Kyell Gold's Blog, page 42

Music Roundup!

Things I am listening to these days:

Green Day’s newest two albums are pretty good–they’re no “American Idiot”/”21st Century Breakdown,” but it’s probably unfair to expect that every time out. UNO! (sorry, I can’t be bothered to find the upside-down exclamation point) has a lot of songs I like on it and only a couple slow points; I have been playing it a lot. DOS! I am still getting a feel for. One of my friends mentioned that it reminds him a lot of Green Day’s “Foxboro Hot Tubs” project, and I can see the influences there for sure. It’s pretty different from what I’m used to hearing from them.

Metric’s last two albums are some pretty amazing alt-pop. There are catchy tunes galore, and I’m glad to see “Synthetica” getting some more media exposure.

Imagine Dragons’ album “Night Visions” is a little schizophrenic. There are industrial-pop songs like “Radioactive” and “Demons” whose original sound I really like, but the more conventional alt-pop of some of the other songs (“Top of the World” and so on) is pretty good too.

Keane’s “Strangeland” is probably my favorite album of theirs since “Hopes and Fears.” It’s solid from beginning to end. Basically, if you like Keane, you’ll like this album.

What’s on your iPod/Phone?

Comfort Books

fooz and I were talking yesterday about certain books we just go back to and re-read, and I called them “comfort books.” There are a few of mine, mostly dating back to my childhood, things like the “Dark Is Rising” series, Narnia, a couple Andre Nortons, and the “Wrinkle in Time” series, all of which I’ve read multiple times; books from later in life like (this is slightly embarrassing now) the Dragonrider books and the first Thomas Covenant books (I have been told that the plot and prose are basically trite, but I still love the world-building and the character arc, about coming back from despair, and I read those when I was like thirteen, if you can believe it, right in the formative sweet spot), Sherlock Holmes, “The Circus of Dr. Lao,” and Greg Bear’s “Songs of Earth and Power”; and, most recently, the Harry Potter books.

The Harry Potter books I first read prior to the fourth one coming out, and thereafter I either read through or listened to the audio of the entire series prior to each book release. I listened to the entire series again prior to the release of the last two movies. I don’t think there is another book in the last ten years that I have read more than once, definitely not more than twice. A lot of those old “comfort books” date from a time when I didn’t have stacks of books to read, when my little library of twenty or thirty books was all there was, and when I’d read through the books in it, I would pick the ones that made me want to revisit them over and over and I would read them again.

Now I have recently finished two books, and I have three on my Kindle/iPad to read, and I have a stack of eight physical books on the bedside table and a stack of twelve BEHIND that stack and a wish list that if you typed out all the books on it in twelve-point font would probably reach from here to L.A., and at the same time I am trying to write my own books and read the short fiction being released and all. And when I do read, it’s to discover exciting things and see what people are doing now, or to discover an old classic I never had time for (Anna Karenina, y’all–go read it before the movie), or to follow one of my favorite contemporary authors’ new releases (Ishiguro and Mitchell, most prominently). The comfort books sit on the shelf waiting for the time when I will be working less, or too tired to put in the work to read something new.

But I can still look at them and feel the feelings they inspired in me. I can still remember what it’s like to read them, because I lived in their worlds for so long. So it’s nice to have them around. I’ll have time for them again, one day.

What are your comfort books?

Answering OOP3 Questions

Over on FA, I’m answering questions about the release of OOP3, and a little bit about the story. I know, I know. It’s not THAT much about the story.

Quick Post-Election Note

Quite obviously, I am rather thrilled with the results of the election, and by “results” I mean “most of the politicians elected at a federal level, for my local California government, and for the few other races where the guy running was a douche who said something idiotic about rape; and for ballot measures involving gay marriage in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington, as well as, mostly, the ones here in California.” I do not mean “the spectacularly loud complaints/threats from right-wing lunatics.” I mean, you know, not to harp on 2004, but it wasn’t that long ago that our side was reacting strongly enough to an election to spark an entire meme. And now look at us!

Mostly, when I see the more extreme reactions, I feel sad. I mean, even when this country re-elected George W. Bush, I think most of us believed that there was hope. There were grandiose plans to unite California, Oregon, and Washington for secession; there were threats to move to Canada (which at least make more sense than people threatening to move to Australia or England to avoid socialism).

The point is, I don’t really feel the urge to point and laugh. I wish those people would understand that this is not going to destroy the country, that this doesn’t mean the end of the world or even of America, that they would look around and say, “Okay, the slightly more liberal of two moderates won, so let’s work with this and continue to make this the best country we can make it.” I believe that most of the people who voted for Romney feel more or less this way. It’s only the extremists who are making news with their nonsensical threats.

