Delightful Inconsistent

notes on documentaries

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:49:21 GMT

In contemporary documentary, it is fashionable to obscure the presence of the filmmaker. Interviews are edited so that the subject appears to speak extemporaneously; we neither hear the question nor see the person who asks it. I think this is done to distinguish documentary film from journalism, and is particularly attractive in an era in which we revere filmmakers and shake our heads at journalists. The two documentarians I can think of who tend to appear on camera are Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock; they are also the two documentarians I have heard refer to themselves as journalists, Spurlock one of the gonzo school. Ken Burns would never call himself a journalist, and probably not a historian, although for different reasons.

This inclination to remove the interviewer often rewards the audience with a greater sense of intimacy, and avoids some of the ego-driven showboating that can appear when a filmmaker gets caught up in performing (as with Kenneth Brannagh, a filmmaker though not to my knowledge a documentarian). However, it can also get in the way by limiting narrative structure, and it can force considerable distortions of the truth. I am less removed from the moment by noticing the interviewer than I am by noticing the efforts by which the interviewer is obscured.

One has only to look at The Last Waltz, which could have filled its time (and them some) with concert footage and raves from the crowd, but in which Scorsese sits openly with The Band, and you see notebooks and tape recorders. We understand that Scorsese is a stand in for us, because we are seeing the concert from a vantage point that is given to Scorsese, and not to members of the audience. We understand more about The Band, who are not everyday people but performers surrounded at all times by groupies and journalists; we understand that even when The Band is relaxed, they are constructing and performing their image and/or promoting a view of the best direction rockstars, music, and American culture. For them to appear in this way is more honest than for them to seem unaffected by dialog; it is truthful that they, the performers, are performers, and answer questions from fans and journalists when cameras are not rolling, or at least not these cameras.

This betrays the real difference between documentary and journalism, which is a difference of intimacy. Journalism tells us stories we have a right to know; they tell us what is selling, who is buying it, what politician said what, and who was responsible for the new real estate development that we all know will mess up area traffic. This is noble and imperative, and can be an art even though it is necessary, just as pottery, quilts, and furniture can be art. Documentary, on the other hand, is privileged access; it is a view on the world we are lucky to be allowed to see, whether it is a beautiful event in a beautiful place most of us could not travel or an honest and personal conversation we would not otherwise get to hear. These things are not owed to us; we do not need these vistas to be good citizens, and the interview subjects could finish their lives without telling anyone how it felt to stand in a line in a certain year. It would be no dark secret.

I like documentaries when they recognize this privilege, and this intimacy, and react to it humbly, with the grace of a good guest. I like documentaries when they wonder.

I am slowly taking over

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:41:58 GMT

Another poem by me, up at Jerseyworks, a magazine that is not well known but that I think is fairly sly about connecting things to other things. I don't think any of you have already read this one, because it's long enough I didn't tend to send it around, and because I felt good enough about it that I figured it was going somewhere. It's damn funny.

"Dallas 2009"

2009 in Review

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:24:29 GMT

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

I was filmmaker in residence at a major museum, I had poems published in pro markets, I started getting personal rejection notes much more often than form ones, I got a master's degree, I completed a novel, and I was the hand that sent closed captions out to people in Canada who watch wrestling re-broadcasts.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Mostly. The real exception is that I did not learn the dance from Bande á Part, so that's back on the list. (I lost track of time.) I also didn't write as much music as I intended to, although I did write some. This year, I'd like to shoot a feature, and I've resumed work on the Digby manuscript, even though it is slow going. (I love the idea of reading a book which is epic alternate history with intrigue and fantasy elements, but good god it takes forever to write. Any given paragraph takes an hour or more of research, and I'm sure people are still going to nitpick me about Americanisms in my alternate universe.)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No. Although I keep insisting that Val name her eventual child "Rocketship." (And why not "Romie," asks Ciro.)

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not that I remember. I'm not close to that many people, and those I do spend time with are pretty risk averse; it's one of the things I look for in a friend.

