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Below are the 25 most recent friends journal entries:

July 10th, 2009
01:47 pm sacramentalist [Link]	It is Confession Friday. I eat and eat. And I love it. Why do people have to judge me? I want to move somewhere else where I can start again. Post anything you want in a comment to this post. Anything that has been weighing you down, anything you want to have shared. This love triangle thing can surely only end in (more) tears. The sex is no longer triangular, but it's going in a different direction. I am the point. The other two are best friends. We all worry about each other and annoy each other and love each other. It's hard. All confessions posted are screened, IP logging off, anonymous comments are welcome. Here's my confession - I'm too lazy to log out to post a confession. That's so lame, but it's true. And it probably would have taken me less time to log out than to type this, but then there's the logging in again, waiting for the autofill to put the info in the blanks... I'm exhausted just thinking about it. If you would like to share your confession in the following Confession Day post, place an asterisk somewhere in the comment. If there is no asterisk, the confession will not be shared. Your secret will be safe. I've never had an orgasm Now confess! I like it in the butt (Leave a comment)
12:46 pm shadowwolf13 [Link]	One Card Draw miintikwa is having a One Card Draw today, hurry over if you're interested! Current Location: Houston - Brigid Current Mood: calm Tags: friends (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
10:34 am coppervale [Link]	San Diego Comicon 2009!!! Marking my tenth appearance at the San Diego Comicon since 1986, I'll be exhibiting as Coppervale Studio along with Rich Henn/Club 408 Graphics at booth #1907 in the Independent Publishers Pavilion. I'll also be making intermittent appearances at the Simon & Schuster booth at #1017 to promote the upcoming release of the fourth Imaginarium Geographica novel, THE SHADOW DRAGONS. Comicon exclusives: - The debut of the HERE, THERE BE DRAGONS t-shirts, featuring black line art on teal colored shirts - Advance Reader copies of THE SHADOW DRAGONS (VERY limited supply!) - And Free Comic Book Day, Comicon Edition: Each day of the con (including Preview Night) we'll be giving a free STARCHILD comic book to the first 100 people who stop by the booth. A different issue each day, and a great way to sample James Owen's writing and art. Just come by the booth and ask! On the panel schedule: Friday, July 24 12:30-1:30 Future Fond Memories - Creating stories for kids today that will be treasured by adults in the future - Room 3 Panelists: Michael Spradlin (Keeper Of The Grail: The Youngest Templar); Michael Reisman (Simon Bloom: The Octopus Effect ); Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon’s Lexicon); James Owen (The Indigo King); Mary Pearson (The Adoration Of Jenna Fox), P.J. Haarsma (The Softwire: Wormhole Pirates on Orbis 3); and Alyson Noel (Blue Moon: The Immortals). For the rest of the convention, with only occasional breaks, expect to find me at the booth, signing books and Drawing Dragons. (Leave a comment)
05:10 pm storybones [Link]	Band on the run http://storybones.blogspot.com/2009/07/band-on-run.html Still running like mad. Spent last night doing councilman thingies and getting my blood pressure up. Plus this weekend (started yesterday) is our neighborhood garage sale, so half my house is spread out over the front lawn. Fortunately the sister-in-law is up helping us out. I should get supplies to continue work on the extra part of the rain barrel project, and pipe to redo the gutter drainage (extending it) so we can get this pile of dirt outa my yard. But I'm feeling burnt at both ends. And next week we'll see some of the extension of what I worked on last night. Chapter 15 is dribbling out. I get about 50-100 words a day (and haven't had much evening time to work on it). Normally when this happens I'd put in a place holder and get to what I can get out fast. But I wanted to work on this in order (mostly) and don't want to skip. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot though. I have the flights and the room for VP (and the time off). Now I need to get the car, organize between the airport and the island (probably do closer to time) and get my brain back in gear. And I need sleep. I need a lot of sleep. That may be why the novel is coming slowly. (Leave a comment)
12:21 pm docbrite [Link]	Leavin' On A Jet Plane I'm at the gate posting on my iPhone. Nolagoraphobia fairly well controlled by -pams. The fuckers at security made me toss not just my $1 hairspray, which I didn't care about except now my hair will be all floppy at Alinea, but also my expensive tea rose perfume. Yep, I could have taken out the captain with that shit. Thank you, "terrists." (2 comments \| Leave a comment)
07:07 pm shadowwolf13 [Link]	Birthday Happiest of days to mobobocita! May today be delightful for you and bring you a year full of joy! Current Location: Houston - Brigid Current Mood: calm Tags: birthday wishes (Leave a comment)
01:04 pm twoofdtm [Link]	Posted using TxtLJ ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) (Leave a comment)
10:57 am jarodrussell [Link]	Comic ramblings, part II ( Where people explain how they can read IIM... ) (6 comments \| Leave a comment)
06:25 pm bart_calendar [Link]	Salivating (6 comments \| Leave a comment)
