Lunatic Writer's Blog

Back to the Moon, please!

2/21/2013

As most of you know, my novel, Lunatics, is still waiting in the wings to be picked up by some interested publisher. But the clock is ticking... Come on, guys, do you really want to lose me to the great Ba'al of Literature--Self Publishing?

Most of the action in Lunatics takes place inside the moon's Copernicus Crater in 1974, during the Apollo XX mission (which, alas, men with very little vision decided to cancel.) Yet all was not lost as the Apollo program ended. Several interesting probes have revisited the moon since, though no humans, of course. Presently orbiting the moon is the magnificent Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which, for the last several years, has been taking thousands upon thousands of ultra-high resolution images of the moon, in preparation for our return there.

Below is a view of the central peak of Tycho Crater, very similar in form to the central Peak of Copernicus Crater. A geologically complex and geographically stunning location.
How could one not want to go there?

Stunning image or what?

My wife and I visited the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Lab in Phoenix, Arizona a couple of years ago. I even arranged for a guided tour. I will never forget the sadness in the voice of the scientist who led the tour when he reflected on the fact that all this magnificent reconnaissance work, creating images with a resolution of less than one metre in some cases, might all be for naught.

George Bush had proposed a new and ambitious program to return astronauts to the moon, and, with that announcement, the community of lunar scientists jumped for joy. But as Bush's administration ended, so did their lunar dreams...

Make moon landings, not war...

BOOK REVIEW: RED MOON RISING

2/18/2013

I am a space-junkie. In a general way, I have long been familiar with the events leading up to launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. I was particularly familiar with the American part of the story: the public dismay and panic, the rivalry between different branches of the military, and the frustrations of rocket scientists such as Wernher von Braun who felt handcuffed by petty politics. But nowhere in my readings did I have much information about what was happening in Russia at this time.

Red Moon Rising, written by Matthew Brzezinski, addresses this gap in spectacular fashion. In this book, Sergei Korolev, the father of Russian rocket science, the man more than anyone responsible for Sputnik, becomes a fully-fleshed character. The reader becomes entranced by the fortunes of this brilliant but flawed man, sworn to a life of secret anonymity even as his satellites orbit gloriously overhead.

Besides learning about Korolev we learn intimate details about Russian president, Nikita Khrushchev, and the inner workings of the Soviet Presidium.

Brzezinski does a masterful job portraying the bizarre and sometimes frightening politics occurring in both hemispheres at this time. Most startling to me was to learn of the ultra-provocative policies of President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State at the time, John Foster Dulles. With religious zeal, Dulles did everything he could to demonize the Soviets. He raised the spectre of a surprise attack against the United States when it was clear to everyone in the military that the Soviets had no such capacity. Dulles spoke of “total war” and “massive retaliation” with no seeming purpose but to intimidate the Russians. Dulles regularly ordered bomber missions into Soviet airspace to test their defenses and sent spy planes on reconnaissance missions at an altitude where no Russian jets could respond.

Is it any wonder then that Khrushchev, quite desperately, looked for some means of “retaliation’ of his own?

Of course, Dulles hyper-aggressive, paranoid, anti-Soviet policy came back to bite him big time. For all their supposed ‘intelligence’, the CIA knew nothing about Sergei Korolev and, despite warnings from some quarters that the Soviet Union might soon put a satellite into orbit, no one in the White House believed it. The prevailing opinion was that the Russians were little more than backward peasants, led by a bumbling leader and thus incapable of such a technological feat.

Of course they were, and they did. And that story makes up the fascinating content of RED MOON RISING.

8/10

John Foster Dulles... scary.

Azimov on Submissions

2/14/2013

"You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist."
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

Fine, inspiring words, but I wonder if they still apply today when the publishing world is SO hard to break into. Of course authors now have the option to self-publish in a quality and economy that Asimov probably never envisioned, so perhaps the game really HAS changed... I don't know.

I would LIKE to know as I still wait to hear back from a half a dozen publishers about Lunatics...

90 000 Words

2/13/2013

Just passed the ninety thousand word mark in BIG LEDGE. Just about time to start applying the brakes!

Below is a detail of a map showing the route of the Northern Pacific Railway. It starts in Minneapolis/ St. Paul and heads out to Tacoma and Portland.

Sproule and his fellow miners would normally have got off at Kootenai Station (near Sandpoint), then headed north to Bonner's Ferry. From there they could travel downriver to Kootenay Lake, cross the international border, and soon reach Big Ledge.

