rackham illustrations. The movie? Which one - I ditched the Callista Flockhart version ages ago, and the Jimmy Cagney one I'm keeping around.
No, I'm talking about possibly the worst production of that particular play ever committed to VHS tape, one that I helped perpetrate in grad school. How exactly it got perpetrated, what the consequences of that perpetration were, and how one of the actresses nearly got killed by a flying copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare are all inconsequential now, or, at least, a story to be told another time. How the Sunset Grill and Tap in Brighton helped save the production is also another story, albeit one that should be so obvious as to need no retelling. And how a half-dozen of us manhandled a keg up six flights of stairs during a timeout so we could see the winning field goal in BC's iconic victory over Notre Dame before running back to campus to do the Saturday night show (we lost 90% of our matinee audience to pregame preparations, by which I mean "beer"), well, that kind of speaks for itself.
But one thing that did come out of the production was a videotape of one of the performances. And for years, I hung onto that videotape. I dragged it out on occasion to show friends who didn't believe my stories of it. I watched it with Melinda early in our courtship, fortified by Macallan and horrified she actually wanted to see it. I, if not treasured, then at least felt comforted by it. Yes, it was a terrible production. Yes, it was as chock-full of offstage drama as any version of that particularly glandular play's going to be, especially when put forth on a shoestring budget by a passel of creative types unaware how thoroughly they're awash on a spring tide of hormones. Yes, yes, yes, all that and more. But it was honestly intended, and honestly produced, and there were good memories that came out of it as well as other ones. In short, it was a piece of personal history that was, if not a highlight, then at least indelible.
Years ago, one of the two VHS tapes holding the play broke. Yes, two - it's a very long play. And for years, I told myself that I would get it fixed. That I would get it transferred to digital media. That since it was the tape casing and not the actual magnetic tape that was borked, there was a way to salvage it.
No, I never did it. And when it came time to rearrange the entertainment library, when I needed to chuck some things and make some space, it was home-recorded VHS tapes that went, once and for all. Out went the staticky episodes of Muppets Tonight. Gone were the random Babylon 5s and Eerie, Indianas. The promo interview I recorded for Freedom: First Resistance in Boca Raton, the one where they turned my face green? Tossed. I think the only one I saved was the recording of my brief appearance on the 700 Club, which predicated an actual dive under a table to change t-shirts at Origins one year.
Which means, of course, that Midsummers went. Both tapes, even the good one. The decision took about ten seconds, maybe less.
Maybe I should feel sad about throwing it out, or possibly maudlin. I don't. I've got the memory. I don't need the thing.
Time to move on.
Not my copy of the play, of course. It's got illustrations by Arthur Rackham, and nobody in their right mind gets rid of Rackham illustrations. The movie? Which one - I ditched the Callista Flockhart version ages ago, and the Jimmy Cagney one I'm keeping around.
No, I'm talking about possibly the worst production of that particular play ever committed to VHS tape, one that I helped perpetrate in grad school. How exactly it got perpetrated, what the consequences of that perpetration were, and how one of the actresses nearly got killed by a flying copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare are all inconsequential now, or, at least, a story to be told another time. How the Sunset Grill and Tap in Brighton helped save the production is also another story, albeit one that should be so obvious as to need no retelling. And how a half-dozen of us manhandled a keg up six flights of stairs during a timeout so we could see the winning field goal in BC's iconic victory over Notre Dame before running back to campus to do the Saturday night show (we lost 90% of our matinee audience to pregame preparations, by which I mean "beer"), well, that kind of speaks for itself.
But one thing that did come out of the production was a videotape of one of the performances. And for years, I hung onto that videotape. I dragged it out on occasion to show friends who didn't believe my stories of it. I watched it with Melinda early in our courtship, fortified by Macallan and horrified she actually wanted to see it. I, if not treasured, then at least felt comforted by it. Yes, it was a terrible production. Yes, it was as chock-full of offstage drama as any version of that particularly glandular play's going to be, especially when put forth on a shoestring budget by a passel of creative types unaware how thoroughly they're awash on a spring tide of hormones. Yes, yes, yes, all that and more. But it was honestly intended, and honestly produced, and there were good memories that came out of it as well as other ones. In short, it was a piece of personal history that was, if not a highlight, then at least indelible.
Years ago, one of the two VHS tapes holding the play broke. Yes, two - it's a very long play. And for years, I told myself that I would get it fixed. That I would get it transferred to digital media. That since it was the tape casing and not the actual magnetic tape that was borked, there was a way to salvage it.
