My memory is starting to give out. Last year, I was able to keep track of everything that was happening in all of my classes without any trouble. Now, in all the classes for which I have two sections, I have mixed up at least something in each class. Of course, I should be keeping notes, and I’m going to start doing so again, but this distresses me. I also mixed up the bio of several well-known authors in an online crit group, have addressed people by other people’s names, and even gone to the wrong classroom for class. (Though, …
Category: GENERAL
Why Diamonds? Evolution, Instinctual Niches, Advertising, and the Killer App…
Editorial Note (7 March 2015): This post has been edited from its original form. Basically, the original post triggered a year of rampant, but off-and-on, trolling and discussion derailing (some of it under bizarre pseudonyms, a lot of it passive-aggressive, some of it quite lunatic) by the person whose own blog post prompted the thoughts here. It was bewildering, and not fun. In the end, I decided to negotiate a peace with the nut: I’d erase the evidence of his crazyass trolling, and he’d take down ridiculous slander he’d posted elsewhere. Despite not liking that — I don’t enjoy helping people be nasty with impunity — …
Rachmaninov & Professor Whitney
Sometimes, I write in silence. It’s useful for me when I need to shut everything out and just figure out what’s going to happen next. Of course, sometimes what I really need is to get myself into an emotional space so that I can feel where the story is supposed to go. This is where I’ve found that listening to music I don’t know, on a repeating loop, is surprisingly helpful. Lime’s a big fan of Rachmaninov, or at least his piano music, but I’m not… not really. However, she loaned me a double-CD compilation of different pianists performing various …
Summer Block Kumar
I was wandering about the web this afternoon, during my lunchless lunch break, trying to relax off my morning busywork, when I found a link at Alllooksame to the blog of Summer Block Kumar, which was praised as a blog about China. Anyway, one of the first posts I came across had a cool snippet of information about music and Russian serfs, from a book that’s on my shelf but as yet unread: “Serfs were essential to the Sheremetev palaces and their arts . . . Many of these serfs were sent abroad or assigned to the court to learn …
Things For Looking
Via the flea king, a funky video on the inner lives of cells. (Though I’d love to see an annotated version.) And via Ellen Datlow, very cool book art. (I like it, anyway. Lime’s not impressed.)
Teacher Fired for Sane Comment About Biblical Literalism… But…
Link found somewhere: A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday. “I’m just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master’s degree, a couple actually, have …
The Egan Thief… and a Mention on BoingBoing?
Apparently so. A netfriend alerted me via my much-neglected Facebook account. Sure, just in passing, but it’s still cool. Why? Rudy Rucker published the new issue (#4) of his SF webzine Flurb and my story, “The Egan Thief,” is among those in the latest selection of tasty treats. (This marks my third SF publication, and is very very cool to have it at such a cool venue.) And there are some very, very tasty treats there, so go give everything a look.
Like a Berserk Headless Gopher on a Rampage
Which is one stage of busier than “as a bee.” Two major chunks of editing down, and one more to go (in the short term, anyway). Then I’ll be able to get back to writing my own stuff.
Up He Pops
It’s been an insanely busy week, and weekend. Lots of editing work going on writing now, and between that and keeping up with crits, I am not getting much productive work done on writing. (I’m writing, it’s just not usable or productive.) Anyone who’s commented here, or sent email, don’t be alarmed. I’m just dreadfully busy. It should be calming down some in the next week or so. I think. Meanwhile, I’ve had a look at the draft of the SF story I was so happy about — the one I’ve been working on for about 8 years — and …
2 Cans of… What?!?
I was swooping around the Net this afternoon, searching for useful recipes. Lime and I got ourselves a little oven, not a full-sized one but a bit bigger than a toaster oven — big enough to roast a chicken inside it, for example, but too small for a turkey. Anyway, I noticed something about the recipes some people post. One of them is that anyone who includes ketchup as an ingredient in any recipe, I don’t need to ever look at any other recipe he or she posts — they’re all going to be unlikely to appeal to me. The …