Carv's Thinky Blog I'm an author with a focus on satirical science fiction.

Dear Katie Goldman,

I was planning on blogging about something completely different today. Then I read your story on CNN. I hope my friends are familiar with the story, but if not, they should read it right now. We can wait here till they get back.

The truth is, Katie, I'm not known far and wide as a guy who's great with people your size. I don't always know what to talk about with kids. As a matter of fact, I didn't get along well with most other kids when I was a child myself. Like you, I was different. I loved Star Wars! While other kids were learning baseball stats, I memorized the names of planets and the number of a certain Death Star garbage disposal (3263827--see, I still know it). I was also one of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is an oddball religion no one fully understands including the people in it; plus I was a brainiac, and a bit of a chunk. Then my school skipped me a grade, so now I was smaller than the other kids. You want to talk about bullying! People didn't just make fun of my stuff, they took it and threw it on the roof of the school! Then, as often as not, they beat me up for anything I did, especially for using words they didn't understand. I liked school, usually, but it was scary for a kid like me. I had to choose my route home carefully.

Earlier this year a man named Dan Savage started a campaign called "It Gets Better" for another kind of kid, one you'll learn about as you get older. For now, understand that no one is exactly the same as everyone else. Some of us are left-handed. Some of us need wheelchairs to get around or, like you, special gear to help them see better. Some of us like pizza and ice cream more than others, and it makes us fat. Others can't stop drinking or losing weight, and it makes them unhealthy and often profoundly unhappy. If loving Star Wars is what makes you different, Katie, I hope you've learned you're not as different as you thought last week. There are so many of us Star Wars fans out here in the big wide world, and as we get older, it gets better for us, too.

You've met people whose love of Star Wars has made them rich and famous. You've heard from people whose love of Star Wars kept them happy when everything else in their life was sad. Star Wars got me interested in science and movies and acting, and now I'm a teacher who writes about theatre. I even worked in the movie business for a while! When I heard your story, it made me so proud to wear the Star Wars T-shirt my friend Shawn gave me before you were born. I wore that shirt to Grauman's Chinese on opening day of Episodes I and II, and I wear it now in honor of you and your family. I wear it also in honor of a worldwide community of fans who've banded together to support you. The Force surrounds us, and it binds us. We're part of your family this week, Katie; and to quote another science fiction movie I love, this means something. This is important.

My brother liked Star Wars okay, but he loved football more. We're grown men now, and believe it or not, he still wears his favorite team's colors and gets upset when they lose. That's geeky, too, but it's who he is and it makes him part of a worldwide family just like ours. He and our dad spend hundreds of dollars to fly around the country and attend important games! Now, I still don't get why, between science fiction and sports, one is a silly activity for children with toys and video games and useless trivia and absolutely no business taking up a third of the nightly news...and the other is sports, but it's okay. Either way it's a fun thing that just makes us happy. When a football player makes a great catch, my brother sees a human being striving to run faster and jump higher than his body might tell him he can. It's inspiring. When Luke says "I don't believe it" and Yoda answers "That is why you fail," I feel closer to something bigger than myself. It encourages me to keep reaching for something just beyond the things I can see. When Yoda says, "Try not. Do!--or do not. There is no try," it helps me focus on becoming the grown-up I aspired to be when I was a kid. The things we love, even the goofy things we loved when we were kids and reluctantly admit we still love now as grown-ups, make us the best, most interesting, most wonderful people we can be.

I salute you, Katie. The Force is strong in you! (It's even stronger than a small pony; and that's pretty strong, that is.) You touched my heart today and made me even prouder than I was already to be a Star Wars fan for life.

Sincerely,
Your friend in Washington,
Carv

In Gratitude

I grew up carefully not observing Thanksgiving. Jehovah's Witnesses are funny about holidays. In each state I've ever visited, any time I meet an ex-Witness, we laugh about this. Somehow Witnesses always squeeze in a turkey dinner, oh, somewhere around the last Friday of each November. "It's when turkeys go on sale," they insist. Now that I'm older and disbelieve in a personal god, Thanksgiving has taken on a whole new lack of meaning. I'll be similarly unimpressed by the celebration of Yahweh's firstborn son next month; the date is wrong, for one thing, and "Christmas" is laden with all sorts of pagan iconography. Bah, humbug.

Which is not to say I don't enjoy the "holy days," I just find my own way to do it. Christmas morning, for example, would not be complete without a screening on TBS--it has to be on TBS, simply has to be, even though I own the DVD--of A Christmas Story. On New Year's Eve, it's important to attend a sexy party. Amanda understands this, we're simply finding it harder to get invited to such festivities now that we're completely devoted to each other. Apparently monogamy inhibits the sexy party vibe, especially when said monogamists are past the age of irresponsible alcohol consumption.

Thanksgiving is America's food orgy. Yes. I can get behind that. Personally, I'm all about the leftover sandwiches on Friday. Is there any culinary achievement more delectable than cramming turkey, stuffing, and gravy between two halves of a semi-homemade biscuit? Clearly not. Wolfgang Puck never made a more satisfying meal. But it seems to me that even for out agnostics like myself, Thanksgiving has to be about something bigger than familial gluttony and football. Surely Thanksgiving is a day to be aware of our good fortune when compared to the rest of the world.

This weekend thousands of people were without power in Thurston County, my county, thanks to early winter weather. Over a hundred car crashes were reported. I, however, was in none of those homes or cars.

A recent USDA study found that one in six Americans, over 50 million people, went hungry last year because they couldn't afford enough food to stay healthy. I wasn't one of those people.

Over two million Americans were homeless last year. I wasn't one of those people.

Millions of Americans have heart disease, lung disease, cancer, or type-2 diabetes. I have none of these potentially fatal illnesses.

Over 30 million Americans have severe disabilities. Despite the predictions of highly reputable doctors during my pubescent years, my spinal condition hasn't risen to that crippling level. More than a quarter of Americans live each day in constant pain, but my back and neck pain limit me only a few times a year.

