Rugby Monks

A Chronology of Recent Cat Ownership Adventures:

11:50: sounds of cat alarm outside the window. Pisco the cat last seen outside in direction of said distress.

11:55: head outside to check on cat. She does not answer to our calls. This is unusual.

11:55-12:20: increasingly frantic search of surrounding yards looking for distressed cat. Discover neighbor whose yard backs kitty-corner onto ours keeps a loud and aggressive pit bull. Note to comment later on dog owners of this type. No sign of cat. Alarming scenarios multiplying in imagination.

12:21: Return home feeling distressed ourselves to find cat casually strolling down driveway from backyard.

12:21:30: Joyful reunion with prodigal feline.

12:22: Wonder for the nth time why we have cats in the first place.

12:22:30: purring and nuzzling answers question.

No book review posted last week, dear reader, thanks to a number of professional and person obligations, all of which were delightful, but none of which permitted me the time to finish the book I'd started. Thursday night we had our last JV football game of the season - a barnburner of a 50-45 loss to Maranatha. Considering we were without our starting fullback/middle linebacker, and considering they'd demolished every team they'd faced so far this season, this was a great game for us. The guys ended the season feeling great about their development, and the future looks bright. Friday night was the varsity game to decide the league championship. With two starting linebackers out against Maranatha's varsity, a team that hadn't lost a league game all season, we just didn't have the horses on the night. The real disappointment is that we lost a coin toss for 2nd place in the league (to a team we beat earlier this season 31-0!). Season over. Fortunately, RPGs on Saturday and Sunday helped overcome my gloomy mood. The book I was reading, however, remained half-finished until this weekend.

Well, I'll read at least two books, if not more, over the Thanksgiving holiday, so I'm not off pace by much.

With the grading period coming to a close, football kicking into playoff mode (our last regular season game is this Friday - we play for the league title after a heartbreaking last-second loss Friday), and our houseguest heading back to his own digs to continue his convalescence, this past week didn't look hold much time for reading.  So when bewcastle suggested I check out the first installment of Joseph Delaney's series The Last Apprentice, entitled Revenge of the Witch, a young adult thriller that promised to be a fun and easy read, how could I refuse?   And indeed, after the tooth-grinding that accompanied wading through Cynthia Stokes Brown's ill-executed Big History last week, I was in the mood for something light.  

I'm happy to report that Delaney's foray into the Harry Potter-esque world of young people learning a magical trade and facing all manner of supernatural challenges along the way is an engaging and well-crafted contribution to the genre, and rewards even an adult's attentions.  Set in "The County" , a mythical land with evocations of Tolkein's Shire that seems roughly like 18th-century northern England, Delaney's tale chronicles the adventures of Thomas J. Ward, the seventh son of a seventh son who, upon turning thirteen, is apprenticed by his family to Mr. Gregory, who is the County's Spook, a sort of supernatural protector who binds boggarts, lays ghosts, and deals with malevolent witches.  As the title suggests, Thomas' adventures in this first book center around the menace of a particularly nasty witch named Mother Malkin, but many of the problems Thomas faces revolve, not around the malevolent title villain, but rather around the difficulty of leaving home and the challenge of meeting the expectations of his new master, Mr. Gregory.

Delaney does a wonderful job of evoking the daily life of The County.  The characters ' speech patterns, social structures, and economic pursuits suggest northern England in the mid-18th century - a choice that certainly warmed my heart - but the emphasis is perfectly modulated to provide flavoring to the tale without burdening the reader with tedious background exposition.  You conclude Revenge of the Witch with a soldi sense of the world in which Thomas and the Spook work, but the details are still a bit vague, with the promise of more to be revealed in future volumes.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Delaney's book is the masterful balance he strikes between realism and appropriateness.  I would have no qualms about recommending this book to a precocious 7th-grader, but I'd also not hesitate to suggest it to an adult friend.  Delaney takes care to pay attention to the basic needs of his characters.  As with Tolkein, the reader is always keenly aware of the importance of food and shelter and safety in the book's world, but these concerns never overwhelm the plot.  Also, Delaney isn't afraid to tell some grim and chilling tales - Mother Malkin, for example, gets her name from her penchant for taking in young unwed mothers, and then killing both mother and chlid after the birth to use their blood in her foul magic - but he doesn't leer over the gore.  The ghosts and witches Thomas faces are evil and foul, to be sure, but we don't wallow in the blood.

I'm thoroughly looking forward to the next installment in The Last Apprentice - indeed, I think this first effort is actually superior to J.K. Rowling's first volume. I may find myself down the road saying knowlngly to young Harry Potter fans, "Well, if Rowlings is okay, but if you really want to read something compelling..."

Back on schedule, dear reader, despite a stack of essays that needed to be graded, and narrative grades that needed completing.  I read a chunk on the bus to our Homecoming game (a 45-7 victory that was not as close as the score indicated - we let the entire JV team play some minutes in the second half, during which the clock ran without the usual stoppages to keep the carnage to a minimum...) and finished it up yesterday afternoon before settling down with bewcastle , TraumaWalker, and Rzelle for a Halloween double feature of "Sunshine Cleaning" (whimsical and pleasantly meandering in pace, with a gut-wrenching twist of classical tragic outlines and an ultimately satisfying happy ending - I laughed and I cried.  Seriously.  A very nice little film.) and Trick 'R Treat (an interwoven collection of four creepy tales of the classic "Eerie Tales" or  "Tales from the Crypt" type, done in a more modern style. Well crafted, with some neat narrative weaving of the for story threads, and packing some surprises despite the traditional models.  Given the wide range of tolerance for gore in our group the fact that all of us gave it a thumbs-up indicates the nice balance the filmmakers strike.  Don't be put off by the direct-to-DVD stigma - this was a fun Halloween diversion).

