Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 60
June 30, 2011
actual Globe trotting
[In sff.net. Dave was pursuing an abstraction about concave and convex people . . . ]
. . . Dave, to stretch your metaphor completely out of shape, I do have to note that in optics, concave and convex come together in the achromatic lens – you make a concave lens out of one kind of glass (flint) and fit it exactly to a convex lens of another kind (crown), and working together they eliminate the distortion that either kind would have alone, chromatic aberration -- which is a malevolent kind of rainbow.
So both kinds of people can work together to make a truer picture of the world. Or as the T-shirt says, “There are 10 kinds of people: those who know the binary system and those who don’t.”
I’ve been to the Globe theater a couple of times before, Hamlet and Twelfth Night – but the production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus was the most entertaining for several reasons. Of course the Faust legend is familiar, but I’d never read the Marlowe version or seen it done. The acting was confident and lively, dialogue ringing clear without amplification, and the special effects were stunning, though I think the technology was appropriate to Marlowe’s time – actors on stilts working in tandem to animate huge monsters, gallons of fake blood – and one amazing “sleight of head” trick where an actor’s costume folds were utilized to make it appear that his head had been lopped off with a sword, and then replaced on his neck! There was a scene where Dr. Faustus and Mephistopheles are riding flying dragons over Europe, the wings being worked by actors hidden in black, the wind sounds supplied by other actors with megaphones – and it was utterly creepy and convincing to this modern audience.
I did have one writerly nit to pick, which I guess is churlish. Dr. Faustus makes a deal with Mephistopheles, saying he’ll trade 24 years of earthly wealth and success for an eternity in hell. But unless I missed something (which is quite possible), once his wish is granted, he just goes ahead and enjoys 23.99 years without a thought of regret until the antepenultimate scene, and he’s all “Oh shit! I’m going to hell!” as if it were a surprise.
If it were otherwise, I suppose you wouldn’t have a story in the classical sense. Maybe two hours of Marlin (Brando) brooding rather than Marlowe rejoicing.
If you’re coming to London between now and October, you might want to take in this masterpiece. Shakespeare will always be with us, but Marlowe comes and goes like a dark wraith.
Joe
(Here's the Globe stage; we weren't allowed to photograph during the show . . . )
. . . Dave, to stretch your metaphor completely out of shape, I do have to note that in optics, concave and convex come together in the achromatic lens – you make a concave lens out of one kind of glass (flint) and fit it exactly to a convex lens of another kind (crown), and working together they eliminate the distortion that either kind would have alone, chromatic aberration -- which is a malevolent kind of rainbow.
So both kinds of people can work together to make a truer picture of the world. Or as the T-shirt says, “There are 10 kinds of people: those who know the binary system and those who don’t.”
I’ve been to the Globe theater a couple of times before, Hamlet and Twelfth Night – but the production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus was the most entertaining for several reasons. Of course the Faust legend is familiar, but I’d never read the Marlowe version or seen it done. The acting was confident and lively, dialogue ringing clear without amplification, and the special effects were stunning, though I think the technology was appropriate to Marlowe’s time – actors on stilts working in tandem to animate huge monsters, gallons of fake blood – and one amazing “sleight of head” trick where an actor’s costume folds were utilized to make it appear that his head had been lopped off with a sword, and then replaced on his neck! There was a scene where Dr. Faustus and Mephistopheles are riding flying dragons over Europe, the wings being worked by actors hidden in black, the wind sounds supplied by other actors with megaphones – and it was utterly creepy and convincing to this modern audience.
I did have one writerly nit to pick, which I guess is churlish. Dr. Faustus makes a deal with Mephistopheles, saying he’ll trade 24 years of earthly wealth and success for an eternity in hell. But unless I missed something (which is quite possible), once his wish is granted, he just goes ahead and enjoys 23.99 years without a thought of regret until the antepenultimate scene, and he’s all “Oh shit! I’m going to hell!” as if it were a surprise.
If it were otherwise, I suppose you wouldn’t have a story in the classical sense. Maybe two hours of Marlin (Brando) brooding rather than Marlowe rejoicing.
If you’re coming to London between now and October, you might want to take in this masterpiece. Shakespeare will always be with us, but Marlowe comes and goes like a dark wraith.
Joe
(Here's the Globe stage; we weren't allowed to photograph during the show . . . )
June 29, 2011
Globe-trotters
Yesterday after writing we went off toward Bankside with our drawing and painting stuff, even though the sky looked threatening. Came up into muttering thunder and a few scattered drops, and so ducked into a café adjacent to the Globe Theater to nibble and wait out the worst of the storm.
