I want to tell you about a river that is emerald green, clear enough to see the rocks on the bottom sixteen feet below as well as the trout, and provides a wonderful family getaway. I’m talking about the Green River just below the Flaming Gorge dam in north-eastern Utah. 

Yes, that picture’s of the Green River. Yes, it’s that beautiful and that clear in the calmer parts, of which there are many.

We just ran the seven mile stretch that starts just below the dam and goes down to the Little Hole campground with our four girls (ages 6 - 15) and had a ball. During our trip we saw otters swimming  up the river not more than six feet from our raft, a herd of mountain sheep off the side of the road, fish and more fish, a snake a long as a man with a light silvery skin mottled with black rectangles, and two osprey (one that dove under the water to get a fish and a second flying about twelve feet over our raft with a fish in its clutches). We ran some class II rapids. This time of year they weren’t scary to me, but provided plenty of thrills and stress for the kids. The water was warm enough to swim in, but cold enough to give you a shock. And it was so CLEAR.  Of course, there were spots too deep to see the bottom. But there were plenty where you could see the river plants, rocks, and aquatic life. And all of it in that emerald hue.

The girls were in the water inbetween every set of rapids. We packed a cooler and so stopped a number of times. Once to check out a waterfall, another time to snack, another to play on a sandbar, yet another to chase those otters, a bathroom break (outhouses provided by the park service), another time to swim.  

The Flaming Gorge area features the beautiful landscape seen in Southern Utah–red rock, pines, junipers. People come from all over to run the river and fish. We didn’t fish this time, but there were plenty of anglers who had rented boats. Still, it didn’t feel crowded at all. There were long stretches where we had the gorge to ourselves. Next time I think I’m going to bring a book (in a waterproof ziplocok) and we’ll spend a little more time on one of our stops to sit and relax.

Some tips:

• Bring a cooler. You’ll want to put in along the river and enjoy the gorge. There’s no hurry to finish.
• Bring good water shoes that have a sole with traction and netting to keep gravel out. (I got a pair at Wal-Mart that made the whole ride wonderful.) Also bring a hat and sunscreen. If you wear a cotten tee-shirt and quick drying shorts you’ll enjoy the ride even more.
• We stayed at the Flaming Gorge Resort the night before our run. It’s been around a while and the condos showed it, but it wasn’t bad. The condos had a kitchen. And the restaurant had large servings of good food.
• You might also want to bring a way to transport the raft inflated. We put ours on top of the minivan and had no problem taking it to and from the rental shop. However, I wished I had learned the trucker’s knot. The knots I tied cinched up into nasty snags that proved very difficult to untie.
• Bring two vehicles or a bicycle. The businesses there charge close to $50 to shuttle your car the 9+ miles between the launch below the dam and Little Hole. That was outrageous to me. Next time we’ll bring a bike, lock it up by Little Hole, and have one of us bike back for the car. Or you can park half way inbetween at Dutch John after you’ve launched your raft and make the hour walk down. Of course, if you’re an early riser, the rental shop in Dutch John offers a $20 shuttle from Little Hole to the Dam, but only at 8:30 AM and 9:30 AM.

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While in Provo this year for the Freedom Festival I purchased Ticket to Ride (European version). I wanted to do more than walk around or swim at the pool with the family. It was an excellent purchase and recommendation from the folks at Games People Play in the Orem mall. Of course, the kid at the store had played everything in the store and knew just where to steer us. It only took a few minutes to figure out how to play and everyone from the 6 year old to both Nellie and I had fun. It’s so fun we’ve played it a number of times since we got back.

*

Both Nellie and I learned to love Indonesian food during the years we spent in the Netherlands. Alas, not many Indonesian restaurants around. In search of something similar while living the in the San Francisco area, we found Thai food.

Ah, that dream within a dream.

And now we found yet another Thai restaurant in Utah with excellent food. So good my two oldest daughters get cravings to go back. The first is Thai Evergreen in Orem, Utah. It looks like a family owned operation and is. And their food is delicious. Four family’s went while at this year’s Freedom Festival, which meant we ordered quite a variety of food. Everything I tasted was delicious.

The next is Kamin in Logan, UT. Again, wonderful. Nellie and I have eaten there a number of times and never leave unsatisfied.

I don’t like anti-perspirants because they gob up in the underarms of my undershirts. Which means I eventually go walking about with pebbles in my pits. And, yes, we do have a washing machine and use it regularly. There’s something in there that defies anything less than hydro-chloric acid.

