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Antaeus Feldspar: The Unauthorized Autobiography
The Story They Tried To Tell -- But No One Was Interested!
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Howdy, folks! Welcome to my home page and the attendant
whimsy...
The first point to understand about the difference
between integrity and honesty is that a person may be entirely honest without
ever engaging in the hard work of discernment that integrity requires:
She may tell us quite truthfully what she believes without ever taking
the time to figure out whether what she believes is good and right and
true.
-- Stephen L. Carter
A Short FAQ Regarding My Chosen Pseudonym
1. How do you pronounce "Antaeus?" an-TAY-yus. The
name comes from Greek mythology; Antaeus was a giant whose strength was
greater even than that of Hercules, but only as long as he was in contact
with the Earth.
2. How do you spell that? One letter at a time.
I recommend looking it up on my home page if
you're uncertain.
3. Who or what is "Feldspar?" Any of a group of
minerals, principally aluminosilicates of potassium, sodium, and calcium,
characterized by two cleavages at right angles.
4. The hell? You'll have to ask a mineralogist;
I don't understand a word of it either. I just liked the sound of the word
"feldspar."
5. Is it hard to buy blouses that fit? What with your
two cleavages at right angles and all? Shut up.
A Little About Me
Very often, you'll find me off in a corner, squinting at
some thick book on programming computers in a new language, or swearing
as I try to work out a tricky section of pseudo-code to implement a compression
algorithm. What? What do I do for fun? That is what I do for fun.
But seriously. I do enjoy programming, but most of my
programming projects have been put on hold until I finish my Creative Writing
MFA (estimated finish around December 1999.) Late-breaking news: It's
finally done! Now that the diploma is up on my wall, this page, and my
other projects, will be updated much more regularly. I hope. I mostly
write long prose fiction, but I do make occasional forays into non-fiction,
playwrighting, and short stories. Some of them can be found on this web
site or on the net.
Fiction
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My short story Koan,
published in the e-zine Eclectica.
Although I don't know why editor Chris Lott chose to put the piece under
"Non-fiction".
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My short story Mooshie,
I Dreamed, published in the e-zine Spectra.
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My short-short story Kyle,
also published in the e-zine Spectra.
If something seems different about this story, it's because it's a "hundred"
-- a story of one hundred words or less, each one syllable.
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A short fan-fiction story based on the anime series Neon
Genesis Evangelion. Called In The Language
Of The Lost, it illuminates what I think might be going on in episode
24 of this mysterious, controversial series.
Non-Fiction
Failed Pilots Playhouse
This website is home to Failed Pilots
Playhouse, a celebration of TV pilots that never became series. If
you're a fan of TV history, check it out to see what almost made it onto
the schedule.
Plugs
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FOOD
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If you're ever in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and looking
for a great place to get Middle Eastern food (including vegetarian dishes)
I highly recommend The Barefoot
Cafe.
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PROGRAMMING
WOW! Any Macintosh owner who wants to start programming owes it to themselves
to try the product REALbasic. This is to programming what the Macintosh
itself was to computing: a way to do it quickly, easily, and visually.
HyperCard
was a step in the right direction, but its internal language HyperTalk
was unwisely oversimplified, and made flexible when reliability was a more
important criterion. Right now, the product's available in a 30-day trial
version from REALbasic's web site.
Version
2.0 is now out. Among the long-awaited additions to REALbasic is an
option to compile a project for Windows 95/98/NT. Those of you who use
Windows machines may soon find that your favorite applications have About
boxes that read "Made With Macintosh." ^_^
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READING
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MiSTings: I love the TV show Mystery
Science Theater 3000, now sadly off the air, where human Mike Nelson
and robots Crow and Tom Servo make smartass comments about cheesy movies.
I also enjoy many fan versions, which typically take fan-written fiction
as their source materials. An excellent archive is Michael Neylon's Web
Site Number Nine. Here are some of the funniest MiSTings I've ever
seen:
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The MiSTing
of The Rangers of NIMH. The Rangers of NIMH is a crossover
between The Secret of NIMH and Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers.
It could have been an interesting idea in the right hands; unfortunately,
it was in the hands of Paul Lapansee and David "Davey 'Davey Crockett'
Kintobor" Gonterman. (Don't ask.)
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My friend Jane Hamilton's MiSTing
of G-Force: "Science Ninja Team Emergency!" You may also remember
this anime series as Battle Of The Planets, but G-Force was
a much sillier dubbing job (which is saying quite a lot) and this particular
episode deserves everything Jane throws at it.
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The MiSTing
of Expanding Negaverse, by Bryan Lambert. This is one of the
funniest MiSTings I know of, and it's also an excellent example of how
to handle a 'non-standard' MiSTing, where characters other than those from
the TV show do the riffing in the theatre. Bryan uses the cast of Cartoon
Planet to comment on a Darkwing Duck fanfic, and the results
are excellent.
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My friend Amanda Van Rhyn did a really excellent job with
the MiSTing
of Tail, a well-intentioned but still rather odd story of Tails
the Two-Tailed Fox (from Sonic The Hedgehog) going through puberty.
This is another non-standard MiSTing; Amanda uses Strider, Frodo, Sam and
other J.R.R. Tolkien characters to make "Middle-Earth Science Theater 3000."
That the result really does work is a tribute to her talent and hard work.
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Joe Blevins' MiSTing
of Ed Wood, Jr.'s Orgy of the Dead. This MiSTing is very long,
but worth it. (Note: Ed Wood, Jr. was the writer, director and producer
behind the much celebrated Plan 9 From Outer Space.)
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Bryan Lambert's meta-MiSTing
of Dr. Thinker's MiSTing of Amy Bridger's Video Night at Mako-chan's.
I don't know if this was the first meta-MiSTing, where a MiSTing becomes
the subject of another MiSTing, but it's certainly one of the funniest.
Bryan Lambert is a very talented MiSTer, and his job is made easier in
this case by Dr. Thinker. Whether it's in his fanfics or his MiSTings,
Dr. Thinker displays a rudimentary grasp, not only of English, but of proportion,
humor, and logic. Despite this all, Dr. Thinker happens to be a nice guy
who has the valuable ability to laugh at himself. I guess he has to, with
all the practice he gets...
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My
own MiSTing of LeVar Bouyer's Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Orion, Episodes
108 and 109.
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ONLINE COMICS
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Sluggy Freelance.
The adventures of the amiable and dim web-designer Torg, weapons-toting
Riff, lovely Zoe, Torg's alien secretary Aylee, naive and joyful ferret
Kiki, and the most psychopathic switchblade-wielding mini-lop rabbit you'll
ever meet, Bun-Bun.
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Kevin and Kell.
A six-foot rabbit doesn't often happily marry a wolf. But when the
rabbit is Kevin and the wolf is lovely Kell, and especially when kids Lindesfarne,
Rudy and carnivorous Coney are along for the ride, it works out.
Plus, it's a hell of a lot more entertaining than the Brady Bunch.
