K.M. Alexander's Blog, page 43

When the Book is Better than the Movie

This summer, PBS launched The Great American Read—a show about the best-loved books in America. You can see the top 100 list over here. Along with this series, you can also vote for your favs, which you should. (Sadly, none of my Bell Forging Cycle made it, sorry folks.)

Along with the launch, PBS Digital Studios—creators of some of the best content on YouTube—released a Great American Read-themed video on the comparison of films to the books they were based upon. It’s good. Watch it here:

The narrator is the very talented Lindsay Ellis. I’m excited to see her work with PBS and hope this is the start of more collaborations. I’ve been following her work since her Channel Awesome days, and I consider myself a fan.

For those who don’t know Ellis runs a channel where she does longer-format deep-dives into specific films or movie concepts. Her observations on storytelling are wonderful—a big reason why I am drawn to her videos. Some of my favs:

Dear Stephenie Meyer
Loose Canon: Nightcrawler
Mini-Canon: Mad Max

You can find Ellis on Twitter, Patreon, and of course YouTube.

Garden of Horrors: The Clathrus Archeri

The natural world is weird, wonderful, and often terrifying. Case in point: this morning, I stumbled across the Clathrus archeri—a real-world Lovecraftian species of fungi. Its know more commonly as the “devil’s fingers,” but to me, it looks more like a chthonian spawn emerging from its egg. The sticky black gleba doesn’t help. Don’t believe me?

[image error]The devil’s fingers breaking free from their shell.

While originally from the Australasia the devil’s fingers have spread over the last century. Mycologists think that during WW1 the Clathrus archeri hitchhiked on Australian supplies for the war effort. Likewise, these stowaways have also shown up in California where it’s believed they arrived with shipments of bamboo. If the picture above hasn’t creeped you out, here’s a timelapse I found on YouTube showing one emerge.

Oh, and when mature they smell like rotten flesh. Because of course.

Raunch Reviews: The Stormlight Archive

If you think about it, profanity is a strange invention. Much of its context depends entirely on the listener. What is considered vulgar or offensive in one culture may not be offensive in another. When the complexities from a person’s country, region, language, or religion are added, things can get even more perplexing. As long as there has been language, there has been profanity. There has also been stories. One of fiction’s responsibilities is to be a reflection of our reality—so, when worldbuilding, us speculative-fiction writers are often tasked with inventing creative curse words for our narratives. It adds a level of authenticity and—if done well—can help ground a world. Sometimes we’re successful. Often we’re not.

The evolution of language—slang, in particular—has long been an interest of mine. From its history, to its usage, and to the subtle shifts resulting from generations building upon (or outright ignoring) the language of the previous generations. Language continually changes, and so does slang and profanity.

I thought it would be fun to explore some of the faux-profanity writers have created for their stories—to examine them and issue judgments on how effective they are within the context of the work. For this, I want to welcome you to Raunch Reviews, a series wherein I will review and rate the faux-profanity from science fiction and fantasy properties.

[image error]The Author:  Brandon Sanderson
Work in Question: The Stormlight Archive
The “Profanity”: “Storm it”/”Storms”/”Storming”

In large part, I don’t think “storm” works as an expletive. On the surface, it certainly makes thematic sense within the source material: Roshar, the world of the series, is plagued by destructive “highstorms” that are part of everyday life. However, in usage, its weight as profanity starts to give. It feels derivative, almost modern, and the replacement of “storms” as a stand-in for something more offensive feels silly.

I classify foul language into three major categories—race/identity-based, vulgarities, and oaths. Race/identity-based terms are obvious, they’re slang focusing on a person’s race or identity, with the intention to dehumanize and belittle. Vulgarities reference reproductive organs, body parts, and sexual acts. Oaths are rooted in blasphemous speech, exclamations, or curses. Those are generally drawn from religious beliefs.

