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Archive for the ‘Low Tech’ Category

E Ticket to e-Ticket

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 11 Sep 2012| 2 Comments »

Obey the Kitty!Up on a shelf, next to some old journals, I have a box filled with memories.

Tonight, I’m going to a concert, and I won’t be able to put it in that box.

The concert is down at the Seattle Town Hall tonight and the music is a collection of piano trios. I bought my tickets to the series through an online vendor. As is my habit, I paid a little extra ($6) to have the tickets sent to my home.

The tickets didn’t arrive, and there was a little back-and-forth between myself and the vendor. For some reason, mailing physical tickets is sometimes beyond their abilities (despite the additional cost), and remailing them or issuing a second set is Just Not Done.

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Judging a Book

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Low Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 07 Sep 2012| Leave a Comment »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI heard back from Fairwood Press, yesterday. As publisher of Dreams of the Desert Wind (my genre-mashup of speculative fiction, thriller, and corporate espionage), I wanted to give them the “right of first refusal” on the new FC:V. The good news is that Fairwood is doing very well; the bad news is that their docket is filled for 2013, and they couldn’t entertain this title until 2014.

That’s too long a wait. So, I’m moving ahead; Beneath a Wounded Sky will be published by Mouse Road Press (i.e., me) as part of a full, five-book release of The Fallen Cloud Saga.

Which means that everything is now on my plate. Including cover art.

I have an advantage here. I don’t care if this project makes money. In fact, I assume it won’t. So, if I have covers that don’t tick all the boxes on the marketing strategy checklist, no worries. But I do want to have good-looking covers.

However, I do not want to have the standard-style, heavy-detail, photo-realistic cover of men and machines that you see on almost every alternate history title on the shelf. I want something different.

I’m thinking: minimalist.

There’s a new meme out there. Do a Google search on “minimalist movie poster” and you’ll see what I mean. These are evocative but very stylized images. Most of them play on a previous knowledge of the movie, but they needn’t. They’re eye-catching, they’re clean and easy to understand, and they tell a little story all on their own.

So, I’m reaching out to some of my friends who have graphic art experience, to get their input on the process. I already have concept art for each of the five covers. Three of them are pretty much final product, in fact (yes, I was working on this ahead of time, having predicted the Fairwood response).

These covers will be unusual, setting them apart from the standard cover art for the genre. They will have a uniform “look and feel” to them, identifying them as a set. And since I won’t have to use any stock photo images (bonus), they will also be completely free of royalty costs.

I’m not an artist—I’m saving that learning curve for my retirement—but I understand the basics of design. With some educated guidance, I hope I can come up with a set of covers that will do my series proud.

k

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Try That With Your Kindle

Posted in Culture, Low Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , on 21 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »

Just as today no one will ever go into a store and thrill as they unfold the triptych of the latest Roger Dean album cover, so too, in a short period of time, no one will go into a bookstore and stop as they smell that rarefied combination of pulp and fresh ink.

Like it or not (and I don’t) we are moving toward a world in which sales of physical books will be a niche market, like vinyl LPs are today. Most of the trade in these items will involve used books and take place in small, dust-filled shops where these throwback items will eagerly line the shelves, their worn spines and faded gilt lettering displayed to their best advantage. Like potential adopters at an animal shelter, we will wish we could take them all home, but we will not be able, and will have to satisfy ourselves with saving just one or two.

A plethora of experiences and rituals will be lost to this, the Kindle generation. Technology will enhance their lives in many ways, but in this one arena, they will be the poorer for it.

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The Modernist Fast

Posted in Culture, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , on 27 Jul 2012| Leave a Comment »

Back when I was a theist, a few times each year I would go on a fast. From sunset on the first day to nightfall on the next, I would take in nothing but water. It wasn’t easy but then again, it wasn’t supposed to be.

There are many days when I’m so involved in a project that I simply forget to eat until 2 or 3pm. But, of course, we humans are contrary creatures, and never appreciate a thing until we are deprived of it. As a result, during a fast I was always hungry right out of the gate, and hungrier by the next afternoon than I would have been under other conditions.

