Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 54

From Curiosity

Before the Civil War

I was reading Foxessa's blog and found this:

I cannot express how much everything that we've been experiencing in the last ten years looks so much like 1850 -- the year the elected politicians gridlocked for good, the constant rhetoric -- and even actions -- of violence employed on constant basis by the southerners against what they saw as trespasses against their rights -- which was the right to trample on everyone else, and curtail everyone's freedom for the sake of them keeping their slaves and spreading slavery everywhere, and what follows. With the Fugitive Slave Act in action, people in the free states were not only digusted by what they were seeing, but by what they were told they, by law, had to do to aid the slave owners. Their inevitable conclusion, based on this, and what the slave owners actually said, was that ultimately even white men could be enslaved by the same slave owners who were forcing them to recover slaves.

This is what I have been thinking, though I haven't done Foxessa's research on the 1850s. Our current political gridlock, the violent rhetoric and the actual violence all seem like the period before the Civil War.

The argument then was between slavery and freedom. I guess the question is, what is our current argument about? We know that hugely rich people are backing the Tea Party and the Republicans; and we know that the right wing in this country is deeply offended by the idea that people of color, immigrants, GLBT people, women and ordinary working people should have equal rights and decent lives.

So maybe, on one side, we have a belief that society should limit and regiment and diminish people, that all humans are not equal, that the power of the rich is legitimate, and that white men with lots of money really ought to run the world.

On the other side, we have a confused vision of a society where all people are equal and free.

Slavery and freedom.

House Cleaning

It's time for honesty. I am not a great house cleaner. At best, I am adequate. Also, I have dodads on every level surface, stuffed animals in half the chairs, pillows and throws all over. Remember the dippy teacher in the Harry Potter movies? The one played by Emma Thompson? My apartment looks like her classroom. Cleaning it is not easy. I should toss out half this stuff, have the apartment repainted, get floor to ceiling bookcases installed for the books and dodads I cannot bear to toss, and spend my retirement savings on new furniture from Design Within Reach. I could box the stuffed animals and put them in storage, but they wouldn't like that one bit.

From Mars...

An in-color panorama. It doesn't read especially well, since it's small, but it's from Mars!

Click to make larger.

New Story

I'm writing a new story, a planetary romance in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett and C.L. Moore; and I've been posting as I work on the story:

I am not happy with how the new story is going, but I really like the background. So I am trying a new approach.

*

I have 2,000 words of my planetary romance. I have the setting, the situation, the lead characters and some nice animals. But no gimmick. No McGuffin. I guess the answer is to get my characters in motion and see what happens. I can go back and get rid of anything that does not fit into the final plot.

*

I know it's a mistake to talk about a story I'm writing. I will talk the story out and not write it. And real writers write, they don't talk about writing, as we all know. However, I am finding the current one interesting, because I'm actually watching how I write. I've decided the noir version of the current story is not working, because it reminds me too much of a Lydia Duluth story, though Lydia Duluth stories are not noir. (Go figure.) In the past, I have given up on stories when they looked too familiar. This time (or yjos tome, as I just typed) I'm going to put the two attempts to begin this story off to the side for a few days. Maybe they will cross-fertilize, while I think of other things.

Yjos Tome is a great name for an alien. I need to remember it.

A Photo from Mars

Happy Engineers and Scientists

JPL

Curiosity

Curiosity made it down to the surface of Mars, after a descent that looked so complex as to be almost impossible. Everything worked as planned. I am looking for photos of happy engineers and scientists to post here.

Facebook Posts

I got a comment from someone confused by my "from facebook" posts. These posts are, in fact, from facebook. When I end up writing something that seems long enough and dense enough for the blog, I copy it and post it here.

Usually I stitch together several comments, which have been made in response to posts by other people. So you are getting half of a conversation. I think it's mostly coherent.

I love facebook, even though -- in general -- I don't like chit chat. I remember years ago hearing Steve Brust explain that he and his friends talk in one-liners, and this is why his characters talk the same way.

Eric Heideman and I were stunned. We and our friends talk in paragraphs. I like long posts, even on facebook, and am happiest when a facebook remark turns into a conversation.

Happy Endings

More comments from facebook:

I began the first volume of George Martin's fantasy series and did not like it. There was too much power politics and not enough fantasy, and the books were too big. But I had lunch with Mike Levy and Sandy Lindow yesterday, and Mike very much likes the Martin books. I respect Mike as a reader and critic, so I will have to rethink the Martin series. Maybe I should simply say the problem is with me, and I don't have to like every book, even every good book.

I have a bias toward books with happy endings. I especially like writers such as Dickens and Austen who show us social awfulness -- the misery of Victorian England, the greed and selfishness of the English country gentry in the early 19th century -- but give happy endings to their heroes and heroines. In some ways, these novels are like Measure for Measure -- dark, with an almost arbitrary happy ending. The world is hell, but this is a comedy, so let's get everyone married

Patrick won't let me kill likable characters. He worked with homeless people -- not in shelters, but people living outside in tents and caves by the river -- for more than ten years. Almost everyone he knew and liked died while still fairly young. (The life expectancy for homeless people is less than 50, I think.) He's had all the death he wants. And we have both reached the age when mortality becomes a real issue. We want happy endings.

There is a lot of realism in Dickens and Austen. Dickens is often clearly dark. And if you look closely at Austen's sunny comedies, you will see remarkable examples of meanness, selfishness and greed. Not to mention stupidity. I would not want to live in any of Austen's small towns. The only Austen book that portrays a society I find really likable is Persuasion. I could imagine spending time with the sailors and their wives. Admiral and Mrs. Croft are the happiest marriage in any Austen book. But as I said above, Dickens and Austen give you rather awful societies, but keep a happy ending for the heroes and heroines. I like that.