Zak Shareef's Blog
October 19, 2013
Supernatural Is a Damn Good Time
*Spoilers-You've been warned.*
The angels have fallen. There's a power vacuum in hell. Monsters still roam the Earth. Sam's got an Angel in him. The Prophet is beating up Crowley, and Dean? He keeps on keeping on. After the Winchesters (with a little help from their sex-obsessed friend, God) defeated Lucifer, I genuinely wondered where the show could go. I've been fairly pleased with everything they've done.
The CW's Supernatural does a fantastic job of creating a contemporary mythology. I can imagine anthropology students centuries from now trying to understand our culture from this show. We see in the Winchester's constant battles an echo of our culture's inability to reconcile the needs of the human animal, the traditions that have shaped our culture, and the problems posed by a culture of accelerating change.
The scene in season 9 episode 2, "The Devil May Care" where Dean and Ezekiel, renamed Zeke, talk after the angel has laid waste to a few demons to protect Sam's body which he occupies, the contemporary state of the traditional man trying to be good yet unable to trust even an angel, and the angel recognizes the legitimacy of Dean's dilemma. The problem is no longer one of faith, but rather of how to trust when one is presented with an over-abundance of evidence. These sorts of theological and metaphysical problems get reduced to emotionally overwrought melodramatic moments pleasantly punctuated by beautiful women and engaging battles.
Supernatural is a damn good forty minute distraction filled with fantastic interpretive moments anytime the viewer feels like treating these supernatural creatures as metaphors or representations of traditions.
The angels have fallen. There's a power vacuum in hell. Monsters still roam the Earth. Sam's got an Angel in him. The Prophet is beating up Crowley, and Dean? He keeps on keeping on. After the Winchesters (with a little help from their sex-obsessed friend, God) defeated Lucifer, I genuinely wondered where the show could go. I've been fairly pleased with everything they've done.
The CW's Supernatural does a fantastic job of creating a contemporary mythology. I can imagine anthropology students centuries from now trying to understand our culture from this show. We see in the Winchester's constant battles an echo of our culture's inability to reconcile the needs of the human animal, the traditions that have shaped our culture, and the problems posed by a culture of accelerating change.
The scene in season 9 episode 2, "The Devil May Care" where Dean and Ezekiel, renamed Zeke, talk after the angel has laid waste to a few demons to protect Sam's body which he occupies, the contemporary state of the traditional man trying to be good yet unable to trust even an angel, and the angel recognizes the legitimacy of Dean's dilemma. The problem is no longer one of faith, but rather of how to trust when one is presented with an over-abundance of evidence. These sorts of theological and metaphysical problems get reduced to emotionally overwrought melodramatic moments pleasantly punctuated by beautiful women and engaging battles.
Supernatural is a damn good forty minute distraction filled with fantastic interpretive moments anytime the viewer feels like treating these supernatural creatures as metaphors or representations of traditions.
September 1, 2013
A Mage's Play Will Be Free!
The novel will be free to download from Amazon on Tuesday, Sept 3rd.
Cover Art Contest Details
Cover-Art Contest for A Mage's Play by Zak Shareef$300 Award and publication as the cover for novel from a best-selling Amazon author.
Submission deadline is December 15, 2013
No submission fee.Email queries, requests for the full novel, and submissions to zak@morethanwands.com
Prize awarded January 1st 2014.Excerpts you may wish to illustrate or work from:
Ananda:
1) Joshua’s neighbor demonstrated his answer by way of calling out, “Come in.” The woman who did was gorgeous. She was clearly a combination of several races that had left the mark of none on her clearly. Her skin color was slightly darker and warmer than an East Asian’s. Her eyes were almond shaped and brown, but there was a softness to her features not typical of Arabian women. Without meaning to, Joshua had slipped into poet mode for the first time in months. He tried to figure out how and why and to what extent she was beautiful. His neighbor took the hose from his mouth and started laughing that deep laugh of his. There was nothing overtly magical about it, but the noise seemed to carry within it the humor of every laugh the man had ever heard.
2)
Joshua closed the book. He looked up at his girlfriend who stood in the doorway of what had become his bedroom. She wore dark jeans with small holes in them above the knees. She had a crimson tank top on under a loose and partly unbuttoned cream blouse. Joshua hadn't meant to check her out, and he knew she knew what the smile that had appeared on his face meant he was feeling.
3)
Ananda stepped onto the mat. Her body was coated with a dense, dark gray gel. Despite the fact that it literally outlined her form, it obscured her figure by subtly shifting the shade of gray at certain points along her body. “If we’d done this when we first met, you’d have won in a second,” said Joshua. “And, I won’t now?” she asked. Joshua shrugged. The Guardsmen in the City were, on average, better than the ones Joshua had trained with on the base when he was a kid. It had been a decade since he’d focused on combat training. Plus, he’d seen Ananda move. Dancers brought a grace and efficiency to combat techniques that most pure martial artists didn’t reach for decades, and she was an extraordinarily talented dancer. Ananda was probably faster and stronger than he was. She might be able to do things he’d never heard of, but this fight wasn’t going to come down to techniques.Fight Scenes:
1)
The air around the man started to crackle and violet lines of electricity slithered along his arms. He looked at Joshua and spoke in a voice that echoed through the bar. “I’m not? What am I then?” Joshua moved with Augmented speed. He stood behind the man before anyone else in the bar realized he had moved. Joshua placed his hand on the man’s neck, and he wrapped it in a Bind which directed a magnetic pulse inward. The pulse disrupted the Tech buried in the tattoos. The air settled. The electricity vanished, and the black faded from the man’s eyes. “You,” said Joshua, “are an imposter. You play at being a Wizard, and you get away with it because so few people have met a real one.”