5. What countries did you visit?

Once again, the US and the UK. I really mean to get to Canada. I really do. Maybe that's another resolution.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Sound equipment and a video camera. A dress form would also be great, although I don't know where I'd put it.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

None, really. There were a lot of important moments, but I can't think of a significant date.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Oh, graduating probably.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I was backstabbed by a lot of people - something like two thirds of the people I trusted and depended on. This was concentrated into two incidents in two countries and I'm not sure what I could have done to prevent either, even though I saw that both were possibilities. It was disappointing. Now everyone's nice to me again, and I think I'm supposed to say "oh well, that kind of thing happens," but I have failed to do this, partly because I'm not sure whether forgiveness or continued mistrust is more potentially damaging to me. It's all murky.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

My own immune system tried to eat through my jaw and made a pretty good run of it, but then I had parts of my jaw replaced with ground up corpse bone, and that seems to have fixed things.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A basic light kit. It's small without really being easily portable, but it sure makes filming easier.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Rex finished the first draft of his ten-years-in-the-making novel, Stephanie moved to New York and was in a million plays, Scarlett got the hell out of Dallas, Mom directed a musical, and Pippen the cat decided after many years to stop attacking me, possibly because the joint pain isn't worth it in her old age. Ciro starred in a play, took a lot of good photos, and impressed a lot of art academics that aren't easily impressed.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

It's seemed for the last few months that almost everyone around me has been treating almost everyone else badly. It's been a hard year for people, obviously, but I think the real toll has been psychological.

Oh who am I kidding. Who I'm really mad at is gold speculators. They're creating a huge bubble in the commodities market, and patting themselves on the back about how gold has "true value." NO. You are in a bubble, guys. And in the meantime, they're hoarding an element which has useful functions that go way beyond being a coin. They are demonstrably making the world worse for everyone (and propping up various upsetting regimes).

I'm also mad at everyone in the Senate. Fuck you guys for all your earmarks on this healthcare bill, and fuck you for cocking up access to legal abortions. Fuck anybody who holds America hostage to their own ego.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent and food, but outside of that my big expenses were dental work and the film (which although cheap was still an expense). I also had to replace various bits of my car, which is old.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Still an Obama fan, despite the haters.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

Accurate or not, it feels like Yael Naim and Regina Spektor were playing at my apartment at all times. And very few conversations were complete without a reference to "George Washington." None of these things were released in 2009. The best release in 2009 was "Glorious Dawn." However, I like to think "Glorious Dawn" transcends time and space.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Happier, although it was a close one.

ii. thinner or fatter?

Thinner by about two pants sizes.

iii. richer or poorer?

Pretty much the same. Lots of student and medical debt, no savings. I did just graduate, though, so it's not a terribly unusual situation. My money outlook is very good for this year, though.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Despite the fact that I spend a significant amount of time at art museums, I feel that I would like to have spent more time at art museums. I wish I'd done more comedy; I'm happier doing comedy than doing drama, and arguably am more talented at it.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

I realized that the vast majority of what is in The New York Times is an absolute waste of time, which is bad for me because I like to have a newspaper to read. But anyway, I've cut back on my newspaper reading.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

We were up in Boston, as were REL and Scarlett. It was a white Christmas. I got a good hat, a good sweater, barracuda teeth, and various media. Most of my gifts to people were homemade and relatively well received. We've been playing a lot of Settlers of Catan with various expansions.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

No. But I stayed in love.

22. How many one night stands?

None.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Community. I thought it was going to be Glee, but it's pissing me off.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

I mostly hate the same people, even though most of them did new hateful things. (I'm looking at you, Lieberman.) It's more that I love fewer people than that I hate more.

25. What was the best book you read?

I don't tend to remember what year I read things in. When I'm reading, it's like I'm in an alternate timeline. I can say that I read Watership Down, and that it was extremely good. (And I hadn't realized the same author wrote Traveller, a book I liked very much as a kid; it's the Civil War narrated by Robert E. Lee's favorite horse.) I also enjoyed Outliers; I'm a big Gladwell fan. The primacy effect is kicking in hard, though, since those are both books I read last month.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

It's been nice to be able to listen to the cleaned-up Beatles remasters; several songs that I never saw the point of are interesting now that I can distinguish the separate instrument and vocal lines.

27. What did you want and get?

A pretty ideal day job.

28. What did you want and not get?

My films weren't accepted to any festivals, partly because I couldn't afford to apply to many. Hopefully, that problem will be solved this year. I'm also still in the process of trying to find a literary agent; fiction is a hard sell right now.

