Huh
Another mystery:
How does someone go from writing Real Genius to several installments of Police Academy and WORSE?
(Also, this guy is creepily obsessed with Michelle Meyrink aka Jordan.)
Less Than Mysterious
So, JT Leroy is a construct, an actor, a half-sibling, so what? Readers of #1HS have known this since FOREVER. Though it can still be amusemoi to read the profiles and such. (I’m sorry, but I don’t really see the appealing personality here — I kind of just see st*rs getting starf*cked.) But then, I’m suspicious of anyone who gives such free reign for use of the words "lot lizard." And, what’s more, I resent Ms. Knoops’ non-comment: "I don’t need this in my life right now." She’s had YEARS to rehearse a more graceful and entertaining reaction and that‘s what we get?
Wonder if Frey’s publisher will stick by him?
Can’t say as I really care about that either. Much. People actually believe the crap in memoirs? Seriously? Does it make it in any way less or more meaningful whether or not it really happened? Maybe it does to some, but a story’s a story in my book. Some of the greatest memoirs in history are full of lies and exaggerations. Do Americans have some sudden yearning for The Truth of which I’m not aware?
From the NYT this week, I much prefer this story about hiccups. You know, my mom had the hiccups once when she was a kid … FOR FIVE DAYS. And on the fifth day came Halloween, and my grandmother brought a bunch of trick-or-treaters in to see her without reminding her what day it was. And those brats in masks scared the hiccups right out of her.
Now, that’s a true story.
Less Than Mysterious Read More »
Short Fiction Jackpot
The preliminary Nebula ballot just came out. There’s a bunch of worthy stuff on there, although due to its incomprehensible eligibility system much of it may seem old enough to have been honored in previous years. (Do not try to understand; it’s a flawed, overcomplicated system.) Anyway, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has just put up a whole bunch of stories from the ballot for free online. These include several of my favorite stories from the past few years. I’m going to list them below, and highly recommend checking them out. (And then subscribing!) That said, I’m sure every story F&SF has on the ballot is worth your time.
But I think these are worth more of your time:
"Start the Clock," Benjamin Rosenbaum
"Cold Fires," M. Rickert (Do NOT miss this story!)
"The End of the World as We Know It," Dale Baley (There are a couple of sections of this story that have stuck with me as much as any fiction that acknowledges 9/11.)
"Keyboard Practice, Consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with Two Manuals," John G. McDaid
"I Live With You," Carol Emshwiller (Seriously, one of the best stories I read last year.)
"Magic for Beginners," Kelly Link (Maybe my very favorite story I read last year and one of my favorites of Kelly’s, which is saying something.)
So, what are you waiting for?
Short Fiction Jackpot Read More »
Sunday Hangovers
- I foolishly counted myself in to Ed’s 75 book challenge for 2006; I’ve started a little list down at the bottom of the right column to track my progress. I’ll just be putting titles and star rankings there and still plan to pull out my favorites for the Read Read list. Let’s see how long I actually stay on top of adding the books I read.
- Michelle Richmond calls attention to the Bigfoot Cultural Resurgence. Everywhere I turn these days: Bigfoot, Bigfoot, Bigfoot. I have kind of a soft spot for the big guy, based on this pseudo-scientific book about him my brother and I had when we were kids (another in the series focused on the Loch Ness Monster) and Molly Gloss’s excellent novel Wild Life.
- Why is technology so absent from many great book lists? (Via someone, I forget who though.)
- A book in a year? Or a year-long series of columns about writing a book.
- Diana Peterfreund (whose blog is charming and wonderful on a daily basis) on the experience of going through her first set of page proofs.
- Jeff VanderMeer has a host of good posts as well, but I’m pointing especially to his wife Ann’s music recommendations from 2005 and three overlooked books also from that vintage year.
- Chris McLaren is also burning up the circuits, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point to this excellent, thoughtful post, which provoked an equally excellent, thoughtful discussion about evolution and smartness in the comments (psst: lots of Ted Chiang smartness on evolution there).
- Jessica Lee Jernigan interviews Lydia Millet about Oh Pure and Radiant Heart.
- The 200 top-selling books of 2005. (Via Conversational Reading.)
These Boots
So maybe you don’t care that I now have a new pair of favorite shoes, these great cowboy boots with genie toes that I picked up today. But I’m putting up a picture here anyway, because they make me happy. I had a hard week and I’m still sick and so, retail therapy. It may not be pretty — actually, the one thing it is is pretty, so — make that cheap, it may not be cheap, but does it work? Yeah.
I also now have massively strong antibiotics, which let us hope together will conquer the Martian invaders that have taken over my body. I plan to spend the rest of the evening curled up on the couch with my second book of 2006, courtesy of the fabulous Ms. Jenny D, Manstealing for Fat Girls. I plan to do little else. Get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow I’ll feel better. I’m sure of it.
