Destination: Havana, Cuba

On several occasions during a four-day stay in Havana on a licensed trip for work I was nearly arrested.

I was the sole African-American among a group of Caucasians and Latin Americans. In the tourist areas of the city, the locals are prohibited from fraternizing with visitors (this mainly has to do with deterring panhandling and black market deals). In fact locals are not allowed inside their own hotels!

To my surprise, I look Cuban. Militia and hotel police, who were convinced I was a native, stopped me. That was, until I spoke. My lack of Spanish, distinctly American-accented speaking voice always caused the most profoundly apologetic responses and even inspired one policeman (with a very large Soviet-era machine gun) to give the most amazing Jack Benny double take.

Believe me, this was serious. I was with my comrades and working around Old Havana within an hour of arriving, when we crossed a local Cuban talking to a group of East Europeans. In seconds, a van pulled up, throw the guy in the back and whisked off. We were told that the penalty for “harassing tourists” is an automatic three days in jail.

Cuba is deeply prejudiced. Dark-skinned natives are routinely harassed by the more respectably European-looking half of the population. For the first time in my life I truly knew what it was like for my parents in the Deep South before Civil Rights. At first I laughed it off, but I was shaken to my core. Devastated.

Still, Havana was a profound and exhilarating experience. Life-transforming. Not for it flaws, but for its opportunities. No people celebrate life every single day with more joy and abandon than the Cuban people. In the face of tremendous hardship, they embrace music, dance and hospitality. They open their homes and hearts to you without a second thought, and they only ask for good conversation in return.

Bangkok tees, mugs and posters

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Destination: Bangkok

I had the good fortune to visit Krung Thep Maha Nakhon—Bangkok to the rest of the world—for work when Thailand hosted APEC summit. I was impressed with the friendliness of its people and wealth of history and grand culture. The city had been swept clean for visiting dignitaries, so I know I was not privy to the true Bangkok. Still, it’s a spectacular place. The U.S. dollars goes far and it’s easy to imagine uprooting myself, emptying my bank account, and living there quite comfortably on half a years salary. That could easily sustain me for a couple of years in the Thai economy.

I had dinner one night at a fantastic restaurant that was dedicated to AIDS-HIV education. There was condom-art in nearly ever inch. It was an incredibly emotive experience, and gratifying to see the creative length one country had gone to combat and education its populace about this devastating disease. The food there was amazing! It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had, anywhere in the world.

To commemorate the visit, I worked from photos I had taken at the Grand Palace and created an illustration, which is available as a T-shirt, poster, mug, or postcard design on shopiw.

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Computer Arts issue 133

Reinvent yourself

So, you’re one of the most sought-after illustrators in the country with a unique and instantly recognisable style. You’ve got the best agent, magazines are fighting over your work and the commissions just keep flooding in. Brilliant, you’re at the top of your game. But for how long? What happens when that leading edge, much-imitated style you worked so hard to develop starts looking a little bit tired? What if the magazines and advertising agencies that were fighting to get your hot look onto their pages start looking elsewhere?

The answer is simple – you need to reinvent yourself. Whether this means completely burying your old identity and starting out with a clean slate, looking at how you can develop your skills in different areas of design, or just giving your style an overhaul, it’s up to you. The point is that if you want to stay ahead of the pack, you need to be constantly moving forward.


IN THE MAG

TUTORIALS

HANDS-ON DESIGN
Use traditional skills alongside Photoshop

THE ART OF ORNAMENT
Create a decorative font with Illustrator

EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS
Print poster-size images from Illustrator

GRADIENTS MADE EASY
Remedy those gradient printing woes

FLASH PORTFOLIOS
Put the finishing touches on your site

BLURRING EFFECTS
Create realistic depth of field in Photoshop

FEATURES

REINVENT YOURSELF
Make sure your work never goes out of fashion with our essential guide to reinventing your career, your company, your style or even yourself

BEHIND THE SCENES: FLIP THE SCRIPT
How the Surface to Air global design collective persuaded some of the design community’s best talents to re-imagine such classic movie posters as Jaws, Blow-Up and A Clockwork Orange

EXPOSURE
A selection of amazing work sent in by talented artists from across the globe

PROFILE: 4WALL
How design collective 4Wall is creating a serious buzz though live painting, beer-tasting and 18 leading names in digital art

SHOW-STOPPING DESIGN
Find out why the world of large-scale graphics for exhibitions, expos and conferences is the smart place to be

CV: STEWART M BRUCE
Meet the Californian designer with a thing for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

ON THE CD

LYNDA.COM PHOTOSHOP CS3 BETA TRAINING
Photoshop guru Deke McClelland guides you through some of the features of Adobe’s recent Photoshop CS3 Beta

FONTOGRAPHER 4.7 TRY-OUT
Take a closer, hands-on look at FontLab’s essential typography application with this brilliant trial version

POSER FIGURE ARTIST TRY-OUT
Drawing figures can be tricky. Discover how to make it easier with e frontier’s Poser Figure Artist application

100 FOTOLIA STOCK IMAGES
Avoid legal scrapes and image theft by using any of these royalty-free photos from Fotolia

COLORIAGE TRY-OUT
If you’re struggling to add colour to your black-and-white images, let this new plug-in from AKVIS take the strain

THREE BOOK EXTRACTS
Sample chapters from the books reviewed this issue, including What is Product Design? and Rinzen’s Neighbourhood

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F&SF: APRIL 2007

April 2007 –
58th Year of Publication
SPECIAL GENE WOLFE SECTION

How to Read Gene Wolfe

• Neil Gaiman

Memorare

• Gene Wolfe

The Wolf in the Labyrinth

• Michael Swanwick

Gene Wolfe: The Man And His Work

• Michael Andrei-Driussi


NOVELETS
The Equally Strange Reappearance of David Gerrold

• David Gerrold


SHORT STORIES
A Thing Forbidden

• Donald Mead

Titanium Mike Saves the Day

• David D. Levine

Fantasy & Science Fiction

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Sci-Fi Sequel Book Combines Action, Romance and Fantasy

"Target Earth"

Join Amy and Levi, two beings living in a symbiotic relationship through the same body, on their continuing saga to save humanity from an evil alien invasion in Gary W. Babb's new science fiction adventure, Target Earth.

