So, over the weekend I went out and bought a new (well, newish) Scion XB. These are boxy little cars by Toyota that get great gas mileage but also have a ton of room in them. Seriously, the head room in mine is the same as the headroom I had when I was driving around my Dad's Jeep Wagoneer. It's a funky, practical little car that I'm insanely happy with, except for the payments. Sigh. For most of my life, I've somehow managed to wrangle out of car payments, mainly due to driving one car, a Honda CRX, for 14 years and 240K miles. I would say that I drove the CRX into the ground, except that last I heard, it was still above ground an rolling. But a few years back in a moment of weakness I sold it. The CRX was a zombie car--still moving under it's own unholy power, but visibly decaying, and making strange groaning sounds. I tried to duplicate my CRX experience a few years back by bying a Honda Prelude. The Prelude proved to be somewhat less dependable than the CRX. I was constantly having to do repair work on it--new radiator, AC work, I had a mysterious oil leak, and then, two weekends ago, the whole car just died on me. The starter would turn, but the motor wouldn't start. It left me stranded on the roadside--something the CRX never did once in all the years I owned it. (The CRX did once leave me stranded in my own driveway, but that's a far more forgivable sin.) So, for a while I'd been thinking of trading in the Prelude. I had several cars I was considering, but the Scion was the one I really wanted. The Prelude had one last trick waiting for me, however. When I went to the mechanic to pick it up after it's latest repairs, it caught the back bumper of a truck as I was pulling out of a parking space and put an impossible to ignore dent in side of the car. (I know, I know, I shouldn't blame the car, it was my fault, technically.) So, in one careless second, I knocked at least a thousand bucks off the value of the car as a trade in. I could have repaired the car, but was told it would be $900--it just didn't seem worth the bother. The car had the stench of doom upon it. I shall not miss it.
My new Scion has lighted cupholders--a feature I mocked when I saw it on the Scion website--and a feature I didn't actually know I was buying, and don't believe I was charged for, since it isn't mentioned in the sales papers. It turns out, if you don't pay for them, lighted cupholders are the coolest damn thing on Earth.
EXCEPT: The actual coolest damn thing on Earth has to be the Sunset Tree, the newest Mountain Goats album. I've loved the Mountain Goats for years. John Darnielle has this terrific mixture of humor, rage, panic, and sweetness in his lyrics that I can't get enough of. The Sunset Tree. Available now. Check it out.
Finally: I've dug out "Angel Hunted," which may actually be the first James Maxey story. It's not the first story I wrote--probably at least two dozen were penned before it. But it is the first story where I can read it and see the writer I wanted to be finally coming out. It's a quirky little tale in which Albert Einstein gets into a fist fight with the angel Gabriel. Ears get bitten. It's a love story. The funny thing is, I don't think I ever submitted it anywhere. It was 13,000 words long, and I never felt that I had polished it to submission levels. Eventually, I just forgot about it. But I found it last week and read it and find it's flaws easily fixable. The basic guts of the story still work for me. Hopefully, working on another angel project will help get my mind tuned back into novel mode.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Cancer Treadmill
A few months back (in a post I've since deleted, since it was part of my angel story and I very ghoulishly intend to market the story), I mentioned my girlfriend Laura's cancer treatment. I said that the irony was it was possible to judge how well a cancer therapy was working by how healthy Laura felt--if she felt okay, and could leave a more or less normal life, the therapy wasn't doing much. If she felt crappy, barely able to get out of the bed in the morning, the therapy was nibbling away at tumors. If she feels healthy, the cancer feels healthy.
Since January, Laura has been on a hormonal therapy and has felt great. Great may be an exageration, but she felt normal, at least. She was actually able to go back to work, if only part time. Alas, the pattern has held true. During this time, the tumors have continued to grow.
So, now she's back on the cancer treadmill, starting today on a harsher chemotherapy. She'll be in the hospital almost 8 hours today, although future infusions will only take about 2 hours. Again, Laura isn't someone who wants to hear statistics or odds. I, of course, compulsively research them. The good news is, I've found success stories for the drug. Some people with stage four cancers like Laura's have gone into remission on the treatment. Some people also report having very few side effects, and can tolerate the treatment very well. So, there's always hope-this could be the one that breaks the pattern. This could be the chemo that zaps tumors and leaves the rest of her alone. The tough thing is that it takes months before we find out. They did a cat scan last month--but then they wait 3 months before doing another to check for results. It used to be that, when asked which one of Superman's powers I'd pick if I could have just one, I'd say flying. It was a no brainer. Now, though, damn, I'd give anything for his x-ray vision.
Since January, Laura has been on a hormonal therapy and has felt great. Great may be an exageration, but she felt normal, at least. She was actually able to go back to work, if only part time. Alas, the pattern has held true. During this time, the tumors have continued to grow.
So, now she's back on the cancer treadmill, starting today on a harsher chemotherapy. She'll be in the hospital almost 8 hours today, although future infusions will only take about 2 hours. Again, Laura isn't someone who wants to hear statistics or odds. I, of course, compulsively research them. The good news is, I've found success stories for the drug. Some people with stage four cancers like Laura's have gone into remission on the treatment. Some people also report having very few side effects, and can tolerate the treatment very well. So, there's always hope-this could be the one that breaks the pattern. This could be the chemo that zaps tumors and leaves the rest of her alone. The tough thing is that it takes months before we find out. They did a cat scan last month--but then they wait 3 months before doing another to check for results. It used to be that, when asked which one of Superman's powers I'd pick if I could have just one, I'd say flying. It was a no brainer. Now, though, damn, I'd give anything for his x-ray vision.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Eric Rudolph
Am I a nut to think that if Eric Rudolph had been a left wing environmental terrorist or an islamic terrorist who killed two people an injured dozens of others, he'd get the death penalty? In the plea agreement, the government said that one thing they got out of the plea was that Rudolph had agreed to reveal the location of explosives he had hidden. Isn't this dealing with terrorists? I have no proof, of course, that there was a political motive behind the plea--but Rudolph is a hero among some of the more radical right. Giving him the death penalty could have pissed off some of the more wacko Bush supporters.
This is setting aside, of course, the issue of whether the death penalty is ever justified. One can make a blanket case that no one, not even Osama Bin Laden, should be executed. But if you are going to have a death penalty, what crime is more deserving than to plant bombs designed to kill random people? His bombs sometimes had a two-stage component--they would explode once, then explode again a few minutes later after police and firemen had time to arrive. It's really tough to imagine a more loathsome sort of murder. The fact that Rudolf doesn't show any real remorse, and even sounds boastful at times, only adds to my feeling that this plea bargain is a bad one.
This is setting aside, of course, the issue of whether the death penalty is ever justified. One can make a blanket case that no one, not even Osama Bin Laden, should be executed. But if you are going to have a death penalty, what crime is more deserving than to plant bombs designed to kill random people? His bombs sometimes had a two-stage component--they would explode once, then explode again a few minutes later after police and firemen had time to arrive. It's really tough to imagine a more loathsome sort of murder. The fact that Rudolf doesn't show any real remorse, and even sounds boastful at times, only adds to my feeling that this plea bargain is a bad one.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Story doldrums
So, last Saturday night I finished the latest revisions on my novel Bitterwood. Then, Sunday, yardwork, then, Monday, I started my new job at the CPC in RTP. (One day, our language will consist of nothing but initials. But I digress.) Normally, after finishing a novel, I like to use some of my creative momentum to crank out a short story. I'm planning on starting another novel very, very soon, this week, I'd hoped, and when I'm working on novels I almost never write short stories. Since I have two sales to Asimov's now, and stories in a half dozen anthologies, I'd like to have more short work to keep out there on the market. Alas, this morning, everything fizzled. Some days, you sit down, and you are on fire, the words just flow. Other mornings, the well is dry, even if you have a fairly firm idea for the story. This morning I had a setting: The Scar. I know that China Mieville has a novel called the Scar, in a setting called the Scar, and maybe I'll have to rename my setting eventually, but right now I have this image of a nearly dead planet similar to the moon, only it's been smacked by a huge comet so hard the planet has a huge crack. (Maybe I'll call it the Crack instead of the scar.) Anyway, miners have swarmed to the planet and placed a shield over the surface of the Scar. Deep down in the crack, there's easy access to a zillion heavy metal and precious minerals. In the upper levels of the scar, there's oxygen and water left over from the comet impact, so human life is possible in this warren of houses carved into the cliffsides. The downside to life in the scar is that everyone works for the mine, and if you are fired by the mine, you are essentially dead. They have no legal obligation to feed you--basically you have to turn to crime since you can't work and can't afford a ticket off the rock, and even petty theft is punishable by death. My protagonist would be one of these men who've been fired and has to find a way to survive in such a hostile environment. He's been fired because he refused to carry out an execution of someone or other, I hadn't figured this out yet. Lots of times, this is all I'll need to start a story--a setting, and a character with a problem. A first sentence will come to me and I just plow ahead, letting momentum take me to places I didn't expect. Alas, I had several attempts at that first sentence, and nothing worked. The best I came up with was, "If I stayed on Earth, I wouldn't be a murderer, a thief, or a cannibal." Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
The Hungry Edge
Sorry for the paucity of postings lately. I've been in the final crunch on my novel Bitterwood, polishing it up to prepare for submission to publishers. I've also been working on an audio magazine called The Hungry Edge. The first episode is now live. Find it at www.codexwriters.com--there's a link to the story on the main page. I'm the host, and I'm very happy to present a terrific story by Ian Creasey called "Night Shift on the Support Line." Very funny fantasy, and Ian has a terrific voice. Check it out.
The Hungry Edge
Sorry for the paucity of postings lately. I've been in the final crunch on my novel Bitterwood, polishing it up to prepare for submission to publishers. I've also been working on an audio magazine called The Hungry Edge. The first episode is now live. Find it at www.codexwriters.com--there's a link on the main page. I'm the host, and I'm very happy to present a terrific story by Ian Creasey called "Night Shift on the Support Line." Very funny fantasy, and Ian has a terrific voice. Check it out.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
A Sign of the Apocalypse
I'm not sure if anyone notice earlier this month when the world was knocked slightly further atilt on its axis. Perhaps the world didn't shake for you, but it did for me.
On March 9, I walked into my local comic book shop and canceled all my subscriptions.
Now, to the non-geeks out there in the world, this is probably not a momentous statement. But I've been reading comic books faithfull for thirty years--three quarters of my life. I've been subscribing in some format or another for over half my life. I love comics, and have accumulated an enormous heap of the things, mostly gathered in neat rows of white boxes. There is no spot in my house where it is possible to sit down and not be within arm's reach of a comic book.
