EarlyWords's recent activity
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Comment on Recommended podcasts by experts in their fields? in ~talk
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Comment on Tip to tip: Crossing Japan with no map in ~hobbies
EarlyWords LinkMan, this reminds me of the time I flew to Germany at the end of the pandemic. It was my first international trip in a few years and I was going to film ancient history sites from Bavaria to...- Exemplary
Man, this reminds me of the time I flew to Germany at the end of the pandemic. It was my first international trip in a few years and I was going to film ancient history sites from Bavaria to Sardinia.
My first night I am having a solo dinner in the town at the foot of Neuschwanstein Castle. Afterwards I go for a bit of a nighttime hike. I’m from the West Coast of North America. It might be midnight here but it’s 3 PM my time!
I climb the trails for 10 minutes and then take out my phone to see water running across the rocks. I tell myself that it’s time to turn around because it’s getting too technical and that’s the moment I stumble and fall off the cliff.
The first drop was only 15 meters or so, but a serious tumble. Yet it was on the second tumble that I lost my phone. Almost broke my leg. Pitch black for half an hour trying to find it. Then I have to figure out how to rescue myself.
Do that. Come back at dawn but never find my phone. Realize I have to carry on without one. There are no cell phone stores in town that can help me. My rental has no GPS. My cousin who lives in Milano expects me in three days.
So… I just start driving. Gas stations don’t have paper maps anymore. The sky is overcast but I can just spy the crown of the Alps to the south so I just aim in that direction.
But the valleys don’t run properly north/south, as the Romans and many others have learned, and instead of my Airbnb in Switzerland I find myself pushed all the way to Austria and the Brenner pass. At this point my leg is swollen to twice its normal size and black.
I spend a night in Trento where the staff get me in touch with my cousin. He guides me in. When I arrive he asks, where were you and why haven’t you been answering your phone? I tell him how I fell off a cliff. He says, oh that’s why you haven’t responded to your parents. They’ve been calling and calling. Your mother had a stroke.
So then I realized it was going to be one of those kinds of trips, where absolutely everything goes wrong no matter what you do and you’re cursed. So even though I was still in extreme pain I was able to relax and let the curse take me where it would.
My mom had a full recovery and my leg ended up not being broken, although I do have a permanent bone bruise which permanently hurts. I did get some footage of Sardinia and produced a really nice episode about their history.
I usually really enjoy getting lost in foreign countries. But acute pain makes problem-solving impossible, especially in a foreign language or two.
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Recommended podcasts by experts in their fields?
I have been listening to the PreHistory Podcast, written and produced by an actual academic archaeologist. I enjoy the rigor and specificity but i’m having trouble finding similar content I like,...
I have been listening to the PreHistory Podcast, written and produced by an actual academic archaeologist. I enjoy the rigor and specificity but i’m having trouble finding similar content I like, especially without the promotions and ads and fan service. I know that in the age of social media personalities such dry content is hard to come by.
I particularly enjoy ancient history, but feel free to offer other podcasts that feature people who have mastered their discipline and have found clear, effective, and even entertaining ways of sharing it. Thanks!
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Comment on You get to choose your favorite director's next project. What is it, and why? in ~movies
EarlyWords Link ParentSure thing. Let me find something to share. My earliest scripts never made it to the digital age. Are you a writer? Anyone else who wants to talk writing or read scripts, feel free to reach out....Sure thing. Let me find something to share. My earliest scripts never made it to the digital age. Are you a writer?
Anyone else who wants to talk writing or read scripts, feel free to reach out. To me, the art of storytelling has always been best when freely shared.
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Comment on You get to choose your favorite director's next project. What is it, and why? in ~movies
EarlyWords Link ParentI did, but none of my features ended up getting made. Fortunately I made a good amount of money but unfortunately I met nearly no one in LA worth working with. And that's not because I'm such a...I did, but none of my features ended up getting made. Fortunately I made a good amount of money but unfortunately I met nearly no one in LA worth working with. And that's not because I'm such a precious and wonderful artist. The place was just filled with sharks and hustlers.
The first screenplay I wrote was a 1994 version of Easy Rider for my young Gen X audience. Called The Monkey People, it was about five young adults blowing through an inheritance on drugs and extreme sports, which were brand new at the time, like 2 years before the X games got started. So they went skydiving on ecstacy (which was something I felt I should try doing before I held meetings about it--BAD IDEA. If any of you have ever been tempted to skydive in any state other than sober... don't. I was a crazy kid in the 90s) and my characters eventually escalated to gunfights with cops in Arizona. John Cusack nearly made it but chose Grosse Point Blank instead. I was very bitter.