01:00 am dilbert_blog [Link]	The Most Valuable Information http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_most_valuable_information/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/307/ What is the most valuable knowledge in the world? Let's say I rule out a few categories: Psychic knowledge of the future Psychic mind reading Trade secrets Company insider information National security secrets, such as war plans Fair game is any sort of information that could be collected with some amount of time and effort, even if it isn't being collected at the moment. And it has to be legally obtained. I'll take a stab at the question just to prime the pump. Suppose you formed a private online club of people who represented a random selection of investors in general. So you'd have some professional advisors and lots of regular folks who pick their own stocks. Every day at a set time the members of the club are asked to submit to the private online system their opinion of what stocks they find attractive to buy in the next 24 hours. Before the results are tabulated and distributed back to the members only, each member is given an opportunity to invest any amount of money in whatever the club ends up picking as the most popular stock. If they opt in, all of their trades would be executed at the same time, or perhaps randomly at nearly the same time, so no member gets an advantage. Only the single most popular stock would be purchased for all members, one per day. If selected correctly, this random collection of investors would, on average, have the same opinions as the public in general, but they would execute their trades before the rest of the world, on average, and get in before the generally popular stocks run up. This concept banks on the notion that whatever ideas in the media or in life that are floating around influencing minds are influencing the member group in the same way as the public at large. Call it zeitgeist. What's your take on the most valuable information in the world? (Leave a comment)
11:55 am sacramentalist [Link]	"The boy, Tom Hanson of Margate, N.J., grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy, until the day he met The One. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of the movie The Graduate." Fuck. They made a movie about the younger me? With Zooey Deschanel? Sweet! I turn 40 in exactly 6 months. I don't like that. At all. Current Mood: curious (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
06:29 pm artoftheodd [Link]	Something else I thought I knew… http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/629 http://www.artoftheodd.com/?p=629 On Monday, as I was making my travel plans for Viable Paradise, I asked Solosez (that vast collective of lawyerly and other wisdom) what they thought of my plan to get to Martha’s Vineyard via Peter Pan Bus and Steamship Authority Ferry. They seemed to think it was a marvelous idea. Erik Hammarlund invited me to call him with questions, since he lives and practices on the Vineyard, and James McMullan had a word of warning: “Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all. Now, why don’t you take a long, close look at this sign.” “Are you saying I shouldn’t go in the water with an open wound?” I asked. “Especially if I’m wearing my seal costume?” “Egg-zackly!” he said. It didn’t strike me as odd at the time that was quoting [Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [...] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0449219631?ie>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/629">http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/629</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/?p=629">http://www.artoftheodd.com/?p=629</a></p><p>On Monday, as I was making my travel plans for <a href="http://www.sff.net/paradise/">Viable Paradise</a>, I asked <a href="http://www.abanet.org/soloseznet/index.html">Solosez</a> (that vast collective of lawyerly and other wisdom) what they thought of my plan to get to Martha’s Vineyard via <a href="http://www.peterpanbus.com/">Peter Pan Bus</a> and <a href="http://www.islandferry.com/ssa/">Steamship Authority Ferry</a>. They seemed to think it was a marvelous idea. <a href="http://www.hammarlundlaw.com/">Erik Hammarlund</a> invited me to call him with questions, since he lives and practices on the Vineyard, and <a href="http://www.gtandslaw.com/jmcmullan.shtml">James McMullan</a> had a word of warning:</p> <blockquote><p> “Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine,<br /> an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine<br /> does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all. Now, why<br /> don’t you take a long, close look at this sign.”</p></blockquote> <p>“Are you saying I shouldn’t go in the water with an open wound?” I asked. “Especially if I’m wearing my seal costume?”</p> <p>“Egg-zackly!” he said.</p> <p>It didn’t strike me as odd at the time that was quoting <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/%3Ca%20href=" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0449219631?ie="UTF8&tag=artoftheodd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0449219631""><em>Jaws</em></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=artoftheodd-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0449219631" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></a>. I’d been doing a bit of research on Wood’s Hole, where I’ll be catching the ferry to the Vineyard, and I knew that it was home to the <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/">Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute</a>, and the director of the Institute had reviewed Peter Benchley’s <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/%3Ca%20href=" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812966333?ie="UTF8&tag=artoftheodd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0812966333""><em>Shark Trouble</em></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=artoftheodd-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0812966333" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></a> as “intended more as an argument against the hype than more fuel for it. The author’s introduction,” she wrote, “emphasizes how much has been learned since he wrote <em>Jaws</em> in 1974 and that sharks, including the most fearsome ones, are in much more danger from humans than humans from sharks.”</p> <p>It wasn’t until I told the story to NovySan and he asked, “What does <em>Jaws</em> have to do with Martha’s Vineyard?” that I realized… </p> <p>“I don’t know. It was set in New Jersey, wasn’t it?”