Pixels and Ink on Vacation

Two personal notes: First, I've been quiet here since I've been workign my way through the Modern Poetry course from UPenn, Coursera. Expect a further review as we approach the penultimate week of poetry readings.

Second, as many of you know I live in New York. Fortunately, we are very lucky to be in a party of the city largely untouched by the recent storm; we still have power, still have internet, and are OK. Now, on with a quick post about our recent vacation:


Last month was the big vacation - to the happiest place on earth. That's right, we gathered up the family for a journey to the strange and magical place known as Disneyworld. What did I think?

As a writer, I see it as a messy and confused but glorious weave of all the stories from the Disney empire, from Mickey Mouse to their telling of Cinderella to more modern stories like _Finding Nemo_ or _The Princess and the Frog._ It's like being in the middle of a big crossover story without a plot but with at least a cameo by every favorite character you could imagine.

As an AV professional, it's the biggest multi-media show in the world, with 3-D movies, live shows, and a distributed audio system which is *everywhere* and used to great effect in providing a soundtrack to the experience. Do you know how movies use music for thematic effect to build a mood? Disney does that in real life over the entire park. It's subtle, but once you know to listen for it it's always there. It's a great example of how technology needn't be too dramatic or cutting edge to be very effective.



One great thing is how smoothly everything runs; shows start on time, the monorail runs regularly and efficiently, the parade starts when you expect it to. We had one attraction we missed because it was closed, and one ride break down while we were on board - the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Seen up-close from outside the confines of the car, the ride doesn't seem as impressive or slick; everything was painted plywood with simple motors supplying some motion. Here's a brief glimpse of Team Suskin being lead out through the darkness:

What is amazing about rides like this, _Peter Pan's Flight_ and even the much-maligned and much-beloved _It's a Small World_ is how different - and how immersive - the experience can be with relatively little in the way of technology. What technology there was is deployed carefully - audio is crisp, video is sharp, and acoustics are good enough that you don't hear anything distracting or outside the experience. When they add more effects - such as the surround-sound, smell, and other effects in the _Mickey's Philharmagic_ 3D movie - they're always well-done and fit seemlessly into the experience.

The best moments didn't involve technology at all. I'll leave you with two nifty moments: a princess-makeover for Chloe at the "Bibbity-bobbity-boutique" at Cinderella's Castle:

And a first haircut for Nathaniel at the Barber Shop in the Magic Kingdom's Main Street USA.

Writing Equals Constant Research - Guest Post by AM Jenner

I'm quite excited to have AM Jenner here, stopping on a rollicking blog-tour to talk about writing. So, without further ado, I'll hand over the reigns. Expect me back early next week with a perhaps long-overdo tech post, of which we've been light as of late.

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Fourth stop on my international blog tour, Bayside, New York. Thanks so much to
Leonard Suskin for hosting me; it’s good to be here.

Every place I go, I always stop along the wayside to learn new trivial bits of
information. As an author I never know when I may need to use them in a novel. For
example, I may never need to know that the strings on a harpsichord are plucked as
the keys are pressed, rather than struck with a hammer like a piano. On the other hand,
someday I might need that piece of information.

The old adage about writing is to "write what you know". I both agree and disagree
with the statement. I have seen writing friends spent years researching various topics
for a book they want to write, but they never seem to get down to actually writing the
book. In my mind, this research is simply wasted time. They have spent many years
looking up obscure facts they will never need to know in order to write the story they
desire to write.

On the other hand, I have read books which contain technical details that are
incorrect. If I am in a position to recognize that this particular detail is incorrect, it throws
me out of the story. If too many details are incorrect, I have been known to set the book
aside and not finish it because it is too frustrating to read so many inaccuracies, even in
fiction.

Good writing strikes a balance between the two extremes. An author has to have
done enough research in the field in which they are writing about in order to appear
knowledgeable enough to those readers who know better. At the same time, they do
need to actually write and finish the book, or, no matter how technically perfect it is,
nobody will ever get a chance to read it.

