Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 40

Ray Bradbury R.I.P.

I was off on a boat when Ray Bradbury died.  Sorry to lose him but glad he had a good long run.

Gay and I spent most of a day with him about ten years ago, when he'd just turned eighty, and were impressed as always with his sprightly nature.  Always questing and inventive; always glad to meet his readers and other writers.  It's a pity he didn't travel more, so people outside of California could feel the glow of his personality.

I was in grade school, about sixty years ago, when I first encountered his writing.  I loved him in college, when I started writing, and loved him afterwards, even though my own writing went in a different direction.

In a trench in Vietnam, in 1968, a guy passed on a mud-soaked issue of Playboy that had his story about meeting the spirit of Ernest Hemingway.  I was educated enough to "know" that the story was corny as hell – but it still made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

He played his strange chords, and familiar ones, so well that it's hard to think of him not being part of the landscape.  He'll be around a long time, though.  Longer than his critics, I think.

Joe

Game of Thrones fantasy

We’re home after a day of not-too-vexing air travel – Gay managed to get us upgraded to First Class, so I got to sit in a chair big enough for two of me and drink “free” wine.  While the rich teenager next to me practiced his homework for Boredom 101.  Changing planes at Atlanta was the usual frenetic Habitrail experience.

Home in time to see the last show of the season for Game of Thrones . . . boy, I wondered how they were going to tie up all those loose ends.  <SPOILER ALERT!!!>  They didn’t.

So now I roll up my sleeves and fill up my pen and get to work on the end of my own novel.  Maybe 20,000 words to go.  Forty good days.  Maybe Susan (my editor) would let me end it like Game of Thrones – i.e. kill off a few people and stop typing.

Maybe not.

Joe

Next day

Yesterday was relatively quiet, with the solar system just rolling along its usual path.  After a leisurely breakfast we went out into the gray (but dry) day and hiked uphill to Fort Hamilton, which dates from  the 1860’s.  It’s a nicely manicured Victorian fort, with great big guns and mortars that I think were never used.  (Not having Google handicaps me here.)

 

The view of the port and islands was gorgeous, even though the visibility was limited by haze.    I walked down a forbidding shaft blasted through rock down to sea level, 108 steps, and then walked back up to report to Gay that she had missed nothing but exercise.  There were some pleasant gardens but no commercial establishments, so we walked back down to sea level to find lunch and a beer.

 

We walked up Front Street and wound up at BUEI, the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, a modern and slightly strange museum built around archeological and oceanographic finds from local waters.  We had lunch at the elegant-if-pricey Harbourfront restaurant there, and then saw a little movie about local exploration.

 

The museum had a couple of modernish exhibits, like a simulated submarine that does a kind of Disney-style simulation of an action-fraught trip to the bottom of the sea.  It was all good clean fun, but the organization of the place seemed pretty random.

 

We came back in time for dinner, but only had soup and salad, figuring we’d go down to Front Street for dinner from the sidewalk vendors, a local custom that we’ve enjoyed (and survived) in the Bahamas.  We missed it, though – about an hour later it started raining and there was an announcement that Front Street had rolled up its sidewalk.

 

We solaced ourselves with Scrabble up in the game room – casinos, perhaps fortunately, not open in port.  Susan Casper had won the previous night, but I won twice, thank goodness, restoring order to my solipsistic universe.

 

There was a show at 11:00, but we decided that Scrabble had sapped our strength.  Had a drink with Gardner and Sue and then called it a day.

the transit!

