The Future is Rick Astley

So, here it is, and I realize that there is almost no way that it will stand up to not one but three posts spent stalling; but I actually want to go back to one of those little bouts of dissembling, and talk about the Ultimate Rickroll.

Please understand, I was an early-nineties adopter of the Internet, first via Prodigy then via America Online; I fell in love with the actual, more-or-less direct, browser-based Internet via an FAQ for Final Fantasy VI.

Please also understand that to me, computers are magic. I know CSS and HTML fairly well, I am at least a pretty competent user of most applications and can figure a great many out without an instruction manual; but to me the way in which computers function is almost always alien and confusing on some level, if only at the root level of machine language. So I get a thrill out of new technology and new applications of the old stuff that a power-use might not.

All this is to set the tone for what I have to say about the Ultimate Rickroll, which is that I find it so fascinating because it is such a distillation of what I love about this modern age—the ease of transfer between online and offline realities.

When I started playing with the Internet, the closest thing to grounding the Internet in the offline was email (or, if you want to get technical and more than a little jejune, printouts). While I'm sure there are power users who will tell me you could order things online at that stage, the best I ever found was scans of mail-order catalogs or the occasional roleplaying sourcebook. I remember reading some pretty execrable hypertext fiction at that point, too, and playing a passable but boring online game that purported to be linked to the movie Twelve Monkeys, as well as a few home-brewed RPGs and platformers downloaded off FTP sites. In short, barring non-visual, non-aural contact with a living person, and the occasional file download, what you found online was mostly stuck there.

Then came, at least in my experience, Amazon. A person could go to a website, select a book, pay for it with a credit card and have it delivered to their home. There is a lot to lament about this set-up—the lack of human contact, the damage to independent bookstores—but at the same time, I had to applaud it because it was another way in which online and offline were merging. As major stores started to use websites for their mail-order services, and as Amazon branched out into other things besides books, I could feel myself sliding into the future.

Wednesday night, I had the somewhat strange privilege of visiting uWink. To keep the explanation brief, it is a restaurant wherein touchscreen computers are mounted to each table, and are used to order your food, pay your bill, and play a variety of games by yourself, with your tablemates, or with other groups in the restaurant. When I say it is used to order your food, I mean that it takes the place of the menu and the first half of your encounter with your server; they bring you your food, and your drink refills (which are also ordered via the touchscreen), and they assist you with technical problems. In other words, with the obvious exception of glitches, which the waitstaff are at least nominally equipped to fix, the experience is a seamless integration of local intranet and human interaction; one facilitates the other. It definitely had the light-and-shadow play of something Hollywood trendy, and the food was only pretty good for its price, but there was something glorious about the whole experience. It really did feel like the restaurant of the future, though their future takes some of its cues from The Jetsons, and when I can afford it I'll definitely go there again. I didn't exactly know why this experience made me so giddy—it was not that much of a shift from the normal restaurant experience, except with board games added, but something about the way it was presented, and the simple fact that this was a new application of only semi-modern technology, made it breathtaking.

Then came Thursday, and the Thanksgiving parade, and what I have already termed the Final Rickroll. Go ahead and take a moment to view it, and then I'll explain what I mean.

There we go. Now, the thing about this that took my breath away is that it is one of the next steps in the bridging of the on/offline gap. My aforementioned examples—commerce and service industries—and the other major examples, like online journals or instant messaging programs, are translations of old ideas through new technology. The rickroll, and its predecessor the duckroll, are pranks, yes, but pranks which depend entirely on online technology to work. I can imagine ways in which something like a rickroll could be perpetrated in flesh and blood, totally offline, but by and large the analog rickroll seems like it would be so difficult to pull off as to not be worth the payoff. Then Cartoon Network goes, and manages to stage a real-world rickroll; but here's the kicker for me—that joke wouldn't have worked if we hadn't had the Internet to spread it. It took an online phenomenon and found a way to make it work offline, but its functionality depended on a portion of the viewership understanding what a rickroll was (note, please, that the announcer on the YouTube video I linked says the word "rickroll" but doesn't bother to explain, which I think speaks volumes). In other words, after years of us figuring out how to use the Internet to do what we did anyway, this is a small example of the Internet giving back; and that, in conclusion, is why I have such great appreciation for the Final Rickroll.

