Questions from Paedrag and very nifty questions if I might say so. Harass mich if you want to answer things for mich.

1. How did you get into metal?

2003, a trip to Ames, Iowa and Grinnell University, for which my feelings have an intense conflict. My friend Isaac showed me a series of AMVs, one of which had Sonata Arctica's "My Land." He thought it would be something I would like.

Bog yes but I did. Sonata Arctica led me to Nightwish on Youtube. Then Mike Allen showed me Pandora, which led, initially, toward Within Temptation and Kamelot. And others. Holy bog. Now I'm all about the \m/. Particularly after 3/20, the date that changed my life. "There must be some way out of here..."

2. Was ist deine lieblings essen?

Bah! I had to freetranslate lieblings. Sigh.

I most assuredly haven't obtained the German for these things, but now that I'm busy listing them I should do that. Uh, anything pasta. Tortellini y macaroni y queso. Pizza, though I'm a picky bastard about pepperoni and sausage. I ate mushrooms once and hated the bugger out of them. Anything that comes out of the ocean. Shrimp. Fish. Fish. Whatever the strange things like crab had the cream cheese. Mmm, cream cheese.

3. If you could take a trip to any country, which would it be?

Considering my deep fascination with the South Asian subcontinent, you would probably figure India. And I would adore it. But I really want to get to Berlin.

Right now, I have never been overseas nor flown except for a tiny aircraft in west Minnesota. I really need to change that. Further answer in das final question!

4. Why are you never on AIM!?

When I'm talking to people, I don't do the work I need to be doing. Which is, at the moment, sending out applications up the arse. I suppose I should hop online once I get finished doing that. Grr. I'm not sure why I don't, actually. (Mutter mutter work isn't everything mutter mutter)

5. Are you going to go to grad school?

When I went to college in 2004, I had hardly any idea what I was doing. If I knew what I was doing, I would have went to the U of M in Minneapolis and left west Minnesota the first chance I obtained. But Minneapolis is three hours away from the place that I now refer to as the "Volkshaus". It's absolutely not my home, not anymore.

Everything I've known has changed since college, professionally and personally. My relationships have changed; now I'm actually reading William Gibson and Bruce Sterling every day on their Twitter accounts. Both of them have traveled overseas, and Sterling has three different places where he lives - Austin, Texas; Torino/Turin, Italy; and Belgrade, Serbia.

That sounds intensely fun and challenging. But I have no idea where my sanctuario... en espanol, the langue I've been pondering as being my langue de la aventura... or any of my sanctuarios actually are. I have ponderations... New York City, Tokyo, Berlin, Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, but I have not been to any of them. Not grad school for mich. I need to travel.

However, I barely know where to begin. So I'm running some research here and there.

I've been leaping pretty deep into Deutsch and Espanol, and I'm also interested in SF and F in other languages. There isn't a coincidence that my default avatar is from a Swedish WoT translation! Anyway, Apex has a thing out called the "Apex Book of World SF", the same topic as their current theme. I haven't got to reading the stories at the moment, but I had found this.

Writing in a Foreign Language

Aliette De Bodard speaks French as her first language, and writes in English. The reasons are fascinating and complicated, and have a new level considering my newfound obsession with genuinely learning others. She also posted it on her livejournal, and gets comments from other people with similar experiences.

Eh, I shall play your game, Trebek, for once.

I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

I find it difficult to find words.

"What do you think I fought for on Omaha Beach?" - Philip (Schooner?)

Philip

Thanks and danke and gracias, BoingBoing!

I finished William Gibson's Virtual Light and feel a little surprised I hadn't read it a long time ago. It blew my mind quite a bit, but it really would have challenged me had I read it before I enrolled in college. The key quirk to his writing is that he describes the world we're in - but a little surreal, and always a little bit ahead of the game. And he writes it as a bloody good suspense book. So, hmm.

A comment of his on Twitter showed me perhaps one aspect of the reason about this - is that he's a bit of a historian. The comment was that "In the 1980s, the 1960s looked like the 1920s. Now they look like the 1890s." Play with it and you realise that the culture of the 1980s thought the entire world would become a nuclear apocalypse. It didn't, but that's a source of all the desperation and bleakness in the cpunk setting.

This ramble isn't about that, though, but I could ramble about it more. I have certainly thought about that. This ramble is about the 1950s - and that, in a sense, the anime I watched in the late 1980s and 1990s sort of resembles that, for me. I've seen a LOT of anime, and love to harass people with that fact.

