Great Site For News from Outer Space

http://spaceflightnow.com/

Actual Cthulu Doodle by @neilgaiman

Actual Cthulu doodle on Claudia Gonson's fridge by @neil... on Twitpic

Links on Writing

I am always looking on the web for tips and tricks. Below you will find a series of links I have found interesting:

This link is an interesting piece on story revision by Joe Hill.

http://joehillfiction.com/?p=1909

Here is a link to some sample scripts by Warren Ellis.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=10319


This link has all kinds of stuff, but I haven't really checked it out yet.

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2009/02/05/top-100-creative-writing-blogs/

The best recommendation is to pay $40 a year and join the site below. It provides workshops, forums, tips, and assignments from Chuck Palahniuk. I know of no other author that is as involved in assisting burgeoning writers. It's well worth the price of admission.

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/

(This link is also in my side bar.)

Zoroaster / Deck Specs

I hung out with Dan the drummer from Zoroaster last night.



I'd met him a few times over the years, but I really got to talk to him for a while last night. Turns out, in addition to melting faces, he is a partner in a sunglasses company called Deck Specs. These are manufactured from recycled skateboard decks by a master carpenter on North Avenue near Atlantic Station. It's a great idea, and a great concept; even if I, personally, can't pull off wearing the shades. At $60 bucks a pop, they're reasonably priced. Look for them at spots around Atlanta and skate shops in the Southeast. Below is the only photo I could find on the web:

Cradle Me Sky

http://www.cradlemesky.com/

An original 'toon from the people at redrocket.com Posted here for later consumption.

Red Rocket: Original Art From An Atlanta Area Artist

http://www.redrocketfarm.com/

I've wanted to decorate the boys' room with this guy's paintings since meeting him at one of the Atlanta fall festivals a few years ago. When you see him set up, he'll do customized drawings for only about $10. He creates great characters in a unique style. The paintings are quite affordable considering, but I can't really justify dropping $500 to decorate a bedroom. I really would like to commission him to do a mural in their room. Dream big, right?

He's always around at N. Georgia art festivals. Check him out and buy some stuff.

RECIDIVISM

I did not even know I knew this word existed until I woke with it in my head Monday morning. I had to look it up to find its meaning. Isn't that strange. A word... I often wake with songs in my head. I time my sleep, so I wake up during a dream cycle. (A trick I leaned when reading about how to have lucid dreams.) So I often remember what I was dreaming. But to recall a word; a specific, uncommon word; a previously unknown word.

Recidivism: the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior.

Such a great word. My children practice the philosophy of recidivism. (Always use a new word in a sentence, right.) Why did I wake with it in my head?

WILD INTERNATIONAL - One Day As A Lion

Geographic Concentration of Inspiration

In the last ten or so years there have been two geographic areas that have been sources of musical and literary influence:

England: Radiohead, Clinic, The Beta Band, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis
Oregon: Modest Mouse, The Shins, Chuck Palahniuk

I find it odd that the music and words I look to for inspiration are located in these two geographic concentrations. If I were to extend Oregon to include the Northwest, you can add Nirvana, Pavement, Built to Spill and Tom Robbins (though I grew tired of his work after 4 or 5 books.) I'm not sure if it's the dreary melancholy of the weather these two share. It could be the paranoid secularism of England. It could be the transgressive and progressive nature of the Pacific Northwest. In any case, I am drawn to these sources time and time again.

IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS by Art Spiegelman

http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/towersHomeless.html

"For Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were both highly personal and intensely political. In the Shadow of No Towers, his first new book of comics since the groundbreaking Maus, is a masterful and moving account of the events and aftermath of that tragic day.

Spiegelman and his family bore witness to the attacks in their lower Manhattan neighborhood: his teenage daughter had started school directly below the towers days earlier, and they had lived in the area for years. But the horrors they survived that morning were only the beginning for Spiegelman, as his anguish was quickly displaced by fury at the U.S. government, which shamelessly co-opted the events for its own preconceived agenda.

He responded in the way he knows best. In an oversized, two-page-spread format that echoes the scale of the earliest newspaper comics (which Spiegelman says brought him solace after the attacks), he relates his experience of the national tragedy in drawings and text that convey—with his singular artistry and his characteristic provocation, outrage, and wit—the unfathomable enormity of the event itself, the obvious and insidious effects it had on his life, and the extraordinary, often hidden changes that have been enacted in the name of post-9/11 national security and that have begun to undermine the very foundation of American democracy."

