the good news and the bad news

the good news
my soccer team won 4-1 last night! whoohooo!

in addition to my research editor position at the VA, i am now working as the creative writing editor for the other journal, an online quarterly that publishes essays, reviews, and creative writing that investigate theology, culture, and social justice.

and it gets even more exciting. for its ninth issue birthday, TOJ received a great big check from mars hill graduate school (not to be confused with ballard's mars hill church). this financial support is a sign that TOJ is growing, and with this growth in mind, the TOJ editors are making matters of style, punctuation, and writerly perfection a priority. therefore, becky (the former creative writing editor and new master copyeditor) and i get to establish (and enforce) a house style. this may sound daunting or even painful, but the creation of editorial guidelines is really a copyeditor's dream come true.

the bad news
you've probably noticed that the 17 point scale content has been scarce recently. well, get used to it. because of soccer and TOJ, i don't really have much spare time for blogging. i'll try and keep the numeric book and film ratings up-to-date, and i may occasionally post reviews (e.g., i have an in-progress review of cormac mccarthy's border trilogy that i hope to publish one day) or life updates, but don't expect many of my signature quirky reflections or picture captions.

someday the 17 point scale may return, but in the meantime, i won't be hurt if you stop visiting or change your homepage to some other blog.

send me an email (sparklinandrewivories@hotandrewmail.com but remove the andrews) or leave me a comment if you're interested in hearing directly about future incarnations of the 17 point scale.

-andrew


andrew david. "the setting point scale" ocean shores, wa.

salvaged tunes

many mp3s perished in yesterday's purge, but today was a time of musical salvation. i was preparing to trash most of aqualung's strange and beautiful album; the tracks were rated 1s, 2s, and 3s, and seemed unlikely candidates for survival. but then something peculiar happened. i gave them a second listen and was pleasantly surprised--i may like this aqualung fellow! perhaps my tastes are changing....

that's all.

andrew david. "a strange plant that you mistake for a weed and then learn to love." san ignacio town, belize.

deleted tunes

my laptop is bursting with mp3s and photographs, so i recently purchased an external hard drive to help with the storage problem. after backing up the files, i went on a deleting spree. the first files to get the ax were 196 songs (that's about 1 gig) from the paste magazine sampler albums. each of the casualties was first given a 5 to 10 second opportunity to increase its ranking to the 3 star safety threshold, but only 1 song was spared (an arcane fire song).

two deletion observations:

• several of my favorite bands appeared to use paste as their dumping ground for sub-par songs. paste contributions from ben harper, ben kweller, bright eyes, cat power, coldplay, death cab for cutie, solomon burke, and van morrison each found their way to the recycle bin.
• the paste music editors and i strongly disagree on several bands. multiple contributions from bill mallonee, brindley brothers, mary gauthier, michelle shocked, rachael sage, sonia dada, and the black keys were included in paste albums and subsequently deleted by me.

a list of the most recently deleted songs (sorted by artist)


andrew david. "iguanas and the s.o." san ignacio town, belize.

big events in the real world

for once i feel legitimately vindicated in my 17 point scale absence. since we last spoke, my world has exploded. by world, i mean my friends, my teams, and myself, and by explode, i mean that the last two weeks have been crazy ridiculous.

my friends

1. alex got married and headed off on his honeymoon
2. sean finally left on his honeymoon
   
3. my roommate got laid off
   
4. beth and her roommates got a tentative eviction notice
5. the other andrew and some of beth's roommates (i.e., whitney and nora) confirmed that they were beginning new life adventures in sunny california while others (i.e., joel & sara, mari, my parents) set off or prepared to set off for trips to china
   

my teams

1. the sonics drafted kevin durant and jeff green and signed wally szcerbiak, delonte west, general manager sam presti, and coach pj carlesimo
2. the sonics traded ray allen and rashard lewis
3. the muckleshoot indian tribe is considering the possibility of the construction of a new sonics arena
   
4. the mariners are still winning, and at 50-36 are only 2 games out of 1st place in the west and 1 game out of 1st place in the wild card race
5. after jj putz and ichiro, a pair of sports bloggers may be the leading MVPs for the mariners this year; perhaps i'll explain more later
   
6. the others, my amazing soccer team, are 0-3 with an ever climbing goal differential and potential for success

myself

1. i finished the text for the first issue of that silly newsletter that i mentioned a few months; i'll post a link when it's all fine and dandified
2. i spent the last week or so in ocean shores with the s.o., her family, and my family; it was the first meeting of the two clans
3. i have a new job! i am the assistant creative writing editor for the other journal; i'll explain more later
   

if life slows down and gets ordinary again, i'll be sure to visit more frequently.

andrew david. "the wize young iguana listens patiently to andrew's list" san ignacio town, belize.

back page: an american tragedy

xi.
an american tragedy by theodore dreiser

5/1/2007
let me quote you from my edition's afterword: "the action of the novel moves like a series of waves, each surging forward to a peak of tension and receding into quietness, and each, after the first one, reenacting in a more complex and perilous fashion the material of its predecessor."

i heartily agree, but while iriving howe suggests that the gathering storm of dreiser's prose is something to be admired, i think i'd rather stay ashore. an american tragedy pounds the reader with wave after wave of its protagonists indiscretions. eight hundred fourteen pages of boring breakers. can someone please call an editor? dreiser's relentless descriptions of the blindly selfish age in which he lived make one tired. for those that survive the deluge, the novel concludes with an interesting collision between faith and conscience. ultimately, i'd say this is the kind of book that inane teachers will assign to their unfortunate students, forever spoiling the next generation's opportunity to appreciate great literature.

6 out of 17


andrew david. "dreiser won't save you, grab the rope!" crescent bar, wa.