I, ROBOT IS THE SHIT
Just spent my Uk-equivalent of $10 and I must say, cut off the first five minutes of sickeningly blatent adverts and the last five minutes of wet-eye, and what an enjoyable film this way. They even had that kid in it Shia LeBeouf out of Even Stevens - he's probably the funniest actor in America right now.
Great fun - but I still wonder why it's okay to show full-frontal animal sex on "Natural History" shows and fully-explicit-robot violence on a 12a certificate film.
:)
Monday, August 23, 2004
THE GIRLS OF CHIM+HER SPEAK OUT
Pretty Scary dot Com - the site for women in horror have just uploaded their latest feature, an interview with the co-writers of CHIM+HER.
Women are strange beasts. Under their skins lie terrors, fears, desires and horrors the likes of which men never see, can never understand. In this unique collaborative collection, Hertzan Chimera takes on eight of the most extreme female authors ever.
thanks to Heidi Martinuzzi and Elizabeth Blue for putting this together.
Pretty Scary dot Com - the site for women in horror have just uploaded their latest feature, an interview with the co-writers of CHIM+HER.
Women are strange beasts. Under their skins lie terrors, fears, desires and horrors the likes of which men never see, can never understand. In this unique collaborative collection, Hertzan Chimera takes on eight of the most extreme female authors ever.
thanks to Heidi Martinuzzi and Elizabeth Blue for putting this together.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
THE PLANET OF THE OWLS
I think I've broken the middle finger on my left hand. I can't be sure but I went to Cambridge last weekend (like ten days ago) and played some volleyball, no it wasn't the volleyball. There was also an American football. There were four or five of us over the course of that Saturday who enjoyed throwing that ball around the field. Right at the end (isn't it always the way, making errors when you're tired) I caught the ball as it came in from altitude and the tip of my middle finger on that left had bent back. It swelled up real red all through Sunday and still now nine or ten days later, it's still swelled on the knuckle there. I am not sure if it's broken but the joint there is still a bit sore and swollen, the colour died down though, so I'm thinking it's just a bad bruise.
Despite this, I've been tapping away at my new story THE PLANET OF THE OWLS. I don't wanna say too much about it but it's going real well. I don't wanna even say if it's a book yet or just a very long story. It's at a stage now where I have the first part of the book done now, a comfortable 11,500 words. This could live on its own, as is. Or I could get further inspiration and write the second part of the story, I am not sure yet if it will sustain itself through, there's potential though. Some place like Interzone might go for such a long, kafka-esque work. I've had the sketch of "Owls" for a few months now, gestating - finally, the little chick has pecked its way out. It's gonna scare some people and I like that.
more updates as/when they occur.
I think I've broken the middle finger on my left hand. I can't be sure but I went to Cambridge last weekend (like ten days ago) and played some volleyball, no it wasn't the volleyball. There was also an American football. There were four or five of us over the course of that Saturday who enjoyed throwing that ball around the field. Right at the end (isn't it always the way, making errors when you're tired) I caught the ball as it came in from altitude and the tip of my middle finger on that left had bent back. It swelled up real red all through Sunday and still now nine or ten days later, it's still swelled on the knuckle there. I am not sure if it's broken but the joint there is still a bit sore and swollen, the colour died down though, so I'm thinking it's just a bad bruise.
Despite this, I've been tapping away at my new story THE PLANET OF THE OWLS. I don't wanna say too much about it but it's going real well. I don't wanna even say if it's a book yet or just a very long story. It's at a stage now where I have the first part of the book done now, a comfortable 11,500 words. This could live on its own, as is. Or I could get further inspiration and write the second part of the story, I am not sure yet if it will sustain itself through, there's potential though. Some place like Interzone might go for such a long, kafka-esque work. I've had the sketch of "Owls" for a few months now, gestating - finally, the little chick has pecked its way out. It's gonna scare some people and I like that.
more updates as/when they occur.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
A NORMAL WORD COUNT?
Well, the weather this week here in the U.K. has been absolutely horrible. Torrential rain, floods, mud slides, thunder & lightning. But still, I managed to reach the 50,000 word limit on A NORMAL LIFE? after two weeks of effort. I decided at the end of last week that I would actually start naming names. I began by making up some names for people in my life, people you know only through my subjective view of them - I decided to call them names like Moustache Man and The Twitcher (this gives sufficient description of the person in question. Pure subjectivity rules, remember). That's what a diary/journal is all about. Nearly truth, subjective observation. I decided to actually name all the towns and cities I had lived ina during the first 38 years, it was getting a bit too disorienting even for me calling them Northern Town 1 and Southern Seaside Town. If you work it out, that's a mere 1000 words for every year on this planet. Not a lot is it? But that's all I can manage to want to put into it anyway it's not really about the whole year. As long as I have at least one or two memories to jot down from each year, I'll have a sense of achievement if not fulfilment. Just those examples of what I've got out of life so far. I'm sure there are writers out there who could expand my short and normal life to well over 400-500 pages but for me that's the majority of the problem with fiction (or auto-biographies) today - 50,000 words of added filler or "editor-advised expansion".
fuck all-a that for a game of soldiers.
