What to Expect from 2017

It's a curious function of the Western Gregorian calendar that the movement from December 31 to January 1 causes such a hubbub of reflection, contemplation, and determination from so many people. I suppose that the concept of a "new year" could be traced in terms of evolution or anthropology to the coming of spring as a celebration of surviving the winter months. In the modern world, it's an opportunity to restart, to get a free "do-over" with whatever you wanted to accomplish the year before but didn't get to complete—or even start, in some cases.

Personal resolutions are pretty much a waste of time; most people don't last two weeks with diets, exercise plans, quitting personal vices, etc. We've all been there. I cultivated a way of life that focuses exclusively on the present 24-hour day, so I tend do avoid long-term planning beyond what I need to live safe, sane, and sober within the boundaries of my morning and evening tooth-brushing.

Having said that, there are a few things I'm looking forward to in the year upcoming. The biggest change for me is professional; my academic department at the college where I teach was merged with two others, and I chose not to be considered for the new chair's position, so my four-year stint as department chair came to an end at midnight last night. What this means is more time to grade papers at work and more time at home for having a real life again.

Speaking of that real life, I'm doing some exciting things with my writing career. I should have an announcement in a few days about the future of my first book, "Dylan's Treasure." In the meantime, I'll continue working on my revision of its sequel, "The Spring of Llanfyllin," collaborating with a friend on a collection of short stories and starting a new novel from scratch. Oh, and I'm going to try to blog on a more regular basis, both here and at my sports site, "The Sandlot."

Some travel goals: reduced workload means reduced pay, so we're keeping it real vacation-wise...real close and real cheap. Fortunately, there's a lot to do in Missouri, so we're going to visit Big Springs, Taum Sauk Mountain, Elephant Rocks, Johnson's Shut-Ins, and all of the fun and almost-free things to do in and around St. Louis Forest Park. Since my parents live in Farmington, they are strategically located for free lodging and food—thanks, Mom & Dad!

For those of you in the Poplar Bluff area, I'm starting a new study series for my Thursday night New Testament exegetical experience, theROAD. We meet Thursday nights at 6 p.m. at New Life Christian Church United on North Barron Road next to the fire station. We always have good snacks, and I do my best to dispense wisdom and insight (or heresy and blasphemy if you're religious), and we're always glad to have seekers, skeptics, and the curious join us.

I have a few more things on my mind about the 364 more days of this new year ahead of us, but I don't want to exhaust potential blog topics on day one, so you'll just have to stay tuned in. As for the rest of 2017, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? When it happens, I will try to have something meaningful to say about it. If I do have a resolution in mind, it's to do my best to be kind to others. I think it's going to both be needed and appreciated in the days to come.

May your new year be happy, joyous, and free!

My Viral Video

http://mentalfloss.com/article/58771/27-offbeat-college-essay-topics
Essay #9 of 27

You've just reached your one millionth hit on your YouTube video--what is the video about?

Thanks to the success of Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm and their reboot of the Star Wars franchise, they decide, after the conclusion of the Skywalker saga with "Star Wars: Episode XII, The Balance of the Force," to completely re-do George Lucas's misbegotten prequel trilogy, a.k.a. Episodes I-III. In order to find the best story, they invite aspiring writers and filmmakers to post 15-minute videos showing a completely rebooted opening sequence to Episode I.

Working with filmmaking wizard Sean Warren and a cast of aspiring young actors from the college theater department, I finally put my vision for how Episode I should have started all those years ago. The million-plus hits are the votes that my version gets from public votes selecting my story treatment as the winner for the initiative to forever erase the travesty of Jar-Jar Binks.

Here's how my video opens: We see Obi-Wan Kenobi flying his starfighter through the crowded skies of Coruscant. He's tracking reports of dark side activity in one of the dangerous neighborhoods surrounding the capitol. He lands his spacecraft and secures it with his built-in droid. He fails to notice the young teen boy lurking in the shadows of a nearby alley.

After Kenobi leaves, the boy emerges from the shadows and removes a small electronic device from his cloak. He plugs the device into an access panel on Kenobi's ship and overrides the droid's security measures, ordering the droid to open the cockpit and start the ship's engines. Kenobi, now several blocks away, looks up to see his ship flying off without him.

