Linden Tree Near the Water

linden tree near the water
rise up in holy euphoria
love's verdant blazing is near
rooted in you in your glory

cultivate joy my dear one
for joy we shall know
thus spoke the Lord in a sign

she of the sea
rings a bell from the deep
a promise a clarion call
her vow my key your keep

celebrate love my dear one
for love we shall share
thus spoke the angel on high

near the water
of the sea
in the water
inside me

shadows lengthen
sunrise draws near
songbirds sing
linden tree near the water

Slim Slow Sacrilege

I've been on a Van Morrison kick lately, dragging out my old cassettes and enjoying them on my new state-of-the-art, $59 stereo ... which, oddly for these techno-toy times, came with a cassette player. (The acquisition of such oldfangled gadgetry is a story in itself—I recently bought a light box and found I could only fit it on my night table by downsizing the stereo from mini-system to boombox.)

Anyway, that muffled, hissy sound of magnetic tape through two-inch speakers got me thinking that perhaps it's time to ditch the cassettes in favour of remastered CDs. Surely by now, I figured, classics like Astral Weeks have been upgraded to the pristine quality they deserve. Not that I have anything decent to play the CDs on, but still.

To my horror, I discovered that though much of Van's back-catalogue has been remastered, Astral Weeks has not. A Japanese remaster is available at the usual hefty price for imports, but the most recent domestic CD dates from 1987.

Allowing Astral Weeks to languish with substandard sound is the rock 'n' roll equivalent of letting The Bible go out of print. It's sacrilege—a damning encapsulation of the music industry's malaise.

Avoiding Tired Adjectives

"My date with Gia was amazing."
"Peter's sushi is just incredible."
"My shopping trip to New York was so totally awesome."
"Oh, my God, St. Lucia is, like, beautiful."
"This is our dream home. It's unbelievable."

Yes, my day gig as a closed-caption editor offers ample opportunities to transcribe words better suited to the Shady Pine Rest Home for the Lexically Moribund. Of course, we all use them in everyday life, where the demands of extemporaneous speech compel us to reach for the easy, accessible descriptor. But we needn't write like that. (Unless we're captioning "reality" TV, in which case it's perversely satisfying to let these jus'-plain-folks blather on in their ten-word-vocabulary glory.)

I recently scoured my manuscript for overused words like these and was able to replace or eliminate the bulk of them. Judicious use of a thesaurus helps, but at times a complete reconfiguration of the sentence is in order. If the offending word truly belongs—for example, if I've written a character that really would say "so totally awesome"—I'll leave it. And sometimes, a bland adjective like "great" may well be the best choice. Regardless, my aim is to write lively prose that serves the story.

A word of caution: be sparing, lest you meander into purple-prose territory. I don't want my work to read like Jane Austen, but neither do I want it littered with amazings, awesomes and beautifuls simply because I was too lazy to find worthy alternatives.

Ehh ... What's Up, God?

I saw a guy today wearing one of those "Atheist Bus" T-shirts—you know, the ones that tell us we can stop worrying and enjoy our lives because "there's probably no God."

What's curious about this is the assumption that fretting and misery are inevitable responses to the existence of God. Of course, such a notion stems from the atheistic conception of the God they imagine we gullible spiritual types believe in: a vindictive, capricious son of a bitch ready to flog at the slightest misdeed.

Fortunately, the God of atheist critique is a caricature, bearing as much resemblance to the real thing as Bugs Bunny does to a rabbit.

The Case Against Evil

With a weighty title like that, you might well expect a lofty philosophical discourse, cogently structured and flawlessly argued. If so, sorry to disappoint. I do, however, offer humble anecdotal evidence from the world of baseball.

Somewhat miraculously, the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays find themselves in the playoffs after trailing the Red Sox by 9 games as late as September 3. (Boston's spectacular collapse is in itself legendary, but I'll leave that for the denizens of Red Sox Nation to dissect. You know they will.)

Okay, so a team that's done rather well for itself in recent years makes the playoffs again. So what? Well, the Rays began life in 1998 as the Devil Rays, which is where the evil comes in. A quick glance at the Devil Rays' year-by-year record paints a clear picture:

• 1998: 63-99, last place, AL East
• 1999: 69-93, last place, AL East
• 2000: 69-92, last place, AL East
• 2001: 62-100, last place, AL East
• 2002: 55-106, last place, AL East
• 2003: 63-99, last place, AL East
• 2004: 70-91, 4th place, AL East
• 2005: 67-95, last place, AL East
• 2006: 61-101, last place, AL East
• 2007: 66-96, last place, AL East

In and of itself, compelling evidence that evil doesn't pay, no? That's nine last-place finishes in ten seasons. But there's more.

In late 2007, ownership revamped the team's logo and uniform and, most crucially, ditched the "Devil." In owner Stuart Sternberg's words, the rechristened Rays would be "a beacon that radiates throughout Tampa Bay and across the entire state of Florida." Lovely sentiments, but could they actually win? Let's have a look:

• 2008: 97-65, 1st place, AL East; AL Champions
• 2009: 84-78, 3rd place, AL East
• 2010: 96-66, 1st place, AL East
• 2011: 91-71, 2nd place, AL East; AL Wild Card team

That's four straight winning seasons and playoff appearances in three of those four years, and this from a team that (a) plays in toughest division in baseball; and (b) has a history of futility about as grim as it gets. So, kids, take good care when naming your sports teams. As the luminous Tampa Bay Rays have shown, good must trump evil, at least in the world of baseball.

(How, then, to account for The Evil Empire and their 27 World Series championships? Or the 1919 Black Sox? Or Roger Clemens? Ah, other posts for other days.)