Platypus of Truth

Nothing pacifies your students like an extended World history test last period the last day before vacation. Winter break has begun and I'm safe and sound without any rebellions to put down. Sure, the kids were a little bitter about not being allowed to have five hours of unbroken partying, but they've got two weeks to forget about it. Score one for education. Score one for my kids' ability to be mature.

Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans. Should I be excited?

Homemade ginger beer go BOOM!

Almost there... Almost there.... just six more days of class. Hope I don't get blown out of the sky.

My tenth graders are reading C.S. Lewis' " Perelandra " this month. The class has been getting into it, and I had the privilege to hear as several of them were walking down the stairs: "Class is too short. I wish we had more than an hour every day to discuss this stuff. We need to make class longer."

I re-read Bill Waterson's "Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary Edition" a little while back. In it, Waterson lays out his comic author's manifesto. Looking at the funny papers today, it seems as if his push for greater creative freedom in that sphere has gone totally unheeded, and the doom Waterson prophesied is about to be fulfilled. Fifteen years ago, however, he was shrugged off as an idealistic crank. This sense of being treated like the "Cassandra of comics" seems to have played a part in Waterson's decision to retire early. Then it seemed as if a lone voice of dissent had been snuffed, but the world would go on. As we know today, Waterson's predictions were on target, and far from being a crank, he was prophetic and ahead of his time. Just as the rise of the internet is quickly making newspapers obsolete, the chance for artistic freedom offered by the internet is making the newsprint comic obsolete. In the rise of the web comic, we see a...

Over the past few eeks, we've been re-reading Charles' Williams' "Descent Into Hell" in preparation for a high table meeting. I believe this is my third time through the book and a few new things are beginning to pop out at me. What I noticed most, however, was the absence of overt references to Christ. Though his presence and oblique references to Jesus fill the work, He is mentioned by name only once, and only in the context of saying that Pauline needn't bring him into it. Now don't worry; I'm not trying to take on the big guy. Tolkien's references to Christ in "The Lord of the Rings" are even more indirect, and yet the presence of Jesus can be felt on every page. Instead, the presence of this immanent yet hidden Christ in "Descent Into Hell" makes me ask: "what is Charles Williams doing?" I've heard the overall impact of William's novels described as making one feel what Christianity would look lik...

This post marks a full fifty literary musings here at "The Platypus of Truth." Since this all started with a wave of nostalgia, it seems apropriate to turn to a book that I read in tenth grade and just finished teaching to my tenth graders: "A Separate Peace." I attended a New England prep-School, though nothing near as fancy as Philips-Exeter. When I first read this book, it resonated with me on a deep level. I read it once, and never had a chance to pick it up again. It was with a mix of eagerness and trepidation that I put it on this year's reading list for my students. I was worried that the magic would be gone. It wasn't. I don't particularly agree with Knowles' conclusions about the nature of life, but there are just too many gems in "A Separate Peace" for it to lose its power. Furthermore, it had a marked affect on my students; even though the world of a New England prep-school is as far off from them as Mars. Being from...

If you're ever out in Redlands, you need to visit First Congregational on the corner of Olive and Cajon. It has a real Tiffany stain glass window as well as a "grail chapel" complete with quotes from Tennyson.

Sadly, my heavy teaching load this year is not conducive to much else in my life. This has meant that many of my literary musings have not been expressed in as detailed a form as I would have liked. With that apology, let me attempt to fulfill my promise to weigh in on "Wuthering Heights." To begin with, I think that "Wuthering Heights" suffers from the "Milton Problem;" that it does such a good job of picturing evil that readers are tempted to think that it is an apologetic for vice. I don't mind being in the company of John Milton (who, btw. there is plenty of reason to acquit of the charge of Arianism) but, sadly, I don't think I'd want to be in company of Byron and Blake as far as literary opinions go. Put simply, when someone with strong religious principles writes a book, I have a hard time believing that there is really some sort of satanic "back-masking." They may have made some errors, as do we all, or they may have ...

