Neil Fein's Blog

Martin and Elianna's aufruf was very nice... and after Martha's speed service last night at Marianne's, it seemed very long. Stress on the seemed.

It was a little odd to be up in the olde home towne of Fair Lawn again, as it always is. It's also good to know that if I let my hindbrain do the driving, I know where everything is; when I think about it, I turn onto the wrong street. Thinking is bad. Bad brain, no biscuit.

The Last Day
by Dave Sim and Gerhard

Cerebus is dead. We all knew this was coming, but it's real now. A little over a month ago, I picked up issue 300 of the series, and put it away. The last collection, the sixteenth volume in the groundbreaking Cerebus series of graphic novels, The Last Day, is out. Here endeth the story of Dave Sim's furry grey personification of political, religious and now scientific commentary.

Cerebus has been Pope, and he demanded the people bring him all their gold, or they'd be writhing in flames for all eternity; he had a series of run-ins with the Cirnists, a matriarchal society gone mad; he spoke to his god, Dave, whilst banished to Pluto; in the bad old days, he was a barbarian mercenary, before he met up with the Roach, a chameleon-like superhero-wannabe. All I can hope to do is give you the flavor of the story, there's been far too much plot to condense into a summary of the series. No doubt Mr. Sim would be please by this, as he shuns interviews for the reason that he would only give a complete answer to a question, not a compact, easily handled factoid.

I'll not attempt to address the threads of controversy with which the series is laced. Browse the web and you'll get a barrel of opinions about the work, the creator, and the importance of background artists. But I will say that the religious and scientific questions and attempts at answers that permeate The Last Day tend to blur the intent of the series. As in this book and the volume before it, Latter Days, the plot becomes glimpses of brilliantly executed narrative seen through the brush. The expositional nature of the accompanying material draws attention away from the story.

While textual sections of graphic novels can on occasion work well, as in Alan Moore's Watchmen, it can be a distraction. Perhaps the authors would have done well to place this material at the end of the book, or write a separate work with it. Sim has a first-class mind, no matter how eccentric he is and how controversial he'd like to be. And he writes very well; I expect we'll be seeing more of his acerbic essays now that Cerebus is complete.

The The Last Day, in keeping with the rest of the Cerebus volumes, raises far more questions than it could hope to answer. And this is not a bad thing. Wrapping up all the numerous plot threads (What happened to Julius? And, what, exactly, happened to Jaka? And when in the world did Cerebus have a son? Was I asleep for that bit?) would take away from the magic. Cerebus, despite all its flaws, is a masterpiece of a work. We can quibble about what should have been, but in the end, ya gotta be there for the end.

Recommended to longtime readers of the series. If you wouldn't know Cerebus from a poke in the eye, start with High Society.

Quebec Northern Lights
Photo from Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Knight
Book One of The Wizard Knight
by Gene Wolfe

Since the second of this two-book series, The Wizard is slated to come out in the US in November 2004, I started in on The Knight, to get it finished and digested well ahead of time.

Gene Wolfe's books do benefit from a bit of time spent ruminating on them, and The Knight is no exception. Chronicling the tale of a boy from our world who is transformed into the strapping warrior Able by Disiri, Queen of the moss Aelf, and his travels in a not-Earth, not-Aelf world called Mythgarthr. This volume does not disappoint. As with most of Mr. Wolfe's fiction, the book is succinct on plot, long on action, description, and introspection.

And long on deeply fascinating characters. Gylf, Able's dog, is a particular case in point, as are the simple Toug, the off-kilter Bold Berthold, his fellow knights and their egos, and the quiet, complex Lady Idnn; as well as the mysterious Disiri. All of them are fellow travelers in one sense or another.

For this story is that of a journey, one by boat or by foot, by horse or by faith, it follows the voyage and transformation of Able into Sir Able of the High Heart, at least for some of the way. The Knight does a credible job of making us believe in its world, and in its sister world of Aelf, a faerie-like realm, where our lives are but shadows to those who used to hold humanity as gods. Other worlds, such as the sinister Muspel and the lofty Skye, are briefly glimpsed or mentioned. Allusions to varied mythologies abound, but do not obscure the journey; Wolfe obviously has a plan for the second book, and I await it avidly. (He's indicated in an interview that the two books are one novel that got chopped up.)

At the beginning of the story, despite his being a teenager, Able reminded me of Severian, Wolfe's antagonist from the Book of the New Sun stories. While Able's transformation into something new and other is only partially complete at the end of the volume, this resemblance to Severian melted away quickly, as Able's heat to find his lover and patroness, Disiri the Mossmaiden, informs more and more of the plot. Able is a new and wonderful creation in the spectrum of Wolfe narrators, and I recommend The Knight most highly. It's nearly as good as previous works such as The Shadow of the Torturer or Soldier of the Mist, and in some ways is, all at once, more sophisticated in setting and simpler in tone.

Bruce and I recorded rhythm tracks for Woke Up On the Fourth. Will sit on them for a few days and take a listen, but it's a very different song against a punk rhythm.

Ringworld's Children
by Larry Niven

The Ringworld is a vast construct, a ring around the star about as big as Earth's orbit around the sun. And the inner service is a habitable landscape on a ribbon a million miles wide. Setting his stories in his Known Space universe, Mr. Niven spent the first two books showing us vast technologies and broadened our horizons again and again. Those books were cosmic, awe-inspiring.

However, very little of this sort of thing intrudes on the plot. Louis Wu is working for the Protector Tunesmith, and the plot revolves around who will control the Ringworld. I found I really didn't care much about whether Louis would fool the ARM agents (UN Police) or not, or whether the Hindmost would escape the Ringworld.

