(I originally posted this last night over on Poor Mojo’s Newswire, and thought that it might belong over here, too.)
Proof that Concealed Carry permit holders live in a dream world, Part One – YouTube
Over the Winter Holiday of Your Choosing we visited my in-laws–who live on a bunch of fallow acres in West Michigan–and I brought my pistol, a Belgian-made Browning Challenger. These .22LR target pistols were made in the ’60s and ’70s; mine was a gift from my father, the gun he learned to shoot on, and on which he subsequently taught me to shoot. He was the original owner, and bought it in the mid-1960s, back when these pistols were still hand-machined from a single block of steel by an actual human. Primarily I’d brought the pistol to my in-law’s because my father-in-law had recently purchased a Browning Buck Mark (which is descended from the Challenger, but is CNC-machined from 7075-T6 aluminum), and was curious about the comparison between the two. But also my son, who is in first grade, had taken an interest in the war games my nephews (who are older–middle school and high school) play on Xbox, and had been regaling me daily with accounts of the “HALO” games he and his friends re-enacted on the school playground. If he wanted to talk about guns, to imagine guns, to play at what guns are and do, then I wanted him to shoot a gun. He’d seen me shoot plenty of times, but had never pulled the trigger himself.
As it turned out, this foray was wonderfully instructive. We went out into the field, where my father- and brother-in-law have built their shooting range. The day was bitter cold. I hadn’t shot my .22 in several years, and it kept misfeeding, only squeezing off three rounds successfully (I later discovered that the barrel screw was a touch loose; these guns are accurate because they are built to tight tolerances, so even a little shifting will muck things up). The Buck Mark similarly misfed and misfired (although at a lower rate)–this, I think, because of the lighter aluminum unevenly contracting as it made the shift from a warm house to a cold field. But my boy got to shoot (with my father-in-law guiding his hand). And what he found was what is true: Shooting can be stressful. A gun–even a plinky little .22–is *loud*, and it jumps in your hand like something live and nervous. It’s hard to use; most of his shots sailed into the dirt two yards in front of the target, even with an adult steadying his hand. And guns are unpredictable: Many shells turned out to be bad (they were bought bulk, cheap), or were crimped useless when they were slammed crookedly by the misfeeding slide. And even though we were shooting at a steel target made for .45s, I broke the damn thing with a “lucky” shot that was a touch high and happened to catch the ironwork at its seam, sending the heavy target sailing away. Even this little gun was fearsome; it brought a touch of dread to the boy.
Because a gun isn’t a tool–it’s not a hammer or a drill that you can pick up, use to solve a problem, and put away until you have the next problem you want to solve. It’s an instrument, like a guitar or piano, it requires constant care, it requires checking and tuning before each use, it requires an intimate relationship with its mechanisms, with its parameters, with what it can do and what it should do and what it is meant for. It requires care and feeding. And it requires *practice,* near constant practice for you to be any good at doing anything with it.
It’s not a tool, and it doesn’t solve problems; it is an instrument, and it expresses feelings. When I’m shooting skeet, I have to feel that clay in my heart before I can smash it, I have to feel how it soars. The hard part isn’t the shooting–that’s just a swing of the arm and twitch of the finger; I never even think about it. The hard part is the *seeing*, really seeing the orange disk, not just assuming I see it, or thinking I see it, or seeing my idea of the disk and its location, but really and truly seeing the world for what it literarily is. It’s harder than you think, because most of us go most of our days without beginning to appreciate how little we see the world, and how completely we rely on our *ideas* about the world without checking them against what our senses are actually reporting. (In light of this, it should come as no surprises that the most natural shots I’ve ever met have all been artists, ’cause that’s the only other human endeavor that’s so much about perceiving the world as it is, rather than as we’d have it be.)
When you pick a gun up–just like when you pick up a ukulele or a violin–even if you are “just practicing,” you are saying something about yourself, about the world and your place in it, about the connectedness of things, about our human tendency to build things beautiful and destructive.
So the shooting–out in the cold, with real guns that were loud and destructive and erratic–was stressful for my son, and reminded me of the first time *I’d* gone shooting with my dad, when I was in my 20s. I’d never touched a gun–although he’d always kept them in the house–but I’d grown up an American, and so I had *ideas* about guns. And the gun I used that day was *his* preferred gun at the time, a Beretta 9mm. I couldn’t hit a thing with it–literally. As I recall, the paper target was entirely unscathed. And I’d had to force my finger to curl around the trigger each time, because each explosion was tremendous, each felt like the Worst Thing I’d Ever Done, and with each shot I couldn’t help but imagine that bullet tearing into me, piercing my chest, breaking my bones.
