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 (just the) "Peers & Peerless" Entries WisCon 2008: Best Mistake Evar! May 31, 2008 So WisCon was probably a mistake, healthwise. I was beat even before my reading Friday night, and compromised my immune system so quickly and thoroughly that I caught a bug probably from the first hands I  The Clarion 2006 partial reunion. Photo courtesy of Vince, who has a larger version (and his own blog about WisCon) here  Alex does his, um, reading? as JoSelle looks on in horror.  Is Will testing the camera? Or is the camera testing Will?  This made me sad. And I don't think I made a fool of myself too often throughout the rest of the con, though I don't think I've ever felt so self-conscious as I debated with each interaction: do I bring up the brain injury and risk looking like a sympathy whore or do I let this person walk away assuming I'm just a flaky dumbass? Tried both. Wasn't happy with either. Gonna sign me up for next year and see what WisCon's like coherent. And it'd be nice to actually go to more panels, readings, and parties than I reluctantly miss out on. *Watched Recount. Brilliant performances, except for the cringeworthy Gore and Bush impersonators. Overall, allowed me to relive that unique visceral disheartenment of 2000. So... thanks, HBO!
 Reading at WisCon 5.23.08 May 16, 2008 I'll be attending and reading at WisCon, next Friday night at 11:45PM, with my Clarion bud Will Alexander, as well as authors-I-look-forward-to-meeting JoSelle Vanderhooft and Ben Burgis. Can't promise sparks, but let's not forget what happened last time Will and I got together. (Hint: our lovechild is now grown up and directing Punisher sequels). I didn't ask to be on any panels this time around on account of the PCS, but there's a number of firsts here for me:
Look forward to seeing a few old friends and many new ones. Old photo, but I'll bring it out again for lack of anything both shaved and recent:  I'll likely be wearing a bandana most days. And just in case there's more than one intentionally bald individual at WisCon, go ahead and assume that I am all of them. EDIT: The posted schedule says 11:45PM, not midnight, so there you go.
Eras End March 18, 2008 Speculations/The Rumor Mill 1995-2008 I was still in college, didn't know a thing but thought I knew everything when I started my Speculations subscription with the print issues. Told me of Clarion, among other things. The forum/community introduced me to some of my first writer-friends. I let my subscription to the magazine lapse a few years after they stopped publishing articles (leaving only the market reports) and the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum wasn't what it used to be, but this was my introduction to the world of science fiction writing. I was so lucky to have it as a guide. Any mistakes I failed to make, I owe to Kent Brewster & co. Thank you. Gary Gygax 1938-2008 If some of my first exposures to fantastic fiction hadn't been participatory--creating characters for Dungeons & Dragons adventures--I don't know that I ever would have thought to write the stuff. For a long time my biggest sale was an AD&D game supplement in Dragon Magazine. Why hasn't anyone ported the old Strategic Simulations (SSI?) games to the Palm platform? Seems ideal, and I doubt my PDA will crap out of me just before I save game like my Commodore 64 did all. the. time. Focus, Alex. I've held on to more D&D books than I will ever possibly use. Thank you. Arthur C Clarke 1917-2008 In high school, I got into science fiction through the short stories. There was Vonnegut. There was Bradbury. And there was Clarke. Thank you. Eras end.
ABNA: Carolina Semi-Finalists Unite! January 22, 2008 (Press Release by entrant Matt Musson. Thanks, Matt! And congrats to friend and fellow entrant Mike Jasper, whose novel The Wannoshay  Cycle comes out today!)Several Carolina authors have been chosen among the contestants moving on to the semi-final round for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Amazon.com's first writing competition in search of the next great novel. Each semi-finalist has a dedicated web page for their submission on Amazon.com, where customers can now download a 5000 word excerpt of the entry to rate and review. The Carolina semi-finalists are: Mike Jasper of Wake Forest Alex Wilson of Carrboro Erica Eisdorfer of Carrboro Betty Cloer Wallace of Asheville Lockie Hunter of Asheville Douglas A. Sanburn of Asheville Matt Musson of Charlotte K.F. Jones of Charlotte Mai Christy Thao of Charlotte Lena Joy Rose of Matthews Nicole R. Dickson of Greensboro Lou Dischler of Spartanburg, SC Katherine Guckenberger of Charleston, SC Susan Sloate of Mt. Pleasant, SC These Carolina writers are hoping to survive to the next round when the 100 Top Semi-Finalists will be chosen from the regular semi-finalists. The top 100 will be selected by Penguin Publishing taking into consideration Publishers Weekly's ratings of the author’s works along with customer evalutions and ratings of their excerpts posted online. Additionally, customers who rate and review at least 25 semi-finalist excerpts will be entered in the ABNA Customer Review Contest for the chance to win an Amazon Kindle. The three Customer Review Contest winners will each receive an Amazon Kindle, a $2,000 Amazon gift certificate and a Hewlett-Packard. From these top 100 Semi-Finalists – 10 finalists will be selected by Penguin. Excerpts from the 10 finalists will be posted online and Amazon.Com customers will vote to select the Grand Prize winner who will receive a publishing contract and a $25,000 royalty advance.
Continue reading "ABNA: Carolina Semi-Finalists Unite!" Filed Under: ABNA, Journal, Peers & Peerless, Prose and Poetry Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award: Semifinalist January 18, 2008 My novelette Pinocchio is Punching You is a current semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which puts it in the top 17% or so, and in the running for the next step: Top 100, to be chosen about four weeks from now.You can read and review the first 5,000 words of Pinocchio, and your comments/rating (along with a to-be-posted, likely-weighted review from Publisher's Weekly!) will determine whether it makes it any further in the contest. ABNA is offering some reviewer incentives, and has posted general guidelines about "what makes a good review." To these I'll just add: Don't assume negative reviews are all from shills for other entrants who want their competition to look bad, nor that all positive reviews were written by members of the author's cult. Both will happen, neither are worth anybody's time. Let Amazon sort it out. Much obliged for any reading and/or reviewing you feel like doing, and I think these fine friends o'mine would be, too: Ruth Nestvold, Michael Jasper, Bradley P Beaulieu, Tom Pendergrass, and Laurel Amberdine (whose note on a forum tipped me off to the contest in the first place). 
