Day 13: Play the Game

There are things about the final season of Game of Thrones that I'm enjoying, but there are things about it -- as well as the previous one -- that just haven't worked. Both people all over the internet and the people in my daily world who watch it are having some real problems with the way this show is going out. Today I'm going to explain what the problems are.

I'm fully aware that not everyone watches Game of Thrones, even though a whole bunch of millions of people do. I didn't follow it until maybe the fifth season or so. It's a good show, albeit a brutal one when it comes to violence and a complete disregard for life. There is only one more episode remaining as I write this.

This final season only has six episodes to it, which didn't seem like much when they announced it, and it really isn't. Sure, they're longer episodes, but that isn't really the point. The point is there are only six of them. And that's the problem.

Episodic television, especially in a show like GoT that jumps between so many concurrent storylines, has limits on what can be accomplished regarding story advancement or character development in any one episode. These past two seasons have seen the show runners trying to bring big fireworks in every episode. That could mean a huge battle, a significant death, a revealed secret, a meeting of characters meant to pay off fandom hopes. This is not how the show has worked in the six previous seasons. Character arcs were given time to evolve. Plots were given time to ebb and flow and breathe before reaching a story climax. Tyrion's arc from killing his father to becoming the Hand of the Queen took forever in timeline, and because of that it felt authentic. Theon's arc from lying about killing Bran to becoming Ramsey Bolton's torture pet to being the man willing to give his life to defend Bran happened throughout the course of most of the show. These last two seasons? "Uh oh, white walkers! Better send a bird to the other side of the continent to the dragon queen so she can be here with her dragons before dark." Then "Yay! We just killed the Night King! Now, instead of taking time to recuperate and strategize like sensible warriors might, let's go dive into another battle of equal measure next Tuesday?"

A story that has been told over tens of thousands of pages and years of television shouldn't be abbreviated. It doesn't do the stories or the characters justice, or at least that's what it seems like is happening.

One episode to go. We'll find out how it all resolves itself next week.

Day 6: Digital Discord

These days my teaching partner is reading THE WESTING GAME to our classes at the end of the school day. The important thing to know here is that this book was originally published in the late 1970s.

A couple days ago there was a moment in the story when one of the characters was listening to a transistor radio. I’m very confident I was the only person in the room then who had actually done that in real life. After my cousins introduced me to American Top 40, I adopted my dad’s transistor radio and would listen to it with the 70s precursor of an earbud, which was an uncomfortable parabola of plastic you had to jam deep into your ear canal to hear. It also kept you tethered to the radio by a cord that couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches long. I didn't care. There was more than one night, especially if Casey Kasem’s weekly countdown was on, when I fell asleep with that thing stuck in my ear, or, if I couldn’t stand it anymore, with the radio volume turned way down so I could lie in bed on my side and balance the radio on my ear until I fell asleep.

It wasn’t long after that I was buying records, both albums and singles. Truthfully, it was usually albums. Having the hit song was good, but if it was a favorite band there was a good chance there would be deeper album tracks I’d like as well. When my parents bought a cassette deck, I started adding some tapes to the collection, which eventually led to an infinite parade of obsessively planned mix tapes. If you didn't know me back then and you think I ever would have made a mix tape for you for whatever reason -- you missed out. I had it down to an art form.

Compact discs came in college. My roommate Steve had a CD player and didn’t mind if I bought a few discs of my own for us to play. It wasn’t many years later until I had my own stereo in my first apartment, at which point my CD collection began to slowly take over my life. At least until the iTunes store went live and I bought the first in a series of several iPods, and downloaded more songs and albums than I will ever admit.

Somehow though, my evolution stopped there.

I still have two iPods, and I keep music on my phone. I’ll still buy and download most of the albums I listen to. I have maybe three CDs stashed in my car for emergencies, but I’ll usually listen to one of my six preset stations from the Twin Cities radio market. No streaming services, no satellite radio, no Alexa.

Television is basically the same way. I still haven’t cut the cable, and I rarely order up anything from On Demand. I have Netflix, but I hardly ever use it. With that in mind, what about all of these other streaming services, more than any of us could ever name? I’m sure they all have good shows, but am I really missing out if I don’t know anything about them?

If I subscribed to a music streaming service, how much of it would I use to really explore the potential of what’s out there I don’t already know? If I did unload cable this summer, how would I know which streaming services were really, truly essential for what I would want to watch?

And really, how much would any of that enhance my life more than being able to listen to the radio while reading a book on a summer afternoon as my dog naps beside me?

I'm kind of serious, though. Why would I ever consider getting a streaming service, either for music or television? For people that use them -- what am I missing?

Day 24: Video Games as a Psychological Profile

I started playing video games in the late 1970s, when one of my elementary school friends had an early version of Pong at his house. From there I evolved to text-based computer games and simple games of skill, to the arcade to consoles to even a brief (multi-year) flirtation with next-generation desktop gaming. These days my game playing usually happens on the iPad, or, when I have the time to invest, in something far more complicated on the XBox. Yes. I’m 50, and I own an XBox, and I make no apologies about this. Nobody who has ever played Bejeweled or Words with Friends or Candy Crush or any kind of casino slot game on their phone gets to look down on me. 

Video games of today involve problem solving, math, and have evolved to the degree that they’ve enabled the publication of thousand-page strategy guides. Sure, some are needlessly violent and yes, there are a lot of them kids are playing that kids shouldn’t even need to know about. But not to acknowledge them as legitimate is just wrong.

As the games I’ve played have become more intricately plotted and complicated, I’ve learned some things from them, both about myself based on my strategic choices and reactions to certain situations, and how to apply certain skills used in the games to daily life. Before anyone dismisses all of this as a trite defense of a time-wasting pursuit, allow me to share some truths about life I’ve learned from gaming, in one way or another:  

*Take the time to develop fundamental skills for something you want to do well. The time you invest will eventually pay off.

*Don’t foolishly charge into problems well beyond your skill set and expect to succeed.

*When faced with a seemingly overwhelming challenge, isolate the weak spots and approach it from unexpected directions.

*Think divergently when what seem like obvious solutions aren’t working.

*Manage your inventory, in whatever context this might mean. Only carry the things you’ll need and use.

*Choose your allies carefully. Find people who will compensate for your deficiencies and value what you have to offer.

*Don’t throw your money around. It’s a lot better to have enough when you really need it.

*Save your strongest arguments for when you’ll need them the most.

*Don’t let a pretty face make up your mind for you.

*Sometimes the quiet and subtle approach is the best way to get things done.

See? Not a complete waste of time. (Also, if anyone reading this has any recommendations for must-play console games I could tackle — and learn from? — this summer, I’m all ears.)

Day 5: Summer Movies 2018

I have entire seasons of three different shows saved on my DVR. I have two seasons of The West Wing left before I complete my 2018 re-watch. There are at least 10 different series on Netflix that I’m interested in watching. Hooray for Netflix! I could not be more happy about all of this television back up, because the summer movie crop this year does not look promising.

Usually in my May posts, I include one when I preview the upcoming summer movies and make predictions about the ones I’ll want to see based on the lists published all over the place this time of year. This year I had to stretch to get to nine. (*Note: I’m not including “Avengers: Infinity War” here because it came out in late April. I’ll be surprised if any of the movies on this list live up to it, though.)

Here we go with the tepid:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — It’ll probably at least be entertaining in a science-fiction action kind of way. I’d love to have higher hopes for this. Maybe it’ll come through.

Solo: A Star Wars Story — It’s Star Wars so I’ll go, but the previews haven’t really captured my interest. Maybe, hopefully, I’ll be surprised.

Deadpool 2 - Again, I’m sure it will be entertaining, but this really feels like the kind of sequel that gets made because the first movie was such a successful surprise that the studio thinks tries to give the audience what it wants, but only more of it. 

Incredibles 2 - The Incredibles was a great movie. Pixar rarely misfires. I have very high hopes for this.

Action Point - I recently worked my way through a slightly depressive patch of anxiety by watching and re-watching the Jackass movies, of all things. This movie stars Johnny Knoxville and is supposed to be about a theme park with so few safety guidelines it’s like if Jackass had its own theme park. There’s no possible way this can be any good, and I absolutely have to see it.

Tag - I’m looking forward to this. It’s about a group of friends who have been playing the same game of tag from childhood into at least middle age. For someone caught between watching games of tag at recess and spending much of my summer with cousins who look for any chance to start up a competitive game, there are too many ways to relate to this.

