The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Something for Thursday
Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of those composers who seems to exist in his own world, related to but not quite part of everything that was going on around him at the time. I often find in him a dreamy, almost otherworldly quality; there are influences, but he doesn't really fit into any particular school of thought. His music both stands squarely in the 20th century and looks back five hundred years. His musical voice is fascinating. Here is his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
What would you rather have named after you: a military maneuver ("The Picard Maneuver"), or a breakthrough medical procedure ("Tommy John surgery")?
(I'll assume nobody wants to have a disease named for them.)
(I'll assume nobody wants to have a disease named for them.)
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Answers, the sixth!
A couple answers to questions from e-mail! (Anonymity requested.)
Do you know car makes and models? Do you feel strongly about what vehicle you have (or would like to have), or are you more indifferent?
I'm not terribly knowledgeable about cars, no. I do like the looks of Subaru Outbacks, and some of the various SUV-type vehicles out on the road these days, and that will likely be the direction I go if and when I'm in the market for a car again (the added size will be nice for transporting a string bass around). Other than that, I'd like a decent stereo to which I can connect my phone or other music players, and one day I would love to own a car with working A/C. And mileage will have to be at least 30 mpg. That's about it, though -- as for the rest (aesthetics, color, styling of the interior), I'll have to look around and see what catches my eye.
My current car is a 2003 Buick Century that I acquired from my unbelievably generous parents. I like it a lot, and my current plan is to drive it until it dies and/or falls apart. A car payment is a pretty large regular expense that I want to avoid having for as long as possible. (This is, of course, a changeable attitude based on when the royalty checks and movie offers for Princesses In SPACE!!! start pouring in. Heh!)
What pets would you ideally like to have? 42 cats? Cats and dogs? Exotic pets? Fish tank? Lizards? Hamster?
I'm fine with just cats, but I have a feeling that a dog is inevitable at some point or other. I'm not a dog person, but I don't rule it out. The Wife and The Daughter want a dog, though. It's gotta be a nice-sized dog, though. Not some annoying yippy thing that can fit in a purse. You know what dog I'd like, though? Verdell from As Good As It Gets. That was a cool dog.
I have a friend on Facebook (and Flickr and Instagram) who has a love-hate thing going on with her insane chihuahua. I want no part of that breed, as much as I love watching her dog's bizarre psychoses from afar!
Exotic pets? Nah, no interest, although a fish tank would be nifty. We had a hermit crab for a while and I wouldn't mind going that route again, as those are really low-maintenance. I don't know if I'd want any kind of rodent, and I have zero interest in reptiles of any sort. I like to look at 'em, but owning one and being responsible for it? Nah.
From a different questioner: You seem less enthusiastic about sports every year. With the Pirates on the verge of winning and your Bills at least with new coaches and a rookie QB, do you find yourself getting into it again?
Meh. Next question comes from...oh, OK, I'll revise and extend.
First, the Pirates: well, it's nice that they're winning. But it's not like I'm watching games; my following of their fortunes consists of checking scores and standings. I can't even name all the guys on their roster, and my sum total time spent each day checking baseball stuff is less than I spend reading the daily comics, and I read only four comic strips on a daily basis. (Five, on the three days a week that xkcd runs.)
As for the Bills...well, I've been thinking a lot about sports fandom in general over the last couple of years. It seems to me that any conversation on the degree to which we, as a culture, are wasting our time (here's an example of just such a conversation) that doesn't take sports into account as probably our single greatest societal time-waster, is likely missing a very big part of the point. In Buffalo, you cannot escape talk about the Bills and, perhaps even more, the NHL Sabres. I'd bet the a great percentage of the Buffalo area can name more members of either team's roster than, say, the members of the Erie County legislature.
But anyway, as for my own personal feelings on sports fandom, I look at the Bills and their recent fortunes and I generally shrug. Now that NFL teams are winding down training camps, and getting ready for the regular season which starts next weekend, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a guy at work toward the end of last season (or maybe the season before):
And he said that last a little derisively. I had to admit that yes, I have become a fair-weather fan. I'm not interested in watching every game of a 6-10 season. I'm not interested in watching a team that's been bad for years add another bad year to its already double-digit list of losing years. So yeah, I'm a fair-weather fan. I'll like 'em when they win.
My question now is, what's wrong with that?
And the answer is: Nothing, as far as I can see.
The idea of a 'fair-weather fan' is obviously derived from a 'fair-weather friend'. That's a friend who is only a real friend when it's easy to be one. A fair-weather friend is with you when you have weddings or births or new jobs to celebrate, but they disappear when you have deaths in the family or you divorce or get fired or whatever. There's an old saying that "When times get bad, you find out who your real friends are." I suppose sports teams can say the same thing: "When times get bad – when we start losing a lot – we find out who out real fans are."
But here's the thing: fandom isn't friendship. Never has been, never will be. There is true virtue in friendship, and there is special virtue in the kind of friendship that endures trials and stalwartly marks the bad times as well as the good. That's just not the case with fandom, because with fandom, the personal emotional investment only goes in one direction. There is no virtue in being a fan, of anything, and by extension, there is no moral expectation in what one does in being a fan.
Another conversation I remember:
Erm...what?
The logic here, as best I can follow, is that if and when one's bad team actually gets good and wins a championship, it's going to feel so much sweeter for fans if they grudgingly stuck it out through the crappy years. It's an odd kind of puritanical thought that pleasure must be purchased through voluntary pain. It's of the same kind of mindset that I used to see when I worked in the restaurant business and people I knew to be regulars would come in and say things like, "Every time I come in here it's a little worse." I'm thinking, "Why come back?"
Why do we continue to force things upon ourselves that we have a strong reason to believe will be really unpleasant, in the name of "being a good fan"? Who the hell wants to be on their deathbed and say, "Well, my team still sucks, but I watched them suck each and every week?"
Yes, I've put in my time watching by football team stink for 13 years (a number which is likely to grow). I watched this team lose a game, at home, 6-3 whilst allowing the opposing quarterback to complete two passes. I've sat through well more than my fair share of crappy football games, and have finally come to this conclusion: if, four or five years from now, the Buffalo Bills actually win the Super Bowl, I will not feel the slightest bit of regret for having stopped watching them entirely for large segments of their Era of Suck. There will no Fan Cops on the streets that night, making sure that the revelers dancing beneath the streetlights are only those ones who have put in the correct amount of suffering through bad games. And when I die, there will be no Sports Fan Valhalla into whose golden halls I will be denied entry because I failed to watch each and every game when the Bills went 4-12 one year or because I didn't tune in to every single Sabres game down the stretch in a year where they missed the playoffs and finished thirteenth in the conference.
At this point in my life, I'm pretty much done with the figurative wearing of hair shirts.
One last one: Do you always use a real pie? Why not whipped cream in a can, or Cool-whip?
Because I'm all about authenticity, man. Go big or go home. A thing worth doing is a thing worth doing right. And it doesn't happen to me all that often, so when it does, it needs to be an event. Or something. The presence of a crust ensures most of the pie comes out of the pan, which means more stuff is on the face, which makes it look funnier, and it's all about looking ridiculous. I mean, really -- it sure ain't about dignity, and as Star Trek's Ferengi have taught us, "Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack." Might as well go for pie-faced absurdity.
More to come!
Do you know car makes and models? Do you feel strongly about what vehicle you have (or would like to have), or are you more indifferent?
I'm not terribly knowledgeable about cars, no. I do like the looks of Subaru Outbacks, and some of the various SUV-type vehicles out on the road these days, and that will likely be the direction I go if and when I'm in the market for a car again (the added size will be nice for transporting a string bass around). Other than that, I'd like a decent stereo to which I can connect my phone or other music players, and one day I would love to own a car with working A/C. And mileage will have to be at least 30 mpg. That's about it, though -- as for the rest (aesthetics, color, styling of the interior), I'll have to look around and see what catches my eye.
