When you think spiderweb, what do you picture? A gossamer web, a fragile weave sparkling with dewdrops? A spiderweb is actually an extremely tough, stretchy fiber made of a complex crystalline structure. Marvel Comics wasn't so far off the mark when they showed Spiderman swinging from building to building on strands of web.
My interest in spiders today began with finding an awesome shampoo. I'd finally discovered the brand that promised the shiny, gorgeous hair I've always wanted, so I began to read the fine print and braced for the bad news that it wasn't cruelty free. I scanned the ingredients- there were the words I was dreading- silk proteins. As you probably know, the larva used to produce silk are boiled alive, so I prefer not to buy silk. But what, exactly, were silk proteins? It was darn good shampoo, so I did some research.
Turns out the silk proteins used in cosmetics (like my nifty shampoo) come from spiders, not silk worms! This was momentary good news, because while silk worms get boiled alive to produce their silk, spiders spin their silk, and definitely don't die in the process.
Pretty, shiny hair here we come!
Nope. Spiders aren't social creatures- if they're kept in large groups they eat each other (PETA and Wikipedia agree on this). The golden orb spider is commonly used to produce the spider silk used in high-end consumer textiles. I was unable to determine the species used in cosmetic production.
Here's where the real-life science fiction comes in: In 2000 a Canadian company called Nexus came up with the ingenious bioengineering idea of injecting golden orb spider DNA into goat eggs. The female of these transgenic (genetically modified) goats lactated milk laden with spider silk proteins. I'm not kidding. You can read about their work on Wikipedia and in an article from the New York Times archived on animalvoices.com. Now, the folks at Nexus were less interested in shampoo than I am. They wanted to extract the proteins from the milk and spin super strong fibers (trademarked "BioSteel") for use as fishing line, tennis racket string, and textiles. PETA and the New York Times article claim the military are interested in the resulting fibers to create bullet proof vests and body armor.
Nexus had some technological problems with their fiber production that they couldn't overcome. First, they were only able to transmit one of up to seven spider silk proteins to the lactating goats. Second, the process of spinning the proteins into fibers didn't work. Nexus tried to imitate the spider squeezing out fibers through its spinneret by squirting the heavily processed goat milk through tiny holes to create strands that were then stretched on a spindle. The description of the apparatus in the New York Times article is an SF dream, but the machinery was not able to convert the milk into thread in a commercially viable manner.
The cool part about this failed attempt was the idea that started it. Nexus CEO/president and bioengineer Jeffrey Turner says:
"The mammary gland is a perfect natural factory for the synthesizing and production of proteins."
What other kinds of proteins could be made from transgenic modification? What would their applications be? How does inexpensive, life-saving medication, sound? Turner originally envisioned his "udder factory outlet" as a way to cheaply produce medication. For financial and practical reasons (such as getting approval from the F.D.A.), he began his experiments producing strong silk fiber, instead.
And what about the animals in all this transgenic tinkering? New York Times journalist, Lawrence Osborne, makes it clear that Turner and his staff had a genuine love and respect for the goats they raised. No harm came to the goats- they were living the good life in the ample pasture lands of Canada. Of course the golden orb spiders didn't make out nearly so well. The spiders were killed and crushed to obtain their DNA for injection. I wouldn't buy silk made using this process for a pretty scarf or shiny hair, but I could certainly come to terms with it should it produce inexpensive, life-saving medicine.
Now for the big question- my shampoo! Will I walk the streets of Brooklyn with hair that doesn't bounce? Well, until the day that huge bioengineered spiders produce silk proteins (using one large genetically engineered "super-spider" is one solution to the spider cannibalism silk production problem), I'll not buy the shampoo, and will search for a plant-based alternative.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
More Adventure in Middle Earth!
I cried when I finished The Lord of the Rings. The ending was beautiful, bitter-sweet, but the true source of my tears was that I had come to the end of the adventures, the end of my stay in Middle Earth. Now writer, Christopher Tolkien, and artist, Alan Lee, have given us a new adventure, The Children of Húrin.
The new book takes us back to a time of wonder in the First Age, long before the Third Age events of The Lord of the Rings. Christopher pulled together odds and ends of his father's history of Middle Earth and narrative poems (some of this material also appears in The Silmarillion and other sources) to write The Children of Húrin. The book is already available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be for sale on April 18th (The Deluxe Hardcover 1st Edition is available April 17th).
There's a lot of speculation in the press about how Christopher will carry on the legacy of his father. I'm expecting Christopher to do an excellent job.
The Lord of the Rings was written between 1937-1949, when Christopher was 13-25. Christopher drew the original maps for The Lord of the Rings. Correspondence between J.R.R. and Christopher (which I read in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien) shows that Christopher collaborated on the languages, mythology, and storytelling that make up The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth. It is heart-breaking to read some of these letters, written when Christopher was stationed far from home during World War II. The fantasy world is a safe place for father and son, it gives them something to talk about other than the distance between them and the fear that Christopher might not return home. It offers them a way to say that war stinks and they both wish Christopher didn't have to fight it, while remaining loyal to their cause and country. I particularly loved the letter in which J.R.R. writes directly to the the censors, explaining that his Elvish script isn't a secret code or a security threat, but is just a hobby shared between father and son.
My high expectations are based on the level of collaboration Christopher had with his father and the fact that Christopher has been working on the book for over thirty years (this is no get-rich-quick scheme to ride the popularity of the films). I'm also impressed that Christopher chose to set the story in the First Age. J.R.R. penned his indelible mark on the Third Age of Middle Earth. Going back in time, to a "Middle-earth that was to be drowned before ever Hobbits appeared" (source: Tolkien Estate) and his choice of a human, not magical protagonist, should leave Christopher the artistic space he needs to take us back to Middle Earth without re-writing an adventure that could never be as good as the original.
If you're excited to learn more about the upcoming release, check out this link at the Tolkien Library.
The new book takes us back to a time of wonder in the First Age, long before the Third Age events of The Lord of the Rings. Christopher pulled together odds and ends of his father's history of Middle Earth and narrative poems (some of this material also appears in The Silmarillion and other sources) to write The Children of Húrin. The book is already available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be for sale on April 18th (The Deluxe Hardcover 1st Edition is available April 17th).
There's a lot of speculation in the press about how Christopher will carry on the legacy of his father. I'm expecting Christopher to do an excellent job.
The Lord of the Rings was written between 1937-1949, when Christopher was 13-25. Christopher drew the original maps for The Lord of the Rings. Correspondence between J.R.R. and Christopher (which I read in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien) shows that Christopher collaborated on the languages, mythology, and storytelling that make up The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth. It is heart-breaking to read some of these letters, written when Christopher was stationed far from home during World War II. The fantasy world is a safe place for father and son, it gives them something to talk about other than the distance between them and the fear that Christopher might not return home. It offers them a way to say that war stinks and they both wish Christopher didn't have to fight it, while remaining loyal to their cause and country. I particularly loved the letter in which J.R.R. writes directly to the the censors, explaining that his Elvish script isn't a secret code or a security threat, but is just a hobby shared between father and son.
My high expectations are based on the level of collaboration Christopher had with his father and the fact that Christopher has been working on the book for over thirty years (this is no get-rich-quick scheme to ride the popularity of the films). I'm also impressed that Christopher chose to set the story in the First Age. J.R.R. penned his indelible mark on the Third Age of Middle Earth. Going back in time, to a "Middle-earth that was to be drowned before ever Hobbits appeared" (source: Tolkien Estate) and his choice of a human, not magical protagonist, should leave Christopher the artistic space he needs to take us back to Middle Earth without re-writing an adventure that could never be as good as the original.
If you're excited to learn more about the upcoming release, check out this link at the Tolkien Library.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Dracula 1.0 From Gothic to Horror Fiction
It only seems fair after writing a post called Dracula 2.0 to write one in honor of Dracula 1.0. The version numbers aren't just for fun- Bram Stoker's Dracula founded pop culture's fascination with the vampire, and, according to the HWA, was the "seminal horror work." But Bram Stoker did not invent the vampire. Blood-sucking legend has a long folklore history, nor was Bram Stoker the first to introduce the legend in literary form. This honor is usually attributed to Carmila by Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmila heavily influenced Stoker's novel, and is not unlike the beta version of some great software that never gained the popularity of its 1.0 release candidate.
