tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post4797795623784470779..comments2023-05-14T21:11:23.699-04:00Comments on CHEESEBURGER BROWN: Story Wallah: Behind the BoboCheeseburger Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01384136287767500794noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-67648848981874356482012-04-20T16:15:46.243-04:002012-04-20T16:15:46.243-04:00Having just (again) come across this piece, I thou...Having just (again) come across <a href="http://www.rabbitroom.com/2011/11/two-trees/" rel="nofollow">this piece</a>, I thought it might be appropriate to post here. Take it as you will.Sheik Yerboutinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-45537504146845002352012-04-16T15:13:44.989-04:002012-04-16T15:13:44.989-04:00It's hard to add anything to what's alread...It's hard to add anything to what's already been said here -- so thank you, for your creative efforts (and successes) as well as the window into your soul.<br /><br />Yay to the actualization of TSM!<br /><br />Boo to people whose disagreement turns to jerkdom.<br /><br />Also, a big "you suck" to the pain and suffering in the world... and "you rock" to people who care enough to care for loved ones in such distress.<br /><br />Your storyblog is a most enlightening place.Sheik Yerboutinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-42995171579902047222012-04-16T12:40:37.201-04:002012-04-16T12:40:37.201-04:00Thanks for the insight into the mind of the burger...Thanks for the insight into the mind of the burgermeister. I recently had to take care of my folks before they finally succumbed to their various maladies. Fortunately, dementia never came into play. All the other crap (literally) applied though. Fantastic news to hear TSM is coming. Is there any way you could release the currently released chapters of TSM on electronic formats for a couple days so we can download and brush up on the adventure?<br /><br />Your faithful disciple, <br />THE DanimalDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01657614872089173887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-42982569062394856372012-04-15T22:46:33.007-04:002012-04-15T22:46:33.007-04:00Dear Darren,
...My mother died of ALS in January,...Dear Darren,<br /><br /><i>...My mother died of ALS in January, after 3 years of decline. My dad was her 24 hour caretaker, and we supported them in all the ways that we could along the way.</i><br /><br />Oh yeah, I hear you. That's exactly what we've got here: ALS, known by old people as "Lou Gherig's Disease" and by young people as "Stephen Hawking Cooties." (For those of you who don't know, it's one of those particularly awesome "prisoner in your own body" diseases in which your relatively healthy mind watches your body fail piece by piece until you become a living art installation.)<br /><br />My wife is European, so we house her parents instead of doing the proper North American thing and institutionalizing them. That means we get a front row seat for the palliative Olympics, flexing skills that we'd hoped had been retired when our children learned voluntary control of all the appropriate sphincters.<br /><br />There are heartwarming parts of the experience, like when a bunch of folks from the village pitched in to build a wheelchair ramp on the front of the pioneer schoolhouse where we live.<br /><br />There are disappointing parts of the experience also, like when people delivering medical equipment for a paralyzed man decide that since he's the only one home at the moment, they might as well help themselves to a Macbook Pro and some liquor. Who's going to stop them?<br /><br />I've been away from my job a lot, so I can make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen again. Now somebody's always home, no matter what. Which can be challenging.<br /><br /><i>Creating in the middle of regular life, much less slow-motion grief, is like performing levitation...it's a miracle that we can create anything at all, and it's imperative that we do so, just to stay sane.</i><br /><br />Ain't it the truth? I only wish my time available for expressing output was proportionate to constant genesis of new things to fret over. As it stands now I end up with a glut.<br /><br />Ho ho, and while I've been typing I've just learned via Star Trek insta-technology that a modest amount of funding has been secured for my new startup! (Did you know these iPhones are phones, too?) Maybe despite all the friction and muss things will soon be coming up Cheeseburger? Could be.<br /><br />Time will tell.<br /><br />Yours,<br />Cheeseburger BrownCheeseburger Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01384136287767500794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-26158263604402940872012-04-15T22:03:30.466-04:002012-04-15T22:03:30.466-04:00Dear John,