The main purpose of a fast, in my estimation, is to enforce an atmosphere of introspection, and to instill a sense of gratitude for the most basic things in life. By intentionally depriving myself of food, the most basic requirement, the mind quickly turns inward. Reflection and meditation come easily, and the things that plague our everyday lives lose all importance in comparison.

I have extended this practice to other areas with good effect. When life begins getting to me, I go on a “modernist fast” in an attempt to reboot my thinking and my perspective. If you are interested in simplifying your life, I recommend this heartily. Some things I have done in the past:

  • For a week
    • Give up junk TV shows, news shows, or turn off the TV altogether
    • Take mass transit everywhere, and walk to places whenever possible
    • Give up a vice, a guilty pleasure, dining out, etc.
    • Wash all dishes by hand (sounds goofy, but it’s rather meditative after a while)
  • For a day
    • Give up food
    • Turn off your Blackberry
    • No internet!
    • Do as much as you can by hand

I’ve even gone so far as to try to go the whole day with limited use of electricity. I tell you, spend a whole evening without it—no television, no stereo, no dishwasher, just sitting around with your loved ones, talking or playing a game by candlelight—and your perspective really changes. After all, some people live like this every day.

I find that these Modernist Fasts help me keep my priorities straight, and show me just how much in life I have to be grateful for. Gratitude and humility—appreciating what you have and realizing how lucky you are—really help build inner peace.

k

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Obligatory Coffee Rant

Posted in Food, Low Tech, Seattle, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 24 Jul 2012| 4 Comments »

I live in Seattle, and we have a reputation for loving our coffee. I’m no different, however, I am not a purist by any means. I can’t tell if you brewed it with tap water or distilled water or filtered water or Artesian spring water, and unless your tap water is really awful, I bet you can’t either.

I have my favorite brands of coffee—Torrefazione Italia is the best I’ve had, but hard to find; Caffe D’arte is a close second, but not available in stores—but they’re so expensive that I only get them from a barista. For everyday brewing, I buy in bulk, try to get fair-trade beans of good quality, and grind it myself as needed in a good burr grinder.

But where I can make a huge difference is in the brewing.

I’ve tried almost every brewing method. I’ve tried brewing it cowboy-style in an open saucepan (toss in an eggshell to make the grounds sink), which I do not recommend, and for years we simply stuck with our standard drip-maker and a small Braun espresso machine.

On the more esoteric side, I’ve tried one of those vacuum-siphon brewers. Aside from the sheer coolness of watching it work, and the drama it imparts to the ritual cup of coffee, it only delivered a mildly better brew than standard drip coffee makers. High-maintenance to use, a bitch to clean, it also was so fragile that it broke after only a few days’ use; a disappointment, but not a tragedy, as I’d already made my decision that it wasn’t worth the trouble.

For pure outlandishness, I have also tried the Presso® espresso maker, which works solely on muscle power. A hand-pulled demitasse is pretty cool, and it cleans up pretty easily, too. It wasn’t expensive, and it’s very solidly built, so I’ll keep it around.

But, for the best cup of coffee you can brew, I say you can’t get better than the old-school, low-tech, tried-and-true method of the French press. We use a Freiling press (pictured top) that has double-sides of stainless steel, so it also acts as a thermal insulator, keeping the coffee warmer, longer. Put your burr grinder on “coarse” and brew up a cup. Steep it for 4 minutes (longer if you need a slice of coffee instead of a cup), keep the press on the table, and serve as needed. It is never bitter, never harsh. My wife, who gave up coffee because it upset her stomach, can drink it again, now that we brew it in the press.

Another win for low-tech!

k

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Going Old School

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Low Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 12 Jul 2012| Leave a Comment »

1972 Sheaffer Stylist White Dot Fountain PenI used to be much more disciplined about “writing time.” I also used to have crushing deadlines, which were a great motivator. Now, I have less time, my monkey-boy-day-job is more demanding, and it’s just damned hard to find time to shut myself in the back room, sit down at the computer, alone, without distractions, and pump a couple thousand words past the CPU.

