Links and Notes – Ecce Signum

The World in Many States

2020-01-07 John Winkelman

For the past twenty years Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky have held a talk over at The Well in which they discuss the current state of the world and what that might mean for future states of the world. The talks are wide-ranging and erudite, funny and snarky and depressing and hopeful and all points in between.

This is a list of all of the talks currently available on The Well. This is as much for my own convenience as for spreading the word. If nothing else the talks are excellent sources of ideas for stories.

A Winner Is Me!

2019-07-08 John Winkelman

So there I was, waiting for the holiday to begin and SUDDENLY OUT OF NOWHERE* there appeared an ARC of Jin Yong’s A Hero Born. The publisher ran a sweepstakes thing a few weeks back and I entered, as one does, not expecting anything to come of it. This just proves that hope is real.

The other two books in the top row are the latest from Deep Vellum Publishing – a collection of the poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Blood Sisters, a newly-translated novel from South Korean writer Kim Yi-deum.

The bottom row consists of my rewards from a Kickstarter campaign I backed back in fall of 2018. Zombies Need Brains LLC publishes anthologies centered on various subjects and topics. Last year they announced Portals, Temporally Deactivated and Alternate Peace. I submitted a story to Portals, which was rejected, though it was a personalized rejection so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

ZNB just announced the themes for the 2019/2020 collections: Apocalyptic, Galactic Stew, and My Battery is Low and It’s Getting Dark. The submission window will open when the Kickstarter launches the first week of August. Keep an eye out, and warm up your pens!

In reading news, I had a great, relaxing few days over the Independence Day weekend and dove into some science fiction from Patrick Tomlinson – The Ark and Trident’s Forge, which I picked up (and got signed!) at ConFusion a couple of years ago. Now I am about a third of the way through Rebecca Roanhorse‘s Storm of Locusts, the sequel to her excellent Trail of Lightning.

To keep myself on task I have begin transcribing all of the poetry sitting unattended in my (over 25 years of) journals. A lot of it is already in Google Docs, but the exercise of re-writing it by hand is useful for seeing where the poems can be improved and also gives me a sense for how my style and sensibilities have changed over the decades.

And maybe I’ll submit something to somewhere sometime.

* actually delivered by a postal employee

The Books of May

2019-05-20 John Winkelman

Some interesting additions to the library this week. I took advantage of the Mayday sale at OR Books and picked up some titles to help give me some perspective and energy in this, the most stupid and sadistic timeline.

The top row is all OR Books books. on the left is Beautiful Trouble, a primer for “carnivalesque realpolitik” which seems like a more and more necessary aesthetic as fascism reasserts itself in the Western world.

Next to it is Dream or Nightmare, an exploration of taking the struggle against ascendant fascism to the realm of stories and myths. This makes sense, as there are no rational versions of pro-fascist/alt-right/neo-feudalist thought or actions, so applying reason in the fight against right-wing theocracies simply doesn’t work. Fight stories with stories.

On the right is Welcome to the Greenhouse, a collection of stories exploring various facets of climate change. Also necessary, and not shelved in “current events.”

In the second row, on the left, is Here: Poems for the Planet, a new poetry collection from Copper Canyon Press. Timely, all things considered, and a good companion to Welcome to the Greenhouse.

In the middle is the latest issue of Poetry, which actually arrived a couple of weeks ago. I simply forgot to add it to that post.

On the right is the newest issue of Pulphouse Magazine which I hope to dive into this weekend.

On the reading side of things, what with upgrades to my relationship, as well as some upcoming family stuff, I have not had a lot of reading time. Still working my way through The Nine by Tracy Townsend, and so far it is excellent, interesting, and occasionally very weird. I am still also working through Jessica Comola’s poetry collection. With a little luck I will complete both this weekend. Then on to, uh, something new. Selah!

On a side note, last night I watched the season finale of Game of Thrones, and I overall enjoyed it, though it did have some flaws and the last two seasons felt quite rushed. Scientific American has a long write-up about GoT and storytelling which puts a lot of my feelings in context. Definitely worth reading.