My next screenplay was a kind of lyrical love story about a couple learning to fly, like actually fly like Superman. Called To The Air, I wanted Paul Newman for the dying father. Diane Keaton had a production deal at the time and she eventually decided it was too New Age for her. And when Diane Keaton thinks something is too New Age, well... Nobody else would touch it.
So for my third script I decided to play the game. My agency's big star at the time was Alyssa Silverstone, so over about a half hour period I spun out a comedy of her being a teenage spy, a love child between the greatest CIA and KGB spies of the Cold War. The opening sequence was her and her mom fighting over a detestable gun runner while pretending to be honey pots, fighting over the corpse for the kill. Really like a French comedy. It was called Bombshell and that opening sequence got me every meeting in town. Then, after 54 (not joking or exaggerating) rewrites we sold it to New Line. Team Todd had just gotten a huge hit with the OG Austin Powers and they bought it for Jennifer Love Hewitt's first film, with Jamie Lee Curtis as the mom. But there was some drama at the executive level and the project died. Hewitt's team tried to rehire me to write "a different version" uncredited, stealing over half the script. I told my agent to hire lawyers and she told me the production people were too powerful and if I was going to force her to choose between them and me she'd choose them.
Dire Wolf (werewolf movie) and The Mandarins (Wolf of Wall Street style) nearly got optioned by Paramount. I worked on a few scripts by others, and then I realized that would be my career. Script doctor for other people. Not interested. Went back to stage plays and novels and I've been much happier.
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Comment on You get to choose your favorite director's next project. What is it, and why? in ~movies
EarlyWords Link ParentThanks for looking out for my online anonymity. I found early on, like pre-internet, that I didn't actually like being a public figure. All kinds of creepy people start bugging you. But...Thanks for looking out for my online anonymity. I found early on, like pre-internet, that I didn't actually like being a public figure. All kinds of creepy people start bugging you. But fortunately I've never been a big success. I happily call myself an obscure writer.
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Comment on You get to choose your favorite director's next project. What is it, and why? in ~movies
EarlyWords LinkMan… This is kind of how I approached my whole Hollywood career as a screenwriter in the 90s. I remember one production company meeting where they asked whose career I wanted most. After thinking...Man… This is kind of how I approached my whole Hollywood career as a screenwriter in the 90s. I remember one production company meeting where they asked whose career I wanted most. After thinking a bit, I said David Lean. But they didn’t know who that was. So I said Howard Hawks. More blank stares. Billy Wilder? Then they asked if I could limit my answer to post Star Wars Hollywood lol. I couldn’t.
So I have a historical screenplay about outcasts in 10th century France called The Twisting Door that I am still trying to get to Werner Herzog. And I’ve always wanted Coppola to direct my Emperor Norton script, although Robin Williams was supposed to play that part…
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Comment on New hard / mil SciFi read recommendations requested - just finished a marathon series in ~books
EarlyWords LinkThere are 20 books in the Expeditionary Forces series by Craig (wait for it…) Alanson. Much of it is irreverent and even silly, but the author has a legit military background and the science is...There are 20 books in the Expeditionary Forces series by Craig (wait for it…) Alanson. Much of it is irreverent and even silly, but the author has a legit military background and the science is mostly sound.
It’s popcorn for the most part but he really will make you care for the characters and the plot, as present-day humanity struggles against the schemes of multiple alien races with the help of the “Elder AI” known as Skippy.
I listened to the audiobooks as narrated by the great RC Bray, who is not only one of the best narrators out there, but his kind support helped get my own narration career going years ago. Love that guy.
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Comment on Society wants to put you into a neat little box—don’t let it in ~life
EarlyWords LinkAs a writer, I’ve found over the years that I don’t want to work with the entertainment industry. They are all about putting you in a single box. That science fiction screenplay masterpiece that...As a writer, I’ve found over the years that I don’t want to work with the entertainment industry. They are all about putting you in a single box. That science fiction screenplay masterpiece that you labored on for a year? Congratulations. You are now a writer of sci-fi movies and nothing else.
But I want to write young adult novels as well! Too bad. We’ve got other writers for YA. And we aren’t actually producing your masterpiece. That was just a writing sample that gets you through the door. Proves you can do it. Now it’s your calling card that will allow you to convince the money people you can write their own sci-fi concept.
