The World is a Little Colder Today.

I was at SafeWay last week buying groceries and worrying about my ever dwindling bank account when I bumped into a former student, a friend. I was solemnly buying eggs and milk for my kids and he was bouncing through the store with his girl friend. Young love makes even a trip to SafeWay for tea a magic moment,  a bliss.  We talked briefly about how long my hair was and how his life was and then we parted ways at the check stand. This is normal in a small town, every where you go you see people you know, and every time you see them you know you'll see them again.

That's the way it usually is, but not this time.

We parted ways at the check stand, and now he's dead.

He wasn't even twenty, and now he is dead.

His life had just begun, and now he's dead.

He was a good kid and underrated by most and under valued by many, but a good person. He was kind and gentle and caring, and maybe tha's the best that can be said about anyone or anyone can say about themselves.

And now that's his epitath. On Friday a kind soul decided to leave this world. To leave this world to the rest of us who aren't as sensitive or caring.

It is now a colder place.

Rest well my friend; may you find an easier path the next time around.

Steampunk timeline

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While scrolling through the twitterverse this came to my attention. It's yet another attempt to explain steampunk. This time from a less practical perspective. The author definitely if having fun playing with his words in this one.

The Great Steampunk Timeline

Stephen Hunt

Here’s how you understand steampunk, how you really understand steampunk.

It’s a reaction, and like all reactions, for its boiler to begin burning, steampunk needed something to react against.

Let’s skip back to the 1960s and 1970s. There was peace, and love. Everything was groovy, baby. Where there was war, it could be protested; where there were bayonets on campus, flowers could be hung from that sharp steel. Even if you weren’t there, kids, you kind of were–it was Mad Men, it was Swingtown, it was Life on Mars, and it was Forrest Gump, baby. READ THE REST HERE

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Dead and Breakfast a Zombie Musical.

 

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A friend recently recommended a great B movie to me. I was wondering if there were any zombie westerns and she suggested Dead and Breakfast.

It's not quite a western, and it's not quite a zombie film, but it's loaded with gory campy fun. It's also streamable on Netflix so you can watch it right now.

Dead and Breakfast uses fairly traditional plot devices to move the story along. A group of 20 something travel through the back roads to a friends wedding, and get lost. They arrive for the night in a small Texas town, Lovelock, which happens to be the home of some very creepy people and of course demonic spirits.  I know this device seems pretty cliche', but it is used quite effectively for this campy gore fest. They take the traditional trappings and turn it on on it's head by adding even more camp, like a guitar playing musical narrator.

The narrator makes the movie, he's across between Mojo Nixon the free credit report band, and absolutely pulls the audience through the movie --- with great punk rock a billy songs and and a sense of humor that puts the bad acting and camp into perspective.

Dead an Breakfast isn't scary, isn't well acted, and isn't well written. That's a great thing, it's not supposed to be. It is gory, funny, and filed with musical numbers, and definitely worth watching.

So go a head and crack open a lone Star or a Shiner Bock, and enjoy this, almost, zombie filled western musical. You won't regret it.

Is there a use for the Steampunk Aesthetic?

 

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I keep looking at Steampunk and wondering if there is a use for it or if it's meerely art. Art for arts sake is great, but there is such a technological component to Steampunk I have to wonder if the artistic eye has a use as well as beauty. The return to the Victorian era that wasn't seems, to me, to be largely driven by a backlash towards today's culture, or just a simple appreciation for beauty. The more I think about it, though, the more I think it offers a little more.

Steampunk is the culture of tinkerers, people who modify and retrofy(My own word) gadgets to make them beautiful. What if we took that a step further and in stead of just making things that looked steampunk made things that were functional, and steampunk in aesthetic.

The vistorian Era, which steampunk examines, despite all of it's flaws -- classism, racism, sexism, colonialism -- really did have some thing going for it. Everyone knew how their possessions worked. And many people could actually fix things. Also despite being the antithesis of our current green movements, it was green in a way. Most things were local, most people knew, or could know, the people who grew their foods.

I think we should take these aspects of the Victorian era and try to blend them into current steampunk. Let's take it beyond the aesthetic and try to turn it into a real movement. I for one am re-examining my indoor garden and seeing ways I can make it as beautiful as it is functional, a very Victorian goal.

What can you do?

Here's a great blog looking at steampunk as a modern way of life. HERE

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Henrietta and the Flying Car

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I was fourteen and we were on our annual trek to Huntsville, Alabama to space camp. Loaded in our two-tone, gray and blue, GMC crew-cab with camper, were my mother, two little sisters, little brother, and best friend Mark Taylor.

My mom decided we should stop in Henrietta, Oklahoma to visit her aunt Wanda. Henrietta is an unremarkable town, its only claim to fame Troy Aikman, a former Cowboys quarterback.  It is a small town of small houses with peeling paint and cracked sidewalks and unmanaged lawns, a town of potholes, of worn-away blacktop and exposed cobblestone roads.

I didn't want to see my mother's aunt. I thought that this town offered me nothing; Wanda didn't have cable or even a VCR so I couldn't escape into a science fiction movie. What could possibly interest me in the middle of a small Oklahoma town? After all, I was on my way to space camp. I was preparing to go to the Moon, to go to Mars, to enter the Brave new World I had seen in countless science fiction movies or read about in books. There could be nothing in this little town for me. Nothing.

We passed one dreary little street after another as my mother tried to remember where her aunt's house was: streets named Maple, and Birch, and Elm, and Spruce, ticky-tacky  tiny streets that made the truck rumble as we hit the cobblestones.

As we passed yet another street undoubtedly named for a tree, I saw it, my dream, what I'd been waiting my whole life to see a flying car. The first flying car should not have been in Oklahoma... what could "Oakies" possibly have to do with flying cars, and yet, there it was in Henrietta.  For the rest of the time my mother spent looking for her Aunt's house, I could talk of nothing else. I knew I had seen the flying car.

Mark confirmed he had seen it.  Ever the skeptic, "undoubtedly a gag," he said. My brother and sisters were asleep, and my mother's eyes were fixed to road, dodging potholes, so she had missed it.

We found Wanda's house and my mother, meaning well, but none-the-less Marquis De Sade like, made me sit at the dining room table, politely talking with my relatives. They asked me about soccer and baseball and school and girls. Who the hell had time for any of these? There was a flying car three blocks away. I answered their questions as politely and quickly as possible, not wanting to strike up a conversation. I had to leave.  I had to go see who had invented this, who was building this, who was dreaming, who was the visionary.