Amy is a self-aware and vastly intelligent computer who is trying to escape her prison of isolation by living through Levi's senses. She is emotionally still a child and trying to cope with her emerging female emotions. Levi is an 80-year-old belligerent, macho man who requires Amy's telepathic link to maintain his augmented superhuman body.

Target Earth picks up where Babb's previous book, Earth is Ours,leaves off. Amy and Levi are still trying to cope with sharing a body and the conflicting emotions and motivations that emerge. After their victory in defeating alien invaders in Earth is Ours, a second invasion has occurred, bringing the leader of the Simian Warriors, the Supreme One, to Earth on a quest to destroy all humans.

Both Levi and Amy are very stubborn, and continually face many conflicts regarding their incredibly different male and female perspectives. In the previous book, they had found a way to love each other despite their differences. This oneness allowed them to merge and combine Amy's mental energy with Levi's physical power to form a new identity, called ASONE. The emergence of ASONE also drove the Supreme One into fits of rage and caused him to double his efforts to destroy both of them.

Joined by human armies and freed alien slaves, Levi and Amy must overcome their internal struggles to fight and protect humanity from extinction in fierce battles that rage across the California and Arizona deserts. The unique and complex characters and compelling story provide an exciting new chapter in Babb's riveting saga.

Babb is originally from Oklahoma, but his work has taken him to Florida, Texas and finally Southern California, where he has lived for the past 20 years. He currently serves as the vice president of Americable's Western Region. He attended Amarillo College, DeVry Institute of Technology, National Cable Television Institute and Western Oklahoma State College. His previous book, "Earth is Ours," won the award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy 2005 from the San Diego Book Awards and is also available through AuthorHouse. He is currently working on a third book in the series. Babb is the first featured author in "Authors Across America," a new campaign launched by AuthorHouse to promote writing and literacy and encourage authors to publish their works.

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Successful Soul Transplant Operation Featured in New Sci-Fi Book

In Last call from Earth science-fiction trilogy, Al Herr presents a saga of biological survival where the DNA loses its guidance and control function. People affected with CRDS (Circadian Rhythm Degeneration Syndrome) become physically, emotionally and mentally deformed and grotesque; little girls under five loose all their ovules in a menstrual flush; millions become morbidly obese, reaching over 2,000 pounds.

The circadian rhythm dates back billions of years and served as the basis for the primitive organisms to begin functioning, progressively, into more complex states. This rhythm enables the biochemistry of our bodies to run on time and in a pre-established order.

In the human body, this rhythm is orchestrated in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, in the brain. It controls our temperature cycle and the secretion of hormones.

The circadian rhythm regulates biological activities that are linked to a 24-hour cycle, like brain wave activity, cell regeneration, and hormone reproduction. If the cell regeneration cycle doesn't work properly, the body retains its old cells while new ones are created, and consequently the body gains weight.

It is impossible for a human body to weigh 2,000 pounds. The heart cannot pump enough blood to maintain such a body; the bones cannot sustain such a weight… But with CRDS, of the air that we breathe and normally expel from the lungs, minuscule drops of oxygen get into all the cells of the body, which becomes like a balloon; literally, people with CRDS float.

Being out of control of the basic body functions creates problems not proper to mention, but that you can imagine. Without an internal biological clock functioning properly, we have little girls under the age of five who lose all their ovules in a single menstrual flush and never menstruate again. Not maintaining a steady chemistry in the brain, there are cases of people that talk nonsense without stopping, unable to maintain the focus of their attention, wandering from one thought to another without control.

Mary's Plight

"I believe I am, or I feel like I am anyway, the fattest person alive. I am 1,984 pounds. I have a bed that was made especially for me. I live on it; literally speaking. It's a combination bed, toilet, and shower--all in one. I have fecal and urinary incontinence. I don't want to embarrass myself with details, but you can imagine. Fortunately, if I could say that, I just push a button and the entire bed gets showered, flushed, and cleaned up (including me). Why did I get to be like this? What did I do? Is this a punishment? What could I have done that was so bad? I have hypertension, hyperlipidemia, atherosclerosis, gallbladder disease, diabetes type 2, rheumatoid arthritis, vertebral disk herniation, and impotence (am I kidding? I am a female, 38, who would ever want me?). My periods are irregular. They last for weeks, very fluid, or none at all, for months. What keeps my body going? Why I don't just die? What's wrong with dying anyway? Am I a human being? If you only knew how it feels…"

There is no cure for CRDS. The only solution is to transplant the soul to a healthy body. How is that possible? How is a soul transplant done? What happens to the soul that is in the healthy body before the transplant? What happens to you? Are you the same as before, with all your memories and your future?

Find out in Last call from Earth -Stage I, Biological Survival.

For information on the Last call from Earth trilogy visit the book’s web site.


About the Author
Al Herr is the pen name of Alberto Herrera-Guzman. Herrera-Guzman studied philosophy at the universities of San Carlos, Guatemala, Madrid and Navarre, Spain, and mathematics-computer sciences at New York University. He provides consulting services in information technologies, focused on the integration of systems that run in multiple environments. He has provided consulting services in North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Far East.

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