Sunday, July 31, 2011

Steampunk movie-making



Not to overdo the NYT citing, but that is my Sunday read, thanks to the long-suffering GF.  (They have a tendency to deliver the Star Tribune instead, which makes her a tiny bit cranky.)

Anyway, Arts & Leisure p. 8 has an interesting article about the indie movie "Bellflower," in which the first-time director, Evan Glodell, made all kinds of tweaks to the canada and crafted his a flamethrower from hardware odds and ends.  This may be a sales stunt, but so much the better.  If homemade still sells, the world still has a little homegrown life in it.  (tm)... jk...

Sundance and South by Southwest screened it.  Worth checking out.

Their site:  Bellflower 

Scientifiction Fun at Diversicon

I attended some of the Saturday panels at Diversicon 2011, a small con at the Bandana Square complex in St. Paul, which is a cool location due to the hotel being built around an old train station.  Lots of beautiful old wood, a big steam engine outside, and tracks running right through the floor.

The science panels in particular were interesting, with Guest of Honor Joan Slonczewski giving a slideshow talk about how they are making medically helpful viruses out of 'bad' viruses like influenza and HIV.  All the biology I didn't get in a public school with too many 'ecentric' teachers who never made it through the curriculum guide (like never made it past third in some slightly important classes, like Chem 101).  My partner in thought crimes was happy to get some basic bio, having missed a few key concepts in her Creationist schooling.  Slonczewski, besides being a fascinating writer of novels such as Door Into Ocean, is a prof and very good presenter.

And a panel on The Solar System showed slides of what NASA is up to, where the private space industry is headed, and some very pretty galaxies.  I learned some physics I had been unsure about.

Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this infrared light image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Spiders!  http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA14401.jpg
All in all worth the not very expensive registration, plus hanging out with local writers and some organizers of Gaylaxicon 2012, which will be in the Twin Cities.  (Pre-register now and help them meet their goal!)

Quote of the Day: Then and Now



"When I'm a doctor, I will never prescribe antibiotics that say 'take with food' without making sure that the family actually has food in the house."  -Health Leads volunteer in 2011, quoted by David Bornstein, "Home Cure", NYT 7/31/12

"The last time I looked in my textbooks, the specific therapy for malnutrition wasp food." -Dr. Jack Geiger, to the OEO in 1965 in Mississippi

That social issues affect health more than medical care does, so basic.  Sounds like a pretty interesting  intervention into medical education: Health Leads .


Saturday, July 30, 2011

Allotrion


An idle pursuit that distracts from serious responsibilities.

From an article on Freud, for whom 12 years of compulsive cocaine use was an allotrion which he was eager to conclude once he got published.

It freaks me out sometimes to read historical accounts or biographies with tidbits like the fact that in 1896 his first influential article was published and this was the first use of the word 'psychoanalysis.' 

Like, wow.  I can't get through the workday without  frequently encountering the word, its variants, or the whole Freudian matrix of concepts.  All perfectly taken for granted.

A biography of John Hunter, the Scottish 'father of experimental surgery' was a constant experience like this, of all the modern medical concepts we take for granted, like not plunging your hands in dung and then the patient's body.  For starters...

That book: Wendy Moore, The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery.  Another interesting article on surgical pioneers:

 Halsted .  Sorry it's a mobile link.  The site won't let me into the non-mobile page on the phone.  I hate when they do that.

Anyway, I lost the thread... Was gonna talk about Charles Drew and basics like blood and plasma transfusions.  I'm fascinated by the histories of how people figured medical stuff out.  SF future spec has to be built on where the basics come from, and also the wierd fortuitous ways inventions and discoveries are made...

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Interval running



In the sun with a high dewpoint, not so fun.  I think I scared a couple of fit young ladies jogging along with my beet red face.  I'm sure they thought the old broad was crazy, as well as about to keel over.  Just sticking to my schedule.

