Spacecrab's Journal

Hey, it's us!

2008-04-27T06:34:59Z

Wanderers in foreign lands, attn: check out the slide show at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/corflu-silver-virtual-con-suite

If you tune in between 11AM and 1PM PST tomorrow, you probably won't get the slide show. Instead, you might get to see, hear and comment on the election of the 2007 Past-President of the Fan Writers of America.

**Update: Which did take place. I think the slide show will remain in place for a couple of weeks, so I'm going to leave this post up --for anyone who might find it meaningful.

The Iron Lantern

2008-03-03T00:06:51Z

I'm discovering that Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Macintosh is an impressive piece of software. Once you install it, your computer works like a superhero from Amalgam Comics.

Is it DC or Marvel, Windows or OSX? It doesn't actually matter, anymore. You get the best from both universes. You can run programs and open documents from both operating systems in their own windows, launching from either the OSX Dock or the Windows Taskbar. Parallels appears to provide practically seamless cut and paste, network connectivy, etc.

To add to the splendid geeky weirdness of it all, there's also this element to consider in the configuration linked to above.

Put Poetry in Your Blog Day

2008-02-03T05:27:42Z

Hm. A LiveJournal meme that I actually like.

An Encyclopedia Affair

by Don Marquis

The gay BOK-CAN was a gentleman
In a coat of gold and green, O!
And he loved SIB-SZO from head to toe,
Though the alphabet stretched between, O!

"SIB-SZO," he would say, "you keep away
From MOT-ORM and his doings,
Distrust the lip of the glib GOU-HIP,
And hearken to my wooings!

"BOKHARA goats, dear ma'am, eat oats,
And BURGUNDY grows good wine, ma'am!
CAMPHOR comes from vegetal gums,
O say that you'll be mine, ma'am!"

But SIB-SZO sighed as she replied,
"The SIMOON sweeps the sea, sir,
SPINOZA fought for the freedom of thought,
I cannot wed with thee, sir!"

"Where will you find," he cried, "a mind
More crowded with information?
Edmund BURKE was an eloquent Turk,
BRAZIL is quite a nation!

"The BURIAT wears his cheek-bones flat,
BROWNING wrote Sordello
The BRACHIOPOD is a creature odd,
Do you love some other fellow?"

She bowed her head and she wept and said,
"SYZRAN is a city,
SOCRATES scorned luxuries,
What I feel for you is pity.

"The SUGAR-BIRD is rather absurd,
And STEAM will raise a blister.
My sweetheart is the bold FAL-FYZ,
But I will be your sister!"

BOK-CAN did choke, and sadness BROKE
The heart in his noble BUST, sir
URA-ZYM found an URN for him
And DUG-EF claimed his DUST, sir!

Find my own way home ....

2008-01-29T04:01:27Z

Watching GWB speak generally makes my stomach sick. I had no intention of watching the State of the Union address. But there it was on TV in my corner grocery store.

"I call on all Americans to agree with me that black is white ...." [applause on the screen]

"I call on all Americans to agree with me that war is peace ...." [applause on the screen]

and so on.

Equal and opposite reaction. This helps me gargle the taste out of my brain.

Whatever you might say about the art of Frank Miller in the modern day, it makes me happy to see this book hitting the spot for some newer readers.

"Ooo, freedom
Ooo, liberty
Ooo, leave me alone
To find my own way home
To find my own way home."
-- Garcia/Hunter -- "Liberty"

Living in a state run by criminals

2007-07-03T04:16:19Z

We've known for some time that they're white collar criminals, proceeding methodically with their bustout of the United States of America at the behest of conscienceless corporate backers, throwing the bodies of American teenagers into battle to indulge power fantasies and seize oil wells.

The checks and balances that used to protect our 200+ year-old republic failed visibly on the day the Supreme Court voided the national electoral process. From that point to this, all praise is due the men and women who haven't been asleep, the ones who continue to engage in rational non-violent struggle against the cancer that the Court-appointed thugs have introduced into our political process.

Each succeeding confirmation that the government of the United States is in the hands of criminals is painful. Today's is no exception. But at this point, I'm about out of shock at how far they will go. They're criminals. They'll do whatever they think they can get away with. There are only two limits on them: a) their fear of reprisal if they commit their criminal acts prematurely, and b) sufficient unwillingness on the part of those who serve them to execute their orders.

It's my belief that they will not be prepared to declare a national election null and void in 2008, provided that a sufficient number of their (not intending to be criminal) servants acknowledge they've lost it. Things could change. But, right now, I don't believe they have the stomach for that overarching piece of criminality -- nullifying a national election. Their corporate sponsors don't actually want to initiate a civil war. Their sponsors want to take as much loot as they can grab without violent repercussion, consolidate their positions and prepare for future opportunities to continue looting -- not to initiate a bloodbath.

Being someone who doesn't believe he can cut the vampire's head off, I'm in favor of convincing it to bow to the Sign of the Law in 2008. Let the vampire retreat to its coffins in Texas and Wyoming and allow the living to repair the damage--for a time. In the ensuing years, maybe the American public can be educated sufficiently about vampires that it won't invite the bloodsuckers back into the parlor.

Democrats in Congress might conceivably be able to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney within the next year -- if public outrage is sufficient. But, as we know, the Republican occupants of Congress will not allow that impeachment to succeed.

