Category Archives: Books
Perhaps it is a personal penchant for irony-leavened paradox that has me pen a post titled 2014 that turns out to be more a look backwards. The dash of irony comes from the explicit mention of not being one who spends much time looking back!
But, also as mentioned, there is a time and place for most things, and January is a more ideal place for that than you may realize. The month is named after the roman god, Janus, god of beginnings and transitions, who has both a backward- and forward-looking face. The turning of the year is the time and place for both.
So here is a bit more looking back and looking forward.
Continue reading
6 Comments | tags: 2014, blog, brown sugar, candy, Janus, Kinsey Millhone, Michael Scott, sausage, sharks, spaghetti, Sue Grafton, The Office, toast | posted in Books, Life, TV, Writing
Having penned a perplexing pair of Python posts and planning a putative pair of POV-Ray posts for the pending week, I feel the pressure to pause and ponder some other puzzle for a period. Like words that start with “P”, for instance. Or something more profound, like peas in our time. (And pass the potatoes.) Perhaps something personal would please?
I can’t write of cabbages or kings. I don’t care much for the former (except in egg rolls), and I wrote about chess yesterday, which is almost about kings. Nor can I write of sealing ships or sailing wax. (Wait… how did that go?)
But it is Science Fiction Saturday again!
Continue reading
12 Comments | tags: Captain Kirk, Frankenstein, Fred Saberhagen, J.J.Abrams, Richard Matheson, Star Trek, Star Wars, the center cannot hold, the widening gyre | posted in Books, Rant, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
November shouldn’t pass with just the one post. I intended a post last Science Fiction Saturday to rave about the new Doctor Who episode (celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who), but the day slipped to Sunday before I got the writing motor started. I’ll rave about it now: it was really, really good! A wonderful, delightful milestone marker and, as always, built on a damn good story.
I’ve not been idle lately! Dedicated post-retirement loafing finally shook the work dust off my shoes, and I’ve gotten back into personal project work. Seriously into it. In the 16-hour sessions, sleep and eating are unwelcome distractions, not knowing what time of day (let alone what day of the week) it is sense of seriously.
And I read some really good vampire novels!
Continue reading
11 Comments | tags: Amy Heckerling, Berserker series, Bram Stoker, Chelsea Yarbro, computer generated images, computer programming, Count Dracula, Doctor Who, Fred Saberhagen, Johnny Dangerously, POV-Ray, Python, science fiction, vampires | posted in Books, Computers, Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
I’ve gotten spoiled. Writing about the con carne topics is much harder than writing about the life stories and the off-the-cuff opinions. Meaty topics require research and fact-checking (and often I need to create the images). And I expect they’re also harder to read!
My intention here was always to write mostly about ideas with a fallback of writing about things and, to a lesser extent, writing about life (which is to say, about people).
Today’s post keys off a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon I saw a while back. At first the cartoon spoke to me, but the more I thought about it, the less I agreed with it.
Continue reading
8 Comments | tags: Dune, Fahrenheit 451, Frank Herbert, George Carlin, Ken Follett, Larry Niven, Lee Smolin, Pillars of the Earth, Ray Bradbury, Ringworld, Robert Pirsig, SMBC, Winston Churchill, Zen Motorcycle | posted in Books, Life, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Writing
“Whose woods these are…”
I’m still working my way back to blogging. I likely won’t be fully back until my work life is behind me, but I am getting past the shock of finding out just how right I was about management’s view of me. It’s been a week-and-a-half since I announced my intention to divorce them, and there has been nothing since the initial, “Oh, okay.”
It’s not unexpected. It’s not really even a surprise. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I’ve realized that I am going through my second divorce. And both times it’s been due to the perception that my cons swamp my pros (and my prose). What really stings is the sense of unfairness caused by so many others saying, “I don’t understand their thinking.”
Yeah, me either, but so it goes. Set it aside; I have some catching up to do.