To counter this, I’ve tried many tactics. First, I bought a netbook, thinking it would allow me to work anywhere; it turned out to be too slow and underpowered to provide any real convenience. Then, I bought a keyboard for my iPad, but while faster, it proved to be too clumsy to balance on the bus and still required a larger chunk of time in order to be productive.

So, I went Old School, returning to my writerly roots, as it were. As some of you know, my first books were written longhand, with pen on paper. Yes, kids, I actually wrote four whole novels without the aid of a computer. I swear it’s true; FC:I-II and PC:I-II were all written with a Uni-Ball pen on Cambridge steno pads.

This new/old method has increased my productivity for several reasons. Primarily, it is more suited to my Basher style; cudgeling out a few dozen or maybe a hundred words at a time is much easier than trying to force out a couple thousand words. It is also perfectly suited to my catch-as-catch-can writing schedule, allowing me to squeeze out a couple of lines at the bus stop, en route to the transit station, while waiting for a program to compile, or as I’m cooling down after my workout.

There’s also another, less obvious benefit: because writing with pen and paper is slower than typing, the resulting prose is the product of a more thoughtful and deliberate process. Writing with pen on paper increases the lyricism of my prose, and what ends up on the page is tighter, less cluttered by unnecessary wiggle-words, and is closer to what I really wanted to say. Yes, there are lots of cross-outs and insertions (see picture), which yes, looks as if I editing as I go along (Bad writer! No biscuit!), but this isn’t really editing; this is searching for the narrative path.

Moreover, writing with pen and paper just makes me feel like a writer. It is how almost all of my favorite authors composed. It’s an organic, completely natural way to create, completely divested of the trappings and necessities of computers and cables and cords. It’s immediate, it’s personal, and to me, it’s more than processing words; it’s writing.

k

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The New Dark Age

Posted in Low Tech, Writing, tagged , , , on 09 Jul 2012| 1 Comment »

Welcome to the New Dark Age.

How’s that, you say? Let me explain.

We are moving through a time when the majority of information is being stored digitally, and only digitally. Memos, letters, pictures, books, even movies, all only exist—in an increasingly large percentage—only as binary ones and zeroes on some form of digital media. Add to this all the information that exists only on websites, and you have a staggering amount if information that is, essentially, ephemeral. The British Library warns that we are already losing information, some of it important cultural information, from websites that come and go with the cultural tides. Additionally, irreplaceable scientific data may have already been lost through our inexorable march from one media to the other.

Have any old cassette tapes? Any old 3.5″ floppy disks? A tape drive for your old PC? Have any music or video stored in MP2 format? I do, and all that data—old music, pictures, stories, poems—is lost because I can no longer access it.

Let me put it this way: I have, on my desk, an edition of the Bible, printed in 1701 (pictured), complete with explications and marginalia. I can read this just as easily today as Isaac Newton could have (okay, not quite as easily, as my Latin isn’t as good as his was). I have a book, purchased in the late 90s, for use with my REB1000 eBook reader (yes, I was one of the first to try an e-reader). I cannot read it. My REB1000 is long gone, and the book’s proprietary format is indecipherable. Think about that: I can read the first book, in its original form, three centuries after it was published, and yet I can’t even view the one I bought less than twenty years ago. And don’t get me started on how many times I’ve had to buy The White Album…

Fast-forward 300 years…what will future historians find, looking back on this time? All the websites from our time are gone (What? You think Google is backing them up? Think again!). All the music, stored and delivered digitally, is in a format they can’t decode. Billions upon billions of photos, personal and professional, were lost simply through hard drive crashes. And books? The explosion of the e-book/e-reader market crushed the hardcopy publishing industry and many books, bestsellers in their day, were published only in electronic format. Think that 300-year old Kindle will fire up?

It’s not that we can’t retain all this data, and it’s not that we can’t transfer or convert all these media as new formats emerge. It’s just that we aren’t doing so.

As a species, we have all the foresight of a bug flying down the interstate. Time and again, we simply do not see the semi heading toward us until we’re splattered on the windscreen. The future may look bright and shiny, from our point of view, but from up there in the future, the view back may be much darker than we imagine.

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