As many of you already know, one of the ways I support my travel addiction and vagabondish lifestyle is by developing iPhone applications. We all have to earn a living, and as far as it goes, iPhone development gives me the freedom and mobility I want in a job.

One project I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year and only just wrapped up in Charleston was called Big Sticky, which tells the story of a purple frog prince searching for his lost princess through a giant sentient castle. It was a blast to work on, and my artist partners at Big Bad Brush have the level of talent and dedication needed to make a great game.

As of today, Big Sticky is officially available for download, and is currently only $1.

With prices like that, you can’t resist. In addition, I get a percentage of that dollar. So when you’re thinking that a dollar is maybe too much to spend (*cough*tightwad*cough*), or you’re considering telling your friends about that new taco place instead of this awesome new game, just call to mind an image of me, shivering and cold in a ditch, because I can’t afford a warm place to sleep at night. Have a change of heart, buy, tell your friends, and you’ll keep me traveling and writing well into the future!

If you’re interested in hearing what it’s like to work regularly while on the road, stay tuned; I’ve been now a week and a half in Bruges, Belgium, working every day, and the main subject of my next post will be what the work environment is like for a digital nomad like myself.

Now, loyal readers, go forth into the world and spread the good news, because Big Sticky is here, and it’s here to stay.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~ W. B. Yeats

After acquiring my first Wacom tablet, I just had to start creating some digital art. That, combined with an old idea I had, resulted in Red Revolt, a webcomic about a worker in a monochrome world, his discovery of color, and his struggle to bring it to the common people. Check it out–comments are currently disabled on the webcomic itself, but you can email me with any feedback you might have, or leave it in the comments here. It will be updated several times a week, and new updates will be posted on Twitter (along with new posts here at Good and Lost). You can follow me here.

Enjoy!

I’ve always been a fan of folk music old and new, from traditional Irish ballads to Bob Dylan. I also enjoy a good violin, and love a good fiddle. So, it’s no surprise that I’m once again getting into the Duhks. If you haven’t heard them, look them up–a five-member band hailing from our Canadian neighbors, the Duhks make their music from the cultural background of old North American folk tunes, with some Latin flavor thrown in for good measure.

Their most recent album, Fast Paced World, is a good listen overall, with a few real gems inside. The title track, “Fast Paced World” is a fast-paced criticism of the modern commercial world in banjo-and-fiddle style, while “This Fall” takes its inspirations from love and love lost, with sliding violins and the smoky vocals of lead singer Sarah Dugas.

The Duhks ranges from  classic folk ballads, to instrumental bluegrass pieces, to more contemporary country-style tunes, to a combination of all of the above that is the signature style of the Duhks. Look them up–a few good songs to look for are “True Religion,” “Death Came A Knockin’,” “Four Blue Walls,” “Fast Paced World,” and “This Fall.”

One of the biggest shortcomings I see in the science fiction genre at large is the overabundance of exposition. Fellow geeks will know what this looks like: in the midst of an intense interstellar firefight, the narrator pauses to let you know how a given weapon works: Then, in a blazing array of light, the starships fired their lambda cannons. Intensely focused gamma particles lanced across space, powered by individual microfusion generators, target-controlled by artificial intelligences, and tore into the defenseless colony …

Another common expository technique is to temporarily possess a character and give him/her/it (one can not always be sure of the proper pronoun in this genre) “talking head” syndrome. When done poorly, this is generally accompanied by  key phrases such as “of course” or “as you know.” As in, “as you know, the emperor of this planet, who technically operates under the mantle of the Galactic Commonwealth (GC), but is actually in the pay of the Star Thieves, plans to hold an enormous banquet in his court tomorrow evening at six,” or, “There’s a sunstorm approaching! Fortunately, of course, the thick rock of this asteroid will protect us from any harmful radiation, and we shouldn’t experience anything more than some brief communication difficulties.”

