After 1,817 days and 2,161 posts, this is the last entry I will write in this weblog. We’ve had an awesome time arguing politics, religion, and philosophy, but the time has come to move on.

In fact, the time has already come and gone. Which is why if you venture over to FluidImagination.com, you’ll find an entirely new website dedicated to the craft of creative writing. It includes an archive of my stories and poems, a collection of my theories on writing, and a library of my book reviews.

While this blog served as a virtual soapbox where I could spout off on whatever topic captured my interest, the new Fluid Imagination aims to be the online home of a professional creative writer. Its intended audience is the student, the appreciator, and the craftsperson of creative writing.

I suspect that in the near future I will suffer from blog withdrawal. I will come across some article in the NY Times and I will think to myself: I must comment on this, or at the very least, I must make sure that other people read this. The world must know this!

When that happens, I hope I have the strength to shrug it off, or failing that, that my wife has the patience to put up with my opinions. I also hope that the “Share This” button on Google Reader and Facebook will satisfy my need to link, link, link!

The one thing I hope doesn’t happen is that I start a new blog (or bring this one back to life). If I start a new blog, I hope that it stays focused on the craft of writing: that it links to articles on writing, contains posts about writing, and attracts an audience interested in writing.

Because that is what Fluid Imagination has, at its heart, always wanted to be about: the act and craft of writing.

I can’t thank you enough for following along for the last five years, and for making all those comments and posts that added so much life to our little corner of the Internet.

Before I sign off for the very last time, I want to say thank you to…

• Justin Kinney, who contributed close to 1,000 comments, and who never failed to speak his mind or provoke discussion;
• Adam Champion, who acted as my semi-silent partner for the past five years, prodding me in Instant Message conversations, phone calls, and real live dialogues to make the site better, better, and better;
• Shawn Callahan, who wrote more posts (53) than any other official contributor (the next highest number was 17), and who contributed a ton on the design-side of the blog;
• Jessica Haley, who served as an infinite source of good will and appreciation;
• Leigh O’Connor, who made more comments than even my semi-silent partner did, contributed the second-highest number of original contributions, and always knew how to make me laugh;
• David Rosen, who gave the site a shot in the arm over the last couple of years;
• Josh Bloom, who was always willing to answer my neophyte programming questions;
• Eliot Johnston, who kept prodding me to remain “The Master of the Internet”;
• And of course, Dawn, who is the end all and be all of my world.

I’d also like to thank all the other contributors who made the Fluid Imagination community what it was: Alex Hunley, Angie Szarenski, Brendan Callahan, Connie Callahan, Dan Scarpati, Dovev Levine, Mark Schwartz, Sam Turk, Teddy Haggerty, Val Dumais, Will Shoemaker, and everyone who has ever left a comment.

Thanks for listening. FluidImagination/blog is dead. Long live Fluid Imagination.

The rules of the game: Using only song names from one artist, cleverly answer the following questions:

Pick your artist: Wilco

Are you a male or female: Jesus, etc.

Describe yourself: Dreamer in my dreams

How do you feel: I’m always in love

Describe where you currently live: In a future age

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Your favorite form of transportation: Walken

Your best friend is: Via Chicago

You and your best friends are: The Late Greats

What’s the weather like: On and on and on

Favorite time of day: A magazine called sunset

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Wishful thinking

What is life to you: Either way

Your last relationship: Leave me (like you found me)

Your fear: What good am I?

What is the best advice you have to give: Hell is chrome

Thought for the day: I’m the man who loves you

How would you like to die: Tried and true

Your soul’s present condition: Far, far away

Your motto: You never know

In the last couple days, we’ve received comments from people who have never left any comments on Fluid Imagination before. At first glance, that would be pretty cool, since I love when new people join the conversation. But if you look a little deeper, things seem a little odd.

First, the commenters are using the names of people who have long belonged to our little community, specifically, Justin, Adam, and Leigh (all names that appear in the Top Commenters widget in the sidebar).

Second, all the commenters names are linked back to what would seem to be commercial web sites: Texas Poker Zone, Fast Car Insurance Rate, Politics Can Be Tedious (commercial?), Rochester DJ, and Teeth Whitening At Home.

Now normally, I’d just delete the comments straight away because they would appear to be comments left by just a regular old spam-bot, but these comments are actually relevant to the post they’re being left on, and they’re written in a tone that has more personality than a typical spam-bot.

This makes me think that someone is actually on the site, reading posts and leaving relevant comments, but all under the employ of some spam-like company.