My current car is a 2003 Buick Century that I acquired from my unbelievably generous parents. I like it a lot, and my current plan is to drive it until it dies and/or falls apart. A car payment is a pretty large regular expense that I want to avoid having for as long as possible. (This is, of course, a changeable attitude based on when the royalty checks and movie offers for Princesses In SPACE!!! start pouring in. Heh!)
What pets would you ideally like to have? 42 cats? Cats and dogs? Exotic pets? Fish tank? Lizards? Hamster?
I'm fine with just cats, but I have a feeling that a dog is inevitable at some point or other. I'm not a dog person, but I don't rule it out. The Wife and The Daughter want a dog, though. It's gotta be a nice-sized dog, though. Not some annoying yippy thing that can fit in a purse. You know what dog I'd like, though? Verdell from As Good As It Gets. That was a cool dog.
I have a friend on Facebook (and Flickr and Instagram) who has a love-hate thing going on with her insane chihuahua. I want no part of that breed, as much as I love watching her dog's bizarre psychoses from afar!
Exotic pets? Nah, no interest, although a fish tank would be nifty. We had a hermit crab for a while and I wouldn't mind going that route again, as those are really low-maintenance. I don't know if I'd want any kind of rodent, and I have zero interest in reptiles of any sort. I like to look at 'em, but owning one and being responsible for it? Nah.
From a different questioner: You seem less enthusiastic about sports every year. With the Pirates on the verge of winning and your Bills at least with new coaches and a rookie QB, do you find yourself getting into it again?
Meh. Next question comes from...oh, OK, I'll revise and extend.
First, the Pirates: well, it's nice that they're winning. But it's not like I'm watching games; my following of their fortunes consists of checking scores and standings. I can't even name all the guys on their roster, and my sum total time spent each day checking baseball stuff is less than I spend reading the daily comics, and I read only four comic strips on a daily basis. (Five, on the three days a week that xkcd runs.)
As for the Bills...well, I've been thinking a lot about sports fandom in general over the last couple of years. It seems to me that any conversation on the degree to which we, as a culture, are wasting our time (here's an example of just such a conversation) that doesn't take sports into account as probably our single greatest societal time-waster, is likely missing a very big part of the point. In Buffalo, you cannot escape talk about the Bills and, perhaps even more, the NHL Sabres. I'd bet the a great percentage of the Buffalo area can name more members of either team's roster than, say, the members of the Erie County legislature.
But anyway, as for my own personal feelings on sports fandom, I look at the Bills and their recent fortunes and I generally shrug. Now that NFL teams are winding down training camps, and getting ready for the regular season which starts next weekend, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a guy at work toward the end of last season (or maybe the season before):
HE: Watch the Bills the other day?
ME: Nah. They're terrible.
HE: Yeah, but I still gotta watch 'em, you know?
ME: Why? I mean, really – they stink. Watching them is no fun at all.
HE: No, it sure isn't!
ME: Yeah! So I figure, if it's no fun to watch them, why bother at all?
HE: So you don't watch them at all?
ME: Nope. Watched a movie instead. Call me when they start winning.
HE: Oh...so you're a fair-weather fan.
And he said that last a little derisively. I had to admit that yes, I have become a fair-weather fan. I'm not interested in watching every game of a 6-10 season. I'm not interested in watching a team that's been bad for years add another bad year to its already double-digit list of losing years. So yeah, I'm a fair-weather fan. I'll like 'em when they win.
My question now is, what's wrong with that?
And the answer is: Nothing, as far as I can see.
The idea of a 'fair-weather fan' is obviously derived from a 'fair-weather friend'. That's a friend who is only a real friend when it's easy to be one. A fair-weather friend is with you when you have weddings or births or new jobs to celebrate, but they disappear when you have deaths in the family or you divorce or get fired or whatever. There's an old saying that "When times get bad, you find out who your real friends are." I suppose sports teams can say the same thing: "When times get bad – when we start losing a lot – we find out who out real fans are."
But here's the thing: fandom isn't friendship. Never has been, never will be. There is true virtue in friendship, and there is special virtue in the kind of friendship that endures trials and stalwartly marks the bad times as well as the good. That's just not the case with fandom, because with fandom, the personal emotional investment only goes in one direction. There is no virtue in being a fan, of anything, and by extension, there is no moral expectation in what one does in being a fan.
Another conversation I remember:
HE: I have tickets to the Sabres game tonight. Thank god it's the end of the season and I don't have to go to any more of their crappy games. I hate watching this team.
ME: Why go at all?
HE: [looks at me like I've just insisted that Earth is round and that Milton Berle was once President of the United States] They're my team. When you're a fan, you go support your team.
Erm...what?
The logic here, as best I can follow, is that if and when one's bad team actually gets good and wins a championship, it's going to feel so much sweeter for fans if they grudgingly stuck it out through the crappy years. It's an odd kind of puritanical thought that pleasure must be purchased through voluntary pain. It's of the same kind of mindset that I used to see when I worked in the restaurant business and people I knew to be regulars would come in and say things like, "Every time I come in here it's a little worse." I'm thinking, "Why come back?"
Why do we continue to force things upon ourselves that we have a strong reason to believe will be really unpleasant, in the name of "being a good fan"? Who the hell wants to be on their deathbed and say, "Well, my team still sucks, but I watched them suck each and every week?"
Yes, I've put in my time watching by football team stink for 13 years (a number which is likely to grow). I watched this team lose a game, at home, 6-3 whilst allowing the opposing quarterback to complete two passes. I've sat through well more than my fair share of crappy football games, and have finally come to this conclusion: if, four or five years from now, the Buffalo Bills actually win the Super Bowl, I will not feel the slightest bit of regret for having stopped watching them entirely for large segments of their Era of Suck. There will no Fan Cops on the streets that night, making sure that the revelers dancing beneath the streetlights are only those ones who have put in the correct amount of suffering through bad games. And when I die, there will be no Sports Fan Valhalla into whose golden halls I will be denied entry because I failed to watch each and every game when the Bills went 4-12 one year or because I didn't tune in to every single Sabres game down the stretch in a year where they missed the playoffs and finished thirteenth in the conference.
At this point in my life, I'm pretty much done with the figurative wearing of hair shirts.
One last one: Do you always use a real pie? Why not whipped cream in a can, or Cool-whip?
Because I'm all about authenticity, man. Go big or go home. A thing worth doing is a thing worth doing right. And it doesn't happen to me all that often, so when it does, it needs to be an event. Or something. The presence of a crust ensures most of the pie comes out of the pan, which means more stuff is on the face, which makes it look funnier, and it's all about looking ridiculous. I mean, really -- it sure ain't about dignity, and as Star Trek's Ferengi have taught us, "Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack." Might as well go for pie-faced absurdity.
More to come!
Merton's Heart
The Buffalo News ran this fascinating article about Thomas Merton, who lived for a time in Olean, NY and worked at St. Bonaventure University, from where my father has recently retired. My first part-time job was in that school's library, and I have seen and handled some of the very books referenced in the article. St. Bonaventure really does take pride in its place in Merton's life, and there's a lot of lore about it.
I wanted to post a photo of Merton's Heart, the clearing mentioned here, but there are only a few online that I could find, which surprises me. This photo is pretty much the exact view from the SBU library's rear windows (which are gigantic -- I really love that building and miss working there sometimes). I often thought about walking up there, but I was never sure where to go or park or if it was even allowed.
Anyway, it's a really good article, and it quotes a few folks I worked for back in the day. Check it out!
According to an old story, Merton used to love to walk in the woods around campus, where a clearing in the forest – shaped like a heart – remains.
It is visible from a great distance. Those who know of it call it “Merton’s Heart.”
Official sources at St. Bonaventure concur that the story is likely not true – that it’s just a bit of colorful embroidery on the legacy of a famous man.
But there it is. The name remains. It’s even on the walking tour.
“If you come to campus,” said Coughlin, the brother, “you get introduced to Merton’s heart.”
