The beauty of this format is that I can talk about whatever the hell I want to. Every now and then, I have a desire to do writing that isn't so much an exercise in entertainment, but rather just the sharing of useful information that I've acquired to those so interested. Therefore, if you do not care about sharpening and maintaining the knives and tools in your home, please do yourself a favor and return to whatever you were reading before you clicked on this link.
For those remaining, this post addresses one of my stranger hobbies. I have a bizarre collection of hobbies. Along with my practice of law, I do martial arts, I hike, I run, I write, and I cook. As an extension of cooking, I accidentally fell into the practice of knife sharpening, and somehow it became one of my hobbies as well. For those who have never dabbled in it, sharpening may seem like a simple chore. I certainly thought that it was when I decided to clean up the edges on my kitchen knives. The knives are made of very fine Swiss steel, and they have excellent weight and feel, but their edge retention is not phenomenal. After a year of regular use, the three in my block that I favored were really dull.
Imagine my surprise when I started researching this "chore" of sharpening and discovered that people did it for a living. Especially with the more basic methods, there is a lot of technical skill and even some mental discipline involved. Even with the more "user friendly" methods, there is a lot of science involved, and a lot of different strategies for solving the same problems. I wanted to do a short post addressing the more common methods for those interested in maintaining their own knives, to some extent or another. I wish I had an over view like this when I started learning about this.
The idea for this primer is to give a basic background on the pros and cons of each system, so you can pick what works for you. I'm going to do them in "families" of problem solving, started with the least amount of skill and ending with the most demanding.
Electric / Automated Sharpeners
Virtually no skill involved here. Buy the machine, stick your knife in it, and it does the sharpening. This is as easy as it gets. You might wonder why most people don't use these. There are a few good reasons.
These systems eat a lot of metal off the knife. If you have a crappy $10 knife from the grocery store, that might not be a problem. If you have a $100 chef's knife, you might be a little apprehensive about getting it chewed up. My grandfather used one of these electric machines religiously, and when he died, we found a drawer of whittled down sharp slivers of metal that used to be knives. Yikes.
The speed that these things boast also can be a problem. That super-fast grinding action creates heat. Most knives have a tempered edge. If the heat from the machine gets high enough, these machines can ruin the temper and screw up the hardness of your knife's edge. Again, if you have a cheap knife, this may not be an issue.
Finally, there are limitations on the results in these systems. You will assuredly get a somewhat sharp edge from the electric machines. It will be usable and up to most tasks. These machines will never get a blade extremely sharp. These machines tend to cut the edge at a pre-set angle. If this angle varies from the geometry of your knife, it will simply eat knife until it gets to the appropriate angle. This can negatively affect cutting performance. If a knife-maker put a 17.5 degree bevel on your knife, there's a reason. These electric machines totally disregard that.
Verdict: If you don't give a damn about your knives and can't be bothered to learn any skills, this is the one for you.
Aside: Belt Sanders and Grinding Wheels
These are really heavy pieces of machinery. You can get scary edges with them, but it takes skill and it can be dangerous. I'm addressing stuff that your average person can do at home here, so I won't discuss these in detail.
V-Sharpeners
I should make clear that I'm not talking about the little "pull through" sharpeners here. I will address those monstrosities below. The v-sharpeners are the systems where there are two abrasive components that are propped into a "v" shape, and you run your knife down one part of the V, then the other, in order to get it sharp. The best examples I can think of for this category is the Spyderco Sharpmaker or Crocksticks.
I think these represent a good compromise.
The real pain about freehand sharpening (just using a sharpening bench stone) is that you have to make many, many passes over the stone with the knife blade held at precisely the same angle. Let me assure you, this is a demanding skill that is acquired through years of practice.
The v-systems take care of the angle part for you. All you have to do is hold the knife blade straight up and down as you pass it along the sides of the V. Even for rank beginners, people tend to get pretty decent results and sharp blades with these systems. This is a nice way to get your knives sharp without too much of a learning curve, but avoiding the metal massacre that is the electric sharpener.
There are some problems, of course. If your v-system only has one or two angles (for example, Spyderco's system will sharpen at 30 or 40 degree angles), this can be a limitation. Unless you want to start treading into that "I'm learning a complex skill" territory, you can only use these to sharpen at the angle they set. Of course, not all knives are supposed to be sharpened at the angle set by the v-sharpener.
You have to understand that any blade-making is a science. And if you buy anything worthwhile, quite a bit of thought when into all the aspects of the blade. The handle, the steel, the temper, the blade shape, the edge geometry... they all matter. If the bevel of your knife is at a certain angle, it is probably because someone who knows a hell of a lot more about bladecraft than you made it that way. This is where the v-systems experience a problem. Like I said before, the angles do matter. You might be compromising your knife's performance a little bit if you go with a v-sharpener.
Mind you, it isn't a huge compromise. There is a reason that legions swear by these things. Even professional knife-makers and sharpeners will often "cheat" with one of these if they need to put an edge on something quickly.
Verdict: if you've got some decent knives you want to take care of, but don't want to learn to much, this is your absolute best option, in my opinion.
Clamp and File Systems
There are some companies, like Lansky, that have a much more direct way of solving the "angle problem". In these systems, you clamp a metal guide to your knife and then push an abrasive on the end of a stick back and forth across the blade.
The good thing is that it takes almost all the possibility for human error out of the angle thing. You can only use them at the set angle, so you are going to get wonderful consistency and good results. In fact, you'll get slightly better consistency than the v-sharpeners because those still rely on your perception of "vertical".
I won't repeat the bad, but you are again limited because these systems only use a set number of angles. See above regarding blade geometry, etc. I won't beat a dead horse.
The other issue I've discovered with these systems has to do with the limitations on the actual shape of the blade. On a fairly straight cutting edge, these things get phenomenal results. On a curved edge, like a chef's knife or a hunting knife, you have problems. To hit the whole knife, you've got to move the clamp around. When you do, there is going to be some variation in the angle as it goes along these different pieces of the edge. I briefly considered putting a diagram with some geometry up to prove this... but it is Saturday night and I'm tired. Please just take my word for it.
Consequently, you can get some less-than-stellar results with these if you try the wrong knife. Also, if you care about the cosmetics of your blade, the clamps can scratch up the blade itself.
Verdict: Great system... for some knives. If you have a fairly non-curvy knife that fits the bill and you don't want to learn much, this is another easy option.
Bench Stones
There's a reason these are last. Bench stones represent the most basic way to put an edge on steel. The concept is really simple. Take something harder than the knife, and rub the knife along it to wear away the new edge. Simple, right?
Wrong.
The idea is simple. The execution is not. Good sharpening takes technique. The pressure must stay consistent for each of the dozens or hundreds of knife passes. It has to stay consistent for each pass, for each millimeter of the blade. Same goes for the angle of the blade as it is held against the stone. For the many, many passes, it has to be consistent or else you are just shaving metal and wasting your time.
This is not easy. Good sharpening on a bench stone takes extremely good coordination, focus, and a lot of patience. People do it for years and years before they get good. It is absolutely a learned skill. In fact, in many parts of the world, it is a profession. If you doubt me, go on google and type in the word togishi.
I take a lot of enjoyment through freehand sharpening because it almost becomes like Zen sitting for me. The mind is totally absorbed and all of the clutter just falls away as you totally commit yourself to a simple task.
Go to any professional knife sharpener, and you will see a few bench stones laying around. There is a reason. While they are the most demanding of the abrasives you can use in terms of skill, they also get the best results. Swordmakers, dentists, woodworkers, and anyone else that needs great results for extremely valuable tools use bench stones. If a skilled person progresses through the right grits for the right amount of time, you can get mind-bending sharpness out of a blade.
These stones are also the most versatile type of sharpener. Doesn't matter what angle the maker put on your blade. Proper use of a bench stone will get the blade razor sharp and keep that optimal angle. These also tend to take the least metal off your knife. That is why any really expensive, nice blade tends to only see a bench stone.
Verdict: If you want to devote a few years of your life to learning a skill, this is the most bang for your buck. These get the absolute best results if you've got the talent. So, if you own and maintain really expensive blades, either acquire this skill or pay someone who knows how to do it.
Aside: "Pull Across" Sharpeners
I'm talking about the little plastic handle with a carbide "V" at the tip. These are the ones where you put a knife edge up on a counter, and run this device right along the cutting edge of the knife.
Don't use these. Period.
Foremost, they are dangerous as hell. You are applying pressure with your hand, directly towards and across the cutting edge you just sharpened. If you slip, you will really fuck your hand up. I've yet to encounter any pull-across that doesn't address this huge safety concern. Sure, there's a little plastic finger guard on some of them... but that does absolutely fuck-all for your wrist or forearm if you slip.
Also, the performance on these things is really lack-luster. Like the electric, that ultra-hard carbide rips a ton of metal off your blade. It will create a really sharp edge. That edge is totally unpolished, really skinny, and really unstable. It will only last for a few uses, and then you'll be going right back to your trusty death-trap to get your edge back.
In short, these things trash your knife and repeatedly endanger you in the process.
Do. Not. Use. Them.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Pullus Phasma Phasmatis
Prologue
I woke with a gasp. My wife slept next to me. I lay in my own bed. Dawn light had just started creeping into our humble little bedroom. The clock ticked. The garish, bright comforter lay haphazardly draped over my wife and I. The only thing out of place was the chicken sitting on my nightstand.
