And So It Goes: A Rare Glimpse of Kurt Vonnegut's Tortured Soul. By Maria Popova The equilibrium of fiction, or what the Occupy movement can learn from a former GE PR executive. Kurt Vonnegut — prolific author, anarchist, Second Life dweller, imaginary interviewer of the dead. And, apparently, troubled soul. At least that’s what’s behind the curtain Charles Shields (of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee fame) peels in And So It Goes, subtitled Kurt Vonnegut: A Life — the first-ever true Vonnegut biography, revealing a vulnerable private man behind the public persona, a difficult and damaged man deeply scarred by his experiences.
The project began in 2006, when Shields reached out to Vonnegut in a letter, asking his permission for a planned biography. From his uneasy childhood to his tortured divorces to his attempted suicide to his explosion into celebrity, Vonnegut’s life was an intricate osmotic balance between private hell and public performance. In a lot of ways, Vonnegut was an embodiment of the spirit behind today’s Occupy movement. Kurt Vonnegut Turns Cinderella Into An Equation : Krulwich Wonders… Man is a pattern-finding animal. There are folks who look at a scene like this... And what they see...is this... Or so I'm told. I'm not one of their tribe, but scientists and mathematicians, I imagine, do this compulsively. All of us, even if we have no knack for science, look at the weather, at our children, at our markets, at the sky, and we see rhythms and patterns that seem to repeat, that give us the ability to predict. Do any of us live beyond pattern?
I don't think so. Which he then did. Thanks to Hokumberg Goombah and Gig Thurmond for noticing this; and to Abstruse Goose, a web-based comic strip drawn by I'm not sure who (the author signs his name *******) for our bunny-eats-a-carrot illustrations. A Cosmopolitan Literature for the Cosmopolitan Web. Standing in Melbourne airport on the day before this year’s World Science Fiction convention, I found myself playing the familiar road-game known to all who travel to cons: spot the fan. Sometimes, ‘‘spot the fan’’ is pitched as a pejorative, a bit of fun at fannish expense, a sneer about the fannish BMI, B-O, and general hairiness. But there are plenty of people who are heavyset, and practically everyone debarking an international flight to Melbourne is bound to smell a little funky, and beard-wearing is hardly unique to fandom.
If there is one thing that characterizes fandom for me, it is a kind of cosmopolitanism. Now, we tend to think of ‘‘cosmopolitan’’ as a synonym for ‘‘posh’’ or ‘‘well-travelled.’’ But that’s not what I mean here: for me, to be cosmopolitan is to live your life by the ancient science fictional maxims: ‘‘All laws are local’’ and ‘‘No law knows how local it is.’’ Which is not to say that cosmopolitans don’t believe in anything. BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG » A Note at the Beginning.
I’ve been inspired by José Saramago’s extraordinary blogs, which he posted when he was 85 and 86 years old. They were published this year in English as The Notebook. I read them with amazement and delight. I never wanted to blog before. I’ve never liked the word blog — I suppose it is meant to stand for bio-log or something like that, but it sounds like a sodden tree-trunk in a bog, or maybe an obstruction in the nasal passage (oh, she talks that way because she has such terrible blogs in her nose).
I was also put off by the idea that a blog ought to be “interactive,” that the blogger is expected to read people’s comments in order to reply to them and carry on a limitless conversation with strangers. So, though I have contributed a few blog-like objects to Book View Café, I never enjoyed them. But seeing what Saramago did with the form was a revelation. Oh! Saramago didn’t interact directly with his readers (except once. . ) — UKL 19 October 2010 Actually, I don’t exactly have expectations.
Justina Robson: Home Page. Philip K Dick. Krumme1.fm. THE SKINNER. Neal Stephenson.
Iain [M] Banks. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot as hypertext. Vernor Vinge. Vernor Vinge on the Singularity. Vernor Vinge on the Singularity - part 1 of 2. Turned up to Eleven. We're about ten days away from the Doctor Who table reading. I spoke to the Director for the first time yesterday. And the script is pretty much the script. (ie, I'm about to send off a script to the Script Editor that I hope will be, if not the last draft, then the one that we go into the table read with). Technically it's probably the tenth draft, but I'm not really counting any more. (The "Cut ten pages" draft of the trip to Australia was the last one that felt like major surgery.)
Steven Moffat came to my rescue when I felt like I couldn't even pick it up again, and for that, he is a hero. It hasn't really changed that much. Anything that wasn't moving the plot forward has gone. The Doctor has just been given a bowl of something to eat. Is it something people can eat? (to Doctor) Shouldn’t you scan it with your screwdriver or something? Why would I scan food with my screwdriver? See if it’s safe? The Doctor leans over, dips his finger into his bowl, tastes it. THE DOCTOR (cont’d) No. Neil Gaiman’s MouseCircus.com | The Graveyard Book Video Tour Readings.
William Gibson. Neil Gaiman. Jeff VanderMeer. October 11: ANNOUNCING ODD?!! Check out the full TOC and more info on subscriptionshere. In addition to Amazon in Germany, France, and the UK, you can buy ODD? At: Amazon.com, B&N. And coming very soon to: Weightless Books,Wizard’s Tower Buy our e-books at Weightless Books or via the individual Amazon and B&N links below. . , Indiebound, B&N, Ziesing Books, Forbidden Planet, or your favorite bookseller. Welcome to Cheeky Frawg, where we specialize in quality, self-aware e-books. Our latest release is Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month! Buy at: Weightless BooksAmazon.comBarnes & Noble Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month, with an introduction by Danielle Sucher, ranks among the year’s most exquisite treasures. Our other books: Buy at Weightless BooksBuy at Amazon.com Buy at Weightless BooksBuy at Amazon.comBuy at Barnes & Noble Buy at Weightless BooksBuy at Amazon.com Buy at Barnes & Noble Buy at Weightless BooksBuy at Amazon.com Buy at Barnes & Noble Buy at Weightless BooksBuy at Amazon.com.
Huxley world v Orwell world.