Personal Message Board 2013

What are we doing in 2013?

Cursing Fisher & Paykel and buying a new washing machine.

I hear you.

I'll never buy a Kenmore appliance again. Two have gone south on us in the past year.

It's owned by Sears and they have really gone downhill for the past several decades. Customer service gets worse and worse, the stores are much less staffed and carry less stuff. Everything with them is looking like they will eventually fold. Not that I am any good at predicting those kinds of things but i used to be a sort of loyal customer to Sears and their Kenmore brand, and have watched everything deteriorate.

Had a titanium pin drilled into my jaw yesterday and to cheer me up, my wife sent this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqHN-4okZ4&feature=youtu.be

Nearly spit my stitches out.

That is great. Off to share it on the cat list.

If anyone has a Kindle Fire and is a Prime member, you can download my newest magnum opus for free:

If You Give an Architect a Contract

http://www.amazon.com/You-Give-Architect-Contract-ebook/dp/B00B6F6UFW

Wherein I harness all the negative energy in the universe spun by home renovation and spit it into an illustrated cautionary tale. A very nicely illustrated tale, I might add.

Looks good and best of luck with the piece.

I'm taking all the energy I built up preparing to write a collection of short stories and pouring it into my blog...

What a hilarious cat. I never get tired of mine.

Since we're on an Internet Cat Video theme, here is Maru and a box:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI_XUCs3Mbo&list=PL3D78ADF1323F1FE1

Five minutes ago, I looked out my home office window and standing in my back yard was a female deer, calmly nibbling the exposed tips of raspberry bushes poking out of the snow.

I live in quite an urban area and to have full grown venison posing right below my window was a first, in the fifteen plus years of living here.

...and I wrote about here:

http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/from-my-window-this-morning/

I don't think it's technically venison until it's off the hoof. Did you take a shot?

No rifle and out of season. Bad luck, both ways. I live right in the middle of a small city of 15,000 so having a deer wander that far into town was...unusual. But it's been a tough winter, lots of snow and the deer are starving. I'm lucky I didn't find a big buck in my kitchen, going through my crisper for greens...

Support a good cause, helping preserve space history:

http://boingboing.net/2013/03/15/lunar-orbiter-image-recovery-p.html

To lower the tone a bit
Unusual Book Titles

Many are probably books written to be jokes, some are taken out of context, but some...

No, books with deliberately odd titles are barred from the Diagram Prize. There was an anthology a few years ago: How to avoid huge ships...

Btw, Adrift on the Sea of Rains won the BSFA Award.

(waits for Cliff to say, "I told you so"...)

I might have PUBLICLY entertained the possibility, once or twice.

And congratulations. Wonderful news.

Dear Ian Sales,

I tried to buy that book on Amazon, BookDepository and Abe.

No go.

NOW.

I have money.
You (I presume) have book.

How can we exchange?
I will be wearing a 'black orchid on my left, repeat left lapel' in the Windsor hotel at 12 noon!

But seriously?

Guido.

Guido, you can buy the paperback (the hardback is sold out) here: http://shop.whippleshieldbooks.com/

Dear Ian,

Just ordered and paid (Paypal) BUT, BUT there was no shipping charge.

Now, I live in Australia. And I once wanted to get a "NewYorker" diary.
The price ($10) was good but the shipping ($50) was stupid. I cancelled that sale.

Is everything 'kosher' with your mob?
Do they know what they are doing?

I don't want to "rip any one off"

Guido.

ETA. And the price seems too little as well. 3 quid. Can you even buy a cup of coffee in the UK for that?

Guido, there's a drop down list for postage, which gives different prices for UK, EU and Rest of the World. When you select the right one, the price of the book changes (as it includes the postage).

However, I see you ordered the EPUB ebook version - so of course there's no postage involved. Did you mean to order an ebook?

No, I wanted the print version. I don't even have an e-reader.
Help!
Do you know how to undo what I have done and order a "book book"?

ETA. Guess I made too many assumpions.

