Jay Lake: Writer

[conventions] Announcing JayCon XII

In celebration of my natal anniversary, JayCon XII, my 12th annual 37th birthday party, is Saturday, June 9th, 2012 from 2 to 5 pm at the Flying Pie in SE Portland. We’re partying because I was born, and because I have beat cancer again and again.

If you can read this, you’re invited. Prior JayCon experience not required.

Note that I am announcing this early because people always tell me, “You should have told me sooner!” Except for the people who tell me, “It’s too soon, remind me later.” (Sometimes these are the same people.)

Flying Pie Pizzeria
7804 SE Stark Street
Portland, 97215
(503) 254-2016

http://www.flying-pie.com/

[ Google Maps ]

As is traditional for JayCon, Paul M. Carpentier is specifically not invited.

Tags: Cancer, Conventions, health, JayCon, Personal, Portland

Posted: 6:30 am Thu January 26 2012 | Comments(0) |

[food] Eating Haggis on Burns Day

Last night I went to a haggis party at the home of Jersey Girl in Portland. It was fun to be able to go out of an evening, and, well, haggis on Robert Burns day. And this was the real thing, made from scratch with authentic ingredients.

There was a ceremonial reading of the Burns poem on haggis, then there was the serving of the beast. It looked nasty and, honestly, to my palate didn’t taste much better, but I am glad I tried it. Kind of like a feral, inept sausage cut by too much oatmeal. I’m pretty sure I won’t ever need to eat it again. Still, it was fun, and the company of Jersey Girl’s friends was good.

And, well, haggis. Come on. How often do you get a chance?

Haggis in the pan

Haggis on the plate

Photos © 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Food, Photos, Portland, Scotland

Posted: 6:28 am Thu January 26 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad slopes into Tuesday

Things I Know? — Jeff VanderMeer on handling a writing career. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit, whom I got to see in person at Confusion.)

Staffer’s Musings — A worthy book review and publishing commentary blog I learned about at Epic Confusion.

Fantasy World Map — A Grand Unified Theory of fantasy?

Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement — Apple’s iBook Author program appears to be a nasty rights grab. Sigh. You’re supposed to be good guys, Cupertino. Don’t start acting like Amazon.

One eBook Platform to Rule Them All — A company known for long-form journalism democratizes tablet publishing. Hmmm.

Portland Among Guardian’s 5 Best Places

Women ‘feel pain more than men’ — It is a myth that men feel pain more keenly than women, according to the largest study into the subject of its kind.

Magic mushrooms could treat depression

Searching the Brain for the Roots of Fear

‘Don’t Be Evil’ tool alters new Google search results

Rescue on the ice — Still life of flying boat with sled dogs.

8 Years on Mars: ‘Amazing’ NASA Rover Still Going Strong — Got to love that 90-day mission.

Oldest dinosaur nest site found — I love behavioral fossils.

January Aurora Over Norway — Another amazing APOD image.

Results are in: 2011 was hot, but not that hot — Realistically, the planet is going to keep us waiting for a couple more years before we can determine if the similarity of recent temperatures is a trend or a momentary blip. Which is rather inconsiderate, given that people will undoubtedly continue to argue about climate change in the intervening two years. Maybe, maybe not. This is science on the hoof, people. Questioning itself constantly. Which ideology does not and cannot do.

From One Tragedy, Tools to Fight the Next — The 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami spurred innovations to help deal with future disasters. (Thanks to my Dad.)

Catholic Bishop: Children Want to Be Sexually Abused — Ummm… (Via danjite.)

A map of LGBT rights around the world

It’s the Stupid Republicans, Stupid — Progressives shouldn’t be shy about mobilizing voters around singe-issue passions. This piece in turn references something I’d missed back in December, from Rolling Stone: The GOP’s Crackpot Agenda.

Top Tea Partiers Bummed About Both Mitt And Newt — Poor conservatives. It’s hard to know just where to set the Balance of Crazy.

?otd: What color is your parachute?

1/24/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hour (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (solid)
Weight: 223.8
Currently reading: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

Tags: climate, Cool, Culture, healthcare, Japan, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Portland, Process, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, Writing

Posted: 6:36 am Tue January 24 2012 | Comments(2) |

[personal|writing] Updatery and revisions

Yesterday I hied me off to check on the venue for JayCon. The date will be June 9th, 2012, and I’m still confirming the logistical details. Watch this space for a full announcement soon.

After that, I went to Fireside Writers, which met this week at a place called The Hazel Room. There I spent 2.25 hours booting up the revisions to Sunspin. I am into the project now, and making progress, though I’m already running into some fairly serious “kill your darlings” issues. I also confess to being daunted by the scale of my ambitions and the scope of the changes my agent and first readers want to see. That won’t stop me, of course.

Then I went to OMSI Science Pub, for the first time in months. This week the topic was urban landslides and forensic geology, which given the location of Nuevo Rancho Lake would require a major seismic event before they became a personal issue for me, but still fascinating. The speaker was energetically entertaining, and the slides were pretty cool. Fun to be out among friends, having my brain stretched.

It’s kind of like being a real boy again. And tomorrow I’m off to Epic Confusion, which is also likely to make me feel like a real boy. (Due to travel and so forth, expect light and/or irregular blogging service through the weekend.)

Damn is it nice waking up from chemo and getting out in the world.

Tags: Books, Conventions, JayCon, Personal, Portland, Science, Sunspin, Travel, Writing

Posted: 6:10 am Wed January 18 2012 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad is coldly apocalyptic

How I make it work… — Myke Cole on the sacrifices he makes to be an author.

Farfetched — Sci-Ence on “minimally counterintuitive ideas”. (Read the text below the comics.) This is related to some very important concepts in fiction, which I’ll probably blog about soon.

The original 1811 Commissioner’s Plan for Manhattan’s famous street grid and the fascinating story of how it came to be

Human head found at Hollywood sign: The myths and legends of the famous Los Angeles landmark

Special Relativity for Dummies, I mean writers

Meteorite found in Morocco came from Mars — Fragments of a meteorite which landed in Morocco last summer are extremely rare chunks of the planet Mars, scientists have announced.

‘Biohackers’ Get Their Own Space to Create — (Via bravado111.)

First Demonstration of Actuation-At-A-Distance Effect For Labs-On-A-Chip — Microelectromechanical devices could soon be remotely controlled using light thanks to a proof-of-concept experiment demonstrating ‘photoelectrowetting’. Not spooky action at a distance, unfortunately.

Researchers evolve a multicellular yeast in the lab in 2 months — Or maybe the so-called Intelligent Designer leaned in and created it while no one was looking.

Talk cancelled. Threats of violence found persuasive. — Pharyngula passes on reports of some especially disgusting religious behavior on the part of a Muslim man.

Portland City Council approves anti-war and corporate-personhood resolutions

What’s A ‘Discouraged Worker?’ — Why Oregon’s unemployment rate had declined despite a lack of significant job growth.

China report spells out “grim” climate change risks — Global warming denial, just like evolution denial, is found only among people of a certain ideology that explicitly rejects actual data in favor of the filter of their worldviews. Neither of those conservative hobbyhorses has any basis in actual reality. Virtually no one comes to either view on the face of objective evidence. China is not so afflicted.

Polls: Republican Voter Enthusiasm Drops, Dems Not Far Behind

?otd: Why do they call it thimble winter?

1/18/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.25 hours (revisions to Sunspin)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
Weight: 222.4
Currently reading: The Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross<

Tags: climate, Culture, Links, Personal, Politics, Portland, Process, Religion, Science, Tech, Writing

Posted: 6:05 am Wed January 18 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad stays indoors

Albert Einstein on the intuitive mind — Reminds a lot of how I, and many others, think about writing.

Apostropocalypse Now — Language Log is funny about linguistic peevery.

Our new basic ‘Portlandia’ image: One, two, twee

Project to pour water into volcano to make power — What could possibly go wrong?

After Fukushima, fish tales — The possibility of radioactive contamination in Japanese food exports.

Elusive particles could help to stem climate change

Survey: U.S. Protestant pastors reject evolution, split on Earth’s age — Proof that theological education is no barrier to willful ignorance. (Via shsilver.)

Evangelicals, Seeking Unity, Back Santorum for Nomination

Untruths, Wholly Untrue, And Nothing But Untruths — Paul Krugman on GOP rhetoric and reality. Mind you, he’s talking about objectively, provably false statements, not political spin.

?otd: What are you reading today?

1/15/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (2,500 words on short story)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (solid)
Weight: 219.0
Currently reading: Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross<

Tags: Christianism, climate, Funny, Japan, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Portland, Process, Religion, Science

Posted: 7:21 am Sun January 15 2012 | Comments(1) |

[travel] Flying back to PDX

Today I travel back to Portland. A few errands this afternoon, some time with nobr>the_child, then I’m off to a housewarming party this evening.

It’s been a tiring but manageable week. My body seems to be (largely) cooperating with my intentions, and the writing is firing up. In fact, more of that on the plane today.

Whatever you’re doing today and this weekend, have fun and be well.

Tags: Child, Portland, Travel, Writing

Posted: 3:54 am Fri January 13 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad with a low key day

‘Portlandia’: Straight outta Portland

Why Men Need To Cheat — Interestingly, this entire article on men and sex is really making a strong case for polyamory without ever using the word or explaining the concept. Ah, the magic power of embedded assumptions.

Top tips on women for Stephen Hawking

Rare Gorilla Encounter — American wildlife photographer sits in awe and disbelief as a troop of wild Ugandan mountain gorillas coddle and groom him.

Tomorrow’s office, imagined in 1969

If them neutrinos are faster than light, physicists have a lot of work to do

Why can’t we use lasers as ray guns? — Mmm, laser-cooked bacon.

This Girl Snuck Into a Russian Military Rocket Factory — Some bad ass photos here. (Via mlerules.)

Iran welcomes ‘humanitarian’ rescue from pirates

Why Tornadoes Take the Weekends Off in Summer — Not just anthropogenic climate change, but anthropogenic weather change.

Priscilla Of Boston Spray-Paints Unsold Wedding Gowns To Keep Them From Grubby Poor People — Classy, very classy.

Report: Federal workers ‘pressured’ to approve citizenship papers — Anecdotally speaking, everyone I’ve ever known to go through the citizenship process (including the_child, as a 1-2 year old) has had pretty much the opposite experience: endless and seemingly pointless delays and weird make-work bureaucratic impediments.

Food Stamp President — Ta-Nehisi Coates on Gingrich and Santorum’s recent racist idiocy.

Frothing at Santorum — Bill Shunn rants, very much along my line of thinking.

Bain, Barack and Jobs — Mr. Romney and those like him didn’t destroy jobs, but they did enrich themselves while helping to destroy the American middle class. And that reality is, of course, what all the blather and misdirection about job-creating businessmen and job-destroying Democrats is meant to obscure.

Self-Styled Conservatives Run the GOP, Except When They Don’t — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison with a fascinating discussion of the GOP nominating process from a far right point of view. I always find him interesting, though sometimes he’s way off base, like his recurring contention that Bush was not a conservative. So far as I can tell, that’s the “No true Scotsman” fallacy in action, as Bush was a self-identified conservative elected by conservatives who governed from conservative principles in the most disastrous presidential administration in modern history. He sure as heck was no liberal, progressive or moderate. To claim now he wasn’t a conservative is a cowardly effort to wriggle out of responsibility for horrendous failures of conservatism under Bush.

?otd: Caper much?

1/7/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 9.5 (fitful)
Weight: 215.2
Currently reading: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Tags: climate, Cool, Iran, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Portland, Russia, sex, Tech, Videos

Posted: 7:47 am Sat January 07 2012 | Comments(5) |

[personal] A grand day out

Yesterday I did stuff like a normal person. mlerules took me out to have lunch with kenscholes at the Hotcake House. Then we ran errands. Then we came back to the house and collected the_child and ran more errands, including buying her basketball shoes for her new season and scoring a long-desired copy of the region 1 DVD of Going Postal [ imdb ] for me. Then we had a nice dinner at Apizza Scholls, wherein I ate more or less like a grown-up, then we went and toured the Christmas lights at Peacock Lane, then we came back to Nuevo Rancho Lake and watched the first half of Going Postal, whereupon I fell asleep as late as I’ve gone to bed in months. (Which is to say, about 8:30.)

It was kind of like being a real boy.

Today I recover from yesterday’s breakneck excitement, have lunch with a friend, and watch the second half of the movie. Mostly this involves sitting around in the Big Chair, but that’s okay. Screw chemo, eh?

Tags: Child, Food, friends, Movies, Personal, Portland

Posted: 8:40 am Thu December 29 2011 | Comments(1) |

[books|repost] Endurance reading and signing at Powells Cedar Hills

[repost]

My one and only formal public appearance this fall will be for a reading and signing in celebration of the forthcoming release of Endurance [ Powells | Barnes & Noble ], the second Green book.

I’ll be appearing at the Powell’s Cedar Hills store on Thursday, November 17th, at 7 pm. As is usual, I’ll have an open dinner from 5 pm to 6:30 pm, at McMenamins Cedar Hills, at the north end of the same retail complex Powell’s is in. If you’re planning to come to the dinner, please do let me know in comments or via email so I can include you in the headcount.

Hope to see you there.

Tags: Books, Cancer, Conventions, Endurance, health, Personal, Portland, Repost

Posted: 6:37 am Tue November 15 2011 | Comments(1) |