Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad is magically bored on a quiet street corner

The Sound of One Shoe Dropping — Scrivener’s Error on U.S. v. Apple, Inc., et al., the shiny new lawsuit alleging ebook price fixing. (Disclaimer, Macmillan, my own publisher via my Tor relationship, is a defendant in this lawsuit.)

Airplane Lavatory Self-Portraits, in the Flemish Style — Hahaha. (Via willyumtx.)

I remember you — Roger Ebert on the meaning of death.

Why Scientists Are Fooling Animals With Virtual Reality — New technological developments in virtual reality allow researchers to study the neurological basis of decision making in insects, rodents, and other animals. But do roaches truly think the simulation is real, or are they just playing a video game? It’s the Matrix! (Snurched from @DavidBrin1.)

Computer Scientists Build Computer Using Swarms of Crabs — Logic gates that exploit the swarming behaviour of soldier crabs have been built and tested in Japan. The future is here, and it has claws…

Bits of the Future: First Universal Quantum Network Prototype Links 2 Separate Labs — Physicists demonstrate a scalable quantum network that ought to be adaptable for all manner of long-distance quantum communication.

‘Universal’ cancer vaccine developed — A vaccine that can train cancer patients’ own bodies to seek out and destroy tumour cells has been developed by scientists. (Via shelly_rae.)

Closer to using aspirin for cancer prevention — Not that it helps me now… (Via bravado111.)

Saving Lives in a Time of Cholera — (Via tillyjane.)

Now This Is Interesting: A Climate Prediction From 1981 — Hey. Guess what. They were right. Amazing, how those facts just line up against the conservative worldview over and over again. (Snurched from Slacktivist.)

Born This Way — The new weird science of hardwired political identity. Speaking of yesterday’s post. (Via AH.)

Which Way Does Your Blog Lean? — An analysis of political discourse online. The practices of the left are more consistent with the prediction that the networked public sphere offers new pathways for discursive participation by a wider array of individuals, whereas the practices of the right suggest that a small group of elites may retain more exclusive agenda-setting authority online.

Allen West: I’ve ‘Heard’ 80 House Democrats Are Communist Party Members — Tell me again that conservatives aren’t bugfuck crazy?

Tennessee “Monkey Bill” Update — Speaking of bugfuck crazy. Ah, conservatives. Ruining education for all of America’s children, not just their own. Yet another reason I can never be a conservative. I just don’t have it in me to force such massive intellectual inconsistency and deep counterfactuals on generations of young minds.

Ann Romney takes to Twitter to defend herself — Take a public stance, deal with the public response. Just be glad you’ll never get the Hillary treatment from Your Liberal Media, Ann. As a conservative, you’re immune to that level of investigation and harassment. Nancy Reagan and both Bush first ladies proved that in spades.

Santorum stands down — Ah, Senator Frothy Mix, we hardly knew ya’.

Remembering Rick Santorum: Obama’s Secret Weapon

Re-Election Would Allow Obama to Ignore the Left More Than He Already Does — The conservative idea that somehow Obama’s “inner leftist” will be unleashed is just another one of their bizarre fixations. I’m one of those people who voted enthusiastically for Obama from the left last time around, and has been repeatedly disappointed ever since. Trust me, he’s no leftist.

?otd: Are you out of your brain on the train?

4/12/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (3,000 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
Weight: 239.6
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: Art, Cancer, climate, Cool, ebooks, education, healthcare, Links, media, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:39 am Thu April 12 2012 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad rises up earlie in the morning

Finding an Agent — Lucienne Diver.

Reference to humans with this and that — This kind of language neepery fascinates me.

NASA’s 1966 plan for a mission to Mars

A Closer Look at the Titan Airplane

Parasite Insights: Using Lice To Map Socialization — This is both interestingly cool and rather hilarious.

Wisconsin Equal Pay Law Repealed Because “Money Is More Important For Men” — Yeah, conservative ethics. (Thanks to danjite.)

Gingrich says it’s not yet time to end campaign — Hahaha.

Why Rick Santorum won’t stop — Hahaha.