The Dumb Man as Machinima January 16, 2008 A few years back I narrated Sherwood Anderson's The Dumb Man, released it free with a Creative Commons License. I did it because it was interesting, because I was never sure what to make of something so strange and elusive, complete with a mysterious form (riddle? prose poem?). Of course I got a bunch of emails asking what the hell it was, and I never knew what to say... Except that if I ever thought it was a silly exercise, then today I'm reeeaally glad I did it anyway. Multimedia artist Lainy Voom contacted me last week with what she was working on: she's used it in a Second Life machinima, and it's astounding (and I'd agree with Cory Doctorow's comment: "the most beautiful machinima I've seen to date"). Love, love, love that I could be a small part of something like this, and that a seemingly incidental CCL-licensed work could have such a life beyond what I did with it. Thanks, Lainy!
I Am Such a Mendicant December 6, 2007 
My favorite artist-scripter team ever: Aragones and Evanier.My favorite comic book of all time: Groo. My first publication in a Dark Horse comic book: Groo: Hell on Earth #1 (letters page). Shut up. It counts. Must've written a dozen letters for the old Groo-Grams back when I was a kid and Epic/Marvel published the series for so long but not long enough. Never got around to mailing a'one of those letters. Some twenty years later, it appears I've gotten slightly less lazy. And by less lazy I mean email was invented. Don't look at me like that. It counts. My journal, my rules. EDIT: And, by gumbo, lest you doubt me... let's not forget George R R Martin's first publication (Fantastic Four #20).
SF Small Press Arrival Day November 29, 2007
Guess what day it is!
 It's SF Small Press Arrival Day! * 
(*Not a real day.) How do you feel about that? 
Okay. Loki gets Shimmer, because he called it and there are rules, people! 
Thor takes LCRW because she is mighty and demands it to be so! 
And I'll start with Apex! 
But wait! Just what the hell is going on here? 
Two copies of Apex #11? 
D'oh! 
I only have two cats, people! 
Excess copies should be going to new subscribers, not me! Because they only need seven more subscribers this month and they can raise their payrates! Hmm. Don't know what made me think of that just now. Anyway, what am I going to do with two copies (FWIW I did offer to send one back)? 
If only I could give one away! Oh, wait a minute! 
I can! Sweet nectar of being able to do things, I drink thee! Take a bow, Thor! 
Or a bath. Baths are cool, too. Whatever. To get my extra copy of Apex # 11 (which, incidentally, goes up to... naah, too obvious), go read about their Subscription Drive and come back here and be the first to post a comment on LiveJournal. Thassit. No purchase/subscription necessary or test to make sure you've read it or anything. This is the honor system, people, and I'm not going to send my extra copy to a cheater, except on accident. Like how they sent it to me. No animals were hurt during the making of this journal entry. 
Loki and Thor dismiss all rumors about sharing a trailer on the set. They're just good friends and would appreciate it if you respected their privacy. Thanks!
Scott Pilgrim is in my Pants November 14, 2007 Ah, so this is why Harry Potter fans did the whole midnight-waiting-in-line thing. Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim, volume 4 was in the store this morning and is now is in my pants:  (Great thing about these jeans is if someone asks me about SC on my walk home, I not only know they're cool, but also that they've been checking out my ass. One of those means they've got taste.) Andrew and Vanessa, owners of Chapel Hill Comics had placed bets on whether it'd be me or one other customer first in the store today to pick said comic up. Strangely I'm bothered neither by this nor for the fact that I was second. Thanks for having, err, faith in me anyway, Andrew. I'll try to read it over lunch. But no spoilers, please. Loki's still on vol 2: 
Trinoc*coN 2007 Con Report September 27, 2007 I must say: being a guest is a lot easier than being an attendee. Sure, I've enjoyed previous conventions. I've learned a lot, gotten full value for my entertainment dollar. But I've usually felt little more than a witness, a consumer at these things--or worse, the guy at the party who doesn't know anybody else, and who can't help wondering... if he doesn't belong here, among people who share his interests and passions, then does he belong anywhere at all? And of course (I say this as if I'd always known it) the interaction is the best thing about a convention, even (especially?) for an introvert like me. And I'm not just talking about schmoozing with peers and peerless. Especially at this stage in my career, I have more in common with the casual attendee than with any professional. But here too, the guest badge acts as my icebreaker, my introduction to anybody and everybody (fan, pro, furry). It doesn't mean I know the guy who's throwing the party or anything, but it means somebody in one of the bedrooms might have vouched for me. And for introverts at parties, we need all the validation we can get. So... great meeting the other writers and attendees (see my panel schedule for most of the namedropping I'm expected to do), along with some of my fellow Codex members (Alethea Kontis, Edmund Schubert, and Gray Reinhardt) who I'd only known online, Gravy Boy writer Marty Blevins (who I'd met on an online comics forum), Luna and Andreas Black who I knew through mutual friends Jason Erik Lundberg and Janet Chui, and of course the active fans putting the con together in the first place.  Gray, Stephanie, Edmund, James, Ada, and Alex. (Alethea's holding the camera, obviously.) On my first panel, the conversation never let up. I talked a bit toward the top, and later watched for the pauses to interject my thoughts. When they didn't come, I shrugged and listened as the conversation went into different directions. It was very liberating. On the second panel, I got enough small laughs from the room that I figured out what I had to offer on a panel of my betters. By the fourth (and last), I realized that the most challenging--and satisfying--part of being on a panel is setting up one of the other panelists with a punchline or otherwise brilliant spike. Thankfully, I only had one or two times when I opened my mouth on a panel and had no idea where my sentence was supposed to end, though I'm sure I made an ass of myself more often than I remember. So yeah. I'd do that again. But I think this means I won't actively pursue attending too many other conventions until I've got the credentials to attend them as panelist. The icebreaker is more valuable to me than how I get there.  