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Dec. 29th, 2009 @ 01:26 am
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Happy Birthday in advance, underpope Dec 31, secretmasters Dec 31, and oldcharliebrown Jan 1! |
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Around 4K today, and that's a draft. Current Mood:  sleepy Current Music: Emmylou Harris - Sweet Old World |
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So I’m back in Seattle, and I’ve been taking today to regroup. It was sort of a tactic of last resort; I was so wiped out from the cross-country travel and I came home to … to … so much stuff, that I hardly knew where to begin. So I didn’t begin anything. I just took a day to take down all the Christmas paraphernalia, unpack all my stuff, catch up on all my mail, do some grocery shopping, clean the apartment, charge all my electronics, pay some bills, water some plants, and the like. And now, from this afternoon vantage point, tomorrow is looking a whole lot more manageable.
The holidays were great, by the way. I went to my dad/stepmom’s place in Kentucky (Leitchfield, about 30 miles from Elizabethtown) - where my little brother likewise joined us, fresh from his Copenhagen adventures (read all about ‘em on his webpage - Edit: down for maintenance, as he prepares to move hosts.). Several sets of friends came and went, including (but not limited to) such fine folks as the Wygants and the Banks, as well as Meggo and Camron - the auxiliary son, to be deployed in case of emergency.
We played Catch Phrase for several hours. We ate lots of food, all of which was superlative. I went on a tour of Kentucky housepets - visiting such exemplary critters as this kitty in a tee shirt, the intractable Blaze, this 4-week-old puppy, as well as its siblings, and my brother’s cat, Mr. Peanut. Strangely enough, I seem to have no photos of me with any actual, yanno. People. But if you know me, you probably don’t find that terribly surprising.
And now I’m back in Seattle, with my lap currently occupied by Spain the Cat - who seems pretty happy with my return.
Speaking of the wee black monster, as I was going through the Christmas cards that had accumulated in my absence, I found one from the Pet Placement Center - which had apparently gotten my address from the paypal donation I sent them before Christmas. It was a sweet card, written by someone who seems to (possibly?) remember Spainy from her time there, back in 2001-2002.* It also mentions that in addition to all their usual full-house issues, the facilities are in rather dire need of repair - so all donations are more exceptionally welcome than usual.
Therefore, just in case any of you have leftover holiday cheer burning a hole in your digital pockets, I’m going to post a link to the donation page again. It’s right here. And remember that every little bit helps.
Anyway. Christmas was grand, but now it’s back to the grind for me. I hope everyone had a most excellent holiday season, and that the New Year holds many marvelous things in store for the lot of you.
* Spainy had been at this shelter for over a year when we adopted her in February of 2002.
[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]
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Chili
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Dec. 28th, 2009 @ 04:35 pm
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Thanks to friends who hunt, we have some pounds of ground venison. The thought of venison leads to the thought of venison chili. I used to make venison chili with venison sausage (a combination of venison and pork sausage ground together) so, looking at this ground venison (lean is an understatement) I took about a third of a pound of pork sausage, cut it up into bits, and mixed it with the venison while starting the venison. Then a big fat yellow onion, chopped, and six cloves of garlic, chopped, went into a Dutch oven to saute while the meat partly cooked in the iron skillet. Then combined the two in the Dutch oven, with the packet of chili spices I like, a can of Ro-tel original and a can of plain diced tomatoes, and set it bubbling away on the back of the stove. A couple of hours ago I ate a few spoonfuls (good, but not quite there yet.) I think it could've done with a bit more pork sausage--it's been several drought years and none of the deer are carrying much fat. Still...good stuff for a cold night and predictions of more cold tomorrow.
Current Mood: accomplished |
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Dec. 28th, 2009 @ 02:55 pm
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Happy Birthday in advance to lpetrazickis (Dec 29)! |
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First off, huge, huge thanks to everyone who came to the show at the Wayward Coffeehouse. We'd been somewhat concerned that we wouldn't be able to drum up an audience, it being Boxing Day and all, so imagine our delight when we wound up playing to an essentially full house! (If you couldn't attended, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) snowcoma has posted a lovely and detailed review.) A good time was had by all.
If you're curious about what kinds of things we performed, all three of my albums are currently available through CD Baby, as is Thirteen, the first album by Vixy and Tony. Or you could take a gander at The First Rule of Flying: Songs From The Black II. This is the latest collection of music from The Signal, an awesome Firefly-themed podcast, and includes songs by all of the people previously named. Plus it's free, which makes it an awesome taster.
In literary news, Lurv ala Mode has named Rosemary and Rue as an Honorable Mention for Best Read of the Year. This is a review site run by a reviewer I have come to very much respect, and I'm delighted to be on the list. Maybe next year, I can make it to one of the named slots!
I'll post another review roundup soon. For now, I leave you with the knowledge that 2009 is almost over, and the world hasn't ended yet. Oh, and I made a metric fuck-ton of rosemary shortbread last night. I rule.
Happy winter!Current Mood:  happy Current Music: Grease 2, "Who's That Guy?" |
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708 words on The White City, and the Secrit Project finalized.
