The Michael Canfield Channel

Q: I'm glad we did that!

A: Something that's never said after eating Taco Bell.

On audio

... I'm listening to Francis Donaldson's biography of P.G. Wodehouse, which is read by Frederick Davidson, who has also recorded many Wodehouse novel. He's mostly fine here, but goes a bit over-the-top on some of the characters voices. He affects a sort of ancient-Oxford-don voice for passages quoting Plum's letters for example. The book itself takes its subject in the manner I really prefer in writer's biographies, passing over the formative years of childhood quickly and diving into the literary career.

The book certainly makes me want to get hold of a collection of Wodehouse's letters as soon as I can.

I'm still in beta

... needing to move all my free read links over to this page, as well as some other stuff. And I keep tweaking the font size daily.

Currently reading Guitar Manby Will Hodgkinson, a memoir of a thirty-five-year-old journalist in London who decides to take up the guitar for the first time with the goal of being able to play in front of an audience within six months. Pretty soon he realizes that's not a well-thought out goal.

Some decent self-deprecating humor in the vein of current light memoirs like, say,Candy Freakor Word Freak. It weaves personal anecdotes with some history of the subject and encounters with whichever contemporary musicians the author can score an interview with. A enjoyable read, and jibes really well with my own attempts to play.

Technorati Tags: books, memoirs, guitar

One more minor thing

that is annoying about Blogger is that post-dated posts appear immediately when they are saved, and not hidden until the date and time they are scheduled to appear. Another awesome thing about Blogger is no annoying drop-down calendars to select dates from. Just type a date in the date field like a sentient with reasonable motor skills and move on.

Oh and one more awesome thing about Blogger? Free.

Death of Captain America

The Onion has some funny person on the street reaction to the death of the Cap.

A very short reprint

My "essay" appeared in the eSkeptic Newsletter in December 2005 but is no longer available in the archives. [Actually it is.] So I present it here, in the cribbed, cut & pasted "original":

A Very Short Essay On Doubt (composed of very famous quotes)

"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. " - Russell

"To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. " - Descartes

But,

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. " - Russell

"The best lack all convictions, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." - Yeats.

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - Voltaire

Therefore,

"Doubt 'til thou canst doubt no more...doubt is thought and thought is life. Systems which end doubt are devices for drugging thought. " - Albert Guerard

One minor thing ...

that is annoying about Blogger is no strikethrough shortcut in the posting tool. There is, however, a lot of conveniences I'm loving, such as a handy revision link for the blogger after each entry (when logged into your account) not to mention a text color button, useful for making horrifyingly garish entries.

The handy Perfomancing Firefox add-on has the shortcut, and a lot of other handy shortcuts, like del.icio.us bookmarking, technorati tagging fields and pinging. It works well with many different blogs, including Typepad and Blogger.

Book meme

Via Tropism, Tim Pratt's started [picked up on] a book meme. Here are my own answers. Appropriately enough I also begin with Stephen King.


1. One book that changed your life:


The Stand by Stephen King. The first fantasy book I read where the characters were like people who lived in my town and in the everyday universe I live in.


2. One book you have read more than once:


The Code of the Woosters. I don't often reread books. I should do more. There are probably only a handful of books I've read multiple times, but this particular Wodehouse novel, I still reread a couple times a year. No exaggeration.


3. One book you would want on a desert island:


Probably Shakespeare's complete works, if picking an omnibus isn't cheating. Some of my favorites to read again and again are (in no order) Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard III, Henry IVi, Henry IVii, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Troilus and Cressida, Lear, Othello, and The Tempest. And there are a few important ones, like Julius Caesar, that I've never read at all. So that would keep me busy.


4. One book that made you laugh:


The Three Musketeers: There's probably no writer I admire more than Dumas right now, who I've only read recently. He's the master storyteller. Before I'd read this book, I assumed that the self-referential humor in various Three Musketeer film incarnations was a modern interpretation. Not so, the original is more witty, contemporary, action-packed, and sexy than any film version.


5. One book that made you cry:


Hm. Maybe Charlotte's Web? I honestly don't remember crying at any book. Which is weird because I cry all the time over movies and TV. Sometimes even over the lamest or most cynical manipulations, like the death of Mr. Echo on Lost. But not Starbuck, even I didn't cry over the death (or "crossing over" or whatever the fuck) of my beloved Starbuck. I did almost fall asleep though.


6. One book you wish had been written:


Shakespeare's autobiography. I want to know what his attitude to his own work was.


7. One book you wish had never been written:


I'm drawing a blank. I was going to pick one or all the the Dune sequels, but really the fact that there are shitty sequels doesn't ruin my admiration of the original novel. Then I thought, maybe Dianetics, as Scientology is such an embarrassment to the SF community, which I once naively assumed would be populated by rational thinkers. I think everyone has to be free to write what they want, even if it sucks. I don't think I'm qualified to draw a line here. Anyhow, without Scientology we would had fewer hilarious South Park episodes.


8. One book you are currently reading:


Besides The Count of Monte Cristo by the aforementioned Alexander Dumas, I've been reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton for awhile now.


9. One book you have been meaning to read:


I've got The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo tucked away, while I wait for just the right occasion. From the editorial material:

"Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier. He came back a vampire.


"Now he finds himself pulled into a web of intrigue when an old friend prompts him to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania at the secret government facilities in Rocky Flats."

Which I'm guessing still won't leave me with much of an answer for #5.


Technorati Tags: books, writing, fiction

And here's another thing

Good morning. I'm doing my taxes today. I previously posted this scintillating news weeks ago, but that plan was derailed by computer problems too tedious to mention. In the interim I happened to recall $80 I'm owed by a publisher who forgot to pay me last year. So I straightened that out, with a minimum of contact, which I gather is how this publisher prefers to deal with me. Anyway, eighty bucks. Cha-ching.

Writing

I've embarked on a semi-ambitious writing schedule for the next ± 11 weeks.

Btw, here's a small Mac OSX complaint. Nowhere on the system can I find a version of the old keycaps program that shows what keycombination to use to make a (±) sign. Keyboard options under the systems options menu only explains shortcuts. I did manage the zoom and reduce the text size on the screen many times while guessing. However, thanks to Wikipedia, I'm good now.