Tad Williams

What we have in our house is a whole lot of crappy battered furniture (I especially relish Boy’s 4-yr-old temper-tantrum toothpaste attack on the sofa. Have you seen what that stuff does to fabrics?) and enough books to be our own little wing of the Library of Congress.

Plus like anyone I know who trucks in words and ideas, we’ve just got an overflow of crap that certain members of the family (him) find more difficult to get rid of than other members of the family (her). It occurs to me that there is an equation:

(Tad’s junk) plus ( I don’t want to deal with it ) plus ( time ) = rats.

Two of em ran in front of my toes yesterday whilst I was speaking to a guy from one of the fabulous and slightly scary land space/protection trusts out here. The conversation went sideways. I wasn’t very professional.

Anyway, the rats are being dealt with and the garage is now gorgeous, clean and free!!

In the middle of the morning also, The New Yorker piece came in and I hopped and skipped through the rest of the day.

Our work has this year spilled over into more rooms in the house, so now many things around me, truly, have been slowly melting then reforming themselves according to need. It’s a moveable feast for sure.

There have been many children in the house the past few days. I love hearing their voices in the house. It’s very “voices off” experience, back here in my little office.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SAID…

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

Observe all men, thyself most.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.

Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.

I have a serious beef going on with a dogwood tree. It was one of two I bought from an otherwise reputable nursery, and both of them were bum trees. The first did not survive two months. What was wrong was, “the cut” – whoever had dug it from the ground at the tree-growing farm had done a lousy job. The second did survive, and made it to our garden. But it’s turned out to be a lousy hybrid. The flowers don’t happen, not at all – they were supposed to be little pale chartreuse things, but you can see where two of the four petals fail to grow, and what remains has reverted to leaf form, which is where dogwood flowers come from in the first place. Plus, the leaf edges sizzle and turn brown in the littlest bit of sun. You might ask at this point what the hell the thing is still doing in the garden. It managed to assert itself as a beautiful form. And got quite tall. I can’t bear the idea of ripping out something that does that.

But I’m watching it, all the same.

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And I’m reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (A Family Tragicomic), as part of my research and thinking for my work on Adrian Brooks’ memoirs. I’d just like to say here and now that Fun Home is bloody magnificent.

8/9/09

Preita Salyer emailed me: “I hope that you and Tad have a series planned for Ordinary Farm because I want to know more about Mr. Walkwell, Ragnar, and Gideon (does he ever find Grace?!).”

And I said, “There’s a sort of holistic thing that goes on where the characters have to respond to where the plot goes... Gideon and Grace, it’s either going to be a real tragedy or a cross-time love affair that endures everything.... It’s a sort of sublimated stuff for us, too, because the idea of losing each other (which is what Gideon and Grace is about for us, in the wordless places) is a great horror to me and Tad. LOL!”

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We live in a somewhat decrepit old ranch house in Silicon Valley, with some very cool trees, namely redwoods. There’s an experience to be had in the community, that is to say, the good people we encounter, some of whom gush dippily – I find it first and foremost comedic, almost sweet – in the community forums. The extra spin on this is that most of them are very rich. We are not – certainly not like that – it’s kind of a thing that has to be juggled. But early this morning an ambulence went by, making a surprising amount of noise for 6.40, and it set off all the guard dogs at Billionaire Acres across the road. They howled like banshees; I had to stop and listen for coyotes before I realized it was them. I laffed. The billionaire-over-the-road’s guard dogs are dippy too, I swear.

8/6/09

I mis-posted this in my Twitter stream, and it’s such a brilliant analysis of a meritless plagiarism case (thanks, Publishers Marketplace) that I think it belongs here in full.

Obscure Teen Author Says She’ll Sue Meyer for Plagiarism In Breaking Dawn

California attorney J. Craig Williams says he will file a copyright infringement suit on behalf of his client Jordan Scott against Hachette Book Group and Stephenie Meyer, alleging that her bestselling BREAKING DAWN copies from Scott’s 2006 book THE NOCTURNE.

Williams sent HBG a “cease and desist” letter on July 13 that just happened to land on TMZ.com. In the letter, which says it is responding correspondence from HBG general counsel Carol Fein Ross from last December, asks the publisher to “compensate my client for her damages.” Yes Williams “said Scott does not plan to seek monetary damages,” to the AP.

By all indications NOCTURNE was barely published. An ISBN search shows no presence for the book aside from an ebook download made available earlier this month. (The copyright page says it is a Griffon Book from the UK’s Blackthorne Publications; there is virtually no information on the company on the internet either.) The text is available via Google Book Search, where it is oddly catalogued as “Texas Aggies: Ture to Each Other” rather than “The Nocturne.”) In an MTV story Williams cites a previous “communication from her publisher contesting whether “Nocturne” was available for sale. ‘That’s almost always the case when they say they haven’t heard of the author when it’s a relative unknown,’ said Williams.” Or when the book isn’t really published. Scott says on her site she wrote the book when she was 15, and adds she “commenced studies in a Harvard University Psychology program when I was 17, after which I wanted to major in Film and Theater, and transferred to UCLA. So these days I divide my time between music, college, and writing.”

The 14-page chart sent by Williams to HBG actually cites few if any matching phrasings between the two books. Rather, it asserts that a variety of cliched plot elements: a wedding scene with flowers; sex on a beach after a wedding; promising love “forever”; a character awaking from a nightmare; a main character calling his wife “love” in dialogue; and so on constitute infringement.

HBG has said in a statement: “The claim that Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer somehow infringes on an alleged book by someone named Jordan Scott is completely without merit. Neither Stephenie Meyer nor her representatives had any knowledge of this writer or her supposed book prior to this claim. Ms. Scott’s attorney has yet to furnish us with a copy of the book to support this claim as requested. The world of the Twilight Saga and the stories within it are entirely the creation of Ms. Meyer. Her books have been a phenomenal sensation, and perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that other people may seek to ride the coattails of such success. This claim is frivolous and any lawsuit will be defended vigorously.”

OK – I mean – why the hell are these people even bothering?

I find I am evolving from blog form to twitter form. It suits me right now because work is sort of high-intensity [read: deadlines] and I can’t give much over to blogging.

The tip of my right index finger – the one I cut off, what, 6 weeks back maybe – is still weird and sore. I make odd typos with it that later read like little voices and sounds from the scullery of my mind.

Here’s some NY photos. This one was taken by Dawughter (see?) of the Household, and it’s a cool picture of two old buddies.

The next is our favorite frog in the Natural History Museum’s show FROGS! (or some such title – if that wasn’t it exactly, it was happily what one got.) This is a waxy monkey frog, which waxes itself vigorously with its quadruple-jointed back limbs. This face just killed, in our crowd.

Uncertain about my Olympus Stylus camera. But that's a boring story and it’s late.