1491, 1493, and Greek Gods

ByJohn Brown

New Revelations About America

A common idea taught about the Indians (and, yes, it appears when you can’t simply refer to their tribe, most prefer that term to “American Indian,” especially those in South and Central America) is that they lived in such harmony with the land, that they trod so lightly upon it, that the landscape showed hardly any sign of their passing. This is, after all, what we were shown in Disney’s Pocahontas and James Cameron’s more recent Avatar, isn’t it?  

Many of us were also brought up to believe that there really weren’t that many Indians around anyway.  They were subsistence societies. There certainly were no cities comparable to those in Europe at the time. And especially not in places like the Amazon or Boliva.

We were taught that the Indians traveled here by walking to America across the Bering Strait land bridge that stretched from Russia to Alaska during the ice age around 10,000 BC. When they arrived, the proceeded to eat a tremendous amount of meat, killing off all the mega fauna like mammoths.

We were taught other things. But it appears that many of these things have recently been shown to be false. Sometimes dramatically so.

For example, the Indians transformed their landscapes, tens of thousands of square miles of it, very often through burning, but also through other ingenious ways.

There were far more Indians in 1491 than most folks know. Recent research suggests that Central Mexico was the most densely populated place on earth at the time, “with more than twice as many people per square mile than China or India.” The total population of the Americas in 1491, by some estimates, was between 90-112 million people, meaning that MORE people lived in the Americas than in Europe.

Finally, it appears that the Indians were here twenty to thirty thousand years ago. They were here when Europe north of Paris was still uninhabitable and mostly covered by glaciers!

Charles Mann describes these and a number of other fascinating findings in his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. He relays the information in such an engaging style that I found myself picking the book up at every chance. When I was finished, I wanted more.

Luckily, in 1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created Mann continues his history lesson. Except instead of focusing on the surprising things we’ve learned about the Indians in the last two decades, he focuses on the surprising impacts, both biological and financial, of linking the Western and Eastern hemispheres together. It’s the biggest event in the world, Mann suggests, since the dinosaurs died. Mann suggests that Columbus didn’t discover a new world–his voyage created one.

The first part of the book examines the effect of the exchanges across the Atlantic (microbes  and tobacco). The next part focuses on the effect of the exchanges across the Pacific (silk, corn, and pirates). The third part shows the role of the exchange in the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions (potatoes, guano, and rubber).  The final part examines the consequences of the huge shift in populations caused by the Atlantic slave trade (Maroons, mixed-marriages, and freedom). As with 1492, the insights are both surprising and fascinating.

If you like history, if you liked Guns, Germs, & Steel, then I think you will love these two books.

EDIT: I just ran across a fabulous Doug Fabrizio Radio West interview with Charles Mann about 1493 called  The World Columbus Created.  Listen and enjoy!

Divine Yogurt

For years eating a serving of sweetened yogurt was like eating a box of Milk Duds (20 grams of sugar) or a Milky Way candy bar (35 grams of sugar). Yes, the sweetened yogurts have that much sugar. The only way to avoid eating literally like a kid in a candy store was to purchase plain yogurt and add some fruit or a squirt of honey. And, no, I will not consider eating yogurt sweetened with Splenda or Nutrasweet.  Artificial sweeteners make me gag. As far as I’m concerned, they are abominations that ruin the taste of everything they touch.

So for many years I enjoyed my mix of plain yogurt and various add-ins. However, to my joy, I recently discovered a sweetened yogurt with only 15 grams of sugar (about as much as you find in a large banana) that tastes divine. It’s sweetened with real sugar and honey. And the mouth feel is sooooooo smooth. I’m sure this is because, unlike all the other yogurt manufacturers, these guys realized that, duh, fat actually makes things taste good and isn’t the  evil thing we’ve made it out to be. In just two bites it became my favorite sweetened yogurt. It’s called The Greek Gods Traditional Greek Yogurt. I’ve found another version—the vanilla honey—that only has 5 grams of sugar.

Be aware that despite its name, this yogurt does NOT have the high protein content of other Greek style yogurts such as Brown Cow Greek Yogurt with 23 grams. Furthermore, not all the flavors have the low sugar content. Their blueberry and strawberry flavors, for example, have 35 grams. So check the labels first, and then treat yourself to yogurt that will have you savoring every bite.

When I eat yogurt, it will still mostly be the plain Greek style with mixers. But when I want a special treat, you know I’ll be getting some from The Greek Gods.

