Balls and Walnuts
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Psilicious
The Society by Lilith Saintcrow
It’s tough as walnut shells being tall and well muscled, a rugged Charles Bronson kinda guy, only good-looking, too, a frigid burnt-out sorta handsome like Kurt Russell circa Soldier; yeah, it isn’t easy living with killer instincts strung violin-wire tight, psi powers so potent even your best buds cringe when you look their way because you could squash their brains like overripe grapes as soon as share a beer with them. But enough about me.
Justin Delgado is like that, too. Justin and me, we go way back. In kindergarten, we used to pit our mental powers against each other while the other pishers were racing Hot Wheels. Justin would make a June bug explode, then I’d send a few dozen bees screaming down on Mrs. Ehrenreich’s purple hair. We were bad kids.
High school happened. Justin had a thing for icy blondes, while I had a thing for any girl who had a thing for me. He claimed he didn’t use his power to score the babes, but I know better. Back then, you had to be all sensitive to get a prom date, but sensitivity wasn’t Justin’s strong suit. You can’t tell me Justin didn’t do a little pushing.
After high school, Justin seemed to disappear. I’d have never found out what happened to him if it hadn’t been for Lilith Saintcrow’s book, The Society. Justin got picked up by Sigma — that’s our benevolent government’s psi black-ops unit. They hooked him on Zed and turned him into a killer. I told him he shoulda come with me to Vegas.
The Society, they’re the good guys. They ‘extracted’ Justin, kept him safe while he kicked his Zed jones. Eventually, he became their ichiban, their top dude, their Neo. If you got a psi-gifted novice at risk of a Sigma pickup, Justin’s your man. And he would’ve gone on being their primo bitchenest operative if it hadn’t been for Rowan Price.
Rowan, she has it all. Psi powers right off the charts, makes all the little red bulbs go pop! She’s a leggy blonde and she touches Justin in ways he desperately needs. The healing touch — but, yeah, there’s a bit o’ the nasty there, too. Justin snapped her up right under Sigma’s nose, but the extraction was messy. Now she’s damaged goods, an emotional train wreck, a kid with way too many ghosts — exactly like Justin.
Can Justin be an effective Sigma-killing machine with nothing but Rowan on his mind? Cuz damn, he’s hooked on her worse than Zed. Will Justin and Rowan heal each other? Will they commingle their psyches as well as their bodily fluids?
Maybe, maybe not. Never mind true love’s irresistible attraction; with Sigma hot on their trail and suspicious goings-on in the heart of the Society, it would be a miracle if they managed to stay alive.
Am I playing coy? Sure I am. I know what happens to these two lovebirds. I read the book. And you should, too, if you want to know how Justin and Rowan make out. I ain’t spoilin’ it for you.
D.
It’s a BIG ad
Here’s a video clip of an Australian beer ad.
It’s a big file, so consider yourselves warned. Also, you’ll be humming the tune all day.
D.
Chicken Run, with rabbits
I had hopes of going to Medford this weekend. That’s the big city in this neck of the woods. My jejunum had other plans, so instead of Medford we went to see Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
For those of you not familiar with Aardman’s lovable characters, Wallace is a cheese-loving inventor and Gromit is his dog. Gromit doesn’t talk (I mean, what could be more ridiculous than a talking dog!) but he likes to knit, drives a mean getaway car, and generally keeps Wallace out of trouble.
Wallace and Gromit are in business. Their company, Anti-Pesto, captures the pesky rabbits plaguing local vegetable gardeners. They trap the bunnies humanely, then keep them in their basement, cozy, dry, and well fed. This appeals to the villagers — we all know how wonky the British get when it comes to small furry things.
Wallace comes up with an invention which will brainwash rabbits into no longer liking vegetables. Things Happen, and before long a giant were-rabbit terrorizes the countryside.
I’d tell you more, except I dozed through most of the movie. I think it was good. Jake laughed a lot, and Karen says it was better than Chicken Run. Me dozing had more to do with being under the weather & the cat waking me up at 6 AM than anything else.
Karen and I love anything Aardman produces. The first thing we ever saw from them was a short entitled Creature Comforts. Apparently, they made a TV series based on Creature Comforts, which leads me to ask: why the hell isn’t it on MY television? I want my Creature Comforts!
Feeling this crappy (hah! Get it? Crappy!) you’d think I wouldn’t get anything done on the manuscript, but you’d be wrong. Editing requires only that I sit in a chair, read, and type. I can do that. I’m also hoping to finish Lilith’s novel The Society tonight so that I can have an appropriate post for Smart Bitches Day. Lilith, please don’t be mad that I mentioned your book in the same paragraph as the word ‘crappy’.
D.
