#Weeknotes S02 E18

This process might take a licking, but it keeps on ticking. 18 of these in 2020, huh? I actually didn’t think I could keep this up longer than 6 to 8 weeks. Anyway, this week I felt like I had just a little bit more brain capacity than I’ve had during the quarantine times. So, here we are! Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first…

FEEDING MY HEAD
I knocked out a few more pages of RUST: A MEMOIR OF STEEL AND GRIT by Eliese Collette Goldbach and of course got distracted by a shiny thing of a non-fiction writing how-to anthology edited by Lee Gutkind, KEEP IT REAL. Okay, more than distracted; I’m about halfway through it.

FEEDING MY EARS
I heard about this a few day after the fact but once I heard it, I swear my mental fog started lifting this week: the Free Nationals doing their first on NPR Tiny Desk Concert since appearing in 2016 with Anderson .Paak and the release of their self-titled debut album, which of course I immediately got! Check it out and do yourself a favor — don’t skip ahead to the Anderson .Paak tune. You’ll be cheating yourself, trust me.

ROTTING MY BRAIN
I totally missed the boat on the anime PARANOIA AGENT when it made the rounds on Adult Swim in 2005. It’s back now and… well, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing when I saw the first episode last week. But I’m hooked now. When they call this a “psychological thriller” believe it — it really is a fucking psychological head trip of a thriller. There’s a reason this shit is on at 1:00 am.

CORONAVIRUS JOURNAL
Ugh, I hate using that term, but let’s just call this section what it is…

This year’s 4th Street Fantasy convention is postponed until next year, which I’m sure was a difficult decision for the organizers but the correct one, all things considered. It was the one and only con I’d planned on attending this year, even before the plague came upon us. They’ve offered to roll registration fees forward for 2021, which I took them up on. Also, this would’ve been the first weekend of the local annual Friends of the Library Book Sale, and yesterday would have been Free Comic Book Day. My attendance to either has been sporadic in recent years, but boy it really makes a difference when the choice not to go isn’t yours.

Aside from the impact on the social/SFFH part of my life, my adjustments to the new remote work world order have crystallized finally. Thanks to various webapps, I’m able to conduct 99% of my worklife in Ubuntu using Firefox (and a couple of official and non-official Linux versions of a couple of standalone apps) and, as usual, the rest of my life in Chrome. It’s a good enough demarcation line.

When I had no clue what I was going to be putting up for this week’s Weeknotes, I started a write-up of my work-at-home gear and workflow. But maybe that’s for another time. I will mention a new addition that finally arrived this week. It’s on the right…

I maintain this new USB mixer is not a coronavirus hobby purchase, because (a) I’ve been thinking about getting this exact model ever since I recorded readings for the ‘zine LAKESIDE CIRCUS and (b) I’ve been wanting better audio for my Zoom calls. Okay, maybe that does make me a little bit of a tool, but a different kind of tool than people who decide to start a podcast while in quarantine (which, if you believe the social medias, makes you a huge tool).

And you know what, if maybe a year or ago, I started the very beginnings of a rough idea of a sketch of what a very short monthly podcast might could possibly look like… still not a coronavirus hobby purchase!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

That’s all I’ve got this week. Stay well, wash your hands, and if you really, truly, in good faith don’t think going outside is going to endanger you or the vulnerable in your community, wear a fucking mask at least, huh?

Even better though, stay inside. Really.

#Weeknotes S02 E17

This week, and maybe for the foreseeable future, I’m dispensing with the pretense of following any kind of structure for these Weeknotes. It’s kind of a reflection life in the time of coronavirus. Sure, there’s a loose structure (at least for those of us fortunate enough to be able to work from home), but if I can’t keep up with other routines, there’s no point in being a stickler about something like a weekly blog post. I’m just not feeling it right now.

I haven’t had a haircut in 2 months now. This is a pretty good representation of my hair before and during quarantine.

My time is either working or not-working. And during not-working time, I haven’t been in a headspace to do much else except mindlessly read, write, and binge watch stuff and do all the things in DESTINY 2 that I never got do when life was more normal. I’ve got some Twilight Zone draft posts queued up that I never got to finish this week. I peruse the internet and social medias as usual, and even make note of the interesting stuff like I usually do. But collecting, compiling, commenting? Eh, if I don’t have the presence of mind to stick it on Twitter, then it just leaks out of my mental RAM.

Here’s one thing that’s stuck in my mind this week: How I’m the target audience for this commercial, featuring a song that’s been in my personal rotation one way or the other since it came out.
https://youtu.be/0o5cpVdaO0A

Anything else I’ve read, parts of different memoirs, chapters out of books on writing non-fiction, the occasional article? In one ear and — well, maybe not out the other, but stuck inside my head.

