Monthly Archives: February 2016

February 6, 2016 · 10:33 am

Time-travel through your TV (#SFWApro)

A lot of television shows this week.

I finally finished watching FRINGE which starts as the X-Files-ish Fringe Division of the FBI tackles Weird Phenomenon of the Week Cases, then turns into a struggle for survival between our Earth and a parallel one, then ends with invaders from the future taking over our planet. I dropped it in the first season because the Strangeness-of-the-Week plotlines didn’t grab me at all; once the parallel Earth plotline picks up it gets much, much better, but the final season with the invasion was routine (seen one invasion, seen ’em all). So while I enjoyed watching for the book more than I expected (a damn sight more than I’ll enjoy watching Lost again!) I don’t regret skipping the series originally. “Destiny can be changed, but you have to have the will to change it.”

WAREHOUSE 13 is another one I couldn’t get into; rewatching the “Helena G. Wells” episodes (“I had the inventions and the writing talent, my brother Simon had the mustache.”) I found this more entertaining than I remembered, though I’m not in any rush to check out the rest of it (Wells here isn’t a time-traveler so I don’t really need to watch much). “You’re the teacher’s pet in any era, aren’t you?”

YouTube provided about four minutes of one episode of THE GEORGIAN HOUSE, a lost British series about two modern-day children magically drawn back to the Georgian era to help a household slave escape back to Africa. Not much I can say.

CHILDREN OF GREEN KNOWE (all rights to cover image with current holder) was based on Lucy M. Boston’s book about a lonely boy coming to stay at the family manse and discovering his roots. Reviews of the BBC adaptation were vague on whether children of the past who show up are ghosts, time travelers or imagination, so I checked it out (ghosts, so no).

The Star Trek retcon series ENTERPRISE had a “temporal cold war” as a running subplot so I completed watching the related episodes over the past couple of weeks. An enjoyable show about the first Enterprise, back in the days when Vulcans played hardball politics and Warp Four was unimaginably fast, though I always felt it could have been better somehow (and I never got into the Xindi war that took up the third season—the Suliban of the time war were more interesting adversaries). “It’s getting harder and harder to surprise you, captain.”

LAZER TAG ACADEMY was an eighties cartoon, in which the protagonist, Jamie Jaren, comes from the utopian 30th century (it’s one of the rare happy futures I’ve watched for my book) where her lazer tag equipment (why yes, this was a merchandising tie-in show) is capable of manifesting Green Lantern-type energy powers. Unfortunately, so is villainous Draxon Drear, whose goal is to kill Jamie’s ancestors and thereby have the power all too himself. Doesn’t hold up as well as I remembered, but not bad either. “I’ll make this as painful as possible.”

KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF JUSTICE was another toy tie-in show wherein Arthur King and the New York Knights football team are drawn back to Camelot to stand-in for their previous incarnations (Arthur and his knights, natch) who’ve been captured by Morgana and her evil Warlords. Another that was more fun when I first saw it (Lazer Tag Academy definitely holds up better, though).

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Filed under Now and Then We Time Travel, TV

February 6, 2016 · 10:07 am

Time-travel films, plus others (#SFWApro)

MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR (1981) is a tedious post-apocalyptic fantasy based on a novel by Doris Lessing, wherein Julie Christie watches over her foster-daughter in a rather blandly collapsed London—all that really indicates the apocalypse is rationing and lots of trash bags piled around. This qualifies for the book due to Christie discovering she can walk through her living room wall and into the Victorian age. As she never does anything there but watch, it only qualifies for the appendix; I’d suggest double-billing with Jubilee where the time traveler is also passive and irrelevant. “If we catch you, we’ll eat him.”

I saw THE COLD ROOM (1981) for Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan and would happily never have seen it again. However I saw it listed as a possible time-travel tale on one website so I rewatched the story of Amanda Pays visiting Berlin with estranged father George Segal, then finding herself a young woman in WW II, trying to hide a Jewish lover from the Nazis. However as this is clearly the result of possession-induced flashbacks rather than time travel, it’s not for the book. “You did your part, helping us find the Jew.”