So why do kids dress up as Dracula instead of Carmila on Halloween? Why doesn't the HWA (Horror Writers Association) give out Le Fanu awards instead of the Stoker awards? The answer has to do with genre. Carmila is an example of Gothic fiction, not horror.
Gothic fiction is all about ambiance and spooky atmosphere. Gothic novels are often romances, in which a nubile young woman faces a supernatural threat that parallels the threat of her deflowering (think Jane Eyre). Gothic fiction is all about building a sense of dread, and the spooky is in the suspense, the heroine's fragility, and her grim surroundings.
The principle characteristic of horror fiction is shock. A head is severed by a chain saw, a psychopath sews a suit of human skin, a victim falls in vat of acid and we see him dissolve.
Horror is the child of Gothic fiction- horror borrows the build-up of suspense and dreadful atmosphere, then shows us the gruesome, physical details of the dreaded event. Bram Stoker's Dracula is honored as a seminal horror work because it built on the Gothic fiction elements of Le Fanu's Carmila and got down to the gritty physical details of vampirism. Gross scenes in Dracula include crude blood transfusions, eating insects and birds raw, cutting the head off a corpse. Dracula contains elements of both Gothic and horror fiction, which is one of the reasons I love it.
My interest in the horror genre leans more toward the creepy atmosphere and build-up of suspense than the gross-out. This is a purely personal preference, and it explains why I love Stephen King books like Needful Things, Insomnia, and Salem's Lot, but can't get past the first two pages of The Stand. The Stand begins with shocking gross-out events, the other King novels I mentioned begin with spooky atmosphere in small towns.
The horror genre runs on a spectrum from Gothic to shock- is your preference at one of he extremes or dead in the middle?
So why do kids dress up as Dracula instead of Carmila on Halloween? Why doesn't the HWA (Horror Writers Association) give out Le Fanu awards instead of the Stoker awards? The answer has to do with genre. Carmila is an example of Gothic fiction, not horror.
Gothic fiction is all about ambiance and spooky atmosphere. Gothic novels are often romances, in which a nubile young woman faces a supernatural threat that parallels the threat of her deflowering (think Jane Eyre). Gothic fiction is all about building a sense of dread, and the spooky is in the suspense, the heroine's fragility, and her grim surroundings.
The principle characteristic of horror fiction is shock. A head is severed by a chain saw, a psychopath sews a suit of human skin, a victim falls in vat of acid and we see him dissolve.
Horror is the child of Gothic fiction- horror borrows the build-up of suspense and dreadful atmosphere, then shows us the gruesome, physical details of the dreaded event. Bram Stoker's Dracula is honored as a seminal horror work because it built on the Gothic fiction elements of Le Fanu's Carmila and got down to the gritty physical details of vampirism. Gross scenes in Dracula include crude blood transfusions, eating insects and birds raw, cutting the head off a corpse. Dracula contains elements of both Gothic and horror fiction, which is one of the reasons I love it.
My interest in the horror genre leans more toward the creepy atmosphere and build-up of suspense than the gross-out. This is a purely personal preference, and it explains why I love Stephen King books like Needful Things, Insomnia, and Salem's Lot, but can't get past the first two pages of The Stand. The Stand begins with shocking gross-out events, the other King novels I mentioned begin with spooky atmosphere in small towns.
The horror genre runs on a spectrum from Gothic to shock- is your preference at one of he extremes or dead in the middle?
Friday, March 23, 2007
Carried Away
Ready for a tale of international intrigue, death, and rock 'n roll? Let's talk about Noir Desir.
When my husband and I moved to Italy, a friend introduced us to Manu Chao. His ethnic and cultural description on Wikipedia is enough to make your head spin. Manu Chao and his music are a mix of many Mediterranean cultures, and he's popular with the European liberal/communist intellectual crowd. Politics aside, he's a great musician, and he can make your knees melt when he plays the guitar. This brings me to the song that has literally carried me away, a song by French rock band, Noir Desir, in which Manu Chao is guest guitarist. It's no surprise that Noir Desir and Manu Chao teamed up. Noir Desir champions a similar European leftist agenda, anti-globilization, sticking it to the man (even when the man was the president of their record label, whom they defamed in person at one of their concerts).
The song that was the result of collaboration by Noir Desir and Manu Chao is called "Le vent nous portera." Translated, the track literally means: the wind will carry us away. The first time I heard this song I was struck by its wild, vibrant power. But the first listen is nothing. About the fourth or fifth time I heard "Le vent nous portera" on a warm spring night with the windows open and the house dark and otherwise silent, the guitar riffs and drum beats had wormed their way into my blood, infected me with the fever that is this song.
Now, to get this album, my husband had to import the CD (des Visages des Figures) from France (coincidentally the album was released in Europe on the infamous September 11, 2001). Des Visages des Figures is a great album with some fantastic tracks ("A l'envers à l'endroit" is another of my favorites), but something about "Le vent nous portera" catches the harsh passion of life and death. It is as though the springtime of new life and regeneration looks into the heart of death, rot, and decay from which it arises and does an impassioned dance in honor of the circle of life.
When we moved from Italy to New York, this album got left behind- temporarily. The temporary loss of our music collection has been eased by the digital music phenomenon. Between Rhapsody, iTunes, and emusic, we can find pretty much any track we crave- but not "Le vent nous portera." In fact, I couldn't find des Visages des Figures in any music store or American online store or digital music service.
Why is this album unavailable? I've got one theory- Noir Desir has been more or less blackballed outside France because its lead singer and lyricist, Bertrand Cantat, brutally murdered his lover, Marie Trigninant. The couple were in Lithuania, and when injuries from Cantat's beating resulted in Trigninant's death several days later, the local government convicted Cantat of murder and put him away for eight years. Though Lithuania eventually agreed to Cantat's transfer to a French prison, the sentence stuck, and Noir Desir's reputation went down the toilet. It was impossible to mention the band without the murder.
When the first warm days of spring rolled around this year, the old craving for "Le vent nous portera" gnawed at me. I broke down and imported it from France- the only country I've found still willing to sell it. Weeks passed, the CD didn't arrive. Delirium tremors began. We wrote to Amazon France, and they graciously resent our order. Then, yesterday, a knock at the door. My cheerful, smiling postman held out a cardboard box from foreign lands, unaware of the dark, exciting mystery it contained.
When my husband and I moved to Italy, a friend introduced us to Manu Chao. His ethnic and cultural description on Wikipedia is enough to make your head spin. Manu Chao and his music are a mix of many Mediterranean cultures, and he's popular with the European liberal/communist intellectual crowd. Politics aside, he's a great musician, and he can make your knees melt when he plays the guitar. This brings me to the song that has literally carried me away, a song by French rock band, Noir Desir, in which Manu Chao is guest guitarist. It's no surprise that Noir Desir and Manu Chao teamed up. Noir Desir champions a similar European leftist agenda, anti-globilization, sticking it to the man (even when the man was the president of their record label, whom they defamed in person at one of their concerts).
The song that was the result of collaboration by Noir Desir and Manu Chao is called "Le vent nous portera." Translated, the track literally means: the wind will carry us away. The first time I heard this song I was struck by its wild, vibrant power. But the first listen is nothing. About the fourth or fifth time I heard "Le vent nous portera" on a warm spring night with the windows open and the house dark and otherwise silent, the guitar riffs and drum beats had wormed their way into my blood, infected me with the fever that is this song.
Now, to get this album, my husband had to import the CD (des Visages des Figures) from France (coincidentally the album was released in Europe on the infamous September 11, 2001). Des Visages des Figures is a great album with some fantastic tracks ("A l'envers à l'endroit" is another of my favorites), but something about "Le vent nous portera" catches the harsh passion of life and death. It is as though the springtime of new life and regeneration looks into the heart of death, rot, and decay from which it arises and does an impassioned dance in honor of the circle of life.
When we moved from Italy to New York, this album got left behind- temporarily. The temporary loss of our music collection has been eased by the digital music phenomenon. Between Rhapsody, iTunes, and emusic, we can find pretty much any track we crave- but not "Le vent nous portera." In fact, I couldn't find des Visages des Figures in any music store or American online store or digital music service.
