we won our soccer game tonight, woohooo!
and i scored two goals!
yeah!
(also, someone's been clicking on some ads. i made a buck today.)
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.
i'm worn out from tonight's soccer practice. it's hard work pretending to be the coach. anyway, i've added several books and movies to the rankings on the left (in bold), including mikhail bulgakov's the master and margarita, a 20th century russian "masterpiece" that you're far better letting other people read.
i'll post something worthwhile someday. in the meantime, this is my favorite picture from the mayan ruins of tikal:
andrew david. "frond framed ruins." tikal, guatemala.
wednesday was a good day, a really good day. i got some reassuring news from my boss, successfully coached my first ever soccer practice, crashed out a lively version of ben folds's "fired," performed secondo piano on our jolly rendition of sufjan stevens' "chicago," watched two episodes of lost, and discovered my 6th favorite flavor of ice cream (slow-churned american idol).
but when i awoke this morning, my head was in a vice. i had an insufferable headache, perhaps an ego hangover.
you see, until yesterday, i was rather suspicious that my soccer experiment would explode in my face. thus, i half-expected to be sitting cross-legged and alone at our first scheduled practice. instead, i had five enthusiastic soccer pupils chasing each other through cones and, surprise, surprise, thanking me for my patience. and then the ben folds cover was punctuated with the unfamiliar sounds of shouts and applause; from my bench at the piano, the green-bean-twenty sounded more like one hundred. and so now i wonder somewhat abstractly if perhaps it's more than possible for one to get too much of a good thing.
of course, i doubt that my happy night really caused the headache, but the hand-in-hand nature of good and bad, black and white, falling and faith seems an intangible truth.
i encountered this strange blending of absolutes as i worked on the ADRC newsletter at work this week. in an email to the s.o. i explained that "for the first time ever, i have a sense of what to write and how to write it, but it's interesting that this sense of 'this could work' is also accompanied by an odd feeling of 'now don't screw this up--this could be your one opportunity of writing clarity.'" it's as if the universe commands that a burst of productive creativity (or any goodness) is necessarily followed by a lull of frustrating ineptitude (or badness).
i started this post with some references to soccer, so i suppose it's only fitting to return to sports. i tend to spend my morning commutes listening to talk radio or kjr 950 hosts mitch levy and steve sandmeyer. on wednesday morning, the pair were discussing the mariners 11-3 victory over the division-leading angels. sandmeyer was defending the levy theory, which purports that by scoring 7 unnecessary runs, the m's may have tipped baseball karma in anaheim's favor for the remainder of the series. again, there's no statistical support for this theory, but perhaps the universe demands moderation. perhaps ichiro--he of two strange statements and a future pitching career--should have saved some of those 5 hits for the next night. perhaps in the interest of future good days, i should politely ask people to refrain from compliments or applause, perhaps a disapproving grunt might be good now and again
.
andrew david. "the jaguar temple. rarrrrrrr!" tikal, guatemala.
PS the music links are to youtube. i realized that it was silly to link to amazon, because amazon only allows you to play a little sample of songs whereas youtube has the entire song. i'll continue with this strategy for all future music links. however, these links also have their disadvantages--you must suffer through some dancing girls and a little speech by sufjan.
back in february i wrote that i was thinking of founding a co-ed soccer team. somehow, my thoughts mushed together into something a little more concrete than cerebral wonderings: if the stars align right, i'll be submitting a registration form on monday.
i'm aiming for a total of 15 players (8 guys, 7 girls), and so far we're 1 guy and 2 girls short. thus, if you know anyone who might be interested, leave me message.
if you're thinking "hmmm...i might be interested in that, but i don't know anything about soccer," here's the scoop: we'll have 5 girls, 5 guys, and a goalie (any gender) on the field at all times. our team will have an odd blend of talent--some of us have never played soccer and some of us have coached it--so we're going for a fun, easy-going experience. of course, I'd like to destroy the competition too, but this could be an interesting experiment.
again, if you're interested, leave me a message.
pietro's pizza. "that's me in junior high." seattle, wa.
tonight i was sean (i.e., i was an offensive juggernaut). during our pregame soccer warm-ups, rebecca reported that sean was at home on the couch; the flu had transformed him into a miserable blob of snot. and after that chat, i knew that i had to serve honorably as his replacement; i had to let his legacy shine. and how better to remember sean then to score a goal? so i did (my first ever, i should add). and then i had an assist for our second goal of the night. whooohooo! unfortunately, the opposing team mounted a comeback during the second half, and we only managed a 2-2 tie, but there's still an itsy-bitsy chance that a tie will be enough to propel the WE PLAY BETTER ON GRASS into the title game.
gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaalll!
father of the s.o. "look out. here come the crazies." ocean shores, washington.
i'm researching the possibility of founding a co-ed soccer team for the spring or summer season and i've already got some possible candidates. if you, mysterious web surfer, might be interested, leave me a message, and i'd be happy to tell you more. my motivations for this rare burst of leadership are the following:
