The Megasometherium Club

Linebarger in China

2007-10-29T17:00:00.000-04:00

I recently commented to Kate Elliot that Paul Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith) was a college classmate of L. Ron Hubbard. I decided to dig up my source for this tidbit, a review of a Hubbard biography, Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller, that appeared in issue #2 of NYRSF back in 1988. Here's an excerpt from the review, written by Alan C. Elms, about Hubbard's college years:

"Hubbard had earlier engaged in modest embellishments of his personal history, but the exaggerations flowered luxuriantly during his second year at GWU. Only then did he begin to claim those years of independent travel and mystical studies in the Orient -- claims based in reality upon two brief tourist excursions with his parents to several cities in Japan and China, plus a year's residence in Guam when his father was stationed at the U.S. naval base there. No explanation is given for Hubbard's sudden explosion of autobiographical creativity at this time; one might assume he was merely trying to offset his poor academic performance. But another factor was involved, not mentioned by Miller and probably unknown to him.

"The editor of the literary supplement during Hubbard's final semester at GWU was Paul Linebarger, two years younger but a year ahead of him in school. Another member of the literary supplement's staff has told me that Hubbard and Linebarger soon became intensely competitive toward each other. Linebarger made good grades, wrote as fluently as Hubbard, and was equally ambitious. Linebarger held a major advantage in their bragging sessions: he really had traveled extensively by himself, not only in China but in Russia; he really had studied the classics of Oriental wisdom and sat at the feet of Chinese sages, including the great Sun Yat-sen. Linebarger had also conducted a passionate romance in Peking with an exiled White Russian woman several years his senior, had narrowly survived a suicide pact with her, and had participated directly in high-level secret negotiations between the U.S. and Chinese governments -- all before he was 18. Further, Linebarger was not above adding a bit of embroidery to these genuine experiences, to make them even more colorful. Is it any wonder that Ron Hubbard might thereupon dramatically expand the scope and drama of his own exaggerations, simply in order to stay competitive? And is it any wonder that when such exaggerations appeared to gain acceptance, Hubbard would try more of the same in the future?"

Doesn't a biography of Linebarger sound like something you'd want to read?

More sculpture; videos.

2007-07-14T23:10:00.000-04:00

Following up on Ted's robot post:

Terri posted this great video of Theo Jansen's sculptures over at the Endicott Studio blog.

In the comments, seeming like spam, there was a link to a Youtube piece, "The Wind"—which is completely different but lots of fun. Marcel Marceau, anyone? (and that's good? how odd).

Joining the two, Mr. Hurricane and the robot (and of course more), this video from Gwenda.

toys for cyborgs

2007-07-13T03:25:00.000-04:00

After Readercon I visited the MIT Museum, and for me the coolest exhibit by far was the collection of Arthur Ganson's kinetic sculptures. Photos can't do them justice, and even videos don't capture the experience of seeing them in person, but these will give you an idea: here's Machine with Wishbone, and here's Child Watching Ball.

"Appalling" doesn't cover it

2007-06-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

It takes a lot to penetrate my outrage fatigue these days, but here's a news item that did it: remember the four Blackwater contractors killed in Fallujah in 2004? Now Blackwater is suing their families for $10 million. Apparently they figure this is the best way to to stop the families from seeking information about the circumstances surrounding the contractors' deaths.

There's a defense fund that accepts PayPal. Send a donation.

Feudalism in Modern Times

2007-03-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

For everyone who thought feudalism was dead, I give you the Island of Sark. The LA Times has an article on the political controversy.

The folding alone took 40 hours

2007-02-22T04:58:00.000-05:00

Here's an origami dragon made from a single sheet of square paper, two meters on a side. Look at those scales. According to this article, it would take 40 hours just to fold the thing, assuming you knew how; imagine the effort required to design something like that.

In the final minute of this video, you can see a little bit of the creator, Satoshi Kamiya, folding the dragon. This one provides a pretty good overview of him folding a phoenix. (It looks like the phoenix takes a mere ten hours to fold.)

Artform no. 1

2007-01-31T23:45:00.001-05:00

I saw this sculpture on a magazine cover recently, and was in awe. Information about the artist and how he came to make it despite having no background in sculpture is here. If I had $39,000 in my art budget, I'd definitely buy one.

Laugh a minute news

2006-12-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

Been watching the so-far brilliant State of Play which makes this story seem all the more on-the-spot:

The GOP's $3 Billion Propaganda Organ

"Washington Times articles are routinely cited by C-SPAN, for instance, without explanations to viewers that the newspaper is financed by an ultra-right religious cult leader, a convicted tax fraud and a publicly identified money-launderer. Most American listeners just think they're getting straightforward news....

"Moon has key defenders, too, in the U.S. Congress, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In 2004, Moon was given space in the Senate’s Dirksen building for a coronation of himself as “savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.” [See The Hill, June 22, 2004]"

More

Gimme Back My Future

2006-12-02T22:17:00.000-05:00

The shabby modernist utopia of the United Nations complex: go, and see. Phone booths! (Although, I don't care much for the chairs.)

Out of my range

2006-09-28T18:12:00.000-04:00

If you've been wondering why recorded music doesn't sound as good as it used to (if you are of a certain age, that is), here's why.

Little, Big: The Absolute Edition

2006-04-27T13:15:00.000-04:00

For those who haven't heard about it, there is currently a plan to reprint John Crowley's Little, Big in an illustrated, limited edition. It's a subscription program: if enough people subscribe, the edition will be published.

The original deadline for subscribing was this spring, to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the novel's first publication, but it's recently been extended to March 2007. Check out the website for more details.

(And also check out John Crowley's new blog.)

Octavia Butler

2006-02-27T10:42:00.000-05:00

I was just a reader. I couldn’t tell you where, when, or which of Octavia Butler’s books I read first. It was some time in the mid-1980s. I read Wild Seed, Dawn, Xenogenesis, Adulthood Rites. I may have gotten them from the library. Books were hard to get and when I read a book by an author I liked I wanted to read all of their books. For years I had a list of the ones I was missing. I had no idea she was black. I really liked the sound of her name. I was young and the books were sometimes a struggle. I liked that, too.

When Parable of the Sower came out I was in heaven. Later on I worked at a bookshop and got to stock and handsell all those little Warner paperback reprints. Parable of the Talents came out, and a collection of her stories, Bloodchild, most of which I hadn’t read, and I was pretty happy.

By some counts Butner wrote a lot, by some a little. I’m glad she wrote. There are some books back there I still haven’t read, so I’m glad for that. I still haven’t read Fledgling. Don’t know if I will. Uninformed as I am, the one thing about it that I like about it is that in the one time I met her, she was happy to be writing a vampire book because it had gotten her past some block in her writing. I met at Clarion West in Seattle, and I told her I loved her books. Then I tried not to be goofy and to respect her privacy. She was quiet and smart and funny. She was a great writer.

oi!

2006-02-13T18:01:00.000-05:00

The Misfits
This is where you belong in the annals of punk history!

You're pretty cool but sometimes the problem is, is that you know it. 9
times out of ten, you are the life of any party you go to, just be
careful not to put your logo on everything you can. What you lack in
substance, you more than make up for with style and flare. You are
definately one of a kind, but don't let it go to your head... oh yeah,
I probably wouldn't want to mess with you or tell you this to your
face.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 51% on wild apathy
You scored higher than 43% on pissed off
You scored higher than 86% on comically evil
You scored higher than 15% on socially aware

Link: The What classic punk band are you Test written by DrLebowski on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Good reading

2005-12-11T12:25:00.000-05:00

British playwrite Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize Speech is a wonderful thing. From how he writes to the state of the world.

Rain Taxi Ebay Auction

2005-12-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

A charity auction benefitting the wonderful, nonprofit review magazine, Rain Taxi, is going on at Ebay from December 5-12. The auction features books and more from authors such as Stephen Dixon, Kelly Link, and Paul Auster.

