Rob Baker > Recent Status Updates

"He conquered his enemies by their weakness rather than by his own strength" (80).

What the bishop said had a sort of comfort in it, but it was not a sustaining comfort. It made Mr. Harding feel that many others---indeed, all others of his own order--would think him right; but it failed to prove to him that he truly was so" (29).

"Dr. Grantly would be ready enough to take up his cudgel against all comers on behalf of the church militant, but he would do so on the distasteful ground of the church's infallibility.

Such a contest would give no comfort to Mr. Harding's doubts; he was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so" (27).

My Species

even
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bitterness
and darkening
waters
grows tender,
grows tender and sweet

patience, I think,
my species

keep testing the spiny leaves

the spiny heart

"(T)he value of the property had gradually increased from year to year, and century to century, and was now presumed by those who knew anything about it, to bring in a very nice income; and by some who knew nothing about it to have increased to an almost fabulous extent" 3).

Why, oh, why, did the author have to include a spit take? :(

The use of spit takes, along with things like weak depictions of laughter and crying (which, thankfully, Ide avoids) are one of the Rob Baker Signs of Amateur Writing.

Fortunately, the rest of Ide's writing is awesome! I'll allow him one little slip up :)

"The man had the shakes and was looking around like he'd lost a child at the county fair, his face sagging like Auntie May's basset hound, his eyes yellow and bloodshot from seeing too much of his own life.

Youngsters were staying away from crack. They'd seen too many crackheads wandering the streets all stank-ass nasty, groveling for change, and trying to sell you a toaster oven with the power cord cut off" (189).

"When Isaiah was in his teens, he worked for Harry Haldeman and wondered even then how the man could stay in a state of perpetual indignation" (121).

The Perfection of Loss

Like a native speaker
returned
after long exile,
quiet now in two tongues.

"Anthony was staring at a photograph of a seagull like it was flying away with his youth" (113).

"Cal felt like a Winnebago on a one-lane road, Bobby a Porsche Turbo weaving around behind him blasting the horn" (117).

"Dodson's eggs came out moist and fluffy. By then, the hashbrowns had a crust on them, the ham was still arm, the sourdough toast slathered with butter. He took a moment to admire the plate. 'Like the cover of a Denny's menu,' he said" (92-93).

"His attendance was so bad his history teacher said he should wear a visitor's badge. Homework was like a strange ritual they did in some foreign country where everybody was blond and wore wooden shoes" (57).

"Wrong solitude vinegars the soul,
right solitude oils it" (224)

(from "Vinegar and Oil")

"Isaiah knew other girls who felt that way. Somehow believing a big booty was like owning real estate or having a college degree, something you could put on a job application" (15).

"Mysteriously they entered, those few minutes.
Mysteriously, they left.
As if the great dog of confusion guarding my heart,
who is always sleepless, suddenly slept.
It was not any awakening of the large, not so much as that,
only a stepping back from the petty" (214).

Yesterday was the always fun "Head to Half Price Books to Pick Out the Next Read" Day!

They didn't have a few titles that were on my mind, but I ended up pulling up the list of Anthony Award winners and found this previously unknown author/title that won Best First Novel in 2017.

Here's hoping.....

"Then to the left there appeared a deep red glow; then a second, and a third; and all at once the third grew enormously; a tongue of flame that leapt up and up and higher still, a most prodigious fountain of light--a whole ship load of olive oil ablaze" (408).

Have to switch to percentage finished for the update since my copy has more pages (459 total...75 more pages) than the one listed here on Goodreads.

"There are parallel sets of laws in different keys that have nothing to do with one another and that are even downright contradictory....

Buridan's ass died of misery between equidistant mangers, drawn first by one and then the other....There are these double loyalties--another great source of torment" (354-355).

"Only then, without you, are we able to see you completely,
lie those wandering monks
who, calling nowhere home, are everywhere home" (198).

(From "To Speech: An Assay")

"It might be just as well if everybody were impotent," said Jack sombrely. "It would save a world of trouble" (307).

"'The identity I am thinking of is something that hovers between a man and the rest of the world: a mid-point between his view of himself and theirs of him -- for each, of course, affects the other continually. A reciprocal fluxion, sir" (278).