News Dump - International Edition

Because the multiple browser windows are threatening to overload my work computer.

Kenya is getting set to vote on its first new constitution since independence, and over the past few months there have been a series of violent clashes between opposition groups. Chances are it's going to get worse.

Somali pirates are making sea trade to the country very difficult. Can we even call Somalia a country right now, when it has "no recognized central government authority, no national currency, nor any other feature associated with an established nation state" (according to Wikipedia)?

The order to expel Iraqi Kurd and alleged terrorist Mullah Krekar from Norway has been upheld by the Oslo City Court.

The Kenyan Wildlife Service's elephant relocation program has been suspended for three months to avoid bad weather. 150 of 400 elephants have been moved so far, and five have died. (Dammit.)

Maybe the American Dream is still around.

Danish Air Force scares Rudolph to death, compensates Santa.

Also? I saw Rasputin at the grocery store last night. He was buying Kosher franks.

Nobody Knows the Wreck of the Soul the Way You Do

I love sentences. Man, do I love sentences. Plots, I can take or leave, but sentences kill me.

I had a good evening of writing last night. Lately, school's been so much in the way of everything--seeing as how I let myself get all behind and such--that writing's been very much an afterthought. But last night I plowed forward on my Spicy Slipstream Story (now with lots of slipstream, needs more spice), and it felt good. If I can pull this off I'll be so happy. It's structurally rather complicated, but hopefully more on this end than on the reader's. (Although the structural stuff is part of what is supposed to Make the Reader Feel Strange*, so I want it to throw off the rhythm a bit.) But I love doing the work. I love writing down a sentence and loving it and then looking back a paragraph later and seeing that the clauses need to be reversed and then loving the sentence even more and then taking out that unecessary word and splicing these two paragraphs together and dropping that dialogue tag because an action would be so much better there, don't you think and by this time I'm giddy with the rapture of making the words do just what I want them to do. I love words, too, not just sentences. I love amphitheater and infinity and sequence and Backpfeifengesicht (a German word for a face that cries out for a fist in it). OK, that last one's not in the story, but I'm going to find a way to use it somewhere.

Not only did I have a productive evening, but after watching the new "Amazing Race" (not as bad as I was afraid it was going to be, but more on that later) and reading a bit of The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove I fell asleep thinking of a new story which I only just remembered now. It's practically written already. Except for the sentences. Ooh yeah. Gimme some syntax, baby.

*™ Bruce Sterling

Warning to All Serenity Fans

DON'T READ THE REVIEWS!!

Sorry for shouting, but I am seeing big-time spoilers in some of these reviews, and like I said a while back, you DO NOT want to be spoiled for this movie. So avoid newspapers, stay off the fannish websites, and run with your head down to the theaters on Friday to see this movie. (You might want to ask someone nearby if it's safe to cross the street.) You have been warned.

No time for more now, and probably not tomorrow either. Maybe Wednesday . . .