I have only two scenes and a transition on The White City left, and I have to go back through and salt in more character bits and clues and red herrings. So close. So close.
This novella is rapidly turning into a novel.
Where the hell is my climactic space battle? Two more goddamned scenes, book. GET ON IT.Current Mood:  cranky, and getting crankier Current Music: Iron & Wine - Belated Promise Ring |
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*passes out the tea and cookies*Current Mood:  cheerful Current Music: Greg Brown - Pretty One More Time |
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While the weather created some difficulties, it was a pretty great Christmas. Chats got me a beautiful Saddleback messenger bag. The perfect rugged look, although most days I'm about as rugged as a bowl of oatmeal. Looks like something a Pony Express rider might have carried. I've been wanting an easier-to-navigate-the-urban-jungle "vertical" bag for a while for holding the laptop, books, etc. and as usual da Wife really came through. Chats really does great gifts.
The Sprog bought me some comfy new lounging pants. They have log cabins, pines and moose on them.
My friend Howard bought me the HeroScape starter set, which looks frightfully addictive.
( Sprog pics, plus my cake ) |
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Due to a massive upswing in bizarre Japanese wedding spam, I have disabled anonymous comments.
openID and livejournal accounts may comment freely.Current Mood:  bitchy Current Music: Iron & Wine - Belated Promise Ring |
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Today's teacup: violets
Today's tea: Today is a day requiring both blackcurrant tea and salabat, which I made with jasmine green tea. (See below.)
Temperature this morning: 28 degrees
I'm finding myself a little crabby with the NPR story this morning on Louisa May Alcott, which seems a little disingenuous to me in that there's a deal of censure being attached to Alcott's working toward making a living.
Artists, of course, are expected to spend tewnty years learning a craft and art that they will then do just for the love of it. The fact is, yes, most of us will do it just for the love of it.
But we also need to eat.
Alcott grew up in grinding poverty with a fabulously popular but indigent father. The fact that she was concerned with securing a good encome in her adulthood does not make her less of an artist; it makes her an artist like any other.
  High-mindedness and a desire for financial stability are not mutually exclusive, you know.
Alcott supported her family and herself with her work. She was an independent woman in an era when that was not common or encouraged. I am not, personally, a big fan of her work (though the ivy story in A Garland for Girls stays with me to this day), but I am a fan of her life.
And I'm pretty sure that the author of Little Women and Hospital Sketches could manage to be both an artist and mercenary at the same time.
Of course, I am a commercial artist myself. If nobody wants to read my books, I don't eat. Fortunately, I do consider accessibility an artistic value (one that I am not particularly good at, but it's nice to have goals) and I don't consider it a value that necessarily lies in opposition to depth of meanng or nuance or ambiguity. The hard trick, of course, is balancing it all. Layers; this is what layers are for.
cristalia has been talking a bunch about Dashiell Hammett lately; I also offer Dennis Lehane as an example. (Mystery has figured out how to do this well; I imagine SFF can pull it off too.)
Both of them, I am pretty sure, earn(ed) a living.
Today I must work on The Secret Project With kylecassidy (also featureing trillian_stars) and The White City. I think part of the problem I am having with The White City is that it is at its heart a very bleak little book, and it ends with a noble sacrifice and a cold wind blowing--and I am a little scared of writing that, because it's so sad. Also, there's the simple logistics of Our Heroes solving the mystery. Which is apparently trickier than it might seem.
La.
Well, blogging doesn't get the writing done. Off we go, avoidant-lassCurrent Mood:  determined Current Music: Morning Edition |
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Well, except for the final music, The Wedding Enforcer is pretty much done. (It has placeholder music right now.) I've fixed about everything in it that I can without spending a boatload of time and money to get the final image matching.
I've shown it to a few audiences (including one consisting of the Program Manager, Deputy Program Manager, Chief Engineer, Chief Financial Officer, and my boss' boss at work.) So far it looks like everyone has enjoyed it.
We'll be having a "Mini-premiere" in a couple of weeks over in Redondo Beach for the cast and crew who worked on it.
I've started working on a script for a feature film (entitled Gone Fishin' and will re-edit the short Wife of the Bad Guy so that its something that people are willing to sit thru.
And my dear wife created a website/blogspace for me: http://PDRFilm.blogspot.com.
So its gonna be a busy time coming up!Current Mood: creative Current Music: Theme from "Rawhide" |
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Ladies and gents, I present to you the new rofmagazine.com.
:)
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We accomplished a fair bit today on the land--transplanted a lot of the iris removed from the lily pond (water iris this is) to various wet areas that may remain wet long enough for the iris to get thoroughly started. A few of the transplants from several years ago did survive the drought, though not, I think, my favorite blue ones. The first batch went into the #3 gabion pool. The second went into various spots along the creek and swamp overflow.
Meanwhile, I took loppers in hand and got serious about clearing the N/S trail on the east side of the creek woods, which had become overgrown and encumbered by blow=downs. Along the way saw a lot of birds, heard more, saw nifty lichens and a ground fungus of a kind I hadn't seen before, and managed to get very tired and stiff. Many limbs were lopped and dragged, lopped and dragged, lopped and....you get the idea.
