choveshkata.net

Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:20 pm Re: Любимите компютърни игри Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:20 pm Re: Любимите компютърни игри
И сега специално предложение за феновете на solarpunk-а. ;)

Terra Nil: Reclaim the Wasteland - (Ecosystem World Builder)

Линк към самата игра:
Terra Nil
Цена - Pay What You Want.

Играта няма сюжет, so to speak, но е приятен оптимизаторски пъзел, всяка карта с три етапа на reclamation, като накрая всичко трябва да е почистено (да се премахнат следите от изкуствена намеса), за да бъде спечелена картата. Но дава доста храна за размисъл - един от коментаторите се изказа в стил "So, you are a techno druid using tech to renew the world?", а пък аз от своя страна взех спонтанно да компостирам short story-та and the like. :)

Най-забавното - концепцията е направена от един разработчик по време на game dev jam. Хеее!

Tue Sep 29, 2020 6:37 pm Re: Как го правят другите? Tue Sep 29, 2020 6:37 pm Re: Как го правят другите?
5-10 октомври: „Работа с фантастичното“ с Владимир Полеганов

(...) Ето някои от аспектите на работата с фантастичното, върху които теоретически и практически ще се спре уъркшопът:
Какво отличава езика на фантастичното от този на реалистичната литература?
Особености на фантастичния образ.
Какво е „странното“ в литературата и как работи то?
Човешко/нечовешко: как се пише за и от гледната точка на Другия.
Как се изгражда свят и какви видове светове може да изгради един писател?
Жанрови лица и маски: научна фантастика, фентъзи, хорър, магически реализъм, утопия/антиутопия/дистопия.

Документи се пращат до 1 октомври . Участието е безплатно.

Fri Nov 06, 2020 12:56 am Re: Раздумки на коректори Fri Nov 06, 2020 12:56 am Re: Раздумки на коректори
Някой да ме насочи към етимология или друг анализ на думата "промисъл", която да обясни защо думата е в мъжки род, докато "мисъл" е в женски?

И ако съм сбъркала темата, в "Темата за помощ" ли да се местя?

И допълвам, след като излезе долния пост - напомняне от kaksepishe.com:

"Съществителното “мисъл” е от женски род, но всички останали, които съдържат “мисъл”, са от мъжки: смисъл,
замисъл, размисъл, помисъл, промисъл, умисъл, предумисъл."

Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:41 pm Re: Копнеж за зелени разкази (ама _наистина_) Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:41 pm Re: Копнеж за зелени разкази (ама _наистина_)
Абе... като се замисля... малко е безсмислено с цветни илюстрации, защото като знам как излизат на безцветния ми Nook... Но все пак сигурно ще пратя нещо.

Sun Nov 29, 2020 11:03 am Re: Цитатите, които ни създадоха Sun Nov 29, 2020 11:03 am Re: Цитатите, които ни създадоха
Напоследък доста си мисля за долния откъс, докато поемам произволни сюжетни изкуства:

Свободата на оправданото насилие . Всички сме гледали американски екшъни, в които поне половината филм се занимава да нагнети в съзнанието ни образа на адската същност на злодея или злата организация, и когато е постигнат максимумът на съспенса, а публиката вътрешно крещи и настоява за възмездие, идва Главният герой (ГГ). Той с повече или по-малка лекота избива охранителите на злото и достига Върховния злодей (ВЗ). Тук започва любопитен процес, който също сме виждали стотици пъти. ГГ има всички основания да знае, че всяко продължаване на живота на ВЗ означава стотици нови смърти и нещастия, но той включва на „морална оценка“, започва да кърши ръце – „ако го убия, по какво ще се различавам от него?!“ – и го пуска или арестува, за да могат скъпоплатените адвокати да го изкарат невинен. Тук са заложени два явни абсурда: 1. Всички избити преди това „войници-охранници“ също може би имат семейства и любими хора, но за тях няма морални колебания. 2. Ако Героят не знае с какво се различава от Злодея, значи няма никаква ценностна система, да не говорим, че всички злодейски успехи от този момент нататък ще лежат на съвестта му. И много често ГГ все пак убива ВЗ, но когато това изглежда оправдано или неизбежно.

Ще игнорирам тези традиционни „зли гении“, които просто искат да завладеят света, а ГГ винаги успява „да ги спре“. Интересно е да се проследи през годините как еволюира мотивировката на злодеите: от примитивното „Ще взривя тази супербомба, за да спрат всички войни!“ (1956) до хитрото „Аз ще съм този суперхищник, от който ще изтръпват от ужас всички силни на деня хищници, които управляват света!“ (2018). Тук се сблъскват две „възпитателни програми“ – едната мотивира свободата на убийството като единствено решение на противоречието, другата е лицемерната парадигма на официалната пропаганда: „Справедливата власт само спира престъпленията, наказанията са дело на закона“. А в устата на ВЗ сценаристите влагат идеологията, която искат да компрометират: леви концепции, екологично възстановяване, оспорване на свръхбогатството, анархизъм.

И доста от сюжетите започват сериозно да ме отблъскват...

Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:24 am Re: Приказки за Юнаци и злодеи Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:24 am Re: Приказки за Юнаци и злодеи
Освен пак да благодаря, пиша и понеже успях да си събера мислите малко. ;)

На кой похват на Хал Дънкан ти напомни „слушащата“? Различните стилове?

И аз често се чудя за разбираемостта на историите <-> личното познанство с авторите им. Някой ден, като ги прочетат и невинни жертви непознати хора, ще проверим...

А как ти се отрази „отмъстителната“? Приципно, като четеш, интересно ли ти е да следваш нишки (като Тезей в лабиринта ;)) и да разплиташ възели (ама не като Александър и Гордиевия възел :D)?

Fri May 07, 2021 1:11 am Re: Културни събития Fri May 07, 2021 1:11 am Re: Културни събития
12 май ще е леко тегавичък...
18 ч. - Нощ на литературата, а аз съм на работа
20 ч. без stream?, кино Cabana - Swinging Деси - https://urboapp.com/bg/e8698-desy-and-the-shiny-stockings-album-promo
21 ч., SLC – Васко Кръпката, и той албум
21:30 ч. в "Терминал 1" – Керана и Космонавтите - https://www.eventim.bg/bg/bileti/kerana-i-kosmonavtite-sofiya-klub-terminal-1-558034/event.html

Цените са 20, 10, 12 лв. Смятам да ходя на # пак от солидарност, а и защото отдавна съм си го заплюла, пък и нали още преди една година специално исках.

Tue Mar 17, 2015 5:51 am Re: Аниме-й! Tue Mar 17, 2015 5:51 am Re: Аниме-й!
Yay, it's time for THAT.

What is THAT?

Well... ти май хареса две от шоутата от моя топ 10 (Dirty Pair и Харухи). Значи е време за малко разбор на останалите осем? Подредени що-годе в реда, в който бих ги пробутал.

Top wo Nerae 1&2 (don't forget to watch the Science Lessons between S1 and S2)
Първият сезон (Gunbuster) е едно от малкото анимета, за които почти има консенсус в аниме фендома. А именно, хората обичат да го наричат "the best mecha anime ever".
Вторият сезон (Diebuster) е доста по-различен. Някои хора го харесват повече. Тези, които предимно гледат mecha анимета като че ли го харесват по-малко. Аз съм от първата група.
Не се залъгвай по началото, всеки от сезоните започва по-смешно и не-епично, и постепенно качва залога с всеки следващ епизод.

Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei
Един умен анонимъс един ден бе казал, че обожава да научава неща за чужди култури чрез сатирите, писани за тях. Само ми е жал че не го казах това аз първи, и сега би било лъжа да си приватизирам кредита по измислянето на репликата.
Важното в случая е че Коджи Кумета (оригиналният автор на мангата, която бива в последствие адаптирана) е правилният човек, при когото да отидеш, ако искаш нещо подобно по отношение на Япония. А пък, от своя страна, Шафт са правилните хора да адаптират в аниме вариант стилизираният и побъркан стил на Кумета.

*с удоволствие бих заел 14те издадени на английски тома от мангата ако на някого му се чете

Pale Cocoon
Азимовщина. Хубав кратък сайфай разказ. Гледайте го.

*monogatari
First World Problems The Anime.
Description over.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki
Акира обожава да налага либертарианските си възгледи, съдейки по адаптираните му новели. Не ми е проблем, след като споделям вижданията му. High Tension Action Drama... it kind of is, but it's mainly comedy. Just watch it, and pay attention to the lyrics of the songs. Rali loved this anime.

Sketchbook ~full color's~
Healing.

Hidamari Sketch
Да, имам две различни анимета за всекидневния живот на момичета, които се занимават с рисуване, в своя топ 10. И двете заслужават да са там, damn it.

Малко по-сериозно.
Скицника и Хидамари са коренно различни като атмосфера, дирекция, арт, усещане, и така нататък. Хидамари е единственото наистина успешно аниме, което държи една тясна сплотена група главни герои без твърде много намеса на външни в тяхната група. Във всички останали, които се сещам, тясната група се чувства донякъде като куклен театър, отделен от реалността... а Хидамари успява да те направи част от тази тясна група. Живота продължава да си тече и извън нея, виждаме го, но основното е в общежитията и в "общността", която четирите (шестте) момичета, живеещи в тях, са създали. Скицника пък е наобратното. Клубът по изобразително изкуство е голям, и животът на градчето около него е неотделима част от дейността на клуба. Тоест, това отделяне практически го няма. Хидамари е издържано в superflat стила, който Шинбо и другите в Шафт разработват през предишното десетилетие. Скицника е сценичен, с дълбочина, и красив. Хидамари представя първите два сезона в абсолютно разбъркан ред - нито както са излизали в мангата, нито нещо даже близо до хронология. Но се старае да ти набива в очи елементите, които сочат че тази хронология определено си съществува. Скицника си е представен хронологично... и с цял епизод отделен само за това как котките си приказват. За мен гледането на Хидамари е среща със стари приятели. А Скицника е лечение от ... всичко.

