Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Thumping

Something primordial in me hears and feels the bass thumping in the ceiling and immediately calls up a memory of big guns, something from the First World War. In a moment, I feel back in the Air and Space Museum in DC, surrounded by dioramas of mud and barbed wire, feeling in my chest the atmospheric booming of simulated guns. I am in awe at the sheer creative power of mankind, a creativity that seems to be best harnessed for destruction, as though the human race was a single maddened ouroboros, eternally feeding on itself.

I read in an essay by a student yesterday that no human should ever take the life of another; my heart rebelled against it. Which of us would not, in a fury born of rage or justice, make himself the embodiment of retribution? The ability to take a life is as much a part of man as his strong right arm; power over life and death is as vital as breath, as primal as the heartbeat of thumping in the ceiling. If we choose not to, be it weakness or strength, it is not because we could or should not.

I curse any man who, if his child was in danger, would not put his hand upon the gun. We are born to the timelessness of violence, the eternity of a life consumed in another's choice; it is more ancient than speech.

Perhaps all of this is barbaric and vile, but something about an angry bass thumping brought it out in me so quickly and so clearly that I had to put it down.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

RMMLA, Part 2: The Gathering

(This one feels sloppier than the first; it's longer, too. I should chop back pieces.)

The change from the bent-backed gamblers around their machines, the forests of improbably dyed hair seemingly torn from 1980's television, to the calm of the conference level is enough to leave me speechless. Tables assembled through the long room are lined carefully with pamphlets and books available for anyone to take free, provided they write a review. The few people wandering around are mostly middle-aged but academically handsome, their large white name tags pinned to their suit jackets or hung around their necks on a line. The rooms adjoining the lobby have whimsical names like Paiute, Hospitality, and Shoshone, but each is filled with padded chairs facing toward the presenters. Each table comes with plastic cups and plastic pitchers filled mostly with ice. On the podium, a gaudy, starry logo reminds me where I am.

A girl who looks no older than me greets my mother and gives her a folder, handing me my own embossed white folder without asking my name and giving me the choice between a blue tote or purple: it's hardly a choice. After I clip the nametag to my favorite red shirt, I notice that even most of the men wear their tags around their necks, careful not to ruin their dress shirts. Ironically, this is the last time I will wear my red shirt; it's fated to be destroyed in the wash just after I return from Reno.

As my mother and I walk past the escalator that brought us to the conference level, we pass a pair of women, and my mother stops and exclaims that they're speaking Hungarian. Backtracking, we greet the women, who smile and say they saw the names on our tags and decided to speak Hungarian loudly to see, employing what seems to be a sure Hungarian summons. I have experienced this effect before, as complete strangers approached my family in foreign countries, greeting us like old friends because we share this little language.

They introduce themselves as Helga and Martika. Martika is a little younger than I am, an undergraduate from UC Berkeley, fair skinned and dark haired. Helga is closer to my mother's age, blonde and striking. They, along with a woman we haven't met yet, will be presenting on the Hungarian panel my mother is the chair for. I stand nearby. It's not just my shyness about attempting a language I speak at most with two people regularly with strangers, but my lack of familiarity with the topics and cultures of both conferencing academia and Hungarian literature. In Reno as well as in Hungary, I am a stranger, watching and understanding but not quite present, a projection of a self I left back in Utah.

We go to dinner soon, a rather bland affair at a dining room that's part high school cafeteria, part Reno bar. The highlight is chicken wings. I keep an eye out for two friends from the University, but I don't see them, and I end up pulling a chair to the end of a small table my mother, the two other Hungarians, and a French lady share. They talk; I mostly eat. When I turn in my voucher for one free drink at the bar and ask for water, I get a bottle of plastic bottle that holds at most one cup. A group of half-drunk academics at the next table talk loudly over the introductory announcement, making sniggering jokes about the tiny woman speaking not being loud enough, not that it matters to them whether they hear or not. From what I overhear, they're not wrong, although I dislike them no less for it; it's the same welcome speech I could hear at any gathering of like-minded people, full of automatic praise for those who helped arrange it. After dinner, my mother and I walk Martika back to her hotel, every bit as bizarre as our own.

I meet my mother and the Hungarians the next day in the conference center lobby. Martika's parents are there as well, having come from California to see her present, and her father tells me stories about the Hungarian language and its influence on the world. They are outrageous, making the thinnest connections between similar words; I wonder if he himself believes a word of it, or if he just wants to see how I'll react. I am polite but noncommital, careful not to be the fool.