</p> <p>“Was it?” his daughter asked. “I thought it was in Jamaica or something.”</p> <p>“No, it was New Jersey,” I said. I was positive. But not so positive I didn’t look it up the next day. And as far as I can tell… Amity Island could be almost anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard, but might very well be off the coast of Massachusetts – you know, like Martha’s Vineyard. The first few pages of the book, which I skimmed through on Amazon, told me nothing except that Amity was a place that New Yorkers came for the summer. The Wikipedia entries for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marthas_Vineyard">Martha’s Vineyard</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_%28film%29"><em>Jaws</em></a> told me the movie was filmed on the Vineyard. I was terribly confused. But then I found the link to New Jersey I was looking for – the one that explained why, all these years, I’ve thought that fictional white shark had terrorized the Jersey Shore.</p> <p>In the Google Books <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=TQ1Rqf6lCMoC&pg=PA80&dq=jaws+new+jersey&ei=1eRUSprwBI7ilATuqtSUBw">preview</a> of <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/%3Ca%20href=" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/b000rguob2?ie="UTF8&tag=artoftheodd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000RGUOB2""><em>Paging New Jersey: A Literary Guide to the Garden State</em></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=artoftheodd-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000RGUOB2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></a>, I discovered that a series of shark attacks on the Jersey Shore in 1916 was one of Benchley’s inspirations for <em>Jaws</em>. The information was familiar enough that I know I’d read it before – probably around the same time I first read <em>Jaws</em>, which must have been in high school. (It’s on a dusty bookshelf in my mind, right next to <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/%3Ca%20href=" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061007226?ie="UTF8&tag=artoftheodd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061007226""><em>The Exorcist</em></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=artoftheodd-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061007226" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></a> and <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/%3Ca%20href=" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451194004?ie="UTF8&tag=artoftheodd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0451194004""><em>Rosemary’s Baby</em></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=artoftheodd-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0451194004" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></a> – and wouldn’t that be an awful mashup? Or brilliant, maybe.)</p> <p>And so, once again, the Internet informs me that something I’ve <em>known</em> for years isn’t something I knew at all. At least I didn’t <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/the-more-you-know/607">invent a disease</a> this time.</p> <hr /> <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/629">Permalink</a> \| <a href="http://www.artoftheodd.com/something-else-i-thought-i-knew/629#comments">One comment</a> \| <p><small>Feed enhanced by <a href='http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/wordpress-plugin-better-feed-rss/'>Better Feed</a> from <a href='http://planetozh.com/blog/'>Ozh</a></small></p> (Leave a comment)
06:22 pm artoftheodd [Link]	Holy shit, I got in http://www.artoftheodd.com/holy-shit-i-got-in/624 http://www.artoftheodd.com/?p=624 NovySan asked me, early this year, if I was going to apply to Clarion again. I said yes, and I did intend to, but then for a variety of reasons, I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. I didn’t want to write off the writing, though, so I started looking for another workshop – something later in the year, maybe, and a week or a weekend, instead of a month and half. And I found it. It’s called Viable Paradise. It runs for a week, in early October. The timing is perfect. It’s on Martha’s Vineyard, and I’ve never been to the East Coast. So that’s perfect, too. And it’s focused not only on the craft of writing, but also on “the art of writing fiction people want to read.” And that’s just awesome. Of course, being me, I intended to write something new for my application, and being me, I didn’t. I also intended to submit it several months ago – VP does say that applying early really does improve your chances of being accepted. But again, being me, I didn’t do that, either. No, I sent my manuscript off on the very last day, and you know what? I got in anyway. Of course, you did know that – you read the title of the post, didn’t you? But still – I got in. Holy shit and ohmygod, I got in. Permalink \| 11 comments \| Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh (Leave a comment)
02:17 am artoftheodd [Link]	I love this… http://www.artoftheodd.com/i-love-this/621 http://www.artoftheodd.com/?p=621 I’m sitting under my lemon tree, with a Pegu Club cocktail, listening to Lee Stranahan interview my husband for FX Mogul Radio. The only thing that would make this better would be if NovySan were actually here, instead of sitting in his office miles away. Permalink \| No comment \| Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh (Leave a comment)
