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25 May 2012 @ 07:08 am
We continue Black Blossom, the novel that follows The Aphorisms of Kherishdar and The Admonishments of Kherishdar. It is a form of quasi-communal storytelling, as described here. Feel free to ask questions, converse or react as you wish in the comments; the Calligrapher and I are at your disposal, as time permits us both. And don’t fear… your questions are shaping the narrative. Read closely in the future and you may see yourself referred to there.
Black Blossom, Part 69
A Story of Kherishdar as Translated by M.C.A. Hogarth
It was a fine moment for Ajan to knock—that is not sarcasm, aunera, for I shudder to think of him opening the door on me forcing a sexual release out of his beloved master—so I felt relief when Kor said, “Come.”
To his credit, Ajan’s pause at the sight of us entwined was so infinitesimal I would have needed one of Seraeda’s instruments to measure it. He came smartly to the bed’s edge and said, “Qenain’s master scheduler has set up an interview for us with the Serapis aunerai, in the morning, an hour after breakfast.”
“Well done,” Kor said, sitting up to stretch.
“Tomorrow?” I said, stifling my dismay. “I was hoping to put paid to this errand as quickly as possible, and now we will have to tarry here for an entire night?”
“I think I can find something to do with an entire night,” Kor said, and touched his fingertips to Ajan’s chin, startling the youth. “What do you think, menuredi?”
Now this pause made the first one look positively leisurely. The eagerness and hope that energized the youth was palpable, though his bearing and speech were punctiliously correct. “I might have some notions, masuredi, if you are so inclined.”
“I think it is past time for me to be so inclined,” Kor said, and to my delight allowed me to witness his first lover’s kiss with his penokedi. It was a sweet, brief thing that looked, on the surface, much like the chaste kisses he gave me… and left all of us with our fur on end.
“I believe I shall see to the fathrikedi, and perhaps arrange our dinner,” I said, sliding off the bed. I accepted with concealed amusement the robe Ajan found for me with such alacrity it seemed magical. “I’ll knock if anything significant needs your attention, my peer.”
“Thank you, ajzelin,” Kor said, and there was a depth in his voice that made it clear what he was thanking me for.
I left them to one another, then. And when I had closed the door, I am not at all ashamed to admit, aunera… that I perhaps did a little dance-in-place for sheer glee.
“You seem happy,” the fathrikedi said from the door to the bathing chamber.
“Tell me, fathrikedi,” I said, moving carefully to a seat in one of the chairs by the window. “What is your favorite version of the parable of the broken pot?”
She snorted. “I hate them all. So much fuss over a stupid pot! Fix it, get a new one, do without, but for the sake of love, move on already and stop talking so much about it.” She joined me, dropping to her knees at my foot. “So, they finally decided to consummate their unrequited body-love.”
I glanced down at her. She was shrouded in the blanket from the massage table and looked somewhat more together than she had earlier. “You noticed?”
She sighed at my apparent naivete. “Osulkedi, anyone who glanced at them even once would notice.”
I laughed. “I am a sad specimen, it seems.”
“You are an artist,” she said. “It is a characteristic of artists.”
“To be daft?” I said, too pleased to be much distressed over her critique.
“To be consumed in their own worlds,” she said. “There is an inevitable travel time required for an artist to move from his world into ours sufficiently to communicate with us.”
I eyed the top of her head. “You are teasing me, fathrikedi.”
She met my eyes and grinned; this close I could see the hints of her distress, though she had done admirable work minimizing the swollen skin around her eyes. Their rims remained raw, though, like a hint of cosmetics gone wrong. I felt it like a color I could mix on a palette, a broken-open flesh color, like a fruit bruised to spilling…
“You see,” she said. “You’re doing it now.”
“I am observing that your eyes have cried, though you have hidden it well!” I objected.
“Shame observes that my eyes have cried, and I have hidden it well,” she said with a laugh. “You observe how they look, and you will be busy with that for long enough that the reason they look that way will only occur to you… later. As I said. You must travel into this world from your own.”
I hmphed, but I was not truly upset. I had helped my ajzelin—had Corrected him in the Emperor’s stead—had in fact served as his poor, bound-up fathrikedi at the shrine had served!—and we had both come out the other side well… better than well, even.
