Okay, sometimes it's fun to see yourself on TV. In 2004, the Trio network debuted a documentary series called "Parking Lot," which featured snippets of conversations with attendees at events like concerts or conventions. The show didn't last long, but it did last long enough for Scott Edelman and Bob Howe and I to end up in one episode.

Scott (who has written a longer post about our brief appearance) has just discovered that the producers of "Parking Lot" have been uploading segments of the show to YouTube. And voilà!, there we are outside of I-CON 22, a science convention at SUNY Stony Brook.

See if you can spot Scott and Bob and me, nine years younger, trying to sound all erudite and set ourselves apart from the rest of the madness. And, um, failing. Our bits are interspersed throughout the segment.

UPDATE!  After this blog entry was written, I emailed the text of it to John Hodgman on a whim. A few hours later, to my surprise, I received a response. His Honor told me he would endure my "gut punches" if I disagreed with him, but that I should not ask him to answer for Martin Amis.

I must take great exception to your summary judgment in a recent episode of the "Judge John Hodgman" podcast, to wit, that Shaun of the Dead is a comedy only and not a horror film.

Your Honor, this opinion is, if you'll permit me, patent hogwash. If we are to accept your definition of a horror film as one designed to provoke terror and dread in its audience and to help that audience confront and process their own existential fears as their on-screen proxies battle horrors from beyond the grave, then in what way does Shaun of the Dead not meet that definition? Yes, we may be laughing at the same time, and we may chuckle wryly here and there in recognition of nods to earlier classics in the zombie canon, but that in no way reduces our identification with Shaun, Ed, and the rest of our heroes, nor does it diminish our well-justified fears for their safety or our investment in their fates. Whatever yuks may be afoot, these characters are in very real peril, and we can't help experiencing that peril along with them. Shaun of the Dead clearly manages the feat of being effective comedy and horror both, at the same time.

I am weary to my bones of the tired assertion that a thing that is one thing cannot also be another thing, particularly when the one thing is seen as high art and the other as low. I recall years ago attending a lecture by literary enfant terrible Martin Amis at the NYU library. His New Yorker short story "The Janitor on Mars" had just been named by Locus Magazine as one of the year's top works of science fiction. During Q&A, a young woman asked Amis if the publication of that story meant that he was now a science fiction writer. Amis hemmed and hawed, eventually asserting that, while he had read and absorbed copious amounts of science fiction as a youth and certainly wasn't embarrassed by that fact, "The Janitor on Mars" merely deployed the tropes and language of science fiction to a higher literary end. It was not itself, he claimed, science fiction.

This, Your Honor, is so much mealy-mouthed rot. Something that quacks like a duck, though it may do so in an erudite, hipper-than-thou cadence with its bill raised snootily in the air, is nonetheless still a duck. There may be some "meta" purpose at work, but if we po-mo roughnecks have learned nothing else in the course of our rude existences, is it not that the very definition of "meta" is to be the thing being referenced? Have we failed to heed the lesson of the yin and the yang, which is that a thing can, nay, must embrace, embody, and give rise to its apparent opposite?

They in their towers of ivory glass may not like it, but I'm sure such an enlightened nerd as Your Honor must agree that science fiction can also be literature, that comedy can also be horror, and that from time to time even a judge can be wrong.

Yours humbly,
William Shunn
Science Fiction Writer

Hugo Award nominations are now open, and that means it's time to make good on my threat promise to spearhead a campaign to get the @MayorEmanuel Twitter stream nominated.

As you may recall, Bob, @MayorEmanuel was the anonymous but highly popular tweeter who created a profane and fantastic alternate Chicago during the course of our 2010-11 mayoral election season. Though it started out as something of a lark, by the time it wound down on the night of the election the stream had grown into one of the most absorbing works of science fiction of the year.

The author soon revealed himself to be Chicago journalist and educator Dan Sinker, and late that summer the tweets appeared from Scribner in book form, collected and annotated, as The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel.

I think this innovative story is deserving of a Hugo. At the very least, a nomination for this most Chicago-centric of SF works would be appropriate in a year when Worldcon comes to our fair city. I've consulted with experts, and we agree that we're best off to nominate @MayorEmanuel in the Best Related Work category. If you're with us, then for consistency please fill out your nominating ballot in that category exactly as follows, including the asterisks:

TITLE: The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel
AUTHOR: Dan Sinker
PUBLISHER: Scribner

The book is essentially a work of non-fiction that describes and fully annotates the process of writing the original work, even though the tweets are included in full. For that reason, calling the book a Related Work seems to fit best. We think it would be dicey to attempt to nominate a Twitter stream in one of the fiction categories.