“Storms” and its variations don’t fall into any of these categories. “Storm” is a common enough word in the book, so it cannot be a vulgarity, nor is it a personal or racial insult. Likewise, it’s not a direct reference to a particular deity, so it fails as an impactful oath. It attempts to sit somewhere between vulgarity and oath and ends up doing neither successfully. Were Sanderson seeking a vulgarity, he could have easily drawn from his “safehand” lore (the covered left-hand of Alethi women, considered inappropriate to expose.) If he was attempting an oath, “by the Storms” or something similar would have made more logical sense. To his credit, he does occasionally use “Stormfather” (an oath referencing a former deity) and it fits the more traditional form of an oath.

But “storms” isn’t “Stormfather.” As a result, “storms” gets the distinction of being internally consistent, but is ultimately nowhere near as faux-offensive as it aspires.

Score: [image error][image error][image error][image error][image error] (2.5)

There will be more to come. In the meantime, do you have a suggestion for Raunch Reviews? It can be any made up slang word from a book, television show, or movie. You can email me directly with your recommendation or leave a comment below. I’ll need to spend time with the property before I’ll feel confident reviewing it, so give me a little time. I have a lot of books to read.

[image error]

Speakin’ Gibberish

I’m a sucker for language experiments. So when I read this little article in the New York Times called “How to Speak Gibberish,” I had to seek out the video mentioned. You can watch it below.

In it, Sara Forsberg experiments with the phonetics of languages. By doing so, she manages to replicate the sound fairly accurately, at least to my ear. It’s a fascinating experiment, and I can see why it drew so much attention and why Forsberg was tapped to create a conlang for The Force Awakens.

Since posting this four years ago, Forsberg has gone on to a musical career under the name Saara. She still posts regularly on YouTube, and you can follow her over on Instagram. There’s also a follow-up video with some quick Q&A.

P.S. I’m not sorry for that weird egg in the featured image.

Bourdain

Since the news broke about the suicide of Anthony Bourdain, there has been a bloom of posts, tweets, and articles across the internet. Reflections, reminiscences, and stories told from those who knew him and those who admired him. This will be another—albeit one more personal. I suppose these are what happens when someone’s life touched so many people in so many unexpected ways.

I don’t usually get worked up about celebrity news—I never met Bourdain in person, but I felt like I did. He was something different; open, honest, and unwilling to hide. Bourdain was a masterful storyteller with a raw and unapologetic voice. Reading Kitchen Confidential felt like I was swapping stories with him at a seedy bar in Manhattan. It made me appreciate food and cooking in a way I hadn’t considered.  A Cook’s Tour and No Reservations opened up the world and made me want to travel. Parts Unknown and Medium Raw were continuations of those early lessons.

“As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”

—Anthony Bourdain

There was something about Bourdain’s punk-rock unpretentious attitude drew me in as a young man. To many, he came across as abrasive, but below his sarcastic steak was a profoundly earnest and empathetic man who cared about people. He also allowed himself to be ugly. Bourdain made mistakes, he owned up to them, and he didn’t dismiss his past. He showed many of us that it was okay to screw-up, and it was okay to love screw-ups.

I’m going to miss his writing, his authenticity, and his observations on life. I wish his last mistake hadn’t been so permanent. Often, when an author dies we mourn the loss of a voice—and that is true with Bourdain. But his writing remains, his show remains—his voice might be gone, but his life was too loud to go silent.

I’ve seen depression’s impact on more than just celebrities like Anthony Bourdain. I’ve seen it hurt friends, family, and fellow authors. Depression is a wicked beast of a thing. It tricks your mind. It lies to you. If you’re ever thinking of hurting yourself, please remember you’re loved. Seek help. You matter. We need you here. Talk or text a friend or loved one. If you can’t do that and live in the US, call 1-800-273-8255. (You can find international numbers here.)