EDIT: 9/6/12 I now feel like Jerry Seinfeld in the episode when they found out the fat free frozen yogurt really wasn’t fat free. All the other yogurts I was looking at had serving sizes of 1 cup. The Greek Gods folks thought 1/2 a cup was the right size. That means that this super amazing low sugar yogurt had 30 grams of sugar per serving! It’s like eating a Snickers! I’m so disillusioned. Alas.

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  • Interview with Author Kelly Barnhill

    ByJohn Brown

    Kelly Barnhill is a writer, teacher and Mom from Minneapolis. Her fiction has appeared in Postscripts, Weird Tales, Clarkesworld and other publications. She’s also published a number of high-interest science books for children. They have wonderful titles like Sewers and the Rats That Love Them, Blood-Sucking, Man-Eating Monsters, Sick, Nasty Medical Practices, and The Wee Book of Pee.  She states that “I’ve had like nine million jobs before this, including being a janitor, a park ranger, a wildland firefighter and a bartender (among others).” Kelly’s first novel, The Mostly True Story of Jack, will be published this year. I had the opportunity to interview her about the book and writing, and have to say I had a delightful time. Enjoy!

    * 

    JB: I have to start by saying I love the title of your book. It raises all sorts of questions in my mind. Was that part of the inspiration of the story or was it something you had to arrive at after a lot of hard work?

    KB: On the first question: Oh my. Titles. This title is the culmination of a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Neither blood nor sweat, just tears – mine specifically. This book was originally called The Boy Without A Face, then Jack Be Quick, then The Curious Face in the Cornfield, then Uprooted, then the House at the Far Edge of Town, then the A Child of Earth and Magic, then…..oh lord, I can hardly remember. 

    The thing is, I typically don’t have a problem naming pieces. The title usually comes when I’ve untangled the first knot of text and the beating heart of the story is just starting to assert itself. This time, not so much. I was stymied from the beginning. I asked my kids their opinions, my agent, my agent’s assistant, every editor I’ve ever heard of. I asked my students, my Sunday School kids, kids on the block, kids at the park. 

    But that’s the thing when you have a title that doesn’t work – no amount of wanting it to be right will make it right. So I was bound to struggle and I was bound to hate – well, everything – because I just hadn’t hit on the right one yet. Until I did. And the fussing stopped (much to the great joy of everyone involved).

    JB: (laughing) That’s hilarious. I can see the desperate author hounding some kid on a swing. Of course, it shows persistence. And I’m betting it isn’t just a title that’s defied you. Have you run into plot or character snags that have been especially troublesome? If so, what do you do as a writer, how do you approach that?

    KB: Oh, clearly. I am one of those authors who does absolutely no planning before starting a project. Instead, I’ll get a little knot of text stuck in my head (usually when I’m out for a run) – something pleasing to the ear or gentle in the mind’s eye. And then I spend a whole lot of time figuring out the story behind it. What that means is that when I begin, I typically don’t know what exactly I’m writing. Is this a short story? A novel? A children’s book? A poem? It takes me a while to figure that out.

    Insane, you might say. Absolutely barking mad, you might mutter.

    Well, obviously, says I. But it’s fun.

    Anyway, I did a lot of select-all-deletes over the course of this novel (sometimes, deletes to the tune of 300 pages), retaining the characters, retaining the little bright spots that I managed to scrawl onto some note cards, but recomposing largely from memory, and re-engaging with the story in a fresh, new place.

    It’s a process I can’t really recommend. Except that I do. Whole-heartedly. There’s something thrilling about entering into a manuscript that doesn’t have any mistakes in it yet. Of course, it typically doesn’t have any words in it either at that point, but never mind.

    Along the way I’ve had to remove some fairly major characters, which forced me to completely re-imagine and recompose the book (again), but as I did so, the story was better, the writing was better, and I learned a lot doing it. So, I don’t like to call them “snags”. I like to call them “learning opportunities”. (Okay, fine, I also call them “throw-my-computer-in-the-creek-while-shouting-obscenities moments” but that’s not very nice to talk about.)

    JB: Kelly, I have to say, to find a simmering joy in the dreaded select-all-delete (folks, she’s wild, WILD!) Although I will say that starting a new project is always a thrill for me as well. So maybe we’re not too far apart, although I do enjoy my planning. So, what was the knot of text that started this story? Is it even there anymore? And how did it develop into the fantastic magic that’s at the heart of the tale? (Folks, as an aside, I have to tell you that the magic in this book is unlike anything I’ve read.)