Hollywood, lacking the novelist’s luxury of plenty of words, often turns this into the complex-line-of-reasoning-in-thirty-seconds scene: the moment where the dashing archaeologist recalls to his buxom blonde companion a condensed history of this temple complex, the beliefs of the tribe who built it, and why retrieving the golden mummy head from inside it is the only possible way to prevent an ancient curse from destroying Great Britain.

Sometimes exposition fills a necessary role–giving critical information to string the reader/viewer along through the plot. This can sometimes be left out, though it may result in the audience becoming lost and/or feeling stupid (this means you, Primer). A common and more subtle solution is to include a character which serves as a sort of “exposition excuse”–the outsider to whom things must be explained. Simon Tam, for instance, often fills this role in that pinnacle of television sci-fi, Firefly.

Generally, though, exposition is pretty obvious, and often times it results more because the writer can’t help but let you in on all these cool ideas he’s had and all the hard research work he’s done. Sure, the way a city’s waste disposal system works might not exactly be necessary to the plot, but, as Victor Hugo no doubt thought before writing the chapter on the Paris catacombs, it took so much work, dammit! And then of course there’s that point in Atlas Shrugged were John Galt gets his hand on a radio transmitter and spontaneously ad-libs a philosophical treatise the length of a short book.

But every once in a while, you find a book where the exposition is ubiquitous, but, by Jove, it’s good exposition. By “a book” here I mean specifically all of the works of Robert Heinlein (you were wondering when he’d turn up, weren’t you?).

Heinlein’s works are, for the most part, good, active stories heavily padded with complex ideas that changed the face of science fiction. Read Starship Troopers and you get a war story, yes, but also a full, detailed picture of an entire society based on military service and social responsibility, a technological description of advanced far-future warfare, speculation on the possible nature of alien life, and the everyday problems of life that might face members of the military in an advanced spacefaring culture. Stranger in a Strange Land is the story of a man who grew up with Martians, yes, but it’s also a detailed critique of western society and utopian picture of an alternative way of life. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a good, bracing tale of revolt, but it’s also an entire political outline for a new free-market, minimal government society, made possible with technologies were in their fetal stages when Heinlein wrote it.

And half the reason we read it is because of all of those details crammed into the exposition.  For instance, take a look at a fairly typical paragraph spoken by Professor Bernardo de la Paz, Heinlein’s political mouthpiece  in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

“You have put your finger on the dilemma of all government— and the reason I am an anarchist. The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it contains until it destroys. I was not joking when I told them to dig into their own pouches. It may not be possible to do away with government— sometimes I think that government is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive— and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby?”

Exposition? Yes. Interesting reading? Most certainly. Victor Hugo and Herman Melville were literary giants both, but let’s be honest: if I wanted to know about the scientific classifications of whales or the entire history of the Paris sewer systems, I’d look it up. If exposition is absolutely necessary, writers would be wise to look to Heinlein for how to do it well.

If you’re an aspiring science fiction writer, though, take care. Lengthy exposition is rarely necessary, and almost never fits well in a narrative. When you read Heinlein, think of it like those trick driving videos, with a big warning: “Method conducted by expert writer with proven education and intelligence. Do not attempt at home.”

Science fiction is the prophesy of the modern age. And, like all good prophesy, it doesn’t so much predict the future as shape it. An engineer sees a gadget in a science fiction story written two decades earlier and says, I can build that, and fiction becomes fact. William Gibson writes a story in 1984 about a worldwide computer network environment he calls “cyberspace,” and twenty-five years later it exists, and so we call it.

Besides providing ideas and language with which to talk about them, science fiction often provides an early indicator as to the questions those new ideas and technologies will bring up. In Steven Spielberg’s A.I. (2001), the question in question is the nature of what it means to be a person, and the very real possibility that soon the human race will birth its first sentient electronic children.

