Review: Inglourious Basterds

Short version: Jesus H. Christ with butter sauce, I think I just let Quentin Tarantino get to third base with my brainstem.

Longer version: Tarantino being unabashedly Tarantino; a playful, funny, dark, utterly psychotic film that will leave you amused, confused, bemused, and probably in need of some bleach. Highly recommended for Pitt, Waltz, and Roth alone.

Longest version: SPOILERS AHEAD!
"Donny! We got a German here wants to die for his country...oblige him!"

Thus did I know that I was truly in a Tarantino movie.

Plot summary, in case you need it: Three stories about World War II and its consequences collide in Nazi-occupied France. In one story, SS officer Hans Landa kills some Jews as only a Nazi in a Nazi movie can kill them (which is to say, horribly) and establishes himself as our villain, and then goes about his business as the "Jew Hunter" of France. In another story, the survivor of Landa's initial massacre discovers the perfect opportunity for some psychotic revenge when Joseph Goebbels decides to hold the opening of his latest film in her little French cinema. And in yet a third story, Brad Pitt plays a maniacal hayseed who recruits a group of Jewish-American soldiers to help him terrorize the Nazis via methods you would expect from the man who brought us Reservoir Dogs.

Yes, that's right. Those guys in the preview are one of three stories; turns out, that story in the preview? Maybe 30 minutes out of this entire movie. Also there's Hitler.

Tarantino is in many ways at the top of his game here. His use of the camera is masterful, drawing out tense scenes and then snapping scenes we expect to be tense to a sudden and disturbing conclusion. He uses visual cues and tropes from a variety of genres and grounds of interpretation the way a little kid uses Legos, stacking them together in unexpected ways (look at which character gets the Sherlock Holmes imagery and see if that makes you wonder who the good guys are). He plays with his audience's expectations right from the get-go, giving us a movie that forces us to engage and to second- and third-guess ourselves. And we're pretty much never right.

The actors...this wouldn't be the same without the actors. Pitt is astounding as Lt. Aldo Raine, giving him a comical accent that does not diminish his boisterous psychosis, and painting a picture of a man so consumed with hate that he rather upsettingly not very different from the guys he's butchering. Roth does a great turn as Donny Donowitz, aka "The Bear Jew", a gleefully psychotic young Jewish man undergoing the most brutal sort of catharsis. And Christoph Waltz is stunning as Hans Landa; I cannot begin to do this character justice. I want to write a paper just on the character of Landa, and I think that's the highest praise I can give.

This is also Tarantino at his most playful, and I don't say that lightly of the man who actually traced a square behind Thurman's fingers in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino takes a hammer to the fourth wall near the beginning of Act Two and never stops, inserting narration in two random scenes and giving important characters nametags you'd expect from a 70's action show. This movie is almost excessive in the degree to which it plays with its medium; it comes right out and tells you that he is Quentin Tarantino, and he will do whatever the fuck he wants.

If I had a complaint against this movie, it's that I'm not sure it needed to be three hours long. While I won't fault him for his decisions with drawing out more tense scenes (Chapter One is especially beautiful in this respect), there are a few places where I think he could have stood to up the pace a little bit. It is possible that this was me being jarred by getting something other than Pulp Fiction meets Wolfenstein out of this movie, however, and I am prepared to take that statement back upon a more thoughtful viewing.

Also, a warning: This is a god-damn Quentin Tarantino movie. No, really. A man is beaten to death with a baseball bat. A knife is buried in someone's neck. Multiple Nazis are scalped. A bullet hole...you don't want me to spoil the bullet hole. And the body count is astounding for its number and its content. While the violence is contained to a handful of scenes, its lack of length is made up for in level of brutality. And the worst(?) part? You'll probably laugh at some of it. You have been warned.

END WHAT SPOILERS THERE ARE

All in all, I would recommend this movie highly to anyone with a stomach for Tarantino's love of violence. The acting is great, the cinematography superb, and you can tell everyone involved was having an unmitigated barrel of fun. I give this four out of five bloody head-swastikas; now go watch it and see what the hell I mean.

On the Subject of Dice

So it's no secret, really: I'm a gamer on top of everything else. For those not wholly in the know, this means I play that Dungeons & Dragons thing that (supposedly) got those (deeply troubled) kids lost in those steam tunnels. No I'm not a Satanist. But I do pretend to be part devil once a month or so. It's cooler than it sounds.

