Words of Danny O'Bigbelly My idea of a good time

I don’t like sitting on a plane for thirteen hours very much.

* * *

The Hawaiian/Polynesian/whatever-it-is accent baffles me.  When the announcer at the airport told us the name of the carousel at which our baggage could be retrieved, I couldn’t tell whether she had said ‘G’ or ‘J’.  Even when she said it several more times.  Fortunately, other people did not have this problem.  I followed them.

* * *

They comb the beaches here in the morning.  They would probably say they were raking them, but the rakes are quite fine.

* * *

On my way to breakfast, noticed a statue of a cherub playing in a fountain with what appeared to be a kookaburra perched on its head.  It was dark, so I couldn’t see the details, and in any case, I didn’t give the statue much thought until I returned that way after eating and the kookaburra was gone.

* * *

Hawaiian beaches don’t have much in the way of pebbles or shells.  They have fragments of light, pumic-like volcanic rock that don’t wear smooth, and coral, which doesn’t age well at all.  It is pointless to try to skip these stones (it took me five minutes to find a stone that I could get even three hops from).  I guess that’s why people surf here–there’s nothing else to do at the beach.

* * *

Diamond Head looks better in real life than in photos.

* * *

The pigeons here are pure white.  But they still behave exactly like pigeons everywhere else.

* * *

A young couple walking the beach at dawn asked me to take their picture.  I answered that I would be happy to, but only if they would let me borrow their camera, because I did not have one on my person.  The woman thought that this was hysterical.

I took a picture for them that could hang in the Louvre–yeah, I’m good–but I’ll be lucky if it ends up on facebook.

* * *

The allegedly best Indian restaurant in Honolulu is very disappointing.  Might as well go with the flow and not try to fight it…  I’ll be eating sushi and grilled fish for the rest of the week.  The whole island is set up to cater to hordes of Japanese tourists, and it’s best to follow the crowds.

* * *

I wonder how long a man has to live here (or in a place like this) before he is not immediately distracted by a woman walking down the street wearing a bikini whose total cloth would not be adequate to serve as a spinnaker on a boat crewed by a single mouse.  Definitely more than one day.  Maybe forever.

* * *

I have a lot in common with surfers, but explaining why I think that would be complicated.  It’s the relaxed obsession.  You’ll either understand this, or you won’t.  I will not be offended.

* * *

Many of the plants and birds and quite a few of the people here would be right at home in a Dr. Seuss book.  I wonder if he ever visited Hawaii or any other part of Polynesia, or whether he did a lot of drugs.

* * *

The mountains are impossibly steep.  They’re not really mountains; they’re a bunch of cliffs that decided to make something of themselves.  Even if it snowed here, you couldn’t ski these slopes.  You could BASE-jump many of them, however.

The footsteps of the kidnapper and the small child he has taken are clear in the sand.  They are not far ahead but I must hurry because he moves quickly and there are many other people wandering on the beach, creating confounding trails of footprints.  There is not much time.

The trail leads around a dune.  Her backpack is resting against the slope.  As I reach for it, I realize that it is a trap.  The kidnapper is aware of me.  I carefully probe beneath the backpack and find the live grenade.  The pin is out and the backpack is resting on the strike lever.  If I had lifted the backpack it would have been triggered.  Probably a shortened trigger.  I reach through the sand and grasp the grenade and strike lever and draw it out.  I have a twist-tie in my pocket.  I thread it through the pin hole and twist it, just once, over the top.   I was weaponless but now I have a weapon.  But I am on a crowded beach and using the grenade would have terrible results.  I have no clear idea how I might use a grenade to stop the kidnapper.

Perhaps there is a clue in the backpack.  I unzip the backpack and for a moment I see it all before me: the trembler switch, the old strobe flash, a single pair of blue and yellow wires leading to the blasting cap,  and a single stick of dynamite resting in a box filled with gravel.  And then I don’t see anything.

* * * *

Her hair is auburn; straight, drawn back and held in place with a silver barrette studded with turquoise.    A few loose strands play across her forehead.  Her eyes are blue and they sparkle as she smiles.  Her skin is light olive; clear and flawless.  Her lips and eyebrows are thin, her nose elfin.   Her oxford shirt is white, beneath her jacket of powder blue.  A thin silver chain necklace dangles outside her shirt.  Her long, pleated skirt is the color of the buds on an apple tree in April.   She has the build of a swimmer.  There is great energy about her, but she is serene and focused.

I have waited for a long time for a moment alone with her to discuss my worries, and my wait is about to be rewarded.

“It looks like I have all the information I need to finish the paperwork,” she says.  “You don’t need to sign anything.  I’ll take care of getting all of the forms filed.  Please let me know if you have any other questions.”

A random collection of paragraphs about my Thanksgiving visit to my in-laws.

The house of my parents-in-law is an old farmhouse. It was constructed in several steps and the process is still on-going (the last few decades have brought a new garage and enclosed porch). I don’t know which part of the house is the oldest, or whether any part of the original house, except for the foundation, still exists. I suspect some parts have been removed when other parts have been added. One symptom of building a house this way is the complexities of the interconnections between the parts of the house. For example, the kitchen has five doors. The dining room has five doors. The pantry, which was a bathroom twenty years ago, has four doors. The downstairs bathroom, which used to be a pantry until fifteen years ago, has two doors, but I think that there used to be one more that has been boarded up. The store-room, which is next to the kitchen, but which is unheated (and used in the winter like a giant refrigerator) has at least four doors. Upstairs is simpler. Each bedroom has one door. The bedroom over the kitchen is unheated, but about ten years ago they added a grate in the floor that lets heat rise from the kitchen. The grate is right over the toaster and coffee maker. It is not easy to sleep through breakfast. There are two staircases from the first floor to the second. One has sixteen steps, and the other has fifteen. I believe the latter is older.

* * * *

At a rest stop on the Mass Pike I saw an enormous woman. Rather than being uniformly fat, she had small shoulders but gigantic hips and thighs. She occupied one side of a booth by herself. Her width was wider than I can describe without you thinking I am exaggerating. I believe there are many doorways this woman cannot enter. I do not know how she can ride in an ordinary car seat. I do not believe she could possibly ever ride in an airplane: not only would she require multiple seats (I’m not sure two would be adequate) but there is no way she could get down the aisle. The thing that amazed me the most about this woman was not her size, but the fact that she appeared to be wearing ordinary, brand-name clothing. It is frightening to think that this woman is an “ordinary” size. This can’t possibly be healthy.

* * * *

I’m pretty sure that there is some sort of religious group whose female members dress in a particular way somewhere near where my in-laws live. Their hair is long and braided. Some wear hats that I think are bonnets, but I don’t really know enough about headwear to say for sure. Their dresses are plain and ankle-length. Their sleeves are long. They are perfectly neat and clean but look as though they’d just stepped out of “Little House on the Prairie” or some such. I believe I’ve seen men from this group, wearing broad-rimmed hats and long beards, but I’m not certain. Usually I just see the woman. They often have children with them. The children are quiet and well-behaved. I usually forget about them by the time I’m talking to someone who might tell me who they are or where they live. Maybe they’re Amish? Or Mennonites? When I see them, it’s usually when we’re shopping at the mall, and there are no horses or buggies in sight. I wonder what they’re shopping for. They’re shopping in the same stores as me, but I bet if we took a personal inventory of all our belongings, the intersection would be very small. I’ve never made eye contact with any of them, or exchanged words. Even in the crowded bustle of the mall, they seem separate and isolated. I don’t think they’re as curious about me as I am about them.

One of the things I find fascinating about the “The Lord of the Rings” series by J.R.R Tolkien is how my appreciation of these books has evolved over the last thirty-five years. From a quick description, it’s easy to dismiss these books as the stuff of adolescent fantasy, and it’s true that many devout Tolkien readers discover, devour, and then, for the most part, discard these books during their teenage years. But some do not, and continue to read the back-story for the main action: the terse but meaty appendices of the “The Return of the King”, the torturous Silmarillion, and, for the truly hardcore, the endless volumes of Tolkien’s notes.

It’s clear that Tolkien spent a lot of time thinking carefully about the world he wrote about, including going to the trouble of tracing the conflicts narrated by the “The Lord of the Rings” all the way back to the creation of the world itself and the initial schism between the god and the devil of that world. The result is rich, interesting and unpredictable, unlike the current generation of adventure books and movies, which can generally have their characters and plots (complete with a surprise twist at the end) adequately described in a tweet. In Tolkien’s world, it’s not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, in part because the definitions of good and bad are somewhat fluid and depend on perspective, and because the characters themselves change over time in complicated ways and for non-trivial reasons. In Middle Earth, as in the Christian tradition, it’s important to remember that the most dangerous of the bad guys are the ones who used to be angels.