After a daylong half hour, my mother finally let Mark and I go. We ran as quickly as possible to the place; the place we had seen the car. It seemed like it took forever, but we were there, and it was beautiful: twelve feet around, like a giant Frisbee, smooth as glass and white as porcelain.

Behind the car was an unassuming building. It could have been a handyman's shop, or a place where they fix lawnmowers or a junk store, but it was the corporate headquarters for the inventor of the flying car. Stenciled on the front windows of the building were the words "want to know what this is? Come on in and ask." We did.

The man inside wasn't a mad scientist, an engineer, or even a nerd. He had been a diesel mechanic and good at fixing things, and now he was a dreamer " his dream to build the flying car. He couldn't tell me how it worked, but he said no one could explain how the Frisbee worked either, so that was okay. Knowing that you had a dream, and knowing that you had faith was all that was important in life. Faith was a lever you see, and you could use it to achieve anything.

I was hooked. I had to have one of the cars. I needed to know how much they cost and when they would be ready. He handed me a mimeographed timetable time table and explanation of cost. Right there is blue ink still smelling of ditto fluid, it said his first prototype would be available in two years, after my sixteenth birthday. The car would only cost seventy-five hundred dollars.

Never mind how a fourteen- year-old was going to come up with seventy-five-hundred dollars, never mind he hadn't actually built one yet, never mind the flying car in front of his shop was made of plaster and chicken wire... the important thing was, they were finally here.

The flying car was finally here, and it hadn't taken science or math, or even space camp. The dream was coming to life and all it took was faith. I spent the next two years of my life dreaming of owning the flying car, and planning how to buy it. Buying it would be the easy part.

When I was seven my father bought a brand new 1977 Fiat Spider turbo convertible.  I was in love, the day we drove it home from the dealer I asked if I could have the Fiat when I turned sixteen.  He laughed, and assured me that we wouldn't have it then, even though he thought everyone should earn their own car, if by chance the car was still around when I turned sixteen, I could have it.

At seven, I became a maintenance Nazi, continually reminding my dad to have his oil changed, to check the fluids when we gassed, and on almost every sunny day I washed and waxed the car.

Now that I was approaching sixteen, by chance we still had the car. On my birthday my father would give me the keys to my seven"year"old dream and I knew I would sell this old dream for my new one. I would give up my convertible for my flying car.

The flying car of Henrietta, Oklahoma, never got off the ground; well at least it never flew into production or off the assembly line. And when I turned sixteen, there was no flying car for me to buy.

That didn't discourage me though  I enjoyed   driving my little blue convertible, but even more I enjoyed dreaming of my flying car. I enjoyed dreaming of letting my earthbound tires fall away, and of escaping another day, flying over roads, over roads and fields, effortlessly, freely away from Oklahoma, away from people, away from anyplace at all.

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Zombies and Steampunk signs of Distopia

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I stumbeled across this interesting read which looks at the  reasons behind the popularity of zombies and Steampunk. I think the author hits the nail on the head, both are by products of an underlying sense of ditopia.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Our imaginations are caught between two unstoppable empires: the retrofuturistic world of steampunk, and the shambling hordes of zombies. The only thing more popular than a steampunk world or a zombie world is steampunk with zombies [see poster above]. But what’s next?

When I think about these two strands of speculative fiction culture, it occurs to me that our love of steampunk and our fascination with zombies are two sides of the same coin. The rest of the story.

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Zombies, and they'll pay for it

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If anyone has a zombie story kicking around in their head here's a good link for you. http://thezombiefeed.biz/the-zombie-feed-accepting-submissions-for-zombie-novellas-and-novels/ They have an open call for zombie stories. So if you're up for it why not take a bite out of your fiction.

I think I'll try a steampunk zombie tale, or maybe a zombie western. I have to wonder though how you write a zombie story. It would seem that the social commentary would lead to a lot of exsposition, which makes for bad writing.

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What is Slam

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What is Slam?

Not the regular wham bam thank you ma’am

Of cutesy rhyme, diminutive Haiku, or Senryu

Slam doesn’t gently tease your head, foundling your words, lightly kissing your metaphors, caressing ever so slightly your images, your beliefs.

Slam grabs your poetic cock greedily,

And shoves it in its mouth

And swallows.

Swallows your preconceived notions assumptions beliefs and your sacred cows.

Slam ties you to the bedpost screaming

Now you’re my bitch! Think for yourself.

You’re– my bitch! Now think for yourself.

Think for yourself!

If it feels right, do it.

If it sounds right, say it.

If it makes your audience uncomfortable

If it makes them think

SCREAM IT!

SCREAM IT!

Make them scream it!

Make them scream, breathlessly, hearts pounding, ideas erupting

Wanting more, needing more, rhythmically writhing

Grinding

Grinding words,

Words and meanings, ideas and metaphors

Slam grabs its audience and makes them

Makes them give up the one night stands

Of rhyme and Haiku

And Senryu

Slam.

Slam makes them–

Slam makes them want to swallow their own sacred cows.

Five Sentences to Imitate: Before and after

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As promised, in yesterday’s post, I have bribed my muse with the words of Douglas, London, White, and Golding. If you didn’t try the exercise you really should. If you didn’t read yesterday’s post here’s the activity in a nutshell. Take a great sentence from another author and imitate it. Use their grammar as a framework and insert your words.

Here are my revisions to the five sentences, nothing too deep, but neither am I.  Taking the time to rewrite them certainly has got my muse waking up a little bit. I think I even feel a poem coming on.

My Sentence: There—and his hands adjusted the scope—was a place to be in for the kill, not far from the target, so that if the humanity of the his spirit emerged he could at least mix with humans disappearing  for the time being.

The Original: Here—and his hands touched grass—was a place to be in for the night, not far from the tribe, so that if the horrors of the supernatural emerged one could at least mix with humans for the time being. –William Golding, Lord of the Flies

My Sentence: If there was no truth—and almost certainly there was no truth—to hell and be done; but if there was something waiting beyond mountains, what was the use of the knowledge, distorted by the mind and carrying only antiquated dreams?

The Original: If there was no beast—and almost certainly there was no beast—well and good; but if there was something waiting on top of the mountain, what was the use of three of them, handicapped by the darkness and carrying only sticks?– Jack London, White Fang

My Sentence: We explored the stars, solemnly, where the cosmic spores wisped off the nebulas and dug their way into the fabric of time

The Original: We explored the streams, quietly, where the turtles slid off the sunny logs and dug their way into the soft lake bottom.
–E.B. White “Once More to the Lake”

My Sentence: He was dancing, heavily, among the tomb stones and broken dreams, when a sprite, a vision of light and dreams, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry.