Alex Wilson, George R R Martin, Scott Nicholson, and Alexandra Sokoloff. The easy-to-understand reason is Clarion. Though it's semi-tradition that a student might do little to no writing in the year following the workshop, for me the thing I've dreaded is writing/talking _about_ writing. Which also makes the blog difficult, by the way. So being a guest at a con for the first time exactly a year after my Clarion graduation, talking about writing for three days straight... that was kind of all I had in me. Doing a meta-essay on the meta-discussion was unthinkable. But I think the bigger reason is how I haven't been able to wrap my head around how Jamie Bishop's absence from the con was so difficult for me. FWIW, it still doesn't make total sense, so if the remainder of this entry is confusing, it's not you; I mean: I get that I'm sad over the loss of a friend. I get that he was a regular Trinoc-coN attendee and a number of the guests and other attendees knew him primarily or exclusively through the con, enough so that our mutual friend Jason wrote a nice remembrance in the program. And I get that when someone dies it's a different kind of missing than when someone lives on the other side of the world now (Jason and Janet were about the only two people I knew/met the only other time I've been to Trinoc-coN, and they now live in Singapore, an absence felt in a different--but no less real--way). But... there's no sense of place to connect Jamie there. To my knowledge, the convention hasn't been held at this particular hotel before, so the echo of his presence seems artificially removed, like I'm visiting a replica of his apartment (which, by the way, I kind of have. We have friends who've lived at and invited us many times to Jamie's old apartment complex, and the apartment layouts are identical). And more significantly, I was never at Trinoc-coN or with any of these people who also knew him at the same time he was, so his association in my mind with the convention comes almost exclusively from our numerous conversations about it, all the way back in Carrboro. It was Jamie who encouraged me to first contact the con/ask to be a guest, successfully convincing me that (even before any significant writing sales) I might have something to offer on a panel or two. Which--on top of the other confusion--feels like a very selfish way to remember a friend. So I'm still processing that part of it. Eh. This turned out to be quite vague and introspective for a con-report. Ah well. That's what I get for putting it off for two months. I'll try to do better next year, if they'll have me. Thanks again to Alethea for being smart enough to actually pull out her camera (and for letting me post her pix). My camera was quite unhelpful in my pocket all weekend.
Trinoc*coN 2007 Schedule, What I Look Like Now August 1, 2007
I am soooo outclassed. (If this gets changed between now and Friday, I'll add an "Updated" to the header. Otherwise, look for last-minute tweaks near the registration desk. Visit the Trinoc-coN website for more info.) If you're in Raleigh, NC this weekend and would like to say hello, here's what I look like this morning, according to the self-timer on my camera:  But I might be wearing a hat this weekend. My hair is at that length where it'll stick straight up if I don't do anything, it'll look like a combover if I push it forward, and it requires a lot of "product" to keep back like this. (Though, looking at this pic, I should forget about figuring out what to do with hair now that I have it; I need to work on my smile.) Edit: Okay, yeah. It turns out I'm wearing the same sleeveless shirt that I wore in my intentionally bald photo from the first time I shaved my head in '04. It's comfy.
Sicko and Other Media/Crit Fun July 23, 2007 Congrats on the Congressional Gold, Norman Borlaug! But can we get a moratorium on press about Borlaug (scarce that it is) that begins with "it's a tragedy this guy doesn't get more press?" Because you know who's responsible for that sort of thing, right? It's like starting a sentence with "I'm not a jackass, but..." Michael Moore's Sicko opened in wide release this weekend. Along with Breach, Zodiac, and The Lives of Others, it's among my favorite films of the year so far and I urge anyone and everyone to see it and talk about it--and to think about their own experience with health care in the U.S., and what they'd like it to be. Even if it's far from perfect--and not for the reasons critics keep saying--Sicko is an excellent starting point for the discussion we really need to have. For disclosure: I've been a proponent of universal health care (or at least a hybrid between our system and universal, like what Costa Rica or Australia has) since before the first time my insurance provider declined to pay for my routine physical because it was "a preexisting condition" (what was? my body?). Jen works in health care and feels similarly, though we've decided to keep paying for insurance as long as we can afford it. It's a mixed bag, but in cases of expensive emergency it can be the difference between solvency and bankruptcy. And even a socialized-medicine-sympathizer like myself can think of times when health insurance actually came through for us. I think the best and most informative analysis and extrapolation of Sicko and the subjects it brings up (a continuation of the discussion, if you will) has come from Jonathan Oberlander on Terry Gross's Fresh Air a few weeks back (MP3 podcast still available for at least a few more days here/direct MP3 download here). Among other things, he talks about the history of managed care, the way health insurance is already subsidized less-than-fairly in our country, and the employer-based universal coverage of Germany, which might be a more realistic goal for our system to aspire to, at least in the shorter term. It's because I agree with so much of what Moore says in Sicko, that I wish the film was better. The mistake his documentaries repeatedly makes has little to do with any alleged inacuracies or his decision to put himself front-and-center as a lightning rod (though his name alone pursuades some people I know to avoid his work entirely). It's that he doesn't take opposing views seriously enough. At its core, Sicko is predominantly anecdotal. Yes, I agree with Moore more often than not. But if I didn't, I could cherry-pick the horror stories from countries with universal health care and juxtapose them with the miracle-cure-caliber triumphs of HMOs in the U.S. when they actually come through for their customers. I could create a polar opposite documentary (though lack of skill and heart on my part wouldn't make it nearly as good). And if I'm not an artist, but just a regular member who hears/experiences/believes the other side's talking points, then I won't see those arguments addressed so much as ignored. And if examples that resemble my own anecdotes are omitted, then what reason would I have to trust that Moore's addressing the same reality I'm living in? For example: If I go in believing