"See my name on the wall."

[greygirlbeast]

I predict a third day of higgledy piggledy.

I have just discovered that I receive messages via LiveJournal. There are, in fact, 64 of them I have never read, because I never knew they existed. I suspect some may go back to 2004, when I made the jump from Blogger to LJ. Why do I need to get messages at LJ (or Facebook, or Twitter)? I have a perfectly good email address? Anyway, if you've written me at LJ and not received a reply, it's because I'm a technological dullard, not because I'm ignoring you.

Yesterday was meant to be a day off. I looked up from finishing my story for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (still no title), and realized I'd not left the House for nine days. It just happens. So, we were going to the shore. But as soon as we went Outside, it got cloudy and chilly, and we only made it as far as Newbury Comics, where we got the new Grinderman CD and a comic box of the wrong size. The comic box is because I took all my issues of The Dreaming down off the shelf where I keep books I've written and anthologies I've been in, because I'm probably never going to write comics again, and I needed the shelf space. But this comic book box is enormous, so Spooky's going to store patterns in it, and I'll get a small one later.

I spend a lot of energy trying to avoid politics in my LJ. Why? Because I hate the flamewars that inevitably follow. I thought I'd left that shit behind when I finally escaped the wretched clutches of Usenet. But I commented yesterday, on Facebook and on Twitter, about the Pope's asinine remarks comparing Atheism to Nazism, and, before the day was over, I'd been accused of being anti-Semitic (?!?), and intolerant (?!?), and ignorant of history (?!?). I actually had to tell someone on Facebook to shut up. I'm not sure I've ever told anyone on the web to shut up. At least not in so many words. Anyway, he didn't, so I had to ban him, and I hate doing that shit. I may simply avoid Facebook for a time, since it won't allow me to turn off or screen comments.

Just for the record, I'm not being intolerant by getting angry when someone calls me intolerant for complaining about the intolerance of the Roman Catholic Church (which, by the way, condemns who I am on several levels, and can go fuck itself).

Enough of that crap. I get started, and I'll go on and on. About France's racist decision to ban the wearing of burkas, for example. Or the environmental nightmare caused by planned gadget obsolescence. Or how scary the Teabaggers are becoming.

Speaking of which, I think I've begun to suspect that NIN's Year Zero wasn't so much about Bush's America, as it was a display of prescience on Trent Reznor's part, and the album's really about America after a couple of terms under a Teabagger administration.

But...never mind.

Last night, we watched the remake of The Crazies by director Breck Eisner (produced by George Romero), and starring Timothy Oliphant and Radha Mitchell. I loved it. An amazingly tense and atmospheric film. Very gory, but the gore is handled with wonderful finesse and indirection, making it effective, instead of overwhelming or humorous. The cinematography and score both took me by surprise (in a good way). I never much cared for the original, but the remake is one of the scariest films I've seen in a while. And no, it's not a zombie film, just like Twenty Eight Days Later wasn't a zombie film.

Today, I need to read all the way through this new story that does not yet have a name.

Oh, and my thanks to everyone for the wonderful (and not infuriating) comments to this journal over the last couple of days. I ought to repost a few of them, especially on the subject of science fiction.

Comments

[sovay]

the Pope's asinine remarks comparing Atheism to Nazism

Augh.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

One of the most infuriating phenomena I've encountered is the the presumption that the worst thing you can do to someone is call them out on something awful they have done or call some miserable regressive opinion they have into question. It's become so ingrained that I've had to argue with people who I think should know better that freedom of speech isn't freedom from criticism or challenge. But it seems so many people believe that, it allows people with enough of a mouthpiece to get really stupid, miserable ideas into the public without comment, let alone getting shot down as they deserve (you list some ... worthy examples). It always seems to lead to the situation you ran into yesterday, and I hate when that happens and I'm sorry it happened to you.

And the Pope said what? As they say on the internets, *facepalm*

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

And the Pope said what?

And my response was simply, "Someone should tell the Pope that Hitler was a Christian, and don't start in with all the, "Yeah, but he wasn't a real Christian crap." Which, of course, people immediately started in with.

It just makes me tired.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

No True Scotsman. One of my favorites.

[egologic.livejournal.com]

Great post. So many things covered.

Personally, I miss Usenet. I may have a had a tougher hide but I understand why someone would regard it as evil. But it was the parasites on the host that were evil. Not the host. Most of all I miss the wonderful binary files you could download. Especially pictures of trains, old cars, pinups, etc.

New Grinderman??? Glad you said. I sort of knew it was coming out. I've been a fan of Nick's since Birthday Party (and got to not only see them perform in Denver in 1983 - I believe it was both Good Friday and Friday the 13th - but was able to reach out and put my hand on Nick's shoulder and he didn't hit me or anything - yeahyeahIknow but I have this thing about touching: I like to touch though I usually am pretty careful about it).

Also glad you've been talking about "Rat Girl." I got it in B&N yesterday. Only have had a peek in it since I'm in the middle of about three other books.

Trent Reznor has this: http://www.nullco.com/TSN/

Teabaggers? Well, Jon Stewart is having the "Rally to Restore Sanity" alongside Stephen Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive" on the National Mall on 10.30.10. That's a Saturday.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Most of all I miss the wonderful binary files you could download. Especially pictures of trains, old cars, pinups, etc.

But you can still download binary files from the web, right? And there are so many more image libraries than ever existed on Usenet, aren't there (just look at Google and Wikipedia), aren't there? And Usenet is actually gone, is it?

New Grinderman???