    KB: Okay, you asked for it. Here is the original page. I’ll make the letters green, just because:

    Outside the house, a girl stood on the darkening street looking up. Her hands were shoved deep in the pockets of her ratty cut-offs, and her red-brown curls struggled out of the long braid that hung down the length of her back. Her bike lay on its side on the ground, the front wheel still slowly spinning around and around, until it finally stopped.

    Two boys walked slowly down the quiet street, their sneakered feet scarcely whispering against the pavement. One boy wore a bright orange seed cap over his even brighter blonde hair. He smiled at the girl as they approached. The other boy was very tall and he walked with a limp. Half of his face was obscured in a red knot of scars that bloomed over his skin like roses. He kept his eyes on the ground and did not speak. He never spoke. Both boys stood next to the girl. The boy with the cap tilted his chin towards the attic.

    “That kid get in today?” he asked, his eyes on the silhouette of the stranger in the window.

    “Yep,” the girl said.

    “Think he knows?” He turned to face the girl. His face, handsome and tan from so much time out of doors, shone in the last weak rays of the orange and pink sky.

    “How could he?” she asked. She reached over to the boy on her left, who was taller than her, though his pronounced slouch made it difficult to tell. She put her arm around his shoulder, and he, in turn, laid his face, bad side down, good side up, on hers. Only when they stood like this, could people see that they were brother and sister. “But he will,” she said.

    I wrote this while on a positively lovely run through Fort Snelling State Park in Minnesota. Well, that’s not exactly true. I thought it while I was running. I wrote it when I got home. But that’s how a lot of stories start for me – a bit of fluff twists into a thread and thickens to a cord and winds into a knot. And then I have a hell of a time figuring out where the thing leads.

    Now, that actually wasn’t everything that led me to JACK. There was another bit that I can’t find anywhere that was a conversation between a kid and his mom as they drove in a rental car towards a farm house in Iowa, where the kid would be staying while his parents worked through the details of their divorce. I didn’t realize that the kids on the street would occupy the same story as the kid in the car. Indeed, I had no idea that the kids on the street were talking about the kid in the car. I also had no idea that I was writing a book with magic in it either. That was a surprise.

    But to answer your earlier question, neither the conversation nor the bit about the kids looking at the house are in the book anymore, though little images and descriptions have drifted into the later drafts and taken root. That’s the magic of revisions – every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows. And sometimes the bits of your novel that once were broken and wobbly and weak transform into some very pretty bits of fiction. It’s the transformation that gets us every time – or me, anyway. Honestly, it’s why I keep coming back to the page: I like change.

    And as far as the magic at the heart of the story – I can’t really say. I think that the magic was simply there, waiting for me to find it. Everything I know about the strange history of that town, the terrible events that happened in the past and the necessity for Jack and his friends to set things right – I only discovered those things by accident. I discovered them because I cared about Jack, and cared about his loneliness and his lack of place, and I wanted to understand him. (And yes, I totally get it that he’s not real, but in the end that doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m a mother, and a child in need is a child in need.)

    (Did I even answer your question? Why is it that every question sends me tumbling in all directions? I think I might be a dreadful interviewee. Maybe you should ask me easier questions. Like about darning socks.)

    JB: (laughing) You’re a wonderful interviewee. I love these answers. And I think my readers will appreciate very much what you’ve shared. In fact, I’m betting they’d want me to keep asking questions for quite some time, but I’ll limit myself to two more. First, the prose of your book has a flow to it. I haven’t pinpointed what it’s doing yet (I have noticed some parallelisms), but the prose is compelling. Just picks you up and carries you along. Is that flow important to you? Do you labor over it, or is it just something you enjoy, maybe seek out in other authors, and, therefore, seems to come naturally? Tell us your thoughts on this.

    KB: Oh, John, I am so glad you asked me this question! (Also, that you noticed, because I worked really hard on it!)

    Let me back up before answering that, though, because I think it’s really hard to separate how a writer builds text and uses words from how they think. There are people on earth – lots of them – who are visual thinkers. I am not one of them. In fact, I am not a visual thinker at all. Even now, when my house is quiet and my kids are at school, it is difficult for me to call up a mental image of their faces – but the texture and timbre of their voices is with me all the time. And it’s always been like that for me as a reader – I’m much more attracted to books with a strong aural sensibility. I like prose that is rhythmic and rich. I think language works best when it is a sensual experience – not just in what it evokes (though that’s clearly important) but how it feels in the mouth, how it feels in the ear.