Pani Poni Dash
Нали казах за Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei че може да се използва като огледало на японската култура, само дето трябва да четеш надълго и нашироко точно защо шегите в него са смешни?
Е, директно се откажете да правите това за Pani Poni Dash. Frankly, if you haven't seen 500+ anime series, PPD laughs at you and stomps you in the ground. Аз лично разбирам по-малко от 30% от рефърънсите в него. Анимирани са що-годе по едно и също време от едни и същи хора, съответно имат много общо като дирекция, и изписване на всяко празно място по екрана с рандом реплика, която е рефърънс към нещо произволно, но докато SZS се държи относително добричко и само трябва да знаеш министър председателя, с когото се ебават в момента, PPD има нахалството да се ограничава само до неща от субкултурата: аниме, манга, токусатсу, сайфай, и каквото ти друго фенско/маниашко нещо ти попадне.
А, да, и главната героиня е на десет години, завършила е MIT, преподава на 14 годишни японки, и е една от трите ми най-любими героини евър.
Не че другите герои не са ми любими също, просто Беки е над всичко останало.
Ъъъъ, не го препоръчвам особено. SZS първо.

Между другото, Харухи отсъства от релевантното място на следния принцип: определено харесвам новелите повече от анимето. За СЗС и Скицника харесвам мангата и анимето еднакво много (макар и по различен начин), Хидамари като аниме е определено подобрение на вече добрата си манга, за *моногатари новелите е трудно да се каже (единствено съжалявам за разговора с Тсукихи относно гащичките, който е страхотен, и трябва да се прочете, нищо че отнема 77 страници - една четвърт от целия том), KKN новелите и мангата на PPD не съм чел, а Top wo Nerae не е адаптация, ами оригинално измислено като аниме.

[...]
"Besides, if you want to have a serious discussion about it, even if males are lusted after by females, it's hard to think of what they could be forced to do. Women's shyness, in a way, may be an essential survival instinct in order to protect the body"
"Enough with the serious discussion. Let's keep talking about underwear."
[...]
<somewhat earlier>
[...]
Said Tsukihi, and she opened wide the bottom hem of the yukata, displaying boldly what was completely visible from the start.
It was the action of a pervert.
Though even if I saw it, the underwear of my sister who after a bath walked inside the house in underwear at this point didn't make me feel anything.
It didn't feel any different from seeing a color sample.
However I thought that a brother nowadays shouldn't react as if he were hard to please, so on the contrary I clapped hands with all my strength and praised her loudly.
"Pheeww! Sister panties are the best!"
"Why, thank you!"
Tsukihi joined me.
What a pair of siblings.
[...]

Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:49 am Re: Наши текстове Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:49 am Re: Наши текстове
Споделям едно старо, леко видоизменено, (доста) смахнато стихче, с претенции да е и лятно на всичкото отгоре ... :)
Трясвам си клетката, пуквам стените,
шляпам по покрива в птичи екстаз.
Горе - мътилка е, долу - разбиване,
а по средата (наистина?) - аз.

Всичко е супер, разбира се (писна ми)
и в телефона отглеждам цветя.
Пускам си корабче във телевизора,
давя часовника в кофа с вода.

Плакна си мислите от перушината,
те се извръщат ужасни без грим.
Късам си снимките (късам ги, всичките)
(Няма да мине). Мина, почти.

Свивам си сълзите в куфар от вестници,
лепвам им марка със синьо море…
Горе мътилка е, долу – измислица
Аз - по средата - ставам дете.

Sun Sep 26, 2021 10:19 pm Re: ЧоБи изяви (и издънки): 2019+ Sun Sep 26, 2021 10:19 pm Re: ЧоБи изяви (и издънки): 2019+
Потвърдено е! На 18 дек. на любимото ми - мюнхенското летище ще имам време от 14:50 до 21 ч. между двата полета и както вече казах на Миро, "нищо не ми пречи да опна един щанд". Мисля, че там по има вероятност някой да си купи нещо на ЧоБи.

Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:13 pm Re: Пълноземие Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:13 pm Re: Пълноземие
Национализъм без разделение?

Здрасти, Кал,

Чета сега "Пълноземие" - четох вече "Да пробудиш Драконче" и "Царска заръка". Реших да изчета тази поредица, все пак сте я споменавали многократно, даже едната май сте я издали вие.

От една страна, книгите ми допадат много, събуждат в мен много приятни чувства. Някаква носталгия по 90-те, някаква тъга по липсващия ми национален дух... Например онзи момент, в който Витан? каза "Аз съм българин" в смисъл на "Можеш да ми вярваш"... И въобще книгите са някак си пропити с това желание България да е по-велика, по-ценна и ценена, да значи нещо. Български думи вместо чуждици, български серии оръжия (виждам в началото на Пълноземие).

Усещам у себе си много мегдан да припознавам такива романтични мечтания за по-велика Българска държава. Като погледна силуета на Санстефанска България, и ми става подобно носталгично-тъжничко.

НО. Аз съм човек, който е преди всичко толерантен - опитвам се да контрирам у себе си (и у околните) неща като расизъм, сексизъм, хомофобия и всички други радикални дискриминационни модели. И нямаше как да не забележа, че този национализъм в книгите на Теллалов неминуемо идва с едно специфично отношение към останалите нации. Например, разни разговорни думи от сорта на дойчовците, братушките и т.н., които звучат леко осмиващи, може би просто разговорни. Но самият факт, че се говори за тази нация, онази нация, ми се струва като страхотна генерализация - както е например гърците са лъжци, сърбите са простаци, американците са използвачи и т.н. Които твърдения не смятам за верни - вярвам, че във всеки народ има и крадци, и честни хора, и мързеливци, и работливци и т.н.

С други думи, ако "аз съм българин"="можеш да ми вярваш", това автоматично прави "той не е българин" равно на "мани го тоя", "не може да му се вярва", "няма как да разбере" и пр.

Останал съм с впечатлението, че обособяването на една група/общност е пряко свързано с определянето на "враг" или "външен" за тази група. Което автоматично води до повишаване на толерантността вътре в групата и рязко покачване на нетолерантността към елементи извън групата. И ако аз имам за цел едно човечество, което е толерантно и никой на никой не е враг, всички общо работят за успехите на цялото човечество... Ако това е моята цел, наличието на подгрупи (напр. нации) ми е излишно и вредно даже.

Какъв е резултатът? Поредицата на Теллалов по много тънък начин ти инжектира национализъм - толкова тънко, че даже и мен ме хваща. А тъй като смятам национализма за вредно нещо - определям и книгите като супер вредни и опасни за развитието на модерно мислене без граници и предразсъдъци.

Както осъзнах това ми стана много тъжно. Все пак несъзнателно ми харесват. Осъждам ги изцяло съзнателно.

Ти и ЧоБи повече сте се занимавали от мен с тези книги - все пак и от вас ги знам, и заради вас посегнах към тях. Моля те, сподели какво мислиш по този въпрос - или направо ме насочи към тема във форума, където се вихри дългогодишна дискусия на тази тема.

Краси

Нека дискусията започне... сега. :)

Sat May 09, 2015 4:21 pm Re: Културни събития Sat May 09, 2015 4:21 pm Re: Културни събития
13 май 2015 г., 18:30 ч.
Читалище "Николай Хайтов" в София (ул. ул. "Юрий Гагарин" № 7 - на гърба на бившето кино "Изток")

Представяне на книгата на Стефан Кръстев "Кланица за чародеи" (е-книга и хартиено издание)

Това е първият самостоятелен роман на автора. Съчетава много фантастични поджанрове.

Стефан Кръстев е един от авторите, включени в антологията "За спасяването на света", издадена от Човешката библиотека през 2013 г.
Можете да се срещнете с него и преди представянето на първия му роман, от страниците на блога ни тук

Заповядайте!

Tue Jun 09, 2015 12:04 am Re: Културни събития Tue Jun 09, 2015 12:04 am Re: Културни събития
Тазвечершното издание на „Истории от някога“ за първи път вкара в програмата 3D четене. Който е бил (демек, Снеж и аз), знае. Другите да завиждат. :P

Или още по-добре: отсега да си отбележат 13 юли , понеделник, 19:30, пак в бар „Дак“, когато двама наистина разсмиващи stand-up комици ще се изправят една срещу друг: Краси Станкова и Тео Буковски.

Аз съм решил да ходя. :)

Thu Jan 13, 2022 2:26 pm Re: Труд и творчество Thu Jan 13, 2022 2:26 pm Re: Труд и творчество
Конкурс за разказ и есе на тема „За ползата от образованието“

Тема: разказ или есе на образователна или научна тема

Краен срок: 20.02.2022 г.

Резултати: N/A

Възраст: всякаква

Вид творба: разказ или есе

Формат:
Къс разказ с обем до 5 машинописни страници или есе с обем до 2 машинописни страници.
В конкурса могат да участват и публикувани произведения.
Всички желаещи да вземат участие в конкурса, могат да ги изпращат на имейла ми dielight -@- abv.bg до 23:59 часа на 20 февруари 2022 г.

Награди:
– Книгите „Групата от Ада“ и „Училище родно“; илюстрации на спечелилите разкази;
– Подбрани разкази и есета на блога си.

