Today is the last day to get your submissions in for Shimmer’s Clockwork Jungle Book special issue.
This is going to be a spectacular issue. Just wait until you see the art… So, hurry. Finish that story and submit.
The intarwebs use the word sockpuppet to mean someone who has created a character for the purpose of supporting his or her arguments by pretending to be someone else. Let’s take a look at that term, shall we?
Most puppets fall into five basic categories broken down by the method in which they are manipulated. You have hand, shadow, string, rod and body. There are endless combinations of those forms, plus sub-categories and also some puppets which defy categories.
In addition to this, you also have overt puppetry, where you see the puppeteer, and covert, where you don’t.
Now Bert, over there on the right, is what we’d call a moving-mouth, hand and rod puppet. He’s not sock puppet, but they’re both operated the same way. Typically, you don’t see the puppeteer with these puppets.
A ventriloquist’s dummy is, by necessity, overt. The puppet itself might be a hand and rod, or it might simply be a rod puppet with a trigger control to work the mouth. Charlie McCarthy worked like this. He’s what you think of when you think of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Jeff Dunham on the other hand, uses a variety of puppets, including a puppet that is very similar, structurally, to Bert. (He’s hilarious, by the way.)
And then there’s Shari Lewis who used, yes, a sock puppet.
The thing is that ventriloquism is a performance technique wherein a single puppeteer tries to create the illusion that there is another character on stage. This character gets to say things that the manipulator can’t say. Sound familiar?
Sure, sock puppets are less expensive to build than a traditional vent’s dummy BUT I do have to defend sockpuppets from the charge that they are not convincing and poorly done. That’s amateur sockpuppetry and amateur ventriloquism is even less convincing. Nothing is quite as distracting as watching someone who is trying not to move their lips and failing.
Professional sockpuppetry can be really quite lovely. Check out the Lady from Sockholm for example. Heck, Kermit is only one step away from sock puppet.
I don’t expect to actually change anyone’s mind about this, because sockpuppet is more fun to say than vent dummy. While I personally think that vent dummy is a better term than sock puppet, fun trumps accuracy almost any day.
The first thing you should know when you call hardware stores in NYC to see if they have axes, is that all of them, without exception, will ask you who you are planning on killing.
The second thing you should know is that after you pick up the axe, you will have no problems finding a seat on the subway.
The third thing is that random passerbys will engage you in conversations like the following.
“Whoa. You mean business,” the man says as he comes out the door and sees you.
“Yeah, well,” you said, not really wanting to explain the show for which the axe is a prop. “There’s not much call for them in the city, I’ll admit.”
“He must have really pissed you off.”
You smile. “It’s so true. There’s really not a reason to have an axe in the city unless you’re planning to off someone.”
If you say that, the passerby will suddenly find something else very interesting on the other side of the street.
All of which makes me wonder why I could buy an axe in a city with no need for cutting firewood.
So, that box the post office tried to deliver yesterday wasn’t Shimmer.
It contained my contributor copies The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, volume two
I want to give a shout out Mike Munsil, who created Liberty Hall Writers, an online group that does weekly flash challenges. My story, “Evil Robot Monkey” came out of one of those. Each weekend, you get a trigger and then have an hour and a half to write a story.
The story itself is sort of the product of two triggers. See, at Shimmer we have a running gag which stemmed from when we were testing the submission system. Beth sent in a trial submission called “Harry Potter and the Evil Robt Monkeys!”1 Brilliant. I decided that whatever the trigger was, my story would have that title. The trigger itself was a piece of clockwork art.
Here’s the first bit of the story.
Sliding his hands over the clay, Sly relished the moisture oozing around his fingers. The clay matted down the hair on the back of his hands making them look almost human. He turned the potter’s wheel with his prehensile feet as he shaped the vase. Pinching the clay between his fingers he lifted the wall of the vase, spinning it higher.
You can see that I kept the hairy potter.
I arrived home today to a flurry of compliments about the art issue of Shimmer and a slip from the post office saying that they were sorry they’d missed me. Curses! Now I must wait still longer to see this issue.
Sure, sure… I’ve been looking at the galleys and such, but it’s different when you get to hold the smooth pages in your hand and fondle the glossy cover with art by John Picacio.
le sigh.
This very interesting, but too short article talks about the use of sailing ships to reduce carbon emissions.
An excerpt:
French vineyard owners are returning to a slower pace of life by starting to export their wine by sailing boat - a method last used in the 1800s - to reduce their carbon footprint.
Later this month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 18,375lb of carbon. Further voyages to Bristol, Manchester and even Canada are planned soon afterwards.
