Bloodbath
From Time:“300″ Sparks an Outcry in Iran
From the article: “Everywhere else I went, from the dentist to the flower shop, Iranians buzzed with resentment at the film’s depictions of Persians, adamant that the movie was secretly funded by the U.S. government to prepare Americans for going to war against Iran.”
What is even more troubling is that the U.S. Gov’t thinks that if we do invade Iran, we’ll only need 300 soldiers to do it. Oh no!!! Rumsfeldian doctrine is back!
I do love Persians though. They invented Chess! Observational Astronomy! And Persian food is awesome.
Just wait until 2008, Iran — we’ll make it all up to you. I hope.
Bollocks
Currently Reading: Un Lun Dun by China Miéville
About kids who discover a secret magical city within London. As close as you’re gonna get to a modern Phantom Tollbooth — which is a statement that is praise beyond praise.
Research
One thing that helps me immensely when I’m laying the foundations of a story is to immerse myself in the core material. If writing about magicians, read/watch lots of stuff about magicians. And whenever I’m writing I am always reading something really good — it doesn’t have to be related to the material I’m working on. It can be a novel or a script. Whatever it is, it just has to be good. Kind of like riding a horse and following a shadow rider; you are on your own path, but you observe the gait of the shadow, the way it moves and crests over bumps in the road. By observing something while moving, your body reflexively attunes itself to it and you gain a greater understanding of how it works. Examining a muscle at a standstill is one thing, but running alongside one as it moves shows you its purpose and helps you understand your own.
Immersing myself in stuff has a tendency to generate ideas out of nowhere. A lot of these things are like mutant variations — they’re random thoughts that appear and suddenly fit and make the whole machine work. For instance, I was working on a piece about a brother and a sister. The brother is 16 and in high school, and his sister is 24 and out of college and trying to figure out her future. My initial idea was that the brother would be this always-in-trouble kid, too full of pride to ask for help or want it. But this didn’t work for the dynamic because I needed this kid to vocalize his need for his sister to help him, and I didn’t think this setup was interesting or useful.
Then I started watching “Freaks and Geeks”, and the dynamic between the Weir siblings woke me up. This is what I needed to do — make the 16 year old kid this nebbishy, always-in-trouble but weedy instead of tough kid who is totally dependent on his sister without wanting to admit it. Change the dynamic. It’s like the lights turned on in my room.
Writing cannot be a closed system. You need either indirect input (seeing, reading, or exploring something that gives you new ideas) or direct input (peoples’ direct feedback and reaction to the work). I’ve met a lot of people who keep writing and don’t get anywhere — they want success and keep banging their heads against the door but they never get it. And the thing that they all have in common is that their systems are closed. They are either too afraid to get direct input or they refuse to even consider it; alternately they don’t explore the world enough to see how it can indirectly add to their work.
It’s a hard lesson to learn to open yourself up. But unless the system is open you cannot grow. And if you aren’t open to the world, why would you expect the world to be open to you?
Lives of Quiet Desperation
One day, far in the future, one person will turn to another and say, “There is an old American saying: ‘Talk is cheap.’”
I read blogs sporadically during the day. Most of them are news blogs — technology news, political news, and a guilty pleasure is TMZ. I also read peoples’ personal blogs — my friends’ blogs. Sometimes I’ll read a random peripheral friend-of-a-friend’s blog or even a strangers’ blog, especially if they are a hot girl.
People do a lot of complaining on their blogs. Hot girls complain the most. You see a lot of complaints here too, but I draw the line at anything that could be responded to with the phrase “CHEER UP EMOKID”. That is the rule of thumb — if your complaints are so trite that “CHEER UP EMOKID” is an appropriate answer, then you should keep them to yourself. “I have cancer” and “Help I am bleeding profusely please take me to the hospital” are legitimate.
I like reading peoples’ complaints. There’s a perverse schadenfreude to it. What is not fun is when they keep on complaining and don’t do anything. “Talk is cheap”. It leads me to believe that they don’t want to get better. The activity of complaining has replaced the need to do. I wish I could reach through the screen and shake the shit out of them, say “HEY DO SOMETHING!”
I love it when people change, when they make Lloyd Dobbler-esque power moves. That makes me happy. I’m in the business of character transformation, so to see it happen in real life makes me feel good. It sprinkles a bit of imagination into reality. Like when I hear that someone is exercising hard and consistently and has lost weight. When someone has set a goal and achieved it.
And if you feel like you’re paralyzed by your options and you don’t know what to do, there is another old American saying: Shut up and dance.
The Land of Conclusions — Don’t Jump to There!
Recommended Reading: Masters of Doom by David Kushner
Essentially the story of how John Romero and John Carmack created id software and the FPS (first person shooter). I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D on my dad’s PC, gunning down a very blocky Hitler. Also shooting dogs. It was OK because they were nazi dogs. It’s nice to get the backstory of what went on behind the scenes, and also what went horribly wrong with Daikatana. Suck it down(tm)!
For those interested, a fairly detailed rundown of the Daikatana story is archived here.
The heat (global warming?) has brought that sweet lilac smell back to my street. My optometrist and I agreed yesterday that spring has sprung.
I ordered new glasses, a new watch, a new kidney — which should be arriving in a small, soggy package from Amazon tomorrow. I’ve been changing some elements of my style lately — rockin argyle socks like Hieu (whose birthday it is this week, happy birthday!) for instance. Next: Mohawk and anti-authoritarian death stare.
Names for Nerd Bars:
- Foobar
- The Saving Throw
- Sto’vo’kor
- The Satellite of Love
- Frotz
- The Green Dragon
- The Grue’s Lair
- The Dead Bothan
Horology
I ordered a new watch. I wanted to pretend to be an adult human being, so I got a non-quartz mechanical automatic. This is a kind of watch that doesn’t use batteries — it saves up the energy generated by your physical movements and uses it to drive the watch. If you break it open, all that you’ll find inside are lots of tiny little gears, springs, and weights.
I researched all of this thoroughly and it seems that quartz (watches powered by batteries that tick) is much more accurate than a mechanical watch. You need to wear a mechanical watch (or put it into a mechanized watch winder at night) to keep it charged and telling time properly. Quartz is also much cheaper. So what is the advantage of a mechanical watch?
The simple answer from the watch collecting community is this: Quartz is for pussies. Even though mechanical watches are less accurate, the sheer skill and craftsmanship required to build a mechanical watch over a quartz is something to behold and appreciate. A mechanical watch, properly maintained, will outlive a quartz. It will even outlive the wearer.
That’s fucking cool. Also, I don’t want to be a pussy.
Bad Eats, Desktop Defense
New on the TiVo list for me: Good Eats with Alton Brown on the Food Network.
This Food Network is like the Spice Channel, except it is porn for your tummy. Likewise, Good Eats is shot like a gonzo porno video — on a bouncy handheld with lots of weird props. The look of the show is reminiscent of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and it is 50% cooking show and 50% documentary. Mr. Brown teaches us about the food as he cooks it.
Best tip to come out of the show: You can steam king crab legs in the microwave! You can steam king crab legs in the microwave! It needed to be said twice because I love a good crab leg.
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
