Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is a pop thriller by science fiction [cyberpunk especially] mastermind Bruce Sterling. It has no science fiction elements per se but there are some ideas that I've seen in Sterling's sci fi works here. The one that comes to mind is that nothing ever works out as planned. Don't even bother planning things because it will never turn out the way you want it. Shit happens.

The story is about a guy named "Leggy" Starlitz, who's running a Spicegirls-esque scam. He has seven girls from seven countries (the G-7, the American one, the French one, etc), and they go around touring, singing, and dancing, selling tons of merchandise but no records. The scam is going to the Middle East, where Leggy becomes a part of the criminal and political establishment, as an all girls pop group manager. Oh, and the girls can't sing, they're just lip syncing at shows. 

Leggy has just one rule for the group. The whole scam ends on Y2K. Written in 2000, this book fully captures what it was like at the beginning of the millennium. The novel takes a different course in the master narrative when Leggy's ex-lover [a lesbian with whom he had a threesome with, that spawned a child] leaves their kid with Leggy, in Istanbul. This is when Leggy realizes he has to change as a person, become a good father in his own way, while going through his own personal life. You could say Y2K is used as a midlife crisis here. 

Sterling makes good use of references here. Everything from Dragonball, Saliormoon, Celion Dion, heavy metal [which has the same meanings in every language, the language of distorted guitars and screaming vocals] Brian Eno, and tons of European philosophers that even I myself haven't heard of [I'm a big reader of philosophy but these seemed to be modern European philosophers], and Gabriel Marquez. You can see that Sterling knows a lot and that he can show off when he wants to. That's fine and dandy but some of the references can go over your head if you're not familiar with the terrain.

The master narrative, as Leggy tries to explain to his daughter is understood to be Leggy's own personal life story and everything contained within it. Leggy tells his daughter [who's 11 years old] that if you want to understand the world and people, you have to understand language. Never does this make any more sense than in a novel. However, this can also be applied to real life, where language is pretty much a science. The way you speak with your English in America can get you anywhere you want to go in life. 

The narrative takes a climatic turn when Leggy and Zeta, his daughter go off to Mexico to find Leggy's dad. They find him in some dump in the middle of nowhere, in an abandoned building. They had no ID, passports, money, or anything other than the clothes on their backs. "This is how most of the world lives. Most of their lives on the back page." Leggy says something to that effect and after seeing his dad his midlife crisis seems to be almost over. There's a lot of talk during this section about the atomic bomb testings and such. Apparently Leggy's father worked with the government as a code talker. But after this Leggy still has to deal with the G-7 girls, his pop group. 

Once he goes back to the Middle East he finds out the guy he made a deal with to manage the band while he was away didn't do a good job with the girls. Despite it all being a scam, one of Leggy's rules was "don't let any of the girls die". And two of them had died at this point in the novel. As you can imagine, they don't get along. Not to mention the fact that the business associate is also a heroin and arms deals trafficker with ties to government. 

The ending is very anticlimactic. In fact, Y2K passed very easily and painlessly for Leggy and he goes to a somewhat normal life after that. The novel is very funny, sometimes too funny. In fact the last couple sentences, there is a funny joke. Leggy's Russian buddy says they should do an all girls group from impoverished and war-beaten countries, and they wouldn't make any money from the group. And that in fact, they would pay people to lose money for them. That's pop for you. 

This is my third Bruce Sterling novel I've read and wrote about. Check out my other reviews below.

https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/12/holy-fire.html 
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/schismatrix-plus.html 

Man Plus

Man Plus is a science fiction novel written by Frederik Pohl in 1976. Pohl is one of those rare great writers who was not only a great writer but also a great editor. I heard from my dad that he didn't start out as a great writer either. In fact, it took him a while and eventually he just got good.  [much like how gamers get good after playing for years and years, practicing rigorously]

Man Plus is a the modern world at that time, in the 70s. Communism has taken hold in every part of the world except North America. They mention the evil Chinese and this and that but no word on Africa at all. Anyways, the world is in a Cold War state and the only thing that will save humanity from Armageddon is colonizing Mars and eventually settling a colony. The Americans come up with the Man Plus program to achieve this.

