I have very little Irish blood in me. Most of it is Scottish and English. A dollop of French. However, growing up in Canada, I was blessed with an abundance of Irish and Scottish music. The Irish Rovers, who were Canadian immigrants by the way, were a mainstay of Sunday night television (as I recall—I associate them with Sunday, at least). One segment of this music variety show was often a little story told by Will Millar that went under the heading “Tales to Warm Your Heart” (they have an album of the same name, and a song with that title). Somewhere among the relics of my childhood I have a kid’s book by Millar that contains illustrated poems, but I can’t find any reference to it online. In my mind it also has that title, but I may be wrong. I’ll have to see if I can find it sometime. Might turn out to be rare. Did you know that The Unicorn is based on a poem by Shel Silverstein?
Am I wearing green today? I don’t know. I’m sufficiently colorblind, though, that I can say (almost honestly), “I thought this was green.”
My monthly essay is up at Storytellers Unplugged today. It’s called Writing Through It.
I finished another short essay and turned it in this morning. Now I’m going to turn my attention to a novella (15,000-20,000 words) starting with a 10,000 word story that has never been marketed.
I finished Mystery by Jonathan Kellerman last night. The unlikely coincidence that takes place in the opening pages is just that, a bit of synchronicity that has no place in a crime novel. The ending is really messy, and it takes Delaware several pages to explain how and why the crime took place…to the perpetrator. Not his best work, in my opinion. There’s an interesting scene where Robin accompanies him on a stakeout and, while it’s fun at first, after a while she starts cramping his style. Could have been explored more deeply, I thought.
Next up: The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly. It’s another Mickey Haller novel (the timing is good, since The Lincoln Lawyer comes out this weekend). Haller has turned to handling real estate eviction cases after his legal practice went soft due to the recession. No shortage of business, and he’s good at it, but one of his clients is charged with murdering the man who she blamed for trying to take her house away from her.
Jeff Probst live tweeted during Survivor this week, which was interesting. Perhaps a touch distracting. I understand the attraction of the interactive process, but do you really want to take eyeballs away from the screen? Plus, he refused to answer any of the tweets Jeff Strand or I sent during the show. Hmph. I found it interesting that they showed absolutely no reaction from any of the other players to Russell’s elimination. When Rob & what’s-his-name went to watch the Redemption Island joust, Rob didn’t yet know that Russell had been voted out, so he wouldn’t realize the significance of seeing Matt there. But the two players from Russell’s tribe should have been ooh-ing and aah-ing about Russell’s loss, especially since they were his allies (as much as Russell can have allies). And then during the challenge, there was no statement by Jeff to the effect of “getting your first look at the tribe without Russell.” Strange.
Matt is doing very well at Redemption Island, but he’s basically in solitary confinement, so I wonder how that’s going to factor into things as the days go by. All he’s got is rice. Maybe he’ll go berserk and kill someone! (Hmmm…short story idea….) Rob is such a good player, though. He knew how to deflect Matt’s question about why he voted him off without giving away a thing. I’d never play poker against him. And his con game switching out the clues to the immunity idol was a stroke of brilliance.
The Emily Prentiss arc came to an end on Criminal Minds this week. The opening quote was from Elizabeth Bear, who’s one of the show’s biggest fans. Every week she dissects the new episode on her LiveJournal, so it was a nice nod back at her. Good to see JJ back, though I suspect it’s a one-off reappearance. Too easy to get her confused with the newbie in long shots. A good wrap-up, though I don’t really understand the logic behind getting rid of those two characters. The switcheroo at the end was rewarding, though.
