Friday, July 21, 2006

Feeding the Geek

Taking a small break from versification this week, and have been completely absorbed by The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios. It's a physics text of sorts, in that the science is solid and thoroughly explained, but it's also documentation of a love affair with comics. It asks and answers the question "Could this happen?" about many comics from the Golden and Silver eras, with examples of plausible and, well, miraculous physical happenings depicted in those glorious 4-color pages.

I'm not a huge comics fan (though I do enjoy a good Iron Man from time to time), but the enthusiasm Professor Kakalios shows for both his heroes and his equations is enough to carry me - and you - through his 400 pages quickly. He's an eloquent and talented writer.

And yes, I am a geek.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Reading and Sleeping

Has much been going on in the past month? Life continues to interfere with more regular posting; if you're looking for more regular (and more literarily astute) posting, check out the Frequented Blogs list. Here are a few miscellany from this corner of the world:
  • Criticize his anthologies if you like, but Garrison Keillor continues to show good taste in selecting poems for The Writer's Almanac, this time rediscovering a gem from Meg Kearney's first book, An Unkindness of Ravens: "Creed".
  • That, of course, follows the selection over the past month of two from Jeannine Gailey's Becoming the Villainess (click her blog below for details and current news).
  • The DeBaun Series is coming together for next year, including what is shaping up to be a dynamite writing workshop day in May. Hope to be announcing detials by end-August.
  • I did it again. I got some emergency expert guidance (and will be back to you for more, oh benevolent coach!) and submitted "To The Ones Who Must Be Loved" in an open reading period.
  • What I'm reading currently: Only Here, Joe Salerno; Diary of a Cell, Jennifer Gresham; Never Before - Poems about first experience, edited by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. And all the writing mags - which I get more and more convinced just have nothing to say anymore.
  • I did not make it into the New Jersey Writers Project, but am revamping my grammar school class concepts anyway - just in case any of you English teachers friends are checking in....

OK. That's all I'm awake enough to tell you about. I'm hoping for more awake time (for me and my dialup connection) soon!