But afterwards, I’d wondered, and we went back with the .22–an impractical gun, in many regards, low-caliber, too bulky to conceal, the barrel long for accuracy, the grip thick for comfort and steadiness, the sights absurdly pronounced for a pistol in America. But it fit my hand like no other object I’d ever touched, and every shot went exactly where I wanted it, where my eye placed it. I never thought about my hand or my chest or my heart or my bones, just my eye and the sights and the target. Just the world.
After we were back inside and warmed up, I asked my little boy what he’d thought of the shooting, expecting he’d repeat what he’d said when he was three and watched me shooting skeet with my dad–“Too loud!” he’d cried, despite wearing my big spare ear protectors.
But he didn’t. He was thoughtful, and he smiled, and he said it was good. And since we’ve been back home, it doesn’t seem like he’s been playing “HALO” at school.
Anyway, that’s what this video got me thinking about, how maybe the most fundamental flaw in our national discussion about guns is that so many of us think of them as tools that we can–or should, or might, or must–use to solve problems, instead of seeing them for what they are: Instruments through which we express ourselves, for better or worse.
Category: Other Writing
Amanda Ghassaei 3D Prints Playable 33⅓rpm Records!
I printed these records on a UV-cured resin printer called the Objet Connex500. Like most 3D printers, the Objet creates an object by depositing material layer by layer until the final form is achieved. This printer has incredibly high resolution: 600dpi in the x and y axes and 16 microns in the z axis, some of the highest resolution possible with 3D printing at the moment. Despite all its precision, the Objet is still at least an order of magnitude or two away from the resolution of a real vinyl record. When I first started this project, I wasn’t sure that the resolution of the Objet would be enough to reproduce audio, but I hoped that I might produce something recognizable by approximating the groove shape as accurately as possible with the tools I had.
In this Instructable, I’ll demonstrate how I developed a workflow that can convert any audio file, of virtually any format, into a 3D model of a record, and how I optimized these records for playback on a real turntable. The 3D modeling in this project was far too complex for traditional drafting-style CAD techniques, so I wrote an program to do this conversion automatically. It works by importing raw audio data, performing some calculations to generate the geometry of a record, and eventually exporting this geometry straight to a 3D printable file format. . . .
In this Instructable, I’ll demonstrate how I developed a workflow that can convert any audio file, of virtually any format, into a 3D model of a record, and how I optimized these records for playback on a real turntable. The 3D modeling in this project was far too complex for traditional drafting-style CAD techniques, so I wrote an program to do this conversion automatically. It works by importing raw audio data, performing some calculations to generate the geometry of a record, and eventually exporting this geometry straight to a 3D printable file format. . . .
This is *such* a rad project! Clearly not practical–it requires a big 3D printer with *really* high resolution in order to get a really low-resolution version of a single song–but I *love* the whopping oscillation artifact that the process introduces to the audio. *That* has some delicious sonic possibilities, in my humble.
Here’s a very brief interview/overview:
I Have a Story in the Current Asimov’s! #scifi
“Table of Contents” – Asimovs
What with all the seasonal hubbub, I totally forgot to shamelessly hype that my short story “The New Guys Always Work Overtime” is in the current issue of Asimov’s (technically the “Feb 2013” issue, it’s on newsstands now and will stay there until mid-January-ish). It’s your standard time-travel/labor relations/supply-chain management/crappy corporate job/boy-meets-girl story, and leverages basically every bit of German I know (Yes, *both* phrases!) It’s available in dead-tree format only, which is actually pretty quaint for a time-travel story set in an iPad factory. Better hustle on down to your local bookstore and trade paper money for paper stories.
CORRECTION: Duh; things have changed a little since the last time I had a story in Asimov’s. The magazine is now available for Kindle with a *FREE* 30-day trial–so if you just wanna check out “The New Guys” you can do so with no risk *and* no leaving the house. Score one for leaving in the terrible dystopian future! Asimov’s is a pretty solid magazine–if you’re into “soft” SF–so it’s worth the $3 “risk” if you flake out on canceling the trial subscription:
Handmade Letterpress Editions of “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate”–THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT! (for certain persons of ill-repute and refined tastes)
Still looking for that literary, yet semi-obscene, gift to give to your favorite brass-goggled poindexter? May I suggest he or she might really and truly enjoy a personalized, handmade chapbook of my celebrated novella “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate”? The cover is handset and printed on the *very same* Chandler & Price 10×15 New Style Printing Press featured in Wikipedia!
