fine whine

Here it is the year 2004 already, and dammit, where are the flying cars? This is the future, isn't it? Evidently I need to resort to science fiction to get my future fix, as I have recently read Norman Spinrad's Little heroes and the first story arc of Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan series of comics. Each is a vision of the not-too-distant future and each presents a vision of the streets of New York. That's just a setting, though; one's about rock and roll and the other about freedom, truth and violence. Sort of.

What's funny to me is that it is the novelist, not the comic book guy, who is all hung up on sex (particularly its oral variants). Then again, the mantra is sex, drugs and rock and roll, so I suppose it goes with the territory.

Chuck Palahniuk is a really cool guy. According to some marketing copy on Diary he's a nihilist, but that's nothing to hold against him, ha ha ha. I finished reading Diary tonight, having also started it tonight. There is a lot to be said about a book that can be read cover to cover in one evening; take notes here Clancy and Ludlum and all your word-heavy ilk. I enjoyed as thoroughly as I would've any longer book by a good author, because that's the key: Chuck's a good author and Diary's a good book.

Having finished reading it, I also feel purged of my earlier reading today, Bernard Levy's Who killed Danny Pearl? which is one of those self-important novels about writing a novel that hides the actual material in with page after page of filler about that tiny bit of actual writing. I hate those books, and I've even written a miniature version of one now just to prove a point or other. Levy's dust cover proclaims him to be France's finest philosopher and many other things, yadda yadda yadda. France's finest? Says who, asks I? Maybe it was the translation, but I didn't stumble across any great philosophy in the book I read, just a day by day account of what he did, where he went, and the events he may be imagining or fictionalizing but without separating them from the actual facts. That's not philosophizing, that's called bullshitting. And I slogged through that tome for several days for that revelation. Maybe I'm being hard on the guy but I wasn't engrossed in reading his book nearly to the degree he was engrossed in writing about writing it. How does a great philosopher and prominent author go about outlining such a book?

A self indulgent work of staggering banality

• Introduction
• write this a year later
• better yet, have a good friend write it and gush praise on with a trowel
• Chapter 1


• write about getting ready to write chapter 1
• drop lots of hints about what you will be writing about writing in subsequent chapters
• note for later: never write anything as promised
• Chapter 2


• write as though you're getting ready to start getting into the real meat of things
• write about how difficult something like chapter 2 is to write
• note for later: never get into the real meat of things
• Chapter 3


• ...

And so on? Or do they just keep writing and writing until deadline and ship it off to a publisher? I've gained a lot of respect for Jack Kerouac, who apparently (or better, supposedly) submitted the manuscript for On the road as a single piece of paper in a continuous stream of writing. Now that's cool, and I bet you he didn't have an outline planned out beforehand. Just as I had no plan for this rant before it started but it just started flowing, HTML syntax and all.

Blah blah Christmas and whatnot. I didn't post anything the last two days and I'll let you come up with your own reasons. Speculate away.

Anyway, for almost the last week I've been trying to write about John Varley's Red thunder. It's a great book and it pays homage to a great many things, not just the Heinleinian juvenile books but also south Florida crime fiction. More than that, though, the book (I think) played with the reader. In the beginning there was a passage where the narrator says, "I used the tip of the screen's stylus to touch 7, then 5, then ENTER on the tiny flatscreen keypad..." and then later at least five more (though shorter) descriptions. At first they annoyed me, but then I reasoned that they too must be part of some homage or other. And as the days have passed I've thought more about it and I'd like to think that that little section there is to deliberately annoy readers and weed out the less deserving fans. Or something like that. A day ago, I had it all reasoned out, but the days have passed. Oh well, these things happen.

What else has happened in the intervening time? I got a couple presents including a cheesy but probably fun digital camera and a damn cool watch, the very one after which I've been lusting since first seeing it on TokyoFlash. Today I went and spent a couple giftcards, also a present, on a very reasonably priced Soul Calibur II, which would be more fun if my thumbs weren't sore from a day or two of Gran Turismo 3, which I've been playing for who knows how long and still am only fifteen percent finished. I also watched Full metal jacket, but I'll go into detail on that another time, I think.

