2008, In Review and Memoriam

Right. Today is going to be, as is tradition, insane; so I'd best get this done right now.

2008. What to say about 2008? Not a whole lot that's polite, really.

If I had to pick a single word for this year, I'd say it was Change. If I had to pretend I knew something about the Tarot, I'd say this year's card was Death.

You can see it in the American Presidential election and the polarized reactions to Obama's victory; the idea that while we're still in stormy waters, we've got the rudder pointed in the right directions, and the opposing idea that Obama is just going to sail us in deeper. We're mewling and squalling right now as a people, but we're on something like a track to real change.

Everyone I know had their life change this year, in a major way. Relationships ended and others begun; jobs applied for; apartments rented; hobbies shifted and renewed and left by the wayside. I heard a lot of revelations come out of my friends' mouths, a lot of decisions that we've all known were a long time in coming; and I've seen a lot of friends who are still struggling with what they should do. My own life is synecdochal: new house, new town, new routine, new friend. I dealt with some awful things, and some great things, and I shed a lot of tears over both.

Major, tough decisions were made this year, and plenty of questions are left for when we all open our throbbing, underslept eyes on the first. It's been a year of sadness, and pain, and (to go back to that Death card) rebirth; it's been a year of shaky first steps and horrifying first falls.

But as much as it hurt or is hurting, I know that these are steps that needed to be taken. Call them birth pangs, if the first steps metaphor doesn't stir your coffee; but I know that the world that is coming to be, both immediately and globally, is going to be a better one.

I plan to focus a great deal more on my writing in the New Year; I've been bad about letting some things flounder and soften. This blog is a place to shine the spotlight on the weird, but it's also a chronicle of a dream; and frankly, I don't think it will have done its job if it those first few commenters don't get to say "I knew him before...". Even if the ending winds up being "he owned that many guns".

So, prepare for more story submissions, and hopefully a few more story publications; prepare for more complaining about the travails of writer's block; prepare for more shouting and more heavy-handed prose. Also prepare, in the grand tradition of Cherie Priest, for progress notes--because you folks deserve/have been punished with a little more insight into my creative process. But don't think this means the link salad will end.

Goodbye, 2008. You've been a bastard of a year. Tonight, I'm going to drown you in Guinness, and make a crown out of a Page-A-Day calendar, and go out on a balcony in Milpitas and tell you you got what you deserved. You slapped me around when I needed it, and for that you deserve a proper wake.

And for all of you who aren't a unit of time, I leave you with two thoughts: first, that my current long project, Eyes of Stone, sits at 49,700 out of 90,000 words. Second, a bit of positivity to end the year--the knowledge that wit and eloquence can get you somewhere in this world: everyone, I give you Sir Terry Pratchett.

Happy New Year, folks. Have a drink for me.

A Single Slice of Internet Vegetation

This is a bit like a radish, I think: small, and if improperly prepared, apt to cause looks of disgust.

Fetal Twittering.

I realize that we here in my ego are apt to babble on endlessly about that thing we refuse to call Web 3.0, and the Internet feeding back into the world, and all the ways in which technology can help to create global community and global culture; but this is not a step forward for any society I want to be a part of. I can't imagine this will be anything but asinine, especially since the prototype currently puts quite a leash on the pregnant mother. We could have spent this money curing cancer, people. Or at least finding something more useful to do with Twitter.

This Week's Salad

• Follow-up item: China unblocks the New York Times. Well, I suppose that's a small step in the right direction...


• The Far Side Reenactment Pool. The sincerest, and perhaps strangest, form of flattery.


• Obama's science advisors include an open access supporter, which I guess is sort of a follow-up to the POSTNotes link I provided last week. This is not the first nomination that has gone to someone with strong beliefs about online community and freedom of information, and I'm excited to see where this all goes.

Serious post to follow in a few days' time.

Oliver Postgate, Transformers, and the Need for A Show with a Plot

It's sad that it takes a death to make me post something less than scathing. I like to think it's a microcosmic indictment of the world's condition.

As some of you may have already noticed, Oliver Postgate recently passed away. I did not have the privilege of knowing Mr. Postgate's work; I did not grow up with it, nor even discover it with any depth except via news about his demise. His work seems fantastic, and it strikes me that people of the proper upbringing are reacting to him much the way I (and basically the entire rest of the world) reacted to the death of Jim Henson.

