jasonfranks

I love the opening with all the scenes of cozy domesticity with those undercurrents of things not quite right.

( Spoilers are like siege gone wrong. )

Been a very good but very busy few days. First, Optical Sloth did what I consider to be a glowing review of the road to god knows... over at http://www.opticalsloth.com/?p=5712

The helplessness of Marie’s friend to do her any real good, her dad being unable with work to be any kind of full-time father to Marie, her alienation from kids at school (and even the teachers), all of these things would be bad enough. Throw in a mother who may or may not harm herself or Marie at any moment and who is incapable of being any kind of authority figure in Marie’s life and well, I’m impressed. There are all kinds of ways that this comic could have gone wrong, and Von managed to cut through it all and make an outstanding graphic novel.

Nice, huh? But wait, there's more!

Wanna hear me yabber? Heather Bruce, host of Sound Mind on the radio station CKCU here in Ottawa, was nice enough to have me on her show this morning. And I've already uploaded the interview for your listening pleasure, too. It's over at http://trtgk.vonallan.com/2009/11/ckcu-sound-mind-interview.html. What more reason to listen? You can hear me sing for a little bit right in the beginning. So buttons!

Von

I once saw a squirrel purposely do back flips in an effort to part me from a portion of my lunch. He would flip, stop expectantly, then flip again, gradually getting a little closer. It worked (though I have to admit, he was not much pleased with what I had to offer. He frankly looked a little disgusted that he had gone through such effort.)

I often feel like that squirrel (the flipping part, not the disgust ;).

As authors, our words seem only to mean half as much until they are read and appreciated by others. Achieving that can require more effort than the writing itself. It really can. But you know what, if you want more than just a book on the shelf, you have to put out that effort. Now I know this can be difficult given that I know more introverted authors than extraverted, but getting out from behind your keyboard and into the public eye is a necessary step to bringing attention to your work.

For about nine years now I have been driving up and down the East Coast on the convention circuit and to various author events I have arranged. I can’t tell you how many more friends I have, let alone fans of my work due to these efforts. But don’t mistake me. This isn’t just about waving your work around until someone buys it, author events (well, the successful ones, anyway) go a long way to revitalizing your passion as a writer. At least it does for me. Whether I spend a few minutes or a few hours talking to one person or a room of people about my process and various works I walk away with an energy boost like you wouldn’t believe. Some of my best writing is done after such events.

It’s about reconnecting with yourself, your passion, and your audience. It is often mistakenly construed that writing is a solitary venture. In truth, the real life of your writing is found in your interactions with others. I get a little scary, I think, when I am talking to a writer just getting started about how and why I did various things in my stories. I have benefited by the reminder alone of why I love what I do. Sometimes we forget what it’s all about…until we see our excitement reflected in the eyes of our readers.

Some authors forget this. Some get caught up in their own importance, distancing themselves from their audience, alienating others in the profession. I strive to remember that the only measure of my success is how connected I am with the reader. The only place prima donnas belong is ballet.

For more wisdom on writing, please visit the blog of my friend and co-editor, L. Jagi Lamplighter at http://arhyalon.livejournal.com.

Promotional News:

Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Neal Levin of Dark Quest Books featured in Publisher's Weekly Article:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6708822.html

TODAY’S QUESTION: What are you grateful for?

I am grateful for all the many ways God has blessed me: my health, my family, for some measure of success as an author. For the safety and security I enjoy each day. That I have a job that allows me to provide for my family.

The film version of Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats hasn’t arrived in Hong Kong yet, but I just recently finished the book, which I highly recommend. It is so jaw-droppingly weird that it’s hard to know how much of it is for real, and how much is simply the recollections of people who believe it’s real.

Of course, those of us who have been paying attention already know that some of it – like the First Earth Battalion, the MK-ULTRA experiments, loud continuous music as entertainment performance art enhanced interrogation torture – is very true.

Now more evidence of the CIA’s interest in out-of-the-box ideas has apparently surfaced: a CIA manual written by magician John Mulholland on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft.



It’s now available on Amazon.com.

Which is very tempting. But the conspiracy theory hobbyist in me can’t help looking at this and wonder if all of this is misdirection in and of itself.

One of the points made in The Men Who Stare At Goats is that whoever spins the story first dictates the narrative, which is why in the long run we look at stories like MK-ULTRA and goat-staring and playing the Barney “I Love You” song to Iraqi prisoners in shipping containers, and we laugh when perhaps maybe we shouldn’t. Is “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception” the latest example of that tradition?

