Writing and Snacks : Greg van Eekhout

Squid squid squid squid!

2006-12-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

OKYO, Japan (AP) -- A Japanese research team has succeeded in filming a giant squid live -- possibly for the first time -- and says the elusive creatures may be more plentiful than previously believed, a researcher said Friday.

...

The captured squid was caught using a smaller type of squid as bait, and was pulled into a research vessel "after putting up quite a fight," Kubodera said.

"It took two people to pull it in, and they lost it once, which might have caused the injuries that killed it," he said.

The squid, a female, was not fully grown and was relatively small by giant squid standards. The longest one on record is 60 feet, he said.

Livejournal and meta stuff

2006-12-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

I like conversation, and more of it seems to happen on my LiveJournal than here. I think for quite a few reasons it's important to have my own space, that I own (to the extent that anyone owns a domain name), and I don't want anyone to ever have to change links to my blog ever again, so I'm not abandoning this space ... but I would like to consolidate my journals and keep comments all in one place. So, I'm wondering if it's possible to truly mirror my LJ here. Not just duplicate posts, but truly have one journal and one comments stream that shows up at more than one URL.

So, what I'm saying is, if I accidently break something while fiddling around, you'll know what I was trying to do when I electrocuted myself.

And if anyone's got any tips ... ?

Tim's Birthday Clue #4

2006-12-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

It's Tim's birthday! Woo! Birthday!

Okay, enough frivolity. Tim has some work to do, and let's get down to it.

You're 30 now, Tim, so no more softballs.

Clue #4

Which of the following is the enigmatic villain of Stephen King's epic novel of queasiness and long walks, The Stand?

a. Randall Flagg
b. Tony Randall
c. Fannie Flagg
d. Flag football

Happy birthday, buddy. I'd tell you to enjoy your thirties, but enjoyment of life is pretty much your default mode. So, you know, just stay the course and you'll have an utter and complete blast.

The Osteomancer's Run

2006-12-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

An early Christmas present came last night in the form of an acceptance for "The Osteomancer's Son" in another year's best, this one the Cramer/Hartwell Year's Best Fantasy 7!

I didn't publish many new stories this year, so it's very gratifying and somewhat of a relief to get more mileage out of my rather meager appearances.

***

Some people are already giving up! They'd started playing Christmas music right after Thanksgiving at the office on campus, but by last week they were sick of it! And at the coffee joint they're sneaking in non-Christmasy stuff whenever they can! Ha! Quitters! Ha!

Right now I'm listening to Jimmy Durante singing "Frosty the Snow Golem". At home, the tree is up and trimmed with bright and shiny packages arrayed beneath. Ribbons and bows! Prezzies! I even wore my Santa hat last night.

I am a Christmas slut and proud of it.

A journal entry about my ass

2006-12-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

This is a journal entry about my ass.

Tonight in Kung Fu class, I fell on my ass.

We were doing head stands, or trying to, and I tipped over and fell on my ass.

My ass is now quite sore, on account of me falling on my ass.

I am now done talking about my ass, even though my ass is still quite sore, on account of me falling on it.

Nudity, mummies, shoes, cheese!

2006-12-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, the Barenaked Ladies were fun last night. They played most of the songs I wanted to hear (including my all-time favorite, "Grade 9"), they freestyled, they danced, they quipped, Steve Page sang his brains out on "Ebony and Ivory," and the encore included both "If I Had $1,000,000" and "Feliz Navidad." Hard to ask for more than that.

***

So, Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw do these wonderful Christmas chapbooks, and last night they asked me if I could draw a mummy with a Santa hat for this year's cover. Like, no way am I gonna pass up a chance on that kind of fun. Tim sent me their story, and it's fun and cute and quirky and just so wonderfully Tim and Heather. So, this morning I doodled away on a ho-ho mummy, scanned it in and emailed it off to them, and Tim's already got the cover posted up at his journal. I love the internet. I love playing with my friends. I love the story they wrote. And I love Christmas!