Editing update
Like my pal Michelle, I’m editing my fat mothah manuscript. I punched it in earnest this morning and revamped the prologue, turning it into chapter one. This involved selecting the word “Prologue”, deleting it, and typing “ONE”. Aah. The feeling of accomplishment.
But seriously, folks. I can’t dredge much humor out of the editing process, so I’d rather not post on it too frequently. Here’s the plan. I’ll put up a ditsy graphic on my right sidebar, and I’ll post the stats in this entry, which I will update as needed. Aforementioned ditsy graphic shall be linked to this post.
Debi, you’re probably the only one who gives a damn about this, since you’re fool enough to want to read TBC a second time.
One other thing. I’m still feeling a bit shaky on this prologue — erm, Chapter One. If there are any TBC virgins out there who would like to read a 4600 word first chapter and give me feedback, email me privately. Let me know what file types you can read. (I don’t need a line crit. A simple “this works for me, this doesn’t” will do.)
10/16/05: Slow-going. I’ve been working over Chapter One, trying to get it just right. Many thanks to those of you who sent me your comments on this chapter; I think I’ve incorporated a great deal of those suggestions.
10/22/05: I finished Chapters Four and Five, which includes Bare Rump’s first POV chapter. She’s such a wonderful character.
10/23/05: I finished Chapters Six and Seven. Looking gloomily forward to next weekend, when we move back into our Harbor house. I doubt I’ll have much chance to edit during the move.
D.
Your Joe Dirt fix for the weekend
I’m under the weather this weekend, thanks to dysentery*. No, I didn’t eat food sold out of the back-end of a trailer, but I am reappraising the infamous “three-second rule” as regards food that falls on my kitchen floor. Next time, if the cat wants the scraps that much, she can have ’em.
Long and short of it is, you’re getting the short of it. No tomes from yours truly, but if I can’t make you laugh, I’ll lead you to someone who can.
My brother Jake holds the park record. He once jumped over 7 trailers.
Jake crashes a lot and talks real slow now. The doctor told him to wear a helmet.
Check out Averell’s Home Page. Is it PC? Hell no. In fact, I’m sure that once I’m back in my usual state of health, I’ll regret ever posting this link.
D.
*Only a mild exaggeration.
Will write Romance for beer $$. Pleeze help.
Another winner from the Maureen Archives:
Somehow, this does not remind me of boobage.
D.
For the fingerless bulimics out there
Props to Maureen for this delightful image. I think I’ll be able to skip that second chocolate chip cookie now.
D.
A blog meme with fangs
Candy, my second favorite smart bitch (sorry, Candy, but my wife takes the cake on this one), has tagged me with a blog meme. Here are the rules:
1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same.
My twenty-third blog, “And you thought Metallica was a head-banger band“, concerned the history of the tarantula Poechilotheria metallica. (Beth alert! Don’t click that link!) Here’s the fifth sentence:
A bloke named Hendriks braved Bengal tigers, heavily armed Indian outlaws, and worst of all, the Indian Customs Export Bureau to take seven tarantulas back to Europe.
If I may be permitted a few liberties with the deconstruction, I hazard that ‘Hendriks’ is, here, symbolic of Everyman, Everyman in the Kierkegaardian sense, that is to say, Kierkegaard post-Derrida, and the ‘Bengal tigers’ are intended as Jungian shadows, or perhaps a masculinized version of the Triple Goddess. One might conclude that the ‘Indian Customs Export Bureau’ was Hoffman’s way of invoking the Freudian superego, but one would be erroneous. Rather, the ‘Indian Customs Export Bureau’ is a figment of an unfathomable Fahrvergnügen-deprived zeitgeist, an ersatz Bildungsroman as it were, and should be viewed in the context of the author’s angst regarding his recent unsuccessful attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation.
Lastly, what are we to make of the ‘seven tarantulas’ taken ‘back to Europe’? Taking into consideration the author’s Hebraic roots, we note that ‘seven’ is Yahweh’s special number signifying perfection and completion (e.g., Leviticus 23: 23-25). Yet a perusal of Hoffman’s personal library reveals a well-thumbed copy of T.E. Lawrence’s The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and so the ‘seven tarantulas’ may signify his latent desire to bugger boys in the desert. That Hoffman has an extensive William S. Burroughs collection would only seem to corroborate this hypothesis, and ‘back to Europe’ might be rearranged, to wit, ‘European backdoor’, with obvious implications.
In summary, Hoffman, for all his heterosexual rantings, was, here, outing himself “in code”.
On the other hand, he may have been sharing a fun bit of tarantula lore.
I tag: Gabriele, Beth, Debi, Maureen, and Christine.
Oops! I want Demented Michelle in that group, too. Yeah, yeah, I know I can’t count.