I wanted to post a photo of Merton's Heart, the clearing mentioned here, but there are only a few online that I could find, which surprises me. This photo is pretty much the exact view from the SBU library's rear windows (which are gigantic -- I really love that building and miss working there sometimes). I often thought about walking up there, but I was never sure where to go or park or if it was even allowed.
Anyway, it's a really good article, and it quotes a few folks I worked for back in the day. Check it out!
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sentential Links
Linkage....
:: I wish I knew then what I know now – that nothing can be fixed without first looking at what’s broken.
:: I was reading some old 'Savage Sword of Conan' last night, and it suddenly struck me what has always seemed strange about Conan as a fantasy character (and Hyboria as a fantasy world, for that matter). Conan was riding in on some adventure or other, getting ready to fight some slithery monster, and I suddenly realized--he has no elven friends. No dwarven friends either, for that matter.
:: Pick your favorite liquor—the one that makes you loose and happy, not upchucking into a clothes dryer. Get comfortable. Light a candle. Have two drinks. Slide down in your chair. And then gently place your fingertips on the hot, slick… buttons of your keyboard. If you’ve never written a sex scene before, you’re probably going to be either terrified or embarrassed, and both of those emotions are a lot easier to swallow when mixed with vodka. (Yipes! I'm not sure I'll ever write about the actual Act of Teh Sex. There really are areas where I'm a prude, I think! Those Princesses won't be having any Space Sex any time soon, I can tell you that. I'll send to a Space Nunnery first! via, by the way.)
:: So why not make ALL your shirts out of the same material as the pants, Doc Savage??? Those pants never rip but the shirts last all of ten seconds. Is it ego, Doc Savage?
:: Personal Top 10 Kaiju lists are things that need documenting. (How did I miss the boat on this? By spending too much time writing, that's how. Stupid writing.)
:: It's from that last line that I'd like to suggest that while it's perhaps accurate to apply "professional writer" only to those who make a living as writers, the material realities of the writing life make such a determination numerically meaningless.
:: The NSA has always had a problem with the open internet. Now a convergence of interests with large corporations is offering them the tools to destroy it.
More next week!
:: I wish I knew then what I know now – that nothing can be fixed without first looking at what’s broken.
:: I was reading some old 'Savage Sword of Conan' last night, and it suddenly struck me what has always seemed strange about Conan as a fantasy character (and Hyboria as a fantasy world, for that matter). Conan was riding in on some adventure or other, getting ready to fight some slithery monster, and I suddenly realized--he has no elven friends. No dwarven friends either, for that matter.
:: Pick your favorite liquor—the one that makes you loose and happy, not upchucking into a clothes dryer. Get comfortable. Light a candle. Have two drinks. Slide down in your chair. And then gently place your fingertips on the hot, slick… buttons of your keyboard. If you’ve never written a sex scene before, you’re probably going to be either terrified or embarrassed, and both of those emotions are a lot easier to swallow when mixed with vodka. (Yipes! I'm not sure I'll ever write about the actual Act of Teh Sex. There really are areas where I'm a prude, I think! Those Princesses won't be having any Space Sex any time soon, I can tell you that. I'll send to a Space Nunnery first! via, by the way.)
:: So why not make ALL your shirts out of the same material as the pants, Doc Savage??? Those pants never rip but the shirts last all of ten seconds. Is it ego, Doc Savage?
:: Personal Top 10 Kaiju lists are things that need documenting. (How did I miss the boat on this? By spending too much time writing, that's how. Stupid writing.)
:: It's from that last line that I'd like to suggest that while it's perhaps accurate to apply "professional writer" only to those who make a living as writers, the material realities of the writing life make such a determination numerically meaningless.
:: The NSA has always had a problem with the open internet. Now a convergence of interests with large corporations is offering them the tools to destroy it.
More next week!
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Answers, the fifth!
Might as well nail a few more Answers, huh? Fair warning: one of these is to a pretty odd question that I received via e-mail from someone who apparently wants to remain anonymous (and not the one who usually e-mails me good questions like that, either).
Andy asks (shortening a bit): Am I the only person that doesn’t trust anyone with a hyphenated name?
Probably not, but I'm not one of them. I've never much seen the big deal of this practice, but I did once know a guy who was really offended by the occasional practice, on some kind of odd Biblical justification that struck me as being a bit odd. Taking a man's last name when one marries is one of those practices that I think might make the best sense when seen in terms of avoiding confusion, as we expect surnames to denote family units. When you have a different one, it requires more verbiage to convey the existence of the family unit. "We're the Joneses!" becomes "Hi, I'm Ted Jones, and this is my wife, Alice Rambaldi."
But then I think, well, is it really that big a deal if one then can't think of that family as "the Joneses"? Or is it just something we expect because that's the way we've always done it? Ultimately, I guess I file this under "whatever the family wants to do is fine with me". And I say "the family" as opposed to "the woman" because I did know a couple once where, upon marriage, they both took on a completely new last name, different from what they'd each had before. I've never known anyone else who did that, but they took a creative tack, so who am I to judge? It's their family, their name. OK? OK!
Roger has a ton of questions, as always. Here's an interesting one:
I was reading Mark Evanier's column and he wrote recently: "The other e-mail was from someone who seems pretty happy Trayvon Martin is dead because, you know, he was a druggy gang member who probably deserved it. Martin may not have been guilty of something at that moment but he was foolish enough to go up against an armed man so he brought his death on himself. Or so this guy believes. I don’t think I’m going to consider him a friend any longer."
Did someone's politics/values/thoughtlessness ever end a friendship with you?
Yes, but not all that often. In fact, I can only think of one time, really, and it happened just this past winter, and it was the other person who jettisoned me, not vice versa. Go figure.
This person is an individual I knew in grade school. We weren't good friends then, but we weren't enemies either, although as kids can sometimes be, on occasion we strayed into adversarial territory. Nothing really major, if I recall correctly. But then, a couple years back, he friended me on Facebook, and I reciprocated.
One thing I discovered, that I didn't remember from high school, was that this fellow is Republican. In all-caps. It was kind of strange, I thought – not his conservatism, but the degree to which he seemed, based on his use of Facebook, to define himself by his politics, because that's virtually all he ever posted: Republican stuff, links to articles in very conservative media outlets, Republican photo memes, and so on. For a while he used as his profile pic a cartoon that had a cow's arse in close-up, and instead of cow-patties, the orifice in question was emitting the famous Obama 'O' logo. That's the kind of thing we're talking about here, and he was a pretty prolific poster, too. Lots and lots and lots of dispatches from Republicanland, each and every day, including global warming denialism and all manner of histrionics over the looming likelihood of "government completely taking over healthcare", and so on and so forth. Basically, he made himself a one-stop shop on Facebook for Republican talking points.
Now, on Facebook, I'm pretty much the same as I am on this blog: rarely political, and only when something really out-of-the-ordinary jolts me into a political mood. I think about issues a lot, but I just don't define myself that way. If you have one minute to get to know me, and I'm choosing the things I hope you walk away from that minute knowing about me, I'm fine if you only get a vague sense of my personal politics. Not so this other fellow: You will know what he believes. I mostly tended to scroll right past all the stuff he posted (and I have similar friends on the liberal side whose stuff I also tend to scroll right past, because I just don't think Facebook is at all useful for delving into political issues), choosing to interact instead with his occasional post about a teevee show or music or football or whatever. And all was well.
Until last Decemeber, and the Sandy Hook shootings.
That was one of my moments, one of my times when I just couldn't stay silent. I posted a few times that day, indicating that the awful event in Connecticut was my breaking point and that I was pretty much permanently moving my position on guns from "Not my thing, but rock on if you want" to "The hell with these damned tools for killing and our fetishization of them". (I only make that point here to illustrate the tale, not to invite a debate in comments. Not interested. At all.) Well, my friend decided to post a response that wasn't rude in any way. But still, it seems to me that there are times when you have to see how raw a person is and, well, maybe err on the side of not saying anything at all. So I responded back, fairly harshly, noting that I was not in any mood to hear from the gun-nut crowd and that when I wanted to hear his side's talking points, I knew quite well where to go and find them for myself.