Each day about 2,600 Americans die suddenly from various accidental or criminal causes. So far this year, none of those people have been members of my family.

Over a million Americans have lost their homes to repossession in 2010. None of these were friends of mine or family.

In the United States, out of every thousand children born, an average of 7.8 children die before they can reach their fifth birthday. Sadly, that makes us only thirty-third on the list of world nations by infant mortality. We're behind such countries as Israel and Slovenia. Iceland, at number one, loses only 3.9 children out of every thousand. Luckily, however, none of those children were in my family--nor in my girlfriend's, though if her nephew had been born ten years ago that likely would not have been the case.

According to the World Health Organization, 2.6 billion people around the world lack a basic latrine, and over a billion people have no healthy drinking water within a kilometer. Consequently, 1.6 million people each year die from diarrheal diseases including cholera. Ninety percent of these people are children.

To put my unimpressive income into perspective, it's in the 90th percentile worldwide. In other words, out of everyone currently alive on Earth, 90% are poorer than I am. Half the world's population gets by on less than two U.S. dollars a day per person. You can check your own income here for a dose of global perspective.

Americans eat an average of 3,330 calories a day, the highest such number in the world. Our average calorie count on Thanksgiving will be at least a thousand points higher. Meanwhile, 15 million children around the world die each year from hunger. Malnutrition is linked to half of all child deaths worldwide.

Am I thankful? You bet. Difference is, I'm thankful to men and women who go to work each day trying to think of how to make me safer, healthier, better-fed, and more comfortable. I'm thankful for excellent doctors and lawyers and teachers and parents. I'm thankful for conscientious politicians, including a president who (and few economists dispute this) averted a national depression. You should be, too. I'm thankful I was born in a country with "socialist" insurance for unemployed and underemployed people, of which I'm currently one. I'm thankful to Amanda for having my back. I'm thankful to you for reading this blog, not to mention my novel, and letting me know you enjoy it. And when I wake up tomorrow morning, something over six thousand Americans currently alive will not do, I'll be thankful to everyone who's working like mad at either cooking and/or paying for my Thanksgiving meal.

Obviously you more spiritual types will offer words of gratitude to your Deity of choice, and I respect that. But I hope you'll also pull some friend or family member aside and thank him or her for making your fragile, precious life just a bit more enjoyable.

Writin’ Wrong

First, let me say a quick thank you to my friend Sam B. for a comment on my Facebook page, on which he responded to my blog entry "Losing My Religion." He said in part, "[T]heatre is as much for the audience as it is for me. I just tell myself that when it doesn't seem worth it anymore." And somehow, that worked. My mood improved. So thanks, Sam, and I'll try to keep that in mind. Apparently even theatre isn't solely about me. Who knew, right?

-----

The audiobook playing in my car today was Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty, so I've been thinking about the hundreds of picayune grammar, usage, and spelling rules I've learned over the years, mostly the hard way. There's a comprehensive list of common English writing errors here for quick reference.

Let's look at mistakes I've observed far too many times on Facebook and elsewhere. What's so wrong about them? At the end I'll include a special list of errors I've made frequently over the years. Hopefully this exercise will remind me to avoid repeating them.

...Did you catch the error there? No, it wasn't the semicolon. My use of "hopefully" was, in the technical sense, incorrect. "Hopefully" is an adverb, so in my sentence, what did it modify? Was the exercise hopeful, or was I? It would've been better to write, "I hope this exercise..." Granted, you knew what I meant, which goes a long way when defending grammatical choices. After all, it seems some rules exist merely to give elitist grammarians something to argue about.

!!! One of my pet peeves is redundant use of the exclamation point. When I read the sentence, "MY ENGLISH PROFESSOR IS SUCH A JERK!!!!!!!" I'm unsure what the tone is meant to be. All-caps online indicate the writer is "yelling." We've all been online long enough to know this. And if all-caps aren't enough to convey shouting, shouldn't one exclamation point do the job? Are eight exclamation points eight times louder than one? What's the formula here? Usually such histrionics make the writer look crazy or stupid or both, not amusing as was probably intended.

?! I know there's no such punctuation. I know the "interrobang" (aka "quesclamation mark," aka the superimposed question mark and exclamation mark symbol included in a few fonts) has yet to enter common usage. I don't care. In blog entries at least, I feel free to use "?!" to convey shock and confusion--but I also know it's technically wrong.

accidently It's spelled "accidentally." Compare "coincidentally."

alot Yes, fans of "alright" did, in fact, wear down the grammar Nazis, but we old schoolers haven't surrendered the fight on this one. To "allot" means "to distribute." "A lot" means "several." "Alot" isn't a word.

athiest I notice this one a lot, as you might expect. It's spelled "atheist," because "atheism" is the opposite of "theism." Besides, one cannot be more or less "athy," so it's impossible to be the "athiest." (By the way, it's also impossible to be more or less "unique" than anything or anyone else.)

breath/breathe "Breath" is a noun, pronounced to rhyme with "death." "Breathe," on the other hand, pronounced with a long e and soft th, is a verb. One might, for example, breathe one's last breath, but not the other way round.

c'est la vie That's the correct spelling, thanks to the damn French. When English speakers attempt to spell it, they understandably assume the first word is "say." The phrase means "that's life."

could of It's "could have" or "could've." "Have" is a helping verb. "Of" is a preposition, which is why it's "good of" you to read this, not "good've."

definate Thanks to the many ways our language represents the schwa sound, it's easy to forget this should be spelled "definite."

ect. This abbreviation stands for the Latin "et cetera," so it's spelled "etc." Don't forget the period at the end.

for all intensive purposes That only sounds like the correct phrase, which is "for all intents and purposes." Of course, that's also a repetitive phrase, which most newspaper editors avoid like the plague. We can't win.