If this is true, then there’s a chance that you — Mr(s). Spammer — are reading this, and I’m just wondering if you could share some of the details of your gig, because it sounds kind of interesting. What do you say? Wanna come out of the shadows?

As has been noticed and talked about in the past month or so, things are awfully slow here on Fluid Imagination. In the next few days, I’ll put together a post to explain what’s going to happen next for this site, but in the meantime, if you miss all the little Asides I used to post (i.e., the links to other articles around the web), you might want to stop checking Fluid Imagination and instead direct your browser to Kyle’s Shared Items on Google Reader.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Sony Walkman, BBC Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. Here’s a taste of what the kid wrote in Giving up my iPod for a Walkman:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.

While the kid’s article definitely makes feel old, it also makes me excited, because it reminds me how quickly we can free ourselves from old paradigms.

How quickly is that?

One generation.

From Scorpeze’s In Memoriam Part 1: The Artistic Value of Thriller:

people glaze over it now…but what soul/R&B figure could create a hit rock record that was embraced across the board…AND considered authentic by the rock audience?…

• what soul/R&B cat was collaborating with Van Halen…and have it WORK?
• it wasnt Prince…w/out Beat It, could you have a Let’s Go Crazy?
• what other soul/R&B cat could get one of the Beatles on Black radio in the 80’s?
• what soul/R&B cat would get Vincent Price to drop spoken word in the middle a funk/R&B cut cum horror movie?
• who was else at the time was incorporating African chants and percussion at a time when everyone was whitening it up sonically(including MJ)…and who would reference Soul Makossa in the 80’s?
• listen to the fact that a Black artist who was considered strictly soul/R&B decided to do a stylistic tour de force in one album when it hadnt been done before…Thriller had…
  • Funk
  • straight R&B
  • Quiet Storm
  • MOR Pop
  • Rock

  …all in one album by a Black aritst when such a thing was not only unheard of but frowned upon…

• …futhermore, on Thriller he spoke abt teen preganancy, gang violence, challenging the social constructs of manhood, the culture of gossip, emotional blackmail, obsession, false accusations of paternity, and belief in one’s self…

fluff?

these are ARTISTIC RISKS….they could have gone horribly awry, but they didnt….he did the record HIS way….and in a rare occurence that we will only see once in a lifetime, hit the bulls-eye and pleased EVERYBODY…the effects of that had both deep positive and negative effects on his work and the entire music industry after that…

[Hat tip to Signal vs. Noise for the link]

Dear Questioner,

I’ve got a problem. I’m a decent, underpaid, hardworking coroner. It’s important that my family eat meat at least three times a week. But we just can’t afford to with the prices the way they are. So I bring home some choice cuts from my autopsy subjects. Just mix in the Tuna Helper:and ta-da!

The whole family thinks my new meals are delicious. They ask me what’s my secret. I think they’re getting suspicious. My smart-ass 8-year-old keeps asking, “Where’s all the meat come from? The red dye #2 kind that’s kept in the fridge.”

If they find out the truth I don’t think they’ll understand.

Questioner: what do I tell my family?
Wally

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Wally, if it’s a price issue, eat red meat only once a week, and buy organic. That way you’re getting the most out the money you spend. I would recommend more of a vegetarian diet anyway, unless you and your family are exercising regularly. Red meat clings to your insides and rots in your belly, which you will notice in the smell and consistency of your poop. Try expanding your options a little, legumes, and eggs are packed with protein. Chicken is less expensive and tastes great.

I don’t find what you’re doing to be immoral. Cultures throughout time have practiced cannibalism. The Yanomamö would burn their dead then mix the powder with some type of banana pulp before ingesting it. Although their reasoning was based more on spirituality: The Yanomamö believed that the souls of the dead would wander aimlessly unless consumed by their family. If you’re performing autopsies then I’m sure you’ve studied enough about the human body to know whether or not your family is eating rotten meat from a person who died of leprosy. Good luck with that.

What concerns me the most is your use of Tuna helper. Why not use real tuna? And why mix it with red meat? Why not have each in a separate meal to conserve food? It seems like you’re making poor recipe decisions all around.

Tell your pretend eight year old that the meat comes from the butcher. Or stop feeding him dead bodies.

I don’t know what else to tell you.
Q

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Got a real question for the Questioner? Would you like some advice on an actual issue, and not just attention? If so, send your question to “questioner AT fluidimagination DOT com”

A new video from Chicago-based band, Brighton, MA. The lead singer is a friend of ours, and Dawn went to high school with the lead guitarist. Enjoy!