that double-digit months for surgery was the rule in Canada and elsewhere, and Moore says "not true" and shows a few examples of short waits, I'll probably go away thinking Moore showed the exceptions not the rule. But what happens if Sicko acknowledges that, yes, these systems aren't perfect, and, yes, there can be long waits for non-life-or-death surgeries? And what if he compared that to the U.S. where wait time and access are not doled out based on need (life-threatening on one end, elective on the other) but doled out by providers based on what insurance plan you pay for, based on what you can afford? THEN when the opponents of universal health care bring out THEIR anecdotal examples (or when audience members already know of situations which contradict what they see in the film), Sicko loses none of its thunder. It's a proven method of argument in the written world. If Moore's films are cinematic essays (and, yes, they belong in the nonfiction section), then there's no reason he shouldn't use all the tools at his disposal. I've been a fan of Moore for years, so I think I understand why he does this: the mainstream media dismisses his views as fringe, so why should he give _their_ fringe views time when he's got the microphone? But I doubt a defense of there-are-fewer-problems-with-my-documentary-than-the-average-news-show-on-health-care variety is any better of a justification than it-was-quite-interesting-for-a-Michael-Bay-movie. Raise the bar, raise the debate, and bring a few more dissenters with you in the end. But the thing I cringe the most about is the examples he shows of just _how_ comprehensively some of these governments can provide for their citizens. It makes for a great entertainment, and it's mind-blowing how little we expect from our government by comparison. And doctors making housecalls in the middle of the night is positively utopian (all repect to E.M.S. workers; we're talking about preventative medicine and non-emergency services). But government-subsidized vacation and the state sending a maid to your house to help with the laundry (and who, pray tells, comes to the maid's house to help with her chores?) is exactly the kind of future that opponents of universal health care are trying to scare their constituents with. Universal health care WON'T lead to the socialization of everyday life, but the fodder's there in Sicko for the taking. I do hope I'm wrong. I was wrong in my impression of Farenheit 9/11. I thought it was Moore's weakest film to date, and by the end of it I was actually feeling sorry for our president, which is the effect that attack-ads always seem to have on me. But I know it changed some people's minds. And Sicko is Moore's most important documentary not because of the answers he gives, but because of the questions he asks. For that reason, I hope this is the beginning of the discussion and not the point where people tune it out. Footnote: Okay, now let's say you hate Michael Moore and can't understand why I give props to the guy for anything he's done. You don't want your mind changed. You just want further evidence that Moore's a pussy. Go rent Haro Kazuo's mesmerizing 1988 documentary The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On. Came out just before Moore's Roger & Me and follows Japanese WWII veteran and activist Okuzaki Kenzo's attempts to interview his commanding officers and get them to confess their war crimes. It'll solidify your suspicions that Moore is a lightweight (at least compared to Okuzaki Kenzo), and that torture might actually be an effective method of interrogation outside the world of Jack Bauer. It certainly challenged my ideas about the world. Pay no attention to the fact that Moore presented The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On at this year's Full Frame festival as one of the films that influenced him most. (I'm remembering again why I don't discuss or review "peer and peerless" projects very often anymore; I'm a slow writer and giving them half the comprehensiveness they deserve takes waaaaay more time than I can afford to give my journal right now. Also: getting one of those "Alex Wilson" Google Alerts with my Transformers review saddled with a more important article by BuildingGreen President Alex Wilson... that puts things into perspective, don't it?)
Transformers! A Not-Crap Movie In Disguise July 18, 2007 OMG! America finally gets its own giant robot movie, and it's ADORABLE! I wouldn't bet my fruit break money or anything, but I think Optimus Prime could totally beat up Hello Kitty, or any two primary color My Little Ponies. He's so invited to my next tea party. (Suck it, Squarepants! Your seat's taken!) John Turturro, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Dunn, and Bernie Mac were all amazing (no surprise there), but I'd rather these luminaries had more to do throughout the film instead of limited to overlong cameo scenese suffering less from Blockbuster Syndrome than Saturday Night Live-itis; just because a scene/skit is moderately-to-surprisingly amusing--and costs less than a million dollars a second because there aren't any robots blowing up--doesn't mean it'll still be funny three minutes later (backyard destruction scene anyone?) when it's still coasting on the initial one joke. But not everything needed to be shorter. Besides the five seconds we get with Buffy alumn Tom Lenk* and the fact that someone from the Man-Thing movie gets to work in Hollywood again**, I think my favorite part was when something action-packed happened. I'm not sure what exactly, because they kept cutting away to more action before I could figure out what was getting hit or exploding, but this movie is so going to rock half-speed in my DVD player. Oh, and the best homage to the early eighties (spoiler here): Remember how in all action or horror films of that entire generation, the minority characters are always the first to die? You know how we've kind of been able to move past that? Well, Nostalgia trumps progress because the the Autobots (good robots) in the movie are Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Ratchet, and Jazz. Okay, even recognizing that ANY racial stereotype (much less the ethnicity of robots and call-center operators) in a Michael Bay movie is more flavor than anything carefully considered, can anyone guess which Autobot doesn't make it to the end of the film? I kid, but this is easily my favorite Michael Bay movie since The Rock, which has long been a guilty pleasure of mine. Still looking for ways to lower the bar even further, but the story's two throughlines came dangerously close to making it into the final movie: You've got the archetypal boy-and-his-car as a catalyst for personal/sexual/spiritual awakening. Not so challenging, but it has potential as the human heart of a robot story. Good choice, there. But more importantly, there's this interesting comment on the