photo credit: Army.mil

This is why

I loved physics during my undergrad. A video popped up in my TED Talks feed today entitled, ‘The Mathematics of War’. You can watch the video here, and I recommend you do. It’s a very interesting talk if you’re into this kind of thing. It immediately reminded me of my flash fiction story ‘War Games‘ in that it describes the correlation of something as seemingly chaotic as an international conflict. It’s this kind of thinking that makes me appreciate rational thought and all that it can accomplish. Sure, it’s a bit of a stretch to jump from the aggregation of news sources and statistics (the phrase ‘citation needed’ springs to mind) to modelling the cohesion of insurgent forces, but every talk like this needs to be taken with the pinch of salt necessary to be actually be a TED talk. But what I really loved was the fact that at the start of the project he describes, someone must have daydreamed the idea of describing war in mathematical terms. I love the idea of that creative spark.

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photo credit: Aitor Escauriaza

Again, no updates since I last posted that bit of (according to K) self indulgence. But hey, the internet was made for self indulgence, so sue me.

Been pretty busy lately, I swear I was never this busy before last year. Maybe it’s not that I’m busy, maybe it’s just that my hobbies and after-uni activities have supernova’d out from behind a computer screen at my home. Bike rides Monday nights, poker Wednesday, indoor soccer Thursday, briscola bastarda on Friday, and weekends desperately spent trying to catch up with Louise. Life was a whole lot less hectic when I was a single nerd. Wouldn’t go back there for the world.

The space issue is getting on my nerves. Life at home was good to save up money for the Europe trip (damn, has it been three months already?) but now that I’m back I need to stretch. And I can’t stretch when I’m confined to one room and forty minutes away from any of my friends. June and house hunting can’t come soon enough.

Disturbingly, I’m finding it hard to write at the moment. Must be on the down cycle. Aditi and Stef had to listen to me bitch and whinge today about not having the confidence to submit things. Which is bullshit, and I know it. Sorry about that gals.

I have been reclaiming writing as a more fun activity recently.The latest thing to get resurrected is an old story concerning a drunk and a talking bar stool. It makes sense when you read it, don’t worry. It’s turning out quite long, not sure what it’ll end up at but I’m thinking roughly ten thousand words. That’s if I don’t trail off and get distracted by shinies.

Post-uni thoughts have been bothering me too. I’ve still got almost a year to go, but this whole recession thing isn’t likely to kick off before then. I’m in the business of research, and research is speculative. And speculative is the first to get cut in the real world. you want solid investments, and research is anything but. Thing is, I really don’t want to sit tight in academia. But where else to go? Troubling. I discussed the possibility of saving up enough money to support myself for some period of time after I graduate–three months, six months, maybe even a year if I can swing it–to give my all at writing a novel. Not sure if it’s really that feasible, but damn is it nice to think about.

Well lookey here, this has turned into another self indulgent post. Sorry K, you’re going to have to live with that. How the fuck are you anyway? Haven’t heard for a while.

I’m participating in NaPoWriMo 2009. You can find my attempts here, at the Poetry Free For All. Great place, nice people. Most importantly, an encouraging atmosphere if you’re not dumb enough to incur their wrath (which most lichen would be). Might get some ideas out of it that can be polished up when I’ve dried out.

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Since my memory is such that I couldn’t even begin to think of twenty-five authors, I prompted myself with various stages of my reading ‘career’. So now you’ll get influential children’s, fantasy, comic, science fiction, and literary authors.

As a disclaimer, I wouldn’t say my writing is up to the standards of any of these folks.

Children’s authors:

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was one of the first authors that I read a reasonably long fiction story of on my own (Matilda, in grade one). As a kid I didn’t have much of an idea of style and technique, I just loved his crazy characters and the plot twists that always had me gasping! Charlie inhereting a chocolate factory, witches that could turn you into mice, a girl who gained telekinetic powers, a washing company composed of a giraffe, a pelican, and a monkey! They were all gentle, moral stories that I just couldn’t put down. Throughout my teens I continued to read Dahl with his collections of short stories that were less suited for children, and I found them just as well crafted and whimsical as ever. Even now, I can’t help but pick up one of his books for a quick afternoon read if I wander past my old bookshelves.

Enid Blyton
Enid Blyton is on the same par as Roald Dahl as far as enthralling my childhood goes, although she nabbed it a bit earlier than Dahl did. Her Magic Faraway Tree series sits in my book shelf still, and there wasn’t a week went by when I used to sit and be thrust along with the Famous Five and Secret Seven clubs. Good, honest, well-written plots with loveable characters and clean fun. She is probably the reason I enjoyed boy scouts so much.

