So at 3:30 in the morning on July 12th, Rasa wakes me up to say “it really hurts” and we should probably go to the hospital. Granted, we were scheduled to be there at 7am anyway, so our 3:30 wake up call was only 90 minutes ahead of schedule. Turns out, we needed the extra time because when your wife is in labor, the movies just don’t do it justice. There’s no madcap dashing about trying to flag down cabs or traffic cops pulling you over only to turn on the sirens and lead you to the hospital once they’ve learned the full extent of your situation. Nope. It’s a lot of coaxing someone who can barely walk down three flights of stairs and calling a friend to come and make sure the dog gets taken out so you don’t come home to an “extra” surprise. Continue reading “The Monki Has Landed”
Category: Personal
BBC – Culture – The monsters hidden beneath the sea
Okay, I admit it. I’m a sucker for underwater monsters. Give me a giant squid, a Kraken, an octopus of unusual size, hell, even an overgrown shark and I’m there. For me, America said it best – “The ocean is a desert with its life underground and the perfect disguise up above.” It’s that “perfect disguise” which makes it interesting. No matter how calm, there could be any number of unknown dangers lurking just out of sight.
This is why, despite being terrified of the water, I’ve been certified as a scuba diver, twice. In another reality, I’m a marine biologist, who spends his days as a dive instructor on a tropical island and doing research on the side. In this one, though, I’m just a writer who likes the monsters hidden beneath the sea
The Iceberg Illusion
How To Create Monsters & Mythological Creatures
So one day my friend Ian Rowland directed me to the site of his friend Gianni Sarcone, a designer of optical illusions. Specifically, the post on How To Create Monsters & Mythological Creatures. That’s an example over there to the left.
Once you see the method, like a number of magic tricks, it is deceptively simple. And yet, the results are awe inspiring. As someone who has a penchant for the idea of urban fantasy (I’d love to write one, just don’t quite see it so instead, I read ’em) all I can see are a number of powerful beings trapped in static forms or natural figures waiting to make themselves known in that luminal time between dark and light.
Maybe you’ll be able to find inspiration here. Or maybe you’ll just enjoy some clever photography. Either way, it’s definitely worth a look.
Women Who Pretended to Be Men to Publish Scifi Books
“In 1980, science fiction writer and editor Ben Bova told a group of women writers, ‘Neither as writers nor as readers have you raised the level of science fiction a notch. Women have written a lot of books about dragons and unicorns, but damned few about future worlds in which adult problems are addressed’.”
In Women Who Pretended to Be Men to Publish Scifi Books, we get a nice list of the varied and fascinating female authors who, in order to not alienate male readers, had to pretend (at least on paper) to be men.
As the soon to be father of a daughter, and as a science fiction lover, I find this despicable in a number of ways. So please, read the article. Then click over to Amazon or, better yet, hit up your local book store. Do yourself a favor and grab some books for summer reading. You can thank me later.
DAVID: Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day!! As this is my last year of NOT being a father, we decided to take a little time and seek some advice from the best father I know – mine!
This short interview is a condensed form of a conversation we had (and I assume we will continue to have).
Thanks, Pop! You mean the world to me!
And hey, since the world of print is limiting, here’s a couple of bonus shots of us from when I was a wee one:
Continue reading “DAVID: Father’s Day”
Books for and about Magicians
So… as you may (or may not, no judgement on my part) know, I like magic. Now, to be specific, I like magic with a “c” not magik, with a “k.” There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but the spiritual side, the part that says magik is a mystical, real thing just doesn’t interest my skeptical mind nearly as much as the art of prestidigitation.
Wasted on the young…
When I was a kid, and I’d see various professional athletes retire from the game and then show up in TV and films (often as wooden caricatures of themselves), I used to make a joke. At the time I was involved in theatre and would say “I’m gonna be an actor until I’m about 35 or so… Then I’m going to become a professional athlete.”
Funny, right? Continue reading “Wasted on the young…”
“Intimate” thoughts for a Sunday morning
Styx
My niece Riley just made her first film. I think it’s awesome. There’s some wonderful raw talent here.
I am so looking forward to seeing whatever she does next!
Virtual Baby Shower
In Lithuania, the idea of a baby shower doesn’t really exist and since we’re so far away from friends and family in the States, we just figured on not doing anything to celebrate the pre-birth of our little Monki.
But people have been asking what we need or what they can get us, so we made our Amazon registry, our Etsy list (which, yes, is filled with fun geeky things because as long as we still control what she wears, she’ll wear geek chic – if she doesn’t like it, she’ll just have to get to the point where she can tell us), and even a Pinterest board to show all the things we’re thinking of for our little girl. Continue reading “Virtual Baby Shower”
Well… we have a pronoun
Rasa and I have a mixed household. Aside from coming from two different generations and two different cultures with two different languages, we also have mixed views on social media. For myself, I’m fairly active on Facebook and Instagram and Goodreads among others. I have no problem with letting the world know where I am or what I think of that place. Rasa, on the other hand, has no social media footprint at all. In the technological world of our AI Overlords, she doesn’t exist (outside of this blog where, for all you know, she might just be a matrix-like construction of my imagination). Continue reading “Well… we have a pronoun”
Super Friends?
Wedding
Well, it happened.
After all the trouble we went through to get all the proper paperwork and everything, on Saturday the 23rd of April, we pulled it off and we are now, officially, hitched. Continue reading “Wedding”
JACK KIRBY: Hero worship
Gavin over at Zen Pencils takes great, inspirational quotes and then draws fabulous cartoons to illustrate them. While I’ve been a long time fan, this is the first time I’m sharing one. I think this, a quote by the great Jack Kirby is important for a number of reasons. But don’t take my word for it. Read it. Enjoy it.
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 