If you were a dog, where would you like to live? Outside, where you answer the call of nature as you please, sniff at anything that seems promising, chase a passing squirrel … or inside, where you may get more than your share of treats but have to ask when nature calls and generally be bored a lot?

The Animal Deciders have Decided that you’re not a fit pet owner if you think a few acres and a lot of wide open space are at least as good for dogs as being inside knocking over furniture and chewing shoes. The arrogance is stupendous.

Turns out publicly posted names and addresses cut both ways.

The groups gathering signatures to put Oregon’s domestic partnership law on next year’s ballot failed by 116 signatures. The second referendum failed shortly thereafter.

Know They Neighbor Oregon, the group that threatened to post all signers’ names and addresses for “protection” or maybe to know where they needed to do more “education and work,” they’re not sure, will not publish the signers now that the referendum has failed, “as [they] have said,” though I didn’t spot exactly where they’ve said it before, “above all [because] it would provide opposition groups with a database of contacts for a repeal attempt that they have been discussing.”

A nice lady at the office of the Secretary of State tells me that petitions, whether successful or not at putting their measure on the ballot, stay on file for six years and that anybody can go down to Salem and look at them. Those motivated enough will still be able to go back to the well for next year’s signatures. But at least those motivated to triangulate their “neighbors” over political disagreement (but it’s about the FAMILY!!!) won’t have a handy electronic database with which to do so. Eah. Maybe it was that $3,000 Know Thy Neighbor said they needed to make copies of the signatures that was the deal breaker.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t read many novels. The one that is the subject of this post happened to catch my eye at Costco when I was in the mood to buy books. That line of florid dreck didn’t stop me from reading, but this might: Another of the protagonists says to her niece, on the subject of “What if Indians steal our food?” (the book is set during a wagon-train prairie crossing): “If you were hungry and someone had a picnic in your yard, wouldn’t you want to join them?”

Are you kidding me with that garbage, Ms. Kirkpatrick? And here I thought only Sesame Street was that addled. I can’t find a clip, but the sketch that caused my son and me to cease watching Sesame Street involved Baby Bear becoming irritated that Goldilocks always took his porridge, setting out to rewrite the tale so that she would take somebody else’s porridge, and eventually having a friend tell him he should re-write it so that there was a designated Goldilocks bowl waiting for her when she got there.

Teaching children that stealing’s okay because it’s always motivated by need and that in fact the victims should feel guilty about this need? Oh, and that stealing is “joining?” No thanks.

TheOneRing.net is down temporarily, and we may have lost some data permanently. The staff is looking into who has what and which can be saved and restored, and Corvar and Calisuri are looking at a jumpstart on the redesign they’d been planning. Ouch. On the up side, this may make it easier for Green Books to return to active posting. The static pages where our essays were kept were started in an era (I love the internet age; individual years can be the sum total of their own eras) before self-posting was widespread; we Green Bookers were far less on the technical knowledge side than on the thematic Tolkien side, and we had to send our stuff to an individual tech person who would then convert it to HTML and post it for us. This gradually became a bottleneck (although I don’t wish to defame our posters; we all gradually fell off in our duties, too, due to life, babies, documentaries, books …). Perhaps now we’ll get a self-posting system, like a blog, that will leave Green Books no excuses outside ourselves. I don’t know who we’ll get back besides me; it’s been a long time, and people have lives … babies … books … films …

I know I haven’t done any Tolkien stuff in a while, and I think it may have lost me at least one reader. Ouch. It is hard to keep talking about one subject. I’ve been doing Tolkien posts only when my heart is really in it, because I’d hate to write nonsense about Tolkien worse than not to write about him at all.

But I went browsing tonight through the sites of two of the artisans who do really wonderful Tolkien work. TORn was heavily affiliated with Badali Jewelry back in the day and still has a lot of Badali’s ads. Badali made those brooches that our folks got to give to Peter Jackson et. al., the ones the crew tended to actually wear at Oscar ceremonies. I was always fascinated by his One Ring, though I never bought one because I wouldn’t be comfortable wearing it. (Now Corvar, though, has been waving his ring hand, trying to turn me into a wraith, for years.) It’s gorgeous nevertheless. I love the script carving.

