Archives for August 2008

So I watched the Democratic National Convention, which was often extremely moving, but what really struck me was some of the early speeches by the second-string politicians, which ranged from pretty good to kind of awkward. But over and over again you heard about some of the changes we can hope for from a Democratic administration. A lot of the speeches kind of sounded like this:

“We’re gonna stop torturing people, especially if they’re innocent. And we’re going to stop spying on everyone all the time. And when we invade another country, we’re going to make sure it’s the right country, and we’re also going to try diplomacy first. And when a natural disaster destroys one of our cities, when going to respond that very same day.”

I mean, those are all definitely changes I can believe in, but egad the bar has been set low. As long as we’re setting the bar this low, while we’re at it why don’t we send the bar on a suicide mission to restart the earth’s core?

I’m now planning to pop back to the East Coast for a bit in early October so I can appear at this:
 

Related Links:

* The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams at Amazon.com

* “The Skull-Faced Boy” by David Barr Kirtley at the Pseudopod horror podcast

* New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series

I’ve always found it immensely irksome that when you type my name into the Amazon.com search box, no results come up, even though Amazon sells numerous anthologies that I’m in and even though those anthologies are all tagged with my name. Well, there’s a new feature on Amazon that addresses this. Now you can go to the page for a book and suggest search terms for which that book should appear. I would highly recommend that all authors do this for every anthology in which you’ve been published (and for which you’re not already listed as one of the authors). You can access this feature by scrolling down to the section “Tags Customers Associate with This Product.” The whole process takes forever to actually work its way through the Amazon system, but once it finally does, you’ll see this on the page for your anthology:

And then when you do a search on your name you’ll see this:

Nifty.

Clip from Bill Maher’s New Film Religulous: “You Don’t Have to Pass an IQ Test to be in the Senate”

 

Here’s a conversation I had recently with a female relative of mine, who for her own good shall remain anonymous.

Anonymous Relative: David! Why haven’t you written a story about me? I’m always telling you to write a story and put me in it, and you never do it!
Me: No, I guess not.
AR: Well, why not?
Me: I don’t know. Do you think you’d make a good character?
AR: Yes!
Me: You know, good characters in fiction are usually complex and conflicted. Do you think that you’re complex and conflicted?
AR: Yes!
Me: Well, what kind of character would you be? I mean, say you had to describe yourself. Give me ten adjectives.
AR: I have ADD.
Me: Okay, that’s not really an adjective, but I’ll take it.
AR: Um, I’m flighty. I hate school. I always say exactly what I think.
Me: Okay, how about some positive qualities.
AR: Huh?
Me: I mean, what’s good about you? Everything you’ve listed so far is something negative.
AR: I said that I always say exactly what I think. That’s something good.
Me: Um … I guess it could be.
AR: And I’m a good friend.
Me: In what way are you a good friend?
AR: Well, like, if I want to say something bad about one of my friends, I wait until they’re not around, so they won’t get their feelings hurt.
Me: Wait, so you say bad things about your friends, but only behind their backs?
AR: Yeah … I also help people with their problems.
Me: Like what problems?
AR: Well, like I help my friend [redacted].
Me: And what are her problems?
AR: That she’s a total whore.
Me: Um … and how do you help her with that?
AR: I tell her to stop being such a whore.

“Heidi Dalibor was arrested after she failed to return the books Angels and Demons and White Oleander last year. “I said, what could they possibly do? They can’t arrest me for this… I was wrong,” Dalibor said. Full story Be afraid, Binkley. Be very afraid. Though come to think of it, I guess I’m sort of in favor of arresting anyone who reads a Dan Brown book.

Yesterday I picked up a copy of John Joseph Adams’ new anthology Seeds of Change (“Nine science fiction writers envision moments when our world could be reborn”), which includes original stories by Tobias S. Buckell, Ken MacLeod, Jay Lake, Blake Charlton, Jeremiah Tolbert, and others. I got a nod on the acknowledgments page, where JJA writes: “Many thanks to … The NYC Geek Posse — consisting of Christopher M. Cevasco, Douglas E. Cohen, David Barr Kirtley, Andrea Kail, and Rob Bland, among others (i.e., the NYCGP Auxiliary) — for giving me an excuse to come out of my editorial cave once in a while.” There’s also now a Seeds of Change website, which includes a nifty trailer by Jack Kincaid as well as free samples of the book’s contents.