xenophobia of our times, almost a cultural middleground to the "communists are among us" horror films of half a century ago (Invasion of the Puppet Master Snatchers, Romero's Night of the Living Dead, So I Married An Axe Murderer) and the "we shouldn't shoot things just because we don't understand them" feel-good movies that Americans were apparently okay with before September 2001 (Spielberg's E.T., Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Predator): Aliens--horrible alien Decepticons--want us dead for reasons we don't understand because of cultural differences and/or cinematic sloppiness. And they live in hiding among us, posing in innocuous parts of our everyday American lives (and sometimes as tanks). But not all aliens who choose to live non-transparent lives are out to get us. In fact, many of them--the Autobots--want to contribute to society. The powers that be are quick to lump the good guys with the bad, and they almost pay a terrible price for their prejudice before coming to their senses because the script said "Stop it, hosers. You're screwing up my third act!". The message is clear: when we round up foreigners, we should at least check for an Autobot insignia on their forearms before detaining them without a trial. But before we dismiss this theme as not saying anything interesting at all, note how we don't get that juxtaposition with the human characters. Non-aliens (Americans) are always cool. As I said, the humans come to their senses and are never _really_ evil, though sometimes they make some small-consequences mistakes. They misunderstand and are misunderstood. But they all pull together to fight the bad robots. There are no evil people colluding with the Decepticons or even trying to steal the maguffin (The All-Spark? Really? Renaming the Energon Cube is going to make us think it's more sophisticated as it defies the laws of physics and story logic?) for themselves. Optimus Prime recognizes humanity's greatness long before the audience does; he's willing to sacrifice his life to save them in a speech (about how he's seen their goodness) that works in the grand structure of an action film, but has little to do with the story's internal logic (because he's only been on the Earth for a few minutes smashing garden gnomes and fighting the still-ignorant powers that be). And there's the other thing we lack. Robots are either inherently good or evil. Where are the ones who are indifferent, or just trying to get by? Would they be considered good (as the humans are)? It's like the opposite of reality and most considered science fiction, where technology isn't good or evil, but instruments of either depending on the human/user intention and use. But don't mind me. I'm still pretty disturbed by that final scene with Optimus Perv staring at Shia LaBeouf and his girlfriend (who throughout the movie delivers a better blank-expression robot impersonation than any of the Autobots) as they make out on Bumblebee's hood. I liked Transformers as a kid. The toys were too expensive and the show elusive (I was not well-organized enough as a kid to schedule my life around the television, not for lack of trying). But the early Bob Budiansky-scripted comics were fun. Which brings me to the most important point: I have no regrets about spending these two hours in the theater. But if Hasbro expects me to sit half so long as that for some hypothetical G.I.Joe movie in the future, then Larry Hama must write it. *Who just disappears along with two of his brethren after they realize they already have four other characters duplicating his computer-person role in the script. **Rachel something, playing one of the two computer people they keep around to the end.
Alex on Celluloid May 24, 2007 So I'm appearing for the second time on Super 16: the music video of Sonny Byrd's "Jackal Pack." I'm the hatted man with a clipboard in a shot which is repeated at various lengths because the camera liked to eat takes (and director Clare Sackler actually uses that "ruined" footage to a cool effect, too). My first attempt to embed a YouTube video, so if it doesn't work out here or on LJ, here's the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUENt9eCYxM
Well She Used to Have a Carefree Mind of Her Own May 23, 2007 So they've gone and canceled Veronica Mars and George Lopez, my favorite current television drama and sitcom, respectively. Usually I'd be a lot more appreciative of an additional hour and a half per week to play with. But everything comes at a cost, I suppose.
The Year Our Brains Turned Against Us April 20, 2007 Thanks for the well-wishes, everybody. Someone asked me how I was doing last night and I didn't cry. That's progress. I was also able to do some writing. Two mutual friends of Jamie, (and the first guys I emailed on Monday, after trying to get in touch with Jamie and Steffi and then learning that a German class was one of the locations hit) have posted remembrances: Michael Jasper and Jason Lundberg. It was Jason who got through to Blacksburg (from Singapore!) and let us know for sure that Jamie died, and equally important: that Steffi was alive. As announced everywhere: a Virginia Tech scholarship has been set up in Jamie's honor. Donation Info. Go rent Run Lola Run. I don't know that it was Jamie's favorite, but it was it was definitely his go-to movie. If we found any narrative film we both enjoyed, inevitably he'd turn the conversation toward a comparison to RLR. And go get some Daredevil comics as long as you're out, specifically Frank Miller's run (available in trade paperback under the Daredevil: Visionaries series. Volume 2, where Miller takes over scripting chores on top of illustration, is where it really takes off) which I know was a favorite of his. One of a few similar emails starting early Tuesday morning because Jamie's blog links to mine: "Please accept my condolences, regarding your friend Jamie Bishop. The television news program, INSIDE EDITION would like to obtain pictures of Jamie, and interviews so that the world will understand who was taken from us yesterday. Please call me at ... as soon as possible. We are under a very early deadline. Our show feeds to satelite at 3pm est. Thank you for your prompt response to this request." Gee, I would have called, but upon receiving this I was too busy throwing up in my mouth. I guess I should be thankful at least that this wasn't how I first heard the news. Now something else to get over with as long as I'm posting (nothing but happiness and light after this, though): By the end of March we started getting cocky about how that "family medical emergency" was all but behind us. Which of course is probably why it's came back with a vengeance. So we're still dealing with that and something else. A few days before that crap came back, my own body got hit with something, too. My left arm and the left half of my face keep going numb on me. The