In Troubled Times, Where Shall a Bruised Nation Turn for Soothing Ironic Distance?

I found myself drawn to this recent headline from The Onion: Nation's Crumbling Infrastructure Probably Some Sort Of Metaphor.

The satirical "newspaper" recounts recent infrastructure failures and notes that these failures are "forcing many to question whether the nation's rapidly deteriorating roads, contaminated drinking water and groundwater, and run-down schools could perhaps be a metaphor for something."

"Everywhere you turn you see improperly maintained railways, structurally deficient bridges—not to mention billions of gallons of untreated sewage flowing directly into our groundwater," said Adam Perry, a representative for the ASCE. "Is there an underlying message here? There are so many layers, and each one is so subtle and nuanced, that I'm hesitant to make any kind of blanket statement about what this means 'for America.'"

"I think our overstretched and increasingly obsolete infrastructure might symbolize something important," Perry added. "But what?"

I find myself missing that sort of irony-heavy satirical commentary now that the TV-writers' strike has darkened the nation's airwaves. I wonder where to turn for the acerbic commentary I once depended on The Daily Show to provide.

As it happens, commercial television is not the only place to find such content. As we turn away from reality-TV, we are rediscovering thoughtful, written cynicism in all manner of formats, from traditional printed books and magazines to on-line blogs and, for the more adventurous, personal conversation.

Aside from The Onion, there are other goofy-news sites such as ScrappleFace, McSweeney's and the (somewhat NSFW) Daily Mash over in the United Kingdom. There are sites featuring humorous writing in general, such as Francesco Explains It All. And the TV writers are creating new on-line video content in their own cause at Speechless.

So, as the writers' strike drags into a new year, and we resign ourselves to television without great wit, people around the nation are re-discovering the joys of literature, learning about alternate media, and indulging in conversation.

And some -- a brave few -- are starting to express their own, very personal, satire.

Delaware Photo Blogs

I've been thinking about posting an item about Kevin Fleming's Wild Delaware blog ever since I ran across it back in September. I did add it to my blogroll, but I am lazy and easily distracted and eventually other Delaware bloggers made note of Kevin's blog and started spreading the word.

Kevin is Delaware's premier photographer. His are the coffee-table books we give when we want to give the gift of Delaware-ness. I had the privilege of meeting and being photographed by Kevin back in the spring of 2006; I'm a fan.

But Kevin is not the only one taking cool photos in our state. I've collected links to at least eight other Delaware photography blogs and even more Delaware photography web sites. So I thought I'd present a selection of those sites too. In absolutely no discernible order.

Tony Pratt also photographs nature in this area. Tony is an old friend I worked with at DNREC many years ago. He works in beach preservation and spends much of his time on the shoreline, in the dunes, and working with property owners. He is also a former Lewes leader; he helped write the City's first comprehensive plan, which I have now been part of updating.

Remind me to tell you the story sometime about working down the Delaware Coast with Tony and Mike Powell early one morning in January, 1992, during a major Nor'Easter. We were taking pictures (pre-digital cameras, unfortunately) of storm damage. It was an adventure.

I ran into Tony at the Dover Safeway one day recently. There's a decent salad bar in there and I often see colleagues wandering through at lunch time. Tony told me he'd started his own photo blog. He has been joining Kevin for early morning photography visits to area marshes. I think he's had pretty stunning results.

There are several other professional photographers with blogs. Laura Novak and Lance Lanagan both have studios and specialize in portraiture and weddings and such. There's also a blog for, by and about the Delaware Professional Photographers group.

And there are semi-pros.

Photodee blogs about her "adventures in knitting & photography." I don't know anything about knitting, but her photography is pretty cool.

Dave Wolanski has both a personal photoblog, Things I See, and a new Dave's Photo Tips blog where he offers advice and guidance on shooting with digital cameras.

And So That Happened... was a photo-a-day blog that was active from late 2004 through this past spring.

There are also bloggers who, like me, making photography a part of what they post, if not the main focus. These include, and I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out, Delmar Dustpan, Elbert (with an "E"), and The Happy Hippie.

And finally, many of us also post Delaware photography to one of several flickr groups focused on the first state or to the Delaware.gov collection of photo collections.

