Video killed the radio show, but you know what radio killed? Singing, whistling, and quality buskers. Much that once was was lost, for none now live who remember it -- a time when construction yards rang with crude, poorly-sung ditties, when butchers wheezed entire arias with all the skill of a practiced lip-flautist and when a fiddler on a street corner didn't just make good money on account of being a novelty, but actually improved the lives of people that passed him.
People are quiet on the streets, because there's always noise coming from somewhere. People are ashamed to sing--how perverse! What a terrible waste! It doesn't matter if you don't have the world's finest voice or if you can't quite hold the tune; if you know the words and follow the melody and sing with conviction, you're golden.
Several years ago I had an experience that solidified my opinion in this regard. I was walking down a high street, empty since all the shops had already shut, and from not too far away I heard someone raise Gilbert & Sullivan -- Sighing Softly to the River or some such, one of the G&Ses I happen to know, anyway. My first instinct was to join in, but I felt myself shrinking, looking around to see if nobody was looking. While it was a shame I felt that need, fortunately there wasn't anyone to be seen so I joined in, close harmony to begin with and then, when the other voice picked up confidence, I struck out in another voice or counterpoint or whatever the crap it's called.
It lasted only a minute or two; I never saw who it was that was singing, probably someone living above a shop, or sitting outside a cafe in some side street, and I passed out of hearing shortly after the song was over. But that was cracking good fun.
I want more of this. I want to live in a world where people crack open their putrid maws, rattle their phlegmatic vocal chords and belch out vile tunes without heed of the opinion or aural comfort of others. Sure, it's annoying when somebody misses a note -- so join in and let your own voice guide his.
Down with radio!
Down with digital recording!
Vive la chanson!
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Dirt Herding.
Of late, my goal's been to make money and I've really been putting my education and my writerly sensibilities to work, breaking my back in factories and raking leaves and such. The latter got me a cold--yay cold!--and the former got my hands covered in bruises and wounds. When I came home at night the skin on my fingertips was so marred by the dirt and the heavy-duty soap at the paper factory that everything I touched felt coarse, and now I can't see my fingerprints--but that's not important now.
What's important is that I learned a new activity. In sweeping the floor while coughing my lungs out, red-eyed from all the paper sawdust in the air, I noticed while I was climbing across the gaping, chomping blades of The Shredder (guess what what does) that there was a hose dangling from the ceiling, with a gun-style handle at the nozzle. Some of you may recognize this as a compressed air hose.
A world of Newtonian play opened up for me. Blasting the floor with the proper intensity, from the proper height, causes the dust to be blown away in a circular fashion, so to guide the dirt into the proper corner for later sweeping took some skill, which I slowly developed. Blast to get the dirt moving, then shoot past the rim to get the excess back, then step around...
Sweeping would indeed have been easier, but much less fun that this: dirt herdin'. Git alawng, li'l dawgies!
This mode of speech reminds me of the White Wolf Western Omnibus by Hal Dunning -- which has nothing to do with the role-playing games manufacturer, but rather a tawdry Western fiction writer. I picked the book up for two pounds at a thrift shop in Belfast and the style of it is a constant marvel to me.
I write long, you see, detailing the look and feel of things. People, places, motions, intentions, interior dialogue, all that post-bicameral stuff, but not Hal. For Hal, it's perfectly possible for a man to ride into town, round up a posse, head over to Hacksaw Johnson's farm to bring the varmint to justice, hang him in the village square and then go to the Lone Star Saloon to drink to their victory, all in one single page.
The amount of plot in his stories is astonishing to me.
While I was giving the NaNoWriMo workshops at the local American Book Centre, I brought two books to illustrate writing 'short' (Good old Hal!) and writing 'long', for which I had brought my Oscar Wilde collection in hardcover where I had a three-page sentence bookmarked.
Merry christmas, everyone!
What's important is that I learned a new activity. In sweeping the floor while coughing my lungs out, red-eyed from all the paper sawdust in the air, I noticed while I was climbing across the gaping, chomping blades of The Shredder (guess what what does) that there was a hose dangling from the ceiling, with a gun-style handle at the nozzle. Some of you may recognize this as a compressed air hose.
A world of Newtonian play opened up for me. Blasting the floor with the proper intensity, from the proper height, causes the dust to be blown away in a circular fashion, so to guide the dirt into the proper corner for later sweeping took some skill, which I slowly developed. Blast to get the dirt moving, then shoot past the rim to get the excess back, then step around...