My own panel begins at the same time as the Hungarian panel, so I excuse myself and plunge again through the sea of tacky carpeting, the slot machines like flotsam from a wrecked alien ship that these shabby gamblers tinker at like a Baby Boomer cargo cult. I walk past whole fast-food restaurants built into the casino, the familiar sight of a Quiznos momentarily jarring. There is no-one there but a bored clerk; it's too early in the day for the patrons to need refueling.

When I walk in, the rest of the panelists and most of the audience have already taken their places. I am not late, but it feels like it. A middle-aged woman is the chair of this panel. She introduces herself as Patrice and invites me to sit. We would go in the order of the brochure, which means I am first to read. I slip my stapled paper from my bag, glancing over the hasty revisions in pen, and mentally gird my loins for battle. My two friends, fellow grad students from the English department, smil at me, sitting in the back row and half-hidden behind others. The French lady from dinner is here as well.

To my astonishment, Patrice skips me and first introduces the stunning blonde sitting beside me, a PhD student I remember as Isabella (whether or not that was her name), with a soft accent I am unable to place. I feel like a child who has had a new present he isn't yet sure he likes suddenly snatched away. As she reads a paper about the combination of the Western and science fiction genres in Joss Whedon's Firefly, Patrice nudges me and apologizes for going out of order. Nothing to be done about that now but to sit and enjoy the brief reprieve mingled with extended expectation.

I enjoy the Firefly essay, feeling the little furry fanboy inside me purring. Then, in a long blur like a streak of muddy paint across canvas, I read my essay. "William Gibson is awesome. I want to be like William Gibson," I feel I am repeating over and over. The next reader is what I will later, uncharitably, refer to as a 'character,' advertising her Harry Potter parody books and even offering her card and bookmarks before her presentation. She presents, as my honor grudgingly requires me to admit, an altogether solid reading exploring the heroine's journey in fantasy literature. Patrice reads last, a fascinating exploration of a possible inspiration for Superman: a pulp science fiction story about a girl from Mars published a few years before the first Superman story was written.

I fear one question in the question and answer session after the readings, and I think I can see it lurking in one of the corner seats, crouching and clutching a black cloak around itself, ready to leap up and unveil itself as soon as the tension in my neck is enough to snap tendons. I wait for the question to come, putting out my own answers as best I can with half my mind occupied with watching for my shadowy nemesis. I know it was gathering in the back of every mind there, "Do you see your thesis applying to other modern science fiction writers?" And I have my plan: I will jump onto the table, whip off my shirt like Conan, and exclaim with my fist in the air, "I have no idea. No idea whatsoever! Suck on that, academics! Suck on it!"

To my astonishment, the question does not come. As we file out of the room, I think I catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure giving me the thumbs-up on its way out the door. Instead, I have a very pleasant conversation about Firefly, fantasy, and science fiction. When it is over, I bid a hazy-headed farewell to my compatriots and return into the bowels of Harrah's. In my stunned state, the gamblers hardly matter. My mother's panel is over by the time I slide up the escalator out of the soupy morass of casino, but we have a pleasant conversation afterwards, and my mother marks me down as having been in attendance for her total count; a little dishonest, but Hungarian studies are not as popular as science fiction. There were more than a dozen to hear me babble about William Gibson, but less than half that to hear my mother's panel.

Lunch is a fairly excellent salmon I enjoy in the company of my new friends of the Hungarian panel. The highlight isn't the speech, a tepid affair discussing gambling in classic French literature, but the dessert: a creamy mousse in a chocolate egg. If I wasn't so stuffed, I'd steal the desserts set at the unoccupied spaces at the table.

The rest of the conference descends in a mist. I enjoy a panel on medieval romance, although I have read none of them. Something about medievalists, perhaps, makes them excellent storytellers, and I am as eager to hear the next part of each story as I am to hear their interpretation of it. I next endure an 18th Century Literature panel. The best part is a middle-aged man in sneakers and an outrageous Texas accent who has difficulty pronouncing the words in his own paper, a confusing muddle about Jane Eyre and Paradise Lost. I don't think Charlotte Bronte ever imagined snatches of her prose being read in the manner of a Baptist preacher, all gesticulation, pitch rising and falling. I look at my mother, who sits beside me, grinning like a hyena. She says if she looks at me she'll break out laughing. In the question session, someone manages to weasel out that our Texan friend wrote his essay at the suggestion of a friend and doesn't fully grasp the concept himself. He is the most honest person at the conference.

I have dinner with my friends, my mother, and Agnes, the final member of the panel my mother chairs. The next day, my mother's presentation is attended by three people, the panel being composed of three and the chair. Late nights of revision and worry take their toll; I have already fallen asleep several times; once at 18th Century Lit, twice at Shakespeare, and I struggle to remain politely awake. My mother's friend, Denice from the local University, has earrings and enthusiasm in abundance. In her leather jacket, she is perhaps the most comfortable of all of us. She is more used to Reno than I am, but it's more than that; she sees the conference, not the slot machines, not the giant plastic leprechaun. At the end of the panel, we say our goodbyes and start home.

There is something unnatural about the conference, something that the greater weird of Reno mutes but doesn't quite squelch. We are strangers, never seeing each other before or since. At most, we breathe the same air once a year. We all come to read, to bolster our curricula vitae, to justify the letters before and after our names. When it's over, the papers go in the bin and we go back to our schools. It is a gathering as ephemeral as a city built in the desert.

We stop at a Burger King, and I get a Whopper. Although I'm fond of their greasy taste, it is perhaps the worst Whopper I've ever had. Even the meat in Reno tastes fake.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

So Much for Frugal Republicans

Yeah, the Republicans sure know how to manage the budget.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/22/america/palin.php

With that much money, I think even I'd make a hot woman.

Now there's a mental image that might cost you $150,000 in counseling to get rid of.

Enjoy

Well, I'm not really one for giddy Internet zaniness, especially something that involves a lot of cut and paste (I mean control-c control-p; I like real art). But then again, I thought I would give this a shot, just for a lark/because I have better things to do but don't want to do them.




My good friend, who is a better poet than I am, 'invited' me to give this a try, and never let it be said I backed down from being 'tagged,' whether by a friend or by an eight year old who doesn't know he's three seconds away from having his face smeared across the concrete like the mop that's going to go through the mess he leaves.

Here's the sordid tale, brought to you by even more copy and paste:

Create a mosaic based on the following questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite autumn food?

3. What was your favorite movie?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your favorite celebrity?

6. Favorite autumn drink?

7. Dream Vacation?

8. Favorite dessert?

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

10. Your favorite Flower?

11. One word to describe you.

12. Favorite Fall activity.


The instructions to create the mosaic are:

Type your answers to each of the questions intoFlickr Search

Using only the first page, pick an image

Copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Cyberpunk Soon?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7676552.stm
In the cyberpunk novel I wrote last November for National Novel Writing Month (and haven't brushed up since, despite "meaning to" ever since), the characters can either plug a computer directly into their brains or, if they're not ready for that step, wear a headset that both sends and receives information.

Well, this isn't quite up to that point yet, but a headset that can act as an input (but, sadly, not yet an output) device is definitely getting there.

I don't know whether I'll do National Novel Writing Month this year. It really depends on how many of my friends decide to do it. In this case, I'll definitely just follow the crowd. If it feels like most people are passing it up, don't want to do it, or aren't really serious about it, I don't think I will put in the effort. But we'll see.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Appaloosa

A surprisingly intelligent and complicated Western, Appaloosa will hopefully be a sign that we can still make new, compelling Westerns after Unforgiven took all the old tropes out back and put them out of their misery. It's a rich time in American history, and quite possibly the nearest thing we have to samurai stories (as the rich cross-pollination between the two genres shows), medieval stories notwithstanding.

The film constantly surprised and pleased me by taking the more difficult and fresh path. Although I never saw a trailer for it and it's not being widely shown, I strongly recommend you go see this if you like mature films that give you plenty to ponder.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Drafting

Version 1: Oblique

Dear neighbor,
I believe the prolonged and loud banging on my wall I have experienced intermittently over the last few weeks is coming from your apartment. I hope that you will find whatever is making this noise and correct it, as it is becoming increasingly obnoxious to me.

Version 2: Sarcastic

Dear neighbor,
I am pleased to hear, frequently and at great length and intensity, that you and your significant other(s) are enjoying a healthy relationship. I hope that I can continue to experience the world of auditory delight that this provides me, as it has kept me from resting or working excessively, which I would otherwise tend to do.

Version 3: Direct

Please move your bed away from the wall.

Version 4: Angry

Hey, asshole,
I have had it with the almost daily racket coming from your apartment. Your lack of regard for your neighbors is disgraceful. I am embarrassed to have company over because of you. If this continues, I'm going to do something about it.