The way I approach the situation is this: I simply begin writing, following the outline I
have, and listening to my characters. If I come to a situation where I'm not quite sure of
the right way to do a particular thing, I make myself a note that I need to research that
particular thing. Then I go on writing until the first draft is complete. Sometimes, the thing
I thought I needed to research ends up not being important, and is removed from the
manuscript during the first revision. If I find that I do actually need that particular piece of
knowledge, this is when I do the research.

For example, when I was writing Fabric of the World, there were several camels
involved in the story. There were also many horses involved. I found that I had to do
research on which animal was better for what applications in a Sahara-type desert.
When my main character got on his camel for the first time, I had to do research on

how a camel gets up from a kneeling position so that I could properly describe the
movements and sensations my character experienced. Additionally, there was over an
hour of research time spent learning the exact mechanics of the mating practices of
camels. However, there was no need for me to become an overall expert on the subject
of camels in order to glean the few small pieces of information about them which I
needed for my novel.

Likewise, if I am writing a techno-thriller where a computer goes mad and tries to
take over the world, I need general information on the capabilities of various computers,
rather than an in-depth knowledge of how to build and repair computers, and what
makes them work.

If every writer only wrote about things which they had a deep understanding of, it
would hamper them severely in their ability to write fiction. In writing fiction, although it is
extremely important to make sure that information presented as fact is correct, there is
an even higher priority to ensure that the story gets told.

All writing has a purpose. That purpose can be to inform, to entertain, or to invoke
a particular feeling. Good writing does more than one thing at a time. Great writing
incorporates all three goals at once. Great writing cannot be accomplished by an author
ignorant of facts and who refuses to do research. However, if an author is spending
so much time on research to become an expert in a given field that they never write
their story, then they’ve gained that knowledge for no reason and their time has been
wasted, because the story goes untold.

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The Siege of Kwennjurat is the second book in the Kwennjurat Chronicles. Alone in Kwenndara, Princess Tanella cares for the refugees from war-torn Jurisse, while she worries about her loved ones’ safety. Her new husband Fergan is two days away in Renthenn, coordinating the business of two kingdoms.

Kings Jameisaan and Fergasse join forces in Jurisse to pursue the war against the Black Army. They know Liammial hasn't played his last card, and are willing to give their lives to protect their people and their children.
Who will triumph and claim the throne of Kwennjurat?

A M Jenner lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with her family, a car named Babycakes,
several quirky computers, and around 5,000 books. A self-professed hermit, she loves to interact with her readers online. Her books are available at www.am-jenner.com, as well as most major online retailers.

Spirits and Staircases, two more weeks of poems

More poetry today! I'll start with something a little strange and experimental; this is another one I wrote for my good friends at the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers group. As I've already mentioned here, I'm slogging my way through the Modern Poetry course from UPenn offered on Coursera. So I took this writing prompt (a photo of a ghostly figure on a staircase which I seem to have misplaced) and threw a mashup of various poetic styles we've studied at it. It's also a touch feminist in that there are obvious references and allusions to four famous female poets or other artists. Is it obvious who?


Spirit of the Stair


You see the ghostly form upon the stair
An apparation clad in wisps of white
She whispers secret words as you draw near
steady she remains as you take flight

Does she hear you? Would Cassandra? Would Cassandra
would she hear you? Would Cassandra would she hear you
hear you hear you hear her hear you? would you hear her hear her hear
you would she hear you hear her hear you hear the risers rising
upward hear you rising upward see

her ghostly face is fair, but soon forgot
her ghostly arms, they fade into the air
Her ghostly frame, some would call it hot
but nothing more. The spirit of the stair.

into your glass eyes, your button eyes, your dead eyes
you are flesh, she is soul --
she will rise, she will descend
she is air, she is real
You are flesh.
Is Cassanda? Is Cassandra on her deathbed? On her deathbed?
Would you hear Cassandra on her deathbed, on your deathbed,
would you hear Cassandra when you hear Cassandra

Beneath your feet, the treads are solid wood
the balustrade your hands caress is smooth
You'd stop to meet the spirit if you could
but up you sweep, a brain within its groove.

You stay within your groove
the one that mother gives you doesn't do anything at all
But they know
the lifeguard found Sylvia already immensely drowned, but they know
they know they know.

You'll not drown.

You'll not touch the spirit.

Or

Would you meet the spirit gaze to gaze
to see the echoes of your better days?


