entertainment – Among Mad People

All I’m after is belief, all you’re showing me is teeth

Anna Schwind — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:47:39 +0000

Last post was number 600! That makes me laugh, somehow, because it means that I was on the cusp of that beautiful even number for over a year. The will to post one more time and I could have said, “Go me! Six hundred posts!”

It’s time to tell you what music I love this summer! Here are the songs that I’m enjoying listening to over and over again, lately:

Lianne La Havas, Is Your Love Big Enough?
From the SSX soundtrack, Felguk's Plastic Smile
alt-J's Fitzpleasure
Genji Siraisi’s Space Monkey

What are you listening to?

The new bhangra is electrotango

Anna Schwind — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:59:47 +0000

So do you remember about eight or nine years ago, when I was obsessed with bhangra music? Oh, right, that was before I had a blog. Some of you have known me for that long, though, and know what I’m talking about. Anyway, for you newcomers, I went through this phase where I was totally obsessed with bhangra. My daughter’s Sanskrit middle name is a gift of that era. I finagled my way into an Indian wedding reception just to hear the stuff and dance. It was awesome. I still love it, even though I’m not obsessed with it the way I used to be.

Now I’m completely obsessed with electrotango instead. I mean, yeah, this makes a little more sense than my earlier bhangra obsession because tango originates in a place I’ve lived and a quick check at my last.fm tells you I listen to Thievery Corporation more than anything else except TMBG, and I’ve liked Gotan Project for some time as well. But I didn’t know there was more than Gotan Project. I thought Gotan Project was an outlier, a lone band kind of doing its own thing. Turns out there’s a whole genre there! And I LOVE it.

So in the last month, I’ve been listening to tag radio on last.fm. A tag radio is a series of tracks that have all been tagged by users with the same tag. It’s a good way to get a solid mood listen, when you need a certain consistency in what you’re listening to. Or when you’re obsessed with a certain sound.

The tag I’ve been listening to is electrotango. I LOVE this stuff with intense singlemindedness. Tanghetto, Bajofondo, Supervielle, Federico Aubele, Bulevard Tango Club, San Telmo Lounge…I could (and do) listen to it all day. I wish I’d known to look for this stuff when I was in Buenos Aires last year.

The electrotango radio was in heavy rotation during the composition of both “Kenosis” and “Mi Buenos Aires Querido” and I believe they are better stories for having that musical backdrop. “Kenosis” in particular has been liked by almost every critiquer who has read it, and that sort of thing never happens to me. By and large, my stories are not well-liked, and never universally. (Some might wonder why, in light of that, I continue to write them, but that would be a question for another day. This is not the writing angst post. This is the electrotango is fantastic post).

The pinnacle of my obsession is “Perfume” by Supervielle. If you have a Last.fm account you can hear it; it’s one of their free tracks. I love the lyrics, so dramatic and intense. You can rely on “Like water seeks thirst” being a blog title at some point. Listen, do you hear the tango? The sea? It sounds like Buenos Aires, that weird mix of nostalgia and anticipation: the wind and the water and the memories. Say it: “el impulso antiguo y sutil del eco de tu perfume”. Feel it in your mouth. It’s totally lovely and wonderful to say.

Right, I did say I was obsessed?

Ok, a music post deserves a scorekeeping update:

2 points Sunjunkie
2 points Jerm
6 points Lanfaedhe
2 points Dave Lartigue

WTG, Lanf, leaving all the other participants in the dust! But it’s not too late for folks to catch up, so keep playing.

If you’re wondering what the scoring is about, I give two points to the first person who comments with the line following on the one I give in my blog post title, when my titles are lyrics (which is often, though sadly, not today). There are unclaimed entries since I started the game back in July, if you’d like to dig through the archives and play along. Some day there will be a prize. I don’t know what and I don’t know when, yet. But it will be fabulous, in the style of the prizes awarded in Dave Lartigue’s leaf bag contest. I promise. (BTW, Dave, you are the first link under a google search of leaf bag contest. You must be so proud!)

