The One Who Birthed the Reason for the Season

Had my Christmas songs on shuffle as I drove home from a half-day of work, getting in the mood for tonight and tomorrow, looking forward to taking off from work until Jan 4, and one of my top five Christmas songs came on. I decided to link to it on the blog as a way to get back into this swing of this here online journal. But I was utterly disappointed with the versions of the song I could find on-line.

Back in 1996, I attended the Notre Dame Glee Club's Christmas concert and was absolutely amazed breathless by their rendition of Franz Biebl's Ave Maria. Unfortunately, the versions now available by the NDGC, while pretty, lack all of the punch that the 1996 crew managed. In fact, the song sounds almost like a dirge in the current production. I'm not sure if the director changed or what, but in 1996, the song built to a powerful crescendo that brought tears to my eyes and made me want to thank every single man on that stage for giving me one of those musical experiences that I carry with me and treasure. (This is the version, much to my delight, immortalized on the CD I bought while a student but no longer available for ya'll to enjoy.)

Instead, I shall share another of my top five Christmas songs.

Uh-oh

I've set up a Facebook account and can see how quickly it can such away free time. Maybe I need to set up a Twitter account so I can tweet an SOS to save me from all this social networking.

On Being Sick During a Hyped Outbreak

I'm recovering from an upper respiratory bug that started like the myriad others I've endured since Drew went back to daycare in September. The only difference is that this one sunk its fangs hard into me after three days and sent me to bed for the next three. The number of times I've heard folks ask me if it's swine flu have not been amusing. I work in a medical clinic, so most of the swine flu lines have been jokes. If I worked in a less-informed environment, I'm sure I'd be very annoyed by now.

If anything, this URI might have morphed into something like bronchitis or a sinus infection. But I definitely don't have swine flu. No vomiting, no diarrhea, and my temperture only broke 100 for about an hour, maybe two. Otherwise, it's been an annoying low-grade in the 99s.

So, please. Just keep washing your hands, pushing fluids, guzzling OJ, and doing all the normal stuff you'd do during the height of cold and flu season. Don't flinch over every cough and sniffle.

The Blog To Do List

Things I honestly want to blog about and intend to do so soon, no foolin', like any minute now...or maybe, hopefully, one post before next Monday rolls around.

• Drew! The Musical



• Adventures in Drew's Wardrobe



• When the DDJ Starts Feeling Like a Career...and a Good One at That



• RaceFail 2009 (aka the Cultural Appropriation Debate That Ate the Internet)



• Realizing a Horrible White Privilege Mistake 15 Years Too Late (related to the above)



• The Insanity of Kellie: 2009 Edition (Two Contests, Overtime, Last Minute Short Story Sub, and Writing Group Madness)



• I'm Glad Battlestar Galactica Still Works for Some

I think that's everything that's been nattering around in my skull of late. Well, there's probably more Drew stuff to share, I'm sure. Stay tuned to this space for one, some, or all of these stories!

Geek Status Revoked

A few weeks ago, a friend got me to try out World of Warcraft. As far as the game content itself goes, I loved it. Character creation. Quests. Killing monsters. Running around a fantasy world. Everything I love about RPGs. The online element was fun when it was just me and my friend tag-teaming the beasties and chatting with each other. Then random people wanted to jump in with us and things got decidedly less fun. So I let my trial period run out and didn't sign up for the full package.

When you don't like the MMO portion of an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game for those non-geeks following along at home), do you even get to qualify as a geek? It's not like my geek status was much beyond the Level 14 night elf I abandoned at any rate (my status among the geeks, that is; to the non-geeks, I'm already hopelessly mired in the culture just for having played the game), but I swear I could feel the experience points getting sucked out of me the moment I made my choice not to sign up for the reasons I did. I got a few back when I bought Final Fantasy XII to satisfy my RPG urge, but somehow I don't think it's enough to keep this Geek Membership badge.

2008: The Blog in Review

Wow, so a grand total of 24 posts from September through to the end of 2008. Made putting together a Best Of list easier, I guess. (Except that I'm still a couple of days behind the curve there as well. Sigh.) I think I've turned a corner in juggling family, full-time work, writing, and RWA responsibilities so blogging might actually make something of a comeback this month.

But, in case you've been pining away for quality blogging in this space, here's a list of Oldies but Goodies from 2008 to satisfy you.