Maybe. Maybe not. It’s hard to know for sure. Which is the point, really.

Which is why the other thing I can’t help thinking, of course, is this:

If this is what we’re just now learning about what the CIA was doing 50 years ago, what fun things will we be learning 50 years from now about what the US govt has done in Iraq, Iran, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and even on its own home turf in the name of keeping Americans safe from Teh Terrorz?

And will we still be laughing then?

Or am I ruining it?

Oh well. Never mind. I’m still probably going to buy me a copy. And yeah, I’ll probably check out the film too.

Nothing up my sleeve,

This is dF

It's Day Three of the Boris Karloff Blogathon and I'm going to confront the obvious. When Karloff took off the bolts, all the humanity left Universal's Frankenstein Monster.
I just re-watched the whole Frankenstein cycle recently (Halloween, natch) and the gradual evolution of the monster in the initial three films-Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Son of Frankenstein-is an interesting one, miming as it does the growth of an abused child into an abuser. I doubt it was intentional, but think about it...Karloff's monster is, in his first appearance, a stumbling man-child, reacting with a child's petulance to a hostile environment. In Bride, the monster comes under bad influences (Dr. Pretorious) and gradually morphs from the abuser to the instigator, acting out violently as he is once again rejected.
By Karloff's last turn in the flat-top and grease paint, the monster has become a full-fledged enemy of mankind, threatening, kidnapping and murdering. Yet there's still the trace of that original innocence there, in Karloff's hapless mimicry. His monster has become a man, flawed and beaten into animal viciousness by the world that rejected him, but still possessing those frail, early qualities. But the simmering volcano that Karloff gives us glimpses of in the eponymous first film has blossomed into full fury by the third. The creature is at last at full strength, at last an adult and at last able to fully comprehend what has been done to him. The rage on the monster's face as Wolf Frankenstein attempts to thwart his will at the climax of Son is a berserkgang worthy of Lugosi's Dracula or Chaney's Wolfman. It cements his creature-not Lugosi's, not Chaney's, not Strange's-as the preeminent member of the Monster Pantheon and a fixed point in pop culture.
But, when we lose Karloff, we lose the essence of the monster, this evolution. In Ghost of Frankenstein, the monster is little more than a shadow of itself. His interesting bits are stripped away, as is the physical dynamism Karloff brought to the role, and instead of a tragic hero/villain, the creature becomes an ambulatory plot device, it's once interesting spirit snuffed in favor of Lugosi's melodrama villainy. It's even worse in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, where the creature is stripped even of its voice by producers. By the time of the monster rallies, the monster is literally a piece of the scenery, with no more personality than a table. Karloff gets one final go-round with the monster in House of Frankenstein, but even he seems disgusted with what it has become-neutered, mute and blank, a void fit only to stumble into quicksand, or burn in a chemical stew.
I often find myself wondering what would have happened had Karloff stuck with the role? Would he have been able to elevate what was, in part, his creation, above the substandard stories and ridiculous premises?
One can dream, I suppose.

~


Welcome to “things that make me go Squee”.

After “cleaning out the pipes” yesterday by venting for WTF Wednesday, I'm ready to "squee with glee".

In honor of Pop Fiend’s attempt at decreasing drama for at least one day a week on LiveJournal by promoting “Drama Free Thursday” (for those who aren’t aware, my blog is crossposted to LiveJournal, my self hosted WordPress blog, Blogspot, and Facebook), I offer up my own “special” (in a rode the short bus kind of way) contribution, “Things that Make Me go Squee!!!

* Things that make me go squee!” may has become a regular Thursday spectacle production because “Squee” rhymes with “Drama Free”, and I’m trying to do my part.

I think that almost everyone occasionally forgets to celebrate and share good things. I know I do.

So in the spirit of putting “good juju” out there, here are the current things that make me go “SQUEE!!!”

I got to spend time with my dear friends Annie, her daughter Emily and Megs (who was out from Ohio) on Sunday night. We had an awesome dinner, champagne, and a slumber party (I can neither confirm nor deny that Megs ended up half naked)



My “litty sissy” Megs is getting married in May and I think I might be able to swing a trip to Tampa to be there



I know getting hit by flying metal on the interstate is a crazy thing to squee about, but I was so incredibly lucky not to be injured (or worse) or to have been in a chain reaction wreck.