I wish I could say the same for the book I stayed up late finishing last night, Cynthia Stokes Brown's Big History.  What a disappointment. 
( Read the carnage behind the cut! )

You may recall, dear reader, that I resolved last week to begin reading.  Not that I don't read now, but e-mails from concerned parents and essays from young students don't quite cut it as a steady diet.  No, I resolved to read a book every week, and post my review here to my LiveJournal as a goad to stick to my guns.  My putative schedule was to start reading on Sunday, finish the book on Saturday, and then post the review on Sunday morning.  I'm a tad behind schedule, as you can see, but helping out TraumaWalker as he convalesces from his injury led to a late start to the proceedings, but I'm not too far behind for all that. 

TraumaWalker gets better by the day - you can read his own account on his Facebook page - for which we're all very grateful.  In other news, our varsity football team beat our big crosstown rivals BWood 31-0 on Friday to notch our first victory since 2001.  Unfortunately, our JV team wasn't so lucky - we lost a hearbreaker 16-12.  The performance was a big improvement over the shutout thrashing we suffered in last year's big loss.  But I'm not a big believer in moral victories - this was tough to take.  Especially since a number of Bwood players danced on our field after the game.  You stay classy, guys.

But on to the matter at hand - Simon Scarrow's Eagle's Prophecy, a fast-paced and action adventure yarn set in the reign of the Emperor Claudius.  Scarrow introduced his two protagonists, the Roman centurions Macro and Cato, six books ago.  The first five novels were set in the Roman conquest of Britain, but this novel takes our boys south to the Adriatic coast, where they battle pirates in the course of a secret mission they're forced to undertake to avoid the repercussions of some nasty business that arose in Britain during the previous novel (I'll leave the details vague for those who might be interested in checking out the series). 

Like Bernard Cornwell, with whom he has justifiably been compared, Scarrow is a master of bringing to life the confusion and terror of combat.  Whether it's a desperate squad-level skirmish or a major set-piece battle, Scarrow's evocative descriptions are fresh, original, and engaging.  The accounts of some writers of military fiction, whether historical or fantasy, tend to blur together in a predictable pattern of tired adjectives and routine actions, like a tedious parade-ground drill.  Each fight Macro and Cato find themselves in, however, is unique.  No small accomplishment for any writer!

As with Cornwell and Patrick O'Brien, the vivid descriptions of men trying to kill each other are, for all their significance to the plot, not the most important element of the book.  Like Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper, or Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the characters of Macro and Cato are what really set the book apart from the run of the mill.  Macro - gruff, pragmatic, tough as leather and a brutal realist -  is a career legionary who worked his way up to centurion by dint of years of hard fighting and flinty courage.  Cato - well-educated, philosophical, and sometimes prone to idealism - is a former palace freedman who owes his quick rise from legionary to optio to centurion at least in part to patronage.  The two men represent in a way the two main strands of Roman socio-political life, and their lively interactions serve as an engaging counterpoint to the thrilling battle scenes that anchor the book. 

With historical figures like the future emperors Vitellius (portrayed here as a duplicitous snake) and Vespasian (in whom ambition wars wtih patriotism) making significant cameo roles, Scarrow pulls of the neat trick of leaving the reader with a solid understanding of Roman military and social history without ever seeming to lecture, something lovers of Lindsay Davis' Marcus Didius Falco novels will appreciate.  Although Scarrow isn't the mystery writer that Davis is, there is intrigue enough in his books to keep the reader turning the pages.

I loved the first five of Scarrow's books, so it's no surprise I enjoyed this one, too.  If you enjoy historical fiction with a military setting, or have in interest in Things Roman, you could do worse that to check out Scarrow's first novel, Under the Eagle.

Next up on the reading list: Cynthia Stokes Brown's Big History.  Stay tuned...

So, I've been checking my LJ from time to time, and noting with increased dismay the vast stretch of time that has elapsed since my last posting.  I'm not dead, dear reader!  I don't want to go on the cart!

But seriously, football and the start of school and continued administrative responsibilities, along with the firm resolution to consistently make time to work out during all of the above has left me with precious little time to post here.  It has also left me with precious little time to read, which has been, if anything, even more dismaying.

I have found with my workout resolution (two weight sessions per week, and three cardio sessions, minimum, two of the latter being walks with bewcastle ) that a firm commitment to a certain routine is a wonderful tonic for me. So I'm hereby going to kill two birds with one stone. 


( Watch... )

Blue Gold Scrimmage wrap-up: success all around!

Cloudy weather in the low 70s - success!

Great parent turnout - success!

No serious injuries - success!

Most of the kids knew most of their assignments, and no colossal screw-ups - success!

Ending the JV section with the littlest kid in the program lined up at WR and absolutely earholing the CB on a swing pass right in front of the parent bench, eliciting OOOHs from even the varsity players - big success!

Limiting myself to only one hamburger and one hot dog at the post-scrimmage cookout - success!

Coming home with the temps climbing rapidly towards 90 to find the inside of my stucco house a good 20 degrees cooler than the outside - excellent concluding success!

I wish I had a camera handy this morning. Seen as I headed for my car: an LAPD black-and-white driving down my street. As it passed, I saw in the rear passenger side window a "Not In Service" placard. Now rationally I know it was probably being driven between the station on La Brea and a central service garage by a mechanic, but still... with the budget problems plaguing the city, it would have been a pretty sweet shot.

I've been meaning to post for a long while now, but other stuff kept coming up.  So, I'll put the Big Theoretical Thingy I was mulling over on the back burner and provide a general update with a few reviews.  I hope, dear reader, you will forgive me...

Working in no particular order:

In Which I See That It's a Small World...

As many of you know, N.K., a cheerful and good-natured fellow whose company I've always enjoyed on those too-rare occasions when our paths have crossed, and a dear friend to many of my LJ friends, lost his father recently, for which I extend to him my deepest sympathies.   When I first learned of N's loss, I headed out in a somber mood to football practice, where I found our head coach similarly troubled.  He told me we needed to go easy on one of our senior players, as he'd recently lost his great uncle.  The circumstances he described matched exactly the circumstances of N.K.'s tragedy.  I shared the name of N's father and asked if this was the same person - to which he replyed, astonished, that it was.  I offered my sympathies to the player, who was grateful.  But the web of our interrelations never ceases to astound...

