Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 68

2017 Oregon Brewers Festival

I have a few bits of information I’d truly like to share.  But until the details firm up a bit more I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to write about beer. Deal with it.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Oregon Brewers Festival. Not necessarily an interesting number, but it is for me considering I’ve been to almost all of them. Twenty plus years of beer lines, heat, random yelling, and crowds. It’s better than I make it sound. I’ve tried some fantastic beer over the years.

This year I took the day off and brought the HA with me. MBW was across the country at a conference. So, daddy and daughter beer day. Bula! We arrived as the festival opened. A stroller provided her shade and a platform for the portable DVD player. She was set. I had a festival mug and tokens. I was set.

Following are my tasting notes. The last couple I tried while standing, in the specialty tent, nowhere near a table, so I was only able to scribble a comment or two. I include them here only for completeness. The HA scribbled all through the program book, so my transcription may not be 100% accurate. Note, when jotting down the name of the brewery, I left out such terms as “Brewery” or “Brewing Company.” Because I am lazy.

Relax, people. It’s water. Spare me the outraged comments.

Crooked Stave

Single Hop Experimental. 6.2%

Nice, mellow IPA at the lower end of IBU’s. The hop character comes through — grassy, not floral or citrus. Not sure I’d have more than one.

 

Falling Sky.

Octopus Tree Spruce Tip Pale Ale. 5.4%

Crispness of a lager more than a pale ale. But one the brewer stirred with a pine bough. Refreshing, but I would have preferred a more resinous taste.

 

Ghost Runners

Chasing Fluffy Pink Unicorns. Gose, 5%

Because I’m that comfortable with my masculinity. Nose is too fruity, promising a cloying fruit beer. But the gose saltiness belies that suggestion. It is actually quite god.

 

Gigantic.

G&T. 5.5%

You put the lime in the…juniper. Nice. Extremely refreshing. A compelling session beer.

 

Fort George

No Pulp. American Style Pale Ale. 5%

A breakfast beer. No need to pur OJ. Follow with a coffee stout? Maybe a maple bacon porter? (No, not the latter.) Very nice start. Second and third tastes are not as pleasant.

 

Baerlic.

Dropping Acid Psychedelic Sour IPA. 5%

Thin sour. Needs more body.

 

Oregon City.

Plumbelievable. Sour. 5%

I can’t believe this contains plums. Top notch sour. Balanced, full bodied.

 

At the Specialty Tent.

Boneyard Beer. Goze. 5.7% Beautiful.

 

Laht Neppur. Barleywine 2014. 12% (No notes. I did like it, though.)

 

Caldera. Triple IPA. (Didn’t note the ABV.) Fantastic.

File_000

Ye Fair July

Owning a house demands more weekend hours than owning a condo. This is a cold rule of the universe. Still, one can find time to attend a Renaissance Faire.

I drove MBW and the HA south to Silverton, Oregon for the second year in a row. I’d offered the choice of an afternoon at Hood River watching the kite surfers and wind boarders or an afternoon of watching cosplay and hearing dodgy faux-british accents. MBW determined the HA would get more enjoyment from the latter.

As it transpired, the HA fell asleep in the car on the way down was thus too groggy to enjoy the first half-hour or so. She did not want to see the royal court. The sleepiness wore off, of course, and the HA continued to inquire after the queen for the rest of the afternoon. She did, at last gain an audience. What royal favors she garnered remain a mystery.

I have determined that, should we attend one of these in the future, that we will not trouble dropping in at the tilting field until at least a half an hour after the marshal begins the jousting festivities. The patter is too weak, the preliminaries too dull to see me through summer afternoon heat. As this appeared to be the family consensus, we didn’t stay for the organized violence. Perhaps next year we’ll wait out the bad jokes and cabbage chopping at a picnic table, enjoying ice cream and turkey legs, then drop in at a time better calculated to watch men in tin suits try to knock each other out of the saddle with sticks.

Meanwhile, householder’s obligations require more of my weekend time and beer money. For something other than beer. Sigh.

Off-Target, Laser-Focused Marketing.

An intriguing opportunity came my way a few months back, one that I consider intriguing in two aspects. I was interviewed for an article in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin (the monthly house-organ for Oregon’s attorneys) about lawyers who are also writers.

This interview was an enjoyable opportunity to discuss writing. As usual with this sort of thing, an hour conversation was whittled down to a few paragraphs. But the conversation was still worthwhile.

Now, I said I considered intriguing in two ways. One, the chance to promote my work is always interesting. People won’t buy a book if they never hear of it, right? So, while I’m not overly comfortable with publicity, I recognize its necessity. Second, and perhaps more interesting, is the narrow market the article addresses. Lawyers. And lawyers in only one State, and a relatively unpopulous one at that. This intrigues me because it explores whether a tightly focused outreach to what is not necessarily a target demographic can have any practical impact on sales.

The day the issue of the OSBB dropped, I checked the Amazon ranking of the novel of mine that received coverage. Then I checked again every day after for the next week or so. Other than a single spike in sales one day, I noticed no unusual activity. And, as a matter of fact, the spike was not really anomalous. I can neither tie it to the article nor prove it unrelated.