The illustrated ebook pack is the same as the Kindle version available through Amazon, but DRM-free, and in formats suitable for almost any device. Includes mobi, ePub, PDF (in several print-ready layouts) files, and digital extras(!!!) Buying at the “Patrons” level gets you an exclusive, handmade, signed and numbered print edition (like the one in the pic)! Details on Pick-What-You-Pay options
Domestic shipping is free; international folks: we’ll have to figure that out. It’s a big, crazy world.
The Next Big Things: Authors Tagging Authors
I was tagged last week to participate in this “Next Big Thing” mutual-admiration bloggy chain-letter thing, where-in authors give each other the opportunity to talk about their upcoming projects. Much thanks to Cindy Spencer Paper–who’s currently rounding out her latest paranormal romance, although I’m a little more familiar with her for putting lots of steam in the steampunk (for which she’s gotten great reviews and high accolades just recently). At any rate, here goes for me:
A–Proud Flesh. An audiobook of a novella length portion of this–“Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate”–is also in the works right now.
A–I totally have to credit my pal and long-time collaborator Fritz Swanson, who first suggested the use of imported Chinese clockwork soldiers during America’s Long Civil War. This particular project is built around my novelette “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate” (first published in the Spring 2008 Paradox, and now available as a standalone ebook for Kindle and other formats). It concerns a clockie enclave outside of the town of Lost Creek, Utah Territory, and began as a riff on a Zuni Trickster story, “Teaching the Mudheads How to Copulate,” that I was writing as a joke to show Fritz. It sorta grew out of control, and here we are.
A–Steampunk, Lord have mercy on us all.
A–That’s tough, because the protagonist of the central story, Dickie Tucker, has been terribly disfigured. In terms of voice and mannerisms, I’ve always pictured someone like Nathan Fillion or a young Jeff Bridges. Maybe Alan Tudyk?
A–“Ne’erdowell crippled alcoholic Confederate veteran teaches clockwork battle androids to have sex; complications ensue.”
A–Undefined value. I’m currently unrepresented, and although I’ve published and self-published some of the stories that fit into Proud Flesh, I’m not eager to self-publish another whole book–just putting together the novella was a lot of work (fun, but still, a *lot* of work) and I have other freelance projects that have to take precedence.
A–I’ve been working on “Clockie America” stories since 2006. The first was published in 2008, and others have since appeared in Asimov’s and the anthology Steampunk II
A–Ouch. I’m gonna level with you; I haven’t seen folks working a relatively straight steampunk Old West *without* also having magical aspects (zombies, for example) or actually being SF (Firefly, I’m looking adoringly at you). Maybe something like Joe R. Landsdale’s short story “The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel” is closest, both in universe and tone.
A–Really, it started with Fritz’s idea of these clockwork soldiers as Civil War era munitions, coupled with the Zuni mudheads, who are, mythologically speaking, an idiosyncratic sort of ritual clown distinct from other sacred fools. They really are like bumbling robots. Once those pieces clicked, the universe sorta bloomed on its own.
A–Well, the current ebook editions of “Tucker” have original illustrations by Chad Sell (of “Rupaul’s Drag Race” fame). If I end up self-publishing the Proud Flesh, then I’ll be getting more illustrations done by Chad, because I *love* what he did for this story, and he has *tons* of great sketches I couldn’t afford to include. If I’d had the money, this novella would have wound up being a goddamned dirty-as-hell picture book.
Also, despite only being published in a small zine originally, “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate” garnered a fair bit of positive attention: It reviewed really well, was nominated for a Nebula (although it didn’t make it to finalist), and was up for a few other awards that honor fiction dealing innovatively with race and ethnicity, including the Carl Brandon Society Kindred Award. So, you know, it isn’t all fist-fights and dirty sex.
Thanks much to Cindy Spencer Paper for pointing folks my way. Next up are Fritz Swanson, Morgan Johnson, Ben Stroud, Ray McDaniel, and Jim Munroe.
STEAMPUNK III: Steampunk Revolution Launches Today! Features Fiction by Poor Mojo’s Giant Squid (as well as some humans)! #steampunk
We’re pleased as punch to note that today is the official launch (check out the cake!) of Steampunk Revolution–the third steampunk anthology edited by Ann VanderMeer (widely praised for the last two volumes in the series, as well as her past work for Weird Tales and on a slew of other anthos). This go ’round Ann is looking at the post-steampunk end of steampunk, the bits that push past the tight aesthetic focus on dirigibles, steam, brass goggles, and white people in Victorian England. According to Ann, breaking a genre’s most cherished conventions is about as punk as you can get, so that’s where this book aims to go.
