Fast Fiction

Friday night at the Coffee Table was the first meet & greet for the Los Angeles group for NaNoWriMo. I was really surprised at how many people showed up (I think my tally was 19) and that they came early and stayed late.

I forget the tenuous excitement the kids have when they start the process. I know how important the social aspect is. Meeting other people makes it real.

I also signed up today for NaNoBlogMo, which is Blogger’s listing of nanoblogs. I’m sure I qualify, because here I am, blogging it for the FOURTH time.

Just for new folks, I don’t put my novel in the blog posts itself. As the month starts you’ll find a pdf file on the left that will have my current progress. Come by in December and it’ll be a whole novel. To go along with the three others over there.

In other news, I’m going to go out and try to write a play today. They’re much faster to type than those novel things.

This week’s LA Insight comes from afsheen who is curious about earthquakes.

“As a new transplant to Southern California, I’m very intrigued by earthquakes. Having never experienced one, I have no idea what they’re like—or how to prepare (or if I really need to).”

1) What sort of earthquake preparations do most people have?

I have a box where I keep a first aid kit, some extra food, some extra dog food, a couple of flashlights (which always seem to get taken from the box and never replaced) and a battery powered radio. I try to keep at least a case of drinking water on hand, but I’ve been failing miserably at that in the past few months. The hot water heater is braced. I try to close my cabinets and closets tightly. I keep at least a quarter tank of gas in my car at all times. I always have a little cash on hand.

2) Have you ever lived though a big quake?

Yes.

3) Which ones?

The Northridge ‘94 was not the biggest quake I’ve been in, but certainly the one with the worst damage. My personal losses were limited to a pipe that fed the hot water heater (The Man fixed that late in the day), two dishes, a wine glass and my job (the building I worked in burned down and I was dismissed a few weeks after helping to salvage the company files and set up temporary offices).

I was also in several larger ones when I lived in Humboldt County. The biggest was something like a 7.1 (August 1991 and there was a swarm of 6s before and after) although the epicenter was about 40miles away from where I was. It was the first time I was in a quake that made me duck under a table. I was in a burrito place by campus and the big plate glass windows were not just vibrating, but undulating. They didn’t break though.

4) Does anybody really have earthquake insurance?

My neighbors do.

5) Do you?

No.

6) How bad would things have to get for my apartment to come crashing into the ground?

Hmm. I don’t know what sort of geological formations are below your building and what sort of structure you’re in. Most of us found that those apartments that had the garages at ground level and apartments above didn’t do well. Do you live in one of those? I’ve always been skittish about living in the flats. I prefer bedrock.

But as Northridge proved, you don’t have to be close (Santa Monica was hit really hard) and you don’t have to be in an old building.

When we first moved to LA, we had a little apartment in Sherman Oaks (Moorpark and Woodman). It was a rather new building (‘89). We moved 18 days before the quake to Silverlake. The building was yellow tagged after the quake and had to be completely gutted before the residents could move back in, and it took over a year.

7) If I don’t anchor the bookcases to the wall, are they really going to fall over and kill me in my sleep?

That’s another hard call. I don’t have anything on my walls in my bedroom and I’m grateful for it. In the ‘94 quake most stuff on shelves came off. Even in small temblors I’ve had stuff fall off the walls. I’ve seen people’s houses after quakes where the bookcases have come down, and trust me, it’s not a mess you want. (Of course none of my bookcases are currently anchored.)

8) Are you fearful, anticipating, or indifferent to coming quakes?

I am anticipating them. I can’t say that I was scared by the ‘94 one, but certainly alarmed. I took it very seriously. I had a geology class my freshman year of college and it was pretty much about earthquakes and the professor said something like, “if the power goes out, you know it’s the big one.” So when the ‘94 started, I just thought it was another San Andreas like Big Bear and I sat up in bed to ride it out. But when the power went out and the transformers started blowing up ... um, that was the sign that this was something big. In all honesty, I’m fascinated by them. If there is any natural disaster that I’m scared of, I think it’s tornados. And I’ve been in those.