That did not please him, and after a bit of back-and-forth – which really, in retrospect, was not all that heated – he took his ball and went home. I was unfriended within the hour. I think what really set him off was my casual comment that I see lots and lots and lots of Republican stuff on my Facebook timeline each and every day (he was far from my only friend on that side of the aisle), and yet when I post a single thing advancing my political view on a day of extreme hardship, I was suddenly confronted by a massive case of the vapors. It was really odd. He wasn't the only one to express dismay at what I said that day, but when I pointed out that apparently I'm supposed to listen to "All Republican all the time" without ever raising my hand to say something liberal, well, that was the end of that.
Since then I've become a lot more freehanded in my use of hiding stuff on Facebook. I still have only unfriended a handful of persons, and none of those were for politics. I like to think I have a good ability to get along with people on differing sides of the fence, although I do suspect that I, like most folks, may well gravitate more toward people of similar mindset to my own. For whatever reason, my classmate decided that we were too fundamentally unlike to interact in any way. That's his call, and from my readings of political history, I'm honestly not sure that "the tone" right now is really any worse than it's always been before, although there are troubling signs that give me pause, and I'm especially bothered by the fact that our political institutions really aren't built well for the kind of strict political polarization that we have now. And yes, I do think that the Right in this country needs to come back to Earth at some point. But that's for another day.
All right, that was awfully serious. So here's the really strange question posed to me via e-mail:
How do you pee in overalls???
Erm...OK. I'm going to assume that we're talking about, well, dealing with overalls in the bathroom, and not a more literal reading of that question. I've actually heard and read women complain over the years about overalls in the bathroom, to the point of actually dropping the shoulder straps in the toilet. Yeah...ewwww.
Well, the question's there, so...well, here it is. Don't unfasten the shoulder straps.
Huh? How does that make sense? Well, unless your overalls are super-tight – and they really shouldn't be – this should work. You leave the straps fastened, but unbutton the sides, those buttons at the hips. Usually there are two or three of them, and once you undo all those, the overalls will be super loose. At that point, just lower the straps down the shoulders and shrug your way out of them, much as you would a jumpsuit or a pair of coveralls. Then just lower them like any pants. You can tuck the extra material from the straps into the legs or something, if you wish.
Yes, this does work. I've had to execute this maneuver myself when the facilities were, shall we say, not well-endowed for space. And in general, I find mucking about with a belt and all that other jazz on normal pants to be just as big a pain in the butt in cramped restroom quarters as bib overalls.
Annnnnnd, we're done here. More answers to come!
(And if you still want to ask, feel free! Just not about bodily functions and how they relate to overalls. I think I'm done writing about that. Forever.)
Andy asks (shortening a bit): Am I the only person that doesn’t trust anyone with a hyphenated name?
Probably not, but I'm not one of them. I've never much seen the big deal of this practice, but I did once know a guy who was really offended by the occasional practice, on some kind of odd Biblical justification that struck me as being a bit odd. Taking a man's last name when one marries is one of those practices that I think might make the best sense when seen in terms of avoiding confusion, as we expect surnames to denote family units. When you have a different one, it requires more verbiage to convey the existence of the family unit. "We're the Joneses!" becomes "Hi, I'm Ted Jones, and this is my wife, Alice Rambaldi."
But then I think, well, is it really that big a deal if one then can't think of that family as "the Joneses"? Or is it just something we expect because that's the way we've always done it? Ultimately, I guess I file this under "whatever the family wants to do is fine with me". And I say "the family" as opposed to "the woman" because I did know a couple once where, upon marriage, they both took on a completely new last name, different from what they'd each had before. I've never known anyone else who did that, but they took a creative tack, so who am I to judge? It's their family, their name. OK? OK!
Roger has a ton of questions, as always. Here's an interesting one:
I was reading Mark Evanier's column and he wrote recently: "The other e-mail was from someone who seems pretty happy Trayvon Martin is dead because, you know, he was a druggy gang member who probably deserved it. Martin may not have been guilty of something at that moment but he was foolish enough to go up against an armed man so he brought his death on himself. Or so this guy believes. I don’t think I’m going to consider him a friend any longer."
Did someone's politics/values/thoughtlessness ever end a friendship with you?
Yes, but not all that often. In fact, I can only think of one time, really, and it happened just this past winter, and it was the other person who jettisoned me, not vice versa. Go figure.
This person is an individual I knew in grade school. We weren't good friends then, but we weren't enemies either, although as kids can sometimes be, on occasion we strayed into adversarial territory. Nothing really major, if I recall correctly. But then, a couple years back, he friended me on Facebook, and I reciprocated.
One thing I discovered, that I didn't remember from high school, was that this fellow is Republican. In all-caps. It was kind of strange, I thought – not his conservatism, but the degree to which he seemed, based on his use of Facebook, to define himself by his politics, because that's virtually all he ever posted: Republican stuff, links to articles in very conservative media outlets, Republican photo memes, and so on. For a while he used as his profile pic a cartoon that had a cow's arse in close-up, and instead of cow-patties, the orifice in question was emitting the famous Obama 'O' logo. That's the kind of thing we're talking about here, and he was a pretty prolific poster, too. Lots and lots and lots of dispatches from Republicanland, each and every day, including global warming denialism and all manner of histrionics over the looming likelihood of "government completely taking over healthcare", and so on and so forth. Basically, he made himself a one-stop shop on Facebook for Republican talking points.
Now, on Facebook, I'm pretty much the same as I am on this blog: rarely political, and only when something really out-of-the-ordinary jolts me into a political mood. I think about issues a lot, but I just don't define myself that way. If you have one minute to get to know me, and I'm choosing the things I hope you walk away from that minute knowing about me, I'm fine if you only get a vague sense of my personal politics. Not so this other fellow: You will know what he believes. I mostly tended to scroll right past all the stuff he posted (and I have similar friends on the liberal side whose stuff I also tend to scroll right past, because I just don't think Facebook is at all useful for delving into political issues), choosing to interact instead with his occasional post about a teevee show or music or football or whatever. And all was well.
Until last Decemeber, and the Sandy Hook shootings.
That was one of my moments, one of my times when I just couldn't stay silent. I posted a few times that day, indicating that the awful event in Connecticut was my breaking point and that I was pretty much permanently moving my position on guns from "Not my thing, but rock on if you want" to "The hell with these damned tools for killing and our fetishization of them". (I only make that point here to illustrate the tale, not to invite a debate in comments. Not interested. At all.) Well, my friend decided to post a response that wasn't rude in any way. But still, it seems to me that there are times when you have to see how raw a person is and, well, maybe err on the side of not saying anything at all. So I responded back, fairly harshly, noting that I was not in any mood to hear from the gun-nut crowd and that when I wanted to hear his side's talking points, I knew quite well where to go and find them for myself.
That did not please him, and after a bit of back-and-forth – which really, in retrospect, was not all that heated – he took his ball and went home. I was unfriended within the hour. I think what really set him off was my casual comment that I see lots and lots and lots of Republican stuff on my Facebook timeline each and every day (he was far from my only friend on that side of the aisle), and yet when I post a single thing advancing my political view on a day of extreme hardship, I was suddenly confronted by a massive case of the vapors. It was really odd. He wasn't the only one to express dismay at what I said that day, but when I pointed out that apparently I'm supposed to listen to "All Republican all the time" without ever raising my hand to say something liberal, well, that was the end of that.
Since then I've become a lot more freehanded in my use of hiding stuff on Facebook. I still have only unfriended a handful of persons, and none of those were for politics. I like to think I have a good ability to get along with people on differing sides of the fence, although I do suspect that I, like most folks, may well gravitate more toward people of similar mindset to my own. For whatever reason, my classmate decided that we were too fundamentally unlike to interact in any way. That's his call, and from my readings of political history, I'm honestly not sure that "the tone" right now is really any worse than it's always been before, although there are troubling signs that give me pause, and I'm especially bothered by the fact that our political institutions really aren't built well for the kind of strict political polarization that we have now. And yes, I do think that the Right in this country needs to come back to Earth at some point. But that's for another day.