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? Well, is it or isn't it? What the hell does "ironic" mean, anyway? The short, even glib answer is that "ironic" means "possessing irony," which would drag us into an answer so esoteric as to be useless. Instead, I'll admit most dictionaries now allow "ironic" in the sense of "contrary to expectations." So yes, if my dentist asks me to open wide and a moment later one of his molars falls out, that is, in fact, ironic. But while some dictionaries recently added the definition "coincidental" to "ironic," there's already a perfectly good word for that--so I'm hoping to at least keep "ironic" coincidences significant somehow. "A black fly in your Chardonnay" isn't surprising or even very important, it's just a bad break--for you and the fly.

it's/its As a moment's thought would almost certainly remind us, "it's" is the contraction of "it is," and "its" is a possessive. Ergo: "It's fun to say its face was gray."

lightening If you mean a display of electric bolts accompanied by thunder, then the word is spelled "lightning" with no "e." The word "lightening" means "getting lighter or brighter." It can also mean "the descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity near the end of pregnancy," in which case it is a noun--but probably not the one you intended.

literally "My head was literally exploding" means "my head burst into tiny pieces, all of which shot away from my neck." That seems unlikely. The word "literally" literally means the opposite of what many people think it means. If something "literally" occurred, then that's exactly what happened, word for word, no exaggeration.

loose/lose The word "loose" is pronounced with an "s" as the final sound. "Lose" sounds as if it ends with a "z." It's easy to lose hope over loose standards, but meaningless the other way round. Obviously, then, people who reverse these words are losers, not "loosers."

mischievious The reason your spellchecker objects to this word is it doesn't exist. The word should be "mischievous," which has only three syllables: MIS-chiv-us.

nauseous This never used to mean "queasy," though some dictionaries now wave the white flag. The word you probably want is "nauseated." In standard usage, "nauseous" means "causing nausea," not suffering from it.

noone It's two words: "no one."

review/revue The former is a critique; the latter is a show comprised of short acts. I can review a revue but not the other way round.

segway Capitalized, it's one of those weird upright scooters. Otherwise, the word you need is the oddly spelled "segue."

thankyou It's two words: "thank you."

to/too/two I think most people realize "to" is the preposition, "too" is the adverb, and "two" is the number after one, but it still seems lazy not to notice and correct all those typos. "I insisted two would be too many times to see Transformers 2."

tounge It's spelled "tongue," which is why it doesn't rhyme with "lounge."

weiner It's from the German town of Wien, which is why it's spelled "wiener." As for the diminutive so popular on grade school playgrounds, "weenie" is preferred, "wienie" is acceptable, and "weinie" is wrong.

ya'll As the word is a folksy contraction of the equally folksy "you all," it should be spelled "y'all."

your/you're You're (you are) out of your (belonging to you) mind if you forget which is which.

Now, here are some I tend to miss:

capital/capitol I have to look this up nearly every time, which is often. See, I live in Olympia, the capital of Washington, where I often see the Capitol Building on my way to Capital Playhouse or Olympia Film Society's Capitol Theater (see below). The Westfield Capital Shopping Mall is on Olympia's west side. Geez, Louise. See, "capital" with an "a" refers to a city, while "capitol" with an "o" refers to a building. Complicating matters is the fact that "capitol" usually has a "capital" C. See, "capital" with an "a" is the adjectival spelling, as in "capital punishment." But don't think the noun "capital" meaning "money" should be spelled with an "o," because that would be too easy. You can see why this word pair has become a frequent thorn in my side.

closed-minded Boy, that seems right to me. It just isn't. The correct spelling is "close-minded," similar to "close-mouthed."

could care less If I could care less, then I must care a fair amount. What I mean is, "I couldn't care less"--in which case, I care the least I possibly could, which is not at all.

exact replica There's no such thing as an inexact replica. "Replica" means "exact copy," including the size. A scale model is not a replica. It's a model.

spaces after a period Back in olden days (the 1980s) when people learned how to type on a clunky single-tasking machine called a typewriter, they were taught to hit the space bar twice after a sentence. Apparently computers running Microsoft Word are smart enough to leave the proper distance without having been forced to do so. Therefore, editors now prefer one space only after each period. To be honest, I ignore this new rule, which obliges my copy editor at the Volcano to make the change for me. I'm obnoxious that way; but you know what they say about old dogs, right?

Spiderman I spelled Spidey's name this way on a play poster once, and I've never quite recovered from the embarrassment I felt a month later when I learned Marvel hyphenates the names of its costumed heroes. Thus it's "Superman" at DC, but "Spider-Man" in the empire of Stan Lee--except "Iron-Man" is actually "Iron Man." Oy vey.

thankfully This one presents the same problem as "hopefully," with the added complication that I'm an agnostic, so I never really mean to thank anyone. If I'm "thankful for small favors," for example, who exactly am I thanking? I should probably say I'm glad I have a roof over my head, not that I'm thankful for it. After all, I'm the one who paid the damn rent.

theater/theatre Each is acceptable. For clarity, though, I've made a personal decision to write "theater" when I mean the building, and "theatre" when I mean the art form. I have yet to convince any other person this is as wonderfully terrific a solution as I consider it to be, which explains why my editors at the Volcano use "theater" for everything.

'til If you've read Lightfall, you know I used "'til" as an abbreviation for "until" throughout. I've seen it used that way countless times before, and by highly respected writers. So imagine my shock and humiliation when one of my favorite writers, Bill Bryson, wrote (in Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, p. 205), "until, till, 'til, 'till. The first two are legitimate and interchangeable. The second two are wrong and, indeed, illiterate." Illiterate?! Holy crap!!! Is Bryson right? Well, yes and no. Believe it or not, "till" actually predates "until" by something like four hundred years. There's no reason to use "'til," because "till" was already the proper word. I've been convinced to change my ways over the last year, but again, old habits die hard so you'll probably still catch me writing the unnecessary abbreviation from time to time.

Incidentally...

