I Continue to Write

   I continue to work on the new (hopefully shippable) draft of Persistence of Memory. I always got held up very early on on revising Cailin's previous draft, because the first scene is more or less what it needs to be, so I focused just on revising the prose. Yesterday, however, I realized that the scene was still terrible, no matter how many sentences I rewrote. It was the substance that was flawed, not the style. The characterization was too flat to take the audience through the first few pages, for example. And the exposition was terrible. It was basically an infodump. In fact, it was an infodump.

   Exposition to a science fiction universe is hard enough. Exposition on a science fiction story that happens to be a mystery is even harder. The exposition of a science fiction mystery that has what equates to be an amnesiac as the main character?

   At least he knows just as much if not less about the universe than the audience.

   And, at least in our case, he knows what the mystery is. Right there. And he explains it to us. Right there. In all drafts of the story, the primary exposition takes place in the form of a letter, or something of a journal entry, that Rem's writing. The letter explains the mystery. Looking at this now, I realize how terrifically infodumpy this is. That's got to go.

   We're keeping the letter format, since it because a pretty major plot point later on, but I'm switching its location now to the beginning, so that it becomes the first thing the audience reads. Which was how I envisioned it originally, but isn't how it got written for some reason. Having it be in the middle of the scene, as Cailin had it, is basically looking over Rem's shoulder as he writes; it's an actual part of the scene. Since it's a letter, there's really no subtle way of doing this, so here it feels like exposition. Infodump. At the beginning of the chapter, however, it becomes a question set up for the audience, to be answered later. Hopefully. Either way, it's better this way, quite imaginably.

   I feel like we should be ready to push it onto publishers with this draft. For real this time. We sent out the earlier infodumpy draft, which was summarily rejected, two years ago. It hasn't been that long, comparatively speaking, since we came up with the universe, characters, and story, but I already feel like I'm a much better writer now than then. Maybe that's just because I was going through a really pretentious stage in Sophomore year high school. Dag, how long ago was that. Four years? It's a whole fifth of my life. That's almost a quarter. Wow. No wonder I was able to improve so much.

 

On Jams

   Today I played guitar for a senior citizen's hootenany. Since I haven't been able to find my glasses for several weeks, I could only just vaguely squint at the chord charts for the songs. I was late to the punch a lot, and to be honest it didn't sound very good. Except for the songs that had very simple chord prgression, I eventually just decided to forget it, wing it, and improvise backing on the bass strings. That sounded much better. This proved to me two things:

1. Cailin's job is really easy, and
2. Jamming is easier than it looks.

   Jamming, right? Jam sessions. All playing together but improvising at the instrumentation. Right. Why is he discovering this just now, you ask yourself. Wouldn't he know how to jam already? Ahh, but no, see. Comrade Helicopter are not a jam band. We just construct the ssoundscape very carefully to give it that feeling. With only three members but a lot of instrumentation, we have no choice but to overdub.

   With jamming, though, I realized something: you all know what key you're in. See, I always wondered why those didn't sound horrible. I guess there's still the chance you get too close to someone else's pitch to- well, I don't have spellcheck right now, so I really can't spell it, and I don't have time to look up the proper spelling, but you know what I was going to say. The rest of the band pulls the sound away from that, though, so it's overshadowed by the actually good playing. Barring that, even, you know that you sound bad, so you kind of correct yourself. Counterpoints make it sound deliberate. And everyone knows that that's nothing new.

(Filler Post- In Transit)

   I'm in-- an airport, today, in transit to-- Wal Mart? Let's go with that-- so here's a prescheduled filler post with links to episodes of Writing Excuses that deal directly with things I've blogged, as I kind of hinted that I might give you, even though I said "tomorrow" when I meant "when I'm done with the stuff I did not blog Sunday." Since I'm done with that stuff (I think I also had an idea on a post that had to do with the tropes that deal with teacups? Though that doesn't really make sense, unless you're counting Greek puns somehow tied to Disneyland rides), I'm giving you these today. There are plenty of other favorite episodes of mine, but these are the ones most most relevant to you, my readers. So you're welcome.

   The following are some episodes I've linked, preceded by links to my posts that makes these relevant.

   Capers and tropes! (Tropic Capers!)

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/06/17/writing-excuses-7-25-writing-capers/

   Nonlinearity!

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/06/08/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-4-non-linear-story-telling/

   Tips on collaboration, which I'm doing with Cailin on PoM - I had written out a chart of the mixture of forms of collaboration we're taking on it, but it's too complex for you to care. Suffice to say, it's not the kind that hides weaknesses in writing, since it's sort of us brainstorming and then we both-- never mind, see, I'm getting into it again. I think it's worth it, though, to... Never mind. I'll post about this later.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/01/03/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-32-collaboration/

   Mary Robinette Kowal's first episode on the 'cast, before she was a series regular, where she gives tips for puppeteering that double as metaphors for writing tips (awesome!):

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/08/30/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-14-the-four-principles-of-puppetry-with-mary-robinette-kowal/

   Nancy Fulda, the woman who inspired me to do a new short story a month (and apparently Howard Tayler's sister-in-law!) doing a guest spot from her position as the slush pile reader for Jim Baen's Universe, on what amateurish mistakes slush pile readers avoid. This kind of thing is exactly why this month's short story is called, "Jimmy, the Genius Supermodel Slush Puppy, Who's, Like, Ten Times Cooler than Shaft." (Not really.)