D.
NYTBR Odds and Ends
I’ve never been a big fan of Robert Heinlein (I think I hit the limit with Stranger in a Strange Land), but it’s nearly impossible to read SF without becoming aware of Heinlein’s influence. He’s a controversial figure. Over the years, folks have accused him of being sexist, racist, fascist, you name it.
In this week’s New York Times Book Review back page essay, author M.G. Lord argues that Heinlein’s earlier work qualifies him as a feminist (Heinlein’s Female Troubles, NYTBR 10/2/05). It’s an interesting (and well written) essay, and I encourage you folks to take a look at it, even if you are not SF fans.
Elsewhere in the NYTBR: Eric Weinberger reviews George Saunders’ The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil without ever using the words science and fiction in close proximity of one another. The plot is plainly SF (um . . . all the action takes place on another planet, and concerns a variety of weird aliens), so what’s up? Weinberger chooses to call it satire.
I don’t know if I have a problem with this.
I asked Karen yesterday, “When are you going to blog again?” Since we’re an old married couple, she heard me when I telepathically added, “You know, you’ll never build your readership if you only blog once a week.”
“I’m not blogging to get more readers,” she said. “I do it to help organize my thoughts.”
I suppose that’s what I’m doing right now — trying to figure out how I feel about this. As SF writers, should we cheer when one of our own gets reviewed in the NYTBR, even if the SF-word isn’t used? Should we give Margaret Atwood a big stage wink when she slams science fiction?
Okay, Romance lovers: do you have a Margaret Atwood in your ranks, i.e., an author who aspires towards the literary and shuns the Romance label, even though that’s exactly what she is writing? How do you feel about her? (Or him. As Stephen has taught me, there’s a few blokes out there.)
Here’s what I think. Although some science fiction novels are written purely for escapism, many authors are writing social commentary. Hell, a good novel can do both. Just because the author has something to say — as Atwood did in The Handmaid’s Tale — the novel should not automatically pass Go, collect $200, and rate as satire (don’t nobody say SF).
If “genre” has any utility at all, it’s to help the reader know what to expect. To me, “serious literary fiction” is, as I mentioned to Pat recently, “boring pointless stories about characters with boring pointless lives who, in their inevitable epiphanies, find meaning in said lives.” The last thing I want is for a bunch of truly excellent SF writers to worm their way into the ranks of those literary doofuses. Because, you know something? If they do, I’m not reading them any more.
Thank heavens Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music was filed in SF. That’s all I’m saying.
D.
My wife is one fine piece of arm
How low will I stoop to draw blog traffic?
That’s a difficult question. Yesterday, I learned over at Non Compos Mentis that I’ve been going about it all wrong. Why putz around with Technorati tags when one photo of nude women wrestling, appropriately labeled (or inappropriately labeled, as you shall soon see), will launch your blog into the stratosphere? Sex. Free porn. Nude photos. That’s where the action is.
I have two problems with this plan.
One: most of y’all are of the feminine persuasion, and while I don’t think of you as prudes, I don’t want to alienate you, either. You come here for the humor (I hope), not for photos of naked women making out. If I did put up photos of women with huge breasts french-kissing, you would think that I had photoshopped Ann Coulter’s and Michelle Malkin’s faces onto the relevant parties first. And you’d be right.
Two: if I do something like this, it had better be funny. Despite the things I say sometimes, I’m not a blog traffic whore. Much. I mean, I have to draw the line somewhere, and shameless exploitation of anyone except me, my wife, my son, and certain media figures who richly deserve it — oh, and actors and actresses and other people who catch my attention, not to mention old friends and acquaintances and other family members, associates, and folks I meet in the blogosphere — well, it’s just not right, and I’m not going to do it.
Besides: do I really want tons of traffic from pimply faced kids with megadoses of testosterone surging through their bloodstream? Well, sure, if they decide to stick around for the humor.
These two concerns have led me to make the following two self-imposed requirements. Any naked skin which I show on this site will be (1) non-exploitative, and (2) humorous in some way.
Before I unveil my creation, I need to do something first. I have to frame the image with lots of raunchy words. I apologize if you’re offended by phrases such as
Tasty Bulgarian virgins bare all!!!!
Shaved underage midgets engage in unspeakable acts!!!!
Tentacle sex, cold pasta fetish, exquisite tickle torture, and more!!!!
HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT!!!
You must be 18 years old or older to view the image below. Click here if you are under 18.
Behold:
Girls so young they have acne on their tender buttocks!
Scroll down for more!!!!
Okay, I’m back. That’s Karen’s arm, bent at the elbow. Now think about all the thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds across America who are doing unspeakable things with that image up on their computers.
See how much she loves me?
D.