2)Seconds later, the cutest toddler Joshua had ever seen floated at eye level. The boy wore a black onesie. Joshua recognized the shade. It wasn't just black. It was blackness. A baby floated in front of Joshua Awen wearing the Abyss. He wore that emptiness which the worst that had ever touched Joshua's mind leaped to fill. Every cruel whisper that had never passed Joshua's lips, every whimper he'd bitten down on, every terror he'd forced himself to breathe through danced just in front of the blackness which draped the adorable baby. The City:
1)
They continued on. Joshua was exhausted from keeping his nervous system going that fast for that long. He needed to eat and sleep. He used a few subtler Augmentations to keep himself going, but it was starting to get tough. If that weren’t bad enough, the unchanging buildings next to him made the march feel surreal, unending, and pointless. Joshua's mind reached for Marvin. Joshua wrote a quick script modifying a standard film-projection spell. Even that little coding was still difficult for Joshua without any kind of visual or tactile feedback. Matthew had crammed every kind of photo gallery imaginable onto the Mobile. Instead of a movie he had the spell pull random pictures from every collection. Joshua executed the spell. The walls around them filled with images. There was a building sized tiger to his left. On Ananda’s side there was a sketch of the white rabbit checking his pocket watch. A chime of delight warmed Ananda's voice as she said, “Alice In Wonderland? A little on the nose. Don’t you think?” 2)
Joshua looked at her. She stared off into a shadowed gathering of trees. Joshua sighed. He had Marvin build her a yellow brick road from their current position to the cluster of what Joshua decided, for safety's sake, to label as something other than large plants. “Ananda, dear, please stay on the yellow brick road when you go investigate those tree-like-beings.” “One little boo-boo, and you become all paranoid about safety,” said Ananda. “Wouldn't it have been faster to just call me a wimp,” asked Joshua. “Faster but less rewarding,” she said before hopping onto the yellow brick road and skipping the thirty feet to the cluster of probably-trees. Joshua followed her. He kept his hand far from his blade, but he Augmented his nervous system, squinted through his third eye, and pushed his mind outside his body. He tried to be ready for anything. He failed. The trees did not form a circle, but one clearly would have been in the center if they had. This central tree differed from the others in one readily identifiable way. A man wearing a wrinkled, paisley sheet as a toga sat on the ground and occupied a large portion of the space that ought to be reserved for the tree's trunk. He did not touch the rest of the trunk. The roots poking up from the ground did not grow into him. He was not physically part of the tree, but on some important level of existence that Joshua did not have access to the man and the tree were one.
Submission deadline is December 15, 2013
No submission fee.Email queries, requests for the full novel, and submissions to zak@morethanwands.com
Prize awarded January 1st 2014.Excerpts you may wish to illustrate or work from:
Ananda:
1) Joshua’s neighbor demonstrated his answer by way of calling out, “Come in.” The woman who did was gorgeous. She was clearly a combination of several races that had left the mark of none on her clearly. Her skin color was slightly darker and warmer than an East Asian’s. Her eyes were almond shaped and brown, but there was a softness to her features not typical of Arabian women. Without meaning to, Joshua had slipped into poet mode for the first time in months. He tried to figure out how and why and to what extent she was beautiful. His neighbor took the hose from his mouth and started laughing that deep laugh of his. There was nothing overtly magical about it, but the noise seemed to carry within it the humor of every laugh the man had ever heard.
2)
Joshua closed the book. He looked up at his girlfriend who stood in the doorway of what had become his bedroom. She wore dark jeans with small holes in them above the knees. She had a crimson tank top on under a loose and partly unbuttoned cream blouse. Joshua hadn't meant to check her out, and he knew she knew what the smile that had appeared on his face meant he was feeling.
3)
Ananda stepped onto the mat. Her body was coated with a dense, dark gray gel. Despite the fact that it literally outlined her form, it obscured her figure by subtly shifting the shade of gray at certain points along her body. “If we’d done this when we first met, you’d have won in a second,” said Joshua. “And, I won’t now?” she asked. Joshua shrugged. The Guardsmen in the City were, on average, better than the ones Joshua had trained with on the base when he was a kid. It had been a decade since he’d focused on combat training. Plus, he’d seen Ananda move. Dancers brought a grace and efficiency to combat techniques that most pure martial artists didn’t reach for decades, and she was an extraordinarily talented dancer. Ananda was probably faster and stronger than he was. She might be able to do things he’d never heard of, but this fight wasn’t going to come down to techniques.Fight Scenes:
1)
The air around the man started to crackle and violet lines of electricity slithered along his arms. He looked at Joshua and spoke in a voice that echoed through the bar. “I’m not? What am I then?” Joshua moved with Augmented speed. He stood behind the man before anyone else in the bar realized he had moved. Joshua placed his hand on the man’s neck, and he wrapped it in a Bind which directed a magnetic pulse inward. The pulse disrupted the Tech buried in the tattoos. The air settled. The electricity vanished, and the black faded from the man’s eyes. “You,” said Joshua, “are an imposter. You play at being a Wizard, and you get away with it because so few people have met a real one.”