Several trends brought me to this place. First and foremost was economics. Comic books routinely cost about $3 a pop now. Special issues or "event" comics like the JLA/Avengers cross-over can cost $6 or $7 each. There was a time in the early nineties where I was following close to thirty titles--doing that today would cost me over $100 a month. Story lines in comics have swollen in recent years--a story arc lasting 6 issues is routine. A year is common. And DC just started a storyline reintroducing the Seven Soldiers that they proudly tout as running for 30 issues. Reading the entire story issue by issue will cost close to $100.
Which brings me to an issue of quality. I can't prejudge the Seven Soldiers storyline, but I'm skeptical that the story truly requires 30 issues to tell. One of the things I liked about comics was that they could cram in astonishing amounts of story into a tiny space. You could pick up an issue of Superman from the 1960s, for instance, and it might involve a plot that requires Superman to visit three different planets in the span of three pages--or even three panels. Now, his journey to another planet would take an entire issue, and his visit to the planet might be dragged out over three or four additional issues. I'll be blunt: My attention span isn't that long. More and more I find myself reading comics where I realize I've forgotten why the characters are doing whatever the hell they are doing. Say that Superman has flown to Planet X because it's the only source of a miracle medicine that's going to be save Pa Kent from an alien virus. Well, by the time the story line is in its fourth or fifth month, I'll have forgotten all about poor Pa Kent. So will the writer and the artist. They are now distracted by the alien world. Two issues later, Superman gets back with the medicine and gives it to Pa almost as an afterthought, and I'll be thinking, "Pa was sick? Since when?" There just aren't that many stories that are so compelling that I'll remember the beginning if I'm reaching the end six months later. (Some stories do deserve this space, however--I promise a future post touting some of the best.)
Of course, one thing driving this trend is that comic book storylines are now routinely collected into graphic novels. 6 to 8 issues of a book is about the right length to fill a graphic novel, so storylines swell to fill this length. And, you can read the story in one sitting--I can hold on to almost any premise for an hour. The economics of graphic novels make sense too. Eight issues of an individual comic book cost about $24--a lot of the graphic novels are priced at $12.95. And, the graphic novels are convenient if you want to reread a story--there are comics I'd be interested in rereading, but it would require me digging through my endless boxes to try to reassemble all the issues of the storyline. It's a hassle. Where as the graphic novel just sits neatly on the shelf, no ads, ready to go. And, while I've never considered myself a comic collector, only a comic accumulator, graphic novels, as reprints, require no special care to maintain collectability. You can read these things in the bathtub if you are so inclined. You can break the spines. It doesn't matter--you don't have the dread that the issue you are holding is going to suddenly explode in value ten years from now and you'll have reason to rue getting the pizza sauce on the cover.
It's a very, very rare monthly comic book that still puts out a self-contained issue. Every now and then, the JSA will pull it off with a spotlight issue on a single character. The Flash has some decent single issues every now and then. Tom Strong for a long time kept adventures to a single issue, although there have been more and more multipart stories there lately. Nothing else currently published springs to mind. (I'll also do a future post about single issue epics.) The concept of one issue equalling one story is all but dead in comics. This also means that it is impossible to jump into a series. If you hear buzz that a book you aren't reading has a new artist and writer and is really good, but the story is already three or four months old, it's too late. You'll be completely lost if you pick up an issue in the middle of a storyline, and if the book is "hot," back issues will cost insane amounts. And why bother hunting out back issues? In a year, you can pick up the graphic novel for less than you'd pay for a single collectable back issue.
There have been other trends in comics that have sapped my enjoyment over the years. Too much continuity--storylines that require that you know thirty years of character history in order to make sense of them. Not enough continuity--the willingness of some writers to simply throw out everything that has come before and just start fresh, changing anything they feel like. The fact that the more I enjoy a book seems to translate rather directly into that book being in ever greater danger of cancelation. The list of books I fell in love with only to see cancelled is a long one.
I feel a sense of guilt walking away from comic books. They are a struggling art form, with an aging and declining readership. They need my money. Alas, I feel they've stopped earning it.
On March 9, I walked into my local comic book shop and canceled all my subscriptions.
Now, to the non-geeks out there in the world, this is probably not a momentous statement. But I've been reading comic books faithfull for thirty years--three quarters of my life. I've been subscribing in some format or another for over half my life. I love comics, and have accumulated an enormous heap of the things, mostly gathered in neat rows of white boxes. There is no spot in my house where it is possible to sit down and not be within arm's reach of a comic book.
Several trends brought me to this place. First and foremost was economics. Comic books routinely cost about $3 a pop now. Special issues or "event" comics like the JLA/Avengers cross-over can cost $6 or $7 each. There was a time in the early nineties where I was following close to thirty titles--doing that today would cost me over $100 a month. Story lines in comics have swollen in recent years--a story arc lasting 6 issues is routine. A year is common. And DC just started a storyline reintroducing the Seven Soldiers that they proudly tout as running for 30 issues. Reading the entire story issue by issue will cost close to $100.
Which brings me to an issue of quality. I can't prejudge the Seven Soldiers storyline, but I'm skeptical that the story truly requires 30 issues to tell. One of the things I liked about comics was that they could cram in astonishing amounts of story into a tiny space. You could pick up an issue of Superman from the 1960s, for instance, and it might involve a plot that requires Superman to visit three different planets in the span of three pages--or even three panels. Now, his journey to another planet would take an entire issue, and his visit to the planet might be dragged out over three or four additional issues. I'll be blunt: My attention span isn't that long. More and more I find myself reading comics where I realize I've forgotten why the characters are doing whatever the hell they are doing. Say that Superman has flown to Planet X because it's the only source of a miracle medicine that's going to be save Pa Kent from an alien virus. Well, by the time the story line is in its fourth or fifth month, I'll have forgotten all about poor Pa Kent. So will the writer and the artist. They are now distracted by the alien world. Two issues later, Superman gets back with the medicine and gives it to Pa almost as an afterthought, and I'll be thinking, "Pa was sick? Since when?" There just aren't that many stories that are so compelling that I'll remember the beginning if I'm reaching the end six months later. (Some stories do deserve this space, however--I promise a future post touting some of the best.)
Of course, one thing driving this trend is that comic book storylines are now routinely collected into graphic novels. 6 to 8 issues of a book is about the right length to fill a graphic novel, so storylines swell to fill this length. And, you can read the story in one sitting--I can hold on to almost any premise for an hour. The economics of graphic novels make sense too. Eight issues of an individual comic book cost about $24--a lot of the graphic novels are priced at $12.95. And, the graphic novels are convenient if you want to reread a story--there are comics I'd be interested in rereading, but it would require me digging through my endless boxes to try to reassemble all the issues of the storyline. It's a hassle. Where as the graphic novel just sits neatly on the shelf, no ads, ready to go. And, while I've never considered myself a comic collector, only a comic accumulator, graphic novels, as reprints, require no special care to maintain collectability. You can read these things in the bathtub if you are so inclined. You can break the spines. It doesn't matter--you don't have the dread that the issue you are holding is going to suddenly explode in value ten years from now and you'll have reason to rue getting the pizza sauce on the cover.
It's a very, very rare monthly comic book that still puts out a self-contained issue. Every now and then, the JSA will pull it off with a spotlight issue on a single character. The Flash has some decent single issues every now and then. Tom Strong for a long time kept adventures to a single issue, although there have been more and more multipart stories there lately. Nothing else currently published springs to mind. (I'll also do a future post about single issue epics.) The concept of one issue equalling one story is all but dead in comics. This also means that it is impossible to jump into a series. If you hear buzz that a book you aren't reading has a new artist and writer and is really good, but the story is already three or four months old, it's too late. You'll be completely lost if you pick up an issue in the middle of a storyline, and if the book is "hot," back issues will cost insane amounts. And why bother hunting out back issues? In a year, you can pick up the graphic novel for less than you'd pay for a single collectable back issue.
There have been other trends in comics that have sapped my enjoyment over the years. Too much continuity--storylines that require that you know thirty years of character history in order to make sense of them. Not enough continuity--the willingness of some writers to simply throw out everything that has come before and just start fresh, changing anything they feel like. The fact that the more I enjoy a book seems to translate rather directly into that book being in ever greater danger of cancelation. The list of books I fell in love with only to see cancelled is a long one.
I feel a sense of guilt walking away from comic books. They are a struggling art form, with an aging and declining readership. They need my money. Alas, I feel they've stopped earning it.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
SF versus Fantasy Celebrity Smackdown!!!
Attended Stellarcon over the weekend and it was a blast. Lord have mercy, I done got geekiness all over me, not that I wasn't reeking of it before. Under one roof we had Klingons, pirates, ewoks, nameless, shambling, unspeakable horrors. Most surreal con moment: the discussion of Joseph Cambell's heroic archetypes as they apply to Pokemon.
The geeking climax for me was the panel I led called SF vs. Fantasy Celebrity Deathmatch. I matched up ten SF characters randomly with ten fantasy characters. We ran them through a round of bouts, then had several rounds of elimination free-for-all. Gandolf versus Superman, Thor versus Hulk, Dr. Who verus Dracula, Jar Jar Binks versus Peter Pan, and so forth. Winners were decided based on arguments presented by the audience. As a judge, I found myself having to render split second judgements--could Superman's heat vision hurt Sauron? Would Pikachu's lightning slow down Shrek? Could anyone beat Cthulhu? (Yes, actually--Captain Jack Sparrow, from Pirates of the Carribean, being already dead and insane, was the perfect foil for the great old one.) It was late at night, so my memory's getting fuzzy--did Buffy the Vampire slayer really kill Jar Jar Binks? Or was that Peter Pan who did him in? All I know is, Jar Jar never really stood a chance. In the final round, the undefeated champions were Gandolf and Dr. Who--and, despite my loyalty to the Doctor, the consensus of the mob was that Gandolf would win. As a geek at heart, I decided the only fair way to settle the matter was with a roll of the dice--and Gandolf took home the trophy. I spent the next hour or so haunted by the final round, wondering what I could have done differently to bring the Doctor to the victory I feel sure he deserved...
Man alive, the things I get worked up about.