All right, that was awfully serious. So here's the really strange question posed to me via e-mail:
How do you pee in overalls???
Erm...OK. I'm going to assume that we're talking about, well, dealing with overalls in the bathroom, and not a more literal reading of that question. I've actually heard and read women complain over the years about overalls in the bathroom, to the point of actually dropping the shoulder straps in the toilet. Yeah...ewwww.
Well, the question's there, so...well, here it is. Don't unfasten the shoulder straps.
Huh? How does that make sense? Well, unless your overalls are super-tight – and they really shouldn't be – this should work. You leave the straps fastened, but unbutton the sides, those buttons at the hips. Usually there are two or three of them, and once you undo all those, the overalls will be super loose. At that point, just lower the straps down the shoulders and shrug your way out of them, much as you would a jumpsuit or a pair of coveralls. Then just lower them like any pants. You can tuck the extra material from the straps into the legs or something, if you wish.
Yes, this does work. I've had to execute this maneuver myself when the facilities were, shall we say, not well-endowed for space. And in general, I find mucking about with a belt and all that other jazz on normal pants to be just as big a pain in the butt in cramped restroom quarters as bib overalls.
Annnnnnd, we're done here. More answers to come!
(And if you still want to ask, feel free! Just not about bodily functions and how they relate to overalls. I think I'm done writing about that. Forever.)
Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome
Oddities and Awesome abound!
:: Happy birthday, Spitzer Space Telescope! The image leading the article there was a masthead image for this blog for a while last year.
:: Behold, the Geek Zodiac.
Via.
More next week!
:: Happy birthday, Spitzer Space Telescope! The image leading the article there was a masthead image for this blog for a while last year.
:: Behold, the Geek Zodiac.
Via.
More next week!
Friday, August 23, 2013
Attack of the Revenge of Potential Cover Art!
Winding up the week with a bit of potential cover art! (For Princesses In SPACE!!!. None of these would work for GhostCop.)
For my friend Nicole
This weekend sees the departure of my church's youth director, a truly amazing and wonderful woman named Nicole, who has been there for ten years...spanning just about the entirety, thus far, of my family's association with that church. The Wife and The Daughter started going there in 2003 shortly after we moved here from our nine-month experiment with living in Syracuse; I attended sporadically until after Little Quinn was born, when...well, I felt a need then.
Anyhow, Nicole has played a part for all that time, and now, her own life is taking her to other shores, as life tends to do. Leavetaking is never easy, even it comes on the cusp of a change for which we have long wished. Dougie Maclean's song "Caledonia" speaks to this sentiment, and the various things that homesickness can bring to our hearts. You hear it in his words and in the wonderful melody, with its rises and falls; he knows that he is returning home, but even so, the farewells to those he knows wherever he is right now will be sad in themselves.
Here's Dougie Maclean.
To Nicole and her family, Sláinte mhaith!
Anyhow, Nicole has played a part for all that time, and now, her own life is taking her to other shores, as life tends to do. Leavetaking is never easy, even it comes on the cusp of a change for which we have long wished. Dougie Maclean's song "Caledonia" speaks to this sentiment, and the various things that homesickness can bring to our hearts. You hear it in his words and in the wonderful melody, with its rises and falls; he knows that he is returning home, but even so, the farewells to those he knows wherever he is right now will be sad in themselves.
Here's Dougie Maclean.
To Nicole and her family, Sláinte mhaith!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Answers, the fourth!
The answering of the questions continues. As Samuel L. Jackson said in Jurassic Park, "Hold onto your butts!"
Local activist Christopher Byrd asks:
Barring a cataclysmic event, would you be interested in being a judge at next year's Buffalo's Best Pierogi Contest?
Wow, that sounds fun! I know next to nothing about pierogi, so I hope I don't have to talk like some pompous-arsed foodie -- "I find the flavor profile of this one particularly fine, the interplay between the duck spleen and the Jamaican garlic." Let me know how this works!
Reader Josh asks:
What's your opinion of the work of T. H. White?
I only know White by one book, The Once and Future King. I love that book dearly and am probably due for a re-read. It's one of the finest treatments of the Arthurian legend ever written, and it is full of wonderful, beautifully poetic prose, with what may be the most gorgeous closing paragraphs I've ever read in any book. Other than that book, though, I'm entirely unfamiliar with White. Any recommendations?
Roger, who always asks a ton of questions, has one very pressing one among all the rest (to which I'll get in posts to come):
Who is going to win the NL Central? And will the Pirates, who have the best record in baseball at this moment, FINALLY have a winning season, first since 1992?
Longtime readers know that when I was a much more of an active baseball fan than I am now (my baseball interest is basically on life-support), my team was the Pittsburgh Pirates. I inherited this fandom from my father, and during their last run of success -- 1990 to 1992 -- he and I had some pretty nice bonding experiences watching Pirates games at local taverns. Alas, after 1992 and a money-induced purging of the roster, the Pirates went into a period of rebuilding, which failed. So they started rebuilding again in 1996 or so, and that one failed. And so on and so on, to the point where the Pirates have literally not had a team finish the season with a winning record -- minimum, 82 wins -- since 1992. Twenty years. That's not only a baseball record, it might well be a record for all sports.
The last couple years, the Pirates have started out well each year, giving the impression that maybe that was the year, but each time, they faltered badly down the back half of the season to still end up losing more than they won. This year, however, they've been consistently good for just about the entire year (after a slow couple weeks to start out). So, as of right now, this writing, their record is 74-52. They are 22 games over .500, and more importantly, in order for them to finish this year with a losing record, they would have to lose 30 games before they manage to win 8. (Well, technically 7, since a record of 81-81 is neither winning nor losing.) That would be a collapse for the ages. The sports poets would sing of that for generations to come. So, I feel somewhat confident in saying Yes, the Pittsburgh Pirates will finish the year with a winning record.
Now, as for their division...that's tougher. The Pirates currently own a one-game lead in the NL Central, over the St. Louis Cardinals. That's mostly on the strength of their pitching, which has been excellent this year. But I always have a hard time picking against experienced teams like the Cardinals. They've been in the playoffs nine times since 2000, and they were World Series champions just two years ago. I'd love to pick the Pirates, but I tend to be of the mindset that you don't pick against the defending champ until someone beats 'em. So my pick has to be the Cardinals.
I have a Twitter bet with a Braves fan, by the way: if the Braves and Pirates meet in the postseason, the fan of the team that loses has to post ten positive tweets about the team that wins. I'll have to say ten nice things about the Braves, who were, once upon a time, my baseball equivalent of the New England Patriots. Wow. How do I get myself into this stuff?
All for now! The answers shall continue!
Local activist Christopher Byrd asks:
Barring a cataclysmic event, would you be interested in being a judge at next year's Buffalo's Best Pierogi Contest?
Wow, that sounds fun! I know next to nothing about pierogi, so I hope I don't have to talk like some pompous-arsed foodie -- "I find the flavor profile of this one particularly fine, the interplay between the duck spleen and the Jamaican garlic." Let me know how this works!
Reader Josh asks:
What's your opinion of the work of T. H. White?
I only know White by one book, The Once and Future King. I love that book dearly and am probably due for a re-read. It's one of the finest treatments of the Arthurian legend ever written, and it is full of wonderful, beautifully poetic prose, with what may be the most gorgeous closing paragraphs I've ever read in any book. Other than that book, though, I'm entirely unfamiliar with White. Any recommendations?
Roger, who always asks a ton of questions, has one very pressing one among all the rest (to which I'll get in posts to come):
Who is going to win the NL Central? And will the Pirates, who have the best record in baseball at this moment, FINALLY have a winning season, first since 1992?
