My multiple personalities

I have at least three personas that I present to the world. Which one is the real me? Well, all of them, of course.

There is the mild-mannered newspaper editor, just trying to inform the community, touch its heart, and/or occasionally influence a thought or two.

There is the one author, a philosopher and pundit who believes in the power of the individual to change the world. The power of the collective? Not so much. Think Refuse to be Afraid, A Scream of Consciousness.

And there is the other author, a lover and student of pop culture who writes stories about superheroes and spaceships and other fantastic stuff. Think The Imaginary Bomb, Firespiders.

Sometimes there is a little overlap, such as in my book The Imaginary Revolution, which posits a real revolt that overturns a tyrannical government and then refrains from the imaginary-revolutionary tradition of replacing it with another government, which seemingly inevitably begins to repeat the sins of the old one. “Tyrannical government” – I repeat myself.

Weaving through all of these personalities is the lover of my life’s partner, known as Red on these pages, and Willow The Best Dog There Is and the cats, and the sometimes guitar strummer and writer of songs.

Each of us, I suspect, has multiple personalities at odds with each other, competing for dominance and working ever onward toward integration.

Sweeping out the Attic

It's time for one of my interminable efforts to find focus, as the 81st edition of Uncle Warren's Attic hangs tantalizingly in the future of the half-dozen people who may still care.

Slowly this site has evolved into a place where you may find my musings about pop culture, and an occasional podcast, while WarrenBluhm.com has become a repository for everything else.

So what will you hear in Uncle Warren's Attic #81? When will you hear it? Intriguing questions.

Testing, testing

Poke - poke - poke

Scritch, scritch

Is this on?

The return of 'Dylan Hears a Who'

One of the great parody albums in recent memory has resurfaced, five years after it made a splash and then was squashed by lawyers. Check out Dylan Hears A Who online while you can.

Here's a link to a brief history (without the part where the lawyers invaded), the video of the immortal "Green Eggs and Ham" by "Bob Dylan," and links to other tunes.

Do not delay! Who know how long it'll be out there this time?

My Top 10 of 2012

My friend Wally Conger used to have a “Top 10 of the Year” list. It wasn’t the Top 10 songs or the Top 10 movies, it was just the 10 top things he encountered each year. Seems like a good idea, so, in no particular order:

Folks, this ain’t normal. Joel Salatin believes the world is turned upside down. People have lost touch with where their food comes from. Government food safety agents are the biggest barrier to safe, locally produced and healthy food. In the quest for a clean and even sterile environment, we’ve made ourselves sick. This remarkable book changed the way I think, and it’ll do the same for you if you dare.

John Carter. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a series of books 100 years ago that has influenced many many people, a number of whom went on to become scientists and science fiction creators. A century later, this film is one of the best science fiction movies ever made, and the second-best science fiction movie made in the 21st century. Watching it re-ignited my sense of wonder.

Marvel’s The Avengers. Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed the best science fiction film made in the 21st century (Serenity), this year wrote and directed the best comic-book movie ever made. Full of character, good humor and of course loud bangs and crashes, this was the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in recent memory. (Caveat: I didn't see John Carter in the theater.)

A new home. Red and I have been a team for a decade and a half, and this year our partnership led to construction of a beautiful little house not far from the shores of Green Bay. The project occupied most of the year and is not quite finished, but by August it was finished enough. Love built this home, and I love it.

The Self-Publishing Podcast. This quirky weekly visit with authors Johnny B. Truant, Sean Platt and David W. Wright is irreverant, informative and a heck of a lot of fun. I’ve begun to look forward to their weekly romp through what sometimes seems to be a stream of consciousness but always leaves me knowing a little bit more about writing, innovation, design and moving forward.

Scrivener. The SPP boys kept saying this software is the best tool out there for writers, and they offer a 30-day free trial so I figured, what the heck. By the 15th day I gave in and just bought the thing. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but it’s every bit the great tool they said it is.