The Right Flames the Volt — “There are so many legitimate things to criticize Obama about. It is inexplicable that the right would feel the need to tell lies about the Volt to attack the president.” (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Republicans Are Still the Party of Insolvency and Imperialism — Anyone voting Republican in the forthcoming presidential election is flatly ignoring the bald facts of what happened the last time we had Republican rule in this country in favor of bizarre, fetishistic fantasies about Obama’s alleged beliefs and actions.

?otd: What do you do with a drunken sailor, anyway?

4/9/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (2,600 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 239.8
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: cars, Cool, Funny, gender, Language, Links, Mars, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Science

Posted: 5:32 am Mon April 09 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad enjoys the best soy latte that it ever had

My story “The Woman Who Shattered the Moon” will be appearing When the Villain Comes Home — Quite pleased about this.

A trailer for a 1936 version of Logan’s Run — Hahahaha.

Meat industry says ‘butt cancer’ billboard near Marlins Park hits below belt — Butt cancer, yeah. That’s what I got. (Thanks to danjite.)

The Science of Van Gogh — The Dutch artist’s sunflower paintings have attracted the attention of doctors and geneticists.

George Dyson on the Origins of the Digital Universe

Robot history: The rise of the drone — (Via a mailing list I’m on.)

Supreme Court Arguments on the ACA — A Clash of Two World Views — The New England Journal of Medicine speaks.

The Literalville paradox — Language Log is funny about Rush Limbaugh’s use of words. Underneath is a more serious point about refusing to “do nuance”, that eternal conservative fantasy that every complex issue can be boiled down to simplistic moral certitude.

Romney’s Foreign Policy Doesn’t Recognize That The World Isn’t Simply Split Into “Friends” and “Foes” — Speaking of the problem of the congenital inability of conservatives to recognize nuance.

?otd: Tell me, did you sail across the sun?

4/6/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (3,500 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (interrupted)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: Art, Books, Cancer, Cool, Food, Funny, healthcare, Language, Links, media, Personal, Politics, Publishing, stories, Tech, Videos

Posted: 8:28 am Fri April 06 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad starts wearing purple

25 Lies Writers Tell (and start to believe) — Um, yeah. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Ranty Ranty Rant-Face — Robison Wells on authors and book marketing. Heh.

Game of Thrones and Political Cynicism — ZOMG! The streams are crossing! Also, interesting to see a non-genre commentator carefully explaining to a non-genre audience (on a political blog) something that seems obvious as air to this experienced genre reader and one-time student of history.

I am very real — A 1973 letter from Kurt Vonnegut to the chairman of a North Dakota school board who had ordered the burning of his books. This reminds me once again why I can never be a conservative. I have too much respect for other people to think the way conservatives think.

Autism Awareness is Not Enough: Here’s How to Change the World — (Via danjite.)

A Little Device That’s Trying to Read Your Thoughts — Now this is future tech. (Via my Dad.)

Are Cancer Stem Cells Ready for Prime Time? — A flood of new discoveries has refined our definition of cancer stem cells. Now it’s up to human clinical trials to test if they can make a difference in patients.

Planets Around an Ancient Star — Deep time and planetary formation.

Researchers match modern ocean temperature records to those of the 1870s — And guess what they found? Ooh, those pesky facts, biased against the conservative worldview as always.

Catholic university in Ohio ends birth-control coverage — Because, you know, long standing principles.

Prognosis — A physician talks about the possible overturning of the ACA. Even Tea Party supporters expect us to save their daughters’ lives, and in that moment of bottomless panic, they don’t give a shit whether or not they can clear the asset check when the ambulance docks at our door. As I’ve said before, people don’t really like most conservative policies when applied to them personally. Conservatism these days is all about punishing the evil, undeserving Other while preserving Real America. Except we’re all “the Other” when it comes to healthcare, and healthcare is about as personal as it gets. (Via reynardo.)

Why you — yes, you — should take Scalia’s place on the court — Slacktivist Fred Clark on Justice Scalia’s apparently psychopathic lack of empathy as explicitly expressed in the recent SCOTUS arguments over the ACA. In which, I point out, Scalia is merely reflecting the current conservative ethos.

“One of Us”: Rick Santorum and the Politics of (Very Big) Family — It’s stories like this that make it very hard for me not to believe that religious faith far too often renders people both stupid and crazy. (Via scarlettina.)

The Nation: The Attack On liberal Legitimacy — Yep. This.

