Just Finished Reading (Again) Lisey's Story by Stephen King

I first read Stephen King's novel Lisey's Story in 2008, two years after it was first published. Considering it one of his greatest works, I returned and just finished rereading this tale of a woman's grief over her recently departed husband, a successful novelist, and her struggle against those trying to steal away his papers.  The story can be a bit difficult to read in that King jumps around frequently from one time period to another...usually in mid-sentence!  As the title intimates, it is Lisey's story, but it is also that of Scott, going back to his childhood and examining his family history of insanity as well as hitting upon different pivotal points in his marriage.  And of course there is the ongoing, horribly scary drama...as only Stephen King can write it...of a madman stalking Lisey for those papers.  In the backdrop is an imaginary place called "Boo'ya Moon"  to where, from childhood onward, Scott could retreat from the hostile real world, as well as draw out ideas for his stories...but how imaginary is it?  Lisey knows the answer, and her emotionally disturbed sister Amanda may as well...but I'll leave this mystery to you, the potential reader, to unravel at your own convenience...

Stephen King has long claimed that we all have a source within ourselves...like Scott's Boo'ya Moon...to which we can visit and replenish our imagination.  With each person it looks different, but King has pointed out in Lisey's Story that it also contains its own dangers, one of which is that it can be very tempting to remain there too long, making it difficult to return to the real world.  On the other hand, I think that while that may be true for a few, the problem with most of us is that we rarely get to know our own Boo'ya Moon...

More than anything, Lisey's Story is about a relationship of love, between Lisey and Scott Landon over the course of their lives together...and even beyond.  The level of honesty and intimacy between them makes this one of the most compelling love stories of our age.  But developing characters and making them seem so real has always, in my opinion, been Stephen King's greatest gift as a writer...

By the way, Lisey's Story is yet another one of those Stephen King novels set in the problematic small Maine town of Castle Rock...and, yes, my "favorite" King locale, Derry, is also referenced.  And it looks as if an eight-part TV miniseries based on the book is in the works...

Watching the Clouds and Moon Last Night

Last night after work, I came home, got a bite to eat, and then went outside to my backyard seat to look at the night sky.  It was around one in the morning, and the sky had shifted slightly from the previous time I had sat out there, with Pegasus directly overhead and the star Deneb Kaitos higher and more southern in the sky.  But with the exceptions of Capella and Aldeberan lying low above the horizon, that was pretty much all of the stars that I saw, for clouds...those with a small, patchy cotton-like appearance, covered much of the east, where I faced.  And near the bottom of the formation was the moon, very bright in almost a last quarter phase.  Clouds were flying over and around it, and I began to notice the visual interaction.  The closest clouds to the moon, as they generally approached it, did not seem to be going in a straight path, but rather in an unnatural, jerky sort of manner, as if some power were manipulating them.  I thought this most peculiar and turned my vision upward to the bulk of the cloud mass.  In it there appeared what looked like a face...no, two faces, one emerging at an angle from the other.  Then I looked back down at a torrent of low-flying darker clouds as they raced upward from the eastern horizon, passed directly over the moon, and then disappeared in the night sky...

Now you may want to take what I have just written, which is an honest account of what I experienced, and try to draw some sort of conclusion about it.  Those inclined to believing more in the paranormal and supernatural may pick up some meaning behind the connections I made with the cloud movements and the faces.  Or perhaps, some may decide that I am being unduly influenced by forces that I should leave well enough alone.  But the truth is that I just took a few minutes to exercise my faculties of observation and imagination, walking away from it with the pleasant feeling of having experienced something special.  So it's not necessary to delve "beyond reality", as a new radio talk show that deals with the paranormal and related topics is named, in order to see meaning in the world around us; learning to observe and imagine...and being able to recognize our imagination simply for what it is...can enrich one's life without going over to the "other side"...

Vicarious Sports Nonsense...and Me

I'm not too happy with the fact that my semi-prediction that none of the NFL Florida teams might make the playoffs was borne out. On the other hand, suppose they had? And suppose one of them made it all the way to the Super Bowl and won it? How would that have made any difference in my life?

I have been vicariously following sports since childhood. I had the experience during my teens of my favorite team, the Miami Dolphins, winning the Super Bowl twice and even going completely undefeated one year. I also have seen three Florida Gators national championships in football and two in basketball. But truth be told, although it was fun to root for them and eventually witness them winning those titles, the experiences had a very minuscule effect on my overall happiness.

One year, when I was thirteen, I sensed this disconnect early on and tried an experiment on myself. I concocted an imaginary league in an imaginary sport. I created eight teams: Columbus, Houston, Memphis, Newark, Rochester, St. Louis, San Antonio, and Washington. I set up a season that comprised 154 games (like the old pre-sixties major league baseball seasons) and had the teams play each other in round-robin fashion (remember, without even specifying the sport). Then, I would shuffle a deck of cards and draw a pair at a time. The higher number would give a victory to the designated team, and I went through an entire season this way, writing down the "standings" as I went along. This game only went on for a few hours sometime during August 1970, but I still remember that completely unreal season to this date!

Washington started out strong and took an early lead over the others. Then Columbus surged and led for most of the middle of the season. About two thirds of the way through, there was a mad scramble for many "weeks" as the teams would jockey for position and the lead. Only Memphis seemed to be having a "bad" season, being in last most of the time. Toward the end, Newark (which I had for some reason decided to root for) surged way ahead in the standings over the rest. But then, unexpectedly, toward the end they went into a slump and Columbus squeaked out ahead and won a very tight finish over Newark and Memphis (who surged at the end). Early leader Washington ended up in last place, but all eight teams finished within six games of each other. The final standings:

1-Columbus (80-74)
2t-Memphis (79-75)
2t-Newark (79-75)
4t-Houston (77-77)
4t-St.Louis (77-77)
7t-Rochester (75-79)
7t-San Antonio (75-79)
8-Washington (74-80)

Remember, none of this really happened, the teams represented no particular sport, and I played this game more than thirty years ago. Yet the season and its outcome means as much to me as do any of the teams and seasons I've followed over the years!

The point to all this is that I think there are two ways one can follow a sport. Either you can enjoy the sport for its own sake, becoming a connoisseur of sorts, or you can become engrossed in the winning/losing/standings part. I noticed that I tend to be in the latter category. For example, sometimes when my favorite NFL team, the Miami Dolphins, is playing and the game is being covered on TV or radio, I will deliberately avoid watching or listening to it because I get too anxious as to how they're doing. I remember their win/loss records over the years, although it ultimately matters little to me whether they do well or not.

Isn't that silly??!!