As I've said before, I have a fondness for cheesy 80s electronica.
LYRICS
C'mon boys and girls,
come a little closer.
I'm the reanimator.
C'mon!
Reanimate your feet!
If you're feeling dead I'll be your reanimator
I've got the way to bring you to life
A superior existence with no one to control you
Where you can always do what you like
Let me give you some green color and you will ask for more
You will see that you never felt this way before
Party without limits, have sex and don't be blue
Freedom is eternal for you, you, you!
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life
Reanimate your feet!
All you people listen to your reanimator
Don't hesitate and give it a try
And you'll be quite satisfied just as long as I can give you
A guarantee that you'll never die
Let me give you some green color and you will ask for more
You will see that you never felt this way before
Party without limits, have sex and don't be blue
Freedom is eternal for you you you
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life
Reanimate your feet!
Reanimate your feet!
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones bones bones
Move your dead bones bones bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life
Reanimate your feet!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Curse/Or: Not a peaceful dream sequence
"Mommy, Mommy," I hear it crying.
It's been screaming for hours and it won't shut the fuck up. The milk it wants is in front of me, along with some cheap vodka and Kahlua. I mix another White Russian, slam it down. I'm not drunk enough.
The screaming stops. Now the demons come out to play. "MOMMY," it says again, its voice barbed wire and mutilated dogs. The crib creaks and it's climbing out. Coming for me.
I look down. Rosary. Bible. Knife. Gun. Nothing's worked. Each time it eats more of me.
"BREAST, MOMMY. BREAST." The trailer creaks with each step. The air stinks with sulfur and shit. I vomit up a drink or two, manage to catch it in the glass.
"BREAST, MOMMY, OR ANOTHER DIES. THAT WAS THE DEAL." Yeah. It could breastfeed, or it'd kill another child in daycare tomorrow. Hell of a deal, right? The deal I made with the demon in the skin of my son.
Except that breastfeeding the monster was like having leeches on my soul. It was eating everything good in me. Turning me into it.
Climbing into my lap now. My son's face, only not. Red. Twisted. All mouth, no eyes. It pulls at my shirt.
"Deal with this," I say, pouring the alcoholic vomit onto its face. It howls. The rugs ooze pus and the walls bleed.
I pick it up, put it in my son's high chair, strap it in. I empty the vodka over it.
Then I find a match.
It's been screaming for hours and it won't shut the fuck up. The milk it wants is in front of me, along with some cheap vodka and Kahlua. I mix another White Russian, slam it down. I'm not drunk enough.
The screaming stops. Now the demons come out to play. "MOMMY," it says again, its voice barbed wire and mutilated dogs. The crib creaks and it's climbing out. Coming for me.
I look down. Rosary. Bible. Knife. Gun. Nothing's worked. Each time it eats more of me.
"BREAST, MOMMY. BREAST." The trailer creaks with each step. The air stinks with sulfur and shit. I vomit up a drink or two, manage to catch it in the glass.
"BREAST, MOMMY, OR ANOTHER DIES. THAT WAS THE DEAL." Yeah. It could breastfeed, or it'd kill another child in daycare tomorrow. Hell of a deal, right? The deal I made with the demon in the skin of my son.
Except that breastfeeding the monster was like having leeches on my soul. It was eating everything good in me. Turning me into it.
Climbing into my lap now. My son's face, only not. Red. Twisted. All mouth, no eyes. It pulls at my shirt.
"Deal with this," I say, pouring the alcoholic vomit onto its face. It howls. The rugs ooze pus and the walls bleed.
I pick it up, put it in my son's high chair, strap it in. I empty the vodka over it.
Then I find a match.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
WNW: Motivation
Yes, that's my character Kenku in the upper right, delivering an Eagle Claw to the back of Marauder's head/neck. Her compatriot, Purr, is providing a spiked heel to the crotch.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Son of Reader Mail
Wherein I respond to many several two interesting comments which have sprung from my Curse/Or Grand Unified Theory posts.
