The best advice I can give to aspiring filmmakers is get a good opening and a good ending and get them as close together as possible.
— Steve Sabol, President of NFL Films
All storytellers should take this to heart, especially long-winded ones like me. The story I’m working on right needs to be tight.
While driving through southwest Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle, I noticed that the horizon was brown — the air is as dingy and grim as the air in Los Angeles ever was. It is tinged with particulate pollution that at one time was part of one of the richest topsoil systems on the planet. Now our soil is floating on the breeze, not doing anyone any good.
It’s time to do something about it.
Back in the prairie days, before the plow reached the plains, there was grass to hold down the soil. Then came farmers and soon after came the dust bowl. When there wasn’t enough rain, crops withered and the desiccated soil was exposed to the wind. These days, the main reason we don’t have more dust bowls is irrigation. Mighty pumps draw water from below the surface and spray it on the crops. This is still not as effective at erosion control as the prairie grasses were, and the activities of farming just plain raise a lot of dust. Not much one can do about it.
Or is there? What if we could do something about the other element in a dust storm — the wind? Slow the wind down and the air won’t be able to carry as much particulate matter. If we can slow down the wind enough, we might even begin to accumulate soil from less-enlightened neighbors.
Oh, I hear you now: “Hold the phone, there, Sunshine! Slow down the wind?” Yeah, it sounds crazy, I know, but in fact we already have machines that slow down the wind, and as a special bonus they give us electricity. Yep, windmills are machines that take energy out of the air and turn it into juicy, useful, power. There are already wind farms popping up in Kansas, giant pylons standing in neat rows across the very fields that are losing topsoil to the wind.
The difficulty with the current setup is that the windmills are put way up in the air, where there is less interaction with ground winds. This is done on purpose, as the giant rotors’ primary purpose is electricity, not erosion control, and the wind is steadier up there. (Also, it makes sense to get those giant rotors up where they won’t be whacking into things.) For this job we’re going to need windmills closer to the ground, which probably means many smaller windmills. Since efficiency at generating electricity is no longer the top priority, we can put them closer together. Each will generate less electricity, but the rows of them will make a more effective windblock.
How much do windmills slow down the air? I’m not really sure, but I’ve heard about habitats being affected downwind from them. It’s all a matter of taking enough energy out of the system.
That might be enough to make a difference, but we can add a low-tech modification to our fields to deflect the wind up off the ground and into the whirling blades. Simple scoop-shaped fences, perhaps configured in V shapes, can funnel the air whooshing along the ground up and into the windmills. More electricity, even less soil erosion. I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the water needed for the crops was reduced as well. Less water per acre means more land can be irrigated, which means more food.
The fence system assumes that wind usually comes from the same general direction; I imagine that when the wind is blowing parallel to the fences they might do more harm than good. Judging by the way the wind farms are set up, I think the direction is pretty steady, however. The V-shaped fences may prove to be a hassle for the farmer; modern machinery likes straight lines and big circles. Perhaps the fences could be replaced by long rows of grape vines. They would be less efficient at deflecting the wind but they would provide a significant additional crop. Another type of food makes the farmer less vulnerable to crop-specific pests and to random market swings.
I picture the ideal field as having some of the giant turbines to slow down the air up above, with rows of closely-spaced windmills below to slow the surface wind. Air moving over the field would be slowed enough that it’s carrying capacity was reduced, and rather than picking up sediment would deposit some of what it was already carrying instead. Free dirt!
The cool thing about this get-poor-quick scheme is that while it may not have the same immediate return on investment of a traditional wind farm, the watts per acre will be pretty high. Assuming energy prices keep climbing, it could even pay for itself. Then, when the aquifer runs out and the dust bowl returns, maybe America will still be able to feed itself.
I drove off the campus of Kansas University at about noon, playing my new Boxcar Satan CD louder than is strictly necessary. I went south on Highway 59 for a few miles until it crossed 56, which seemed to be going more or less my direction. It was an older stretch of road, more inclined to roll with the terrain rather than blast through it. Around Baldwin City I stopped and applied sunscreen (only a little too late) and carried on, enjoying the rolling hills and the barns. There are a lot of barns on that road; large and small, stone and wood and brick, red and white, ramshackle and tidy.