Not to subvert a man's death for my own blogging purposes (metanarrative equals absolution), but the part about Mr. Postgate's death that struck me the hardest was this snippet from the Guardian: "He thought the youngsters were getting a penny-pinching deal, especially in the matter of storytelling."

All death is a tragedy. The death of a creative person is a tragedy. But the death of someone who held this belief and did something about it is a travesty.

As a child of the Eighties, I am spoiled when it comes to children's programming. I used to be a Saturday morning cartoon junkie; I'd wake up early, toast and butter a bagel, pour a glass of juice, and sit down on the floor with my eyes searingly close to the TV so I could enjoy some quality time with my narratives of choice. Then the mid-Nineties rolled through, and I started learning about the joy and heat of late-night gaming sessions, and I started seeing a lot fewer dawns and a lot more half-dead mornings. I had never before experienced waking up from sleeping too much. And while I can easily blame Dungeons & Dragons or the Super Nintendo for this effect, some of it is just this: children's television programming had really, really started to suck.

There are and were exceptions, of course. But everyone seems to think that children are not only eight, but eight, not very bright, and riddled with the most cartoonish version of ADHD. TV shows seemed to focus on hammering home a moral (the environment was really quite popular, with Captain Planet as the nadir) or else just flashing bright colors and fart jokes until the half-hour's up and the kids go home. The Eighties had some of that, but the Eighties also had some shows that I can rewatch as an adult and manage to maintain my lunch, which I cannot say for anything I remember from the Nineties.

So, what was it about the Eighties that was so great? Was it the strong animation? The variety of studios involved in the competition? Maybe both of those helped. But coming at it as an adult, I have to say that Mr. Postgate hit on it—it was the storytelling.

As an example, allow me to hit on the cartoon I've been alluding to for two posts now. If you are someone I converse with on a regular basis, you might have heard some of this. Yes, that's right.

It's time to talk about Transformers.
Nota Bene: Here there be spoilers.



I am one of Those Kids; the ones who were just the right age in 1986 to be seriously damaged when Optimus Prime died. I have the image of orange smoke pouring out of Prowl's mouth burned onto my optic nerve. I got obsessed with reliving this childhood nostalgia recently, and started watching old episodes through DVDs and other more dubious sources; culminating in watching the real Transformers movie this weekend, with a fellow Literature student. Naturally, like any geek, I had to complain; and so here, it was about plot holes. But then I examined them, partially with prodding on my friend's part; and I realized that there was something about Transformers that I had not previously appreciated: it had consistency.

Consider the aforementioned scene with the death of Prowl (as well as, to be fair, Brawn, Ratchet, and Ironhide—raise your hand if that sentence made you wince). These deaths are delivered via the weapons of (who else?) Megatron, Soundwave, and Starscream. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that at least one of the decedents had taken a blast from at least one of the aggressors during the first two seasons of the series, and had come through just needing some repairs. I was annoyed by this, of course; my status as one of Those Kids also means I have the God-given right to carp about how the movie was working hard to sell toys. But making a comment aloud about "Megatron's variable-power arm-cannon" made me really consider those words—and, call me an apologist, but what if those words are actually true?

(The discussion that ensues here is nerdy enough to potentially cause you to develop vision problems, pimples, and possibly virginity. You have been warned.)

The first two seasons of the show take place in the eighties. The Autobots and Decepticons awaken after a crash landing on Earth, and renew an internecine conflict mostly focused around control of Cybertron. Having re-watched the episodes now, there are two issues that constantly come up in that series: power supplies, and parts for repairs. The need for power is in fact most of the driving motivation for the Decepticon plots that form the bulk of the narrative, even though that's just one hurdle in Megatron's ultimate plan—total control of Cybertron. Go back and watch the show, and note how often battles between the Autobots and Decepticons end when one side or the other orders a retreat. I believe the words you want are "a lot". This behavior is never entirely explicated in the series, but it is not difficult to conclude that the Transformers are doing this to conserve resources—and that the deaths in the movie are the result of a twenty-year shift from a battle of resources and attrition to an all-out war.