Even more amazing is that the only damage was to my license plate frame, license plate and some paint scratched off of a tow hook.

I am lucky/blessed/watched over/[insert explanation of your choice here]…



I had a wonderful afternoon on Saturday with my friend Crystal at the HUB and took some very pretty pictures of her





Last night, I went to the South Sound Photography Meetup with Carla and met several people who will be good photo hike partners. It will be nice to hike and snowshoe with people who won’t be annoyed by my stopping to take pictures every five minutes.

Speaking of hiking and snowshoeing, I’ve got my annual park pass and my sno-park pass. I’m ready to rock and roll baby!!!



I finally “grew a pair” (of ovaries) and told the “ex-boyfreind” via email (if you could really call what he was a boyfriend) exactly what “please do NOT contact me again” means and made it more than clear that we are not friends and that he won’t like what he hears if he violates my wishes again. Then I finally blocked his email address. Because it’s “all about him”, he’ll completely miss the point, and reply to the email (uh, dipstick… that’s “contacting me”) to prove his point/make his case/blah blah blah…

Put a fork in me, I’m done.

speaking of forks…

I’ve got two Thanksgiving dinners to attend tomorrow, one in Seattle on the waterfront and the other back at Molly’s in University Place and then my big day after Thanksgiving Feast on Friday. I hope to see many friends, old and new passing through my home to enjoy food, drink and friendship.

Have a Squee-Worthy Thanksgiving every one!!!



And here are little smilies for all the squees left unsqueed





And of course, the greatest squee of all…

I am blessed to have really GREAT friends in my life

And you can see a lot of them here… (if I don’t have a picture of you here, send me one)

Insert “squee” of your choice here

I wish everyone a happy and drama free Thursday, as well as lots of things to go “Squee” over.



SKA-WEEEEEEEEE

Now, I've got to get back to work, break’s over so that I’m not behind before my long weekend.

~L

Mood: Gotta Squee







~

~


Yes folks, it’s time for my now infamous weekly blog feature (gotta “clean the pipes out “for Drama Free Thursday and Things that Make Me Go Squee”) WTF Wednesday.

WTF Wednesday is when I (and anyone else who cares to; a few already had an early start) get to moan, whine, bitch, complain and vent with impunity)

It’s when I sit down, make a good strong margarita (with GOOD tequila) sit around in my underwear and vent.

*OK, I typed this up last night and am posting it while on a break at work so I’m not drinking or sitting around in my unmentionables (but trust me; that will change when I get home tonight)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about supporting and promoting Popfiend’s Drama Free Thursday with my own “Things That Make Me Go Squee” and this is, in part, preparation for DFT.

I’m all about putting good energy out there (because what we put out there it what we get back)

But I’ve realized that in order to appreciate the “good” things, we need the “bad” as well, realizing of course that “good” and “bad” are shades of gray and that nothing is black and white. (and no one likes a “Pollyanna”)

It’s Wednesday, and I’m gonna bitch and vent about people that I like to refer to as “Cheetoheads”.

I wrote about this several years ago in my now somewhat famous infamous essay,

It’s only one Cheeto-A sad commentary on our society

Each week I give an individual or group the “Here’s your Cheeto award” in honor of the rude, obnoxious, selfish, “It’s all about ME” asshats that we are force to live, work and walk amongst every day.



Today, the “object of my objection” is

The Asshat Driver with the unsecured load on I-5 who almost killed me on Sunday night with a piece of sheet metal***Tacoma Metro Parks***Annoying Ex-“Boyfreind” Who Won’t Respect my Wishes and Leave Me the Heck Alone

Seriously, WTF is wrong with people?

There was so much asshattery going on this weekend (in only a 24 hour period no less) that I couldn’t narrow down the recipients of this week’s Cheeto Award to less than three. I guess that balances out all those weeks when I couldn’t find anything to rant about.

After receiving another box of my mother’s stuff, shattered and ruined, which made me very depressed and sad (for while, I’m fine now), the fun just kept coming…

So I present to you, the first (and hopefully last) Cheeto Triple Crown…

Asshat Driver with the unsecured load on I-5 who almost killed me on Sunday night with a piece of sheet metal You almost killed me, you almost caused a chain reaction crash and who knows how many vehicles you damaged.

