A Grief Observed

I just bought C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed at my local Book Market [you gotta check these guys out, you cannot beat their prices. It's incredible]. I decided to read it for 2 reasons.

1. I had a minor epiphany while wearing my WriterHat[tm] that I gravitate to writing melancholic, deeply introspective, moderately lonely people. Because that is, underneath everything, the "what I know" in the "write what you know" Famous Command Made To Writers. I think it's a good command, for fiction writers. And, frankly, there are far worse things in the world than to be instinctively drawn to writing lonely people who look at the world through strange filters. I can live with it.

2. I've always wanted to get to know C.S. Lewis better. I loved and still love the famous Narnia books, which of course he is best known for. But Lewis was known for a lot more, and I want to meet him in the pages of his work.

[The unspoken zeroeth reason, is that when it comes to books, I am a mountain climber. It was there.]

Music and other Conversational Topics at Cocktail Parties

People always think my family is wierd. Or cool. [My family is, btw.] But, they think it's wierd or cool that my mom plays the autoharp. And my dad is learning the banjo. And my father[*] is an organist -- that's what he does for a living [hey, *I* think that is cool]. Grandma sang in a "hillbilly band", back before country was country. Uncle Charlie plays the guitar. We all play or played musical instruments, or sing, or both. I usually just sing -- got my instrument with me all the time!

It doesn't mean we're all that great. It just means we like music. We're not magically different, we just like music. There is NOTHING, so help me god, NOTHING stopping you from studying a musical instrument. It's good for you. It's soothing. It's fun.

So....do you like music too? Go spend $8.00 on an harmonica and have yourself some fun.



[*] My Three Dads. Long story, live with it.

The Sound of Sidra Not Posting

...these and other quality products brought to you by Blammo!

Not that bad, really. I revised some remarks in my little monologue about fanfic and copyright infringement and why I have no plans to write "bookfic" anytime soon. But no new posts for a couple reasons - one, I've got a temporary part time job. I'm still looking for "real" work, so if you by chance are looking for a kickbutt programmer with good writing and people skills, try me. Consulting, part time, full time. I'm game. I like to work. This gig is strictly temporary, like, another couple weeks, max. But it has been enjoyable.

Two, while not parttimejobbing, I was putting together a decent implementation of the open source ecommerce software I worked on and with at Zelerate from 2000-2001. Now that it's up, I have a "demo" site to point prospective clients to, and that's a valuable thing, doncha think? Being as enough of the clients whose projects I worked on while at Zelerate are not necessarily...vibrant commercial entities, shall we say, at this time. *ahem*

Princess Margaret

Princess Margaret, younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, has died early Saturday morning, following a stroke and cardiac complications. The princess had been of failing health for some time, suffering the first of three strokes in 1998. More >>

The "odd man out in the royal family", the princess was known for her glamorous looks and star-crossed romances.

The Diana of Her Day

Born in 1930, Princess Margaret was only 23 when she fell in love with a divorcee, Battle of Britain pilot Peter Townsend. Facing public and private pressures over marrying a divorced man, the princess elected not to wed. They remained friends until Townsend's death in 1995.

In 1960, Princess Margaret and photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones [now Lord Snowden] were married. They had two children, became seperated after a marriage of 16 years, and finally divorced in 1978. The seperation and divorce were considered a shock by members of the public, as the royal family did not share domestic downturns publicly.

Later speculation on the princess' personal life focused on her relationship with Roddy Llewellyn, several years her junior. The princess first met Mr. Llewellyn in 1973. The couple remained friends after their romance of 8 years ended.

Patron of Arts and Children

For many years, Princess Margaret worked to protect children as president of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. A patron of arts as well, she was president of the Royal Ballet. Following her keen sense of duty and public service, she was president of several other organisations as well, including Grand President of St John Ambulance Brigade. In total, the princess was patron to over 40 organisations.

She was last seen in public during the summer of 2001, attending the Queen Mother's 101st birthday.

Princess Margaret will be well remembered by her family, close friends, and fond public. She was 71.

LOTR parodies and other comments

I've read some Lord of the Rings film parodies and other spoofs that are absolutely hilarious.

LOTR in 5 minutes Incomplete.
The Mary Sue It helps if you read or write fanfic, to fully appreciate...the, the horror.
The 'official' parody. Eh. so-so.
Breadbox Edition. The..."abridged" FOTR. Absolutely slayed me. warning DO NOT EAT OR DRINK WHILE READING THIS FANFIC. COME TO THINK OF IT, DON'T OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY EITHER. DO NOT FIC AND DRIVE. ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES.
Bagenders. Oh, you gotta read this.


Now, for some seriousness:

Just for the record, I have no intentions of writing LOTR fic, or reading any serious attempts. I just can't go there. And I don't think it's some "oh, it changed my world so I can't presume" kind of thing, because I've read The Hobbit two or three times, over a decade ago, and the LOTR trilogy, I believe, just once. By comparison, I've read, oh, Dragonsinger, The Dead Zone, and The Stars My Destination more times than I can recall. [*] It's just...It's just...it's a book. Copyright infringement. You're probably asking yourself why if I let that bother me I could have written any fanfic myself. There are two things at hand here, and I'm just now sounding this out, so do bear with me:

1. shared pop culture

I've talked previously about cultural symbols -- common referents that tie a community together -- and in American culture here in the post-post-whatever-era that we live in, visual media like TV and film are paramount in distributing the images and referents we share. So, it doesn't automatically bug me if someone takes a shared symbol and puts their own spin on it [this is textual poaching, I guess, go read Henry Jenkins, or Camille Bacon-Smith's stuff if it sounds intriguing]. By doing so they're embedding the story deeper into our shared culture, enriching it, and binding our community closer together with it. The image in question has ceased to be an individual creation and has become, literally, part of the subtext of our culture, attaining a life of its own. Star Wars(TM) is a good example. How can any one human being [Lucas, natch] assert ownership over a part of our experience as Americans?

I'm all for communities and community building, and the 'unspoken' languages we use to bind them together, but then there's this, to wit:

2. It's already written down. It's not an image.

Here's the thing that, I think, gets me about pursuing bookfic: it's already been written down by the author. I can't go and work "between the lines" in a scene because it's not a scene. If an image can take the place of a thousand words, then I as the viewer make my own subtle interpretation of a visual nuance when I see that image. Depending on the nuance and presentation, I might not even notice I've made any interpretation at all. But I'm actually doing it all along...it's the definition of "viewing experience". I'm the one doing the experiencing.

Well, if an author has written those words for that scene already, has already described that scene, I can't take the cinematic edition and write my own version and ignore the true original. I just can not. But that's only part of my objection. The other has to do with using the same media, and that's really where we get into what I consider to be major infringement.

I may observe a visual, a trick of editing, a glance, and interpret it in my own way and share that interpretation or its results with others, but I do it in a different medium than the original. My work is obviously derivative, yes, but separate and distinct from said original, concerning themes and/or stories that would never be told in the original work, and not presented in the same medium as the original. It is non-competitive. Anyone seeing my work knows immediately it is not part of the original. For these reasons, whether a court would agree or not, to me my work stands on its own and bears my copyright, as a work sufficiently divergent from the original to be new. Right or wrong assessment on my part, particularly on the subject of whether my own copyright applies, I believe this is the real reason that I can write fanfic at all. Is it all just rationalization? Could be, could be.

But. I don't hire the actors, the costumers, the cinematographer and make another version of a movie or TV episode. However, if I wrote a "missing scene" to the film Fellowship of the Ring, I'm actually doing it to not to the film but to the book, and then my work has become directly competitive with the original, and any fair use argument on my part becomes weakened. [**]

I expect to become professionally published, and I take ownership of my material seriously. And I take yours seriously as well.

Parodies and spoofs, of course, are completely legitimate "fair uses" of a work.

This is an interesting subject, and bears much thought, and like most interesting subjects, complex enough that there are few pure shades of black and white. You could certainly argue that when I read I'm applying my own interpretation as part of the reading experience, and yes, I am, but there are few books that have the overarcing impact that a film or TV show can have. Very few indeed that become part of the subtext of our shared culture.

