Your #FridayReads: Get THE SILENT HISTORY on your iPhone, enter the STEAMPUNK III sweepstakes, and more #scifi

Fiction news!
First off, The Silent History–and app-based serialized fiction project–launched for iPad/iPhone this week. I’m one of the “Advance Reporters” contributing to the geolocated “Field Reports” (as of right now half the stories located in Michigan are mine–all centered around Ann Arbor). There’s a nice concise description of the project over on Contents Magazine:

The Silent History is a serialized electronic novel that debuted this week on iOS devices. The story at its heart is big: beginning right around now, some of our children stop developing language, and no one knows why. The novel is an archive of first-person accounts told by parents, doctors, teachers, and neighbors, and they’re released on a schedule, one at a time, from the beginning of the epidemic through to 2043.
Orbiting the body of the novel are dozens of “field reports”—stories written by readers and connected to specific physical locations. To read them, you have to show up, device in hand, at just the right spot on the built-in map.

That’s actually the lead-in to an interesting interview with the project editor Eli Horowitz, e.g.,:

Once you start thinking about it, the project is full of semi-comprehensible little resonances like that. I mean, it’s a lengthy book about the failures of language. It’s an oral history about people who can’t talk. It’s a digital book that is dependent upon engagement with the physical world. Etc.

If you want details (or to get the app), check out the official Silent History website and Tumblr blog. There’s also a video trailer with voice work by Ira Glass (!!!):

The Silent History from Richard Parks on Vimeo.

Also, along with Morgan Johnson and Fritz Swanson
I also have a story in Ann VanderMeer’s upcoming anthology Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution, co-written with long-time co-conspirators Morgan Johnson and Fritz Swanson in the guise of our dear Giant Squid. The antho is sort of a post-steampunk re-imagining/re-examination of steampunk’s blind spots. You can buy it come Non-Denominational Gift Giving Holiday time, or enter the Tor.com Sweepstakes and win one pronto. Check out an excerpt from the antho’s intro and see what you think. FYI, I’ve got a story in the second antho in this series, too:
Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded
Finally, we’ve dropped the price on my novella Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate–you know, to celebrate Sukkoth, or something. Happy October, everyone!

On Building a Sukkah with a Six-year-old

It’s Sukkoth this week and, at the urging of my six-year-old son, I’ve finally fulfilled the mitzvah of building a sukkah.
Statistically speaking, 98 percent of you have no clue what I’m talking about. Briefly: Sukkoth is a Jewish harvest holiday. It generally happens in October-ish[*] and lasts about a week. To celebrate Sukkoth you build a sukkah (basically a little shanty) outside your house. This is because the ancient Hebrews lived in towns, with their fields held communally elsewhere. During harvest they’d build little shanty encampments out in the fields, rather than schlepping back and forth every evening. Building a sukkah is a reminder that this is how folks lived before CSAs and office jobs; eating dinner and chilling out in the sukkah is de rigueur (and likewise a “mitzvah,” a word many folks erroneously translate as “good deed.” Mitzvot are, literally, “commandments.” Just let that sink in. The Lord said unto us “Listen, I need you to build some shanties, and to drink beer and stuff in them. Amen.”)

The qualifications for a sukkah are pretty loose: It needs to be big enough for at least one person to sit in it comfortably (technically the minimum size is seven “handbreadths” deep by seven wide by 10 tall, or roughly 2.5″x2.5″x3″ [!!!]), it needs to be open on one side, it needs to have walls that can “withstand the wind,” and it needs to have a roof that is 1) made of natural materials and 2) blocks half the sunlight in daytime, yet still makes it possible to see the stars at night.
Inspired by several picture books, his religious school, and a local sukkah contest, my son got very hyped on building a sukkah. So, we headed down to the lumber yard, got a dozen six-footers (actually, for supply and cost reasons, we got six 12-footers and had the yard cut them in half, but you get the picture), and then went home and built this slightly modified cube (you’ll note that we transposed one 2×4 from the threshold, instead using it to stabilize the roof). The walls are scrap lumber that was left in our garage by the previous owners (when we moved in a decade ago) and leftover canvas from the PVC Teepee project in Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred. The roof is a base of jute twin piled high with wildflowers harvested from the yard of the abandoned house next door.