Why is this album unavailable? I've got one theory- Noir Desir has been more or less blackballed outside France because its lead singer and lyricist, Bertrand Cantat, brutally murdered his lover, Marie Trigninant. The couple were in Lithuania, and when injuries from Cantat's beating resulted in Trigninant's death several days later, the local government convicted Cantat of murder and put him away for eight years. Though Lithuania eventually agreed to Cantat's transfer to a French prison, the sentence stuck, and Noir Desir's reputation went down the toilet. It was impossible to mention the band without the murder.
When the first warm days of spring rolled around this year, the old craving for "Le vent nous portera" gnawed at me. I broke down and imported it from France- the only country I've found still willing to sell it. Weeks passed, the CD didn't arrive. Delirium tremors began. We wrote to Amazon France, and they graciously resent our order. Then, yesterday, a knock at the door. My cheerful, smiling postman held out a cardboard box from foreign lands, unaware of the dark, exciting mystery it contained.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
See the Other Side
In my post today on the Friggin' Write blog, I give a very positive review to a story in the first person, present tense! For those who read my March 2nd rant on the overused combination of the first person and present tense in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, you'll be interested to read how much I enjoyed the offending combination as used by Tatyana Tolstaya in her literary short story, "See the Other Side." Since the story was published in The New Yorker, you can read and enjoy it online for free here.
So, first person, present tense in The New Yorker is cool, but I throw a fit when I read it in F&SF? My complaint with F&SF is that they're printing too many (at times exclusively) of this type of story. More specifically, I was pretty upset by how badly M. Rickert's "Memoir of a Deer Woman" used the present tense.
Tolstaya's translated story flows beautifully in the present tense. The protagonist's present tense journey is the frame for a story that goes back decades in time. Memories of actions and emotions in the past are crucial to the plot of the story, and the author's use of present tense for the present time in the story avoids time line confusion. The tense choice gracefully avoids a lot of awkward past perfect tense (past perfect = "he had already written", "she had already called"). The fact that the author is a middle-aged Russian woman and the protagonist is a middle-aged Russian woman makes the choice of the first person, I, natural and genuine. Far from detracting from a lovely story, the use of the first person, present tense made "See the Other Side" more engaging and warm.
So, first person, present tense in The New Yorker is cool, but I throw a fit when I read it in F&SF? My complaint with F&SF is that they're printing too many (at times exclusively) of this type of story. More specifically, I was pretty upset by how badly M. Rickert's "Memoir of a Deer Woman" used the present tense.
Tolstaya's translated story flows beautifully in the present tense. The protagonist's present tense journey is the frame for a story that goes back decades in time. Memories of actions and emotions in the past are crucial to the plot of the story, and the author's use of present tense for the present time in the story avoids time line confusion. The tense choice gracefully avoids a lot of awkward past perfect tense (past perfect = "he had already written", "she had already called"). The fact that the author is a middle-aged Russian woman and the protagonist is a middle-aged Russian woman makes the choice of the first person, I, natural and genuine. Far from detracting from a lovely story, the use of the first person, present tense made "See the Other Side" more engaging and warm.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Death of Salvador Dali
"There is only one difference between a madman and me - The madman thinks he is sane - I know I am mad."
Dali's surrealism was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious as described in The Interpretation of Dreams (read more). The 1939 meeting of Dali and Freud was the subject of Hysteria, a play by Terry Johnson, and was revisited by Bishop in the short film, The Death of Salvador Dali. In the film Dali has come to ask Freud for help with a very serious problem: Dali needs Freud to give him back his insanity, so he can paint as he once did when he was mad. The practical Freud refuses, but Dali woos him into a single session, and from that point the line between reality and dream becomes so blurred it ceases to exist.
The Death of Salvador Dali is fun short film worthy of its surrealist protagonist, Dali, and Freud's legacy to the interpretation of dreams.
-Salvador Dali
Dali's surrealism was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious as described in The Interpretation of Dreams (read more). The 1939 meeting of Dali and Freud was the subject of Hysteria, a play by Terry Johnson, and was revisited by Bishop in the short film, The Death of Salvador Dali. In the film Dali has come to ask Freud for help with a very serious problem: Dali needs Freud to give him back his insanity, so he can paint as he once did when he was mad. The practical Freud refuses, but Dali woos him into a single session, and from that point the line between reality and dream becomes so blurred it ceases to exist.
The Death of Salvador Dali is fun short film worthy of its surrealist protagonist, Dali, and Freud's legacy to the interpretation of dreams.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Horowitz/Smith "Doppleganger" Definitely Portent of Bad Things to Come
Thank goodness the short film Doppleganger (written and directed by Michael Horowitz and co-directed by Gareth Smith) was only 14 minutes long. This supposed thriller was far from spooky or dreamlike. The entire film was just a big voice-over, except for rare snatches of dialog that would have sounded corny in a middle school play.
The idea of the dopplegänger, or sinister double (often a portent of bad luck in German folklore), has been done so many times in TV and film and been the title of so many movies, that I had trouble pegging down the stinker I wanted to review on IMDB. Does this mean playing with a character's other self is doomed to ridiculous cliché? Hardly. Since I've been mentioning the Buffyverse frequently in recent posts, I'll cite the BtVS episode, Doppelgängland, as an example of the fun that can be had with doppelgängers.
Wikipedia takes a look at a stock character related to the dopplegänger, the evil twin, and quite aptly explains that the evil twin retains the same fundamental characteristics of the original character, but the character's morality does a 180. So, in the episode "Doppelgängland," the sweet and gentle Willow becomes a bloodthirsty killer (she's still intelligent, stubborn, and quirky). This is a key element to why Horowitz and Smith's Doppelganger doesn't work: the doppelgänger convention requires that the audience is familiar with the original character. This means the convention is best employed in a serial television or comic series, and at the least requires a feature-length to establish the original character and his/her doppelgänger flipside. How can the doppelgänger's twisted personality resonate if we're unfamiliar with the original's quirks and characteristics? Horowitz/Smith attempt to shortcut this familiarity by telling us the original is a successful advertising exec with tons of money, a cool pad, and hot girlfriend. This is a stereotype, not a character, and the ad exec's doppelgänger is as predictably boring as he is.
I try to say something good about everything I review, so I'll say that actress Rebecca Gayheart, who turned out to be the actual protagonist in the painfully inept twist ending, was striking and would play well in a film that was actually thrilling or spooky.
The idea of the dopplegänger, or sinister double (often a portent of bad luck in German folklore), has been done so many times in TV and film and been the title of so many movies, that I had trouble pegging down the stinker I wanted to review on IMDB. Does this mean playing with a character's other self is doomed to ridiculous cliché? Hardly. Since I've been mentioning the Buffyverse frequently in recent posts, I'll cite the BtVS episode, Doppelgängland, as an example of the fun that can be had with doppelgängers.
Wikipedia takes a look at a stock character related to the dopplegänger, the evil twin, and quite aptly explains that the evil twin retains the same fundamental characteristics of the original character, but the character's morality does a 180. So, in the episode "Doppelgängland," the sweet and gentle Willow becomes a bloodthirsty killer (she's still intelligent, stubborn, and quirky). This is a key element to why Horowitz and Smith's Doppelganger doesn't work: the doppelgänger convention requires that the audience is familiar with the original character. This means the convention is best employed in a serial television or comic series, and at the least requires a feature-length to establish the original character and his/her doppelgänger flipside. How can the doppelgänger's twisted personality resonate if we're unfamiliar with the original's quirks and characteristics? Horowitz/Smith attempt to shortcut this familiarity by telling us the original is a successful advertising exec with tons of money, a cool pad, and hot girlfriend. This is a stereotype, not a character, and the ad exec's doppelgänger is as predictably boring as he is.
I try to say something good about everything I review, so I'll say that actress Rebecca Gayheart, who turned out to be the actual protagonist in the painfully inept twist ending, was striking and would play well in a film that was actually thrilling or spooky.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Amphibious Houses and Sea Snakes
In the news recently have been some interesting futuristic engineering solutions to building homes and harnessing energy. Notice the common theme- water!
