Neil Fein's Blog

For not having played in over a year, I did pretty well. (Will blog about the performing gap later, that's a long story.) But it was good to see other musicians, and Spook is always a great open mic host. He mentioned that the open mic at the corner tavern moved to the Red Lion because of smoke in the bar (makes sense).

Set list:

Woke Up On the Fourth
Eyes Up Front
There's That Song
Rock Creek
Never Had a Brother

My rehearsal was a run-through of most of the set two days ago (Rock Creek was a last-minute addition when the set was running short), and singing along with my demo on the way home.

The Red Lion is a nice place to play. It's not all students playing like I'd feared it would be, non-students seem welcome. Although having dinner beforehand in the food court of the student center was odd, being among that many students. Damn, I feel old.

Although performance does energize. I'm... optimistic, might be the word. Maybe I could even write a new song or two? Will see.

Tags: music

Through the Darkness: One Man's Fight to Overcome Epilepsy, by Mike Henle


As an epileptic myself, it's difficult for me to separate myself from this book. While I never had seizures as bad as Mr. Henle did, I had several Grand Mal or what we'd now call Tonic-Clonic seizures. (I liked the old name; you can translate it into English as "Big bad".) They were brought under control with medication, but I've been having side effects from the meds over the last year or so.

I went looking for a book that would help me get a handle on this. The book is a memoir, and withdrawal from Phenobarbitol is one of the issues discussed, and Tegretol was mentioned. The option of surgery was also discussed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't go into enough detail to be useful as either a personal memoir or a book on the medical issues. How were his parents and, later, wife and children reacting? This is only touched on near the end. Can we find out more about drug withdrawal, or perhaps about the research he conducted into the cause of his epilepsy? More about the surgery that cured him would be nice. And some detail on the relationships he had with his physicians and his surgeon would have been wonderful. The first several chapters need a reworking, expansion and, perhaps, expansion of the entire book. It reads like an outline; chapters are a few pages long.

However, about halfway through, I realized I was turning the pages faster and faster. The story is gripping, and once Mr. Henle gets comfortable with his writing style, it's a joy to read. The ending devolves into messages for his friends and family, (which was the purpose of the book).

As a fellow epileptic, I find it difficult to write this, but Through the Darkness could have been a much, much better book. At perhaps triple the length, Mr. Henle could have gone into more detail, and perhaps even told the stories of others around him. And he would have had space to stabilize his writing more. He's a professional writer, and I'm sure he has it in him to do this. I hope he writes another book.


Overall, I'd recommend it as an inspirational narrative for friends and family of epileptics who might be surgery candidates, but not to anyone doing research on the condition.

Tags: books, epilepsy

The Draco Tavern
by Larry Niven

"Be cautious in your guesses. You may find the right answer.

From "The Subject is Closed", Larry Niven, 1977

The last new books I read by Larry Niven were Scatterbrain and Ringworld's Children. While I'm happy to report that the omnibus collection of stories The Draco Tavern is better than either of those, particularly the fans-only-welcome-here Scatterbrain. Draco Tavern, however, doesn't live up to the fan hype that has been surrounding the book, since the announcement of it's release two years ago.

There's a long tradition in literature of using bars as plot devices to get characters talking, and science-fiction generally knows a good thing when it reads it. Such notables as L. Sprague de Camp and Spider Robinson come to mind. Larry Niven's series in Rick Schumann's pub set near a world spaceport in Siberia was instantly a classic, with its first stories starring the Chirpsithra, self-proclaimed owners of the galaxy. They can answer any question, or they'll fake it very well. (And entertainingly, of course.) We also have the savage, unfailingly polite Folk; the Glig, who are famed for their biological expertise and their gastronomical taste.

The requirements of a bar serving multiple species, whose vices would certainly poison the being at the next table, are examined in detail. Other aliens, such as the barbaric and polite Folk, are brought in later on. And Rick's life does extend beyond the tavern, but the action takes place almost exclusively on the floor and behind the bar of the Draco Tavern.

The later stories aren't nearly as good, and the book ends without the dry humor of the earlier stories, although with more interesting plot twists. There's a 9/11-inspired story that is a little too obvious, and the book ends up being, well, depressing.

This is more than made up for by the vast majority of the stories being insightful and funny. Recommended!

Tags: books

We saw Christine Lavin in concert tonight! It was in the basement of a church in Westfield, at a benefit. She puts on a great show, better than I had heard.

Martha got called up on the stage, as one of two people with birthdays, and she took part in a quiz show. People were wishing her "happy birthday!" all during intermission. And she will end up on cable TV, which Christine pointed out to her when she asked what she did ("I'm looking for work in training"). (She made two contacts afterward.)

As a musical bonus, the opening act was David Ippolito, and Lodi Carr sung a song, I'm Old Fashioned. An amazing show!

Tags: music

Olympos
by Dan Simmons

Let's cut to the chase, here. Just as good as its predecessor, Ilium, if not better. And that's quite the feat, considering how excellent a book Ilium is. Although some of his best writing is to be found in his short stories, Mr. Simmons has, with this two-book saga, surpassed his landmark Hyperion series.

Olympos is the conclusion to a far-future saga where the Iliad is recreated using advanced technology. Other plot threads involve what really happened to all the humans on Earth, why were the gods of Olympos created, the role of the robotic Moravecs of the outer solar system; and of course how these all tie together.

In the hands of any other writer, some of the plot elements used would seem pretentious or trite. The extent to which Mr. Simmons uses earlier literature as a starting point could seem the product of an overlarge ego, but somehow it doesn't. The skill of the writer carried me away from any such considerations, and the same skill keeps disparate settings within the same flavor of existence.

Highly recommended to all readers.

See previous review of Ilium

Tags: books

A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeline L'Engle

I took a course in college on Chaucer, one of the most explosive, imaginative, and far-reaching in influence of all writers. And I’ll never forget going to the final exam and being asked why Chaucer used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote in a white heat of fury, “I don’t think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these thing. That isn’t the way people write.”

—Madeline L'Engle, Newbery Award Acceptance Speech, August 1963

This was more than silence. A deaf person can feel vibrations. here there was nothing to feel.

—Madeline L'Engle, Wrinkle in Time, 1962

The characters of Ms. L'Engle's masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time, Meg Murray, Charles Wallace, Calvin O'Keefe, are all lightly sketched figures. I noticed this far more sharply on this reading of one of my favorite childhood books.

However, generalities are the strength of this book. A nebulous force of evil, which turned a planet into authoritarian group-mind hives, and even now shadows our Earth. Similarly, the supporting characters are mere outlines. However, it's a balance that works very well; I was cheering for Meg to win through even as I knew, in detail, what would happen on the next page.

There are several messages that can be read into A Wrinkle in Time, but the theme of individualism bring the greatest prize we have, is probably the simplest and most obvious. There are religious overtones, but they aren't nearly as overt as they are in, say, A Swiftly Tilting Planet or Many Waters.

Despite my worrying I would find the book simplistic, I enjoyed it very much on this rereading. Highly recommended.

Tags: books