All told, it took us a couple hours spread over two days to erect this, and a very limited assortment of hand tools (a saw, power drill, hammer, a rag-tag fistful of mismatched nails, some decking screws, and a stapler). Cost: about $20.
This is certainly a project that requires a little care–you can rip up a finger with a power drill, and even a janky little stick-frame shanty can give you a good clunk if it keels over–but it’s one that basically any first-grader can assist on. Two lessons naturally arise in the process:

  • 1) Don’t Be an “Idea Guy”: I help maintain a coworking community and clubhouse here in Ann Arbor. We occasionally get “Idea Guys” who come through looking for skilled folks to join them and execute their “million dollar” ideas. We have a saying about guys like this: “An Idea Guy is worth -$35,000 per year.” Idea Guys fail to note two facts of the universe: 1) Ideas are cheap; *everyone* has ideas. 2) Ideas have no inherent value; what’s valuable is the execution of an idea. Since we’ve increasingly trimmed hands-on activities for kids from our schools, it’s really easy for a school-age child to have no real sense of the complicated, visceral connection between that Ideal Idea and the Real World Execution. Given these constraints (or, really, lack of experience with constraints), a kid is going to approach the sukkah project–which is half arts-n-crafts, half rudimentary structural engineering–with lots of infeasible ideas. This is a great chance to for him or her to a) see how material realities force us to modify and revise our plans and b) learn that “Idea Guy” isn’t a job; you’re either swinging a hammer and sorting nails, or you’re not on the project.
  • 2) The Naming of Things: The whole point of being mom’s/dad’s project helper is that you get an introduction to each tool and its use. Sukkah construction included coverage of philips vs. flathead screws, types of nails, safe operation of a power drill, rip saws vs. crosscut saws, 2x4s/dimensional lumber, and why you shouldn’t buy cheap framing lumber–which I had nonetheless done, because *$20* for 72 running feet of lumber!!! Who can beat that price?
    Finally, my wife–who is not Jewish–*loves* the way the roof changes as the sky changes, and insisted I include at least one picture of this. So, here’s a shot from this morning. The Michigan sky is a featureless grey mat, and the roof itself had taken a beating in an early-morning rainstorm:

    Continue reading “On Building a Sukkah with a Six-year-old”

    • Cardboard Bikes!

    Made In Israel: Recycled Cardboard Bicycle F $9 | Environment News

    The primary use, like any bicycle, is to prevent pollution while encouraging physical activity and exercise. In an interview with Newsgeek, Gafni said that the production cost for his recycled bicycles is around $9-12 each, and he estimates it could be sold to a consumer for $60 to 90, depending on what parts they choose to add.
    . . .
    Judging based on the prototypes leaning on the wall during the interview with Gafni, it seems that his hard work paid off. The prototype in the room was impressive. It was hard to believe there was any relationship between that bicycle and cardboard. The bicycle is coated with a strong solid layer of brown and white material, making the finished product look like it is made of hard lightweight plastic.
    In Tel Aviv, for example, where all but a few cyclists have had their bikes stolen at some point, low-cost bikes are all the more attractive and also weaken the sting of a steal. If the bicycle costs less than the lock required to keep it safe, the appeal and potential profit from stealing a bicycle are significantly reduced.

    And this bike has a cardboard transmission! *SO RAD!*

    We think of cardboard as cheap, throwaway stuff, which is why a project like this is so worthwhile: it reminds us that cardboard, when treated properly, is really no different from any other particle board (such as MDF–which, off-gassing concerns aside, is a wonderful building material, and a great use of what was once thought of as useless byproduct). All of this puts me in the mind cellulose nano crystals, a sort of refined wood pulp that shows good potential as a multi-use material for everything from grocery sacks to ballistic barriers.

    My Latest Column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle, on School Busing and Its Ramifications

    I continue to write a column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. It’s a small-town kinda column, ’cause we’re sort of a small town, but it’s also got an egregious deployment of number theory and nested footnotes, ’cause it’s a small town with a big damn university crammed into it. Anyway, this month we meditate on America, austerity, education, efficiency, transience, transportation, and the Traveling Salesman Problem–but, you know, it’s all *for the kids* and their *FUTURES!!!*
    The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: School Transportation

    . . .
    If you’re looking to so weaken a society that you can drown it in a bathtub, I suppose you have two options: You can hammer on it with artillery and air raids until it is too shattered and skittish to get out of bed and get anything done, or you can slowly bleed it dry with a million little, seemingly insignificant mosquito bites.
    No one flees their homeland over mosquitoes. No one takes up arms against a sea of mosquitoes. We just slap and scratch and kvetch and toss and turn and keep on keeping on.
    Until one day we collapse, probably while carrying our kindergartners to school.
    . . .