This book seems to be half a story. I suspect the other half was buried somewhere inside The Ringworld Throne. Although I read that book, I've mercifully forgotten most of it. The best that can be said for this book is that it does pick up near the end. Niven comes up with some awe-inspiring technologies, but it's too little, too late.

Down and Out in the Magic Kindgom
by Cory Doctorow

I recently read and enjoyed A Place So Foreign and Eight More, Mr. Doctorow's recent collection of stories. Down and Out in the Magic Kindgom continues in a similar stylistic vein,

Julius is a sometimes musician, a jaded, immortal member of the Bitchin' Society. He drifts through life worrying absentmindedly about his Whuffie, a form of electronic currency that means it actually does matter what the Jones think of you. But mostly he's self-centered, in a brooding sort of way. Working on the Haunted Mansion in Disneyworld, his life all is power meetings with hypertext annotations. But it all takes on new meaning when he and his girlfriend work on a restoration of the Haunted Mansion in Disneyworld, now a communally-run enterprise. Suddenly he has a Project, and has a passionate reason for living and working. For in a world where doctors cure the common cold by stuffing your memories in a freshly-minted body, where nobody needs to work unless they want to, finding a purpose becomes everything.

Down and Out is a small book; I read it in an afternoon. Despite the way-cool technologies Doctorow sprinkles throughout the story like the last of the rocksalt on a frozen sidewalk, the technology never detracts from the well-written characters. Seen-it-all, done-it-all Dan, a missionary of the Bitchin' way of life, is one of my favorites in the book.

There are explorations into the uses of creative thought; there are characters who make mistakes (and learn from them -- sometimes); with personality restoration rampant, there's a pretty predictable murder mystery. None of this dominates the book. Down and Out in the Magic Kindgom is about Julius coming of age far too late in life. An excellent first novel, which I highly recommend.

Martha and Grazina picked me up at work on Friday. I left my car in the lot, and we drove up to Connecticut to visit a friend. On the drive back, it was late, late, late on Saturday night (Graz had to be back) and we decided I'd get a ride to work Monday morning, and just pick up my when coming home that day.

While in Connecticut, I was able to work on the lyrics to Woke Up On the Fourth a lot, and make some real headway on the bridge. (Saturday morning, I walked over to an echoey overpass and stood there on the sidewalk and wrote.)

Martha went to a wedding shower this Sunday. Having no car, I spent the day at home, and took another read of the lyrics I'd written up north. After I did some more work on them, I sat down and recorded the percussion track, along with a guide track--half-singing the first few words of each verse so I would be able to find my way later on. Just as I was recording the second take on the guitar track, I broke a string.

In the living room, I put the latest They Might Be Giants CD on and went about changing my guitar strings, finishing just as Martha walked through the door. I eventually got a decent demo on disc, mastering it directly to hard drive. Which was easier to hook up than I had thought it would be, thanks to OS X and a PowerWave

The demo of Woke Up On the Fourth is online; take a listen. Although think I already know how to improve the lyrics.

The patient, Woke Up On the Fourth is stable. While it needs bridgework, I've constructed a lyrical structure for this and have only to fit it in. Will report back when the song is complete.

The Department of Homeland Security may be taking steps that will enable the Federal government to call off the November election in the case of a terrorist attack. Link

Been having problems with my throat today, partially tension and partly lack of sleep.

Set list:

Eyes Up Front
Welcome Home
She Told It To Me Twice
There's That Song

After my set, Craig came on stage and we played a few songs:

Sleeping With the Television On
Starry Starry Night
Red Rubber Ball

Reading about US involvement in Vietnam, it's quite easy for me to believe that the government at the time (Johnson and those before him) lied to the people for political reasons. When Bush declared that there were WMDs in Iraq, I was one of those taken in by this story.

Perhaps there are indeed programs to create nuclear weapons or chemical weapons somewhere hidden in the plains or mountains of Iraq; however, it's pretty clear that at the time war was declared, neither Cheney nor Bush had any evidence of these things.

It's always easier to believe that something at a distance is dangerous. Or something safely in the past. The stakes are far too high to allow this sort of politically-motivated war to continue to happen. Given human nature, it probably will continue. But that doesn't mean we should lie still and accept what our leaders are telling us -- not even in wartime.

I just emailed this to some friends, and then realized I'm being greedy; I should share.

Hello all (both),

There's apparently a device called a Littermaid, that's essentially an automated cat litter box. This is surreal enough, Graz, that you might want to check it out:

Link: http://www.littermaid.co.uk/lm950specs.shtml

Be certain to click on the "products" page to see what else they sell. I suspect that while this all seems rather ordinary to cat owners, it's downright surreal to those of us who are more, um, normal.

Credit: Charlie Stross's Blog

Wrote a new song today, or yesterday; Woke Up On the Fourth may need a final verse, but it's a good one. Most of it came to me all in one afternoon, within the same half hour. (I took a shower after verse one, and wrote verse two in the shower.) I came up with the basic idea for verse 3 while watching the fireworks tonight.

The fireworks in Washington, DC tonight were at once less spectacular and better paced than in previous years. For much of Sunday, it's been raining, and we've been wondering if there would even be fireworks, but we (part of a group of 15, in a crowd of about 200,000) ended up picnicking on the wet grass on the National Mall, irregardless of the weather. It was a great show this year, better than I've ever seen here.

Here's a story in the Washington Post on the fireworks.

We saw two movies this weekend. Fahrenheit 9/11 is an excellently made, excellently biased documentary about the Iraq war. Michael Moore, the filmmaker, attempts to connect the war with W. Bush's business interests, and may have an effect on voters if we're at all lucky.

Spider-Man 2 is just as good as the first movie. Doctor Octopus is a great villain; he'll be a tough act to follow for the inevitable sequel. The characters are very well done, although the part of Mary Jane is a bit weak.

Added later: Here's a good summing up of Farenheit 9/11.