In 1884, Grohman tells a tale of his being accosted at gunpoint by Sproule on a train trip from Kootenai Station to Rathdrum. Rathdrum was the nearest settlement where Grohman would have encountered the law and could have sworn out a complaint against Sproule. For some reason he never did.

Any local Kootenay residents will note that Nakusp and Sandon are shown in the wrong place. Cute...

BOOK REVIEW: GHOST LIGHTS by Lydia Millet

2/10/2013

In Lydia’s Millet’s last novel, How the Dead Dream, we leave the protagonist, T, lost in a jungle in Belize, quite possibly dead. The scene of her new novel starts at a dog kennel, where Susan, T's secretary, has come to retrieve T’s dog, whose owner, everyone has come to fear, may no longer be alive.

With Susan, is her middle-aged husband, Hal. Hal is scarcely mentioned in the previous novel but, in Ghost Lights, he becomes Millet’s protagonist. Once again Millet surprises the reader by choosing an unlikely individual to tell her story: a very ordinary man, almost an everyman, a mere IRS bureaucrat, who yet is complex, fully-fleshed and strangely endearing.

Hal is a flawed man, only too aware of his own mediocrity, married to a woman who is probably too good for him. At the same, Hal has just come to realize that Susan may be unfaithful to him. They have a grown daughter, Casey, who, as a teenager, was badly injured in a car accident and now lives as a paraplegic. Hal, quite illogically, has always felt responsible for the accident, and a sense of mourning, and regret over ‘things that might have been’ has dominated his life since.

Drunk, to a degree he has not know since his youth, Hal declares that he personally will go to the Belize resort where T was last seen, and find Susan’s missing boss. His motives are far from noble. He sees this as an opportunity to escape, if only briefly, the feelings of betrayal, mourning, and ineffectiveness that have become almost too much for him to bear. He cares little for T personally. He will grieve only as far as politeness requires if the man is never found. But Hal shares the story of T with some German tourists who eagerly take it on as their own. With supernatural German efficiency, they organize a search party. Millet’s descriptions of the German couple (Hansel and Gretel—I kid you not) and their two bronze-skinned boys are some of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. They provide much welcome comic relief in an otherwise melancholy tale.

Millet’s writing always skirts alongside the dark edges of humanity, but never without compassion, often with humour and always with love for her central characters. In How the Dead Dream, the theme of extinction. and the sadness over the final days of things, is central. The theme returns in a surprising way in Ghost Lights, culminating in one of the most memorable death scenes I have ever read.

Definitely worth the read.

8/10

Extinction, the Last Days of Things and Tucson

2/9/2013

I have just finished reading, Lydia's Millet most recent novel, Ghost Lights. It's a tremendous book in which, once again, the theme of extinction and the "last days of things" is central. How odd it is then, that Millet chooses to live in Tucson, Arizona.

Don't get me wrong. Tucson is a beautiful place; I will never forget the wonderful time my wife and I had there but undeniably, it too is a place doomed to extinction in the near future (like all large cities of the American southwest. Its population continues to grow, even amid a tremendous water shortage--it is--any environmentalist will attest to this--unsustainable.) Tucson is to American cities what mountain gorillas are to primate species: glorious, captivating, but clearly on the path to extinction.

The great symbol of Tucson is the Saguaro cactus which can only grow in the Sonoran Desert and never very far from Tucson. Here is yet another symbol of nature on the edge, of the "last days of the things." The mighty, heroic Saguaro--one bad winter and they die off in their thousands...

It must be deliberate. Millet lives in Tucson so she can be close to such things, to the Saguaro, to all manner of endangered desert species, and to the citizens of Tucson itself. I salute you Lydia Millet. No doubt you would have joined the orchestra on the last hours of the Titanic.

The MIKADO: a performance in Victoria, Jan. 5, 1886

2/6/2013

Brian d'Eon as Ko-Ko, 1991

THE MIKADO

In 1991, Nelson Little Theatre presented “The Mikado” for local audiences. It was great fun, (even though it seemed preoccupied with the notion of chopping off heads) and I had the good fortune to play Ko-Ko.