    Not-OK Craft Project Alert!!!


    Although, let’s be fair: Dogs being how they are, Rex probably thinks this is *rad* as *HELL!!!* This reminds me of when I was little and we all thought garbageman was the raddest possible job, on account you got to ride around clinging to the back of the truck. Now, of course, we all know better: Garbageman isn’t the raddest job because you get to cling for dear life to a truck; it’s the raddest job because you are vital to city life, and earn benefits, a living wage, and have a modicum of job security.

    Got Maggots in Your Compost?

    Ugh! I know, gross as Hell, right? And the compost–which is normally devoid of any smell, and certainly not offensively odorous–had taken on a distinct “bad septic field” aroma. It . . . it was pretty not OK (although the maggots seemed happy). But, as it turns out, maggots in your compost aren’t disastrous, they are tiny messengers.

    I’m not a passionate compost evangelist–am, in fact, a pretty mediocre and neglectful gardener–but I like minimizing our garbage output, and I like the fact that a few scoops of our kitchen compost, when dumped into a pot with some soil, reliably produces volunteer kale and tomatoes. Since volunteers self-select for heartiness, and because all the seeds are coming from food I already ate and enjoyed–well, I’m basically guaranteed a free, low-effort crop of things I like. This is all I want from gardening. So, I was upset–in addition to being at least a little totally grossed out–when maggots infested my free lunch.
    I’d always been told that maggots in your compost were basically cataclysmic, that this indicated that someone had tossed meat or grease or lard or bones in there. Maggoty compost, I’d been assured, was unrecoverable, likely harbored food-born pathogens, and you’d need to dispose of the whole batch and start over. A little poking around online wasn’t terribly helpful: A few sites indicated that *some* maggots were beneficial–specifically the big, biting horseflies–while others (like the common houseflies I was supporting) were still Bad News. But I really didn’t want to start over, so I kept digging and, with the help of several Ag Extension websites confirmed that maggots are totally benign.

    If you have maggots–any sorts of maggots–in your compost, what it indicates is that your pile isn’t getting turned enough (unlikely in my case, as I use a Tumbleweed compost bin–both a design and a brand I heartily recommend), or is too wet (which this poop-stinky pile certainly was; it was a mucky mess). So, I tossed in just a few scoops of top soil and pine needles (i.e., the dirt right next to the compost in–remember, I’m really lazy), gave her a tumble, and two days later:
    *BOOM*
    No smell, no maggots, back to business as usual.

    White House Ale and a Short Lil Diatribe on Keeping It Simple

    I know I’m about a week late on the White House Beer Recipe story, but I wanted to chime in just in case anyone missed it:
    Ale to the Chief: White House Beer Recipe | The White House

    (I’m including the recipe for the Honey Ale below because it looks better to me, but this PDF of the beer recipes includes both.)

    I brew a bit, and am constantly annoyed by how meaninglessly technical homebrewing is. This is a prime example of hobbyists getting so wrapped up in gear and minutia that they out-professional professionals and out-tradition the traditions themselves. This is especially true with beer, which is why I stick to wine–incidentally, brewing it in plastic buckets and glass jugs using plain-old bread yeast. With my hardware-store gear I have roughly the same success rate as any other novice homebrewer–which means some recipes and batches are shockingly good, others skunk vinegar. But, seeing as how my way costs about 15 cents per bottle, I’m fine with a few batches that go straight into the compost.
    These recipes are pretty straightforward, but still strike me as a bit dandified, so I offer you this, the bare-bonesiest beer recipe I’ve yet found. I haven’t tested it yet, but it’s on my list for this fall. I’ll report back when I do–and if you happen to give this recipe or the White House Ale a try, howsabout you tell me how that goes?

    Attention Freelancers: Even in Brooklyn a Robin Isn’t a Pigeon

    Don’t Get Screwed Over on “What it feels like to be a freelancer”:

    This is actually a splashy little viral landing page for Docracy, an open legal documents clearinghouse (especially handy for the freelancers out there):

    In six years of freelancing, I’ve only had one client pull payment shenanigans like these–but, predictably, it was for over a grand, and it was a *helluva* hassle. Let the freelancer beware.

    Come to the *ONLY* Midwestern Screening of the Lo-Fi Sci-Fi Mockumentary GHOSTS WITH S#!T JOBS!