The chicken cocked its head and looked at me with one beady, black eye.
"You again! Stay away, you sonofabitch!"
I sat bolt upright in bed. I fumbled at my nightstand and grabbed my knife. The razor-sharp blade flew out with a satisfying "plok". I brandished it at the chicken.
"Haven't you brought enough suffering on our home? Avaunt!"
The chicken seemed unaffected by my raised voice and proffered blade. Beside me, my wife began to gently snore, oblivious as to the life and death conflict between myself and this otherworldly gallus gallus domesticus. I continued through clenched teeth.
"What is it, chicken? What does this mean? Two years that you've been gone, and now this? Are we pregnant again?"
The chicken shook its head.
"The next time you show your face here, chicken, you have my solemn vow that I will end you, braise you, and eat you. Rest assured."
"The next time you show your face here, chicken, you have my solemn vow that I will end you, braise you, and eat you. Rest assured."
***
In many cultures, totem animals represent all kinds of people, places, and ideas. My wife is the only woman I know whose uterus has a totem. That totem is the spirit chicken. This is its story.
I seriously debated whether this topic merited its own blog entry, but when I got right down to it, this whole phenomenon is just too fucking weird not to document somewhere. If nothing else, it will be delightful if, twenty years from now, my son reads this and discovers to his horror that his mother's uterus has an otherworldly chicken sentinel. In the bizarre little movie that plays in my head, his reading of this tale will somehow how infect his mind with the spirit chicken. Then perhaps it will follow him around and leave me be. Poe had his raven. Us Songys have the chicken.
My first encounter with the chicken occurred on the day of my son's birth, October 31, 2009.
Allow me to paint the picture. It was Halloween and a full moon to boot. The maternity ward at Bayfront was packed to the rafters. The ward had more ready-to-pop prengant women than it could handle. You could almost feel the chaos radiating off the place. In the hallways, frantic near-fathers paced back and forth with nothing better to do. Pregnant women hooked to monitors walked laps around the ward, wearing dark expressions. You could almost hear them thinking, "Please, God, let one of these steps knock this little parasite loose." I swear to God one of them did shikko, the high-legged, fierce stomp that sumo wrestlers sometimes make before beginning their match. The nurses had dispensed with any dressing-up of their coffee. They drank the coffee black, tossed it back like women condemned to die. The coffee was gulped without adornments like cream or sugar. Such luxuries did not exist for the brave tamers of these pregnant beasts.
My wife, her mother, and I were on our first night in the ward. The doctors gave Monica a drug to induce her labor. The little beeping monitors advised us that she was having contractions, but she did not feel them yet. At this point, her water had yet to break.
When we first arrived at the hospital, I felt the adrenaline pounding through my veins. After months and months of preparation, it was finally going to happen. Jack the Destroyer was set to come into the world on the coolest birthday imaginable.
Somehow, the only think I could think to pray was, "Please, God, don't let me see my wife poop on the table." Not sure why that particular prayer came to mind, but that's what I was thinking. We had made it eight years with a strict "closed door while on the toilet policy", and this was about to blow that streak to hell.
What can I say? You think of weird shit under stress.
Anyway, one can only be excited for so long. Excited in this case gave way to anxious. Anxious gave way to bored. Finally bored gave way to Maury Povitch (there's an irony to paternity shows in the labor ward). Povich gave way to sleep. I finally closed my eyes to get a few moments of sleep on the little pull-out father couch in our suite.
When I dream, it is usually a vast and encompassing thing. Bizarre, intricate plots expand over huge, faraway places. My dreams are the subconscious equivalent of Wagner's compositions (minus all the pro-Nazi stuff, of course). I found it more than passing strange when this particular dream began in the precise room where I had just fallen asleep. That is entirely too pedestrian for my strange, sadistic psyche.
Monica was sitting there in the dream. Sadly, she was still watching Maury. Ray-Ray's father still hadn't been determined. My mother-in-law still occupied her chair across the room and quietly worked on her laptop. The picture seemed entirely normal... but for the chicken sitting on the bed. It was a rooster, though somewhat young. Cockerel might be a better term. Its bright red comb wobbled as it surveyed the room with its oil spot eyes. It had a deep sense of intelligence, and though I feel positively ridiculous saying so, had an air of menace about it.
The spirit chicken gave me a meaningful look, somehow raised an eyebrow (despite the fact that chickens do not have eyebrows), and walked over to my wife's extremely pregnant abdomen. The rooster gave it an abrupt peck.
And then, as my clients so often tell me in the comfort of my office, "shit got crazy."
After the peck, there was a moment of ominous silence. And then, FWOOSH. A torrent of water exploded out of the bottom of my wife's largely undignified hospital gown. And when I say "torrent," I want you to think of that bloody elevator scene from The Shining. This explosion washed away the chicken in its violence. The room filled quickly, a veritable amniotic white-water rapids.
In that precise moment, I snapped awake. Monica looked at me, shifted her weight, and then paused meaningfully.
"Oh shit," she said, "my water just broke."
That's right. You read the above narrative correctly. The spirit chicken, totem of my wife's uterus, had somehow reached into the waking world and predicted, if not actually caused, the breaking of her water. You have to understand that I am not a superstitious person in any way, shape, or form. I do not spend time pondering the unseen or wondering what lay beyond this world. I freely walk under ladders and more than once have intentionally crossed my own path with a black cat. I care not for these silly things. I am a man of science, like my father before me.
But despite that, this freaking dream chicken broke my wife's water. I swear it with my hand to fucking God.
From that point, things got relatively crazy. Her heart rate went all over the place. The baby's heart-rate went all over the place. Hours of labor passed. Pain was intense. Evidently once your water breaks, contractions are royal high bastards. Monica got an epidural and promptly wore out the little "more drugs" button. After a brief, but terrifying bout where we were concerned we might lose the baby, I decided to go with a cesarean section. (And yes, I said that I decided this. Not because I know better, or because I am smart or even that great under pressure. It is just that by that point, my wife had hit the "more" button so many times that she was high as a freaking kite.)
I won't gore or bore you with the details of that process, suffice to say that I never want to see my wife's innards again.
Luckily, everyone came out happy and healthy. Jack is a beautiful two year-old at this point, and he is the joy of our lives. Thanks to the extremely rough pregnancy that produced Jack and the wickedly powerful post-partem depression that hit my wife, we opted to shut the baby factory down after that first attempt.
For two and a half years, the chicken remained blessedly, or perhaps ominously, silent. And then the other day, he made the dramatic re-appearance that I mentioned above. If he can be believed, his appearance doesn't mean anything, but hell, how do you go about deciding whether or not a uterus totem animal is trustworthy? I have no freaking idea.
Regardless, there is no deeper moral to this story. I have no insight about the human condition to share with you today. I just wrote this because I'm one of the few dudes who has had a spirit chicken break his wife's water, and if you can't share that type of thing on the internet, then what is the point?
Epilogue
Totally didn't see her poop.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Great Writers
Like many English scholars, I came to college with aspirations to one day be a great author. I wanted to write a book that would change lives and echo through the corridors of eternity. To that end, I took quite a few classes on writing. In a sense, the classes were fairly ridiculous. Many of the teachers, who themselves were not great writers, promised that they could teach us gullible students to do the very thing that eluded them. Being a gullible student (not to mention being blind with desire for greatness), I took this promise at face value and put my nose to the proverbial grindstone.
For years, I worked and worked on my writing. I created countless pages, and tossed most of them in the trash. I experienced frustration so often that I could describe it like a familiar friend. While I could occasionally create a piece of work that was enjoyable to read, I just couldn't forge that huge, life-changing tale which sucked everyone in like a maelstrom.
Now that I've been out of college for nearly a decade, I've got a bit more perspective on what constitutes a great writer.
Here is what I can tell you for certain.
With the proper tutelage, a really poor writer can become a competent technical writer. Clean up his grammar, police his bad habits, and imbue him with some sense of working style, and even a poor writer will be able to communicate effectively. In essence, this is what all the writing teachers at the University of Florida did when I came through. It could be likened to teaching a basic shop class. These were the guys that made sure that you had all the tools to take on a project.
Actually doing the project, that was something else entirely.
That brings me to the second part of my theory. No amount of teaching can turn a competent writer into a great writer. I believe this because I have never seen it happen. The UF English Department, over the course of four years, turned me and a legion of other literature lovers into competent writers. That is all. Despite a wide array of teaching tactics and a veritable sea of dedication, the teachers there could only forge competence.
Please don't think that this makes the accomplishment any less important or remarkable. Imagine all the horror if a legion of teenagers just started producing whatever they wanted, with no one to tell them how or why it might suck. Were it not for the stalwart defenders of composition at liberal arts colleges, we would all be hip-deep in "inasmuch" and "heretofore".
Quoth Kurtz, "The horror! The horror!"
In the course of my life, I have been fortunate enough to meet two really great writers. In one case, I had the pleasure of meeting him well before he had received any formal instruction. Even then, anyone could see that there was something in his mind that made him different.
This was not the result of any sort of tutelage. Nothing that my friend learned in a class made him great. It was something hard to define... something he was born with.