Here's a link to the auction

Let's Try This Again

2005-12-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

Since my previous post seems to have been widely misinterpreted, I figured I'd try to restate my argument more clearly.

First of all, I'm NOT trying to offer a definition of science fiction or a definition of fantasy. To explain what I am trying to do, let me offer an example, one which I hope will work better than the "magical radio" example of my previous post.

Imagine a story in which teleportation is available in the form of teleport booths, where anyone can walk up, dial up a destination, and go. Now imagine a story in which teleportation is available only in the presence of a certain individual, who exerts his/her will to make it happen.

To me, based on these admittedly scant descriptions, the first story feels more like science fiction, while the second feels more like fantasy. If you don't perceive this difference between the two stories, or if you do perceive this difference but couldn't care less about it (both of which I consider perfectly legitimate reactions), then I advise you to stop reading this post right now, lest it piss you off.

For those who are still with me, the rest of this post (along with my previous post) is my attempt to articulate what I think underlies my perception of a difference between the two stories.

So, why does one story feel like SF while the other feels like fantasy? It's not a matter of what can or can't happen according to known physical laws; we can stipulate that teleportation is impossible in either form depicted, and still perceive a difference. Is it the year in which the story is set? I'd say no, because this difference persists even if both stories are set in the present day. Does it depend on how detailed an explanation is offered? Again I'd say no, because this difference persists even if no further explanation is offered in either story.

I submit that we perceive a difference in the stories because in the former, the phenomenon of teleportation appears to be an application of impersonal physical laws, while the in latter, the phenomenon of teleportation relies on the conscious intention of an individual practitioner. For the sake of brevity if nothing else, we can refer to the first as a technological form of teleportation and the second as a magical form of teleportation.

Let me talk for a minute about technology and magic as thus distinguished. Does we live in a universe that permits only technology and excludes magic? Jeff VanderMeer seems certain that we do, and I tend to agree, but that assertion is not actually a requirement for the argument I'm trying to make.

I think it's fair to say that in the past, more people believed that the universe permitted magic than believe it today. Many factors contributed to this shift in opinion, and one of them was industrialization. Certain phenomena turned out to be reliably repeatable, and as it happened, these were ones that did not rely on the conscious intention of a practitioner. The synthesis of, say, nitric acid turned out to be easily repeatable. By contrast, the transmutation of base metal into gold, which was often said to rely on spiritual purity as much as laboratory technique, was not easily repeatable. It's likely that people were never able to do it at all, but even if they were, the spiritual requirement meant that they weren't able to repeat it reliably.

I think the spread of mass production contributed to a decrease in the belief that conscious intention could play a role in physical phenomena. Are we better off because of it? I don't know. Maybe we'd be better off if more people believed in magic, and/or if the universe actually supported magic. Technology certainly has its downsides, but love it or hate it, technology plays a bigger role in the modern view of the universe than it did in the past, and magic plays a smaller one.

Now, what about fiction that depicts these two types of phenomena? Do I think fiction depicting technology is superior to fiction depicting magic? No. Do I think that a sharp boundary can be drawn between the two? No.

I think we perceive a difference between fiction with a technological worldview and fiction with a magical worldview, not just because of the history of SF/F as subgenres, but also because of the history of our relationship with technology and magic themselves.

I have no problem if writers want to mix technological and magical worldviews in their work, or if they want to keep them separate. I think good artistic effects can be achieved with either approach; bad ones, too. But let me suggest that awareness of the difference between these two worldviews can be useful, because it can help us as readers to understand our reactions to a work, and as writers to make deliberate choices in our writing.

If this post seems nonsensical to you, I apologize for wasting your time. However, if you feel compelled to respond to this post, I hope that you will try to respond to the argument I am trying to make, and not to other arguments that this may remind you of.

Technology, magic, and consciousness

2005-11-30T23:56:00.000-05:00

[UPDATED: SEE THIS POST FOR WHAT MAY BE A CLEARER VERSION OF THIS ARGUMENT.]

I thought about posting on this topic many months ago, but got distracted; what prompted me to post about it now is that my web surfing brought me to this post on Sarah Monette's journal, about the difference between science fiction and fantasy. Her views on the subject align very closely with mine, but I figured I'd offer some additional thoughts.

I'll start by restating some comments I made a while back on Jed Hartman's journal here: for me, a useful way to understand the difference between SF and fantasy is to consider the difference between science and magic. This isn't a question of conforming to current scientific understanding; we can imagine an alternate set of physical laws without calling them magic. I submit that what distinguishes magic from science -- even imaginary science -- is the role of consciousness. Magic has a subjective component -- the intention, desire, or willpower of the practitioner -- that is explicitly excluded from scientific experimentation.

One consequence of this is that a scientific result can be replicated by a mechanism, and that mechanism can be mass-produced; thus we all own products containing electric motors, lasers, etc., even though such things were once objects of wonder found only in laboratories. This is generally not true of magic; no one expects that a great magician's ability to turn a pumpkin into a carriage will, decades later, result in cheap shape-shifting gadgets. The pumpkin-into-carriage spell is dependent on the practitioner's conscious intention, and that's something that can't be automated or mass-produced.

(In my Locus interview I expressed this idea by saying that magic is esoteric while technology is egalitarian, because only select individuals are able to call down lightning, but electricity works for everyone. This got me into a disagreement with Nisi Shawl. Nisi pointed out that I was thinking of a fairly narrow tradition of hermetic magic, and that there are also traditions of folk magic and communal magic that are available to anyone. She's right. I do think that magic is commonly depicted as being unavailable to people lacking certain innate gifts, but that's certainly not intrinsic to all magical systems.)

So why would some phenomena depend on a practitioner's will or desire? Because, in fantasy, the universe distinguishes between persons and mechanisms. The universe recognizes intention; it can be understood as being, in some loose sense, a person itself. And in the same way that we respond differently to real mail and junk mail, the universe responds differently to an action performed by an individual and an action performed by a mechanism. In fantasy, successfully interacting with the universe requires acknowledging that you're dealing with a person and not a rule-bound system.

This doesn't mean that a fantasy universe is necessarily ruled by a capricious god or gods; being a person doesn't mean being arbitrary or inconsistent. But one consequence is that, in a fantasy universe, certain things are not susceptible to mass production. For example, you could say that, in order for your magical radio to function, you need to appease a certain deity, and so you say a prayer each time you make a radio, and your radios always work. That's consistent with dealing with a person. But if you've got a machine that is stamping out functional radios by the thousands, it's no longer reasonable to say that it's appeasing a deity every time. Instead, it makes more sense to say you're dealing with impersonal laws of nature; your radio is an example of applied science, not applied magic.

Which brings us to the importance of the Industrial Revolution. Sarah Monette says, "It's an oversimplification to say that sf deals with the consequences of the Industrial Revolution while fantasy denies the Industrial Revolution ever took place. But it's an oversimplification with a grain of truth at its heart." I agree. The shift away from a god-centered worldview and toward a scientific worldview had been underway for some time already, but I imagine it could seem like an abstract discussion for most people. Once the Industrial Revolution began, though, everyone could see tangible, practical consequences of the universe's impersonal nature.

Before mass production, technology usually involved the personal touch. Every artifact was the product of an individual's care and attention; every tool was born of a conscious act. If a device worked well, it was usually because someone had been concentrating really hard when they made it. After mass production, that was no longer the case. The personal touch vanished from many aspects of daily life.

This perspective helps illustrate why, even though fantasy doesn't have to be pre-industrial, fantasy works so well with a pre-industrial setting. Before industrialization, it was easier to believe that we lived in a universe that recognized persons. And even though fantasy doesn't have to be nostalgic, it's easy to romanticize the days when an individual's labor mattered, and you couldn't be replaced by a machine.

Similarly, this perspective illustrates why, even though science fiction doesn't have to be about technological advancement, it is so often concerned with the notion of progress. Once conscious intention was removed from the creation of devices, inventions could spread so rapidly that you could see society change within a single lifetime. And even though SF doesn't have to be cautionary, it's easy to worry about the dehumanization that can result when conscious intention is removed from too many aspects of life.