Traffic was light, polite and scrupulously obeyed the speed limits. I’m on the Santa Fe trail, which appeals to me, because Santa Fe is my next stop.
Jim Gunn asked me if I’d learned enough at the workshop. I said I’d learned all I could, but we’d have to see if that was enough. My brain is like a glass, I said, and knowledge is beer. Right now the foam is up to the rim; once it settles we’ll see how much beer is actually in there.
While saying goodbye, several of my fellow writers said (more or less) “You have to finish your novel! I have friends that will love it!” That’s encouraging, and flattering, but now I have to write the damn thing. These other good folk have constructed in their heads what the story will be like, and they like the image. But can I live up to those expectations? I don’t have a single chapter in final form yet.
I guess time will tell. All I can do is string the words together while wearing a quirk of a smile on my face, and hope the funny comes through in the darkness. For there will be darkness.
The boys from Madrid and Barcelona managed to work together, and scoring only nine goals in the entire tournament, have become world champions.
I was pulling for Spain, as in general I prefer finesse over brute strength. I would have been much happier, however, if the winning goal, which came at the most dramatic moment possible, when overtime was almost expired, had not been scored by the most flagrant flop artist on the pitch. He will go down in history for scoring The Goal, rather than for being The Big Whiny Whistle-Baiter. Except in these pages.
An indication of the state of the sport: At one point a Dutch player was breaking away. There was contact. Rather than fall down and draw a whistle, he tried to score. The announcers questioned his judgement. FIFA, we have a problem.
Some of you may have noticed on this site a black-and-red screen with a self-congratulatory message from a bunch of assholes who are not me. Naturally this occurred when I was out in the middle of Nevada, so it took a while before I was able to effect repairs. Things are (mostly) working now. Actually, I had them fixed even before the hosting company became aware of the problem, apparently. The time they cite for the intrusion was 10pm July 3rd, but it was 10am or even earlier that the attack occurred. That fills me with confidence. (Maybe it’s just a typo in their message.)
My hosting company is setting up a new server and will be restoring this site from backups that are a few days old. Hopefully I’ll be able to update the database (no affected) to include episodes (like this one) and comments that have happened since the hack.
I assumed at first that the brand-new version of WordPress might have a security exploit, but then I discovered that jerssoftwarehut.com and all the sub-sites I have on that server (except paseeger.com, for reasons I can’t figure), were hacked. Then I tried to get into the control panel and it was hacked. That takes more access than even I have; the control panel code is off in some other place. No, my Web host was hacked.
I do not yet know whether the credit card fraud protection kicked in at about that time as a result of actual fraud or because I was traveling and some robot flagged the behavior as suspicious. It looks like there might be some bogus charges, but I won’t know for sure until I can talk to an actual human tomorrow. (I did talk to a human in India, but she was unable to access the information I need.
So now I have no credit card, and the ATM powers of the same card seem to be suspended as well (that or I’m misremembering my PIN). All the cash My sweetie thrust upon me for the trip, more than I would have taken otherwise, has proven a lifesaver.
Once I had a glowing recommendation for MM Hosting on this site. I really liked them at first; their service and responsiveness was fantastic. Things have been going downhill with them for a while, and I had already been investigating other options that gave me more control. Inertia has kept me here for the most part. No longer. Goodbye, MMHosting. I’ll be asking for a refund for the remainder of my contract.
I’m rushing around getting ready to leave for a two-week writing conference. I’ll tell you about that once I’m on the road but I thought you might want to take a look at a Web site I’ve been working on for some nice folks I’ve never met face-to-face. It’s CAKE! Yummy!
Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange
It’s all about global warming and doing something about it. The planet’s getting warmer; best to have a plan. Take a look!
When one is in an airport bookstore after spending ten hours on a plane with no reading material, still looking at another few hours before reaching one’s final destination, one doesn’t take chances. One buys multiple books, in different genres, to ensure that the remainder of the journey will pass smoothly. If the first novel fails to please, there is always another.