Creeping up on solstice.

Anna Schwind — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:38:10 +0000

The hot weather getting you down? Then I have a wintry story for you, refuge from the brilliant sun. Go read Theodora Goss’ beautiful and poetic story “The Rapid Advance of Sorrow“. It will transport you. It will make you stop sweating. I promise.

Can I get an amen?

Anna Schwind — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:04:03 +0000

The last BSG episode was a serious disappointment to me. They’d done such an excellent job in the first half of the two-parter (I mean, — spoiler — plugging in the hybrid and having her scream,”JUMP!” could not have been more awesome), and I was sure spectacular things were coming, and then meh. I’ll have to add a corollary to my formula for good BSG episodes. The new formula: BSG episodes are good in direct proportion to the number of toasters on screen during the episode and bad in direct proportion to the number of lines Lee Adama has. Apollo and Starbuck, man, I get so sick of them.

I wish Annalee Lewitz, of io9, was their scriptwriter, because this, even with its problems, would have been so much better than what we saw.

Great short story, go read it.

Anna Schwind — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:41:08 +0000

So we’re back, with another installation of a story I’d like you to go read, because I loved it a lot. It’s called “I’ll Gnaw Your Bones, the Manticore Said” and it’s by Cat Rambo. I love how delicately it’s done, and how gently. And yet, right there, hard topics but humanely handled instead of jabbed at you. Characters being complex and people-like. Very nice.

Not before bad boomer gets jack rubyied

Anna Schwind — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:25:49 +0000

Finally my rss feed to io9 pays off. Most of the time they blah blah blah about a lot of TV I never intend to watch, but this BSG backstory in 8 minutes is great. Funny and accurate.

Yay, new BSG soon (April 4). Won’t it be weird having a tv show to watch again?

Let me also state for the record my BSG good episode axiom: BSG episodes are good in direct proportion with the number of toasters that appear in that episode. The very worst episodes have no toasters in them at all. And no, humanoid models do not count for this calculation, which is why I say toasters and not cylons.

New Blog Feature! Good short story, go read it.

Anna Schwind — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:10:44 +0000

Hello, dear readers. I’m going start doing something new. I’m going to pull up my internet megaphone and recommend short stories I enjoy. I have occasionally posted lists of my favorite stories of the past year or so, but this will hopefully be more frequent, say once a month or whenever I happen to be struck by a very good story. I may recommend offline stories, but I’ll tend to skew to online available stuff, so that if I say “Yay, go read this,” you can respond by immediately doing so. Instant gratification.

For now I’ll call this feature: good short story, go read it.

And my first great short story, go read it for the year is Ekaterina Sedia’s “Zombie Lenin” from new print anthology Fantasy.

I loved it for its Russian flavor and all around weirdness. Let me know what you think.

Things worth reading from fellow VPers

Anna Schwind — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:52:28 +0000

I went to Viable Paradise in 2004, and it was a great experience. One of the best things about it was the number of really cool people that I met. My favorite person there, Ogi Ogas, was a player on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” last year (yes, it’s still on, I was just as surprised). He’s a really bright guy, I love his stories. He’s just as friendly as he was on the show, and he won half a million, and he wrote (and sold!) an article about his experiences here.

Another of my favorite people there, Suzanne Palmer, just had the story “He’s Got Skeletons” published online. It’s delightful and funny, you should go read it. I think she still owes me a story about three-legged camels in the Aztec jungles, though.

And speaking of three-legged camels, the person who wrote the most wonderful story I read while at VP as well as a really promising but frustrating and inconsistent story (giving birth to my diatribe about the three-legged camels) has just published a beautiful story at Clarkesworld. So now you can enjoy her poetic language too.

