Gibson is like all of us, looking for redemption after a fall only his was more public than most. Give him credit. At least he’s trying. Early reviews of The Beaver has been unkind to the movie but Gibsion’s performance is getting some good reviews. No doubt he’s a talented actor – a talented director, too – so if nothing else, seeing this movie will be an opportunity to watch a man use his work as part of his contrition. A rare occurrence these days.

(Here’s my prior post about his troubles with a slightly bizarre rant from a commenter.)

There’s something magical about catching a glimpse of one of your favorite authors at work – even a photo of the epic event can send an anxious thrill down your spine, as if you might be able to see some hint of literary genius in posture or setting, in attire or facial expression. And it’s even better if they’re working on a typewriter. After all, there’s something impossibly gorgeous about a typewriter – maybe it’s the vintage charm, maybe it’s the physicality the noisy machine lends to the writing process, but people. . . go mad for typewriters. . .

I think the writer of this piece misses the point about typewriters. It’s likely she learned her craft clicking away at a computer keyboard and has little experience with typewriters.

Sure, nostalgia for typewriters is fun but writers used these instruments as tools of their trade. Bottom line: a typewriter helped the writing process and made getting the prose down on paper easier. Using a pad and pencil or pen was inferior though many may have continued to use that – Hemingway recommended first drafts in long-hand – you had one more chance to sharpen your prose and no one knew more about sharp prose than Hemingway- and Martha Grimes still writes in long-hand though you can be sure the manuscript she turns in to her publisher has been run through a word-processing program. Which is to say if a writer is still writing his drafts by hand, he’s being self-indulgent. But when it comes time to cranking out clean, readable copy for editors or readers or other users of the piece of writing, typewriters were far superior than old-fashioned handwriting. I imagine these writers at the linked article would gladly trade their Remingtons and Olivettis and IBM Selectrics for a laptop and a Word program.

No, I’m not immune to romance. This is what I imagined I’d be doing when I graduated from college with a degree in journalism:

The truth is, crafting prose is hard work and you’re lucky if you can make a living doing it. A professional finds, and uses, the best tools of the trade to help him along.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans, was slain in his luxury hideout in Pakistan early Monday in a firefight with U.S. forces, ending a manhunt that spanned a frustrating decade.

“Justice has been done,” President Barack Obama declared as crowds formed outside the White House to celebrate. Many sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “We Are the Champions,” NBC News reported.

Hundreds more waved American flags at ground zero in New York — where the twin towers that once stood as symbols of American economic power were brought down by bin Laden’s hijackers 10 years ago.

From Fox News:

Declaring “justice has been done,” President Obama announced late Sunday that Usama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, marking the end of the worldwide manhunt that began nearly a decade ago on Sept. 11, 2001.

The president made the stunning announcement within hours of informing congressional leaders. He said bin Laden was killed Sunday, the culmination of years of intelligence gathering. The news drew a large crowd to the front of the White House, as well as in Times Square, as people chanted “USA. USA.”

Obama, in his address to the nation shortly before midnight, thanked the Americans who have toiled in pursuit of bin Laden and applauded those who carried out the successful mission in Pakistan. Describing that mission only briefly, he said its result “is a testament to the greatness of our country.”

In a few months, certainly years, these links will no longer be any good but at least my little blog will have a reminder of this historic day.

Turns out, not very:

A huge commercial success from the day it hit bookstands, Travels With Charley in Search of America was touted and marketed as the true account of Steinbeck’s solo journey. It stayed on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list for a year, and its commercial and cultural tail—like those of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath—has been long and fat. For five decades Steinbeck scholars and others who should know better have not questioned the book’s honesty. But I had come to realize that the iconic American road book was not only heavily fictionalized; it was something of a fraud.

I’d say “fraud” is too harsh a word but when you’re dealing with writers who make up stuff for a living, you have to expect that the work they insist is true may not be entirely so.

I’m not disappointed to learn this. I didn’t expect the book to be straight journalism – no one reading it can come away quite believing everything Steinbeck has to say. Bill Steigerwald in the above linked article as well as his blog entries has done a fine piece of literary excavation and found a truer version of Steinbeck’s story. And he also found there are plenty of people out there who, well, can’t handle the truth. Steinbeck might’ve found that amusing and worth writing about, too.

