An Odd Year

Stephanie Zvan

DrugMonkey has posted an excellent year-in-review meme that involves posting the first sentence of the first post of each month of the year. Since 2008 was my first full year of blogging, and since almost none of my current readers won’t have read that far back, I must play.

Let’s see what the blog has to say for itself.

January: There’s a character I’ve been wanting to write for a while but probably won’t until the next book.

February: This is one of the cooler memes I’ve seen.

March: I don’t know his name, but he’s awfully cute.

April: I’ve been involved in a few discussions lately in which public school education and teachers got pretty thoroughly dissed.

May: So I’m on this client team at work, one of several.

June: I am not a specialist.

July: Yesterday at work, despite my best efforts to check off the 1,001 tiny things on my to do list and to clean out my inbox so I can figure out whether there’s anything that never made it onto the list, I spent much of my time on two Projects That Will Not Die.

August: Transcriptase is the new site where some writers who had material in the Helix archives have reposted their work.

September: One of the local high schools has a gay-rights student club.

October: Like any good narcissist blogger, I like to see what search terms people are using to find my blog.

November: In my last post, I talked about the many excellent reasons to vote against Norm Coleman for senator.

December: When I was looking at old Animaniacs videos, I noticed that there seems to be a drive to bring them back (although there don’t seem to be any results).

Uh, huh. Interesting. Some politics, some writing, some work (of all things), some silly. It all sounds about right, but it does raise the perpetual question. Can anyone tell me what this blog is about?

An Odd Year
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From Out the Past

Stephanie Zvan

Facebook dropped a present in my lap today. Well, not literally. He’s several states away, and my lap is hardly the most appropriate place for him. But you get the idea.

You probably have one, too, but I keep a short list of people I’d really love to catch up with but have no hope of ever seeing again. They were absurdly important in some part of my life that doesn’t exist anymore. They’re the folks whose friends I haven’t seen in years, who used to hang out in places that are long gone.

This one was from junior high and high school, another one of the art/science geeks. He was, in fact, one of the infamous Physics Males, although far from the worst. He was also the guy who introduced me to the fact that I’m a very, very scary person. Not that he could explain why I was scary either.

Aside from being mutually terrified of each other, we got on quite well. Then came graduation and poof! He was gone. I saw him a few times after that, but stupidly, I always let some really good excuse get in the way of just sitting down with him for however long it took to properly catch up.

The friends who still connected us to each other drifted away, and more than fifteen years passed without us seeing or talking to each other. I thought about it, but with a name that common, I wouldn’t have known how to track him down if I’d tried. My name, of course, had changed, so even if he had been motivated to find me, it would have been tough.

Then, today, he commented on a mutual friend’s status update. Fifteen minutes later, we were Facebook friends and exchanging notes (which we never did in high school). All due to nearly passive technology.

I love living in the future.

From Out the Past

Nerdcore

Stephanie Zvan

I’m in a bar on the west bank in Minneapolis. It really wants to be a dive bar, but nobody appears to have told the chef or the bar manager. So I’ve just had an excellent dinner and a pint of Surly Furious.

I’m there to see a show. More accurately, I’m there to hang out with my husband as he takes pictures at the show.

See, the headliner is MC Frontalot, the recognized father of nerdcore rap, and I’m just not all that into nerdcore. It falls into the category of things that make me happy because they exist but which I don’t personally need to deal with. It’s funny stuff, but too much of it is deliberately awkward. Perfectly in character, but not what I’m looking for in music.

Let’s just say that my hopes for the show aren’t high.

I feel bad for the local opening act. We missed them while eating, and there are only about a dozen people in the stage area when we get there. They played to no one.

Then Schaffer the Darklord (STD) comes out in a long black hooded cloak with his black box, and things start to get interesting. He dumps the cloak after the first song and raps in a purple shirt and black suit. Oh, he’s a geek all right, but he’s also been a musician longer than nerdcore has been considered a genre. And it shows.

Highlights of STD’s set are “Nerd Lust” and “Night of the Living Christ.”