As technology advances at a dizzying pace, popular culture follows suit. The fast pace of change in the modern world leads to a widening of what we call the "generation gap;" that difficulty members of separate generations have in communicating with each other because of differing sets of culturally conditioned formative experiences. This year marked my ten-year highschool reunion. That's enough to put me in a completely different world from the generation I now teach. Speaking bluntly, I can remember a time before the internet: they can't. That being the case, I am always glad when I can find common ground with my students. Square-Enix's habit of re-releasing all their great games from the 90's has been a huge windfall in working with my 10th graders. Right now, they're in the midst of discovering "Chrono Trigger" and the Final Fantasy series. This means that when they're geeking out, or trying to share something they're enthus...

Thought for the day: With the exception of Pixar, why is anime so much better than American animation? Ok, so that question needs a lot of clarifying, but it's something I've been tossing around this past week.

The next book in the queue for the year is Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." However, while I'm gearing up to teach that, I have begun reading the next selection, " Wuthering Heights." " Wuthering Heights" is not exactly a relaxing novel. In the main, it makes you want to shout or commit some act of violence. How Heathcliff survives as long as he does without getting shot in the face is a testament to the overall placidity of the English character and the fervent dedication of the author to her work. In spite of its stress-inducing tendencies, however, " Wuthering Heights" is a favourite high school reading. Prior to this read through, I only had vague impressions of the novel left over from college. Then, I believe I had to polish the book off in something like a week or two and then discuss it for six evidently less than memorable hours. I don't remember disliking it at all, but the book only left a smattering of impressions....

George Lucas has spent the last decade revisiting and completing his prior work. For the most part, these attempts have been ill-received. While he's on a roll, however, there is one film that I wouldn't mind him revisiting: "Willow." What can I say? I like "Willow." The film was never as big as Star Wars or Indiana Jones, but it was a decent bit of imaginitive fantasy. "Willow" uses all sorts of fantasy cliches without feeling like a mere re-imagining of "The Lord of the Rings." That, in itself, is something. Sure, there's halflings and trolls, but that's about it. The rest is Lucas' typical mish-mash of myth, pulp, and Americana. There's nothing very deep, but it was a fun movie. That's Lucas at his best -fun. Given the past decade, I'm not sure how much we can expect from the creator of Star Wars. If Lucas did revist the world of "Willow" we could probably anticipate something in the v...

Thoughts from a weekend of art and entertaiment: 1. What are Mike Mignola's religious views? Del Torro's ex-Catholicism has been highly fruitful for his movie-making career, and he dumps a lot of it into the "Hellboy" movies. Mignola's work contains some strong Catholic undercurrents and I know that he helped out Christian comic book author Doug Tenaple (sp?). I can't wait until we get to see where he's going when volume 9 comes out. 2. Everything Pixar does seems to be some sort of commentary on the Imago Dei or, at the very least, what it means to be human. 3. The endings of Hayao Miyazaki's movies are often a tad confusing to an American audience, but man are they worth it if you take the time to do an extra viewing or two. I wish Disney could divest themselves of their California-American worldview and do some stuff that was as deep and meaningful as the movies that come out of studio Ghibli. 4. Sci-fi is alive and well, but the space program i...

Once you accept Hamlet as the archetypal modern hero (or anti-hero), you begin seeing him everywhere. Case in point, my wife and I were watching "Phantom of the Opera" the other night. There's a line toward the end of the movie where the Phantom sings: "Down once more to the dungeon of my dark despair; down once more to the prison of my mind." All I could think of was Hamlet's line to Guildenstern and Rosencranz: "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space, were it not that I had bad dreams." Here, once more, was the star-crossed prince, slighted and overlooked, falling back within his own mind to recreate the world as a play, with himself as the main character, and wreck his revenge. Of course Christine is no Ophelia, and that alters the whole course of the story.

Thought for the day: Hamlet is the great modern hero because he lives almost entirely in the nutshell of his own head.

Over the past few years, my wife an I have been sharing books, movies, and music that meant a lot to us when we were growing up. On my wife's end, that means "Anne of Green Gables" and anything by E. Nesbit. For me, that means cult classic eighties and early nineties fantasy movies. A few of my favorites that we've viewed so far: "Labyrinth" "The Dark Crystal" "The Princess Bride" (a shared favorite) "Willow" Still on the list is "The Neverending Story." If there's anything we're missing, feel free to chime in.