We see the teenager flying into a high-security area by using the ship's computer to transmit the Jedi Knight's security code. Once he lands the ship, he breaks into a series of vaults to steal Republic currency. He leaves the area without attracting any attention, then flies the ship to an illicit dealer who pays him for the ship and promises him no one will be able to find it. "Don't worry about it, Skywalker," the dealer says. "This ship will be harder to trace than you are."

"No chance of that," Anakin tells him, holding his hand up to the dealer. "I was never here. You and I have never met. You have no memory of me."

"You and I have never met," the dealer says, in a far-away voice, as Anakin once again fades into the shadows.

The last thing we see in the video is Republic security officers entering the Jedi Temple with a warrant for Obi-Wan Kenobi's arrest, since security records show that his ship accessed a secure area where vaults were robbed the night before. Obi-Wan is forced to admit to the Jedi Council that his ship had been stolen the night before, news that is met with laughter from the Council. Our final shot is a red-faced, embarrassed Obi-Wan...

Maybe we don't want a second season after all...

One of the really joyful surprises of the summer was watching Netflix's superb eight-episode love letter to 1980s movies, "Stranger Things." The praise for the show has been effusive and well-deserved, and its success has led to the (network? It's not a network...what do we call these things now? Content providers? Ugh...) to Netflix thrilling fans with the announcement of a second season. Great news, right?

We're all richer than our parents!

Well, not so fast. We might want to consider a couple of cautionary tales first. Last summer's sensation was USA Network's "Mr. Robot," another mishmash of TV, movie, and cultural influences that made for absolutely addictive viewing. The brainchild of writer/director Sam Esmail, he originally envisioned his story as a feature film, but he created some of the most compelling television since the heyday of AMC's "Breaking Bad."

Jeff South? Never heard of him.

I was excited for the start of this summer's second season of "Mr. Robot." However, I'm six episodes into the new season and still waiting for the excitement to start. All of the same elements are there, but the magic is missing. To be honest, most of the episodes are just boring. The dynamic between the characters has shifted in the worst way possible, and now we are left without a protagonist to relate to or root for. I'm committed to finishing out the season out of respect for the greatness of season one, but it's a significant disappointment so far.

Why is season two so damn boring?

We all know about the pure genius of season one of HBO's "True Detective." The collaboration between writer Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Fukunaga brought us two of the most memorable characters in recent television, played with award-caliber brilliance by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. Yes, you read that correctly—Woody from "Cheers" and that stoner guy from "Dazed and Confused." Every moment of every episode was filled with dread and anticipation; you couldn't take your eyes off the screen for even a moment.

It's complicated...

Then we had season two of "True Detective," which I watched from beginning to end, hoping that the brilliance of season one would repeat itself. It did not. I think that Colin Ferrell and Vince Vaughn are just as capable as actors as Woody and Matthew, but Pizzolatto was pressured into delivering a script of the same quality as season one in a short amount of time, and Fukunaga bailed as the director. The flaws were obvious from the beginning.

It's terrible...

I once asked college bud Mike Tucker why so many bands had great debut albums but disappointing second efforts. What he told me was so obvious: bands spend years working on a dozen great songs that go on that first record; when they hit it big, the record company expects the next album right away, and it's almost never as good as the first. I think the shows we see that have magnificent first seasons—especially the two I singled out here—suffer from the same phenomenon. Both "Mr. Robot" and "True Detective" seemed to come out of nowhere, but they were culminations of years of work by their creators.

Now we have the Duffer brothers, creators of "Stranger Things," facing the same challenge. Their success was a wonderful surprise. Now, can they come through again on short notice? Consider these points: a) Can he get another great performance out of Winona Ryder? Can she do something else besides distraught mother, because we won't want to see that again. b) The kids, who were the heart of the show, are going to be a year (or two) older the next time around, and kids change A LOT between 11 and 13. How will that affect the dynamic? c) We've already seen the Upside Down; where will the story take us next? d) How will the elements that we loved in season one be kept intact while still telling us a new, fresh story?