Version 5: Gangsta

Yo.
If your bed don't stop rockin', I'm gonna come knockin'.

Monday, October 13, 2008

The Wasp

As I was watching a documentary about Akira Kurosawa, a wasp almost the size of my thumb flew up from the heating grate of my room and, after flying around the ceiling, circled the lamp before landing in its dish. After a few seconds of cooking under the four lightbulbs, the wasp zoomed out, bounced off several walls, and finally came to rest in the shadow of my chair. It did this again a few minutes later, and again, before flying off to try its love with the cooler fluorescent lamp in the kitchen instead.

There was something very appropriate about that wasp while I was watching Kurosawa.

RMMLA, Part 1: Nevada Blues

It's not hard to imagine Nevada without the highway and the power lines. The road stretches contentedly through the sagebrush, as straight as a path across ice. To either side, beyond a chain-link fence I could easily hop, the level, scraggly brush sweeps slowly upwards toward the snow-dusted mountains in the distance. With a little more imagination, I can see Wyatt Earp or Clint Eastwood, steely-eyed and watchful for danger, riding a weary horse through the featureless landscape. This is what the American West really looks like: plants that are neither really alive nor dead, the skeletal dream of green life shrunken into brittle points by the sun.

We pass through a canyon, the wind whipping through the plastic that covers one broken window, roaring into the cabin and making us shout to talk. We turned the radio off countless miles ago; one mile or ten seems to pass with the same speed, as though the desert isn't crossed by time or distance but by will and humility, an accession to its endlessness. Time is a solid entity here; it has shaped the rocks into chunks, standing like soap whittled by an attentive boy's sharp knife. The towns we pass are few, sleepy restaurants with names like "Rita's Diner" handpainted on the peeling eaves. Now and then, a blue sign announces how many miles it will be before the next service station or rest stop. Here, it's important to pace yourself, like a Pony Express rider judging the time and energy between posts.

In the dark, it's hard to tell whether the dark, low shapes on the side of the road are cows or just trees. The car's headlamps don't penetrate the restful darkness. It's a time for deep thoughts and long conversations. I call my brother and we talk about things without any intention of arriving at understandings or resolutions. It is a conversation we might have had a hundred fifty years ago on horseback, feeling the steady motion of flesh between us and the sun-baked ground, weaving unhurriedly between bushes of blue-black sage. I'm just pleased to talk to someone, to hear my voice, proof that I still exist. Chapped white tumbleweeds roll across the road surprisingly quickly, as though unaware that they are cliche; the wind is strong enough to shiver the car.

After hours in the desert, Reno makes a kind of sense, a child's dream of the big city: all lights and flamboyance without enthusiasm or meaning. It's grand without class, and a giant sign proclaims in bold block letters: "Welcome to Reno, the biggest little town in the world!" It reminds me of red light districts I've passed through: attention is everything, as though, if everyone looked away, Reno would blow away and fade back into the desert it's meant to be, just another lonely stretch on the highway.

We stay at the Fitzgerald's hotel/casino, across the street from Harrah's, the hotel/casino at which the conference will be held. The "/casino" is ubiquitous; there are slot machines in the gas stations. A giant plastic leprechaun greets me at the entrance to Fitzgerald's; I weave between blackjack tables and slot machines on my way to the elevators. The room looks just like every other hotel room one stays in for between fifty and a hundred dollars a night; beds, color TV, coffee maker, bathroom. The wallpaper is peeling where years of chair backs have scraped it off; a plastic sheet at chair-level failed to prevent it. The remote for ordering pay-per-view is a repurposed Nintendo 64 controller; it still has the Nintendo logo on it. I pick it up and run my fingers over the controls, feeling my fingers and thumbs slide into a position they haven't been in in years, remembering Goldeneye and Perfect Dark as a teenager.

I step outside into the bitter cold, feeling my nose, ears, and fingers complain first after I leave the blast of hot air projected from the casino's ceiling. Less than ten feet from the entrance, a man asks if I can give him 43 cents. I tell him no and he tells me to have a good day. Across the street, street art in the form of oversized gambling chips adorn the corner. A few steps away, a man is curled up on his side, trying to sleep.