My students have passed on from Beowulf to the wonderful world of Shakespeare. This year's offering from the bard features the mad prince of Denmark, Hamlet. As an axis of analysis for the text, I've chosen the opening line "Who's there." I remember hearing that this was significant, but not an explaination of why. Reading the play through with the students has driven home to me that this is really the central question of the play. "Hamlet" is awash in ambiguity. For every read you could give of a character or a situation, there are at least two or three others that are just as likely. A character's self-presentation often conflict with his or her actions, or what other characters in the play say about them. Unlike "Othello," the motives of the characters in "Hamlet" are increadably opaque. Even Hamlet, whose silioquies offer us the greatest window into the mental world of any of the characters is difficult to nail down. ...

A friend loaned me a copy of the 1931 sci-fi epic "First and Last Men," by British Philosopher Olaf Stapledon. I knew Lewis had read and disagreed with Stapledon so, naturally, I was intrigued. A look at the work, however, points me in the dirrection that Lewis not only disagreed with him, he wrote his Ransom Trilogy, in part, as a sort of refutation of Stapledon. Perhaps that's not news, but it makes a read of "First and Last Men" fascinating. If you've already read the Ransom Trilogy, then you can almost here Lewis dailoging with the author as you read the book. As an odd end note, I attended a debate on bioethics last friday. Listening to the speakers, it seems as if, after almost eighty years, the debate hasn't changed.

I just finished the first draft of my novel. It's been a long time since I've actually finished one.

Reading "This Discarded Image" this summer has deepened my respect for the Medieval model of the cosmos. So, to honor the imaginative achievements of my ancestors, I have decided to end off this summer by posting my awards for "The Seven Heavens of Summer Reading." Sun: The heaven of scholars could be monopolized any summer by C.S. Lewis, but as he seemed to prefer the sphere of Jove, how about an author that uses C.S. Lewis for a character? For giving us a thoroughly believable Lewis, the Sphere of the Sun goes to Peter Kreefte for "Between Heaven and Hell." Moon: For all its twists and turns, one book this summer deserves the honor of being paired with the Sphere of Luna; and it even shares her name: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," by Robert Heinlein. Mars: Last year's martial book "A Princess of Mars," is a hard act to follow. I think this year's winner is up to the task, however. In the category of glorifying coura...

This year, I am a literature teacher. The wheel keeps turning.

We were able to see "Fiddler on the Roof" featuring Topol this Tuesday with the Olsons. I had never seen the musical (or the movie) before, and it was a real treat to see a production that featured one of the most well known leads in the musical's history. Quite a fun way to end off the summer.

Trying to fill in some literary corners has led me to pick up Athony Hope's "Prisoner of Zenda" and Baroness Orczy's "The Scarlet Pimpernel." Both novels are from the turn of the last century and serve as a nice compliment to other early twentieth century reading from this summer such as "The Ball and the Cross," and "The Worm Ouruboros." Hope and Orczy's books are both firmly in the adventure fiction genre. Like Edgar Rice-Burrows' "A Princess of Mars," they are first and foremost ripping good yarns intednded to dazzle and entertain. This is not to say that each novel doesn't make a moral point, however. The moral of each can be summed up rather quickly. For Hope it is: "duty before desire." For Orczy, it is "balance passion and reason." Both are good morals, but may seem more than a little quaint or threadbare to the modern reader -and that is precisely why we need to hear them. C.S...

We went with a co-worker and his wife to see "Little Shop of Horrors" last night. It was well done and we had great seats. The play was funny as I'll get out, but it does change your whole attitude towards working in the garden the next morning.

So after two weeks of being treated for a possible stomach infection, there's been no change in my symptoms. My doctor is away right now, so I had to check in with another one to see if I needed another course of antibiotics (it can take up to a month to eliminate an H Pylori infection). The new doctor seemed to think that the stomach infection was a red herring and added another pill on to my course of normal hernia treatment. So now I get to take two omeprazole every morning and one zantac every night. I got a month's worth of free zantac, but I don't even want to know what it's going to cost to buy all those pills once I run out. Meantime, I made sure to contact my normal doctor's office and make sure they knew about the change in plan. We'll see what happens when the good old doctor comes back from vacation. Probably more tests leading up to surgery.