Fantasy authors:

David (and Leigh) Eddings

How many times did I read David Eddings’ various series? Impossible to say. Introduced to me by my best friend Cian, the Eddingses quickly became my very favourite books to read whenever I had nothing else to read, and even when I did. Okay, so they’re not the most complicated of stories, but they’re well-written, character-driven, sword slashing, magic using, drama loving books in which nothing really bad ever happens, and you know who’s going to win from page one. But it doesn’t matter! Because the journey is so much fun. The dry wit and comradeship of the characters always inspired me to seek the same in my friends, and I’m happy to say that reading these books always reminds me of hanging out with my high school (for it was high school when I read these) buddies. Do yourself a favour and put aside your genre prejudice and give these a read on a rainy day.

Stephen Donaldson

The first time I read Stephen Donaldson, I hated him. I was, of course, reading the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series, one that turns people off his work regularly. If I’m honest, I still haven’t gone back and read the whole thing with more mature eyes, and I should really remedy that one day, since I’ve been told by people with similar taste that they enjoyed it a lot more when they were older. But my love of Donaldson happened first with The Gap series, which is the best example of a melodramatic, well-realised, psychological space opera around. It sucks you in, brutalises you, and thrills until the very end. His second coming was the political fantasy doublet, Mordant’s Need. I’d never really read intrigue fantasy before, and it was, again, very well realised and conceived. One of the greatest challenges in fantasy, if I’m any judge, is to produce worlds that are fundamentally different to ours, but never have it raised as an issue, despite the impossibilities that are flying around and spitting fire. And Donaldson achieves this with an ease that is surprising and enviable. I now know that fantasy can be a very effective mirror, but one that can be distorted to emphasize certain aspects of what it is reflecting. A powerful thought.

Sir Terry Pratchett

Sir Terry Pratchett is responsible for most of my mother’s woes in my earlier years. I met Terry when I was around eleven or twelve years old (actually, it was when he had just released The Last Continent, so it must’ve been when I  was thirteen). I’d read his Diggers! series when I was a wee lad and laughed so hard I just about wet myself. So when I heard he was coming to Midland shopping centre I was pretty enthusiastic to get there. Mum duly obliged and we waited in a queue for what seemed like forever until we got to the front and he was sitting there, much like he appears in the picture above, except probably more jetlagged given Perth’s premier spot out in the Middle of Fucking Nowhere. He asked me what my name was, and Mum, ever protective, started answering for me. Mr. Pratchett (he wasn’t quite a knight yet), calmly but firmly hushed her and said, grinning,  ‘Let him speak for himself.’ I was in awe. And I never looked back as far as speaking for myself went.

Science Fiction authors:

Ray Bradbury

I am an avid amirer of Ray Bradbury’s short stories as much as his novels. Obviously Fahrenheit 451 is a favourite–it’s my firm belief that no-one that reads that book could think of it as anything else–but my favourite body of works by him is by far Quicker Than The Eye, which contains some of the most wistful, delightful short stories with a genre edge that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. To read Bradbury is to read gently the mind of a man that had more ideas, more endless invention than anyone that has ever written.

Isaac Asimov

Well. What is there to say? Speculative fiction never saw the likes of him before and it’ll be a hard task for it to ever do so again. Asimov always awakens in me a sense of how small we are. I know that may not sound like a particularly good thing, but it is. His ideas are so spacious, they pushed me to think of stories as infinite.
Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter is in the same vague league as Asmivo. His ideas are more modern though, and his science is more applicable to what I was learning at the time of reading. It’s not unuusal to see quantum mechanics making realistic, modern appearances in his well-researched speculative stories. His work made me realise that science and creativity (in the form of writing) are not mutually exclusive.

Comic authors:

Alan Moore

The original nutter. Alan Moore may be batshit insane, but at least he’s able to channel it. His various obsessions have resulted in some of the most amazingly convuluted and brilliantly researched graphic novels to grace the comic genre. From Hell, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, and of course, Watchmen are definitely among my favourites for their brilliant characterisation, dark nature, and effortless world creation. Alan Moore showed me that worlds can be created from scratch, that research is not a dirty word, that comics are valid, that being a complete nutbag isn’t so much of a bad thing if you can pull it off.