Undead messiah with the entire world
Turning into zombies like him
You’ll die for him because he died for you

We take a break before the Front comes on. I chat a little with Schaffer (once he peels off a drunken fangirl), and pick up both his albums.

Then the lights go down again. Time for the main act.

Frontalot starts by gently coaxing all the geeks in the audience onto the dance floor and up next to the stage. The audience has grown by this point, but it’s still nothing like crowded. Then he announces that this will be an all-request show.

This is when things get truly surreal. Half the audience raises their hands. I kid you not. They raise their hands. At a rap show. This is when I know I am not a TrueGeek(tm).


(MC Chris, not Frontalot, but you get the idea.)

To top it off, once people are called on and make their request, they have to roll for it. D20. Now, it works out that everyone who requests a song that had been rehearsed gets to hear what they want, but they still have to roll.

It also somehow works out that most of the songs from the new album get requested and played. This is a very good thing, because the new album is much more up my alley. Less awkwardness, more music. Still geeky as hell, but danceable. Need I mention that I am the only person demonstrating any proficiency at dancing? (No, pogoing does not count.)

“Bizarro Genius Baby” is the first single off the album. Other gems are “Secrets From the Future,” about how laughable future generations will find current encryption, and “Origin of the Species,” which is saved from Poedom by two words. Needless to say, we pick up another album.

All in all, it’s a good night, much better than expected. I’m still not gung-ho into Nerdcore, but when someone posts some, I now give it a good, solid listen. The stuff is getting much better.

Of course, I still haven’t heard anyone top the original master of the genre.

Nerdcore

Ensign Sparky, A Fable

Stephanie Zvan11 Comments

Sometimes, things just collide in my head. In this case, it was these posts from Dr. Isis and these posts from DrugMonkey. This particular story, however, is in no way their fault. Yeah, it gets a little strange in here.

Ensign Sparky heard a high-pitched scream and ran forward, pulling out his phaser. Rounding the corner into the Enterprise’s dining area, he saw only his captain. Confused, he looked into the corners of the room.

“Ensign!” It came out as a squeak.

Sparky turned back toward his captain and took in the details he had missed in his haste. How could he have failed to note that Kirk was crouching on a chair? His hairpiece askew, his lower lip clenched in his teeth–those were things he could have overlooked. The cowering posture? Not so much.

Kirk cleared his throat. “Ensign!” His voice dropped back to normal.

Sparky snapped to attention. “Yes, sir!”

“Is it gone?”

“Sir?”

Kirk pointed to the floor without letting go of his legs. “Is it gone?”

Sparky looked around, unsure what he was supposed to be seeing. Just as he was about to declare the room clean, he saw movement near the replicator. It was just a tiny flick of…was it a tail? Then it was gone. He marched to the replicator to investigate.

“Be careful!” Kirk’s voice drifted upward again.

Sparky pried loose the panel below the chute. More than a dozen tiny things scurried out. He didn’t know what else to call the half fuzzy, half leathery creatures that rushed away into shadows.

Kirk screamed again. “Get them! Get them!”

Doubting the propriety of permanently zapping anything that moved like his favorite pet lizard, Sparky set his phaser on its lowest stun setting. As the ensign moved around the room, Kirk squeaked out bloodthirsty encouragement. Then, just as Sparky stunned the last of them, the captain screamed again.

Sparky whipped around. Another of the strange creatures was wriggling its way out of the guts of the replicator. He stunned it too. “All taken care of, sir.”

Kirk was still huddled on the chair, staring at the replicator.

“Uh, sir?”

Kirk blinked but didn’t look away. “Get me out of here.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain didn’t move. Not sure what to do, Sparky stepped up and held out a hand. “May I help you down, sir?”

Kirk shook his head vigorously. “There might be more of them!”

“Yes, sir.” Sparky stepped around behind the chair and tugged on its back. The chair didn’t move but Kirk wobbled. He squeaked again.

Sparky sighed. “May I carry you, sir?”

“Of course, ensign.”

Scooping the fetally curled captain into his arms wasn’t easy, but Sparky managed. Kirk relaxed slightly.

