Life Sentence

I was at the gym on Monday. I was going big and not going home, pumping iron, tossing weights, maxing out, gettin’ ripped, and building mass… well I was at least drinking my electrolytes and watching other folks do all that when the DJ came on the radio and called me out. He spoke to my soul.

A retro-DJ with no relation whatsoever
to the DJ in my story.

“Yesterday,” he said in his radio voice, “was 911 and I had a few hours for reflection as a good friend of mine died last week and I attended his funeral. I stood in the sun and considered all of the wonderful things said about the man. How he was gracious and giving, and how he’d be missed. I asked myself then,”—the DJ went on—“as I ask myself now… why do we wait? Why don’t we tell people how we feel about them today, rather than wait until they are gone? For you folks listening, go tell someone how much you appreciate them today. Tell them how you value their friendship. Tell them you love them. It is important that we say these things when we feel them, so don’t hesitate. Go do it now… or not, if you don’t want to.”

Or not, if I don’t want to?! …What the hell? No, no, no Mr. DJ man, no! You just dropped your conviction on the way to your point. You had me. I was poised and ready to go hug a big sweaty workout buddy when your conviction just up and lost its balls.

Imagine the hangover if JK Rowling’s grand plan of “love conquers all” cruised into the wrong bar and got all staggery-drunk on magic? Or if Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Lion and the Scarecrow learned that to find their respective home, heart, courage, and brains, they just need apply for a VISA gold card (because everyone knows that The Emerald City doesn’t take American Express)?

C’mon folks, all of you DJs and writers and anyone else with a story… get yourself convicted. 

How is your conviction going?

Munk’s opening line…

Upon careful examination of the ape’s dead caterpillar, Mynce knew the real culprit was a small, left-handed child, three to four inches in height, and proficient with mint-waxed dental floss.

Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk

Today’s music is dedicated to TJ Riles and Jayne, both of whom I expect are future (or current) fans of the Avett Brothers, I am not choosing the most accessible cut from the bro’s Emotionalism CD, but I love this song because of its breadth, its banjo (yes Jayne, the banjo takes stage-center), and its obvious pop leanings (think Pet Sounds gone Americana). God only knows… Paranoia In B Flat Major. 

RIP TM.

The Devil in the Details

Last week I discussed my love for “place”. This week I will discuss my love for details, which in turn, adds to place and often teaches me new things. Trivial things sometimes, but interesting to me. I love learning. I love reason. In a nerdy way facts connect me to the universe. Jon Krakauer knows climbing, Herman Wouk is a military geek, and Laura Hillenbrand loves horses… and it shows. I can see, feel, and smell their worlds and characters.

Examples:

"I’d gained nearly seven hundred feet of altitude since stepping off the hanging glacier, all of it on crampon front points and the picks of my axes. The ribbon of frozen meltwater had ended three hundred feet up and was followed by a crumbly armor of frost feathers."  Jon Krakauer, describing his ascent of The Devil’s Thumb in Alaska from, Into the Wild. (Meltwater and frost feathers? Are those his own word combinations? Bully, bully, Mr. Krakauer) 

"Charles Howard had the feeling of a giant onrushing machine: You had to either climb on or leap out of the way. He would sweep into a room, working a cigarette in his fingers, and people would trail him like pilot fish. They couldn’t help themselves. Fifty-eight years old in 1935, Howard was a tall, glowing man in a big suit and a very big Buick."  Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit. (Note that among all of these descriptors, somehow Ms. Hillenbrand is able to "tell" us that "They couldn’t help themselves" and yet it comes off looking like a "show". Get it?)

"The focus of Willie’s mind widened beyond the plank now and took in the quarterdeck of the Caine. It was a place of noise, dirt, bad smells, and thuglike strangers. Half a dozen sailors were clanking at the rusty deck with metal scrapers. Other sailors were walking past, cursing under crates of cabbages on their backs. One man in a welding mask was burning a bulkhead with a crackling sour-smelling blue flame. All around were patches of new gray paint, patches of old gray paint, patches of green prime coat, and patches of rust. A tangle of snaky hoses, red black, green, yellow, brown, lay all over the deck. The deck was covered with orange peel, fragments of magazines and old rags. Most of the sailors were half naked and wore fantastic beards and haircuts. Oaths, blasphemies, and on recurring four-letter word filled the air like fog." …  Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny. (If you haven't smelled The Caine Mutiny, it's time for you to do so. Don't be put off by the length of description here, the book is a character piece and in this scene Willie is entering his new world, much to his chagrin.)

Munk's opening line:

The boat was powered by the souls of frogs.

Discuss, Munk

Please fall into this week's music... Fishing Blues by Taj Mahal, it's like one last breath of summer.

And thanks go out to TJ Riles... for being cool. Go GB. 

Love-a-Roll-a-Coast-a

After receiving a few more positive commentaries on Syntropy I was struck again as to why I love books and movies. It’s the same reason I love life. To quote the good doctor, “Oh the places you’ll go!”

