Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 24

haunted houses

Yesterday I invited Lore to go to a "grooly" movie, The Conjuring.  It was well-acted, and I think would be genuinely scary to its projected audience. I'm a little too aggressively rational – I mean, the hype for the movie makes a lot of the "this REALLY happened" trope, as if being based on a book gives it more veracity.  As a haunted-house story, it has good atmosphere and special effects, including at least two genuine jump-out-of-your-seat shockers.  Lily Taylor does a convincing job of a normal person being scared beyond shitless by things no one can explain – I mean, she's concerned for the welfare of her children and husband and all, but about halfway through the movie the accumulating weirdness just makes her crack – and the acting is more scary and convincing than the script.We had a good suthrun dinner afterwards at Harry's Seafood Bar & Grill.  Fat fried shrimp and crisp white wine for me.Joe

meteor mattresses

Gay got these by mail-order a couple of weeks ago.  Ideal for star-gazing, though not exactly portable.  Not for backpackers!

Joe

The Perseids

Gay and I were able to see some meteors last night, even though it was pretty hazy.  Looking overhead, I could only see about twenty stars in the wedge of sky we can see between the trees.  In a dark sky it would have been at least three times as many. 

But we scored about a dozen meteors between 3 and 4 a.m., quite brilliant, zero magnitude or brighter.  Like all Perseids, they were white or blue-white and very fast.  (Two of them were not Perseids, but we looked at them anyhow.)

I'd gone out at one, and in an hour saw only four meteors, one bright.

We glimpsed a good number of meteors – we think! – right at the edge of visibility.  If the sky itself hadn't been so bright, we might have recorded twice as many.

It was pretty comfortable, out on our new inflatable mattresses.  Hordes of Florida mosquitoes, but camper-strength Off! kept them at bay.

Joe

from C.J. Cherryh

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beauty

Strange and wonderful sight last night.  We came back from the movies and as we pulled into the driveway there was a strange apparition in the flowers/weeds that grow around my woodpile.  I thought it was a hummingbird, hovering, going from blossom to blossom, one red eye like a gleaming ruby.  Gay thought it was a moth.

In fact, we were both right:  it was a hummingbird moth.  An insect almost as big as your hand.  Perhaps prettier, depending on your hand.

I've seen big hummingbirds, in Jamaica and by Mount Wilson Observatory in California.  But I've never seen a moth this stupendous.  A pity I didn't have the iPhone.  Next time I will.

Joe

gloorp, then and now

Went off with Barbara and saw a silly movie last night, R.I.P.D., which has the premise that good lawmen killed in the line of duty come back as cops who pursue the undead.  You know, the monsters who are always scampering around killing people and wrecking whole city blocks with their antics.  Some of the over-the-top comedy was droll.  Lots of good rubber monster costumes.
It's worth contemplating that when those rubber suits first came out, in the fifties, the costumes were central to the movie's premise; they had star value.  The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Especially This Island Earth – I remember reading, at 11 or 12, a magazine article about how they created the monster from a body cast, meticulously hand-painting its gloorpy outsides over latex, a new miracle substance.

And now they have dozens of them in throw-away crowd scenes.  Sic transit Gloria monstrii.

Joe

home for awhile

Back home from Maine and trying to cope with the Florida heat.  Not a bad tradeoff, frankly, for the pleasure of getting back on the bicycle for awhile.  That walking stuff is for the birds.  The long-legged varieties, anyhow.  (The island does have one inexplicable bicycle, rusting away, but no actual roads.)

It was inexpressibly comforting to pedal down to my favorite coffeehouse (The CYM Coffee Club) and scribble into the familiar bound book.  With dozens of different coffees and teas just a buck away.

I was away from home for all but four weeks in May, June, and July.  Even with the heat, I'm glad to trade airplanes and airports for the bike.  And writing with a regular schedule instead of catch as catch can.  (I did have ten days of uninterruption on Norton Island, but was annoyingly sick or injured most of that time.)

David Langford reports in Ansible that "_Linn's Stamp News_ (27 May) reports that under a new US Post Office marketing manager, commemorative stamp plans 'no longer include likely poorly selling subjects like science fiction.' The planned Asimov, Bradbury, Dick, Heinlein and Herbert stamps, first postponed until 2014, may never appear. [AIP]"  Well, who uses stamps anymore, anyhow, you old fogies.

My computer gave up the ghost enroute back to Florida, slowly decaying into a sullen parody of artificial intelligence.  But my trusty repairman tweaked it back into perfection overnight.

So I have a solid four weeks of work before going off to the worldcon in San Antonio.  Maybe take a long weekend in Cedar Key, but that's only ninety miles, and a great working environment.

Bliss.

Joe

testing

testing from norton island

joe_haldeman @ 2013-07-13T07:31:00

Amanda Palmer's brilliant protest to the Daily Mail --


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGPDWEjjN3Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Joe

home for a bit

Back home from Europe for a couple of days before repacking the suitcase and flying off to Norton Island, Maine, for a welcome writing retreat.  My current novel really needs for me to stay in one place and not do anything but write for days at a time.

This will be twelve days in a cabin deep in the woods.  No running water, but plenty of peace and quiet.  Electricity when and if it comes, from the windmill generator, but my fountain pen works without it (and the cabin has a skylight).  Courtesy of the Eastern Frontier Foundation.

Going off now to get a movie fix!  A movie on an actual screen, that is.  Too much flying has given me a severe case of cinema squint.

Joe