We're moving into the future. I mean, we already have a black President; now we just need a flying car.

Witty Post Title, 11/29/08

It figures that after a late-night dose of link salad and an early-morning bout of writing (and the concomitant internal chant of "don't go back and read it yet, don't go back and read it yet..."), I come across yet more links worthy, if not worthier, of inclusion in a link salad. So, prepare to distend your intellectual bellies!

• Yes, you read this video's title correctly: Wii Remote theremin. This is the intellectual equivalent of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.


• Eliezer Yudkowsky, of Overcoming Bias, has some fascinating things to say about the creative process. You all know I'm a sucker for this subject, but I really mean it when I say that this is a fascinating way of thinking about it. I can't get enough of hearing very smart people talk about the process.


• And because it was referenced in the above article: The Mind Projection Fallacy as explained via old sci-fi movie posters. Again, two worlds collide; I think this one is more like an intellectual Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, with the Wii Theremin standing in as the bacon chocolate chip cookie.

Real post to come after I finish laundry.

A witty post title to keep you warm at night, 11/29/08

Link salad for you, while I consider my post, which I have appear to have forgotten how to write:

• In case you didn't see it, it's true: Cartoon Network has perpetrated the Final Rickroll. I like to think we'll look back on this as the beginning of a new era.


• For those of you with a political bent: the full text of Lawrence Summers' controversial address (the "women are less committed to science" speech) and an article, sadly not containing the full text, of the so-called "Summers memo". I have made my judgments on these issues and on Lawrence Summers, as much as I can for now, and ultimately, Summers' apparent sexism disappoints me, but I am grateful that he is not in a position where he has direct impact on the issues that is bound to render him blind to, and hopeful that it will not impact the considerable knowledge he brings to the board; I thought you might find these helpful. Wikipedia pages omitted because I just can't figure out how biased they are; the tone used could be that of a journalist with integrity or that of a dissembling apologist.


• To cleanse your palate after that, Language Log looks to be gearing up for a rumble. Over what, you ask? Why, over proper usage of the term "pentathlon". These are the sorts of things us nerds will cut you over.


• Britain deploys TV cameras designed to detect crimes before they happen. No, I'm not kidding, and no, I'm not happy. The system sounds ridiculous, and that's exactly my problem with it—what right do they have to pull this kind of maneuver on the populace at large? The quote about where money should be spent sums it up beautifully, but it does not adequately address my reaction to a story from two years ago about London Homicide's list of the 100 British people most likely to commit crimes. This wasn't a hypothetical list, either; this is a list of people that they were going to try to steer into counseling, or even possibly arrest. I have previously considered moving to the U.K., but this, combined with the "crime-detecting" CCTV systems as evidence against reformation in the two years since that article, give me pause. (Bonus silver lining: Enjoy the fact that concerns about excessive surveillance and invasion of privacy are raised in a quote from a man called an information commissioner.)


• And to wrap this one up: Just as we started with the ultimate expression of the Rickroll, we will end with the ultimate comeback to crude pickup lines.

That's all for now; my inability to write my post has now spread and metastasized, and I have found myself unable to operate simple Ctrl + commands. A better post with more original words when I return from sleep tomorrow morning.

In which I raise my glass

There will be a post tomorrow--I've got a topic all picked out, even some choice pithy phrases. But for the moment I am bloated with spent sugars and tryptophan, and my mind is moving more toward hurt stomachs and staring at a darkened ceiling than any kind of real thought process. So tomorrow, perhaps; but regardless of that, there are thanks.

Thanks to the people who do read this blog--I hope I manage to stumble into some moments of enjoyment, and that your numbers keep on growing. Thanks to Heather MacDougal in particular, for a brief flirtation with Internet legitimacy. Here's hoping you still drop by sometimes.