Повече информация: във ФБ профила ми (SnezhanaTasheva) или в блога ми (janeundead в wordpress)

Време е за следващия конкурс. Този път ще го организираме заедно с художника Божидар Жеков (Буж), на тема „За ползата от образованието“. Можете да участвате с разказ до пет стандартни страници (9000 знака с интервалите) или с есе до две стандартни страници (3600 знака с интервалите) на тази тема. За разказа очакваме истории, развиващи се в училище, университет, академия, лаборатория, езиков курс и прочие (т.е. места, свързани по един или друг начин с образованието и науката), с действащи лица преподаватели, учители, студенти, учени, курсисти и т.н. В есето пък можете да споделите собствените си мисли по темата.

Най-добрите разкази и есета ще бъдат публикувани на блога ми (т.е. тук):

https://janeundead.wordpress.com/

Ако решите да изпратите текст по темата, но извън обявените жанрове (например еротичен разказ или стихотворение), обещаваме да го прочетeм, но няма да участва в основното класиране. Все пак, може да получи награда и да бъде публикуван по наше усмотрение.

Наградите ще бъдат книги – моята „Групата от Ада“, тази на баба ми Станка Димитрова, „Училище родно“ и други, както и илюстрации на вашите разкази от Буж.

Можете да прочетете „Групата от Ада“ в читанка:

https://chitanka.info/book/9627-grupata-ot-ada

Някои от работите на Буж можете да видите тук:

https://www.deviantart.com/bojidar123431/gallery

Негово дело е и корицата на „Групата от Ада“.

Няма възрастово ограничение за участие. Конкурсът не е анонимен – напишете двете си имена във файла, под заглавието. Можете да участвате с по едно произведение във всяка категория (т.е. един разказ и едно есе).

Не изпращайте модерна поезия – няма да я оценим.

Използвайте спелчек. Ако си нямате, ето един:

http://slovored.com/spellchecker/

Използвайте удобни за четене шрифтове – Times New Roman, Calibri, Liberation Serif и т.н., както и формати – doc, docx, odt, rtf, txt. Не пращайте pdf-и.

Допуска се участие на вече публикувани произведения.

Можете да изпращате произведенията си като прикачен файл на имейл адрес [email protected] до 23:59 часа на 20 февруари 2022 г.

Пожелаваме ви вдъхновение и приятно писане!

Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:57 pm Re: Книги, автори, размисли творчески и човешки Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:57 pm Re: Книги, автори, размисли творчески и човешки
My review of Together We Will Go :

This is, ultimately, a story about comradeship and finding people that get you--perhaps even more than it's about freedom and choices.

It's also about beauty. So much beauty:

~ Ohhhh that beginning:
Everyone says first-person narratives are bullshit, that there’s no suspense because you know that whoever’s talking can’t die by the end of the story, otherwise who’s writing it? Well, by the time you read this I’ll be dead, along with maybe a dozen others, so I guess the joke’s on you.

~ Now there's a contemporary story:
If you’re over thirty and reading this, you don’t understand that the road between Get a Degree Avenue and Here’s Your Job Boulevard broke down a long time ago. But that’s not your fault. You don’t understand because you can’t understand, because that’s not the world you lived in.

The Civil War was stupid lethal because the generals weren’t living inside the war they were fighting; they were living in the last one. During the Revolutionary War, muskets were shit. You had to get up close, closelikethis if you wanted to hit anything. So when the Civil War came along, the generals used the same tactics they’d used in the Revolutionary War: they ordered their soldiers to line up in rows, elbow to fucking elbow, so close to the enemy they could see each other’s teeth before opening fire with weapons that were a hell of a lot more accurate than muskets. They fought the next war using the strategies of the last one, and six hundred thousand soldiers died because of it.

So when our parents said, Go to college and get your degree so you can get a job , we did it even though we know it doesn’t work that way anymore because we wanted to make you happy, because we wanted to believe what you believed, that the rules still applied, that you walked out of college with a degree in one hand as a recruiter shook the other, offering a job and a salary and a desk and maybe a pension plan that they’ll take away before you get to actually use the goddamn thing but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right? But that’s not true anymore. We will never, ever have the same opportunities you did. Full-time jobs are fading fast, replaced by part-time jobs where you get paid shit money to work long hours that are constantly being shifted around so there’s no stability, no benefits, and no backtalk or you’re fired, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And the American Dream of owning a home someday? How? With what? Everyone I know who graduated college came out $50–80K in the hole for student loans they’ll never pay off, which by the way also shoots down their credit rating, so there’s no savings, no loans, nothing to invest, nothing to buy a home with, and the planet is frying and in thirty years most of us will end up climate refugees, so yeah, there’s that to look forward to. And in return we get shit upon from On High for living at home or not having ambition or putting experience ahead of owning stuff because in case you weren’t paying attention we can’t fucking afford anything .

And that’s why you don’t understand. Not your fault. Not your paradigm. It’s just what it is.

So when I graduated with a degree in writing, my parents expected me to start making a living as a writer rightdamnitnow . What followed instead was seven years of part-time work and full-time rage, sending out short stories and novels and This doesn’t suit our needs and Come back another time and Sorry we can’t help you and Get the hell out .

~ I love the mix of deadly (hehe) serious topics and, well, this (note: Lisa has arachnoiditis, which means she is in constant pain):
After that, I kind of shut down. I don’t remember much of the last few years. I’ve never traveled. Never had a boyfriend because I creep out the boys; they don’t know how to talk to me and they’re worried they’ll hurt me if they kiss too hard, so whatever mental boner is required for more than that goes limp. I’ve never had sex, never even had an orgasm until I realized I can’t climax from outside stimulation alone. It took a dozen tries before I could get a vibrator deep enough inside to fix the problem. At first I was afraid of passing out from the pain and having my folks walk in to find me sprawled over the bed with a buzzer in my bush, but eventually we became good friends.

~ We get introduced to moar adorable characters:
“Ohmygod, you’re right,” Lisa said, as though there had been some debate about the subject, “you are blue! I couldn’t tell outside. That’s so amazing! Blue is a god color, because there’s blue sky and blue water and blue eyes and blue gems like sapphire, turquoise, and aquamarine but no blue people, because God keeps that color for herself unless you count the people in that movie, what’s the name, the one with the blue people, everybody saw it, you must’ve seen it but what was the naaaame —”

“ Avatar ?” Karen said, and glanced at me like Holy shit, does this one come with an off switch?

“ Avatar , right! That movie was such a spiritual experience! It makes you understand that everything has meaning, but meaning can also be a trap, you know? Sometimes we start with the story of us, the meaning of who we are and how we got here, like religion or spirituality, and we see everything that happens to us through the lens of that meaning. Other times it goes the other way, we start with all the things that happen to us and we make stories about it until meaning comes out the other side, so blue is meaning and story and that’s amazing!”

Tyler had no more idea what the hell she was talking about than the rest of us, but she hugged him anyway. “From now on, you are my good luck charm!” she said, then turned and whooped! her way down the aisle.

“I got to the pickup spot an hour early,” Tyler said, “because I didn’t want to risk missing the bus. She was early too.”

“How early?” I asked.

“Fifty-eight minutes,” he said, and the look on his face said everything we needed to know about that hour.

~ ... with moar fascinating backstories (note: Tyler has Eisenmenger syndrome, which keeps him constantly tired):
I didn’t have many friends growing up because hello, blue, so I didn’t date much. Only reason I made it to prom with a girl from social studies class was because she was afraid I’d fall over dead if she said no. Had another date in my freshman year at UPenn. I think she was trying to show how open-minded she was, but when she took my hand and it was cold, she shrieked. Literally. She didn’t mean to. Spontaneous reaction. So yeah, no second date on that one.

Never thought I’d get laid, but a year later I met this girl who seemed to like me and said she wasn’t bothered by the blue or the cool skin, and we had sex on our second date. Later, when she didn’t call or return my texts, I found out that the only reason we got together in the first place was that her friends dared her to fuck me because they wanted to find out if my dick was blue. And no, I’m not telling you.

(...) I don’t know if this is the right place to put this—I didn’t see any other tabs for personal information, and to be honest the online interface Mark’s using wasn’t thought through very well—but if anyone should ask after I’m gone, I’d like my headstone to read:

Here Lies
TYLER WESTON
Because Frankly, He’s Exhausted

~ Boisterous fun works even better in contrast with quiet beauty:
“We’ve added a new exhibit.”

I turned to see an older woman standing by the gift shop. “Paperweights. They’re part of the Elizabeth Dengenhart Collection. We don’t get to show them very often, so you came on a good day.” She pointed down the center aisle. “Row seven.”

“Thank you,” I said, and went where directed more out of courtesy than interest. What could be so amazing about paperweights?

But they were beautiful. Hundreds of glass spheres containing butterflies and flowers and swirls of color like little galaxies. Others were shaped like crystal hammers, owls, cats, purses, tiny glass shoes, and figurines. I smiled as I walked down the row of glass cabinets, taking in their beauty. Not just beauty, trivial beauty. A paperweight was designed to do one thing: keep pieces of paper from blowing away. Literally a thing to put on top of a thing. You could use a rock to do that, or your keys, or a pen, or a million other mundane everyday items. Instead, someone decided to create little moments of beauty to do the simplest, smallest job in the world, because why shouldn’t that be beautiful?

For some reason, that thought made me ridiculously happy.

By the time I got back to the bus, everyone else was already on board, waiting for me. “We were starting to get worried,” Dylan said, and grinned at me. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” I said.

And I was.

~ Ah. My soulmate in the book is the craziest one (at least so far):
Two in the morning. Crazy Lisa’s finally gone to sleep and now it’s just me. God, she makes me—what, crazy? So we’re both nuts?

No. At least not literally. I mean, I’m not schizoid or whatever they call it, it’s not like there are a bunch of different personalities in here, it’s not Crazy Lisa and Quiet Lisa and the Sandman and Randy the Meat Puppet. There’s just the two of us, the same person but with different minds, I guess. That’s what being bipolar/manic depressive is all about.

