Author: admin

I'm an ex-this-and-that, including software developer, computer graphics researcher, geospatial analyst, market manager, and technical writer, who now writes full-time when not reading, running a household, foraging for edible mushrooms, pushing progressive politics, or volunteering fsomewhere. I live near Boston with my wife, daughter, two cats and two old cars.

Discuss Among Your Various Selves

"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham.

Half my life is an act of revision.
– John Irving

I’m with J.I. It seems most of the second half of my life has been devoted unlearning the craft of writing. Despite having written millions of words in all manner of forms, creative writing remains tedious, if not downright torturous. When I write a short story, I can easily compile four or five drafts before it starts to look okay. My current novel underwent seven month-long revisions. Now I love to write, but this is too much. Hoping to short-circuit this busywork, I decided to perform an experiment on a human subject. I would observe myself writing to pinpoint where it bogs down by drafting a mini-scene and taking note of what I had to do to whip it into shape. Prompted by a short story I’m having trouble with, this text popped out of my head:

Continue reading “Discuss Among Your Various Selves”

Tout le monde méprise la politique

In honor of the French Presidential election and its resonance to our recent none-of-the-above presidential plebiscite, here’s a replay of my own October Surprise (with apologies to rap artists everywhere).

Come election time you’ll need some wine
to swallow the sorrow you’ll feel on the morrow
so bring the gang over to get a hangover
and to choose where to stand when the shit hits the fan

After taking the pitch, pick the creep or the witch
They say we must choose and that choice is a snooze
‘cause she’s almost adorable and he’s simply deplorable
and if he gets in the Russkies will win

Like, the media lingers on the size of his fingers
and so cheerfully rambles ‘round her various scandals
and if that nice David Brooks calls The Donald a schnook
is he not willingly chilling and shilling for Hillary?

The press treats her acidly but ignores her mendacity
and just like he’s saying, the pundits are braying
with perfidious chatter for his head on a platter
using words that were jiggered by invisible riggers

Whoever you choose you’re just gonna lose
so let’s take a gander at pols who don’t pander
with idiot tweets that ain’t got no meat
to get some advices on the roots of our crises

Now the Greens and Libs don’t traffic in fibs
but the press tunes them out, assuming a rout
without full disclosure they black out exposure
of third-party voices that offer us choices

We got Libertarians, the disestablishmentarians
who say wars are disasters and the Fed is our master
ignore Gary’s Aleppo—he’s not really a schleppo
he stands for the principle that profit’s invincible

The Green Party platform is more than reformist
and Jill isn’t green—she knows what we’ve seen
it’s one-party rule that takes us for fools
and corruption galore we can’t take anymore

So here’s to Ralph Nader and whatever crusader
will take on the system and help us resist ‘em
we’ll end the asaillance of domestic surveillance
and stop them from spending for wars without endings.

So do unto them or they’ll do unto you
there’s so much to do but do it will who?
just look in the mirror to see your new savior
and don’t kick the bucket before you say PHUCKIT

@audio: author’s voiceover of Sage of Wisdom from Exile, CCC by Seclorance

You Can Keep Your Money

Now that the Supreme Court has legalized political bribery and isn’t likely to overrule itself, seems to me the best course of action is to convince high-rollers that making huge political donations is not in their own best interest. Yet another Cowbird reprint, in honor of freshman Justice Gorsuch.

Revenge of the Rebate

Mark Twain once said “Civilization is the multiplication of unnecessary necessities.” He himself was a gadget freak who lost sums of money investing in goofy inventions but what would he say these days? Had this happened to him he probably would have written a letter too. Another Cowbird story.

Food for Thuột

When it comes to exotic foods I’m willing to try almost anything once. (Sometimes more than once; I’ve eaten over 100 species of mushrooms, 90% of which I picked myself.) And I remember being the only American at a conference in Manila once who was willing to chow down balut (hard-boiled duck embryos sold by street vendors working for duck abortion mills). They were sort of okay if heavily salted and washed down with quantities of San Miguel beer, and while I wouldn’t deem the taste indescribable I doubt you want me to go on about it.

In my never ending quest for exotic foodstuffs, every few months I stop by my favorite Asian supermarket to stock up on quirky condiments, sauces and spices, and replenish my ingredients for my healthful morning mushroom, ginseng, and ginger tea. (That morning slug may be the only healthful thing I do most days.) My mammoth mart is run by Chinese but features foodstuffs from all over East Asia, fresh, frozen, dried, pickled, and salted. There’s a huge fish counter featuring live prawns, frogs, and mollusks and three guys chopping, filleting, and gutting at least 20 kinds of fish (eels too!), a meat counter that I tend to avoid, and a selection of fowl that includes head-on chickens and ducks, gizzards, feet, tongues, squabs, sparrows, and some weird black-fleshed chickens I tried once and didn’t care for. (I hope the color isn’t something they put in their feed.) Continue reading “Food for Thuột”

Support Your Local Police

Among many other federally funded programs, aid to state and local law enforcement has taken hits from the GOP’s budget axe. In response to cries from conservative lawmakers that reducing criminal justice subsidies could unleash a crime wave, the Trump Administration filed legislation to take up the slack by initiating a new program called the Citizens Law Enforcement Assistance and Revitalization Act, or CLEAR.