No, I never did it. And when it came time to rearrange the entertainment library, when I needed to chuck some things and make some space, it was home-recorded VHS tapes that went, once and for all. Out went the staticky episodes of Muppets Tonight. Gone were the random Babylon 5s and Eerie, Indianas. The promo interview I recorded for Freedom: First Resistance in Boca Raton, the one where they turned my face green? Tossed. I think the only one I saved was the recording of my brief appearance on the 700 Club, which predicated an actual dive under a table to change t-shirts at Origins one year.
Which means, of course, that Midsummers went. Both tapes, even the good one. The decision took about ten seconds, maybe less.
Maybe I should feel sad about throwing it out, or possibly maudlin. I don't. I've got the memory. I don't need the thing.
Time to move on.
March 31, 2011
Predictions for the Upcoming Baseball Season Sure To Go Wrong
Some heretofore unremarkable outfielder will get on an extended hot streak in mid-June and be accused of a blogger of possibly taking steroids. The mainstream media will jump all over the blogger for being irresponsible.Around the time of the Hall of Fame inductions, numerous mainstream writers will accuse dozens of players of having taken steroids based on no evidence whatsoever other than "he looked big", and be lauded for their tough stance.The Pirates will be better.The Phillies, despite their rotation, will be worse.The words "Albert Pujols contract situation" will be the single most commonly repeated phrase on Baseball Tonight this year.At some point, the Rockies will go on a nine-game losing streak and an unnamed clubhouse source will describe notoriously intense star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki as "kind of an asshole". The Rockies will then go on an eight-game winning streak and anonymous clubhouse sources will praise Tulo as a "gamer".Someone will reflexively print Bob Feller quotes about how these damn kids today couldn't hit his fastball with a kettle corn paddle. Rest in peace, Rapid Robert.Mike Morse will turn out to be for real.Kyle McClellan won't.Somebody's going to figure out that Detroit's making a habit of late-season fades and start calling for JIm Leyland's head.Don Mattingly is going to have the same bullpen usage patterns as his rabbi, Joe Torre. He will not, however, have Torre's magical teflon undershorts, and accordingly will be blamed when Jonathan Broxton, Kensley Jansen, and every other Dodgers relief pitcher with a pulse comes down with some sort of shoulder ailment from overwork.R.A. Dickey will do it again.So will Jose Bautista.Chris Young? Not so much.Jamie Moyer will reveal on-camera that he is in fact Old Hoss Radbourn. No, not the notorious Twitterer - the actual pre-1900 pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn. For the rest of the season, he will refer to Kruk, Kurkjian, et alia as "young scallawags".San Diego will be better than people think.Anaheim will be worse. Much worse.So will Arizona.Milton Bradley will get the help he needs, calm down, and play some great baseball. Nobody will do an article on him.Nintendo invests heavily in cloning technology, in the hope that they'll be able to duplicate Ichiro and thus give the Mariners a lineup of guys who might actually get on base once in a while.Tony LaRussa will get into a pissing match with a random player. Colby Rasmus will make popcorn and watch.Yankees fans will flood the internet with rumors that they will be trading for King Felix, Wandy Rodriguez, Francisco Liriano, and Yu Darvish in exchange for sixteen pairs of sweatsocks and a fistful of sweaty Nathan's coupons. Someone will bitch about audience market sizes when the Yankees don't make the World SeriesAnd the rest of us who are inclined to such things will just sit back and enjoy some baseball.
March 27, 2011
March 26, 2011
And This Is Why I Need A Clone
Today, I need to accomplish some subset of the following:
Finish story edits that were kind of due yesterdayPolish up some last-minute tweaks for an interview and book review for Bull SpecFinish this month's essay for Storytellers UnpluggedFinish reading a book for a possible blurbFinish reading two other books for review purposesMake cheese-flavored ice cream (yes, you read that right) to test a recipe from another book I'm reviewingDo a fantasy baseball draft (online, thankfully)Deal with the giant mound of papers on my office floorFinish a story that's a thousand words from done and taunting me with its need for ridiculous amounts of expositionAnd some other stuff.
Thus far, I have fully accomplished one of these, done parts of four others, and seriously debated why on earth anyone would make cheese-flavored ice cream.
That is all.