In case you felt there weren't enough places to try to keep track of me on the Intertubes: I now have a page on the Wizards of the Coast Community. They are, again for the uninitiated, the current publishers of Dungeons & Dragons (created by the late great Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and bought from them late in their lives), and the purveyors of the game's fourth edition, of which I am an unapologetic fan.

I doubt I'll upkeep that blog any better than I'll upkeep LiveJournal, but hey, it's a place to put my gaming thoughts that are a little too technical and subcultural to fit quite right here on the Notes. And maybe you want to join too. Considered the site pimped.

Liveblogging Life

I have been eroding my own restrictions regarding what to post here—I think because my favorite blogs are the unfocused blogs that talk about what life throws at them in an interesting way. Though the subject-specific blogs are interesting, too, but those tend to be things that are a little more easily shared than mine. Anyway. My point is, I keep starting these blog posts about crap that doesn't matter and only tangentially relates to the writing life—recipes that worked out well or my feelings on a celebrity's passing or a movie review for something that's been out for two weeks—and I just stop. Because I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be slinging my minutiae at you day in and day out, like Twitter with no character limit.

And then, I have days like today, where I dream about riding a tugboat to the Amazon Basin to save a woman who I think might have Katie Holmes from the vampiric Victorian dowager who wants to turn her into one of the walking dead; where I catch myself reciting John Malkovich's exercise routine from Burn After Reading in the shower; where I go to get my shoes from the corner where they dwell and get partway across the room before I realize I'm carrying one sneaker and one sandal; where I utter sentences like "I need to choose between going to the gym and shopping for a beholder"; and I start to wonder if maybe liveblogging my life would be such a bad thing after all.

And for the record, I did both. And the Hunan tacos were delicious.

A Nice Night with the Crickets

I was going to write about what I cooked for dinner tonight (Hunan "tacos", and the pitfalls of grating English cucumbers). I was going to write some of Not Providence. I was going to write about the important passing here in my home country.

But tonight, where words should be, I have fog. And the best part? That's kind of okay.

I don't have a deadline looming. I don't feel I've been unsuccessful this week. I don't have a weekend crammed with engagements looking to keep me separate from my keyboard.

I have a night to rest. And a great book to read. And so I think that's what I'll do.

P.S. The Hunan tacos were terrific.

Input Output

In a small way, I have to lean back here and say "What a night".

This evening I was the recipient of that staple of the writing life, the rejection letter; this one for "A Million Stories", from a magazine who for the sake of etiquette will remain unnamed (no sense saying who did and didn't reject me in my early career, at least until the tell-all memoir). It was good news, in the twisted way a rejection can be good news; they read all the way to the end of the story before they rejected it, which means I have promise. And I guess I do.

Of course, timing being what it is, tonight was also the night I had set to put the finishing touches on "Family Ties", my piece for the anthology whose exact name I may or may not be supposed to discuss. I saw the rejection in my inbox, and considered that maybe I shouldn't be making myself deal with writing tonight.

Except no. That's exactly what I should be doing after a rejection.

So I did; and the final fixes turned out to be exactly what I wanted. I see my influences in this story, but I also see me, maybe a little more so than I have in previous works. Will it make the cut? I don't know. But tonight I got 14 pages edited, and wrote a cordial cover letter, and got to mark one thing off the massive checklist of "To Write" and "To Edit" that hangs over by my bed. Up next is Not Providence in spades, and novel queries, and several pieces that have been gathering in my head since the invitation came through; I already started on "A Question of Faith" and felt liberated.

But for now? For now, I think I need some proto-celebratory booze.

Who wants Bushmill's?

Not Providence, Somewhat Like the Post Service

Even with deadlines looming and a slight disturbance to my immune system, I cannot be prevented from providing you with Book 2 Part 6! Revel in the interrogatives!

Shoveling Cultural Snow

It is amazing sometimes how much of a head of steam I can build up over absolutely nothing.

It's Friday here in my slice of the world, and the weather is mild (or so says our building's climate control). Work is pleasantly slow, the office quiet on account of BlizzCon. I've got no concrete social obligations until Sunday. So my mind is wide open, and all I want to do is write.