Interestingly enough, when I compare the politics and President here to the current Trump administration and the rise of Communism across the globe, I see an eerie similarity. Basically President Deshantine in Man Plus is very much like Trump. Full of shit with bad politics. 

Roger Torraway was third in line to be the Man Plus. However, the first guy has a complication and dies. The second guy has a broken leg. Roger is up. The thing is that the scientists needed to create a being who can stand on the surface of Mars without a space suit, something totally implausible in any scenario. But Pohl makes it almost make sense. And he plays it off very well. In order to get this to work the scientists rip apart Roger's body and rebuild him with mechanical parts and a computer, saving only what makes him human, his brain. He becomes a human-machine hybrid, a cyborg. 

The cyborg seems like one of those old pulp science fiction tropes. Or Doctor Who if you're familiar with that show. Its a popular idea for a good reason. Because its interesting. Its captivating and all that jazz. We as the audience want to see into the inner soul of the cyborg, can they have that?

While Roger's failing to control his new mechanical body he's also failing to deal with his own personal relationship; mainly the fact that his wife has been cheating on him with his best friend! [which reminds me of The Room, a parody movie] 

Roger doesn't fully come into his own until he actually walks the surface of Mars. Once there he realizes he can't control the machine within him, and at the end we learn that the machines built within him as well as the machines of the Earth might've influenced him and humanity in order to get to Mars and establish a colony, a sort of AI-human hybrid influenced fate. Perhaps Pohl is saying that the machine will become sentient and we'll be the machines? Role-reversals? I think of things like this when I see how smartphones have taken over the consumer to the point where consumers are using their phones for everything instead of just to make calls. [E.M Forster's The Machine Stops comes to mind]

The ending is very interesting and I'm still not sure what to make of it. Satire maybe? You could say the whole novel is satire. I only know that I think its fantastic. It left me in a state where after I read it at a lunch break at work, finished it, clocked back into work, and thought "I just finished reading a masterpiece". Realistically and thinking back on it a day later, its just a great work of style. 

Pohl is a stylist here. This is New Wave science fiction with a high literary style and voice. This is beyond the 50s and 60s pulp science fiction. More technical, more scientific but in the end its all great made up fiction, which is really the only thing that matters in the end. Never mind all the biological and technological jargon regarding the machinery and the climate/habitat of Mars. Forget how the frog's eyes work. All that is just extra for great writing and great ideas. 

Another important factor is the psychology of the characters involved. This novel is intellectual in a psychological way. None of them are say villains but they ain't saints, especially Roger's best friend, who ends up going to space with him. [you can guess what happens on Mars when that happens] 

This book was so captivating that I could hardly put it down. I finished all 180 pages in two days and was thoroughly satisfied upon completion. Great classic science fiction read, recommended to anyone who loves space, adventure, as well as an intellectually stimulating narrative.

Schismatrix Plus

Schismatrix Plus is a science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, written in 1985. Schismatrix was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1985, and the British Science Fiction Award in 1986. This story is set in Bruce Sterling's fictional Mechanist/Shaper universe. Five short stories that preceded the novel are apart of the Schismatrix Plus edition. The novel by itself without the short stories is simply titled Schismatrix. 

What can I say about this novel? It is simply fantastic and got me more interested in the cyberpunk genre. Sometimes you read a book and something hits you in the head. Bang! This is one of those books. This is an important book. Even a week after finishing the novel I still think about it, the themes and concepts, and especially the ending. 

There's a universe of potential, Lindsay, think of that. No rules, no limits.  

The world of Schismatrix is transhuman. There are Shapers, who use biotechnology and psychology to enhance human potential and then there are Mechanists, who apply AI, and mechanical parts to enhance themselves and become more than human. The Shapers/Mechanists are colonizing the solar system, divided in their two distinct philosophies. 

