marramgrass

Years, that is.

New Year has never been terribly significant for me. In our family, Christmas has always been the big occasion, and my New Year’s Eve has been marked by a quiet evening formerly in the company of Mr Kelly, and then of Mr Holland. Of course, I’ll be heading out the door in a couple of hours to join in slightly more than a night in front of the TV.

I’ll remember some things from 2008, in, as they say, no particular order:

• Our first foreign holiday in a while.
• I, and others around me, have spent rather a lot of time in the City Hospital. I was only visiting, but others in my family were the ones being visited.
• I’ve met many great people for the first time.
• I’ve been aware of my outlook on various things changing dramatically.
• Most memorably, 2008 has been the year when my wife and I discovered our impending parenthood. (See previous point :-)

So. 2009, then. I’m not one for resolutions — they always seem doomed to failure — and I tend to be hostile to too formal goal-setting. Instead, I have a few what you might call hopes-becoming-intentions for the coming year.

• In 2008, I read fewer books than in any year since I was in my early teens. I’m not happy with that, but it’s a matter of time and priority. In 2009, I’d like to read more, but I’ll settle for becoming comfortable with not.
• I hope to write more — for profit (of course) but, more importantly, for fun. I am under definite orders from my wife to enter at least one competition this year.
• On that subject, I’d like to break my habit of constructing sentences with such a confusing number of paranthetical clauses :-D
• I’d like to attain a slightly closer to normal body mass index.
• It’s my intention to photograph more. At some point around our move back to Northern Ireland, I stopped taking pictures just for the fun of it. More on this one next week.
• Then there is everything that will come with the birth of our child. I’ve no idea where to begin, there.

There it is. One year on its way out, one on its way in.

(I sat down to write, and discovered that I’ve said before what I want to say. I originally posted the below on Christmas Eve 2007.)

John 1:1-14 (NIV):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

As The Message has it, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.”

This portion of the prologue to John’s Gospel is a slip of Scripture that I return to again and again, largely on account of those words. There’s a word theologians use when they talk about it:

Incarnation.

Advent is closing, this is why we’re here.

I had thought about a lengthy post on this one, but I’ve decided to leave it at this: God became man, with all the mess and the fuss and the need that comes with the territory. If you think about it too much, the implications can leave you dumb. So keep it simple: Immanuel — God with us.

Tomorrow the celebration of that birth is upon us. Merry Christmas all.

I had loads of stuff for this one, but I’ve narrowed it down and made sure to include a few (questionably) seasonal items. Enjoy.

• A visit to London made even cooler by how it was recorded. A video may just be a collection of stills run past very quickly, but to actually do it with stills is impressive. And frighteningly dedicated.
• Collaborating robots — but who’s idea was it to use the child in the demonstration?
• Jingle Bells arranged for 49 microwave ovens.
• A typographical snowman. Yes, he is just a single character of text. Try copying him and pasting him into different applications to see how different fonts render him.
• We’ve decided not to bring a real tree into the house this year, although we normally would. One of the nuisances of the real thing is getting in under it to keep it watered. A simple, elegant application of science will make it much easier next year.
• Finally, this little piece from John Scalzi is simply brilliant, but is rendered even more pointed and poignant when read alongside the coverage of life in an Amazon fulfillment centre.

Continuing my return to the albums that have shaped my listening over the years (and this is a series that could run and run), I’ve grabbed two albums with something in common: both are live albums, and each was the album that drew me in to the rest of the band’s music — maybe not the usual way it goes.

First of the two is Hell Freezes Over, by The Eagles, titled with a cute reference to the band’s assertion that they would play together again “when hell freezes over.” :-/ The disc is a recording, for MTV, of the reunion gig 14 years after they disbanded in 1980, with four new studio tracks making up the numbers.

The Eagles made their name with an easy-going kind of country rock, and that’s the dominant style on this disc. Even the songs from their later, harder days maintain the easy vibe.

Standout moments are the acoustic duelling of “Hotel California”, an epic “The Last Resort” and a plaintive yet hopeful “Desperado”. Few of the arrangements are very different from the studio versions in the back catalogue, but there’s something in the delivery that feels a little more mellow, a little more grown-up and weary. All this combined makes Hell Freezes Over my favourite Eagles record and one I’m glad to have dug out again. I’m still listening to it.

Like VM, I have a tendency towards what different folks will call sci-fi, SF, SF&F, or even the slightly pretentious speculative fiction. I’ve also recently been convinced by audiobooks. When I saw and heard METAtropolis plugged in various places, I was never going to be able to resist, especially when I managed to grab it on sale for a mere four quid.

Five SF authors, none of whom I’ve read before but most of whom I had at least heard of, collaborated to dream up a near-future world where the concept of city has evolved into something essentially different but still recognisable; they each then wrote a novella set in this world.

The five stories are different and distinctive. All are good, with the second and fourth counting as great: Tobias Buckell’s “Stochasti-city” and John Scalzi’s “Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis”.

The stories explore some obvious themes for the near-future setting: environmentalism, the tension between micro-economics and global corporations, the impact and the lack of impact of technology, the clash between capitalism, socialism and altruism.