Sweeping would indeed have been easier, but much less fun that this: dirt herdin'. Git alawng, li'l dawgies!
This mode of speech reminds me of the White Wolf Western Omnibus by Hal Dunning -- which has nothing to do with the role-playing games manufacturer, but rather a tawdry Western fiction writer. I picked the book up for two pounds at a thrift shop in Belfast and the style of it is a constant marvel to me.
I write long, you see, detailing the look and feel of things. People, places, motions, intentions, interior dialogue, all that post-bicameral stuff, but not Hal. For Hal, it's perfectly possible for a man to ride into town, round up a posse, head over to Hacksaw Johnson's farm to bring the varmint to justice, hang him in the village square and then go to the Lone Star Saloon to drink to their victory, all in one single page.
The amount of plot in his stories is astonishing to me.
While I was giving the NaNoWriMo workshops at the local American Book Centre, I brought two books to illustrate writing 'short' (Good old Hal!) and writing 'long', for which I had brought my Oscar Wilde collection in hardcover where I had a three-page sentence bookmarked.
Merry christmas, everyone!
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Updatism
So, I went to a wedding confirmation ceremony where the bride's relatives turned out to be the Von Trapps, only, you know, without the morally suspect Third Reich connotations. I've been negotiating various thoroughly exciting things with the good people of Sofawolf Press, which is one of the reasons why progress has been slow on FANG 2FG -- the other reason being the sheer, staggering volume of submissions, and of those that I've read almost all have been nothing short of excellent.
In the event that there's enough interest, will be hiring me to record a book-on-CD version of his excellent novel Volle, which I'm very excited about. It's a return to the theatre which I so loved but simply haven't made time for in recent years. I've recorded some samples, which Kyell will be putting up shortly to gauge interest and if there's enough of a response (responses being pre-orders with which he'd pay me -- 'tis the season for commercialism!), and, just for the lark of it, I've engaged in that most atrocious of musical traditions:
Karaoke.
For your enjoyment, The Fairy Tale of New York, originally by The Pogues, now performed by the cast of "Volle" :)
The above was recorded in a single take, no less! Lyrics and singing characters below the cut.
In the event that there's enough interest,
Karaoke.
For your enjoyment, The Fairy Tale of New York, originally by The Pogues, now performed by the cast of "Volle" :)
The above was recorded in a single take, no less! Lyrics and singing characters below the cut.
Monday, December 5, 2005
Cerebral cinema.
I had a dream related to the action-adventure genre of Hollywood cinema. It began very cinematically, following a number of events whose significance now escapes me, but at the time was crucial to the dream's plot. Someone committed suicide, which turned out to be the first symptom of a vast supernatural plot. Much of this section took place in a housing estate full of black people where, after a very sweet girl was kidnapped by supernatural forces, one charismatic young man gathered himself a posse, saying that if he went after her alone, he'd absolutely, most certainly die, but if they went together, they might just take 'that bastard' with them.
I went to a cathedral-like university building in the middle of Manhattan to meet my friend Peter Parker, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who wasn't Spider-Man, I was. Not that I ever got to use my powers. I interrupted our conversation to run up to some semi-cute waiter and ask for his number, and got shot down. No harm, no foul.
There was some more plot with the black folks which now sadly has already begun to fade, but the long and short of it is that I was standing in a large circular space, which had a big pit in the middle traversed by a single walkway, surrounded by a balcony. On one end Captain Mal Reynolds and I stood shoulder to shoulder, on the other end, The Operative from Serenity and that creepy corrupt Fed in the turtleneck from the Firefly episode The Message on the other. I found a Luger on the floor (a reference, no doubt, to my playing Call of Duty last weekend).
There was some banter, posturing, mutual threats. Some insults in regards to my marksmanship, which were totally grounded until I shot the Creepy Fed in the heart, after which I explained both to the captain and The Operative that of the two, the Fed had been the more unpredictable with his firearm.
I am unsure whether Mal shot The Operative, but time slowed down and Mal ran across the dividing walkway, followed by the ghostly image of beautifully sloshing water, after which a small, proud Japanese man addressed a group of Japanese people and told them that what they had seen ( the ghostly water ) was a cinematic simulation of what was apparently a natural Japanese phenomenon, ghostly zero-G water coursing through spaces. He also informed them that his cruise liner had a simulation that was not only lifelike, but also interactive, and would they all please follow him.