The book follows the life of a sundog [wanderer, ronin] named Ableard Lindsay, a Shaper with diplomatic training and a brilliant liar, which he uses to great effect. "Before the end of the novel his careers have included being a revolutionary, a theatre producer, a space pirate, a xenodiplomat, a scholar and a prophet." [https://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Art/schismatrix.html] 

"Politics pulls us together, technology pulls us apart".

Throughout the book changes in technology, habitat, economics, and politics change the dynamics of the entire narrative and discourse. There's a similarity here to the Cold War. This was written in 1985 after all, in a different era from mine [2019]. This similarity is shown when the Shapers/Mechanists have problems when they start colonizing neutral zones. 

The changes force people to adapt, their life styles as well as their philosophies. Some people turn to Zen Serotonin, something of a religion where people get high off neurochemical implants. Others are Cataclysts, who think radical change is a good way to open ones' eyes, whether you want it or not. 

The one theme that repeats throughout the novel is that nothing goes as planned. A plan might work out for a little while, but you have to always be prepared to move on, do something else, just in case. 

He mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute. [From the short story Ten Evocations]

Futility is freedom could be seen as the overarching mood of Schismatrix. Its impossible to plan for the future because the everything's always changing. But the chaos is also affected by our actions. 

In the short story Swarm, we find have a group of symbiotic non-sentient species living in a hive society. Through this story we find out that intelligence isn't needed for long-term survival, and sometimes it might not even be desirable.  

Sterling makes me think a lot about what transhumans would really be like. Transhumanism is one thing but when its mixed with politics, ideology, and power it becomes something else. Its not a cheerful thing. The flaws in ideology is the price paid for continued evolution. 

One thing I'd like to say that this book made me feel like a kid again. The Investors [tall, big, reptilian-like aliens, who are more interested in business than anything else] were really cool and I could see aliens really looking and acting like them. The ending where Lindsey becomes one with the Presence was pretty great too. Although the actual writing in the novel is a bit dense the mind-set of the novel is tough-minded, and never lets you down. 

The ideas here are thought provoking and would do well to be explored further by Sterling himself [not gonna happen] or others with similar ideas for the science fiction canon. Sterling seems to suggest that there wont be one posthumanity, but many and tremendously diverse posthumanities. Our greatest enemy might be our inability to handle infinite possibilities. [https://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Art/schismatrix.html]

Spiderman Into the Spiderverse

Spiderman Into the Spiderverse is one of those superhero flicks that you can really enjoy, maybe even more so than Avengers [fight me if you disagree!]. What makes this movie so enjoyable is that it goes into the human mind, the human framework of the superhero. It turns out that what makes superheroes super isn't their powers, but they're inherently human traits and characteristics, and perhaps even their failings. Here, we have a young black/Hispanic kid [just like me], who ends up getting spidey powers after getting bitten by a radioactive spider underground in some sewers.

Its the same old Spiderman story but this kid is a lot different from Peter Parker. His parents want him to go to this preppy smart kids school and he just wants to go to regular city house school. On top of that, he watches as Kingpin kills Spiderman! [Peter Parker] 

Not only that but it turns out that there's a multiverse which Kingpin is activating with the help of Doc Oc's [famous old Spidey villain] daughter, Liev. Once the multiverse is opened up Miles Morales [this movie's main star and Spiderman], ends up meeting a bunch of other Spidermans, and Spiderwomen. It turns out that Gwen Stacy [young girl, high school] is Spiderwoman. There's a steampunk Spiderman with a trench coat who fights nazi's in his world. There's a fat Peter Parker from another dimension where he breaks up with Mary Jane. There's an anime Spidergirl who uses a mech [modeled after Overwatch's D.Va maybe?] And there's even a Peter Porker, a Loony Toons inspired Spiderman who happens to be a talking pig. [Spider pig anyone?]

So the story here is that Miles has to fight Kingpin and shut down the multiverse machine they're running in order to send all these various Spider people back to their own universes. But there's all these problems along the way. Fat Peter Parker has to show him the ropes. He does this by just shoving Miles out into the fray, learning by doing. This isn't something Morales is good at right away. In fact, all the other Spider people think he isn't ready for a job this big and that in fact, Peter Parker should do it. Miles gets upset at this and tells them he will figure it out and do it on his own. Along the way he ends up fighting a villain named the Prowler, who turns out to be his uncle. When he lifts his mask to reveal himself to the Prowler, the Prowler doesn't kill him. When Kingpin sees this, he fires his gun at Prowler, killing him. This is the catalyst for Morales to become a true hero. Life is struggle and contradiction. You must persevere to get to the good stuff. 

So Miles ends up finding the strength and courage within himself to fight the good fight. This is pretty tough for a high school kid. After all, he saw Peter Parker get smashed to death by Kingpin. It could happen to him too! This is the main story and theme of the movie, and it is a great one. It shows you what it takes to become a hero. Sometimes it can take everything. 

The other great aspect of this movie is the computer animation. The colourful, glowing pixels here are astounding, some of the best in the business using today's current technology. Some other great animated movies come to mind; Rango, Incredibles, Big Hero 6, Coco, Wreck-It-Ralph. This movie is apart of long line of other great animated movies. Those pixels were lush man! And all the other Spider people had their own unique animations. The anime girl Spider had a unique anime look and attacks. The pig Spider had cartoon puns and a funny little hammer that he used to fight. [you have to suspend your belief for that one] Heck, even Peter Parker's fat looked realistic. The art style of the movie had a cartoon 3D look to it but it was still realistic. Certain video games come to mind, mainly Overwatch with its graphics. But to debase the art style down to say that it looks like a video game doesn't do it justice. It looks better than a video game. 

The cool thing is that there's going to be more animated films based off this story arc here. At the end, after the credits we see another Spiderman, this guy is named Miguel. Looks like we're going to start seeing a much different breed of supermen and superwomen in the future. More minorities and more women. Looks like Marvel is changing a lot for the better. 

*Puts hand on shoulder of hot girl* "Hey"

Dragon Ball Super Broly

The new Dragon Ball Z Super Broly movie was pretty cool. It became the best selling anime movie on opening weekend. Although I thought the movie was 'good', I didn't think it was great. However, I don't think one should go to an anime movie expecting something to be great, or for it to change your life. You go in, sit down, suspend your systems of belief for an hour or two, and then move on with your life. I'll explain my problems with the movie as well as what made it good. 

First of all, Broly's origin story in this movie is bare bones basic (b-b-b, anyone?). In the original movies they didn't even try to give him a story, which I almost respect more. Instead they explain how when Goku was a baby, Broly was trying to sleep in his Sayian tank, and Goku kept waking him up with all his whining.Then at some point he broke free, and tried to whoop Kakkarot's (Goku) ass. Pretty simplistic, but it worked well.

Here, we have Broly as a vengeance story. Broly is a baby in his tank and King Vegeta sends the baby off-world because he's seen to have such incredible power, that he might destroy the planet and everyone on it! (surprise, surprise, Frieza ends up doing that anyway) Anyways, Perigues, Broly's father ends up high-jacking a ship to Broly's destination. Once there, he grows up with his son on a desolate planet where everything's trying to kill them. 

Fast forward to Super's time period and all of a sudden Frieza's henchmen (not really lackeys, just peeps doing their jobs as Freiza Force members) find Broly and Perigues on said remote planet. They take them to Frieza, who is in awe of finding more live Sayians. His plan, to pit Broly against Goku. 

Vegeta goes up to bat first. At first Vegeta is beating on Broly pretty hard, even just in base form. Then he realizes that Broly is learning how to fight better the longer the first continues, like a true Sayian warrior! Eventually Vegeta has to keep powering up from Sayian 1-2-blue-god form and every time Broly goes down he keeps getting back up. Eventually Vegeta can't take him on anymore. The power within Broly is immeasurable! 

Next, Goku steps up to fight. Its a brutal battle. In fact, Goku gets thrashed around like a rag doll, screaming in agony, which prompted this writer's laughter in the theater. Super Sayian God form isn't enough to take down Broly, who again and again, keeps getting back up, and powering up even more and more!

Goku talks to Piccolo and they come up with a plan. The only way they can defeat Broly is if they do the fusion dance (embarrassing for Vegeta, a Prince), and become Gogeta! (Gogeta is canon now) Once they combine to become Gogeta, they fight Broly in an epic splatter of cartoon pixels and animation. (the best part of the film) 

Before Gogeta can really do bodily harm or dare I say it, [KILL] Broly, the Frieza Force henchmen steal the dragon balls from Freiza's other henchmen and they make a wish. You see, one of them was a girl that really felt sympathy for Broly, and she even stole and broke Perigues' super strong shock collar that he put on Broly, thus the reason why Broly kept powering up more and more, and he (Perigues) had to just let Broly go on like that. 

Anyways, so the girl wishes Broly to be put back on his faraway planet, away from Gogeta, right before a super strong energy blast is shot at him! This shows you that most fights in Dragon Ball are for the ultimate costs and also for no costs at all. (the true lesson of Dragon Ball) Goku ends up using instant transmission to go to Broly and his two new friends (former Frieza henchmen who saved him), gives them a house capsule, food, and says he will come back to train Broly himself. 

One last thing I'll say is that Broly himself is a simpleton. Although the old Broly movies he was even more of a barbarian who couldn't even speak sentences, here he is still simple minded, like a child. His only friend on the planet was a giant monster that tried to kill him, a play for sympathy that works on the audience. I like the idea of Broly being canon, although I don't think his backstory is very interesting. 

One minor complaint I have about the movie is that the English voice acting isn't as exciting to me, nor did I think it was all that great. Give me Japanese subtitles for any anime or anime movie. I don't mind the reading, plus I think the emotional gravitas (or lack there of) is much easier to accomplish in the native language of the artists themselves.

The animation in this movie is some of the best Dragon Ball I've ever seen, especially in a movie theater where you can really see all the pixels flashing across the screen more easily. Early Super animation wasn't very good but now they've got it down to a t. I'm definitely going to watch this movie again in Japanese and see if I like it any better. 

"We are Gogeta." 

Existential millennial crisis

This funny term came to my mind today when I was thinking about all of my friends. Existential millennial crisis. My friends are all in their mid to late 20's and life could be better for all of us. That being said, all of them seem to think that there's more to life, and "I want it. I want more. I want more out of this life. And I'm going to get it. Here's how." And then they proceed to tell me all these plans and solutions to said problem: How do I stay happy and get more out of life? 

There are no easy solutions to this. Its something I struggle with everyday. Part of it is a huge mental leap in positivity that cannot be broken by anything or anyone. This can be impossible for some people who aren't tough enough. You just have to have a tough mental attitude. But the answer for most of them seems to be this: "I'm stuck in a rut in LA. I have to get out of here and have a fresh start somewhere else." 

To that I say that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. If you can't make it in LA and be happy what makes you think anywhere else would make you happier? LA and the Valley is a very happy place with all kinds of people doing all manners of occupations. Living in California has been the happiest years in my life. Moving away isn't going to solve all their problems. Having to find a new job might be rough. Leaving your friends and family will be even tougher. 

I would say it would be better to solve the problem before you jump ship. Fight or flight isn't always the best response, especially when it comes to a millennial existential crisis. This seems to be a huge problem for all my friends right now. I actually feel for them because I don't seem to have these kinds of issues or plans, to run away and start anew. 

Two other friends are in a bad spot as well. One of them is getting kicked out by his landlord by the end of the month and instead of finding room mates right away he's sitting around with his thumb up his ass. He's trusting in God and not worrying about it, but in reality this is something he should be worried about and working on to solve. 

Another friend had the option to live with his father but doing so would mean that he wouldn't be able to play computer games 12 hours a day (he's a gaming addict, a very good gamer). I told him he should live with his dad and stop gaming so much, develop other hobbies such as reading (always my advice to all my friends), but in the end he chose the option where he could play games 12 hours a day. He now lives in a small apartment and shares a room with a 45 year-old man. Sounds just great right? No. In reality he's not feeling the situation, and he probably realized that he made a bad decision. Oh well. That's life. 

I've been thinking about all of this stuff and then thought about my own life. Of course, I'm not making a million dollars nor do I have a girl friend but there's more to life than that, and that's happiness. The one thing I have that they don't is that I'm happy where I'm at in life. This doesn't mean that I'm not going to try to do better, get a better job, perhaps go back to school, find a girl friend, etc. It means that I'm not going to run away from my problems related to my current situation. Instead, I'm going to tough it out and fix things here, where I can think clearly about my state.

You have to figure out your problems and work to fix them without running. Life is a complex shismatrix, it takes a lot of time and energy to figure out how to read between the lines. We live in the best state in the country, with the best weather, with more jobs than most states. Life is good here in the Valley, and I like it here. If you aren't happy and can't be satisfied here then you won't be satisfied anywhere. 

You might think I'm overthinking all of this but actually all this dialogue is helping me to process my friends' emotions as well as my own. Life is tough. Stick with it, don't give up. Strive for better. Persevere. But do it effectively. Don't run, don't go off on your own into the wild blue nether. You might not be as happy as you once were.

Be Tough-Minded In 2019

This is a continuation of my previous post (view here), it was about staying motivated in 2019. Here I'd like to continue that discourse, shifting the motivational stuff to how being more tough-minded helps you achieve your goals. Being tough-minded is difficult and most people aren't naturally this way. However, its a useful skill in the long run that will help you throughout your life.

1) You have to manage your emotions. This goes without saying to most people, especially old people who are much more experienced and evolved, they are true masters of mastering their emotions. When things don't go your way you shouldn't throw a tantrum. Realize that although life is difficult, sometimes you have to suffer a little bit before you can get to the good stuff. When I see co-workers and customers yelling at each other at my work I often think about how these people will never be able to do or accomplish complex things, only just because they can't control their emotions (the price said this and its not ringing up right! fix it while I scream!), and they don't have the patience. Its a shame.

2) Be self-confident. Goes without saying but again, super difficult. Most people aren't born naturally confident. Its a learned skill, especially for me. Even though I'm probably smarter than most of all the people that come to my work (including adults), I'm usually quiet and reserved, to the point that some people even say I need more confidence. Go figure. 

3) Choose who you associate with wisely. I've actually come to the sudden realization that although I love hanging out with my friends, I hang out with them too much. The solution was to spend more time by myself reading, writing, and playing guitar. Absence makes the heart fonder. Also, make sure to avoid sketchy people. Some people aren't worth the time or the effort, especially if they bring you down. 

4) Face your fears and take action. Sometimes you gotta man up and take action. Not feeling work? Ask for some time off. Need to lose weight? Work out more. Want a girl friend? Start asking out girls. Sometimes we think we have all these problems and we dwell over them, but forget about how easy the solutions are. Nike, Just Do It.  

5) Say no when you have to. Tired of your boss calling you in early everyday? Learn to say no. Learn to establish the narrative on your own terms. Tired of helping your co-workers do their own job? Say no to them too. Saying no helps because it shows people that you're not a pushover and shouldn't be approached with unreasonable demands. 

6) Be self-disciplined. You have to work hard to accomplish things. I read a lot of books and blog about them. This alone takes a lot of discipline. Most millennials don 't care much for novels but I'm trying to be a different breed. To be a great guitar player I have to keep practicing, even though I'm currently not playing with any band I still keep up my chops, learn new songs, and am always searching for band members. 

