December, 2011 | catsignal

Occupy: An Arrest in Los Angeles

Posted on December 8, 2011 by bryon

Take good note of this first-person account of being arrested at an Occupy Movement event in Los Angeles. Note that the brave, dedicated men in blue did what they could to inflict violence and pain and humiliation on unarmed, peaceful people whose crime was sitting down and exercising their First Amendment rights.

Three points:

1) The men and women who nearly collapsed the global economy are still at it, still employed by organizations deemed too big to fail, still receiving enormous paychecks and bonuses.

2) Those who peacefully protest against the oligarchy are brutalized and given the maximum sentences possible for misdemeanors. The protestors are dangerous to the economic elites, and what the elites order the police to do is a direct measure of their fear.

3) That the police commit such acts of barbarity shows us that they are no longer members of the communities they are sworn to serve and protect; they are militarized in mind and body, and all they care about is taking down the enemy. By which they mean us.

Fiction: Some Slight Provision

Posted on December 8, 2011December 7, 2011 by bryon

A uniformed officer backed through the door to the detective division. He turned around and everyone could see he was carrying a box.

“Detectives Okuno and Haycock?” he called. “Here’s that little present for you.”

“Presents are supposed to be wrapped, Pinkus,” Haycock said.

“Actually,” Pinkus said, “it’s a lot of presents. How many wallet snatchings are you working in the financial district?”

“Twenty-seven,” Okuno said.

The officer set the box on Haycock’s desk. “Well, here are twenty-seven wallets, so you’re covered.”

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Quotable 81

Posted on December 7, 2011December 4, 2011 by bryon

Let us withdraw from the cold and barren world of prosaic fact if only for a season; that we may warm ourselves by the fireside of fancy, and take counsel of the wisdom of poetry and legend.
– David Rhys Williams

haiku 192

Posted on December 6, 2011December 4, 2011 by bryon

rainy afternoon –
ducks gather
on roadside pond

Pen to Paper: Setting

Posted on December 5, 2011December 4, 2011 by bryon

Setting can be a crucial part of your story. It doesn’t have to be; some stories get by on a bare minimum of “this is where and when we are.” For example, Accept Our Condolences does not tell the reader when or even where it takes place; other than the mention of an end table, leading one to understand the story takes place in a home, there is no setting. In Popgun, though, the setting is paramount to telling the tale. And in The Library Patron, I put more effort into describing the personnel and places than I generally do, simply because I felt it was valuable information. As with most things, give the reader whatever he needs to make sense of and enjoy the story, and withhold that which is merely window dressing.

So what goes into setting? You’ve got time, place, and the standard five senses, of course, plus the reactions of your characters to what they sense. The more you can deliver through the eyes of your characters, generally the better off you are. For example, you can baldly tell your readers, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Or you can have an exchange of dialogue between two characters:

“Oh! the lightning is so bright!” Gladys shrieked.

“Yes,” Rupert agreed, “and the thunder is about to shake that vase right off the mantelpiece.”

Okay, that doesn’t necessarily improve on Bulwer-Lytton’s original, but you get the idea.

In working with your setting, accuracy has to be a target, and you want to hit one of the inner rings. Except under carefully controlled conditions, a story about the Civil War will not include a scene in which President Lincoln radios instructions to General Lee. Or let’s say you set a story in the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area in which you describe the scenic view of the Missouri River from Shawnee Mission Parkway. You would perhaps achieve a perfectly acceptable verisimilitude for most of your readers, but the locals would howl either in outrage or derision or both. It pays to look up little details like that, and it has never been easier to do so than it is today.

Fiction: The Wrong Tool

Posted on December 1, 2011November 30, 2011 by bryon

Bijou lay in the middle of the living room, exercising the principle of center control as a chess player would. Her humans sat on the couch in front of her. They exchanged occasional words, but the cat did not recognize any of them, nor were they in tones that attracted her attention. She stretched her legs out a bit more for comfort and to take up more space.

“Okay, let’s just see what happens,” the male human, Seamus, said. The female human, Ruri, sighed.

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