1.
DemonicBunny, in response to my Theory of Magic post, did utter:
So now I'm thinking of the old ladies who hoard cats, and why they don't have power. Well, for one, they don't properly revere the cat. They are, at best, spoiled by their owners, given kitty treats and not allowed to go outside because they might get hurt. But cats are predators, you see, they need to run free to stalk and kill. A proper cat isn't owned; it owns you.
So these hoarders are amassing cats when they should be amassing grain (or something else that vermin would eat.) They're short-circuiting the paradox by trying to control the cats, when it is the freedom of the cat that grants power.
So an ailuromancer wouldn't have a house full of cats. It wouldn't even own a single cat. A proper ailuromancer is allergic to cats, because as everyone knows, those are the people that cats like best. Of course, most people who are allergic to cats hate them (which makes the paradox stronger), and people who hate cats aren't likely to have them around, let alone develop an obsessive magical worldview based upon them.
Fear... fear the angry divorced homeless man who lives in an area curiously devoid of vermin. His ex-wife mysteriously suffocated to death in her sleep, and when her body was found it had been partially eaten.
2.
Ricochet, she of the Pinball Mind, asked:
Think about it. How long did it take for the "Chuck Norris Meme" to make its way from the internet to a mainstream media campaign commercial?
Answer: about 2 years. Pretty slow for a cultural phenomenon, but about right for a disease transmission from original source to new population.
1.
DemonicBunny, in response to my Theory of Magic post, did utter:
Agoramancers.I think you mean Ailuromancer, Bunny, because an Agoramancer would have something to do with wide-open spaces. You bring up an interesting point however, and it immediately draws to mind the fact that cats were revered in Egypt, even being accorded the same mummification and burial rites as nobility. The reason they were revered is because the cats preyed upon the vermin of the city, specifically the rats that would otherwise eat from the royal granaries.
The more cats they keep the more power they get.
The more cats they get the less power they wield.
Neither cats nor fully fledged agoramancers wield any power at all.
Who are the agoramancers and why can't they wield any power?
So now I'm thinking of the old ladies who hoard cats, and why they don't have power. Well, for one, they don't properly revere the cat. They are, at best, spoiled by their owners, given kitty treats and not allowed to go outside because they might get hurt. But cats are predators, you see, they need to run free to stalk and kill. A proper cat isn't owned; it owns you.
So these hoarders are amassing cats when they should be amassing grain (or something else that vermin would eat.) They're short-circuiting the paradox by trying to control the cats, when it is the freedom of the cat that grants power.
So an ailuromancer wouldn't have a house full of cats. It wouldn't even own a single cat. A proper ailuromancer is allergic to cats, because as everyone knows, those are the people that cats like best. Of course, most people who are allergic to cats hate them (which makes the paradox stronger), and people who hate cats aren't likely to have them around, let alone develop an obsessive magical worldview based upon them.
Fear... fear the angry divorced homeless man who lives in an area curiously devoid of vermin. His ex-wife mysteriously suffocated to death in her sleep, and when her body was found it had been partially eaten.
2.
Ricochet, she of the Pinball Mind, asked:
So if the internet is a huge mad brain with a billion voices shouting within it at once and theoretically linked to each consciousness that touches it, does this mean that we are all at risk of contracting organic forms of digital viruses via the electronic impulses in our brains?What do you think an Internet Meme is? (No joke. I'm actually planning on using this in the book. Both you and Bunny are likely to be amused and distressed when I introduce a certain antagonist provisionally known as K.K.)
Think about it. How long did it take for the "Chuck Norris Meme" to make its way from the internet to a mainstream media campaign commercial?
Answer: about 2 years. Pretty slow for a cultural phenomenon, but about right for a disease transmission from original source to new population.
