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Probably a significant portion of the US population was watching the NCAA men’s basketball championship last night. I didn’t but my NCAA championship is also this week — the Frozen Four.
NCAA hockey flies way under the radar in most of the country. Yet the Frozen Four comes amidst the best time of year for hockey fans. The conference and regional tournaments leading up to it have taken place over the last several weeks. The NHL playoffs start Wednesday night. The Stampede start the playoff quest for their second straight USHL Clark Cup Championship with home games Wednesday and Friday. Unfortunately, I will be en route to and in Denver so will miss those games. I’m hopeful, though, that some of the NHL playoffs will be available on TV at the hotel, especially since the Minnesota Wild are playing the Colorado Avalanche.
Playoff hockey is often touted because of the increased intensity of the play. But there’s one other thing, at least locally and at the college level, that makes it far different from the regular season. The real (diehard, if you prefer) fans are the ones showing up for the games, creating an entirely different atmosphere than the regular season.
I hope those who are into it enjoyed tonight’s basketball game. I’m still too busy looking forward to true hockey excitement.
It was the excitement of speed and grace, with the puck for catalyst, to give it reason, meaning.
William Faulkner, An Innocent at Rinkside
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today and Bob Dylan nabbed one. Not for a particular book for a piece of music. Instead, he was given a special citation “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” I’m sure Dylan could really care less but it’s well-deserved.
When it comes to the book awards, I am once again among the illiterati, not having read any of the winners or finalists. In fiction, the award went to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Since it also won the National Book Critics Circle Award last month, I may have to pick it up. (Riverhead Books). The other finalists were Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (another book that has been on my “maybe” list), and Shakespeare’s Kitchen by Lore Segal.
The history (U.S.) award went to Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. Earning finalist nods were Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek and The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, the last work by David Halberstam, who died just before its publication. History also made a mark in the general nonfiction category, where The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer won with the other finalists being The Cigarette Century by Allan Brandt and The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (the latter having won the NBCC award for criticism).
Finally, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson won the biography award over The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein by Martin Duberman and The Life of Kingsley Amis by Zachary Leader.
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
“Ballad of a Thin Man,” Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
Due in part to the recent successfully resolved problems with the home desktop, I have been somewhat lackadaisical in noting items elsewhere. Thus, a few of these may be a little old but they remain worthy. I also know there’s some that totally slipped by during a busy couple weeks.
Every idea is an incitement.
Gitlow v. New York, Justice Holmes dissenting
Seems that book reviewing “rules” and ideas are showing up in a variety of blog posts recently. Last weekend, Author Jeff VanderMeer, who also occasionally reviews books, weighed in with his thoughts on book reviewing as a whole (and lists some of the posts that prompted his thoughts). He lists eight things he tries to do in connection with any review.
I don’t know that I’ve ever articulated any set of rules myself. And I’ll admit there may be one or two times I’ve violated his sixth principle, sarcastic asides. None come to mind but the potential is there and I’ll let others judge. That said, I think the real meat of VanderMeer’s post isn’t necessarily in the enumerated items. Rather, it’s this paragraph from “a few other things” he tries to keep in mind:
I always try to tell the truth as I see it, regardless of how others may perceive me or the review as a result. Admittedly, there are good reasons sometimes for revealing the truth gradually, or allowing the reader of the review to do some work in interpretation, but you must tell the truth.
I’m certainly not picking nits with whether this should have been an enumerated item or not. I just think that’s perhaps rule number one when it comes to reviews — or anything else a person publishes or posts (excluding satire or the like).
And I also think he’s right on the mark in noting that “most of it has to do with being fair, honest, and forthright.”
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.
Kurt Vonnegut, NYT Book Review, Jan. 6, 1985
Prompting a bit of attention in the book blogosphere this week is a NY Times blog post on the Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing. At first glance, I thought it unlikely I had sinned by using the words (poignant, compelling, intriguing, eschew, craft, muse, lyrical). When I checked, though, I have committed a few offenses.
In looking at my book reviews, “compelling” is the deadly word I’ve used most. It shows up in nine reviews. Close behind is “intriguing,” appearing in seven reviews. Twice a variation of “craft” has appeared. Overall, though, I don’t think that’s bad. That’s a grand total of 18 instances in the course of reviewing more than 130 books. And I never used the words in the same review.
Thus, I’m inclined to think I feel compelled to use compelling only when I actually find something compelling and am intrigued only when I actually find something intriguing. Now perhaps my usage of the terms has not been 100 percent accurate. Still, one thing I know for sure is that if I ever describe a book or book passage as lyrical, I shall eschew book reviews for good.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. …. We fashion things to suit the occasion or the person or our own needs in the moment.
George Carlin, The Progressive (July 2001)
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