By way of example, please raise your hands if you recognize this quote: "I'll be back." [The Terminator]. And now this one: "Uh -- would you say that your brain structure and sensory network are typically human?" [Magnificat, by Julian May]. So, maybe if I'd grown up in a culture where the primary shared referents were literary and not in visual media, I'd feel the same way about poaching books that I feel about putting my own interpretation into print of TV episodes or films. Then again, maybe not.

I really think the interpretive nature of the visual media is an important factor, as it deals with symbols that [frequently] can have more layers of meaning than an expositionary sentence.

So, when it comes to books, I shall restrain myself to the expression merely of "literary criticism", I think.


[*] Don't go thinking LOTR didn't make a real big impression on me. But you know what? When I sit down to read the trilogy over again, a full fledged grownup with a developed taste for language and history, I'm going to get much, much more out of it. I look forward to it. I really do.


[**]
The character of my use includes commentary and transformation.
The nature of the work is published [fact and imagination].
Depending on perspective [or an individual fanfic] the amount of the work used is either small or large [when I write a story using TV show characters I'm not copying any lines from a script -- but I am using the characters].
And, if this kind of use were widespread, would it compete with the original in the original's market? NO.
If I start writing bookfic, then the answer to that changes.


Books:

Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
Magnificat by Julian May
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Films:

The Fellowship of the Ring, directed by Peter Jackson, screenplay adapted by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, from the novel by J.R.R Tolkien
The Terminator, directed by James Cameron, written by James Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd
Star Wars, directed by George Lucas, written by George Lucas

The Abacus

The abacus is really just a neat little piece of technology. I mean, think about it for a moment: it's a counting device for base-10 counting. If you're a coder, you've studied binary, octal, and hex [base 2, 8, and 16 -- note please, that the latter two are derivative of base 2], and you probably learned various little notation tricks [or came up with some] to make it easier. Same concept here.

I own a 2/5 abacus. What that means is that my abacus -- a frame holding many dowels with beads on them, is split into an "upper" and "lower" deck, so that the beads on each dowel are divided into a group of 5 and a group of 2. This then enables me to count by ones, where each upper bead represents a five, and each lower bead is just a one. Then, from right to left, the upper deck beads work like base-10 notation, settling into columns: 0s, 10s, 100s, 1000s. So that if I want to represent "10" on my abacus, only one bead, from the correct column [the 10s column] is used.

Fascinating. The thing I find so absorbing is that this is a piece of technology invented to make it easier to count on your fingers. I mean, really. It's the next logical step from finger counting when finger counting stopped being good enough. If you were counting to a hundred on your fingers, you'd have to mark every cycle through 10, right? However you chose to do it. Same thing here. So mark your counting with beads. Of course, it gets more complicated, and I sure don't know how to use mine, but I just think they're cool. Here's this technology -- this idea of a counting aid -- that's been around for literally thousands of years, and people still use a variation of 'em today. That is staying power, my friends.

Odd to Note: We always had an abacus in my house, and one of the first things I consciously did when I was living on my own AND had actual money, was buy an abacus so my home would feel...well, like home.

Cures for Writer's Block

Apparently, what works best for me in getting rid of writer's block is to complain to my bosom bud Janis about it. Then, sometime later that day, one or more ideas will rear their heads.

Of course, this technique may not work for you, and I'd wager heavy odds Janis does not want total strangers contacting her just to whine. Consider accosting your own best buds instead, if you want a little advice on that subject.

Actually, having writer's block these past couple weeks was a really good thing. Since no fiction ideas were popping, I spent a lot of time getting to know John Scalzi from a distance [reading his site], thinking about being a freelance writer, and going through my Children's Writers and Illustrator's Market for 2002, after realizing there was nothing stopping me from writing articles while I waited for the muse to strike next with a story. Well, duh. I enjoy explaining things to people, particularly young'uns, and particularly science, so now I've got magazines targeted and query letters etc., etc., and I'm generally just pleased with the whole outcome. Especially because I then just casually mention the whole thing to Janis and suddenly bam the Story Train arrives.

Muses. Bless their little pink hearts.

