More to Ponder

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I just wrote and posted my first essay on Critical Games in months. I wouldn’t say it’s my most scholarly work, but I think I make a few good points and anecdotal observations. (It regards Avatar and MUDs in general within the dicussion of virtual worlds and virtual communities.) It did feel good to get something up there, though. It also reminds me that not every post on there has to be Shakespeare or Hemingway. If I get my point across, then I reckon I’m communicating adequately enough, and shouldn’t sweat it so much.

So, I’ve been doing a fair bit more photography of late (and would like to escalate that even further), and have been thinking pretty heavily about investing in some software to help that process. I’m currently using Photoshop CS2, but it’s not native, and so can be a bit of a pain to use in a number of circumstances (largely relating to all the peripheral foo that accompanies the app… plugins, the updater app, camera raw, Adobe Bridge, etc), and still doesn’t solve a core issue of media management. Some of this would be solved by upgrading to CS3, but realistically, 95%+ of what I do with Photoshop is photographs, so it’s worth my time to at least consider a more targeted solution, since they now exist: Apple Aperture, and Adobe Lightroom. They’re fairly direct competitors, with a remarkably similar feature set, and likely either would work satisfactorily for me. Lightroom has tighter Photoshop integration, Aperture has tighter OS integration (both appealing). They cost the same (or will after April 30th, and I’m not sure if the money I’d be using to buy it will be in by then).

I think I may need to sit down and try out each of them (thankfully they both offer free trials), and decide that way, because ultimately reviews and screenshots don’t cut it — experiencing the workflow and deciding what works best for you is what’s necessary. (The point may be moot if a job doesn’t show up soon, but I am remaining optimistic that this will be the case.)

Friday the 13th, 2007

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While considered bad luck by many, I’ve not really found Friday the 13th to be particularly different from any other given Friday… arguably, I’ve had better luck on them than worse (which I suppose goes with my general experience with “luck”… find a 4 leaf clover, fall and skin your knee… walk under a ladder, find a quarter on the sidewalk. Don’t even get me started on my jade pendant). I slept in today, though not as late as some of the past few days, and overall I’m feeling alright.

In my daily spate of rss feeds and blogs, the inestimable Warren Ellis pointed out a fantastic post on M John Harrison’s blog, that’s worth quoting:

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.

I’m not sure that I entirely agree: while worldbuilding should be by no means the primary function of the story, taking the time to hammer out a core basis for the setting of your story I think can be really rewarding. I must admit that I’m a bit biased in this, in that I like thinking about the esoteric and random elements surrounding a story — how a given civilization functions, the history and struggle that caused that particular world to be formed. It’s easy to become myopic when doing this, absolutely, to start thinking about how a particular tribe in Uganda handles the dry season when your story has nothing to do with that and that knowledge will never even be mentioned. But if you are mindful of this, mindful of the lure of avoiding the story by fleshing out the world (yet another form of procrastination, seductive in its psuedo-productivity), then that elaboration can help tighten and expand your story.

That’s my opinion anyway, and I don’t exactly have any award winning publications to back it up. Unlike M John Harrison.

I kind of agree with him in some ways, though. As soon as the worldbuilding becomes even translucent (let alone opaque), you’ve bored most readers… worldbuilding should be for your own edification and cohesion as the writer. Its role in the story itself should be transparent. (I believe it was Silverberg, and I’m paraphrasing, who commented that Heinlein was one of the few others who managed to ladel on pages of exposition without boring the reader.) I do definitely agree with Mr. Harrison’s thoughts about writing, which he expounds upon here:

The notebook stage is the last time anything of mine sees paper until publication. I like to do lots of operations. Fountain pens and refurbished 1930 Underwood portables don’t cut it; digital management is the appropriate choice. Have you ever noticed how every male novelist you meet at a literary festival wears a linen jacket and is called Tim ? Tim prefers an antique Watermans, maybe his dad owned it. It keeps him pure and returns him to the sinewy prose of the giants who came before us all.