So, given the scarcity of altered sales activity, at this point I’d conclude that outreach to an audience with no specific affinity to science fiction or fantasy is unlikely to impact sales of a science-fiction or fantasy novel. Hardly a groundbreaking revelation, but interesting as a practical, real world result.

Checking In.

A brief one today. There’s a joke somewhere in the word ‘brief’ but I don’t feel like mining that one from the joke pits.

I’ve been busy doing yardwork out back, digging, placing pavers, shoveling bark chips. Getting gnarly blisters. Good fun.

Today, fingers crossed, is game day. First one in a couple of years I think. Should be fun.

Later this week, cortisone injections in my neck. Yipee. Probably should get one in my shoulder. But one ache at a time, right? Ungrateful body. Oh well.

Happy Independence Day

Happy upcoming Independence Day, fellow Americans. I don’t vent my political spleen with these posts (for which probably half of you are grateful and the other half condemn me as a coward.) I’m not going to alter that custom now. Instead I want to highlight a few (I hope) innocuous words of Thomas Paine.

He wrote, in The Crisis (1776) “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated….”

Impressive words, no? Stirring. We take America for granted now, and assume as inevitable the triumph of the colonists over the Crown. But our ancestors undertook no simple task and with no guarantee of victory. Death, whether by hanging, by lead ball, by disease induced or exacerbated by military camp, was as likely a prospect as was defeat of the mighty British army and its Hessian mercenaries. I wonder if I would have possessed the courage and fortitude to see it through.

I was what Paine might have considered a summer soldier, serving as an Army Reservist in the period between the Gulf Wars. My sacrifices, such as they were, were relatively minuscule in light of the struggles that preceded and followed my term of enlistment. But I’d like to hope I’m no sunshine patriot. I’d like to think I value my freedoms. But I wonder if I accord them their true worth. It seems that most of my life freedom has been increasingly devalued, people more concerned with what their country could do for them, not what they could do for their country. What increasingly seems of value is not the freedom from tyranny the country ensures, but the goods and services the country doles out.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just settling into early geezerdom. Maybe true patriotism is alive and well and love of freedom endures, along with those willing to ensure its continuance. I hope so. And, since I fear I may be drifting dangerously close to the shoals of politics, I’ll simply reiterate Happy Independence Day, and then shut up.

Fred Saberhagen: Appendix N’s Master Craftsman

I’ve reached Fred Saberhagen in my Appendix N irregular series of posts. And I’m extremely pleased by that since it afforded me an excuse to re-read Empire of the East. True, one cannot do Saberhagen justice by concentrating on Empire of the East alone, but that’s what I’m going to do anyway.

I don’t think one could realistically consider Empire a classic, certainly not seminal. But in my opinion it is the acme of its type, a near Platonic Ideal of a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi/fantasy adventure novel. If you only read one, this is the one. And it’s terrific. It is absorbing. It doesn’t feel like a 550 page book. It reads much faster, like a slim pulp. That is probably because it consists of three slim volumes, packaged together. But what a package. And one written by an author in prime form. There isn’t a wasted word, yet Saberhagen builds a fully realized world, managing to achieve much of the world-building between the words — providing enough of a pencil sketch for the reader to fill in the rest.

Empire’s place in Appendix N is richly deserved. If Howard, Leiber, Vance, and Anderson provided the substrate for D&D, Saberhagen built the iconic superstructure atop it, offering a nigh-perfect example of what could be done with the sort of heroes, wizards, monsters, and scoundrels the others had written of. Empire has it all, in spades. Wizards, both dastardly and good. Demons. Monsters. Remnants of strange technology. A young farm boy thrown into peril and adventure. Noble beasts and cruel lords. Magic items. Curses. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Gary Gygax borrowed Elementals from Empire of the East. And, if someone tells you that the Monk character class has no place in an occidental fantasy world, well he may but right. But the minor character Mewick might suggest a more nuanced view.

In Empire of the East Saberhagen served up adventure fantasy in the butter zone. The Goldilocks zone: It is just right.

Editing Purgatory

I suppose I should write about Father’s Day. But I’m busy enjoying it. Why write about it? Instead, I want to jot down a few thoughts about editing, since I’m currently wallowing in editing purgatory. Feel my pain.

Imagine you’ve finished creating a jigsaw puzzle. You’re happy with the picture. It’s attractive and you like the complexity of the manner in which the pieces slot together. Now imagine you get some notes with a few requests for changes.

Okay, stepping out of the metaphor for a moment, this is what happens after the publisher hands your manuscript over to an editor. You get suggestions. Requests that this happen sooner in the story, that that bit gets cut, that this description is excessive. Etc.

So, returning to the metaphor, you attempt to comply. You remove a piece or two, add one, move a few around. But once you’ve done that most of the rest of the pieces no longer slot neatly together and your picture collapses amid a cascade of disconnects. You need to adjust everything in order to once again present an attractive picture. And you can only hope that it resembles the picture you had in mind when you first began creating it.