Why I was doing that is the question I was contemplating as I did my back to back "easy" run this morning, but I survived with only tight calves and aching shins.  And it's kind of fun to show the young 'uns we aren't all so well preserved as in the Lifetime Fitness ads.  Gobs forbid we should try to be athletic.  Athletical?

Plus I saw a possum, crawling out of a hedge by a neighbor's house.  I will trade them an ever-expanding hole full of gophers...

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Plowing through Kraken


Well, maybe plodding.  From lack of time not the novel, though it is long.  I don't usually commit to the 500 pagers unless I'm on vacation or it's a tried and true favorite like Alastair Reynolds.  Though I did recently work through Red Mars on a recommendation, and it was worth the effort, though honestly I'm not sure it needed all of those words.

Anyway, it occurs to me that what reminds me of Stephen King is partly that Mieville pulls off that difficult task King has mastered - writing a terrifying and uncannily believable supernatural villain.  The bad guys are creeping me out.

Farm country news


Pesticide overuse can be trespass, says the Court of  Appeals.

Labor battle over  sugar beet contracts. 

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's  Bike and Bite event, August 13.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

NY lurches forward



I was raised by my chosen queer family to be cynical about such things, in the era of ACT UP and Queer Nation, where the activists focused on marriage rights instead of more direct threats like the dying and job discrimination were distinctly conservative.  But this kind of thing, and changing political winds, did make me change my mind, to some extent:

"Phyllis Siegel, 76, and Connie Kopelov, 84, who have been together for 23 years, were the first couple in, receiving a waiver from the rule requiring 24 hours between a license and a ceremony. They were ushered right into the chapel. Ms. Kopelov used a walker as they were married by the city clerk..."  (New York Times, July 25, 2011, "After Long Wait, Same-Sex Couples Marry in New York")

Like seeing Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin in SF. 

Though some of my elderly faerie heroes are not into the monogamy thing, so it's not a clear cut deal.  Plus I was a divorce lawyer, so I'm just cynical.  But still.


Kingsfield Farmers Market



In the fancy neighborhood a couple transitional NHs  away from my old neighborhood - Kingfield (the old NH was the unfortunately named Regina; rhymes with, yes, angina) the Sunday farmers market is a funny mix of upscale and downhome, gourmet expensive premade treats from mobile chef outfits, rarified cheeses and wild mushrooms from outstate farms, and cheap sturdy veggies from Hmong family farmers (who have picked up on the heirloom variety trend, with good results). 

I go for the Foxy Felafel, made by tattoed twenty-somethings and the coffee from this guy's family farm in Guatemala, but it's also very interesting people watching.  We try to represent for the geeky middle-aged white lesbians, but we are not the only ones, generally speaking.

The Smartcar license plate is par for the course.

We had to squeeze it in after running and before the young Border Collie Springer mix went to flyball practice, or would have biked there.  Our first truly nice day in weeks, and it almost feels cold at 60-70°... 

I cooked the beets, washed and dried the lettuce and greens, rearranged my too-clean new fridge, and de-matted the boy cat.  Time to mow my weedy crabgrass full of raspberry invaders, then hop on the bike, to join the hordes of groups in matching technical gear and family trains as long as I can stand the traffic jam.  Then it's butt in chair time, with a vague plan for re-writing the pesky novella project thingie finally forming in my head.


Leonardo's Basement Rube Goldberg Windsock Thing



A creative arts lab for kids, on the way to the Sunday farmers market...

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Energy star


Validating my decision to replace the old fridge that always freezes the vegetables, it turns out to use 649 kwh for a measly 18.5 cubic feet of poorly designed space.  No Scandinavian economy here...  The slightly larger fridge I found at the scratch and dent store gets 343 kwh.  What was I waiting for?  Well... employment, but still... Laziness does not pay in this instance.


Friday, July 22, 2011

Infotaining Tidbits


Activist Fun:

 Da Nordland can haz Barbarians 

More seriously:

 Chris Robe on the Allied Media Conference 2011

A provocative bit of snarkism, or vice-versa:

 10 Rants

"To quote Eve Sedgwick: Who was the gay Shakespeare? Who was the gay Proust? Who was the gay Socrates? Duh."