When in doubt "RTFM". But I was not in doubt. Just wrong assumptions :-

If the worst happens, I now have an e-copy of your book to donate. And
I'll just have to go back and (read first) and buy a "physical" copy of your book.

ETA. Now I am confused. That store in #22 doesn't say which is a physical book and which is an e-book. Which 'entry' should I buy?

I'll cancel your ebook order and refund you the payment, that's no problem.

The format is given as part of the title, and it also says it after the description: http://shop.whippleshieldbooks.com/epages/es145775.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/e...

OK Ian,
I got to the right (paperback) book.
I started to pay by "PayPal".
BUT there was no "shipping" dropdown list.

Next.

What browser are you using? I wonder if that's the problem. I'm using a paid-for ecommerce package, but I don't know how browser agnostic it is.

Dear Ian,

I think? I have finally worked it out and 'finally' bought your book!

I have bought several hundred books/stuff on-line in the past few (5+) years.
Placing the delivery details (EU/UK/OS) on the book description page is a new one on me. It doesn't make sense. That detail should be associated with the "SALE",
right at the end.

Well, I know you will never get that time (wasted on a single sale) back, but it might be useful for an SF idea. Something like...HRUMPH, do you want me to do ALL the work?

If the transaction for my initial (mistaken) e-book, can't be easily reversed, please consider it a 'Gift' to some deserving LT'er (SF reader hopefully)

Guido, looking forward to reading your book. Eventually.

PS. Sorry Ian, your book will have to go below "Cliff Burns" books in my TBR pile.
First in best dressed :-) Still haven't read his :-(

I'm not happy with the way the site handles postage and I'm trying to find a way to change it.

Oh boy, I have some ordering to do. Wanted to read both your latest and Cliff's one that came out last year.

My wife has posted a short film she's made with some of her puppets:

https://vimeo.com/63117221

Very cool. I like the thoughtful puppets. And the panning through the straw was great. That could have been its own movie.

She's inspired me to go out and play with the video function of my i-phone.

She's an amazingly creative person. And she finds time to make art despite holding down a demanding, full-time job. Believe me, compared to Sherron and my two sons, I'm the dim bulb around here.

I'll be sure to pass your comments on.

36: Believe me, compared to Sherron and my two sons, I'm the dim bulb around here. You need to spend less time and energy penning death threats to Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams for slights against franchises aimed at juveniles. If you're not careful, you might end up like one of those poor folks in the movie Scanners

"Spielberg directing Warhorse 2! How dare he--"
**Head explodes**

In a related note, here's my first review at my The New York Journal of Books:

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/peru

Tough book for an inaugural column. Shit, Karl, I would've chosen something far easier, a softball I could've at least drilled for a ground ruled double.

Credit for taking on Lish. Not my cup of tea but a formidable rep.

38: It wasn't the easiest read (this from someone who has slugged his way through How it is and Atlas Shrugged) and definitely not for everyone. I do want to check out more of Lish's work, at least to see if Peru is a representative work or not.

This weekend, I finished final edits on my new short story collection EXCEPTIONS & DECEPTIONS.

We'll be releasing it mid-June.

300 pages of prose and this one's been in the pipeline a long time. A great relief to get it DONE.

40: Congratulations. That's a great feeling!

Woof! Sure is--like trying to shove a melon through a keyhole....and succeeding.

42: Isn't that molecular gastronomy?

It's what they're spending billions trying to achieve at CERN.

And succeeding at.

Dear Ian Sales,
Just received your book.
In a fit of curiosity I looked up LTs holdings of your books, CK about you etc.
I noticed there are 15 books, many owned only by one member (who is NOT you)
And the CK entries are few.
No DOB,NO buried at (understandable, I guess?)
BUT.
Why no entries of ALL your books onto LT?
I would like to be sure they were indeed written by you, before I spend my pennies. The CK stuff is just purient interest.
As a general question do you think an Author on LT should be obliged to check/fill out this sort of info.
Yes, I am also looking at you @cliffburns.

I think my LibraryThing "Author Page" is fairly complete, including all of my books currently in print (others had limited print runs and sold out fairly quickly). That's really all the relevant info. Any questions of a personal nature should be directed to my solicitors or a private mailbox located in a nondescript downtown mini-mall.