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/03/29/writing-excuses-season-2-episode-25-the-seven-deadly-sins-of-slush-stories/

   How carefully Christopher and Jonah Nolan craft Batman:

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/09/29/writing-excuses-episode-34-what-the-dark-knight-did-right/

Stuff I Did Not Blog Sunday, Part III: To Mess with Chess Novicess

   As I continue to work on writing projects, here's something that has nothing to do with writing. If you're playing chess with someone, preferably a novice, someone who doesn't know the rules that well. Or at least someone who is not an absolute expert on chess, and would assume that you're technically in the right playing these moves. Because the following tricks deal exclusively with messing with the rules. Pawn promotion is weird. Exploit the loopholes. (En passant is actually pretty airtight. Sorry.) Some of these are better ideas than others, but there are uses for all of these.

1. Famous chess teacher George Koltanowski tells the story of a student of his who promoted a pawn into a second king because Koltanowski did not specifically state this to be against the rules. Unless you're playing against an absolute moron who does not understand the most basic rules of promotion (in which case shame on you for being so mean to the mentally feeble,) I do not think that this will work against your opponent.
2. You can also try to promote your pawn to another pawn, though I'm not sure why you'd want to do this. I suppose you could use it to clog up your opponent's home rank? I don't know. There's not much use with this one, or any use at all. Unless messing with your opponent's head is a good use. That would actually probably work. Go try it out.
3. Promote a pawn to a rook along the e-file. Providing that you haven't moved your king, you can now castle vertically with it and the never-before-moved rook.
4. Promote your pawn to a piece of your opponent's color. This is useful for, say, pinning their king. A pawn would be useful here! Bonus points if you tell your opponent that they're not allowed to move forward two spaces on that pawn's initial move because it's not starting out on the second row (though they totally would, since the rules say that the pawn is allowed to move forward two when it has not yet moved, and, judging by the logic of the unmoved rook castling thing...)
5. This one is actually technically legal, but it involves your opponent promoting their pawn, but you totally blowing through it. In 1993, Garry Kasparov promoted his pawn against Anatoli Karpov, but there was no queen to be found. In trouble for time, Kasparov punched his clock to allow Karpov to make his move, even though the piece there at the end rank was still a pawn. Karpov proceeded to make a move that would have put his king in check, had the pawn there been an actual queen. It was Kasparov who was penalized for his illegal move. Although there is precedent for this, then, it'd be unlikely to happen in an untimed match, which is the scenario most likely with a casual game, with someone over whose eyes you can pull wool, like the other examples.

   On the subject of pawn promotion, there's a chess variant out there called upside-down chess, in which your board is upside-down so that your pawns are only one step away from promotion. But that's legal, since it's the exact premise of the variant, so I'm not sure why I bring it up here. Besides the fact that it's pretty neat.

Stuff I Did Not Blog Sunday, Part II: Because I'm Writing a Book

   What, me? No, no. I've just been getting in the writing mood by listening to the wonderful Writing Excuses podcast. If this is your first time hearing of it, if you're a genre writer, then this is your new best friend/lover. Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart. Though usually they run a few minutes longer than fifteen minutes, you'll want to takes your time out for this, and its hosts are some of the most brilliant artists on the scene: it's hosted by Mistborn author Brandon Sanderson, I am Not a Serial Killer author Dan Wells, Schlock Mercenary creator Howard Tayler, and Shades of Milk and Honey authoress (and professional puppeteer!) Mary Robinette Kowal. If you did not just bleed a little from your eye sockets or from the nose at all just there, just from the sheer force of how awesome that is giving you an explosive aneurysm (or something), then you're a terrible person and Santa probably hates you.

   I'd put up some samples for you to listen to right here, but they're all so good. If I have nothing to post tomorrow, I've got a few in mind that deal directly with stuff I've blogged.

Is This Real Life? (Is This Just Fantasy?)

   I did some research on daydreaming, which concept I stated before I don't understand. I still don't quite understand it, as definitions vary, but all of them seem to have in common a detachment from reality while remaining conscious. No mention is made how closely this relates to plain old imagination, but from what I can understand, daydreaming actually represents some form of altered state of consciousness. The daydreamer actually believes the events are coming to pass, to varying degrees.

   What the heck? So, daydreaming is basically a hallucination? I've stayed awake for 72 hours before just so that could happen to me without taking any dangerous and/or illegal drugs, and you're telling me that most people do it so often than they don't even know when it's happening? Asperger's buh-lows.

   I don't think this could actually be right. But it might be. That's what my sources are telling me. Why is there not more research into this? People regularly drop off into hallucinations or other forms of dissociation from reality, while remaining fully conscious? I'm not sure if I'm reading the data wrong, is the thing. Maybe it just describes spacing out. But the reality-blurring aspects would seem to say otherwise. Do people have such a shaky grasp on what is and is not fiction?

   I think I'm able to comprehend it now, but it's like Frank Jackson's thought experiment of the fully colorblind person in the perfectly black and white room, who learns all there is to know about color and then cured of colorblindness. Do they know anything more now that they know what color actually looks like rather than just how it works?*

   Looking at the Imaginal Processes Inventory, which was developed to quantify daydreams, I'm somewhat disturbed. It's really quite surreal to me, like touching down on an alien landscape. Maybe it's like that to other people, too, and only a very special class of people would answer "my thoughts seem as real as actual events in my life" to the affirmative. But of course I specifically target this question. But some of the others, especially those on emotional and visceral responses to daydreams, and the exact degree of visual and auditory sensation to the daydream...

   So, from what I can tell, there's a spectrum there, depending on exactly how the mind of the subject in question functions. Makes sense. I still don't understand how people would be able to confuse their own fantasies with reality while conscious (but then again, my last post was on expecting real-life manifestations of fictional tropic examples (It had been with me for a while, and I still knew that it was about a work of fiction, though.))

