Category: SF/SFF

And now we learn a new use for an old word.

The word is ‘rhino’.

Not that anybody cares, but Dr. Peter Watts, a noted Canadian SF writer, was beaten, pepper sprayed, stripped, and made to walk across the Bluewater Bridge and driven to the Canadian side in his shirt sleeves during a snowstorm.  I have already contacted my MP. More deets here. Obviously the US Border Thugs who did this believe they were justified, and have charged him with assault.  Update here http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=935… unfortunately I can’t seem to paste links at the moment.

What are the odds this is BS, and the guards overstepped their authority?

Watched the Ellison doc last night

Dreams with Sharp Teeth is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  Mike, Paul, Keith, Jeff and I had a glorious evening of pizza, beer, G&Ts, wasps drowning themselves in our drinks (this being August in Vancouver and virtually impossible to avoid), me printing out songs of mine for Paul to put in his songbook, me and Paul hanging the Japanese door hanging in the R. John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour, pinball (Great Finagle, but how much better that thing works when it’s level), bodywork, cheesecake and fellowship.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth is a must see if you’re into Neil Gaiman, BSG, or the English language.  The initial ‘interview’ sequence between Robin Williams and Harlan Ellison is PURE COMEDY GOLD. Also Richard Thompson does the soundtrack.  Once again, how much do I miss sharing stuff like this with John.

Now I am trying to wheedle Jeff into getting milk so I can make waffles.  I haven’t made waffles in ages.

Paul and I said to each other last night how much we missed small group ministry.  You think it’s Newage Nonsense, but it’s not – it’s major amounts of stress relief for your poor ol’ brain.  I remember the group meditations as being just about the only thing that kept me sane during a very trying period of my life.  Earlier in the day Paul came by and remonstrated with me about my lack of a rear view mirror on my bike (as well as to pick up the sewing kit, which is going back and forth between our houses like a sorry assed ping pong ball) and then he went out and not only bought one for me and installed it free gratis he got me a couple of really good bungie cords too.   All demonstrations of interest in my safety and comfort gratefully accepted, thanks.  As soon as the weather cleared in the midafternoon I went to get beer on the bike, and what an awesome ride that was, the temp being perfect, and the only hitch was when I tried to clear the intersection at Mary and Edmonds and nearly got crushed between two cars, and pulled a muscle in my calf.  It still stings – it’s a consequence of my ongoing L5S1 nonsense in my back, with the sciatic nerve pinging like a gas station bell – but I am taking painkillers PRN and otherwise ignoring it.

Also, I watched a DVD about church growth from a U*U perspective (man, it was interesting!) and had a long, interesting conversation with the minister.  Also, I practiced guitar for two hours and worked out the chords for Catnip on My Shoes, which I had never done before, so I can actually perform it in public now.

And here I was thinking I didn’t DO anything yesterday.

—original Star Trek theme —

Okay, now that I’ve cognitively set you up for this request, look what came through my inbox just now….

Loki, I know you never sign petitions but this is a MUST.

Hello from two CICLOPS Alliance members and fellow fans of Cassini!

For those of you who may have missed the big news, CICLOPS imaging director Carolyn Porco recently served as a science consultant on this year’s blockbuster feature-length film, Star Trek. In subsequent posts to the CICLOPS message boards (see the comments at http://ciclops.org/view_event.php?id=109), a few of you brought up the idea of petitioning to get Carolyn a cameo spot in the sequel, which is currently in pre-production and will likely release in 2011. In response to those comments, a couple of us put our brains together and decided to draft a real petition! We showed this to Carolyn, and she loved the idea, saying she’d be “honored to wear the Federation uniform.”

To move things along, she graciously agreed to let us send this note to her friends and supporters, fans of Cassini, and all CICLOPS Alliance members as a call to action. You will see that the petition says–and I’m sure you would all agree–that there are many reasons why Carolyn deserves a spot in front of the camera. So I urge you to please get out there and make your voices heard! If we can get 10,000 people to heed our call, I don’t think there’s any way that producer J.J. Abrams (with whom Carolyn worked on the 2009 film) will be able to ignore it!


To sign the petition (and leave a comment, if you like!), simply go to:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/dr-carolyn-porco-deserves-a-star-trek-cameo

and sign up. And be sure to spread the word to everyone and anyone you know!

Thanks in advance for your support.

Let’s make it so!

Maia Weinstock
David Holmes

And the real world keeps getting more like a video game

Bruce Sterling pointed to this article.

Yesterday the pinball games came home from Victoria.  They are Xenon and Star Trek.  Xenon needs a lot of work a diode, Star Trek needs a diode is functional.  We’re going to get a brass plaque that says, R John Caspell Memorial Pinball Palace, seeing as how the pinballs will be in his old room.  More furniture came into the house, including my room, so I now am overstuffed with solid wood furniture, just the way I like it.

Chipper, you will remember that Xenon was a game you and Steve B useta play on downstairs from your place on King St.  Colin and Catherine, you will remember the Star Trek game as the game that went to Rhino – the same con where Jeff was Robert Bloch’s gofer.  Ah, the good old days.

Margot keeps trying to be trodden on.

I am contemplating the pile of work I’ve undertaken this year with some sadness. It is, after all, work.  But at least I don’t have to commute.