Notice I spelled the phrase "four hundred" in words, not digits, a few sentences ago. That's another example of my personal writing style, and it gets me in trouble. When I started writing for the Volcano, I had no idea the style rules of the Associated Press mandate using digits rather than spelling out any number higher than nine. "Four hundred" is correct according to the Chicago Manual of Style, but only because it spells out round numbers. Even the CMS now puts dates in the standard American order ("October 14" rather than "14 October"). I'm still wrapping my head around all these number-and-date rules, so my newspaper writing includes frequent infractions.

unquote To please the purists, I often say "end quote," but guess what? "Unquote" has been around for a century, so most dictionaries now allow it in English speech: quote, unquote.

weather forecast calls for rain Does it? Or does it, rather, "predict" rain? Unless the meteorologist is known for his or her rain dance, he or she probably isn't "calling for" inclement weather.

Carv's Thinky Blog: now with extra infotainment! What are your most frequent usage errors?

As a Matter of Fact

Barack Obama is the worst president in American history.

Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win.

Barack Obama is a socialist.

Those first two statements, and to some degree the third, are matters of opinion. We can have a debate about them, but neither of us can really say with a hundred percent certainty that we're right. With regard to the quality of his administration, it isn't over yet, and we'd probably need the benefit of many years' hindsight to judge effectively. Personally, I don't think he is the worst president ever. I don't think George W. Bush was, either. But if you think otherwise, that's your prerogative. As for a U.S. president wanting the terrorists to win, it seems unlikely for a wide variety of reasons, but neither you nor I is a telepath so there's room for disagreement.

Is Barack Obama a socialist? I'd be happy to answer that, but first I'd need to know what you think the word "socialist" means. Dictionary.com says it's a person who supports "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole." To some degree, every modern president is a socialist, in that the government owns and controls some or all of agribusiness, the post office, the highway system, the military, and so on. Perhaps when people call the president a socialist, what they're really decrying is his attitude toward wealth, as reflected in his comments to "Joe the Plumber": "It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Folks who have wealth and don't want to spread it around are indignant, and yes, we can have a debate about that. I would, however, remind you that if that's your definition of socialism, I can think of another famous socialist.

"Sell your possessions and give to the poor," that socialist once said (New International Version). "Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys." Yeah, whatever, hippie!

But over the last few weeks I've heard a growing argument over statements that are not simply matters of opinion. The truth about Barack Obama has been obscured, one way or the other, by statements that can be quickly proven or disproven. We've all seen the polls that say huge fractions of our country accept these statements as fact, but the public is sometimes wrong in any culture. There was a time when a huge fraction of Americans believed slavery was proper, necessary, and moral. They were wrong. So let's look at some of these widely accepted, contemporary statements and see whether they're true or not. If we disprove them, then the repetition of those statements should brand the speaker as uninformed, idiotic, or worse.

Statement #1: Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S.

That's an easy one. Every natural born American citizen should have a birth certificate, right? Much has been made of Obama's "refusal to produce" such a document. Well, actually, he did. Here it is:

That should be enough to decide the matter, but just in case it isn't, here's the announcement of his birth in the local paper, the Honolulu Advertiser:

Furthermore, a teacher at the Honolulu prep school Obama attended remembers the obstetrician talking about the birth, which took place, say it with me, in Hawaii. That's Hawaii, America.

So we're done. No more foreigner talk. I know I'm being naive, and nothing I say will get in the way of a good story, but at least if you repeat it we'll know you're not very good at paying attention or learning and stuff.

Statement #2: Barack Obama is a Muslim.

First of all, Muslims should get to be president. So should Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, and agnostics. We cherish our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and thousands of Americans died to preserve it. Freedom of religion doesn't mean "freedom to have your religion."

But that dodges the question, doesn't it, which should be addressed head on. Barack Obama has stated many times that he is a Christian. We're told by people close to him that he prays before every meal and that a number of Christian and Jewish ministers email him suggestions and encouragement daily. But there's a simpler proof than that. Remember Reverend Jeremiah Wright? You know, "God damn America?" That wingnut. Well, that wingnut, whom Obama once revered before sermons like "God damn America" got him formally repudiated, was the pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

Wait, did that just say "the Trinity United Mosque of Mohammed?" No, it did not. It said "Christ." You may not think Rev. Wright is a good Christian, and we can certainly have a discussion about that. You may not think Barack Obama is a good Christian, but a.) neither you nor I is a mind reader, and b.) it's not our place to say.

See, I know plenty of Christians who lie, fornicate, revile, hide Caesar's things from Caesar--in other words, activities specifically frowned upon in the New Testament. But when they say they're Christians, I'm obliged to take their word for it. In a polite society, we can't just yell "sinner!" or "hypocrite!" at every imperfect friend who posts a Bible verse as his or her Facebook status update.

Again, I'm no mind reader. But having read both of Obama's books, and taking into account the fact that his dad was an atheist (not a Muslim, at least not by the time Barack Jr. came along) and his mom was an agnostic with beliefs probably similar to mine, I believe he's most likely a skeptical Christian. By that I mean he embraces Christian philosophy while rejecting its mythical pseudoscience. If so, I applaud him. But what he definitely is not is a Muslim, which brings us to...

Statement #3: Barack Obama was schooled in a madrassa.

Yes. He was. That one's true.

Whaaaat?!

"Madrassa," come to find out, is just the Arabic word for "school." (There are numerous alternate English spellings. Wikipedia prefers "madrasah.") It derives from the word "derasa," which means "to study." I attended several madrassas. So did you. In Middle Eastern culture, a madrassa is just as likely to be secular as Islamic.

But let's say we're using the word to mean "Islamic school." This Sunday I heard an impassioned pitch for parents to pay an exorbitant sum to put their kids through Christian school. And why not? Those kids are probably getting at least as good an education as any kid in secular public school. So why do we assume all Islamic schools are ignorant terrorist training camps? What the hell is wrong with us? Where's our vaunted American "melting pot" inclusiveness?

So let's sink straight to rock bottom and use the word "madrassa" to mean "radical, anti-American, Islamic, brainwashing school for cute li'l suicide bombers." Did Barack Obama attend such a school?