***

Received word this afternoon from Steve Eley that he's buying "Authorwerx" for Escape Pod. Which is good news for all the usual reason that a sale to a cool market is good news, but also because just before coming home to the email, I'd bought a new pair of shoes -- actually, Lisa forced me to buy them, I hate spending money on shoes, don't mind on shirts or sweaters, but hate spending money on shoes and pants -- and they're very nice shoes, and I like them quite a bit and they're comfy, but pricey, but the Escape Pod sale more than covers the expense. Writing to keep shoes on my feet. Not a bad thing at all.

***

The newest addition to my Christmas playlist is "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Der Binger is about as classic 20th Century American traditional Christmas music as that sort of thing gets, Bowie's singing is quite lovely, and the banter before the song starts is just a great example of 70's variety show cheese. Perfect Christmas nostalgia.

***

None of which is doing anything to alleviate the burden of grading. On the other hand, grading does nothing to make me giggly with Christmas.

See? It's all about balance. Or something.

Evil waffles

2006-12-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Doing more Norse reading this morning at the coffee joint, and came across this curious, early restaurant review:

On Nástrand is a great hall and evil, and its doors face to the north: it is all woven of serpent-backs like a waffle-house ...

I've never been to a Waffle House. Are they really that evil? How evil can waffles be? There's a Waffle House down the road, by the overpass, next to the strip joint, across from the outlet mall. I guess that's a pretty evil location. Maybe I should brave it and try some evil waffles with venom syrup.

***

Currently listening to Barenaked for the Holidays. Gonna go seem them Barenaked Ladies tomorrow night, and much looking forward to it.

***

I'm wearing a sweater! When I step out to walk home, I will put on my muffler and my coat! I know this is no big deal to those of you in the frigid lands, but I am delighted to get to pretend to be cold. I love outerwear! Yay, outerwear!

***

Am I getting too old for beer and wings? I had a lovely beer & wings lunch with Zilla yesterday, but my stomach was hating me during Kung Fu yesterday. A belch is not a kiai, no matter how enthusiastically rendered.

***

Much work to do for the contract gig due today. Sadness. Would prefer to sit here and write and research Norse stuff all day long in my sweater. On the other hand, money is good to have.

***

I don't want to tell you how long it took me to realize the text actually read wattle-house, not waffle-house.

I've never eaten a wattle, I don't think.

Norse question

2006-11-30T09:07:00.001-07:00

Doing some reading about Frigg, I came across this version of Baldr's death:

Baldur's mother was the Norse goddess, Frigga. When Baldur was born, Frigga made each and every plant, animal and inanimate object promise not to harm Baldur. But Frigga overlooked the mistletoe plant -- and the mischievous god of the Norse myths, Loki, took advantage of this oversight. Ever the prankster, Loki tricked one of the other gods into killing Baldur with a spear fashioned from mistletoe. The demise of Baldur, a vegetation deity in the Norse myths, brought winter into the world, although the gods did eventually restore Baldur to life [emphasis mine]. After which Frigga pronounced the mistletoe sacred, ordering that from now on it should bring love rather than death into the world. Happily complying with Frigga's wishes, any two people passing under the plant from now on would celebrate Baldur's resurrection by kissing under the mistletoe.

What's this? The gods restored Baldr to life? In the all accounts I've read (except for the Saxo Grammaticus outlier), Baldr pretty much stews in Helheim, dead, until after Ragnarok. The gods don't resurrect him at all. His whole myth centers on the gods' failure to restore him to life.

Does anyone know about a version in which the gods resurrect him?

Mrs. Murray's pumpkin bread

2006-11-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

On my visit home, I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jane Murray, my second and third grade teacher at Linwood E. Howe Elementary School in Culver City, CA.

I remember being very happy in her class. She was solid on the three R's, and she gave me the kind of encouragement on creative writing and drawing projects that impacted me in ways I'm probably not even conscious of. She didn't yell a lot. She had control. She was the first model of adult competence I can remember. For two years, she was a big part of my life, as she no doubt was for hundreds of kids over her career.