Well, the weather this week here in the U.K. has been absolutely horrible. Torrential rain, floods, mud slides, thunder & lightning. But still, I managed to reach the 50,000 word limit on A NORMAL LIFE? after two weeks of effort. I decided at the end of last week that I would actually start naming names. I began by making up some names for people in my life, people you know only through my subjective view of them - I decided to call them names like Moustache Man and The Twitcher (this gives sufficient description of the person in question. Pure subjectivity rules, remember). That's what a diary/journal is all about. Nearly truth, subjective observation. I decided to actually name all the towns and cities I had lived ina during the first 38 years, it was getting a bit too disorienting even for me calling them Northern Town 1 and Southern Seaside Town. If you work it out, that's a mere 1000 words for every year on this planet. Not a lot is it? But that's all I can manage to want to put into it anyway it's not really about the whole year. As long as I have at least one or two memories to jot down from each year, I'll have a sense of achievement if not fulfilment. Just those examples of what I've got out of life so far. I'm sure there are writers out there who could expand my short and normal life to well over 400-500 pages but for me that's the majority of the problem with fiction (or auto-biographies) today - 50,000 words of added filler or "editor-advised expansion".
fuck all-a that for a game of soldiers.
Friday, August 06, 2004
THANKS FOR THE MEMOIRS
What the hell are you talking about? You're writing your memoirs? But you're only 38 years old. Why bother? What have you ever achieved? Who cares? You'll never get that published until long after you're dead.
A NORMAL LIFE?
That's the provisional title of it. I spent the week in the sun. Two sessions each day of a couple or three hours. Got 25,000 words entered this week - I have no idea how long it'll end up being; it could be 30,000 or it could be 50,000. The latter is more likely as there are still many things yet to unravel. It's really like I am tesing the remembrances from a distant friend or cousin I haven't seen for ages. It's important to be firm but fair in the self examination - wouldn't wanna scare off honest revelation in favour of histrionics or melodrama.
Hope next week is as productive and as nice weather. I used a style of writing that is very similar to this blog, because I have real gaping holes in my memories of the past, I thought it would be better to go for a more organic approach to the memoirs and hopefully the lost or hidden memories would rise naturally to the surface, spurred from the shadows by oganic association.
it's working so far.
What the hell are you talking about? You're writing your memoirs? But you're only 38 years old. Why bother? What have you ever achieved? Who cares? You'll never get that published until long after you're dead.
A NORMAL LIFE?
That's the provisional title of it. I spent the week in the sun. Two sessions each day of a couple or three hours. Got 25,000 words entered this week - I have no idea how long it'll end up being; it could be 30,000 or it could be 50,000. The latter is more likely as there are still many things yet to unravel. It's really like I am tesing the remembrances from a distant friend or cousin I haven't seen for ages. It's important to be firm but fair in the self examination - wouldn't wanna scare off honest revelation in favour of histrionics or melodrama.
Hope next week is as productive and as nice weather. I used a style of writing that is very similar to this blog, because I have real gaping holes in my memories of the past, I thought it would be better to go for a more organic approach to the memoirs and hopefully the lost or hidden memories would rise naturally to the surface, spurred from the shadows by oganic association.
it's working so far.
CRITICAL SPOTLIGHT FOR CHIMERAWORLD #1
I had the editor of a website called EROS&RUST email me the other day. She was going on about how great the CHIMERAWORLD #1 collection was and how we had to do something.
So, starting with the September issue, there'll be a critical appraisal of CHIMERAWORLD #1 to accompany the story WEB by Kevin Anderson.
The special Halloween issue will run two stories, A STRANGE BREED by Queenie Tirone and NEED by Steve Short. This special CHIMERAWORLD feature will also include an interview with the editor, that's me, about the extremely gore-dripping #1 and the more sombre and downbeat Chimeraworld #2 (which I'll be reading for in September). Yippee!
It's great to receive this much positive attention for one's travail.
I had the editor of a website called EROS&RUST email me the other day. She was going on about how great the CHIMERAWORLD #1 collection was and how we had to do something.
So, starting with the September issue, there'll be a critical appraisal of CHIMERAWORLD #1 to accompany the story WEB by Kevin Anderson.
