16-Page Read: Goodnight Moon

January 29, 2009


Goodnight Moon By Margaret Wise Brown (Illustrated by Hurd, Clement)
Goodnight Moon

It’s the colors, I tell myself. That’s what makes Goodnight Moon so good.

It’s the warmth – the dark reds and greens and golds, all shaded by the cloak of night. It’s the comfort of the shade as it descends over the room.

It’s the warm comforter. The old lady whispering hush, looking over the room and making sure everything is safe. The kittens playing, oblivious to the night creeping in. The paintings. The fire. Especially the fire.

Sometimes, it’s that twinge of goofiness that makes it fun for an adult. You don’t typically say goodnight to a bowl of mush. Or to the paintings on the wall. Or to your socks. Mittens. Nothing at all. But in this world, you do. In this world, you say goodnight to everything.

Which is why I think I love the book so much. It’s irrelevant, yet it encompasses every part of the day – from morning to night, from living to imagined. From light to dark. From nourishment to triviality.

It’s hard to explain exactly what makes Goodnight Moon so special without simply saying, “It’s just good.” That might be the only explanation you need. It’s just good. It’s not offensive, or annoying, or too long or too short. It’s mind blowing in that it’s so simple. So catchy.

Most of all, it’s the safety in repetition – in saying good night to every single thing around you.

Just as Sierra does each night, sometimes whispering, sometimes yelling: “Nigh nigh.” Nothing is missed. Everything is accounted for. Order is comfortably restored and ready to be destroyed the next morning, once the moon has set and the sun is ready to show its face.

Goodnight television. Goodnight Becket. Goodnight rubber duck. Goodnight door. Goodnight mommy. Goodnight balloon. Goodnight daddy. Goodnight light.

Goodnight moon.

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books, Literature, Sierra |

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Boom Tho on rivalry

January 28, 2009


Checking Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo! Sports today, I was surprised to see a couple of Sioux Falls Skyforce players rocking the rebound.

Well, duh. I totally forgot that regular blogger Rod Benson plays for the Dakota Wizards, who were in town last Saturday. (We missed it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they revoked our season tickets for missing a heated rivalry game. Seriously. I feel like a chump for missing the game.)

Anyway, he does a good job of summing up the Dakota Wizards/Sioux Falls Skyforce rivalry without hyperbole, helping lend some credibility to my claim that, yes, D-League Basketball is indeed entertaining, important and high quality.

From the post:

On Saturday we played in Sioux Falls. These guys are our rivals, a rivalry that borders on the Bulls-Pistons level back in the day. I mean, I guess I should say it’s as close to that kind of hard-fought, knockdown, drag-out rivalry as a minor league basketball rivalry can be. The guys on each team are usually some of the best in the D-League. They have been with the same team for years. Of course, the whole “North Dakota vs. South Dakota” thing plays a part. The attendance is the best in the league for these games. There’s just a lot of emotion involved every time we play.

The bad thing is that Dakota won thanks to some stupid heat-of-the-moment technicals and fouls. If it wasn’t for getting into our own heads, the Skyforce would be undefeated.

Regardless, nice to see some semi-national attention for the ‘Force.

Tags: Basketball, Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Skyforce, Sports |

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John Updike (1932-2009)

January 28, 2009


It’s yesterday’s news, but a sad farewell to John Updike, of whose Rabbit Angstrom books I found to be brilliant. So brilliant that they came in Runner-Up in the Great WIBR Championship Tournament.

I didn’t know him. I didn’t read a lot of his writing outside of the Rabbit books. I wasn’t an expert - can’t anoint him the greatest of all time or any other hullabaloo. I won’t blather on with some ham-handed tribute because, let’s face it, I’m unqualified to do that and hundreds of others will tackle the task with much more insight.

But I do think he was great. And anytime a great writer passes away - whether you care for his or her writing or not - the literary world and those who follow it understand that an amazing amount of creativity and spirit has passed away as well.

See also: What I’ve Been Reading - April 2007 and an offshoot of that article, my Corey Vilhauer Book of the Month for May 2007.

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading, Writers |

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Gender balance restored

January 27, 2009


We had our ultrasound today. Not wanting to learn about the gender in the cold confines of an ultrasound suite, we had them write it down and place it in an envelope.

Sierra opened the envelope tonight. And the balance of the household has been attained once again.




Baby number two is a boy.

Now, we’ve just got to figure out a name.

Tags: Baby Pictures, Isaac, Sierra, Vilhauer |

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Naming number two

January 27, 2009


When it came to naming Sierra, the choice was easy. I had an affinity for the name for a while, thanks to a song by the same name by one of my favorite bands, Cursive. I thought “Sierra” was beautiful. Original enough to be creative, but not so out-there to be weird. I mentioned it as a name to Kerrie, and she agreed, without any doubt. We knew that “Sierra” would be our girl’s name.

Sure, it’s not as original as I had thought – it was in the to 100 for baby names in the mid 2000’s, though it’s been dropping in recent years – and there’s always that damned GMC behemoth, but all in all I still think it’s perfect. I can’t imagine her being called anything else but Sierra.

