Imperfect Writing

I haven't edited this. It's rough and impromptu and I wrote it in an editor that doesn't try to catch mistakes. I haven't even read it over a second time. I'm pretty sure that there's holes in the logic and bad spelling and bad paragraphs and awful sentences. You know what though? Given the topic, I don't care. Maybe one day I'll take this post and scrub it up and make an essay of it. Probably not though. Enjoy the imperfection. I'll take the time that I didn't spend on it to write something that I care about more.
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I haven't blogged here for a very long time. I suppose I didn't want to. I don't blog often, and I when I do there's something romatic about blogging on whathowadsworth.com as Jason Secrest the transdimensional owner of a randomly magical mansion. Moreover I've felt like I've been promoting a kind of a false sense of truth, like that harbored by William Goldman in his novels by S. Morgenstern. It's fun to say that "This is the truth, a hard to believe truth, but a real one." I guess that I've felt that I'd be betraying my lies if I ever wrote something as myself, just a guy in provo that wishes that he transported to a mystical mansion at a whim. I don't know what I'm so worked up about it for. It's not like truth and fiction in this matter aren't seperable and obvious. At anyrate, I did want to touch on something in the art of writing. It's something that I've been trying to work out in my head for the last several month's - and when I say trying to work out, what I really mean is avoiding... but an epiphony struck me today, and I'm gonig to do my best to iterate it.

Imperfection is the topic of the day. Imperfection is what really get's at my writing. It's my biggest hangup. When I don't write, it's because I'm scared that what I write won't "work."  I suppose to understand what I mean by that we should back up a touch and go over afew principles of fiction. Specifically, let's talk about the Willing Suspension of Disbeleif. Coolridge, a contemporary of William Wordsworth invented that term. Willing suspension of disbelief is what people do when they want to enjoy a work of fiction. They find it in themselves to say, "Well that couldn't really happen, but just for now I'll pretend that it could." Then they read a work and digest it and pull bits of insights about life and the universe from a story that they knew was fake from the beggining, but that they pretended was true.

The problem with fiction is that it has to sell its lies. A person has to almost consiously declare that they are willing to overlook things that it finds illogical, or "wrong" about a story as they read, but the more frequently they have to do this (and the less intentional the lie they swallow seems) the harder it is to accept the lie and read on. The thing that keeps them "suspended" in a willing self dilusion is the promise of reward. They need a profound thought, or an identifiable situation, or a clever phrase, or a satisfying interaction with something in the book.  They're like miners, chipping through the face of the lies. At first they only need little traces of a vein of gold, but as they go they need more and more until they hit the motherload. Then the book was worth it.

What I'm driving at is that readers are tough customers and they notice everything that's wrong, and to much of what's wrong and to little reward leads them to put the book down. People balk at a phrase that's off or a reaction to a problem that seems stupid, or a bit of plot that twists in a way that doesn't seem believable within the bounds of their current suspension of disbelief.

That's what's killing me right now. I notice what's wrong with my book. I notice what's illogical. Then, what I don't notice, my friends pick up on when they read for me. Then all I can see is what's wrong. I have a hard time believing that the rewards of what I'm delivering exceeds the effort of reading it. So I'm scared of my book or scared of my blog, and I start to dread writing it and then I stop writing, and I come up with excuses not to do it.

For me, the art of learning how to write, is the art of understanding that all the best works are flawed.

I watched the BBC program Sherlock. Love it. Great series. But their's so much wrong with it. I'm just going to take one example of this: Season one throws out a pretty big cliffhanger that at the end. They stopped in the middle of a scene in fact. Season 2 picked up exactly at the same spot and resolved the immediate problem. It was aweful. It did not work for me at all. Or maybe I'm just stupid and I didn't observe whatever clever interplay that the screne writers thought that they'd made obvious. The funny thing is that after struggling through that stupid scene, I didn't care about it. I shrugged it off and giggled my delight at the next scene. Especially after that aweful bit of plot, I was on the edge of my seat wating for sherlock to say something rediculous, or explain away the stain on somebodies shirt.

I've got to get past the idea that all of the wholes in my fiction need to be plugged. It'd take a much more clever person than I to get everything about it perfectly right. The whole thing is a lie after all. It's my job to write the story the best that I can, polish it within an inch of it's life, and then release it into the wild. These first couple of books are going to be pretty aweful, but I've got to get past my fear of writing them and just finish. The next one's will be better. And the next few after that will be better still, and the next few even better.

So, it's on that note, that I'm going to shake off my fear of writing crap and finish this stupid book.

-Jason

Schlange has died, but Wadsworth lives.

What ho! What ho! What ho!

Transition complete. I'm no longer posting as Schlange A. Taube. Sad, I know, but I think it was necessary. Also, I disappointed myself in that I have not posted at all since CONduit despite the resolution to go over a topic a day. In other and better news, I've started up "The Mansion House" (www.whathowadsworth.blogspot.com). The good news is that I've felt driven to work on it regularly. We'll see how long that lasts. Hopefully a good long while as I kind of live there now.