The Imaginary Revolution. I lost two of my surrogate mentors this year bookending the creation of my new science-fiction novel. Ray Bradbury showed me how to write and inspired me with his enthusiasm, and when he died I realized I’d been beating around the bush too long. A few days after I completed the novel, Zig Ziglar died, the guy who taught me not to get cooked in the squat. Between the house and the novel, this has been one of the most fulfilling years of creativity I’ve ever experienced. I hope Ray and Zig would be proud.

Men in Black 3. I found the first two MIB films with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones immensely entertaining, but you know, I only ever watched either of them once. They entertained me but didn’t make me care enough to come back. This installment made me want to go back to the beginning and pay closer attention, and I definitely want to see this one again and again.

Nancy. The comic strip that Ernie Bushmiller made famous has always been one of my guilty pleasures. It always was sweet and charming and a little goofy, but Guy Gilchrist has injected something more, by making Aunt Fritzi a music-loving child of the Sixties like, well, me. With the recent re-introduction of her old flame Phil Fumble, it looks like Gilchrist is poised to take the strip to a whole new level.

That’s Why God Made the Radio. The Beach Boys album of new songs marking their 50th anniversary of recording is better than it has any right to be. The harmonies are as crisp and supple as ever, the tunes linger the way their best stuff always has, and the project is a fitting finish if it does, in fact, turn out to be the core group’s last effort together. An endless summer, indeed.

Bubbling under the Top 10:

Christmas with the Annie Moses Band. You have to hear this band.

How to Be Legendary by Johnny B. Truant. Common sense advice about being as great as you can.

Thick As A Brick 2 by Ian Anderson. My first reaction upon hearing about this release was “Oh no!” But on actually hearing it, the reaction was “Oh yes!”

The Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. I asked for it for Christmas based on a brief mention in Folks, this ain’t normal, and after 20 pages I can’t wait to start gardening.

I know I’ll think of a half-dozen other cool things I encountered during 2012, but these are the ones that rose in my consciousness this evening. If the year ahead has half as many treasures as this year offered, it’ll be lovely indeed.

Cross-posted to WarrenBluhm.com.

The Imaginary Revolution is here.

On Dec. 15, 1791, the folks who were in the process of establishing a new government ratified a list of prohibitions intended to prevent that government from violating the innate rights of free individuals. It was a bold experiment.

Today, Dec. 15, 2012, in honor of that bold experiment, I formally introduce The Imaginary Revolution, a novel about individuals and governments and violence and nonviolence.

I’m not so vain as to think this little novel about an Earth colony that throws off its shackles is as important a contribution as that list of 10 statements. No, this is just my contribution to the idea that power flows from the individual to the state, not the reverse.

It is my contention that a loving individual committed to nonviolence wields more power to change a world for the good than any state, any use of force, any expression of hatred or revenge.

All 10 tenets of the Bill of Rights are under attack in 2012. All 10 are routinely ignored by the state, and in fact most efforts by the state to restrain the individual are met with cheers and applause. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to be secure in one’s person, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures – read the list and you will be able to think of circumstances where the state violates these prohibitions every day.

Uncle Warren's Attic #80

Welcome to another tour of my mind and my stuff, starting with a modest plug for The Imaginary Revolution and a nod to the late, great Ray Bradbury. We'll hear "Well Met Pretty Maid" by Theodore Bikel and Cynthia Gooding and reflections on Middle English and Geoffrey Chaucer, and then there's the classic "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra, vocal by Milton Douglas.

From there:
"Tea for Two," Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians
"Cocktails for Two," Spike Jones
"Frenesi," Glenn Miller and his Orchestra
"Anything Goes," Kate Capshaw
A taste of Sky King sponsored by Peter Pan
"Frankie and Johnny," Helen Morgan and the Nat Shilkret Orchestra

Click on the pod icon or here to download UWAttic 80. Have fun!

Gorram it, 1984 does not have a happy ending

… it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

THE END

You know about Big Brother – not the reality TV show, the world leader who infused his regime with the principles “War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.”

In George Orwell’s prophetic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith is a guy who works for the Ministry of Truth changing the news. If a certain public figure has fallen out of favor with The Powers That Be, Winston is one of the clerks who goes into past editions of the newspaper and changes anything that might tend to show that figure in a positive life. If he has become an “unperson,” the figure is removed from the public record entirely.

(I always thought that was a little unrealistic – surely someone, somewhere, would still have a copy of the old newspapers with the original record. Or later, surely someone, somewhere would have preserved the original record on his hard drive. But as we move our information farther and farther onto a paperless cloud, the idea of being able to manipulate all past records seems more feasible.)

Winston has a small problem of conscience: He remembers. He knows that the unpersons once existed. He recalls that even though today the government is at war with Eurasia and has always been at war with Eurasia, there was a time when we were at war with Eastasia and had always been at war with Eastasia.

He begins to notice that people are miserable, he sees that life is pretty dreary with Big Brother Watching You all the time, and he begins to believe that freedom would be better served if Big Brother is overthrown. But he also knows that citizens are being tortured and killed for believing that – or at least he is able to make a correlation between their beliefs and their eventual disappearance.

By the end of the book, Winston has come to the realization that he was wrong, that Big Brother really has a benevolent spirit and Big Brother really will take care of him for the rest of his life.

Just one tiny problem.

Are you ready for a little Revolution?

If you've been paying attention to the countdown in the righthand column of this blog, you know it's only a matter of days before the novel The Imaginary Revolution will be published. As my Cyber Monday gift to you, I have prepared a sampling of chapters from the novel to whet your appetite for the real thing.

The story of how Sirius 4 threw off its shackles will be available for public consumption starting Dec. 15, 2012 – Bill of Rights Day – in both ebook form and a handsome, hardcover print edition. This is your opportunity to get a taste of it so you can decide whether to put it on your Christmas list.

The link below (click on the colorful green button with the blue whale) will lead you to a place where you can download a .zip file containing the Imaginary Revolution sampler in .pdf, .epub and .mobi forms. Enjoy! And consider coming back on Dec. 15.


Click here to download your free sampler of chapters from the novel The Imaginary Revolution, scheduled for release on Dec. 15, 2012.

Ron Paul's Farewell to Congress

No one in Washington, D.C., has done a better job than Ron Paul of defining what's wrong with the U.S. government and what needs to be done to fix it. In his "farewell speech" to Congress, he does an outstanding job of summing it all up.

It's a long read but essential to understanding. We ignore this message at our peril.

Here's a link to the transcript and video.

The coming of The Imaginary Revolution

I posted this note this morning at ImagRev: The Imaginary Revolution, where since early summer I have been sharing the first draft of my upcoming novel.

The End – an editors' note

One planet’s journey to freedom has now been told via this blog, from the perspective of Ray Kaliber, who has received much of the credit for bringing about the Commonwealth of Sirius 4. The task that remains for us is to compile these sometimes rambling thoughts into a coherent narrative for you, the reader. Our goal is to make this available for your purchase and perusal on Dec. 15, 2012.

Why that date? This is a story of liberty, and on Dec. 15, 1791, a new nation on Earth ratified a Bill of Rights, intended to affirm the rights of the individual by prohibiting the new nation’s government from violating those rights. In the centuries since, that list of 10 tenets has been the subject of much discussion.

The nation had been forged a few years earlier by violent revolution against a far-off state that had routinely trampled on the rights on the list, as states are wont to do. The Bill of Rights was championed by people not so concerned about that far-off former threat as about making sure the newly formed state never behaved as tyrannically, ensuring that the revolution did not turn out to be an imaginary one.

To release the story of The Imaginary Revolution on Dec. 15, then, is a nod to the anniversary of that revolutionary document. The extent to which Ray Kaliber’s story is relevant to the ongoing discussion is entirely up to the reader.

Watch this blog for updates about how to obtain your copy of The Imaginary Revolution.

Reflecting on the election

There are a number of folks who haven't seen much by way of choices in recent elections; it seems to be the left wing of the Big Government Party versus the right wing of the Big Government Party. Not much there for who believe we would all get along better without a Big Government. Here's Claire Wolfe's perspective on this week's events.