Death personified - question for readers

I'm reading The Book Thief right now and the narrator of the book is Death. The only other book I've read that comes to mind where Death is anthropomorphized is Piers Anthony's On A Pale Horse. In film, Brad Pitt plays Death in Meet Joe Black. Can anyone else think of instances in 20th Century literature (I know the concept is more frequent in older literature) or movies where Death is a being?

The most desired midget in baseball

Tiny Tim Collins has been traded twice this year. Listed at 5'7" (and heights are often padded) and between 180 pounds (up from 155), the diminutive Collins has been a strikeout machine since turning pro back in 2007.

Actually, he was a strikeout machine before that. Before he hit his growth spurt, Collins was a mere 5'6" in high school at Worcester (MA) Technical High. He dominated opposing hitters, though, averaging over 16 strikeouts a game his senior year (in seven inning games). He struck out 20 in one game and fanned thirteen while pitching a no-hitter in the Division 2 Central Massachusetts title game.

Despite all the K's, he drew as much attention as he allowed contact. Collins wasn't drafted by a major league team, no college programs were interested in him and if not for a fluke viewing by Toronto Blue Jays general manager J.P. Riccardi, he would have ended up pitching for a community college in Rhode Island. Riccardi was scouting an American Legion game and Collins came into pitch. The story is that Collins fanned all twelve batters he faced. The Jays signed him as an undrafted free agent and he was sent to the Gulf Coast League where he pitched all of six relief innings.

In 2008, Collins pitched for the Lansing Lugnuts of the Midwest League. Despite being the youngest American-born pitcher in the league, the lefty Collins made pro hitters look like high schoolers. Collins went 4-2 with 14 saves and a 1.58 ERA, struck out 98 in 68.1 innings and allowed a mere 36 hits. None of this garnered him much respect. He did not make the All-Star team and was not considered a prospect by Baseball America.

The Blue Jays moved him up the ladder in 2009, sending him to Dunedin of the Florida State League. Collins led the league in strikeouts per nine innings, as he K'ed 99 in 64.2 innings. His performance led to a promotion to AA where he was the youngest pitcher in the Eastern League. The Blue Jays were using him more in a setup role than a closer but he still merited some more press. Baseball America said he had the best curveball in the Blue Jays organization.

In the offseason, Collins, a notorious hard worker, worked hard to add muscle to his frame. Here's a clip of him hurling medicine balls:


The Jays returned him to the New Hampshire Fisher Cats this season. Once again he was one of the youngest players in the league and one of the most dominant. In 43 innings, he struck out 73 and allowed just 27 hits. The Atlanta Braves acquired him on July 14th as part of the Yunel Escobar-Alex Gonzalez shortstop swap. Collins was one of two minor leaguers included in the trade and the one most overlooked in trade reports. At least the Braves wanted him.

They didn't want him as much as the Royals, apparently. Braves fans didn't get to enjoy him long. Assigned to Mississippi, Collins pitched in six games, saving two of them, striking out 14 in eight innings and surrendering just one run. For two weeks he was part of the Atlanta organization and then he was sent packing again to Kansas City as part of the package to bring Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth to the Braves.

The Royals didn't fool around, assigning Collins immediately to AAA Omaha. So far, he is the third youngest pitcher to hurl in the Pacific Coast League this year. The only two younger are former first round picks Madison Bumgarner of the Giants and Jordan Lyles of the Astros. Bumgarner was the tenth pick in the 2007 draft, the same draft that went 1,453 picks without Collins being chosen.

In twelve games, Collins has pitched well. He is 2-1 with three saves with 19 K in 18 innings and just nine hits allowed. His ERA is 1.50.

With Joakim Soria potentially under contract until 2014, the Royals could have one dandy of a bullpen.

It will be interesting to see if Collins can continue to dominate professional hitters. I've been trying to think of other minor league pitchers who have struck out as many batters as Collins has. In 220.2 professional innings, Collins has whiffed 327 batters, or 13.3 per nine innings.

Here are the minor league ratios of some guys who I thought might challenge that mark:

Stephen Strasburg 10.6
Francisco Rodriguez 11.9
Billy Wagner 10.9
Aroldis Chapman 11.8
Dwight Gooden 11.7
Tim Lincecum 14.9 (finally!)

Lincecum only pitched 62.2 innings in the minors before he got the call to the show. I would not be surprised to see Collins be on the Major League team on Opening Day 2011. Hopefully he will then get some of the recognition he deserves. And for those who like underdogs, I can't think of anyone better for whom to root.

The Lime Twig

This was another of the postmodern reads and as a fan of the Sport of Kings, it pains me how horse racing is portrayed in film and literature. I recently re-watched Lucky Number Sleven, where the premise of the movie is based on a similar situation as that in Lime Twig. In the movie, a guy hears about a fix on a horse and wagers a ton of money on said horse. The local mob connections don't like someone horning in on their action and they off the guy, his family, and even the horse.