Amphibious houses, or "floating eco-homes," as the BBC article terms them, are already in use in the Netherlands, where rising water and real estate shortage have birthed the invention of a home that can float on water. If you're not a young Dutch couple desperate to move out of the tiny apartment you share with in-laws, this is still an interesting technology to follow. Amphibious houses can withstand flooding (accommodating a water rise up to 13 feet) and are promising alternatives to coastal housing in flood zones. People with their eyes on a future drowned by global warming can also imagine these houses as models for "floating cities" of the future.
Sea snakes are being used by Scottish engineers to harvest wave farms off the coast of Scotland and Portugal (read the BBC article on sea snakes). Sea snakes are actually enormous metal tubes called a Pelamis wave energy converter. In very simple terms, the rocking of the waves rocks the metal tube. The pulsing motion of the tube pushes hydraulic fluid through a generator to produce electricity. An interesting problem of wave farming is that engineers purposely build them to be inefficient. Wikipedia says that's because a storm at sea could cause a power surge that would put Marvel Comic's Electro to shame (they didn't say it exactly like that, but you get the point). I love the concept of tapping into the unfathomable power of the ocean, and the fact that the biggest challenge in harnessing it is how to tone that power down.
Amphibious houses, or "floating eco-homes," as the BBC article terms them, are already in use in the Netherlands, where rising water and real estate shortage have birthed the invention of a home that can float on water. If you're not a young Dutch couple desperate to move out of the tiny apartment you share with in-laws, this is still an interesting technology to follow. Amphibious houses can withstand flooding (accommodating a water rise up to 13 feet) and are promising alternatives to coastal housing in flood zones. People with their eyes on a future drowned by global warming can also imagine these houses as models for "floating cities" of the future.
Sea snakes are being used by Scottish engineers to harvest wave farms off the coast of Scotland and Portugal (read the BBC article on sea snakes). Sea snakes are actually enormous metal tubes called a Pelamis wave energy converter. In very simple terms, the rocking of the waves rocks the metal tube. The pulsing motion of the tube pushes hydraulic fluid through a generator to produce electricity. An interesting problem of wave farming is that engineers purposely build them to be inefficient. Wikipedia says that's because a storm at sea could cause a power surge that would put Marvel Comic's Electro to shame (they didn't say it exactly like that, but you get the point). I love the concept of tapping into the unfathomable power of the ocean, and the fact that the biggest challenge in harnessing it is how to tone that power down.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Aluminum and Styrofoam
Two songs have really gotten under my skin over the past few weeks, and both are by Canadian artists. The first, "Aluminum", is off the Barenaked Ladies 2003 Everything to Everyone. Not only is the music great, but you've got to love the lyrics:
"Aluminum to me, aluminium to some. You can shine like silver all you want, but you're just aluminum."
I really respond to this song because it's such a heart-felt anthem to a mundane, everyday material. It's the stuff mom used to wrap your corned-beef sandwich, not an awe-inspiring woman or breath-taking vista. Just the fact that the Ladies took note of the aluminum in their lives fascinates me, and the same is true for Track 7 on Daniel Powter's 2005 debut album, an affectionate ballad to Styrofoam.
So what's in the water up in Canada, eh? Why are all these great musicians writing love songs to food wrap and packing material? I think the answer lies in the blend of the Anglo and French in Canadian culture.
The Barenaked Ladies are a band associated with fast food and mounds of macaroni and cheese thrown on stage while they're performing- there's nothing too français about that! But these guys throw out casual references to Truffaut with the same authority as they discuss their favorite American cartoons (see Barenaked Ladies - Barelaked Nadies). There's no doubt kids growing up in the strip malls of Scarborough, Ontario (like the BNL's Steve Page and Ed Robertson) had more references to French culture in their daily lives than their counterparts on the other side of Niagara Falls. One aspect of French literature and cinema that seems to have really influenced Canadian artists, like the Barenaked Ladies and Daniel Powter, is an eye for the fabric of daily life.
If you're not up to jumping into a Truffaut film, take a look at The Dreamers, an English/French production that uses modern sensibility to pay tribute to hallmarks of French cinema. Where is the eye of the camera going in The Dreamers? Why are the filmmakers showing us the worn bristles on a toothbrush, the pattern on the tablecloth, a frying egg, the garbage behind the apartment building?
Aren't these the details the audience wants left out of the story? In the case of French cinema and literature, the answer is no.
The French aesthetic argues that our lives are made from details, from a series of ablutions, chores, meals, conversations. A character's personality is defined by his everyday actions, and the movement of his character arc can sometimes be communicated to the audience by the smallest change in routine or circumstance.
Francophiles may dream of an everyday world of hot coffee, crusty bread, checked tablecloths, and quaint balconies. Kids who grew up in Ontario or British Columbia experienced a different reality, one of Nintendo games, juice boxes, pizza, and ham and cheese sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil.
"Aluminum to me, aluminium to some. You can shine like silver all you want, but you're just aluminum."
I really respond to this song because it's such a heart-felt anthem to a mundane, everyday material. It's the stuff mom used to wrap your corned-beef sandwich, not an awe-inspiring woman or breath-taking vista. Just the fact that the Ladies took note of the aluminum in their lives fascinates me, and the same is true for Track 7 on Daniel Powter's 2005 debut album, an affectionate ballad to Styrofoam.
So what's in the water up in Canada, eh? Why are all these great musicians writing love songs to food wrap and packing material? I think the answer lies in the blend of the Anglo and French in Canadian culture.
The Barenaked Ladies are a band associated with fast food and mounds of macaroni and cheese thrown on stage while they're performing- there's nothing too français about that! But these guys throw out casual references to Truffaut with the same authority as they discuss their favorite American cartoons (see Barenaked Ladies - Barelaked Nadies). There's no doubt kids growing up in the strip malls of Scarborough, Ontario (like the BNL's Steve Page and Ed Robertson) had more references to French culture in their daily lives than their counterparts on the other side of Niagara Falls. One aspect of French literature and cinema that seems to have really influenced Canadian artists, like the Barenaked Ladies and Daniel Powter, is an eye for the fabric of daily life.
If you're not up to jumping into a Truffaut film, take a look at The Dreamers, an English/French production that uses modern sensibility to pay tribute to hallmarks of French cinema. Where is the eye of the camera going in The Dreamers? Why are the filmmakers showing us the worn bristles on a toothbrush, the pattern on the tablecloth, a frying egg, the garbage behind the apartment building?
Aren't these the details the audience wants left out of the story? In the case of French cinema and literature, the answer is no.
The French aesthetic argues that our lives are made from details, from a series of ablutions, chores, meals, conversations. A character's personality is defined by his everyday actions, and the movement of his character arc can sometimes be communicated to the audience by the smallest change in routine or circumstance.
Francophiles may dream of an everyday world of hot coffee, crusty bread, checked tablecloths, and quaint balconies. Kids who grew up in Ontario or British Columbia experienced a different reality, one of Nintendo games, juice boxes, pizza, and ham and cheese sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
About a Little Girl
In the news today is the discovery of an unpublished poem by William Carlos Williams. Williams hung out with some pretty big names in literary history- Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, even James Joyce. But before you get the idea he was one of those expatriate writers scribbling away at cafés, the real story behind William Carlos Williams is that he was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from England and Puerto Rico. He spent some of his med school years in Europe, but did his internship in New York City. He settled down with a wife and medical practice in New Jersey.
William Carlos Williams is associated with a truckload of isms: liberalism, socialism, imagism, American Modernism, Dadaism- he even mentored poets of the Beat Generation, and influenced and wrote the introduction to Allen Ginsberg's Howl (see my post on Howl). But putting all those isms aside, what I love about William Carlos Williams are poems like those found in Pictures from Brueghel, which are so far removed from politics and isms, and are such lovely, intimate epiphanies about the pleasure and pain of being alive.
"About a Little Girl," the poem which has just been discovered, is one such intimate poem. Williams wrote the poem for the daughter of family friends- the eleven-year-old girl had been diagnosed with leukemia. As a physician, Williams reviewed the little girl's medical tests, and believed she would die. According to the article I read, "The poem contrasts a happy, outgoing "angel" of a child with the death he [Williams] believed would overtake her."
Happily Dr. Williams was wrong, and the child lived to be a 92-year-old grandmother. One of her grandsons became a professor of English and, realizing what a treasure his family had been keeping as a personal keepsake since 1921, decided to to donate the poem today to Southeast Missouri State University.
