Category: Ramblings

Year of Books, 2018

I saw several posts about how many books had been read in 2018, and I started to put my list together… only to realize it was very, very short. It was only after I moved a stack of books that I had read a lot this year, just not novels. Most of my reading was poetry (or about poetry).

Novels

I can say this, though I only read five novels this year, they are all fantastic, and I recommend them all.

  • Mere wife – Maria Dahvana Headley
  • Dread nation – Justina Ireland
  • Lost Time (Tales of the Lost Book 1) – C.A. Higgins
  • The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms – N.K. Jemisin
  • The Last Firefly of Summer – Robert Ford

Poetry

I’ll start off and say if you aren’t reading Tracy K. Smith, you are missing out. Life on Mars is fantastic. I got The Body’s Question for my birthday from a great friend.

This list also made me realize I bought quite a few poetry books haven’t read them yet…

Poetry

  • The Body’s Question – Tracy K Smith
  • Difficult Fruit – Lauren K. Alleyne
  • Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems – Danez Smith
  • WHEREAS: Poems – Layli Long Soldier
  • Nectar – Upile Chisala
  • New Poets of Native Nations – Heid E. Erdrich
  • Bastards of the Reagan Era – Reginald Dwayne Betts

Japanese Poetry

I started this obsession with The Japanese Haiku Its Essential Nature and History by Kenneth Yasuda. From there, I picked up the Kokinshu, which is one of the first Imperial anthologies of Japanese Poetry. Things may have spiraled out from there…

Yes, I got everything I could that Ueda had written. He had a collection of Basho poems that had translations and commentary which I read last year. Ueda’s Modern Japanese Tanka inspired me to try and write some myself. Far Beyond the Field is haiku by Japanese Women, and Light Verse from the Floating World is full of senryu, a form similar to haiku in shape, but different in tone and purpose.

  • Modern Japanese Tanka – Makoto Ueda
  • Far Beyond the Field – Makoto Ueda
  • Modern Japanese Haiku: An Anthology – Makoto Ueda
  • Light Verse from the Floating World – Makoto Ueda
  • Kokinshu – Rodd and Henkenius (translators)
  • Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology – Steven D. Carter
  • The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse: From the Earliest Times to the Present
  • 1000 Poems from the Manyoshu
  • From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry -Hiroaki Sato
  • Women Poets of Japan – Ikuko Atsumi
  • A Girl with Tangled Hair by Akiko Yosano – Jane Reichhold (Translator)
  • Pepper-pod: A Haiku Sampler – Yasuda, Kenneth
  • Poet to Poet: Contemporary Women Poets from Japan – Rina Kikuchi
  • Modern Senryu in English (English and Japanese Edition) – Shuho Ohno
  • Akane Immigrant Poet: English & Japanese Edition: The Tanka of Mitsuko Kasuga, a Japanese Immigrant in Mexico – Aiko Chikaba

African Poetry

The Amazonian algorithms offered up Fuchsia by Mahtem Shiferraw as something I may like, and after reading the whole preview, I had to agree. Turns out it is part of a seres of African Poetry published by University of Nebraska press, which means there will be even more joining my collection.

  • The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry: Fifth Edition (Penguin Classics)
  • Fuchsia (African Poetry Book) – Mahtem Shiferraw
  • The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (African Poetry Book) – Ladan Osman
  • The January Children (African Poetry Book) – Safia Elhillo

Poetic Non-Fiction

I didn’t finish most of these books, because most of these books are huge. An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry is referenced over and over again in other texts as the primer on this subject.

The second Waka Anthology was my Christmas gift, and I’ve only made it a little way in. It is a college text book on the subject, and the good news is there are going to be several more volumes to follow

  • An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry – Earl Miner.
  • Japanese Poetic Diaries – Earl Miner
  • A Waka Anthology – Volume One: The Gem-Glistening Cup – Edwin A. Cranston
  • A Waka Anthology – Volume Two: Grasses of Remembrance – Edwin A. Cranston

LampLight Submissions

I would be remiss to not call out LampLight submissions as a very large part of my readings. We got about 2,000 submissions this year. There were more great stories than I could publish, and such a wide variety of styles, subjects and points of view.

Here’s to reading more of the ‘to be read pile’ in 2019!

How Reading Wuthering Heights is as Close To Writing a Zombie Novel I’ve Ever Gotten

One of the things you get while working at a bookstore is a wide variety of interesting conversations.

It was Christmas time in 2008 which meant the store was busy all day. To keep ourselves sane during the stressful season, we would often start store-wide (and sometimes even cross shift) discussions. One conversation in particular interested me: of all the characters in the books we read in English class, who would survive the zombi apocalypse?

Names such as Irene Adler, Natty Bumppo, even Tom Sawyer were thrown out there. It was decided early that Mr Darcy wouldn’t make it through the opening scene.

My input was a single person: Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. If anyone was getting through that, it would be him–the bastard.

From here my mind wandered and naturally a story started forming.

You know that second half of that book, the part about the kids… what if it is actually about ZOMBIES…

So, in the midst of holiday bustle I grabbed a copy of Wuthering Heights, a book I had read as a high school senior–a book I had complained about for years after–and, much to the shock and horror of 18 year old me, began to read it again.

First off, it turns out this book isn’t as bad as I remember. There were some things that I noticed, now older. Like, for one, Heathcliff is no where NEAR the bad guy in this thing. Easily that role is Kathy, though Hindley plays his part as well.

Heathcliff, the totally not white kid Kathy’s dad brings home from London, basically just wants to be happy, live like everyone else. Oh, and is completely in love with Kathy, who strings him along all their youth until they are old enough to do something about it, and then she pulls the marrying for station non-sense, which is a not-subtle, not-polite way of saying she can’t marry the brown kid.

Heathcliff, heartbroken after a lifetime of abuse by her family, decides, fuck this, and leaves. We don’t know where, but it is speculated by everyone else that it is off to war.

Comes back years later with a small fortune and nothing but revenge on his mind. Tells them in a very Shakespearean manner that he intends to ruin them all, and the rest of the book is him doing that.

And somehow remaining the best person of the lot.

Like, Hindley at one point, sloppy English drunk, barks at Heathcliff for some non-sense, SHOOTS at him, like with a gun, in the house, BAM, misses, because sloppy English drunk, and Heathcliff is like: there there, drunk man, it is ok, let me take you back up to bed.

I mean, it is because he wants Hindley to suffer, but still.

Anyway, zombies.

So, the book, which was to be called Wuthering Nights if you must know, and you must know, because that title is rad, was going to pick up in the next-gen era, when Heathcliff is forcing the children to marry because then at least someone will be happy in all this mess… which is not what happens, of course.

So instead of awkward family drama, we drop in zombies. They attack the Heights, and Heathcliff realizes that Kathy 2 is all he has left of Kathy, and by God she’s going to survive this.

I’d even figured out how to get the zombies into the mix.

Of course, I suspect you know where this is going. Shortly there after a certain book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was released. There are differences, naturally. PPZ is more light hearted, and intermixed the story inside the original text. I had planned to write a sorta stand-alone retelling of the end of the book. I had also thought to keep it serious and more in the style of the original.

But, as these stories go, as PPZ was announced, my desire to write Wuthering Nights had left. I do not know if the original conversation that sparked the idea came from the ether, or if one of the booksellers had heard about PPZ’s upcoming release.

I do know that Heathcliff would have survived a zombie outbreak.

On Automation

I’ve seen discussion on automation come up, usually in discussions about raising minimum wage for fast food workers. It goes something like this:

“Well, if they raise the minimum wage, then the person will just get replaced with a kiosk.”

A thought which shows a lack of vision in what I see as the actual problem.

I was reading about robots in fast food restaurants, and the comment, which was a few years ago, was that the machines that could assemble your food were going for $40,000 a piece.

Ok, math time. Let’s assume a restaurant is open from 5 AM to 11 PM, which is 18 hours. Open every day of the year. So, 365 days, 18 hours per day, $7.25 per hour minimum wage is: $47,700.

Meaning that we, humans, are already more expensive than that machine. It would take less than a year to pay off.

But that isn’t the real problem. The problem isn’t “they will replace low paid workers with robots” the problem is “they will replace us all.”

When I talk about automation, here is what I mean. The guy who owns the fast food company will hit a button.

“Siri, we need three new stores in Ohio.”

“Yes sir,” Siri replies.

Siri (or whatever the digital assistant is at this time) then searches the areas for where there is land for sale, and cross checks that with any historical trends they have. Finds three plots that will be suitable.

She then tells the A.I. lawyers to draw up the purchasing paperwork. Once the land is purchased, those same A.I. lawyers then submit the planning and zoning paperwork.

The A.I. architects tailor the current designs for the spots, and send the build list back to Siri who purchases all of the necessary raw materials.

Those materials are shipped via driverless truck to location, where robotic construction crews are already waiting. Those crews work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until the store is finished.

Then driverless trucks deliver the internal robots: they make the food, they clean the store, the load and unload shipments.

From there, the store opens, driverless trucks deliver the food, robots process orders and make the food. Hell if you want, their own driverless cars and drones can deliver the food to whoever ordered it.

Oh, and all those robots? Built by robots. We already do that now.

Not a human needed.

The impact alone, economically, of driverless trucks will be immense. Truck driving is one of the last areas where a high school graduate can sustain a middle class life.

Think your job is safe? I doubt it.

Here is another one. You decide you want to watch a movie.

“Siri, I’d like a space western type movie, light comedy, anime style, no make that photo-realistic.”

“Alright, I will let you know when it is ready.”

From there, an A.I. writes the movie script, animates it, renders the movie, and sends it too you.

“I included the novelization for your as well.” Siri proudly says.

When we talk automation, we are talking about taking the human worker out of the equation at nearly every level. Doctors, lawyers, pilots, drivers, builders, even artists, all replaced.

What do we do when there isn’t enough work for everyone? When we can’t afford to buy goods made by human hands because we aren’t paid well enough to support each other?

So when we talk automation, the problem isn’t the kiosk, it never was. The problem is what do we hold valuable–humanity or profits?