In Which I am Proud of my School...

I spend last Thursday at a curriculum retreat hosted by the school at the Episcopal Diocesan Center overlooking Echo Park Lake near Chavez Ravine - an airy, bright, modern buliding that seems to mirror well the spirit of the diocese itself, and the denomination in general.  For, as various national newspapers reported the previous day, the national Episcopal Church voted overwhelmingly at its convention to reopen the doors to the consecration of gay bishops, a possibility which church leaders had tabled at its last convention three years ago at the urging of the worldwide Anglican Communion to try to forestall a schism with conservative national Episcopal churches, particularly those in Africa.  I was disappointed when American Episcopals first compromised on this issue, and I'm gratified to see that they are now willing to again openly say "this is who we are."  As our school chaplain noted to me as we were taking our seats, it means we're one step closer to being expelled from the worldwide Communion, but we'd rather be true to ourselves even if it means blazing our own trail.  I feel precisely the same way.  Of course, our chaplain is hardly a conventional fellow... 

I do think, however, that I'll be friend-locking this missive, as I've had bad experiences with trolls hitting my public posts on the issue.  And I wouldn't want our chaplain getting any negative feedback for his work with our students.  Although since the video appeared in Sports Illustrated's 'Hot Mustard" online feature as the video of the day, I imagine anybody who could possibly know about it does already...

In Which We Roast a Friend

No, not like that, dear reader!  Although once the speeches in tribute to CDSB had finally concluded, perhaps he may have wished he had been given the more literal treatment.  All in good fun though, and much uproarious laughter as popepat presided over a good-natured series of reminiscences by  himself, Kev of castle_kevorah , the guest of honor's better half Rzelle, and yours truly (in green Goblin facepaint), as well as long-distance tributes from other good friends.  Good food, good friends, and good fun - who could ask for more?  I was happy to see rizwank , colleenky keltraine  graydons and casketgirl among others.  Regretted not getting to spend as much time as I'd have liked with some, but then I might have missed out on the good times I did enjoy with others - such is always the way of things at parties like this, isn't it?  I may have missed out on  some great ComicCon tips from keltraine and learning that graydons and I share an addiction to D&D minis that we may be able to facilitate for each others...  

In Which I Get My Fix (sort of)

As you probably know, dear reader, I'm a big fan of Firefly and Serenity - just check out the hat in most of my profile pics!  And since richardabecker 's long-running and delightful Firefly RPG wrapped up with a successful LARP last month, I've been jonesing.  There's just a finite amount of material there - and fanfic only goes so far to fill the gap.   And while it doesn't hit all the same buttons, I'm finding that I get similar enjoyment from watching Deadwood, which I'm now screening from Netflix.  It's much more overtly profane (no Chinese censor dodges here) and much more Sopranos than Whedon-esque in its humor (when there is any - it's a pretty bleak study of humanity).  But there are fascinating characters and, perhaps most importantly for me, a certain rough yet studied elegance and poetry of language that mirrors for me what Firefly brought to the table - people speaking, not just in complete sentences, but in complex sentences with elaborate and unusual syntax that echos a bygone age.  While I might not laugh out loud as much as I did when I watched Firefly, strangely, I'm feeling like a piece of my yearning for that series is being satisfied.  And for that I'm happy.

And speakings of which, I may just be able to fit in an episode before bed if I wrap this up now... So, dear reader, until I find the time to Talk About Big Ideas...

Lovely afternoon and evening yesterday with bewcastle at Barnsdall Art Park - wine tasting and tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, then free Shakespeare  (a fine performance of The Tempest) with richardabecker gotham_bound shad_0 ladyeuthanasia  hagdirt  and aaronjv in attendance

The wine was okay - a bit thin and acidic, even the ones that were supposed to be big and fruity.  I wouldn't buy any of the bottles, but the pours were generous for the price, which was nice.  Hollyhock House was interesting as a cultural artifact, but what a sterile tomb of a home!  Fitting, perhaps, for the reclusive art patron who lived there (she had only one phone, and that only called out) - although according to our docent even she didn't much like the place...  Rather a stark contrast with the Casa Grande of W.R. Hearst's San Simeon Ranch - which for all its wretched excess looked like the kind of place built to welcome people by someone who enjoyed the company of others. 

The Shakespeare was great - Prospero was quite effective and I liked that they didn't hit you over the head with the colonialist angle with Caliban.  The suggestion that he inherits Prospero's library at the end was a nice touch, too.  Stefano and Trinculo were hilarous, and there was some great anachronistic stage business all around - especially the scene where Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo climb up from the beach where they wash up and proceed to whip out their cell phones to check if anybody's got coverage.  Hee hee!   Costumes and props were very minimal and on a budget, but very, very effective.  I'm intrigued to see what they would do with Henry V, which is the other play they're doing this summer.   Free Shakespeare, picnicking, nice venue, what's not to like?

Today, with no parties on offer, bewcastle  and I enjoyed a quiet day together.  We trekked over to Tar-zhay to do some shopping, and picked up a fire pit - at half price!  It was our joint anniversary present to each other - appropriate since we're celebrating our tenth - and we tried it out this evening to great success.  With illicit fireworks of startlng power going off all around us, we enjoyed the ur-fireworks display (or would that be lightning on a stormy night?) out on our patio, after having grilled up some tasty burgers with our friend J from up the block.

Good food, good company, and a good fire - not a bad evening, I'd say...

and eye the scale with trepidation...
( Read about the excesses of the weekend here )

Has it been that long since I last posted?  Funny how things can get away from you like that - between final exams, graduation, end-of-year meetings, and the Three Geminis party, things have indeed been a bit hectic lately.

But the past four days have been such an outstanding stretch that I wanted to take a few minutes to memorialize them before heading off to bed - I hope, dear reader, you will indulge me.