I don’t like deodorants because they wimp out on me. I’ll put on my bracing Speedstick in the morning and be sniffing myself by lunch. And if I put some industrial perfume on it only leads to rashes.

Someone might be saying that I should just be a real man and smell like a real man smells. But how about I be a real, smart man. See, if you’ve got dog poo in your carpet, you wouldn’t spray it with cologne, hoping to deal with the smell. No, you go to the source. Clean up the stuff and forego all the scents. In fact, if you keep the dog from pooping in the first place, you’re ahead of the game. So why not do the same with underarm odors? Just get rid of the stinkers.

Well, that’s what I did. Many years ago I found out that natural mineral salts kill underarm bacteria. If the underarm bacteria can’t exist, let alone breed and excrete, then you don’t get underarm odor. What’s more, you can get those mineral salts in “rock” form. Just wet and wipe under your arms and you’re done. It works just like regular anti-perspirant and deodorant, it’s just that you’re delivery bacteria killers instead of perfumes.

Another good thing about mineral salt deodrant rocks is that they last a LONG time. And I mean looooong. My last rock took about 4 years to use up (heads up all you one-year’s supply people). The problem with them is that you can’t find the rocks in the grocery store next to the big brands. But you CAN find them in health stories. I got my latest from Shangri-lah in Logan. The brand is Thai Crystal (named after the location where the US companies discovered this method of deodorizing).

Folks, it’s 3:09 PM. I just did the sniff test–aah, the sweet smell of nothing!

*

I heard all the hype about Rothfuss and picked up his The Name of the Wind  in a Hastings book shop. The first few pages didn’t grab me and so I put it back. But then I kept hearing the hype. I finally decided, okay, okay, I’ll give it a go.

By “go” I mean something like five pages. See, I’m impatient with books. If you can’t grab me by the bottom of page one, I’m outta there. I read too many stories in my undergrad program that bored me to the very last page. Sometime after I graduated (why did I wait so long?) I realized that I could increase the odds of reading something interesting me if I only read things that interested me. (You only arrive at this level of brilliance after many years in college.)

I’m not going to overview the plot here. Just know it’s a fabulous read. For you writers, note that what drives the reader’s suspense is not an overarching plot, but his situation of being alone and destitute. So while there are villains, that really isn’t what keeps the reader going. It’s the wonder of a new place and our hope for this kid.

*

I read more non-fiction than I do fiction each year. I need to so that I have something to say in my writing. And I will tell you that I haven’t found a finer source of cool ideas to huck into stories than Paul Newman’s (no, not the actor cum cookie man) Daily Life in the Middle Ages.

He breaks up medieval life into topics like Eating and Cooking, Building and Housing, Clothing and Dressing, etc. It’s full of wonderful stuff.

Did you know that they played football back in old England? Not sissy European style, but hog style, like rugby or American football. Except it was often between two towns and the playing field was miles long.

Did you know that respectable women wore hats? Those who let their hair go free were young girls and prostitutes. And that if a man knocked a woman’s headdress off it was tantamount to accusing her of prostitution and might result in the woman’s husband or family taking the man to court to exhonorate her. 

Did you know that the word “curfew” came from the old French “covre feu,” meaning “cover the fire.” Since open flames were such a fire hazard in the old cities, many towns had regulations that required people to douse their lights and carefully bank their fires at a certain time in the evening which was often marked by the tolling of bells.

I pulled these beauties out just randomly flipping through the pages. The book is full of such delights and you can be sure many of these will be finding their way into my stories.

*

I didn’t vote for Ross Perot the first time. I certainly wouldn’t vote for him now. But James Maxey just pointed me to an excellent on-line explanation of the current government budget. It’s worth your time to check this out to be able to understand what folks are talking about when it comes to our money and how Congress spends it. The charts are narrated, compelling, non-partisan, and incredibly easy to follow. Here are more Perot Chart presentations.  

T.C. Boyle is one of my favorite writers. He saved me in my undergraduate program. I was buying the The Best American Short Story, Pushcart, and O’Henry anthologies. I was reading for my coursework. And so much of it bored me to death. And then one day I began reading “The Ape Lady in Retirement” and my eyes hung out because finally the text was interesting. Finally someone wrote a story I could read start to finish.

I immediately bought his anthologies–Greasy Lake, If The River Was Whiskey, Descent of Man. I was in heaven. Now, not all of his stories worked magic on me. But when I was having a hard time finding one story in a whole anthology, his books seemed like a treasure trove.

He didn’t do as well in his novels. Oh, the writing was just as good. The characters and descriptions just as odd and stunning. But he didn’t keep my interest. The problems never built into anything. Nevertheless, I loved him.

I’ve been having a brief conversation with him and the fan boy in me is delighted to finally talk to this guy. And after reading an interview with him, I realize why he probably spoke to me. While the other literary fiction authors were following the tastes of the fringe group, Boyle at least wanted to entertain.

In his interview he says.

 Everybody has forgotten that literature, like all art, is, at root, entertainment. It is supposed to entertain you. It’s not supposed to be some conundrum to be resolved by some professors in the university. It’s not a game. It’s not masturbation. It’s art. And I think great art is great on all levels. But the first level on which it must be great is that it must be entertaining.

Amen, brother Boyle. Amen!

Here the full Boyle AWP interview.

However, I still think he misses the mark. In it he says about bestsellers:

But it’s mainly vampire books and Tom Clancy and all the rest of it. I don’t understand why we can’t make our books more available to everybody-not by compromising what we do, but by popularizing them, getting them out to the public.

I think that now we don’t have great editors. We have editors who are basically trying to hold on to their jobs and who publish good books once in a while. They’re basically cheerleaders for the books. They’re not editors, really. They’re incapable of being editors; they don’t need to be. Because editing is done-self-editing is done-through the apprenticeship in the writing programs. Nearly everyone from my generation on to your generation and beyond will have been through an MFA program. It’s just the way it is now. It’s a different world. It’s essential.

I’d like to suggest that Boyle, despite his love of entertainment, still misses the mark in his interview because you cannot popularize something that only appeals to a small market. The reason why Stephenie Meyer, Patterson, et al sell exponential circles around folks like Don DeLillo or Louise Erdrich is because Meyer and gang are very good at delivering what the largest portions of the reading public want. They deliver types of entertainment that DeLillo and Erdrich do not. (And I mean “entertainment” in a very broad sense.)

We could point at the Oprah effect (whether you like it or not, Mr. Cold Mountain) and say that’s not true. It’s all PR and marketing. But that assumes publisers are idiots. And while some of them may be, I think it’s an extreme assumption. Publishers are in it for the love AND money. And you can be sure that the board of directors is looking for smart, money people to lead the companies. You don’t make money, you’re fired.

Which means that IF the publishers found literary fiction sold like hotcakes they’d promote it like hotcakes. But literary fiction too often fails to entertain anybody but a handful of fringe readers. And so trying to popularize it can only have a limited effect. When people are thirsty, not many are going to pass up tall glasses of ice water for the pickled jalapenos at the end of the line.

Meyer, Clancy, Grisham, Roberts etc are masters of entertainment. And, like it or not, that’s the main reason the small portion of the public who actually read go to fiction.

I think it’s fine to cater to the fringe audience if that’s your pleasure. But I think it’s ridiculous to think such fare is better than what most people enjoy. Or that it deserves any special veneration. The MFA programs I’m familiar with seem, by and large, to miss the point. Instead of teaching the meat of fiction (entertainment) they focus on teaching students to serve up the parsley with great pomp. And when the customers go elsewhere to get the meat they crave (or the salad for you vegans), they respond by saying the customers are simply too dumb to get it or have no taste.

Now, I’m not saying the folks I work with in the MFA program are idiots. Or jerks. Almost everyone I’ve met has been extremely nice and smart. They have great insights. But there is a strong pressure in that culture, amost a moral pressure, to think about fiction this way. And it’s based on their tastes.

I think we all do this. 90% of what’s out there is crap. But it isn’t, really. The truth is that 90% of what’s out there simply doesn’t appeal to us. And so because it doesn’t deliver the goods, it’s crap to us. The problem is when we don’t realize the difference and begin to think that because we don’t have the taste for something that it’s garbage.

It’s not.

And that’s one thing the gentle and smart people in my program have shown me. I’m just as liable to make this mistake as anyone.

So what MFA programs need to do is teach fiction. The meat. As well as the parsley. They need to teach all the genres, not just one. Alas, for the meat you have to go to communications departments to even talk about it. And then hope you find someone like Dolf Zillman, Bryant Jennings, Jenefer Robinson, or Peter Vorderer.

Which leads me to the next point. Boyle is wrong about editors and writers. The majority of the authors that actually sell never set foot in an MFA program. MFA’s teach students to write for a small fringe market. And so they’ll dominate that fringe market, but not the big markets. Not what most people actually read.

