It's the last day of the year. OMG so many things that just didn't get done, and the house is a sty and the family are descending in T minus 85 minutes and it is 40 degrees. I've sloshed out of the tub of cold water I was quelling the heat induced nausea in, and reeled around the house wondering if I should put my mobile in the fridge (do you think when it is so hot that all the interior surfaces of the house are at greater than blood heat it's a good idea to put important pieces of tech into a cool place?).
But I digress.
So what exactly did get done in 2008? Well, there was 52 weekly paycheques collected. Pass Go! Thank you very much Sheltered Workshop. 59 books read (Percentage trash approx 80%) which is not great, but not really despicable either. 14 hours spent doing yoga - that's pathetic. Really pathetic. Weight lost - unknown. Gave up tracking that in August. There's a lesson in that, if only I could understand it. 10 films seen at the cinema (it feels like less, but at least I made it into double digits - enough to stay moderately in touch with popular culture). All bills paid, all contracts fulfilled, all obligations met.
87 blog posts, 18 ooo words for Nano and enough emails to paper the moon.
Best experience was seeing Neil Gaiman in May (thanks everyone who made that special treat happen) at Kinokuniya and Kev saying Sorry.
Look it's not much of a review, I know that. I'm grateful for all the good things that happened and that my house is flood-proof and the widow-maker has only crippled the clothesline. Not bad for a year of natural catastrophes. Everyone in the family still has their limbs and air travel is still possible. Frankly I'm stoked.
May 2009 bring everybody more nice moments (I'd like more hugs this year) and less crappy shit. Yes, that is a tautology, sorry.
May your sovereign state stay solvent.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Too many Days
The 28TH of December poses a real and present danger to the capitalist way of life and should be dispensed with under the Keynesian Laws of Market Stimulus (1927).
This problematic day creates a hiccup in the smooth flow of capital from the proletariat to the businesses of escape and should either be commercialised or excised. The major investment poured over the decades into creating a day of massive consumption (code name "Christmas") and the corresponding after party (Code name "Boxing Day" - both 'sales' and movie premiers) has been inordinately successful. The use of all subsequent days as lead-ups to New Year's Eve and the increasing commercialisation of this event is being undermined by the subversive elements within Dec28TH and this cannot be allowed to escalate and put at risk all that we have achieved.
Situation Report
Undercover agents have again reported unacceptable behaviours on this day such as the vague and somnambulistic questioning the value of ongoing consumption of disposable consumer items, public expressions of symptoms and sensations of boredom, even a desire to connect with other non-familial humans without the purchase of special clothes or equipment in order to do so, and most problematically, some were seen to take a long walk on this day and to read a non-fiction book when they returned. Obviously this is not yet a crisis, indeed may of these behaviours are part of the cultural legacy inherited by the system from the previous historical construct. They are weakening overall but the cabal feel that at this juncture of the dominance of global capital such outbursts constitute a warning sign. This undercurrent of unease could be used by the rebel forces to politicise and activate currently placid consumers. That risk is unacceptable.
The Decimal Option
A further investment of funds into a fresh event is always possible. However analysis suggests that both December and January are sufficiently subscribed to meet requirement. Many other months are desperately under-subscribed, entire quarters in some instances (August, September, October for example remain barren of all but the weakest events. Despite ongoing investment and marketing application, Father's Day remains sluggish against expectations). This presents an opportunity to instigate a radical re-visioning of the year as we know it in line with some other goals of the cabal. Let's be honest - 365 has always been an unwieldy number. Non-decimal, pagan, geo-centric it represents a psychologically uncontrollable random element to life and commerce. Frankly, it's just annoying. Twelve months is two too many. Seven days a week - WTF? - let's make it 5 or 10 and neaten up the whole calendar business. The year would be much more manageable at, say 200 or 250 days length. Each month would then have a perfect four or five weeks (at a 5 day length) and in the course of two comparative centuries, we would accrue an extra 92 Christmases (using the larger 250 day a year model, results are even more dramatic at the 200 day a year rate). Thus creating an increase in the rate of return on investment for cabal members that I'm sure will be persuasive in and of itself.
On the Front Foot
There's simply no downside to this option, and at this point in history we have the power, the reach, the will and the advertising budget to pull it off. So many of our niggling and accruing problems would be dealt with through this one rational measure. There are simply too many days in the year, and it is time we handled it. Time we created a tighter, pacier year that zips and flows from one major celebration to the next. It is time for this cabal to shine the digital decimal light of market forces onto the slapshod rambling world and really rip some returns for our shareholders. Analysis suggests that implementation costs would actually function as a market stimulus (much as we've recognised that the targeted and deliberate reduction in carbon emissions would). I urge the cabal to get on the front foot and do it now while they're on their knees from the 'credit crunch' (you've got to hand it to our marketing department and their snappy names) and then as a reward we can ease the reins a little. What we lose in control of the crunch will be nothing to what we gain in the big matrix.
This problematic day creates a hiccup in the smooth flow of capital from the proletariat to the businesses of escape and should either be commercialised or excised. The major investment poured over the decades into creating a day of massive consumption (code name "Christmas") and the corresponding after party (Code name "Boxing Day" - both 'sales' and movie premiers) has been inordinately successful. The use of all subsequent days as lead-ups to New Year's Eve and the increasing commercialisation of this event is being undermined by the subversive elements within Dec28TH and this cannot be allowed to escalate and put at risk all that we have achieved.
Situation Report
Undercover agents have again reported unacceptable behaviours on this day such as the vague and somnambulistic questioning the value of ongoing consumption of disposable consumer items, public expressions of symptoms and sensations of boredom, even a desire to connect with other non-familial humans without the purchase of special clothes or equipment in order to do so, and most problematically, some were seen to take a long walk on this day and to read a non-fiction book when they returned. Obviously this is not yet a crisis, indeed may of these behaviours are part of the cultural legacy inherited by the system from the previous historical construct. They are weakening overall but the cabal feel that at this juncture of the dominance of global capital such outbursts constitute a warning sign. This undercurrent of unease could be used by the rebel forces to politicise and activate currently placid consumers. That risk is unacceptable.
The Decimal Option
A further investment of funds into a fresh event is always possible. However analysis suggests that both December and January are sufficiently subscribed to meet requirement. Many other months are desperately under-subscribed, entire quarters in some instances (August, September, October for example remain barren of all but the weakest events. Despite ongoing investment and marketing application, Father's Day remains sluggish against expectations). This presents an opportunity to instigate a radical re-visioning of the year as we know it in line with some other goals of the cabal. Let's be honest - 365 has always been an unwieldy number. Non-decimal, pagan, geo-centric it represents a psychologically uncontrollable random element to life and commerce. Frankly, it's just annoying. Twelve months is two too many. Seven days a week - WTF? - let's make it 5 or 10 and neaten up the whole calendar business. The year would be much more manageable at, say 200 or 250 days length. Each month would then have a perfect four or five weeks (at a 5 day length) and in the course of two comparative centuries, we would accrue an extra 92 Christmases (using the larger 250 day a year model, results are even more dramatic at the 200 day a year rate). Thus creating an increase in the rate of return on investment for cabal members that I'm sure will be persuasive in and of itself.
On the Front Foot
There's simply no downside to this option, and at this point in history we have the power, the reach, the will and the advertising budget to pull it off. So many of our niggling and accruing problems would be dealt with through this one rational measure. There are simply too many days in the year, and it is time we handled it. Time we created a tighter, pacier year that zips and flows from one major celebration to the next. It is time for this cabal to shine the digital decimal light of market forces onto the slapshod rambling world and really rip some returns for our shareholders. Analysis suggests that implementation costs would actually function as a market stimulus (much as we've recognised that the targeted and deliberate reduction in carbon emissions would). I urge the cabal to get on the front foot and do it now while they're on their knees from the 'credit crunch' (you've got to hand it to our marketing department and their snappy names) and then as a reward we can ease the reins a little. What we lose in control of the crunch will be nothing to what we gain in the big matrix.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Twilight: The Neutered Boy-Band of Vampire Films
Sometimes I leave a series of books to build up, so that then I get to read them in a binge. The Stephanie Meyer Twilight series is one I've saved, so all comments about this film are based simply on the film. Such as it is.
I Pine, I Swoon. I Pine Again.
Wuv, twoo Wuv is tough for vampires, especially if they got turned in their teens. One episode of Moonlight showed just how nasty this can be - 170 years of acne would turn me into a serial killer too. Thankfully for the Cullen nest they all had really good nutrition and clean pores before they became "vegetarian" vampires. Not that I'm going to pick this film apart on plot points. No Sireee, that just wouldn't be sporting. Besides, that's not why one goes to see fare like this. No, one goes to sigh over perfect cheekbones and the lips of an ... angel wouldn't quite be right, but let's just say that I'm surprised that Robert Pattinson didn't insist on equal billing for his hair/lips and jaw. They certainly get the bulk of the screen time. Rightly so. there's not a lot of dialogue getting in the way of the brooding. You get a fair amount of time to look around too, and I've gotta tell you, the scenery in this film is gorgeous. After 10 years of drought, I would watch this just for all the rain scenes and the über-green forest. But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah - pining for a love that cannot be.
Forbidden Love
*sigh*
For masochists, there can be a deep satisfaction in the denial of pleasure. A tautness to the desire that builds and builds to a blunt edge of pain and it is the pain itself and the endurance of it which becomes a muted pleasure (of a kind) until the eventual release (yes, even masochists get release, unlike Twilight fans). These children hash around at it and it pretty much goes nowhere but I'm betting the books give it a better build-up. It is, after all, the kind of thing that is easier to understand with an internal monologue. Otherwise you're just watching people with a kindof pained expression on their face and you wonder - are they having gut cramps? There's not really a lot of denial going on here either, she pretty much just throws herself at him and it is he, the gallant vegetarian vamp who turns his head away and says no. So she tries again. Who can blame her, he sparkles like a My Little Pony unicorn and declares he feels "strongly protective" of her. Woo - the kids are *wild*!
Bring Back the Teeth
Colour me weird, but I always found that it was the danger that made the Vamps sexy. There's no fangs in this film. There's a little eyeball action (the black guy gets red ones, but Darth Maul's were way scarier) and no blood. OK, a tiny smear in the big confrontation when her (SPOILER ALERT) femoral artery is meant to bleeding out ( I promised I wasn't going to get picky, but c'mon guys you bleed out of a femoral artery in something of the order of 3 minutes - let's not pick that part of the story for some wooden dialogue and pissing around with moral qualms), but only one of the 6 vamps in the room seems to have even a twinge about the snack spilling.
Ok, I'm not even going to go there. I'm totally backing out of this critical direction.
Why Her?!
I get that she would go for him. He can play Debussy (despite the massive handicap of his hair/eyebrows/lips), can climb huge firs in an effortless scramble, sparkles like a My Little Pony unicorn (did I mention he sparkles?) and he lives in the stunning architectural mansion in the forest. But she's a whiny nobody who's only allure seems to be that she smells good. I think Rum Balls smell good, but I don't date them. I think cigars and carrots smell good, but I don't tie myself up in knots wondering if they like me. Oh, and he can't read her thoughts, where he can read everyone else's. Big Woop. I can read most people's thoughts too when they're this complicated: QUOTE "Sex. Money. Sex. Sex. Money." UN-QUOTE nothing startling there.
And So...
If you like your boys pretty and your vampires fangless and all Emo-fied, then you'll probably laugh a lot less in this film than I did and possibly even think it's a pretty neat love story. Basically, this film is an utterly hi-larious trashy b-grade teen flick and I recommend we all get wasted and go see it together, and laugh our guts up. I can't wait for the second one. We'll watch The Craft first tho - ok? and Heathers for afters.
Remember - pine, then swoon.
I Pine, I Swoon. I Pine Again.
Wuv, twoo Wuv is tough for vampires, especially if they got turned in their teens. One episode of Moonlight showed just how nasty this can be - 170 years of acne would turn me into a serial killer too. Thankfully for the Cullen nest they all had really good nutrition and clean pores before they became "vegetarian" vampires. Not that I'm going to pick this film apart on plot points. No Sireee, that just wouldn't be sporting. Besides, that's not why one goes to see fare like this. No, one goes to sigh over perfect cheekbones and the lips of an ... angel wouldn't quite be right, but let's just say that I'm surprised that Robert Pattinson didn't insist on equal billing for his hair/lips and jaw. They certainly get the bulk of the screen time. Rightly so. there's not a lot of dialogue getting in the way of the brooding. You get a fair amount of time to look around too, and I've gotta tell you, the scenery in this film is gorgeous. After 10 years of drought, I would watch this just for all the rain scenes and the über-green forest. But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah - pining for a love that cannot be.
Forbidden Love
*sigh*
For masochists, there can be a deep satisfaction in the denial of pleasure. A tautness to the desire that builds and builds to a blunt edge of pain and it is the pain itself and the endurance of it which becomes a muted pleasure (of a kind) until the eventual release (yes, even masochists get release, unlike Twilight fans). These children hash around at it and it pretty much goes nowhere but I'm betting the books give it a better build-up. It is, after all, the kind of thing that is easier to understand with an internal monologue. Otherwise you're just watching people with a kindof pained expression on their face and you wonder - are they having gut cramps? There's not really a lot of denial going on here either, she pretty much just throws herself at him and it is he, the gallant vegetarian vamp who turns his head away and says no. So she tries again. Who can blame her, he sparkles like a My Little Pony unicorn and declares he feels "strongly protective" of her. Woo - the kids are *wild*!
Bring Back the Teeth
Colour me weird, but I always found that it was the danger that made the Vamps sexy. There's no fangs in this film. There's a little eyeball action (the black guy gets red ones, but Darth Maul's were way scarier) and no blood. OK, a tiny smear in the big confrontation when her (SPOILER ALERT) femoral artery is meant to bleeding out ( I promised I wasn't going to get picky, but c'mon guys you bleed out of a femoral artery in something of the order of 3 minutes - let's not pick that part of the story for some wooden dialogue and pissing around with moral qualms), but only one of the 6 vamps in the room seems to have even a twinge about the snack spilling.
Ok, I'm not even going to go there. I'm totally backing out of this critical direction.
Why Her?!
I get that she would go for him. He can play Debussy (despite the massive handicap of his hair/eyebrows/lips), can climb huge firs in an effortless scramble, sparkles like a My Little Pony unicorn (did I mention he sparkles?) and he lives in the stunning architectural mansion in the forest. But she's a whiny nobody who's only allure seems to be that she smells good. I think Rum Balls smell good, but I don't date them. I think cigars and carrots smell good, but I don't tie myself up in knots wondering if they like me. Oh, and he can't read her thoughts, where he can read everyone else's. Big Woop. I can read most people's thoughts too when they're this complicated: QUOTE "Sex. Money. Sex. Sex. Money." UN-QUOTE nothing startling there.
And So...
If you like your boys pretty and your vampires fangless and all Emo-fied, then you'll probably laugh a lot less in this film than I did and possibly even think it's a pretty neat love story. Basically, this film is an utterly hi-larious trashy b-grade teen flick and I recommend we all get wasted and go see it together, and laugh our guts up. I can't wait for the second one. We'll watch The Craft first tho - ok? and Heathers for afters.
Remember - pine, then swoon.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Stop the Madness or the Robots Will Get You
The specter of a grim future under the control of Robot Overlords is undoubtedly something which haunts us all (ok, well mostly just paranoid SF nuts, and people who actually understand networking intelligence and have time on their hands for contemplating the possible consequences).
Now, I do not want Skynet to wake up any more than the next person. Much as Caprica 6 really sells the idea that sexy, intelligent, independent women can be robots too, the bottom line is that there is no scenario so far in which the genocide of humans is not an outcome. Apart from anything else, on the off-chance I was a survivor, I would make a crappy guerrilla fighter and a very poor motivating leader for the resistance.
However it is hard to remember these disincentives when once again the anticipated serenity of a weekend (or a public holiday in this particular instance) is unattainable due to the suburban love of power tools and mowers. Both yesterday and today there has been a cacophony of tedium. Vacuum cleaners, quad bikes, angle-grinders, whipper-snippers and the ever-ready, every-present, ever-painfully noisy 2-stroke mower. I don't mind loud and late parties, I can deal with (if ungraciously) the thoughtless tumult created by feral children. I can even usually bear to endure the tortured screams and furious rampages of the domestically violent couples in the street. These, after all, are all are among the fundamental of human activities. Power tools are not.
Down Tools!
How simple it would be to incorporate a small amount of programmable logic into these and other irritating items. It need not be networked to achieve the goals I have in mind. I just want none of these items to work on state recognised public holidays or on a weekend prior to 9am or after 6pm. Fair enough!
