perfidy

This year's winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

In a related vein- a throbbing, purple vein- is the 2006 Goku-Lytton Award for the Worst First Line in Erotic Fan Fiction.

Next year the Ministry fully expects to be competitive in either contest.

Lock S-foils in attack position, and give Jerry hell!

Courtesy of Photoshop Friday at Something Awful.

Today's forgotten punchline:

"What the fuck do you mean, 'the wrong hole'?!"

If you don't know who Frank Frazetta is, you're wrong. You most certainly do know his work; it's been in early comics, movie posters, and about a bazillion book covers. He is perhaps most widely recognized for his graphic rendering of Robert Howard's hero from the time "...between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas":

The Barbarian

Frank Frazetta's Conan is Conan. Every artist in the Marvel stable in the last 30-odd years who has worked on Conan titles takes his cue from Frazetta. And that's OK.

But the man's talent is much greater than as an illustrator; he started on a path to fine art as a very young boy, a path he could not finish through no fault of his own. He can work magic with oils, watercolors, pencil, or naked ink. He's a photographer and a sculptor. After a stroke damaged his right side, he learned how to make art with his left. Thrown to his own devices to make a living he wound up in comics, and we are all better people because of it.

If anyone gets the IFC on their cable, keep an eye out for "Frazetta: Painting with Fire", a documentary about his life, his achievements, and his struggles. The interviews with other artists and filmmakers are no less interviews with fans: Brom, John Buscema, Kevin Eastman, Ralph Bakshi, Dino DeLaurentis; the list is long and distinguished. The net effect is not at all a cloying love fest, but simple and heartfelt affection for the man. And the man himself defies stereotype; no scrawny artsy-fartsy, bespectacled fixture of the comic convention, he. Huh-uh. His powerful frame and personal strength he no doubt translated to canvas in his male figures. The guy had a stroke and is just this side of 80, but still could probably thump me. If you don't have IFC, rent "Painting with Fire".

If you can't rent it, buy it via the Frazetta Museum. Matter of fact, I think I'd like to go there in person. Anyone else up for a road trip to PA? My personal fave below the fold:

Snow Giants

Recently, I have been reading the delightful and sanguinary webcomic, "Schlock Mercenary." Amidst the many treasures to be found there, there is this, quotes from the self-help manual The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates:

1. Pillage, then burn.
6: If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
8. Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock.
9. Never turn your back on an enemy.
12. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.
13. Do unto others.
16. Your name is in the mouth of others: be sure it has teeth.
27. Don't be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
29. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.
30. A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.
31. Only cheaters prosper.
34. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
35. That which does not kill you has made a tactical error.
36. When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support.
37. There is no "overkill". There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload."
n. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow.
n+1. Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it can't be hard on your clients.

If you are unfamiliar with the Schlock Mercenary universe, you can start here. And on your way out, ponder these last three nuggets of existential Schlock wisdom:

On a scale from 'that's not free checking' to 'heat death of the universe', I'd say we're looking at 'the enemy has a superweapon we can't track.'

Somebody sounds stressed, and I think it's a me!

'Minimal collateral damage' and 'Entire star system' do not belong in the same sentence

Today's forgotten punchline:

"Terrific! But where'd you learn to screw like a Jap?"

Watch as a writer wrestles with his harshest critic, his inner Gary Busey. Happily, I chose as my inner critic Chris Farley. While he's large and loud, he is also essentially a fat dope, and can be ignored when necessary. Not like Gary Busey. That guy's creepy. Just watch his show. He is right about the clowns though.

[wik] And really, I want to go to the Japanese Baseball and Samurai University.

Ministry Crony and recent comment grouch Phil has a fascinating post discussing opening shots in movies. He, and the people whose idea he stole, are really on to someting here, as this is truly a crucial aspect of film making. A good opening guides expectations as well as setting the stage for what follows. One of my personal favorite openings is the beginning of Raising Arizona. (The Coen brothers are genii at this - the openings of Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou? are excellent as well.) Raising Arizona's opening is long, but brilliant. Characters that have no role in the rest of the movie nevertheless set the stage for the drama that follows. Like the growling floor-mopping con. And the cellmate who discusses the fine art of making crawdads. And the transgendered inmate in the group therapy session. The narration, by Nicholas Cage (in his last good role) as H. I. McDonough, sets a marvelous tone to the whole movie - elevated language, redolant of the Bible and Shakespeare, combined with lower class speech. This is mirrored by the use of Beethoven's Ode to Joy recast as mountain yodeling. All in all, a near perfect opener.

However, the good opening does not guarantee a good movie. I once saw a Steven Seagall movie - the first, I think, though I can't remember exactly. This was before the dumpy martial arts hero became ever present, and certainly before he became the darling of the straight-to-video set. Anyways, the opening of this movie was tight - it had a convincing sense of verisimilitude: real-seeming CIA types in a jungle locale, violence, intrigue. My friend Jon turned to me and said, "This is going to be good." Immediately thereafter, Seagall appeared onscreen and the movie promptly went utterly to shit. The tightly edited and focused opening morphed into sloppy and garish action shots. The plot hinted at turned muddy and incoherent. The actors in the opening sequence didn't appear again. It seemed as if the filmmakers had found this awesome short movie, or an opening to a movie that was never finished, and grafted it onto their shlockfest abomination.

Anyway, go read Phil's bit, and follow the links.

I am disapointed with the lack of gore, though.

This brings to mind an idea I had a long time ago, to make a short film that would use some Star Wars footage. It would be called the "Sithlord Management Training Video." I even had a script. Alas, I'd need to actually film the half I didn't steal. Unless I found some actual management training videos. Then, I could just edit them together. Hmmm...

[wik] Oh, and I lifted this from Murdoc, who is going on vacation. Something about a brother's wedding. How irresponsible can you get? Where will we argue about battleships? Instapinch and Nicholas will be guest blogging, so hopefully they'll take up the slack. I guess Murdoc didn't want a thousand posts about UAVs, else he would have invited me.

For your amusement, the F3ll0wsh1p of teh R1ng. For teh n00b sux0rz, here are some resources to help you gain 1337 reading skillz.

Gary Farber has a better idea for the fourth Indiana Jones pic. Granted, we don't know what they have in store for us. But whatever it is, it probably sucks. Gary takes a dark corner of the Nazi era, shines a light in it, and shows how we could make fabulous entertainment out of it. He also links to Charles Stross, who stands supreme on my list of favorite writers. Stross' book Atrocity Archives discusses some of the same subject matter from a different direction entirely. I suggest to Gary that you read that book instantly, and really, anyone else as well. Unix guru meets Lovecraftian horror. You can't beat that with a stick.

But back to the main point. Indiana Jones. Nazis. Objects of power. Raiders of the Lost Ark tapped into something wonderful. The thirties, Nazis, the Lost Ark of the Covenant - it all blended together perfectly. It was all those comic books we should have had, all the serials we half remembered watching on Saturday afternoons that never were really that good. Other movies have tried to capture that feeling, with varying but typically small success. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow got the the alternate thirties technology, and noir feel. The Phantom was frankly pathetic. Disney's The Rocketeer (which I just saw on cable last night) was surprisingly good, though lacking in grit. To be expected of a Disney flick, but still overall a good effort. [Side note: my father, noted historian and old car collector, pointed out that in the street scenes in Rocketeer, all the cars will be of the same make. It might change from scene to scene - Buicks on this street, Chevies on the next, but typically a lot of uniformity. The reason is that production companies in need of old cars for scene dressing typically hire old car clubs, and for ease in logistics, will have a club supply all the cars for a single scene.]

The only book I've ever read that captured all the elements for kick-ass thirties adventure was a Doc Savage book. Violence, Nazis, retro-high-tech, noir atmosphere, strange locales, the whole panoply - but I lost it and can't remember the title or even author. An author could have a lot of fun writing a tale like that.

Just think of the elements you could include:

• Nazis - but even better, real Nazis like the Ahnenerbe that Gary talks about.
  
• Soviet agents, because they always get left out of these stories, and were fully as evil as the Nazis.
  
• Gangsters. Hey, why not? They add period color, and will certainly ally with a patriotic hero to fight Nazis and Commies.
  
• Strange technology. You get some real bonuses with a film on this one, thanks to being able to show cool art-deco/industrial gothic designs. But even so, in a book you could have - just for starters - airships, autogyros, jets, jetpacks, electro-mechanical computers, wrist radios, Tesla-style super weapons, rockets, atomics, sheesh, all kinds of fun.
  
• Mystical objects. To be sure, two of the best ones are already taken. But there are others, even if you stay within the western tradition and avoid the pitfalls of the second Indiana Jones flick.

Stir that into a pot, and smoke it. Fun for the whole family.

Brew #10 - St. Anky Dark Ale

Anyone meow remember the great American film "Super Troopers" meow?

6.6 lbs Munton's liquid malt extract, light.
3/4 lb crystal malt, 40L
1/4 lb chocolate malt
1/4 lb black patent malt
1 oz Eroica hops, 12% AAU (bittering)
1/2 oz Hallertau Mittelfreuh hops, aroma
1 oz Hallertau Mittelfreuh hops, flavor
1 packet Safale S-04 dry ale yeast (Whitbread strain)

Steeped specialty grains in 1 gallon filtered tap water for 60 minutes at 155-160 degrees. Meanwhile, brought 3 gallons filtered tap water to boil in kettle, and added steeping water. Rinsed grains off well. Added malt extract at the boil. Returned kettle to boil and added Eroica hops. Added 1/2 oz HM hops (real German ones) for the last ten minutes. Added 1 oz HM (real German ones) for the last minute. Nummy num num num.

Removed kettle to ice bath with 30 lbs ice and a couple freezer packs. Added 1 gallon 50 degree water to the fermenter, and added wort, filtering out the trub using the showercap-like contraption I have. Poured back and forth between kettle and bucket to aerate wort. I tried an experiment this time - I sprinkled the yeast into the bucket when most of the beer was in the kettle, and let the turbulence of pouring the beer back in dissolve and disperse the yeast. Twenty minutes later, I shook the bucket some more to make sure the yeast was fully distributed throughout the wort.

I was going to use some liquid ESB yeast for this brew, which probably would have been very good, but there were two reasons not to. First, the batch was a little old, and I wasn't totally confident of getting a good fermentation from the yeast. Second, since I was using Hallertau hops I wanted to have a crisper finish than the softness of ESB yeast would afford. Whitbread should do very well on that count.

This is basically a rerun of Brew #2, which I called a porter. I mean, it was a porter, but lighter than the usual American porters that are around these days. Generally people use roasted malts for the browned, toasty flavors they impart, and I haven't really done that here. Moreover, I tend to like a lot of hops with this grainbill, more aroma hops especially than are really acceptable for the porter style. So, I've decided instead that what I'm making here is more of a Dark Ale. Why the hell not? My Brew #6, Joey Porter, was more in the porter style since I used a bit of darker crystal malt as well as a London Ale yeast that offered nice, round, soft, and minerally notes. It's amazing how basically the same exact grainbill can taste completely different using a different strain of yeast, even if both strains are from the same region of the same country. I love yeast.

I love yeast.

[wik] Ok, so not great. The yeast was nice, but high-attenuating, and the quarter pound of black malt came through too much. Also, the very estery and fruity flavor profile completely hides any hop aroma. I'd need to use some flavoring hops and a load of aroma hops to get a hoppy nose out of this. Worst of all, the batch was contaminated and I had to dump the last case before the bottles blew. Dang dang dang dang.

Holy shit! Johno's posting again! I thought he was dead! Shuffled loose this mortal coil and joined the heavenly choir! Deceased! Defunct! An ex-pundit!

In troof, I was merely... resting. And I do have lovely plumage.

The fact of the matter is, I started a new job a few weeks ago that has monopolized all my daytime brainspace, and have been moonlighting in a gig that has taken up the rest. So, sorry everyone. It's Friday, I'm dead-dog tired, and I'm drinking a homebrew.

And in a bizarre peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate moment, I have made a discovery.

Two weeks ago I bottled my latest pale ale. The first couple were absolutely delicious. Go me!

The third, that's where it gets interesting. Remember my Belgian Ale? Well, an unsanitized bottle from that batch that I poured and merely rinsed out must have made it into my batch of sanitized bottles on bottling day. Because the beer I am right now drinking is fascinating, an American pale ale with the crisp bite of Chico ale yeast and the soft citrus notes of Cascade and East Kent Goldings hops, and the spicy tang of Belgian ale from the oopsie-left-over yeast in the renegade bottle. Apparently that Belgian yeast is a fierce competitor, because it's what did the work of fermenting the priming sugar and left its very prominent stamp on the beer as a result.

I have to say, for this being a real no-no in homebrewing terms and proof positive that my sanitation could be better, it's one hell of a delicious mistake. Seriously, next time I might do this on purpose just for larfs, because folks, my mistake is goooooood.

From NDR at The Rhine River I discover that someone has gone to all the trouble of assembling a list of the twenty five best American novels of the last quarter century. Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the Times Review of Books, sent out a letter to writers, critics, and other literary muckety-mucks and asked them to name the best American Novel. The results are striking. First, I've read three of them, including number one. Second, I've read three times more of these novels than NDR. And third, to paraphrase JBS Haldane, "I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of Phillip Roth."

Big Daddy 2x4, another milblog alumni, links to something that will, I'm sure, suck hours of my increasingly high billrate time. If I blow an afternoon looking at this, somebody owes me money. A lot of money. But if you work at McDonald's, your opportunity cost will be much lower. So go check out Make Magazine, and learn how to make shit.

Forgot to mention, ArmyWife also has a cool link to Plan 59, the museum (and gift shop) of mid-century illustration.

At the Milblog conference a little while back, I met Deborah and Mike from the War Tapes. Deborah had the idea of giving cameras to soldiers, and Mike was one of the soldiers of the New Hampshire Guard who took one to Iraq. I had a great time sitting with Mike at Finn's waiting on his food (for over an hour) and talking old cars and motorcycles. I've watched some of the clips they've released as teasers, and it looks like its going to be a remarkable film. Their movie premiered at the Tibeca film festival to acclaim, and now it will be opening around the country. New York will get it on the 2nd of June, and Washington, Boston and SF on the 30th. You can believe that I will be at the opening here in DC. (Johno, I recommend you see it as well up there in beantown.)

But apparently some people don't get it. Andi of Andi's world reports that some in the mainstream media are less than enthusiastic where the film grates up against their ideological filters.

[wik] On a completely other and rather inconsequential note, I am pleased to finally have a reason to use the "War" and "Entertainment" categories at the same time.

Via a afterthought at Dean's World, the theory of Advancement, or why Val Kilmer and Lou Reed are the world's greatest artists, and Neil Young isn't.

Two-Cycle Cream Ale

4 lbs dry malt extract, light
1 lb rice extract solids
4 oz Crystal malt, 10L
4 oz Crystal malt, 20L
1 oz Perle hops, 7.8% AA (bittering)
1.5 oz Liberty hops, 3.8% AA (aroma)
1 packet SA-56 American ale yeast (dry)

Since summer is coming, I decided to make a decidedly light and dry-finishing beer with moderate bitterness and a light hop nose. Lawnmower beer! I used a pound of rice extract in place of some of the barley malt extract to both lighten the body and dry out the finish, and added a good amount of Liberty hops to provide the floral, crisp nose I'm after. Basically, I'm after a homemade version of Ballantine's or Genesee Cream Ale but with, you know, flavor.

Procedure:
Brought 2.5 liters (10 cups) water to 160 degrees, added the Crystal malts in a muslin bag, and held at temperature for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, began to heat 3.5 gallons water in brew kettle. Swished grain bag around in brew kettle to get all the sugars out of the malt, and discarded. Added crystal malt tea to brew kettle and brought to boil. Turned off heat, added dry malt extracts and Perle hops, and set the boil clock for 60 minutes. Added Liberty hops for the last 5 minutes..

Removed kettle to bathtub with water and 35 pounds of commercial ice. I had the temperature in the kettle down to 79 degrees in about 40 minutes.

Added one gallon of chilled spring water to fermenter bucket. Added wort, and topped up to 5.25 gallons (approx) with some more spring water. (I like to add a little extra water to my recipes to make up for what I'll lose to the yeastcake and general inefficiency in the racking and bottling process. It makes very little difference to the final flavor, in any case no difference that I'd ever notice.) Poured back and forth between kettle and bucket to aerate wort, and pitched yeast at 69 degrees.

Here's the description of the yeast I'm using: "Produces well balanced beers with low diacetyl and a very clean, crisp end palate. It accentuates the hop flavors and is extremely versatile. Sedimentation is low to medium, and final gravity is medium."

I don't think I'll put this one in secondary fermentation. Although it would probably benefit from a couple extra weeks conditioning time off the yeastcake, I don't want to risk oxygen-damage or contamination upon transfer to the secondary vessel. In a beer this light, any off-flavors have nowhere to hide. Also, I'm running low on beer in the cellar, and it'd be really nice to be able to enjoy this batch a month from Friday.

This recipe is very similar to the Cream Ale kit recipe that my beer supply store sells. The only difference with theirs is they use even lighter Crystal malt (3 degrees Lovibond, the very lightest) than I do, plus some Carapils malt. Also called Dextrin malt, Carapils doesn't contribute sweetness as much as it contributes unfermentable starches that give a beer some body. In a cream ale, that would be very welcome: as long as this recipe works well, next time I'll use his grainbill and some spicy German Tettnanger hops for the nose.

[wik] On bottling, the beer is very good - light malt sweetness upfront with nice soft spicy complexity from the hops, and crisp and dry on the finish with more hop notes. Pretty much exactly what I was going for. It might be a shade too bitter - not a dealbreaker, especially since Perle are a fairly polite bittering hop, but we'll have to see how things develop in the bottle.

Primed with 4 oz corn sugar at bottling.

[alsø wik] The final estimation was "ok, not great." I would have done better to use a cleaner ale yeast, like a Kolsch or Chico strain, and some more flavor/aroma hops.

While reading something else entirely, I learned a very welcome fact. If the second Death Star was actually as close to Endor as it was depicted in Return of the Jedi, that is, a miles-wide sphere of metal, advanced polymers, and vast nuclear and future-tech reactors orbiting a mere 500 miles above the surface of the moon, then the debris and radiation fallout from its destruction almost certainly sterilized the planet and killed all the Ewoks still living there shortly after the Rebel forces departed. In an ideal world, Jar Jar Binks and his family would have crash landed on the far side not long before this incident.