-Jason

CONduit XX: Day 2

Today's conduit was pretty fantastic. We went to the following panels: Riding the Rocket(surviving career blastoff); Writing for YA Audiences; The Mike Show (a Q&A); Writing Excuses; Series vs. Standalone; and Writing the Rogue.

Everything was pretty great. I enjoyed all the panels and found some time to rub shoulders with Authors. I also spent too much money on books and got them all signed. In the process I also made a connection with Dan Wells. He's going to send me some of his current writing to help me understand a concept for something I'm writing. The only thing it costs me is to send him feedback on what he sends me (not that I feel qualified)...

I took pretty decent notes, and i think that to help me blog, I'm going to try to go over something that stood out to me every day. That'll help me solidify it at the same time it helps me be in the habit of doing better at blogging.

I got some great tips on how to tackle being stuck in my writing (don't call it writer's block... apparently that doesn't exist).

Here's the three opinions I got on the phenomenon hitherto known as 'writers block':
-Paul Genesse:You aren't prepared in one of two ways: 1.) You're not refreshed. You physically or emotionally cannot write because of whatever reason. Take some time to recharge and try again. 2.)You don't know where the story is going. Take some time to plan or plot or map or work on an outline.

-James Dashner: You aren't in the right mood. Get in the right mood. Go see a movie. Dashner says that some of his best writing happens in his car or the closest coffee shop immediately after he gets out of a movie.

-Barbara Hambly: There are two kinds of writers block (she can call it that, she's old school) Really there's either something wrong with you or something wrong with your story. 1.) Clinical Depression: you just can't get up to do your writing. Seek professional help and try again. 2.)You took a wrong turn at a crossroads in your story. Maybe you gave out too much information or approached a scene from a perspective that doesn't work very well. Go back to a point where the story was working and figure out where it stopped. Try a different route with the story and see if you can take it farther.

Another approach suggested by Barbara was to make a timeline. Figure out exactly what happened on days one two three four and five, where day three is the day you're stuck on. She had to do that a lot when writing mystery, and found that it also helped her to write when it was difficult.

That's it for conduit today.

I've got a couple other projects I'm working on. I own some web space (I'm not linking to it because there's nothing there to see) and I'm going to start trying to turn it into a toolbox of useful resources. For example, several helpful web pages got suggested to me at conduit and I'm going to put up the links there. Maybe when it starts looking like it's something worth your time I'll put up a pointer to it from here.

Also, I'm going to start a new blog, wherein I'll have little bits of dialog with my characters. It'll be great exercise for me, and hopefully entertaining for everybody else. Watch for a link to that soon.

-Jason

...so much for gradually killing Shlange... oh well. He'll live on in our hearts. At least until I kill him off by changing my profile name.

CONduit XX: More than just strange capitalization

So, some of you know that I'm an aspiring author. My writing group and I signed up to attend CONduit XX: Space Pirates of CONduit. Arg. It's my first con (convention) ever and thus far it's been a positive experience.

For me, and many like me, becoming a space pirate is only a matter of wearing a green name tag. For many others it's a matter of costuming unparalleled by even the hardiest trick-or-treaters. While I didn't see any storm troopers, there were a large variety of persons bringing fiction to life in the form of: a bum knight with cardboard sign reading "will slay dragon for food"; a peasant; a sword wielding white man turned jet black, a member of the Jedi council; a fencer; and a wide variety of things that could only have been costumed in the similitude of something fiercely anime. All of these, besides the regular con activities, also came for to filk and to attend the masquerade. And who knows, maybe they all had a grand larp.

"Filk is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has been active since the early 1950s, and played primarily since the mid-1970s. The term (originally a typographical error) antedates 1955." -wikipedia entry: filk music

I'm not sure where the majority of these filkers went to when I sat in on the panels where writing advice was proffered. My best guess is that they dissolved into the ether wherein they floated about haunting us with ocasional bursts of not so distant song. The filking songs are not a thing to be trifled with. They, the songs of the filkers, did a number on one of the panels. From the depths of the nearest "cheery dungeon," or "den of happy evil" or "illy concealed transdimensional mana plain," or whatever other illogical-meeting-place-of-all-that-is-both-off-key-and-fictional that they chose to inhabit, the filkers raised their voices in the greatest interruption that the panel on genocide was able to endure. Though their voices found me, I opted not to go find them. Whatever their location, it like Camelot before it, "is a silly place."

It was great to attend the panels, where I learned from several published authors (both full time and with day jobs) about how to write moods, how to increase my chances of getting published, why and how to consider geographical layout when writing, etc. Even better, I got a chance to rub shoulders with a few of them. Larry Corriea let me pester him for a while, and so did John Brown.

