Archive for the ‘Seth Brown’ Category

Feb: You Wary

Monday, February 26th, 2024

One pretty much has to be wary these days given the state of the world; unease is pretty much the baseline existence. Even amidst pleasantness, I can be out enjoying some unseasonably warm weather, and then stop to think “Why is the weather unseasonably warm?”*

And yes, a lot of the constant wariness is political, but everything is political these days, from what you eat and drink, to what you read, to certainly my two most recent columns, whether I’m writing about Black History Month or the increasingly distressing killing spree of Johnny Murderface.

These remain the proverbial** “Interesting Times”, and certainly anyone following the news regularly is already exhausted and doesn’t need me to recite*** a litany of ways in which things are bad. I am attempting to stay afloat and find the good, which for me has largely been good food and video games. My mother reminds me that her method of finding the good is to do good, but she has always been a kinder person than I am.

Not that I never do good — indeed, I always hope that my columns might infinitesimally bend some people’s thoughts towards a better world — but I’m much more cognizant of the old airplane maxim****, “In case of high pressure, put your own mask on first”*****, and the global forecast continues to call for ceaseless high pressure for the foreseeable future.

But I’ve got Shepard’s Pie and a Gamepass subscription, so tonight I’m doing okay, and perhaps later this week I should try to do something pro-social.

* Insert your own meme picture of a goose chasing me while asking this.

** Is a curse a proverb? I can’t really call it curseal Interesting Times. I only wish they were cursory.

*** Unless I was doing it in rhyme or something. Maybe in April.

**** “Surely you can’t be serious!”

***** People’s refusal to put on their own mask on at all is another reason things seem high pressure

Everything Is 20 Years Ago

Wednesday, January 17th, 2024

I no longer have a sense of time.

For years I haven’t known what day it is, aided by the fact that as a freelance writer my work is largely unrelated to the day of the week*. But I think the pandemic really kicked that into overdrive, and that combined with the natural acceleration of time due to aging**, means that I often not only don’t know what year it is, but certainly don’t know how long ago things were.

This is not an uncommon experience; many people my age feel like the 90s were just one or two decades ago, and can simultaneously feel that 2015 was so long ago that it feels like a whole other lifetime.

Regardless, one of the things about getting to this age is that many things actually were 20 years ago, as I mentioned about starting my relationship 20 years ago last month, and as I now reflect that 20 years ago this month marked the release of my first published**** book. It was, of course, a great pleasure and thrill for me to finally feel like I had a book out in the real world, published by a company (Barnes&Noble) people had even heard of, no less.

But also, the book was a collection of weird groups and the intro was all about how weird isn’t bad, you just have to find your people. The good news is, finding your people has become a lot easier these days, thanks to the Internet and whatnot*****. The bad news is, an increasingly-large swath of the country seems to believe that not only is being different bad, but that it needs to be attacked/destroyed/outlawed/erased to the point where even learning that other people exist and lead different lives and have their own joys and struggles is now controversial.

This is a damn shame, and is also largely opposed to what I’ve come to realize is my primary moral principle: “People are people.”****** Not terribly complex, but surprisingly unpopular. Still, if you’re going to live by a moral code, you could do worse. Of course, there are those who hold themselves above other people, like some kind of superman, and that reminds me that my latest column is a little Superman parody that is my favorite thing I’ve written in a while:

The Adventures of GovernMan

I know, that bird joke in the opening is ridiculous. But what can I say; bad puns are my kryptonite.

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* Notwithstanding my column deadline, natch.

** I have often thought that our experience of time accelerates at a steady rate as we age, and that there must be some analog to the calculable acceleration of gravity (9.8 meters per second, per second) to account for how time seems faster every year. Maybe years go by 9.8% faster every year? I don’t know, I’m no Einstein.***

*** Although on occasion people have remarked upon the similarity of our hairstyles.

**** Technically I think I wrote my first book in 3rd grade for a Young Authors contest, I believe it was about dinosaurs and preceded the book of birthday poems I also wrote in elementary school as a project. But I certainly wouldn’t call either published.

***** The glorious powers of whatnot are truly unmatched.

****** Consider it a condensed paraphrase of a Terry Pratchett quote I can’t seem to find about how most problems start when someone decides a certain group of people are lesser and shouldn’t really be treated like people with full rights.