I just returned from a marvelous concert - the Old Blind Dogs, a Scottish folk band who are favorites fo bewcastle and me, at the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon.  A band of remarkable virtuosity who exude such joy in the making of their music (this is an issue to explore in another posting...) in such a beautiful setting.  I don't think I could have asked for a more glorious musical experience.  A mix of great new tunes and old favorites like "Tae the Beggin' I Will Go" and "MacPherson's Rant".  And they did their version of Robert Burns' "A Man's A Man For All That" as their encore!  My absolute favorite!  Had I been capable, I would have let out a fangirlish squee.  Fortunately, my vocal chords don't let me vocalize in that register, even in falsetto.  

And before that, I played in my super fun monthly D&D game run by my pal Jason, which is always great fun.

And before that, I had a nice lie-in, and got to spend some time with bewcastle , which is also always great fun.

And before that, on Saturday, I played in richardabecker 's second Firefly LARP, "Thrilling Heroics" where more closure came to the Firefly 'verse than Fox ever let Joss Whedon provide.  I've raved about the quality of Richard's games and this particular narrative, as well as the wonderful qualities of my fellow players, elsewhere on this Journal, so suffice to say here than everyone rose to the occasion of the valedictory session of a remarkable experience in storytelling and roleplaying.  From the delicious pre-game meal provided by Miss Brazelton and gotham_bound  to the final denouement, it was a conclusion worthy of the build-up (which is itself a rare thing!)

And before that, on Friday, I drove my friend Jason to Santa Barbara so he could get his tattoo.  It is a marvel to behold - a monumental celtic cross on his entire back, designed and installed by the same artist who did the cross on my own arm.  We had a lovely drive up punctuated by an In-N-Out feast, I spent some relaxing hours in a delightful local coffeeshop, then took a scenic bike ride up and down the beach while waiting for Jason to finish. When I returned to the shop, Pat Fish, the artist, noticed that my own tattoo was getting a bit blurred around the edges (not that I'd noticed) and suggested I get it freshened.  Since Jason had finished up an hour early, I thought this sounded like a fine idea, and less than an hour later, my tattoo was better than ever - crisp and bright. We wrapped up with a delicious meal of Indian food on State Street before heading home. 

And to top off this great day, bewcastle called while I was waiting for Jason with word about our cat Fred, who'd had a tumor removed from his abdomen the previous weekend. A biopsy revealed that it was entirely benign!  What a great relief.  Fred is recovering comfortably, enjoying being even more spoiled than usual, if that's possible.  We're relieved that we'll be able to enjoy is company for (hopefully) several more years.

And before that, on Thursday, I spent a productive day in the jury room of the LA Superior Court building on Hill Street not being called to serve on a jury - a great relief considering the busy week shaping up tomorrow and following.  After discharging my civic duty, I headed over to Pasadena to enjoy pizza and a Firefly marathon chez richardabecker with gotham_bound and shad0 .  A great prelude to Saturdays live game - we saw The Train Job ("time for some thrilling heroics!"), Shindig ("I was aiming for his head!"), War Stories (Hey!  Free soup!) Jaynestown (like I need a Jayne quote for this one...) and Out of Gas (*blam*!  "Shut up - I"m thinkin'").  A really fine selection - but then can you really go wrong?

Now that, dear reader, is a pretty darn nice four-day stretch.  One worth remembering.

I will leave you with one Firefly-related observation.  Given that there are only 14 episodes, I hereby make the following canonical suggestion as to viewing order.  If one is viewing the episodes all in order, view "Out of Gas" out of order and last.  Since we never did get a proper finale (curse you, Fox TV execs, curse you to the extra special hell...), I can't help but think that the last scenes of "Out of Gas" is as good a way for the series to go out as we've got, with Mal asking "You'll all be here when I wake up, right?" and then drifting out to the words of that ship dealer - "Ship like that, she'll be with you 'til the day you die.".  Well, Mal, speaking for the fans of Firefly, we will indeed always be here - and Serenity will stay with us 'til the day we die.

So, I recently finished Colin Wells' A Brief History of History, a survey of the evolution of the discipline of history from its origins with Herodotus and Thucydides, through the Roman and medieval worlds, and into the modern era.  It's a lively survey with some thought-provoking big ideas, and while I may quibble here and there, I found it both enlightening and enjoyable.

Wells traces two main ideas through his book.  First, the notion that history is an essentially Western invention.  Yes, other cultures have chronicles and lists of kings and boastful accounts of those rulers' exploits and other records of the past, but only in the West, he argues, did there evolve the urge to explain what happened in the past in critical and rational ways.  I don't know enough about the historical literature of China and India and the Ancient Near East to evaluate his claim very well, but it strikes my somewhat historically well-informed mind as a reasonable claim.  His second idea is bigger and more complex, and occupies most of the narrative.  Namely, that the evolution of history has been a balancing act between two competing and sometimes contradictory impulses - the impulse to explain things rationally and the impulse to tell a cracking good yarn (personified by Thucydides and Herodotus respectively).  The former impulse, Wells argues convincingly, has been the dominant one in "modern" historical study from the nineteenth century on, but the latter has been recently catching up.  The best historians, of course, create works where these two impulses complement each other.  Such works, alas, are all too few and far between, and the bulk of historical writing seems to be divided between breathless, feckless, and error-ridden "popular" history of the World Lit Only By Fire vein (don't get me started) or even worse, the Dan Brown school of conspiracy as history on the one hand, and the dull as dirt "booked dissertation" that gets read by a couple dozen specialists and their students on the other.   This analysis might have benefited from exposure to the elegant analysis of historical practice and the sharp contrast with other social sciences outlined by John Lewis Gaddis in his Landscape of History, which I think makes a much more sophisticated and thoughtful analysis of history as distinct from other social sciences.  But, i begin to quibble and it is not yet the time for quibbles.

Wells takes the reader on a fascinating trip through time, stopping here and there to focus for a few pages on a particular historial or other whose work illustrates the point he wants to make especially well.  The names in the early chapters were quite familiar to me - although I thought his treatment of Gregory of Tours, Bede, and especially Einhard to be shallow and ill-informed (I know, quibbles later!) - but the later chapters were full of cool new stuff.  As he plunges onward through time, Wells is forced by the increasing number of surviving works to take a broader view, and select his examples more carefully.  The evolution of what we would call a modern historical sensibility (attitudes about primary sources, the notion that past cultures have different value systems which must be understood to properly explain their history, etc.) and the historians who first introduced those ideas - some well-known (like Ranke) others more obscure - form the bulk of his book and, for me, the work's most valuable and valid contribution. 