William Carlos Williams is associated with a truckload of isms: liberalism, socialism, imagism, American Modernism, Dadaism- he even mentored poets of the Beat Generation, and influenced and wrote the introduction to Allen Ginsberg's Howl (see my post on Howl). But putting all those isms aside, what I love about William Carlos Williams are poems like those found in Pictures from Brueghel, which are so far removed from politics and isms, and are such lovely, intimate epiphanies about the pleasure and pain of being alive.
"About a Little Girl," the poem which has just been discovered, is one such intimate poem. Williams wrote the poem for the daughter of family friends- the eleven-year-old girl had been diagnosed with leukemia. As a physician, Williams reviewed the little girl's medical tests, and believed she would die. According to the article I read, "The poem contrasts a happy, outgoing "angel" of a child with the death he [Williams] believed would overtake her."
Happily Dr. Williams was wrong, and the child lived to be a 92-year-old grandmother. One of her grandsons became a professor of English and, realizing what a treasure his family had been keeping as a personal keepsake since 1921, decided to to donate the poem today to Southeast Missouri State University.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Historian- Dracula 2.0
Since Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897, thousands of stories, books, stage plays, films, and TV series have been based on his tale. Success in recapturing Stoker's magic varies wildly, from cheesy B flicks to imaginative reinventions of vampire lore such as Joss Whedon's Buffyverse. But I've only read one novel that comes close to the voyeuristic thrill of reading the letters and journal entries of Lucy, Mina, Johnathan, Dr. Seward- and that is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Like Stoker, Kostova's tale is at once about powerful supernatural forces and the very personal lives disrupted by them. Kostova ups the drama of learning the story in scraps of journal entries, letters, and stories by scattering these sources through three distinct time lines. Further, Kostova develops the idea of epistolary storytelling by making the revelatory documents, themselves, magical. If you love libraries, the scent of old books, the thrill of unfolding a brittle, yellowed map, this book is for you.
It is interesting to note that The Historian, on the New York Times bestseller list in 2005, awarded the Book Sense Adult Fiction "Book of the Year" award in 2006, is actually set in 2008! In our near-future "present" a woman tells us the story of how her family was torn apart by Vlad Tepes (aka Dracula). Our narrator's part in the tale unfolds when she was a young woman in the early 1970's. The narrator is chasing after her father, who in turn is in pursuit of her long-lost mother. The narrator delves into events involving her father before her birth in the 1950's. Her 1950's history major father, in his turn, must go back in time to the 1930's to learn the fate of his mentor. And so, from generation to generation, the historians of the family are inducted, shaking with equal doses of fear and pique, into the knowledge of Dracula.
If, like me, you've ever spent a rainy day sunk deep in a library chair, rereading Bram Stoker's Dracula for one more delicious taste of his characters and his mastery of the art of suspense, then grab a copy of The Historian- it's Dracula 2.0, and a ton of fun for fans of Dracula.
It is interesting to note that The Historian, on the New York Times bestseller list in 2005, awarded the Book Sense Adult Fiction "Book of the Year" award in 2006, is actually set in 2008! In our near-future "present" a woman tells us the story of how her family was torn apart by Vlad Tepes (aka Dracula). Our narrator's part in the tale unfolds when she was a young woman in the early 1970's. The narrator is chasing after her father, who in turn is in pursuit of her long-lost mother. The narrator delves into events involving her father before her birth in the 1950's. Her 1950's history major father, in his turn, must go back in time to the 1930's to learn the fate of his mentor. And so, from generation to generation, the historians of the family are inducted, shaking with equal doses of fear and pique, into the knowledge of Dracula.
If, like me, you've ever spent a rainy day sunk deep in a library chair, rereading Bram Stoker's Dracula for one more delicious taste of his characters and his mastery of the art of suspense, then grab a copy of The Historian- it's Dracula 2.0, and a ton of fun for fans of Dracula.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Terabithia, Kingdom of the Mind
I saw a movie trailer for Bridge to Terabithia (in theaters now). The name brought back memories of school librarians and Newbery Medal books (the book was awarded a Newbery in 1978). The title of the book was so familiar, yet I can't recall having actually read it. Was it one of the books read out loud to us at school? I don't think so, because I remember so many of them so well: Charlotte's Web, The Whipping Boy, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
The movie trailer I saw was packed with CGI fantasy shots- I figured I'd want to watch it sooner or later, so I ordered a copy of the book, Bridge to Terabithia, and began to read. I liked what I found from the very first page. Superb prose plunked the reader right into protagonist Jesse's running shoes. His bleak home and school life were rendered with just the right details to make the character and the world hyper realistic.
Two things really surprised me about Bridge to Terabithia. First- it wasn't a fantasy. Sure, fantasy readers will find homages to C.S. Lewis as Leslie makes up stories for Jesse in their make-believe magical kingdom. But Terabithia isn't a fantasy world the children travel to, and it's not even the patch of unused farmland where they play. Terabithia is a state of mind, one which Jesse would have never discovered if Leslie Burke hadn't moved in next door.
This brings me to the second big surprise- I can't imagine my elementary school librarian recommending this book to Midwestern kids- but I know she did! According to Wikipedia, the book ranks #9 on a list of Most Frequently Challenged Books (1990-2000) by the American Library Association. Author Katherine Patterson was writing in the late seventies. She writes plainly about poverty and ignorance in rural America, she talks about the Vietnam war and about hippies. She makes it clear that Jesse's father disapproves of his drawing, because dad thinks it shows a leaning toward homosexuality. Leslie and her family don't believe in God- and Jesse's little sister asks quite plainly whether Leslie will be damned to hell when she dies.
Bridge to Terabithia has probably survived these challenges and remained in the cannon of children's literature because it does such a good job of capturing the psyche of childhood- small hopes, like being the best runner in the 5th grade, magnified to importance it could only have for a youngster. Patterson's execution of Jesse's character arc is a powerful story of growing up, and touches readers young and old. His cohort and Queen in Terabithia, Leslie, brings the books, the colors, the imagination needed to ignite his growth.
I'll never forget Jesse Oliver Aarons. Life was unfair to him again and again, but he was able to take "not fair" as a matter of course and keep doing what he had to do- which, as it turns out, was to become a young man.
The movie trailer I saw was packed with CGI fantasy shots- I figured I'd want to watch it sooner or later, so I ordered a copy of the book, Bridge to Terabithia, and began to read. I liked what I found from the very first page. Superb prose plunked the reader right into protagonist Jesse's running shoes. His bleak home and school life were rendered with just the right details to make the character and the world hyper realistic.
Two things really surprised me about Bridge to Terabithia. First- it wasn't a fantasy. Sure, fantasy readers will find homages to C.S. Lewis as Leslie makes up stories for Jesse in their make-believe magical kingdom. But Terabithia isn't a fantasy world the children travel to, and it's not even the patch of unused farmland where they play. Terabithia is a state of mind, one which Jesse would have never discovered if Leslie Burke hadn't moved in next door.
This brings me to the second big surprise- I can't imagine my elementary school librarian recommending this book to Midwestern kids- but I know she did! According to Wikipedia, the book ranks #9 on a list of Most Frequently Challenged Books (1990-2000) by the American Library Association. Author Katherine Patterson was writing in the late seventies. She writes plainly about poverty and ignorance in rural America, she talks about the Vietnam war and about hippies. She makes it clear that Jesse's father disapproves of his drawing, because dad thinks it shows a leaning toward homosexuality. Leslie and her family don't believe in God- and Jesse's little sister asks quite plainly whether Leslie will be damned to hell when she dies.
Bridge to Terabithia has probably survived these challenges and remained in the cannon of children's literature because it does such a good job of capturing the psyche of childhood- small hopes, like being the best runner in the 5th grade, magnified to importance it could only have for a youngster. Patterson's execution of Jesse's character arc is a powerful story of growing up, and touches readers young and old. His cohort and Queen in Terabithia, Leslie, brings the books, the colors, the imagination needed to ignite his growth.
I'll never forget Jesse Oliver Aarons. Life was unfair to him again and again, but he was able to take "not fair" as a matter of course and keep doing what he had to do- which, as it turns out, was to become a young man.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
After the Siege
The final story in Cory Doctorow's Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present is the perfect ending to the book. It revisits themes from some of my favorite stories in the collection, and takes the reader on a journey uniquely that of protagonist, Valentina.