Some pictures from the day are up at the 80 acres blog.Current Mood: accomplished |
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Item the first: For anybody who thinks they might want a Giant Ridiculous Dogge on their very own, my mom and her partner have a bitch in whelp, and are expecting puppies on the ground in January if all goes well.
You can read thecoughlin's informational post here. If that intrigues you, the Eiledon Briards website is here.
Item the second: Climbed tonight with buymeaclue and TBRE and The Jeff. Did not climb particularly well, mind you, but I did get out there. Better luck on Monday. *g*Current Mood:  contemplative Current Music: KT Tunstall - Hold On |
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Around 600 words on The White City today, and still waiting for it to tell me how it goes. I wrote the last scene (denouement), and the closing sentence, but I'm missing like four scenes that comprise the climax.
It's interesting writing Sebastien in a situation where he is NOT in charge.
Tomorrow is a work day. God damn it. I will have focus and I will get somewhere.
Well, time to stare at it for a while again.Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: Garbage - The Trick is to Keep Breathin' |
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"Suspense writers, present and future: Remember you are in good company. Dostoyevsky, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe...there are hacks in every kind of literary field...Aim at being a genius."
—Patricia Highsmith
When I've expressed similar sentiments as regards horror, I've been called a faggot. As regards SF and fantasy, I've been called patriarchal.
But then again, wasn't Patricia Highsmith a patriarchal faggot? AHA! I knew I was onto something... |
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I haven't made a personal post in some while, it seems. Well, you know, mostly things are pretty uneventful. Melissa is back from Clemson for the Christmas break. Clemson is playing in the Music City Bowl today (Sunday) in Nashville, which is only a 5 hour ride from St. Louis, so we decided to buy tickets and go -- perhaps our only chance to see them in a nearby bowl game. Now we're almost regretting that, because it's going to be very cold. It's cold here in St. Louis, and vaguely white. We got buckets of rain Tuesday and Wednesday, but the temps were in the 40s. Then it got cold -- too late for the foot or two of snow we had kind of hoped for! We got a dusting on Christmas, and we're getting more today, but it will probably top out at only an inch or so.
Geoff's college decision is approaching. He only applied in state, and he's been accepted at Missouri State and Truman State. We expect him to also be accepted at Missouri and at Southeast Missouri. He's leaning towards Mizzou, but Truman State is less expensive to begin with and has also offered a modest scholarship ... so I don't know. (And it's about an hour up the road from Mizzou, so as we understand the Truman social life is in good part conducted in Columbia, not in Kirksville!)
We saw the new George Clooney movie UP IN THE AIR yesterday. It's a first-rate film. Clooney plays a man whose job is to fly around the country offering severance packages to people whose bosses are too chicken to fire them themselves. As such it's very timely -- Clooney's boss says, in one of the blackly comic moments of the film, that this is his company's great moment -- because so many people are losing their jobs. Clooney himself is a lonely man who doesn't know it, consumed with the mostly silly pursuit of frequent flyer miles. The story turns on his encounters with a few women. He has an affair with one, played by Vera Farmiga, who has a job that likewise requires her to fly all the time -- thus their affair revolves around coordinating their schedules for brief encounters. Another (played by Anna Kendrick) is a very young woman who is trying to get his company to switch to doing the exit interviews online. Clooney has to take her on tour with him, as it were, to see how things are done face-to-face. She learns, of course, the direct emotional impact of their jobs -- something Clooney had learned to suppress. Finally, Clooney's sister is getting married, and his other sister begs him, pretty much, to take at least a slight role in their lives, and come back home (to semi-rural northern Wisconsin) for the wedding.
All this leads Clooney's character to at least some realization of how lost his life has become. And, he does make steps to change. But the movie avoids silly Hollywood epiphanies, or happy endings. (Though the ending is not bleak and hopeless, either.) It's a very timely movie. A serious, even dark, movie that is also very funny at times. Notable to me was the portrayal of the women, in a simple way -- the two lead actresses are quite attractive, but they are allowed to be real-looking women, not glamourous -- to be imperfect, if you will. (Some of the same applies to Clooney, who looks his age, pretty much -- but he still is of course very good-looking.) The acting is strong throughout. The plot is believable and emotionally affecting.
The movie is also of considerable interest to St. Louisans because it was mostly shot here. I managed to avoid looking for landmarks -- though some were unavoidable, like Lambert Airport. But my wife and daughter spent plenty of time recognizing places. The street in Wisconsin where Clooney's sister lives is portrayed by a street in Maplewood, MO, where good friends of ours live. (And indeed they got to meet Clooney, briefly -- he was by all accounts very affable and approachable.) The school Clooney visits at his home town is Affton High School, quite close to our house, where we've been for middle school graduation ceremonies and for swim meets. Clooney's sister's rehearsal dinner is at a place portrayed by the Cheshire Inn, a reasonably well-known restaurant in Clayton, MO. A key scene is played out next to a parking garage downtown. Etc. Indeed, one young actor with two lines in the movie is a close friend of the son of one our closest friends -- indeed, Melissa said during the movie "I've met that guy!". (He plays a rental car attendant trying to get Clooney to sign his little credit card machine.) The local joke is that St. Louisans will all have to see the movie twice, once for the movie and once to spy locations. Presumably people in places like LA or Vancouver where movies are shot all the time are too cool for that sort of silliness.