But sometimes that imperative is damaging. I am sitting here at my desk, feeling the urge to do something constructive toward my writing career; but I don't have any thing specific I want to do. Past experience tells me that writing on my lunch break results in cramped prose, and I don't have the materials together to send out that novel query I want to deal with next week, nor does my thumb drive appear to have the finished version of this month's story submission. But still, there is the burning need to Accomplish. And so I blog.

This isn't accomplishing anything, you say; and you're right. You're absolutely and totally right. But there is something about the act of blogging that scratches the proper neurons—something about the fingers bashing the keys, the primal-quick decisions of word choice and pacing. It's methadone for the soul. It's jumping jacks in the kitchen during the commercial break.

Tonight, there will be writing. Oh how there will be writing. I can already taste whatever I shovel into my mouth to keep myself going. But for now, I just need to get through the day.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the tendency to characterize themselves as a puppet of outside forces is common to both artists and junkies.

Stories, Reality, and the Breakage Thereof

by Tyler, aged 27.

I've been thinking about this issue for some time; I'd guess at least four years, really, possibly longer. I kept telling myself someone had covered this already, that if I wrote it I'd be getting spammed with links to a much better essay by someone with nicer hair and sit here feeling sad about myself. But today I decided, what the hell.

(Warning: Scholarly bitching follows.)

So, it's no big secret I have a huge hate on for a lot of speculative fiction, especially the urban fantasy subculture I am arrogant enough to consider myself a part of. I've spoken out here or nearby about Charmed, and Jeff Van Der Meer, and whoever it was that wrote the Women of the Otherworld series. But I've never been wholly clear why.

It's very simple, or it will be: their treatment of their break with reality, and their use of breaks in place of human condition.

It is my belief that there is one core concept which every speculative fiction piece revolves around: its breaks from reality, "breaks" for short. Every piece has to define, within a varied but reasonable timeframe (usually somewhere near the beginning) how it differs from reality as we understand it. Some pieces make a near-total break from our reality—the main characters aren't recognizably human, or they live in a world entirely made out of marzipan, or something far less inane. Urban fantasy and historical fantasy have more specific breaks—our modern day Chicago, or Victorian Era Paris, or number of other places we recognize and know well, with the exception of those fantastic additions and the alterations they wreak.

This in and of itself is not a problem; really, without some commonality between the author's world and the reader's experience, the book is more or less impossible to understand anyway. The problem is that these breaks in reality are all too often where a writer stops.

These are the urban fantasy novels with two-dimensional protagonists, the ones with paragraph-long explanations of how their vampires work, the ones where the entire plot resolution hinges upon some incredibly lateral interpretation of the wording of the main monster's weakness. These books break with reality in whatever way they choose to do, and do not spend any energy on things like enjoyable plot or character development. All their creativity is caught up in their world-building, which would be impressive if it wasn't so clearly made of cardboard.

Even worse than this are the people who insist on breaking from reality multiple times over the course of their story or stories. By this I mean stories in which every major plot revelation hinges upon twitching aside some other part of the curtain hanging over the supernatural parts of the world, usually in the form of showing us how awesomely powerful or totally rare their newest antagonist or supporting character is. Stories in which the first book is about the main character learning about magic, and the second is about them learning about vampires, and the third werewolves, etc. etc. TVTropes calls this the Fantasy Kitchen Sink, and it's about as exciting as one.

About here is where you've started raising objections. About here is where you're citing the examples of great works I have professed to love that do just this. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance. Or The X-Files. Or anything by Terry Pratchett. And you're not entirely wrong, they do those things; but the difference is that those shows do something else: tell a god-damn story.

Pratchett and Whedon have some of the most interesting and, generally speaking, well-developed characters in modern speculative fiction (though it's supremely easy to just outright hate Buffy); Carter's Mulder and Scully have become bywords for characters of their type within the medium. All three of them had distinct character and narrative arcs, based on but not entirely dependent on the supernatural themes they brought to the table, and played heavily with the media employed to tell them. Their dialog was generally polished, their editing tight, their stories riveting. They were well-written in addition to having interesting supernatural things happen. And I think that's what most speculative fiction authors miss.

