Category: PERSONAL

Thailand: A Short History (2nd Edition) by David K. Wyatt

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History is not just a procession of Great Men, kings and generals and high priests. We all know this, we insist upon it. Yet it is difficult to tell the story of history without discussing these figures, not only because we know so much more about them than we do about the commoners for so much of history, but also because of the degree to which their decisions, agendas, and problems influenced, shaped, and determined the lives of those around them. When we want to know something of a particular historical period, history becomes a Shakespearean play, complete with clowns, …

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Rilke

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Oops! Wow, I can’t believe I forgot to include the two books of Rilke in translation that I read on my list of books read from 2009. This is a serious omission, since 2009 was the year that I finally really discovered Rilke. If you’re interested in what I have to say about those books, I’ve added my thoughts to the post, and you can click through to see what I had to say. But for here, I’ll just say that I came to Rilke because of a conversation I had recalling a few lines from one of the letters …

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Can’t Get No by Rick Veitch

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Warning: if you’re one of those people who hates spoilers, and you haven’t read this comic, then I don’t know what to tell you. Seek out a spoiler-free review, I guess, or read it. I don’t give away the whole store, but I do discuss the plot somewhat, as I need to do to say anything coherent about this book. This is one of those comics where I could just say, “I’m not sure I understood what this was about,” because I want to avoid the fact that I sort of understood, but had problems with the book, and yet …

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An End to Passwords?

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Yeah, the French government apparently wants to do away with Internet passwords. They’ve teamed up with a bunch of companies. The idea seems to be that you could use a digital certificate instead. Which sounds curiously like a system thought up by people who are scared of and vaguely uncomfortable with the Internet. Hey, wait, that’s exactly how Korean Internet Banking works! (Except with outdated ActiveX controllers which I hope the French government isn’t foolilsh enough to get tied up with.) Mind you, the 공인인증서 — the Korean equivalent of this kind of certificate that is basically a domestic online …

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A Robot Dream

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Last night I dreamed of robots; big, huge, slightly abstract impressionist robots made out of lattices of material; huge, primary-colored lattices of stuff. They were fighting. Laser blasts. Projectiles — more of this primary colored lattice-stuff. They were shouting at one another in weird, digitizal-static voices that sounded like a parody of the voices of human beings. I took cover, but while I was safe from the laser blasts and projectiles, those voices were inescapable. I listened, trying to figure out what they were saying, but it was no use. It soon became apparent that they were exchanging way more …

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Remix Ubiquitous & on the Jakartan Mall

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Of all the songs that one might have expected to hear remixed in an almost endless variety of forms — swing jazz, strings & voice, glittery upbeat techno –this is the last song I thought would start following me around Indonesia. By the way, what the hell was with the original mix video? It sucks in a large variety of ways, so much so that I daren’t get started on it: (Update: Okay, if there’s any more proof that anyone can do anything, one of the main members of Black Box was a classically trained clarinet teacher., says Wikipedia. Sure, …

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“Melei” on Locus List!

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Well, I was just alerted by my pal Maura McHugh that my story, “Of Melei, of Ulthar” (which appeared in Clarkesworld‘s October issue, #37) was honored with a place among the many wonderful works (at least, the ones I’ve read were wonderful!) on the Locus 2009 Recommended Reading List. Yay, Melei! I’d get into a detailed analysis of the list, except that I have other crap to do, so I’ll navel gaze momentarily instead, and note that I just realized that both of the stories I published laast year featured female protagonists with names ending with the letter i. Two’s …

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True Story…

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UPDATE (5:45 am, local time): BLAM! BLAM BLAM BLAM! Die, you zombie project! Die! BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM. BLAM. BLAM BLAM. There, I think it’s dead. Off to bed. ORIGINAL POST: True story: the paraphrased correspondence between one freelancer and his so-called editor (as patiently translated, or at least paraphrased, by his collaborator): (A few months ago.) Editor: This passage, about the chess game. We like it, but… can someone really win a chess game in five moves? Freelancer: Yup. Apparently you can win in just two moves.  I Googled it. I’m a pro, okay? Here’s a link. Editor: (Without …

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Not to be Draconian, But…

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There really should be a death penalty for having a car alarm and not running out to turn it off when it’s set off. I think a deadline of two minutes is probably fair. Soon enough, people would rig the car alarm to call the person’s phone and it could be reset remotely. (Since usually a car with an alarm doesn’t end up getting stolen, right?) Okay, it’s draconian — a death penalty is over the top in this case and should be reserved for things like murder or pedophilia or drunk driving or being a pop star comparable to …

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Apex Story of the Year Poll — Last Weekend to Vote!

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For those who read Apex this past year, but haven’t voted yet in the first annual Apex year’s best story poll: this weekend is your last chance to vote for whichever story you liked best. Which may or may not have been my short story, “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands” but if it was, I sure appreciate your vote! (The full list of stories is here, in case you want to check out the rest…)

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