In the above paragraph, I am the One. Among the books I purchased that fateful day was The Reapers: A Thriller
Connolly has written several stories featuring a detective named Charlie Parker; in this installment the crusty ex-detective plays a subordinate role as the author focuses on Louis, one dangerous mo-fo to be sure. Gay, black, soft-spoken, likes country music, frighteningly cold-blooded. Louis is unusual even among killers; his ego makes no demands, even when he is motivated by revenge. He doesn’t need to see the person die, he doesn’t need to make it poetic, doesn’t need to gloat, as long his target’s heart stops beating. (Although the author glosses over one purely egotistical touch that allows the bad bad guy to get away at one point.)
How did Louis come to be this way? It’s a long story, or a short story, depending on how you look at it. The short version: some people are just born that way. The long version is told over several long flashbacks. As a young man Louis is witness to a particularly horrific hate crime. More crimes against his family follow. After Louis takes his revenge he is discovered and nurtured (or at least trained) by men who work for The Government (or do they?). Louis is retired now, the only one of his group to walk away without being killed. Or so he thought. (insert dramatic sting)
To be honest, after a while the long backstory sections started to feel redundant, as if Mr. Connolly was himself unsure of his thesis that just because Louis was a cold-blooded killer doesn’t mean he’s a bad man. At least for me, he was selling past the close. I got it about two flashbacks before Connolly was ready to trust me that I got it, and move on with the story. The rest started to feel defensive.
Naturally to bring out the best in Louis in this story he must be confronted by a rival of similar pedigree. Turns out that he and his rival have each failed to kill the other on previous occasions. Not a bad set-up by Mr. Connolly.
One of the best things about this book: No one is safe. Even people you like, some little more than innocent bystanders, are fair game. There’s no guarantee that everyone will live happily ever after. That’s critical if you aspire to the title ‘thriller’, and in this case you better not let your guard down until you’ve closed the book. Maybe I have to take back what I said about about it not having much thrill.
Still, did I really have to know the whole backstory of the hired goon who gets whacked? Three pages of backstory for his half-page of action? No, I don’t think I needed to know that. Did I need the detailed description of a rifle, just to have the bad guy choose the other rifle? No, that just came off as the author showing off. Should someone who goes into such great detail about firearms refer to ‘clips’ in an autoloading pistol? Absolutely not.
This sort of story thrives on detail, but let’s keep it to the details that matter, please, and make sure our terminology is correct. Louis would never say ‘clip’ when he means ‘magazine’, and neither should the author.
Overall, however, the rather straightforward plot was very satisfactorily balanced by the character study of the central personality. He is a complex person, a perfect storm of intelligence, physical ability, and near-complete dispassion toward his victims. Was this a thriller? I can’t say I was on the edge of my seat. Wasn’t thrilled, per se. I was interested, and I was wrapped up in the action, however, and I really liked the central characters and they way Connolly introduced them to me. Overall, a pretty good read.
Note: if you use the above link to buy this book (or a Kindle
OK, at the end of my last episode I said we’d be returning to more interesting sports. I, um… lied. I’m going to talk a little bit more about boring sports, and about how with skilled writing they can sometimes even seem interesting.
Let’s start with the NBA. God what a tedious business. I call it five-on-five pro wrestling. The players have so completely eclipsed the game they play that much more is written about their behavior than about their performance on the court. Not that that takes much. Ten men jog down the court. One of them scores a basket. If he scores with enough style points, the crowd cheers. Then the ten men jog to the other end of the court. Repeat.
I could easily forget that the NBA exists at all except for the extremely entertaining writing of Bill Simmons over on ESPN.com. Unlike so-called sports journalists, Simmons makes no pretense of being unbiased. He is a fan, and his writing is about what it means to be a fan, how it can lead to great heights and even greater despair. He lives and dies by his team and it is his experience as a fan, rather than the game itself, that is compelling. His long discussions about the most painful ways to lose are awesome. So, while I have no desire to actually watch a pro basketball game, I do enjoy Simmons’ columns, and when he talks about the gut-punch feeling of a fan when their team blows its most important game in decades, I feel it too.