Well, my big ambition on this trip (besides making enough to pay for it with blackjack) was a spectacularly fulfilled!  We saw the transit of Venus – but only by  a hair.I carried the Questar (a small suitcase-sized box, about 25 pounds) to dinner and then upstairs to the Sky deck.  It was more than an hour before the transit of Venus.  Conditions had to be nearly perfect.   The transit would begin less than an hour before sunset.  (The event would be seven hours long, but that didn't do us any good.)Sky conditions were miserable.  It had rained during dinner and was still almost completely clouded up,  just a little patch of blue here and there.  But I wandered around the Sky deck, through puddles of rainwater nearly an inch deep, and found a solid protrusion where I could position the telescope with a view to the west.  The sun wasn't visible, but I focused on the farthest horizon and waited.  Then the patches of blue filled up with cloud.  I didn't quit, but I did pack up the telescope and go down to the promenade bar to join Gardner and Sue.  With about twenty minutes to go, it was still socked in.  But you could see some sunlight filtering in to the west, through layers of cloud.  I went back up to the place I'd found and set up again.  And at the very last moment, less than ten minutes before actual sunset, a glimmer broke through and I could glimpse the sun!   Only about half of the orange disk was visible, floating in billowing clouds, but superimposed on it was the hard dark circle of the planet – much bigger and more dramatic than I had imagined.  We could see it off and on for about five minutes, and then it crawled dramatically to its demise, with the crisp outline of palm trees and luxury homes in front of the fiery disk.  During the whole thing I was holding the Questar solar filter in my right hand, but the light was so attenuated I didn't need it.  The sun was about as bright as a moderate neon light at maximum.  (Don't Try This At Home note:  You don't want to stare at the magnified image of the sun even when it has been dimmed by clouds – the ultraviolet light is still being collected and magnified, and can burn your retina.   Under these conditions I judged the risk minimal.  I checked several times, and the sun was invisible with the filter.)  No blackjack in port, so I played a game of Scrabble with the women, and lost for lack of genius, or perhaps a surfeit of blah tiles.  At 9:30 Gay and I went down to the theater and watched an amusing comedian, who had a somewhat moderated Rickles-style routine, improvising riffs on the audience's home towns and ethnicity and assumed sexual shortcomings.  Oh, earlier in the day . . . Gay and I left the ship and walked around town.  I'm sort of looking for a couple of souvenirs, a good fountain pen and a distinctive notebook for the next novel, but so far no luck.  We had a good lunch at an upstairs joint; no atmosphere, but nice jerked chicken and fried fish and the peculiar warm coleslaw typical of the island.  Went to a bar and had a beer while local salty characters did a good imitation of drunks in a bar.  After lunch we joined Gardner and Sue and Frank and Susan for a somewhat cramped taxicab tour of the island.  Pretty houses and gorgeous beaches, which would have been more beautiful if the sun was out.  Midway we stopped at a picturesque bar where I got a bottle of delicious ginger beer, very sharp and sparkly.  But a two-hour tour would have been better than three hours and fifteen minutes.  In a cab.Today I'd planned to do some drawing and/or painting, but it looks like it may rain all day.  That's okay, though – I got my glimpse of Venus, and that should hold me for the next century or so.Joe

war horse

Most of what we did yesterday, as we usually do the second day we're in New York, was hang around the big NYC Library.  This time we took an actual tour with a docent, about an hour and a half.  Good exhibition on Shelley and his pals, a large part given over to Mary S. and Frankenstein

   

There was a curiously affecting collection of juvenile art, drawings and paintings from the NYC school systems, children asked to imagine their futures.  Most of them were positive, which I think wouldn't have been the case in my childhood.

  

We had lunch at the bistro near the library, which has expanded into a chain – Le Pain Quotidien.  Decent soup and sandwiches.   Windowshopped down Fifth Avenue and then rested a bit at the hotel.

We met Phil and Judy Anderson for dinner at a nice Indian place on Columbus Circle, and then went on to see the Broadway show War Horse. 

Of course the puppetry is marvelous, like Lion King, human operators inside intricate animal costumes.  The horselike actions and reactions can keep you entertained for a couple of hours – which is a good thing, because the story, though well told and uplifting, doesn't hold any real surprises.  Haven't seen the movie, but I guess I will if it's still playing when we settle down.  (WWI stories act as a kind of corrective to my Vietnam memories – like "you think you had it bad?")

Joe

New Yawk, New Yawk!

We got a 10:00 flight out of Gainesville and had a quick change in Atlanta.  One ticket bumped to first class, and Gay graciously let me have it – after all, the free glass of wine would've been wasted on her!

  

We also paid an extra ten bucks or so to have a limo waiting at LaGuardia (rather than get into the long cab line) and we were installed in the Hilton by 3:00.  Made a couple of phone calls and went out wandering at random.

Not completely random.  I aimed us toward Art Brown, the International Pen Shop, a true Mecca for those of us who worship at the shrine of the fountain pen.

I was intrigued by the new "5th Mode" Parker, which I've been seeing in email and catalogs from places like Fountain Pen Hospital.  Parker claims to have come up with a fifth kind of writing instrument (after pencil, ballpoint, dip pen, and fountain pen, I think), but when you subtract all the gosh-wow from the ads, it really looks like a disposable fountain pen that slides into a fancy external pen holder.  So the pen part that writes is an $8 insert, but the pen entire runs $160 or $190.