I'm not saying I've never done this. I'm not saying only stupid people do it. It's easy, when writing something that breaks with reality, to get so caught up in the world-building and minutiae that the things happening in that world fall by the wayside. It's easy to feel that so much energy went into plotting out how your vampires work that you can stop there. But that's not a novel; that's a roleplaying supplement. And if your world-building relies mostly upon telling us how insanely powerful and an exception to every rule your grab-bag of monsters is (see the Nightside novels for what I mean), the lack of plot and character is just going to help us see that your world-building is bad.

That's why I hate on so much speculative fiction. I want ideas. I want creativity. But I come to the page and the screen looking for a story, and if all I get is a cryptobiology lesson, I'm going to feel gypped. Break from reality; build a new world; but make sure it's a world where something happens.

End rant.

Not Providence: No Special Title!

It's Tuesday 9 o'clock and therefore Randall gets to carp at you again. Part 5: Graffiti and Strife.

A warning to my blog readers: Thanks to the anthology story I've been writing (no, it hasn't been for-sure accepted yet, but I have been working as hard as I can to make it acceptable), I have buzzsawed through a huge portion of the update buffer for Not Providence. I've still got one more week fully in the can and should have another by end of tonight, but there is the vague possibility that if "Family Ties" is a little rocky during second-round edits I may need to take a week or two off to get things handled.

By saying this I hope to avoid having to do so, but you all deserve more warning than me updating on a Monday, surly about having failed myself.

That said, enjoy the update, and I'll work as hard as I can to get a big buffer together again!

Review: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I've recently been concerned that I have become a cinematic apologist; I've written so many reviews (here and on Blippr) about how great the movies I watch are that I've had to start wondering if they're actually great, or if I am just trying too hard to garner some kind of approval (or avoid flame wars). So thank goodness Bonaventura Films came along with a 2-hour counterargument.

Short-form review, spoiler-free: A popcorn movie on quaaludes. Some good action scenes; a plot straight out of the old show, minus the overt jingoism; and some of the worst pacing and storytelling ever to top the box office. Worth a matinee with a friend who will help you make fun of it.

Long form review, POTENTIAL SPOILERS:

When I first heard this movie was coming out, I summarized my expectations pretty well. I expected it to be awesome, but I did not expect it to be good. I went in knowing I threw ten bucks into a bucket of testosterone laced with gunpowder. That said, I was still a tiny bit disappointed.

The movie's strengths, and there are a few, should be listed first. First of all, the villains are as well-played as they needed to be for this movie, which is to say, over the top and straight into orbit. Christopher Eccleston does some great scenery-chewing as the politically amoral "McCullen" (come on guys), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings is a side of evil bacon as "The Doctor" (really?). I should also give lots of points to Ray Park as Snake Eyes, and to the direction that gave his martial arts skills some room for showcasing. And as lame as I thought the addition of the accelerator suits was, the extended scene that uses them is a nice chunk of Stuff Blowing Up in the middle of the movie. And, I will say, the plot is a very good G.I. Joe plot, which is to say, a nice excuse for some military porn with a side of sci-fi.

However, for an action movie, it's surprisingly slow; less time is spent on gunfire and cool stunts than is spent on long CGI glamour-shots of vehicles and lots and lots of exposition. When I say it's a good G.I. Joe plot I also mean it's simplistic, and while I'm not saying I wanted this movie to be The Mousetrap, if they were going to have a simple plot they should have at least had the courtesy to omit the characters explaining everything about it out loud.

Speaking of explaining things, a special message to whoever wrote this script: flashbacks aren't nearly as cool as you think they are. The relationship between Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes could have been described much more eloquently than via two 5-minute flashbacks in the middle of transitional scenes. And the flashbacks establishing the relationships between Duke, "The Doctor", and the Baroness are not only sloppy, but more than a little annoying, seeing as how they are flashbacks meant to establish relationships that the characters never had and didn't need.

And Duke...Duke, Duke, Duke. If I had to summarize the problems with this movie in two words, one would be "flashbacks" and the other would be "Duke". Duke was always the Big Damn Hero of the G.I. Joe story, alongside Flint; but the effort to make him "deep" and "important" in this script winds up not only obvious, but kind of insulting. Duke is stated, but never really shown, to be one of the best soldiers G.I. Joe has ever seen—so much so that they have to make a joke about how he's way cooler than the Black Guy! In fact, Duke is so awesome that his Manly, Puppy-Eyed Love for the Baroness turns her good again, because No Hot Chick is Ever Evil! And of course, Duke is so awesome that Cobra Commander used to be his best friend, because Everyone Important Knows Duke! Really, guys? This is your vision of a hero?