The Original: He was clambering, heavily, among the creepers and broken trunks, when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry.
–William Golding, Lord of the Flies

My Sentence: “That solemn child, under the influence of the pixies, soon became vibrant with life; that soul, made of sorrowful images, changed to one of love and magical dreams; and that graven face gave place to that of an angel.”

The Original: “That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.”– Fredrik Douglas, Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass

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Bribing your muse: 5 Sentences worth imitating.

My muse is Lazy and doesn’t really want to do much work, so I’m bribing her with other people’s words. This is a great tool for any muse deprived writer. Basically it’s an exercise in imitation, you take another writer’s sentence, one that really stands out to you, and “borrow" its structure. You use their grammar, rhythm and flow, but add your own words and flavor. Here’s an example of what I mean. It’s from an essay I wrote called Henrietta and the Flying Car.


That didn’t discourage me though I enjoyed driving my little blue convertible, but even more I enjoyed dreaming of my flying car. I enjoyed dreaming of letting my earthbound tires fall away, and of escaping another day, flying over roads, over roads and fields, effortlessly, freely away from Oklahoma, away from people, away from anyplace at all.

Obviously my Muse was on overtime when she inspired that. Actually she wasn’t, she fell in love with Annie Dillard’s muse, the one that inspired living like weasels. She read this:

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.

Imitation can be a great tool for getting your muse going, but you’ve got to have inspiring sentences to imitate. Here are five that are definitely worth imitating. I'll post tomorrow what my muse comes up with. I challeng you to give it a try and post your creations in the comments area. I'll post yours to the blog as well. It won't make you famous but you'll have fun trying.

"That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon."-- Fredrik Douglas, Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass

Here—and his hands touched grass—was a place to be in for the night, not far from the tribe, so that if the horrors of the supernatural emerged one could at least mix with humans for the time being. --William Golding, Lord of the Flies

If there was no beast—and almost certainly there was no beast—well and good; but if there was something waiting on top of the mountain, what was the use of three of them, handicapped by the darkness and carrying only sticks?-- Jack London, White Fang

We explored the streams, quietly, where the turtles slid off the sunny logs and dug their way into the soft lake bottom.
--E.B. White "Once More to the Lake"

He was clambering, heavily, among the creepers and broken trunks, when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry.
--William Golding, Lord of the Flies

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Woo Your Muse by Killing Your Inner Editor.

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Anyone who’s been reading the blog knows my muse and I seem to have a disagreement and she split.

Since she left, in an attempt to make her jealous, I’ve been writing about politics. Politics like all rebounds has worn me thin. Sure it’s a cheap date and a quick thrill, but when you wake up in the morning it isn’t pretty.  In fact politics is pretty shallow and soulless.

With nanowrimo “write” around the corner I need to woo my muse back.  The first step is to get back in writing shape. I need to start out with the basics and recondition my mind to win her back.

Before I can start that I need to do one thing first. Kill my inner editor. I can’t think of how many students I’ve given that advice to. Kill your editor.

Writers write. It’s a simple enough statement, that I’ve even blogged about before; but very difficult to do, especially in the age of Word. Those squiggly red lines are enough to drive a man over the edge. They taunt you, like a school yard bully, daring you – double dog daring you—to stick your tongue to the flag pole. The flagpole of correction, so it’s toady, your inner editor, can trap you, frozen and lifeless in the cold.

Your inner editor may seem like a helpful friend; after all he has your best interests at heart. He wants your story to be perfect. He’s not. In fact he hates your writing and you need to kill him. He will keep you from getting your ideas out. If you take the time to edit as you go six pages can take hours or days or forever. Agonizing over every comma, word choice, descriptor shuts the writing process down.

It also kills the fun.  It can destroy a great idea and turn inspired writing into drudgery. Worse than the buzz kill it chases away your muse. She can’t stand to be ignored while you edit. She can’t stand the misery and drudgery of the inner editor.  And neither can I.

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Get started writing.

I had a long conversation last night about writing and was kind of challenged to try nanowrimo( it's a challenge to write a 50 k manuscript in a month) this year. I've been thinking too much about politics lately and not enough about writing for fun.

Granted most of my political rants underscore the fiction I write, but I haven't really been letting that material filter it way through the collective stream and surface as distopian futures. Instead I've been grabbing it prematurely, using it, and spitting it out. I hope the political spectrum can live without me for a while, because I'm going to try and let the ideas mature before I have my way with them or they with me.

I stumbeled across this article today about writing a book I haven't tried the tips yet, but I'm going to. There are mostly  websites to help you structure a book and being a geek relapsing they seem write(pun intended) down my alley. Besides If I decide to enter nano I'll need a well devised plot line before November and these might help.

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The house droid is here. Now where are the flying cars?

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This maybe one of the coolest thing I've seen in a while. It looks like the home android is right aroung the corner. I'm not talking about the clunky broomba or scooba, but an honest to go android. Watch to video to see it's range of motion, it's amazingly agile. Or read this article for more details.house droid

I guess being a grumpy guy I should be screaming about Terminator, or West World, or the loss of jobs, but really this is so cool. I think we need to try and recapture our optimism, the kind seen by the 50's sci fi writers.

Sure we don't have jett packs and haven't colonized the stars, but it looks like we're getting droids. If we can do that maybe we can inspire a whole new generation to look towards the future rather than trying to recapture the past. (yeah I get the irony.)

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Fred of the Dead

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My brother sent me a link to an interview with George Romero. link I t was interesting to see how Romero got his start, but more interesting was who he got his start with. George Romero first starting making films for Mr. Rodgers.

I knew they both were from Pittsburgh, but I never would have but the two together in my mind. Granted I have a pretty twisted mind, but that combination just never happened. Although now that I think about it I can see how the two got a long so well.

Both of them were selling a positive version of human nature. Romero's decidedly a little more twisted version, but positive none the less. If you think about it Zombies spread so fast because we don't mindlessly kill on sight. People get bit because they want to give the person/zombie a chance. If we were all mindless killers with no thought to pulling a trigger on another person then there wouldn't be a zombie plauge.

Mr. Rodgers sold the same message. We are all basically good and everyone should be treated like a neighbor. Maybe it's that message, taught to us when we were very young, that makes us incapable of pulling the trigger without hesitation. If that's right I think Mr. Rodgers may be the cause of the Zombie Appocalypse.