50 percent of the girls in my 1983 high school yearbook looked like this.

Speaking as a writer, I spent years working on my first novel, and years more crafting a sequel. If all my dreams came true, and both books were published nationally to great success, could I crank out a third in less than a year? J.K. Rowling has admitted that the pressures of publishing deadlines took some of the polish off her work. I think the pressure must have simply paralyzed George R. R. Martin; we may never actually see a final "Song of Ice and Fire" book.

Dream on, suckers!

Sometimes, maybe we should just be happy with one perfect season. The disappointment we experience when we expect lighting to strike twice just isn't worth it.

21 for 21: #1—R.E.M., "Automatic for the People"

21 days, 21 CDs—it's June 21, my 47th birthday, and in what should not be a surprise to anyone who knows me, my favorite CD in my collection is "Automatic for the People" by R.E.M. It's been my favorite CD since I bought it in December of 1992, and it remains that way until today.

The album reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, produced six singles, and sold more than 18 million copies. It's not a perfect album—I can do without track six, "Sweetness Follows," and I always skip track nine, "Star Me Kitten," but the other ten tracks on the album are absolute masterpieces, each and every one.

The first four tracks, "Drive," "Try Not to Breathe," "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite," and "Everybody Hurts" are R.E.M. at the pinnacle of their career. Each song blends the country-infused instruments with Michael Stipe's trademark nasal croon to brilliant effect. "Monty Got a Raw Deal" and the political primal scream of "Ignoreland" anchor the center of the CD, and then the ending...oh, the ending.

Track ten is "Man on the Moon," a tribute in part to the brilliant insanity of Andy Kaufman. What follows are simply the two best songs R.E.M. ever recorded. #11 is "Nightswimming," just a piano, a string arrangement, and Stipe's voice. #12 is my favorite song on the whole album, "Find the River," an elegiacal metaphor of the journey of life. Stipe and the band take us down a river where bergamot and vetiver, ginger, lemon, indigo mark the places on the bank, flowing eternally and inexorably to the ocean, the very image of life ending in one kind of death—the end of the river—but another kind of life, the endless ocean.

This album also means so much to me because it marks the beginning of my sobriety, now extended into its 23rd year. I heard "Drive" on the radio many times in those first tenuous days of sobriety, before I even knew what it meant or where it was going to take me. This album was my constant companion in those early days, and it's been with me ever since, and it's easy to see that it will always be at the top of this list. It's my most cherished piece of music I own.

21 for 21: #2—The Cure, "Wish"

My silver medalist at #2 in my countdown of my top 21 favorite CDs is "Wish" by The Cure. I simply love this album more than words can say, but I'll try. Released in 1992, the album made it all the way to #1 in the U.K. and #2 in the U.S. It's four-star review in Rolling Stone included this quote: "For its cult of millions, the Cure offers the only kind of optimism that makes sense."

That's what I love most about this album—the balance between slow songs that mourn lost love and sing of the sadness of loneliness and the absolute joy that love and friendship brings. Both the guitars and Robert Smith's masterful vocals express this tension and balance.

Each song has a primary melodic theme that is carried by the lead guitar—think about that unforgettable opening riff on their poppiest, peppiest single ever, "Friday I'm In Love"—da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dum! Each song has a central riff like that, and it ties the whole album together thematically.

The songs are a balance between the jarring, dissonant chord-crunching alternative sounds of songs like "Open," "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea," "Wendy Time," and "Cut," to the quiet introspection of ballads like "Apart," "Trust," and "To Wish Impossible Things," and finally, to that pure, blissful optimism that the Rolling Stone reviewer wrote about in "High," "Doing the Unstuck," and "Friday I'm in Love."

However, the true pinnacle of the album is the song that puts all three together, "A Letter to Elise." It's a break-up song that laments the end of love while, at the same time, celebrating it's sublime beauty. Smith's voice is at his most emotional, pleading, plaintive, and finally, bittersweetly accepting that all things must end. The lyrics build to what I think is perhaps the most beautiful, soaring, aching guitar instrumental I've ever heard. It's not unusual for this song to bring me to tears; it's that beautiful.