It can become rather frustrating. But once you see that puzzle in a shiny new box on the toy store shelf, that frustration reduces to a dim memory. All the frantic juggling you’ve done was worth it the effort. And you can enjoy the moment. Until the next time.

I’m hoping to get that point again soon, after I’ve clambered out of this purgatorial pit. For now, I’m going to let Father’s Day distract me. Tomorrow, back to ascending the Sisyphean slope.

Lake Tahoe

On the road again. I’m writing from our hotel room in South Lake Tahoe. We drove down Thursday afternoon, stopping in Redding, California where we deposited the HA with her delighted grandmother. (They are currently enjoying a symbiosis wherein the HA gets absolutely spoiled and my mother gets unfettered access to her granddaughter for a couple of days.) Friday we headed east, through the Northern California woods and mountains to Reno, Nevada, where we stopped for lunch at a Brewpub. Then we headed south to Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe possesses the beauty of Crater Lake and ready access to all amenities. My breath was taken, and not because of the altitude. Seriously. Check out these pictures. I’ll wait.

MBW and I spent over a couple hours hiking around the environs of Vikingsholme on Emerald Bay. Stunning. We passed by a Renne Faire on the way back to town and considered stopping. But as several thousand others had apparently already decided to stop we gave it a miss and continued on, encountering the inaugural Tahoe Brewfest. Surprisingly, we were early enough to beat the rush and stopped for lunch and tasters.

We biked a bit, cruising the marina and lake shore. Today begins the slog back home. But well worth the drive, I say. Not bad for a long weekend.

Oh, and it appears I’ve been invited back, once again, as an Orycon panelist. Will these people never learn?

Even More Way Too Late Reviews

I wanted to like Outlander. I came to it with a certain amount of goodwill, having heard of it years ago and appreciating the elevator pitch concept. Unfortunately goodwill can only do so much to entirely overcome certain deficiencies.

The budget is one deficiency. Every penny appears on the screen, but sadly we seem to be talking not much more than pennies. Casting, for another.appears largely disinterested in the entire affair, bored and waiting for the check to clear. I’m not sure he’s anyone’s idea of an action hero, despite his excellent turn in The Count of Monte Cristo. Few of the “vikings” really fit the role. Not even John Hurt could elevate this material. (Though it was good to see Ron Perlman, even briefly.)

As for the material, we appear to have another riff on Beowulf. This one a sci-fi/horror take, with the role of Beowulf filled by a man from outer space (Earth, apparently, an abandoned “seed colony.”) In the script’s favor, it doesn’t attempt a direct one-for-one Beowulf analog;not every element of the story appears. I like some of what the script writers have done here. Though I think they missed an opportunity in not playing up a fatalism versus free-will theme. And I could have done without yet another spurious “we brought it upon ourselves, the monsters are really us” bit of faux-depth. At least the obligatory warrior princess was reasonably enjoyable and as plausible as the rest of the fantasy (have to consider this fantasy — it doesn’t hold up as a viking-era period piece.)

When reviewing a Beowulf riff The 13th Warrior inevitably comes to mind. That is unfortunate, because Outlander is done no favors by the comparison. For all its narrative flaws, Warrior brought us some memorable characters and a couple of terrific action scenes. Outlander offers up some passable action and thrills but is too often let down by the budget.

Still, if you’re willing to approach the flick with a six-pack and low-expectations, I can see my way clear to recommending this.

Memorial Day 2017

I don’t come from a military family. My paternal grandfather was a medic in WWII. I’m not sure about my maternal grandfather. I have uncles by marriage on either side of the family who were medics in the Vietnam war, one stationed in Korea, the other in Vietnam. My sister and I both served, she in Signals Intelligence and I in Psychological Operations.

But we all emerged unscathed. To my knowledge my family suffered no casualties, no fallen heroes. For which I am grateful. The legend is that my grandfather was scheduled to hit the beaches on D-Day but suffered from dysentery. When the orders came to load the troop transports, he tottered up from his bunk to join the rest of the company but the captain saw him and said, “Get back in bed, Lizzi.” That’s the story anyway.

My sister — regular army — spent her time in Germany. I was a reservist and enjoyed such vacation spots as Honduras, Haiti, and — for a couple of weeks — South Korea. Neither of us braved bullets or roadside bombs. The only dangers I faced were Haitian roads and Haitian drivers. Though, in fairness, both of those came close a couple times to sending me to a hospital or home in a box.

The point is, Memorial Day for me remains an abstraction. I have no specific gravesite that deserves an annual observance. I can only join the observance of the day as a generic grateful American. That I’m willing to do. I’ll enjoy my grilled meat and cold beer in honor of those who, in service to their country, forever lost the chance to do so. Is there an element of guilt underlying this? Embarrassed relief? I don’t know, but I’d like to think that the best way to respect the sacrifice of our fallen is to live well and endeavor to pursue the concepts symbolized by the flag they died for: freedom, individualism, opportunity.

Okay, perhaps too heavy. So, here are some old pictures of me — or taken by me — squandering taxpayer dollars and surviving to tell the tale.