I also managed to read one book not for review. This is Jim C. Hines'sjimhines The Stepsister Scheme. It's the first in his new trilogy concerning the adventures of Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. The lead character is Cinderella -- Danielle Whiteshore -- who is adjusting to her new "happily-ever-after". She really is in love with her Prince (which turns out not to be the case for Snow White or Sleeping Beauty), and is pretty content, when all of a sudden one of her stepsisters shows up and tries to assassinate her. Her stepsister, the prettier and stupider of the pair, has learned some magic, but with the help of a handmaid who turns out to be Talia, also known as Sleeping Beauty, and also with the help of Danielle's animal friends, the assassination attempt fails. But her stepsister gets away.
Danielle quickly learns that her mother-in-law has secretly taken in Snow White and Talia (aka Sleeping Beauty) after the two fled intolerable home situations. (Snow White is wanted for the murder (in self-defense of course) of her evil stepmother -- her "Prince" turned out to be no help, and her true lover was the huntsman who saved her life. Talia, on the other hand, resents the fairies who gave her the gifts -- and the curse -- and she hates the "Prince" who wakened her by raping her while she slept and making her pregnant -- she only woke because of the pain of childbirth.) The two young women act as spies for the Queen. Snow White is magical adept, and Talia a martial arts adept. Now, it seems, Danielle's husband, the Prince, has been kidnapped by Cinderella's stepsisters and taken to Faerytown. The three young women go on a mission, where their three complementary talents (Snow's magic, Talia's weapons skills, and Danielle's ability to talk to animals, plus her innate niceness) all combine to, after much difficulty, uncover the nature of the stepsisters' plot, and the nature of their allies.
On the surface it seems it might be a romp. And there are aspects of the romp to it -- a fair amount of light jokes, some fun playing with the details of the "true stories" behind the fairy tales. But there's a lot of serious intent, and dark details, behind everything, as the details I mention above about the true stories of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty might indicate. The characters of the three princesses are well-portrayed, and each is quite different to the others. The plot involves real pain, some moral ambiguity, and a less than easy resolution. But it's never dreary -- it's a fun and adventure-filled story to read. Good work. I'm reading the second one, The Mermaid's Madness, now -- which adds the Little Mermaid to the mix. (Presumably the third book, Red Hood's Revenge, will bring in Little Red Riding Hood.)
And a couple last things. I've discovered the online music service Pandora. Last to do so, I don't doubt. You seed it with songs and artists you like, and it picks other songs and artists to play. It's free (unless you get enhanced service -- which eliminates commercials and gives other benefits). It's been very effective, introducing me to several artists I've been enjoying, such as Dave Langford's brother Jon Langford (of whom I had actually heard from another source as well). Perhaps the best revelation so far is a countryish blues guy named Ted Hawkins, who knocked around LA and Europe for decades, fighting some personal problems and putting out a few not very successful albums, until he hit it fairly big -- well, slightly big -- with a magnificent album called The Next Hundred Years, in 1994. Then he promptly died of a stroke. His personal life is a fairly sad story, but his music is incredible.
And one webcomic that's a complete delight. Again, I'm probably the last person to hear of it. But still, it's wonderful: XKCD .
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Teacup today: cabbage roses, a gift from ctwriter.
Tea today: Mokalbari East
Temperature this morning: a balmy fiftyish
Sebastien is having a fraught conversation with somebody he's never met before, who knows him uncomfortably well. I have just skipped the climax and am working on the denouement.
ETA: And a very brave neighborhood cat is apparently using our back porch as a base of operations, as there are two Green Bits (TM) on the steps. I wonder if that was the end of our Kitchen Smouse.Current Mood:  grateful Current Music: George Harrison - Give Me Love |
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Finished candles.
I really like the blue one.
I should eat something and work for a bit before it's time to go climbing with buymeaclue, The Jeff, and TBRE.
In other news, the rain and warmth came overnight, and now the snow is gone. It was a special delivery, just for Christmas.Current Mood:  relaxed Current Music: Wait Wait Don't Tell Me |
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Sunday
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Dec. 27th, 2009 @ 08:43 am
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It's clear and lovely, though it's not supposed to stay that way more than today, so--since we both have a day off choir duties--we're thinking of a longish walk around the place as soon as it warms up a bit, the horses have been fed and mucked out, etc. We're a bit lazy even about that. I'll be taking the camera (battery recharging now) so we can see what's what and I can get the (hopefully final) images for the annual report I should be doing (be more than halfway through, but the book needs me, as well.)
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Summary: Shimmer, 2009
Shimmer is a very nicely presented magazine, generally fantasy-oriented, though this year I saw a number of stories I called SF (some of them a bit ambiguously so, as part of a special issue subtitled "The Clockwork Jungle Book" and consisting of fable-like stories about clockwork animals). For the past three years there have been two issues each. Thus, in 2009, a total of 32 stories (all short, eleven short-shorts), for some 75,000 words of fiction. The word count was higher than in the past couple of years because the special issue was about twice as long as usual. The magazine also features lots of quite nice artwork, and occasional interviews.. The Editor-in-Chief is Beth Wodzinski, and E. Catherine Tobler is the Editor. George Mann served a guest editor for at least part of the special "clockwork jungle book" issue.