Republicans See No Rush to Fill $4.6 Trillion Blank in Tax Plan — U.S. House Republicans just passed a budget that would require eliminating $4.6 trillion in tax breaks over the next decade. They’re in no rush to show which benefits they would cut. Another example of how even Republicans know that people don’t like conservative policies when applied to them personally. How are all those middle class Tea Party types going to feel about losing their home mortgage exemption? The GOP sure doesn’t want to bring that up during the election cycle.

Why Romney is Lying About the Causes of High Prices at the Pump — In this case, knowingly lying instead of simply being willfully ignorant. It can so hard to tell the difference with GOP figures.

“I concur that climate change is beginning to effect on our natural resources and that now is the time to take action toward climate protection. “ — A Mitt Romney statement, in writing, from 2003. Man, that John Kerry sure was a flip-flopper, wasn’t he?

?otd: Your sanity and wits, have they all vanished?

4/4/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.25 hours (4,500 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 239.6
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: Books, Cancer, Cool, Culture, Funny, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, Science, sex, Tech

Posted: 5:09 am Wed April 04 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad gets checked for fleas and barricades of embassies

Rick Kleffle, with a podcast including me reading a bit from the beginning of Calamity of So Long a Life

Why I hate the myth of the suffering artist — It is absurd and insulting to assume artists are assisted by despair or hunger in a way that, say, plumbers are not. (Via @ce_murphy.)

Copying Is Not Theft — Hmmm…

The Bacon Coffin — For when John Scalzi becomes a vampire. (Via my Dad.)

Boston University scientists discover evidence humans used fire 1 million years ago

We Can Survive Killer Asteroids — But It Won’t Be Easy — Duck! And cover!

Programmable ‘smart sand’ can assume any shape — If you don’t think this is cool, you are dead to me.

Future telescope array drives development of exabyte processing

Flying car completes its first test flight, could be on sale by end of the year — 1970 called, they want their future back. Now, where’s my jetpack?

Oil Scare Turns FedEx On To Energy Efficiency — Electric vehicles? Come on. Any Republican can tell you that’s total Kenyan Muslim socialism. Even when one of American’s leading companies is doing the investing.

Gay pride flag raised at a US base in Afghanistan — Go, go, go!

Charlie debunks 2012 nonsense — Why does this even need debunking? As profoundly counterfactual and willfully ignorant as evolution denial and climate change denial are, at least I can see where they’re coming from in a cultural and political sense. But 2012 paranoia?

Wisconsin Planned Parenthood attacked with ‘explosive device’ — Remember kids, according to the Republican party, it’s not terrorism if good conservative white people are doing the bombing and the killing.

Six dead in shooting at Oakland university; suspect arrested in Alameda — Thank god for the NRA and the GOP standing up for everyone’s right to their defense of essential liberties.

A Return to… You Call This Sanity? — Scrivener’s Error is interesting on ebooks and the politics of education. To start with, if you call anything that does not meet your preconceived notion from the hard Right “liberal” — including centrist positions a liberal might well call “conservative” — you’re going to get a rather distorted picture. Then, too, exactly how does one judge the political orientation of introductory calculus-based physics? Is it a “liberal-oriented” course if it includes “modern physics”? How about if you offer a non-calculus-based alternative that mentions energy production as an example for study? Is a linguistics course that includes consideration of non-Western languages inherently “liberal”, especially if it is not based on Latin and ancient Greek?

Permitted handguns will be allowed in RNC’s ‘clean zone’ — oping to head off violent protesters during the Republican National Convention, Mayor Bob Buckhorn has proposed a litany of items that will be considered security threats during the week-long event. The list runs from air pistols to water pistols and also includes items such as masks, plastic or metal pipe and string more than six inches long. Conspicuously absent from the list of potential weapons: Firearms. Nice to see that conservative America still has its priorities straight. (Via danjite.)

Social issues are not the Republican Party’s problem – the gender gap is about healthcare, not sex — A British perspective, with a strong conservative bias.

Republicans are causing a moral crisis in America — It’s hard to point to a single priority of the Republican Party these days that isn’t steeped in moral failing while being dressed up in moral righteousness. [...] It is a very strange thing that the people who lecture most fervently about morality are those who are most willing to fight for policies that are so immoral. This is an emperor-has-no-clothes argument, one I’ve been making for years in vain given the conservative dominance of the “liberal” media and our political discourse.