29. What was your favorite film this year?

Fantastic Mr. Fox, although I also liked Moon, The Brothers Bloom, and District 9 quite a lot. I suspect I love Good Hair, although I haven't had a chance to see it yet.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 29. For my birthday, I mostly celebrated Val's birthday, because 30 is a bigger deal and because she was getting ready to move to New Mexico. We played a lot of charades (Jane Eyre style) and I wrote this song.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Although the odds are pretty firmly against it, it would be amazing if Zoetrope published my story they've been holding on to for six months. I'm pretty unknown compared to most of the writers they publish, but the story and the audience fit together in a thoroughly satisfying way.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I had at least five. Right now, the best way to describe it is WWII French Resistance as interpreted by a film costumer from the 1970s.

33. What kept you sane?

A good notebook. I can't process things unless I can write them down, even if I never refer back to the piece of writing. Also helpful were James, Val, and various bean dishes.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Still crushing on Michelle Obama. Have renewed my crush on Carl Sagan, although he has been dead for more than a decade. Stephen Colbert wows me on a regular basis. I'm also generally loving lesbians in the media - the fourfecta of Rachel Maddow, Ellen De Generes, Portia de Rossi, and Jane Lynch. Represent, ladies.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Healthcare.

36. Who did you miss?

Kerry.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

I don't remember whether I met Stephanie this year or last year, but I think it was this year. Also Niloo.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

The big stuff breaks my heart a little right now. I will say that I successfully applied a lesson that I'm always telling people, which is to submit a ridiculous amount of stuff at any given time, and resubmit the second you get a rejection. At any given time, I probably have at least eight pending submissions - usually more like 15. I get two or three rejections a month. This means that any individual rejection doesn't bother me much. It's much harder to wait on one story or one poem.

I also think that you get better at things by doing them a lot, so I think writing a lot of stories is also a good idea. People tend to get annoyed with me for acting like it's easy to write a lot of stories, but it is. Write the ones you don't care about first; you can write those a lot faster than the ones you take seriously. And some of them may turn out to be good, and if they don't, it is good practice and not a waste of time.

Finally, it seems to me that a lot of people second guess themselves when something comes easily to them, and think they need to switch to doing it the hard way. The thing is, you really don't. Don't compare yourself to yourself; the stuff that's easy for you may be hard for someone else. You might find out you're not being lazy so much as playing to your strengths.

39. Quote a song that sums up your year:

"You're smart and you're alive and you can sleep and wake up
and don't choke on your food and don't fall in the shower.
You've survived one more year and we're terribly proud of you."
- me

And the others, too

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:33:00 GMT

I've had a head cold since about the 18th, which means it's been a whiskey Christmas. I will probably spend today listening to Beatles re-masters, playing Settlers of Catan, finishing the slippers I'm making for Ciro, and watching football documentaries. I love football documentaries, even though I don't watch football. Similarly, I like reading about mountain climbing expeditions, but have no desire to go near a mountain.

Catchphrase of the holiday: Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things.

Typically, going to the moon is substituted out for other resolutions, such as getting a glass of water.

A Walk Into Town

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:45:09 GMT

New England is friendly in the winter. When you meet someone out of doors, they look at you and feel you must be somewhat quixotic to run errands in sub-freezing temperatures. They realize they too are out of doors running errands and are also quixotic, and you both talk in a jolly way about how cold it is and then go to your separate homes and think how nice it is to have neighbors. In summer, the teenagers are out of school and have nothing to do but shout to each other on Main Street, which annoys everyone, including the teenagers. People speed through town as quickly as possible - illegally quickly! - and might not mind if their cars knocked you down, even if you are not a teenager. But in the winter it is cold, and we can wear ugly coats and take care of each other.

I would like to sleep.

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:57:47 GMT

In London, where it is cold, the hostel's hot water is not working, my laundry doesn't dry properly, a strange foreign man keeps trying to barricade all the women out of the women's bathroom, and I am averaging five hours sleep a night despite heroic attempts otherwise. Have found cheap source of coffee and am spending my waking zombie time playing a computer game where I shoot infinite tanks with cannon. Have once again been snubbed by my school and therefore do not intend to affiliate with them past this Tuesday. Am glad to be back in the land of British food, which I love with all my small cold heart. Thanks to various museums, I now have all sorts of schemes for clothing and embroidery which I intend to foist on Ciro.