03:11 pm asymonte_rss [Link]	Are We There Yet? http://www.asymonte.com/?p=332 87 days, 2088 hours, 125,280 minutes, 7,516,600 seconds until Viable Paradise. Not that I’m counting or anything:) It’s made it difficult to concentrate at work lately. I’ve been reading up on everything Viable Paradise related - podcast, blog entries, diaries, videos, etc. My writing has been going exceptionally well. I guess it’s been a big confidence booster. I also decided that in order to not look like an ass, I should read up on some of the instructors whom I haven’t read before. Working at Luther helps with that. Interlibrary Loan to the rescue. I’ve got two books so far - Elizabeth Bear’s Carnival and Laura Mixon’s Burning the Ice. Thankfully, I’ve already read something from James MacDonald (Apocalypse Door and his Writing with Uncle Jim thread on Absolute Write) and John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, Ghost Brigade, Agent to the Stars, and his blog at Whatever). Not that it relieves any pressure on me. There’s quite a bit more reading to do. And for a person who is going to miss out on Martha’s Vineyard at the height of its beauty, Steph is remarkably upbeat. Last night she found a way to save a few hundred bucks on the flight. And she hasn’t stopped telling me how proud she is. That makes me feel downright giddy:) (Leave a comment)
02:43 pm asymonte_rss [Link]	Paradise Mine http://www.asymonte.com/?p=330 On June 24th, I submitted an application to Viable Paradise, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Writers Workshop in Martha’s Vineyard. Shortly after that, I started thinking of what I would do should I be accepted. Maybe make a post with the definitions of Viable and Paradise and work that into some witty essay. Dance a little jig. Go out for dinner. Faint. Yeah, so none of that happened. Wanna know what happened? 6:03am - check e-mail 6:04am -”HOLY SHIT!” Why yes, I’ve been accepted to Viable Paradise:) (Leave a comment)
08:33 pm asymonte_rss [Link]	Hosomaki-zushi Anyone? http://www.asymonte.com/?p=326 Or in English, Sushi anyone? Spinach and Pine Nut Rolls (Hosomaki-zushi) Last time we were in Florida, I picked up a Vegetarian Sushi book. Steph and I both like Sushi and I’ve been aching to try this out. One problem - it’s kind of hard to find a bamboo sushi mat here in Decorah. Luckily, Steph found one weekend when she was up in Minneapolis with a friend. I had the day off and decided to give it a whirl. Turned out great and taste even better. Next up - Asparagus and Sweet Red Pepper (Hosomaki-zushi) or Vegetarian California Rolls. (Leave a comment)
05:58 pm asymonte_rss [Link]	Alfred Hitchcock Goes for a Run http://www.asymonte.com/?p=319 I have been running since the age of ten, when Jon and I decided to follow in Greg’s footsteps. He in turn was following in the footsteps of David Horstman, our neighbor and avid runner (and if memory serves me right, a member of University of Dubuque’s 1970 IIAC Championship Cross Country team). In all those years, I’ve had some pretty interesting things that have happened. I’ve won races. Been put on the hood of cars. Gotten injured. Ran with some of the greats. Been chased by dogs and people. Gotten into fights. Gotten bloody. Seen a bobcat and crossed paths with a mountain lion. Today, however, marked the first time I’ve ever had a bird attack me mid run. Steph and I were out on a nice, easy 7 mile run when we crossed the road to get onto the trail. Just as we did that, I heard this horrible screech and felt my hair get all tussled. I ducked, then spotted a black bird flying away. Apparently I took the corner too wide and got a bit too close to its nest. Little thing came out and drove me off. I wish I had my heart rate monitor on at the time because that would be quite a spike in the graph. I can just see it now - strutting around that nest, waiting for its mate to come home so it can say “I drove off a predator today. What did you do? Oh, get a little worm? Was that hard?” (Leave a comment)
11:44 am moominmuppet [Link]	Linkety-Linkety For the Peeps in the audience: Turtle Swarm!! Massachusetts sues Federal Gov't over DOMA Interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Place of Women on the Court (both from lcohen Wow. Ick. "If things are really desperate, it might be time for your other half to go under the knife. With the advances in medical science and the current obsession with celebrity culture, cosmetic surgery is becoming more and more common. While it isn't something to be rushed into, nor something to persuade someone to do, surgery can do wonders for the confidence of someone who is less than a sight for sore eyes. And you'll have the bonus of a parading around town with a stunner on your arm." Read the Never-Before-Published Letter From LSD-Inventor Albert Hofmann to Apple CEO Steve Jobs Vitamin D and Mental Health Sexism in Comedy -- this is one of those things that irks me consistently (especially in regards to the Daily Show, where I expect better) Crisis of Deception: Fake Clinics Spread Misinformation on the Federal Dime Post-Abortion Syndrome: Anti-Choice "Researchers" Seek to Mislead and Intimidate Women House moves to lift bans on abortion funding, needle exchange, domestic partnership, and medical marijuana in DC The Case for an Anti-Abortion Violence Registry -- I need to reread this and ponder it for a while before I conclude where I stand on the idea. Overly broad registry requirements have destroyed a lot of people's lives needlessly (I'm particularly influenced by my view of sex offender registries that tend to include people convicted of consensual but illegal behavior). How a Late-Term Abortion Saved My Life -- because I'm not going to stop posting about how important this access is until people really _get_ what late-term abortions are for. Yendi's got so many fun links in this entry, I'm just sending you there instead of adding them all separately Why the FBI Squelched an Investigation of a Post-9/11 Meeting Between White Supremacist and Islamic Extremists -- Wow. Talk about groups I don't want getting friendly with each other. Although an interesting counterpoint to the white supremacists enlisting in the military in order to "kill arabs". Learn to make your own household cleaners 10 Dangerous Household Products You Should Never Use Again -- I don't entirely agree with the tenor of the article, but there's a lot of good, useful links in it. abortion pill use has increased to 1/4 of all abortions; infection rate way down What's the Connection Between Midwives and Health Care Reform? Quick Hit: Ukraine Outlaws Porn -- WTF? On the new women's-only pharmacy in Vancouver excluding trans women headdesk What does feminist urban policy look like? Adult Sex Education Look was a lovely stranger found for me: This user on DailyMotion http://www.dailymotion.com/tardismedia is in the process of posting the entire Classic series from his VHS collection. I had been trying to watch via Netflix too, and found his videos very useful in filling in the gaps where things haven't been released on DVD yet. It's easiest to watch via playlist: http://www.dailymotion.com/playlists/tardismedia (listed newest to oldest). (thanks to treading Current Mood: drained Tags: articles, drugs, gender, links, media, politics, reproductive health, reproductive rights (Leave a comment)