Most interesting are the ways the stories explore human community in a future where nationality and ethnicity appear to have become completely irrelevant: a massive environmentalist commune aspiring to true anarchy; a closed city-state, sharing open borders with similar cities around the world, where there is no currency and where your citizenship depends on your willingness to contribute; an invisible network of all kinds of people, sharing resources on the strength of a shared commitment; layered, technologically-enabled alternative ‘realities’ where individuals claim citizenship of countries that don’t even exist in the physical world. Some of the communities formed are pragmatic and temporary, some are formed of necessity and some are based around an ideal. All are fascinating and all are completely plausible.

Some of the best SF has a philosophical component, where imagination offers the freedom to explore ideas and ask questions that remain surprisingly relevant and immediate. I know the label of sci-fi will put many off, but this collection is interesting, thought-provoking and very accessible — why not give it a go?

Half-way there.

During the week I grabbed the DVD of The Mist — Frank Darabont doing a different kind of Stephen King story. The film had a very quiet cinema release here, which is a shame. I enjoyed it.

In a nutshell: freakish all-enveloping mist contains nasty creatures and traps a mix of small-town folks in their local supermarket.

The creatures are cleverly designed, most of them more menacing for having almost human-like heads and faces, and the great design more than makes up for the slightly weak CGI. Most unnerving, though, is the conflict between different people trapped in the store. It starts out as random shouting, leaving me wanting a bit of backstory to explain the conflict, but the main tension is well set up and develops very nicely: the slightly mad pseudo-Christian fundamentalist Mrs Carmody proclaims the end of days, claiming that God has chosen her to lead the faithful in appeasing the creatures with blood sacrifice.

The development of Mrs Carmody’s unhinged interpretation of events, her growing confidence, her gradual winning of followers among the group and the eventual clash with the skeptical few are brilliantly drawn and very satisfying, even if I did spend half the film shouting at her to try reading that Bible she was waving around.

Most memorable, though, is the ending. I won’t spoil it in detail, but it is about as bleak — but excellent — a bit of cinema as I’ve seen.

Sunday 30th November, 2008: the First Sunday in Advent.

My brother has developed a family tradition whereby he will, on roughly this Sunday, haul his fiancee to my parents’ house and put up their Christmas tree. If you haven’t seen my mother’s tree, look out your window :) It stands about seven feet tall in a low-ceilinged room, and I don’t know how many lights are on it — possibly more than are on the tree outside City Hall. (Actually, given the feebleness of that tree, I wouldn’t be surprised.) My father likes to joke that if you listen carefully you can hear the wheel in the electricity meter speeding up.

The evening, including a visit to see my gran in the City Hospital, was a reminder that alongside the liturgy, the longing and the waiting in darkness, this joy and these lights are also true markers of the season, and — if I can say it — offer a little taste of Kingdom. There is room for laughter in the observance, an accompaniment to the hope of the day.

Measuring personality is big business. You can spend a fortune in time and/or money filling in forms, answering puzzles and deciphering unwieldy four-letter acronyms all with the aim of categorizing yourself in an only semi-useful way.

Never having adequately got my head around Myers-Briggs, I hereby propose a new psychometric test:

Which Hitchhiker’s Guide is the best?

Answer the question by selecting a form or an individual book, and find your personality-type below.

The radio show, but only the Primary and Secondary phases.

You’re a traditionalist. You know that there are many new and supposedly wonderful things in the world, but it’s better to stick with what you know well. You may be of a certain age, and you sometimes miss the carefree days of your youth.

The radio show, the whole thing.

You wouldn’t describe yourself as a risk-taker, but your friends will say you’ve been known to take a chance or two. Of those friends, some will enjoy your sense of humour, while others aren’t so sure. You like to see things through to completion, and prefer to make a good go and get it done rather than be paralyzed by a futile search for perfection.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the novel.

You like to know where everything is, and you value simplicity. The people around you have learned that you don’t handle surprises very well, but they’re perfectly happy to treat you kindly and look out for you.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the novel.

Quality matters to you, but sometimes you’ll let it slip in the name of excitement. Similarly, although you tend towards an analytical approach to life, you have been known to jump to some very unusual conclusions. It seems to have worked okay for you so far.

Life, the Universe and Everything, the novel.

You’re a little bit surreal in your approach to life, perhaps as a result of an experience with hallucinogens. Nonetheless, you know exactly where you’re going in life, even if no-one else does. This knowledge makes you a little bit smug, but in an endearing way.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, the novel.

You’re a bit of a hippy, and a romantic at heart. You wish for everyone to have a happy ending, but you know deep down that that’s terribly unlikely. Still, you hope.

Mostly Harmless, the novel.

The diametric opposite of Type SLATFATF, you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, life is suffering, isn’t it? You remember a time when you were less negative about everything, but you’re a little bit ashamed of that past self.

The text-based adventure game.

Given to extraordinary bursts of imagination, you still like to suffer. With a tendency to make life difficult for yourself, pain is a strange pleasure to you.

The BBC TV series.

You grew up on Doctor Who and like your entertainment made up in dreary cardboard. Slightly morose, you tend to just get on with things without getting terribly worked up about them. You are very probably English.

The 2005 film.

It’s nice to see some young ‘uns packing towels. Welcome to the family — just be sure to mind your manners, and don’t assume that you know what you’re talking about quite yet.

(A note on method: this is based on the forms of Guide that I’m familiar with. Given the uniquely multi-media nature of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed some. You now where the comment form is if you want to expand the test.)