Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 36

Testing...

Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Lord, I'll be your glorious steed, but hold fast to me.

I have been wrong and I have been evil,
my flesh has been weak and my spirit's been feeble.
I lie though I don't even mean to deceive,
but hold fast to me.

Snails ease pain and live off wastes excreted through the skin.  Their mucus makes the salt crystallize away from the body.  Fungus.  Agaricomycetes, other kinds, remediate the toxicity of the earth, provide some fuel.  Orange groves, but it's not like we don't ever get snow or frost.  We crochet tree blankets out of plarn.  

Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Lord, I'll be your glorious steed, but hold fast to me.

Pastor wells wants to be Joel Osteen.  He remembers the days of the Gospel Kings, when one preacher had half a dozen full, giant churches where his sermons broadcast on giant screens.  There are a few left, but every major area had one, and his goals were only that grand.  He couldn't keep himself out of what he wanted, not in Buelah-Si, not anywhere, and apparently, man had daemons.

You who's felt fire and you who's smelled brimstone
I hear you cryin' when you thought you were alone
and it doesn't matter what you believe,
hold fast to me.

Patches, flat red of utility rags, navy blue, olive, orange.  Light blue from other work clothes gone by.  Paint on the patches, mottoes, cats, birds, squirrels, whatever.  Sometimes you'd move a patch you loved from one garment to the next.  Foam clogs; rinse them in bleach twice a day.

Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Lord, I'll be your glorious steed, but hold fast to me.

When you were around those girls, you got strange calls, text messages.  

Some of us starving, some of use freezing,
some of us under batons getting beaten.
Lord, I know it would be easy to leave
hold fast to me.

Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Lord, I'll be your glorious steed, but hold fast to me.

By those gone before us our future's been spent,
and for those set above us, our backs are all bent
you said we should ask, and we would receive
So hold fast to me.

Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Lord, I'll be your glorious steed, but hold fast to me.

It doesn't matter what you believe.

Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Hold to me, hold to me, hold fast to me.
Lord, I'll be your glorious steed, but hold fast to me.

Does that sound at all familiar?  I just dreamed the song, and, since it was a dream, I could not tell Nick Cave from Michael Gira (it would have worked equally well for either).  Red sandstone dirt and concrete brutalism apartments, a pastor called up demons to take two girls and the mother of one of them tried to save both.  Eventually, all of the town pitched in, sang this song at the above-ground pool which belonged to the whole town.  It filled with blood colored sand, but there was just enough water in the end.  I think she was successful in driving off the demons, but the last time I saw the pastor, he was 5 stories up the outside wall of the yellow-tiled dormatory, crawling like a lizard.

Erik's Readercon Highlight Reel

On the way to Claire's place to pick up her and dread Patty, I got stuck in traffic on 95.  I was singing, headphones in and windows open, because what is stop-and-slightly-less-stop traffic if you can't brighten it with your voice (protip: my voice brightens nothing, and that was the part of the mix that had Glasser and Bat for Lashes in it, so these are not even songs I should attempt).  After a few miles and minutes of this, I notice that there is only one person in the car behind me when I thought there were two.  This strikes me as funny, and I have nothing better to do with my time so I find myself checking the rear-view occasionally, still singing, and lo, there were two.  The passenger rose, took a swig from a water bottle and returned to a station just out of sight.  Not wanting to let them know I knew, I kept singing, and thus began the con with me serenading a blowjob.  I could almost stop right there.

Second panel - "How Fantastic is Fantasy."  I think I am developing a taste for panels that I know are going to be shit-shows from the first time I lay eyes upon the description (or the lineup).  I saw this one and knew it was going to be an hour of too many people sharing ghost stories, ranging from the standard to the gleefully delusional with some internecine paranormal pissing contests.  Thus my clairvoyance was proven correct.  What I hadn't counted on was the moderator being... immoderate.  Or tossing off words that made me give the skeletor face from up on the stage. Protip: anyone who entered that room does not get to call themselves a skeptic anymore.  Ever.  And almost all of the panelists did.  I kept silent on the matter.  Also kept silent when nihilistic_kid asked me if I had powers.

