Archive for 5/4/2008 - 29 Nisan, 5768

I didn’t do too well with NaNoWriMo last November. However, I have told members of my writer’s group I will at least attempt ScriptFrenzy. And I have the barest outlines of an idea for a plot — heavily based on real occurrences so that will help me move the plot along.

I also need to practice the poems I’m going to be reading for the Poetry Showcase on June 16th. I need to have them memorized, and it’s been several years since I’ve memorized poems. But this is a slam poetry showcase, and while I can get away with reading from a chapbook at an open mic, a poetry slam is a different animal, and this is being videotaped, so I need to have it memorized.

I know what’s more important. And it’s not ScriptFrenzy. However, the idea for the screenplay has been eating at me since I began thinking about it, and I’ve been anxious for June 1st so I could start writing. And while I may put it aside to prepare for the showcase, and I may not write 20,000 words in a month, I do want to get it down on paper.

I found this nowhere but my own brain and research. I did write a short poem back in 1994 exploring some of this, which I recently rediscovered. My writer’s group last night told me the references were too obscure. They were probably right - and it’s somewhat dated now. But it makes for a good table.

update added fascinating Body Snatchers factoid.

On a trip to Jefferson City yesterday I saw two billboards for a festival June 2nd in “Downtown Olean, Missouri.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to snap a picture as I drove past.

Olean apparently has a population of 163, so I’m not sure how much of a downtown they have. It’s likely this festival more than doubles their population. Politically, they are part of Miller County, which was solidly Bush in 2000 and 2004.

That’s just to give you a mental picture, because the fesitval is the 14th Annual Testicle Festival.

As a poet, I must say that’s a near-perfect three-syllable rhyme there. Very impressive. However, as I stated above, you’re going to have to be mighty hungry to attend this festival….or eat beforehand. Unless you have a taste for this delicacy. From discussions of past years it says they’ve had pig, lamb, bull and turkey testicles to eat. (My initial guess was that the last was for those who are a little squeamish, as I thought turkeys weren’t blessed with that particular body part. Research suggests I was wrong. It’s just located on the interior, by the liver, but it can be retrieved by a butcher, and eaten. Yummm.) It’s possible they also prepare different parts of the animal. I’ve also read that in 2005 they had a drag queen contest, but I’m not sure about this year. (I guess I could call the info number on the link in the third paragraph of this post. If I was a reporter I’d do that. But I’m a blogger, so I’ll just note the phone number is there, and if you’re interested in more details, you can call.)

1) Set time machine to early 1500s - Petite Lyon, France.
2) Don Jester outfit
3) Step into machine
4) Push button

Voila!

Oh my g-d! What happened to my beard?
I look like I looked 5 years ago!

Oh, wait, it is me 5 years ago.
This time machine is screwy.

I will work on fixing it, and maybe I can get a better picture by tonight.

What is wrong with these landlubbers?

They go to see a pirate movie, and they turn around and run, from their seats, almost literally, several minutes before the end of the movie. Stupid gits. Movies costing what they do today, leaving before the movie ends is insane, unless you didn’t like the movie…and are going to ask for a refund. These idiots, though, watched it up to the beginning of the credits. They bolted as the credits began to roll.

Completely missing out on the treasure at the end of the credits.

landlubbers, I tell ye.

Lucille Ball is listed as the grandmother of her husband, Desi.

When you look at the details, it inserts someone inbetween them, and all it says is “Living ___” where ___ is a last name that’s irrelevant, but obviously someone had a little fun and said that Lucille was their mother, and Desi their son. It’s kind of like WikiAncestry, but there’s no one correcting the vandals.

That doesn’t disprove anything though.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago I think I’m descended from Chaucer

I was asked in the comments if I’ve verified this, and I admitted, I’m not sure how to. One idea was to find out which of my famous cousins are related to each other according to this website, and then hope others might be intrigued and do the research on them. Because I certainly don’t want to do the legwork when all it can do is disprove the theory, because I already believe it.

So in that regard, according to OneWorldTree:

Emily Dickinson is the 7th great grandchild of Alice Lambert who lived between 1554-1620.
Henry David Thoreau is the 6th great grandchild of Alice Lambert.

Shirley Temple is the 8th-great grandchild of Elizabeth Stoughton, who lived between 1600-1647
Ray Bradbury is the 9th-great grandchild of Elizabeth Stoughton.

