The nuanced Al Jazeera flash cartoon Lileks links to today is bizarre in its blatant yet somehow unintentional presentation of the new New York City skyline since 9/11.

What an ironic placement of Bush fishing for WMD, right smack in the place where a giant hole surrounded by a chain link fence now lies. So much for subtlety. Maybe the next cartoon will feature “King Bush” sitting atop the ruins of one of Saddam’s former palaces. The disjunction would be just as effective.
I began reading the first book in the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, and after the slow start, it’s been an engrossing read, and for the life of me, I can’t say why. I’m not even that interested in the storyline, and the characters, whilst somewhat unique in their construction, are clearly built from the elegant prototypes first built by the eminent C.S. Lewis. Which may be the explanation for my attraction to the book after all. It’s been a fast read. I started last night and am about 4/5 of the way through.
Also began constructing the final portions of Turnpike Blues, my long-in-coming 1950′s detective novel. As you may have surmised from the occasional saucing about its incompleteness on this blog, I’ve had some trouble with the ending. Well, not so much the ending as actually writing it. I’ve found myself distracted more times than I care to admit by the wanderings of my mind and by other projects. It’s taken its toll on my will to complete the book, but I got a measure of it back last night after reading a few passages from Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, a novel with unself-conscious prose that lends itself wonderfully to the believable and slow-paced (but deliciously rich) tale. It’s a novel to strive toward in imitation and humble homage, at least in terms of style, and though I will never measure up to Chandler’s experience and vastly superior wit and elegance, I have hopes for Turnpike Blues to be at least a read worthy of the attentions of mystery enthusiasts.
But it must first be completed. So, an hour a day, I think, I will shoot for, no word count, just time spent, if nothing else, at thought. Three weeks at this, and I should be about ready for a weekend sabbatical, in which I leave town for a couple of days, seclude myself in a cabin or some secluded place, and complete the last push to manuscript’s end.
Wish me luck?