The answer to both is no.  Maybe.

Speaking of Nick, he got me to read proof, or something, hidden in the texts of Stephen Kings' early novels ("and recently Christine") that King killed John Lennon.  Or something. I noticed that the man who complied this evidence drove a white van.  

Coincidence?

Okay, various internet people who cared enough to comment, you're right, I did use Shenroos' name a few times too many in "Draftyhouse."  Still, I managed another reading without soiling myself and that's always a plus.  Someone brought the book of pirate short stories that vg_ford edited to my reading for me to sign, though.   That sound you hear is my skin starting to itch from the huge validation fix.  I am a junkie for it.  It's a problem.

Got to witness the "Wet Dreams and Nightmares" panel, which was pretty cool.  And to think I hesitated.

Got to meet Jim Freund, who was also pretty cool.  

I did not get a chance to lurk late with greygirlbeast  and company, this year, which makes me sad.

Juvenalia reading in the room.  Unfortunately (or not), All of my work from back in the day is gone, either to depressive episodes on my part or to time spent in one of the many, many sheds on the Amundsen ancestral compound.  I got to read other peoples' (read wirewalking 's) work, though, and ham it up significantly.  That said, I did notice that wirewalking could do an unlikable protagonist on purpose at 12, and I can't at 36.

I got to play with tarot cards after Kirk Polland.  I figure my skeptic cred was blown for the con, so why not?

And when no one was looking, "The Lend," which rose_lemberg published in Stone Telling, stole 40 cakes.  That's as many as four tens.  got second place for the Rhysling short form.   shadesong got first place.  She let me read at her reading and wear a tiara.  Because sometimes, I like to feel pretty.

Last panel I was on was my favorites of the ones that I did.  Ancient evils, and I have more stuff to say about that one, possibly later.  Possibly sooner.  

I gained 4 pounds over the weekend, apropos to very little.  I had a doctor's appointment at the ass crack of dawn, and so this becomes a relevant point of information to me.  

And then there were all the cool people I only see once a year!  I got to hang out with handful_ofdust a little more than usual, but leahbobet  and readingthedark  less than usual (though I was able to make more of Leah's panels than last time, and her reading, which was damn good).  Got to hang out with pattytempleton  more than usual, since she was stuck in my car for the ride to an from.  I cannot play poker with her, ever, though.  She knows my tells.  I have this sneaking suspicion that picking them up was not a challenge for her.

And then there are the people I adore, but only get to see a handful of times a year.  You guys know who you are, and I am going to try to see you all soon.

IN YOUR NIGHTMARES!!!

Cons are more exhausting to me than anything else I do.  A full work day with uncle Erik duties do not do to me by 9 what cons do by like 2.  It's a weird world.  

Submissions Don't Matter

"Fear a Fight" is back.  It's a good little story as it is, but I had the sneaking fear that it would clearly be stronger at 4500 words than 3000.  It would be stronger and salable if it were 4000 words and those other 1000 were better words than I am used to finding.  Q2 of 2012 is all about me hitting all sorts of walls in terms of my own ability.  I've improved, but I feel like a D&D character whose been at level 6 for a couple of months of gaming.  While part of me is flabberghasted that I got this far, and my "build" is starting to hit its stride, this level is getting old.  And if I am a primary spellcaster (and you know I am), 4th level spells are next character level.  And that's when you enter flavor country.

Nothing for it but grinding.  Nothing but grinding.

Testing...

Thank you, rose_lemberg !  I'm going to have to track down a copy of song that I can get legally, because I need a copy on all my music devices.

The rest has nothing to do with the song, just that I am listening to it on constant rotation with the occasional switch off to "Suspended in Gaffa"

I should post that one, too.



Arkansas Crow, the Broken-necked God from the land of demons, is also the patron of metalwork, pottery, cooking, baking and mechanics.  Anything that centers on metal and fire.  The Broken-necked God's art form is dance, hir death is the untimely.