Today’s smell is brought to you by the commissary.

Now that things have dried out, the smells are back.

Today it seems like there’s a lot of prep work going on in the kitchen and there’s an overwhelming scent of freshly chopped onions everywhere.

When I was a teen and lived in Pennsylvania there were days like today. Crisp days with puffy clouds. Days with high school football games.

My brother and I would climb on our bikes and pedal out to the orchard up at the edge of town. We would buy a quart or maybe half gallon basket of jonathan apples.

I had a jacket at that time a Woolrich hunting jacket (we called it the dead rabbit jacket because it had a pocket for small dead game) and we would take the apples out of the basket and stow them in my jacket and ride back home.

We’d go to the football games and wander around and eat apples. I wasn’t terribly interested in the game, it was something to do. I don’t think I ever sat in the stands and actually watched it. (Come to think of it, the Mechanicsburg team was division champs or something.)

Jonathan apples are the best. First of all, they’re deep red, not that fake red of delicious apples. Glossy and wonderfully round instead of upright. Great streaks of yellow or orange on one side. Crisp and juicy and tart.

I can’t find good jonathans here in Los Angeles. They’re always tiny ones. There’s a new hybrid called jonagolds, which are good, but not the same. The orchard that we used to buy apples at is gone now. It’s a housing development. That’s how you know you’re old. When trees that were younger than you were cut down to build houses.

You know I have that other blog that I don’t maintain much. That spambiguity. Mostly I invented it because I thought the word spambiguity was cool.

But I digress.

The quiz:

found via omouse.

You know that old saying, any club that would have me as a member, is not a club that I’d be interested in joining.

Well, I think this is one of those cases that only cements my feelings for WalMart. They are not going to carry Jon Stewart’s “America (The Book)” because of the doctored nude photos of the supreme court justices.

They will, however, carry the book on their website. Because Walmart really isn’t about censorship, they’re about inoffensiveness. Right.

So go buy it here or here.

Today’s smell is brought to you by rain.

Today’s smell is wet dog.

I’m not sure if the smell is actually coming from wet dogs or not, I suspect not. I think at the office it’s a combination of wet sawdust, damp carpeting and rancid paint.

Berries, piles and piles of fresh berries.

The rain has still washed away the commissary smells. So right now all I smell are the blueberries and strawberries in my fruit salad.

In what seems to be speedy fashion, NASA has announced what they believe to be the cause of the crash of the Genesis spacecraft in the Utah desert. The capsule was supposed to deploy a parachute and as the craft floated to the ground, it would be snatched from the air by a helicopter with a hook.

Either of two redundant pairs of switches could have triggered the release of a parachute when the craft hit the upper atmosphere. But because all four switches were installed backward, as specified by the Lockheed Martin design, the chute never deployed and the probe smashed into the Utah desert at more than 300 kilometers an hour. The collision destroyed the spacecraft, but scientists may eventually extract much of the data they had anticipated from the quarter-billion-dollar mission.

I had suspected it was gravity, but this sounds much more likely.

I’ve finally grown up and gotten my own domain name.

I have no idea what that means.

Anyway, eventually this blog will migrate to the new domain. Which means changing my url, I have no idea who a smooth migration works, and I’d hazard a guess that it doesn’t go smooth.

I believe I have two choices, I can keep this blog here and just start a new one over there. Or I can just move this one, lock, stock & barrel over to the knew domain, which leaves no forwarding address or anything (as I understand how blogspot blogs work).

So, stay tuned. I’ll probably give you some notice.

Oh, and the new domain is ... typetive.com. It’s going to take a few days for the domain to propagate. So you may or may not see anything there right now.

I saw a play a few years ago by Kira Obolensky called Lobster Alice. It was about the time Salvador Dali came to Los Angeles to make an animated film for Walt Disney. It was based on a true story.