Bollocks, say detractors, technology will never rival the complexity of the human brain. Well, detractors, take another look. Just recently, the first complete model of the human brain was built inside a supercomputer, and the results are astonishing. Very soon the first artificial intelligences will arise that not only simulate intelligence, but will be in fact self aware. On the opposite end of the spectrum, huge advances in medical technology and bionics mean that we organic beings will become increasingly mechanical. Where for all of our history the issue has been simple, black and white, there are now arising endless shades of gray.

A.I. is a fairy tale about a young robot boy, designed to “simulate” a son in a world where actual offspring are limited by law due to resource limitations. It brings up an interesting point in the “what makes us Human” debate by saying that the boy’s decision to follow a fairy tale and not simple cold calculations is the first step out of the machine–the first spark of humanity inside the circuit boards. As computerized models of the brain grow in accuracy and complexity, it will be interesting to see what the resulting intelligences reveal–are our minds the simple result of neural synapses and hormones, or is there something more, something beyond the simple physical structures of our brains?

Despite the typically Spielberg goodwill and peace to all ending, this movie is well worth a watch to get those synapses firing for yourself.

If there’s one thing I’ve discovered about music, it’s that it can be very inspirational (and dangerous). Here are twenty of the songs I’ve been most inspired by over the years.

First we have those songs about–or at least evoking the sense of–being lost. Of being on the road, of walking on the periphery of stable lives, of being a transient. There’s something in our souls that identifies with that kind of transience, and it shows up in our myths and our art: we’ve been fascinated with the wanderer ever since Cain was cursed to walk the Earth forever without rest.

Gotta keep walking by Willy Mason
Sail Away by David Gray Very tempting sometimes. Wish I had a sailboat.
Society by Eddie Vedder There were quite a few great songs in the Into the Wild soundtrack, recorded by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam fame. I picked one from the list, but definitely recommend giving all of them a listen.
Ain’t Talkin by Bob Dylan I have to admit, I have a soft spot in my heart for any song featuring walking as a response to life’s problems.
I am the Highway by Audioslave
Dust in the Wind by Kansas Ecclesiastes in song. That’s a book that holds both inspiration and warning for any traveler: an accumulating, materialistic lifestyle is pointless, but so is one lived purely for experience. A penniless traveler who’s seen the world is no better off than the rich businessman who’s never left his hometown as long as neither lives for anything more than themselves.

In the States, the travel bug comes in a very particularly American strain: the road trip. Classic cars and Route 66 are ingrained in our cultural consciousness, and many of our western roadscapes are some of the most spectacular on Earth.

Open Road by Bryan Adams One of my earliest inspirations.
Ramble On by Led Zeppelin
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane
Open Road Song by Eve 6
Here I Go Again On My Own by Whitesnake “Here I go again on my own / going down the only road I’ve ever known …” The American road trip dream usually tends to be about young men driving in fast cars down wide open roads, generally away from a woman who, tragically, was holding them down (Free Bird, anyone?).

A big part of traveling is often the simple wonder of new experience. It’s the curiosity that, when you reach the end of a path and prepare to turn around, points something out a little further on, and in so doing turns your end into the beginning of a new journey. It’s a rush, an eye-opening experience, a general cure for a rigid mind. Side-effects may include apathy towards consumerism and extreme restlessness.

Go Places by The New Pornographers
Roam by The B-52s I came upon this one recently. Good stuff!
Africa by Toto I’m not sure this is actually a travel song, but every time I listen to it I want to take off and go somewhere anyway.
Around the World by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Regardless of how tough or independent a traveler you are, there are points in every journey when all you think about is home–whether that’s the place you grew up or the person you fell in love with six hundred miles and three days ago.

Place Called Home by Kim Richey
Great Expectations by Elbow Another great band I discovered recently. This particular song is pretty hard to find (the link at right points to Elbow’s only album, Seldom Seen Kid”, which doesn’t include it). At least you can watch it on YouTube.
Landing in London by 3 Doors Down
Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkle Classic. Still two of the very few songwriters I’ve seen who are as able poets as they are musicians.

I hope you found some new music today. But now I’m interested–what are your favorite travel songs? Comment and let me know!