Perhaps You’d Care To Sample?
Links about: the Pinkerton Agency, James Cameron, a writing challenge, a new OST I’m obsessed with, and more.
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I don’t know about you, but I don’t use scrollable media anymore, so my odds of being linked to stuff have fallen. I appreciate someone linking me to stuff because it’s a thumbs up showing itself through the swirling storm of a million sites and inputs that surround us daily. Feel free to read these, steal these, drop these into Pocket [or some other saving app, to read at your leisure later on], or just enjoy my witty commentary on each one.
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The Pinkerton Agency Never Sleeps - This comic on The Nib was insightful. I knew the Pinkerton Agency was the home of old school gumshoes, and that Dashiell Hammett once served in their ranks, and beyond that I don’t think I knew much.
I did not know they were a union busting organisation [or have been hired/used as such] and this comes with great disappointment as I liked the romantic version of the man standing against the world and solving crimes and making everything better [while his life gets worse]. I guess I saw Pinkerton’s as actual Hammett characters, and not the real life strong arm for hire they actually are.
It just reminds me of how much anti-union sentiment I feel like I grew up with - in conversations, in media, in news, etc. But then I grew up, got a job, and instantly joined the union because they’ve helped ensure my teaching profession retains sick leave, quality working expectations [still working on this one], and a competitive pay rate [my annual salary has risen by about 50% in the past 20 years - not *amazing*, but not terrible]. I tell other co-workers about why the union is great, and I discuss it with my kids, too.
I often think about the teamsters joke in the Simpsons about Homer wanting to be as lazy as them, and this forum chat breaks down exactly what that joke means, and why it’s shitty anti-union fodder for growing brains.
Because if you have a secure job, where you can’t be fired on a whim, then you’ll become incredibly lazy…nah, gtfo.
Also, from the same forum, proof that sometimes the internet doesn’t have the answer you need - this one had me shaking my head :[ - I mean, it’s okay to not know a reference to something, but to confidently state it is something else [in fact, it’s more like ‘nothing’ else] and close the case is a good example for why we should often ask more questions than offer closed answers founded in uncertainty disguised as casual assuredness.
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The UNDER THE SILVER LAKE soundtrack - absolutely obsessed with this while I’m writing. Feels like classic Bernard Hermann, and I’d love to get this in vinyl.
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IN THE FLESH - a webcomic from NZ genius, Scott Base. This one is a strange swerve all about survival and strange environments. You can always feel Base grappling with the ideas of climate, destruction, survival, and futurist thinking.
This one hit well because the swerve at the end really opens the narrative up in a way where you see this as a completely engaging and satisfying short, like a taster, but the idea could also be the initial summit to climb towards a much larger story. Base is always really good at that - a wicked concept, distilled perfectly, and that leaves your brain alight for months after just thinking about it.
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The #dungeon23 Challenge - this dungeon writing challenge has been started up by Sean McCoy [the writer of the awesome horror rpg MOTHERSHIP]. The idea of his challenge is for you to sit down for 5 minutes every day and write a room for a dungeon. Each day, just some monsters, or items, or something, nothing huge. Every week is a level of those 7 rooms. By the end of the year, you have a 52 level dungeon and you’ve trained your brain to be a little bit more creative.
I really dig ideas like this because they are small, manageable, scalable to whatever you can manage, and they’d even work in the classroom. I’d be interested to either do this as a straight dungeon, or as a mammoth spaceship with a weird and horror core within it.
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Matt Fraction talks WIZARD AND GLASS on The Kingcast - Matt Fraction reading through The Dark Tower books for the first time, and chatting through it on The Kingcast [my favourite Stephen King podcast] seems like a set up made specifically for my brain. It makes me desperately want to reread the Tower series, too. I did The Gunslinger last year, and loved it, and The Drawing of the Three was always my favourite, so to do that next would be ace. Sigh, one day, perhaps.
But for now, enjoy a storyteller I dig chatting about a story I dig on a podcast I dig. It’s good brain fuel.
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The Oral History of James Cameron - I mean, the true version of this would be an entire gd book, but this collection of stories and quotes is enough to remind you that Cameron really is a world class tier director. Don’t let the thin narrative of the new AVATAR fool you, this guy knew from stuff when he was on point.
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An article about women as victims in crime fic - the article leads with a strong point: statistically, men are killed way more than women. So why do so many crime novels centre around women being killed?
There’s some good thinking around this and I think it’s definitely something every crime writer should at least be considering as they make their narrative choices.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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Who is Ryan K Lindsay?
I’m an award-winning Australian comic writer. I’ve been published by Black Mask, Dark Horse, ComixTribe, Mad Cave, IDW, Heavy Metal, Vertigo, and a few more. Kickstarter has been a home for many short comics. I often get to collaborate with great mates, and this brings me joy.
I write about balancing this creative game alongside a full teaching load [currently College English] and a lovely family load and the forever melting brain that is modern man. I think about a lot of stuff, I still don’t know if it’s the right stuff. ymmv.
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Perhaps You’d Care To Sample?
I enjoyed this snippet! I even popped out to and consumed one of the linked items during my read. Yay!