One of the most memorable, unexpected, and dramatic moments in “The Lord of the Rings” is the revelation of the Balrog and the ensuing duel between Gandalf and the Balrog. Here’s the way it looks upon a quick read of the book: Gandalf is a wizard (whatever that is) and a somewhat mysterious figure. Nobody knows much about his past, except that he seems to know a great deal about many things, and his opinions are pretty damned well considered. The general populace think that he’s a clownish figure with an extraordinary gift for building fireworks of astonishing beauty and complexity, but the wise and powerful seek his counsel on matters of great importance.

Gandalf has offered to guide a group of travelers (whose quest is the central story of the books, but is not important here) and, as result of a complex concatenation of circumstances, is leading them on a short-cut through the underground kingdom of Moria, as a way to get out of the weather. Moria has been abandoned for generations, after a series of attacks by orcs (the foot-soldier bad guys of this world) killed or drove away all of its inhabitants. There was a half-hearted attempt to re-establish the kingdom of Moria in recent years, but it was apparently unsuccessful due to a continued orc presence. No news has been heard from Moria in a generation. There is some scuttlebutt that it seems hard to believe that orcs could be organized enough to have overthrown such a prosperous and powerful kingdom, but nothing definite. In any case, Gandalf claims to have traversed the city before, and believes he can lead the party through the city, avoiding any orcs that might be lurking within.

But things do not turn out as planned. The party attracts attention to itself, and the orcs are soon on their trail. Fleeing, they attempt to wedge one of the main doors shut behind them to cut off the pursuit. Gandalf remains behind and tries to place a spell to seal the door, but his attempt is interrupted. Something enters the chamber on the other side of the door, and it knows about spells too. Gandalf has never felt a challenge like this. They fight over the door, and it explodes in a brilliant flash of light. Gandalf is thrown clear, and the roof of the chamber behind the door collapses, utterly sealing the passage behind the party. But there are other passages. They’ve bought some time but the orcs are still in pursuit. They run for it.

Finally only one barrier remains between them and escaping Moria; a narrow bridge designed to be the last defense of the city, because it can only be crossed in single file. The orcs are near, but the door is nearer. If it is day outside, the orcs will not pursue them and they may escape. But it will not be so simple. Something is coming up behind the orcs, and the orcs part to let it pass. One of the party–not Gandalf–identifies it. It is a Balrog. Although what that means is left unsaid, two well-established badasses in the group are scared witless at the news, so it’s clear that a Balrog is not a welcome sight.

When “The New Yorker” reviewed the first movie, I believe the reviewer criticized the movie for not casting Samuel L. Jackson as a member of the party, because, as the reviewer described it, there isn’t anyone else who could do proper justice to the observation that the Balrog is one mean motherfucker.

Gandalf sends everyone across the bridge before him. The Balrog approaches at a dead run: an enormous figure, veiled in darkness, wreathed in living flame, wielding a flaming sword in one hand and a whip of fire in the other. Gandalf waits in the center of the bridge for the Balrog, staff in one hand, naked sword in the other. Beneath the bridge is an abyss whose depth has never been measured.

But before the Balrog reaches the bridge, Gandalf challenges him, with a challenge that makes little sense to the reader or to anyone listening, except the Balrog, and the Balrog hesitates. The Balrog is given pause, but it is only momentary. The Balrog leaps onto the bridge, swinging its sword. Gandalf blocks with his sword and the Balrog’s sword shatters into a shower of molten fragments, and the Balrog stumbles back. Enraged, it leaps onto the bridge, whip whistling. Gandalf uses his staff to break the bridge beneath the feet of the unrushing Balrog, and it plunges into the abyss, but as it falls it swings its whip, which catches Gandalf around the legs, and drags him into the abyss as well. The rest of the bridge collapses a moment later; Gandalf probably wasn’t going to walk away from this, with or without being dragged down by the Balrog.

This is pretty powerful stuff for a nerdy teenager with an appetite for escapist fantasy.

But it raises questions.

First and most obviously, there’s the question of why Gandalf would choose such an awkward place to make his defense. He seemed able to deal nearly effortlessly with the Balrog’s sword; why couldn’t he have handled his whip? Well, breaking the bridge did effectively end the pursuit. But Gandalf could have broken the bridge without stopping to wait for the Balrog. The Balrog would have found another way across, or had his army of orcs construct one, if necessary, and they might have had to have faced it again, but they could have faced it in a more favorable circumstance and with assistance.

More interestingly, who or what is a Balrog? Nobody seems to be able to give a straight answer to this one. The wisest of the wise, when told of the manner of Gandalf’s death, describe the Balrog as the deadliest bane in the world, save the devil of Middle Earth himself. But that’s not really much of an answer, except to reiterate that he’s one bad motherfucker.

And finally, who is Gandalf, and what did the words of his challenge mean? Why did the Balrog hesitate? If a Balrog is really all that, what did Gandalf say that made him pause, and then make him fight?

What was Tolkien, a mild-mannered, middle-aged linguist, trying to say when he originally penned this tale as part of a letter to his son, away fighting in the war?

I think I know now.

But in order to explain, I must first explain more about the history of Middle Earth. This is a complicated subject, made none too simple by the fact that Tolkien changed his mind about a number of important details over time. I’m sure some Tolkien scholar will say that I have the basic details right, but some nuance incorrect, while some other Tolkien scholar will say that I’ve got everything wrong except the unimportant stuff. Tolkien scholars, after all, are just like any other kind of scholar.

I will describe the creation story of Tolkien’s world in vaguely Christian terminology in order to avoid having to drag in a lot of unnecessary jargon. In the beginning, a benevolent god created the universe and a group of lesser divine beings (angels, if you will). Everything was harmonious for a time, but the most powerful of the angels, Melkor, kept stirring up trouble. Eventually Melkor took on a Lucifer-like role, but he is tolerated far longer and much greater compassion than Lucifer. God created the world that contains Middle Earth as a playground for his angels and then withdrew. Melkor and his adherents, for lack of anything else to do, attempted to conquer the world.

Melkor’s generals and most powerful servants in this war were the Balrogs: a handful of fallen angels of unfathomable power and intelligence; and generally bad motherfuckers that Christianity’s Samael and Puriel would call brothers. They are demons of fire and darkness, able to take many forms, but always terrible to behold. Their most potent weapon is terror itself; few beings can simply withstand their presence. They are the generals of the most powerful army the world will ever know, but they do not lead from the rear–they are always in the vanguard. From the age of heroes, there are many legends of battles against Balrogs, and none of them have a happy ending. To fight a Balrog is to die. The two greatest warriors of the age were each able to kill a Balrog, but only at the cost their own lives.

But powerful as they were, Melkor and his servants were eventually defeated, thanks to help from the unfallen angels, and Melkor was dragged away and imprisoned. Many of his servants escaped capture, however, and hid in various places. Melkor was renamed Morgoth, which roughly translates to “Dickhead to who spoiled this world for the rest of us” and another age passed. Morgoth was released at the end of the age, and although he was still powerful, he was no longer able to assume any pleasing shape, so that his attempts to deceive the peoples of the world would not succeed. Nevertheless, he was soon back to his old tricks, gathering the scattered remnants of his servants and building his dreadful kingdom. The world was partitioned to confine the war to the area away from the dwellings of the divine and the faithful. War raged in the world for hundreds of years, until Morgoth’s adversaries were finally able to successfully plead their case to the various good divinities (who had generally been not entirely pleased with the behavior of either side of the war). The resulting battle between the divinities and their minions altered the face of the world, so great was its violence. At the end, Morgoth’s servants, such as the Balrogs, were hunted down and destroyed, and Morgoth himself was cast into the outer darkness, from which there is no return.

And there was peace, or nearly so, for an age. But the hunt, it appeared, had not been entirely successful. The occasional dragon was known to have survived, and orcs and trolls quickly repopulated their hidden places. Oh, and as it turns out, one Balrog escaped by hiding in the deep foundations of stone beneath the earth. It may be worth mentioning that at this moment, the tale of the tape has this last remaining Balrog as the single most powerful entity remaining in the world.

Sauron, one of Melkor’s lieutenants, who had appeared convincingly to have repented after the defeat of Morgoth, eventually slipped back into his bad habits. Sauron built his own kingdom and attempted to conquer Middle Earth (the section of the world that had been divided from the rest), but he was handily defeated and deposed without any need for divine intervention.

