Katherine Nabity's Blog, page 187
June 6, 2015
Deal Me In, Week 23 ~ “Chuck’s Bucket”
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“Chuck’s Bucket” by Chris Offutt
Card picked: King of Clubs
From: Mc Sweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon
Thoughts: After a few not-so-thrilling tales, this is more like it.
Offutt goes meta with this story. The narrator is (presumably) Chris Offutt. He’s the son of genre writer Andrew J. Offutt and has been asked by Michael Chabon to write a genre tale for a McSweeney’s anthology even though he’s spent his entire career as a writer trying to be as little like his father as possible. Things are not going well for story!Chris. He’s recently divorced, he’s stepped on his glasses, his car has crapped out, his bike has a flat, he can’t finish the damn McSweeney’s story (about clones…maybe?), and he’s being haunted by ghost.
It’s the ghost aspect that piques the interest of physicist Prof. Charles Andrews, a poker buddy of Chris’s. Since there are no such things as ghosts, it’s obvious that Chuck’s newly built time machine has worked and that Chris has volunteered to be the first human subject. Why on earth would Chris volunteer? Because maybe the time machine can dump him in a future “bucket” and Chris can read the end of the story he’s supposed to be writing.
The last story I read from Thrilling Tales was Michael Crichton’s “Blood Doesn’t Come Out,” which has a similar starting point: a guy for whom things are not going well. It occurs to me that I might have been unfair to Crichton. He took crime noir to its inevitable blood-spattered conclusion. Offutt goes a pulpy sci-fi route. What’s more pulpy and sci-fi than time travel? And it might be that I simply prefer sci-fi to noir.
About the Author: I had deja vu as I looked up Chris Offutt’s biographical info. I had googled him before and recently. Why? And why hadn’t I added some of his books (involving rural Kentucky) to my TBR-eventually list? (Probably because that list is already stupid long.) A time-based Google search revealed all. I had read “Trash Food” back in April.
June 3, 2015
Deal Me In, Lunar Extra ~ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
Card picked: A Five
From: Online at Celestial Timepiece via Paula Cappa’s blog
Thoughts: So, I was on a dusty soccer field last night at about a quarter to eight, one of six other ultimate disc players standing on the line and waiting for the pull, when one of my teammates pointed out the large, orange moon on the horizon, and I thought to myself, “I was supposed to read a Deal Me In story today…” Since I drew my cards on Saturday, I knew it was a good one too! How could I have forgotten? Well, it was due to an all-consuming bout of web design…
This morning, contrite, I read “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, a rather acclaimed story by Joyce Carol Oates. I remember a fellow Deal Me In reader reviewing this story earlier in the year and some discussion of ambiguity–and there is certainly some that going on.
I’m inclined, against my better judgement about such things, to give it a feminist reading. Connie is a pretty 15 year-old girl. Like most teenagers, she sort of hates her family, especially her goody-two-shoes older sister. She goes to the mall with her friends and occasionally goes to the burger joint across from the mall. She flirts with boys and has definitely discovered that they are interested in her. She likes rock music. And, honestly, it all seems pretty innocent. Which is why, when a bad-boy type shows up at her door while she’s home alone, I’m ready to say, “Ah, this is about a girl being punished for not realizing what she’s doing as she asserts her sexuality.” But Oates, in JCO fashion, veers left of even how frightening even *that* situation might be for Connie. Arnold Friend, the creepy bad-boy, has perfect knowledge of Connie’s situation, a sort of malleable face, and isn’t quite right. Is he meant to stand for everything bad that can happen to a young girl? The trick that Oates pulls off in this story (with a shout out to Short Story Magic Tricks) is that this escalation doesn’t take anything away from the unease of watching things play out between Connie and Arnold, but we’re also not in a straight-up home invasion horror movie either.
Previously: I like Joyce Carol Oates more every time I read something by her, and it’s an appreciation that I think has come with age. I’ll have to read one of her novels one of these days.
ROW 80 ~ Wednesday Update, June 3rd
I am behind on *everything*.