Guido, several of those "books" are short stories by me that were entered by the LTer who runs the free-sf and not-free-sf blogs capsule review blogs. The only actual books I've had published to date are the two books of the Apollo Quartet, Adrift on the Sea of Rains and The Eye With Which The Universe Beholds Itself, and the anthology I edited, Rocket Science. I've also made a short story - Wunderwaffe, originally published in Vivisepulture - available on Kindle.

My full bibliography is available on isfdb.org here and some of my stories can be read online here.

Well, I didn't win the Pulitzer.

50: This is what I like about Library Thing. You meet people with whom you have something in common.

50: "Neither did I!" -- Thomas Pynchon, attributed.

I'm going to start telling people that I did win the Pulitzer, because in my experience, most people are too lazy to check.

A certain rightwing author has made a marketing point out of the fact that he was "nominated" for a Pulitzer. I'll nominate you, AJ!

Nominated for a Pulitzer. Um, so was everybody.

Yes, but I've won the Pulitzer.

Space Ghost: No no, i already have 2 cute and useless sidekicks.
Moltar: I'm not useless.
Zorak: I'm not cute.
Brak: I'm not Rappaport.

The world contains three types of people. Those who can count and those who can't.

My interview with Joao Cerqueira will be translated into Italian for the online magazine Fucinemute:

http://www.fucinemute.it/

Excellent!

My son Sam and his pal Sean won the provincial "Skills Canada" film/media competition and are on their way to the Nationals in Vancouver in May. Here's their award-winning effort:

http://newurns.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/hey-guys-it-happened-again/#comment-112

Great news. Congratulations to them.

Talented lads. Sam is becoming a helluva film-maker.

Welcome to our 700th member, whoever you may be...

Err Cliff, given the list of recently joined members at the head of the groups list which still stands at 700, and assuming members are added in chronological order,

"...is it possible that our 700'th member is..." drum roll... @gejhon

Or shouldn't I have mentioned that? A refugee from Goodreads perhaps?

Welcome aboard! 700 snobs. There is still hope for the salvation of the universe.

(I've had a poke around Goodreads--I prefer LibraryThing, frankly. By a large measure.)

What's the quote I'm thinking of?

"Snobbery is merely the left-handed form of perfectionism.." something like that?

Sears also has a serious problem with the small engines they put in things like lawnmowers and snow-blowers. The engines are junk from China --these dominate the market--and they're so bad they can't even be warrantied properly. Read any Sears warranty and you will be in for dismay. Everything but the engine is covered.

"Had a titanium pin drilled into my jaw yesterday"

Nothing good like that ever happens to me :(

68, that's so ludicrous! Like having a warranty on everything in your computer but the CPU.

Yep. What's America coming to when we can't even build our own lawnmowers...we've lost our basic Yankee pride in making things.

71: Yankee pride costs too much, better to outsource it. And the foreign market is less uppidy about labor unions, quality control, and off-shore tax shelters.

You're a shrewd observer. I concur.

"Happy Mother's Day!" to all the eligible women in our group.

Thanks for everything you do.

Got accepted to Sewanee for this summer. Trying to figure out how I can become ten years younger and much better looking before I meet the agents.

Write on, Geoff!

An embarrassing but all too true account of my first steps as a young, aspiring author:

http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/my-first-professional-submission/

I've had a blog running for a little while, but only now feel that I've mastered Wordpress enough to make it presentable. It's about 50% about books and the other half... well it's easier just to take a look.
http://augustusgump.wordpress.com
Going forward, I intend to focus more on book reviews, especially humor.

Stick with it. We can always use more thoughtful, articulate voices in the blogosphere. Especially when it comes to literary criticism.

I just posted the cover of my next book, due out in the next couple of weeks:

http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/exceptions-deceptions-the-cover-unve...

80: Very Magritte-esque. Looks fascinating.

My book, On Being Human, should at long last be coming out this month.

Magritte is a big fave around here--thus, my pleasure when I came across Joslyn Cain's artwork.