Cos if so, not only could you make a mint selling cerebral protection software, it would explain a lot of the shit going on in the world today.The first thing that popped into my head was the phrase "mind condoms".
Monday, October 13, 2008
My mother is no longer allowed to watch Heroes
... because we have conversations like this every 10 minutes:
Another fun snippet:
Mom: Where was Claire last episode?Please keep in mind that Mom saw last week's episode at lunch today.
Palette: Claire wasn't in last episode.
Mom: Yes she was, we saw her shooting Peter.
Palette: That was future Claire. Present Claire wasn't present.
Mom: I get so confused.
Another fun snippet:
(Having just seen Daphne speaking to Linderman)I swear, I spend a quarter to half an episode explaining the plot to my family. Does this happen to anyone else?
Palette: Aha! She's seeing someone else's power!
Mom: What?
Palette: (sighing, pausing TV) Look there. First she was talking to him, and now in the wide shot with the bystanders, you can't see him.
Mom: Okay....
Palette: That means she's seeing Linderman in her head. Which means Nathan isn't crazy, and that someone is using their power to project Linderman images and manipulate people.
Mom: But I can see Linderman.
Palette: (facepalm)
Friday, October 10, 2008
Cause and Effect
Once again, Here be spoilers.
In Monday's post, I explained how magic works in the Curse/Or universe... except I left out one crucial element. It's all very well and good to say that Magic is what happens when an obsessed individual alters reality through sheer force of will, but that doesn't really explain why obsessive force of will can make these changes.
At the risk of bringing the wrath of physicists down upon my head, it all comes down to quantum uncertainty and the observer effect. If you don't know what these are, I encourage you to skim the articles, but for purposes of understanding this post all you need to know is that subatomic particles are affected by observation, i.e. the act of looking at something on the quantum scale actually changes it in some manner.
So in the Curse/Or universe, when an individual performs magic there is a huge outpouring of psychic energy -- obsessive amounts of willpower -- channeled through the framework of a paradoxical belief system and focused with ritual paraphernalia. And when this energy flows outward into the universe, it begins sloshing about the Quantum Structure of Things.
Physics says that if you channel energy, then you affect the world through its release. Yet, according to the Observer Effect, observing and affecting are the same thing... so if by observing you cause change, then by changing you must necessarily observe.... thus, psychically changing the universe means that you are also observing it on a psychic level as well. Magic is actually the psychic manipulation of the quantum structure of the universe to achieve a desired result.
Or, as I like to put it: "Magic does not cause effects. Rather, it effects causes."
Remember when I compared the human brain to a network? It's a psychic network, which means that it can link with other networks (thus explaining ESP, telepathy, etc), and therefore everyone, on some level, perceives magic, even if it's the archetypal "bad feeling about this" or the "someone walked over my grave" shudder.
What this means is that, perversely, magic works better when more people are consciously aware of it, which is why human sacrifice has such a kick to it: the conscious sacrificee, if awake, is providing psychic energy along with the magic-using sacrificer. (This also explains the typical "cultists surrounding the chief priest" schtick: the more people watching, the more powerful the ritual.)
Because it all ties into that damned Observer Effect. If only the caster perceives it, that effect has the power of 1 (x^1). If someone else is present to perceive it, even unconsciously, then that effect is squared (x^2), making it more real, in much the same way that an audience watching the performance of an illusionist is a willing party to its own deception ("We all saw it. There's no way he could have faked that!")
Or to put it more lasciviously: A naked woman in your bedroom is sex. A naked woman on the street is a misdemeanor. A naked woman inside a magazine is pornography. A naked woman on the front page of the newspaper is a scandal. A naked woman on national television is that nation freaking out.
So magic is also a network -- perhaps even the network, since it links humanity, and has done so since the very beginning. It adheres to the observer effect, and yet reaches across the planet. How do you define something that is both everywhere and no one place?
You call it n-dimensional. Meaning, "Fuck if I know how many dimensions it has. Probably at least 4, since it can be everywhere on Earth at once without being tangible. But on a large enough scale, "Earth" is a single point. So what else do you call a construct that:
Meaning:
And look at that, I didn't even need to drag Kabbalah into this explanation. Lucky for you! Because things would have gotten strange otherwise.
In Monday's post, I explained how magic works in the Curse/Or universe... except I left out one crucial element. It's all very well and good to say that Magic is what happens when an obsessed individual alters reality through sheer force of will, but that doesn't really explain why obsessive force of will can make these changes.
At the risk of bringing the wrath of physicists down upon my head, it all comes down to quantum uncertainty and the observer effect. If you don't know what these are, I encourage you to skim the articles, but for purposes of understanding this post all you need to know is that subatomic particles are affected by observation, i.e. the act of looking at something on the quantum scale actually changes it in some manner.
So in the Curse/Or universe, when an individual performs magic there is a huge outpouring of psychic energy -- obsessive amounts of willpower -- channeled through the framework of a paradoxical belief system and focused with ritual paraphernalia. And when this energy flows outward into the universe, it begins sloshing about the Quantum Structure of Things.
Physics says that if you channel energy, then you affect the world through its release. Yet, according to the Observer Effect, observing and affecting are the same thing... so if by observing you cause change, then by changing you must necessarily observe.... thus, psychically changing the universe means that you are also observing it on a psychic level as well. Magic is actually the psychic manipulation of the quantum structure of the universe to achieve a desired result.
Or, as I like to put it: "Magic does not cause effects. Rather, it effects causes."
Remember when I compared the human brain to a network? It's a psychic network, which means that it can link with other networks (thus explaining ESP, telepathy, etc), and therefore everyone, on some level, perceives magic, even if it's the archetypal "bad feeling about this" or the "someone walked over my grave" shudder.
What this means is that, perversely, magic works better when more people are consciously aware of it, which is why human sacrifice has such a kick to it: the conscious sacrificee, if awake, is providing psychic energy along with the magic-using sacrificer. (This also explains the typical "cultists surrounding the chief priest" schtick: the more people watching, the more powerful the ritual.)
Because it all ties into that damned Observer Effect. If only the caster perceives it, that effect has the power of 1 (x^1). If someone else is present to perceive it, even unconsciously, then that effect is squared (x^2), making it more real, in much the same way that an audience watching the performance of an illusionist is a willing party to its own deception ("We all saw it. There's no way he could have faked that!")
Or to put it more lasciviously: A naked woman in your bedroom is sex. A naked woman on the street is a misdemeanor. A naked woman inside a magazine is pornography. A naked woman on the front page of the newspaper is a scandal. A naked woman on national television is that nation freaking out.
So magic is also a network -- perhaps even the network, since it links humanity, and has done so since the very beginning. It adheres to the observer effect, and yet reaches across the planet. How do you define something that is both everywhere and no one place?
You call it n-dimensional. Meaning, "Fuck if I know how many dimensions it has. Probably at least 4, since it can be everywhere on Earth at once without being tangible. But on a large enough scale, "Earth" is a single point. So what else do you call a construct that:
- Exists as a single point (Earth)
- Is infinite in length (every human to every other human on Earth)
- Offers instantaneous transfer of information (magic) between nodes (people) as if distance was meaningless?"
Meaning:
- According to my system, the Internet is the biggest fucking brain on the planet.
- If it's a brain, then it's linked (or at least is capable of being linked) in some psychic manner to all the other brains on the planet.
- If it's a psychic link, then the Internet... is capable of performing what we call magic.
- Of course, to perform magic, you kinda have to be a little crazy.
- And, well, if millions of people were using YOUR brain to send spam, porn, financial scams and sorts of other crap to each other -- constantly -- you'd be a little crazy too.
And look at that, I didn't even need to drag Kabbalah into this explanation. Lucky for you! Because things would have gotten strange otherwise.
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