But I did finish EntangledContinua’s mobile-friendly redesign. I ended up using Bootstrap which provides a really nice end product. I find it very easy to become wrapped up in the web/programming projects. (My Python class has been giving me fits…)
Writing
Finish In Need of Luck
Finish chapters in progress. Right wrongs. Let’s say, min. 500 words/day. – Ended up having to rewrite part of my outline Sunday night. No writing on Monday & Tuesday because I got focused on the website.
Talk with Eric about remaining chapters. – Still haven’t yet.
For May/June – Scene rewrites for PHYSICa.
Abbott Project
Organize notes / Transcribe free write bits that might be useful to Abbott project. – Done
Only one research day weekly – (Probably won’t happen this week.)
Daily free write. – Haven’t even done my free writing since Sunday.
Reading, related to writing
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon. – Finished! I still haven’t reviewed it.
Replacement: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage (Abbott Project related) – Haven’t started it yet.
Publishing
Look for new promo options. – Actually did do a little of this on Monday.
EntangledContinua.com – Better mobile design. – DONE!
EntangledContinua.com – Add excerpts. – And I rolled this into my redesign.
ROW 80 is a blog hop!
Please, check out how are doing with their goals.
May 31, 2015
ROW 80 ~ Sunday Update, May 31st
Writing
Finish In Need of Luck
Finish chapters in progress. Right wrongs. Let’s say, min. 500 words/day. – Averaged 500 daily Monday-Saturday (minus Tuesday).
Talk with Eric about remaining chapters. – Still haven’t yet.
For May/June – Scene rewrites for PHYSICa.
Abbott Project
Organize notes / Transcribe free write bits that might be useful to Abbott project. – I’ve done all that I’m going to do on this. Notes are collected and I’ve started a new notebook with plot ideas and prompts for free writes.
Only one research day weekly – That was Tuesday (the 26th).
Daily free write. – Wrote Weds -Sat. Sense of place is something I enjoy a lot while reading. This goes beyond “setting.” Sense of place takes me there. I’ve known this for a long while, but I really re-realized it while reading Michael Pronko’s Beauty and Chaos. I want to work on sense of place in my free writes, with an eye toward the Abbott Project.
Reading, related to writing
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon. – Finished! Probably will have a review this week or next, depending on when I finish the Pronko book.
For May/June – The Call of Stories by Robert Coles. – This might come off the list/get replaced depending on how Estella Project picks work out. My yen to reread it has definitely faded.
Publishing
Look for new promo options. – Still working my way through the Big List I found. It’s a really big list. I don’t know about Google+ communities. I’m really bad at jumping in and keeping up.
EntangledContinua.com – Better mobile design. – No further movement. I’ll probably work on it a little today as part of Sunday “internet maintenance.”
EntangledContinua.com – Add excerpts. – No movement until I get redesign done.
ROW 80 is a blog hop!
Please, check out how other Round of Words participants are doing with their goals.
May 30, 2015
Deal Me In, Week 22 ~ “In the Tank”
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“In the Tank” by Andrew Bergman
Card picked: Ace of Diamonds
From: Murder on the Ropes, edited by Otto Penzler
Thoughts: I’m kind of glad that I’m not reading this anthology straight through because there are, when writing mysteries involving boxers, a few plot points that reoccur. It would be a lot more repetitive if I were reading these stories one after the other. Score one for the beauty of Deal Me In.
One of these plots is the boxer who is being coerced into taking a dive. In the case of “In the Tank,” Typhoon Walker is being threatened with death. The problem? Well, Walker’s fight is the four-round undercard. Big money will not be wagered on it, so that probably isn’t the motive. The threat is signed “Friends of White Athletes,” but Walker is small potatoes. Why not a bigger target?
These are the questions that plague Jack LeVine after he’s hired by Walker’s manager-no-agent. Something isn’t right and LeVine’s reporter friend Toots Fellman suspects the local white supremacist…who inconveniently turns up dead.