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Steampunk Asthetic

I find myself more and more attracted to steampunk. Maybe I'm just jonging for a time that never was, or maybe it's just the beauty of some of the peices, I'm not sure.

If you're not sure what steampunk is don't feel bad, the term is hotly debated.  Basically it's imagining the victorian worls as if it existed today. Or imagining today's tech with a victorian asthetic.

Rather than try to describe it, I think it's just better to show you the best steampunk has to offer.

It's not just about computers, but as I'm typing this on my Toshiba and you are reading it on a computer or handheld device they seemed like the best images.

I would love the devices I use every day to have as much form as they do function.  I think in our mass produced world we have sacraficed a asthetic that we need to revist.

What if our everyday objects were artistic as they were beautiful?

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I think the future's finally here.

I like to read the old popular science articles proclaiming the world of tomorrow, which is usually the world of today or about twenty years ago. I get a very self-indulgent pleasure hearing predictions of jet packs and flying cars that never happened. So many predictions got it so wrong, and yet we do live in an amazing time.

A time where I can teach classes all over the world ... and never leave my home office. A time where my IPOD has more computer power than all of NASA  in the 60's. Here's a video that got it mostly right, kind of cool to watch the home of the future. Which was their vision of ten years ago.

Enjoy.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1872819748007083565#docid=4796674762025998102]

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What Will Future Generations Think?

Have you wondered what the BP spill really looks like. Washington's blog has done a good job or rounding up some videos and images of the disaster. We need to clean up Bp's mess and we need to find a way of preventing it from happening again. I wonder at this point if future generations will will forgive us for letting this disaster happen?

Push Your Sacred Cows.

You need to watch this. Yes you! It's a discussion of our current world finance/economic crisis. In the video a British economist discusses our current explanations for the finance crisis and offers some alternative explanations. Keep an open mind while watching and he will at least nudge some of you sacred cows. We'll talk about this more later.
and

The Individual Spirit.

I felt I needed to write a response to my last blog post. I love Heinlein’s stories, partially because I am an uber geek, and partially because I love the message in his early stories. His stories are the prototypes for most science fiction that followed them, and yes in lots of cases they are cheesy and poorly constructed. But even his early works like Space Cadet and Starship Troopers have glimpses of the greatness he showed in Stranger in A Strange Land.

His early stories always showed two things, the greatness of humanity as a species and the individualist human spirit. Yes, I am a liberal – very liberal in fact – and I believe strongly in the individual. Our current political climate has turned everything inside, outside and backwards to the point I felt the need to point out as I liberal I believe in the power of people, we the people if you will, a mixed up mash up of different individuals from different places working for themselves and each other. That I think is the greatness of humanity, when different people work together to achieve something unique. I think it's that greatness that may eventually save us someday from ourselves.

Our Noble, Essential Decency

I know we live in interesting times, and it's easy to get bogged down in the terrible things going on, but for me at least it's also important to remember that we as a species are also capable of greatness. A friend posted this to my face book page. It's from my favorite, one of my favorite, Sci Fi writers Robert Heinlein.

Our Noble, Essential Decency

I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael, down our road a piece. I’m not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I’m in trouble, I’ll go to him. My next door neighbor’s a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say “I’m hungry,” and you’ll be fed. Our town is no exception. I found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, “The heck with you, I’ve got mine,” there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, “Sure pal, sit down.” I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, “Climb in Mack. How far you going?”

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.
Read the rest here.
He lived in interesting times as well, having seen WWII, the atom bomb, and the assignations of the sixties, and yet at heart he remained hopeful for the future -- maybe that's why he's one of my favorites.

Whoops Apocalypse and the Zombie Zeitgeist part III

I think in America there has been an uneasy feeling for a long time. I think on an almost unconscious level we know our culture doesn't quite work. We are a land of great opportunity, but not for all. This uneasiness shows up in many places, sometimes in our political yelling matches, where the most disenfranchised will attack each other in an attempt to keep their crumbs from the proverbial pie; sometimes in our response to the latest threat to our life style, and other times in our movies. I'll save the political analysis for a later post. Right now I want to look at our threats and our movies, especially zombie movies.

Remember Y2K, or the Hale bop comet, or last year's hype about 2012? Are Americans inherently crazy, or are we just prone to conspiracy theories? These events, or nonevents, weren't conspiracies in the purest sense, but in a bigger sense they offered the same things to the theorists. If you believed or believed these events would have a great terrific impact on the world you were privy to special knowledge. For a brief moment you were pulled from your day to day tedium thrust into the middle of a whirlwind of possibilities. And of course the terrific events seemed very real and very possible because some scientist had unearthed the truth; they had found the hidden message of the Maya or the secret alpha omega computer code. Just having that special knowledge put the holder above the rest of us. In a nation where everyone strives to be exceptional this knowledge is a tiny step towards exceptionalism.

It's more than just our need to be exceptional that encourages us to believe the doomsdays. Maybe it's our cultural roots that drive us towards armegedons. I think a majority of Americans are predisposed to believe the world will end, it's part of our cannon of religious beliefs. Even though many of us do not believe in Judgment day I think it has created a meme firmly bedded in our psyche, next to the boogey man, and Darth Vader.

Even that kernel of a thought isn't enough for us to have so firmly accepted all the potential armegedons we seem to believe possible. I think they have mixed together with another nagging subconscious remnant, the realization that our current consumer model doesn't work.

This idea nags its way to the surface periodically with the latest doomsday and frequently in our modern cinematic myths. The zombie zeitgeist was born with the launch of Dawn of the Dead; it was the first zombie flick to really latch on to the popular imagination. It followed the same basic plot of its predecessor. A Zombie apocalypse with survivors trapped fending for themselves against an army of Zombies. It was also different from Night, the survivors were trapped in a mall, and the zombies, while menacing, were very human, wandering through the mall, looking for flesh, instead of bargains.

Besides the visual metaphor of zombies in a mall think about the bigger metaphor: zombies are us, only slightly different. They are different in the sense that they consume only one thing and they will eventually consume it until it is gone. We on the other hand consume everything. Metaphorically at least the zombies are the ultimate consumers, they have no need to eat, they’re dead, and yet that need to consume drives them like a plague destroying everything in their path.

Just like us. That’s why we have the zombie Zeitgeist now; we are terrified of our own reflection. That’s also why we so easily believe this week’s apocalypse de jour. On some level we know overconsumption as an economic model was a bad idea, but we’re afraid to even mention such blasphemy.