So what happens after the failed impeachment? I look at the issue in terribly pragmatic terms. Not "the criminals should be impeached because it's the moral thing to do," but "how will that expression of morality affect our chances of purging the criminals from the government in 2008?" How will morally justified (but unsuccessful) impeachment proceedings affect what the criminals do (which we *cannot stop* short of large scale civil disobedience by their servants) in the next two years?

For the Democratic leadership in Congress, it's a chess game. They don't see a winning position on the board if they make the impeachment move now. For the existentialists among us, initiating an impeachment is a gesture of purification. As for me, I don't have a clear sense of whether an impeachment would help or hinder Democrats in the 2008 election. I would like to find out, but I'm also aware of how much I don't know and can't predict about the consequences of an impeachment attempt. It is true that 60% of the respondents in some polls favor impeachment. It's also true (I believe) that the willful criminality of the current government is limited only by its flawed sense of self-preservation. Will impeachment proceedings cow Bush and Cheney into doing less harm in their remaining time in "office" or make them flamboyantly more irrational and aggressive? Are we ready to cope with a civil war if we goad them into actions that are even more outrageous?

Talk to me, smart people. Convince me that impeaching Bush and Cheney (and being voted down) will actually improve the general welfare of the United States--that they won't go apeshit after it and do even more damage than they plan to do now. I'm willing to listen.

Hey, good comics! (#1 in a series of "good stuff" reviews)

2007-06-25T02:27:26Z

I don't post very often, over here. I've never had a clear idea of what I want to do with a livejournal (as I've probably whinged about too many times). I don't have the stamina to start a real blog and post to it on a regular basis. But I do have a few things to share that have accumulated over the last several months. Each of these should be its own entry. (My previous post on Potlatch should probably have been #1.) We'll see if I can make myself follow through properly on the rest. After all, there are Doctor Who episodes to watch, books to read, and even work to do.
* * * *
I'm really bored by most of the current comic titles in the DC Universe. I used to think of myself as a comic book geek. But I'm incapable of sustaining interest in their current, convoluted multiverse reboot -- because there are hardly any individual stories, anymore. Most of the books now feature incomplete, disjoint episodes that are part of a vast title-spanning infodump. The attempt to link the histories of every character in their stable into a giant, shared soap opera isn't working for me. I get more enjoyment and understanding out of reading Wikipedia articles about the DC Universe than I do reading the primary source material.

That having been said, Paul Dini, Kurt Busiek, Grant Morrison, and Darwyn Cooke can and have produced great comic book work for DC. They still manage to do so every once in awhile, when they manage to escape the horrid schema that seems primarily to be the work of editor Dan DiDio.

See:

Paul Dini: Detective Comics 833, August 2007. (Click on Zatanna, above.) In some sense, this story might be read as a prequel/sequel to Dini's animated JLU s3, ep6: This Little Piggy. The relationship between Batman and Zatanna is set up there (with an amazing bonus: Batman's bluesy Karaoke performance, which reverses Circe's spell and transforms Wonder Woman from a pig back into herself). In the current Detective Comics, Dini produces an inspired retcon of the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Zatanna, showing them as childhood friends. (Dini reveals that their fathers, Thomas Wayne and Zatara, were also friends who worked together.)

Grant Morrison (Frank Quitely, artist): All-Star Superman #1-?: see particularly #4, which depicts the coolest Jimmy Olsen this side of Supreme, and #5, which features an issue-long prison rap session between Lex Luthor and Clark Kent.

Darwyn Cooke: Batman/Spirit #1 Pretty good stuff, if you're a fan of either the Spirit or the animated Batman. The two universes combine into one when Dolan, Commissioner Gordon, and femmes fatale from both worlds are added to the mix.

Potlatch 16 Panel Notes are up

2007-06-25T00:01:36Z

Potlatch 16 Panel Notes are now up at the Potlatch website.

Posting yearly sets of notes on Potlatch panels is a project that I've pursued on and off for around ten years, now. I was inspired to start doing Potlatch notes after reading the excellent panel notes and extended discussions that appeared in Khatru, a "sercon" '70s fanzine published by Jeff Smith.

The two P16 panels that have the most extensive notes, this time, are the one populated by Ursula Le Guin, Eileen Gunn, Vonda McIntyre, Kate Schaefer, and Molly Gloss on "Effective Subversive Fiction," and one populated by Lenny Bailes, Sharon Sbarsky, David Bratman, and Tom Whitmore on "Themes in Robert Sheckley." There were three or four other interesting panels, which you'll also find notes for. But the notes I managed to persuade people to produce on those panels were kind of sketchy. The Sheckley panel has the most detailed reportage, because I got some of the other participants to respond and was able to throw my own pre-panel stuff into the mix.

Since amy_thomson tape recorded the "Effective Subversive Fiction" and "Environmental Disasters" panels, we may eventually have more extensive notes on those.

Next year's Potlatch (#17) is in Seattle. The Book of Honor is soon to be announced, and Potlatch 17 will also have a special focus on Clarion, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Clarion West workshops.

Madison or bust!

2007-05-23T18:47:49Z

The Thursday weather forecasts for Madison and for Minneapolis (the city where I'm catching a connecting flight to WisCon) both anticipate rain and possible thunder storms in the afternoon.