I love having a brain. I love it so much. This stuff's gold!
I went to a cathedral-like university building in the middle of Manhattan to meet my friend Peter Parker, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who wasn't Spider-Man, I was. Not that I ever got to use my powers. I interrupted our conversation to run up to some semi-cute waiter and ask for his number, and got shot down. No harm, no foul.
There was some more plot with the black folks which now sadly has already begun to fade, but the long and short of it is that I was standing in a large circular space, which had a big pit in the middle traversed by a single walkway, surrounded by a balcony. On one end Captain Mal Reynolds and I stood shoulder to shoulder, on the other end, The Operative from Serenity and that creepy corrupt Fed in the turtleneck from the Firefly episode The Message on the other. I found a Luger on the floor (a reference, no doubt, to my playing Call of Duty last weekend).
There was some banter, posturing, mutual threats. Some insults in regards to my marksmanship, which were totally grounded until I shot the Creepy Fed in the heart, after which I explained both to the captain and The Operative that of the two, the Fed had been the more unpredictable with his firearm.
I am unsure whether Mal shot The Operative, but time slowed down and Mal ran across the dividing walkway, followed by the ghostly image of beautifully sloshing water, after which a small, proud Japanese man addressed a group of Japanese people and told them that what they had seen ( the ghostly water ) was a cinematic simulation of what was apparently a natural Japanese phenomenon, ghostly zero-G water coursing through spaces. He also informed them that his cruise liner had a simulation that was not only lifelike, but also interactive, and would they all please follow him.
I love having a brain. I love it so much. This stuff's gold!
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Thursday, November 3, 2005
Me for the win!
 | You scored as Captain Jack Sparrow. Roguish,quick-witted, and incredibly lucky, Jack Sparrow is a pirate who sometimes ends up being a hero, against his better judgement. Captain Jack looks out for #1, but he can be counted on (usually) to do the right thing. He has an incredibly persuasive tongue, a mind that borders on genius or insanity, and an incredible talent for getting into trouble and getting out of it. Maybe its brains, maybe its genius, or maybe its just plain luck. Or maybe a mixture of all three.
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com |
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
FurRag - beta.
"Hey Osfer, have you been a big dirty slacker lately? I haven't seen you post anything--no stories, no LJ posts... have you turned lazy and unambitious?"
Haha, no. Aside from the fact that I'm courting two prospective employers in the real world and that I've been offered a job as editor of a fairly well-known furry publication, aside from the fact that I've started the first of a series of five NaNoWriMo writing workshops I'm giving, aside from the fact that I'm participating in this madness with the full intention of getting the result published--I've been working on a project.
Yes, yes, I know, "you and your fucking projects", but listen, this is a doozy. A sweet and talented coder friend sacrificed way too much of his free time to make some of my more frivolous dreams come true, while the fabulously talented Kamui contributed reams of artwork and the result is this:
FurRag, the definitive furry fiction archive (beta).
Even at 15% of its planned functionality it's already on a par with the functions of just about every other fiction archive out there and there's tons more to come. Despite the fact that it isn't finished it's now been opened to help furry participants in the National Novel Writing Month through the nifty integrated per-chapter and full-story word count and forum integration functions.
Zawesomes, now?
Haha, no. Aside from the fact that I'm courting two prospective employers in the real world and that I've been offered a job as editor of a fairly well-known furry publication, aside from the fact that I've started the first of a series of five NaNoWriMo writing workshops I'm giving, aside from the fact that I'm participating in this madness with the full intention of getting the result published--I've been working on a project.
Yes, yes, I know, "you and your fucking projects", but listen, this is a doozy. A sweet and talented coder friend sacrificed way too much of his free time to make some of my more frivolous dreams come true, while the fabulously talented Kamui contributed reams of artwork and the result is this:
FurRag, the definitive furry fiction archive (beta).
Even at 15% of its planned functionality it's already on a par with the functions of just about every other fiction archive out there and there's tons more to come. Despite the fact that it isn't finished it's now been opened to help furry participants in the National Novel Writing Month through the nifty integrated per-chapter and full-story word count and forum integration functions.
Zawesomes, now?
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