Because Even if There Is No Such Thing as Notability, There Is Such Thing as Notability

   I've been working mostly on Persistence of Memory-type stuff, so I really don't have much of anything for you today. Well, I've got loads of stuff, but none of it is really connected in a very well-defined way, and all of them could be expanded into their own posts, so I think I'll do that. I'll start with this one, since it may or may not be what is causing me to work mostly on Nepenthe today rather than put up a real post for you:


   It sure is disarming when you're browsing TV Tropes with an idea in mind, and (rather than getting carried away in wiki surfing like you're probably expecting) find the exact trope page you want, (maybe even staying on it, whatever, that's not my point,) but realize that the example you have of the trope that you clearly expect to be there on the trope page and would relish in seeing there isn't there and in fact doesn't exist because it's still fictional, that is, from a project you haven't completed yet and is still just in your head. It really spurs you to get going on said project.

Aaand Sunglasses, Quip to Theme

   This leftover piece of lasagna...

...kind of looks like a fox.

   YEEAAAAAHHHHH!

Of More Film Making and Rice Mascots

   More On Our Own shooting today. Just reshoots, but still, good stuff. We're about 2/3-3/4 of the way through filming now, and Dave says he'll be finished editing by about October, which gives us enough time to submit the film to some of the film festivals, which generally take place around that time, doncha know. There's three festivals we're looking at right now, to which we'll probably be accepted based off of judge and audience reaction to the original film.

   Still haven't figured a way to foreshadow the economic collapse more. I had the idea, which we discussed briefly, of showing signs of a police state, with soldiers stationed around everywhere or something. That'd be cool. But I don't know.

   I also had the fleeting idea that the villain should be one of these, a schizophrenic pedophile Marine or SEAL or Green Beret played by Jon Heder who's targeted the brothers and is chasing them across the desert. This is the first time I've shared this idea with anyone, because face it it's kind of stupid, but who would not want to see that movie? I thought not.

   After shooting was done, ("shooting" in more ways than one, as we went out onto the range afterwards, but seriously I wouldn't have even mentioned that had there not been a pun there,) we got some General Tso's chicken at Wal Mart, and this is important. I would have gone home to eat instead, but that was exactly the kind of thing I was in the mood for, right there, I mean like right THERE, while it would have been a toss-up with what was for dinner at home (apparently hot dogs) (although really I was specifically in the mood for teriyaki beef or something as I had never had General Tso's before.)

   Ironically, perhaps, the only reason I ate with them was because we got General Tso's chicken instead of pizza or something, and the only reason we got General Tso's chicken instead of pizza or something was because there was supposed to be rice with which to eat the General Tso's chicken, but the rice maker wouldn't work. Meaning I did not get any delicious Hinode brand rice, which I have never had before and still have not had (but it's still probably delicious,) even though I did get some chicken of a kind I've never had before. I guess that's still good.

   So, food. Seriously, like 90% of this film's budget is catering. Anyway, these things were not before I had already drawn this, which I guess is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs's Flint Lockwood as the Hinode Rice Man (they seriously look almost exactly the same, so you really can't tell the difference that much, the most noticeable one being this guy's neck is longer, plus he's just taller. And he's got that weird spiked hair, but you can't see it very well with the straw (?) headgear):

Of Film Making and Rice Mascots

   I spent much of the day on the set of On Our Own. Not really much to report there. The director says that thanks to my helping frame some shots and whatnot, I'm going to be credited as Second Unit Assistant Director. Well, that's how I think my credit should read. Since there's only one real unit, he actually says I'm going to be credited as the Assistant Director of Photography. A slightly loftier position than I feel I deserve, but I'm not complaining. Good news, I guess.

   On actual matters of making the movie, I don't think there's enough in the budget to purchase any stock footage, but I still think the movie is missing something without having any economic foreshadowing at the beginning. We've shot some stuff with the teacher at the beginning, but continuity hassles prevented us from continuing on that path, and I'm not sure how we can work around the fact that we only got half of the classroom scene shot. Also, I still feel it's lacking in some other department: a villain? Or some other way of having a bigger narrative arc than just leaving home and learning how to respect your brother in life-threatening circumstances? They meet too many new friends along the way for it to be a real survival story, so...

   Nevertheless! None of these things are really why I'm posting on that today. The real reason is some set pieces we had. Survival stuff, you know. Stuff to make it look like they had a food storage pantry going on. Anyway, two of the items there were these rather large bags of rice. I just fell in love with the mascot immediately. I'm not sure if he's got an official name, but the Hinode Rice Man is now officially my favorite mascot. Incredible that a human could climb the ranks so quickly, but how could you not love a face like that?: 

"I sure am mighty pleased to have this phat bowl of steaming hot long-grain enriched white rice. Delicious!"

   He's just so happy with his rice! Isn't he adorable? Maybe tomorrow I'll post up some fan art.

More IQ Stuff

   In the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar the chimpanzee (played, of course, by the incomparable Andy Serkis) is a hyperintellegent chimpanzee. Like, hyperintellegent. By age two, so narrates Will Rodman (James Franco's character), Caesar was completing puzzles and models designed for children eight years and up. He shows "cognitive skills that far exceed his human counterpart." Far exceed. In terms of IQ, let's lowball that and say that's 120, or the first decile of intelligence (top 10%).  It's probably quite higher, since 40% better than average isn't that "far." Remember, this is human intelligence here, what with the exceeding of the human counterpart. In other words: IQ so high, it's scary. That's at age two.

   Several montage sequences later, Caesar's IQ is said to double in a year, between ages seven and eight. Going by what we estimated his IQ to be around earlier, that would be an IQ of 240, or, in other words, 80 more points than Albert Einstein's estimated intelligence quotient.  Keep in mind, we're still dealing in human IQ here, applied to a chimpanzee. If we were to increase IQ between the ages of two and seven, which little doubt happened, the IQ would be even higher. Like, say, 300-400, IQs so high that not only would they entail eidetic memory, but also extrasensory powers and clairvoyance.

