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The inspiration was pretzel nuggets

October 29, 2004 /

I just had a great idea: if I ever direct a play again, which I won’t, because I’m a bad director, I wouldn’t have my actors warm up by doing exaggerated facial stretches and silly consonant sequences. (If you have a theatrical background you know what I’m talking about; if you don’t, rest assured that this is typically the case.) Instead, I would have them run through lines they hadn’t quite memorized anyway with grapes in their mouths. Or marshmallows, but grapes would be better for their vocal cords. See, it would force them to do all that stretching anyway to get around the grapes, and they’d be working on lines, and it’d be delicious! All at the same time!

Maybe this is one of those ideas that turn out not to be so great later.

Things Neils and Neals Say

October 29, 2004 /

Neil Gaiman: “And I’ll write another Neverwhere novel in two or three books’ time, I expect.”

Well, !

I was… can I say not impressed? I’m not trying to bash anything here. I’ll say that when I read it, I didn’t find the prose and plot of Neverwhere to be extraordinary. It was a good novel, but it was a first novel.

That said, the imagery of the book had an enormous impact on me–I am still in the process of writing that out of my system. I think Gaiman’s prose improved immensely in American Gods, and I’m eager to see its application to the Neverwhere universe again.

Neal Stephenson: “Accountability in the writing profession has been bifurcated for many centuries. I already mentioned that Dante and other writers were supported by patrons at least as far back as the Renaissance. But I doubt that Beowulf was written on commission.”

Stephenson’s answer to the second question in that series is the only clear and reasonable delineation I’ve read of why lit fiction and genre fiction are so distinct, and why they tend to sneer at each other. Even more to his credit, he never uses the word “jealousy” with regard to either side.

Plus, in the third one, he and William Gibson totally fight.

P. S. I just want to point out that this is the first time I’ve ever linked something on Slashdot, because I don’t read Slashdot. It could well be the only time I ever link Slashdot.

October 29, 2004 /

I have this vision of what I want to do with my life, but it’s still pretty blurry. So even though I’m impressed and fascinated, I’m also jealous that Brian Provinciano has something like the same vision, just much, much clearer.

October 28, 2004 /

I don’t have health insurance now. Did I ever mention that? I am living the Life Less Health Insurance! Please nobody hit me with trucks.

And tomorrow nine thousand headlines will somehow use the word “curse”

October 28, 2004 /

When it was all said, the World Series was a technicality, a new t-shirt, something to be humored. Boston got what they wanted when Visa stopped running that “Steinbrenner’s arm” commercial twelve times a night. They got it every time The Jeter’s nostrils flared in disbelief.

Think about it: the moment Johnny Damon said “idiots,” the Boston Red Sox cast themselves in the role of every Ragtag Band Of Misfits since Centre and Harvard went 6 and 0. It would have worked even if Manny Ramirez hadn’t been a gamble, or if Curt Schilling hadn’t bled with every pitch. It would have worked even if the Yankees hadn’t been the sneering big-money boys in black hats. It would have worked even if they didn’t already look evil–has anybody else noticed that all this year’s Yankees appear to be turning into Joe Torre, with their eyes a dead yellow and an unhealthy gray under their skin?

The comeback started in the bottom of the ninth, naturally, three outs from elimination yet again. Winning four games after losing three in the postseason was, until 2004, unprecedented in baseball. Winning four games to start with was not.

There was no fire in the World Series. Nobody in St. Louis really hated Boston, they just wanted their guys to win. And to Boston, St. Louis was just an bystander–one who happened, unfortunately, to be bystanding between Boston and something really important. They didn’t slow down or detour; they pushed St. Louis out of the way. They did what they had to. You’d have done the same.

I mean, hey, it’s the Cardinals, right? Nice guys, guys you’d like if you met them in the supermarket.

October 22, 2004 /

Neat things!

  • JEDI COPS! I’d join this if I had any writing resources left. Maybe you should join, and tell me how it goes. The diceless RPG system they use, called the Karmic Cycle, sounds suspiciously like the luck-based system Ben came up with for Cosmos, last year.
  • Stephen has started a pending lawsuit. Oh, I meant “advice column.”
  • It’s unfortunate that the comic is apparently updated about as often as Xorph, but Pihakwa is so pretty I want to buy it, all of it, or somehow mark it with my scent. The gallery is sweet, too.