For those who haven’t read the story or seen the pictures, they are here for the clicking…

There is NO excuse to be hauling an unsecured load down a busy Interstate. How in the HELL do you load and drive so poorly that a big chunk of frikkin’ METAL flies out of your crappy trailer into traffic behind you.

I didn’t get your license plate number, but maybe someone else did.

If not, Karma’s a bitch and I hope she slaps the hell out of you before you do manage to kill someone.

Tacoma Metro Parks

Oh, Tacoma Metro Parks.

You picked the wrong tax paying, park bond voting, donation giving citizen (on the wrong day) to harasses illegally. If you’re going to hand out copies of a code, you’d best make certain that you’re legally in the right (and you’re not)

Don’t you have better things to do than harasses someone taking pictures in their own neighborhood who is not bothering anyone? (here’s an idea, why not go after CRIMINALS who are vandalizing the parks, dealing drugs, attacking people in the bathrooms, letting their dogs run loose to harass people/wildlife and poop all over the place and other people who actually do harm to the park and others and/or their enjoyment of it

Once again, for those who did not read the story, it is available here for the clicking…

I have only begun to fight!

Annoying Ex-“Boyfreind” Who Won’t Respect my Wishes and Leave Me the Heck Alone

What part of, “Please do NOT contact me again?” was not made clear to you?

I realize that you think you are the center of the universe and that the only person’s wants/needs/desires that matter are your own. (that’s the biggest reason you are an EX)

Sending me letters, cards, and an invitation to your birthday party is “contacting” me you inconsiderate jerk.

If you would pull your head out of your butt long enough to pay attention, hey, try actually reading all the emails I sent you when we were allegedly trying to “work things out” you’d realize that you hurt me, more than once and that it ended badly.

We are NOT friends.

I have a rather high standard for “friendship” and you do not qualify.

Just because I ended things without drama does not mean that there isn’t any. If you continue to push, you are going to hear things that are not nice and that you won’t want to hear. Don’t push me

Oh, and you still owe me money you selfish asshat.

“Asshat Driver with the unsecured load on I-5 who almost killed me on Sunday night with a piece of sheet metal***Tacoma Metro Parks***Annoying Ex-“Boyfreind Who Won’t Respect my Wishes and Leave Me the Heck Alone”, this cheeto is for YOU!!!



And I have a suggestion as to where you can put it!

I think that’s plenty of venting (was it good for you? It was good for me) and I actually have more to “squee” about tomorrow than to “WTF” about today, so I’ll leave it there.

None of this is earth shattering or even life changing it’s all minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things.

But I had FUN venting, and damn it feels good.

With all that philosophical crap out of the way,

I introduce to you.. WTF Wednesday…

Because face it; life is not totally drama free…

Sometimes it needs to be all about (you and) me…

We must vent today, if tomorrow we wish to be genuinely “drama free”…

So that with clean and pure souls we can go “squee”…

When you feel that life has run over you like a big ole mack truck…

Pull up a chair, pour a glass and say WTF!?!?!?!

Get it of your chest now, make your soul free…

For tomorrow we will do our best to be drama free…



There, doesn’t that feel better?

Have a happy drama free Thursday tomorrow. I know I will.

Break's over, back to work with me...

~L

Mood: WTF?







~

...

...love the traditional Thanksgiving celebration brought to us by the guys at YBNBY.

...

Interesting post here by Christopher Butcher, discussing what he calls the 'Myth of All Ages' over at Comics212. I may not agree with everything he says, but it's all food for thought, I think. Check it out, feel free to comment.
For the record, I enjoy both the Marvel Adventures line and Simpsons comics, when I pick them up. I also enjoy Elephantmen. No reason you needed to know that last bit, I just felt like sharing.
...
What? It has a rhino in a business suit! Who can resist that?


See? Rhino in a business suit.

Please feel free to comment on the Twittering.

• 10:39 RT @BurnNotice_USA: Anyone who played soccer knows there is a long nerve that runs down the shin. Hit that nerve and people lock up in pain. #
• 13:36 What does it say about my day that Remote Control by Joy Division is the song that makes me reach over and turn the volume way up? #
• 13:38 RT @BurnNotice_USA: We've heard that Costco, Amazon, & Borders will have AMAZING deals on Burn Notice DVDS this week for "Black Friday". #
• 15:00 Oops. I think I just spammed my entire Facebook friends list. Only meant to select a few people for the first round of shameless promotion. #
• 15:04 There is an ABANDON: FIRST VAMPIRE Facebook fan page now - bit.ly/7thurH - still in it's early stages while I figure stuff out. #

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Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter and LJ cut just to be contrary

Originally published at Possible Impossibilities. You can comment here or there.

