Lene Taylor's Journal

12:41pm: I can do this.
So I'm supposed to call Harlan Ellison tonight.

Wish me luck!

7:02pm: The stupid---it BURNS! AGAIN!
Some fanboy posted a questionnaire to the comicfangirls community:

There are some things I've been curious about, when it comes to females and the comic industry. So I've created a quick questionnaire to answer some of the things that, as a male, couldn't answer myself..

And then he asks a string of questions about how many comics you own, manga, etc....and then the "demographic" questions which include this gem:

Have you lost your virginity?

His explantion: "And before I begin, please bear in mind that these are based on male stereotypes of a comic book "fanboy", on controversial subjects, or general questions that could spark some debate."

RIGHT.

How long, O lord? How long?

12:36pm: Huh?
I got this comment on the I Read Comics blog today:

It's rare these days to have someone to tell me how all middle-class-straight-white-guys think. And how they seem to derive sustenance by stereotyping and oppressing others. Also how they are, with rare exception, incapable of empathy or insight. Thank God there is you - seemingly the lone voice unafraid to broach the subject these days. Now I see that those in the "minority" (and women) have been oppressed without exception and in all aspects of their lives for far too long (to c.1985). Never again should there be any portrayal of any "minority" (or woman) as anything less than completely capable and morally upstanding, save those instances where some middle-class-straight-white-guy has orchestrated to besmirch the unsuspecting victim (or woman). Now I see that no woman (of the multitude available in a given universe), would ever choose sex as a means of making a living unless she'd been forced to, or lead to believe it was her only choice or, God forbid, forced to objectively consider _her particular_ available marketable skills. Thank you again for opening my eyes to the middle-class-straight-white-devil. Yours is a perspective of which I'm sure I could never tire (to c.1995).

PS - love the show! (... and don't ya know I've gotta keep listening)

The commenter's Blogger name is Elinor. I don't really understand this comment and I don't get the references to certain dates (1985, 1995). Is this what passes for sarcasm these days? The kids today, I'm telling you.

"Elinor" seems to have set up a Blogger account merely to spew at me.

Huh.

12:46pm: The Stupid, it burns....
http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4257&PN=1

11:05pm: Whee! Fanboys in a Dither!
Love to eat them fanboys
Fanboys what I love to eat.
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet.

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71415

http://www.imagecomics.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=16404

Opa! Of course, none of them have had the guts to say any of this to my face, virtually speaking.

12:03pm: More fiction for your reading pleasure!
The mighty Fiction issue of the Lincoln Heights Literary Society is now published. I have a bit of silliness in there called "More Minimalist Fiction"; read the whole issue, there's some dynamite writing going on.

J LHLS Issue 9 - The Fiction Issue! - Spring 2006

The Journal of the

"Ontology on the go!"

Table of Contents

Late one night, driving cross-country, my friend and I stopped at a campsite in Lake Anita, Iowa. The attendant had already fallen asleep, so we drove our station wagon slowly over the gravel drive, past the admission gate, and up a winding road to a hill overlooking miles of low, dark countryside.
Lake Anita
By Allison Burnett

Five months after graduating from college, Andrew and I were frozen in our lives of unemployment. Our windfall high-paying summer internships had not led to permanent jobs as we'd hoped and the money we'd saved on the off chance that we'd be unemployed was beginning to run out.
Wanted: Hunter and Gatherer
By Jessica Groper

Janice decided one day to become a heroine, since that was what Nancy Drew was. She went for a long walk around her town and looked for mysteries to solve or people to help, but there really wasn't much to do. So she went home again then just decided to just be herself. Little did she know.
More Minimalist Fiction
By Marlene Taylor

Chaînés - Chains, links. A series of rapid turns done in a straight line or circle.
French For Dancers
By Jessica Groper

This excerpt is from an unfinished fantasy novel, "Mara Sonnedragon," set on an alternate-history medieval Earth. Mara is the only daughter and heir of the Grand Duke of Noreland, and therefore titled Prince in spite of her gender. She is also the leader of the Shieldmaids, a quasi-religious group of women warriors, but unlike many of her fellow Shieldmaids, has not yet received a vision of the talisman beast that will serve as her battle symbol and personal spirit-guide.
Mara and the Dragon
By Kathryn L. Ramage

Stefan Kline lay in bed naked, his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Projected on the wavy and crumbling surface were images of perfection. He was not one to gloat, but he felt he had every right to, because that morning he had decided that his evening would be perfect and it had been. Never before had he felt so secure in the power of his will.
The Ring
By Allison Burnett

"Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow" is a chapter from "Promised Land", a work-in-progress fictive biography of Bill Clinton set in the twenty-four hours before he has tell Hillary about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow
By Kitty Johnson

9:36am: Yay, a story published
Is good. My story, Iced Nectarine Tea, is published today at Tit-Elation.com. It's a paid subscription site, so I'm not expecting any of you to pony up for it, but I wanted to spread the word.

I like being published!

1:17pm: Why Mike Nesmith is a Prat: Reason #256
His answer from The World Question Center. The question is "What is your dangerous idea?":

Existence is Non-Time, Non-Sequential, and Non-Objective

Not a dangerous idea per se but like a razor sharp tool in unskilled hands it can inflect unintended damage.

Non-Time drives forward the notion the past does not create the present. This would of course render evolutionary theory a local-system, near-field process that was non-causative (i.e. effect).

Non-Sequential reverberates through the Turing machine and computation, and points to simultaneity. It redefines language and cognition.

Non-Objective establishes a continuum not to be confused with solipsism. As Schrödinger puts it when discussing the "time-hallowed discrimination between subject and object" — "the world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist". This continuum has large implications for the empirical data set, as it introduces factual infinity into the data plane.

These three notions, Non-Time, Non-sequence, and Non-Object have been peeking like diamonds through the dust of empiricism, philosophy, and the sciences for centuries. Quantum mechanics, including Deutsch's parallel universes and the massive parallelism of quantum computing, is our brightest star — an unimaginably tall peak on our fitness landscape.

They bring us to a threshold over which empiricism has yet to travel, through which philosophy must reconstruct the very idea of ideas, and beyond which stretches the now familiar "uncharted territories" of all great adventures.

2:20pm: Another day, another publication
I just had another story accepted for publication. "Iced Nectarine Tea" will appear at the website Tit-Elation on March 28.

Yay!

9:37am: This will make you laugh.
A fanboy explains why it's normal and OK for female superheroes to have giant inflatable tits:

"Sure, I agree that the body fat percentages on an athletic woman argue against large breasts, but they're not out of the question. Moreover, tight spandex easily appears to add a full cup size to any woman."

Wow, I'm glad an expert settled that!

6:17pm: Hey! I'm on Amazon!
The book that has one of my stories in it, Dying For It: Tales of Sex and Death, is now listed on Amazon. I see that the publishing date is now August (rather than February, which is what I was told), but oh well. Only $10! Order yours today!

The story, by the way, is called "Nona Take Five".

9:04pm: Goals for 2006
Started off the year in great style by submitting two stories for publication. Here's hoping one of them gets accepted.

This year I need to:

- Bag and board all my comics and get them into short boxes (and enter them in the Comic Book DB
- finish and submit stories to at least three publications
- keep producing my two podcasts on a regular basis
- sell a bunch of my albums on eBay
- finish working on my guest room so that ragdoll and ginger have a decent place to sleep when they come to visit

Modest goals. Do-able goals.

Ready, set, GO!

8:07pm: Advice to the Little Peyton Girl
"And when you meet [him] again, it must all be different. For there was something the trouble, no matter what he says; something deeply the trouble. You showed him how much you cared for him, Sylvie, showed him he was all-important to you. Men do not like that. You would think they would find it sweet, but they do not. You must be light and you must be easy, for ease is the desire of all men. Talk to him gaily and graciously when you see him, and never hint of the sorrow he has caused you. Men hate reminders of sadness. And there must never be any reproaches, and there must never, never, never be any more 'terrible rows'. Nothing so embarrasses a man as to see a woman lose her dignity....It is a long way, Sylvie, and a hard one, and you must watch every step you take along it. But it is the only way with a man."
- Dorothy Parker, 1933

Has anything changed in 70 years?

11:40am: Aquella Noche
"The man occasionally sneaks a longing look at the boy's dark brown neck and shoulders. He wishes to be a planet, I know, with gravity enough to draw in not only the lovely, warm body, but also his far distant heart and soul. For now, I guess, the appearance of intimacy will have to be enough..."
- Jaime Cortez


Ain't it the truth.

4:47pm: A Published Author, once again
One of my erotic stories, "Nona Take Five", is being published in a collection called Dying For It: Tales of Sex & Death. It's being edited by the very wonderful Mitzi Szereto and published by Thunder's Mouth Press (I don't know exactly when - I'm guessing early 2006). More details as I get them.

11:00am: Now you can listen to me.
I started podcasting. The show is called I Read Comics and guess what, it's about comics. If you have a podcatcher like IPodder, you can use the following feed:

http://www.troubledscience.com/podcasts/ircpodcast.xml

I'm still reviewing over at Lincoln Heights Literary Society and wondering where the hell Dona is. Oh, and running Videoranch, etc. But you knew that.

11:07am: Published
My story, What a Life, is published today in the online erotica magazine Clean Sheets.

If you like it, drop the editors a note and tell them so.