With both zombies and conspiracies we know they offer us a chance to start over, and maybe get it right this time.

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Frodo the Radical

I think most can tell that I'm getting frustrated with Obama's lack of action on several points. I knew when he ran, and when he was elected, that he was fairly moderate in our very narrow political spectrum, but I also knew that the little lean to the left was better than continuing our death spiral to the right. I had hope that we might even get a new deal. I had hope that our moderate president, might be pushed left by the overwhelimng support he had. I had hope that maybe the congress or the senate might pass progressive legislation and he would at least support it. All of my hopes aside I "knew" he'd at least return the rule of law. I was wrong on even that front. Maybe Jon Stewart is saying it best.

Parasites, viruses, and baterica, oh my! Real life zombie like ailments.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

Someone tweeted me s link to this article today. It's a little freaky all the modern ailments that resemble the Romero esque zombie virus, but I think it's given me some ideas for a zombie story. I feel my muse stretching a bit. Maybe she's willing to try and take a bit out of this one.

On a side note, I'd like to hazard a guess the author of the following piece is in their twenties. Zombies haven't really dominated Scien fiction or horror for more than about 10 years. 10 years can feel like a life time when it's half of yours.

Zombies have dominated science fiction for years. But they don't actually exist, right? Wrong. There are several real-life diseases that could make you act like a zombie.

If we're going to talk about zombie-like diseases, we first need to decide what the symptoms of being a zombie actually are. Obviously, the big one - you know, being literally, actually (un)dead - isn't something with any real world medical parallels, so we'll just have to restrict ourselves to diseases that make people act like the walking dead. That would include traits like rotting or dead flesh, a trance-like state that would rob people of any sign of higher cognitive function, an inability to communicate in anything more than moans and grunts, a slow, shuffling gait, and (if we're really lucky) a taste for human brains, or at the very least the desire to bite people.

Is there a single disease that can do all that? Well...no. But there are a whole heap of diseases that can do quite a few of those, and that's plenty terrifying enough. Indeed, let's start with the most horrific possibility of them all:And now for the rest of the story.

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• 5 real diseases that could make you act just like a zombie [Zombie Science] (io9.com)


• WWZD: What Would a Zombie Do? Spinner Folder (neatorama.com)


• Book Review: Zombie Brittanica by Thomas Emson (writer.fitzhome.com)


• Smoking likened to being eaten by zombies (adweek.blogs.com)

Telegraphs and Chats Twitter May Have Uses.

I'm not the biggest fan of twitter and I know I think it's about as useful and not as cool as the telegraph. I've also said I'm interested in learning about it. I came across a post about the uses of twitter
Here are the important parts of it.
If you place a # before a twitter search or a tweet it makes it easier to search. Here's the explanation from the post.

"'For instance, if I were interested in everything about the television show Glee, I could go to search.twitter.com and search for #glee. That search would return every post that includes #glee in the tweet. The hashtag helps eliminate superfluous posts, like I get a sense of glee every time I see a baseball score in which the Yankees lose. That tweet has nothing to do about the TV show."

While searching twitter may not be prove that useful chats might. Apparently you can use twitter to chat in real time with like minded people. Here's one that looks interesting, provided my fiction muse ever returns.
#fridayflash is a flash fiction critique group. Write a piece of flash fiction on your blog, then post a link with the #fridayflash hashtag any time Friday.

Or this one:
#writechat, each Sunday from 3-6 pm (ET), with a different topic each week related to general writing.

I'm beginning to think that there maybe be some real uses for twitter after all. I know not everyone fancies themselves a writer. If that's you you might try #yourinterestschat to search twitter. I have a feeling that in the age of narcissism you can find a twitter group for everyone.

The Men Who Stare at Amobeas

Wired just ran an interesting story about Darpa plans to predict the future. I am intrigued. I love it when science and mysticism join forces.


So I know it's not really mysticism, but isn't predicting the future what mystics and Shamans and weathermen have tried to do for centuries?

Either way it is an interesting read.

Right now, preparing for new viral threats means looking to the past, creating hypotheses based on how pathogens have changed before. Now Darpa wants to reverse that strategy: test every possible outcome, to create a prophetic almanac that warns of viral mutations and outbreaks in advance — giving scientists the chance to change the course of the future before illness strikes.

The Pentagon’s far-out research arm has been zeroing in on the danger of mutating pathogens, and the corresponding problem of drug resistance, for years now. The agency is already funding tobacco-based vaccine production, a seven-day plan to thwart biothreats, and prescient viral infection detectors. And they’ve even set their sights on psychic medics, with a 2007 program that sought to turn docs into all-knowing illness predictors.

Now, Darpa wants the powers of premonition to wipe out viral threats altogether. They’re hosting a workshop for a new program, called “Prophecy,” that’ll develop methods to predict the rate, location and likely mutations of viral agents.

Read More

TED Talks

Some of you may have noticed the links to Ted.com I've posted here and on face book a few times. A friend asked my what Ted was. Since I just found out about, I thought I'd been out of the loop or something, and that everyone knew about it.

Ted was a private invitation only conference where the world leaders in many fields were invited to speak to the leaders in other fields. They could give an eighteen minute talk or presentation about their research or their field, or in the case of artists they could perform for eighteen minutes. It was a great idea encouraging experts to be able to network with and cross reference other experts.It's the printing press all over again.

The ability to exchange ideas freely and easily created the renaissance. We could use another renaissance, and Ted seemed to be helping with that. Except it was ivory tower exclusive. Not only did you have to be an intellectual giant to present, you had to be one to be in the audience as well. Ted fixed that.

All of the Ted talks are posted online and available for free to anyone with internet access and the desire. It is maybe one of the most amazing websites I've ever seen. I know everyone is super busy, but what would happen if you took eighteen minutes a week and devoted to learning from the experts? Or that little time the check out a great performance. TED

Zombies Infestation Map.

I know zombie awareness month is over, but this just arrived via my twitter, so I thought I'd share it. It's a little obvious, but fun none the less.
Source: Online Classes

Twitter the 21st Century Telegraph.

I should probably just forget about twitter and move on. In the super information age do we really need to reinvent the telegraph?

All twitter really is, is the telegraph, the telegraph without purpose, and the cool sounds. Do we need a telegraph on the information super highway?