A pretty good plan. We didn’t get any drawing done, but we didn’t get drenched, either. And since we were there, I checked out what was available at the Globe. Wound up buying tickets for today – not Shakespeare but Marlowe, Dr, Faustus, which neither of us has seen or read. Adventures in literature!
Then we tube’d on down to Brixton, where Judith has her studio for printmaking. What an exciting place for an artist! One of her compatriots was there, putting together his next show. (Judith’s next one is on its way to Finland, eighteen paintings and thirty-some framed etchings.)
I love to nose around studios and workshops. If I was superstitious I’d go on about auras and spirits – but I don’t think it’s superstitious to understand that a place where creative work is done does take on a special feeling if you’re aware of the work and the place.
With the weather worsening and no prospects for drawing, we headed on home, and of course it cleared up enough to have dinner out in the garden.
In LJ, a picture of Judith and her press . . .
Joe
A pretty good plan. We didn’t get any drawing done, but we didn’t get drenched, either. And since we were there, I checked out what was available at the Globe. Wound up buying tickets for today – not Shakespeare but Marlowe, Dr, Faustus, which neither of us has seen or read. Adventures in literature!
Then we tube’d on down to Brixton, where Judith has her studio for printmaking. What an exciting place for an artist! One of her compatriots was there, putting together his next show. (Judith’s next one is on its way to Finland, eighteen paintings and thirty-some framed etchings.)
I love to nose around studios and workshops. If I was superstitious I’d go on about auras and spirits – but I don’t think it’s superstitious to understand that a place where creative work is done does take on a special feeling if you’re aware of the work and the place.
With the weather worsening and no prospects for drawing, we headed on home, and of course it cleared up enough to have dinner out in the garden.
In LJ, a picture of Judith and her press . . .
Joe
June 28, 2011
remembering Richard Evans
Yesterday after I finished writing we took the tube to Green Park and wandered a bit, gorgeously atypical weather, and wound up at a concession on St. James’s Park Lake, where we sat at a picnic table and painted for a couple of hours. Judith got a nice big splashy painting; mine is rather costive and overworked pencil drawing with some color added. I got interested in two ladies obviously gossiping while they lunched, and tried to put down too much information about them. It was fun, though, and instructive.
Afterwards we ambled out of the park and found the Two Chair Men Pub – a “chair man” being the guy who carries rich and/or noble people around in those four-man-carry sedan chairs – it was fine, a cool quiet place where we worked through a couple of non-beers and some weird kind of pub peanuts. English pubs are much more congenial for ex-drinkers like me than American bars. The non-alcoholic brews on offer have real flavor. (It still feels odd to sit in smokeless pubs, although they’ve been that way since 2006. There used to be places where you could get a full dose of nicotine by just breathing deeply every now and then.)
I guess a traditionalist could be righteously disgusted by all this. “Why go to a fookin’ pub if you don’t want to smoke and drink? Jay-zus!”
I sit here with my spearmint tea and remember riotous pub crawls with Richard Evans, my British editor for a half-dozen books. A wonderful guy to go drinking with; he wrote the Real Beer and Real Ale guides to London (“real” meaning traditional brews that have no added carbonation and are kept at cellar temperature) – he did drink to excess frequently, but was never mean-tempered and could carry a tune even when he couldn’t walk straight. We sang old WWI and Al Jolson songs together in many a grubby bar while a honkytonk pianist banged away. Died young, unfortunately – googling, I find it was ’96 when we lost him. It doesn’t seem that long ago.
Good writing here. I just did about four pages in a few hours in the roof garden, a nice relaxing place that looks down on a hectic market. Judith and I are headed out now to check out Bankside, the Gabriel Wharf. Paints at the ready, though it will probably rain.
Joe
Afterwards we ambled out of the park and found the Two Chair Men Pub – a “chair man” being the guy who carries rich and/or noble people around in those four-man-carry sedan chairs – it was fine, a cool quiet place where we worked through a couple of non-beers and some weird kind of pub peanuts. English pubs are much more congenial for ex-drinkers like me than American bars. The non-alcoholic brews on offer have real flavor. (It still feels odd to sit in smokeless pubs, although they’ve been that way since 2006. There used to be places where you could get a full dose of nicotine by just breathing deeply every now and then.)
I guess a traditionalist could be righteously disgusted by all this. “Why go to a fookin’ pub if you don’t want to smoke and drink? Jay-zus!”
