Jay Lake: Writer

[movies] Movies I didn’t see when they came out

Sometimes I am just a contrarian. For example, it took me years to see E.T. [ imdb ], simply because of all the hype surrounding the film. (Apparently I was a proto-hipster back in 1982.) Likewise, The Karate Kid [ imdb ], because it was billed as “the feel-good movie of the year”, and I refuse to go see any movie with that billing. I’m not sure I wasn’t right about The Karate Kid, either, though I did enjoy myself when I finally did see the movie.

Alien [ imdb ] was probably my biggest error. I was so afraid of being afraid of the movie that it took me years to see that one as well. It’s a hell of a science fiction movie, one of the best in the history of cinema, and I can’t believe I deprived myself of that experience either in the original theatrical release, and for years after.

What I wish I could understand today, prior to the advantage of hindsight, is which movies I blew off or ignored, that I would regret having done so upon seeing them. Honestly, my life would have been just fine if I’d never gotten around to seeing The Karate Kid, but if I’d never seen Alien, I would be much the poorer for it.

Do you share this tic of mine, or some equivalent of your own?

What movies (or books) did you ignore and avoid, only to realize your error later?

What overlooked movies (or books) would you urge me to pay attention to?

Tags: Books, Movies, reviews

Posted: 5:36 am Sun April 15 2012 | Comments(8) |

[books] The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

I just finished reading Lynn Flewelling‘s book The Bone Doll’s Twin [ Powells | BN ]. That was a fun and creepy book.

Now, usually in my lexicon “fun” and “creepy” don’t have a high overlap. I’ve never been a big fan of horror movies, for example. Yet I do like reading both New Weird and dark fantasy as subgenres, so clearly this isn’t a profound impediment to my ability to enjoy literature.

Flewlling’s book is fantasy of the “hidden prince” theme, except with some pretty strange twists. She’s not afraid to go to the most darkly logical corners of the arc her plot and characters follow. That’s part of the fun. The sheer, bizarre creepiness that infuses this book borders on the delightful, and raises The Bone Doll’s Twin above the usual mark of such fantasies. Not to mention the seeping dread that infused the story.

This was a fun read. I’m going to be seeking out the next two books in her Tamir trilogy to see how it all comes out.

Tags: Books, klog, reviews

Posted: 6:36 am Sat April 14 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad on hump day

A reader reacts to Endurance — Decidedly mixed but thoughtful review.

Jay Lake – Die Räder der Welt — A somewhat mixed review of the German edition of Mainspring.

Fanfare for the Comma Man

D’oh! Groening Reveals The Location Of ‘Real’ Springfield — Right here in Oregon.

New View of Depression: An Ailment of the Entire Body

How Dark Matter Interacts with the Human Body — Dark matter must collide with human tissue, and physicists have now calculated how often. The answer? More often than you might expect.

The Amazing Trajectories of Life-Bearing Meteorites From Earth — The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs must have ejected billions of tonnes of life-bearing rock into space. Now physicists have calculated what must have happened to it

How the Greatest Prankster in Political History Messed With Richard Nixon — Ah, politics. (Via danjite.)

‘A Recipe for Losing Touch With One’s Own Editorial Faculties’ — Ta-Nehisi Coates on Noah Millman on John Derbyshire. And I have to confess that firing Derbyshire for being racist was as puzzling to me as firing Buchanan. Why, after all these years of letting them be leading conservative voices with exactly the same message, does it matter now?

Karl Rove and company are losing the argument over inequality — Since, as usual for conservatives, they can’t win this one on the merits of the position, the dirty pool campaigning will start.

Republicans Try To Erase The Contraception Wars — “And there was the perception that somehow Republicans are opposed to contraceptives,” Romney told Newsmax last week. That perception would be because Republicans are opposed to contraceptives, on the plain face of their own rhetoric and legislation introduced. There’s no “somehow” about it, fool. The backlash on contraception is just another example of how people of all political stripes tend to intensely dislike conservative doctrine when actually applied to them personally. Conservatism is all about punishing the “other”, not the conservative himself.

?otd: Is your car marked ‘Do Not Hump’?