Salvador Dali was comissioned to make an animated film called Destino, based on a Mexican ballad of the same name. The play was very interesting, but the allure of the actual film, which was never finished during Dali or Disney’s lifetime is even more intriguing.

Well, apparently it was finished ...um, and nominated for an Oscar. I have no clue what rock I was under earlier this year. It must have been the rock without The Hollywood Reporter or internets or something. (And it was a bit of a story, too.)

It’s showing this weekend in NY at the Animazing Gallery. What’s worse, it seems it was showing last November at the Arclight. Grrr. It’ll also be in Florida for a while, but I can’t see myself going there just to see a movie.

There’s talk of it coming out on video and I’m keen to see how it turned out.

No, not the Man I’m married to.

This man: Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire on CNN today. Not a show I watch, because it just bugs the crap out of me. But it apparently also bugs the crap out of him.

First of all, I’m of the same opinion. If I watch a debate (and we really can’t call them debates, since they’re not debating, they’re just exchanging disjointed expanses of talking points) I’d like to think that the debate is the be all and end all. And when it’s done, the viewers are supposed to MAKE UP THEIR OWN DAMN MINDS. The spinning and talking heads telling us what we witnessed is irrelevant.

Here are some choice quotes as Stewart appeared with Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.

STEWART: You know, it’s interesting to hear you talk about my responsibility.

CARLSON: I felt the sparks between you.

STEWART: I didn’t realize that—and maybe this explains quite a bit.

CARLSON: No, the opportunity to…

STEWART: ... is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.

Jon Stewart believes that the media is dropping the ball. I’m inclined to agree.

STEWART: I would love to see a debate show.

BEGALA: We’re 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that’s like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.

But the just don’t get it. Maybe part of it the hubris of Carlson and Begala that they think that there’s some sort of kinship - that these folks who sit on the outside, the pundits are at the same as the comedians, which is so not true. Stewart has risen to the level of Aristophanes as far as I’m concerned.

STEWART: Now, listen, I’m not suggesting that you’re not a smart guy, because those are not easy to tie.

CARLSON: They’re difficult.

STEWART: But the thing is that this—you’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great.

BEGALA: We do, do…

STEWART: It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…

STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

Jon Stewart looked horrible. I don’t watch the show often enough to know how the format works, but Begala and Carlson were wearing makeup. They had good lighting, smooth, even and of course suited to their skintones. Stewart looked like he just got off a redeye. A little unkempt, pale, splotchy and certainly not made up. The light was harsh and he seemed a little squinty at times. Is that part of the program on a regular basis?

The interview concluded with Begala trying to get the interview off of them as a topic and back to how Stewart can make it oh, so funny. Asking him which candidate will give him more material.

Jon Stewart just put his ass out there, put his heart out there as one human being standing on the train tracks of big media to challenge the way things are being done, the mindset of the news. And they just wanted to know how he thinks up all those funny things.

Here’s some other fallout:
MTV Choose or Lose
AlterNet
The Washington Post

Today’s smell is fresh books. (I wasn’t in the office today, so we’ll have to take a smell from home.)

Today my books came from my publisher!

I have two pieces in The Best Men’s Stage Monologues of 2004. Edited by D. L. Lepidus and published by Smith & Kraus. I’m quite honored, I’m in great company with David Rabe, Israel Horowitz, John Patrick Shanley, Anna Deavere Smith, David Lindsay-Abaire and Richard Dresser.

I also have a scene from The Redeemer in The Best Stage Scenes Of 2004. Also edited by D. L. Lepidus and published by Smith & Kraus this one has pieces from Christopher Shinn, Wendy MacLeod, Adam Rapp, Naomi Wallace and Donald Marguiles.

Unfortunately, the way it works with these anthologies I only get a flat fee instead of royalties. But I’m grateful for the exposure and the company. I’m looking forward to seeing them in bookstores, too! That’d be probably the coolest thing ever, to go into one of those big chains and be able to find myself in the stacks.