Longtime readers know that when I was a much more of an active baseball fan than I am now (my baseball interest is basically on life-support), my team was the Pittsburgh Pirates. I inherited this fandom from my father, and during their last run of success -- 1990 to 1992 -- he and I had some pretty nice bonding experiences watching Pirates games at local taverns. Alas, after 1992 and a money-induced purging of the roster, the Pirates went into a period of rebuilding, which failed. So they started rebuilding again in 1996 or so, and that one failed. And so on and so on, to the point where the Pirates have literally not had a team finish the season with a winning record -- minimum, 82 wins -- since 1992. Twenty years. That's not only a baseball record, it might well be a record for all sports.
The last couple years, the Pirates have started out well each year, giving the impression that maybe that was the year, but each time, they faltered badly down the back half of the season to still end up losing more than they won. This year, however, they've been consistently good for just about the entire year (after a slow couple weeks to start out). So, as of right now, this writing, their record is 74-52. They are 22 games over .500, and more importantly, in order for them to finish this year with a losing record, they would have to lose 30 games before they manage to win 8. (Well, technically 7, since a record of 81-81 is neither winning nor losing.) That would be a collapse for the ages. The sports poets would sing of that for generations to come. So, I feel somewhat confident in saying Yes, the Pittsburgh Pirates will finish the year with a winning record.
Now, as for their division...that's tougher. The Pirates currently own a one-game lead in the NL Central, over the St. Louis Cardinals. That's mostly on the strength of their pitching, which has been excellent this year. But I always have a hard time picking against experienced teams like the Cardinals. They've been in the playoffs nine times since 2000, and they were World Series champions just two years ago. I'd love to pick the Pirates, but I tend to be of the mindset that you don't pick against the defending champ until someone beats 'em. So my pick has to be the Cardinals.
I have a Twitter bet with a Braves fan, by the way: if the Braves and Pirates meet in the postseason, the fan of the team that loses has to post ten positive tweets about the team that wins. I'll have to say ten nice things about the Braves, who were, once upon a time, my baseball equivalent of the New England Patriots. Wow. How do I get myself into this stuff?
All for now! The answers shall continue!
Something for Thursday
Sometimes one needs a little sheer perfection. In that spirit, here is Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major. This work is, in my view, one of the supreme achievements in all of human art.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Answers, the third!
Just one today! But first a little backstory. Someone arrived upon my blog today by way of a search string that...well, here's what I tweeted about it:
I refused to divulge the exact and icky search string (but I did admit that it had nothing to do with Star Wars, power tools, cats, overalls, or pies-in-faces). This led a friend of mine, Scotty, to get clever:
So, for my ask me anything question-if I ask what they searched for will you answer?
Well, this is Ask Me Anything!, so I must answer the question, just as Scotty asked it. So here's the answer to the question, exactly as he asked it:
NO.
OK, more answers to come! Feel free to ask stuff, too! (Except questions about that. I think we've killed that topic pretty nicely.)
And thanks, Scotty, for the loophole!
That awkward moment when someone finds your blog using a search string that could only be used by someone searching for pr0n....
I refused to divulge the exact and icky search string (but I did admit that it had nothing to do with Star Wars, power tools, cats, overalls, or pies-in-faces). This led a friend of mine, Scotty, to get clever:
So, for my ask me anything question-if I ask what they searched for will you answer?
Well, this is Ask Me Anything!, so I must answer the question, just as Scotty asked it. So here's the answer to the question, exactly as he asked it:
OK, more answers to come! Feel free to ask stuff, too! (Except questions about that. I think we've killed that topic pretty nicely.)
And thanks, Scotty, for the loophole!
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
You're sitting down to watch your favorite movie. On your lap is a big bowl of _____, and at your side is a tall glass of _____. Fill in the blanks! (With a snack and beverage. This ain't Mad-Libs and you're not going to do the 10-year-old thing of putting 'poop' in all the blanks. I'm watching you, people!)
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Answers, the second!
UPDATE: Grammer fixed to make a sentence say what I meant!
Continuing the answering cavalcade! (And you can still ask stuff!)
Earl has a couple:
Which Do you find more offensive to pledge; one nation under God" or "with liberty and justice for all"?
That's an interesting and challenging question. In truth, I don't find either concept particularly offensive at all, although I am always struck by the way the Pledge was co-opted by conservative evangelicals in this country some years ago. I'm still astonished at the way George HW Bush managed to somehow hang the freaking Pledge of Allegiance around Michael Dukakis's neck like a damned dead albatross. Wasn't that weird?
I like the idea that we are one nation, and I like the idea of liberty and justice for all. Now, we can differ on what "liberty" means; one of the big reasons I reject libertarianism is because I think the notion of "liberty" that they hold dear is deeply suspect. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, innit? I also have trouble with "under God", mainly because the days of Americans being able to go through life assuming that everybody around them was Christian are pretty much over. Arguing over whether the Founding Fathers intended America as a Christian nation or not strikes me as generically unproductive, since I'm increasingly of the view that what the Founding Fathers wanted really shouldn't be terribly relevant to us today. Besides, there's the fact that the original version of the Pledge didn't even have "under God" in it; that was added later by Congresscritters who didn't want to appear too Red.
Ultimately, though, I find the idea of a pledge a bit daft in the first place. What's the point? Why do we bother making kids recite this thing each and every morning? My love of my country has nothing at all to do with the Pledge of Allegiance, and I generically find oaths of allegiance to be generally a waste of time.
Would you consider switching genres in your writing? Why or why not?
I fear that last night's post may have dampened this question a little, but I hope not. The answer is, obviously, yes. Or no. Ha!
It all depends on how we draw the lines of genre. Science fiction seems quite different from fantasy, although where the dividing line between the two lies has been an eternal source of debate for fans of either and both genres for decades. One of my beta readers for Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) indicated her belief that the book is actually a fantasy rather than SF, and I can see the argument; for me, it's SF but it's pretty solidly in the Star Wars end of the pool. So, did I write SF or fantasy?
Now, The Adventures of Lighthouse Boy (not the actual title), the book I started but set aside because I hadn't thought through the backstory enough, is most certainly fantasy. Or is it? The world and history are completely imaginary, but there is no magic in that world at all. None. Zero. So is it still fantasy? Hmmm!
And then there's GhostCop (not the actual title), which is, as I indicated, a supernatural thriller. Or, it's horror. Thing is, many folks put horror in with SF and fantasy! I've read quite a few horror books that are definitely horror but which are also quite proper SF. (The Stand is one good example.) So, what genre is that? I don't know.
Historical fiction is a genre that interests me, but I don't know if I'll ever have the patience to do the necessary research. There are topics that could work, though...the romance of Robert and Clara Schumann, for example, or the life of Hector Berlioz, which is a wildly cinematic life, indeed.
Last night on Facebook, a friend of mine named Mark said this:
After I saw your rewrites of movie dialogues, I thought that you might try writing a script or a play sometime.
Screenplays or plays? That's interesting. My first creative writings that I took seriously were scripts, written in grade school. They were also fan fiction. I haven't written in script format in years, though; I made the switch to prose in the late 1990s when I finally decided it was time to leave fanfic behind for good, and I've never looked back.
Well, almost.
I wrote a script a few years ago, which I often consider deleting entirely. I wrote it in an attempt to exorcise some personal demons, and...well, I'm not going to elaborate much on that. I think I could be a decent screenwriter, but my sense of things is that screenwriters have even less general chance of seeing their work produced correctly than novelists. I respect screenwriters and playwrights immensely and I like to read and study their work for storytelling insights, but I doubt I'll ever count myself among them.
OK, that's it for tonight! More answers to come!
Continuing the answering cavalcade! (And you can still ask stuff!)
Earl has a couple:
Which Do you find more offensive to pledge; one nation under God" or "with liberty and justice for all"?
That's an interesting and challenging question. In truth, I don't find either concept particularly offensive at all, although I am always struck by the way the Pledge was co-opted by conservative evangelicals in this country some years ago. I'm still astonished at the way George HW Bush managed to somehow hang the freaking Pledge of Allegiance around Michael Dukakis's neck like a damned dead albatross. Wasn't that weird?