“It’s good,” she said after a moment. “They suit one another. And gods know Kherishdar’s sole Shame needed a good…”
This word she used, aunera, was rude in the extreme. I’m told you have several equivalents, but I would not use them, lest I give offense in two languages.
I cleared my throat and said, “This not being my area of expertise, I will bow to your superior knowledge.”
She laughed. “I won’t tease you about what you need, then, osulkedi—”
“I should hope not!” I interrupted.
“But I don’t think it’s heavy petting and hot sweating between the sheets,” she finished.
Surprised, I said, “Really?”
“Really,” she said, resettling her blanket around her narrow shoulders. “Not to say you wouldn’t benefit from a little physical relief. I just think you need help of a different sort.”
“Pray, don’t leave me in suspense, fathrikedi,” I said, looking down at her.
“You need… a massage,” she said, with a sly grin. “You have been moving like someone three times your age since before you crossed the Gate.”
“People three times my age are dead,” I said, ears flattened.
“Exactly,” she said.
“I’m not that stiff!” I said, and then flexed my toes experimentally. Wincing, I finished, “Much.”
She laughed. “A deal, then, osulkedi. You give me a name. I’ll give you a massage that will make you feel a third your age.”
“One third my age would be too young by far to be giving fathriked names of the kind you’re imagining,” I said. “I am not that old…” She waited, and I said, at last—because when can I turn down a challenge these days? Apparently never—”Very well. A name for a massage. But you must allow me to use the time under your hands to consider it.”
“If I do my job well, you won’t be able to think of anything!” she said, rising.
“Then you will have to make do with your name being ‘ahhh’,” I said.
“The out-breath of a contented, cared-for universe?” she said. “I could be happy with that. Come, Calligrapher. The sooner we repair to the bathroom… the sooner the happy lovers can make free with their noises without concerning themselves over our delicate ears.”
“Do you really think…” I began, and then stopped myself. I could only too well imagine Kor devoting some part of his thoughts to protecting my sensibilities, and being quite aware of where in the suite I was. “Lead on, fathrikedi.”
***
And now not only is the scene over… but you now know the scene that I can’t write for the book, because Farren didn’t see it, but that I think I will write for myself anyway.
Ajan’s point of view will do nicely…
Monday we can talk about that, and other Black Blossom administrivia. I think it will be a good time for it. Meanwhile, please consider voting for us on Top Web Fiction here. People do find us that way!
You can also subscribe, or email for a mailing address to send a physical donation.
Mirrored from MCAH Online.
25 May 2012 @ 05:13 am
Happy Anniversary ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
green_dreams and the_weaselking!
A++, would befriend and be Matron of Honour for again. :)
<3
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth. where there are
comments. Comment here or there as you prefer.
green_dreams and the_weaselking!A++, would befriend and be Matron of Honour for again. :)
<3
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth. where there are
25 May 2012 @ 10:55 am
Loki helping me organise my desk. He’ll be one month old tomorrow, so once he’s done inspecting my letter from the tax office, it’s back to his mama he goes.
Mirrored from I Saw the Angel.
25 May 2012 @ 12:00 pm
- Why are pound and ounce abbreviated "lb." and "oz."?
A straight answer to a straight question.
(tags: ) - The Wheel of Ice, new Doctor Who book by Stephen Baxter.
Coming in August.
(tags: ) - Gorgeous Georgian: Now we can enjoy the cuisine of Russia's fiery neighbour nearer home
...if in London, that is.
(tags: cooking georgia ) - Why You Can Be a Bible-Believer or Anti-Abortion, but not Both | Ken Watts | the daily mull
Part one of a six-part series concluding the the Bible is in fact pro-choice rather than pro-life.
(tags: religion sexandgenderandsexuality )
25 May 2012 @ 11:40 am
...had I been born in France in a past century. From The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe 1500-1800, which I'm currently reading:
French policemen, for example, were notoriously underpaid, so their wives topped up their income by running taverns. Ironically, the tavern, if perhaps not the one run by a policeman's wife, was usually the place where thieves disposed of the loot and the products of poaching. The police were supposed to see that licensing laws were respected, and they could protect their wives' businesses by harsher regulation of any competitors.
