Goblin Mercantile Exchange

This breaks down the Olympic results in an incisive way that I haven’t yet seen.

It makes sense, to me, that Girl Talk is from Pittsburgh–he’s making a little nest of shiny musical things from the rubble of industrialism aka the pop industry. I can’t get enough of Feed the Animals, working as an album I can’t quite explain.

So I’ve been busy, laying low (like, in a tunnel or something), but I guess other shit has been happening?

Digging, digging, digging…

Just like laughing at one’s jokes, is it bad form to laugh at one’s blog? I was combing through the archives, looking for aphorisms/epigraphs, and came across this post. It feels like it was written 10 years ago but it was less than 3! I forget the original context–something about young writers who made pro sales, whatever–but I was reading the comments and thinking, wow, a lot of comments on here by people I don’t know! Then I remembered: oh, right, I wrote 85 percent of the comments on this post under pseudonyms (bonus trivia: see if you can discern who wasn’t a sock puppet on here…shouldn’t be that hard).

Good times, 2005, good times.

…is going on now! Fabulous prizes and a great cause to support some great writing.

Incidentally, I was remiss to mention that my review of Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, a deeply deeply strange novel, appeared there earlier in June.

I sometimes wonder, in the back of my subconscious, why it’s hard to take Pitchfork at all seriously, i.e., as a serious source of music criticism in the early 21st century.

Then I remember that they published this review. And then it all makes sense.

or are living under a rock in the Twin Cities–Dave Schwartz is reading tonight from his new novel, Superpowers at 7pm at Dreamhaven. The book is released–go forth and attend/purchase!

I’ve been thinking the last couple of days about deep-diving into material and skirting on the surface of it. I’ve read a lot of philosophy in the last year–and have had a lot of catching up to do–and I’ll be the first to admit that there is a lot I don’t understand in the bones and sinew of Western thought. But I find myself, at times, sifting through philosophical essays that I read to glean aphorisms or distillations. Amusingly, this has come about a lot more since I’ve started blogging (amusing, because my blogging has been scarce of late. But I think about it, mull over 3 paragraph posts even when they don’t crystallize into sitting down in front of the computer and writing it out–sure, it’s kind of like the notion of “I really have a novel inside of me, I just haven’t written it yet.” But, I would argue, the stakes are much lower!) And sometimes, I wonder what the hell I’m doing, skipping like a stone on the oceans of ideas, all horizons and no plumbing (both as a verb and a noun, i.e., the guts).

A lot of this is being hard on myself, sure; a lot of this is a function of my oft-times frantic work schedule, the 45 minute commute each way. So I know a lot of this is a consolidatory effort to focus on the fiction and poetry in the midst of this. In the middle of writing a new novel that, for 2 years, has been an absolute bear — whose final shape in some ways feels more apparitional now than it’s ever been — there haven’t been a lot of spare mental parts.

(Still, able to procrastinate with the best of them!)

It’s an omnivorous creature, this novel. And yet as difficult as its been, I’m still finding the struggle worthwhile.

One of my favorite recent genres of TV commercials is the “passive aggressive, angry oil company commercial.” The tone is “Look, yeah, yeah, you think we’re part of the problem, but we’re actually part of the solution too! So piss off!”

This Chevron extended clip is a minor masterpiece in the genre. It sounds like it’s narrated by Darth Vader’s little brother. I was stymied to find about halfway through they actually used the phrase, and I kid you not, “part time poets.”

Communities make assertions. Open minded communities make open minded assertions.

I was remiss to mention the awesomeness of the release of Dave Schwartz’s novella at Wiscon! It truly is a crackerjack work of fiction in all senses of the word, and the cover is a beaut. So come and get it! And we’re actively reading novellas for 2009, so check out the guidelines and send them our way!

Oh, I managed to get a shot of Dave holding the cover!
*

*Professional Dave Schwartz impersonator. Do not try this at home.

All right, time for some bona fide big news. My novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less, is going to be published by Bantam! Juliet Ulman at Bantam Spectra has bought it, and I’m just really thrilled since a lot of my friends and colleagues have had great experiences with her editorial expertise. This is truly going to be a wonderful home for the book. Many kudos also go to my agent, Colleen Lindsay, who has been as trustworthy and helpful a guide as one could hope for in this realm. As well of course for everyone’s who taken a gander at critiquing the book, strengthening it with keen insights.

There’s a lot to do until publication, but I’m sure you’ll be hearing much more about this from me in the future, near and far.

Sequence–these really discrete packets of “posts”, like trading posts along a trail–doesn’t really work as a paradigm when you want to say 50 things at once.

But real life is not an abacus.

It was our 10th Wiscon (!) and it was great as usual. Very mellow for me, except for the karaoke party, of course, which was a ton of fun admist all the planning chaos–

–this movie on IFC now? Kontroll? Very strange. A rave, inside a subway station?–

and well worth the effort. I didn’t do any paneling or readings. I observed and was a participant and that was all good. That will undoubtedly change next year.

Was surprised how many people thought I had still stopped blogging–

no, that was a mere 24 hour certainty!

–which made me a bit sad, because I do need to spruce up this place, a lot, I had tried to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress but no dice…

The dog is using my elbow as a pillow. Nothing wrong with that.

I need to go to bed; I’m still not entirely caught up on sleep from the New Mexico trip, I think. More soon, very soon…

In Taos for the Rio Hondo workshop, where Kristin and I have been having quite the blast. Building small cairns inside hollowed out logs, approaching steep waterfalls, watching blizzards fall, fiction, Fat Tire, friends new and old. Back on Sunday, and then–Wiscon…where I’ll probably see 80% of you.

Trying to place what can be placed with my writing inside of my own head, and letting go what I can’t. I don’t quite know what that means, yet.

Many times have I started writing this. My iBook is gimped and I still haven’t figured out comments on this fucking blog. It kind of dampens the “exchange” part of this exchange. You have to register on this site to comment, which I want no one to have to do. I can’t find the right toggle, and I don’t have the wherewithal on aforementioned gimped computer to upgrade the Wordpress. It’s a holding pattern. And on the other hand, it doesn’t really matter. My cell phone is 3 years old too–I need a new one (the pause in the words appearing after my hands hit the keys…that is the creaking machinery, I see it); omg it’s hard work keeping up…up with being relentless! I could use those things but I don’t need them. No one’s starving here.

In other news, God hates our coffeemaker. The….what is it called? Beaker? Beaker shattered when Kristin dropped it, and then a few days later one of the cats went on the stove, toggled one of the burners to ON, and the cord of the coffeemaker also went ON, as in, caught on fire, which spread to the coffeemaker. 2 foot high flames ensued and Kristin was quick and calm and put it out (foam everywhere for a few days…still everywhere, really, in the nooks). That was at 11:30 at night about a week ago, we were very lucky because Kristin was out earlier and I was asleep. She just happened to be at home and not asleep at a very odd time of the day. So it might have been very very bad. God 1, coffeemaker 0.

Whirring and stalling, whirring and stalling…

Oh this frustration–when “it just has to work!” Oh, this frustration is so…damn frustrating!

Time to drown ourselves in gadgetry.

I just came across this nugget from the Wilderness Survival Guide (AD&D, 1st ed., p. 103, don’t ask):

But if you create a world where “mountains” are made of wood (for instance), your players are going to ask questions and you’re going to have some explaining to do: Are these wooden mountains slippery? Do they burn? Can the characters get splinters if they’re not careful?

To which I say, yes, yes, and yes!!!!

*
I think I figured it out.

One of my favorite gaming blogs is The Stack. Reading his posts on Final Fantasy V really sold me on playing it, which was a hundred times more to my taste than the rigid, overrated Final Fantasy VI (sorry, I know that’s heresy, but…). Level grinding is one of the few things you can do when you’re sick. More on Final Fantasy V and identity later perhaps…

Anyway, the next game on the Stack’s docket is a really intriguing port of an old Dreamcast game called Typing of the Dead. Which is, yes, a touch-typing instruction game overlayed into the horror shooter genre:

The genius of this is that it naturally encourages touch-typing: you don’t dare look down at the keyboard when there are zombies shambling toward you, and there are as many in-game motivations to type quickly and accurately as there are to shoot quickly and accurately in the original game.

And instead of guns, everyone has keyboards strapped to their backs. Wicked!

Even more on space opera, a follow up to the follow up, on io9.

I’ve moved from the flu to bronchitis. I’m slowly getting better…I think?

Anyway, SF Signal convened a roundtable about space opera, using my Rain Taxi review of the New Space Opera as the launching point…it includes some of the authors in the anthology and some other practictioners of space opera, and a few rambly follow-up comments by me. Take a look-see.

1. I have the flu.

2. Our dog and Kelly have a really interesting relationship. He’s freaked out by her at first, yes, but then, when he doesn’t have her in sight for more than 10 minutes, forgets everything and starts barking again!. He is the Memento Dog!

3. Despite my flu I had a great time at Southwest Minnesota State University with Kelly and Dave. They both read some smashing stuff and the whole writing community at the university were such great hosts.

4. Bird Island has no birds. Or an island. But it does have a helpful website explaining why:

Many years ago about one and a half miles southwest of Bird Island there was a 60 acre island surrounded by sloughs. The island was filled with many huge, beautiful trees, that were a refuge for thousands of birds.

With the help of ditches and tile the island soon disappeared. Now it has become valuable productive farmland.

I know it’s one thing to note the past history of farmers hungry for arable land. But, in
2008, the “yay ditches! Destroying one-of-a-kind bird habitat!” tone just baffles me.

5. I like having a day job that lets me copyedit in bed, surrounded by fluids and tissues.

6. [sic]

As we announced a little while ago, those of us behind the Rabid Transit chapbooks decided to switch our focus to publishing a line of novellas with the same standards of quality and innovation. We are pleased (with our rechristened press, Rabid Transit Press) to announce the debut volume of the Electrum Novella Series–The Sun Inside, by Dave Schwartz. It’s truly a stunner of a novella to begin with–bringing in pulp traditions and seamlessly integrating them with contemporary concerns of wartime and love. It’s a grand adventure and also a searing character study. We’re really, really pleased to publish it because it rocks.

It’s available for pre-order now: $9, and that includes free shipping. And keep a keen eye out for Dave’s novel Superpowers, out in June from Three Rivers Press!

I’m really pleased to say that Deadline Enchanter was a finalist for three XYZZY Awards–for Best Writing, Best Story, and Best Use of Medium–and won the XYZZY for the latter. Needless to say–considering I’m decidedly Not a Programmer, to find an audience for any of my game-creation endeavours is a giant thrill. I’m really appreciative of everyone who worked on Inform 7–designers, extension-creators, helpers of all stripes.

As an aside: It’s been awhile since I played my first text adventure–and I had a weird realization that it WASN’T an Infocom work; rather, it was Scott Adams’ Pirate Adventure on my Texas Instruments TI994/A (combo cartridge and cassette!). Never really got that far.