''Oh, my god, the fan fiction.''

StumpJumper, over at Denied Intervention, points us to a story in the New York Times about the sexual orientation of a major character in the Harry Potter books: J.K. Rowling Outs Hogwarts Character.

At a reading and Q&A session, author Rowling was asked by a young fan whether Albus Dumbledore, the powerful and positive grandfather figure who leads the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Magic, ever finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

I don't think Ms. Rowling intended to imply that being gay precludes finding true love. She went on to explain that the great wizard had had a tragic love affair earlier in life. I think that puts him into the "only one great love" category of fictional folk.

My take on elderly deus-ex-old-guy characters like Dumbledore is that they exist beyond the age of any romantic entanglement. And for the span of time covered by the Potter that seems to be the case.

Of course, any good writer will know the back-story of all of her characters. And given that a percentage of any group of humans is gay, it makes sense that there should be some gay folks in Harry Potter's world.

This Makes Me Feel Good

There is an organization known as The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH). That makes me feel better about life.

I got an e-mail today asking for nominations for the 2008 AATH Book Awards. The awards are set up to honor authors of books that further the mission of AATH: "to advance the understanding and application of humor and laughter for their positive benefits."

I was tempted to scoff at this as simply self-evident. But, while laughter in itself is good for you, it is also the case that, with training, one can build therapies on that fact and enhance the power of the smile.

There is a similar therapeutic effect with music. The Lovely Karen is a trained and certified Music Therapist. Music Therapy appears to be a bit further along as a profession, but I see a role of Humor Therapy as well.

Our neighbors Charlie and Nancy were involved in humor therapy for many years. They volunteered around the community as the clowns Happy G and O Lucky; we would see them in parades and at street festivals. We always thought it was simply their way to have fun.

Colleen interviewed them for a school project one evening and they explained to us about the deeper work they were doing, visiting the sick and dying and bringing cheer into hospitals.

I think that's pretty cool.

Book Signing

I got to have an author sign his book for me this past week-end. Tom Starnes, a retired Methodist minister I know through Karen's church, has published a memoir, Through Fear to Faith. He held a book-signing down at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach on Saturday morning and I stopped by.

Tom filled-in at Epworth United Methodist in Rehoboth some years ago when they were between ministers. Karen enjoyed his sermons and I liked him the few times I attended. Since then, we've seen him around a fair amount; he's retired here. And I get to play golf with him every once in a while when the Methodists have a fellowship golf outing.

I've mentioned Tom here before. He writes occasional Community View columns for the News Journal that I always enjoy. I look forward to reading his memoir.

Imagine My Surprise

I just finished a novel that is set, in part, in my home town, only in the late 1800s.

I had not realized that it would be set here in Lewes when I pulled Tunnell's Boys off the library shelf. I just did what I always do, I wandered along the New Books shelf and, judging them entirely by their covers, picked two to bring home and read. That approach usually works just fine.

Tunnell's Boys is a historical novel by Tony Junker, a Philadelphia architect and sailor. It tells the story of two young men who meet as apprentice Delaware River and Bay Pilots. It is set partly in Philadelphia, partly in Lewes, and partly on the Delaware River and Bay and on the Atlantic Ocean.

The sail and steam-powered boating in the book is very well told. Mr. Junker knows his boats and the moods of deep and shallow waters. It works just fine as a sea-going adventure.

Thematically, this book is about war and responsibility and the duties of men and women in the world. Mr. Junker is a Quaker, and uses his story to examine some of the larger issues of life from the perspective of Quaker practice. The story turns on the US war with Spain over Cuba. It holds some parallels for our foreign policy predicament of today.

What fascinated me, though, was to read a novel set in Lewes, Delaware. I don't know our history quite well enough to know how much license Mr. Junker may have taken, but I know enough to say that he has painted a plausible past for the First Town.

Much of the action takes place on the waters of the Bay. The characters live and work on a schooner that anchors behind the breakwater off Lewes. They discuss the need for a second breakwater, to expand the anchorage. This would be built eventually. The old Cape Henlopen Lighthouse is there on the dunes, but a major storm erodes away the sand at the base, and characters worry that it may soon slide away. I recognized street names and places. It felt right; it felt like Lewes in the days of sail.