March began sunny and warm and clear. Clear enough that I finally noticed something I hadn’t noticed before: I can see downtown Oklahoma City quite clearly from the entrance to my building:

But March weather in Oklahoma is nothing if not restless. My father-in-law had to do some time in the hospital for what turned out to be nothing serious and the days turned gloomy. The view from St Anthony’s looking East:

Barely 10 days later, my mother-in-law did her own time in the same hospital for some heart-related tests. The construction of the Devon tower kept her more amused than anything. The cranes worked through the day and through the night, she said:

I posted a short video on YouTube of the part of my morning routine that includes setting loose the dogs. This barely does it justice though the blur of motion is just about captures the morning’s feel:

I found time to make a batch of wine. Usually that kind of thing deserves a post of its own but see my comment above about being busy. This time around: a pinot grigio. My palate’s too unsophisticated to detect much of a difference between it and the riesling I made but it’s a good batch. (A client of my office partner gave him a case of wine for a filing season ending gift and I managed to snatch up a bottle of pinot grigio to perform a taste test. Mine compared favorably to a major commercial product so I was quite pleased) Perfect for Spring:

March was windy and dry and that meant grass fires:

We managed to get to Dallas for an overnight trip. I spent time browsing in the bookstore while the girls shopped. There’s a name now for the genre of fiction that Emily’s addicted to:

The atrium of the hotel always makes me dizzy. You?

Don’t look down!

And so I end March where I began: a view of downtown from my drive home. The afternoons are sunnier, clearer, the skies bluer. Winter’s a dim memory.

I have no real idea what it’s about; neither, apparently does the synopsis writer for IMBD:

The story centers around a family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence.

Well, all righty then.

Not that I’m complaining. Too often, movie trailers tell the entire story of the movie and there’s no real point in seeing it if you’re interested in the story alone.

Oh, but The Tree of Life looks intriguing. Due to come out next week, it’s sure to be swallowed up by the Summer’s blockbusters. But if the trailer’s any indication, you’d better see it while you can. I don’t think any TV screen will do it justice.

Joe Konrath has an interesting interview with independent writer John Locke who currently holds the coveted #1 spot in the Amazon Top 100 and has sold just over 350,000 downloads on Kindle of his 99 cent books since January 1st of this year, which, with a royalty rate of 35%, is an annual income well over $500k. Locke says that 99 cents is the magic number and adds that when he lowered the price of his book The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, he started selling 20 times as many copies — about 800 a day, turning his loss lead into his biggest earner.

I think that’s about right. I know for iTunes, I don’t mind taking a chance and dropping a buck on a tune. If I don’t like it, I’m only out a buck; if I do like it, well, the pleasure of the 3 or 4 minute ditty is endless.

Writing a book takes a lot of time and effort and talent but no more so than producing a piece of music. Sure, the pleasures of a good book may last longer but that’s only because it takes a longer time to consume. You’d think, then, you’d be willing to pay out more for a book than for a song but that’s not how the market works. You pay what for perceived value.

In this case, Konrath has found no one’s interested in taking a risk on his book for $2.99. For a dollar, they’re willing to take that risk. I’d take that risk, too, if I used an e-reader. Once Konrath has his reader hooked at this price, he still has the writer’s responsibility to be interesting. If he is, then he’s got a customer for his next book. If not, well, he still earned a buck. In the writing world, that’s not bad.

And, okay, another reason why I’m not reading the book is that it only cost me 50 cents. I picked it up, along with a stack of others, at the Friends of the Library Book Sale a couple of weekends ago. Didn’t spend much and got a bunch of things I’d been wanting to try but didn’t want to invest the money or the time going to the library to check ‘em out.

See, that’s what happens when you don’t have much invested in a book but that’s not a bad thing: that means the book has to try all that much harder to keep me committed. The Maltese Falcon has committed an unpardonable crime: it let my attention wander.

Oh, I may get back to it. An investment of the time to get to 75 pages is still something. But for now, other books in my stack beckon. Let’s see what they have to say about it.