   Alright, maybe it's not that terrifying. So he's better at puzzle games than most kids. That's probably just the picture-based ape mind he's got. Most people with Asperger's can probably do the same thing. And the IQ they're talking about there? Probably ape IQ. Different from human IQ. I don't know how ape IQ is measured. It's probably a storied and fascinating field. But it's probably very likely got different earmarks from how human IQ is measured.

   Probably.

   Even then, his IQ would start out well above average for an ape, then continue rising from there. So my earlier estimate of 300-400 wouldn't be that far off. Though this time no supernatural abilities are entailed by these numbers. Still scary smart, but not scary scary smart. Well, yeah, scary scary smart, but not scary scary human smart. There'd still be plenty of humans who'd be able to outfox this ape.

   That is, until the ALZ-113 gets them. Argh.

   Oh well. It's just a movie.

Which is It, Then?

   In my last post I said this blog was for fans, but in my second post I said this blog was for friends. I was watching the A-Team at the time I posted my last post there, so you can forgive me if I contradicted myself. (That Murdoch guy, is he crazy or what?) Whatever. Maybe there was just a shift in the theme of the blog. Even though there wasn't. Maybe I was just wrong the first time. Or the second. Whichever. Anyway, here's a thought I had today:

   People have been generally growing more intelligent since they invented a way to measure intelligence, in a process known as the Flynn effect (named after, of course, Kevin Flynn, Jeff Bridge's character in Tron. Or IQ expert Professor James Robert Flynn, PhD. Whichever.) The IQ median remains fixed at 100 no matter what, meaning that they have to keep revising the tests. An averagely intelligent man of the 1930s would have an IQ of 80 today, for example, and that is scary. Let me take a moment to explain what this means. Even if the world were full of entirely geniuses, the average IQ would still be 100. One IQ point for them would just be worth a lot more than one IQ point for us. This world-of-geniuses, implausible as it may seem, with the Flynn effect would seem to be where the world is heading. If the Flynn effect isn't going to slow down or anything. Depends on the exact mechanisms of the Flynn effect, which are unknown and highly debated. But.

   If people are getting smarter, why are they getting dumber? The standard for intelligence in entertainment seems to have dropped. These kids these days, what with their not knowing that the Titanic was real, or who the veep of the United States is. How about this: it is only through modern tech that their ignorance has been revealed to the masses. Maybe people were always this uninformed? Alright, that seems a bit of a stretch. The idea really sounded much better in my head. Alternative ideas:

   Maybe the gap is just splitting wider? Not really supported by any data, though. The Flynn effect could be just because kids these days are more primed to take tests, but that wouldn't explain the gradual upward slope in the past. Better nutrition is kind of a lame one, in a way that makes sense, but it really can't answer how dramatic the effect is. A combination of factors? Perhaps. I guess I should have done more research before setting out to write this post. Okay, maybe not, as this post isn't really about the mechanics of the Flynn effect so much as, if it exists, then why our children are still so apparently uneducated.

   I really thought I was onto something, with the kids-were-always-this-dumb-but-now-we've-got-cameraphones-to-prove-it hypothesis. Meh, blame it on the educational system. Or not so much their education as their lack of motivation to become educated. Public shaming, I guess? Kind of a mean motivation. Though it really can't be a bad thing that you're publicly expected to know the capital of your own state.

What Does This Mean? As I am Yet an Amateur

   I'm posting this to follow up on my post To Be Pro, but looking over it now it seems kind of... Needy?  I don't know. It's all about how I'm as of yet still at press time an amateur, as opposed to a professional. Amateurs do it for love, professionals do it for money, but they're not necessarily mutually nonexclusive, as it's possible to have more than one motivation, isn't it. You can love your job. They say that getting paid for what you love doing only kind of mars it for you, but

   Why do you put up with me?


   I'm just an amateur. I'm unproven. But I still post tips and stuff onto the internet. Eh, I guess it's an elective thing, you reading this blog. But still as of now I'm just another voice in the blogosphere. Who would listen to a nonpro? I post nonetheless.

   The hope is that when I am pro, then my fans (or whatever) can look back in the blog archives or something. My eventual professionalism is after all more or less assured. I mean, I'm down that career path, and with modern technology, I could be a professional right now if I wanted to. (I am after all already blogging.) So this really isn't for me right now. It's for future me. Or my future fans. And I know that if I'm wrong, that's going to seem like ego, thinking I'd ever have fans, but if I'm right... I'll be right.


   Okay, that still sounds like ego. I just want to get paid for what I love doing, though, man. A pretty noble goal, if you ask me. At the heart of it is some kind of egocentricity or something, if that's what you call wanting what you want. But we all need to connect. Or most of us do. It's just in my case I think life would be meaningless without it. Without people to share my ideas with. Which is why I want to spread my ideas to as many people as possible. And look good competent doing it. What I mean is, I'm on the internet and stuff, but I still seek pro-dom. If that doesn't happen, this is all for nothing. Well, not nothing, but I'd just be another voice. From the outside, I mean. I don't want to be just an amateur.


   We recognize talent in professionals, but it's always a toss-up with amateurs. (Sometimes it's a toss-up with professionals, too, but that's only sometimes and not always.) To be recognized as so good (or, in the case of many an incompetent professional, so lucky) as to be worthy of receiving payment for something done is exulting. But anyone can be amateur. Even the talented ones. Since I can draw more than stick figures, I hope you'll pardon me if I include myself on that list. But there'd be no point in keeping this up if all I'll amount to is a talented amateur. I do keep it up. I post and I write and I art.

   But I am a fledgler. That is, I am fledgling.

  That's the core of it, isn't it? I'm better than most, but I'm still at the start of all of this. We will see what the future holds in thatwise. Let's hope that it's to a place where what I say is actually worth anything.