If I had a complaint about the magazine it would be the excessive tropism towards quite short stories -- the longest this year was just over 4000 words, and eleven short-shorts is quite a lot, though some were very good, and the "fable" form called for by the special issue's theme will tend to lead to short-shorts. Still, I'd like to see some longer work.
My favorite story in 2009 was a short-short by Nir Yaniv, "A Painter, a Sheep, and a Boa Constrictor" (#10), one of those stories that seems simple then opens up surprisingly, as a six-year-old boy in a space port asks an older man for a sheep. Other strong stories included "The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-Ud-Din Muhammad Akbar" by Shweta Narayan (#11), which tells the story behind the building of a spectacular collection of mechanical birds for a great Shah. Also, Susannah Mandel's "The Monkey and the Butterfly" (#11), about a monkey that falls in love with a cat -- ah, but cats are fickle creatures. Other good work came from Narayan again (in #10), and from Jessica Paige Wick, Richard S. Crawford, Vincent Pendergast, Lou Anders, and Rajan Khanna.
Statistics: 18 of 32 stories were by women, I think (56%), same proportion as last year, and as I mentioned, perhaps 11 SF stories, 34%, rather higher than usual, though as mentioned that's driven in part by the "clockwork" special issue.
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Over at Fast Forward, Colleen R. Cahill has some nice things to say about Buffalito Destiny.
A fine way to round out the year.Current Mood:  awake |
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It has been a weird Christmas. Lots of illness and disruption in the immediate and extended family. Not our normal Christmas at all.
On the good side, there's snow on the ground and we are less than half way through our Christmas break. My lovely wife surprised me with an HP Mini 311 netbook, a bit of techno wizardry I've been lusting after for a while. I would have never bought it myself. I already have a new, very speedy, full-sized laptop that is reasonably portable, so a mini is an indulgence. My son has a mini, though, and I had borrowed it several times when I wanted to work at my computer while on the road, but didn't want to pack up the much heavier laptop.
 The 311 was my netbook of choice. Its screen is 11.6 inches, as opposed to the smaller 10.2 of a traditional netbook. The screen is high resolution, LED. The battery is good for about 6 hours, and it only weighs 3.2 pounds. That extended battery life is a big deal for me, by the way. My regular laptop last about two hours, sometimes less. You would think that would be plenty of time, but I can always hear the clock ticking, and several times I have thought that I had thirty minutes left when it suddenly is telling me to save my work before shutting down.
I remember that Ray Bradbury typed all of Fahrenheit 451 on a library typewriter that he rented for a dime per each 30 minutes, so a laptop that is only functional for two hours unplugged should feel like a luxury, but it doesn't.
What I really like about it is that I can type comfortably with it on my lap or if I'm in bed. My regular laptop grows too heavy (and hot!) too quickly to write for a long time.
I'm getting lots of work done on it because it's so easy to use, and, of course, it's a brand new toy. My only complaint is that there isn't an easy way to turn off the touch pad. Some laptops have a button to turn it off, and others have an option that turns off the touch pad if a USB mouse is attached, which is my preferred set up if I'm working at a desk. Right now I'm running a little freeware program called Virtual Touch Pad Cover that turns off the touch pad with a preprogrammed hot key click, but that hot key also turns off an attached mouse. Sigh. Maybe when I upgrade from the XP that came on the machine to Windows 7, I will have a more elegant solution.
I hope the rest of you out there had great Christmases and not weird ones, but that's probably too much to expect. Current Mood:  cheerful |
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 I know it's after 9 p.m. the day after Christmas and likely very few people will see this before next week, but I had to share the very awesome review for an incredible debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (forthcoming in February 2010 from Orbit). And I quote, "This is an astounding debut novel. The worldbuilding is solid, the characterization superb, the plot complicated yet clear. Yeine is a fantastic protagonist and her journey is compelling and memorable....Look no further for an original and thought-provoking novel." Romantic Times, Top Pick Gold rating! This after a rave from Publishers Weekly as well. An incredible start to an amazing series.
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Back in August, when Sarah was operated on, I ended up losing my office. Not literally, but it was down in the basement, and Sarah wasn't able to make it down the staircase.
At least Sarah was happy to be with me when she was able to make it down the stairs. Kaylee, on the other hand, is too afraid of them to try negotiating them. So I've lost my office again, on a day-to-day basis. It was tough to leave Sarah alone upstairs because she'd chew on her bandages. Kaylee, unsupervised, will chew on... Any random thing strikes her fancy.
So.
So this week we found an inexpensive computer table ($20) for me on Craigslist, and I've moved my Mac upstairs to a snug place in the kitchen between the corner dining table and the refrigerator. In addition to being on the main floor, it's also by a window. My basement office has no windows at all. (The quick comparison is here.)
At least for now, I have to wear my Filson hat to keep the sun out of my eyes at the brightest.
