Thursday, September 29, 2016

Collection

Never trust anyone (man or otherwise) who decides anyone (woman or otherwise) must not be TRUSTED on the basis of any aspect of their personal tastes.

Star Trek: Axanar and the legality of copyrighting Klingon*. What a fandom buzzkill, Paramount. Fan produced entertainments for *generations* (b’doom pssshhhhhhh) have been fun, hallowed, and even considered canon at times. So much for that thing where “CBS has a long history of accepting fan films” and “…realizes that we’re just making their brand that much better.”. Bummer. Thanks to Dena Pawling for pointing to the suit. (*Or Klingonee, if you're really old school. I like the ring of it myself, but am not - well, aggressively Klingon about that.)

Alan Turing sings? Well no, but the mathematics of music have long been of fascination to scientists. One of my favorite Douglas Adams novels (not a Hitchhiker's outing) waxes poetic on the magic of fractals. Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach was still an exciting innovation when I was a kid. And then there was Alan. Arguably barer bones in terms of musical talent, still the recording is a tantalizing look at early creativity in electronic music.

In even more GEE WHIZ news, how about an app that allows you to create in thin air, scale, and print? How Tony Stark can you get? Pretty Tony Starkish, as it turns out. Also, "mixed reality" could become the next phrase I'm impressed by while simultaneously kind of hating it. To use an 80s-ism I haven't dusted off in a while: whoa.

It's been too long since I linked The Arrant Pedant, so how about a short trip to that illuminating and amusing blog? "the most noteworthy thing about the split infinitive is that there are still some people who think there’s something wrong with it. ... If they're good enough for Star Trek, they're good enough for you too."

(A) common pattern of prescriptivist complaints: a new usage arises, or perhaps it has existed for literally millennia, it goes unnoticed for decades or even centuries, someone finally notices it and decides they don’t like it (often because they don’t understand it), and suddenly everyone starts decrying this terrible new thing that’s ruining English.

G-d, I love the demystifying work of The Pedant. I also love that Blogger's idiotic spellczech finds fault with the word prescriptivist. Shut up, Blogger.

Monday, September 26, 2016

Edits

My entry for Janet Reid's last flash fiction contest was completed at nearly three a.m. on Sunday morning - an unconscionable hour to hit the "submit" button on any writing (and comments on the internet), but ... I'm actually kind of happy with this piece.

Two edits did come to mind, and though they look small I think they make all the difference.


As published originally ...


"Eleven replies!"

Mom was frantic about the wedding. Cakes, invitations. She wasn't joyous, it was just her job to do, her attention to get, her show, her stress.

How had this become about her?

It became my way to prove her wrong. We’d have more than a pot to pee in.

But we couldn't even afford toilet paper. The last week before our first anniversary, dad drove 500 miles to help me move back home. OJ's slow chase on the TV. Rodney and I queerly relaxed. Dad wasn’t.

Hope crushes easy as a Dixie cup. We couldn’t afford those either.


As I'd like to edit it ...


"Eleven replies!"

Mom was frantic about the wedding. Cakes, invitations. She wasn't joyous, it was just her job to do, her attention to get, her show, her stress.

How had this become about her?

It became my way to prove her wrong. We’d have more than a pot to pee in.

But we couldn't even afford toilet paper.
The last week before our first anniversary, dad drove 500 miles to help me move back home. OJ's slow chase on the TV. Rodney and I queerly relaxed. Dad wasn’t.

Plans crush easy as a Dixie cup. We couldn’t afford those either.


***


That "paper/the" break provides a necessary segue, a  beat and a physical separation to represent the 51 weeks that have passed.

Hopes and plans are different things, and ... to be honest, in this piece (which is not fiction), hope had little honest place. The PLAN, back then, had been to prove mom wrong, to get over those lies not actually in the text above, to transmogrify into a Grown Up magically, without actually maturing or growing. A plan (hope?) destined to failure.

We really were listening to O. J. Simpson's slow-speed chase as we packed up, and my dad definitely was unspeakably distressed. Beloved Ex and I really did find ourselves relaxed, after the decision to separate was made. We were done, the worst had happened (for the first time ...).

My mom, for the record, was NOT really like this. Well, not specially so. But it was a curious time, especially looking back on it. The wedding seemed, sometimes, to have little to do with me. Less still with BEx. There was a lot of part-playing going on at that time in my life, and I wasn't the only one doing it.

We did split a week before our first anniversary; it seemed a good idea, so as not to falsely celebrate. And yet, BEx had gotten me a gift. He'd researched - year one was cotton. I still have the woven throw he gave me; it's waiting to be laundered, having been a favored Gossamer-nap-spot this summer. We at the top layer of our wedding cake together, before dad even came, I think. I probably gained five or ten pounds. It was good cake, though. Almond. Golden pound cake.

The curious coda, of course, has been that BEx is what he is in my life. Still important, though we haven't seen one another face to face since September 2001. Still someone I admire - and, oddly enough, can depend upon.

He was a good man, and I knew that, and that was why I married him. If only I'd been a good woman. Or a woman at all. At least, I am a good friend. I was a rotten wife.

Still working on that part.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Flash

Janet Reid is having another flash fiction contest, to win a copy of Donna Everhart's The Education of Dixie Dupree.

Per our Supreme Hostess, the rules:


               The usual rules apply:

               1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.

               2. Use these words in the story:


                              dixie


                              eleven


                              lies


                              home


                              mom

So this is why I am up at this ungodly hour. I've been writing ...


"Eleven replies!"

Mom was frantic about the wedding. Cakes, invitations. She wasn't joyous, it was just her job to do, her attention to get, her show, her stress.

How had this become about her?

It became my way to prove her wrong. We’d have more than a pot to pee in.

But we couldn't even afford toilet paper. The last week before our first anniversary, dad drove 500 miles to help me move back home. OJ's slow chase on the TV. Rodney and I queerly relaxed. Dad wasn’t.

Hope crushes easy as a Dixie cup. We couldn’t afford those either.