Anyway, if you're not familiar with @MayorEmanuel and want to catch up, the annotated book is a terrific place to start. And here are a few other relevant links to get you going:

• Into the time vortex!
• The two mayors
• The last hours of @MayorEmanuel
• Revealing the man behind @MayorEmanuel
• @MayorEmanuel unmasked
• Full @MayorEmanuel archive

A brand-new short story of mine, "Stand Up," is available now at the group blog This May Get Awkward:

"Stand Up"

The good folks at TMGA (in the person of the estimable JD Adamski, an MVP of the Tuesday Funk reading series I co-produce) asked me a while back to contribute a story, and I'm glad I finally had a chance to oblige them. I hope you like it. It's short.

"Yeah—mothers," said the comedian, running a hand through his sparse hair. "Don't you just hate 'em?"

Uncertain charges of laughter detonated here and there around the club. It was all in the delivery, and in the modest credit he'd accrued up to now with the audience.  [read more]

Some of you know I co-produce and co-host a monthly reading series, Tuesday Funk, at a great little bar here in Chicago. At our October event about three weeks ago, I read my story "The Visitors at Wriggly Field," which was written two years ago in support of Chicago's Worldcon bid and concerns a very unusual World Series matchup in 2012.

You can read more here about how it came to be written, but since the text of the story is no longer available online, and since Game 6 of this year's World Series is tonight, I thought it would be a good time to share the video of the reading here. I hope you like it. Go, Cubs!

And catch more videos from Tuesday Funk here.

I have a couple of upcoming events in Chicago I wanted to let you know about.

First, I'll be appearing on Tuesday, October 4th, as part of the Tuesday Funk reading series at Hopleaf Bar (5148 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL). (Sharp-eyed readers will recognize that I also serve as co-host of this series.) The reading takes place in the upstairs lounge. Doors upstairs open at 7:00 pm, and the show starts at 7:30 pm. I'll be reading a short story, "The Visitors at Wriggly Field." Please note that Hopleaf is 21 and over only. More info here:

http://www.tuesdayfunk.org/2011/09/tuesday-funk-38-october-4th.html

Also, I'll be reading a personal essay on Monday, December 19th, as part of the Essay Fiesta reading series at the Book Cellar (4736 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL). I've read for Essay Fiesta a couple of times before, and it's always great fun. For more information about this charitable reading series, see:

http://www.essayfiesta.com/

Please mark your calendars, and I hope to see you at one or both events.

Since 2006, I've spent a week almost every summer at a workshop for novel writers—either Blue Heaven or a spinoff based on its organizing principles. And since fall of last year, I have co-produced and co-hosted a monthly reading series called Tuesday Funk at a Belgian beer bar on the north side of Chicago.

I'm pleased to announce that these two worlds will soon collide! I'm spending the next week at the Wellspring Workshop in Lake Geneva, WI, organized by Brad Beaulieu, but for one night only the group of us will be roadtripping back to Chicago to invade Tuesday Funk for a "Science Fiction Sextuple Feature."

This special edition of Tuesday Funk convenes Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago. Arrive early, stake out a table in the upper room, and grab a beer from John at the cash-only bar. We start seating at 7:00 pm and no earlier. Admission is free, but you must be 21 or older.

Our readers will include Brenda Cooper, Sarah K. Castle, Holly McDowell, Gregory A. Wilson, Vincent Jorgensen, and Kelly Swails, not to mention, as usual, a Poem By Bill. We hope to see you there!

The man behind the curtain has been revealed. Well, really, he came out from behind the curtain himself. As reported by Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic, @MayorEmanuel is Dan Sinker, a journalism instructor at Columbia College in Chicago, and one of the founders and editors of the zine Punk Planet.

Having myself waxed rapturous over the @MayorEmanuel tweet stream, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that the mystery is no longer a mystery. I'm not nearly as disappointed as Jim DeRogatis is, because, hey, that Twitter account was a brilliant, engrossing, and uplifting example of a new form of literature, accidental as that might have been, and its author has every right to reap the benefits of his achievement. My disappointment is more that of a fan for whom part of the thrill was the not knowing, and the hope that we would never know. Did you honestly want to know for certain whether or not that top in Inception was ever going to stop spinning? I didn't.

But to be pragmatic, it was probably better that Dan Sinker control the revelation than that someone else out him, which no doubt would have happened sooner or later. And at least now we know whom to nominate for that Hugo next year in the Best Related Work category. (Hey, Chicago in 2012!)

Hats off, Mr. Sinker. As your character wrote: "Only things that fucking suck never end: look at laundry, or dishes."