The proles have had long enough to self-regulate in these matters and have proven themselves incapable of doing so. It is time for the elite to assist them in this, as we do in so many other ways with our taxes, entertainments, intellectual specialisations (where do they think those plasma screens come from anyway? Santa's Freakin workshop?) and generally in resisting the spread of informational germs (it's true - stupid people are more likely to believe other stupid people. Sorry "easily influenced people"). Anyway, we could camouflage it as a clock, or a battery readout, or an FM radio and in this way it would become a feature the proles would aspire to owning and the phase-out would be swift. Those with a legitimate reason, and or the ability to read owner's manuals would be able to circumvent the programming and thus earn the ability to use these tools at these times, but I suggest to you that persons of such capacities probably have better things to do with their time during the targeted periods (such as, say, blogging about how the world could be a better, more loving place).
Self Control
I could stop there. I could, really. There's no real need to tamper in a permanent way with the car of the idiot doing burnouts at 2am mid-week. There's no justifiable reason to apply any liquor rationing to the unemployed or those with criminal/violent records. There's no need to restrict the breeding .... No. Our freedoms as humans are absolute and inalienable. Well they might be if we in Australia had ever enacted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into law. Which we haven't. We aren't the only peoples to look the other way on this one, we're in good company (Malaysia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City, China and more have all overlooked signing or ratifying the declaration). In light of what some signatories do feel ok about doing my software control proposition seems pretty innocent.
Yeah, really. It's for their own good.
... hey! What do you mean my access to the internet might be curtailed. That's not fair!
Fine. Frack you. Now where's that manual...
Now, I do not want Skynet to wake up any more than the next person. Much as Caprica 6 really sells the idea that sexy, intelligent, independent women can be robots too, the bottom line is that there is no scenario so far in which the genocide of humans is not an outcome. Apart from anything else, on the off-chance I was a survivor, I would make a crappy guerrilla fighter and a very poor motivating leader for the resistance.
However it is hard to remember these disincentives when once again the anticipated serenity of a weekend (or a public holiday in this particular instance) is unattainable due to the suburban love of power tools and mowers. Both yesterday and today there has been a cacophony of tedium. Vacuum cleaners, quad bikes, angle-grinders, whipper-snippers and the ever-ready, every-present, ever-painfully noisy 2-stroke mower. I don't mind loud and late parties, I can deal with (if ungraciously) the thoughtless tumult created by feral children. I can even usually bear to endure the tortured screams and furious rampages of the domestically violent couples in the street. These, after all, are all are among the fundamental of human activities. Power tools are not.
Down Tools!
How simple it would be to incorporate a small amount of programmable logic into these and other irritating items. It need not be networked to achieve the goals I have in mind. I just want none of these items to work on state recognised public holidays or on a weekend prior to 9am or after 6pm. Fair enough!
The proles have had long enough to self-regulate in these matters and have proven themselves incapable of doing so. It is time for the elite to assist them in this, as we do in so many other ways with our taxes, entertainments, intellectual specialisations (where do they think those plasma screens come from anyway? Santa's Freakin workshop?) and generally in resisting the spread of informational germs (it's true - stupid people are more likely to believe other stupid people. Sorry "easily influenced people"). Anyway, we could camouflage it as a clock, or a battery readout, or an FM radio and in this way it would become a feature the proles would aspire to owning and the phase-out would be swift. Those with a legitimate reason, and or the ability to read owner's manuals would be able to circumvent the programming and thus earn the ability to use these tools at these times, but I suggest to you that persons of such capacities probably have better things to do with their time during the targeted periods (such as, say, blogging about how the world could be a better, more loving place).
Self Control
I could stop there. I could, really. There's no real need to tamper in a permanent way with the car of the idiot doing burnouts at 2am mid-week. There's no justifiable reason to apply any liquor rationing to the unemployed or those with criminal/violent records. There's no need to restrict the breeding .... No. Our freedoms as humans are absolute and inalienable. Well they might be if we in Australia had ever enacted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into law. Which we haven't. We aren't the only peoples to look the other way on this one, we're in good company (Malaysia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City, China and more have all overlooked signing or ratifying the declaration). In light of what some signatories do feel ok about doing my software control proposition seems pretty innocent.
Yeah, really. It's for their own good.
... hey! What do you mean my access to the internet might be curtailed. That's not fair!
Fine. Frack you. Now where's that manual...
Thursday, December 25, 2008
A Welcome Pause
A collective sigh of relief as 95% of us don't have to work today. Everyone just take a nice big breath. Look up for a moment, and look around.
Breathe again. Oh that's better.
Now, who am I and what was I doing before I got so caught up in working?
Breathe again. Oh that's better.
Now, who am I and what was I doing before I got so caught up in working?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Your Mission: Milk. Just. Milk.
You (or perhaps someone you know) goes into the grocery store to buy some milk.
Just. Milk.
How does that normally work out?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this transaction is likely to result in a minimum spend of about $10, no matter what sized milk container the subject had intended to purchase.
If the subject is tired, hungry and or depressed, this figure is likely to rise to around the $25 mark as impulse ice-creams/magazines/exotic fruits are added to the basket.
You can plot it on a chart
A classic rising line from left to right where the x-axis is decreasing emotional state and the y-axis is amount of cash thrown after the false gods of retail therapy.
This is just in a grocery store remember, we're not even talking access to big ticket items like espresso machines or new speakers for the sound system that would make Hoyts moan with desire.
Today in a practical application of this experiment the subject blew $45 and change in an attempt to buy a litre of milk.
Just. Milk.
How Could This Happen?!
Why hasn't the Rudd government stepped in to protect working families from this kind of insidious bracket creep/erosion of our way of life?! Someone has to stop grocery stores from putting the milk in the far back corner, and from setting the confectionery aisle in front of the entrance. The gauntlet of sugar is a harrowing, chilling, gut-destroying nightmare of gaudily designed sugar lollies, and dark sensuous chocolate wrappers. The subject lowered her head, put her eyes to the floor and walked briskly forward. An excellent strategy that normally works well, this attempt was foiled by her own powerful reticular activation system (AKA Nerd Vision) which caught the merest glimmer of information, processed it on a priority channel and stopped her cold just one step past the target: Star Wars Pez Dispensers.
OMG
Star Wars Pez Dispensers in the grocery store.
Subject was immediately disorientated, was heard to mutter aloud "Darth Vader! Cooooool!" and commenced trawling the entire display to ascertain number and range of characters portrayed and to ensure that one perfect sample of each $2.45 toy/candy dispenser was placed in the shopping basket. Subject then attempted to regain her target item, and snagged a chocolate bar, large box of biscuits, catfood, and tinned food on the way to finally securing 2 litres of milk, before being observed circling back to the Pez Dispenser display to check that no new stock had been put out in the intervening period. The subject resisted the lure of exotic fruit in this instance.
Summary
The mission was successfully completed in that milk was purchased.
The subject exhibited a complete loss of retail control and a new nadir of expenditure for this exercise.
Subject recieves Epic Fail grading for not even eating Pez.
Just. Milk.
How does that normally work out?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this transaction is likely to result in a minimum spend of about $10, no matter what sized milk container the subject had intended to purchase.
If the subject is tired, hungry and or depressed, this figure is likely to rise to around the $25 mark as impulse ice-creams/magazines/exotic fruits are added to the basket.
You can plot it on a chart
A classic rising line from left to right where the x-axis is decreasing emotional state and the y-axis is amount of cash thrown after the false gods of retail therapy.
This is just in a grocery store remember, we're not even talking access to big ticket items like espresso machines or new speakers for the sound system that would make Hoyts moan with desire.
Today in a practical application of this experiment the subject blew $45 and change in an attempt to buy a litre of milk.
Just. Milk.
How Could This Happen?!
Why hasn't the Rudd government stepped in to protect working families from this kind of insidious bracket creep/erosion of our way of life?! Someone has to stop grocery stores from putting the milk in the far back corner, and from setting the confectionery aisle in front of the entrance. The gauntlet of sugar is a harrowing, chilling, gut-destroying nightmare of gaudily designed sugar lollies, and dark sensuous chocolate wrappers. The subject lowered her head, put her eyes to the floor and walked briskly forward. An excellent strategy that normally works well, this attempt was foiled by her own powerful reticular activation system (AKA Nerd Vision) which caught the merest glimmer of information, processed it on a priority channel and stopped her cold just one step past the target: Star Wars Pez Dispensers.
OMG
Star Wars Pez Dispensers in the grocery store.
Subject was immediately disorientated, was heard to mutter aloud "Darth Vader! Cooooool!" and commenced trawling the entire display to ascertain number and range of characters portrayed and to ensure that one perfect sample of each $2.45 toy/candy dispenser was placed in the shopping basket. Subject then attempted to regain her target item, and snagged a chocolate bar, large box of biscuits, catfood, and tinned food on the way to finally securing 2 litres of milk, before being observed circling back to the Pez Dispenser display to check that no new stock had been put out in the intervening period. The subject resisted the lure of exotic fruit in this instance.
Summary
The mission was successfully completed in that milk was purchased.
The subject exhibited a complete loss of retail control and a new nadir of expenditure for this exercise.
Subject recieves Epic Fail grading for not even eating Pez.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Trojan Catholics Decimate Australian Defences
I blame the Catholics for the recession/depression (have we decided yet which it is? I've been wagging my current affairs sessions).
YES YOU HEARD ME! The Fracking Catholics.
It seems like no one is brave enough (a slight exaggeration: allowable under 'Creative Commons: Poetic Licence') to stand up to their "my invisible friend is bigger than you and your invisible friend" crap and tell the TruthTM.
Well here it is; the walls to the Australian economy were opened by World Youth Day 2008.
Oh Yeah. I went there.
The sub-prime crisis? The slowdown of China? Simply acts 2 and 3 to the opening volley fired by the Catholics.
Allow me toplagiarise a small section of David Marr's excellent essay "The Rise & Fall of 2008"(SMH Good Weekend 13Dec08) present some facts.
In July of 2008, after an agonisingly do-gooder buildup, Sydney was constipated by Catholics clogging the city's causeways (except that the City closed off hundreds of streets and asked all 9000 Cityrail staff to work all days). This catastrophic incursion had been anticipated in the possible millions, but only 223 000 turned up. Shame really, we'd catered for about 5 million, given the Randwick racecourse $42mill in venue hire fees (hope they threw in the PA for that!), set the 'annoyance laws' in place (that allowed for a fine of $5000 per offence) (until the full Bench found in July that these laws were invalid, but too late - they were current for the duration of the WYD event) and perhaps most generously (especially in light of other more token funding gestures), the State Government in a festive spirit despite the humbugs chipped-in towards the party with about $120mill.
Much as that's kinda annoying, that's not all of it.
Oh no. I mean, we could probably afford to host a party (let's see $120mill between 223k guests, that's about $538 per head. You get very noice entrees for that) but what we didn't see coming, was the biological attack. That's right, the dreaded Pilgrim Flu that washed through the city. Then? Then it mutated with the general Flu and spread throughout the country, taking down the people it struck for an average of 3 weeks.
I don't have any concrete idea what that ended up costing us, but sick leave in Australia this year came to nearly $27bill.
So, if you're shitted off about the economy right now or how crap Australian films are, or just pretty much in general (and who isn't?) then consider boycotting either Christmas or politicians (or both). After all, it is human nature to prefer to have someone to blame and it will make you feel better.
I feel better, don't you?
This rant presented with the support of a double shot of "Merlo Coffee: Blended, Roasted and Packed in Australia" (but not grown - don't get too excited) and by the letter C.
YES YOU HEARD ME! The Fracking Catholics.
It seems like no one is brave enough (a slight exaggeration: allowable under 'Creative Commons: Poetic Licence') to stand up to their "my invisible friend is bigger than you and your invisible friend" crap and tell the TruthTM.
Well here it is; the walls to the Australian economy were opened by World Youth Day 2008.
Oh Yeah. I went there.
The sub-prime crisis? The slowdown of China? Simply acts 2 and 3 to the opening volley fired by the Catholics.
Allow me to
In July of 2008, after an agonisingly do-gooder buildup, Sydney was constipated by Catholics clogging the city's causeways (except that the City closed off hundreds of streets and asked all 9000 Cityrail staff to work all days). This catastrophic incursion had been anticipated in the possible millions, but only 223 000 turned up. Shame really, we'd catered for about 5 million, given the Randwick racecourse $42mill in venue hire fees (hope they threw in the PA for that!), set the 'annoyance laws' in place (that allowed for a fine of $5000 per offence) (until the full Bench found in July that these laws were invalid, but too late - they were current for the duration of the WYD event) and perhaps most generously (especially in light of other more token funding gestures), the State Government in a festive spirit despite the humbugs chipped-in towards the party with about $120mill.
Much as that's kinda annoying, that's not all of it.
Oh no. I mean, we could probably afford to host a party (let's see $120mill between 223k guests, that's about $538 per head. You get very noice entrees for that) but what we didn't see coming, was the biological attack. That's right, the dreaded Pilgrim Flu that washed through the city. Then? Then it mutated with the general Flu and spread throughout the country, taking down the people it struck for an average of 3 weeks.
I don't have any concrete idea what that ended up costing us, but sick leave in Australia this year came to nearly $27bill.
So, if you're shitted off about the economy right now or how crap Australian films are, or just pretty much in general (and who isn't?) then consider boycotting either Christmas or politicians (or both). After all, it is human nature to prefer to have someone to blame and it will make you feel better.
I feel better, don't you?
This rant presented with the support of a double shot of "Merlo Coffee: Blended, Roasted and Packed in Australia" (but not grown - don't get too excited) and by the letter C.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
House Sitting
I thought my house sitting days were behind me when I hooked up with Riley. The cat owners who needed their groovy inner-city apartments lived in and their fish cared for (with the side bonus of being welcome to raid someone else's bookcase/dvd collection) were to become but a faded memory of ephemeral good luck.
How wrong I was. In a good way (at last).
Dog owners like to go away sometimes too, and as Riley is of a very portable size and nature, we continue to have the odd job as house sitters. Last time the perk was a swimming pool, tonight it's a cable internet connection for entrees, followed by a Very Large TV Screen for mains. I am quietly confident Battlestar Galactica is going to look pretty darn good on that screen. Oh yes, yes it will.
So Say We All.
How wrong I was. In a good way (at last).
Dog owners like to go away sometimes too, and as Riley is of a very portable size and nature, we continue to have the odd job as house sitters. Last time the perk was a swimming pool, tonight it's a cable internet connection for entrees, followed by a Very Large TV Screen for mains. I am quietly confident Battlestar Galactica is going to look pretty darn good on that screen. Oh yes, yes it will.
So Say We All.
An Attitude of Gratitude
Three really brilliant things happened this week. Other people inadvertantly pulled me out of a black funk and pointed my face back toward the sun, reminding me of what I so often try and remind others (and so easily forget myself).
You're not alone - we're all in this together.
Generosity
I re-wrote a cover letter for a woman in the office this week, She is one of the few sane and good-value people in the Sheltered Workshop, and so odds are good that she's a Temp. She's a talented artist with an intelligent sense of humour. Same goes for her husband and their child. She is a Temp as it turns out, and had also worked for a while in my last office (The Fortress of Solitude) so I was happy to offer my services in helping her apply for a plum job that came up in the library (which we're hoping is a normal, sane, pleasant workplace). She had done that thing people often do which is write two pages of dense, detailed explanation of how this and that skill would work in this and that aspect of the job, but then felt a bit bogged in detail and hadn't framed it well.
As Mrs Hill told me in grade 8, "you have to leave flags for readers so they know where they're going". I disagreed with her then (what a shit of a kid I must have been), but I've learnt my error doing hard yards. Mrs Hill was talking about the kind of writing that cover letters need, leading the reader along a broad and comfortable path to the idea that they need to glance at this resume and shortlist this person for interview ASAP. Anyway, it was a fun quick job and I really like having this person around, so it was fundamentally motivated by selfish desires. Which was why I was blown away when the next day she bought in 3 folios of her husbands drawings and offered me to take my pick "Heck, take two or three if you want". What a wonderful gift! I chose just one - an utter mindfuck abstract figure - and experienced a massive jolt of the warm and fuzzies. She didn't need to do that, I was happy just to contribute to her success. I didn't want anything in return. Writing can earn you artworks! How good can life get?!
Inclusion
Well life can also include unexpected text messages inviting you to come along to a comedy gig with the patron saint of booksellers, Bernard Black. Of course one says yes to that kind of thing and life immediately gets even better. There's anticipation for the event itself, but also a strengthening in the sense of inclusion in the clan that the invite and the event brings. I miss my clutches of friends and these excursions they arrange out of spontaneous book exuberance. So it was with palpable gratitude that I accepted this invite and began the countdown. Oh, and decided to sign-up for a writing challenge in April 09 too. Just for the helluvit. Yes! What could be better?!