I don’t have any writing pattern. I hate being professional. I don’t write according to a schedule or an output plan; I don’t begin at the beginning and write to the end. Or rather: if I do any of those things I usually have to bin the results. Writing should be fun–absorbing, transporting, intense, whatever. It should ambush you. It should be up there with sex, drugs and irresponsible driving. It shouldn’t have anything to do with research or require a degree in finding out about lipstick colours in 1943. I can’t do it if I’m bored or depressed or feeling unconfident. Once it’s working, I can write anywhere–I’ve done stuff while hanging off an abseil rope on a sea cliff or a highrise building–but not under any conditions. If I’m sitting at my desk I hate to be cold, I hate anyone’s noise except my own. But I like working on a train.

Sounds about right to me. When I’m on a roll, it doesn’t really matter where I am, and if I’m feeling depressed, it’s like pulling teeth to get anything that isn’t simply mopey or angst-ridden out onto the screen or page. I’ve found it easy to get into that rut, and try to be mindful of it, and not letting it overwhelm other things I wish to talk about (if you’ve noticed that my posts sometimes seem varied and veer through topics with remarkable speed, now there’s perhaps a hint as to why… that, or I have the attention span of a goldfish. Maybe a bit of both). With depression, it’s remarkably easy to get stuck on depression and its related trappings, despite the fact that the answer to combatting it is do and be productive and talk about other things.

So, R Stevens linked to SBaGen via Twitter, and I decided to at least find out what the heck he was talking about. Turns out SBaGen is an open source binaural beats generator. If you’re not familiar with the concept, a quick explanation (there are whole books about this, so I definitely recommend looking into it on your own if you’re curious): binaural beats is a method to synchronize and alter your brainwave patterns, ie putting yourself into an alpha or theta (among others) state, for the purposes of meditation, focus, more restful sleep, lucid dreaming, and even (supposedly) out of body experiences. It’s kind of new age-y, but since it’s a free generator, who really cares, it cost you nothing to try it out, and if you decide it’s not worth it, you can delete it easily.

I tried out the Demo, which starts at a 200Hz cycle and slides down to 5Hz over the course of 30 minutes. It’s supposed to theoretically leave you feeling light and energized. I do feel more alert after trying it, though I would like to comment on a few things that happened with it (while I won’t necessarily be posting it on here, I do plan on keeping a journal of my observations as I experiment with this). Notably, a few minutes in, my left thumb abruptly started to feel extremely hot, and my right thumb started to feel cold. Neither was touching anything, and after another few minutes, it largely subsided (which would make sense since different wavelengths are meant to affect you differently, and that frequency changed over that period). Dunno what it all means, but it does leave me curious to find out.

Of Many Things

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Let’s just get it out there: Kurt Vonnegut died. Chances are pretty good you already knew that, given that it’s been all over the news and blogs and everywhere else. Still, putting it out there in case you hadn’t (also, because the article at the NY Times is pretty well written and worth the read).

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Tuesday — the day itself was pretty “meh,” a genuine non-day that I spent alone, but that in and of itself is an improvement from a lot of my recent past birthdays. So — thanks, it meant a lot to get the well wishes. I did pick up some shoes (my Keens are completely shredded, hardly a good impression during job interviews), so I swung by Wooly Mammoth in the University district and picked up some Clarks on sale. They’re pretty snazzy, though I must admit after spending the past month in sandals, it does feel weird to be back in a closed shoe. Still the toe room is good, they’re light, good insoles… they just feel light on the feet.