105 years earlier, Victoria, BC. was treated to its own production of this Gilbert and Sullivan classic, on the very eve and day of Robert Sproule’s scheduled execution. Fortunately, he was to live to see another day but, alas, never a performance. His execution date was postponed on six different occasions till finally he was hanged on Oct. 29, 1886. Here’s what one journalist had to say about the show:

"Victoria has been taken by storm. The Thompson Opera Company achieved a brilliant success at the Victoria last evening. The house was crowded, and from the beginning to end the entertainment was a succession of triumphs. No company with so many excellent performers has before appeared on Victoria boards. The acting could not have been better; the vocalism was of the highest order, and the stage settings were most appropriate. It has seldom been our good fortune to listen to a tenor of Mr. Branson’s ability, a baritone of Mr. Seaman’s power, or bassos of Mr. Gillow and Mr. Murray’s capacity. The character of Katisah (sp. Katisha) by Miss Godfrey was admirably sustained and her lovely voice had excellent scope. Yum-Yum by Miss Hall, Pitti Sing by Miss Vining, Peep-Boo by Miss Branson, were successful efforts. Ko-Ko in Mr. McCollin’s hands is on e of the most amusing roles ever attempted, and was delightfully performed. There were frequent encores during the evening, particularly the National Anthem at the close. The choruses were sustained. There is not an inferior singer or actor in the company. The town is ringing with their success. Readers should not fail to see the Mikado, which will be repeated to-night. Seats may be secured at Waitt’s."

BOOK REVIEW: The Dangerous Animals Club

2/3/2013

THE DANGEROUS ANIMALS CLUB
by Stephen Tobolowsky

This book was given to me by my daughter and fiancé who are both actors working out of Toronto. Knowing my own modest background in theatre, they thought I might find it a good read and I did. But not exactly for the expected reasons.

As advertised, Tobolowsky (Tobo) gives us a quirky account of his rise to the status of one of Hollywood’s most successful (yet anonymous) character actors. Tobo has appeared in numerous movies and television series. I remember him best for his appearances in Glee and Heroes. I was reassured to read that, as an actor, he was just as mystified by the plot of Heroes as I was, as a viewer.

Tobo begins his book by recalling his boyhood in Oak Cliff, Texas. There, he and a friend make it their mission to scour the neighbourhood in hope of capturing and bringing home the most dangerous animals they can find. It’s a funny story, but maybe a little misleading as the title of the book.

Most of the book follows Tobo’s long and meandering struggle to make it as a professional actor. Some of the anecdotes he tells are very amusing, such as when he is performing for a Santa Monica theatre company for children. This is Tobo’s first professional gig and he has had to memorize his lines phonetically since he doesn’t know Spanish. The moment of truth arrives; he is supposed to say, Pasa, jovincita (“Come in, little girl”). Instead he blurts out, Peto, jovincita which means “Fart, little girl.” This brings the down the house as such mistakes are apt to do with an audience of eight-year-olds. He is fired after the performance.

But Stephen Tobolowsky is nothing, if not resilient. Despite many setbacks and many disappointments, he maintains his sense of humour, his sense of optimism and, ultimately—and this is what I like best—his sense of gratitude.

At one point in his life, Stephen has a bad accident and breaks his neck. For nine months he is in a brace and is effectively removed from the world of auditions. Somehow, near the end of this period, his agent lands him an audition for a role in Heroes. He arrives at the building where auditions are supposed to take place, still wearing his brace. He’s afraid to take it off. After such a long time out of the loop, he’s nervous about the whole processing of auditioning.

When Tobo finally is let into the building he finds it virtually deserted. No one is expecting him. It turns out the auditions are the next day… One could easily imagine an actor throwing a hissy-fit at such a point. But Tobo just takes breath, reminds himself how lucky he is to even be in the acting industry and drives placidly back home. Next day he returns like nothing has happened, and he gets the part.

It is such incidents as this that really make the book for me: moments when we come to appreciate Stephen’s humanity, his good heart, his openness to new possibilities.

Tobo did indeed teach me many new and interesting things about the acting industry. For example, I learned the difference between stage acting, which I understand, and movie acting which I do not. It helped explain why I wasn’t hired, even as an extra, the one time I auditioned for a movie!

Many times I laughed out loud while reading this book: once, for example at learning his mother’s advice as Tobo rents his first apartment in L.A. “Stephen, whatever you do, don’t go into porno.” But I also sighed too, in sharing Stephen’s disappointments and regrets. By the end of the book, I am left feeling I know far more than a bunch of funny stories. I have come to know the man, Stephen Tobolowsky, and he’s someone I like and someone I wish well.

Here’s what he writes to start of his acknowledgements at the end of the book: “To my wife, Ann, for the countless hours, the love, the crises weathered at every stage of our lives together—including this book.”

What’s not to like?

A very solid, 7/10.

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