That all having been said, Wells is a bit of a prat.  He writes in that particular breezy Anglophile style reminiscent of schoolboys trying to say something clever and shocking in their A-level papers so they'll stand out for the readers and hopefully get into Oxford.  He's a Byzantinist by training (his earlier work is Sailing from Byzantium a work with the overwrought subtitle "How a Lost Empire Shaped the World".) and like many in that speciality, he has a rather fawning love of all things Greek, a concommitant overvaluation of the significance of the Italian Renaissance, and a generalized and ill-informed contempt for the medieval West.  I suppose if you've been trying to drag your discipline's focus out of the shadow cast by Gibbon for as long as they have, these flaws can be understood even though they annoy.  To his credit, when confronted with a specific case, like Bede or Einhard, Wells is quite fair and balanced, even though he clearly doesn't have the background to make any sort of really serious assessment of their work.  But when a few pages talking about how well Einhard captures life in the Frankish court of Charlemagne and praising him for his critical eye and willingness to describe the human foibles of his subject comes after a scathing and contemptuous dismissal of all history written in the Middle Ages as not really history at all but religious propaganda, the contradiction can be a bit hard to take.  It does tend to make one wonder about the sweeping generalizations one finds later in the book, about which I wasn't sufficiently well-informed to quibble.  

A hint for Mr. Wells:  if you're going to be contemputous and dismissive of others - to the extent of citing a printing error in the 1911 edtion of the Catholic Encyclopedia to poke fun at an admittedly rather partisan assessment of one Reformation-era theologian - then it behooves you to demonstrate that you can tell Tamerlane apart from the Mongols and that you understand what well-educated people in the late 15th century thought about the circumferance of the globe.  Columbus did not "disprove the Ptolemaic illusion of a tiny earth" you prat - he bought into this discredited notion, which is why he thought he could make it to China sailing west.  Everybody else thought he was a loony not because they feared he'd fall off the edge or some nonsense like that, but because they rightly believed that he'd run out of water and provisions somewhere around what's now Mexico City - nobody expected him to run into an entire continent sitting out there in the Great Ocean.  They all thought it was just water all the way to Japan.  

But the overall argument of Wells' book is a strong and enlightening one - his pratitude rears its snarky and ill-informed head only occasionally, and not enough to ruin what was an engaging read that will inform my own historical thinking and pedagogy next year and beyond. 

So, this resolution has been percolating in my head for quite some time, but the  aftermath of the indulgences of last night's wonderful Three Geminis bash has rather acutely brought them back to the fore.

Basically, now that summer's here, I'd like to meet a few fitness goals.  I put them out here mainly to buttress my own resolve by stating them publicly.  I may from time to time provide updates on my progress - hopefully in the form of cheerful celebrations rather than doleful laments - but those entries will be clearly marked, dear reader, so you can pass over them quickly if they hold no interest for you.

My goals are threefold:

First, I would like to drop my weight to 245 pounds.  I'm currently around 255 (probably a bit over that this afternoon after last night, but still...)  This seems to me the most realistic and achievable of the goals.  Now, I don't want to stand on the scale just once, see 245 on the readout, and then go off and order a Domino's Philly Cheese Steak pizza.  i would happily fluctuate a couple pound on either side, but I'd like 245 to be my new "reset" weight.

Second, I want to bench 315 pounds again.  I hit 315 about 10 years ago while rehabbing my knee, but then I dislocated my shoulder playing rugby, and my heavy benching days seemed to be over.  I recently went on an encouraging power cycle during track season, though, and I think I could get back up to that mark if I'm consistent throughout the summer.  

Third, I want to be able to power clean my weight.  This is probably the most ambitious of my goals, as I've never been very good at this particular exercise, but, again, I've had some encouraging recent progress in the weight room, and I'm hoping that I can build on that.

My deadline for these goals is the end of the summer.  Wish me luck!

So, is it worse to have leftover birthday cake for breakfast, or to have that "breakfast" at 1:30 in the afternoon?

Last night (and into early this morning) ian_tiberius , richardabecker  and I celebrated our annual joint birthday fest - the Three Geminis party.  Many LJ folks were in attendance, and the it was another truly memorable occasion, thanks to the delicious contributions of food and drink (Irish Car Bomb cupcakes from zorker  and postgoodism  and a veritable top shelf's worth of quality scotch from  keltraine noteworthy among the many generous contributions) and thoughtful gifts (here I want to make not of the hilariously fun quiz on Goblin lore that CDSB and Rzelle arranged for the three of us as a lead-in to our gifts - our efforts in CDSB's Last Days game were clearly very memorable for him, but then again how often does a GM have players make up an entire language for a one-shot game, and actually use it to communicate among themselves in the game? We had great fun doing it, and we're glad it was memorable for others, too!  And how we know the answer to the question "how do you ensure your survival when giving goblins a multiple choice quiz?"  You make sure the correct answers are in bold type...).  Most of all, however, the party was made by the presence of our friends, who provided, as always, delightful, engaging, and fabulous company.  It was an especially nice and unexpected surprise to be able to party with karteblanche who was able at the last minute to make the drive from Points East.

Between bottles and honest friends it was as fine an evening as one could hope for, and I'm grateful for all who attended and helped make it so.

Long has it been since I've updated this LJ (between grading, final papers, and other end-of-year activities, my journaling time has been limited) and rather than cram all those updates onto a single post, I'll probably deliver a flurry of smaller posts over the next couple days.  You've been warned!

So, we just rode out a bit of an earthquake - 5.0 just to the south of us, according to initial reports.  It went on for a bit longer than most, long enough for bewcastle  and I to take shelter in a doorway.  But nothing fell, and, apparently, nothing damaged.  Whew!

