My Friend Cliff / New Science Fiction

I've known Cliff Pickover (his home page - his Wikipedia entry - his Twitter feed - his corporate page - his Amazon page - his Reality Carnival blog) for, sheesh, I think 25 years now? I got to know him via the "SFIDEAS FORUM" when I joined Big Blue, and over the years he and I have collaborated on a number of patents and stuff. It's nice to have old (as in "long time") friends. The strange thing, though, is that during all of that time, I've only met him face-to-face twice.

Still, I classify him as one of my oldest and best friends. In case it's not obvious, Cliff has a fairly substantial writing career going alongside his day job, and of late he's been making a pretty big splash with his "science" series of books: The Medical Book, The Physics Book, and The Math Book. I'd love to see these as interactive eBooks someday.

Basically, he's got that Stephen King "If I don't write I'll die!" thing going on. I'm slightly jealous: I've always figured I had a good novel or two in me. But I find it difficult just to get motivated to write a blog post like this, much less a 500 page book (or a 1500 page trilogy)(my understanding is that these days a lot of publishers won't even talk to you unless you're willing to do a trilogy).

Oh well, I'll live. These days I have no idea how one would go about getting published. All of the free stuff on the web, plus Amazon and other self-publishing options, eBooks ... the business has changed a lot, and it's not done yet, either.

All that said, both Cliff and I like Science Fiction a lot. This morning we were talking about some new writers and swapping some URLs and I thought I'd share a few of them here.

The Fluted Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - This is from his short story collection Pump Six And Other Stories, which I highly recommend. Be forwarned, Bacigalupi's visions of the future are not entirely pleasant.

Hell Is The Absence Of God by Ted Chiang - Hugo and Nebula winner, 2002.

Exhalationby Ted Chiang - Hugo winner, 2009.

Understand by Ted Chiang - Hugo nominee, 1992.

What's Expected Of Us by Ted Chiang

((Lots of Ted Chiang, I know, but damn he's good. These stories and more by Ted Chiang are in his collection Stories Of Your Life And Others, also highly recommended).

That's all for now. Hope you enjoy the stories!

I Call Him Maynard

The latest incarnation of my synth rig, Maynard.

Roberta became unhappy with Maynard camping out in the living room, so I moved him into the office. It's pretty sweet: I mounted the big Apple Cinema display on a swingarm so I can move it up / down / around as needed. You can see the misc hardware; software includes NI Komplete 8, Camel Audio Alchemy, Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Trilian, Logic 9, and a bunch of other stuff - I never met a piece of music software that I didn't like.

Do a Google Image search on "synth porn" and you'll find rigs 10x or more as big as mine. But I'm pretty happy with Maynard -- he's not too big, and he's not too small -- he's just right. I confess that someday I'd like to add a few rows of Doepfer modular (or other Eurorack) components, but for now I'm really happy.

Random Movies and Videos

For no particular reason, brief summaries of a few movies and videos that I've watched recently.

I'll start with the really good stuff: If you aren't familiar with Khameleon808's music montage videos, you're in for a definite treat:

The Apple Tree (featuring
The Glitch Mob)

DubWars: First
Strike

He takes the "music video" to places its never been before. Honestly, I think he's invented a new art form. I fully expect this fellow to be snatched up by some major film or music studio any minute.

I've also managed to catch a few rather bleak post-apocalypse movies:

The Day

Hell

The Divide

Don't watch these if you're depressed. Two of the movies deal with cannibalism, and all three are explorations of the darker side of humanity. The Day and The Divide were especially memorable -- highly recommended if you've been procrastinating about putting together a cache of emergency supplies.

I also saw a couple of high-quality / low-budget science fiction films of the non-apocalytic variety:

Sound Of My Voice

Another Earth

Both of these movies star Brit Marling (who also shares writing credit). These movies would probably be considered "indie" or "arthouse" films, so they're not for everybody. WIthout giving anything away, both of these films manage to portray a science-fictional world with an absolute minimum of SFX; that is, the emphasis is on the story, and they do a remarkable job of building a world by narrative only. And both of these films have endings that will leave you thinking. Put another way, if you enjoyed Paolo Bacigalupi's short story The Fluted Girl, you'll probably enjoy these movies.

Mine All Mine!

Yes! It's a Moog Voyager with Mahogany frame and Electric Blue backlighting.

This may be hard to believe, but I think I'm done with the "hardware acquisition phase". Next step is "system integration".

Just for fun: my current rig (sans Voyager):

Amon Tobin : ISAM 2.0 Live - 25 Sept 2012

Aidan and I saw Amon Tobin and it was awesome. A pity it was in the worst music venue in Austin (the Austin Music Hall) but it was still mindblowing. Pictures don't do it justice, but I took a bunch anyhow:

Amon Tobin : ISAM 2.0 Live

Software Synthesizers

Lots and lots of pretty tech-porn pictures here:

Software Synthesizers - A Non-Comprehensive Guide

Amon Tobin ISAM 2.0 - Austin Music Hall - September 25

Amon Tobin : ISAM Live 2.0 from Ninja Tune on Vimeo.

Woot! Aidan and I are going! Have I ever told you what a great kid he is?

This is so awesome I'm not even cheesed off that it's at one of the worst concert venues in the city.