Went to Border's today. I got a couple of albums, a remaindered Calvin & Hobbes collection, and The Wooden Sea, Jonathan Carroll's latest, which I came home and read. I was disappointed. It reminded me of After Silence, which is also left me cold. Both books have so much to do with middle-age, and raising children, and male adolescence, and I don't really relate to any of those subjects. And involving aliens struck me as a huge error. Carroll's books always involve magic in some way, and either you can accept that or you can't. Bringing in super-powerful aliens, who are on a mission from God, as the instigators of magical occurrences seemed unnecessary, and maybe they weren't aliens, but then why say that they are? It turned the book from good fantasy into bad science fiction.

Maybe the narrator was just too darned nice. Usually Carroll's narrators make questionable moral decisions, and show flaws, and screw up their relationships. This one was so kindly and well-adjusted that I kept waiting for him to reveal some deep dark secret, but it never happened.

I still enjoyed it, or I wouldn't have finished it in a few hours, but it's probably going to be a while before I feel moved to reread it. When I really like a book, I sometimes turn straight back to the beginning after finishing the last page, so I can catch whatever I missed the first time.

I heard and read a few stupid things over the past few days. Well, I hear stupid things all the time, but these stuck out as being particularly moronic.

Item the first: Regarding China

I listen to a local Christian radio station sometimes. I don't want to badmouth the whole thing, so I'll say that a few of the shows are simply educational (and my knowledge of Bible-lore needs work). And there are a few that I don't listen to often, but they seem to be pretty decent, even if I don't agree with the theological slant.

And then there's Janet Parshall. She's awful. Condescending and self-righteous and she uses words incorrectly (and used to be a teacher, apparently) and, wow, she bugs me. So I try to catch her show whenever I can, just to see how long I can stand to listen to her.

Anyway, on Thursday or Friday, she had some guests on her show to discuss China. I only heard the tail end of the show, unfortunately. So maybe I missed some context. I don't know who her guest was; someone who'd just written a big book on how China will destroy us all, as far as I can tell. They were taking calls as well, so I'm not sure which statements came from the guest and which were from callers, but it doesn't really matter. This is what I learned:

The only advantage we have over China is our military and our economy. Now, this doesn't seem like a particularly stupid statement on the face of it. It seems pretty accurate, in fact. The part that bugged me was that this was made to sound threatening. As in, "The only thing standing between us and a Chinese Commie invasion is our incredible wealth and our high-tech military might! Panic!" I'm not saying that we shouldn't be concerned about China from a strategic standpoint, but those seem like pretty significant advantages to me.

They also spent some time talking about what would happen if all trade between China and the U.S. was halted. And focused on how bad that would be for the U.S., because we get a lot of manufactured goods from China. The guest, and several callers, discussed how we'd have to get along without new sneakers and so on. Okay, fine. Nobody -- not one person -- wondered what China would do without the billions of dollars generated by this trade. I'm horribly undereducated about economics, so maybe I'm missing something obvious, but it sure seems like that would have some consequences for China. And that maybe it'd be worth discussing them, if you're actually interested in doing something besides generating paranoia.

...Oh. Okay. Now I get it.

Item the second: My old pal, Stephen Hunter.

Good ol' Steve has an article in Sunday's Washington Post. I think "fair use" covers a few relevant quotes, so I've included them below with some comments.

The article in question is headlined, "Hollywood's War Machine: Peacetime -- and High-Tech Marvels -- Fuel a Ferocious Thirst for Battle." Like most of Hunter's think-pieces, it rambled on without any clear point. It was sort of about the upcoming blockbuster "Pearl Harbor," and sort of about how WW2 movies were hip now, and how their themes had changed over the years, and sort of about special effects technology. So here are a few snippets:

I would track the initiation of this trendlet [of World War II movies] not to "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), which represents the artistic ne plus ultra of the genre, but to "The English Patient." That 1996 film featured no combat or missions, and was moreover a postmodernist document with difficulties of meaning and narrative comprehensibility. Nevertheless it had the effect of restoring the Second World War to imaginative importance and underscoring the spectacle, the bigness, of the thing.

It taught an otherwise historically unlettered generation just exactly how great a deal that war had been, and why their grandpas still went all somber when it was invoked.

1. "Just exactly?" "Went all somber?" Again, I cry to the heavens, "Give this man an editor!"

2. Based on the comments about "grandpas," I'm gonna guess that the "historically unlettered generation" in question would be mine. People born between 1961 and 1981. Now, I don't want to argue about how poorly educated some of my peers are. I might point out that any faults in our education might be the responsibility of those who designed and administered our schools, but that would be petty.

3. And it would distract me from a more important point. Namely, that Gen-X didn't flock to see "The English Patient." A three-hour Miramax drama starring largely unknown Europeans. Remember how we waited in long lines at art house theaters to see that one, while our parents raced to the mall to see moves that had a wide release at the same time? Like, oh, "Jerry Maguire" and "Star Trek: First Contact" and "Scream?"