I should also mention that Shirley Temple, according to OneWorldTree is the 15th great grandchild of Chaucer, and cousin to O Henry and Walt Whitman, neither of whom are my cousins, so it doesn’t help me or hurt me if you prove or disprove that. I’m not descended from Shirley, but we are supposedly cousins, which makes sense, if we are both directly descended from Chaucer.

Interestingly, their “Famous Relative” script only works it’s way up from the first person, because when I ask for famous relatives of Chaucer, it comes up blank. It should at least list Shirley.

While it doesn’t help me, I’d love to know if Humphry Bogart’s 7th great grandfather is really John Alden of Mayflower fame.

Or if Henry David Thoreau is really descended from Romanovs, and is first cousins (22 times removed) with Empress Anna of Russia

TIME has an article on the Science of Star Wars

To quote from the article:

The most prominent areas of research inspired by the film are “hyper drive,” like that achieved off and on by Han Solo’s foundering Millennium Falcon, and robotics research inspired by Luke Skywalker’s ever-reliable R2D2 and somewhat neurotic C3PO.

“We physicists have been fascinated, have been inspired by the warp drive,” Kaku said. It has been so fascinating to them … that they have found an equation of Einstein’s that mimics warp drive.

Now, on paper, scientists know how “warp speed” works and what it would take for Chewbacca to get the Millennium Falcon into gear.

Sorry. You can’t credit Lucas with the Warp Drive.

Star Trek - Warp Drive - 1966
Star Wars - Hyperspace Drive - 1977

Similarly, Kaku says, some people saw the movies’ robots and started working in artificial intelligence theory to create robots of their own.

Isaac Asimov - I, Robot - 1950 (origin of the word ‘positronics’)
Alan Turing - Invented the Turing Test - 1950
John McCarthy coins the word “Artificial Intelligence” - 1956
ELIZA - 1965
Star Wars - 1977

Sorry, can’t give Lucas credit for inspiring Artificial Intelligence theory either.

I attend the St. Louis Renaissance Festival every year. Over the years I’ve been working on putting together a jester outfit. A colleague asked me if there were jesters in Renaissance Europe — he thought they were more medieval.

A little research suggests they ended in England in the 16th century, but were existent in France up to the French Revolution (late 18th). The Wentzville Faire is set in France, under the reign of Francis I, early 16th century. He ushered in the Renaissance for France, and his court Jester was perhaps one of the more famous court jesters — at least in literature. Triboulet, star of Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’Amuse (The King’s Diversion), and Verdi’s remake into an opera - Rigoletto.

Hugo took liberties with the real individual, but here’s a few illustrations for his character:

What isn’t clear from the illustrations is he’s a hunchback. Hugo liked characters with that deformity apparently. Not sure if I’ll work that into my costume, but I already have the beard.

I talk about politics a lot here. I don’t know how many people care what I think. It’s not like I’m running for congress. (I think some of the poetry I’ve written pretty much eliminates any possibility of that.) Here’s a series of statements I’ve put together about one of the freedoms from the First Amendment. It’s partially in response to some discussions I’ve had with friends and others. I may put together something similar for the other freedoms. Feel free to comment, and to make suggestions. (Note: “We” is not necessarily always the plural of “I”)

Freedom of Speech

Barbra Streisand is free to express her opinions.

Charlton Heston is free to express his opinions

Natalie Maines is free to express her opinions.

Toby Keith is free to express his opinions.

If we disagree with the opinions of any of the individuals above, we are free to express our disagreement.

We are free to say that these individuals shouldn’t express their opinions as entertainers.

We are free to say that Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, Bill O Reilly, and Al Franken should express their opinions, even though they are also entertainers.

We are free to be hypocritical and support the free expression of some, but not others.

We are free to point out hypocrisy in others when we see fit.

We are free to burn books, cds, dvds. (if they belong to us)

We are free to destroy any object that belongs to us, alone.

We are free to tell people who burn books, cds, dvds that they are Philistines.

They are free to disagree with us and/or keep on burning.

Residents of Philistia are free to be offended by the comparison, even though they’ve all been dead for centuries.

Radio stations, newspapers, publishing houses, and bookstores are free to follow the money, and remove particular artists from airplay, column space, publication, shelves if they feel it will please their readers, listeners, or customers.

Readers, listeners, and customers are free to show these radio stations, newspapers, publishing houses, and bookstores that their business decision was the incorrect one, by staging a boycott, and trying to affect their bottom line.