Any series that came out in those years I've probably either seen or heard of or seen parts of. TVTropes has a category for that, and Angel Investigations first showed me what the pattern was - the idea of a nakama, a family of friends who aren't your relatives but the people you have chosen as your family.

That's a tangent, too, but one of my favorite themes of all time. Even The Wheel of Time involved it, and I've never seen anyone use it in such a grand, unique way. The only thing that comes close to The Wheel of Time is assuming that all of the anime that involved a nakama literally lived in the same Tokyo. Which some MUSHes play with...

After I've realised that the vast majority of my favorite stories were in a city, even though I haven't seen one and understood one until April of this year, I've been pondering what the bugger all of that time spent on anime meant. Not broodingly, or anything, but sort of figuring out the meaning of it.

Most urban fantasy resembles them, for instance. Try "Mercy Thompson: Homecoming". Groovy read, in which a twentysomething coyote shapeshifter finds her home.

The anime I watched, and at last I say what I'm been intending to say, acted as my 1950s rock and roll. Not Elvis, as he usually annoys me, but Jerry Lee Lewis, and the tougher types. Anime was something I had never seen before, the language, the techno, the culture, the stories. It blew my mind, and the amount of it rivaled cpunk for the various creative people who joined the party.

And those things were built from a world in which almost everyone thought that the world would end in a nuclear apocalypse. It didn't, and many of those people in that world never even saw war affecting them personally.

The cpunks did. And me, on March 20, 2009.

Initially, the Recommended Reading from Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline, which is on this page. I've read one of the things, Shadow Cities, which boggled me, and pondered glimpsing The Places We Live.

Apparently Sterling admires Brand, and Brand had the idea of the 0 in front of the year, as in 02009, as a representation of the real length of time. Which is rockin'.

This is why I roam through Sterling's blog, too - he posted to a list of the Most Powerful People in India. Yes, I'm very intrigued, why do you ask? Woot.

A bit ago, I posted a ramble about Sterling's final Viridian note, and the Global Guerrillas journal. They sounded completely different, one saying "you'll have to move somehow", and one saying "stay local and ride out the economic storm" - but I want to admit my fallibility for once and say that, no, they really weren't.

Rather, Sterling was saying that he is living 'glocally', across the world, and that John Robb suggests living in a 'resilient community' to avoid the need to rely on machines that guerrillas can destroy or interfere with.

And also, it was just me brewing on a thought. But I felt the need to admit some fallibility!

I loaned this book, too, but I've been pleasantly entertained by the Frontline anthologies and would have picked it up had the Barnes and Noble in the Mall of America had this volume in supply. They didn't. Oh well. They didn't get that money, that's all there is to it! But, either way, I would give them a little exposure.

The preview for War-Torn gave me the thought of the psychic kid Colin Phash going violently mad, but I was pleasantly surprised when he had hallucinations of a planet being destroyed. It showed more of Hector Sevilla's deeply satisfying art, and the story, about a bounty hunter chasing Colin Phash, set up nicely for the third story by Paul Benjamin and Dave Shramek, Orientation and the Ghost Academy series by Keith DeCandido.

War-Torn also has a small cameo by Kate Lockwell, making me happy. Their idea on what happened in Newsworthy is subtle and well crafted.

The second story, Do Not Harm, presents the first example in my experience of a Terran-Protoss hybrid. He's appropriately bizarre, and the story is better than I had thought. I gots a suspicion that the hybrid might find his way into Starcraft RPGs, because he's rather unusual. Until Starcraft 2, anyway...

The third story is more from Grace Randolph. Last Call reads like a spy story and a 01950s horror movie. Any description other than "a lounge sister gets caught up in intrigue on a mining outpost" would be a spoiler, and thanks to a Starcraft fan site, I did get spoiled. But it didn't bother me, and in fact, I might have to reread this one and find how the intrigues really worked.

Randolph obtains a YES! point from me for using a completely understated part of the Starcraft setting to fuel this story. I want more of your work, Ms Randolph!

The fourth story in the anthology, Twilight Archon describes precisely the thing someone would expect if they know the units in Starcraft 2... and I do, because I'm, for the fact that I'm writing this review, a little neurotic and obsessed about this setting. The art, from Noel Rodriguez, gets most of the love, with a wild, flowing ocean of imagery.

This story is one I would recommend to a new Warder, and I can imagine it being powerful for a specific type of pairing.

So, that's the third volume of Frontline. The fourth volume has a story by Chris Metzen, the Grand Leader of the Craft settings, which should be bizarre. The primary thing I'm adoring about these Frontlines is that they're with unestablished characters, and building on new parts of the world.