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And, some horror poetry from the Nightmare Fuel project, of which I'm slowly fading out:

"Three small turns"

Again a night of jagged, broken sleep
again the well-trod path, bed to kitchen to crib to bed
nightmares to milk to sleep to nightmares - 
an insomniac's triangle-trade
My eyes are red
her eyes are red
his eyes are red. 
His night-terrors haunt us through the day until

until the ancient guardian is engaged
a man of wood clad in a wooden hat
a sentinal from when my nightmares raged
who calmed my fears of spider and of rat
beneath his watchful eyes the terrors cease
and now once more we all could sleep in peace

until

the jagged edges of broken sleep cut once more
no spiders, no rats, no monsters under my bed
but terrors named
mortgage
terrorists
criminals
lawyers
bankers

so I take it
creep into his room - he whose nightmares are banished
and take the talisman of my youth
its wooden face still severe, strong, beneath a wooden helmet
worn smooth by young fingers

The terrors stop
the terrors stop

in the pre-dawn I wake to see 
termines fleeing the disintigrating wooden carcass
to feast on fat houseflies

The wood is no longer hard, no longer smooth, 
but soft and rotten and stinking of decay

The nightmares of parents are stronger.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, finally, something blatantly and shamelessly political:

The hundred less one arrived to join the hunt
left words behind, spoke only in animal grunts
will the goddess and gods protect those who eschew meat
from bright-burning hundredth with carnivore's teeth?
On this day masks are worn outside our face
See our spirits form paper-mache-
clad this - this autumn night when worlds collide
when veils grow thin, we see the other side
When we, the hundred less one run enmasked
as ancestors did walk in days long past
though creatures meek as we may earn your scorn
remember that stags too are armed with horn.




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Overall, my favorite thing about these is how I have the chance to play with form, with meter, and with the sounds of words as well as the words themselves. Look for more experiments in weeks to come.

A week of Horrible Things

Happy October! For this month, in addition to continuing with the Modern Poetry course at Coursera, I'm playing with a daily writing-prompt exercise on the Google+ social network called "Nightmare Fuel". Google Plussers can find the Nightmare Fuel page here. Every day the lovely and talented Bliss Morgan (aka Andrea Trask) posts an image, and every day all those interested write .. something. Anything. A story. A flash piece. A poem. Then we share them.

Because this is daily and time is at a premium, I've been taking the influence of the Modern Poetry class to write poems for most of these. Others have taken different directions. I'm especially taken with the "prosems" Kary Gaul is writing and the horrific little flash pieces from... well, I'm not sure what the man's real name is, but this guy here. sometimes known as Kewangi and sometimes as Johannes It doesn't matter. His stuff is consistently creepy and punchy.


Check out theirs, and look below for my attempts:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilithwitch/8039767847/
 Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Day 1 - The Curator

Standing stone -
your letters and numbers
precise
edges sharp, grooves deep and even -

Standing stone
slick and smooth. Reflecting 
sky

What engine carved
lines and squares
- an alien script - 
for what engines to read?

and earth

Standing stone -
will your faded lines remain
will you remember
when the engines have fallen
silent?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/devenlaney/5154194591/
Creative commons 

Day 2 - Sparkly Shoes

An early fall morning, a crisp fall morning. A drycool bite in the dry cool air. Summer is over. I'm walking with the girl and her new backpack full of marble composition books and crayons and number two pencils and erasers and tissues and even - for reasons unknown to me - plastic baggies. A bag as big as she is. The girl in her new dress and new windbreaker and new shiny purple maryjanes. Companionable silence down the street, past the swimming pool, long since drained for the winter. Companionable silence across the street, now a half-block from the already-formed clusters of chattering girls and hyperactive boys and gossipping moms at the dropoff. 

Companionable silence broken by the girl's voice. 

"Lynsey has sparkly shoes. And Maddy. And Jessie."

Indeed, they do. Brightpink glitterclad things adornded and embellished with flowers, with hearts, with peace-signs. Flashy things with thick pink laces and little blinking lights winking at the world with each shuffling step of little girls' feet. Sparkly shoes indeed.