We are free to express our opinions.

We are free to express our disgust with the opinions of others.

They are free to express their disgust with our opinions.

A documented virgin birth. Admittedly, a hammerhead shark. But it proves that it’s possible in yet another vertebrate species.

It’s been done artificially with mammals. (mice.) And there was a 1956 report of several alleged natural cases in the UK with humans. (But of course, all the results were female.)

My Daemon has changed to a spider! Yuck! It started it’s life as a rabbit. I noticed it was a mouse a couple days ago. What do you guys think of me? A spider? Really?

It becomes permanent on Friday.

Guy shoots self in butt.

When you read the news story, it won’t be too difficult to figure out how I discovered it, if you’re a regular reader, or at least have read my earlier posts today.

This ties in nicely with a discussion of gun control I’ve been having on a college alum email list. I’d make the argument that the ability to conceal a weapon doesn’t make you safer. But someone would likely point out that since the guy didn’t have the gun legally, he probably didn’t receive any training. Would the training have helped, though?

Unless the AP has fallen for a revival of one of the more popular urban legends, the baby in the microwave, sadly it needs to be removed from the list.

Here’s a tshirt that spoils the ending of a dozen films, one tv show, and one book. Within a few years, the book will become a movie, unless the earth explodes before then, but for now it’s just the sixth book in a series that ends in July.

What’s spoiled:
Dallas (Who shot JR)
The Usual Suspects
Citizen Kane
Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back
Planet of the Apes
Sixth Sense
The Matrix
Fight Club
The Others
Psycho
300
Soylent Green
Beautiful Mind
Crying Game
Donnie Darko
Harry Potter Book Six

And two films…one about a village, and another about a group of villagers. No clue, but they sound like horror films.

It’s a funny tshirt, but I wouldn’t wear it until after the film is released.

Sunday night I saw two movies. The first movie I saw was at the home of Dog Girl (she used to be Toy Lady, but she reminded me recently she hasn’t sold any toys for over a year. She works at a vet’s, and often there are more canines than humans in her home. So she has a new nickname. And maybe she’ll learn not to complain.)

The movie was 28 Days Later. I was the only one in the room who hadn’t seen it. (Well, the only non-canine in the room) It’s a zombie horror flick. The zombies weren’t classic undead, but instead the creatures were the result of an escaped virus that turned humans into raging monsters almost instantaneously. The movie followed predictable zombie paths, with a mixture of science fiction thrown in due to the virus. It was entertaining, though. Anyone who likes horror/zombie flicks is likely to enjoy it, if they haven’t already, since it’s been out for over a year. It’s setting in London made me think of Shaun of the Dead. However, there was nothing intentionally comedic about 28 Days Later. Good horror plotting. OK characterization. I know I was happy when it was finished, but I’ve already forgotten most of the characters. Since some of the scenes were vivid, I was able to call the characters to mind by going over the plot in my mind, but otherwise, they’d be gone.

After that, as some may have guessed already, we made a trip to the theater to see 28 Weeks Later. The sequel was disappointing. In the opening scenes, a character made a comment about the virus, which any viewer of the first film would know was untrue. I made the assumption that wasn’t a mistake, and the character would live to regret their misinformation. However, I was wrong, and it played no role in later events, leading me to believe it was a disappointing mistake on the part of the writers. The ending felt a little contrived and tacked. I’d have liked a couple minutes of additional explanation – it wouldn’t have taken much, and the movie was pretty short as it was. There were certainly some horrific scenes. The plotting wasn’t as good as the first film. I wasn’t satisfied. I remember a couple of the characters more vividly, though.

If I were going to rewatch either of the movies. I’d rewatch the first.

A writer’s mailing list I am on recently started the classic Character v Plot discussion. Here is my contribution.

Let’s approach this through a “Pascal Wager” method

1) Lousy plot, Excellent characters

As one poster described a recent film they saw, you may enjoy the
characterization, but you’re left disappointed, perhaps even feel
cheated, because these excellent characters were wasted. You may
think of these characters at odd times, because they were so well
drawn, but you will wish you could write a story about them so that
they can actually do something with their lives. (If they’re in the
public domain, you can!)