July 9th, 2009
11:32 pm seancraven [Link]	Ten Down And Two To Go... http://seancraven.blogspot.com/2009/07/ten-down-and-two-to-go.html Like I always say, when in doubt, steal from Lovecraft or Chandler. Just remember, it's entirely uninterested in any human concept, so don't take its actions personally. The brain, she is crunchy like the chip. I'm at the point where all I can think about is getting this done, finito, out of the way. Two more illustrations from scratch, and then two of the first ones I did need fixing, now that I've developed my method. And in addition to the illustrations, there are seven decorative tailpieces and one of them needs to be redone. But it's only a matter of days. I must be strong. And then I can really sink my teeth into the novel... and start in on the outline for the next draft of volume two. But for the moment? My brain, she is crunchy. Like the chip. Ah, but it's band night. There will be beer and cigarettes and conversation, and I've found the last lines I need for the lyrics to Two-Fish Louie's Explanation, which means we can start developing the vocals. And we've started monkeying with When I Paint My Masterpiece. It's a nice simple one-four-five song, with a slow loping beat that's dead easy to jam to. I'll probably figure out a solid bass line for it eventually but right now I'm having a hoot just letting my fingers wander. And now I'm wandering. Because the brain. Crunchy. (Leave a comment)
July 8th, 2009
02:40 pm seancraven [Link]	Because I Am An (expletive delayed) Artist, (expletive delayed) It. http://seancraven.blogspot.com/2009/07/because-i-am-expletive-delayed-artist.html This is a little busy, but it's going to be printed as a diptych, so the composition will look a lot more reasonable on the page. Now I'm down to three illustrations (and two revisions of illustrations I thought I'd finished) before I'm done with Swill. I've got a confession, though. I am officially at the, "Just scan a bunch of crap and make a nice composition out of it," stage. The, "Oh, they'll be able to read something into it," stage. The fraud stage. Last night, Rob said, "Someone was asking me why Swill was taking so long to produce, and I told them it was because Sean had to do twice as many illustrations this time. They asked me why you had to do all the illustrations and I told them it was because Swill was an entity." Yes. That would be the case. (Posted later, after I placed the above in the magazine -- it looks swell as a diptych. While I was working on it, I had two layers that had gray rectangles that blocked off either the left or the right side so I could see how each half would look on its own. The resulting centerfold is a lot more pleasing than the whole thing in one slab.) So this morning, the missus played one of her tapes for me. It was the, "You should stop wasting your time on art and focus on your writing," one. This is something that I have to address every once in a while -- I explain things to her and sometimes she gets it and sometimes she doesn't. She's a brilliant woman but she has a knack for forgetting things that don't fit her needs... (And oh! my best beloved, to whom this post is directed, you didn't pull that crap on me when this was happening.) Anyway, I came up with a good one this time. "That's like telling a boxer that they should give up track work and spend all their time working on punching." I've talked about this a bit here and there but this seems like a good excuse to explain why I'm not just a writer or visual artist or musician. Why I have to do all that stuff -- and why I'm thinking about the day when I can try my hand at sculpture and film making and... Well, it pisses me off when she starts talking like that. So I've got to make an overly-elaborate reply, even though I shut her down in a somewhat high-handed fashion. (L'amour est guerre, baby, and in this case I'm the occupied nation...) So get ready for a boring diatribe that will probably sound like bragging a lot of the time. Now I could defend myself from a practical standpoint. I could say that my art is an important element of Swill and that Swill has given me some very valuable contacts in the writing community. Or I could point out that this site, which has been of great value to me, owes most of its tiny-but-treasured fistful of readers to my visual art. But the real issue is that creativity is the set, and writing is just a subset. Art is the experience of the world filtered through an individual. Even the most trivial art is the result of a lifetime's living as interpreted by its creator. Art is a fractal -- if you look at it from the proper distance, everything has the same shape. As the Bellman said, "What I tell you three times is true." I wrote about this in one of my posts about plotting. To paraphrase, many of the crucial elements in the arts are used across the board. Rhythm and timing exist in both music and prose -- and in art, the same element translates to composition. Repetition and variation occur in all arts. A sense of where to let things open up and where to include lots of detail -- again, that concept can be beneficially applied to any creative field. Working in different arts gives you a variety of perspectives on these principles that you can't get in any other way -- and once you start feeling them in one arena, you can use them in others. That's one