Things I Know I Know

In one of the agility classes I'm teaching we currently have two pitbulls. I think they're cute as heck--social, happy, bull-headed, and capable of hauling the small, female half of the couple who own them across the room, though not really on purpose.

At work this week I was trying to describe to my co-workers how really cute these dogs were when it occurred to me that my co-workers' cute dog aesthetic was really very different than mine. They look at me as if I'm crazy and I realize that I can't even explain to them what I find cute about a pitbull.

When most people look at pitbulls they see big and maybe mean and holy crap who would want a dog like that? Fifteen years ago I probably looked at pitbulls like that too. That there are mean pitbulls in the world is without dispute. That many of them have owners who don't understand them, breed, train and raise them badly, is also true (and a much bigger factor, in my opinion than pitbulls who are just flat 'born mean').

There will always be a scaryness factor to pitbulls. But one of the things I'm grateful for in my life is that I'm able to appreciate their cuteness too.

Posted by debco at 03:03 PM | Permalink

Elizabeth Bear has a really great entry on 'Show vs Tell':

What it means was that you actually can narrate or exposit anything, as long as you do it engagingly. Anything, that is, except one thing. Character development and motivation; these are things that have to be demonstrated, grounded. The reader has to be made to feel them. They have to be in the reader's gut; the reader has to be in the character, he has to comprehend the character. You discover the magic of the thing tanaise�called "inpositioning," of making the character's motivations explicit in his actions. Of showing the disconnect between what he does, and what he says (the single best teaching example of this I can think of is a scene in Roger Zelazny's The Guns of Avalon between Benedict and Corwin�which includes what I consider to be one of the best paragraphs of oblique characterization in fantasy:�"I glanced away and so did Ganelon. When I looked back, his face had returned to normal, and he had lowered his arm." It's a paragraph, two sentences, twenty-three words, that completely define two characters for me. Taken out of context, not so much, but in the place where the two men have been shown, and their relationships demonstrated, it's breathtaking.) and making the reader understand the three-dimensionality of the character by showing him in parallax view. If he jumps when you close one eye, you can see him against the background of stars.

I've been going to post this, like, forever, but I also wanted to add some pithy and enlightening commentary of my own--about show vs tell, about the unpacking process of becoming a writer, about rules and their places. But, heck with it, that'll take, like, forever. Just go read what she wrote.

Posted by debco at 12:18 PM | Permalink

So says Fafblog and he/she/it should know:

Now you may think "oh well Fafnir America's a big country it can take care a itself" but in fact it is very sensitive. When you say its mom's ugly or criticize its foreign policy or kick sand on its face at the beach it is just as hurt as if you'd sold its state secrets. Like every emotional young superpower America needs love and care from its citizens. We've put together a brief guide to treason so you can understand it a little better.

Posted by debco at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Asimov's has just offered to buy my story, '46 Directions, None of them North.'

Posted by debco at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A question asked of Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post:

I really appreciated your early coverage of the Gannon/Guckert affair, but am curious to learn how, as with Kerik, the White House vetting procedure got so lax. Is this part of a trend towards not vetting those put forward by Bush associates? Is there an official policy of calling so-called reporters by their aliases? Would Scott McClellan call a questioner by the name PrincessSparklePony if she put that forward as her alias?

Posted by debco at 10:01 PM | Permalink

Not content with Altan, the band, and Ireland--The Greatest Songs, the album, I have now discovered Irish Punk.

I think it will turn out to be one of those things like the chocolate cake at the Macaroni Grill where a little goes a long way, but in small doses I do have a certain fondness for shouting and stomping...

Posted by debco at 05:03 PM | Permalink

Boingboing reports on a new report that there may be a link between artificial light and breast cancer:

Their theory that artificial light can cause breast cancer is simple. Prolonged periods of exposure to artificial light disrupt the body's circadian rhythms - the inner biological clocks honed over thousands of years of evolution to regulate behaviors such as sleep and wakefulness. The disruption affects levels of hormones such as melatonin and the workings of cellular machinery, which can trigger the onset of cancer, Stevens theorizes.

Two interesting things beyond the obvious:

We knew more about the cause of breast cancer 20 years ago than we do today," Stevens said.

I suppose this means that we thought we knew more 20 years ago than we do today because I don't remember going through any medical dark age in the last twenty years where we suddenly just forgot a whole bunch of stuff. It reminds me of my father's classic argument with the phone company back in the eighties when he said, "Forty years ago we had better phone service than this!" And the phone company said, "Forty years ago, no one cared."

Also, and completely unrelated to the previous point (as so many of my points are) is this:

...blind women are less likely to have breast cancer than women with sight.

I suppose I'm overlooking something obvious, but the reason I find this curious is that if artificial lights do cause breast cancer and the reason they cause breast cancer is because they mess with our circadian rhythm, then why doesn't that reason also apply to blind women? I mean, I get that blind women can't see artificial lights, but they can't see the sun either. Blind women in the developed world live their lives on the schedule of the developed world, don't they? If it's all about the circadian rhythm, why aren't they messed up too?

Posted by debco at 04:24 PM | Permalink

I should have mentioned this earlier.

Thanks to Lord Voldemort the Spammer(s) (hereinafter referred to as You Know Who), comments are open but moderated. I wish this weren't so because I think it's a pain to make a comment and then not see it appear right after you write it. Movable Type does have a system to use Typekey to allow registered commenters who then could post without approval, but, although I have asked it to work, MT is apparently still pondering. Will probably be working on that this week.

Until then, if you come (and you're not You Know Who), please comment. They really will appear eventually.

(It also would be easier if MT would email me the comments when they're made, but it appears to have chosen a random pattern of emailing that makes no sense and results in me getting email almost never--working on that at some point too.)

Posted by debco at 10:42 AM | Permalink

It seems to me they're still caught up in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theory of Knowledge.

Posted by debco at 10:17 AM | Permalink

For no apparent reason, this is today's quote:

I don't recall ever fighting Godzilla but that is so what I would have done.

...Bender from Futurama (The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings)

Posted by debco at 10:09 AM | Permalink

Boingboing points to this:

I want one.

Posted by debco at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

BoingBoing sends us to The Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports:

It's better to arrive than depart: The Arrivals lounges are usually more comfortable than the Departures lounges. It's amazing how different the two areas can be in some airports. Of course airport logic seems to be that people who are departing immediately go to their gates, they don't sit around the ticket counters for hours. While the arrivals lounge aims to make all those family members, who are waiting for your flight to finally arrive after a four hour delay, a little more comfortable until you and your bags finally show up.

Act Innocent: Even if you sleep in airports on regular basis -- Do Not Act Like A Professional!!! Act like you REALLY do not want to be there and that there is absolutely nowhere else to go. I find crying helps. Remember, in the airport officials' eyes "the airport is not a motel." Ha, little do they know....

Posted by debco at 09:47 PM | Permalink

Ms. Black Rice, who is black, was blackily blacking along when...

...from Pandagon (and, yes, you should read the whole thing)

Posted by debco at 07:00 PM | Permalink

I hope if dogs ever take over the world and they choose a king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are little dogs with some good ideas

...by I have no idea who; it was in my daily calendar with no attribution

Posted by debco at 06:58 PM | Permalink