Ant-Man and The Wasp - Marvel. Of course it will be good. Plus maybe it will have a few hints about what happens after the Infinity War. 

Mission Impossible: Fallout - Tom Cruise usually makes good movies, and this series has a pretty good track record. 

Skyscraper - I can’t tell if this looks more like The Towering Inferno or Die Hard, but it has Dwayne Johnson on it, so it will probably be at least a way to fill a slow summer afternoon. 

So, in summary, like I said before: Hooray for Netflix.

The Spoiler-Free "Stranger Things" Binge

I’ve done several “kind-of” television binges over the past few years. For me, this involves watching somewhere between two and four episodes of a show per day until I’ve finished the season or the series. I typically save this behavior for when I’m on a break from school and have time to waste, because the hardest thing for me about ever doing a real binge of intentionally watching one episode right after another would be eating up so much time. I usually can only go a few hours at most before I start giving into the feeling that there has to be more important things for me to be doing other than just slowly wearing out my recliner. Today, however, was an exception.

I’ve been hearing and reading a lot about the excitement surrounding a new show on Netflix called "Stranger Things." I purposefully avoided learning what it was about, other than how it was billed as a type of throwback series similar to some of mildly-to-somewhat scary childhood adventure movies that those of us who came of age in the 1980s loved so dearly, like "The Goonies," "Poltergeist," "Ghostbusters," "Back to the Future," "E.T." or even "Big Trouble in Little China" — stories that put ordinary people (often kids our age) into fantastical situations. I decided if "Stranger Things" measured up to even half of the hype it was getting, it would be worth a day of television watching. Luckily there were only 8 episodes, and each of them came in at just under an hour. That added up to way more TV than I would ever accidentally watch in a 24-hour period, but it seemed manageable. 

When I woke up this morning knowing I planned on devoting the better part of a day to watching TV, I actually felt a little trepidation about it. In fact, even though I was up way too early for a Saturday, I started the day by finishing off a book I was reading, working through a chapter of revisions, and doing some house-cleaning, all so I hopefully wouldn’t feel like I had more important things to do. I gotta say, it worked like a charm. Even though I worked in breaks between most episodes, I pretty much watched the entire series straight through. 

I won’t spoil anything about it because I think it’s best to go into it knowing as little as possible, but I will say the tone was reminiscent of some of the movies I listed above, and it captured the time period in which it was set (the early 1980s) very well. Happily the whole show was also structured like a book, so each episode picked up right where the one before it had left off. In a lot of ways it was more like a seven hour movie than a series, or even like not so much listening to an audio book, but watching a video book. For me that’s usually a characteristic of a good show.

I can remember a handful of times from high school when I would get home from seeing one of those classic '80s adventures in a theater, and I’d still be pumped with creative fuel that needed burning off. Too often though, because there were some big high school dry spells when I wasn’t writing much, I never had the outlet I needed, and I’d end up lying in bed with my head too spun up for me to ever fall asleep. Today I got to take advantage of that same buzz, and hurried into the office to do some revision work after the episodes that left me with something in mind I thought I could use. 

If you haven’t seen "Stranger Things" yet and think you’d enjoy an adventure thriller focusing on kids (and some adults who seem to know less about what’s going on than the kids do), you should give this show a try. 

Maybe you won’t have the time to watch it straight through, but I think you’ll probably wish you could. 

Day 18: Media Shaming

One of my favorite memories about growing up in my family would be staying at our grandmother’s house, or getting together with cousins at our house or one of theirs, and frequently getting drawn into deep and rambling conversations that would last well into the night, sometimes even until the sunrise. 

I clearly remember a conversation like that I had with my cousin Chris years ago. We were at the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event in my hometown. I was staying up the entire night to chronicle my experiences for the local newspaper, and Chris had decided he was going to stay on the track and continue walking overnight until the relay ended at 6:00 AM. Which he totally did, by the way.

To keep myself awake and to support Chris, I spent a lot of my time walking with him. While we let our conversation wander through any number of topics, Chris brought up a point that had a big effect on how I saw the world. I had my iPod with me, and I said something about one of the songs on whatever playlist I had created for the night being a guilty pleasure. Chris pointed out that music should never be thought of as a guilty pleasure, because anyone lucky enough to have music that gives them pleasure has nothing to feel guilty about. Years later I was on a road trip with Chris and his wife, and I heard everything from Rob Zombie to Barry Manilow to Megan Trainor come up on his iPod; this is a guy who practices what he preaches. The only reason I’m citing those three examples is to highlight exactly how diverse his musical tastes are, and how he can enjoy and include all of them without shame. 

I almost said “shameless” there, but did a quick self-edit because the word didn’t fit. “Shameless” sounds more like when someone should be ashamed of something but they don't have the presence of mind to realize it. That’s not Chris.

Yesterday I was talking with a different Chris, the media guy at school (who seems to have become something of a secondary character in my May blog posts this year). He was telling me about a conversation he had with a friend that amounted to “If someone were to scroll through your iPod, what surprises would you have on it that wouldn’t fit with the rest of your music? What would be the song or the album you almost wouldn’t want other people to know was there?” I told him about what my cousin Chris had said, which he immediately agreed with. Here was a guy about my age who is currently reading through Chuck Klosterman’s scholarly heavy metal examination Fargo Rock City, and relates to it possibly even more than I do. We were in a group of people from school who saw AFI, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Linkin Park at State Fair two summers ago, and he’s proudly telling me how he could still sing along with almost every lyric on Air Supply’s greatest hits. Soon after that, my teaching partner wandered into the conversation and demonstrated how she could still recall not just the lyrics but even the cadence to the bridge in Metallica’s “One.”

I don’t know what high school is like now, but back in my day (I’m pulling a total Chris Hardwick Grandpa Gen X here) if you didn’t like the right music or even if you didn’t pick the right t-shirt at a concert you saw, that was reason enough to get you thoroughly ostracized. One of the reasons this was so effective back then is because, collectively, me and all the other high school jerks of the time allowed other people too much influence in dictating what we loved.

But why? Why should I care what music anyone else listens to, or if they’d like any of mine? As much as I reference Dream Theater on Facebook, what difference would it make if I’m the only reason someone has even heard of the band, or even realized it was band instead of an actual theater? 

If we share an interest, that can become a great connection. If we don’t agree, it shouldn’t matter because we can both still independently love what we have claimed as ours. And why should it stop at music? Thinking about this, I feel I owe an apology to someone I’m pretty sure is reading this, since only days ago I looked at her like she had three heads when she said she thought “The Big Bang Theory” is funny. Clearly I disagree. But what would that have to do with her? 

Movies, television shows (even reality TV), books, podcasts, magazines? Any kind of entertainment we consume, anything that we’re lucky enough to discover and love and claim as a part of our lives? We should all be able to own those choices without ever having to worry about someone else using any of them as a weapon of snark. I know I’ve done quite a bit of exactly that in my past, and even though it’s something I’ve tried to be more aware of in recent years, I know I’ll still slip from time to time. For that, I apologize to anyone I may have irritated by stupid little comments I probably found more amusing than they did. 

So like what you like, people. Own it proudly. Listen to your music, watch your movies, read your tabloids if they enrich your life in any way decide is meaningful. I promise to do my best to steer clear of cracking any jokes about your choices, as long as I can still listen to my progressive metal, play my video games, see my Marvel movies, and watch “Big Brother” three nights a week in the summertime.

Day 11: The 2016 Guest Post!

I stayed at school pretty late tonight. While driving home I thought, "Oh crap. I have NO idea what to write about for a post tonight." Then I remembered that my cousin John had already completed and sent me what he wrote up for this year's annual May blog marathon guest post. Originally we had it scheduled for this coming weekend, but he said since it was ready to go I could put it up whenever I wanted. I figured tonight would be a good night. The I stopped at Five Guys to pick up dinner and heard Toto's "Hold the Line" playing in the background, and knew then it was most definitely the right day to post this. 

A few months ago, John posted something on Facebook about how he was going to revisit his entire CD collection be listening to every single one of them in alphabetical order. I thought this was a brilliant idea, and would be exactly the kind of thing I'd try if I didn't have an obscene number of complete albums in my library, between the CDs and digital downloads. I told him I'd hope he'd keep us posted on his progress and what he learned about himself along the way. After a few of his updates, I knew I'd want him to write about the experience for my annual May guest post. Happily he obliged. 

Take it away, J Buddy.... 