Once they’d passed through the doorway, Kirk uncurled enough to run one finger along Sparky’s collarbone. “Blue isn’t really your color, ensign. Do you have any engineering background?”

Sparky swallowed. “No, sir.”

“Tactical it is, then.” Kirk snuggled closer to Sparky. “You’ll look so much better in red.”

Sparky didn’t say anything. He knew about Kirk’s young men. Everyone did. Cushy assignment while it lasted but all too likely to end in disaster when Kirk got bored.

Luckily, they heard footsteps ahead just then. Kirk pushed frantically at Sparky’s chest. “Put me down!”

Sparky was happy to oblige. The captain straightened his shirt and his hair.

A small squad in red came into sight just ahead and stopped. Their leader stepped forward. “Captain, we heard a report of phaser discharge. Is everything okay, sir?”

Kirk waved away their concern with an excess of nonchalance. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” He looked down. “Still, you may accompany me to the bridge.”

Sparky was trying to slip away when he felt the captain’s hand on his shoulder. “You too, ensign.”

Kirk tapped his communicator. “Bones meet me on the bridge in…” He glanced from Sparky to the floor. “Oh, better make it right now.”

Sparky had never been on the bridge before. It was a little intimidating, especially when Kirk made him stand just behind the captain’s chair as he chewed out Dr. McCoy.

“Bones, you said this was all taken care of after the Tribbles incident. You were supposed to recalibrate the ship’s contraception field for every new animal brought on board.”

McCoy looked somehow even more sour than usual. “Damn it, Jim, I did. The creature you saw matches the description of Chekhov’s new pet, and Nurse Kelly and I recalibrated the field for that.”

“Doctor Kelly.” A young woman stepped out from behind McCoy. Sparky noticed that she was wearing nonregulation boots to very good effect. “I’m every bit the doctor that you are, McCoy.”

Kirk held up a hand to forestall an explosion from McCoy. “Then perhaps, Dr. Kelly, you can explain to us what happened.”

“Of course.” Dr. Kelly shrugged, which did fascinating things to the hem of her tunic. “Dr. McCoy didn’t allow me to test the contraception field thoroughly.”

“What!?” Sparky thought McCoy’s head might explode. “I told you to use the standard protocol!”

“Standard protocol is to test the males, McCoy. This little creature has six sexes.”

Kirk smiled. “Six? How interesting. Why didn’t you tell me this, McCoy?”

“Damn it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a veterinarian. Who cares whether some animal has six sexes or thirteen?”

Full-on squabbling broke out between McCoy and Kelly. Kirk tapped his chin thoughtfully with his forefinger. “Thirteen? Really? Hmm.”

Eventually, Spock stepped between the doctors. “If I may?”

Kirk started from his reverie. “What? Oh, yes. Bones, nurse!”

“Doctor!”

“Whatever.” Kirk looked at Spock. “You were saying?”

“It seems only logical, captain, that one should test a device in all the sexes available. Human ideas of contraception depend on a standard male-female model, and if the device is only proven to work on males, any females who come into contact with a nonstandard sex may not be protected–obviously, as today’s incident shows.”

McCoy exploded in earnest at this point. Sparky could barely make out the words, although “green Vulcan blood” was repeated several times.

Dr. Kelly moved away from the fight toward Uhuru, who looked suddenly upset. Sparky was confused. Hadn’t she heard McCoy swear at Spock before? Everyone else on the ship had.

The doctor and the communications officer left the bridge together, and Sparky thought it was a wonderful idea. However, as he took a step toward the door, he heard Kirk clear his throat.

“When you boys are done fighting and making up, do see if you can’t do something about keeping these things from breeding. I’ll be in my cabin when–” He looked over at Sparky. “I’ll check back in later.”

The captain caught Sparky’s arm on the way to the door. “Walk with me, ensign. We need to discuss your transfer–and your uniforms.”

Sparky sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable. “Yes, sir.” They left the bridge.

Ensign Sparky, A Fable

5:56

Stephanie Zvan3 Comments

Peggy tagged me with the new 5-56 meme. It combines an existing meme (fifth sentence on page 56) with a guessing game.

– You can pick and choose the books to find the most interesting sentences.
– At least five of the books should be fiction.
– Try not to use books that are so obscure no one could guess what they are.
– You can give hints, if you so desire.
– Tag some other bloggers to pass the meme along.

I don’t know how much good this information does as hints, but here goes. All are fiction. I went with writers I’ve met and at least chatted with, so as I write this, I’m not sure how interesting the sentences will be. Most of the authors don’t live in Minnesota. There are fourteen authors for the ten books, but only thirteen are listed on the covers. Of course, one of those is a pen name, so the question of who is actually credited is, well, complicated.

1. The worst were one her arms; the biggest burn, under her chin, was the size of her palm.

2. Though I preferred to think of it as vengeance.

3. She drank too much and invited the forge’s handsome foreman to her new bed.

4. Can’t he find satisfaction interfering in the lives of his parishioners and browbeating them to feel obliged to invite him to dinner?

5. I wince as he probes around the edge of the prosthetic arm, feeling the scarring.

6. Steep-roofed old townhouses still lined its narrow streets, but bits of their elaborate stonework had given way to the elements and bits had been stolen to replace other bits.

7. Bella slid the score gently across the table toward me.

8. ‘You could have asked me to stay the night,’ she said, in her cold-stone voice.

9. Gringras was sitting on the fire escape above her, his legs dangling down.

10. I lay on my side facing away from her, my hands clutching my injury.

I tag Mme. Piggy, Greg, Lou and anyone who recognizes one of their books above.

5:56

Globalization and Global Awareness

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

I almost went into work the day after Thanksgiving, even though I had the time off. Why? I have coworkers in Mumbai, and the only way I was going to find out how they were doing was to log into the intranet.

In the end, I stayed home. I realized that whether I knew or not made zero difference to what was happening there. In fact, I don’t know any of these coworkers, have never spoken to them.

But I was still relieved yesterday to find out that they were all safe, freaked out to hear that one had been rescued from one of the attacked hotels, and hurt by their losses of friends and family. Even not knowing them, the tie we share, just by working for the same company, makes the whole tragedy more real to me.

We talk a lot about the pitfalls of globalization, but we don’t talk much about the positive side effects. There are frequently improvements to infrastructure, standards of living and education that go along with companies dumping even small amounts of money across the world, but I think the connections made across national borders are nearly as important.

Would we know nearly as much about child labor practices if someone weren’t able to point at people and tell them that what they’re wearing was made by an eight-year-old? Isn’t it harder to think of someone as completely other when you see them marked with the same brands that surround you? I know it’s much harder to think of world tragedies as distant events when my company tells me that the people they’re affecting matter to them and should matter to me.

This doesn’t just happen through business, of course. I’ve traveled outside the U.S.–four countries. I went to school with someone who moved to another. Through this blog and others, I know people who are personally affected by events in at least a dozen countries, just off the top of my head. Because I mentored an exchange student for a while, I know more about the presidential politics of one former Soviet country than anyone else I know will ever find interesting.

Still, I work for a company with offices in more than forty countries (I think; I don’t have to keep that straight anymore). That’s a large chunk of the world about which I get “this is the scope of events but everyone is okay” messages. That’s a large chunk of the world that heard that I was okay when the 35W bridge collapsed last year. That’s a lot of people who aren’t ignoring each other.

For all the problems of globalization, this little piece of it is a very good thing.

Globalization and Global Awareness

Hot Is Heavy

Stephanie Zvan5 Comments

I don’t usually feel the need to point to one of Zuska’s posts and say, “Yeah, what she said.” She’s got a strong voice and when she’s not reaching her audience, it’s usually either because they’re unreachable or because they already agree with her in principle and are arguing over details.

This week, though, Zuska put up a post about the ephemeral nature of hotness that I think missed its audience. The first half of the post talked about her losing her thick, abundant (hot) hair to illness, but the bits that everyone seemed to focus on were:

Hotness is a great thing, but unfortunately it comes with an expiration date. Bodies change, making hot fashions simply unwearable; joints develop aches, making fashionable footwear unbearable; hair thins and loses luster and just looks plain terrible.

