Marco Polo Sings a Solo

I recently finished reading John Guare's 1973 play Marco Polo Sings a Solo, and really loved it! It is set in 1999, a future imagined from the 1973 context. It is a very funny, heavily ironic piece.

Guare sets up a nice set of expectations in the play, and really delivers on them. I like the premise that he explores — the idea that there is such an overwhelming desire to explore the self that we forget to let the world "out there" shape us, as we fail to engage with it. I was amazed by the way the play worked with this problem, bringing up such outlandish, crazy scenarios to explore it all.

The future imagined in the text is now, of course, a decade in the past. And the real world 1999 wasn't anything like the 1999 of the play.... at least, not on the surface of it.


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Music for the Cyborg

Remember how scared we were of robots back in the 1980s?



Lyrics | Dennis DeYoung - Mr. Roboto lyrics

At least things have changed... we aren't as scared of the Japanese as we used to be.

(even though robotophobia is still around)


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Movies so Bad They're Good

I was just listening to a podcast (look up resources@uen.org) about camp movies — things so outlandishly bad that they somehow work. The standard example is, of course, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The ridiculous nature of these films makes them able to be so removed from our experience of life (via the fictional world of good film?) that they garner a following, somehow managing to speak to wide segment of the population.

A lot of these campy shows fall in the sci-fi genre. I think that there is something to the genre that makes unbelievability acceptable. The nature of sci-fi is that it is not true to our contemporary living. Instead, it explores the idea of "it's not this way, but what if it was?"

The removal from our daily experience of life distances us from the situation of the story. When this setting is used to explore issues that are, perhaps, too close for comfort, we somehow manage to accept the exploration, whereas we might resist the same exploration in a more "realistic" setting.





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Robotics in Shanghai

I recently stumbled across the Robotics Society of Shanghai. Meetings of the group are pretty irregular, apparently, but it looks like it could be lots of fun!

My oldest godson signed up for robotics as his extracurricular activity at school. It looks like fun! I have several friends in the field, and it is so interesting to hear about the things they are working on. One of my favorites was the study of robots performing dramatic texts onstage. Can you imagine....?



(Actually, I guess if you've, say, seen Abraham Lincoln deliver speeches at Disneyland, you don't have to imagine.)



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a funny thing happened

My friend sent me this link to a showing of King Lear in Shanghai. I know, I know... this site is where I talk about science fiction, not Shakespeare, and this isn't exactly Hamletmachine (Heiner Müller, in case you're wondering). But still... scroll down a little. Did you see it?

"Han Lei Solo"

I have been learning Chinese for nearly 20 years, but my childhood baptized in Star Wars still has me reading that "Han & Leia Solo." I have to look twice to remember that Han Lei is a Chinese name.

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Read more about Hamlet-Machine and Other Texts for the Stage



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Christina Sng

It was great to get to meet speculative poet Christina Sng a week or so ago. I've not met another speculative poet in person before, and really enjoyed getting to know Christina.

Sng also gave me a copy of her book, The Darkside of Eden. I read it and was very impressed. This is the second of Sng's book I've read, the other being Angelflesh, which was also a great read.

The field of speculative poetry is an exciting, growing one, and I am thrilled to meet Singapore's pioneer poet in the field last weekend.



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Yoshimi going to battle

Lyrics | Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots lyrics


Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

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Launch of Cyborg Chimera in Singapore

My book Cyborg Chimera will soon be available in bookstores in Singapore. To launch the sell of my poetry collection here, we'll be hosting a book launch here over the last weekend in February. I'll post some pictures when it's done. For now, I'm looking forward to the event, especially because my family from the US will be here to celebrate with me!

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Looks Promising: Plasma Rocket

This looks promising....



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Tron Legacy coming soon...

I can hardly wait for the release of Tron Legacy. Just look at these billboards. It's going to be so fun!

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Good News

I got some exciting news yesterday about my poem "Manipulation," which was first published in the May 2009 online edition of Scifaikuest. The poem, a haibun, was nominated for a 2010 Rhysling Award in the long poem category.


The Rhysling is awarded by the Science Fiction Poetry Association each year for best poem published in the previous year, as voted by members of the association. There are two categories for the poetry award, short (under 50 lines) and long (over 50 lines). It is the biggest award for speculative poetry.

You can read the full text of "Manipulation" at the readers' page set up by Malcolm Deeley, where he is kindly showcasing some of the poems eligible for nomination for this year's award. (You'll have to scroll down to find it.)

This is my first Rhysling nomination, and I'm very excited about it.

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Check out the The 2009 Rhysling Anthology at Amazon



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Interview with John J. Dunphy

Interview with speculative poet John J. Dunphy



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Poetry Coach Online

I've recently begun offering a new coaching service for writers and poets.

You can have a look at my website to see how it works and what services are offered. I hope to add a series of online poetry courses in the next few weeks as well.

And now I'll let this particular blog go back to its normal work of discussing science factoids and science fiction.....

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Kinetic Wind-Powered Robot

I saw a little clip on the news recently about some wind-powered kinetic robots put together by a Dutch designer. I came across some more designed by Dutch artist Theo Jansen when browsing this blog. Really beautiful work! The video clips I saw on the news were amazing.