Oh well. Nate, if your music circle for Thursday evening is still on, I might wind up giving you a call.

This is last year's WisCon travel experience.

My program schedule for WisCon is light, this year. So I'll need to find something else to overcome my tendency to keep to myself (or just talk to people I already know). I'm kind of out-of-it, with respect to the rapid changes in fandom's social networking that have materialized since the advent of LiveJournal. Here's me, from last year, again, revealing what an oldphart I've become.

But I love WisCon, and I'm still hanging in. If you're on LJ and feel like saying hi, please feel free.

Wiscon Panels

2007-04-27T16:11:52Z

Isn't it a little early to be posting these? I guess it depends on whether the purpose of doing it is to build pre-con enthusiasm in people who aren't going yet, or to express one's own excitement/enthusiasm that "in a few days *I'll* be there."

Possibly, I'm just asleep through a paradigm change in the group mind of fandom--from reveling in spontaneity to desiring to model stage directions for the future -- lest one be left out of it. Or (most likely), the panel schedules are just grist for chit chat, like any other current event that fuels LiveJournal conversation.

Anyway, I'll be a sheep and post mine now (although I'm probably cheating myself of "see you there" comment responses with this Spacecrabby meta-speculation):

- - -
Revisiting the Wow: Books That Changed Everything (Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing SF&F)
Saturday, 8:30-9:45 a.m.

Remember that early work you experienced, the one that twisted off the top of your head and let new ideas in? Rereading breakthrough works can be a mixed blessing: insight into their power, disappointment with the writing or the concepts, embarrassment or bewilderment at what was so intriguing the first time around. Revisit one of your sparkplug works and come to share the experience.

James P. Roberts, M: Jesse Kaysen, Chris Hill, Carrie L Ferguson, Lenny Bailes
- - -

I had a lot of fun with this concept when it was presented at L.A.ConIV and moderated by Harry Turtledove. See you at WisCon (or the geeks among you, anyway, who can make themselves get up and eat breakfast before 8:30AM on a Saturday morning).

IPSTP day

2007-04-23T20:15:04Z

Meme meme meme meme....

I'm OK with this one. So I'm following suit on something popular that other people on LiveJournal are doing. Will this lead to a well-adjusted life and new friendships?

Anyway, in celebration of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, this link goes to my review of John Varley's The Golden Globe, written several years ago for The New York Review of Science Fiction. I really liked that novel when I read it. The review has been fiddled with, slightly, to make it read better to my 2007 ear. If you go there (which I hope you do) and scroll up the page, you'll find other stuff I've written for NYRSF, along with a link to my favorite page on the site, which I'm not sure anyone but me has actually read.

FWIW: my take on Howard Hendrix before reading his recent insertion of foot onto keyboard has been that he's an open, friendly guy, genuinely interested in reading and talking about science fiction, as well as writing it. In some ways, the Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Writers of America seems a bit like that other club co-founded by Damon Knight. Both of them appear to exert a baleful influence on those members who find their way into elected office.

So long, Eric!

2007-02-06T00:24:10Z

"Please understand, things can swing,
You get just about what you bring--
You better catch it, catch it while you can."

-- Eric von Schmidt, "Catch It"

"He could sing the bird off the wire and the rubber off the tire,
He can separate the men from the boys
    and the note from the noise
    the bridle from the saddle
    and the cow from the cattle,
He can play the tune of the moon
the why of the sky and the commotion of the ocean."

-- Bob Dylan, liner notes

He also drew all this cover art.

What's new on a slow Friday ...

2006-12-02T06:09:13Z

Federal institute blasts paperless voting machines

Dems set to take on pension, health industries

U.S. Secretly Screening Travelers

Live! -- streaming from the KPFA performance studio

11/29/2006

Sliding Delta Blues
Contract
I Don’t Know You
Lonesome LA Cowboy
Four Strong Winds
Whatcha Gonna Do
Dirty Business
Peggy-O
Louisiana Lady
Lochinvar
15 Days Under the Hood
Last Lonely Eagle
Henry
Sutter’s Mill
Garden of Eden
Whiskey
Panama Red

Followed by a kickass 11/13/06 jam band version of "The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion," courtesy of Bob Weir and Ratdog.

And a Spacecrab job interview, today, with the Computer Networking and Information Technology department at City College of San Francisco.

Mike Ford, Entropy, and ribbons for our hair

2006-10-27T17:11:57Z

elisem, a good friend, wishes this link about today's memorial for Mike to be spread throughout the Ether.

The linked post in nemesis_draco contains additional information about two charity fund drives that Mike would be happy to know are thriving: The John M. Ford Memorial Endowment Fund for Friends of the Minneapolis Library and the Surgical Transplant Fund for the Hennepin Kidney Transplant Program.

Elise, I'm not sure whether you'll find time to read this post in the vastness of the LJ Web, but if you do, here's a link to a "A Piece For You", which is a Phil Lesh song that you might like. (*Lyrics are here.)

Mike is alive in my heart and mind:
V'Yis Gaddol, V'Yis Kaddash, we're Animaniacs, once a Green Lantern, always a Green Lantern, amen.

Incredible String Band -- 1970

Upside-down Flag

2006-09-29T06:57:34Z

I don't know. I don't much feel like writing about today's Senate vote on Livejournal. If I'm capable of any coherent writing on that topic, it should probably be directed to U.S. Senators, Representatives, and newspapers.