Continue reading
13 Comments | tags: bisy backson, honey, Minnesota Twins, Robert Frost, snow, Tao of Pooh, Winnie the Pooh | posted in Books, Life
Back in the day, there was a comic strip that I really loved. It took place in the American old west in the small town of Conniption. The town was so small, it had only a deputy sheriff, Rick O’Shay. His best friend was a (reformed) gunslinger, Hipshot Percussion. The dance hall owner was Gaye Abandon, and the town doctor was Dr. Basil Metabolism. (Ya gotta love those names!)
The strip was called Rick O’Shay, and it was drawn by Stan Lynde.
Of course, we all love cowboys and the old west, but what made the comic a key part of my past was the spirituality of my favorite character, the gunslinger Hipshot.
Continue reading
36 Comments | tags: church, comic strips, comics, Hipshot Percussion, spirituality, Stan Lynde, Sunday comics, wilderness | posted in Books, Life, Religion
I’ve spent the last two weekends (and many weekday evenings) with an old, dear friend in a magical place. I can no longer remember how I found the place or how I was introduced to my friend. I do know that this year marks the 30-year anniversary of its founding. I think I’ve been here since the beginning. If not, it wasn’t long after.
So I’ve known and loved this place, and my friend, for long time. Remarkably, the charm has never left it. For three decades (or so) it has delighted me, impressed me, moved me and made me laugh out loud. It is for me the finest of the finest, my favorite favorite. There is none better and very few that come close.
I’m speaking of Terry Pratchett‘s wonderful Discworld books.
Continue reading
14 Comments | tags: Discworld, Granny Weatherwax, Lord Vetinari, Rincewind, Sam Vimes, Terry Pratchett | posted in Books
Most of us have traditional ways of celebrating or observing the re-occurring events in our lives. An anniversary might call for dinner at a certain restaurant. A promotion or sale might call for buying a round of drinks. The great life milestones—births, graduations, weddings, retirements, deaths—all come heavily freighted with traditional behaviors.
For me, an important tradition at Christmas time is watching—and reading—the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol! I think it is one of the most engaging, endearing, wonderful and important stories ever. It is a story of redemption and re-discovery of lost joy. And it is an affirmation that how we choose to live our lives matters.
Plus it has ghosts!
Continue reading
17 Comments | tags: A Christmas Carol, adaptations, Alastair Sim, Bill Murray, Charles Dickens, George C. Scott, Jim Carrey, Patrick Stewart, Reginald Owen, Scrooge | posted in Basics, Books, Life, Movies
If you knew immediately what the title of this article means, you are almost certainly a Star Trek fan. You also know that a full list should contain DS9 and VOY. (And that, actually, there should be a ST: in front of each of them.)
If this all seems alphabet soup, here’s the deal. They’re all three-letter acronyms (TLAs) for the six different Star Trek TV series. This first article today begins “Star Trek Saturday” (a one-time event) here at Logos con carne. There are two or three ships still in dry dock… (big voice: …In Space) getting finishing touches for a launch later today.
To tantalize your taste buds, I’ll just mention that they concern galactic energy barriers, transporters and replicators. Those are ships of war; photon torpedoes loaded and primed. There is a third ship with a different mission that may also launch today. (Tantalized? Terrific!)
Continue reading
18 Comments | tags: Doctor Who, Judith Stone, sci fi, science fiction, Star Trek, Stephen R. Donaldson, The Land, Thomas Covenant, trilogies | posted in Books, Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
It’s official, I really like science fiction author Greg Egan! He’s among the modern science fiction authors; his first SF work, the short story Artifact, was published in 1983, so he’s been writing SF for about 28 years. Like many science fiction authors with a science or technical education, he writes non-fiction as well.
And here’s the thing: If you like your science fiction hard, you want to know about Greg Egan. He writes SF as hard as any I know. For instance, consider a novel (Incandescence) in which a key plot thread involves alien beings discovering (Einstein’s) General Relativity in a completely different way than Einstein did.
He reminds me of Hal Clement on several levels, particularly so in the novel I just cited, as part of it is told from the aliens’ point of view (a common device in Clement’s work).
Continue reading
4 Comments | tags: Distress (book), Greg Egan, sci fi, science fiction, SF Books | posted in Books, Quotes, Sci-Fi Saturday
Logos con carne 