**********

In February I began a quest to listen to all of my CDs in alphabetical order – all 161 of them. I have now progressed to the end of the H’s. It should be going more quickly than this, but I got out of the habit of listening to CDs at home. My stereo system had been in storage for the past 10 years, since we decided its presence in our basement family room was too 1980s. Then my boombox stopped working and the little radio/CD player that my daughters got me for Christmas a couple of years ago suffered a similar fate. I don’t think I’m that hard on them; maybe it’s just bad luck? If you were an attorney, you probably would have said, “Objection…relevance?” by now. But I just wanted to explain why it has taken so long.

 

In the first 2 ½ months, there have been some painful moments. I used to belong to a music service, and I would often get offers like, “Buy one at regular price and get up to three more for $3.99 each.” So, I’d stretch my purchasing to CDs I wouldn’t normally buy for regular price. This is the only way I can justify buying Paula Adbul’s "Forever Your Girl" or All 4 One. More recently, I suffered through "Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits," and last night, returning from Minneapolis, I had the misfortune to rediscover a CD titled "Inspirational Country & Bluegrass."

 

 

Tom asked me to relate what I have learned as I go through this. The main thing I've learned is this...for most of my music listening life, I have been a complete Top 40 whore. With a few exceptions, if I have a group's CD, it's because they had 3 or more Top 40 hits and thought themselves popular enough to make a greatest hits CD. I’ve listened to collections from Abba, Air Supply, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Pat Benatar, Berlin, Blondie The B-52s, Boston, and that’s just through the Bs. The funny thing is that when I go back and listen to some of these “greatest hits” CDs, I invariably run across songs that I never remember hearing. I’ve also learned that I have had (and still have) a variety of music listening moods, which is probably not unlike most people.

 

In about 1990, I realized that most of the music on the Top 40 didn't really appeal to me anymore, so I went through two exploratory phases, aided by my membership in the music service. For the next 6 or 7 years, I became a fan of certain country music artists (usually those that had some crossover to the Top 40) and I delved into the genre of contemporary Christian music. Of course, even during those years, if one of my favorite groups -- like ELO, Hall & Oates, Toto, or Chicago – produced a new CD, I would put aside my boots and my crucifix and get back to my roots. I’m not entirely sure why I moved away from Top 40 music at that time. I seem to remember thinking that most of the songs written in the early 90s were mostly just conglomerations of clichés strung together to fill 3-4 minutes of time combined with uninteresting, unimaginative musical compositions. It may have also been caused by the fact that the songs about love and sex were getting more and more explicit, instead of trying to be clever and insinuating sexual things without saying them. Boyz II Men, for example, performed a song titled, “I’ll Make Love to You.” The song didn’t go into graphic detail or anything, but it also didn’t leave anything to the imagination of the listener. Also in the early 90s, Whitney Houston cut a single remake of “I Will Always Love You”, which won a whole bunch of awards, including Billboard’s Record of the Year AND was at the top of Billboard’s Top 40 for 14 weeks!! Don’t get me wrong…I thought she did a nice job with the song. But it was a remake, for Pete’s sake. The only way a remake could make THAT much impact is if there wasn’t much else out there worth listening to.

 

So, I started listening to Garth Brooks, Lorrie Morgan, Billy Dean, Collin Raye, and other country artists who had some good songwriters working for them to come up with different ways to write about love, breakups, and such. I was also getting involved in church music at the time, and that may have motivated me to check out a contemporary Christian sampler CD. I bought a couple of CDs based on the songs I liked the best from that sampler, and then got enough recommendations from other people to fill about six years of musical void.

 

One consequence of this experience has been remembering past concerts and life moments. One week of my listening was mostly Chicago – seven CDs in all. Listening to Chicago brought back fond memories of concerts I attended with my childhood friend and college roommate Dave. In all, Dave and I attended at least six concerts together, one of which was Chicago back in 1987. The other time I saw Chicago was one of the first concerts I went to with my wife. It's true that I became a big fan of Chicago in the mid 80s, and that my favorite albums were 17, 18 and 19. But as I listened to them this time, I realized that Chicago's truly best songs are their older, jazzier stuff. "Just You 'n' Me," "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is," "Make me Smile," etc. Before Chicago, there was a healthy dose of Garth Brooks (from my aforementioned Country Phase) and three CDs from Michael Card (one of my favorite comtemporary Christian artists). As I listened to Garth, I remembered fondly my experience of singing lead on "Friends in Low Places" with my cousins' band at a wedding last summer. Our cousin Dan tried to get me to "channel my inner Garth," but alas, try as I might, I don't think anyone really bought me as a redneck.

 

Lastly, you might think that 161 is plenty of CDs. So do I. But as I have listened to the music, it helped me remember songs I don’t have (and wish I had), or favorite artists that I only know from their hits. The Eagles, for example, are one of my favorite groups, but I only have one of their CDs that isn’t a greatest hits compilation. 

So, maybe I need more?

Day 10: The Multimedia Jack Factor Thought Experiment Game

Earlier this spring I loaned one of my favorite books to a teacher I work with, Reed, because I knew how much he’d appreciate it. The book is Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman, a book I believe should be required reading for anyone fluent in pop culture who also listened to hard rock and/or heavy metal (and knows the difference) while coming of age in the mid-to-late 1980s. This describes both of us pretty well, but Reed has the advantage of having grown up in a tiny North Dakota town not unlike the one Chuck K. describes throughout his book, which also happens to be surprisingly close to where Reed grew up, and probably very close to the time when Chuck K. was growing up nearby. The parallels stagger the mind. 

Whenever Reed finishes a memorable chapter, he updates me on his progress the following day. The first thing I’ll do is ask if he’s gotten to the chapter with the ATM story yet (I’m sure he’s plenty tired of that question), but after that we’ll talk over whatever musical points were made in the chapter and our opinions about them.

One of what I consider to be one of the cornerstone chapters of the book is when Chuck goes through a list of some of his favorite albums from the era and assigns each of them a “jack factor,” or the amount of money he would have to be paid to take that album out of his collection and never intentionally listen to it again. As he works through the list, he reflects on why the album was important for the time he knew it, what the dollar amount would be to get him to abandon it, and his justification for said dollar amount. Reed and I talked about what some of the albums on our lists would be, along with which ones wouldn’t make the cut for that level of importance, and how much we did or didn’t agree with some of Chuck’s picks. 

The discussion got me thinking: How far could this exercise be extended beyond just the music people listen to?

I was talking with another teacher this week, Anna, who was telling me about her latest Barnes and Noble run. We’re both pretty big readers, and both prefer the tactile experience of reading an actual book, not to mention owning them and hanging onto them as parts of our collections afterward. I own hundreds of books, so much of my home is decorated with stacks and filled bookshelves in almost every room. Most of my books I’ll never read again, but I like hanging onto them as a sort of historical record of my past. However, there are a tattered few that would make the short list of books I've reread several times over, and probably will several more. I know it would take some serious financial motivation for me to give up the opportunity to ever read them again. No more Watership Down? No more The Stand? Avoid the literary comfort food of Harry Potter for as long as I live? No way. In fact, I’m in the middle of a reread project right now as I’m finishing up Justin Cronin’s The Passage and getting ready to move on to its follow up The Twelve, all in the anticipation of the final book in his trilogy, City of Mirrors coming out in couple of weeks. 

I know many people who will watch through movie marathons many times over. I know someone who does an annual re-watch of the entire run of “Gilmore Girls.” I know people who have played their way through massively complex video games with unbelievably expansive worlds time and time again, as I’ve done a few times myself. So I figure it can’t just be about music. It seems pretty easy for us to form emotional attachments to some of our favorite chunks of media, to a degree that the idea of giving them up forever seems impossible to consider. I don’t watch "The West Wing" every day because it isn’t on any channels I know of now, but I used to, and there’s no way I would ever give up the chance to watch it again. (Maybe that project will make it onto my fridge for this summer -- and see yesterday's post if that comment just made you feel compelled to scratch your head in confusion). 

It almost seems counterintuitive to keep going to back to the same familiar songs and stories when there are so many out there waiting to be discovered, but I’m pretty sure that in one form or another, we probably all do it. Which begs the question: What would be your album/book/show/movie/play/whatever chunk of media you choose that you love too much to ever give up? And what imaginary dollar amount — based in reality of course, let’s leave the skillions and bajillions out of this — would it take to get you to even consider putting it aside forever?

Discuss.