I've never been a prolific LJ poster. But, right now, I feel a sense of shame at the thought of posting any of the personal, s-f fandom related stuff that I'd normally be putting up here. My mind flirts with the idea of making a useless vow: to refrain from posting any personal, recreational writing at all, until such time as the Detainee Bill passed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives is recognized as null and void by all three branches of the United States government.

But I'm probably not going to do that to myself. I hope I'll find less drastic ways to make myself remember that I'm no longer living in a free country -- and find the stamina to channel my energy into engaging constructively with the fact. In the meantime, as Jim Henley points out, life will go on for us lucky duckies in our ~~dictatorship~~ more-authoritarian-than-yesterday nation.

For now, we still have the ability to make noise about the despicable actions ordered by our despicable, de facto government.

Note to self: put the wallet where the keyboard is a little bit more.

Brust-Aid for aging brain cells

2006-08-23T06:58:53Z

You say you've just started reading "Dzur," and you can't quite remember what happened to Vlad's weapons in "Issola?" When was the last time he encountered The Sorceress in Green, anyway? Where did he meet Aibynn? Why can't Verra hear him, if he's wearing the Phoenix Stone?

Steve's not telling you again, if you don't remember. You either listen to Vlad with the brain cells you've got left, or begin reading all the books all over again -- if you want to get the full technicolor experience.

I don't know whether Steve would approve of this, but there is actually another alternative. Brust-Aid for aging brain cells is available, here. In the coming cybernetic world of the future, maybe Tor will package this website into every new Vlad novel. *Or maybe not.*

(I have found one jarring note that needs to be corrected. Try searching for "Orb" and see what you get.)

Seekers Into Mystery

2006-08-22T04:07:07Z

I'm on two panels a day at L.A.Con IV. Mostly fanlounge stuff about fan history and fanzines -- plus one on Saturday morning that I invented about comparing/contrasting Superman archetypes and story realizations ... and one titled "Obscure Dick."

Sat 8/26 10:00 AM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: FROM SMALLVILLE TO SECRET IDENTITY
Participants: Lenny Bailes
Tom Galloway(M)
Lee Whiteside
Marv Wolfman
Doselle Young

Precis: Kurt Busiek, Jeph Loeb/Alfred Miller, Grant Morrison, and others have found radically different ways to retell and re-invent Superman's story. Panelists discuss approaches that add to and detract from the collective myth.

I formulated this panel concept to Craig Miller--mostly because I was really blown away by the Kurt Busiek mini-series of several years ago. It hit me as a memorable, thoughtful treatment that revived all the sense of wonder anyone might need around the flying man who can bend steel in his bare hands. Busiek's story reminds me of Steve Gould's "Jumper," which is a great YA novel about a teleport. If you haven't read Secret Identity, see here for a good abstract.

I'm pretty much left cold by the Smallville TV series -- another attempt to reformulate a classic storyline for a new audience. I thought it might be interesting to discuss the way different creative teams have attempted to "refresh" the story of Superman. Which ones are really memorable? For me, Grant Morrison's DC One Million is another really innovative effort. I don't have much to say about the Byrne Death of Superman.

Another topic that might have tangential relevance to this panel is the influence of Alan Moore's discarded Twilight script on Morrison's DC One Million, in addition to the obvious evolution of Twilight into Kingdom Come/The Kingdom.

As far as Smallville, I don't want just to diss it--but rather to talk about elements that seem to succeed and fail in the context of it (apparently) having to succeed as a WB teen-relationship soap opera. Certainly, Michael Rosenbaum and John Glover have done some good character acting in it, and there are attempts by script writers to integrate moral value issues in the middle of the "monster-of-the-week"/"seduction of the week" infrastructure. But, for me, the thing has a hard time escaping from a tragic reliance on the Salkind concept of Superman -- a woo-woo infrastructure that makes less sense than Mort Weisinger's. (I definitely hope most of the panel doesn't get sidetracked into discussion of this and comparisons with the new movie.)

- -

Sun 8/27 2:30 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: OBSCURE DICK
Participants: Lenny Bailes(M)
John R. Douglas
David Hartwell
Eric M. Van
Mark von Schlegell

Precis: Discussion and appreciation of the lesser-known works of
Philip K. Dick. What did you think of "Now Wait for Last
Year"?

I'm hoping we can use the title as a springboard to talk about the best of PKD's mainstream novels, as well as his obscure science fiction. Dave Hartwell has already promised to bring his advance copy of "Voices From the Street" (Tor, January 2007) to the panel.

David published an excellent article in NYRoSF in 2001 by Josh Lukin: "This sense of worthlessness": Ideals of Success in PKD's Humpty Dumpty in Oakland.

Here are some choice soundbytes from that article--observations that apply to PKD's science fiction as well as the mainstream novels:

"In the world of Dick's novels, the "independent" people constitute far less than a quarter of the population. Even the science-fictional heros who suspect that reality is very different from what's presented to them only begin to act independently when they find some form of outside validation for their suspicions. Consensus reality -- what Dick called the koinos kosmos - has an immense impact on nearly all of his characters."

"'50s sociology has the habit of "falsely universalizing a white, male middle-class experience of economic and social change."

Scholars in the mid-1970s began pointing out the disparity between '50s discourse and '50s realities.