BACK IN TIME (2015) is a documentary on Back to the Future and BTF fandom that offers some interesting details (not much I didn’t know already, and almost nothing I need to include in the book). Primarily and unsurprisingly, it’s a Rah Rah Rah, Greatest Movie Ever kind of documentary that skips over the awkward questions raised in Worlds of Back to the Future (accepting the sunny view of the 1950s as gospel, for instance, and not reacting to Zemeckis’ assertion that Of Course they didn’t want Jennifer playing an active role in BTF II). And the fandom stuff is generic—the kind of rides and fan enthusiasm you could find associated with any hit film. “I didn’t realize the Delorean was a real car.”

AMAPOLA (2014) is an Argentinian time-travel fantasy (so it goes in the appendix) in which a woman in the 1960s gets a fast-forward to 1982 (marked by Argentina fighting off unprovoked British aggression in the Falklands), seeing her family’s Tragic Fate, then coming back to fix things. Forgettable. “It’s only a dream—but you’re dreaming it for a purpose.”

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR (1973) is a blacksploitation film in which the CIA’s token black agent (“You’re a credit to your race.”) takes what he’s learned about field ops and uses it to start a black revolutionary movement in the Chicago streets (“You say it can’t work? Tell that to Algeria.”). While a product of its time, it’s depressing to realize how much some scenes of the National Guard policing the streets resemble Ferguson. Definitely worth catching “In a guerilla movement, you win by not moving—you can’t fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor!”

(All rights to image with current holder)

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February 5, 2016 · 5:17 pm

Foreshadowing is not foredoomed … so far (#SFWApro)

As I blogged about on Monday, we started the week with dog problems, and I wondered if that foreshadowed an unproductive month. So far, no.

I did have plenty of distraction this week: vet appointment Monday (as noted at the link), car in for checkup on Tuesday, electrician in Thursday, and various little tasks (filing pet insurance claims, collecting tax paperwork) that ate up quite a bit of time. Despite which I made my 40 hours and made my exercise schedule (an unplanned but enjoyable long walk today with the dogs helped). Go me! Though it required a good deal more evening work than usual, which has left me rather wiped (after I finish this post, I’m crashing).

The main accomplishment was getting a lot of stuff watched for the time-travel book, and a good start on the next round of revising the text. I also sent off two stories, and got an acceptance on the last story that I sent out last month (a reprint that will appear in Digital Fantasy) so yay! And I got paid for the reprint of Signs and Hortense which will be coming out in Eldritch Embraces.

That was pretty much it, because for the next month and a half, I’m all about finishing Time Travel on Screen. I can’t afford to be anything else. I only submit stories and queries because I can do that while I’m watching Timecop or King Arthur and the Knights of Justice or whatever (reviews tomorrow).

And the walk today was fun. We ran into one of our neighbors, Kathy, and her big malamut, Mischa, a five-year-old but very puppyish dog, one of the few larger dogs that Trixie gets along with. So I wound up walking a very different route from usual, and longer than I’d planned, but we all enjoyed it.

Next week will be a challenge of a different order. TYG’s obligations will require me assuming 100 percent dog care through Thursday, and that’s a lot. There’s also a possibility of snow, which limits where I can walk them (and do they get lively when there’s no long walks in the morning!), and limits my ability to go off and do anything on my own.

So we’ll see. Fingers crossed. And below, we have a picture of Trixie in one of her favorite places, right inside my leg. It’s a little awkward letting her sit there while I write, but she looks so cute tucked into the underside of my knee.

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Filed under Nonfiction, Now and Then We Time Travel, Personal, Short Stories, The Dog Ate My Homework, Time management and goals, Writing

February 5, 2016 · 4:57 pm

Before my week-in-review, a quick political post about disability

So Amy Sterling Casil publishes a post at Special Needs in Strange Worlds on the premise that “We Are All Disabled.” (it’s been pulled and an apology posted). Her thesis:

•She is disabled herself because her high levels of empathy make her so sensitive.

•God sends us our disabilities. Not for punishment but as a kind of gift—if you’re blind, autistic, in a wheelchair, you will have different, perhaps deeper experiences than a regularly abled person.

•When you look at how little of the universe we can see, sense or comprehend, aren’t we all disabled? Maybe we should just stop thinking “disabled” is a particular category.