Really, REALLY happy with this book. It's been in the pipeline a long time.

***********************

Congrats on the pending arrival of your new tome. Hope it does well for you.

82: Thank you kindly, Cliff. It won't be a big cash-out -- CCLaP is a small, but growing, operation -- but it will also be available as a free download. Can't wait, since it will give me an excuse to head down to Madison and Milwaukee, WI, and the Twin Cities, MN to hawk it at book readings, etc. Not that Rochester, MN is without its arts and culture scene -- holds up giant placard with "IRONY" written on it.

The arrival of a new book, your very own book.

Treasure the moment, lad.

80 & 81: Congratulations. I hope that your books are successful in whatever ways are most important to you.

Technology wins out over print--my new short story collection now available on Kindle and (shortly) e-book...while the physical book won't be out for another 2-3 weeks.

http://www.amazon.com/Exceptions-and-Deceptions-ebook/dp/B00D49VT6I/ref=sr_1_1?s...

Ah, well...

86: Print is technology, just an older one. Not everything has been integrated into the Global Benevolent Corporate Hivemind ... yet.

Reassuring words, Karl. Have to admit, I'm still a "dead tree edition" guy. My books aren't real until I hold 'em in my hands.

88: And then we have vinyl outselling CDs:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-9906397-47.html

Barring unforeseen circumstances, my book "On Being Human" should be coming out. Knock on wood, etc.

My short story collection, EXCEPTIONS & DECEPTIONS (print & e-book), is now officially available:

http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/orders/

My son Sam and his pal Sean placed third at the national "Skills Canada" competition. This is their film (and can you tell the two of them are a couple of cinephiles?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_rdzzwEWRI

Excellent, Cliff. Congratulations to Sam & Sean.

Just this morning got a story accepted by the Santa Monica Review. It's been a little dry for a while. . . .

Selling a short story these days is harder than finding an ethical politician.

Kudos, Geoff.

Well, 'selling' is a tricky word, unless you consider contributor's copies a form of payment.

This day and age most writers would PAY to have their tales published somewhere. So you're still ahead of the loop.

97: This day and age most writers would PAY to have their tales published somewhere.

Except those are called "vanity presses" and are evidence that clinical narcissism isn't a symptom of literary talent. "Self-publishing," on the other hand, is an old twist on the Marxist ideal of "controlling the means of production."

Adrift on the Sea of Rains has just been announced as a finalist for the Sidewise Award. With that and winning the BSFA Award, not bad for a self-published novella...

Sheesh, no kidding.

Kudos!

Well done, Ian.

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Well done, Ian. Promise us that when you are picked up by a Big Name Publisher - which can't be far off now - you'll keep Whippleshield going long enough to publish the last two instalments of the Apollo Quartet in the same format for us completists...

My wife has posted more test footage from her puppet and mask project. Abstract & beautiful:

http://vimeo.com/69779958

Very cool. I liked the flying fish thingy.

Issue five of The Orphan has just been published, containing my story 'The Incurable Irony of the Man who Rode the Rocket Sled', which has no plot, little or no genre content, and footnotes. See here.

#107
Ian, thank you for posting the link to your story. I will not have time to read the whole story until this evening but have read the first three paragraphs and am hooked.

In relation to your comment, which has no plot,, have you read Scarlett Thomas's Our Tragic Universe? It works with the concept of a story without a story and is very intriguing. It uses a lot of literary theory in an experimental fashion. I think you might find it interesting if you have not already read it.

I've seen her books around but I've never tried any - perhaps because I've always linked her in my mind with Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection, which I read and did't like.

Good, subtle tale. Literary SF. Smashing.

Heading off to Sewanee Writers' Conference in one week. Starting to worry about whether the coffee will be drinkable.

I just published a book of short stories, "Tales of the Slightly Odd." It's only for Kindle, at the moment. It's a resolutely inconsequential collection of mostly humorous stuff I wrote in between novels.
http://augustusgump.wordpress.com/books/tales-of-the-slightly-odd/

I confidently expect this book to propel me to the literary stardom which has inexplicably eluded me to date. Short stories are a sure thing.

Good luck with your effort--hope the Kindle readers discover it and snap up mucho copies.

112: Yes, you can't miss with short stories. If what you want is for people to look the other way when they see you and screen your calls.

Speaking of short stories, I just finished my one-on-one conference with Tim O'Brien here at the Sewanee Writers' Conference--a pretty neat opportunity. I made him happy when I pointed out that the cooler on the other end of the porch had beer in it.

LOVE Tim O'Brien. He's one author I'd pay attention to--have a great time down there.

#107 Ian, I enjoyed 'The Incurable Irony of the Man who Rode the Rocket Sled' very much.

I have always held the opinion that the only two drivers for any space exploration are military and commercial gain. I sometimes add in national pride, but that usually is only one step in the direction of one or both of the other two drivers.

#116 Thanks. I find the achievements of such people - male and female - fascinating. And the engineering too. It's the combination of brute-force maths and physics and the crudity of the technology. I mean, two guys went to the bottom of Challenger Deep in what is essentially a steel ball. The Apollo Guidance Computer had much less memory than your average mobile phone. Jerrie Cobb, a female ferry pilot, flew ex-USAAC fighters to Chile pretty much by dead reckoning.

I think it makes for more interesting topics for fiction than action/adventure in some mangled version of the Roman empire in space...

#117 In 1989 I visited the Science & Technology Museum in Chicago. They had some capsules from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.

Whatever about the Mercury and Gemini capsules I was shocked by the Apollo capsule. I had followed the missions as a young boy and had numerous images of the spacecrafts and capsules. I had watched all the TV footage on the launches and the mission. I had been astounded by how modern and finished the capsules appeared.

When I looked inside the Apollo capsule I could see the metal cases of the electronic equipment had been made using sheet metal that had been cut into shape with a hacksaw and then hand-rivetted together. It looked like some homemade equipment I would have made myself as an electronic hobbyist. Real seat-of-the-pants stuff.

Your wooden windshield reminded me of that.

My first commercial sale, "The Lost Railway: the Midlands" was published on 20 July, it seems. It's a book of railway infrastructure pictures - stations, signal boxes and the like - that my father and I took in the 1970s and 1980s. I've tried to make the linking text and extended captions more than mere anorakery; the publishers' blurb-writer called it "Heartfelt and nostalgic", so I may have succeeded...

#119 I bet you sell more copies than I did of my book :-)

119, that is very cool.

July 20, 2013...a day that shall live on in the annals of photography forever.

Well done, Robert. You're one of the good guys.

119: Congratulations Robert. Books about railways tend to sell well. Hope yours does.

119 Congratulations, Robert. That is brilliant. Good luck with it.

Of course, when you go on your book signing tour you will have to travel only by train. ;)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Railway-Midlands-Robert-Day/dp/0711036845/ref=sr_1_...

It looks excellent. I love the cars parked at the front of the station.

He will have to travel by ghost train, too. That will be tricky.

It's not exactly the New Yorker. But it's thisclose. After a bunch of tries, I landed in Shouts and Murmurs. For a little comic insanity:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2013/08/submissions-editor-at-dream...

Based on your own New Yorker rejection slips?

I was having an absolutely awful day at work. This really really helped. Thanks, Seth! And many congrats on being in any section of the New Yorker, that's better than I'll ever do. Pretty soon you'll be in Talk of the Town.

Now THAT'S funny.

Well done, Mr. Kaufman.

Thanks ,all.
AjJ.. I have no idea what you are talking about. Rejection? Let me go look that up in my Funk and Wagnalls...
:-)
Oops. Snobs hate emoticons.

Seth, that is excellent.

Nice work, Seth. I've taken a few shots at Shouts & Murmurs and have never gotten a sniff.

Thanks, Geoff. I've taken a bunch of shots, too. All we can do is keep pushing the rock up the hill (and have our livers eaten). Hopefully, we enjoy the act of writing, creating.

And maybe one day we'll put our rejected pieces up somewhere... Cause they sure seemed like good ideas at the time.

I'll be taking a sabbatical from this group--and most of my on-line affiliations and obsessions--for the foreseeable future.

I've just started another big project, one that will require enormous expenditures of time and effort. And research. I'll try to drop in every so often with a good book to recommend or whatever but, for the most part, I'll be out of the picture.

I can be reached either through my profile page or, of course, my blog, should anyone wish to communicate with me. Not promising I'll respond right away but I'll do my best to be timely.

Stay well and remember my grandma's advice to "always keep a civil tongue in your head".

Cheers.

Not sure what the value of my message is, but "good luck" CLIFF.

It's been fun contributing to the discussions.

Arrivederci, one and all.

134: But how will I know which supernatural romance ebooks to heap my scorn?

Well, I guess everybody's gonna have to post more regularly to try and keep the group active without Cliff's blitzkrieg of daily admiration and bile.

See you around, Cliff.

134: Very cryptic, Cliff. Whatever, it is you're up to, best of luck.

Oh wait - you won't see this, will you? Not that you could answer that, of course.

Or could you?

According to my sources, Cliff is leaving to devote himself to finishing his paranormal vampire romance.

140: Well somebody has got to start writing that Vampire Diaries fan fiction for Amazon. Cliff is just the man to do it.

Cheers, Cliff. It sounds like the great North American Novel is brewing. Or something. Good luck with it.

>140 ajsomerset:. He surely cranked that one out between writing messages 134 and 136. I suspect he's trying to cast it now for the bigscreen and having to commit the next months wining and dining the agents of K-Patz/ Wooden Dunst-face or that other one that looks like a shaved goat to be in it.

I am reminded of the phonecall Withnail makes to his agent... "I pay you 10% to do that... well lick 10% of the arses then!".

My short story collection "Tales of the Slightly Odd" is on free promotion for Kindle owners today and tomorrow. This reflects the going rate for collections of short stories.
Information about the book here: http://augustusgump.wordpress.com/books/tales-of-the-slightly-odd/
Amazon link here: http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Slightly-Odd-ebook/dp/B00E2DM4I2
As an incentive to try the book, I'm offering a full refund to anyone not completely satisfied.

Managed two drafts of my new novel in the past 6-7 weeks and wanted to pop in while I had the chance and say "hello".

Hope everyone had a great summer, stayed creative...and read LOTS OF BOOKS.

Speaking of which, I have the new Pynchon on the way, can't wait for that one.

So Cliff, I suppose I should buy another one of your SF novels, to keep you going ;-)

Recommend one (I now own 2 of yours) and I will get it. I guess that that 25c (after all the overheads) will keep you warm for another 2 minutes?

Well, lad, I don't really write too much sci fi--love the genre, it's just not my field of endeavor.

My new collection of short stories, EXCEPTIONS & DECEPTIONS, came out in June--perhaps that's one for you. It's accessible, diverse...and available for a couple of bucks as an e-book (if you're not one o' those print guys). Up to you...

Thanks for your kind support.

A real treat last night: I got to see the Boston Bruins, a team I've followed since childhood, play an exhibition hockey game in Saskatoon (against the Winnipeg Jets). The game wasn't great but getting geared up in my Boston hoodie and benefitting from fantastic seating made for a memorable evening.

My book is coming out next week. Like it or not, "Fellow Author" will be appended to my name now.

http://www.cclapcenter.com/2013/09/say_hello_to_cclaps_newest_sta.html

Like any good snob, I like to show my ethical and intellectual superiority by loudly and publicly supporting a worthy cause. My cause of choice this month:

http://www.sk.literacy.ca/pages/raise_a_reader.html

Of course, there's also a certain amount of self-interest involved. If people can't read, I'm out of a job.

I'm definitely grabbing your book, Karl--looks like a fun ride.

I've got a new story up on the Tikkun website: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/misty

Hey, TIKKUN's a good publication, Geoff, that's definitely a coup.

Nice! Enjoyed reading it.

VERY fine story. And, clearly, you've hung around a lot of teachers. Reading your tale is a very immersive experience--you've built your fictional world extremely well.

This morning I discovered to my surprise that the magnum opus is available for pre-order in the United States, for those who can't wait for April. This is actually the first I've seen of it. I found it, of all places, on Walmart's website....

Arms: the Culture and Credo of the Gun
No touchstone: http://www.librarything.com/work/14355343/book/102818338

Good to hear, A.J.

Walmart sells more books than most bookstores so take some solace from that. Okay, they're corporate scum that, once the revolution comes, will be lying in a lime-filled trench. Nonetheless...

Those who just wish their most imaginative tortures one others, even if only in their imaginations, are just as guilty of inhumanity, if only towards themselves.

Our society has the largest disproportion between wealthy and disadvantaged than any other in history, the economy is in a fragile state because it's geared toward the super-rich and their corporate stooges. Politics has been reduced to the point where only millionaires can serve...and they have no connection to the lower and middle classes they purport to represent. The legal system punishes the poor and minorities and ensures those with money and means escape the full penalty of the law. There has to be a major change in the way our world runs and sometimes I truly believe the tumbrils must roll again and the guillotine wheeled out of storage, the "new nobility" treated with the same relentless savagery as the arrogant, disdainful aristocrats of France.

158: Then I suggest you read Citizens by Simon Schama and Rising Up and Rising Down (the 7-volume version) by William T. Vollmann. But hey, revolutionary rhetoric plays well for the rubes in the Netterwebs. Just look at the revolution fomenting in Real Merica. The real issue isn't when the Revolution begins ... it's when does it end? A Reign of Terror is fine, so long as you don't end up executed a la Robespierre and Lavrenti Beria

It is budget day here. I have just entered my work place and it is surrounded by Guards (the Irish police). The government buildings are sealed off and surrounded by guards.

I think they expect a few protests today. The revolution will not start...today.

We don't have armed guards for budget day in Canada--the finance minister usually buys a new pair of shoes and that's pretty much it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_shoes_on_budget_day

Yikes, here in the US we just furlough people. ETA: And NEVER pass a budget.

Somebody ought to toss those Tea Party fuckers into Boston Harbor.

#161 Members of An Garda Síochána , or the Guardians of the Peace, are generally unarmed. Particular teams are armed and under special circumstances (spot the Culture reference anybody?) other Guards may be armed.

The title of the force was adopted to avoid the word "Police" as a large proportion of the population had never had any good experiences with the police prior to the War of Independence.

With regards to new shoes, I do remember that the Irish Government of 1982, which was comprised of members of the majority party in the current coalition government, fell when it tried to put Value Added Tax (VAT - a sales tax) on children's shoes. The consequent election brought in a majority government for the other major party which brought in the exact same budget with the exception that there was no VAT on children's shoes. As you see, shoes can also be important here on budget day.

"Canada: an entire country named Doug." -- Greg Proops

Not entirely relevant, but I like Greg Proops.

154: Thanks for the compliment. I am a high school teacher, by the way.

...with an excellent ear.

154: I just got around to reading it. Thought it was really good. "...shiny fingers that move slowly, as if restraining impulses." A phrase to savor.

Thanks, sir. I don't know about the rest of you who write, but some years ago I finally gave up writing about (entirely) made-up people. The people I know are so much stranger and more interesting (and, lucky for me, don't read fiction).

As I type this: four mourning doves in my backyard, foraging about.

Some of these hardy little buggers actually winter over while their brethren ride thermals all the way down to Mexico and central America.

169: How true, Geoff. I don't consciously write about people I know, except as peripheral characters, but a strange thing happened to me a few years ago. The main character in my novels is a bumbling executive, who I thought was my creation, based on the many such people I had known. I was talking with someone who had read the first book and who turned out to have known the people I worked for in my very first job. He pointed to the face on the cover, a composite I had created from a program that let you take pieces of faces and merge them together, and said that's ------------, isn't it? He was referring to the head of the department I worked in all those years ago. I immediately realized that he was right, and not just with the picture; the whole character was unconsciously based on this man, who was incompetent and a figure of fun to his colleagues and subordinates, but for whom I somehow felt a genuine sympathy. I never set out to write about him. None of the incidents in the book were based on anything he did, but the essence of the character came from my memories of him, without my even realizing it.