To put it plainly, both of the great writers I know are freaks. Their minds do not work like other peoples', and they often have an extremely difficult time fitting in with the rest of society. Gifts such as theirs come with a price. Genius always does. I suspect that even the great writers who sail over a sea of adoring fans with their boatloads of money must live a terribly isolated, often frustrating existence. (Of course, I am speaking in painfully broad terms. I am not suggesting that all great authors hide behind a curtain when company comes over. I just think that they have to endure being permanently on a slightly different wavelength than the rest of humanity.)
In the case of the two greats I know, I got to ask them both how they went about creating the mind-boggling things that they did. Quite surprisingly, both of them admitted to being just as ignorant to the miracle as the rest of us. To distill two long, tortured explanations into a poor paraphrasing, they both said something like this:
"I have no fucking idea why I can do what I do. Sadly, I don't have any control over it. Sometimes it is there. Sometimes it isn't."
Perhaps it is easier for those like myself, who have never "spun straw into gold", so to speak. At least I am not surprised or disappointed when the straw remains straw. Not true for the greats. They have had that sublime experience where the straw glittered and transformed into something else entirely as their frenzied feet worked the pedals. It must be frustrating as hell when that straw stays dull and straw-colored.
Lest I be burned by a mob of angry English teachers, let me qualify what I am saying here. Great writers can still reap enormous benefit from good technical tutelage. Even if you have miracles exploding in your mind and onto the paper, the most patient reader gets grouchy after the fifteenth passive verb in a row.
In a way, though, that is what makes the greatness so mysterious and elusive. Off the top of my head, I can name at least a dozen great writers who are, in a technical sense, terrible writers. Case in point: J.R.R. Tolkien. While the man had a few marvelous turns of phrase, his dialogue was horrific and his paragraph organization was the sort of thing that Strunk and White had nightmares about. The narrative flow of his books could be likened to a drain unclogging. Regardless, people have been falling off the cliff and into his massive world for over half a century now. If you doubt the power of that particular narrative, go ahead and look at how much money the movies made.
That is what makes great writing so hard (perhaps impossible) to teach. While great writing isn't all about content, it is mostly about content. In a sense, good technique just plucks the burrs from a story and makes it form clearer. Think of it like a guitar getting finely tuned.
Good technique is not a substitute for telling a good story in the first place.
Where does this leave me? Am I to wring my hands in anguish and rail against the cruel hand that fate has dealt me?
Of course not. That is ridiculous. At 5'9", I'm not a great basketball player, either. In writing and on the court, I have learned to live with it. I've no desire to lead a cultural revolution or get rich with my words these days. On a basic level, I simply enjoy the process of writing. Let the end result be damned. I like putting on music and feeling the staccato pounding on the keyboard as my fingers play their own bizarre tune.
For a lowly norm like me, that is more than enough.
For years, I worked and worked on my writing. I created countless pages, and tossed most of them in the trash. I experienced frustration so often that I could describe it like a familiar friend. While I could occasionally create a piece of work that was enjoyable to read, I just couldn't forge that huge, life-changing tale which sucked everyone in like a maelstrom.
Now that I've been out of college for nearly a decade, I've got a bit more perspective on what constitutes a great writer.
Here is what I can tell you for certain.
With the proper tutelage, a really poor writer can become a competent technical writer. Clean up his grammar, police his bad habits, and imbue him with some sense of working style, and even a poor writer will be able to communicate effectively. In essence, this is what all the writing teachers at the University of Florida did when I came through. It could be likened to teaching a basic shop class. These were the guys that made sure that you had all the tools to take on a project.
Actually doing the project, that was something else entirely.
That brings me to the second part of my theory. No amount of teaching can turn a competent writer into a great writer. I believe this because I have never seen it happen. The UF English Department, over the course of four years, turned me and a legion of other literature lovers into competent writers. That is all. Despite a wide array of teaching tactics and a veritable sea of dedication, the teachers there could only forge competence.
Please don't think that this makes the accomplishment any less important or remarkable. Imagine all the horror if a legion of teenagers just started producing whatever they wanted, with no one to tell them how or why it might suck. Were it not for the stalwart defenders of composition at liberal arts colleges, we would all be hip-deep in "inasmuch" and "heretofore".
Quoth Kurtz, "The horror! The horror!"
In the course of my life, I have been fortunate enough to meet two really great writers. In one case, I had the pleasure of meeting him well before he had received any formal instruction. Even then, anyone could see that there was something in his mind that made him different.
This was not the result of any sort of tutelage. Nothing that my friend learned in a class made him great. It was something hard to define... something he was born with.
To put it plainly, both of the great writers I know are freaks. Their minds do not work like other peoples', and they often have an extremely difficult time fitting in with the rest of society. Gifts such as theirs come with a price. Genius always does. I suspect that even the great writers who sail over a sea of adoring fans with their boatloads of money must live a terribly isolated, often frustrating existence. (Of course, I am speaking in painfully broad terms. I am not suggesting that all great authors hide behind a curtain when company comes over. I just think that they have to endure being permanently on a slightly different wavelength than the rest of humanity.)
In the case of the two greats I know, I got to ask them both how they went about creating the mind-boggling things that they did. Quite surprisingly, both of them admitted to being just as ignorant to the miracle as the rest of us. To distill two long, tortured explanations into a poor paraphrasing, they both said something like this:
"I have no fucking idea why I can do what I do. Sadly, I don't have any control over it. Sometimes it is there. Sometimes it isn't."
Perhaps it is easier for those like myself, who have never "spun straw into gold", so to speak. At least I am not surprised or disappointed when the straw remains straw. Not true for the greats. They have had that sublime experience where the straw glittered and transformed into something else entirely as their frenzied feet worked the pedals. It must be frustrating as hell when that straw stays dull and straw-colored.
Lest I be burned by a mob of angry English teachers, let me qualify what I am saying here. Great writers can still reap enormous benefit from good technical tutelage. Even if you have miracles exploding in your mind and onto the paper, the most patient reader gets grouchy after the fifteenth passive verb in a row.
In a way, though, that is what makes the greatness so mysterious and elusive. Off the top of my head, I can name at least a dozen great writers who are, in a technical sense, terrible writers. Case in point: J.R.R. Tolkien. While the man had a few marvelous turns of phrase, his dialogue was horrific and his paragraph organization was the sort of thing that Strunk and White had nightmares about. The narrative flow of his books could be likened to a drain unclogging. Regardless, people have been falling off the cliff and into his massive world for over half a century now. If you doubt the power of that particular narrative, go ahead and look at how much money the movies made.
That is what makes great writing so hard (perhaps impossible) to teach. While great writing isn't all about content, it is mostly about content. In a sense, good technique just plucks the burrs from a story and makes it form clearer. Think of it like a guitar getting finely tuned.
Good technique is not a substitute for telling a good story in the first place.
Where does this leave me? Am I to wring my hands in anguish and rail against the cruel hand that fate has dealt me?
Of course not. That is ridiculous. At 5'9", I'm not a great basketball player, either. In writing and on the court, I have learned to live with it. I've no desire to lead a cultural revolution or get rich with my words these days. On a basic level, I simply enjoy the process of writing. Let the end result be damned. I like putting on music and feeling the staccato pounding on the keyboard as my fingers play their own bizarre tune.
For a lowly norm like me, that is more than enough.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Rups and Government Coffee
At the tender age of two, I drank my first sippy-cup filled with coffee. My parents always told me that this was just a normal Cajun thing. I have no idea if this is true, or if it was just something to shut my toddler yap and make me happy. Regardless, my auspicious brewing childhood has given rise to an oddesey in coffee experience.
Since that time, I have experienced damn near every variety of coffee imaginable. I've tried Turkish, Cuban, Cajun, Columbian, Jamaican, Ethiopian, Virginian (yes, it is unique), and even a cup of coffee that one gentleman in the French Quarter suggested was "from space". (For what it is worth, I think it was just Cafe Du Monde coffee with bourbon in it. If that is the case, nearly everyone that I'm related to has tried and enjoyed "space coffee".)
My experience of coffee has even transcended geography and even become situational. I've had "My Mom made this and she is happy" coffee, and I can tell the difference between that and "Mom made this and she's pissed" coffee. I've enjoyed "I just got a glimpse of enlightenment coffee" and dredged through "I haven't slept in three days" coffee. On three occasions, I savored a cup of "I can't believe I didn't get blown up doing that" coffee. Heady brew, let me assure you.
The only experience that I've never had is decaf. I'm rather proud of that.
As I sat down for my nightly exercise in expression, I asked myself what was the most unique coffee that I've ever experienced. My mind suggested all kind of tantilizing, awe-inspiring stories of coffee bliss. Stories that would almost be the java-nese equivalent of smut. Sadly, none of those won the little twisted election in my head. The front-runner in that particular special olympics is the most bizarre and intimidating coffee that I've ever drank, and it is that noxious brew that I will try and describe for you tonight.
Government coffee.
If you have worked for a government agency for any extended period of time, you can stop reading this essay right now.
Seriously, stop. I'd hate for you to re-live this horror. I only share it here because everyone else needs to know what we go through.
How to express government coffee?
No tale of myself and government coffee would be complete without a mention of Rups. I invoke Rups name only sparingly and with great caution. The usage of the name is not unlike invoking the name of the Devil. You do it sparingly lest you draw his attention.