Thanks to my friends and family and the people who have seen fit to publish me; thanks to the people responsible for Joseph Campbell, and the Cthulhu Mythos, and sparking apple cider; and thanks to all the little things that complete my life that I am not remembering at this moment.

It's been a wild year, in ways I don't really say on this blog, and I'm grateful to have so many wonderful people to help me navigate the twists and turns.

Best of luck to you all; if that feels cheap as far as thanks, don't worry, there's a chance your remuneration is coming at Christmas. For now, it is time for the yearly ritual of DVD viewing--may God have mercy on our souls.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One...

I ramble.

I don't deny it; it's true. I suffer from an automatic mouth with no muffler. I relate ten-minute anecdotes, I derail conversations with sentences that are more like plots. I play with emphasis, with timing, with facial expressions and pauses. I am told that my interlocutor has heard a story only to go ahead and tell it anyway, or at least quote part of it just to satisfy myself. I will ask if people have heard "this one" even if I know they have, in the hopes that they will forget, and my heart flips over when I make reference to one of my old, tried-and-true verbal narratives only to hear the response "Wait, what?"

I acknowledge these as character flaws, or at the very least, occasionally irritating quirks. But I still do it (this is one of the great mysteries of life--our capacity to do incredibly annoying things with both awareness and verve). The question today is: why?

And the answer is simple: practice.

Think seriously about the stories you've heard. The archetype of the boring guy with the endless, pointless, totally unengaging anecdotes is strong, and it's on every street corner and living room couch. People drone on without pause or reflection. People add detail to their anecdotes that isn't needed, or misplace it such that it destroys the timing. People emphasize the wrong parts, pick the wrong audiences, and generally botch stories. For every truly good story every related to me, I can pick out three that have left me wanting to interrupt someone just for their own sake. I can also count at least twice per good story that I've been silenced via loud interjection or bemused stare. I know that the signal to noise on anecdotes is bad--I hang out with gamers, who are especially terrible about this--but yet I still contribute. And it's because I consider it practice.

I am not a skilled storyteller; my ability to grab a room depends a lot on the page. And I don't like that--I like a good story, I like a speaker who can lead me along, who can paint a picture, who can make me laugh so hard my lips curls back and my sides hurt. A lot of what is involved in telling a story out loud is also involved in telling a story on paper, especially when, like me, one writes by the seat of one's pants. I want to work toward that, even if it's unattainable. And so I talk. I talk and I talk and I listen and I listen and then, three times over, I analyze. I watch for where detail was overused, where it was underused, where a transition was clumsy, where the timing was off; I watch for where a person stumbled over a word and lost the thread, I watch for where a person took too long to remember a crucial point; I watch cadence and tone and the way these affect things, and the difference between a person laughing with the room and a person laughing so the room knows it's time to do so. And I, of course, do all these things for myself, and I analyze how I could do them better--and also, for the purposes of dialog, how my failings are natural and what they might say about me.

I ramble; but in some ways that rambling is valuable to my art. So if I'm conversing with you, and I start telling a story you've heard; or if you take it turn to tell a story and I seem distracted at the conclusion, please don't be offended. And if I start in on something you don't want to hear, something you do remember and didn't find funny the first time--just tell me that we're at dinner/church/a party/tennis, and this isn't the time to practice.

Considerations

I am not sure if dealing with a doctor's appointment is what triggered an introspective mood, or if it had more to do with being near the beginning of Bourdain's Kitchen Confidental and reading references to being twenty-two, or if it was simply happenstance; but something led me to stay up until five in the morning yesterday, staring at what little streetlight got absorbed by my ceiling and working through the timeline of the past nine years with one of my oldest friends. And while it may seem like a trite conclusion to arrive at, one of the principal things I came to understand via that conversation was how fast life really moves, and at the same time how slow.

I don't mean in some pessimistic sense, with depressions and car accidents and cancers leaping down on you out of nowhere; just in terms of, really, how quickly a situation can develop, shift, and deteriorate. My first quarter of college was ten weeks long, and in that time I acquired, befriended, and lost someone I at the time considered my best friend; over the course of the next quarter I floundered through a deep depression and watched my social circle totally fragment.

When I assess when things occurred--this particular party, a LARP I enjoyed, a major argument--I am always mystified to discover that simultaneously, the event that seems so distant is only two or three years old, and is surrounded by a multitude of major events that all occurred so close together that my life feels prickly with steep highs and deep lows. When I analyze how one particular event or issue played out I find it was a matter of days, and within those days, single moments: an entire string of events starting with one email and playing itself overdone and mute within a week.

It stung here and there to discuss, and occasionally made me angry; but mostly it made me really consider how interesting my life has actually been, even if not full of the kind of travels and literary and fiscal successes I would like to have to my name. It also makes me (to tie this back to the point of this whole blog) think about the way plot flows, and wonder if this is what I sensed beneath the surface back when I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or perhaps more topically, if this is why I liked Tim Powers' The Stress of Her Regard more than I liked Last Call: The way that the stories in those two books flow is incidental, sometimes coincidental. Things start with a single action, not even deliberate and in one case not even informed, and balloon out into a a sort of conceptual beast that the protagonist can only tie a rope to and hope to hang on until the end. It makes me, unfortunately, turn an eye toward Eyes of Stone and its layout again; but perhaps fortunately, it makes me consider that the strange, sudden, sometimes chaotic way the plot seems to develop and spool out is exactly the sort of naturalistic anarchy that I see in works I appreciate. Much as it makes me anxious, I enjoy the way life will just keep throwing in twists; and I can't help but want literature to be the same way.

An Outline of an Outline

Apparently Thursdays are cursed; even with a power failure at work and an enforced vacation I still find myself unable to post on time. Such is life.

In lieu of further venting about Eyes of Stone, let me instead give you these thoughts re: outlines.

Simply put, I have previous to now not outlined stories very much (there; one of your classic author Q&A questions, answered before I ever have an author Q&A). A lot of this is for the same reason that I have trouble posting on time: inspiration does not respond well to structure. It responds well to discipline, certainly; if I set out to write every day or 5 days a week and really force myself to do so I find my ability to tap inspiration on demand does improve. But even that strain sometimes causes a collapse--I've had plenty of weeks where the mere thought of writing sets my eyes to straining and my forehead to aching.

And so it is with outlines. Often, when I do decide to outline a story, I find myself quickly blasting off straight into Crazytown; the whole process ends with a few bursts of swearing and me stalking away from my computer to go watch some old Mutant Enemy productions and pray for salvation. At the risk of sounding like some kind of Beat pretender, I work much better when I don't script myself and just see where things take me.

How many of you shuddered just there? Or winced? Yeah. I've been there.

For those not "in the know": "just winging it" will only really get you so far a lot of the time, unless you are well-practiced or absurdly talented. For every story that goes beautifully and flows into a fascinating ending there is one story that gets to around 10,000 words with no end or even middle in sight, one that follows a formula so trite it makes my mouth pucker when I read it, and one that has some great bits in the middle but just suddenly ends. I'll go back through manuscripts and find myself inserting no end of nauseating twists and twirls, pretentiously sly winks, and inventive but unnecessary characters who mostly serve to prove what a great and detailed world I have developed...for a 10-page story.

Of course, writers fail sometimes. Pick your famous creator and imagine the attic full of crumpled paper or dried lumps of clay or half-smeared canvas, and it's undoubtedly true in most cases. And this was my little mantra for everything that got rejected, everything that needed rewriting, everything that even editing couldn't save. Just keep winging it, just keep letting the inspiration come in whatever doses I can get, and don't worry too hard about the failures. And then there was Eyes of Stone.

I've said here before, as well as in more personal settings, that Eyes of Stone is proving to be a chore, if an often-enjoyable one. And really, yesterday, as I sat there at my desk wondering how to use up eight hours that are normally slotted for proofreading, I finally hit on the truth that differentiated the rockier path taken here from the straighter (if still bumpy) ride of Done with Mirrors: when I started Done with Mirrors, or at least about 20,000 words into it, I had some idea how it would end.