In response: 1)I have not heard of this, and from the way Sterling Casil writes, it doesn’t sound like she’s had an official diagnosis. But I may be wrong. 2)God does not strike people disabled, and no, being disabled does not put you on some higher spiritual plane (this is not a new thought—when I was a kid, the special way blind people supposedly had of sensing the world was sometimes presented as a really amazing and awesome thing, rather than just not being able to see). 3)This is gibberish. The reason we class some people as disabled is because they have serious problems dealing with things the rest of us can take for granted (wheelchairs and stairs). The fact none of us can see ultraviolet light or hear sonar like bats doesn’t change that, or the advantage those of us who are abled have. And that’s not even talking about discrimination against people with disabilities.

Jim Hines gives a very reasonable, thoughtful commentary on the original, now removed post. Foz Meadows’ response is well thought out too, but a lot more angry (I do not mean that as a criticism of Meadows).

UPDATE: In comments, Katherine Traylor links to this tweet collection which includes multiple tweets from disabled individuals (as does Hines’ comments thread).

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February 4, 2016 · 4:35 pm

Cover Art for Art’s Sake (#SFWApro)

So after taking the dogs off to day care, this turned into a busy day of running errands, cleaning and dealing with our excellent electricians. And the week as a whole has been exhausting enough my mind has fried. Normally that’s grounds for a linkpost or radio silence; this time, I think I’ll post a couple of examples of cool paperback covers.

Gervasio Gallardo’s cover for one of Patricia McKillip’s first books is a good example of someone staring at me from a book cover. All those animals, the dark and shadowy background …

Here’s Michael Whelan’s cover for Sailor on the Seas of Fate, one of Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels. Which has Elric staring out at the reader, but damn, it’s way more interesting than most such covers. In fact, it may be, as a friend says, the definitive Elric—the slightly exotic looking lead, the exotic looking, nervous watchers in the background, the ornate decorations and Stormbringer, the soul-drinking rune sword.

Rights to both images with current holder.

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Filed under Miscellanea, Personal, Reading

February 3, 2016 · 10:01 am

New And column and other political links

The column is on the right-wing meme that Islam is not a religion so it doesn’t get First Amendment protection.

•A conservative reviewer complains that a new book critical of the Koch Brothers influence on politics is wrong because big donations don’t influence politicians.

•Salon provides a quick rundown of far-right conspiracy theories (the UN! the Trilateral Commission! Jade Helm!). I wonder how long before we get to the Illuminati (which Pat Robertson mentioned in his 1990s conspiracy drivel, The New World Order).

•Toyota gives dealers some flexibility in setting interest rates for car loans. The result? Non-whites paid more interest. Toyota has settled with the government for $21.9 million.

•Two for-profit colleges lose government funding for distorting the success rate of their graduates. And Wells Fargo is paying more than a billion bucks to settle a lawsuit that it issued high-risk mortgages, under-estimated the risks to get FHA insurance, then left the taxpayers with the bill when the borrowers defaulted.

•A North Carolina editorial on why requiring a photo ID for voting is not like a photo ID for cashing a check.

•A Google computer figures out how to beat a human at Go.

•Digby on the media failing to ignore bullshit. As she notes, the standard rationale is that it doesn’t matter if it’s true—the story is out there. It’s having an influence. Of course that influence is frequently because the press put it out there, then act as if it went viral spontaneously.

•Apparently Ted Cruz claims everyone who says Cruz’s alternative to Obamacare (stopping states from setting minimum standards for health insurance) isn’t going to help is lying through their teeth.

•Megan McArdle has written that just because she was wrong about Iraq and war opponents was right is no reason to criticize her judgment. Now she’s adopted the same stance on reports that free trade with China, which she supports, has helped gut the working class’s income: her judgment was perfectly logical! And besides, the people who said it was bad were probably just made a lucky guess! And even if it is bad, we can’t stop it now, so why make a fuss? And besides, her upper-income lifestyle churning out bullshit columns isn’t affected!

•McArdle also claims that she sacrificed financially to work in the low-paying world of journalism so she understands about debt and sacrifice and public-spiritedness. …except that by her own admission, she took on her college debt to land a high-paying job in business that went away after 9/11. Journalism was just a Hail Mary play that despite her lack of insight, talent or human compassion (like her declaration that inequality of opportunity is a good thing) worked out well for her.