7) Be independent and don't compare yourself to others. You came into this world alone, and you will leave this world alone. That's a bit morbid but in a way its true. You have to learn how to be alone in order to be successful in social situations. In addition, don't compare yourself to others. Just because my friend Jon from high school is a much more successful musician doesn't mean that I should get depressed and dopey. No, instead I'm going to keep working on my chops and keep trying to form a band, and take it as far as it will go. 

Lastly, I'll end with a little story from the other night. I was texting my friend, a not-so-very-good drummer (who can't keep a beat), telling him that I've been getting tired of retail work and that I plan on taking more days off, even if it means I'll lose a little money. He said, "You should do it. You only get to live once and then you die." 

Keep that in mind. Don't let your dreams be memes.

2019 Motivation

Its two weeks into 2019 and like me, you've probably come to the sudden realization that life is tough, and that if you want to keep your new years resolution, and do more, and be better, and accomplish more in life its going to be a mother fucker. Life isn't easy, in fact its hard, and more often than not it sucks. "Life's a bitch and then you die," said the Chairman. This is my riff on Chairman Mao's "life is struggle and contradiction" quote, something my dad told me a few years ago.

I've been having these mini awakenings since 2019 started. 

I have to work out to lose weight. Daily.

I have to stop hanging out with my friends so often. Absence makes the heart fonder.

I have to spend more time by myself, and away from work to smell the roses. Money isn't everything. Money can't buy you love.

I have to work on music more, record more, learn how to use Ableton software to make better drum tracks for my music, and finish learning Sequenza by Berio for classical guitar.

I need to write more and become a better writer. Which I've been working on a lot!

I should learn a new skill, like how I've been doing programming tutorials, just to see if I even like it at first.  

I need to quit and lose any bad habits I have currently.

These are all very difficult things to do. In fact, just for me to realize that if I wanted to achieve my goals, that I had to do all these things, it was pretty damn difficult to accept. There is a cost to everything. Time is an important factor. Energy. Emotion. Drive. Etc. 

So the next time you think about taking time off and away from your 2019 goals remember that life's a bitch and then you die. You might as well make life your bitch and then die on your own terms. 

Go for it. 

January Update--2019

January is here and the new year is already stale. The government is shut down, and 800,000 people are about to miss their first check. If the shutdown goes on past Saturday, it will the longest government shutdown ever. That aside, I've been staying busy. 

I started working out more, mostly cardio. Starting 3-4 times a week, but eventually pushing it to everyday, a mile a day. 

I got a Nintendo Switch, so I'll probably try to get back to going to Smash tournaments, just for fun. 

I've been writing up a storm. I wrote my second short story called  der Weltraumkriegder, a science fiction military story (here). And I'm still reading a lot of science fiction, philosophy (Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations), classics (Iliad), and modern day journalism (miscellaneous).

I'm also learning html, css, and javascript, mostly for fun but also to edit the blog and make it pop, and eventually learn a programming language like Visual Basic. I want to see if I like programming before I try to think I could be a full fledged game designer or something outlandish like that. 

Also still working on music, a lot of jazz and improvisation. But I've also been working on Sequenza for guitar by Lusciano Berio since October. I'm starting to finally get the hang of the piece, but it will still be a while before I could perform it anywhere. 

Life is good! 

China Mountain Zhang

China Mountain Zhang is the debut science fiction novel by Maureen McHugh. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Nebula Award for Best Novel and won a Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. 

The book features several stories from a small group of characters, some ABC (American Born Chinese) and others Americans. The story focuses on the story of a gay Chinese and Puerto Rican man named Rafael Zhang in his non-Chinese context, and when with Chinese people he goes by "Zhongshan, which is written with the characters with primary meanings "center" and "mountain"; the Mandarin name for China also begins with the character meaning "center" or "middle". Thus, "China Mountain" is an alternate reading of his Chinese given name. (Zhongshan is also one of the given names used by Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen.)" (wiki)  

The story is about how Zhang and how these other characters he meets along his path live in a near distant future, where socialism has completely replaced capitalism, in the Cleansing Winds Campaign, going from arrogant outsiders to finding their place in society. A maturation, a coming of age for all involved.


Zhang is almost thirty and he's just got a two year degree as a construction tech in New York. His Chinese boss wants him to marry his daughter, and he would support him so he could go to school in China and get a good job. In this future, China has the best jobs and the richest people. Zhang meets the Foreman's daughter, only to find out that she's very ugly and needs surgery on her face, some kind of bone problem. 

Zhang goes out with the Foreman's daughter but he doesn't get romantically involved, after all he's gay. Shenanigans ensue with the daughter, the Foreman thinks he's been sleeping with her at his place, after she was missing for days after an argument with her parents. 

Some time passes. Zhang decides he's going to study systems engineering in China so he can get a good job and go somewhere in life. He ends up doing a work program in the polar region, where he almost loses his mind among scientists there to study marine biology. The trade off is that if he works there for a couple years, the government will send him to China where he can get a systems engineer degree, and from there either stay in China and work at a big company, or go back to New York, where he could live with friends and family around. 

On another side story we have a sport called kite racing, where humans have been enhanced and ride these body kites, in races. The racers are legends and the spectators watch them race through the skies on a live video feed, which they can 'jack' into. 

This sub-story involves a kite racing woman who is sort of involved with another racer, who's older brother was a racing legend, who died recently. Although most of this section is sort of filler, and ultimately non sequential to Zhang's main plot, there is an amazing description of the kite racing that had me sitting at the edge of my seat. The way the fliers runs through the air with their bodies, with the impending doom of possible death is quite exhilarating. This was the action section. 

On a third side story we have the Foreman's daughter. She just got face surgery and now she's very pretty. She still works at the same company job, and one night a handsome guy talks to her at some bar. He eventually calls her at work and asks her out. He proceeds to take her to the bar, to a party, then swimming. Then he asks her to his place, at first she wants to go home but the guy makes a stink about how much he spent on her and that all he wants is for her to have a cup of coffee. In the end the Foreman's daughter ends up getting raped. This part of the novel was dark, but it could happen to any woman. She ends up not telling anybody about it, and that's that. She never sees the guy again. It puts a very realistic spin on rape, because it sounds like such a real and believable story. Scary.

At the end of the novel we find Zhang has his degree from studying in China, and is teaching systems engineering at a city college in Brooklyn. However, in China Zhang had a boyfriend named Haitao (being gay can get you killed in this future), who ends up killing himself after a late night party goes awry. Another thing to note is that while studying in China, Zhang tutors a student who's living on Mars, and Alexi, the student, challenges Zhang to think about systems in a completely different way, increasing his skills for his work.

Zhang goes to China to check on a possible job but in the end he gets down on China, even though at the beginning of the novel its his dream to be a big shot in China, making the big bucks. In the end he realized that he liked teaching in New York, that he liked being around all his friends and neighbors, and that he's going to stay put. 

Zhang meets the Foreman's daughter at the end of the novel and they have an awkward interaction. When the Foreman's daughter is about to drive off on the train, Zhang says in her ear that it wasn't her, implying that he didn't want to have sex with her because she was ugly, rather that its because he's gay. We don't get to see a reaction from the Foreman's daughter, as the train door closes and rushes away. 

The novel is quite damn good, very good for a debut novel. The writing brings to mind Samuel Delaney, who can write science fiction but is very literary about it. Also, although this novel is considered science fiction, it doesn't use any typical science fiction tropes, nor does any of the characters impact the world around them in a profound way. In a sense, this is a near distant future about people being people. What makes the book so great is that its all very ordinary, the world and the characters. It also must be noted that McHugh wrote this after living in China for a while, and the novels makes use of tons of Chinese words and culture. Some of the cultural stuff I recognized from things my step-father has told me about China.

This was a great Christmas gift from my dad. The book came out in 1992 and it holds up well to this day. Not all first novels are as good as this one for a writer. Good read even if you aren't into science fiction. First book of the new year already finished. Woo!