Well... duh. This is entirely predictable.


http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/02/20/cbs-2-exclusive-mayor-de-blasios-caravan-caught-speeding-violating-traffic-laws/

In C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, the princess Orual sees her beloved sister taken from her, and suffers a transformation by which she learns to love well. This retelling of a Greek myth is particularly resonant to me because Orual's questions about who to trust and where to find identity parallel my own. Orual, writing as the narrator, is articulate, affected, and thoughtful. But she is also anguished and self-absorbed.

Till We Have Faces is a compelling story that asserts to me that healing for our disconnection from God and from people is possible.

Sidney Carton. Fall, sacrifice, love and redemption, all the great themes of mankind and of literature (they're the same, aren't they?) wrapped up in one poor fellow riding in a tumbril. I realize we were all forced to read Tale of Two Cities in high school English, thumbscrews applied by the diligent Ms. X at the front of the class. Reading under duress does not engender affection for literature. However, I'm sure we can all get past that, given enough hours spent on our psychologist's couch.

So, if you haven't read Tale of Two Cities in a decade or two, get out your copy and dust it off.

Next week, depending on the weather and my digestion, my favorite character will probably be Sam Gamgee or Davey Burnie.

Asking me to pick a favorite fictional character is like asking me to pick a favorite book. How do I choose, especially among my favorite teams? Whom do I choose: Frodo Baggins, Aragorn Elessar, Faramir, Gandalf, Sam Gamgee, Merry Brandybuck, Pippin Took? Hercule Poirot? Jane Marple? Tommy and Tuppence Beresford? King Arthur? John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagen, Carson Beckett? Hannibal Smith? Micky Dolenz? Leroy Jethro Gibbs? Dean Winchester?

When it comes to the character with whom I most identify, however, the choice is much simpler and has been the same almost all my life: Lucy Pevensie, aka Queen Lucy the Valiant, from The Chronicles of Narnia. Her deep and abiding love of Aslan has long been an inspiration to me, and I love the fact that the animal she first wants to see on arriving at Professor Kirke's house is a badger, since badgers turn out to be the most steadfast and loyal of the Old Narnians in Prince Caspian. There are personality traits I share with Lucy, too--what come to mind first are curiosity, a desire to believe the best of friends, love of what Lewis calls "the right kinds of books," exasperation with those who just don't get it, and willingness to go it alone if need be. And okay, I'm not half bad at archery, and at the age Lucy was in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I might well have asked why I couldn't fight alongside the boys, too.

Who's my favorite fictional character?

Truth is, I don't read all that much fiction -- I'm a history buff and, God save my sorry soul, waste all too much time thinking about contemporary events; by which I mean, watching most of what I love about America swirl down the toilet.

But, okay, my answer (with my wife's guidance) would be: Penrod Schofield, of the vintage Booth Tarkington series. Read them as a kid, then read them again to my kids, and unbelievably politically incorrect as they are, they hold up wonderfully. Penrod is a sort of Little Rascal of literature, an absolutely authentic kid, bored by school and baffled by much in the adult world, but up for almost anything that smells like fun, regardless of consequences, which are often dire. Though anyone who published him today might well be prosecuted, he reflects a simpler, more honest time when boys were boys and girls were girls, men were men and women women, and no one was confused by any of it.

Maybe he reminds me a bit of Dad, but the great, uh, thing about the Thing (the rock-encrusted, super-strong Ben Grimm from the comic book _Fantastic Four_) to my youthful mind was that he remained crusty and cynical even while encountering gods, aliens, secret government intelligence agencies, and verbose would-be world conquerors. When the Norse god Thor shouted at a foe that he would strike him "in the name of the Nine Realms," a weary Thing tossed a rock at the same enemy and added, "And this is fer Brooklyn!" He was the perfect foil to the eggheaded team leader Reed Richards, who was disturbingly megalomaniacal in his own right.

As a nerd growing up in New England, I no doubt had more in common with Reed than with Ben -- but I saw something profoundly healthy in Ben's skepticism and am delighted to find as an adult that New Yorkers share a bit of that Grimm spirit. The two of them are a balanced partnership worthy of comparison to, if not of the greatest literature, at least Kirk and Spock.

As I write these words, news comes that a young guy best known for playing a cocky jock in _Project X_ will play Reed in next year's new film version, whereas Ben will be played by a small, skinny British man best known for having played the fey teenage male lover in the Green Day video for "When September Ends." Let others rage about Affleck being Batman. I now have a literary adaptation to worry about. I hope they do not turn Ben into something monstrous.

Cheese grits. That's what it is - something awesome made awesome...er. Posters of wonderful simplicity in design, yet rich with underlying and relevant nuance have popped up all over Santa Monica, Ca. Sub par.

It's totally contrarian. I mean, like, everyone loves the guy and, like, if you, like... don't, well then, like you know, you're [bad words]. Tsk tsk, shame shame.