The geeking climax for me was the panel I led called SF vs. Fantasy Celebrity Deathmatch. I matched up ten SF characters randomly with ten fantasy characters. We ran them through a round of bouts, then had several rounds of elimination free-for-all. Gandolf versus Superman, Thor versus Hulk, Dr. Who verus Dracula, Jar Jar Binks versus Peter Pan, and so forth. Winners were decided based on arguments presented by the audience. As a judge, I found myself having to render split second judgements--could Superman's heat vision hurt Sauron? Would Pikachu's lightning slow down Shrek? Could anyone beat Cthulhu? (Yes, actually--Captain Jack Sparrow, from Pirates of the Carribean, being already dead and insane, was the perfect foil for the great old one.) It was late at night, so my memory's getting fuzzy--did Buffy the Vampire slayer really kill Jar Jar Binks? Or was that Peter Pan who did him in? All I know is, Jar Jar never really stood a chance. In the final round, the undefeated champions were Gandolf and Dr. Who--and, despite my loyalty to the Doctor, the consensus of the mob was that Gandolf would win. As a geek at heart, I decided the only fair way to settle the matter was with a roll of the dice--and Gandolf took home the trophy. I spent the next hour or so haunted by the final round, wondering what I could have done differently to bring the Doctor to the victory I feel sure he deserved...
Man alive, the things I get worked up about.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Vomiting poet psychopath
Tomorrow's my birthday. For the last five years or so it's turned into sort of a tradition for my friend Greg and I to hit the road and travel to Cherokee, NC, where they have a casino, and, once there, do our part to recompensate the Cherokee for the awful, awful things our ancestors did to them. Also, maybe we'll win money. In which case, screw the Cherokee.
Currently, I'm actually a fair amount ahead on my lifetime winnings at Cherokee. This is because each year, I only take $100 with me to gamble with, and for the last few years I've been lucky to walk away with more than $20 of it. But, I did win a 1250 jackpot off a quarter on a trip five years ago--so I can go back for another 8 years before I'm losing money again.
These trips also involve the annual harrassment of our friend James Rice. James is somebody we went to college with many moons ago, and he is, to be blunt, insane. Not wild party animal insane, but a much more spooky and sinister, hitchhiker-chained-up-in-the-cellar insane. He's a backwoods mountain child with a history of early childhood head trauma and, somehow appropriately, a deep love of classical poetry. He works as a guard in a juvenile detention home and has scary stories to tell that will leave you forever fearful of teenage boys, if you aren't already, which you should be, trust me. And, he has a very dangerous, bizarre, and disgusting medical condition: When he laughs too hard, he vomits. Not every time, but often enough to make Greg and me flinch when we're around him. We are, it should be noted, very funny people.
The wierdest thing about James Rice, though, is that the universe seems determined to make us be friends with him. We have three James Rice encounter stories that, were they fiction, would be completely unbelievable, yet they are, I swear, true.
Chance encounter number 1: Almost ten years back, Greg was still living in Asheville. James lived in Mars Hill, about 30 miles away. I drove up to see Greg and met him downtown. They have these granite blocks lining the sidewalks downtown, and when I parallel parked, I somehow hit one of these granite blocks in such a fashion that it knocked the valve stem off my tire and gave me a flat. So, while Greg and I are fixing the flat, who should drive by and spot us but James Rice. We acknowledged this as a coincidence, and a pleasant one, since it was good to catch up with an old friend. By itself, this is an unremarkable story. These things happen.
Chance encounter number 2: So, the first coincidental encounter, no big deal. You occassionally run into people you know. But, a few years later, Greg was on the interstate in near Marion, NC, about 50 miles from Asheville. He pulled off at the rest stop there and who should he find but: James Rice, standing in the parking lot, utterly lost. James had been trying to drive to Black Mountain, NC, and had completely missed it, and had pulled off at the rest area to try to ask directions. So, this was something of a bigger coincidence, since the encounter took place far from both of their homes. Fortunately, Greg got James turned around and heading back in the right direction. It was a wierd bit of luck for James, but, again, these things happen.
Chance encounter number 3: So, the first two encounters, Greg meets James when he wasn't thinking about him. He just turned up. But, yet another time, Greg and I had both moved from Asheville. This was around the time of my first divorce, if I remember correctly, and I was heading back to Asheville to my ex-wife's house to collect some of my stuff, and Greg was along for the ride. We spent the night at a motel in Asheville. The next morning, we're up around seven in the morning, and Greg says we should call James Rice and see if he wants to get together with us for a little while that morning. The hotel charges some outrageous amount for phone calls though, so we decide to go to the mall and use the payphones there. We get to the mall and, of course, every store in it is closed. We are the only car in the parking lot. The doors are open though, and we walk inside to look for the payphones. And, in the vast main hallway, at the far end, there is a lone figure walking toward us. We walk toward him. And, when we get close enough to see who it is, it turns out to be: Elvis Presley. Wait, no, that was a typo. It's James Rice apparently acting under the commands of whatever demons drive him to show up at the mall hours before any stores open and walk around for a while until we show up. So, again, pure chance, pure coincidence, but by now, we understand a pattern has formed. We are tied to this wierd vomiting poet psycopath--the universe will not let us avoid him, not that we were trying too.
So, off we go, flinging ourselves once more into the North Carolina mountains, land of strange odds and general wierdness, hoping that this year, we'll win the big one, a jackpot that will forever change our lives, or at least payoff a credit card. And, failing that, we will settle for the smaller goal, the hope that, perhaps, this year, we will not witness vomiting.
Currently, I'm actually a fair amount ahead on my lifetime winnings at Cherokee. This is because each year, I only take $100 with me to gamble with, and for the last few years I've been lucky to walk away with more than $20 of it. But, I did win a 1250 jackpot off a quarter on a trip five years ago--so I can go back for another 8 years before I'm losing money again.
These trips also involve the annual harrassment of our friend James Rice. James is somebody we went to college with many moons ago, and he is, to be blunt, insane. Not wild party animal insane, but a much more spooky and sinister, hitchhiker-chained-up-in-the-cellar insane. He's a backwoods mountain child with a history of early childhood head trauma and, somehow appropriately, a deep love of classical poetry. He works as a guard in a juvenile detention home and has scary stories to tell that will leave you forever fearful of teenage boys, if you aren't already, which you should be, trust me. And, he has a very dangerous, bizarre, and disgusting medical condition: When he laughs too hard, he vomits. Not every time, but often enough to make Greg and me flinch when we're around him. We are, it should be noted, very funny people.
The wierdest thing about James Rice, though, is that the universe seems determined to make us be friends with him. We have three James Rice encounter stories that, were they fiction, would be completely unbelievable, yet they are, I swear, true.
Chance encounter number 1: Almost ten years back, Greg was still living in Asheville. James lived in Mars Hill, about 30 miles away. I drove up to see Greg and met him downtown. They have these granite blocks lining the sidewalks downtown, and when I parallel parked, I somehow hit one of these granite blocks in such a fashion that it knocked the valve stem off my tire and gave me a flat. So, while Greg and I are fixing the flat, who should drive by and spot us but James Rice. We acknowledged this as a coincidence, and a pleasant one, since it was good to catch up with an old friend. By itself, this is an unremarkable story. These things happen.
Chance encounter number 2: So, the first coincidental encounter, no big deal. You occassionally run into people you know. But, a few years later, Greg was on the interstate in near Marion, NC, about 50 miles from Asheville. He pulled off at the rest stop there and who should he find but: James Rice, standing in the parking lot, utterly lost. James had been trying to drive to Black Mountain, NC, and had completely missed it, and had pulled off at the rest area to try to ask directions. So, this was something of a bigger coincidence, since the encounter took place far from both of their homes. Fortunately, Greg got James turned around and heading back in the right direction. It was a wierd bit of luck for James, but, again, these things happen.
Chance encounter number 3: So, the first two encounters, Greg meets James when he wasn't thinking about him. He just turned up. But, yet another time, Greg and I had both moved from Asheville. This was around the time of my first divorce, if I remember correctly, and I was heading back to Asheville to my ex-wife's house to collect some of my stuff, and Greg was along for the ride. We spent the night at a motel in Asheville. The next morning, we're up around seven in the morning, and Greg says we should call James Rice and see if he wants to get together with us for a little while that morning. The hotel charges some outrageous amount for phone calls though, so we decide to go to the mall and use the payphones there. We get to the mall and, of course, every store in it is closed. We are the only car in the parking lot. The doors are open though, and we walk inside to look for the payphones. And, in the vast main hallway, at the far end, there is a lone figure walking toward us. We walk toward him. And, when we get close enough to see who it is, it turns out to be: Elvis Presley. Wait, no, that was a typo. It's James Rice apparently acting under the commands of whatever demons drive him to show up at the mall hours before any stores open and walk around for a while until we show up. So, again, pure chance, pure coincidence, but by now, we understand a pattern has formed. We are tied to this wierd vomiting poet psycopath--the universe will not let us avoid him, not that we were trying too.
So, off we go, flinging ourselves once more into the North Carolina mountains, land of strange odds and general wierdness, hoping that this year, we'll win the big one, a jackpot that will forever change our lives, or at least payoff a credit card. And, failing that, we will settle for the smaller goal, the hope that, perhaps, this year, we will not witness vomiting.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Good-bye, Hunter.
I can't say I'm shocked to learn that Hunter S. Thompson has taken his own life. If one tenth of the stuff in his books is true, he was addicted to self-destruction for a long time now. You can't read "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and not recognize a man driven by demons. Ah, but what demons.
By chance, I re-read Fear and Loathing last week. This was probably my sixth or seventh re-read--plus, I've seen the movie a half dozen times, and used to have a seriously abridged book on tape version of the story. No matter what the format, I always, always laughed at the line, "Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it?" When asked what my favorite novel is, I never even hesitate.
I have spent much time analyzing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, trying to figure out what makes it magic, at least to me. HST's other works never did much for me. Hell's Angels was interesting, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72 was barely readable, Better than Sex had its moments. I always felt like Thompson was trying hard to recapture something in his later works, the mad energy that dances through FLLV, the manic depressive absurd stupid wise worldview that makes it seem perfectly logical to contemplate getting your hands on a pineal gland and taking a big bite out of it, just to see what it will do to you. The chapter "A Horrible Experience with Terribly Dangerous Drugs" resonates with me like no other words ever put on the page--and why? I've never taken drugs, illegal ones anyway. Despite the occasional joke about it, I really don't drink--I'm too cheap to go to a bar and spend $50 on booze in one sitting. I can't stand the smell of beer. I'll occasionally have a margarita or a bloody mary, but seldom more than one in a sitting. To my knowledge, I've never been legally drunk.
So, again, why? Why would a story about a man overdosing on drugs until he experiences complete mental and physical collapse strike me as so funny? Why do I identify with the character? Why do I think, "Yeah, I know how THAT feels!"
