Light in August

I'm pretty sure Faulkner is my favorite mid-20th century American writer, in any genre. My first exposure to his writing was in my 12th grade AP English course; we read As I Lay Dying and Absolam! Absolam!, and I absolutely loved the tragic tale of the Sutpen clan. Faulkner has an absolute gift for creating strong and unusual characters with odd problems who are inextricably entwined in a godawfully convoluted set of relationships, all of which is laid bare bit by bit over the course of the novel, with each surprising and tawdry revelation holding the promise of changing how you feel about the characters.

What I dislike about Light in August is the backstory. Or perhaps backstories. The novel begins with Lena Grove, who, on her own qualities and because of the nature of her predicament, is absolutely fascinating. As she approaches Jefferson, her story merges with those of the other "outsiders" of the town of Jefferson, culminating with the murder and burning of the house. It's absolutely beautiful and terrible, and everything is moving along just dandily, and then the narrative is simply cut off to tell the woeful backstory of Joe Christmas (jeez, with that of murder victim thrown in for free!). When we pick up again in the present, the novel rights itself, but why burden an otherwise good book with a salvage operation? I feel as if everything I learned during Christmas's backstory could have been transmitted more skillfully with much less verbiage. The good parts are still really good, though.

West is the Best?

Here are the cumulative games over .500, by division, after games of 2007-09-02

       AL   NL
East    4   -9
Cent   -5  -38
West   23   25

I don't often read about comparisons between divisions, but this seems like a reasonable rough-and-ready statistic; clearly, the NL Central is a terrible division, so everyone wondering whether the Cubs playing barely above .500 is due to the NL Central being a "competitive" division can lay those worries to rest -- maybe they're competitive with each other, but compared to other divisions, not so much. What is mildly surprising is the dominance of the western divisions in each league. Oh, certainly, a more comprehensive metric would be needed to compare divisions across leagues, since there is a 22 game differential between the AL and NL, and I'm certainly annoyed that the AL West and NL Central are unbalanced in the the number of teams in those respective divisions (this really, really, really needs to be addressed), but I'm still happy with cumulative games over .500 as a quick check on the strength of divisions.

Siblings without Rivalry

Yesterday I finished Siblings without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. It's a pretty useful guide to avoiding some of the common pratfalls of parenting more than one child. My brother and I didn't actually fight very much as kids; from the get-go we were allies "against" our parents, so the cardinal assumption of the book -- that your kids will be at each other's throats -- made it hard for me to relate to the text at first; however, when I stopped to remember that the vehicle for telling the book's "story" is a series of help sessions for parents whose children are fighting... okay, I can get behind that. The book's strength lies in its relative simplicity, so I won't dwell on the fact that it doesn't delve far into some of the subtleties and gray areas (and to their credit, the authors willingly admit this) except for one issue that, as I read it, comes close to being an internal inconsistency, and really needed to be resolved within the book.

At any rate, later in the book is a section on roles, and how parents will create roles for children, other children will create roles for children, and children will create roles for themselves... and how it isn't healthy for your children's relationships for their to be a "smart" one, "athletic" one, and "musical" one; they should all be equally encouraged to be smart and athletic and musical -- the problem here is that there is an earlier chapter on how damaging it can be to try to treat your kids equally; for example, when they ask "who do you love best?" you don't answer "I love all of you equally," you tell them how you love them individually. There is a fine line here between not putting your kids into roles and not trying to treat them perfectly equally.

Based upon my first reading (and having returned the book to the library, I can't go back for a second reading right now, so the problem might not be there), it needs to be clarified in the section on roles that your children should all be encouraged to be as smart and athletic and musical as they can individually be, to make there be a connection between these lessons/sessions rather than a near-inconsistency.

Fun with the Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball

The Padres didn't win last night, but that just gives me a chance to have (more, overall, though for the first time in this space, obviously) fun with the Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball. On the morning of Tuesday, August 14, the Giants were tied with the Pirates for the worst record in the NL, with 502 runs scored and 522 runs against. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks, then 16.5 games ahead of the Giants, had the best record in the NL, with 502 runs scored and 523 runs against.

Well, today, the morning of Friday, August 31, the Diamondbacks still have the best record in the NL, now with 570 runs for and 607 runs against, while the Giants, still last in their division (though only fifth worst in the NL) are 13.5 games back with 575 runs for and 583 runs against.

Back to the results of last night's game, Chris Young's health has to be a huge concern for the Padres. With him pitching like in the first half, they'd have a good chance of getting to the World Series with Peavy, Young, and Maddux as their frontline playoff starters (with Germano starting as needed). Without Young, or with Young nursing an aching back... well, I'd really rather not see Tim Stauffer starting a must-win playoff game for the Pads.

Getting my bearings

Let's just go through the "who, what, where":

Who am I? 24601? (yes, that was lame, let's move on)

What? Blerg. I get at most 1/2 an hour a day to unload any shiny baubles that are rattling around in my head and distracting me from family, work, or sleep (usually sleep). I really hope this doesn't become too sports-centric, but it's September and the Padres are tied for first.

Where? Google's Blogger, because... well, mostly I can't be bothered to learn TextPattern or WordPress and properly host it on my own site, www.macreutter.com, and Google is where are my e-mail and things is.

Why? I'm mildly pissed there's no public record of my prediction that the Yankees' acquisition of Kevin Brown for the 2004 season would lead to the Red Sox's best chance of winning the World Series? That's really only a partial answer.

How? At most 1/2 an hour each day. I've never kept a written journal, so it's slightly less weird to me to submit "private" thoughts to the public space, but I figure that (a) no one will read this, and (b) if someone does and something I've written helps them in some way, that's a good thing.