The "mild Frustration" Post

Might as well, get directly to the "point." The past month and a half, my work in this medium has really not met my own, somewhat unrealistic standards and for that, I offer a sincere explanation, if not an excuse?

Partly, daily events have a way of exhausting my internal resources and also in part I have this sense or image currently of "a fallow field" waiting for new things to grow in terms of daily writing?

I can only remain optimistic and hopeful that a more productive summer will come and additional inspiration will arrive in a timely manner?

Plans for an additional web log focused more on technical aspects and engineering continue apace, but I really do not expect to have the design and focus complete until very likely August or early September? In short, "stay tuned" from time to time.

Ta

-GMB

Chicago and a sense of "Place", Part 1

Lately, I've been hunting for novels and books that address more of a sense of "place" just related to Chicago as a city? I have a short list of books I think start to make use of Chicago as a "place?" I will have to read those books and see if my preconceptions match up?

I bring up this sense of ambiguity because there really is a tremendous amount of activity that goes on in Chicago and regionally, but the Midwest still seems to remain a "backwater" in American intellectual life? It seems to me that people start here in various ways but rarely do they stay in Chicago? I don't know how accurate that supposition is?

What I'm trying to articulate is the strange sort of dissonance in the "language of place" when it comes to Chicago? For example, it is very easy to just say to someone, in a first meeting, if they aren't from Chicago, "well, I live in Chicago, or I am from Chicago" and that won't really be questioned? But if you try saying something that simplistic to an actual Chicago native, immediately "Well, where did you grow up? Suburbs, Uptown, Wicker Park.. So where did you go to High School?"

There is this very detailled exchange that happens and the "suburbs" doesn't "count" to the Chicago native. New York City and L.A. just don't have the same sort of very granular identification of origin and "place" that Chicago does? Which is interesting, because traditionally, the roll of large American cities involves the re-creation and reinvention of personal identity and community? Or, I'm generalizing but trying to explain some of what I have observed?

Partly, Chicago and the surrounding sprawl are large enough but also contained enough that a sort of interesting anthropological and infrastructure study of economics and social life isn't as murderously complex as it would be in the two or three largest American cities?

Stay tuned, I want to think about this more. 

And another thing, 1

I, really, really hate these. But. The idealized schedule for this blog was going to be six to ten, well thought out posts over the course of a given month? April unfortunately, completely fell apart two weeks in and so here we are in early May?

The tentative good news, is that my schedule has been slightly re-arranged so I shouldn't be off and away as often as I have been the past few weeks. So, wow, April 2nd seems like a very long time ago, just now?

Stay tuned. Periodically.

Sunrise

Still cold this morning, but much less frost in the grass compared to yesterday. I found myself enjoying the sunrise as I sat in Lillacia Park. An egotistical conceit, I suppose, but I felt that somehow the park and the warming morning was "all for me?"

What I was considering was this idea of a seeming impoverishment that seems to overtake the "beingness" of daily life when all life consists of is ones labor? Is this not a terrible bargain where one is provided with all the benefits of advanced society and warmth and relationships, but only so much as one's labor is of high quality and high value?

Should it not be so, well certainly, keeps everyone honest in the economic game, yet I found myself focusing on "not thinking" and simply "being" in that Park at seven oclock this morning.

Is it not enough, simply to be alive? Breathing. Conscious and engaged with the world?

Some specific influences on my writing.. 4/5/2016

First, little bit of autobio history.

I originally went to Michigan State University for an Engineering degree and to study fairly commercial genre science fiction. I was big into people like Heinlein, Spider Robinson and Charles Sheffield with a "hard science" focus. Then 911 happened right after graduation and things became more interesting.

Much, much more interesting. To begin with, the amount and quality of hard science fiction has been upped significantly across the board, witness Ramez Naam, Madeline Ashby and Paolo Bacigalupi just to name a few emerging and excellent authors in hard science fiction. Then contrast the old guard authors who have also broken new ground this decade like Lois Bujold, China Mieville and John Scalzi?

Needless to say, anyone who writes fiction had better have read way, way widely and be prepared to deeply know the genre fiction and standouts like Cormac Mccarthy, Haruki Murakami, and David Foster Wallace. It has taken me close to thirteen years just to reach the point where I feel comfortable that I have a decent grasp on what is going on in certain areas of fiction?

It also took me this long to find authors like George Saunders and Haruki Murakami that I could identify with and that spoke to the kinds of fiction I really wanted to write? Suffice to say, just developing some potential commercial projects that might build into publishable, saleable work took me a long time.

And it is still a long haul...

I'll get to other variables effecting my output in a l8ter post.

"Happy Trailz" fellow knowingnesses

This is how it starts...

"How it got this way"

by G. Bishop

A long time ago, upon a time, an elephant was caught and crushed in a giant set of titanium gears left over from mankind's failed attempts at spaceflight. An insane tribe of aborigines deified the dead animal by making chili out of it and arranging the gleaming, polished white bones in the shape of a star while David fought Goliath and a musical note was heard in a small, capsized fishing vessel similar to the sound of an Ipod dying, but maybe not. "The cup is a lie", said the man telling this story to a troop of terrified Boy Scouts who dropped their goodie bags and smores, all except one boy, who didn't like the other kids very much and preferred to read books by Neil Gaiman rather than eat an identical egg salad sandwich every day, with all the other unpopular children at school. He would never be a "star" he thought to himself, but he was definitely not going to be "unoriginal."

The End..

Archives 2010

This Blog contains..

The focus of this blog for the next six months or more is going to be my more experimental writing, daily notes and experiences while #offgrid and finally, some posts related to the intersection of engineering science (my previous career) and society as it comes up.

That should be plenty to be getting on with.

"Happy Trails"

-GJS