I think the closest thing to magic in this world comes through the process of creation. Whether painting, singing, building a birdhouse, writing--in the best moments you tap into something, something Thompson called "the main nerve," and you practically vibrate with the power of pulling something out of nothing. And I think Thompson was tapped in during those moments he was writing Fear and Loathing. I think he surrendered himself to the act of creation and woke up with this strange and wonderful manuscript in his hands, then spent the rest of the life trying to figure out the how and why himself. I've felt it--I've had moments when I'm writing when I vanish--the story already exists--it's simply borrowing me to bring itself into the world. And the terrible thing about these moments is how wonderful they are--and how rare. You never know when the words you are typing will catch fire, come to life, become poetry instead of mere language. If you go for a long time without one of these moments, it haunts you. You are left wondering if it will ever come again, that magic, that power.
I suspect Thompson was one of the most haunted men on Earth.
I hope I'm completely wrong about the afterlife. I hope that every religion is wrong as well. I hope that Heaven is open to anyone. I am so often wrong about so many things. Good luck, Hunter. I hope Heaven is full of typewriters when you get there.
By chance, I re-read Fear and Loathing last week. This was probably my sixth or seventh re-read--plus, I've seen the movie a half dozen times, and used to have a seriously abridged book on tape version of the story. No matter what the format, I always, always laughed at the line, "Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it?" When asked what my favorite novel is, I never even hesitate.
I have spent much time analyzing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, trying to figure out what makes it magic, at least to me. HST's other works never did much for me. Hell's Angels was interesting, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72 was barely readable, Better than Sex had its moments. I always felt like Thompson was trying hard to recapture something in his later works, the mad energy that dances through FLLV, the manic depressive absurd stupid wise worldview that makes it seem perfectly logical to contemplate getting your hands on a pineal gland and taking a big bite out of it, just to see what it will do to you. The chapter "A Horrible Experience with Terribly Dangerous Drugs" resonates with me like no other words ever put on the page--and why? I've never taken drugs, illegal ones anyway. Despite the occasional joke about it, I really don't drink--I'm too cheap to go to a bar and spend $50 on booze in one sitting. I can't stand the smell of beer. I'll occasionally have a margarita or a bloody mary, but seldom more than one in a sitting. To my knowledge, I've never been legally drunk.
So, again, why? Why would a story about a man overdosing on drugs until he experiences complete mental and physical collapse strike me as so funny? Why do I identify with the character? Why do I think, "Yeah, I know how THAT feels!"
I think the closest thing to magic in this world comes through the process of creation. Whether painting, singing, building a birdhouse, writing--in the best moments you tap into something, something Thompson called "the main nerve," and you practically vibrate with the power of pulling something out of nothing. And I think Thompson was tapped in during those moments he was writing Fear and Loathing. I think he surrendered himself to the act of creation and woke up with this strange and wonderful manuscript in his hands, then spent the rest of the life trying to figure out the how and why himself. I've felt it--I've had moments when I'm writing when I vanish--the story already exists--it's simply borrowing me to bring itself into the world. And the terrible thing about these moments is how wonderful they are--and how rare. You never know when the words you are typing will catch fire, come to life, become poetry instead of mere language. If you go for a long time without one of these moments, it haunts you. You are left wondering if it will ever come again, that magic, that power.
I suspect Thompson was one of the most haunted men on Earth.
I hope I'm completely wrong about the afterlife. I hope that every religion is wrong as well. I hope that Heaven is open to anyone. I am so often wrong about so many things. Good luck, Hunter. I hope Heaven is full of typewriters when you get there.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
More Dead Ends
This was actually the start of a 45k word novella that I've never shown anyone:
Story one:
Chase was so far from normal values now that the first thought that sprang into his mind when his old friend Jazz at last showed up in his darkened bedroom was “He doesn’t know I could kill him.” And Chase could have killed him. Not that he wanted to kill Jazz. He actually felt a great deal of affection toward this former friend. But, as a matter of fact, as a simple reality as basic as “the sun rises in the east” or “two plus two equals four,” Chase could have killed Jazz before Jazz had even opened his mouth.
1. A bullet. Chase had a small pistol tucked into his waist band. Jazz was six feet away, across the bed. He couldn’t possibly miss.
2. A garrote. An obvious choice, given that he did have neighbors and some things, such as killing an old friend who has come to beg your help because you are the last person in the world he can turn to, should be kept quiet.
3. Defenistration. Just stun Jazz with a judo chop then toss him out the window. They were ten floors up.
4. Knife.
5. Pin him to the floor. Prop open his mouth. Pour in lye.
6. Hit him, and keep hitting him, and keep hitting him until his internal organs were mush.
I don't know what I was thinking. Chase is some kind of top secret CIA killing machine, Jazz is a cyberterrorist. It was just stupid.
Story two:
God created us all, with memories and everything, ten minutes ago.
This is a line all by itself in a file. I was reflecting on the arguments that some creation scientists use to explain away the apparent age of the Earth and the Universe, an argument that boils down to, basicly, God created them to look old and fool us. So I had an idea for a story where God had thrown a tantrum, destroyed the universe, then rebuilt it "in progress" ten minutes ago. And . . . that's all I ever had. No plot, no characters, nothing but the premise. Occasionally, I'll write a sentence like this and it's sort of an act of faith, that once you get to the end of the sentence, another sentence will come, then another, and another, and before you know it, you have a story. My story "Empire of Dreams and Miracles" essentially happened this way. Alas, sometimes you are just left with the one sentence.
Story three:
Zach, the vegan hillbilly hairdresser died first, during a space walk. Lance, the gay, decorated marine Captain of the expedition, had argued that the space walk served no purpose, that it added nothing to the mission.
"We had a twenty percent drop in audience last week," Betty, the producer, had explained. "You guys can't simply sit in the tin can all the way to the moon. The audience needs some action."
The footage from the space walk looked like Dullsville for the first ten minutes. Then the meteor--some theorized it was a 40 year old bolt from MIR--had caught Zach square in the middle his thigh, coming out the other side, puncturing his suit. He screamed for seven minutes while they reeled him in. Sashay, the mixed race transgendered strip artist with the forked tongue had joked that Zach would be fine, anyone who could scream like that had plenty of air.
Zach went silent as they were pressurizing the airlock. Lance was at his side in the lock, along with Tommi, the born-again blonde surfer from the American Heartland. When the pressure normalized and they pulled off Zach's helmet, there was no pulse. Tommi started CPR while Lance cut away Zach's suit. The bolt had severed an artery. Cutting the suit away proved slippery work. The camera caught the beads of sweat dripping from Lance's face. In the end, it was all for nothing. Zach had simply lost too much blood.
Tommi leaned back against the airlock door, wiped her face with a bloody hand, and cried.
Lance recited as much of the Lord's prayer as he could remember as he closed Zach's eyes.
Then he sagged against the wall, staring at the camera for a moment, before popping open a can of Real Cola and taking a deep swig.
Ratings gold.
Real Moon pulled in a 57% share that week.
I stole this idea from my friend Mr. Cavin, who envisioned a reality TV show about a journey to mars. I made the idea a little closer to home, something that could plausibly be launched in the next year or two. Seven strangers on the moon. Real World meets Lost in Space. Oh, and the whole thing is sponsored by a product known as Real Cola. Before I started typing this story, I was certain I had a golden idea, a sure-fire sell. Alas, two pages in I was bored with the characters. My plot involved them getting to the moon and being so imcompetent at food production that they eventually turn to canibalism. I might salvage the plot as a running joke in an upcoming novel--this is one of the characters favorite shows or something. But for now, it's a dead story.
Story one:
Chase was so far from normal values now that the first thought that sprang into his mind when his old friend Jazz at last showed up in his darkened bedroom was “He doesn’t know I could kill him.” And Chase could have killed him. Not that he wanted to kill Jazz. He actually felt a great deal of affection toward this former friend. But, as a matter of fact, as a simple reality as basic as “the sun rises in the east” or “two plus two equals four,” Chase could have killed Jazz before Jazz had even opened his mouth.
1. A bullet. Chase had a small pistol tucked into his waist band. Jazz was six feet away, across the bed. He couldn’t possibly miss.
2. A garrote. An obvious choice, given that he did have neighbors and some things, such as killing an old friend who has come to beg your help because you are the last person in the world he can turn to, should be kept quiet.
3. Defenistration. Just stun Jazz with a judo chop then toss him out the window. They were ten floors up.
4. Knife.
5. Pin him to the floor. Prop open his mouth. Pour in lye.
6. Hit him, and keep hitting him, and keep hitting him until his internal organs were mush.
I don't know what I was thinking. Chase is some kind of top secret CIA killing machine, Jazz is a cyberterrorist. It was just stupid.
Story two:
God created us all, with memories and everything, ten minutes ago.
This is a line all by itself in a file. I was reflecting on the arguments that some creation scientists use to explain away the apparent age of the Earth and the Universe, an argument that boils down to, basicly, God created them to look old and fool us. So I had an idea for a story where God had thrown a tantrum, destroyed the universe, then rebuilt it "in progress" ten minutes ago. And . . . that's all I ever had. No plot, no characters, nothing but the premise. Occasionally, I'll write a sentence like this and it's sort of an act of faith, that once you get to the end of the sentence, another sentence will come, then another, and another, and before you know it, you have a story. My story "Empire of Dreams and Miracles" essentially happened this way. Alas, sometimes you are just left with the one sentence.
Story three:
Zach, the vegan hillbilly hairdresser died first, during a space walk. Lance, the gay, decorated marine Captain of the expedition, had argued that the space walk served no purpose, that it added nothing to the mission.
"We had a twenty percent drop in audience last week," Betty, the producer, had explained. "You guys can't simply sit in the tin can all the way to the moon. The audience needs some action."
The footage from the space walk looked like Dullsville for the first ten minutes. Then the meteor--some theorized it was a 40 year old bolt from MIR--had caught Zach square in the middle his thigh, coming out the other side, puncturing his suit. He screamed for seven minutes while they reeled him in. Sashay, the mixed race transgendered strip artist with the forked tongue had joked that Zach would be fine, anyone who could scream like that had plenty of air.
Zach went silent as they were pressurizing the airlock. Lance was at his side in the lock, along with Tommi, the born-again blonde surfer from the American Heartland. When the pressure normalized and they pulled off Zach's helmet, there was no pulse. Tommi started CPR while Lance cut away Zach's suit. The bolt had severed an artery. Cutting the suit away proved slippery work. The camera caught the beads of sweat dripping from Lance's face. In the end, it was all for nothing. Zach had simply lost too much blood.
Tommi leaned back against the airlock door, wiped her face with a bloody hand, and cried.
Lance recited as much of the Lord's prayer as he could remember as he closed Zach's eyes.