Thoughtfulness
I'm not really into Christmas (at least not the part of it that's about the virgin birth of a divine Jesus; the mystery & pagan stuff I really dig. The trees inside the house, especially), but the society I have infiltrated and live among is into it (in a fairly strange way that I may never understand). I try to join-in with their cultural activities in order to get along. I do as little as possible or as much as I can bear in order to remain under cover. Sometimes these two measures do not meet, and Christmas is generally one of those times. I maintain low expectations, so it was a relief to experience little pain during the TCSW Christmas Breakfast (7.30am!! AM!!) and Secret Santa. The Office Martyr did an extraordinary catering job on just $5 a head (including proper food for Veggos) it was all going along fine and really, quite ok. Then I opened my gift. I was ready to exclaim my thanks to my anonymous gifter no matter what lie inside the paper. When a silk and pashmina paisley shawl in black and forest green came out I was stunned.
This gift was an act of thoughtfulness and love. It was a beautiful object and felt like a waterfall of light in my hands. My cubicle is very cold and I am constantly wrapped in woolly shawls to keep any feeling in my lower arms and hands. In this one gift, someone had expressed a care for my tastes and a knowledge of my day to day experience. I was (and am) really touched by this beautiful gift.
Attitude of Gratitude
Far too often, life seems to suck. Days seem bleak and nights are grim exercises in endurance. Then beauty, love and friendship nose their way back into your life like a dog under the covers in bed on a cold night. Snuggle up close whenever you can and take relief in an attitude of gratitude for whomever and whatever makes your heart's winter melt and mind's sun smile. If life is lived in fragments every sliver is precious.
Happy Solstice for tomorrow, and remember; you're not alone, we're all in this together.
You're not alone - we're all in this together.
Generosity
I re-wrote a cover letter for a woman in the office this week, She is one of the few sane and good-value people in the Sheltered Workshop, and so odds are good that she's a Temp. She's a talented artist with an intelligent sense of humour. Same goes for her husband and their child. She is a Temp as it turns out, and had also worked for a while in my last office (The Fortress of Solitude) so I was happy to offer my services in helping her apply for a plum job that came up in the library (which we're hoping is a normal, sane, pleasant workplace). She had done that thing people often do which is write two pages of dense, detailed explanation of how this and that skill would work in this and that aspect of the job, but then felt a bit bogged in detail and hadn't framed it well.
As Mrs Hill told me in grade 8, "you have to leave flags for readers so they know where they're going". I disagreed with her then (what a shit of a kid I must have been), but I've learnt my error doing hard yards. Mrs Hill was talking about the kind of writing that cover letters need, leading the reader along a broad and comfortable path to the idea that they need to glance at this resume and shortlist this person for interview ASAP. Anyway, it was a fun quick job and I really like having this person around, so it was fundamentally motivated by selfish desires. Which was why I was blown away when the next day she bought in 3 folios of her husbands drawings and offered me to take my pick "Heck, take two or three if you want". What a wonderful gift! I chose just one - an utter mindfuck abstract figure - and experienced a massive jolt of the warm and fuzzies. She didn't need to do that, I was happy just to contribute to her success. I didn't want anything in return. Writing can earn you artworks! How good can life get?!
Inclusion
Well life can also include unexpected text messages inviting you to come along to a comedy gig with the patron saint of booksellers, Bernard Black. Of course one says yes to that kind of thing and life immediately gets even better. There's anticipation for the event itself, but also a strengthening in the sense of inclusion in the clan that the invite and the event brings. I miss my clutches of friends and these excursions they arrange out of spontaneous book exuberance. So it was with palpable gratitude that I accepted this invite and began the countdown. Oh, and decided to sign-up for a writing challenge in April 09 too. Just for the helluvit. Yes! What could be better?!
Thoughtfulness
I'm not really into Christmas (at least not the part of it that's about the virgin birth of a divine Jesus; the mystery & pagan stuff I really dig. The trees inside the house, especially), but the society I have infiltrated and live among is into it (in a fairly strange way that I may never understand). I try to join-in with their cultural activities in order to get along. I do as little as possible or as much as I can bear in order to remain under cover. Sometimes these two measures do not meet, and Christmas is generally one of those times. I maintain low expectations, so it was a relief to experience little pain during the TCSW Christmas Breakfast (7.30am!! AM!!) and Secret Santa. The Office Martyr did an extraordinary catering job on just $5 a head (including proper food for Veggos) it was all going along fine and really, quite ok. Then I opened my gift. I was ready to exclaim my thanks to my anonymous gifter no matter what lie inside the paper. When a silk and pashmina paisley shawl in black and forest green came out I was stunned.
This gift was an act of thoughtfulness and love. It was a beautiful object and felt like a waterfall of light in my hands. My cubicle is very cold and I am constantly wrapped in woolly shawls to keep any feeling in my lower arms and hands. In this one gift, someone had expressed a care for my tastes and a knowledge of my day to day experience. I was (and am) really touched by this beautiful gift.
Attitude of Gratitude
Far too often, life seems to suck. Days seem bleak and nights are grim exercises in endurance. Then beauty, love and friendship nose their way back into your life like a dog under the covers in bed on a cold night. Snuggle up close whenever you can and take relief in an attitude of gratitude for whomever and whatever makes your heart's winter melt and mind's sun smile. If life is lived in fragments every sliver is precious.
Happy Solstice for tomorrow, and remember; you're not alone, we're all in this together.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
You Might be a Qlder If....
Next Sunday will mark the two year date for my move to Queensland. Two Years. 731 days. It feels like a lot longer than that.
I remember thinking through the plan in lots of years, One year for this and this, two years for this, and maybe five in total, max and thinking, "yeah, that's do-able. How hard can it be?! A few years of inconvenience is not such a big price to pay."
That was the voice of inexperience. That was the voice of someone who has played strategic games often enough to grasp the need for room/time to maneuver, but who has had all experiences of social and cultural deprivation fade into softness from the passage of time. Going without by choice in Sydney for a month is very different to going without for two years because even if you try and hunt it down there's nothing to be had locally.
This has not been my only learning. I have had a while now to observe the locals from my camouflaged blind and based on actual events and overheard conversations, I can now present to you the top 10 possibilitites that you're a Queenslander...
You Might be a Queenslander If:
10. You can have a normal shower in under 3 minutes with or without a timer. You would use the full 3 minutes if you needed to wash your hair.
9. You don't own a winter coat and wonder why people do (surely a pullover is enough?).
8. You think Brisbane is all grown-up now.
7. You have 'good' thongs for going out in (for when you really think you should probably wear shoes).
6. You've considered wearing formal beachwear to your court hearing.
5. You went to Sydney once (for a weekend) but didn't like it.
4. You think it is perfectly natural to operate your whippersnipper/mower/chainsaw/anglegrinder whilst wearing thongs or even just bare feet.
3. You exclusively drink Fourex beer, and consider all southern beers (such as, say VB) to be "gay."
=2. During a 42 degree day you've thought it would be a good idea to get some mowing done (and been surprised that you died of heat stroke/coronary attack).
=2. After a wild storm you've thought it would be a good idea to help the SES by 'tidying up' those fallen power lines.
1. You decorate with maroon.
Oh yes. My time here has been well spent.
I remember thinking through the plan in lots of years, One year for this and this, two years for this, and maybe five in total, max and thinking, "yeah, that's do-able. How hard can it be?! A few years of inconvenience is not such a big price to pay."
That was the voice of inexperience. That was the voice of someone who has played strategic games often enough to grasp the need for room/time to maneuver, but who has had all experiences of social and cultural deprivation fade into softness from the passage of time. Going without by choice in Sydney for a month is very different to going without for two years because even if you try and hunt it down there's nothing to be had locally.
This has not been my only learning. I have had a while now to observe the locals from my camouflaged blind and based on actual events and overheard conversations, I can now present to you the top 10 possibilitites that you're a Queenslander...
You Might be a Queenslander If:
10. You can have a normal shower in under 3 minutes with or without a timer. You would use the full 3 minutes if you needed to wash your hair.
9. You don't own a winter coat and wonder why people do (surely a pullover is enough?).
8. You think Brisbane is all grown-up now.
7. You have 'good' thongs for going out in (for when you really think you should probably wear shoes).
6. You've considered wearing formal beachwear to your court hearing.
5. You went to Sydney once (for a weekend) but didn't like it.
4. You think it is perfectly natural to operate your whippersnipper/mower/chainsaw/anglegrinder whilst wearing thongs or even just bare feet.
3. You exclusively drink Fourex beer, and consider all southern beers (such as, say VB) to be "gay."
=2. During a 42 degree day you've thought it would be a good idea to get some mowing done (and been surprised that you died of heat stroke/coronary attack).
=2. After a wild storm you've thought it would be a good idea to help the SES by 'tidying up' those fallen power lines.
1. You decorate with maroon.
Oh yes. My time here has been well spent.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Great Copy that works EVERYTIME!
As part of the research into my critic's comment yesterday (scroll down a little if you want to read that one first) I went looking for purposeful blogs and for possible topics of such a blog and gee-whizz there's a lot of overly sincere people writing mostly very dull things about nearly anything you can think of. So I constrained myself to about 2 hours looking only at copywriting. I must say that I did learn a lot in that time.
Hot Sex NOW
For example, I didn't realise how critical sub-headings are to the ongoing readership of one's copy. But many articles touched on or heavily emphasised this facet of writing. This seemed to jar a little bit with my view of the world, but then I discovered a hitherto unknown nuance - copywriting must be persuasive - it is promotional by nature. Anything else is just 'content'. Maybe this is where I've been going a little astray. I thought there was reporting, literature (or just fiction or story if you will) technical writing and then copy. Obviously my mental organisational systems have been limiting me. I read on and discover that not only does my copy/content not use enough sub -headings, but that when I do use one (as above), it's all wrong. Here's how that sub should have looked:
5 Tips to the Hottest Sex You'll Ever Have
1. Be really hot yourself
2. Get a really hot partner
3. Writhe around in a hot state of undress
4. Do it during summer
5. Buy my ebook for 27 kinky tips to set your love life on fire! Just $19.95 if you use this code: HOTMONKEYSEX
Wow. Do you feel the sizzle in that copy!? See that mad 'call to action'?! That is by-the-book AWESOME copy right there. Told you I wasn't wasting my friday night googling "monetise your blog for hot results now".
Mum rang last night in the middle of this mind-altering experience to give me an update on Riley (he's been moping around the house, bored and lonely - so he's gone for a mini-break to play on the farm until Sunday) and mum says "Are you doing anything special tonight?" and I am sitting in my jammies in front of the computer. I should have had the presence of mind to lie and say "Yeah I'm out at dinner with some friends" which would be a pleasant fiction for both of us. Sadly no. I say (with a bit more enthusiasm than it really warranted) "I'm reading about copywriting."
There's a cool pause.
"You're on the internet, aren't you?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
Another coolish pause.
"We found that bull that was missing. We put an ad in the paper, and it turns out he was about 3 kilometers away. He had gone up through Spicer's place but then must have cut through to the back of Joan's and kept going. He's up by Twohill road. Well worth the cost of the ad."
"Oh, I'm glad he isn't dead."
"Yeah, we'd started looking for a bad smell."
So after that call, I made a vodka & tonic and returned to the world of red, bold sub-headings atop numbered lists and people making outlandish claims about how much money they make EVERY DAY from ebooks and long copy and repeating the ask. Oh yeah, and the guy who insisted that no article of under 500 words should ever take more than 20 minutes to write. WTF?! - I mean I know 500 words is not all that long, but I can't even type that fast let alone compose a line of thought. oh, he says "I think about it and write it out in my notebook for a few days prior." "Oh", I think, "so lying to make the story better is still ok, and what I'm reading is story or copy - not reportage." Picky freakin bitch aren't I. How am I ever going to be tempted to click through to that ebook if I'm always thinking criticially?!
I learnt a lot about what people who call themselves "the best copywriter on the internet" think great copy on the internet is all about, but I don't think it's going to help me create the best possible 1500 words about the historic Cobb & Co Trail for a new tourism brochure that I need to give a client on monday . I think I'll risk not using the red bold sub-heads on that job.
In his defence, my critic apologised when he realised that his throwaway line had been a bit hurtful, but I honestly don't mind. I am long-time companion of self doubt and I think that's an ok thing to live with and make decisions with. He had a clear-hearted intention and besides, he's only little. As far as he's concerned the internet has always been there, it has always been huge, corporatised and socially networked, in a way he has been looking out for me - doddering dinosaur that I am.
We've strayed a little way this morning off the topic at hand and I've now been sitting in front of the computer (still in the jammies) for about an hour and Rage is coming to a close, which means it's nearly time to get the day officially underway. So let's wrap this thing up.
I really love writing. It is fun and it can be beautiful. I love swimming too, but not the same way. I can live without swimming for months at a time. I'm good at swimming and am naturally buoyant which helps (sometimes it rules to be fat!) although a lot of the time I like to just float and feel held by the water. That's what this blog is. It is my floating pool with a big sky all around and a nice breeze. I'm held here and it makes me happy. Sure there's the odd spider or frog fallen in, and sometimes the water is a bit frosty or i'm sick and can't get wet, but otherwise it is perfect.
So I think that's where I wan to be right now. Visualising this blog as a pool of surrender to physics and the sensuous nature of the physical world, participated in by the willing and friendly. So Come on in if you like, the water's gorgeous!
(BTW:Stay tuned for my up-coming SF thriller "Monkey Jockeys Riding Fascist Ex-Bankers" in which voodoo blood magic takes hold of a small community of Squirrel monkeys being kept for smuggling to rich collectors. These infected, possessed simians find deep roots and power in the spiritually weakened areas of New York (Wall Street) and take command of hollow primates to do their bidding. It's gunna rock out - really).
P.S. Buy my ebook NOW for 27 kinky tips to set your love life on fire! Just $19.95 if you use this code: HOTMONKEYSEX
Hot Sex NOW
For example, I didn't realise how critical sub-headings are to the ongoing readership of one's copy. But many articles touched on or heavily emphasised this facet of writing. This seemed to jar a little bit with my view of the world, but then I discovered a hitherto unknown nuance - copywriting must be persuasive - it is promotional by nature. Anything else is just 'content'. Maybe this is where I've been going a little astray. I thought there was reporting, literature (or just fiction or story if you will) technical writing and then copy. Obviously my mental organisational systems have been limiting me. I read on and discover that not only does my copy/content not use enough sub -headings, but that when I do use one (as above), it's all wrong. Here's how that sub should have looked:
5 Tips to the Hottest Sex You'll Ever Have
1. Be really hot yourself
2. Get a really hot partner
3. Writhe around in a hot state of undress
4. Do it during summer
5. Buy my ebook for 27 kinky tips to set your love life on fire! Just $19.95 if you use this code: HOTMONKEYSEX
Wow. Do you feel the sizzle in that copy!? See that mad 'call to action'?! That is by-the-book AWESOME copy right there. Told you I wasn't wasting my friday night googling "monetise your blog for hot results now".
Mum rang last night in the middle of this mind-altering experience to give me an update on Riley (he's been moping around the house, bored and lonely - so he's gone for a mini-break to play on the farm until Sunday) and mum says "Are you doing anything special tonight?" and I am sitting in my jammies in front of the computer. I should have had the presence of mind to lie and say "Yeah I'm out at dinner with some friends" which would be a pleasant fiction for both of us. Sadly no. I say (with a bit more enthusiasm than it really warranted) "I'm reading about copywriting."
There's a cool pause.
"You're on the internet, aren't you?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
Another coolish pause.
"We found that bull that was missing. We put an ad in the paper, and it turns out he was about 3 kilometers away. He had gone up through Spicer's place but then must have cut through to the back of Joan's and kept going. He's up by Twohill road. Well worth the cost of the ad."
"Oh, I'm glad he isn't dead."
"Yeah, we'd started looking for a bad smell."
So after that call, I made a vodka & tonic and returned to the world of red, bold sub-headings atop numbered lists and people making outlandish claims about how much money they make EVERY DAY from ebooks and long copy and repeating the ask. Oh yeah, and the guy who insisted that no article of under 500 words should ever take more than 20 minutes to write. WTF?! - I mean I know 500 words is not all that long, but I can't even type that fast let alone compose a line of thought. oh, he says "I think about it and write it out in my notebook for a few days prior." "Oh", I think, "so lying to make the story better is still ok, and what I'm reading is story or copy - not reportage." Picky freakin bitch aren't I. How am I ever going to be tempted to click through to that ebook if I'm always thinking criticially?!
I learnt a lot about what people who call themselves "the best copywriter on the internet" think great copy on the internet is all about, but I don't think it's going to help me create the best possible 1500 words about the historic Cobb & Co Trail for a new tourism brochure that I need to give a client on monday . I think I'll risk not using the red bold sub-heads on that job.