Rups began its life as a Krups Coffee-Maker. It lived on the fourth floor of the old public defender's office, a building that now stands derelict and condemned. I deeply hope that Rups remains within that old building (though I sometimes have nightmares to the contrary). That old hulk of a government office is a fittingly black and rotting tomb for Rups, a foul creature that will plague the nightmares of dozens, if not hundreds of employees.
At some point and time before I first encountered Rups, it lost its "K". While I did not witness this event, I visualize it very much like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the divine power of the Ark of the Covenant burns the Nazi symbols off its little wooden bower. I like to think Rups destroyed his "K" as a statement to the world that it had attained its own malevolent self-awareness.
And make no mistake, Rups hated humanity. It expressed this hatred through its production of the most... government-y government coffee that I have ever encountered.
Know how plastic is porous? Know how cheap coffee exudes a lot of oil? Do you know that funky taste your coffee starts to get if you go through three pots without the application of soap and water to your components? I want you to envision a set of porous plastic components that had not seen soap or water in literally hundreds of pots of coffee. These components kept absorbing Sam's Club Coffee oils, and eventually, hatred as well.
When Rups exuded its black liquid, it had a rainbow-colored skein of oil on top. This is government coffee.
"Fixins" for the government coffee were extremely limited.
Creamer only existed in the non-dairy variety, and it was not effective. You probably don't analyze creamer in terms of "effectiveness", do you? Let me try and illustrate. Government coffee is the only coffee that I've ever experienced that would literally laugh off creamer. You heard me. Know how you pour in creamer, and the darkness and light swirl and yield a nice, beige-colored liquid? When creamer was added to government coffee, the liquid would say in a small Russian voice, "I must break you..." The coffee would briefly lighten... and then return to dead black. No creamer exists that can in any way gain the upper hand over government coffee, and as I've said, Rups' government coffee was its own unique creature.
Sugar wasn't usually an option. Any sugar present would be quickly used by your fellow desperados. The only packet you could find would be in the very back of the cabinet. Said packet said, "Elect Jimmy Carter" on it.
Sugar can go bad, my friends. True fact. Carter sugar makes you hallucinate. This condiment blight only added another layer to the horror of government coffee.
"Why would anyone consume this noxious liquid?" you may ask yourself.
The answer lies in one of those old cliches you may use but never think about. Ever told someone you wouldn't sleep with them "even if they were the last other human being on the planet"? Think about that. Sure, for the first few years after the apocalypse, you might hold true to your promise, but as time and desperation, and perhaps necessity, eroded your willpower, you might eventually have an existential crisis. You would start thinking about the continuation of human race and your duty. Time would twist your perception, and suddenly, horrifically, this non-attractive person would start singing their siren song until you forswore yourself in a flopping, desperate, thirty-eight second session of passion.
Same with Rups. You did what you could to avoid that poison. But eventually, you would have that day when you were really tired and had something important to do. It was the end of the month, and your cash was too low for you to go buy coffee from a reputable business. In that long, dark night of the soul, you would go to Rups for the caffeinated release that only his government coffee would provide.
Afterwards, like a bad one-night stand, you would regret it. Ironically, you would have that same feeling of being gut-punched afterward. The oil would perform a number on your stomach. It would curdle anything else in your stomach, whether such things could be curdled or not. (Yes, this coffee could curdle meat. I experienced it. It happened.)
In our office, there were all manner of public defenders, ranging from the shiny and brand-new (me) to the ones so weathered, skilled, and experienced that they resembled extremely determined leather bags with brilliant legal minds. One of the baliwicks of these "old school" PD's toughness was there ability to pound government coffee without even wincing. This evinces a level of toughness that I still can't fathom.
Hopefully, my accounting of this horror leaves you shocked and, on some level, deeply grateful for your regular morning cup. Perhaps the best side effect of being exposed to government coffee (other than the x-ray vision I've developed) is deep appreciation for non-government coffee. I have literally stood at the Fresh Market with tears in my eyes, thanking the acne-faced teenager who gave me my little paper shot glass of good coffee while I shopped.
You have to know the horrific to appreciate the decent.
Since that time, I have experienced damn near every variety of coffee imaginable. I've tried Turkish, Cuban, Cajun, Columbian, Jamaican, Ethiopian, Virginian (yes, it is unique), and even a cup of coffee that one gentleman in the French Quarter suggested was "from space". (For what it is worth, I think it was just Cafe Du Monde coffee with bourbon in it. If that is the case, nearly everyone that I'm related to has tried and enjoyed "space coffee".)
My experience of coffee has even transcended geography and even become situational. I've had "My Mom made this and she is happy" coffee, and I can tell the difference between that and "Mom made this and she's pissed" coffee. I've enjoyed "I just got a glimpse of enlightenment coffee" and dredged through "I haven't slept in three days" coffee. On three occasions, I savored a cup of "I can't believe I didn't get blown up doing that" coffee. Heady brew, let me assure you.
The only experience that I've never had is decaf. I'm rather proud of that.
As I sat down for my nightly exercise in expression, I asked myself what was the most unique coffee that I've ever experienced. My mind suggested all kind of tantilizing, awe-inspiring stories of coffee bliss. Stories that would almost be the java-nese equivalent of smut. Sadly, none of those won the little twisted election in my head. The front-runner in that particular special olympics is the most bizarre and intimidating coffee that I've ever drank, and it is that noxious brew that I will try and describe for you tonight.
Government coffee.
If you have worked for a government agency for any extended period of time, you can stop reading this essay right now.
Seriously, stop. I'd hate for you to re-live this horror. I only share it here because everyone else needs to know what we go through.
How to express government coffee?
No tale of myself and government coffee would be complete without a mention of Rups. I invoke Rups name only sparingly and with great caution. The usage of the name is not unlike invoking the name of the Devil. You do it sparingly lest you draw his attention.
Rups began its life as a Krups Coffee-Maker. It lived on the fourth floor of the old public defender's office, a building that now stands derelict and condemned. I deeply hope that Rups remains within that old building (though I sometimes have nightmares to the contrary). That old hulk of a government office is a fittingly black and rotting tomb for Rups, a foul creature that will plague the nightmares of dozens, if not hundreds of employees.
At some point and time before I first encountered Rups, it lost its "K". While I did not witness this event, I visualize it very much like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the divine power of the Ark of the Covenant burns the Nazi symbols off its little wooden bower. I like to think Rups destroyed his "K" as a statement to the world that it had attained its own malevolent self-awareness.
And make no mistake, Rups hated humanity. It expressed this hatred through its production of the most... government-y government coffee that I have ever encountered.
Know how plastic is porous? Know how cheap coffee exudes a lot of oil? Do you know that funky taste your coffee starts to get if you go through three pots without the application of soap and water to your components? I want you to envision a set of porous plastic components that had not seen soap or water in literally hundreds of pots of coffee. These components kept absorbing Sam's Club Coffee oils, and eventually, hatred as well.
When Rups exuded its black liquid, it had a rainbow-colored skein of oil on top. This is government coffee.
"Fixins" for the government coffee were extremely limited.
Creamer only existed in the non-dairy variety, and it was not effective. You probably don't analyze creamer in terms of "effectiveness", do you? Let me try and illustrate. Government coffee is the only coffee that I've ever experienced that would literally laugh off creamer. You heard me. Know how you pour in creamer, and the darkness and light swirl and yield a nice, beige-colored liquid? When creamer was added to government coffee, the liquid would say in a small Russian voice, "I must break you..." The coffee would briefly lighten... and then return to dead black. No creamer exists that can in any way gain the upper hand over government coffee, and as I've said, Rups' government coffee was its own unique creature.
Sugar wasn't usually an option. Any sugar present would be quickly used by your fellow desperados. The only packet you could find would be in the very back of the cabinet. Said packet said, "Elect Jimmy Carter" on it.
Sugar can go bad, my friends. True fact. Carter sugar makes you hallucinate. This condiment blight only added another layer to the horror of government coffee.
"Why would anyone consume this noxious liquid?" you may ask yourself.
The answer lies in one of those old cliches you may use but never think about. Ever told someone you wouldn't sleep with them "even if they were the last other human being on the planet"? Think about that. Sure, for the first few years after the apocalypse, you might hold true to your promise, but as time and desperation, and perhaps necessity, eroded your willpower, you might eventually have an existential crisis. You would start thinking about the continuation of human race and your duty. Time would twist your perception, and suddenly, horrifically, this non-attractive person would start singing their siren song until you forswore yourself in a flopping, desperate, thirty-eight second session of passion.
Same with Rups. You did what you could to avoid that poison. But eventually, you would have that day when you were really tired and had something important to do. It was the end of the month, and your cash was too low for you to go buy coffee from a reputable business. In that long, dark night of the soul, you would go to Rups for the caffeinated release that only his government coffee would provide.
Afterwards, like a bad one-night stand, you would regret it. Ironically, you would have that same feeling of being gut-punched afterward. The oil would perform a number on your stomach. It would curdle anything else in your stomach, whether such things could be curdled or not. (Yes, this coffee could curdle meat. I experienced it. It happened.)
In our office, there were all manner of public defenders, ranging from the shiny and brand-new (me) to the ones so weathered, skilled, and experienced that they resembled extremely determined leather bags with brilliant legal minds. One of the baliwicks of these "old school" PD's toughness was there ability to pound government coffee without even wincing. This evinces a level of toughness that I still can't fathom.