But the part about the discourse about AIDS is what snagged me.

And a bit of possibly unwarranted nostalgia:

 Wow. 

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Loch Nokomis






Look what's in the lake this morning, actually Lake Hiawatha.  I was not the only dork taking pictures.  Had to bike back over after my run.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Ghost From The Machine



A MN-made SciFi film is having its premiere this week, already in progress, I found out from a library  poster...  Soon to be released on DVD.

Here's their blurb:

"A guilt-ridden young man, tasked with raising his younger brother after the death of their parents, plunges himself into the murky science of the supernatural and invents a machine intended to be a conduit to the other side. He eventually reaches an unintended level of success that not only threatens his safety, but also of those around him. He quickly learns that the supernatural isn’t all that super and human nature can even be worse."

It sounds pretty good, gonna have to check it out.  St. Anthony Main times here:

 Showtimes 

Monday, July 18, 2011

The Northland is feeling pretty southern



"Today is expected to be another in a series of sizzlers for the Twin Cities, with a high forecast of 97, and the heat index (throwing in humidity's consequences) says it will feel more like 118." -STrib

I was going to write a long post yesterday and really try out my computer, but it was too hot and refrigerator shopping took too long.  Their a/c was out, so it was fun...


Sunday, July 17, 2011

Today we are reading about...




Sporting young ladies.

The heat index is 110°, ruling out anything more than armchair jockism.  The windows were steamed on the outside this morning, the after effect of tons and tons of rain.  Yuck. 

And my old refrigerator decided to sure after farmers marketing. 

Thankfully I was able to get my long run in before it got too gross,  though this is supposed to last.  I will get my chance to prove my own mettle.  Until then, vicarious soccer goodness.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Last shuttle flight



MN SF writer Eleanor Arnason is always posting cool space photos on her blog or the Wyrdsmiths writing group blog.  A particularly spectacular photo from the shuttle, with more explanation at her site:  The EA post .

Chioggia beets



First of the season, destined for a mezze - cuisinarted with garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, basil, balsamic vinegar, and a little rice or potato.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Science fiction francaise


Je suis tres heureuse a decouvrir auteurs francais de science fiction sur les interwebs.  Je ne peux pas ecriver en francais aussi bien, mais je peux lire tres bien.  Pour un jour plein de temps libre, un interview d'une femme qui ecrit les contes et au moins un roman con un description interresante:

 Joelle Wintrebert 

Et sa website, ou le mot correct... est:

 Wintrebert's site 

Plus pensees apres je peux lire plus...


Monday, July 11, 2011

Surfing


The Bitch magazine book club discusses Woman on The Edge of Time in podcast:

 From the Library book club on Marge Piercy WOTEOT 

And a funny story is up at Strange Horizons this week.  SH 

Nothing else stuck.  For some reason, my swype keyboard wants 'nothing' to be 'girling.'  Wierd.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Ballad of a Soldier




My favorite laid-off state worker speaks the Russky yizook fluent enough to have been mistaken for a Muscovite one time, and as one of those people who likes to learn languages, I took a semester of Russian in college and have studied from books on and off. 

We tend to pick up Russian movies at the library, and the library foreign movies are generally classics or un-subtitled.  This means we have watched a lot of slow moving black and white Russian movies. 

This weekend, though, we watched Ballad of a Soldier, from the 50s, about a soldier in WWII, and it was very watchable.  The plot kept moving, the characters were interesting, and the scenes of the Russian front, train trips, towns, and villages made it well worth the 80 some minutes. 

It reminded me of the yiddish movie Yidl Mitn Fidl, in which traveling musicians go all over the countryside and the movie has become a documentation of the period.  Soldier was made twentyish years after the time of its setting but provides views of the countryside that are probably not that changed.  Plus the actors speak really clearly in simple dialogue, so I could understand much of it. 

The Criterion Collection tends to make very good choices.  I am always impressed. 