    Now I think part of the reason for this is that, as a little girl, I was a delayed reader. And when I started reading, I was stuck in the bottom group (they never tell you you’re in the bottom group, but oh! As children we know. We know!). This is not to say I wasn’t experiencing and engaging with stories. Every night my dad read to us – first the Grimm stories, then Narnia, then Tolkein, then Dickens. I also had a little fisher-price record player (that I bought at a garage sale with my own money, so of course I thought it was awesome) and a bunch of dramatized books on records – Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Watership Down, Call it Courage, Anne of Green Gables, and some others that I can’t remember.I would listen to those things so often that my siblings threatened to throw my record player out the window. So I’d lock myself in the closet and listen some more. And even now, I love stories out loud. My husband and I read to one another every night, I read to my kids, and I read my own work out loud as I revise, over and over and over again.

    My book sounds the way it does because I’ve read that thing out loud, cover to cover, approximately nine million times. Actually, that might be a conservative estimate. I want my stories to feel like a whisper on the skin, an insistent voice that you can’t shake. Now, mind you, I’ll probably never actually reach that goal, but it’s good having a target, anyway.

    JB: Wow. That’s lovely. You know, I’m not a style over substance guy, but I like sound. I’m attracted to prose that sings, even if it’s softly. This seems to be what you’re suggesting you look for. Not prose that necessarily stands up and shouts for people to look at it. But prose that, well, as you said, is a whisper on the skin. Oh, there’s a whole interview right there. In fact, I think, if you’ll agree, I’m going to have you back, maybe around the time Jack comes out to discuss that. In the meantime, I see you have a whole bunch of projects slated to come out. The Final Exile of the Insect King is another killer title. But Iron Hearted Violet is the one coming out next after Jack. Tells us about that one or anything else you think readers should know about. And since Jack is a ways off, tell us which of your published stories you’d suggest readers try while they’re waiting. I see a whole bunch you’ve linked to on your site.

    KB: Thanks John! This has been really fun, and I’d love to pop back over to your corner of the internets around launch-time (August 2! Mark your calendars!).

    Anyone who is interested in reading any of my fiction online can head over to my blog for a list of links (www.kellybarnhill.com). And any of you who are interested in buying some pretty cool collections could check out Sybil’s Garage #7, which has my story “The Dead Boy’s Last Poem” or Apex’s recent anthology Dark Faith, which has my story “Hush”. Another story that I feel pretty good about  is called “The Taxidermist’s Other Wife”, which appeared on Clarkesworld in December. That particular story came from an experience I had up in northern Minnesota (about ten miles south of the Canadian border), when I was teaching a fiction workshop to a bunch of hockey-playing high school seniors. One boy was telling me that it took him over an hour each way to get from home to school and back again. He said he’d been doing that for the last six years, ever since his town closed down the school. I asked him if all the kids in his town had to make the same kind of crazy commute, and he said, “Those of us who’re left, sure. There’s not many of us anymore. You kill the school, you kill the town. Everyone knows that.” The idea that the lifeblood of a town is bound up in its school  – and indeed, that a town can be killed, stuck with me, and transformed into an odd, mournful little piece. There is a deep love as well as a devastating sorrow that binds the people of my beautiful (and very cold) state to the land that surrounds them – and I feel that this story is the closest I’ve ever come to actually pinning those twin emotions down onto the page. 

    As for Iron-Hearted Violet  – that has been a devilishly tricky book to write, but I’m pretty happy with it. How to describe it? Hmmm. It’s the story of a girl who unwittingly releases an imprisoned, wicked god, and must sacrifice all that she knows and all that she loves in order to stop it from enslaving her – and every – world. There are banned stories and dragons with missing hearts and a grieving girl and  friendship and a magic book and sleeping gods and a multitude of universes gathering in great foamy waves and crashing against the shore. Mostly, getting the language and tone just right was incredibly tricky, and I went through something like a million drafts, so for me to say that I’m feeling happy with it is a pretty big deal.

    JB: Well, that gives us all some great things to try out. I’m personally looking forward to Jack.