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February 2, 2016 · 5:13 am

Don’t look at the words I wrote, go by my headcanon of what I really meant

So in the Jim Hines post on the Sad Puppies IV list (which I referenced last post), Hines quotes conservative SF author John C. Wright ranting about “They will never cease to abuse, demean, and insult us, and desecrate everything we love, and to slander and libel us with mouth-frothingly stupid and freakishly counterproductive lies” (something Wright should be familiar with). In the comments, his wife says that Wright is really much more reasonable, it’s just that he’s taken out of context and that people imagine his words being spewed with outrage and spittle instead of read in a calm, measured tone. And when he says things about “the left” he really only means some leftists, not all of them (I presume that would include this post on how us liberals hate the idea of beauty).

First off, as someone who’s read several of Wright’s posts (such as the one where he compares having a Muslim in the Avengers to having a Nazi on the team), no, context does not improve him. Nor does reading his posts in a calm measured voice (like his outrage there was a gay relationship in a popular cartoon show) create a new understanding.

And “he doesn’t really mean it” is never a good defense against criticism. If I wrote that everyone who belongs to the Catholic Church is giving their consent to pedophilia it doesn’t matter whether in my mind I was saying “some Catholics, specifically the ones who think any criticism of the church on this issue is religious bigotry,” (and yes, I’ve known a couple of those). I condemned all Catholics in print, my headcanon about what I really meant is irrelevant if people decide I’m a bigot (note: I don’t believe all Catholics are morally responsible, nor have I ever written so—this is a hypothetical example only). With maybe an exception if I write a follow-up clarification/apology, and I mean an actual apology, not one of those “I’m sorry I offended everyone who didn’t get I was being funny/I apologize to all the sensitive PC people who took issue with my words” things. And I still have to avoid saying the same thing again (Wright’s consistently expressed the same views about gays, the Left, etc.)

I’m quite sure there are plenty of people who don’t mean what they write. I often get the feeling some conservative pundits are more about giving the hard-core bigots in their audience some red meat than true believers themselves (I do not include Wright in that category, I do believe he’s completely sincere). Doesn’t matter. You write it, you own it. You publish it under your name, you own it, even if you didn’t write it. After Pat Robertson got some flak for the “Jewish bankers are taking over the world” book, The New World Order, one of his associates said Of Course Robertson didn’t think that—he had a ghostwriter, and didn’t review the work.

Too bad, so sad. lt’s Robertson’s name on the book, it’s his book. Even assuming that the ghostwriter story is true, it’s no excuse. Just like politicians can’t get off the hook for speeches by saying that they didn’t write it, they shouldn’t be held accountable for the words (I think I have heard that defense once).

If Wright takes it back, fair enough. But he (or anyone close to him) can’t take it back without you know, actually taking it back.

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February 2, 2016 · 5:00 am

Sad puppies, Christmas failures and other writing links (#SFWApro)

So last year, the group of specfic writers known as the Sad Puppies tried pushing a slate of writers in the Hugo Award with the stated goal of pushing back against the politicization of specfic which (as I’ve blogged about before) is supposedly ruining the genre. Now they’re back with new leadership and a new campaign; Jim Hines looks at Sad Puppies IV and speculates it may turn out to be a less heavy-handed process. Time will tell. You can find Hines’ critique of previous campaigns at his blog.

•Jingle-O the Brownie, a Christmas character who vanished into obscurity (yes, it can happen).

•Charlie Jane Anders says when mixing genres, success comes from thinking of the characters’ perspectives, not the genre elements.

•Foz Meadows looks at diversity’s relationship to good stories.

•One reason writers don’t attend more cons.

•A look at what passed for smut 50 years ago. Interestingly, I’m not the only person who now associates James Kilpatrick primarily with his Saturday Night Live parody (“Jane, you ignorant slut!”).

•If you’re working from home with dogs, here’s some suggestions on keeping them busy. I intend to start employing some of these.

•Possible questions to ask to get to know your characters.

•Foz Meadows on why male-male bonding is so often the strongest relationship in a TV show.

•To inspire yourself, imagine what the reviews of your book will say.