Nothing else would fit.

Thankfully, we had a girl.

I say thankfully because, well, we never really managed to nail down a suitable boy name. They were all just “okay.” We had several chosen, ready to anoint upon birth, not knowing what the final answer would be until seeing Baby Boy Vilhauer for the first time. And, again, thankfully, we didn’t need to make that decision.

Which brings us to today.

For us, it seems as though girl names are infinitely easier to choose. We’ve already got a girl name picked out – a beautiful name that harmonizes with Sierra and sounds nearly classical with Vilhauer. First and middle name. Chosen. Done and done.

But for a boy? Nothing.

I think of this because we have an appointment today for an ultrasound. The ultrasound where we can discover the gender of the baby. The ultrasound where we could, if so moved, determine what our future will hold – a couple of beaming girls or a pair better suited for mixed doubles.

We’re not quite sure if we want to find out. Why spoil the surprise, right?

One reason is the name. What if it’s a boy? What if this perfect girl name is trashed in the name of an extra Y chromosome? And, what then?

Boy names are by nature more difficult. Clever names seem too cutesy, and the typical seem so generic. I wasn’t a typical boy growing up – as in, I wasn’t tied to cars and sports and the other things boys are expected to discover and latch onto – so I’m not sure what a name is supposed to represent. I was named after my father’s dog, after all. True story.

It’s been mentioned hundreds of times before, of course – a name is more than a word. It’s an identity that sticks with a child for his or her entire life, from birth until adulthood, along for the ride, written and mispronounced and branded onto every item that he or she encounters throughout every single stage of growing up.

And I think that makes the decision so important. I wonder what goes though the minds of those that use child names as some kind of personal fantasy, as some kind of joke or reaffirmation of ideals. I wonder why a Miami Dolphins fan would name their kid “Phin,” or why someone who was enamored with marijuana would name their little girl “Sweet Leaf.”

We hope that Sierra finds the beauty in her name as she grows up. We hope she understands every aspect of the word – the naturalness and creativity, and the historical aspect of her middle name: Dawn, a female version of my grandfather’s name, Don.

And we hope that, no matter what happens, Baby #2 finds joy in his or her name. Because it’s important. We realize that.

That’s what makes the decision so difficult.

Tags: Grandpa Boyer, Isaac, Miami Dolphins, Sierra, Vilhauer |

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Days With My Father

January 23, 2009


Photography and words that move.

That nearly moved me to tears as I looked at it, here, at my work desk.

Days With My Father, by Phillip Toledano - a portrait of the photographer’s father as he descends into a form of Alzheimer’s-like short term memory loss. It’s amazing. Touching.

I’m going to go back to missing my grandfather now, thanks.

Found via an older post by Bill at MTLB.

Tags: Grandpa Boyer, Photography |

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Do it better

January 22, 2009


Eyes watering, lying on my back, I stared into a fluorescent light. Metal scraped against my teeth, the taste of plaque cascading across my palate. I thought about how fitting it would be to write about how much I hate the dentist – how it’s both cliché and intensely real; a necessary evil that we’re all forced to live with in order to keep, you know, chewing things.

And then I got to work. I started to type. Something hit me.

I’ve already talked about this.

”Intrusive. Awkward. Banal. Antisepticised and stretched taut with rubber.

Have you ever chewed on your fingernails? You know the taste you get, like a grinded piece of old plastic, dark and deep yet earthy and natural?

Mix that taste with cinnamon, then scrape at your eyelid.

That, to me, is the dentist.”

That’s from June of 2007. From this site. From my mind.

With over 1,000 posts in the backlog of Black Marks on Wood Pulp, I’m finding it increasingly harder to find topics I haven’t already written about. And at work, after only three years of writing copy, I’m discovering a newfound mental block, where the only ideas I can come up with are old ideas.

It’s not writer’s block – that would assume I can’t think of anything at all. It’s more like writer’s blockage, with thousands of previously written ideas are flooding back at once, blocking the progress of anything new or creative.

When this happens to us – in any form of creative work – it’s easy to give up. To say, “Oh, all of my ideas are dry,” and move along with something trivial, or accept a less than stellar idea in the name of Getting Work Done. We are led down the simple path. The path to hackdom.

But it’s important to realize that, indeed, thoughts are rarely original. Except in the case of new forms of media, everything’s been done. Creativity isn’t coming up with new ideas – it’s taking the existing ideas and mixing them in a way you don’t expect.

There’s a quote from director Jim Jarmusch (which I discovered just a few weeks ago on Please Feed the Animals) that sums this up:

”Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it.

In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.’”

So I can write about going to the dentist again. Or, I can write about writing about the dentist. Or, I can forgo the dentist completely and talk about what would happen if I didn’t go. I can write an ad for a dentist. I can look for anagrams. Describe my walk from the car to the dental office in the same vein as an executioner’s walk. Speak from the vantage point of my teeth.

It doesn’t matter if it’s been done. It matter if it’s done well.

Tags: Random |

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