2)Seconds later, the cutest toddler Joshua had ever seen floated at eye level. The boy wore a black onesie. Joshua recognized the shade. It wasn't just black. It was blackness. A baby floated in front of Joshua Awen wearing the Abyss. He wore that emptiness which the worst that had ever touched Joshua's mind leaped to fill. Every cruel whisper that had never passed Joshua's lips, every whimper he'd bitten down on, every terror he'd forced himself to breathe through danced just in front of the blackness which draped the adorable baby. The City:
1)
They continued on. Joshua was exhausted from keeping his nervous system going that fast for that long. He needed to eat and sleep. He used a few subtler Augmentations to keep himself going, but it was starting to get tough. If that weren’t bad enough, the unchanging buildings next to him made the march feel surreal, unending, and pointless. Joshua's mind reached for Marvin. Joshua wrote a quick script modifying a standard film-projection spell. Even that little coding was still difficult for Joshua without any kind of visual or tactile feedback. Matthew had crammed every kind of photo gallery imaginable onto the Mobile. Instead of a movie he had the spell pull random pictures from every collection. Joshua executed the spell. The walls around them filled with images. There was a building sized tiger to his left. On Ananda’s side there was a sketch of the white rabbit checking his pocket watch. A chime of delight warmed Ananda's voice as she said, “Alice In Wonderland? A little on the nose. Don’t you think?” 2)
Joshua looked at her. She stared off into a shadowed gathering of trees. Joshua sighed. He had Marvin build her a yellow brick road from their current position to the cluster of what Joshua decided, for safety's sake, to label as something other than large plants. “Ananda, dear, please stay on the yellow brick road when you go investigate those tree-like-beings.” “One little boo-boo, and you become all paranoid about safety,” said Ananda. “Wouldn't it have been faster to just call me a wimp,” asked Joshua. “Faster but less rewarding,” she said before hopping onto the yellow brick road and skipping the thirty feet to the cluster of probably-trees. Joshua followed her. He kept his hand far from his blade, but he Augmented his nervous system, squinted through his third eye, and pushed his mind outside his body. He tried to be ready for anything. He failed. The trees did not form a circle, but one clearly would have been in the center if they had. This central tree differed from the others in one readily identifiable way. A man wearing a wrinkled, paisley sheet as a toga sat on the ground and occupied a large portion of the space that ought to be reserved for the tree's trunk. He did not touch the rest of the trunk. The roots poking up from the ground did not grow into him. He was not physically part of the tree, but on some important level of existence that Joshua did not have access to the man and the tree were one.
August 23, 2013
$300 Cover-Art Contest
Prize Awarded on January 1st 2014.
I'm holding a cover-art contest to find the right look for my novel. I want something gritty, sensual, enticing, and stylistically unique.
If you're interested email zak@morethanwands.com for a copy of the book or a description of characters and scenes.
Here's what I have now:
I'm holding a cover-art contest to find the right look for my novel. I want something gritty, sensual, enticing, and stylistically unique.
If you're interested email zak@morethanwands.com for a copy of the book or a description of characters and scenes.
Here's what I have now:
August 17, 2013
Self Published Fantasy Collective
One of my favorite thing in the world when I was a kid was that last page of a paperback where the publisher had included an advertisement for numerous books with checkboxes and dollar amounts for me to send away for a few more. I loved that list of options of books that would be an enjoyable read in a way similar to the one I'd just finished had been. It was a salve to that horrible sadness that always accompanied finishing a book. I've experienced worse pains in the years since I got my books from the Scholastic ordering pages passed out by my elementary school teachers or from their sponsored book fairs. It may be muted these days, but I still experience that sense of loss when finishing a book.
I've been thinking of a way to get the word out about my novel without having the money to really invest in any of the more expensive marketing tools available online for would-be authors. I remembered that exciting feeling at the end of a book when I'd see all the others I might enjoy if I sent away for them, and I thought about adding a similar list of self-published authors to the end of my novel.
I used to argue that with piracy and the insane quantity of underground music that the DJ would become important again. We'd gravitate toward personalities with taste we enjoy, and their tastes would be important and influential. Podcasts do this to some extent, and services like Pandora and Spotify Radio succeed because I was right about the need. Readers of self-published books are in a similar position to the contemporary music fan.
I have a fairly particular audience in mind when I write fiction, and a certain kind of fantasy that I like. If you think the following descriptions fit you as a reader (with title suggestions) or writer, send me a message or email me zak@morethanwands.com---I'd like to put together a linked list of works that belong together in certain ways and include it at the end of my books.
I generally assume my readers get that they're reading a self-published book. They accept that there are going to be a certain number of typos and formatting issues. A lot of self-published authorial advice includes a suggestion to make your work as perfect as possible. Try to make your work seem like it's been through the editorial mills of a publishing house. The thing is that it hasn't, and if both the author and the reader recognize this fact, it opens up the possibility of writing with an awareness of your actual form not the one tradition dictates you emulate. Web productions like xkcd nicely demonstrate a sort of minimalist style that doesn't pretend not to be a webcomic in exactly the way my books don't pretend to be proper examples of a novel or novella. I'm borrowing the structure of the novel to play, and because my book is only going to appear as a .mobi or .pdf or.epub, I lose a lot of support, but I gain the freedom to publish it however the hell I want.
A lot of us have grown up IMing or texting. We're accustomed to communicating in ways that ignore all sorts of mechanical rules. I'm not saying that it's good to use the wrong there, their, or they're; but there's a difference between accuracy of word usage and taking advantage of a flexibility in language to have fun-to enjoy punctuating the movement of the flow of consciousness rather than insist on the strictures of a linguistic rule system created in part to implant the worthiness and tradition that Latin grammar bestowed on English. Those Grammarians who made up the rules of English by forcing it closer to Latin were stealing a trick from early Christians who included the Old Testament in hopes of escaping Roman persecution by claiming to be connected with the Jews who got away with monotheism by virtue of the Roman's valuing ancient things, and Judaism is damnably old. The move was was a failure for the proto-Christians. I enjoy English far too much to be able to say whether the move to make its grammar more Roman was for the better or worse, but I can say that its day is coming to a close.
I believe it's possible to create enjoyable and in certain senses good works that aren't technically clean or properly fleshed out. What I care about is what the words do not what they're worth when evaluated by traditional standards. If the book makes me forget about life for awhile or exposes me to a new way of thinking about something, I'm fine with calling it a success. I'd rather a book be innovative or experimental or even sloppy but interesting than crisply unoriginal.
That takes care of what I want from a self-published book, but what do I want from a fantasy novel? There's a trend in fantasy and supernatural thrillers which I quite enjoy on the one hand and despise on the other hand --- it's the sort of fantasy found in The Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolf (both of which I'm completely caught up on). These are television examples of that genre I call Neo-Realism. For all that they depict supernatural worlds what they really serve to do is reassure the viewer of the boundaries between the real world and this fantasy world. It's a reassurance that's demanded by a culture that faces as much change as ours does. NASA's working on warp drive and people are trying to isolate immortality genes, but hey, werewolves definitely aren't real. See, this is fantasy and all that stuff in the news really is real. That's what neo-realism does. It makes use of fantastical elements to reinforce the boundaries of reality by lacing familiar experiences with impossibilities.