The special Halloween issue will run two stories, A STRANGE BREED by Queenie Tirone and NEED by Steve Short. This special CHIMERAWORLD feature will also include an interview with the editor, that's me, about the extremely gore-dripping #1 and the more sombre and downbeat Chimeraworld #2 (which I'll be reading for in September). Yippee!
It's great to receive this much positive attention for one's travail.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
BEST NEW ADVERT
Apart from the excellent re-mixed and re-issued ICE COLD GUINNESS adverts that are currently doing the rounds on terrestrial TV here in the UK, the winner of the never before mentioned Hertzan Chimera Surrealist award for the best advert goes to...
hushed expectation from the audience of one...
It starts and continues like the classic movie Alien. The chest burster scene. It's such a delicate and loving pastiche you gotta love it. Another bonus is it's an X-rated scene depicted in a prime-time advert with just as much attention paid to the horrific effect of the reborn beast. But it's an advert for Nik Naks. It's so irreverent. Only in England my friends, only in England.
Eat The Freak, indeed.
Apart from the excellent re-mixed and re-issued ICE COLD GUINNESS adverts that are currently doing the rounds on terrestrial TV here in the UK, the winner of the never before mentioned Hertzan Chimera Surrealist award for the best advert goes to...
hushed expectation from the audience of one...
It starts and continues like the classic movie Alien. The chest burster scene. It's such a delicate and loving pastiche you gotta love it. Another bonus is it's an X-rated scene depicted in a prime-time advert with just as much attention paid to the horrific effect of the reborn beast. But it's an advert for Nik Naks. It's so irreverent. Only in England my friends, only in England.
Eat The Freak, indeed.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
YOU CAN'T GIVE THIS SHIT AWAY 2
Remember that thread? You can't give this shit away? It laid to rest once and for all the claim that you couldn't in fact give away Hertzan Chimera fiction in book form. It was a remarkable success - I had actually donated SZMONHFU and ANIMAL INSTINCTS to the Oxford Library. Those were two copies of books that will never be in print again, in that form. They were unique treasures from a local author who was willing not to take a cut on them so that others in his home town could get to read them FOR FREE. Experience his vision. Well, just heard back that they are NOT SUITABLE FOR PUBLIC DISPLAY. This from a library which stocks such cinematic filth as VISITOR Q, ICHI THE KILLER and SEX AND LUCIA. Double standards? Maybe these two different library factions, video and books, don't use the same criteria to measure what is palatable for the public.
hangs head in shame
Remember that thread? You can't give this shit away? It laid to rest once and for all the claim that you couldn't in fact give away Hertzan Chimera fiction in book form. It was a remarkable success - I had actually donated SZMONHFU and ANIMAL INSTINCTS to the Oxford Library. Those were two copies of books that will never be in print again, in that form. They were unique treasures from a local author who was willing not to take a cut on them so that others in his home town could get to read them FOR FREE. Experience his vision. Well, just heard back that they are NOT SUITABLE FOR PUBLIC DISPLAY. This from a library which stocks such cinematic filth as VISITOR Q, ICHI THE KILLER and SEX AND LUCIA. Double standards? Maybe these two different library factions, video and books, don't use the same criteria to measure what is palatable for the public.
hangs head in shame
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Thursday, July 29, 2004
MILK SPOT ON EYELID
Yeah, I know it means nothing to you. But it means everything to me.
It started last night, just after midnight. I'd just received the IP (that's intellectual property; games ideas, art style, new technology thoughts) from a past employer, so I can go ahead and include any or all of those innovative and sexy ideas in anything creative I wanna do with 3D in the future. I have been artistically released. It was sorta 12 o'clock midnight when I finally received confirmation that my IP was mine, again.
Maybe it was the annoyance that IP is the company's until such time as agreement is made between the parties that what I think is in fact my own, when I started to scratch. I reached up and felt something. A small white milk spot on my left eyelid. Don't touch it! that would be the advise elders would shriek in horror. Your eye will fall out. Your eyelid will swell up and crust over. You foot will fall off! All these and more, I guess. But what the hell. It was really beginning to bug me, and from the pain, it seemed to be near a vast network of nerves but to hell with that, I plundered on.
When scratching it with a finger nail didn't do much, I started trying to squeeze it like a spot, but it was dug in deep and painful as hell when any pressure was applied. This carried on until this afternoon, it is sore by now and I had the answer. Razor blade. I would slice off the skin that was covering the ball of white goo and then squeeze it out like an orange from a granny's fist.
Of course, there's a little bit of tissue damage there where I was scratching at it all night. A bit of blood from this afternoon's effort, I guess. And I know that when the scab starts to form, I'm gonna be picking at that too...
the devil makes work for idle hands, huh?
Yeah, I know it means nothing to you. But it means everything to me.