Pink Slime Economics — [A] lasting budget deal can only work if both parties can be counted on to be both responsible and honest — and House Republicans have just demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could wish, that they are neither. This is news how?

Pressure grows for Rick Santorum to drop out as Obama surges in polls — Mitt Romney expected to win Tuesday primaries as GOP eager to end contest and shift campaign against the president. Amazingly enough, bugfuck conservative lunacy doesn’t poll well with people who haven’t already drunk the Kool-Aid. I know this will come as a shock to many Republican voters, but their worldview as expressed by Santorum is neither rational nor popular.

Obama Cautions Against ‘Judicial Activism’ On Health Care — “Ultimately I’m confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress,” Obama said at a Rose Garden press conference. “And I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. An unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident this court will recognize that and not take that step.” Silly president, assuming the remotest intellectual consistency or good faith from Republicans. It’s only judicial activism when conservatives disagree with the outcome. Legislation from the bench is fine when it supports the conservative worldview.

?otd: Do you ever ever ever wanna be young again?

4/3/2012
Writing time yesterday: 4.25 hours (2.75 hours of reviewing existing draft of Their Currents Turn Awry, added 1,300 words; 1.5 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 238.6
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: arts, audio, Books, Calamity, cars, Cool, Culture, ebooks, education, Funny, gay, gender, guns, healthcare, Links, media, Personal, Photos, podcasts, Politics, Process, Publishing, Science, Writing

Posted: 5:11 am Tue April 03 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad dances country

“The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future” — Subterranean Press publishes a Sunspin novella. For those particularly interested in the series, this piece occurs immediately prior to the events of book one, Calamity of So Long a Life.

Is “Game of Thrones” too white? — Fantasy fiction might have racial problems, but they’re just a reflection of America’s broader battles. Saladin Ahmed at Salon.

Ever the Reluctant Warrior, I Take Up My Sword for Justice — Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Yesterday, I was silly, too: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — Some of the comments are comedy gold.

Young Writers Dazzle Publisher (Mom and Dad) — Self-publishing and kids. Interesting. (Via my Dad.)

Tungurahua Erupts — Wow. Just wow. This photo…

A universe without purpose — New revelations in science have shown what a strange and remarkable universe we live in.

Romney: Uninsured with preexisting conditions should be denied coverage — Disgusting. See my comment yesterday about how conservative positions affect people personally.

I trust government more than insurance companies — The government has at least a theoretical interest in keeping its citizens healthy and productive. The government is accountable to the voters and taxpayers, that is, to us. Insurance companies have only one interest — profit. And they are essentially accountable to no one. Yep, market-based solutions for the win!

Debunking Canadian health care myths — It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes. That would be a little something we call a “fact”. If you’re a conservative opposed to healthcare reform, then pretty much by definition you’re unaware of and/or impervious to the existence of these “facts”.

Charlie Petit on the GOP vice presidential selection — Hahahah.

A widening gender gap boosts Obama over Romney — Oddly enough, if your party declares war on women, women don’t like it that much… No one could have predicted this!

Ann Romney is the Romney Democrats fear most

?otd: Where did you come from, where did you go?

4/2/2012
Writing time yesterday: 6.5 hours (Reviewing existing draft of Their Currents Turn Awry, added 1,600 words; 2.25 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.75 (solid)
Weight: 239.2
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: Cool, Funny, gender, healthcare, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Publishing, Science, stories, Sunspin, weird, Writing

Posted: 4:55 am Mon April 02 2012 | Comments(2) |

[writing] A bit more on the state of play

Updatery of various sorts herein.

In March, I had two acceptances, both nonfiction. One was a piece for the SFWA Bulletin, the other was a contribution to a book of writing exercises. That makes five first rights acceptances for the first quarter of 2012, two of which I haven’t been able to announce yet, plus one reprint acceptance for audio rights. Not counting a couple of very stale submissions that I should probably withdraw or write off, I only have one other piece out the door right now for consideration. As I’m constantly telling other writers, if you don’t submit, you can’t be accepted. (In truth this mostly has to do with a combination of low short fiction output the last few years and the fact that much of what I have written has been for requesting markets, and most of that sells on first submittal.)