A Rare Sentence

   So, anyway. I had to pre-schedule yesterday's post yesterday because I went to help out with an eleven-year-old scout day camp thing that morning and to a baseball game last night. I wouldn't ordinarily tell you this, as this is not a tell-you-about-my-life blog, but I'm telling you about what happened to me this time because what happened there (at the baseball game) was so unusual:

   Going to get a better view of one of the electronic billboards while trying to look like I was doing something other than ogling technology, the blue-eyed ghost of Dennis Hopper asked me if I was lost or something.

   Mmm.

To Be Pro

   Sorry about the short last minute post yesterday. It is I think a very good question nonetheless. I'm doing a bunch of stuff like I told you earlier, and there's stuff going on today, so I am forced to pre- schedule this one. On 9:05, because it's the sixteenth of June. It's another essay on professionalism I guess. How I want to be pro.

   I use pro here to mean professional, rather than expert. As expert as you may be, you are not pro unless you get paid to do it.

   There is no such thing as talent the way it seems to be perceived. Anyone can be good- anyone can learn good technique. Talent is not technique. True talent lies not in what you know how to do, but how to apply what you know how to do. Anyone can learn technique, but you have to learn also how to use it. There is a difference between talent and skill. You improve on your talents.

   You have got to set yourself apart. Why do people seek both the spotlight and to fit in? They are as far as I can tell mutually nonexclusive.

   And I've got to go now, so see you later.

A Fair Question

   Why do we give superpowers to the most accident-prone?

   That is all.

Songs I Can't Get Out of My Head (In a Good Way, I Guess?)

   Sometimes the sidebar advertises things at you, and sometimes those advertisements are for things worth advertising. That's always a nice surprise. Things being shared are shared, because that's what you'd want to happen if you were in that position. So, since I posted a video for an upcoming film project yesterday, I feel like I should do the same thing again today. What could possibly go wrong? The worst thing you could be is right. No, really. Who wants to carry around that burden? Anyway.

   This guy, Noah Silver, really wants to do the song for the end credits of Ender's Game. Taken out ads and everything. He wants everyone who can to spread the song he's written for it around so that he is in a position to do so. Since this is the exact question that I want to know the answer to from Roberto Orci, and also hey who wouldn't want to do the end credits song for Ender's Game (people who vehemently disagree with OSC on political issues? I really don't know), I feel as though I should plug shamelessly and share the song here. It's genuinely not bad! (Though I'm not sure whether the feeling of the song will fit the film. Meh, don't say we didn't try.)(The visuals for the music video are really nothing special, supplied from the Ender's Game Marvel comics (which you should totally check out) as well as the cover of the book there at the beginning and a behind-the-scenes pic of the monitor from endersgameblog.tumblr.com there at the end. So, you really don't have to watch the thing. Just listen to it in the background or something if you want to.)

   There's probably other people who want to do the credits song for such a major motion picture with as much filkiness as this, (among them yours truly), and I'd be happy to share those as well, if you've got any. It's not like a little competition's something I'd be unwilling to put up with- er, something up with which I'd be unwilling to put. But as for now, this is the one across which I've stumbled, so this is the one for which I'm rooting:

Ambush

   The scene that I told you about filming. Or at least a rough cut of it. The director told me to share it to get some more buzz out there. Message received.

How Hard Work is Possible

   I blogged before about how hard work is something of a misnomer, since work is just work and hard work doesn't mean you work harder but rather that you work more. I've been looking a lot into the subject lately, and learned a lot more on that. I'm standing by my original assessment, of course, but I think I'll go into the specifics of that in this post.

   It's not through working more, but working in small increments over a longer period, through which practice achieves perfection. You see immediate results, meaning quality of work improves immediately, but it takes a while to get to the point where you can truly blow them out of the water. You have to look pro, instead of just talented amateur, in order for people to truly take notice.

   It's about work ethic, above all, including talent or intelligence. Work ethic is king. There's more here than just constant practice, though that's what it is, in a sense-- practice is honing of skills, or in other words, learning to control them. So it's about self mastery. Work ethic is achieved thusly:

   Work doggedly at the things that you don't feel like doing yet know must be accomplished. Improve your talents, but remember to work on the things you're not so talented at. It's the fact that you learned to work at something you weren't good at that will set you apart from the pack, not the fact that you were already naturally good at something. Everyone has talents. Even you. (Congratulations!) But you need to learn to pick up the slack on the things you don't want to do. It is through this that we become l'uomo universale.


   If that makes sense. That's just going the surefire route on learning a good work ethic. You study the pursuits that don't interest you at first, and not only do you learn a work ethic and learn to control your skills, you also become skilled at a multiplicity of things.

More on Floating Stop Signs, I Suppose

   Another thing about the post I made the day before yesterday. I guess this makes it a trilogy, since I also talked about it yesterday. I don't plan on doing any more after this one, but I feel I should say at least this at this time. A major plot (?) point of the story (?) was how in the future, you don't need poles. Alright.

   In sci-fi or any other depiction of the future, a lot of what makes your depiction of the future so convincing or not is not what's there, but what isn't there. It's the things you wouldn't notice. Challenge your unquestioned assumptions. We don't need ashtrays in mission control, for obvious reasons (you shouldn't smoke in mission control?) but try telling that to the science fiction filmmakers of the '60s and '70s (there's one particularly notorious example, but it slips my mind right now.)

   In the real future, driving down the road, there aren't going to be any bugs to spatter against your windshield, or any roadkill of any kind. None of that. You, as a teller of a story of the future, don't even have to bring it up. You just... leave that stuff out. I guess you don't have to challenge your unquestioned assumptions that much. Huh. There's some stuff that would take a greater effort on your part, though, that's not that.

    There won't be power lines, like I said, so if you're doing a visual medium like film you have to erase those digitally or something. Another thing you'll have to remember to get rid of is glare off the road. When the sun is going down or rising, nowadays, it can be hard to see where you're driving. In the future, the roads will be made of a material that absorbs the light completely. I'm not going to say that traffic fatalities will be a thing of the past, because the more safety measures in place the more likely you are to drive more recklessly (FACT!), but more people will take the train, making the point mootish.

    Like a car commercial. The future will be like a car commercial. Driving down the road, no other drivers in sight, in a clean shiny car because no bugs snuff themselves out against you, with no glare coming up off of the asphalt.

   That's just the driving, at least, as an example. There's more, if you just stop to think about it.

Barber...ing

   Yesterday's post was really just an experiment with graphic design in linguistic rather than visual form. I guess. Either way now it has its own little outlet into the world. I was just trying to get away from Adam stuff because I thought it had been long enough, but I'm returning to the subject for this post because we just barely had a thought.

   I remembered when it came time to do today's post that, in a car parked at Lattin Farms (you know, the place with the farm stuff and the Adrian Fisher maize maze,) I once sang to Adam to prove that I had chops enough to do a band whose name at that time I think was either Comrade Helicopter or Carpe Feles, which latter one is either way now the name of the record label. Come to think of it, I think at this time (2007?) the band's name would have been Tesseract. (The album's name would have been Hullo, Evereebudee! and its cover would have looked like Salvador Dalí's Crucifixion 

but with three or four crosses, one of each for each band member from which to hang. Which might or might not actually be blasphemy, but I think the last time I thought something was blasphemy it turns out it actually wasn't, so who knows.) The song I used, admittedly not very good, but once again this was about half a decade ago. Anyway, if you're curious, the tune is something akin to that of Generation Y (Skirt II) from the album Birds Cracking Foxy.

Don’t wanna go
Going to the barber shop
Gonna get terrorized
my split ends, (they’ll be)
Chopped!
(don’t wanna go… to the barber shop)
This cesspit of despair
is the mess-pit of my hair
This cesspit of despair
is the mess-pit of…
My hair. My Hair!
This cesspit of despair
is the mess-pit of…
My hair! 

Cogito, Ergo Sum

   The two men walk down the city sidewalk. Both are well-dressed in suits of the style of the day- clean, ergonomic lines with bright repetitive patterns of clashing colors, muted greens offset by neon yellows. The first man pauses, the thin line shadow of an electric wire bifurcating his face perfectly down the center. He keeps a well-trimmed beard. The power lines float overhead, unconnected to the ground by any poles, or at least none visible.

   They are speaking of Descartes. "But of course, he had a backup plan built into his argument," the man continues, stepping forward again. He is in front of a stop sign now, which by this time has evolved into just the idea of a stop sign: a large red octagon, a symbol more than anything else, floating above the ground in much the same way that the power lines do here. "Even if he was wrong and he didn't exist, he wouldn't exist, so he couldn't be wrong."

   And they continue walking.

Post THE ONE HUNDRED-ELEVENTH, In Which Unnecessary Repetition is Duly Cued

   I've been working on this one since the idea came to me last summer. My attention was renewed in it after I realized that it can sort of be taken as a metaphor for heaven somehow. It's somewhat short, but very sweet, and I don't know, I guess I just feel that if I expanded it at all I would be repeating myself unnecessarily.

   I sure do hate repeating myself unnecessarily. Waste, you understand. So, I feel that I would be unnecessary repeating myself if I expanded it. Though it is kind of short. But, very sweet. So I won't expand it. Because I would be repeating myself unnecessarily if I did. Because I've said pretty much all there is to say in it in it, so if I expanded it it would repeat itself unnecessarily. And yes, I realize that not all of that repetition was unnecessary.

So here it is.

ANIMAL CROSSING

Can you hear it? Can you hear off in the distance?
See the fog clear out, see it pull into the station.
You can go just where you're gonna go.
To the place where the lights are bright,
To the place where the air is transparent.
New friends to meet and get to know.


You can do just what you wanna
You can go just where you're going.
In Animal Crossing.
(Hee-hoo-ooh)
(Hee-hoo-ooh)

...

Not And But With

   I really don't have much to say today. I'm mostly working on getting Nepenthe down, and I've got so many ideas on that bouncing around in my head right now that it's hard to work on something else, like, blogging or anything. So I guess I won't. No, I'm not going to tell you what my new ideas are. You're just going to have to find out for yourself when you read the thing. Suffice to say, really solid ideas. I'm really getting into the fictional world in the story, getting into these characters' heads, getting into the fictional science in the story, and coming up with some mind-blowing stuff. It's going to be huge. Maybe I'm making it sound like I'm boasting of myself. I'm not. I'm just showing how much I believe in this thing. I am genuinely excited. It's thrilling to be a part of it.

   But I really can't give away any of the specifics. Except with Cailin, of course. (I was also thinking of how our names would be on the book, not making it look like we're a "couple." I think "with" is good. "With" Cailin Taylor. K. Allen Taylor? How's that sound? I like that. Anyway.) With all of you other people: I guess I'm just posting to say, I've got ideas, but I can't share them with you. Aww.

   Maybe after the funeral I can start posting on things and projects not directly related to, inspired by or spurred by Adam's death. I was working a lot on Other//half when it happened. Maybe I'll tell you about that. But as for now, I'm on a kick of getting things accomplished in the time I've been allotted. Tomorrow, maybe I'll post some new lyrics or something. But for now, all I have to say is that I've got things to say, but I'm saying nothing. Whew.

Thank Yous and Updates

   Thank you all for your concern over me going hungry. The gift of the pineapple and water and muffins (more, please!) (and thank you kindly.) As well as clearing up doctrinal issues over the proper way to fast. All so good.

