January 2009
49 posts
1 tag
Day Thirty-Five
Gunfire and fireworks, we can’t tell them apart, now — this year’s first midnight.
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Day Thirty-Four
Left with just its name, after Christmas bankruptcy, the toy store’s a tomb.
December 2008
54 posts
“I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated...”
– Umberto Eco “Postmodernism, Irony, the Enjoyable.” Reflections on The Name of the Rose. Trans. William Weaver. London: Secker and Wartburg, 1985. 65-72.
Later that same day, I’m reading Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and see him define postmodernism as “Any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in fact, art.” Alternately, he offers, “Any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in fact, product.” This seems to suggest that prior to modern art, artists did not think of their work as...
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Day Thirty-Three
Grass in the foreground, trees in back, soldiers between — all drab, mostly cold.
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I wrote this in a comment on John August’s site, but I think I might have more to say about this:
Think about all the things we as writers assume our audience already knows when they come to the material. At one end of the spectrum is the supremely obvious — we can safely assume the audience knows about gravity. At the other end of the spectrum are the deep references caught and recognized...
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Day Thirty-Two
Thinking about work undone, a year unseized, and lightsabers, mostly.
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Day Thirty-One
The howls of children playing in the foggy street turn out to be cats.
“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post...”
– Sarah Vowell
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Day Thirty
Nighttime winter mist swallows the skyline and streets, not the city lights.
“All day long I have to listen to people make excuses about why they can’t...”
– Frank’s dad, Scrooged
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Day Twenty-Nine
Christmas day — gray, dry. I hunt Jedi and roast hens when I’m not drinking.
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Day Twenty-Eight
Misty Christmas Eve, unexpected pulled pork, nog, vodka, honey wine.
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Day Twenty-Seven
We call them by name: Blond Cat, Black Yowler, and Socks. The strangers we feed.
Octopuses, despite their intelligence, lack... →
“The definition of personality,” she said, “is having repetition in your responses, for example, being consistently bold, or consistently shy, or consistently aggressive.”
It is?!
A human who reacted in different ways to the same images, perhaps trying to see if different actions provoked distinct reactions, could be said, empirically, to have no personality?
...
From THE GUTENBERG CHRISTMAS CATALOG, 1608, by... →
Eatf, Shootf, and Leavef BY ANONYMOUS
Expreff yourfelf clearly in newly ftandardised Englifh. Now available in convenient whaleboneback!
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Day Twenty-Six
Imagine your house ankle-deep in snow, inside, aching cold at last.
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Day Twenty-Five
The startled scout leaps, breaks a barren flower pot, and bolts for his tree.
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Day Twenty-Four
I drink winter ale and spend the day in the snow of an MMO.
Everything you know about ARGs is WRONG →
jaybushman:
If you have any interest in ARGs or online storytelling, this is a MUST-READ, on the order of the Elan Lee 2002(?) GDC paper on This Is Not A Game (which I can’t find a link for.)
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Day Twenty-Three
I wrap her presents badly. It’s too warm. Cats fight and wail in the yard.
Majel Barrett Roddenberry died this week.
I remember first seeing the episode of TNG where Mrs. Troi and Worf’s son Alexander go frolicking on the holodeck (it’s Episode 120, “Cost of Living”), and thinking that the very idea of the episode was ridiculous and had no business working as a scene, much less a full hour of television. But dammit if I wasn’t somehow...
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Day Twenty-Two
This warm winter dusk, we ask a strange cat questions. Her mew sounds like “Yeah.”
From the NeoFuturists, Back When
Man: [Aggressive childish insult!]
Woman: [Disbelieving rhetorical question?]
Man: [Aggressive childish insult!]
Woman: [Stunned silence.]
Man: [Aggressive childish insult!]
Woman: [Defensive childish response!]
Man: [Attempted condescending conclusive statement!]
Woman: [Brilliant scathing remark with literary allusion and long-term devastating scatalogical implications!]
Man: [...pathetic self revelation.]
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Day Twenty-One
A weird insectoid wing appeared on my nightstand in the winter night.
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Day Twenty
The smell of the wreath isn’t as bright when you leave the lights unplugged.
“To refute an oft-quoted and asinine comment, writing is not digging ditches, and...”
– Elizabeth Bear
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Day Nineteen
I killed a spider in the shower; it should be raining anyway.
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Day Eighteen
Those Cornish pasties were meant to make this feel like an English winter.
stewardesses:
(Anonanimal by Andrew Bird)
The...
Watch
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Day Seventeen
I even forgot there was an outside outside. Wreath: hung. Tooth: broken.
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Day Sixteen
A pale winter sun warms through the chill wind outside— or so they tell me.
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Day Fifteen
At the bar, scarved, with honeyed notes, oaky finish, salt and vinegar.
“Are you prepared for the years of effort, ‘the... →
I write because I want people to think that I have lived.
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Day Fourteen
Earlier I thought my sole complaint would be that the rain isn’t snow.
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Day Thirteen
Reports of gunfire travel fastest through cold air and the Internet.
“People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you...”
– Mother Teresa (via littlemiss)
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Day Twelve
I sang without thought to a cardinal, to the tune of “Joy to the World.”
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Haiku Year
I’m writing a haiku every day for a year. I want to better understand the form. I want to be good at it. I want to know what I’m talking about. So my plan is simple: do it a lot to get better at it. As you can see, we’re on Day Twelve already. I started the day after Thanksgiving. That’s the same date that, five years earlier, I proposed to my now-wife. Things I start on...
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Day Eleven
I warm my fingers on my notebook computer and sip my eggnog.
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Day Nine
The bell-ringer shouts, “Merry Christmas! God bless you!” and shoppers walk by.
Day Eight
Winter sunlight shifts long shadows across the yard, so the dog wants in.
“O Holy Night,” as recorded for the...
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Day Seven
The squirrels pat down dirt and leaves onto acorns while the dog watches.