Then there’s tennis. Tennis can be exciting, though with the dominance of the serve these days those epic Borg/McEnroe contests are lost forever. In their place we get a match that goes for eleven hours because neither man could break the other’s serve. Not really edge-of-the-seat material, but then along comes Xan Brooks to put it all into surreal perspective. He was live-blogging, updating as the match progressed, watching the endless play as it took its toll on athlete and observer alike. At around 3:45 in the afternoon, when the fifth set was a mere thirty games old, Xan begins to wax poetic:
On and on they go. Soon they will sprout beards and their hair will grow down their backs, and their tennis whites will yellow and then rot off their bodies. And still they will stand out there on Court 18, belting aces and listening as the umpire calls the score. Finally, I suppose, one of them will die.
The zombies come out later, the angel never arrives to take the players up to heaven. And that, my friends, is how you make a boring sport interesting.
Four years ago I was sitting in a bar in Prague when the US team was eliminated from the World Cup by Ghana. It was a crappy game; Ghana scored early and spent the rest of the time lying on the grass. Not the sort of game that could endear futbol to the American masses.
This morning I was geeking away in my office when the neighbor turned on the World Cup. Loud. In Spanish. My neighbor is not a native Spanish speaker as far as I know. As long as I was listening to the game, I decided to watch it. It didn’t take long before I realized why the neighbor chose the Spanish channel. I’m sticking with the English-speaking commentators myself, however, for comedic value.
It’s halftime as I write this, and Ghana is winning. Will they spend the second half lying on the ground pretending to be hurt? We don’t know yet. I’ve heard tell that this tournament is much less baby-filled than the one four years ago. In a totally unrelated bit of news, Italy and France, the two teams that competed for the championship last time, have been eliminated.
I’m curious to see whether the Japanese team spends time lying on the ground crying like a babies. Macho cultures like Argentina have no shame on the field, but Japanese culture is all about shame, and the avoidance thereof. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Japanese played a hard-nosed sort of soccer that would be (somewhat) more pleasant to watch.
OK, the second half has started. I’ll keep a running commentary, updating this page as I make my insightful observations.
Minute 47 – big chance for the good guys, good block, followed by a period of the us team milling around the perimeter waiting for someone on the Ghana team to switch sides, or something.
49:01 – a collision! They both got up and kept playing! Incredible!
50:45 – is it me, or is this ref in the way more than most? He’s not favoring either side, I’d say, equally in the way for both.
50:05 – Ghana showing they know how to just take the damn shot. Our boys should learn from that.
53:40 – Nice chance for the US. That’s the kind of pressure they need.
54:40 – Oh, crap, now it’s one of our guys lying on the ground. “He landed awkwardly,” the announcer said. Yeah, right. Dempsey wanted a whistle.
56:20 – Another US ankle-grab-to-get-a-whistle play. The Ghana player scorned him. As he should have.
59:45 – Announcer: The USA have to score. It’s that kind of insight that justifies bringing in a Brit to help with the broadcast.
61:50 – GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! I was typing my last pithy comment and missed what caused the penalty kick, but the US collects.
64:25 – American announcer: He’s really stepped up his game. He’s approached it, he’s come up to… dammit, I don’t remember what he said. Let’s just say that the American guy is not going to be outdone by the Brit.
64:40 – Awesome work by the Ghana goalkeeper.
68:15 – get off the lawn!
74:00 – I’m too slow at typing to get the announcer’s stupid comments down before they say something else and I forget the first one. Right now they’re just chatting on about some player’s gloves.
74:50 – you know what makes a fascinating game? Two teams dicking around at midfield, showing no apparent desire to score. That’s what I like in a sporting contest.
75:50 – and as I typed that, a big chance for the US.
76:30 – get up, you wimp!
77:10 – oh, wait, he really is hurt. He came off and was replaced. I’d feel bad but let’s face it, I had a right to be skeptical.
78:30 – Oh, I love overdramatic announcers, too! Brit Announcer: Can the United States do it? Followed by more blahblahblah.
80:10 – Looked like a big chance for the US. I think the US guy was thinking too much about drawing a penalty and not enough about putting his boot on the ball. Almost scored anyway.
84:55 – You know what else is missing from this game? Endless offside traps by the US. They just did the first one of the half. Good riddance.
89:30 – Cleats to the chest brings a Ghana player down. Is he really hurt? His recovery was swift, I’ll say that.
91:00 – lame-ass yellow card against Ghana. FIFA should have a way to reverse calls like that; the guy will miss the next match because of it.
92:30 – US seems content to wait until the overtime period. Ghana on the attack!