Previously on Me, My Muse & I (being an explanation of the recent silence for those who are just tuning in or have not bothered with the reruns)
Welcome to the Nuthouse

Tales of the Drew Monster
The Drewbie's New Clothes
Fame
Mister Independent (Mostly)
The Night Watch
Ch-ch-changes
Adventures in Commuting

Reading, Writing & Ruminating
Process Exampination for Dummies
Tools of the Trade
The Things We Do for (Genre) Lore
Satire Safari
So Can Mary Sue Transcend Too?
I Have a Plan. Honest.

I doubt I'll ever get into the swing of daily blogging in 2009, but I do hope to avoid posting only a handful of times in any given month. I'd like to manage two to three posts a week to keep the faithul regular readers updated on Drew's latest antics, on my writing progress, and on the various and sundry insanities and amusements that crop up. Consider it a New Year's resolution.

Scalzi is Smart

What he said. (And here is is, pointing out the obvious. Really, no matter how you voted or what your politics, this link is essential, especially if you could use a laugh at the election's expense.)

Post-a-Rejection Friday

There was an internet skirmish involving someone posting a rejection to the 'net that got picked up for widespread outcry because it contained some objectionable language. This led to the author of said rejection letter complaining about the posting of said letter as poor nettiquette. Most of the SFnal writerly internet quarter took objection to this as the core of the substantive response to the outcry and made an effort to start a theme a la International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch Day.

So, for purposes of solidarity, I post the sole rejection with feedback I have garnered. From Nick Mamatas of Clarkesworld:

Thanks for the story, but not for me. There was a lot of "top of mind" stuff in the early going: what would a politician watching tv drink except for Scotch? What would an engagement entail except for a huge diamond ring that had been passed down for generations? How could we not make out in an ol' Mustang? Where might one buy a bra but Victoria's Secret? As such, these characters don't live as anything other than cardboard cut-outs. Characters need to be individuated by their consumption patterns, their interests, their personalities. These figures are far too generic, and all the signifiers are generic as well.

Yeah, ouch, but not horribly so, not gratuitously so, and no evidence of a ethnic slur in sight. Plus, it got me thinking about the story and why I had used those signifiers. It's taken me about a year, but I finally figured out why I had that story set up the way I did. I hope I have the chops to pull off the revision (next month, after I finish THUMB) because it's a pretty fun thing I'm trying to do.

I Am Now Hooked on xkcd

I've enjoyed wandering through xkcd.com, found much of the webcomic entertaining. But I was waiting. Waiting for the panel that absolutely did me in. A few came close, but I wanted to be completely seduced.

Wish granted.

Go. Read Little Brother Now. If You're Curious As To Why, Read This Post First

I just finished Cory Doctorow's YA novel Little Brother. I already knew by page 91 that this book was Important--the rest was just gravy. The only negative thing I have to say about it is that there's a wee bit of theme-bludgeoning, but it's not the horrid, grafted-on, authorial voice intrusions that Battlestar Galactica often perpetrates. Instead it's fully organic to the plot and characters--it makes sense for Marcus to be spouting off about these ideas and to espouse them in the first place (with the possible exception of the RIAA swipe, but I'll spot Doctorow that in a heartbeat).

As for the book's positives...where to start? I can't fully appreciate a lot of them as they are computer geek, hacker-oriented. (My geek badge is of the scientific branch, specifically the biochemical division. The codes I'm interested in hacking are pertain to the central dogma: DNA, RNA, and protein.) But there's a ton on living in a fear-focused society, dealing with homeland security's antiterroism measures, and moving on after a terrorist attack that resonated so well, I finally hacked another level of my brain and realized my own post 9/11 stupidities.

There's a subtheme winding its way through this novel that is sufficient in and of itself to make this book required reading for every single American who thought even for a second that privacy wasn't as important as the post 9/11 security measures. I was one such person. Hell, I even defended the measures at a grad student party in the months following the attack. The only extenuating circumstance I can call to my defense is that there were specific people there to whom I wanted to rub in their faces that I had nothing to hide--not because they did have something to hide, but because they thought I did. However, most of my outgassing at that party was fueled fully by fear and a sense of the familiar from my life as a military dependent in Germany at the downfall of the Iron Curtain. The latter is fodder for an entirely different blog post and completely unrelated to Little Brother. The former, however, was a role played by Drew, the main character's father.

