Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 130
February 28, 2017
Self Esteemed Dept.
[Busy week. Pardon my silence.]
Somewhere along the way, I added this to the morass of slogans washing around in the back of my brain: "Take yourself seriously even when no one else does."
February 19, 2017
The Happy Life Of The Mind Dept.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
V��clav Havel wrote those words at some point, and I have been thinking about them a great deal as of late.
February 18, 2017
Change Their Minds Dept.
Washington Monthly | How the Opposition Can Wound Trump
... most people don���t know much about politics, don���t know much about policy, don���t care to understand the details that make up the foundation any position, and don���t think they need to care about understanding those details, because knowledge is not what they trust most in the world. What they trust is character.
I think what's being outlined here is a vitally important understanding to how politics can be made a more practica...
February 14, 2017
Writer's Revenge Dept.
Sorry about the long silence. I spent most of last week trying to shake off a flu that clung like the proverbial monkey on the back, and dealing with some other unpleasantries I won't go on about in public.
Here, I'm following up on a previous post about making things as a response to other things. Oftentimes one of the unspoken impulses driving such work is, "I could do that too." And, I fear, not in a good way.
February 6, 2017
Politicaliterary Dept.
Viet Thanh Nguyen: By the Book - The New York Times
... [genre fiction works, like comics, science fiction, or crime thrillers ] oftentimes have more to tell us about our larger contemporary world than so-called literary fiction (which doesn���t acknowledge that it���s a genre as well). Comic books long ago predicted presidents like Donald Trump, in series like Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons���s ���Give Me Liberty.��� Crime fiction, which often connects low-level crime to high-level corruptio...
February 5, 2017
Call And Response Dept.
Writing the previous post,��about the way I experienced written SF as a young'un, brought back to mind a realization I came to about my reading habits, something I only twigged to over a long period of time. I wasn't reading because I was seeking escapism; I was seeking something even greater. I just didn't know it at the time.
A Peek Ahead, Pt. 2
The second chapter of��Welcome to the Fold��has been uploaded for previewing at Inkshares.
In case you missed the first chapter, it's here.
For those who just joined, this is a project I worked on from 2014 through 2015, but shelved due to other things going on in my life. I'm presenting the first part of the book on Inkshares to see if that generates enough interest to have it published by way of that platform. If not, I'll be falling back to ol' reliable Kindle and CreateSpace.
February 1, 2017
Public Service Announcement Dept.
I hope people will not assume my silence over the last few days indicates any kind of assent to the situation unfolding around us.
I've been busy with some mundane things — my day job has put that many more demands on me since the start of the year — and trying to remain productive otherwise. But trust me, I'm not smiling.
If I don't gas off about it in public, it's only because a) other people are doing far, far better work than I can in this realm, and b) it's because I'm trying to save thi...
January 24, 2017
Science Affliction Dept.
My problem with science fiction, if it can rightfully be called a problem, is that I got spoiled too quickly on it.
January 23, 2017
Alternativity Dept.
Once again, let me turn from the blighted face of the times to something a little more affirmative.
When I posted before about the secret influences behindAlways Outnumbered, Never Outgunned,one source I mentioned wasThe Matrix,but not because I wanted to take ideas from that story. Rather, it was because I'd seen the trailer for the film — which did a very good job of concealing its secrets but sparking interest in it all the same — and from that had drawncompletely incorrect conclusions abo...
