Little things.
It’s not the sum total of what I’ve been up to, or where I’ve been, but I can’t stop listening to this ever since Joshin pointed it out. —I mean, I’ve also been writing, and I haven’t read a news feed in, what is it, three weeks? Four? Something’s happening, I’m just not sure what.
Important events, and important ideas.
Oodles of channels of 24-hour news, moldering reams of newspapers that will not die, 127 goddamn feeds in my goddamn Google newsreader, and I’m only now finding out that Utah Phillips died sometime last year? —Somebody’s priorities are way the hell out of whack.
Free jazz
Never should have played her that Albert Ayler song.
I knew these things were complicated, but damn.
Complications of Taran: Attack air; Considerable distress; Kill previously deathless Cauldron-born; Kill wizard; Strike down warrior; Suicidal Taran attack. Causes of Taran: Craddoc; Dallben; Article; Lot; Request. Treatments for Taran: Shelter; Companion; Critic Taran Adarsh; Ellidyr; Movie. [via]
I’ve written a screenplay, if you wouldn’t mind taking a look?
In an unexpected development, the pier’s been placed on the Writers’ Guild of America (West) Hotlist for August, 2009.
They fight.
And they do, too. Somewhat. —Just a quick announcement: the thing I was up to for a while there’s now posting: City of Roses No. 7, “Gin-soaked.” Appears M-W-F for the next two weeks. (Also, if you’re already up on what went before, you might find this interesting. Or utterly opaque. Just puttin’ it out there.)
If you ever wondered what it is I sound like,
I read “Bottom Feeding,” by Tim Pratt, for Podcastle.
T-shirts can be decorated with text and/or pictures, and are sometimes used to advertise.
Not to knock Star Trek or nothin’, but Jayne’s T-shirts instantly made the future far more believable than any blandly newage councillor’s gown or ostentatiously homespun Jedi robes. It’s a future that keeps in mind clothing as she is worn: not just ceremonial formalwear and peasant uniforms, but everything in between, the knockabout workaday clothing you catch as you can, adorned with the serendipitious poetics only mass-produced things can provide. Proletarian chic, to re-appropriate a phrase.
I mention this because among the many things the Spouse does well in Dicebox is precisely this sort of practical imagineering: what do you wear when you don’t make your clothing yourself (or have it made for you)? What options are possible in a future of better fabrics and showier printing techniques?
All of which is a long-winded way of saying her ladies wear some fine T-shirts:
Now, the Spouse has done her bit to bring the future into the here-and-now by handrolling her own small-batch runs of T-shirts, but in addition to better fabrics and showier printing techniques, the future will bring us (has already brought) new ways of designing and distributing these quotidian goods. —I mean, basically, all of this has been a long-winded way of saying the Spouse has begun posting designs to Threadless.
You know how it works, right? Sign up for an account, then peruse the available designs; vote up the ones you like, vote down the ones you don’t, and those that are sufficiently juiced get printed as T-shirts and posters which you can then purchase and add to your quiver of mass-produced, knockabout, workaday poetics. And if you’ve ever looked at a page of Dicebox and said damn I want that shirt, add jemale to your watchlist and vote vote vote.
Fun T-shirt facts! A life cycle study of one T-shirt brand shows that the CO2 emissions from a T-shirt is about 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds)—including the growing of the cotton, manufacturing and wholesale distribution. The loss of natural habitat potential from the T-shirt is estimated to be 10.8 square meters (116 square feet).
The benefits of social media.
Just wanted to point out that if you were a member of the City of Roses Facebook group, it’d be easier to find certain special surprises and treats, is all.
All is forgiven.
Oh, Pine State Biscuits. Your hype is not your fault, but is still ridiculous; your lines are too long, your biscuits are a tad bit too salty, and you use those orange individually wrapped slices of cheese, which is taking authenticity a number of steps too far. But by God you carry Cheerwine! So there’s that.
Slouching toward Muhammad.
Ladies, gentlemen, them what are otherwise designated: the lights are flashing in the lobby. The final issue of the first book of Dicebox has begun.
PR.
In which I try some of that publicity stuff to see how it tastes.
Bushy-eyed and bright-tailed.
I’m awake; I’m good. Did I miss anything?
Lights out.
I hadn’t been getting that much use out of uploading my listening data to last.fm, only a minor check-it-every-couple-of-weeks enjoyment, so as soon as I get home I’m shutting the damn thing down.
Corn beer.
In some cultures, instead of germinating the maize to release the starches therein, the maize is ground, moistened in the chicha maker’s mouth, and formed into small balls which are then flattened and laid out to dry. Naturally occurring ptyalin enzymes in the maker’s saliva catalyses the breakdown of starch in the maize into maltose. (This process of chewing grains or other starches was used in the production of alcoholic beverages in pre-modern cultures around the world, including, for example, sake in Japan.)
—the Wikipedia article on chicha
Yum.
The folks are gallivanting about Peru; Mom’s uploading shots when she can find the wifi. (Travel tip: apparently the lobby of the Cusco branch of the South American Explorers’ Club has a good hotspot.)
Tell Tom Tildrum, Tim Toldrum’s dead.
Kali should be pleased: her little diatribe is currently no. 9 with a bullet when you google up “What is modern conservatism?”
A final complaint.
I do wish the young men of today wouldn’t refer to our people as “mamma” and “poppa.” It’s demeaning, and degrading to family values.
This is Kali’s last post.