"A powerful synthesis of [these] critiques of '50s literature appears in a 1957 lecture given by novelist Robert Bloch. Bloch begins by waxing nostalging over the great protest fiction of the '30s by the likes of John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, and James T. Farrell. He then denounces the popular literature of the '50s, with its message that "we must adapt, we must conform to the rules instead of wasting our time and energy asking a lot of foolish questions or putting up a bunch of stupid arguments."

[quoting Gregg Rickman]: "Dick might have been able to get away with a qualified pessimism in his genre work .. but such pessimism as Dick expressed had no place in mainstream American publishing."

"In the world of Dick's novels, the "independent" people constitute far less than a quarter of the population. Even the science-fictional heros who suspect that reality is very different from what's presented to them only begin to act independently when they find some form of outside validation for their suspicions. Consensus reality -- what Dick called the koinos kosmos - has an immense impact on nearly all of his characters."

Dick is involved with hands-on labor, but does not always idealize the lone craftsman:

"In the science fiction realms that Dick frequented, hands-on labor is indeed often idealized in the form of the lone tinkerer who builds a teleporter out of his grandma's sewing machine and a few radio tubes. But to say that Dick consistently idealizes the isolated craftsman is to oversimplify his values. A Dick hero involved in collaborative labor (Ubik), administrative work (The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch), or even sales (The Transmigration of Timothy Archer), may find that work fulfilling. Other factors are involved in distinguishing a good job from a lousy one. (such as the pride Jim Fergusson takes in treating his customers better than a large-scale operation might.}"

- -

The Rest of My WorldCon Schedule

Thu 8/24 11:30 AM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: FAVORITE FANNISH BLOGS & WEBSITES
Participants: Lenny Bailes(M)
Mary Kay Kare
Vanessa Van Wagner

Precis: What are your favorites? (Or least favorites?) Our panel
will tell you theirs and ask for yours. Have reasons
waiting.

The participants, in conference, have so far agreed that at least one of the L.A.Con IV blogging panels should have some focus on LiveJournal, and this one might be it.

- -

Thu 8/24 5:30 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
Participants: Lenny Bailes
Chris M. Barkley
Sheila Finch
Amy Thomson
Harry Turtledove(M)

Precis: Some books have a profound effect on people. Come hear from
our panelists which books had a major effect on them and
share your own stories.

Have to think about this one. Did I read most of the ones that changed my life before I was 20 years old?

- -

Fri 8/25 4:00 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: WHAT MAKES A GOOD FANZINE?
Participants: Lenny Bailes
John-Henri Holmberg
Jerry Kaufman(M)
Spike
Suzanne Tompkins

Precis: Is it the community, the gestalt, or the craft?

This one's well-populated. We might have our own two-hour CORFLU at it. Examples of great fanzines where "gestalt"/editorial attitude is an integral component: Quandry, Innuendo, Fanac, Void, Flying Frog, Hot Shit, Cheap Truth. Having an attitude doesn't necessarily guarantee greatness, of course.

- -

Fri 8/25 5:30 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: FANDOM IN THE '60S
Participants: Lenny Bailes
David A. Kyle
Anthony R. Lewis
Rich Lynch
Milton F. Stevens(M)

Precis: Richard Lynch is hard at work on his history of SF Fandom
in the 1960s. He's got an outline worked out. Come hear
about his progress, offer support, information,
corrections, etc.

It's good that someone remembers what happened in the '60s. I referred to Dick Lynch's notes just a couple of months ago in order to verify which year it was that I just missed getting hit by a bullet at the LASFS Halloween party.

- -

Sat 8/26 1:00 PM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE FOR FANZINES?
Participants: Chaz Boston Baden
Lenny Bailes
Christopher J. Garcia
Guy H. Lillian III(M)
Andrew T Trembley

Precis: Old and young fans discuss what motivates them and present
views of fanwriting.

This one has an email discussion groping with weighty questions such as "Do fanzines have a future?" and "What's different about writing for blogs?" -- but, also, Chris Garcia's on it.

- -

And then, the (maybe) cross-universe meltdown between L.A.Con IV's "Young Fandom" Chaos Space Pirates track and "Old People's Fanzine Fandom":

Sun 8/27 10:00 AM, 60-90 minutes.
Title: HOW TO START (AND END) A CLUB
Participants: James Bacon
Lenny Bailes
John Mansfield(M)
Lee Whiteside
Mike Willmoth

Precis: What is the lifespan of the average fan club? How do you
define a successful club and what are the pitfalls
associated with orchestrated group activities?

I'm thinking that it depends on how deep the orchestra members dig the pit.

Fandom in the 60s

2006-08-22T03:19:06Z

Actually, I'm still only 59. There are a few months left before the digit in the tens place rolls over on me, again.

Just between us, I become like a depressed, ticking clock (with blocked minute and second hands) every July when I read the preliminary Worldcon program draft. I attended my first one at age 17, in 1963. To condense an epic stream o' consciousness rumble, I want the new conventions to kindle the intellectual and emotional excitement that the old ones delivered to me.