In his introduction to the story, Doctorow explains how this story grew out of the strange marriage of his interest in copyright and patent law and the horrific WWII stories his grandmother (no coincidence, her name is Valentina) told him as they walked the streets of St. Petersburg. The story that results uses the idea from the first short in the collection, "Printcrime," of a futuristic printer that can make household items- clothes, furniture, food, medicine. Inevitably, pirated copies of household goods abound, and the government cracks down on stolen intellectual property turned boxer shorts and beer. In "After the Siege," Doctorow goes a step further, and sets us in world clearly the parallel to Eastern Europe between WWI and WWII. In this post-war world, printers serve the everyday needs of the people, from food and tasty sweets to hearing aids for deaf children, but they also construct buildings- hospitals, schools, even a movie theater. Life is good, until the foreign power who created the technology gets mad that the Eastern European nation didn't pay them for the new life they're printing. After all these folks are pirating their new standard of living- they're thieves. The rich foreign power (let's stop kidding around and call it a futuristic U.S.) bombs the heck out of the Eastern Europeans who pirated their technology, and releases a malware (think software virus) that leaves the population without functioning printers- and, in effect, without hospitals, medicine, clothing, or even food. The evil futuristic U.S. is more than willing to beat, starve, and bomb the poorer nation into respecting copyright.
So, what does the starving, limping nation do? It fights back!
Doctorow does a pretty good job of weaving these high-level concepts with the low-level view of protagonist, Valentina. Like her literary cousin, Anda ("Anda's Game"), Valentina loves sweets. She likes going to the movies, talking with her friends. Then her life is gutted by the bombing of her city and the war. She follows a pretty grim path during the siege, fighting off zombies (the enemy releases a new strain of the zombiism virus), digging trenches, losing teeth and fingers, working corpse duty for an extra half ration of pebble-weighted bread. There's a dark shadow of survival horror in here, based on what Doctorow's grandmother lived through, but also reminiscent of the gut-level shock in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth."
"After the Siege" starts with flying cars and candy forests, a cinema whose seats fly out like the senate seats in Star Wars, Episode II. Later there will be vampires- would it surprise you if I said there was also a wizard? Like the rest of the fantastical elements in this tale, the wizard has its roots in Doctorow's practical vision of the future.
But don't think that practicality keeps the sense of magic from sparkling through even the darkest alleys of "After the Seige."
I'd asses this story much the way I'd asses the collection as a whole: a morass of excellent ideas, an unabashed fascination with copyright law, and a good dose of excitement. "After the Siege," like most of Doctorow's stories, goes a few pages longer than I would like. I guess someone with such a strong vision of the future can't leave his readers without a glimpse at what's in store for his characters' tomorrows. Despite this and a few small stylistic lapses, the collection had something to say and sent the reader on some fun and thrilling adventures while saying it. That's good science fiction!
In his introduction to the story, Doctorow explains how this story grew out of the strange marriage of his interest in copyright and patent law and the horrific WWII stories his grandmother (no coincidence, her name is Valentina) told him as they walked the streets of St. Petersburg. The story that results uses the idea from the first short in the collection, "Printcrime," of a futuristic printer that can make household items- clothes, furniture, food, medicine. Inevitably, pirated copies of household goods abound, and the government cracks down on stolen intellectual property turned boxer shorts and beer. In "After the Siege," Doctorow goes a step further, and sets us in world clearly the parallel to Eastern Europe between WWI and WWII. In this post-war world, printers serve the everyday needs of the people, from food and tasty sweets to hearing aids for deaf children, but they also construct buildings- hospitals, schools, even a movie theater. Life is good, until the foreign power who created the technology gets mad that the Eastern European nation didn't pay them for the new life they're printing. After all these folks are pirating their new standard of living- they're thieves. The rich foreign power (let's stop kidding around and call it a futuristic U.S.) bombs the heck out of the Eastern Europeans who pirated their technology, and releases a malware (think software virus) that leaves the population without functioning printers- and, in effect, without hospitals, medicine, clothing, or even food. The evil futuristic U.S. is more than willing to beat, starve, and bomb the poorer nation into respecting copyright.
So, what does the starving, limping nation do? It fights back!
Doctorow does a pretty good job of weaving these high-level concepts with the low-level view of protagonist, Valentina. Like her literary cousin, Anda ("Anda's Game"), Valentina loves sweets. She likes going to the movies, talking with her friends. Then her life is gutted by the bombing of her city and the war. She follows a pretty grim path during the siege, fighting off zombies (the enemy releases a new strain of the zombiism virus), digging trenches, losing teeth and fingers, working corpse duty for an extra half ration of pebble-weighted bread. There's a dark shadow of survival horror in here, based on what Doctorow's grandmother lived through, but also reminiscent of the gut-level shock in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth."
"After the Siege" starts with flying cars and candy forests, a cinema whose seats fly out like the senate seats in Star Wars, Episode II. Later there will be vampires- would it surprise you if I said there was also a wizard? Like the rest of the fantastical elements in this tale, the wizard has its roots in Doctorow's practical vision of the future.
But don't think that practicality keeps the sense of magic from sparkling through even the darkest alleys of "After the Seige."
I'd asses this story much the way I'd asses the collection as a whole: a morass of excellent ideas, an unabashed fascination with copyright law, and a good dose of excitement. "After the Siege," like most of Doctorow's stories, goes a few pages longer than I would like. I guess someone with such a strong vision of the future can't leave his readers without a glimpse at what's in store for his characters' tomorrows. Despite this and a few small stylistic lapses, the collection had something to say and sent the reader on some fun and thrilling adventures while saying it. That's good science fiction!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
New Publishing Models
In today's post on frigginwrite.com I introduce writers outside the spec fiction world to Cory Doctorow and ask how giving his books away for free is making him so much money.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
BtVS- Where it all began
The Buffyverse will always be one of my favorite fictional worlds. Today I read the script that started it all.
If you've ever read a movie script, you know there's an awful lot of white space on that paper! Screenwriting gurus Robin Russin and William Downs advise screenwriters to be be "as tight and short as possible: Don't use three words if two will suffice" (from Screenplay: Writing the Picture).
Take a look at what Joss Whedon made of that advice:
BUFFY'S MOM
Well, that's everything. Kiss noise.
She actually makes a kiss noise at her daughter.
BUFFY
'Bye.
Buffy's mom heads out the door.
Joss Whedon stops the all-important forward motion of the film to inject his sense of irony. We could probably pare "She actually makes a kiss noise at her daughter" down to "kiss noise," but I'm sure Russin and Downs would agree that if we did, we'd lose something important to making the film.
Whedon breaks some other cardinal screenwriting rules- most notably being ultra-specific about prop and costume details screenwriters should usually leave for the prop and costume department to figure out. Buffy and drooling boyfriend are having popcorn on the couch. Whedon stops to tell us Buffy is "spraying diet butter substitute on it." Wow, is that specific. I also loved Whedon's description of the outfits mall princesses Buffy and friends are wearing at the beginning of the film: "they are all dressed very similarly: bright colors, a lot of white and pink. Not trashy, but mainstream and uninspired. Esprit."
Fans of the TV series will find lots of familiar Whedonisms in the script- from witty quip to Buffy fighting the "king" of the vampires in a prom dress a little worse for the demon-fighting wear.
If you've ever read a movie script, you know there's an awful lot of white space on that paper! Screenwriting gurus Robin Russin and William Downs advise screenwriters to be be "as tight and short as possible: Don't use three words if two will suffice" (from Screenplay: Writing the Picture).
Take a look at what Joss Whedon made of that advice:
BUFFY'S MOM
Well, that's everything. Kiss noise.
She actually makes a kiss noise at her daughter.
BUFFY
'Bye.
Buffy's mom heads out the door.
Joss Whedon stops the all-important forward motion of the film to inject his sense of irony. We could probably pare "She actually makes a kiss noise at her daughter" down to "kiss noise," but I'm sure Russin and Downs would agree that if we did, we'd lose something important to making the film.
