The moose was loose,
A daring ruse,
A prank that went too far.
“Man up and choose,
Me or the moose!”
She’d shouted from the car.
And look, perhaps it was the booze,
Or the December blues,
But I knew I had naught to lose
By letting the moose loose.
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“Hope… Do not look down, my friend. Even in the darkest of times, there is always hope. Hope for a better day, hope for a new dawn. Or just hope for a good breakfast. You start small, then see what you can get.”
Covetous Shen, Diablo-3
—
“Subdue the regret. Dust yourself off, proceed. You’ll get it in the next life, where you don’t make mistakes. Do what you can with this one, while you’re alive.”
Disco Elysium
This is just a short note before I completely pass out after such a long and eventful day… My first-ever day at the New York Comic Con (NYCC).
I’m spending this whole week in New York, crashing on a good friend’s couch over in the Jamaica neighbourhood. The occasion is the annual Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival, but I will write more on that in a few days.
Today (Friday) was the only festival day without any live screenings (only a virtual one), so I went to NYCC, having bought the rare Friday pass much earlier in the week. (My overnight bus from Montreal had arrived much earlier than expected, so I spent an hour or so at an all-night diner, buying event tickets and planning my week, eh.)
I have neither the time nor the space to describe my NYCC experience in full detail. Suffice to say, it was quite amazing. There were some logistical issues that were a clear oversight on the organizers’ part, but pobody is nerfect.
My biggest event was the Pitchapalooza: 20 authors get picked to give a 1-minute pitch, followed by gentle critique. At the end, one author gets picked, and wins an introduction to an agent in their genre. I was surprised to see that pavilion was almost empty: in my imagination, hundreds of writers would have lined up for this opportunity – but nope, there were only about 20 of us altogether. Remarkable.
I delivered my best pitch and didn’t win, but I got some great feedback – and learned that I’m capable of delivering rapid-fire pitches in front of VIPs, with a microphone and a small crowd. (There were quite a few observers.) That was good to learn about myself.
Afterwards, much roaming, and admiring people’s beautiful and creative cosplay. As an introvert, I was hesitant about attending the NYCC networking event, but I’m glad I went. I had a chat with someone from a talent agency, and got his card, and will message him soon… He was in the market for voiceover talent (not my forte), but he did say his agency represents authors, too. This should be interesting.
Speaking of voiceovers: Jeff Hays, the most talented voiceover artist in the United States, said he’s okay with doing a small commission for one of my short films! This is so mindblowing that I still can’t quite process it. I need someone to read a short script in the voice of a famous historical figure, and no one alive would do a better job. This will be so, so, soooo much fun…
The “What we do in the shadows” presentation featured two episodes of their upcoming (and final) season, followed by the hilarious Q&A with the writers and most of the cast.
The Tor event afterwards was about the upcoming book releases and not about the publishing business – but hey, they gave out free advance copies of their novels, so that’s a win!
I also whispered a secret password to a certain artist, which resulted in me joining his henchman army – and getting a snazzy T-shirt!
I wasn’t cool enough to learn about special secret after-parties, but I found a tweet about one of them… And that’s how I ended the day by infiltrating thd meet-up of New York’s comic book creators – writers as well as artists. They were in the reserved section of a nearby spors bar: fun crowd. Made some new friends, got some interesting advice, had some beer… And managed not to fall asleep during the long subway ride back to Jamaica, huzzah!
I’m not sure I could’ve accomplished more today: this was about as efficient as a single day can get. I will absolutely make sure to come back again next year, if it falls on the same week as the Brooklyn film festival – but that’s a story for another time, eh.
Good night, y’all.
Saved a toddler’s life today.
There’s a daycare a block away from my apartment building. I was walking by there, early this morning, face buried in my phone (hey, we all have our vices), when suddenly… A woman’s scream. A running kid. The road.
I didn’t even think – or look behind me to see if the road was empty. I jumped in front of the kid, legs spread, arms wide, to stop the traffic from hitting him. We did not get hit.