I’m not going to stress about it right now. And believe it or not that’s actually progress for me. I have a tendency to fight these things, solve for them, to take any situation where I’m not sure what to do next and take stock, see what I can crack, what I can hack, what I can turn into lemonade. What I haven’t tried in awhile? Just sitting with it and seeing what comes of it. It’s hard to do that and keep working at the same time; we do what we gotta do, I guess.

IN THE WILD

#Weeknotes S02 E16

It’s not like nothing report worthy happened this week. But I’m definitely experiencing that weird, distorted sense of time everyone’s been talking about. It feels like no time has past since last week’s Weeknotes. Yet, it’s seven days later. What have I been doing? I look back and, like the past couple of weeks, seem to recall only flashes.

Between last Sunday and this Sunday, it’s just been flat out at the work-from-home dayjob-in-exile. A couple of longish days in there that didn’t leave me with much left over afterward. Using my personal tools for work has been working just fine, with a few interesting issues here and there. I’m smugly doing everything my Windows-based dayjob requires using Ubuntu. But I’m balancing it out by being unofficial tech support for coworkers who aren’t as tech savvy. Makes you wonder just how much of the world continues to run thanks to Zoom’s remote control feature.

FEEDING MY HEAD
I eked a few more paragraphs out of some of the stuff in my reading queue…

  • Elise Collette Goldbach’s, RUST: A MEMOIR OF STEEL AND GRIT
  • Osama Alomar’s THE TEETH OF THE COMB & OTHER STORIES
  • Kit Reed’s STORY FIRST: THE WRITER AS INSIDER

ROTTING MY BRAIN
I’ve gotten back into the (bad) weekly habit of livetweeting snark at the History Channel’s THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND and THE SECRET OF SKINWALKER RANCH. It’s a rabbit hole, to say the least.

via GIPHY

I’ve got a To Be Watched queue, but I can be forgiven for this distraction in this time of coronavirus, right? (I mean, god knows I didn’t have an excuse any of the other times I’ve done this.)

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

You know, I think that’s all I have this week. Maybe I’ll get to bed early and tackle Monday fresh!

Yeah, I know: famous last words!

Quickie Review of THE TWILIGHT ZONE (2019) S01 E06: “Six Degrees of Freedom”

Five astronauts in search of an exit… out of The Twilight Zone.

Definitely another original series mash-up of every episode with: astronauts, a catastrophe, obvious throwback references, and more importantly, a meta examination on the nature of reality. It was simple and straightforward, but still compelling. But just because I don’t have a lot to say about it, “Six Degrees” is one of those really solid episodes that I’d expect to see if this new series lasts long enough to get its own holiday marathons. Other impressions I had…

  • Featuring The Bradbury won’t necessarily get this episode a “4” rating, now…
  • Oh, TINA is talky — is it going to go H.A.L.?
  • I’m gonna be pissed if this whole thing is just someone’s delusion.
  • Otherwise, this would be a great pilot for a sci-fi TV series.
  • I swear, the astronaut who loses his shit is THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S answer to STAR TREK:TOS’s redshirts.

Okay, so while this episode does feature The Bradbury…

The Jack Elam Score for “Six Degrees of Freedom” (out of 5):

1: “And this lemon-sucker here…”
2: “Ain’t nobody been exonerated yet, that’s for sure!”
3: “Sharp boys, real sharp boys!”
4: “A regular Ray Bradbury!”
5: “CHECK ‘EM FOR WINGS!!!”

#Weeknotes S02 E15

Ultra-short this week, because hey, Easter!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

I feel like I’m slowly adjusting to the new normal. No, strike that — I feel like I’m further along in the grieving process over the old normal. I’ve got something of a routine where working the dayjob from home is concerned. Aside from that, I don’t know if me and mine have a “new normal” yet, because things are still shifting. Well, we’ll see what happens this week.

Also, Thundercat’s new album IT IS WHAT IT IS is pretty great. I recommend!

IN THE WILD
I know, Mazikeen. I know…

Catch you on the flip.

Quickie Review of THE TWILIGHT ZONE (2019) S01 E05: “The Wunderkind”

Art imitates life imitating a reality TV show imitating life… uh… “Twilight Zone.”

