transmissions from a compromised antenna

This is one weird looking elk, I have to say. It looks more like a llama than an elk. That it’s losing its winter coat doesn’t help with the sad, pathetic look. I’m sure it’s fine though. I don’t think that’s mange or CWD or anything. Most of the elk this weekend were shedding off it’s winter coats. Still, makes for one weird photograph.

Originally published at JeremiahTolbert.com. You can comment here or there.

Happy Birthday to my dear buddy tuber_x:





KITTENS!

I finally finished the last of my pieces for the IAFAuction plus one for the Tiptree auction at WisCon and something for myself.  Wanna see?  Nah, you don’t wanna see.  If you did, you’d click on the cut.

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• Mutant Fetus / Alien in Jar Tutorial! - IndyMogul Forums
  I need to learn more about molds and casting
  (tags: sculpting)
• Michael Dirda - Michael Dirda - washingtonpost.com
  A great review of the new Charles Fort biography (which of course I want to read. At some point. When I have time to read agian.)
  (tags: fortean review)
• John Carlin on why Iceland has the happiest people on earth | World news | The Observer
  I uh, never thought I would say this, but I want to visit Iceland. Anyone reading this blog live there?
  (tags: Iceland happiness culture politics Travel)
• rice-boy.com
  Supposed to be really good. I will have to check it out.
  (tags: comics webcomic illustration art)

Originally published at JeremiahTolbert.com. You can comment here or there.

http://apexdigest.livejournal.com/108375.html

Wherein, someone says something very nice about an upcoming story of mine plus you get to see a very pretty picture.

My kick-ass agent, Jennifer Jackson, is donating her time to Brenda Novak’s auction to support research for Diabetes.

In a little less than 15 hours, my entry in Brenda Novak’s auction to support research for Diabetes goes live. It’s a one day auction and the bidding starts at a mere $2. (Yep, just $2.)

I’m offering to read and evaluate a proposal (defined as three chapters - up to 50pp - plus a synopsis) of an unpublished manuscript. I will also meet with the winner at RWA National for a drinks date to discuss that proposal or other publishing questions. Since I know I have a number of readers on this blog who may not be attending, I’d also be open to meeting at other conferences I’m attending (such as Readercon or Bouchercon).

Bidding is here, and it’s really easy to sign up and get a bidder ID.

There are other amazing auctions and the cause is very worthy. I encourage you to check it out and bid.

Comments? -- Link

Trinalor reviews Paper Cities over at FantasyBookspot.com.

Tinalor says:

“Although they all share a common theme, the diversity of the stories and imaginations of the authors make this collection an interesting and compelling read. In Paper Cities, the city is not a mere background against which authors prop their characters to tell a story. The city is a character: an incredibly viable, evolving, and influential one at that.”

Read the review here.

Originally posted at Senses Five Press by Matthew Kressel. You can comment here or there.

So maybe staying up late and reading books about abuse isn't my best bet for a healthy and happy lifestyle.

I'm currently reading Jame's R. Kincaid's Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molestation for the revision of the Alice paper that I presented at ICFA.  The book was recommended to me by a number of people, and it really does dovetail nicely with the argument I'm making: basically, I'm arguing that as a culture, we've aged Alice in order to excuse our fascination with her (or rather, her circumstances).  Kincaid is arguing that we, as a culture, are doing more or less exactly that with the entire issue of child molestation: exaggerating it as a kind of a blind for our purient fascination with child sexuality.  Basically, the more vigorously we indict the molesters, the more we acquit ourselves.

Kincaid is a damned good writer.  He hits a good balance between anecdote, theory, literature, and culture.  But the thing is ... he's wrong.  Kincaid is attempting to demonstrate the overblown nature of our fears via a combination of techniques (from dissecting broad statistics as inaccurate, and then replacing them with narrow ones with no evidence that the latter are more reliable than the former, to unsubtly suggesting that the enactment of Megan's Law be applied with the same scrupulous attention to detail once used to hunt Nazi war criminals because obviously, hahaha, molesters are not war criminals and thus our efforts are overblown).  If he'd stuck to the cultural presentation as a distraction from real and valid concerns, I'd be cheering.  But instead, he's arguing that we're exaggerating the threat to begin with, and that is ... unconvincing to me, given that the anecdotal evidence that I'm aware of tends to corroborate the generally accepted stats ... and I'm not doing any studies, here.  I'm just listening when people talk about their experiences.

That said, I'm sure it will be useful for my paper (even if I do feel a little dirty reading it, and even if I am wondering if its purchase has planted me on any watch lists), but exploring a long disquisition on our culture of fear didn't do a damned thing to make me feel safer about finding the garden gate swinging adrift in the wind when I stepped out for a smoke. 

Have I mentioned that I miss my Mace?

I've always felt at home in New York City.

Some of that's from being born here (I'm in the city as I write this), which entitles one forever after to always answer that question of "Where are you from?" with "New York." (The "city" is implied. Otherwise you would have said "upstate." Conversely, one can also answer with just "The City" and anyone in the Northeast or MidAtlantic states will know which city you mean. When I got to college in Rhode Island it was one of the phrases translated for people from other areas of the country in the orientation handbook.)