    We still have seats open for the September 9 Ann Arbor screening of the award-winning sci-fi mockumentary GHOSTS WITH S#!T JOBS. We’d love to have a capacity crowd, and this is cleraly pretty short notice, so please feel free to post, repost, share, reshare, double-share, tweet, heptotweet, gurgle, snuggle, and shout these details from the rooftops of your choosing:
    GHOSTS WITH S#!T JOBS
    By 2040 the North American economy has collapsed and most Americans and Canadians subsist on crappy jobs outsourced by the rich industrialized nations of Asia.  The mockumentary GHOSTS WITH S#!T JOBS presents itself as a Chinese documentary exploring the plight of these workers, called “ghosts” (the Cantonese slang “gweilo”–an existing Chinese dysphemism for non-Asian foreigners), which include under-employed roboticists, human spam, digital janitors, and migrants who gather the silk of the giant mutant spiders infesting Toronto.

    “Ingenious—a gripping movie that uses cleverness, not CGI, to paint a vivid and satirical future.”—Cory Doctorow

    This darkly comedic look at the world our children will inherit won Best Feature Film at the 2012 London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film and and was produced for under $4000 (!!!) Filmmakers Jim Munroe and Anthony Cortese will be on hand for a Q&A after the film.
    The only midwestern screening of this award-winning sci-fi mockumentary will be in Ann Arbor on Sunday, September 9.  

  • WHEN: Sunday September 9 @ 7pm
  • WHERE: Workantile (118 S. Main St., Ann Arbor)
  • COST: Pay what you choose, but limited seating; please RSVP (suggested donation $5-ish)
  • RSVP: dave[AT]davideriknelson[DOT]com
  • More info: http://poormojo.org/Ghosts/
  • Print-&-Post Flyer: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12504841/gwsj-flyer-AA.pdf
  • E-Z Tweet: “Still seats left for the Sept. 9 #AnnArbor screening of GHOSTS WITH S#!T JOBS! RSVP ASAP! Details: http://poormojo.org/Ghosts/”

    • Rolling Green Iron: The Sol Food Mobile Farm


    A few weeks back this big red school bus cruised past my house just after dinnertime, so the baby and I went pounding out the side door to chase it down. Turns out this is the Sol Food Mobile Farm: a standard International Blue Bird school bus that’s been completely refurbed as mobile living quarters and greenhouse (!!!) by some very pleasant folks from North Carolina. Dylan Hammond–a soft-spoken young carpenter and sustainable agriculture enthusiast–was kind enough to give me the grand tour, despite the fact that I came sprinting up out of the dusk demanding answers, barefoot, smelling of beer and stir fry, and bearing a groggy infant.
    My dim snapshot gives you no sense how wonderful this bus is–and I’m somewhat of a connoisseur of half-cocked hipped school-bus schemes. The interior has been entirely gutted (saved for a few of the bench seats, reoriented to form part of the dinning and social area at the front of the bus), and outfitted not just with the necessities (four bunks, a kitchenette, the aforementioned greenhouse, which occupies the back third of the bus, where the roof has been replaced with curved acrylic), but also with *panache*: maple cabinets and hardwood floors (scrounged from some of Dylan’s construction gigs), a really roomy kitchen/dining/lounge with a small library, and a living roof of succulents (I even got to climb on top of the bus with my baby girl and check it out!) All of this, conveniently, rendered the former commercial vehicle a “camper” in the eyes of the law, meaning that none of the Sol Food folk needed to have CDLs to drive the thing.
    The mods didn’t stop at the aesthetic and horticultural: the bus is also outfitted with a rain-water collection and recycling system (in theory–and in less drought-stricken seasons–all of their irrigation and potable water needs can be met by their onboard cisterns), and a full engine conversion so that they can–and do–run entirely on used fryer grease.
    We’ve had a terribly dry summer here in Ann Arbor (like much of the country, we’re suffering historic drought conditions), so our garden’s showing has been pitiful. Meanwhile, the bus’s greenhouse had some of the largest, most productive tomato and cuke plants I’ve ever seen in my life. “People crassly imply we’re growing marijuana,” Dylan replied evenly when I asked what question he was most sick of fielding–and I hear where he’s coming from: What kind of idiots would build a grow operation that crosses state lines in plain sight? *sheesh*
    The Sol Food folks are currently touring the US in a great 10,000(!!!) mile loop, spreading the gospel of hyper-local, totally sustainable, totally delicious agriculture. They’ve been on the road since June (they just hit Yellowstone!), and plan to continue rolling through most of December. If you’re so inclined, you can support their project here.