By the way, I didn't post anything because my blogging software was acting up. I don't know if it's because I upgraded (and then down-graded back) or just some odd two day quirk, but it wasn't working. I hope you all enjoyed your days, however you spent them. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night.

Fool that I am, I stayed up until 2am this morning finishing Red thunder. At 1:15 am I had reached Part 3 and was torn between sleep and getting to the epilogue, and as soon as I heard the upstairs neighbor snoring my decision was made; I was in for the long haul.

And I'm glad that I did it, other than the whole feeling like a zombie thing. I'm not going to make that same mistake tonight, though, so I'll have to put off writing more about the book until another night. I just wasted too much time trying to install phpBB2 (a message forum package that should work fine on my computer, but doesn't) and I need to get to bed before the bastard upstairs starts snoring loudly.

First, to get the painful out of the way, here is a bad Latin pun, of sorts, that has been bouncing around my head for far too long. "Festina Nestle" which translates as "make haste quikly", ha ha ha.

Now that I've alienated all but the hardest core of readers (it takes a certain something, I'd say, to enjoy bad Latin puns) now I can get down to the real business. Lately, I've been noticing things.

First of all, I have again had one of those odd moments of synchronicity with BoingBoing. This morning Cory posted a quick item about a book by John Varley, Red thunder, one which I happen to be reading. That alone isn't as amazing as it at first may seem, since I probably reserved it based on a BB recommendation. What is much more interesting is the fact that I had been preparing to type up a little ditty about it myself, particularly about some references I think it makes. BB's piece centers around its Heinlein connections, though I am not well versed in Heinlein's works to be sure of any specific influence. What I have noticed are a number of references to other non-SF literature including Hiaasen and the Travis McGee series of mysteries. I can't say for sure that I picked up on all of them nor have I encountered them yet so I'll just leave everybody in suspense on that.

In a moment that I didn't have my nose in that book, I noticed that there's a guy (Merlin Mann) making lists of five things, which can be found at the cringe-inducing address of 5ives.com. At least, I cringe, but I've never been a fan of the numbers for letters school of writing. Even Se7en annoys me. But more worthy of note is the page I created on January 31st of 2000 (at least if my changelog is to be believed) inspired by a similar page of lists of seven things written (and since removed from the web) by Alice Matsumoto. I'd thought seven to be too tough, though settling with five hasn't increased my output much. Admittedly Merlin's are funnier on the whole, but when I started out I wasn't going for humor so much as fulfilling the base human need to group things into an arbitrary handful.

It's not much after midnight and I have finished Things my girlfriend and I have argued about, and I have to say that I enjoyed it to the end, sudden though it may have been. Just as I was unhappy with the way Houellebecq wrapped up Platform but I felt that the choice was appropriate, Millington stops the action just where it only could stop, but without leaving anything hanging. To be honest there are many threads unresolved, but the enjoyment of the book is not contingent on knowing how everything resolves—it's all about the ride. Anyway, Mil's site serves as something of a companion piece to the book, despite having in fact been created first. According to the back cover, it's been accorded some cult status, though I think the cover is to be taken with several grains of salt. After all, despite being billed as both funny and affectionate, the book really is much funnier than affectionate. It oozes funny, especially to me at this late hour, but the affectionateness isn't really there in such form. It's perhaps buried under layers and layers of sarcasm and biting wit, but it's nowhere near as prominent as the funny bits. The quote may have well said "both funny and about roofing repairs" and have been just as accurate, if not quite as catchy. Nobody sells books talking about roof repairs, I'd wager.

And with that, it's bedtime. It may be tomorrow according to the date several lines above, but to me it's still tonight and moreover late tonight. So goodnight.