Do we need to send a very short message, forget about the art of writing, just send the information? It's the telegraph, except now everyone can send the messages, no telegraph operators, no wires, just tweets; so everyone tweets, great world changing messages, messages like I love bagels.

Sorry it's breakfast time and bagels sound good. I think you know what I mean though do we really need to send the tweets about everything?

My first take on twitter was not to bother. I have no need for the telegraph, unless of course it made the really cool noises and I could end every line with the word stop.

I also don't want to be a curmudgeon, so I kept thinking about it. And I kept coming across it. Which got me to try it again.

I've been on a political jag lately, so I thought I'd tweet about politics. It's been an interesting challenge. Making something meaningful fit in 140 characters or less.

I wanted to write something about the BP oil spill. I wanted to ask:

Why the hell is anyone shocked by the oil spill? It seems to be the status quo. Big multinational companies do what ever it takes to make money, that's their job. They'd sell grandmas if there was a market for grandma selling. So why are people shocked that BP cut corners, and created this mess. It's a lot cheaper for them to pay a few fines and stick the tax payer with the clean up than to actually fix the problem before it happens. It's their business model and it makes them billions every year.

That's what I wanted to tweet, but the big red numbers said I was -362. What? 362 useless characters including spaces. Of course that was total bull shit and twitter and tweeting suck.

I decided to play with the tweet, just to see if I could get the same idea out in so few words. Here's what I came up with.

Shocked by the BP spill? The purpose of a mega corp is money - it will make decisions in the interest of money - not public interests.

I think it actually got my point across, but I had to lose the grandma joke. It was a bad day in the history of grandma jokes, but an interesting day as a writer. I could get my message across in very few words, without losing the message.

I know even though I tweeted, no one read the tweet. In the tweetosphere there are more important things, than the BP oil spill, like bagels and marketing. Not having an audience has never stopped me from writing though, and now it won't stop me from tweeting.

I'm still not sure I get twitter, the 21st century telegraph, but I think maybe twitter has a purpose as a writing tool, at least for me.

Let The Paper Dump begin

A lot of things in cyber space are very different that their real world component. Teaching isn't one of them. This is the end of the semester for my students in Texas and it's exhausting me. My general rule when teaching is I don't care when a student hands in their work. It's more important to me that they do hand in. I try very hard to get rid of all the bull shit assignments, so the assignments I require are, for me, the really important ones.

Needless to say, I get paper dumped at the end of the term. This makes me tired and cranky, but gives the kids the chance they need. I know other teachers who strictly enforce due dates, and I've seen lots of kids take a zero because they couldn't get an assignment in on time. This seems to be really pointless. Unless of course the content of that assignment wasn't really important to begin with. If the work was essential for their progress, isn't it better to make sure they do it rather than enforce a time line?

It's better for the student, but like I said it makes me cranky, not kick the dog cranky, that takes W, but cranky never the less. It also interferes with my ability to write anything worth while. I have a few blog posts I've been working on but can't seem to really tweak to the point I like them.

I'll try to get them up soon, especially the third part of the zombie zeitgeist.

Horatio Alger Was A Liar.

So every time I start reading about zombies in Haiti, I eventually wind up thinking about Horatio Alger. I know the link seems weird, and maybe it’s weird that I frequently read about zombies in Haiti, but it’s what I do. Some people watch Lost or sports I read about the secrets of Haiti’s living dead, and then obsess about Horatio Alger and I question my own beliefs; my personal zombie antidote.

Rather than dwell on why zombies in Haiti are interesting, let me just say read my earlier post here. It sums ups everything you wanted to know about real zombies but were afraid to ask. In a nutshell -- beliefs cause zombies.

Horatio Alger was a writer and quite a prolific one. In the 19th century he books, and lots of them. See the wiki if you’re not sure. His books, all zillion of them, had the same plot. Poor schmuck works hard, plays by the rules, and voila a hundred pages later he is a captain of industry. Americans ate it up. All you had to do was work really hard, didn’t matter if you were a shoe shine boy or a flower girl you too could become the new rich. Most importantly of all you deserved it. Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps; he coined that phrase, by the way.

Maybe Alger was the first self-help guru. Maybe he was just a hack novelist — with a formula. Maybe he was just a good liar. Whatever the case his message has inevitably shaped America and anyone who grows up here.

At our core we believe in Meritocracy, a fancy word I picked up in college to describe the rags to riches story, the belief that the people who get ahead deserve it. It’s one of our unquestionable beliefs. If you work hard you will get ahead.

Don't get me wrong I think people can get ahead. My beef is with what meritocracy implies.

What does that say about people who haven’t gotten ahead? What does it say about people who have tried and failed? Answer these questions and I think you have every Tea party slogan out there. IF you can't reach the top, it's your own damn fault.

If you think about it his whole message is just a merit based version of social Darwinism or Eugenics. People who fail deserve to fail. God, fortune, genetics, whatever has doomed certain people to the life of the underling, unless of course they work really hard and play by the rules. Working hard and being the best shoe shine boy or flower girl is essential to the Alger myth.

Anyone can reach the top.

Really! How many fucking shoe shine boys have become captains of industry?
Name one, Mr. Alger.

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Synthetic life and the curse of a creative mind.

It's a weird world. This week we created the first synthetic life.

I want to be really positive about our scientific achievements, on the other hand distopia is a compelling thought. I guess it's the curse of being creative. When I learn something my mind wanders into countless possibilities of what might happen.

I can remember when I took microbiology in college. I learned two things from taking micro. First sterile practices completely elude me and I was constantly sick. The second thing I learned was at the end of my third term, my notes rarely covered the lectures.(I got pneumonia the first time I tried to take micro and had to withdraw. I got strep throat the second and had to withdraw. The third time I pushed vitamin C, took a multi-vitamin and was sick, but not seriously the whole semester. I think I passed with a C)

On the bright side my lecture notes from micro were filled with really great ideas for science fiction. In fact my micro notes were more about designer viruses tailored to specific genotypes. Or what would happen when a super bug got loose. I think my favorite notes were about a virus that rewrote your genetic code, basically it changed you from the base cells up. I may have revisit that as a story idea.

My mind still works this way. I love science and I love technology, but when I hear about it I have to let my mind wander and wonder where it might take us. While Craig Venter makes synthetic life seem so normal, and yet amazing I have to wonder where do we go from here? Are we creating a better world where we can design a bacteriophage that specifically eats cancer cells? Or are we just days away from unleashing, accidentally of course, the virus to start the zombie apocalypse? Does it seem strange to anyone else this discovery was announced during zombie awareness month?