And besides, YA has its own culture and network. You’re starting over from scratch every time you switch media or genre. The successful writers stick to the one thing they know. Brandon Sanderson only writes fantasy epics.
For me, unfortunately, in Hollywood my first big sale was a teen spy comedy.
So they sold me for years as a writer of teen comedies. And the enforcer of this pigeon-holing was my own agent. Whatever ideas I had, they first had to excite her. So she became the arbiter of my entire creative decision process. Very quickly you internalize her values so that you can make $ for both of you.
And just like that you never write a stage play again. You never write that mystery you always dreamed of. You never write that children’s book with your kid because you just aren’t that kind of writer anymore. They’ve got other people for that.
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Comment on Why is everything binary? in ~science
EarlyWords LinkTo add something of a historical dimension, there are theories in the ever-combative world of comparative religion that binary states might be a relatively recent tool humans have both discovered...To add something of a historical dimension, there are theories in the ever-combative world of comparative religion that binary states might be a relatively recent tool humans have both discovered and invented.
It is theorized that animist deities and many of the ancient religious systems we are familiar with—such as the Hindu or classical Greek—contain gods that are neither good nor evil. They are more like us, with all the complexity and self-contradiction we possess. Nobody asks if Zeus is a good god or a bad god. He is merely power incarnate.
Some scholars point to the religion of Mithra (and a bit later the Zoroastrians) as basically inventing the idea of holy gods and cursed demons about 2600 years ago, as well as heaven and hell, dividing the world into concepts that can be entirely divorced from each other and placed along two ends of a spectrum.
Researchers in other fields point to anthropological evidence that many cultures, perhaps a plurality, throughout history viewed many things as a spectrum, including gender. Consider the two spirits traditions in many Native American cultures.
Distilling the world into binary components is immensely powerful, as we have seen over the last few thousand years, but it also oversimplifies and distorts the nuances of the world we actually live in.
Caveat: these theories remain theories and don’t necessarily represent scholarly consensus or the majority viewpoints of any number of academic fields. But I always found them compelling myself.
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Comment on What quotes inspire you? in ~talk
EarlyWords LinkYou must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on. Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable When I need to dig deep.You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.
Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable
When I need to dig deep.
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Comment on An appeal to the community for non-algorithmic recommendations in ~talk
EarlyWords LinkOne of the most important resources I’ve found in my ancient history research is this essential and well-maintained website, which is so much more than a collection of beautiful maps:...One of the most important resources I’ve found in my ancient history research is this essential and well-maintained website, which is so much more than a collection of beautiful maps: https://indo-european.eu/
If you are at all interested in the migration of early peoples in Eurasia, as well as the genetics and linguistics of proto-Indo-Europeans, all illustrated with excellent maps and articles starting with pre-human populations through every major historical period.
A true labor of love, freely accessible to all.
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Comment on Sleeping on the floor in ~life.home_improvement
EarlyWords Link ParentIt's mainly about being strong enough to stabilize your joints and keep things from grinding. I've learned some old man skills. There are only a few poses I sleep in now, on my side or on my back,...It's mainly about being strong enough to stabilize your joints and keep things from grinding. I've learned some old man skills. There are only a few poses I sleep in now, on my side or on my back, with my hands and feet and neck and shoulders and elbows and knees all just so. But if you lose conditioning, the joints can't support themselves and you wake up with them grinding.
Core strength is also important as well as proper posture and neck/head placement. Another old man skill I've learned is that if something musculoskeletal is hurt, it's not complaining to be babied. It's weak. Do whatever recovery it needs then make it a point of strength. Bad back? Work on it and make your back your strongest point. Bad knees? (me) I just finally got the fascia around my knees to behave for one of the first times in decades and now I'm up to 50 squats/day. Either I make them strong now at 55 or I lose them. I'm always shocked to see people making the other choice, loading up on drugs and surgery and hopelessness.
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Comment on Sleeping on the floor in ~life.home_improvement
EarlyWords LinkMy wife and I have been sleeping on the floor for about 17 years now. It used to be with a latex topper no more than 6 cm thick. Our baby daughter and the two of us with several animals in a big...My wife and I have been sleeping on the floor for about 17 years now. It used to be with a latex topper no more than 6 cm thick. Our baby daughter and the two of us with several animals in a big pile every night.
Then our daughter got old enough to want her own bed and kicked us out of her room. My wife wanted to sleep directly on the floor but I convinced her to share a very narrow and thin twin sized futon with me. We have been on that for 12 years now.