4. Even if I grant that hordes of twenty-somethings raced to see "The English Patient" -- okay, I've never been able to sit through the damn thing in its entirety, but is it my imagination, or is the war a fairly minor part of the movie? The war is background, there aren't any epic battle scenes. It could have been set in any war. So how did it teach the audience anything about WW2?

I omit the disappointing "Thin Red Line" for many reasons, but mainly because it failed to suggest battle with the ferocity and reality of the others.

I read this portion to Johanna, and we spent a few mintues speculating as to exactly what drugs Hunter is on, and how often he has to take them. The "others" alluded to are: "Saving Private Ryan," "U-571," and "Enemy at the Gates." "The Thin Red Line" doesn't have battle scenes of ferocity and reality? It's a long, slow movie, yes. It has flaws, sure. I fell asleep on the couch watching it once. And the battle scenes woke me up. They were nasty and graphic and scary, and I'm having trouble comprehending how someone could dismiss them that casually.

Though both "Longest Day" and "Ryan" are artifices, they carry opposite metaphorical meanings: The Zanuck version has to do with control and mass movement while the Spielberg version suggests chaos, slaughter, irrationality.

Why did he pick "The Longest Day?" Because it made for such good contrast. So it's easier not to mention how much SPR owes to "The Big Red One," which covered much of the same ground twenty years ago. (That should be cross-referenced with the "Why I hate Spielberg" list, to be completed if I can ever find a way to channel my loathing into words.)

In conclusion, I still hate Stephen Hunter. Oh, and the quoted portions of his article are ©2001 The Washington Post Company. And they oughta be ashamed.

I started reading From Hell last night. Stayed up late reading it, and then woke up early after having weird disconnected not-quite dreams that involved the book. (Nothing horrible; I was thinking about conversations in the book, and then I was thinking about things Alan Moore said to me, and then I woke up upon realizing that I'd never spoken to Alan Moore.) Anyway, today I came home, sat down, and four hours later, I finished it. My eyes hurt. A couple hundred pages of black & white comics will do that, I guess.

From Hell is by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and it's about Jack the Ripper. It's exhaustively documented; I'm one of those weirdoes who loves reading footnotes, so I was constantly turning to the back to read Moore's comments. I don't buy the proposed theory as to the murderer's motive, because I've never been able to believe in massive conspiracies.

In any case, solving the crime isn't really the point. And if you think I'm going to try and tell you the point of something by Alan Moore, you're nuts. At any rate, the appendices include a story called Dance of the Gull Catchers, which suggests that Moore isn't claiming that his is the final word. But Jack makes a dandy jumping-off point for observations about the Victorians, Freemasons, history and myth. And, of course, lots of fun historical anecdotes. Not to mention comments on our continuing fascination with a serial killer story that is relatively unimpressive (unfortunately) by modern standards.

I cannot begin to imagine how they're making a movie out of this book. It looks as if all of the esoteric references and explanations, which made the book special, will be lost, and there'll just be another Jack the Ripper horror movie to deal with. Pity. So go read the book.

Of course, I am still partial to a theory I worked out years ago, that Sherlock Holmes did it. I had this whole nice story worked out that I was ready to write, then I found someone else had beat me to it. Different details in some areas, but similar enough to convince me not to bother. (And that would be The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, in case you're curious.)

I desperately need new clothes, so I went to the mall. And I knew that I would stop at the comic store and spend a lot of money, because there are a couple of new TPBs out that I wanted. That was my reward for shopping.

All went as planned. Except that I spent much more than intended, because I wasn't expecting to find a stack of copies of From Hell. I also got the first Planetary TPB, various new issues that I won't list, and, at long last, Preacher: Alamo. Guess they were lying about the May release date. Or maybe that was just Amazon. It was the first thing I read when I got home.

So a few words about Preacher seem in order. I'm still having trouble figuring out what those words should be, though. "Sacralicious" (TM The Simpsons) springs to mind. It's terribly violent; Starr appears to have been created for the sole purpose of suffering all sorts of horrible -- and well-deserved -- abuse. The ending wasn't completely satisfying. I still have my doubts about Cassidy, but I have my own biases in that area. I cannot imagine how I'd have survived if I'd read the series in monthly installments, given that a very large number of characters die in the final issues.

My bookcases are organized. Yes, it took two evenings. Look, there wasn't any reason to rush, so I didn't, okay?

I also got distracted by weird discoveries a few times. For instance, in among my magazines I found two odd items. The first was an official program to the "2000 Fall Race Meet" at Churchill Downs. Now, I vaguely like horse racing. It's my favorite sport, simply because a race lasts around three minutes, and that's about all the time I care to devote to any organized sport. But I've never been to Churchill Downs, or any racetrack. I don't know anyone who's been to a horse race. In short, I have no idea how I got this program. None. I assume that someone I know had it for some reason, and passed it on to me because they thought I'd find it interesting. And I'm sure I didn't intend to keep it for six months, but it got accidentally shelved with the magazines. Which is fine, but still... who gave it to me?

I also have a copy of the Fall 2000 Indiana University Press catalogue. Again, I can understand how it might have gotten stuck in a pile of magazines and overlooked till now, but I don't know why I have it in the first place. Mighty peculiar.