Real fantasy is about escape. It's about a world that is genuinely different. Max Frei's The Stranger is, perhaps, the best example of a fantasy novel which creates a truly different world while still being connected to our own. That's the real trick of urban fantasy. I love the Desden Files, but I'd have to say that Butcher falls more into the category of Neo-Realism than Urban Fantasy. Kate Griffin is probably the greatest writer of Urban Fantasy today. The difference between their work that, to my mind, qualifies Griffin for Fantasy but not Butcher is subtle and as much a matter of style as it is content. I'm more of a Butcher fan than a Griffin fan, but I think her work is better fantasy, and it's certainly purer Urban Fantasy in the sense that her work taps into the true magic of cities far better than Butcher's does. Don't get me wrong, I love where Butcher's taken Dresden lately, and I think the series is fantastic. But, it's definitely more imaginative entertainment than an vehicle for escapism which grew from contemplative observations of the world.
If that's the kind of fantasy you read or write, and you have suggestions or comments for books you think belong in this category, send me titles.
I've been thinking of a way to get the word out about my novel without having the money to really invest in any of the more expensive marketing tools available online for would-be authors. I remembered that exciting feeling at the end of a book when I'd see all the others I might enjoy if I sent away for them, and I thought about adding a similar list of self-published authors to the end of my novel.
I used to argue that with piracy and the insane quantity of underground music that the DJ would become important again. We'd gravitate toward personalities with taste we enjoy, and their tastes would be important and influential. Podcasts do this to some extent, and services like Pandora and Spotify Radio succeed because I was right about the need. Readers of self-published books are in a similar position to the contemporary music fan.
I have a fairly particular audience in mind when I write fiction, and a certain kind of fantasy that I like. If you think the following descriptions fit you as a reader (with title suggestions) or writer, send me a message or email me zak@morethanwands.com---I'd like to put together a linked list of works that belong together in certain ways and include it at the end of my books.
I generally assume my readers get that they're reading a self-published book. They accept that there are going to be a certain number of typos and formatting issues. A lot of self-published authorial advice includes a suggestion to make your work as perfect as possible. Try to make your work seem like it's been through the editorial mills of a publishing house. The thing is that it hasn't, and if both the author and the reader recognize this fact, it opens up the possibility of writing with an awareness of your actual form not the one tradition dictates you emulate. Web productions like xkcd nicely demonstrate a sort of minimalist style that doesn't pretend not to be a webcomic in exactly the way my books don't pretend to be proper examples of a novel or novella. I'm borrowing the structure of the novel to play, and because my book is only going to appear as a .mobi or .pdf or.epub, I lose a lot of support, but I gain the freedom to publish it however the hell I want.
A lot of us have grown up IMing or texting. We're accustomed to communicating in ways that ignore all sorts of mechanical rules. I'm not saying that it's good to use the wrong there, their, or they're; but there's a difference between accuracy of word usage and taking advantage of a flexibility in language to have fun-to enjoy punctuating the movement of the flow of consciousness rather than insist on the strictures of a linguistic rule system created in part to implant the worthiness and tradition that Latin grammar bestowed on English. Those Grammarians who made up the rules of English by forcing it closer to Latin were stealing a trick from early Christians who included the Old Testament in hopes of escaping Roman persecution by claiming to be connected with the Jews who got away with monotheism by virtue of the Roman's valuing ancient things, and Judaism is damnably old. The move was was a failure for the proto-Christians. I enjoy English far too much to be able to say whether the move to make its grammar more Roman was for the better or worse, but I can say that its day is coming to a close.
I believe it's possible to create enjoyable and in certain senses good works that aren't technically clean or properly fleshed out. What I care about is what the words do not what they're worth when evaluated by traditional standards. If the book makes me forget about life for awhile or exposes me to a new way of thinking about something, I'm fine with calling it a success. I'd rather a book be innovative or experimental or even sloppy but interesting than crisply unoriginal.
That takes care of what I want from a self-published book, but what do I want from a fantasy novel? There's a trend in fantasy and supernatural thrillers which I quite enjoy on the one hand and despise on the other hand --- it's the sort of fantasy found in The Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolf (both of which I'm completely caught up on). These are television examples of that genre I call Neo-Realism. For all that they depict supernatural worlds what they really serve to do is reassure the viewer of the boundaries between the real world and this fantasy world. It's a reassurance that's demanded by a culture that faces as much change as ours does. NASA's working on warp drive and people are trying to isolate immortality genes, but hey, werewolves definitely aren't real. See, this is fantasy and all that stuff in the news really is real. That's what neo-realism does. It makes use of fantastical elements to reinforce the boundaries of reality by lacing familiar experiences with impossibilities.
Real fantasy is about escape. It's about a world that is genuinely different. Max Frei's The Stranger is, perhaps, the best example of a fantasy novel which creates a truly different world while still being connected to our own. That's the real trick of urban fantasy. I love the Desden Files, but I'd have to say that Butcher falls more into the category of Neo-Realism than Urban Fantasy. Kate Griffin is probably the greatest writer of Urban Fantasy today. The difference between their work that, to my mind, qualifies Griffin for Fantasy but not Butcher is subtle and as much a matter of style as it is content. I'm more of a Butcher fan than a Griffin fan, but I think her work is better fantasy, and it's certainly purer Urban Fantasy in the sense that her work taps into the true magic of cities far better than Butcher's does. Don't get me wrong, I love where Butcher's taken Dresden lately, and I think the series is fantastic. But, it's definitely more imaginative entertainment than an vehicle for escapism which grew from contemplative observations of the world.
If that's the kind of fantasy you read or write, and you have suggestions or comments for books you think belong in this category, send me titles.
August 6, 2013
Excerpt from A Mage's Play
Ananda pinched him. Hard. Great. Now we’re stuck with this. The first time you called me your girlfriend is while staring down a psychopath dressed like a cowboy.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Joshua muttered loudly enough for all of them to hear. Joshua was terrified, but the banter helped. At the very least he could choose to die with a little style.