Larry was self published for a while but got picked up by Bane. When they published his book, Monster Hunter, it was wildly successful. This makes him one of the happy few success from self publishing. John Brown wrote a book called Servant of a Dark God and with it won "Best Speculative Fiction" in the whitney awards. He was pitted against Brandon Sanderson, James Dashner, Dan Wells, and Aprilynne Pike. (As of today, after meeting John, I've met and shaken hads with all of the afore mentioned, with the exception of Pike. I'm suddenly feeling pretty privileged.) While we chattered they made a lot of great points. One of them is that it's helpful to have a pre-built audience, aka an internet following, aka a bunch of people that will read your blog. That's why I'm blogging again, though in something of an overwhelmed manner. Larry gave me a "low" target for a helpful readership: 4000. I'm about one four-thousandth of my way to the goal, and with few exceptions anyone who's ever read my blog is already the kind of friend that would buy my book with out my blog, just to be supportive. Ah well... time for consistant blogging - and looking to get in with Larry so he'll link to my site (the more premade the audiance, the better... drawing from his ample following sounds ultra sweet.)

However, before I start printing out cards with this URL, or leaching favors off of people who've made it, I need to seriously look over the site and give it a little more spit polish. Maybe I need to get a few more blogs under my belt too. Finally, I need to update my name. While writing as Schlang as been a fun adventure, it's not likely to help me get published as J. L. Secrest. I'm loath to leave behind the personification of harmless wisdom, so I may take some time to transition. We'll see.

Anyhow, CONduit has been a lot of fun. I'm meeting people that are already famous (L.E. Modesitt was at a few panels today), and others that I'm pretty sure are soon to be. It's cool to learn more about their personalities and how they write and what their obsessions are. Now I just need to take their thoughts and see what works for me and my humanity loving super butler.

Tomorrow should be a blast, and at the signings I'm going to spend way more money on books than should be legal. Funny, I thought the whole point of this was to help me MAKE money. Maybe it will come through Karma, or networking, or maybe just an act of God. Any combination of the above is welcome.

One last thing. One little test. Larry says that authors are narcissists (I believe him on that count, I'm pretty narcissistic myself), and Google themselves to see what people are saying about them and their work. In theory he'll find himself here, and leave a comment.

Here's another test. Brandon Sanderson is going to be at CONduit tomorrow. He should Google his name and read here that I want him to bring my final submission from his class with him. Brandon, I know you're a busy dude, but Wadsworth is aching to know how he did. Actually, that's a lie. Wadsworth is a pillar of calm. I'm the one in turmoil.

-Schlange

Resurrection? We'll see...

To my esteemed friends, enemies, followers, cohorts, and associates:

You may note that the last time I posted was almost 2 years ago. Fail. Recent events have told me that I should blog. I'm going to try to get back in the habit. Win.

That is all.

P.S.Maybe I'm gonna start blogging with my real name. It could become important for me. We'll see.

-Schlange

Colbert meets the Cookie Monster!

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Cookie Monster

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

A Poem

And now, a short poem:

I had not time to make a sound
Nor did I move my eyes,
A coiled viper struck me down!
It took me by surprise.

Revenge I took, in passive ways-
Revenge! In perfect pose!
The odor of my skin did shock
and infiltrise its nose.

Snakes have dim eyes - with tongue they see
and taste, in part, is smell.
What my attacker licked and sniffed
has shot its sight to hell!

Wise and harmless 'twas it not,
Perhaps it shall now be be...
My unbathed body struck it blind
for now it cannot see.

Should our long dead friend Kipling want to make some sort of memorable short story with a moral out of that, I give my full permission.

-Schlange A. Taube

Oysters and Pearls

A grain of sand, upon entering an oyster, becomes so agitating to the creature that it will surround the sand with some sort of oyster saliva to ease the itch. This eventually hardens and in turn continues to aggravate the oyster, which angrily reacts the same way it does at the very first – that is to say that it spits upon its problem and makes it bigger. In this way, a pearl is formed.

Ideas can be placed in just the right circumstances to grow into something awe invoking. Today’s pearl began as most do – in a very small way a few hundred hours ago at a work Christmas party. The event was typical of such a gathering: it was a small group of employees, some with wives or dates, cracking jokes and receiving superficial awards. The food was excellent, consisting mainly of stake; chicken; salad; a variety of beverages; and something long, flat, and breaded that was offered to me as “[something inaudible] fries.” I asked for the name to be repeated and heard “bulf rinds.” Too proud to ask a second time, I made my wildest of guesses and decided on fried bullfrog. I’d heard that frogs are tasty when prepared correctly and so decided to try one, thinking that if I’d missed my guess whatever it was couldn’t be any more outlandish than what I’d already anticipated and that at the very worst I’d accumulate another experience for my cultural repertoire. (I mention here, that this unknown foodstuff became my proverbial grain of sand – a preparation for a gem of an experience.)

I sampled this new fare after dipping it in cocktail sauce and decided that it tasted almost like shrimp though a little beefy. The flavor, the chewy texture, and the appearance of this unknown delicacy all layered themselves rosily about its pestering animosity; as did the next layer of truth which was willingly placed at my feet by an obliging universe in the form of an overheard conversation:

“You’re not really going to eat that?” said a female coworker to the male one at my right.
“Why not?” said he.
“Don’t you know what that is?”
“Certainly.”

