The Truth Is Out There?

I haven't paid much attention lately to one of my pet subjects, UFO's. For this, my dear aliens and conspiracy lovers, I apologize. But today, I return to the murkiness that is unidentified flying objects.

As I've stated before, my fascination with this topic was kindled when, as a child, I read my parents' copy of Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. We also had at least one book in the house about the Bermuda Triangle, which also fed my imagination.

I've never seen a UFO, but I'd certainly like to. I've never met anyone who's claimed to have seen one, or to have been abducted by aliens. I like the kitschiness of it all, sure, but I'm also intrigued by the possibilities of interstellar travel and of beings who have conquered such an onerous task.

Earlier this month CNN's web site posted a link to this story, from Denver:

This video is unlike other UFO footage I've seen. Often times, people capture hovering lights off in the distance, or shiny objects that move slowly and then zoom off at incredible, gravity-defying speeds. Many times, the videos are, of course, faked.

But this one shows what appears to be very small objects moving at speeds that, as one aviation expert says, are faster than any aircraft known to man. This expert says he has no idea what he's looking at -- could be debris being blown into the sky (this seems very unlikely).

Are these drones of some sort? This also seems unlikely.

CNN.com also recently posted a link to a news report from a Kentucky TV station about another odd-looking UFO. This one looks a bit like a double-edged shaving razor to me. By the way, nothing of interest happens on the video below after the 1:30 mark.

The amateur astronomer who filmed this object says the thing hovered for more than two hours before disappearing. Others in the area spotted it as well, and called police.

I'm not sure what to make of either of these stories. I believe that these folks captured real images, not something doctored. I know that they are hard to explain phenomena. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to think.

Of course, there are people who spend considerable time thinking about, studying, reporting on, obsessing about, stressing over the idea of unidentified flying objects and what they mean to the future of the planet, of mankind, of the universe.

Many of them are crazy. But not all of them. Some are scientists who put a lot of work and thought into just what is happening on our planet, in our atmosphere, in people's minds.

My main source for all things UFO and conspiracy, AboveTopSecret.com recently posted a link to a research paper presented in 1989 at a conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration, held in Colorado. The paper was researched and written by Jacques Vallee, who, in addition to being an astronomer and astrophysicist, is a venture capitalist and novelist.

In the paper, Vallee lays out his case for why UFO's are not extraterrestrial (sorry, ET; maybe you should drown your sorrows).

I've read through a lot of the paper, which is quite lengthy, and Vallee's arguments boil down to this:

• after crunching numbers in what, to me, are confusing ways, he concludes that the number of UFO landings on the planet tallies more than 14 million over the past 40 years. As such, these incidents must not be extraterrestrial in nature, because why would aliens need to visit so much in order to gather information?
• Even if aliens, by happenstance, looked similar to humans, they would need to modify their bodies using genetic engineering "to enhance their ability to work and survive in space, as humans may have to do" over the next century.
• "Whatever the supposed 'Aliens' are doing, if they actually perform what appear to be shockingly crude and cruel simulacra of biological experiments on the bodies of their abductees, is unlikely to represent a scientific mission relevant to the goals of extraterrestrial visitors."
• "the extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded human history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon"
• "the apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives" such as new concepts of physical reality.

No matter how you slice it, this all blows my mind. Either there are aliens flying in from other planets researching the Earth and its inhabitants, or there are elements of life on this planet, and of the human mind, that are so foreign to us as to be equivalent to space invaders.

Maybe Kool Keith can explain it to us:

NaNoWriMo Revisited

Five years ago I took part in National Novel Writing Month. Known as NaNoWriMo, the endeavor challenges folks to write a 50,000-word novel between 12:01 a.m. on November 1st and 11:59 p.m. on November 30th each year.

Encouraged by my buddy Jay, I decided to devote as much time as possible to this adventure. I did so knowing I wouldn't get enough sleep, as my daughter was just four months old and was waking up regularly during the night for feedings. Regardless, I wrote until midnight on many of those November nights.

Because I was constantly tired, naturally I became grouchy during the days and evenings, which, believe me, didn't go unnoticed by my wife.

Still, I managed to crank out roughly 26,000 words over those 30 days. I'd made an outline of my proposed novel ahead of time in order to make the process go more smoothly. I decided to turn the UFO/alien abduction concept album I'd been working on into a book, with the grand idea that at some point I'd release both works of art as an incredible multimedia extravaganza.

I was proud of myself for being so resourceful and for preparing in advance. In years past I'd tried two or three times to write novels, but after wading in quite a distance, I found myself over my head with no idea how to swim back to shore. So those novels died.

And so did my NaNoWriMo effort after that 30-day burst of activity. Sure, I looked at it a number of times in the ensuing months, and tweaked it a bit here and there. But even working from an outline didn't make the process much easier.

Because the object of NaNoWriMo is to crank through and produce as many words as you can and worry about what it all says later, I ended up going off on all sorts of tangents, and not sticking to my outline.

I forgot about the novel (well, not entirely; it's always in the back of my head) and spent time working on my short story collection. I self-published that in December 2010 (buy it here -- the holidays are coming!). After that, I kicked around some children's book ideas. I've developed a concept that I like, and am working with an illustrator, so with any luck I'll crack that market in the near future.