In the end, G.I. Joe gets 3 out of 5 rocket launchers from me, with an entire one of those points going to Joseph Gordon-Levitt hamming it up as Cobra Commander (SPOILED! except not). The explosions are great, the military stuff is appropriately showcased, and the love for the franchise is at least apparent in everything except for the romance plots (Duke is in love with Scarlett, guys, get it straight). This was a movie made by fans, clearly; but not for them. The kids who loved G.I. Joe have grown up, Hasbro; please get over the idea this is a kid's movie.

Not Providence, Unflagging

Rumors of me being late with today's update are greatly exaggerated. Instead, we are 15 minutes early. Behold, Part Four!. Why yes, I did used to eat at Denny's a lot. Enjoy!

In Defense of Dollhouse

Earlier this year, I was a bit of a sheep. I heard from others, others I trust and love, that Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's newest addition to his long television resume, was distinctly Not Very Good. And so, not having television, I did not bother to seek it out. I dodged viewings at friends' houses and chances to use Hulu and generally stayed uninformed. The one episode I caught was already half over, and so more than a wee bit confusing, which did not help things.

However, these sorts of ignorance do not last in my world; a visit to a friend's house birthed a chance to see the first and second episodes, and so watch I did. And I saw enough there that I had to wonder: Was I misinformed? Were my tastes so different? So I ordered the DVD set when it came out, and returned from vacation to find a telltale package sitting on my doorstep.

That was Thursday. I finished Season One of Dollhouse last night.

Those who know me well, know that this is a prodigious event. Much as I love the television medium I am not a person who can sit and watch for more than a handful of hours at a time. So when I say I spent all of Friday either writing or watching Dollhouse, you know how riveted I was. I was not willing to believe for a long time; but now I'm pretty sure I think this is the best show Joss Whedon has yet produced—which is only natural, given that it's born of experience.

Now, I'm not saying those who didn't like it are wrong; I'm not going to try to account for taste just because I have a blog. And I'll admit, I am a drooling Whedon fanboy, so a certain amount of this could be me playing the apologist. But, for those who are interested in what I think, I present a defense of, and primer for, Joss Whedon's Dollhouse...and in the process, hope to explicate what might be bugging the Whedonites about this one.

First, and I cannot stress this enough: Dollhouse is not Buffy. It will never be Buffy, and it doesn't want to be. This is, I think, at the root of a lot of why this show bothers so many; there are fundamental differences between this show and Whedon's previous work that may seem disruptive, or cause false assumptions. Most of the rest of this entry is taken up on what makes it different, so if that doesn't interest you I'll understand if you stop reading.

Dollhouse is darker than Buffy. This is the most important break from tradition: Joss has painted this story a shade darker than his previous ones. That's not to say that the Buffyverse never dealt with adult topics...but when the closest thing to a comic relief episode starts with a man beating himself to death on a windowpane, you know you're in for a different sort of ride.

Dollhouseis more adult than Buffy. This is separate from "darker", but similar. The themes of the Buffyverse shows were maturation and responsibility—learning to deal with the multifarious burdens of life, first as a teenager becoming an adult and then later as an adult who has not learned nearly as much as they think they have. The themes of Firefly were family and the conflict between security and freedom. The themes of Dollhouse are not more important or better, but they are more complicated—the nature of humanity, memory vs. personality, and the massive political conflict between what the Dollhouse can do and what it is trying to do. The story also leaves a lot more gray areas than the previous shows have, and it doesn't seem interested in giving us definite answers.

Dollhouse's ensemble is not where you think it is. Much noise has been made about the problem of Echo as the main character, and the lack of connection the audience feels with her due to her overall dearth of character growth. But while there is plenty of plot surrounding Echo and the nature of the dolls, and while Eliza Dushku's face graces our DVD boxed set...she is not part of the Whedon-trademark "ensemble cast". For that, look to Topher, and Boyd, and DeWitt, and the rest of the crew working behind the scenes at the Dollhouse (further information withheld to avoid avoid possible spoilers). The Actives are ciphers, mirrors that reflect the growth and change within the "normal" human characters; they are not there to be loved in and of themselves, except perhaps in the way pets are loved, they are there to show us what to love and hate about everyone else.