Joshua’s mind jumped from style to appearances. Appearance. That might be enough to save them. Alisa said that changing reality was a sign of status, of power. If Joshua could do it here, it might be enough to bluff. He just needed a little time to figure out how.
Joshua shut his eyes and dropped in to the basement in his mind that his neighbor’s brick had made for him. Joshua stretched out comfortably on the blue couch from his place in Pittsburgh. On the wall in front of him he could see the saloon.
Nothing was moving though. He had some time. He just needed to do something helpful with it. Alisa had said strong emotions mattered, but there had to be more to it. Joshua replayed the moment from last night on the other wall. He felt an echo of what he’d been feeling at the time as he watched and heard Ananda’s comment and smelled the burnt odor. What had he done with his mind when he’d gotten angry that was different than what he usually did?
He hadn’t been trying to communicate anything. He had a very specific cause for the emotion. He’d wanted her to know how he felt. He hadn’t been trying to be understood or to share.
He’d tried to treat the intimately ineffable as if it were a module to be inserted into some else and read.
She had said he had been terrifying, but she couldn’t say how. It was as if he had communicated meaning absent a text she could work with. Language without language. Language generating pure experience. This whole train of thought was absurdly theoretical, but Joshua had never tested his basement’s time delay effect in a situation that could result in conflict before. He had no idea how much time he had outside of this place.
Joshua needed a memory, one with powerful emotional attachments, and he needed to relive it as fully as possible. He needed to feel it all over again. It was similar to the process he used when writing a poem, but he needed to do the opposite of articulating a feeling. There was no time to figure this out properly. He’d just have to gamble and try to recreate how he felt his mind working at dinner and use what he’d just theorized to get him a bit closer.
Joshua needed to be tactical about the memory he chose though. There were a lot of cowboys. Becoming a little scarier wouldn’t help. He needed to turn things around. He needed to sap the confidence from them. Joshua searched for a moment in his life during which he’d lost his confidence.
A woman’s face filled the wall to his right. She was blond with delicate features and big, green eyes. If her betrayal saved his and Ananda’s life, then maybe some good will have come from that year. Joshua didn’t have to try to remember this moment. He’d spent months and a fortune in whiskey trying to forget it. Joshua pulled loose a few stitches on an old wound.
Joshua didn’t feel the pain on his couch in the basement. He remembered that night with a clinician’s detachment. He noted his younger self’s emotional responses and more importantly he noticed the chain reactions they caused shifting the currents beneath his own language. He never hated her. Old memories contorted. Flaws poked through denial. Quirks became faults. Mistakes became sins, and for as much as he wanted to despise her, the only reason he was anything but sad was because she was the one who pulled him down.
She turned him into someone a girl like her would even dream of cheating on.
The memory was perfect. If Joshua could use it properly, it might give them enough credibility to bluff their way out. Joshua opened his eyes. The emotional impact of the memory hit him instantly. He shoved mentally in the same direction as he had at dinner and looked lazily around the room.
Joshua noticed that the men’s clothes looked different than they had looked before. Physically there had been no change, but now they looked like grown men playing dress up. Rather than evidence of battle, the tattered state of their clothes seemed like a sad effort at authenticity.
The smell of the filth that coated their bodies wafted through the room.
The man at the bar, though, seemed exactly as terrifying as before. His only reaction was to take another sip of his drink and nod to Joshua, who could almost hear him say, “Your move, hoss.”
Joshua looked at Ananda and used the contact with her hand to communicate. Not exactly the Holy Hand Grenade. I’m still all about running away. On the upside they might not chase us now.
Joshua had used the only Magician Technique he knew that would work on multiple opponentssimultaneously when they’d encountered the pirates. It might manage ten, but that’d barely put a dent in the gang, possee, crew.
“What is the appropriate collective noun for the gentlemen you’ve assembled here?” asked Joshua.
The man rolled his eyes. Joshua shrugged.
“Just trying to be polite. I have no idea what cowboys have to do with pirates, but I assume you invited us here because of the little misunderstanding I had with a few scalliwags. I want you to know that there are no hard feelings,” said Joshua aiming for that fine line between confidence and braggadocio.
The man tapped the fingers of his right hand against the bar one and a time. Before he had a chance to do anything else a slow whistle floated down the street behind Joshua and Ananda. Joshua caught the tune a second later. It was the high noon showdown background music from every Western ever made. The man’s eyes widened a little at the sound. He looked over Joshua’s shoulder.
“Fuck,” he said. “You claiming them?”
“Yes,” said the whistler. The man wore jeans and a black t-shirt under a simple, black leather jacket. He also had a katana on his right hip.
“You release four of my boys, and I’ll let these two walk out of here.”
A familiar bark of laughter filled the street, and Joshua turned around fully. He should be shocked to see him here, but he wasn’t. Joshua had never been rescued before. It was nice.
“Chuck, you or any of your men so much as look at my nephew again, and I’ll kill every single one of you.”
Chuck stared at Joshua. He took a sip of his drink trying to seem calm. It might have been more believable if several of his men hadn’t wet themselves.
“You can’t. If we don’t resist, you’re not allowed to use lethal force so long as we remain inside the City. Them’s the rules,” said Chuck with the desperate and hollow conviction of a sore loser clinging to a technicality.
“You misheard me. I didn’t say we’d come back. This visit wouldn’t be in any kind of official capacity. I would stop by for a visit. And kill you. All.”
“Boss, that’s not right,” said the tall, thin man standing a little in front and to the right of Marcus Awen.
“Yeah,” added his virtual twin to Marcus’ left. “You can’t go around killing people to make a point.”
“Not without us,” finished the first one.
“Understood,” said Chuck.
Suddenly, there was a front wall on the saloon. The door was shut. There were no windows, and the sign hanging from the roof was legible now. It read “Closed.”