4/11/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (3,100 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.25 (solid)
Weight: 242.2 (!)
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling

Tags: Books, Cool, Endurance, gender, Language, Links, Mainspring, Oregon, Personal, Politics, race, reviews, Science, weird

Posted: 5:36 am Wed April 11 2012 | Comments(2) |

[books] Recent reading: Red Seas Under Red Skies, and The Ethical Slut

Last week I finished reading Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies [ Powells | BN ], the second of his Locke Lamora books. I really admire Scott’s writing. He combines an absolutely byzantine flair for plotting with a profound ruthlessness toward his characters which hits all my reader cookies, hard. Especially when wrapped in such lovely language. There were points in this book where I had to look away or even put it down, because I was so dreading what was about to happen next. At this point in my life, with my critic/author brain more or less permanently stuck in the “on” position, it’s a fairly rare writer who can grab hold of me so thoroughly.

Action, adventure, conspiracy, magic, antiheroes on the hoof — what more could you want of Locke and Jean? I confess about 4/5ths of the way through the book I started to wonder how he was going to wrap it all up. Well, he did. The ending might have taken up a few more pages without annoying me, but in truth, this is a minor quibble.

Anent Scott’s work, one of my favorite reader emails I ever received was regarding my own book, Trial of Flowers [ Powells | BN ]. The reader took me to task for writing such grubby, degrading prose and doing such awful things in that book (guilty as charged, btw), and asked me why I couldn’t write something clean and fun like Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora [ Powells | BN ]. Considering that in Lies people are drowned in horse piss and stuffed into barrels of ground glass, I can’t think how anyone would think it was a cleaner book than Trial.

Prior to that, I finished reading the new edition of The Ethical Slut [ Powells | BN ]. If you’re not familiar with the title, that’s a lifestyle/self-help/inspirational book aimed toward people engaged in open or polyamorous relationships. I will comment that at least half that book applies to anyone with an active emotional or sex life, regardless of their particular lifestyle arrangements and sexual orientation. I recommend it highly on that basis if you’re interested in exploring your boundaries or otherwise doing some hard thinking in those areas.

Tags: Books, klog, reviews

Posted: 5:19 am Tue April 03 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad is back amid the misty mountains of the Pacific Northwest

Now Read This: Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal — My review of maryrobinette‘s new book is up at Portland Monthly.

Unique coat sale from long ago — This photo is very peculiar.

Swimming On The Hot Side — An elite team of nuclear divers are risking their lives to help save a troubled industry. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Nature-Deficit Disorder

Fossil raindrops tell us a fair bit about ancient atmosphere

RFID Enables Study of Chicken Pessimism — That is my favorite headline of this week.

ESO: Habitable Red Dwarf Planets Abundant — Kryten everywhere?

Etch A Sketch Starts Its Own Campaign — (Via my Dad.)

Judge Morality, Not Theology — Good luck with that one.

Broccoli and Bad Faith — Paul Krugman on the Supreme Court conservatives’ willful ignorance on healthcare reform. {t}he idea for the mandate originally came not from liberals but from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. (By the way, another pet conservative project — private accounts to replace Social Security — relies on, yes, mandatory contributions from individuals.) Partisan idiocy really is on the march at the highest levels. Scrivener’s Error with more on this from a legal perspective, among other interesting things.

Scalia Echoes GOP Buzzwords Against ‘Obamacare’ — Yes, FOX News has a seat on the Supreme Court. I feel so much better knowing this country’s judiciary is fair and balanced.

Lights on or off? Earth Hour challenged by Human Achievement Hour — Because conservation is unconservative, and being wise stewards of our world is something Jesus would totally put the hate on. Or something.

Just for living in your American skin — Slacktivist Fred Clark on conservative responses to the Trayvon Martin killing. [Liberals] are upset because a child was gunned down with impunity. That ought to upset conservatives too. I appreciate that the Republican Party ca. 2012 has a knee-jerk opposition to anything that President Barack Obama says, but just because Obama is saddened by the senseless killing of a child shouldn’t have to mean that Republicans should reflexively take the other side.

