Came the first of the year, and I felt a need to focus on other things for a few days. No radical changes, but maybe a couple of weeks without the regimen and without much blog activity. I will be back on the 15th of January, bigger or smaller, but essentially still the same, and hopefully ready for a push toward an intermediate goal of 50 pounds.
Meanwhile, just so you know I haven't been totally jaking it, here are a few niche bestseller lists for the Amazon Kindle -- my pen name is "Stephen Windwalker":
Fun Facts
Writing
Web Marketing
Consumer Guides
First Day Soundtrack
JJ Leaves LA - Daniel Lanois
On pp. 106-107 of Conversations with Richard Ford, the novelist says the following to the interviewer (the writer Ned Stuckey-French):
"My notion about what I guess you could call the ontogeny of fiction is that fiction is about (it is, anyway, when I write it) what we do as a consequence to dramatic acts. Much of our lives is spent dealing with the consequences of our own and others' important acts; trying to make virtues out of vices, trying to make normal things that have happened against our will and against all logic seem normal, survivable. And so, for me, at least up to now, it has seemed that what stories can be about is how people put their lives in order after rather dramatic, sometimes violent, percussive events. And because I know these things happen to all of us--or if they don't happen literally, they happen to us in our ambient life--I know we're curious about them as determinants. We're natively curious about events that change even small personal histories. So, insofar as a story of mine might be instructive, it's that it is about what people do when bad things happen. For me, what's mostly threatened in the stories I've written is the fabric of affection that holds people close enough together to survive."
JJ Leaves LA - Daniel Lanois
On pp. 106-107 of Conversations with Richard Ford, the novelist says the following to the interviewer (the writer Ned Stuckey-French):
"My notion about what I guess you could call the ontogeny of fiction is that fiction is about (it is, anyway, when I write it) what we do as a consequence to dramatic acts. Much of our lives is spent dealing with the consequences of our own and others' important acts; trying to make virtues out of vices, trying to make normal things that have happened against our will and against all logic seem normal, survivable. And so, for me, at least up to now, it has seemed that what stories can be about is how people put their lives in order after rather dramatic, sometimes violent, percussive events. And because I know these things happen to all of us--or if they don't happen literally, they happen to us in our ambient life--I know we're curious about them as determinants. We're natively curious about events that change even small personal histories. So, insofar as a story of mine might be instructive, it's that it is about what people do when bad things happen. For me, what's mostly threatened in the stories I've written is the fabric of affection that holds people close enough together to survive."
Thursday's soundtrack
I haven't posted much about the Celtics since opening night, when I wrote thatI think this could be the best season the Celtics have had since the early 90s, when we said goodbye over several years and for several reasons to Larry Joe Bird, Chief, DJ, McHale, Reggie Lewis and Lenny Bias. There is talk of a new Big Three, which of course will be nothing but heresy unless and until the new guys hang a flag.
Well, no flag yet, but this team is something special. I haven't missed many games, and I won't. They are the first NBA team in over 60 years to begin a season 27 and 3, and they just ran the table on a 4-game-in-5-night West Coast trip, which would impress even Larry Joe Bird.
What impresses me is their ability to shut teams down, with the Big Ticket (aka Kevin Garnett) in the middle playing the part of a latter-day William Felton Russell. They regularly put good NBA offensive teams through stretches of 8 or 10 minutes with 1 or 2 field goals. Not once a month, but once or twice a week. That would impress even Russ, I think.
The Beatles saw this coming, and they wrote a song about it. If you can get hold of the original vinyl and play the record backwards on an original Lenco turntable you can hear Ringo in the background in a somewhat muffled voice reciting the names of all the Celtics players who have had their uniforms retired, and he includes "Number 5, Kevin Garnett," which when you think about it is even more prescient and remarkable than his inclusion of guys from the 80s teams:
New Hampshire Primary Soundtrack
One of the joys of this primary season has been the opportunity to have intelligent discussion with my 9-year-old son Danny about how weird it is that this country has been electing presidents for 220 years without ever electing a woman or a person of color. And about how great it is that we are getting very close to doing that. He gets it.
I know better than to expect a president to lead the country, but it does not mean that I cannot hope for it. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all would be far better at the job than the incumbent, and each would bring her (or his) own strengths.
But Obama has a chance to be a transformational leader, someone who can inspire a generation or two as no president has even begun to do since JFK. The country needs that. People in their 20s need it, 9-year-olds need it, women need it, people of color need it. And I need it.
Then there is the other thing. The international thing. The current president has done a huge amount of damage to the this country's international standing. Obama has the capacity to bring a sea change, a real reversal of that effect, and it is much needed.
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