If you are a lesbian, you must be butch femme. If you are gay, you must be top or bottom.

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:34:22 GMT

The term "cis-gender" has always gotten under my skin a little bit, and I wasn't sure why until it came together for me this week. (For those who have not run across the term, it's intended as a counterpart for "trans-gender." It means someone who self-identifies with the gender identity they were assigned at birth.)

I'm still a trainee at work, which means I have a certain amount of latitude in how I choose to spend my time. I have to practice certain television networks, but I can bend toward certain shows without anyone objecting - at this point it's not about capturing specific content but about honing my ability to capture content. Over the last month, I've done my best to time it so that I hear almost all of the C-SPAN-aired functions of the Congressional Black Caucus. I tell myself that this is clever professional development because they speak in a wide range of styles, but in fact it's just that they seem to spend more time saying things that are true than saying things that are politically clever. They're also the only ones who seem not to talk about poverty in the abstract. (I generally like CSPAN, though. It's hard to be cynical about politics when you see people working so hard to do the right thing.)

Meanwhile, I've been having a lot of conversations with a coworker whose desk is next to mine who is similarly a big spec fic geek (makes chainmail, updates me on Twilight fandom hijinks) and we've had conversations about the racial changes made to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and also about how throughout her life people have gotten into crazy arguments trying to guess whether she's hispanic, black, or native american. (As far as she can tell, whether they guess the latter depends on whether her hair is in a braid.) Both of us are kind of unsettled that people care so much given that she doesn't make a point of claiming any definitive ethnic identity. And in the background, I've been hearing about Obama (white mom, black dad, identified as black) and Tiger Woods (quarter quite, quarter black, half chinese, identified as black) and thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's description of Jamaican racial categories and what they meant for his mother, and about how much Sioux blood you have to have to count as a Sioux and who counts and Jewish, ad nauseum.

There's this division of white and not white, and it's not as simple as that. And there's this division of straight and gay that has nothing to do with the continuum on which I live -- ditto for autistic versus not autistic. Cis-gendered just gives me another binary. It forces me to declare that I think of myself as a woman when sometimes I think of myself as a woman and sometimes I think of myself as a man and sometimes both and sometimes neither. It ignores people like Castor Semenya, who has a clear gender but not a clear sex, and who has been absolutely cut up over this genetic quirk. Not only is gender not binary - sex is not binary. Chromosomes and hormones are all over the place in terms of both baseline and expression.

Transgendered describes something that is real. Cis-gendered reinforces the idea of dualistic sex and gender identities. I know it's a well-meaning attempt to show one group that you recognize it, but it mostly reinforces the (illusionary) status quo. I hope the term (and the idea) dies quickly and broadens into something more representative of the true spectrum. I don't understand why we have to draw lines around everybody - why people get mad at me for not having a favorite color or a favorite soda. I feel like I should be smart enough to understand this binary thinking, but it baffles me. It makes it hard to stand up against it when it mostly looks like a big confusing computer construct intruding on my environment.

Facsimile

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:40:55 GMT

Although I am sometimes turned off by McDonalds, at other times I am comforted by how similar it is to food. The ketchup is something like a tomato. The patty is something like meat. The bun is something like bread and the cheese is a reasonable imitation of cheese. It is less like a hamburger than a memory of a hamburger made by someone resourceful on a spaceship many generations from Earth. That is sometimes a very happy thought.

I just finished reading Watership Down, which was my favorite cartoon as a kid, and which I haven't seen in a very long time. The book is extremely good - just as good as the cartoon, which is, in turn, an artful adaptation of the book. I'm glad to have finally encountered it. I've been pleased by children's books and riffs on them in a more general sense, with the recent, wonderful Fantastic Mr. Fox movie (with its embedded reference to other childhood loves - Davy Crockett and Disney's version of Robin Hood). I'm wearing a white sweater and a Scarlett-made hat with ears, which makes me feel like the king of the Wild Things.

