The Mosher Pit

The fax machine just dialed out.

I swear it played Yankee Doodle.

Posted in Random by: Helen
No Comments

The Cliff Notes version of the weekend:
Friday: left work early, went to old apartment and cleaned. Took penultimate load back to 12213.

Saturday: Got up early, went to old apartment and cleaned. Took last load to 12213. Wound up in a bar with a bunch of rolling thunder bikers, throwing pointy objects at a target. Surreal.

Sunday: Got up early: went to old apartment and cleaned. Turned in keys. Returned to Fairfax, thought about star wars. Discovered that without internet connection, you have to find movie times the old-fashioned way. So we called Nicole. Although we had other motives, as I needed to pick up something from her, also. Went to Star Wars. Enjoyed it, although I wanted to rewrite the dialogue and direct the character of Anakin differently. Afterwards, went on a finding Wegmans expedition. Found Wegmans. It’s pretty damned big. Closed out the night with Silver Diner milkshakes.

Monday: Slept in a little bit. Drove to Colonial Heights and cleaned. Brought Mom’s yarn stash back to 12213. I foresee a quilt.

I still smell like bleach, though. I think at this point I could write a book about cleaning products and make it interesting and fun to read.

Posted in Life by: Helen
No Comments

“What color is your car?”

“Navy blue.”

–writes “blue”–

“Erm, so blue it’s black. it’s worse than socks.”

–adds “navy” on top of “blue,” while laughing–

Posted in Life by: Helen
No Comments

You know, it was <a href=”http://www.livejournal.com/users/helcat/2004/05/20/”>one year ago
today</a> that I graduated. And <a href=”http://www.livejournal.com/users/helcat/2004/05/21/”>one year ago
tomorrow</a> that I moved to Va.[Code to be fixed later. Flag post.]

This is really, really weird.

At any rate, I’m at that horrid point in moving where you’ve packed enough shit that everything is a mess. It’s going to get worse before it gets better because we haven’t cleared off the furniture that needs clearing, like the desk and the dining room table, so all
that stuff is going to be shoved onto the floor for sorting Sunday.

Gah.

Posted in Life by: Helen
No Comments

…by Ferragus, so…

1. Total number of records I own on CD (or vinyl or cassette): I think I’m down to about 500.

2. Total volume of music files on my computer: I have about 10 gig on various CD-ROMS. I am not sure if I will be able to find all of them .

3. The last record I bought: (CD vinyl or cassette …) NIN With Teeth. I’ve eyed a whole bunch of box sets that I will most likely add to my froogle list at some point.

4. The last record listened to / song playing now: The Evens were the last band I heard profiled on NPR that I wrote a note about in my little “I heard it on NPR” journal.

5. Five records that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me (either singles or albums):

• Every NIN album. I realize that’s more than five right there, but it’s true.
• My ultimate beethoven collection CD.
• Duran Duran: Rio
• The Damned: The Light at the End of the Tunnel
• Radiohead: Hail to the Thief

6. Tag five people to do this meme… Nah.

Posted in Memories, Music by: Helen
No Comments

1. I’m really stoked about the Star Wars movie. Really really stoked. So much so that I watched ep. 4 the other day and was surprised to hear Luke say to Ben, “You fought in the clone wars?”

2. I spent entirely too much time last night laughing at The Parade of Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes, which I can’t read from work because it’s set as “mature.” It’s actually pretty immature. Thanks to  Hugh Casey for the link, and there’s more where that came from.

3. We watched Wrinkle in Time last night. It was fairly well executed, but the IT agent looked kinda like Max and I thought IT itself looked completely wrong. i think it’s because they didn’t want to upset small children with what IT was really supposed to be. BRAINZZZZZZZZZZZ. Slow to get started, too, but all right for a kid flick. I’m not sure why feel like now that I’m grown up, studios should render my favorite childhood books into movies that are more tailored to 34-y-o me, but I guess it has something to do with a fervent belief that the best childhood books were those that weren’t dumbed down, and Disney has a knack for “cute”ing down, so to speak. And while I enjoyed it, it was definitely cute-d down.

4. Nothing reminds you that you’re sfnally inclined better than the fact that there are several hundred SF titles in the boxes that you are about to move from one apartment to the next without ever having opened because you’re still determined to read all those books.

5. Speaking of reading, we’ve packed all the books. Once we unpack the ones that are on my immediate to-read list, we’ll commence discussing some of them at  dystopics, starting with Brave New World.

6. I think I’m going to add a bunch of SF folks by cruising around my SFF friends and seeing what names I recognize.

7. I’ve realized that the trouble with me and gaming is that I game like a writer, and I suppose it could be argued that I write like a gamer. The trouble with this is that I much prefer dreaming up campaigns than actually doing anything with them, and that’s half
the reason I started writing in 1996 in the first place. I should just create my own game and make it a hybrid of world of darkness, martha stewart’s apprentice, super mario bros. and bowling.

8. cons. well, a lot is going to depend on how things go down with the parents and with bear’s job stuff. Philcon is a near definite. NASFIC is on the wish list. I may hit something up over the summer. We’ll see. 9. Now that I’m safely addicted to Buffy and Angel, recommend some other well-written series that I missed while comatose from 1997 to 2001. Also let me know what I’m missing these days, because I really don’t watch TV. I rent shows.

10. I can say sci-fi without flinching now, but generally I’m talking about movies if I do.

Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Speculative Fiction by: Helen
No Comments

I wish I wish wish wish fish…

Duran Duran Added to ‘Argent Mortgage Orchestrated’ Concert Series

Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra to Join Unique Performance on July 18

LOS ANGELES, May 16 /PRNewswire/ — Argent Mortgage Orchestrated(TM), the newly announced concert
series produced by Elevation Entertainment which pairs popular recording artists with symphony
orchestras in “one night only” engagements, announced that Duran Duran will join the
series. Duran Duran will be accompanied by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, with a July 18
engagement at the Chapin Theater at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, May 20 at the Orlando Philharmonic Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Charge-by-phone at (407) 839-3900. Presale and special VIP Ticket Packages will go on sale this
Tuesday, May 17th at www.duranduranmusic.com.