Whedon breaks some other cardinal screenwriting rules- most notably being ultra-specific about prop and costume details screenwriters should usually leave for the prop and costume department to figure out. Buffy and drooling boyfriend are having popcorn on the couch. Whedon stops to tell us Buffy is "spraying diet butter substitute on it." Wow, is that specific. I also loved Whedon's description of the outfits mall princesses Buffy and friends are wearing at the beginning of the film: "they are all dressed very similarly: bright colors, a lot of white and pink. Not trashy, but mainstream and uninspired. Esprit."
Fans of the TV series will find lots of familiar Whedonisms in the script- from witty quip to Buffy fighting the "king" of the vampires in a prom dress a little worse for the demon-fighting wear.
Monday, March 05, 2007
The Goldfish Are Alive!
On Thursday I posted about the fate of the goldfish frozen in the pond next door. I thought they were goners. But, good news! Now that the ice has melted, the familiar orange bodies are darting around in the water again.
Miracle? Cryogenics?
No- when I stuck my head way over the fence to get a good look, I saw that a small section of the ceramic water container goes deep underground. Warm water is actually more dense than cold water, so the warmest water (and the fish) head as low as they can go.
Goldfish hibernate in the winter- lowering their metabolic rate and basically chilling out until the warm weather comes again. Wikipedia's article on goldfish in ponds says that as long as the entire pond isn't frozen (as I feared it had), the goldfish survive unharmed. In fact, goldfish are one of the few species known to survive anoxia, or the absence of oxygen. They survive by lowering their metabolic rate. As with our cryogenic frog friends, regulation of glucose plays a major role during anoxia and reoxygenation (waking up from anoxia).
Ironically the organs undergo the worst stress not during anoxia, but during the period of reoxygenation. The liver suffers the most, but the brain and kidneys are also affected. Goldlfish (and our friends the wood frogs) rely on the elevated presence of antioxidants in their body chemistry to ease the strain of warming up back to life again. (Source: Oxidative stress and antioxidant defenses in goldfish Carassius auratus during anoxia and reoxygenation).
Miracle? Cryogenics?
No- when I stuck my head way over the fence to get a good look, I saw that a small section of the ceramic water container goes deep underground. Warm water is actually more dense than cold water, so the warmest water (and the fish) head as low as they can go.
Goldfish hibernate in the winter- lowering their metabolic rate and basically chilling out until the warm weather comes again. Wikipedia's article on goldfish in ponds says that as long as the entire pond isn't frozen (as I feared it had), the goldfish survive unharmed. In fact, goldfish are one of the few species known to survive anoxia, or the absence of oxygen. They survive by lowering their metabolic rate. As with our cryogenic frog friends, regulation of glucose plays a major role during anoxia and reoxygenation (waking up from anoxia).
Ironically the organs undergo the worst stress not during anoxia, but during the period of reoxygenation. The liver suffers the most, but the brain and kidneys are also affected. Goldlfish (and our friends the wood frogs) rely on the elevated presence of antioxidants in their body chemistry to ease the strain of warming up back to life again. (Source: Oxidative stress and antioxidant defenses in goldfish Carassius auratus during anoxia and reoxygenation).
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The Prestige- Men and Magic
This weekend for Saturday movie night I was drawn into the dangerous world of magic and illusion by The Prestige. This Oscar-nominated film promised a lot of fun: rival magicians, beautiful assistants, magic tricks, secret codes, mystery- but there was a lot more to The Prestige than smoke and mirrors. Director Christopher Nolan delivered a story within a story within a story, giving the film a complexity and texture reminiscent of Nolan's Memento, while keeping a tight focus on the storyline and delivering viewers with both a behind-the-scenes look at illusion and a thrilling dose of real magic.
The Prestige is based on a book by Christopher Priest and was adapted for film by Christopher Nolan and his brother, Johnathan (fans of Memento will remember that Christopher's screenplay was based on Johnathan's short story "Memento Mori"). When these brothers put their heads together nothing is exactly as it seems- an ideal setting for a story about magicians.
Anyone who has seen a magician perform can understand the thrill, the showmanship, the titillating sense of danger as the magician is strapped into a straight jacket or prepares to saw his lovely assistant in two. The Prestige makes us experience the real risk of performing these tricks. I loved the shorthand of the disappearing doves and birds to express the brutal side of the magician's craft, and I loved the parallel drawn between the magicians' birds and the women in their lives. Science fiction fans will also be thrilled to meet Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie) and learn how the Tesla coil figures into the rivalry as The Great Danton tries to discover the secret of The Professor's greatest trick, "The Transported Man."
Fans of Memento will notice that The Prestige is more explicit than Memento. In an attempt to make sure the audience "gets" the ending, some exposition occurs at the climax of the film that may bother people who would rather puzzle the mystery out for themselves. Characters also explicitly tell the audience that obsession is ruining both "The Great Danton" and "The Professor- a fact the filmmakers had already made obvious and hardly needed to mention in dialog. Aside from these minor quibbles, this film was fun, exciting, and managed the daunting task of avoiding black hats and white hats. There are no good guys or bad guys in this film- only men, and magic.
The Prestige is based on a book by Christopher Priest and was adapted for film by Christopher Nolan and his brother, Johnathan (fans of Memento will remember that Christopher's screenplay was based on Johnathan's short story "Memento Mori"). When these brothers put their heads together nothing is exactly as it seems- an ideal setting for a story about magicians.
Anyone who has seen a magician perform can understand the thrill, the showmanship, the titillating sense of danger as the magician is strapped into a straight jacket or prepares to saw his lovely assistant in two. The Prestige makes us experience the real risk of performing these tricks. I loved the shorthand of the disappearing doves and birds to express the brutal side of the magician's craft, and I loved the parallel drawn between the magicians' birds and the women in their lives. Science fiction fans will also be thrilled to meet Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie) and learn how the Tesla coil figures into the rivalry as The Great Danton tries to discover the secret of The Professor's greatest trick, "The Transported Man."
Fans of Memento will notice that The Prestige is more explicit than Memento. In an attempt to make sure the audience "gets" the ending, some exposition occurs at the climax of the film that may bother people who would rather puzzle the mystery out for themselves. Characters also explicitly tell the audience that obsession is ruining both "The Great Danton" and "The Professor- a fact the filmmakers had already made obvious and hardly needed to mention in dialog. Aside from these minor quibbles, this film was fun, exciting, and managed the daunting task of avoiding black hats and white hats. There are no good guys or bad guys in this film- only men, and magic.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth
No, this isn't a tale about a group of anti-socials who use their technological skills to take over the world (muhaha). It's the second story in Cory Doctorow's collection, Overclocked, and it's the most emotionally powerful story from the author I've read to date.
In his introduction Doctorow tells us he's done some time as a sysadmin. What shines through in this story isn't only a knowledge of the profession, but familiarity with the people who work in the field. This allows Doctorow to create characters so real they feel like the actual people in black t-shirts who keep the network running at your office. Great characterization from start to finish makes this a gripping story.
Some pretty bad stuff goes down in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth." We're talking end-of-the-human-race scenarios, scary stuff. The journey through these terrifying times is made more visceral by experiencing it through the eyes of protagonist, Felix. When Felix gets his first taste of the disaster that's just struck, I felt it on my skin, in my belly. For a moment I was just as scared and sickened as he was.
It's no surprise Felix and the survivors he gathers around him look for a tech-savvy solution to the crisis. What's interesting is how conflicted these solutions are, and the personalities that suggest them. Once again Doctorow made me unsure which of the conflicting viewpoints was the "right" one. I could understand where both parties were coming from, and I looked to the journey of the story to help me out of the moral dilemma. That's great writing.
As in "I, Rowboat", the ending of "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" gave me the feeling of a beautiful bird with salt poured on its tail- the ending went too far past the main events of the story, weighed it down, and didn't let it take off in spiritual flight. I forgave the heavy ending in this case because the central question of the story did concern rebuilding and the future of civilization, and because the rest of the story was so darn good. Highly recommended.
In his introduction Doctorow tells us he's done some time as a sysadmin. What shines through in this story isn't only a knowledge of the profession, but familiarity with the people who work in the field. This allows Doctorow to create characters so real they feel like the actual people in black t-shirts who keep the network running at your office. Great characterization from start to finish makes this a gripping story.
