Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 14
January 21, 2015
partyin' Pepys
Pepys's diary is interesting today –
Monday 20 January 1661/62
This morning Sir Wm. Batten and Pen and I did begin the examining the Treasurer’s accounts, the first time ever he had passed in the office, which is very long, and we were all at it till noon, and then to dinner, he providing a fine dinner for us, and we eat it at Sir W. Batten’s, where we were very merry, there being at table the Treasurer and we three, Mr. Wayth, Ferrer, Smith, Turner, and Mr. Morrice, the wine cooper, who this day did divide the two butts, which we four did send for, of sherry from Cales, and mine was put into a hogshead, and the vessel filled up with four gallons of Malaga wine, but what it will stand us in I know not: but it is the first great quantity of wine that I ever bought. And after dinner to the office all the afternoon till late at night, and then home, where my aunt and uncle Wight and Mrs. Anne Wight came to play at cards (at gleek which she taught me and my wife last week) and so to supper, and then to cards and so good night. Then I to my practice of musique and then at 12 o’clock to bed.
This day the workmen began to make me a sellar door out of the back yard, which will much please me.
-- so Pepys got half a butt, or fifty-two gallons, of sherry. Seems like a hell of a lot of fortified wine for one family, but then the water wasn't any good for drinking.
Joe
Monday 20 January 1661/62
This morning Sir Wm. Batten and Pen and I did begin the examining the Treasurer’s accounts, the first time ever he had passed in the office, which is very long, and we were all at it till noon, and then to dinner, he providing a fine dinner for us, and we eat it at Sir W. Batten’s, where we were very merry, there being at table the Treasurer and we three, Mr. Wayth, Ferrer, Smith, Turner, and Mr. Morrice, the wine cooper, who this day did divide the two butts, which we four did send for, of sherry from Cales, and mine was put into a hogshead, and the vessel filled up with four gallons of Malaga wine, but what it will stand us in I know not: but it is the first great quantity of wine that I ever bought. And after dinner to the office all the afternoon till late at night, and then home, where my aunt and uncle Wight and Mrs. Anne Wight came to play at cards (at gleek which she taught me and my wife last week) and so to supper, and then to cards and so good night. Then I to my practice of musique and then at 12 o’clock to bed.
This day the workmen began to make me a sellar door out of the back yard, which will much please me.
-- so Pepys got half a butt, or fifty-two gallons, of sherry. Seems like a hell of a lot of fortified wine for one family, but then the water wasn't any good for drinking.
Joe
January 19, 2015
a little Dick
I'm probably the last to hear, but Amazon has released the first episode of THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE teevee serial, and it looks promising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6v1WxzP3Ek
Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6v1WxzP3Ek
Joe
Alice Turner, goodbye
Oh, my. I just saw Alice Turner's name up on sff.net. with a flower next to it.
Alice was an editor at Playboy who bought a few stories from me. She really went to bat for me a couple of times.
She once accepted a story, "Graves," but her own managing editor rejected it, saying it was "too gross" for Playboy. Maggots, I think. She tried to sneak it in a year later, but he sent it back with a note saying it was still too gross. So I sent it over to F&SF, with Alice's blessing. Ed Ferman took it, and it went on to win the World Fantasy Award for best fantasy story of the year, and the Nebula as well.
I finished a novelette, "Feedback," just before the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago. The night before the convention started, we went to the Playboy headquarters for a cocktail party. Alice was there, of course, and I told her I'd just finished a great story, but I wasn't going to send it to her: She'd never printed a story that long unless it was by Norman Mailer or someone, and Playboy wouldn't do a story with a homosexual male protagonist.
"Listen to me, Haldeman," she said, waving a cigarette dangerously close to my eyes. "There's only one person in the world who can tell you what a Playboy story is, and that's me."
She bought it right away, perhaps to prove her point.
She had a keen editorial eye and a marvelous laugh. Gay and I always looked forward to dinner with her whenever we were in New York.
She will be sorely missed.
Joe
Alice was an editor at Playboy who bought a few stories from me. She really went to bat for me a couple of times.
She once accepted a story, "Graves," but her own managing editor rejected it, saying it was "too gross" for Playboy. Maggots, I think. She tried to sneak it in a year later, but he sent it back with a note saying it was still too gross. So I sent it over to F&SF, with Alice's blessing. Ed Ferman took it, and it went on to win the World Fantasy Award for best fantasy story of the year, and the Nebula as well.
I finished a novelette, "Feedback," just before the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago. The night before the convention started, we went to the Playboy headquarters for a cocktail party. Alice was there, of course, and I told her I'd just finished a great story, but I wasn't going to send it to her: She'd never printed a story that long unless it was by Norman Mailer or someone, and Playboy wouldn't do a story with a homosexual male protagonist.
"Listen to me, Haldeman," she said, waving a cigarette dangerously close to my eyes. "There's only one person in the world who can tell you what a Playboy story is, and that's me."
She bought it right away, perhaps to prove her point.
She had a keen editorial eye and a marvelous laugh. Gay and I always looked forward to dinner with her whenever we were in New York.
She will be sorely missed.
Joe
December 29, 2014
new year notebook
2015 will mark a significant break with tradition, or habit, for my notebooks. For twenty-some years I've carried a hardbound notebook in my briefcase or purse, usually a 5"X7" Moleskine or "note•book" . . . always austere black.
This new one is a departure; it has a cover picture, a clever trompe l'oeil of small animals walking off an oil painting of the African veldt, onto a desk. "Safari – Coming to Water," copyright © Bo Newell.
Another departure is that the pages are lined. I've always used unlined books because I draw pictures in them. But the pictures are sketches, not for publication. Besides, in Italy last year I saw a museum display of contemporary artists' notebooks, and a lot of them used lined paper. Why not? It's handy for the written parts and doesn't spoil the drawings.
Joe
This new one is a departure; it has a cover picture, a clever trompe l'oeil of small animals walking off an oil painting of the African veldt, onto a desk. "Safari – Coming to Water," copyright © Bo Newell.
Another departure is that the pages are lined. I've always used unlined books because I draw pictures in them. But the pictures are sketches, not for publication. Besides, in Italy last year I saw a museum display of contemporary artists' notebooks, and a lot of them used lined paper. Why not? It's handy for the written parts and doesn't spoil the drawings.
Joe
December 24, 2014
cops and cop shows (might be duplicate; sorry)
Our friend Ta-Nehisi Coates makes several good points in his Atlantic essay "Blue Lives Matter." This may be the central one:
To challenge the police is to challenge the American people, and the problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that we are majoritarian pigs. When the police are brutalized by people, we are outraged because we are brutalized. By the same turn, when the police brutalize people, we are forgiving because ultimately we are really just forgiving ourselves. Power, decoupled from responsibility, is what we seek.
Though I wonder whether this is really the people seeking power, as opposed to desiring protection from the abuse of power. It's a skein of responsibilities intertwined with desires and fears.
I'm inching toward some observation about cop shows. The difference between the British style and the American -- though even as I try to articulate it, I come up with exceptions.
The Sherlock Holmes hero works independent of police; not against them, but rarely seeking help from them. The Joe Friday character is the police, more or less humanized for the sake of story. When Joe Friday wins, the establishment wins. When Holmes wins, his client wins, often against the desires of authority.
I guess what's curious about this, to me, is that the Holmes pattern is superficially American – the individual versus the establishment – and the television hero often is the opposite, a representative of the establishment who is after some twisted individual.
I better leave it at that, lest it become a ten-thousand-word essay that I don't have time to do.
Joe
To challenge the police is to challenge the American people, and the problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that we are majoritarian pigs. When the police are brutalized by people, we are outraged because we are brutalized. By the same turn, when the police brutalize people, we are forgiving because ultimately we are really just forgiving ourselves. Power, decoupled from responsibility, is what we seek.
Though I wonder whether this is really the people seeking power, as opposed to desiring protection from the abuse of power. It's a skein of responsibilities intertwined with desires and fears.
I'm inching toward some observation about cop shows. The difference between the British style and the American -- though even as I try to articulate it, I come up with exceptions.
The Sherlock Holmes hero works independent of police; not against them, but rarely seeking help from them. The Joe Friday character is the police, more or less humanized for the sake of story. When Joe Friday wins, the establishment wins. When Holmes wins, his client wins, often against the desires of authority.
I guess what's curious about this, to me, is that the Holmes pattern is superficially American – the individual versus the establishment – and the television hero often is the opposite, a representative of the establishment who is after some twisted individual.
I better leave it at that, lest it become a ten-thousand-word essay that I don't have time to do.
Joe
black and blue
Our friend Ta-Nehisi Coates makes several good points in his Atlantic essay "Blue Lives Matter." This may be the central one:
To challenge the police is to challenge the American people, and the problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that we are majoritarian pigs. When the police are brutalized by people, we are outraged because we are brutalized. By the same turn, when the police brutalize people, we are forgiving because ultimately we are really just forgiving ourselves. Power, decoupled from responsibility, is what we seek.
Though I wonder whether this is really the people seeking power, as opposed to desiring protection from the abuse of power. It's a skein of responsibilities intertwined with desires and fears.
I'm inching toward some observation about cop shows. The difference between the British style and the American -- though even as I try to articulate it, I come up with exceptions.
The Sherlock Holmes hero works independent of police; not against them, but rarely seeking help from them. The Joe Friday character is the police, more or less humanized for the sake of story. When Joe Friday wins, the establishment wins. When Holmes wins, his client wins, often against the desires of authority.
I guess what's curious about this, to me, is that the Holmes pattern is superficially American – the individual versus the establishment – and the television hero often is the opposite, a representative of the establishment who is after some twisted individual.
I better leave it at that, lest it become a ten-thousand-word essay that I don't have time to do.
Joe
To challenge the police is to challenge the American people, and the problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that we are majoritarian pigs. When the police are brutalized by people, we are outraged because we are brutalized. By the same turn, when the police brutalize people, we are forgiving because ultimately we are really just forgiving ourselves. Power, decoupled from responsibility, is what we seek.
Though I wonder whether this is really the people seeking power, as opposed to desiring protection from the abuse of power. It's a skein of responsibilities intertwined with desires and fears.
I'm inching toward some observation about cop shows. The difference between the British style and the American -- though even as I try to articulate it, I come up with exceptions.
The Sherlock Holmes hero works independent of police; not against them, but rarely seeking help from them. The Joe Friday character is the police, more or less humanized for the sake of story. When Joe Friday wins, the establishment wins. When Holmes wins, his client wins, often against the desires of authority.
I guess what's curious about this, to me, is that the Holmes pattern is superficially American – the individual versus the establishment – and the television hero often is the opposite, a representative of the establishment who is after some twisted individual.
I better leave it at that, lest it become a ten-thousand-word essay that I don't have time to do.
Joe
November 19, 2014
good movie
Interstellar is a hugely ambitious film, and it's a success when its ambition is realized. Certainly the special effects are top-notch, as is the acting. The settings, dust-bowl America and super-futuristic space ship, are so solid and real they are like important additional characters in the story.
It's an hommage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, very obviously, and insofar as hommage is a genre it's one of the best of that genre ever done. It's the same twenty-first-century sf family as Inception and Gravity, and in many ways is better than either.
I liked it but wanted to love it. There's a structural problem that might be impossible to fix. It's about compression and complexity, and you can't really discuss it in detail without giving away too much of the story. Speaking broadly, the movie combines three good stories, set in different times and places, and a true but trivial observation is that it should have been three movies. Not separate movies, but a trilogy like Red, Blue, and White. Any of which would be good stand-alones – but the three considered together move into another, rare, genre.
I want to see it again. Fortunately, the Writers Guild forwards to its members DVDs of most movies whose scripts are nominated for the Academy Awards, so we'll probably get a chance.
Worth studying, I think.
(Of course I do have to sigh and note that there's a perfectly good story, The Forever War, that would benefit from the same level of acting and special effects. But nobody listens to me.)
Joe
It's an hommage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, very obviously, and insofar as hommage is a genre it's one of the best of that genre ever done. It's the same twenty-first-century sf family as Inception and Gravity, and in many ways is better than either.
I liked it but wanted to love it. There's a structural problem that might be impossible to fix. It's about compression and complexity, and you can't really discuss it in detail without giving away too much of the story. Speaking broadly, the movie combines three good stories, set in different times and places, and a true but trivial observation is that it should have been three movies. Not separate movies, but a trilogy like Red, Blue, and White. Any of which would be good stand-alones – but the three considered together move into another, rare, genre.
I want to see it again. Fortunately, the Writers Guild forwards to its members DVDs of most movies whose scripts are nominated for the Academy Awards, so we'll probably get a chance.
Worth studying, I think.
(Of course I do have to sigh and note that there's a perfectly good story, The Forever War, that would benefit from the same level of acting and special effects. But nobody listens to me.)
Joe
November 11, 2014
things that go bump in the mailbox
I just got a letter with a remarkable offer --
Hello Good day to you . Am billy and i am here scooting for an article writer to write for me 3000 words about the Government of Bill Gate and it Achievement
i will like to know if you can do that pls get back to me and we can discuss more on it
He really does seem to be scooting for an article writer. I just don't think I want to scoot alongside him . . .
Joe
Hello Good day to you . Am billy and i am here scooting for an article writer to write for me 3000 words about the Government of Bill Gate and it Achievement
i will like to know if you can do that pls get back to me and we can discuss more on it
He really does seem to be scooting for an article writer. I just don't think I want to scoot alongside him . . .
Joe
November 10, 2014
coming home . . . for now . . . .
After more than a month of travel, we're coming home for about a nonce. Haven't been anywhere exotic; just Washington and World Fantasy Con, after Icon. That was Iowa City, enjoying a last gasp of Earth weather before the winter heaves in.There are all sorts of weather rejoinders in cold states. "If you don't like it, wait a few minutes, and it will change," and so forth. That doesn't really work in Iowa. Where the weather is about as funny as a wolverine. "If you don't like it, go back to Earth."(In truth, I liked it a lot. But I grew up in Alaska, and miss it even in winter.)Joe
Now for something not completely different:
I just got a letter with a not quite irresistible offer –
Hello Good day to you . Am billy and i am here scooting for an article writer to write for me 3000 words about the Government of Bill Gate and it Achievement
i will like to know if you can do that pls get back to me and we can discuss more on it
He really does seem to be scooting for an article writer. I just don't think I want to scoot alongside him . . .
Joe
Hello Good day to you . Am billy and i am here scooting for an article writer to write for me 3000 words about the Government of Bill Gate and it Achievement
i will like to know if you can do that pls get back to me and we can discuss more on it
He really does seem to be scooting for an article writer. I just don't think I want to scoot alongside him . . .
Joe
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