In his defence, my critic apologised when he realised that his throwaway line had been a bit hurtful, but I honestly don't mind. I am long-time companion of self doubt and I think that's an ok thing to live with and make decisions with. He had a clear-hearted intention and besides, he's only little. As far as he's concerned the internet has always been there, it has always been huge, corporatised and socially networked, in a way he has been looking out for me - doddering dinosaur that I am.
We've strayed a little way this morning off the topic at hand and I've now been sitting in front of the computer (still in the jammies) for about an hour and Rage is coming to a close, which means it's nearly time to get the day officially underway. So let's wrap this thing up.
I really love writing. It is fun and it can be beautiful. I love swimming too, but not the same way. I can live without swimming for months at a time. I'm good at swimming and am naturally buoyant which helps (sometimes it rules to be fat!) although a lot of the time I like to just float and feel held by the water. That's what this blog is. It is my floating pool with a big sky all around and a nice breeze. I'm held here and it makes me happy. Sure there's the odd spider or frog fallen in, and sometimes the water is a bit frosty or i'm sick and can't get wet, but otherwise it is perfect.
So I think that's where I wan to be right now. Visualising this blog as a pool of surrender to physics and the sensuous nature of the physical world, participated in by the willing and friendly. So Come on in if you like, the water's gorgeous!
(BTW:Stay tuned for my up-coming SF thriller "Monkey Jockeys Riding Fascist Ex-Bankers" in which voodoo blood magic takes hold of a small community of Squirrel monkeys being kept for smuggling to rich collectors. These infected, possessed simians find deep roots and power in the spiritually weakened areas of New York (Wall Street) and take command of hollow primates to do their bidding. It's gunna rock out - really).
P.S. Buy my ebook NOW for 27 kinky tips to set your love life on fire! Just $19.95 if you use this code: HOTMONKEYSEX
Friday, December 12, 2008
Not Literature, no sireee, not by a long shot.
Apparently, this blog "lacks vision".
I don't often get feedback from readers, heck I'm constantly surprised there are any. So in a way I should have been delighted to get some frank and fearless critical appraisal, but I have to tell you, I was pretty cut about it.
Isn't the whole point of blogs to just noodle around and entertain oneself?! To write, or not write about things that happen (or don't happen) in a medium where one's words are as broadly available as it is possible to be and equally invisible or unknown as always - surely this is the blogging manifesto? My defensive thoughts circled sharply around this criticism, nipping out justifications, gobbling up rationalisations, but the burley ran dry and the sharks drifted off to richer waters and I was left with the unpalatable realisation that this criticism was entirely justified. After all, blogs are some of the most exciting contemporary writing and publishing around at the moment. I read some to be entertained, some to stay up to date with news of people and events and some just to feel connected to people of a like mind. Some blogs are the political poster kids for free speech - bringing real news out from under tough regimes. Some blogs are recording and tracking the work of researchers, of humanitarian workers, or pronoiacs. They all contribute to the betterment of our society. They are creative, diverse, international, exciting and relevant. Well, ones other than this one are.
So there are people making blogs where it really matters what they do. Theirs are not vague, personal noodlings or observations on minutiae. What options do I have? Could I become a better blogger? Should I just accept that I am crap and muddle forward? Should I delete the whole thing and chalk it up as an interesting experiment that entertained me for a while but should now really be cut loose to fade into the past?!
I thought these options over for a few hours yesterday, and I'm thinking them over again now. It seems like the blog is whatever it is, and changing over time because I let it be that way. Do I want to change? Do I have the control or discipline or interest to do that?
No. Not really.
I already lead a life of omission, control and deceit (and I live alone!). I just don't have the stomach for any more. This is also something that I enjoy doing in my own 'special needs' kinda way. So it's going to be option B, Crappy & Proud and muddling forward. Well, if not proud at least moderately self aware and kinda at peace with that. So to all my beloved, adored and precious readers, Thank You for coming by to read this humble blog now and then, and stay tuned for more of the same. But what the hey, I'm open to change. Call out if you want a request done, and I'll do my best to fufill it, and if I don't know the words, I'll hum something until we can get a jam going.
I don't often get feedback from readers, heck I'm constantly surprised there are any. So in a way I should have been delighted to get some frank and fearless critical appraisal, but I have to tell you, I was pretty cut about it.
Isn't the whole point of blogs to just noodle around and entertain oneself?! To write, or not write about things that happen (or don't happen) in a medium where one's words are as broadly available as it is possible to be and equally invisible or unknown as always - surely this is the blogging manifesto? My defensive thoughts circled sharply around this criticism, nipping out justifications, gobbling up rationalisations, but the burley ran dry and the sharks drifted off to richer waters and I was left with the unpalatable realisation that this criticism was entirely justified. After all, blogs are some of the most exciting contemporary writing and publishing around at the moment. I read some to be entertained, some to stay up to date with news of people and events and some just to feel connected to people of a like mind. Some blogs are the political poster kids for free speech - bringing real news out from under tough regimes. Some blogs are recording and tracking the work of researchers, of humanitarian workers, or pronoiacs. They all contribute to the betterment of our society. They are creative, diverse, international, exciting and relevant. Well, ones other than this one are.
So there are people making blogs where it really matters what they do. Theirs are not vague, personal noodlings or observations on minutiae. What options do I have? Could I become a better blogger? Should I just accept that I am crap and muddle forward? Should I delete the whole thing and chalk it up as an interesting experiment that entertained me for a while but should now really be cut loose to fade into the past?!
I thought these options over for a few hours yesterday, and I'm thinking them over again now. It seems like the blog is whatever it is, and changing over time because I let it be that way. Do I want to change? Do I have the control or discipline or interest to do that?
No. Not really.
I already lead a life of omission, control and deceit (and I live alone!). I just don't have the stomach for any more. This is also something that I enjoy doing in my own 'special needs' kinda way. So it's going to be option B, Crappy & Proud and muddling forward. Well, if not proud at least moderately self aware and kinda at peace with that. So to all my beloved, adored and precious readers, Thank You for coming by to read this humble blog now and then, and stay tuned for more of the same. But what the hey, I'm open to change. Call out if you want a request done, and I'll do my best to fufill it, and if I don't know the words, I'll hum something until we can get a jam going.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The Joy of Laminate
I have been feeling pretty good about how clean my desk is at work this afternoon. Yeah, plenty of laminate between the phone and the single (canted) pen and my glass of water. Oh, check me out - I'm Gordon Freakin Gecko! PURE POWER BABY!
Except until I needed to get something out of my bag, and turned around to find a towering mass of brightly highlighted pieces of paper saying "urgent - do right NOW" and dated last week, and evem, a bit deeper int eh pile, the week before last. Oh dear. When I face my screen, this pile is just outside of my peripheral vision, and so, it seems, also just outside of my ability to pay attention to it. Crap. I don't remember moving that stuff there, but I must have. I even found my "inbox" inside the anerobic bowels of this swamp, cracked and weeping.
Still, no one has chased up any of those super urgent tangerine highlighted tasks, so maybe I can just file them all straight into the recycling bin and get back to enjoying expanses of laminate.
Oh, yeah, that's it - nice clean desk!
Except until I needed to get something out of my bag, and turned around to find a towering mass of brightly highlighted pieces of paper saying "urgent - do right NOW" and dated last week, and evem, a bit deeper int eh pile, the week before last. Oh dear. When I face my screen, this pile is just outside of my peripheral vision, and so, it seems, also just outside of my ability to pay attention to it. Crap. I don't remember moving that stuff there, but I must have. I even found my "inbox" inside the anerobic bowels of this swamp, cracked and weeping.
Still, no one has chased up any of those super urgent tangerine highlighted tasks, so maybe I can just file them all straight into the recycling bin and get back to enjoying expanses of laminate.
Oh, yeah, that's it - nice clean desk!
Monday, December 01, 2008
Back to work work.
Welcome to the first day of summer.
December already. Why is it that February always drags but November goes so quickly?!
Nanowrimo has finished for another year. I didn't win. Which is to say my story didn't make it to my goal of 25 000 words and has no ending. Jeeze, it didn't even get to the middle. I got pretty demoralised by my immanent failure mid last week and cracked open a bottle of vodka. and just gave up. I don't like that about me, but there it is. I really feel like I owe it to Edwina to keep going, but some of the magic has dissipated. Actually, I want to finish it. That's the real point of Nanowrimo, to complete something outrageous.
Things I've learnt from doing Nanowrimo in 08:
* Write more. Write everyday. Write and write and write until the right elbow gives out and then go for it with the left.
* Have fun and go nuts with anything and everything in the story. I saw from a new perspective how buttoned down I am about things and that's making my writing boring. Next year I vow to play dirty and have characters singing endless songs or reading aloud from Tolkien, anything to get to 50k. I said I was going to do this in 08, and something in me baulked. Why?! So 09 it is!Really, on my heart, hope to die.
* Remember the rules are just word count and a beginning middle and end. That is all.
* Do not agree to do anything for anyone if it's in November. There's eleven other freaking months of the year to fill up, this is my month, sod off. I talk big, but I failed to say no to a single request this year - and then paid for it - with a slow word count and constant guilty/resentful feelings. Completely my own fault.
* Taking a month off from tv, reading and newspapers is awesome. I dabbled here and there, and noticed the difference when I did. This is not something suggested by Nano, it was an urge, I recommend it to you.
* Go to the write-ins. No one in my immediate family or surroundings gives flying pig about this stuff, so contact with others will really help with the stages of madness (and the boards and pep talk emails do kinda help, but it's better to be with people. I went to some write-ins in 06 and it was great. Even tho they were way-nerdy guys running them ... even I found them nerdy. That's out of hand).
I think that's the lot for now. I feel a bit sad and grumpy today, and there's work needs doing, and it's bloody hot again, and there's no food in the fridge, well, no food that isn't off anyway and the real world is impinging on my dreams.
I hate it when it does that.
December already. Why is it that February always drags but November goes so quickly?!
Nanowrimo has finished for another year. I didn't win. Which is to say my story didn't make it to my goal of 25 000 words and has no ending. Jeeze, it didn't even get to the middle. I got pretty demoralised by my immanent failure mid last week and cracked open a bottle of vodka. and just gave up. I don't like that about me, but there it is. I really feel like I owe it to Edwina to keep going, but some of the magic has dissipated. Actually, I want to finish it. That's the real point of Nanowrimo, to complete something outrageous.
Things I've learnt from doing Nanowrimo in 08:
* Write more. Write everyday. Write and write and write until the right elbow gives out and then go for it with the left.
* Have fun and go nuts with anything and everything in the story. I saw from a new perspective how buttoned down I am about things and that's making my writing boring. Next year I vow to play dirty and have characters singing endless songs or reading aloud from Tolkien, anything to get to 50k. I said I was going to do this in 08, and something in me baulked. Why?! So 09 it is!Really, on my heart, hope to die.
* Remember the rules are just word count and a beginning middle and end. That is all.
* Do not agree to do anything for anyone if it's in November. There's eleven other freaking months of the year to fill up, this is my month, sod off. I talk big, but I failed to say no to a single request this year - and then paid for it - with a slow word count and constant guilty/resentful feelings. Completely my own fault.
* Taking a month off from tv, reading and newspapers is awesome. I dabbled here and there, and noticed the difference when I did. This is not something suggested by Nano, it was an urge, I recommend it to you.
* Go to the write-ins. No one in my immediate family or surroundings gives flying pig about this stuff, so contact with others will really help with the stages of madness (and the boards and pep talk emails do kinda help, but it's better to be with people. I went to some write-ins in 06 and it was great. Even tho they were way-nerdy guys running them ... even I found them nerdy. That's out of hand).
I think that's the lot for now. I feel a bit sad and grumpy today, and there's work needs doing, and it's bloody hot again, and there's no food in the fridge, well, no food that isn't off anyway and the real world is impinging on my dreams.
I hate it when it does that.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Not Quite Coming
Sex scenes.
Better just to blurt it out.
People who are comfortable writing sex scenes are full of great advice. I would normally quote a few here, but treat yourself and put some keywords into your preferred search engine and watch your screen turn purple. Lately, if I want to procrastinate (and who doesn't?) this is my diversion of choice.
It's the kind of thing that everyone has an opinion about, and that's been a paralysing prospect for me in relation to poor Edwina. Early on I knew that this year's Nanowrimo project had to have plenty of sex. After all, I wanted to write something fun, and what's more fun than sex? (Ok reading, sure, but really that's a given in the writing of something). Trouble being, I've never been able to write a convincing kiss scene let alone getting down to the business. It was the first scene of the story I imagined, but here we are at 15 300 words and *I'm just getting to it* - and sadly, very little of that is foreplay! Plainly, I've just been putting it off. I've worked Edwina up into a hot, horny state and just left her panting because suddenly, I felt shy.
That's right, in the privacy of my own mind, I've had performance anxiety. I couldn't make it happen. Between the page and I was an uncomfortable tension. I didn't want to make a wrong move, but couldn't figure out what the right move was. The page waited, the moment started to go stale, I paced, the page turned on the tv, I'd lost it again.
There's so many darn things going on! Hair?! How many hands?! Every move or broad strokes? Physics - how's who's on top staying there? And this is just the mechanics - the stuff that needs to make sense but needs to be utterly utterly invisible. I can understand now why actors laugh when asked about on-stage romance under the cameras for their sex scenes and say "it's tightly choreographed" (tightly!). At the same time that I have these two wire-frame bodies twisting and shifting in my mind trying to maneuver into a docking position, I need to be evenly describing and building the emotional state, the physical arousal, the pertinent mutterings and exclamations. That's a lot to juggle, but it's not everything.
Aside from this is the thought that other people are going to read it. Are they going to cringe? Laugh? Read passages out to their colleagues in the lunchroom, just skip ahead, nominate it for a bad sex in fiction award? Or, worst of all, ring my mum and complain to her? (people did after Trojan Moments - Grandad in particular apparently found some of the poems "... a bit blue. Off". Great. Just what I don't need to know and can never un-hear).
ACK.
So, here we are, stuck at a frigid impasse. My characters are up for it - they're practically gagging for it. It's me, I'm the prude in the corner with the clammy hands and the self conscious attitude, and that's no fun at all, for anybody. I didn't have this problem with the murder scenes. Maybe I need to watch some more late-night SBS films, or just refresh my own docking proceedures.
Hold on Edwina - I'm coming!
Better just to blurt it out.
People who are comfortable writing sex scenes are full of great advice. I would normally quote a few here, but treat yourself and put some keywords into your preferred search engine and watch your screen turn purple. Lately, if I want to procrastinate (and who doesn't?) this is my diversion of choice.
It's the kind of thing that everyone has an opinion about, and that's been a paralysing prospect for me in relation to poor Edwina. Early on I knew that this year's Nanowrimo project had to have plenty of sex. After all, I wanted to write something fun, and what's more fun than sex? (Ok reading, sure, but really that's a given in the writing of something). Trouble being, I've never been able to write a convincing kiss scene let alone getting down to the business. It was the first scene of the story I imagined, but here we are at 15 300 words and *I'm just getting to it* - and sadly, very little of that is foreplay! Plainly, I've just been putting it off. I've worked Edwina up into a hot, horny state and just left her panting because suddenly, I felt shy.
That's right, in the privacy of my own mind, I've had performance anxiety. I couldn't make it happen. Between the page and I was an uncomfortable tension. I didn't want to make a wrong move, but couldn't figure out what the right move was. The page waited, the moment started to go stale, I paced, the page turned on the tv, I'd lost it again.
There's so many darn things going on! Hair?! How many hands?! Every move or broad strokes? Physics - how's who's on top staying there? And this is just the mechanics - the stuff that needs to make sense but needs to be utterly utterly invisible. I can understand now why actors laugh when asked about on-stage romance under the cameras for their sex scenes and say "it's tightly choreographed" (tightly!). At the same time that I have these two wire-frame bodies twisting and shifting in my mind trying to maneuver into a docking position, I need to be evenly describing and building the emotional state, the physical arousal, the pertinent mutterings and exclamations. That's a lot to juggle, but it's not everything.
Aside from this is the thought that other people are going to read it. Are they going to cringe? Laugh? Read passages out to their colleagues in the lunchroom, just skip ahead, nominate it for a bad sex in fiction award? Or, worst of all, ring my mum and complain to her? (people did after Trojan Moments - Grandad in particular apparently found some of the poems "... a bit blue. Off". Great. Just what I don't need to know and can never un-hear).
ACK.
So, here we are, stuck at a frigid impasse. My characters are up for it - they're practically gagging for it. It's me, I'm the prude in the corner with the clammy hands and the self conscious attitude, and that's no fun at all, for anybody. I didn't have this problem with the murder scenes. Maybe I need to watch some more late-night SBS films, or just refresh my own docking proceedures.
Hold on Edwina - I'm coming!
Monday, November 24, 2008
A night aboard the "Private Dancer"
Today was meant to be solely dedicated to the formation of the perfectly constructed 3000 word essay on the managerial issues of problem-oriented-policing -programs. I could see this word-count perfect essay crystalline-pure and gem-like beautiful in my mind's eye. It turned gracefully there in the void of my imagination (yes, it's nearly all void in there. Handy for large models of things, but useless for ideas). It caught the light on its pithy, well-selected quotes. It rose above the choppy sea of interminable jargon and earnest justifications that I must trawl in order to form it. *Sigh* So beautiful, so ethereal. So fictitious. In reality, it was caught in the wake of the mighty plot engine I unleashed yesterday and the essay was swamped by the wash and has steadfastly refused to be written.
After the mad dash of 3 000 words in the previous 36 hours (oh Backstory - how I love thee) charting the formation of the (purely platonic!) relationship between Eddie and her Lawyer Henry Thornton (! charming story, really precious!), I have had to wrench myself away from the various saucy wenches of Eddie's world and come back to the plodding mundanities of justifying common sense and referencing it using the harvard system. It's ugly down here in the sea of Mandated Readings.
The trawler I'm on (the 'Private Dancer') is taking on water (in the form of many cups of tea - you want a nice steady, even stream of caffeine. At this point, a coffee would overload the delicate system and send us spinning out of control), and it's gone dark, the source material has merged into one amorphous morass (is that a tautology? Probably, yes, i think it is. too tired to fix it up) of meaningless italicised sections and bold headings with no content to hold them up. I've got some nasty drafts of the opening introduction and definitions section into the hold and on ice until I can gut and clean them, and so I am still needing about 2000 coherent words. I'm reduced to grinding out 20 or 50 stilted, dessicated words at a time, referencing them, and moving on. It's utterly numbing work. This friends, is the far from glamorous life of the essay ghost writer. No sushi here. No black velvet jackets and groovy knitted toys. Just sentences like this: "The management of community partnerships is of critical importance to the development, negotiation and daily operation of QPS's POPP initiatives." <> oh, I kid you not, and that's a tame one, and only 2980 more to go just like it.
I'm new to this game, and they're a tough and private breed the deep-sea ghost writers, they don't give up their secrets and tradecraft easily. In fact I wouldn't even know if there's any others out here - they run their ships dark to avoid detection. Only the wind, the waves and the steady drip of the word count to keep us company until we reach the cold dawn and shore - hopefully with a full hold and a properly formatted bibliography.
Maybe I should sacrifice some whisky and conjure the spirit of Hemingway to see me safely through to the dawn... Yes, that would take care of me, but it would be a shot in the arm for QPS's POPP initiatives. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this, no turning back now.
Wait, I can hear Hemingway!
"Lash yourself to the mast and hold tight to that fish."
WTF have I gotten myself into?
After the mad dash of 3 000 words in the previous 36 hours (oh Backstory - how I love thee) charting the formation of the (purely platonic!) relationship between Eddie and her Lawyer Henry Thornton (! charming story, really precious!), I have had to wrench myself away from the various saucy wenches of Eddie's world and come back to the plodding mundanities of justifying common sense and referencing it using the harvard system. It's ugly down here in the sea of Mandated Readings.
The trawler I'm on (the 'Private Dancer') is taking on water (in the form of many cups of tea - you want a nice steady, even stream of caffeine. At this point, a coffee would overload the delicate system and send us spinning out of control), and it's gone dark, the source material has merged into one amorphous morass (is that a tautology? Probably, yes, i think it is. too tired to fix it up) of meaningless italicised sections and bold headings with no content to hold them up. I've got some nasty drafts of the opening introduction and definitions section into the hold and on ice until I can gut and clean them, and so I am still needing about 2000 coherent words. I'm reduced to grinding out 20 or 50 stilted, dessicated words at a time, referencing them, and moving on. It's utterly numbing work. This friends, is the far from glamorous life of the essay ghost writer. No sushi here. No black velvet jackets and groovy knitted toys. Just sentences like this: "The management of community partnerships is of critical importance to the development, negotiation and daily operation of QPS's POPP initiatives." <
I'm new to this game, and they're a tough and private breed the deep-sea ghost writers, they don't give up their secrets and tradecraft easily. In fact I wouldn't even know if there's any others out here - they run their ships dark to avoid detection. Only the wind, the waves and the steady drip of the word count to keep us company until we reach the cold dawn and shore - hopefully with a full hold and a properly formatted bibliography.
Maybe I should sacrifice some whisky and conjure the spirit of Hemingway to see me safely through to the dawn... Yes, that would take care of me, but it would be a shot in the arm for QPS's POPP initiatives. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this, no turning back now.
Wait, I can hear Hemingway!
"Lash yourself to the mast and hold tight to that fish."
WTF have I gotten myself into?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Weather update and Plot Engine Drama
The storms have eased back ofter the mid-week catastrophe which was very considerate and allowed folks to start clearing away the stinky muck that flooded their houses, pushed over fences, and basically terrorised the place. I didn't know what a big news story I was living inside of until friends rang to check I was alive (thank you!), and then I started to notice how many choppers were buzzing around the place. I decided not to participate in watching the news, the mild hysteria at work was (perhaps uncharacteristically) enough sensationalism for me. Today is blustery (yay for laundry!!) and hot. Expectations about the storm du Soir (? am I making that up?) are mixed, some say just thunder and lightening, some say a bit of rain and wind. I say, it's poker night, and unless someone can get a clue, we'll all be heading off shortly (well, not Rumi, he cares nothing for cards) to get a swim and a good spot at the table. Once we're there, we'll take any storm as it may (or may not) come.
My attention is really on Edwina, Lady Kenthurst and the agonisingly slow process of getting her into a lot of trouble with Soames. I've put them on a boat, I've removed the protective male figure from her life (mouldering in a Belfast cell awaiting his death by hanging) and I've got 10 600 words and still they haven't met!! ARGH!! Although it turns out the Captain of the ship might be up for some trouble too. Saucy types, those captains! I hope it turns out this is great tension, but of course from inside the plot engine it feels like we've lost power to the main thrusters and are dropping away from our target minor climatic peak. It's hot in the engine room where my oiled men in loincloths are shovelling coal into the furnace as hard and as fast as their lithe bodies possibly can, but there's something gumming up the cogs and we can't seem to translate this sexy raw power into plot traction. The editor is screaming down the tubes at me "DEADLINE AHEAD! More words!" the inner critic from the bowels of the engine is heard, "I *told* you the beginning of the story was shit, and now look where it's lead us. We're fucked, and I *told* you so from the start."
"Keel-haul that traitor!" I scream and two idea monkeys shoot out to drag the bastard off. Fuck I've been wanting to do that for years. The last thing I need in a crisis like this is sedition within the engine room. I also make a note in my day book to check the correct formation and usage of keel-haul for use in the third act.
It's hot in here, I can't think straight. Why can't we turn away from the deadline? I wonder, but that's not my decision. I have an idea.
"Let's try mixing it up - where'd we store the typewriter?" The men give a cheer, and in lifting their arms in encouragement, inadvertently flex and tense their abdominal muscles. I'm swooning from the heat and the sight of so many hot fictional bodies. I can barely spell, but taken on a wave of hope and pheremones, we bolt the typewriter into place, re-route the production crank and set the ribbon in place. This could just save us...
The words start to come, the ribbon spools, the cogs begin to inch forward, the little bell tings and the carriage return shoots back. Yes! We're still in with a chance.
My attention is really on Edwina, Lady Kenthurst and the agonisingly slow process of getting her into a lot of trouble with Soames. I've put them on a boat, I've removed the protective male figure from her life (mouldering in a Belfast cell awaiting his death by hanging) and I've got 10 600 words and still they haven't met!! ARGH!! Although it turns out the Captain of the ship might be up for some trouble too. Saucy types, those captains! I hope it turns out this is great tension, but of course from inside the plot engine it feels like we've lost power to the main thrusters and are dropping away from our target minor climatic peak. It's hot in the engine room where my oiled men in loincloths are shovelling coal into the furnace as hard and as fast as their lithe bodies possibly can, but there's something gumming up the cogs and we can't seem to translate this sexy raw power into plot traction. The editor is screaming down the tubes at me "DEADLINE AHEAD! More words!" the inner critic from the bowels of the engine is heard, "I *told* you the beginning of the story was shit, and now look where it's lead us. We're fucked, and I *told* you so from the start."
"Keel-haul that traitor!" I scream and two idea monkeys shoot out to drag the bastard off. Fuck I've been wanting to do that for years. The last thing I need in a crisis like this is sedition within the engine room. I also make a note in my day book to check the correct formation and usage of keel-haul for use in the third act.
It's hot in here, I can't think straight. Why can't we turn away from the deadline? I wonder, but that's not my decision. I have an idea.
"Let's try mixing it up - where'd we store the typewriter?" The men give a cheer, and in lifting their arms in encouragement, inadvertently flex and tense their abdominal muscles. I'm swooning from the heat and the sight of so many hot fictional bodies. I can barely spell, but taken on a wave of hope and pheremones, we bolt the typewriter into place, re-route the production crank and set the ribbon in place. This could just save us...
The words start to come, the ribbon spools, the cogs begin to inch forward, the little bell tings and the carriage return shoots back. Yes! We're still in with a chance.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
A Damp State
Whatever the opposite of a drought is, it happened last night.
Flood is such a little word. It doesn't get across what huge stretches of angry brown water we're talking about. It doesn't get across the outside air turning into a wall of water for 8 or 9 hours and the resulting jostling for breathing space that causes on or in dry patches. You know it's wet when frogs are trying to get into the house.
Riley, Rumi and I sat on the bed into the wee hours of the morning. I was watching the rain turning into a lake on the front street and lawns and they were dozing - no biggie. The light would flicker off every now and then and each time spring back and that was comforting, but I thought "Somewhere, someone is really copping it" and sure enough this morning it turns out train tracks have been washed away, and we've gone from a state of emergency yesterday to a state of disaster today. I wonder what state we'll be in tomorrow after the next storm comes through tonight?
Perhaps a state of surrender.
Flood is such a little word. It doesn't get across what huge stretches of angry brown water we're talking about. It doesn't get across the outside air turning into a wall of water for 8 or 9 hours and the resulting jostling for breathing space that causes on or in dry patches. You know it's wet when frogs are trying to get into the house.
Riley, Rumi and I sat on the bed into the wee hours of the morning. I was watching the rain turning into a lake on the front street and lawns and they were dozing - no biggie. The light would flicker off every now and then and each time spring back and that was comforting, but I thought "Somewhere, someone is really copping it" and sure enough this morning it turns out train tracks have been washed away, and we've gone from a state of emergency yesterday to a state of disaster today. I wonder what state we'll be in tomorrow after the next storm comes through tonight?
Perhaps a state of surrender.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Didn't need the Evac Bag this time
Nature really ripped out a corker of a storm on Sunday arvo. It didn't seem too out of the ordinary where I was - windy, rainy, a bit of hail, plenty of water - pretty much a standard summer storm. But it turns out that I should be (and I am) very very grateful that my house still has a roof, because a lot of places don't. The storm was a lot more intense closer to the coast and the region has been declared an emergency zone. We got a concerned PM walking around and being emotionally empathetic with folks. The news told me that in Brisvegas it amounted to a Class 2 hurricane.
Holy Snapping Duckshit Batman!
Apart from the sensationalism and wow factor, the basic news is that Riley, Rumi and I are safe, dry and well. The house is a little musty from the humidity and all of us in the place at once, but there's nothing that a bit of cleaning on the weekend won't sort out.
Also, I've realised that my evac bag and process needs updating, but there were plenty of candles!!
Holy Snapping Duckshit Batman!
Apart from the sensationalism and wow factor, the basic news is that Riley, Rumi and I are safe, dry and well. The house is a little musty from the humidity and all of us in the place at once, but there's nothing that a bit of cleaning on the weekend won't sort out.
Also, I've realised that my evac bag and process needs updating, but there were plenty of candles!!
Monday, November 17, 2008
New Personal Best
Oh Happy Day!
I've hit 9000 words in the story!
Yay! I thought I was going to choke on 8000 for ever, but I pushed through and made my first ever literary kills (sorry Sir Simon Windemere, and unnamed wife and child).
How puny that word count seems. The NanWriMo official target for this week is 30 000. IN MY DREAMS!! But I could be in with a chance to make a new personal best, my next goal is to give the story an ending, not just leave everyone hanging.
If only I didn't have to work, do two assignments and my own laundry.....
I've hit 9000 words in the story!
Yay! I thought I was going to choke on 8000 for ever, but I pushed through and made my first ever literary kills (sorry Sir Simon Windemere, and unnamed wife and child).
How puny that word count seems. The NanWriMo official target for this week is 30 000. IN MY DREAMS!! But I could be in with a chance to make a new personal best, my next goal is to give the story an ending, not just leave everyone hanging.
If only I didn't have to work, do two assignments and my own laundry.....
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Weeping on the First/Second Date
The severe cut-backs on media intake continue to be painful and are not yielding any improvement in mental capacities or creative output. Perhaps this is like that period smokers go through when they reduce the number of cigarettes a day hoping to gain the best of both worlds. I am merely prolonging the worst aspects.
On saturday I went to the cinemas again with The Jugger, and of his list of proposed films 3 were on war, 1 a surrealist montage and 1 about running marathons. The only one in english was "The Hunger", and I know enough about Bobby Sands to know I didn't want to experience any of that so I chose war: Waltz with Bashir. Partly because I had heard a little about the production and it sounded interesting. They used a similar animation process to 'Through a Scanner Darkly' and I find this blending of techniques interesting. Apart from that, I knew it was set in the Lebannon war of 82 via flashback. But I ask you - what's wrong with a romantic comedy for a second/first date? (I must mention the protocols of internet dating - first date is a coffee date. I can be over as quickly as it takes to say "Soy?! Decaff?! I'm outta here" and part of this arrangement is there's no hard feelings. It was just a coffee - no biggie. If that goes well, one may progress to the next stage - what used to be the first date - where as a couple you might tackle the challenge of formally dining together, or perhaps enjoying the air-conditioning of a cinema, perhaps seeing if that 'GSOH' actually translates into the both of you laughing at anywhere near the same things, people, lines, ideas and so on). Or even, what's wrong with seeing a film you've already seen if you know it's good? I've done that, I think it's polite, after all, the function is to spend some time together not to critique David Stratton's interpretation!
I've always been someone who easily suspends disbelief and enters into the world of a film. Sometimes this results in a wonderful journey into a time and place I would never have access to otherwise, sometimes I get lost in that world and have trouble coming back (LOTR) and sometimes, it just really hurts because the story isn't a fantasy or an escape, or a comedy, it's a freaking documentary about a genocide. Heightened by my withdrawal from the world of moving pictures this was an arduous, painful 90minutes for me, and I was glad of my nana instincts to always travel with tissues, because I needed them. It's a great film, a well told story, visually interesting, political from a personal point of view and so on. I'm sure David probably gave it a great round up. He should have anyway, and there's some great humour in it, and some dream sequences, and a bit of german porn and I really loved the visual impact of the way they'd done the animation, it's just that I wept. It was sad, it was horrible and it was distressing because despite the animation and the other tricks, it was real. This man we get to know, he unearthed this memory, and it was his memory because he was there when this atrocity occurred. It. Was. Real. Bodies. Death. Blood. Everywhere.
BAM.
No getting around it. This is what bearing witness is all about isn't it?! To listen and feel with an open heart a story, a memory, a confession and hold it. Just hold it. I can't change it, I can't fix it, heal it or wipe it away. I can honour the memory of the people who died, and the pain of those who survived by acknowledging it.
So hours later when I got home and sat in the quiet room, I'm sorry memory of the people who died and pain of those who survived, but I really wanted to escape your reality and wash it away. So I used fire against fire. I watched another movie. The Fifth Element which is possibly the only intentionally positive, feel good, happy ending SF film.... oh maybe also Galaxy Quest. as distinct to SF films one laughs at (Starship Troopers!!). So much for giving up movies - two in one day!!
Maybe I should have chosen the marathon one afterall.