His mother ran up a few seconds later, scooped him up, dragged him back to her SUV. Less than 10 seconds, from start to finish.
I often wonder what I’d do, how I’d react if I suddenly ended up in a life-or-death emergency. That’s not something you can test for, not something an online quiz can predict for you, not something you can simulate in a safe and cozy environment. Fight, flight, or freeze.
I’m still a bit shaken, even three hours later, and I’ve self-medicated with a few croissants (this being Quebec, after all) and an extra-early glass of wine. I’m glad I was there to jump in front of the kid, and I’m equally glad to learn how my body would react when something like this happens. (Specifically the body, not the mind: none of this is rational or carefully contemplated.)
One of my biggest heroes is Adam Attalla. It was 2022. He was 18. There was a house fire. Two kids were stuck on the roof, the third one trapped inside the burning house. People stared and pointed and did a whole lot of nothing. He ran into the house next door, then upstairs, through a window, onto the roof, jumped to the burning house’s roof, and saved all three of them. There were no casualties that day, no serious injuries. He had no training: just an average teen, but he did something heroic when everyone (especially the next-door neighbors, who were very much aware of the fire) stood still.
I’m not particularly eager to head into the next incarnation ahead of time (things are finally going great in this one!), but doing so while saving others is probably the most impactful, the most noble way to go. And now I know that I’m the kind of person who jumps into the middle of the road without a second thought to save a child… And that’s a damn nice thing to know about oneself.
My big goal for 2024 was to become a sci-fi creator – ideally a published author, but open to anything. One of those “anything” side quests led me to create a short film, “Please Don’t Send Help.” A few months ago, fueled by a spike of optimism (and a bit of boredom – let’s be honest here), I submitted it to a couple of film festivals, and, well… I’ve just found it’s been accepted by the Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival!
That film festival has been around for five years, it has 8,000 attendees, and it’s pretty selective when it comes to judging the submissions. This feels so unreal… The festival will take place in mid-October, less than a month from now: every film will be streamed online, but some will also be shown to the live audience in Brooklyn. I’m waiting for that update: if my film (all 2 minutes and 29 seconds of it) gets a live showing, I will be there – rubbing elbows, making friends, watching the audience watch my film, trying not to grin like an absolute maniac.
I’ve been riding the dopamine high from this announcement for quite a while now. My little film had cost me just $15 to make ($10 for the amazing voice actress + a 50% tip), though I did spend several weeks tinkering with it. And to have it accepted, and recognized – something I made with no film school experience of any kind – wow. Just… wow.
I played way too many video games growing up. (Some say I still play way too many video games.) Because of that, my overly competitive brain tends to view each and every hobby as a level progression, from 0 to 100. Everyone starts out at an absolute 0 in every skill, every hobby when they’re born, and eventually, through practice and hard work and luck, they level up. (A friend of mine is an amazing artist: she told me her parents encouraged her to draw since she was six months old, and she never stopped.)
When you apply that philosophy to filmmaking, level 100 would mean getting an Oscar. Level 1 would be pressing “record” on a camera and making a video of literally anything. I feel like this new development has propelled me somewhere around level 40, as far as this particular skill goes. There’s a lot more ground to cover, and I’m quite sure I’ll never reach level 100, but now I’m genuinely curious just how much farther I can take this, and how the world will view the rest of my ideas and my films.
Once I hear back from all the other festivals, I’ll post “Please Don’t Send Help” online for all y’all to enjoy as well – but it’ll be a few months. And now, I’m off to watch tutorials on making (and animating!) fun 3D objects in Houdini Apprentice for a particularly ambitious cut scene of my next short film. That should be interesting…
A strange thing happened the other day.
I was leaving a restroom at the end of a long isolated hallway in a shopping mall when I had an unusual encounter.
A quick aside: I’m tall, broad-shouldered (despite being skinny), usually have some stubble, wear a chain around my neck, a few steel rings, and dress in all black most days. I also like to walk fast. I’m no Amos Burton, but I can see how I might seem a little intimidating, which is why I generally try to paste a small smile on my face. (Which, come to think of it, is something Amos does as well. Damn.)
