Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad awakens with slow reluctance

In case you missed it over the weekend, my new cancer tattoo: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — Yes, on the back of my skull.

Christopher Walken reads Where The Wild Things Are

Antarctica – Fantastical World without Borders — An Antarctica travelog, relevant to one of my future projects. (Via bravado111.)

Avería: The Average Font — Interpolative typography. Huh. Fascinating. (Thanks to kshandra.)

Washington Park: 1907 — Detroit’s “moon towers”, as depicted here, later were sold to the City of Austin, where most of them still survive.

One’s A Crowd — The trend toward living alone?

garyomaha on working lunches, or not

Neurocinematic comparison of monkeys and humans — Spaghetti western reveals differences between human and monkey brain. Mmm, neurocinematic. I loved this bit: Like most other films, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a complex multisensory stimulus, filled with rich, operatic imagery and, of course, Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score. It is, however, fairly safe to assume that humans and monkeys will interpret the film quite differently. (Via danjite.)

Path Is Found for the Spread of Alzheimer’s — The headline is slightly misleading, as the story refers to Alzheimer’s progression within an individual rather than to transmission between individuals. Interesting stuff.

The Komen Controversy: Planned Parenthood Claims a New Kind of Victory in the Culture War — I am baffled by the conservative charge that Planned Parenthood “bullied” Komen. What is the Right’s treatment of Planned Parenthood but bullying, if you want to frame it in those terms? More to the point, for decades the entire forced pregnancy movement is about bullying desperate, vulnerable young women and their medical providers. What else is a clinic blockade or a doctor target list but sheer, awful bullying in the name of what? The god of love? Decency? Conservative bigotry and “morals”? Can you imagine the reaction if liberal-progressives blockaded churches and targeted pastors? Project much, guys? The Right can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

A Puritan’s ‘war against religion’ — Roger Williams, the Puritan who founded Rhode Island, insisted on the state refraining from intervening in the relationship between humans and God. Freedom of religion absolutely means freedom from religion. That is the best protection any church has against persecution. Despite the modern GOP interpretation, freedom of religion doesn’t mean the freedom to exercise oppressive bigotry, narrow-minded judgmenentalism, or tear down educational and cultural standards in favor of silly mythmaking.

ericjamesstone points out that I am wrong in characterizing Romney as saying he won’t have a Muslim in his cabinet — This in connection to my comment that I thought making an issue of Romney’ religion was a red herring, until he made an issue of Islam as a religion. Speaking as an atheist, there is nothing more or less at issue with Romney’s LDS membership than there is with Newt’s Catholicism or Clinton’s Southern Baptist faith. To me, the religion of the candidates would only be an issue if there were a straightforward atheist running on a major party ticket. Which won’t likely happen in my lifetime…

Senate GOP: Activist Federal Judges Wanted — The hypocrisy of a group of Republicans who are supporting the lawsuit against Obama’s recess appointments. Republicans being hypocritical? That’s as inconceivable as the idea of Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife.

The true conservative alternative: Ron Paul? — It’s sad that conservatism has become a race to the bottom to display the most ignorance, bigotry and sheer foolishness.

?otd: Dream much??

2/6/2012
Writing time yesterday: 5.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: 229.4
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Antarctica, Art, Books, Cancer, Culture, gender, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, scorner, Tech, Texas, Videos, work

Posted: 6:29 am Mon February 06 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wanders into the weekend

“A Long Walk Home” is on this year’s Locus Poll ballot — In case you liked this Sunspin novelette. You can read it here.

A reader reacts to Visitants, ed. Steve Jones — Including comments on one of my stories.

Not So Wild Review: Schlock Mercenary — I’ve said before that I think Schlock Mercenary is some of the very best long form SF around. This reviewer frames his praise differently, but seems to share my same fundamental opinion. (Via @howardtayler.)

Release the hounds! — Miranda Suri on learning to outline novels. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

I Greet You in the Middle of a Great Career: A Brief History of Blurbs — Heh. (Via @legalnomads.)

How Do We Get There? — Cat Valente asks about the development of post-scarcity societies.

An obsessive history of The Elements of Style and what makes it a cultural treasure. — Even unto being wrong on a number of points of grammar and usage…

Indie Game: The Movie — For those interested in that sort of thing.