National Poetry Month

Saturday, April 22nd, 2023

I guess I could write this whole blogpost in rhyme,
But conceivably that would take up too much time,
Unless I just type straight away and don’t edit,
Okay I guess I’ll do just as I said it.
I’m writing a poem every day (this won’t count)
By the end of the month 30 is the amount
Of new poems I’ll produce, which to make very clear
Is more than I produce in the rest of the year.
Although most of these new poems don’t rhyme and don’t meter,
Thus making them less cool for your average reader
Expecting a poem to sound like Dr. Seuss,
(Even though my poem senses have gotten more loose
Over time, while my jeans have only gotten tighter.
Just kidding, I’m sweats only now. I’m a writer!)

And anyway, even my brand newest column
Is in rhyme this month (though it is a bit solemn)
It’s an important topic, and though it’s not fun,
It’s a fact that we all need to face: It’s The Guns.
You may be rhymed out after reading this blog,
Which I guess is my fault. That’s an “oops” from me, dog.
But it’s only one month every year that it happens,
And hey, it could be worse, at least I’m not rappin’
Although if I did it would have better flow,
Since I no longer rap Seuss (I did long ago),
And then speaking of my raps, I’m once again sharin’ the
Multi-award-winning Hamilton parody
That I co-wrote with Sam Hammersley and
Thom Mesrobian, honestly it’s pretty grand,
So as musicals go, a political one,
I can recommend this, and it’s called Simpleton!

Otherwise, things continue on here much the same,
Eating tasty food, Genshin Impact is the game,
And I’m writing freelance for the clients that pay
(So if your friends need great writing, send them my way)
That’s about all that needs to be said in this post,
So I bid you good day, and some cheese on your toast.

All The World’s A Stage

Tuesday, February 28th, 2023

My winter vacation ended, and so I’ve been back to work writing speeches, children’s books, and whatever else clients hire me to write. I like being on vacation and playing games. But it turns out, I also like writing things for clients, especially these past few years.

Since I’m still being more covid-cautious than your average bear* and not doing performances at packed little indoor comedy/poetry shows, I’ve been missing the stage time. I did do a couple Zoom comedy shows the other year, but the demand for that has all but vanished, so I was feeling a severe deficit of I come up with something clever to say to an audience, and then I get positive feedback.

Conveniently, speechwriting ends up fitting that need for me to some degree. Sure, having a client give me positive feedback instead of an entire audience isn’t quite the same**, but it does fulfill much of the same craving, and I find that being paid more helps bridge the gap, as it so often does.

Still, I’ve certainly had clients who hire me and say, “Make this funnier,” and then come back after my first draft to say, “Okay, less funny than that, actually.” Which is one of those revision requests I can’t help but smile at. But it’s also why in spite of enjoying ghostwriting for clients, I also quite enjoy writing things like my column where I can be silly about serious topics like Antisocial Media and how Vince Is Gonna Get You.

And then of course there’s my newsletter, where I am not only unreasonably silly, but also have so many asides and arcane references that it would be unsuitable for a mainstream newspaper. But it’s free and so am I****, and I find that all in all having the page as a stage works out okay for me. Especially since I don’t have to wear pants.

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*Which says a lot, really, since most bears already spend all their social time outdoors and avoid people. And hibernating is a great response to almost any virus.

**Although I do always love hearing reports of success like “it brought the house down!”***

***This was a great review for a wedding speech I wrote last year, but would be a bad review for an architect. Context!

****I was going to say this is a difference between free as in speech and free as in beer, but I’m more often free for tacos.

Hail To The Chef

Wednesday, January 25th, 2023

Technically, hail to everyone in my area at the moment, because that’s the weather we have. Snow, sleet, and slurry. But also, food is amazing and I continue to enjoy eating well. We* recently made tachin, a Persian rice dish I’d never tried. It was quite tasty, and hooray. Hooray for people who cook, specifically. Especially people who cook for me.

What I’ve been cooking up is more columns, and honestly I’m pretty pleased with the columns I’ve put out this month. If you have questions about AI art or ChatGPT, I’ve got answers. Please enjoy

An AI FAQ (with Professor McSeth).

And if you’ve been despairing over Florida and how they’re preventing kids from learning about history, I have appropriately written a children’s poem about it:

Green Eggs and History

Other than that, I’m still enjoying my winter vacation. I’ve just finished book 14 of Robin Hobb’s massive 16-part fantasy series which I’ve been reading. And videogame-wise I finally started Dead Cells and Dragon Age: Inquisition, so I’ve been playing those alongside Genshin Impact. I may not go out and spend a lot of money on things**, but I think my insatiable appetite for food and media still means I’m keeping the spirit of American consumerism*** alive.

