In case you hadn't noticed, Iron Man is making a serious run at being the superhero movie of the year. Even Batman might be sweating a little. The Hulk is definitely a deeper shade of green.

Excerpt from a good review:

Perhaps the best thing about Iron Man is its show-stopping sequences of special effects. It’s almost passé to applaud special effects in blockbuster films anymore, but it is certainly appropriate here. The Jetsons-esque robots and gadgets and inventive weaponry displayed in the film make Transformers look cartoonish by comparison.

Of course Iron Man will never replace Spiderman as the greatest superhero of all time, but he's doing the best he can with what he's got--a cocky-but-improving alter ego and a lot of shiny robotics.

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In the last several years, I've read my share of books that annotate and elucidate C.S. Lewis' work, and this cryptic title from previously-unknown Lewis scholar Michael Ward wins the "best of" trophy hands down.

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis is fraught with overtones of medieval mystery and hidden meanings, and if you love the writing of Lewis, it reads like a page-turner. It's a testament to Michael Ward's audacity that he presents his findings in such a headlong way, and evidence of his persuasive scholarship that only a chapter or two in, you find yourself nodding in surprised agreement.

What has Ward done? I don't want to spoil Planet Narnia's air of mystery by spilling its secrets in a bullet list--but Ward effectively "cracks the code" of the Narnia books and gives high level insights into the entire corpus of C.S. Lewis' writing. This is an accomplishment, for Lewis-lovers, on par with a physicist unearthing the Unifying Theory of the universe.

We discover what made Lewis tick, at a deep imaginative level, and learn the rhyme and reason at work behind the scenes in Narnia. Lewis' stories--as have often been suggested--are enigmas on the level of authorial inspiration and over-arching theme (What holds the books together?), but Ward has pieced together the clues and discovered the "deep magic" of Lewis' creative ethos.

Michael Ward's gift for uncovering themes, tracing threads, and piecing together clues is unsurpassed. As a scholar, he's brilliant. But the brilliance extends to his writing as well, which contains a brightness, a lyrical buoyancy, and an incisive poeticism.

*** I award this one an enthusiastic three stars--don't miss it. Planet Narnia is a paradigm-shaping book and a high water mark in C.S. Lewis scholarship. I can't recommend it highly enough to the person looking for jaw-dropping insight into Lewis' writing.

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Today I’ve been battling a three-headed monster similar to the Chimera but with a different plan of attack—surround the victim, then bore him to death with your length and repetitive movement. The three essays/research projects that confronted me were persistent if not inspired in their onslaught, and it almost worked.

The last couple weeks of my semester have been murder, and it will take some serious, focused, abandonment to wash this blood off my hands. I’m thinking some hoops, a game of OhNoBall! with Aidan, frivolous reading material, several date nights, and a few rounds of creative writing would help remove these reddish flecks from the whorls of my fingers. And a graduation party would be cool…

Then again, some extended time doing absolutely nothing might fit the bill even better. Possibly that could be trumped by gratuitous gifts of cash, but it would be close. I'll get back to you on that.

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When you have this many bears living in the home, they are bound to get the drop on you occasionally.

In this case, Curly, Snowball and Pooh lay in wait on a heating pipe overlooking the path to the kitchen, which is the equivalent to Aidan's morning watering hole. Their attack, when it came, was swift and ferocious.

I pulled the bears off Aidan with the help of a flaming incense stick and a dining room chair.

This is a timely reminder that although these animals appear "cute" and "cuddly," we should never forget that they are ultimately wild and can never be trusted completely.

With the benefit of hindsight, there can be little doubt that this latest attack was precipitated by "harmless" interactions like the one below--instances where Aidan wrassled and body-slammed the bears as if they were domesticated animals--when in fact, they were only biding their time and planning their revenge.

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Anne Lamott is the type of writer that people tend to either love or hate. For me, she was also one of those authors that I always meant to read but never got around to it. However, even the best procrastinators have a limit to their craft.

Now that I've finally read Lamott for myself, I get her lightning rod effect. I am also prepared to eschew* the extremes of love and hate and tell you why I was moderately impressed with Lamott's Bird by Bird.

This book is written with the intent to get the naked, shivering, neurotic person into the turbulent waters of writing--flailing around with a sense of joy and maybe direction. Lamott works from the gutsy but odds-on premise that if you have the burning desire to unburden your soul via the written word, you are probably, to some extent, emotionally unhinged. I can think of worse working assumptions.

However, if you'd describe yourself as a stolid, steady-on, unruffled hombre without the slightest inclination to rail violently against the universe, this book is absolutely not for you.

Anne Lamott gives writers permission to upend their minds like a barrel of monkeys and later build the critters into messy, dangling chains of meaning that can be hung from plot points. She is that happily overwrought, slightly stereotypical character with dreadlocks who urges you to just find yourself, dear, and let your soul hang out. Lamott is born to dispense this kind of advice, and she does so in a raw, liberating fashion.

This approach works very well because Anne Lamott is perfectly willing to use herself as a datum, a messy point of reference. She writes with a salty, self-deprecating voice that exudes empathy and a loose, give-it-your-best-shot confidence. She has a disarming knack for capturing and distilling human nature at its best and worse, and she's no slouch at navigating the writing world either. Bird by Bird succeeds at being a useful, eye-opening Book About Writing--which is no small achievement.