21 for 21: #3—Kate Bush, "The Sensual World"

I've finally reached the medal platform, and earning the bronze in my #3 spot among my favorite CDs in my collection is "The Sensual World" by Kate Bush. Released in 1989, it was her sixth album. It climbed all the way to #2 in the U.K. and made it as far as #43 in the U.S. It's also one of the most wonderful pieces of music I've ever owned.

I think it was in an article at Cracked.com that I first read this quote, and it's one of the most true statements I've ever seen: "There are two types of people: those who love Kate Bush, and those who are wrong." This was actually the second CD I ever purchased (trivia: "Broadcast" by Cutting Crew was the first). I was late to the CD party, not wanting to give up on vinyl until it was too late.

I already was a fan, having seen her videos for "Running Up That Hill" and "Hounds of Love" late at night on MTV when they played the weird stuff. I also had her entire "Hounds of Love" album on cassette when "The Sensual World" was released. At the time I bought the CD, the only song I knew was "This Woman's Work" because it had also appeared on the soundtrack of John Hughes' movie "She Having a Baby."

Every song on the CD is just amazing, so I won't bore you with a detailed breakdown, but here are a few highlights. The opening track, "The Sensual World," draws from the Molly Bloom chapter of James Joyce's "Ulysses" to weave an enticing, erotic spell on the listener from the outset. Next comes the driving beat of "Love and Anger," which also features Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour.

Some of the other notable tracks are "Reaching Out" and "Heads We're Dancing," along with, of course, Kate's vocal virtuosity on "This Woman's Work." My absolute favorite song on the whole CD, however, is "Deeper Understanding." Kate was decades ahead of Spike Jonze and Joaquin Phoenix's wonderfully melancholy film "Her" in her musical story of a lonely woman who falls in love with her computer. Featuring haunting background vocals from the Trio Bulgarka, female vocalists from Bulgaria, it's one of the most beautifully emotional songs ever recorded.

21 for 21: #4—Depeche Mode, "Violator"

As I reflect on this list, it occurs to me that a more honest title should be "Best CDs from my time in graduate school," since 1990-1992 is the era of release for most of these albums. Perhaps none captures the bliss of this era for me more than tonight's #4 pick, "Violator" by Depeche Mode.

This is the second appearance by the British alterna-synth quartet, and far and away their best work of their career. "Violator" was their first top ten album in the U.S., making it as far as #7 on the Billboard charts. It's sold more than 3 million copies to date in the U.S. alone. Listening to the tracks is almost like going back in time.

Grad school was a kind of magic time for me in a lot of ways. I had successfully completed journalism school at Mizzou, but instead of jumping into the profession, I wanted to get a master's degree in English to work toward my eventual goal to become a novelist. Grad school gave me a limited number of fun and interesting classes, a teaching appointment, and ample free time to write and hang out with my friends, who were all still in college during my first year.

To make things a bit more interesting, I also had a girlfriend for a few months, something that hadn't happened since my junior year of high school. I had, quite literally, zero dates during my undergrad years in college. In retrospect, no romantic attachments are certainly conducive to making good grades, which I did. But grad school was different. I was dating, my apartment roommate (Wags) was dating, we had mutual friends who were dating. Result: we hosted dinner parties.

I had learned a little Italian cooking from another friend (and previous year's roommate), so I started working on big pasta dishes—mostaccioli, stuffed manicotti, lasagna. "Violator" was on the CD player whenever I cooked. "World in My Eyes" played during prep. The sauce started with "Sweetest Perfection" and simmered through "Personal Jesus" and "Halo." By the time "Enjoy the Silence" began to play, I put it all together, and put it in the oven by the end of "Policy of Truth."

Our girlfriends and our guests all enjoyed the meals, and I enjoyed feeling like I might actually make a semi-decent grownup. I still like to cook Italian for special occasions, sometimes with friends, usually with the family I have with the wife I met three years after I left grad school. "Violator" is on my iPhone instead of on my CD player, but it still makes for a great cooking album. Here's my favorite song off the album—bon appetit!