Category: Connections

March 3, 2006 /

Kelly Link describes her stories as “kitchen-sink magic realism,” which I can understand, because the moment you say “fantasy” people think Robert Jordan and their ears shut down. Conversely, in her own words, “people hear ‘magic realism’ and they think ‘oh, like those Gabriel Garcia Marquez stories where people fly.'” (Everybody read exactly one magic realism story in high school, and that was it.)

Anyway, if I thought I could get away with it, I’d call Anacrusis “Kelly Link magic realism.” Look, it almost rhymes.

California game update

February 26, 2006 /

My uncle John offers a rhyming take on Atlantis, and my mom gently reminds me that of course I didn’t invent the form: both “California” and the game were inspired by a picture book she read us when we were young, called Whose Mouse Are You, by Robert Kraus.

Also, saved from the LJ comment thread:

Will:Where is Atlantis? Under the sea.

What’s under the sea? Not you, and not me.

Well then, where are we? The internet.

How’d we get there? Zeroes and ones.

What do those stand for? Video fun.

What is flypaper?

Me: Sweetness that kills.

David: What can’t be killed?

Scott: Everything dies.

Josh: Why do they die?

William: They run out of time.

Beth: What is time?

Kevan: Memory. [Then, because of a crosspost:] Curse you, time!

Ken: What time is it?

Stephen: It’s hamburger time.

David: Do hamburgers rhyme?

Scott: Not on my dime.

Me: OKAY NEW ONE. What is a curse?

Scott: Bad karma, realized.

William: How is it realised?

Ken: Through the teachings of the Maharishi.

Beth: What is the Maharishi?

Me: A teacher of hunger.

Scott: Where is the hunger?

David: In the bowels of the cursed…

Which seems like a neat place for a cutoff.

How many is seven?

February 25, 2006 /

Hey, who wants to come see the New Pornographers open for Belle and Sebastian at the Brown, March 9th? We have an extra ticket that can be yours for the discounted price of thirty dollars. Plus, the band is coming back to our place after the show! That’s a lie! I lied.

Gene Wolfe is a curbstomper

February 23, 2006 /

I got these new dress shoes a while ago, where “dress shoes” is defined as “the shoes that are not my sneakers,” and man, they are some shitkickers. They’re semigloss black leather with rivets around the lace holes. The soles are like an inch thick with a deep tread, and I’m pretty sure they have steel toes. We’re basically talking about a boot with the calf cut off here. I like them a lot, although the laces are fraying really quickly.

The reason I offer this description is so that I can properly explain what Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun is doing to me. Everybody talks about Wolfe, of course, but they talk about him in the same vein as the SFWA Grand Masters, of whom only Le Guin is interesting. I checked out the Book of the New Sun as a kind of homework assignment, but when I opened it, it commenced immediately (and has not ceased) to kick me in the head. With those shoes.

Segue of brutality and being amazed, the current storyline at Achewood is a masterwork in progress. When I start awarding the Grand Masters of Webcomics, I will hold up one long printout of the Great Outdoor Fight and say “this. This is what you must achieve.” For maximum run-up, start with Ana-Tomix and never stop reading, ever. But seriously, don’t click if you’re squeamish. Achewood is often unkind to squeams.

Which that story isn’t but still

February 13, 2006 /

“The Slush God: Are you totally sick of seeing rejected-writer-gets-revenge-on-editors stories in the slush pile? Have you ever read a good one?

Kelly Link: There is a wonderful epistolary story by a Canadian writer, Robert Boycuk, in which an editor is lowering himself into a terrible void, in pursuit of an author’s manuscript. It’s a sort of apology from the editor for how long it’s taken him to get back to the writer.

Otherwise, I can’t think of any off the top of my head. I’m sure there are some good ones out there. I would say that there’s probably a novel waiting to be written about hapless slush readers, but it would have to be very well done.”

February 1, 2006 /

I was totally wrong and I’m so happy about it! Over a year after I wrote about it with lovelorn pessimism, The Louisville Game Shop is thriving, with more stock and better shelving and multiple event nights every week. I am really glad this is the case! I congratulated Colin on that achievement when I went in to buy some gifts last month, and he said “thanks! It’s all thanks to you guys.” And I, in a greedy little kid way, was like yes. It’s thanks to me.

I talk about television too much now.

January 24, 2006 /

The WB and UPN will merge in September, creating a new network called CW (because it’ll be jointly owned by CBS, which owns UPN, and Time Warner). Presumably this means a bold new vision of alternating teensoaps with incredibly-low-production-values “urban” sitcoms and wrestling. Also maybe Star Trek?

This actually is a fairly big shakeup in the electromagnetic spectrum–a lot of areas have stations allocated to both UPN and the WB. The WB reliably does better than UPN, so that’s probably the station where CW will reside in most markets. I think it’s obvious, when all the factors are considered, that the leftover stations should go to: me.

Seriously, the first thing I thought when I read that headline was “but–but–what will happen to Veronica Mars?”