And I’m also alive! A fine start to the year. Hope yours is going well as well.

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*the culinarily skilled part of we, which isn’t me

**unless health insurance counts as a thing, in which case, I spend way too much money on things

***now I’m imagining a reverse A Christmas Carol, with a friendly and socially conscious main character haunted by spirits of capitalism****

****admittedly, all socially conscious people are probably haunted by the spirit of capitalism to some degree

Precedent Elect

Monday, October 31st, 2022

With Bolsonaro now having been defeated at the polls in Brazil – if not yet on the ground where his troops blocked roads in attempts to prevent people from voting – it’s nice to have a tiny bit of hope that fascism can still be pushed out. I guess we’ll see if that holds true for the US midterm elections, which I encourage all of my US readers to vote in, presuming you are pro-democracy and anti-fascism. (If you are pro-fascism and anti-democracy, voting isn’t really part of your ideal worldview anyway.)

My latest column, Troubled People, reminds you why you might want to vote. It also rhymes, which admittedly was totally unnecessary, but what is life about if not having fun by going beyond what is necessary? I guess that’s what Halloween is about*, in a way.

I started playing Fallout 4, which takes place in Boston, so it’s a little strange to be roaming around in Massachusetts amidst the aftermath of a nuclear war, and then glancing nervously at the latest international news. Still, with the ABC now long gone, and Covid still very much not gone, my recreation has returned from mostly boardgames to mostly videogames.

I would like to write for more videogames in the future; I’ve had a few gigs putting together ads for games, or in some cases even doing a bit of plot or quest descriptions for some small indie games, and would love to do more game writing. Still, nothing’s more appropriate for Halloween than Ghost writing, and I’m still doing plenty of that. One day I should probably make this site more professional so people can more easily hire me for it, but in the words of St. Augustine, not yet.

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* Also free candy, but admittedly the allure of free candy diminishes rapidly once you’re old enough that you can just buy candy whenever you like. Not that I don’t appreciate free candy conceptually – indeed, I’m known as someone who happily partakes of free snacks at all functions – but the effort of taking an hour knocking on doors for a sack of candy that’s probably only 25% candy you were actually excited about means that you’re just working a very labor-intensive** job for a low wage.

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** The most labor-intensive job is obstetrician.

The More Things Change…

Friday, July 8th, 2022

The more they stay the same. For example, I have updated* my website to the newest version of WordPress, with a whole new interface to make it easier to deal with the thousands of spam comments that continue to pour in (which is why comments are still off; feel free to email me). And it should now be easier to post. Technically. By which I mean technically, and also technically.

Ah, English.

But the primary obstacle to my posting is always my attention span and sense of time, and neither were terribly good to begin with, and the past few years have done neither any favors. Amidst my paid freelancing for clients, it’s harder for me to motivate myself to write things no one is paying me for that I’m also not sure anyone is reading. I have been writing my biweekly email newsletter, which I’m sure at least a few people are reading, because no comment spambots are subscribed to my list. Yet.**

So if you’d like to get fortnightly updates with my latest columns and my even laterest ramblings (this issue: Blisters! Gilligan’s Island! The Apocalypse! Tweety Bird!), please follow the complicated instructions below:

powered by TinyLetter

Meanwhile, I’ll share some of my favorite recent columns with you here. If you like Edgar Allen Poe, or poetry, or wonder if his friends ever called him Edgar Allen Poetry, you might appreciate my parody of his poem “The Bells”, but about birds, which I have imaginatively titled “The Birds“. Also, if you’ve been following the news lately, I’m so sorry. I’ve also been following the news, which has been even worse than I imagined, which is impressive given the capabilities of my imagination. I could tell you more about how that all ties together if you’d like to hear about Imaginary Friends.

Life is short; have some sushi.***

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*by which I mean, I have hired someone competent at these things to update my website, because apparently skill at words does not translate to skills at WordPress.

**You could be the first! Act now! No money down! Additional terms and conditions may apply. You might well ask why I am advertising to spambots. Well, turnabout is fair play.

***Admittedly this probably shortens it more for the fish. But actually this footnote is to note that the one tangible improvement in this updated wordpress is that I can now move my footnotes down the page without having to enter a few lines with a single period on them.****

****That’s a footnote I wrote before loading the preview screen, which turns out to be completely incorrect*****, because all my carriage returns didn’t prevent the footnotes from being right up next to the text. So much for modern technology. I’m keeping my carriages. One day I’ll have a whole carriage house. That’ll show ’em.

*****Well, not completely incorrect; sushi still does shorten life for fish.

Ivan Walkitoff, Esq.