This week’s topic comes from dear Will. It’s all about one of my favorite things, pets.

1. Got pets? Give us a roll call!

I just have one right now. The lovely beagle & springer spaniel mix/mutt named Beckett. She’s probably about 11 years old now.

2. How did you and your pet(s) find each other?

The Man and I specifically wanted a beagle mutt like I had when I was growing up, so we went to Long Beach to the Beagles & Buddies rescue league. She’s bigger than a regular lemon beagle, which I liked. She was horribly sick when we got her (distemper) and we certainly saved her life that day when we took her home. She never would have made it a whole week in the kennel being that sick.

2. Dog owners: What’s your favorite place to take your canine for a
walk/run/romp? (yes, there seem to be two twos)

Our driveway. It’s long and she loves to play fetch with handballs.

3. Cat owners: Do you have indoor kitties or do you allow them outside as
well?

I consider Robin’s cat nearly ours, she’s inside/out. I believe she’s rethinking the outdoor thing based on the most recent coyote sightings. Of course I think Dorothy is pretty damn smart (she seems to spend a lot of time on top of cars) and can take care of herself.

4. Every pet owner needs access to a good veterinarian? Where do you go when
your pets need health care, and why?

Gateway Animal Hospital on Los Feliz just south of San Fernando Blvd. We’ve been seeing Doctor Jimerson since we got her and figure he’s some sort of vet/god for saving her life.

5. During any extended stays away from home, do you get a friend to care for
them, board your pets, or hire a professional pet sitter? Any
recommendations for the last two?

Always a pet sitter. I’m afraid to give you recommendations because then you might take them away from me. As bloggers go, Will & Jay have sat with Beckett before. For emergencies we’ve relied heavily on our neighbors.

6. Had any close contact with some of L.A.‘s native wildlife?

She caught a mouse once. And there was that time she got skunked. And that other time she got skunked. We now know to not let her off leash, even in our own back yard, after dark. Of course the skunks don’t know that they’re not supposed to be in our back yard in the daylight.

7. Good or bad, what’s your most memorable childhood animal encounter?

When I was in the fourth grade my mother was taking me and my sister to ballet class. It was all the way in Akron (we lived in Munroe Falls). When we drove past the B&K Rootbeer Stand, I saw a grand male lion in a cage being towed behind a truck. I turned to my mother and told her there was a lion at the root beer stand and I hoped he’d be there on our way back so we could see him. My mother turned and looked back, but didn’t see him. Everyone made fun of me for the rest of the day. The next day in the Akron Beacon Journal there was a picture of a lion in a cage being pulled by a truck in the parking lot of a local store.

8. What’s the funniest and/or most frustrating thing your pet does?

She barks a lot. But most frustrating I think would have to be when she plays with her ball she really likes to chase it or push it under the couch and of course can’t get it out. She’ll obsess about it. You can try giving her another ball, a ball you think is identical, but she wants that ball.

Today’s smell is brought to you by the commissary and my nose.

Today’s smell is enchiladas.

Today’s smell is lemon chicken and asparagus.

You ever wanna know what I look like? (Oh, readers three who have never met me in person.) There’s an interview up on NaNoWriMo.org with a teensy little photo down in the lower left. It’ll only be there today. You snooze, you lose.

For all those who haven’t heard yet, November is National Novel Writing Month.

Pencils ready!

Yesterday there was a weird dispute. Well, I suppose it continues today. LAist, a group blog with topics about Los Angeles posted that it has more visits to their site than blogging.la.

Okay.

They declared themselves the most popular blog in LA.

Here are a few questions I had:

Does it include people who read by feed? While reading by feed does not get included in hits, I suppose feed hits should be used for determining ad prices either. But some people do both. I do both. I visit the site regularly but I also use an aggregator called Bloglines. Sometimes I’ll read from there, sometimes I’ll browse to the site because I’m at a computer that doesn’t have my bloglines info stored in it.

LAist does not show where the hits come from. Are LAist visitors in LA or somewhere else? For that matter, who reads b.la? I haven’t a clue. In fact, I’m not sure I care.

As for LAist, I consider it like Star. It’s a rag. It’s oppressively negative and meanspirited, focused on things like cult of celebrity and dissing public transportation. They steal photos. It doesn’t reflect the life that I lead as an Angelino. B.la does, but maybe that’s because my friends also write for it. As far as I know LAist pays its writers. B.la does not.

Could b.la be improved? Sure, we could post more often. A photo blog would be cool. Does it need a more consistent editorial voice, so much so that you’d not know who posted without looking at the attribution? Hell, no. There is no way I’d ever write for a blog where I had to use the “editorial we.”

Territorialism has always bothered me. Who cares if there’s someone on top or not. It’s the web. It’s the place for specialization. They’re group blogs about one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world ... if LAist really wants to be on top they’d blog in Spanish. That’s how you win in LA radio.

The building I work in also houses the commissary. Or maybe we just share a wall. We definitely share the same air.

When I get to work in the morning, it usually smells like the lunch special.

The smell of the day for October 12th, 2004 is herb roasted chicken.

I was reading an article on CNN a little while ago and I had to look twice at the headline.

Panhandle Children Return to School.

Of course it’s kids returning to school in the Florida panhandle.

What caught my eye is that panhandle also means begging. But why? Did beggars used to use pans? I’ve seen those documentaries about Indian monks that travel around with a little bowl that folks will fill for them while they’re on pilgrimage. Did beggars once go around asking for stuff to fill their frying pans? It’s just an odd confluence that an obscure little, ubiquitous thing like a panhandle would end up meaning a peninsula made by borders as well as begging.

Today Will & Susan came by (yes, by, I met them down the street so they didn’t have to hike up the hill) and we took a walk around the lake.

Four miles.

At a three mile an hour pace. Probably good for me, I don’t think I should get going four or five miles an hour just yet. But hey, when the walk takes 25% longer, you probably burn more calories. It doesn’t hurt that I’m out of shape either. I figure in shape people are more efficient.

So the goal is to do eight miles a week (in whatever combinations) until December where I’ll step it up to 20 and then I’ll figure out what to do next year to prep for the Marathon.

LA Blogs’ topic for this week, in memory of the passing of Rodney Dangerfield, is Rodney Memorial Edition (comedy is hard).

1. OK funny girl, what’s your favorite joke?

Have you heard about the new corduroy pillows?

They’re making headlines.

I read that joke in Bloom County when I was 17 years old and just got off a horrific 22 hour cross country plane trip (that’s another blog entry someday) and was jetlagged and sat up all night reading it. I thought it was hysterical. It’s probably not, but I remember my fits of laughter fondly and this joke is a way to connect with a time in my life when I would feel free to laugh out loud when I’m all alone. Okay, I do that now, but there was an intervening time when I wouldn’t have.

2. Where do you go for comedy in LA?

I don’t think I’ve ever gone anywhere for comedy. I’ve found some things funny, like the lounge singer on Thursday nights at The Red Lion.

3. Have you been to an open mike night? If so, where?

Nope. Well, there was one at our Unitarian Youth Weekends when I was a teen, but I don’t think that counts.

4. Was it good, bad or tolerable?

Um, we were Unitarians.

5. Who is the funniest comedian you have seen in town?

Well, since the Unitarian things were in Baltimore or Philadelphia, I guess they don’t count.

6. Who is the unfunniest?

See above.

7. Beyond the places that you have been to see comedy, are there any places that your friends have recommended?

I’m not one for going and seeing comedians in the flesh. I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t interest me. I really enjoyed Second City though, when I was in Chicago once. So I’d probably say that something like Groundlings would fit me.

8. OK, so you’re not that funny, what’s your worst joke?

It’s really long. It’s called the Green Ping Pong Ball Joke. I didn’t feel like retyping it here (I could have copied and pasted it, but I tell it a little differently).

I don’t know if you ever visit my buzznet site, but I’ve been kinda obsessed with a couple of orb weaver spiders I’ve got living on the balcony and in the back yard. This green lynx spider has been living in our front yard for a while. Turns out there’s probably another one out there somewhere, since she’s raising a family.

Green Lynx Spider

The green lynx spider in my front yard and her little brood of spiderlettes.

more here

I was watching CSI: Miami (my least favorite show I watch ... I know, that’s a weird sentence, but if you’re married, I think you know what I mean) last week and there was Horatio Caine (my least favorite character) examining an autopsy report.

And there he was, saying, “cause of death, GSW to the chest.”

Now, say the letters aloud. “Gee, ess, double-you.” Four syllables. Then say the words. “Gun shot wound.” Three syllables. Hell, they’re even short words to spell.

I’m not saying that CSI: Miami isn’t accurate, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. Why have abbreviations if they’re longer?

I posted a kvetch a few months ago about Jayson Blair. You don’t have to go back and read the entry. It was just me complaining about my lousy sales for my play which was published earlier this year.

I’m happy to report that sales are picking up since the new catalogue came out about five weeks ago.

I am disappointed that not one of my theatre friends actually bought my play (hell, I mentioned them in the dedication and acknowledgements), but I’m still oddly more flattered by the fact that perfect strangers are buying it!

I’m hoping sales will also pick up when the two anthologies that I’m in come out (hopefully this year)!

I just checked in with the typing monkeys again today. (I’ve been rather lax about letting them muck about on my computer lately, but I should start doing that more now.)

Last time I posted they had 16 letters.

They’re now actually up to strings of words! At the moment the record is 20 letters from Coriolanus

After 462,060,000,000 billion billion monkey-years. (Sent in by Jens Ulrik Jacobsen from Denmark on 31 Aug 2004.)

“1. Citizen. Before wZgJ8GPxwFnwvG&iX4tKfo(“2ny!3Pp…”
matched
“1. Citizen. Before we proceed any further, heare me speake   All. Speake, speake   1.Cit. You are all resolu’d rather to dy then to famish?  All. Resolu’d, resolu’d..

For some reason I decided to start doing some volunteer work. No, not the stuff for NaNoWriMo (but I’m still going to be municipal liaison for that).

I’ve applied to become a naturalist for the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium leading whale watching tours for students from December to March.

I’ve always loved going whalewatching and I have an uncanny skill at being able to see spouts no matter what the weather. (The last two times I went to the Channel Islands, I was the first to spot the whales on our boats.) It’d be cool to go out and share that enthusiasm I have for whales and marine life with other people. (Oh, and I’m sure I’d get free trips too!)

This definitely means I should get that telephoto lens for my camera!

I finally have my camera back and have started taking photos. (Okay, for a while I was taking photos, but just ones of my scar, not stuff that is interesting to the general public.)

If you click on it, you get to see the little bugger in even bigger glory.

Yes, it’s a very, very long article. But if you plan to live on this planet, you must read this.

How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence
By DAVID BARSTOW, WILLIAM J. BROAD and JEFF GERTH

Need a login/password?

Basically the article goes through much of the case against Iraq and the evidence of their weapons of mass destruction point by point. My favorite part is how the basis of the US’s case against Iraq was the fact that they were trying to get these little aluminum tubes (probably for conventional missiles) but some posited that they could be used for uranium purifcation through centrifuges. The consultants working on the hypothesis that Iraq concluded:

The Energy Department team concluded it was “unlikely that anyone” could build a centrifuge site capable of producing significant amounts of enriched uranium “based on these tubes.” One analyst summed it up this way: the tubes were so poorly suited for centrifuges, he told Senate investigators, that if Iraq truly wanted to use them this way, “we should just give them the tubes.”