From Jonathan Chait’s The Obama Method:

On the one hand, you have a disciple of the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky turned ruthless Chicago politician. On the other hand, there is the conciliatory post-partisan idealist. The mistake here is in thinking of these two notions as opposing poles. In reality it’s all the same thing. Obama’s defining political trait is the belief that conciliatory rhetoric is a ruthless strategy.

Dear Questioner,

Do you have some pointers for getting along with people you hate, a.k.a. awkward annoying coworkers, lame in-laws, or loud and obnoxious neighbors?

Signed,
Punchy

–

Dear Punchy,

Smother people with kindness. If some asshole is super rude to you, be really nice back. That’s like asshole kryptonite.

Annoying co-workers are easy. Don’t be accommodating. Stare at them with a blank expression, fight the urge to feign interest, and don’t fake laugh at stupid jokes. If you’re quiet, they’ll go away. And when they do leave, smile a little.

Answer lame in-laws with brief responses in a normal voice (not a false, high-pitched, “I’m happy” kind of voice); and act disinterested in mindless chatter.

Don’t waste your breath arguing with loud neighbors. Call the cops (if they’re students, definitely call the University). Sure, we’ve all urinated on the doors of dumb-ass neighbors or argued over fireworks when we were clearly out numbered, but aren’t we a little older now? Fighting is weak and arguments are futile.

Try not to hate people, and remember: reserve your anger for the revolution.

The Questioner.

So here’s the deal: I met this guy on-line.

Okay, it’s not as risque as the above sentence suggests.

…He’s an octogenarian. Who in the 1950s did some incredible shit in the Arctic Circle, working as a civilian member of the DEW Line installation team (the DEW Line was the first line of defense…in case Russia lobbed missiles at us over the North Pole; I know - what a STUPID plan; why would our government waste so much money on something so foolish?).

So he and his wife live in the DC area. And I’m in northern New England. And I’ve wanted to fly down to meet him and interview him for a possible based-on-true-life story since I first heard about his life last year.

And I applied for grants: but received no money.

And I’d already gotten this OTHER hair-brained idea to bring a student videographer or two with me so I could produce a short documentary too.

And now I’ve gone and booked a B&B cottage for our weekend stay in a couple weeks, paying for it out of my pocket, meaning we drive my car the ten hours to save money, and giving us only one day to spend with the guy and his wife, and to meet his daughter (who is probably about my age).

And now I’m having, well, not exactly cold feet, but fear: that one-day is NOT enough time to spend with him. And that maybe I’m dragging my students along for a ride for nothing, since I’ve only communicated with him via his daughter through e-mails. And while I have reams of fascinating info here, I’m thinking: maybe I should just hop a cheap Southwest flight down, stay in a less-expensive room in the B&B, and spend a couple days with he and his wife, taking my own notes. Maybe even buy a tape recorder, or some sort of voice hook-up for my iBook or iPod, if they have such a thing. (Hello–I think they call it a microphone….)

But what if the initial video tape would be best? Should I just stay with plan A and drive down with students (plus a wife of one of the students)?

Oh: and the kink — I planned this while my daughter was away in Cali visiting my family, but she just flew back last night so my hubby is nervous with him having to work Friday and Monday–leaving our two teens alone at home–with me possibly being on the road then.

Okay. Shake your Magic Eight Ball. And tell me what I should do. Please!

Signed,
Near penniless & nervous writer who sometimes creates too much drama, worries way too much, and who is often prone to bouts of hyperbole…

-

Penniless & Nervous,

I believe you already have the answer: Go alone, stay in a dumpy motel, and if need be, go old school and hand write everything. Start simple, and use what you have. Then apply for some grants. But don’t start by trying to get $25,000 worth of free money. Look for the smaller $1,500 humanity grants. Show them you’re serious by doing shit loads of work. Once you get a few of those under your belt apply for the kind of money that will pay for a limo, a film crew, a 5 star motel, dinner, booze, a Victorian dress and a pet monkey.

Here’s another idea: instead of a videographer you could bring a photographer to get one good shot for a 2-3 page magazine article. You could juxtapose that photo with an older black and white photo of the dude on his base from the fifties. Then get a map of Russia the North Pole and North America with a dotted line showing the possible line of a missile attack. Boom! you’re published (I’d read it). I’m thinking Time, The Economist or National Geographic. Who knows, maybe even Boy’s Life (if you could tie in something about a cub scout named Steve ending the Cold War)? Anyway, once your story is published you could get the attention you need.

Remember, great projects take time.

-The Questioner

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Have a question of your own? Need some advice?
Email your questions to “questioner AT fluidimagination DOT com.”