And Wandering Fire Pottery & Tile Works is now Verdant Tile Co., but they still have a few of their beautiful Tolkien-inspired designs. I think I have to order a couple of these this week–always intended to, but never got around to it.

No, I’m not advertising for either of these companies, in the sense that nobody asked me or paid me to do so. Just remarking on some beautiful, fascinating work. And remembering.

Update: I ordered the Athelas Kingsfoil tile and the White Tree tile. A little bit of Gondor for my living room.

Results show. This week: Two shows, no waiting. Thank whoever decided House and Bones wouldn’t air tonight. And my Tuesdays are still bereft, even with those two goodies (no, they’re not on the same level, don’t bother accusing me of thinking so, but I enjoy both nevertheless), without the television awe that was Veronica Mars.

That famous choreographer who hasn’t performed on TV in four years? I seriously must not be cool enough, because that was fairly repellant.

Drew and Cheryl are much more my style. Even if Wayne Newton still is not. The season they won was the only season I didn’t watch. As Jeff Foxworthy says, won’t do that again.

Cuban’s not even in the bottom two? Damn it. Who in the hell will be? He and Floyd were the only ones who came close to deserving it.

Mel and Maks. Ouch. I have to say Jane deserves to stay more than Mel (slightly), so that’s appropriate given Cuban’s inexplicable escape. Next time, Gadget.

Bye-bye, Floyd. Thank you, thank you, for lifting the standard of the early-eliminated athletes up from Clyde Dreckler.

According to this, I’m right-brained. Which I did not expect.

…say Michael Jordan and his son Jeff, who begins his freshman year and will play ball for the Illini.

Congratulations to Chris and Christina on the birth of their little pilot! Personally, though, I’d like to hear from Christina on this claim of two hours, nineteen minutes of labor time. Swift recovery to Christina and lots of sleep to everybody.

Len Goodman, I am ashamed of you. Cuban needs to go.

Sabrina and Mark: Sizzling paso. Even if it was to technopop. Deserving of every ten. Wow. Hey, don’t Sabrina and Mark look more than a little smitten with one another?

Jane and Tony: Didn’t Samantha say they’d never done the “Viennese waltz” before? As opposed to what must be a different kind of waltz that they do every season. It’s not hard to see why they’ve not done the Viennese before. It’s frickin hard to fit in those three steps every time and on the beat. It is not a slow dance. They seem off the beat. Hell, I’ve tried to waltz to “Piano Man” myself. Uhoh: Lift rule. Wow–who is adulterating Len’s coffee this year? Len brushing off the rule? It was a very minor infraction if at all. It was an exquisite waltz.

Floyd and Karina: Ugly paso. I knew whoever said last week that this would be his dance was wrong–the floating and bouncing that are intrinsic to boxing are anathema to the paso. Nice leap, though. No, Bruno, it is not his dance. Okay, people, let’s get this damn lift rule straight, because if it’s really about “something you can’t do on your own,” then it gets broken every week and is a dumb rule. If it’s about feet off the floor … figure it out.

Commercial: A farmer shilling for Oregon’s Measure 49. God forbid other people be allowed to build houses around your farm. Where “water’s already hard to come by.” Are they serious with this garbage? The voters already spoke with Measure 37. Good luck taking that away. (I love being able to just throw in state politics on the side–I have so many new Oregon readers thanks to Rachel Lucas! Woot!)

Mel B and Maks: Too much dancing before the music starts! Not attractive! Silly! I still cannot settle into the Viennese thing. They keep looking like they’re off the beat. Like the marching band at the football game last Friday–if you try to do halftime to 3/4 music, you’re off step every other measure. It looks ugly. Not the same problem here–the music is 3/4 and so is the dance, but they need to keep the step on the beat.

Len continues to pick on Maks, which cracks me up. Len and his heel leads. Heh.

Cameron and Edyta: Superman paso. Not a bad concept … She’s far more Princess Leia than Lois Lane. That’s a good thing. See, okay, the woman can’t drag herself, yet that could hardly qualify as a lift and it’s a standard paso move. Let’s get that rule clarified before next week. Wow, judges are happy.