Space voyages shouldn’t become politically incorrect

Komen Reverses Decision on Planned Parenthood Funding, Is Still Likely Full of Shit — Komen blatantly, obviously, and deliberately targeted Planned Parenthood. Their board room is still staffed with conservative donors and at least one vocal anti-choice politician. They’re still a conservative political organization masquerading as a feel-goodery for people who just want to help cure cancer.

Komen May Continue to Fund Some Planned Parenthood Grants — A pro-life site accuses Planned Parenthood of being “dishonest thugs”. This coming from the political movement that operates “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” (profound dishonest fake clinics meant to deceive and entrap desperate pregnant women) and actively encourages the murder of doctors (unconditional thuggery)? Project much? Of course you do, you’re conservatives.

Komen backlash: Public turns fury on vice president Karen Handel

The big backlash against bullying women — Sadly, conservative America controls the discourse, and profits politically and culturally from the bullying of women. It’s not going to stop.

Indiana backing away from bill allowing creation “science” into classrooms — Many similar bills are introduced in state legislatures each year and, in cases where their sponsors speak to the press, they tend to reveal a great deal of ignorance regarding both science and the law. In terms of science, they tend to misunderstand the meaning of the term “theory,” think that there are multiple scientific explanations for life’s diversity, or suggest evolution is a theory for life’s origin. The Indiana bill’s sponsor, Dennis Kruse, appears to get all of these wrong. It’s tough getting ahead when you’re flat fucking wrong in terms of both reality and the law, but conservatives will persevere. And they succeed far too often.

Romney’s political success is a mixed blessing for Mormon Church — His presidential candidacy could be a breakthrough ‘JFK moment for Mormons,’ but it could also stir up more negative publicity for the church. I was sympathetic to Romney on the issue of religious criticism until he made it clear he wouldn’t have a Muslim in his cabinet.

Chris Christie and the Nation-State Project — Ta-Nehisi Coates on conservative ignorance of history. Many of the actual people who were beaten and killed “in the streets”–Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, for instance–were attempting to secure the very right which Christie, bizarrely, believes they should have exercised. It’s almost as if he doesn’t know what the Civil Rights movement actually was.

As Romney’s slip-ups show, gaffes nearly unavoidable on modern campaign trail — Nush mostly just babbled. Romney’s gaffes are golden soundbites for his opposition.

?otd: Ink much?

2/4/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (busy with tattoos and Dad time)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (solid)
Weight: 229.8
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: gender, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, sex, stories, Videos

Posted: 8:05 am Sat February 04 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad returns to its labors

The Rules of Magic, According to the Greatest Fantasy Sagas of All Time — (Brought to my attention by willyumtx.)

You Eat That? — Disgust is one of our most basic emotions—the only one that we have to learn—and nothing triggers it more reliably than the strange food of others.

Honda revives Ferris Bueller — Zombie Matthew Broderick?

Genetic or Not, Gay Won’t Go Away

Ritalin Gone Wrong

Hysteria and the Teenage Girl

Testicular zap ‘may stop sperm’ — A dose of ultrasound to the testicles can stop the production of sperm, according to researchers investigating a new form of contraception.

U.S. may rely on aging U-2 spy planes longer than expected — The Pentagon has proposed delaying a plan to replace the U-2s with RQ-4 Global Hawk drones because of Defense Department cutbacks.

Too Much of a Bad Thing: Monsanto Did NOT Buy Blackwater — Hmmm. (Via danjite.)

Newt Gingrich’s moon base plan a ‘cheap trick’ to get votes, space experts say — Experts call Gingrich’s plan a gimmick that is too expensive to work. I am shocked that Newt might have said something deliberately misleading. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Gingrich’s Absurd Outsider Pose — But it works with the low information voters who make up the GOP base. Who cares if his claims are true?

?otd: What are you working on this week?

1/30/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.5 (fitful)
Weight: 227.8
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Food, Funny, gay, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Process, sex, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:16 am Mon January 30 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad shuffles home like a party zombie

NASA Relents: Apogee of Fear, First Sci-Fi Film Shot in Space, Will Be Released

“Oozing” Planet, 55 Cancri E, Seen With NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope

Calif. HS student devises possible cancer cure

Mapping the Human Condition — (Snurched from Curiosity Counts.)