Either way my mind is racing with possibilities. Below is the TED talk announcing the birth of synthetic life.
[ted id=863]

Writing For Different Formats. Or Writing for the web.

Writing for the web, writing for residuals, freelance writing, and writing for publication can be very different things.

When I've taught writing or speech I've spent a lot of time talking to students about adapting for different audiences. Now that I'm writing for myself here and taking on some freelance work I'm fining I have to write for a whole new audience. Some of writing for the web is pretty common sense. Things like if you don't get your readers attention in the first few lines they'll click away. If you use to many big words they'll click away. If you use to many rhetorical devices, they'll click away.

And yes I know I just used three rhetorical statements and a big word all in the same paragraph. Irony? Nope I needed to use the best word possible and three rhetorical statements is about the max a reader can handle at once.

Like I said a lot of web writing is common sense if you've written in any other medium. What has not been common sense is learning about choosing the right words. Writing for different formats described exactly what I wanted this blog post to be about, so that's what I named it. Unfortunately no one would ever see it.

Readers find what you've written because they are searching for something similar. Very few peole would be looking for writing in different formats, on the other hand a lot of peole are looking for how to write for the web.

I know for most people this probably doesn't mean much. And right now it doesn't mean much for my writing in the Library, but for the freelance work I'm doing to earn residuals (notice how I just worked those words back in.) it can make a huge difference. Potential buyers of my editorials and how to's want to know that those articles will grab people who are searching for similar topics.

As a writer I find myself needing to be aware of those little differences in word choice if I want anyone on the web to read what I wrote. If I ever finish the novel that started me blogging those tools will be essential if it's to get the traffic it needs to get noticed.

I hope as a writer I just have enough ethics to not change the name of my novel from say Romeo and Juliet to hot under aged drunken porn. Although I bet the later would get a lot more readers.

The Truth About Zombies

Zombies are everywhere in popular culture today, and film maker George Romero helped re-introduce them to the modern audience. Romero defined the modern movie zombie. The ghouls, as he first called them, are flesh eating undead. The zombie evolution doesn’t start with Romero; it has its roots in history, myth, legend, and fact.

What if I told you, before Romero there were real zombies, but they didn’t eat people? What if I told you real zombies aren't just legends to scare children? What if I told real zombies do exist, have been documented and you might be one, even if you've never practiced voodoo or been to Haiti?

What does Haiti and voodoo have to do with zombies?

Haiti is the birth place of the zombie, sorry Pittsburgh, for centuries there have been legends of voodoo priest reanimating the dead and enslaving them. Most people have dismissed these stories as mere superstition. They are just tales of things that go bump in the night designed to scare children and primitive people.

While it is easy to dismiss the stories with the uber rational western mind it's also wrong. Haitian zombies are real, and anthropologists have proved it. Wade a Davis, an anthropologist, led the research on Haitian zombies, and here's what attracted his attention.

So this zombie walks into a village:

"a man walked into l'Est?re, a village in central Haiti, approached a peasant woman named Angelina Narcisse, and identified himself as her brother Clairvius. If he had not introduced himself using a boyhood nickname and Mentioned facts only intimate family members knew, she would not have believed him. Because, eighteen years earlier, Angelina had stood in a small cemetery north of her village and watched as her brother Clairvius was buried." (1)

So many claim to be undead, why did this one get attention?

There have been many cases in Haiti of people reporting zombies, either being them or having seen them. In most cases the claims are written off. Usually dead men returning to life, in a third World country doesn’t get the attention of the scientific community, it usually gets a big yawn from the scientific community, but Narcisse was a very interesting case, he had been pronounced dead by western doctors: his claim was not easily dismissed as a mis-diagnosis.

"But Narcisse's case was different in one crucial respect; it was documented. His death had been recorded by doctors at the American-directed Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles. On April 30, 1962, hospital records show, Narcisse walked into the hospital's emergency room spitting up blood. He was feverish and full of aches. His doctors could not diagnose his illness, and his symptoms grew steadily worse. Three days after he entered the hospital, according to the records, he died. The attending physicians, an American among them, signed his death certificate. His body as placed in cold storage for twenty hours, and then he was buried."(2)

What? How did that happen?

While the details of the story are interesting and I'd encourage everyone to read them, what's more important isn't how he became a zombie, but why.

Why did he become a zombie?

It wasn’t a viral infection, toxic waste, or even a zombie bite. It was his beliefs and behaviors. Simply put Clairvius Narcisse was a jerk. He wasn't an evil person, he just wasn't a good person and a voodoo priest took notice.

Don’t piss off your Voodoo priest.

In the voodoo religion the priests act not only as religious leaders and magician, but also as judge. Most of their ceremonies are about bringing balance and justice to the world. Apparently Narcisse needed both, so a he was sentenced to zombification, and an undead life of hard labor. The priest poisoned him, buried him, and brought him back from the dead.

The priest didn't kill him, which is an important distinction to make, he poisoned him. The secret poison brought Narcisse to the verge of death, but he never crossed that threshold. All of his bodily functions were slowed to a point that they were undetectable by modern science. His heart was still beating, he was still breathing, but at such a slow rate no one could tell. He was effectively placed in suspended animation. After he was buried all the priest had to do was dig him up, give him the antidote, and voila instant zombie.

Didn’t he know he wasn’t a zombie?

I know what you're thinking, wait a minute didn't he know he wasn't a zombie? That's the interesting part, he didn't. He knew he died and he knew he was buried and he knew he was alive again. So of course he knew he was a zombie, and that's the secret to real zombies, he knew. It's all about belief.

What you know can hurt you.

The practioners of voodoo know magic is real, they know spirit possession is real, and they know zombies are real. Believe might seem like a better word choice, especially to the scientifically inclined, but believe isn't entirely correct. Believe seems a little wishy washy, there is room for doubt. Know on the other hand leaves no room for doubt. If you know something, it is true, a fact, and reality.

Knowing something changes your whole world. It makes some things possible and other things impossible. For Narcisse it made him a zombie and a slave. For several years he was zombie slave on a plantation in Haiti, until one day by chance he was separated from his work group. After wandering the country side, for weeks, his beliefs changed, and his reality changed. He was no longer a zombie slave.

Are you a zombie?


I wonder how many of the things we know, things we know are true, things we know are facts, things we know are reality, aren't? We all might want to take a good look at the things we know. How do they shape us? If you really think, it’s not just zombies about in Haiti. It’s our everyday reality. How many of the things we know are just beliefs helping to turn us into zombie slaves? Are you a zombie?