I don't claim that this distinction between magic and science is the ultimate explanation of the difference between SF and fantasy. There are countless examples of SF/F for which this doesn't apply at all, and anyone looking for gray areas can find plenty in any discussion that mentions consciousness. But I do find it a fruitful way to think about these two subgenres, so I figured I'd write a post about it.

Friday

2005-11-23T17:14:00.000-05:00

Is Black Friday -- a good day for your local shops. Or maybe it's No Shopping Day (boycott everyone! build a snow fort!). Or maybe it's the day to go see Walk the Line. Go see!

But -- unless there are strong recommendations out there? -- maybe it's not the day to see the latest version of Pride & Prejudice says Detroit's Metro Times:

"The film, let me be the first to tell you, is to be abhorred."

boys and girls and boys and girls

2005-11-19T16:52:00.000-05:00

Je Suis Un Geek

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

Borrowed from Books for Geeks by Girls By Christopher Rowe

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
Synners by Pat Cadigan
Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh
Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rats & Gargoyles by Mary Gentle
Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
Life by Gwyneth Jones
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
China Mountain Zhiang by Maureen McHugh
Golden Vanity by Rachel Pollack
Natural History by Justina Robson
Harry Potter and the Alchemist’s Stone by JK Rowling
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

What the Horta said

2005-11-18T20:11:00.000-05:00

No Kill I

Address for books

2005-09-20T11:41:00.000-04:00

Colleen Mondor is working with a group in Baton Rouge who are helping children sheltered with their families at Southern University. They've put together a couple of wish lists of books and games that the folks at Parkview Baptist Church will happily deliver to the SU kids and other area shelter kids.

Any teen or younger titles would be appreciated. Also, feel free to buy off the lists, and send the links on to everyone you know.

Mailing Address:

Josh Causey
Parkview Baptist Church
11795 Jefferson Highway
Baton Rouge, LA 70816

Confessional artwork

2005-08-26T20:06:00.000-04:00

This is one of the best community art projects I've ever heard of:

postsecret.blogspot.com.

(Found via BlueJack's blog.)

follow-up: plagiarism lawsuit

2005-08-06T15:12:00.000-04:00

Back in January, I posted about Sophia Stewart's lawsuit against the Wachowski brothers, in which she claimed they had stolen the idea for The Matrix from her. A community college newspaper incorrectly reported that she had won her suit, and the story spread like wildfire.

For an update of the lawsuit's current status, and some thoughts on why the story of her lawsuit's success was so appealing, see this recent article in the LA Times.

(Via Mark Kelly's blog.)

Sight v. Smell

2005-07-13T18:11:00.000-04:00

New Scientist mentions research into the visual and olfactory components of attraction:

The team suggests that “filtering” for mates takes place at two levels - the first based on facial likeness to select someone not too distantly related, and the second based on smell, essentially to avoid in-breeding.

The Neurology of Infatuation

2005-06-03T04:37:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting New York Times article about a study in which researchers did functional MRI scans of college students who were newly in love. An excerpt:

[Romantic love] is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.

Apparently the area of the brain known as the caudate nucleus is of central importance:

This passion-related region was on the opposite side of the brain from another area that registers physical attractiveness, the researchers found, and appeared to be involved in longing, desire and the unexplainable tug that people feel toward one person, among many attractive alternative partners.

This distinction, between finding someone attractive and desiring him or her, between liking and wanting, "is all happening in an area of the mammalian brain that takes care of most basic functions, like eating, drinking, eye movements, all at an unconscious level, and I don't think anyone expected this part of the brain to be so specialized," Dr. Brown said.

Regarding the credibility of this study, Dr. Hans Breiter, director of the Motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Collaboration at Massachusetts General Hospital, said, "I distrust about 95 percent of the M.R.I. literature and I would give this study an 'A'; it really moves the ball in terms of understanding infatuation love."

Read the whole thing before the link expires.

when chimps attack

2005-05-24T11:16:00.000-04:00

TThe Tale of Moe, in today's WaPo:

In 1967, LaDonna Davis's boyfriend went on a trip to Tanzania and came back with quite a surprise: a chimpanzee. It was a baby still, an orphan that St. James Davis said he had rescued from the poachers who killed its mother, and it was just adorable -- 'a large teddy bear,' LaDonna's mother declared. They named him Moe.

St. James, a stock-car racer, became so bonded to Moe that he would carry the little fellow in a sling around his chest as he worked at his auto body shop in West Covina, Calif. When St. James and LaDonna married a couple of years later, Moe was 'a combination of flower-thrower and best man,' LaDonna recalls, sitting across from her mother this sunny spring day.

'Tell her about . . . ' interrupts her mother, Terry DeVere.

'Oh . . . well . . .' says Davis, with well-practiced delicacy: 'Moe . . . peed on a woman.' All the excitement of the reception, maybe too much punch. DeVere and her daughter glow with the memories of the beautiful day and of the beautiful years that followed.

The Orphan

2005-05-14T09:14:00.000-04:00

Did anyone believe the ruse? Did anyone seriously think that David Wilson had found tapes left by a collegiate swimmer in a trombone case in an attic apartment? That he had transcribed those tapes and put the text on-line as a blog, put the songs up as downloadable files? I didn't, but that's because David Wilson is a friend of mine. We were both students in John Kessel's first grad-level creative writing workshop. I had been tipped off. Yet I wondered and still wonder if anyone was fooled.

If that particular deception didn't work, the one that does work is this: the book, THE ORPHAN, is deceptively simple. This novel rewards a close reading with many discrete joys of discovery, doled out like candy, or like hard drugs. The young narrator, Claude Coltlan, (odd name, huh?) starts out as a thoughtful innocent, prone to analyzing the weird changes he's going through. Like Alice, his tale really begins when he goes down a rabbithole, or actually down a black staircase and through a funhouse tunnel. He falls in with a group of townies (mostly musicians) as well as a dissipated professor, acquires the new moniker "Speed," and the tale rolls on from there. But this is no standard coming-of-age novel. A year told in flashback, Speed's twenty-first year, from the first pages we know that: "Art is dead. Jenny's in rehab." That's the target waiting at the end of the timeline, but no arrow flies straight, as Speed himself would tell you. His path, his quest, through a gritty world of drugs and rock and roll (and sex), is full of classical twists and turns, veils and revelations.

I don't want to type any more. I want you to read this book and have those joys of discovery yourself.

Two fingers of ellagic acid in solution, please

2005-05-11T16:08:00.000-04:00

"Whisky can protect you from cancer and science proves it," says a scientist who is, um, a consultant to the booze industry. Cheers, queers.

Sand Animation

2005-05-06T03:47:00.000-04:00

Check this out:

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/sandsicaf.wmv

Edit: Note that this is 19 megabyte file.

The World Warms Up

2005-05-01T15:36:00.000-04:00

"Disappearing islands, thawing permafrost, melting polar ice. How the earth is changing."

The World Warms Up is the first of Elizabeth Kolbert's must-read three-part series on the reality of climate change from The New Yorker. This part is from the Arctic as well as various conferences, Greenland, and Iceland. Melting permafrost, retreating glaciers. The only country to equivocate on whether this is a real phenomena is the US.
Plus: Kolbert talks with Amy Davidson about global warming.

Authors seek anthologizement while we are dancing

2005-04-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

While all these authors gather in Chicago for the gladitorial cage matches to see whose work will be selected for an exciting anthology, here, we are dancing. Tinariwen's CD, Amassakoul, will get you out your chair and moving. Reading their website it looks like the group have a pretty strange history that merits some further research. Track 1 goes straight onto the next mix tape.

music time

2005-04-25T23:53:00.000-04:00

Something about a new Rosebuds CD dropping from North Carolina to the rest of the world? More about that some other time.