The draft legislation authorized any US citizen of majority age without a criminal record to terminate any US resident having a criminal record or who is in the country illegally. After liberal lawmakers objected that this would be discriminatory, a compromise was reached. The revised bill eliminated the criminal record condition but exempted persons under the age of 21 from being targeted. Illegal aliens, however, were not exempted. Continue reading “Support Your Local Police”

Lights! Camera! Aristotle!

Having written a subversive action novel focused on terrorism that some early readers indicated would make a great movie, I gave the project some thought and soon concluded that my story was a natural for film adaptation. It has a simple, linear plot with subplots to spare and at least half of its settings were real places I hadn’t had to make up, with sharp, luminous details.

Suspecting that there was more to this I needed to know, I straightaway dove into the turbulent and treacherous waters of screenwriting, only to surface gasping over how ginormous and competitive, how overflowing with talent, copy, and productions the screenplay marketplace is. Not to mention the secondary markets for script consultants, synopsizers, agents, contests, how-to books, DVDs, webinars, and software products wanting to help you write screenplays that sell. Emerging from my brief and bewildering dip into these waters, it was closeup clear that to navigate a course to celluloid I needed to consult sage practitioners of the art. Continue reading “Lights! Camera! Aristotle!”

Catch of the Day

Flash fiction from a while ago, refurbished and scanned for malware

As usual, Max was working late. Not so usual for the pair of quality engineers who had invaded his cubicle, waiting to be noticed. “Earth to Max,” one of them finally annouced.

       “Sorry, I didn’t catch what you said,” he murmured, looking up from his tablet. His glasses were fogged from running through thickets of text and chasing after hyperlinks as he panned his face over to his two coworkers. His complexion seemed paler than usual.
       “I was trying to finger an entity that entered our room,” he said by way of an excuse. “Some of us think it’s an NSA droid.”
       His tone was hushed even though they were alone on the floor. Lakshmi asked “How can you tell it’s an agent, and how do you know it’s NSA?”
       Max glanced back to his screen. “It fits a profile, the way it insinuates itself. MrEd ID’ed it as the type that showed up in May trolling for Wikileaks sources.”
       Rob reiterated. “Anyway, I asked you how the tests were coming along. We need to validate the release tonight.”
       “It’ll happen. But this thing that barged into the chat room calling itself SkyRocket spooks me. Has to be disposed of.”
       “You’re sure?” Lakshmi asked, eyes imploring. “Can’t it wait?”
       “For what?” Max snapped back. “For them to bust us before we finish collecting evidence from the agency?”
       “About…?”
       “Can’t go there, Lakshmi. You know that. Just assume it involves the surveillance state peeking up your address.”
       Lakshmi sighed. “Okay, okay. We know you hack for freedom, but must you handle this thing now? We only have twelve hours to wrap testing and upload the release, you know.” Her fingers drummed out Helter Skelter on Max’s desk.
       Max was adamant. “Somebody needs to fire off Skyrocket, and I think I know how.” He punched some keys, stuffed his tablet into his backpack, and struggled up, his chair and his limbs creaking in unison. “Gotta go. Back in a few hours to mop up.”
       “Where are you going?” Rob asked. “Home?”
       “Norway, actually” was Max’s reply. “TTFN.”
       They stared after Max as he padded down the corridor. They had dropped by his cube to dope-slap him back to work. It hadn’t worked.
       Rob growled “I guess we gotta run his test code, if we can figure out how. Let’s hope it doesn’t find too many bugs.”

Max hurried through the parking lot to his car, unholstering his cell phone to dash off a message. When a response beeped he cranked the engine and lurched onto the highway. Fifty minutes later his wheels were two counties away. His mind was elsewhere, but the GPS kept him on course.

At daybreak, Lakshmi and Rob were still in his cubicle sorting through test logs when Max waddled in clutching a coffee cup.
       “How was Norway?” inquired Lakshmi. “Catch any fish?”
       “Big ones,” Max purred through a yawn.
       “Cut bait,” Rob demanded. “Where did you really go?”
       “I needed to visit a friend of mine. He has this really obscure tap into the Net. I couldn’t risk using my connection.”
       Lakshmi tossed her hair. “In Norway, right?”
       “No, but the proxy server we hooked into is, and it spoofed an IP address for us inside the FBI.”
       “Then what?”
       “So I suckered Skyrocket into a private chat room and told him Israel was collecting certain stuff they had no need to know and offered a few tidbits. When they analyze what went down between us, NSA will see Skyrocket debriefing some rogue FBI agent. Just a little red herring to keep them off balance until we’re ready to reveal all.”
       Creaking into his seat, Max continued, “Now let me run the other tests you should have done while you go fix whatever bugs you found.” Max—or at least his body—was back.