Dollhouse moves slower, but steadier. I love the first season of Dollhouse partially because it is such a taut, well-paced show, as compared to the longer and occasionally more sprawling Buffy seasons. Every episode of this show has a little bit more plot, even if it's just a tidbit; you wouldn't necessarily notice if you watched the season out of order (with the exception of a couple key episodes, which is fairly common in Joss's works). Buffy, with its 22-episode seasons, had a little more room to wiggle; with Dollhouse, thirteen episodes means it has to pack a little plot into everything. But it still peels slowly, like an onion, and for that I love it.

Dollhouse isn't funny, but Dollhouse is witty. This is a very important distinction. Joss is an excellent writer of banter, and he encourages that in his writers; but just because he's not being funny doesn't mean he isn't writing banter. The exchanges between the characters here are fast and sharp and witty, and they deliver a surprising amount of information without the annoying reveal-dumps that stud so many Mutant Enemy imitators. Enjoy the wit. Steep in the wit. Recognize it's clever. Don't wait for a punchline, and the few they do have will shine that much brighter.

That's all I have to say in its defense. I genuinely think the first season of Dollhouse is a masterpiece—witty, taut, and masterfully executed—and I hope that with this primer, you might see it that way, too. If you don't, I hope you at least enjoyed Buffy.

Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Again

Part III: A Pizza and a Return

And just like that, I'm home.

It was a great Wednesday, all told: a break from writing to help my mother with errands, and then pesto chicken pasta for dinner; and with dinner, The Big Sleep and Coraline (both adapted from books, both adapted well, both lacking something the author brought to it in print). I slept restlessly, feeling a clock ticking the whole way—I knew my return came Thursday, but it still felt really abrupt.

Then my mother and I talked this morning, briefly but well, and she went off to a half day's work; and then I was packing up and reading comics (when did Marvel's writing staff get so good) and generally putting the punctuation mark on my latest Fort Bragg experience. From there it was the long drive and the long talk that coincides, and Santa Rosa traffic, and a moon to die for, and a pizza that we almost murdered people to get; and then the too-short ride and the summer night, and the bright bright lights, and home.

It is good to be home, truly, especially when I thought another night separated me and my bed; it's good to have nowhere I have to be tomorrow, to be able to just focus on my own life and my own things; but at the moment I admit I'm a little sad.

It's not that I actually want to live in Fort Bragg again—that proposition only sounds good for reasons I have discussed here exhaustively. But there is a peace to Fort Bragg, a feeling of youth and home, that I don't get here down in Mountain View. Life down here feels busy, occupied, cluttered even, with things to do and things that need doing. Life here feels like bills and responsibilities. And I know that will fade, but right now there's that pre-lingual desire to just crawl back home and sleep some more, and maybe write.

But I have to remember what I saw in Matt Fraction's writing. What I feel when I read about San Francisco, see in Chandler's novels. I have to remember that as wonderful as Fort Bragg is, it's better as a waystation; I can't use it as a home base.

But I can write about it.

Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Again.

Part II: Movies and Drinks.

Two days now on the coast, two and a half counting Sunday, and I have been busy. Somehow, in my time here, I accumulated what feels like a truly staggering number of people who want to see me, and timing worked out such that I saw every one of them either yesterday or today. It's not bad, by any stretch—they're excellent people every one and I'm glad to be getting to spend time with them—but it never fails to stagger me how exhausting a vacation can be.

Monday I woke up bright and early, convinced by some trick of the light that it was 10 or 11 in the morning and I had wasted the first part of my day. Imagine my surprise when my mother was still home. Still, it allowed me to have coffee with her, and it gave me an early start on this week's edits for Not Providence, which was a wonderful beginning to the vacation. From there...began the whirlwind.

We had lunch at the radio station where she works, with her and one of the owners (an old family friend). We had dinner at the Fort Bragg Brewery, an important part of my coming-home ritual, exempted only during holidays. We discussed and discarded me moving back, and talked work, writing, love and life. We watched movies: Secretary (taut, quirky, dark-chocolate sweet), Wonder Boys (delightfully lunatic and straight from the heart), Duck Soup (funny and fundamental), and the newest Harry Potter (good but oddly slow). I realized what a small town this is (a long-silent friend who I met with again this week is married to a man who lived with her ex-boyfriend and just sold my old gaming buddy some dice?). I was told many times it was great to see me, and discussed celebrity chefs and their contributions to the world. I drank excellent beer.

