by the Night Writer

How old do you feel?

How old would you feel if I told you it has been a little more than 14 years since the last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip (December 31, 1995) appeared? Well, before you fall out of your rocking chair you might want to check out this link to a new interview with the reclusive C&H creator Bill Watterson in today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer. You may also be please to know that the U.S. Postal Service will issue a Calvin and Hobbes stamp this summer in honor of this iconic comic strip.

It’s hard for me to believe that the strip has been so long, and hard not to think that our world is the poorer for it’s loss. Of course, it’s not really gone since the books are still readily available and Google turns up a multitude of (legally questionable) images. As Watterson notes in his interview, it’s probably better that the strip went away while it was still hitting its stride rather than limping on into irrelevancy or bloated, cynical repetition (Calvin and Garfield, anyone?). The strip was a perfect combination of art and entertainment with an inspired premise — a stuffed tiger that was alive only when alone with Calvin — and boundless creativity nearly as unconstrained as Calvin himself.

And, behind the chuckles, it was an often profound and poignant look into the mind of an active boy in an increasingly “Sit down!” world. Boys are naturally energetic and imaginative, quaities that are non-conducive to factory schools. In my day I was fortunate enough to have teachers who recognized this and found ways to constructively challenge and channel our exuberance and hyper synapses. From what I hear and read today, and the studies I’ve seen, it appears the current approach to boys is to dope them with drugs or stupefy them with routine, slowing the brains and deadening any love for learning.

It was fun to see Calvin wage hopeless war against well-meaning but hapless orthodoxy, and hope that there was a brilliant man inside him, waiting to come out. Today we no longer have Calvin the cartoon; I hope to God we have not lost the character.

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by the Night Writer

I’ve been a bit disconnected from the blogosphere the last couple of weeks and haven’t posted much here. Anyone who cares or was paying attention might assume I’ve been working hard on my book and on editing Tiger Lilly’s book. That would be a wonderful excuse if it were true but the fact is my Day Writer job has been a whirlwind lately. It’s been crazy (and will be so through the end of the year and beyond) but it’s a good and rather satisfying crazy having to do with the sale of the Division I work for.

This is really good news for us and something we’ve been working for since last spring. We’ve always been a profitable and capital-efficient business but our current parent decided we were outside their “core” business (which I thought was to make money) and they put us on the market. To our great satisfaction we were spotted and acquired by a company that views our business as core to their own and sees us as a turn-key operation to get them in to a new market. As such they’re leaving us where we are, with staff in place, and told us to keep doing what we’re doing — except now we’ve got some capital to work with. It’s really the best of all possible outcomes for us so everyone is pretty stoked.

In my position, however, I was involved in developing the internal and external communication plans for making the announcement which was made even more interesting by the fact this was supposed to remain a secret with as few people as possible being involved (I don’t know who successful we ultimately were, but there weren’t any leaks on my part). As much fun, and as much work, as that was the real fun and work are really just beginning as we start to transition our business to the new owner. Branding, media relations, advertising and marketing communications, website and reams of internal communications are all on the plate of me and my crack staff of … one other person. Nevertheless, I’m happy and excited because given the way things are in the economy right now I could be trying to craft messages that aren’t so pleasant!

Anyway, with all of these things going on I’ve been feeling pretty tapped out mentally and physically by the time I sit down at my late evening computer so it’s been hard to do much web browsing or commenting or Facebooking. I’ve managed to add a few things to the outline of my book and stuff some notes and extended thoughts into the appropriate buckets but most of my free time is going into Tiger Lilly’s book right now. My objective is to get this one finished in the next week or so because TL’s already pawing and snorting at her keyboard in preparation for the beginning of another National Novel Writing Month contest (Nanowrimo) beginning this Sunday. She’s been squirreling away chocolate and other mind-altering and spirit-lifting consumables around the house and in her “studio” in preparation for her next 50,000+ words in 30-days challenge.

The first book, meanwhile, is a delight to work with. It’s savage, endearing and funny all in turns with some great characters and situations and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. My editing function is to read it with an eye toward continuity and verisimilitude and anywhere I’ve pointed out a scene that needs bolstering or more exposition she’s plunged back in with alacrity and enthusiasm and a re-write. You’ll want to stay tuned for the finished product — coming soon, I hope!