"Oh the East is the East, and the West is the West, and never the twain shall meet, till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat..." -Kipling My wife and I have finished reading John Mark Reynolds' "When Athens Met Jerusalem." Let me start off with the virtues of the work. "When Athens Met Jerusalem" is an excellent introduction to Greek thought. The key concepts of Homeric religion, the pre-socratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools are presented in a clear and accessible manner. Anyone setting out to wrestle with the Ancient Greeks should begin by picking up this book; even if only as a refresher course. The only downside is that it was hard to figure out the exact point of the work. The title is deceptive, as the book focuses almost entirely on Athens (the ancient Greek tradition) and has almost nothing to say about the development of Jerusalem (the Judeo-Christian tradition). However, the title ...

I was sitting in my office the other day in a rather downcast mood. With all the reading I had been doing lately, I’d amassed quite a list of duties that all seemed to jostle and push about for first place in my attentions. It ran something like this: Read the Bible more Pray more Make sure to stay as active as possible in Church Keep up on current world politics to be a good citizen Follow current American political scene and develop positions on key issues Continue research into global slavery and consumer products Make more time for spiritual disciplines such as silence and fasting Give Kreeft’s Catholic arguments in “Ecumenical Jihad” a fair hearing Increase exercise and modify diet to deal with stomach trouble Keep up on “hard” reading to stay sharp Of course the list could have gone on longer, and my main feeling after I’d set it down was embarrassment at how short it was. Surely, I had no right to feel in the least perplexed or overwhelmed. After all, these thin...

I've finally finished E.R. Eddison's epic fantasy "The Worm Ouroboros." I know of nothing comparable to it except "Dune" and "The Lord of the Rings." If you are a lover of epic and fantastic literature, you should read this book. *Potential Mild Spoilers Ahead* That said, let me move into a discussion of the work. The strength of "The Worm Ouroboros" lies primarily in its ability to enchant. The wealth of settings from bright halls to sorcerous chambers, ruined towers and woody bowers, edges of glaciers and fields of slaughter provide a rich set of backdrops that fire the imagination. Eddison also adopts a deliberately archaic style; a modified King James English. This, combined with the episodic and heroic style of the work, make the reader feel as if he is encountering something from Malory or Spenser. Heroic feats, shows of courtesy, and fierce combats abound. All this takes place in a stunningly constructed, though not p...

After going back over my test results, it looks like I may have a stomach infection. So now I'm on antibiotics. If my symptoms don't clear up, we go into aggressive treatment and probably surgery (though my doctor says it's very rare to treat a hernia like the one I have with surgery).

I've decided to begin posting material from my new WIP on a blog I've created for that purpose. If you're interested in reading it and giving some feedback, let me know and I'll email you an invite.

Just reached 25,000 words, or half the size of a nanowrmo novel. Slow and steady wins the race.

What do Charles Williams, George MacDonald, H.P. Lovecraft, Hellboy, and Edgar Allan Poe have in common? Lots of things, but most importantly for this post would be that they are all influences on my latest WIP. No vampires, thules, or undead Aryan fishmen this time. I promise!

Summer reading rarely goes as planned, and that's the fun of it. Sure, there may be some things you have to read for work or school, but if you have any vacation time, or even if you're just on a day or weekend trip, there's always a place where a good book can be sneaked in. What book? Who cares, so long as it's good! So, down the winding trails of this summer's reading. In order to balance out the chunk of Heinlein I started out summer with, I picked up some GKC and CSL. Heretics and The Four Loves are both re-reads, but The Ball and the Cross and The Allegory of Love were both new. B+C was delightful, as Chesterton always is, and A of L was a real mental workout. I'm not a medievalist, but I've read a fair cross-section of the books Lewis is dealing with, and it was good to be able to start forging them into a coherent and linear picture of the development of the courtly love tradition. After freshening my mind up, I plunged back into the...