I love new worlds, brave or otherwise. Books or movies without a sense of place often leave me cold. I recently read The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton and was left chilled to the unmemorable bone.

The books and characters I love all have a sense of place: Scout has Maycomb, Billy has the Ozarks, Muad’—“my name is a killing word”—Dib has Arrakis, Augustus has his little grove of pecan trees down by the creek where he and Clara used to spend time together, Harry has Hogwarts, and Booker has the Muddy Joe river bottoms. For me to find a book truly engaging, I have to fall into the pages and want to stay. When I was in the Ozark’s with Billy Colman I didn’t simply fall in love with two dogs, I fell in love with barefoot summers and patched overalls.  

Further, I believe that building a clear sense of place serves more purpose than simply creating a world for the reader to enter. I believe it promotes story telling. In the interest of time I will share just one example. Assuming you have read and own the Harry Potter series, grab your copy of The Order of the Phoenix and turn to page 609. Near the bottom of the page Harry is pulled into Dumbledore’s office by the utterly detestable Madam Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge and an ad hoc trial breaks out, complete with a jury of talking portraits. I often think of this scene because I remember being amazed by the density and deftness of the ensuing action. For the next thirteen spellbinding pages Ms. Rowling treats us to a view into a pseudo-courtroom populated by no less than ten unique voices and at least sixteen total character references, not to mention the numerous spells, jinxes, charms, and Phoenixes flying about. And then there is Harry himself, who all the while is sharing with us his thoughts and suspicions while simultaneously having a non-verbal conversation with Dumbledore on the side. My point… the swiftness and lucidity of this scene would not have been possible had JKR not first built a world where this density of narrative was possible.

 

To sum: I appreciate it when an author takes the time to build an interesting world for two reasons: one, because I like going to new places; and two, because in the right hands a well built world can act like the rails of a roller coaster.

What keeps you on the edge of your seat?

Munk’s opening line:

The Palace of Fraelok was cracked in all the right places.

Munk’s opening line is yours to keep, use it.

This week's on-theme music: Ohio Players, Love Roller Coaster... say what?

Centripetal Notions

Every weekday morning I wake-up, shave, kiss and tickle my wife and kids, and ride my bike to work.

I work at a tech firm. You know the type, the huge multi-national conglomerate whose major stockholders and board of directors have become so focused on the distance between the first and last digits of their net-worth that they have forgotten the importance of the people and the technologies that allowed them the digits in the first place. The firm, whose board of directors spends their twenty working days a year nattering away in a price-per-share soap-opera determining the fate of thousands of people’s careers, while hiding behind terms like 'complimentary investments' and 'uncomplimentary divestitures'.... oops, sorry... I promised myself I wouldn’t go there, so I’m stopping this train. If you crave more anti-establishment rant, please head over to Tim Riley’s place and view Jon Stewart’s hilarious yet poignant take on the subject.

So, anyway, I work at a tech firm. I have technical chops. And, like the typical engineer, I am a nerd, a geek, a freak, and a really good dancer. One of the buzz-phrases we often use around the office is “Cycles of Learning” or “COLs”. COLs are the packets of time required to solve a problem. Most often a problem at work involves turning some idiot savant’s crazy idea into a useful device and the ensuing discussion focuses on shortening or reducing the number of COLs required to make the idea a reality. The number and length of COLs required for a problem depend, quite naturally, on the complexity of the problem and the number of resources assigned. Rather than bore you with the nuances of how the number of inventions required to solve a problem can be used to strike a healthy resource allocation, I’ll again stop the train and just say this: Writing a novel is a really, really hard problem and therefore (in my case) requires multiple, time consuming learning cycles.

So far, I believe every learning cycle (or Syntropy re-write) has been absolutely necessary, but I am nearing a dilemma—when do I stop? You see, science is easy, or at least the end point is. You either meet your constraints or you don’t. You rarely hear an electrical engineer asking her cube mate if he wouldn’t mind re-watching a light toggle on and off on a new circuit she designed. “Did you like it that time? How did it make you feel? What if I switched it on and off really fast? How about slow? Does it turn you on? Do you care about the light? Does it make you want to keep watching? What if I just hinted at turning it on?” No. Under normal circumstances in the tech world, on-is-on, off-is-off and that-is-that.

"It may be perpetual motion, but it will take forever to test it."

A confounding piece of the puzzle for me is that my re-writes come slowly. During my six-month re-write sojourns I know that I continue to grow as a writer and therefore once finished, I am compelled to start over.

And there you have it; my cycle of learning has become a perpetual motion machine.

What does your done-state look like?

Munk's opening line,
"Jim, your increasing tendencies toward centripetal acceleration have forced us to let you go."
Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk
(A punchline without a toon is a sorrowful thing. Can someone please draw me a picture for this one?)

And finally, music this week: (after last week's comments I will spare you more Donner Party and stay on theme with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Perpetuum Mobile. Please listen, it just might make your day, and the next, and the next, and the next,...