Hopefully, my accounting of this horror leaves you shocked and, on some level, deeply grateful for your regular morning cup. Perhaps the best side effect of being exposed to government coffee (other than the x-ray vision I've developed) is deep appreciation for non-government coffee. I have literally stood at the Fresh Market with tears in my eyes, thanking the acne-faced teenager who gave me my little paper shot glass of good coffee while I shopped.
You have to know the horrific to appreciate the decent.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Elements of WHAT?!
Strunk and White's "Elements of Style" is my writing bible. I've been re-reading it to start the process of tightening up all my literary flab. Flipped around the internet to see what the venerated (and deceased) masters were up to.
I found this, and promptly cracked up.
http://xkcd.com/923/
I found this, and promptly cracked up.
http://xkcd.com/923/
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Why the Randomness?
Truly, this could be one of the defining questions of my life. I don't think I'll aim quite that high on a Saturday morning where my back hurts. That said, you may have noticed a dramatic increase in the frequency of my posts, as well as a bizarre hodge-podge of topics. In fact, this entire new "Book of Songy" lay-out as opposed to my thematic, subject-focused blogs smacks of some dramatic new change in direction.
I figured it was high time I address it, so that the subject would not keep you up at night.
... as I'm sure it has for weeks.
As my more dedicated readers (read: stalkers) will attest, I've gone about four years without any sort of regular posts other than the extremely rare musing on martial arts or stream-of-consciousness explosion. This was a vast departure from the previous decade, where I was generating content a few times a week.
The reduction process started for the most noble of reasons. I spent the bulk of my young life as a shameless attention whore. As I became a more seasoned... everything, I realized the error of my ways. On the advice of some people that I trust, I aspired not to say anything unless I had something really worth saying. For a professional bullshitter, such intentional silence is deeply educational.
That said, I allowed it to go too far in my own life. I got super picky, and eventually it got to the point where nothing got past the editor and onto the internet. In fact, my internal editor got so blood-thirsty that I could not even finish the first draft of a short piece before I threw my hands up in disgust. At the grim climax of this internal battle, I stopped writing entirely. That was about a year ago.
The current format and content of this blog are my way of trying to strike some sort of balance between my harsh, noxious, slightly fearful editor and that deeply hopeful, slightly mad inner child who likes to create words and blast them into the collective cranium of the internet (think flushing an M-80 down the toilet). I am forcing myself to create content and share it, even though I think that some of it is totally inane. (Let me defend myself here: I have not posted everything that I've written. I recently generated about 500 words on how to properly clean a coffee pot, and then decided that was even too boring for my most dedicated of readers. The fact is, there are just some topics that are so random that they don't merit sharing. I'm trying to cure a mental block, not commit the literary version of war crimes.)
This choice of tactics to address my problem comes from advice by one of my oldest writing teachers.
"Just write. There's no magic to it. Just keep sitting down in front of the keyboard and letting your fingers walk. Be as picky as you can, but ultimately realize that the muse comes only when she wants to. Like a beautiful and fickle woman, she can't be forced. Your job is just to be available at 3 a.m. when she happens to come knocking on your door."
So this is my version of putting on a pot of coffee and waiting for that difficult bitch to come staggering in from her wild night out.
The lack of adornment on the site and the stubborn refusal to properly package the content and organize it into tidy little neighborhood are all part of the psychological practice. If the inner editor/dictator gets too many options, I fear he will seize power again and institute a second draconian rule that is just as harsh and unproductive as the first was.
To this end, I am deeply grateful for your indulgences as an audience, and I deeply hope to create something rewarding in the future that will balance out all those times that you read my most passionate thoughts vis a vis coffee pot cleanliness.
I figured it was high time I address it, so that the subject would not keep you up at night.
... as I'm sure it has for weeks.
As my more dedicated readers (read: stalkers) will attest, I've gone about four years without any sort of regular posts other than the extremely rare musing on martial arts or stream-of-consciousness explosion. This was a vast departure from the previous decade, where I was generating content a few times a week.
The reduction process started for the most noble of reasons. I spent the bulk of my young life as a shameless attention whore. As I became a more seasoned... everything, I realized the error of my ways. On the advice of some people that I trust, I aspired not to say anything unless I had something really worth saying. For a professional bullshitter, such intentional silence is deeply educational.
That said, I allowed it to go too far in my own life. I got super picky, and eventually it got to the point where nothing got past the editor and onto the internet. In fact, my internal editor got so blood-thirsty that I could not even finish the first draft of a short piece before I threw my hands up in disgust. At the grim climax of this internal battle, I stopped writing entirely. That was about a year ago.
The current format and content of this blog are my way of trying to strike some sort of balance between my harsh, noxious, slightly fearful editor and that deeply hopeful, slightly mad inner child who likes to create words and blast them into the collective cranium of the internet (think flushing an M-80 down the toilet). I am forcing myself to create content and share it, even though I think that some of it is totally inane. (Let me defend myself here: I have not posted everything that I've written. I recently generated about 500 words on how to properly clean a coffee pot, and then decided that was even too boring for my most dedicated of readers. The fact is, there are just some topics that are so random that they don't merit sharing. I'm trying to cure a mental block, not commit the literary version of war crimes.)
This choice of tactics to address my problem comes from advice by one of my oldest writing teachers.
"Just write. There's no magic to it. Just keep sitting down in front of the keyboard and letting your fingers walk. Be as picky as you can, but ultimately realize that the muse comes only when she wants to. Like a beautiful and fickle woman, she can't be forced. Your job is just to be available at 3 a.m. when she happens to come knocking on your door."
So this is my version of putting on a pot of coffee and waiting for that difficult bitch to come staggering in from her wild night out.
The lack of adornment on the site and the stubborn refusal to properly package the content and organize it into tidy little neighborhood are all part of the psychological practice. If the inner editor/dictator gets too many options, I fear he will seize power again and institute a second draconian rule that is just as harsh and unproductive as the first was.
To this end, I am deeply grateful for your indulgences as an audience, and I deeply hope to create something rewarding in the future that will balance out all those times that you read my most passionate thoughts vis a vis coffee pot cleanliness.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Neat Links!
While we're on the topic of video games, Pat Rothfuss wrote this a while back, and he certainly hits on many of my gripes with current games. His use of his trademark character, Kvothe, to illustrate these issues is pretty funny, if I do say so myself.
http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2011/01/ars-ludi-the-art-of-the-game/
PS - if you have not read his two books, "The Name of the Wind" and "Wise Man's Fear", stop what you are doing right now and go read them.
http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2011/01/ars-ludi-the-art-of-the-game/
PS - if you have not read his two books, "The Name of the Wind" and "Wise Man's Fear", stop what you are doing right now and go read them.
Review: Legend of Zelda - Skyward Sword
And in the beginning, there was Zelda...
The Legend of Zelda was not the first game I played as a child, but it was pretty damn close. It was certainly the first game that totally sucked me into an alternate universe. To this day, I have extremely fond memories of that shiny gold cartridge... I remember hours spent slogging from screen to screen, trying to acquire every item possible in a seemingly never-ending quest to destroy Gannon and save Zelda. The game just rung all the Jungian archetype bells in my head.
Suffice to say, I have played damn near every Legend of Zelda game from the beginning onward. Here's my take on Skyward Sword.
Story
As far as Zelda games go, the story is good. That isn't to say that the story is good. It remains formulaic, and doesn't really have any twists or turns that put your jaw on the floor. There are none of those profound moments where you get glimpses into the true human condition. That said, it does its job well. I stayed interested and engaged for the entire game, and felt triumphant and accomplished at all the appropriate times. The developers have recognized how the original game hit all those resounding archetypes in the minds of players, and with that in mind, they have kept the main elements in the story extremely consistent from game to game. Why? Because... well, it works. You're really never going to go wrong with the story of the young boy who sets out to save the princess and discovers the importance of courage, wisdom, and strength along the way.
I find myself craving more depth than is present in the story, but I have to remind myself that a thirty year-old attorney with a degree in literature is not Nintendo's target audience. The developers there have intentionally kept their story-telling very broad to appeal to the widest range of cultures and ages. That's fine by me. If I need a deep, nuanced, absorbing story, I'll read a book.
While the story is certainly accessible to younger players, the developers won a lot of points with me using clever dialogue. It's their compromise with older players, I think. The many inhabitants of Link's world are quite funny. A wry sense of humor permeates the game.
Of course, as is true with all Zelda games, the dialogue fell totally flat with Link. Nintendo has continued in their choice to make Link a mute that only communicates in situationally appropriate grunts. I have to tell you, there are quite a few times in the story where I wanted Link to say something. Anything. Please. When an evil sorcerer kidnaps the love of your life and belittles the entirety of the human race, I feel like you really should have some kind of snappy come-back, other than just sticking a sword down his gullet.
Visuals
Art often emerges from times where the medium limits the artist, and the artist cleverly gets around that limitation with good choices.
That is my best description of the visuals in this game. They are truly excellent. When I first started playing, the 3D world bothered me a bit because it wasn't the ultra-rendered, super-detailed environment you see on the more graphics-focused systems like the Playstation 3.