Nothing out of the ordinary showed up on the barium test today. I have a moderate sliding hiatal hernia with very piddly reflux. The specialists are going to go over the images again just to make sure and then they'll pass them on to my doctor. I have a consultation to reassess the matter two weeks from now. Our thanks to all those who have been praying.

Barium and x-ray test is scheduled for 9:30 this Thursday. I'll have my follow-up visit on the 23rd. Meanwhile, I'm still playing with my diet and taking, at my doctor's instruction, a double dose of meds (neither seem to be working).

Well my blood work has come back negative. There's no evidence of a stomach infection or a hormonal imbalance. Next up is the barium and x-ray test. Depending on what that shows, the doctor will decide on my next round of tests. Meantime, I'm in daily discomfort and the change in meds doesn't seem to be working.

I was in the bookstore today trying to beat the heat and picked up "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian" for kicks. I only read through the first story before I had to go (and put the book back on the shelf), but it was as fun a bit of pulp as I've read since "A Princess of Mars." A great writer with an elevated style, Howard is most certainly not, but he can tell a ripping good yarn!

Summer reading is always eclectic. I start out with one set of readings in mind, and then circumstances rearrange it. Since my wife is already going to be reading "The Discarded Image" and "The Allegory of Love," I thought I would join her by taking a trek through the scholarly writings of C.S. Lewis ("The Discarded Image," "The Allegory of Love," and "Studies in Words.") So, this summer it's C.S. Lewis the literature scholar, not the fiction writer or lay theologian, who'll be dominating household reading. We'll see what comes out of it.

So I've gotten my hands on a copy of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein and worked my way through it. This marks the second Heinlein piece that I've read this year (the other being "Podkayne of Mars"). So far, Heinlein passes the sniff test. I enjoy reading him. I can see why he was called "the dean of science fiction" back in the day. Each of the books plays around with all sorts of ideas and "what ifs" that are perfect for dorm room debate; especially during finals. It's not as high-brow as Frank Herbert's "Dune," but it isn't meant to be. Heinlein doesn't seem to ever intend to give us a "magnum opus" that explains life, the universe, and everything. Instead, he throws out ideas and lets his reader chew on them a bit. "Podkayne of Mars" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" are much more thought experiements than manifestos. Some people claim that "St...

Well, my doctor isn't happy (nor am I) with the lack of progress my stomach condition is making. He's decided to order a whole range of tests to see why I'm not responding to the drugs. They'll be looking for everything from H Pylori and a hormone imbalance to cancer (extremely unlikely, but they have to check given my history). If nothing shows up, then I proceed to the next round of testing. In the meantime, they're upping the dosage of my medication. Please pray for us. We have enough problems this summer without having to add all this to it. Hopefully, they'll be able to find out what's wrong with me and fix it.

Like Robinson Crusoe, it's primitive as can be. I read "Robinson Crusoe" when I was in ninth grade. We read it as the great English "Calvinist Allegory" and then compared it with "Pilgrim's Progress" as the great English "Arminianist Allegory." I enjoyed the book, but didn't think much of it until last year when the literature teacher had the 8th graders read it. Their absolute loathing for the book made me wonder if perhaps my memory were a bit fogy so I picked it up myself this past month. If anything, I find the book even more interesting now than I did when I was a freshman. Aside from being a great adventure story, "Robinson Crusoe" has a strong devotional element to it. I find that I can read it for spiritual edification the same way I read Chesterton or Lewis' fiction. Has the hot Redlands' sun frazzled my brain? Maybe, but my second reading has conviced me that this definitely makes the list of ...

No School like the old school. I miss old school video games. *insert cranky rant voice here* Back in my day, we didn't have any of this "first person shooter" nonsense. There was rules, and codes, and regulations! *end cranky rant voice* Ok, so there was Operation Wolf and Hogan's Ally . Video games have always struggled to come to grips with the boundary between entertainment and sadism via proxy. Still, about fifteen years back, a threshold was crossed in the area of how much violence is allowable in video games. My trip down memory lane drove this home to me. All but two of the enemies in Chrono Trigger aren't human. Some of them, like the mystics and the reptites are sentient, but bear little outward resemblence to us. We are also encouraged to empathize with them and humans and mystics can be reconciled at the completion of one of the side quests. Beyond that, when enemies are killed, they disapear; no blood or guts. Of the two human opponent...