I'm appreciative of the fact that Craig Miller, this year's Worldcon programming head, was willing to read my various emails, consider and adopt some of the ideas I tossed in his direction. Craig is one of the best Worldcon facilitators in the business. He's committed to serving the needs of all the various factions and demographics in the modern science fiction community. The L.A.Con IV programming committee has really done right, this year, by the core of readers and writers who comprise the legacy brigade of carpers, diarists and punditizers in fandom. L.A.Con IV has fanzine (and blogger) programming up the wazoo.

I'm, therefore, able to get past my disappointment in not getting any of the following into the show:

After the Garden
Is the United States on a one-way ride to becoming a post-democratic state populated by corporate citizens? What can we do to stop the gradual replacement of individual rights and freedoms in this country with corporate rights and freedoms? (Alternate title: Egypt Land: are we all working for the Pharoah?)

Media Matters
How do bloggers challenge lies and political distortion fields that mainstream media overlooks? This article inspired me to suggest that this might be a good discussion for LACon.

Sexism in Superhero Books
See Teresa Nielsen Hayden's ML essay on Styrofoam Tits.

The Battle of the Sexes in SF
A discussion of the changing roles women have played in shaping science fiction, centered around Justine Larbalestier's research project: sex objects to 3-D characters in stories. Or it might focus on the changing roles women have had as authors, editors, and reviewers in the science fiction field -- introducing new con attendees to the history of feminism in s-f, the creation of WisCon, the Tiptree award, and the expanding literary counterculture (encompassing literary diversity) that centers around WisCon.

If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own. -- Scoop Nisker

Long May You Run

2006-07-28T03:05:12Z

I'm reading reports that say these old guys are rocking out. Good for them.

Brief movie commentary: A Scanner Darkly

2006-07-08T06:50:53Z

This one is a real PKD movie. I have some nitpicky quibbles with the direction of the actors, especially in the first fifteen minutes. But, eventually, either they all fall into their characters or my brain gets tired of going "Cut! This scene needs more *punctuation*."

It's only an excerpted montage of the book, but 99% of it is Phil Dick's words -- and they chose all the right scenes. Arctor, Luckman, and Barris discovering Donna's roach in the ashtray is perfectly executed. Keanu Reeves really looks too young for Bob Arctor. But Woody Harrelson nails the Barris character.
[[7-9-06: Barris is nailed by Robert Downey, Jr. Harrelson plays Ernie Luckman ]]

Winona Ryder was also very good, even though she says she had no idea what the movie was all about. (See here.)

Richard Linklater (the director) inserted one plot twist toward the end of the movie that I never picked up in the novel. I'm going to have to go back and reread it to see if that was really in there.

By the way, the speaker notes for the Potlatch 14 "A Scanner Darkly" panel, featuring Bruce Gillespie and Grania Davis, are still around at the Potlatch website. Can't pimp this too often, after all the time I spent transcribing and posting the stuff.

rich brown

2006-07-07T19:56:38Z

I first met rich when I was 17 years old. It was at a Fanoclast meeting in New York City. I was young and impressionable, and he took a mischievous delight in plonking me: by pretending that he was a real representative of Ayn Rand's "John Galt Society." This probably sounds absurd by reality-quotient standards for today's 17-year-olds. You had to be there. If there were still a good Internet link to it, I would point you to rich's scholarly article in the 1990s, which explained how the true and actual S. Morgenstern used "William Goldman" as a pen name -- publishing "The Princess Bride" as a PR stunt to promote his masterwork, "The Silent Gondoliers."

rich was a good friend to me for all of my life. He was also really a butthead, sometimes, in fanzines and online communication. His closest friends will readily acknowledge this. Face-to-face, rich had a large and generous soul. Sometimes, this fact managed to shine through in his fanwriting -- along with a wry sense of humor. I'm happy that people are remembering that side of him, now. He was always ready to buy the next round in the bar or treat you to dinner, while explaining the intricacies of style in John Myers Myers' Silverlock -- or the cumulative paradoxes and plot flaws in Quantum Leap, Star Trek or Firefly.

To those who knew rich only from periodic bombastic tirades, all I can say is this: I don't think he ever understood that opinions and denunciations in fannish print had the power to upset people in their actual lives. rich looked at s-f fandom the way that fan-fiction shippers look at their stories: as a large parallel universe to escape into with his friends -- where they (we) could make the rules.

In person, rich was introspective and considerate, often willing to acknowledge that he'd allowed himself to be carried away in the "paper world." He would typically express surprise that people took the things he said in fanzines or online seriously, since he didn't take them seriously himself *outside of the world of fandom.*

I believe this fan world/real world dichotomy in rich's thinking is what managed to alienate him, so much, from some people in the modern s-f community. S-F Fandom Challenge No. 2814: find the operant domain where the Knight of La Mancha is a good spirit guide, not a pain in the ass.

Another good night too soon

2006-06-05T23:51:15Z

This hurts every time.

I saw Vince Welnick perform with and without the Grateful Dead a number of times in the 1990s (and with The Tubes, earlier, of course). He had the white light thing going for him to the max on good nights.

My listening recommendations: any concert tapes you can find of Missing Man Formation from 1997 to 1999, such as this one. (Look for shows with "All Too Much," "Golden Road," and "Astral Weeks.")

Official Listen to Vince.
Perils inherent in moonshining that Alligator Wine.

If you've read this far down the page, you might want to click into David Gans' Dead to the World broadcast on Wednesday, 8PM PDT. It's extremely likely that you'll find a kickass tribute to Vince's music there, either this week or the next.