I recently watched the BBC series Lost in Austen, about Amanda Price, a contemporary London woman in love with the world of Jane Austen, who discovers, as it happens, she has a magic door in her bathroom that opens into the world of Pride and Prejudice. She and Elizabeth Bennet switch places, and soon Amanda finds herself fouling up the plot of her favorite novel, as her unconventional appearance and manners intrigue or infuriate everyone around her.

It was a frothy, enjoyable syllabub of an entertainment, a bit of Mary Sue writing on the part of Guy Andrews, taken up with zest by the cast. It’s like the make-believe games I played when I was a kid, inserting myself into my favorite books or moments in history. (Like Amanda Price, my presence invariably altered the way things were supposed to go — I think I once was an assassin who took out Octavius before he became emperor, thus allowing Cleopatra and Antony to win the war with Rome.) What was fun about this series was the facility of the plot: Andrews needed his heroine to go to Jane Austen land.  A magic door to Jane Austen land appears in her bathroom. Why? Who knows. Turns out it doesn’t really matter.

It reminded me that I just need to push past the hardest part of plotting for me — getting the plot going. How will I set it all in motion? I ask myself. Will it be believable? I didn’t have qualms like that when I was nine years old and writing a story about my friends and I becoming invisible through the means of a batch of pancakes made from an improvised recipe. I can be a bit more sophisticated about it now, but what I need to remember is that the forward motion is what is important.

So now that I’ve finished the second revision of Sliver of Light, I’m going to try to plot out a graphic novel that has a premise that is a little unbelievable, just like Lost in Austen the stories I wrote as a kid. I’ve been stuck, but I’ll get myself unstuck and just get on with it already.

Attended my first ever InDesign User Group session tonight. We got some explanation on how to link other programs' files into *.indd projects so that updates in their software-of-origin can be automatically reflected in the InDesign file as one goes. It is basic stuff and while you can do this with other software suites, where CS4's abilities are concerned...learning how to do anything the Adobe way after years of Corel is all still fairly new to me.

I'll be attending the November Comix Jam tomorrow night at the Shanghai Restaurant. Suzanne Marsden's announced that this'll be the last one of 2009, so...

Noticing that CBC's TV arm has improved its Nielsen performance of late. I'm glad to see it, and I'm also fully convinced that the privately-owned TV networks' leaders will never forgive this "sin" by the Crown-owned broadcaster against them. At least no more than they have any of the previous instances.

My favourite retail-bought calendar is getting the go-signal for a 2011 edition: Star Trek: Ships of the Line. Word straight from one of the participating artists, Doug Drexler! *happy dance!*

Sitting down to shut up for a minute...

ITEM: Cheap Talk has an interesting piece on pinball technology and economics in the 1980s – specifically, how the games Black Knight and High Speed changed the pinball industry – and eventually killed it.

Which is probably meaningless to most of you. But it interests me in no small part because I got into pinball just a couple of years before Black Knight came out in 1980, which not only brought pinball into the digital age, but also introduced the concept of an elevated playing area within the table and, of course, multiball.

Turns out High Speed – which came out six years later – was even more advanced, because the boffins at Williams figured out how to use the software to create dynamic incentives for replays.


Both tables paved the way for more challenging games, which was necessary because – unlike video games – the necessary skills to play can be used on any machine. On the downside, the more challenging the games became, the less likely newbies would try them, limiting yr traffic to the hardcore pinball crowd.

And so pinball became too clever for its own good, basically.

That’s too bad. I dropped hundreds of thousands of quarters into pinball coin slots between 1978 and 1999 (which was the last time the local arcades in Hong Kong had a working pinball game – they are gone now). It was money well spent.

Anyway, it’s nice to know some of the tech tricks behind it all, even though admittedly hearing tales of how pinball makers game the players is kind of like hearing about pro wrestling really works, or how stage magicians saw women in half. You know yr being swindled, but in a way that’s also what yr paying for.

Under the table,

This is dF

Malkin made wall paper.

( Larger version after the cut! )

Von

I am about halfway through watching the football games that were TIVO'd for me while I was overseas.

I came back from my trip sick to my stomach, as I reported last post. These games are only making me sicker.

Life is meaningless and has no joy but the Raiders.