Gradually, though, I came to realize that the developers compensated for the system's technical limitations by using a style of visuals that was had a watercolor look to it. The soft, blurry edges happened on purpose. By the end of the game, I found myself quite fond of it. Paired with the extremely strong concept art, it made for an immersive visual experience that stayed with me. Even though there aren't beautifully rendered textures, the various locations are just so intriguing and enjoyable in their designs that you can't get the images out of your head. More than once, I found myself stopping gameplay just to look at something they'd come up with and think, "Damn, that's cool!"
I can think of any number of games for the more sophisticated systems where this was not the case.
Gameplay
This is where the people at Nintendo shine. After the extremely positive reception of the previous Zelda game for Wii, people were more than a little miffed that the new game took so long. Once you have played Skyward Sword for a bit, it becomes readily apparent why.
Everything about the game play is beautifully fine-tuned. I can't imagine how many hours went into playtesting and perfecting the mechanics of this game. I can say with some confidence that this game exemplifies everything they developers at Nintendo hoped the Wii would embody.
The use of the sword and shield is just about as intuitive as it could get, absent giving you an actual sword and shield to use. There is a lot of nuance to the timing and directing of your cuts and blocks, though the more casual gamer can still swing the remote around like a madman and get by.
The use of the various items you pick up is the real genius of the game. Be it a sling-shot, a bellows, or a remote-controlled flying beetle, the developers keep coming up with new, creative ways that the player has to utilize these treasures through the game. The treasures aren't just mandatory things you have to get. They are instrumentalities that lead to whole new arrays of puzzles and devilish challenges. As an added bonus, you'll find yourself using gizmos from the beginning of the game right at the end. Everything is relevant.
Now, this isn't to say there aren't a few rough spots in the gameplay. For example, the flying mechanic used in the game has a fairly large learning curve, and even towards the end of the game, you still end up feeling awkward and clumsy. This is exacerbated by the fact that you are constantly flying.
Conclusion
All in all, this one was a triumph. While it did not have everything I could have possibly wanted, it did have everything a Zelda game ought to have. I found myself magically transported to my childhood. I fought monsters, found treasure, and saved the princess. In short, I couldn't put the damn thing down. The minor flaws are handily outweighed by the enormous positives in this game. Go buy it.
The Legend of Zelda was not the first game I played as a child, but it was pretty damn close. It was certainly the first game that totally sucked me into an alternate universe. To this day, I have extremely fond memories of that shiny gold cartridge... I remember hours spent slogging from screen to screen, trying to acquire every item possible in a seemingly never-ending quest to destroy Gannon and save Zelda. The game just rung all the Jungian archetype bells in my head.
Suffice to say, I have played damn near every Legend of Zelda game from the beginning onward. Here's my take on Skyward Sword.
Story
As far as Zelda games go, the story is good. That isn't to say that the story is good. It remains formulaic, and doesn't really have any twists or turns that put your jaw on the floor. There are none of those profound moments where you get glimpses into the true human condition. That said, it does its job well. I stayed interested and engaged for the entire game, and felt triumphant and accomplished at all the appropriate times. The developers have recognized how the original game hit all those resounding archetypes in the minds of players, and with that in mind, they have kept the main elements in the story extremely consistent from game to game. Why? Because... well, it works. You're really never going to go wrong with the story of the young boy who sets out to save the princess and discovers the importance of courage, wisdom, and strength along the way.
I find myself craving more depth than is present in the story, but I have to remind myself that a thirty year-old attorney with a degree in literature is not Nintendo's target audience. The developers there have intentionally kept their story-telling very broad to appeal to the widest range of cultures and ages. That's fine by me. If I need a deep, nuanced, absorbing story, I'll read a book.
While the story is certainly accessible to younger players, the developers won a lot of points with me using clever dialogue. It's their compromise with older players, I think. The many inhabitants of Link's world are quite funny. A wry sense of humor permeates the game.
Of course, as is true with all Zelda games, the dialogue fell totally flat with Link. Nintendo has continued in their choice to make Link a mute that only communicates in situationally appropriate grunts. I have to tell you, there are quite a few times in the story where I wanted Link to say something. Anything. Please. When an evil sorcerer kidnaps the love of your life and belittles the entirety of the human race, I feel like you really should have some kind of snappy come-back, other than just sticking a sword down his gullet.
Visuals
Art often emerges from times where the medium limits the artist, and the artist cleverly gets around that limitation with good choices.
That is my best description of the visuals in this game. They are truly excellent. When I first started playing, the 3D world bothered me a bit because it wasn't the ultra-rendered, super-detailed environment you see on the more graphics-focused systems like the Playstation 3.
Gradually, though, I came to realize that the developers compensated for the system's technical limitations by using a style of visuals that was had a watercolor look to it. The soft, blurry edges happened on purpose. By the end of the game, I found myself quite fond of it. Paired with the extremely strong concept art, it made for an immersive visual experience that stayed with me. Even though there aren't beautifully rendered textures, the various locations are just so intriguing and enjoyable in their designs that you can't get the images out of your head. More than once, I found myself stopping gameplay just to look at something they'd come up with and think, "Damn, that's cool!"
I can think of any number of games for the more sophisticated systems where this was not the case.
Gameplay
This is where the people at Nintendo shine. After the extremely positive reception of the previous Zelda game for Wii, people were more than a little miffed that the new game took so long. Once you have played Skyward Sword for a bit, it becomes readily apparent why.
Everything about the game play is beautifully fine-tuned. I can't imagine how many hours went into playtesting and perfecting the mechanics of this game. I can say with some confidence that this game exemplifies everything they developers at Nintendo hoped the Wii would embody.
The use of the sword and shield is just about as intuitive as it could get, absent giving you an actual sword and shield to use. There is a lot of nuance to the timing and directing of your cuts and blocks, though the more casual gamer can still swing the remote around like a madman and get by.
The use of the various items you pick up is the real genius of the game. Be it a sling-shot, a bellows, or a remote-controlled flying beetle, the developers keep coming up with new, creative ways that the player has to utilize these treasures through the game. The treasures aren't just mandatory things you have to get. They are instrumentalities that lead to whole new arrays of puzzles and devilish challenges. As an added bonus, you'll find yourself using gizmos from the beginning of the game right at the end. Everything is relevant.
Now, this isn't to say there aren't a few rough spots in the gameplay. For example, the flying mechanic used in the game has a fairly large learning curve, and even towards the end of the game, you still end up feeling awkward and clumsy. This is exacerbated by the fact that you are constantly flying.
Conclusion
All in all, this one was a triumph. While it did not have everything I could have possibly wanted, it did have everything a Zelda game ought to have. I found myself magically transported to my childhood. I fought monsters, found treasure, and saved the princess. In short, I couldn't put the damn thing down. The minor flaws are handily outweighed by the enormous positives in this game. Go buy it.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Cafe Nouveau
This needs to be shared.
So, every morning, I drop my little boy off at daycare. After that, I head towards work. On the way, I stop at the same 7-11 almost every morning to get a cup of coffee. On this particular morning, I stood there at their coffee bar, re-filling the massive 7-11 travel cup that lives in my car. As I doctored my drink, a tall man swaggered up to me. He had on a real-tree camo shirt, dungarees, and a battered trucker hat.
"Mornin, slim!"
I don't get called "slim" so often that I don't take note of it.
I am often "sir," slightly less often "dude," and on extremely rare occasions, I am "bro-ham," but I am almost never "slim".
It isn't because I sport a vast paunch... people just don't say that anymore! I don't believe I've heard that term anywhere outside of the 1970's and Westerns. And even then, it is used sparingly.
The man joyfully went about the ritual of pouring his own massive cup of 7-11 coffee. He had this youthful exuberance to him, as if he was bopping and bouncing with every gesture. He paused and looked at me meaningfully. He leaned in like a conspirator, and I smelled the menthol on his breath.
"I call this the 'turbo whoop-ass'," he said.
With that, the man did an about face towards the soda fountain and, my hand on my heart and my voice to freaking god, poured Mountain Dew into his coffee.
Now, I am a trial attorney. I'm no stranger to stressful situations and long nights. I've been sleep deprived. I've been dog-ass tired. Have law degree, litigate readily, if you will.
But never once in my life have I been so tired that I even contemplated the "turbo whoop-ass".
I called the wife.
"Honey, you ever tired a 'turbo whoop-ass'?"
"Patrick Songy, there's not enough wine--"
"It's a coffee thing!"
"Oh. What is it?"
I told her.
"That's disgusting!"
"But you're imagining what it tastes like, aren't you?"
A long, meaningful pause.
"Yes," she said, "but I'm not going to do it."
Another pause. I could actually envision her making the "Pat is thinking about doing something crazy and I disapprove" face over the phone. Yes, I can actually envision this face. In fact, I could probably sketch it left-handed, and I'm a righty.
"You better not do it either!"
Maybe I should?
Suffice to say, that bizarre encounter made my day.
So, every morning, I drop my little boy off at daycare. After that, I head towards work. On the way, I stop at the same 7-11 almost every morning to get a cup of coffee. On this particular morning, I stood there at their coffee bar, re-filling the massive 7-11 travel cup that lives in my car. As I doctored my drink, a tall man swaggered up to me. He had on a real-tree camo shirt, dungarees, and a battered trucker hat.
"Mornin, slim!"
I don't get called "slim" so often that I don't take note of it.
I am often "sir," slightly less often "dude," and on extremely rare occasions, I am "bro-ham," but I am almost never "slim".