In another time
In another place
In another face
....

The Un-Planed of WisCon

2006-05-30T06:53:29Z

"Fly to Madison in the morning, trufandom aborning; book O'Hare at night -- you'll soon be uptight."

It's midnight after WisCon at O'Hare Airport, and I'm settling in until morning: trapped in the (fairly mild, actually) twilight world where the Un-Planed and Un-Suitcased dwell. If I were writing a ghost tale, it would have a fairly simple moral: "do not travel to the land of cheese, cows, and feminism in the Evening Time. Book ahead and always fly in the morning. When shadows fall over the continental United States (and United Airlines), the celestial bowling alley over the city of Chicago opens for business. Lightning flashes and airplane flights are cancelled randomly, as the gods pursue their game of Ten Pins.

WisCon 30, in Madison, was a wonderful convention. Like other faithful pilgrims, I allowed the WisCon spirit to lift me past the chagrin of United/O'Hare cancelling my inbound Madison flight. Jed Hartman (WINOLJ?) and emcit found me in the customer service line and invited me to join them in a car rental excursion from Chicago to Madison. Fannish brother/sister hood saved me from being stranded in Chicago on Thursday night.

But flying back to San Francisco, today, I wasn't as lucky. Along with several other Bay Area fans, I cooled my heels at the Madison airport for hours. The O'Hare curse affected not only flights through Chicago, but also flights from Madison to other cities, because the planes for some of those flights *were coming in from Chicago.*

Basically, of the five or six of us gathered at United Gate 6, no one got a flight home today. One of us went back to the Concourse Hotel for the WisCon dead dog party, two of us en route to the Bay Area through Denver took their hours-late flight from Madison to Denver and rebooked a Denver-to-San Francisco flight for tomorrow afternoon. The thunderstorms over Chicago cleared up around 10PM. The rest of us were put on a plane to O'Hare, then, so we could play a game of chicken with delayed outbound flights to other cities.

I missed mine by about 10 minutes. I sprinted between the F and C terminals, but my delayed San Francisco connection had closed its doors in the same minute that the Madison flight touched down.

Oh well. My feet is my only carriage. I have two sandwiches, a wireless Internet connection and a row of four terminal seats with no handles in between. G'Night.

Update: Tuesday morning, 11AM PDT. Home. Successfully entreated my way into a 6:30AM standby seat from Chicago to SFO. There was a voicemail message on my machine from the Legion of Substitute Lecterns personnel office. I may be able to do some part-time teaching in Fall 2006.

The locusts sing again

2006-05-25T03:56:16Z

Happy birthday to the Invisible Republic, (and lydy).

KPFA's annual Elston Gunn Birthday Bash started at 8PM PDT and will roll till midnight. If it's already past May 24th where you are, you can listen to it through the time warp. [[5-28: link seems to be offline, right now; will update if/when it works again.]]

Hey, I know what I'm talking about, even if no one else does. If you click your way to KPFA and like the sound, you might also consider pledging a subscription. They're winding up a fund-raising drive and, in addition to Spacecrab-friendly events like the one cited above, they do things like the lonely broadcast of John Conyers' basement hearing, the live coverage of the Michael Hayden confirmation hearing, last week, and readings from Digby and Firedoglake almost every Sunday.

Mm, right now, they're playing Bob and George outtakes from Concert for Bangladesh.

SQUEAK!

2006-05-19T21:24:57Z

I'll be at Wiscon, next week. If you're an LJer, or other reader of this journal, please feel free to introduce yourself.

I like being involved in convention programming and am happy that Wiscon decided to use me on a couple of items, this year. Some of the titles I'm seeing in the final program draft look interesting. (Can I say this and not get drummed out? The first program draft seemed like a list of free-associated fragments -- each one prefixed by "the feminist perspective on." Like adding "in bed" to fortune cookie fortunes: "British Hugo Winners," "the cosmology of Firefly," "the psychopathology of M. John Harrison," "aliens in Doctor Who." But I guess this is part of the Wiscon process.)

Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (Politics, Religion, and Money)
Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. in Senate A

At the radical caucus panel last year, we spent a great deal of time discussing the idea of radical politics and discovered that there is a wide notion of "radical." Much of the discussion hinged on differences between incremental change and radical change. To many, a world without hierarchical thinking [racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.] is still only a dream. How do we balance the inertia of the status quo with the frustration of "if only.. . .?" How can we affect change [great or small], and what role can our interests in SFF play?

I like this item that they picked me for. I like being a "human being helper" better than being an argumentative s-f geek, when someone reminds me how to do it. I suppose the panel might also morph into a tv treatment of s-f fans starting the revolution while hiding in basements. (There we'll be in November 2008, clutching reconstructed ballot results while the TV announces Dick Cheney's promise to hold "legitimate" elections.) But with the other listed panel participants, it probably won't go that way.

The other item? Well ....

The Death of the Panel (Reading SF&F)
Sunday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. Sunday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. in Senate B

Gwenda Bond has declared that the Panel is Dead (you know, like the Novel and Science Fiction). Is it? And if so should we revive it? And how would we go about reviving this arcane art form without it Dying again?

- O -
Watch out! It's

"The Death of Panels"

S/t/o/l/e/n/ sampled from the portfolio of Dejan Šparovec.