While a lot of the current comedies ar...Dear John,<br /><br /><i>While a lot of the current comedies are based on rude behavior and speech, you find humor in the absurdity of a polite remark that seems inappropriate in extreme circumstances.</i><br /><br />I like that you like that, because I like that too. I'm sure there's a very technical academic wing-wang for that specific kind of irony, but I'm just a simple country whateveriam and don't have much truck with proper terms in subjects outside of my immediate ken.<br /><br />Certainly I have wankered on before about my deep love of double entendres, a love which is not limited to sexual innuendo but also includes whatever sort we're talking about now.<br /><br />Is there a doctor in the house?<br /><br /><i>Simple principles are powerful motivating tools, because they allow you to feel that what you are doing is right! In making personal decisions, that's often a great thing. But when making broader decisions, it can be disastrous.</i><br /><br />To that point I will say this: due to current familial situations I have in recent months had my actions legally constrained by a version of ethics to which I do not subscribe, which is a disconcerting feeling. But I can get over disconcertment. What's been a challenge is interfacing with other human beings on the other side of that ethical divide, and having them sometimes be total dicks about it.<br /><br />Thus it would be fair to say my patience for people suffering from profound cases of metaphysical certitude is currently at an all-time low.<br /><br />These themes tend to crop up in my writing. It's against my will, mostly. Try as I might to keep this blog focused tightly on hot robot-on-robot action, sometimes whatever's itching my innards gets in there, too.<br /><br />Yours,<br />Cheeseburger BrownCheeseburger Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01384136287767500794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-3025301838203712602012-04-15T03:14:41.819-04:002012-04-15T03:14:41.819-04:00btw, when the temple of zoran opened, I cheered ou...btw, when the temple of zoran opened, I cheered out loud. Simply awesome.Darren Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15336960551476624301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-3335995634927014862012-04-15T03:12:46.195-04:002012-04-15T03:12:46.195-04:00Ho Cheeseburger -
There have been several times ...Ho Cheeseburger - <br /><br />There have been several times in the ups and downs of your writing career that you've pulled back the curtain on your personal life. <br /><br />Your blog posts, especially the one that described your need to write despite job pressures, etc, have resonated with me strongly. <br /><br />I'm a musician with those same feelings, and the same pressures from job and family, same lack of time to create, etc. However, I never find the things that I would write to you in a comment to be worthwhile, cause you usually have said all there is to say about the matter. <br /><br />Instead, I tell my wife 'He did it again!', either because you expressed a thing I've been thinking, or simply because you were able to create ANOTHER something despite all that.<br /><br />This time, though, I'm commenting. That's because my mother died of ALS in January, after 3 years of decline. My dad was her 24 hour caretaker, and we supported them in all the ways that we could along the way. <br /><br />Again, I feel like I can't add anything to your post - but perhaps it's worthwhile to write, if only to say that there's someone else sitting in the same dark room you're in. You're not alone in there.<br /><br />Creating in the middle of regular life, much less slow-motion grief, is like performing levitation, and yet there you go again, hovering inches off the floor. <br /><br />It's a miracle that we can create anything at all, and it's imperative that we do so, just to stay sane. I just wanted to say that I appreciate it. <br /><br />Thanks for everything.Darren Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15336960551476624301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-90206377978600932142012-04-14T13:12:53.300-04:002012-04-14T13:12:53.300-04:001. I like your ability to bend the politeness of y...1. I like your ability to bend the politeness of your protagonists to different purposes. While a lot of the current comedies are based on rude behavior and speech, you find humor in the absurdity of a polite remark that seems inappropriate in extreme circumstances. And then it even bends to horror, as Bobo excuses himself from the digger, or pronounces the necessary death of 1/3 of the population.<br /><br />2. I felt like the story was a cautionary tale against giving power to anyone with too simple a world view. Simple principles are powerful motivating tools, because they allow you to feel that what you are doing is right! In making personal decisions, that's often a great thing. But when making broader decisions, it can be disastrous.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17680056990468177565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-87373474206469233512012-04-14T10:56:20.348-04:002012-04-14T10:56:20.348-04:00Dear SaintPeter,
I know I gave you a bit of a har...Dear SaintPeter,<br /><br /><i>I know I gave you a bit of a hard time about it, but it's only 'cause I love it.</i><br /><br />If I didn't want real feedback, I wouldn't have allowed comments on the blog. It's very much appreciated, SaintPeter.<br /><br /><i>You lead us down that primrose path only to subvert our expectations.</i><br /><br />Well that was certainly my hope for this story, so I'm gratified that that's included in your takeaway. Cognitive dissonance can be fun, when it's for play.<br /><br /><i>The deeply flawed protectors were also a great ongoing bit.</i><br /><br />This reflects a difficulty I've been having with a lot of stories out there lately: the formulaic distribution of flaws. The hero has one trivial flaw he or she needs to get over or recognize in order to succeed, and the villain (and/or Judas) is a fountain of frothing flaws with, sometimes, one spark of non-flaw to make some kind of tired and hackneyed symmetry with the protagonist.