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If you're in the Seattle area, come to the Wayward Coffeehouse tonight at eight for HEAPING PILES OF AWESOME.
Dude, I dressed Mel like Captain Tightpants for you people. That counts for something, right? And our set list is made of win. And what Betsy does on "Mama Said" will break your heart.
See you there.
 Current Mood:  busy Current Music: Vixy and Tony, "Mal's Song." |
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This has already been posted (and commented on!) elsewhere, but I really ought to post the Table of Contents for The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2010 on my own blog. This, by the way, is in planned Table of Contents order.
BOTY, Final, TOC Order
Steven Gould, "A Story, with Beans" (Analog, May)
Theodora Goss, "Child-Empress of Mars" (Interfictions 2)
Peter Watts, "The Island" (The New Space Opera 2)
Robert Kelly, "The Logic of the World" (Conjunctions 52)
Holly Phillips, "The Long Cold Goodbye" (Asimov's, March)
Ann Leckie, "The Endangered Camp" (Clockwork Phoenix 2)
Alex Irvine, "Dragon's Teeth" (F&SF, December)
Sara Genge, "As Women Fight" (Asimov's, December)
Lucius Shepard, "Sylgarmo's Proclamation" (Tales of the Dying Earth; Subterranean, Spring)
Jo Walton, "Three Twilight Tales" (Firebirds Soaring)
John Meaney, "Necroflux Day" (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume 3)
Paul Park, "The Persistence of Memory; or, This Space for Sale" (Postscripts 20/21)
Robert Charles Wilson, "This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe" (Other Earths)
Jay Lake, "On the Human Plan" (Lone Star Stories, Feburary)
John Langan, "Technicolor" (Poe)
Eugene Mirabelli, "Catalog" (F&SF, February)
Paul McAuley, "Crimes and Glory" (Subterranean, Spring)
Rachel Swirsky, "Eros, Philia, Agape" (Tor.com, March)
Nir Yaniv, "A Painter, a Sheep, and a Boa Constrictor" (Shimmer 10)
Dominic Green, "Glister" (Interzone, August)
Damien Broderick, "The Qualia Engine" (Asimov's, August)
Catherynne M. Valente, "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew" (Clarkesworld, August)
R. Garcia y Robertson, "Wife-Stealing Time" (Asimov's, October-November)
Nancy Kress, "Images of Anna" (Fantasy Magazine, September 14)
Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, "Mongoose" (Lovecraft Unbound)
Margo Lanagan, "Living Curiosities" (Sideshow)
Toiya Kristen Finley, "The Death of Sugar Daddy" (Electric Velocipede, Spring)
Kelly Link, "Secret Identity" (Geektastic)
Genevieve Valentine, "Bespoke" (Strange Horizons, July 27)
John Kessel, "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance" (The New Space Opera 2)
I hope to be able to announce the TOC for Rebooted: The Web's Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy: 2010 Download, very soon.
As ever, assembling the contents involved some agonizing choices. The book will include an extended "Recommended Reading" list, but I'll say here that the three stories that I most wished to include and couldn't fit were: "A Tiny Feast", by Chris Adrian (from the New Yorker); "Useless Things", by Maureen McHugh (from Eclipse Three); and "The Dragaman's Bride", by Andy Duncan (from The Dragon Book).
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Summary: Farrago's Wainscot, 2009
Farrago's Wainscot was a quarterly ezine devoted to "experimentation, decay, and the problems with form". The fiction editor was Darin Bradley, with assistance from Jason Grissom and Berrien C. Henderson. They published several pieces of fiction each issue, lots of poetry, and some nonfiction of quite diverse nature. Four issues appeared in each of their three years of operation. It was a challenging and interesting source of quite a variety of stuff.
I counted a total of 25 new stories, one novelette, the rest shorts (one short-shorts), for some 85,000 words of fiction, a vast increase over last year. My favorite story was Forrest Aguirre's "The Non-Epistemological Universe of Emmaeus Holt" (July), by Forrest Aguirre. An astronomy professor disappears, and his private observatory is discovered to be strangely decorated, with representations of visible stars and with curious narratives/poems/etc. associated with them. The story manages a sort of connected weirdness that by the end is emotionally affecting as well, while ever mysterious. I also like S. J. Hirons's "A Nameless Deed" (April), about a town with an odd custom: a Promise Auction, and how the arrival of a stranger and a young man’s foolish decision end up changing his and his intended’s future. And Berrien C. Henderson's "Dirt Roads and Ka" (January), in which a young backwoods boy encounters a strange old woman. Jonathan Wood's "Ephemera" (December) is intriguing SF/mystery/horror about a woman who can read others' minds, even after their death, and uses that ability to help solve crimes.But it all comes at considerable personal cost. Other stories that struck my eye came from Neil Ayres and E. Sedia, Toiya Kristen Finley, Matthew Kressel, Mari Ness, Autumn Canter, Rae Bryant, and Eden Robins.
I counted 10.5 stories by women (42%), comparable to the usual totals at the site (39% last year, 44% the year before). Perhaps 7 stories could be called SF, as well, 28%, all in all consistent with the 'zine's three year history. (But many of the stories, each year, were odd enough that they could have been categorized differently.)
