So, yeah. I’ve been bored. I’ve been busy. I’ve been busy being bored.
So for this HACK I’m acting like a filter, sharing some of my favorite videos for nerds like us.
Posts tagged Dune
HACK № 62: A False Sensual Security (TW Chap. 4 – Part 1)
Well it seems my plan of working on Time Warriors frequently enough for new posts each week is a bust. Procrastination, sobriety and self-doubt are ever-present word snatchers. Nevertheless, I am still writing, though not as fast as I’d like. I realize that in the last post I talked about some things in Chapter 3 that are actually in Chapter 4. Doesn’t matter now. Point is, Chapter 4 is where this whole thing broke down. See, I had written it in two parts. The second part I read to my 5th grade class at the time and they loved it. Then the hard drive which had the only existing most recent copy. I tried to rewrite the second part but it just wouldn’t come to me as easily as it did the first time. So I spent $2,000 to have the data restored. And…after over a year I still haven’t pulled off the data from the restored drive. I will though. Seriously, soon.
In the meantime, here’s the first half of Chapter 4. Unedited, of course. In real time I’m toward the end of Chapter 5, but lack of proper prior character development has me stuck on Sebi’s internal dialogue. No matter, I know where it’s going, unlike our intrepid heroes who are about to take their first foray into this unknown fictional universe…
Chapter 4: A False Sensual Security
HACK № 57: The Surreal Calculator
The Surreal Calculator. Not my invention. It comes from a story that Noel Rogers wrote a long-ass time ago. The Surreal Calculator was mentioned only once, in one sentence, with no description whatsoever. I just loved the sound of the name, the possibilities of such a device. It stuck in my brain all these years until, during the writing of Heroes and Hierophants, I decided to write an instruction manual which explains what the Surreal Calculator actually does. I also figured that it should sound surreal. I even changed the name to Syreil Calcultor but on second thought, that’s lame. I don’t have time to change the graphic below so ‘deal with it. Actually, I do like the idea of switching back and forth from ‘surreal’ to ‘syreil‘ within the piece.
Noelie has graciously allowed me to expand on the idea by using the Surreal Calculator as a type of deus ex machina for a young-adult speculative fiction novel I’m writing.
So that’s about it. This is an instruction manual for the Surreal Calculator. It has a large vocabulary and strange combinations of words which make it a challenging read. As such, I’ve spotted it with a copious amount of hyperlinks to concepts and definitions. There’s some Serious God Knowledge embedded in this piece. On the other hand, some words I just plain made up. These aren’t linked. Use your imagination. However, I’m not just spewing babbled jargon. I assure you that every one of these terms has a legitimate metaphysical connotation based on present-day reality.
Of course, you’re not even reading this, right? If you are one of the few followers who’ve made it this far, or some wayward Internet surfer who happens to be riding my wave of lameness, thanks for being here…
INSTRUCTION MANUAL
HACK № 38: “Paperlate!”
Howdy Transients, welcome to the thirty-eighth histrionic of HACK. If you’ve made it this far, ‘histrionic‘ was not a noun until I just made it so.
This week I have an overactive bladder, an underactive imagination, a reactive reality, inactive indifference, a proactive perspective and a radioactive half/life about as long as my refractory period. So that doesn’t give us much time… READ MORE »
HACK № 18: Brevity Is A Trollish Git
Howdy Tulpas, welcome to the eighteenth edification of HACK. If you’ve made it this far then you’ve probably heard the ol’ aphorism, “Brevity is the soul of wit” or in other words…
Concise and exact use of words in writing or speech is the spiritual or immaterial part of mental sharpness and inventiveness.
This week: I got nothing. Well, I have lots of things but no patience to expound on any of them. So over five days of vacation last week I wrote little bits on lots of stuff. I guess my brain just needed to upload it all and clear the cache. I could’ve just used the apostrophe bit below and called it a HACK. However, since I spent many hours doing nothing but sitting in a den of iniquity hacking all this jibba jabba out, I’m just going to share it all with y’all. See what I did there? I used an apostrophe to denote the contraction of ‘you’ and ‘all.’
Read on, dear Readers. With patience it’ll all make sense. I promise to have something more relevant to your world just as soon as it becomes relevant in mine. READ MORE »
HACK № 17: Imperative Lit
Howdy Protagonists, welcome to the seventeenth subplot of HACK. If you’ve made it this far, be sure to cite your sources.
