By Cory Doctorow at 2:23 pm Saturday, Jul 12
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I just spent ten minutes cracking up in a bookstore over a copy of Goodnight Bush, a satirical remix of the classic
Goodnight Moon that wishes the Commander-in-Chief a hearty farewell (and don't let the door of history hit you in the ass on the way out). I couldn't take a copy home because all the store's copies were spoken for -- apparently they can't keep it on the shelf.
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By Cory Doctorow at 2:18 pm Saturday, Jul 12
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Science fiction writer Elizabeth Hand has written a thoroughgoing and thoughtful eulogy for Thomas M Disch for Salon today; Disch, one of the grand talents of science fiction, committed suicide on July 4.
Few people make a successful career of contemplating death and suicide; fewer still approach the subject with the genuine ebullience and elegant despair of the prolific, criminally underappreciated writer Thomas M. Disch, who shot himself in his Union Square apartment, in New York, on the Fourth of July. Disch was a seminal figure in science fiction's New Wave, the iconoclastic 1960s movement that gave the genre a literary pedigree and popularized the term "speculative fiction." His books influenced writers such as William Gibson and Jonathan Lethem; his dystopias "Camp Concentration" and "334" are considered science fiction classics, along with his greatest novel, "On Wings of Song," a beautiful, dark meditation on the power and limits of transcendence through art.
An openly gay man for most of his working life, Disch wrote mysteries, historical novels and neo-gothic satires; children's books, including "The Brave Little Toaster" and its sequel; at least five collections of short fiction; 15 volumes of poetry, always as Tom Disch; plays and libretti; four volumes of nonfiction; screen adaptations, novelizations and one of the first interactive computer games. He edited anthologies; he wrote book reviews, theater reviews, art reviews, music reviews. He wrote collaboratively and pseudonymously; he kept a popular blog, Endzone, in which he shared new poems, some unpleasant post-9/11 screeds, and witty discourses on the meaninglessness and minutiae of life. In his most recent novel, he wrote in the voice of God, and on his publisher's Web site answered questions from readers. He wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, for the sheer joy of it and for an even more primal impulse: to tell a story to the dark.
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See also: RIP, Thomas M Disch
By Cory Doctorow at 2:16 pm Saturday, Jul 12
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Mousewrites sez, "Steampunkwallpaper.com is a collection of wallpapers with a steampunky theme. I've taken it into my damn fool head to make one wallpaper a day for the next year, (15 so far) and I realized that I don't have quite enough ideas (my list of ideas is around 130 right now). I know that there's some people that don't like steampunk, but hell, there's some people who don't like coffee, either. No accounting for taste, I suppose!
I love Boing Boing, and was hoping that the collective might give me some ideas? All my wallpapers are Creative Commons remix licensed, as well."
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Thanks, Mousewrites!)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:31 am Saturday, Jul 12
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Craphound, the first short story I ever published in a professional market, has been turned into a fine little audio reading by Literal Systems (using the Creative Commons license), read by Rosalia Triana.
Craphound had wicked yard-sale karma, for a rotten, filthy alien bastard. He was
too good at panning out the single grain of gold in a raging river of
uselessness for me not to like him -- respect him, anyway. But then he found the
cowboy trunk. It was two months' rent to me and nothing but some squirrelly
alien kitsch-fetish to Craphound.
So I did the unthinkable. I violated the Code. I got into a bidding war with a
buddy. Never let them tell you that women poison friendships: in my experience,
wounds from women-fights heal quickly; fights over garbage leave nothing behind
but scorched earth.
Craphound spotted the sign -- his karma, plus the goggles in his exoskeleton,
gave him the advantage when we were doing 80 kmh on some stretch of back-highway
in cottage country. He was riding shotgun while I drove, and we had the radio on
to the CBC's summer-Saturday programming: eight weekends with eight hours of old
radio dramas: "The Shadow," "Quiet Please," "Tom Mix," "The Crypt-Keeper" with
Bela Lugosi. It was hour three, and Bogey was phoning in his performance on a
radio adaptation of _The African Queen_. I had the windows of the old truck
rolled down so that I could smoke without fouling Craphound's breather. My arm
was hanging out the window, the radio was booming, and Craphound said "Turn
around! Turn around, now, Jerry, now, turn around!"
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(
Thanks, Bri!)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:23 am Saturday, Jul 12
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Etienne Meneau's "Strange Carafes" are pricey, hand-blown art-glass wine-decanters in the form of roots, or upside-down antlers. Pretty awesome -- though I'm fairly certain I'd turn mine into deadly shards (natural clumsiness) within minutes.
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via Neatorama)