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February 1, 2016 · 2:17 pm

I hope today is not foreshadowing for February (#SFWApro)

So last week we ran out of our dry dog food and switched to doggy stew for about three days. Such a complete switch apparently upset their systems and there were some indoor pooh problems. And Trixie, TYG thought, seemed uncomfortable, as if her tummy was hurting.

Then the past couple of nights, even though we’ve had them back on kibble, she’s been running around nervously in the middle of the night, desperate to get out before she has another accident. Last night I had to take her out three times, which was not very good for my sleep pattern. Plus the last couple of trips she spent so much time walking around I wonder if it was really a physical need or more “Oh, now I know how to make Daddy take me out so I can chase the invisible fairies I know are out here!”

In any case, this morning we took her into the vet (who’s only about five minutes away). The vet got us some meds and orders not to feed Trixie until late this afternoon (Trixie’s pleading eyes followed me when I gave Plushie his lunch and not her), and then only a little.

Hopefully it’s just a minor stomach problem and nothing serious. And hopefully we’ll both be sleeping soundly tonight.

EDIT: Almost forgot to add that the vet confirmed Plushie is down to the weight we wanted so the diet worked. Now I guess we can give him a little more so he stays where he is (15 lbs).

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Filed under Personal, The Dog Ate My Homework

February 1, 2016 · 3:34 am

The Uber of Medical Care

Why not have an Uber for medical care? Let the free market forces cut the cost by letting doctors compete! At the link, LGM discusses why this concept (discussed at Investors Business Daily (you can click through at the link) is an impractical idea. I was struck by the following quote from IBM explaining why conventional explanations for medical costs are wrong: ” “Medical advances can help us get well, avoid disease and delay death, but they also drive up spending,” says an NPR report. “Patients and doctors often demand the newest treatments, even if there is little or no evidence that they are better.” In any other context, such a statement would be ludicrous. Why would any consumer demand a more expensive product if they had no idea whether it would work?”

Hmm, because they don’t know and don’t trust their doctor? Because all that drug advertising on TV convinces them a new drug will work? Because cooked studies make them think it will work? Because when it comes to our health, we’re scared and desperate? Or is IBM seriously suggesting that the best product (however you define that) will always win out, because that’s not true in a lot of markets.

I’m also amused by the assertion that health costs going up because we have insurance (and are therefore shielded from the real cost) is “a largely unrecognized problem”—right-wingers have been beating that drum for years. In reality, of course, insurers don’t underwrite every little thing (except for a few very high-powered policies for the upper-income brackets), and forcing more costs onto patients is guaranteed to leave some patients not going when they need to (and I don’t imagine any Uber miracle will end up making the same quality care cheaper). I mean the whole purpose of health insurance is to cover our costs; it’s a kind of libertarian political correctness that this is a bad thing. If the market isn’t working the way libertarian theory dictates, obviously we mere mortals are screwing it up.

•The Vanilla Isis crew still at the wildlife refuge say they’re willing to leave, once the FBI guarantees it won’t arrest them.

•Rand Paul says the legality of abortion should be left to the states … unless the federal government can ban it, then it’s a federal matter.

•Digby discusses a Rick Perlstein interview about the difference between Trump and right-wingers who’ve milked white resentment in the past: “They benefitted from hate, to be sure. But by using the dogwhistle they at least signalled that there was no room for open white nationalism in political discourse. Today dogwhistles are called ‘political correctness’.”

•Ted Cruz claims his family were without insurance because of Obamacare’s rules. It’s not true.

•Currently you have to buy your set-top cable box from the cable company. The FCC has a proposal that may increase competition in this area; Comcast unsurprisingly hates it.

•A law professor argues T-Mobile’s Binge On program (which exempts certain streaming services from monthly allotments) violates the law.

•A Wal-Mart pharmacist complained that staffing cuts were putting customers at risk. Wal-Mart fired her, but says it was for losing her pharmacy key. A jury has hit the Big Box store with $31 million in penalties.

•Before the Michigan state government decided Flint’s water supply was a problem, it thought it was a big enough risk to provide other water for state employees.

•A choking man drives into a parked car. The owner then pursues him with a gun. Just another example of how “an armed society is a polite society” doesn’t work.

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