Greetings, humans -
It's been a while since I put anything here. I've been working this fall at three, count 'em, universities in town, teaching variations on English 101. It's been okay and the students as usual range from fine to great, but boy it takes a lot of time. There's this rumor going around--maybe you've heard it--that I'm a writer who writes books, but as of, say the end of September there hadn't been much evidence of this.
Meanwhile, Uzee's novel The Geometry of God was released by Clockroot Books in September/ooctober and has gotten a nice review from The Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/15/dauntless-and-female-in-pakistan/
A slightly silly title but a very nice review. Long, too.
What else has been happening? 1. I'm spending way too much time playing my fantasy football league, something I was invited into for the first time this fall. I always thought I'd be good at it, as I am somewhat obsessive and meticulous. present ranking is 3 out of 12 with five weeks left in the "season," so you be the judge. (Weeks 14 through 16 are the "playoffs," at which point it becomes instant elimination.) On the other hand, the league is presently being led by a 12-year-old kid, so you may want to take my claims of expertise with some grains of salt.
2. Obama won the fucking peace prize. Don't get me started. Okay I'll start anyway: he's continued the war in Iraq, while expanding the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has failed to close Guantanamo or release the photos and videos (yes there are videos) of the abuses in Abu Ghraib or further pursue those responsible for the abuses. He has, in short, done nothing to encourage peace, while doing very nearly as much as Bush to maintain a climate of war. For this he gets a prize.
3. I have also, despite my claim to the contrary, been creeping to some sort of conclusion with my current novel. At the moment my hope is to be done by the end of the year, sort of as a more-or-less birthday present to myself. Let's see.
4. I've been reading a lot and reviewing some books for Dawn, the newspaper in Pakistan which occasionally prints my writeups in their Sunday books section (which they still have, unlike say the LA Times). Here are a few of my more recent ones:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/books-and-authors/monkey-business
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/books-and-authors/tongue-twister
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/books-and-authors/marginal
5. We saw District 9, which is a great movie. One of the better sci-fi movies of the past many years, I'd say. Oh and Uzee and I went trick-or-treating with my pal Brendan and his family, which was actully pretty entertaining. Boo! etc. (These two events are not actually linked, even though they are both listed as #5.)
6. In order to teach my students about the unreliability of Wikipedia, I opened a Wiki page about myself and wrote a brief bio. I then told my students to log onto the page and write whatever nonsense they could think of, the point being that, hey, if they could add this stuff about me, then anybody could write anything about, say, global warming or evolution or World War I or whatever. So far, there is only one questionable sentence. See if you can spot it (toward the end).
And yes, feel free to log on and screw things up. I ask only that you not actually delete anything that's there--my info is correct. Just add stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Maine
And I guess that's all for now...
