Michael Gates's Blog, page 68
July 14, 2013
Head Rattle
I.I wanted to buy some Vans shoes, just like the ones I saw a guy on the train wearing. They come in (seemingly) hundreds of two-tone colors, but I can't find exactly "the ones", which are more subtle, colorwise, than most of them. Who says you can find everything on the internets?
II.When you hear someone else reading aloud the words you've written, it's on odd experience. Not cringe-worthy, like it might be if you heard a recording of yourself reading them, but you realize that every reader "hears" your words differently in his/her own head -- not exactly the way you hear them in your head. It makes you realize that you'll never know the exact effect your writing has until someone else reads it.
III.I had lunch yesterday in a crowded diner on the the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was surprised to also see a somewhat famous comedian (initials J.M.), whose act I've never liked, also eating lunch in this rather downscale hamburger joint. Nobody was bothering him, staring, or asking for autographs, although the waiters seemed to be giving him some extra attention. It reminded me of why celebrities live in New York.
II.When you hear someone else reading aloud the words you've written, it's on odd experience. Not cringe-worthy, like it might be if you heard a recording of yourself reading them, but you realize that every reader "hears" your words differently in his/her own head -- not exactly the way you hear them in your head. It makes you realize that you'll never know the exact effect your writing has until someone else reads it.
III.I had lunch yesterday in a crowded diner on the the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was surprised to also see a somewhat famous comedian (initials J.M.), whose act I've never liked, also eating lunch in this rather downscale hamburger joint. Nobody was bothering him, staring, or asking for autographs, although the waiters seemed to be giving him some extra attention. It reminded me of why celebrities live in New York.
July 11, 2013
Link Mania
To make a long story short
The One Sentence archive is a collection of stories told in, yes, one sentence. The 50 most popular sentences/stories, as rated by visitors, are on the linked page, but as the site notes, "Just like high school...sometimes the losers are the cooler kids to hang around with."
The One Sentence archive is a collection of stories told in, yes, one sentence. The 50 most popular sentences/stories, as rated by visitors, are on the linked page, but as the site notes, "Just like high school...sometimes the losers are the cooler kids to hang around with."
July 10, 2013
Link Mania: Zootaxa
Zootaxa?
I typed my name into Google Story Creator, and this was the result:
Zootaxa.
Great Lakes Entomologist. 2005.
It actually went so close to perfect that we could hardly believe it.
And when they do, we nail them.
Those parts range literally from boots on our feet to satellites zipping overhead.
They had night vision gear, so they moved quickly.
Interesting. It seems to have something to do with a successful clandestine military or espionage mission (code name "Zootaxa"?) in 2005 that involved "nailing" an entomologist -- possibly near the Great Lakes. Some poor scientist studying insects at night - a real threat to the government? I wonder why my name generated such a creepy tale.
I typed my name into Google Story Creator, and this was the result:
Zootaxa.
Great Lakes Entomologist. 2005.
It actually went so close to perfect that we could hardly believe it.
And when they do, we nail them.
Those parts range literally from boots on our feet to satellites zipping overhead.
They had night vision gear, so they moved quickly.
Interesting. It seems to have something to do with a successful clandestine military or espionage mission (code name "Zootaxa"?) in 2005 that involved "nailing" an entomologist -- possibly near the Great Lakes. Some poor scientist studying insects at night - a real threat to the government? I wonder why my name generated such a creepy tale.
July 9, 2013
Word of the Day: fantods
fantods [FAN-tods](noun)
A state of extreme nervous irritability
"He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one, and he was going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I looked too, though it gave me the fantods to do it."
--Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)
Insects and other creepy-crawlies around the house give me the fantods. I don’t even like to look at bugs. I take off my glasses before squishing them.
A state of extreme nervous irritability
"He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one, and he was going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I looked too, though it gave me the fantods to do it."
--Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)
Insects and other creepy-crawlies around the house give me the fantods. I don’t even like to look at bugs. I take off my glasses before squishing them.