No. He attended Basuki School in Jakarta from 1969 to 1971, but when CNN dispatched reporters to Basuki, they found only a secular grade school. "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," the headmaster explained. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."

A classmate of Obama insisted, "It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general...There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian...So that's a mixed school."

CNN Senior International Correspondent John Vause reported, "I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa...like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan...This school is nothing like that."

So there you go. Three statements of "fact," all disproven. Done. Period. Over. And don't get me started on the "Ground Zero mosque."

When people make up stories to pick on me, I often cheer myself up by considering the following: If I'm so bad, then why can't they just use the truth as their evidence?

Christian Carvajal and the Olympians

I've completed my move to Olympia from Bremerton, seventy minutes away. Okay, so actually I'm in Tumwater, but that's just a less bohemian neighborhood of Oly so close it shares the same zip code. I'm five minutes from downtown, less than ten from my girlfriend. Huzzah!

And it's weird.

I'm not used to being minutes from my girlfriend. I really dig it, of course, but it's weird. Today she walked over for lunch from her office, which is literally a parking lot and two doors away. She can check on me any time. No more semiclad centerfold models lounging around the house. No more Ecstasy-fueled ragers or late-night body "disposals" in the back yard. This is really going to cut into my imaginary social life.

I also have male roommates, for the first time since 1995. I'm gradually working my way down my list of possible roommate demographics. Living with a woman platonically, check. Not so platonically, check. Not at all platonically, in fact energetically, check. Gay man, check. Black man, check. Mormon, check. Republican, check. Not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea. My domestic history has been a Rainbow Coalition of fun and enlightenment, and I like it that way. But for the last two years I've lived entirely alone. It was always my turn in the shower. I got to choose the TV channel every night. I could sit around the living (okay, only) room in my underwear or, if the urge had ever struck me, I suppose, someone else's.

By the way, as I'm currently looking for work in Olympia, if you're a potential employer who just found this site via Google, I am totally kidding. It's the Internet, aka Sarcasm Central. We bloggers don't mean half the stuff we say, and we could probably be talked out of the rest.

All sarcasm aside, though, I remember male roommates being louder and messier than my current cohabitants. About the only music I ever hear is when Kyland rehearses Bach on his piano, and that just makes me want to order some bruschetta and a delicate pinot gris. So far there hasn't been one tae kwon do sparring match or kegger. I haven't even fought with a roommate's significant other. I swear, it's like...maturity. Bor-rinnngg!

We need skanks up in here.

Scum and/or Villainy

A few years ago, I endeared myself to yet another theatre troupe thusly: I was hired as a counselor for a children's drama camp, the product of which was to be a musical comedy set in a large and foreboding country house. This camp was overseen, and the play in question directed, by a woman I'll call Ms. Cooper. Now, Ms. Cooper and I were friends, near as I can recall, on the date of our departure to the Bataan Children's Theatre Death March. It didn't last long, more's the pity, and believe me when I say it will never recover.

My offenses on this trip included remorseless atheism and the pointing out of blatant child endangerment, but that's not what got the Chachapoyan Temple ball rolling. No, I was there mostly to provide in-depth acting instruction for a great kid, a bit of a prodigy, really, named Dylan. That's specifically why I was hired. Incidentally, one of my Achilles' heels is a deep-seated protective impulse toward prodigies, and I was a big fan of this kid from the day I met him.

So one day we're all in this communal rehearsal-slash-dining hall-slash-bug-infested internment camp center, plugging away at Ms. Cooper's puerile musical while praying for the end to a soul-sucking, Bradbury's-Venus-style spate of rain. Dylan was cast as the villainous owner of the mansion, probably because he was the only kid in camp who had even the slightest chance of assaying a character role. Ms. Cooper instructed me to take Dylan aside for more personalized work on his character, during which time Dylan asked me why his character was expected to punctuate his soliloquies with mocking laughter. "Is he crazy?" Dylan asked. "Do crazy people even laugh like that?" I thought that was a perceptive question for a boy of fifteen or, for that matter, an assistant director of thirty-four, and I was unable to help him justify all that cackling.

Dylan and I returned for group notes, which were, as per usual, of the incisive "speak louder," "learn your lines," and "isn't make-believe fun?" varieties. I raised my hand politely. Dylan and I had some questions, I began cautiously, that required the director-slash-playwright's input. Why, we inquired, does Dylan's character laugh so often? What was funny? From an actor's perspective, that laugh had to happen for a reason, and we couldn't provide one. "It's because he's evil," we were told, with a distinct subtext of "like, no duh." Okay, so here's one thing Dylan and I have in common: We're not big fans of directorial condescension.

I raised my hand again and pointed out that evil people do not really laugh all the time--that, in fact, they tend to run somewhat taciturn, less "I'll get you, my pretty" than "pass the salt." "Bank managers," I elaborated, driving my point home with what may have been unnecessary and provocative clarity, "do not say, 'I'm afraid I'll be denying you this farm loan, bwa ha ha.'" I asked if perhaps she were looking to establish a tone for the piece. She didn't know what that meant. I wondered if the play were intended to be read in a more cartoonish vernacular, and that any hint of thespian dimensionality was therefore completely superfluous.

Or, you know, words to that effect.

Okay, so basically I called her out in front of six-year-olds, and yes, that may have been what we in the theatrical trades refer to as "a dick move." On the other hand, she'd been yelling at Dylan all afternoon, even implying he wasn't talented enough to play her mono-faceted villain role, and I'd recently had to talk down two little girls who tripped over a copperhead on an unsupervised nature hike, so I admit I wasn't in my most diplomatic frame of mind. Be that as it may, my point, which Ms. Cooper never understood, remains valid: If you're a writer or otherwise creative personality, it pays to look closely at your villains. They say much about your view of the world.

