So, the culture is still there waiting to be taken. Pick up your kit and follow me, into the trenches. The advantage of a culture war is that even those of us who are old and ill can fight, and even those who don’t create can provide perspective, review and dissemination. Onward.
Archives for 2016
Culture wars
14 November 2016 by Leave a Comment
International Tongue-Twister Day
13 November 2016 by Leave a Comment
Hat tip to The Passive Voice.
In honour of the day, TPV commenter Antares proposes this ditty:
Draft sighting
3 November 2016 by 6 Comments
As of 6 p.m. today, Mountain Daylight Time, we have (at long last) a finished draft of the first episode of Where Angels Die. It weighs in just under 30,000 words, a little longer than I wanted it to be. (Subsequent episodes are to be 12,000 to 15,000 words each. Think of this one as the two-hour series premiere.)
Current plan is to release it as soon as I have the second episode (‘The Little Charter’) drafted and the third one (‘The Bad Enough Brigade’) fairly started; unless someone has a Clever Idea to the contrary.
Edit: To refresh the memories of the 3.6 Loyal Readers, early drafts of the opening chapters have previously appeared in these pages:
The Summons
The Taken
A Battle of Souls
The Food of Demons
It’s been a long journey to this point, frequently interrupted; but I think I may be in a position to make some rapid progress now – health permitting.
McStudge’s sole comment on the election
2 November 2016 by 5 Comments
It is almost touching, how the humans cling to their most obviously stupid beliefs. For instance, large numbers of them believe that by voting for one shop-window mannequin over another, they can improve the quality of merchandise sold in the shop.
We encourage them in this belief, of course. It distracts them from the inconvenient fact that the shop itself is a monopoly and removes all competitors by force. Remember, my poppets, the most powerful force in the humans’ lives is their own gullibility. Use it often, and use it well.
(Signed)
H. Smiggy McStudge
An American legend
30 October 2016 by 1 Comment
The odd thing about the Banshee Guys, or Bratwurst Grills, or whatever B. G. stands for (as previously mentioned), is that they did not start off as a disco band. No indeed, their roots lay deep in the American folk-song revival of the postwar years, and in the course of mining that country’s traditions, they put to glorious music some of its most moving and enduring legends.
One of their most famous songs retells an ancient myth of the American Southwest, where to this day, the natives tell tales of that supernatural trickster, the Coyote. I reproduce the lyrics in full:
I started a chase which started the Road Bird running,
But I didn’t see that the chase was on me.
I set off the fuse which started the bomb exploding,
Oh, but my TNT, it was glued onto me.I ran off a cliff, stood there as if it were solid and stiff.
Then I looked at the ground, and none being found, plummeted down,
Till I fell with a crash, which started the Road Bird beeping,
And a boulder broke free, and it crashed upon me.
Breathes there a man with heart so dead that he is not stirred to sublime emotions by the story of the Wily Coyote? Ah, it is a moving legend indeed; it has been clocked at over 60 miles per hour.
The unbearable lightness of disco
29 October 2016 by 5 Comments
Just now, I happened to be within earshot of a radio loudly playing an ‘oldies’ station; and, as is liable to happen on such occasions, I heard a familiar old song for about the ten thousandth time. And as is also liable to happen, I had never before paid much attention to the lyrics; partly because they were sung in a screeching nasal falsetto, hard to distinguish, and partly because they are not really meant to draw one’s attention. They are merely mouth noises to carry the tune, and the tune is merely a noise to tell the stridently funky disco band when to change key. And that is merely the signal for people on the dance floor to do bad John Travolta impersonations.
But this time I did pay attention; and with a little help from the Internet (that infallible source of nothing but petrified truth), I deciphered them at last. Now I know what the Banshee Guys were actually singing about. I think that was the name of the vocal group; it was either that or Banana Grinders; but it is hard to recover the information at this late date in history, for they had a stubborn habit of using only the initials B. G. At any rate, here are the words, as reconstructed by the latest techniques in the science of musical archaeology.
(Cut for mild anatomical vulgarity…)
Philosophers and philosophers
28 October 2016 by 4 Comments
In thirty-odd years’ study of the arcane field of Philosophy, I have not learned very much; which perhaps means that I am doing it right.
Here is one thing I have definitely learned:
In the field of Philosophy, there are two kinds of people: Philosophers and Academic Philosophers. All the actual philosophies are created by the first group, but it is the second group that gets tenure.
Philosophers think very hard about the meaning of life, the nature of knowledge, and things like that, and write about it for the public.
Academic Philosophers, by tradition, are angry old men with beards and elbow patches who write incomprehensible gobbledygook at each other because they just like arguing that much.
In these enlightened times, however, Academic Philosophy has risen above its ignoble past and taken on a whole new look. For nowadays, most of the Academic Philosophers are clean-shaven.
Work has resumed!
26 October 2016 by 5 Comments
I recovered from most of the concussion symptoms a few days ago, but all the bed rest required aggravated my spinal injury and gave me neck spasms. Now I am on a witch’s brew of Robaxacet and assorted pain medications, which are allowing me to function well enough to write a little, but not well enough to sleep all the way through the night. Last night I got up about midnight and wrote a chapter for the second episode of Where Angels Die. I post it here, as it might amuse some of my 3.6 Loyal Readers.
Justice
15 October 2016 by 1 Comment
But if this man has a son who sees all the sins that his father has done, considers, and does not do likewise, who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, does not wrong anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances, and follows my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, he dies for his iniquity.
Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.
—Ezekiel 18:14–20
Concussion
10 October 2016 by 9 Comments
Reported to the South Health Campus tonight with various symptoms. The doctor assured me that I have a textbook concussion, but fortunately, not a serious one. I am advised not to do any strenuous mental or physical work for a few days.
Posting, and the release of Superversive, will, alas, be slightly delayed.
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