As of yesterday I am done with Calamity of So Long a Life (Sunspin, volume one), at least until there’s an editorial letter on it. The book goes out to market next week along with synopses for the other three volumes. My profound thanks to all my first readers and commentors who’ve provided substantial aid on the project. I promise, I’ll redshirt you all in future volumes of the series arc. Tomorrow or Monday I’ll be diving into Their Currents Turn Awry (volume two), but as I’ve already got about 65,000 words of first draft, that book is well on its way.

Today, the_child and I are off to Silverton with lizzyshannon for a book signing and panel discussion Lizzy is having there. I’ve offered to be a drop-in on the panel, but only if they want me.

Next week, of course, is Norwescon. I’ll be at the hotel in Seatac from early Thursday afternoon through early Sunday afternoon. If you want to see me, my schedule is here: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]. Or look for me in the bar. I’m always open to being taken to lunch or dinner, too, at least til my dance card fills.

On Sunday, April 15th, The Oregonian is scheduled to run a feature length profile on me in both the print and online editions. Except for my Locus interviews, this will be my most in-depth media exposure to date. I’ll be quite curious to see how they present me.

Finally, there’s some very neat stuff happening around the whole Going to Extremes project. Watch this space for details, but trust me, it’s deeply cool.

I think that’s about it for right now. No writing today, taking a brain break. (Or maybe not, but I haven’t planned any writing time.)

Tags: audio, Books, Calamity, Child, Conventions, Currents, Extremes, interviews, Personal, Publishing, stories, Sunspin, Writing

Posted: 7:13 am Sat March 31 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad wakes up on Central time

On Storytelling — Some wisdom from Three Panel Soul.

Let’s Send John Away! — Electric Velocipede is running a promotion. Check it out.

Things we say today which we owe to Shakespeare

A Picture of Language — The art and science of sentence diagramming. (Via David Goldman.)

The Brain on Love

Cat Scientists of the 1960s — Hahahah. (Via threeoutside.)

Moon Rock Analysis Casts Doubt on Lunar Origins

Skylab-Salyut Space Laboratory (1972) — Some cool space history.

A Brief Window: The Bussard Ramjet in the 1960s

Not Worth the Paper It’s Built On — A billion Euro house built of shredded bills. (Thanks to Dad.)

Hey wait. I liked that movie. Why does it suck again? — Urban fantasy author J.A. Pitts on John Carter [ imdb ].

To Kill a Mockingjay — Scrivener’s Error with some interesting observations on The Hunger Games film.

Racist Hunger Games Fans Are Very Disappointed — Wow. I am beyond boggled. WTF is wrong with people? (Via danjite.)

Rodriguez: Vandalized by speech — A public square awash in racial invective is sure to alienate many Americans and weaken democracy. Hate speech, especially on a mass, organized basis, is almost entirely a conservative phenomenon. I know that many of my Christian friends feel themselves subject to hate speech, but most of what they encounter is simply a kind of public disagreement and challenge that was unthinkable in our culture until quite recently — having your privilege criticized isn’t hate speech, friends. Christians in this country have never encountered a fraction of what every person of color and every gay person has to hear almost every day.

Cyanide and Happiness on a similar note

Iraqi Immigrant Beaten to Death in California — But all these right wing voices, on the radio, on television, in syndicated columns and high-trafficked blogs have made Shaima Alawadi the enemy, for the accident of her birth, her faith. They fill the ears and the empty brains of angry, disaffected people looking to blame anyone for their own crappy lives and they robbed five children of their mother. Mission accomplished, wingnuts. Welcome to the hell your hate has wrought.

Lobbyists, Guns and Money — Paul Krugman on ALEC. I am always fascinated by hard right organizations that claim to be fair and balanced, or nonpartisan. It’s all part of that very successful strategy the GOP has been pursuing since Reagan of redefining the political center far to the Right. The Obama of today, accused by conservatives of being a socialist, would have been conservative twenty years ago. C.f. the much despised “Obamacare”, which began life as a Heritage Foundation proposal in the 1990s, and first saw enactment as a Republican proposal in Massachusetts under Romney. Yet now it’s screaming leftism.

For his own good, Rick Santorum should be bound and gagged in public — A British view of Senator Frothy Mix.

