Month: August 2025

01SEP2025 – Quote of the Day

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The magi, as you know, were wise men — wonderfully wise men — who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

William Sydney Porter

31AUG2025 – And Then, Quite Suddenly, Summer Was Over

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Bradbury understood summer to a boy.

 

“And then, quite suddenly, summer was over.
He knew it first when walking downtown. Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dimestore window. They stood there unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there.
“Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Nickel tablets, dime tablets, notebooks, erasers, water colors, rulers, compasses, a hundred thousand of them!”
“Don’t look. Maybe it’s just a mirage.”
“No,” moaned Tom in despair. “School. School straight on ahead! Why, why do dime stores show things like that in windows before summer’s even over! Ruin half the vacation!”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

“June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past. And if he should forget, the dandelion wine stood in the cellar, numbered huge for each and every day. He would go there often, stare straight into the sun until he could stare no more, then close his eyes and consider the burned spots, the fleeting scars left dancing on his warm eyelids; arranging, rearranging each fire and reflection until the pattern was clear…
So thinking, he slept.
And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

The yearly ritual continues.

 

Writing’s Easy.  Selling is Hard.

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As I mentioned a day or two ago, I’ve finally finished my story about the sniper.  Of course, it still needs a spell check and another read through for errors and any “infelicities” of style that I may find.  But for the most part I’ve brought it to a close.

But now comes the really hard part.  Self-publishing versus traditional publishing.  And for me it’s especially difficult because the story is unacceptably “right wing” from the point of view of anyone in the traditional publishing industry except for one or two houses like Baen Books who cater to stories from our side of the great political divide.

I have just begun doing my research on some kind of order of operations to maximize my chances to publish the book so that the largest number of people will hear about it.  And my level of knowledge of the whole publishing process is pretty darn close to absolute zero.  I’ve only reached out to one guy I know of who writes in the same general universe with me but I think I’ll have to feel my way around by reading and watching content that is meant to educate the public about trad publishing vs. self-publishing and then get a better handle on what writers on the right generally do.

So far all I’ve read makes the whole process seem incredibly slow and painful and chock full of interactions with gatekeepers and unsympathetic literary agents who will never return any of my correspondence but will dismiss me as a talentless hack.

But maybe I’m completely mistaken and instead I’ll be embraced by the publishing world as the next Cormac McCarthy and be showered with accolades and surrounded by business agents fighting one another to get me to sign book and movie deals.  Within months I’ll be quoted by millions of readers who will flood my website with messages of delight about my brilliant writing and demands that I “take their crowdfunding money” for my next writing effort.  The millions of dollars will pile up in Camera Girl’s sewing closet (she likes cash) and I will become a recluse and start wearing outlandish clothes to reflect my new status as a global phenomenon.  I can hear it now.  The crowds chanting at DragonCon, “photog, photog, photog!”

Okay good.  Now I’ve got that out of my system.  I’ll go back to finding out whether the “hybrid” publishers I’ve read about that cater to right and libertarian authors are legit or really the infamous “vanity press” scam artists that take all your money and ship a few boxes of print-on-demand paperbacks and tell you to, “Go market the damn things yourself!”

Well, I wanted to try writing a book.  Now I’ve done it and I better find out how to get other people to know it exists without spending a million dollars doing it.  And that’s another thing.  Now that AI can draw covers maybe I can save some money by using it.  Of course, I understand that I’ll anger all of the artistic community that does book covers for a living.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should find out what it costs.  There are already so many people mad at me in the world, adding to that number sounds like a bad idea.  Well, we’ll see.

Moneyball (2011) – A Movie Review

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Moneyball is a somewhat fictionalized story about how Oakland Athletics’ General Manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) brings advanced statistical analysis (sabermetrics) to the management of a major league baseball team.

When the A’s are beaten in the fifth game of the 2001 ALDS series by the New York Yankees and subsequently the Yankees and Red Sox steal away the two best players on the team (Jason Giami and Johnny Damon) through free-agency and the A’s owner tells Beane that there is no money to replace these stars, Beane searches for a way to overcome the unfair disparity of his team’s poverty.  Beane discovers a young statistician in the Cleveland Indians management team; Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) who understands sabermetrics and brings him to Oakland to help him compete for the American League championship against teams like the New York Yankees who have three times the salary budget.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

The movie chronicles Beane and Brand battling with the team’s scouting personnel and the A’s manager Art Howe (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) while being crucified in the press and social media by fans and pundits because of the unorthodox trades and policies that they institute.  Everything is based on what statistically will reduce the number of outs and produce more runs and more wins.  They forbid players from bunting or stealing bases.  The assign a badly injured catcher (Scott Hatteberg portrayed by Chris Pratt) as the team’s first baseman because he has a slightly higher on base percentage than the All-Star first baseman they already have.  They hire a pitcher who can only throw in the 80-mph range because his price tag is a bargain.  And the first half of the season is a catastrophe.  But Billy sticks with Brand’s system and before the end of the season the A’s gel as a team and even break the record for longest winning streak in AL history (twenty games).

But of course, statistical success is a long-term concept and in a short series like the playoffs big money still buys baseball heroes who hit lots of home runs in October.  And the A’s lose in the playoffs again.  But their success with the meager resources provided catches the attention of more well-funded teams and the owner of the Boston Red Sox; John Henry offers Beane an unheard-of salary of $12.5 million to be general manager of his team.  Ultimately Beane remains in Oakland for personal reasons (being close to his daughter) but sabermetrics wins over major league baseball and is now the standard method for building a team in baseball.

I’ve read that many of the entertaining details of the story are fictionalized.  And I can believe that.  But this is a movie not a history lesson so the real question is whether the movie entertains.  And the answer to that (in my opinion) is absolutely.  Pitt portrays Beane as a former player who has a grudge against the scouting system that lures kids, who won’t be successful baseball players, into the game.  He gave up a full scholarship to Stanford to play for the Mets and then wash out.  He sees a scientific evaluation of players as the way to avoid all the chaos that, in his view, the scouts seem to cause.  Pitt has a good script and he makes the most of it.  And Pitt and Hill have a very amusing Mutt and Jeff relationship with the confident Beane mentoring the awkward and inexperienced Brand in how to work with the athletes.  Philip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe gives a disgruntled old-timer portrayal that fits the story well.  And there are more than a few very strong performances among the actors portraying the scouts and ball players.  All in all, it’s a very interesting baseball story and I think well worth the time to watch it.  Highly recommended to baseball fans and movie fans in general.