He swallowed every annoying, inconvenient, and invasive DHS measure as a patriotic duty to be endured in order to Find the Bad Guys. He swallowed it because he had lived in fear for several days that the terrorist attack in the book had killed his son. Most of America reacted in the same way in the days and weeks and months and even years after 9/11. We were all terrified because the attacks involved two things the majority of us know and see on a regular basis: planes and prominent/important buildings. This wasn't a bombing or biological warfare or some other scary yet distanced from our daily lives attack on our country. This was a frightening twist on elements as common to the majority of Americans as televisions and phones. There was no easy way for our brains to process the attacks as something separate. No quick-fix of "boy, that couldn't happen every day" so we could digest what had happened and figure out a rational method of dealing with it. No, it warped distressingly familiar fixtures and triggered that intense fight-or-flight, a constant pain of "please, make it stop, make us safe." So we swallowed every single thing the government threw at us to prevent it from happening again. We hand-delivered our freedoms and privacy in exchange for the laudunum of assurances that it would make us safer.

At that grad student party, I clashed with two fairly conservative Republicans about this issue, advocating the security measures, brushing aside their concerns that the government wouldn't be so willing to return the rights and privileges we were ceding them. I probably offered just about every variety of argument the pro-DHS and DHS folks themselves used in Little Brother to justify making San Francisco a police state. I doubt I'm the only one, and I doubt I'm the only one who would see the parallels and find them chilling and sobering. I think I shook off the last of my 9/11 fear while reading this book.

Indeed, I finally realized that the overwhelming bit of my 9/11 fear was brought on by accepting the blissful state of an arrogant America, secure in freedoms and peace from domestic harm, surrounded by the false comfort that we export such things, so we are untouchable. We police the world, stop the bad things from happening to others. It is very alluring, the concept that we're so cool, nothing can hurt us, nothing can bring us down. 9/11 showed us that it's an allusion, and most of us would rather pull the wool back over our eyes as fast as possible. Who wants to live with the knowledge that we're all vulnerable to anything? There are no free passes when it comes to living in this world. And, what's even worse, the predators aren't going to helpfully expose themselves by twirling a mustache and going, "Mwa-ha-ha!" Even more distressing, most predators approach the hunt as if they are prey trying to protect their own damn selves. Evil is as seductive a lie as invincibility.

Doctorow doesn't try to completely idolize main character, though. Marcus has to face up to the unintended consequences in his fight to bring down DHS, to the point where the book even ends with Marcus actually accepting the fact that what he did was terrorism. This isn't explored as fully as it could be as DHS is portrayed in very negative terms and not given any sympathetic moments to the point where its shown to be an evil machine (see the last comment in the graf above as to why I think this is a problem). But it's hinted at often enough that I came away from the book understanding the Doctorow doesn't seem to be advocating anarchy and electronic terrorism as means to maintaining privacy and freedoms. Rather, the theme seems to be more that an open discourse, a friendly environment for debate and dissent must be maintained. I can get behind that.

It's telling that Marcus quotes a particular passage from the Declaration of Independence on several occasions. (It's also ironic, given that Doctorow, I believe, is Canadian.)

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Government should fear its people, not the other way around. That seems to be the central tenet of this book. Not a bad concept for the youth of America to be exposed to right about now.

Go. Read Little Brother now. Pass it on.

Oh, My Internets! How I Delight in Thee!

I read the blogs of editors not just because they are entertaining and wise in the ways of writing and genre, but also because they provide lessons in things that I manage to do right with respect to this whole publishing thing. Those lessons come in the form of demonstrating how other writers are making any goof I have committed seem about as significant as wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Nick Mamatas, editor for Clarkesworld Magazine, often shares cringe-inducing tales of Authors Behaving Badly, usually because they try to argue with his rejections.

In the perusal of the latest specimen, I managed to not only bask in the glory of having not stooped that low or screwed up that bad, but I also learned a new pretentious word (démésure) and discovered a great acoustic band:



That's three for the price of one. The internet, as they say, is full of things.

Various Bits of SF Geekery

Because apparently I can't blog anything of subtance for more than a paragraph or two lately.

• In a similar vein that Tor.com hopes to tap, I've been trolling through io9.com to see what was up. Found some neat spoilers on the upcoming Battlestar Gallactica and lots of speculation about the summer SF goodness coming at us. And then, in a lovely piece the likes of which don't appear on the site often, a fab essay on rules for writing short fiction. Though I must say that the art work is a head-scratcher. I mean, I get that women are depicted as sex objects first in most comics and SFnal art work, but wow. Never have I seen such attention given to breasts so that I understand that the lady in question used to wear a more substantial bra but has recently opted not to. Tan lines are a bitch.
  