It's cold. I should have the clothes to deal with it - you would think I do - but I'm cold anyhow. James has sensibly suggested long underwear. A fancy agent has asked to see the novel, which still doesn't mean it's been accepted, but is nevertheless a cheering sign of interest. I think I've finally gotten the hang of this particular type of cover letter.

buzz buzz

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:20:49 GMT

I buzzed my hair yesterday because it was getting ragged and I didn't have money or time for a proper haircut. I was worried that it would make me look like a cancer survivor, or like someone who was overly aggressive - maybe military, maybe skinhead, maybe angry lesbian. I thought it would make me look furious and poor. Instead, somehow, it makes everyone think I'm exceptionally wealthy and oddly friendly. People come up to me to ask how many thousands of dollars my thrift store coat cost and to tell me they think I made the right choice. I have had to forbid all Rosemary's Baby quotes in the house.

Hooray for Captain Spaulding

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:14:27 GMT

I've started writing a new feature script (actually, two new feature scripts with radically different attributes, so that I can go back and forth when I want to procrastinate, rather than going back and forth between one script and spider solitaire). It's called "Somewhere, Something Incredible," and it's a romantic comedy with a lot of science and literary analysis in it. Also, it's not exactly a romantic comedy, so much as a dramedy about an established couple, and structurally it's more like French New Wave or early Woody Allen than a contemporary Hollywood script. (It's also a bit My Own Private Idaho.) I am trying not to let it get too twee (ugh, mumblecore), which I think I will manage mainly because I'm committed to actual strong emotions rather than ironic distance.

On the one hand, this should be my comfort zone, because I am the master of neurotic comedy. I've been doing drama for a few years just to stretch myself, but it's not my home. Absurdity is where I live. On the other hand, it's difficult, because almost all of the writing about what makes a good film and how to do films is assumes you are writing plotty drama, and encourages you to gravitate away from dialog and toward strong images. Plot is the enemy of comedy, in many respects. The only thing truly useful that plot does for a comedy is to give you opportunities to introduce new situations for characters to riff on or respond to. Does the plot in Animal Crackers matter? Not one bit. Do the characters just sit around and talk a lot? They do. (Sidebar: I think plottiness is the reason Horse Feathers is considered the masterpiece film - it conforms so neatly to that structure. I think it's one of the Marx Brothers' weakest pieces. It bores me to tears.) Do I care about the plot points in Withnail & I? Would I not rather spend more time watching Richard E. Grant terrorize people in coffee shops?

I mean, I made an eight minute film that is basically a single monologue about my character obsessing over something she's misheard, with James looking confused about it. It's funny. It moves forward. There is nothing at all that happens in the film. Rocker Box Gasket has made at least two other comedies composed entirely of non-sequitors. They work. I mean, Jesus. Look at Tim and Eric. Look at most of the best stand-up of the last ten years. But all the comedy films that are coming out are shit, because they keep shoehorning in this three-act structure that doesn't have anything to do with comedy. (Don't get me wrong - one can do beautiful epic comedy like Ghostbusters, and really structured and beautiful comedy like State and Main - but I think that's at least partly because State and Main is about the movie business. I also think neither of these films are purely comedy - I think they cross genres.)

But damnit, it feels so much more secure to have that structure. I'm going to give myself an ulcer. I have half a mind to develop an entirely new theory of modern comedy so that I have something comfortably academic to reference, but that would just be me procrastinating. I just need to have characters you want to be around and then be around them and let stuff happen.

On the science/romance side, I am trying to hold on to Carl Sagan: "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."

Happy 50th, Baby

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:37:01 GMT

My ballpoint pen is going to run out of ink sometime in the next month. (How soon depends on how much writing I do in my notebook versus my computer, which varies by project.) Quite reasonably, I decided to pick up a new pack of pens, so that I would be ready.

Let me tell you about the pen I use. It is called the Bic Cristal. It is extremely cheap. We're talking 12 cents a pen, max, tax included. It's one of those plastic jobs you can see through - the faceted kind, not the frosted round body. It is a beautiful pen. I own all kinds of fountain pens, dip pens, artist's pens, you name it. I use them to draw, or to write elegant letters. When I write, I pick up a Bic.