Motherfucking pro tip: soy sauce and fucking cognac. Motherfucking amazing.
9 Dec

[WINTER PARKING IN CHICAGO]
Axelrod is a motherfucking parking-space shoveling artist. They should hang his fucking shovel in the Art Institute.
26 Dec

He's marked his space with 14 lawn chairs, an ironing board, and a pyramid of milk crates. He'll fucking shank someone if they move them.
26 Dec
[/WINTER PARKING IN CHICAGO]

Jesus fucking Christ, there is not enough motherfucking coffee in the whole fucking world this morning.
29 Dec

[ANGRY BIRDS]
Fuck these Angry Birds right in their motherfucking feathered fucking vents.
30 Dec

These giant bowling ball red birds would be motherfucking amazing if this whole game wasn't fucking me in the ass right now.
30 Dec

All I want right now is a motherfucking cheeseburger and to claw my goddamn eyes out. Instead I'm fucking flinging these fucking birds.
30 Dec
[/ANGRY BIRDS]

[RESIDENCY HEARING]
Carl the Intern's at the circuit court with three pounds of my shit in ziplock bags. He's tossing 'em if the verdict comes in wrong.
4 Jan
[/RESIDENCY HEARING]

Fuck this motherfucking brutal fucking cold right in its frozen fucking asshole.
21 Jan

[BEARS-PACKERS PLAYOFF]
We finally got Spielberg to take off his cheesehead, but he's got a Packers doo rag on underneath it. What the fuck.
23 Jan

Kanye's choking back fucking tears: "Cutler's knee injury is a nice match for my heart injury."
23 Jan

CALEB FUCKING HAINE! YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL FUCKING MAN!
23 Jan
[/BEARS-PACKERS PLAYOFF]

Double birds to the motherfucking world. TO THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD.
24 Jan

[ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT RESIDENCY RULING]
We're all fucking crying and laughing and barking and quacking and the city has never looked more beautiful, and in four weeks I'll be mayor
27 Jan

Now we're all crammed in Axelrod's fucking Civic, the ceiling's still dented in, driving down Lake Shore Drive, just fucking freestyling.
27 Jan
[/ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT RESIDENCY RULING]

[BLIZZARD]
Report from Axelrod's weathercenter has the big storm hitting later this afternoon. Perfectly fucking reasonable to get drunk now.
1 Feb
[/BLIZZARD]

[CAMPAIGN SPEECH AT THREADLESS]
Speech preview: "We're Chicago. Maybe--just fucking maybe--we can build something better than stupid T-shirts and half-off deals."
8 Feb

Original plan was to do this speech at Groupon, but now everyone thinks they're fucking assholes. Note to self: Lay off the Tibet jokes.
8 Feb
[/CAMPAIGN SPEECH AT THREADLESS]

Hanging out with nerds at Google today. Up half the night building up my elfin sorcerer, in case anyone throws down a motherfucking 20-side.
10 Feb

Snow stopped, week's done, MOTHERFUCKING BEER O'CLOCK, BITCHES.
11 Feb

Our Grammy party got ruined when we remembered that the Grammys are motherfucking awful.
13 Feb

HOLY FUCK, THE MOON IS MOTHERFUCKING ENORMOUS.
18 Feb

[ELECTION DAY EVE]
Hambone just brought the schedule: (1) shake 10,000 voters' hands (2) pick up Ari from the airport (3) keep Ari away from voters. Fuck.
21 Feb
[/ELECTION DAY EVE]

[SACRIFICE IN THE TIME VORTEX]
"There must be something we can do..." But there's not. Only things that fucking suck never end: look at laundry, or dishes.
23 Feb
[/SACRIFICE IN THE TIME VORTEX]

This can only give a bit of the flavor of the feed, if you haven't followed it. For two good distillations of the story's climax, I still recommend you read Tim Carmody's "The Two Mayors" and "The Last Hours of @MayorEmanuel."

The most entertaining and rewarding piece of fiction of the past six months has been, without a doubt, the Twitter stream of @MayorEmanuel. (Sorry, Mongoliad.)

@MayorEmanuel is, or was, a delightfully profane Rahm Emanuel impersonator whose tweets started appearing six months ago, after the real Emanuel expressed his intention to enter the Chicago mayoral race. (Tagline: Your next motherfucking mayor. Get used to it, assholes.) The tweets were drop-dead funny—so much so that I'm sure I retweeted them more frequently than I've retweeted anyone else's—but at first seemed like little more than an amusing and perceptive piss-take on the real Rahm and Chicago politics.