There is no class in Harrah's or even attempt at class. Patrons walk around in sneakers and T-shirts. Most of them are elderly, backs bent and faces pressed close to the game screens. Seeing so many quarter-driven machines without Street Fighter or Area 51 in sight makes me uneasy; it feels basically wrong. A group of Latinos talk loudly over the sound of a horserace; the announcer excitedly follows the progress of horses and the chariot-like carriages they pull. I don't know what this sport is called. The youngest people here are the waitresses, who look like teenagers in tiny black skirts and black stockings. I try to imagine what resolve it must take to stand peacefully in clothes like that, holding a tray stock-steady on an escalator surrounded by shuffling patrons. As I go down one escalator, an animated board announces a card tournament, intercutting a lively game with pictures of the busts of hardly-dressed women. Youth and beauty seem out of place here.

In the morning, thick flakes of snow blow past my window, hinting cars and buildings like spraypaint. A few blocks from my hotel, bridges cross a quickly flowing river. The water tumbles over itself; it is secure in its self-knowledge. That is something the rest of the city does not know.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Robert Wrigley PS

One of my colleagues suggested that Robert Wrigley looks more like Robert De Niro than Al Pacino, and, on reflection, I'm inclined to agree. Let it be known that the award-winning poet Robert Wrigley is now no longer Al Pacino in my book.

He's Robert De Niro.

Special Delivery

The internet has yet again poured onto my unsuspecting head a shining nugget of something completely worthless and yet irresistably, inexplicably awesome. It's given me something I never thought possible. Of course, it could be complete crap, but if it's true, then Ronnie James Dio once covered Jethro Tull. This is supposed to be a recording (a very crappy recording, which only cements its authenticity) that purports to be from Dio's days in the band Elf (or Elves, according to whoever put up the video).

You be the judge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYx6JJutH04

One thing's clear, it's not a Tull recording, so I guess someone must have recorded a cover of Aqualung at some point. And that's kind of cool. I guess.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The writer Brandon Schrand

... is much shorter than I expected. He came to the school to meet with students and read from his work. The selections he read from his work were excellent; he read a few chapters from Ender's Hotel, his memoir about growing up in the hotel his family owned and managed. He also read from a new book he's writing, which is a memoir in the form of an extended annotated bibliography. Apparently, he was really into pot and Morrison when he was younger, which he humorously insisted was fictional, since his mother-in-law was in the audience. He also seemed to like my question; I asked what he would say to young people who don't feel they've had much life experience who are looking to write nonfiction. He replied that everyone can tie their work in with the greater human experience and thereby make it meaningful. He also encouraged us to find the meaning in everyday life; just because we haven't experienced weird stuff or had great tragedy befall us doesn't mean we can't write something that speaks to the human condition.

Good on you, Brandon Schrand. Good on you.

Back to working on my essay about William Gibson. The more I write, the more I'm convinced I'm just full of it. Sigh. Excelsior!

Netflix Charges Extra for Blu-Ray

Dear [Bluefish],

As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies. As a result, we're going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.

The additional charge for unlimited Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for $1 a month more, you don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.

If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.

-The Netflix Team


I don't like this. I don't like this at all. I have a beautiful high-definition television and a Blu-ray player (my PS3), so I enjoy watching the remarkable clarity that is Blu-ray every now and then. On the other hand, I love old movies, Asian films, and esoteric films, none of which are generally available in Blu-ray format. I watch a Blu-ray movie perhaps once every other month, so as things stand, I would be paying two dollars extra for the chance to watch the higher definition.

I don't want to give up watching Blu-ray but I don't want to pay more for my Netflix membership. Aar! By me hook, this be encouragin' me to try fishin' in another of the seven seas.

Now, for a little analysis. To me, this suggests that Blu-ray isn't catching on, or else it would be moving toward becoming the dominant, standard medium rather than the one we pay extra for. What's preventing it? I think it's probably three things. First, people still don't have Blu-ray players and/or HD TVs. Second, most movies are still only on DVD, which means Blu-ray is more an occasional treat than a meat-and-potatoes experience. Third, streaming video over the internet is starting to compete with solid-form (VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray) media.

Does this mean Blu-ray will be the last big format that you can touch? Or will the next big thing pass Blu-ray by, like DVD did laserdisk? Or will, perhaps, Blu-ray catch on as the format becomes more common? Only time will tell, my friends. Only time will tell.

What's Bluefish's prediction? Blu-ray won't catch on and we'll get a new major media form in the next twenty years, within which time high-speed internet will be so widespread (and so fast) that streaming HD will be possible and solid-form media will fall away.