It is a perfect pen. It has never jammed on me, although I may be risking fate to say so. I typically write with one until it runs dry. It's never broken in my pocket or my bag. It doesn't smudge. It fits my hand and flows beautifully. I'm not a product loyalist in many areas, but Bic Cristal is my pen.

Unfortunately, getting a new packet turned out to be difficult. See, all the pharmacies, drug stores, and office supply companies in my area carry the Bic line, but not the Cristal - they sell the fancy stuff. For cheap pens, they go with Paper Mate. The problem with this is that Paper Mate is a shitty pen. Even when it isn't clogged, the nib is scratchy - less a ball point than a talon. I would rather write nothing at all than write with a Paper Mate. Presumably, other people also feel this way, and this is a ploy by the various chains to up-sell me.

Joke's on you, guys. I will absolutely pay seven dollars in gas, or shipping and handling charges eight times the cost of the pack of pens, to be able to write with the pen I like. I don't buy this pen out of cheapness. I buy it because it is the perfect tool. The perfect non-bleeding, light-fast, free-flowing ink in the perfect plastic body. The pen is cheap only because that is sometimes part of being the perfect tool. I finally found a packet in a Target on the Plano border. And do you know what it says on the package? That this year is the 50th anniversary of the Bic Cristal's arrival on American shores.

Happy anniversary, baby. Here's to another 50, in my hand and in my heart.

Grunge

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:06:03 GMT

I watch news all day long, but I missed the announcement of the healthcare vote during the 13 minutes I was driving home. Crazy.

Today, I once again dressed in a way I would characterize as early-to-mid 1990s, but I figured out that this is mostly because that is the last time layered cool-weather clothing was in. My office is overly air-conditioned, hence . . . thank-you, Seattle.

Look out - it's the Pinks

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:59:58 GMT

Oh my gosh, you guys. Since the bathroom on my floor at work is still broken, I took the elevator up, and do you know who works directly above my company? Pinkerton Government Services. The Pinkertons. The honest-to-god for-real Pinkertons. The same guys who saved President Lincoln from getting assassinated several times before he got assassinated. The same guys who notoriously opposed the burgeoning labor movement with various skulduggery. The men who are specifically forbidden, by US Law, from holding any kind of government position while they are also Pinkertons. They are banished from the District of Columbia, y'all - since 1893. They are a private organization of spies and security men. One of them turned into Dashiell Hammett. They are exactly the sort of people I am always interested in turning Dark Side to join and then betray.

I have to say, either spies are everywhere and nobody notices, or I run into them a lot more often than most people. Their bathroom is fancy and has now been infiltrated.

Closed Captions in the House

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:37:02 GMT

Today I am looking very Mirkwood Elf from 1994. I have not written much because I have been overwhelmingly busy. It's mostly stuff that is good and non-stressful; it just takes up time. I like my new job for a number of reasons. It is reasonable to assume that I will get tired of it eventually, but I don't see how. I am helping deaf people watch the news. How badass is that? It cuts straight to my idealism.

Also, there is a hot chocolate machine, as there should be at any properly adult place of business.

Possibly my favorite thing is that all of the clocks in the office are on eastern time, so that we can synch up with the coast. This means that when I get to work, it is already as though I have worked for an hour, and when I leave, it is an hour earlier than when I left. I am a frickin' time traveler. I am a time-traveling cyborg zombie pirate newsman.

Last Halloween at Clinton House

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:08:36 GMT

For Halloween, I was Miss Viola Swamp. Once I had run out of candy to give to very tiny people dressed as insects, I walked around the neighborhood. At one point, a little girl ran up to me and handed me a hand-made "happy halloween" card with a picture of Zac Efron taped to it, which made me feel pretty special.

I also made tarantulas, aka sticks in the mud, aka chow mein noodles covered with semisweet chocolate. Good times.

Short and Tasty

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:48:05 GMT

Today is a day for brown bread with brown spread - nutella for breakfast, marmite for lunch.

poor little island

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:52:04 GMT

In my attempt to come up with a title for the now-finished novel, I have accidentally written a poem simply because of how I grouped a few of the options:

Lonely Island
Gathered Here Today
Above an Empty Ocean

*
*

Poor little island.

(Incidentally, I don't think any of these are great titles for the book, and in fact the current front-runner, also not great, is A Long Summer Waiting for Fall.)

