This trailer’s making the rounds today and further indisputable proof that I’m totally out of sorts with the zeitgeist. I mean, a melancholy song by Arcade Fire? Don’t know if that’s quite in keeping with the spirit of Maurice Sendak. Where the Wild Things Are is like a kid’s first acid trip. Spike Jonze is still interesting, but this seems a tad too mournful and serious. Where the Wild Things Are is not "Lost."
March 25, 2009
March 24, 2009
Vote on My Book Cover
My cover designer has come up with two different covers for my novel. Please vote below.
March 23, 2009
Knowing Review
I’m going to be back blogging again. I have a book coming out soon and want to express some things about where the book came from – beyond what I’m writing for the Self-Publishing Review, which is somewhat limited in scope, though interesting.
I saw ‘Knowing’ last night, took myself. When I first heard about it I was worried that it basically scooped my novel. And there are some very interesting similarities (probably some spoiler warnings in here). My novel’s about a writer who starts dreaming things that turn out to be true, including an insane President’s plan for the apocalypse. “Knowing” is about an astrophysicist who learns about coming disasters, including the apocalypse. In one point during “Knowing,” the lead character contacts a woman to make sense of what’s happening and shows her his college I.D. to appear legitimate. In my novel, the writer does the same, showing a woman a card saying he’s a writing professor. Minor, but interesting. Mostly the similarities have to do with how the movie ends (SPOILER) – it climaxes with a UFO landing, same as my novel. Perhaps I shouldn’t’ be spoiling my own novel, but anyway. Generally, I don’t feel I’ve been scooped because the mood of my novel is so different, and there’s the whole matter of the insane President, which is nowhere to be found in “Knowing.”
The movie had a profound effect on me – yes, even a pulp science fiction movie, not just because of the similarities with what I’d written (a novel started six years ago when my daughter was just born), but because these outlandish ideas about the end of the world are hardly outlandish anymore. One of the more disgusting and disturbing things Steven Spielberg said about “War of the Worlds” was that he was trying to exploit people’s fears about 9-11. In “War of the Worlds” there’s a plane crash, but it’s off camera, the crash is implied. This movie shows the plane crash in vivid detail and it’s one of the more awful things put onto celluloid. Later there’s a subway crash in which people rise from the subway tunnel covered in gray ash. In this movie 9-11 is everywhere and I don’t believe that’s particularly healthy; it may even be damaging.
The reason I started my novel about The End was because I was in downtown New York during 9-11 and saw the planes hit in real time. Broke me open in a serious way – including devout paranoia, which began seeming less like paranoia the deeper we got into the Bush Administration. But 9-11 happened, plane crashes happen, people have died this way, and putting that into a science fiction thriller seems irresponsible. Images are a lot more affecting than words. I can write: The plane crashed into the ground. People fled the wreckage screaming, on fire....But watch that in a movie? A totally different experience.
Jean Luc Godard said the worst thing about “Schindler’s List” (again Spielberg) is that it recreated Auschwitz. There’s no such thing as “just a movie” as all of the actors are drumming up horrible parts of their lives to convey fear and despair, and it’s recreating the worst moment in human history. The plane crash in “Knowing” doesn’t accomplish a lot except to make you sickened and fearful, and I’m not sure that’s very useful.
That said, I think “Knowing” is an important development in movies because the aliens in this movie are benevolent – which is something that is sorely missing from pop culture. Very bored with marauding aliens. If an advanced race of Ufonauts wanted us dead, we would be. So it’s a good development in the depiction of aliens in the mainstream, as well as exploring our place in the universe - really, I think, the most important issues going. Much of the other stuff seems like a distraction.
But all told my novel comes from a very different place. It’s not a book that fetishizes fear, even if it’s about the end of the world. I’ve written how much I dislike The Road, as well, which does the same. And the reason I’m self-publishing without even dealing with the agenting process is because overserious fearmongering is what sells now. I just generally don’t care about the crazy overseriousness that passes for drama: Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Dark Knight – totally unwatchable, might be the most incoherent popular movie ever made. It’s a Batman movie, get over it.
Anyway. My novel’s about how humanity might be able to save our own hide and not rely on being swept up by benevolent beings from the universe (though I’ve entertained the idea that this is the only way out), it’s about the evolution of human consciousness, a totally different type of apocalypse than this movie. I think “Knowing”’s an important movie – I really do. It says a lot about how we see ourselves and our future – both enormously tragic, but still hopeful, which is probably pretty close to how things are going to unfold.
So, yes, I’ve got a lot to say about where this novel came from. Here’s a preliminary cover for the novel – probably not going to end up being a white cover, but I like what she’s done - Cathi @ Book Cover Express. Didn’t want a glossy science fiction style cover. Cool thing is I wrote Anomalist Books to get permission for the image, which comes from Jacques Vallee’s Confrontations. The image is “Classification of anomalies related to UFOs.” Jacques Vallee gave me permission, so long as I quote the source.
Original image:
I saw ‘Knowing’ last night, took myself. When I first heard about it I was worried that it basically scooped my novel. And there are some very interesting similarities (probably some spoiler warnings in here). My novel’s about a writer who starts dreaming things that turn out to be true, including an insane President’s plan for the apocalypse. “Knowing” is about an astrophysicist who learns about coming disasters, including the apocalypse. In one point during “Knowing,” the lead character contacts a woman to make sense of what’s happening and shows her his college I.D. to appear legitimate. In my novel, the writer does the same, showing a woman a card saying he’s a writing professor. Minor, but interesting. Mostly the similarities have to do with how the movie ends (SPOILER) – it climaxes with a UFO landing, same as my novel. Perhaps I shouldn’t’ be spoiling my own novel, but anyway. Generally, I don’t feel I’ve been scooped because the mood of my novel is so different, and there’s the whole matter of the insane President, which is nowhere to be found in “Knowing.”
The movie had a profound effect on me – yes, even a pulp science fiction movie, not just because of the similarities with what I’d written (a novel started six years ago when my daughter was just born), but because these outlandish ideas about the end of the world are hardly outlandish anymore. One of the more disgusting and disturbing things Steven Spielberg said about “War of the Worlds” was that he was trying to exploit people’s fears about 9-11. In “War of the Worlds” there’s a plane crash, but it’s off camera, the crash is implied. This movie shows the plane crash in vivid detail and it’s one of the more awful things put onto celluloid. Later there’s a subway crash in which people rise from the subway tunnel covered in gray ash. In this movie 9-11 is everywhere and I don’t believe that’s particularly healthy; it may even be damaging.
The reason I started my novel about The End was because I was in downtown New York during 9-11 and saw the planes hit in real time. Broke me open in a serious way – including devout paranoia, which began seeming less like paranoia the deeper we got into the Bush Administration. But 9-11 happened, plane crashes happen, people have died this way, and putting that into a science fiction thriller seems irresponsible. Images are a lot more affecting than words. I can write: The plane crashed into the ground. People fled the wreckage screaming, on fire....But watch that in a movie? A totally different experience.
Jean Luc Godard said the worst thing about “Schindler’s List” (again Spielberg) is that it recreated Auschwitz. There’s no such thing as “just a movie” as all of the actors are drumming up horrible parts of their lives to convey fear and despair, and it’s recreating the worst moment in human history. The plane crash in “Knowing” doesn’t accomplish a lot except to make you sickened and fearful, and I’m not sure that’s very useful.
That said, I think “Knowing” is an important development in movies because the aliens in this movie are benevolent – which is something that is sorely missing from pop culture. Very bored with marauding aliens. If an advanced race of Ufonauts wanted us dead, we would be. So it’s a good development in the depiction of aliens in the mainstream, as well as exploring our place in the universe - really, I think, the most important issues going. Much of the other stuff seems like a distraction.
But all told my novel comes from a very different place. It’s not a book that fetishizes fear, even if it’s about the end of the world. I’ve written how much I dislike The Road, as well, which does the same. And the reason I’m self-publishing without even dealing with the agenting process is because overserious fearmongering is what sells now. I just generally don’t care about the crazy overseriousness that passes for drama: Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Dark Knight – totally unwatchable, might be the most incoherent popular movie ever made. It’s a Batman movie, get over it.
Anyway. My novel’s about how humanity might be able to save our own hide and not rely on being swept up by benevolent beings from the universe (though I’ve entertained the idea that this is the only way out), it’s about the evolution of human consciousness, a totally different type of apocalypse than this movie. I think “Knowing”’s an important movie – I really do. It says a lot about how we see ourselves and our future – both enormously tragic, but still hopeful, which is probably pretty close to how things are going to unfold.
So, yes, I’ve got a lot to say about where this novel came from. Here’s a preliminary cover for the novel – probably not going to end up being a white cover, but I like what she’s done - Cathi @ Book Cover Express. Didn’t want a glossy science fiction style cover. Cool thing is I wrote Anomalist Books to get permission for the image, which comes from Jacques Vallee’s Confrontations. The image is “Classification of anomalies related to UFOs.” Jacques Vallee gave me permission, so long as I quote the source.
Original image:
February 19, 2009
Rudy Rucker
There's a new interview with Rudy Rucker up at the Self-Publishing Review. And this site's becoming a kind of overgrown Twitter account. Speaking of which: @selfpubreview.
February 12, 2009
Interview with Tessa Dick, Philip K. Dick's Last Wife
I interviewed Tessa Dick for the Self-Publishing Review. Awesomely cool that she contacted the site and awesomely strange she self-published.
Soon enough I'm going to finish my Philip K. Dick-inspired novel. Yes, soon.
Update: Most amazingly, this interview has made the
L.A. Times
The Guardian
The New York Times
Soon enough I'm going to finish my Philip K. Dick-inspired novel. Yes, soon.
Update: Most amazingly, this interview has made the
L.A. Times
The Guardian
The New York Times
February 5, 2009
Tuesday Shorts
I've been interviewed on Tuesday Shorts. Check it out. My response to this interview here.
February 1, 2009
So Long
I wrote this a while ago, before "All Apologies" came out, which it resembles, but I wrote the lyrics last week. If you're following along, I recently got separated, which means only seeing my daughter every other week. I woke up in the middle of night the night after she left for the week humming lyrics to this song - a song which I hadn't thought about in a while. So I have new fodder for all my old incomplete songs.
So Long - Ash Tree
So Long - Ash Tree
January 4, 2009
Feed
Back to recording music. The hardest six months of my life are coming to a close. Be glad I wasn't blogging during that period. Recording this brought me back.
Now I begin to see the light
I'm not one to put out a fire
Feed - Ash Tree
Now I begin to see the light
I'm not one to put out a fire
Feed - Ash Tree
Self-Publishing Reviews
I’ve started a new site devoted to self-publishing: The Self-Publishing Review. I’m gearing up to finish a book and I don’t have the heart or stomach to deal with the querying process again. Mainly because the novel has some of the same issues as North of Sunset – it’s sort of in no man’s land in terms of genre. North of Sunset was criticized for being both “too commercial” and “too literary,” which I took as a compliment. The new novel is part science fiction, but I’m not a science fiction writer. Also, though, the thought of “making it” as a writer is not really my guiding principle anymore. I just don’t have that kind of ambition or that kind of belief. So I’m going to release the book myself.
Excited about the prospects for this site – an attempt to legitimize self-publishing. There’s plenty of great writing that goes this route. I’ve been connecting with writers for the site. First review/interview is for the novel, Homefront, by Kristen Tsetsi. Incredibly good, inspiring, makes me feel good about this project.
If anyone out there wants to write for the site, please contact me. Need writers in all areas, but especially book reviewers. There’s no way I can handle reviewing books all by myself. I want to be critical of bad books too, believe me. Check out the site.
Excited about the prospects for this site – an attempt to legitimize self-publishing. There’s plenty of great writing that goes this route. I’ve been connecting with writers for the site. First review/interview is for the novel, Homefront, by Kristen Tsetsi. Incredibly good, inspiring, makes me feel good about this project.
If anyone out there wants to write for the site, please contact me. Need writers in all areas, but especially book reviewers. There’s no way I can handle reviewing books all by myself. I want to be critical of bad books too, believe me. Check out the site.
November 10, 2008
Shock Therapy
Go see my father's play. It is good:
Three psychotherapists. A painter.
A runaway daughter.
And an ex-con with a major score to settle.
Welcome to the party.
with CECE ANTOINETTE THEO BREAUX
MATTHEW GLAVE GREGG HENRY
SCOTT PAULIN LISA ROBINS SOPHIE ULLETT
NOV 8-DECEMBER 7
Thu-Sat 8pm Sun 7pm
Previews Nov 1, 2, 6, 7
Sunday matinees Nov 30/Dec 7 2pm
THE LILLIAN THEATRE
1076 N. LILLIAN WAY L.A. 90038
Tickets and information:
(323) 960-4420
Discounted tickets available through:
http://www.plays411.net/shocktherapy
Three psychotherapists. A painter.
A runaway daughter.
And an ex-con with a major score to settle.
Welcome to the party.
with CECE ANTOINETTE THEO BREAUX
MATTHEW GLAVE GREGG HENRY
SCOTT PAULIN LISA ROBINS SOPHIE ULLETT
NOV 8-DECEMBER 7
Thu-Sat 8pm Sun 7pm
Previews Nov 1, 2, 6, 7
Sunday matinees Nov 30/Dec 7 2pm
THE LILLIAN THEATRE
1076 N. LILLIAN WAY L.A. 90038
Tickets and information:
(323) 960-4420
Discounted tickets available through:
http://www.plays411.net/shocktherapy
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