Bush Senior Also Promised Moscow more Flexibility after Election — You know, in case you’re outraged at something Obama said recently. Conservative commentator Daniel Larison with more on this.

?otd: Spring ahead or fall back?

3/27/2012
Writing time yesterday: 3.75 hours (0.75 hours on Little Dog, 0.5 hours on Going to Extremes, 2.0 hours on Sunspin, 0.5 hours on WRPA)
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Tags: Culture, Funny, Iraq, Language, Links, Movies, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Publishing, race, Religion, reviews, Science, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 4:57 am Tue March 27 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad is off to the cornfields of the Midwest

Tested by a Picturesque Dystopia — The New York Times reviews The Hunger Games movie.

Expelled for a tweeted syntactic observation

Avalanches of Words, Sifted and Sorted — (Via my Dad.)

Living in the Margins — Medieval annotations. (Via danjite.)

Why black (or blue, or red) plants might be the key to finding life beyond Earth

Praying to be skinny and straight — An expert explains what evangelical weight-loss and ex-gay movements say about America — and us. Oh, I could say a thing or two.

Christian Sex Toy Store Offers Smut-Free Dildo Shopping Online — Heh. Good for them. (Via danjite.)

Rethinking His Religion — [The clinic protestor] needed an abortion and had come to him because, she explained, he was a familiar face. After the procedure, she assured him she wasn’t like all those other women: loose, unprincipled. She told him: “I don’t have the money for a baby right now. And my relationship isn’t where it should be.”

Basic Facts on Clothing and Murder for American Bigots

An Even Warmer Future Ahead — A new model finds that the world could be up to 5.5 degrees warmer in 2050 than it was in the 1990′s.

GOP Slams Dems For Medicare Cuts Republicans Support — Because being a conservative means never having to bow to basic logic or intellectual consistency.

?otd: Sarpy County or Douglas County?

3/26/2012
Writing time yesterday: 3.5 hours (2.75 hours on Little Dog, 0.75 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 5.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a (forgot to weigh in)
Currently reading: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Tags: Books, climate, gay, gender, healthcare, Language, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, sex

Posted: 3:52 am Mon March 26 2012 | Comments(0) |

[movies] John Carter

Last night, bravado111 went out and saw John Carter [ imdb ]. In 3D, no less.

We both liked it a lot.

This movie has a lot to love. Epic grandeur in the scenery. Planetary romance. Four-armed tharks and giant white apes. Weirdo magical quasi-steampunk technology. The awesome scenery, especially the CGI ruins. Entertaining story. Awesome costumes. The world’s weirdest dog, ever. Action. Lots of action. And mostly, its flavor.

I had some quibbles. The framing tales added marginally at best to my experience of the film. A few scenes seemed lifted straight out of the Star Wars cycle, with some Mars paint splashed over them. (There was a fair amount of Aresian-tinted Ben Hur in there as well, but I didn’t see that as a problem.) The baby tharks were just silly, especially contrasted with the barbaric dignity of the adults.

Really a heck of a lot of fun. It’s been too many years since I’ve read the source material, so I can’t comment on the fidelity to Burroughs in the original Klingon, but the movie didn’t ring false to me.

Yet, as I understand things, John Carter is well on its way to being a box office disaster of Biblical proportions. Maybe not Heaven’s Gate [ imdb ], but still a real stinker and possible career ender for some of the folks involved. The emerging consensus explanation for this is that the movie was apparently a victim of severe marketing malpractice. The marketing appears to have been conducted under the philosophy that it would somehow be a bad idea to tell viewers that a movie set on Mars was a genre film.

Um.

By my count, ten of the twenty top-grossing films of all time are either fantasy or science fiction. A few more of them are arguably on the list. And this is without yet including The Hunger Games [ imdb ], which has set opening records. Fantasy and science fiction dominates non-sports gaming, especially in the online category. It’s well-represented on television. The genre is reasonably well represented among best selling books (Harry Potter, cough cough).

So why would a movie studio want to hide the fact that a movie about a guy on Mars fighting along four-armed green skinned aliens was, you know, maybe a wee bit fantastic?

I dunno. It sure as heck worked for me. But millions will sadly be giving this rocking piece of entertainment a miss.

Tags: Books, Culture, Movies, Publishing

Posted: 8:12 am Sun March 25 2012 | Comments(3) |