The Evens new (debut, first, nouveau) CD isn't in the Black Sheets of Rain-level of you-will-get-some-work-Done but given a little volume there is some movement of the brain caused by movement of the body. (No, there's no Bob Mould connection.)

It hasn't been heard yet, so we're taking a chance here, but Jim & Jenny & The Pine Tops new one, Rivers Roll On By came out today. Recommended for purchase with the Bloodshot mug* or the glass.

* Beer for breakfast, beer for lunch. What's for dinner? Don't know, 'm passed out on the couch.

Saving Throw vs. Wha???

2005-04-18T13:52:00.000-04:00

Seems as if the Israeli army isn't too keen on Dungeons and Dragons players:

"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says. "They may be detached from reality or have a weak personality - elements which lower a person's security clearance, allowing them to serve in the army, but not in sensitive positions."

What's really bizarre--although I guess not too surprising--is that they have a picture with the article with people in, er, pirate costumes wielding, um, floppy swords. In a parking lot or something. D&D isn't Tom Hanks in the sewers or people--sorry, vampires--invisible in elevators!

Police Stories MMV: Still Not Getting Along

2005-04-14T10:44:00.000-04:00

Is anyone surprised that police stories don't match arrestees?

1,806 arrested. "91 percent ended with the charges dismissed or with a verdict of not guilty after trial." 9/10? Is that an acceptable percentage?

"[T]he public should not rush to criticize officers simply because their recollections of events are not consistent with a single videotape."

True. The camera lies for anyone.

So, wonder what wil happen to those policemen who told one story and the videotapes told another?

Please join me...

2005-04-14T09:25:00.000-04:00

...in saluting Iain A. Boal, an Independent Scholar in Berkeley, California who has been named a 2005 Guggeheim Fellow so that he might study "the bicycle in world culture." Write a good book, Independent Scholar Boal! Includes lots of pretty pictures of bicycles!

this is not a scholarship competition.

2005-04-11T13:18:00.000-04:00

A WaPo reporter (and mother of three) plays dress up at Miss USA; you know, the one they judge more or less based on how you look in a swimsuit:

Rondinella's skilled hands give your face bones you didn't know you had, and in the intimacy of her chair she engages you in relaxed, reassuring tones. This is good, because you're starting to feel like a drag queen. You stifle your fear and concentrate instead on the energy of the people around you. The room is filled with beauty professionals, edgy folks in black pants and gelled hair. As a team of three stylists brush you and curl you, they whisper words to make you feel pretty. You're Miss Desperate Housewife, you quip to them.

Miss-Sterious, Miss Diagnosed, offers hairstylist Brian Fontenot, who adds reassuringly: 'I tell people I've got more to offer at 36 than I did at 26.'

A Miss USA contestant wanders in to get hair extensions. 'I'd say 75 percent of the girls wear extensions for length and texture,' says hairstylist Albert Luiz. He calls for silk therapy and 2 1/2-inch hot curling irons.

'Remember, one shoulder exposed for softness,' Luiz instructs, brushing your hair away from your face. The judges are seated below the contestants onstage, he says, and that helps lengthen your neck, 'makes it look more swanlike.'

Also, an acknowledgement that you must be a mutant to win, and never, never a dead girl:

With the ones who have it, there's a connection, Kobayshi says, "you can see it in the eyes immediately. Some people are beautiful, but dead, no life."

The woman who wins doesn't have to be the most beautiful, but she's got to have that "X-factor," Kobayshi says, a sense that she'd rather be onstage, looking beautiful for all you people, than anywhere else in the world.

those wacky scientologists

2005-03-29T11:41:00.000-05:00

Kicked out of the Times Square subway station.

Mr. Carmichael said that the $8 donation was not a requirement. Indeed, a sign sometimes displayed on the table near the books says "suggested donation: $8."

But when a reporter presenting himself as a stressed-out New Yorker took the test and suggested a donation of considerably less than $8 for the book, the tester, a young man in a striped tie, balked.

"It's a fixed donation," the man said. "The money is just to recover the cost of producing the books."

A saleswoman at a major paperback-book printer in the Midwest, who asked that her firm not be identified, provided an estimate for a book with similar specifications to "Dianetics," which has 700 pages, a black-and-white photo insert and a four-color cover. The price: $1.58 per copy for 50,000 copies, not including. distribution and delivery. The church says it has published more than 20 million copies of the book.

But this is even better:

"Even if the guy doesn't buy a book, we've gotten him to take a look at his life and see what's troubling him," Mr. Davis said. "That's a service in itself. "We've had guys sit down who are thinking of committing suicide. I've had people who killed other people. Just by doing the stress test they realize, 'Hey, this is something I need to handle.' "

it must be something in the booze.

2005-03-29T11:02:00.000-05:00

What's the deal?

The Truesmonster is back, Spinrad said some thing. SF is dead. SF will never die.

Is this all over the place lately or what? Something in particular stirring up the venom? Is there paranoia that if we don't talk about this stuff it will happen?

Or are we all just procrastinating?

Your thoughts. A penny.

(I did love the Chrononautic Log discussion on belief that resulted though.)

JPPN!

2005-03-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

Holy crap! The second and final (so they say) ish of The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives is here. Well, here.

Stories from people you have heard of and people you haven't and the art -- if you saw the first one you know this is something you will Want. Want!

Also: ProjectPulp.com

What are you feeling?

2005-03-27T23:20:00.000-05:00

Worldwide facial expressions
survey.

Answer the bonus questions to see
John Cleese's answers.

The Fawns

2005-03-27T22:24:00.000-05:00

The Fawns (and all the associated bands...) have a neat thing on their webby site where you can go listen to all of their lovely poppy album, Smiling. Try the 1st song and "A Little Bit Nervous" -- nice use of cymbals, really. Then pop for the CD.

And if you're in Chicago you can see them there soon. Don't know the dates, sorry.

Update: here's at least one date:

Saturday, April 23rd: International Pop Overthrow
Early show: The Subversives - Gone Baby Gone - Yesmen - School For The Dead - Din - The Fawns - Adrian & Mario - Doors at 12:30pm, 1:30pm show - $6.00 day of show
Late show: The Cells - Orange Park - Second Saturday - Johnny Monaco - Admiral Twin - Golden NewB - The Hatch - Atlas - Doors at 6:30pm, 7:30pm show - $8.00 day of show

(Thanks, John.)

Andre Norton: An Unusual Last Wish Fulfilled

2005-03-22T11:28:00.000-05:00

Andre Norton Dies at 93, An Unusual Last Wish Fulfilled
by Kevin Howell, PW Daily

Prolific science fiction/fantasy author Andre Norton, 93, died Thursday of congestive heart failure--not long after her publisher fulfilled her wish to hold a copy of her final novel in her hands.

Tor Books president and publisher Tom Doherty did this by pushing the printing and binding date of Three Hands for Scorpio ahead by two weeks. "We did the entire print run of her book early," said Jim Frenkel, who edited Norton's books at Tor for the last two decades.

The company got a copy "straight from the bindery," Frenkel continued. "We Fed-Ex overnighted her a first copy. I heard secondhand that she held it and said she was pleased by the cobalt blue color of the jacket. She was very specific that when she died she wanted her first and last novels to be cremated with her."

What else is the matter with Kansas?

2005-03-15T19:53:00.000-05:00

For one thing, they've decreed by law that greyhounds are not dogs (and thus not due the protections afforded to other breeds of dogs there). Some folks are working to change this. Unsurprisingly, the shills for the racetracks think the current situation is just fine.

eerie eerie eerie!!!

2005-03-10T08:06:00.000-05:00

I don't even know what to say. Just read it.

Because Davey and Goliath just isn't Xtreme enough

2005-03-09T11:08:00.000-05:00

now the kids can learn wholesome lessons from Bibleman, a shiny Power Ranger type with some kind of light saber-y thing. They don't seem to be on t.v, but you can buy all the DVD's today!