So if you know a Romney voter, be nice. Don’t taunt, because chances are in eight years, they’ll throw your taunts right back at you. This comes around, again and again, and if you want their understanding when you are on the losing end, be the better person now.

(Also, if you want to see the craziest of the crazies, to whom it is clearly not worth extending an olive branch, go read Wonkette’s compilations.)

Veterans Day

I know I have a lot of fans who have served their country, or are still in active service. Think of them and say thanks today–they put their lives on the line for something they believe in, and that is worthy of our respect.

Thanks, all you guys and gals, for your bravery and passion. Thanks to all the people who have risked their lives for our country. We appreciate it deeply.

Belated RainFurrest Con Report part two

In which our fox saves a super-podcast and helps record it, attends a birthday dinner that starts shaky but ends well, explores Seattle’s shops and restaurants, and bids a fond farewell to con and city.

We got back just a little late for Fuzzwolf’s SuperCast, a podcast with representatives of six different podcasts: Knotcast (Fuzz), Unsheathed (me and K.M.), Unfurled (Roland), WhoFurs (Fuzz and Teal), Fuzzy Logic (Kyo), and Fur What Its Worth (Tugs), who mostly ran the equipment while the rest of us jabbered on.

Initially, we ran into a big problem: Tugs’s mixer needed an A-B USB cable to connect to the computer, and he hadn’t brought his. Nobody else had one either. So Sorin, who was in the audience, used his Other Con Chair powers to attempt to get one loaned to us from Con Ops. No luck. Then I remembered that Sofawolf has a receipt printer that uses that cable, only it was in the locked dealers room. Kyo used his I Know Everyone powers to contact Aloha[?] on con staff to see if he could get us into the dealers room, and we were told to come down to Con Ops.

Aloha was finishing up a cigarette, after which he said he would take us up to the dealer’s room. While we were waiting, I talked to one of the con staff who was also a dealer, and he thought he might have that cable in his backpack. He didn’t, it turned out, and so we walked back out to the balcony to talk to Aloha. I stopped beside a box fan that had been set on a cardboard box, and just as Aloha was asking what kind of cable we needed, I happened to look down and spot a black cable with a very familiar square end. I lifted the fan and found, under it, an A-B USB cable.

“One exactly like this one,” I said, holding it up.

After a moment, Aloha remitted the cable to Kyo’s care, we took it upstairs, and the podcast could commence.

It turned somehow into a joke about how much Roland likes to give blow jobs, which apparently had no immediate basis, but was fun because he got pretty flustered about it. We talked generally about the weather, what we’d done at the convention, Honey Boo Boo, and whatever else came to mind, for about an hour.

Sunday went pretty fast. I bought a neat pen from the guy who made hand-crafted pens across from us, talked to a bunch of cool people, including one guy who said he’d mainly come to RainFurrest to see me (!). I had a really good talk with Daniel and Mary Lowd about the state of furry writing and the crossover into the mainstream.

And then we had to pack up, and fortunately the con wasn’t quite over yet. One friend was celebrating a birthday, so a bunch of us went up into Seattle to celebrate at Palace Kitchen. It started unpromisingly, as the restaurant insisted on breaking up our party of twelve into two tables of six on opposite sides of the host stand. We made the best of it, bringing appetizers back and forth for each other to taste, switching seats between tables, and being generally gregarious.

(The worst part is that the restaurant had a private dining room that would’ve seated twelve, but it was reserved for a private party—who never showed up. They wanted to move us into that room, but by the time they’d confirmed the cancellation, one table already had main courses on the way and the other hadn’t ordered yet, so they didn’t want half of us eating while half of us watched…)

For dessert, we’d ordered a birthday cake, and because it was just dessert, the restaurant let everyone gather around one table and even pull another one up so everyone could hang out. We had cake and coffee and lingered there for an hour or so, and it ended up being a really nice time.

Sunday night and Monday morning, we had to say good-bye to a bunch of people, but we got to go back up to Seattle (the light rail is really awesome), have lunch with a friend, and shop for some jeans for Kit and me (his jeans were ripped before the trip; mine ripped at the knee during the con). We love walking around Seattle and the weather was just amazing Monday—and the whole weekend, really. We visited a couple of our favorite haunts, had a Starbucks, and then headed down to the airport to fly back home.

Another RainFurrest in the books, another weekend reminding us why it’s one of our favorite conventions. We got to chat with many awesome people who made the con terrific in different ways, including Gene, Hunter, Sterling, Blaze, and Aloha on staff, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and more good friends than I can count or reliably list (including certain locals we never get to see anywhere else!). We got lovely art from Skulldog, an amusing adult piece from Miss Oro, and an amazingly funny pic from Kipper. Seattle remains lovely and amazing, as do its residents, and we are already looking forward to next year.

