Looking for "ready"

I need a word. Not just any word. I need a word that means: ready, prepared, capable, strengthy, and brash. I need a word that is poetical. I need a word that is memorable. And it needs to be, or to be able to pass off as, a noun. Doesn't need to be English. Just needs to be good.

ARR!

http://www.piratequiz.com/

What's yer Pirate name?

The Ironstrong Psychological Graspy Trick of Oreos

Oreos come in two sizes: regular, and bite size. We all know this, and we do not rise up in arms against Oreos, because that would be just silly.

The regular size of Oreo is in fact a bite and a half of cookie--unless you've got a freaky big or crazy small mouth, or you're just in a hurry, or you're being obnoxious about the way you're "enjoying" the cookie. But, in general, Oreos are one and a half bites of cookie. What this makes us do:

"I just ate an Oreo.... And I promised myself I wouldn't have a whole lot of sugar today. But they're so small--what's the big deal? And besides: I have to finish that second bite. And it would be silly to just have another third of an Oreo. Wasteful. I sure as heck don't like to be wasteful. Except with gasoline. I suppose I could just take the train, or walk sometimes, or carpool, but I like my car. But not with Food. Except if it's onions--no problem leaving onions on my plate--or breadcrust--why can't they just make bread WITHOUT crust? But you can't waste half an Oreo. It would be unconscionable. (Is that a word? Don't know. Thought it was.) Plus, they're just so small. Another one won't hurt. And I'd better take one...well, two more for the road. I'm not going anywhere, but...you know...anyway. Just a couple more. I think I need some milk..."

Before you know it, you've eaten half of them.

Bite Size Oreos are actually half a bite of cookie. Same principal, but subtler. You eat them by the handful without a thought. Nine or ten bite size Oreos instead of one or two regular ones. They come in smaller packages, though, so generally you don't even give it a thought. Oreos are like Goldfish (the snack that smiles back! Little kid eating a Goldfish while watching a Goldfish commercial runs away from the TV: "Mommy, the fish are smiling at me. I'm scared, mommy. Will ghost fish haunt me?" Mommy's thinking: Why couldn't the corporate moguls stick to the material? Why did they need to branch into the ethereal, and wonder how our snacks feel? I thought "the talk" would just be about sex. Ho hum.).

Uh.... Sort of got lost in my tangent. What was I talking about? Oh, right. Oreos.

So Oreos play this trick on us: we eat more of them than we ought to. And of all the tricks that the corporate world plays on its consumers--of all the psychological grasps they have over us--this seems like the one least complained of. Sure, we complain of eating too much, and eating too much sugar and snacks. We say, "Once you have one, you just can't stop, they're so good." But I thought that was Lays Potato Chips' slogan--try to just have one. Right? Oreo is America's Favorite Cookie, and they say it with an amiably wicked grin--a snicker behind their hands, but a lovable sort of exterior which no one really suspects of really devious neferity.

Is that a word? Neferity? It should be.

American freaking Gods

So I'm reading American Gods. And it pleases me to an absolute cordiallity. Not only is it keeping me interested, not only is it getting me to think about how stories go together, and about foreshadowing, and plot twists, and how to take existing folklore and sort of twist it around into a really interesting shape. Not only am I enjoying this book, I'm enjoying it so much I want to tell people about it. I never tell people about what I'm reading, unless they ask specifically. I keep beginning this conversation: I'm reading this great book. It basically has the premise that America is a godless land, and as people immigrated here they brought their gods with them, then forgot about them, but the gods survived. And the gods got bitter...

I haven't managed to get anyone as psyched as I am...but my sales pitch is still evolving.

I keep having the experience of having a really good idea, and then finding out that someone famous has done it. I thought to myself, "fucking cowboys in space, man!" Then I saw Firefly. I was mad at Joss Whedon for a few days.

I had a similar experience with this book. A while ago I had a really vague and half formed thought that sort of took the form of, "Modern Odin...." I read the first chapter or so of this book. Guy says, "It's Wednesday. My day. Call me Wednesday." And I sort of wished I was more ignorant. I already knew Wednesday is Odin's Day. (Say Odin's Day a bajillion times fast, and, actually, pronounce like the Russian dude--can't remember his name, sledgehammer cow slayer--Votan, which, I think, should be pronounced "Wotan" more or less. Wednesday comes pretty painlessly from that.) So that gave that whole surprise away. But I sat and I thought about it for a bit, and went, "aw, cool." I kept reading the book, and decided I didn't have much of a reason to make up Modern Odin. Gaiman did it well. He has my blessing.

I freaking love this book, though. It's so awesome. The criticism I have of it, having gotten half-way through, I don't think there's enough really happening. Not in this whole Lakeside/Pleasantville stretch. I think the modern gods should be more proactive. It seems as if they aren't trying to accomplish anything. But I feel that Gaiman is probably good enough an author that because I'm thinking that, it means something is about to happen. And if it doesn't I will lose most of the faith I have built up in him.

Lakeside/Pleasantville is a wonderful example of complexity. It is Pleasantville. It really is. Everyone's nice, everyone's helpful and friendly, it's pretty all the time, comfortable and just all around groovy. But there's that undercurrent of a town not too much more than one medium sized disaster from just throwing in the towel. The people love it, but they see that it's dead-end. It isn't growing, it isn't prospering, but none of the citizens have any illusions about that. They know it. So while being that absolutely gorgeous place that you know you want to live, it's still somewhat sad and poignant. Plot-wise, it is the reprieve place: the resting place, the quiet place where our hero is protected, where nothing can get him, where the problems milling around, the mounting storm, are somewhere else and distant. But it's still a place where sadness can get to.

Realy cool.

Cleverness and Fright

Q: What effects do cleverness have upon your reader, when your reader reads the things you wrote?

A: Ask someone more studied than I.

Here, however, are my thoughts.

The story is: rundown carnival. Chain saw weilding demonic clown wants to kill everything.

Cleverness is personable. If your characters, your narrative, is clever, funny, flippant, quippant, and all around hee-hee to read, your audience has something human with which to associate. Make them feel that what they are reading is about and by real people, who like to laugh, and they have an immediate excuse for why the scary things are not real. If they see that, at the drop of a banana skin, everyone--bad guy, good guy, narrator and all--will dissolve into chuckles, which the reader is sharing in, then your reader is able to step back and say, "Hey, this isn't real. The demonic clown with the chain saw is fake, and will not come and get me, because he is, in fact, a good natured comedian, just play-acting at being loony scary. Tra-la-la."

Remove cleverness: Reader becomes afraid of the dark. Without occassional laughs, for no reason but a turn a phrase, without that personable quality, there is no escape. There is less humanity, and the reader sits when the tale is done, and they know that clown is just waiting inside Santa Claus, or their Dad, or in their closet.

The narrative voice knows everything. Cleverness is a sign that the narrative voice knows everything is going to turn out alright in the end, that the story is about the ride and the reader can relax because it has a happy ending. Without cleverness, with a narrator who is frightened, who cannot be clever because he knows the end is messy, your reader doesn't know what will happen, but knows to be afraid.

Yep. Cleverness and fright.

If Edison and Aristotle had a conversation

Edison: I invented the lightbulb. What did you invent?

Aristotle: Science.

Edison: Oh. Ah.

Dove dived

Dive is an irregular verb.... Irregular? I think that's right. It has the past tense dove and the past tense dived. Not one is better than the other, but they have different uses. Here they are, as close as I can reason:

dove: past perfect--I think perfect--as in:

In the past, the dove dove.

dived: past progressive, as in:

In the past, the dove would have dived, will have dived.

It flows a little better. Dive is a terrible word.

The Beatles, with special guest somethingist, Joss Whedon!

I once asked my dad, what is the big freaking deal with the Beatles? What made them so very betterer than everything else?

He answered, well, have you heard anything else from the Beatles' era?

I hadn't. Not too much anyway. Some, but not a lot. And, in the course of that conversation, which was far more drawn out than illustrated above--that's sort of a loopy statement--, I learned that everything which I thought was cool about contemporary rock bands, the Beatles pretty much did first. Apparently, they were the first band to put the lyrics on the album, just to illustrate.

The big freaking deal with the Beatles? Well, it's vague and not very clear when compared to everything now, which is influenced by them.

Joss Whedon. Elseplace, people I know have been discussing Joss Whedon. What, postulated one doubter, is the big freaking deal with Joss Whedon? And people illustrated, in calm and articulate manners, what the big freaking deal was. And I won't talk about that much now, because that isn't the point.

Here is: One big freaking deal kudo which was brought up about Mr. Whedon was his boldness in actually allowing the realistic growth of his characters. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer they begin in highschool, then go to college, and have to deal with entirely new dynamics, etc. And I thought, "Ah, yes, bold. Genius, man."

But then I remembered Smallville. A soap opera about the young years of Clark Kent, the Superman. Admittedly, Smallville was no doubt meant to fill a void Buffy left, when it ended just a while before. Smallville was a sort of poor imitation. But one thing which it did do was let its characters grow with age. Clark Kent begins in highschool, then, eventually, goes off to college, and he isn't actually living in Smallville any longer...for a whole month.

And I thought about this--Smallville having the same boldness as Buffy, on a different level--and it struck me that Buffy was there first. Whedon broke ground, and people went, "Hell...cool...you can do that? Is it--is it allowed? Let's do it anyway."

Whedon paved the way for revolutionaries. He's like Beethoven.

Yours is an Irksome Ilk

No entry. I just wanted to say so.

A reason why I write, and one of the problems thereof

One reason that I write is because I like stories. Telling them, and hearing or reading them. Therefore, I write stories which I like to hear.

Which is sort of a no duh. Except that I don't really write stories entirely because I want to share. It's all cool-cool to share, to have people read my stuff and enjoy it, and even think about it. But that's sort of a perk. I write stories which I like to read.

So this happens: I write something, then learn there are issues with it--other people often point them out to me. Then I spend a few hours improving it, and in the process retell the story to myself in this better form. At this point I've as good as read it. That, by itself, gives me a good deal of satisfaction--almost the same satisfaction as reading something really good. And, thusly, revision becomes sort of a chore, because I've already read it.

I've been having issues motivating myself to revise.

I'm cooler than you, and I can prove it!

I got the Collector's Edition of Serenity. Ha ha! You're green because you're jealous, I don't want to hear nothing about having just eaten bad moo goo gai pan then rode the Teacups. You're fooling yourself.