It isn't because I sport a vast paunch... people just don't say that anymore! I don't believe I've heard that term anywhere outside of the 1970's and Westerns. And even then, it is used sparingly.
The man joyfully went about the ritual of pouring his own massive cup of 7-11 coffee. He had this youthful exuberance to him, as if he was bopping and bouncing with every gesture. He paused and looked at me meaningfully. He leaned in like a conspirator, and I smelled the menthol on his breath.
"I call this the 'turbo whoop-ass'," he said.
With that, the man did an about face towards the soda fountain and, my hand on my heart and my voice to freaking god, poured Mountain Dew into his coffee.
Now, I am a trial attorney. I'm no stranger to stressful situations and long nights. I've been sleep deprived. I've been dog-ass tired. Have law degree, litigate readily, if you will.
But never once in my life have I been so tired that I even contemplated the "turbo whoop-ass".
I called the wife.
"Honey, you ever tired a 'turbo whoop-ass'?"
"Patrick Songy, there's not enough wine--"
"It's a coffee thing!"
"Oh. What is it?"
I told her.
"That's disgusting!"
"But you're imagining what it tastes like, aren't you?"
A long, meaningful pause.
"Yes," she said, "but I'm not going to do it."
Another pause. I could actually envision her making the "Pat is thinking about doing something crazy and I disapprove" face over the phone. Yes, I can actually envision this face. In fact, I could probably sketch it left-handed, and I'm a righty.
"You better not do it either!"
Maybe I should?
Suffice to say, that bizarre encounter made my day.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Feats of Amazement
This morning was one of those perfect Florida mornings. Bright blue skies with just enough clouds to give enough contrast. Seventy-five degrees, though the cool breeze coming off the Gulf of Mexico made it seem quite a bit cooler than that. The air had that slight, clean tang of salt-water. I was outside taking a walk with my little boy, Jack.
As we walked around the apartment complex, we came across the vending machine that sits on a raised deck, overlooking the pool. For whatever reason, Jack had never been up on this porch. More to the point, he'd never seen a vending machine before. The bright red Coca-Cola symbol glowed faintly in the bright sun. The machine gave off that low, re-assuring hum and the gentle warmth that the old machines give off.
Jack took to the machine delightedly. He punched all the buttons with abandon, ignoring the little beeps of protest when the machine gently reminded him that it had not been paid. He didn't care. Jack's little fingers explored all the buttons, the coin slot, the change return, and the battered metal bay that actually distributed the drinks. Earlier in the walk, he got a letter from our mailbox. He solemnly put it in the vending machine's metal bay. I laughed. He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled.
I fished around in my pocket and dug out some change. He looked at me questioningly. My old stage training came back to me. I could almost hear my first employer, a stage magician, talking to me as I walked the coins across my knuckles.
"Patrick, the trick doesn't mean that much. It is all about the presentation. Grab their attention, draw them in... make even the most mundane things part of an interesting story. If you can do that, the trick is almost an afterthought."
I did a french-drop (a slight of hand) on each and every quarter before I fed it in the machine. Jack laughed every time, because he is a great audience. He didn't even hold it against me that I fumbled the third one a little bit and got my angles wrong. (My hands haven't been trained and suited for stage magic in well over a decade at this point.)
Finally, once all the change was in the machine, I looked down at him and waggled my eyebrows. With a grand gesture, I punched the button to get a bottle of Cherry Coke. The machine rattled and bumped. His delighted face looked dismayed for a moment. And then the brightly colored bottle flew out the bottom of the machine and into the bay. Jack picked it up and marveled at it, an expression of wonder on his face.
I thought of my own father just then. When I was younger, he would pick me up from school on Friday afternoons. On the way home, we used to always stop at the same deli and get a Cherry Coke. I was sat up on the counter, and allowed to drink straight out of the can, just like he did. I remember that when I was that age, that was the best feeling in the world. I got to drink a drink just like my father.
I hadn't thought about that in twenty years, but something about the experience with Jack knocked the memory loose. I smiled.
I plopped him on my lap and we took turns sipping the soda and watching the wind move through the trees. It was a breezy day, and the movement of the branches was almost hypnotic.
Finally, Jack started to squirm, signalling that our little moment together was over and it was time to move on to more important things, like lunch. I thought about all the ingredients I'd bought especially for the lunch, to make a spectacularly good grilled cheese sandwich. When you don't have a lot of money, the indulgences you get for your child almost have to be culinary, and simple to boot.
Miraculously, he kept from raising hell long enough for me to throw together a pretty respectable lunch. As we divided up the crusty, cheesy bread, he popped it in his mouth with amazement. I realized after the fact that he'd never eaten anything with garlic-butter before.
It's the funniest thing to see the world through the eyes of your child.
Coke, Florida mornings, grilled cheese... these things are about as mundane as I could imagine. Hell, if I'm to be totally honest, I am pretty mundane myself. But to my child, I'm the gatekeeper for all the world's arcane secrets... always just a Saturday away from exposing him to something that is totally delightful and utterly magical in its novelty. I don't doubt that my own father felt the same way in those weekly stops when I was a boy.
It has been years since I performed magic on a stage. I remember what it was like back then, an oddly well-spoken child performing with one of the best people-readers I've ever met. At the time, I remember feeling applause from the audience after a trick and thinking that it was absolutely the best feeling in the world. I lived for the look of astonishment on peoples' faces, the squeals of delight.
Little did I know that I would have to wait another twenty years to meet the best audience of my life.
As we walked around the apartment complex, we came across the vending machine that sits on a raised deck, overlooking the pool. For whatever reason, Jack had never been up on this porch. More to the point, he'd never seen a vending machine before. The bright red Coca-Cola symbol glowed faintly in the bright sun. The machine gave off that low, re-assuring hum and the gentle warmth that the old machines give off.
Jack took to the machine delightedly. He punched all the buttons with abandon, ignoring the little beeps of protest when the machine gently reminded him that it had not been paid. He didn't care. Jack's little fingers explored all the buttons, the coin slot, the change return, and the battered metal bay that actually distributed the drinks. Earlier in the walk, he got a letter from our mailbox. He solemnly put it in the vending machine's metal bay. I laughed. He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled.
I fished around in my pocket and dug out some change. He looked at me questioningly. My old stage training came back to me. I could almost hear my first employer, a stage magician, talking to me as I walked the coins across my knuckles.
"Patrick, the trick doesn't mean that much. It is all about the presentation. Grab their attention, draw them in... make even the most mundane things part of an interesting story. If you can do that, the trick is almost an afterthought."
I did a french-drop (a slight of hand) on each and every quarter before I fed it in the machine. Jack laughed every time, because he is a great audience. He didn't even hold it against me that I fumbled the third one a little bit and got my angles wrong. (My hands haven't been trained and suited for stage magic in well over a decade at this point.)
Finally, once all the change was in the machine, I looked down at him and waggled my eyebrows. With a grand gesture, I punched the button to get a bottle of Cherry Coke. The machine rattled and bumped. His delighted face looked dismayed for a moment. And then the brightly colored bottle flew out the bottom of the machine and into the bay. Jack picked it up and marveled at it, an expression of wonder on his face.
I thought of my own father just then. When I was younger, he would pick me up from school on Friday afternoons. On the way home, we used to always stop at the same deli and get a Cherry Coke. I was sat up on the counter, and allowed to drink straight out of the can, just like he did. I remember that when I was that age, that was the best feeling in the world. I got to drink a drink just like my father.
I hadn't thought about that in twenty years, but something about the experience with Jack knocked the memory loose. I smiled.
I plopped him on my lap and we took turns sipping the soda and watching the wind move through the trees. It was a breezy day, and the movement of the branches was almost hypnotic.
Finally, Jack started to squirm, signalling that our little moment together was over and it was time to move on to more important things, like lunch. I thought about all the ingredients I'd bought especially for the lunch, to make a spectacularly good grilled cheese sandwich. When you don't have a lot of money, the indulgences you get for your child almost have to be culinary, and simple to boot.
Miraculously, he kept from raising hell long enough for me to throw together a pretty respectable lunch. As we divided up the crusty, cheesy bread, he popped it in his mouth with amazement. I realized after the fact that he'd never eaten anything with garlic-butter before.
It's the funniest thing to see the world through the eyes of your child.
Coke, Florida mornings, grilled cheese... these things are about as mundane as I could imagine. Hell, if I'm to be totally honest, I am pretty mundane myself. But to my child, I'm the gatekeeper for all the world's arcane secrets... always just a Saturday away from exposing him to something that is totally delightful and utterly magical in its novelty. I don't doubt that my own father felt the same way in those weekly stops when I was a boy.
It has been years since I performed magic on a stage. I remember what it was like back then, an oddly well-spoken child performing with one of the best people-readers I've ever met. At the time, I remember feeling applause from the audience after a trick and thinking that it was absolutely the best feeling in the world. I lived for the look of astonishment on peoples' faces, the squeals of delight.
Little did I know that I would have to wait another twenty years to meet the best audience of my life.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Stages of Post-Trial Recovery
A friend asked me to detail this whole process, so I will do so here. I should point out that the severity and length of these phases are directly proportional to the length and intensity of the trial.
