Good advice for creative types
I spotted the link to Eric Fortune’s “Tips and Tricks from an Art Slave” on Twitter earliet today and now can’t remember who first passed the link along. (Chris Roberson, maybe?)
At any rate, I was glad I clicked through. Eric shares seven sensible tips to keep yourself from sliding down the slippery slope from artist to art slave. That is to say, someone engaged in enjoyable creative endeavor versus someone who’s finding their work “stressful, mindless and paycheck motivated”.
Although it’s targeted to visual artists, I could see any of the advice applying to writers or musicians as well. Worth a read.
Joe R. Lansdale on Edgar Allan Poe
Speaking of Poe, I got a real kick out this recent piece by Nacogdoches, Texas’ own Joe R. Lansdale. Joe praises the master of all things dark and dreadful for inspiring his creative spirit and saving him from a dreary life toiling inside an aluminum chair factory. Right on.
Nevermore for the Poe visitor?
Poe's grave marker in beautiful downtown Bawlmer.
This just in. The mystery visitor who drops by Edgar Allan Poe’s gravesite every year on his birthday with a gift of roses and cognac has apparently missed a visit. It’s the first time in 60 years the tradition has been broken, according to the Associated Press.
Here’s hoping the mysterious mourner just missed his train or came down with the flu. I’d hate to think he’d been sealed into a wall somewhere or buried prematurely.
U.S. “Culture Warriors” export the hate
Not all Ugandans are happy about U.S. Culture Warriors' brand of cultural imperialism.
Heard a great story on NPR that examines the link between Uganda’s deplorable anti-homosexuality proposal and U.S. evangelicals’ efforts to export their “culture war” to Africa.
As if these self-appointed moral crusaders hadn’t done enough damage here – fanning the flames of anti-gay hate and tearing rifts in families and churches, among other things – it now appears their speaking visits to Uganda may have been the genesis for a bill there that would impose the death penalty or life in prison on gay men and lesbians for homosexual acts.
Beyond calling out the nut jobs who actively pushed their agenda on Ugandan leaders, the NPR piece does a great job identifying mainstream Christian conservatives who have been awful silent on the issue since it surfaced. Definitely worth a listen or a read.
I agree with former Episcopal canon Jim Naughton, who told NPR these jokers should have been well aware that their message would play out with tragic results in Uganda.
“If you go to countries where there’s already a great deal of suspicion and maybe animosity towards homosexuals, and begin to tell people there, ‘Well, actually these people are child abusers, they’re coming for their children, that they’re the scourge that is being deposited on you by the secular West,’ you’re gonna get a backlash. (It’s like) showing up in rooms filled with gasoline, and throwing lighted matches around and saying, ‘Well, I never intended fire .’”
China Mieville on the current “bumper crop of science fiction wow-porn”
Harryhausen's skeletons: Better'n CGI
China Mieville had this fun piece on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog that pokes holes in the digital effects of the new crop of big-budget SF flicks (Avatar among them). I gotta agree when he praises Ray Harryhausen’s groundbreaking stop-motion creatures (“Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,” “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” et al.) as the high-water mark for special effects that really seem to live and breathe. I’ll take the skeleton swordfight from “Jason and the Argonauts” over any Hollywood CGI I saw last year.
Some sound book-buying advice from io9
Yes, San Antonio does have at least one independent bookstore.
This piece from io9 seemed especially relevant, what with Borders deciding to shutter its South San Antonio Waldenbooks location — the only bookstore on the economically disadvantaged Southside.
Sure, online sales have decimated the brick-and-mortar bookstores, especially the independents, but io9′s Charlie Jane Anders argues that it’s not too late for readers to use their dollars to help the indies. If the giant chains aren’t stocking the books you crave, she writes, don’t turn to Amazon, turn to your local independent.
I would even go a step further. If your independent store doesn’t stock the book, ask them to special order it for you. Ultimately, that $20 sale is going to mean way more to them than it will ever mean to Amazon. You might have to wait a few extra days to get your mitts on it, but you’ll pass the time gloating that you did the right thing.
Please, please, make it stop
Pride, Prejudice and Enough Already!
Just spotted at Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Mag: LOCUS is reporting that Sherri Browning Erwen “sold JANE SLAYRE, a literary mash-up in which Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a vampire slayer.”
This, of course, comes on the heels of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies; Sense, Sensibility and Sea Monsters; Emma and the Werewolves; and Mansfield Park and Mummies. While a Austen/Bronte-meet-ze-monster book may have been a clever idea at one point, I just can’t imagine that the concept is worth sustaining a whole speculative fiction cottage industry.
Funny how literary types like to bash their Hollywood brethren for recycling tired tripe yet…
“Kali Yuga” lands in Innsmouth Free Press
Don't mess with Kali Maa
I just got word that my short story “Kali Yuga” will be appearing in the upcoming “Multiethnic Issue” of Innsmouth Free Press.
IFP is an online publication that features both short fiction inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and fictional newspaper reports set in the author’s universe. My story is the former: a classic weird tale with a shot of Hindu mythology. With protagonists who happen to be recent U.S. immigrants (and bad guys who happen not to be), it also flies in the face of some of the xenophobic tendencies of Lovecraft’s fiction.
Look for Innsmouth Free Press’ Multiethnic Issue in June.
Gig in Austin last night
My sober friend Brant was at the wheel. You can guess what that meant.
Cliff Chiang revs up the Way-Back Machine
Comic artist Cliff Chiang has executed some fun mash-ups of his superhero illustrations with iconic 80′s album covers. My musical tastes during the period ran more toward Black Flag, Scratch Acid and Die Kreutzen than Prince, Duran Duran and the Flashdance soundtrack, but those album covers were so ubiquitous that I had no trouble recognizing Cliff’s riffs.
The Teen Titans posed like the Brat Pack on the “The Breakfast Club” soundtrack is pretty fun, but I gotta say my favorite is Batgirl and her bike a la Prince’s “Purple Rain” (something about that sparkly purple catsuit… or should I say “batsuit?”). Click here to see Cliff’s full collection.
This one spotted via Rene Guzman’s Geek Speak blog.