"I tried to be good. I was a failure."
So, I'm about two hours late beginning this journal entry, because freelancing means enduring bullshit from all directions when you least expect it. Though, a smart freelancer expects it every fucking second of every fucking day. Still, I might yet get some work done before midnight.
Seems I caused a recent kerfuffle over my opinions on ebooks. And here's what I don't understand: The proponents of ebooks have won, so why are they so defensive? Can you not allow the loser to be sore? Can a winner be so insecure he or she must wage an evangelical battle to convert all us lovers of actual books? The battle, if ever there were one, is long over. Think of it as the Battle of Serenity Valley. Think of me as a Browncoat. Think of ebooks and their industry and consumer proponents as the Alliance. Dumb analogy, I know. Fannish to the bone and all. But still apt. I've lost the war. I didn't even win a single battle in the war. Regardless, I will not go quietly into that good night (thank you, Mr. Thomas). So, allow me to hold my unpopular and irrelevant opinions, and to express them in what is my own bloody LiveJournal without running off to whine when you broke the First Rule of CRK's LJ: Do not poke the angry beast with a point stick. Or, stated another way, don't make contentious comments guaranteed to piss me off. In the old days, this was called trolling.
Speaking of this subject, here's a very much appreciated bit of information posted here by aliceoddcabinet:
Let me tell you a little story about the Domesday Book.
Completed in 1086, it held a record of many of the daily doings of everyday life and people in Great Britain at the time. It was like a proto-census. Sort of. Around 1999, the BBC thought it would be great idea to do another Domesday Book for the New Millennium. So they got all this great information, including voice recordings, and digital video and all sorts of cool cool coolness. So they completed it.
On some random kind of Videodisk. And now, with very few players that can access the material on these Random Video disks, the million dollar project is now...well, rendered moot (mute, as well). The original Domesday Book? From 1086? Written in Latin, written on paper is still available to be viewed at the British National Archives. And can be read by anyone who knows Latin. Hell, by anyone with a Latin Dictionary.
So there's my little Parable.
And, ebook evangelists, you really think you'll be able to go back read those Kindle ebooks you're buying in a decade? Really? Ha, ha, and ha (good name for a law firm). That was the sound of the Last laugh, which is to come.
Anyway.
Yesterday, we saw a matinée of Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing, a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982, a remake of Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks' 1951 The Thing from Another World, a film version of John W. Campbell Jr.'s short story "Who Goes There?", first published in Amazing Stories in 1938). I liked it quite a lot. There a lot I want to say about it, but I don't have time at the moment. Maybe tomorrow.
A little reading. I read (in analog, thank you) Gary Braunbeck's pretty decent novella "Tessellations," and also "A selachian freshwater fauna from the Triassic of Kyrgyzstan and its implications for Mesozoic shark nurseries." Very, very amazing stuff. Just think: fossilized mermaids' purses. Also, "A new species of Laccognathus (Sarcopterygii, Porolepiformfes) from the Late Devonian of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada."
The new Brown Bird album, Salt for Salt, is incredible. Just had to say that.
Here are some "behind the scenes" from our weekend filming of the trailer for The Drowning Girl and Stills From a Film That Never Was (by the way, Kyle and I are talking about a mix-media/book mini-tour in galleries this spring in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Providence, and Boston):
At Moonstone Beach, the clouds and mist (view to the east, towards Point Judith).
At Harbor of Refuge, sea gull on "Boomer Rock." View to the south. Sailboat in the distance.
View from Harbor of Refuge, east towards Point Judith Lighthouse.
Left to right: Nicola, Brian, Sara, Ryan, and Kyle (at Harbor of Refuge, view to the northwest).
The granite jetty at Harbor of Refuge; view to the southwest.
Kyle gazes in awe at the sea; view to the south.
Geoffrey, foreground, and Sara; view to the west.
Spooky, who, like the honey badger, doesn't give a fuck.
Another view of the Point Judith Lighthouse (to the east).
Kyle photographs Nicola (view to the northeast).