Next up, The Secret of the Grain, about a French Arab man who opens a restaurant specializing in his ex-wife's recipes, according to the DVD cover.  I've heard a lot of good things about it and it won four Cesar awards, etc.  Bon appetit.

 Ballad of a Soldier at Criterion 


Saturday, July 9, 2011

Kraken



is apparently such a good book it must be read when I am putting it down to surf the net and update my blog.  (Not by him.  He's just possessive.) 

I think it's the Stephen King meets Harry Potter with Lovecraftian flourishes thing going on, plus the simple but ominous cover. 

I will give it over until I finish all the researchy books due back next week, but it pains me.  Though Garcia Lorca's NY poems, Girls in the Gang, and People and Folks (sociology and history of Milwaukee gangs) do look promising.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Fuss-free Urban Gardening

Movers and Shakers


I've been a big fan of the work of Cheryl Clarke since I discovered it lurking in library stacks and bookstores in the late 80s looking for lesbian writing.  I just went back to a book of poetry not too long ago and was immediately immersed even though I'd read it many times before.  I was excited to see a new interview on the net when just rambling around:

 CC interview 

Check it out.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Egyptian Building



Once a bank, now a parking ramp in downtown Mpls.  These were apparently a trend.  There's a similar bank in Northfield.  I'll try and get the wings around the skyway later - vultures.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

SFnal buildings






The building that looks like a rocket stuck head first into a brick building, and its glass doppelganger.


Ghost town





Not quite, but that lightrail platform and the bus stops are very empty, compared to usual.  Summer, yeah, holiday, yeah, but 22,000 people make a difference.

The train was packed anyway, making I couldn't finish this, because the whole row if seats on one end was blocked off and splattered with blood.  Sort if adds to the ominous feel.  Be careful out there, laddies and ladies...

Monday, July 4, 2011

Happy birthday baby



That song from "Hair" is now in my head.  Happy birthday to you, indeed.  Which then puts...  "long, shaggy, shaven, kinky, pigtailed, flaxen, waxen..." and all the other songs into my brain.  Ach.

Anyway.  Things I should be doing:

1) mowing the prairie grasses that took over my lawn

2) writing

3) running

4) concocting some hair-brained scheme to effectively protest and/or solve MN's little crisis before someone really gets hurt.  (Nothing brilliant or original has come to me or cohorts.  The stories I'm already hearing from friends who work  on the front lines in emergency health care, law enforcement, and the already decimated social safety net are not good. It's hard to focus on holiday fun and frolic.)

5) making breakfast for the good runner who already finished a four mile baby run in the time it took me to walk the dogs around the block.  (There were many mean squirrels to peer up at from the bottom of the tree.)

6) writing

And what am I doing instead? 

Reading, of course.  I got started on China Mieville's "Kraken: An Anatomy" and was sucked in by page three, not my usual experience with his books, which trends to be a more intellectual experience.  Creepy horror goodness.

And squids, taxonomy, taxidermy, magic, allusions to childrens fantasy literature I have actually read, vaguely Masonic  conspiracies, freakishly horrible slangy ancient-sludgy bad guys that remind me of Graham Joyce's Tooth Fairy, and did I mention squids?  And taxonomy. 

Nothing's going to get done today until I finish.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

If the shoe fits


Read it.

The neighbors are having party with half their college class, which sounds a lot more fun than poring over "Linux for Dummies."

All my fellow geeks and writers seem to be at Convergence, down/ over in Bloomington.  With awesome pictures so far of that costume-heavy con...

But my dog hates fire crackers so much she ripped up the door frame last night when I went out to a party.  Tonight and tomorrow night will be spent trying to keep her from going nuts, with Benadryl the first tool in my arsenal.  So it seemed like a good time to figure out how my newly transformed computer works.

I should be more excited, but I still have a really bad taste in my mouth from W------ and all the planned obsolescence of the hard and soft ware industries that drive me batschtick insane.  I'm going to have to slowly sink down back into that big pot on the fire rather than dive in.

I also enjoy spending days, and days,  away from a computer.  Taking not quite a year off from staring at a screen except at work (where I stare, mouse, and type pretty much 8 hours at least per day) and not worrying about the hassles of computer ownership was very satisfying.  

Unfortunately, this whole writing thing requires their use; it's one of the few things I have not been able to do on a smartphone.  The 'no free time without guilt' thing about writing has also been a real drag since I started this 'more real' job after years of under- employment, independent contracting, and being able to write in the morning when my writer brain functions best.  I'm not quite over rebelling against sacrificing all my lounging, biking around, cooking, and  reading time to the beast. 

But, being a writer, whinging in print actually makes me feel better.  Plus I got some good running and biking in this weekend, and scored Foxy Falafel's beet felafel sandwich at the farmers market.  So, back to work...

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Moxyland, redux


I read Lauren Beukes' novels out of order, starting with Zoo City because it was out faster in the U.S.

I was more excited about Moxyland, because near future science fiction is much rarer than urban fantasy. Upon actual reading, Zoo City turned out to be near future science fiction in feel, though based on an essentially fantastic premise.  Both were good reads - fast paced, full of funny, scary, gross, and entertaining events and images, and just wild and weird enough to stay intriguing but with pretty solid storylines and characters.



I read Zoo City in St. Louis, which is a strange town, while living in a Residence Inn, out of a suitcase, attending a two week training with a large group of people from all over the U.S.  This disjuncture made it easy to slip right into the future South African city setting  (I think it's Johannesburg, my memory is failing me here) of the novel.  Buekes has a good feel for just how much (and how little) detail needs to provide, creating pretty complicated settings and setups without infodumps.

The fantastic part of Zoo City was believeable enough, and it also works as metaphor, for something that hovers just out of reach of the conscious mind.  People who have committed certain crimes find they suddenly have an animal linked to them, which gives them special powers as well as branding them, to sum it up a little too glibly.  The premise is just different enough and the futuristic, dystopic setting unusual enough to stand out from the urban fantasy shelves (and shelves, and shelves).

Moxyland feels a lot like a movie, made out of a William Gibson novel with bits and pieces of Noam Chomsky, a couple histories of hacking and graffiti art, and Bitch magazine thrown in to the blender.  Yet not.  I think it's that the driving narrative and set pieces - inciting incident, turning point, climax - are very familiar, which made me feel a bit like I'd read the book before.  Because the particular mix of science, politics, future speculation, and urban cynicism, as well as purposeful diversity, are pretty unique to this book.  The distinct style combined with the hooky and fast moving narrative make it easy to recommend.

However, what I liked most about it was the particular blend of subject matter: everyday high tech gadgets; government and corporate security and surveillance; the specific web of personal, political, and superpower that the current cybercommunity, complete with cybercommerce, entail; art theory and the reality of life as an artist; the future of activism and its inevitable link to 'terrorism' (the idea, the activities, the industry, the fantasy); and youth/ street 'scenes' and life, as exploited every day by clothing and media companies.

The very end of Moxyland felt a little like a letdown.  I expected a little more in terms of original political analysis, and it had the flavor of stock leftist footage from the apocalyptirevolution, but this was just the last ten to twenty pages.  The 'fresh' factor of the rest made up for this, and I'm just jaded from too much time in certain trenches.  Most people will not have this problem.

I feel like I should be saying something more concrete and interesting here, but I don't want to give spoilers (and I have been in the sun most of the day) and the main thing to say is "read these books!"  (Angry Robot Books, for both)

Random things from the web



The more tech changes:

 Draft horses git 'r done 

Too much time on our hands... Or an example of how the cost factor of digital photography  leads to cool new things:

 Gummy slugs 

An interesting short story from a writer who's been consistently placing good stuff.  The last I read was an Asimov's story.  This from Clarkesworld, "Frozen Voice":

 An Owomoyela story 7/11 

Happy 4th.  I have to hang out with some laid-off state workers and protect my big scary dog from fireworkers, as my dad calls them.  And cats who steal her bed.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Shut down



Lot less people on the platform, heading into downtown Mpls today...