Yep, and they're playing Boston in November.

but was able to reach out and put my hand on Nick's shoulder and he didn't hit me or anything - yeahyeahIknow but I have this thing about touching: I like to touch though I usually am pretty careful about it).

I have to admit I've been guilty of this a couple of times myself, creepy though it may be.

Trent Reznor has this: http://www.nullco.com/TSN/

Thank you! I was told about this last night, but hadn't gotten around to the download.

[egologic.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can still download binary files but part of the problem is the huge number of images and their tendency to be spread out over many sources. I used to use Free Agent and with a few clicks I could download a fairly large number of images (from a variety of groups and all in what amounted to one location). But you're right about the number of images in other places. I don't have the convenience I once had though. But change sometimes means doing things in a different way.

I could sign up for a news service that would supply access to the various groups but sometimes it's a little pricey (maybe not by itself but when you add it to all the other things you pay $10 a month, $5 dollars a month, $30 a month, etc. it adds up). And there is often a cap on how much you can download each month. So I'd have to look again and see if it would be worth it to me. I've looked in the past and don't remember being bowled over.

It used to be access to a news server came with an Internet account but many ISPs don't supply that anymore especially if they're a small company like the one I use.

And, yes, Usenet is still in existence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Usenet_traffic_today
Some of this information will explain why so many ISPs don't provide access to Usenet anymore (if they ever did). The amount of traffic - a sad amount of it spam - has grown in volume that it isn't always feasible for a company to supply it. But I also suspect that many of the newer users online (including senior citizens) may not even be aware of Usenet much less have any interest in it. Especially since there are so many other options for them to spew, oops, I mean share their point of view in the many, many forums on the Web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

[mithriltabby]

I suspect Charlie Stross may be on to something with his hypothesis that future shock is triggering a lot of the craziness we’re seeing in modern politics.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Maybe. I'm just not so sure it isn't the same old crazy humanity's always suffered from, only in its latest incarnation. Pastshock, maybe.

[mithriltabby]

You’re certainly right that we’ve always had this kind of crazy around, but as a civilization, we used to be better at keeping a lid on it. It used to be that the John Birchers were too crazy for anyone to take seriously, but that segment of the population is now making national news on a regular basis. It may be a matter of demographic rather than technological future shock: people are beginning to figure out that the future does not belong to heterosexual Christian Caucasian males who will provide authoritarian leadership for all, and this is causing severe cognitive dissonance as their sense of how the world works is being undermined.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

It may be a matter of demographic rather than technological future shock: people are beginning to figure out that the future does not belong to heterosexual Christian Caucasian males who will provide authoritarian leadership for all, and this is causing severe cognitive dissonance as their sense of how the world works is being undermined.

This may be so. Certainly, it's true that a the days of an America where most people are white is quickly fading. So, a fear of obsolescence manifesting as xenophobia (or simply latent xenophobia activated by social changes). Fear of the Other (gays, non-whites, non-Christians, transgendered people, etc.), of all that is identified as non-normative.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Sorry you got all that crap on Facebook; I winced on your behalf. I'm behind you on both counts on this. Personally I'd be interested to see you discuss more politics, but you don't need some arsehole with half-baked opinions trying to hijack the debate. (The Pope will be "gigging" in my home city come Sunday, and writing as someone he'd condemn for sexuality and beliefs, I'm not happy...)

I'll look forward to hearing your opinions on Grinderman 2. I've just been playing the original, and forgotten how good it was.

Enjoyed A is for Alien a helluva lot (favourite stories: Ode to Katan Amano, A Season of Broken Dolls, Bradbury Weather). Bleak, sure, but it doesn't lack for wonder. Would you consider writing a full length SF novel? I don't read much SF so I'm not sure I can add anything new to the comments to the dark fantasy v science fiction debate; but I hope I don't sound sycophantic saying that I'd follow your work *whatever* genre it was branded by.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Sorry you got all that crap on Facebook; I winced on your behalf. I'm behind you on both counts on this. Personally I'd be interested to see you discuss more politics, but you don't need some arsehole with half-baked opinions trying to hijack the debate.

I really do appreciate thoughtful comments, but I also expect people to be courteous. I should just stay away from Facebook. I have serious differences of opinion with its attitudes towards privacy and our right not to engage on certain social behaviour.

Enjoyed A is for Alien a helluva lot (favourite stories: Ode to Katan Amano, A Season of Broken Dolls, Bradbury Weather).

Good choices.

Would you consider writing a full length SF novel?

I've considered it. I've even sort of outlined a couple. But my agent has discouraged it, for financial reasons ("Literary sf doesn't sell," says she.), and because of the way one particular critic at Locus reacted to mt short sf novel, The Dry Salvages ("This is what happens when horror writers try to write science fiction."). Maybe those are bad reasons for not writing an sf novel, but...

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

...because of the way one particular critic at Locus reacted to mt short sf novel, The Dry Salvages ("This is what happens when horror writers try to write science fiction.").

I won't go off here about the idiocy of expecting all the dangers of space travel to be environmental, but that's one of my favourite of your works, and I hope you decide to continue with the sf, if only to spite those kind of reviews. Both that book, and A is for Alien actually did a lot to remind me how much I like sf, after being bored of spaceships and humanoid aliens and pages of engineering-porn.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I hope you decide to continue with the sf, if only to spite those kind of reviews.

The older I get, sadly, the less energy I seem to have to do things in spite of other things.

and pages of engineering-porn.

It amazes me that such literature is even written.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

That says rather more about the reviewer's prejudice than the book. Not read Dry Salvages yet, but I've spotted a second-hand copy on Amazon...