Will the Phillies put away the Dodgers tonight?
I hope not. I’m rooting for the Dodgers, not only because they were my first favorite baseball team (1988-1989) but because I want Joe Torre to do well (and maybe those former Red Sox player too).
But I think Philly will pull it off and lose to Tampa Bay in the World Series.
(This is a response to “Ask Me Something”, a feature where you the reader gets to ask me the writer a question and I answer it. Feel free to join in.)
Where’s the header in your blog template from? Anything famous or just something you scrounged up? Was it a pain photoshop’ing yourself into it?
The banner is Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” (which you can read an interesting history of here). I’m not really big into art, but I’ve always dug Hopper’s work and he is the only artist I can pick out in a museum without reading the little ID card next to the piece.
Considering the sloppy photoshopping job I’d have to say, no, it wasn’t hard at all to get myself in there. Had I taken the time to really tweak myself to fit the image it might have been harder, but I’m an untalented/lazy photoshopper. The hardest part was getting the mug in front of me to look just right as to fit the pic.
And considering how few folks are there, I must say that service at that joint sucked. What’s a man gotta do to get a refill around there?
(This is a response to “Ask Me Something”, a feature where you the reader gets to ask me the writer a question and I answer it. Feel free to join in.)
It’s Wednesday and at another site I used to do this thing where I’d ask the audience to ask me a question that I would then answer. It helps create a little bit of interaction between I the writer and you the reader as well as give me something to do in the middle of the week and maybe create some content for the site. Pretty crafty, eh? So, without further ado…
If you’re feeling saucy enough, ask me questions and I’ll answer them. Maybe you want my opinion on something. Or maybe you’re wondering my philosophical feelings on pie. I dunno, toss me a bone and let’s see what happens.
The Millions has a great wrapup of Haruki Murakami in Berkley, CA. Murakami is the author of such great works as Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and seems to give fascinating discussions. One thing he said that stands out to me:
On his next novel: He finished it last week. Apparently, it’s going to be a doorstop. “I hope you’re not a commuter… The new novel is in the third person, from beginning to end. I need that room, because the story is getting more complicated. I need many perspectives.”
“I hope you’re not a commuter…”
A brilliant line, one that doesn’t mean commuting in the sense of the soul sucking waste of time spent between home and work and back day in and day out (not that I’m bitter about commuting) but a reader commuting into the mind of the narrator, putting himself into Murakami’s characters and world, something he typically achieves by using the first person in his work. But there are limitations to the first person, bound to the thoughts and experiences of the narrator (if done correctly) and while that can create an attachment between reader and author the author can’t really tell other aspects of the tale or flesh out the world beyond the small view of the narrator.
Just the idea of “commuting” as a reader and author, that’s fantastic.
The Redskins have signed former MVP Shaun Alexander. Which leads me to wonder: who got hurt?