July 8, 2013
Random Sequence
A weird, powerful stink came out out the the box, like a dead animal.... The first thing I noticed was a lot of money -- lots of little piles of strange-looking money tied up with string. They seemed to be mostly twenty- and fifty-dollar bills, though they looked bigger than regular bills. There was some other stuff in there, too: dusty whiskey bottles and what looked like old ledgers. But I didn't pay much attention to that stuff because lying on top of the money was a mummy -- a dried out corpse, literally skin and bones, dressed in ragged jeans and a T-shirt. And it only had one arm.
--from "The Iron Box" (by me), originally published in 3 AM Magazine.
--from "The Iron Box" (by me), originally published in 3 AM Magazine.
July 7, 2013
Photo of the Week
This is "Candy", the plastic zebra. It's a long story. Short version: When Sandra, my 14-year-old niece, was grieving over the death of her pony (also named Candy), the family decided to contact Pet Memory Solutions, Inc., a company that creates life-size replicas of deceased animals. Sandra didn't want an exact duplicate, but rather one that honored Candy's, as she put it, "sweetness".
Actually, I just made that up. This is a display outside a pet store in my neighborhood. Click the pic for a closer look. You know you want to.
July 5, 2013
Fish Food for Thought
June 30, 2013
Word of the Day: peregrinate
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....
peregrinate (verb) [PARE-uh-Grun-ate]
To journey or travel from place to place
"I wish I could peregrinate around the world," said Will, "and still sleep in my own bed."
peregrinate (verb) [PARE-uh-Grun-ate]
To journey or travel from place to place
"I wish I could peregrinate around the world," said Will, "and still sleep in my own bed."
June 27, 2013
Link Mania: Paging Mr. Otto Shumake...
Stuck for a moniker? A for writers creates lists of interesting appellations. These sound like interesting fellows: Byron Honse, Otto Shumake, Dennis Peyre, Dallas Ogas, Nick Koko, Norris Higdon, Kenneth Somsy, Nicholas Nichois and Millard Shihadeh. Perfect for a story about a quirky softball team. (Female names can be generated, too.)
June 25, 2013
Head Rattle
I.Mapquest GPS lady on my iPhone, your directions are appreciated but occasionally puzzling. Do you know a shortcut? Should I trust you?
II.Is it cooler upstairs or downstairs? Restaurant workers don't want to answer this question on a hot day. They are not thermometers.
III.When everything about the decor of a doctor's waiting room has a blandly neutral, quasi-"Japanese"/Zen vibe, and they have a gurgling white-noise generator going while you're sitting there reading an old copy of The New Yorker, you have to wonder what this particular interior decorating strategy signifies. Is it a palliative to the inevitably distressing issues discussed behind all those closed doors?
IV.They don't make French doors like they used to. Now they have grill inserts to indicate the idea of panes, rather than separate panes. This is another example of how more and more things are "meta" these days: an abstraction to indicate the idea of something, rather than the thing itself.
V.The "secret" of Gertrude Stein's peculiar writing style The New Yorker says is that she rarely used commas and that makes her prose sound both deceptively simple and profound in case you were wondering.
II.Is it cooler upstairs or downstairs? Restaurant workers don't want to answer this question on a hot day. They are not thermometers.
III.When everything about the decor of a doctor's waiting room has a blandly neutral, quasi-"Japanese"/Zen vibe, and they have a gurgling white-noise generator going while you're sitting there reading an old copy of The New Yorker, you have to wonder what this particular interior decorating strategy signifies. Is it a palliative to the inevitably distressing issues discussed behind all those closed doors?
IV.They don't make French doors like they used to. Now they have grill inserts to indicate the idea of panes, rather than separate panes. This is another example of how more and more things are "meta" these days: an abstraction to indicate the idea of something, rather than the thing itself.
V.The "secret" of Gertrude Stein's peculiar writing style The New Yorker says is that she rarely used commas and that makes her prose sound both deceptively simple and profound in case you were wondering.