Watched the 25th Hour. Really, really great film; Spike Lee did an awesome job, and the cast is brilliant.  Lee is SUCH an actor’s director.  If you’re in a Spike Lee movie, you may not like him, but he WILL get a good performance outta you or die trying.  I am considering reviewing it.  My review is up on imdb.com

Hotter than the hubs of Hades.

Yesterday I brought 20 beers home on a bicycle.  Mike, you will be amused to learn that I bought 12 Bud Light Lime, having become addicted to them at your place.  (Mike, knowing that I’m a beer weenie, didn’t expect me to like them.  But Jeff and I both do, as it is lime flavoured beer water, and a damned fine thing on a hot day.)  I only had one bungee cord, so getting it all home was a challenge, but the house is downhill from the beer store, at least.

Song for today is All the Con Men I have Known.  A brilliant tune; it’s the one that gets me the most “That sounds like Joni Mitchell” comments (which frankly I find irritating while understandable) and I personally think the lyrics are among my best.  It’s just not an easy tune, and OF COURSE every goddamned verse has a different tune, because that’s just the way I crawl moaning across the floor.

Why I blog

Take that, people who say it’s nothin’ but narcissism.

Also, I have a terrible memory and a blog helps me remember when things happened.

Also, Katie has used my blog to help her remember when distressing and horrific things, as reported by me, happened.

Yesterday Paul and I drove up-island to visit his cousin Ruth in Nanaimo.  She’s living on an acre of land and she got it for a steal of a price, and she and her fisherman spouse are living very happily.  She has to walk fifteen minutes to get her mail, and another ten to get her eggs, but she’s a five minute drive from a yoga studio and she has her own well, so there.

She made us a fabulously warm welcome, and soon we were deep in talk about cob houses and straw bale houses and the Cuban 5 and the amazing local arts and politics scene, and after Paul re-strung her guitar I said I’m getting my mandolin, and she hauled out her Indian drums (sounds like tablas but they weren’t) and we had a fabulous 90 minutes of jamming.  I kept nervously checking the Malahat webcam.  Long about 4 we decided to head back.

And it snowed.  Paul and I were bemoaning our lack of cameras, because the snow slid down the road signs and just hung there, and some of the visual effects were quite funny.  The snow was worse in Victoria than up the Malahat, go figure.

Paul went off to hang with Dr Filk for the evening (more music, somewhere, and a meal in there too) and I grabbed some Mayan Chocolate Haagen Dazs and a small round of Brie (my god, they fell on it like animals…. well behaved, queuing animals) and Darwin had a noisy bath and went to bed and we ate pizza and I started reading The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling and at 7:30 I collapsed.  See what a day without coffee can do to me?  Also I did all the driving, since Paul has come to the realization that he can tolerate my tailgating and random lane changes way better than vice versa.  A couple of hours in the car also allowed us the opportunity for an airing of the grievances (or was more usually the case, the bragging of the amazingness) re the kids. Sometimes it’s good to have a chance to bash away at this stuff so we can present a united front when the next issue comes up….

Woke up at 4, edited the sound files I recorded yesterday of Darwin’s charming vocalizations, finished the Caryatids (three stars but I still want to know where the food of the future will be coming from), showered, and now I’m looking forward to a meal at my Granny’s place of residence and a nice ride home on the ferry, probably late in the afternoon.  And I can haz new quilt, which is actually a quilt that my mum made when I was tiny, so I am extremely happy about my ‘haul’.  Oh, also my grampa’s memory book (two thick tomes) has been delivered to me in duplicate for Jeff.

So far an AWESOME weekend, and watching Katie motor her way – reading, my god, she’s reading! – through the Sookie Stackhouse books is making me very very happy.

Three years ago

I was at Potlatch in Seattle, a literary con, and I had a good time.

I bought a t shirt at Potlatch that I love and wear a lot. Tom Whitmore told me about this. Hearing that out of his own mouth was the high point ….

I just deleted the middle part of this post, about three hundred words, because there’s no point being honest.  It’s just me flailing about with words to no good end….

Back to Potlatch…That was the last time I saw Ulrika.  I talk to her online but I haven’t seen her IRL since then.

Everybody around me was crying or otherwise sad and visibly upset because Octavia Butler died abruptly and they all knew her and loved her and loved her work and they were very conscious of what a loss it was to the world.

So to honor a moment I had in my life, before everything changed and broke and turned to shit – because frankly, that’s how I feel and I’m tired of pretending I feel great, even if how lousy I feel is temporary, and to honor Octavia Butler I will link to the journal entry of another writer of color, link to something about SF, cultural appropriation, and how the culture we are raised in is a pernicious lie NO MATTER WHERE WE ARE. Minor quibble – spelling.

Lots of links

Biggest space disaster. Dr. Filk told me about this some years ago.

Gahan Wilson explains it all for you. The SF movie plot generator.

Oh look, a rat playing banjo…. and standup bass.

Once upon a time I made up a character named Pockets.  She was an alien and she carried everything she needed.  Now, there’s Eric le Fou.

Fellow Performers!  How to craft a good set list.

D’oh, a deer.

You will notice my mother’s blog is now on the blogroll.

Gerald dear, when are you going to start blogging????