2) Lousy characters, Excellent plot

There are actually some bestsellers in my opinion that fall in this
category. An excellent plot can propel the most cardboard character.
During the film, or while you’re reading the book, you will be at the
edge of your seat, and you won’t leave the theater, or put down the
book disappointed. But the next week it will be out of your mind,
because it was just a rush, or a refreshing drink.

3) Lousy characters, lousy plot

Reader Hell

4) Great characters, great plot

Sheer Bliss

Like Pascal’s Wager, these really aren’t the only four choices. But
if they were, and I couldn’t pick choice #4, I would as a reader pick choice #2, plot. I’d want to be satisfied. As a writer, I’d pick choice #1, characterization, because being
slightly egotistic, I’d like to be remembered.

Excellent plotting can carry mediocre characters quite well.
Excellent characterization can make mediocre plots memorable.

But if we’re not literary geniuses, and our real choice is between

1) lousy characters, and good-average plots
2) lousy plots and good-average characters

I’d pick plots, as a reader, and a writer, as the good-average
character isn’t going to be quite memorable enough, and so I’d still
like to leave the reader satisfied with a ‘good’ or ‘fun’ read.

To quote French poet, Alphonse de Lamartine:

Some quotes:

God became a man, granted. The devil became a woman.
– Ruy Blas, Act II, sc. v (1838)

One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.
– History of a Crime (1877)

I represent a party which does not yet exist: the party of revolution, civilization.
This party will make the twentieth century.
There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.
– On the wall of the room in which Hugo died, Place des Vosges, Paris

In July of 2002 I wrote the following poem:

Body Worlds

Real live dead people
on display in the UK.
Pregnant woman with

womb exposed, foetus
revealed for gawking tourists.
Athletes posed in

action. Goalkeeper,
cyclist, basketball player.
Is it surprising

the curator of
this ghoulish museum’s German?
Is Madame Tussaud’s

now passe? Missing
wax statues of Arafat
now considered tame.

The final stanza refers to an incident in May of 2001 where New Yorkers complained about a wax statue of Arafat at Madame Tussaud’s. In December of 2001, the statue mysteriously disappeared.

Anyway, Body Worlds has been touring the world for the past five years (It even made an appearance in the Bond film, Casino Royale), and it will be at the St. Louis Science Center in October.

GoGo passed along a meme.

It reminded me of a meme, back in 2005, so I’ll repeat it, because I’m lazy, though I will make a couple minor revisions:

Here’s a list of 20 facts about myself.

Some of them are true. Some of them aren’t. I refuse to say which is which. My arm might be twisted to confirm or deny the veracity of the final statement, but that is all.

1 A doctor once declared I was mentally retarded.
2 I was expelled twice from the same college.
3 I am credited by some for having discovered that the roman numerals in CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR total 666. (C-V-V-L-D-I-V)
4 I have never fired a gun.
5 The only actor/actress from Star Trek I have ever fantasized about now is known for an internet blog.
6 I’ve read poetry in front of an audience appearing to wear nothing but a towel, and a bra.
7 I read over fifteen hundred books in first grade.
8 I have six toes on one foot.
9 When I was a teen, I was given a full-body sponge bath on a daily basis by a woman under the age of 30.
10 A 14 year old girl with raven hair, a ruffled dress, and a necklace made of gold took me up into her room and whispered in my ear, “Go on, my friend, do anything you choose.”
11. In sixth grade, a classmate tried to hang me with a rope.
12. I see dead people.
13. I taught at a religious school for a year.
14. I sing in my synogogue’s choir
15. Ten years ago I appeared in a pornographic movie under an assumed name
16. I am a Reverend at the Universal Life Church Monastery.
17. I’ve eaten food from an animal I killed myself (not a fish).
18. The only movie I have on VHS with Patrick Stewart in it is Jeffrey.
19. The only movie(s) I have on DVD with Patrick Stewart in it is/are part of the XMen series.
20. There are 13 true statements in this list.

The veracity of #20 has changed in the past two years, but only because I sloppily worded one or two statements last time. #20’s veracity now matches what I intended two years ago.

A rightwing blogger took a poll of other rightwing bloggers on various issues.

One question was: if you had to choose between the current Democratic contenders for President, who would you most want to be President: Clinton, Obama, or Edwards.

Hillary won by a landslide.

A few different ways one could look at this.

Hillary is usually looked at as raising large levels of hate among rightwingers, and therefore unlikely to sway moderates, and thus unelectable. But if the individuals being polled were answering honestly, then they may begrudgingly accept that she might be a good leader, regardless of how much they hate her.