The concept of Argent Mortgage Orchestrated is to present contemporary artists in the opposite
environment of the critically acclaimed “MTV: Unplugged” format. Instead of stripping
music down to the core, the series will offer artists an unconventional opportunity to perform
their songs in ways that they choose, with the full backing of some of America’s finest
symphony orchestras. Each concert will be a “one night only” engagement and staged in
intimate, beautiful concert facilities. Argent Mortgage, a leading national mortgage lender in
the U.S., is proud to sponsor this unique concert series.

Duran Duran becomes the third Grammy Award-winning group to perform as a part of this concert
series. The band’s appearance in Orlando is a part of a North American summer tour beginning
July 15 in Nashville. This latest leg of their ‘Astronaut World Tour’ will play a mix
of indoor and outdoor venues and the Orlando date will be the only show where Duran Duran will be
backed by a full symphony orchestra.

The first three previously announced concerts include LeAnn Rimes with the Boston Pops (May 23 in
Boston), Seal with members of the Minnesota Orchestra (June 13 in Minneapolis) and Jewel with the
Cleveland Pops Orchestra (July 30 in Cleveland Hts., Ohio). The shows featuring the Grammy
Award-winning Rimes and the Grammy Award-winning Seal are both sold-out. Only lawn seats remain
for Jewel’s concert at Cain Park in Cleveland Hts., Ohio.

“This is a very exciting opportunity for the band and our fans,” commented bassist John
Taylor. “Performing our music in new arrangements with the backing of the Orlando
Philharmonic Orchestra will not only be a unique and interesting evening for our fans, but I
suspect also a tremendously gratifying experience for us as a band.”

“Duran Duran has an incredible following and we are pleased to bring them together with the
Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra as part of Argent Mortgage Orchestrated,” said Jeff Gillis,
executive vice president of operations for Argent Mortgage. “The Orchestrated program is
about bringing two distinct sounds together to create a new cohesive performance. It’s a
great fit for Argent since we work hard everyday to enhance the performance of independent
mortgage brokers in an effort to better meet the mortgage financing needs of consumers across the
nation.”

Duran Duran has selected world renowned composer and arranger David Campbell to arrange and
orchestrate the band’s songs for this performance. Campbell, born in Toronto and raised in
Seattle, has performed and/or worked with many artists including: Bruce Springsteen, Linda
Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan.

Internationally acclaimed conductor, composer and arranger Frank McNamara has been chosen to
conduct this show. McNamara, a native of Ireland, has a lengthy and impressive resume including
work with the Irish Tenors, the American Tenors, The Who’s Roger Daltry, Jeffrey Osborne and
others. This past November and December, McNamara arranged and conducted the LeAnn Rimes
Orchestra Christmas Tour.

Posted in Music by: Helen
No Comments

In which I write like a 14-year old….

We’re moving in like a week! How the heck did that happen! And for that matter, I went past my new apartment today, and it doesn’t look like whomever has moved OUT of it yet. WTF? I need to get my ass over to that office and make sure I’m not homeless soon.

Anyhow, those of you what volunteered and stuff, looks like we’ll be doing a lot of the dirty work on the 21st or the 22d. I’m a little nervous cause if little bro can’t make it, that will seriously hurt our ability to get things running around. The big stuff: 1 desk, 1 flimsy futon, 1 couch, three dressers (one with a heavy marble top), two bookshelves, 1 full-size bedset, a dining room table, a corner shelf, a TV stand.

The little stuff: Probably about 50 boxes, two TVs, a microwave, a keyboard amp, several computers, most of which aren’t really working, a file drawer.

Why does it seem like there’s so much MORE than this? Perhaps because we only have a third of the boxes packed…

Posted in Life by: Helen
No Comments

Destination Dystopia was a story I wrote in 1997 about a journalist (of the “This American Life” meets Hunter S. Thompson variety) investigating conditions on moon colonies. It’s reasonably well written with a lot of critique on elements of the day, because we all know that all our moon exploration got us was the internet, and so there’s a lot of allegorical connections from Saturday Trelawney’s investigations into lunary commerce to what was then transpiring in dot.com world. That said, it wasn’t particularly well executed, mostly because I couldn’t write a plot to save my life, so no matter how trenchant my commentary or clever my allegory, there wasn’t a story to back it up.

However, in the opening scene, she is on a crowded moon shuttle. Beside her, a woman is penciling entries into an electronic Washington Post crossword puzzle. We have PDAs that, I think, will do something similar. But today’s announcement of metro train and bus ads being kerplonked into on-board video screens took me right back to Saturday on that shuttle. She was transfixed, because the moon shuttle was offering unlimited monthly fares, and advertising them on an on-board vidscreen. That, of course, was written because of the hype at the time of unlimited monthly plans for content providers, like AOL. And being a little more sophisticated in the ways of the world, now, I see it: the advertising revenues from those vidscreens are what enables the moon shuttle to offer unlimited fares for riders.

I think I want to have a look at that story again. I haven’t tried to publish it since 1999, and it might still have potential.

That said….
I am:

Ursula K. LeGuin
Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Posted in Memery, Speculative Fiction, Writing by: Helen
No Comments

It really is. There’s just no way around it. Even when Mistress Cacophony has the wee pixie heroine in a noose made of her own hair, it’s still something borne out of your own bloody experience.

Posted in Writing by: Helen
No Comments