Shriek : an afterword

Anna Schwind — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:35:15 +0000

Dear Jeff VanderMeer –

I imagine that you get a lot of letters like this: oh, I love your work! Oh, hey, I think there’s a mistake on this page. This would be exactly one of those, were I to write it and mail it to you. However, I’m sort of saving you the work of reading this by not actually sending it. It’s not like I have something earth-shattering or novel to say to you. Also, I’ve never had enough guts to actually mail an author I admire about their work. I’m not sure why this act seems so intrusive and forbidden to me. I imagine most authors, indeed most types of artists, would be delighted to hear about how great they are from someone, anyone, even a stranger. Maybe writing to someone who traffics in words is intimidating? I’m not sure, and it’s not relevant. I apologize for the introspection. It’s you I’m trying to talk about, or your words, at any rate.

I first fell in love with Ambergris when I read your story “The Cage”, in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Volume 14. What a gorgeous gem of a story. Shivery and magical and so, so strange. I was thrilled to have found the story, and thrilled to have found you. I followed that up with Secret Life which was truly an amazing book with some stunning stories in it. Some of those images are still with me.

I am now reading Shriek: an afterword. I am not sure how I feel about it yet. Ambivalent, I guess. I do like it, and I will finish it, that much I know. It does some very neat things with crosslinked narrative and editorial comment. It’s very clever, and it makes me think about writing at every sentence. One thing it doesn’t do, though, is open up the reader trance for me. I’m so conscious of reading words someone wrote, and so conscious of the altered manuscript of the story, that I cannot lose myself in any of the narrative threads. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. It’s a daring thing, and an interesting thing, but it’s a hard thing to love, when absorption into books is why most avid readers read. It’s as though you’ve snuck off with my opium pipe and given me methadone instead. I’m not going to get the heebie jeebies without my fix, but man, it’s a weird, weird trip and not as euphoric as I would expect (or perhaps desire).

I don’t like Duncan or Janice at all. I’m ok with not liking them, actually. You threw me a few bones, a few people to like: Sybel, Bonmot, the mother. The only shame of it is that the character I love with all my heart, Ambergris, is made more remote by the self-absorbed siblings’ constant, facile commentary. It’s like being in a crowd where that one guy who feels like he must explain everything just will not shut up. I’ve been that guy, actually. I’ve stood behind myself going “shut up! shut up! shut up! no one cares! no one wants to know!”. But I digress. (Again. Maybe this is why I don’t write to writers. Thoughts squish out in all directions). I might wish that Duncan’s and Janice’s shrieking would mute to a dull roar, Ambergris would rise to the foreground and I would hum with happiness and marvel at the strangeness of it all. There are moments, don’t get me wrong. When she’s scraping the mushrooms off Duncan? Awesome. When father takes him on the underground tour? Riveting. The walk in the woods to the statue? Very nice. The suicide attempt is memorable as well. Lots of bits I like a great deal, but the overall structure creates this cordon of writing, this space, between me and what I really want to get to. So…ambivalence.

There’s one thing which I really love, and that’s how the natives of Ambergris characterize themselves. This is too rare in fantasy, though China Mieville does it well also (and, of course, Borges). In this world, people who consider themselves of a (large enough) city often assign themselves qualities that they perceive all natives of that city have. The city has a character, and its character rubs off on them, or they act as though it does. I think this reflects tribe and human nature, and when I don’t see it in fiction, it bugs me. All the lines stereotyping Ambergrisians make me smile. It’s like something Londoners would say, or New Yorkers, or Portenos.