I haven't read many Books About Writing because I have the cocky, lingering suspicion than I can learn more by writing my own stuff than by reading about someone else's. Now I've been proven wrong at least a couple times: Annie Dillard's The Writing Life (review) sets the standard for insight and inspiration, in my opinion, but Lamott is a close second.

Overall, I'm about to hand Bird by Bird a glowing recommendation, but with a few caveats. First, I don't care for the haphazard way Lamott characterizes God as he, she, it, whatever--but you'd be crazy to read Lamott for her theology. Second, this book will be helpful to some types of writers but not others. Donald Miller loves Lamott, and if you read them both, you'll see why: they both emphasize confessional, write-what-you-feel creativity. Finally, Lamott has a potty mouth and does what she can to preserve this fact for posterity.

** With that said, Bird by Bird gets two stars--well worth your time--and good for a place on the Master Book List. Lamott brings a vivid and earthy mind to the writing task, and assuming you have a creative bent, it's hard to see how her book could fail to strike some sparks.

*Any day when you can eschew something, that was a good day. I'll also utilize this asterisk to give credit to Amelia and Ruth, who made this review possible by getting on my case so I finally read Bird by Bird.

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Aidan is smiling because he thinks he has conned me into posing with the smaller basketball.

I'm smiling because shooting on Aidan's Little Tikes' hoop (lying on my back 15 feet away) has helped my shooting form. No, really, just ask Aidan.

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If you're a die-hard fan, you already know. So for you more relaxed fans:

"Violet Hill" is the first single from the upcoming Coldplay album, Viva la Vida, and you can download the MP3 free through May 5.

It's hard to judge an album by one song. Case in point: the mixed reviews bubbling up over at Patrol Mag. David Sessions leads off, saying...

It’s still very Coldplay— still a lot of singing and a lot of piano block chords. But Martin has returned to his lower register (thank God), where he sounds darker, more muscular. This song is as big as some of the numbers on X&Y, but in the right way—loud, nervous energy (jagged, heavily distorted guitar riffs and frenetic drums) that rises and falls at just the right moments.

...then a a free for-all-debate erupts in the comments. What do you think about the new Coldplay single?

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Espresso News & Reviews gives us the startling low-down:

The best baristas in the country are not lured to work for the big chains to prefect their craft and their love of coffee. And even if they were, Starbucks espresso delivery system™ would put their baristas behind equipment and supplies that place them at an extreme competitive disadvantage: no barista trained on a push-button Verismo or Mastrena machine, using pre-packaged beans purchased in bulk supply for chain consistency, would have a chance against the competition.

The truth is that Starbucks and Caribou don’t want an event to prove to the public how woefully inadequate their coffee standards are — especially when compared to the level of competition that comes to these championships. If millions of their customers realized how much coffee quality they were being cheated out of at $4 a pop, it would be a boon for many independent coffeeshops and it would scuttle corporate coffee with long-lasting damage. Big corporate coffee may not be that great, but they’re not so stupid as to give away their dirty secrets.

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Thanks to Spyder, there's now a centralized list of Kansas City bloggers.

Awesome.

Admittedly more awesome if you live in Kansas City.

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Child 44 is the first serial killer/ spy novel set in Communist Russia that I've ever read. And, coincidentally, Child 44 is the first book (of any kind) that Tom Rob Smith has ever written. Both facts are somewhat amazing.

On the first count, I'm not a huge consumer of spy novels, but I've read enough of them that the odds of my having come this far without spending time in Communist Russia were pretty slim. On the second count, despite its dark and occasionally horrific subject matter, Child 44 is a remarkable first novel.

I say that with mixed feelings, because I probably wouldn't read the book a second time, given that the serial killer's victims are children (based loosely on historical events). Despite the fact that the book is plot-driven and not character-driven, thinking about murdered children isn't really something I choose to do in my leisure time. If you can put that awful element of the book aside, Child 44 has plenty to offer.

Heading the list of admirable qualities is the way that Tom Rob Smith seems to summon up a sometimes-forgotten history. Communist Russia comes alive as we're shown its inner workings and breath an atmosphere of frigid utilitarianism and bleak hopelessness. This evocation of atmosphere is powerful, troubling, and hard to forget.

Next is the unique plot mechanism that also serves as a central, paradoxical theme in Child 44: How does one go about pursuing justice in a country where crime does not officially exist? Before evil can be defeated, it's existence must be acknowledged. But in Communist Russia, to acknowledge the fact of insidious, deliberate sin was equivalent to accusing the system of failure--pointing out that Lenin was a nude emperor--itself a fatal transgression.

Finally, Smith's writing is effective if not eloquent. No one will mistake Child 44 for a masterpiece of prose literature or a keen character study. You'll remember the story's setting and plot, not the names of its protagonists. But Smith is a solid, if workmanlike, author.

* - ** I'm debating how to rate Child 44. Grisly detail about a serial killer who targets children will keep this from being a "wonderful" or "favorite" book for most people--which could warrant a single star: it has its points. But the book's concept, atmosphere, and pacing are deserving of two stars: well worth your time. Based on this review, I'll let you pick your own rating.

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