Nonetheless, pick them up for your Starcraft obsessed friends. Then you can use them and point people toward other books... like Twilight Archon has some things in common with Revelation Space.

You know, about now, I wonder, how did I become addicted to writing book reviews? I certainly didn't like doing that in the Spur... maybe because I can write them however I want and talktalktalk? Yeah.

All right, the goal after Minneapolis is New York City. Probably Manhattan, as leaping into the very midst of everything sounds like a challenge, and I'm all for a challenge. But New York is a city that even people who live there have a hard time getting their mind around, and that makes me inquire.

This post trails the Minneapolis, but because I don't want to swarm people with information they don't want. An Attention Conservation Notice, like the Viridian Design notes.

I must inquire. Anyone have websites that are reliable and useful for finding jobs in New York City? Be as broad as you want, but I'm shooting at somewhere in the midst of the center isle of the city.

If this post is out of date, still reply. I have a board! I have email!

Since March 20, the finale of Galactica 2K3, I've been on a job war, and I've found a new archetype to the parts of me, the Warrior. That archetype bosses me around for the moment, and though I felt really tense and anxious initially, I'm really adoring him. He's energetic and daring and he adores risks.

Bearing myself as a leader, I point out these websites. As a context, I want to move from West Minnesota - Lysenkoist, fundamentalist, and East German - to the ancient science fiction community in Minneapolis - the Scribblies in the 01980s and the Wyrdsmiths in the 02000s. I'm wielding these websites in the search. I've pointed out the reliable websites to spare someone else all that initial effort.

With any luck, they might contribute to someone else's search. Hail to whoever you are!

( Anyone who wants to know )

This article describes small towns as "ghost towns", precisely the same thing I've been thinking. And, which should appear obvious if you've read the archives, I'm desperately seeking to become one of the people who escapes and never looks back.

The best and brightest leaving for the city. Not that I think I'm one of the best, but at least I'm conducting a war.

Sounds like a chance for a ramble. A while ago, someone mentioned that, in despair, remember your roots and you'll never be completely lost. I've been perusing them, and finding them reinvigorating. My physical roots might be in west Minneapolis, a wasteland of ghost towns and fundamentalism, but my soul's never been here.

My roots? Mythic fantasy, cyberpunk and the internet. I've been rereading the Wheel of Time, and finding it a delight. I have a stack of books from Gibson and Sterling, anxiously but patiently working on reading every book from them, and they're boggling my mind. And the internet? Well, I have the Cyberpunk Review.

The Hobbit, LotR, and Neuromancer are in the keeper book box, though I probably won't reread them before I move. As with the 9/11 Report and scratching old wounds, I want to keep some mysteries intact before another change.

I felt a little bored this afternoon, so I leapt into RPGNet's Other Media forums and looked around. I spent far more time on the Roleplaying Boards than I should have between high school and college, but the Other Media is more interesting now. I've learned about comics and music and even the Dresden Files.

You have to love a board with "What are you reading?" as a prominent thread that wasn't transformed into a flaming grumble.

I found a thread about Good Battle Music, which I always want more of - and found this, Persona 3's final battle music. Very much the type of thing I like, and even some eerie choral music. Alas, the rest of the game sounds too normal for my type of thing, and that made me wonder.

The most bizarre part of Persona 3 involves teenagers who shoot themselves in their heads with Guns That Aren't Guns, like Callandor isn't a sword, to summon creatures to fight for them. This interested me from the beginning, because it's bizarre as bugger, but the reviews said that it wasn't played up very much. At least in my instance, mainstream Japan isn't as dangerous as it used to be.

Maybe they're in a Belle Epoque? Could the new government have any effect on Japan's weird? Hmm. Something to keep an eye on.

Why wouldn't you play that up? It's wrong, disturbing and interesting. I think I have another idea to steal.

"2000 letters, and innumerable phone calls and emails."

With a 32 to 17 vote, the library obtained the money it required. Not nearly enough votes for the yes, but at least they got it. Hey, I have to post some good news sometimes. I'm not all Doom All The Time, really.

Whoever you are in Philadelphia, if you contributed, you get a drink of your choice if I meet you. I sent a letter to the Save Farscape campaign and joined the effort to swarm the SciFi Channel's mailbox, but this is a library.

Philadelphia Library Saved from BoingBoing.

Villagers and Zombies as pawns.
Woman hunter and Death as queens.
Cathedrals and Haunted Castles as rooks!

Chess set from BoingBoing: Villagers and Zombies.