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by the Night Writer

Earlier this week a group of ruffians high-jacked a comment thread at another blog with Monty Python and the Holy Grail references completely unrelated to the topic (perhaps the group thought it was time for something completely different). While I think any time is always a good time for a Monty Python digression, this particular frolic presages IFC culminating it’s week-long Python-fest with a broadcast tonight of the lads’ crowning glory, MP&THG at 9:00 p.m. CST.

I’ll probably watch at least part of it, even though I own the special edition anniversary DVD of the film (it’s a real hoot to watch the Lego version of the movie, or the version in Japanese with English subtitles that are hilariously inaccurate). I first saw this movie when I was in high school and then over and over again while in college, back before there were such things as VHS and seeing a favorite movie meant taking advantage of a midnight screening or some such. I did go a number of years without seeing the film, however, and when I did see it again I was amazed to see how many pieces of my daily (or almost-daily) vocabulary came from this movie; phrases such as “Nii!”, “Run away!”, “It’s just a flesh wound”, and “Let’s not bicker and argue over who killed who.”

I’m also pleased to report that, while my tastes in many thing diverge greatly from those of my wife and daughters, this movie has been a family favorite from the first time the girls watched it and were turned into giggling newts on the sofa (they got better). They quickly absorbed the dialogue and made it their own which makes me quite the proud father — though the Mall Diva’s mad skills did result in us getting thrown out of the Tower of London back in 2006.

So, fair warning, watch tonight at your own risk. If, however, you think you may ever need to know the air-speed velocity of European vs. African swallows, or what may be found in the Book of Armaments, or the ways of identifiying a witch, you’ll want to tune in.

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by the Night Writer

It may be hard to believe, but I initially didn’t like to read when I was a boy. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t catch my fancy despite encouragement by my mother and grandfather. And then one day — I think in the third grade — I checked a book out of the school library, the classic by Maurice Sendak, “Where the Wild Things Are”. From the opening lines and drawings I was captivated. Who could forget, “On the night that Max wore his wolf-suit, and made mischief of one form or another, his mother called him ‘Wild Thing’ and sent him to his room without any supper.” How cool would it be to have a wolf suit? I always knew my bedroom walls could turn into a forest! And those beasts with huge eyes and feet — they had to have stepped right out of one of my dreams!

I think the book was what connected my imagination to my adrenal gland. I don’t know how many times I checked that book out of the library before I got a copy of my own as a gift but I would read that book and feel myself walking into the forest just as Max did. And then, coming back to find his supper waiting for him after all…there was something about that last line that so simply, yet eloquently, demonstrated the power of fantasy and how deftly it could be turned back into reality: “And it was still hot.” Shivers, to this day when I think of the perfection of that last line.

Naturally, WTWTA was a staple around our home as the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly grew up. Both loved to be read to, and Tiger Lilly was especially taken with Sendak’s book. For a time her two favorite night-time stories were “Lawrence the Hedge-hog” and “Where the Wild Things Are.” Both were fabulous, but it did get a bit old to see her toddling toward me, holding one or the other book in her arms, wanting to be read to. One night, when she was two or maybe just turned three, she climbed up next to me on the couch with “Wild Things.” She wiggled in next to me and put the book in my lap and settled back. Upon opening the book, however, instead of reading, “On the night when Max wore his wolf suit…” I said, “If I were a brave hedge-hog,” thought Lawrence, “I would be at the Grand Hotel right now enjoying a piece of coconut-cream pie.”

Tiger Lilly immediately leaned forward, looked at the book, looked at me, and said, “NOoooo! Not Lawrence! Wild Things!” Another fan for life.

So there I was in a movie theater a month or so ago, about to watch the latest Harry Potter, I think, and suddenly one of the unmistakable wild things was larger than life on the big screen in front of me! My heart skipped a bittersweet beat. Immediately it was as if I was seeing an old friend, yet just as quickly cold fear set in as to what “they” might have done with “my” story. Was it a preview of a coming attraction or of coming angst? “Lord of the Ring” purists had nothing on me, except they were worried about what would be cut out of the bazillion page epic while I wondered what would have been added to the 40-some page touchstone.

Right now, that is unknown. But isn’t the unknown an essential part of any adventure?

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by the Night Writer

The Twins are once again in the play-offs and my wife and I are celebrating our anniversary. 22 years since the Twins made their first unbelievable run to the World Series and since we started a miraculous, have-to-be-seen-to-be-believed run of our own. Happy anniversary to my all-time best free agent acquisition and MVP!

Typically I run some handsome photo of the two of us smiling at the camera. This year I’ll use a different perspective in showing one of the great accomplishments of our marriage:

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by the Night Writer

Four years ago a friend, fellow writer and co-worker of mine was nearly killed in one of the most devastating highway accidents in the history of Connecticut. Mark Robinson suffered severe injuries in the 20-vehicle pile up created when a fully-loaded, poorly maintained and uninsured Mack dump truck crashed into a double-line of cars waiting at a traffic light at the bottom of a hill. And he was a lucky one. Many other people died in the crash and conflagration, leaving him with a sense of loss and guilt and wonder at why he had been spared.

Mark and I both write things for a large financial services company. Our work is valuable enough to our employer I suppose, but little of what we do is going to change anyone’s life. That’s about to change for Mark. About six months after the crash I was talking to Mark about some momentary crisis in our corporate world and the conversation eventually turned to the new perspective he had gained as a result of what he’d been through, and the connection – and even the sense of responsibility – he felt for those who had been there that day. The idea of writing a book was banging inside of him. As he healed from his injuries and the wound in his soul, Mark set out to document what happened to him on that fateful day and, most importantly, to tell about the lives of those who were killed and of the dozens of bystanders and emergency personnel who courageously risked their own lives and health to try and save their fellow men.

That book has now just been published. Entitled Smoke, Fire and Angels – Tragedy on Avon Mountain and the Life-Changing Aftermath. All the proceeds of the book are going to the families of those who didn’t survive that day, who are struggling on without them. I’ll speculate that just getting this out there is all the benefit Mark needs; the opportunity is there, however, to benefit many others. Please go to the link above, review the information there and consider buyng a book or twelve. More details are in this video.

Thanks.

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by the Night Writer

Tiger Lilly and I took an evening off from our writing endeavors to go to the Dome with a couple of her friends for the Twins-Indians game. I won the tickets in a drawing at work and they were pretty good seats, located next to the Twins’ bullpen in the fourth row. This was strategic and fortunate as Delmon Young flipped a ball into the stands after catching the third out one inning and the ball ended up at the feet of my daughter’s friend. It was also likely the final opportunity for me to take in a Twins game at the Dome where I had worked as a scoreboard operator for several years.

The evening didn’t start out too well, though, as the Twins lineup in these September days featured guys named Mendoza in the fifth through ninth spots. They were Brendan Harris-Mendoza at (putative) DH; Delmon Young-Mendoza, LF;  Matt Tolber-Mendoza, 3B; Carlos Gomez-Mendoza, CF; and Nick Punto-Mendoza, 2B. Fortunately the Twins managed a stirring come from behind victory in the bottom of the 8th (the only inning they scored) and Joe Nathan – after getting two quick outs – staggered to another save. In addition, Joe Mauer went 3-for-3 with a walk to raise his league-leading average to .371. A real highlight of the evening for me, however, was a trip to the scoreboard room next to the press box where I found three of my old buddies working. They waved me inside and we had a good time reminiscing about some of the events we’d worked and they repeated some of the jokes I had told back in the day (and had nearly forgotten). At one point one of the guys asked me, “Do you hear anything from your old pal Tony Kubek these days?”

I paused for a moment and said, carefully, “Tony and I don’t talk anymore.”

That all goes back to an incident between the famous ex-Yankee and broadcaster and myself that I related, along with several other anecdotes, back in 2007. Since the Dome’s baseball days are dwindling I thought I’d re-run that post here as a good-bye.

At Home in the Dome Continue reading →

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by the Night Writer

No, I’ve not given up the new book project already (actually some nice progress made last night), but I saw this in today’s Writer’s Almanac posting:

It was on this day in 1901 at the Minnesota State Fair that Teddy Roosevelt (books by this author) gave a speech and uttered his famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” He said that it was a West African proverb that he had always liked. He probably picked it up from his wide reading — he often read a book a day, even after he became president, and he wrote a total of 40 books during his lifetime.

I never knew that that famous phrase was introduced right here at our very own great Minnesota Get-Together, though it is obvious that Minnesotans have taken this philosophy to heart: when we go to the Fair we eat all kinds of food, most of which is sold, yes, on a stick.

The Reverend Mother, Tiger Lilly and I are going to the Fair tomorrow, and if I’m speaking softly at all it will be because my mouth is full of cheese curds.

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