Just because I haven’t posted any in a while, and this selection is beyond bizarre, and I’m trying to think if there’s likely anyone in the world who might be interested in all of these services:
Mr. CollateralDamage is a writing partner and a friend. He came to my mother’s memorial service. Until I saw a sign on his car last night, I didn’t know that he had a brother in the military in Iraq.
Now Mr. C has written this, which you should read:
http://collateraldamage.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/iraq-my-10-lessons-learned/
You have nothing to lose but your descenders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo
Members of the club who are dead are excused from attending meetings. So Italo Calvino is off the hook. I mean, he was already like totally off the hook, but he’s also clear on the Oulipo meetings, as well.
Also, pataphysics, sourcing a line from "Maxwell’s Silver Hammer" that always puzzled me, but not enough to look it up.
I’m surprised that I’ve never heard a Lent joke about this stuff. You know, "I’m giving up lipograms for Lent," that kind of thing.
In the Boston area, where Catholics assume that everyone is Catholic, including Jews, this is the time of year for giving up stuff. My wife’s hairdresser solemnly assured my six-year-old that he was going to have to give up meat on Fridays, "except for chicken. It’s just red meat that counts."
My wife’s family are Unitarians. Unitarians give up committees for Lent, or will, once they reach consensus.
As an atheist, I gave up a long time ago.
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=125890
This is really interesting. Three-year study compares buying patterns of people with DVR’s (TiVo is mentioned in particular) to those of people without.
People with TiVo’s bought five percent less of new products than people without, and 20% of all brands lost volume in DVR households.
Food products took a big hit:
Among IRI’s top-selling Pacesetters … All of the impact was on food brands, which allocated more of their budgets to TV and saw new-product trial volume decline 7.5%
This was my favorite observation from the story:
…Research has shown that when ads mesh with a program’s subject matter, e.g., do-it-yourself fare on HGTV, they tend to get fast-forwarded less often.
Go figure - if I’m watching a home-improvement show, I’m likely to watch an ad for the new Black & Decker whatsit. If I’m watching The Office, I’m likely to fast-forward over an ad for Hot Pockets. For the first time, I understand how Google’s foray into TV advertising might be able to succeed, by making it possible to dice ad placement logic more finely than this obvious cut.
It’s obvious from show content alone that advertising goes with home-improvement television like Gorilla Glue goes with, well, anything. DVR usage patterns suggest that traditional entertainment programming may suffer badly if ad viewing becomes a uniform choice
Match it for Pratchett - and I - would like you to contribute to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust to help match Terry Pratchett’s million-dollar donation.
Terry Pratchett, a writer of astounding humor and humanity, is two years into his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
My father’s mother was destroyed by Alzheimer’s long before her death.
Let’s all do what we can.
SK
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/03/daily-lego-worl.html
Photo by Hirotaka Hatayama.
If only Gaudí had had access to Lego…
Lots more of the collection here.
Made a little progress this past week.
Low Life is a history of the poor and the criminal classes of New York City up through 1920, focusing mainly on the Victorian era. Profuse and spectacular in detail, engaging and fascinating in character study, Low Life is also one of the the most beautifully-written books it has ever been my pleasure not only to savor, but to read aloud to anyone I can manage to trap in his cube - hello, Theo! Take this, for example:
…The district grew up helter-skelter in a malodorous environment of slaughterhouses, soap and glue factories and waterfront effluvia, in patches that bore names like Poverty Lane and Misery Row.
Or this:
The tenement is the basic facade in New York, the face of the slums, a slab of tombstone proportions, four to six stories, pocked by windows. Above is the towering tin cornice, a confection of scallops and curlicues, with foliaceous brackets, often topped by a semicircular peak, a disk enclosing a rayed sun.
Except I forgot to put it onto the list in the first place.
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The Well of Ascension: Book Two of Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson |
I just cannot believe how good Brandon Sanderson is. His first novel, Elantris, had a very interesting, novel concept, but was laden (and occasionally leaden) with first-novel prose.
Then I read Mistborn, the first of the Mistborn trilogy, and was gobsmacked. Not one, but two creative magic systems, three superb and complex primary characters and a host of complex secondaries, an army of creepy evil-doers with an evil overlord who doesn’t make mistakes, all shot through with a strong sense of social conscience.
Not to mention that it propelled the characters through what seemed to be the full arc of an epic trilogy by the end of the first book.
I honestly had no idea where Well of Ascension was going to go, and it went further than I imagined. Beautifully written, building on all the strengths of Mistborn, Well of Ascension is a series of stunning surprises. When I finished it, I could barely move ("It’s … paralyzingly great!"). Brandon did it again - packed a huge book full of unexpected turns, telling a complete, complex story, and leaving me with absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next. Furthermore, I think that the main character’s transformation from starving waif in the first book to powerful wizard in this one is as moving and dramatic a development as I’ve ever read in epic fantasy — and we’re only two books in.
I hope Brandon already has Book 3 in the can before he starts on the the last Wheel of Time book, as I hear he’s committed to do.
Hmm.
Might as well throw out the start of my list of favorite epic fantasy series:
Yes, I have three brand-new series that aren’t even finished yet in my top ten. We’re in a great time for epic fantasy at the moment. And to think that this time last year I probably thought epic fantasy was dead. I need to write some more about epic fantasy - I’ll try to post some on my very favorites when I get back from vac.
I debated putting Stephen Brust onto the list - Vlad Taltos would be in my top three series, except I don’t think that they’re epic fantasy by my definition. I’ll have to write more on that, as well.
We’re taking the kids to Disneyworld tomorrow, won’t be back until a week from tomorrow.
The last time I went to Disney, I was younger than my older son. I understand they’ve added a lot of stuff over the last thirty years or so.
I’m not taking a laptop - I’m anticipating flopping into bed, exhausted, shortly after I shovel the boys into their beds every evening.