There is a difference, at least in the real world, between a bad guy and The Bad Guy. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian who liked puppies, and it's said he gave his secretaries gifts on their birthdays. Lyndon Johnson was a bit of a knob, yet he advanced civil rights more than anyone could've dreamed. We find ways to forgive the offenses of people we admire and to emphasize the failings of people we despise. We are all a bit villainous way down deep, but we're also one of the few species capable of genuine altruism.

I read Animal Farm for the first time last weekend, prompting friends to ask how I'd managed to avoid it thus far. My return question is this: If we've all read it, why do we keep falling for one Glorious Leader Napoleon after another? Napoleon was obviously intended to represent Stalin, just as Snowball equaled Trotsky--but the takeover of Animal Farm has been repeated around the world, time and time again, in place after place including right here at home. What begins with the clearest of commandments often ends in "Some Animals Are More Equal than Others." And it happens when we allow ourselves, purely out of wishful thinking, to listen only to the Squealers who preach party line, facts be damned.

In the real world, villains are "the kind of people you'd like to have a beer with." The Bad Guy tells us exactly what we want to hear, gesticulating grandly toward heaven while his other hand slips into our pockets. The Bad Guy tells us those elitist eggheads don't know nothin' 'bout nothin', and the world's been the same since our granddaddies were knee high to a grasshopper, and there ain't no inconvenient truths that require our immediate attention, no sir, no how, don'tcha know. The Bad Guy tells us that if we do everything we can to protect his Smaug-hoard of staggering wealth, he'll make sure we don't starve. The Bad Guy tells us God never closes a door without shutting a window; then he closes the door.

I've met some vastly entertaining fictional villains over the last few years: Anton Chigurh, Dolores Umbridge, Second Selectman Big Jim Rennie. Any of these characters, frankly, could eat my own antagonist, Danny Murcheson, for mid-afternoon snack. But you know what all these characters, plus Orwell's Napoleon, have in common? Not a single one knew he or she was the Bad Guy. On the contrary, they believed they were the heroes, or at least just doing dirty work that had to be done, and that's what makes them more frightening than any "monologuing" dunderhead in the Legion of Doom. In the real world, self-deluding villains are as ubiquitous as talk radio, and as lovable as a Viennese house painter, and as lethal as a flood in New Orleans.

Bwa ha ha.

This Is Dedicated to the One I Love

Dear Amanda,

You said you wanted a love letter for Valentine's Day this year, and I'm happy to oblige. You may not have wanted my devotion aired in public, but as you know all too well, I never do anything by halves. I've been reluctant to use your name here (though I probably have in a moment of absent-mindedness), as I still think of the eye-rollingly-named ChristianCarvajal.com as a promotional site for my writing. But y'know what? Against all my intentions, it's also become yet another clearinghouse for all my thoughts and emotions, popular or not. These thoughts, I imagine, will be popular, because you're popular. You're pretty much the easiest person to like I've met in years; and if you've ever had a true enemy, I'm unaware of it.

Oh, I could go on. I'd be all "romantical" and "schmoopy" and sickening, and Fates willing, no one but us would read past the first paragraph. But that's not the kind of love letter I decided to write. It's not the kind of love letter I'm inclined to write. Because what I love about you isn't just the same stuff everyone else loves about you. Yes, it absolutely does help that you're a looker, and your agreeable personality makes it easier to bear with you the days you're being maybe just the teensiest little molecular bit snappish about, say, parallel parking or my Friday afternoon punctuality. You have a terrific brain, and you've blessed me with ample opportunity to see it in action. Great minds like yours have edges, but your edges delight me. I love you most because you share my good qualities but refine them into grace, while adding strengths I'll probably never possess on my kindest of days.

I love the way you sleep, your lips parted softly; it's like I can see back to your childhood, way back before those adolescent years when you gave your family hell each Christmas morning.

I love how you chortle, deeply and unabashedly, at each wittily ribald remark--and I love the fact that many of those remarks are yours, not mine.

I love your open mind and the way you put it to work for an open heart.

I love that we can shop for groceries or do laundry and have more fun than most couples do on a date.

I love that you'd rather be shocked than bored.

I love that we can disagree about politics or religion or pretty much anything else--really disagree, mind you, never hiding it, never soft-pedaling our opinions--without losing an ounce of respect for each other.

I love that you're eagerly awaiting Iron Man 2, of all things (May 7, by the way) and can recite Ghostbusters from memory.

Some people say they can cook. You create joy on a plate.

Some people say they can sing. You bring chills.

Some people say they can tap dance--okay, nobody says that, but you actually can tap dance.

I love the little notes you tuck into my wallet. I know it's selfish to love you for things you do for me, but no one else ever wrote little notes and tucked them into my wallet. It makes my whole day go bulletproof.

I love how much my friends love you. I mean, how could they not, of course, but they really do love you, and so does my family.

I love the wicked glint in your eye each time you blatantly pit me and your mother against each other in board games, and the way you brace yourself rather than cutting and running when your uncle Kenny quotes Glenn Beck in my presence.

I love your perfectionism and your connoisseurship--and your love of a good sloppy hamburger.

I love your wicked gift of mimicry, even when you impersonate me as a blowhard, which I'm so totally not. For the most part. Per se.

Amanda, love, I thanked you in my book in what must have seemed a perfunctory manner. That's because I knew I'd be thanking you in every book for the rest of my life. You are indeed the one, finally, incontestably, my partner, my future, my love, my best friend.

Yours entirely,
Carv

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope you have someone to curl up with this three-day weekend. As for me and Amanda and our friends, we're cooking sexy foods for each other and giving gifts and drinking wine and telling stories. I'll be back with more jabbering, probably on the subject of villains (bwahaha!) some night next week.

Love and peace.

Merry Solstice!