I'm having a tough time imagining J putting the squeeze on my competition, but times were hard, so who knows. :P
French policemen, for example, were notoriously underpaid, so their wives topped up their income by running taverns. Ironically, the tavern, if perhaps not the one run by a policeman's wife, was usually the place where thieves disposed of the loot and the products of poaching. The police were supposed to see that licensing laws were respected, and they could protect their wives' businesses by harsher regulation of any competitors.
I'm having a tough time imagining J putting the squeeze on my competition, but times were hard, so who knows. :P
Current Music: Laura Shay - First to Fall
25 May 2012 @ 07:00 am
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21
 |  |
25 May 2012 @ 04:16 am
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/qu
posted by Neil
A hasty post...
There's a slipcased set of Sandman on the way. It's going to be published in November. I'm so happy. This is something that I have been asking DC to make for a very long time, and I am genuinely thrilled it's going to exist. It will look almost like this. (If you look carefully you'll notice that the final book in the box shown here is not The Wake. That's because that edition of SANDMAN: The Wake has not been published yet.)
(Here's the Amazon listing for it -- they've dropped it from $200 to $125. And I'm sure there are other such deals elsewhere on the web.)
DC are also going to be selling the Slipcase with some copies of The Wake. So if you have the rest of the books already, you can simply put them into the slipcase.
According to Bleeding Cool, retailers have until this weekend to get their orders in for November to guarantee that they'll get them. So if you want one, either if you want a copy of The Wake with a Slipcase, or the set of all the books, you should talk to your Local Comic Shop now. (How do you find your local comic shop? You could always use http://www.comicshoplocator.com/)
(The current edition of paperbacks contains the same colouring as the Absolute editions, although, obviously not all the extra material in each of the Absolutes. If you already bought the Absolute Sandmans 1-4, feel proud of yourself. You are not required to buy the books again. You are never required to buy again what you already have.)
There's a slipcased set of Sandman on the way. It's going to be published in November. I'm so happy. This is something that I have been asking DC to make for a very long time, and I am genuinely thrilled it's going to exist. It will look almost like this. (If you look carefully you'll notice that the final book in the box shown here is not The Wake. That's because that edition of SANDMAN: The Wake has not been published yet.)
(Here's the Amazon listing for it -- they've dropped it from $200 to $125. And I'm sure there are other such deals elsewhere on the web.)
DC are also going to be selling the Slipcase with some copies of The Wake. So if you have the rest of the books already, you can simply put them into the slipcase.
According to Bleeding Cool, retailers have until this weekend to get their orders in for November to guarantee that they'll get them. So if you want one, either if you want a copy of The Wake with a Slipcase, or the set of all the books, you should talk to your Local Comic Shop now. (How do you find your local comic shop? You could always use http://www.comicshoplocator.com/)
(The current edition of paperbacks contains the same colouring as the Absolute editions, although, obviously not all the extra material in each of the Absolutes. If you already bought the Absolute Sandmans 1-4, feel proud of yourself. You are not required to buy the books again. You are never required to buy again what you already have.)
25 May 2012 @ 03:30 am
• In 2012, the average credit card debt totaled $7,145, down from $9,887 in the 2008 survey.
• 40 percent of households used credit cards to pay for basic living expenses such as rent or mortgage bills, groceries, utilities, or insurance, in the past year because they did not have enough money in their checking or savings accounts, a rate comparable to 2008.
• Nearly half of households carried debt from out of pocket medical expenses on their credit cards. The average amount of medical credit card debt was $1,678.
• 86 percent of households that incurred expenses because of unemployment in the past year took on credit card debt as a result.
• Among those who say they have poor credit, 55 percent say unpaid medical bills or medical debts contributed.
• Because of the 2009 Credit Card act, the number of households who report paying late fees on their credit cards has declined dramatically. In the 2008 survey, half of households reported accruing late fees; in 2012, it was 28 percent.
• Those who did make late payments were significantly less likely to see their interest rate increase as a result: 24 percent fewer households reported interest rates increasing as a result of a late payment in 2012 than in 2008.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004:
Last Thursday, I watched in surprise as Sen. Mary Landreiu attacked her fellow Democrats. The ocassion was the New Democrat Network annual conference, and Landrieu hadn't gotten the message -- this was the new and improved NDN. The one that has ditched the DLC dinosaur and moved into the 21st century.Landrieu was attacking Democrats for calling for the repeal of the No Child Left Behind law, while only reluctantly laying the blame squarely where it belonged -- on a Republican administration that had made a real mess of the law.