Since I haven’t worked with any editors in that so-called golden age of editing, I cannot comment on the difference. But I do know that the editors I and other authors have worked with do many edits on the projects they oversee. They are thorough. They want it to be the best story it can be. It’s true they won’t take something that’s a complete mess and work on it. But why should they? There are so many better manuscripts out there it only makes sense.

Anyway, I love Boyle. Probably becasue he loves plot and story as much as language. His shorts saved me in my undergrad program. They were one of the few interesting things I read. I just am dismayed that these writing programs are so far off in the weeds.

If you’ve read my article on the Teachers section, you know I think a good portion of what we do in our public schools is a waste of time because it’s not driven by any natural motivation. The result is that  students are bored more than they need to be. They develop a distaste for many subjects that could provide them great joy. Finally, when they do learn, it’s for a test, not life. And so when the test is over the promptly forget what they’ve learned. 

This is not to say that I’m against testing or teaching to a test. Far from it. A good test demonstrates that you’ve learned what you’re supposed to have learned. A good test focuses on the main things you want to learn. Good tests (and there are many types of tests) are critical.  The problem is the objectives the tests are built on. If the objectives are idiotic then teaching to the test becomes idiotic.

Now Nellie just got a job (we’re so happy!) teaching 7th and 8th grade English. For some of you that will elicit groans. The memories of supreme boredom produced by endless grammar lessons and assigned readings with worksheets are still that strong. And Nellie and I had the same feelings. If her job was to teach grammar et al for nine months, she was going to shrivel and die.

Because grammar is bad? No, for heaven’s sake. Because grammar isn’t the point. Nor are assigned readings. Or iambic pentameter, rising action, theme, character, plot, induction, deduction, the six traits and all the rest of the usual suspects. The point is to enjoy writing and reading for the things writing and reading do.

So we’ve been working and disussin how she might still meet all the state requirements yet teach the practical joy. Becasue if she teaches the joy, then the students will become better readers and writers than they ever could be otherwise. Which means they’ll be able to do and enjoy the things that can be enjoyed and done when you know how to write and read.  Case in point: our girls. Nellie’s done such a good job teaching the joy of reading that we have to ground them from books every once in a while.

So anyway, I came up with some ideas, a first draft of a curriculum. Of course, starting from scratch is a huge project. There were issues with it. More importantly, would it work? You don’t want to risk your first year on the job. Luckily, Nellie is smarter than I am and found someone who already discovered this wheel. Nellie handed me Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle.

I began to read, and I didn’t stop until almost 1 AM. Everything I’ve learned about teaching in the last 20 years, everything I’ve learned about learning how to write in the last 20 years–it’s all there. The key principles are all there. And the implementation of those principles is simple and proven (they actually test results).

What are the principles? What is the program?

Read the book. Heck, just read the first chapter.

I cannot tell you how excited I am for Nellie. We ordered these books and can’t wait to devour them.

• In the Middle: New Understanding About Writing, Reading, and Learning
  
• The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers
  
• Lessons That Change Writers
  
• Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons
  
• Side by Side: Essays on Teaching to Learn

Nellie is also going to apply for a four-day intership at the Center for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb, Maine. I hope she gets in. She’s also going to do a week-long writer’s workshop at BYU.

Stay tuned. I’m going to twist her arm and see if she won’t blog about her experience this first year.

When I was in 7th grade I read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course, I wasn’t the sharpest literary tack back then, and so great sections of The Two Towers and The Return of the King went over my head and, therefore, bored me. But, with the help of the Hildenbrant calendars, enough came through to thrill. I wept at the events in the mines of Moria with Gandalf, geeked out over the elves, orcs, and Nazgul, was fascinated with the Ents and wizards, and generally wanted to stay in that world forever.

When I finished the trilogy, I mourned–the dream was over. I read Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Both were delightful, but neither was the same as LOTR. Then I saw The Silmarillion. It had a cool cover, a map.

Oh, joy! I bought it and took it home.

Alas, that book was about as much fun as reading a ten-pounder on the history of baroque cornices. I tried mightily to push through, but I don’t think I was able to finish more than 15 pages total from all the sections. So I mourned again, and then, still feeling the loss, went looking for something else that might whisk me away.

One of those whisking stories was Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. Of course, the fact that there was a wizard in it was important, but as equally delightful to my then puny literary prowess, was that the story was a slim thing. As were its two companions The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore.

Here’s the cover the drew me in so long ago.

I relished all three and moved on to other stories.