of the keys to art -- learning those principles so well that you don't have to think about them. If you don't do that you can't riff, you can't freestyle, you can't jam. You're static. You're fucked. And one of the crucial elements in my writing is that I don't limit myself to verbal thinking when I work. When I write I perceive/hallucinate my subject matter with as many of my senses as possible -- and then I describe what I've 'experienced.' If I just wrote, I would imagine in words -- and I think that would weaken my work. Yeah, I'd be more technically skilled, my prose would be more polished, but I think that one of my gifts as a writer is my ability to immerse the reader in a scene. I would not be able to do this if I were limited to verbal thinking. And I think this ability is more important to most readers than an elegant prose style or a graceful plot. (Not to denigrate two skills with which I am fucking obsessed.) And to be a little bit more specific... Writing is my primary concern. Visual art was my primary concern for years. And music is something I do purely for fun. But the novel? It's about a musician, and music is central to the plot. And I wouldn't be able to write about it if I didn't play a little myself. Many of the fantastic elements in the book originated as artworks, and my art continues to be a primary source of inspiration for the writing. I believe these influences are crucial to the quality of the work I'm doing, such as it is. The novel wasn't written by writing. I drew the novel, composited the novel, composed the novel, played the novel. If I just wrote I would have nothing but words on the page. Fuck that. And anyway, sweetie (this is for the missus, you're reading over her shoulder) I tried to give up art, remember? Got rid of my art supplies, joined a writer's group? It didn't fucking work, did it? I know you're gonna give me a hard time over this again. But be warned. My reaction will be even more ridiculous than writing a fucking essay justifying myself. I'll go further. I have no idea what my response will be, but I can tell you this much. It will probably involve illustrations. (Leave a comment)
July 6th, 2009
02:00 pm seancraven [Link]	When Good Things Happen To Crude People http://seancraven.blogspot.com/2009/07/when-good-things-happen-to-crude-people.html I gotta admit, this is one of my favorite drawings and I've never posted the whole thing before. Yeah, that's pretty much what I look like. "It's the people in front that I jar." Throw in some drugs, fat chicks, musical instruments, and the violent overthrow of the government and that's pretty much what I think about, too... So I've been in a good mood lately. (And once more, the blog reveals itself as an accurate emotional barometer for the oaf -- frequent posts lacking in angst means a good mood.) I had a ridiculously good bout of yardsales on Saturday -- I'll show you photos of my new baritone ukulele when I get it in shape. (Actually, I'm gonna tune it E-A-D-G and treat it as a tenor bass rather than a baritone ukulele -- gonna try and learn how to do solos on it.) And despite the missus being out of town my good mood has lasted the weekend intact. Yesterday I decided to stretch myself and go to a party. I've mentioned that as a feral child (When I refer to myself using this term around the missus, she gets real serious and says, "You really are a feral child, you know." I know, sweetie. I know. So does everybody else.) I have a few issues around socialization and tend to be very, very uncomfortable around people I don't know unless I have a specific role to play that I know about in advance. I had a swell time. No anxiety involved -- I was completely at my ease for the whole thing. And at the end of the evening I would up hanging out with the host and hostess for hours -- it made me think about my pre-Karen days when most of my friendships were with couples. (I think that for a lot of my pals I was as much a surrogate child as I was a friend. A surrogate child who could move your stove.) Gave a pleasant nostalgic vibe to the evening for me, in addition to the feeling of cementing new relationships. And there were beers, pina coladas, mead, shots of Bacardi 151, and flavored tobacco smoked from an honest-to-Arabian-Nights hookah. All in moderation, of course. I remained presentable throughout. Here's a bit more on the party. Thanks for the swell time, Allison and Adam! That would have been plenty. But the onslaught of pleasant didn't stop there. When I got home I was, of course, compelled to check my email. And one of my emails started out like this... On behalf of the staff and the instructors, I'd like to welcome you as a student to Viable Paradise, and say congratulations! This letter is an email confirmation of your acceptance to the 2009 Viable Paradise Writers Workshop, aka VP 13/XIII. I got in? I got in. I got in! Hey, motherfucker, better get this straight -- your momma's got a pussy like a 248. Runs on diesel, runs on gas, hey motherfucker gonna kick your ass! This is the kind of thing that could really make a difference in my (say the word, oafboy -- sac up and say the fucking word) career. I mean, I'll be palling around with the guy who buys books for Tor, with one of the Braniacs, with the woman who wrote Glass Houses (a particularly swell second-wave cyberpunk novel) and a number of other luminaries, including one dude I've unfortunately slandered on this site. And one of the stories I submitted is my first attempt at a series that I've thought would be my Big Work for fucking decades. And... And... And... Shit, I couldn't sleep last night. I had to resist calling everyone I knew at fucking three in the morning. Right now I feel like hammered shit -- in a good way. Fuck it; I'm damned proud right now. I've been feeling better and better about myself over the last few years. And in these moments when I look at myself and see both promise and accomplishment, I've had a phrase go through my mind. It's from an old traditional song the Pogues covered... So be easy and free when you're drinking with me I'm a man you don't meet every day (Leave a comment)