Around this time of year, I always think of Mrs. Murray and her pumpkin bread. She had us all bring ingredients from home and directed us through a recipe that was simple enough that a class of 30 kids could handle it, and that yielded the best pumpkin bread I've ever had. The batter looks so good it's difficult to resist gobbling it up with a measuring cup. I've often baked it during the holiday season, and I'll be making it for sure this year.

Mrs. Murray's Pumpkin Bread

Yields two loaves

3 cups sugar
1 cup oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp soda
3 1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup water
2 cup pumpkin
4 eggs

1. Mix ingredients
2. Bake in greased and floured loaf pan at 350 for 50-70 minutes until done. Check by poking with a wooden skewer. When there's no bread clinging to the skewer, it's done.

Chapbook review

2006-11-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

I just came across this thorough review of my chapbook, Show and Tell and Other Stories. Just a tiny snippet here:

Greg van Eekhout's new chapbook Show and Tell and Other Stories offers more than its fair share of tricks and treats. My favorite trick is the way he manages to get both horror and humor in his science fiction.

And I must note with much chagrin that I still owe a bunch of people sketches for pre-ordering the chapbook. Please bare with me? Just a bit longer? Until the semester comes to a close and my monumental stack of grading goes away? You'll have my thanks and apologies.

Master Wood

2006-11-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

What I love most about the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials are the various mythologies and secret histories of Santa Claus they propose. I'm a sucker for that stuff. Here's a clip from their adaptation of Frank L. Baum's "Life and Adventures of Santa Claus." That's one I haven't seen. I must've been absorbed in my 2-XL when it came out.

The gent with the antlers in the pic above isn't Kris Kringle. It's the Master Woodsman of the World. Seems pretty badass to me.

Heading out this afternoon for holiday festivities and food. You all have a good Thanksgiving, those of you who celebrate. Going down my list of things to be thankful for, I see it's a pretty long list.

Thanks!

Brewmaster G

2006-11-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Beer! I made beer! It pours like beer and fizzes like beer and foams like beer. When I unscrewed the cap, it didn't come rushing out of the bottle in a rifling pillar like Diet Coke and Mentos. And maybe it's not the best beer I've ever had, but neither does it taste like pickle juice. And most importantly, the bottles didn't launch themselves like rockets and smash holes in my ceiling. It's not munitions, it's beer!

I'd call that progress.

Surrender

2006-11-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

I love Christmas time. I really do. The lights and decorations, the music, the snacks and eggnog, the Winter Warlock and Charlie Brown's sad little tree and the snaffer snoof and dang-donglers ... But I like it after Thanksgiving, and I'm a grumbler, yes, a grumbler and a bah-humbugger about excessively early encroachment of the Yule.

But this year I surrender. I give. I'm singing the songs (fah who for-aze/dah who dor-aze). I'm wearing the hat. I'm speaking in a cockney Tiny Tim accent ('oo nicked me bleedin' crutch???). I even downloaded a tune I heard off one of this year's Starbucks holiday CD. I'm sledding down the hill to holiday cheer on skids greased with goose fat.

Because I love Christmas time, and I'm just tired of resisting it, so I'm going to try to enjoy as much of it as I can for as long as I can.

Still holding off on the eggnog, though, cuz I can't spend an entire month fat and drunk.

Words, fine and good

2006-11-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

It is a pleasure to be surrounded by fine words. Kind of like a kitchen in which there's pizza and fried chicken and pork chops and beer in the fridge. And cake, too. Lots of cake.

This week the post brought in Jenn Reese's first novel, Jade Tiger, which contains kick-ass animal Kung Fu action, globe-trotting adventure, romance, humor, and journeys of personal growth. It's a fun, fast-paced read, but never frivolous. I had the privilege of reading it in manuscript, and I really can't recommend it highly enough.

I also recently picked up the December Realms of Fantasy, and have so far read Jon Hansen's "In the Lair of the Moonmen", a tour-de-force imaginative sword and sorcery tale, and Sandra McDonald's "The Valhalla Job", a funny story about what happens when a makeover reality TV show comes to Asgard. I liked both stories very, very much. (Isn't it a relief when people whom you know and like also happen to be good writers? Not that I wouldn't like them if they weren't good writers, but it's nice when they are.)

Finally, I've meant for some time to recommend John McPhee's Uncommon Carriers, the latest offering from the Pulitzer-prize winning master of the general non-fiction. In addition to truly fascinating behind-the-scenes looks at a giant UPS depot (in, oh, Kansas, I think), a training facility for ship captains where they pilot 40-foot long scale models of container ships through a miniature Panama Canal, and a ride across the country in the most beautiful tanker truck in the world, there's also a lengthy Kim Stanley Robinson. Only McPhee could drop in 3/4 of a page from Red Mars and make it fit in a book about freight that also includes a chapter about a canoe trip Henry David Thoreau took with his brother.

So many fine words surround me. Makes me want to do some cooking of my own.

My sister's stolen lungs

2006-11-17T13:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday on my walk I found the following on a hand-written sign taped to a stoplight stancheon:

Have you seen two good lungs? My sister's lungs were stolen when she died. She was a really good singer and ate apples from Whole Foods Market. She said they helped prevent lung cancer. She took care of her lungs so I can see why someone would want them but please if you find them contact me.

Dan R.

The text was accompanied by a color drawing of a pair of lungs. One of them, labeled "inside", was a cut-away view that revealed the broncheal tubes.

I went back today to take a picture, but the sign had been ripped down. (In my next life, I will own a camera phone.)

I find the whole thing creepy, amusing, strange and sad, a combination of effects that I have a lot of sympathy for.

At 7000 feet

2006-11-12T11:51:00.000-07:00

There's a lovely, autumnal crispness to the air in Flagstaff. Beaver Street Brewery was warm and festive. The leaves along Oak Creek Canyon are beginning to turn. The rocks in Sedona glowed Martian red in the late afternoon sunlight. My breakfast sandwich at the hippy coffee joint was yummy. I felt somewhat for the desperate writer tasked with interviewing an entirely unresponsive Philip Roth in today's Washington Post. I wrote a dialog exchange for my Norse novel, and I don't know where it will fall, but it's a key to my protag's character. Some stress this weekend over my parents' health, but other than that, I've achieved good mental space up here in the pines.

Act of faith

2006-11-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

I do love voting in America. It's practically the only time I ever go to church. And this year, a Baptist church at that.

I voted against incumbent Republican U.S. Senator John Kyl (thanks for the Patriot Act, jerk), and against incumbent Republican U.S. Congressman J.D. Hayworth (thanks for the Patriot Act, jerk), and for incumbent Democrat governor Janet Napolitano.

I voted against a state constitutional amendment establishing English as our official language, against a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman (we already have anti-gay marriage laws on the books, so I see no need to up the ante on our already extant homophobia), for an increase in minimum wage, against the measure discouraging illegal immigrants from seeking higher education, against the "smoking ban" endorsed by RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris, and against the "conservation" bill sponsored by every bank, insurance company, and housing developer in the state.

I am a liberal with a big, pink, capital L, and it's time for change. And not change for the sake of change, or because I'm bored with the current powers. It's time for change because the presidential administration and those who support it have been very busy establishing a fundamentally anti-American regime, and today we get another chance to weaken their grip. Despite our recent history of electoral fraud and malfeasance, we still live in a republic, and today we get to exercise our rights. While we've still got 'em.

I really do love voting in America.

Kung fu from dawn to dusk

2006-11-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a long but very fun day of kung fu.