I’ve been sleeping in a lot lately, which isn’t really a good thing, but hardly unexpected. The anti-depressant medication helps me through the day, but the process of waking up is still a pain (even if I take the meds before bed). I don’t think I mentioned that I’m back on meds for it before, but yeah, since November or so. I was having a pretty bad depressive relapse due to fallout from my breakup and stress from finances and lack of work and just in general trying to figure out what I was doing with myself. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m “better,” but the meds do help me get a grip on things. Except the sleep part. Worry about money and work is mounting, and so my “defense” mechanism of sleeping too much is rearing its head. (It’s not that uncommon, the rationalization is that if you sleep through it, it’ll go away. That the world doesn’t really work like that is irrelevant.) I suspect some low grade dehydration might also have something to do with it (it’s never good when you can actually recollect all the liquid you’ve ingested in a day, and that most of it is caffeinated — and not even much of that).

Not trying to get mopey or anything, just sometimes you have a down day.

The most recent issue of LensWork (an excellent photographic magazine if you haven’t already checked it out) discussed a new podcast they’ve launched, that offers “commentary” rather than “critique” for a particular image from one of their current issues. The article that expanded on this topic went on to explain that whether you like or don’t like an image is relatively useless to anyone but yourself, and similarly, while exploring the technical merit of a print has value, describing how you would change it is also irrelevant — you are viewing the finished product, so unless you are planning to do a variant of the image, it doesn’t really matter what you would change. So they’ve opted to instead call their work a commentary on the image, similar to the work a docent might do in a gallery or museum.

While I applaud the decision to explore the content and context of an image rather than simply review it, personally I would have preferred that they had opted to make an effort to re-take the value and intent of “critique”. Literary or Art Criticism functions exactly as they are describing, and as I’ve mentioned before, what they are describing is the core function of critique. Just because in the photographic community the term has been co-opted for what largely amounts to a technical (or even subjective!) review doesn’t mean that the term is a lost cause. Don’t get me wrong, a technical review absolutely has merit, especially within the professional community for the purposes of furthering one’s craft, but it is only one element of a wider form of criticism that is largely being ignored — ignored to the point that a national magazine like LensWork felt it necessary to divorce themselves of the term!

That said, I still really enjoy the magazine. The photography in it is exquisite, and reading over the biographies of a number of the artists is really encouraging — many start out with “I went and did something else for 20 years, and only got back into photography quite recently,” which is encouraging in that it suggests that 1) technical excellence can be gained or regained quickly, and 2) that you don’t necessarily have to work at your craft for 50 years just be start to be recognized.

It’s kind of strange, in that I feel that I still have so much to learn in terms of craft in so many fields that I wish to pursue, but at the same time feel like it’s time in my life to start leaving a mark, to create and do. It’s a weird dichotomy, the urge to create and but the need to further craft in order to do so. I don’t think I’m really properly explaining it, but this will have to do for now.

April the Ninth

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Nabil 4/9/2007

I seem to be running in radio silence on weekends (generally speaking). I couldn’t tell you why that is, per se, but it does seem to be a trend. I decided this weekend to go back to being cleanshaven, and got a haircut today (picture is included to the right). Sometimes it’s nice to just have a change, and this is something I have control over. I’ve been fairly upbeat the past few weeks, which is good, but the general socialization has been wearing me down (I am still an introvert), and I finally just sort of crashed on Friday night, after drinking far too many chais (when I crash from caffeine, I get really depressed, which is why I usually limit my intake). I spent the weekend holed up at the apartment, only going out long enough to find a mailbox to mail out some bills, and I’m feeling much better for it.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do with it. My birthdays generally speaking have been pretty lousy, often dealing with snow and rain, getting abandoned by friends, spending all of it driving and getting pulled over (though thankfully not ticketed) (and a week later having my marriage fall apart), and just in general being kind of lame and oft-forgotten. Considering how few people I know in this area, I’ll probably be spending it alone as well, so I’m trying to think of solo things to do on a likely rainy day to “celebrate”. Maybe spend the day at the movie theater, or something.

Chris gave me some good advice for my resume, so I’ll probaby be doing a minor revision of it to better highlight a few things (namely my work on the Applegeeks column… incidentally, my interview with Wil Shipley is now up). I sincerely hope that it all results in at least some interviews, if not full job offers (one step at a time, after all, though I can’t really afford to wait much longer). While I’m on the mercenary tack, I’ve been also working on updating and revising Be My Patron, though the updates aren’t up yet. I figure I have the time now, I may as well get that a bit more up and running, actually post some projects looking for patrons. It’s frankly been a placeholder for the past several months while I dealt with the moving and life — a good idea that stalled out.

Listening to the new Panda Bear cd again at the coffee shop, and it’s still good. I’m pulling different things out of it this time, however, and nearly mistook one of the songs for a song off Smile by Brian Wilson ne Beach Boys. (Not that it’s a bad thing… that is also a good album.) Life is cluttered with new music, nowadays, between Zoka and KEXP. So many new bands, like Under Byen, Peter Bjorn and John, Beirut, and a slew of others. Some I’ve been able to collect via free downloads (ala Bastard Fairies who put up their album for free, and the KEXP Song of the Day podcasts), but being the collector that I am, I’d really like to go pick up full albums, even if it’s via iTMS. It’s a good lesson in patience, and in learning to write down albums and band names, rather than simply hoping I remember later.

Unbelievably Nice

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UW Library

It is currently 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Everything is greening up quickly and wonderfully, and it’s just spectacular. I am once again at Zoka, drinking an iced chai and getting my daily writing done. I also grabbed the pictures off my camera from last evening… I only took a few, but they’re kind of fun in an abstract sort of way. It’s warmer and clearer out tonight, so I’m actually planning to head back this evening with my tripod, and see what I can pull out. (I’m still pretty proud of myself for getting the shots that I did get as clear and steady as I did via handholding… it helps that I tossed on my 50mm f/1.4, which made for speeds that were as short as possible. (1/5 of a second at 11:30 at night? Not too shabby!) Using the tripod, I’m planning on doing some long duration shots instead. Hmm.

They’re playing the new Panda Bear album here at Zoka, and I’m definitely digging it. It’s a nice coincidence that the honorable Mr. Ellis was mentioning them not too long ago. Panda Bear, for those not in the loop, is one of the core members of Animal Collective, a fantastic band for those not familiar with them. This is one of his solo albums, and musically it’s got some Animal Collective flavoring, while remaining relatively unique, intermixing more ethereal, electronic influences into the work. Something to add to my rapidly increasing list of albums and artists I’d like to pick up.

Chatting with Dad earlier today, and going over some of the photos I uploaded yseterday evening, it seems one of my perennial problems is cropping up again: it’s pretty noticeable, in, say, this photo. Do you see it? Yeah, my horizon line isn’t level. For whatever reason, a lot of my shots have a 1-2 degree drop on the right side of the horizon. It looks level to me when I take the picture, and one theory I have is that since I tend to have my head cocked slightly to the left a lot of the time, my brain is compensating by adjusting what I see to be “level”. Dad thinks it may have something to do with my posture and grip on the camera. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some combination of the two. Thinking about it, even shots I take on a tripod tend to have that drop, so the notion that it is movement from pressing the button down, or a cockeyed method of holding it I don’t think would fully explain it. It’s certainly not an insurmountable problem, even in post, but it is something I need to be more aware of happening.

So, a question for readers: do you like me adding thumbnails and pictures to my posts? Is it a worthwhile habit, or would you rather I just link to the gallery if I want to point out an image? I’ve been opting to use thumbnails mostly, out of deference for those on dialup, and will likely continue that trend, but I would like to know whether people like the break from my text-heavy posts.

Furthermore

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Tulips at the Bellevue Botanical Garden

I spent the afternoon photographing in Bellevue, first at the Botanical Gardens, and then from the rooftop of the mall parking garage, of the skyline as sunset approached, and then finally down by the lake, looking out at Seattle as the sun set. I’ll be getting pictures up in a bit [Update: Pictures are up, 22 new shots.], but I did want to share something.

A little while back, I posted a random thing I heard on KEXP on my LiveJournal (usually one-liners and quizes and stuff like that goes there… feel free to add me, but you’ve been warned). It was about two ducks in the road, a female duck dead, and the mallard standing near her, looking at her like “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

When I was down at the lake, there were two ducks, a couple, swimming around, heckling the kids who were there. Another mallard showed up, looking lonely, and was shunned by the couple, until finally he just sort of paddled off by himself. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same mallard who lost his mate in the road. Felt bad for the guy, if I knew how to speak duck, I wanted to pull him aside and tell him it’d be alright, maybe buy him a duck beer or something.

Just needed to share.

Sunny, Beautiful

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Before I continue: Happy birthday, Dad! I hope it’s been a good day!

It’s currently just under 70 degrees and gorgeously sunny here in Seattle, which is in stark contrast to the snowfall most of the northeast has been getting hit by. While I can sympathize, I’m frankly just grateful for the nice weather where I am. I’ve grabbed my camera and my tripod, and I’m planning on taking some twilight shots this evening, which should be fun (still need to decide exactly where, though… we’ll see), and in general I’m feeling alright. I was sitting in my apartment earlier, fiddling with files and sorting things (still planning a full clean “soon”), glanced out the window and checked the weather and said “Fuck it, I’m going out.” And here I am.

I didn’t really mention it here, but I had a “date” last night with Avital, a cute barista here at Zoka. (I’m saying it as “date” because I’ve never really done the dating thing before. I asked her out, which sounds like a date, we had dinner together, which sounds like possibly a date, but we spent more time geeking than flirting, which sounds more like friends? Beats the hell out of me!) It was a nice evening, and it was especially nice to get a chance to spend time with someone on a one on one basis, considering other than a few brief occasions with Mickey (which I am likewise glad for), I really haven’t had that since I moved out here. I’m generally pretty quiet, but when it’s been a long while like this, I find myself talking people’s ears off, for better or worse. I was definitely worn out by the end of it… even when I’m a geyser of babble, I’m definitely still an introvert at heart, and it wears me the hell out even if I want to be there.

Animal Collective’s Feels is playing here at Zoka at the moment, and while it’s truly an excellent album and well worth my time to talk about, instead I want to mention this catchy little tune called “Young Folks” by Peter, Bjorn and John. There’s a music video for it up on YouTube (which is linked on their site), and it’s just an amazingly fun little song. The whistling is unbelievably infectious, and since it’s been getting radio play on KEXP, I find myself humming or half-whistling it getting out of the car pretty often. Go look it up, go listen, and then try and tell me it’s not good.

Breaking Radio Silence

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Awesome Tree

Sorry for the delay in posting — I usually post while I’m at Zoka, but their internet has been down for a few days (something of a comedy of errors which doesn’t need getting into, in theory it’ll be fixed later today). I finally decided it was time to actually pull the laptop out at home and do catchup on it. I’ve been experimenting with a new RSS reader found via the inestimable R Stevens called Vienna. It’s free, it’s fast, it’s clean, and the interface will do. So far, I’m really liking it.

One of the main reasons I’ve pulled out the lappy is that I have pictures from my recent trip to the Washington State Arboretum on it (“trip” might be more epic than I really intend… it’s like 10 minutes away). I’ve redacted and uploaded a dozen or so images from that trip, so if you like pictures of blossoming dogwoods and cherry trees and such, swing on through. I’ve been reluctant to go in and fill in extra details and titles with the pictures in the gallery, because I’m not sure if it would be a wasted effort if I end up transferring to a different gallery solution (ZenPhoto is currently in the lead for an alternative). We’ll see. In the meantime: the image to your right is this awesome tree in the Arboretum. The branches have wrapped around the trunk in this great pattern, with just a few branches swooping out and down (as you can see). I loved it, so I took a shot and tweaked it a little in photoshop (adjusting contrast, color, etc). In fact, almost every shot in the gallery has at least a little Photoshopping… but generally VERY little: auto color, auto contrast, auto levels, adjust image size, save as jpeg at level 6 compression. I’ve been fiddling with a few a bit more, but generally for the sake of play.

In other news, still no job, but my resume is updated and available as a PDF here. Critiques welcome. The lack of a references section is intentional… I have people who’ve agreed to be a reference, and I’ll happily provide that information upon request, but I agree with the trend towards not listing it on a professional resume. It’s a privacy thing.

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

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Springtime from a Zoka Window

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for blossoming trees. Maybe it’s because I’m a spring baby or something, but I totally dig the period of spring where the trees blossom and bud and just start to sneak out their small leaves. It’s been winter for months, and this revival is energizing, especially on those first few warm, sunny days that witness an explosion of life and growth. Flowers are blooming, and people just seem to be feeling upbeat about life (or perhaps it’s just me).

I’m torn on what to do with this beautiful day (we should have another 5 hours until sunset). I’m currently at Zoka (as the admittedly poor picture suggests), and while it’s nice to be here and perhaps get some writing done, I in some ways would feel remiss if I didn’t go out gallavanting somewhere with my camera in tow, and make use of the day. There is, perhaps, time to do both.

In a moment of eating crow, I would like to publically apologize to Mr. Samuel R. Delany, whose last name I’ve perpetually misspelled for the past decade as “Delaney.” In my defense, apparently it’s one of the most misspelled author names in SFdom, including by publishers, and I could have sworn the original edition of Dhalgren that I read had it spelled with an ‘e’, hence my confusion. Regardless, I’ve realized my error, and corrected its use in the prior entries of this blog (the only use of “Delaney” that will show up on a search now is this very entry). What sparked all this, of course, is noticing that his book on writing has been nominated for a Hugo. Congrats, Mr. Delany!

As a side note about the Delany-Delaney thing: When I got my copy of Dhalgren signed last year, he added an ‘e’ to the end of my name. Given that I now realize I’ve been doing the same to him for years, I find it highly amusing. (Little things!)

The Blue Heron Struts
The Fox and the Hawk Look On
Life Marches Onward!

March of Rainy Days

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Yesterday was my brother’s birthday: Happy Birthday, Uri! (I know this post is late, but in fairness, I did actually call him and wish him a happy happy yesterday.)

Today? Today it rains. It’s cool and rainy and I’ve chosen to spend it getting some things done around the apartment. Laundry, cleaning, unpacking, nothing spectacular, nothing pressing or momentous, and that seems to me to be a good use of a rainy day in March. I stocked my cupboards and fridge last night, so there’s actually food in the house (great opportunity to inaugurate the cookware I picked up last week), and… well, yeah, things are pretty good.

Across the board, really. The new Baha’i year started on the 21st, and really since then, I’ve been having a really good period. Sure, I’ve been going to sleep at 3-4am (even when I got to bed at 1 or 2) and sleeping all morning, but regardless of that, I’ve been pretty productive, and I’m feeling good about where things are at for me. I’ve started actually talking to people at Zoka, which is excellent (more on that later), and I found a job I really really hope I get (how often do you actually see an entry level position available for game production? Or any entry level game gig, to be honest, but production is the path I want to take). I finished my revised resume last night, and sent it and a cover letter to the company right after.

I got a call from a certain Fruit-based company this morning, though sadly not to offer me a job or a free computer, but still helpful for a project nonetheless. I wish I could say more, but decidedly not yet. If nothing else, it’s useful to start being known (and hopefully in a positive light).

I’ve been listening to KEXP podcasts since I woke up. I’ve already gone through their Song of the Day podcast backlog, and currently am listening to their Live Performances podcast. Let me just say, I <3 KEXP. I like their music, I like their mission, I like their services. It’s a damn great radio station, and I wish other stations elsewhere would get on board the cluebus and start offering broader ranges of music, and less commercial pap.

This disjointed post brought to you by the letters A, Z, and K.