Day 7: Cousin Summer Movie Night (or Afternoon)

Each time I’ve done one of these May daily posting marathons, I’ve always included some form of a summer movie preview. I love summer movies. There are few simple pleasures that can measure up to hiding out in a too air-conditioned theater on a hot weekday when all of the other grown-ups are either at work or taking care of their kids. The bigger, the more bombastic, the more disbelief that needs to be suspended, the better. 

Today I found out my cousin Paul will be temporarily vacating the desert wilds of Arizona to visit us up here in the Northland for a spell this July, and soon the idea of seeing a movie came up. With that in mind, here are the movies that, based on the list I found in my Entertainment Weekly summer movie preview issue that I’m looking forward to seeing (and yes, I still actually have magazines delivered through the mail and to my house). 

Paul, I’ve put double asterisks next to the ones that are either going to be released in July or have the best chance of still being in the theaters by July. 

**“Captain America: Civil War” — I saw this today. It was astonishingly great. There’s a chance it will still be around by July. 

“Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” — I enjoyed the first “Neighbors” movie. Seth Rogen relies too heavily on drug humor and obviously crude jokes, so it was funny to see him as a suburban schlub. Hopefully this will follow the same formula.

**“X-Men: Apocalypse” — Most X-Men movies have been good, even if they don’t quite match the others in the MCU. This one looks to be pretty impressive.

**“Central Intelligence” — I don’t know anything about this other than it stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. Those two along with their charisma, coming timing, and refusal to take themselves too seriously seems promising. 

**“Independence Day 2: Resurgence” — The first Independence Day movie was a welcome retreat for me when it came out since I was waist-deep in summertime master’s degree work. It was a big out-of-nowhere surprise. This one looks twenty times bigger.

**“Ghostbusters” — If this works it could be the movie of the summer. Melissa McCarthy is funny even if she plays variations of the same character in every movie, and every time Leslie Jones is on screen during SNL she makes me laugh.

“Star Trek Beyond” — What’s summer without an outer space adventure? The first two since the reboot have been at least pretty good.

“Jason Bourne” — The grown-up adventure of the summer, hopefully without an overdose of shaky-cam.

“Suicide Squad” — Kind of a superhero movie, but since it’s a DC property instead of Marvel and DC hasn’t really been knocking it out of the park since Christian Bale walked away from Batman, I guess I’ll be surprised if it’s really good. But it comes out in August, and a lot of the other movies will have run their courses by then.

“Ben Hur” — I didn’t even know this remake existed. It’ll be overly-CGI for sure, but it kind of feels like a must-see.

Now we just have to pick one out. Any jump out at you, P? And maybe we’ll collect some more cousins from the area, and head to the Riverdale Acapulco for some tacos after? You’re welcome to crash on my futon if you’d like….

Day 6: Civil War

Since “Captain America: Civil War” is opening today and most of my fourth graders are hyper-aware of everything and anything related to Marvel movies and characters, I took a survey during attendance this morning. Usually the kids check in by going up to our electronic white board and dragging their name into some kind of object I’ve placed on the screen, usually somehow related to something to do with the day. Today there were two choices, and they had to decide to move their name either to Captain America or Iron Man. 

Some were very fired up about it. One boy was heavily lobbying for Iron Man, while one girl took control of the board pen for awhile, and wasn’t ready to give it up unless the person who needed to check in was ready to commit to Team Cap. In the end, Captain America won by a 17-6 landslide. We had a number of absences today (on a Friday, in May? Imagine!!!) so we won’t know what the actual total would have ended at, but even with the whole class in attendance Cap had enough of a margin to win the day. But, is that how it will turn out in the movie?

I’ve written a few posts about how much I enjoy Marvel movies. Two came out last year, at least two from the overlapping Marvel Cinematic Universe: I didn’t think “Avengers: Age of Ulton” matched the original excitement of the first, but I really enjoyed the comic heist of “Ant-Man.” I plan on seeing “Civil War” tomorrow afternoon, earlier in the day when the lines are short and the theater is mostly empty and I can fly my introvert flag at full-mast. Everything I’ve heard and read about it so far has been glowingly positive and I’m very much looking forward to seeing it.

The problem is I can’t decide which side I’m on. 

Team Cap? Team Iron Man? 

Both of their first movies were origin stories, and great. Iron Man’s second and third movies weren’t as strong, but Cap’s second one was just as good as the first and, in some ways, even better. When it comes to the Avengers, Captain America is in charge, even if Tony Stark / Iron Man pays all the bills. 

Both characters have evolved. Tony Stark started out as a pretty horrible human being who turned a corner when he realized the weapons his company was producing were being sold to terrorists and used against American soldiers. Plus he almost died himself during the events when he first learned this. Steve Rogers was a scrawny little guy who proved himself brave enough and worthy enough to become what was intended to be a super soldier prototype, but then ended up as the only one.

Tony Stark has Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Steve Rogers had the ultimate star-crossed love story with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Cap wins this round for so many reasons, but this isn’t enough to pick a side. 

From what I understand, the conflict has to do with accountability. Iron Man believes that the super heroes in that universe should agree to a certain degree of oversight from the United Nations, even though he was completely against any government cooperation in Iron Man 2. Captain America was in the army during World War II, and was the ultimate red, white, and blue loyalist in that time. But now after being frozen in a polar aircraft crash for some 70 odd years, he’s had too many experiences which have taught him that the government isn’t always worthy of his trust and loyalty, and would prefer to only answer to the small group of people he super heroes around with, since they’re the few he feels he can trust. 

They both have too many pros and not enough cons for me to choose a side. I’m left in a position where all I can do is hope that somehow, the movie ends in some kind of truce without too much damage being done. One more day and I’ll finally know the answer to that. In the mean time, I think I saw there was a Thor movie on TV tonight….

Presidential Politics as Reality Television

A common theme and criticism about presidential politics during this current phase of the election cycle is how the series of primaries and caucuses and debates are similar to reality television. Sometimes this can be an easy dismissive comment since one of the candidates actually has experience with reality programming, but I'd argue it goes far beyond that. I have a small number of guilty pleasure reality shows I'll follow each year, so I've had enough experience with the genre to notice a few things:

*Each candidate has either willingly stepped into or has been assigned a quickly identifiable one-dimensional characterization. These same characterizations can be found in just about any reality TV show. It's late February as I write this, so who do we still have left in the race? The Bully. The Smarmy Liar. The Whiner. The Space Cadet. The Misfit Who Yells All the Time. The Scary One. The Perpetually Ignored. I didn't mention any names here and I honestly don't agree with most of the labels I've included, but I'm pretty sure anyone following the election would be able to match them up with the remaining candidates, based on how the media is presenting the race.

*Each debate plays like a new television episode. People who got along three weeks earlier will be at each other's throats as the "plot" advances. Past arguments are continually referenced, so the viewers who haven't been tuning in from the beginning can catch up, much like a "Last week on The 2016 Debate..." introduction. The debates are followed by a public largely waiting for a fight to start.

*Both are populated by contestants who, for one reason or other, believe they have some quality that demands the attention of a national television viewing audience.

*As the season progresses, people are voted off the island / evicted from the house / told to pack up their playthings / announce they are suspending their campaign. After the story goes on long enough, it becomes hard to remember everyone who was on the show from the very beginning.

*The Internet is full of people arguing about which characters they like and which they don't.

*The people who get attacked the most always claim it as a compliment, saying it shows the other players in the game respect and fear them as a competitor.

*The process serves as a perfect example of how we all wish we could have left our most fundamental personality flaws behind us back in high school when they were so prominently on display, and how easily it can be for those flaws to resurface. We see it happen every time a candidate smiles through a barrage of name-calling.

*When everything is said and done, the winner will probably be the only person out of the pack to remain active in our collective awareness. Meanwhile, the others will fall back on public appearances to supplement their incomes -- presidential candidates will be at political fundraisers and go on speaking tours, while reality TV participants will be posing beside selfie-taking fans at rural casinos during three-hour time windows on weekends.

The big difference is that reality TV is intended to be entertainment, and the people who volunteer for their chance to be a part of it know that when they sign up. Electing a president should demand a higher standard of scrutiny. When people sign up for that, they know the entertainment aspect has, unfortunately, become a means to an end, and if they want a shot at the big prize they have to play the game.

I just know that this summer when I'm following the newest season of Big Brother and trying to decide which houseguests I dislike the most, I'll be concurrently hoping that the eventual presidential nominees will have the chance (or be demanded) to prove why they, flawed human beings though they might be, are the most qualified to lead our country through some tumultuous and contentious times.