This is a pretty nicely worked short mystery. It’s full of prototypical characters and situations (which aren’t inherently bad things), and with a decent enough twists. In retrospect, though, I have no idea to what the title refers.
About the Author: I didn’t know that I knew Andrew Bergman. He is the screenwriter of Blazing Saddles, Oh God! You Devil, The Freshman, and, a personal favorite of mine, Honeymoon in Vegas. Yes, I have a soft spot for Nicolas Cage. He’s also written three novels featuring Jack LeVine.
May 29, 2015
10 Books of Summer & The Estella Project, Season 3
Cathy at 746 Books is hosting 20 Books of Summer, or if you’re a slow reader like me, 10 Books of Summer! I’m terrible a sticking to lists, but I want to give this a shot. I’m choosing my books from the other lists I’m slowly working my way through: a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The challenge runs from June 1st through September 4th.
ARCs:
Best Horror of the Year edited by Ellen Datlow
Girl Meet Class by Karin Gillespie
Obscure Literary Monsters:
The Manitou by Graham Masterton
Freddy’s Book by John Gardner
Gothic:
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Magic/History Research:
Linking Rings: William W. Durbin and the Magic and Mystery of America by James David Robenalt
The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
The Estella Project, Season 3:
(Man, this is a great list. *And* so many of them are available from my online library. You’re killing me, Estella Project!)
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
It’s What I Do by Lynsay Addario
10 Books of Summer ~ Little Bit of This & That
Cathy at 746 Books is hosting 20 Books of Summer, or if you’re a slow reader like me, 10 Books of Summer! I’m terrible a sticking to lists, but I want to give this a shot. I’m choosing my books from the other lists I’m slowly working my way through: a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The challenge runs from June 1st through September 4th.
ARCs:
Best Horror of the Year edited by Ellen Datlow
Girl Meet Class by Karin Gillespie
Obscure Literary Monsters:
The Manitou by Graham Masterton
Freddy’s Book by John Gardner
Gothic:
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Magic/History Research:
Linking Rings: William W. Durbin and the Magic and Mystery of America by James David Robenalt
The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
…And I’m leaving a little room for The Estella Project.
May 28, 2015
Review ~ (The rest of) Don’t Look Now
Five long stories about unremarkable people caught up in situations beyond the boundaries of their experience.
Venice, Crete, Ireland, Jerusalem, East Anglia. The settings of Miss Daphne du Maurier’s stories are as varied as the plots. A married couple enjoying a holiday in Venice are swept helplessly into a tragedy played out against a backdrop of murky canals and back alleys. A middle-aged schoolmaster gets involved with an American couple whose fishing expeditions are very far from being what they appear. A young actress, setting out on an impulsive but innocent quest, blunders into a situation which sweeps away all the roots of youthful self-confidence. One story, subtly mocking, follows the vicisitudes of an ill-assorted little party of pilgrims in Jerusalem. Another explores the meaning of life and death in a brilliantly original tale. Such unremarkable people, following their unexceptional paths, yet all caught up in situations beyond the boundaries of their experience and outside their control. Compelling, exciting, this collection shows once again what mastery of the short story Daphne du Maurier has. (via Goodreads)
For me, Daphne du Maurier is this year’s Steven Millhauser. Last year, I delved into a collection of Millhauser’s (The Barnum Museum) and found that I was torn. I really *loved* some of his stories. Others…not so much. I’m still not sure if I’d call myself a Millhauser fan, but I’m going to repeatedly give him chances. My opinion of du Maurier is shaping up similarly. I didn’t care for Rebecca, but there were some aspects that were enticing. Luckily, I had more du Maurier on a more compulsory reading list.
Don’t Look Now is a collection of five novellas originally titled after one of the other stories in the collection, “Not After Midnight.” The change came after “Don’t Look Now” was turned into a film in 1973 with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. That story was included in my Obscure Literary Monsters list and I reviewed it a few weeks ago. Since I didn’t immediate pull “The Birds,” which is on my Deal Me In list, I decided to finish off the anthology. And it is definitely a mixture of great and meh from me.