Obama Administration Oddly Scandal-Free — little over a year ago, Congressman Darrell Issa, who as chairman of the House committee on government oversight is in charge of investigating the Obama administration, called Obama’s “one of the most corrupt administrations” in American history. Which is pretty rich, coming from the party of the Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations. (Via threeoutside, who is skeptical.)

Tea party groups target Senate after presidential ‘disappointments’ — Oh, joy.

GOP identity crisis worsened Romney’s primary struggle — And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer flip-flopper? Remember when the GOP thought Kerry’s flip-flopping was the worst thing EVAR? Nah, neither do they.

?otd: Ever been up on Mount Hood?

3/31/2012
Writing time yesterday: 4.0 hours (Sunspin: 3.75 hours on Calamity of So Long a Life, 0.25 hours on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewellingh

Tags: Books, Cool, Funny, healthcare, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, Religion, reviews, Science, weird

Posted: 6:29 am Sat March 31 2012 | Comments(0) |

[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) |

[movies] The Hunger Games

Last night, I took the_child to see The Hunger Games [ imdb ]. Though I was up too late, I was being a good Dad — she recently read the book, and so was primed for the film. And now she’ll be part of the conversation this morning at school, where all the girls in the eighth grade class will have seen it over the weekend, as well as most of the boys.

I liked this film a lot. It was tough and brutal, appropriate to the story concept. Emotionally well wrought. The herky jerky camera style bothered me at first, but then I settled in to the look of the film and stopped noticing it. The writer in me really wanted to understand the backstory &mndash; how did society get herez? — but those questions were never answered in the film. Taking the story as it was on the surface worked very well for me. And the_child loved it.

So did a lot of other people. The movie’s opening weekend grossed $214 million worldwide. Nearly record-breaking, as I understand things. Contrast to the lackluster performance of John Carter [ imdb ], which I liked as much for different reasons. The Hunger Games had a much better script and far more realized characters, but they were both a lot of fun.

And boy was my daughter pleased.

Tags: Child, Movies, reviews

Posted: 4:04 am Mon March 26 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) |

[links] Link salad rings the bells that still can ring

Interrogating the Text #4: Jay Lake takes a “Long Walk Home” — A reader analyzes my novelette in some detail.

Penguin is hosting a Twitter chat with author Deborah Harkness on April 4th — I rather liked her book A Discovery of Witches.

But I Worked So Hard! — jimvanpelt on the indirect connection between hard work and achievement.

What’s The Best Time of Day to be Creative?

Slipping on a Few Antitrust Banana Peels — Scrivener’s Error with some deep legal napery on the DOJ’s ebook price fixing investigation. Worth a patient read if you’re interested in the legal/business nuts and bolts of the issue.

Ikea Stonehenge — Heh. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

An Indo-European language tree — Interesting diagram. (Via my brother.)

“How to Make Friends by Telephone” ca. 1940s — (Snurched from Curiosity Counts.)

Digital Devices for Luddites — (Via my Dad.)

Lick Observatory Moonrise — Another stunning APOD image.

Mars: Boldly Going Where Lots Of Science Fiction Has Gone Before

How Do You Tell Time On Mars? — Synchronizing rovers on Mars with their drivers on Earth is a bit of a challenge.

Why open science failed after the gulf oil spill — Yes, clearly what we need is less regulation.

The Trees Are All Right — Republicans and nature.

How the Ghost of Jerry Falwell Conquered the Republican Party — Before Falwell, if liberals wanted to increase the minimum wage by one dollar and conservatives did not want to increase it at all, they could compromise and raise the minimum wage by fifty cents. Before Falwell, the American public’s ambivalence about abortion could find expression in the Hyde Amendment, which does not prohibit abortion but denies federal funds for the procedure. After Falwell, such compromises were seen not as part of the art of governance, but as a betrayal of first principles. After Falwell, conservatives could not entertain differences of opinion on many issues without being accused of political heresy. I’ve long said religion and politics mix poorly because politics requires compromise, while religion, especially the narrow minded literalism of American evangelicalism, rejects compromise as literally sinful. (Via Slacktivist.)