I find it funny that other comments are trying to talk you out of this or consider it crazy or extreme. You do have to be physically fit but I see that as part of the deal. If I wake up very sore from a night on the ground then I know I need to get in better shape. If I can’t sleep on the floor in my own house then I can’t sleep in the dirt when I go backpacking.
This all started when I went to Japan for a month 25 years ago. Putting the futon away every morning gives you a whole other room to use that isn’t just for storing a giant bed.
A nice thick felted wool rug or sheepskin would also be good but we haven’t tried it yet. Good luck with your sleep!
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Comment on Solo outings in ~life.men
EarlyWords LinkOh hey I went solo to a Green Day concert once! It was… 1994? At Slim’s in San Francisco. Great show. They fucking rocked and I spent an hour in the pit. I love going out alone. The majority of my...Oh hey I went solo to a Green Day concert once! It was… 1994? At Slim’s in San Francisco. Great show. They fucking rocked and I spent an hour in the pit. I love going out alone. The majority of my adventures are solo.
I’m about to get a week off for the first time in recent memory. With a daughter at a private university I’ve been working like a maniac the last couple years. I’ll be taking the dog and driving up the coast to visit a friend in Portland. I’m looking forward to all the silence.
My current problem is the opposite of yours. I work alone and get weekend hikes alone so solitude is my normal state of affairs, but for any of my wilderness backpacking trips, my family doesn’t want me solo any more (since I fell off a cliff in Germany on a solo walk at midnight but that’s another story). I’ve had medical issues over the years as well and nobody likes my normal M.O. of “getting up to trouble in the middle of nowhere.”
But finding someone who hikes the way I do, at full speed for 6-10 hours per day with no breaks, is a real challenge in your 50s. Younger hikers generally don’t want me around and everyone else my age has slowed way down.
So my solo outings are generally day trips these days. Poor me. If anyone is on the US West Coast and wants to throw themselves at a mountain with me, feel free to reach out!
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Comment on Swiss church installs AI-powered Jesus in ~humanities
EarlyWords LinkOh good one of the great cyberpunk dystopia tropes is coming true. There is so much worry about the hostility people will have against AI, we forget the sizable number of those who will go in the...Oh good one of the great cyberpunk dystopia tropes is coming true.
There is so much worry about the hostility people will have against AI, we forget the sizable number of those who will go in the exact opposite direction and glorify the ineffable wherever they find it. Black box ambiguity is comforting.
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Comment on I've been enjoying a few tropes in 1970s TV shows in ~tv
EarlyWords LinkI remember an episode from The Partridge Family when Reuben got in trouble with some local government agency because it had switched to computers and it had gone haywire, leading to all kinds of...I remember an episode from The Partridge Family when Reuben got in trouble with some local government agency because it had switched to computers and it had gone haywire, leading to all kinds of chaos and grief. But the way computers failed in the 70s were always the same. HAL from 2001. They had our flaws but magnified. The popular imagination couldn’t conceive of them as what they were, which were just glorified adding machines. Garbage in, garbage out, etc.
There was a ton of anxiety about the digital revolution in the 70s that had evaporated by the 80s with the advent of personal computers and a better understanding of how machines actually cause trouble.
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Comment on What artist, regardless of medium, did the most to progress their field? in ~arts
EarlyWords Link ParentOne of my film teachers back in the 90s liked to speak about photography and film being the first newly-invented art form in perhaps 3000 years. Every other form had gone through countless...One of my film teachers back in the 90s liked to speak about photography and film being the first newly-invented art form in perhaps 3000 years. Every other form had gone through countless iterations, from sculpture to theater to epic poems. So I would nominate the earliest photographers and cinematographers.
The professor (and I) found it fascinating that we get to live through the dawn of a new form, and that something inherent in that form is that it leaves a permanent record of its growth and development.
But history is speeding up. Now we can place any number of digital arts in that same framework. In fact, most of us are more comfortable with newly-invented arts than we are with traditional ones. With AI on the horizon, it looks like we are about to do it again.
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Comment on Who are your favorite actors? in ~movies
EarlyWords LinkI'm an old actor and my favorite actors are all dead or retired. My very favorite of all-time is Peter O'Toole. I always said I suspected he had been formulated in a lab to perform. He is just too...I'm an old actor and my favorite actors are all dead or retired.
My very favorite of all-time is Peter O'Toole. I always said I suspected he had been formulated in a lab to perform. He is just too perfect in every way. Lawrence of Arabia is his great classic of course, but my very favorite performance by any actor ever is his portrayal of Henry II in The Lion in Winter. This is my very favorite film, which also includes stunning performances by my very favorite actress (how'd I miss that thread???) Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor d'Anjou and a very young Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, and Nigel Terry as the princes.
