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March 2010
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Monday Poll: Bathroom break.

I’m taking a break this week. It’s the last push toward thesis completion, and the Internet is going to have to disappear for a few days.

Before I go, a brief mention of what I’ll be listening to: the various streaming radio stations available through iTunes. I never knew they existed until recently — channels crossing all genres, with a decent variety under each category. Right now I’m favoring Blues, Classical, and Ambient.

Ambient is especially cool. There’s a channel in that category called “Groove Salad.” I can’t describe it. It’s worth a try if you like background grooviness.

I enjoy Pandora but find its selection repetitive if I have any station up for a prolonged period of time. These channels offer a bit more variety.

Now, for the Monday Poll. This is the most important one yet. How do you install your rolls of toilet paper? Over or under? We’ll settle this once and for all.

Toilet paper: Over or under?

  • Over. (71%)
  • Under. (21%)
  • Doesn't matter, as long as it's soft. (8%)

Total Votes: 14

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Mascot madness?

In keeping with our Olympic theme, I’d like to post a link to a page about this year’s Olympic mascots.

I might be really tired and in the middle of a crazy story deadline crunch…but I find those mascots and the video on that page mesmerizing. Especially early on in the video, when the whale-person mascot sticks his or her head out of the water and has the reflections of two different things in her eyes (one in each eye, if that makes sense). What’s going on in this video? I’m not sure. I’m glad someone made it though. It’s wonderfully slow-paced. Seems like nowadays a Web-based video is 30 seconds — just enough time for the punchline — so it’s kind of fun to watch something bizarre that just keeps going and going and going.

The poll is tied! I might need to recruit a new reader just to pick the mighty bobsleigh as the most awesome event of winter time Olympic fun.

I hope you all mount the medal stand multiple times this weekend. Go for the gold! Bronze is okay, too, and will surely get you an endorsement gig at the local HoneyBaked Ham store.

Thursday link.

I added a link over there on the left, currently under the poll, to a site called failbetter.com. Stories, poems, interviews, and visual arts.

Interesting interview featured right now…

The Artisan Writers Guild is now accepting applications.

I’ve seen a lot of “artisan” goods lately. Artisan cheese. Artisan bread. Artisan beer. I haven’t thought about the term “artisan” much, but my impression is that artisan products/wares/foods are marketed as such because they are hand-crafted with loving care by actual humans, as opposed to mass-produced by soulless machines. Makes sense. There’s Wonder Bread, which I’m guessing is spit out of a robot’s gaping oven-mouth, and there’s artisan kalamata olive bread with random seeds and nuts in it. The Wonder Bread might be sterile and flavorless, and every once in awhile a rat might get into the bread machine and end up in a loaf, but overall it’s a consistent product that consumers seek out.

With the artisan bread you never know. It all depends on whose grubby hands did the kneading of the dough, what seeds and nuts they favor, how many olives they eat rather than tossing into the dough, etc. The flavor and quality may not be consistent but that’s part of the fun. It’s a bread lottery. At least you know a fellow human was employed in the production process, and that makes the $5 you spend feel more important and meaningful than the $1.99 you deposit in the bread machine. Sure, sure, it’s not all about money. Artisan products taste better, look better, contain better ingredients…it’s all on the hand-written poster taped up next to the shelf off in the corner of the produce section.

I’ve thought a lot about writers, fiction, literary fiction, genre fiction, and the academic life over the past two years of graduate school. I’ve heard quite a few people in academia bemoan genre fiction, and promote literary fiction. The bemoaning and promoting extends to the writers and readers of both — genre folks are sheep, consuming mass-produced infotainment; of course, literary folks are individuals, artists, scholars, intellectuals, and whatever the opposite of a sheep is. Maybe a lone wolf, but not one that’s feasting on sheep…more like a wolf that sits in the woods and makes notes and judges the sheep for all having the same wool or taste in a particular type of widely available clover.

When I sort through the complaining and bemoaning, what I hear from the literary fiction realm is perfectly reasonable. It’s something we all feel at some point in our lives: Nobody appreciates us. Nobody appreciates the writers, who take all this extra time crafting fine individual stories, and nobody appreciates the readers, who sort through commercially available pop fiction to find hidden literary gems. The readers who go to the local bookstores and look for something unique. The kind souls supporting the little people — the artists. It makes them feel good. Who wants Wonder Bread, anyway? Who wants Dan Brown? Anybody who does is lazy!

(And you know that’s part of it — the need to set oneself apart from the herd.)

So what do writers need to do? We need to jump on this artisan craze. As distasteful as it might sound, we need to embrace marketing.

Today, February 10, 2010, I propose the formation of an Artisan Writers Guild. The AWG would be an association for writers of carefully crafted artisan fiction, and the AWG seal on a book would set it apart from all the others. Just like the artisan bread shelf in the store separates its treasures from the racks of generic, mass-produced breads. Qualifying Writers (oh yes, they would have to qualify, that’s for sure, so we can ensure quality…but not mass-produced quality!) would be “artisan writers.” They’d have more prestige, and they could walk around with pride. They could be more daring wolves, maybe, and actually snap at a few sheep now and then.

Bookstores would start marking off “Artisan Fiction” sections. Just imagine, all that hand-crafted goodness in one place! Complete with all the imperfections you’d expect in a lumpy kalamata loaf.

Monday Poll: Winter games.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints and all the former Washington Redskins on the team. The MoodyTunes Super Bowl poll ended up as a 4-way tie. I think that sums up the overall mood of the United States in 2010 — we can’t even decide if we like Sarah Palin or not — so I hereby certify the results as official. Now we move on.

There’s usually a nasty post-Super Bowl hangover for sports fans. The NBA’s interminable season doesn’t get interesting until May or June. March Madness zips by. Professional hockey shut down years ago. Baseball starts in April. Fortunately, this year we have the Winter Olympics. This week’s poll asks you to select your favorite event from a list of all the events I could remember without taking the time to Google them. If I missed something important, let me know and I’ll add it while it’s still early in the week.

Favorite event of the Winter Olympics?

  • Figure skating (42%)
  • Bobsleigh/luge (33%)
  • Skiing (17%)
  • Speed skating (8%)
  • Curling (0%)
  • Hockey (0%)
  • Skeleton (0%)
  • Snowboarding (0%)

Total Votes: 12

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Friday query.

I don’t know why I chose “query” in the title of today’s post. I like the look of the word. My first words, if I remember correctly (and I remember a lot from those days), were “What’s that?”

If I could live my life over again, I’d change those to “Pardon me, but I have a query.”

The Monday Poll, which decides the fate of the universe, shows a total banishment of football from TV as the current leader. I suspect someone like Karl Rove is pulling strings somewhere.

My prediction: Colts 34, Saints 30. The Saints almost lost to the Washington Redskins this year. Do you know how bad Washington is? Very bad.

Now for my Friday query: What is it about me that indicates I don’t deserve at least 50% of the available space on a sidewalk or path? I don’t understand how people approaching from the opposite direction feel entitled to 75% to 100% of the sidewalk/path, to the point that they will bash into me. I know this because recently I’ve stopped moving out of the way — just to see what happens. I always stick to my half and if we collide, we collide.

Maybe this is poll material. People bash Alex out of the way because: a) he’s a wimp, b) they like to touch him, c) he’s invisible and silent, or d) he lives very close to the Church of Scientology and the people bumping into him are actually agents trying to perform a thetan transfer/infusion.

Or wait a second…is this like The Sixth Sense? Is nobody telling me that I’m a ghost? Come on…you can tell me. You won’t ruin the ending. Did I just ruin the ending?

I think it’s time for the weekend. Here’s to a speedy Friday, empty sidewalks, and a relaxing weekend.

Quick Wednesday.

I’m in the middle of story production mode (and reading a bunch of other stories, which is always fun to do when you’re working on a draft) so this will be quick.

I’m pleased to announce the Foaming Hand Soap won last week’s poll, a hotly contested election of America’s Favorite Public Restroom Soap.

And it looks like the Super Bowl poll is going to be a close one, too.

All the snow in Nashville is melting. We may be safe from the alien snow army invasion after all.

Monday Poll: Super whatever.

I enjoy watching football games on TV, but I have to admit I’m not as enthusiastic about the whole production as I used to be. Does that have anything to do with my favorite team being awful? Probably. I also think I value my time more, and spending hours in front of a TV makes me anxious no matter what I’m watching. There’s always something else I need to be doing. I fear the predictable plots and storylines…i don’t want them to infect my creative work. And with sports in particular, I’m tired of the excessive graphics, screaming announcers, commercials, etc.

But that is neither here nor there! It’s Super Bowl week and I’m contractually obligated as an American male to talk about football today. That’s the topic of this week’s Monday poll. Let’s predict a winner, or confess our apathy.

Down!

Set!

Vote.

Who will win the Super Bowl?

  • Indianapolis Colts (25%)
  • New Orleans Saints (25%)
  • It doesn't matter, the alien snow mutants will have conquered Earth by then. (25%)
  • I don't care, just make football go away off my TV box. (25%)

Total Votes: 12

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