    *

    John Sez: now there is someone who just loves to write. I love her sense of adventure in discovering the story and her willingness to generate a lot of stuff to get to the final story. And the sound of her prose. Not that all books have to have this, but it is nice. Furthermore, Kelly was just enjoyable to talk to. That fun voice comes out in her blog. She’s going to be someone to watch. In the meantime, for the rest of us, it’s back to work.  

    LINKS

    Kelly Barnhill’s website

    Codex Author Blog Tour 2011

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  • Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin

    ByJohn Brown

    Which animals do you think have a better life: family dogs or cattle on ranches?

    Think about it. Cattle get branded and tagged and slaughtered. Some live only a year or two. Meanwhile, Fido gets the run of the house, a spot in front of the couch, and chew toys.

    You might be surprised to know that many cattle have it better than pampered family pets. That’s the claim Temple Grandin makes in her fascinating and practical book Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.

    Grandin is not a beef industry lobbyist working smoke and mirrors PR to make ranchers look good. She’s a practical, down-to-earth, get-your-hands-dirty animal scientist who has revolutionized the beef industry and had an impact on many others. She isn’t a vegetarian, and has no intention to become one. But she does love animals. And her insight and research has made the lives of millions of animals better.

    When people ask her how she can work in the beef industry instead of being an activist against it, she says that all things die. It’s the cycle of life. She has no problem eating animals. In fact, she believes that our relationship with the animals we use for food is symbiotic–mutually beneficial. But she also believes that if we’re going to raise them, or keep them as pets, we need to give these animals a quality life.

    So what do animals need for a quality life? Should we give our cattle rubdowns? Let our dogs roam through city streets? What do our cats and pigs and horses need? Is it freedom?

    Her answer, surprisingly, is that focusing on freedom really isn’t a good guide for trying to give animals a good life. Not because freedom is a bad thing, but because it’s too confusing. Instead, she believes that we should be basing animal welfare on the core, or what she calls the “blue ribbon,” emotion systems in the brain. The key systems are SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, PANIC, and PLAY.

    The rule is simple: avoid stimulating the negative emotions; do stimulate the positive ones. In the book she shares what she knows about how to do that for dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, chickens and other poultry, wildlife, and animals in zoos.

    Grandin is always fascinating, and with her trademark style of stories and practical insights, she shares what the research and her more than 30 years of practical hands-on experience working with animals has taught her. You’ll learn why your chickens need a place to hide, even if you’ve fenced out every fox and skunk with thirty feet of concrete; what makes pigs happy; why clicker training is so successful with horses; why you might want to consider the color of your cat’s fur; why leaving your dog locked in the house with food and plenty of toys may actually be very stressing. You’ll even learn to look at zoo habitats differently. Each chapter focuses on a different animal and how to avoid the negative and stimulate the positive blue ribbon emotions. This is not touchy-feely fluff. It’s not the ranting and raging of someone who thinks the planet would be better of without humans. It’s the insights of someone who is rigorously scientific, down-to-earth practical, and passionate about animals.  

    In her own words: “Everyone who is responsible for animals needs a set of simple, reliable guidelines for creating good mental welfare that can be applied to any animal in any situation.” Read her book to find out what she suggests these should be. If you own pets or raise animals, I think you’ll love this read. If you’d like to sample the first chapter, you can at Grandin’s website:  http://www.grandin.com/

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  • Short Reviews: Icefall, Gravity, 42, Z, and Lynda.com

    ByJohn Brown

    The last few weeks I’ve been burning the candles at both ends with publication tasks. So no time for long reviews, but I still wanted to share.

    Icefall by Matthew KirbyIcefall by Matthew Kirby

    Wow. I loved this book. LOVED IT! It’s Norse historical fiction. A war is coming, and the king sends his children away to a remote fjord steading to keep them safe. He also sends a number of trusted warriors, a company of beserkers, a cook, a thrall, and a skald. But the fjord isn’t remote enough.

    It’s a fine tale full suspense, wisdom, surprise, and two lovely character arcs. It’s told from the point-of-view of Solveig, the king’s plain daughter. And her voice and the details Kirby includes totally transported me to their world. A wonderful tale, wonderfully told.

    Gravity

    I don’t know if I like 3D very much, but Bullock and Clooney do a marvelous job. Do you remember Tom Hanks in the excellent Castaway where he’s marooned on a tiny island? This is Bullock’s Castaway, except the physics of space are deadly. A great film.

    42

    This film is about Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play in the White leagues of American baseball, and recounts his first year. It stars Harrison Ford as the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the guy who is determined to bring Blacks into the game he loves, as well as Chadwick Boseman who is new to me. I watched this with the whole family, and we were all enthralled. What a great story.

