Yakari and the Stranger

One of my writing jobs is translating French comic books into English for Cinebook, the "9th art publisher." (If you know what that tagline refers to, send your explanation as a comment and I'll post it!) This fun work has introduced me to some classic Franco-Belgian comic books and graphic novels, including the beloved Yakari series by Job and Derib. Yakari is a young Sioux boy who can converse with animals. In each volume, Yakari learns a valuable life lesson through an encounter with animals.

In Yakari and the Stranger, the boy and his horse Little Thunder help a pelican that has a nasty cold. This charming story teaches a lesson, quite powerfully, about kindness--or a lack thereof--repaid.

These tales are a welcome change from the superheroes and angst that fill the pages of many popular comic books and graphic novels.

A River Runs Through It (the book, by Norman MacLean)

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition by Norman Maclean

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Incredible writing: profound, poetic, unflinching, humane. The book and the movie have both had impacts on my work and the way I look at the people around me.


View all my reviews.

Unfinished Business

Recently I found the following journal entry, which I wrote for a college class many, many years ago. I was 20 at the time. Who was I to be philosophizing?

Last year I got to thinking about unfinished business. I decided that living one's life is like weaving a rug.If you leave any threads untied or broken, they may hold secure as long as you're weaving. At the least stress, though, no matter how tightly you weave—maybe even as you're pulling it off the loom—the ends might loosen throughout and the rug fall apart.

I had gone through one of those familiar phases of trying to shape my actions around a few choice mottoes and proverbs. In this particular round, I paid off debts, confessed bygone mistakes and even went so far as to throw away some old, special letters I'd been saving. Once in awhile, I even cleaned my room.

I tend to overdo a few things. Well, sometimes I over-everything. It wasn't long before I was neatly wrapping up relationships that had been giving me trouble for awhile. Somehow, the idea of finishing business turned into not getting involved in any kind of business at all—that is, not getting into situations that would leave me obliged to anyone. That meant sticking to the basic necessities of socialibility and friendship and not cultivating any relationships that would leave a lasting, maybe bothersome impression on me afterward.

It didn't take long to see that those obligations and troubles were the brighter threads in the rug, and that the whole pattern looked pretty dismal without them. They were time-consuming, and difficult, but the end result was so much finer when they were included.

I also saw the nonsense in trying to tie off a thread before coming to the end of it. Use it until it comes to its end, then tie it off with a necessary bit sticking out behind the knot. Deciding to tie it off halfway through leaves a long end trailing off, looking clumsy and messy in the rug. Really, cutting anything off before it's finished is painfully wasteful.

A gallon of gas vs. a box of plastic bags

Can someone explain something to me? SO MUCH of what we wear/put on our skin and hair/listen to/play with/drive/eat/smell is either derived from petroleum or gets to us, in part, because of petroleum. It's not just about the gasoline we put in our gas tanks.

Why is the cost of a gallon of gasoline $2.50 higher than it was a few months ago when the costs of other petroleum-based products have not risen commensurately? I know prices in general are up, but I haven't seen a $2.50 markup on a jumbo box of plastic bags or a tub of petroleum jelly.

If it's about supply, or investors, or refinery capacity, or those countries in the Middle East who are selling us petroleum, why isn't the cost of every petroleum-based product going up equally??

What do you think?

My book is on Amazon now! :-)

It's here: Omaha Beach.

If you want to leave a review, I'll write it for you. HA. Kidding. If you'd like to leave a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Target, that'd be sooooooper.

Not to be an alarmist, but . . .

I don't recall what the Wall Street Journal wrote about preparing for Y2K, but here's what one WSJ journalist has said about rising food costs and possible food shortages in the USA:

"Load Up the Pantry."

At our house, despite efforts to cut back on unnecessary driving, I'm pretty sure we're spending more on gas for the cars than on food right now. The thought of food costs rising faster than the cost of oil isn't a happy one, even if we are an overweight nation.

Omaha Beach, part deux

Not part two of the book, but part two of the publication news.
Omaha Beach now has a different cover (fab, fab, fab!) and a better layout inside. It also has an ISBN!

Here's a link: Look here.

On a side note, I returned home last night from a trip to London, where I worked at the London Book Fair for comic book publisher Cinebook. An international book fair is a great place to embarrass yourself by trying out your textbook French, German, Italian, Cantonese, etc. on people who actually speak the language. Tee hee.

If you're blondish and mention that you live in California, expect to be asked by at least one person from another country if you surf. I am, I did and I was. And I don't.

In a narrow, crowded restaurant with uneven floors in the Earls Court section of London, I enjoyed the best tikka masala I've ever tasted. At the tables on either side of ours (we were almost bumping elbows with the diners at those tables), unidentified and highly gutteral languages were being spoken with such intensity that I could practically feel the speakers' breaths in my face. It sounded like a throat-clearing contest.

My one tourist foray of the trip was to Hampton Court, just outside London. Hampton Court was taken away from Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII after Wolsey failed to persuade the Pope that it was a good idea for Henry to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn. Some of the outstanding features of the palace include a 500-year-old astronomical clock (taken down for renovation during my visit), the Chapel Royal (closed between church services the day of my visit), the gardens and the Royal Tennis Court (designed not for modern tennis but for the centuries-old game jeu de paume). I was really disappointed to miss the chapel and the clock, but the living history presentations around the palace (including actors preparing a meal in the palace kitchen) assuaged my feelings. I'd watched several PBS specials on Hampton Court before this trip and am thrilled that I got to visit the palace.