The King James Bible tells us, "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld (Heb. 11:1)." For over half my life now, I've had a problem with that definition. How do 'realities demonstrate themselves evidently' without being 'beheld?' In other words, what's the difference between faith and gullibility, a confident belief in the unproven? Some atheists claim there is no difference, and semantically speaking, it's hard to make a case for the distinction. The New International Version puts it more simply: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Faith and hope are intertwined. Are they, in fact, the same thing? I suppose faith adds absolute certainty to hope, and to some of us, that seems misguided and dangerous. But to you, perhaps, faith is everything, the basis of your life. I don't plan to disrespect that, but I will stick with hope in my own life. I find it's enough.

I don't know if I believe in True Love, capital T, capital L. We can't even seem to agree what that phrase means. But I do know that I'm in love. Is that faith? Doesn't matter. I don't need faith to love and feel love from my family and friends. I need hope to accept that my girlfriend is in love with me, but not much. There's considerable evidence to support my belief. Maybe faith is hope in something, or Someone, for which, or in Whom, there's no compelling evidence? I suppose we could argue that all day. Let's move on.

Last night I participated in a sing-along version of Handel's Messiah, a piece I've enjoyed for many years. It's become an essential part of my Christmas experience. (Some of my atheist friends scoff at that, but honestly, the Christian religion has given us many of the world's greatest works of art, almost as many as artists' inarguable need to get on rich people's good side. I appreciate the great works Christian thought and emotion have bequeathed to us.) Messiah got me thinking, as it often does, about what Christmas means to me, vocal skeptic that I am, and why I look forward to the holidays each year. It's not just a few days off work, it's...well..."magical." Right?

Okay, so let's get a few historical items out of the way. I'm pretty sure we all know Jesus wasn't born on 25 December 0. For one thing, there was no year zero. Second, he wasn't born in winter, or there wouldn't be flocks in the fields. Matthew and Luke provide conflicting information about when he was born; the former thinks 4 BC, the latter three years earlier, during the first census of Judea. (Mark and John say nothing at all about Jesus' birth. Weird, huh?) In fact, Matthew and Luke disagree on almost every detail of the Nativity narrative. Matthew thinks an angel spoke to Joseph after Jesus' conception. Luke tells the more familiar Gabriel story and sets it before the conception. Matthew, not Luke, tells the story of the star that guided the Magi (astrologers) from Jerusalem. Matthew, not Luke, claims Herod slaughtered the firstborn of Judea--a detail unsupported by even Flavius Josephus, who hated Herod. It's amazing, actually, how little Matthew and Luke's stories have in common, and how glibly we've woven them into one Western version.

Ah, but what a story, though, right? "Unto us," Handel promises, "a son is given...and the government shall be upon his shoulders." I wonder how King George II received that glorious sentiment. Maybe that's why he stood up before the Hallelujah Chorus.

Why do we put so much emphasis on the infant incarnation of the Messiah? After all, he hadn't done anything yet, though there are certainly some fascinating medieval legends about baby Jesus. Some of those tall tales are similar to stories of baby Clark Kent, tossing tractors and flying around his nursery. One story has baby Jesus leading several other toddlers into the clouds, until they lose faith and plummet to the earth. Grim!

I think we venerate the baby Jesus because he represents absolute hope: With Jesus in the world, good things are about to happen. Why, he could grow up to be any kind of Messiah we need. The Hebrews, of course, were banking on a King, a political crusader who would save them from the Romans. No such luck. Our present needs vary, but most of all, I think, Christians hope for a Messiah to make them happy and prevent them from dying.

The Church placed Christmas in late December, and we leave it there, for the same reason so many religions in human history commemorated the winter solstice: We need renewal in winter. We need encouragement. We need hope. The days shrink to nothing, while the nights are long and frigid. Nature seems thwarted by rain, snow and ice. We need to remind ourselves that good things have not been defeated, only suppressed for a while. We decorate Christmas trees for the same reason pagans hung apples and candles on trees centuries before Christ: We depend on the evergreen.

This has been the best year of my life. I know most of you can't say that. I know the economy is awful, Barack Obama is not the Last Son of Krypton, and you're fighting your own battles against nature and unkindness. I know your long drive home is lonely and dark. I know there'll be fewer gifts under the tree this year, and I know a few of you are dealing with grief that overwhelms any holiday. Gentle reader, I know what that's like. But I also know this: Hope is evergreen. From a natural standpoint, we just began a whole new year. There are wonderful things being conceived even now in your life, and they bring hope of real salvation.

Maybe we can agree faith is necessary hope, without which our lives would not be worth living. If that is faith, I have it, too. I believe "this too shall pass." I believe my loved ones love me back. I believe there are great things to come. I don't need religious faith, friends; I have hope. And I hope, too, that light will fall on your holiday season, whatever your spiritual beliefs. I believe you deserve it.

We'll talk again in 2010.

Smashing Words: The Best Books of the Decade

Yes, I know there was no "year zero." I know that means the decade can't really end until New Year's Eve 2010. But just as The Empire Strikes Back is obviously an '80s movie (21 May 1980) and Goodfellas belongs to the '90s (18 September 1990), so the pop culture of a mere season away will belong to the future. Also, I'm well aware that this is my own list, not yours or the New York Times's or anyone else's. I can only tell you what knocked my own subjective socks off, the books that resonate in my mind years later, the books I've given as gifts because I couldn't imagine anyone I respect not falling in love with them. My book list owes a lot to Jennifer Reese, former book critic for Entertainment Weekly, but also to my friends, most of whom are rapacious readers. I recommend all these books unreservedly and wouldn't dream of ranking one above the others, so here are all twenty in alphabetical order by title.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon -- No one writes a better sentence than Chabon, a master of every genre he attempts, but his most extravagant novel has hundreds of pages in a row of perfect detail and character to back them up. I live in awe of his talents and probably always will.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell -- Also known as the voice of Violet Parr in The Incredibles, Vowell packs her adoration for Lincoln and American history on a cross-country tour of all the places people tried to kill a president. I'll admit I'm not much of a history buff, which is probably why John Adams by David McCullough narrowly missed this list, but Vowell's so adorably entertaining, she's the atheistic Okie history teacher I would've developed an insufferable crush on. And she turns forty just after Christmas this month, so happy birthday, Ms. Vowell!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz -- A brazenly Spanglish love letter to the lonely, labyrinthine lives of pop culture nerds of all ethnicities. It might as well have arrived with "Dear Carv, please read" on the cover.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold -- I've pimped this book so many places to so many people they probably think I wrote it, but no, it was the debut novel of a guy who's probably better known as Mr. Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones). If you haven't read it yet, you probably never will, but I'll give it one last try: This was the most pure fun I've had reading since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If only his second novel, Sunnyside, which was every bit as erudite, had been even half as entertaining.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon -- Since Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn was published three months too early to qualify for this list (his Fortress of Solitude earns honorable mention, and I'm reading Chronic City as we speak), I'll give the Dysfunctional Narrator of the Decade to Christopher Boone, Haddon's fifteen-year-old autistic savant.