Some pretty bad stuff goes down in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth." We're talking end-of-the-human-race scenarios, scary stuff. The journey through these terrifying times is made more visceral by experiencing it through the eyes of protagonist, Felix. When Felix gets his first taste of the disaster that's just struck, I felt it on my skin, in my belly. For a moment I was just as scared and sickened as he was.
It's no surprise Felix and the survivors he gathers around him look for a tech-savvy solution to the crisis. What's interesting is how conflicted these solutions are, and the personalities that suggest them. Once again Doctorow made me unsure which of the conflicting viewpoints was the "right" one. I could understand where both parties were coming from, and I looked to the journey of the story to help me out of the moral dilemma. That's great writing.
As in "I, Rowboat", the ending of "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" gave me the feeling of a beautiful bird with salt poured on its tail- the ending went too far past the main events of the story, weighed it down, and didn't let it take off in spiritual flight. I forgave the heavy ending in this case because the central question of the story did concern rebuilding and the future of civilization, and because the rest of the story was so darn good. Highly recommended.
Friday, March 02, 2007
"Memoir of a Deer Woman" Far Cry from a "Blessing"
I have been noticing a trend in Fantasy & Science Fiction toward short story narrative in the present tense. The classic short story is written in the third person and in the past tense. Writers sometimes make a conscious choice to alter this- choosing the first person "I" voice, and/or choosing the present tense instead of the past to best tell their story. I've mentioned instances in Fantasy & Science Fiction in which these changes have worked well, such as when Carol Emshwiller published "Killer" in the October/November double issue. (see the post).
Two out of the two short stories in the March issue of F&SF are in the present tense. This is getting silly- present tense is an artistically selected deviation, not a norm. What's worse, M. Rickert's "Memoir of a Deer Woman" is so awkward in the present tense ("Her husband takes him out") that she must often write in the future tense ("He'll accept this as reasonable") and the conditional ("she would look at forever"). I'm all for trying out new ways of writing, but come on. We're not far from reading a story like this:
Susan will take her purse off the counter and walk out the door. She might forget her cell phone on the counter, and the global positioning device embedded in the phone could potentially make her show up as being at home when she is actually at the office. If a horrible disaster strikes and her husband is desperately trying to locate her, this might create problems.
That's not the kind of story I want to read. Do you see how the use of the future and conditional takes all the tension and drama out of the story?
To make matters worse, the protagonist of Rickert's story is a would-be writer with writer's block. She goes to hang out with other would-be writers with writer's block by attending a writers' group. It takes an enormous amount of magic to make a story about writing enjoyable, and "Memoir of a Deer Woman" didn't have it.
The first two-thirds of the story are from the viewpoint of the protagonist, then she drops out of the tale and the rest of the story kaleidoscopes through perspectives of her husband, random people we've never met before, and a member of the writers' group. This kind of kaleidoscopic perspective is best used for special effect in novels, not in very short stories. The tale ends through the eyes of the member of the writers' group. She is philosophizing on the nature of words, what they mean as symbols, in and of themselves. Rickert follows this philosophizing by telling us life is an "exquisite blessing." The connotation of the word "blessing" is religious. Nothing in the previous nine pages of story had religious overtones. This inappropriate use of a word in a story all about words destroyed the effect Rickert was trying to create.
The conceit of the story was fine. I liked the way the magical transformation was compared to suffering from cancer, and the idea of the words cut from the memoirs could have been cool. Rickert does an excellent job of establishing the setting in very few words.
Two out of the two short stories in the March issue of F&SF are in the present tense. This is getting silly- present tense is an artistically selected deviation, not a norm. What's worse, M. Rickert's "Memoir of a Deer Woman" is so awkward in the present tense ("Her husband takes him out") that she must often write in the future tense ("He'll accept this as reasonable") and the conditional ("she would look at forever"). I'm all for trying out new ways of writing, but come on. We're not far from reading a story like this:
Susan will take her purse off the counter and walk out the door. She might forget her cell phone on the counter, and the global positioning device embedded in the phone could potentially make her show up as being at home when she is actually at the office. If a horrible disaster strikes and her husband is desperately trying to locate her, this might create problems.
That's not the kind of story I want to read. Do you see how the use of the future and conditional takes all the tension and drama out of the story?
To make matters worse, the protagonist of Rickert's story is a would-be writer with writer's block. She goes to hang out with other would-be writers with writer's block by attending a writers' group. It takes an enormous amount of magic to make a story about writing enjoyable, and "Memoir of a Deer Woman" didn't have it.
The first two-thirds of the story are from the viewpoint of the protagonist, then she drops out of the tale and the rest of the story kaleidoscopes through perspectives of her husband, random people we've never met before, and a member of the writers' group. This kind of kaleidoscopic perspective is best used for special effect in novels, not in very short stories. The tale ends through the eyes of the member of the writers' group. She is philosophizing on the nature of words, what they mean as symbols, in and of themselves. Rickert follows this philosophizing by telling us life is an "exquisite blessing." The connotation of the word "blessing" is religious. Nothing in the previous nine pages of story had religious overtones. This inappropriate use of a word in a story all about words destroyed the effect Rickert was trying to create.
The conceit of the story was fine. I liked the way the magical transformation was compared to suffering from cancer, and the idea of the words cut from the memoirs could have been cool. Rickert does an excellent job of establishing the setting in very few words.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Good-bye Goldfish, Hello Frog
It's sunny and a little warmer this first day of March, but the goldfish pond in the garden next door is still frozen. Every time I walk past the fish pond I stop to say hi, but I fear in the cold weather I've been saying hi to dead fish, frozen solid in the shallow ceramic basin.
For some reason my brain keeps insisting those fish are alive down there. I know the ice on top of a lake actually warms the water beneath, allowing the fish to survive, but this pond is far too shallow to behave that way. Maybe I believe the taxi driver in The Catcher in the Rye, who claimed that fish live frozen under the pond in Central Park while kids skate over the ice. Maybe the science fiction writer in me is plotting cryogenic fish survival. But by now I've read enough practical gardening posts to know those fish are dead.
To cheer myself up, I did a little research on frogs- turns out certain frogs can survive being frozen. The wood frog buries itself underground or undercover of leaves during cold spells. Its body temperature drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice crystals form in its blood, portions of its body begin to freeze, and if it keeps on getting colder and colder, the frog freezes solid. In an article from the Seattle Times, professor Ken Storey says the frog is frozen so solid it "makes a thud" when dropped. But hours after warming back up, the frog's heart begins to beat and it hops on its merry way, unharmed.
Sure enough, the wood frog has evolved with its own system of cryogenics, what the article calls "natural antifreeze" made of glucose (frogs go on a starch-eating binge when cold weather approaches). The scientists interviewed weren't ready to say the frogs held the key to freezing humans for future generations. What they did hope to learn was a method to cryogenicaly freeze human organs for use in organ transplant and organ donation. Studying these funny little frogs could take the nightmare out of organ waiting lists and save lives.
For some reason my brain keeps insisting those fish are alive down there. I know the ice on top of a lake actually warms the water beneath, allowing the fish to survive, but this pond is far too shallow to behave that way. Maybe I believe the taxi driver in The Catcher in the Rye, who claimed that fish live frozen under the pond in Central Park while kids skate over the ice. Maybe the science fiction writer in me is plotting cryogenic fish survival. But by now I've read enough practical gardening posts to know those fish are dead.
To cheer myself up, I did a little research on frogs- turns out certain frogs can survive being frozen. The wood frog buries itself underground or undercover of leaves during cold spells. Its body temperature drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice crystals form in its blood, portions of its body begin to freeze, and if it keeps on getting colder and colder, the frog freezes solid. In an article from the Seattle Times, professor Ken Storey says the frog is frozen so solid it "makes a thud" when dropped. But hours after warming back up, the frog's heart begins to beat and it hops on its merry way, unharmed.
Sure enough, the wood frog has evolved with its own system of cryogenics, what the article calls "natural antifreeze" made of glucose (frogs go on a starch-eating binge when cold weather approaches). The scientists interviewed weren't ready to say the frogs held the key to freezing humans for future generations. What they did hope to learn was a method to cryogenicaly freeze human organs for use in organ transplant and organ donation. Studying these funny little frogs could take the nightmare out of organ waiting lists and save lives.
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