I like the idea that we are one nation, and I like the idea of liberty and justice for all. Now, we can differ on what "liberty" means; one of the big reasons I reject libertarianism is because I think the notion of "liberty" that they hold dear is deeply suspect. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, innit? I also have trouble with "under God", mainly because the days of Americans being able to go through life assuming that everybody around them was Christian are pretty much over. Arguing over whether the Founding Fathers intended America as a Christian nation or not strikes me as generically unproductive, since I'm increasingly of the view that what the Founding Fathers wanted really shouldn't be terribly relevant to us today. Besides, there's the fact that the original version of the Pledge didn't even have "under God" in it; that was added later by Congresscritters who didn't want to appear too Red.
Ultimately, though, I find the idea of a pledge a bit daft in the first place. What's the point? Why do we bother making kids recite this thing each and every morning? My love of my country has nothing at all to do with the Pledge of Allegiance, and I generically find oaths of allegiance to be generally a waste of time.
Would you consider switching genres in your writing? Why or why not?
I fear that last night's post may have dampened this question a little, but I hope not. The answer is, obviously, yes. Or no. Ha!
It all depends on how we draw the lines of genre. Science fiction seems quite different from fantasy, although where the dividing line between the two lies has been an eternal source of debate for fans of either and both genres for decades. One of my beta readers for Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) indicated her belief that the book is actually a fantasy rather than SF, and I can see the argument; for me, it's SF but it's pretty solidly in the Star Wars end of the pool. So, did I write SF or fantasy?
Now, The Adventures of Lighthouse Boy (not the actual title), the book I started but set aside because I hadn't thought through the backstory enough, is most certainly fantasy. Or is it? The world and history are completely imaginary, but there is no magic in that world at all. None. Zero. So is it still fantasy? Hmmm!
And then there's GhostCop (not the actual title), which is, as I indicated, a supernatural thriller. Or, it's horror. Thing is, many folks put horror in with SF and fantasy! I've read quite a few horror books that are definitely horror but which are also quite proper SF. (The Stand is one good example.) So, what genre is that? I don't know.
Historical fiction is a genre that interests me, but I don't know if I'll ever have the patience to do the necessary research. There are topics that could work, though...the romance of Robert and Clara Schumann, for example, or the life of Hector Berlioz, which is a wildly cinematic life, indeed.
Last night on Facebook, a friend of mine named Mark said this:
After I saw your rewrites of movie dialogues, I thought that you might try writing a script or a play sometime.
Screenplays or plays? That's interesting. My first creative writings that I took seriously were scripts, written in grade school. They were also fan fiction. I haven't written in script format in years, though; I made the switch to prose in the late 1990s when I finally decided it was time to leave fanfic behind for good, and I've never looked back.
Well, almost.
I wrote a script a few years ago, which I often consider deleting entirely. I wrote it in an attempt to exorcise some personal demons, and...well, I'm not going to elaborate much on that. I think I could be a decent screenwriter, but my sense of things is that screenwriters have even less general chance of seeing their work produced correctly than novelists. I respect screenwriters and playwrights immensely and I like to read and study their work for storytelling insights, but I doubt I'll ever count myself among them.
OK, that's it for tonight! More answers to come!
Writing! Writing! Writing!
Behold the first word of the new Work-In-Progress, whose official Not Actual Title is...GhostCop!
Yes, I'm shifting genres and trying a supernatural thriller. No science fiction, no spaceships, no Princesses...just a normal Earth city, and the goings-on that happen there. I'm not sure what my word-count goal is for this book, but right now, I'm thinking it'll be shorter than either of the two Princesses books. Maybe 120,000 words, but as I said, I'm not sure. I may not even set a goal on this one.
And no, it's not about a cop who's a ghost. Nor is it about a ghost who's a cop. What is it about, then?
Hmmmmm....
(In other writing news, nothing new on the query front at all...but I'm sending a new wave of 'em out this weekend. And also, I had the very odd experience of dreaming about writing the other night. I almost never remember my dreams, so for all I know I dream about writing all the time, but this one was quite vivid. I dreamed that I said "Screw it!" and dove right back into editing Princesses II. What was weird is that I remember, in my dream, reading scenes that aren't in the book. Not that they should be, because they didn't make sense, but still...dreaming about it was very surreal. I take that as confirmation that my general strategy of allowing the book to fade in my consciousness for a few months is a good one.)
Monday, August 19, 2013
Answers, the first!
All right, people, let's get this ball rolling! And remember, you can still ask stuff!
A longtime reader who prefers anonymity gets us off:
Would you like to be a writer full time, or is a mix of writing and some other job ideal for you?
I desperately want to write full-time. Writing is the thing I'm best at, and if I have one major regret in life -- under the general notion that I don't really do 'regrets', as I think that most of my screw-ups have taught me something I needed to know -- it's that I spent an awful lot of time not really attacking writing all that seriously. Or when I was, I was doing it wrong. I spent too much time focusing on wrong projects, or sitting with Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) in my head on the notion that "I wasn't ready" yet for that one. Princesses is an idea that came to me in two parts, the first coming in 1999 and the second coming in 2001. I wasted ten years dragging that story around in my head. Now, maybe if I'd written it back then it wouldn't have turned out like it did...but heck, I don't know that.
I've also wondered if I spent too much time fiddling around with short fiction, which tended to dominate my writing life back in the early 2000s. My short stories tended to be long, and I remember one time I posted something to a writing-based newsgroup on USENET, along the lines of, "I can't seem to write genuine short stories! Every one I write ends up being well over 10000 words!" To which one woman, a published writer, responded, "Sounds to me like you're a novelist at heart. Write books." Did I listen to that advice? Well...not so much.
I believe that we should figure out what we're best at, and then focus like a laser on being that. I'm late to the party on this philosophy, and now I'm paying the price in terms of not being published yet. I'll get there, though.
I don't know if I'll ever get to a point where I can write full-time. But that's the goal I'm going to move toward until the day I can't write anymore. The incentives are too great. I want to do what I'm best at; I want to tell the stories that are in my head; and I want a job where I can wear overalls every single day (and let's be honest, farming and construction are unlikely at this point in my life, as much respect as I have for both).
Do you read non-fiction (e.g., history, science and nature, biographies)? If so, what do you read? Do you wish you read more?
I always wish I read more! Always always always. In fact, I'm planning to start setting limits on my Internet time and start turning off the Wifi when I need to be working -- and I'm planning to include reading time as working. It's the only sensible thing to do. No, I'm not planning to drop offline entirely, because I like the social networking stuff too much, and I also tend to think that by the time I get a book out there in one form or another, I'll have a built-in audience to start with!
As for the non-fiction I read: I always try to have some kind of nonfiction going. I like all of it, but I especially like writing that is narrative based: nonfictional storytelling that gets the factual stuff in by way of other tales taking place in and around the history. Good travel writing is wonderful for this. Reading nonfiction is essential because it gives me ideas for stories, and it gives me details from the real world that I can incorporate into my stories. Quite a lot of stuff I've read has gone into the two Princesses books already.
You know what I really don't do enough of, either? Blogging about what I read. I need to do more of that, too.
Bonnie asks:
Did you ever finish your "Battlestar Galactica" rewatch? I was wondering what you thought of the series as a whole, especially the ending.
I'm sorry to report that...no, I have't finished it. I took a break from the show, and then way lead on to way, as it does. I absolutely intend to return to it, though! I was about halfway through Season Two, I believe; they had just recovered the Arrow of Apollo and used it to find the way to Earth. I didn't stop for any reason other than I wanted a break -- I'd been watching two or three episodes a week, and I generally don't do intensive rewatches where I do marathons. I did not intend the break to get this long, though.
More answers to come! And feel free to ask more, if you like!
A longtime reader who prefers anonymity gets us off:
Would you like to be a writer full time, or is a mix of writing and some other job ideal for you?