This was a vintage Democratic Leadership Council approach to intra-party disagreements -- turn the guns inward, attack internally. Without a doubt, the DLC is the most fundamentalist organization within the caucus, the most ideologically rigid, and the most destructive to the progressive cause. [...]
As for the DLC, it's time to euth[a]nize the organization. Whatever role it may have played is spent. As of now, it's the single most divisive Dem-affiliated organization, refusing to play nice with others even in these desperate ABB times. As such, it deserves nothing but exclusion and ridicule.
Brother of #Colombia union leader shot dead a month after other unionists get invited to their own funerals http://t.co/...— @fbajak via TweetDeck
High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.
25 May 2012 @ 12:00 am
Thursday brought with it a veritable poll-a-palooza of November trial heats, with NBC/Marist dropping a six-pack of new polls at the presidential and Senate levels, and acting as a counterweight to all the breathless coverage of yesterday's Quinnipiac poll (I don't know that I've seen a single state poll get so much coverage this early in a campaign).
Today, however, let's focus on Wisconsin, whose recall election is coming up in less than two weeks. Two new polls come out of the Badger State today. On the surface, they are decidedly more pessimistic for the Democrats than a couple of other polls (the GQR poll and the St. Norbert College/WPRI) released earlier in the week. That said, there are still data points within that point to the possibility of this race tightening between now and June 5th.
But, first, as always, the numbers. And there are quite a lot of them to consume today:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-46)DOWNBALLOT POLLING:NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (45-44)
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Romney (46-42)
CALIFORNIA (PPIC): Obama d. Romney (50-39)
MASSACHUSETTS (Suffolk University): Obama d. Romney (59-34)
NORTH CAROLINA (National Research for the right-leaning Civitas Institute): Romney d. Obama (47-45)
OHIO (NBC News/Marist): Obama d. Romney (48-42)
VIRGINIA (NBC News/Marist): Obama d. Romney (48-44)
WISCONSIN (Reason-Rupe): Obama d. Romney and Gary Johnson (46-36-6)
CA-PROP 29-TOBACCO TAX (PPIC): Favor 53, Oppose 42A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...FL-SEN (NBC News/Marist): Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 46, Connie Mack (R) 42
FL-SEN (Quinnipiac): Connie Mack (R) 42, Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 41; Nelson 43, George LeMieux (R) 36
FL-SEN--R (Quinnipiac): Connie Mack 40, Mike McCalister 8, George LeMieux 7
HI-SEN (PPP for the League of Conservation Voters): Mazie Hirono (D) 50, Linda Lingle (R) 41
MD-MARRIAGE EQUALITY LAW (PPP): Favor 57, Oppose 37
MA-SEN (Suffolk University): Sen. Scott Brown (R) 48, Elizabeth Warren (D) 47
OH-SEN (NBC News/Marist): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 51, Josh Mandel (R) 37
PA-SEN (Rasmussen): Sen. Bob Casey (D) 48, Tom Smith (R) 41
TX-SEN--R (PPP): David Dewhurst 46, Ted Cruz 29, Tom Leppert 15, Craig James 3
VA-SEN (NBC News/Marist): Tim Kaine (D) 49, George Allen (R) 43
WI-GOV (Garin-Hart-Yang for Barrett): Gov. Scott Walker (R) 50, Tom Barrett (D) 48
WI-GOV (Reason-Rupe): Gov. Scott Walker (R) 50, Tom Barrett (D) 42
WI-GOV (We Ask America): Gov. Scott Walker (R) 54, Tom Barrett (D) 42
24 May 2012 @ 05:47 pm
Sen. Harry Reid (Reuters)
Those events: the sequester, the automatic budget cuts required by the Budget Control Act agreed to last year; the expiration of the Bush tax cuts; the expiration of unemployment benefits, and the payroll tax cuts. In each of these, Democrats have the option of just not acting. Reid seems to be ready to do just that—nothing—unless the Republicans relent on taxes.