And I felt like a grown-up.

I left Fort Bragg in 1999, returning since then only for visits; more than three months at a time is unheard of. And somewhere in the time, I went from desperate to participate in the adult conversations, to effortlessly getting involved in them. Gone are my bad conclusion-jumps, my awkward insertions, my occasional overstretching for the sake of a joke. I can listen to others' stories now, consider their points; I can read a room without it being painful. I am, suddenly, one of the adults.

And no-one marvels at it. That's the best part. Beyond expected (and heartfelt) reminiscence from my mother, it was a seamless integration. And I've probably been doing it for years without consideration. It is only now, as I talk with the people I thought of as The Adults in my life, that I realize how much I have really grown.

I've been angry lately. I've been tense and wired and overwrought. And suddenly, it's all small stuff. Even the crack in my swanky new hat, which we are hoping we can get fixed. I don't feel like I've got fiddler crabs gnawing at my back, and my breathing is much improved.

I think maybe I needed a vacation.

Not Providence is Here!

Despite my vacation. Despite my slight (but fading) hangover. Despite having fallen asleep without editing the HTML last night. Despite all this, Not Providence is just twenty minutes late! If this were a job I'd get away with a warning.

Here you are: Book Two, Part Three, in which we are warm and fuzzy.

More travel blog posts to come.

Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Again.

Part I: Baseball and Meat.

I had intended to update the blogotron a little more regularly these past few days, fire a warning shot or two, but clearly scheduling and my circadian rhythms have been aligned against this idea. The upshot is, Friday evening marked the beginning of a week's vacation, five days of which I will be spending here, in my hometown of (surprise!) Fort Bragg, California. In case you doubted the inspirations for Book Two of Not Providence.

Saturday, the official beginning of the vacation, was started in what might loosely be termed style: my family and I (father, mother, sister, and aunt) were in attendance at AT&T Park for the game between the Giants and the Phillies.

I have never been more than a cursory baseball person, gathering enthusiasm by proxy from my father's own, well, fanaticism; but something about being in attendance yesterday, with the Bay in the background, fans all around, my father explaining rules calls and muttering about the monstrosity of Howard's slugging average, brought me around to the joy of the game. I don't get the strategy yet, but it meant a lot to me to share a little something with my dad besides dreams, and I'm glad to have something new to learn about. I blame Tim Lincecum.

After that was an early night; a foggy, mostly-sepia goodbye to Dad as he headed out to Boston for a gig; and a dream about a friend living along the Muni line and hopping zombie children on Halloween. I woke up somewhere about then, and moved on with the trek to Fort Bragg via Highway 20, which was more threatening than you might expect for a two-lane highway full of redwoods and curve; and then it was into Fort Bragg proper and the lovely, misty, overcast skies I grew up with.

Fort Bragg is one of those curious towns, with a life and voice of its own which is largely not meant for people my age. It is a town for families and retirees and those who oil the gears, with the young population mostly focused on accelerating away from it as fast as they can. It's a very artistic community in its way, a very individualistic one; and it's only now that I'm really, wholly coming to appreciate it.

It's easy to miss Fort Bragg, because Fort Bragg is emblematic to me of a lack of responsibilities; it's where I was when I was younger, sheltered, my needs taken care of, and the tendency of my parents (as with many parents) to take fiscal charge when I visit only enforces it. It's easy to imagine coming here and just writing, just thinking, losing myself in the vibes and the winds and the whole Indian summer feel of the place; but fortunately, it's also easy to remember the vortex effect I often speak of, and how easy it would be to tell myself going nowhere is really going somewhere. My equally potent addiction to San Francisco probably helps.

I am tired, I'm afraid, all my earlier ideas about editing tonight gone to dust; but, I tell myself, I need these days. I needed two days of baseball, and driving, and Polish sausages, and Kobe beef, and discussion of politics and jobs and dreams and the constant chorus of people clamoring for my attention. It is these things which will recharge my batteries; these things which make up the mist that will fill my soul and come home with me to the heat. But for now, what I need most, more than anything, is to sleep.

Part Two comes soon; but right now, my vocabulary is rusted, and my eyes are full of sand. Goodnight.