On saturday I went to the cinemas again with The Jugger, and of his list of proposed films 3 were on war, 1 a surrealist montage and 1 about running marathons. The only one in english was "The Hunger", and I know enough about Bobby Sands to know I didn't want to experience any of that so I chose war: Waltz with Bashir. Partly because I had heard a little about the production and it sounded interesting. They used a similar animation process to 'Through a Scanner Darkly' and I find this blending of techniques interesting. Apart from that, I knew it was set in the Lebannon war of 82 via flashback. But I ask you - what's wrong with a romantic comedy for a second/first date? (I must mention the protocols of internet dating - first date is a coffee date. I can be over as quickly as it takes to say "Soy?! Decaff?! I'm outta here" and part of this arrangement is there's no hard feelings. It was just a coffee - no biggie. If that goes well, one may progress to the next stage - what used to be the first date - where as a couple you might tackle the challenge of formally dining together, or perhaps enjoying the air-conditioning of a cinema, perhaps seeing if that 'GSOH' actually translates into the both of you laughing at anywhere near the same things, people, lines, ideas and so on). Or even, what's wrong with seeing a film you've already seen if you know it's good? I've done that, I think it's polite, after all, the function is to spend some time together not to critique David Stratton's interpretation!
I've always been someone who easily suspends disbelief and enters into the world of a film. Sometimes this results in a wonderful journey into a time and place I would never have access to otherwise, sometimes I get lost in that world and have trouble coming back (LOTR) and sometimes, it just really hurts because the story isn't a fantasy or an escape, or a comedy, it's a freaking documentary about a genocide. Heightened by my withdrawal from the world of moving pictures this was an arduous, painful 90minutes for me, and I was glad of my nana instincts to always travel with tissues, because I needed them. It's a great film, a well told story, visually interesting, political from a personal point of view and so on. I'm sure David probably gave it a great round up. He should have anyway, and there's some great humour in it, and some dream sequences, and a bit of german porn and I really loved the visual impact of the way they'd done the animation, it's just that I wept. It was sad, it was horrible and it was distressing because despite the animation and the other tricks, it was real. This man we get to know, he unearthed this memory, and it was his memory because he was there when this atrocity occurred. It. Was. Real. Bodies. Death. Blood. Everywhere.
BAM.
No getting around it. This is what bearing witness is all about isn't it?! To listen and feel with an open heart a story, a memory, a confession and hold it. Just hold it. I can't change it, I can't fix it, heal it or wipe it away. I can honour the memory of the people who died, and the pain of those who survived by acknowledging it.
So hours later when I got home and sat in the quiet room, I'm sorry memory of the people who died and pain of those who survived, but I really wanted to escape your reality and wash it away. So I used fire against fire. I watched another movie. The Fifth Element which is possibly the only intentionally positive, feel good, happy ending SF film.... oh maybe also Galaxy Quest. as distinct to SF films one laughs at (Starship Troopers!!). So much for giving up movies - two in one day!!
Maybe I should have chosen the marathon one afterall.
Friday, November 14, 2008
A Failure of Fun
I hit a wall this week. Ah, no - not in the car or anything. Emotionally. Is there a better way to say it? Plateau? No, it wasn't a levelling out. There's something that happens when tension builds up and frustration build up - and after a while you can't just keep working through it.
This week I had a nasty plot hump with the story, a bit of writer's block and "why am I doing this" and not reading, ok, well I'm sneaking some reading in, but no novels! Very little TV too and so it's just me and the blank page and the broken brain.
The word count has stalled at about 7300 (nearly my previous best of about 8/8500) it's hard not to wonder - am I choking? Do I really just not have this in me? Is this the best I can do?
Last night midnight saw me walking backwards and forwards throwing handfulls of papers into the recycling and asking Riley how nearly a whole nother year could have passed. He had no answers. How zen dogs can be. He's right of course, there are no answers, only choices and further questions.
Many other Nanowimo participants are already finished! Finished!! WTF?! Should I have chosen a different story? Should I too be transcribing song lyrics into my story or have a character count to a thousand? You think I'm joking, oh I assure you, these are but two of the fiendish tricks employed to plump one's word count.
Everything is taking so long to get out of my stupid head! But the time ranting and pacing last night was not completely lost. I had a little realisation. I'm missing the point. I've been clinging to my story and to my idea of what's ok. I'm at a writing version of Mardi gras with my metaphorical legs crossed and mouth closed. What a noob!
So rather than staying stuck on how to move Robin around Antrim, or what approach Soames will take to Eddie's abduction, I'm going to get back into it again and move through this invisible wall with my mouth open and my legs akimbo and get back to having a rip-sorting time.
And maybe just a few song lyrics.
This week I had a nasty plot hump with the story, a bit of writer's block and "why am I doing this" and not reading, ok, well I'm sneaking some reading in, but no novels! Very little TV too and so it's just me and the blank page and the broken brain.
The word count has stalled at about 7300 (nearly my previous best of about 8/8500) it's hard not to wonder - am I choking? Do I really just not have this in me? Is this the best I can do?
Last night midnight saw me walking backwards and forwards throwing handfulls of papers into the recycling and asking Riley how nearly a whole nother year could have passed. He had no answers. How zen dogs can be. He's right of course, there are no answers, only choices and further questions.
Many other Nanowimo participants are already finished! Finished!! WTF?! Should I have chosen a different story? Should I too be transcribing song lyrics into my story or have a character count to a thousand? You think I'm joking, oh I assure you, these are but two of the fiendish tricks employed to plump one's word count.
Everything is taking so long to get out of my stupid head! But the time ranting and pacing last night was not completely lost. I had a little realisation. I'm missing the point. I've been clinging to my story and to my idea of what's ok. I'm at a writing version of Mardi gras with my metaphorical legs crossed and mouth closed. What a noob!
So rather than staying stuck on how to move Robin around Antrim, or what approach Soames will take to Eddie's abduction, I'm going to get back into it again and move through this invisible wall with my mouth open and my legs akimbo and get back to having a rip-sorting time.
And maybe just a few song lyrics.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Rapture of the Nerds
Today I steal my title from Ken McLeod, a marvellous SF writer.
I'm indulging myself this afternoon (try it a little while you read - maybe rub your belly or loosen your shirt. That's it, feel alive) as I found out that Michael Crichton has died and I am sad. It's not cool to like his books, but I do - the ones I've read at least (which is not all of them by a long shot) and I admired how he went about what he did. It kind of reminded me of John Grisham, but with research. I sometimes felt that he was a thwarted documentary maker, and I also wish I had his talent for creating page turning plots. No, not great with the character development, but he didn't really pretend to be anything he wasn't, and the books nearly read themselves to you. Maybe they made better movies than books (Rising Sun) but that's ok too.
I also came across a great interview with Charles Stross, who is creating fascinating novels and I think is great fun. Thankfully, he is very well, and not dead. He talks here about SF as a genre with it's self-imposed limits, but also his own ideas of what keeps it relevant and interesting. It's from this interview that I pinched the title. I've read my share of singularity rapture!
I'm sad to have another writer die. Somehow it seems fitting that aging movie stars meet their end, or racing car drivers or politicians. But aren't writers exempt in some way?
I guess not.
Well, I hope he's having a good nerd rapture now.
So say we all.
I'm indulging myself this afternoon (try it a little while you read - maybe rub your belly or loosen your shirt. That's it, feel alive) as I found out that Michael Crichton has died and I am sad. It's not cool to like his books, but I do - the ones I've read at least (which is not all of them by a long shot) and I admired how he went about what he did. It kind of reminded me of John Grisham, but with research. I sometimes felt that he was a thwarted documentary maker, and I also wish I had his talent for creating page turning plots. No, not great with the character development, but he didn't really pretend to be anything he wasn't, and the books nearly read themselves to you. Maybe they made better movies than books (Rising Sun) but that's ok too.
I also came across a great interview with Charles Stross, who is creating fascinating novels and I think is great fun. Thankfully, he is very well, and not dead. He talks here about SF as a genre with it's self-imposed limits, but also his own ideas of what keeps it relevant and interesting. It's from this interview that I pinched the title. I've read my share of singularity rapture!
I'm sad to have another writer die. Somehow it seems fitting that aging movie stars meet their end, or racing car drivers or politicians. But aren't writers exempt in some way?
I guess not.
Well, I hope he's having a good nerd rapture now.
So say we all.
Monday, November 10, 2008
You don't know what you don't know (thank you Captain Obvious!)
The world is an interesting place if only for the powerful, invisible powers that inhabit it. I'm not talking here about magnetic flux, or light being both a wave and a stream of particles, or gravity and their ilk - fascinating though they may be. No, I am talking about odd coincidences, the power of synchronicity as Jung described the "acausal connecting principle". I would love to know if there's a word for when the acausal connecting principle goes non-linear.
Yes, synchronicity is non-linear itself. I get that, but so many times people use the example of thinking of someone you haven't heard of in ages, and then they ring you. That seems pretty directly linked to me. How it happens is the off-the-hook, but the emotional/intellectual connection is direct. Some definitions make a bit more sense "...a colliding of the seen and unseen realities. Within the improbable events there will be layers of hidden meanings that ring true in your innermost being." It sounds more like magic to me.
Anyway, I digress. The story I wanted to share with you today was that almost 2 years to the day, I had a date on the weekend. Yes, two years.
(Strangely, my last date and I went to see the new James Bond film - Casino Royale, and guess what's in the cinemas next weekend for the (still theoretical) second date with the new guy? You guessed it! The new James Bond film - Quantum of Solace!! But that's not even the part!)
So here I am in the heated heart of post-week-one-euphoria (see Week One in Review) and now grasping at plot straws (I have a villain - I just can't seem to get him a big enough and evil enough Dastardly Plan). I am writing and reading crazy at the moment, and I have a date! Excitement overload. I can't wait to share my interests with him.
We rendezvous in a bookstore (reference section) and he says "I never knew this section was here." Not an immediately great sign, but not impossible to recover from. He's good looking, he's turned up, he's keen for a coffee. We proceed. He has manners, entertaining hobbies, a science degree, seems pretty happy to talk to me, likes arthouse movies and oh-yeah is dyslexic.
Dyslexic.
Thanks acausal connecting principle!
So, as I'm writing this story and therefore it's all about me, we can skip all the heartwarming stuff about how he's overcome this difficulty and what tricks he has to manage stuff and so on (bright as a button this chap) and instead dwell for a moment on how I was confronted by an assumption I didn't realise I had. We would not be able to share the pleasure of reading. Something so central to my life that I didn't even see it has no real place in his except as something worked at for a specific purpose.
Huh. Didn't see that coming.
After a while though, I started to see some benefits to the idea. No unwelcome comments about drafts, no fighting over categorisation systems for shelves, no long and pedantic disagreements about etymologies. God, it's sounding brilliant. No bad-mouthing of beloved authors or diminishing of children's books. Just coz I'm in love with spines and folios and fiddling around with pens, why should I assume that I need to always be around others who feel that way?
Apparently, he's a very good cook. Yes, thank you acausal connecting principle, I wouldn't have made this step on my own! Now, as long as he likes playing cards ....
Yes, synchronicity is non-linear itself. I get that, but so many times people use the example of thinking of someone you haven't heard of in ages, and then they ring you. That seems pretty directly linked to me. How it happens is the off-the-hook, but the emotional/intellectual connection is direct. Some definitions make a bit more sense "...a colliding of the seen and unseen realities. Within the improbable events there will be layers of hidden meanings that ring true in your innermost being." It sounds more like magic to me.
Anyway, I digress. The story I wanted to share with you today was that almost 2 years to the day, I had a date on the weekend. Yes, two years.
(Strangely, my last date and I went to see the new James Bond film - Casino Royale, and guess what's in the cinemas next weekend for the (still theoretical) second date with the new guy? You guessed it! The new James Bond film - Quantum of Solace!! But that's not even the part!)
So here I am in the heated heart of post-week-one-euphoria (see Week One in Review) and now grasping at plot straws (I have a villain - I just can't seem to get him a big enough and evil enough Dastardly Plan). I am writing and reading crazy at the moment, and I have a date! Excitement overload. I can't wait to share my interests with him.
We rendezvous in a bookstore (reference section) and he says "I never knew this section was here." Not an immediately great sign, but not impossible to recover from. He's good looking, he's turned up, he's keen for a coffee. We proceed. He has manners, entertaining hobbies, a science degree, seems pretty happy to talk to me, likes arthouse movies and oh-yeah is dyslexic.
Dyslexic.
Thanks acausal connecting principle!
So, as I'm writing this story and therefore it's all about me, we can skip all the heartwarming stuff about how he's overcome this difficulty and what tricks he has to manage stuff and so on (bright as a button this chap) and instead dwell for a moment on how I was confronted by an assumption I didn't realise I had. We would not be able to share the pleasure of reading. Something so central to my life that I didn't even see it has no real place in his except as something worked at for a specific purpose.
Huh. Didn't see that coming.
After a while though, I started to see some benefits to the idea. No unwelcome comments about drafts, no fighting over categorisation systems for shelves, no long and pedantic disagreements about etymologies. God, it's sounding brilliant. No bad-mouthing of beloved authors or diminishing of children's books. Just coz I'm in love with spines and folios and fiddling around with pens, why should I assume that I need to always be around others who feel that way?
Apparently, he's a very good cook. Yes, thank you acausal connecting principle, I wouldn't have made this step on my own! Now, as long as he likes playing cards ....
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Week One in Review
It was a great idea to come out to Ma&Pa's farm overnight. I wasn't going to, I didn't want to loose all that time driving, and I am no good at saying 'I have to go sit in my room and do other things than talk to you oh beloved parents who raised me and sacrificed that I might succeed in life' but logistical considerations for the rest of the weekend made it the logical solution, so I did. There was a meal together and an evening playing frustration on the new veranda. But in the perfectly non-linear way that the world actually works, this turned out to be relaxing, distracting, fresh and wholesome (in other words an antidote to a week of spitty gossip and petty work concerns). It also had the flow-on benefit that I could not guilt myself into doing chores before I wrote this morning (which I would have done at home). No indeedy. Here there's just the wind and the birds in the trees as much tea and left-over pizza (avocado, mushroom and corn) as I like and lo - I've done over 700 words and am not yet out of my jammies!
Riley doesn't know it yet, but he's staying here until Sunday evening. He needed a break from me, and a bit of dog time in the dirt always replenishes him. For myself, I am aware of how out of shape I am mentally and physically for writing. I have talked *about* it a lot more than doing it this year, and now I suffer for it. My wrist, forearm and elbow are sore. My mind is stiff, and my eyes are acting up (one keeps swelling and bruising. Maybe someone is sneaking up on me while I sleep and poking one eye with my thumb and laughing maniacally "that's for being you!! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!) because I cannot think of any other explanation for this phenomena. Which simply demonstrates even further how out of creative fitness my mind is. Lazy and slow - too many pizzas and movies.
So, my week one word tally is 5 980. That's pretty good for an addled tryhard wannabe I reckon. Not great, not brilliant, but a fair effort. Shows potential, but plenty of scope for improvement. What I'm really happy about is that I don't feel bored. I can't believe how much fun this is! I still haven't got my characters off the fracking boat! WTF?! But I will dag-nammit! What's more, I'll get them off that boat and I'll get them into trouble, trouble they can not believe has rained down on their arses, and then I will twist that mother fucking plot on them! Oh yeah! and they will be in agony and things will be fucked up bad, man. Baaaaaad. And it will totally rock when, like a gentle ray of light from the high heavens, the characters think of a way to fight back, and they unravel the twist and they untrouble the shit and they fight the power. That is something I am excited about seeing, oh yes, and I have no fracking idea how the hell any of that is going to happen, or if it will be readable when the dust settles, but I don't care. We're in it together. If I keep writing, they'll keep doing and eventually, we'll have this adventure, or die trying.
You know, not die die, but just, maybe, well ....fail. But that's not the game plan! No, we're in it to save the Empire! (Questions about the value and validity of the empire can please be reserved for further projects on this theme should they eventuate).
Time to get out of the jammies.
Riley doesn't know it yet, but he's staying here until Sunday evening. He needed a break from me, and a bit of dog time in the dirt always replenishes him. For myself, I am aware of how out of shape I am mentally and physically for writing. I have talked *about* it a lot more than doing it this year, and now I suffer for it. My wrist, forearm and elbow are sore. My mind is stiff, and my eyes are acting up (one keeps swelling and bruising. Maybe someone is sneaking up on me while I sleep and poking one eye with my thumb and laughing maniacally "that's for being you!! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!) because I cannot think of any other explanation for this phenomena. Which simply demonstrates even further how out of creative fitness my mind is. Lazy and slow - too many pizzas and movies.
So, my week one word tally is 5 980. That's pretty good for an addled tryhard wannabe I reckon. Not great, not brilliant, but a fair effort. Shows potential, but plenty of scope for improvement. What I'm really happy about is that I don't feel bored. I can't believe how much fun this is! I still haven't got my characters off the fracking boat! WTF?! But I will dag-nammit! What's more, I'll get them off that boat and I'll get them into trouble, trouble they can not believe has rained down on their arses, and then I will twist that mother fucking plot on them! Oh yeah! and they will be in agony and things will be fucked up bad, man. Baaaaaad. And it will totally rock when, like a gentle ray of light from the high heavens, the characters think of a way to fight back, and they unravel the twist and they untrouble the shit and they fight the power. That is something I am excited about seeing, oh yes, and I have no fracking idea how the hell any of that is going to happen, or if it will be readable when the dust settles, but I don't care. We're in it together. If I keep writing, they'll keep doing and eventually, we'll have this adventure, or die trying.