   That being said, I suppose I should use this post to update on how things are going with my renewed sense of productivity. Let's see what I said I was working on... writing, rocking, filming, working. Revisiting that post, where I outlined what I was picking up the slack in, was slightly more emotional than I was expecting for the obvious reasons, but that seems to be it. In just the few days since that post, I haven't really had the chance to do anything worth bringing up here. I have been working, but... spoilers, I guess. I can, however, tell you some ideas I've had on what I've been working on.

   Nothing really specific, other than a ton of ideas on how to improve the opening sequence of On Our Own. You see, originally the film was going to open up with a social studies teacher explaining the economy to his students, and what could potentially happen when it fails, foreshadowing the fact that it actually does fail about two scenes later. Unfortunately, shooting with so many students proved to be a hassle continuity-wise, so when we could only get about half of the scene shot, I guess we had no other choice but to cut it entirely because it'd be not at all worth it to get all of the extras back together again in the same positions with the same clothing.

   At press time, we've got it planned so that it opens up on a scene we did manage to shoot in its entirety, which is the kids walking home from school after that class. Because the dialogue here references the scrapped classroom scene, we had to cut that (dialogue) as well. (I'm saying "we" here, but it's really all the director's decisions. I'm just using it as a rhetorical tool to make it seem more immediate, I guess. Maybe to make my own position seem larger than it is, but hey, I'm still a consultant. I would have done these things with him had I been around.) I feel that this really leaves the rest of the film... un-foreshadowed.

   So my idea is to use stock footage of the economy falling, Wall Street protesters, riots breaking out, et cetera in montage (there it is again!) with the normal opening stuff. From how it looks in my head, this will really set up an epic feel for the rest of the movie. I'll bring it up when I get the chance, and we'll see if it's in the budget.

   The stock footage clips I'm eyeing cost anywhere from under fifty to over two thousand dollars to use, but, eh, once you acquire the rights to use them, you acquire the rights to use them. Still, I think some of the news clips might be out of our price range. At least they're long ones, so we get more for our money, but, still, not much money. Any donations toward the budget would be helpful, but I'm not really getting my hopes up. Not even for another muffin.

Juxtaposition & Montage

   (That word sounds like that rabbit from the old IDK (No, not IDW, but I Don't Know- Marvel?) Star Wars comics. Jaxxon, or whatever. Yeah, Jaxxon. (And yeah, Marvel.) Go on, click it. Click on that link. It's a featured article.)

   You get so caught up in something, then disaster strikes. It makes you realize how tunnel-visioned you were getting, and it makes you realize what's real and what's important.

   Let's have a completely hypothetical example. Okay, a slightly hypothetical one, but it's not based off the most recent one. Yes, that one. The people across the hall are arguing over whose turn it was to take the cat out, while you are too busy being hung up over the bio-techno-theolo-ethics of transhumanism to care about the rest of the world (and believe me, it's an easy feat- there's a lot of profound ethical implications there.) This rather serious argument going on opens your eyes. You were disconnect from reality, and this is what's important.

   Or is it the other way around?

   You see, the argument, though serious, is over something rather stupid. (You can hear what they're saying, as their voices are raised. Remember, it's about the cat.) But they're serious. Like, breaking apart serious. That's how they're treating it, at least. Remember, it's about the cat. But it's still serious, while meanwhile you were thinking about the ethics of transhumanism, entirely divorced from how serious life can get. Maybe, though, and here's the thing, maybe they're the ones with the tunnel vision, getting hung up on the trivia of their own lives and blind to the fact that such issues exist.

   Just a thought.

   To continue this theme, though, making use of this power, because remember we must remember to be productive and make good use of this special time that's been given us, may I introduce the concept of montage. Juxtaposition is an entire school of technique in film making: juxtaposing two unrelated things to create a third, unexpected meaning of the ongoing action, such as, I don't know, the baptism scene in Godfather. There's montage in that scene, right? With the lions, or whatever? I'm pretty sure that's a thing. Even if it's not, it'd still be an example of montage. Two actions combine to create a new idea. If the actions had been different, the new idea would be different. This doesn't apply just to actions, though. It could be people, places, objects, tropes. In fiction, juxtaposition allows you infinite permutation. Juxtapose anything with anything else. Go on. Do it.

   For example, I am right now juxtaposing the idea of h+ (transhumanism) with this thing I discovered on Wookieepedia trying to find that Jaxxon article up there. Clearly the Force is some kind of parahuman power that can be brought into reality and controlled with transhuman ideals so you can kick with your transfeet. Though really the following scene is just brought to you by poor choreography:

Yeah, it's a gif. Try not to let it distract you.

   Also, juxtaposing the idea of juxtaposition with the idea of transhumanism makes you realize that transhumanism is just a form of juxtaposition in itself, juxtaposing humanity with technology.

   Whoa.

Fasting

   I've haven't eaten anything since the accident. I'm not sure exactly when I started fasting (since I last ate, I suppose, is how you define that), but I know it's been at least 48 hours since I started my fast officially, and more time not eating before that. Depends on what I ate for breakfast Saturday. Did I eat any breakfast Saturday? I should have, but if I did I can't recall. So maybe not. Thou there was that one glass of water. So it's been at least a few days since I've eaten anything of significance.

   I'm already down 8 pounds, in the unhealthy kind of I-wasn't-fat-before-this kind of way. Probably mostly water weight, on this timescale. Surprisingly, not as hungry as you would think (it's mostly just cravings instead of hunger (mmm muffins)), and my peripheral vision is still intact, even though they say that it goes away after fasting long enough. I'm not feeling too weak, except during strenuous work. I did have a headache last night and I'm getting a really small one right now just thinking about it, so I should probably eat soon. If I don't drink anything within the next 24 hours, I'll dehydrate, which wouldn't be very good since I would also be dead, so maybe I should also drink something to go with the food. Or at least eat something with liquid in it. There's an idea.

