Chunking

October 18, 2010

So yesterday I took time off from finishing the novel to enjoy a piece of Americana, to-wit: the annual Pumpkin Chunkin’ festival out on the plains of Estancia, NM. What they do, see, is build these enormous war machines, then shoot vegetables from them. In addition to vegetable warfare, the festival featured many activities that […]

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By Tingo!

October 15, 2010

MatadorNetwork has collected 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words From Around the World, in which terms like “tingo” and “saudade” require whole unwieldy sentences (if not paragraphs) to render in English. The best part of the article is the comments section, in which many more untranslatable words are submitted.  My favorite being the Afrikaans “grillerig,” “the feeling […]

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Whereat I Am

October 15, 2010

I haven’t been posting a lot here in the last couple weeks, and there are a couple reasons for that. First, I’ve been correcting page proofs for Deep State, my next novel and the sequel to This Is Not a Game, available in the US and UK next February wherever fine books are sold. Second, […]

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Labeling

October 10, 2010

About ten years ago, I was shopping around a proposal for a novel about Benjamin Franklin.   Though the friends who read the initial chapters loved them, and one went as far as to say it was the best thing I’ve ever done, the proposal never sold, in part because editors were puzzled by it.  There […]

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1981: The Writer’s Life

October 9, 2010

This is third in a series of posts about my early life as a writer, inspired in part by my digging through old tax records.  1981, though the third year in which I earned my living through writing, was the first year in which I was actually published. I have remarked in the past that […]

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Vegas Death Ray

October 6, 2010

Via Gardner Dozois, the news that the new Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas has its very own built-in death ray, which it is using for the very best purpose— cooking lawyers. “I’m sitting there in the chair and all of the sudden my hair and the top of my head are burning.  I’m rubbing my […]

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The Flash Crash— Solved!

October 2, 2010

Friend of the blog Ralf sent me a link to an article in which it is claimed that the SEC/CFTC investigation into May’s Flash Crash has finally come up with the culprit— naturally, an automated trading program. In the 104-page report, staff members at Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said […]

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Ralph M. Vicinanza, 1950-2010

October 1, 2010

My agent, Ralph Vicinanza, died suddenly over the weekend from an apparent brain aneurysm.  He was in good condition and vibrant health, but an aneurysm can kill you at any age, and this one did. At some point around 1992, I was sold to Ralph by my former agent.  (Odd to think that this sort […]

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You Mean Jesus Was Jewish?

September 30, 2010

A new poll reveals that Americans, while religious, know very little about religions, including their own. (And we also learn, from the footnote, that the New York Times doesn’t know how to spell “Teresa.”) On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith. […]

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Fox News Destroys World!

September 29, 2010

Our friends at Fox News, in the person of writer John Brandon, are interested in the end of the world.  They asked me how it could be done.  I told them. They quoted me a lot, along with John Barnes and a number of prominent scientists. Want to know how the world ends?  Check it […]

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