Or

They think she will be the most ineffectual leader out of the Democratic selection, so as Conservatives, would most like to see her President.

Or

If they hate Hillary, but think she is the best choice, boy are Democrats in trouble in 2008.

10 random books from my library

Here’s an almost half hour video of a local slam that was sponsored by Amnesty International on April 22. (I wasn’t there.) Due to coarse language, this is not safe for work. (Pretty much applies to any slam, but needs to be said for those who don’t realize this.)

A flyer has been made for the upcoming June 16th performance.

Project Gutenberg was the first on the net to come up with the idea of creating an online collection of e-texts for the world’s literature. I think I am safe in saying they were first, in that they date themselves back to 1971

Google Books is a relative newcomer, dating back to 2005, I believe. While I have made some great finds on Google Books, the biggest problem is that they are scanned images, not text. This means searches are hampered. Yes, using “optical character recognition” you are able to search their collection, but OCR makes mistakes, so you won’t find every occurrence of a search term.

Furthermore, once you find a book you like, you can’t copy text from the book directly to your blog, or a word document. Still, it’s a great resource, and without it I would never have found this or this.

WikiSource is an interesting variation on the concept. Anyone can add text (as long as it meets their guidelines).

So adding a text to WikiSource is a lot easier than it is to add a text to Project Gutenberg, so text gets added more quickly. Project Gutenberg requires an editing process that takes a lengthy time. Of course, that editing process results in a text with less mistakes.

“However!” I hear someone arguing. “This is a wiki. Mistakes are corrected on a wiki easily. First person who sees the mistake will correct it.”

But will they catch it? Sure, if somoene is reading the novel online, and comes across an obvious typo, they’ll correct it. But what if it’s not so obvious. We’re not dealing with facts that are either right or wrong. We’re dealing with words, and the way they are constructed into sentences. Even if it doesn’t change the meaning, if it isn’t the words as the author wrote them, it’s wrong.

WikiSource is also very susceptible to vandalism. The first person who enters a text would be able to alter the text maliciously and likely never be caught, unless someone read the text who was extremely familiar with it that they would notice the changes.

Wiki as a concept was created to make editing easier. But ideally, on WikiSource, an e-text once added will never be edited. Assuming the text is accurately duplicated, it should remain unedited forever.

For these reasons I am uncomfortable with Wiki being used for e-texts. I do have a profile there, and have contributed some of the texts, such as this and this. The first of these was hand-transcribed, by me, and I suspect contains typographical errors I missed.

For those who like the ‘power’ of Wiki and the idea of mass-editing of a compendium of knowledge, there are several Wikis out there. Not just Wikipedia. Here’s a list of some of them.

Wikipedia

The original encyclopedia editable by anyone.

Wikisource

The wiki alternative to Project Gutenberg or Google Books. Wikisource is an ‘online library of free content publications’ including novels, short stories, poetry, and other e-text. My thoughts about Wikisource and whether or not Wiki is appropriate for e-texts is going to require a separate post.

Wikiquotes

Wikiquotes is a wiki-dictionary of quotations.

Wikibooks

WikiTravel

A wiki travel guide

Conservapedia

A ‘US Conservative’ view of the world.

WikiLou

The St. Louis Wiki I’ve mentioned

Uncyclopedia

“Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and utter lies…It’s sort of like Congress or Parliament, but unlike Congress or Parliament, we do have a sense of humor.”

Wikia

Wikia is the mothership of Wikipedia, and hosts a lot of specialized wikis including:

• Left Space

  A compendium of information about the “US Political Left”. (Note: This doesn’t appear to be an attempt at a ‘progressively biased’ version of Wikipedia. This is information on people, organizations, issues)

• Wookiepedia

  The Star Wars wiki

• Memory Beta

  The Star Trek wiki

• Wiki Fur

  The free encyclopedia written by and for the Furry community

• Wikis for Dr. Who, Buffy, Lord of the Rings, Heroes, Boy Meets World, Marvel Comics, DC Comics
• Maoist Wiki

  A Maoist view of the world

• Baseball Wiki

  The “ultimate baseball encyclopedia”

If you can’t find a wiki on a topic you think should have a wiki, you can even request a new wiki be created by Wikia.

For those who just want to do research, and not edit, if you go to the Wikia homepage, you can search all the wikis hosted at Wikia simultaneously.