Following my previous post, I want to address an aspect of the "story" of Chrono Trigger that makes it so compelling: community. Like Edwardian pulp such as "A Princess of Mars," or fantasy epics such as "The Lord of the Rings," Chrono Trigger presents us with a community of characters that gather around the hero and without whom the hero could not succeed. This community aspect stands in stark contrast to the "go it alone" figures we see in other video games such as Halo , Resident Evil , or Metroid . Adventure games and first person shooters naturally lend themselves to the "lone hero," while RPGs thrive on a fellowship of protagonists. Following this trend, Chrono Trigger presents us with a cast of vivd and eclectic characters that hold our interest throughout the game. Indeed, the title character, Crono, is rather flat and amorphous, inviting the player to project their own personality onto this "blank slate." Wit...

So I've played through two endings of Chrono Trigger for the first time since taking a 10 year sabbatical when my cartridge was hit by a sprinkler (don't ask...). The game is still as much fun as it ever was. Chrono Trigger is one of those rare games that makes you want to pick it right back up and play through it the moment you beat it. I've known a few movies like that; the Princess Bride , for instance. However, on to my question: whence this replay value? There's a long answer and a short answer. I'll spare you the long answer. The short answer is "story." Chrono Trigger tells a compelling story. Sure, there's plenty of melodrama, it's a video game after-all, but somethings beneath all the cheese that makes it work. I think that thing is friendship. Chrono Trigger tells the story of a band of misfits that form a community that crosses all barriers of race, gender, culture, and even time. Hurtling through the ages, this group ov...

*Warning* Spoilers ahead if you haven't read "A Wizard of Earthsea" or "Phantasties" yet. I've been reading the works of two master fantasists in tandem: George MacDonald's "Phantasties" and Ursula LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea." LeGuin has called MacDonald the "grandfather" of all fantasy writers, so I should have suspected that she would draw from his work ages ago.* However, the link between Ged's quest to destroy his shadow and Anodos' quest to lose his shadow only just struck me this past week. The central plot of both books is the same: young man enters into a world of magic, loses his own shadow through arrogance, experiences the destruction caused by his shadow, tries to lose it, and in the end is forced to confront and accept his own death. The question is: do both writers understand the shadow to be the same thing? LeGuin calls it the shadow of Ged's death. MacDonald seems to link Anodos...

Because school's out June 5th!

It's May, and that means that it's time for my annual return to pulp. First on this Spring's list is "Podkayne of Mars" by Robert A. Heinlein. I'm told that Heinlein's work is inconsistent, and that I should probably start with "Starship Troopers" or "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," but this is what I've got on hand. If it doesn't pass the sniff test, then I promise I won't hold it against Heinlein. I'm also considering some Howard, Leiber, and a return to Lovecraft. We'll see how far I get!

"The Scarlet Letter" has always conjured up pictures in my mind of dull and trite high school "readings." I highly enjoyed literature class in high school, and there were very few books I didn't like, but there were a few that always left me scratching my head as to why they were included. I was always worried that somehow "The Scarlet Letter" would fall into that category. Unlike the rest of America, I missed out on this educational "rite of passage" due to a move in the middle of my junior year. So for years I was left wondering: what's so great about Hawthorne. After all, how interesting could a book about how mean and nasty the Puritans were and an affair be? My interest was peaked, however, when I read "The Marble Faun" and "Young Goodman Brown" this past summer. I liked what I read. If this was Hawthorne, then I wanted more of it. That led to picking up "The Scarlet Letter" this past month. I wo...