Sunday, April 24th, 2022

I have (finally!) been playing through Dragon Age: Origins, a classic Bioware RPG that has been on my to-play list for years. I’m not very good at it, but luckily hobbies do not require skill to produce enjoyment. Jobs, on the other hand, often require skill to produce money, so I’m glad that I’ve been able to put my writing abilities to work for some good clients lately. For whatever reason, I really enjoy tackling dry or complex topics and explaining them in fun and approachable ways.

Arguably, that’s what I was doing in this recent column about return-free tax filing.* But my favorite column from the past month was probably my March Badness Tournament of annoying things.

Of course, April is National Poetry Month, and so I’ve been writing a poem a day.** So between that, the columns, and the freelance gigs, I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. So I’ve also been trying to do more playing, hence the Dragon Age. People always say, “Work Hard, Play Hard”, but I’ve always preferred the idea of “Work Smarter, Not Harder”, so ostensibly my guiding principle should be “Work Smart, Play Smart”?***

I don’t know, maybe playing classic RPGs instead of a high-impact sport is playing smarter instead of harder? Although possibly getting more exercise would be smarter, since presently I mostly just walk. And my back hurts. That smarts. Guess I’ll walk it off.

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* Also arguably, I was just taking the next logical step after seeing John Oliver tackle the same topic.

** As opposed to Buckminster Fuller, who makes a dome a pay.

*** “Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart.”

Soldiering On

Thursday, February 10th, 2022

While I am fortunate that Debbie and I remain relatively healthy and happy, the past few months have been sub-optimal even aside from the cold weather and global pandemic. So far, 2022 is not winning any prizes*. But, here we are, I’m still writing things and playing games and life goes on.

Probably my favorite column I’ve written so far this year was this bit of Political Theater, although since I never know if people are actually seeing my columns, sometimes it feels like I’m just talking to myself. In an attempt to change that, and beat the Facebook/Twitter algorithms in order to get my column into the hands (eyes?) of people who want to read it, I’ve started a tiny newsletter. So if you’d like an email every couple weeks with my latest columns and other writing and thoughts, you can sign up here:

https://tinyletter.com/RisingPun

I haven’t, uh, actually written a newsletter yet. But once there are people signed up I’ll feel pressured to do so. And ideally that will make me send updates more often than once every month and change, not that I’m comparing to anything in specific. *glares at blog* *blog glares back at me* *Friedrich Nietzsche glares at abyss*

Anyway, not much boardgaming aside from a couple games of Goa the other week, but on the videogaming front I played through a few runs of Griftlands and found it a surprisingly compelling mix of RPGish story and Slay the Spire-style roguelike deckbuilder.

My blogposts so rarely have those clever punchline endings like my columns do. I wonder if there’s a way for me to fix that… the Aristocrats!

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* aside from possibly, “Second Place, 2020 Look-Alike Contest”. First prize went to 2021, naturally.

From God To Verse: The Rap!

Friday, December 10th, 2021

Well, the ebook edition of From God To Verse launched earlier this year, and in celebration of that fact, I commissioned a rap about sacred texts from one of my favorite rappers, MC Abdominal. He even named it after my book! So please go take a listen to this insightful and lyrically masterful rap:

MC Abdominal: From God To Verse

The rap is not specifically about my book, but rather the broader topic of sacred texts and how we engage with them. Obviously, I engage with them differently than most people! But I think the rap is an excellent exploration of some interesting ideas, which you will hopefully enjoy and share with others who might also enjoy it.

While Chanukah may be over, Christmas is coming up, but regardless it’s never the wrong time to get a gift for a friend or loved one*, and especially in these difficult pandemic times, gifts that don’t fall on set occasions are a great way to brighten a day. Naturally, I’d be delighted if you gifted someone with one of my books, whether the latest ebook edition of From God To Verse, or my recent book of short (non-religious) poetry, or even my old books about Rhode Island.

But I’d also be remiss if I didn’t suggest buying one of Abdominal’s albums. He’s a talented musician with a lot of music up on bandcamp, but for years now one of my favorite albums** has been Sitting Music, which has great music backing raps on topics ranging from an exploration of his OCD, to the history of the chicken wing, to an ode to his mom with his mom on the track.

So do yourself a favor and listen to some of Abdominal’s music — although naturally, I think that the best one to listen to first is his brand new song “From God To Verse” which is linked at the top of this post.

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* (including yourself! treat yourself!)

**  (of anyone’s, not just Abdominal’s)