I desperately want to write full-time. Writing is the thing I'm best at, and if I have one major regret in life -- under the general notion that I don't really do 'regrets', as I think that most of my screw-ups have taught me something I needed to know -- it's that I spent an awful lot of time not really attacking writing all that seriously. Or when I was, I was doing it wrong. I spent too much time focusing on wrong projects, or sitting with Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) in my head on the notion that "I wasn't ready" yet for that one. Princesses is an idea that came to me in two parts, the first coming in 1999 and the second coming in 2001. I wasted ten years dragging that story around in my head. Now, maybe if I'd written it back then it wouldn't have turned out like it did...but heck, I don't know that.
I've also wondered if I spent too much time fiddling around with short fiction, which tended to dominate my writing life back in the early 2000s. My short stories tended to be long, and I remember one time I posted something to a writing-based newsgroup on USENET, along the lines of, "I can't seem to write genuine short stories! Every one I write ends up being well over 10000 words!" To which one woman, a published writer, responded, "Sounds to me like you're a novelist at heart. Write books." Did I listen to that advice? Well...not so much.
I believe that we should figure out what we're best at, and then focus like a laser on being that. I'm late to the party on this philosophy, and now I'm paying the price in terms of not being published yet. I'll get there, though.
I don't know if I'll ever get to a point where I can write full-time. But that's the goal I'm going to move toward until the day I can't write anymore. The incentives are too great. I want to do what I'm best at; I want to tell the stories that are in my head; and I want a job where I can wear overalls every single day (and let's be honest, farming and construction are unlikely at this point in my life, as much respect as I have for both).
Do you read non-fiction (e.g., history, science and nature, biographies)? If so, what do you read? Do you wish you read more?
I always wish I read more! Always always always. In fact, I'm planning to start setting limits on my Internet time and start turning off the Wifi when I need to be working -- and I'm planning to include reading time as working. It's the only sensible thing to do. No, I'm not planning to drop offline entirely, because I like the social networking stuff too much, and I also tend to think that by the time I get a book out there in one form or another, I'll have a built-in audience to start with!
As for the non-fiction I read: I always try to have some kind of nonfiction going. I like all of it, but I especially like writing that is narrative based: nonfictional storytelling that gets the factual stuff in by way of other tales taking place in and around the history. Good travel writing is wonderful for this. Reading nonfiction is essential because it gives me ideas for stories, and it gives me details from the real world that I can incorporate into my stories. Quite a lot of stuff I've read has gone into the two Princesses books already.
You know what I really don't do enough of, either? Blogging about what I read. I need to do more of that, too.
Bonnie asks:
Did you ever finish your "Battlestar Galactica" rewatch? I was wondering what you thought of the series as a whole, especially the ending.
I'm sorry to report that...no, I have't finished it. I took a break from the show, and then way lead on to way, as it does. I absolutely intend to return to it, though! I was about halfway through Season Two, I believe; they had just recovered the Arrow of Apollo and used it to find the way to Earth. I didn't stop for any reason other than I wanted a break -- I'd been watching two or three episodes a week, and I generally don't do intensive rewatches where I do marathons. I did not intend the break to get this long, though.
More answers to come! And feel free to ask more, if you like!
Sentential Links
Links!
:: “My Saturday morning writer’s advice for writers: try not to get hung up on writers’ advice for writers.” (I couldn't agree more.)
:: That is why I always tell authors and writers to physically draw their action scenes. (But then, this is also pretty useful, in terms of a specific technique. I don't totally do this, but I tend to slow down a lot when I'm writing action, because I have to keep track of it all in my mind. I think I'll start doing this!)
:: Brains are interesting. Fascinating, in fact. Sometimes I think I should have been either a neuroscientist or a psychiatrist but, with the former I might have to dissect actual brains and with the latter I would have to deal with annoying, messed up people all the time, which is not one of my talents. (You see why I never decided what I want to be when I grow up?) (Dissecting? I'm there!)
:: Note that his bed is asbestos. In another panel, we see his bedspread, carpet and wallpaper are asbestos, and his furniture has been chemically treated to be fireproof. So, clearly, Johnny Storm has some pretty bad cancer.
:: We as writers are especially susceptible to anxiety because what we function through, how we move through life, is made up of our feelings and parading our vulnerabilities before the world. In a world that increasingly advises us to Harden Up and Be Tough, and where vulnerability is seen as weakness to be preyed upon and exploited, being a writer is like throwing oneself to the lions. ("You need a thick skin!" we're always told. I don't have one. Sorry, never have. What I do have is pigheaded determination. Oh yes, that I've got. Tons of, actually.)
:: I freely admit to being charmed by the little drama in today’s Family Circus. (Heavens, this is awesome!)
More next week! And I start posting answers to Ask Me Anything! questions later today, but go ahead and still ask if you want!
:: “My Saturday morning writer’s advice for writers: try not to get hung up on writers’ advice for writers.” (I couldn't agree more.)
:: That is why I always tell authors and writers to physically draw their action scenes. (But then, this is also pretty useful, in terms of a specific technique. I don't totally do this, but I tend to slow down a lot when I'm writing action, because I have to keep track of it all in my mind. I think I'll start doing this!)
:: Brains are interesting. Fascinating, in fact. Sometimes I think I should have been either a neuroscientist or a psychiatrist but, with the former I might have to dissect actual brains and with the latter I would have to deal with annoying, messed up people all the time, which is not one of my talents. (You see why I never decided what I want to be when I grow up?) (Dissecting? I'm there!)
:: Note that his bed is asbestos. In another panel, we see his bedspread, carpet and wallpaper are asbestos, and his furniture has been chemically treated to be fireproof. So, clearly, Johnny Storm has some pretty bad cancer.
:: We as writers are especially susceptible to anxiety because what we function through, how we move through life, is made up of our feelings and parading our vulnerabilities before the world. In a world that increasingly advises us to Harden Up and Be Tough, and where vulnerability is seen as weakness to be preyed upon and exploited, being a writer is like throwing oneself to the lions. ("You need a thick skin!" we're always told. I don't have one. Sorry, never have. What I do have is pigheaded determination. Oh yes, that I've got. Tons of, actually.)
:: I freely admit to being charmed by the little drama in today’s Family Circus. (Heavens, this is awesome!)
More next week! And I start posting answers to Ask Me Anything! questions later today, but go ahead and still ask if you want!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome
Oddities and Awesome abound!
:: Ahhh, training videos -- the bane of existence of everybody who has ever worked, well, anywhere. Personally, I can't stand training videos and I invariably find them a giant waste of time.
But this one, from Wendy's in the 80s, is fascinating. It's just your normal boring training video, dull-as-ditchwater, until you get to about the 3:40 mark.
:: James Garfield is the only President to prove a mathematical theorem. Now, there are two things Garfield can be known for! (The other is that he died of a gunshot wound just six months into being President.)
:: If you're on Facebook, go like a page called "Grandiloquent Word of the Day". Because then you'll get a daily dose of words-gone-by, words just waiting to be dusted off and used again, the vocabulary analogs of poor Woody in the toybox. And the words come with nifty illustrations!
:: Ahhh, training videos -- the bane of existence of everybody who has ever worked, well, anywhere. Personally, I can't stand training videos and I invariably find them a giant waste of time.
But this one, from Wendy's in the 80s, is fascinating. It's just your normal boring training video, dull-as-ditchwater, until you get to about the 3:40 mark.
:: James Garfield is the only President to prove a mathematical theorem. Now, there are two things Garfield can be known for! (The other is that he died of a gunshot wound just six months into being President.)
:: If you're on Facebook, go like a page called "Grandiloquent Word of the Day". Because then you'll get a daily dose of words-gone-by, words just waiting to be dusted off and used again, the vocabulary analogs of poor Woody in the toybox. And the words come with nifty illustrations!
More next week!
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Last call! Ask Me Anything!!!
Well, not really the last call, since I'll still accept questions, but I'll start posting answers tomorrow, so if you have any questions, get 'em in! Comment on this post (anonymous comments are accepted!), or e-mail, or on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or...you know the drill. Got a question? Ask it!
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