Jason K Chapman

Sights, sites, cites, and writes

This is why I love the folks at Bethesda:

So there I am, fighting against a bunch of raiders in Fallout 4. They're ducking behind cover and shooting and I'm kinda ducking behind cover and shooting when, amid all of the other things the raiders are shouting, I hear one of them yell out, "Aggghhh. I got hit in the knee!"

So, if you've never played Skyrim, it's just another throw-away line like, "Keep firing!" But I have. A lot. So of course I got killed shortly after that because I was too busy laughing to even hit the pause button.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, hit up Google with the phrase "arrow in the knee".

Kazuo Ishiguro and Neil Gaiman. Illustration: Tim McDonagh (via New Statesman)

This conversation between Kazuo Ishiguro and Neil Gaiman at newstatesman.com is just brilliant. It's a dissection of "genre" as walled gardens and the things that happen when writers choose either to wander at will or simply to stand atop the wall and draw from both sides. They touch on two particular points that I've long believed. One is that genre is primarily only useful as a marketing tool and that "literary" and "genre" are in no way mutually exclusive terms. The other is that "genre", the way it's been used, has created certain reader expectations beyond those dictated by mere story telling. Ishiguro uses the example of westerns and the good guy/bad guy showdown.

My question, then, is this. Aren't those tropes a learned expectation? Have writers or, more precisely, editors and marketing teams taught readers that certain genres must have certain elements--that noir must have a femme fatale--that westerns must have a showdown? Does it just make the books easier to sell, because tagging it [GENRE X] somehow lets potential buyers know that it's going to be inside their comfort zone? That they won't be jolted out of the safe coccoon that's been spun just for them? Is that why publishers are so fond of series fiction? Because it's the ultimate sub-sub-sub-genre?

Following on the second point, Ishiguro points out that there is a difference between a story with cowboys in it and a cowboy story. That leads right into the discussions I've read (and had) many times about whether or not there is a difference between literary science fiction and literary fiction with science fiction tropes in it. I'm of the opinion that there isn't. In my view, "speculative fiction in a literary style" and "literary fiction using speculative elements" are two ways of saying the same thing. Give me a good story, with good characters, and something for my brain to chew on long after I've finished the book and I'll be a happy camper.

I went to see Trace Bundy at DROM last night and he's even more amazing in person than he is on video. The man really is an acoustic ninja. You know the old saw about the farmer using every part of the pig but the squeal? Well Bundy leaves no part of the guitar unplayed. He'll provide his own percussion using various parts of the guitar's body, reproducing everything from a kick drum to bongos. In one piece, he even played a set of cutomized capos. He's not satisfied with just using the capos as capos, he actually works in playing notes with them in the process of moving them from place to place on the neck.

DROM, by the way, is a great, intimate little venue. It seats about 100 people for dinner-and-drinks acts, more if they clear the floor for standing/dancing.

You've probably seen Bundy's rendition of Pachelbel's Canon on YouTube, but that's just the start. He'll kick on his looper and, in real time, lay down three or four tracks layer by layer. He'll play a song you don't know, loop it, then play the loop backwards, at which point it becomes a rendition of something you do know.

Beyond the wizardry, though, his original compositions, like the majestic Elephant King, or the two-guitar Joy & Sorrow, are beautiful examples of everything the acoustic guitar can be.

So the Poets & Writers Local app has proven to be very popular. It's also boosted use of the web-based calendar, which has seen almost 70% traffic growth year-over-year. It's interesting to see where most of the users are, too. After New York, the top ten includes Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and San Diego. In fact, there are currently over 100 events listed in the calendar for San Diego. Chicago and D.C. are in the top ten, as well. More and more organizations, venues, and small presses are listing their events in the P&W calendar.

For those keeping track, there are over four thousand installs, between iOS and Android, with 75% of those being on iOS. Usage statistics mirror that balance.

Overall, I couldn't be more pleased the whole Titanium development process or with the results.