The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin following a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days. The wines will be delivered to Bordeaux by barge using the Canal du Midi and Canal du Garonne, which run across southern France from Sète in the east, via Béziers in Languedoc. Each bottle will be labelled: ‘Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.’ Although the whole process will end up taking up to a week longer than a flight, it is estimated it will save 4.9oz of carbon per bottle.
Does anyone else feel a story possibility sitting here?
We just got home from the Oscar party at Jodi and Sam’s. It’s an annual affair with them and quite the soirée. This year was a little odd for me. Somehow, I managed to miss seeing all but two of the films on the awards tonight. I saw Golden Compass and Sweeney Todd. That’s it.
As such, my only relevant reactions are going to be to dresses — no good standouts this year — and the best effects Oscar. Seriously? People thought the Golden Compass effects were better than Pirates of the Caribbean? That’s just crazy. I mean people have been doing talking animals more convincingly since Babe. I was seriously annoyed through most of Golden Compass because I just couldn’t believe the animals.
I was given an ARC of Scott Mebus’s Gods of Manhattan The basic premise is that a parallel, magic, Manahatta exists throughout Manhattan. It is inhabited by the Gods of Commerce, The Best China, Guilt, Opposite Side of the Street Parking, and the like. These gods used to be mortals, but after their death if they lived on in memory, they could become elevated to godhood. People like Peter Stuyvesant and Babe Ruth run through these pages along with two totally believable kids.
I started jotting down favorite parts but then got caught up in the story and forgot to keep doing it. So here are two from close to the beginning.
He knew she couldn’t see what he was seeing. Because he was going crazy and that’s not really a team sport.
When Bridget picks up her only Barbie (she doesn’t normally pay with “such girlie things” and had given it a makeover) we get this fabulous bit.
This was Malibu Death Barbie. A fashion-conscious dealer of justice. The last thing her enemies saw before their horrible dismemberment was a flash of pink lipstick and a really big knife.
If you’ve got a teen reader in your life, look for Gods of Manhattan when it comes out. History, adventure and magic! What more can you ask for?
The 2007 SFWA(R) Final Nebula Awards(R) Ballot is up. I figure that everyone and their uncle is posting the whole list so I’m just linking to it. “For Solo Cello” didn’t make the cut. Sadness.
BUT Titanium Mike by David Levine did, which has me very pleased because I liked that story a great deal.
For the past week and a half I have looked at every sofa on Craig’s List plus visiting live stores looking for “the” sofa for the production I’m doing props for. Some things I have learned.
Last week Rob and I picked up a $50 couch that we hoped would be “the” couch for the show. It was battered, already had an iron mark burned into the arm. It seemed perfect for an extremely poor bachelor’s apartment.
It was too long.
So, I started looking again. Today, I found one that the designer “loved, loved, loved.” The catch? I had to buy it today. Gah! So I took the train out to Queens to look at it.
This was, by far, the longest amount of time I’ve spent underground since coming to New York and perhaps ever. I think it took me two and a half hours to get there on three trains. No, four trains. One train had interupted service so I had to take an express past the point I wanted to be and then double back to transfer.
I arrive. The man I was supposed to meet is gone but his mother is there. Unfortunately, she speaks Russian and has about as much English as I have Mandarin.
I point. “Sofa?”
Her face brightens. “Sofa!” And then she calls her son. He talks to me, asks me to hand the phone back to his mother and he translates. She says something and then hands the phone back. He translates again. This goes for a couple of cycles.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking that the sofa looks too big. He’d said it was about 6′ but it looks bigger. I foolishly forgot to bring the tape measure, so I use a sheet of paper to estimate the size. Looks like it’s over 7′. The director wants 6′4″.
I call the designer and explain.
He says, “Are you sure?”
I say, “Pretty sure but I was estimating. Hey– there’s a hardware store in front of me, want me to get a tape measure and go back?”
“Could you?”
So I go back and attempt to explain to the mother. She sees the tape measure and seems to understand. I check and the sofa is 7′2″. I sigh and pantomime that it is too big. She looks heartbroken.
The son had said that they were moving tomorrow.
I leave, call the designer and report.
“7 foot 2?” he says. “How deep is it?”
I’m caught off guard. I was expecting us to be sad that it was the wrong size and then have to keep looking. “I’m not sure. Do you want me to go back?”
He says yes, so I do, trying to figure out how to explain to the mother why I’m back. I ring the bell and a man answers the door. Hallelujah, he speaks English! I measure, talk to the designer who looks at the ground plan and declares that the sofa will fit. Yay!