I fear I have just assured that one or two people will never see sunshine again.

My appreciation for Monet’s artwork has just increased. Here is Monet’s 1899 Water Lily-Pond

Here is an actual photograph of the garden that inspired the painting, and what scientists using computer models believe Monet, who suffered from cataracts, saw.

Story

A thunderstorm is not a good time for a fire drill

On November 11th, 2004 I quoted Proverbs, and it is equally appropriate today:

Proverbs 24:17.

בנפל אויבך אל תשמח ובכשלו אל יגל לבך
If your enemy falls, do not exult; If he trips, let your heart not rejoice.

My condolences to the family of Rev. Jerry Falwell. He was a great man. (Inarguably qualifying for definition #9, at least.)

Inspired by GoGo, I decided to find my daemon. (I answered the questions as ‘John’ and as ‘Gavroche’ and got the same results.)

In 12 days, my Daemon will become ‘permanent’, but until that time, input from you can change it.

This is what my mom looked like 33 years ago:

My drawing abilitiy hasn’t improved much since 1974.
(Though I am somewhat impressed that at age five, my sky had very little blue in it.)

I’m not sure why the ADL is so concerned about the beatification process of Pope Pius XII, or why in 2000 it was concerned with the process for Pope Pius IX (who has been beatified, but apparently isn’t yet a saint).

I don’t pretend to know much about Catholicism, but they have a pretty hefty list of saints. From 1978-2004 alone, 482 saints were added to the list, as well as 1340 beatifications. I suspect in that list there are already a handful who weren’t all that kindly toward members of other faiths. If that’s an important characteristic, they might have to review their list, and edit it somewhat. It’s possible I am incorrect, and every saint on the list is innocent of any xenophobia. But if not, what’s one more?

Now if this were Cao Daism, which to my knowledge only has three saints — Vietnamese poet, Trang Trinh (1492-1587); Leader of the 1911 Chinese Revolution, Sun-Yat-Sen (1866-1925); and French Poet, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) — Then I could understand a little discussion as adding a fourth would be a major event. And you can be certain I would be blogging about it as soon as I found out.

Here’s some more information about the poetry event on June 16th of which I am a part.

“A poetry showcase and benefit for the St. Louis poetry scene documentary “The Roof is on Fire.” Featuring some of St. Louis’ best performance poets. Appearances by Paul Stewart, Maria Massey, Linda Lawson, Margeau Baue Steinau, the St. Louis Slam Team and more TBA.”

Saturday, June 16th, 8pm - 10pm
Regional Arts Commission
6128 Delmar
$5

Sideshow Collectibles has a new toy figure of Mary Jane from the Spider-man comics. It’s an impressive pose. MJ bent over a washtub, washing Spidey’s costume, showing a little thong.

I guess the good news is that only 900 were made, and they’re all sold out. Bad news: I didn’t get one.

Honestly…I may have fantasies about MJ, but if I do, they don’t involve washtubs.

Tip of the hat to the culturegeek, and DevilDoll.

Related news: here are a few pages from a recent spider-man comic showing a possible alternate universe Mary Jane who appears to be interested in actually helping Spidey out with the crimefighting. Sure…you can talk about how she’s dressed, but at least she’s doing something other than laundry.

No, I have not been appointed a sysop of Wikipedia. I don’t believe I have the time to take on that task anyway. Way too much work.

I have been appointed as sysop for WikiLou - the St. Louis Wiki I’ve mentioned before. There are approximately 1150 articles at WikiLou, which is miniscule compared to Wikipedia, but WikiLou is less than a year old. Anyone who enjoys the power of Wiki, and has stuff to say about people, places or things in the St. Louis area should check it out and see if there is anything they wish to add/edit. With growing contributors it could become a great local resource.

The list of active Sysops for Wikilou is pretty short at this time. The creator of the site, Michael Peters, who is not the cartoonist, and myself.

As the days progress, I get more ideas. I believe I may actually do this. Some will be happy to know I am not going to be torturing anybody with a pseudo-screenplay, but I am at least going to attempt a real one.

Here’s my scriptfrenzy profile

If the film I saw Friday night had been based on this script, it might have been better:

(click to enlarge):

OK…Spider-Man III was not *that* bad. I actually enjoyed it a bit. A fellow movie-goer complained that all the male characters cried at some point in the film. I’m OK with that. It was a highly emotional film, though.

