Generally I'm not up late at night watching TV -- I barely watch any at all these days, outside of football. But last night after Thanksgiving leftovers and margaritas it somehow seemed easier to keep watching, and an infomercial for a DVD set of the Dean Martin Show came on -- and damned if it didn't seem to be the funniest damn show ever broadcast on TV. Genial Dean, ever-jolly and ready to take a pratfall, a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, with a panoply of guest stars ranging from Frank Sinatra to Woody Allen . . . I have no memory of watching this show, though it ran for 9 seasons, apparently, right into the mid-70s. Luckily, the same inertia that prevented me from getting up or changing channels also prevented my ordering the DVD set. But still, this morning, I can't help but wonder: was that show actually funny? Did anybody actually watch it? Did it even exist?

Happy birthday anthonybaxter for a couple of days ago!

I spent today at the Freecon. I spent the early evening at a nice Italian place in Haberfield, being happy with friends. As we left, the waiters and other diners walked past the table to see Llyn's sketch of the street. Tonight I'm watching good TV in good company. All this explains the sad randomness of my convention report,

The Freecon was fun. I was given leave to not be on the movie panel (claiming lack of movie knowledge) as long as I heckled from the audience – I asked exactly one question, which just shows how wise I was to beg off the panel. My reading was postponed until the afternoon, which meant I wasn't on a panel with Kate Forsyth (sob).

Ater her reading, Kate was asked a question about dreams and stereotypes and archetypes. She pointed out that you get the universal in novels by writing the particular ie creating strong individuals. Pamela Freeman had issue with Jung having convinced people about the truth of archetypes without clear demonstration that they existed.

What struck me was the number of Aussie spec fic writers who either have doctorates or are getting them. An intelligent mob. Also a mob that has interesting discussions because the theory and understanding of writing are so clearly related.

I did a quick tally of writers present here and at Conflux and their day jobs. There are public servants, scientists, newspaper/magazine bods, martial artists, computer bods, doctors, teachers of various types, lawyers, writers (ie day job is writer, including fiction, NF, technical, etc)

Nyssa was there and reminded folks about Awritergoesonajourney's latest competition (worth checking out – books as prizes! I can find you the URL when I'm home and using a normal size keyboard, if you want it). Next Carnival is mid-December, BTW and you can send suggestions of blogposts to Nyssa. That's not 'can' – it's 'should.' Otherwise how will the rest of us find out about all the cool stuff out there?

Writers who read before lunch: Richard Harland, Pamela Freeman, Kate Forsyth, Alan Baxter, Terry Dowling. I've already written here about Alan's books and about Pamela's trilogy (if this all happened too long ago, I can talk about them again. Just tell me.

One of the fine things about attending the same event year after year is being able to follow the progress of writers, and Alan and Pamela and Richard have had fascinating career developments in recent years.

Kate's writing has entered a magic zone recently. It just works, on so many levels. She's found a perfect place and is writing from it. I need to put her new books on my shelves with Elizabeth Beresford and Edith Nesbitt and Nicholas Stuart Gray. They have that same sense of magic and mysterious pasts being just a step way from our everyday.

Now I'm going to inflict liveblogging. It's irresistible. Richard Harland is interviewing Van Ikin

Richard has asked Van about SF in Australia in 1970s. There wasn't much, it seems. Van called one reviewer 'the beacon of science fiction.' Jh Baxter 1960s Pacific SF -that was about it. Paul Collins then appeared and did anthologies (I have at least one of these! time to revisit, since I doubt I've read it in the last 20 years).

Van Ikin wrote to Anne Saxton asking where to send SF stories in Australia. She said.”Send them to America,” but she also gave him one single address (Murrays in Sydney). He wrote and rewrote a story until it finally was published: he was paid $21. He didn't know what magazine, so asked a receptionist. He was called into an office, and eventually was given a paper in an envelope, July 1967 issue of Pocket Man, “Mum, I truly didn't know.” Damien Broderick, Albert Vann, A Bertram Chandler all published in that sort of magazine.