Many Defeats

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

—Maya Angelou

I’m in The Woolf

My friend, fellow author, and travel buddy, Jim Rushing, recently put together a great (and extensive) interview on writing cross-genre fiction for the online literary mag, The Woolf. You can read it via the link below:

“What if your book is the child of two genres?”

In it, a group of us discuss a lot of great topics from how cross-genre work is born to how it’s approached in publishing, to our influences. As most of my readers know, genre-blending is something near and dear to my heart, and it was an honor to be interviewed along with a cadre of excellent writers: Virginia King, Anthony Lodge, K.T. Lee, Suzy Howlett, Rae Stoltenkamp, Rohan Quine, and Rob Johnson. You should check out their work as well and see if there is anything that strikes your fancy. The Woolf is primarily focused on writers based out of Zurich, but it regularly features a lot of excellent content. It’s worth exploring.

The Poisoned Garden Pt. 2

Way back in February, I wrote a post about the debut of Kari-Lise’s latest series, The Poisoned Garden. Well, I am excited to share that the next installment will premiere Saturday in Melbourne, Australia as a part of Beinart Gallery’s upcoming group exhibition: Dreamer, Lover, Maker, Fighter.

I love this series, and I’ve enjoyed watching her create each piece. There is a narrative richness in The Poisoned Garden that I find quite appealing. Each piece carries a shadowed sense of wonder tinged with beautiful melancholy. They’re haunting. I’ve included a few of my favorites in this post, but I’d encourage you to click here and check out the full show. It’s amazing.

[image error]Kari-Lise Alexander — “Picking The Perfect Poison #2” in the studio
[image error]

Far Alamo – A Short Film

It will come as no surprise that I was delighted by Fabrice Mathieu’s mashup of John Wayne’s The Alamo and Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. It’s the combo I never thought I needed and I found it delightful and incredibly well done. I shared it on Twitter earlier today, but it needed to be shared here as well. Someone give Mathieu the funding to make this a feature-length film, please.

You can see more of Mathieu’s work on Vimeo and make sure to follow him over on Twitter.

An Evening With the Maker of Patterns

Freeman Dyson is an academic titan, and it’s hard to fully grasp his impact in the sciences. His work in theoretical physics and mathematics have impacted both fields through much of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. He’s influenced science and science fiction alike. (We’ve all read accounts of his theorized Dyson Sphere—it’s common in science fiction and has even shown up recently in the news.) He’s a man whose contemporaries included names like Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, and Robert Oppenheimer. So when my friend Steve Leroux and I heard Town Hall Seattle was bringing him here to promote his new autobiography Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters and have a conversation with Neal Stephenson, we jumped at the chance to see him. Yesterday, I shared that we were attending, and some of my readers requested a recap. This is that recap.

[image error]Freeman Dyson and Neal Stephenson at Town Hall Seattle

Dyson is now ninety-four, and while still very sharp, the conversation felt a bit disjointed. Stephenson came very well prepared and managed to guide the discussion to some interesting bits. But it took a while for Dyson to engage and much of the dialogue was dry. That said, I particularly enjoyed Dyson’s stories about his experiences with British Bomber Command during World War II and how it shaped some of his thoughts in regards to theoretical models and practices.

[image error] Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters by Freeman Dyson

My biggest takeaway was Dyson explaining how incredible ideas don’t just come while you’re lying on a beach. They’re a product of hard work. You do the work first, and that will eventually spark the idea. I’ve found myself thinking along these lines as well. Spending more time in silence with my own thoughts and less time drowning my brain with music, podcasts, or audiobooks.

Occasionally Stephenson would read from Dyson’s autobiography—a paragraph from a letter, a bit from a note—that sort of thing. I found Dyson’s writing striking, and I’ll probably get around to picking up his autobiography in the future. While I’m no disciple of his, I do appreciate how his mind works. He’s a fascinating character who has lived an incredible life, and he’s worth getting to know. I was glad to spend an hour listening to him.

You can see a video of the conversation on YouTube.