Freedom of Speech

I'm a member of the CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund), which is a protector of first amendment rights (mainly, but not exclusively of comic books), so I hear things all the time, far more often than the usual media sources report it, about book bannings.
I have some personal history with this subject. The last school I went to in Tennessee before that final move to Minnesota was embroiled in a fierce debate regarding the inclusion of two short stories which were that most evil of stories, science fiction. The decision had been made when the books were bought to not assign those two stories, but of course that was not good enough. After all, we would all be carrying these books around for the entire year; we could read them any time we wanted to (and I read both of them the first night I took that book home cause I'm just that kind of girl).
They weren't particularly good scifi. They were in fact quite wishy-washy and I didn't like either of them. That's not particularly meaningful, I don't remember liking anything I was assigned to read in school until I started taking honors classes in the 8th grade. One involved an alien living among people who could not tell a lie, not even a white one, and the other involved telepathic aliens called the "beautiful ones" who also were completely benign. At any rate, the debate about those books was still ongoing when I moved (as was the debate on prayer in schools: today we prayed, yesterday we didn't, tomorrow might be a moment of silence. Northern schools were always a shock as it NEVER CAME UP).
But I digress. So someone in Florida (gasp!) wants a book removed from the school library because she didn't like it and no one else should read it. I don't get that reaction at all. The book is aimed towards tweens and involves a passing reference to alcohol and pornography (key word reference; this book is not about those things. It's about a girl growing up, as these books usually are).
I don't get the "I don't like that... burn it!" response. So let's talk about a book I absolutely hated. American Psycho. First of all, it was recommended to me by a guy I knew in college who was convinced it was just my sort of thing. Also, I was to read it while listening to Nine Inch Nails. So I went out and picked up AP and Pretty Hate Machine. Unfortunately I can't actually listen to music and read together (although I can do just about anything else to music), so I had to undertake those things sequentially rather than concurrently.
My first reaction to that book was, "My God, how do I come off to people?" This is the perfect book for me? Reading that book... metaphors fail me. It was a horrid experience reading that book, but I felt compelled to finish it, hoping for an ending that would feel like closure to me. That didn't happen.
But my response was not "burn it". I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone else to read that book. But that book which I hated is one of those my mind goes back to a lot. Why did I hate that book? Why did it make me so uncomfortable?
Here's the interesting part. When I finally laid that book to rest in my mind, I had decided it belonged with things like the movie Natural Born Killers. I understand that it is satire, but it's irresponsible satire. And with that conclusion, you would think, "no one else should read this" would follow but strangely it doesn't. As bad as it was, I gained something from six years of internal debate about why I thought it was bad.
As a parent, and further as a homeschooling parent (whose decision to homeschool was largely made based on events like those I described above, and was really made solid when schools started banning Harry Potter), I appreciate a book that starts a discussion. And a discussion we come back to again and again for years is better than one that we can sum up in ten minutes. Aidan doesn't read much on his own yet, so most of our discussions come from things he sees in movies and TV. I don't want him only to be exposed to ideas I agree with; I want the opportunities to discuss what I don't agree with and why.
At any rate, I do like the Nine Inch Nails. So that guy from college got it half right.

About the writing

I've just read the best book I've ever found on writing. It's called Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin. I've been enjoying her fiction over the past year or so, always wondering how I've never read these books before. What was a I reading as a kid? Mostly the same few books over and over, I think. I missed a lot of good stuff!
At any rate, this book is not about plot or character, which should really be self-explanatory one would think, but so many books go over and over this territory. As if someone was saying, "I would really like to be a writer. Of course I've never actually read a book..." Or worse they talk about how to get ideas. If you don't have 20+ story ideas in your head at any given moment, why would you want to be a writer? Then there are the people who want to give you an idea, you can write the book, and the two of you can split the profit 50/50. I wonder if sculptors get this, "I have a great idea for a statue. It's a man on a horse, holding up a sword. You sculpt it and we can split the profit." Or musicians, "I have a great idea for a song. It's about this guy who really likes this girl..."
At least in Ursula's book, she assumes you already have an idea, and you know the storytelling basics. Her book is all about the language and how to use it. She is also a poet, which I think really helps in this respect. I've always thought that James Joyce and William Faulkner's work was so evocative because they had both tried being poets first. I've only skimmed over the text, I haven't done any of the writing exercises yet. My writing time is pretty small since I need the house quiet and that never happens. Plus I've still got those three stories I'm working on. They line up like Darwin: one is just crawling, one is about halfway there, and one is still a bit hunched but almost upright.

Ow-ow-ow-ow, or Uncle!

Last night I got to go to my first Timberwolves game ever. How fortunate for me to be at a game that will go down in history... as the worst game since Kevin Garnett joined the team. It was so painful. We were down by 40 points by the end of the third quarter. We managed to close the gap a little in the 4th because Phoenix put out their trainer, the ball boy, the girl that cleans up the floor... Well, Nash and Stoudamire stayed on the bench, but we still get beat by nearly 30 points.
And let me tell you, when the home team is down by 40, ooooh that's an ugly crowd.
Well, to be honest the crowd wasn't that pretty from the start. I have, on (frequent) occasion complained at home about our player Olowakandi. I wouldn't mind so much that he sucks if he at least appeared to be trying, you know? He was a starter last night (for reasons known only to the coach), and I quickly learned I was not alone in my assessment, but please! People were booing his name when they were announcing the starting line-up. That's just wrong. You don't boo your own team. Bad form. Of course my favorite moment of the night came when Szczerbiak, whose a good shooter, passed the ball to Kandi, and this man somewhere behind me cried out, "Why?" in the most heartbroken voice I've ever heard. He wasn't angry, I think he was weeping.
And Kandi biffed it off the rim.
Oh well, it's always nice to have the opportunity to prove you're not a fair-weather fan. I guess.
It was still cool being there, and Steve Nash (who plays for Phoenix) is fun to watch; he has a flair for showmanship. For $70 a ticket (although ours were free), someone better be doing something interesting. Mostly I found that watching a game consistently from the same long angle gave me a much better understanding of how it's actually played than watching close-up shots on TV. Perhaps I will get the chance to go again someday...