93:30 – on a corner kick with no time left: “The US must defend this one well.” The Brit went on to explain that if they give up the winning goal with no time left they will lose. Really?
94 – Overtime! And the advertisers rejoice!
90:00 – It will be interesting to see if conditioning plays a role in overtime. The team with a little burst left in their legs will have a big advantage.
91:50 – the US goaltender kicks the ball to the Ghana goaltender. No one seemed interested in getting in the way.
94:40 – Ghana gets a breakaway goal! US defense caught napping and split down the middle. Trouble for the good guys.
95:25 – Brit: “this is where reputations are made. Some, broken. Ask the French and Italians.” American: “At some point you have to go and meet the parents.” (American quote may be inaccurate – they were coming too fast.)
96:45 – and Ghana is on the turf. The stretchers are out. Here we go.
98:05 – Brit: How many times can the US keep going to the well? Keep coming up with an answer? Keep digging up old clichés?
99:30 – Ghana on the turf again. This is what sport is all about.
100:34 – Ghana player goes down, ref not looking. He gets back up.
101:58 – Ghana dicking around more. Announcers saying the ref has to keep the game moving. Like that happens.
104:35 – US still not above a bit of turf work to try to draw a whistle.
105:35 – Announcers have gone into full “apologize for the US performance” mode. They’re conditioned to go 90 minutes. They’ve had to come from behind too many times. And so forth.
105:00 – American “If you see things happening, and you get there with your energy, you can really make good things happen.”
105:40 – Brit: “Forget the prep games, this is the real thing.”
106:20 – One guess who’s lying on the grass right now.
107:50 – US player manages to get into the penalty box before falling down, but only manages to draw a direct kick.
110:10 – Ghana player down for no apparent reason. US played on while they could. Here come the stretchers.
111:44 – still wasting time, Ghana player got up off the stretcher and seems ready to come back in.
112:30 – Ghana taking a full minute to sub a player. The clock ticks on. This is a serious flaw in the sport.
114:20 – It sounds like the British announcer doesn’t think it’s worth playing the rest of the game.
115:20 – Let’s see how long it takes for Ghana to get this kick in… about 30 seconds. I expected worse.
118:30 – I think the US players agree with the British announcer.
119:20 – US chance, then after the play a Ghana player sits down – he didn’t fall, mind you, and he wasn’t knocked over. He sat down. Where’s his teammate? The one who taunted the US player for going down. He’s got to straighten out his teammate! Happily he doesn’t get a whistle.
120:10 – an exciting moment as the US goalie tries to score.
And that’s all. Probably a better game than four years ago, but the same result. Perhaps, though, this game will do a slightly better job of selling soccer in the US than the World Cup did four years ago.
Both Ghana goals looked to me like defensive breakdowns by the US, but maybe that’s just the way soccer is. There were some long tedious parts that the announcers filled with blather, but maybe that’s the way announcers are. Now we return this blog to more interesting sports.
This month’s photo contest at Pinup Lifestyle includes an entry shot by yours truly once again.
Infinite photographers!
That is not the one entered in the contest, however! You’ll have to go visit the contest to see that one. Oh, and hey, while you’re there, go ahead and toss us a vote, why don’t you? There are lots of good entries, so take some time to look around and spend your other four votes. It seems like month-to-month the quality of the entries is steadily rising. I think the quality of my shots is steadily improving, too. Hooray!
I’ve noticed a couple of new ads for Lincoln automobiles lately. They’re pretty standard fare; cameras sweep over the body of the car, revealing design details that are somehow supposed to make this car better than Lexus or a Cadillac. Then there is the music. I’ve seen two different ads, with covers of two different songs. The first is Cat Power’s rendition of David Bowie’s classic “Major Tom”, the second is Shiny Toy Guns covering Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom (Coming Home)”.
While both songs have their uplifting moments, you have to wonder about associating your car with songs about a man being killed when his vehicle fails.
I’ll be in Kansas for the first half of July, attending a writing workshop. Big fun! Apparently some of the big names in Science Fiction are bigger than I thought, as they have arranged to have a comet fly by to announce the beginning of the session. Way to go, Jim!
Astronomy Picture of the Day is my new favorite RSS feed. Almost never disappointing.