“You’ve always been subtle, Marc,” said Joshua trying to keep from rushing over and hugging his uncle.
Marcus grinned and closed the distance, but he went with a handshake instead of a hug. “Still getting yourself into trouble I see.”
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Joshua muttered loudly enough for all of them to hear. Joshua was terrified, but the banter helped. At the very least he could choose to die with a little style.
Joshua’s mind jumped from style to appearances. Appearance. That might be enough to save them. Alisa said that changing reality was a sign of status, of power. If Joshua could do it here, it might be enough to bluff. He just needed a little time to figure out how.
Joshua shut his eyes and dropped in to the basement in his mind that his neighbor’s brick had made for him. Joshua stretched out comfortably on the blue couch from his place in Pittsburgh. On the wall in front of him he could see the saloon.
Nothing was moving though. He had some time. He just needed to do something helpful with it. Alisa had said strong emotions mattered, but there had to be more to it. Joshua replayed the moment from last night on the other wall. He felt an echo of what he’d been feeling at the time as he watched and heard Ananda’s comment and smelled the burnt odor. What had he done with his mind when he’d gotten angry that was different than what he usually did?
He hadn’t been trying to communicate anything. He had a very specific cause for the emotion. He’d wanted her to know how he felt. He hadn’t been trying to be understood or to share.
He’d tried to treat the intimately ineffable as if it were a module to be inserted into some else and read.
She had said he had been terrifying, but she couldn’t say how. It was as if he had communicated meaning absent a text she could work with. Language without language. Language generating pure experience. This whole train of thought was absurdly theoretical, but Joshua had never tested his basement’s time delay effect in a situation that could result in conflict before. He had no idea how much time he had outside of this place.
Joshua needed a memory, one with powerful emotional attachments, and he needed to relive it as fully as possible. He needed to feel it all over again. It was similar to the process he used when writing a poem, but he needed to do the opposite of articulating a feeling. There was no time to figure this out properly. He’d just have to gamble and try to recreate how he felt his mind working at dinner and use what he’d just theorized to get him a bit closer.
Joshua needed to be tactical about the memory he chose though. There were a lot of cowboys. Becoming a little scarier wouldn’t help. He needed to turn things around. He needed to sap the confidence from them. Joshua searched for a moment in his life during which he’d lost his confidence.
A woman’s face filled the wall to his right. She was blond with delicate features and big, green eyes. If her betrayal saved his and Ananda’s life, then maybe some good will have come from that year. Joshua didn’t have to try to remember this moment. He’d spent months and a fortune in whiskey trying to forget it. Joshua pulled loose a few stitches on an old wound.
Joshua didn’t feel the pain on his couch in the basement. He remembered that night with a clinician’s detachment. He noted his younger self’s emotional responses and more importantly he noticed the chain reactions they caused shifting the currents beneath his own language. He never hated her. Old memories contorted. Flaws poked through denial. Quirks became faults. Mistakes became sins, and for as much as he wanted to despise her, the only reason he was anything but sad was because she was the one who pulled him down.
She turned him into someone a girl like her would even dream of cheating on.
The memory was perfect. If Joshua could use it properly, it might give them enough credibility to bluff their way out. Joshua opened his eyes. The emotional impact of the memory hit him instantly. He shoved mentally in the same direction as he had at dinner and looked lazily around the room.
Joshua noticed that the men’s clothes looked different than they had looked before. Physically there had been no change, but now they looked like grown men playing dress up. Rather than evidence of battle, the tattered state of their clothes seemed like a sad effort at authenticity.
The smell of the filth that coated their bodies wafted through the room.
The man at the bar, though, seemed exactly as terrifying as before. His only reaction was to take another sip of his drink and nod to Joshua, who could almost hear him say, “Your move, hoss.”
Joshua looked at Ananda and used the contact with her hand to communicate. Not exactly the Holy Hand Grenade. I’m still all about running away. On the upside they might not chase us now.
Joshua had used the only Magician Technique he knew that would work on multiple opponentssimultaneously when they’d encountered the pirates. It might manage ten, but that’d barely put a dent in the gang, possee, crew.
“What is the appropriate collective noun for the gentlemen you’ve assembled here?” asked Joshua.
The man rolled his eyes. Joshua shrugged.
“Just trying to be polite. I have no idea what cowboys have to do with pirates, but I assume you invited us here because of the little misunderstanding I had with a few scalliwags. I want you to know that there are no hard feelings,” said Joshua aiming for that fine line between confidence and braggadocio.
The man tapped the fingers of his right hand against the bar one and a time. Before he had a chance to do anything else a slow whistle floated down the street behind Joshua and Ananda. Joshua caught the tune a second later. It was the high noon showdown background music from every Western ever made. The man’s eyes widened a little at the sound. He looked over Joshua’s shoulder.
“Fuck,” he said. “You claiming them?”
“Yes,” said the whistler. The man wore jeans and a black t-shirt under a simple, black leather jacket. He also had a katana on his right hip.
“You release four of my boys, and I’ll let these two walk out of here.”
A familiar bark of laughter filled the street, and Joshua turned around fully. He should be shocked to see him here, but he wasn’t. Joshua had never been rescued before. It was nice.
“Chuck, you or any of your men so much as look at my nephew again, and I’ll kill every single one of you.”
Chuck stared at Joshua. He took a sip of his drink trying to seem calm. It might have been more believable if several of his men hadn’t wet themselves.
“You can’t. If we don’t resist, you’re not allowed to use lethal force so long as we remain inside the City. Them’s the rules,” said Chuck with the desperate and hollow conviction of a sore loser clinging to a technicality.
“You misheard me. I didn’t say we’d come back. This visit wouldn’t be in any kind of official capacity. I would stop by for a visit. And kill you. All.”
“Boss, that’s not right,” said the tall, thin man standing a little in front and to the right of Marcus Awen.
“Yeah,” added his virtual twin to Marcus’ left. “You can’t go around killing people to make a point.”
“Not without us,” finished the first one.
“Understood,” said Chuck.