In Lime Twig, a character named Hencher rents a place from a married couple and attempts to repay them for their kindness by setting up a horse race fix with a bunch of ne'er do wells he knew. Hencher gets his skull kicked in by the horse and another set of ne'er do wells decide to get in on the action by kidnapping Banks' wife and seducing Banks while killing the trainer and jockey the original crime group were planning on using. Good times. It is this sort of image that made my brother-in-law all irate when I sat my niece down a couple weeks ago to watch horse racing on TV. She rides horses and enjoyed watching the races with her uncle. But nooooooo, horse racing is for degenerates and criminals. Grrrrr.....

Getting back to the book, I didn't like it. It sort of reads like a mystery in that things are unclear but it is unclear because of the style of writing, not because pieces of the story are being hidden. The writing is confusing and I felt the plot was really thin. I never understood the motivation for any of the character's actions. They just did things.

It wasn't quite horrible. The author, John Hawkes, was friends with Flannery O'Connor, another post-modern writer who I do think is horrible, so I'm thinking that that era of postmodern writing is just not my cup of tea. What eras or authors are? Well, here's the books on the essential postmodern list I've read from favorite to least:

Remainder
Everything is Illuminated
The Universal Baseball Association, Henry J. Waugh, Proprietor
House of Leaves
City of Glass
The Hundred Brothers
Hamlet
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
The Scarlet Letter
The Lime Twig
At Swim-Two-Birds

I'm definitely a modern post-modernist. Remainder and Everything is Illuminated were published within the last few years. House of Leaves is recent, too. As a matter of fact, I have not been as excited about a book release as I am Tom McCarthy's C. Remainder was an unbelievable story and is in my top two dozen novels of all-time. C is to be released September 7 and I cannot wait.

City of Glass

I decided to return to this list of 61 postmodern books to pick out something to read and opted to go with Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. City of Glass is the first book in it and it is a weird yet compelling book.

The book is about author Daniel Quinn, a mystery writer who writes under the name William Wilson and whose main character is named Max Work. Quinn was a poet until his wife and son died and he found he could only write again by being someone else.

One night Quinn receives a phone call asking for Paul Auster of the Paul Auster detective agency. Sorry, wrong number. The caller calls back repeatedly and Quinn finally pretends to be Auster and is asked by the caller for his help.

Quinn goes to the apartment of one Peter Stillman where Stillman lives with his voluptuous older wife. As a child, Stillman was kept in a closet by his father, never being let out. The police finally discover the living situation after over a decade and the Dad is put in jail and Stillman is placed in therapy. His wife is one of his therapists.

After thirteen years of imprisonment, the Dad is being released and Stillman and his wife fear that the Dad will return to kill Stillman. Quinn, as Auster, is hired to follow the Dad and make sure that Stillman stays safe. Quinn discovers that the father was a linguistic professor who had written a book talking about paradise on earth through the building of a new Tower of Babel. Quinn tails the Dad, who has shacked up in a cheap hotel. For two weeks Quinn follows him and takes notes on the daily activities. The Dad wanders, picking up objects here and there. He's obviously not altogether mentally. After a few days, Quinn begins to map the wanderings and finds a hidden message in the pacings.

The message completed, the Dad vanishes from the hotel. Quinn has lost sense of himself through these tailings and panics. He tries to contact the real Paul Auster for help and the Auster he finds is an author, too. Auster has a wife and a son and seems to lead the life Quinn wanted for himself. This causes Quinn to lose his mind some more.

Quinn stakes out the Stillman's apartment for months, sleeping fifteen minutes an hour and barely eating. Finally, out of money, he contacts the real Auster again, where he finds that Stillman's Dad killed himself soon after Quinn had met Auster. Quinn returns to Stillman's apartment where we find another story entirely involving Auster and a mysterious narrator.

The plot is mysterious but unrewarding. The characters aren't particularly interesting. Nonetheless, the story is really compelling. I could not put it down once I started it. I was shocked and aghast at the number of typos in the book. At least fifteen misspelled words scattered throughout. These were legitimate typos, not the result of inane babblings from deranged characters.

This is the third Auster book I've read. I like it better than Travels in the Scriptorium but not near as much as The Book of Illusions. I'm currently reading another book on the postmodern list and then will be reading The Book Thief after which I think I will read the second book of the New York Trilogy.

Brandraising

I'm involved in various capacities with a few non-profits. I had seen this book recommended but after reading it, I'm not sure why. The author, Sarah Durham, runs an organization in New York City called Big Duck that helps create brand awareness for non-profits. Perhaps non-profits in New York City could use a firm like hers and have the money to do so. The majority of non-profits, especially those in smaller communities, can't begin to utilize the services of a Big Duck or, for that matter, the copywriters, ad executives or other professional communications staff. Her suggestion that organizations need to plan long-term and budget for such expenses seems more self-serving than useful.

If you are part of a large non-profit with money to burn, but are struggling (and struggling non-profits always have money to burn, right?), then this book might be of some value. Otherwise, I think their are multitudes of books on branding, communications and marketing that are so much more useful than this.

The Lyre of Orpheus

This was a bit of a slog to get through. I started it at the Coop and only finished reading it last Friday. Much like the other Davies book I read, it has a zillion characters which makes it hard to follow. Despite this, I really enjoyed it. Davies writing is very interesting. His stories are different. Many of the characters get developed in part because he takes the narration inside their heads.

In this book, the third of the Deptford Trilogy, there is an organization called the Francis Cornish Foundation. The Foundation is run by Arthur and Maria Cornish and, like good foundations, they try to fund projects. The project being funded is the completion of an opera. E.T.A. Hoffman died before he could complete his opera and an up and coming music student working on her PhD is trying to complete it. The opera is based on the story of King Arthur and not surprisingly, there are parallels between the characters in the opera and the characters in the novel.

You could probably write a good novel with just this trio of characters. The Cornish's and the music student. Davies adds friends of the Cornish duo who are on the board of directors, one who is writing a biography on Francis Cornish and who discovers that a famous painting attributed to a 16th century master was actually done by Cornish in the 20th century. This despite Cornish not being known as a painter (Cornish is a bit of a mystery which is part of the reason a biography is being done).

Add the friends and we're up to about seven or eight characters and there's a nice subplot going, too. That's fine. But the story really needs a musical supervisor, too. One that can have a same-sex relationship with a student twenty years her junior. Then the student falls for one of the Cornish friends who is a male. OK. that's just one more character and what's a novel with out relationships?

Maria gets impregnated. The problem is that Arthur is sterile. Oops. Another little subplot. That's it, though, right?

No. The spirit of E.T.A. Hoffman also gets involved at the end of each chapter to provide commentary. Apparently he is in limbo because of the unfinished work. That's it, though. Really.

No, it's not. We have the dissertation committee, a husband and wife of which the husband is also a PhD candidate who is doing his dissertation on the operations of the opera, the actors in the opera, a couple other staff members at the university where the student writing the opera is at, a pair of royalty who run a cosmetics firm that uses a logo which apparently was originally done by Francis Cornish and I'm sure I'm missing another half dozen characters and a subplot or two. It's just a lot going on over almost five hundred pages.

Even still, I like it. I like how Davies writes. I like the people in his stories. This novel was written in the 1990's but still has a feel of an older novel like Leaven of Malice. It bogs down from time to time but it is still entertaining and I'll keep reading Davies in the future.

Music, horses and baseball - updates on some favorites

If you're going to listen to one band that you probably haven't heard of today, make it Roosevelt Radio. In true almost six degrees of separation fashion, here's how I found them. I love DeVotchKa. I saw them in concert in Los Angeles where Rupa and the April Fishes was the opening act. The cellist for Rupa was Pawel Walerowski. When looking for Pawel music, I found him playing with Ben Ross. Ben Ross is the lead singer for Roosevelt Radio. Roosevelt Radio will be releasing their album in October but have made some pre-releases available. The song they are plugging is Midnight:



but I like Order in the Chaos better.



Roosevelt Radio is based on California, just like my favorite horse, Sidney's Candy (like that transition?)!

Sid had not run since the slop of the Kentucky Derby. John Sadler made the unusual decision (at least to me) of making Sid's return on turf. The reason I questioned this was twofold. One, why fix what ain't broken? Outside of the mud in Kentucky, Sidney's Candy has run extremely well, especially on California dirt. Secondly, Sid runs best by breaking early and putting distance on the field. This is a much more challenging feat on turf. You don't see many horses wire the field in turf racing, especially among higher caliber horses. It's a slower surface and requires more stamina. And you really don't want to get into a speed duel on turf with another horse. That will just kill you as you expend all your energy in the head-to-head battle. Nonetheless, Sadler entered Sidney's Candy into the La Jolla stakes, a Grade II race. Nothing like a high-end stakes for your grass debut. Sid (#2) takes off as usual and gets into a duel with Macias (#3). Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. If you want to see what typically happens to early speed, watch Macias.



Sid, however, is an incredibly remarkable horse. Debut on turf and he sets a track record. I don't know how any creature, horse or otherwise, can run that hard for that long and then find that extra gear to pull further ahead. Wow.

Speaking of running, how is my favorite basestealer, Milwaukee Brewers minor leaguer Josh Prince doing? He has had a tough season. He has not shown an ability to hit or draw a walk which makes his hopes of becoming a major leaguer slim. His baserunning and stealing are still unreal. Baseball America named him the best baserunner in the Florida State League. He is second in the league in steals despite only hitting .237 with an OBP of .291 (which is better than his SLG of .283). Yes, those are some ugly, UGLY offensive numbers. Granted, the FSL is a pitcher's league but there has not been much to suggest that Prince's bat is going to develop. The Manatees, Prince's team, has been sitting him lately to give another guy a chance to play short which has hampered Prince's chances for a second straight stolen base crown. I still have hopes but things are not looking good for Josh.