Apparently the econocalypse has really harassed Philadelphia, because they're shutting down their public library.

Doesn't require much imagination to imagine that happening in my location, perhaps my literal location, and I like to think I would do two things: check out as many books as I can, and don't bring them back, and move into the abandoned building.

How else can you fight against something like this?

Philadelphia Free Library system is broke and shutting down. from BoingBoing

Gaiman gets the gibbering madness, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden finds some sanity in the lunacy of Sandman. I read the Sandman so quickly I barely remember it - my favorite volume being Brief Lives - and, apparently, I read it after The Guns of August. The first volume had Great War references? Wow.

The introduction post here.

The first issue here.



Her analysis resemble the sort of things, or the sort of way, you learn at law school, Traveler, or Paedrag? I'm fascinated in finding out why law school isn't for me... and this gives me a little bit of an idea.

I've pondered Bruce Sterling's final Viridian note a distressing amount of time on this blog, probably more frequently than I should. This is quickly becoming a feed of Sterling and BoingBoing. Oh well. A guy can do more horrible than one high profile scifi writer, and a wildly popular online journal.

However, I find it fascinating that John Robb, on the Global Guerrillas blog, picked up a completely different approach than Sterling. Sterling's version, as I've said continually, is a reduction of things to that which you really need - because, one way or another, you're going to have to move.

John Robb, on his blog, primarily in reaction to the economic troubles, says "my belief is we should build a local present to ride out this storm." It's quite obvious which side I agree with, because it's what I've wanted to do for a long time, anyway - but damn if it isn't fascinating. Two prolific, high profile bloggers have completely different approaches to the problem.

I think part of the reason is the general approach of their blogs. Robb, like the title says, is all about the security in a multipolar world. Sterling is a science fiction writer, and for a long time has been howling about the climate change. Both are right, of course, and a person's situation is the important thing.

Both of them make sense. Robb, in his post, brings up the usage of every last bit of shelter for a purpose, and even telecommute if necessary to reduce the usage of fuel. When he says local, he isn't fooling. The more people clustered together, the better. Crowds who trust each other, and are loyal, are secure.

Sterling's version, which I've been realising as I get myself further into the move, means that a person might be alone for a while, without any support. But this makes me think of the nakama idea, that of a family of friends, an idea that never gets wearying. With the Internet, building a nakama isn't potentially as hard, and, as I've pondered it, I do genuinely have an online nakama, in the Cyberpunk boards.

I admit this isn't a very organized idea, but it fascinates me. It'll be poking around in my mind for quite a bit.

I have now read about 7 of the 13 chapters in the 9/11 Commission Report. I primarily read the sections about the flights themselves, the bastards who designed the attacks, and the reactions after the attacks, from both the civilians, first responders and the government. I doubt I need to read more, as I learned what I was hunting.

The book was deeply intense, especially the people who fought back, and the first responders.

"They're all running to the front of the plane now, Dad. Gotta go, bye."

"And then the second plane hit."

I was about to bring up that I'm a warrior now, but I'm mentioning this because, in a way, 9/11 is the reason I became a warrior. A very strange, around the event way, but thinking about the scars that Battlestar Galactica 2K3 dared to challenge, I think the finale had almost, though, certainly, not exactly, the same transformation on me as the civilians in the nation who knew what it meant.

I'm not invincible. But I'm one person, standing like everyone else, in a giant Zanzibar island of humanity, and I have to fight to build a better world.

With any luck, I won't post about the event again, because it's a deep scar on the nation, and me, and I shouldn't grind it in. Galactica 2K3 had an incredibly cautious touch.

Because I was reading the Report, I looked for more ideas on my feelings. And hey, science fiction writers on the subject!

Kris Rusch, writing the book on freelancing, and an incredible source of inspiration, had her comments on the event on Sci Fiction. The conflicts on here, more than the others, describe my emotions. Not the same, certainly not the same. But similar.

Bruce Sterling, who is Bruce Sterling, and a ruthless entertaining bastard as usual, here.

Minneapolis resurrects a bar with a zombie theme. There really is something bizarre about this city.

Zombie Bar, from io9.

From BoingBoing, Paul Carter, a historian and scholar, gave his permission to post a lecture which he apparently had given at the John Campbell Awards. It's about dinosaurs, and really long lengths of time, and the perpetual question of finding our purpose as a species.

My favorite part:

"both Judaism and Christianity historically have affirmed that God does care, hard as that may be to square with the vast dark cosmos disclosed to human inquiry over the past four hundred years. Out there, only silence and unthinkable chill..."

The Enormous Absurdity of Time