At this point I rudely interjected and asked, “What exactly are those?” I also quickly consumed my last morsel of the meat in question, fearing that I might not want to do so upon hearing an answer. This proved to be a very wise move. The man chuckled, turned to me with a knowing look and a twinkle in his eye, and leaned closer to me. Looking intently at me, like a vulture about to gobble up its prey (or more accurately, like a person about to immensely enjoy a beautiful moment at my expense), he replied in conspiring tones, “Well… you’ve heard of Rocky Mountain Oysters?”

I had.

For those of you who have not so heard, I will expound. You may be mystified to know that every bull owns two oysters which he carries with him always. When these are stolen from him he is considered a steer. I had just eaten a breaded and fried oyster, removed by force from a rightfully indignant bovine – tactfully dubbed “Bull Fry.” The puzzle solved, my pearl came into full view, and I gazed speechlessly upon it.

Our story, however, does not end here, for the next day at work (I work at a private school) the cafeteria was serving leftovers from the past few days, including from the party. One boy heard “fry” and loaded his plate despite the lunch lady asking repeatedly: “Are you sure? Do you know what that is?” (His reply each time was “Yeah. Bull Fries. You told me already.”) A little while later he gained view of his own pearl, and I will confide in you that while I’ve never actually seen an oyster spit at its pearl, I am nearly certain that one could never match the vigor with which this young man spat at his.

It is a rule at my school that students are to eat every mouthful of food that they take. My resulting pity for the boy got the best of me and so I offered moral support in the form of taking a second contemptible abomination. As I chewed my fare I thought heavily upon that age old adage “ignorance is bliss.”

-Schlange

In honor of this particular occasion I follow this experience with a favorite poem:

The Oyster by Baxter Black

The sign upon the café wall said OYSTERS: fifty cents.
"How quaint," the blue-eyed sweetheart said with some bewildermence,
"I didn't know they served such fare out here upon the plain.
"Oh, sure," her cowboy date replied, "We're really quite urbane."

"I would guess they're Chesapeake or Blue Point, don't you think?"
"No ma'am, they're mostly Hereford cross . . . and usually they're pink
But I've been cold, so cold myself, what you say could be true
And if a man looked close enough, their points could sure be blue!"

She said, "I gather them myself out on the bay alone.
I pluck them from the murky depths and smash them with a stone!"
The cowboy winced, imagining a calf with her beneath,
"Me, I use a pocket knife and yank ‘em with my teeth."

"Oh my," she said, "You're an animal! How crude and unrefined!
Your masculine assertiveness sends a shiver down my spine!
But I prefer a butcher knife too dull to really cut.
I wedge it in on either side and crack it like a nut!

I pry them out. If they resist, sometimes I use the pliers
Or even Grandpa's pruning shears if that's what it requires!"
The hair stood on the cowboy's neck. His stomach did a whirl.
He'd never heard such grisly talk, especially from a girl!

"I like them fresh," the sweetheart said and laid her menu down
Then ordered oysters for them both when the waiter came around.
The cowboy smiled gamely, though her words stuck in his craw
But he finally fainted dead away when she said, "I'll have mine raw!"

Darkness - First Installment

I've not blogged or written for my personal enjoyment for a long time. Today I started a short story - it is by no means complete, but it's there. I'd love to have some feedback. Schmetterling, if you could take your red pen to it, I'd be much obliged. - Schlange

~

Nathan walked to the fridge. He opened the door and moved down his mental list: eggs… yep, right on top - a giant clear container holding about 30; rice… rice… hm… last night's lasagna. "I could eat that I guess," he thought, "nah… I don't feel like taking the time to get it out and microwave it… Man. I'm lazy. Oh, there's the rice. Now the ham." He opened the meat drawer and found a small plastic wrapped square of a previously round cured ham. "Mom's been working on this - guess that's why she suggested I eat it." He took the ham out of the package. It was yellow and firm. "Pfft. Cheese."

As he ambled back to the fridge to renew his search, Nathan wondered, "If I'm too lazy to microwave lasagna why in the world am I making ham fried rice?" His first four reasons didn't feel very motivating: he didn't feel like eating Italian tomato sauce this early in the day; he was hungry and ham fried rice would feel good going down - not so acidic as tomato sauce; he shouldn't start the day with a granola bar; mom suggested it. He really just wanted to bag eating… didn't really want to do anything.

Sis'd come home at lunch. Mom had also suggested this for lunch. Maybe he ought to practice making it before serving it. He'd had enough stupid food mistakes over the last week that this seemed slightly more motivating despite the simplicity of the meal.

Nathan recognized through his late morning grogginess the kind of day he was having. He'd had it before. This was the kind of day where a familiar dark cloud would embrace him like a good companion should. He wouldn't feel like eating - particularly if he had to prepare the food. He wouldn't feel like cleaning up for the day. He wouldn't really feel like doing anything, actually. He'd have dark thoughts - not evil thoughts, just depressing ones.

