I Am Most Chilled, and I'm Knitting and Binge-ing

(With all due respect to the Beastie Boys, who I like to think might be tickled by my post title)

(Because it's a riff on their lyrics, ya see)

(Kind of both rhymin' and stealin', if ya think about it)

(I'll stop now)

*

ANYWAY, this post is about my fall and winter hobby of knitting on various sizes of knitting loom while watching various sizes of internet entertainment. Basically it's my excuse to roll out a list of shows I've binge-watched. 

The thing is, I don't like to just sit and watch a show, because I feel like I should be doing something more interesting than that. I also don't like to just sit and knit, because even though I'm making something I want to make, the kind of knitting I do is not complicated. It's repetitive and time-consuming, and I like the results I get. Mostly, instead of varying the kinds of stitches I do, I vary the colors, textures, and thicknesses of the yarn. That works beautifully for the kind of blankets I make. I mess with different stitches a bit more when I'm making hats, which is a great way to use up smaller amounts of extra yarn, and then I can wear them, give them as gifts, or donate them (my usual choice lately). I've also been known to make legwarmers and wristwarmers. My point is that I feel better about watching a show when I knit, and I feel better about knitting when I watch a show.

As you might imagine, I have watched a lot of shows. I'm often late to the popular ones because I prefer Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to traditional TV. 

For example, I just started Riverdale last week. What a beyond-weird take on the comic books. Those were the only comic books I read in my childhood, btw. I like the show, despite its penchant for Wagnerian theatrics (sorry, has anyone else watched the movie Free Enterprise more times than is recommended by the various psychological organizations worldwide? Because that reference was for me and for you, and I may have just used the singular "you"). I'm just trying to imagine the thought process that led to turning the lightest and fluffiest of all implied-polyamory comics into the grim parents-are-mostly-psychotic dystopia which is the Riverdale I am currently inhaling at the rate of two or more episodes a day.

Moving on... I'm going to do more of an actual list from this point forward, because I would like to bring this post in for a landing before the end of this month. So here are some more shows that I've enjoyed enough to binge and type the titles of, including last year and probably the one before that.  Who doesn't want a list of recommendations from a person who knits AND can throw around both Beastie Boys and Free Enterprise references in a single blog post? Shh, that wasn't a real question. 

Here. Have that list I mentioned sometime in the distant past. It will be in no particular order, for your convenience. These are all on Netflix now. I've only seen the seasons available on Netflix, in all cases. Do we still have to beg for spoiler avoidance in 2018? Let's assume we do. NO SPOILERS PLEASE.

• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
• Orange Is the New Black
• iZombie
• Stranger Things
• The West Wing
• The Magicians
• Better Call Saul
• Penny Dreadful
• Travelers
• Colony
• Weeds
• Santa Clarita Diet
• Ozark
• Limitless
• Disenchantment
• The Rain
• Sense8
• Breaking Bad
• Cleverman
• The Haunting of Hill House
• Shameless
• Mad Men
• The Good Place
• Glitch

Wow. Aren't you glad we both know this about me now? o.O

In case you, like many normal active people, did not read my blog posts over the weekend, here they are:

All the Qualities I Love about Being Human - A Thumb-Haver's Objective List

A Good Weekend for Art in Madison, WI

...and that is all for today. Stay safe! 

November: It Happened. Get Over It (plus book recommendations)

Hello! I was pleased with myself for writing a summary of things I did in October, so I'm back to tell you all about my November.

For most of the non-holiday part of last month, I worked on two things:

1. My interview with amazing artist Todd Lockwood that is now part of the December issue of Clarkesworld Magazine.

2. A short story called "Quintuple-A." I wrote it for an invitation-only anthology, but it'll be a couple of months before I find out if the story will be included or not. I will let you know about that, of course. My first readers said the story was "Terrific!" and "FUN!" Luckily, I was aiming for terrific fun. :)

I read some great books:

Mother Aegypt - Kage Baker (re-read)

More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon (re-read)

At the Mouth of the River of Bees - Kij Johnson

500 Ways to Tell a Better Story - Chuck Wendig

2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love - Rachel Aaron

I have to say that Kij Johnson's story collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, should be required reading from now until human beings either go extinct or evolve into something else, and possibly after that, too. The link goes to the paperback version, but it's also available as an ebook. The only thing I'll get out of this recommendation is the hope that more people will read this book!