Van teaches at the University of Western Australia. Richard asked him “What problems do writers have?” For students in their first 3 years, it's often – translating a tremendous idea into structured actions. Van says need to find one's own way. Stick to who you are and do what you can do. Students' solutions, even if feeble, are the first proper step on the way to a real solution.

He also said that it's ery hard to rewrite entirely from a false draft – you will hear the echoes of the original. Also that students are a bit conservative in modelling new tech because their models are dated ie many people writing from their reading experience rather than from their lives.

And for the whole of the afternoon I was on panels or giving readings. No live blogging. so that's an end of Gillian-the-reporter.

...was really good. The staff are as awesome as I remember, we used a system that avoided long queues, most of the kids were great, I have been asked to work an extra hour each day, and the boss was looking at letting me go half an hour earlier, since it was quiet - at full pay - but I stayed back anyway to finish my shift.

Drove home, and have been on the couch ever since, totally exhausted.

Woohoo! *yawn*

oh my god guys there are a million tiny bulldozers in my head trying to build a chainsaw using missiles and hammers. i would just lie down and die but i have to go to work.

I HATE YOU 2 HOURS OF FREE DRINKS!!!!

On Saturday, was having a lovely dinner with montjoye when she mentioned that a microbiologist friend had reported that research had been done on how long it takes viruses and bacteria to latch onto something dropped on the floor.

About 90 seconds, on average, apparently. (Presumably, that is a mean, not a mode or median.) Viruses and bacteria just do not move very quickly on their own.

So, the "5 second rule" is very low risk. Which makes sense, otherwise people would get sick a lot more often.

I took Thanksgiving morning and went up to Vedauwoo, one of my favorite landscapes in the area to photograph in the winter. I made a few nice photographs, and this is one of them.

Originally published at JeremiahTolbert.com. You can comment here or there.

Flipping through Lamebook, the catalogue of embarrassing Facebook debacles, I find myself envisioning an imaginary history in which Stupid Teenaged Ferrett had access to a larger audience via Facebook, instead of private notes and occasional bitter rants. And I shiver with terror.

I mean, crap, this blog's embarrassing and self-revelatory enough as it is these days. I was worse, once upon a time, and certainly more psychodramatic; I merely had no medium in which to spread my bozosity. I'm pretty sure every breakup would have been an anguished scream, followed by a crazy commentfest, followed by me working through my emotions in public.

I'm pretty sure Facebook would have destroyed me, back in the day. This may be one of the first times I'm grateful I'm old.

Enjoy some alternately savage, mellow and snarling Gene Krupa.

Posted by Paul DiFi.

It's too late now, but next year we will take up a collection to send John Crowley to this scene of his worst nightmares.

Posted by Paul DiFi.

GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator (Issues #3 and #4)
What holds GUD together as a magazine? The space to hold a lot of different kinds of quality fiction. There's a lot of different styles in each issue, a veritable bouillabaisse of various stories - straight fantasy, cyberpunk, experimental poetry, even "straight" fiction with no fantastic elements whatsoever. In a gigantic magazine the size of a small book, you're sure to find something you like in here.

It's exactly what it says on the tin: a bunch of very good stories, loosely held together by the fact that they're, well, good.

That's not strictly true, though. Scratch the surface, and you'll see that GUD tends towards tales that delve into someone's character; in fact, if you're a writer looking to submit and characterization isn't your strong point, you might wanna pass 'em over. The best of GUD's stories are tales of sharply-drawn, real folks in strange situations - a Mayan astronaut about to be sacrificed, an insecure lover with his girlfriend falling for mysterious aliens, a mailman with a bloodied claw-hammer in the back of his truck looking for rebirth canals.

GUD's stories also tend towards the longer end - there's some well-done flash fiction in there (and poetry, to break things up), but most of the tales are long enough to lose yourself in for some time. GUD's stories want you to spend some time with the people inside them, walking along them and losing yourself in their skin.

When that works, which it usually does, it's a sensuous journey. On those rare occasions that GUD fails with a story, it's usually because the ending lacks punch - you've followed someone for five thousand words, only to find that really, it isn't much of an ending at all, turning what looked to be an actual story into little more than a rambling tone poem. (Or, as will happen, you just hated the lead character and didn't want to follow them anywhere.)