I hadn't realized how long it had been since my last posting, dear reader.  Between the demands of the season at school (we're scheduling students for next year's classes - a chore of Augean proportions), track practice (two girls qualified this week for CIF in the throwing events - our only two qualifiers!  And one is a freshman, the other a sophomore!  The fact that they are both coached by me is mere coincidence...), and life in general, it's been hard to find the time to post substantially.  And Facebook has become my go-to venue for quick one-line updates...

But, with a bit of found time and a few experiences behind me, I'll offer a grab-bag of eclectic reviews:

richardabecker 's Firefly game - if you read his LJ, you know he's got a Firefly-themed live game in the works for next month, to which I'm looking forward with great excitement!  We had our last sit-down game (I can't really call it tabletop since what table space there is remains covered in food and booze throughout the session - hardly a real gaming surface...) on May 1, and it was a fine conclusion to what has been an excellent plot arc.  Our GM told us at the end that he considered himself lucky to have experienced even more Firefly than Joss Whedon, and I couldn't agree with him more.  I feel like I've lived a second season...  Thanks to the best crew in the 'verse (and you know who you are!)

John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past: Gaddis originally wrote this slim volume as a series of lectures he delivered while a visiting fellow at Oxford.  I found it thought-provoking and insightful.  His basic premise is twofold: First, that historians have long been reluctant to think metacognatively about their process and second, that such consideration has great value, both in illuminating the value of history as a discipline and in illustrating how the ways historians understand and seek out knowledge - long considered somewhat fuzzy by the "hard" social scientists - can be seen to parallel in interesting ways how certain "real" scientiests - particularly theoretical physicists, environmental scientiests, and evolutionary biologists - understand and seek out knowledge.  He's pretty hard on other social sciences like economics and sociology, but his criticisms are quite sound.  Basically, he observes that the drive of these scholars for a sort of "scientific" legitimacy has led them down a path towards outdated nineteenth-century Newtonian notions about fact and truth that have the led them to become detached from actual reality in the pursuit of elegant theory.  Ironically, this is happening just as many scientists have been moving beyond Newtonian ideas of reality towards more complex knowledge structures such as chaos theory that seek to make sense of far more complex phenomena in ways that look interestingly like the techniques good historians employ (in different contexts of course).  A really fine book, and one that will have a major effect on how I teach my classes in the future!

Black and Decker's Grass Hog cordless weed trimmer:  As you may recall from my previous series of reviews, my old gas-powered weed whacker went belly up a while ago, and the back lawn has been running rampant ever since.  So a couple weeks ago bewcastle  and I hied ourselves to Home Depot to pick up some much-needed garden supplies - the above-mentioned weed trimmer, a pair of large hedge clippers, two new hoses, and a bevy of new plants for tranplant in the garden and in various pots in the front yard.  My verdict - worth it overall, but the battery life is a bit short - I got only about half the desired work done before it began to die, and I hadn't charged the second battery in time to replace it.  I'll know better next time.  The power is decent, but not industrial-strength - this tool is better suited for maintenance than a major anti-weed campaign.  Fine for the future, if it forces me to be more regular about my yard work.  But for now...  Of course, given the extent to which the backyard had gone to seed, I doubt any tool short of an Agent Orange dispenser would have worked terribly well.  I ended up getting medieval on my backyard's ass and took recourse to a simple hoe and the muscles of my back, which is, if I do say so myself, sturdy and strong (to quote Natalie Merchant...)  and, with Bruce Springsteen's version of  "John Henry" running somewhat disconcertingly through my head, waded into the fray.  Final tally: Determined homeowner:1  stubborn buffalo grass: 0. 

Glenn Cook, The Black Company:  Cook's gritty low-fantasy epic rewards a rereading after several years.  I bought a compendium of the first three volumes for my friend JM at work for Christmas two years back, and he really enjoyed it.  So much, indeed, that he found the D20 supplement for the Black Company universe in a gaming store somewhere and presented it to me last Christmas.  A wholly selfless gift, I'm sure.  The idea that I might be inspired to run a RPG set in that universe was the furthest thing from his mind, I have no doubt!  But, this wholly unintended consequence has indeed come to pass - I'll be using the 4th-edition D&D rules with some homebrew mixed in rather than the actual d20 (which is pretty clunky in comparison, really...), and I'm really looking forward to getting back in the GMing saddle after wrapping up Debateable Lands last year after a great five-year run.  The fact that I've got some other superb games (the aforementioned JM's 4th edition D&D game and CDSB's Farlam Court game) in which to play myself makes it all the better!

Jericho:  I ordered the first DVD from Netflix out of curiousity - I was intrigued by the general concept of the show, and wondered how the writers would pull it off.  I'd seen one episode on TV, and my feelings were mixed.  But, viewing an episode out of context like that is never the best way to judge a TV show.  My verdict - strategically excellent but often flawed tactically.  By which I mean, the general concept of the show is very good, and the Big Ideas are very interesting, and keep me engaged. But the characters themselves are often two-dimensional or cartoonish, and often they act in irrational ways (even for what's been established as their motivation) to achieve some plot effect the writers needed to happen.  Also, as often happens, those characters with whom the writers seem most enamored are those I find most annoying. But the big concept is still interesting enough to keep me watching.  It's not like there's a huge investment required of me - there's only a season and a half, so I'm willing to grit my teeth at the occasional tactical flaw to hang around to see how things work out.

Speaking of which , if I wrap this up now, I have time to squeeze in an episode before bedtime!