Marie and Jonathan: Ouch. Doubletiming. That’s got to be even harder than the Piano Man thing, which is probably why they’re not doing too many actual waltz steps. That may hurt them with the judges … or not. Len’s infatuated. Bruno misses the character acting. I think I’m depressed at seeing Marie Osmond getting old, even though she looks good.

Jennie and Derek: Wow, she can bring the power when she needs to. Good for her. I can’t decide about the technopop: Hot or Not? It’s annoying, yet it seems to work. Again with the lift. How can you do a paso without one, is what I want to know. Ten from Len!

Helio and Julianne: They need to be building chemistry. It’s not working for me so far.

Welp, I didn’t intend to blog this so detailed-ly, but the eight for Cuban sent me into a typing frenzy. And, I watched it on the air night, for a change, and blogs are for blogging.

Cuban Must Go! On all counts, including Tom’s “think about who you want to see half-naked next week, and vote accordingly” criterium. Shudder.

This is the second recall of Thomas the Train wooden railway toys we’ve participated in this year. Our recalled items this time are “Toad” car with brake lever, the green maple tree top, and the green signal base. I’m not too fussed about it since The Bean is too old to chew toys, but might as well be safe. Plus, they send you an extra train unit for your trouble in packing stuff up and sending them back. Guess which unit they sent us as a gift for participating in the first recall, earlier this summer?

“Toad” car with brake lever. Can’t wait to see how soon the next gift is recalled.

Your opinion first, then mine. Tell me what you think of this line of prose, taken from the book All Together in One Place by Jane Kirkpatrick:

“Mazy Bacon embraced her life inside a pause that lacked premonition.”

Not much context necessary; it comes very near the beginning of the book. Mazy Bacon is the protagonist, an 1800s Midwestern farm wife, 19 years old.

Give your interpretation and your opinion of the line. I’ll update this post later after a few comments.

Update: Overwhelming majority in the comments says: Pretentious BS. Also the overwhelming majority made this judgment without going ahead and saying what they think the author is actually trying to say. And thus my point, in a nutshell: Be pretentious and you not only look pretentious but you drive people off of trying to figure out what you want to say. Anne and I were on the same wavelength–she said she’d stop reading right there. And I almost did, although since I already bought the book the fact that I might have stopped reading wouldn’t have affected the publisher’s bottom line–but it would affect the author’s exposure.

“Editors are ghouls and cannibals” was said by Harriet Vane in Dorothy Sayers’s Busman’s Honeymoon. I’m accustomed to taking the general drift of Harriet’s remarks as author’s voice, and if you surveyed a random sampling of authors on the question of “agree or disagree,” I’d lay money that the majority would come back “agree.” But the editor’s only job is to make the author look better. Whether it’s by correcting actual mistakes of grammar, spelling, punctuation, or usage or by adjusting wording for readability or by telling the author, “Look, this is pretentious BS, go back and fix it,” our only job is to make the author look good for publication. Of course there are officious editors who would like nothing better than to swap their own words in and the author’s out, but good editors use their BS detectors on the author’s behalf. Yet so many authors resist changes with everything they’ve got. I don’t blame them; I’ve been on the other side of the coin myself. It is an emotional battle. But if authors kept the basic tenet in mind–that our only job is to make them look better–both authors and editors would ultimately have an easier go of it.

Here’s the kicker: This is not a bad book. It’s not the Great American Novel, of course, but it’s not bad. It’s got a good basic story line, some interesting characters, and some good language … but stunners like this crop up from time to time and divert the flow of reader’s enjoyment right into an anger bucket. It’s not good. The kindest thing a good editor could have done for Ms. Kirkpatrick would be to have stopped her cold at lines like this and made her understand that if the reader has to wade through even one line of meaningless dreck to try to hazard what the author could possibly have meant by it, it takes away so much from the story that readers will even quit reading.

wg’s interpretation: That Mazy Bacon does not think about the consequences of her actions.
Anne’s interpretation: That Mazy Bacon is stupid and doesn’t see even what’s happening right in front of her.
My interpretation, with advantage of having read the back-cover blurb before beginning reading: That Mazy Bacon loves her life and doesn’t know it is about to change.