   I think I'm going to break my fast on pineapple, specifically in makeshift upside-down cake form because I can: there's cake shavings in a container on the counter (you know- cut off from the top from how they make layer cakes), a fresh pineapple on the table, and a can of whipped cream in the refrigerator. Pineapple, you see, being Adam's signature favorite dish. It'd honor him somehow...

   ...

   Okay, so, the cake top's been reduced to crumbs now, so never mind that. I could have some pineapple sans cake and whipped cream, but I think maybe instead I'll eat some turkey. Not really in Adam's honor, but in his memory. Turkey. Like, the Turkey. Because, uh, well...

   It's kind of a long story. You really don't want to know.

And Now We Rise Up

   The paradox of how we should prepare for the future yet know we could die at any moment has always weighed heavily on my mind. Do we just let ourselves advance naturally, learning things as they come to us, not really exerting any effort because that work could be a waste of time? Why work on any projects when our current project could be our last, interrupted in the middle, making all the time you spent on that project a complete waste? You know how I feel about waste. It was less than a week ago, and yesterday, that I told you. But it would be a larger waste of time not to do anything at all...

   Adam Perazzo, the man whom my blog reader(s) would know primarily for inspiring Comrade Helicopter's name, was brutally murdered by gravity yesterday. August 29 1989 - June 2 2012. When he was two years old, he drank from a vat of acid thinking it was lemonade, and he survived that. I never really understood the phrase "there but for the grace of God" until I thought about how miraculous it was that he did survive that. I never really understood the phrase "life is short" until I thought about what finally did him in.

   The road goes on without him now; all we can do is be inspired to live greater. I've already started working off of a new outline to rewrite Nepenthe, and it is looking much better now. My blogging has honed my writing skills considerably, and made it so I could be a more prolific writer. And if Cailin is on board, which hey why would she not be, I am also getting the band back together. I have a job lined up for the summer, so it would not be hard to acquire enough money to get him a new bass.

   I think I should compose the score for On Our Own, if that slot has not already been filled. I've seen some mock ups of what the final film is going to look like, and I think I've got a good idea of the emotional beats in the film with what I've seen so far. The music is in me. I've got directions I want to go with the musical beats to lock in with the emotional ones. Plus I've already come up with some awesome puns to be used as track titles.

   I know it sounds like it's going to be a busy summer, but all of these things I was planning anyway; we're just on a slightly advanced timetable now is all. And it's worth it, isn't it? I said before that there's no hard work, there's just more work. Let's see if I'm right. Whatever it is, however it turns out, one thing is sure.

   This will not be a waste of time.

Do not cry when you come to that abyss, that darkness. Weeping came you into this world, and laughing should you go out.

More on Waste, I Suppose

   I've had to pick up a lot of slack for Post the Hundredth, in which I guess it sounded like I see no other reasons not to eat people other than it's in bad taste (no pun intended...). Man, endowed with reason from On High, is a sacred animal-- alright. I'm willing to accpet that, as a precept and tenant of faith. Even science has to have faith at its core (such as faith in the existence of, say, existence.) Science observes what's measurable, religion ensures that we believe that there's something that's not.

   But I guess that clarifying that coerces me into delving into the relationship between how I see waste and how I see animals. Which I already did in that post. Delicious meaty meat and textured leathery leather and fuzzy furry fur. You know. There is something else, though, tied to the religion thing up there. I guess I'll talk about that. So, between waste, animals, and religion:

   I really see that as kind of a waste of soul, having animals just live once and then die and then live forever after that. Isn't it? Imagine all of those immortal resurrected souls of, say, flies. Countless trillions and trillions of them, just existing, saved for being flies. Reincarnation would be much more efficient, I think, wouldn't it. They're animals. They don't know right from wrong. Their salvation is irrelevant because it's a given. They don't need to stay in Heaven.

   There's a bit of a problem there with how they'd need a new body each time, since the flesh becomes wedded to the spirit in a sense and taking on a new form, even within the same species, would be a divorcement. I guess we can't take that away from them. So, never mind, I guess?

Update: Not a Squirrel

   Further development reveals no further development. Meaning, so no, I'm not turning into any member of the family Sciuridae. Though I did rather enjoy getting to sit back and watch my prescheduled posts pop off one by one. I think I'll do that some more in the future.

   I am currently working on a three-parter about zombies, but that just seems too trite since I started it before I started turning into a squirrel, and after I realized I wasn't turning into a squirrel zombies became the thing du jour independent of what I had already written, so posting it now would seem kind of grabby. Besides, I already have an entirely different post lined up about zombies, specifically looking forward to Walking Dead season three. But that doesn't happen until fall, so I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid if I posted a trilogy of zombie posts a while enough before then to make it seem like the posts are unrelated, which they really truly are. Aside from the fact that they're both about zombies. (The prevalence and popularity of zombie apocalypse scenarios is something I analyze in the first post of my post trilogy. It's always a zombie apocalypse, you notice that? A pandemic of epic proportions. It's never just one zombie, is it? Their sheer numbers, aside from the fact that that's the only thing that makes slow-moving mindless ones formidable, I think is key to why we indulge in such fantasies.)

   I also quite enjoyed the uniformity or rather the regularity of having all of my scheduled posts be scheduled for precisely twelve o'clock, which if you'll look back you'll see they were. Which is why I am posting this post at noon today, though it is unscheduled and is in fact being written right now. It's 11:57 as I write this sentence. Just three minutes to go. Now you can look back, whatever time it is in the future, and calculate exactly how many minutes ago I wrote that precise sentence. Wouldn't that make you happy? Okay, it's 11:58 now.

   Still 11:58.

   Still 11:58. Minutes- that's the thing about them. They last sixty seconds.

   Okay, now it's 11:59. Within sixty seconds, this post will have been published.

   Here we go.