Marlon Brando had become a caricature of himself by the 60s (as did another favorite, Orson Welles) but his early body of work to me is the greatest collection of performances in film history. He basically invented modern naturalist realism for the screen, as well as convinced entire generations of actors (myself included) that in order to be a towering genius you needed to also be a towering asshole. What we never understood was that his difficulty came from his impatience, not arrogance. Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and even his performance in flawed films like One-Eyed Jacks showcase his volcanic emotional power, complete lack of filter, and extraordinary sensitivity to the setting and other actors.
Until we lose him, 93 year-old Robert Duvall remains the greatest living actor in the English language. We might argue about my other choices but to me this is an incontrovertible fact. His ability to transform himself and bring gravity and raw emotional power to each role has made him the actor's actor since the 1970s. Terms of Endearment. The Great Santini. Apocalypse Now. The Godfather films. Lonesome Dove. Watching a great Duvall performance is almost terrifying because you know he will drag you through hell like no other.
I also love Paul Newman, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Ralph Richardson. And my favorite performance by an actress (better late than never) is the soul-searing genius of Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People.
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Comment on Tildes worldbuilding thread in ~creative
EarlyWords LinkHey it's my favorite drug! Worldbuilding and storytelling are so important to me I've built my whole life around them. In my 50s now and I've got hundreds of worlds kicking around in my brain....Hey it's my favorite drug! Worldbuilding and storytelling are so important to me I've built my whole life around them. In my 50s now and I've got hundreds of worlds kicking around in my brain. They still keep me up at night. Game design and homebrew and science fiction theater, as well as all the digital flavors that have come since, with narration and production of said worlds. Sold some worlds to Hollywood and comics over the years. Met some really cool people. But it's all about chasing that high: when enough independent strands of thought and observation and ingenuity collapse together like a field equation into something crystalline and bright and alive, it's a better epiphany moment than any amount of lsd or peyote.
Like, right now, the world I'm delighting in creating is a fantasy world as medieval scholars envisioned it. The setting is Prester John's Three Indies. About a thousand years ago, the Byzantine emperor received a letter from a mysterious Christian king named Prester John who lived faraway, surrounded by Muslim kingdoms. Believed at face value, it began an at first feverish then long and abiding belief in the mythical kingdom for centuries. First it was placed somewhere around the north or east of the Black Sea. Then it was long considered to be Ethiopia, once it was known widely in the Holy Roman Empire that they were a Christian nation surrounded by Islamic ones.
I love telling extremely constrained tales. So while my worldbuilding will be immense, it will only be glimpsed at through the eyes of a pair of lowly palace guards at the least gate in the kingdom. This will be an actual play homebrew podcast called Leastwatch that is currently in pre-production. Just four of us playing an online RPG that I'm creating. See, Prester John's incomparably glorious city of Nyse still needs a sewer gate, and these are the two louts who man it. They won't know about the palace intrigues, the war with Ecbatana, or even the merchant and assassin guild wars for a long time yet. Their entire existence is manning the stinking gate beside the open sewer canal, and shout "Next!" to the next sad person waiting in the long queue. Sometimes they might have to knock some heads.
In the auditions I say I'm looking for "three delightful people." It has more of a cozy sitcom structure than a D&D grand quest linear plotline. Casting now. Let me know if anyone knows a woman of a thousand voices who can help me play all the petitioners who appear in the queue each day. Think I've got the guards cast although if anyone wants to throw their hat in the ring, I'm all ears.
Otherwise, I'd be happy to help other folks with their worldbuilding. I don't have many masteries in this life but this is one of them. I've committed my life to being the Idea Guy. Whether it's development or scripting or producing or acting or narrating or game designing or filming... Feel free to reach out and ask for that extra helping hand we all need to get the heavy lifting done on these projects so they can actually stand on their own. No credit, for free. Seriously. This is my drug.
To all you creators... this is the flower of civilization! For a fleeting instant in history we've been granted lives of ease that allowed us to turn our minds to idle pursuits. And they became so rich and nourishing that these worlds catch the imagination of the globe and are what give life meaning. Man, we should start a church.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pre-history-the-archaeology-of-the-ancient-near-east/id1535005292?i=1000542233385
Apologies for the proprietary Apple podcast link. They are also at www.prehistorypodcast.com.