I'm calm, noncommital. "So they do." I'm not crazy. I hear the edge in her voice, I hear the pleading. I also know that the shoes on her feet - her rapidly growing feet - cost forty dollars, and the sneakers under her bed (white with fun pink stripes. Not spartly) another thirty. The shoe money is spent. 

The girl starts to say something in a hushed whisper. Pat her on the head as I turn, bridge the gap to a mom-cluster at the periphery of the dropoff, an empty unspecial square of sidewalk. The girl edges into a cluster of other girls, her eyes on her own feet As Lynsey and Maddie and Jessie hold court over the sidewalk, their eyes up, oblivious to the winking, sparkling, blinking beacons adorning their own feet.

Day 3 - The Machines

The machines like a dream, like a wish.

Everywhere - the machines -Clean and proud in the bank

Encased in logo-bearing glass - the machines -Beside the battered ice machine

.

,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maydaymassacre/8046148926/
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons License.

loitering in a supermarket - the machinesin a dark alleyway

ill-fitting here today gone the nexta magic shop out of a fairy tale

full of wishes open for wishesa battered plastic well gleaming

in the city night.

the machines reflect eyes the machines have eyes the machines are eyesI see them seeing me seeing them

seeing.

Like in a fairy talewishing machines like in a fairy tale full of wishes

I wave my card with a big swish swish and then I wish to wish a wishfor a dish of fish to be rich i wish 

I wish

I wish.

Nobody knows my wishes

Nobody save the machines.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/postbear/2989879481/
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Day 4 - Surviving Excerpts From the log of the FNC Emma Goldman

Tuesday, May 1
Not on ship yet, but it's motherfuckin Mayday and we have a motherfuckin ship. The Emma Goldman, a state of the art sailing vessel. Or at least she would have been two or three centuries ago. Today? She's ours. She's seaworthy. She even has a manifesto - to be the best damn anarchist-collective freespirited, freeloving, freesailing freelance cargo ship these oceans have ever seen. To the seas!

July 3rd
Finally got a cargo, on the high seas at last. Struck the flag we're registered under (I won't even write it here) raised our true flag - the black flag. Beholden to no nation, lyal to none but ourselves.

Glad to be at sea. The business part is the part I hate, but until someone gets around to overthrowing capitalism, this is our world. We need money for spare parts, money for foodstuffs, money for rum. We're tall-ship sailors. There has has to be rum.

Anyway, the cargo part is what I hate. Creepy client was creepy, mysterious boxen are mysterious. Battered leather trunks, smelling of mildew and mothballs and... something else.

July 8th
Rum gone. Too many fucking disasters. Damage. Rats. Matty drank the damn rum. And he had the nerve to 

August 2nd
still not working but we have the sextant. Anctient tech FTW. Matty said he hears sounds from the cargo. Voices. He must have a secret stash of

August 9th

.............walk the plank if we were pirates. We should still throw the bastard overboard after it. We still have the stars. We'll find our way.



must have jumped overboard. Just wasn't there one day but he's right there are voices they're talking whispering some strange language I wish I could understand I wish I


No sun for days. Sea is grey, sky grey, sails grey. The black flag is grey. I am grey. The others are looking funny at me, I know. They might know


A cheer from above. Land? I need to see first. Need to see what's in this cargo. I can almost make out the words. 

I think it's callng me. From above a scream, "what is that". I'm down here I'm openingit now

Source Unknown

Day 5 - backroads

Back roads, way off the interstate
the smell of fake pine

Late afternoon, small town
through dry dust and dry air an old
sign reds and blues faded into woodgrain

FREAK 
SHOW

tired and I need to stop eyes need to start
eyes need to wake step in

No freaks.
No living freaks.

Curio cabinets full of two-headed taxidermy dogs
inexpertly stiched together
improbably dry spiders
wax sculptures of the freaks
the mystics the hysterics the madmen the drifters on 
the backroads.

stiff posed manikins no art no artifice no motion but
disapproving scowls
and a lingering scent
of fake pine 
and a scream




Day 6 - Patriot Day

Source Unknown

The specter of those hands against the glass
shut tight against the smoke and acrid gas
A hand but not a face
haunting, follows 
me

in each mirror
each window
each mirror or window or glass door or glass wall or showerglass or plateglass window or display glass each glass each window

each glass door
no matter how far from the city, is that glass door. 
Even in the woods, even in the cabin, it is that window
hands pressed hard against behind faceless faces
A window I dare not open.

