the art of writing is discovering what you believe
One of my Flickr contacts was accepted into the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition Exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
“I should remain humble and say that being accepted is all I could hope for, but please may I have the $25,000 prize and commission from the National Portrait Gallery?”
Fingers crossed on this one . . . .
Those that believe that they did not evolve from lesser primates probably haven’t, yet.
[sigh]
The whole reason I picked up 1984 off the dusty shelves in my family’s summer house was that I needed something to read and it was clearly science fiction, unlike most of the other books on the shelf.
[From Making Light: “But this is good!” “Well, then, it’s not SF.”]
Have I mentioned how I hate genres or categorizing fiction? Arranging by color is at least defensible, as long as there are few edge cases (where does ecru go? is it white or a light brown?). There’s considerable disagreement over how to define the genre, even w/in the Making Light commentariat, so it’s not just me who finds the lumping and splitting unproductive. I agree 100% with this:
For a lovely defense of genre in all its forms, read Michael Chabon’s essay collection Maps and Legends. I’m sure he was delighted to have won the Hugo and Nebula; the Edgar (for which The Yiddish Policeman’s Union was also nominated) would have made it a trifecta.
[From Making Light: “But this is good!” “Well, then, it’s not SF.”]
Mo said…
Going into the future, if Obama turns out to be an effective and well-liked president, you can add 8 more years of above average democratic support, and the GOP will effectively become the Whigs[From FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Bush May Haunt Republicans for Generations]
Pilots often refer to the rain shadow that we see over the Olympic Peninsula as “the big blue hole.
But I had no idea it got that big. No wonder it’s #%%^^&*& hot.
A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.
We’re assigning you a challenge: Write a haiku for the recession and drop it in the comments. It’s 17 syllables, in three lines, with a pattern of five syllables, seven syllables, and five more.
if you push paper
you won the big lottery
push a broom? you lost
how could a handful
make so much money themselves
many more went broke
modern investing
nice work if you can get it
who understands it?
Republicans have gradually been losing the egghead vote. I wonder how that translates into their ability to recruit strategists and “thought-leaders” who can work on the campaign, policy and media sides and help to lead them out of their current slump.
[From FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Decline of The Conservative Intellectual]
If you need any evidence, here’s something from something that calls itself “American Thinker:”
One image alone was released from the expensive photo op that terrified New Yorkers last month. Out of God only knows how many images taken during the mission, only one was chosen. It speaks powerfully to the American public — in symbolic language.
The ominous and imposing aircraft dominates the scene in such a way that, in gestalt parlance, no one could mistake the figure for the ground. The figure is an aircraft that serves as Air Force One, representing the Messianic omnipotence of the Obama presidency. Below it, part of the background — a small and less relevant thing in comparison to the aircraft — stands the Statue of Liberty, representing the individual freedoms that Americans have come to treasure and enjoy.
[From American Thinker: The Visual Subtext of the Statue of Liberty Fly-by Photo]