I do feel villains should be permitted to be villains, though. They can be evil. They don’t need to be misunderstood, or abused, or whathaveyou. So I was a little upset that with the Valjean-ifying of Sandman.

I think I may be the only one in the universe who will make the comparison between the Sandman character in Spider-Man III and Jean Valjean from Les Miserables. But Valjean steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister and his sister’s family. (We never learn of their fate after Valjean’s imprisonment) Sandman, apparently, steals money to help his dying daughter. (And performs a more serious crime in the process.)

[Sandman in the comics always had an ailing mother he protected from learning his identity, making his morality slightly complex, but his crimes were committed out of self-interest, not out of concern for others. According to some bios online, he did ’switch sides’ briefly, but there was some suggestion it was a ruse, and he always returned to his evil ways.]

Of course, I also realize that Sandman is being made a more likeable character in the real comics currently. By one of my favorite comic book authors, no less. Peter David. (Who not so coincidentally has written the novelization for all three Spider-Man movies.)

(The comic above appeared in a 2002 issue of the Portland Mercury)

Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo

SEOUL, South Korea - They came from all over the world, poles in hand, and feet ready to inch more than half a mile across a high wire strung over the Han River in a spine-tingling battle of balance, speed and high anxiety.

I can never resist a punny headline…and this is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Cook: Why’s the chicken raw, I set the oven to ‘off’?

(off sounds like the Hebrew word for ‘chicken’.)

More Hebrew-English puns. (The italicized word in each sentence is the Hebrew word)

And here are some bilingual puns in other language

Traditionally, if the writing is good, the critics don’t refer to it as “science fiction”. They call it “Literature with futuristic themes” or something.

Maybe this is changing, at least in the UK.

According to this month’s issue of Ansible, The Radio Times had this listing on April 15th:

Metamorphosis: sci-fi novella by Franz Kafka’

A few months ago I described the novella as fantasy or magical realism, as Kafka doesn’t try to scientifically explain the transformation. But the line between science ficton and fantasy can be difficult to draw at times.

There are people in my writer’s group who fear those moments when I get a weird idea. It usually means I’m going to subject them to some strange new form of writing.

I wondered this morning if I could write a full screenplay, where if it were acted out, it would fail miserably, but when read on paper, was hilarious. Kind of like I imagine that sample scene would be. Maybe others don’t find it as funny as I did — humor is hit or miss.

Script Frenzy only requires one to write 20,000 words. That’s a lesser amount than NaNoWriMo. And if my goal isn’t to create a good screenplay to perform, but a good screenplay to read, I think I stand a better chance of succeeding.

I’m considering participating in the First Annual Scriptfrenzy (the screenwriting version of National Novel Writing Month)

Since I have no clue about formatting a screenplay, I downloaded a free software program that does the formatting for you. Unfortunately, I still have to write the screenplay myself. I wrote a sample scene. This is how a screenplay looks:

Just imagine better dialogue.

update: added a link to the free software.

This Sunday is the Jewish holiday of Lag b’Omer. (Obscure to most Reform Jews like me.) It’s a day of happiness, bonfires, and playing with bows and arrows. Three things that also correspond to traditional, Pagan, May Day celebrations. How strange. The Velveteen Rabbi writes about it.

Thursday, May 3, 2:30 am
From: __
To: Me

I realize this is short notice, but would you be available to shoot an interview Sunday for the Poetry documentary?

Thursday, May 3, 7:00 am
From: Me
To: __

Heck yea!

Of course, there’s the inverse. What I will call the omnivocalic, though I think there is a different word for it. Here are the 28 words which have an a,e,i,o and u. You’ll notice, perhaps, that only five of them also have a ‘y’. There are also about a dozen I can confidently define without going to a dictionary.

abstemious abstemiously abstemiousness abstemiousnesses abstentious adenocarcinomatous adventitious adventitiously amentiferous anemophilous antireligious arenicolous argentiferous arsenious arteriovenous autoecious autoeciously cavernicolous facetious facetiously facetiousness facetiousnesses garnetiferous sacrilegious sacrilegiously sacrilegiousness sacrilegiousnesses ultraserious

Back in May of 2001 there was a small disturbance in New York when Madame Tusseaud’s decided to add a wax statue of Arafat to their museum collection. The poets of Newspoetry.com were given a challenge to write a univocalic poem. I had never heard of univocalic poetry before then. My life was changed. However, I reached an impasse, as my brain had severe cramps coming up with words using only one vowel. Here’s the poem I wrote:

BAD!

Arafat Bad.
Wax Bad.
Bad Bad Bad!

Ban Wax Arafats!
Ban All Arabs!
Ban Ban Ban!

Considering my mental difficulties, I was quite pleased with the result. Naturally, I hoped all readers would understand I was attempting to capture the mentality of those who were protesting. The simple words helped to emphasize this commentary, which pleased me to no end. My poetic deficiencies looked intentional.

I’ve recently discovered a word-puzzle website where you can search for a list of words meeting specific constraints. Morewords.com Using this I have created univocalic word lists for a,e,i,o,u and y. Unsurprsingly, e is the longest list with almost 3500 words. Y is the shortest list with only 101. Writing anything that is understandable with the y-list is extremely difficult.

You try:

by byrl byrls bys cry crypt crypts cyst cysts dry dryly drys fly flyby flybys flysch fry ghyll ghylls glycyl glycyls glyph glyphs gym gyms gyp gyps gypsy hymn hymns hyp hyps lymph lymphs lynch lynx my myrrh myrrhs myth myths mythy nymph nymphs ply pry psych psychs pygmy pyx rhythm rhythms rynd rynds scry shy shyly sky sly slyly spry spryly spy sty stymy sylph sylphs sylphy syn sync synch synchs syncs synth synths syph syphs syzygy thy thymy try tryst trysts typp typps typy why whys wry wryly wych wyn wynd wynds wynn wynns wyns xylyl xylyls xyst xysts

Yeah. I know April is over, but I still have poetry on my mind.

The dirty word hops in the cage of the mind like the Pondicherry vulture, stomping with its heavy claw on the sweet meat of the brain and tearing it with its vicious beak, ripping and chopping the flesh. Terrified, the small boy bears the big bird of the dirty word into the house, and, grunting, puffing, carries it up the stairs to his own room in the skull. Bits of black feather cling to his clothes and his hair as he locks the staring creature in the dark closet.

All day the small boy returns to the closet to examine and feed the bird, to caress and kick the bird, that now snaps and flaps its wings savagely whenever the door is opened. How the boy trembles and delights at the sight of the white excrement of the bird! How the bird leaps and rushes against the walls of the skull, trying to escape from the zoo of the vocabulary! How wildly snaps the sweet meat of the brain in its rage.

And the bird outlives the man, being freed at the man’s death-funeral by a word from the Rabbi.

(But I one morning went upstairs and opened the door and entered the closet and found the great bird dead. Softly I wept it and softly removed it and softly buried the body of the bird in the hollyhock garden of the house I lived in twenty years before. And out of the worn black feathers of the wing I have made these pens to write these elegies, for I have outlived the bird, and I have murdered it in my early manhood).

NAACP to hold funeral for the pondicherry vulture named, “N…”

The US Government replaced it with Loyalty Day

The holiday was first observed in 1921 as “Americanization Day,” and was intended to counterbalance the celebration of the Labour Day on May Day — May 1, which was perceived as communist.

Loyalty Day is celebrated with parades and ceremonies in communities across the United States, although many people in the United States remain unaware of it. Although a legal holiday, it is not a federal holiday.

It was made an official holiday by the U.S. Congress on July 18, 1958 (Public Law 85-529).

Today’s missive in honor of this ‘holiday’ from the White House

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Midland. The Midland (please don’t confuse with "Midwest") itself is the neutral zone between the North and South. But just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from there. Since it is considered a neutral, default, "non-regional" accent you could easily be from someplace without its own accent, like Florida, or a big city in the South like Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta.

Take this quiz now - it’s easy!

We’re going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Different Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different… Same

(found via Greg’s journal)

May 1, 1886 - Chicago - Haymarket Square

Trial Transcripts from the Haymarket Affair

Poetry I read at a local IWW meeting on May 1, 1998. (I was not, and am not a member of the IWW, but I was the guest of a member.)

A scandalous pantsless picture of me performing poetry on May 1st at the World Cafe a few years back.

News stories from around the world:
On May Day Our Flag is Still Red (San Francisco, CA)

The History of May 1, International Worker’s Day (Uruguay)

Today is Labor Day (Iceland)

1st of May is Your Day (Liverpool, UK)

International Worker’s Day 2007 (Ireland)

A Letter to the Working Class (Phillipines)