Neil Gaiman

Ahh, Neil Gaiman. I could fanboy all day, but I’ll resist. I’m more of a fan of his comic medium work, although I’ll admit a weakness for American Gods. His latest couple of books, Anansi Boys and The Graveyard Book didn’t really strike me so much, but I can appreciate the ideas if not the execution. Gaiman has always inspired me with his ideas that, individually, are straightforward, but which combine and resonate to produce something incredible. It’s that resonation that inspires me every time I pick up his Sandman series, which I’m reading through again in Absolute format at the moment.

Tycho Erasmus Brahe (Jerry Holkins)

Probably the one that non-geeks aren’t going to have heard of. Jerry Holkins is the guy behind the musings of Penny Arcade‘s Tycho Brahe. How has this guy influenced me? His vocabulary. It’s immense. Seeing someone using the words he does (without seeming like a pretentious twat) makes me want to pick up the nearest dictionary and get an edjookashun.

Literary authors:

Actually, literary authors haven’t really influenced me that much yet. So instead of claiming to be influenced by a bunch of guys I’ve only ever read the one novel of, I’m going to just list the remaining authors and their particular book that has inspired me to go and write something, anything:

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

1984, by George Orwell

Fight Club, by Chuck Palanhiuk

Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

The Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

Divided Kingdom, by Rupert Thomson

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

Each and every one of the above novels struck something in me. The language used, a character presented, a storyline elucidated; whatever it was, it made me want to go write something like it. I think that’s probably as close to the definition of influence as you can likely get. Alrighty, that’s all folks. This post has taken way too long to type up, so I’ll be taking my leave to go and write something :)

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photo credit: zombizi

I’ve been sick,

though that doesn’t completely account for the lack of updates, as it was only for the last four days, not the full week. So I guess I should apologies for the lack of updates. I had a good reason though; I’m a lazy bastard. Plain and simple.

In any case, I did a bit of movie watching in the couple of days while I was out of it and couldn’t do much more than cough up chunky bits of opaque orange jelly, and blow out what looked like yoghurt water from my nose. I finally, much to Zoe’s delight, watched ‘The Proposition’, which is a brilliant movie and well worth the wait of the year or so that I’ve been borrowing the DVD. Honestly, I’m not usually this bad when it comes to watching or reading things that I’ve been given, but after the first few months or so it just became an ongoing joke. I’ve given it back to her now and she screamed a bit, but was otherwise okay. The movie itself is a brutal, but very well-crafted story of revenge and brotherhood and justice. Like a wild west would be if it was about five-thousand times more wild, verging on the rabid. Highly recommended.

The other movie was ‘Rear Window’ which was incredible, as any Hitchcock fan will no doubt agree with. Grace Kelly is gorgeous and the interplay between characters is splendid. the camera work is fantastic, given we never leave the same room it’s amazing how they shot it so as not to make it overly noticeable. And of course, the suspense is just about palpable by the time it reaches its climax. A.R. can probably back me up on this one, let me check:

“I suppose it was the memory of thing, because my reintroduction through Rear Window last year changed my mind. Like with Vertigo and Psycho, something about his work just clicked with me. It’s a tremendously brilliant movie that entreats the viewer to take part in the same game Stewart’s character plays, which is part of Hitchcock’s brilliance.”

Yeap, she sure can. :)

Anyway, I’ll leave you with my usual selection of links, this time with a theme of cheering you up if you’re stuck in bed sick (or bored at your office wondering how your day could get worse). Enjoy!

Links

If you think your teenage years were bad, perhaps you should spare a thought for the poor kid whose acne, already at epic proportions, decided to spell out the word ‘ARSE’ on his forehead. (via Arbroath)

Or imagine if you’re the author nearing the final chapter of this book, which only uses each word in its 192 pages once. (via J-Walk)

Or hell, you could be this poor kid. (via J-Walk)

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a spate of the strangest creatures I’ve ever seen appearing on the news and on various blogs. Just thought I’d highlight a few of them for you:

The best of the lot, in my opinion, is the fish with the transparent head (via Neatorama) which appeared in blogs last week. There is absolutely nothing cooler than something that has evolved a transparent head to see things above it. I love that evolution favours something so extravagant. Deep sea fish are always crazy though, as evidenced by this Science Ray post featuring 25 of the craziest you’ll find.

The glasswing butterfly is simply incredible. I couldn’t beleive that this thing existed and no-one had told me about it. Question: why haven’t other insects evolved this? It’s the perfect camouflage! (via the J-walk Blog)

And finally we have the fish that would rather use its fins as legs than swim. Plus it looks like an umbrella has been turned inside out and used as its face. Proving once again that the sea is the best place if you want to turn out some serious craziness from the primordial goop. (via me being interested in the news article on ABC1)

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