All the Gods in hir pantheon are tricksters, all of them can and continually do transition between genders, sexes and sexualities.
Throat-Cut-Swallow is one of them.  I know nothing else about hir.

Selj is another.  In Savale where the Sunflowers grow, ze is mistakenly referred to as female.

There are Twins; they are tutelary, herald and psychopomp, constantly in flux, but that is all they share - each is anything the other is not.  That is not to say they are opposites, only that they are never the same as one another in any other way.

Of them, only the Hare, who was always something of an outsider among outsiders maintains a habitual sex and gender.  She believes that human beings are a design she can improve upon.  And she does.  Which is why the rest of them imprisoned her in a labyrinth of thorns, terrible locust trees and ilexes with leaves that taper to a single molecule in thickness along the edge.

They might be strong AIs in charge of terraforming a distant world that traveled far enough and long enough that the atomic half-lives of their physical components has become an issue.  Needless to say, they are properly eccentric deities, even if they were made by human hands.

There are more.  They lived in a palace with big, golden doors.  I think many, if not most of them who aren't mentioned are dead.  Including Throat-Cut-Swallow.

None of them have much of anything to do with pokeberries.

That I know of.

post

Originally posted by aliseadae at postOriginally posted by time_shark here:

I am very pleased, thrilled, chuffed (and perhaps even a little nervous) to announce that Anita and I have launched a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of raising the funds to assemble and publish a fourth volume of Clockwork Phoenix. It has a convenient Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/CP4antho

We very proud of the first three anthologies and we want to read for a fourth; but it's absolutely clear — even as successful as those first three books were, with the great reviews and award nominations our authors received — in this economic environment, if we want to continue making these books at the standard we want to hold them to, we have to crowdsource the funding and publish the next one ourselves.

If the project is a go, we'll open to submissions in September and aim for a June 2013 release.

I could go on about all the rewards we came up with and what we hope to accomplish, but it's probably much simpler if you just click the link (here! here!) and have a look at the Kickstarter page, where it's all spelled out.

Please help us spread the word! (And please feel free to repost this entry if you like.)

Submissions Don't Matter

"Strength" (a poem) out.
"Mars Will Out" also out.

Last salvo before Readercon.

Testing...

Bloody Cranesbill (Geranium) - Funny thing about them is that they don't look bloody until autumn, and it's the leaves, not the flowers.

Pokeberries - (From Wikipedia)
Phytolacca americana (American pokeweed, pokeweed, poke) is used as a folk medicine and as food. For many decades, poke salad ('poke salat') has been a staple of southern U.S. cuisine, where it is cooked and rinsed at least twice to remove the harmful component.[13] All parts of it are toxic unless properly prepared.[14] Toxic constituents which have been identified include the alkaloids phytolaccine and phytolaccotoxin, as well as a glycoprotein.[15] Pokeweed berries yield a red ink or dye, which was once used by aboriginal Americans to decorate their horses.[citation needed] The Constitution of the United States was written using in ink made from pokeberries. Many letters written home during the American Civil War were also written in pokeberry ink; the writing in these surviving letters appears brown.[citation needed] The red juice has also been used to symbolize blood, as in the anti-slavery protest of Benjamin Lay.[citation needed] A rich brown dye can be made by soaking fabrics in fermenting berries in a hollowed-out pumpkin.[citation needed]Some pokeweeds are also grown as ornamental plants, mainly for their attractive berries; a number of cultivars have been selected for larger fruit panicles.[citation needed]Pokeweeds are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Giant Leopard Moth.[citation needed]

I'm not shy about

Submissions Don't Matter

And "Courage" and "Mars Will Out" come back.  "Courage" is already subbed elsewhere, because it is the story it was meant to be, so there's no revision that will make that one better for the markets, just it itself or a total rewrite.  It's strange to be in that position with a story - I'm trying not to be precious about the whole thing, it's just that the story exists in a form that changing anything means I will have to simply rewrite everything.  I may do that.  I may have to. Just, not yet.  

