Sara

Recipe for a 10-stone story: Souffles as boat anchors

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“Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

1. Expanding on Nietzsche’s insight

The writerly impulse to be admired rather than understood is generally associated with certain stylistic horrors.

Right away, seeking the admiration of “knowing and over-acute readers,” the unwitting writer  serves up long and complex sentences like a tangle of  spaghetti. The more clauses the better, eh? And … Read more

Autonomous smartphones: Is your gadget evolving?

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So I’m sending an SMS on my iPhone, and I’m using “jesus christly” as a compound adjective, when this phone, even though it’s only a 2G model, takes the liberty of capitalizing “Jesus”. What’s next? It’ll probably start offering prayers to Him on my behalf. Maybe even promising I’ll do a 20-year tour of duty as a missionary in Africa if only the babe over there at that other table, here in Starbucks (which I never frequent), gives … Read more

Mysterious Bangkok deaths solved?

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Bangkokians fall to their deaths from high-rise apartments with some regularity. These incidents are often ascribed to suicidal impulses, the next most popular hypothesis being accident, as in, “Wow! Look at that moon—it’s almost like you could reach out and touch…”

But read on, because I have a new, improved theory. Recently, in fact, I myself almost fell victim to an especially devious homicide attempt.

A couple of myna birds have taken to nesting in a cozy niche outside my … Read more

Some good things to do with an Internet addiction

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“The Joy of Quiet,” a story by Pico Iyer in the NY Times (29 Dec. 2011) resonates with something I proposed a week ago at a Christmas party.

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I’d been talking about plans to go away for a few weeks to finish a novel in draft. As usual, when such an idea is broached, people were quick to say things such as, “Hey, I know a great place on the coast down south” or “My uncle has … Read more

Karmic comeuppance impending

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Bad karma comes knocking.

This is Thailand’s worst flood in 50 years and, judging only by the music and, perhaps, the fact that people didn’t have to check Twitter feeds every minute or so throughout, the 1942 version (video link) looked like lots more fun.

 

 

 

 

4.30pm. Mon. 24 October 2011. Up to the minute report from inner-city Bangkok (Soi Ari–Saphan Kwai).

A trickle of water is emerging from a drain on Phaholyothin Road in … Read more

Hope in dark times

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Just when things couldn’t get any worse, they did. But it turned out they didn’t really, and Sara’s right, I worry too much.

I’ve just come back into my office, and I heard this horrible rasping from the left wing of my iMac. My mind is going, “It’s the fan, right? It can’t be the hard drive, it can’t be the hard drive, aiyeeeee.”

Careful investigation has revealed the real problem. I had an online jazz station playing, way down … Read more

Home-grown back therapies rool!

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Caption: Our adventurer, with his new office chair, just after summiting the roof of his apartment building five times in a row without oxygen.

Breaking news on the old-crockish falling-apart front: I’ve just cured a rogue back, gone bad in the prime o’ me loif and all, by giving my office chair to the guard downstairs in favor of sitting on an exercise ball at my desktop computer, alternating this with standing at my filing cabinet with a laptop on … Read more

Grundnorm of writing style

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Dorothy Parker’s opinion of the most widely recognized writing style manual in the English language:

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

But those who nevertheless persevere and do become writers should understand this: One cardinal principle underlies all other rules of style, … Read more

Gallows humor for writers

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I see I haven’t posted an item since 17 March. Excuses range from “I’ve been too busy to blog” and “I’m suffering a multi-tasking deficiency” to “I’ve sustained a fit of sanity, wherein I see no percentage in posting elaborate messages into the Void.”

Mostly, though, I’ve been in thrall to a fiction project, a series of speculative novels. The Muse, revealing herself as a dominatrix this time around, has shacked up with me big time. (I speak only figuratively, … Read more

Collin still evolving: Surgical revision rools, OK!

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“Does this mean you’re going to live to be 125?” my Sara asks. Her voice remains carefully neutral, non-accusatory.

The good news: All I need to do is drop a few kilos, I’m told, and I’ll have an overall fitness age somewhere in my mid-20s with personal training in Los Angeles. (“Fitness age,” I have to imagine, refers to something like “health-span,” which is enjoying some currency among transhumanists and their ilk. More on that in a later post.)… Read more