But the divine, although not intervening, were not disinterested. They knew that Sauron, being a fallen angel, could not be easily destroyed, and they knew that his army was not the real source of his strength. And so they were afraid that he would rise again, and they were correct. Eventually Sauron rose again, and in a much more dangerous and cunning form. He was defeated again, but it was a very close battle, and it was even clearer to wise observers that Sauron was becoming ever more powerful even as his enemies weakened, and their last victory was Pyrrhic; they had spent the greater part of their innate strength attempting to defeat him, but all they had really accomplished was to disrupt and disorganize his armies and delay his plans. The source of his power and the strength of his allies and servants were not destroyed.

And thus the divine decided to level the playing field a bit. They sent to Middle Earth a small number of wizards, including Gandalf. The wizards never explain who they are or from where they came, but it’s obvious that there’s something a little different about them because they came from the west over the sea, and nobody comes from the west any more, not after the last great war, when god rendered that part of the world inaccessible except to the elves. They appear as men, but they do not appear to age. They wander from place to place, and are recognized as wise by the wise, but they do not seek power (with one notable exception, who is corrupted and becomes one of the most dangerous foes in the story, seeking to replace Sauron himself). They influence but do not control.

But when it can’t be hidden any longer, it is revealed that Gandalf is one of the agents of the divine himself. He’s an angel of equal rank to a Balrog. And he’s carrying the Flame of Arnor, an ancient and magical weapon created to fight the servants of Morgoth. Everyone knew Gandalf had an awesome sword (it’s pretty hard to hide something like that, in a world where swords see frequent use), but almost nobody knew what sword it was. And finally, although nobody (including the reader) has any clue about this ahead of the time (although Gandalf’s awesome fireworks were a bit of a hint), Gandalf also possesses the Ring of Fire, a repository of unmeasured power constructed before the arrival of the wizards as a counter to Sauron’s power and given to Gandalf by one of the few who recognized him for what he is.

So the Balrog and Gandalf know that it’s going to be a good dust-up, and the Balrog knows that this is a fight it could easily lose.

But it’s been five thousand years since the Balrog has been tested. Five thousand years since he marched at the head of an army that made angels tremble. Five thousand years since its brothers were slain and his master was removed from the world. Thousands of years of hiding, and then emerging to take over an underground kingdom populated with puny mortals who hardly put up a fight. Hundreds of years of having nobody but terrified Orcs to talk to, and listening about how that suck-up sniveling bureaucrat Sauron is now the biggest, baddest badass in the world. This is a Balrog who knew Sauron back when.

This is a Balrog who thought to himself–“I’m getting old, my career is going nowhere, nearly everyone I care about is dead, I’ve been passed over for promotion, nobody reads my books, and I’m stuck in a windowless interior office. Fuck all this. You want to fight? It’s on. I’d rather die fighting than put up with this bullshit. Bring it!” This is what middle age looks to an obscure philologist who has been working for ten years on a book he doubts he’ll ever finish, while his younger peers get money for nothing and chicks for free.

I’m pretty sure Dylan Thomas was thinking about this Balrog when he wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night”; the line “rage, rage against the dying of the light” distills the point perfectly. Balrogs don’t go gentle into anything, but they still need something to rage against, and a challenge from an angel is wonderful goad. At last, an adversary worthy of the word.

Now in case you’re wondering, you can’t kill a Balrog merely by throwing it into an abyss a mile deep. But of course, as anyone who as has seen the movie will tell you, you can’t kill Gandalf that easily either. The battle continues for ten days, and destroys a lot of real estate and scenery, before they kill each other, thus leaving the Balrog’s no-loss streak intact, albeit with an asterix (because Gandalf is given a new body and sent back into the world to continue his task, while the Balrog apparently is not).

It all looks a lot better in the movie, as you can imagine, but it makes absolutely no sense… I will always feel disappointment that Peter Jackson made the Balrog look so big, clumsy and stupid, like the illegitimate offspring of Godzilla and a dragon. But if he’d made it merely large and crafty–a demonic wizard–it would have taken so much more explaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcuDMoSOOrs

One of my daydreams–one that I suspect I share with most other people who have aspirations and daydreams–involves narrating a retrospective of a wildly successful career (as supplied by my other daydreams, unfortunately, because my real life isn’t heading that way right now) in the form of an interview.  Perhaps someone like Barbara Walters or Larry King, or maybe even David Letterman.  I admire David Letterman’s easy, casual interview style, and I like to think we’d get along well and I wouldn’t disappear during an early commercial break.

It’s never Geraldo or one of that ilk.  This is a happy daydream.

For a peek into my lame psyche, I offer a snippet of what I imagine a this might be like.

Host: Tonight we’re fortunate to have on our show Mr. Danny O’Bigbelly, author of the New York Times bestseller ‘The Great Dragon of the Eastern Desert’.  Please welcome Mr. Danny O’Bigbelly!

(Audience claps.  I hobble onto the stage, slightly blinded by the lights.  I’ve been coached not to look into the spotlights, but I can’t help it.)

Host: Nice to meet you.

Me: It’s great to be here.  Is it OK if I turn the seat cushion over?  I think the performing monkeys left a little memento on this one.

Host:  You go right ahead.  Make yourself at home.

Me:  Thank you.  There, that’s better.

Host: So, you are in town promoting your new book?

Me: Yes, doing the whole book tour thing.  It’s a lot of work, and it’s not usually my sort of thing, but my publisher says that it’s very important.

Host: It’s like people are throwing parties for you all over the country.  Why wouldn’t you want to go?

Me: Well, I’m not much of the partying type, and I miss being with my family.

Host: So, tell us about your book.

Me: It’s a combination of a few stories that I’d been working on for several years.  I thought that they were separate stories for a long time, but one day I realized that some of the story lines could be combined and some of the characters could be coalesced; combined into a single character.  I think this makes the stories a lot more interesting, because one of the things I like to explore is character development, and characters don’t usually get a chance to develop much in a short story.  But if you follow the same character through a big chunk of his or her life, then you can see how each part of the story builds upon the foundation laid by the previous stories.

Host: This sounds pretty hard.  Trying to take a bunch of stories and weaving them together.

Me: It would have been a lot more complicated if I was more imaginative or creative, but in this case I got lucky.  Once I realized that my imagination was lazily reusing the same characters and themes in several contexts, it wasn’t very complicated.

Host: So, can you tell me something about these characters?

Me: There are two principle characters, and several other characters that play important roles in their lives.  The first is a young girl, who is on a quest to prove her right to claim her nobility.  She is a princess who lives in a complicated society where adolescents are given several trials of courage, intelligence, and character before they are permitted to claim their titles.  This system has been in place for a long time, and it has generally worked very well, and the citizens in this society have accepted it.  But there is a fly in the ointment, so to speak.  The queen has acquired an unfortunate habit of assigning impossible challenges to potential members of the nobility who are not members of her own house.

Host: So this is sort of fantasy story?  Dungeons and dragons and things of that ilk?

Me: No sorcery, and no dungeons, but perhaps a dragon.  I wouldn’t want to spoil the book for anyone, but one of the quests that the queen has been using is to send people into the Eastern Desert to kill the great dragon rumored to live there.  This desert is a horrible wasteland.  Nobody knows whether people who seek the dragon are killed by the dragon, or whether they are killed by the desert itself, or whether some other fate befalls them.  All they know is that nobody has ever crossed the desert, and nobody who has entered the desert seeking the dragon has ever returned.

Host: Does she know she’s being set up?

Me: Yes, but she feels trapped.

Host: What if she said no, I won’t go?

Me:  She wouldn’t be a princess any more.  She would lose her title and become a commoner.  Which is not a disaster, but it’s not what she wants.  She wants to be princess, and perhaps someday the queen, and she wants her family to regain their nobility.  She’s the last surviving member of her family.  As a princess, she would be rich and powerful.

Host: OK, so she’s got her work cut out for her.  What about the other main character?

Me: He is a bit more complicated.  He’s a middle-aged man who was once a martial artist and teacher at one of the great schools in a far-away land.  He has, however, been sent away from the school.

Host: What did he do?

Me: He didn’t do anything.  Again, it is a question of the power that society, custom, and tradition have over us.  In this school, when the current headmaster leaves or dies, one of the current masters is chosen to replace him.  But in order to avoid the sort of rivalry and potential for bitterness that often occurs when one member of a group of peers is promoted over the others, all of the other masters are dismissed and replaced with new master chosen by the new headmaster according to his vision and criteria.  Most headmasters simply re-appoint the former masters, but not always

Host: So, he didn’t make the cut?

Me:  He wasn’t given the chance.  He was judged to be a strong candidate for leadership of the school, so strong that his presence would undermine the authority of the new headmaster, so he was sent away before the headmaster could even make the decision.  But he wasn’t thrown out or driven away.  He was sent away on a specific mission.

Host: Does it involve a maiden threatened by a dragon?

Me: Oh, no.  This all happened before she was born, in any case.  No, his mission was to serve as a repository for the knowledge and arts taught at the school, so that if anything happened to the school, such as the death of one of the other masters, he could be recalled to serve, or train a replacement, or perhaps simply help choose a replacement.  In the right circumstances, he might even be recalled to serve as the headmaster.  In the meanwhile, he is prohibited to teach and obligated to keep his former position secret.

Host: It sounds complicated.

Me:  It’s really not, and in fact it works well for him.  Outside of the routine and ritual of the school, he is finally forced to find his own way.  And he does, and he finds peace and happiness, and he finds interesting things to do.  He doesn’t achieve the fulfillment of achieving the goals he worked towards for many years, but he finds new, unexpected goals.

Host: But there’s more to it.  I can tell from your hesitation and your smile.

Me: Yes.  There’s another reason he was sent away from the school.  He was given very explicit instructions by the previous headmaster.  But I’m not going to tell you anything about them.  Read the book.

Host:  Do any of those explicit instructions have to do with a damsel distressed by a dragon?

Me:  Well, I will answer that.  No.  The fact that these stories intersect is important, but not in the way that you think.

Host:  I assume this girl and this man meet?

Me: Yes.  He lives in a town at the edge of the desert, and she rides through it on her quest.  He’s seen many other people go into the desert on the same quest, and recognizes her for what she is.  He talks to her about her quest, and when she tells him that she will never abandon it, he promises to tell her everything he knows about the desert and how to survive it.  A lot of what he tells her takes the form of stories about several other interesting characters who live or have lived in the town, and their stories.  She finds these stories somewhat amusing, but does not believe them to be true.  She later realizes that they are very useful.

Host:  That’s it?

Me:  Not by a long shot.  These two people, who might seem like the central characters, are just pawns in a larger game.  There are people who desperately want the princess to succeed in her quest, and others who desperately want her to fail.  There are people who are seeking the master for various reasons.  There’s no shortage of things going on.

Host: It sounds like it.  Now, before we go on, I hear there was some controversy about the names of the characters.

Me: It’s not really controversy, although we can make it sound controversial if you like.  When I first drafted out some of the parts of the book on my blog, I needed names for the characters.  I made some up that I thought were decent working names, and used them.  Eventually the names become “real” names and the other characters started using nicknames or puns based on these names.

Host: But then something happened to make you think that these names were not OK?

Me:  It started when I got some email from a woman who lives in China and who has the same name as my princess.  It turns out that she is a very pleasant young lady, and we’ve exchanged many emails.  I felt funny having a character sharing the name of a person I actually know.  I didn’t want to get the two of them confused in my mind.  For example, I originally imagined the princess to have an athletic, muscular build–the sort of young woman who could wield a two-handed sword convincingly–but my real-world friend is somewhat more willowy.  When I found myself imagining the real-world person doing the things the fictional character was doing in the book, then I knew something had to change.

Host: But you said “names”?

Me: Yes, the name of the other main character was bad for a silly reason.  It was just a nonsense name that I’d originally stitched together when I was looking for a screen name on a social web site.  My name was already taken, and everything I could think of that made sense was already taken, so I just strung together a random-sounding Chinese name and tried it–and it worked!  In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised, since, as far as I could tell, there were no more than about three people with even remotely Asian names on the entire site.

Host: Obviously not orkut or hi5!

Me: Nope.

Host: Well, it looks like we’re running out of time.  After the break, we’ll have Keith Richards, to explain how he’s still cheating death.

(Camera pulls back and cuts to commercial.)

Yesterday my photography companion and I spent some time at the Arnold Arboretum, capturing images of the trees as they changed to the Autumn colors.  The day was perfect, with a sky as blue as a crayon.

Yet another questionnaire, but this one has a single instruction: name the ten movies that matter the most to you.

Of course, I can’t simply do that.  I need to begin by reflecting on the question itself…

I am not a huge fan of movies. I like watching them but they don’t take on deep significance for me. Some of them are reminders or mnemonics for phases of my life, which I suppose is significance of some sort, but I don’t see my life reflected in movies. Well, not most movies. Maybe just one or two.

1) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I’ve heard that there are people who don’t like this movie. They probably live in the same parallel universe as Sarah Palin fans: I don’t know any, I don’t know anyone who knows any, I can’t imagine where they came from, or how they came to be. This movie has everything: love, romance, and, of course, Green Destiny.

2) Manhattan.

She doesn’t really have a voice like the mouse in the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Good god, this movie is inspired. I hope I never win the Zelda Fitzgerald Emotional Maturity Award.

3) Monsters, Inc.

I like my movies dialog-driven. This movie has more banter for the buck than almost any other movie. They could probably squeeze in a few more words here and there, but that’s not the point. This is a perfect buddy movie.

4) Predator

“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” It’s become sort of a mantra for me at work. And yes, I have time to duck.

5) One Crazy Summer

I don’t understand why this movie wasn’t more popular than Titantic. OK, that’s a small lie. I understand it. But it’s wrong; a symptom of some flaw in this world–perhaps even original sin. The genius (if I may abuse that word, and I believe I may) of this movie is that most of it is an elaborate setup for five or six exquisite gags. Characters are introduced, situations set up, coincidences occur, all leading to a perfect, otherwise impossible collision. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will mention that at first you’re going to think it’s stupid and unfunny that Bobcat Goldthwait gets stuck in a Godzilla costume and can’t get out of it without help–but then, as events unfold, you’ll realize the complete and utter necessity of a character appearing in a Godzilla costume a few scenes later.

6) Hero

I understand that there are several movies with this title. I am referring only to the one that I like. When the Emperor smiles and gives Nameless his sword, I get chills. Or Moon versus Flying Snow in the orchard, which, if I remember correctly, was described by the New Yorker review as a scene that created a new genre. Sublime.

7) The Matrix

“Whoa…” No, not the famous quote from the movie. That’s the quote from the theater full of film students I saw the movie with, the moment when Trinity jumps in the air at the beginning of the movie. I could almost see the thought balloons rising through the projector’s light (“I have to use this effect!”). And so it has become. So many movies, commercials, etc use these special effects that they’ve lost most of their power, but imagine, if you can, watching that first moment of “bullet time” back in 1999 (I hope I got the year right…). Whoa.

8) The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Perhaps if I had been more socially adept during my college years (it hasn’t really gotten any better, sad to say) then this movie wouldn’t be on my list, but it gave me something to do any Saturday night that I needed something to do… That, and the looong walk home from the Exeter Street Theater.

9) Animal House

I’ve been to parties like that. Or so I’ve heard. I don’t clearly remember much of them. Anyway, it’s pretty damn funny, even now. I wonder whether Senator Blutarsky is republican or democrat?

10) Annie Hall

Yeah, I liked it.

Exhausted by those surveys made up by schoolchildren, for schoolchildren, some friends on facebook came up with a bunch of questions for people with a few more years on the clock.

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?

I’m annoyed that I have to pay someone to cut my lawn. I never thought it would come to this, but then again, I never thought I’d have a front yard that looks like a model for a double black diamond run. I’m not completely invalid but there’s no way I’m getting a mower up and down that slope without it ending up going over the wall and into the street on a regular basis.

I’m also a bit annoyed, but less so, about having to pay for extended day for my kids school. I may have a bad memory, but I don’t remember anything like this when I was a kid.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?

It’s been so long that I don’t remember.

Romance is more or less absent from my life.

3. What do you really want to be doing right now?

Something romantic.

4. How many colleges did you attend?

I’m not sure what this question is asking. Probably about matriculation. So let’s just say two-ish. I was only in a degree program at one, but I took some courses at another.

5. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?

I’m wearing a bathrobe.

6. What are your thoughts on gas prices?

I’d pay a lot of money for something that could stop my farting. Seriously–I fart more than any two people I know.

This probably contributes to the dearth of romance in my life.

7. First thought when your alarm goes off?

If we’ve slept until the alarm went off, there’s no time for cuddling before it’s time to wake up.

8. Last thought before going to sleep last night?

Pondering the question of what I’m going to do to straighten out my dead-end career. No answers came to me.

9. Do you miss being a child?

Some parts of being a child were great.

But then again, some parts were absolutely horrible.  I’m probably repressing the really bad memories, so I’ll have to say no.

10. What errand/chore do you despise?

I’m not sure I could call this despicable, but it would be nice of there was someone living in my household who could vacuum, or put in new paper towels and toilet paper.

11. Get up early or sleep in?

Guess.

12. Have you found real love yet?

I guess so.

13. Favorite lunch meat?

Turkey.

14. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?

I don’t go to Walmart often enough to have established a pattern.

15. Beach or lake?

Beach, unless it’s a large enough lake to have a tide. I consider the tide to be the second most important feature a body of water can have. The most important feature, of course, is that attractive women often wear skimpy bathing suits near large bodies of water.

16. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

People really seem to enjoy weddings, and as long as this is true, it’s still serving a very useful purpose. I have no objection to people having fun.

17. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?

My limited exposure to television (especially television that requires cable) makes this question difficult to answer. But from the small amount of info that I do have, I have to say that given the choice between a drama about a bunch of murderous psychopaths and a comedy about people with difficult family relationships, I’m going to go with the comedy every time, so Sopranos gets the nod.

18.What famous person would you like to have dinner with?

Tough call. Most famous people would find me a little boring. And there would probably be people dropping by the table asking for their autograph, interrupting what little conversation we had.

So, I’m going to go with Hatshepsut. Not knowing the ground rules of this hypothetical question, I think she’s a fairly safe bet.

First, she’s an incredibly interesting historical figure. Second, if the powers of hypotheticalism aren’t sufficient to allow her to speak English, she’s probably still good to look at and fairly polite. Third, of the powers of hypotheticalism aren’t sufficient to bring her back to life, since she’s been dead for thousands of years she’s probably not all that pungent any more, and she won’t mind if I eat her dessert.

19. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?

Yes, but it was usually an accident.

20. Ever use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?

Whatever I use a fire extinguisher for is exactly what I intend it for.

21. Ring tone?

Whatever it came with.

22. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?

I always brush my teeth inside my mouth.

23. Somewhere in California you’ve never been and would like to go?

The Playboy Mansion?

Sorry, I’m at a bit of a loss. I’ve been pretty much everywhere in California that doesn’t require getting past a bouncer.

23. Do you go to church?

Not very often these days.

24. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?

New career.

25. How old are you?

That’s a complicated question.

26. Do you have a go to person?

No.

27. Are you where you want to be in life?

No.

28. Growing up, what were your favorite cartoons?

I used to watch cartoons every Saturday. There used to be shows that previewed the cartoons for the next season and I had to watch those. It was very exciting. But I don’t remember any of them now.

29. What about you do you think has changed the most?

Over the years, my capacity to really foul things up has expanded enormously.

30. Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life?

In some important ways, yes.

31. Are there times you still feel like a kid?

I’m not sure.

32. Did you ever own troll dolls?

I think someone in my family did, because I remember playing with one.  The concept of ownership was a bit fuzzy in the context of toys, and so I doubt I actually owned it.

33. Did you have a pager?

Yes. I think it only went off once or twice.

34. Where was the hang-out spot when you were a teenager?

Damned if I know. It wouldn’t have been the cool, popular hang-out if they’d allowed people like me to know about it.

35. Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with?

Probably, although they probably wouldn’t want to.

It’s like some sort of interrogation, where there same questions are asked again and again and again, with minor variations, in the hope that I’ll slip up, fail to keep the story straight, and the truth will come tumbling out.

But so far, I’ve withstood every variation.

1. What would people be surprised to find in your kitchen or refrigerator?

Amelia Earhart.

At least, it would surprise the heck out of me.

2. Name three (or more) foods that are always in your refrigerator.

Milk, milk, lemonade, and usually something chocolate.

Then later in the week, it’s just milk and lemonade.

When the milk is gone, it’s time for another run to the market.

3. What is the perfect snack?

Perfect for me, or perfect for the snack?

I’ll eat Doritos until I reach the bottom of the bag. Good for Frito-Lay, but not so good for me.

I hate those toasted pita thingies, so they are the perfect snack for me, because I won’t eat them.

4. What are your favorite edible indulgences?

As mentioned before, I enjoy See Food.

The most indulgency thing that I’ll eat is my mother-in-law’s buckeyes. I have never seen these elsewhere and don’t know if other people call them the same thing, but they’re some sort of peanut butter thing dipped in chocolate, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Like what a Reeses peanut butter cup (which I also adore) wants to be when it grows up. It’s one of the few things she cooks that doesn’t make my stomach shrivel. So, I eat them to indulge myself, and nearly everything else she cooks, I eat to indulge her. Fortunately, she gave up cooking altogether several years ago, and the reserves of left-overs are starting to run low.

5. What and where is your favorite restaurant and what do you order there?

You’re trying to order a hit on me; I can tell.

My favorite restaurant changes according to my mood, but I do have a bad habit of ordering the same thing over and over at the same restaurant. For example, when I go to any of the chain of “The Border Cafe” I will order the gulf coast enchiladas, every time.  So that’s the dish to put the poison in.

6. What is/are the most unusual thing you have ever eaten?

I have a strict policy of only eating things once, and therefore each thing I eat is equally unusual.

7. What would you never eat?

I tend to avoid insects. No special reason, but I guess I’m too old to overcome that childhood aversion.

Also, I avoid eating things that are still alive, unless they’re shellfish, or fruit.

Oh, and Amelia Earhart.

Those folks on MySpace never rest.  Ah, the energy of youth, or something like that.

Did you stand on your tippy-toes when you had your last kiss?

I don’t have kisses. I do something else with them.

And I don’t stand on my tippy-toes very often. Less often than I kiss, and that’s not all that often.

What reminds you of the last person you kissed?

She leaves her stuff all over the house, so there are constant reminders.

Do you ever think about the past?

I remember the past, and sometimes I ponder it, but I rarely think about it.

Although some part of my brain is always sifting through the warehouse of data and experiences I’ve got piled up in the cluttered white elephant shop I call my memory, and every once in a while it finds something interesting. I’ll be going about my business when all of a sudden I’ll have a epiphanette (“In 1980, when that girl I was talking with at the mixer said she needed to find the bathroom, she didn’t really need to find the bathroom. She was just trying to dust me off! If only I had realized this earlier, the evening might, perhaps, have still been salvaged!”)

Do you believe ex’s can be friends?

Everyone always asks this question. The fact that we’ve all answered it already doesn’t seem to change anything. Therefore, I must assume that when people ask this question, they’re not really looking for an honest answer. The way the question is phrased, it is clearly an attempt to rationalize a decision that has already been made, and, perhaps, acted upon.

So, fine. Be friends with your ex. You’re a smart person. I’m confident you’ll be the one to figure out how to make it work. You’ve already made your decision to try, so I’ll just annoy you by telling you that the odds are long.

Do you currently have a hickey, if so where?

I don’t have a hickey. I have a doohickey, a gadget, and several gizmos.

It’s not the same, but I make do.

Last night you felt?

The usual.

Did you have any plans Friday?

Yes. Thanks for asking.

What were you doing an hour ago?

I was either asleep or looking at pr0n.

Where by pr0n I mean real estate ads. I get very excited by the idea of living in a house that isn’t falling down around my ears, and that has space for all my stuff.

Does anyone know your password besides you?

I have several passwords. A few (like my pin) I share with my wife.

Among the others, I’m reasonably confident that two have been sniffed but the others are still secure.

Are all of your friends virgin?

You mean, like “virgin olive oil”? Or do you mean, like “have not had sex?” That little “s” makes a big difference.

I’m skeptical of the former but optimistic about the latter. I’m pretty sure both have happened, in some sense, to all my friends.

Who was the last person to lay in bed with you?

I could just keep making jokes about incorrect grammar and usage, but nobody is going to think they’re funny.

Do you want to see somebody right now?

I’m married, so I’ve bagged my limit. I can’t really manage seeing someone on the side.

When’s the last time you cried?

I don’t know.

Well, technically, I cried out “Snout!” last night when I was playing Super Mario Kart Wii with the kids. I got nailed by a chomper I thought was already at the end of its chain.

Did you know that the human brain is set up so that some words or phrases are spoken automatically in response to specific emotions or situations? It’s why people who have lost their ability to speak (via brain injury) will still cuss if the situation calls for it. Even better, it’s pretty easy to reprogram yourself to say different things. People usually do this without even thinking about it, so that when they get a boo-boo they say “ouch” instead of just screaming. People don’t say “ouch” everywhere; it’s a function of language and culture…

Anyway, it’s really easy to reprogram this, and so, with kids around the house, and my endless feud with SMK, I’ve taken steps to replace “YOU MOTHERFUCKING MOTHERFUCKER! I’M COMING BACK WITH A FUCKING STAR AND SHOVING IT RIGHT UP YOUR MOTHERFUCKING ASS!” with “Oh, Snout!”

What is in your backpack right now?

A bunch of stuff I’ve been meaning to file. Thanks for the reminder.

Would it be more likely of you to fail Science or Math?

I’ll take science for 800, Alex.