And hopefully the public will vote for a leader who has more gravity than just being a favorite character.

Why I'm Not Completely Excited About "The Force Awakens"

I saw Star Wars for the first time with my entire elementary school on a field trip. I still remember walking the five or so blocks to the single-screen movie theater in our tiny town, sitting in a row with all of my fourth grade buddies, getting blasted back into my seat by the opening fanfare and being completely overwhelmed in the best of all possible ways when that Imperial Star Destroyer flew over my head and kept on getting longer and longer and longer. I was immediately hooked.

Both of my sisters were in the theater that day as well. My younger sister Erin was as susceptible to overindulging in enthusiasm as I was at that age, and for the two of us, Star Wars became as much of a focal interest as anything else during whatever years remained of our childhood. As far as I could tell, our older sister Jenny probably liked the movie just fine that day, but instead of sharing in the same nerdery overdrive that had taken over Erin and me, she ended up quietly enduring ours. Erin and I collected the trading cards, starting with the hard-to-find blue set and continuing through red, green, yellow, and beyond. Star Wars was the only comic book I ever subscribed to. I had a yellow Star Wars t-shirt with the two droids on it that I wore until the picture had all but completely faded away. Erin had earned a blaster just like Han Solo's as a reward for (allegedly) breaking a bad habit. I once gave Jenny a gift of an R2D2 necklace, which she wore one time to pose for a picture on her birthday, and probably never touched again. Erin hung an Empire Strikes Back movie poster on the wall in the bedroom she and Jenny shared. I'm sure Jenny loved that.

Of course we collected the action figures: Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Ben, Vader, C3PO, R2D2, Yoda, Stormtroopers, Tuskan Raiders, Greedo, Walrus Man, Power Droid, even a Jawa. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and I'm just as sure if Erin were still around she'd be able to point out which ones I'd overlooked. In our house, action figures weren't precious things that stayed in plastic collector's bubbles, but they lived up to their name. My Han Solo action figure was without a head for most of its tenure in our collection; in what I now recognize as an important developmental moment of my writer brain, I invented a backstory that explained how his head wasn't actually missing but was just invisible, and how he was on a quest to change things back. Erin had a landspeeder for our figures to ride around in, and she also had a Death Star play set (which was NOT the Star Wars equivalent of a Barbie Dream House). Outside of the expected possessive older brother/younger sister arguments, we always shared everything equally since the hundreds of adventures we came up with would be better served with the entire collected cast of characters.

We had the soundtrack album, and this was back in the days when vinyl was the standard. It was a double album, and side 4 was easily the best. When friends would come over, we'd play it loud and tip back the chairs in the basement against the walls so we could pretend we were manning the guns in the Millennium Falcon while escaping from the Death Star. I still remember the moment we were watching TV and saw an ad saying Star Wars (I still cannot, to this day, refer to it as "A New Hope") was going to be shown on broadcast television. Understand, these were the days before even a VCR in every home, and in our house the announcement of that upcoming broadcast was bigger than Christmas morning.

For the longest time after "Return of the Jedi" had come and gone and the story seemed to be done, Star Wars became just part of the cultural background. There were always rumors that teased episodes 1, 2, and 3 coming someday, and maybe even episodes 7, 8, and 9 when the actors from the original trilogy would be old enough to tell the story, but eventually the anticipation of this ever happening died down. The movies were always worth a re-watch if they ever showed up on TV, and that was good enough.

I was thrilled when the original trilogy movies were re-released, even if the digital "enhancements" weren't necessarily improvements. When "The Phantom Menace" came out in 1999 to launch the prequel trilogy, Erin and I waited in line at least an hour one Friday evening to see it. It was great at the time because it was more Star Wars, and a throwback to the seed of so many of our childhood adventures, but, as time has proven, the new trilogy didn't measure up to the original. When I got my first computer, one of the first games I bought for it, and in fact ordered the same time I ordered the computer itself, was Dark Forces, a Doom-clone set in the Star Wars universe. Not long after that I bought the X-Wing Collector's Edition, which ate up more of my free time than I will ever publicly admit. Erin didn't have a computer that could run these games, and she was noticeably jealous about it when I showed her how they worked.

In a just a couple of days I'll see "The Force Awakens," the first in the new trilogy that my nine-year-old self hoped for so many decades ago. The first reviews are in, and so far they're overwhelmingly positive. The trailers have been dominating YouTube for at least the past month and they look amazing. J.J. Abrams has a great track record as a director, and since he's about my age and grew up in the same haze of Star Wars love I did, that makes me think this movie could be close to perfect, and something like all of the adventures my little sister and I had come up with while playing on the sandy hill in our yard.

But she isn't here anymore, and she's not going to get to see it. Because of that, no matter how great the movie turns out to be, no matter how dreamlike the experience of seeing it the first time after decades of hope and anticipation will feel, something about it will always be slightly less for me than it should. I fully expect I'll love the movie. It would have been nice if she'd had the chance to love it, too.

The Changing of the Guard, and Beyond

Tonight is Jon Stewart's final episode of "The Daily Show." I was only a casual viewer for most of his run; I watch the local evening news out of habit, which is on at the same time, and usually I'm lucky if I can even stay awake all the way through that. I was still aware of the cultural touchstones both Jon Stewart and the show had become, using comedy to help make the ridicule and outrage of the day's news slightly more palatable.

I started watching more regularly out of curiosity last summer when John Oliver came in as a substitute host (the man was Professor Ian Duncan on “Community,” after all). He was on long enough to get me into the habit of recording the show and watching the next day, which I continued once Jon Stewart came back. I didn’t watch every episode, but it was good to know I had the choice if there was an interesting or entertaining guest scheduled, or a news story had become significant enough to demand he addressed it. In all of the media coverage leading up to his final show, I’ve noticed the same few points keep getting made: 1) During his hosting tenure, he changed the way news is presented and what the public expects from it. 2) “The Daily Show” was the primary news source for a surprising number of people, and they considered Jon Stewart to be as much of a trusted journalist as a comedian. 3) Once he leaves the show, there will be a huge void left behind. 

First off, I’ll point out that people who rely on one source for all of their news are selling themselves incredibly short, whether that source is the daily paper or print magazines or websites or books or local or national news broadcasts or talk radio or a half-hour program on Comedy Central. To those people concerned about who they can trust to deliver the real news, I’d say it’s possible that broadening your horizons wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you’re really concerned about this.

I don’t deny that for hardcore fans of the show, this departure will represent a seismic shift in their lives. Using late night television as an example, all of the hosting and program changes that have occurred recently have made it unrecognizable from what it had been even five years ago. For something that can easily become a reliable part of a comfortable routine, that’s a lot to take in.

Big changes like this are always happening in our lives, though. Performers will leave our favorite TV shows, or the shows themselves will get cancelled. Bands will break up or announce farewell tours. Friends or neighbors move away. As I write this, I should be days away from getting my “Welcome Back” letter from school to begin a new year. There have been more years than not when we’ve had surprise changes in our school staff or the student population happen over the summer, to say nothing of the changes that we knew were coming at the end of the previous year. Most of the relationships we have in life, whether they are with people or even just ideas, are eventually going to end or become redefined in some way.

When that happens, we move on. We adapt, because we have to. Life continues to change, and we rarely have any control over when or how that happens. 

But change doesn’t always represent an end. Sometimes it’s a new beginning emerging out of nowhere, or just a different direction presenting itself. Sometimes these changes are for the better, and never would have occurred if they didn’t have the end of something else to bring them on.

Maybe the best way to accept the changes we need to experience is to find a renewed appreciation for what we still have. If we are feeling displaced about something coming to an end, or feeling tentative about a new beginning, it can help to remember what we have in life that keeps us grounded and secure. Finding something new doesn’t necessarily mean replacing what’s gone. It might even give us something new to care about just as much. If a change leaves a hole in our lives, it’s our job to fill it. 

As for “The Daily Show,” I’ll watch Jon Stewart’s final episode tonight. I’m sure it’ll be great entertainment, and I’m very curious to see what happens next in his career. I think the new guy taking over has an uphill battle in front of him, and I’m not all that sure it’s going to result in something I’ll find interesting. I'll give him a try, but I don't have high hopes right now.

If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just find something new.

Day 22: Your Summer Must List

During each of the two previous years I've posted every day in May, I wrote posts about the big movies I was looking forward to seeing that summer. I never got around to that this year for some reason. But when I got home tonight I saw my newest issue of Entertainment Weekly in the mailbox (yes, I still have some actual, physical magazines delivered to my house). This wasn't just a regular issue, mind you, but a special double issue featuring "the 110 movies, TV, music, books, and more!" coming out in the summer of 2015 that I won't be able to live without if I don't take advantage of the glories they are waiting to bestow upon me.

Therefore, I'm going to take a look at this "must-list" right now and see how much of it I agree with. I don't want to bag on things I don't find interesting, so I'm only going to comment on the things that I find any degree of interesting. In a slight change of pace -- mostly just to entertain myself -- I'll be writing my first reactions to the list as I read them, and write those responses immediately. So be warned: Tonight's post is coming at you as an unproofed first draft. There will likely be typos and moments of unconventional phrasing, but at least I'll be able to look back on this list to remind myself if there was anything going on this summer, entertainment-wise, that I wanted to check out.

Here we go.

MOVIES
"Jurassic World" - I'm looking forward to this. I loved the surprise of the first one, thought the second one was okay, barely remember the one time I saw the third. A reboot could be a good thing here.

"Trainwreck" - Amy Schumer is fearlessly hilarious. This is a serious must for me.

"The Man from U.N.C.L.E." - Spy movie. Late summer. Probably.

"Fantastic Four" - There's a lot of buzz about the unconventional approach to the source material (comic book), so I'll see it mostly out of curiosity. It might turn out really cool.

"Vacation" - Comedy. Late summer. Why not?

"Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation" - I think the series has been pretty strong overall, even if the movies haven't exactly stuck with me as favorites. I'm looking forward to this one.

"Terminator Genisys" I've seen all the others. Why stop now? Another reboot, which could be interesting in what they do with the existing story.

"Masterminds" - I don't know anything about this so I looked it up. Pretty good cast, so I'll probably check it out.

"Ant-Man" - This one is going into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I hope it works. Paul Rudd as a superhero is as interesting of a choice as Robert Downey, Jr. was before "Iron Man." So, maybe.

"Inside Out" - Probably. Pixar has a pretty darn good track record.

"Ted 2" - Maybe. Or probably. If there's a day in the middle of the week when I'm bored.

TV
"True Detective" - Of course.

"Zoo" - A sci-fi summer series about animal attacks. I'll give it a shot, but if it goes all "Under the Dome" or "Falling Skies" too quickly, I'm done.

"The Brink" - More because it's on HBO than because it's got Jack Black in it, but the previews I've seen look interesting.

"Documentary Now!" - Never heard of this, but Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, and Fred Armisen making a fake documentary is intriguing.

"Fear the Walking Dead" - Absolutely.

"Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" - A series about old, washed up rock stars could have potential. Plus Denis Leary is usually great.

MUSIC
Entertainment Weekly and I don't see eye-to-eye on much here. Or anything. But I might actually watch an episode of "Fox and Friends" if Alice Cooper is going to play on it. I love the idea of the people who consistently picket Alice Cooper concerts (whom I imagine are part of the "Fox and Friends" demographic) seeing Alice interact with their TV buddies.

BOOKS
None of my go-to name-brand authors have releases mentioned in this magazine, so I'm going to skip this section too. Not because I'm disappointed they didn't list my favorites, but I've already got several thousand pages of summer reading waiting for me.

Bring it on, summer. I'm more than ready for you.

Day 20: Q & A, Round Three

After three years of blogging every day in May, there have been a few post topics I've repeated each year, just because they're fun to do. For one of them, I put out the call to my Facebook friends to see if anyone has questions they'd like to ask. I leave this very open to whatever they might come up with and always do my best to come up with actual answers. Here's the crop from this year:

Are there any individual TV show episodes that you either go back to rewatch or just consider the pinnacle of a series?
Skip this if you don't like spoilers, but since all of these shows have been around and over for awhile I think it's fair to say the statute of limitations on spoiler accusations has expired.

Breaking Bad: The episode where Walt finds a way out of Gus's employment by blowing him up in a nursing home.
The Walking Dead: Tougher for a definitive episode because it's more about moments for me on this show. But if pressed, I'd go with the episode when the Governor couldn't pull back far enough to see reason and killed Herschel. That set a lot of things in motion for the following seasons.
Freaks and Geeks: When Daniel played Dungeons and Dragons with Sam and his friends.
The Office: Michael's proposal to Holly. The arc that defined him the entire series was perfectly resolved in that moment.
The West Wing: Two Cathedrals. Period.
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Best of Both Worlds. I was surprised I felt strongly enough to include this one, but it really was great.
Community: The party at Troy and Abed's apartment that spawned the alternate timelines. Genius.

Will you retire to Florida with the rest of us?
My friend Dax used to live in Florida. When he’d tell me about the unusual things that seem to frequently happen there and I’d react with any amount of disbelief, his response, which evolved into a catch phrase for us, would always be, “And yet somehow Florida still surprises you.” So, I'm not sure about Florida. Plus the hurricanes. And for all we know, by the time I reach retirement age half of the state will be three feet underwater.

Pancakes or French toast?
Pancakes.

Do you think there will ever come a day when electronics is considered archaic technology?
Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: Unless humanity finds a way to destroy itself first. Side answer: Interestingly coincidental question to ask. I’m currently preparing a series of synopsis ideas to send to my agent for her input about which of those ideas might be the strongest for the next book I start writing, and one of them has a pretty big plot point involving a technology that could be the next step beyond electronics, or at least serve as a bridge between electronics and whatever would come next.

Will Cinnamon and Evil Barbie be back for next holiday season?
No spoilers. But I’d follow the remaining May blog posts closely if you’re curious.

What is your favorite place to visit?
My happy place is probably spending a temperate evening walking through downtown Poulsbo, Washington with my adopted PNW family, just visiting, enjoying the evening, looking out at Liberty Bay and knowing I have absolutely no responsibilities for at least a few days. And even though it’s probably more of a necessary evil to the people out there than anything else, I still love the novelty of the ferry ride into or out of Seattle. I don't know if it's a "favorite," but it's the first place that came to mind and it did so quickly.

Will you be my friend?
As long as I don’t have to clean up after the alpacas.

Are you truly a Gemini or a Taurus?
Gemini, dammit. There is no either/or at play here. Once upon a time it was May 21st. The end.

Do you find that every year you have a student that stands out to you in class, not academically?
Honestly, I don’t. Not every year. And I attribute that to specializing, just because there are so many more kids I work with each year now and I don’t have the chances to build the same kinds of relationships with them as I did when I worked with them all day long. But every so often some will stand out, for any number of reasons, in either positive or negative ways.

What is your funniest moment teaching?
I couldn’t possibly isolate one moment, but I’m sure when I sit down someday to think over my career and plan out my definitive work of literary fiction that will show exactly what teaching in 21st century America is like, it will probably be in there somewhere.

What one thing would you find life much harder without?
My huge, unusually close extended family. Just because there are so many people I rely on for so many different things in life, and I would be lost without them.

Why do you write middle grade and not YA? Is it because that’s what you teach?
Short answer: Yes, it’s mostly because that’s what I teach. That’s what I have in front of my face every day, and those are the people I think about as ideas begin to form. Longer answer: I personally believe that middle grade literature is more important than young adult, in a formative sense; I’m sure I’m oversimplifying this, but I think most YA books are written with specific, built-in audiences in mind. If you read YA in any genre, you have things about it that you crave, whether you’re 15 or 25 or 40. I think middle grade can be a harder sell because so many readers are still emerging and determining their preferences. I see a lot of kids read the same book over and over, not because they necessarily love it, but because they haven’t found better options for themselves yet. I want to be a part of providing those options. I have nothing against YA though, and I wouldn't rule out writing at that level someday if I found a story that needed telling. In fact, one of the synopsis ideas I'm preparing for my agent right now would be better suited as a YA novel just due to the subject matter. I'd call it a dark horse as far as winning the title of Next Project anytime soon, but it's definitely earned a spot in the queue.

Dog or cat? And why?
Dog. Because they’re better and I’m not as allergic to them. Having said that though, I can spend days staying with my friend Dax, his wife Melissa, and their pets -- one of which is a cat -- without any real kind of reaction, even though we're all pretty vigilant about keeping Kitty out of my lap. Some dogs don’t bother me at all, while some dogs (Toby) can just lick me once and fill my arm with enormous red insanity welts.

As much as I love dogs, I still put it at very long odds that I’ll be getting another one any time soon (I'm measuring that in years). There are different reasons why, but ultimately what I went through before broke me in half, and there are still too many wounds that will rip open on me with very little provocation.

Who has been the most influential in your writing style and do you share that with your students?
That’s really tough. Back in high school and college I got a lot of Stephen King comparisons, mostly because I wrote so much friggin’ horror. And then like ten, fifteen years back it was more Garrison Keillor -- not because of the goofy small town stories but more about striving for the same authenticity of voice in his more sincere moments. Now I mostly try to be like any number of writers I read who can come up with such a perfectly crafted line in their work that I don’t have any other choice but to be pulled out of the story to pause and admire it. (Justin Cronin is one who comes to mind.) Middle grade-wise, I love the way Katherine Patterson's "Jacob Have I Loved" does such a perfect job of creating characters and a realistic sense of place; I don't know if I'd call her specifically a favorite, but I've probably put as much time into studying that book as I have reading it. As far as sharing with the students...I don’t teach anything to do with reading or writing. Some people see this as a head-scratching irony, but that’s just how things settled. My students know about my author side and are well past thinking it’s any big deal anymore (though I did have to clarify for them once what the difference is between having an “agent” and a “spy”). The only way I could share anything to do with writing with them would be if I used something I wrote as a read aloud in class, and I would never do that. I’m too introverted to do it comfortably, and see it as far too self-serving.

If you couldn’t be a writer or a teacher what would you be?
I have never seriously considered anything else. However, to answer the question the best I can, other people have said before they think because of my reflective nature, the insights that follow that and perspectives I've shared, I would have been a good therapist. Not sure about that one myself....

If you could only eat five foods for the rest of your life, what would they be? Bacon. Smoked salmon, only from the PNW. Tortellini alfredo. Thanksgiving turkey. Soft, heavily-chipped chocolate chip cookies.

Is there a dream or goal that you have (outside of being a writer/teacher) that you are working towards? Outside of the whole “become a published author” thing, my ambitions for life have all been fairly modest. I suppose I still would like to get married someday, though admittedly this isn’t the easiest prospect for an off-the-charts introvert like me. Not to mention that as the years roll by, it seems to become less and less likely I’ll be able to find a woman willing to put up with this defining collection of idiosyncrasies I have that take the place of any kind of personality. (That’s just a self-deprecating joke, Mom -- calm down).

Do you want to keep living in Minnesota? Where will you probably retire?
I’ve never seriously considered living anywhere else, though the past few winters have me realizing there are some things about living here that I truly hate (January and, to a lesser degree, February, to be specific). I haven’t thought much about retirement other than a recently planted seed of hope that I might be able to do it sooner than I've always thought. It’s a fun little game to listen to people at school speculate how many years are left before I'll be able to write my way out of the classroom (which, trust me, is not guaranteed to ever happen anyway). I could easily see myself settling in the PNW, but I’m not sure how the whole cloud and rain thing there would work if it were more permanent.

Do you have any underrated movies in mind?
YES!! 1. "Mystery Men." 2. "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." 3. "True Romance." Probably even more if I took the time to think about it. Maybe this year I’ll have a staff underrated movie marathon party/open house in the middle of summer. I’ll provide a schedule and people can show up to see the ones they’re interested in, and that can be a big fun summertime staff get together. Or maybe we can do it at someone else’s house. If they have a pool or something....or maybe I'll just lazily forget about the whole thing. Good chance, that.

If you could go back and go to college again, would you go to the same place or some place else?
I’ve always said if I had the chance to relive any month of my life, I would choose any random month I spent in college. I don’t think it had so much to do specifically with St. Cloud though. I think it was more about experiencing the way the whole world seemed to open up around me while I was there, which probably would have happened to most people wherever they may have gone to school.

Can you identify characteristics of dog people or cat people?
Dog people are probably just better in several ways because dogs. Cat people either seem a tiny bit off to begin with, or they surprise me because I can’t imagine why someone would choose a cat over a dog. There’s just no sense in that. Sorry, cat people. I won't be playing on your softball team anytime soon.

Best lines from movies, or books:
I took these from my Facebook quotes section:

"If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies... we draw our lines around these moments of pain and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us." --Neil Gaiman

"It's a wonderful thing to push on alone toward the horizon and have it be your own horizon and not someone else's. It's a good feeling, lonely and magnificent and frightening and peaceful..." -- Garrison Keillor

"It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it? The same with people." -- C.S. Lewis

Movies are tougher since there are so many lines I could quote. A current favorite is probably from "Avengers: Age of Ultron," when Captain America tells the rest of the team in a battle, “You get hurt, hurt them back. You get killed, walk it off.”

What is your favorite metal, and why?
Vibranium, because that’s what they use to make Captain America’s shield.

What are your five favorite commercials, and why?
Sorry, Paul. I thought about this and really tried to reward you with a clever answer, but I can't think of any commercials that have me lighting up with excitement, or even acquiescence, when they come on.

What is the book that made you want to write?
I think the writing was ignited by two things happening in very close proximity on my personal timeline: In 4th grade or so, I first read "A Wrinkle in Time" within months of seeing the original "Star Wars." Imagine that pairing being presented to a hyperactive young imagination that hadn't yet found the creative outlet it didn't know it needed. 

Why is your sister, Jenny, so sexy?
I can think of no good way to answer this. Ask her husband.

Day 19: No Off Position on the Genius Switch

Imagine if you woke up one morning and some fundamental part of life was gone. You stepped outside to get your usual morning newspaper and it wasn’t there; not just that it hadn’t been delivered that morning, but the concept of newspapers had ended. You got in the car and reached to turn on the radio, but couldn’t find anything but static on every station because radio was no more. Things that you had grown so accustomed to after having them around for so much of your life, to where it became all too easy to take them for granted, had just suddenly stopped. This is sort of how I feel about knowing David Letterman’s last show is on tomorrow night. It might not be the show that I watch every night anymore, but I’ve taken comfort in knowing it was always there.

I’ve been with Dave since he was still doing “Late Night” back on NBC. This was a problem in high school since staying up until 12:30 to watch TV was tough to do without my parents noticing and having something to say about it. It got easier in college, as long as my schedule didn’t have any 8:00 AM classes that term. It was worth the effort when I made it that late, though: Watching Letterman frequently enough to be fluent in some of the running gags made you feel like you have membership in one of the coolest underground antisocial circles around. The Monkey Cam, Conspiracy Guy, the originally random (and far superior) Top Ten lists, throwing stuff off the roof, Toast on a Stick, Larry “Bud” Melman passing out hot towels with his interviews...there was nothing like it. This wasn’t a talk show the way Johnny Carson had defined it. This was the show that spoke to every snarky little punk in America.

When Dave moved to CBS for The Late Show and was suddenly on at a reasonable time, it was all I could have hoped for. The show still had the same anarchistic vibe in the background, though tamed down for a more mainstream audience. The Late Show provided Dave with a bigger playground, a wider cast of characters, and more real estate for his legacy. It came so second nature to him after decades of shows there were times when it seemed like it was easy for him to just phone it in sometimes and still be at least good, but he was never better than when he was angry or impassioned. I still think the night when Dave came back on the air after 9/11 was just as important for national morale as anything else that had been done at that time.

I’ve paid more attention to the show as his retirement has neared, knowing that new shows were quickly becoming a limited resource. Last December when they ran through, for the last time ever, the holiday tradition of having Darlene Love come on to bring down the Ed Sullivan Theater with “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” I choked up while watching it...and quickly posted the video on my Facebook timeline so I’d always be able to find it.

I vaguely remember the temporary vacuum left behind after Johnny Carson retired and... *ahem* ...Leno took over. I wasn’t a huge Johnny Carson loyalist, but I had watched the show enough to appreciate what a change his absence would bring. It felt weird knowing this show, this tradition, this scheduled part of the day had just ended and was gone forever.

I think that emptiness is going to be a lot more noticeable this time around.

Day 18: TV from the Olden Days

There’s a passage in the book I’m reading to my class these days where the main character and his friend are trying to decide how to pass the time before “Happy Days” comes on. The book is set in the early 1980s. One of my students asked why they would wait for the show to start, and I tried to explain how there was a time when there were only five channels to watch and no way to record any programs. They seemed just as surprised about this as some of the facts they’ve recently learned in Social Studies about Ancient Egypt or Ancient China. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that a story set in the same time period I think of as my childhood would be considered a period piece now.

