Zombie Lapdance

Last night I watched Nacho Libre with Spanish subtitles.

I’ve been trying to find a good comparison for the experience.

Is it like eating burritos with chopsticks?

Is it like watching an anime re-make of the Magnificent Seven?

Is it like a dirty limerick converted to semaphore?

Is it like a dubbed Melies film?

Is it like reading Thomas Pynchon on the toilet?

Is it like Ladysmith Black Mambazo staging a minstrel show?

Is it like watching Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle while not stoned?

It’s like all that and more.

i would like to take a moment to brag about how clever i am. i’ve been getting into electronics recently. actually, it’s nothing wildly impressive. it’s mainly just me being too cheap to throw away broken electronics gear.

case in point, my cheap-ass HP camera. i think i paid $140 or so for it at target, which for me is a sizeable chunk of change. then, a week later, right while i was in the middle of documenting an art project, i discovered that leaving the camera in your pants cargo-pocket is a good way of sitting on the LCD screen and breaking it.

three years later i figured out how to switch out the broken parts, using a junk camera i bought on ebay. the LCD screen was a modular part that popped into my camera without a fuss.

since i had the case open, i figured, what the heck, why not paint racing stripes onto the damn thing. now it works as well as the day i bought it, plus it’s got racing stripes.

anybody who knows me will agree that i really like my private time in the bathroom. i’ve got the final issue of the weekly world news under the sink, and "miss lulu bett" by zona gale, the pullitzer-prize winning author from Portage, Wisconsin.

and what would make that quality reading time even better? howabout a radio, tuned to the local classical music station, that turns on automatically when you close the door.


the radio cost two dollars at the local goodwill. add to that the simple switch soldered to its main circuit board and you’ve got a priceless BM.

but what’s really going to mark me as a genius among the most genius is this device which i want history to remember as the BEYBOARD:

i got the idea for this while i was taking apart my ancient dell laptop to fix its LCD screen (a fix which worked great, but i didn’t paint on the racing stripes, so no photo). there’s a zillion damn screws in them things, each one of a subtlely different length. when i put it back together, there were about five extra screws.

what the BEYBOARD is, is a whiteboard surrounded by magnetic strips. when you are working on a project, you can put the screws on the magnets, and label each one with where you got it from. that way you can keep track of the parts and the order they go back together. and it doesn’t matter how long you let it sit around, the BEYBOARD won’t forget the way the project came apart.

my next project (when i have the time, i already have all the parts) is to make the world’s first AM/FM eclair.

two vaguely crypto-zoological happenings in Texas recently. first, there’s a giant spiderweb being built near Dallas.

what sinister motive could the spiders have for building such a thing? other than, you know, catching lots of Mosquitos.

then there’s the growing trend of strange, hairless canines which may or may not be chupacabra.


piecing together the legitimate news sources with the crackpot blog posts, one comes to the conclusion that there is an invasion of super-ugly giant Chihuahuas in south Texas. there was an outbreak in 2004 in Elmendorf dubbed the Elmendorf Beast, and another in July in Dewitt county. A rancher had most of the blood drained from her chickens so she retaliated by making commemorative Chupacabra t-shirts.

the so-called "scientists" say they’re just mangy coyotes, but that’s so unentertaining that everyone ignores them.

If you’re looking for the armadillocon entries, they’re about four posts down.

this is my new Tablet PC, a Gateway M275. For those of you unfamiliar with Tablet PC’s, the idea is you can write directly onto the touch-sensitive screen with the accompanying stylus. this particular model has a screen that rotates so you can go from a boring conventional laptop to a stylistic and futuristic tablet configuration.

These have been around for a while, but you almost never see them in the usual laptop haunts. And there are some drawbacks. For instance, you’re pretty much stuck with windowsXP Tablet -Edition. this means your means of interacting with most programs is through that TabletPC Input Panel, a small box on the bottom of the screen that is part of the operating system. It interprets your handwriting into text and places it at the cursor in much the same way as a keyboard, only slower and prone to spectacular inaccuracies. For instance, there appears to be a dictionary index that the input panel consults as it converts handwriting. If you write a word not in the dictionary, you have to clearly spell it one letter at a time. Armadillocon for instance is particularly hated. But the single character method has its own problems, because a lowercase ‘l’ could be just as easily interpreted by the panel as any of the following characters: /\()|!1 depending on the subtle variegations of the short line you draw. this is particularly aggravating in the instance of online passwords.

and don’t get me started on the speech recognition function. I had no idea there were so many homonyms in The English language until the computer started picking the exact wrong ones to spell.

where the tablet works best is where you don’t have to use the input panel at all. the stylus is much better than a laptop touch panel or a conventionally dirt prone mouse when it comes to pointing, clicking, and highlighting. faster and far more accurate.

I also like the journal function (pictured above). I’ve been using this for the Space Squid critique period. I can import people’s stories and then mark them up with pen notes without having to go through the trouble and expense of printing them.

The big potential though is in graphics. Here’s something I did for the latest Space Squid.

And one more thing, you don’t really know how much heat a computer gives off until you’ve spent a few hours with your forearm resting on it. In the winter I’m sure I’ll be happy to have a toasty-warm tablet to curl up with, but in the Texas Summer I’ve got the screen oriented so the exhaust vents point away from my body parts.

a story submitted to Space Squid made passing reference to The Beasts of Gevaudan, which you may recall from the movie "The Brotherhood of the Wolf."

As it happens, much of what happened in the movie was from a reasonably verified historical record of 60-100 deaths due to animal attack in late 18th century France. Well, the kung fu sequences probably didn’t happen. But there may have been a wolf, or more likely a pack of wolves, who had a taste for French food.

which led to the Wikipedia article listing known wolf attacks. The Indian wolf was the biggest culprit. Apparently it’s not unusual in India to lose your kids during a late-night trip to the outhouse. Israel also has a significant Indian wolf population, but the proliferation of Uzis must keep them in check.

The moral of the story is that no matter what the hippies or Farley Mowat tell you, wolves aren’t teddy bears.

Allow me to pimp a book to you. The title is "Tales from the Secret City." This is an anthology chapbook available from Lulu, and it bundles together the very best fiction from Austin’s most elite, most clandestine, and indubitably the sexiest writing group.

I don’t know if I could claim to be one of the founding fathers of Cryptopolis, but I’ve been a part of it from the beginning, and I coined the name, a response to the veil of secrecy which accompanied my invitation to the group. I don’t want to say too much about Cryptopolis. Even though we’ve emerged from the shadows, there’s something discomforting about it being a publicly recognized organization, as if the Mason’s threw an open house party where all the guests received their own noose.

Let me talk a little about the actual story content. I wouldn’t say there was a unifying theme or style, the stories run the proverbial gamut from Lovecraftian horror to high-fantasy to hard S/F to slipstream. It would be hard to pick a more diversely representative collection of speculative fiction.

That’s why I’m going to limit the scope of this blog-pimp and only talk about me.

My selection in the anthology is easily twice as long as anyone else’s. It’s called "Race to the Noonie" and it’s a prequel of sorts to my unpublished trunk-novel "Patchwork kingdom." "Noonie" is the sort of story you’re never going to see in print because it’s a high-fantasy comedy with a cross-dressing goatman and 5,000 too many words to be published as a short story, and 100,000 too few to be a novel. Nevertheless, there’s an epic journey and gunplay and plenty of sex appeal as this selection demonstrates:

Pretty hot, huh?

I read some of the beginning at Dillocon, the part that actually explains some of the premise to "Noonie" and it got plenty of laughs. This is part of my con principles: the first being that I will never again do a serious panel, and the second that every reading has to be funny.

So trust-me, "Race to the Noonie" by itself is worth the price of the cryptopolis chapbook. What are you waiting for?!? Pull out your credit card RIGHT NOW and follow this link to fiction paradise!

Steve’s photo spread of dillocon left out one very important event: The very first RevSF editors panel. Finally we were all rewarded with the public adoration we always knew we so richly deserved.

Amazingly, people actually showed up to our panel. Although the only panels counter-programmed against us were "Nylon: The Futuristic Textile" and "Commodities Trading Principles Explained by Howard Waldrop."

Ah, what happy, fun times. From the left: Me, Finn, Klaw, Porter, Wilson.

Like usual, I manage to say something mildly embarrassing.

Blaschke finally stoops to joining the rest of us.

The rest of my con-going experience was pretty fun. It was a big change from the first Dillocon I attended, which intimidated me and made me feel out-of-place. This time I could barely walk anywhere without getting into conversations, frequently with people I even liked.

It was also a very educational experience. I learned that if you mark off the "I feel comfortable with moderating" box on the con programming questionnaire, that you will then be assigned to moderate virtually every panel you sit on. I also learned that if you fill out the programming form while drunk and casually slap out a panel suggestion without much fore-thought, oh, I don’t know, something like "Who would win in a fight: Godzilla or the Death Star?" that you then stand a fairly good chance of not only being on said panel, but also being the moderator. You also stand a fairly good chance of having Rick Klaw publicly finger you as the author of said dumb-ass topic. If you are particularly unfortunate you will also have Joe Lansdale assigned to the panel and he will pwn you repeatedly.

On a side-note, I highly recommend the Dillocon writer’s workshop. This was my second year teaching. I think everyone got a lot out of it this year. Next year I plan to actually be nice about some of my critiques.

Here are some photos and captions put together by my colleague Steve Wilson.

Armadillocon
Opening night party

Lawrence Person and Mikal Trimm trade sarcastic quips about something or other.

RevSF Editor-at-Large Mark Finn chats with RevSF Co-editor of Fiction Matthew Bey, MonkeyBrain Books’ Allison Baker and "Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana" author Jess Nevins. Finn’s real purpose: to plug his Vernon Plaza Theater via his back.

Jessica Reisman reads from a new short story, "Flower Tongue," which has nothing to do with "Little Shop of Horrors."

Living the high life as they are, the Rev SF panel heads to Austin’s finest dining establishment.

Austin’s RevSF contingent, moments before being thrown out for a heated debate about the exact whereabouts of Star City and Coast City in America.

"Homemade batter." – Mark Finn

"They don’t serve hot dogs like this in Star City." – Jayme Blaschke

Fast and furious writer Jay Lake (left) interviews slow and steady writer Howard Waldrop.

Cockroach shall walk the Earth (and fly creepily around the room) no more!

Space Squid co-editor David Chang makes the scene, the picture of calm mere moments after murdering a bug. When will the facade crack over time?

The air conditioner gets turned down to capture the movie theater experience during the screening of a the short film version of "When the Magic’s Gone," adapted to the screen by Tiffany Sullivan from Patrick Sullivan’s RevSF short story.

RevSF Co-fiction editor Steve Wilson (bad hair, left) discussing the state of Austin radio with Chris Nakashima-Brown (middle) and someone whose name the photographer didn’t catch. Meanwhile, Trimm insinuates himself into yet another shot.

Stina Licht (middle) fresh from three back-to-back panels, each related in some way to fantasy sex (not to be confused with fantastic sex).

Two members of the Jigglewatts burlesque dance troupe. This being a con, men and women alike asked them how they made their costumes.

Writer Patrice Sarath – with one of Matthew Bey’s Chocolate Salty Oat cookies in hand (courtesy of Space Squid and Quacks Bakery)- chats with that ubiquitous Trimm .

Finn: the lion at rest.

late one night at Apollocon I wandered into the media room and they were playing a Finnish amateur parody movie where the Star Trek federation and Babylon 5 fight. It’s called Star Wreck the Pirkinning and you can get it for free from their website http://www.starwreck.com . with the torrent file it only takes about 30min to download all 50Omb. amazing, a legal use for bitorrenting!

the special effects are spectacular though. it inspired me to netflix the 5th season of Babylon5 which I hadn’t managed to catch when it made the switch to cable. I hadn’t expected Bab5 to hold up so poorly. the Pirkinning which was obviously made by some dudes in a basement seemed far more thrilling and technically proficient. But I suppose it’s been ten years. I’m a lot more cynical now, and technology is that much more advanced.

the last half of the 90 or so minutes of the Pirkinning is a drawn-out special effects-heavy space battle, with federation ships and star furies duking it out. it’s almost like porn, but an obviously impossible porn, as if Ron Jeremy were doing it with a hentai tentacle-demon.

at the last dillocon, rick klaw, in the midst of some pro-bob howard rant, snarled at me, "H.P. Lovecraft is the most over-rated writer in the world," as if that wasn’t somehow the point. fans aren’t enthralled by the shoggoths so much as the shibboleths.

case in point:

The Call of Cthulhu the silent movie. yet another film that johnny motard tipped me off to. for those of you who are familiar with other films produced exclusively for the HPlovecraft Film Festival, such as beyond the wall of sleep, you know that they are likely to be stupid to the point of being totally unwatchable (that being said, the HPlovecraft fest is coming to austin’s alamo drafthouse in the indefinate future and you can bet that i’ll try to be there).

the call of cthulhu, the silent version, translates lovecraft lovingly to a black and white expressionist style. the website lists every single surviving german expressionist film as their influence. the dr.calligari-esqued set design fits the mad geometries and cyclopean architecture of sunken r’lyeh like a twisted claw in a silk glove.

and cthulhu makes an appearance. in stop motion. i don’t care what those retards say about CGI — stop motion will always be a thousand times cooler. you know that transformers movie? everybody’s raving about the CGI, but from where i was sitting it all looked blurry, spastic, and indistinct (kinda like michael bay’s directing style in general). if transformers had been made with stop-motion transforming models, it would have rocked my world almost as much as the cthulhu movie.

the only thing that even slightly soured the experience for me, was watching the call of cthulhu and thinking how much cooler it would have been had canadian filmmaker guy madden done it. but that’s like wishing you could get michael jordon to win skee ball tickets for you.

the lovecraft historical society are a buncha fun guys, and we ought to thank them for going to the trouble of making something so cool.

on the more serious side, at about the same time as i saw the movie, i ran into a comicbookized verion of a filmscript about lovecraft’s life. while actually sticking to the general outline of lovecraft’s life, it makes the assumption that ol’HP was literally haunted by specters from arkham. this is a farely common conceit, you see it a lot in lovecraft-inspired anthologies, where not only does HP show up (sometimes interacting with the actual author or an author’s standin), but he reveals that everything he wrote about is actually real.

i never liked these kinds of stories. they always strike me as fanboy. it’s one thing to write in the cthulhu mythos to show homage to a literary hero, it’s quite another to bring your literary hero into the story so you can play with him like he’s your personal transformers action figure.

the comicbook also portrayed lovecraft’s brief marriage as a star-crossed romance, his nebbish distractions only occasionally interupting their passionate lovemaking. i don’t know how i feel about that.