Music

My fave movie soundtracks:

Empire of the Sun [I don't have it on CD, though, so now I never listen to it]
Amadeus
The X-Files
Strange Days
Lost Highway [which I've never actually seen, I just have the soundtrack]

I can't really add the Star Wars soundtrack to this list, it's not like I can work on anything and listen to the bulk of it at the same time, which really does have to be my criteria for music. I listen to music all the time, but almost always while I'm doing something else. So, I select based not just on what I like, but what I need to do.

Vivaldi, in particular The Four Seasons, is superb for programming. Unless I'm tired. 3AM pulling an all-nighter? You can bet I've hauled out the Nine Inch Nails or Rammstein. When I was working at Alpine, you could identify specifically what I was doing: debugging, researching, writing fresh code, writing documentation, and whether or not I was tired, just by examining my musical selections. Loud obnoxious rock? Sidra stayed late and came in early.

Writing in general? Frequently I select music based on the mood I'm trying to work into the story. If I'm writing horror or something very dark, Nine Inch Nails is a consistently good selection. Writing fairy tales? Classical music -- perhaps Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Science fiction or fantasy? Almost anything, as long as it's not something that I have to jump up and sing along to. Being that I love to sing, that can be a real problem. Sometimes I have to simply stop for an hour, put on a musical choice, get the singing out of my system, and then go back to work. Other people take cigarette breaks. Whatever works.

Technical writing, like a how-to, or manual? Then I look for something very low-key and calm, as the point to this branch of writing is to be very factual and mood-less. Unless I'm allowed to have a sense of humor, which happens more when writing what I consider semi-technical material, like FAQ pages for a web site.

Anyways, if I were going to be stranded on a desert island and I could take 5 CDs with me? Set aside the whole fave music selection concept, my friend, I'd be looking for the audio edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Let's not even talk about if I could only take one book, friends and neighbors...

Travellin' Woman

My friend Kim just got back from an extensive trip to Asia -- Hong Kong, Taipei, and a brief stop in Tokyo. Even before she left, I was filled with the urge to study Cantonese or Mandarin. Now that I've read her trip report, I'm all envious. I wanna go, too!

Tonal languages, how fascinating. I must know more. How do tone-deaf people manage?

Anyway, reading Kim's report I was reminded of the fact that I never publicized my travel journal from when I went to Japan in 2000. I really must do that sometime. I don't take pictures, I bring paper and a pen everywhere I go. In Japan, I carried around a nice little book all the time and filled it with notes on culture, where I went and what I saw, and in one case, a drawing of a beautiful temple in...um...er...it might have been Nara. Keeping a journal and carefully saving all my maps works really well, otherwise I wouldn't remember trips at all! I just relegate stuff quickly to secondary memory storage, I guess. Maps in particular make excellent memory-jogger tools for reconstructing the events of a trip. Plus they're so....flat. So handy. I love maps. I collect them. So tidy, so informative, so telling. Every new place I go, I get maps.

Anyways, I don't photograph well, IMO, and I really like how writing during my trips introduces me to people and gives me a chance to really capture the feeling behind a moment, not just its look. I'm not a good photographer, so if I want a really beautiful photo of a place, I just buy a postcard and get it over with. If you're at all interested in my trip journal from a visit to Utah, follow me.

Once Upon a Time

There lived three kings with one son each. The kingdoms were not far apart, and the three princes grew up riding, fishing, and studying together. Crispin, the eldest of the three, was known for his swift wit and skill with a sword. His temper was quick to rouse and quicker to wither, and he could spear a fish in a stream with just his dagger. Bernard, next eldest, was known to wrestle bears in the spring when they were meanest, and win. He loved his princely cousins with a deep heart and deeper loyalty. Samuel, the youngest of the three, though not by much, for they truly were almost all of age, had accidentally destroyed -- and then rebuilt -- the bridge over the River Gray, and once, spent a whole summer lolling about reading nothing but poetry.

"Classic" Literature and Pop Culture

Finally got around to the movie theater this past weekend. Saw The Count of Monte Cristo on Saturday and The Fellowship of the Ring on Sunday. COMC was good, and I was awestruck by LOTR.

During the course of the weekend I was reminded of the fact that I haven't actually read The Count of Monte Cristo. Speaking of which:

Y'know, one of the things that's immeasurably sad about getting a "modern education" is the deep resentment many people I've met form for "the classics". This lack of having read 'defining works' is ingrained culturally today: the TV character who hasn't read "the classics" is the everywoman, the one we all identify with, maybe even going head-to-head with the artsy snob who talks about Descartes like they had dinner together last week. As if.

The whole thing's a shame, and I'm left oddly grateful that I managed to slip through the cracks by going to 3 different high schools, and avoided reading a great many things I might now hate, otherwise. At this later date, I can come to them as a reader first, and an analyst second -- which is how most of the intial readers of these works would have come to them. As readers.

Now, on the one hand, it's important to have exposure to the literary history of "Western Civilisation". One of the ways we teach and learn "critical thought" is by analyzing literature. So all that paper writing on Oedipus or Othello or Captain Ahab was an important part of the process of trying to teach you how to think coherently, maybe even articulately.

In fact, reflecting back on those high school years, science classes -- another way of teaching and learning to think critically -- were usually optional in later years of study. English for 4 years, but science you could get away with just 2. That means the stereotypical science-avoiding teen of my youth slogged through The Red Badge of Courage and Of Mice and Men, but managed to get out of chemistry and physics. So the only consistent exposure to critical thought during high school years was via literary criticism.

Furthermore, literature as a whole represents a common language, or set of symbols, for relating to other people. If you haven't read Great Expectations, you can't use it as a way to relate to someone else who has, and thereby begin or further a relationship with them. Having a common ground is important, a basis for forming partnerships or communities. It's the underlying concept behind "pop culture". Popular culture -- how many of you discuss TV shows with coworkers? When you do, you're interacting with them, solidifying your relationship, demonstrating your membership of the same community by properly using this common set of symbols.

On the other hand, forcing overanalysis and armtwisting someone into reading something leaves you with a person [or can leave you with a person] who resents the thing they've just read, won't remember it for long as a result, and quite possibly dislikes reading. Maybe consciously, maybe not.

What does this have to do with The Count of Monte Cristo and The Fellowship of the Ring? Lots, and not much. Both are works by very important writers who should be read not just because they're great stories, but because they are part of our common literary heritage, and thus part of what makes "Western Civilisation" what it is, and we should know them. From this perspective, I'm glad to see cinematic versions of tales like The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Three Musketeers being brought to life via the most widely used distribution channels available to popular culture: film and television.

Of course, I'm also a dedicated reader, so I could go on for hours about how each and every one of these tales are infinitely better if you read them rather than see them. Go on, be daring, read a book. But you know what? Go see the movie, too. It's OK. Let your love for the film, be it based on work by J.K. Rowling, Tolkien, Dumas, whomever, serve as your introduction to the author as well. Read the movie, see the book.

Afghan Radio

In the never-ending quest for data sources...visit Afghan Radio. Oodles of great links, too.

More on Java

I'm enjoying studying this. I really am. Migrating to an object-oriented approach to problem solving doesn't seem that inherently difficult to me. I take a very modular approach to software development to begin with. Of course, I should probably qualify my statements with a big ol' "so far".

ahem

So far, so good.

More on Thinking In Pictures

Autism and Visual Thought, from Thinking in Pictures, by T. Gardin. This is terribly interesting stuff. I believe I have a better grasp on the concept, though it'd be great to find something similar on "thinking in words".

"Teachers who work with autistic children need to understand associative thought patterns.", Dr. Gardin says. Heck, I think everyone needs to understand different thought patterns, and first and foremost, that there are different thought patterns. Person A is not necessarily the same as you, literally, and that doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means they're different.

Latest Story Rejection!

Someday I'll cease to be excited, I know. But it's still just kind of gosh-the-whole-idea-is-cool, even when it's a "we don't want to publish your story" message. But this is only Number 4.

Hey, I sent it. Hey, it got read. Hey, I'll just have to send it somewhere else now...At least I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

Java

Studying Java this week, using an online book on programming w/Java that I picked up by David Eck. So far, so good. I've already settled on a good first major project [a flat-file CD database management tool] to work on.

The nice thing about being unemployed is I have all this time.
The bad thing about being unemployed is I have all this time. I feel like I'm done lounging about, I'm ready for a new job.