• It was all over the internets last week that the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons died. Many great tributes were paid, nearly all of them referencing the game play in some fashion or another. My favorite was Charles Stross's spin roll, as he lumped in current politics, and he's a Brit at that. All I can say is, as long as the Cheney card is in play, looks like we're stuck between Barack and a Hard Face. (My experience with D&D is limited to some guy who was sweet on me trying to introduce me to the gaming life, and I got cross-eyed at all the rules and rulebooks. Though, later, I did get to enjoy a RPGer condescending to me in horrid, sexist fashion so he didn't have to leave the game he was playing at a con. Must say, between the two exposures, I've not really been interested in learning more.)
  


• Watched the SG1 movie, The Ark of Truth, last night and came away mostly disappointed. Most of this is because the movie was sending me cues left and right that it was supposed to be EPIC, and I just didn't buy it. Intense and grand music scores, sweeping panoramas, save-two-galaxies-at-once stakes, etc. The problem with trying to make this movie epic was that the story was essentially a two-hour season finale. It's hard to get into the standalone epic feeling when you've got two seasons of television shoring up all the backstory and characterisation so that the plot can be hurled at you with big 'splosions. (And, actually, they still ended up cheating us out of a decent build up to the whole concept of the ark and its origins and moral ambiguity. Also, there's direct Deus Ex Machina that further flattens the feel of the movie out of its epic aspirations.) That being said, I am very much looking forward to the second movie as the story is not a direct continuation of a plotline developed in the series. It seems much more likely to offer a good standalone movie with a universe and characters I enjoy.

Mor on Tor

Patrick Nielsen Hayden tells all!

UPDATE: You know, I thought I was being all clever and writerly with the title of this post. Then I realized that I had written, essentially "moron Tor." Not the brightest thing to do to the leading SF publisher when one is trying to get one's SF published.

Another Item I Should've Linked a While Ago

SF publisher Tor (perhaps the biggest name in SF publishing) is gearing up for a spiffy new, interactive website and, to whet your appetite and keep you riveted for more details, they are giving away a free e-book a week. No purchase (or DRM) involved. They are also giving away free wallpaper by their various cover artists. I've got a gorgeous Stephan Martiniere print on my computer at the moment. Makes me giddy every time I log in and fall into that work of art.

How do you join in the giveaway madness (there's also a sweepstakes for a an e-book reader, IIRC)? I'll cut and paste from the email to give you more info and the link:

SOMETHING NEW IS COMING.
A science fiction and fantasy site not quite like any you’ve seen before, mixing news, commentary, original stories and art, your own comments and conversations, and more. A place on the net you may find yourself wanting to visit—and participate in—every day. Stay tuned to www.Tor.com.

If you like SF and/or enjoy freebies, check it out. If you're interested in the quirks of a mover and shaker in the publishing industry, then I doubly recommend checking this out.

Something I Meant to Link a While Ago

A gaggle of good SF writers have banded together to create an on-line series of episodic fiction in the style of Criminal Minds--but the unsub is deep in paranormal quirks beyond just being a bad guy. There are two episodes up: Emma Bull's "Breathe" and Elizabeth Bear's "Knock on Coffins." These are essentially novelettes, so it will take some of your time to read, but it is vastly worth it. The next episode will be up on March 17. I'm told there's also a lot of easter eggs buried in the site, but my technical savvy only stretches so far.

Anyway, check out Shadow Unit (I've also added a link on my sidebar for your future timewasting needs), a collaborative effort by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly, and Amanda Downum (and maybe another?). Go. Read. Enjoy.

2007: The Blog In Review

I had fun putting together some of my fave posts of the year in 2006, so I figured why not do it again, even if it does smack of the severest form of navel-gazing? Then I actually started with January and was reminded that 2007 contained a good deal of sadness and unpleasantness. So be warned: it's bumpy in the early-going.

It's a Bitter Pill to Swallow:
My grandfather loses his three-year-long battle with cancer.

Mark loses his job, then he gets it back, then I have a work hiccup, then everyone else at Mark's company loses their jobs, then Mark's company wins an award for small-business growth and one for bringing biotech to the Phoenix area, then Mark's company moves to San Diego. (I don't think I ever blogged about it, but Mark did get another job without any downtime. He's now in an industry-academia hybrid at ASU and loving it. Much more stable with awesome bennies, which includes nearly free courses for the both of us and substantially reduced tuition for Drewbie.)

