March newsletter: It's a Trotten

So there I was, turning the little crank that lifted the surface of my Ikea desk. Higher. Higher! Even higher, so that when I stand at its western edge, my left temple brushes the corner of the skylight. That’s the only place in this sloped-ceilinged loft where I can stand fully erect.
Then came the enjoyable task of sifting through all my books to find the works of reference I could shelve under my new desk. Birds of Europe, An Introduction to Sumerian Grammar. Gnomes. My old, dusty art supplies.
I left things that way for a whole week of classes, prep for classes, writing, and housework. I managed for a time to stand at my desk (or rather to plant my elbows and dangle off it) after a long day and write in my journal.
Finally, on a Saturday, I opened my sketchbook to its most recent page. Six months ago, I’d inked over a pencil drawing of men and beasts. Now, I started thinking about color palettes. Red, brown, black, and pine green for contrast. What would that look like? With if successive green washes gave depth, and green made shadows? Too much, it would turn out, but I didn’t know that then. I wanted to find out.
I’d catch myself asking are you painting? Are you making art again? For the first tie in half a year? Why don’t you paint more often? I quieted myself. Just dip the brush, touch the pigment, add and squeeze the water away. Smell that sweet, wet paper. And while you’re waiting for it to dry, take up that pencil. What if a deer walked on its hind legs? What would that look like?
Some blog, maybe it was A Quantum of Caring on Tumblr, called it “base expansion.” You invest energy in objects and practices that gain you more energy. You go to Ikea, invest in a Trotten, and you find yourself standing taller.
In other news, I drew this castle-head guy and wrote a long-form review of Theft of Fire.

Big news about Wealthgiver, but I’m not quite ready to share it yet.

​And I read a whole lot last month:
Between Home and Ruin by Karl K. Gallagher
The previous book in this series promised us a war, and we got one. The fun is watching exactly how. The diplomatic maneuvering felt very real, even better than the space battle and detective side-story. All three threads of the story deliver what I appreciate most in plotting, which is when you think A is going to happen, B happens instead, and B is more interesting than A. I will definitely read the third book in this series, and everything else Gallagher might write.
Nine Lives by Aimen Dean
This ghostwritten autobiography of an Al-Qaeda defector shows us what espionage looked like between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Abraham Accords.
James Herriot's Dog Stories by James Herriot
I read this collection to my daughters, for whom it was perfect. No sex, but some men and women eyeing each other significantly. Serious consideration of mortality, but no hopelessness. And cute and funny doggies. I looked forward to bedtime.
The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
Chesterton gives his history of the Western world, from cave paintings to cities growing around the periphery of the inland sea to the Roman crisis of faith and its resolution in the coming of Jesus Christ. Apparently, he wrote this book contra H. G. Wells, but I don't care about the disagreements of two old scholars. I appreciate Chesterton's timeline of civilization superimposed over my own life from childhood to now. It's a story I'm glad to be part of.
Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan
I’ve lived in Bulgaria since 2008, so I was fascinated by the impressions of another American who visited this country both before and immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His observation that Bulgarians weren't allowed to complain before 1989 made much clear to me. But seriously, I value this book's "what-it-is-like-ness" as well as its summaries of the parallel but mutually-ignoring histories of Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. Kaplan talks too much about the line between "east" and "west," but maybe that just reflects how much has changed.
Alternate Routes by Tim Powers
This book starts out with a great concept and a blast of an opening, but about halfway through it runs out of momentum and falls apart. I admire how much backstory the characters have and how quickly we get to know them and their problem, a villain compellingly similar to C.S. Lewis’s Doctor Frost.But then it seems like Powers doesn’t know what to do. He loses track of how his ghosts and their world work and what his characters want. I gave up about halfway through.
Exodus from the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
The third Book of the Long Sun having wrapped up the story of Patera Silk, this fourth book feels a bit in excess, until you realize it is a bridge between Silk and Horn, who fictionally wrote this series, and will star in the next (The Book of the Short Sun). A good story in itself, Exodus also makes sense of much of what happened in the previous three books. "Of course we didn't know at then that Patera Quetzal was an Inhumu." Awesome.
Secret Agents of the Galaxy by John C. Wright
Another ride, though not as wild as the last one. While the previous book pulled us through the death-defying pirate hunt of Athos Lone, this second book focuses more on the psyonic espionage of Lyra Centauri. This is less exciting, and her story and Athos's have little to do with each other. Between the first and last scene, both of which are excellent and gripping, the rest of the book sags. However, I'm still eagerly awaiting book three. Wright's mediocrity is everyone else's mastery.
See you next month