    World War Z

    I not a big zombie fan. So for me to recommend this means it had to be good. It was good. A delicious thriller with plenty of scare. I really liked the thriller feel to this. My wife and two youngest daughters sat on the couch holding each other’s hands. I sat in my La-Z-Boy throne heart pumping with the action.

    Lynda.com

    As I mentioned above, I’ve been working hard trying to get my books out the door. (Please, boys, just get out! It’s time for you to make your way in the world!) I’m using Adobe InDesign to format them for Kindle and EPUB, but I barely know the program. That caused some big problems. But then I subscribed to Lynda.com–a training website. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I did.

    For $25 per month (and you can just subscribe for one month), you get access to hundreds of high-quality online classes recorded by experts. Each class is usually a few hours long, made up of videos that are usually each shorter than ten minutes. The site allows you to create playlists of various courses you want to take, makes recommendations, and lets you know which videos in a class you’ve watched. It also includes a verbatim transcript so you search for the part of the video that’s interesting to you.

    The workhorse I’ve been using is “InDesign CS6 to EPUB, Kindle, and iPad” by Anne-Marie Concepcion. It’s 7.5 hours long.  I’ve also been referring to parts of “InDesign CC Essential Training” by David Blatner and “Creating Long Documents with InDesign” by Mike Rankin. And I have 16 other courses in my playlist that I can’t wait to get to like “Designing a Book Cover” by Nigel French and others on graphic design, typography, and logos.

    If you need training on some software product, go out to Lynda.com and see if they have a course for you.

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  • The Sing-Off, Sam’s Salmon, The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill

    ByJohn Brown

    One of the best TV programs this fall

    American Idol was good until the judges became irrelevant and annoying. Or maybe I was just tired of the format. I didn’t think I’d watch another singing show. But I tuned into the opener for The Sing-Off on NBC last week, and holy harmonies, Batman–it was wonderful.

    Ten of the best a’capella groups in the country compete for a $100,000 prize and a recording contract with Sony Music. Unlike American Idol, the groups represent a wide range of ages—from kids in high school to older adults—and backgrounds. They don’t use any instruments, just their voices, to sing incredible arrangements of modern songs with percussion, bass, and lovely vocals. This ain’t no choir music. And unlike American Idol, the judges actually have interesting and useful things to say. Also unlike American Idol, the judges eliminate the groups until three are left. Only then do the rest of get to call in and vote.

    We were glued to the TV watching each episode. The programs are all two hours long, but move like lightening. Our favorite groups at this point are Committed and The Backbeats.

    This whole show runs a total of three weeks, one episode each on Monday and Wednesday. It started last week, continues this, and finishes next week. Some of you might be depressed, feeling you’ve already missed it.

    Not so! You can watch all of the full episodes online at www.nbc.com/sing-off/ (with fewer commercials). Then tune in for the grand finale. I can’t wait. 

    Are you kidding? From a can?

    Canned tuna fish is one of those un-meats. It doesn’t taste like fish. It doesn’t taste like chicken. I guess the all-white albacore is okay. But tuna’s not one of those spectacular foods I crave.

    So you’d think, as I strolled the isles of Sam’s Club, that I would have passed up the canned Member’s Mark Atlantic Salmon. But one of my wild culinary urges, the ones that rarely pan out, overtook me.

    I purchased a pack of five, seven-ounce cans for $11.88. I brought the pack home put it on the shelf and didn’t dare open it. What was I thinking?

    Canned salmon? Canned meat?! When was the last time you had a steak out of a can?

    It couldn’t be good.

    Of course, my sensible hesitations only last so long. I broke down one afternoon when the cupboards were bare. I saw the salmon and thought that it might go well with a salad and baked potato.

    I opened the can. It was pink, like the trout I used to catch and immediately fry when I went camping as a boy. I tasted it. And it tasted like .  .  . fish. Real fish. The light delicious taste of those trout I caught so many years ago.

    I enjoyed a wonderful meal that day and have had several repeats since. Boneless, skinless filets in water, packed with omega-3 fats, all grown on fish farms in Chile. 

    Great movie set in Wales

    I enjoy Hugh Grant as an actor. I loved him in Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson, one of my most favorite movies ever. And so I was curious about another movie with Grant that received two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert. It’s called The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain.

    The setup is unusual. In 1917, with the war still raging in Europe, two English cartographers visit the small South Wales village to measure what is claimed to be the “first mountain inside of Wales.” The villagers are proud of their “mountain,” but become alarmed when the Englishmen measure it and find it’s not a mountain but a hill. The villagers are determined not to lose their status. Especially not to two Englishmen. What follows is good humor, drama, and a bit of romantic comedy. I think you’ll fall in love with the characters. It’s a wonderful tale. And it’s on DVD.

    As a little bonus, here are the opening lines, given to us by two narrators.

    “Narrator: For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there’s an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales. Almost everyone seems to be a Williams, a Jones, or an Evans. To avoid widespread confusion, Welsh people often add an occupation to a name. For example, there was Williams the Petroleum, and Williams the Death. There was Jones the Bottle, and Jones the Prize Cabbage… which described his hobby and his personality. Evans the Bacon, and Evans the End of the World. But one man’s name was a puzzle, and it wasn’t until I was 10 years old that I asked my grandfather about the man with the longest and most enigmatic name of all.

    “Grandfather: The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain? Now there’s a long name for you. And a long story. You are not going to fidget, are you? For this is a story… an epic story. Yes, epic.”

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  • Laff and Learn

    ByJohn Brown

    My daughters have introduced me to Studio C, a comedy program that started with The Divine Comedy troupe on the BYU campus who all growed up and were given a gig on TV. They do these  hilarious skits.

    Like “Drivers Ed”

    And “Blind Date“.

    And “Shoulder Devil”.

    I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.  BTW, Studio C airs weekly on BYUtv.

    My oldest daughter introduced me to Olan Rogers. Who is crazy.  Here’s “Ghost in the Stalls”

    If you loved that, I think you’ll enjoy “Midnight Claw”  

    Sock slouch . . .

    Next is John Branyan’s brilliant “Three Little Pigs”. My family and I have been enjoying this for months.

    Finally, here’s something to think about. You know I enjoyed Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind. Matt Wolfe pointed it out his TED talk to me. The one that preceeded his book. If you’re conservative, like I am, this talk will, at times, annoy you.  But the ideas behind it are great.

    If you want to be equally enlightened but less annoyed, let me suggest you watch Bill Moyer’s interview of Haidt instead.

     

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  • |

    Ender’s World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender’s Game

    ByJohn Brown

    Smart Pop publishes smart, fresh, and engaging articles on the best of pop culture TV, books, and film, with a particular focus on science fiction and fantasy television and literature.

    You want to hear what Scott Westerfield (Uglies, Pretties, etc.) has to say about Buffy?  Go to Smart Pop.

    What about Orson Card’s thoughts on Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe? Smart Pop.

    What about the venerable Lawrence Block on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series? Um, Smart Pop.

    Strange.  Do you see a pattern emerging? 

    Whether it’s Mad Men, House, Hunger Games, George Martin’s epic fantasies, Halo, True Blood, or Alias, Smart Pop gathers together New York Times bestselling authors, television writers, psychologists, philosophers, and others–folks who love of pop culture and have something worth sharing about it–and asks them to share their insights.   

    Recently, they’ve been putting together just such a collection on Ender’s Game.  It’s called Ender’s World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender’s Game. It’s coming out February 2013.  You can read more about it here.

    I’m announcing this now because The Man was fortunate enough to be invited to contribute.  I love Ender’s Game.  LOVE IT.  How cool is it that I get to write about it in an anthology edited by the folks at Smart Pop and Card himself? And then get to read what everyone else has to say, including military strategists Colonel Tom Ruby and Captain John Schmitt.  As well as the little bits they’ll include on things like why the battle room is the shape it is and why they were recruiting kids.

    But I’m also announcing this because in addition to the essays all we Ender-lovers get to write, Smart Pop is also going to include a series of Q&As with Scott Card, and they are currently soliciting the question from readers. FROM YOU. Right now.

    You ever wonder about a character or part of the setting or event in Ender’s Game?  Ever wanted to know what inspired Card? Ever wanted to ask any question at all about Ender’s Game?  Now’s your chance. Just submit you question here: http://www.smartpopbooks.com/ask-orson-scott-card-a-question-about-enders-game/

    You can see questions already submitted at Smart Pop’s Tumblr.

    From a writer’s pov, I have to tell you that the folks at Smart Pop have been nothing but enjoyable and insightful to work with. I’m looking forward to this book!

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