July 5th, 2009
05:17 pm seancraven [Link]	Hey! Hey! I Forgot To Tell You & An Inadvertant Tutorial http://seancraven.blogspot.com/2009/07/hey-hey-i-forgot-to-tell-you.html So I needed a paleo-image to put at the top of the post. Rather than give you a crude sketch, I decided to sort throught the dustbin of history. I found a full-color piece -- and found myself compelled to throw a few changes on it. Here was the start of the work, a pencil drawing of what I believe is now known as Gorgosaurus libratus. Hey, everybody! I forgot to tell you -- the new Art Evolved gallery is up! Go and look at Pterosaurs! There are some swell ones in there -- and you might want to check back on it in a few days. There's still work being posted. And ol' Glendon Mellow's piece needs to be seen at a larger size. Click here to see it in it's full majesty. The subject matter and handling make me think of Allen St. John's work for Edgar Rice Burrough's fiction. I'll bet it's something to see live. I had some reference photos I'd taken at the Miocene forest at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens and figured hey, it was close enough for government work. I colored it using hues selected from the photo using the Eyedropper tool. But I've always been a little unsatisfied with it. I wanted it to look like a snapshot of a Gorgosaurus and it looked like what it was -- a colored pencil drawing on top of a photo. And the overall color of it seemed drab and faded. When I saw it again, it struck me that I could do something about that. I've got ten more years of Photoshop under my belt. Even if I didn't have the file with the layers on it, there were some global adjustments I could do that would make a difference. The first thing I did was to beef up the color. I could have done that with an adjustment layer -- Hue & Saturation, Lightness & Contrast, Curves, or Levels could have worked alone or in conjuction with one another. I had a better idea -- first, I went to Image Mode under the Image menu and changed it to LAB color. Then I added a Curves adjustment layer. When you use curves, you can apply them to the different channels of an image -- in RGB, there's an overall channel for the whole image, then seperate channels for red, green, and blue. In CMYK, there's the same thing going on, only the channels are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. LAB color is different. When you use curves in LAB, you have one channel for lightness, and the other two channels control relationships between different colors. Using a cute trick I'd show you if I knew how to make and work with screen captures (which I really need to learn, pronto), I used the curves adjustment layer to punch up the color to get the above result. And by helping the color, I helped the contrast. Then I added a Brighness & Contrast adjustment layer, using it to increase contrast even more and to darken the overall image slightly. Next came a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer. I left the hue alone but slightly decreased the saturation. Finally, I converted the image itself to a Smart Object and added an Unsharp Mask filter. While I'd have been able to do a much better job if I'd been messing with the full file, now the image looks a lot more unified to me, as thought the Gorgosaur is in the same space as the forest. And it took less than ten minutes! Still one problem, though. The teeth look like shit. So I added a layer, sampled the yellow of the teeth and generated a color a little cooler and darker than that, set the new layer to Multiply mode, and airbrushed some shadows over the teeth. Since I was using Multiply, that brought out the pencil marks underlying the color. That took me half an hour; I couldn't help myself. The compulsive oaf even went and used some Rubber Stamp tool on a few stray pixels you'll never see. But I think the end result is a great improvement. Heh-heh-heh. I just glanced at the comparison between this image and the one below and was reminded of my greatest strength and weakness as an artist -- I never do nothing the same way twice. I'll always remember the time I mentioned to the Monday writing group that my next submission was going to be completely different than anything they'd seen from me before -- and the room erupted in laughter. When they were able to talk again, they explained to me that everything I did was completely different than anthing they'd seen from me before. Makes it hard to build a brand. (Leave a comment)
July 4th, 2009
10:16 pm seancraven [Link]	True Amphibian Crime Part Two: The Transbay Newt Shuffle http://seancraven.blogspot.com/2009/07/true-amphibian-crime-part-two-transbay.html Now that I'm looking at this, I want it on a T-shirt. Okay, this happened about eighteen years ago. I'm pretty sure crimes were committed, but I'm not au fait as to the laws in question. My late brother Duncan was the provocateur; a then-friend of my brother's and now a close friend of mine, whose nom du caper will be The Hon. Richard Talleywhacker, acted as wheelman. As for my own role... This was before the missus and I embarked on our herptile fixation -- and the events that follow, I now realize, were the thin end of that wedge. On impulse, I'd picked up a fishtank at a yard sale and set it up with an undergravel filter. Now instead of stocking it with fish, I had gotten a jar full of pondwater and sediment and poured it into the tank and let it stew for a year or so. There were all kinds of tiny animals in there, water beetles and daphnia and so on and so forth. There was a healthy crop of algea. While there weren't any big spectacular animals, it was still fascinating to put your face close to the glass and watch all the different little creatures going about their business. So one fine day Duncan tells me I'm going hiking with him and The Hon. Richard Talleywhacker. Mr. Talleywhacker drives us out to Tilden park and we set out hiking around the hills. And that's where I came