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Did you know that it is very difficult for people today to read The Day of the Locust because there is a character in it who just happens to be named, well
Homer Simpson?
So too with Sherlock Holmes, which would have been a perfectly acceptable television movie of the week at ninety minutes, if TV still broadcast movies of the week that weren't about ladies with cancer. Instead, it's more than two and a half hours of Charlie Chaplin and his homosexual friend John running around Hogwarts doing passable bartitsu (read my article! Send Clarkesworld money if you like it!) while nothing of any import happens. I mean, lots happens, and all for the viewer's benefit, but nothing really is of interest. So certainly forget everything you know about Sherlock Holmes, and also about, you know, human motivation or understanding.
You see, there is a certain Lord Blackwood, who is a member of the Columbine High trenchcoat Mafia, which you know because he's wearing one of those awful leather dusters nerds wear when they try to act cool all the time. He is doing human sacrifices as part of his plan to conquer the world through ritual magic. He is caught, hanged, rises from the grave with witnesses, and then uses magic to kill a few more people, and then Holmes kills him again after foiling a great plan to kill everyone in Parliament. ("And nothing of value was lost...") And that's the real problem with the movie.
Surely people will make a big deal as to whether the Holmes in this film is authentic. Holmes is a young nerd with severe mental problems in his stories and in this movie he's a middle-aged flâneur with severe mental problems. One out of three...well, that's pretty bad. But the real problem isn't Downey's endless mugging and bug-eyed bug-eyeree, but that the story doesn't support the Holmes character at all. As this is a Holmes picture we're talking about, nothing is ruined by mentioning that Blackwood is in fact not a supernatural figure; he just likes incredibly contrived plans. He is a member of a secret society along the lines of the Freemasons and they do practice rituals, so Blackwood uses various far-fetched chemical methods and technologies to make it seem like he has magical powers. Except that none of this is necessary.
Let's say you're a member of Parliament, and hey, for that matter let's say that also happen to believe in Hermetic magic, even though nothing really seems to ever work. What line are you more likely to fall for:
"Behold, for I have true magical powers that look like special effects! Follow me and I shall use them to conquer England and then America! Also, no, I can't show you how to have magic powers too, or do anything right here to impress you."
or
"Hey, we're all rich bastards and we're in the same room together. Since we're already home secretaries and members of Parliament and even the ambassador to the US, let's use our influence to take over England, and then America! And that way I won't have to kill young chicks for no reason except social bonding. We can do that after we take over."
The latter sounds pretty good, eh? I know I'm ready. I'm not joking. Just get me into one of those smoke-filled rooms for five minutes and I swear your folding money would have my face on it within three years. I read once that if everyone in the world lived like the average American, we'd need four planets. I say that if everyone lived the way I told them too, we'd already OWN four planets! ARE YOU WITH ME? ARE YOU READY TO DIE FOR MEEEEEEE?!?!
Anyway, movie. Sherlock Holmes uses the old trick of depicting genius by making everybody stupid, and then making Li'l Miss Smartypuss (that's Sherlock) a tiny drop less idiotic. So, for example, Blackwood is about to be hanged, so his last request is to talk to Sherlock Holmes so he could give him vital clues and taunt him. If Blackwood was really smart, his last request would be, "No Sherlock Holmes at all, thank you." Don't even talk to the guy! There's no reason to.
I won't go into all the ways in which the plot-spectacle of the film makes no sense—have I mentioned that the film is two and a half hours long, and that's mostly establishing shots? Really! As it turns out, London has a river and a big clocktower and a bunch of poor people with black teeth. I'll just use one example. Much like the audience, nobody in the movie really cares too much that Parliament and everyone in it is being threatened with death. So they throw in a bit about taking over America too. The ambassador to the US objects, pulls a gun on Blackwood, and bursts into flame. Later, Sherlock explains that of course what happened is that Blackwood had installed in the lodge of the secret society a sprinkler that he turned on when the ambassador came to the meeting (late) and that sprinkler sprayed an odorless colorless flammable (or inflammable, if you're a snoot like me) liquid. A spark from the revolver is all it took to make it seem as though the ambassador combusts spontaneously through the power of black magic.
So, even leaving aside this unique substance, created for Blackwood (and the film) by "a ginger midget" in a secret lab that Holmes and Watson just happen to discover, with its experiments all out in the open and apparatus and results on display moments before rather than moments after arsonists come to burn down the place in broad daylight, isn't it
a good thing the ambassador came late so he could get sprayed on while nobody else did
a good thing he's an American and thus not a gentleman, who of course would always have an umbrella
a good thing he didn't just have his coach pull up right to the door
a good thing he decided to wear his magic secret society cloak out instead of changing in to it in the changing room
a good thing he pulled out a revolver instead of, oh, a knife
a good thing he made his speech from across the room rather than doing one of those secret handshakes with Blackwood before trying to shoot him, then they both might have died, or Blackwood would have at least been injured
a good thing he didn't just rush Blackwood even when aflame
a good thing his bullet somehow didn't actually come out of the gun or hit Blackwood, though the powder in the pistol did go off and leave a spark
a good thing he didn't show up just to denounce Blackwood, or was just planning to kill him later when fifteen Very Important People weren't sitting around waiting to be witnesses
a good thing nobody else lit up a cigarette during the ambassador's speech
You know, like that. The whole movie is like that. The super-logical explanations Holmes gives for everything—which, in a clever moment, he does to taunt Blackwood while the villain is about to fall down the Inevitable Hole over which 90 percent of final movie fights take place, instead of it being the hero struggling with the bit while the antagonist gloats—make no sense at all unless we assume an invisible audience of millions of not-very-interested viewers watching everything Blackwood does for kicks.