ETA: I think I'm going with The Sifting Floor for now.

Feedback

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:25:05 GMT

Thanks to a birthday gift certificate from Val, Ciro is once again wearing cologne and I have a green Fiestaware spoon rest so that when I am cooking I no longer spatter the entire surface of the range. We are feeling awfully fancy.

Yesterday, I had a long phone call with REL, who is preparing for a Halloween excursion to Alcatraz. She spent about an hour telling me how brilliant an artist she thinks I am, apropos of nothing, and how devastated she will be if I ever break up with Ciro, who is also brilliant and beloved. It's very nice to hear, and I'm pretty deeply touched. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the compliment, because I think she is being truthful and kind, but I also think it indicates that she is worried that (1) I am going to develop schizophrenia like my grandfather as a consequence of my brilliance and not enough people respecting it, and (2) Ciro and I are about to split up.

I can't exactly say that these are irrational worries, because I can see where she's drawing her conclusions. If I say, "seriously, don't worry about it," it sounds like I maybe haven't seen what she's seen, when the truth is that I saw those things too - and also other things that make them less significant. Not because I am smarter or because she is being silly, but because I look for these signs every day and every second. In any case, it was sweet, and I guess I should just let her worry about things because that is perhaps her way of loving people. It only happens to be difficult because it interacts poorly with my own great love of rants as comedy and/or stress relief.

REL also observes that her favorite feature of horror stories by me is the way that fairly horrifying things happen and the narrator or narrator character just rolls with it and tells the audience that everything is going to be fine. And then something seemingly ordinary happens, and the narrator freaks out, and you know that the world is a very scary place.

It's been damp out for weeks. I don't feel cooped up so much as relentlessly climate controlled. I'm beginning to understand why people like fireplaces.

Someday, there will be a title

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:22:38 GMT

47278 / 50000 words. 95% done!

I should be finished on Wednesday. Why do I assume 50,000 words? Because I conceived and then paced the book to be 50,000 words. I'm used to writing scripts, college essays, and flash fiction. I'm a fiend at writing to specific lengths. By proper manuscript count, of course, it's much longer - it'll be something like 63,000. I write short chapters and lots of dialog. In any case, if it goes longer, it will be because I picked up steam and decided to kick out an extra 4000 words for the fun of it, to really stretch out the tragedy - in which case I still plan to power through on Wednesday. Which will give me Thursday to do any last revisions, and maybe come up with a title.

It's not a masterwork, but it's fairly entertaining and relatively thoughtful. I'll be surprised if it doesn't sell quickly. I will also be surprised it sells for a lot of money or is a runaway hit. Then again, I'm appallingly bad at guessing what people like to read or watch. I will, however place an outside bet on the idea that if it does become a runaway success, this will correlate with the book being marketed as somehow connected to The Lovely Bones, despite a glaring lack of similarities. That seems to be how these things work.

The idea of waiting for three months to hear back from anyone drives me crazy. I'm used to it with short stories, but I really just want to hand this to an editor at a large publishing house with whom I have an established relationship. Sadly, there is not such a person yet.

My mouth continues to attack me in crazy ways, and I have a headache, and I have menstrual cramps. On the good side of things, I picked up an antique chest of drawers from Uncle Rex, played Jotto with Chad, and ate bagels with Merlin. My obsession with the game Harvest Moon continues. I think it is very important that I raise sheep and marry an archaeologist.

What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:06:25 GMT

Today, I was cut off by someone with a U.S. Army bumper sticker, so now I'm mad at the army. This is the problem with bumper stickers as marketing. Most people are bad drivers. They do things that make me mad. And I'm mad while I'm looking at a logo, and I start thinking, "these people are stupid and the things they like must also be stupid." I kind of think I should get a bumper sticker for something I don't support, so that when I cut someone off, they get mad at Glenn Beck or something.

Today I look like le Petit Prince, for some reason.

As of tonight:

33667 / 50000 words. 67% done!

Swift Seizer

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:20:54 GMT

I love Jurassic Park. I read the paperback at least 13 times, most of them in the same summer, and although I thought both Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum were entirely miscast in the movie, I also think that, generally, casting either of them in a science fiction movie is a win, and here are both.