When It Comes to the Breaks, Look to the Reason You Keep at It:
Drew the Climber, Drew the Poison Taster, Drew the Escape Artist, Drew the Kisser, Drew the Amphibian, Drew the Digger, Drew the Two-Year-Old, Drew the Candy-giver, Drew the Chef

When the Going Gets Tough, Figure Out Where You Went Wrong:
This year, I began to examine why I struggled with certain things in life and writing and reading, being sure to take the time to snark and explain and warn and laugh heartily along the way.

I'm curious as to what narratives will frame next year's best posts. Here's to an exciting journey toward figuring that out.

THUMBonsai

In composing another post, I happily reminded myself about the Bonsai Story Generator. I had fun with it for SoZ, and I figured it would be good for THUMB. Here are the highlights:

Thematic Goodness:
Vin's gone.
That had to deal with Sela.
Let's hope they grieved in the first place.
Elzie reached out of denial.
She turned away the possibility of death.

A Healthy Dose of WTF:
Anger made it with a mechanic.
Her simple black dress had distracted her head.
The woman shook her own ears.
Elzie opened her body.
The woman shook her tone dry and turned to Vincent Merror's wishes, the solar flare warning system wouldn't have been trampled in the first place.
Then she turned to face flushed with SamCon, denial all over lunch?
He hadn't liked her head.

Simply Intriguing:
Muted was only appropriate for access to the appropriately compassionate woman.
Let's hope they don't mind the possibility of curvy, sultry beauty. Next to touch the woman behind her.
You're going to want to give them as they don't mind the break in.
Cremated, yes, the power of our business.
Forget a venue for word to examine the bones.

The Onion Makes My Day, Part # 1397

My only gripe is that it's a short piece. More, please! I eagerly await the installment titled "First Person Narrator Witholds Evidence from Self" or somesuch.

A Great Day to Honor my High School Buddy

Because I am fighting some sort of bug that makes me feel as if to do anything other than crash in bed is the equivalent of forcing me to run a marathon, I will indulge in some lazy linkage and point you all to the crazy goodness that is my buddy Matt (and friends). Be forewarned: this song is an earworm of disturbing proportions. And the video is great for warming you up on a chilly day as poor Matt is not wearing the lightest outfit.



In case you're wondering (and I'd wonder if you didn't), this is a related work for a SciFi comedy TV show that Matt and his buddies were working on to submit to the New York Television Festival. I'm told that there may be more disturbed YouTube videos from this project, and I will happily post them here so I don't have to exert myself to come up with actual content.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to force myself to write my minimums today so I'm not horribly behind on my writing schedule despite feeling like a zombie. I'm curious to see just how deranged the content I generate will be today. Good info to have for when I'm sick while writing toward a publisher-defined deadline.

Things to Make You Smile, In Case the Long Weekend Isn't Enough

1. Mark had an interview yesterday that went very well. Keep those fingers crossed and the prayers and good thoughts comin' as they're obviously working.

2. #5 Michigan just lost to Appalachain State. At Michigan. For the season opener. During the innaugural broadcast of the Big Ten Network. Understandably, the Big Ten Network announcers are now all over themselves, talking the game up as the biggest upset in college football history (which, if you've gotta go back to the 50s to get anything comparable, it likely is) in order to put some sort of spin on their first broadcast of the Big Ten's marquee team. Warms my heart it does. I feel for whomever Michigan is playing next week. That's going to be one ugly game.

3. Notre Dame's star QB recruit was injured over the summer and isn't starting, and the starter fumbled the ball not two minutes into the game. This makes me smile because, win or lose, we're playing Georgia Tech, a team with valid Top 25 aspirations just like us. If we lose, we still get to laugh ourselves silly at the Wolverines.

4. In case the International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch Day kerfuffle wasn't enough to amuse you about how some science fiction writers seem to fear the future, read up on the latest from the Discover-endorsed standard-bearer of science fiction and fantasy writers in America.

5. #4 would be even more entertaining were it not for the fact that it seems there is a trend that writing orgs have internet slapfights that seem extraordinarily ironic for their genre. Every year or every other year, there seems to be a big RWA scandal involving authors who dress a bit too naughty at conventions or try to sell their much-too-steamy books. I predict the Mystery Writers of America will have some sort of huge falling out in the ranks about the identity of a writer satirizing them under a pseudonym within the next five months, just for parity's sake.

6. We're going camping starting tomorrow morning (have a family BBQ this afternoon), so we should have more pictures of the Drew Monster getting crazy dirty while roughing it soon.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend.