Far From the Madden Crowd

So on the advice of a few of you blogophiles and (though it is widely not recommended) on the spartan allure of the book's B&W cover, I have begun my Johnathan Strange book. Maybe due to its size, the time period (Napoleonic England), or its penchant for unnecessary, pompous, long-winded exhortations on minutiae common to British writers (and this last clause), but it reminded me of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones. This is odd, because a) it's hardly one of my favorites and b) it's hardly a book that defined a style. (Or maybe it did, but as far as I know it was all about a guy who thought he slept with his mother, only to be relieved and then screw around some more.) I suppose it's because Fielding's book (at 1200+ sex-filled pages) took up so much of my Restoration English Lit class a few years ago that it lingers in my mind.

Not that this style is a bad thing. I think recently I've been accustomed to really glib, cynical writing that is all too present on the internet. Ahem, Pitchfork. Even Dave Eggers, who I do admire, could drive you insane if you weren't in the mood. Anyway, enough book talk.

Today was, as expected post-memo, a slow day. I flipped on some football for that commentary I love so much (see far, far below. Wow I blog a lot.) Among the nuggets of wisdom I got from CBS' "expert" commentators was this one:

"Well, although the Jets didn't get any points on that drive, it was spectacular."

This reminded me a lot of three years previous, watching the Superbowl with some good buddies of mine and hearing John Madden deliver this utterly mystifying critique:

"That receiver did his best, trying to turn something... into something new."

Then I spent some hours of the day trying to write material for a comedy show put on by the law school each year. It'll be my first time writing such stuff, and I might (gasp) even get to act in some of it. I have no doubt much of this whole spectacle will be a crash and burn. But, I figure, if you do such things right, you might just create a dazzling fireball that people will talk about for some time. Cheers to that!