Time passed and I forgot about LeGuin. Almost 10 years later I was newly married. My wonderful new wife started reading to me as we’d drive. And on one of the three-hour drives to her parents, she pulled out this little book and began to read.

It was A Wizard of Earthsea! And it was just as marvelous the second time with a bigger brain as it was the first time with a smaller one. In fact, Nellie’s reading to me was so enjoyable I slowed down to 40 mph so I could extend the 3-hour drive. Of course, she quickly caught on to my scheme, shut the book, and told me she wouldn’t read another word unless I drove 65 mph, at the very least.

What can a guy do? I kept it at 65 (well, 60) and joyed in the wonderfulness of a new wife who would read aloud to me (you mean this model reads, too?!), the night and the stars spread above those lonely Utah and Wyoming roads, and the amazing story unfolding before me.

And this is the cover of the one my wife read to me.

We read all three to each other and moved onto other stories.

More than 15 years passed and I’d mostly forgotten LeGuin (I really never could get into her Hainish stuff). I was in the library looking for some good audio. And there on the shelf stood Tales from Earthsea by Ursual LeGuin.

Just a little slim container of cassettes. Why not? I thought.

Holy heroes, Batman—it was gold. LeGuin’s a master of building that feel: the wonder of fantasy, the mystery of things long forgotten or rumored to exist, the pull of learning arcane powers. I loved every minute of it (well, except for the slogging first four pages of backstory, but get through that, which isn’t too bad with Karr’s reading, and you’re into the kingdom). The first story, “The Finder,” read by Amanda Karr was incredible. It takes us back to how Roke became was it was in the first trilogy. But the delights do not end there. Four more stories follow.

I liked them all so much, I just checked the audiobook out again so I could listen a second time. And, it appears, LeGuin was busy in my absence because she has more Earthsea than this.

• A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968
• The Tombs of Atuan, 1971
• The Farthest Shore, 1972 (Winner of the National Book Award)
• Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, 1990 (Winner of the Nebula Award)
• Tales From Eathersea, 2001 (a collection of short stories)
• The Other Wind, 2001

I just got the last two from Amazon. I can’t wait to enter into LeGuin’s magic spell yet again.

More cool Earthsea stuff.

I don’t have time to watch, but I found myself getting sucked in this week. And here’s something I realized as I watched Simon, Paula, Randy, Ryan, & the contenstants–the show is using story principles.

Duh, I know: of course, it is. But it does it so well. It reminds me of a research article I read about sportscasters and audience enjoyment of sports competitions. They found that if they could inject story elements–suspense, rivalry, etc.–people enjoyed the games more. Next time you watch a college football game, notice what the color commentators say to make it a contest. It’s not just about reporting what #45 did out in the flat.

Anyway, back to Idol. Look at these elements.

What draws us to characters?

Beauty, threats, quirkiness, larger-than-life situation or skills, source of viewer wish-fulfillment.

Humm, let’s look at the cast of performers. Don’t we see all of that? How many of us wouldn’t love to be able to sing like they do? Have a shot at becoming a recording artist? Or just goggle at someone getting this chance?

What factors generate suspense?

Threats to characters we like or marvelous opportunities for them, turns in the situation, a prolonged resolution.

Humm. Our sympathy is engaged because these folks are normal folks, many of them underdogs. Many viewers identify strongly with one or two because of the contestant’s various social groups and because, heck, the auditions are for people like you and me. It could be us up there in front of the world! You’ve got the threat of peformance fright, but also the overriding opportunity to make a dream real. You’ve got a wonderful career, if not millions of dollars, on the line. You’ve got Simon who is honest, but also plays his part. Isn’t that the moment of most suspense with each performance? You’ve even got a little subplot going on between Simon and Seacrest. There’s no villain here. But there are plenty of obstacles. Weekly threats.

What does Idol give us that Survivor never could?

It’s all REAL, even if the producers let their selection of performers be influenced by things other than vocal talent. And because it’s real, we believe it. Which means we can more easily feel sympathy and root for the various performers.

It’s a simple but brilliant concept. And I just wasted 4 hours watching it. And I’m likely to do it again.

Zing, Baby. Zing!

Not many people understand creativity. Dewitt Jones, a National Geographic photographer, does. And this video on the creative process, HOLY COW, it’s so good I had to buy it so I could watch it whenever the yearning took me.

But this isn’t just for artists. The principles of creativity apply to any creative endeavor–from writing and drawing to building microchips and parenting. 

Go here. Watch the brief clip. Then watch the whole Clear Vision video. Tell me what  you think.  

Capture the zing!