When I think I’m alone (for example, when I leave a restroom at the end of a long isolated hallway in a shopping mall), I have my resting Russian face on: neutral, serious, emotionless.
Now that I’ve painted you that quick mental picture… There I was, speed-walking through the long and dimly lit hallway, when someone stepped toward me from around the corner. The stranger was a short guy with a big belly, about 45. He glanced at me, and his instantaneous reaction was to flatten himself against the hallway wall – face to the wall, butt out. There was plenty of room for the both of us to pass each other without so much as a stray touch, but nope. Straight-up fear and panic.
I speed-walked past him without acknowledging him or making the already weird situation even weirder. Still, I’m curious what precisely he’d thought in that split-second before he decided to (unsuccessfully) merge with the wall, and what he thought afterwards. Did he regale his friends with tales of that terrifying encounter? Or perhaps that’s just a quirk of his, and that was an everyday experience? So many questions.
Unbiased and objective self-perception can be difficult. Objectively, I know I’m taller and hairier than most people – yet it always surprises me to realize I’m almost as tall as most doorways. I try to keep a peaceful half-smile on my face, and cross the street rather than walk behind women after dark, and generally try to be as non-threatening as possible. And then, of course, there are random encounters when I don’t have my mask on, and folks freak out. Not often, but often enough to make me wonder: what on earth do I look like to others when I’m just being myself?
I guess I’ll never really know.
This is probably the inevitable side effect of having played way too many video games, but I tend to view life in terms of levels, scores, and achievements. Some achievements are quite common: you’ve devoured a dragon fruit, huzzah! But so have billions of other people. Other achievements, however…
This week, I have two rare first-time achievements, and they’re mighty fun.
First, I’ve officially become a published author! Not self-published, mind you: I’ve been selling my e-books on Kindle since 2011 or so. No, something I wrote appeared in an actual book, and I got paid for it, contract and all. This also happens to be my first short story sale! My story, “How to Prepare for Time Travelers in the Workplace,” has been published in a brand new time travel anthology, “Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel.” (Available wherever you buy your books online.)
This is… Somewhat unreal, eh. I’ve been low-key writing and trying, and finally I got it done. These days, there are more short story writers competing for fewer slots than, say, 70 years ago, during the pulp era. In terms of sheer competitiveness, this is a bit like Olympic gymnastics: if you watch videos of gold medalists from 80 or so years ago, today’s gymnasts (especially Simone Biles!) are basically superheroes compared to them. It’s fun to live in a world that’s advanced so much in just about every competitive field, but that also means we’re playing at a much higher difficulty level than the earlier generations.
In any case, huzzah – and here’s hoping I’ll manage to get more publication credits. Also, that short story takes place in the same universe as my thus-far-unagented sci-fi novel “Time Traveler’s Etiquette Guide.” With any luck, this will give me that extra bit of visibility that would attract an awesome literary agent. I’m trying multiple things at once, and I’m positive at least one of them will work.
The second fun new achievement is my interview on CBC radio! There’s a weekly meetup group for expats here in Quebec City, and it’s called Bla Bla Language Exchange. Not long ago, we got a visit from a radio journalist who conducted short interviews with some of us. Part of my interview made it into the final broadcast. I’ll never get used to the way my voice sounds on tape, but I suppose that’s a universal human experience, eh? Anyway, head over yonder to listen to the segment (it’s quite fun!) – my part starts at 9:45.
This year doesn’t have a grand hiking adventure (that’ll be in 2025!), but it does have a lot of mini-adventures, each of which is just as fascinating in its own little way. Here is to many, many more.
Sometimes, you get a lovely combination of nice weather, terrible boredom, and zero plans whatsoever… The obvious solution is to dress up and go to my favourite restaurant in the tourist district for an amazing meal. (Because life is too short to require special occasions.) My fellow bus passengers were a bit confused, which is always a fun bonus.