sensation is like when my foot falls asleep. There's a strong tingling and numbness from lip to ear, from elbow to fingertips. It's happened three times where it lasted 12-15 hours, each about a week apart. And there've been "smaller" episodes in between and as recently as this week where I just feel like there's cobwebs on my left eyebrow or my lips are being tickled. The record number of neurologists currently assigned to our collective ailments don't think (in fact, they CONCUR in not thinking that) these things could be related, though personally we haven't stopped looking for possible environmental causes. I've had an EKG (for which they shaved two itchy little patches on my chest), an MRI (and if you want me to sit still as claustrophobia overcomes me, don't shave two itchy little patches in my chest the day before), and an ultrasound in my neck (turns out my neck's a boy neck, though I would have loved my neck no matter what sex it was; I just want it to be healthy). Next week they ultrsound my heart, which sucks because I spent all my ultrasound jokes on my neck just now. No wait, how about: Ultrasound My Heart? Isn't that a Ray Charles song? Eh. So that might be why some of my correspondence sounded depressing before Monday. Was on the fence about sharing, but now I've decided that it's best to combine pity parties rather than spread them out. Because sound-decision-making is the one thing I've got a handle on this week. Really. Please, no armchair diagnoses; I get that enough with my insomnia and inability to whistle. We'll figure it out or we'll live with it. Yeah it's weird and scary but it's the easiest thing I've had to deal with all year. And so far my situation is entirely perceptual (though they didn't outright say I was making it up) and, because all the acronyms came back clean (in fact the exact result in one case was: "we found nothing remarkable," referring to either to my heart or brain...), they don't think I'm in any danger. So yeah. Good thing bad things only come in threes, right?
Christopher James Bishop 1971-2007 April 17, 2007 My friend is dead. Jamie Bishop was a photographer, multimedia artist, and German professor at Virginia Tech. He was among those killed in his classroom on April 16, 2007. He moved to Blacksburg from Carrboro in 2005. We used to meet at his place or at Weaver Street to trade foreign films and comic books. To talk about art and about changing the world with art. He took the photos for my presskit. He was a Telltale contributor. We'd been talking for three years now about collaborating on a comic. His digital art style was in the vein of Dave McKean (see his book covers for Michael Jasper's Gunning for the Buddha and Michael Bishop's Brighten to Incandescence) and we both wanted him to try his hand at sequentials. But he was meticulous. He wasn't going to do something unless he could give it the time to do it right. And the proof is in the work. Here's his online portfolio including some kickass photo galleries. My favorite thing he's ever written was this blog entry from 2005. He said it took him two hours, which explains why he gave up blogging. He liked Carrboro, but I think he loved Blacksburg. Owning a home. Teaching. Last month he was applying for an MFA program in photography and graphic design at Radford, which he'd been talking about at least since January 2006. In december he emailed me some photos of a coffee table he built, "composed of 72 different wooden tiles that I cut and individually painted." He called it one of the most creative things he's ever done. I'll leave them with you.   
Kurt Vonnegut Jr 1922-2007 April 12, 2007 In January I discovered that one of my Vonnegut books was either missing or that I never owned it. I got a lot of my Vonnegut reading from libraries over the years, and I remember in particular paying remarkable fines as a lad for extended looks and listens to his short story collections in hardcover and audio formats. Also in January, I discovered a Barnes and Noble gift card from my in-laws. Niche and esoteric works dominate my to-buy list these days, and here was something Barnes and Noble was actually likely to have in stock. In the "literature" section there was a little sign near the end of the alphabet that said to ask a sales associate for anything Vonnegut. I then checked the science fiction section, but there was nothing there either. I asked at the information desk. They told me they keep it behind the desk up front at checkout. Here I started feeling like I was in one of his stories. Were his comments on society so subversive that even in 2007 we had to handle his novels like hardcore pornography? I asked the cashier for the book like I was asking for a carton of cigarettes. They had it in stock. They had all his books in stock. Of course I had to ask why they were behind the counter. I wanted to know this more than I wanted the book. "We don't know why, but people keep stealing them," she said. "So here and at our South Point store we have to keep them behind the desk." "Just the Vonnegut books?" "No," she said. She raised an eyebrow. "Medical texts, too." So it goes. The author that most shaped who I am as a reader and writer is dead. Shit. I still need him.
Asimov's Alternate Cover January 5, 2007 My friend Ted Hobgood has found an alternate cover to the Febuary 2007 issue of Asimov's! Previous Hobgood gems immortalizing me can be found here and here. Thanks, man!
Find My Work and ComicSpace December 13, 2006 So this is the page you should hit if you want to find out where to find my stuff, online or off. Includes ordering info for "Persistent City" (contributor copies arrived today) and a bunch links. Probably the best-organized page of this site, which tells you where my time needs to go. And I've signed up at ComicSpace (as Alex), kind of a MySpace for Comic Creators. It's in its early days, but I have confidence that it'll turn into something useful. Back when I did Undersweet, ComicSpace's older sister OnlineComics.net was one of the best resources out there for webcomics.
So Put That In Your Talent Pipe And Smoke It October 26, 2006 From BusinessWeek: A Boot Camp For Budding Virtuosos by Burt Helm The Meadowmount School of Music, with alums like Itzhak Perlman, proves that hard work can be more important than raw talent... ...The results were clear-cut, with little room for any sort of inscrutable God-given talent. The elite musicians had simply practiced far more than the others. "That's been replicated for all sorts of things -- chess players and athletes, dart players," says Ericsson. "The only striking difference between experts and amateurs is in this capability to deliberately practice." The group even determined the number of hours musicians must play to compete at the highest professional level -- about 10,000, the equivalent of practicing four hours a day, every day, for almost seven years.