"Mars Will Out," I am holding onto.  I tried it someplace where I probably should simply not submit - a place that likes clear, grounded, transparent and everything that I am not, nor could be and be any good at the same time.  Hell, that last sentence is probably clear enough indication.  But "Mars" can probably get stronger in the shop, so I think I will let it sit until after Readercon and take the blowtorches to it then.

The case of Sarkeesian vs. Male Privilege continues

Originally posted by weber_dubois22 at The case of Sarkeesian vs. Male Privilege continues
TRIGGER WARNING(s): Slut Shaming, Rape culture, Mentions of Abuse, Harassment

I tend to be pretty lucky around these parts. Occasionally, someone will show up in comments here and complain about the fact that we’re talking about pop culture rather than politics, and y’all will set that person straight. Once in a very little while, a true creep will show up and comment on my looks based on a cartoon of my face, my sex life based on…I’m not even sure what exactly, or fantasize about seeing violence done to me, in which case the banhammer comes out, sometimes before y’all can even run them off. And as a media critic who does a lot of feminist work, I hate the fact that I’m grateful for the fact that I’m not harassed for doing my job.

Which is why I was so angry to hear about what’s happened to Anita Sarkeesian. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with her plight, Sarkeesian wanted to start a project to cover a subject that’s not exactly radical: the portrayal of women in video games. Her YouTube account, in which she explains the project, was flooded with comments equating her to the KKK, calling her a “fucking hypocrite slut,” comparing the project to an act of war, and flagging the video as promoting hatred or violence. Her Wikipedia page was vandalized, her picture replaced with pornographic images, and people tried to get the Kickstarter proposal Sarkeesian was using to raise money to support the project shut down. Fortunately, in this case, despite past issues with harassment victims, it seems like Kickstarter’s been more helpful to Sarkeesian than not.

But the whole incident is a reminder of how deeply some men are invested not simply in the structures that provide them tangible advantages, but in the conventions that let them wallow in culture that indulges their worst, stupidest impulses. And if folks are willing to fight this hard against someone doing criticism of culture, there are others who will do worse to preserve the laws that give them privilege in the world. Culture in this area, as in so many others, is a canary in a coal mine. And women who complain about online harassment aren’t being oversensitive: they’re trying to stop an ugly cycle before it spirals out of control. Both psychologically and substantively, it’s key to our ability to do our work. [Anita Sarkeesian, Video Game Rape Culture, and Why Online Harassment Is Not a Joke]

The Escalating Campaign Against Anita Sarkeesian And The Long-Term Weakness of Sexist Trolls

I can’t even bring myself to embed it here: some trogolodytes have created a game that lets players beat up Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist video blogger who’s been subject to an unremitting campaign of harassment since she created a Kickstarter to support a project to explore tropes of female characters in video games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: anyone who thinks that feminists who push back hard against online harassment are being oversensitive needs to understand that we’re all trying to keep ourselves from becoming Anita Sarkeesians. No matter how strong you are, and no matter how much support you have, this kind of concentrated campaign of harassment affects the targets of it. And the goal of these campaigns is to terrorize people into silence. It’s not disagreement. It’s not creative trolling. It’s deployment of a weapon.

And even though it’s frightening, ugly stuff, the campaign waged against Sarkeesian illustrates the fundamental cowardice and weakness of the people attacking her. If you so lack confidence in your ideas, if you’re so uncomfortable defending your appreciation for problematic things (which, by the way, is tricky but not that tricky) that you can’t even put your hands over your ears and sing loudly and ignore them, that you have to actually go out and try to prevent anyone from from saying anything that could make you remotely uneasy, you are a coward. That’s cold comfort to folks like Sarkeesian who have to go through this now. But it’s why, long-term, angry, petty sexists are going to lose, and why it’s important to throw up bulwarks against trolls who try to venture out of their holes and take over mainstream conversations. These ideas don’t stand-up to discussion and debate. And sexist trolls can’t shut down all of those debates, no matter how hard they try. [SOURCE]