So, Friday was national Day of Silence, sponsored by GLSEN.  At schools all across the country, students take a pledge to remain silent for a day to raise awareness against anti-LGBTQ harassment and bullying.  It's a great way for students to get a sense of empathy for those whose constant experience is to be unable to speak out.  Unfortunately, there are still some people at school who don't take the event seriously and tease and mock those who are have decided to participate.  Some kids were very eloquent about experiencing that feeling of helplessness, being unable to speak out, in the face of anti-LGBTQ teasing.  Fortunately, the degree of teasing is quite mild in comparison to the hate that some LGBTQ teens experience - our school strives pretty hard to create an environment of acceptance of diversity, and for that it deserves a lot of credit.  Most encouragingly of all, though, the participation this year was the best its ever been, and the general consensus from the upperclassmen was that this was our best Day of Silence ever.  The growth of our GSA chapter no doubt has a lot to do with it.  When our current seniors were freshmen, we had a core of maybe 6-9 girls involved in the club.  This year we routinely fill the classroom where we meet with 20-30 students of both geneders, and enjoy tremendous support and involvement from out faculty and staff. 

The two events are certainly related - the more people realize that LGBTQ issues are important to people they know, the harder it is for them to engage in the depersonalization that accompanies harrassment and bullying.   We were also very lucky this year to have a dynamic and inspiring chapel speaker the day before Day of Sllence, Bonnie Curtis, who shared her coming-out story and her experiences in trying to reconcile a very conservative evangelical Christian upbringing (her rapid-fire recitation of the books of the Bible in order was a big hit with the kids) with her sexuality. 

We also hosted a "Break the Silence" lunch that filled the biggest classroom on campus.  Several students who support LGBTQ issues have expressed the very reasonable opinion that remaining silent seems an odd way to encourage speaking out.  While we think the Day of Silence is effective, we respect those other opinions and the chance to have a "speaking out" portion of the day seems to have struck a good balance between the awareness- and empathy-raising experierience of the silence and the need to speak out.

So, as I head out to Palm Springs for a 3-day leadership conference, I can feel pretty good about the strides we've taken on this issue.  There's still a lot of work to do, but considering how far we've come in the past few years, I'm pretty happy.

It seems like it's been ages since I last did a LiveJournal update - Facebook quizzes seem to be eating all my social networking time!  The contrasts between Facebook and LiveJournal, and the utility of each venue for particular aspects of social networking, are fascinating to contemplate.  Facebook is better suited to the short personal update, while LiveJournal is the better suited for longer ruminations.  Hardly an earth-shattering observation, I know.  But it seems that the relative scarcity of my LiveJournal updates seems to correspond to my increased use of Facebook for the quick little status notifications.  How does this augur for LiveJournal's long-term viability in my life, and what comment does it make on the development (or atrophy) of my attention span?  Well, that's a longer rumination for another day, dear reader.  Right now I thought I'd share some reviews of a wide range of experiences from over Spring Break.

Working back from yesterday...

CDSB's Regency RPG - we had our latest installment yesterday, with the usual suspects (Rzelle, bewcastle  and myself) being joined by castle_kevorah , who have been following a parallel plot track.  Plotting, role-playing wine, and food were all up to the usual high standards, and I had a wonderful time.  The sit-down early Easter dinner was a particular highlight!

Overland Cafe - meet colleenky  for brunch yesterday to talk about volunteering to help local schools. Lots of questions, and not many answers.  If you know something about volunteering in education, dear reader, be it organizations that can help put volunteer-minded people together with schools who need their help or any other useful information, please don't hesitate to mention it here!  My spinach-mushroom-feta omelette was lovely, the restaurant was airy and bright, but unfortunately this formerly hidden gem appears to have been discovered, if the volume and hipster mien of the many diners is any gauge.  Still, well worth the visit, both for the food and the company.

Langer's Luggage - My beloved rugby kit bag began to show signs of dangerous wear and tear last week, with one of the nylon gussets beginning to unravel at the join.  So I looked around for a decent luggage repair shop.  Langer's was right on my way home from school, so I stopped by on Wednesday to drop off the bag.  It was ready on Friday, completey refurbished with hand stitching for only twenty five bucks.  They proprietor was not only friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable but also a skilled craftsman.  If you've got a handbag, piece of luggage or pair of shoes (they do shoes) that need repair, I'd strongly recommend Langer's, located on Sunset just east of Fairfax.

Chris' Lawnmowers - my weedwhacker hit the skids a couple weeks ago, stalling out repeatedly.  So I took it to a local lawnmower shop where we've purchased cutting lines and other small items in the past.  They told me they'd call me by the end of the week.  No call.  I waited until the middle of the next week and called them.  They told me the carbuerator was shot and it might take a while to get a new one because the company that made my weedwhacker was out of business.  I started contemplating a new one, but figured I'd see how the carbuerator turned out.  They said they'd call me again.  So I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  Since I was in the neighborhood picking up drycleaning, I stopped in to ask about my machine.  Blank stare from the proprietress.  She sent me out back to talk to the repairman.  Blank stare from him.  I saw my weedwhacker hanging from a rack along the wall.  Pointed it out and asked what the status was.  Repair-guy looked at the tag, and told me curtly the engine was "no good".  By which I assume he means they couldn't get the parts.  I asked when he was going to call to let me know.  He insisted they'd already called me.  I related the substance of the one phonce contact I'd had with them, which was not conclusive.  He shrugged.  I asked if there was any way to repair the thing, or if it was a lost cause.  Another shrug.  I left the shop in disgust.  I was half planning on getting a new one anyway, but... feh.  So if you need your lawnmower repaired, take it to Chris' Lawnmowers on Sepulveda at your own risk.  I usually like to patronize mom -and-pop operations, but sometimes you just get burned.

Disney Animation - I had lunch on Thursday at Disney Studios, courtesy of casketgirl  , who arranged guest passes for  karteblanche   and me as well as Dr. Boyfriend, who came over to join us for lunch.  What a treat!  We got to see some preliminary work on their latest project, visit the studio archives, tour the lot, and enjoy a wonderful lunch.  Many thanks for a unique and memorable experience, C-girl!