Eddie from Ohio on The Colbert Report? October 15, 2006 So I'm finally getting around to watching last Thursday's Colbert Report and what do I hear during the campaign video for New Jersey Democratic candidate Carol Gay's congressional run? The chords of Stupid American by one of my favorite bands, Eddie From Ohio. (See the segment on YouTube). Not the best song title choice to woo voters, but points for taste, Ms. Gay.
Clarion Epilogue: Look Who's Sucking Blood Now September 23, 2006  Ted Hobgood turns me into a super hero and makes me think twice about ever posting another photo again. You outdid yourself this time, my friend. (Source image by Robert Levy can be found here.)
Kelly Link's "The Girl Detective" August 30, 2006 
Just released a free narration of Kelly Link's story "The Girl Detective" over at Spoken Alexandria. It's the first recording I've done post-Clarion, and my second favorite story in Link's first story collection. Last week my narration of my favorite Link story ("Most of My Friends Are Two Thirds Water") got a mention in The New York Times as "worth downloading" and I guess I felt emboldened.
Pocket-Sized Prayer Trees on eBay August 28, 2006 
My friend, the artist Janet Chui has some beautiful, pocket-sixed prayer tree paintings (along with some other stuff) on eBay this week. Janet and her husband Jason are leaving North Carolina for Singapore next year, and they could probably use the cash and freedom-from-having-to-move-this-stuff-across-Pacific.And if you lose an auction (as I did yesterday), you can always ask Janet whether a print is available for purchase.
Clarion Week 4: My Contribution to Hell Week July 20, 2006
My fourth Clarion story will be critiqued in the circle tomorrow and I just got a chance to see it on paper vs the computer screen. How can anyone miss this many typos just from not printing it out before submitting it? Sorry, all.
Clarion Week 4: Tobias Buckell Visit July 19, 2006
Author and Clarion alumn Tobias S. Buckell came to visit Clarion this weekend. We workshopped in the Cleveland-based Cajun Sushi Hamsters critique group together, and I haven't seen him in about six years. His visit overlapped our last few days of Nancy Kress. A handful of photos after the jump.
Continue reading "Clarion Week 4: Tobias Buckell Visit" Filed Under: Clarion, Journal, Peers & Peerless, Pretty Pictures Clarion Week 1: Superman Returns Mini-Review July 1, 2006 Worst Bryan Singer film ever. Still one of the best movies I've seen this year.
Otherwise Pandemonium Screening at Duke April 28, 2006 Extremely short notice, but I recently got word that a cut of a Otherwise Pandemonium, based on a Nick Hornby short story, will be screened on Duke's campus in Durham around 5:30 today. I may not know where exactly until I actually get there, but I'm posting this more to brag than to encourage anyone else to come. (more after the jump.) 
Continue reading "Otherwise Pandemonium Screening at Duke" Filed Under: Acting, Carrboro Area, Journal, News, Peers & Peerless, Pretty Pictures Octavia Butler 1947-2006 February 26, 2006 Science Fiction and Fantasy author Octavia Butler died yesterday, apparently from a stroke (Shocking, sad news found via Neil Gaimain's blog.) I'm completely floored. Butler is one of the few authors with both short fiction and novels among my favorites. Her short story collection Blood Child and Other Stories changed the way I read and write. Crap crap crap.
Balloon Animals - Online Screening February 25, 2006 Our short comedy Balloon Animals can now be seen at IFC Media Lab!  We shot this film almost a year ago in Carrboro. Watch it! Rate it! Congrats to director Justin Meckes and all other creatives involved.
Guest Blogging at Toby's House February 21, 2006 
Guest blogging at Toby's today, fresh off delivering the last of his Joe Blow Neopro columns at Spoken Alexandria.And today I release Telltale's longest recording yet: Mark Twain's Huck Finn. This better sell well, because I promised the narrator a rather large advance and I don't want to have to dip into my kitten college fund.
Continue reading "Guest Blogging at Toby's House" Filed Under: Audio Projects, Journal, News, Peers & Peerless Getting Past Being Joe Blow Neopro February 1, 2006
Guidevines for Writers December 21, 2005 Meet Guidevines for Writers, a user-editable writer's resource, powered by the same software that runs Wikipedia. 
Today I quietly release the public beta version of Guidevines with 250 modest articles up, and a few of the included resources already getting fleshed out. I don't plan on promoting Guidevines (beyond a casual link or two) or even officially "launching" until January 31, so we'll see what it becomes between now and then based on word of mouth and contributions of visitors.
Rent December 15, 2005 A musical by Jonathan Larson. 
I listened to the two-CD soundtrack of Rent all through college (95-99) and fell in love with it. It's not a perfect musical--unfortunately Larson died before he could give it a good workshop--but it's still wonderfully catchy with engrossing characters and humor. Even the weaker songs work in context and I found myself humming them on campus and at work in the years since.Everything you need (the story, the characters, the humor) is all there in the music and libretto; it's like opera-meets-radio-drama; if radio drama was a more prevelant medium I would say it doesn't even need to be seen.
Filed Under: Journal, Peers & Peerless, World of Importance Narrating for Escape Pod December 8, 2005 My narration of Robots and Falling Hearts by Tim Pratt and Greg Van Eekhout is up today at Escape Pod. It was originally published in Realms of Fantasy.
