My friend Rick Saenz has recently posted quite a few thought-provoking essays about “living the simple life“; I commend them to you.

Rich reminds me of something Uncle Screwtape says to his nephew Wormwood, which unfortunately I cannot quote because my copy of The Screwtape Letters has wandered off. Screwtape says, in effect, that there was a time when men knew fairly well whether a thing was true or not; and that if you proved to them that they were mistaken, they would change both their beliefs and their behavior accordingly. I think Rick exemplifies that latter phrase better than anyone I know–he’s changed his beliefs and his behavior both in the time that I’ve known him several times, and has pursued the logical end of his beliefs with vigor and apparent fearlessness. He’s ended in a place that might seem alien to many of us, but I’ve learned never to discount the things he finds important.

Over the last few years, Rick and his family have sought the simple life by moving to the country and starting a family business–and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But where Rick’s been something of a rolling stone, I’m a well-rooted tree, both in my home (I’m raising my four children in the house in which my parents raised me and my three siblings) and my career (I’ve been at JPL for almost two decades). The challenge for me, then, is how to seek the simple life here, in my current home, in my current job, without seeking more fertile soil elsewhere. On the other hand, though it hasn’t generally been my goal to lead a simple life many of the things Rick says resonate with things that we’re already doing–or, as it might be, not doing. I’m curious to discover the extent to which I’m already leading a simple life. I’ve clearly got some thinking to do.

This is a “country” mystery; that is, it’s similar to a country house
mystery except that the venue has expanded to include an entire
neighborhood and all of its colorful characters. A resident is killed
while angling in the stream and is found dead with another man’s catch
at his feet. Inspector Alleyn is called in by the local Lady of the Manor
to trawl through the red herrings.

I’m normally very fond of Marsh’s work, but I’m afraid I thought this one
a bit tedious. Possibly I just wasn’t in the proper mood for it; but on
the other hand, I seem to recall thinking it tedious the first time I
read it as well. The ending surprised me, though, and there are some
memorable characters, so it wasn’t a total loss. I especially liked
Nurse Kettle, who reminds me of a recorder player I know.

This fascinating book is a new translation of Plato’s dialogues, a
translation done with two objects in mind. The first was to convey the
spice of the original Greek text. Apparently the first English
translations of Plato were done in a polite and bowdlerizing era, whereas the Greek
text was rather less polite and occasionally outright lewd. The second
was to condense Plato’s more elaborate rhetorical flights so as to make
his philosophical arguments plain and easy to follow without losing
any essential nuances.

I predict that this book is going to start a fairly large number of
arguments. In the first place, I rather expect it will
disjoint the noses of quite a few academic purists. I’m sure that many
philosophy departments will ring with the question, “Have you seen the
new Reader’s Digest version of Plato?” accompanied by snickers and
giggles.

The larger number of arguments, though, will be among the groups of
people who actually read the book. Now, I have to preface the following
remarks by saying that I am not a philosophy major, nor do I speak
classical Greek, nor have I read all that much Plato in English
translation (and that little almost twenty-five years ago). In short,
I am no judge of whether Quincy’s condensation is as faithful and nuanced
as he claims. On the other hand, I think I can fairly say that it makes
for good reading. In the dialogs that I’ve read so far (Lysis,
Euthyphro, Crito, Apology, Phaedo, and
Gorgias) I found myself following Plato’s arguments without the
least bit of difficulty and finding lots of spots where I wanted to argue
with him. What’s not to like?

And that’s why I think the book will start lots of arguments. Because
Plato’s line of reasoning is so clearly presented, it becomes easier
to take exception with it. And as different readers are likely to
take exception to different parts, I’d expect discussion to flow fast
and furious. In the preface, Quincy notes that he’s taught from this
translation, and “only in my Plato class have I had to break up a
fistfight between students.” I expect a book club could have great fun
with it.

The dialogs are presented in order of composition; each begins with
a historical note (sometimes quite lengthy) about the situation in
Athens at the time the dialog supposedly takes place. These are also
likely to raise eyebrows, at least for those familiar with Plato and
Socrates and not with wider Greek history. We’re accustomed to thinking
of Plato and Socrates as two of the “good guys”; like almost all
human beings, their actual conduct was less than saintly.