There are few misfires, though. The good news, however, is that GUD is of high quality - I anguished over choosing the "best" stories below, since almost all of them had something to recommend them - and is thick enough to be an exceptional value. For $3.50 a PDF, you get 211 pages - and the stories are wildly varying, from quick pulpy prose to lush, lingering visuals, so you're sure to find at least a few stories to fall in love with. And the art inside is also gorgeous. It's a downright pretty magazine, spiced up with professional artistry.

And hell, it's even cheaper: as a part of their Black Friday sale, you can pay whatever you like, making a normally unbeatable value of $3.50 an issue even more beatable.

That's a lot of reading, man, and a lot of value in a very pretty magazine. It's definitely worth checking out.

The stories that called to me in these issues are, in descending order of love:

Daya and Dharma, by shweta_narayan (Issue #4)
Daya is a handmaid in the palace of a selfish, beautiful princess - and a beautiful red bird from the court of the Rainbow Prince arrives to find a bride for his master. And what could have turned into a twee gratification story instead lands two steps beyond where you think it will to turn into something dark, beautiful, and majestic. The only problem I have with it is that this story started very slowly, but once it got rolling it was unstoppable.

Soon You Will Be Gone And Possibly Eaten, by Nick Antoeca (Issue #3)
He loves his girlfriend, Sabile, and yet he never really understands her. Even more so, when the aliens come to Earth and start abducting beautiful people. A tragic tale of love, loss, and the confused bereavement that comes when a lover betrays you for reasons you can't quite understand but can't quite condemn, either.

Night Bird Soaring, by T.L. Morganfield (Issue #3)
A Mayan man wants to be an astronaut, but that can never be: he was born as the Night Wind, a living God to be sacrificed at age 30. This is an excellent look at other cultures, one where Mayan culture was ascendant, and the only flaw is that the ending isn't particularly personal; it wraps things up, but doesn't necessarily connect. Still, the journey through this strangely mundane alien land is well worth it.

Think Fast, by Michael Greenhut (Issue #3)
"Pick an alternate timeline and you'll find my corpse." A man can send messages from his past self to his current self - a power granted so that he can help rescue his sister, who died. But the ending's a strange and surprising twist that makes sense, Memento-wise, becoming that rarity of things: a consistent, satisfying time-travel story.

The Great Big Nothing, by Frank Haberle (Issue #3)
A story with absolutely no speculative elements at all. Yet it made me tear up.

Forests of the Night, by Abigail Hilton (Issue #4)
A frail woman is dropped off by uncaring relatives at an old-age home. This story is short, almost flash, but that's good; it's a simple idea, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, finishing up exactly when it needs to.

A Man Of Kiri Maru, by Laura L. Sullivan (Issue #4)
Kiri Maru, a small island out in the Pacific Ocean, has a unique religion, if it can be called that: their God died by accident, and for a dumb reason, and isn't really worshipped. Into this culture steps a traditional scientist, hoping to study the culture and who instead falls in love. This is a wonderful example of a story that shouldn't work - the beginning has almost nothing to do with the ending, the tale wanders, and the ending is, to say the least, a little odd - and yet somehow, thanks to a wry writing style and engaging characters, this one pulls it off with style and grace and squids.

Chica, Let Me Tell You A Story, by Alex Dally McFarlane (Issue #3)
"I was a door, once." A magical portal tells her tale. The ending is a little flat, but overall this is strong for its concepts and intrigues.

Unfinished Stories, by J(ae) D. Brames (Issue #4)
A tale done with style and visceral pulp, this one's a simple tale built up with lot of punkish stylistic (and effective!) fillips. Follow Albert, the crazy mailman looking for a suitable body to scrape off the road so he can crack open the rebirth canal, and the narrator, who tags along for reasons that will be made devastatingly clear towards the end. And it has a damn near perfect final line.

The Dancing Aliens, by Mithran Somasundrum (Issue #4)
The aliens didn't jet down from a great spaceship in the sky; no, they turned up in public squares everywhere, dancing in strange and hypnotic patterns, starving to death because they didn't know how to busk. And the narrator, one of the first to discover the truth about things, witnesses the reason why they dance. The ending's a little anticlimactic, given the awesome buildup, but it's still reasonably creepy and believable.

