Another NaNoWriMo Bites the Dust!
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The Free State of Florida — WTF?
So… every day I try to walk 10000 steps to stay active, and since I’ve been in New Jersey visiting my netinho, Vera, Chuck, and Dave…—No, silly… Joel Campbell!—these have been pretty cold walks. I’ve met beautiful people: a volunteer guard who helps children cross streets while getting buffetted all day by freezing wind, a
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Hugo Short Form Drama Category
Every year when I do the Hugo awards I spend so much time on the written categories that I never have time to get into the dramatic productions, and this year I am at a loss, so I am asking for volunteers. Here are the nominees: The Wheel of Time: The Flame of Tar Valon,
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Writing Progress – Finally
There is a hefty amount of irony in breaking a fast of nearly a year of blog posts to post about how I’m actually writing again. I mean, shouldn’t I be writing that instead? But that’s not right. Is it? Certainly by being here I’m not subtracting, and time I spend here talking about my
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“Swish”
How much does it pay to be encircled by dragons? Fears of changing lines. Erasure. Forfeiting when all you ever wanted was to win Never considering how winning too has a cost How maybe weakness isn’t a sin How differences are enriching How it’s ok to be a freak So here we are Me with
Jabbed (Mar 2021, two months before I expected)
Ha ha. Charade in a graveyard mall
People
Crowds of people
Virus murdering Mercury jab.
Oh, you are so near.
I want to know you better.
I want to plumb and close your depths,
Feel your latitude,
Touch you because now I can
inhabit your skin
Let us trade lies and proximity
All that we love, all we disdain:
Giant gumdrop drinking fountains
Handfuls of rock candy mountains
Sustenance from our very marrows
Juice of our juice in a vial
Disease vector have-a-nice-day jab
beyond this lonely desert stretch
people flower, rows and columns
burbling human bouillabaisse
surface still, sound incandescent
Desire. Delight.
soul-dragged, decadent, and oh so jabbed.
Your useless lips too cracked to open
words too mean to say
words mean too much to say
words feed empty air
you are so hungry, so lonely, but here you are
Jabbed.
Oh my! Did I jab a skewed pattern in lipstick
There on your forehead counter—
Sixteen skewered by a wisp of smoke?
Stiffen up.
Yes you believe in my make believe.
Love and suffer more.
And I marvel at my lips for milking your soul
Jabbing it dry.
So jabbed now
You are so broken and so jabbed
Pumping flaccid bicycle tires
That nozzle so deep I have to tease it out
What is that spatchcocked against my teeth?
Sphinx shining with sniffling vindication
Strikes a pose but that sucker can pump
Back and forth like jerking it off
And you laugh because you are jabbed too
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Amanda Gorman is a rock star poet.
Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world: (ed. my stanzas and line breaks which are probably not right) When day comes, we ask ourselves Where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We braved the belly
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My impression of NK Jemisin’s World Building in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
N.K. Jemisin brings many tools to her world-building, especially a focus on how power is distributed and contested by the clans of her peoples. The manifestation of power is evident throughout The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but one illustration in particular is the division of nobles in the Consortium. Yeine comments on the inequity of their distribution,
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I Embrace the Keenest Foil
My second book about Coda also stars a character of fluid sexuality, Saxi, streetwise, dangerous, and gently murderous. This is for NaNoWriMo and I’m writing 65000 words. Here’s the progress so far: So the idea is to build up to it. I did this because I remember what happened to me in 2016, the last
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The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson SextonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars A heartfelt intergenerational journey across two centuries of American history told from the perspective of two women, Ava & Josephine, whose families are victims of racism. The author uses the term “recycled racism” to describe their suffering, and it’s precise. There are three narratives.
“That Bearing Boughs May Live”: What Did King Richard II Author for the World?
It is 2020, the Summer of #BlackLivesMatter, and this week, in a moment of uncommon synchronicity, the theater company who would (in another non-Covid-19 world) be performing at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park are instead presenting King Richard II to homebound Internet streamers. Today’s resonance of the Bard’s words testifies not only to word
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“Foul as Vulcan’s Stithy”: A Different Perspective on “The Mousetrap” and Its Intended Audience
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet illustrates how the dead can drive the living to fulfill their unfinished business. Armed with secrets of his murdered father’s specter, Hamlet conceives “The Mousetrap,” a play within a play, its stated purpose—”to catch the conscience of the king,” his uncle Claudius—though Hamlet himself sabotages his gambit during the performance (Shakespeare 2.2.606).
My 2020 Hugo Ballot
I have finished my Hugo reading for the year. My eyes are so blurry, but I am brimming with happiness. Here are my choices along with a brief word on each category: Best Novel Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (Saga; Angry Robot UK) Middlegame, by Seanan
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To “Fall from Bias of Nature”: A Dissenting Opinion on Good Cordelia
There is an old German saying that an apple generally does not fall far from its tree. A pure nature versus nurture argument, it is usually reserved for decrying unpleasant traits inherited by a wicked person’s offspring, but this philosophy has uses for dramatists too; and in King Lear, Shakespeare often paints Goneril and Regan
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“By the Strength of Their Illusion”: Reflections on the Scottish Play
Macbeth by William ShakespeareMy rating: 5 of 5 stars Although the signifier “mirror” is absent from Macbeth, and “glass” only appears twice, once as a prop instruction and once in dialogue, The Scottish Play fairly bristles with reflections, though like the mirrors of its time, they are somewhat deceptive. First, of course, is the mirror
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A Book About John Bolton’s Dereliction of Duty.
The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John R. BoltonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars It is truly appalling that someone who purports to be a public servant would maintain silence in the face of so much corruption going on in the same room, however this review is not about John Bolton,
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Finding Redemption in the Deep
The Deep by Rivers SolomonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars Trying to do this without spoiling it for you, so bear with me. I’m not going to reveal too much more than the synopsis. First, I really liked the root concept of the story, the origins of the Wajinru, the merpeople. Solomon creates a compelling
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Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. LovecraftMy rating: 5 of 5 stars “That is not dead which can eternal lie,And with strange aeons even death may die.” The Call of Cthulhu is a feast of creepiness told in colorful language, which is only flawed by Lovecraft’s primitive obsession with physiognomy and base racism. I view
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. Read More »