Although Quincy claims that his condensed translation captures every
important nuance of the original Greek text, he is quick to point out that
this book is not intended to replace standard translations of Plato’s
work, but rather is intended to be an aid to understanding them. In
fact, he recommends reading each dialog at least three times: first in a
full translation, then in his condensed translation, and then in the full
translation once more. For philosophy students I suspect that this is
wise council; for the generally curious reader, though,
Plato Unmasked stands perfectly well on its own.

Part of my doctor’s recent prescription, co-equal with the diet, is the mandate to go walking for at least 30 minutes a day and to be more active in general. This is a bit difficult, as I’m sedentary by nature and don’t much care for going outside and working up a sweat. I dislike jogging, running, hiking, football, basketball, and most other sports. Tennis requires a partner, and anyway I’m no good at it. Golf, well, golf is a possibility, but it’s also expensive. Going out for a walk is cheaper, and I don’t need to keep score.

There is, however, one kind of physical activity (other than walking) which historically I’ve actually enjoyed, and that’s rollerskating. Forget skating rinks–what you need for good skating is a few miles of reasonably smooth, sparsely populated concrete. Rinks are too crowded, and before you can build up any speed you have to turn. But a long concrete path is heaven. Back when I was in high school I spent most summers in Long Beach, which has many suitable areas; I had a pair of rollerskates and skated all over the place just for fun.

I should point out that this was before the in-line craze; my skates were the old-fashioned kind, with four wide eurethane wheels in a rectangular pattern. I gather they call them “quads” these days. About eight years ago, during an earlier attempt to be more active, I hearkened back to those glory days of yesteryear and decided to try skating again. I wanted to get a pair of quads, but all I could find for sale were inline skates, so that’s what I got.

I hated them. I practiced several times a week for several months, and never got comfortable with them. And eventually, of course, they got put away and never used again. But thanks to my doctor the issue arose once again, and this time I found that things were a bit different. I still hated my inline skates. I still couldn’t locate a store in my area that sells quads. But I found any number of stores on-line that sell them, in a wide range of styles and prices. This was food for thought.

So today my family sallied forth to try an experiment–we went to a roller rink about forty minutes from our house, and rented skates for everyone in the family but the baby. Our goals were two: to see if Jane and I could still skate, and to see how well the kids did on skates. The results were mixed. Jane and I can still skate, though it took me a couple of turns around the rink to be comfortable on skates again. The kids, well, the kids need practice. Lots of practice. LOTS of practice. They need practice just to be able to practice. But if they can figure it out, we could have some outstanding family outings.

So it’s likely that we’ll be investing in skates, so the kids can practice in the backyard. And then, who knows–perhaps we’ll take a drive down to Long Beach and explore the waterfront.

It’s a little known fact that Shakespeare generally worked out the plot of each play in the form of lyric poetry before writing the actual work. Some of these poems have been preserved; Brandywine Books has the scoop.

Really, I hadn’t intended to take such a long break. But I haven’t finished any books (though I’m working on some good ones) and then, The Incredibles DVD arrived in the mail yesterday. Jane and I watched it last night, since Jane wasn’t able to see it in the theater, and then we all of us sat down this evening and watched it again–along with the new short, “Jack-Jack Attack”, which is simply outstanding.

Tomorrow is Pinewood Derby Day (if it doesn’t rain), about which I might have more to say anon; but now, I must go and catch up on my e-mail. TTFN!

Yesterday, I’m not particularly ashamed to admit, I fell from grace with respect to my diet. For over a month I had been good, only eating food that was on the prescribed list. But last night, Jane and I had to leave home at 4:30 to get to a meeting over an hour away which would then run for another several hours; there was simply no time to have a normal meal.

So we went to In’N’Out Burger, and I got a Double Double, “Protein Style”. That means it comes wrapped in lettuce leaves instead of in a bun. Yes, for the first time in a month I got to have some red meat and cheese without “low-fat” in its name. It was delicious.

In fact, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Lars Walker is guest-blogging over at Brandywine Books; time to take a look. (Lars is the author of a number of books I reviewed some time back, including the excellent historical fantasy The Year of the Warrior.)

I really wish I could say that I liked this book, which is an anthology
of Charnas’ short fiction. She writes well, and the stories kept my
attention; there’s certainly no lack of quality here. So why did I find
them so uncongenial? I’ve been pondering this, and I’ve come up with a
number of reasons.

To begin with, there are the vampires. I like a good monster as well as
the next person, but I’m not really down with the whole psychosexual Anne
Rice vampire thing. It does nothing for me. For what it’s worth I
suppose I like Charnas’ vampires better than Rice’s.

Next, there’s the style. Although work of book-length fiction is
commonly called a “novel” these days, there’s an important distinction
between the novel proper and the romance. I don’t want to go into it in
detail here, but simply put, in a novel the action is largely internal
and in a romance the action is largely external. Many books work in both
ways, of course, and those are the ones I tend to prefer, but otherwise
I’ll take a straight romance instead of a straight novel most days of the
week.

Anyway, in my view Charnas is using romantic conventions (vampires,
werewolves, and so forth) to write stories which aren’t romances at all.
All of the important action is inward, inside the characters. I don’t say
that this is bad; but I do say that it’s not to my taste.

The third problem is exacerbated by the second, and that’s the worldview,
Charnas’ model for how the world works and how (consequently) people can
change. She and I clearly have different assumptions about some basic
things, enough that her characters feel somewhat alien to me, and the
manner in which they evolve is unconvincing. I kept founding myself
saying, “But the world isn’t like that. People aren’t like that.”
It might seem silly to lay stress on this over stories that are overt
works of fantasy, but the internal component is so important to the story
that it typically overwhelms the plot. If it doesn’t work, the story
doesn’t work. And in this case, it doesn’t mesh with my own experience
of life.

All that said, there’s some striking storytelling going on here. The
first tale extends the Phantom of the Opera; what if lovely Christine
chose the ugly Phantom over handsome Raoul? Why would she, and what
would follow from it? Another tells of a girl on the brink of womanhood
who discovers that the full moon brings out the wolf in her–and that this
offers the means to a highly desired end. Another takes place at a
performance of Tosca at the Opera House in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
during which Puccini’s music drives a vampire wild; the description was
crystal clear and almost made me wish I was there–though the plot itself
was negligible and not very interesting.

I suppose my least favorite moment comes during a story called
Peregrines, which was written just last year; its background is so
clearly a liberal nightmare of post-Bush America, and yet it’s just too
absurd. Let’s see. In this future America you need a permit from
Homeland Security to travel from one of the 50 states to another. Anyone
who looks or speaks differently than their neighbors is liable to be
taken away by Homeland Security for “questioning”; such people don’t come
back. This is all due to the victory of the Fundies, who got control
after terrorists bombed the Status of Liberty.

Now, this is all background, and most of it is superfluous to the story.
The essential thing is the specter of the secret police, which is used to
add suspense; the rest is gratuitous. The only reason I can think of for
why Charnas included it is because it seems like a real threat to her.
She really thinks that the “Fundies” want to turn to turn America into a
police state where immigrants are harassed and oppressed merely for their
looks and language.

The kicker, for me, was the reference to the terrorists bombing the
Statue of Liberty. Dude, the Statue of Liberty is a major American
landmark, sure. But the significance of September 11th isn’t that a
pair of landmarks were bombed and subsequently collapsed. The significance
of September 11th is due to the 3000 people who didn’t get out in
time–or who tried to fly.

Frankly, it rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyway, those are the reasons why I can’t say I liked the book. On the
other hand–if Charnas’ style is the kind of thing that appeals to you,
you should check it out; she definitely knows her craft.

Woo-hoo! The Wallace and Gromit feature is scheduled to be released this October. Here’s a trailer. Any guesses who’s hardware they are using for post-production?