The Middle of the Dark

So was 2004 a good year? Well... I suppose personally it was fair to middling. It ends like it began (sickness) so in some way it's no different than any of the last few years. However, the best part for me was seeing my Irish buddies again in Chicago, and the happy news that a few of them are getting married. I'm going to do a little year-end review of my own on the arts, just for fun. The Boston Hearld does a little bit on the best comics of 2004. I agree wholeheartedly that Joss Whedon and his run on X-Men was the best thing to happen, though they left a lot out. Thanks to Whedonesque for the link, one of the best sources of all things Joss out there. The best CD of the year was U2. 'Nuff said. Movies... the thing about movies is that here in Waterloo, we get to see very few of the 'smaller' pictures. Of course we can have Spider Man 2 on four screens, but... they do try, I guess. So without having seen everything, here are my picks, in ...

I don't know if there's much else to say about the tsunami disaster - disaster suddenly a very inadequate word - that hasn't been said. The impossibility of it only increases day by day and sometimes hour by hour (in the very early morning, 3-6 AM US time, as the revised figures come in). Here is a link to a variety of organizations to which you can contribute online, such as the Red Cross and many, many others. They are providing food and medicine and water and many of the endless things this part of the world desperately needs. Hope everyone's holidays are going well. I am terribly sick. The schizoid weather again, I think. It's fifty some degrees here today and raining, for example. So I'm trying not to be rattled too much, and telling myself a cold is just a cold, not the prelude to horror it has been before. So I'm catching up on my reading and watching some DVD's and blogging. The sure fire cure to illness.

I don't really enjoy the holidays anymore. It's nothing to do with what some Christians call the attack on Christmas; the celebration and the mystery of Jesus, if anything I enjoy more. I don't enjoy the ridiculous need to buy things people don't need with money you don't have, especially when they don't like you anyway. Give something to Toys for Tots or the Salvation Army, or send books or food (or armor!) to our troops overseas. Also, because it's winter, and I can't afford to get sick, it means I retreat into Howard Hughes mode for the duration and that makes me... cranky. But anyways. It can't all be bad, can it? What with Bush being named Man of the Year by Time Magazine, and HBO considering cancelling 'The Wire,' the best television show ever? Nah. It's all fine and dandy. But since I'm supposed to talk about writing, I should do that (because the bitching is so popular). I am doing a lot lately. I finished some...

It wasn't 19 screw-ups from Saudi Arabia who couldn't pass flight school who defeated the United States with a set of box cutters," he said. He dismissed the official Sept. 11 commission report, saying, "I don't trust any of these 'facts."' Millionaire activist Jimmy Walter has spent 30 percent of his net worth trying to prove his statement above. Now he's offering $100,000 to whoever can prove him wrong. This is more sad than funny. I'm as distrustful of the current administration as he probably is, but Mr. Walter is wasting his money. Why would the terrorists or the government or whoever he claims was behind it fly planes into buildings they knew they could knock down with planted explosives? This isn't much different from "Oswald couldn't have acted alone" or "that moon landing sure was a hoax." Sometimes people simply cannot accept that something so extraordinary - many times awful - could have be...

My brother Aaron is probably flipping his lid right now with the news that the legendary rock group Queen is reforming for a new tour. They're doing it without Freddie Mercury of course, who passed away back in 1991. Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Company) apparently is taking over vocal duties. It also remains to be seen whether bassist John Deacon participates. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. I think I come from the school of rock where you let things lie. Queen isn't Queen without Mercury. If they wanted to get together and play Queen songs and call it something else, that's fine, but this I don't know. Of course I'll change my mind when they announce U.S. dates.

The arctic air has found its way down here. And the winds. Forty miles an hour yesterday. Gutters and siding and those inflatable santas and snowmen, all of them airborne. The holidays always stress me out, so the wind storm was actually something of a fun release. I went out in it and walked around for an hour or so. Every once in a while you need a vacation from monotony. Sugu and I are going to write a screenplay. It will be lots of fun, as well as my first ever trans-Pacific artistic collaboration. For all you LOTR fans wanting to keep your Extended Editions all in one tidy place, click here.

This is the complete Irish crew by the way, at Trinity, Dublin, 2000. We referred to ourselves as Blue Books after the pamphlet that detailed our program. Red Books were the 'other' kids. We were such snobs. Turns out Oscar Wilde kept a blue book about Dublin society back in his day. Just goes to show you. If I'm feeling nostalgic, it's just to say happy holidays to everyone. Salinte.

This is the Loyd Tower (actually a lighthouse) in Kells, Ireland. I saw it only fleetingly during my stay there a few years back, but from the moment I did I was taken with it in some way I couldn't understand. The futility of building a lighthouse in a landlocked town deep inland fascinated me as much as what it stood for: futility and desperation. The government put many people to work during the Great Famine by building 'public works' all across Ireland, many of which like the tower served no real purpose beyond giving starving people work and pay. I tried furiously - in fits and starts - to work the tower and what it represented into the novel I had begun working on before I went to Ireland. After 9/11, the tower became more to me, and I tried even harder to make it work, but it never did. I tend to do this a lot in life. I force things to fit an idea I have of them, because of an initial impression or feeling I get. I've learned to leave well enough a...

I've been thinking for a few days about the baseball/steroid scandal. Baseball is my favorite sport (or my second passion, after writing) and this upsets me a great deal. I know some of the reaction has been ho hum. My feeling is pretty simple. Bonds, Giambi, anyone who did them, they cheated. That's no different than what the 'Black Sox' did. Cheating is cheating. They've made a mockery of their sport and chosen profession. Show them the door. Deferring to my esteemed collegue Polly, I will revise my statement to say: when Bonds et al are proven to have taken steroids, then show them the door. Innocent until proven guilty and all.

Geek goddess Alyson Hannigan (Willow) brings it. It's always the quiet ones. I promise no more 'bitches' in the titles.

I think my biggest weakness as a writer is that my reach often exceeds my grasp. On the other hand, it can be a good thing. Provided you actually grab onto something. In that way, I think writing is a lot like aerial acrobatics. There's no net, and sometimes you miss the bar. I don't outline ("not that there's anything wrong with that") so I often discover obstructions in the road to writing the novel those who outline would altogether avoid. But then, they may miss that little side street that goes down some place you never expected. I think you just have to explore. That's the joy and passion of writing for me. Discovery. It often produces a lot of dead ends, but hey, what are you going to do. Basically this a long winded way of pepping myself up, because I was stuck, and now I'm not. I was going to bust out a writing as building metaphor (never have too many 'writing as' metaphors) but then I realized if you build something w...

Here's a special sneak peek of Star Wars: Episode III, due next May. Definitely not work safe. Another Darby has finally figured out how to write a book that sells. Sugu has hidden easter eggs on his site. Good luck finding it. I may do one, too, when I have a reason to. Nothing's shocking anymore. Except this. Did you know you can get AIDS from touching? Your government says so.

As some of you may know, I'm a Star Wars baby. A couple years ago I even contributed to the cause by starting this petition for an action figure of one of the characters. I can hold my head up high, because the petition got a mention in Vogue magazine of all places, in an article about the actress in question, the lovely Rose Byrne. If only they had posted a link.

Who knew?

Pretty soon Cat On A Hot Tin Roof won't be able to performed in your United States. State Rep. Gerald Allen of Alabama is trying to pass a bill that bans books featuring homosexual characters. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said. Call Allen at (205) 556-5310 to let him know what you think.