Discovered via SF Signal. I’m not a huge Trek fan, but I do have a soft spot for barbership quartets and science fiction geekery. This covers all the required geek-bases for me: Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Note: Grasping for the Wind has renamed this segment to “Inside the Blogosphere.” So from now on I will call it that. So, I’m up on another of Grasping for the Wind’s little blogger Q&A. The question was: In SF&F, should sex be included in the narrative or not? Should there be different standards for its inclusion in young adult or adult literature? What should those standards be? What are your personal standards and why? You can find my answer, along with several others, here. What do you think on matters of sex in literature?
Alright, I have to say this. I know this isn’t a political blog, but I have to throw something out there for the sake of reason. Why is it that we’re trying to pay for all these bad mortgages out of tax payers’ pockets, when it’s not the tax payers who are at fault, but the stupid financial companies who made idiotic decisions and suffered as a consequence–not to mention that they preyed on an uneducated public to get them to take loans they couldn’t afford, etc.?Why should I pay for the bailout of all these companies? I know it’s to help the economy, but I don’t feel that I or anyone should be responsible for fixing their mistake. Why are we just going to hand over money to them, money the tax payers will have to pay out of their pockets? Couldn’t there be conditions? Say, perhaps, offering this money as a loan to those companies, with a reasonable interest rate? That seems logical to me. We give them money, they pay it back, and we use the extra to pay off some of the deficit or for healthcare or whatever.Everything about this whole bailout stinks of right-wing politics, greediness, and the same mentality that put us in this position in the first place–and you know what I’m talking about: it’s that mentality, that mindset where the average America, you and me and hundreds of millions of others, are completely unimportant, where money and power are all that matter. This has to stop. We don’t have the money to pay for this, dammit. We don’t. This is like forcing me to have to pay for my neighbor to get his roof fixed because he thought it was cool to shoot cannonballs through it. You see how stupid that sounds? Well that’s what our politicians are making us do. I don’t give a frak about the tax cuts they’re now offering. Why? Because most people won’t even notice it. It’s the rich who will see that cut and the rest of us (or at least those that are working) will see hardly anything change. I know that the rich pay more in taxes, but it seems unfair to the American people that the rich get all the benefit out of this. And then I have one more question: What is it going to take to get the lot of us off our asses to collectively throw a complete frakked-up fit and tell the government that enough is enough? Seriously. What is it going to take to get all of you off your lazy asses to fix what is wrong with this country? When it comes down to it, it is the American people who are directly responsible for all that is wrong about America. We are responsible, because we never got up as one and said, “No!” We took it all, right in the ass, over and over, serviced like cattle lined up at the milk farm (and I don’t mean the milking, but the other things they line cattle up for). Have we had enough now? Have we? Or are we going to let the politicians continue to walk over us? And congratulations to us for letting this all slip through. We’ve just taught anyone who has such a stranglehold on the American economy that they don’t have to be responsible for their business practices because we’ll just bail them out. Fantastic. This is like teaching your child that it’s okay to steal by not punishing them for stealing… (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
…because I’m really so obsessed with my self-importance that I must update you all on what’s going on with my life. Actually, this is more so all you readers out there don’t think I’ve died or been kidnapped by aliens or Sasquatch or even, heaven forbid, the chupacabra. So what’s going on: I’ve moved, successfully. I no longer live in the hell hole I was in before, my new landlord is actually pretty cool and really nice, and it’s freaking quiet as hell up here. I now live in the woods, as strange as that might sound, and, well, I like it. I come from a wooded area anyway (Placerville), but what makes Felton (where I live now) better is that it isn’t as hot. True, it gets warm up here (I think the hottest thus far has been in the 80s), but because we’re relatively close to the ocean it won’t maintain high temperatures for long and won’t have the peaks like Placerville or Sacramento. So, lots of good things here. Plus, it’s really easy to get to Santa Cruz from up here. I’ve started school (well, I started on Friday, but so be it). It’s actually a lot more insane than I expected. My grad course is…terrifying, but at the same time challenging. I’m confused right now, but one of my professors is really happy for me and thinks I’ll do well in it. This is something I’m not very used to, perhaps because I grew up with some sort of issue with detaching myself from my family. I don’t know why I was like that, or why I still am, but I’ve never felt comfortable with my family giving me compliments and this has moved in the opposite direction to people who are friends or acquaintances. So, to be told by my professor that I’m a good writer, that I’m intelligent and destined for graduate school and great things is really surprising and wonderful and a lot of things all at once.Moving on, I have a lot of work to do for school… The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are coming to a close soon, so I will be reading like mad over the next few days to catch up. I am hoping to join the staff of a magazine run by UCSC, probably fiction editor or something else. It’s pending at this point. I’m applying for an undergraduate research grant and have to have the proposal written in about two weeks so I can go over it with my professor. I think that’s about all. What all that means above is that there might be a severe reduction in posting on WISB for at least two or three weeks, maybe longer. With that in mind, I would love to bring in more guest bloggers. If you’re interested, let me know. Seriously. I’d like to keep this thing running, but something has to be put to the side so I don’t explode, and it will be the blog for a short time due to school being far too important (sorry if this upsets you, but this blog is not what is going to allow me to get a good job in the future, as much as I love this thing).I will continue to post, but it might be less than three or four times a week, depending on my time. So, anyone want to be a guest blogger? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Today I received the latest issue of Sirenia Digest. I love this little journal because it’s a PDF put together by Caitlin R. Kiernan and Vince Locke. Typically it features two vignettes by Caitlin and artwork by Vince. But the real reason I like it is because by subscribing (via PayPal), I’m directly supporting the creators. Sirenia Digest is simply designed (it’s a Word document with a few images in it, basically, that has been converted to PDF) and the stories in it are always a little raw and personal. There’s no editor telling Caitlin what to write; she just writes what she wants. This allows her the perfect medium to experiment and practice her writing. Often, the stories don’t have much in the way of traditional narrative. Such is the way of vignettes. They paint dark, disturbing, usually erotic images, and then move on. Perfect reading for this sound bite generation, methinks. The power of Sirenia Digest, too, is in what it offers the creator. I’m not sure if Cailtin has any overheads, but writing two vignettes a month should be easy enough and, if she’s getting $5 per month per subscriber, it’s a decent amount of petty cash. All she’d need is 10 subscribers to pay for satellite. 100 subscribers for a month’s shopping. 1000 subscribers for a (cheap) car. That’s a nice, easy earner for any writer, for only two stories. To earn the equivalent of a pro sale on each vignette (which are usually under 10K words), she’d only need 100 subscribers. Since most of her stories are around the 2K mark, she’d only need 40. Which doesn’t sound so bad. I’m half tempted to do something similar myself. Of course, I’m not Caitlin R. Kiernan and I don’t have Vince Locke illustrating my work, but it’d help pay the bills. Maybe in the future writers will support themselves in this way, bypassing magazines and publishers altogether and selling direct to their readers. It’s a quaint thought, isn’t it?
Orbis is an interesting little magazine from here in the UK. Their next issue is the Culture issue. Tell a friend – tell all your friends. Many thanks. Best,Carolewww.kudoswriting.wordpress.com Capital poems wanted for Orbis 145, Special Issue on the theme of Culture* (see below) Or Liverpool Or from poets with some link to the City, eg, used to play in a band there when I was in Uni – but not if your neighbour used to live near somebody who used to know somebody who said their sister’s friend may have gone out with Ringo… Deadline: September 30 Via email 2 poems Or 1 piece of prose; maximum 1000 words (extracts can also be considered), stating word count Article suggestions also welcome You are also welcome to join the Orbis Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/n/?group.php&gid=53636000056 Best wishes, Carole www.kudoswriting.wordpress.com * OK, since you ask, and quite a few have: Culture may be defined in any way you wish, or see below – but nowt to do with petri dishes, please: 1. a. The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. b. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty. c. These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture. d. The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization. 2. Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it. 3. a. Development of the intellect through training or education. b. Enlightenment resulting from such training or education. 4. A high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic and intellectual training. 5. Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors. **** Orbis International Literary Journal 144, Summer 2008 Front cover artwork, ‘Airing Out II’; back: ‘Marbles XXVI’ by Candy Witcher: www.candywitcher.com Featured Writer Neetha Kunaratnam: Reverie, The Closing Sequence Knole Park I Fantasy; II MeditationPoems Marianne Burton: The River Flowing under the Bank of England Dreams of Power John Temple Finnigan: Cartoon Desert Island Love Poem Lydia Fulleylove: Prose Sculpture 1 Samarkand Oliver Rice: Notes for Tell Elvira Prose Sally Douglas: Nocturne Oz Hardwick: The Illuminated Dreamer Article Pat Farrington: From Paradise to Apocalypse? Some historical contrasts in Nature poetry Translation Ion Pop, Trei puncte (Three Dots, trans by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim) At last, bring some sunshine into your world, Travelling hopefully with David Callin, or join Peter Butler and Mr & Mrs Woofit in Paradise. Never mind the snake in the grass (OK, tree), go for A bird in the hand, like Jane Morley. And even if Noel Williams is Skating close, Lynne Bassler can tell you about Meditation After Four Days and Nights. Maybe that’s the result of A Fairytale in Words from Jonathan Attrill – sounds like it, according to June Hall in A Lipping Moon. But if you fancy being an Oneironaut, Catherine Chandler-Oliveira can reveal all. Please refer to guidelines at www.kudoswriting.wordpress.com before submitting work Requirements Besides poems, and occasionally upbeat doesn’t come amiss, Orbis welcomes prose, 500 to 1000 words, suggestions for cover artwork and features, eg the Past Master Section, or indeed, Past Mistress. 500 to 1000 words; ideas in first instance, not completed articles: subjects for discussion, technical, topical etc: (we should) use as little punctuation as possible but also think of it as notation – to speed up lines, slow them down.
