Kevin’s birthday!
A very happy birthday wish goes out to my brother-in-law. I hope your trip to the Boundary Waters was fun.
An Icelandic Witness
The doorbell just rang. When I opened it, there were two squeaky clean young men in suits. Each had a little black name tag. Yep. Mormons. One of them started speaking in Icelandic and I stopped him. Turns out they were both Americans, California and Utah. Can you imagine? He was about to witness to
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A brief rant.
Gah. Okay. There are some amazing computer programs out there, but for crying out loud that doesn’t mean that you get to ignore the basic elements of composition. Nor does saying that your work is surreal mean that you get to ignore shading when you are using hyper-real stock elements from a program. Plus, it’s
Adding Injury to Insult
I’ve had time to cook lately, which has been a nice change of pace. Last night I made a Espresso Black Bean Chili that I’d discovered when I was staying with my folks at Woodthrush Woods. I really like this recipe, although I cut it in half and still have more chili than makes sense.
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Mirror, mirror
I went in today to hold up puppets for a photoshoot. They needed all of pictures of all of the puppets in all of their costumes. It went surprisingly quickly, thanks to the photographer and our wranglers and wardrobe department. The photographer was standing in front of a mirror, so I could see to focus
Soylent Green
“Soylent Green is People!” I think this every single time I see the box in the store, and I’ve never even seen the movie. Is it just me? I’ve got no idea what’s actually inside the box; I’ve just never been able to bring myself to purchase one, but they are everywhere.
Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror
Woo-hoo! From our first issue of Shimmer, “Nobody’s Fool,” by Ed Cox, got an honorable mention in the 2005 Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror! This is the first story we picked for the first issue. We are very, very proud of Ed. We also got shout-outs in the Summary section. Ellen Datlow says we’re “worthwhile”
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Review of Shimmer
Check out the latest review at sfrevu.com The new issue of Shimmer is an excellent one with a very good crop of stories. It is also very nicely designed for a small press publication.
Reading Aloud 5: Working with microphones
First of all, know that not all microphones are created equal. There is a huge, I mean, huge range in what they are designed to do. There are some basic things that you can do to enhance performance in a recording though. Sibilant and plosives. An “s” is a sibilant sound. Plosives are any sound, like a
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Meme from Electric Grandmother
Electric Grandmother has this posted on her site and it looks like fun. I would like everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions: no more, no less. Ask me anything you want. Anything! Doesn’t mean I’ll answer them in the way you expect. Then go to your journal, copy and paste this, allowing
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Bad Idea #2
Take an oil lamp. Light it. This oil lamp can not be tilted in any direction or the flame will “jump.” Which means that oil will pour out of the lamp in a stream of fire. Hand it to a puppeteer to hold over the head of two other puppeteers. Now make it leak.
Tangent Online – Shimmer, Summer 2006, #4
On Tangent Online, Jason Sizemore just reviewed Shimmer, Summer 2006, #4 Shimmer Magazine is the type of publication that you’re proud of reading in front of your peers. It is journal-sized, with an attractive, simple front and back cover layout. The interior has a clean, professional design. The font is eye-grabbing and large enough for
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Who thought this was a good plan?
Things that are bad ideas, #1. Take a rod puppet. Now put a cup in its hand. The cup is plastic, so you can’t pin it to the puppet’s hand. You must hold it in place with a complicated arrangement of thread and tape. Be warned though, that despite your best efforts the cup will
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The Oliver
Rob and I collect typewriters, and the Oliver, featured in this 1922 ad on Modern Mechanix is the prize of our collection. The visible action is beautiful and smooth. It’s so nice to see the original ad copy for it.
Portland schedule
I’ve got my ticket back to Portland. I’ll be arriving at 1:06 on the afternoon of the October 27th. Then, I’ll be jetting off to Austin, TX for World Fantasy Convention on November 2nd, returning to Portland on November 5th. Rob will come back in December, probably on the 15th. We’ll both be in the