I've been doing a lot of re-reading lately. The idea to do that came from my realization that many books I had read and loved were not doing me much good just sitting on a shelf in my house, and that furthermore, I had forgotten the details about why I loved many of them in the first place. I'd rather be familiar with a few great books than just barely acquainted with hundreds of merely-good ones, but at the same time I don't want to stop discovering new books altogether. My plan is to do a combination of re-reading and new-to-me book discovery.

On to other entertainment! Last month I went to my second Amanda Palmer show, this one in Milwaukee. I loved seeing the way the band performed a similar set of songs in a different venue, under different circumstances. This time Amanda was dealing with the effects of bronchitis, but she was amazingly energetic, anyway, and I loved the show. The one in Minneapolis was more polished, but the one in Milwaukee was friendlier, I thought. This one guy in the audience kept yelling "Brian!" after every song, referring to the drummer from Amanda's other band, the Dresden Dolls, and eventually she brought the guy up to the stage to have a talk with him about living in the now. The band played some different songs this time, too, including one by the drummer's other band, The Few Moments, called "Magicfuturebox;" that has become one of my new favorite songs. You can play it, and the others on his new album, if you click the band link.

I watched a few movies in November, too. Safety Not Guaranteed is an adorable, quirky film about a journalist and two interns investigating a classified ad from someone seeking a partner for time travel. I saw Life of Pi in 3D. I recommend 3D if you're going to see it, because the movie's appearance was my favorite thing about it. I haven't read the novel (I hear that it's excellent), and I went into the theater with no idea what to expect. There were some powerful moments, but there were stretches when I fidgeted and wondered how much longer the movie would go on. I'm not sorry that I saw it, but I'm too ambivalent to really recommend it. The other movie I saw was an older one: Farewell, My Lovely (1975), a mystery thriller starring Robert Mitchum and Charlotte Rampling. I thought the dialogue was great, and the historical setting was done well. I'd watch it again.

This month I'm finishing a science fiction story I started to write a few years ago as part of a speed-writing exercise. It was interesting, but at the time I had other things to work on, so I set it aside. Now I have a promising outline, but I still need to decide how it will end. And there will be a long holiday for my sons at the end of the month, so I think that's all the fiction I'll write until next year.

There's always the chance that I'll blog again before another month goes by, but I'm going to go ahead and say "Happy Holidays!" right now. If you're someone who feels down around this time of year for any reason, know that I'm hoping good things for you!

October Update with Book Recommendations

Hi there! Here's what's been going on with me this October.

I started the month in a different state: Ohio. A convention I like very much, Context, capped off my September. Unfortunately for me, the throat-aggravating virus I thought I had shaken off before I left actually lingered in my throat, plotting and scheming, until I got to Columbus, where it made a comeback. In other words, I spent the weekend trying not to cough in people's faces, with limited success, and I didn't go to as many convention events as I would have liked. I don't think I was contagious, at least. However, I had enough useful conversations to initiate a nifty project for the first half of next year, which I will write about when I have more details to share. (Hint: It will involve Kickstarter, and lots of words).

While I was there, I also made some changes to my latest short story that (imo) completely fixed it, and since then I've sent it to the Writers of the Future contest. I was a semi-finalist in it a couple of years ago, but it sure would be nicer to win that thing! Or even upgrade to finalist. :)

Since I've been back in Wisconsin, I've made progress on a new short story, and I've gotten a new nonfiction assignment that I'll post about whenever it's published. But my most exciting nonfiction news for this month is that my interview with Tim Powers will be published in Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy, because its Kickstarter was funded! I'll post about that when it's available.

I've read several good books this month, too:

The Dreaming Jewels – Theodore Sturgeon

Adventures in the Screen Trade – William Goldman

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors – Alexandra Sokoloff

The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

Fragile Things – Neil Gaiman

I can recommend all of the above with a clear conscience, but I LOVED The Night Circus.

In entertainment news, I went to a SPECTACULAR Amanda Palmer show in Minneapolis earlier this month. The music is great on her new album, but hundreds of times better when it's performed live. Her new band is made entirely of geniuses. I also watched some movies. Looper is now my favorite science fiction movie, so I recommend that at my highest level of enthusiasm. Frankenweenie is exactly the kind of fun one can expect from Tim Burton, imo. Cloud Atlas is impressively ambitious, and I think it's worthwhile to see for anyone who's looking for something different than the standard movies being cranked out all the time, but it's also challenging to follow at times because of its structure and a couple of choices I can't talk about because of spoilers. Very good, but not flawless. It's several movies in one!

So between all of the above and the standard childcare, household maintenance, and a birthday party for one of my sons, I have had a busy month. I should do a monthly summary, like, monthly. It makes me realize that I actually DO get a few things done here and there. :)