Then he sagged against the wall, staring at the camera for a moment, before popping open a can of Real Cola and taking a deep swig.
Ratings gold.
Real Moon pulled in a 57% share that week.
I stole this idea from my friend Mr. Cavin, who envisioned a reality TV show about a journey to mars. I made the idea a little closer to home, something that could plausibly be launched in the next year or two. Seven strangers on the moon. Real World meets Lost in Space. Oh, and the whole thing is sponsored by a product known as Real Cola. Before I started typing this story, I was certain I had a golden idea, a sure-fire sell. Alas, two pages in I was bored with the characters. My plot involved them getting to the moon and being so imcompetent at food production that they eventually turn to canibalism. I might salvage the plot as a running joke in an upcoming novel--this is one of the characters favorite shows or something. But for now, it's a dead story.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Dead Ends
Sorry about the long gap in posts. Last week, I actually posted thirteen blog entries on the codexwriters blog, as part of a challenge to myself to write about thirteen angels in thirteen hours. I yanked them all down 24 hours later, chopped six angels and made a short story out of the entries called "Seven Angels."
So, in a sense, six of my angels were stillborn. Stories I started (and in some cases, finished) that will never again see light. The proportion is about right, though--I would say that about 45% of my story ideas never make it to a draft I'm willing to show anyone. I'll be all fired up and excited about them for a few hours, even a few days, but by the time I've written a few pages it all falls apart. Frequently, I'll even finish the damn things, only to realize later that they are hopeless, and no amount of tweaks or rewrites could ever save them.
Inspired by Luc Reid, who just published one of his aborted story beginnings on the Codex blog, I've decided to post some of these dead stories, or at least the opening lines. This ties in nicely with my earlier posts on ghost words. Because, in some ways, these are ghost stories--stories written but never read, or started but never finished.
On my desktop computer, I just trolled through the My Documents folder and found 13 dead stories. I know I have far more on my two laptops or hiding on old back-up CD's of my last few desktop computers. Still, even 13 seems like too many to feed you all at once. So, here are three story openings that no one ever got to read....
Story one:
Gen.1
1 In the R&D phase, God proactively initiated the implementation of the systems and processes that established Heaven, and its vertically integrated wholly owned subsidiary, Earth.
2 God commissioned a study of the feasibility of luminous emissions, then implemented luminous emissions.
3 God oversaw the development of Earth production systems.
4 God became the leading provider of grain and fruit solutions, vegetation-wise.
5 Animals were given the go-ahead by R&D, successfully cornering the market on meat and meat by-products.
6 God studied the balance sheet and declared Earth a win-win situation.
I went on like this at some length until Genisis 1:26, when God says to Adam, "You're fired!"
Somehow, it struck me as funny to rewrite the Bible in business-speak, but business-speak is so awful I can't quite lower myself far enough down to write it well. This is more a project for Scott Adams, I think. Godbert and Snakebert. Adam with glasses and a crew cut.
Story two:
An angry, full grown male can punch and kick his way through drywall in a couple of minutes. Locking him in the bedroom isn’t the same as locking him in a jail cell. These walls which seem so impenetrable and permanent are nothing but paper and gypsum, well suited for holding in insulation, hiding wires, and holding frames that display happy families—but they aren’t meant to hold back anger. They crumble and fail when confronted with rage.
This was from a story called "Papa Snorted Demons." It was a story of an abusive father who worked in a mine where there were demons trapped in the rocks. The miners would dig out the rocks, take them to an old witch woman in the woods, and have them ground into glowing spirits the kept in vials. They would snort the spirits in and get the strength to go back into the mines, strong as ten men, although the demons also made them mean and abusive. Alas, the story never jelled for me in a modern setting, where the father could kick through the drywall. I tried telling the story with more of a folk-tale voice, something from a the backwoods centuries ago, but it didn't hold my interest. And, after two runs at the idea, the whole thing felt too much like a dumb allegory for drug abuse. So, I let it die. No one has ever seen either version of the story.
Story three:
Look, I’m not going to step outside of this salt circle.
I know it’s strange. I know this is crazy. I know you’ve got dead people in the lobby and you need some answers.
Start jotting some of this down. You’ll never believe me unless you verify this. The first thing you’ll need to check out is this place about 40 miles east of here called Zeke’s Antiques. Down in my truck I have a sheet of paper in the dashboard with directions and a phone number. Get it and they can prove that we were there earlier today, about three in the afternoon.
Zeke’s probably isn’t in the yellow pages. I don’t know how Bud found it. It looked like it had been a barn at one time, a barn that got piled full of junk over the years until somebody, presumably Zeke, decided to put an antiques sign on it. Bud was fidgety with excitement as we pulled up to the place, but he put on his poker face once we got out of the truck. Inside, an Astroturf floor that had been laid down right over raw dirt. The place was packed with old farm tools, plows and pitchforks red with rust, the wooden handles pale gray and cracked with age. The whole place stank of cigarettes and dust.
This was another demon story. Bud is an obsessive collector and my unnamed narrator is his best friend. Bud got to thinking about the three monkeys--See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil. He wonders how they became so famous. He tracks back their origins, and finds that PT Barnum used to display three stuffed monkeys he'd acquired from a shrine in Japan. Bud tracks down the shrine in Japan, and discovers that the Three Monkeys were the avatars of some hideous monkey demon god who was the embodiment of pure evil. (No one is ever the embodiment of so-so evil.) Bud keeps hunting, and finds the PT Barnum stuffed monkey's at this antique shop. Later, he pulls away the hands and finds emeralds in the eye sockets of See No Evil. Rubies in the ears of Hear no Evil. A diamond in the mouth of Speak No Evil.
Bud then is compelled to jam the gems into various facial orifices and becomes the horrible monkey god. I never quite figured out what comes next, which was it's fatal flaw. I felt like I had a decent beginning and middle, but never could come up with an ending that wasn't tiresome. So, Bud's a demon monkey god now. The story could end there, but so what? Then its just a tiresome old horror story where the adventurer tampers with forces beyond his ken and winds up unleashing evil on the world. Ho hum. Or, it could end with nameless best friend besting the evil monkey god and saving Bud. But, again, ho hum. I never thought of the punchline or twist that would make the story worth telling.
Okay, I said three, but I'll give you a bonus. I have on my computer a file with the name "Dead Mimes. " I opened it. It read, in total:
dead mimes
promoting website
suddenly rich
Well, I'm sure it was a good idea at the time....
So, in a sense, six of my angels were stillborn. Stories I started (and in some cases, finished) that will never again see light. The proportion is about right, though--I would say that about 45% of my story ideas never make it to a draft I'm willing to show anyone. I'll be all fired up and excited about them for a few hours, even a few days, but by the time I've written a few pages it all falls apart. Frequently, I'll even finish the damn things, only to realize later that they are hopeless, and no amount of tweaks or rewrites could ever save them.
Inspired by Luc Reid, who just published one of his aborted story beginnings on the Codex blog, I've decided to post some of these dead stories, or at least the opening lines. This ties in nicely with my earlier posts on ghost words. Because, in some ways, these are ghost stories--stories written but never read, or started but never finished.
On my desktop computer, I just trolled through the My Documents folder and found 13 dead stories. I know I have far more on my two laptops or hiding on old back-up CD's of my last few desktop computers. Still, even 13 seems like too many to feed you all at once. So, here are three story openings that no one ever got to read....
Story one:
Gen.1
1 In the R&D phase, God proactively initiated the implementation of the systems and processes that established Heaven, and its vertically integrated wholly owned subsidiary, Earth.
2 God commissioned a study of the feasibility of luminous emissions, then implemented luminous emissions.
3 God oversaw the development of Earth production systems.
4 God became the leading provider of grain and fruit solutions, vegetation-wise.
5 Animals were given the go-ahead by R&D, successfully cornering the market on meat and meat by-products.
6 God studied the balance sheet and declared Earth a win-win situation.
I went on like this at some length until Genisis 1:26, when God says to Adam, "You're fired!"
Somehow, it struck me as funny to rewrite the Bible in business-speak, but business-speak is so awful I can't quite lower myself far enough down to write it well. This is more a project for Scott Adams, I think. Godbert and Snakebert. Adam with glasses and a crew cut.
Story two:
An angry, full grown male can punch and kick his way through drywall in a couple of minutes. Locking him in the bedroom isn’t the same as locking him in a jail cell. These walls which seem so impenetrable and permanent are nothing but paper and gypsum, well suited for holding in insulation, hiding wires, and holding frames that display happy families—but they aren’t meant to hold back anger. They crumble and fail when confronted with rage.
This was from a story called "Papa Snorted Demons." It was a story of an abusive father who worked in a mine where there were demons trapped in the rocks. The miners would dig out the rocks, take them to an old witch woman in the woods, and have them ground into glowing spirits the kept in vials. They would snort the spirits in and get the strength to go back into the mines, strong as ten men, although the demons also made them mean and abusive. Alas, the story never jelled for me in a modern setting, where the father could kick through the drywall. I tried telling the story with more of a folk-tale voice, something from a the backwoods centuries ago, but it didn't hold my interest. And, after two runs at the idea, the whole thing felt too much like a dumb allegory for drug abuse. So, I let it die. No one has ever seen either version of the story.
Story three:
Look, I’m not going to step outside of this salt circle.
I know it’s strange. I know this is crazy. I know you’ve got dead people in the lobby and you need some answers.
Start jotting some of this down. You’ll never believe me unless you verify this. The first thing you’ll need to check out is this place about 40 miles east of here called Zeke’s Antiques. Down in my truck I have a sheet of paper in the dashboard with directions and a phone number. Get it and they can prove that we were there earlier today, about three in the afternoon.
Zeke’s probably isn’t in the yellow pages. I don’t know how Bud found it. It looked like it had been a barn at one time, a barn that got piled full of junk over the years until somebody, presumably Zeke, decided to put an antiques sign on it. Bud was fidgety with excitement as we pulled up to the place, but he put on his poker face once we got out of the truck. Inside, an Astroturf floor that had been laid down right over raw dirt. The place was packed with old farm tools, plows and pitchforks red with rust, the wooden handles pale gray and cracked with age. The whole place stank of cigarettes and dust.
This was another demon story. Bud is an obsessive collector and my unnamed narrator is his best friend. Bud got to thinking about the three monkeys--See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil. He wonders how they became so famous. He tracks back their origins, and finds that PT Barnum used to display three stuffed monkeys he'd acquired from a shrine in Japan. Bud tracks down the shrine in Japan, and discovers that the Three Monkeys were the avatars of some hideous monkey demon god who was the embodiment of pure evil. (No one is ever the embodiment of so-so evil.) Bud keeps hunting, and finds the PT Barnum stuffed monkey's at this antique shop. Later, he pulls away the hands and finds emeralds in the eye sockets of See No Evil. Rubies in the ears of Hear no Evil. A diamond in the mouth of Speak No Evil.
Bud then is compelled to jam the gems into various facial orifices and becomes the horrible monkey god. I never quite figured out what comes next, which was it's fatal flaw. I felt like I had a decent beginning and middle, but never could come up with an ending that wasn't tiresome. So, Bud's a demon monkey god now. The story could end there, but so what? Then its just a tiresome old horror story where the adventurer tampers with forces beyond his ken and winds up unleashing evil on the world. Ho hum. Or, it could end with nameless best friend besting the evil monkey god and saving Bud. But, again, ho hum. I never thought of the punchline or twist that would make the story worth telling.
Okay, I said three, but I'll give you a bonus. I have on my computer a file with the name "Dead Mimes. " I opened it. It read, in total:
dead mimes
promoting website
suddenly rich
Well, I'm sure it was a good idea at the time....
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Seven More Angels
Solethiel, angel of sensible shoes.
Raznagoth, angel of power lines.
Abrazel, angel of of highways.
Volilov, angel of mirrors.
Yynynyn, angel of internet chat rooms.
Murdnorion, angel of headaches.
Chalbaziel, angel of making old men feel useful.
Raznagoth, angel of power lines.
Abrazel, angel of of highways.
Volilov, angel of mirrors.
Yynynyn, angel of internet chat rooms.
Murdnorion, angel of headaches.
Chalbaziel, angel of making old men feel useful.
Seven Angels
Zaviel, angel of the whirlwind.
Curaniel, angel of Monday.
Akriel, angel of barrenness.
Zalbesael, angel of the rainy season.
Yaasriel, angel of pencils.
Abalidoth, angel of sexuality.
Jeduthan, angel of howling.
Curaniel, angel of Monday.
Akriel, angel of barrenness.
Zalbesael, angel of the rainy season.
Yaasriel, angel of pencils.
Abalidoth, angel of sexuality.
Jeduthan, angel of howling.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Disturbing news
The most disturbing story of the week has to be the widely published report that fidgeting can help lose weight. The conclusions don't disturb me--I think it's swell that you can lose weight by wiggling your toes and scratching your nose more often. What's disturbing is that researchers measured the fidgeting of the test subjects using what has been described as sensor-laden, high-tech underwear that recorded all movements and downloaded the data into a computer each day.
So.
It has come to this.
Thousands of years of technology has brought us underwear capable of spying on us. Orwell is spinning in his grave. At least, that's what his boxers tell us.
So.
It has come to this.
Thousands of years of technology has brought us underwear capable of spying on us. Orwell is spinning in his grave. At least, that's what his boxers tell us.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Lucifer takes the fall
In my last post, I talked about "ghost words," words that entered the dictionary by mistake. There is a very common ghost word that became well established in our language--a ghost name, to be more accurate.
Almost everyone has heard of Lucifer, and knows him to be one of the fallen angels, indeed, the leader of the fallen angels, as famously portrayed in Milton's "Paradise Lost."
Lately, I've been doing research into angels and fallen angels, in preparation for a new novel. The novel will be using a Biblical mythology--it's set in a universe very like our own, only it really was created in seven days about five thousand years ago. Angels and devils play major roles in the plot, as the Judgment Day draws ever nearer. One thing that confused me about the Biblical fallen angels was the identity of the devil. Was the devil Lucifer, or Satan, or were they actually the same character?
Lucifer appears only once in the Bible. His name is variously translated as Lucifer or Morningstar, and is identified with the planet Venus. The relevant passage is Isaiah 14:12. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!" Yet, in context, it is plain that Lucifer isn't a name, it's a title. The author is addressing Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. It's like referring to Louis XIV as the Sun King--Isaiah is saying that Nebuchadnezzar is riding pretty high and mighty right now, the brightest star in they sky, but that being up that high is only setting him up for a bigger fall.
St. Jerome, translating Isaiah from Hebrew to Latin in the 4th century, made the choice to use the word Lucifer, meaning "Light Bringer", and not long after, Lucifer began to seep into Christian mythology as a fallen angel. By the time that Milton wrote "Paradise Lost," it was well established that Lucifer was the devil--all due to a simple misreading.
So, Lucifer as a fallen angel stands out as a "ghost word" that made it big--a mistake that caught on, eventually taking on more life than its literal meaning of Venus or metaphorical meaning of Nebuchadnezzar. The chief fallen angel of popular culture not only didn't rebel against God, he didn't even exist!
I was building up to a joke about Lucifer being the ultimate fall guy, but now it no longer strikes me as funny.
So. Never mind.
Almost everyone has heard of Lucifer, and knows him to be one of the fallen angels, indeed, the leader of the fallen angels, as famously portrayed in Milton's "Paradise Lost."
Lately, I've been doing research into angels and fallen angels, in preparation for a new novel. The novel will be using a Biblical mythology--it's set in a universe very like our own, only it really was created in seven days about five thousand years ago. Angels and devils play major roles in the plot, as the Judgment Day draws ever nearer. One thing that confused me about the Biblical fallen angels was the identity of the devil. Was the devil Lucifer, or Satan, or were they actually the same character?
Lucifer appears only once in the Bible. His name is variously translated as Lucifer or Morningstar, and is identified with the planet Venus. The relevant passage is Isaiah 14:12. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!" Yet, in context, it is plain that Lucifer isn't a name, it's a title. The author is addressing Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. It's like referring to Louis XIV as the Sun King--Isaiah is saying that Nebuchadnezzar is riding pretty high and mighty right now, the brightest star in they sky, but that being up that high is only setting him up for a bigger fall.
St. Jerome, translating Isaiah from Hebrew to Latin in the 4th century, made the choice to use the word Lucifer, meaning "Light Bringer", and not long after, Lucifer began to seep into Christian mythology as a fallen angel. By the time that Milton wrote "Paradise Lost," it was well established that Lucifer was the devil--all due to a simple misreading.
So, Lucifer as a fallen angel stands out as a "ghost word" that made it big--a mistake that caught on, eventually taking on more life than its literal meaning of Venus or metaphorical meaning of Nebuchadnezzar. The chief fallen angel of popular culture not only didn't rebel against God, he didn't even exist!
I was building up to a joke about Lucifer being the ultimate fall guy, but now it no longer strikes me as funny.
So. Never mind.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Ghost Words
I have just stumbled across the concept of "ghost words." There are two definitions I've found floating around on the internet. The first, most common definition of a ghost word is of a word that is found in a dictionary as a result of a mistake, persisting for many years and many different editions as dictionary editors copy from one another. The example I found on Snopes.com was the strange history of the word "dord." Dord appeared for a while in Websters with the definition of "density." Of course, no one has ever used to word "dord" to mean density, or to mean anything else, for that matter. The word slipped in as a mistaken reading of a note card. In scientific equations, density is sometimes represented as "d" or "D." So, the compilers had a note card that read, "D or d / density." A little sloppy handwriting, some shoddy proofreading, and poof, a new word was born, a word never spoken or written.
A second use of ghost word refers to the word roots that are common in our language, words that only exist when they are modified. For instance, we can retain, detain, attain, and contain, but tain by itself is meaningless. Some people are ruthless, some are feckless, but nobody ever possesses the presumably noble qualities of "ruth" or "feck." Since feckless means weak or ineffective, I deduce (reduce, conduce) that feck would mean strong. So, right-wingers might proudly proclaim, "Since George Bush became President, America has been fecked like it's never been fecked before." Lovely. I'm certain there's an actual dictionary term for these root words other than "ghost words," but my BA in English is twenty years old at this point, and the warranty has expired.
I find the concept of ghost words to be haunting, especially in regards to the first definition. The idea of an unwanted and unneeded word stirs something in my writer's soul. What a sad and lonely fate for a word, to sprout briefly in the forest of words, only to be plowed back under. I plan to keep my eyes wide open for them now, in hopes that I might find and nurture one into full flower.
A second use of ghost word refers to the word roots that are common in our language, words that only exist when they are modified. For instance, we can retain, detain, attain, and contain, but tain by itself is meaningless. Some people are ruthless, some are feckless, but nobody ever possesses the presumably noble qualities of "ruth" or "feck." Since feckless means weak or ineffective, I deduce (reduce, conduce) that feck would mean strong. So, right-wingers might proudly proclaim, "Since George Bush became President, America has been fecked like it's never been fecked before." Lovely. I'm certain there's an actual dictionary term for these root words other than "ghost words," but my BA in English is twenty years old at this point, and the warranty has expired.
I find the concept of ghost words to be haunting, especially in regards to the first definition. The idea of an unwanted and unneeded word stirs something in my writer's soul. What a sad and lonely fate for a word, to sprout briefly in the forest of words, only to be plowed back under. I plan to keep my eyes wide open for them now, in hopes that I might find and nurture one into full flower.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
I TRIED BAPTIZING MY KEYBOARD IN BLOOD, AND NOW IT'S STUCK IN ALL CAPS...
The current issue of the SF and Fantasy Workshop newsletter has an interview by Hildy Silverman with editor John Ordover. Ordover is currently editor-in-chief of Phobos, and was formerly executive editor of the Star Trek fiction line for Pocket Books. It's an interesting interview on a number of points, talking about common mistakes writers make that get their manuscripts rejected within the first fifty pages, or even on the first page. Buried within the article, though, is this question: "When should a writer fight for his ideas and when should he relent?" Ordover answers: "Ideas are the least important part of a novel or story - the execution is the most important thing."
This is a pretty provocative statement. Ordover then goes on to give the example of Moby Dick, where he describes the driving idea as a "sea captain who is pissed off because a whale ate his foot." "Idea" is, I admit, a fuzzy word. If a layman asks an author, "Where do you get your ideas?" they typically mean, "How did you think up the premise of the story?" It's possible that Ordover is answering on the assumption that "idea" means "premise." But I'm not sure why an author would fight for a premise--it seems more like the sort of thing that is either accepted or rejected. Usually, if you change the premise, you change the entire story. The ideas of the story that an author would fight for seem to me to be the themes and opinions they've woven into the story. They are the big questions about life the author is hoping to answer, or at least ask artfully, through the work.
First, let me concede that, from a publisher and editors standpoint, when it comes to "big question" ideas, Ordover's probably right. A publishing house can take an existing property like Star Trek and crank out a dozen books a year by different authors and the ideas within the books don't influence sales. You very rarely run into people who say, "I read the latest Star Trek novel and it changed the way I look at the world. Ever since reading it, I've really been thinking about the way I live my own life." The selling points to these books are the formulas--settings people already love, featuring characters they already know, following plotlines that always return the major characters and settings back to the status quo. Perhaps some major character will change in some small way--Spock or Data may understand just a tiny bit more what it means to be human. Of course, come the next story, they've forgotten the lesson, but that's beside the point. From a pure money making point of view, ideas aren't terribly important. They are, at best, just another commodity that helps promote a book, and, at worst, annoying distractions that turn authors into pain-in-the-ass prima donas.
So, ideas aren't really important from the business side of publishing. Are they important to writers? Again, from a business perspective, probably not. There are very few authors who build careers around idea-driven books. Most rely on craftsmanship and formula to create satisfying reads. You don't read Stephen King looking for ideas or opinions that will expand your world-view. You read him because he's an expert craftsman with a proven track record of building stories with engaging characters, settings, and plots. This isn't a slam against King, or against the authors who write Star Trek novels, or against Ordover. After all, I'm a comic book junkie. Comic books are some of the most formulaic literature on the planet. I don't read them looking for ideas that are going to change my world view. I read them for entertainment, and feel I get my money's worth. Learning to write within formulas that sell is actually a remarkable artistic achievement. When I think about comic book authors, I'm astonished that anyone can write a story that always fits perfectly into the allotted 22 pages, month after month on an unforgiving deadline. To me, it demonstrates a mastery of an artistic form, the way a poet might master the form of a sonnet. The same can be said of TV sitcoms, or mystery novels, or romance novels, or any of a thousand other popular forms of writing that are looked down upon by literary snobs.
Still, there is something ironic about the Ordover's choice of Moby Dick as an example of why ideas aren't important. I would argue that Moby Dick is a perfect example of a story that endures because of the ideas within its pages, rather than simply because of its execution. We read the story 150 years after Melville penned it because of what the novel tells us about life's struggles, about doomed causes, about nature. Despite Moby Dick's skin color, this isn't a novel with set in a simple black and white world. Ahab is driven by such dark forces that he surrenders his soul, baptizing a harpoon in blood and devoting it to the devil. He pursues the whale with blind obsession and doesn't care who dies in his quest. Yet when the boy Pippin falls from a boat and loses his mind while drifting for hours in the vast, infinite ocean, Ahab shows great compassion and personally cares for the boy. Ahab is in pursuit of something greater than himself, and in the pursuit he becomes a greater force than those who surround him. The novel does have a virtuous character--Ahab's first mate, Starbucks. Starbucks is a devout Christian who provides the only voice of opposition to Ahab--yet, in the end, Starbucks, too vanishes into the sea. Virtuous or vile, pure or corrupt, no man is great enough to survive the inevitable collision with Moby Dick.
Perhaps I have a soft spot for doomed men who will sacrifice everything in blind pursuit of the unobtainable. I'm chasing after a career in writing fiction--a difficult goal that has led many men to a bad end on the rocks of financial disaster. But, deeper down, beyond chasing the career, I'm chasing something more. I'm chasing my own Moby Dick. I'm chasing after a book that will endure for centuries, a book that can change the world, or at least help explain the world. I want my ideas to still be debated long after I'm gone. This is the dream that keeps me coming back to the keyboard, time and time again. The pursuit not of immediate success, but of lasting greatness.
One final note. While writing this blog entry, I pulled up an internet article on Moby Dick to refresh my memory on character names. I didn't trust my memory that the boy who fell into the sea was named Pippin. I was paranoid that my pop-culture saturated brain was sneaking in the British kid from South Park. While looking through the list of characters in Moby Dick, I note that the description of the first mate Starbuck contains these observations: "Starbuck is alone among the crew in objecting to Ahab's quest, declaring it madness to want revenge on an animal that lacks the capacity to understand such human concepts. Starbuck's Coffee is named after him."
Perhaps this is the way of all things. A great novel is written, and its eventual lasting legacy is a kudzu-like chain of coffee-shops. There's probably an idea for a novel there somewhere....
This is a pretty provocative statement. Ordover then goes on to give the example of Moby Dick, where he describes the driving idea as a "sea captain who is pissed off because a whale ate his foot." "Idea" is, I admit, a fuzzy word. If a layman asks an author, "Where do you get your ideas?" they typically mean, "How did you think up the premise of the story?" It's possible that Ordover is answering on the assumption that "idea" means "premise." But I'm not sure why an author would fight for a premise--it seems more like the sort of thing that is either accepted or rejected. Usually, if you change the premise, you change the entire story. The ideas of the story that an author would fight for seem to me to be the themes and opinions they've woven into the story. They are the big questions about life the author is hoping to answer, or at least ask artfully, through the work.
First, let me concede that, from a publisher and editors standpoint, when it comes to "big question" ideas, Ordover's probably right. A publishing house can take an existing property like Star Trek and crank out a dozen books a year by different authors and the ideas within the books don't influence sales. You very rarely run into people who say, "I read the latest Star Trek novel and it changed the way I look at the world. Ever since reading it, I've really been thinking about the way I live my own life." The selling points to these books are the formulas--settings people already love, featuring characters they already know, following plotlines that always return the major characters and settings back to the status quo. Perhaps some major character will change in some small way--Spock or Data may understand just a tiny bit more what it means to be human. Of course, come the next story, they've forgotten the lesson, but that's beside the point. From a pure money making point of view, ideas aren't terribly important. They are, at best, just another commodity that helps promote a book, and, at worst, annoying distractions that turn authors into pain-in-the-ass prima donas.
So, ideas aren't really important from the business side of publishing. Are they important to writers? Again, from a business perspective, probably not. There are very few authors who build careers around idea-driven books. Most rely on craftsmanship and formula to create satisfying reads. You don't read Stephen King looking for ideas or opinions that will expand your world-view. You read him because he's an expert craftsman with a proven track record of building stories with engaging characters, settings, and plots. This isn't a slam against King, or against the authors who write Star Trek novels, or against Ordover. After all, I'm a comic book junkie. Comic books are some of the most formulaic literature on the planet. I don't read them looking for ideas that are going to change my world view. I read them for entertainment, and feel I get my money's worth. Learning to write within formulas that sell is actually a remarkable artistic achievement. When I think about comic book authors, I'm astonished that anyone can write a story that always fits perfectly into the allotted 22 pages, month after month on an unforgiving deadline. To me, it demonstrates a mastery of an artistic form, the way a poet might master the form of a sonnet. The same can be said of TV sitcoms, or mystery novels, or romance novels, or any of a thousand other popular forms of writing that are looked down upon by literary snobs.
Still, there is something ironic about the Ordover's choice of Moby Dick as an example of why ideas aren't important. I would argue that Moby Dick is a perfect example of a story that endures because of the ideas within its pages, rather than simply because of its execution. We read the story 150 years after Melville penned it because of what the novel tells us about life's struggles, about doomed causes, about nature. Despite Moby Dick's skin color, this isn't a novel with set in a simple black and white world. Ahab is driven by such dark forces that he surrenders his soul, baptizing a harpoon in blood and devoting it to the devil. He pursues the whale with blind obsession and doesn't care who dies in his quest. Yet when the boy Pippin falls from a boat and loses his mind while drifting for hours in the vast, infinite ocean, Ahab shows great compassion and personally cares for the boy. Ahab is in pursuit of something greater than himself, and in the pursuit he becomes a greater force than those who surround him. The novel does have a virtuous character--Ahab's first mate, Starbucks. Starbucks is a devout Christian who provides the only voice of opposition to Ahab--yet, in the end, Starbucks, too vanishes into the sea. Virtuous or vile, pure or corrupt, no man is great enough to survive the inevitable collision with Moby Dick.
Perhaps I have a soft spot for doomed men who will sacrifice everything in blind pursuit of the unobtainable. I'm chasing after a career in writing fiction--a difficult goal that has led many men to a bad end on the rocks of financial disaster. But, deeper down, beyond chasing the career, I'm chasing something more. I'm chasing my own Moby Dick. I'm chasing after a book that will endure for centuries, a book that can change the world, or at least help explain the world. I want my ideas to still be debated long after I'm gone. This is the dream that keeps me coming back to the keyboard, time and time again. The pursuit not of immediate success, but of lasting greatness.
One final note. While writing this blog entry, I pulled up an internet article on Moby Dick to refresh my memory on character names. I didn't trust my memory that the boy who fell into the sea was named Pippin. I was paranoid that my pop-culture saturated brain was sneaking in the British kid from South Park. While looking through the list of characters in Moby Dick, I note that the description of the first mate Starbuck contains these observations: "Starbuck is alone among the crew in objecting to Ahab's quest, declaring it madness to want revenge on an animal that lacks the capacity to understand such human concepts. Starbuck's Coffee is named after him."
Perhaps this is the way of all things. A great novel is written, and its eventual lasting legacy is a kudzu-like chain of coffee-shops. There's probably an idea for a novel there somewhere....
Monday, January 10, 2005
Excuses
I acknowledge that a ten day gap in my blog postings isn't the best way to build readership. What can I say? The new year started with an unexpected plot twist--warm weather for the first week of January. Temperatures topped out around 75 on my days off last week, after highs in the 30s and 40s a week before. So, part of the reason I didn't blog is that I was outside enjoying the weather.
Excuse number two: The tsumani. I'm someone who likes debating contentious issues in the news, but the tsunami pretty much swallowed all other news stories for the last two weeks. There's been some political sniping as a result of this, like people saying Bush was too stingy or too slow. I've found a few left-wing conspiracies that the US caused the tragedy via our underwater test of sonar or something equally nonsensical. A few right wing sites tried to show how the tsunami fits in with Biblical prophecy. I view all of this with a certain weariness. Tragedies happen. People die for absolutely no good reason at all. There is no larger meaning or purpose behind the deaths of these people. It's difficult for some people to accept this, but not accepting it doesn't change things.
Excuse number three: I've been reading a lot. One of my New Year's resolutions was to start reading books again. It used to be a rare week in my life when I didn't spend a few hours in a library and exit with a tall stack of books. During most of the 90's, I didn't own a television, and I was reading several books a week on a wide variety of subjects. Then, several things happened that cut back my reading rate from several books a week to maybe one or two a month. First, a few years back I moved to the sticks, a small town called Stokesdale that didn't have a library. There was a county library, but it was small and anemic and had crappy weekend hours. Second, I got a television, intending mainly to watch movies, although slowly TV began to once more eat up more and more of my time. Third, the internet finally got good. For the first 35 years of my life, if I wanted to find out more about a historical figure, or some scientific theory, or whatever, I went to a library. Now, if I want to know something, I google. Instant satisfaction to my knowledge cravings. I don't think I read less than I used to, on the whole. It's just that what I read isn't printed on paper. But, at least for this year, I'm going to consciously fight this trend. Books are my friends. I'm sorry I've neglected them.
Excuse number 4: I'm obsessed with matters too trivial to discuss. For instance: Lightbulbs. A month or so ago, I found some lightbulbs in a local store and I couldn't believe the price on them--a four pack was only $1. This is half the price of what I normally pay, so of course, I snatched them up. They were Poloroid light bulbs--a familiar brand name I don't normally associate with light bulbs, but I know the company has hit hard times with its camera business, and light bulbs seem like a fairly easy spin off business to move into. They must have either been manufacturing flash bulbs, or dealing with supliers who did. The low price didn't surprise me--light bulbs are century old at this point. Their manufacturing process must be as simple and straightforward as any electronic component can possibly be. The cost of materials can't be much either--a few pennies worth of sand, a little tin, a little copper. There's probably plenty of profit margin even selling these things at a quarter each. And, really, how bad can a light bulb be? PRETTY DAMN BAD, it turns out. Seriously, I threw my money away on these things. They burn out in a week or two, tops. I've had them burn out instantly when I first screw them in and turn on the power. I bought three boxes, 12 bulbs, and I've now run through the lot of them, and will never be tempted to buy Poloroid light bulbs again. I've been obsessed with this for several weeks. It almost seems like Polaroid must have somehow tinkered with the manufacturing process to purposefully make light bulbs that sucked this much. They figured a higher burnout rate would increase profits by increasing consumption, maybe. I really was tempted to write a letter demanding my $3 back, but it just seems too petty and trivial. It's certainly a topic too petty and trivial to devote a longish paragraph in a blog too, isn't it? I'm not going to waste anyone's time writing a rant about crappy light bulbs.
But, seriously, don't buy them.
Excuse number two: The tsumani. I'm someone who likes debating contentious issues in the news, but the tsunami pretty much swallowed all other news stories for the last two weeks. There's been some political sniping as a result of this, like people saying Bush was too stingy or too slow. I've found a few left-wing conspiracies that the US caused the tragedy via our underwater test of sonar or something equally nonsensical. A few right wing sites tried to show how the tsunami fits in with Biblical prophecy. I view all of this with a certain weariness. Tragedies happen. People die for absolutely no good reason at all. There is no larger meaning or purpose behind the deaths of these people. It's difficult for some people to accept this, but not accepting it doesn't change things.
Excuse number three: I've been reading a lot. One of my New Year's resolutions was to start reading books again. It used to be a rare week in my life when I didn't spend a few hours in a library and exit with a tall stack of books. During most of the 90's, I didn't own a television, and I was reading several books a week on a wide variety of subjects. Then, several things happened that cut back my reading rate from several books a week to maybe one or two a month. First, a few years back I moved to the sticks, a small town called Stokesdale that didn't have a library. There was a county library, but it was small and anemic and had crappy weekend hours. Second, I got a television, intending mainly to watch movies, although slowly TV began to once more eat up more and more of my time. Third, the internet finally got good. For the first 35 years of my life, if I wanted to find out more about a historical figure, or some scientific theory, or whatever, I went to a library. Now, if I want to know something, I google. Instant satisfaction to my knowledge cravings. I don't think I read less than I used to, on the whole. It's just that what I read isn't printed on paper. But, at least for this year, I'm going to consciously fight this trend. Books are my friends. I'm sorry I've neglected them.
Excuse number 4: I'm obsessed with matters too trivial to discuss. For instance: Lightbulbs. A month or so ago, I found some lightbulbs in a local store and I couldn't believe the price on them--a four pack was only $1. This is half the price of what I normally pay, so of course, I snatched them up. They were Poloroid light bulbs--a familiar brand name I don't normally associate with light bulbs, but I know the company has hit hard times with its camera business, and light bulbs seem like a fairly easy spin off business to move into. They must have either been manufacturing flash bulbs, or dealing with supliers who did. The low price didn't surprise me--light bulbs are century old at this point. Their manufacturing process must be as simple and straightforward as any electronic component can possibly be. The cost of materials can't be much either--a few pennies worth of sand, a little tin, a little copper. There's probably plenty of profit margin even selling these things at a quarter each. And, really, how bad can a light bulb be? PRETTY DAMN BAD, it turns out. Seriously, I threw my money away on these things. They burn out in a week or two, tops. I've had them burn out instantly when I first screw them in and turn on the power. I bought three boxes, 12 bulbs, and I've now run through the lot of them, and will never be tempted to buy Poloroid light bulbs again. I've been obsessed with this for several weeks. It almost seems like Polaroid must have somehow tinkered with the manufacturing process to purposefully make light bulbs that sucked this much. They figured a higher burnout rate would increase profits by increasing consumption, maybe. I really was tempted to write a letter demanding my $3 back, but it just seems too petty and trivial. It's certainly a topic too petty and trivial to devote a longish paragraph in a blog too, isn't it? I'm not going to waste anyone's time writing a rant about crappy light bulbs.
But, seriously, don't buy them.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Atheism as Faith
I am about to confess something that will drive my fellow atheists crazy: I am an atheist by faith. Many, if not most, atheist pride themselves that their ideas are based firmly in rational thought. The godless universe is a logical bit of clockwork, comprehensible and explainable through laws of nature. The god-based view of the universe is in defiance of logic and reason. It persists through emotional appeal, or perhaps unquestioned tradition, the momentum of all of human history carrying the idea of God forward despite all evidence to the contrary.
I'm not going to dispute these basic premises. I do believe that the universe is comprehensible through natural laws. I do believe that religion persists mainly through momentum. But, the key word in these sentences that can't be ignored is "believe."
I've been reading the Bible a lot lately, as research for my next novel. I've been muddling through Revelations, and have come to regard the experience as similar to the way I felt about Naked Lunch--it has some interesting images and poetry, but as a coherent narrative, it's a bit lacking. I'm not incompetent as a reader--I would actually rate myself rather proficient. I'm not a Bible scholar, but I was raised in the church--it's not like the Bible is a book I'm completely unfamiliar with. If I'm left so befuddled, I can't help but wonder how many Christians really understand the Bible from a direct reading, and how many rely on authority to interpret it for them. They don't know and understand Revelations because they've read it, but because they've been told about it by people they trust, by people they assume to be smart enough and studied enough to understand the words. Trust is often just a matter of gut. A preacher tells you that the Lord is coming soon, and the righteous shall be rewarded, and the wicked punished, and it just feels right deep in your gut. It makes sense.
Is this really so different from the way I understand science? I confess--I have no direct understanding of quantum mechanics, or relativity, or genetics. I can sit and read a book on evolution by Stephen Jay Gould and follow it with no problem--but when I actually try reading the science journals directly, I am utterly lost. I've read a dozen books about relativity, and I get the broad strokes--but, if asked to explain it to some one, I wouldn't be able to explain the actual theory--I'd be explaining the analogies and metaphors that I've read that explained the theory to me. I could talk about clocks on trains and spaceships turning on thier headlights, but if you asked me to pull out a calculator and actually start doing the math to prove Einstein grokked the universe, I'm in over my head. So, a lot of the scientific world view, I take on faith, trusting that other people have the time, energy, and brain power to truly comprehend things that are slightly above my head, yet make sense to me in my gut. The narrative of science, a world created by chance events, unfolding over almost incomprehensible scales of space and time, feels right to me. I believe it without deeply understanding it. I trust that it's possible to go to the Galapagos and study Darwin's finches, but I haven't, and I'm pretty sure I won't. Again, I trust that the scientists who have studied this are telling the truth about what they've found.
Before I get flamed by atheists, let me say that I'm not claiming that science is faith based. I know that science is full of checks and balances, peer reviews, and expiriments that prove or support the theories advanced by science. I'm just saying that when I talk about these things, I find myself appealing to authority, and using the word "belief" a lot.
And, if God can be embraced purely by faith alone, why can't atheism also be a purely faith-based choice? You can believe in faith without believing in God. At least, I believe you can.
I'm not going to dispute these basic premises. I do believe that the universe is comprehensible through natural laws. I do believe that religion persists mainly through momentum. But, the key word in these sentences that can't be ignored is "believe."
I've been reading the Bible a lot lately, as research for my next novel. I've been muddling through Revelations, and have come to regard the experience as similar to the way I felt about Naked Lunch--it has some interesting images and poetry, but as a coherent narrative, it's a bit lacking. I'm not incompetent as a reader--I would actually rate myself rather proficient. I'm not a Bible scholar, but I was raised in the church--it's not like the Bible is a book I'm completely unfamiliar with. If I'm left so befuddled, I can't help but wonder how many Christians really understand the Bible from a direct reading, and how many rely on authority to interpret it for them. They don't know and understand Revelations because they've read it, but because they've been told about it by people they trust, by people they assume to be smart enough and studied enough to understand the words. Trust is often just a matter of gut. A preacher tells you that the Lord is coming soon, and the righteous shall be rewarded, and the wicked punished, and it just feels right deep in your gut. It makes sense.
Is this really so different from the way I understand science? I confess--I have no direct understanding of quantum mechanics, or relativity, or genetics. I can sit and read a book on evolution by Stephen Jay Gould and follow it with no problem--but when I actually try reading the science journals directly, I am utterly lost. I've read a dozen books about relativity, and I get the broad strokes--but, if asked to explain it to some one, I wouldn't be able to explain the actual theory--I'd be explaining the analogies and metaphors that I've read that explained the theory to me. I could talk about clocks on trains and spaceships turning on thier headlights, but if you asked me to pull out a calculator and actually start doing the math to prove Einstein grokked the universe, I'm in over my head. So, a lot of the scientific world view, I take on faith, trusting that other people have the time, energy, and brain power to truly comprehend things that are slightly above my head, yet make sense to me in my gut. The narrative of science, a world created by chance events, unfolding over almost incomprehensible scales of space and time, feels right to me. I believe it without deeply understanding it. I trust that it's possible to go to the Galapagos and study Darwin's finches, but I haven't, and I'm pretty sure I won't. Again, I trust that the scientists who have studied this are telling the truth about what they've found.
Before I get flamed by atheists, let me say that I'm not claiming that science is faith based. I know that science is full of checks and balances, peer reviews, and expiriments that prove or support the theories advanced by science. I'm just saying that when I talk about these things, I find myself appealing to authority, and using the word "belief" a lot.
And, if God can be embraced purely by faith alone, why can't atheism also be a purely faith-based choice? You can believe in faith without believing in God. At least, I believe you can.
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