- Peter Sagal on the difference between an opinion and a bias:
A bias doesn’t mean that you think that what a certain candidate says is idiotic; a bias means that not matter what he says, you’ll attack him. Or, if it’s a bias in favor of him, no matter what he says, you’ll forgive him, or simply choose not to draw attention to what doesn’t make him look good. You know your opinion after you read the day’s paper; you know your bias before you open it.
- Maybe it’s just me, but I bathe every day. [via]
- In case you were wondering: what happened to the Doctor Who companions?
- Original estimates of the untapped oil reserves in Alaska only off by…oh…about ninety percent [via]
- Amal El-Mohtar on a steampunk without steam:
I submit that the insistence on Victoriana in steampunk is akin to insisting on castles and European dragons in fantasy: limiting, and rather missing the point. It confuses cause and consequence, since it is fantasy that shapes the dragon, not the dragon that shapes the fantasy. I want the cogs and copper to be acknowledged as products, not producers, of steampunk, and to unpack all the possibilities within it.
I think I like the idea of calling this subgenre “retrofuturism,” with steampunk just one sub-subgenre of that. While, of course, differentiating the whole thing from alternate history, since that posits a specific branching point, a moment in history — the Nazis win, the South doesn’t lose, etc. — rather than an historical era. It’s only the ubiquity of steampunk that, to my mind, is the problem — insofar as this is a problem; it’s the fact that it chokes out other retrofuturistic viewpoints, necessitates a very specific and limiting aesthetic, keeps retrofutrism tethered (much like steampunk’s zeppelins) to specific countries, eras, worldviews.
If steampunk were just one type of story, rather than the all-consuming and defining aspect of retrofuturism, I think we’d be seeing less backlash against it.
Month: November 2010
Monday is the new Monday
I had originally planned on being off today, for no particular reason other than a three-day weekend, but with the doctor’s appointment last week, I decided to shuffle the day to the end of the week. I don’t get a day of for Veteran’s Day, but this way I still get the long weekend. And besides, I’m taking a four-day weekend next week…and, um, the week after. But that’s Thanksgiving, and we get those days anyhow.
Otherwise, today was an uneventful day. We had some sleet this morning, but that’s about it.
Song of the day
“Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos
So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts
What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts?
Monday various
- Glenn Beck vs. Science Fiction [via]
- Gosh, if watching The Office means that I’m smug and think I’m better than other people, what does it mean that I think the show isn’t quite as good this season? Is that a double-reverse smugness?
- Publishing good: Apex Magazine’s Special Arab/Muslim Issue. The impetus for the issue can be found here.
- Publishing bad: Cooks Source claims Internet is all public domain, acts like big jerk.
- And finally, I give you: the birth of Kitty Pryde.
The end of Daylight Savings Time as we know it
I slept late this morning, and I guess, considering that today marked the end of Daylight Savings Time, that I means I slept especially late. In my defense, the medication I’m on does make me a little drowsy, and I’m supposed to take it right before I go to bed.
So anyway, once I woke up, I spent most of the morning working on the Sunday crossword. I enjoyed the theme a lot this week, although a few of the shorter answers eluded me. Then, I joined a couple of friends for our weekly writing group, which hasn’t met in a couple of months. It was good to meet up again, in no small part because I slacked off last week and did almost no writing.
I’m not so sure about what I wrote today. It’s not exactly a story with any legs to it, but I had fun with it. It all started with this writing prompt my friend Maurice posted the other day:
“You cannot kill the beast by conventional means,” said Margyl. “It is far too wily for that.”
“A sword forged in the hellfire storms of Hades is conventional means?” Rhianna asked, incredulous. “Your conventions are a lot stranger than mine.”
“That is the way of mid-Earth,” said Margyl. “The star-fang beast may not appear as much a threat, but verily, it is — ”
“Wily. Right, I got that.”
She sheathed the bone-encrusted sword — forged, it was said, in pools of molten demon blood, centuries past — and sighed.
“Well I’m open to suggestions,” she said. “It’s not like we can just stand around here all day, twiddling our thumbs. How do I kill it?”
“The beast has felled many warriors, feasted on the bones of any foolish enough to venture into its lair empty-handed. Only the hardiest souls dare face its gaping maw. For truly is the beast — ”
“Wily. Yeah, you keep saying that.” Again she sighed. “You know, for a wizard guide, you’re kind of crap.”
Margyl nodded. “I have been told.”
“So I can’t kill it with the sword, Rhianna said, “but I can’t go into those caves without a weapon. If it’s a magic beast and can’t be killed by magic, would — I don’t know — this rock be less conventional?”
She hefted one of the stones from the desert floor.
“Could be…” Margyl said with a visible shrug.
Rhianna glared. “And how do wizards fare against rocks? Is there an anti-rock-upside-the-head spell in that book of yours?”
“You have the fiery spirit of a hero,” Margyl told her, though he took a step back.
“All right, fine,” said Rhianna, heading toward the cave. “I’ll try the stupid rock. If that doesn’t work, I guess I can always reboot.”
She paused at the dark entrance of the cave.
“Though if I get booted back a level, I’m skipping the whole wizard helper thing.”
You know, I notice that in my WordPress dashboard, “writing” is not among the most used post categories. I ought to look at rectifying that.