Understanding what he was feeling Nathan worked to combat it. He'd had this kind of day frequently in the past - fortunately it was less common now. The struggle was the cloud. It constantly whispered despair to him, and obstructed the light shrouding all about him with gloom. In the past Nathan had tried to physically shake the doom mist from him. It clung effortlessly to him like a parasite on a dying host. He'd run from it. It was faster than he was. It was also faster than his car. He'd wrapped it around his fist and beat it against his father's fence. Unfortunately, this was more damaging to both the fence (which gained a fist sized hole) and the fist (which gained a fence sized array of slivers and cuts). The cloud actually gained ground at the fence rally - it dove into his newly opened blood stream like a genie entering a bottle. Then it laughed at him from his insides. It took Nathan a confrontation with his parents about the fence (and a wall) along with several weeks of secret crying to bleed it out of his system.

These lessons weren't lost on Nathan. He no longer fell into the physical foolishness. He did, however, fall into emotional foolishness. He'd been on long midnight walks to the middle of a park and tried to shout the black demon away. He'd subsequently fallen to the ground in moments of great agony as the incorporeal taskmaster shouted back. He'd retreated and escaped reality - usually through fantasy novels and video games, and also through an occasional film. He wasn't much of one for TV. His trips to fictional places were generally very long - usually never ending until the well into the early morning. He would sleep fitfully through much of the day. Often the shadow would be sitting by his side as he awoke cheerfully greeting him an oxymoronically good morning. Nathan missed a good deal of school. In part, this was due to the amount of sleep he was generally missing. The other part had a great deal to do with illness. Nathan had once been relatively healthy. The demon saw fit to change things. Whenever Nathan breathed in, it would breath out - spewing a subtle stressing poison into his lungs. It had the effect of tightening his chest and stomach. The poison fooled Nathan's heart which seemed to never quit ejecting adrenaline - keeping him awake at night (on nights when he wasn't in fantasy land) and making him miserably tired in the days. Nathan's stomach gained a talent for self destructiveness - eating it's self a little more with every problem that came his way.

Cruel Irony

If I had to sum up the English language in one word I think it would be a toss up between Cruel and Ironic. Maybe i'd petition the use of a second word and say Cruel Irony. It's not enough for English to be the epitomy of Hypocracy, making usage rules for the sake of breaking them - even breaking rules that govern the breaking of rules; and it's not content to torture us with unnatural spellings and pronunciations; no English doesn't have the universal decency to stop at anything less than mockery of the handicapped. I submit to the jurry three examples. Let us begin with the letter "R":

I met a man from Boston the other day. His surname is Dumarri - note the presence of two R's. This is a horrible problem for any Bostonian because they don't use R's. One day some discriminatory Boston official said,

"Cast out the R's! Make them a hiss and a byletter! From henceforth replace the sound made by any R that approaches with that of the letter 'W' or the word 'ah' (which ever sounds better with the surrounding vowels and consonants)." And the dpeople listened and obeyed. Infact they obeyed so well that their style of R-shunning entered the gene pool and became classified as a speech impediment. now this was no crime made by the unjustly isolated R; however, the way in which it retaliated was most cruelly ironic: it placed the banished noise within it's own appelation, punishing the newly impaired and their children and their children's children and so on until the present day.

Mr. Dumarri can neither say nor spell his name aloud and be understood. For example, he may call a restaurant in Utah to make a reservation. The conversation might go like this:

"We'd be glad to hold a place for you sir. May I have your name?"
"Yes, it's Dumahwi"
"I'm sorry, did you say DoomOnMe?"
"No, Dumahwi. Let me spell it to you: D-U-M-A-awe-awe-I. Dumahwi"
"I'm sorry sir. Did you say Dumah'i... D-U-M-A-A-A-I?"
"No no. It's only got one "A" and two ahhws."
"Pardon me, I think there's a problem with the connection. Two whats?"
*Mr. Dumarri sighs* "Aahhwws. AaWwahs! I'm fwom boston and we don't use them... awe as in 'wip' and 'widge.'"
"Excuse me, did you say 'W' as in 'whip' and 'wig?'"

We leave Mr. Dumarri now as he plants his face in the palm of his hand and examine an ugly word: "lisp." Again eglish mocks the verbailly impaired. The test to check for a lisp is to have the candidate say "lisp." If a person can't say it then he's got it, so send him to get some professional help with it. English rubs salt in his wounds as he goes home to tell his wife that he needs to start seeing a "Thpeech Therapitht."

Finally, we close our case with the fear of long words. A fellow with this problem can get along with english decently on any given day - depending on who he's talking to. However, should he ever hear the name of what he suffers it could take him the rest of his life to recover from the jolt he gets from his "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia!"

Mattel made WHAT?

And now, for the first time ever, a Barbie that boys will like more than girls: complete with angry ravens comes the Barbie from "The Birds." Too bad Hitchcock isn't around to see this. I wonder if they are going to put out a new Alfred line... maybe we'll get a “Vertigo” play set complete with Monastery Bell Tower.