I hoped for a follow-through on the OMEN-esque vibe I got seeing the trailer. Some kind of new update of “It’s a Good Life.” Of course, the last episode that brought this to my mind didn’t seem so good to me. “The Wunderkind” had a promising premise, a compelling character, and the clever throwback touches I’ve come to expect from the new series. Trouble is, it couldn’t get off the note of “Look, look, it’s about how we’ve normalized the weird shit going on in Washington DC, get it?” The other impressions I came away with…

  • Five episodes and I have to be imagining the continual references to “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” That jukebox could be referencing a bunch of episodes. Right…?
  • You’re blatantly mixing your o.g. TZ references with John Cho strapped to hospital bed, there — part “To Serve Man,” part “Eye of the Beholder.”
  • But only in the modern TZ could you have the Asian character say, “I want Justin Timberlake to play me in the HBO movie!”
  • The polls being “high tech baloney.” A child who “tells it like it is.” Hm, seems familiar…
  • Only in the modern TZ can Asian guys be selfish a-holes proposing ridiculous candidates/ideas, blinded by the privilege that lets him think, “Everybody wins, nobody gets hurt.” Yeah, right.
  • Nope, the episode took my suspension of disbelief a step too far. Why would parents let Raff near them again. I could believe they could go for it once, but twice? Obviously, because the plot needs it.
  • Look, little Bobby Flay jumping up on the cutting board.
  • Ah, here it is — “That was a good thing you did, Oliver. A good thing.”

I’m reminded of the interview James Gunn (the sci-fi writer, not the director) did with Rod Serling where Serling mused about the consistency of the original TZ: “It wasn’t a good show every week. It wasn’t a good show, sometimes, three weeks running.” “A” for effort here, but…

The Jack Elam Score for “Wunderkind” (out of 5):

1: “And this lemon-sucker here…”
2: “Ain’t nobody been exonerated yet, that’s for sure!”
3: “Sharp boys, real sharp boys!”
4: “A regular Ray Bradbury!”
5: “CHECK ‘EM FOR WINGS!!!”

I *won’t* see you on #GoodFriday…

That gosh darn gummint overreach impinging on religious freedoms, I tell you…

Crucifixion site on lockdown to block penitents

Ruben Enaje, 59, a house and billboard painter, regularly took on the role of Jesus Christ in “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross), the play staged on the streets of Cutud.

But local officials have asked Enaje and other penitents to drop the crucifixion rites after President Duterte ordered a stop to the gathering of people in big numbers to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Enaje said he would just carry a 37-kilogram wooden cross from his house to the hill on Good Friday.

This would’ve been Ruben’s 34th time doing this. So hey, if he can adjust to social distancing, YOU can adjust to social distancing.

Happy Good Friday anyway…

#Weeknotes S02 E14

This week flew by. I know I’m not the only one working from home for 8 hours and yet somehow losing track of time. It feels like most of the week is a blur of work and… not work…? I think back over the week and see only flashes. In those flashes, I seem to remember spending too much time on Twitter. I remember moving my entire Windows-based work-from-home dayjob setup to Ubuntu, basically because I could….

Other than that — aside from a little stir craziness, and the cancellation of chiropractic and dentist appointments until further notice, I’m still employed, working at 100% capacity (per a recent dayjob evaluation of everyone’s remote work capability relative to productivity), with my peeps and my cats.

Thankfully, I don’t (to my knowledge, as of the moment I send this) know anyone personally infected with COVID-19, let alone died from it. I certainly didn’t know any of these fellows who have, even though their music has been woven through my adult life. Rest in power, Wallace Roney, Ellis Marsalis, and Bill Withers!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

WRITING PROGRESS
Longest Writing Chain This Week: 1 day for 1 days. No, no excuses but these days, thankfully, I’m not really required to have one.

FEEDING MY HEAD
When I had the brainspace, I gobbled up bits of the books I got a couple of weeks ago. I’ve also set Lydia Davis’s ESSAYS ONE down in the queue, but really to review and process all the writing process stuff she has in there. Just like her fiction, there are a lot of layers to her writing tips, and I feel like I need to read and ponder them another two or ten times.

ROTTING MY BRAIN
And this week, I do mean “rotting.” Feels a little ironic that most of it has been on the History Channel. I finally managed to catch a new episode of THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND for me to livetweet my snark. The same with a new show called THE SECRET OF SKINWALKER RANCH. On the other hand, FORGED IN FIRE doesn’t let me down.

But, don’t get me started on EATING HISTORY. I made the mistake of keeping the TV on after one of the shows I was watching and caught this… this… this display of mediocre bros getting the kind of shot on TV that talented people of color work their asses off to get but hardly ever achieve.

IN THE WILD

The dayjob office-in-exile.

Stay home. Wash your hands. Flatten the curve.