The crew walks the jetty (view to the north).
Panthalassa, showing the way to Africa (view to the southeast).
All photographs Copyright © 2011 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac
Seems I caused a recent kerfuffle over my opinions on ebooks. And here's what I don't understand: The proponents of ebooks have won, so why are they so defensive? Can you not allow the loser to be sore? Can a winner be so insecure he or she must wage an evangelical battle to convert all us lovers of actual books? The battle, if ever there were one, is long over. Think of it as the Battle of Serenity Valley. Think of me as a Browncoat. Think of ebooks and their industry and consumer proponents as the Alliance. Dumb analogy, I know. Fannish to the bone and all. But still apt. I've lost the war. I didn't even win a single battle in the war. Regardless, I will not go quietly into that good night (thank you, Mr. Thomas). So, allow me to hold my unpopular and irrelevant opinions, and to express them in what is my own bloody LiveJournal without running off to whine when you broke the First Rule of CRK's LJ: Do not poke the angry beast with a point stick. Or, stated another way, don't make contentious comments guaranteed to piss me off. In the old days, this was called trolling.
Speaking of this subject, here's a very much appreciated bit of information posted here by aliceoddcabinet:
Let me tell you a little story about the Domesday Book.
Completed in 1086, it held a record of many of the daily doings of everyday life and people in Great Britain at the time. It was like a proto-census. Sort of. Around 1999, the BBC thought it would be great idea to do another Domesday Book for the New Millennium. So they got all this great information, including voice recordings, and digital video and all sorts of cool cool coolness. So they completed it.
On some random kind of Videodisk. And now, with very few players that can access the material on these Random Video disks, the million dollar project is now...well, rendered moot (mute, as well). The original Domesday Book? From 1086? Written in Latin, written on paper is still available to be viewed at the British National Archives. And can be read by anyone who knows Latin. Hell, by anyone with a Latin Dictionary.
So there's my little Parable.
And, ebook evangelists, you really think you'll be able to go back read those Kindle ebooks you're buying in a decade? Really? Ha, ha, and ha (good name for a law firm). That was the sound of the Last laugh, which is to come.
Anyway.
Yesterday, we saw a matinée of Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing, a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982, a remake of Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks' 1951 The Thing from Another World, a film version of John W. Campbell Jr.'s short story "Who Goes There?", first published in Amazing Stories in 1938). I liked it quite a lot. There a lot I want to say about it, but I don't have time at the moment. Maybe tomorrow.
A little reading. I read (in analog, thank you) Gary Braunbeck's pretty decent novella "Tessellations," and also "A selachian freshwater fauna from the Triassic of Kyrgyzstan and its implications for Mesozoic shark nurseries." Very, very amazing stuff. Just think: fossilized mermaids' purses. Also, "A new species of Laccognathus (Sarcopterygii, Porolepiformfes) from the Late Devonian of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada."
The new Brown Bird album, Salt for Salt, is incredible. Just had to say that.
Here are some "behind the scenes" from our weekend filming of the trailer for The Drowning Girl and Stills From a Film That Never Was (by the way, Kyle and I are talking about a mix-media/book mini-tour in galleries this spring in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Providence, and Boston):
At Moonstone Beach, the clouds and mist (view to the east, towards Point Judith).
At Harbor of Refuge, sea gull on "Boomer Rock." View to the south. Sailboat in the distance.
View from Harbor of Refuge, east towards Point Judith Lighthouse.
Left to right: Nicola, Brian, Sara, Ryan, and Kyle (at Harbor of Refuge, view to the northwest).
The granite jetty at Harbor of Refuge; view to the southwest.
Kyle gazes in awe at the sea; view to the south.
Geoffrey, foreground, and Sara; view to the west.
Spooky, who, like the honey badger, doesn't give a fuck.
Another view of the Point Judith Lighthouse (to the east).
Kyle photographs Nicola (view to the northeast).
The crew walks the jetty (view to the north).
Panthalassa, showing the way to Africa (view to the southeast).
All photographs Copyright © 2011 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac