Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 149

The award for the book that in 2013 did the Best Job of Hiding in Plain Sight goes to...

...Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane. 

Let me explain. 

A few zillion people clearly loved this novel, and even more love its author.  It was a New York Times best seller, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive (were there any negative reviews, outside the unavoidable set from Amazon readers?), and tickets to Gaiman's signings were almost as coveted as dinner reservations at Per Se (but way easier to obtain).  Critics commented on its many virtues, with its lovely rendering of various aspects of childhood among them.  The book was indeed all of that, and I quite enjoyed it.

What I've yet to see anyone comment on (well, anyone except the author indirectly via a blog post from his wife) is what struck me as the deepest, truest heart of this book (and if you don't think books have many hearts, you're not paying attention):  It was a love letter.  A long, complex, bravely told love letter, a letter that exposed the author's weaknesses, a letter of love and gratitude, not just for the love given back to him, but also for the love that helps anchor him in this world even as he explores others.

I don't know Neil Gaiman.  I have no insider knowledge.  I may be way off base here, seeing something that is not there, as we all do in books, those we love and those we hate.

But I don't think so.  The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a wonderful, brave love letter hiding in plain sight as a best-selling fantasy.  If you have not already read it, you should, both for what everyone has seen in it and for this.

More on PT's sabbatical program

PT recently released a video in which Bill and I explain some of the background of the company's sabbatical program.  Though I can barely stand to watch myself in this one (or in any video), enough folks have asked about the program that I decided to embed the video here. 

Enjoy.

Expendables 3 -- don't hate

Yeah, I know:  I'm supposed to be this author with literary ambitions.  Well, I am.  I'm also a guy who loves bad action movies and is as excited as hell to see this one.



As Walt Whitman wrote, "Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."

And every single one of them is squeeing with fanboy joy at watching this group of action stars--a group that includes UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey--kick some serious butt.

Oh, yeah.

Don't hate.

Bruuuuuuuce!

From the new album of the same name, coming January 14.  Oh, yeah, I'm already excited.

It takes a lot of help

to decorate a Christmas tree this big.  Fortunately, last night a group of folks joined our traditional Christmas-tree-trimming ritual and helped us adorn this year's huge beast.

The first stage was to wrap it with enough LED lights to guide a plane into a safe landing on an aircraft carrier.  Our usual team of lighting specialists, aided by newcomer Evan, was up to the job.

Click an image to see a larger version.
Sorry for the slightly out-of-focus image. 

Next, a large group began the process of placing ornaments on the branches.


More ornaments will follow tomorrow. 

Yeah, this is our biggest tree ever. 

Clearly, we need more lights.

Another giant passes: RIP, Peter O'Toole

When I was growing up, a handful of actors made me yearn to grow up to be cool and sophisticated--a goal I've never achieved.  Top among them were Omar Sharif, Cary Grant, and Peter O'Toole, who died yesterday at 81.   

Lawrence of Arabia was the first epic I remember seeing, and parts of it still have the power to give me chills. 

Eighteen years later, O'Toole starred in The Stunt Man, a movie I still love. 

Two years after that, he starred in this comic gem, a film that is deeply underrated and that should be on everyone's must-see list.



Seriously, if you have never watched My Favorite Year, buy a copy and treat yourself to an absolutely wonderful 92 minutes.

No matter how good or bad the film, Peter O'Toole made it better with his presence.

We shall not soon see his like again.

Ten and a half years in

Holden is still the best dog in the world.  He can do sensitive and attentive, while at the same time protective (of his bone).

Click on an image to see a larger version.
He can do slyly pensive.


Really, he can do it all.




Thanks to Gina for the photos!

Have we finally gone too far with this tree?

That is the very question we were asking ourselves today as we watched three guys, one of them quite big, load this year's Christmas tree atop the van.  (As we were buying it, one of them had asked us if it was a tree for a church or a private residence.) 

Click on an image to see a larger version.
The view from the front was even more unsettling.


Yes, we made the roughly three-mile drive home very, very slowly, with Scott following us in his car and both of us using our flashers to warn other drivers of our slow progress. 

Cutting the tree free and rolling it down the side of the van was not hard; I was able to manage that part by myself.

Pulling it into the front hall, though, was a trying task that gave me more motivation to get back to the gym and that involved four of us, with me alone on the heavy end.  Here we are on a break, with Scott cheering our progress so far and Sarah smiling a grin of terror at the work still to come.


Note to self:  I hate how fat and weak I've let myself become.  I definitely must fix that.

Amazingly, thanks to good planning and having five of us helping lift the beast, the rest of the setting-up process went more smoothly than in any year in recent memory.

Scott in shoes is about six feet tall, so this picture should give you a better sense of the size of the tree.


It's a very good thing that we own a lot of lights and ornaments.

Wondering what to give your friend who likes to cook?

Wonder no more:  Try this cookbook from Chef Gabriel Rucker and the fine folks at Le Pigeon, one of my all-time favorite restaurants.


Yes, I already own a copy.

No, I don't make any money from you buying this, nor did Gabe ask me to plug it.

I just think it's awesome and wanted to recommend it to you all.

Telling a twenty-minute story in five minutes

Last night, I headed over to Motorco in Durham for the Monti StorySLAM event.  The last Monti event of 2013, this one had as its theme "Stranger."  Though I waited too long to buy a ticket and the event sold out, thanks to Gina's email messages and phone calls, the executive director, Jeff Polish, decided he would sell me one ticket on my promise to put my name in the jar as a possible storyteller.  I wanted to do just that, because the theme had reminded me of a bit of new material I wanted to try out for the new spoken-word show on which I've been taking notes from time to time.

I learned all of this a little less than three hours before the event started, however, and I had to work right up to when I climbed into the car to drive there, so I didn't get the planning or rehearsing time I would normally have taken.  I had, though, thought about the bit off and on for a while, so I wasn't totally unprepared.

I had a very good time listening to the stories.  As I did, though, I realized a few things.

First, the audience--a drinking crowd of about 200 in a bar--quite reasonably above all else wanted to laugh.  I should have figured that out, and normally that would be fine for me, but my story was a more serious one.  As I listened to others, I made some mental adjustments to work in more humor.

Those changes, though, led to my second realization:  my story was way, way too long to tell straight-up in five minutes, much less with humor.  As best I can now figure, it'll end up consuming about twenty minutes of a show.

Finally, I realized that because of those two facts, there was no way I was going to win.  Winning the competition obviously would have been nice, but I had come to try out the material, so I stopped thinking about anything other than the story.

After the intermission, I was the first storyteller.  I ran over the five-minute mark but under the six-minute limit, after which you lose points for running long.  The crowd applauded loudly and enthusiastically.

I ended up in third place.  I criticize myself for not doing better, because had I hit on those insights earlier I might have been able to rewrite and shorten the piece in my head, but other than that, I'm fine with the result.  I now know a better way to tell the story, and I also now see how to make this fundamentally emotional story funny and, I hope, ultimately still moving, so I gained from the experience.

I thank Jeff and his team for putting on a good show and letting me be part of it.