You know, not die die, but just, maybe, well ....fail. But that's not the game plan! No, we're in it to save the Empire! (Questions about the value and validity of the empire can please be reserved for further projects on this theme should they eventuate).
Time to get out of the jammies.
Outcomes (bar chart this!)
I'm kinda feeling like today was a washout because I didn't write anything. That's what getting into the Nanowirmo does - starts pushing the orientation of priorities into the GET THE NOVEL DONE type order. But go over it again and the day wasn't a complete waste - I did a full day at work, I woke up to the aftermath of a pornographic dream and Dad lost at cards tonight. Overall - apart from the not-writing - a really well rounded set of outcomes!
Shame I can't cue up part two of that dream ....
Shame I can't cue up part two of that dream ....
Thursday, November 06, 2008
The Rain, it Raineth Down
The rain indeed raineth down upon us last night, and all around for hours and hours. So very beautiful. Rain like that turns a house into a cozy retreat from the world. A safe place of contemplative refuge. A bit louder than the music, but not so loud you're worried it's going to pound through the roof. Very calming. This morning is very humid, and everything green has shot up about 2 inches. A little spider had ambitiously developed a web between the steering wheel and the gear stick.
Nature is utterly relentless.
Nature is utterly relentless.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
What plot?
So lost the plot.
What book? Who am I? Where did I put that cup of coffee? What do you mean I have to report on that project at a meeting? My characters are stuck on a ship in the North Atlantic and you want me to concentrate on costings for a mailout and web updates?!
I'm shaking and I'm nauseous.
Forgeddit.
In other news - Well Done Obama!! Good work America!! Yay generally!! WOOT for HOPE!!
(ps. WTF is with not letting exclamation marks be in tabs? Get a grip people!)
(pps. Word count at 4300 and stalled)
What book? Who am I? Where did I put that cup of coffee? What do you mean I have to report on that project at a meeting? My characters are stuck on a ship in the North Atlantic and you want me to concentrate on costings for a mailout and web updates?!
I'm shaking and I'm nauseous.
Forgeddit.
In other news - Well Done Obama!! Good work America!! Yay generally!! WOOT for HOPE!!
(ps. WTF is with not letting exclamation marks be in tabs? Get a grip people!)
(pps. Word count at 4300 and stalled)
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Who's the Favourite?
The office is abuzz today with hats, sweeps, confusion over TAB forms, and anticipation of a feast for lunch. I've put a few bets on - it's almost un-Australian not to. Nothing unusual in how I chose my camels - I went with the three names I've heard most this morning on my way to work and in the kitchen.
So I've gone for Profound Beauty for a win or a place (what a beautiful name! Very Zen) and Zipping and Nom de Jeu for a place. ?I don't know?! But it adds to the frisson. Otherwise, I'd end up working through it and be totally underwhelmed by the whole thing. This is the lot of the office worker - bored by the eternal ennui of bureaucratesse (am I making up a word there?) and the blandness of our to-do lists and timesheets. So my bets are a token escape into a fantasy world of excitement, risk and glamour. Cheap oblivion. Bring it on.
In other news, some writing last night, and none yet today. I don't know what my word count might be. I also totally forgot about my reckless earlier commitment to audition for a role in the chorus of Oklahoma which has now come around this Sunday. Drat. It could still end up being hi-larious but i desperately need to write my fingers off to catchup my words! The good thing about being such a slow writer is that I am coming up with better plot ideas than if I was whizzing forward. When I say "better", I mean that in a relative sense. This story is very pulpy and unlikely. Increasingly so. Shockingly so. Bring it on.
So I've gone for Profound Beauty for a win or a place (what a beautiful name! Very Zen) and Zipping and Nom de Jeu for a place. ?I don't know?! But it adds to the frisson. Otherwise, I'd end up working through it and be totally underwhelmed by the whole thing. This is the lot of the office worker - bored by the eternal ennui of bureaucratesse (am I making up a word there?) and the blandness of our to-do lists and timesheets. So my bets are a token escape into a fantasy world of excitement, risk and glamour. Cheap oblivion. Bring it on.
In other news, some writing last night, and none yet today. I don't know what my word count might be. I also totally forgot about my reckless earlier commitment to audition for a role in the chorus of Oklahoma which has now come around this Sunday. Drat. It could still end up being hi-larious but i desperately need to write my fingers off to catchup my words! The good thing about being such a slow writer is that I am coming up with better plot ideas than if I was whizzing forward. When I say "better", I mean that in a relative sense. This story is very pulpy and unlikely. Increasingly so. Shockingly so. Bring it on.
Monday, November 03, 2008
A Thousand Bucks of Grog
My sister won a raffle on the weekend - I arrived at her place to see the pool table groaning under what appeared to be the full contents of a working bar. Name a type of spirit - there was two bottles of it. Including 3 different types of sherry.
"Yeah, I won a thousand bucks of grog at the fundraiser on the weekend. There's 10 cartons of beer to come yet, I couldn't fit it all in the X-trail."
Cool, but sherry? Oh, and they'd topped it all off with 2 or 3 casks of cheap and nasty wine.
Writing not so good on Sunday - about a thousand words. The addicted niece turned her nose up at the typing option. Apparently, she prefers earning pocket money in ways that allow her to continue to watch the tv while she 'works'. That bodes well for her employement future.
However, I had a swim and played a round of 'cranky pants' with KA and went home and fell asleep again. I seem to need an extra 3 hours in the afternoons of the weekend. Word count is at roughly 2650 and I'll have another session tonight. My PB previously was just 8 000 words, so this year if I can get to 25 000 I'll feel pretty stoked. (please don't tell me if you think 8k is pathetic. I already think that!)
Day 3 - attending my day job is cramping my style.
"Yeah, I won a thousand bucks of grog at the fundraiser on the weekend. There's 10 cartons of beer to come yet, I couldn't fit it all in the X-trail."
Cool, but sherry? Oh, and they'd topped it all off with 2 or 3 casks of cheap and nasty wine.
Writing not so good on Sunday - about a thousand words. The addicted niece turned her nose up at the typing option. Apparently, she prefers earning pocket money in ways that allow her to continue to watch the tv while she 'works'. That bodes well for her employement future.
However, I had a swim and played a round of 'cranky pants' with KA and went home and fell asleep again. I seem to need an extra 3 hours in the afternoons of the weekend. Word count is at roughly 2650 and I'll have another session tonight. My PB previously was just 8 000 words, so this year if I can get to 25 000 I'll feel pretty stoked. (please don't tell me if you think 8k is pathetic. I already think that!)
Day 3 - attending my day job is cramping my style.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Bonnie RIP
Sad news for the family this week.
Our old dog Bonnie has died. She has been increasingly slow, deaf and stiff in her joints and it seems certain that these were contributing factors in the circumstance of her death.
She was missing last Wednesday and late Thursday she was found. Burial took place on Friday.
We remember here as she was in her youth - loving and active - and also her miraculous recovery from the nasty incident of falling from the ute tray and being dragged some distance by her leash.
She is survived by her daughter in residence, Zara, and an unknown number of other descendants living happily on other farms in the region.
“In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris”
[“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken: for dust you are and to dust you will return”].
Our old dog Bonnie has died. She has been increasingly slow, deaf and stiff in her joints and it seems certain that these were contributing factors in the circumstance of her death.
She was missing last Wednesday and late Thursday she was found. Burial took place on Friday.
We remember here as she was in her youth - loving and active - and also her miraculous recovery from the nasty incident of falling from the ute tray and being dragged some distance by her leash.
She is survived by her daughter in residence, Zara, and an unknown number of other descendants living happily on other farms in the region.
“In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris”
[“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken: for dust you are and to dust you will return”].
Many Questions
As soon as I started trying to explain how Edwina was on the train, I was deluged by questions. Utterly flooded. What kind of train? How are the seats set up? How long will the trip take? What station is it going from? Can she walk from one carriage to another? Would she have a thermos of tea in her basket?
I didn't really think through the consequences of choosing to set my novel in Victorian times, I just wanted to write something that I would enjoy reading. But now of course, I have to figure out what year it probably is, so I know if trains even run to that city. Unless of course I don't and just keep going with making things up and all the poeple who actually know these things can rant and curse all they want about idiotic people who don't know the first thing about rail history between the period of 1830 and 1890. I can tell you - I know more than the average person on the street, and I don't know nearly enough to write this scene! So I'm going to stop worrying about it. I don't have time.
I'm about to bend a whole lot of other things, so I don't see I should worry overmuch about details like train timetables. But where things can be plausible, they should be. ARGH! How does anyone every write anything?! But she has a manservant, and seems to be independently wealthy, oh, and educated. I think I'll just stick with the old "it's different for the rich" excuse until I get a clue.
I slept poorly and had nightmares last night. Was it something I ate or just the heat? No matter, today Edwina must get to Belfast and discover that Ireland is a seething mass of political foment, not the idyllic pastoral retreat she had imagined.
I didn't really think through the consequences of choosing to set my novel in Victorian times, I just wanted to write something that I would enjoy reading. But now of course, I have to figure out what year it probably is, so I know if trains even run to that city. Unless of course I don't and just keep going with making things up and all the poeple who actually know these things can rant and curse all they want about idiotic people who don't know the first thing about rail history between the period of 1830 and 1890. I can tell you - I know more than the average person on the street, and I don't know nearly enough to write this scene! So I'm going to stop worrying about it. I don't have time.
I'm about to bend a whole lot of other things, so I don't see I should worry overmuch about details like train timetables. But where things can be plausible, they should be. ARGH! How does anyone every write anything?! But she has a manservant, and seems to be independently wealthy, oh, and educated. I think I'll just stick with the old "it's different for the rich" excuse until I get a clue.
I slept poorly and had nightmares last night. Was it something I ate or just the heat? No matter, today Edwina must get to Belfast and discover that Ireland is a seething mass of political foment, not the idyllic pastoral retreat she had imagined.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Meet Edwina
As usual the decision to write today made me strangely motivated and productive in doing all sorts of household chores that I would normally be happy to allow to go begging for months on end. However I have managed so far to have two sessions (utilising the best writing tool ever - the egg timer) of half hour and one hour and produced about a 1000 words. It's a humble start, but a start nonetheless. I say "about" because I've started longhand and so the word count is manual. I am going to find someone to type it up for me... perhaps I can pay piece wages to my niece who always needs cash now to support her SMS habit. Addicts are so easy to exploit!
The weather is not co-operating either. It was 35degrees today. Days like this I think what a good idea it would be to put a big shade sail above my entire house. I've checked that Sis will be home tomorrow, I'm not risking another day like that without being near a pool! That's the good thing about taking the project longhand, I could write anywhere. Note the use of 'could'. We shall see. I am looking forward to getting to know my character more. I think she may turn out to be a bit of a spunk. Can we still say that and be understood? Edwina, Lady Kenthurst is pretty spunky in a librarian-meets-Lara-Croft-mid 1800s kind of way, but right now she's stuck on a train with two horrible bores and I need to get her to safety.
Pip pip!
The weather is not co-operating either. It was 35degrees today. Days like this I think what a good idea it would be to put a big shade sail above my entire house. I've checked that Sis will be home tomorrow, I'm not risking another day like that without being near a pool! That's the good thing about taking the project longhand, I could write anywhere. Note the use of 'could'. We shall see. I am looking forward to getting to know my character more. I think she may turn out to be a bit of a spunk. Can we still say that and be understood? Edwina, Lady Kenthurst is pretty spunky in a librarian-meets-Lara-Croft-mid 1800s kind of way, but right now she's stuck on a train with two horrible bores and I need to get her to safety.
Pip pip!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Blackout
I got home last night and the suburb was dark.
No street lights, no shops lit up, no house lights, spotties on driveways or music or blurred blue from TVs. No moon either. Dark.
It was beautiful. It was quiet. And I was very glad I had a lot of candles in the house. Apart from not being able to listen to the radio it was pretty nice. I ate an icecream out of the freezer - I had to you understand, to test if the food was spoiling - and discovered that 5 candles lit up the room beautifully and two close-by were fine for reading to.
After about a half an hour there were some sirens and shouting and general rowdiness. I wondered if this might happen more often and should I get some gas lanterns. I made a cup of tea because gas ovens rule the world and soon enough the radio and fridge came back to life.
With all the discussion about carbon trading and emissions it can still be all too easy to think about it all in the abstract, until you're in a blackout. Tonight would be more thematically fitting for a blackout, so we'll see what happens.
Happy Halloween!
ps. Tomorrow is the begining of November - you know what that means!! http://www.nanowrimo.org/
No street lights, no shops lit up, no house lights, spotties on driveways or music or blurred blue from TVs. No moon either. Dark.
It was beautiful. It was quiet. And I was very glad I had a lot of candles in the house. Apart from not being able to listen to the radio it was pretty nice. I ate an icecream out of the freezer - I had to you understand, to test if the food was spoiling - and discovered that 5 candles lit up the room beautifully and two close-by were fine for reading to.
After about a half an hour there were some sirens and shouting and general rowdiness. I wondered if this might happen more often and should I get some gas lanterns. I made a cup of tea because gas ovens rule the world and soon enough the radio and fridge came back to life.
With all the discussion about carbon trading and emissions it can still be all too easy to think about it all in the abstract, until you're in a blackout. Tonight would be more thematically fitting for a blackout, so we'll see what happens.
Happy Halloween!
ps. Tomorrow is the begining of November - you know what that means!! http://www.nanowrimo.org/
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tunnel Vision
Riley and I were walking down the street this morning and it seemed like we'd been walking down the one street for a long time. Over and over again. There was the slightest sensation for a moment of being in a tunnel that has it's other end now joined to the entrance. Looping now and passing signs for turnoffs you'll never get to.
But actually I know that this morning is different to yesterday morning in a myriad of tiny ways and even though when we walk out the door we can only turn left or turn right - and that often feels very limited - well that's the same at every corner we come to on our walks and we end up seeing different things. This tree is blooming, that bird is odd, how weird are the clouds, the path has been brushed. LIttle things, but different enough.
It's at times like this when there is so little to take in, that I realise all over again how much I do take in. How much of this morning's walk I can remember (not reconstruct) and how much I am constantly learning about my neighbourhood just by walking around it. Then, being me, I turn this observation into a worry "I'm not stimulating my brain enough and I'll get wobbly and dim. Look how much it's noticing - my brain could be filling up on pointless information about yards and bins and cars!!"
What a drongo.
So I'm going to read more SciFi and fill my brain up with imaginary things instead!
A much better idea than watching the news I think!
But actually I know that this morning is different to yesterday morning in a myriad of tiny ways and even though when we walk out the door we can only turn left or turn right - and that often feels very limited - well that's the same at every corner we come to on our walks and we end up seeing different things. This tree is blooming, that bird is odd, how weird are the clouds, the path has been brushed. LIttle things, but different enough.
It's at times like this when there is so little to take in, that I realise all over again how much I do take in. How much of this morning's walk I can remember (not reconstruct) and how much I am constantly learning about my neighbourhood just by walking around it. Then, being me, I turn this observation into a worry "I'm not stimulating my brain enough and I'll get wobbly and dim. Look how much it's noticing - my brain could be filling up on pointless information about yards and bins and cars!!"
What a drongo.
So I'm going to read more SciFi and fill my brain up with imaginary things instead!
A much better idea than watching the news I think!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Outside in the Morning
The air this morning was deliciously sweet. I wanted to drink swimming pools of it. The sky seemed as deep as the ocean and blue like a bird's heart all the way through.
All the crows flew to one big tree and spent 5 minutes loudly cawing over each other - scrabbling to prove their points before dispersing in gossiping gangs.
All the crows flew to one big tree and spent 5 minutes loudly cawing over each other - scrabbling to prove their points before dispersing in gossiping gangs.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Flopping around on the couch like a pale moonworm
I had this fleeting idea for a good post the other day, and I didn't write it down, so guess what? Yeah, I totally forgot it.
So I've been sick. Let's not talk about it. It's very boring to to talk about being ill, particularly when it's not a new or exotic thing - just the same round of stuff.