Just pray that they don’t decide to honor Edger Allen Poe…

High Adventure

I've had an extremely eventful few weeks. I crossed one of the top items off my list of things I want to do before I die by throwing my fragile body out of a perfectly good airplane (along with some cousins and close friends) at an altitude of 13000 feet. I helped to cater a post-wedding dinner for my older brother and met my new (and first) sister-in-law. For the last five days I've been camping and hiking and building sand castles next to a mountain lake with my extended family - a party of about 30 or 40 people. Today or tomorrow some of my cousins and my family are headed out to Starvation Reservoir to do some boating, tubing, and water skiing. If I ever have to point out a two week period of my life that's been filled with adventure, I don't doubt that this one will be high on my list of times to consider.

My conclusion after all of this excitement is that I have the most enjoyment and satisfaction when I'm doing things with my immediate and extended family. I get a bigger thrill out of being with them than I do from plummeting to the ground at a rate of 120 miles an hour. I gain more satisfaction from them than I do from breathtaking views and serene landscapes. They are the highlights of my life. Our traditions (of which we have many and yet are forming more) approach sacredness within my heart - particularly the ones that call us all together. I am the richest of men because I am often blessed with the company of many people who I love deeply and who return that love. I am even more blessed to know and understand that these relations are eternal, and that not even death can permanently erase them because of the power provided through the love and heroic sacrifices of our Lord, Jesus Christ. To Him and to His Father - and our Father - goes my deepest gratitude and love. They ever have been and ever shall be the willing way to joy and peace within this life and throughout the next. Because the Godhead has all power, and all knowledge, and fullest love I have no fear that in the end all will be well for all who follow their perfect Plan of Salvation. I marvel that this is true, but I know that it is.

-Schlange

Claymation Christmas

[Post 28]

Today is blogging day: right after my last post I added some entries to my food blog. One of them was Wassail Punch. This sparked memories regarding a favorite Christmas special we'd watch when we were kids called "A Claymation Christmas." It's got the California Raisins in it, for those of you who actually know about the California Raisins. (and no, I haven't embedded any California Raisin clips, but here's a link to one. I embedded 2 clips from you tube into the wassail post, and then watched a few more. The following clip introduces what was one of my favorite segments way back then and the clip after that is the segment (coincidently they fit right after the carol introduced by the first clip on my food blog).

Comfort – Life - Enjoyment

[Post 27]

I went for a walk yesterday and was thinking about why people work – what the purpose of work is. I've come to this conclusion: We work to provide for ourselves or for a group comfort, life, or enjoyment. Comfort includes not only physical conveniences but also comfortable emotional states: peace, contentment, etc. Life includes the wherewithal to eat and physical, emotional, and spiritual safety. Enjoyment includes thrills, satisfaction, etc. Work accomplishes this for the laborer generally through the receipt of money (which allows the purchase of the work of others) and hopefully for the satisfaction of a job well done. Work is done for the hirer who has something he's trying to accomplish towards those ends. The ditch digger, the architect, the paper pusher, the president, and everybody else who expends energy all have the same goals and functionality. Some are selfish and labor only for themselves – perhaps at the same time denying these things to others, while many are generous and labor for themselves and others. Focus varies – some struggle to keep living and focus only on that. Others are so preoccupied with enjoying the moment that they literally stop living. In the end I think it comes down to at least one, and most of the time all, of these things. What do you think? Am I right?

-Schlange

Old People are Cool

[Post 26]

Ok, so by "Old People are Cool" I mean my Grandparents are cool and that I can't wait to be old and just like them (making the assumption that I get married and have kids and grandkids - hey, it could happen.) Today I got a good reminder of just how cool they are.

So, My 14 year old brother and I go down to our grandparents' house today for various reasons and while we're there Grandma offers us a slice of her special chocolate cake fresh out of the oven. Now, I'm not usually a fan of chocolate cake, but I am a fan of Grandma's, so I'm pretty excited. We take a plate to grandpa first, then my brother runs over with his plate and I amble over with mine. By the time I get my dish back to the table my brother's large piece is a little more than half gone (the boy is like a piranha sometimes). Grandma notices and bellows, "Dear Boy! You ATE IT TOO FAST! NOW COOL-IT! "

(My grandmother is one of the only people that I know that can make me run out of ways to increase the emphasis in sentence; makes me wish that I could add a crescendo symbol from f to ff.)

Grandpa looks over at Bro.'s plate and says slowly in his deep rumbling voice, "Well… maybe he'll need another one." The boy looks up happily and says cheerfully. "Yes. Maybe I'll need another one."

"NO!" Grandma pronounces as she stomps one foot. "I have to take this cake to my relatives in Bluebell," she finishes much more softly but with an air of annoyance. We all look at her quizzically. She answers, "It's for a Christmas party."

"A Christmas party?" I ask (note that I'm writing this in June).

"Yes, a Christmas Party. My brother is having a June Christmas party."

"??" say the eyes and slightly tilted heads of my brother and I.

"It's so they can get in two," chuckles Grandpa holding up the peace sign.

"Is this a yearly thing?" I ask.

"I don't know, but I think so," says Grandpa.