Links and Notes for the Week of March 24, 2019

2019-03-29 John Winkelman

Fifty of the Best Poetry Books from Modern Authors. I have, or have read, only five of these. I obviously have work to do.
Fun Twitter thread UNPOPULAR OPINIONS: EPIC FANTASY.
Tor.com’s list of genre books coming out in April 2019

Over the past couple of weeks I have resurrected an old Flash experiment from back around, oh, 2007: The Lindenmayer Explorer. The image at the top of this post was created in the Explorer. Head over and check it out! If you create anything interesting, post it online and add a link in the comments here. Basic instructions are on the page. More detailed instructions and notes to follow.

Links and Notes for the Week of March 3, 2019

2019-03-11 John Winkelman

Big discussion on Modern Monetary Theory. I don’t have a complete opinion one way or another, other than to say that anything which is against austerity policy is prima facie superior to austerity policy. (from BoingBoing)
Tor.com is posting their monthly roundups of genre fiction titles scheduled for release in March 2019:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interviewed by The Intercept’s Briahna Gray at South by Southwest 2019.

Links and Notes for the Week of February 24, 2019

2019-03-01 John Winkelman

David Bowie, interviewed in 1999. Also an excellent example of the interviewee being much, much smarter than the interviewer.
Beautiful documentary on Philip K. Dick, from 1994.
A Study in Professional Power: Why Do the Big Four Accountants Survive? (Via Naked Capitalism)
The Magical thinking of Guys Who Love Logic.
The Anarchist Library. I will be spending a lot of time here in the coming months.
News You May Have Missed. And I will DEFINITELY be spending time here every day.
Thanks to the comments in a post on BoingBoing, I have become aware of the Citations Needed Podcast, which seems right up my alley.

Links and Notes for the Week of February 3, 2019

2019-02-11 John Winkelman

Excellent interview with Marlon James, author of the newly-released Black Leopard, Wed Wolf.
A conversation between Victor LaValle and Marlon James
If you have the time and inclination, you can listen to four hours of David Bowie.
The In Theory column at Ceasefire Magazine.
On Surveillance Capitalism.
If Property Rights Were Real, Climate-Destroying Companies Would Be Sued Out of Existence.
The Naropa Poetics Audio Archive – 5,000 hours of lectures, discussion and reading from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute.

Links and Notes for the Week of January 27, 2019

2019-02-04 John Winkelman

Why Marlon James Decided to Write An African “Game of Thrones”. The first book in the series, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, will be released on February 5. Have I pre-ordered it? YES!
20 New Books by Asian Writers.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the Cusp of 100.
Good, detailed Metafilter thread on the rise of the Young Left in American politics. As always with Metafilter, the comments are very much worth reading.
From TOR.com – Lists of books being released in February 2019

Links and Notes for the Week of January 13, 2019

2019-01-21 John Winkelman

China Mieville on his book October.
Via Bruce Sterling at the 2019 State of the World discussion over at The Well, Procedural Rhetoric.
From the end of 2017, Charles Stross talk at CCC. In particular, Corporations as slow A.I.s. (transcript here)
This is pretty cool: The World’s Writing Systems is working on translating all of the world’s writing systems into Unicode.

Links and Notes for the Week of January 6, 2019

2019-01-14 John Winkelman

The latest Metafilter catch-all thread discussing the state of US politics here at the beginning of 2019.
1.4 Million Floridians Just Got Their Voting Rights Back Today, Whether Republicans Like It or Not.
Five upcoming short story collections by Arabic writers. In particular I am looking forward to Palestine +100, since Iraq +100 was an excellent book.
David Bowie’s 100 Favorite Books, of which I have read 17.
Arundhati Roy explains How to Think About Empire in an interview up at The Boston Review.
A useful tip for managing complex writing and worldbuilding: Create a Wiki.
From the brilliant journal N+1: The Best of a Bad Situation. Or, what extinction looks like from the inside.