I got that diagnosis when I was fourteen and my hormones were all over the place, which is also when the hypersexuality kicked in and Crazy Lisa started fucking everyone in sight. Quiet Lisa kept hoping that some of the older boys (or the men) would say no, that they’d see I was too young and out of control, and try to help me instead of screwing me. But none of them ever did. Chick comes onto a dude, he gets all excited, like he’s some fucking sex god, so he has to slam it in because he’s too full of himself to take the ten seconds to figure out it’s got nothing to do with him and everything to do with me being completely out of my head. Except for the guys I scare off, like Mark. I don’t blame him. I’m scared too. Been scared ever since the world flipped upside down and everything stopped making sense.

And that’s why I’m here, Mark (if you’re reading this, you said you wouldn’t but I don’t trust promises). I’m tired of being scared and out of control. Tired of being zoomed from Lithium to Epitol to Depakene, Loxapine, Haldol… one drug cocktail after another and they don’t work and my hands are constantly shaking and I sleep all the time or I can’t sleep at all. Tired of the endless crying and yelling. Tired of hurting people when I don’t mean to or they don’t deserve it or shit even when they do deserve it like My Stepmother the Bitch because I still hate myself afterward. Tired of feeling useless and stupid and not being able to hold down a job, which means I’m constantly borrowing from people or selling my clothes just to get by, then I end up blowing it all on new clothes when I’m manic because Crazy Lisa thinks that will solve everything and she’s brilliant and somehow she’ll figure out a way to make a million dollars by Thursday but it never happens because she’s Crazy Lisa. (...)

When I’m not all hypered, I spend most of my time sleeping or lying in bed for days, feeling useless and stupid and judged, drowning in credit card bills for things I didn’t want and don’t need and can’t return and all my friends keep saying why can’t you just control yourself like I actually have a choice, and thinking all the time about hurting myself or killing myself.

(Yes, I'm bipolar too. With much more self-control and much less sex drive, though.)

~ And pure sweetness:
Mark sighed like he’d just been asked to donate blood. “Okay, fine. So during my junior year at college, I was dating this girl named Tracy.”

“Nobody cares!” Lisa called out.

“Fuck off,” Karen yelled back. “Keep going, Mark.”

He crossed his arms tighter. “I was taking animal biology to meet my science requirements, and for homework one weekend we had to go to the zoo and monitor different animals, writing down everything they did for a four-hour period. Each of us was assigned a different animal: zebras, chimpanzees, sloths… I got stuck with geckos.

“So when I went to the zoo that Saturday, Tracy came along to keep me company. But it turned out that the only geckos they had were the nocturnal kind that spend their days sleeping. I mean, yeah, sometimes they’ll lick a leaf, or turn around to the sun, but the rest of the time there was just nothing going on.

“But I still had to write it all down, so I’m sitting on this low wall by the lizard cage, and it’s hot, and after a while we’re both sleepy and Tracy leans against my back because there’s nowhere else to lean. And she falls asleep like that, her arms around me from behind, her head on my shoulder, and…”

He frowned and looked off. “I know it sounds stupid, but as I sat there in the warm sun, with her asleep against my back, it was just kind of perfect, you know? I could feel her breath on the back of my neck, real slow and soft, and I didn’t move even though I was cramping up because I didn’t want to wake her, and I thought, y’know, for all the shit that’s going on in my life, for this one moment, everything’s okay, everything’s good, everything’s beautiful.

“So like D said, it wasn’t like this big moment, or a revelation, or looking at some painting and having it blow the back of your head off, it’s just… I was happy , and it was perfect, you know?”
And ... you decide for yourselves:
“Lisa?” Karen called. No reply. “Lisa, come on. You ever had a moment of perfect beauty?”

And from the bunk came a stream of curses and insults so loud, so profane, but so intricately constructed that all we could do was listen in absolute no-kidding awe, like if Notre Dame Cathedral was made entirely of fucks, and it just blasted through the bus, line after line assembled in waves so breathtaking that it would’ve made even the best coder in the business kill himself and it just kept going , rolling and roiling and filling the bus like a big black cloud until we could barely see each other.

It. Was. Amazing.

When she finally stopped, I wasn’t sure if we should applaud or bury her in the desert with a stake through her heart to keep her from rising again.

“Now, that,” Vaughn said, breaking the silence, “that has just become my moment of perfect beauty!”

And everyone laughed. Even Lisa.

~ The sheer diversity of the presentation boosts the delight:
Hi, I’m Audio Recorder!
Tap the icon to start recording.

UNIDENTIFIED MUSIC. LAUNCH LYRICMASTER? Y/N Y

SONG FOUND: CLUSTERFUK, “DRY EYES.” DOWNLOAD? Y/N N

MARK ANTONELLI: Okay, so Barnbirds opened the festival and since we were late getting in we missed a few songs at the start, but most of those were from their new release, they hit all the good songs in the second half.

One of the security guys said there’s seventy-five thousand people here tonight, and they expect a total of two hundred K over the weekend. We’re packed in tits to backs and balls to butts. Frottage paradise. Chicks in rompers, cat-ears, corsets, capes, G-strings, bras, veils and bigfoot fuzzy boots. Guys in glow-in-the-dark tiger shorts, unicorn hoodies, ballet costumes, ninja masks, raver-swing jackets, and for some reason I’m seeing a lot of panda onesies in the crowd. Must be some new anime thing.

I used to think raver costumes were just another kind of cosplay, like dressing up to look like Thor or Scarlet Witch or one of the guys from Mortal Kombat, but when I said that to a girl I was dating last year, she reamed me a new one. She said cosplay is dressing up to look like someone else. Raver wear is about dressing up to look like your real self, the one you can’t let out anywhere else if you want to get a job or a degree. So it’s kind of like they’re wearing the inside on the outside. You’ve got death-metal fairies and—

LISA: Hi! What are you doing?

MARK ANTONELLI: I’m—

LISA: Dance with me!

MARK ANTONELLI: I’m in the middle of—

LISA: You can do that later! Dance with me!

MARK ANTONELLI: In a minute—

VOICE 8: Excuse me, is this your drink?

LISA: Oh, hey, sorry, here, let me—

VOICE 8: I almost tripped over it.

LISA: Thanks.

VOICE 9: Why aren’t you dressed up?

LISA: I am! I’m dressed as a living dead girl!

VOICE 9: You look normal to me, but cool.

VOICE 8: Hey, as shitfaced as I am right now, we’re all living dead, right?

VOICE 9: Living dead Delta Gamma Epsilon!

LISA: Frats!

VOICE 8: Fucking A! All of us, man. Came down in a group.

MARK ANTONELLI: Screw it.

END RECORDING

~ But hey! Bipolar people are people too!

It was almost dark by the time I was strong enough to step outside.

So of course the first person I saw was Lisa.

She came over to ask if I was okay, and even though I knew that what happened wasn’t her fault, that she was the one who got attacked, I was angry and in pain and I wasn’t thinking right and I totally lit into her.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I yelled. “You never let somebody touch your drink or hand you a cup at one of those things! That’s the rule, you know that!”

“I do! I’m sorry!”

“Don’t fucking I’m sorry me, Lisa! You were out of control! You didn’t give a shit what happened to you or us, or—”

“It wasn’t on purpose, none of it was! When I get like that, I don’t go that far!” She was crying and yelling, not at me but at herself. “It’s like there’s some part of me that thinks she can’t be hurt, that she’s too smart to get roofied, so when he handed me the cup the front of my brain didn’t even think twice and the whole time the back of my brain is screaming, What are you doing?!

“I’m not stupid!” she said, fists balled up and crying hard. “When I get manic it’s like I can’t see something dangerous when it’s right in front of me, or I just don’t care! I mean, shit, nobody else does, so why should I? And I’m sorry you’re in pain and Tyler got screwed up! I’m sorry about all of it! It’s tearing me apart and I can’t stand being in my own skin anymore and if there’s anyone who can understand what that feels like it’s got to be you or I am completely fucking alone here!”

“You’re not alone, you asshole!” I said, and I realized I was crying too. “None of us are! That’s the whole reason we’re doing this! So we don’t have to be alone, so we can rely on each other! We do care about you!”

“Bullshit! I’ve seen the way you look at me. I piss you off!”

“Oh, hell yeah. Hugely. Like all the time. You’re a jerk, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care.”

“I’m not a jerk!”

I just stared at her.

“I’m not ,” she said, and laughed. “I’m just fucked in the head, that’s all. I’m nutty as squirrel shit.”

~ And this is ... damn.
This is the second time I’ve tried to write about what happened at the festival. I spent most of my first attempt blaming Crazy Lisa, writing about how she’s acting out and getting more and more reckless. Sane Lisa never would’ve let someone she didn’t know handle her drink, but Crazy Lisa did it because like I told Karen she thinks she’s way too smart to fall for something like that so the drink couldn’t be drugged and even if it is there’s nothing left to lose, so why the fuck not? And everybody had to pay for her choice.

So yeah, that’s what I said and that’s what I wrote, and it’s bullshit. I need to accept that there is no Crazy Lisa and no Sane Lisa, no Loud Lisa and no Quiet Lisa, there’s Just Lisa. Having “her” to blame for my stupid choices made it easier to live with whatever shit followed. It’s the lie that helps me keep going. Well, we’re heading for the end now and I don’t want to keep lying anymore.

The truth is that I’m fucked up. I’m making bad choices. I’m out of control. Not her. Me.

This is hard .

Sometimes, it's even true.

~ Guys! I finally know what I am!
Most of my friends put their preferred pronoun in their Instagram bios—he/she, him/her, they/their—but I respond to any and all of them. I like to think of it as collecting pronouns: the more I get, the more fun I’m having. To get the obvious out of the way, because that’s apparently important to people, I think of myself as post-gender. I was trying to figure out how to explain that because sometimes it’s a paragraph and sometimes it’s a term paper depending on who I’m talking to, and I have no idea who will be reading this in the aftermath. Then I noticed that one of my fellow passengers has a cat with him, and that’s perfect.

When you visit a friend and find they have a cat, you just see it as a cat in all its pure catness, it doesn’t require further definition. You’ll probably get a name, and if you ask, whether it was born male or female, but even after you have that information you still don’t think of it any differently. It’s not a He-Cat or a She-Cat or a They-Cat. It’s just a cat. And unless the cat’s name has any gender-specific connotations you’ll probably forget pretty fast which gender it was born into.

My name is Theo, and by that logic, I am a cat.

What I was or was not born into has nothing to do with how I see myself. It’s not about going from one gender to another, or suggesting that they don’t exist. Some of my friends say that the moment you talk about gender you invalidate the conversation because you’re accepting the limits of outmoded paradigms, but I’m not sure I agree with that. I just think gender shouldn’t matter.

If you’re a man, aren’t there moments when you feel more female, like when you’re listening to music, or your cheek is being gently stroked, or you see a spectacularly handsome man walk into the room? If you’re a woman, aren’t there moments when you feel more male, when you have to be strong in the face of conflict, or stand behind your opinion, or when a spectacularly beautiful woman walks into the room? Well, in those moments, you are all of those things, so why deny that part of yourself?

For me, it’s not about being binary or non-binary. It’s about moving the needle to the center of the dial and accepting all definitions as equally true while remaining free to shift in emphasis from moment to moment. It’s about being a Person, not a She-Person or a He-Person or a They-Person.

(...) When you go into a clothing store, you don’t just go to the “one size fits all” rack. You look for clothes that fit your waist, hips, legs, chest, and neck, clothes that complement your form and shape, and reflect not just how you see yourself but how you want to be seen by others. If it’s still not quite right, and you can afford it, you get the clothes tailored to fit exactly who you are.

That’s what I’m doing. Post-gender is one term for it. Another might be tailored gender. Maybe bespoke gender. But definitely not one-size-fits-all. The world doesn’t get to decide what best fits who I am and how I choose to be seen. I do.

~ How do people commit suicide?
At risk of overthinking everything—and as someone who got a BA in Gender Studies and made it halfway through the Master’s program for Political Theory, that’s apparently something I do all the time—I think there are two ways that people commit suicide.

The first way people kill themselves is a kind of spontaneous combustion. It comes out of rage or shock or sudden deep depression and catches you by surprise, and before you even realize you’re doing it, you’re reaching for the gun or the knife or the pills. It’s as if something inside you gets too sad or too angry to survive anymore and it explodes, taking you with it. I think it happens most often to the very people who don’t think they could ever kill themselves, because they’re not paying attention when their switch gets flipped in the middle of something awful.

The second is more like a time-delay fuse. It comes when you’ve been wounded for days or weeks or years and you finally reach a point when your heart gets very quiet and very still and you realize that you simply cannot live in the world anymore, when you say, I have no purpose here, no place, no function, no reason to keep going . Why stick around when you’re not free to be yourself, you’re not wanted, your future isn’t what you thought it was going to be and every day you’re being elbowed a little further off the planet? It’s not that you can’t take it anymore, it’s that you refuse to take it anymore. The decision doesn’t come like a lightning bolt out of anger, despair, or self-pity; it’s more like standing up on your hind legs and announcing to the world, You’re all a bunch of assholes and I never asked to be invited to this stupid party in the first place so I’m outta here.

~ Love:
I remembered the day I went out to score some party favors and left the door open by accident. We were squatting in this abandoned apartment, no water or heat but it had a roof and walls and that was all we needed. I hadn’t had Soldier very long and he was always looking out the window like he wanted to go for a walk. It was a pretty rough area, so I kept the door closed so he wouldn’t wander out and get grabbed or lost or hurt, but this one time I was withdrawing pretty hard so I was kind of spaced and not paying attention so I forgot to close the door when I went out.

When I came back and saw the door open, my heart just sank. I ran inside, figuring by now he was long gone, but there he was, sitting in his favorite spot, right where I left him, front legs tucked under his chest, really calm, just looking at me like, Of course I wouldn’t leave , as if I could’ve gone away for five years, and he’d still be sitting there when I came back, waiting for me. And I realized how any time I left the room, wherever he was when I left was where he was when I came back. Whenever we went for a walk, he always stayed beside me, never getting too far behind or ahead, so I’d always know he was right there.

And I finally got the message.

Soldier didn’t need to show me all the time that he loved me. He knew it and I knew it and that’s that. What he was doing was giving me a safe place to put my own love.

It’s like he was saying, I’m never going to leave you. I’ll wait for you. I want you to know that I’ll always wait for you, that it’s safe to love me, that you have a place to put all the feelings you can’t give to anybody else because it’s too dangerous, because you’re worried they won’t understand, and they won’t wait for you. I’m here. I love you. And I will wait for you. I’m not going anywhere.

And I just started crying.

That’s why I can’t let him die alone. I can’t let him go too far ahead of me, or fall too far behind me. We walk together. When he gets to the other side, he’ll wait for me until I come to pick him up and hold him. And I don’t want him to wait a minute longer than he has to.

It’s love that put us on the road, Mark, or whoever’s reading this. Love is what put us on the bus, and love is what’s going to carry me and Soldier across to someplace where we can play forever.

Crazy, huh?

~ After the following section, I think I understand people who get riled up when I introduce myself through my bipolar a bit better:
So now I’m feeling even more like a stick in the mud with a baseball bat (which I guess makes it two sticks in the mud) as I walk around looking for something to hit even though I don’t much feel like hitting anything. (...)

Then I see it, beside the entrance to a clothing store.

A full-length mirror.

A blue full-length mirror, with me right in the middle, blue on blue.

I don’t attack it. I don’t break it. I don’t raise the baseball bat and smash my reflection into a million pieces because I’m not that much of a cliché, okay?

Instead of me hitting the mirror, everything I see in the mirror hits me .

The shopping mall is blue in the reflection.

The stores are blue, the baseball bat is blue, Lisa beating the shit out of Ronald McDonald is blue. Both of them are blue. All of it is blue.

And I realize that I’ve been looking at the world through this blue filter ever since I got diagnosed. When I meet someone for the first time, I explain why I look this way before even saying my name. My illness actually walks into the room before me. It’s bad enough that I let it take center stage, defining and literally coloring every relationship and conversation. What’s worse is that I’ve been using it as an excuse to hold back, so I don’t have to engage with other people, so I can stay stuck inside my own self-limiting self-pity… the illness won’t let me do this, the illness won’t let me do that, the illness might not let me get all the way to San Francisco… hiding so far inside the blue that my whole world looks like this mirror, and yeah, okay, on reflection (ha!) maybe that is an obvious metaphor, maybe I am a cliché, and maybe all of that has been obvious to everybody else, but I never had that thought before because there are some things you never really understand until it’s five seconds to midnight.

I’ve been doing it all backwards, like I’m the disease that’s living in this body instead of a body that has to live with a disease. I’ve been quiet when I should have roared, even if that meant coughing up blood; I’ve sat silently while others walked or danced instead of running flat-out even if it meant falling over dead because at least I would have done something instead of letting the disease define me.

~ Can you say no?
I turned back to Vaughn. “Want to dance?”

“I can’t.”

“Your leg broke?”

“No, I just… I don’t know how to dance the way you dance.”

“Black girls dance same as any other girl, with our feet on the floor and our hearts in our heads.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” he said, and he looked kind of hurt. “I mean I dance like an old fart dances, not like the way everybody your age dances.”

“Then dance like that,” I said. “You do you, I’ll do me, and we’ll meet in the middle.”

“We’ll look silly.”

“Yeah, I know. It’ll be great.”

Took me about two minutes of dancing around him before the smile finally came back a little, and he danced with me.

Nobody says no to a sunny disposition… and lives! LOL

~ The contrasts hit like sledgehammers:
We’d just finished working this out when I saw Jim standing behind me. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“You already are,” I said. “What’s up?”

“What happened back at the mall, that wasn’t right, man.”

“I agree. We can’t have that kind of infighting going on.”

He nodded for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder to where Theresa was standing by the river. She put him up to this. Doesn’t want to do her own dirty work.

“Yeah,” he said, “and that’s why we think you need to choose whether you want Lisa to stay on the bus or us.”

Even Dylan looked surprised. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, look, there’s just one of her and two of us, so we kind of outvote her, and we bring a lot to the table. Theresa’s got tons of credit cards if we get in trouble, I’m good with repairs… from what we can see, all Lisa does is yell and make trouble.”

“She was here first.”

“Yes, she was,” Jim said like it shouldn’t matter. “Meanwhile, Theresa’s tired and upset, so we’re gonna wait in the bus while the rest of you do whatever you’re gonna do because it’s best to keep Lisa and us apart at this point.”

“Okay,” I said, “let me think it over and get back to you when we’re not in the middle of things.”

“I appreciate that, because it’s real important to keep Theresa on the bus because—”

Whatever he said after that got lost because at that moment all I could hear was Zeke.

I’ve never heard any man cry out like that. Not even my grandfather when his brother died. There was just this awful sound coming from way down deep inside him, loss and pain and anguish and sadness, and he was rocking back and forth, his face pressed into Soldier’s fur. Ever since he’d gotten on the bus, he’d always been smiling, just goofy Zeke and his secret cat, and now he was broken right down the middle and no one knew what to do about it. Then Karen knelt down next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. Theo was next, then Lisa and me and the rest. Zeke was quiet-crying now, but once in a while a sharp Ah! slipped out, like his soul was trying to catch its breath.