Rick Perry’s Fate in Texas, After the 2012 Presidential Race — Speaking as a former longtime Texas resident, I never understood his popularity in the first place. I cannot say that I wish him well.

Gingrich Wins South Carolina, But He Will Not Be The Nominee

Newt’s Southern Strategy — The GOP just can’t escape its own fears and its need to hate.

?otd: Lurch?

1/22/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (day off for Con fun)
Body movement: airport walking to come
Hours slept: 7.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross

Tags: Cancer, Culture, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Science

Posted: 6:10 am Sun January 22 2012 | Comments(1) |

[movies] The Adventures of Tintin

I went to see The Adventures of Tintin [ imdb ] yesterday by myself, several successive plans to go with the_child and her mother having fallen through. I found the movie enjoyable but not fabulous, and wound up spending as much time thinking about production values and processes as I did about story. That represents value for my entertainment dollar, I suppose, but not necessarily as the producers and director intended.

Speaking of producers and director, I was struck by the number of Big Names associated with this film. Amblin Entertainment, WingNut FIlms, Nickelodeon, Columbia and Paramount. I pay very little attention to the business side of Hollywood, but this seems odd even to me.

The story was serviceable and entertaining, with only a few “come on, really?” moments. (The falcon chase scene was one of those for me.) I could have done with a bit less boozy bullshit from Captain Haddock, but there were plenty of clever and funny bits to offset my mild annoyances. It never really grabbed me, though, and I’m not sure what might have been changed in order to have grabbed me.

As i said, I wound up being a lot more fascinated by the production itself. There are whole stretches of this movie where it barely looks like animation at all. If not for an effort to maintain Hergé’s visual style with the characters (which was certainly the correct production decision in my opinion), the people would have been almost alarming realistic. Tintin himself, with his snub nose, is almost convincing, as are many of the background characters. I think with this movie, film animators have very nearly bridged the uncanny valley.

I’m specifically thinking back to the transitions in how the humans are rendered in the three Toy Story movies (1995, 1999, 2010). In the first movie, the human characters are cartoonish, caricatures really except for Andy himself. They don’t come anywhere near the uncanny valley. By the third movie, people look if not realistic at least convincing. They’re approaching the uncanny valley. Or compare Tintin to Polar Express [ imdb ], where I for one find the animation disturbing to the point of nightmarish, stuck deep in the shadows at the bottom of the valley. Tintin manages to gain a foothold on this side of the valley with its characters, reinforced by the nearly photorealistic animation of sets, props, vehicles, etc.

Honestly, for the story you could wait for the dollar theatre or the DVD rental. But if you’re interested in animation and the technology of cinema, The Adventures of Tintin is worth seeing on the big screen.

Tags: Child, Movies, reviews

Posted: 8:19 am Sun January 08 2012 | Comments(4) |

[dreams] Capers, middle aged white guy style

I’ve been watching too much Mission Impossible. In fact, the_child and I watched MI III [ imdb ] yesterday evening, which quite clearly influenced my dreaming.

In my sleep, I was part of a strike team also composed of joshenglish (a fellow Portland writer) and howardtayler (of Schlock Mercenary fame). Our assignment was to kidnap a teacher (played by a dream person rather than someone from real life) from an American boarding school in Japan and bring him back to the United States. The three of us flew across the Pacific, and executed our assignment, also snatching his girlfriend and their three little kids. We wound up in a hotel near Narita airport waiting for our flight home, where joshenglish bailed on the operation, and howardtayler more or less went on strike.

It finally occurred to me that we hadn’t grabbed our target’s passport when we snatched him, and I began to wonder how we were going to get him through Japanese immigration on the way out, or US customs and immigration on the way in. Then I realized I had no way to get him onto the plane without him speaking up and asking for help from the airline reps. So I went and took a shower with all my clothes on (no, I still don’t know why), until the kids came and pestered me to get out of the bathroom so they could wash up.

Apparently, I’m not even capable of being an international superspy even in my dreams. As for those two rats on my team, gentlemen, I have to say I’m disappointed in your lack of commitment to my imaginary mission.