I do wonder about Mr. Junker's addition of a brothel, run and staffed by Cuban emigres, to 19th-century Lewes. I am not sure whether that might be accurate or not, and I'm not sure who to ask. Should I go up to one of the elderly ladies of the Lewes Historical Society and ask? I suppose they might surprise me.

I also found myself thinking of local "coastal conservative" Jud Bennett as I read this book. Jud is now working his way up in politics, and blogging. But he was once a Delaware River and Bay Pilot. I could see Jud, a big guy, bushy-bearded and commanding, climbing onto the deck of a three-masted ship and piloting her up from Lewes the Philadelphia.

In fact, I used Jud's face in my internal movie for one of the characters in the book.

I had thought to read another sea-story, fun and salty but nothing special. Instead, I found a sort of history machine, taking me back in my town's time.

Filed in:

• Delaware
• Bay
• Book
• Lewes

I Have The Name, Now I Just Need The Rest of My New Band

I heard the phrase that will be the name of my famous rock band this week. I was listening to NPR's story, (The Secret Court of Terror Investigations) when the three words I've been waiting for my whole life were uttered, as part of this sentence: "While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us."

"Radical Militant Librarians"

Just picture it. Me, backed by a band made up of slender, severe- looking women dressed in gray wool skirt-suits (with skirts reaching at least mid-calf), accented by combat boots and bandoleers bristling with books.

Now appearing, Mike and the Radical Militant Librarians.

Happy Birthday, Mike's Musings!

This blog started one year ago today. I began, as one does, with a test post. I also tested uploading a picture (this was well before I discovered Flickr), linked to an odd story I found out on the web, and late that night discovered that I’d chosen a name too much in haste.

Over the past year I’ve had a great deal of fun with this thing. I have reviewed books and movies and blogged about music. I have tracked and memorialized old friends. I have touched on issues, both local and national. I have lamented lamentable events such as the tsunami and the recent hurricane.

I’ve explored my family history. And reported on family present. I have given weather reports. I have given travelogues.

I have become a braggart.

I have bragged about my car, bragged about my kids and the neat things they do, and bragged about my work. I have (painfully) documented a year’s worth of health and dental woes. I find that bragging about forbearance helps me bear up in the face of things that otherwise scare me.

Behind all of it is the patience and love of my wonderful wife, Karen. It is her considered opinion that I spend too much time on line. She’s right of course, and I will try to mend my ways.

As soon as I finish this post!

Some Books

I finished Bob Dylan's book the other day. Chronicles, Vol. 1 is an interesting book. It is not a rock-star memoir. Dylan seems to not want to be a rock star, though he writes fascinating details about wanting to sing and play the music.

What struck me about this book is that it holds up as a book whether its author is a famous rock star or not. This is a literate look at the early folk music scene when Dylan was young, his mid-life as a celebrity, and his re-discovery of the joy of performing late in life.

I also took a day or two to read 21, the unfinished few chapters of what would have been the next Aubrey/Maturin novel from Patrick O'Brian. I had been looking forward to this read, and I will say I enjoyed it. It also made me sad, though. I miss O'Brian's writing.

Book Review: Good Omens

Good Omens is a novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett that follows the efforts of a motley crew angels, devils, apocalyptic horsemen/bikers and witchfinders to (variously) avert, cause, take part in, or figure out the apocalypse. It has good and evil, lots of biblical references, and a total screw-up of Armageddon. Funny.

The book came out back in 1990. I stumbled on it at a book wholesaler and decided to take a look. I'd read and enjoyed books by Gaiman (American Gods and Neverwhere) and had heard of Pratchett (I may have read some of his stuff; I have a leaky memory for light novels), so why not?

I have also found word that Good Omens is a movie project, if on hold, for Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python alumnus and director of Time Bandits and Brazil (two of my movie favorites). I like what Gilliam had to say in an interview with SCI FI Wire about why the Good Omens movie has been hard to get financing for:

"Unfortunately, I think our timing was rather bad, because we turned up in Hollywood in November of 2001 talking about a comedy film about the apocalypse. That was just bad timing."

No doubt. Still, I hope the film gets made. There's not enough of this sort of silliness around. I think silliness might be a help, or at least a relief, right now.