I believe mine is the correct interpretation (and, of course, I know the other two are incorrect because of what I already know about Mazy Bacon), but it took me a few tries even though I knew what was going on in the story, and the other two folks who hazarded guesses came up with two different ones. If a line is open to so many different interpretations, it doesn’t convey many facts about your protagonist, now does it?

I don’t know whether the problem here was an editor who embraces the pretentiousness a little too much, a dim or timid editor, or a mulish author who resisted whatever the editor might have tried to tell her about this kind of language, but the result was a book that is a lot worse than it needed to be. Sad.

That Cheetah Girl, Sabrina, is the Joey Fatone of the season. But of course we all saw what happened to him at the end.

Edyta Sliwinska, Production people who choose music, what were you thinking having people dance a tango to “The Beat Goes On?” Dumb dumb dumb dumb duuuumb.

Bruno Tonioli: For the love of God, shut the hell up when it’s not your turn.

I can’t figure out what Cuban’s problem is. He can do some reasonably good steps and seems to have energy, yet lacks the real explosive power of the real dancers and seems to have no idea how to move properly.

Wayne K. Newton, will you PLEASE GO NOW.

Okay, something that bugs me about this show every season: Judges, please make up your minds as to who you’re complimenting or castigating for the choreography and musical interpretation. Sometimes you lay it on the pro and the next minute you’re complimenting the star, in this case Marie Osmond, for knowing exactly what kind of portrayal works best for her. Make up your minds!

Part Two: Results Show.

Wow, Seal is not good live. Also he is not Elvis, whatever his pelvis might believe to the contrary.

Len compliments the field for a broader group of high talent than usual–more couples who set the bar high, as opposed to two or three really good couples and a blah backfield. But here’s the thing: The higher general standard this season is not up to the high specific standard set by the last six really great couples: Joey and Kym, Laila and Maks, Apolo and Julianne (and though they won, I thought they were third of three); Emmitt and Cheryl, Mario and Karina, and Joey and Edyta. Sabrina and Mark are very, very close to that standard, but unless some other couples start to push harder, it’s going to be a comparatively ho-hum season without those three or four fireworks couples to battle it out at the end. This can only be a good thing for Sabrina, however: Perhaps her great talent will have less trouble overcoming her lack of name recognition.

Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus: Hot or Not? Survey of Anwyn says: Billy Ray hot, Miley decidedly not. All I ever knew him from, obviously, was the Achy Breaky Heart, so hell, it’s a pleasant surprise just to find out he can play the guitar. Very sweet song for a father and daughter, but Miley seems to have forgotten she’s singing country. She’s trying to be R&B, she’s borderline out of tune, and her superfast vibrato is grating. Sorry, Hannah Montana fans, but you’re overpaying. A lot.

In other news, a rhumba–to a country song–and it actually works–!!! Maks and Karina, love it.

Nice feature about the music procedure.

I watch all this TiVoed, obviously, which is why I don’t have a TV blog–I can’t keep up with everything the exact night it airs, otherwise I’m sure I could fill up a TV blog and then some. But anyway, I always fast-forward through most of the talking that goes on. Just now when I had to start FF again, my comment: “Don’t talk to them, just eliminate them.” Kind of like, “Don’t name them, you’ll get attached!” Get on with it, already.

Okay, this new thing this year of having the judges opine right before they eliminate? Terrible. Makes the judges look like fools having to give advice for the future, not to mention lie about the present, to the star about to be booted off.

Eliminated: Wayne Newton. Thank you. Poor Cheryl. We’ll see you next year, babe.

Took The Little Bean, age four, to the local high school football game tonight, between the public high school (1-4 going in) and the Jesuit high school (4-1 going in). I saw a public HS twit with the following legend magic-markered (I guess it would be “Sharpied” nowadays) on his shirt: “We don’t need Jesus to win.”

I don’t think Jesus, or Jesuit’s star running back, liked that at all. Jesuit walloped the public school 42-zip.