Will you regret your next kiss?

Who am I–Nostradamus?

Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry?

That’s a good question. Ask her.

Are you a forgiving person?

I try to be forgiving. I rarely actually do come back with a star and shove it anywhere.

Although if I happen to have a star, sometimes I get caught up in the heat of the moment.

What are you listening to?

Tinnitus.

Where’s the last place you went besides your house?

Work.

Do you have a best friend of the opposite sex you can tell everything to?

I have a wife, and she more or less fills this role.

Do you believe your ex cares about you?

I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for several decades, so my ex’s, who never really cared about me all that much to begin with, probably don’t remember me at all.

Kill the spider or let it out?

If it’s a bitey kind, it’s dead. Otherwise, if it’s the cool kind, just leave it be.

Are you cheating on someone right now?

No, but if I was, I would be sure to tell everyone on the internet about it immediately.

Are you nice to everyone?

No. I’d like to be, but my manners pretty much suck, and I can be petty, although I try not to be.

For example, there was a woman yesterday who was giving me all kinds of attitude yesterday, and I wanted to tell her off (this woman comes from Sweden, where, apparently, it is considered normal manners to walk up to someone you hardly know and start critiquing their dress and grooming), but I didn’t. But I wanted to. Snout!

Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to?

Expect to what?

Have you ever had the feeling something bad was going to happen and you were right?

Often and sometimes.

Is your hair longer than your shoulders?

My shoulders are not long. They are very broad.

Have you ever taken a picture of yourself kissing someone?

No.

Could you forgive your best friend for sleeping with your bf/gf?

My wife is my best friend, so it’s hard to answer this question.

But if she cheated on me, forgiveness would be a challenge.

Did you get a full 8 hours of sleep last night?

Ha!

Have you ever kissed anyone with a name that started with C or D?

Hmmm… Let’s see–there were Kim, Susan, Suzanne, Marianne, Maryann, Eileen, Linda, Debra, Deborah, Diane, Victoria, Elizabeth, Beth, Carina, Patricia, Rita, Anne, Ann, Angela, Robin… those are the names we thought about for our daughters, but didn’t pick. Sorry; what was the question again?

Will you be up before 7 AM tomorrow?

As up as I ever am. Which is not all that much.

If you were kicked out of your house, where would you go first?

It would depend on the circumstances behind the kicking.

In the past week, have you cried hysterically in front of a friend?

No.

Is tomorrow gonna be a good day?

I suppose anything is possible.

Is there anybody you wish you could be spending time with right now?

Sure.

Are you satisfied with your life as of now?

It’s pretty good in a lot of ways, but I see several possible areas of improvement.

Will you talk to someone on the phone tonight?

Dunno. I don’t talk on the phone that much outside of work.

What do you miss most about your past?

The cartilage in my knees and hips, and that I used to comfortably wear pants with a 34-inch waistband.

When’s the next time you will see the last person you kissed?

When she comes out of the bathroom.

In the next 3 months, what are you looking forward to most?

Christmas.

The last person you texted, is the person a he or she?

I’ve never texted anyone, ever. I’m not even sure if my phone does that.

Have you ever gone out of your way to make someone happy?

Yes. In order to make people happy, I usually have to go out of my way. It doesn’t come naturally.

If you had the chance to travel back in time, would you?

I’d send a few guinea pigs back in time first, to see how it went for them. I don’t feel like I can make an informed decision until then.

Someone on your mind?

I keep trying to figure out how to work Guo Jingjing into this.

Done and done.

Is there anything you want to tell someone but you can’t?

There’s a girl I had a crush on for a long time, a very long time ago, and for some reason, I keep thinking that someday I should really tell her. I don’t know why I have this urge. Nothing positive could come of it. But for some reason, I keep thinking that someday, for some reason, I’m going to have to fess up to this.

Do you know anyone who has road rage? Who?

Oh, snout!

How expensive is too expensive for a pair of shoes?

I’d pay almost anything for a pair of shoes that let me walk comfortably without agonizing pain.

For style and looks, my limit is about $100.

If you were going out with your celebrity crush, what would you wear?

Whatever the well-dressed man-about-town is wearing these days. I’d have to do a little research first in order to find out what that is. But I wouldn’t spend much time or money on it, because I’m reasonably sure that she’d ditch me pretty early on.  It should be something I’d look good walking home alone in, and perhaps could use for another occasion.

Would you rather name your daughter Andrea or Eva?

No.

If you had to get up at 6am tomorrow morning, would it be painful?

Not for me.

If you were adopted, would you want to know?

I’m sure my parents would tell me eventually. It would probably come up during a conversation about how nature has trumped nurture once again.

What is bothering you right now?

The length of this quiz.

Did you ever really believe that the stork brought babies?

No. There are no storks where I grew up, and plenty of babies, so nobody even bothered with this myth. It just wouldn’t hold water.

Do you know anyone who always looks perfect? Who?

No.

Who are the last people you saw kiss?

It was on TV. I don’t know their names.

Chapstick or lipgloss?

No thanks; I’m good.

What was the last unpleasant thing to wake you up?

The passage of time.

Do you have any friends who are ALWAYS kissing their bf/gf?

No.

Would you rather look at clouds or stars?

Clouds.

Long story. Tell you another time.

Do you have any relatives who are expecting a baby really soon?

Not that I know about.

Dare you to go in detail why you kissed the last person you kissed?

What the fuck is your problem with all these questions about kissing?

What are three things you did today?

I’m still in the middle of #2.

Are you taller than 5 foot 7 inches?

Yes, when standing.

Are you one of those people who just don’t care?

No.

Name one thing you love about winter?

Spring follows it.

Have you ever had sex in a tent?

That’s a darn good question.

Do you think there is someone thinking about you right now?

Yes. She’s miffed that I haven’t taken my shower yet.

Were you smiling in the last picture taken of you?

Probably.

Is there something that reminds you of someone every time you see/hear it?

Yes.

Have you ever had a black and white cat?

I don’t believe that people “have” cats.

Do you think a lot before you fall asleep?

Nope. My head hits the pillow and two or three hours later, I’m out like a light.

Is there someone you wouldn’t mind kissing right now?

It’s probably not you.

Do you live each day like its your last?

No. That would be idiotic. I’d be wrong every day except one. You can’t make progress toward a better future if you don’t first believe that there will be a future.

Are you happy with the choices you’ve made?

Meh. I’m doing OK.

Do you think you are a good person?

I’m not perfect. But I’m not completely awful, either.

Is it okay to kiss people if you’re single?

If I hadn’t, I’d probably still be single.

How many people would you say you’ve been “serious” with?

All of them.

What friend do you get along with the best?

My wife.

Do you still get Easter Baskets?

No. I give them.

Do you have curtains in your room?

Yes.  The Neighborhood Watch Committee, who apparently are on the lookout for crimes against taste and aesthetics as well as ordinary theft and larceny, provided them as a house-warming gift.

Are crayons better than colored pencils?

No. They might think they are, but we’re all god’s children.

Who is the last boy you hugged?

Huh?

How about the last girl?

How about her, indeed. Ain’t she something?

Did you date someone you regret dating?

Yes, I’ve dated.

Have you kissed anyone in the last 7 days?

You need to talk to someone about your obsession with the kissing habits of strangers.

Someone other than me.

Are there certain things that can’t be joked about with you?

The evidence points to yes. I tried to start a joke thread a while back, and it failed. Utterly. Even though there were punchlines just scattered around everywhere, waiting for someone to pick them up. I made it so easy, but it just couldn’t be done.

Here’s the thing that can’t be joked about with me:

Two women are showering in a locker room.
The first woman says:
The second woman responds:

It would seem easy to fill in the blanks, but apparently it cannot be done.

Do you think there are circumstances when it’s okay to wait for someone?

If they’re late?

If you had to have a drug test right now, would you pass?

Depends on what they’re testing for.  I’m fairly ignorant about current drug slang and whatnot, but if it’s multiple choice I can usually guess my way through.

Do you know anyone named Austin?

Yes, of course.

Is there a girl that knows everything or mostly everything about you?

I’m afraid so.

Get asked anything ridiculous recently?

Very recently.

Another one of those question thingies.  At least this one is short.

1. Do you have a pet name people call you?

Well, of course, there’s “DannyO”. I don’t know if that counts as a pet name. It’s more of a nom de plume.

My wife used to call me “Boo.” I have no idea why, but one day, after I bought a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, she stopped calling me that. That reminds me–I should really read that book someday. I’ve heard it’s pretty good.

In my younger days, I used to be called “Duck” or occasionally “The Duck”. There’s a long and mildly interesting story about that, but it’s not brief. Maybe I’ll write it down another time.

