Archives for 2015

Legosity

So far, I have described my thoughts about ozamataz up to the point where I asked whether one could attract that kind of self-sustaining fan participation, and if so, how. This is also the point at which the Muse, or the Guardian Angel, or the Collective Subconscious, or Something, stepped in. Perhaps it was the Great Oz himself.

Having worked out something of the nature of ozamataz, I asked my brain: ‘OK, brain, what is it that makes some things have ozamataz when others don’t?’

And my brain, without missing a beat, obligingly answered: ‘Legosity.’

I was duly annoyed, for I then had to figure out what legosity was. My brain is cryptic and has no manners, and seldom troubles to explain itself.

The one thing my brain did deign to tell me is that legosity has something to do with Lego. This made sense on the face of it. Lego toys have an ozamataz of their own. They have inspired movies, games, theme parks, and of course, the imaginations of millions of children the world over. The manufacturer’s recent habit of producing specific single-purpose Lego sets like model kits, which hardly fit together with other Lego and are hardly intended to, is most regrettable. These kits tend to take up shelf space at the toy shops and displace the kind of Lego that you can really play with. But the original bricks and doors and windows, Lego people and Lego cars and Lego trees, and so on – those are still available, and you can do anything with them. Nowadays, you can even buy Lego with moving parts and electric motors, and build Lego machines that can be controlled via computer. There are Lego robots in the world, and serious men with doctorates in the hard sciences have been known to play with them.

As the unfortunate history of the kit-model kind of Lego shows, it is not so much the brand name, or even the mechanical ingenuity of Lego that gives the toys their unique quality. It is the concept. At bottom, Lego consists of a whole range of bits and pieces, all designed to fit together easily and without fuss, so that they can be used to build anything the imagination can conceive. You do not have to be a skilled carpenter, or a watchmaker, or know how to build ships in bottles, to build houses and cities and fairy castles out of Lego. The skill in your fingers (especially a child’s fingers) ceases to be a limit on what you can achieve, and the mind is set free to soar.

Even the name Lego is well chosen, and means, I think, more than its inventor intended. We are assured that it comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, ‘Play well’. But it is also Latin and Greek, and in those languages the word has a wide and subtle range of meanings that reach right down into the guts of the human psyche. [Read more…]

Life, Carbon, and the Tao (part 1 now up)

The estimable L. Jagi Lamplighter is featuring my new essai ‘Life, Carbon, and the Tao’ on her Superversive blog. Part 1 is now up; part 2 to follow next week.

Ozamataz

I have spent the last week or so (when not sleeping off my medications) in a fairly continuous process of brainstorming, chewing over several new-to-me ideas and figuring out how to turn them into actual writing techniques.

I forget exactly what prompted me to revisit the Key & Peele skit I reposted some time ago, in which the duo performed a thorough piss-take on the silly (and often self-inflicted) names one so often sees among American football players. Of all the daft monikers they introduced to the world, one in particular seems to have caught the public imagination: ‘Ozamataz Buckshank’. The name Ozamataz has been ‘repurposed’ for any number of online game characters and social-media personas. I think part of the reason lies in the delivery: in the original skit, the name was pronounced in a drawl reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart. It is, in fact, a fun name to say aloud, and I think that contributes to its popularity. But there may be more to it than that. A name like ‘Jackmerius Tacktheritrix’ or ‘Javaris Jamar Javarison-Lamar’ is too Pythonesque, too blatant in its silliness, to have much staying power. ‘Ozamataz’ is almost, but not quite, realistic; it could plausibly be an actual word.

And so, hearing the name again, I asked myself: If ozamataz were a word, what would it mean?  [Read more…]

Mumblety-mumble

By the way, a disturbing development: Today is my Getting Older Day. For my trouble, I got the free birthday breakfast at Denny’s (at 4 p.m.), and wrought away on the post for Mrs. Wright, so that now I have a lot more of it than I can use. Tomorrow I shall have to trim it gently with an axe.

How much older, you ask? I admit to Eleventy-Six; but that is a ruse to make people pet me and flatter me, and tell me that I don’t look a day over Eleventy.

Frustration

A Vogon poem
In honour of the Technical Documents.

Why won’t you understand?
It’s so simple a child could do it.
You only need to be willing to learn
And master the Splectic Method.

Now this is the Splectic Method,
So called because the dinobial splexum,
Instead of flanding perobically,
Is isoporadic and pletcher-free
With respect to the fornic tondle.
It’s so simple a child could do it.
Now counterforadically frendle the fremm
(Taking care not to pindle the retrofuge)
To mark the axis of co-quixation,
To fiddle the faddle and squink the squonk,
And that is the Splectic Method.

But first,
Take care that the dectic relambature,
Instead of flanding perobically,
Is isoporadic and pletcher-free
With respect to the flange of the splexum.
You only need to be willing to learn
To adjust the flinding renoberator
To less than the critical crillament
Of the anasybotic trexus.
And once you have tannelled the trexus
(Taking care not to pindle the retrofuge)
You mark the axis of co-quixation,
To fiddle the faddle and squink the squonk,
And that is the Splectic Method.

Oh, dear!
You didn’t refrux the relambature,
And now the frinch is deplenerated
And starting to fland perobically,
Not isoporadic or pletcher-free
with respect to the orthozonabulum.
Why won’t you understand?
You have ruined the whole dyspractic.
You have even pindled the retrofuge,
In spite of my simple instructions,
As clear as the peridenobic fluid,
(Or rather, as clear as it used to be
Before you disprickled the peridenobes).
It’s so simple a child could do it.
You only had to be willing to learn,
And master the Splectic Method.

     (Signed)
     H. Smiggy McStudge

Sarah D: Mobile apps are not a web solution!

That paragon of outdated thinking, the Calgary Public Hobo Mausoleum Library, has drawn down the wrath of Sarah Dimento. She speaks wisely, as is her wont, and without profanity, which is unusual for Sarah in a wrath.

Key bit:

A single-purpose mobile app is about as useful as a unicycle. Sure, you might be able to ride it down the street, but it was never designed to get you much further.…

Back in 2011, every clueless CEO wanted a mobile app (that does nothing a website can’t already do) because they heard it was the latest, hottest thing and wanted to jump on the bandwagon. It was a terrible fad that had its day because it was a terrible idea. Yet here you are, in 2015, telling people, “Please use our unicycle instead of the bicycle we can’t be bothered to fix. Unicycles are still hip, right? Pleeease try out our unicycle. We lost our bicycle building budget over this!”

Read the rest.

No news

Wednesday: Worked on an anniversary post for L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Superversive blog, but did not get usable words finished.

Thursday: Sick day. Adjusting to the new meds is taking time. On the bright side, I no longer wake up in the middle of the night with neck pains and headaches. On the non-bright side, I’m having trouble staying awake. This is expected to pass in a couple of weeks.

Today: Back to work, if I can get my brain back together. Has anybody seen my parietal lobe?

One step back, two steps forward

Wrote 1,000 words on the Orchard yesterday, which was an improvement in quantity but not in quality. Upon heavy reflection, I decided that the work was structurally unsound, ripped it out, and recast the scene. (Thanks to my alpha readers, Sarah and Wendy, for insights that sped the fix along.) Today I put in 2,000 words, replacing yesterday’s output and getting a little further on with the story. We are now at a chapter break, with a Reveal, to wit: How Greyhand got his name.

I had been hoping that each episode of the Orchard would run about 15,000, but this first one seems certain to be over length. I am just over 12,000 words in (before cutting), and barely halfway through the outline. Looks like the series will begin with an extra-length episode, however much I slice it.

More trees!

Hat tip to The Passive Voice, who says:

An Adobe commercial from 2013 that one commentator has compared to the current state of publishing.

Sounds painfully accurate to me.

In other news, I made good only 700 words on the Orchard yesterday. Going over the notes and plans and getting up to speed on the story takes time, alas. Also, my new medication for the neuralgia makes me sleep longer hours than normal. I think it’s called Ami-Trip-To-Zombie-Land.

Challenge to self

Some of the 3.6 Loyal Readers may recall the opening chapters of Where Angels Die, which I posted on these pages almost a year ago:

The Summons
The Taken
A Battle of Souls
The Food of Demons

After the deaths of my parents, I was so stricken with depression and illness (and practical troubles concerned with the estate) that I found myself entirely unable to write any fiction, except for the odd squib like ‘Kundenschmerz’ and ‘Magic’s Pawnshop’. That deep fog seems to be lifting; I have been able to write fairly regularly this month, and now I should like to try getting back to work on something more ambitious (and perhaps profitable).

So I have decided to spend this coming week in a sort of marathon, seeing how far I can get with the draft of ‘the Orchard of Dis-Pear’, which, you may recall, is my private working name for Where Angels Die. This is, in a way, a forgiving project with a flexible terminus. I mean that with eight projected episodes, each of about 15,000 words, there are plenty of points at which I can stop, if need be, and say that I have definitely Accomplished Something. If I only get the first episode drafted, that will be a significant improvement on what I have done so far this year. If I go further, so much the better.

I shall not be putting up the first draft on the blog, so posting will likely be sparse and spotty for a time. However, I hope to put up short notices about any progress I happen to make.

Your patience, encouragement, and well-wishing is much appreciated. Pray ’em if you got ’em. Thank you, and I hope to see you all soon at Angel Keep.