(Thanks, Jeremy.)

I often wonder...

BOOMBOX - The Lonely Island feat. Julian Casablancas

Another one of my favorite things on the internet. I never get tired of this song...

Radiohead - FOLLOW ME AROUND

"You will become a hypocrite. You'll become a liar. You'll try to paper up your own cracks. And everybody does it, and that's what being an adult is. ...sorry."

This song and Thom's quote have been in my head all day. A bit of dismal realism is good on occasion. It keeps you honest. As for the song, I only know of it from the documentary, "Meeting People is Easy."

"I Want To Get High, But I Don't Want Brain Damage."

A new single from The Flaming Lips and Lightning Bolt...

Awesome!

Grey Alien Caught on Tape

One of the creepiest things on the internet...

WASHINGTON by Cox & Combes

One of my favorite things on the internet...

Gullah: Where did "ya'll" come from?

What follows is a brief report on a lecture about the Gullah. It lacks detail, but it serves as a decent introduction this Creole language.

GULLAH

Jerry Moss is an academy award nominated filmmaker who visited class to discuss the Creole language, Gullah. He began by briefly outlining the circumstances in which the language developed. During British expansion, the territory known as Georgia was colonized by the second and third sons of prominent families. Rice farming was more desirable that cotton, but due to the irrigation needs of the crop, coastal locations were essential. It was difficult and complicated to condition the land, as it had to be dredged manually; therefore, land owners sought specialists from the Rice Coast of Africa. These specialists supervised and directed the slaves working the fields. As a result, Gullah began as the pidgin spoken on rice plantations, which were located along the Eastern Seaboard, from North Florida to North Carolina. It started out of the necessity for efficient communication among landowners and specialists; specialists and laborers.

Two things must be considered when considering the conditions that brought the language into fruition. One must first pay attention to the labor system of most rice plantations that existed. Task systems were incorporated as the desired labor system. Under this mechanism, slaves had free time to spend after their chores were completed. This allowed for many leisure activities that would have encouraged casual communication among the laborers, which were from diverse societies in Africa. Development of a pidgin would have been essential. Also, during the summer, no whites were around at all. In other words, no native English speakers were on the plantations. This brought about a language more influenced by African retention. Lorenzo Turner investigated the Gullah and discovered over 1400 words retained from African languages. There are few remaining English influenced words in use today.

Mr. Moss spoke briefly about the grammar, and I mean really briefly. He stated the language has a word for second person plural, “ya’ll."

Dead Eyes Open: Free Web Zombie Comic

http://deadeyesopen.com/dead-eyes-open-1-cover/

This comic is an introduction to what is great about zombie literature. Like good science fiction, it uses the subject matter to address complex social issues. It helps you step outside of reality to view events more objectively. Enjoy...

Even as I left Florida...

I moved from Jacksonville ten years ago this week. It was only four formative years, but I had a lifetime of experiences. Rarely a day goes by that I don't think of someone I knew or something that happened there. Granted, I lived in Tallacrappy a while before moving to Atlanta, but I think of those months as sort of a decompression chamber.

SIGNAL by Paul Duffield

http://www.spoonbard.com/signal/

This comic by the illustrator of http://www.freakangels.com/ is absolutely beautiful. As the site mentions, it is inspired by SETI and Carl Sagan's COSMOS series.

On a personal note, it parallels the most lucid dream I've ever had:

I was in my late teens, still living with my folks. In the dream, I walk through their kitchen and suddenly realize I am dreaming. To test this, I stand in front of the screen door leading to the front yard. I thrust my arms forward and blow the door of its hinges, sending it flying to land crumpled on the lawn. To go a bit further, I begin doing somersaults across the grass until I reach the drive way. I then look up, take a few steps forward and take flight.

At this point it becomes a balancing act to keep this state of mind. I soon get control, and I find that the harder I tighten my fists, the faster and further I travel. I streak into the farthest reaches of space until I stop in this area of gaseous "caterpillars." I realize I am witnessing the birth of stars in some sort of galactic incubator.

I wake.