Tags: Child, dreams, friends, Funny, Japan, Movies

Posted: 8:06 am Sat January 07 2012 | Comments(3) |

[writing|cancer] 2012 and further goals, more thereupon

As I said on New Year’s Eve [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] regarding my 2012 writing goals:

For 2012, if I can stay out of the oncology unit, I plan to write the other 400,000 words of Sunspin, revise the first two volumes for submittal and publication, and write several requested novellas and short stories. […] Even if I do go back into cancer treatment, experience shows I can still be reasonably productive. If I metastasize yet again, I still plan to write another 100,000 words of Sunspin, as well as revise the first two volumes and write the requested short fiction.

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. If my health permits, I’ll finish the first draft of the entire Sunspin cycle. By way of official news regarding that project, my agent and I have redivided it from three books to four for reasons of length. The titles now are:

Calamity of So Long a Life
Their Currents Turn Awry
The Whips and Scorns of Time
Be All Our Sins Remembered

Their Currents Turn Awry is the new title, and is now book two between the previously announced titles Calamity of So Long a Life and The Whips and Scorns of Time.

Also in Sunspin news, Subterranean Online will this year be publishing my novella “The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future”, which is essentially chapter zero of Calamity of So Long a Life. So if you’re interested in this project, watch for that.

My more detailed 2012 plan for writing is as follows:

That will put revisions and submittal for The Whips and Scorns of Time and Be All Our Sins Remembered in early 2013, and then I’ll be done with the cycle and free to move on to other projects.

The huge open question is whether I go back into treatment this year. The gap between conclusion of my last chemotherapy sequence and the detection of the next metastasis was nine months. If I can squeeze out a year, all of the above will happen. Even if the worst happens and we find a new metastasis in February, at my next scan, I’ll still get the work through March done for certain, and probably manage the work planned through June, though it may take me several months longer to reach those goals, if I have to take time off for surgery or whatever. So at a minimum, I’ll get Calamity of So Long a Life out and Their Currents Turn Awry written and revised, even if illness forces me to push drafting The Whips and Scorns of Time and Be All Our Sins Remembered into 2013.

In a larger sense, I figure these days I’m about one to two years from dying at any given point depending on my next diagnosis. More swiftly, of course, of the cancer comes back in an inoperable location or otherwise excessively troublesome. So when I look down the road, at other projects such as Original Destiny, Manifest Sin, it’s with a less confident eye than I used to have. I figure my long-term goals beyond Sunspin aren’t so much goals as hopes. Here are the benchmarks, things I’m looking forward to living to see if I can manage it.

December, 2012 —	The Hobbit part one released
December, 2013 —	The Hobbit part two released
June, 2016 —	the_child graduates from high school

If I make it alive and in some form of health to June, 2016, I will have won. That much time grants me my daughter’s entrance into adulthood, and lets me see her start her own life. That much time grants me as many as five or six more books, at a minimum four more even if I spend much of the intervening years in treatment. And it lets me go back to Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth twice more.

And, well, if I don’t make it that far, I’ll spend as much time as I can with the_child and write as many books as I can.

Thinking about it in those terms both focuses and trivializes my 2012 goals. Perhaps you can see how my thinking is bent as time passes. But this is the life I’m leading, and I’ll do the best I can.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Cancer, Child, Currents, health, Movies, ODMS, Sins, stories, Sunspin, Whips, Writing

Posted: 6:18 am Tue January 03 2012 | Comments(3) |

[movies] Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Yesterday I actually drove myself to the cinema, and watched Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows [ imdb ]. For me, the joy of these movies is watching Robert Downey, Jr. chew rugs and whatnot. Their relationship to canonical Holmesiana seems to stop at the character names insofar as I can tell, but not being a Holmes purist, this does not offend.

In this film we learn various lessons, including the inadvisability of picking a fight with people who have a munitions plant, and the inadvisability of letting Professor Moriarty provide your tea. Minor spoiler alert. I’m not certain Irene Adler is actually dead, and I wonder if the French police of the 1890s would not have been capable of distinguishing death by gunshot from death by bomb blast … little niggles like that kept popping up throughout the movie, but I didn’t care. It was too much fun watching Holmes ruin Watson’s honeymoon, then generally misbehave across Europe. Plus Stephen Fry was hilariously fun as Mycroft, especially in the at-home scene between him and the new Mrs. Watson.