This consistency within the mythology is, miraculously, further reinforced by some of the spinoffs: Beast Wars and Transformers Animated both make reference to the events of Generation 1, with Animated even using a clip from the first Generation 1 episode when they discuss the history of the Transformers. Animated does casually ignore certain elements, of course—there are clear ways in which the series is a bit of a franchise reboot—but the point is, this sort of consistency is deliberate. The example I gave above is not all that far-fetched.

I could fill a book with examples of how the Transformers universe manages to maintain internal consistency (though it has its continuity errors—notably the Dinobots), but that might bore even me. I will end by getting back to my point, which is that the few series nowadays that seem to have this kind of consistency are deliberately building upon other works--Transformers, comic books, Disney films—and are rarely doing much original world-building. Even series for adults have problems keeping their narrative threads from unwinding; but when I look at shows intended for children I see a noticeable dearth of attention paid to anything more than running gags and shiny colors. And personally, I consider this a travesty; which is why I thank the universe for providing me with old shows on DVD, and why I can be unfamiliar with Mr. Postgate's works and still be saddened at such a blow to children's entertainment.

So, goodbye, Mr. Postgate. I never knew you, but I know you treated children like human beings, and for that I can never thank you enough. Good luck with whatever you've traveled on to, and consider yourself on the list for eventual brain-to-jar conversion.

Next time: Why I don't feel ashamed for writing about Transformers

I am your meta-MetaFilter. Call me "Filter Omega".

As usual, life and circumstance puts the lie to my posting claims. The post about obsession and Oliver Postgate (well, his work, that is) is to come later today; for now, you receive more link salad.

• Music industry shifting its anti-piracy tactics. Provided they hold true to this, it looks the RIAA is finally focusing its money and time on targeting music uploaders rather than music downloaders, and is starting to do some work on respecting the privacy of the individual. Unfortunately, they aren't abandoning their current (asinine) crop of lawsuits, so I can only gain so much respect...


• A Mr. Wendell Jamieson gives us a very different take on It's A Wonderful Life. What's better than lit crit? Cynical lit crit!


• POSTNotes. These are briefings and longer works from the UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. I have not gotten a chance to read them yet; I'll edit with a review when I get a chance (and encourage you readers to let me know if this is just terrible stuff). In the meantime, I just dig this idea; it's both a quick way to get an update on current science, and a nice little way for government to make itself a bit less opaque.


• And finally, your dose of schadenfreude: Anti-kidnapping expert kidnapped. This is terrible and I hope Mr. Batista gets out of it safely, and yet at the same time there is a dark part of me that cannot help but laugh. Welcome to the downfall of my generation.

Amuse Bouche

It's not so much a link salad as an appetizer for something more interesting down the road, but a link to a blog post is like a blog post, right? Cabinet of Wonders on Coraline, the Antikythera Mechanism, and my favorite topic, digital/analog crossover.

Content-wise, this is better than the Final Rickroll (and it's a fantastic way to showcase the hard work of people who, if they are at the height of their craft, never get noticed). I hope to some day have the sort of blog that invites this kind of crossover.

Next time, I purge an obsession: Transformers

The Great Firewall

Big surprise: Many Web sites are blocked from viewing in China.

As much as I hate to say it, this doesn't scare me. Censorship scares me, but this is neither new nor unique. What scares me, what absolutely terrifies me, is the sentiment expressed in this quoted statement by a representative of the Foreign Ministry:

“I hope that the Web sites in question will be able to self-regulate, and not do things that will violate Chinese law, and for the sake of both sides, develop conditions for Web site cooperation."

This from the Foreign Ministry. In other words, not to be inflammatory: If you want to stop being censored, stop saying things we don't approve of.

I have a serious problem with the quoted representative's attitude. It suggests that the only "appeal" against censorship is censoring oneself. It suggests an incontrovertible rightness to their behavior.

I have nothing pithy to end on. I'm just going to go be furious until I have time to do some research, and determine if China's government really is the fascistic, facile 1984 derivative that this article paints them to be.

Whither the Trenchcoat?

I have previously ranted about cartoonish magic, people who think "ridiculous" means "epic", and the half-dozen things that need to leave my genre right now. I also found time to rant about dragons. And you are probably thinking to yourself, what right do I have to question these things? Okay, hopefully you're just thinking I'm amusing, but I need to take a moment. The truth is, I don't think I'm the greatest writer in the world; but I am a reader. And that means, if you're writing, I'm one of the people you're aiming for. So, that's really all the right I've got, and that's really all the excuse I'm going to give; I in no way claim final authority.

There. Now. Tonight, I'm ranting about fantasy and fashion.

Allow me to say it, as many, I've sure, have said before: stop it with the god-damn trench-coats.

You can call it the trench-coat; the long coat; the duster; you can dissemble about lapels and buttons; you can attempt to justify it however you want, but the truth is, the trench-coat, long, flowing, and just a little cowpunk, is on a literary ship that has long since sailed.

I mentioned cowpunk, and yeah, it probably starts with cowboys. The duster is standard wear for a high noon showdown. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett probably helped, too (though off the top of my head I'm not remembering either Marlowe or Spade wearing the long-and-flowy). And I can think of plenty of fantasy stories where the main character wears a dark cloak. But whatever brought it to life, you know what killed it? The Matrix.

The rumor, at least as presented in Coupland's JPod, is that the coat was used for one purpose: shortening the render time on the CGI sequences. And in so doing, the brothers Wachowski managed to trigger, or at least feed into, an obsession with the trench-coat.

People think trench-coats are macho. They think trench-coats look awesome. I own a trench-coat, a black one, and I enjoy wearing it, because it is warm and has big pockets. But it has been a long time since trench-coats looked awesome, and the Matrix is why, along with the Matrix's fans, Casablanca's fans, Joss Whedon's fans, and, ultimately, gamers.

I am a gamer. I've done the board game thing, the pen and paper thing; I've walked around at night pretending to be a vampire; I've hit people with padded sticks and shouted out how much damage my magic weapon did. And you know what I've seen tons of? So many tons of them that it has become a running joke? The trench-coat. In particular, the black trench-coat, often the black leather trench-coat. Some of us have dusters. But when I see a trench-coat, I do not think of cowboys, or vampires, or hard-boiled detectives. I think of Vampire LARPers. The symbolic cachet of the trench-coat is not gone; it's just shifted. It has left the shoulders of the badasses and moved to the shoulders of those who want to be them.

There are subversions possible, of course, some of them even clever. Simon R. Green has a main character who is sort of famous for wearing a white trench-coat; and Firefly brought them back around by using them to invoke the image of cowboys. But for the most part, when I see them, I think of guys with inappropriately long hair and a bad dice habit, who are probably using that trench-coat to store a bottle of Coke; and while that image is not there for the population writ large, they are likely to think your main character really, really wants to be Neo.

So if you want to invoke that imagery; or if you're setting it in the Wild West; or if your main character is a nerd or a goth kid or a LARPer; then by all means, go ahead. But otherwise, the trench-coat and the duster are probably not your best bet. And don't go trying to sneak in a greatcoat either; it's really just a trench-coat with muttonchops.

There. I said it. I'm done with telling you what not to write until the end of January, at least; I can't promise much more than that, though. These posts are just so much damn fun, like a class on literary theory wrapped up in razor blades. (I'm also done with similes like that until at least next Friday...)

The Scraps

It has come to my attention that I need to stop using the word "never", at least in reference to this blog; for it turns out, upon reflection, that nearly everything I insisted I would never do has come to pass, and that my capacity to actually keep to my Thursday updating schedule is roughly equivalent to my capacity to fly. This is, I guess, a lesson from the universe.

It has also come to my attention that it is Thursday, and I should be updating. The trouble is, it has been a grueling work week thanks to two folks being on vacation (not their fault), and I have spent eight hours a day feeling as though I've had my skull filled with glue while someone with no grace or etiquette force-fed me bricks. The frenetic energy this stress fills me with has been channeled into working on Eyes of Stone, which is still a beast but is at least a tame one. So I'll be posting later, I hope, provided that I am able to find something clever to say. That is, I will be posting "later"...it's just "later" in this case may mean "Saturday".

Until then, I give you today's xkcd, and the world's most expensive coffee table book. Click in good health.