Not so with Eyes of Stone. I knew I wanted drama, and personal conflict, and big changes to my main character's life (but not too big, just first steps in mostly right directions). But the reason I got frustrated with trying to outline this story was that doing so raised questions, and one of the primary questions was, where did I really think this was all going? That was what was lacking; that was the positive charge that my inspiration failed to have.

Well, I think I have it now, and that's a good feeling (if somewhat diluted by me being concerned with, of all things, my page count...that's for the editing phase, buddy, don't get ahead of yourself). And more importantly I think I learned a basic truth here, which is that I am not ready to write something until I know how it ends. I can wander all around in the middle, I can even arrive at a totally unexpected destination (God knows I didn't expect what I got in Done with Mirrors), but I need to have a point on a map, or else I wind up steering straight off the edge.

It's sometimes painful, but it's still progress.

One Broken Promise Deserves Another

I said I wouldn't talk about politics, and I did. Now, let's also talk about my personal life. I promise it's writing-related.

These past few weeks, and particularly these past few days, have seen an explosion in my social life. Sara's wedding reminded me of some of the fantastic people I have not gotten to see of late, and my own birthday saw me remembering what wonderful friends I've got right in my own backyard.

Last night seems like it was at least a week ago, so twisted and inside-out is the tunnel of my perception; I got a chance to visit with an old friend and his new girlfriend, and play some board games and chill out free of any other responsibility. Then there was a couch in the dark and a few hours sleep, an overcast morning, and a sleepy train ride with a very strange, very chatty man with golden-brown skin who insisted he worked in chemical engineering and was about to commit domestic abuse (I would have called someone if I wasn't certain he was either hallucinating or kidding). After that was breakfast and dinner with my mother along with driving all over the Bay Area, to books and IKEA and to various other places besides, ending with my domesticity increased and a whole evening to relax. Then I went upstairs, and finished making plans with a very old, very dear friend from college, and took some time for TVTropes, and proceeded to discover that it was 9:45pm, that I had indeed slept on a couch last night, and that I was hoping to attend the farmer's market in the morning--which reminded me to go withdraw cash and pick up the few things I could afford at Safeway but not from the farmers--and which then brought me around to 10:15 or so.

All of this is to say that I am happy, but have also done no writing today, nor indeed yesterday. I have also eaten somewhat poorly, or at least to excess, and that is a problem; and as I sit here, playing a video game and contemplating sleep, I consider that life is too short and that playing video games will never be my career. Tonight, I am drained, and I should accept drainage; but tomorrow, I need to get back on track with writing.

1000 words a day, as often as I can--try to take no more than two days off a week, and try not to write only for the sake of word count. Submit more stories. Talk to more agents. Be louder. If it's this easy to lose track of what day it is, I could easily find myself discovering I've turned forty--and I don't want to have let my passion die on the vine.

NaNoWriMo Killed Bambi's Mom

It's November, which, for those of you who pay attention to such things, mean it is National Novel Writing Month. Those of you who pay attention to such things may have also noticed that this is the first mention I have made of NaNoWriMo, five days into it, and that I do not appear to have conceptual lava boiling up out of my head. This is because I am not participating in National Novel Writing Month. And now, unbidden, I will tell you why: because I do not think it is a good idea.

Now, hands off the keyboard; don't get me wrong. I think that NaNoWriMo is a fascinating exercise, and I can imagine that it dragged many people off the couch and away from their fan forum of choice to discover that they have at the very least a power to commit to something large and difficult, and maybe even that they have a bright creative spark within themselves. I participated last year and had the privilege of crossing the finish line; if it were not for NaNoWriMo I may never have written "Somewhere in Barstow", currently ensconced on my Selected Writings page and being considered for rewriting into something larger. However, having crossed the finish line, I do not think I will cross it again.