2. Do you play a musical instrument?

I used to play several, but I’ve mostly let it go.

I would probably pick it up again, except the instruments I play make a lot of noise and that limits when and where I can practice. My leisure activities have become things I can do quietly, in the middle of the night, when the kids are asleep. For example, this.

3. When given a choice what chain restaurant do you choose to eat at?

The one whose name a preposition ends in.

Or probably ‘On the Border’ or ‘The Border Cafe’. I forget which of those is a chain. Maybe both.

4. What sports teams do you follow?

None with much fervor, although I do follow the local teams because everyone else seems to and it has a big impact on the local mood. For example, the morning after the Yankees sweep the Sox, it’s a bad idea to come waltzing into the status meeting all smiles and proclaim what a wonderful day it is to be alive, just because the computers are behaving. People will have been up late the previous night, and they’ll be pissed.

5. Quote that you live by?

Life is too short.

6. Favorite dessert?

I don’t know. These things are highly contextual.

7. Pet peeves? Name 3.

a) People who ask limiting questions. What if I only have two pet peeves? Or what if I have four that annoy me equally? Why three? The question should be flexible and adaptable to the needs and situation of the answerer.

b) When other people have pet peeves that show greater emotional maturity and perspective than I’ll ever be able to muster. Which is pretty much everyone, all of the time. I get annoyed by little things, such as being annoyed by little things.

c) Unfairness. Let me give you a stupid example that illustrates both unfairness and my singular lack of emotional maturity and perspective: in my division, offices are assigned according to a formula that is both baroque and byzantine. Here’s the result: although I am the senior member and leader of my ten-person team, I am also the only person who does not have a window office or my own office thermostat, except for the intern, whose office is larger than mine. I consider it unfair that there are empty window offices, and new hires are being placed directly into them, while in the meanwhile I (and several people in similar circumstances) are left languishing in dark, airless, internal offices. I shouldn’t take this personally, because I am just a pawn in a bullshit territorial game the vice presidents play against each other, and my office really is entirely adequate for my needs, but I still can’t help but be annoyed that there are empty offices overlooking a small forest that is starting to show its autumn colors, while in the meanwhile, I’m looking at the walls of a small, unventilated office that doesn’t seem to have been painted since leisure suits were popular. I think this is unfair.

I don’t really understand the phenomenon of people composing lists of questions and then passing them around to all of their friends, who forward them to all of their friends, etc, until they achieve a life of their own, circling the internet in the same manner that rubber duckies and sneakers, washed off the decks of cargo ships, circle the Pacific Ocean endlessly, mapping out invisible ocean currents and unsuspected relationships between members of MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Orkut, et alia.

But just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean that I’m immune to it.  Quite the contrary.

Here’s one I received recently.  Feel free to not pass it along.

1. Do you have any empty beer cans lying around anywhere?

Beer is packaged in cans now? Why? Besides the fact that aluminum requires an incredibly large amount of energy to mine, refine, process, and recycle, there’s the simple matter of taste. There’s also the simple matter of heft. If I’m a bar fight, I’m not going to try to defend myself with an empty can–not when my opponent probably has an empty Corona bottle hidden in his shoe. No sir.

Or by ‘beer cans’ do you mean kegs? No, I don’t have any empty kegs lying around.

2. Do you clean out your ears regularly?

My doctor is constantly admonishing me that I shouldn’t put anything smaller than my fist into my ears. I’ve tried to explain that the only Q-tips I can find anywhere are considerably smaller than my fist, but he doesn’t seem to understand.

3. Do you lounge around in pjs all day if you have nowhere to go, or do you actually get dressed?

I used to have that habit. Now my kids are getting older, and they’re bringing their friends over to play regularly, so at least I have to throw on a bathrobe or something. As they get older, I’ll become even more diligent. I’ve already started to remember to close the bathroom door.

4. Do you still have any toys from when you were a kid?

It seems astonishing in retrospect, but my all-time favorite toys are things that I’ve had since birth, but didn’t realize the infinite delights and hours of enjoyment they could provide to me until I was well on my way through puberty. I’ve been playing with them almost every day since then, and plan to continue until well into my dotage.

I refer, of course, to logic, abstraction, and prose, which I convert, using techniques I learned as a juvenile, into playthings to amuse and distract myself and my companions during the dark hours of our existence.

Honorable mention goes to my penis.

5. Do you smoke weed regularly?

Do I look that stupid?

6. Do you like Windows, Macintosh or Linux better?

I hate to nag, but isn’t this question supposed to read “Do you like Windows, Macintosh, Linux, or something better?”

I’ll go with something better. Until it comes along, I’ll continue to use all three, depending on what the customer wants. On my own time, I’ll use a mac. Or, occasionally, something else.

7. Do you plan on going to college? If so, would you like to do it on a campus or online?

I have a feeling there are two questions here. I will answer them separately.

I don’t plan to go to college again. I’m sort of tempted to do some sort of adult education thing sometimes, because there are a lot of things that I’d like to learn, and I think some structure and critique would be helpful, but I don’t really have the time. And I would probably get terrible grades.

I would like to “do it” on a campus, because it would be just like old times, but I’d probably get in trouble.

8. How many DVDs do you own?

Enough so that I don’t know how many I have, but not enough that I know how many I have.

9. Did you know that JK Rowling is planning to make another Harry Potter book?

No, and I don’t think she really is. I would have heard already, from my daughters.

10. Are you on MySpace all damn day every single day?

No. MySpace didn’t exist when I was single.

11. Are there any pictures that you need to get developed?

I’m glad you asked, because it brings up something that I’ve wanted to discuss for a long time.

No.

12. Are you constantly running out of socks like me?

I don’t run fast enough to do that. I’d really like to see you do it, however, because I’m pretty sure that your socks would be among the last things that come off as a result of your extreme fleet-footedness. Just promise you’ll slow down long enough for me to make sure your socks have come off.

13. How many CD players are in your house?

Hmm. All my computer have CD players in them, so that makes six in the office, three in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in the basement… And in the parts drawer, in case any of these break, there’s one more, maybe two. In the basement there’s the old CD player from the component stereo, plus a boombox with two drives, for three more. The alarm clock plays CDs, so there’s another, and my daughters have on in their room as well. Then there’s the stereo in the living room, and the DVD player, which doubles as a CD player, and also the Wii, which who knows, might be able to play CDs. And in my knapsack, there’s my laptop from work, for one more. And my wife’s old Sony Discman, which she bought in case she ever decides she needs music while exercising.

OK, I think you’ve accomplished your goal of embarrassing me.

14. Do you know anyone who’s pregnant?

Maybe. I do know some females physically capable of the deed.

15. What kind of dog food do you feed your dog?

I don’t have a dog.

If I did, I’d probably feed him or her something high-quality (pride would not permit me to malnourish a friendly guardian of my decrepit manse) but dry. Like Purina dog chow, or whatever turns out to be good. I’d do research. I’d experiment. Due diligence would be done.

But I know I wouldn’t feed the dog table scraps, nor would I feed the dog canned, wet dog food. That stuff looks and smells terrible. It looks like it just came out of the hind end of something with an upset stomach..

16. When you see a baby, is your reaction “Aww, how cute!” or “Eww, get it away!”?

My reactions are never that simple and easy to describe.

Besides, overly constrained questions are one of my pet peeves.

16. When you see a baby, is your reaction “Aww, how cute!” or “Eww, get it away!”?

Neither. Even if I’m thinking it.

I’m an adult. My reaction to a situation and my feelings about that situation can be decoupled.

17. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

I don’t know.

18. How many mugs are in your house total?

A bunch. I can’t believe anyone cares enough about this answer to make it worthwhile for me to actually root around in the cabinets and boxes in the basement to get a precise number. It’s probably not even worth finishing writing this sente

19. Do you own any wine glasses?

Yes.

20. What about fine china? Does your family even use it?

Yes, but we rarely use it. It’s covered with gold leaf, which makes washing it a bit of a hassle. The big family get-togethers when we’d be most likely to use are the meals that have the most attendees, and therefore are when it’s most tempting to use the dishwasher… but this would ruin them forever.

21. Eventually do you want to get married?

Marriage should never be wanted eventually.

Getting married is like ripping off a band-aid. The question of marriage should never be taken lightly, but once you’ve weighed all the alternatives and settled on marriage as the only tenable course of action, it should be done quickly, with as little thought or hesitation as possible, lest one or both of the parties contract a case of cold feet.

Also like ripping off a band-aid, it is good to have an ample supply of alcohol, gauze, and various ointments standing by in readiness.

22. How many computers are in your house?

I think I already answered this when I was counting my CD players for you. It’s a bunch. From this century, however, fewer than half that number.

23. Do you still play old school Nintendo games?

This question makes no sense. There are no “old school” Nintendo games.

Spacewar is old school. Hunt the Wumpus is old school. Adventure is old school. Rogue, Hack, and Moria are old school. These are games the parents of people who play Nintendo games used to play when they were the age their children are now.

Although this question makes no sense, I think I can still answer it. No. I don’t think I even have any Nintendo stuff around the house, except the Wii.

24. Have you ever been to Hawaii or Alaska?

Twice, and once. I’ve flown over Alaska a few times without landing. Looked pretty awesome from up there.

25. Would you ever want to live in either of those places?

No, although both are pleasant to visit.

Hawaii is not really compatible with my ghostly-white complexion. I don’t tan. I barely even freckle.

Alaska is spooky. I was there in June, and the sun kept following me around. It seemed to circle the building while I was working. I don’t know why it seemed to be some interested in me; I hear during the winter it wanders off and shows no interest in anyone. I don’t think I’d survive an Alaskan winter.

26. What kind of sense of humor do you have?

Juvenile.

27. What was your last phone conversation about and with whom?

Something boring, with someone from work. ‘Nuff said.

28. What was your grade point average in high school?

Pretty pathetic. I don’t remember the number, but I clearly remember my high school guidance letting out a low, long sigh and rubbing his furrowed brow for about thirty seconds at the beginning of our mercifully brief sessions. I think the topic of vocational training came up a few times.

After I was kept back for a year, and then when I decided that maybe college was a good idea after all, I turned it around, but by then the damage was done to my average. The average of two dreadful years, one average year, and two good years is still fairly dreadful.

29. What is one of your favorite movie quotes?

Anything from “Animal House” qualifies.

30. What song do you have stuck in your head right now?

“Birthday” by The Beatles. In a few minutes, it will be “Yer Blues”. At least, that’s what my iPod says, and it’s in charge of sticking songs in my head right now.

31. Do you have an innie or an outie?

One of each.

32. How would your friends describe you?

I don’t know. Ask them. If you want a really honest answer, don’t ask them in public.

In the meanwhile, I don’t mind people saying nice things about, especially if they’re plausibly true. For example, people might say that occasionally I string together a sentence that is a self-contained joke. Perhaps even somewhere in this note.

33. Would you kiss a really ugly person for $10,000?

There are so many facets to this question that it twinkles and glitters like the sequins of the half-unfastened outfit of a Las Vegas showgirl, pinned to the stage by the beams of a dozen spotlights, writhing uncontrollably with ecstasy as my tongue slowly, methodically, scientifically and yet inexorably searches for the perfect roll, pitch, yaw, depth, mode, skew, kurtosis, and frequency to drive her over the brink, gibbering with pleasure, during the bachelor party I will swear on the bible never happened.

But since time is short, I will focus on one simple and obvious aspect.

Who decides who is or is not really ugly? Because I’m willing to let you pay me $10,000 to call my wife really ugly. I’m going to kiss her anyway, and she’ll laugh it off when she gets her half. Heck, for $5,000, I might even get more than one kiss.

If it’s up to you, and you don’t happen to think my wife is really ugly, then my answer is probably no. I choose who I kiss, and the freedom to make that choice is worth a lot more to me than $10,000. But if you happen to find Guo Jingjing hideous, maybe I’ll take your money anyway.

37. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?

Not enough. I had a terrible nightmare. No, not the one with the monster. A different nightmare.

38. Are you capable of murder?

In the right circumstances, we all are.

39. Are you pro life or pro choice?

I don’t believe that it’s up to me to impose my beliefs on other people, so I’m both.

I am pro-life but I support the notion that other people can make their own choices.

40. What is the last thing you spent money on?

Lunch.

41. When is the last time it snowed where you live?

I think it started around 4:30am. I have forgotten the date, however.

42. when is the last time you exercised?

Exercised my what?

Please refer to the answer to #47 for additional related discussion.

43. Have you ever lived in another state?

There are so many different meanings of the words “life” and “state” that I could have a field day with this.

But I sense the trap.

So, I will merely answer that if two years in Rhode Island counts as living in another state, then the answer is “yes”. Otherwise, the answer is “probably”.

44. Do you think anyone really reads the surveys you fill out?

Accidents do happen.

45. How many friends do you have on myspace?

How many friends do I have that use MySpace? I don’t know, but not a huge number. I’m not a member of their core demographic. Or any of their peripheral demographics.

How many friends do I have connections with on my MySpace account? I’m not sure, but I think I canceled my account, but I might have simply abandoned it.

46. If your friend count goes down, do you try to figure out who deleted you?

I don’t know what my friend count is right now, I don’t know how to figure it out, and I don’t care all that much. As long as people keep sticking stuff up on my wall, and are reasonably friendly, I figure I’m doing OK. I’d rather have a smaller number of good friends than a large number of random people who can’t remember why they friended me in the first place.

However, the question presupposes that my answer could be different, and therefore it may be true that there are a lot of people out there who do count their friends regularly and try to figure out who dropped them, etc. I also suspect that that sort of people are the sort of people that I am most likely to drop.

47. what scent are you wearing right now?

Sometimes the questions reveal more about the questioner than the answers reveal about the answerer. This is one of those times.

Unlike most of the other questions in this list, questions #42 and #47 do not refer to general characteristics, habits, or tendencies. They ask about very specific details that are defined relative to the moment when the questions are answered. They are also written in a different style, using a different set of constructs. Instead of asking “Do you often wear a scent?”, which presumes nothing about the answer, or “What scent do you usually wear?”, which makes a mild and easily negated presumption that the answerer wears a scent, the question makes a strong assumption that I am wearing a scent at this very moment, and provides me no easy way to defeat the assumption that this is a question whose answer one can reasonably expect to name that scent. And yes, I have stopped beating my wife.

When one examines the question more carefully, one finds two more troubling clues. First, the capitalization of the first word of the question is inconsistent with most of the other questions, indicating carelessness, perhaps anxiousness, but in any case an unwillingness to revisit the question long enough to proof-read it. This is clearly an off-the-cuff question; unpremeditated and perhaps even spontaneous.

Second, the repeated reference to the present: although “are you wearing” clearly indicates that this question refers to the present condition, the questioner did not feel that this was sufficient, and therefore appended a completely redundant “right now”. This reinforces the evidence that this question was not subject to the same care as the other questions.

Coupled with #42, with its similar issues, I infer that the questioner is not interested in my answer. This is a rhetorical question; a reminder to take a shower. Duly noted.

48. Do you text a lot?

No, but I prose too much.

49. Do you shop at WalMart regularly?

No.

50. What..s your favorite store at the mall?

The store where they trade apostrophes for periods. You should check it out–they’re having a two-for-one sale right now.

If your spouse hasn’t “had time” to read your blog for three months, then your writing probably isn’t all that entertaining.

At least, that’s her theory.

One of my favorite duties, as editor of this site, is choosing the honorees for the greatest innovators of the century every hundred years.  The twentieth century teemed with innovation in a myriad fields, and choosing one luminary from among the burgeoning cohort of inventors, visionaries, and pioneers has not been easy.  It has taken well over eight years to conclude the search, and with such a strong field I must admit that there were many times when I felt the temptation to settle on an arbitrary member of the short-list.  I felt that nobody could fault my selection of any of them; their accomplishments were both strong and widely recognized.  Nevertheless, I could not surrender so easily.  The mantle of this responsibility must not be set aside lightly.

Innovation takes many forms.  I consider it related to and yet distinct from invention; invention solves a problem or answers a question, while innovation makes the old problems disappear or the questions irrelevant.  It is possible to innovate without invention, and to invent without innovation–but in many successful developments, an element of each is required.  When comparing two innovators, however, I focus on the impact that the innovator has had, rather than the cleverness innate to his or her innovation.

I also consider the ubiquity of the change effected by the innovation.  An innovation that remarkably improves the life of a small segment of the population does not have the impact, in my opinion, as an innovation that makes a modest improvement in the lives of everyone.

The honoree for this century is responsible for a remarkable change in the travel habits of nearly every member of our species.  It is hard to believe the change effected in just a few short generations, and the ripples of change resulting from his innovation are still spreading.  Members of the younger generations may not fully appreciate the change wrought; they have always lived in a world where great distance is not a daunting barrier.

With no further ado, I present the winner of the Reginald Thistledown prize for the twentieth century:  Theodore Entwhistle, pioneer, visionary, and evangelist of the simple fact that Canadian geese no longer need to fly south for the winter and north for the summer; they can just hang around the high school playing fields, corporate parks, golf courses, and public pools year-round.