ModPo - LIVE!

As some of you might know, I'm two weeks into the 10 week Modern Poetry course from UPenn, brought to us by the good folks at Coursera. This week, they tried something I've not seen yet in one of these courses: the first of their weekly life webinars. It took the same format - in this case a panel of an instructor and four graduate students discussing a poem, and opened it up to questions from the online student body via several avenues:

1 - A student could pose a question via a special sub-form of the online discussion group set aside just for this event. Someone was monitoring the forum live for interesting questions to pass on to the group.
2 - The same person was monitoring the Twitter hashtag #ModPoLive. She first noted a number of "role call" posts as people tweeted that they were watching the webcast, from the four corners of the world.
3 - Old school and low-tech. They had a phone line set up - what appeared to be a single POTS line or equivalent, to which people could dial in to Philly's local area code with a question. They in fact took some this way, which also gave students a chance to introduce themselves.
4 - Really old-school and no-tech. People could actual walk in to the Kelly Writers' House at the University of Pennsylvania and attend the discussion live in meatspace! This is about as analog as it gets, and another way to make it feel more like a "real" - or at least more traditional - event.

In person, there wasn't much in the way of visible technology. The participants all had wired handheld mics sitting on desk stands, all of which ran into what appeared to be a small mixing console. It was live-streamed onto YouTube with the familiar Google+ Video chat watermark. The audio and video quality were as clear and intelligible as for the rest of the course to date. 

Sadly for those of us taking Coursera courses because we work, the event was scheduled for 10AM on a Wednesday. Fortunately for me, I had a rare day off to pack for a trip,  so was home even if nit entirely able to focus.  This is another place where technology is our friend; I was able to carry the webcast around on my tablet while occasionally stopping by the desktop to check in on the forum or toss out a quick tweet. The webcast was also recorded - complete with the five or so minutes of down time at the front end - for those of us not able to be there live.

So what was the webcast like? Given the number of participants it felt more like a lecture than a truly interactive webinar, although they did a very nice job of integrating audience questions into the course's main theme of "openness" in meaning and interpretation of modern poetry. I even got one of my questions addressed. I'd asked about the stanza break between the lines "Grease is the way" and "I am feeling" in Rae Armantrout's "The Way". It might not have been a brilliantly insightful question, but was an element which I felt neglected in the discussion and a way in which Armantrout used the familiar in an interesting and non-familiar way (the first two thirds of the poem were made of "found language" - sentences borrowed from elsewhere, including three lines from the musical Grease). I ended my forum post by backing off the question a bit with an uncharacteristically self-deprecating "...or am I over-reading this". That was the part of the question they really dug into, beginning a spirited defense of "over-reading" - or at least of sincerely looking as deeply into a poem as one wishes to and being open to whatever one finds there. I'm glad to have sparked a discussion, and will certainly remember to express my opinions and questions more confidently in the future!

The next webinar seems to be scheduled tonight at 10PM. That's pretty close to my going-to-sleep hour, so there's no promise that I'll be there live to blog about it. Expect more of a full review of this course, including reflections on what I've learned, here in this space after it comes to a close in seven weeks or so.
And yes, I know this post is coming over a week after the event. Why so long? As hinted before, I was on vacation! Tune in later this week to hear about some of our adventures in the happiest place on earth.

Back to Brooklyn - an evening with the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers

I'm reviving my Flash Friday today with a quick piece I wrote for last night's BSFW meeting. Who's BSFW? We're a writing critique/support/social group convening twice  monthly in a strange and wondrous land known as Brooklyn. The third Thursday each month is short story critiques, and novels (cut into digestable chunks) on Sundays. As a short fiction writer myself, I particularly enjoy the Thursday meetings. In addition to some much-appreciated feedback on my own work, I find that reading others' helps me to think like a writer.