Everyone was crying. It didn’t make any sense. We came on this trip to die, we’re okay with dying. But there we were, crying with a guy we barely knew, because something he loved more than anything else in the world had just died, leaving him alone in ways all of us could understand.

~ Tanatos and Eros, hand in hand (or at least hand on, umm...):
When I opened my eyes again, I was spooned behind Dylan, my left arm under his head. Careful not to wake him, I peeked past him to the bedside clock: 7:45 a.m. He’d set the alarm for eight. So I had fifteen minutes to make this happen.

I reached around and lightly stroked his chest. I guess army guys learn how to shut out the world when they sleep because he didn’t even move. Okay, challenge accepted. I let my hand drift south until it slipped beneath his shorts. I’d never touched a penis before, and I was surprised by how soft it felt. They were always so rock hard in porn that it never occurred to me it could be this soft and velvety. I felt a thrill go through me, like an explorer who had just discovered a whole new country.

Then it twitched, and I knew Dylan was awake.

“What are you doing?” he asked without turning around, his voice low.

“What does it feel like I’m doing?”

“We had an agreement.”

“Yes, we did,” I said, but didn’t remove my hand. “We agreed nothing could happen last night. It’s not night anymore.”

“Still, we probably shouldn’t do this.”

Aha! He said probably! His dick finally got his brain on the line.

~ Another reason why there must be one:
“So do you believe in God, or an afterlife?” he asked.

That settled it. We were definitely at the stoned part of the conversation.

“No on both counts. I think the whole afterlife thing is just the bullshit we grab on to when we get old because we’re afraid of dying.”

“Not sure that’s true.”

“Come on, even you have to concede that one.”

“Not really,” he said. “See, everybody I ever knew who was old and dying—my grandparents, a couple of teachers I had when I was a kid, the drill instructor who trained me and came down with brain cancer—were okay with it at the end. They never talked about being afraid to die. They talked about how great it would be to see their old friends again, about how they were looking forward to being reunited with their parents, husbands, and wives on the other side of this life. When somebody dies, we miss them, and that feeling never really goes away. We just keep on missing them. The longer you live, the more of people you miss, until the idea of dying is less about Oh, shit, I’m afraid and more about I’ll finally be able to see all my friends again… everyone I’ve missed so much.

“So no, I don’t think it’s the fear of death that makes us believe in an afterlife. It’s our love for everybody we ever lost.”

~ Why do people commit suicide?
“I was thinking about the whole suicide thing—”

“I don’t want to talk about that right now, not on our last night—”

“I don’t either, but it’s important,” he said, and sat up a little. “See, I think the reason people kill themselves—”

“ One of the reasons. We’re all different, we don’t lie down in rows.”

“—is because they think they’re never going to be happy again, that every day is going to be miserable and awful and lonely and painful and they might as well check out because there’s no chance they’ll ever be happy.”

“Okay, fair. So?”

He looked at me with eyes so intense I could feel them burrowing right through mine and scratching at the other side of my skull to see what was back there. “Are you happy, right now? With us?”

“Dylan, come on, don’t do this.”

“I’m just asking. Are you happy… with me, and us, right here, right now?”

“Of course I am. I love you. I never thought that would happen to me, or that it could happen this fast, and maybe it’s because I don’t have time, but… yes, I love you and I’m happy when I’m with you.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“You mean the vote?”

“No, leave all that aside, I’m just talking about us. Do you think there’s a chance, just a chance , that for ten minutes tomorrow you could be happy with us being together, like this?”

“Dylan—”

“Five. Five minutes. Do you think you could be happy for five minutes?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”

“Because if it’s possible, then maybe you should think twice about tomorrow.”

~ Why do we write or read stories like this one?
I opened the archive and pulled out the quote. “ ‘ The first way people kill themselves is a kind of spontaneous combustion. It comes out of rage or shock or sudden deep depression and catches you by surprise, and before you even realize you’re doing it, you’re reaching for the gun or the knife or the pills. It’s as if something inside you gets too sad or too angry to survive anymore and it explodes, taking you with it. I think it happens most often to the very people who don’t think they could ever kill themselves, because they’re not paying attention when their switch gets flipped in the middle of something awful. ’

“Theo’s right. The reason so many people are vulnerable to suicide is because they think it could never happen to them, so they don’t know what to look for, what feelings could lead to making that decision. But the archive is full of all of us talking about why we decided to check out early, the whole thought process is right there, so anybody reading this will know exactly what it feels like to make that choice from the inside out. For some people maybe it’ll be like a flu vaccine, giving them a little piece of the real thing so it immunizes them, so they’ll know what that impulse feels like when it comes, and maybe they won’t be as vulnerable because now they can recognize that feeling for what it is instead of being ambushed by it. And maybe they won’t make that jump, or at least they’ll know enough to wait and think about it some more. (...)”

~ And finally, where am I? What do I think~feel about killing myself?

There's no brief (and satisfying) answer. For now, let me just say that I have never been in so much pain as most of the characters here. Waiting for those five minutes of happiness--the hell with happiness, of purpose --has been relatively easy, even when I've waded across ten months of emptiness.

I don't know what I'd do if the pain reaches Spider levels.

Also, I do believe in an afterlife. One with a nasty catch: if little me takes a shortcut that Big Me doesn't find satisfying, we'll be back, rinse and repeat. (Of course, there's a nice catch too: Big Me is smarter and more forgiving than little me, so Ze can find satisfaction in a lot of choices.)

The rest is here , in Bulgarian.

Mon Oct 19, 2015 1:36 am Re: Клуб по фентъзи и фантастика към ФМИ Mon Oct 19, 2015 1:36 am Re: Клуб по фентъзи и фантастика към ФМИ
Най-сетне ще имаме възможността да се съберем и с Рали! It's been quite a while... та, казвах:

Четвъртък (22. октомври) от 19:00
Рали ще носи епизоди на Twilight Zone, както и новите на Doctor Who, и на място ще изберем точно какво, дали някое от тези двете, или нещо друго, което някой друг носи.

Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:58 pm Re: Теодор Стърджън Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:58 pm Re: Теодор Стърджън
My review of The Man Who Lost the Sea :

Sometimes, I feel too dumb to say anything meaningful about Theodore Sturgeon. What is there to add to what he's already told us?

(Well, perhaps there is something--in those nineteen forewords by his fellow masters, the writers who've learnt from him one way or another. However, I'm not reading any of those until I finish the whole series; I don't want them to influence my impressions here.)

Anyway *sigh*, this collection resonated with me more than any of the previous nine, and here are the resonances I could capture in words:

~ "It Opens the Sky" is, ultimately, such a sweet tale. :) What makes it so sweet isn't only Sturgeon's profound faith in humanity ("you don’t, you just don’t increase intelligence by a factor of five and fail to see that people must be kind to one another," says a character who looks like an angel, but is merely a man); it's also the bitter raging against the protagonist's awfulness and all the awful things he does to people--some of whom he really likes himself . "Just die," you whisper at the back of your throat, "die and leave them alone." And then comes the turnaround. And you--okay, me --stand there and gawk and gape. "Boy, did I ever see that coming ...."

(This is also one of those rare stories that I'd like to see made into a movie. I even caught myself visualizing what kind of camera work would preserve the twists. ;))

~ On the subject of sweet, here's a passage from "A Touch of Strange":

She said faintly, “Are you … have you … I mean, if you don’t mind my asking, you don’t have to tell me …”
“What is it?” he asked gently, moving close to her. She was huddled unhappily on the edge of the shelf. She didn’t turn to him, but she didn’t move away.
“Married, or anything?” she whispered.
“Oh gosh no. Never. I suppose I had hopes once or twice, but no, oh gosh no.”
“Why not?”
“I never met a … well, they all … You remember what I said about a touch of strange?”
“Yes, yes …”
“Nobody had it … Then I got it, and … put it this way, I never met a girl I could tell about the mermaid.”
The remark stretched itself and lay down comfortably across their laps, warm and increasingly audible, while they sat and regarded it. When he was used to it, he bent his head and turned his face towards where he imagined hers must be, hoping for some glint of expression. He found his lips resting on hers. Not pressing, not cowering. He was still, at first from astonishment, and then in bliss. She sat up straight with her arms braced behind her and her eyes wide until his mouth slid away from hers. It was a very gentle thing.

Well. :)

~ "Sweet" is becoming a leading mood (a leit-motif?) of this collection. "The Graveyard Reader" is of the bitter-sweet variety: about how much we need to invest before we learn to read one another truly .

~ What can I say about "The Man Who Lost the Sea" that hasn't already been said by others, much more eloquently?

Only this: I knew where it was going, remembered that ending so vividly from my previous read ... and it still made my cry. It still does ....