The majority of the reason is personal, to do with the somewhat fragile and dare I say it fickle nature of my creative process. When I did NaNoWriMo my words flew fast and loose; I spent the majority of the month ahead of schedule and I finished with days to spare. I seem to recall drinking fairly heavily. Then I recall one of the deepest, nastiest, most bleak stretches of cement-gray writer's block I have ever experienced. I don't think I met my writing goals for two months after I finished NaNoWriMo; if I hadn't moved out of the apartment I'd been living in and shaken up my life a bit I am not sure I would have written again until November and despair struck me over the head. I'm not saying NaNoWriMo killed my ability to write, but I am saying that it put me in entirely the wrong headspace for my regular writing.

And this, you see, is what I consider the NaNoWriMo curse: it strongly values quantity. Writing a book for NaNoWriMo requires 1,667 words (you'll wind up with change on that schedule) a day, which is only 300 words shy of what Stephen King expects of himself daily. You may have heard of Stephen King--the man who is a multi-bestseller and who has the fortune to write as a career? The man who thus has 16 or so hours in a day to devote to writing? You see where I'm going, math-wise.

That this is an enormous task is not my point--I think accomplishing something slightly insane in one's life is a perfectly fine goal, and I applaud it as a form of creative, well, recreation. My problem is that there are plenty of people who think that these 50,000 word projects make them novelists, a thought process that is in no way dissuaded by offers, some of them perpetrated with the help of the NaNoWriMo staffers, to print up bound copies of these books. Though the mission statement suggests that this is meant to be a fun challenge, when you get into the process it is easy to believe that what you are doing is writing a serious book.

A serious book, for most people, does not take a month. And a serious book is, with rare exceptions, more than 50,000 words long. Period.

I think NaNoWriMo is a great game and a fascinating creative exercise; and I think it can even be a good launchpad, if you are aware it is a launchpad. But I do not think it is a good tool for a career writer, as it encourages a way of writing that, for most people, is not going to be useful.

I know that sounds elitist, but writing is a skill; unfortunately, creativity and taste are both highly subjective, so it is hard for me to quantify my argument more than I already have. Think of writing like exercise: running that hot for that long will leave you too exhausted to do it again the next day. Jog a little. Walk sometimes. Stop to have some water. Don't expect writing to happen every day, and certainly don't expect it to happen in such large increments. If you do, in the long run, I suspect you will be disappointed.

All that said, I reiterate, NaNoWriMo is great fun; I salute those making the journey this year, and if you've never tried your hand at writing, give it a try. But if you try to tell me this makes you a novelist, I am not responsible for my actions.

Time to Show My Colors

I had said I'd avoid politics, but this year it's impossible. I have something I absolutely have to say.

Thank you to groups like MoveOn and TrueMajority, for fighting ceaselessly and thanklessly for change.

Thank you to the ACLU and its allies, who are as we speak appealing Prop 8.

Thank you to John McCain, for one of the most gracious concession speeches I have ever had the privilege to see; for showing us that you still are the affable, kindly, patriotic man that we had seen in previous years; and for all the years of service you have given to this great country.

And thank you, America. Thank you for coming out and showing us your true colors. For participating in the system instead of just criticizing. For voting from the heart, and proving that we truly have made strides since the days of Rosa Parks. Thank you for the light at the end of the tunnel; thank you for showing that we have the strength to win this. Thank you for making me, once more, proud to be an American.

And thank you to our newly-elected 44th President, for one of the most stirring speeches I have yet seen; for being the statesman we have waited for; for being, as you say, change we can believe in. People accuse you of being too right, and people accuse you of being disingenuous; but I see the strong left in you and I see the truth in your words, do believe that you are what we need right now--not just us, but the world. From what I've seen in the news, the world agrees.

I think the man himself said it best--it will be a hard battle, but this election is proof that we can win it. And to those who want to tear down the world: we will defeat you.

And let me say it, one last time, before these words are hammered into a meaningless void by the media: Yes we did. And yes we can.

Last night, when I arrived home from an election night celebration, from witnessing one of the most awesome, inspiring speeches I have seen in recent memory, I had the privilege of reading the words I have wanted to see now for over a year; and though I can't be in all of your offices and living rooms, I can pretend.

So please, right now, hoist a glass.

To President Barack Obama.