It's also nice to discuss writing and speculative literature in general with like-minded people. Before last night's critiques we had a spirited debate on whether it is appropriate, inappropriate, or even a moral duty to support a writer whose politics one detests by buying his books. In particular, should one buy Orson Scott Card's books or even subscribe to his online fiction magazine "Intergalactic Medicine Show". (For those with no idea what I'm talking about, Card is the author of many well-known science fiction books, including the much-loved Ender's Game. He's also a member of the boar of the National Organization for Marriage and vocal opponent of marriage equality). 

On one hand, our interactions with a living artist can affect his choices which, in this case, may be a good thing. On the other, the work should speak for itself and Card's early work had consistent messages of tolerance for the other. His later work, sadly, seems to be tainted by his growing bigotry. In defending her choice to participate in a Card tribute anthology, World Fantasy Award winner suggested a separation between the personal and political. She also pointed out quite fairly that, while he is an insufferable bigot, Card was also very instrumental in helping others better learn the craft of writing. (Lest you think Kowal doesn't care about the political, see here for her reaction to the almost-publication of a blatantly racist novel in Weird Tales).

After all the spirited discussion, we had time for sharp, insightful critiques of the stories submitted for this week as well as a few minutes at the end to read the results of our Flash challenge for the month. Brad gives us one of these for each session, and it's a neat way to get the creative juices going. This week's prompt was a photo, which I included in the text of the story below. Those of us who finished the challenge read our work aloud at the meeting; I've read it here for you to at least somewhat repeat the experience. I included the photo prompt within the story.

The Right Doctor

by L. Czhorat Suskin

She'd nagged about the snoring for months, but I held firm, always waiting for the right doctor. A doctor like my father or his father would have seen. No, not their doctors. Not an old man with shaky hands, but one like they'd seenin the day. A man with a firm gaze and a firm grip and honest tools of stainless steel. Doctors these days? Skinny kids with limp hands and limp wrists suitable only frail, plastic toylike things. Women, even. I got nothing against women - I mean, I wouldn't put up with her nagging if I did. Still, if someone's digging in my head, my nose, my body ... that should be a man. It just should.

I didn't even believe her about the snoring, but still, once I found the right doctor I went, didn't I?  That's just part of what a man's gotta do. Nobody can say that I don't listen to my woman.

I knew that Doctor Roberts was the right doctor from the first phonecall. Firm, calm voice with just enough of a smart-guy accent to let me know that I wasn't trusting my nose to some rube. His location was weird - I mean, how many docs run their clinics on the docks in a decommissioned submarine - but like I said, a man's gotta do what he's gotta do. With rents so damn high I'm surprised more docs don't try it. Maybe Doc Roberts will start something.

So I walk the last few blocks, past shiny new apartmnent buildings of glass and steel, past the meat-packing district turned meat-market, past rows of squat, honest warehouses turned lofts and hipster nests and fancy little stores. To one of the last honest corners of the city, one of the last almost-working docks, to the doctor's pocket-size ship, a floating clinic clad in honest grey steel.

The doctor was smaller than I'd exected, with a lean sharp face like a city rat. One of them types you can't really place. Maybe Pakistani or Indian or Arab or something. He lead me into a little room, a strong room, all painted steel bulkheads and bare floors and bare lightbulbs.

"Please pardon my humility of office. You know how it is. Real estate."

I took his hand. Slender but strong. He had a good shake. "Don't I know it. And this is great. Feels honest."

A twinkle flashed across his eyes. "To business then, shall we? You don't seem to me to be a man who likes to be kept waiting, beating around the bush. You say you have trouble sleeping? You snore, yes?"

"So my wife says. What can you do?"

After the usual looking, poking, prodding, he stroked that pointy chin of his and pulled a shiny stainless-steel thing out of a drawer. A long wicked-curved tube narrow and gleaming, trigger like a gun, gently contoured handgrip. He pressed it in, into my nose, past that deep place where tobasco sauce goes if you use too much of it almost to the back of my eyeball he squeezed the trigger and his face reflected in the stainless steel looked stretched looked reptilian and I heard the hissing from behind my eyes and the burning inside of my nose and the the burning in back of my eyeballs and the top of my skull no it didn't burn it froze cold blew through my nostrils cold like winter like the winter wind through the canyons of the city and it rushed through my head screamed through my head

and my breath froze and

and silence.

In the silence

I heard the trigger on his device click off.