Limits. Find Yours.

The scariest movie I ever saw.

The scariest movie I ever saw, was a made for television film chronicling the real-life homicide investigation of Sam Sheppard, a neurosurgeon on trial for the murder of his pregnant wife. He claimed a bushy-haired intruder had entered their home and done the killing. It was a brutal act. A blunt instrument was employed to violently pulverize the woman’s skull and spatter her brains on every wall of her bedroom.

From my memory, it wasn’t an exceptionally well done film, though I could hardly be the judge. I was eleven. I’d snuck out of bed and was hunched on the stairs, peering through the stair rails at the shimmering cathode ray tube in the far corner of our sunken family room. The backs of my parent’s unknowing heads were silhouetted against the television’s flickering light. The carpet was shag. The rails wrought iron.

I worried for the doctor, I worried for the intruder, I worried that my parents would turn and catch me watching. But what worried me the most had nothing to do with declared innocence or guilt. What worried me the most was that just like me, someone had fallen prey to an urge to do wrong, and wrong they had done.

Which movie scared you the most?

Munk's Opening line...

"Pam was hardly a name suitable for a murderer, so I changed it."

Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk

This week's music... Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around.  

Oh... and anyone who has yet to meet Rebecca Kiel, should do so now. Her blog is well spoken, thoughtful and inspiring.

Sweet Munk Nothings

On the heels of last week’s post about nothing, I’ve stepped it up and found something to write about. And it really is something... It makes the world go around, it lifts you up and it knocks you down. It can have you floating on air, or crushed by despair. You can feel it in your fingers; you can feel it in your toes. Yep… it’s LOVE.

Love is my something this week.

I did a quick search and found numerous sites about love, each with its own categorical definitions. One was content with just two categories: passion and compassion, another described three: Eros, Philos, and Agape, some defined as many as four or five or even six. But regardless of the number, all were firm with the limits of their categories. “That’s it, love defined,” they seem to say.

I see love and all of its variants as infinitely adaptable and therefore indefinable. Trying to define love is like trying to define literary genre, each variant squirms and strains against the trappings of classification.

Don’t believe me? Grab a few opinionated friends and try to classify this list without a debate.

In no particular order…

There’s puppy love and Courtney Love, unbidden and forbidden,

There’s sensual, consensual, unbridled, and once bitten,

There is fading love so bittersweet it tastes of melancholy,

And the crazy, stupid, crushing love that only leads to folly,

The obsessive and possessive loves, of tainted jealousy,

And the unrequited stinging love of ‘never meant to be’,

There’s timeless, endless, boundless love, and trysts that lead to scandal,

Cool, gentle, tender love, and love too hot to handle,

Ethereal, untellable, agape love divine,

The carefree-careless, summer love that ends before its time,

There’s gay love, straight love, and a mother’s love unguarded,

There’s funny love, a comic’s love, and that wasn’t me who farted,

Rivaling-reveling-sibling love ‘tween sister and a brother,

And the super freaky sort of love you don’t take home to mother,

But of passion or compassion or of tender loving care,

The best of love that I have found is that which I have shared.

XOXO,

Munk

Munk’s opening line.

On vacation by a lake, Munk had a second glass of wine and wrote a poem. No one had the good sense to stop him or help him with punctuation.

Munk’s opening line is yours to keep, use it.

This week’s music… Love is All Around, The Troggs--1967 

A very cool band with a very cool and early promo video.

I will have limited connectivity this week... my replies will be even more sporadic than usual.

Damn that Munk

This is a blog post about nothing. If you find nothing of interest in the following text, it’s because my goal this week is to provide you with a string of easily digestible words and phrases that may at first appear compelling, but in retrospect present no substantive value whatsoever. No value in the least.

To repeat, and stay with me here, there is nothing, not the slightest tidbit of information in these words that should be construed as interesting. Perhaps you continue to read because you are drawn by an inexplicable desire to find out if I am kidding, hoping that a punch line awaits. I can assure you it does not. There is nothing more to this blog than the opening sentence predicts—nothing. I am writing words, with the simple goal of writing words, nothing more, nothing less.

Some of you still reading must be asking yourselves, why? Why, after reading over-and-over again that nothing of value is to come, must I keep following along?  Perhaps you are searching between the lines for hidden metaphors or some higher purpose, for some scrap of sanity among the nonsense.

And I’m sure that by now there are several folks out there who after throwing their hands up in disgust have dropped out. “Damn that Munk,” I’ll bet they cursed, before stabbing their cursor on their browser’s BACK button, “he’s always playing around, doesn’t take nothin’ serious.”

Well, see-you-later… you impatient lot… bon voyage, and hit-the-road, because I was kidding. There IS something more to this week’s blog, something amazing, something so absolutely awe-inspiring, that those of you who have stuck around will be talking about it for weeks… or not.

Munk’s opening line…

My name is Camden and I would like to be part of you.

Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk

This week's music:
Mazzy Star -- Fade Into You.