Boskone/LJ Reach Out

2006-02-17T00:28:43Z

Hello to those of you not on my LJ friends list -- and to any non-LJ members who've noticed this journal and taken time to read it over the past two years.

I've decided that I'd like to use my upcoming trip to Boskone as a springboard/excuse to see if anyone out there is reading what I write on LJ. If you're an LJ participant and/or Boskone attendee who doesn't already know me, please feel free to pop up in comments or at the convention and say hi.

I've been in a quiet period of emotional and financial reconstruction for most of the three or four years in which Livejournal has flourished. I've been gradually recovering from post-9/11 depressions; financial and neurochemical. Last Fall, Lady Luck decided to let me rejoin the world of adequately-paid, middle class IT professionals. So I'm free once more (bwa-hah, snerk) to fly from city to city. I can rejoin the floating hotel party commonly known as "convention fandom."

I'm attempting a little evolution, here. I've never really known what to do with Livejournal, except to use it as a sporadic editorial platform -- for convenient distribution to longtime friends in the science fiction community. I haven't used LJ much as a diary or as a parlor game. The accepted wisdom for smart kids, as I've heard it, is that a blog is a blog. Livejournal is a hosting service, the same as any other. In the fanzine publishing community, we make a distinction between "genzines" (general interest magazines) and apazines (closed-circulation epistles primarily designed to contain review and response to a fixed group of participants). It seems to me that this distinction retains some validity for online journals, if we recognize that the "closed circulation" part of it doesn't apply much, anymore.

I have the feeling that, except for people on my "Friends Of" list, no one reads my LJ. That's making me wonder whether I've become a trilobite.

I'm someone who's written and published paper fanzines since the 1960s, growing up with the notion that I've always been and always would be an intellectual/emotional misfit. I grew up identifying with the culture of science fiction fandom as a special phenomenon for social rebels. For me, as a teenager, s-f fandom was akin to the Beat movement of the '50s, the Hippie counterculture of the '60s, or the Punk rebellion of the '70s. I have a longtime emotional investment in the notion of "fandom" being a vanguard phenomenon for artistic/literary/political expression. I'm not quite adjusted, yet, to the notion of s-f fandom as one mainstream special interest group in a larger universe of literate online communication.

I've been both a rock and roll journalist (Creem, Who Put the Bomp), and a Dawn Age computer professional (contributing editor for Microtimes for ten years, and columnist for Boardwatch Magazine). In the 1990s, I thrilled to see my fancesters (like S-F legend Damon Knight) learning to use modems and computers. Science fiction fandom reinvented itself in the 1990s, on the GEnie Science Fiction Roundtable and Usenet. In a parallel substratum, pioneer Wellbeing Howard Rheingold gathered literary freaks and cyber-rebels to his open virtual community, "Electric Minds."

Old mind habits die hard. Emotionally, I'm used to feeling that eclectic communities like those are the Whole Show. The science fiction fandom I've been part of all my life still exists. But the overriding fact of the 21st century is that we've passed through a Singularity (in the form of a well-developed Internet that has allowed many smart, literate blogging communities to materialize). The old science fiction fandom is no longer alone. It no longer defines the dominant set of paradigms for literary/literate malcontents to communicate, (1) For bloggers in the present day, I sometimes think "the old science fiction fandom" has a passing resemblance to "the old Negro space program." One really happened (we have the paper fanzines and convention memory books to prove it), and the other is a cleverly-conceived art-myth. But who, outside of a band of 1,000 diehards, actually cares which is which?

I'm thinking about all this in trying to prepare for a couple of Boskone panels that I'm scheduled to appear on. Note to self: try not to get stuck on the "Ghost of Fandoms Past" thing and have some fun. I'd like to face the fact that the world is changing without feeling alienated. If my younger self were typing all this out for a weekly apazine, this post probably would have been titled:

"This Helmuth I Suppose -- is Off to Hobnob with Fellow Zwilnicks"
The tynes they are a changeling .........

But that would most likely result in my usual quota of 0 to 2 comments. (I wouldn't have to explain it to calimac, anyway.) I guess I'll find out, presently, whether this more-carefully constructed long-windedness draws any attention. I'm not quite up to constructing a Quizilla "Which Mimeograph Ink Are You?" meme.

FWIW: My Boskone schedule: (2)

Friday 9:00 pm
What I've Learned From Fandom
Lenny Bailes
Vince Docherty
Parris McBride (M)
Mike Resnick
Peter Weston

Saturday10:00 am
Online Writing and Online Communities
Lenny Bailes
Tobias Buckell
James D. Macdonald
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
John Scalzi (M)

(See above)

Saturday 2:00 pm
Why Graphic Novels (Sometimes?) Work
Lenny Bailes
Pam Fremon
Geary Gravel
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (M)

Sunday 10:00 am
Whither Animation?
Lenny Bailes
Bob Devney (M)
Esther Friesner
Timothy Liebe
Timothy P. Szczesuil

Sunday 12:00 noon
SF as Literature?
Lenny Bailes
F. Brett Cox
William Hartmann
James Patrick Kelly (M)
Chad Orzel

(1) However, as Teresa Nielsen Hayden has observed, s-f fandom may still own the best models and tools to organize "meatspace" conventions for "virtual space" communicators.

(2) Remember to say hello, if you see me there and feel inclined to do it.