<br /><br />While I recognize this a way to build tried and true plots that function smoothly, for me it doesn't mirror the people I meet in real life. The real people are much worse and less noble, if sometimes endearingly so.<br /><br /><i>Can't wait for TSM chapters. I do hope that you'll post them one at a time so we can speculate and comment as they go.</i><br /><br />Yes. The next burst of chapters will go from where we left off to the very end, but I will post them with a few days between to foster discussion, for sure. I won't announce a launch date at this point, but I can assure you it's coming along.<br /><br />Yours,<br />Cheeseburger BrownCheeseburger Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01384136287767500794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-31910639829888130592012-04-14T10:35:26.045-04:002012-04-14T10:35:26.045-04:00Dear Ross,
This is absolutely the best news I'...Dear Ross,<br /><br /><i>This is absolutely the best news I've heard in a long, long time. Looking forward to this!</i><br /><br />To clarify, I've been inching along the last bunch of chapters for a while now, but I'd started to worry that it lacked a certain <i>zing!</i> of extra fun, the concluding having become largely predictable by now.<br /><br />But it finally occurred to me that a cheap but cute conceit I'd been rolling over for an altogether different story could add the necessary level of decorative "ooh!" to give TSM what it needs.<br /><br />Yours,<br />Cheeseburger BrownCheeseburger Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01384136287767500794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-84729787825411782422012-04-14T10:29:33.051-04:002012-04-14T10:29:33.051-04:00Dear Anonymous,
To give credit where credit is du...Dear Anonymous,<br /><br />To give credit where credit is due, I think the joke was first widely broached in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayored_to_the_Mob" rel="nofollow"><i>The Simpsons</i></a>, though I'm sure the idea made people giggle privately before making it to television. Certainly, it was a joke we used in middle school before the show had debuted.<br /><br />As a corollary I should probably add that this joke really shouldn't be interpreted as a slight against gay people. Everybody knows R2-D2 and C-3P0 are almost as cool as Mr. Sulu. Personally, I think there should be more such positive role models for gay youth in science-fiction.<br /><br />(I'm not sure Mr. Mississauga counts as "positive" strictly speaking, because he's such a troubled soul.)<br /><br />Yours,<br />Cheeseburger BrownCheeseburger Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01384136287767500794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-81642298088959109242012-04-14T02:58:27.816-04:002012-04-14T02:58:27.816-04:00Thank you for sharing your insights and "behi...Thank you for sharing your insights and "behind the scenes" for this story. I know I gave you a bit of a hard time about it, but it's only 'cause I love it. I really enjoy the slow reveal of the story and the comments and discussion as we learn more and more.<br /><br />Areas where I think you really succeeded:<br />That chapter 8 bulldozer scene really had me going. In some ways it almost offended me - cognitive dissonance - because I WAS so prepared for the trite little robot makes good story. You lead us down that primrose path only to subvert our expectations. It was awesome.<br /><br />Even right up until the end, with the massacre, I still wanted Bobo to be good . . what a shocker! It was epic and violent and unexpected. It was absolutely a great story moment.<br /><br />The deeply flawed protectors were also a great ongoing bit. It certainly subverts the trope that the first person the "hero" runs into turns out to be instrumental in helping the hero to develop.<br /><br />The large idea - about Bobo basically being an algorithm with delusions of grandeur - seems very relevant today. We've got stock market crashes associated with automated trading and <a href="http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358" rel="nofollow">bizzare e-book pricing wars.</a><br /><br />As everyone will no doubt say: Can't wait for TSM chapters. I do hope that you'll post them one at a time so we can speculate and comment as they go. (I never thought I'd be asking for that . . but it's part of the fun!)SaintPeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02064605142705446251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-37179921300205647832012-04-14T02:11:12.449-04:002012-04-14T02:11:12.449-04:00"I forget sometimes that I'm the only one...<i>"I forget sometimes that I'm the only one who knows what happens in the last few chapters of The Secret Mathematic, which must be awfully confusing for you from time to time. That is a problem that will be resolved soon. I'll tell you quite frankly that earlier this very week the device I've been looking for to make the climax of TSM really cook finally dawned on me."</i><br /><br />This is absolutely the best news I've heard in a long, long time. Looking forward to this!Rossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16435271.post-55850766098785563172012-04-13T21:45:06.058-04:002012-04-13T21:45:06.058-04:00"I'm not gay like C-3P0..."
Had I b..."I'm not gay like C-3P0..."<br /><br />Had I been drinking something, I would have spit it all over my monitor; bravo. I anticipate the conclusion of TSM with bated breath, as well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com