Continue reading "Narrating for Escape Pod" Filed Under: Audio Projects, Journal, News, Peers & Peerless, Prose and Poetry Fiction: James Van Pelt - The ED SF Project December 2, 2005 This entry is part of The ED SF Project, which seeks to honor the contributions SCI FICTION and its editor Ellen Datlow have made to the SF landscape over the past five years. (more info) 
James Van Pelt cares about people. From his generosity as a teacher--both in the classroom as an instructor, and on online fora where he frequently dispenses writing advice--to his stories concerned less with grand universe-shattering ideas than with the even grander human experience, Van Pelt's is a person-centered science fiction.His SCI FICTION story, "A Flock of Birds," is a post-apocalyptic tale which on the surface seems focused on the materialistic survival of the characters. How does one find food and shelter after civilization collapses? How does one treat or even properly diagnose illness without trained medical professionals among the survivors? All in all, it's a good, well-told yarn.
Continue reading "Fiction: James Van Pelt - The ED SF Project" Filed Under: Journal, Peers & Peerless, Prose and Poetry Anticipate Toby November 30, 2005 Two short stories by SF author Tobias S Buckell up at Telltale today, which means he'll get sandwiched between Walt Whitman and Charles Dickens before the year is out. Poor guy.  Good excuse as any to post this refridgerator magnet design I did last July for a contest to help promote his debut novel. Crystal Rain will be released by TOR Books in February. Preorder now.
TV: Arrested Development's Development Arrested November 11, 2005 Crrrrrrap. I don't watch a lot of TV, but this was 20 minutes I happily gave to the glass teat. Ah well. Not like they ever actually aired the thing. When Fox preempts a show with sports more than twice a month (remember Futurama?) you know it can't last forever.
A Better Comics Submissions Guidelines List November 3, 2005 "One way you won't break in is if you sit around playing video games all day thinking about how cool it'd be if you did break in."As I was preparing the latest update of my Comics Submission Guidelines for Writers, I noticed that Caleb Monroe's Comic Creator Services page has totally eclipsed mine as far as info and links. Aside from a few choice quotes from creators and from the guidelines themselves (the condiments rather than the mystery meat of the page), there's now nothing my list has to offer that you won't find at Caleb's site. This is a good thing. As I told Caleb when he first contacted me: if only I'd known about his site back in August (he launched his page just before I added mine to this site), I never would have had to dig up all that info in the first place. And now his thoroughness means there's no point in me continuing my version of the guidelines list. From now on, I'm heading to his site when I want updated information. Thanks to those who emailed me with updates and new markets. And thanks especially to Caleb for making my life easier. If you thought my page was a valuable resource, take a gander at all the links he's dug up (and not just for writers). "...if I could do it, anyone can. No two people ever break in the exact same way, though, so it's going to take a little imagination and a lot of persistence."
Rosa Louise Parks (1913-2005) October 25, 2005 Sister Rosa Parks was tired one day, after a hard day on her job. When all she wanted was a well-deserved rest, Not a scene from an angry mob. A bus driver said, "Lady, you got to get up cuz a white person wants that seat." But Miss Rosa said, "No, not no more. I’m gonna sit here and rest my feet." Thank you Miss Rosa, you are the spark. You started our freedom movement. Thank you Sister Rosa Parks. -The Neville Brothers Learn about Rosa Parks at Wikipedia.
Music: The Moxy of Fruheadedness October 16, 2005 Mister Sugar (Anton Zuiker) just emailed out a call for Tar Heel Tavern entries about tee shirts, which is as good an excuse as any to talk about my favorite band.  Hard to believe, but a few years ago Ebay, Amazon, and Craig's List didn't yet make it quite as easy to find everything you wanted online. To get the more obscure albums of a Canadian band like Moxy Fruvous, you had to find a Canadian retailer with an online presence and phone number listed and then make something called a "phone call" to place your order. This is how I first got my hands on the albums B and Wood, as well as the tee shirt you see at the top of this article. The CDs--as you can see by the links--now ship within 24 hours at Amazon.com. But it didn't end there. Because the Canadian retailer would then send you a baseball cap and album for a rival Canadian band you'd never heard about. So you'd call them and ask what's up and they'd say they would look into it, and then a few days later they'd get back to you and say how they accidentally sent your order to some woman in Maine and how you must have gotten her order. So they gave you her address and asked you would you please ship it to this person, and she would mail you your tee shirt and albums. And you had a sneaking suspicion they were using you somehow in an international drug smuggling operation but you didn't know how exactly.
Continue reading "Music: The Moxy of Fruheadedness" Filed Under: Journal, Peers & Peerless, Vanity Smurf The Eddie From Ohio RV on the Market October 8, 2005 Last month, Julie Murphy Wells of the incredible Virginia-based Eddie from Ohio was diagnosed with breast cancer. Today they announced that her surgery was successful and the tumor had not spread to her lymph nodes. Which is great news, all things considered. EFO has understandably canceled a number of their shows, including the one at Cat's Cradle in October, and, as Julie undergoes therapy, they will not be able to tour in future months as much as anticipated. So their 1-year-old RV named Hazel is now for sale online.
Continue reading "The Eddie From Ohio RV on the Market" Filed Under: Journal, Peers & Peerless Girl in the Clubhouse October 7, 2005 Now here is a fun, well-written new comics column at CBR by writer Johanna Stokes: GITCH. So you've gone and got yourself a girlfriend. Congratulations. And she's the real deal. She's seen the toys (even if she hasn't touched them cause you told her you don't like that) and she's seen the video games (and has come to accept that playing "Halo" on the X-box is the closest you're going to get to any real exercise.) She's darn near perfect. There's just one thing. Your new love doesn't get along with your first love-- Comics.
DSI Opens Friday in Carr Mill Mall October 4, 2005 Seen on the sidewalk, across from Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, NC:  Welcome home, guys. I blogged about Dirty South Improv last month. DSI in Carr Mill Mall (entrance on the outside ofthe building, between Elmo's Diner and the CVS) opens October 7. Multiple performances each weekend night to accommodate your militant schedule! Classes on weeknights to help make you funny! Give them some love! (DSI Website)
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