Rambling On About Anchovies and Art

'Write about what you know' is good advice. So is 'paint what you see.' In my case, though, my mind's eye occasionally sees folks like the ones at that little get-together you see on your right.

They look interesting, but what they're doing - it's the sort of thing that happens occasionally. Someone organizes a little get-together, everything's going fine: and then someone orders a pizza.

The scenario is fine, as far as it goes, but there's not much of a 'story' there. At least, not one that occurred to me.

On the other hand, I've learned that I can usually crank out a weekly snapshot taken from my imagination. That's been showing up on another blog, Apathetic Lemming of the North, hosted by my flannel-wearing alter ego.

My non-fiction writing is chugging along just fine: mostly two posts a week, each Friday and Sunday, on A Catholic Citizen in America.

Okay, I've done the shameless self-promotion — except mention that my art is available as photo and canvas prints, up to poster size; and occasionally on gift cards.

That's at Brian H. Gill's Shop on the DeviantArt.com website. The site's name may be off-putting, but I've found some quite talented commercial and amateur artists there. Not in my shop, though: that's just my stuff.

I had something in mind when I started this post. What was it? Writing, paint, pizza: right!

I'm dusting off an old 'slice of life' idea I had, years back, that might turn into something readable. Then again, maybe not. I won't find out until I give it a try.

From the Mind of the Lemming: Night Flight

Humans are adaptable critters. Or perhaps the Lemming should say "adapting."

For example, although they've got top-rate color vision and see well enough to avoid trees at twilight, humans are most sincerely not nocturnal. But instead of accepting a role as day-dwellers, they keep developing new ways to stay active: no matter where a sun is relative to the local horizon.

They do, however, seem to like feeling "in control," even when the actual work is getting done — and quite well — by their tech.

The Lemming recalls a time when a train's "driver" didn't tell the train's AI that he was stepping out of the vehicle — and ran after the train as it left without him.

Originally posted last week:

• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Night Flight "
  (September 26, 2014)

NO! Don't Shoo... - - - GLIPNARF!!!!

Writing a post for another blog, A Catholic Citizen in America, my mind took me off on an tangent. Nothing unusual there.

It's almost on-topic for that post, but not quite: and the excerpt is a better fit with this blog.

Airman AB Glipnarf's Big Mistake

One of the very few 'UFO' reports that I think could plausibly involve extraterrestrial intelligence happened in northwestern Minnesota in 1979.

No, I do not think this is proof that We Are Not Alone: but the report is intriguing.

As a writer, I can imagine a story from the point of view of the space aliens: deputy sheriff Johnson could have startled the jittery crew of a vessel, maybe one that wasn't supposed to land in the first place. The alien equivalent of an Air Force AB shot at the patrol car before the commander could stop him/her/it: making a bad situation much worse.

What happens to Airman AB Glipnarf may depend on how many forms the commander needs to fill out; and whether the landing was the result of equipment failure, botched navigation, or something else.

Now I really should get back to work.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Seriously Searching for Life in the Universe"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 8, 2013)
• "Genesis, Optimus Prime, and Victorian America"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (April 10, 2012)
• "The Aliens are Coming! The Aliens are Coming!"
  (April 26, 2010)
• "Interstellar Empires, Imagination, and an Occasionally-Sozzled Detective"
  (March 12, 2010)
• "Gods, Demons, and Used Spaceship Dealers"
  (February 13, 2010)