Finish story edits that were kind of due yesterdayPolish up some last-minute tweaks for an interview and book review for Bull SpecFinish this month's essay for Storytellers UnpluggedFinish reading a book for a possible blurbFinish reading two other books for review purposesMake cheese-flavored ice cream (yes, you read that right) to test a recipe from another book I'm reviewingDo a fantasy baseball draft (online, thankfully)Deal with the giant mound of papers on my office floorFinish a story that's a thousand words from done and taunting me with its need for ridiculous amounts of expositionAnd some other stuff.
Thus far, I have fully accomplished one of these, done parts of four others, and seriously debated why on earth anyone would make cheese-flavored ice cream.
That is all.
March 25, 2011
Random Scenes From Swap.com
Every so often I take a random walk through the stuff swap.com says I can get for the books in our "read it, will never read it again, might as well try to get something useful out of it before we run it over to the library sale" pile. And by "pile", I mean "the overloaded bookshelf in one of our closets that's in danger of a jenga-like catastrophe because there are so damn many books on it." Swap.com has its virtues (the concept itself) and its flaws (the UI drives me to frothing fits of inchoate rage), but what it never lacks for is low comedy in the variety of possible trades it offers up for consumption. Among the latest are:
In exchange for Dan Brown's Angels and Demons (which, I must state for the record, actually came from my folks), I can get Peter Conti's sublime masterpiece How to Create Multiple Streams of Income Buying Homes In Nice Areas With Nothing Down . I understand that's the first book of a trilogy, which continues in the subtle character study The Economy Did What? Seriousl y? and concludes with the stunning How to Unload All Those Houses You Bought In Nice Areas For No Money Down Now That The Mortgages Are Below Water, The Areas Aren't So Nice And Large Men With Well-Worn Socket Wrenches Are Looking For You Or Members Of Your Immediate Family .
Getting a bit more science-fictiony, there's a copy of Charles Stross' Accelerando on our stack. While there are a couple of bits of skiffy that it could bring back, I'm more intrigued by the person who wants Stross at his Strossiest, and in exchange is offering up titles like Rekindled Hearts , possibly the first romance novel ever to hinge on the conjunction of a tornado, some construction projects, and what appears to be a tasteful red sweater.
Surprisingly, it's possible to trade Friday the Rabbi Slept Late for the autobiography of the esteemed thespian The Rock. I'm not quite sure why; surely something by Goldberg would be more appropriate.
Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net offers up a few intriguing possibilities. The notion of trading a seminal work of cyberpunk for something in the Gossip Girl series is almost worth following through on for the sheer dada of it.
And to round this particular random walk out, there's Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man , which is one of Melinda's favorite books and a landmark in the annals of the genre. (We have multiple copies. Don't judge.) There are folks out there who want this book and have wonderful things to offer - Ian McDonald's Desolation Road , which is one of my favorite books. The World Treasury of Science Fiction . Stuff like that. And all four volumes in R. L. Stine's The Baby-Sitter series.
In exchange for Dan Brown's Angels and Demons (which, I must state for the record, actually came from my folks), I can get Peter Conti's sublime masterpiece How to Create Multiple Streams of Income Buying Homes In Nice Areas With Nothing Down . I understand that's the first book of a trilogy, which continues in the subtle character study The Economy Did What? Seriousl y? and concludes with the stunning How to Unload All Those Houses You Bought In Nice Areas For No Money Down Now That The Mortgages Are Below Water, The Areas Aren't So Nice And Large Men With Well-Worn Socket Wrenches Are Looking For You Or Members Of Your Immediate Family .
Getting a bit more science-fictiony, there's a copy of Charles Stross' Accelerando on our stack. While there are a couple of bits of skiffy that it could bring back, I'm more intrigued by the person who wants Stross at his Strossiest, and in exchange is offering up titles like Rekindled Hearts , possibly the first romance novel ever to hinge on the conjunction of a tornado, some construction projects, and what appears to be a tasteful red sweater.
Surprisingly, it's possible to trade Friday the Rabbi Slept Late for the autobiography of the esteemed thespian The Rock. I'm not quite sure why; surely something by Goldberg would be more appropriate.
Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net offers up a few intriguing possibilities. The notion of trading a seminal work of cyberpunk for something in the Gossip Girl series is almost worth following through on for the sheer dada of it.
And to round this particular random walk out, there's Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man , which is one of Melinda's favorite books and a landmark in the annals of the genre. (We have multiple copies. Don't judge.) There are folks out there who want this book and have wonderful things to offer - Ian McDonald's Desolation Road , which is one of my favorite books. The World Treasury of Science Fiction . Stuff like that. And all four volumes in R. L. Stine's The Baby-Sitter series.