Incidentally, if you’re ever in Quebec City, and wandering through the tourist district, and want to have a great meal without paying a fortune, I highly recommend checking out Au Petit Coin Breton. Their mimosa salad is gigantic, delicious, and a great deal – and the bottomless coffee is surprisingly good!
Life can be beautiful, if you will only let it.
I had to find some new obsession to keep from compulsively refreshing my email, waiting for feedback from literary agents. And so, filmmaking. One of my many, many former roommates is finally getting recognition for his short films. (You can find some of his masterpieces over here!)
I’d never once contemplated becoming a filmmaker, but then I had an idea, and it got me thinking…
We live in the age of magic. How else would you describe the internet to someone from a century ago? Here, now, in 2024, we have a lot of huge and scary problems that hadn’t been on anyone’s horizon just 50 years ago, but we also have some tremendous advantages. One of those advantages is the overabundance of public domain footage. It can come from aspiring videographers, or from taxpayer-funded federal agencies, or old-timey movies whose copyright has lapsed.
Regardless of the origin, the footage is out there. Likewise for great free software. (I highly recommend the OpenShot Video Editor.) Ditto for short but beautiful sound effects. Double ditto for talented music enthusiasts who post their creations online – all of it under the Creative Commons license.
All that material is up for the taking, up for grabs, as long as you attribute the creators. (And why on earth wouldn’t you?)
And so… My 7-year-old gaming PC, though it’s no longer in pristine condition, was more than up for it. An incredibly talented voice actor from the UK did a stellar job with her voiceover – on Fiverr, of all places. (I made sure to leave a 50% tip!) I’ve submitted my very first creation (experimental sci-fi, “Please Don’t Send Help”) to a couple of film festivals – one in Toronto, one in Brooklyn. Let’s see how that plays out, eh.
But meanwhile, there’s another short film I have made. I’m a huge connoisseur of the supervillain genre, and it blew my mind to realize there aren’t all that many short films (especially low-budget ones) on that topic. In particular, on the topic becoming a super-villain…
During my first expedition for public domain footage, I stumbled on the amazing 1964 film “The Last Man On Earth” starring the one, the only Vincent Price. It was based on the classic sci-fi novel “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson. (You may have seen the 2007 adaptation “I Am Legend” with Will Smith.) And it was in public domain! And so full of old-timey black-and-white horror goodness!
I wrote up a quick little script, went to bed, spent the next few weeks procrastinating, and then finally – finally – sat down, spliced the movie, did my own voiceover (gruff Eastern-European accents are still villainous, right?), and voila – it’s done. The title is “So, You Want to Be a Supervillain?” and I’ll post it all over the web later today.
I’m curious to see how this will go, for I have many, many more ideas… Realistically, nothing will probably happen. Optimistically, this will attract the eyes of some literary agents who might be on the fence about my “Time Traveler’s Etiquette Guide” novel. Wildly, utterly unrealistically optimistically – hey, Netflix and/or Hulu, I’m down to join your writer room, let’s do this! (No, seriously, let’s do this.)
And so… Here it goes:
People often say that with all the inflation, you can’t buy anything for a single dollar. Those people are wrong.
My all-time favourite podcast is “Ologies” with Alie Ward: she’s an amazing interviewer, a science enthusiast, and has a wicked sense of humour. She also has a fun incentive for her listeners to support the podcast on Patreon. For just one dollar a month, you get to ask questions for every upcoming episode. If Alie picks your question, she’ll read it out loud (along with your name), and you’ll become part of the podcast’s history.
Well… One of the many fun things about Patreon is that you get to pick your own name – or nickname. Long story short, if you listen to the most recent episode about praying mantises, at the 54:15 timestamp you’ll hear Alie say my nickname – “Grigorius of Tomsk, Devourer of Pop-Tarts, Victor of Many Battles.” To her credit, she managed to say that without laughing, and with only the slightest delay after “Pop-Tarts.”
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. That right there was the best dollar I’ve ever spent, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop laughing at that tiny soundbite. Go forth, y’all, and be the chaotic creative goblins you know you should be.
Grigory Lukin.com 