HOWEVER!

I was always annoyed that Crichton used Velociraptor. I know he's going for a Montana thing. Sure. But he wrote Velociraptor like it was Deinonychus, aka "Terrible Claw," aka my favorite dinosaur, and why didn't he use Deinonychus? Which has also been found in Montana and Oklahoma.

In another blow to Crichton's Velociraptor, paleontologists at the University of Manchester now think Velociraptor couldn't actually use its claws to tear flesh, and didn't really have that kind of leg strength. Probably they perched in trees and jumped on things. Which is still Barbarella biting dolls creepy, and anyway Crichton lost his science cred when he smeared around a lot of global warming pseudoscience. But I guess what I'm trying to say is:

1. Velociraptors are pretty cool, but
2. They are not Deinonychus.

Thank you.

The Chemismonger's Shop

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:45:11 GMT

I don't intend to talk about this very often, because this is my journal and not a sales floor, but I am proud to introduce The Chemismonger's Shop, a store I have opened on Etsy. I mean to update it regularly with men's and women's one-of-a-kind steampunk clothing - and despite the name "steampunk," I am careful to create versatile/sturdy pieces that can be worn as quirky regular outerwear, and not just for cons and Halloween parties. I also try to flatter the body, and not just get mired in high concept.

Basically, it's the kind of stuff a geek like me was annoyed not to be able to find. Since both my mom and my grandmother were costumers, I started altering. Given that a lot of you are design freak science fiction geeks like me, I think a lot of you may have been looking for the same thing. Possibly it is out of your price range, or not in your size, but you might have fun looking at it. The story-heavy item descriptions are probably worth the price of entry (particularly given that you can enter for free).

In any case, I'd be pleased if you'd take a look around, and pass the info on to anyone you know who would look perfect in one of these pieces. And if you don't like any of my stuff as much as you like the idea of it, I suggest you look at my favorites - the things I've tagged that other people have made. I don't get a kickback on any of them - I just think they're cool. Wrist-cuff watches with art nouveau wings, feathered headpieces, Rocketeer-style case mods, and so forth.

Birthday Song

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:35:05 GMT

I wrote a song for Val's birthday this year, because I am tired of the tyranny of "Happy Birthday." It's a shitty song. The melody is bad, and the lyrics express nothing. Plus you're supposed to pay the Boy Scouts of America when you sing it. NO THANK YOU.

So here is a better one which is free. If you want to play it yourself, the chords are a pretty obvious mixture of C, F, and G. It's even easier than "Wish You Were Here."

You can download it or embed a flash player at the Internet Archive, here

or play or download it at supload, here (where I have also written out the lyrics for you). [note: this one auto-plays when you click the link, and loops unless you stop it. It's kind of geared toward ring tones.]

The details of the creative commons license are at the Internet Archive.

Many thanks to Ciro for sound teching. It is not easy to pull something with audio depth out of a dangling USB microphone.

Pain Before and After Pop

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:29:15 GMT

At a particular spot, the skin on the outside of my nose continues on the surface just inside my nose. Sometimes, this skin acts up in the way my other outside face skin does, and I get a whitehead. Inside my nose. Mothafucker. Lotta nerves in a nose.

Gap

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:21:22 GMT

I was born in 1980, which puts me right on the border between GenX and the Millennials. Pundits use a lot of different dates for deciding who is where, but I can tell you with absolute conviction that the line is the graduating class of 1998. Everyone I know who is older than that - even by a year - is unquestionably GenX, with GenX approaches to work, politics, relationships, and parenting. Everyone younger is firmly Millennial. The split is particularly clear when it comes to sexual politics, and is the main reason I decided to ally with the Millennials. If I walk into a game store, a male Millennial is going to take me seriously as a competitor. A GenXer will not.

As a result of this allegiance, which gradually worked its way into various ideologies and approaches, I tend to view people younger than me as about my age, with similar drives. For instance, I have an easy time talking with high school students, particularly smart ones. But it is equally true that people two to five years younger than me seem much older than that, and I tend to mis-guess their ages by about five years. The converse is also true; people a year older than I am regularly round me down by anywhere from three years to a decade. The same mistake is not made by non-Americans, or by people at least ten years older than I am.