Stories include an instructional tale for writers by our own Poor Mojo’s Giant Squid (written with an assist from Poor Mojo’s editors Morgan Johnson, David Erik Nelson, and Fritz Swanson), as well as fiction by Cherie Priest, Bruce Sterling, Jeffrey Ford, Lavie Tidhar, Jeff VanderMeer, and plenty more. Check it out:
For the squid-obsessed or steampunk-enthusiastic, I also have a different squid-themed story in the VanderMeer’s previous anthology Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded:
Does Cash Rule Everything Around Me?
Sorry for the late heads-up; we were traveling for Thanksgiving, and I’ve since had a congested baby (which is, bar none, the *worst* kind). At any rate, I continue to write a monthly column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. This time around I talk about why I voted for Obama, how he expanded the electorate, if you can buy an election, and what we should maybe consider focusing on at the ballot box (*hint*: It isn’t just the economy).
The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: C.R.E.A.M.
. . .
Perhaps what’s most emblematic of the progress embodied by the Obama’s re-election is how he pulled it off. Often elections seem to focus almost exclusively on first solidifying support among the party faithful, and then with wooing “independents” (i.e., registered voters who show no party affiliation). What was extra-special about the Obama Campaign – and resulted in both a tidy majority in the popular vote and pretty stunning chunk of the Electoral College [5] – was how deeply it focused on expanding the electorate instead of wooing the independents. The campaign sought out citizens who were likely to support the president but had never voted before, and brought them into the conversation. From a marketing perspective, this is an entirely different activity from traditional campaigning, because you aren’t seeking to shift an existing behavior (“Buy Coke instead of Pepsi!”) but to create a new behavior (“Go to the gym instead of standing around drinking pop!”)
So, that’s one last nudge away from sanctioning bigotry and assisting persecution: Bringing the disenfranchised into the national conversation. I can think of nothing that better exemplifies what our democracy should be about than dropping millions of dollars on convincing people who don’t think their voice is valid or valuable that they need to join the conversation.
In the days following the election, as I heard both the Romney/Ryan campaign and Mitt Romney himself bemoaning – and even demonizing – this project of expanding the electorate, I was left to wonder what the hell country he thought we were living in. Just to review some basic American Civics: If you’re running for an elected position in a democracy and your opponent can rally more citizens who agree with his views than yours, it’s your views that are fucked up, not the People.
. . .
Perhaps what’s most emblematic of the progress embodied by the Obama’s re-election is how he pulled it off. Often elections seem to focus almost exclusively on first solidifying support among the party faithful, and then with wooing “independents” (i.e., registered voters who show no party affiliation). What was extra-special about the Obama Campaign – and resulted in both a tidy majority in the popular vote and pretty stunning chunk of the Electoral College [5] – was how deeply it focused on expanding the electorate instead of wooing the independents. The campaign sought out citizens who were likely to support the president but had never voted before, and brought them into the conversation. From a marketing perspective, this is an entirely different activity from traditional campaigning, because you aren’t seeking to shift an existing behavior (“Buy Coke instead of Pepsi!”) but to create a new behavior (“Go to the gym instead of standing around drinking pop!”)
So, that’s one last nudge away from sanctioning bigotry and assisting persecution: Bringing the disenfranchised into the national conversation. I can think of nothing that better exemplifies what our democracy should be about than dropping millions of dollars on convincing people who don’t think their voice is valid or valuable that they need to join the conversation.
In the days following the election, as I heard both the Romney/Ryan campaign and Mitt Romney himself bemoaning – and even demonizing – this project of expanding the electorate, I was left to wonder what the hell country he thought we were living in. Just to review some basic American Civics: If you’re running for an elected position in a democracy and your opponent can rally more citizens who agree with his views than yours, it’s your views that are fucked up, not the People.
. . .
Oh. My. GOD: IT’S *CYBER MONDAY*!!1!
I’m not really sure if Cyber Monday is still a thing or not, but the gift-buying season has clearly begun, and I’m still a guy who’s got stuff you might want to give to the Special Ones in your life.
SNIP, BURN, SOLDER, SHRED
As of this writing there are two (2!!!) copies of my geeky DIY book in the Amazon warehouse, but I’m told more will reach them soon–or you can buy directly from my publisher–use the coupon code SHRED and you’ll save 35 percent, bringing the paperback price down to meet Amazon’s. As a bonus, No Starch Press throws in DRM-free ebook version (including ePub, Kindle-ready mobi, and a super-slick PDF) for FREE. Want a personalized, autographed copy of the book? I can hook you up!