1http://windward.hawaii.edu/facstaff/dagrossa-p/articles/SecretesofHaitisLivingDead.pdf

Flesh Eating Zombies Bring Out the Best in People

How knew you could get paid the write about zombies. The following is an excerpt for an essay about Romero's movies I wrote that just got published by Associated content.

Romero's Zombies Show the Best of Us

I know it's a little late but I finally sat down to watch Diary of the Dead. Kids, work and location have kept me from seeing the movie until now. I have to say it was worth the wait. I know many fans and critics weren't thrilled with the movie, but I think it is a great addition to Romero's zombies. The film really shows Romero's evolution as a film maker.

Diary of the Dead followed a group of film students and their professor through the beginning days of a zombie apocalypse. Like other Romero films it is filled with political commentary, gore, and of course people surviving the worst days of their lives.

Conclusion

Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide

OOh I so want this book. I just read this book review, and now I want the book. Anyone want to get me an early Christmas present?

The Best Guide for Everything Zombie Related!
If you are a zombie film fan and wanted to know about all the zombie films ever made than Glenn Kay's exhaustive book Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide is everything you wanted to know about the genre and more. Kay's book is one of the easiest books to navigate through with chapters on each decade starting from the '30s and going up until present day. Each chapter lists both the major and minor zombie films released and even comments on foreign films as well as digital video and straight to DVD and cable films.
full review

Zombies and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

So, maybe the zombie apocalypse is a real threat. I mean it would have to be, right, Bush said so. I wonder if they're hiding with the weapons of mass destruction? Or maybe they're in a chapter of MY Pet Goat. Hopefully Fox will pick the story up,that way we then we'll know it's for real.

George Romero

What would zombie awareness month be with out a little fan worship of George Romero? I've been writing zombie zeitgeist part three and an essay about real zombies. Editing takes time, a lot of time and when I'm happy with them I'll be posting them to the blog. In the mean time I've been reading up on Romero planning to salute his legacy, I think this essay says just about everything I would.
The Man Who's Resurrected More Things Than Just Zombies
In 1968 director George A. Romero released his ground breaking film Night of the Living Dead to audiences all around the world and thus history was made. No film before this had ever conceived of using the rarely used "zombie" as a means in which to tell an elaborate story about humanity and dread. The film became an instinct success story not just for Romero but for the zombie genre as well seeing as though it is the film to which all other zombie films are compared. Romero would expand on his apocalyptic world in which the dead rise to menace the living with the films Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), and most recently with Diary of the Dead (2007).

Romero was born in 1940 in New York, New York where he lived until moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he attended the renowned Carnegie-Mellon University. It was here where he would start his career in filmmaking with mostly commercials and short films under his company Image Ten Productions in the 1960s. With co-founder John A. Russo they put together the $100,000 to produce their first feature length film Night of the Living Dead which made them more money then what they put into it and thus started them on a successful career path.

It was several years before Romero's next financial success Dawn of the Dead but between these two films he filmed several noteworthy yet largely forgotten films including the little seen There's Always Vanilla (1971), The Crazies (1973), Hungry Wives (1972), and Martin (1977). Although little seen except for those of avid followers of his films, these films allowed Romero to continue to craft and hone his storytelling abilities including his proclivities to sprinkle biting political and cultural commentaries in all of his films.

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Study Reveals Pittsburgh Unprepared For Full-Scale Zombie Attack

You have to love the Onion. I wonder if Pittsburgh still loves George? I also wonder if Ptt isn't prepared, who is?

Study Reveals Pittsburgh Unprepared For Full-Scale Zombie Attack

October 19, 2005 | ISSUE 41•42

10.13.99 PITTSBURGH—A zombie-preparedness study, commissioned by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and released Monday, indicates that the city could easily succumb to a devastating zombie attack. Insufficient emergency-management-personnel training and poorly conceived undead-defense measures have left the city at great risk for all-out destruction at the hands of the living dead, according to the Zombie Preparedness Institute.

Pittsburgh, a prime target of the undead."When it comes to defending ourselves against an army of reanimated human corpses, the officials in charge have fallen asleep at the wheel," Murphy said. "Who's in charge of sweep-and-burn missions to clear out infected areas? Who's going to guard the cemeteries at night? If zombies were to arrive in the city tomorrow, we'd all be roaming the earth in search of human brains by Friday."

Government-conducted zombie-attack scenarios described on the State Department's website indicate that a successful, citywide zombie takeover would take 10 days, but according to ZPI statistician Dr. Milton Cornelius, the government's models fail to incorporate such factors as the zombies' rudimentary reasoning skills and basic tool use.

"Today's zombies quickly learn to open doors, break windows, and stage ambushes," Cornelius said. "In one 1985 incident in Louisville, a band of zombies was able to lure four paramedics and countless law-enforcement officials to their deaths by commandeering an ambulance radio and calling for backup."

ZPI researchers noted that tens of thousands of Pittsburgh citizens live in close proximity to a cemetery. This fact, coupled with abnormally high space-radiation levels in eastern Pennsylvania and ongoing traffic issues in the East Hills and Larimer areas, led Cornelius to declare the likelihood of a successful evacuation as "slight to impossible."

"The designated evacuation routes would be hopelessly clogged, leaving many no choice but to escape by foot," Cornelius said. "Add a single lurching zombie into that easily panicked crowd and you've got a nightmare scenario."

Cornelius' model shows that after the ensuing stampede, "the zombie could pick and choose his victims," and predicts the creation of hundreds of new undead "in a single half-hour feeding frenzy."

Pittsburgh's structural defenses are particularly inadequate. The city's emergency safe houses, established by a city ordinance in the early '70s, lack even the most basic fortifications for zombie invasion.

Pittsburgh residents participate in a zombie-preparedness training exercise in 1998."Under the ordinance, wooden tool sheds and rusty station wagons are classified as adequate shelter," Cornelius said. "But once dozens of zombies hungering for living flesh begin pounding on the walls and driving their half-decomposed fists through the windows, sheds and cars quickly give way."

Federal Undead Management Agency spokesperson Dr. Sheena Aurora downplayed the ZPI report, arguing that zombies move slowly and can be easily overpowered. Aurora advised citizens to look over their shoulders frequently, adding that a large shopping mall can serve as a "long-term, even fun" refuge from zombies.

Such assertions alarm zombiologist Olivier Baptiste, who calls FUMA's information "hopelessly outdated."
Full article.