From A Light In The Darkness:

A cloud of darkness and despair descends on the city, courtesy of hilarious evil villain the Wacky Protestor, spreading isolation and sadness to Biblegirl and others. The Word of God guides Bibleman and Cypher to be the light that guides Biblegirl back and chases the Wacky Protestor into the darkness.

I'm kind of loving the villain names like Primordius Drool and El Furioso ("one of the most flamboyant and hilarious villains ever").

you smell

2005-03-07T17:03:00.000-05:00

Actually, there is a particularly smelly guy who frequents our local library and who it is important NEVER to get in an elevator with.

However, I'm not sure I think reeky types should be booted from the premises, as is allowed in San Luis Obispo. Such regulations are full of thorny questions:

...said Irene Macias, Santa Barbara's library services manager.

"What is bad odor?" Macias asked. "A woman who wears a strong perfume? A person who had a garlicky meal?

The gentleman in the elevator smells of neither garlic nor perfume, I assure you.

why the plants die

2005-03-03T17:36:00.000-05:00

So, who knew that you're only supposed to water inside plants once a week? Why wasn't I told this?

I thought they LIKED water.

The pursuit of unhappiness

2005-03-01T20:11:00.000-05:00

So, copyright is complicated, not something to be solved in a blog post or manifesto. But, UnHappy Birthday looks to be a fun prank. I wonder what the boilerplate response from ASCAP and Time Warner is going to be?

...

2005-02-27T19:47:00.000-05:00

7:53 - Starr is bizarrely scary. Maggie Gyllenhaal is drunk and possibly heading toward a Jolie-esque familial moment.

This may well be all I have to say, cause I'm sleepy, haven't seen any of the damn movies and am way more interested in finishing Boy Proof than watching this stuff.

The phrase BLING BLING has now been retired. Send Starr a telegram.

Now Oprah is there. This back and forth is a little too much. Go home and read, O!

(Apparently telling someone they look "gorg" is the new thing. Do not say this to me.)

8:12 - Renee Zellweger, also drunk, definitely scary... she may be about to implode. Why, Renee, why?

8:20 -- All young actresses may be on heroin. Thank god Cate Blanchett is there to be classy. We love you, you Ionic column.

Don Cheadle's wife is hott. He is nicee.

Scarlett -- pretty as always, but hair's a tiny bit crimping iron.

This really may be it. Night all. Stay red.

8:45 - Terry Bisson loves Pootie Tang. Or maybe he was kidding. Chris Rock shouldn't be so hard on himself.

Oooohhhh... will Halle Berry scratch his eyes out for that Catwoman 2 joke?

9:07 - What the fuck? I guess that the make-up winners aren't important enough to get to go up on stage? That's a bunch of bullshit. They should get their time up there just like anyone else.

Drew Barrymore looks amazing.

9:22 - Edna Mode! Happy now.

10:01 -- Paul Newman. Either still alive or dead. Hard to say. Wait, it's not even his montage -- it's Sydney Lumet's and he's still alive. I think they should start doing lifetime achievement at the technical awards with Ms. Johannsen -- better to stay awake.

10:09 - Okay. I am now officially a lame pumpkin. Boy Proof is a lovely little book, but now I am finished with it and must sleep. Let me know what Kate Winslet's dress looks like. Turn the lights off when it's over.

switching stations for a moment

2005-02-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

We just got back from The Sadies/Neko Case show. Fucking rocked, of course. But here's my query. For those of you kids in the know (Richard, Ted?) how does one choose the optimal set of ear plugs, which block out just enough decibels to protect your hearing but not enough to damage your experience. (The ability to block out really drunk annoying guy and his drunk bimbette botox queen who just wandered up the street from the radio folk hour show with Webb Wilder would be a plus, but not necessarily a dealbreaker as there's something kind of ambient about comments like "'This Little Light of Mine' was pretty damn cool, huh?" or "Depressin'? You mean like Amy Mann?" I'd tell you about the botox broad's broken wrist, but it's late and what I'm really interested in are...) Ear plugs.

Advice, warnings, pointers, cost estimates. Por favor?

Also, The Sadies won my heart with their version of "Pretty Polly," a song I've never actually heard a version of that I didn't immediately fall in love with.

Stranger than fiction

2005-02-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

Alan thought that I should retell the story that Ted was asking about below. Frank, I'm sorry but you're wrong. It's true, however strange it is. I told the story at Wiscon last year and I got the feeling that no one believed me. About a year and a half ago, a co-worker was down south somewhere, I think it was Belize, for a family vacation. One of her daughters scraped her leg on coral while she was snokeling. When they got back to the U.S. the scrape had gotten infected so she was treated with antibiotics and the scrape seemed to get better. A little while later, her daughter complained about pain in her leg after a soccer practice. When they pulled the sock down, her leg was swollen and red, so they took her right into the doctor again. The doctor referred them to an orthopedic surgeon. I think they thought the infection had gotten into the bone. The surgeon recommended immediate surgery. After he was done, my co-worker said that he came out with a little tray. He said that he had never seen anything like it and showed my co-worker and her husband a small fish. The fish was about three inches long and an inch and a half wide and was just plain tan colored. The doctor said that he thought she must have gotten some eggs in the scrape from the coral and the fish just grew in her leg. The doctor said he would probably get a good journal article out of it but I don't know if its been published, yet. I think he kept the fish with that in mind. My co-worker's daughter who is a teenager was understandably mortified and didn't want anyone to know about it. I'm hoping it will become just a great story for her to tell someday. It is amazingly similar to a Rosario Ferre story with a shrimp. I copied the story for my co-worker to give to her daughter. She didn't understand why I was giving it her but she took it and said, "But this isn't fiction, it really happened."

My take on the whole thing from discussions with a few microbiologists is this. In college cell biology, we were taught that we first developed in the ocean bathed in salt water. When we first left the ocean we had to find a way to take it with us. and so the ocean is now inside us. The egg found a friendly environment to develop and it must have been able to draw nourishment from its surroundings. When her body couldn't get rid of it, it probably tried to set up some kind of barrier around it. I was told that that happens with some types of parasites.

Who really wants to follow a post by Ted?

2005-02-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

Anyways… I know I’m not the only one who gets sucked into research sometimes to exclusion of writing. My standard M.O. is to do a lot of research on a subject that interests me for a story but then not use any of it. All the extra tidbits stay locked up in my skull until the next alcohol influenced discussion in a bar or at a con. A few weeks ago, an inversion kept the Twin Cities covered in smog for about a week. At one point it stretched all the way to Columbus, I guess. There were air quality warnings that began warning anyone with lung disease or immune problems to avoid any outdoor activity and finally stretched to cover everyone else. In addition to a general haze hovering in the sky, driving home after work a few nights our neighborhood had an eerie fog covering it that smelled like burnt rubber. I thought it was a good reminder to everyone up here that what goes out has to go somewhere and most of the time we’ve been lucky it hasn’t stuck around. At one point during the week, I found myself explaining what an inversion was to a co-worker. I went on to explain how deadly the fogs could be, telling her about the killer fogs of London and Donora, Pennsylvania. The look on her face led me to explain that I’d ended up looking into the subject as story research after watching a special on the crater lake/carbon dioxide disasters in Africa. I think because I have asthma, these fogs had a horrible fascination for me.

adventures in publishing

2005-02-12T04:30:00.000-05:00

Recently I came across some blog entries in which authors display or discuss the cover art to their recent or forthcoming novels. For those who haven't heard, here's the tale of the cover art for my story collection:

When I was first shown the cover art, I hated it. I tried to get used to it; I waited to see if it would grow on me, but it didn't. I offered to pay for new art, but my editor refused, saying that money wasn't the issue; it was a matter of the appropriate relationship between publisher and author. I asked about the possibility of new art for the paperback; he said there was none.

The hardcover came out, and I couldn't stand the sight of it. I decided to commission art on my own. I found an artist who has done many covers for the publisher, paid him $3500, and told him what I'd like to see. Once he was done, I offered the resulting art for use on the paperback. The answer was no.