Rush Limbaugh vs. Bill Maher: Which one’s words were worse? — Right. Because Maher has such a vast audience, and such a profound influence over a major political party. Unlike Rush, who’s a B-list comedian with a C-list cable tv show and little political or cultural influence. No, wait. Did I get that backwards? God, how conservatives do love false equivalency. It lets them hide the venal horror of their beliefs from themselves.

No Game: Playstation Buying Lieutenant Gov Indicted For Ethics Violations — This is why we’re supposed to vote Republican, right? Because godless liberals have no morals. At least, that’s what’s been shouted in my ear all my life. Glad to see the GOP is holding up their sterling ethical tradition.

‘A Hug That the Media Won’t Show’ — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the latest episode of manufactured outrage from our friends on the Right. “Radical and bizarre” is a political movement which can’t face up to evolution; is campaigning for president while standing in front of a flag of treason; is “Kenyan anti-colonial behavior” and “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists,” Asserting that white supremacy haunts our legal institutions is mainstream for anyone with a serious knowledge of our history.

?otd: How does the light get in?

3/10/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (Going to Extremes)
Body movement: 90 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: 236.8
Currently reading: 1491 by Charles C. Mann; Permeable Borders by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Tags: Cool, ebooks, Funny, Language, Links, Mars, media, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, stories, Tech, Writing

Posted: 8:00 am Sat March 10 2012 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad does the walk of life

A nice review of Westward Weird — With favorable mention of my story, “The Temptation of Eustace Prudence McAllen”.

Michael Chabon Attacks Prejudice Against Science Fiction

The Collusion Case Against Publishers — John Scalzi is wise.

SMBC on Clarke’s Third Law — Hahahah.

The QWERTY effect — Language Log on the supposed positive valence of rightside letters.

Brontë sisters power dolls — Snerk. (Via Scrivener’s Error.)

“The Women of the Future” according to 1902 French Trading Cards

A Dutch Angel’s Cellphone Number Is in Demand — Cryin’ statues and spittin’ images. (Thanks to David Goldman.)

It’s Not Junk if I Made It — Recreating Snack Cakes, Cookies and Chips at Home. (Via my Dad.)

DIY Kit Overclocks Your Brain With Direct Current — Transcranial Direct Stimulation works, and you can try it at home. What could possibly go wrong?

Why Aren’t There More Female Patent-Holders? — I will note anecdotally that I am an inventor of a commercialized patent, and I do not have an engineering or technical degree.

Feathers Worth a 2nd Look Found on a Tiny Dinosaur

James Cameron winning ‘race to inner space’ in a ‘clown car’ — I love this headline.

Entire nation of Kiribati to be relocated over rising sea level threat — The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is negotiating to buy land in Fiji so it can relocate islanders under threat from rising sea levels. It’s amazing the lengths liberals will go to in order to perpetuate their climate change scams. Luckily the Right has Rush Limbaugh and other ideologically correct voices to shield them from those pesky facts.

Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal — Also, this just in: Monkeys have flown out of my ass. Wait, what?

Bullying, Cont. — Ta-Nehisi Coates with some cites on ant-gay bullying as sponsored by conservative parents and political leaders. The embrace of organized hatred and institutionalized bigotry is yet another of the myriad reasons I will never, ever be a Republican.

Political “Fairy Tales” Are Frequently Pernicious

Rush Limbaugh’s blind spot — It also may be why Limbaugh can’t shake his paranoid hallucinations of trampy, castrating women. He doesn’t have a clue what a real one is.

Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care in Abortion Fight — Thank you, conservative America. Your misogyny couldn’t be any more plain. (Via shsilver.)

The GOP is the place to be — Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. Heh.

?otd: Will you hand me down my walking shoes?

3/9/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (Going to Extremes)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: 235.6
Currently reading: 1491 by Charles C. Mann; Permeable Borders by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Tags: climate, Culture, Food, Funny, gay, gender, healthcare, Language, Links, media, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, stories, Tech, Videos, weird

Posted: 6:26 am Fri March 09 2012 | Comments(0) |