"Do they put up a tree?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," says Grandma, inflicting the consonant with the vigor of a first grade teacher (this isn't suprising because she was a first grade teacher.) "The oven was hot, and I just had to think of an excuse to go down and spy on their party, so I made this cake." We all chuckle as Grandma turns and leaves the room to finish getting ready for Christmas in June.

After a moment my brother gets up and steps slyly over to the cake, making small movements so as to emphasize his "sneakiness." "Better leave it alone," says I, "that's Grandma's ticket to the party."

Grandpa's eyes sparkle as he leans over and says in a conspiring tone, "Perhaps if we cut a long thin slice off the end it won't be noticed." As he finishes speaking he's already standing up and shuffling over to the cake pan. In the time it would take to say "slick" he's already trimmed off the most exact cake sliver you've ever seen, and divided it into two long pieces and one short one. "I'm going to need somewhere to put these," he mutters with a shifty wide-eyed look that says – "hurry, or I'm going to be in trouble."

Plop, plop, plop. Two long pieces on the grandkids' plates, and one short one on Grandpa's plate. Grandpa shuffles back to the table and everybody sits down and takes a bite. Enter Grandma, bright as the sunshine. "Well, I s'pose I'd better be off."

"We'd better be off too," I say. "We've got stuff to do at the house." I reach over and give my smiling angel Grandma a hug. "Thanks for the cake." In the same motion I look over her shoulder squarely at my grandpa (who happens to be grinning from ear to ear and silently laughing so that his belly is bouncing up and down). "Yes," I say, "thank you for the cake."

मिलाग्रो - AKA Milagros AKA Milagros

Post 25

मिलाग्रो is a Hindi word for "Milagros" which is an English word for the Spanish word Milagros literally meaning "miracle" or "surprise." According to Wikipedia (yes I know, "never cite Wikipedia as a source"... but I'm lazy and not in the mood for extra research - if you're really that interested in source correctness go follow the references Wikipedia lists) Milagros are offerings made of various materials carved into one of many shapes and sizes and offered at alters to help focus a prayer toward the reason for the prayer - healing of a body part, romance, travel, whatever you feel like, and is carved in a way that represents the focus... a leg for a broken leg or traveling or a heart for romance or... um... heart disease? मिलाग्रो is displayed here in the mangal typeface of Microsoft Word, and is how it was displayed to me when I looked up Milagros using some translative device from Google that also mentioned that Milagros appeared in other languages and listed samples... such as मिलाग्रो. I learned that mangal was the typeface when I was curious as to whether I could copy मिलाग्रो into my text editor. मिलाग्रो looks nice, and that's probably why I'm posting. Wikipedia lists the following in response to a search for mangal (I was looking because I figured Mangal was a language and I wanted to know who it belongs to):

Mangal may refer to:
Mangal, a Turkish way of
barbecuing
Mangrove swamp, woody
trees or shrubs that grow in coastal habitats
Mangal
(Мангал), a Bulgarian word meaning gypsy (but with a racist connotation)
Mangal Pandey, a sepoy (soldier) in the
34th Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry of the British East India Company
In an Indian context, mangal (मंगल) means "good auspicious"; it also refers
to a Mangal
Font for the devanāgarī script used for Indian languages [note that
mangle (मंगल) is typed in the Mangle typeface =D]
Mangal
is a typeface in Windows XP
Mangal, a Pashtun
tribe
Mangal,
an Afghan singer
Gulab Mangal, an Afghan
politician
Mangal,
Afghanistan

In short, mangal must mean anything and everything. Use it as a place holder the next time you can't think of the word you're looking for: "I was looking at that famous painting by... uh... Mangal...." or "I need an um... a mangle... " or "Oh... I left your priceless diamond ring over at... whatchaMangle's house" or "You are soooo.... *logical gap*... mangle..."

Oh... I ought to tell you where this whole research project came from: Some Mexican guys where my sister works started referring to her as Milagros or if not that, something else that sounded like it.

Now that I've figured all this out I'm turning in. By the way, if you are looking for some cool symbol to represent your name you can either do what Schmetterling and I did and super impose the letters of your name over each other, or you can be lazy and just type your name into word using the Mangle type face.

*a few moments later*

Doh! no you can't. I just tried to type Schlange in mangal and it came out in the English alphabet. Sad. Oh well. G'night.

-Schlange

Butt Munch

(Post 24)

Pardon the potentially offending post title, but that's really what we're talking about today - grasshoppers that stay on the move to prevent their hindquarters from becoming lunch. For those of you who want to read the whole thing you can read it here.

The main idea of the article is this: swarms of locusts get where they are going because the bugs in front are afraid that the bugs in back are going to nibble their bottoms. There were two paragraphs in the article that made me think about life in general:

The defensive movement away from the perceived threat sets up a domino effect,
as each individual locusts' movement causes them to touch another locust, which
then makes the second locust move away.

"You have millions of individuals all going in the same direction, because if they change direction much, they are likely to come in contact with each other," Sword said.