(The artist told me he was told they would consider using the art for a subsequent book of mine, but they weren't going to change the art on this one.)

I made one final, last-ditch attempt to salvage the situation. I figured I could print up my own dustjackets and hand them out for free at conventions, as a kind of promotional item. That was when my editor told my agent that I absolutely could not do such a thing. He said that the publisher had friends in every branch of publishing, from printing to distribution, and those friends have long memories, so it would go badly for me if I made the publisher angry at me. My agent believed they were capable of following through with this threat, and convinced me to scrap my plans for printing up my own dustjackets.

Then I asked my editor if I could buy the paperback rights to the collection. This would have been expensive, turning the collection into an enormous financial loss for me, but I was willing. As usual, my editor did not reply to my e-mails, but told my agent he would look into changing the art for the paperback.

How had the situation changed? I didn't know, and was skeptical. I continued to ask my editor for the chance to buy back paperback rights; all he would say, to my agent, was that he was working on changing the art, but it was a delicate process. Finally, after four months, he told my agent that they would use the art I had commissioned "as a springboard" for the new cover. He said they'd "send a few different sketches" for me to look at.

So then I repeatedly asked about the status of the new cover, and the message conveyed back to me was not to worry, there was plenty of time. Then, after three months, my editor sent the new cover for the paperback. It had NO ART WHATSOEVER on it, just the title and author name in a generic font. It was a done deal, no room for discussion. When I asked about buying back the rights, my editor replied (again, through my agent) that it was too late for that.

It was at that point that I asked my editor to make a textual change to the paperback edition and remove his name from the book's acknowledgements (which I had written a year and a half earlier, back when I thought he was on my side). He told my agent he would. He did not.

What is perhaps most painful is the realization that I could have avoided all of this. When I was first shown the cover art, the contract for the collection hadn't even been signed yet. (My editor had scheduled the book without securing the contract first.) I could have backed out. But at the time, I still thought my editor was on my side. At the time, I thought he was doing his best to help me, and I wanted to maintain a good relationship with him.

How naive I was.

Handy money-saving tip?

2005-02-08T01:46:00.000-05:00

Apparently running cheap liquor through a Brita water filter makes it taste much better.

(Via MemeMachineGo.)

Tokyo Times

2005-02-05T06:28:00.000-05:00

I love the Tokyo Times . It's a blog full of fun and wacky news bites about some of the more absurd things that occur over here in Japan. Read, read, enjoy. Mata ne...

'Why, because I'm famous."

2005-02-04T17:54:00.000-05:00

Sayeth the T. Mr. T, that is. Oh, and I mean singeth the T.

Also, Herve Villechaize.

have y'all seen these?

2005-01-31T21:06:00.000-05:00

Bookshelves made from books! And the coolest reading chairs ever. Want!

New words

2005-01-28T18:14:00.000-05:00

One of the things I'm avoiding other work with is a sekrit project which most of all y'all know about. So here's a word that's not so secret and not so drafted as some of Mr. Butner's contributions:

Umami!
(Japanese)
The taste sensation for the 21st century. Salt? So Bronze Age! Sweet? The 20th century sure covered that. Bitter? Mmm, melon: but prohibition killed bitters sales although a few fans are still waiting for the tide to turn. And sour's time (outside of extreme candies, ugh) is yet to come.
We want flavor, flava, the richer and more sensational, the better. Umami is savory; it’s viscosity: it’s more, more, more. It’s why Heinz ketchup keeps on selling, why Chinese takeout and Mom’s chicken soup can’t be beat. Umami is what you’ve been looking for and didn’t know how to ask for.

Pheremone of the Damned

2005-01-26T14:48:00.000-05:00

Did you know that there is a Hummer fragrance?

Now you, too, can smell like a complete fucking asshole!

Cyberjongleurs

2005-01-25T13:56:00.000-05:00

With the official sounding name of the Juggler Information Service, this erstwhile organization tracks, among other things, juggling world records. Aaaand a list of 388 movies in which juggling has appeared! (What other list would include Bachelor Party, Waiting for Guffman and Xanadu?) Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Late Note: The movie descriptions are even more unimaginable than I, er, imagined. E.g., for Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy:

Before they can return to America from Egypt, Peter and Freddie find the archaeologist Dr. Zoomer murdered. A medallion leads them to a crypt where a revived mummy provides the terror.
Reported to contain juggling.

Love the idea of a (shadowy) network of juggling tipsters.

Let's be joiners!

2005-01-20T18:37:00.000-05:00

And be the eleventy millionth place on the internet to post a link to this very damaging image. Sweet dreams!

hear this moon

2005-01-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

ESA - Cassini-Huygens - sounds of an alien world: Those folks at the European Space Agency have stuck up sound files from Huygens' descent, including nifty radar sounds. Pretty amazing, no matter how you slice it.

They're quick downloads and more amazing for their sort of pedestrian quality. This is what being a machine in space sounds like. Kind of like radio static, kind of like Atari 2600 sound fx, kind of like nothing you'll ever hear in your kitchen.

b/c there wasn't a category for indefinable

2005-01-16T11:46:00.000-05:00

You scored as Punk/Rebel.

Punk/Rebel

81%

Goth

63%

Ghetto gangsta

44%

Loner

38%

Drama nerd

38%

Stoner

31%

Prep/Jock/Cheerleader

25%

Geek

13%

What's Your High School Stereotype?
created with QuizFarm.com

(Via Barth Anderson with the fancy advance.)

Y tu?

OK, who's going?

2005-01-14T13:16:00.000-05:00

The Magic Lantern Society's 7th Annual International Convention, that is. (I just have this image of people in cloaks dealing in, well, magic lanterns. But that's uncouth on my part. Still, what a dealers room that would be). The Victorian forerunner to the slide projector, you can read more about the history of the magic lantern here.

Queuing in the snow, in the rain.

2005-01-14T09:17:00.000-05:00

Not out yet in the US, but hopefully our correspondent in Japan, C.B., will post soon on his experience of seeing Hayao Miyazaki's new film Howl's Moving Castle.
In the meantime the rest of us wait and wait*. The zine of record, The New Yorker, has a profile by Margaret Talbot of Miyazaki -- which isn't online but there is an interview. Oddly enough at no point is (author of Howl's Moving Castle) Diana Wynne Jones's name mentioned.
*Also still waiting for the confection Bride and Prejudice.

Rye, bitters, and sweet vermouth

2005-01-13T15:13:00.000-05:00

Oh I do so love projects like this one: walking every street in Manhattan. A beautiful idea with many photographic reminders of what a beautiful place Manhattan can be.

another plagiarism lawsuit

2005-01-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

Maybe this is old news to everyone else, but I only heard about it recently.

A friend of mine told me that a woman had won millions of dollars from the Wachowski brothers in a plagiarism lawsuit, having shown that she was the original author of the first Matrix movie. I was intrigued, because while I know lawsuits like this happen all the time, it's rare that someone can prove plagiarism. So I did a little searching online.

First I found posts on many Matrix discussion forums that all quoted the same article, which starts as follows:

Monday, October 4th 2004 ended a six-year dispute involving Sophia Stewart, the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers. Stewart's allegations, involving copyright infringement and racketeering, were received and acknowledged by the Central District of California, Judge Margaret Morrow residing.

Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake City for the past five years, will recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the gross receipts of both films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars.

The article goes on to say that crucial evidence was found during an FBI investigation of Warner Bros., and that Stewart was in talks with CBS about exclusive rights to the story of her victory. All pretty amazing.

It turned out that this article was originally published in The Salt Lake Community College Globe (here). Further searching revealed that the paper had retracted the story a few days later:

In reference to the recent article entitled "Mother of the Matrix Victorious," some information has been deemed misleading. Ms. Sophia Stewart has not yet won her case against Joel Silver, Time Warner and the Wachowski Bros. The decision on October 4th enabled Ms. Stewart to proceed with her case, as all attempts to have it dismissed were unsuccessful. Ms. Stewart's case will proceed through the Central District Court of California.

(here) "Misleading" seems like an understatement.

I then went to the website that detailed Sophia Stewart's claims, http://www.daghettotymz.com/matrix/matrix.html. On this site, she says (among other things) that a different, longer version of the film was originally shown when it was first released, and that Warner Bros. recut it and rereleased it to avoid infringement. Supposedly the original cut had a text intro at the beginning, like Star Wars, describing a war that resulted in humans being used as batteries. She asks anyone who might have a bootleg copy of this original version to please send her a copy, to assist her with her case. There's no indication that the FBI has done any investigation related to this matter, but I guess she thinks they should. She's also recently begun accepting donations to help with her legal expenses.

So, we'll see how it plays out. Personally, I don't find her claims credible at all, but you should decide for yourselves. I do think it's interesting that an article published in a community college newspaper can generate so much publicity.

fast and 2 furious?

2005-01-09T11:32:00.000-05:00

Meg Wolitzer has a piece today on the joys of writing quickly (and she's someone who does both, slow novels and fast ones):

For most of us, the wasted days, failed beginnings and slow gathering of words really are a big but undramatic part of what we do. Entire novels are often cobbled together through a series of fits and starts. Everyone knows the expression "writer's block," but the opposite state, hypergraphia -- in which the writing comes surprisingly easily -- is far more obscure. Some writers have experienced both the slow, piecemeal construction of a novel and the fast, manic, seemingly effortless one. I can say without hesitation that fast and manic is better -- not only for the writer but sometimes, in the end, for the reader as well.

The "fast" novel tends to take shape when a writer is young and in possession of stamina and an uninterrupted sequence of thoughts and big ideas. These books bristle with the writer's excitement.

Flipbooks!

2005-01-07T13:27:00.000-05:00

Via Liquid Treat.

A possibility for a new line of books from Small Beer, Fortress, Velocity Press...? My nomination for the first book, Chris Barzak karaokeing the Divinyls's "I Touch Myself." Any other ideas?

offered without comment

2005-01-07T13:14:00.000-05:00

(Because I couldn't come up with anything that I really wanted to say. I just want you to take a look at this.)

Akiane - child prodigy, realist painter and world-renowned poet

The SGHC Phenomenon

2005-01-06T10:22:00.000-05:00

I can't help but dissect television commercials, mostly because I think they are evil to the core and it's good to be vigilant. A huge percentage of them have what I call the Schlubby Guy/ Hot Chick Phenomenon. Slate has an article today about the same thing, but in sitcoms. Why a male viewer would identify is easy to spot:

they portray a fantasy life for couch potato male viewers—for a half-hour a week, you can be 300 pounds and still imagine yourself married to Jamie Gertz!

I always thought that the commercials were only aimed at men, but the article's theory of why a woman would relate is even more depressing:

In portraying husbands as lousy parents, marginal breadwinners, and repellant sexual partners, the fat-husband sitcoms convey a persecution fantasy that rises from the same swamp of resentments as these books do: "Yes, I'm supercompetent and I even look great, despite all the crap I have to deal with, and, yes, that's my husband over there, the fat, useless one scratching his nuts."

Bleh.

2005-01-06T06:52:00.000-05:00

Not to lighten the tsunami relief mood purposefully, but you should all be jealous that I get to eat really cool stuff in Japan like this. I love me some Kit Kats, and I love that Japan continues to bring out different flavors. Summertime it was Lemon Cheesecake and in the Fall it was Strawberry. But, mmm, my favorite is the Green Tea.

Now someone just has to send me some sausage patties and maple syrup. I have been craving it all damned day long.

tsunami relief

2005-01-05T18:33:00.000-05:00

Just a note for those wanting to donate to a relief organization other than the big international ones: a friend of mine recommended Sarvodaya. It's a Sri Lankan grassroots organization that's been working for human rights and sustainable community development for many years. You can donate via Paypal at their website, and read updates at their blog.

One interesting note I found on Usenet: "Sarvodaya delivers assistance in Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim and Christian communities. (US government assistance will NOT aid those millions of Sri Lankan Tamils who reside in areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers. The US government forbids all contact with the Tamil Tigers, although they are a legally recognized organization in Sri Lanka)."

For other options, you've probably already seen Ben Rosenbaum's chart of various relief organizations here. (I see that he just added Sarvodaya to it.)

this year's edge world question: what do you believe that you can't prove?

2005-01-05T10:14:00.000-05:00

Page 3 has some really good answers on it. I imagine I'll be reading these responses on and off all day.

Here's my answer: I believe in the magic behind things.

Magic here can be defined however you (or I) like -- science, motivating force, a natural progression toward complexity as proposed in one of the respondent answers. But basically, I believe there is a little something behind every bit of the world that is magic. Doesn't make it good or bad, just interesting.

you just rolled jeeeezus!

2005-01-04T20:12:00.000-05:00

Mortality - A great family board game for Mormons, by Mormons:

"It's competitive, because there is a winner, but it isn't the cutthroat competition that forms the foundation of other games. It becomes a great deal of fun for all the players, not just the winner. Do you have children with sensitive feelings? Or do you have children who tend to be ruthless in games? Don't play Sorry! or Monopoly, play Mortality, and everyone will enjoy it and learn a little about how to truly succeed in life."

And hey:

"Get a game going with your friends, and you'll find yourselves laughing over the troubles each player meets: Your children come home from school with lice; a hailstorm wipes out your tomato plants; you break your arm on the kids' jungle gym; mice invade your teenage son's stash of Twinkies. If you have enough inner strength, you'll grow from each of these challenges. Otherwise, they may do you in!"

K & G, you willing to test this one first?

(There are testimonials!)

Via MeFi.

the gray lady gets all poetic & shit

2005-01-04T15:52:00.000-05:00

Really, really stellar editorial on beginnings, change and the new year:

But deep within us is the habit of looking forward, a habit as powerful as the belief that our lives are somehow external to us and that we can pick them up and rearrange them at will. We live profoundly in time, painfully aware of the way the new years stack up one by one.

We also live immersed in intention, trying to make the most of what time has to offer. There are days when the likelihood of real renewal seems almost impossible, when our lives seem utterly conditioned by the past. And then there are those days when renewal seems certain, merely a matter of making the right choices, consciously. It would be a coincidence if one of those days of rebirth happened to fall on the first of the year.

Humor apprehension department

2005-01-04T13:40:00.000-05:00

By way of obit, Gawker pointed to this Frank Kelly Freas cartoon from a 1950s MAD.

The Vogue and Esquire columns invite a straight reading, but I really don't get the Astounding column. Sci-fi rags propose the ideal woman as a bespectacled spinster scientist, but in fact sci-fi rags are read by hot young babe scientists? Is this from some alternate 1950s I have not yet heard about?

An uneven year

2005-01-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

Arithmetic be damned, 2004 surely was. But all these lists are good for something: reminding one of all the good things (cue Rilo Kiley backing track) of the year. Which must have been musical, because they certainly weren't political.

Fave local band: The Fawns. Pop!

Also, been toying with putting a Regula Blogga style interface on our site. Any thoughts? Have looked at Word Press and I suppose I should look at MT. Has to work with OS9 (yup, still). This thingy we are using works with 9 with Netscape but not IE (there is no Firefox for 9).

in or out, 1 or 2, better or worse

2005-01-02T11:24:00.000-05:00

I love Hank Stuever, and the annual in and out list has been posted. Quibbles, additions?

nominating things

2004-12-30T11:39:00.000-05:00

Well, this is sort of a pointless post, as I have no intelligent opinion on the topic, but what's the deal with all the hoo-ha over Nebula nominations? How complicated is it to actually nominate? Not being a member of SFWA, I'm a little in the dark on this one.

Also, did you guys make any great book/writer discoveries this year or read anything you hated/thought overrated?

Bleu, Rouge

2004-12-18T16:48:00.000-05:00

My thoughts about boycotts aren't simple or easy to put into words. Knowing where your money is going is never a bad thing, though. So now we have Buy Blue and Choose the Blue, both sites splitting out campaign contributions for a bunch of corporations. Some stuff is obvious: Barnes & Noble is a Blue company, Reynolds Tobacco is a Red company. Other tidbits are more problematic ... for instance, if you want a Blue car, Toyota's the only way to go. Blue gas? Shell (even though BP is widely regarded as the most eco-friendly petroleum company). Blue package shipping? You're out of luck.

Ghost in the Machine, Track Six

2004-12-17T13:32:00.000-05:00

Rootburn sez: "My ability to produce and acquire has far outstripped my ability to consume." Oh, I agree completely. CDs unplayed, books unread, photographs glanced at and then filed away.

C2H5OH

2004-11-12T10:14:00.000-05:00

Many things to say here, including but not limited to: the U.S. is not red and blue, the U.S. is purple. Obvious, but some folks don't seem to get this. What else?

Give up or don't.

If you don't give up, while you continue to attempt to transmute your soup into a taco—with your boots on—you might as well drink liberally.

watch us write like trained seals through november

2004-11-01T15:46:00.000-05:00

Or join in, since we've already got a non-writing group member.

Oh, at our own little NoNaWriMoMo -- Not National Write More Month -- blog, Third Glass of Wine.

we had tricks and treats too

2004-10-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

So many that we freaked out a little bit and had to dump out the deluxe Halloween goody bags full of toys and candy into a bowl so the kids could choose and we wouldn't run out. Most no one was actually dressed up in a full costume, but they were all very cheerful and appreciative. And carrying pillowcases!

Trick or Treat

2004-10-31T17:07:00.000-05:00

We just gave out our first sweets and candy! 3 or 4 (or 5...!) kids and adults (witch, Dracula, fairy princess for the curious). V. few Halloween decorations, but they followed the pumpkins to the door and found us. Less candy for me, good!

Just came back from Mike's Maze! Great fun. We collected enough Electoral Votes to fire the potato gun (steam powered!), and got many pumpkins! Next year we will go and go again!

My hero, Black Widow

2004-10-23T10:56:00.000-04:00

The sweet potato is the official vegetable of North Carolina, so at the state fair this year they had a sweet potato casserole eating contest. The Black Widow won, eating over eight and a half pounds of casserole in eleven minutes.

"The ability to eat starch-based casseroles in mass quantity fell out of favor in the late 20th Century, and those with skill in this area found that they were not celebrated by the public," said George Shea, Chairman of the International Federation of Competitive Eating. "However, in the first four years of the new century, casserole-eating has experienced a resurgence in popularity. This rebirth culminated with Sonya Thomas' impressive victory at the North Carolina State Fair."

Vote with your fingers.

2004-10-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

Joined the global vote?

Will you vote your heart? Will you vote tactically? Will you tell the pollsters the truth?

Wilton Barnhardt stopped on his way through town. No, writers aren't already all heading for Canada (yup, a foreign country, Richard), it's just time for some leaf peeping and maybe a trip to The Lady Killigrew.

Found art

2004-10-22T11:11:00.000-04:00

This is a weird thing, a guy transcribing some abandoned cassette tapes he found when he moved into a new apartment. Transcriber Wilson says he found the tapes in Raleigh, but none of the (OK, pretty fanciful and fantastic) places described on the tapes sound familiar.

Headpiece filled with sound

2004-10-18T13:21:00.000-04:00

Boy oh boy was it good to see them Mission of Burma fellers play out last weekend. Sure, the purist part of me wishes that Martin Swope was still in the band. But that's my only quibble. They were having fun, the crowd was having fun, they played songs new and songs old and all songs were good songs. Inappropriate Dancing Girl was having a little too much fun, but we managed to stay out of her flight path.

International/long distance phone reccs?

2004-10-14T18:25:00.000-04:00

Anyone have a recc for International/long distance phone companies? AT&T are about to up their peak* state-to-state rate (on the simply named...) One Rate Off-Peak Plan from 10 c/min to 12 c/min. Peak times are M-F 7-7. Methinks I can beat that, but am confused by all the plans offered here and other places like that.

So, any ideas? Anyone have a good plan? I call interstate all the time -- you know that, right...? Also the UK and Oman and occasionally other places. My sister in the UK can call me for 3 c/minute....

*When did peak times move from 9-5? Blame all those bums who work at home or just the time differences?

Flags are symbols

2004-10-09T20:07:00.000-04:00

Some are pretty, some are ugly: the latest stats are out. The North American Vexillological Association principles for good flags, which most folks grasp unconsciously, are:

Keep It Simple

Use Meaningful Symbolism

Use 2–3 Basic Colors

No Lettering or Seals

Be Distinctive or Be Related

With the city flags, it's interesting to see how many look historic and how many look like they were designed in the 60s and 70s. Sacramento's flag looks like a shag carpet design. This is not a bad thing.

We shall know our feline's velocity

2004-10-07T13:57:00.000-04:00

The cat in the USS Monitor's cannon is a great little history mystery, possibly solved/debunked in the "Cat Owner's Perspective" section at the end. "Was there a cat?" ... sounds like a magazine, or something. (Spotted on food for small animals.)

Yet another House of the Future

2004-10-04T22:54:00.000-04:00

Everything you need to know about the aptly named, aptly shaped Futuro. When I stopped by the one on Hatteras Island, it was a decayed and decaying snackbar, but I understand it's been spruced up in the meantime.

The Importance of Orange Bitters

2004-09-28T17:12:00.000-04:00

"A free market is a dumb market," thus writ Ray Davis. Oh, I agree completely. Make sure to add a healthy dollop of vermouth to those martinis, kids.

Pocket pocket T pocket T pocket T

2004-08-31T11:11:00.000-04:00

(To the tune of the Who's cover of "Bucket T.") In recent years I've tried to move away from the necessary breast pocket, praised here by SimpleBits. Oh, but it was handy, especially for pens. Also bits of paper, sunglasses, pills, cash, tickets, low-yield thermonuclear devices, and on and on. Pocket T RIP.

roshambo rambo

2004-08-30T17:12:00.000-04:00

Stuever profiles a new "sport" and I can just see the slurry Olympics version now. Since apparently any sport can be an Olympic Sport (Christopher, I know you think badminton is really hard but I think it's probably mostly in the sense of harder to say you wanna go bm pro than telling your parents you want to be a writer).

Yes, friends, I'm talking about rock, paper, scissors.

As burgeoning sports go, rock-paper-scissors has at least this going for it: It embraces and encourages inebriated trash-talking among its competitors.

The rise of RPS is a little like when adults started forming kickball or dodgeball leagues a few years ago. Or the annual air-guitar championship held every summer in Finland. Now comes the commodification and officializing of rock-paper-scissors, a game many people learn from an older sibling on a long car trip. There's a documentary film being made about RPS and, in October, there'll be a book -- "The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide."

See you at the World Championships in Toronto:

Scissors!

gimme 10 cc's of Small Faces!

2004-08-29T22:50:00.000-04:00

You're a Mod. You dig expensive things, like suits
and speed. You have a fine appreciation for the
Kinks and know that Motown started it all, and
you have fabulous style. Hey, nice hair.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
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This is actually and reflected in everything about me, except for the clothes I wear, the music I listen to and the life I live.

stat

2004-08-29T22:34:00.000-04:00

You're Generally Indie. There's nothing wrong with
this. You like music all over the map and
aren't adversed to listening to some Top 40
here and there. You just know to comment that
The Neptunes are the best producers around
right now. You don't feel the need to debate
constantly with other music geeks, because you
know that Pavement were the best band of the
90s.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
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Now you.

A desperate resuscitation attempt

2004-08-29T17:04:00.000-04:00

You're a True Punk. You know that punk isn't all
about studded jackets and mohawks. If you're
political, you're actually informed. Most of
the stuff you love is from before the 80s,
though you know bands like Fugazi kept the
spirit going.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
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