#Weeknotes S02 E13

Doing things in a different order this week. Because I can, that’s why.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
For as much bullshit as comes out of my home state of Ohio these days, I still get occasionally wistful. I was sent an article from SCENE MAGAZINE (oh, I still remember how cool I thought I was in high school carting one of these around every week), “An Oral History of WMMS, Cleveland’s Legendary Radio Station”

Legendary DJ Kid Leo — as famous to me and most Clevelanders as Wolfman Jack ever was — brings to mind the city I grew up in. (If it helps you get into my head, listen to “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders as you read this section.)

In those days, Cleveland was a joke to most in the national media and therefore to a lot of America. Our sports teams were inept, our mayors were fodder for late night talk show hosts’ monologues and hell, our river even caught on fire.

I only understood a fraction of the shit going on in Cleveland radio at the time, except for the big things like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ROLLING STONES ballot box stuffing thing, WENZ “The End.” But names like Malrite, Ruby Cheeks, Jeff and Flash; the competition like WCNX, John Lanigan, the Stern show when it came to town — these are motes and flashes of deep, deep memories of good times I remember. (Yeah, I know it’s a Chicago song, shut up.)

Why am I waxing so nostalgic this week? Because this time period was on my mind anyway after reading this article, and others like it, on how Generation X came up with the skills to cope in this time of coronavirus.

Which, as I tweeted, wasn’t necessarily the most ideal situation. I’m not whining, though. Sure, an outsider’s picture of growing up in the ’80s on the “Mistake on the Lake” is probably close to how you envision it. But much like quarantine, isolation, remote work, fear, and uncertainty in 2020, it is what it is.

WRITING PROGRESS
Longest Writing Chain This Week: 1 days for 2 days overall. What do you want, there’s a fucking global pandemic on.

FEEDING MY HEAD
I don’t need any more books, but I got them anyway. It’s been a long time since a writer’s stuff made me happy that they jumped their place in my reading queue like Osama Almoar’s.

ROTTING MY BRAIN
I still think “Replay” is the best episode of Jordan Peele’s TWILIGHT ZONE so far, but I’ll be damned if “A Traveler” doesn’t come a close second.

IN THE WILD
I feel you, Asher. We’re all a little stir crazy. That… that’s my arm, though.

Quickie Review of THE TWILIGHT ZONE (2019) S01 E04: “A Traveler”

An assimilated people still have a line in the sand against a colonial oppressor. It’s just pushed far back. For some though, that line is set all the way… into The Twilight Zone.

I’m sure I didn’t get them all, but just in this single episode there were actual or thematic references to every original TZ episode where…

  • …someone is in a jail cell
  • …it’s all police can do to just keep a grip on WTF is going on
  • …people get paranoid and shit gets crazy
  • ::that Giorgio Tsoukalos meme::

And this reminds me of another strength of the original series. I think part (a small part, to be sure) of the reason people say stupid things like, “Why can’t modern SF/F be apolitical like THE TWILIGHT ZONE?” is because a lot of the stories were crafted to sink its speculative hooks in you so deeply that it practically enabled a shallow viewer to miss the deeply political stuff. Now, I don’t recommend that kind of viewing for “A Traveler,” because you’d miss out on its commentary on colonialism. But hey, you do you!

Other thoughts I had as I watched…

  • This is the Christmas episode, but I get the feeling it’s not going to be “Night of the Meek.” Will we ever get an episode like that in this 2019 iteration?
  • Sure keep showing the Gremlin, Talky Tina, the Mystic Seer — I like merch! But I don’t know… I don’t think the alien with the bling and a Sherpa hat is going to be a thing.
  • Jesus, Steven Yuen dressed like Ross — fucking awesome
  • “Quallinat Christmas sucks”… but as long as you get turkey and pie…? Hey, I’m Fil-Am, I’m not judging!
  • Again, a good depiction of the low key everyday racism that I experienced. (Heh, “experienced.” Past tense… it’s a joke, get it?)
  • Dummy Christmas wrapping
  • A. Traveler.” HAHA I like it.
  • Aggro travelers are a thing…??
  • Love the rotary phone with buttons
  • Oh, now we have some “Monsters are Due” shit going on here?
  • Mayor “Matheson” — okay, I think by episode 4, new viewers know how Richard Matheson is by now!
  • I was fully expecting Greg Kinnear to the be a racist dumb-ass. No, just a bigger egotist than racist.
  • “What the actual what?” is a nice callback to “Wet… what’s, ‘wet’?”
  • “My people are going to intercept them.” What… from Venus?

The Jack Elam Score for “A Traveler” (out of 5):

1: “And this lemon-sucker here…”
2: “Ain’t nobody been exonerated yet, that’s for sure!”
3: “Sharp boys, real sharp boys!”
4: “A regular Ray Bradbury!”
5: “CHECK ‘EM FOR WINGS!!!”