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The Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster

I recently finished reading Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster. It's a pretty funny collection, with lots of spoofs, warped humor, and all the things that can make reading poetry fun.

It's the first collaboration between Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty I've read, but I really enjoyed it, and would happily delve into anything else they put together.



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Seeing Double?

If you think a robot girlfriend is weird, what about someone who puts the real object of his affections into robot form — himself! The robot doppleganger is now available for retail in Japan.

What would you do if you had a robot who looked just like you? Do you think you'd try to be in two places at once? Would it be better or worse than a clone?

I can't imagine how I'd manage my day if I had a doppleganger. I have enough trouble keeping track of everything now.



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What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?

I knew the day would eventually come, but it's still kind of funny to see it arrive. RoXXXy is now on the scene, offering a very specific service for lonely men. Yes, you guessed it — she's a sex machine. Literally.

Roxxxy was recently unveiled, um... I mean, introduced at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. She's 1.52 cm, and weighs 54 kg. And more importantly, has a full C-cup. She is programmed with artificial intelligence, and covered with flesh-like synthetic skin. And participants at the expo in Las Vegas were completely enamored.

Roxxxy is just one of the names of the robot, which is more accurately branded TrueCompanion. She comes equipped with 5 different personalities. Douglas Hines is her inventor.


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Voices

A friend loaned me Urusula Le Guin's Voices recently. I picked it up over the weekend and finished it in just a couple of days. As soon as I'd read the first chapter, I knew I was going to read it straight through in a relatively short time, and that feeling of being firmly in the grip of a good story didn't let up. It's been a while since I last read a Le Guin novel (at least 3-4 years), and I'd almost forgotten how good she can be.

Voices is a book about healing, and about being broken. It is both profound and moving. If ever there has been a tale to make me believe the pen is mightier than the sword, this is it. Never have I seen diplomacy presented in such active terms, making the tale seem action-packed, even though there is surprisingly little fighting in it. The violence we see is not romanticized into some heroic act, but presented in the stark realities of the suffering inflicted by violent acts — suffering that can damage generation after generation, if allowed.

Here are a couple of things to whet the appetite, quoting from the book:

"I'm sorry, now, for that girl of fifteen who wasn't as brave as the child of six, although she longed as much as ever for courage, strength, power against what she feared. Fear breeds silence, and then the silence breeds fear, and I let it rule me. Even there, in that room, the only place in the world where I knew who I was, I wouldn't let myself guess who I might become." (page 32)

"I get along with animals and they get along with me. The gift is called calling, but it's more like hearing, actually." (page 73)

"'Heathen,' they called us. A word we learned from them. If it meant anything, it meant people who don't know what's sacred. Are there any such people? 'Heathen' is merely a word for somebody who knows a different sacredness than you know." (page 126)

"We've sung your poem 'Liberty' for ten years now here in Ansul, in hiding, behind doors. How did that song get here, who brought it? From voice to voice, from soul to soul, from land to land. When we sing it aloud at last, in the face of the enemy, do you think you'll be silent?" (page 169)

"Love of country, or honor, or freedom, then, may be names that give that pleasure to justify it to the gods and to the people who suffer and kill and die in the game. So those words — love, honor, freedom — are degraded from their true sense. The people may come to hold them in contempt as meaningless, and poets must struggle to give them back their truth." (page 296)


There's plenty more like that — moving passages couched in the middle of a good story. I'll just quote these few parts, though, and hopefully that will be enough to let the book jump out and begin to work its magic on you too.

After all, what could I say about the book that would better recommend it than that it overflows with lines like these?

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House of Many Ways

I managed to pick up a copy of the Diana Wynne Jones novel, House of Many Ways when I was in Shanghai recently. I had been keeping an eye out for the book, but certainly hadn't expected to find it in Shanghai. Anyway, I am happy I did spot it there, and really enjoyed reading it. Not surprising, as Diana Wynne Jones is always one of my favorites.

The book features Howl and Sophie, but they are not the main characters. Instead, Charmain and the little dog who adopts her, Waif, are the main stars of the show. It is a nice way to continue to feature Howl and Sophie, the pair in Howl's Moving Castle, as they make a very fun couple to follow. And Calcifer is, of course, as charming as ever.

It is always hard to beat a Diana Wynne Jones fantasy tale. She knows how to weave stories in such a way as to make the reader want to know what is going to happen next. She is incredibly creative, making use of all sorts of strange and funny magic to get the tale moving along. Her use of space and time is, as always, entertaining in House of Many Ways.

Charmain is like most of the characters you expect to find in a Diana Wynne Jones book — whether it be a part of the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark series, the Spellcoats series, the Howl books, or any of the many stand-alone volumes she's written. Charmain, like the rest, is simultaneously lovable and infuriating. Her faults aren't hidden from us, but are rather made an object for amusement and bemusement all at the same time. You wonder, while reading, how someone could continue to be so bad-tempered... and yet, you can't help but smile, perhaps recognizing it as a very typical, very human mode of behavior. (Maybe even something you might have seen in yourself from time to time.)

For me, it is this combination of innovative magic, good humor, lovable/infuriating characters, and good plots that makes every Diana Wynne Jones story so much fun. And House of Many Ways doesn't disappoint.

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If Star Wars had Facebook...

I came across a really funny post here.

Hope you get a laugh out of it.



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