He's doing it for *points at the camera lens* YOU!
The Ambassador thing isn't even the worst one. It's Doctor Watson being fooled by the ol' "Romeo and Juliet" tonic after Blackwood is hanged—Blackwood died young and left a suspiciously good-looking corpse plus the apparatus that let him live past the hanging while remaining in a vegetative state just long enough to be buried in crypt that was...oh, never fucking mind already—that probably takes the cake. Probably.
The movie also suffers from having only ninety minutes of material. In addition to endless establishing shots and a very silly Holmes-is-really-thinking-NOW montage, all the jokes and little bits of repartee are endlessly repeated. The dog dies three times, for example. The dog also farts once, and that's supposed to be a laugh. At least three-deaths/one-fart is an inversion of the usual Hollywood wacky dog formula. Watson is hideously injured in an explosion but is up and about and ready to beat up three ruffians a few scenes later. (Btw, he walks with a limp and a cane.) The gay subtext is sub-House and Wilson level. There's a joke about autoerotic asphyxiation at the very end, just to give the audience something to think about on the walk home. There is an inexplicable scene in which Holmes has captured some flies. We don't need to know that Holmes is an eccentric nut through such set pieces, we've all already come prepared. And any one or two of the dozen or so asides about how kooky Holmes is would have done. Then there are other things—such as Holmes mental dissections of his fights—that are brought up once or twice and then dropped entirely.
What is in the film isn't much. Jude Law remains famous for no reason. Remember when he was in every film made between the summers of 2004 and 2005 (inclusive)? Oh, those were dark times for humanity, weren't they. Well, he's still awful. Downey who is usually great, or at least has screen presence, probably did the film for the cocaine...and there wasn't any! The female characters were non-entities, the villain has less screen time than a random police officer named Clarkesy and the secondary baddy is named Lord Coward. Guess what he's like?
Also, Moriarty is played by a hat.
A crow appears for no reason several times, except to hint that INDEED there is ACTUAL magic in the movie. (Nah, just a crow.)
There are two types of films that come out on Christmas Day. The first and rarer types are prestige pictures which are leaked into theaters at the end of the calendar so as to qualify for the Academy Awards and be fresh in the minds of the voting members. The second and more common type is the movie that promises thanks to its stars or spectacle or reputation to have a very big opening day and then fall off due to awful word of mouth. The closer a film opens to Christmas Day, the worse even the people who made it thinks it is.
Here's the only mystery of Sherlock Holmes—why did they even book noon and 3PM shows, because all that would do is lower ticket sales for the evening programs? Take the money and run! |
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I have read and edited that which I have written of The White City. And wonder of wonder, I like it. A lot, actually.
And still I have no idea at all how to end it. I mean, I know who the killer is and stuff. But I don't know how to build the climax and a thematic resolution that will make a satisfying finish to the story. Also, I have to go back and put in some more clues who the killer is. Making things feel inevitable and not arbitrary is a significant portion of the storyteller's craft.
I sense a lot of staring and pacing in my life for the next week or so.
"No really. I am working!"
Pursuant to the spinning, I'm thinking again about the stuff we strive to get right in fantasy. So much of the work set in the past, or alternate pasts, gets the details of life so very wrong. People have no trades, or if they do they are desperate to escape them. And actually, people who work with their hands often like what they do. Making stuff, after all, is quite satisfying.
Some authors do this very well--Connie Willis, Barbara Hambly. People work in their books, and the worlds feel real.
Another thing that always seems to fall out of fantasy written by modern authors is how integrated life was. People did not have work and leisure; everything ran together. You sat and spun while someone told stories, or you sang songs and worked the winch, or talked and shucked peas. And good tradesmen were respected in direct proportion to their indispensibility. A village blacksmith or potter is a hard thing to live without.
Our modern emphasis on book learning, I think, creeps in there and corrupts how we talks about other cultures.Current Mood:  naughty Current Music: Jeff Beck - Rolling and Tumbling |
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My poor nondog.
Still no idea about how to be a dog.
I gave him his holiday dinner, which is canned dog food (he has never had it before) and he's still trying to figure out what to do with it.
He is starting to think it might taste REALLY good, though.
(Technically speaking, it's dessert: he had his regular dinner about an hour ago.)
He does not know how to be a dog, but he is learning. He actually stole something out of the recycling bin the other day to lick, which is a first. It was a chicken broth container.
He's really quite ludicrous, and I love him very much. Current Mood:  loved Current Music: The Derek Trucks Band - Sweet Inspiration (Radio Paradise - DJ-mixed modern & classic rock, world, e |
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