If you'll allow me to ramble on a bit more about The Great Reshelving a bit more (and really, there's no way for you to stop me)... Gosh, I'm rough on books. An awful lot of my paperbacks have covers that are partly or completely torn off. I'm sure a lot of this is due to the lack of shelf space, since for a while I had to shove books in wherever they'd fit, and I wasn't always gentle about it. They're paperbacks, so I don't feel too guilty about that, but it was a bit sad when I kept having to reunite books with their covers. Over the weekend I may go through with some rubber cement and try to repair them.

And I actually weeded out a few books and magazines. My copy of Dracula is falling apart (it's another old paperback from a library book sale, so I got my fifty cents worth out of it) so it's gone to the great paper recycling plant in the sky. There were a few others that I decided to get rid of because I'm never going to read (or re-read) them. Only a handful, but every little bit helps.

Oh, and it looks like I was right in thinking I have about a dozen books I haven't read. It's a bit less depending on your definition: I have some short story collections that I haven't finished, simply because I like mixing short stories in as "snacks" between larger works. And then there are a few that I keep as reference books -- so no, I haven't sat down and read Bullfinch's The Age of Fable straight through, but I never planned to read it that way when I bought it. And then there's four or five other books that I started and then was distracted from, and now I'm waiting till I've forgotten them enough to start over. All in all, I feel pretty good about that. I half expected to find books that I'd never opened. Hooray for me.

Last night I started reading one of the books that falls into the "started but then put down and forgot about" category. It's actually a biography, sorta, called, George S. Kaufman and His Friends, by Scott Meredith. Guess what it's about? Wow, you're good. I'm just about 50 pages into it, but it's a nice breezy read -- no in-depth psychoanalysis, just the basic facts as a frame for lots of anecdotes. Occasionally it's unintentionally funny -- it was published in 1974, and you can catch a glimpse of how far feminism has come. The author mentions that the wives of Heywood Broun and Harold Ross were members of a woman's lib group and kept their maiden names after their marriage. After noting that Broun and Ross supported this idea, Meredith adds, in a parenthetical comment, "The fact that both marriages failed may or may not prove something." Er, yeah.

No new readings to report, because I've been kinda busy. But I have new bookcases! Finally. I've needed them for about a year; a couple of months ago I resorted to piling the paperbacks on top of the existing bookcases, and they nearly reached the ceiling in stacks that were two deep. But now that's just a horrible memory. I bought two, and they're large, so I can now fit all of my books on the bookcases in the living room. With room to spare. Like, several shelves worth of room. You have no idea how amazing this is.

I got the bookcases this afternoon, then spent a couple of hours putting them together (well, I took breaks) and then I had to take all the books off the existing shelves, so I could move 'em around, and then I fussed over how to fit all the bookcases where I wanted them to go, because they were wider than I expected, and it's a long, dull story, so I'll skip it. Even though I could write paragraphs about my living room arrangements, because I'm nuts. It was quite intimidating to have all my books in piles on every available flat surface while I moved shelves around. The coffee table had stacks of paperbacks, the loveseat and three chairs were piled high, it was sorta scary. And annoying, since I had nowhere to sit. When I reshelved them, I just sorted by paperback/trade/hardback, because if I'd gotten into sorting by author and genre it would have taken hours. That's tomorrow's project.

And after I'd done that, there was more room! So wonderful! I dragged out the comics, and the magazines I keep (Spy and The Door) and the Doonesbury collections and yearbooks and all the stuff that had been on a very small bookcase in my bedroom, and even after that there's still room! Makes me want to go buy a few dozen books right now! Ha ha! I've lost my mind! Whee! Excuse me while I go hyperventilate.

Sorry. I'm better now. As I said, tomorrow I'm gonna go through the horrific process of actually arranging the books, and while I'm at it I want to see how many books I own that I haven't read. My friend Niels asked me about that a few months ago, and I guessed it was under a dozen, so I'm curious to find out if that's accurate or if, as usual, I'm deluding myself.

Oh, and I also got to have some fun arranging all of my toys in their assigned places on top of the bookcases. Y'know, the action figures, the Happy Meal Animaniacs toys, the Velociraptor with articulated toe-claws. All that stuff. They all fit, too. God, I love my bookshelves. But I'm never going to be able to move, because I don't want to have to unshelve and move all of the crap that's so neatly sorted on them.

Of course, I may change my opinion on that when I realize that I need more room for all of my bookshelves.

Have I mentioned how irritated I am that the final Preacher book won't be out until May? No? Well, I'm very, very irritated.

I also finished Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman. It's a collection of essays about her love of books, her passion for words, and her neurotic proof-reading. It's marvelous. Fadiman mixes personal details in with general observations wonderfully, which is something I love in essays. She also covers most of the traits of bilbiomania: going to used bookstores for her wedding anniversary; reading books for the margin notes. And there's a hysterical, heavily footnoted essay about plagiarism, which was probably my favorite. Footnote gags never get old.