The whole thing was a slam-bang fest of nigh epic proportions, with loads of period piece fun and games for the Victoriana and steampunk fans among us. Much as with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol [ imdb ], the plot doesn’t merit much if any intelligent interrogation. It’s simply meant to be watched and enjoyed.

Tags: Movies, Personal, reviews

Posted: 8:52 am Mon January 02 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad for a whole new year and the end of time on the Mayan calendar

Telegraphic language — Complaints from another era about the influence of media on literature. Always amusing to read this stuff, sort of like reading about Socrates complaining about kids today. His day, twenty-five centuries ago.

Raiding the Lost Ark — A “filmumentary” offering an in-depth look at the making of the 1981 collaboration between Spielberg and Lucas through behind-the-scenes footage, rare interviews with cast and crew, reconstructed deleted scenes and subtitled facts.

Technology Review‘s Favorite Gadgets of 2012

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done — Roger Ebert on the mortality of friends.

Obesity Linked to Changes In The Brain

Presidential campaign needs to get real on salvaging middle class — With the coming U.S. presidential election, 2012 offers voters, business leaders and politicians an opportunity for a joint debate over the fundamentals of capitalism in America. Not from the GOP, it’s not. The Republican party is all about protecting the 1%.

Noting “Nastier” Attacks, Gingrich Will Make Adjustments — Mr. GOPAC Memo himself, the primary inventor of the modern no-holds barred attack politics that have significantly empowered unthinking conservative radicalism and did more to wreck our process of governance than any other modern human, is now concerned about electoral nastiness. Fuck you, Newt, and born-again Catholic horse you rode in on to fool the rubes.

2011 in Review — Stonekettle Station reviews many of the (as always) completely wrong hysterical conservative predictions for 2011. (Did you notice the mass exodus from the military when DADT was repealed? Because I didn’t either. But there’s no accountability for the bigoted asshole Republicans who shouted that from the rooftops for months beforehand.) Because, Your Liberal Media certainly never will hold Republicans accountable for the alarmist shit they spew. High snark factor, btw. (Via Steve Buchheit.)

?otd: Didja stay up til midnight?

1/1/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 11.0 (solid)
Weight: 209.8
Currently (re)reading: The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Cool, Culture, health, Links, Movies, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, Process, Tech, Videos

Posted: 9:40 am Sun January 01 2012 | Comments(3) |

[movies] Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Yesterday, H— came over and took me to the movies to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol [ imdb ]. Honestly, I’d given up on the MI reboot after the first one, due to some of what scalzi calls “flying snowmen“. Specifically, the helicopter flying into the Chunnel near the end of the first movie pegged my “no effing way” meter so far into the red that I didn’t bother to go see any of the sequels.

What drew me to Ghost Protocol was a desire to see the Burj Dubai stunts on the big screen. Really, that was about it. Somewhat to my surprise, I was actually quite entertained by the whole movie. Including the Burj Dubai stunts, though they triggered my age-related vertigo hard. If I’d been watching this movie in 3D instead of hi-def digital (which is sort of IMAX-lite), I think I’d have thrown up. That’s a compliment, by the way.

You don’t ask many plot questions of a movie like this, because the answers never hold up on sober consideration, but I did finish the movie in a state of serious puzzlement over one in-story issue. (Mild spoiler alert.) How did they get from a railroad car in Moscow to the Dubai desert, with all their gear, given that the entire Russian state security apparatus was hunting the MI team, and their own IMF support was completely flatlined? The script doesn’t even pretend to address this question, just cuts us from one scene to the next with no resolution. (Not to mention which everyone involved in the Dubai business started out in either Budapest or Moscow — they could have met up in Warsaw and saved themselves a lot of hassle.)

If you like action/caper/thriller movies, this was a lot of fun. There were some snowmen in the movie for me, but they never quite took off flying. And pay no attention to the stupidly egregious product placement from Apple and BMW. Turn off your brain, turn on the popcorn bucket, and watch the pretty people do dangerous things.

Tags: Movies, Personal

Posted: 9:15 am Sat December 31 2011 | Comments(3) |