Today's book is "Eifelheim," by Michael Flynn. Here's the down and dirty: Aliens crash-land in 14th century Germany on the eve of the Black Death and are befriended by a reclusive scholastic. What Flynn gets right: The medieval worldview is presented in all its richness and Flynn renders Pastor Dietrich and his flock in a way that makes them feel three-dimensional and contemporary. What Flynn misses: Perhaps the sciences are a different story, but I kept thinking throughout the modern portions of the book that his academics don't speak or act like any of the academics I've known. I also have to confess a bias against Cliometrics. When I see a Cliometrician in a story, I have flashbacks to Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park. Closing thoughts: If you like the middle ages or quirky sci-fi twists, this is your book. In spite of my dislike for the modern portions, I give it two thumbs up.

This past Thursday, I gave my lecture on the development of Gothic literature. It had been almost a year in the making. Aside from the fact that there is ever so much more research I could have done, here are a few of the things I learned along the way. 1. Edgar Allan Poe was the first American writer to attempt to earn a living solely from his writings. 2. Charles Williams, Bram Stoker, Edith Nesbit, Aleister Crowley, and Arthur E. Waite all belonged to the same occult society: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 3. Crowley's famous "do what thou wilt" is proceeded by the injunction to "do no harm." 4. H. P. Lovecraft isn't so much scary as he is disturbing. 5. Poe helped pioneer the genre of detective fiction. 6. Williams may in fact be invoking the sephiroth in his repeated statements: in the Omnipotence, under the Mercy, the City, under the Protection, etc. I don't have any more lectures lined up as of yet, but this was certainly t...

At this time last year I was in the grip of a horrid stomach problem resulting from an injury. Four doctors and a year later and the situation is much more manageable, but I still live in daily discomfort. I can't remember anymore what it's like not to have a hyper-sensitive stomach that's perpetually full of gas. It's a constant reminder that fits in with the Lenten season. In the words of a church friend we remember: "that the one who's the lord of our joy is also the lord of our pain."

I'm giving a lecture in less than a month on the evolution of Gothic and Horror literature. I've gone through reams of Poe, some Hawthorne, and jumped the Atlantic to pick up some Charles Williams. As it comes down to the wire, I have finally launched into that master of horror, H. P. Lovecraft. My initial brush with Lovecraft in the form of "Dagon" and "The Call of Cthulhu" left me surprised. I don't know quite what I expected, but my first thought was "this is just like Poe." Indeed, it seems like that was what Lovecraft was going for. After reading a little bit of the critical commentary by S.T. Joshi, I learned that Lovecraft was conscious of being Poe's inheritor and sought to further refine and develop the genre of the American Gothic short story, or "weird tale." On that level, I think he succeeds more than admirably. Moving from Lovecraft's technique to his content, I find further similarities with Poe. Both...

Two and a half years ago, I was looking for the perfect groomsman gift to get the guys who had put up with so much just to see me get married. I thought of the usual gifts: cuff links (but they don't ever ware shirts that would require them), imported beer (but most don't drink), personalized beer mugs (see above), etc. Then I thought it might be nice for them to get something that they would actually use and enjoy. So for the guys who are supposed to be prepared for anything, I decided to go with "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. The book was a hit. Everywhere you looked during the course of the day, you would see a groomsman squirreled away into a shady spot reading the sage green book. There was only one problem: I didn't have enough money to get my own! Just recently, my wife was kind enough to buy a copy of "The Zombie Survival Guide" for me. I read it through in one weekend and found it refreshingly witty. The main point, of cou...

As my last few posts may have already suggested, I have been having a bit of a breakthrough with my students. Though I still have frequent discipline issues to deal with and a lot of apathy and boredom to fight, I think I'm finally beginning to see the fruits of three years of hard work. When I say three years of hard work, I mean not just me but the students as well. I think that's where the breakthrough really comes; that moment when a sufficient number of students decides that they enjoy learning and that they're hard work really is beginning to pay off. Once that happens, they cease to be passive receivers of information and become true learners. A true learner is self-motivated and pursues knowledge in a variety of fields both inside and outside the classroom. Get enough students to become true-learners and it can change the tenor of a classroom and of an entire school. I don't know if that will happen, but I'm trying to encourage them as best I can.

There's nothing like watching two of my students playing chess at lunch and talking about Chrono Trigger and "The Lord of the Rings."

There's nothing like watching two of your students truck around with copies of Dante's "Inferno" and C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces." Not to mention that they seem to actually get what they're reading.