But then a surprising thing happened. Characters from @MayorEmanuel's entourage began to develop, some based on real people (David Axelrod), others fictional (Carl the Intern, Quaxelrod the mustachioed duck). Storylines began to emerge. Riffing off the real ups and downs of the Emanuel campaign, the daily news, and even the weather, the tweets led followers through the dark underbelly of a fantastical Chicago populated by celebrities and politicians, by the famous and the infamous, by the living and the dead alike, with the gang often tooling around town in Axelrod's beloved but increasingly damaged Honda Civic. (Even the real Rahm tried to insert himself into the story, famously offering a large donation to charity if the anonymous author would come forward.)

From Jane Byrne's secret dungeon to a harrowing ride through the flooded sewers beneath City Hall, from New Year's Eve bacchanalia with Kanye West to Mayor Daley's secret celery dome, the story blended an insider's knowledge of the minutiae of Chicago politics and an intimate familiarity with the geography of the city with a stew of pop-culture references and jaw-droppingly absurdist comic sensibility to create a prodigious, profane, and ultimately moving kaleidoscope world that nonetheless captured the essence of this city-like-no-other. Wilco and Gene Siskel, Groupon and Threadless, even celery salt, that key ingredient of the Chicago dog, all get their moment in the spotlight.

You'll note, I did say moving. The night before the election, the narrative took a cosmic and elegiac turn, with @MayorEmanuel snatched away for a tutorial in the secret powers of which Chicago mayors are custodians. I don't want to spoil the story, but let me just praise the brilliance with which the promise of that sequence was fulfilled last night. In an inspired feat of improvisation, the unknown author actually wove the real hailstorm taking place outside our windows into the climax of the story, and somehow managed to time the culmination of @MayorEmanuel's hero's quest with the single giant peal of real thunder that reverberated over the city (and that not to mention scared the crap out of my dog).

Timothy Carmody has compiled and annotated some of the key tweets from the past few days here and here, and I urge you to read through them if you haven't been following the story. But really, to experience the story properly, you had to be following it as it unfolded, and even more so, you had to be in Chicago at the end to properly appreciate that cathartic thunderclap of a conclusion. Sorry, everyone else.

In all seriousness, I want to nominate the @MayorEmanuel tweet stream for a Hugo. (Best Short Story? Best Dramatic Presentation? I don't know.) It's too bad the story had to wrap up in 2011, since that won't make it eligible until next year, if it's even eligible at all.

But moreso, now that the campaign season and the election and the story itself are over, I want to state for the record, a la those West Wing bumper stickers, that @MayorEmanuel will always be my motherfucking mayor.

First off, I must say that I made it home and back safely.

There was some debate about whether or not this month's Tuesday Funk reading would even happen, what with the blizzard and all going on here in Chicago. Hopleaf's opinion was that snow doesn't tend to keep audiences away as much as rain does, so we should go ahead and do it.

And I have to say, they were right. At least in a sense.

With so much snow predicted to fall, I didn't want to take the car over to Clark Street, so I tied our bass amp up tight inside two blue garbage bags, picked up the mike stand, and staggered the (according to Google Maps) 0.8 miles from my house to Hopleaf, with the frigid wind blowing in my face most of the way. I stopped to rest once in the lee of an alley just about sixty feet from Ashland Avenue when I felt like I couldn't continue. After a couple of minutes, the final stretch no longer seemed so daunting, and soon enough I was warm inside Hopleaf, setting up the speaker and mike and enjoying a Chimay our bartender provided free of charge.

By this time, three of our five scheduled readers had written to bow out, owing to the storm. But I had already lined up myself and Jackie Adamski as standby readers, so, with Eden Robins and Brooke Wonders present, we ended up with four readers in all. Ten audience members, including our bartender John.

All I can say about the reading itself is, it was one of those amazing evenings that when you try later to describe it to people who weren't there, you inevitably fall back on the lame descriptor, "You had to be there." There's just something about being part of a group of people who actually showed up at an event that no one in their right mind would have attended. Being there was a badge of honor in and of itself. Reading there was like being part of a secret cabal solving world hunger and global warming.

The only truly hairy bit, for me, anyway, came on the cab ride home. Sondra Morin and I shared a cab, and once it became obvious that the driver wasn't all that familiar with driving in snow, and given the fact that the outside world was only barely visible through the icy windshield (and that much of that consisted of glowing traffic lights alternating with the revolving lights of ambulances and fire engines), we abandoned the idea that the driver would take us each home to our doorsteps. Instead, we settled on a major intersection midway between our homes, flung twenty bucks at the driver, and each made our separate way home through the foot-or-more-high drifts. Yes, at least a foot of snow had fallen between the time I set out and the time I returned home.

And do you know what? I wouldn't trade the evening for anything, including having sat at home warm and cozy in front of the fire with a good book. Tuesday Funk rocked the free world tonight. Ten people know it, and the rest of you will just have to take our word for it.