~ In "Need," Theodore Sturgeon wrote:

“You hear a lot of glop,” he said carefully, “about infantile this and adult that, and acting like a grownup. I’ve thought a lot about that. Like how you’ve got to be adult about this or that arrangement with people or the world or your work or something. Like they’d say you never had an adult relationship with the missus. Don’t get mad! I don’t mean—well, hell, how adult is two rabbits? I don’t mean the sex thing.” He opened his hands to look for more words, and folded them again. “Most people got the wrong idea about this ‘adult’ business, this ‘grownup’ thing they talk about but don’t think about. What I’m trying to say, if a thing is alive, it changes all the time. Every single second it changes; it grows or rots or gets bigger or grows hair in its armpits or puts out buds or sheds its skin or something, but when a thing is living, it changes.” He looked at Smith, and Smith nodded. He went on:
“What I think about you, I think somewhere along the line you forgot about that, that you had to go on changing. Like when you’re little, you keep getting bigger all the time, you get promoted in school; you change; good. But then you get out, you find your spot, you got your house, your wife, your kind of work, then there’s nothing around you any more says you have to change. No class to get promoted to. No pants grown too small. You think you can stop now, not change any more.” Noat shook his craggy head. “Nothing alive will stand for that, Smitty.”
“Well, but why did I think she … why did I say that about—some man with her, all that?”
Noat shrugged. “I don’t know all about you,” he said again. “Just sort of guessing, but suppose you’d stopped, you know, living . Something’s going to kick up about that. It don’t have to make a lot of sense; just kick up. Get mad about something. Your wife with some man—now, that’s not nice, that’s not even true, but it’s a living kind of thing, you see what I mean? I mean, things change around the house then—but good; altogether; right now .”
“My God,” Smith breathed.
“ ’Course,” said Noat, “sooner or later you have to get over it, face things as they really are. Or as they really ain’t.” He thought again for a time, then said, “Take a tree, starts from a seed, gets to be a stalk, a sapling, on up till it’s a hundred feet tall and nine feet through the trunk; it’s still growing and changing until one fine day it gets its growth; it’s grown up: it’s—dead. So the whole thing I’m saying is, this adult relationship stuff they talk about, it’s not that at all. It’s growing up that matters, not grown up.… Man can get along alone for quite a long time ‘grownup’—taking care of himself. But if he takes in anyone else, he’s … well, he’s got to have a piece missing that the other person supplies all the time. He’s got to need that, and he’s got to have something that’s missing in the other person that they need. So then the two of them, they’re one thing now … and still it’s got to be like a living thing, it’s got to change and grow and be alive. Nothing alive will stand for being stopped. So … excuse me for butting in, but you thought you could stop it and it blew up on you.”

I've carried this passage around, as part of my own tree of ideas and ideals, for I don't know how many years. (When did I first read "Need"? 2006? Earlier?) I've talked about it with my friends--especially the ones I really like (the non-grownups ;)). I've measured myself against it, year after year. ("Umm, just one millimeter taller. Well, this year I was so stuck, so stuck-up ....")

And it's the first time I realize that it was actually written by someone . And that this someone wasn't me ....

I call such moments "small epiphanies"; such passages, "life-building blocks."

Thu Jan 07, 2016 2:03 pm Re: За Филмите и Хората... Thu Jan 07, 2016 2:03 pm Re: За Филмите и Хората...
Фантастичните сериали, които не бива да пропускате

... според екипа на Шадоуданс. :)

Аз съм силно съгласен с наблюденията на Роланд за „Стар Трек: Следващото поколение“. Сега чета и останалите...

... и ето какво измътих:

… и накрая специално благодаря на Рандъм за категорията „Фантастична драма“. За The Leftovers вече бях чувал силни думи, но Carnivale ми е съвсем непознат. А както знаем, в пътуващите циркове има ТОЛКОВА материал за мистерия и метемпсихоза… :)

Набелязвам си ги.

Zivoroka ме подсети, че и на мен ми липсваха Sense8 в класацията ви…

Но пък открих яркия отзив на Рол:

http://www.shadowdance.info/magazine/tvshows/sense8/

И за него мерси!

(Ако имах някакъв проблем със Sense8, той беше загатнат към края на отзива – че целият първи сезон, всичките тия 12 часа, беше практически само увод в сюжета. Тепърва имаме да откриваме защо едните преследват другите; ВСИЧКИ сенсейти ли са секси хубавци (а, да… това пък ми беше идеологическият проблем – толкова ли един по-пълен/нелицеприятен/сакат герой не можаха да впишат… :/ ); каква е философската рамка на цялото нещо. Хубавото е, че сега чакаме следващ сезон. :) )

Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:49 am Re: Цитатите, които ни създадоха Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:49 am Re: Цитатите, които ни създадоха
You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it.

Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:38 am Re: Културни събития Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:38 am Re: Културни събития
16 март, 20 ч., Sofia Live Club, 10 лв. - "Дунавско братство" с Теодосий. Преди това има и в други градове.
За София - Eventim. На място - 15 лв.
https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtl1/v/t1.0-9/12794548_1207431712618194_6441283523982722913_n.jpg

28 март, 19 ч., "Филип Кутев" в Театър българска армия - "Диви ягоди".

Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:15 am Re: Не-културни събития Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:15 am Re: Не-културни събития
За тая неделя силно се колебая, понеже имам нужда да остана вкъщи, но за другата седмица се глася и вериятно ще сме повече от един. (: Светлана изяви желание, а трябва да препитам и хората от Юнеко. За по-следващата седмица ми е малко трудно да кажа как ще съм.

Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:30 am Re: ПИТАНЕ: Да създадем подфорум за книги-игри? [СРОК: 31.08 Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:30 am Re: ПИТАНЕ: Да създадем подфорум за книги-игри? [СРОК: 31.08
За мое огромно съжаление Пешката с мнение е писал, че спира да модерира и да пише във форума. Явно там наистина тече някакво обоначване. Жалко. Толкова по въпроса за "възраждането" на книгите-игри. Впрочем, ако някой се интересува, имам колекцията английски КИ от Ъндърдогс, Абандония и Пиратския залив.

Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:56 am Re: „Свали сваляча“: подготовка Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:56 am Re: „Свали сваляча“: подготовка
Дали мога да те помоля да ги пускаш тия неща в MS Office вариант? Не всички имат Линукс или OpenOffice.

Mon May 16, 2016 10:10 pm Re: Културни събития Mon May 16, 2016 10:10 pm Re: Културни събития
Много пълно с наближаващата Нощ на музеите.
Приятелите от АЛОС ще правят някакво чудно чудо - всъщност всеки ще си го прави сам - със светлина

Ето и тяхната покана:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1313929188672034/

В Европейската нощ на музеите в София (21-ви май, събота) Център АЛОС ви кани на своята работилница за „Рисуване със светлина“. Там всеки ще може сам да „изрисува“ и промени заобикалящото пространство, като създаде светлинни моментни образи и обекти. С помощта на екипа ни, всички желаещи ще създадат „светлинни рисунки“, чрез специфичната фотографска техника „light-painting“. Тя позволява наслагването на светлинни образи и контури, с които хората рисуват в пространството.
На мястото на бившия Мавзолей (между Двореца и градинката на Народния театър) всеки ще има възможност да създаде своя светлинна рисунка или да се включи в обща light-painting творба. Участниците ще получат дигитален вариант на заснетата фотография, а при желание от тяхна страна - и хартиено копие на собствената си светлинна рисунка.
Водещи: Боян Бахрин и Любен Кулелиев.

Очакваме ви в Нощта на музеите в София между 21:00 и 23:00 часа на мястото на бившия Мавзолей!

Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:48 pm Re: Културни събития Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:48 pm Re: Културни събития
Има един софийски фолклорен фестивал фантом! Всяка година, ако изобщо разберем за него, с Мо го откриваме напълно случайно. Зле разгласен в интернет, да не говоря за по улиците. Тази година причината кърти мивки просто! Ще е само в други краища на София, не и в центъра! Друг път поне в Борисовата е имало малко.

На вашето внимание СМФФФ "Витоша"! И не, не се казва "Витоша 2016". Казва се просто "Витоша". Винаги.

http://raionvitosha.eu/bg/culture_bg.html

На тази китно информативна страничка:
С възрожденски плам и модерно съдържание
Съвременна европейска България е прочута сред културния свят с едно уникално явление – своите многобройни читалища. Тези искри от късното Възраждане днес горят ярко с огъня на новото просветителство, съобразено с модерните изисквания на епохата. И едновременно са надеждни пазители на народните традиции в областта на фолклора, етнографията, обичаите, ритуалите, историята, краеведческите проучвания.
В район „Витоша” съществуват живи, здрави и енергични цели седем читалища – една внушителна бройка. Те са се утвърдили отдавна като средища на културна и родолюбива дейност. В тях хора от всички поколения, но най-вече младите намират творческа реализация в театралното изкуство, балета, музикалните и езикови школи, библиотечното дело и иновациите в развитието на културата.
За постиженията на тези читалища в областта на културата говорят много сериозни инициативи: Международният фолклорен фестивал „Витоша”, Фестивалът на семейната приемственост във фолклора, Конкурсът за поезия и проза „Витошко лале”, Фестивалът на младежкото театрално изкуство и др. Голям е и броят на участията на школите от местните читалища в международни, национални и местни прояви.
се намира "прелестната" му "програма" и план действие:
http://raionvitosha.eu/uploads/docs%2015/XX%20%D1%82%D0%B8%20%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%B4%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%20%D1%84%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%20%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%20%D0%92%D0%98%D0%A2%D0%9E%D0%A8%D0%90%202016.pdf

Уникално! Тази година фестивалът ще е достъпен само за лелини ми и за Габи, ако си е в София.