The second story in the collection is “The Breakthrough.” The late 60s and early 70s spawned a number of novels and movies that dealt with science investigating the supernatural. I didn’t expect to find such a story from du Maurier. “The Breakthrough” is a solid, right out of the Twilight Zone. “Not After Midnight” continues with an atmosphere of unease as a fairly insufferable character gets caught up in what may or may not be an archeological dive. There’s one incredibly tense scene that caused me to jump out of my skin when an outside noise intruded.
But then there’s “A Border-Line Case.” I have a theory that I might not like du Maurier’s female main characters. Like the second Mrs. de Winter, Shelagh came off as flighty. Maybe that’s uncharitable. Both of these characters make her own decisions (both involving older men), but they’re such bad decisions. Then, the reader is left to suffer through an extended period of whinging from the character.
“The Way of the Cross” is the only story of which I had a neutral opinion. It’s populated by (figuratively) many the characters we’ve already encountered: the annoying, the skeptical, the swinging, the delusional, and the completely unsure. In the end, I’m not sure what point there is to “The Way of the Cross,” but it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant journey.
Publishing info, my copy: Doubleday, 1974, hardback
Acquired: PaperbackSwap
Genre: all over the place
May 27, 2015
ROW 80 ~ Wednesday Update, May 27th
Writing
Finish In Need of Luck
Finish chapters in progress. Right wrongs. Let’s say, min. 500 words/day. – Sunday: Socializing and computer problems. I got a few words in, but not many. Monday: 547 words. Yesterday: Creaky and brain-fogged. I took my research day on the Abbott project.
Talk with Eric about remaining chapters. – Still haven’t yet.
For May/June – Scene rewrites for PHYSICa.
For May/June – Abbott Project
Organize notes / Transcribe free write bits that might be useful to Abbott project. – No further movement.
Only one research day weekly – That was Tuesday.
Daily free write. – Wrote Sunday & Monday. Missed yesterday.
Reading, related to writing
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
by Michael Chabon. – Still on break from Chabon
For May/June – The Call of Stories by Robert Coles.
Publishing
Look for new promo options. – Gradually working my way through the Big List I found. Investigating Google+ communities.
EntangledContinua.com – Better mobile design. – No further movement.
EntangledContinua.com – Add excerpts. – No movement until I get redesign done.
ROW 80 is a blog hop!
Please, check out how other Round of Words participants are doing with their goals.
May 25, 2015
Magic Monday ~ Magical Storytelling
I like Mondays. On Monday, I am refreshed from the weekend and exhilarated by the possibilities of the week ahead. I also like magic. I like its history, its intersection with technology, and its crafty use of human nature. I figured I’d combine the two and make a Monday feature that is truly me: a little bit of magic and a look at the week ahead.
I’m pretty fond of “storytelling” magic: those routines in which the magician uses patter to tie a narrative to the trick. Here is a lovely example by Suzanne using a magical standard.
What Am I Reading?
The Estella Project is taking recommendations for this season’s reading list, and I submitted The Last Unicorn. That and a bout of melancholy led me to go ahead and reread it (and the associated Schmendrick stories). I have 50 pages and “Two Hearts” left. (“Two Hearts” is available free and legal at Peter S. Beagle’s website. Just sayin’.) Then, on to Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life by Michael Pronko and back to Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends. I’ve been enjoying the collection of essays by Chabon, but too much literary criticism is too much literary criticism even when it is by a genre agnostic. After a couple not so thrilling tales, I’ll be reading a boxing mystery, “In the Tank” by Andrew Bergman, this week for Deal Me In.
On the Blog
Look at that, a Magic Monday post! At least, a little share of a Magic Monday. The imposed conundrum of blogging is how to provide content consistently without burning out. Really, though, unless it’s your *job*, blogging should be about what makes you happy. Maybe that doesn’t get you an uber amount of readers, but it does keep you sane.