Choose Your Painter
Chance says there’s a new memefication where you choose the artist who would paint you. (And Sharyn started it!)
After rejecting Lucien Freud (too pervy), John Singer Sargent (actually, he could paint me too), and Mary Cassatt (too solemn and way into babies), I decided on Lynda Barry.
(Note: I love the other three artists too, but not quite as much as Lynda Barry.)
Choose Your Painter Read More »
Tuesday Hangovers
Hello, my pretties.
- Mapletree7 over at Book of the Day uses the cleverest phrase ever to describe Iain Banks’ The Bridge: "The Bridge is a psychological tour de France." Emphasis mine.
- Colleen loves Wintering by Kate Moses and relates to Sylvia Plath, overwhelmed mother and writer. (Where DOES the time go? I manage to keep myself from complaining — mostly, anyway — by thinking sympathetically about those of you with children on top of everything else. How do you find time to breathe?)
- An excellent interview with Rebecca Skloot that’s full of tips (especially for freelancers). I particularly like this part: After she has finished researching, but before she begins writing, Rebecca spends some time ruminating. She calls this process of not writing but thinking intensely about her story (both consciously and sub-consciously) “fomulgating.” It’s another concept that she got from her father, a mixture of promulgating and procrastinating and several other words they’ve long forgotten. Fomulgating, in Skloot-speak, is the “writing that happens when you’re not writing.” It’s the stewing, the fermenting, the knitting together of a story that happens when the writer is patient and in repose.
- My favorite Susan Marie Groppi waxes brilliant on Christopher’s The Voluntary State. (I’d tell you he’s working on that novel right next to me RIGHT THIS SECOND but it might jinx it.)
And that’s all for today, because I am beaten like an egg. Or something.
Year in Reviewers
Strange Horizon has collected some thoughts from their reviewers on their favorites of 2005. Um, at least from the ones who weren’t, like me, too scattered to get their pick in on time. I would have said The Fairy Tale Review. And Veronica Mars (there’s arguably a ghost in season 2, thus making it maybe SF). And Jeff Ford’s The Girl in the Glass.
Because I can never pick just one thing.
New Year Hangovers
Happy New Year, beloved readers; may yours be filled with whatever you desire.
I only have a few straggling hangovers today because bloglines, she is down, down, down in the burning ring of fire. That’s probably to the good of my getting things done today. And once I finish up this next thing, I should have time to do some reviews of things I’ve been reading lately and fun stuff like that.
- Tom Cruise makes it into the dictionary — The Historical Dictionary of American Slang, anyway — with "jump the couch." Why do I suddenly feel a need to watch Ball of Fire? (Via #1HS.)
- More news so sad I keep forgetting to post it: Infinite Matrix follows Sci Fiction into that good night.
- Girl Genius comics! (Discovered via Jed.)
- Philip Pullman’s site has a wonderful section where he answers questions About the Writing, that’s full of gems like this: No, I was ignored. When anyone took any notice it was to point out what a twit I was, and laugh at me. This was the best possible preparation for the life of a novelist. If you have grown-ups fussing over you and encouraging you and taking an interest, you begin to think you’re important, and furthermore that you need and deserve their attention. After a while you become incapable of working without someone else motivating you. You’re much better off supplying your own energy, and writing in spite of the fact that no-one’s interested, and even learning to put up with other people’s contempt and ridicule. What do they know, anyway?
- Speaking of which, Justine’s kicked off a fabulous discussion of the 101 humiliations of being a writer. Go join.
New Year Hangovers Read More »
Happy Hangovers
New Year’s EVE hangovers (see below explanation of the inner workings of BondGirl Bizarro World):
- Don’t tell anyone, but it turns out Florida’s weird.
- Wired lists the 50 best robots ever. And it’s a damn fine list.
- Greg van Eekhout (change your blogrolls and bookmarks!) has posted a podcast of his excellent story "Clean City," which first appeared in the honorable Say… magazine.
- An excellent profile of Margo Lanagan in which it is revealed that she writes ten pages a day when she’s working. ::cowering in awe::
- Southern Blog Cabal member Jeff Bryant’s back on the West Coast and has a lovely post about the road to prove it.
- Elizabeth Bear weighs in on the honor in ambitious failure in writing with an AMAZING post that you should definitely read. And she has made Sapphire and Steel icons, which makes me unbelievably, geektasticly happy.
- And finally, behind the cut, find out which superhero I am. (Though, honestly, I’d prefer to remain female in a perfect Metropolis.) (Via someone, I forget who, sorry!)
…