Основна фестивална сцена - открита сцена на пл. „Знаме на мира“ в кв. Павлово.
Втора сцена – открита сцена при София Ринг Мол
Дефиле по бул. Витоша
Утехата ми е, че щели да го дават в интернет (чудя се къде...), но трябва да отида при Мо. При мен ще забива. И както винаги... на друго място информацията е в пъти по-пълна!
https://offnews.bg/news/Kultura_33/Sofiia-e-domakin-na-20-iia-Mezhdunaroden-folkloren-festival-Vitosha_632275.html

21.07.2016 г. , Открита естрада на читалище „Витоша“:

- 20:00 ч.: Творческа вечер между ансамблите;
- 22:00 ч.: Нестинари;

22.07.2016 г. , Първа фестивална вечер - пл. “Знаме на мира“:

- 18:00 ч.: Дефиле на съставите по бул. "Витоша";
- 19:30 ч.: Официално откриване на XX-ти МФФ Витоша на пл. "Знаме на мира" със специалното участие на Национален фолклорен ансамбъл "Филип Кутев" и Фолклорен танцов ансамбъл "София 6";
- 20:00 ч.: Първа конкурсна вечер;

23.07.2016 г. , Втора фестивална вечер - пл. "Знаме на мира":

- 19:30 ч.: Втора конкурсна вечер на ансамблите от Хърватия, Сърбия, Египет, Украйна, Полша и Южна Корея и ансамбли от България;
- 20:00 ч.: Концерт в парка на Банкя на ансамблите от Мексико, Колумбия, Аржентина, Грузия и Казахстан;

24.07.2016 г. , Трета фестивална вечер на пл. “Знаме на мира“:

- 19:30 ч.: Трета конкурсна вечер на ансамблите от Мексико, Колумбия, Аржентина, Грузия и Казахстан и ансамбли от България;
- 21:30 ч.: Награждаване на победителите в ММФ „Витоша“;

25.07.2016 г. , Четвърта фестивална вечер - открита сцена "София Ринг Мол";

- 19:30 ч.: Концерт на ансамблите от Мексико, Колумбия и Грузия;

26.07.2016 г. , Пета фестивална вечер - открита естрада на читалище „Витоша“:

- 19:30 ч.: Конкурс „Мома Вита и момък Люлин“;
- 20:30 ч.: Официално закриване на фестивала.
Разписанието на автобуса на R. mall, ако някой се интересува:
http://www.sofiaring.bg/sites/default/files/media/images/sofia_ring_mall_bus_schedule_flyer_a5_spirka_06.01.2016.jpg.

Wed Sep 14, 2016 10:04 am Re: Не-културни събития Wed Sep 14, 2016 10:04 am Re: Не-културни събития
Докато се чудим как се пише храм "Св. п/Пророк Илия", да кажа, че социалната кухня към православното му братство има нужда от средства за построяване на закрито помещение. В момента явно са в заслон, а работят целогодишно.

http://svetiilia.bg/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%85%D0%BD%D1%8F/
Стара, но активна обява - https://timeheroes.org/bg/sv-iliya/kuhnya-za-bedni

Било много весело, докато приготвят храната. В доброволческия екип имало много чужденци.

Имало занимания с деца, включително неделно училище.

Докато разглеждах снимките, ми замириса на бял бобец - проветрявам.

Fri Dec 02, 2011 9:15 am Re: Фантастика, литература, критика Fri Dec 02, 2011 9:15 am Re: Фантастика, литература, критика
Я каква тема изрови търсачът таз сутрин...

Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:43 pm Re: Съдържание vs. форма Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:43 pm Re: Съдържание vs. форма
Едит: Всъщност в цитатите има неща, които даже потвърждавата тезата на Дилейни...
Хахаха! Чудех се кога ще забележиш... :D

Всъщност ако се доверим на (прераз)казаното от Зиндел, цялата тая тема е поела в грешната посока от самото си заглавие.

Но пък, дойде ли ми кеф и концентрация, ще я почопля още. Включително и новите ти размишления (с които навлизаме в така любимата ми когнитивна наука ;)).

Sun Jan 29, 2017 12:22 pm Re: Теодор Стърджън Sun Jan 29, 2017 12:22 pm Re: Теодор Стърджън
Отзив в Goodreads за Venus Plus X:

A Platonic dialogue exploring the similarities between the sexes and our stereotypes about sex, many of which sadly persist, more than 60 years after the book was first published. As usual, I'm awed by Sturgeon's courage, insight and warmth. (Although this particular story seemed more clinical, colder than his typical writing.)

My reading notes:

~ He remembered a thing he had read somewhere: was it Ruth Benedict? Something about no item of man’s language, or religion, or social organization, being carried in his germ cell. In other words you take a baby, any color, any country, and plank it down anywhere else, and it would grow up to be like the people of the new country. And then there was that article he saw containing the same idea, but extending it throughout the entire course of human history; take an Egyptian baby of the time of Cheops, and plank it down in modern Oslo, and it would grow up to be a Norwegian, able to learn Morse code and maybe even have a prejudice against Swedes. What all this amounted to was that the most careful study by the most unbiased observers of the entire course of human history had been unable to unearth a single example of human evolution.

These ideas create a curious resonance with the questions raised by Mikhail Ancharov , a Russian contemporary (and kindred spirit) of Sturgeon's. (E.g. "What sort of evolutionary pressures produced the human brain, this ginormously complicated organ?")

~ Sturgeon's language makes me question everything I know about English. Oh, how my grammar teachers would wail and pull their hair over the word order in a sentence like "In a box was a dried marigold"! And I just had to check if "There seemed no concept for “payment” or “pass” in the tongue" is a valid expression or a proofreader's mistake. (It is valid: "seem" can also mean "appear to exist." But it's an uncommon use ... I think. But I'm not sure. I ... don't know.)

Yes ... texts like these wreak havoc on my confidence as a translator. :( This is actually the second time I've started reading Venus Plus X ; the first time, couple of months ago, I felt so stupid, found most of the phrases so impenetrable, that I just gave up.

On the other hand, it's a glorious (and ever rarer) joy to come upon an author who can teach you something new every other sentence. (Um, is there any preposition before "every other sentence"? ... There I go again. :/ )

~ However, language isn't only extensive vocabularies and Serious Stuff. It's also having fun:

“Hi, bulls!” says Tillie Smith. “What’s bulling?”
“Just man talk,” says Smith.
Herb says, “Hi, bowls. What’s bowling?”
Jeanette says, “Three strikes and I’m out.”
“Herb already used the gag,” Smith says in his leaden way, which isn’t true.
Tillie tops them all: “What’s everybody saying highballs for? Let’s all have a drink.”
Or:
“As Adam said when his wife fell out of the tree—Eve’s-dropping again.”

~ And it's not merely language you can learn from Sturgeon; it's all kinds of fascinating facts:

He went on to show pictures of other species, to give Charlie an idea of how wide a variety there is, in nature, in the reproductive act: the queen bee, copulating high in midair, and thereafter bearing within her a substance capable of fertilizing literally hundreds of thousands of eggs for literally generation after generation; dragon-flies, in their winged love-dance with each slender body bent in a U, forming an almost perfect circle whirling and skimming over the marshes; and certain frogs the female of which lays her eggs in large pores in the male’s back; seahorses whose males give birth to the living young; octopods who, when in the presence of the beloved, wave a tentacle the end of which breaks off and swims by itself over to the female who, if willing, enfolds it and if not, eats it.

~ Haha, Sturgeon also tackled the "Mommy, how are babies made?" story. Starting like this:

“Well then,” says Karen abruptly, “we don’t need daddies then.”
“Whatever do you mean? Who would go to the office and bring back lollipops and lawnmowers and everything?”
“Not for that. I mean for babies. Daddies can’t make babies.”
“Well, darling, they help .”
“How, Mommy?”
“That’s enough bubbles. The water’s getting too hot.” She shuts off the water.
“ How , Mommy?”

I'll let you find out the ending for yourselves. ;)

~ Sturgeon has the gift of ecstasy, no matter where he turns it. See him dancing about dancing:

It became, for him, a broken series of partial but sharply focussed pictures; the swift turn of a torso; the tense, ecstatic lifting of a fever-blinded head, with the silky hair falling away from the face, and the body trembling; the shrill cry of a little child in transport, running straight through the pattern of the dance, arms outstretched and eyes closed, while the frantic performers, apparently unthinkingly, made way by hairsbreadth after hairsbreadth until a dancer swung about and caught up the infant, threw it, and it was plucked out of the air and whirled up again, and once more, to be set down gently at the edge of the dance.

~ How can you tell a swine from someone just fine?

A pig among people is a pig, he tells himself, but a pig among pigs is people.

~ I can't remember where I first encountered (and embraced) the explanation why power structures (state-endorsed/institutionalized religion being only one example) need to denounce sex and the sexual impulse, but Sturgeon may have been among the earliest writers to highlight it. I'm quoting the following passage as a "historic(al) monument":

There are two direct channels into the unconscious mind. Sex is one, religion is the other; and in pre-Christian times, it was usual to express them together. The Judeo-Christian system put a stop to it, for a very understandable reason. A charitic religion interposes nothing between the worshipper and his Divinity. A suppliant, suffused with worship, speaking in tongues, his whole body in the throes of ecstatic dance, is not splitting doctrinal hairs nor begging intercession from temporal or literary authorities. As to his conduct between times, his guide is simple. He will seek to do that which will make it possible to repeat the experience. If he does what for him is right in this endeavor, he will repeat it; if he is not able to repeat it, that alone is his total and complete punishment.
He is guiltless.
The only conceivable way to use the immense power of innate religiosity—the need to worship—for the acquisition of human power, is to place between worshipper and Divinity a guilt mechanism. The only way to achieve that is to organize and systematize worship, and the obvious way to bring this about is to monitor that other great striving of life—sex.
Homo sapiens is unique among species, extant and extinct, in having devised systems for the suppression of sex.

~ Charlie's change at the "revelation" was abrupt. Too abrupt; to the point of rupturing my reader's credibility. :(

Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:25 pm Re: Труд и творчество Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:25 pm Re: Труд и творчество
90. Конкурс за кратък фантастичен разказ по повод годишнина от рождението на Агоп Мелконян

Тема: всичко, включващо фантастични елементи — научна фантастика, фентъзи, ужаси, психологическа фантастика и т.н.
Краен срок: 26.02.2012
Резултати: 10.03.2012
Възраст: ---
Вид творба: неиздавани разкази до 1000 думи (7200 знака с интервалите — или 4 стандартни страници)
Изисквания: във формат .doc или .rtf; пращайте на konkurs2012 [ет] trubadurs.com
Награди: 1-ва, 2-ра и 3-та, плюс специална: вижте в коментарите тук
Повече инфо: http://trubadurs.com/konkurs2012/