Amazon reviewers have scads of nice things to say about Snip, Burn–all of which please me beyond all proportion:
“A great book for parents looking for new ways to interact with their kids.”
“I highly recommend this book as I know you will also find some great projects to try out for yourself!”
“My husbands eyes lit up when he saw this book! He couldn’t get enough of it. ”
“Highly recommended by this high school music teacher. Great ideas for student projects or even at-home projects with your own kids.”
“I highly recommend this book as I know you will also find some great projects to try out for yourself!”
“My husbands eyes lit up when he saw this book! He couldn’t get enough of it. ”
“Highly recommended by this high school music teacher. Great ideas for student projects or even at-home projects with your own kids.”
“TUCKER TEACHES THE CLOCKIES TO COPULATE”
I’m not 100% sure you can even *give* a Kindle book as a gift; if you can, then you can give my celebrated steampunk novella.
“A hilarious and moving and filthy read. Highly recommended for people who like intelligent fiction that isn’t afraid to get dirty and weird at times.”
“Tucker is funny, and dense, and more than a little dark, and engaging, cover to cover. ”
“A fun and darkly funny story that’s also strangely poignant. Good whether you like steampunk or have no idea what the genre is. Read this one. You won’t regret it.”
“Tucker is funny, and dense, and more than a little dark, and engaging, cover to cover. ”
“A fun and darkly funny story that’s also strangely poignant. Good whether you like steampunk or have no idea what the genre is. Read this one. You won’t regret it.”
If Kindle-book giving is verboten by Amazon, I can go you one better: I’ll sell you DRM-Free ebooks in all popular formats or–for a premium–a limited edition, handmade print chapbook.
The illustrated ebook pack is the same as the Kindle version available through Amazon, but DRM-free, and in formats suitable for almost any device. Includes mobi, ePub, PDF (in several print-ready layouts), and digital extras(!!!) “Patrons” get an exclusive, handmade, signed and numbered print edition (like the one in the pic)! Details on Pick-What-You-Pay options
STEAMPUNK II: STEAMPUNK RELOADED and STEAMPUNK III: STEAMPUNK REVOLUTION
If you dig steampunk and *also* dig books *not* printed in some guy’s basement, check these out. (FYI, my story in Steampunk II, “The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond,” is a prequel to “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate.”)
RECOMMENDED READING: Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike by Grant Peterson
Although this is framed as a manifesto by a former bike-racer-turned-designer/bike-populist, railing against what “racer mentality” has done to the otherwise universal American pastime of “riding bikes,” I’m *manically* recommending it to anyone who likes to pedal. It’s a great, great book: a quick, fun read composed of short, tightly focused practical articles. the book is *packed* with excellent advice on fitness, maintenance, bike fitting, and riding techniques. E.g., this was the first I’d heard about using your hips to assist cornering, and it’s *changed my life.* I disagree with him about helmets (since I started riding daily in a city full of drivers-from-elsewhere, I’m *deeply* committed to my relationship with my brain bucket), but his points about how to own a slightly larger slice of the road by giving the *impression* that you’re an incompetent rider has been revelatory.
I’ve never been tainted by the bike-racing headspace (I’m *waaaaaay* to lazy to be into competitive *anything*), but I read this book in a single day, and have been going back to it frequently since, applying Peterson’s tips to my bike, diet, and exercise regimen. Get a copy, read it, and keep it close at hand.
So you like what you see? Wanna read more? #scifi #reading
On the off chance that you come here for the writing (as opposed to just gawking at the rad pictures of my beard, mushrooms, and no-arm Civil War dudes), you might be interested in a few new and classic writings I have on offer.
If you’re interested in the misadventures of a land-bound, advice-tendering Giant Squid, check out the story Morgan Johnson, Fritz Swanson, and I have in the new anthology Steampunk III, just hitting stores now:
For those thrilled equally by ingenuity and the human ramifications of very clever clockwork robots, check out my novella Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate:
I reckon Mr. Nelson might be a bit wrong in the head, frankly, but the product of that disarray is quite lovely–tender, almost, but also sharp and perceptive.
A standalone prequel to this novella–featuring the parable of a tiny squid with big notions–is included in the VanderMeer’s Steampunk II anthology:
“Beautiful, often lyrical, frequently disturbing, always exciting, and occasionally even funny, but they’re also dense, literary, and trusting of the reader to be smart enough to ‘get’ it.”–New York Journal of Books on Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded