Blog – Page 48 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

August 17, 2013

Stratagies

I don’t like riding with other bicyclists. I groan under my breath when I overtake one in my commute. I like being alone. Another bicyclist adds speed issues, competition issues and passing issues. Which is why I groaned Friday on the ride home as I passed under the 1792 railroad bridge, banging along on the southbound sidewalk, spotting a guy way up ahead, also on the sidewalk, also on a bike. My route varies from his at this point. As soon as I’m past the car lot, I’ll swing off the sidewalk and cut a half-block west, running the N-S […]

August 18, 2013

Astounding Stories July 1931 (Review)

Another dip with the iPad Kindle reader in the pool of Project Gutenberg, this time a pulldown of Astounding Stories, July 1931. Astounding Stories was the pulp monthly that later grew and grew, becoming Analog, whose existence, with the closing of our local scifi shop and the general inability of the current generation to read anything longer than 144 characters, is a fact just short of amazing these days (yes, monthly for eighty years). So it’s a nifty and back-laughing view of the “past’s future”, six stories of plucky heroes (all of them men, all of them sterling and bold, […]

August 22, 2013

Writing hazards (DOG EAR)

I‘ve mentioned my favorite writing place, right HERE. This is where I do my blogs and short stories, as well as anything else I pen-name out onto the web. It’s a perfect place for breaking one lousy work day into two small half-days. I get a boost of creativity and lose myself in my art. Perfect. But there are dangers. The other day, I was writing right from the seat shown in the piece above, nobody around, a clear and perfect day. I was just wrapping up my writing for that day, scanning the last paragraph to make sure everything […]

August 25, 2013

Sketches Old and New (Review)

Mark Twain’s Sketches Old and New, first published in 1882, is an anthology of his earlier works, sweepings and scrapings of his various observations and lampoonings from thirty years as an editor and writer. In that, it’s very interesting how similar it is to the collections other artists might offer today. Among them are observations of specific professions (watchmakers, barbers, doctors, chambermaids and newsroom hangers-on), races (Irish, Chinese, and those who bait them) as well as stand-alone bits. That Twain was anti-government is apparent in his many mockeries of its massive size and complexity (even for its day, particularly in […]

August 28, 2013

OpsLog – LM&O – 8/28/2013

The heat’s on! I’m in the dispatching chair tonight. We’ve got a full house of operators and a cameraman from a local PBS station doing a piece of the various clubs. I don’t want to kill anyone on camera – how embarrassing that would be, but I don’t want to stall the railroad with over-caution. So I’m pushing iron and getting things moved. Harris Glen’s been reworked. The high summit’s got a a main, a short siding, and an even shorter station track (like a siding, but right along a station platform). Two passenger trains (Silver Bullet 1 and 2) […]

August 29, 2013

Ask Amy I (DOG EAR)

Dear Amy: I recently published my first book. Although it is fiction, a lot of the events and characters are based on my real-life experiences and the main character is based on me (though her actions are very different from mine). I wrote the book under a pen name because I was afraid of negative feedback, but I told a few friends who I thought I could trust. One of these friends, however, does not like the way I portrayed a character that I loosely based on her… I read this in the paper’s advice column the other day and […]

September 1, 2013

Get out of our Skies (Review)

This short story was Astounding, literally. It came from Astounding Stories in 1957. And I’ll say why I had so much fun with it in just a moment. First, the story. Advertising Exec Tom Blacker just pulled a boner – his attempt to literally light up the Manhattan skies with a giant image of an actress/client produces the buzz he’d hoped for (and the fallout he’d not anticipated, when the civil authorities pressure his boss to can him). Now without work, he allows a pretty skirt to lead him to Homelovers, Incorporated. Now, Homelovers is a real-estate conglomerate with a […]

September 3, 2013

Dark stories (DOG EAR)

I‘m going to stay apolitical here, which is tough. In the midst of the 2013 Government Shutdown, you’d have to be a doorknob to remain apolitical. But we’re looking at stories here, storytelling and the art of foreshadowing, convincing, of setting moods and moving hearts. And it’s happening faster-than-light these days. We’ve all heard the story – A group of minty one veterans came in on an Honor Flight to visit a memorial, only to find it closed from the shutdown. They crash the gate, and now there are cameras aplenty and politicos circling like vultures. This is spin-time, a […]

September 5, 2013

Ask Amy II (DOG EAR)

Part II of a series that started with THIS. Instead of coming to me with her concerns she has written an online review that is more of a personal attack on me than a review of my book. She has accused me of “viciously attacking” her, of “not being over my jealousy of her”, and “needing counseling.” None of this is true. I used to feel jealous of her, but the jealousy my fictional character has is much exaggerated from what I actually felt. How can I convey to her that while this fictional character shares many of her attributes, […]

September 8, 2013

The Fencing Master (Review)

My book. A book about me. Don Jaime Astarloa is a Fencing Master in 1866 Lisbon. He is growing older, his moves slower. Worse, his clientele is dwindling, not wishing to invest the time into an art that is no longer serving a purpose (pistols are becoming more common). Everything Don Jaime believes in: honor, nobility, the monarchy, the way things were and should be, all that is slipping from him. But Don Jaime (like myself) has decided to maintain himself in his own graces, fixed in his belief of right, of the narrow path and why he should maintain […]