throw another bear in the canoe

coffeeandink on feminist SF & manga. Interesting to me in particular because I also grew up thinking feminism was one of the central elements of the SF genre. I don't generally like anime or manga, though. (And yes, I have seen/viewed/read rather a lot of it, including some of the classics. You don't need to proselytize me.)

wen_spencer on morphing books

APOD: Gliese 876 System Includes Large Terrestrial Planet 15 light years, unfortunately not suitable for human-type life. Or perhaps fortunately, if it has inhabitants of a type that might not mind a surface temperature at twice the boiling point of water.

The estimable Tobias Buckell links Raechel Henderson Moon on why it's bullshit that commercial publishers won't buy first novels. Which is true. I understand that the real hump is the third or fourth novel. Because then, see, you've got a track record to live up to--or down.

benpeek and larbalestier have lots of thoughtfully ranty things to say about the darkcabal thing. One thing I've learned about this genre is that, no matter what you try to do, for whatever reasons, somebody will be agin it, and somebody else will be fer it for reasons that make absolutely no sense to you.

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror is like a gigantic sprawling extended family having a year-long Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody has an opinion about everything. I still think it's an interesting experiment. I don't, you know, expect it to revolutionize the awards process in the genre... but then, I'm too much of a Yankee to mail anybody a copy of my book with a "please vote for this if you think it's worthy" sticker on the front.

In other words, I'm agin it.

Summer has arrived in Las Vegas. I saw a three-foot tumbleweed becalmed in the suicide lane on Clayton Street today.

So, I was driving home from the bank, where I had to scamper today--venturing my sick self forth in the triple-digit temperatures, woe! alas! (perhaps it burned the illness from my veins)--and the only decent thing on the radio was an old John Mellencamp song, which naturally rewound my heat-dazed internal clock about twenty years.

Does anybody else recall a contest that I think ran on Mtv back in the halcyon days when they played music and Tom Petty videos and Monkees marathons and wacky game shows and were, in fact, something one might actually care to watch, which was entitled "I Hate My Wretched Life!" The gimmick was that they would give you ten thousand dollars (at 1980's prices), pay to relocate you to a new city, find you an apartment, get you a job, and arrange to have your name changed? Yeah?

Remember that?

I wonder where that guy is now.

***

At least, when I date myself, I don't usually get dumped over dinner.

`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed.'

That's this one. If you lost track somewhere.

Comment

Fearmongering

Republicans have officially started the the campaign to amend the Constitution by repealing the 22nd Amendment - the one that confines the President to two terms. If the Republicans hold their current strength, or increase it, in the 2006 Congressional elections, expect this measure to pass allowing Bush to remain President...

Now, frankly, amending the constitution ain't that easy of a process. (There's this little thing called ratification that causes all the problems.) If it was easy, we'd have an ERA, for one thing.

*Rolls eyes.*

So I slept two hours later than I normally do, paid bills, did the dishes, went to the bank, got my plane tickets squared away for the trip to Minneapolis and Toronto (eee. That was not cheap) and generally failed to do any writing at all for a good five hours this morning.

I think the fever may have cooked my brain.

Fortunately, I had words from last night and this afternoon to claim.

And I am joining Leah in invoking the Voodoo. Mekka lekka hai, mekka hiney ho.

Saturday is world juggling day (via tiggerbone). I actually do juggle. Poorly.

hal_duncan has a livejournal. and a kickass story up at Strange Horizons this week, ( Collapse )

Progress notes for 14 June 2005:

Whiskey & Water

New Words: 2,034
Total Words: 121,484 / 136,250
Notecards eradicated/remaining: 1.5 / 20.5
Pages: 545

136,250 / 160,000 (85.0%)

Reason for stopping: The cat seems to want something. And I want food.
Mammalian Assistance: Cat on mousepad. Earlier, he was kneading my shoulder, which was unpleasant, because I was wearing a tank top.
Stimulants: seltzer
Exercise: none, but I may try a little light yoga later
Mail: Agent Jenn typed up the Locus mentions, so here they are--mine, and those of a notable few others, like jaylake and jimbutcher.
Today's words Word don't know: n/a
Tyop du jour: returked
Darling du jour: Kids had so damned much energy for falling in and out of love.
Books in progress, but not at all quickly: Kristine Smith, Code of Conduct; Richard Overy, Russia's War: A History of the Soviet War Effort, 1941-1945
Interesting research tidbits of the day: Gray's Anatomy, online
Other writing-related work: contest entries

I feel so used.