And:

Wide hips, sensible flat shoes, poor hairdo – yeah, that could be me in those photos. Dr. Isis, I’m not asking you to mask or stifle your total hotness (as if a domestic and laboratory goddess even could!) and I admire your efforts to create mass cognitive dissonance through conflation of “hot”, “mama”, and “scientist”. Just maybe be a little kinder to the old crones in the audience.

The comments could largely be summed up by this one:

Ah Zuska, you know true hotness is a state of mind.

This is fine. This is all well and good and true as far as it goes. The problem is that Zuska wasn’t merely talking about age. She was also talking about health.

Hotness, even as something that doesn’t relate to the external characteristics that people have little control over, requires resources. It takes time and attention and energy and money–more time and attention and energy to the extent that money isn’t available. (You’ve read John Scalzi on the costs of Being Poor, right?) These are resources that people who are dealing with illness and disability frequently don’t have.

When we value hotness so highly, we place additional burdens on those who already have too many. We ask those who want nothing more than sleep to maintain labor-intensive standards of grooming. We ask people with arthritis to iron clothes. We ask those in pain to be pleasant and “graceful.” We ask people with depression to keep a positive attitude.

We can tell them that we don’t require any of this of them, that all we want is for them to get better or to do the best their disability will allow, but we have to know that they’re sick or disabled in order to deliver this message. Most illnesses and disabilities don’t come with marquee lights. The message that hotness is required for the fullest participation in society doesn’t limit itself to the healthy, able-bodied population, because we don’t know, can’t know, who that is.

If you think the ill and the disabled don’t feel this pressure, ask yourself why organization such as Locks of Love and Heavenly Hats exist. Ask yourself why patients in long-term care are cheered up by a gift of pretty clothing or by something as simple as having their hair styled. Ask why those with disabilities are cheered to see others like them as models and athletes–among the hot.

Does this mean that the hot among us shouldn’t revel in being hot? Nah. For one thing, that’s never going to happen. For another, what they’re actually reveling in is, in large part, health. Having good health and having the resources to enjoy it are things worth reveling in. They are more rare than they should be.

I just think people should know that this is what they’re really enjoying and know, as Zuska and I and many others do, that it may not last.

Hot Is Heavy

WisCon!

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

The domestic and laboratory goddess, in her answer to our question about science fiction and science bloggers, talked a little about the female role models available to a young budding scientist. This prompted me to realize that I have readers, too new to have heard me waxing enthusiastic about WisCon, who would love this convention.

WisCon is the first and foremost feminist science fiction convention in the world. WisCon encourages discussion, debate and extrapolation of ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class. WisCon honors writers, editors and artists whose work explores these themes and whose voices have opened new dimensions and territory in these issues. And, oh yes, we also like to have fun while we’re at it.

WisCon is my “home” convention, the one I attend every year, even though it’s a four- to five-hour drive to Madison to get there. It’s a convention of grown-ups but isn’t too grown-up. It has the highest ratio of published authors to fans of any convention I know, but the media programming is great too. It has an academic track, child care, a civilized con suite and commitments to access for people with disabilities and dignity for people with unconventional gender and sexual identities. Oh, and a hot tub.

The James Tiptree, Jr. Award (named after Alice B. Sheldon and supported by a bake sale and auction), is given “for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender” at the convention. This year’s guests of honor are Ellen Klages, who made a room full of people go from laughter to tears in less than five minutes two years ago, and Geoff Ryman, a former Tiptree winner and reportedly most graceful wearer of the tiara in Tiptree history.

As you can probably tell, there’s no good way to explain this convention. It’s utterly unlike the stereotype of a science fiction convention, except in the ways it isn’t. The only way to find out whether it’s for you is to check it out. It doesn’t happen until May, but don’t wait. Registration is capped at 1,000 people, and right about now is the time it fills up.

Go see, and maybe I’ll see you there.

WisCon!