It’s 5:00 AM on Sunday morning. I’ve been awake for 90 minutes. There’s a vague memory of planning to see Noelie at Diane’s at around 8:00 last night. Apparently my body needed a deep dreamless sleep instead.
So I’m up now. Just got back from Wawa with a 24 oz. cup of 2 green tea and 2 chamomile tea bags. I’m ready to write. Except, well, I’m really not in the right mood to write.
“Mood? What has mood to do with it? Mood’s a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset.” –Gurney Halleck
I’m not even in the mood to write a review of other people’s writings. So instead I’ve hacked off some pieces of Amazon editorial descriptions and Wikipedia articles on all the books I’ve read and listened to in the past year, books I’m reading now, and books I will’ve finished reading before the year is out. My blanket review would be: I approve of them all. Read them. Or read the descriptions, and contemplate other quantum realities where different versions of you have read them. READ MORE »
ITC 1.1: Enter The Crew (2004)
Back in the day, before the blogs, before the books, there was It’s The Crew! — an experimental form of real life myth-making, broad social commentary, serious god knowledge and wacky drug-inspired in-jokes in the form of crudely photo-shopped web-comics. Starting every Monday for the next 13 weeks, It’s The Crew! is proud to go back to its roots and present a re-run of the notorious first season: “So I Got With A Sick-Ass Clique And Went All Out…”
HACK № 6: I Am My Car
Greetings Grokkers, welcome to the sixth edition of HACK. If you’ve made it this far, better buckle up and remember—it’s just a ride.
They don’t make Saturns like they used to because they stopped making Saturns.
Dude, it’s like, a metaphor.
When a family member crashes a car they are assigned whichever of the others’ cars is the crappiest. When my poor reliable Honda got totaled in February ’08, Mom gave me her 1996 Saturn SL. READ MORE »
Prose Before Swine: The New Girl
The ramblings of a door to door merkin salesman:
This month marks the rebirth of It’s the Crew and I’m honored to have been asked to make regular written contributions. For reasons yet unborn and likely irrational – I’ve been fearing writing this piece. Days of DXM drenched naked introspection have brought a cornucopia of ideas to the altar. Steampunk as it relates to the BDSM community, Computational fluid dynamics for the terminally ill, Tesla, and Marx (The one with the book). I like to think of myself as a semi-lucid visionary armed with a framing nailer tacking ideas to the children’s foreheads like the little known 5th horseman of the apocalypse. Your mileage may vary – it’s all just tears in the rain. Inspired by the Baron Harkonnen, Cornell West, and shrimp vindaloo – my writings promise to be sadistically eclectic, spicy and (possibly) imminently forgettable.
In the beginning: The new girl. READ MORE »
Siaynoq!
From God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert:
“The ritual is called Siaynoq-the Feast of Leto. It is the adoration of my person in my presence.”"An ancient ritual, Lord?”
“It was with the Fremen before they were Fremen. But the keys to the Festival secrets died with the old ones. Only I remember them now. I recreate the Festival in my own likeness and for my own ends.”
“Then the Museum Fremen do not use this ritual?”
“Never. It is mine and mine alone. I claim eternal right to it because I am that ritual.”
“It is a strange word, Lord. I have never heard its like.”
“It has many meanings, Moneo. If I tell them to you, will you hold them secret?”
“My Lord commands!”
“Never share this with another nor reveal to the Fish Speakers what I tell you now.”
“I swear it, Lord.”
“Very well. Siaynoq means giving honor to one who speaks with sincerity. It signifies the remembrance of things which are spoken with sincerity.”
“But, Lord, doesn’t sincerity really mean that the speaker believes… has faith in what is said?”
“Yes, but Siaynoq also contains the idea of light as that which reveals reality. You continue to shine light on what you see.”
“Reality… that is a very ambiguous word, Lord.”
“Indeed! But Siaynoq also stands for fermentation because reality-or the belief that you know a reality, which is the same thing-always sets up a ferment in the universe.”
“All of that in a single word, Lord?”
“And more! Siaynoq also contains the summoning to prayer and the name of the Recording Angel, Sihaya, who interrogates the newly dead.”
“A great burden for one word, Lord.”
“Words can carry any burden we wish. All that’s required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.”
