Twilight Ninja and Noble Girl

Promised pictures of the real Twilight Nija so here she is (and her big sister, too.) Mom sewed on Noble Girl's costume for about twenty-four hours straight.

Both ventured out into the night and scored beaucoup de candy.

Halloween Pumpkin Blogging

Rachael, the bright center of my small universe, is in her first year as an Art major at the University of Texas.

Explaining the image to the right, in her own words:

In my three-dimensional foundations course we had a day off near to Halloween. Our teacher brought in candy, a projector and pumpkins. The candy was delicious and we watched Clue and Edward Scissorhands through the projector. With the pumpkins we weren’t really getting a grade, it was a just for fun deal. Our teacher thought it would be nice, and it was.

Our first project in the class had used bailing wire. I didn’t like it. The wire tended to cut the crap out of me as I tried to bend it into shape. There was still some wire about from that project and I decided to use it on my pumpkin.

I liked they way it turned out. My teacher said she thought it was good and scary and told me it would not be very good to have near children. I agree, but more importantly than children, I sure as hell wouldn’t want a bad trip near that thing.

Yes, I hope that you are not currently tripping so that you will like my pumpkin.


Incidentally, here's a net meme that will soon become ubiquitous: Rachael is Awesome.

Tuesday: Fear-It's Everywhere!

My older daughter, here referred to as Sarcasm Girl (hey, she's sixteen) has a serious acting jones. She's wanted to be an actress since she saw her first Broadway show at age 4, which means that, like everything else, it's probably all my fault. The kid has talent, and is willing to work for what she wants, so we've tried to support her aspirations without mentioning too often that acting is a worse way to make a living than writing, for crissakes. All this led to me sitting in a hotel ballroom on Sunday morning, listening to a presentation about a school of modeling and acting. Since a lot of the kids at the workshop were not, um, runway material, the presentation to the parents focused on other benefits the program offers: grooming and etiquette training, ability to speak before others, poise, heightened self-esteem. And this last was clearly what they were selling. And why?

Because the number one fear of parents of teenagers is drugs, right? And it's easier to sell almost anything (say, a war in the middle east, or opposition to universal marriage rights) if its going to address a specific fear. So while the kids were in the other room learning to slouch and turn on the runway, we heard numbing statistics about how many thirteen year olds have tried sniffing glue. Only heightened self-esteem can combat the scourge of teen drug use!!!

There's always been a certain amount of anxiety to marketing: if you don't use this deodorant, people will scowl at you in elevators; if you don't keep your floors clean your neighbors will point and laugh. I was just startled at how shrill the approach was, coming from an organization which basically promises to instruct one in the use of eyeliner.

Ghost Writing (hey, it's Halloween)

While taking Older Daughter to school this morning, I heard an NPR Morning Edition commnetary by "recovering" ghost writer and Adjunct Instructor of Journalism, Barbara Feinman-Todd. She talks about the glory-that-is-not ghost writing. (She was the Ghost behind Hillary Clinton's It Takes A Village.)

The most interesting bit I found was when she discusses finding a press clipping telling that "a well-known actress had actually written her autobiography without the aid of a ghost writer" and wonders "what does it say about our culture that we take note when people really are the authors of the books that bear their names." Listen here.

She also wrote a lovely article about ghost writing (in which she discusses the It Takes A Village project) here.

In it she quotes from a 1997 New York Times piece: "On any given week, up to a half of any nonfiction best-seller list is written by someone other than the name on the book. Add those authors who feel enough latent uneasiness to bury the writer's name in the acknowledgments and the percentage, according to one agent, reaches as high as 80."

We Will, We Will, Clothe You.

Daughter the Second (I can't call her Young Girl or Sarcasm Girl though both would fit sometimes) is going to be a Twilight Ninja for Halloween and I certainly plan on posting pics but first I had to go refresh my memory on how to turn a solid color tee-shirt into a ninja mask. (It's all over the net--I think I first saw a how-to page on it on the grimy and gritty 20th century internet, not the squeeky clean, fast collection of tubes of the present century. I found multiple examples just by using "The Google" to search on "t-shirt ninja mask."

The gray version, shown here by our charming model in his secret fortress of solitude, makes him look a little bit like an Islamic terrorist (if it weren't for the blue eyes.) Despite an urge to film ultimatums and perhaps do a few "Ask A Ninja" videos, I assure you he is harmless.

We will definitely be posting the "real" twilight ninja photos tomorrow. Her big sister is going as a Tudor Princess. Laura has been sewing all day and she will be sewing All Night Long.

The Wonder of Chemistry

In case you were wondering how that phone in Rory's post got melted, perhaps it was something like this.

Cutting the Cord

Hello, my colleagues in the abuse of technology. I'll do some introductory blogging later about the wonder that is me, but let's jump right in today to hatin' on the phone company, killing old paradigms, and maybe saving three or four hundred dollars a year.

If you've got a cell phone and/or use Skype, Vonage, SunRocket, or one of the other VOIP providers, it's officially time to cut the cord, guys.

They're so embarrassed about it that they haven't told anyone, but Verizon is rolling out 'Naked DSL'.

Maybe they're afraid that the FCC might think they're showing their nipples.

(Click here for rest)

Remembering John M. Ford

We lost Mike Ford last month, a fact that has been all over SF and Fantasy world both on and off the net. I used to run into him at the Nielsen Hayden's, when we lived in New York, and Mike was visiting from Minneapolis. (He used to live in New York, also, but moved away the year we arrived.) Yesterday they held a memorial in Minneapolis. I wanted very badly to go, but couldn't really justify the expense. I learned over on Making Light, though, that they'd covered the memorial in The Pioneer Press and I was happy to get a glimpse of what went on.

photo from Wikipedia

Update: After initially letting me in, The Pioneer Press piece is now requiring (free) registration. Maybe it will let you guys in once without doing that. Annoying. If it does let you in, you might want to grab a copy. Meanwhile this report of the London memorial is not behind any walls.

Update the 2nd: Pegg Kerr (author of The Wild Swans and Emerald House Rising) wrote this lovely account of the memorial and the wake.

To This Spattered Webpage Go!

OK, OK -- (1) I did my Friday post; and (2) this has already made the rounds once. But it's fun. So, go apply some mousepaint.

Weird Tech Friday: Brainjack Breakthrough

I found this cool bit of news while browsing today. Researchers have found a DNA switch that can interface with silicon. This is a significant breakthrough in bio-nanotech. The singularity is just around the corner.

So, I'm curious. How many people would get a brainjack, if they could? Me, not so much. Not until they've released Mozilla LightningBug thought browser version 2.0, and gotten all the bugs shaken out of Norton Brain Utility...