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson.  One of Stephenson's earliest works, published in (I think) 1987, Zodiac chronicles the adventures of a Boston eco-warrior's battle against environmental criminals, one of whom is running for President of the United States.  The title refers to the inflatable motor boats that the protagonist and his pals use on their various guerilla actions against the polluting bad guys.  Stephenson had not yet mastered the technique of juggling all the apparently disjointed and seemingly random plot points until they can be woven together in a big climax, but the usual Stephenson balancing acts are all there in protean form - the meticulous background research and attention to detail detail that totters between astonishing and eye-rollingly tiresome, the head-shaking non sequiturs and bizarre secondary characters that hover between uniquely engaging and pointlessly absurd, and the unrealistically gifted, unflappable, and indestructable protagonist who weaves between awesome and punch-in-the-nose annoying.  The references to Boston tipped the scales for me, and he only tried a few times to capture the essence of the city, at which he failed spectacularly.  When he stuck to his mastery of the geography, he was on solid ground, and I was willing to be a good sport and overlook the "local color" that seemed to come from watching a lot of "Cheers" as the plot was engaging enough for me.  All in all, a nice distracting Spring Break read.

Azeem's - an Afghani restaurant in Pasadena where I had dinner with  richardabecker   to discuss some various projects on which we'll collaborate in the future.  You'll have to stay tuned, dear reader, for details of those projects, but suffice to say the food at Azeem was excellent, and the company was engaging, thought-provoking, and thoroughly enjoyable, as usual.  

Well, that's enough for one installment!  Now that Spring Break is drawing to a close, I may find that the structure imposed by my work schedule allows me more time to update this journal. Stay tuned!

So, this week the school conducted its environmental education trips, wherein we take the various high school and junior high classes to different camping venues for several days of outdoor activities, class bonding, and (hopefully) general fun.  the junior class was heading up to Cedar Lake, outside Big Bear, and I was going along as 11th-grade dean.  This was my first trip in a leading administrative role, and I was a bit nervous.  Let's just say not every trip has been incident-free. 

But, as it turned out, the trip went off without a hitch, the kids were great and earned compliments on their behavior from everybody from the naturalists who coordinate the trip for us to the kitchen staff, and I returned to LA mostly unscathed.

Monday morning we departed from school and made great time up the mountain.  Until, that is, we got to within a few hundred yards of the camp.  There we hit a patch of ice on an upslope of the dirt road leading into the campsite, and the buses got stuck.  Three or four times our driver tried to power up and over the ice patch to no avail.  Their failure to heed our repeated warnings that the buses would need chains for the trip may have played a role in this mishap.  But the driver's reaction when I pointed this out to him suggested this was not a matter on which to make too fine a point.  Fortunately, the camp had a big Caterpillar tractor that they used for clearing snow, and they hooked a cable from the Cat (which, interestingly enough, had chains on its oversized tires - an observation I declined to share with our driver) and towed each of the buses over the ice patch so they could drive the rest of the way into camp.  Even with the delay, we arrived on time, and a little bus excitement helps make memories! 

We could not have asked for better weather.  The weekend storm that had dumped six inches of new snow on the campsite was long gone, and clear blue skies shone over the new, untrodden (for a little while anyway) snow.  What a great venue for the week!  The weather was crisp and cold, but never really uncomfortably so.  The snow made for wonderful opportunities for impromptu play, and the kids really embraced all the opportunities we provided them for activities.  Me, I floated around from group to group.  Among the highlights:

a visit from a local zoo/shelter for abandonned rare animals. The zookeeper was great and the kids were spellbound.  We saw a desert tortoise (an abandonned pet) a 4-foot king snake, a sparrowhawk, an Eastern screech owl (trapped in a boxcar on a transcontinental train), a possum (creepy googly eyes) and a hedgehog (another abandonned pet - although they're not legal in California).  The hedgehog was incredibly cute, and the hit of the evening.  I personally really liked the owl.

an amazing yoga class after which I was able to bend my surgically repaired knee more easily than has been possible for over 18 months!  I may end up seeking out yoga classes here in LA.  (So, dear readers, if you know of any good studios in the mid-city area, let me know!)

a game of Red Rover that incorporated cowboy-ninja-bear!  Okay, it was really hunter-ninja-bear, but close enough for me!

a blindfolded team snowball fight where I partnered with Mike, our assistant principal.  We traded off being the blindfolded thrower (the tank) and the direction-giver (the gunner).  I must say we were a pretty effective team - what a blast!

a 5-mile hike across snowy mountainsides to Castle Rock, for some breathtaking views of Big Bear Lake.  Possibly one of the most taxing hikes I've ever taken, thanks to the snow, which required me to slam my boots into the each footstep to ensure traction.  I was pretty wrung out by the end of it, but it was absolutely worth it.  But I wasn't so wrung out that I didn't get out on the dance floor for...

80s dance night!  We got a DJ and spun 80s tunes for a couple hours before the kids went to bed.  Thriller, Billy Jean, Sister Christian, lots of Billy Idol, and, to wrap it all up, Don't You Forget About Me!  Takes me back!   I may have to try to organize an 80s dance party of my own between yoga classes now!

Finally, Thursday rolled around and we packed and departed, tired and happy and full of great memories.  I was sending up prayers of thanks for such a smooth and uneventful trip when the bus began to make an unscheduled exit off the freeway around Highland.  I leaned over to ask the driver what the problem was.  The teacher/chaperone who was seated immediately behind him, who'd been followng his cell-phone conversation, told me one of our four buses had broken down a couple exits back.  

Great.  Last year we had a bus break down on the way back from Sequoia National Park, and the kids had arrived six hours later than scheduled.  Argh.  Looking back, I noticed several empty seats on the bus.  I called the chaperones from the other buses.  We did some quick calculations.  We could just fit all the kids onto three buses.  Would all the luggage fit, too?  All four buses parked nose-to-tail in the dead zone of an on-ramp, and the drivers started moving luggage.  I kept the kids inside the bus until the CHP arrived to help control traffic.  We transferred the kids, (with me walking up and down the outside of the line playing sheepdog and waving at all the cars entering the freeway to slow down and swing wide) got all their luggage shifted, and were off again in 40 minutes.  Given the great time we made coming down the mountain, we actually arrived back at school precisely at our announced ETA.  

Needless to say, there were some stressful moments there at the end, but all's well that ends well, right? 

Anyway, it's great to be home!