Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 42

Gatorbones

We saw a neat musical group day before yesterday, the Gatorbone Trio, which mysteriously had four members.  Nice folk/country/bluesy mix.  

http://www.reverbnation.com/thegatorb....

I did a silhouette sketch that I might use for a more interesting picture . . . 

les chats gros

From Frederica Graham . . . 


Perhaps you don't have to like cats to like this French video . . . in  fact, it might be better if you hate them .  . . .     www.wimp.com/catexistence/  
Joe

Never underestimate the power of a beer can

I've been immersed in a book for about a week, and sff.net has Topsy-ed while I was away . . . two things, David, more or less relevant to the ongoing ramble –

Back in 1965 I wrote a program that could write World War I Flying Ace stories.  Two nested programs, actually, one in COBOL inside one in MAD (Michigan Algorithmic Decoder, a sort of Poor Man's ALGOL.)  The professor praised the programming and also said something on the order of "You oughta be a writer."  Okay.

Have you come across the model of the "beer-can starship"?  Basically a kind of low-IQ space probe that uses stacked propulsion systems, essentially redefining v-naught through a dozen different regimes until you have something the size of a beer can screaming toward Alpha Centauri at a significant fraction of the speed of light.  Do-able for less than the Apollo Project cost.
  
  
Joe

Wilder writing

I've never read the novels of Thornton Wilder, whose birthday is today, but I think I might check him out.  According to the Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac's Poet's Corner   (http://www.elabs7.com/functions/messa...),   he once said  " My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate," a Rusty-Hevelinesque notion well expressed.  It goes on to say his "father was a diplomat, so Wilder and his four brothers and sisters moved back and forth between Asia and the United States. His parents  . . . dictated what Wilder did with his time, and made him work on farms in the summer so that he would be more well-rounded. They decided where he would go to college: to Oberlin, in Ohio, and then to Yale.  "After some time in Rome, Wilder got a job teaching French at a boys' boarding school. In 1926, Wilder spent the summer at MacDowell Colony, a writers' retreat in New Hampshire, and he started work on his second novel. It was set in the Spanish colonial era of the 18th century — the story of a bridge that collapses in Lima, Peru, while five people are crossing it. The collapse is witnessed by a Franciscan monk, who becomes obsessed by the tragedy and tries to figure out why those five people had to die. Wilder finished it less than a year later and sent it off to his publisher, who almost turned it down, complaining that it was written "for a small over-cultivated circle of readers." But when The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) was published, it was an immediate success. It won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize, and by that time, it had sold nearly 300,000 copies and been through 17 printings.   ". . . In 1962, Wilder was 65 years old, a famous writer. He was best known for his plays, like his Pulitzer-winning Our Town (1938) and The Matchmaker (1955), which was adapted into the musical Hello, Dolly!. He had not written a novel for almost 20 years. He was tired of being in the limelight, and he wanted to escape his comfortable life in Connecticut, so Wilder got in his Thunderbird convertible and headed southwest. The car broke down just outside of Douglas, Arizona, a town on the Mexican border, and that's where Wilder stayed for a year and a half. He was happy to be somewhere where nobody knew much about him or his writing. He rented an apartment with one bed for himself and one for all his papers. During the days he wrote, read, and took walks, and in the evenings he hung around the bar asking questions — so many questions that everyone called him "Doc" or "Professor." When he left Douglas at the end of 1963, he had a good start on a novel. In 1967 he published it as The Eighth Day, and it won a National Book Award.  He said, "There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head."  And: "The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, 'Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home.' And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."

Joe

Arts Fair

 
Met Gay at the Spring Arts Fair, where we wandered and munched.  As usual, some of the art was good, but none was arresting.  Most of it more craft than art, which is okay.  We bought a clever little optical-illusion disc that shows a bicycle pedaling along.

Have a little bit of a cold in nose and throat.  Slight cough that may be a reaction to smoke from a large grass fire to the north – it's bothering a lot of people.  Also have a headache and slight bit of kleptomania and god complex.  However, if I steal a Bible and don't find myself in it, both maladies may be cured.

Here's an interesting little video from Sherry Gottlieb – a bunch of dolphins came aground on a beach in Brazil, evidently disoriented.  The spectators hauled them back into water deep enough for swimming and they swam off.  Kind of mysterious; why did they beach themselves and then why did they not return to the beach?

http://elcomercio.pe/player/1384898

Joe

Lookout warning

We went to the movies with Bob and Patience Mason yesterday and saw the earnestly bad sf movie "Lockout."  Science and logic are nonexistent – they take all the worst murderers and rapists on Earth and put them in a prison in orbit and send the President's beautiful daughter up to, what, taunt them?  And of course someone pushes a button and all of the prisoners are set free – what genius put that design feature in place? – and they kill the guards and go nutso.  Joseph Gilgun is a cringe-inducing delight as an eye-rolling drooling monstrosity who is second-in-command of the psycho set.  It's basically a chase scene with Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace delivering wisecracks (well-scripted) while staying one second ahead of an army of lobotomized sex maniacs with submachine guns – I mean, if that ain't entertainment, I don't know what is.

In fact, it was so fucking bad that in the lobby afterward I almost had a stroke from laughing so hard as Bob and I detailed the lunacies. 

I should have a macro that types this out:  With exactly the same talent and resources, they could have made a movie as intelligent and durable as "2001."  But some combination of failure of imagination and failure of nerve – and perhaps the dislocation of taste that is the result of too many cooks pissing in the broth – prevented the movie from being good.

Wild pigs couldn't drag me away - or could they?

In case you're thinking about moving to Florida because the bicycle riding is so good here, let me pass on a communication I just got from the local bicycle club . . . We did the night-ride at San Felasco last night... and during the ride the ride-leader (Barry) was runover by a herd of wild pigs. There must have been 7-10 of them and they all appeared to weigh about 100 lbs.  Eight of us were riding down along powerline road and heard some noise off to the right. All of sudden the pigs charged out of the thicket and across the road, hitting the bike and knocking Barry to the ground in a crumple. He's okay, but what an experience. (1st time in his riding career).Just thought some of you would be interested..Jere Steele"Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself !"(I do like that tagline)Joe

a thorny problem

You don't often encounter humor in the vegetable section of the grocery store.  But yesterday Gay brought home a couple of artichokes that looked a little the worse for wear, which were decorated with a plastic insert that declared them to be "Frost Kissed ™ To Delicious," and went on – in the artichoke's own voice! – to explain "Once cooked, I transform into a perfect green Artichoke with an enhanced, nutty flavor." 

On the other side it points out that "Artichokes become 'Frost Kissed' at temperatures below 32°.  The outer layer turns brown, flakes and peels, much like a sunburn.  Once cooked, the flakes disappear, revealing a delicious, green Artichoke."

I want to hire that guy for flap copy . . .

Joe

(P.S.  The artichokes were pretty good, actually; a little bitter in the outer leaves.)

grate writing

Sherry Gottlieb's humor column quoted "Thog's Masterclass" (David Langford's fanzine Ansible's collection of ungreat writing) with this example of metaphor abuse:

  'I had too much altar boy in me to seize the bitch goddess of success by her ponytail and bugger the Zeitgeist with my throbbing baguette.' (James Walcott, Lucking Out, 2011)

Sometimes you just have to cast your eyes down (squish) and humbly admit, "I could not write that in a million years."

Joe

the time machine

The attachment may be unfair partisan politics, but since I've written a lot about time machines, I found it interesting to see one given a practical application . . . .http://front.moveon.org/the-only-way-...