Quick Note from Poland

I live, I’m currently in Lublin, and I’m having a blast. I’m keeping detailed notes on where I’ve been and will be making one grand blog post (or several smaller ones) full of information and pictures. I’ve learned some very interesting things about my family, especially my grandfather.

Keeping Twitter updated as I go.

On Vacation

I’ll be out from November 19 to November 30. In case you wonder.

I may be able to post whilst in Europe, but let’s not count on it.

SF in SF (11/16)

I consider myself a newbie writer. While I may have been writing for some time, I’ve only recently decided to take it seriously. No, that’s not right. I’ve always been trying to be good at what I do. I guess I’ve only recently decided to try to get published which is a different breed of serious and one with far more weight behind it.

I’ll get to why that’s relevant in a moment.

I have never been to SF in SF, and I’m glad Emily Jiang dragged me along. Of the writers there, I had only heard of Ellen Klages and not read, and had only recently been introduced to Geoff Ryman. Emily thrust the book AIR into my hands, I read five sentences, and it was all over. It’s currently in my bag, waiting to be read some more. (Along with two other books. And seven others floating around the house with scraps for bookmarks.)

A tip of my hat to Geoff on that front: Due to my ferret-like nature, I am oft distracted by shiny things and wind up “in the middle of” ten books at a time. I’d declared a moratorium on buying books. Geoff ruined that.

The authors read some fabulous excerpts (I made a comment to the effect of “I feel like I’m listening to a Terry Gilliam flick” about a bit of Geoff’s writing) and then their writing was discussed. Sort of.

We started down a path, in mentioning setting as a character, as a central piece of the storytelling. I agree to a point–setting obviously is a character and should be treated with weight. But what stayed with me from their excerpts wasn’t setting, not entirely. It was the visuals. Ellen’s description of the white sands in New Mexico, Nalo’s road of black pitch devouring an army, Geoff’s grape thing.

Especially the grape thing. Yikes. Part of me wonders if he saw the pile of champagne grapes and chuckled maniacally.

What was fantastic in this reading for me, the budding writer, was having such strong visuals thrust into my headspace. I realized exactly how crucial that is to a reader, something I never think about while I’m reading (as it’s my tendency to skim large blocks of text and make a world spun of loosely connected adjectives and the occasional improper noun). It is my natural inclination to under-describe when I write. Perhaps I give the reader too much credit, but I feel that in the moments I reveal scenery or character, I’m being obvious and intrusive. Yet time and again readers yell at me about lack of description. So, I’m still working on it. Still. Always.

The discussion disintegrated into Writing 101, which pleased me in a way. It made me feel good to know that–despite the fact that this information was pretty generic, beginner, obvious–I already knew all of it. Everything they discussed was already something I was either working on actively or still fine-tuning (because let’s be honest, I’m not done on the beginner stuff, and likely never will be).

And the post-reading discussions were fabulous. I talked with people about programming, Prague, and prose. I wish I’d found out about this whole shindig a hell of a lot sooner.

Detektivbyran

Detektivbyrån – E18 (link)

Also Detektivbyran, if you don’t like A’s with circles over them. Swedish.

Their sound is something like if roaming gypsies stumbled across a synthesizer. And if you recognize the song that’s because the closing measures make up the themesong to Felicia Day’s The Guild.

New Watchmen Trailer

Go check it out.

It’s everything the first trailer wasn’t. For one, there’s speaking. They give a hint at the actual story. And it’s… it’s got Muse in it, people.

Go.

… Fatalists?

The title is a Men in Tights reference.

In AW I made a very solid post I wanted to save here. You know. For posterity.

We were discussing propensities for discovering slash in any subtext findable, and Lord of the Rings came up in this context (and yes I mentioned pointy hat trick). I mentioned recalling Sam actually outright declaring love for Frodo. (Yes, yes, love between men doesn’t have to be gay, I understand.)

The Post:

HAH found it.

Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping yeas was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: ‘I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no.’

Here’s how I imagine a conversation about that going…

Tolkein: So..?

Lewis: So.

Tolkein: What did you think?

Lewis: Um. Friend. I’m… not sure if you’re aware… but are… are they..? You know…

Tolkein: Not sure I follow.