Of course that question, "Where are you from?" was one I heard a lot as a kid, prompted not by curiosity about my birthplace but as a code for "where are your genes from?" Looking at me, people couldn't decide what I was. Italian? American Indian? Puerto Rican?

Of course, the correct answer to the person who asks "Where are you from?" but who is staring at you in such a way that you know they mean "what ethnicity are you?" is: "New York."
( I used to play with their minds... )

It’s been a productive weekend so far. I don’t know if I will go out tomorrow at the crack of dawn like today. I’m wiped out, have a migraine, and have been so busy packing for the impending move (6 blocks away) that I should probably stay in and get some work done on a few side projects. I really like the weekend ritual of heading out in search of good photos, though. I feel more in touch with nature than I have in years. I sometimes think that giving up on the biology field did some damage to my soul that is taking a very long time to heal.

Even if I don’t go out tomorrow, the coming week is going to have some absolutely great images. This is one of the lesser ones. I try not to post the really good ones on the weekend because a lot fewer people read this site over the weekend. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Originally published at JeremiahTolbert.com. You can comment here or there.

Thursday, Jodi and I shot a pilot episode. We were the only two puppeteers on the shoot, and as often happens, the only people in the room with prior puppetry experience. The puppets were charming but, to my eye, built by a stage puppeteer rather than a film and television puppeteer. How could I tell? Small details, like visible specks of glue. Now, for stage, this doesn’t matter¹ but for film work you have to be prepared for extreme closeups.

These were rod puppets and the necks were extremely thin, long and sproingy. ² Our slightest tremor translated into a giant head wiggle. On top of that, the mouth trigger would actually pull the whole head down with it. None of this violated the forty feet and a galloping horse rule, but boy howdy did it look funny in a closeup. We weren’t doing lipsync so much as headsync.

AND one of the puppets broke moments after we got there. I had a total MacGyver moment and repaired the puppet with a paperclip, gaffers tape and superglue. ³

The guys we were working for were supernice and thankfully understood the challenges pretty darn quickly. On the whole, they seemed pleased. Hopefully I’ll be able to show you some of it down the line.

1. We have a saying, “forty feet on a galloping horse” which means that if you won’t notice it while galloping on horseback forty feet away you won’t notice it on the stage either [↩]
2. Yes, that’s a technical term. [↩]
3. No, I can’t describe the repair in more detail because to do so would require explaining what the characters were which would blow the secrecy around the pilot. [↩]

Comments? -- Link

I admit it's late and I have stomach flu, but I'm not quite getting this description for Panel 67?


hat's in the Id Vortex? The hangups, kinks, and hot-buttons that suck you in, even unwillingly—and threaten to stretch and distort story logic and characters that venture too near. In this panel, we'll talk about how we navigate the Id Vortex as readers and texts that harness its power without falling in, and the tools they use; whether and when plunging right into the vortex can be a good idea; and how stories change for readers coming in with different buttons.

I finished the first chapter of Quantum Coin!

And it's about time (literally and figuratively). I've been dawdling on this for a while, reluctant to start it while I was still tinkering with Fair Coin (which ain't done yet, folks). It's been so long since I wrote actual fiction, I was starting to wonder if I ever would again. But still! I just wrote about 1200 words, which makes me very pleased indeed. It's more or less the way I've been planning it for many many months, but will obviously need much revision when I get to that stage. I hope to keep the forward motion going as long as I can.

In other news, work has been kicking my ass. Long hours, very busy days, and a hectic social calendar means I've been falling behind on everything. I'm gearing up for the Clarion West Write-a-thon again this summer (more on that later), so I expect to re-prioritize writing, as much as my day job will let me...

As I was sorting slush today, something came up that I mention here in the hope that it will prove useful to a few of you.

Don't post stories online, unless it's behind password protection.  Otherwise it starts looking already published.  Jed Hartman's posted about that here.  Allow me to repeat that again: posting a story publicly counts as publishing it.  Things like private critique groups, which are password protected, are fine and dandy.  Public forums?  No no no!

Along the same line: we do not take multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions, and I will bounce things back to you quickly if they fall into either of those two categories.

My husband and I are driving from Western Minnesota, and driving through the cities, to Wiscon. Wanted to offer a ride since we have one extra seat. We have two dogs, a big one and a small one. I can sit in back, thus getting any dog smell. We are leaving this Wednesday morning. Thus I am expecting that no one will want to ride with us, but I wanted to post on here just in case anyone needs a ride and is flexible and loves fuzzy puppies. Oh, and it'll be a cheap ride, because we have a Jetta TDI and get 50+ MPG

:-)

I'm not creepy, pretty cool, and this is my third wiscon. Lemme know if you want the spot!

Say, is anyone else who resides in central Illinois, particularly the Champaign-Urbana area, attending this year? I'd hate to miss the opportunity to meet Wiscon folk from my current location because I didn't know to look for them.

-j00j, temporarily not a Chicagoan.

Is anyone going to Milwaukee Monday morning, who could give my spouse a ride? He needs to catch a plane to Uganda. Is it bad that I'd rather not miss all the Monday programming at WisCon than kiss him good-bye at the airport...?