(And don't you dare think about writing in Bella from Twilight, a far crappier book than the excessively ridiculed Da Vinci Code.)

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson -- Hells, yeah, I mix nonfiction and fiction. You got a problem with that? It's all about the story either way, right? And Larson has a humdinger of a serial killer yarn to share, set in and around the dazzling 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Expo.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser -- Before Super Size Me or Food, Inc. (in which Schlosser is a recurring interviewee), there was this nauseating exposé. I haven't been able to stomach fast food since.

It's Superman! by Tom De Haven -- This is the 1930s-set Man of Steel movie I wish someone at Warner would finally make, concealed in grown-up book form. No, strike that--not just anybody. I want Marc Forster to direct this sucker with Roger Deakins lensing and a young Kyle Chandler as Superman. Make that happen, Warner Bros. Oh, and I also want the ghost of Aaron Copland to write the music.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini -- I read this just before a secondary wave of Middle Eastern memoirs inundated our shores, each of which begged the question, "I wonder how this particular author will be horribly molested?" My point is, don't move to the Middle East.

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan -- One of the most overwhelming challenges an author can face is to make the lives of ordinary, working class people riveting. What could possibly sound less amusing or instructive than the wintry final shift of a shuttered Red Lobster franchise? Yet O'Nan makes it fly, and manager Manny De Leon is one of the most memorable characters in years.

The Last Samurai by Helen De Witt -- First and foremost, this has nothing to do with Tom Cruise. It's the story of Sibylla and Ludo, a mother and her brainiac child, trying to find a surrogate father within ancient Greek literature and the films of Akira Kurosawa. Be warned: This is an intellectually punishing read, and I wouldn't recommend it for a long, noisy flight. But believe me, the reward is worth all the extra effort...which is more than I can say for Infinite Jest.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel -- You've probably read it. Almost everyone has, and by now it's become a bit fashionable to bash it (that floating island, oy!). But consider this: You remember it pretty damn well, don't you? And you don't even like magical realism, do you? The book's undeniable merit aside, we also have its Amazon associations to thank for so many people discovering Geek Love and Water for Elephants.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides -- As gimmicks go, the life story of a biological hermaphrodite is almost laughably hard to beat, but this is more than just a hook; Eugenides wrings the idea for all it's worth and then some. They say a book's opening sentence should grab every reader's attention. Well, try this on for size: "I was born twice..." And the rest of the paragraph is even better than that.

Nine Minutes Twenty Seconds by Gary M. Pomerantz -- A Scott Evans find, so please remember to thank him after you finish this book in a daze. Nine minutes and twenty seconds is the length of time ASA flight 529 stayed in the air before crashing into a west Georgia hayfield in August 1995. Everyone on board survived. But to call the account of what happened next either breathless or shattering would in no way be excessive; I was wiped when I finished it. Yet what lingers is the unpredictable pettiness and heroism of ordinary humans under extraordinary circumstances.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan -- Almost every "best of the decade" critic's list out there places Atonement near the top, and it is very good. But for my money, this slim novel accomplishes just as much as Atonement or Saturday in only two hundred pages. I'm writing a novel about sex myself, or rather, how we find ourselves longing for the thrill-a-minute sex lives our culture overpromises, so On Chesil Beach has become my new high hurdle. Never say I don't aim high.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi -- If a graphic novel about a teenaged girl rocking out to "Eye of the Tiger" in post-Islamic Revolution Tehran doesn't warm your cockles, then you should probably stay away from The Kite Runner as well. I'm just sayin'. Don't move to the Middle East, is what I'm sayin'. (See also The Thousand Splendid Suns, Reading Lolita in Tehran...) Persepolis earns its frequent comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, and if you've read that instant classic, then you know this is high praise indeed.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy -- Leaving soon from a theater near you. Throw the movie on your Netflix "save" queue; spend more quality time with the book. I have a longstanding beef with authors who disregard quotation marks around dialogue. It's pretentious and pointless--but McCarthy (Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men) is so amazing he gets a lifetime pass. I'll be the first to admit my apocalyptic novel is nowhere near as good as his...though it does have better jokes.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson -- Actually, you could start pretty much anywhere with Bryson; he's so much fun. But this book really does feel like an introduction to every single thing the human race has ever been, said, or learned in only five hundred mesmerizing pages: He's the ultimate teacher. Maybe that's how, in 2007, he was able to capture Shakespeare in only two hundred pages (also highly recommended).

The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis -- This is the book in which every resident of Varennes (not the one near Montreal in Quebec, but a Faulknery fictional border town) is given a voice. This includes senior citizens, little girls, foxes, lichens, glaciers, and a Dodge Dart. Davis sets the bar so high that it's a laudable miracle how far she leaps over it. What an under-read gem.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith -- I could've just as easily included Smith's On Beauty from 2006, but I stuck with her first novel because it's as masterful a debut as any I've seen in my lifetime. White Teeth gets better, richer, wilder, and more delightful with every page, and it's a book only one author could have written. I think that's the kind of literary art that affects us longest and matters most.

Keep an eye out for my Best TV and Movies of the Decade lists, coming later this week.