The glide of a drawer.

The clickclickclick of his fingerjoints clickclickclicking open as he set it down

carefully

reverently.

My breath was gone, leaving me silence. Enough silence to hear the click of the trigger and the drawer and his fingerjoints.

Silence enough to hear the voice of god. Whispering to me. His breath fills me now, feeds me now. He knows I did right.

And now, now that I have his voice in my ear - now that I found the right doctor I'll need not listen to her again. 

Ever.

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That's all I have for today. See you all next week!

Back to School (or why no book reviews lately?)

I've talked about AV, about writing, and about reading on here, but since April's review of Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamour in Glass there have been no new book reviews. There've been posts about my various AV training endeavors (with Crestron, Extron, and a trip way out west to meet the good people at Biamp), but that's just stuff; how things work and how to do them rather than stories, the best of which illuminate something deeper in the human condition. Have I taken two months off from reading? Been reading but neglecting to write reviews? Or is it something else?

As you likely guessed from the title, it's something else. I am slowly, perhaps belatedly, trying to make up for the weakness in the liberal arts part of my college education (I went to a school with an intense science, math, and engineering focus. Humanities classes were pretty much an afterthought). Why? First, a genuine love of learning. Second, I see it as a part of being educated, which is a good thing. It sets an example for my children of the value of learning for its own sake, and keeps me mentally agile by stretching parts of my mind that I would otherwise not use much.

A screencapture from PHI-181, of Yale Open Courses

One current stop is Philosophy 181 - the Human Condition from the good people at Yale Open Courses. Structurally, it's a lecture class in which reading lists are published online along with a video of the lecture. Production values are quite good, with crisp, clear audio and video quality more than adequate for its purpose. There does not seem to be a direct record feed from the room's AV system; instead,  content is viewable through a camera-view of what appears to be a front-projection screen. This gives the quality you'd expect; mostly intelligible, but visibly washed-out.

Reading lists, homework assignments and the like are provided in .pdf format. Students are, alas, on their own for actually acquiring the reading material and there is no interactive element; no grading of assignments, communication with instructor or staff, or anything else. As such, it's more an archive of a lecture course than an actual course. I had a strong "what you put in is what you get out" vibe from this, and so long as I diligently read the course material I feel that I'm learning something. Hats off to Yale for putting this online.
(As an aside, one of my last AV integration projects was the addition of tracking cameras to a lecture hall at another university. It uses a nifty system from the good folks at Vaddio which uses a fixed camera to follow infrared emitters on a lanyard presenters can wear around their necks. A control unit pans and tilts the tracking camera to follow the IR so the presenter is always in-frame. There's even an option to add a wireless lapel mic to the lanyard for either voice-lift or audio recording. I love seeing how the kinds of systems with which I work can intersect with my "real life")

Coursera's Cryptography Course

I've also been checking out some online courses from Coursera. These are even simpler technically, as there's no large-scale room system. Instructors have a camera, mic, and some kind of interactive touch-screen with annotation software. The majority of the lectures are just desktop slides plus annotations streamed along with the instructor's voice, although there's a Modern Poetry course which has a single camera with an operator who doesn't seem to realize that panning really fast makes people a touch seasick. Overall, they've done a nice job of fusing technology with content, and creating something that feels as if it's made for today's world.

I'll perhaps give a more complete review of the Yale course and the Modern Poetry course once I finish them. There are also, as always, more projects on the horizon. What's up with myself and others?

1. After a longish absence, I'm back with the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers Group. Find us on the web, twitter, or Facebook. It's a terrific writing group, offering prompts, social meetings, and moral support in addition to sharp, intelligent critiques by some very talented people.
2. The latest collaborative blog-hop challenge is over. See Nicole Pyles here  for the conclusion. I'm not as nice as she; I'd have given a less happy ending. 
3. I've landed in a new spot in the AV industry! See my next pixels post for my transition to the consulting side of the world with the talented team at Shen,  Milsom and Wilke, and a good-bye to the hands-on part of my professional life. 
4. A shout-out to Steampunk Emma Goldman, who'se contributing to A Steampunk's Guide to Sex in which a talented group of writers puts some "steam" into their "steampunk". 

That's all for now. More, as always, to come.