So it is really Senate Democrats who are next in line to wield the power of “no.” In November and December, they’ll be in position to block Republican-backed legislation to stop an automatic 10 percent sequester of Pentagon funds and to extend high-end tax breaks for the wealthy. [...]The bottom line, Reid reiterates, is that Republicans have to move on revenue increases. Reid seems to recognize that Boehner has painted himself into a corner, one that Grover Norquist has helped shove him into: “'We did it knowing the pain, and maybe the pain would cause Grover Norquist to wither away,' Reid said. 'But he hasn’t. He’s become more emboldened and threatening and they are running from him just as they always have.'”“I am not going to back off the sequestration,” Reid said. “That’s the law we passed. We did it because it wouldn’t make things easy for us. It made it so we would have to do something. And if we didn’t, these cuts would kick in.”
“To now see the Republicans scrambling to do away with the cuts to defense, I will not accept that,” Reid said. “My people — in the state of Nevada and I think the country — have had enough of whacking all the programs. We’ve cut them to a bare bone, and defense is going to have to bear their share of the burden.”
The power of doing nothing is in Reid's hands. So is knowledge that he has very powerful political tool in this election year: keeping Republicans in the position of standing in the way of any movement on these issues because they have to protect the tax cuts for the wealthy.
24 May 2012 @ 06:42 pm
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Larry Downing/Reuters)
Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader and thorn in Speaker John Boehner's side, released a letter she sent to Boehner, demanding an immediate vote, since he's so concerned about taxpayer uncertainty, on extending just the middle class portion of the Bush tax cuts.
There's a problem, though, with Pelosi's formulation of middle class as those earning less than $1 million, which is at odds with what both President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have set as their income threshold for the middle class: $250,000 annually.
This makes a pretty big difference when it actually comes to revenue raised. Citizens for Tax Justice does the math.
■ Pelosi’s proposal would save 43 percent less revenue than Obama’s plan.Millionaires would benefit so much comparatively because the tax cut applies to the first $1 million of their incomes. That means their tax cut, even though they would still be paying on income over $1 million, would be substantially larger than it would be for someone making, say, $45,000.
CTJ’s preliminary estimates show that Obama’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the first $250,000 or $200,000 of income a taxpayer makes would save between $60 billion and $70 billion in 2013 compared to the GOP proposal to extend all the tax cuts, depending on economic conditions. Leader Pelosi’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the first $1 million of income would save 43 percent less revenue than Obama’s proposal.■ 50 percent of the additional tax cuts proposed by Pelosi would go to millionaires.
The additional tax cut that would result from Pelosi’s plan compared to Obama’s plan (the additional tax cut resulting from extending the Bush tax provisions for taxpayers’ first $1 million of income instead of “just” their first $250,000 or $200,000 of income) would not be targeted towards the “middle class.” In fact, 50 percent of this additional tax cut would go to taxpayers with adjusted gross income (AGI) in excess of $1 million.
Politically, Pelosi was undoubtedly trying to highlight Boehner's hypocrisy. Picking the $1 million mark as her line really does highlight the fact that Republicans are protecting millionaires, and that they are doing so at the expense of the deficit. That's great for rhetoric, but as far as the public is concerned, $150,000, $250,000 or $1 million is pretty much all the same when it comes to tax fairness.
Rhetorically, $1 million is easier to use as a cutoff, but substantively, Pelosi should revise her cutoff downward.
24 May 2012 @ 11:39 pm
So, I've been reading Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, which is a quasi-pornotopia. Sex is utterly everywhere in the book, and it's post-capitalist—no scarcity and quantity becomes quality. There's a lot of fetishistic counting of orgasms, doses of semen and urine, etc. Being a Samuel Delany novel, the sex largely involves sucking off dirty and/or homeless guys, dickcheese under foreskins, ass-eating, piss-drinking, and lots of happy strangers. I had to take a break for a while—not because of the incest or the discussion of licking dried shit out of assholes, but because of the nose-picking. And the eating of mucus. And the sharing of mucus. And picking other people's noses.
For a break, I read The Primal Screamer (a recent quote of the day entry!) by Nick Blinko, and Green Girl by Kate Zambreno, both of which were fantastic. They also had some similarities—the main character is observed and manipulated by the narrator; that action is seen in bits and pieces, as though through to hands worth of laced fingers; both are thematically obsessed with another creative medium (music in Primal, film in Girl); both are set in England. In these attributes, they are also utterly different than Spiders, which carries on in a straightforward manner, offers minute detail, finds non-libidinal activity suspicious, and doesn't just take place in the US, but is all about it. And eating snot for sexual purposes.