I've read a few books lately - the two Vampire Academy books (Vampire Academy and Frostbite) and two "Mortal Instruments" (City of Bones & City of Ashes by Clare) these are good fun. Particularly if you like stories about vampires. If you don't like stories about vampires, well you won't really like these, and you've got other issues anyway. I'm currently reading the new Monthly and a dodgy e-book called "Palace of Paradise" or something. It sounds like it might be a saucy romance, but actually it's really an edited listserv doc for a type of therapy called Emotional Freedom Therapy. As you can tell by the name, there's not a lot of science to this therapy! It's only 140 pages but it's taking me ages to read it. I got recommended it, so I'm staying the distance... In more exciting reading news I've have started the new Neal Stephenson (Anathem) and have only got about 50 pages in and decided to draw it out, so have put it down until the weekend. ooooohhh - delicious fiction! It's way clever, and I expect it will get quite complicated. I've just ordered 'Babylon Babies' by Maurice Dantec (a French author, so it's in translation) as Sister and I went to the movies last weekend to see the movie that's been loosely based on it - Babylon AD and we enjoyed it. I'm not necessarily recommending it mind you, just saying that as huge Riddick fans, we were fanging for some butch-camp sci-fi, and this was just the ticket! I was very upset this week to realise that the new Riddick "film" I thought I saw listing on IMDB was actually just a video game. D'oH!!
While I was ill, all of my seedlings died. The backyard is so overgrown that I will only walk on the concrete paths because I am afraid of snakes. This is hurting the fig and lemon trees, as they're not currently getting the laundry water on the weekends. It feels terribly wasteful to let all of that water just go down the drain, but even if I could walk to the trees, I wasn't in a fit state to carry the buckets. That's ok, we'll start again next weekend. Maybe.
So I've been sick. Let's not talk about it. It's very boring to to talk about being ill, particularly when it's not a new or exotic thing - just the same round of stuff.
I've read a few books lately - the two Vampire Academy books (Vampire Academy and Frostbite) and two "Mortal Instruments" (City of Bones & City of Ashes by Clare) these are good fun. Particularly if you like stories about vampires. If you don't like stories about vampires, well you won't really like these, and you've got other issues anyway. I'm currently reading the new Monthly and a dodgy e-book called "Palace of Paradise" or something. It sounds like it might be a saucy romance, but actually it's really an edited listserv doc for a type of therapy called Emotional Freedom Therapy. As you can tell by the name, there's not a lot of science to this therapy! It's only 140 pages but it's taking me ages to read it. I got recommended it, so I'm staying the distance... In more exciting reading news I've have started the new Neal Stephenson (Anathem) and have only got about 50 pages in and decided to draw it out, so have put it down until the weekend. ooooohhh - delicious fiction! It's way clever, and I expect it will get quite complicated. I've just ordered 'Babylon Babies' by Maurice Dantec (a French author, so it's in translation) as Sister and I went to the movies last weekend to see the movie that's been loosely based on it - Babylon AD and we enjoyed it. I'm not necessarily recommending it mind you, just saying that as huge Riddick fans, we were fanging for some butch-camp sci-fi, and this was just the ticket! I was very upset this week to realise that the new Riddick "film" I thought I saw listing on IMDB was actually just a video game. D'oH!!
While I was ill, all of my seedlings died. The backyard is so overgrown that I will only walk on the concrete paths because I am afraid of snakes. This is hurting the fig and lemon trees, as they're not currently getting the laundry water on the weekends. It feels terribly wasteful to let all of that water just go down the drain, but even if I could walk to the trees, I wasn't in a fit state to carry the buckets. That's ok, we'll start again next weekend. Maybe.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Vale
It's been a crap month and frankly, I'm pretty happy to see the back of September. It started out fairly promising - I came off the roids after 2 months and spring did the thing ... but it just seemed as though nothing could really get any traction and then I caught a flu. Although there's not medical concensus that colitis is an auto-immune disease, I can tell you that my GBS thought it would be *great* to join in with the flu and so I got two for the price of one.
I couldn't write about it at the time, but I was saddened and depressed by David Foster Wallace's suicide. If he couldn't hack it .... well, he's a lot smarter than me, so maybe I'm going to be ok living with the great existential abyss a while longer. After all, I seem to be able to happily live alongside it so far.
Some good news, a new mattress, which should really get an entry all to itself, yes it should. The new novel by Neal Stephenson has arrived and I have excitedly read the first few pages, but am holding off until my health has recovered - don't enter into his later works unprepared peeps! Looks goooooooood!!
Time for me to take more medicine and lie down quietly somewhere.
I couldn't write about it at the time, but I was saddened and depressed by David Foster Wallace's suicide. If he couldn't hack it .... well, he's a lot smarter than me, so maybe I'm going to be ok living with the great existential abyss a while longer. After all, I seem to be able to happily live alongside it so far.
Some good news, a new mattress, which should really get an entry all to itself, yes it should. The new novel by Neal Stephenson has arrived and I have excitedly read the first few pages, but am holding off until my health has recovered - don't enter into his later works unprepared peeps! Looks goooooooood!!
Time for me to take more medicine and lie down quietly somewhere.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
I have low expectations about films like this, but I was well disappointed by this boring, lacklustre doin it by the numbers effort.
Such a shame. The playful spark of the 1999 The Mummy (no subtitle needed) with the sassy librarian and the boof-head boy (played with lovely comic timing by Brendan Fraser) was well paced, unpretentious and featured plenty of just-enough pommy plummery to flavour.
Not so this bloated and lost monstrosity.
The second film got a bit bogged down in the 'family' backstory and the laboured plot devises to bring the Scorpion King, the Mummy and Rick O'Connell into a massive three-way fight was lightened only by the girl-on-girl king fu knives in egyptian scanties action. You can watch it, but you really need to be nailed to the couch by beers and ennui to do so. This third film makes the second one seem fresh.
I thought Jet Li would totally rock out as an evil powerful emperor, but he seemed to have a bad headache and a stick up his arse. *sigh* The hot and sweet Rachel Weisz is missing, and the new girl Maria Bello ... well let's just say the chemistry isn't there. I don't care that Rick and Evie's parenting has been a bit lacklustre, where the hell's Arnold Vosloo oiled and in a loincloth? Jet Li spends the whole film encased in a piece of Bauhaus architecture.
Don't go see this film. Seriously, you'll have more fun re categorising your cds.
Such a shame. The playful spark of the 1999 The Mummy (no subtitle needed) with the sassy librarian and the boof-head boy (played with lovely comic timing by Brendan Fraser) was well paced, unpretentious and featured plenty of just-enough pommy plummery to flavour.
Not so this bloated and lost monstrosity.
The second film got a bit bogged down in the 'family' backstory and the laboured plot devises to bring the Scorpion King, the Mummy and Rick O'Connell into a massive three-way fight was lightened only by the girl-on-girl king fu knives in egyptian scanties action. You can watch it, but you really need to be nailed to the couch by beers and ennui to do so. This third film makes the second one seem fresh.
I thought Jet Li would totally rock out as an evil powerful emperor, but he seemed to have a bad headache and a stick up his arse. *sigh* The hot and sweet Rachel Weisz is missing, and the new girl Maria Bello ... well let's just say the chemistry isn't there. I don't care that Rick and Evie's parenting has been a bit lacklustre, where the hell's Arnold Vosloo oiled and in a loincloth? Jet Li spends the whole film encased in a piece of Bauhaus architecture.
Don't go see this film. Seriously, you'll have more fun re categorising your cds.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Generation Kill
There's always someone worse off.
It's not meant to be a cheering thought, but it is. As a fat, white, middle-class-ish Australian, roughly 92% of the world is worse off than I am, but of course I don't usually see them and so, every now and then, I just completely forget.
This week I've been reminded of this fact by watching the HBO mini series "Generation Kill".
There are many levels on which this mini-series is fascinating. Before I get into any rave or meandering, I'll own up immediately to the following points:
1. It is based on a book (Generation Kill by Evan Wright. There's quite a good review with excerpts at the New Statesman). I haven't read it but my brother-in-law is reading it and tells me that the two versions are very close.
2. I read (and "enjoyed") Jarhead.
3. I couldn't finish 'Catch 22' (but intend to give it another go now that I have some more 'water under the bridge').
4. I loved 'Waiting for Godot'.
5. I work in a (local) government body.
I'm not sure where to start. It's not so much about American politics (or even so much even about the war) as about bizarre reality. This is not a 'story' but neither is it a contrived 'reality' show or documentary or mock-u-mentary. A long time ago we might have used the term cinema-verite to describe something like this - but actually I think this is a new flavour, a new style. A very modern, unsentimental, "unpurposed" approach to this kind of subject matter.
As the first credits came up, I thought "Why am I exposing myself to yet more American culture and *another* take on Iraq?" - not the thoughts of a ready-to-cheer fan, but what drew me into the world of this group of men was the understated treatment of a hysterical, terrifying, aggro subject in a neutral, intelligent way. Nothing about the marines' behaviours, thoughts, language, politics or concerns are explained, diminished, justified or homogenised. Some of them are very thoughtful brave men, and lots aren't.
How does anyone stay sane in this environment of continual flip-flopping of command, the petty focus on 'grooming standards' above issues of resupply (of rations and ammunition - "you want logistics, join the army. Marines make do."), the constant 'bad comms' and blackmarket for essentials like batteries (what good are night vision goggles without power?), friendly fire, rotting feet and superstitions?
They don't.
These men are warriors. They're also opportunists, psychos, working Joes and reporters. They aren't philosophers or diplomats or politicians. They're warriors, trained to kill and cultured to win. They're largely fuelled by video games, sugar and caffeine. I am unsettled by how easily I can relate to them and their bickering and sing-songing on what must have been interminable drives , their dark, wry humour and the restlessness and frustration they experience of being deployed into tasks and positions they were not trained for and unused for exactly the missions they were.
What is best about this series is the attention to remaining complex. In one scene, the motorcade is passing a body. The body is vivid, bloody, personal. The camera tracks a number of responses in the marines (interest, sadness, revulsion) the reporter is shocked, and his immediate response is to raise his camera and take a picture. One of the marines confronts him "that's exploitation man" and he is shamed. The Reporter - our everyman for the viewer, our representative of the media - is the one who could least handle the moment but did so by turning it into an image, something that could be documented and filed. Distancing himself from it in one of the ways that we all do. Otherwise, what would he do with that experience of seeing and smelling that death of an innocent? What action, what sense is there for him? What is there for us? We saw these deaths too, despite the control over what images went out, we saw civilians hurt and murdered.
I am finding this series to be complex, confronting, valuable. I'm not sure it should be called entertainment. I don't know what to think. More importantly, I don't know what to do.
Still not cheering, but definitely a fan.
It's not meant to be a cheering thought, but it is. As a fat, white, middle-class-ish Australian, roughly 92% of the world is worse off than I am, but of course I don't usually see them and so, every now and then, I just completely forget.
This week I've been reminded of this fact by watching the HBO mini series "Generation Kill".
There are many levels on which this mini-series is fascinating. Before I get into any rave or meandering, I'll own up immediately to the following points:
1. It is based on a book (Generation Kill by Evan Wright. There's quite a good review with excerpts at the New Statesman). I haven't read it but my brother-in-law is reading it and tells me that the two versions are very close.
2. I read (and "enjoyed") Jarhead.
3. I couldn't finish 'Catch 22' (but intend to give it another go now that I have some more 'water under the bridge').
4. I loved 'Waiting for Godot'.
5. I work in a (local) government body.
I'm not sure where to start. It's not so much about American politics (or even so much even about the war) as about bizarre reality. This is not a 'story' but neither is it a contrived 'reality' show or documentary or mock-u-mentary. A long time ago we might have used the term cinema-verite to describe something like this - but actually I think this is a new flavour, a new style. A very modern, unsentimental, "unpurposed" approach to this kind of subject matter.
As the first credits came up, I thought "Why am I exposing myself to yet more American culture and *another* take on Iraq?" - not the thoughts of a ready-to-cheer fan, but what drew me into the world of this group of men was the understated treatment of a hysterical, terrifying, aggro subject in a neutral, intelligent way. Nothing about the marines' behaviours, thoughts, language, politics or concerns are explained, diminished, justified or homogenised. Some of them are very thoughtful brave men, and lots aren't.
How does anyone stay sane in this environment of continual flip-flopping of command, the petty focus on 'grooming standards' above issues of resupply (of rations and ammunition - "you want logistics, join the army. Marines make do."), the constant 'bad comms' and blackmarket for essentials like batteries (what good are night vision goggles without power?), friendly fire, rotting feet and superstitions?
They don't.
These men are warriors. They're also opportunists, psychos, working Joes and reporters. They aren't philosophers or diplomats or politicians. They're warriors, trained to kill and cultured to win. They're largely fuelled by video games, sugar and caffeine. I am unsettled by how easily I can relate to them and their bickering and sing-songing on what must have been interminable drives , their dark, wry humour and the restlessness and frustration they experience of being deployed into tasks and positions they were not trained for and unused for exactly the missions they were.
What is best about this series is the attention to remaining complex. In one scene, the motorcade is passing a body. The body is vivid, bloody, personal. The camera tracks a number of responses in the marines (interest, sadness, revulsion) the reporter is shocked, and his immediate response is to raise his camera and take a picture. One of the marines confronts him "that's exploitation man" and he is shamed. The Reporter - our everyman for the viewer, our representative of the media - is the one who could least handle the moment but did so by turning it into an image, something that could be documented and filed. Distancing himself from it in one of the ways that we all do. Otherwise, what would he do with that experience of seeing and smelling that death of an innocent? What action, what sense is there for him? What is there for us? We saw these deaths too, despite the control over what images went out, we saw civilians hurt and murdered.
I am finding this series to be complex, confronting, valuable. I'm not sure it should be called entertainment. I don't know what to think. More importantly, I don't know what to do.
Still not cheering, but definitely a fan.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Rancid World View
What an unutterably foul mood has descended upon me today. Bored, angry and spilling over with acidic derision for all the world has to offer.
No reason.
Perhaps because it's Monday, perhaps because there's days yet until I can play, and perhaps because I didn't get my own way with anything on the weekend.
What would be opposite of Rose Coloured Glasses? Turd Breath? This is beyond cranky pants and into Devil Diapers.
No reason.
Perhaps because it's Monday, perhaps because there's days yet until I can play, and perhaps because I didn't get my own way with anything on the weekend.
What would be opposite of Rose Coloured Glasses? Turd Breath? This is beyond cranky pants and into Devil Diapers.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Neil Gaiman Gives Away "Neverwhere"
The Magnificent Neil Gaiman is at it again.
You read that title right, you can download Neverwhere for free for a limited time.
Last year he made American Gods available as a free ebook and this year it's the dark adventure Neverwhere. It's a shorter book (for those who prefer to read on-screen) and a Gaiman classic. Go on, do yourself a favour!
First taste is free!
(btw, in case you don't know, The Graveyard Book is now only weeks away! Almost really, could be counted in days. YAYAYAYAYAYAAAY)
(AND Neal Stephenson's new novel out this month OMG a flood of riches!!)
You read that title right, you can download Neverwhere for free for a limited time.
Last year he made American Gods available as a free ebook and this year it's the dark adventure Neverwhere. It's a shorter book (for those who prefer to read on-screen) and a Gaiman classic. Go on, do yourself a favour!
First taste is free!
(btw, in case you don't know, The Graveyard Book is now only weeks away! Almost really, could be counted in days. YAYAYAYAYAYAAAY)
(AND Neal Stephenson's new novel out this month OMG a flood of riches!!)
Maths in Music
Last night was a chance to see the amazing Grant Collins in performance (at the Ipswich Civic Hall). It has been waaaaaaaaaaaayy too long since I was exposed to something so challenging and beautiful at the same time. I only wish that I could have been more rested and so able to keep up with the mathematical and physical gymnastics this charming musician performs - all with a gorgeous sense of humour. I'm so grateful for the chance to see someone that cool in this town.
Hilariously enough, I took my seven year old niece (Kirra) who loves music and is pretty much hyperactive. It was her first concert, and she loved it. From the support act (who were brilliant) (The Gap High School percussion ensemble) who had jammed 4 full size glockenspiels/xylophones into the foyer along with a normal kit, a whole bunch of tom toms a base drum and various bells and stuff. They played some thilling contemporary stuff (ever heard a glockenspiel played with a bow? Haunting.) and something that sounded very ritualistic (an interpretation of something - I couldn't quite hear the bandmaster). Kirra said "It sounds like a movie" and I think that's the highest praise she has in her current paradigm.
Hilariously enough, I took my seven year old niece (Kirra) who loves music and is pretty much hyperactive. It was her first concert, and she loved it. From the support act (who were brilliant) (The Gap High School percussion ensemble) who had jammed 4 full size glockenspiels/xylophones into the foyer along with a normal kit, a whole bunch of tom toms a base drum and various bells and stuff. They played some thilling contemporary stuff (ever heard a glockenspiel played with a bow? Haunting.) and something that sounded very ritualistic (an interpretation of something - I couldn't quite hear the bandmaster). Kirra said "It sounds like a movie" and I think that's the highest praise she has in her current paradigm.
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