I think all characters are based on someone we have known, or several people we have known. Nobody is completely "made up." How could he be?

Lots of snow overnight and just petering off now.

Winter is here, folks. (Gotta make sure I get my winter wood order in today.)

Anyone want to be on a discussion panel talking about Vladimir Nabokov's opus, Ada?

As I sit here at my desk in my home office, the CBC website is telling me the local temperature this morning is -31 (Celsius), with a windchill that makes it -36.

Lovely; think I'll put on my Speedo bathing suit, haul out the lawn chairs and work on my tan.

Well, I see that Cliff has failed to mention the fact that his New & Selected Poems is shortlisted for the ReLit Award here in the snowy north. Perhaps he is embarrassed by his newfound status as literary insider. Or perhaps he was too cold to get the keyboard and toot his own horn; therefore I toot on his behalf.

The ReLit Awards recognize work from small presses that would otherwise escape the notice of the great & powerful awards machine. They're the work of Newfoundland writer Kenneth J. Harvey and the ReLit list is more or less a list of who's hip outside the world of the major prizes and the multinational publishers. (Although I note that Harvey continues to pretend that Anansi is a small press, which it ain't by any reasonable definition ... but I digress.)

Also shortlisted is sometime LitSnob member and occasional poster Corey Redekop for his novel, Husk.

Congrats to Cliff and Corey.

Thanks for the mench, A.J.

The nomination was a pleasant surprise. The rules specifically disqualified "self-publishers", which annoyed me, so I sent the ReLit folks a letter with a couple of my books saying "y'know, 99.99% of self-published efforts may be shit bit not ALL of them are".

I guess they changed their minds.

Good on them.

176: Major congratulations, Cliff. It's one of the finest books I read this year. Definitely deserves the attention.

Congrats, Cliff.

Congratulations, Cliff.

Thank you.

It's 10:15 p.m. and the wind chill outside is -39 degrees Celsius.

I'm just sayin'.

It's supposed to be 76 degrees F here in North Carolina tomorrow. Does that make you feel better?

Urk.

We're supposed to get an awful cold snap here in New Orleans--down into the 40s tonight!

This morning the temp. was -30 Celsius, with a wind chill of -41.

So it's even worse!

And I gotta run some errands...

It's actually snowing in Portland! This happens every other year or so. Brrrr. (However, we have not gotten down to -41 C, that is just telling you that your corner of (Saskatchewan? Is that where you are Cliff?) is not fit for human habitation, ha ha. I will never again live in a non-temperate zone (of course at this rate of global warming, in a few years I can still abide by that rule and probably move to Alaska)

Cliff I didn't read this thread forever and wanted to offer belated congrats on your book.

Northwestern Saskatchewan, to be exact.

This is a cold snap, no question. But you dress warmly and cope. Hopefully will warm up some tomorrow, we're going to drive in to Saskatoon for the day, maybe take in "Gravity" (unfortunately the 3D version).

Thanks for mentioning the poems--the award administrators showed a self-publisher some measure of respect and that means a lot to me, win, lose or draw.

Edmonton, here. Windchill of -41 as well. As the saying goes, no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. That said, working has not been exactly fun the last couple of days.

Brrr Jonathan! Stay warm!

As the saying goes, no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

In Canadian rhetoric, this fallacy is called "the Edmontonian rationalization." ;)

Down here in the balmy south, it is only just below zero. On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago we got almost 2-1/2 feet of snow ... overnight.

Around these parts we call them "cold snaps" and they usually last until, oh, around the vernal equinox...

Cold weather in Canada? Quelle surprise!

My son Sam's new website--anyone looking to hire a genius young film-maker and musician, here's your man:

http://octopusfilms.wordpress.com/

#18. I see no ships-only hardships! ( must be cracker time)

Giving away copies of my latest book:

http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/a-little-of-that-christmas-cheer/

Back into the cold snap. -35 Celsius this morning and with the wind chill that comes to -44.

Thank God we did our shoveling yesterday...