I'll get back to it in the morning. At 800 pages, I actually left it at work rather than carry it on my commute while reading the other titles. I'm told the mucophilia gets a break about 400 pages in. We'll see...
For a break, I read The Primal Screamer (a recent quote of the day entry!) by Nick Blinko, and Green Girl by Kate Zambreno, both of which were fantastic. They also had some similarities—the main character is observed and manipulated by the narrator; that action is seen in bits and pieces, as though through to hands worth of laced fingers; both are thematically obsessed with another creative medium (music in Primal, film in Girl); both are set in England. In these attributes, they are also utterly different than Spiders, which carries on in a straightforward manner, offers minute detail, finds non-libidinal activity suspicious, and doesn't just take place in the US, but is all about it. And eating snot for sexual purposes.
I'll get back to it in the morning. At 800 pages, I actually left it at work rather than carry it on my commute while reading the other titles. I'm told the mucophilia gets a break about 400 pages in. We'll see...
25 May 2012 @ 08:18 am
25 May 2012 @ 07:11 am
Right after I realise that I have a story, and enough grip on it that I can write it, I start working out how to write it. Who tells it? How do they tell it? What structure does it create to hang itself around? Because you can tell different stories from the same events by telling them in different forms. The story will adapt to the structure (unless you force it not to and then bad things will happen and changes will have to be made). The structure gets tailored to the story. This way you emphasise the narrative elements, that way you emphasise the themes (put simply and so in a way that doesn;t mean exactly what you're trying to explain)
Guilty is one of those bastards that wants -- needs it's complications. I think it's like TDBRAW and wants either a twinned spiral or a full double helix. The narrator -- who tells the bits that are better off told, spacing the live-action sequences. Maybe. The piece where Jenny opens their eyes could be tell but it could equally be show (urinals, vomit, weeping and all -- it came to me shown after all). The nightmare memories of the bad places the band have gone might be best at arm's length and told than shown in technicolour (because I get to see them that way but sometimes it's good to let the audience look away). And there needs to be a pattern to folding the story, because I don;t think starting from the beginning and going on to the end -- the simplest way -- can work with the story as the story wants to be. The simple story would be 'hey guys, we gotta kill these faeries' -- and not a lot of people would get the stuff about balances and think it'd be better to watch them kill right after that intro piece of narration, or maybe before it. Could be it's actually Bone Idol... with a frame of show-now, a thread of tell, and a middle of show-then. (at which point readers rebel because working shit out makes the brain tired -- simple stories in simple structures with some gold paint and carved finials will do them nicely).
At least I'm getting a faux happy ending. The Jenny doesn't get to die.
[Yes, still kind of seething with resentment -- but there are some bits I kind of like: "How did you open their eyes?" "Optrex" and "I had to keep bullshitting rational explanations for the others, but you believed in faeries." And I do love the bullshitting scientific explanations :) ]
Guilty is one of those bastards that wants -- needs it's complications. I think it's like TDBRAW and wants either a twinned spiral or a full double helix. The narrator -- who tells the bits that are better off told, spacing the live-action sequences. Maybe. The piece where Jenny opens their eyes could be tell but it could equally be show (urinals, vomit, weeping and all -- it came to me shown after all). The nightmare memories of the bad places the band have gone might be best at arm's length and told than shown in technicolour (because I get to see them that way but sometimes it's good to let the audience look away). And there needs to be a pattern to folding the story, because I don;t think starting from the beginning and going on to the end -- the simplest way -- can work with the story as the story wants to be. The simple story would be 'hey guys, we gotta kill these faeries' -- and not a lot of people would get the stuff about balances and think it'd be better to watch them kill right after that intro piece of narration, or maybe before it. Could be it's actually Bone Idol... with a frame of show-now, a thread of tell, and a middle of show-then. (at which point readers rebel because working shit out makes the brain tired -- simple stories in simple structures with some gold paint and carved finials will do them nicely).
At least I'm getting a faux happy ending. The Jenny doesn't get to die.