It started last night, just after midnight. I'd just received the IP (that's intellectual property; games ideas, art style, new technology thoughts) from a past employer, so I can go ahead and include any or all of those innovative and sexy ideas in anything creative I wanna do with 3D in the future. I have been artistically released. It was sorta 12 o'clock midnight when I finally received confirmation that my IP was mine, again.
Maybe it was the annoyance that IP is the company's until such time as agreement is made between the parties that what I think is in fact my own, when I started to scratch. I reached up and felt something. A small white milk spot on my left eyelid. Don't touch it! that would be the advise elders would shriek in horror. Your eye will fall out. Your eyelid will swell up and crust over. You foot will fall off! All these and more, I guess. But what the hell. It was really beginning to bug me, and from the pain, it seemed to be near a vast network of nerves but to hell with that, I plundered on.
When scratching it with a finger nail didn't do much, I started trying to squeeze it like a spot, but it was dug in deep and painful as hell when any pressure was applied. This carried on until this afternoon, it is sore by now and I had the answer. Razor blade. I would slice off the skin that was covering the ball of white goo and then squeeze it out like an orange from a granny's fist.
Of course, there's a little bit of tissue damage there where I was scratching at it all night. A bit of blood from this afternoon's effort, I guess. And I know that when the scab starts to form, I'm gonna be picking at that too...
the devil makes work for idle hands, huh?
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
CHIM+HIM IS RELEASED
Yes, the follow up to the "Chimera + eight female collaborators" 29-story collection CHIM+HER has just been released. Called CHIM+HIM, it is another collaborative project but this time Chimera battles it out with 7 male writers. Here's the spiel:
What is a three-lobed brain?
Chimera, Korn and Lewis invented one back in the 1990's and dubbed it a Tricephallic brain. The term refers to a story constructed by three writing brains in intimate collaboration.
In Chim+Him, Hertzan Chimera collaborates with seven of the most creative authors writing today: Simon Logan, Mark McLaughlin, Vincent W Sakowski, Greg Wharton, John Edward Lawson, MF Korn and DF Lewis. There are 25 collaborative stories in this book, plus a bumper batch of 9 of the infamous Tricephallics collaborations of Chimera, Korn and Lewis.
no other book brings their Tricephallic collection together.
Yes, the follow up to the "Chimera + eight female collaborators" 29-story collection CHIM+HER has just been released. Called CHIM+HIM, it is another collaborative project but this time Chimera battles it out with 7 male writers. Here's the spiel:
What is a three-lobed brain?
Chimera, Korn and Lewis invented one back in the 1990's and dubbed it a Tricephallic brain. The term refers to a story constructed by three writing brains in intimate collaboration.
In Chim+Him, Hertzan Chimera collaborates with seven of the most creative authors writing today: Simon Logan, Mark McLaughlin, Vincent W Sakowski, Greg Wharton, John Edward Lawson, MF Korn and DF Lewis. There are 25 collaborative stories in this book, plus a bumper batch of 9 of the infamous Tricephallics collaborations of Chimera, Korn and Lewis.
no other book brings their Tricephallic collection together.
THE LOST CHIMERA PAINTINGS
Twelve years avoiding dust accretion and light bleaching in an A1-sized art folder, these 18 lost paintings from the early 1990's have finally surfaced from the carnage of the GREAT AXE ATTACK which claimed thirty of the larger oil-on-hardboard paintings. Gouache on white paper and A1-sized, these surrealistic remnants of a younger, angrier Chimera have never before been exhibited in public.
each painting is for sale at £500
Twelve years avoiding dust accretion and light bleaching in an A1-sized art folder, these 18 lost paintings from the early 1990's have finally surfaced from the carnage of the GREAT AXE ATTACK which claimed thirty of the larger oil-on-hardboard paintings. Gouache on white paper and A1-sized, these surrealistic remnants of a younger, angrier Chimera have never before been exhibited in public.
each painting is for sale at £500
Saturday, July 24, 2004
TOMBSTONE AWARD ARRIVES.
When I found out I'd won the Tombstone Award (with Alex Severin for our co-written story Modificatum Eli-X, part seven of the fuck star mini-series running on Weird Space e-zine), I thought,'yeah, thanks, won an award.'
But it arrived this morning!
It's a LOVELY looking award. Aluminium tombstone, 8" * 5" or so, engraved with the name and details of the award. Very happy, skippy-on-the-toes moment for me this.
My first award!
When I found out I'd won the Tombstone Award (with Alex Severin for our co-written story Modificatum Eli-X, part seven of the fuck star mini-series running on Weird Space e-zine), I thought,'yeah, thanks, won an award.'
But it arrived this morning!
It's a LOVELY looking award. Aluminium tombstone, 8" * 5" or so, engraved with the name and details of the award. Very happy, skippy-on-the-toes moment for me this.
My first award!
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