I think that sometimes people are just like this. We all move defensively away from everybody else, often because we are afraid of getting a "but chewing." That's what defines the direction of society. We all move in a direction that minimizes the negative contact we have with other people - thus we don't really go where we want to go, we just go where we all herd each other to.

Now, the locusts have a legitimate problem. They're cannibalistic and if they don't head for food they become food. We on the other hand have a tendency to imagine the things that other people are going to think. Most of the time we're wrong. Even when we're right we're spineless.

It's a pity.

-Schlange

Change

(post 23)

Things change way to quickly. It can be very hard to keep up some days. You live at home for 20 years, then you take off to go get some learning, then you move home for the summer and then move out again. Every time you change venues everything else changes: the people you're around, your sleep schedule, your degree of control over what you do (or maybe more specifically WHAT controls what you do - is it house rules, or the need for some $$$$), who you work for, your work hours, everything. It's hard to adjust to change, and it always seems that things are changing at exactly the same time you feel like you got used to the last change. I remember writing something poetic about this on my mission. Maybe I'll dig it up and make a post out of it.

-Schlange

Mother's Day

Today, I take off my hat for mothers around the globe and particularly for my own sweet mother. We've got some kind of a connection, she and I. She knows the state of my inner self without asking from a tested distance of 144 miles - I'm not sure what her actual range is, and I'm not sure that I'm willing to move to the other side of the world to find out. She can therefore support me emotionally in a way that no one else can. I'm grateful for that - it's been a huge blessing to me on top of the many other needs she has met for me at the expense of her own personal goals.

Of course there are also several other fine ladies, my grandmothers and aunts, that have always been there for me. I have a close knit family, so I've really been raised by most of my relations. Good things to have, relations. They give life extra zest! My heritage is one of the most important things I've got. I know where and who I come from. That's important to me.

I've got a series of books that my Grandfather and some Aunts put together - the Merrell Books. It's got the biographies and autobiographies of a big chunck of my extended family for a few generations back. I'm even in short paragraph of it.

Today I was reading an account written by my Great-Great Uncle Porter. He was born on Jan. 15, 1900 and died on Dec. 25, 1999. Needless to say, he had a lot of good stories. Besides that, he had a glass eye and he liked to play games that ended with me holding fistful of coins. The man was my hero. Following is something that he wrote about his mother. He wrote a good deal more regarding her communities and church duties, but because we're talking about motherhood, I edited them out for brevity (Keep int mind that Porter was one of 12 children):

"Another interesting side light on Mother..she always breast-fed her babies. This of course, took time and she was not about to just sit there, that would be wasting time. She always had a book or magazine where she could pick it up. In this way she was always well read. She could discuss most issues intelligently. She had a very good understanding of the scriptures. Another trait i admired in Mother was her clean mind.[...] I have never heard her suggest covering up or being deceitful in the smallest degree. Everything had to be honest, even if it hurt.

"My mother worked more than anyone I have known. With this large family, just the food preparation was staggering. It took eight large loaves of bread each and every day; more than fifty pounds of flour per week and everything else in proportion. She kept any rag or piece of clothing, cut them into strips one inch wide, sewed them together and wound them into balls. When she had enough she would set up the loom and weave it into a carpet. Our home, except the kitchen, was covered with Mother's carpet. Straw was put on the floor, then covered with carpet. Each spring the carpet would be taken up and cleaned, the old straw taken out and new straw put in, and the cleaned carpet replaced on the floor. mother made dresses for all her girls. She washed, carded and spun sheep wool into yarn then knit socks, mittens, caps and sweaters for most of the family.

"Many times snow was melted to wash clothes each week. Washing was done with a tub, washboard and soap Mother had made. Washing machines came much later.[...] She did a lot of crocheting, tatting or making flowers. She patched our clothing and darned our stockings. She was up early and retired late.[...] She was and is a wonderful mother."

I'm going to close this post with two toasts found in the book "Toasts - the complete book of the best toasts, sentiments, blessings, curses, and graces" compiled by Paul Dickson:

"Here's to the happiest hours of my life-
Spent in the arms of another man's wife:
My mother!"

"We have toasted our sweethearts,
Our friends and our wives,
We have toasted each other
Wishing all merry lives;
Don't frown when I tell you
This toast beats all others
But drink one more toast, boys-
A toast to - Our Mothers."

God bless mother's - past, present and future (and especially mine!)

-S. A. Taube

It's Alive!

Post 21

Schmetterling had a brain child in the comments of my last post - he said I could make another blog with my family recipes. I made up some plans, hooked the kid (Smetterlings brain child) onto an operating table, ran up my lightning rod, and vuala! I now have a new blog: "The Secre(s)t Collection" - name may be changed to protect the innocent. There's one detailed post about honey candy. I need to add an introduction and adjust the layout and give the two permanent links to each other, but it's there. Thanks Schmett, you're brilliant as always.

In other news, I left a comment on Shmetterling's latest post that's long enough to be a regular post on this blog. You'll have to go there to read it, which will be good for you anyhow because Schmetterling's posts are always fun to read. Maybe you should hang out there for a while and read some of his other posts. One of his recent and highly recommended posts is this one.