Lewis: [waves a hand] You know.

Tolkein: Oh. Oh! No. No no no.

Lewis: It, er, it comes out that way. A bit. In the text.

Tolkein: I see. [scans text] Now… which part exactly?

Lewis: I’d have to say it’s somewhere between Sam watching Frodo as he sleeps and saying that he loves him aloud. I don’t know. Somewhere in there.

Tolkein: Huh. You think if I make an offhand mention of Rosie in the final part, it’ll balance that out?

Lewis: … It… it might?

Better Than I

This is the blog post I wanted to make.

Music Review: Shiny Toy Guns – Season of Poison

I’m bumming the tracks off youtube at the moment. We’ll see if I’m in the mood to buy it once all of this is done, though from what I’ve heard so far I’m largely unimpressed.

1. When Did This Storm Begin (thumbs down)
I was getting behind this, then Sisley’s vocals hit. It’s not a shot against her, it’s a shot against the song. That chanting-rapping-singing-whatever is not flying. It’s ruining a perfectly good song.

2. Money For That (thumbs up)
Why does this make me think of Christmas? I actually very much like this song. But it’s not at all what I love about Shiny Toy Guns. This is a completely different direction, and while it’s good, it’s not what made this band stand out in comparison to everything else on the scene. I really love this song. But it’s not them. It’s someone else.

And belatedly, I have figured out who else it is, and why I like it. I have absolutely no problem sliding this into the vocals of Jim Adkins. (That’s Jimmy Eat World. Yes, the same guys who sang “The Middle,” the plague of your existence in the late 90’s.)

3. I Owe You A Love Song (thumbs down)
Bland, generic. Clearly written with Carah’s vocals in mind, and Sisley does not pull them off. And what the fuck was with the dramatic key change? Really? Such a bland song.

4. Ghost Town (thumbs way down)
This is just straight terrible. Whatever possessed them to take this sound and run with it, and run as long as they have so far. The only redeeming portion of the song is the promising intro and the bridge.

5. It Became A Lie On You (thumbs up)
This could grow on me. It’s nothing that’s making me sit up and take notice, but considering how things have been progressing, it’s a welcome change of pace.

6. Ricochet! (thumbs down)
I’ve said my piece about this earlier. I’ll say it again. The vocals are obnoxious and it’s repetitive. If there was some sort of break in here (as in Le Disko) it could have been better. Not good, but better. Shame. (Also the video is lousy.)

7. Season Of Love (thumbs down)
Meh. That’s all I can give to this. It’s just… meh. It may grow on me, but it’s not really getting me excited.

8. Poison (thumbs up)
I’m trying to figure out what to do with this song. It’s doing so many things that I can’t latch onto anything, which is unfortunate, because most of the things its doing are good. But I don’t get enough of it to make something of it.

9. Blown Away (thumbs up)
Originally I heard this as When Revelation Calls at the Wiltern. I liked it then, and I like it now.

10. Turned To Real Life (thumbs up)
I liked this better when Carah sang it. For those of you unfamiliar, this song was available on their initial release of We Are Pilots, before the big launch. This is the one which also had Joel’s Theme and Rocketship and their cover of Ritz.

11. Frozen Oceans (thumbs up)
I think I’ve also said my piece on this one. This is a fantastic song and its main failing is that it’s not Carah signing it.

There are so many stories flying around about Carah’s departure from the Shinies. She left voluntarily to be with her husband. She left to do her own music. It was a mutual parting of ways. She was fired. They always wanted Sisley from the beginning. I would love an official fucking story.

Damnit, Shiny Toy Guns. Half of this album is meh-to-bad. And some of the stuff I thumbs-upped didn’t particularly deserve it, but I liked them enough to not thumbs-down them. I’ve just lost a favorite band. Maybe Versant will pick up the slack. I like the demo track sitting there.

I was writing that sentence as I listened. No. Holy shit this is a good track. I’m going to keep a vigilant eye on Versant now.

Clockwork Heart

Trust me on this one.

Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Stevens – Chicago (link)

Struck me that someone who reads this may not know Sufjan. Struck me that I should fix this.