So because I’m so conscious as I read of the writing of the work, and the layers and fictions overlapping the writing of the work, I’m following every word. You’re getting quite a close reading, and I hope a faithful reading, not a good parts reading (being blocked from the trance keeps me from building a good parts version, I think). Here’s my question: on page 95 of the Tor first edition hardback, there’s a paragraph that begins “Back then, he was a mischievous sprout…” Following? Good, well in that paragraph the line “his bright green eyes sometimes seemed too large for his face” appears twice. At first (I have such faith, see), I thought you did that on purpose. That you were going to start increasingly repeating lines at various intervals, to make some point about circularity or Janice’s complete mental dissolution. But then, it didn’t seem to happen again. So, was it just a mistake? One of those human kinds of mistakes? My second question is about the machine in the underground sequence. See, I checked Secret Life out of the library, so I don’t have it handy, but that sequence…seems repeated. Is it? Did you just rip it out of Secret Life and re-purpose it for Shriek: an afterword? It’s not a problem, or anything, but I was a bit surprised to see it again. When you wrote it, did you have Duncan in your head as the narrator, or did you discover that later? Was it just love for that bit of prose that made you use it again? Also, not a big deal, but I can’t help wondering if the afterword is this extensive, how long exactly is the book? Must be some kind of crazy huge tome.

Oh, one more thing. This line: “And let you, O Lord, serve as a light to him, for we are imperfect vessels and we platitude simile extended metaphor with barely any pauses followed by more repetition. Period.” is so near perfect I wanted to make someone else read it. That whole paragraph is deliriously funny and incisive, actually, but I wouldn’t want to abuse fair use by too extensive a quote. Thanks for writing it, and all the other words, too.

Love,

Anarkey

How much spec fic do you read?

Anna Schwind — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:29:35 +0000

Meme, because that’s all I have energy for (so that’s how memes happen). Works thusly: you read over the Science Fiction Book Club’s “The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002” list and then you italicize and bold and mark up stuff about each one, and everything you mark up means something. Only I haven’t done enough of these to figure out what’s what, so I’m taking a page from my fellow VPer cicadabug’s book and just grouping them instead of all the crazy highlighting. Makes more sense and you know, I just cannot resist putting like items together. I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with a friend about spec fic and how much I’ve been reading of it lately and whether that’s a departure for me or not. Perhaps the list will illuminate.

Books I’ve read, loved and still love (and would read again in a heartbeat, if only there were enough heartbeats in a life to do so)

1 The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
5 A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
10 Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11 The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12 A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
26 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
29 Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30 The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
33 The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
42 Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43 Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (though I liked The Diamond Age better, to be honest)

Books I loved when I read them

2 The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3 Dune, Frank Herbert
6 Neuromancer, William Gibson
9 The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
37 On the Beach, Nevil Shute
41 The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
47 Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock

Books I’ve read

4 Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (am I the only person on the planet who really dug The Puppetmasters and not much else Heinlein?)
21 Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey

Books I read but hated

23 The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
48 The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks

Books I feel like I really ought to/want to read

8 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
20 Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
36 The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
45 The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester

Meh. Might read this some day

16 The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
19 The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
22 Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
28 I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
32 Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
31 Little, Big, John Crowley*

Books you will never persuade me (go on, try) I need to read

14 Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15 Cities in Flight, James Blish
17 Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18 Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison

(to be fair, I totally met my Ellison quota, because I read the mammoth retrospective tome)

24 The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25 Gateway, Frederik Pohl
34 Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35 More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
38 Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
40 Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
44 Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
49 Timescape, Gregory Benford

Did I read this?

7 Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
13 The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
39 Ringworld, Larry Niven
46 Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
50 To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

It may seem weird to you that I’m not all that sure what I’ve read. This is part of my impetus toward better record-keeping. I forget what I read. I’m also pleased to see how I’ve loved most of what I’ve read, and hated very little of it. Even the two haters were instrumental in their way to my adolescent self. Before I read them, I read anything, uncritically. It took stories I hated to make me see not all stories are worth it. So, not counting the five I may or may not have read (they look familiar, but if I did read them it was over ten years ago and I can’t exactly remember), I’ve read twenty three of the fifty. Not quite half, but close. Some of the most loved ones I’ve read multiple times.

ETA : I asterisked the books strongly recommended in the comments, in case I use this entry to pick books later.