Because, I’ll tell you, if I had taken that subway ride out for no reason…
The ride back only took an hour and a half.
Thanks to bachsoprano for pointing this out.
Did you know that you can’t be a NY Notary Public if you’ve been convicted of “jostling.”
That would wipe out everyone who’s ever ridden the subway.
Today I turned in a postcard design, built a set piece for one show, and picked up, delivered, and cleaned a couch for another show. I’m, once again, working on two — no wait — three shows at once. My posts this week may be scarce.
But I wanted to say how deeply grateful I am for all the comments on my Childfree post. I feel very, very supported and loved. Many thanks.
Some time ago, Rob and I made the decision not to have children. I am blogging about it now because, having just had my thirty-ninth birthday, I was chided by people saying some variant on, “You’d better get busy.” Honestly, the pressure to have children from friends and family gets quite wearing. These are people who love me and think that they know what’s best for me. Presumably, they love me because they think that I’m an intelligent person, but they don’t seem willing to accept that yes, I have actually thought through all of this. I understand the consequences of this choice.
It took two years for us to reach this decision.
I’ll be honest, it wasn’t an easy one. I’ve never been a girl who has craved babies, though I went through a phase when I was fascinated by pregnancy. That said, I’ve always assumed that I would have children because I come from a very loving and extended family. Of course, it was only natural that I would contribute a branch to the family tree and pass on things. Some of them were ephemeral like Robinette, my middle name, and some were tangible, like my great-grandfather’s bedroom suite.
But when I spend time around friends’ children, even charming ones, there is always a sense of relief when I leave. Yes. I’ve heard that it’s different when they are your own. But what isn’t different is that your time no longer belongs to you. It’s not like having a cat or a dog; a child is forever.
So, coming into our marriage, I was ambivalent about having children. I thought I would want them later, but I didn’t want them then. Rob came into our marriage not wanting children. He was “adamant” that he did not want children, but said that his position might change. It seemed like opposite sides of the same place. We agreed to wait three to five years before discussing children any further.
Now, here is the only piece of misunderstanding in our communication. I took “I don’t want children” to mean, “I do not desire children,” while he meant, “I actively desire to be childless.” One is negotiable. The other is not. He, on the other hand, knew that I might change my mind and was willing to marry me anyway.
If you’ve been reading my journal for any length of time, you know how much I love my husband. He is, quite simply, the best thing that has ever happened to me. Given a choice between having children and having Rob, there was no choice. Sure, I could have insisted. We talked about different scenarios that would fulfill the urge I felt for children while preserving as much of his desire for a childless state as possible. We both knew, however, that these were fantasies. I was looking at taking a really solid marriage and putting a great deal of stress on it for a possibility. The thing with deciding to have kids is that you don’t know who you’ll get. It’s not like picking a pet out at the store; you may get a kid who is severely troubled or is perfect and wonderful. You just don’t know. It’s a gamble. For me, for us, that gamble wasn’t worth the risk.
There are so many children in the world already, too many for the planet to handle, that I think both partners have to want the child to justify bringing it into the world.
Are there things I will regret? Of course.
I will regret never knowing pregnancy. That I’m sure of. I’m afraid of being lonely when I’m old. I love my parents, and I’ll miss being on the other side of that relationship.
But at the end, weighing all the possible regrets and maybes, the thing I am most sure of is that I am not willing to give up Rob for a person who doesn’t exist. There are other reasons, just dealing with myself and a selfish desire to control my own lifestyle, but the big one is that I wasn’t willing to chance destroying something wonderful.
Most of the things I’m afraid of are things that are within my control. I am taking active steps now to develop connections with people in the next generation. I’m trying to become more involved in the life of my nieces and nephew. I’m finding other ways to leave a legacy besides my genes.
And here’s the big thing I want you to understand — I went through a rough period when we were making the choice, but once it was made… I really didn’t realize how much pressure I was putting on myself to procreate until it was gone. If you have a friend who is childless, don’t second guess them. Don’t assume that someone has to have kids to be happy. And please, please, don’t put pressure on them, even by implication.
You may not intend it, but it’s just mean. It’s hard to buck the social and biological pressure to have children. If someone makes that choice, do them the courtesy of accepting that it is the right choice for them. That’s all I ask. I’m happy. Those of you with children may think that I’m a fool, but I’m a happy fool.
Edited to add: I wanted to point out karindira’s very thoughtful post on the question of childless women from the side of motherhood.
This is one of my favorite Sesame Street videos. The song totally sticks in my head.
Plus, at 1.01, if you watch the lower right corner of the screen, Jim Henson’s head flashes for a moment. First time I’ve seen that.
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