I have paid that much and more for a good pen, but you're normally shelling out for a good nib, not a throw-away. 

So I tried one and, yeah, it was a pretty good pen – better than the usual cheap throwaway.  Pretty good feel, but not a hundred bucks' worth.  So I asked him what he might have that was new and interesting in an italic fountain pen.

He brought out the Stipula "Vedo," and at first I wasn't impressed.  But that was because there was some residual lacquer on the point.  Once that was worn and washed off, it was quite a revelation – a true italic nib, but the thinnest line I've ever seen in one – stainless steel, 0.9 millimeter rather than 1.1.   

It cost as much as the Parker, but actually was a new pen for me.  So Gay got it as an early birthday present.

That excitement over, we walked some more and Gay asked Siri for a Spanish restaurant.  The computer voice steered us to the Sangria, which had excellent authentic food.  No wine, though, in spite of their name; I guess they lost their license or let it lapse.

Huge servings; more shrimp than I could eat, which is quite a bit.  We waddled slowly back to the hotel, to rest up for a fun day tomorrow, which we haven't yet planned.

This is the first time in decades that we've come to New York and not done any business.  Feels a little strange, but we've met with all my agents and editors in the past month or so, in Florida and Phoenix, so why not just play tourist.

The poisonous hot dog vendors are advertising a new treat – crunchy hot dogs, with a sprinkle of dried fried onions!  Can't resist!  This is what travel is all about . . . .

Joe

Gay boys and Indians

Yesterday we went to an Indian dinner and an Indian movie.  The dinner was unremarkable but the movie,  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, was a lot of fun.  The plot is unexciting – a bunch of British retirees take a holiday package to India, which turns out to be less than advertised – but the acting is gorgeous. 

Judi Dench of course does a star turn, as does Maggie Smith, but the actor who really came through for me was Tom Wilkinson, who  plays a quiet pleasant gentleman who is returning to the India of his youth, after a life of conventional success.  Surprisingly, he looks up the boy he'd had a fling with as a teenager – and most of the beautiful and subtle reunion scene is done with no words, just the faces and postures of two old men given one moment of transport back to their youth.  I'm not gay but I do know what's in the heart of an old man, and it can be beautiful.

 (Of course there's a lot going on in the scene's surround, also wordless, as the family of his Indian lover confronts this huge hovering taboo.)

Joe

Praise the lord but pass the antivenin

Perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but news stories like this always make me feel good . . . although the jaw-dropping last line does make it pathetic.

(NEWSER) – A West Virginia Pentecostal pastor who used poisonous snakes during religious services has died of a rattlesnake bite. Mack Wolford, who just turned 44, was killed by a snake he had owned for years, reports the Washington Post. He was bitten during an outdoor service at a state park he had hoped would be a "homecoming like the old days," filled with people speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a "great time," he said on his Facebook page. “Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother,” he wrote last week.

Wolford was bitten on the thigh when he sat next to the rattlesnake during the service. He was taken to a relative's home to recover, but was rushed later to a local hospital where he was declared dead. Wolford believed that the Bible requires Christians to handle poisonous snakes to test their faith in God, and remain steadfast in their belief that they will not be bitten or will be healed if they are attacked. Death by rattlesnake is "excruciating—the venom attacks the nervous system, and it's vicious and gruesome when it hits," a snake expert told the Post. Wolford was the son of a snake-handler preacher who died of a snake bite when Wolford was 15.

What can you say?  "Like father, like son."  Stupidity is hereditary, especially reinforced by religion.  Snakes are beautiful creatures, but they will be snakes.  You don't want to annoy them by speaking in tongues, for Christ's sake!

Joe

43

David Nicholas forwarded this fascinating article –

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/...

-- that makes a broad definition of "autocatalytic set" which elaborates into an explanation for life, the universe, and everything.  It turns out that the chicken crossed the road in order to lay an egg so that another chicken could cross another road.  And so on, to the Apollo Program and beyond.

  
Joe

fangs for the mammaries . . .

We went to see Dark Shadows  last night, and came away unsmitten.  I like Johnny Depp in any role, but this one is so thin and trite he couldn't rescue it.  It's a bunch of vampire clichés rattling around in a shapeless container.  A few good sight gags and groaner lines . . . the teenaged girl asks Barnabas Collins, "Are you stoned, or what?"  He replies, "They tried stoning me once.  It did not work."

and this exchange . . . .

Joe