1. Immediately Post-Trial: Beer and Recap
In my experience, two things are absolutely necessary after nerve-fraying time spent in front of a jury. The first is a cold beer. Preferably on tap, but something in a bottle will do if it tastes decent, so long as it is transferred to the mug of my choosing. For me, cracking open a beer after a trial is the psychological reverse of putting on the suit before jury selection. As one begins the process, so the other ends it.
The beer must also be paired with another human being. After any trial, I've got something to share. Maybe it is funny. Maybe it is sad. Maybe it is just confusing. Regardless, something noteworthy happened, and the noteworthy thing was wrapped up in a veritable sea of other data. Having another set of ears is critical to the whole mess making sense and slowly forcing its way into my cosmology.
2. A Few Hours After the Fact: Holy Shit, I'm tired!
I can't speak for other trial attorneys, but in the days immediately preceding the trial, as well as during the trial itself, my body and I make a bizarre compact. My body will, for the duration of the trial, overlook its usual demands such as food and sleep. This can be extremely useful in those frantic hours of preparation before and during. However, there is the price afterwards.
The first thing I get back is my appetite. I've been known to overlook multiple meals during the trial period. Usually a few hours after the trial, I get insanely hungry. I'm talking "eat a large pizza by myself" hungry. I've been known to go to a restaurant and order dinner twice, much to the confusion of my server.
It is worth mentioning that the food eaten in this period is not healthy food. This is 100% indulgence-ville, population: Me. If it isn't fried, bread-related, cheese-bearing, tasty meat, or Japanese... I probably don't want it. In my old age, I've at least started to exercise some restrain in my diet. Phase 2 is my brief respite from that, so that I can appease the stomach gods.
Usually this gorging is immediately followed by the the other thing I've been putting off: sleep. Once I'm no longer adrenalized, my post-adjudicatory feast is followed by at least six or seven hours of sleeping like the dead. Sad as it is to say it, that's a long period of sleep for me. I'm usually a light sleeper, but this is different. My wife coming in or getting out of bed won't wake me up. Nothing short of physical blows will. Evidently, last night, I inadvertently locked our bedroom door while she was out watching TV. No amount of knocking could wake me up, so she unwillingly slept on the couch... I'll be bringing her Starbucks at work this afternoon.
Moving on...
3. The Morning After: I can brain again!
Post-trial, my various systems come back online in order of complexity, with the most sophisticated, my mind, coming back at the last.
A jury trial is an extraordinary mental exercise. You've got to know your case backwards and forwards: all the facts that you are using, as well as your opponent. You pass them through the filters of evidence law and theatrical showmanship. You do all that while making a proper appellate records. You also have to function as a sort of half-assed psychologist, helping your client keep it together in front of the audience (read: jury).
In short, you spend hours being as brilliant, persuasive, intuitive, and cunning as you possibly can. It is exhausting.
I retain my mental agility for phase 1, but once I hit phase 2? Forget it. I'm a mindless oaf. My brain has done its work. It is no longer scared or excited. It just wants to rest. You doubtless would not enjoy my company at one of my post-trial "double dinnners", because I eat like a man doing a job. A man possessed, even. There's no witty discussion. Just food.
After food and a decent night's sleep, I start acting like my normal self. Once properly caffeinated, I may even attempt jokes and witticisms. That said, this "mental recovery" can get pretty squirrelly. Depending on the level of strain, it might take as long as two days for the brain to regain its full capacity. At present, I'm two days out from a trial and I still feel a smidge dumber than usual.
4. The Evening After: Jesus Christ, look at all this shit that has piled up!
Of course, affairs such as a jury trial are labor intensive. The practice of law consists of a thousand little jobs that you regularly do to keep clients happy and cases moving. Trial preparation and practice force you to put about five hundred of those jobs on hiatus so you can be ready. The problem is that the workload does not know that you are at trial, and frankly, it doesn't care. It keeps piling up like a petulant, scorned mountain.
Once you've mostly regained your faculties, you start to notice all the stuff you haven't been doing it. After a trial week, my voice mail and letter bin are usually explosively full. That has to be dealt with. There are new cases to review and clients to talk to.
Your reward for working your ass off is to work your ass off some more, catching up.
It is no different at home. If there are a thousand little jobs that keep a law practice running, there are a million required to run a house with a toddler in it. There's a certain amount of triage that goes on when I am at trial. While I marginally give a damn about dishes, laundry, and vacuuming when things are normal, that quantum of "give a damn" dwindles down to nothing during a trial. As a result, my home is usually a reeking pit once I am done with a trial.
That said, all that mindless manual labor is good opportunity for brain recovery.
And that concludes it. By the time I get everything caught up, the roller-coaster is over and I am back to situation normal. I am sure most other trial attorneys have their own unique phases of recovery, and the associated practices to go with them, but those are mine.
1. Immediately Post-Trial: Beer and Recap
In my experience, two things are absolutely necessary after nerve-fraying time spent in front of a jury. The first is a cold beer. Preferably on tap, but something in a bottle will do if it tastes decent, so long as it is transferred to the mug of my choosing. For me, cracking open a beer after a trial is the psychological reverse of putting on the suit before jury selection. As one begins the process, so the other ends it.
The beer must also be paired with another human being. After any trial, I've got something to share. Maybe it is funny. Maybe it is sad. Maybe it is just confusing. Regardless, something noteworthy happened, and the noteworthy thing was wrapped up in a veritable sea of other data. Having another set of ears is critical to the whole mess making sense and slowly forcing its way into my cosmology.
2. A Few Hours After the Fact: Holy Shit, I'm tired!
I can't speak for other trial attorneys, but in the days immediately preceding the trial, as well as during the trial itself, my body and I make a bizarre compact. My body will, for the duration of the trial, overlook its usual demands such as food and sleep. This can be extremely useful in those frantic hours of preparation before and during. However, there is the price afterwards.
The first thing I get back is my appetite. I've been known to overlook multiple meals during the trial period. Usually a few hours after the trial, I get insanely hungry. I'm talking "eat a large pizza by myself" hungry. I've been known to go to a restaurant and order dinner twice, much to the confusion of my server.
It is worth mentioning that the food eaten in this period is not healthy food. This is 100% indulgence-ville, population: Me. If it isn't fried, bread-related, cheese-bearing, tasty meat, or Japanese... I probably don't want it. In my old age, I've at least started to exercise some restrain in my diet. Phase 2 is my brief respite from that, so that I can appease the stomach gods.
Usually this gorging is immediately followed by the the other thing I've been putting off: sleep. Once I'm no longer adrenalized, my post-adjudicatory feast is followed by at least six or seven hours of sleeping like the dead. Sad as it is to say it, that's a long period of sleep for me. I'm usually a light sleeper, but this is different. My wife coming in or getting out of bed won't wake me up. Nothing short of physical blows will. Evidently, last night, I inadvertently locked our bedroom door while she was out watching TV. No amount of knocking could wake me up, so she unwillingly slept on the couch... I'll be bringing her Starbucks at work this afternoon.
Moving on...
3. The Morning After: I can brain again!
Post-trial, my various systems come back online in order of complexity, with the most sophisticated, my mind, coming back at the last.
A jury trial is an extraordinary mental exercise. You've got to know your case backwards and forwards: all the facts that you are using, as well as your opponent. You pass them through the filters of evidence law and theatrical showmanship. You do all that while making a proper appellate records. You also have to function as a sort of half-assed psychologist, helping your client keep it together in front of the audience (read: jury).
In short, you spend hours being as brilliant, persuasive, intuitive, and cunning as you possibly can. It is exhausting.
I retain my mental agility for phase 1, but once I hit phase 2? Forget it. I'm a mindless oaf. My brain has done its work. It is no longer scared or excited. It just wants to rest. You doubtless would not enjoy my company at one of my post-trial "double dinnners", because I eat like a man doing a job. A man possessed, even. There's no witty discussion. Just food.
After food and a decent night's sleep, I start acting like my normal self. Once properly caffeinated, I may even attempt jokes and witticisms. That said, this "mental recovery" can get pretty squirrelly. Depending on the level of strain, it might take as long as two days for the brain to regain its full capacity. At present, I'm two days out from a trial and I still feel a smidge dumber than usual.
4. The Evening After: Jesus Christ, look at all this shit that has piled up!
Of course, affairs such as a jury trial are labor intensive. The practice of law consists of a thousand little jobs that you regularly do to keep clients happy and cases moving. Trial preparation and practice force you to put about five hundred of those jobs on hiatus so you can be ready. The problem is that the workload does not know that you are at trial, and frankly, it doesn't care. It keeps piling up like a petulant, scorned mountain.
Once you've mostly regained your faculties, you start to notice all the stuff you haven't been doing it. After a trial week, my voice mail and letter bin are usually explosively full. That has to be dealt with. There are new cases to review and clients to talk to.
Your reward for working your ass off is to work your ass off some more, catching up.
It is no different at home. If there are a thousand little jobs that keep a law practice running, there are a million required to run a house with a toddler in it. There's a certain amount of triage that goes on when I am at trial. While I marginally give a damn about dishes, laundry, and vacuuming when things are normal, that quantum of "give a damn" dwindles down to nothing during a trial. As a result, my home is usually a reeking pit once I am done with a trial.
That said, all that mindless manual labor is good opportunity for brain recovery.
And that concludes it. By the time I get everything caught up, the roller-coaster is over and I am back to situation normal. I am sure most other trial attorneys have their own unique phases of recovery, and the associated practices to go with them, but those are mine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)