Busy Fox Paws

OOP3 has to go to the printer sometime in the next couple weeks, so I am frantically making final edits before sending it over to Sofawolf. As a result, I may be somewhat less bloggy/e-maily this week, and I apologize if you’re waiting for a response.

I do have part two of the RainFurrest con report already written, so I’ll post that in a minute. But in the meantime, trust me, I am ironing out the last few wrinkles in this manuscript and I am very excited to have it done. I’ll be back to blogging/tweeting/whatever later in the week.

(I did get dragged out to “Skyfall,” which I can report is REALLY GOOD.)

What ho!

Looks like the announcement is official now, so I can finally tell you guys–I will be making my way to Merrie Olde England in 2013 as one of the Guests of Honour for Confuzzled! I’m really excited about this. Lots of people have told me what a great convention it is, and I had been thinking that sometime in the next few years I should make my way out there. And lo! The invitation came and I happily accepted.

It has been a while since I visited Europe, and I can’t wait to get back, especially to follow in the distinguished pawprints of previous guests like Colson and Tani DaReal. More updates will follow, but for now, if you live in Europe and would like to meet me–now you know where to go!

History

Eight years ago, I sat in an office excitedly watching exit polls that showed John Kerry with a lead in Florida and Ohio. By the evening, those exit polls had proven inaccurate enough to leave the states in the GOP column, and I felt the same disappointment in “Jesusland” (you remember those maps, right?) that 48% of the country did. In addition, eleven states passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman. We had only a few months earlier been excited at the chance to show our President the door after an abysmal four years in office, only to have his efficient campaign machine triumph over a lackluster Democratic candidate. And the issue of same-sex marriage played a part in that, bringing conservative voters to the polls for an issue they apparently felt stronger about than the fate of the sitting president.

Four years ago, we endured a bittersweet night. Barack Obama won election over the strange ticket of McCain and Palin, but Californians passed Prop 8, altering the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, made legal just four months before. The Prop 8 vote was close, 52-48, and at the time I said “in another few years, or another decade, [...] these horrible laws they’re shoving into place now will be quietly removed.” Not so quietly, it turns out; the challenge to Prop 8 goes before the Supreme Court this month and people are more hopeful than they have been in years about the Court’s response to it. I believed then that we would win a popular vote, and I thought it would be within five years.

Last night, we watched:

* A president who endorsed same-sex marriage win re-election.

* Three states legalize same-sex marriage in popular votes. Three and oh. Not one of the three states rejected the law.

* One state defeat a one-man-one-woman constitutional amendment.

* An openly gay woman win a Senate seat.

And that’s not even mentioning the defeat of the two GOP candidates who spoke callously about rape, the victories made by women and women’s issues, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth and all of it, but it’s all related. It’s all about treating everyone as a person, not as a set of labels. It’s what Obama said in his victory speech, “I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.” Americans yesterday voted for the idea that those labels do not matter.

This is history, folks, and we should celebrate the hell out of it. And then tomorrow or next week, get back to the work of making sure that history keeps moving in this direction. Because this amazing change over eight years didn’t just appear, it didn’t just magically correct because that was the right thing to do. It happened because people got angry eight years ago and they said “this has to change.” It happened because gay people like you and me became more open about our lives. We helped people move past the label of “gay” and on to the reality of “person.” We talked about the issues and we stood up for the things we believe are right and we understood that progress comes when we fight for it. We were willing to try, and we rolled up our sleeves and worked hard, and last night, we saw the reward.

Now let’s keep it going. I can’t even imagine what we’ll be seeing in four more years, but I cannot wait.

On Episode VII

On Disney announcing that “Star Wars VII” will be out in 2015, without any specifics: well, yeah. This is sort of like me telling you “I will have a Cupcake novella out next year” without knowing what it will be about, much less having written it. These guys know moviemaking and have been doing it for a while, and they know that probably in six months (I’d be surprised if it took that long) they can have a decent script, that in that same six months they can get a crew to work on it (who wouldn’t sign up?), and that once they have a script, it will be no trouble to get actors and a director lined up…you know, they have done this before. They know how it works.

And also, they know that if they’re behind schedule in 2015, they can say, “Okay, sorry, it’ll be spring 2016,” and who will care? Right now it’s about energizing the fanbase, which, if my Twitter feed is any indication, they have done pretty darn well. As Scalzi points out, Disney knows how to entertain, and they know the business of moviemaking as well as anyone else currently making movies.