Also, in April of this year I started working on a memoir. I've made great progress on this book, and am nearly ready to send it out to some folks to gather opinions and critical feedback.

So it sounds like my literary plate is full, right? But last weekend at a PTO function I met a woman who's a published novelist, and she mentioned the idea of forming a writer's group with a few other people she'd met that night. One of these guys is somebody with whom I've already spent considerable time discussing our respective books.

These other writers are working on novels, but I think they'd be OK with discussing my memoir in a group. Still, I thought I'd like to at some point be able to bring fiction into the mix.

I thought about starting a new short story collection, but found that prospect too daunting. Then I did what I knew I had to do: I committed myself to returning to my novel, despite the fact that on this very blog I recently announced that my brain just doesn't work the way a novelist's brain should work (see October 2, 2012, "The Struggle.").

I returned to the manuscript this week and started making notes about what needs to change, what needs to get thrown out, who the characters are and how I'm going to move the story forward and not give up like I have in the past.

I may ditch the story again. I may take 10 years to finish, just as I did with my short story collection. But I'm determined, one way or the other, to write a novel.

I'll keep you updated, but don't hold your breath.

You Didn't Build This, FLlW Did

After several months, I finally finished Meryle Secrest's Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, a dense, well-researched, mostly engaging 564-page doorstop of a book.

I put the book on my wish list after reading T.C. Boyle's The Women, a fictional account of the world-famous architect's tangled web of romantic relationships. Boyle's a gifted writer, and I've read and enjoyed many of his books, but while I was reading The Women, I found myself wanting to read a biography, wondering, "How true to life is this stuff? Were Wright and his wives and mistresses really as crazy as Boyle makes them out to be?"

Turns out, they were.

I'm not going to write a review of the book, because it's too damn long and I'm not a real strong critical writer. But I want to talk about a few things that I learned about Wright (who often signed his name "FLlW"), and discuss some of his amazing buildings, a few of which I hope to visit in my lifetime.

Wright was a complete and total narcissist, arrogant and too quick to judge and fight back against any perceived slight. He was absolutely terrible with money, often refusing to pay everyone from local grocers to building supply companies, and other times insisting that he be given things such as cars simply because he was famous, and the retailer would gain more value from being associated with him than they could if he paid them.

He fell easily for those who flattered him. It was not difficult, especially if you were a woman, to manipulate him.

Wright insisted that nobody had influenced his use of open floor plans, cantilevered roofs and non-traditional materials in the houses he designed, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Many of his buildings, especially houses, suffered from leaky roofs, drafty windows and poor heating and cooling systems.

Still, there's no denying Wright's incredible vision, and his tenacity in getting projects done the way he wanted. He is one of the most well-known architects in the world, alongside I.M. Pei, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Gehry.

Many of his most fantastic projects were never built, such as Washington, D.C.'s Crystal Heights apartment, hotel and shopping complex, and of those that were, many have either been torn down, or destroyed by fire or natural disasters.

Just last month, a house that FLlW designed for one of his sons in Phoenix was saved from the wrecking ball.

But, thankfully, so many great houses, office buildings and museums that he designed still stand.

I've been to New York City with my family each of the last three Aprils, but somehow have never made it to Wright's Guggenheim Museum. The next time I go to the Big Apple, I'm definitely checking out the museum.

Taliesin West, Wright's second home, is located in Arizona. I haven't been to the Southwest since my brief time living in New Mexico in 1988. It's time for a return, with the family.

Wright's primary residence for decades was Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. This building fascinates me for its architecture, of course, but also because the home was the place where Wright spent much of his adult life, where he designed so many projects, where he mentored architects and others in the building trades, and where tragedy visited his family on too many occasions (fires, murders).

Finally, I have to visit Fallingwater, the amazing house that Wright built over a river in western Pennsylvania. Just take a look at the video above, and at the pictures at the house's web site and you'll understand why I want to go.

YES!!

Congratulations, President Obama!

Now go ahead and sing us out, Homer.

(C)rock Redux

Today I received a small advance from Plus One Press, which will be publishing one of my short stories in the soon-to-be-available Tales From the House Band, Volume 2. The anthology features stories from numerous genres, with wildly varying themes, but all of them focused on music in one way or another.

I forget how I found out about Plus One's first volume of the series. But as soon as I did, I zipped an email to the publisher asking if there was room for me in the next volume. She said yes, so I sent her one of the stories from my first book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity, for her consideration. She agreed to publish it, which naturally made me very happy.

I didn't have to write a new story, which was a plus. There was some back-and-forth editing between the publisher, a third party and me. But in the end I think my story -- "Three Times a Lady Sniff," about following the Butthole Surfers -- is better.

Subsequently, I did a little research into the first volume. Plus One is a small publisher that issues books by the owner, Deborah Grabien, and other authors. The only reviews I could find online of the first volume were written either by authors who had stories in the anthology, or their relatives.

Still, the possibility of getting one of my stories published alongside those of other writers is a great opportunity. As with a compilation album (do they make those any more?), a short story anthology gives artists the chance to get themselves in front of people who might never have come across their work otherwise. So obviously I'm hoping those who buy the second volume might at some point buy my book as well.

Stay tuned for news about the publication date.