face to face with temptation. Tilden has a population of California newts. They are adorable little guys, chunky dark red pups with orange bellies. They lay their eggs underwater in clusters of jelly attached to plant stems.Well, we ran across some seasonal ponds that were drying out, and where the water had receded we found hundreds of egg clusters drying in the sun. I knew it wasn't kosher to swipe animals from a park like this, but when I bemoaned the fact that all those eggs were going to die, Duncan nagged at me until I gave in. I had some plastic bags in my knapsack; we gathered fifteen or twenty egg clusters and took them home, where I put them in my aquarium. At first I wasn't sure they were going to hatch -- but they didn't rot. And then one day I went upstairs and the tank was swarming with infinitisimal larval newts. They lived happily off the fauna in the tank for quite a while. But then quite literally overnight, a select few of the newts grew to two or three times the size of the others -- and there were a lot fewer of the others. Now I have nothing against cannibalism in principal but enforcing it via confinement and starvation seemed a bit unsavory to me. The theme music from Born Free blowing through the open space between my ears, I called Duncan and told him it was time to let the newts go. "There's no point in letting them go in Tilden," Duncan said. "There's already newts there. Let's take 'em to Golden Gate Park." Now let me make one thing clear. The geeks who unleashed the salamanders mentioned in The Origin Of Cyclops, the idiots who decided to import all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare to the US, the jackoffs responsible for bringing Australian black swans to New Zealand -- that is some heinous shit. Disrupting an environment with alien species is fundamentally noxious. But San Francisco -- and Golden Gate Park in particular -- isn't a natural environment. If it were, it would be dunes and bunch grass, dry as a bone. But Golden Gate Park is a moist green wonderland with year-round ponds, filled with alien plants and animals. Giving a California native an extra habitat didn't seem like a sin. It still doesn't. So The Hon. Richard Talleywhacker and his car were called upon to transport Duncan, myself, and an uncountable number of larval newts to San Francisco. We did the dirty deed in broad daylight. No one dared challange us, assuming anyone noticed we were doing anything. Two ponds were stocked. I've always wondered what happened after that... but every so often I do a search on California Nets Golden Gate Park. And once, a few years back, I found a one-paragraph story on a news site saying that the California Newts had returned to Golden Gate Park. No more information than that. Since I'm pretty sure that there weren't any newts living in San Francisco before... I wonder. I wonder... (Leave a comment)
12:42 am seancraven [Link]	Not A Bad Workday http://seancraven.blogspot.com/2009/07/not-bad-workday.html What can I say? Insects-as-phallic-architecture are fun! I think that two of these should be plenty for the magazine, though. So that makes two good work days in a row. Yesterday I blew off working on the illustrations for Swill in order to sink my teeth back into the novel. I revised four chapters, nearly forty pages of manuscript. Now I'm a month ahead of the Tuesday night group and I'm ready to rock when the Monday night group reconvenes. So now I'm a third of the way through the fourth revision. Today I managed to work another illustration for Swill from concept to finish. (It's the up top there.) I'm getting better and better at working my new set of tricks and it's fun to see how things develop. And now I'm down to four more illustrations before I go. One a day, oafboy. One a day. Then you can do the novel full time by the end of the week. Speaking of which, I did the fifth revision of chapter one as well, the version that's going to be my submission to agents. I want to revise the manuscript as I get the criticisms, and hopefully it won't take me too long to get caught up. By handling it this way I can track the novel as a whole in order to make sure that everything ties together properly and that any changes I make in any one section can be integrated with the work as a whole. Now this first chapter has stuff in it that dates back right to the beginning of the project, back when it was a novella about a haunted garage band. I figured that it was going to be a line edit rather than a real revision. I was wrong; there was so much red ink on the page it looked as though I'd butchered a guinea pig on the manuscript. It was great -- I hit a new level of skill in omitting needless words and started to see sentences that had been in place for years, that had gone by many readers without complaint, and I say that They Fucking Said Nothing, that they were verbal lubricant to keep my flow of ideas going while I was writing. And that's the thing. Those words needed to be written -- they just didn't need to be read. The chapter went from nine pages to eight pages and it reads so much better now. Dense with information and yet it goes down quite easily. I'm now in the part of the ego roller-coaster where I'm thinking very highly of the novel. It's a pleasant feeling. But give me another month and I'll be hating it again... Here's a taste. “Hey, we weren’t talking about you, man, we weren’t talking about you!” The kid who spoke had his hands up and his friends looked freaked out. I stopped and blinked. “Sorry, dude,” I said. “I’ve been kind of going through it lately.” I could feel my tremor starting up – my hands were shaky and there was a quiver in my voice. Fuck those kids. Soft little overprivileged shits, all lip and no spine. They hadn’t shown me respect. They just didn’t want any trouble. I should have gone for them. Back in my hometown there’d be blood on the pavement by now, probably mine. San Costas wasn’t a city – it was a goddamned petting zoo. (Leave a comment)

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