I tried to think about the shows we would have considered appointment television back then, and the list that came to mind was much more about the after school / evening reruns we watched than what was on prime time, with a few notable exceptions. "M*A*S*H" was the king of all that was television back then. The rerun schedule was so saturated with "M*A*S*H" reruns I remember thinking how great Mondays were because not only could you plan out an afternoon and evening of flipping channels to see four episodes like you could every other weeknight, but there was also a new episode on in prime time. “Happy Days” was the other show that gave us a bonus new episode each week (Tuesdays). As much of a staple as “Happy Days” was in the middle of its run (before Ron Howard left and the show lost its direction) they were already stretching themselves thin with franchising spin-off attempts: “Laverne and Shirley,” “Mork and Mindy,” and, since I have to include it to be complete, “Joanie Loves Chachi.” (I can honestly say I only watched one episode of that, out of curiosity, before deciding it wasn’t for me.)

With only a few channels to pick from, we usually wound up watching whatever the local networks decided to put on in the after-school time slots. I never cared much for “The Brady Bunch,” especially when the kids grew up and turned all groovy, but I probably saw each episode. “Welcome Back, Kotter” was hilarious in a way that made us feel like we were probably getting away with something our parents didn’t know about. I watched “Leave it to Beaver” pretty regularly due to a lack of options, but I was a die-hard fan of “Gilligan’s Island.” One of my prized possessions in second grade was my very own Gilligan hat. The other would have been the TV mail order double album by The Monkees that was advertised during the commercials of their show, which I bought with $5 worth of my first communion money. My sisters and some of my cousins would play “Hogan’s Heroes” whenever we were up visiting our grandmother; since we were staying at Grandma Schulz’s house, it only made sense that we gave her the role of Sgt. Schulz in our adventures, whether she ever knew it or not.

I kind of feel sorry for the kids today with three our four entire networks devoted to programming exclusively catering to their age group. Because, believe it or not, as much as something like having seen the whole scary Brady Bunch Hawaiian adventure story arc was almost a rite of passage for kids from my generation? The only Brady that the kids today know anything about is the one who just got suspended by the NFL.

Day 17: Yet Another Guest Writer!!!

During each of the two previous years I’ve done this “write a blog post every day in May” marathon, I had a guest writer take on one of the posts for me. The first year was my cousin Paul, who is a very good writer even if he doesn’t have any real interests or ambitions in that direction, other than putting together the occasional amusing or head-scratching Facebook post. Last year it was my friend Betsy, who keeps a blog of her own called Literary Pathways (and don't you just love that name??) about her ideas and experiences as a Language Arts teacher. (Click here if you haven’t seen it before and have any interest in finding out what an elementary reading and writing teacher at the top of her game has to say about the profession.) For this May, even though I have met several writers in the past year and I know many of them would be more than happy to step in and take on a guest post, I immediately thought of my cousin Alejandro.

Alejandro is fifteen and lives in San Antonio. I like that he’s fifteen right now, because I can enjoy living in a time when I’m a better writer than he is; I promise you that will not always be the case. He started writing in elementary school just like I did, but while I sat back and did little more than watch MTV in my early teens, he began to find his stride as a writer. He’s had some impressive successes in regional academic writing competitions, as well as some at his school, and spent a year as the editor of his school’s award-winning literary magazine in eighth grade. His proud mother (my cousin Kelly) sent me a quote from one of his writing teachers: “He has such a strong vocabulary that I often have to look up the words myself to see what they mean.” Now finishing his sophomore year of high school, he’s still working on his craft and has signed up for science fiction and fantasy summer writing courses through the Gotham Writers Workshop. His passion is horror (as you’ll see from his post).

When I asked if he was interested in doing a guest post, I said he could write about anything he wanted to. He pitched me a few ideas, and we agreed on one that had to do with storytelling elements in video games. I thought this was perfect. I’m not afraid to admit that even with my busy adult life I still fire up my XBox 360 from time to time, and storytelling is always the element that makes a difference in whether I think a game is worth my time or not. Anyone who thinks big-time console video games are little more than violent and cartoonish exercises in time-wasting...well, a lot are. But not all of them. I feel myself getting a little fired up on the topic right now, so it might be better if I just pull back and let Alejandro, who knows so much more about the subject than I do, take over.

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I play a lot of video games. Like, a lot. I did some calculations the other day and found that I've played almost 1,700 hours on my computer alone. So with that kind of devotion to the hobby, it should come as no surprise that I see video games as a storytelling medium equal to films or books.


But that doesn't mean all game stories are good. Really, most of them aren't. And they don't need to be, because unlike books or movies, games can stand just on how fun they are to play. The perfect game, however, would be both fun to play and have a story that's interesting to experience and think about. The closest any game has ever come to perfect, at least for me, is Dark Souls. For this post, I mean to look at Dark Souls' story to show just why it's so great, and to better understand what it takes to tell a good story in a video game.



GAMEPLAY/PRESENTATION



In Dark Souls you're a lone warrior exploring a world on its last legs, fighting monsters, and trying to save mankind. This involves a lot of swinging your sword, tricky maneuvering, and dying. The game is infamous for its difficulty, so you'll be dying a great deal, but that all ties into the game's central theme (more on that later). I won't linger much on gameplay, as it's not the focus of this little ramble, but suffice to say it's more than fun enough to support the story.



Now, presentation is extremely important in video games. You could have the best story in the world, but nobody will hear it if they're turned off by the visual design or art style. Dark Souls doesn't really have this problem. Everything in the game is ancient, forgotten, and decrepit, all castles with crumbling walls or decaying underground crypts, and there are very few sane or friendly people around anymore. It instilled an acute sense of loneliness and despair in me, which I'm sure was the intended effect. Melancholy is a good word for the game's visual design, and indeed the game as a whole, so it gets an A+ for capturing the tone perfectly.



EXPOSITION AND STORY DELIVERY



Dark Souls' method of telling a story is rather unorthodox for video games; the details aren't presented to you on a silver platter, but hidden subtly around the world for you to find, and the wording is too ambiguous to find any objective truth in what's going on. If you want to know the story, you have to find it yourself, digging through item descriptions and dialogue to learn about characters, history, and the world. And after you've found all the information, you have to interpret it as well, figuring out what means what and how everything fits together. There's no right answer for anything in this game.



I love that. There was immense satisfaction in hunting down clues and making sense of everything, learning what's up with this evil murderous knight or that deranged fiery spider-witch. It made me feel like I was piecing together a vast, intricate puzzle, and put everything that happened in context. Now I know the spider-witch was actually just killing people to cure her sister's wasting illness, and by killing her I've also condemned her innocent sister to death, and I learned all that out myself. 

When the last piece of that sprawling story fell into place and everything made sense together, it didn't feel as though somebody had given it to me; I'd earned the right to understand, which made understanding all the sweeter.



THEME



Now this is where Dark Souls REALLY shines. The central theme of the game is decay, entropy, the inevitability of death, that kind of thing. The world is going to end and there's nothing you can do about it. And every single aspect of the game reflects that theme in some way.



Some lore you can find pretty much confirms that even if you succeed, you're only delaying the end of mankind for a little while longer. When you're playing, at least one resource (like health, healing items, weapon durability, or stamina) is always dwindling, like a ticking clock counting down to your death. You explore the ruins of other civilizations that thrived long ago, then died and were forgotten, just like yours will. Almost every major character is on the slippery slope to insanity, death, insanity followed by death, or death followed by insanity.



It's a depressing game, sure, but it's depressing with a purpose. There's not a single wasted part of it; everything, from the story, to the gameplay, to the visual design, complements everything else and makes for an experience that feels more cohesive than anything else I've played.



IN CONCLUSION



So, if we take Dark Souls as a shining example of storytelling in video games, what makes a good game story is 1) gameplay that doesn't detract from the experience, 2) a complex, subtly-delivered plot, 3) a sense of player involvement/achievement (fulfilled by Dark Souls' clue-hunting and difficulty, but it doesn't have to be so obscure) in the story, 4) varied and interesting characters (I didn't talk much about them, as this post is running long already, but Dark Souls has them by the dozen if you're willing to dig through the lore) and 5) strong central theming that brings everything together.



Many of the same things that make a good book or movie, you'll find. As different as writing video games can be, it  seems there's a lot of crossover that’s forgotten when it comes to making a story interactive. Thankfully, the developers behind Dark Souls didn't forget, which might be why it tells one of the best stories in any medium.


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Even if video games aren't your thing, you have to admit the kid’s got some chops, doesn’t he?