Strangely Random Stuff
Monday, May 18, 2015
Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood"
I believe in better living through pop music and science fiction. Taylor Swift has a nice little song, but a big freaking video. You can mull over all the sf tropes, but also see where this pop song is working out how to detonate an ass-kicking musically.
I think Taylor Swift will be among the pioneers of pop weaponization. God if there is one have mercy on all our souls.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
The Horizon of Veronica Smart
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Good-bye, Terry Pratchett.
One of the authors of one of my favorite novels has passed, and I am actually pretty unsatisfied with that. He wrote more than 70 books, but I would be ashamed if I said that was enough for me. He was an endlessly imaginative, genuinely witty, distinctively humane writer. He will be missed.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Grizzly: Predator
I know I am not living my best life.
I am also in no hurry to start.
I am also in no hurry to start.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Flesh of Her Flesh
Sylvan didn't consider himself a ghoul, even if that was what they technically called his kind of work. He considered himself an ex-med student, for the most part, and an artist, at times. He offered a commodity (skin) and a talent (the cleanest scalpel-work a careful eye ever thought it saw). He made enough money to keep himself and her in their flat. He realized it wasn't a permanent arrangement, but it would do.
"Her" or "she" meant his mum. He stopped thinking of her as "Mom" or "mother" for now. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he had, it was just that she had contracted a severe form of narcovirus and simply wouldn't wake up, as far as anyone knew. No one ever did. He wasn't even sure there were trials, although at first, he sincerely looked for them. It was just that there were so many, many other New Plagues that fought for grant dollars. He got discouraged, and then got wrapped up in trying to kit out their place with proper equipment for her long-term care.
He was just over the line, what with his scholarship and her savings. And it wouldn't feel right, anyway, leaving her as a ward of the state, where anything might happen to her. Not after she worked so hard to get him into school with the burning faith that he could do something about the scary reality that was settling in.
She developed dropsy. It wasn't to be unexpected. He left her alone for great periods at a time while he still tried to pursue his studies. She. He was sure she wasn't uncomfortable, breathing normal, he fought to get Lasix to pump through her IV to work out the fluid and stabilize her blood pressure. But she just expanded on the bed. He moved her with difficulty as he regularly checked for atrophy or bedsores, flexing her legs for intervals in the hopes that she wouldn't curl into a grim fetal position. But she lay her damp form on the bed, straight, and with skin entirely smooth...
The kind of care he tried to provide between classes and tutoring was just the humane requirement she deserved, was all. The penalty for victim-dumping was high for people inclined to shorten their loved-one's lives, whether for compassion or financial reasons, probably because everyone was supposed to keep up hope. But he didn't even consider an alternative, even if it kept him trotting. He didn't really even have the cash to hire a migrant nurse under the table, anyway, not that he would entirely trust one. He heard things.
But that skin. So much of it.
"Her" or "she" meant his mum. He stopped thinking of her as "Mom" or "mother" for now. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he had, it was just that she had contracted a severe form of narcovirus and simply wouldn't wake up, as far as anyone knew. No one ever did. He wasn't even sure there were trials, although at first, he sincerely looked for them. It was just that there were so many, many other New Plagues that fought for grant dollars. He got discouraged, and then got wrapped up in trying to kit out their place with proper equipment for her long-term care.
He was just over the line, what with his scholarship and her savings. And it wouldn't feel right, anyway, leaving her as a ward of the state, where anything might happen to her. Not after she worked so hard to get him into school with the burning faith that he could do something about the scary reality that was settling in.
She developed dropsy. It wasn't to be unexpected. He left her alone for great periods at a time while he still tried to pursue his studies. She. He was sure she wasn't uncomfortable, breathing normal, he fought to get Lasix to pump through her IV to work out the fluid and stabilize her blood pressure. But she just expanded on the bed. He moved her with difficulty as he regularly checked for atrophy or bedsores, flexing her legs for intervals in the hopes that she wouldn't curl into a grim fetal position. But she lay her damp form on the bed, straight, and with skin entirely smooth...
The kind of care he tried to provide between classes and tutoring was just the humane requirement she deserved, was all. The penalty for victim-dumping was high for people inclined to shorten their loved-one's lives, whether for compassion or financial reasons, probably because everyone was supposed to keep up hope. But he didn't even consider an alternative, even if it kept him trotting. He didn't really even have the cash to hire a migrant nurse under the table, anyway, not that he would entirely trust one. He heard things.
But that skin. So much of it.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Punk Syndrome
All I can say is, they are hella punk. Their sound is tight and their band has a quality that is kinda transgressive. The trailer to the film shows what the road is like. And I think what they are doing is pretty cool. Hearing about them makes me want to hear more.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
OK--Hozier & Annie Lennox
I do not know how many awkward intersections I've been at where I've been singing my ass off to this song in the car with the radio cranked. Don't judge me. But hearing his pipes up against Annie Lennox was so cool.
Probs because I was singing my ass off to Eurythmics songs on the radio 20-something years ago...
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