[Yes, still kind of seething with resentment -- but there are some bits I kind of like: "How did you open their eyes?" "Optrex" and "I had to keep bullshitting rational explanations for the others, but you believed in faeries." And I do love the bullshitting scientific explanations :) ]
25 May 2012 @ 12:29 am
I replied, in my previous comment thread, to a comment, and then realized that I had more - I know this will come as a surprise to you all - to say.
One of the hallmarks of an ASD child and his general speech is that ASD children can talk non-stop for hours about the topics which interest them. Or obsess them. From an outsider's perspective, it's often hard to separate the two.
They frequently cannot talk about anything else. When my oldest was in elementary school, I could ask him about his school day, but by the time he crossed the threshold and entered the house, the last thing he wanted to talk about was school. At all. I therefore got a blank stare, when he was younger, or "it was fine" when he was older. That was the extent of the information I was given. For this reason, among others, I was in steady contact with his teachers in the early years.
My oldest was that variety of Aspergers which is precociously verbal. He taught himself to read in order to play The Incredible Machine and Diablo. He couldn't stand to wait for us to read things to him, in the first case (all of the level goals were of course in words), or wait for me to tell him what items the monsters had dropped, in the second.
He could talk about Diablo or the incredible machine for days. So I played the Incredible Machine and Diablo. We played Diablo together on the home network. I played video games before he was born, and after, so we had an interest in common.
The interest in common was very helpful in turning the exposition or monologue into a dialogue, because he wanted to talk about the things that interested him.
To a lesser extent, all children are like this. They want to be heard. ASD, non-ASD, they want to be heard. ASD children are developmentally much younger than normative children, and their social skills are therefore several years behind the curve. When other children are engaging in conversation, the ASD child will be engaging in monologue, because he is arrested at the 'want to be heard' level for far longer than the other children.
I was asked, by the parent of a five year old ASD boy, what I'd done to cause my nine year old son to converse. The prevailing thought is that it is neither healthy nor normal to allow an ASD child to monologue, and if the child is doing this, he must be stopped.
I'm afraid I disagree with this.
( I'm afraid I disagree with this. )
One of the hallmarks of an ASD child and his general speech is that ASD children can talk non-stop for hours about the topics which interest them. Or obsess them. From an outsider's perspective, it's often hard to separate the two.
They frequently cannot talk about anything else. When my oldest was in elementary school, I could ask him about his school day, but by the time he crossed the threshold and entered the house, the last thing he wanted to talk about was school. At all. I therefore got a blank stare, when he was younger, or "it was fine" when he was older. That was the extent of the information I was given. For this reason, among others, I was in steady contact with his teachers in the early years.
My oldest was that variety of Aspergers which is precociously verbal. He taught himself to read in order to play The Incredible Machine and Diablo. He couldn't stand to wait for us to read things to him, in the first case (all of the level goals were of course in words), or wait for me to tell him what items the monsters had dropped, in the second.
He could talk about Diablo or the incredible machine for days. So I played the Incredible Machine and Diablo. We played Diablo together on the home network. I played video games before he was born, and after, so we had an interest in common.
The interest in common was very helpful in turning the exposition or monologue into a dialogue, because he wanted to talk about the things that interested him.
To a lesser extent, all children are like this. They want to be heard. ASD, non-ASD, they want to be heard. ASD children are developmentally much younger than normative children, and their social skills are therefore several years behind the curve. When other children are engaging in conversation, the ASD child will be engaging in monologue, because he is arrested at the 'want to be heard' level for far longer than the other children.
I was asked, by the parent of a five year old ASD boy, what I'd done to cause my nine year old son to converse. The prevailing thought is that it is neither healthy nor normal to allow an ASD child to monologue, and if the child is doing this, he must be stopped.
I'm afraid I disagree with this.
( I'm afraid I disagree with this. )
24 May 2012 @ 09:56 pm
Okay, it's not quite questionable taste theater, and it's not glvalentine's usual cinematic stomping grounds, but some of these really need the snark liek woah. Since the esteemed madame isn't doing it, I might as well. I have screenshot power and I'm not afraid to use it.