For people who live their lives pretending that the uncertainty principle only applies when they say it does this little spurt of anonymous public poster ridicule has to be flat-out maddening. Think about it - you've convinced yourself that you are the answer to everything, and then you see these posters popping up. "Who could be so mean and wrong and remain anonymous?!? We must find them and 'educate' them!"

I almost expect the DNC to take credit for it, pretending they made the posters in some reverse-psychology experiment. Then they'll call everyone who likes the posters "racists."

Personally, I just hate golf. And I also hate bullsh**. So when I see somebody playing golf 3 times a month and telling the world how hard he's working or complaining about how difficult his life is, I have a knee-jerk reaction where I exclaim "Bullsh**!"

Then come the "What's the big deal?" folks. "I want my president to have time to relax. His job is tough. He makes tough decisions," and so on. These comments bring further exclamations about bovine functions. People who say crap like that are confusing the office with a throne. It's a JOB. And anyone doing it had to beg US for it. 'Member dat.

Links: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Sports/2014/02/16/Obama-Sub-Par

Some minimalist political art, courtesy of the good folks at the People's Cube. http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/minimalist-political-posters-t8401.html

How dare these dissidents engage in "art." They obviously need more diversity of skin color, coupled with more uniformity of hegemony-approved thought. That's what makes art, after all.

This is a hard one, because I read two or three books a week.

I was immediately tempted to say Harry Dresden from Jim Butcher's the Dresden Files. It's my favorite series and one of the few sets of books that I own. The same impulse came for Joe Ledger from Jonathan Maberry's series.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized these weren't my favorite characters. They grow but in many fundamental ways stay the same as they started: heroes willing to walk into hell without a water bucket if the situation calls for it.

So I thought about characters who grew and become something better.

That being said, I think Waldo Butters, also of the Dresden Files qualifies. I won't give any spoilers but if you read the books, you will get what I mean.

Oh, by the way, read the books.

My favorite character in fiction is Elaine Risely. She is the main character in the book Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. There are many reasons this book has become one of my touchstone books. The themes presented about girlhood and the sometime discomfort of female adolescence rang true with me. Additionally, the themes of loss and love reach up through her narrative and for those who have experienced similar types of bereavement her writing penetrates to our common human core.

Cat's Eye is often hailed as a feminist piece. Strangely, this is also what attracts me to the book because I do not consider myself a feminist by today's definition. I like Elaine's honest sort of feminism. Ms. Atwood is wryly honest about feminism and the path it has chosen to take. In the book, Elaine is a middle aged artist, probably one of the original feminists who came of age in the 60's. As she interacts with the younger, hipper feminist women who have organized her gallery show she regrets with a humorous observation the course feminism appears to be taking by discerning the superficial trends its younger proponents seem to embrace. It is this honesty and ability to admit the flaws of modern feminism which attract me to Elaine. She does not renounce her feminism, yet Elaine seems to admit privately the power of feminism's original tenants seem weakened. It is all about appearances. It is a truly honest assessment and this book was written in 1988! Now, don't get me wrong, I doubt Margaret Atwood meant to disparage feminism, but she does view it honestly and fairly.

I leave you with my favorite quote from Cat's Eye:

"... I began to think of time as having a shape, something your could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another. You don't look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that. Sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away." Cat's Eye is one of my all time favorite books.

Richard from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series.

I know what you are thinking: another wizard from another epic fantasy series. I understand. Just hear me out.

As a reader, I like two plot devices more or less equally- a larger-than-life hero saving the world and an ordinary person rising to the occasion. Rarely do the two meet in the same story, and almost never in one character. Terry Goodkind manages to pull it off, mostly by re-thinking some of the fantasy tropes, at least in character development.

Unlike many fantasy characters who discover their world-saving superpowers in their teens, Richard is older, in his mid-twenties at the start of the series. Thus, we are spared the usual teen angst of "Why me?" and/or "I don't want to." Richard is already a complete person in his own right who sees a task that must be done and proceeds to do it.

A more interesting part of Richard's personality, though, is his ability to walk into most situations and make them better- for himself, for people around him, and sometimes for the world. Sometimes he does it with magic and -of course- with the Sword. Those scenes are suitably spectacular. However, truly special moments come when Richard uses tools available to anyone: intelligence, perseverance, and, in a few outstanding scenes, simple kindness.

Interestingly, throughout the series, the author keeps coming up with ways to strip Richard of his magic and put him back into an "ordinary man" position. It would seem an odd choice, but one that has paid off with the fans. Faith of the Fallen, the book generally considered the best in the series, has Richard magic-free for the duration, yet still delivers some of the most memorable scenes.

That brings me to the point that is not new, but crucial, especially in the context of fantasy fiction. A good character must always be grounded in reality. After all, we as readers want to know that we too can rise to the occasion. Even if we never get to save the world.