The Dragon's Thorn, Sword of Kings (And Fred), by Idan Cohen (Issue #3)
A very funny flash fiction story about a great magic sword that winds up in the hands of, well, Fred. I've seen a lot of stories like this. Most of them don't work. This does.

On The Monthly Magazine Review:
Every month (hopefully, on the first, though not this time), I'll review a pro to semi-pro 'zine. There are a lot of potential definitions of "a semi-pro zine," ranging from circulations of over a thousand to income levels for the publisher - but for purposes of this, I'll say that a) you have to pay at least a cent a word, on average, and b) not be a Twitter-zine. I'm not opposed to bold experiments like Tweet the Meat, but paying five cents a word for a 140-character story really isn't going to support any starving artists.

I'm also not going to review just a single issue. No, I want to read multiple issues, to get (and give) a greater sense of what hits this particular 'zine's kinks. Is it deep mystery? Beautiful prose? Pulpy action? Reworked myths? You can't tell by a single issue, man, you gotta see a few.

My goal as a writer is to both educate myself in the market (so I know what markets like what), to help give some attention to markets that are always hungry for new readers, and to read some damned fine stories. If you have a semi-pro zine you'd like to nominate for review, speak up.

Bland, and lacking the intensity and inventiveness that made the first episode of the original series such an amazing brainfuck.

3/10 as a Prisoner remake
5/10 as a TV show

( Thoughts below the cut will probably contain massive spoilers for the first episode )

Here's what I get up to when I'm not studying (yeah for semester break!), running or working.

I've been making fish hats. I'm up to six of these guys. They are a great go-to baby gift (same pattern as the big guy, but in sock yarn), and since it's sock yarn, it's washable. Yay!




I've got two more of these on my mental list, and then I'll give it a rest. (One is for a friend who is quietly worshipful of my hat, hasn't dared to ask for one, and has a degree in fishes. His is going to be the right colours for his favourite breed of fish. One is for my fan club; he's an older guy who thinks I'm amazing, and thinks my husband is the luckiest man on earth. He calls me "Smiley", and loves my fish hat.)

I've made two of these in baby scale for male friends who are new dads. They love it, to the point of saying thank you, and "It was the best present we got for the baby' several days later. My grinchly little heart is warmed.

Things that I am grateful for this week.
Rediscovering music. Been pulling out artists that I haven't listened to for a while, like Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Air, and Laurie Anderson, and loving it.

A nice stereo at home, and a cute little one in my office, to facilitate this.

Catching up with old friends that I haven't see for far too long, which I did last weekend, and yesterday afternoon.

My wonderful, hardworking (in lots of ways at the moment), caring, resourceful wife.

Good friends and long-running roleplaying games.

Good food available within easy walking distance

The advances in medicine that offer viable treatment and hope for the future to so many people I know with chronic and/or life-threatening medical conditions

Delicious beer. I have monk beer from New Norcia.

And OK, just a little bit of schadenfreude at the Liberal Party implosion. OK, maybe a lot of schadenfreude. I'm actually kind of pleased that the showdown is over climate change. If it was over any other issue, we'd see the delusionist disease continue to fester in the heart of the party rooms, but the way things are going, in a few months it might be driven out of mainstream politics. Either that, or the Libs will be consigned to being even more unelectable. Either is good.

http://www.matthuynh.com/news/2009/11/27/finders-keepers/

http://www.matthuynh.com/news/?p=326

Finders Keepers
The Finders Keepers design markets will be showcasing a range of my artwork at their Happenstance gallery. I’ll be displaying something little different, prints of a selection of new, unseen illustrations from my personal playtime.

I’ll be amongst good company, including Kevin Tran, Tina Tran, Kate Banazi, Marcela Restrepo and so many other superstars, I can hardly stand it.

6-10PM, 4 DEC
10AM-8PM, 5 DEC
Friday 4th December from 6pm – 10pm
Saturday 5th December from 10am – 8pm
Carriageworks, 245 Wilson Street Eveleigh