First up: the decently good. Possibly even better than good, if you overlook the commentary prompted by the Yang clan's armor, which apparently looked too much like samurai armor for audience tastes. I'm not sure why, since the Yang family was Han/Song dynasty, so ranged from the late 900s to about 1040 CE. Which I'd take to mean that it's actually that samurai armor looks a lot like Chinese armor, not the other way around, but it's a tetchy subject all the same. Other than that, though, The Young Warriors is more historical with notes of wuxia, than full-blown wuxia. You can tell, too, because the costumes are fairly decent. Unfortunately, I didn't bother d/ling, so I've been watching on youtube, but hopefully it's enough to get the gist.
For starters, the older brothers are more subdued, with dad the most somber of all. The younger you go, the brighter the colors, unless you're a woman, in which case you also get bright colors. Plus, makes it easy to pick out the focal points onscreen: fifth brother's in brighter orange, and eighth brother is in purple/maroon. Mom's on the left, and Dad in deep brownish-red is to the left, behind her.
( Costumes! Or attempted facsimiles, at least: 75% images, 25% text, 90% snark. )
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glvalentine's usual cinematic stomping grounds, but some of these really need the snark liek woah. Since the esteemed madame isn't doing it, I might as well. I have screenshot power and I'm not afraid to use it.First up: the decently good. Possibly even better than good, if you overlook the commentary prompted by the Yang clan's armor, which apparently looked too much like samurai armor for audience tastes. I'm not sure why, since the Yang family was Han/Song dynasty, so ranged from the late 900s to about 1040 CE. Which I'd take to mean that it's actually that samurai armor looks a lot like Chinese armor, not the other way around, but it's a tetchy subject all the same. Other than that, though, The Young Warriors is more historical with notes of wuxia, than full-blown wuxia. You can tell, too, because the costumes are fairly decent. Unfortunately, I didn't bother d/ling, so I've been watching on youtube, but hopefully it's enough to get the gist.
For starters, the older brothers are more subdued, with dad the most somber of all. The younger you go, the brighter the colors, unless you're a woman, in which case you also get bright colors. Plus, makes it easy to pick out the focal points onscreen: fifth brother's in brighter orange, and eighth brother is in purple/maroon. Mom's on the left, and Dad in deep brownish-red is to the left, behind her.
( Costumes! Or attempted facsimiles, at least: 75% images, 25% text, 90% snark. )
24 May 2012 @ 07:51 pm
Originally published at Vylar Kaftan. You can comment here or there.
After my adventures getting to Madison, I was thrilled to keep my original plans of local touring. Anaea Lay picked us up, and we enjoyed brunch with apple mimosas at La Brioche. Then we went to the Forevertron and the Circus Museum, both in Baraboo.
The Forevertron is the largest scrap metal sculpture in the world. It was way cooler than I expected and the pics don’t do it justice. It looked like a giant playground set for kids who’d had their tetanus shots. There was a metal bird orchestra and some giant cherries which needed a Pac-Man. Lots of the sculptures have windchimes, which jangled when the wind blew. There wasn’t much signage for this place, so it felt like a big secret. We all thought it was awesome.
After that, the Circus Museum was pretty close by, and it was equally but differently cool. It was a lot bigger than I expected. In three hours, we saw about half of the place. They had normal museum exhibits about circus history, and they also had old circus wagons–some of them very old. There was a collection of costumes that you could actually touch, and a model train of all the circus cars. My favorite part was the Theatre of Illusion; the magician was very good and his jokes were hilarious. He liked to pretend he was screwing tricks up a lot (of course he wasn’t). We also saw a Big Top show, and the trained Pekinese dogs were cute. The contortionist passed his body through an unstrung tennis racket, which I might have been able to do when I was less than four feet tall. 
We ended by picking up Mike Underwood and going for South American food at El Rincon Tico. Oh my god, it was _fabulous_, and I can forgive the slow service and too-hot dining room, because that is the best meal I’ve had in ages. I had a caipirinha, a bean empanada, the vegetarian curry, and Holy Crap Fried Plantains with some sort of caramel sauce. Okay, they weren’t officially called Holy Crap, but I hereby dub them so.
I decided that all the good things from yesterday drained into today, and that was why yesterday sucked so much.
Looking forward to WisCon!
24 May 2012 @ 11:22 pm
A discussion elsewhere had me instinctively refusing to label myself "middle-aged," and now I'm not sure how to even define that. So, because I am too tired to work this out myself, a poll!
(You know it's bedtime when I can't even come up with ticky options. Gack.)
