What’s In The Box?!

Before we were all nailed up inside our houses (and no doubt in the future, when we’re finally unleashed), there has been much concern about the slow replacement of the workforce by machines.

Look upon the fate of the early cinema musicians and prepare yourselves…

It’s neat, but can you imagine stuffing one in a pocket so you could listen to music while jogging?

Today’s pen: Sheaffer Taranis
Today’s ink: Herbin Violette Pensée

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Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
23 November 24 November 25 November 26 November	Edits for “Palmer’s Folly” Second draft of “Hobb’s Landing”.	Appearing in NewMyths.com on 15 December (!!!)† STILL, MORE, AGAIN, yes.	Parker 51 Pilot Vanishing Point Pelikan M600 TWSBI Vac 700	Montblanc Racing Green Namiki Blue Krishna Pakeezah TWSBI Blue-black

† Rest assured that I will be slathering links around the place when the next issue goes live. Yes, another story of mine is getting publication. It actually sold quite some time ago, but I thought it best to keep it sub rosa it was about to come to full ripeness.

And I nearly stuck with that, too.

Stranger Than Fan Fiction!

Let me start thus: I am not in the Elon Musk Boosters Club. I think it’s great that he’s shoving electric cars down the invisible throat of the free market, and the self-recovering rockets of SpaceX are both economically sensible and really neat… but I also think that allowing these achievements (which, as much as he may have been the Man With A Vision, he had plenty of help with from loads of other and probably smarter people) to spackle over some of the inevitable problems a human being contain. Especially a human being with vast wealth. That stuff unbalances the brain juice.

That said, I am a great fan of Gerry Anderson.

The other thing I honor SpaceX for is making prophets out of all the film makers from the 1950s and ’60s who simulated the landing of a spacecraft simply by running some stock footage of a V2 launch backward.

Today’s extremely futuristic pen (based on a design from 1963) pen: Pilot Vanishing Point
Today’s VidiColour! ink: Namiki Blue

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
16 November 17 November 18 November 19 November	Second draft of “Hobb’s Landing”.	Um…†	TWSBI Vac 700 Pelikan M600 Parker 75 Sheaffer Taranis	TWSBI Blue-black Krishna Pakeezah Edelstein Olivine Herbin Violette Pensée

† This is a tricky question, given that I’m usually changing from hand-written to compu-typed in the second draft, but this time it’s all the latter. This means that I wasn’t keeping track of the amount of change happening, and since it’s add-remove-replace-add-move the quantitative difference from beginning to end it almost meaningless.

But I got some work done, for a change.

Opposed by Tyrants

A feature preceded by a short today.

The short is founded on two things– my personal interest in getting an electric vehicle, and the arrival last weekend of snow. Loads of it. About 30% of what we got in the whole of the previous winter.

Although joining in the ribbing of those who insist “you’ll never get one of those started in the winter,” I quiver with seething jealousy. This is tempered by my willingness to wait for the VW van to appear in a year or so.

The feature is something I’ve wanted to see for ages and could never find, and then like a bolt from the blue, there it sits, trembling in the clutches of the YouTube algorithm. You probably won’t be able to get through it in a lunch break.

The cunning simulation of tens of thousands of troops was achieved by borrowing tens of thousands of troops from the Soviet Army (who, having not gotten mired in Afghanistan yet, were at loose ends) and training them in early 19th century drill and maneuvers.

I was also frequently struck by how much Christopher Plummer looks like Peter Cushing. I kept expecting a formation of Draculas to wheel across someone’s flank.

Today’s pen: TWSBI Classic
Today’s ink: Jentle blue-black

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
9 November 10 November 11 November 12 November	Preparing and launching submissions. Contemplation of sacrifice and the wretched yet often unavoidable foolishness of armed conflict. Background work on my site.	With negative returns, another couple. In keeping with the day.	Parker 75 Pelikan M600 Pilot Vanishing Point Sheaffer Taranis	Edelstein Olivine Krishna Pakeezah Namiki Blue Herbin Violette Pensée

I had thought to get some writing done yesterday, but I put all my creative into getting pictures of pens and ink bottles all prettied up for the site, of which the only visible effect is the functional link to Namiki inks above.

A Fine Day

Because I am a fiend in human shape, I’m going to let you seek Part II on your own.

Today’s pen: Pelikan M600
Today’s ink: Krishna Pakeezah (another one not on my site– this will take you someone else reviewing the ink at some length).

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
2 November 3 November 4 November 5 November	Yet more damnable trivia Preparing and launching submissions	Heaps. Three of them.	Pelikan P1 Sheaffer Valiant Tuckaway Parker 75 TWSBI Classic	Diamine Bilberry Diamine Evergreen Edelstein Olivine Jentle blue-black

 

Why, yes, I am slightly concerned that this is that Writers’ Block we hear so much about. But it’s also just as likely to be a confluence of stress of personal and international sorts, and since the US election seems to be going both in a hopeful direction and without open insurrection, easier breathing should be just on the horizon.