Suddenly, there was a front wall on the saloon. The door was shut. There were no windows, and the sign hanging from the roof was legible now. It read “Closed.”
“You’ve always been subtle, Marc,” said Joshua trying to keep from rushing over and hugging his uncle.
Marcus grinned and closed the distance, but he went with a handshake instead of a hug. “Still getting yourself into trouble I see.”
Calling All Artists
I’m looking for a new cover for my novel. If you’re interested in cyberpunk and urban fantasy, and you love to draw or paint, drop me a line. zak@morethanwands.com
August 3, 2013
Review of Max Frei's The Stranger
The Stranger by Max FreiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book. The sequels haven't lived up to the promise of this original, but it restores whimsy and joy to magic use in a way that few novels I've come across have. It has been incredibly influential on my writing. The author understands that magic should be magical and never reduced to a gimmick. The world Max finds for himself in his dreams is delightful and rich. I love this book. Check it out.
View all my reviews
Review of Memory of Light
A Memory of Light by Robert JordanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I like the three books that Sanderson wrote far more than the ones Jordan did. Sanderson's writing is crisper. I think Jordan invented one of the more compelling worlds in recent history, but as a writer Sanderson is better. I was a little disappointed by Rand's final battle, and I didn't care too much about Perrin's story line by the end, but Matrim Cauthon really saved the day. Every chapter he's in is a delight to read, and the Last Battle is a masterpiece. The series and its finale are well worth the time.
View all my reviews
July 20, 2013
Philosophy and Education-A Rough Draft of an Introduction
In his recent book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking wrote that philosophy is dead. This does not concern me. There are fewer ways to demonstrate the vital presence of a tradition than to declare oneself its successor as Hawking has done. What does concern me for philosophy are many of the ways the word is used, particularly in the education field.
In order to get hired as an educator in a public school in the state of Pennsylvania, one must complete the "Standard Application For Teaching Positions in Pennsylvania Public Schools." The last part of this document is an essay assignment. It explains the desired objective of the essay, "We are interested in your ability to organize and express thoughts on a specific topic in a succinct manner. Please select one of the following topics and write an essay in the space provided on this page."
The topics available for a would-be teacher are as follows:
1. The Most Important Qualities of an Outstanding Educator.
2. My Philosophy of Student Discipline.
3. The Importance of Continuing Professional Development and How I Plan to Incorporate It Throughout My Career.
4 .Essential Elements of Instruction, Administration or Area of Certification.
5. How Information Technology (i.e., computers, Internet) Can Be Integrated into the Instructional Process and Curriculum.
It is the second topic choice that deserves attention, "My Philosophy of Student Discipline." One can, and perhaps should, argue that the "philosophy of" a thing is not the same as Philosophy itself. What is meant here is my "approach" to student discipline not Philosophy as it applies to student discipline. The Philosophical aspects of this word, "philosophy", are purely vestigial, and addressing them is a dangerous and counterproductive task for one applying to a job.
What is asked for is a succinct and functional response to the problem of how to make children obey adults. One should keep in mind that this essay is part of an application, and all applications of this sort are constructed identities. Applications represent the person or what the person believes a representation of himself should look like for him to get hired.
This list of essay choices implies that all educators in Pennsylvania should be able to answer any of these questions. What's more it makes having an answer to these questions part of the constructable identity of a Pennsylvania Educator. From a practical standpoint what this means is that in order to be an educator in Pennsylvania one ought to dismiss any philosophical vestiges that might accompany the word philosophy.
The pressure to define an educator as a non-philosophical being through the creation of his or her identity as it is represented by the application is worrying enough, but what I find particularly disturbing is the object of the preposition which so neuters Philosophy, "Student Discipline." Any of the writing prompts could have been written as this one was, "My Philosophy of Information Technology Integration" or "My Philosophy of Professional Development." It is to define the educator in his least philosophical role, that of the enforcer or the institution's authority, that the word philosophy is introduced, perhaps in an effort to salvage some semblance of dignity or purity for an idealistic would-be teacher.
A teacher has a philosophy of student discipline rather than an approach to it because there is something about the topic of student discipline which needs redeeming, elevation, or dressing up in a tradition. It is here far more so than in the words of Hawking where philosophy as that which was inaugurated through the death of Socrates might be seen to have a corpse. For Philosophy and Student Discipline should be difficult terms to juxtapose.
It is with Hawking's pronouncement of its death and towards a definition of philosophy as something which is self-evidently opposed to Student Discipline that I re-ask the question: What is Philosophy?
The way one goes about answering this question exposes how one has interpreted this question. Interpretations of the question itself abound, and this thesis will focus on a particular interpretation of that question.
One way to interpret the question if "What is Philosophy?" is historically, one strives to define philosophy of the moment as that which succeeds philosophy of the past. What one ends up doing is really answering "What was philosophy?" and adding to that something new by connecting a few dots. Another way is to look at what living people, identifiable as philosophers, are doing with their lives and define contemporary philosophy as the work of philosophers. This would include writing, activism, and teaching. This interpretation of the question is closer to asking "What do philosophers do?"
A better way to interpret the question "What is Philosophy" is with the question "What does philosophy itself do?" This question presumes that there is a way to define philosophy as something other, and perhaps more, than the work of philosophers? This requires granting abstractions some ontological status. In an effort to minimize time spent pinning down a framework with which to treat the abstract as valuable, I'm going to define things by their function rather than their nature.
A thing's function is one way of identifying it. Its function is a sort of trace that has been colored by the context an abstraction can be described as influencing. Philosophy manifests differently in different contexts, and within the educational context is should always be manifesting on the side of rebellion, of freedom, of corrupting the youth.
Defining Philosophy by its functions demands that it be distinguished on the one hand from Science and the other hand from Art. After showing that Philosophy is not Science and not Art but shares certain commonalities with both of these human endeavors, it is towards a definition of philosophy by Alain Badiou that I re-examine philosophy's role in education, and then education's role in American society.
Between these last two acts an answer to the question of What is Philosophy? will be presented: It is that organized and creative cognitive endeavor which increases a person's capacity for expressing the idiosyncracies of his or her mind in such a way as to indicate a purer subjectivity and a greater domain of personal sovereignty.
It is precisely the American education system's anti-philosophical position which is also the source of its failure. This is not to say that by making philosophy mandatory in all public schools, the American education system could be salvaged. The system is beyond flawed, beyond broken. It was never designed to educate human beings but only to train workers, and the acceleration of societal change caused by technological progress has forced people to recognize the limits of constructing workers in this manner, but they are blind to alternatives because the alternatives lie beyond the limits the system puts in place to preserve itself.
The failure of America's educational system is indicative of the failure of the system itself. The absence of the truly philosophical present in the title "My Philosophy of Student Discipline" is an example of exactly how the system buries its alternatives. They are inaccessible and yet in plain sight.
In order to get hired as an educator in a public school in the state of Pennsylvania, one must complete the "Standard Application For Teaching Positions in Pennsylvania Public Schools." The last part of this document is an essay assignment. It explains the desired objective of the essay, "We are interested in your ability to organize and express thoughts on a specific topic in a succinct manner. Please select one of the following topics and write an essay in the space provided on this page."
The topics available for a would-be teacher are as follows:
1. The Most Important Qualities of an Outstanding Educator.
2. My Philosophy of Student Discipline.
3. The Importance of Continuing Professional Development and How I Plan to Incorporate It Throughout My Career.
4 .Essential Elements of Instruction, Administration or Area of Certification.
5. How Information Technology (i.e., computers, Internet) Can Be Integrated into the Instructional Process and Curriculum.
It is the second topic choice that deserves attention, "My Philosophy of Student Discipline." One can, and perhaps should, argue that the "philosophy of" a thing is not the same as Philosophy itself. What is meant here is my "approach" to student discipline not Philosophy as it applies to student discipline. The Philosophical aspects of this word, "philosophy", are purely vestigial, and addressing them is a dangerous and counterproductive task for one applying to a job.
What is asked for is a succinct and functional response to the problem of how to make children obey adults. One should keep in mind that this essay is part of an application, and all applications of this sort are constructed identities. Applications represent the person or what the person believes a representation of himself should look like for him to get hired.
This list of essay choices implies that all educators in Pennsylvania should be able to answer any of these questions. What's more it makes having an answer to these questions part of the constructable identity of a Pennsylvania Educator. From a practical standpoint what this means is that in order to be an educator in Pennsylvania one ought to dismiss any philosophical vestiges that might accompany the word philosophy.
The pressure to define an educator as a non-philosophical being through the creation of his or her identity as it is represented by the application is worrying enough, but what I find particularly disturbing is the object of the preposition which so neuters Philosophy, "Student Discipline." Any of the writing prompts could have been written as this one was, "My Philosophy of Information Technology Integration" or "My Philosophy of Professional Development." It is to define the educator in his least philosophical role, that of the enforcer or the institution's authority, that the word philosophy is introduced, perhaps in an effort to salvage some semblance of dignity or purity for an idealistic would-be teacher.
A teacher has a philosophy of student discipline rather than an approach to it because there is something about the topic of student discipline which needs redeeming, elevation, or dressing up in a tradition. It is here far more so than in the words of Hawking where philosophy as that which was inaugurated through the death of Socrates might be seen to have a corpse. For Philosophy and Student Discipline should be difficult terms to juxtapose.
It is with Hawking's pronouncement of its death and towards a definition of philosophy as something which is self-evidently opposed to Student Discipline that I re-ask the question: What is Philosophy?
The way one goes about answering this question exposes how one has interpreted this question. Interpretations of the question itself abound, and this thesis will focus on a particular interpretation of that question.
One way to interpret the question if "What is Philosophy?" is historically, one strives to define philosophy of the moment as that which succeeds philosophy of the past. What one ends up doing is really answering "What was philosophy?" and adding to that something new by connecting a few dots. Another way is to look at what living people, identifiable as philosophers, are doing with their lives and define contemporary philosophy as the work of philosophers. This would include writing, activism, and teaching. This interpretation of the question is closer to asking "What do philosophers do?"
A better way to interpret the question "What is Philosophy" is with the question "What does philosophy itself do?" This question presumes that there is a way to define philosophy as something other, and perhaps more, than the work of philosophers? This requires granting abstractions some ontological status. In an effort to minimize time spent pinning down a framework with which to treat the abstract as valuable, I'm going to define things by their function rather than their nature.
A thing's function is one way of identifying it. Its function is a sort of trace that has been colored by the context an abstraction can be described as influencing. Philosophy manifests differently in different contexts, and within the educational context is should always be manifesting on the side of rebellion, of freedom, of corrupting the youth.
Defining Philosophy by its functions demands that it be distinguished on the one hand from Science and the other hand from Art. After showing that Philosophy is not Science and not Art but shares certain commonalities with both of these human endeavors, it is towards a definition of philosophy by Alain Badiou that I re-examine philosophy's role in education, and then education's role in American society.
Between these last two acts an answer to the question of What is Philosophy? will be presented: It is that organized and creative cognitive endeavor which increases a person's capacity for expressing the idiosyncracies of his or her mind in such a way as to indicate a purer subjectivity and a greater domain of personal sovereignty.
It is precisely the American education system's anti-philosophical position which is also the source of its failure. This is not to say that by making philosophy mandatory in all public schools, the American education system could be salvaged. The system is beyond flawed, beyond broken. It was never designed to educate human beings but only to train workers, and the acceleration of societal change caused by technological progress has forced people to recognize the limits of constructing workers in this manner, but they are blind to alternatives because the alternatives lie beyond the limits the system puts in place to preserve itself.
The failure of America's educational system is indicative of the failure of the system itself. The absence of the truly philosophical present in the title "My Philosophy of Student Discipline" is an example of exactly how the system buries its alternatives. They are inaccessible and yet in plain sight.