I got to the park before 7:00 to stretch and warm up and get in some last-minute review and watch the mallards chase the lady ducks. By 8:00, the park was packed with walkers for a diabetes 5K walk, some kind of get-together for golden retrievers (omigod those dogs are so pretty!!!), and bunches and bunches of us wacky kung fu people. Our school's elder masters came in from Colorado, and that brought in students from several of our schools -- from our own Phoenix school, and from Tucson, Denver, Colorado Springs, Boulder, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Jose, and Los Angeles. It was really cool getting to meet some of those folks.

The first item on the agenda was belt testing. I performed far from perfectly (very, very far), but the panel was generous and I made it to brown belt. The longer I do martial arts, the more I realize that belt ranks really don't mean much, but moving up to brown belt means that now, in addition learning new material in the upper belt class, I can start attending the lower belt class and instead of learning new stuff there, I can focus on reviewing. I am actually very excited about this, because I really want to feel that I'm doing the basic stuff well. So, Tuesday night, I am going straight back to white belt. Woo!!

After the test, a bunch of our senior students and masters performed some of our more colorful forms, like broad sword and chain whip and various drunken forms (I love those). A pair of sisters from the Vegas school (I think) did a two-person fan form, and it was awesome! You could really tell they practice together a lot, because their timing was perfectly in synch. Quite inspiring.

After a lunch break (Chinese food, of course), we reconvened, and for the next 3.5 hours, Elder Master David taught us a really cool preying mantis form. Mantis forms use a lot of pressure point strikes, so we learned with the aid of rubber acupuncture dolls (sorry, action figures), inserting map pins in all the deadly points we were learning to hit. By the end of it, it looked as though we'd been practicing shaolin voodoo. A fun form to cap off a very fun day.

Today, I rest my aching legs and possibly bottle the batch of beer that I've been letting ferment for the past week. Then it sits in the bottles for another week, when it will either be ready to drink or ready to explode in a deadly hail of shards.

Shirts!

2006-11-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

If you've ever met my friend Brian, you will have no doubt encountered his wardrobe of fun and festive shirts, all made by his wife (and also my good friend) Amy. Amy has a real talent for hunting down cool, kitchy fabrics with samurais and robots and skulls and all manner of fun things. Amy's decided to expand beyond Brian's closet and is offering the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD the opportunity to own and wear these amazing shirts, and I could not be more excited for her.

In her own words:

Hello,

I've been very busy this year - and not just with the twins! I'd like to announce the opening of my online store, Robots in Orbit! We sell unique men's shirts, manufactured ourselves so you won't find them anywhere else!

Retro prints, Asian, astro, comics, pirates and more! Check it out:

www.robotsinorbit.com

New shirts will continue to be added every month, so keep checking back, or sign up for our email notification! Read our blog for more details about how I pulled this off.

Squeaker

2006-11-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

I'm $326 poorer, but at least I have my laptop back, and now it actually has power, and they didn't wipe my data. (There was really no reason for them to wipe my data, but the Genius at the Genius Bar warned me that sometimes the techs will just wipe your data for the sake of expedience.)

Got my car back, only $148 for a new serpentine belt.

Still not sure what to do about the external firewire drive, other than buy a new one.

I'm feeling in a glass half-full mood, so I'm putting this week in the win column. But it was a squeaker, I'll tell you that.

Infucked structure

2006-11-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Monday: Computer goes down.
Tuesday: External back-up hard drive goes down.
Wednesday: Car goes down.

So, what other mechanical failures can I expect?

Well, after walking home from the garage, I discovered that I'd left all my keys behind. And walking the mile back to the garage wasn't an option because by this point my blood sugar was getting hinky.

So, I decided to hoof it to the coffee joint, but instead diverted to the local bar, because I really needed beer. I ended up having four Scotch ales and fried mozarella sticks while I awaited Lisa's rescue, for which I am very grateful.

And also still somewhat drunk.

Kiltlifter ain't no wussy beer, I'll tell you that.

Mount Damyoo

2006-11-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

Computer still in the shop and will remain there (wherever there actually is) for another 4-9 business days. Yesterday my external back-up drive stopped mounting, so I would love to have my computer back in my possession, preferably with the data intact. That would be really, really, really ducky.

I always think I'm so clever when I assign essays of substantive length and complexity, so clever for challenging the students by making them perform acts of writing in a composition class. And then I have days like yesterday during which I did almost nothing but grade, grade, and grade some more, only to find that I still have more stacks of grading crying out to be graded. That's when I realize that there's a real strain of idiocy running through.

Well, I mean, that's not the only time I'm aware of the I-strain ...

Hey, all you people going to WFC ... know that, despite my jealousy, I still wish for you a good time. Because I am just that giving.

"Osteomancer's Son" resold

2006-10-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Contract pending, it appears that Rich Horton has selected "The Osteomancer's Son" for inclusion in the next volume of Fantasy: Best of the Year (Prime Books). Which pleases me ginormously and enormically, because I was hoping that story would get some more play. Yay!

Danger brewing

2006-10-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

Longtime readers of my journals may recall my nearly fatal experiment in beer brewing, as depicted and described in this entry and its comments.

I'd been intending for a while now to give it another try, but hadn't got around to it. But a confluence of factors -- reading Beer in America, the Early Years -- 1587-1840, and it being October, with its cool, dark evenings, and me having some Mr. Beer Vienna Lager mix (described on the can as a traditional Oktoberfest beer) -- I decided that tonight was the night. I dug out my Mr. Beer brewing kit (sort of a paint-by-numbers approach to beer making), and I currently have a keg of delicious-looking, foamy wort fermenting, and in two weeks I'll know if I have a batch of beer or a 8.5 quart ticking bomb.

Stay tuned. And just to be safe, take cover.

More thoughts currently brewing, but I'll save those for another time, or perhaps will just keep them to myself, as is sometimes the wisest course.

_________

Favorite trivia bits from Beer in America:

1. The saying "mind your p's and q's" comes from a directive tavern keepers would give to the help, to keep track of the customers' tabs and mind their pints and quarts.

2. A cure for lunacy required one to "work (stir) herbs into clear ale, say 7 masses over the worts, add garlic and holy water, then have the patient suffering from lunacy drink it out of a church bell."

Kickin'

2006-10-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

It's October, which means in the stores the mechanical lawn Santas are glaring impatiently at the Halloween decorations, waiting for them to clear the hell out so that we can all commence making with the hardcore Yule. It also means year-end fiction reviews are starting to come in. Rich Horton picks "The Osteomancer's Son" as one of his favorite short stories published by Asimov's in 2006. And in his rundown of favorite 2005 stories, Science Fiction Book Club senior editor Andrew Wheeler makes nice mention of "Gillian Underground", from Polyphony 5, the collaboration I did with Ol' Mike Jasper and Tim Pratt. I do like getting some love, and I ain't much shy about it.

***

I played hooky yesterday in the sense that I didn't work on real-work work. No chipping away at the tottering stack of grading, no contract work (which is a bit sucky, because I would have worked on it had they given me any). Instead, I gave myself two trips to the coffee joint and wrote. I don't think I wrote anything very good, and I didn't tote up my word count, and I don't think it's a significant number, but it's more than I've written in a long time. It felt very, very good. I can't ignore my grading today, and I'm still hoping to get some stuff for the contract job (because if they don't start coming through with stuff, I'll feel obligated to, like, look for a different paying gig, on account of me liking the feeling of having money to put in accounts), and I need to at least walk through my Kung Fu forms and techniques (I'm a walking disaster with nunchuks still) ... but days like yesterday are so good for the craftman's soul. I'm lucky to get those.

***

While reading about new phorusrhacid fossil finds (the phorusrhacid being a 10-foot-tall scary motherfucking terror bird that could possibly run up to 60 miles per hour, had a head the size of a horse's, and could swallow medium-sized dogs), I came across this older article suggesting they used Kung Fu kicks to shatter their prey's bones and get at the marrow.

I'm doing a pre-test for brown belt tomorrow (the actual test is in November), and I'll be thinking about phorusrahacid when I do my bird form, believe you me.