I sit here with my spearmint tea and remember riotous pub crawls with Richard Evans, my British editor for a half-dozen books. A wonderful guy to go drinking with; he wrote the Real Beer and Real Ale guides to London (“real” meaning traditional brews that have no added carbonation and are kept at cellar temperature) – he did drink to excess frequently, but was never mean-tempered and could carry a tune even when he couldn’t walk straight. We sang old WWI and Al Jolson songs together in many a grubby bar while a honkytonk pianist banged away. Died young, unfortunately – googling, I find it was ’96 when we lost him. It doesn’t seem that long ago.
Good writing here. I just did about four pages in a few hours in the roof garden, a nice relaxing place that looks down on a hectic market. Judith and I are headed out now to check out Bankside, the Gabriel Wharf. Paints at the ready, though it will probably rain.
Joe
June 26, 2011
joe_haldeman @ 2011-06-26T15:30:00
Judith threw together a pretty elaborate lamb-chop lunch for company, or semi-company – Farah Mendelsohn and Edward James -- and we nibbled for a couple of hours in the unusually hot forenoon. Probably hit ninety.
For the afternoon’s drawing we took the train out to Allen Gardens, at the top of Brick Lane. Picturesque walk getting there and coming back, but my actual drawing is kind of blah. A field of grass full of badly drawn people who are either relaxing or were poleaxed by a neutron bomb.
Pleasant company, though, and on the way back we indulged in fairground food, a chocolate brick and a macademia nut cookie, washed down with something green.
Joe
Something new in store signs . . . .
For the afternoon’s drawing we took the train out to Allen Gardens, at the top of Brick Lane. Picturesque walk getting there and coming back, but my actual drawing is kind of blah. A field of grass full of badly drawn people who are either relaxing or were poleaxed by a neutron bomb.
Pleasant company, though, and on the way back we indulged in fairground food, a chocolate brick and a macademia nut cookie, washed down with something green.
Joe
Something new in store signs . . . .
Allen Gardens
“Graceful degradation is a hallmark of human information processing.” . . . for wildly different values of the variable “graceful,” I think. Most people experience more and more noise in the system as they age, and extracting grace from confusion becomes more effort when you get old and cranky. (“All you graceful kids get off my randomized lawn!”)
I did tell John that one of my readers is a great admirer of his work, and he said something like “Oh, that one.”
I allowed myself to spend one more morning fiddling with art. Tomorrow I go back to the novel. No money in this art stuff, anyhow.
Judith threw together a pretty elaborate lamb-chop lunch for company, or semi-company – Farah Mendelsohn and Edward James -- and we nibbled for a couple of hours in the unusually hot forenoon. Probably hit ninety.
For the afternoon’s drawing we took the train out to Allen Gardens, at the top of Brick Lane. Picturesque walk getting there and coming back, but my actual drawing is kind of blah. A field of grass full of badly drawn people who are either relaxing or were poleaxed by a neutron bomb.
Pleasant company, though, and on the way back we indulged in fairground food, a chocolate brick and a macademia nut cookie, washed down with something green.
Joe
I did tell John that one of my readers is a great admirer of his work, and he said something like “Oh, that one.”
I allowed myself to spend one more morning fiddling with art. Tomorrow I go back to the novel. No money in this art stuff, anyhow.
Judith threw together a pretty elaborate lamb-chop lunch for company, or semi-company – Farah Mendelsohn and Edward James -- and we nibbled for a couple of hours in the unusually hot forenoon. Probably hit ninety.
For the afternoon’s drawing we took the train out to Allen Gardens, at the top of Brick Lane. Picturesque walk getting there and coming back, but my actual drawing is kind of blah. A field of grass full of badly drawn people who are either relaxing or were poleaxed by a neutron bomb.
Pleasant company, though, and on the way back we indulged in fairground food, a chocolate brick and a macademia nut cookie, washed down with something green.
Joe
June 25, 2011
I never promised me a rose garden
(In sff.net, Dave described a world-changing transcendal experience . . . ) Doesn’t sound loopy to me, Dave. Sounds like trying to fit new data from the outer and inner universes into a world view that includes everything else you know, which is like any learning experience – except that this one was transcendental and therefore (by the definition of that word) profoundly disconnected from what you knew, and were, before.
I’ve never had such an experience, really, and I can’t say I envy you for it. Maybe it would make me a better or happier person. More likely (which sounds close to your experience) it would make me uneasy about everyday “reality.”
Nice London day today. Judith makes part of her living by giving guided tours for London Walks. I tagged along on her walk around Camden Town, and then we went to lunch at a nice – cheap! – Moroccan restaurant. Went back to the flat and packed up our art stuff and walked to the Rose Garden in Hyde Park, where we painted for a couple of hours.
Had tea before heading back, really bad tea-bag tea at a tennis club. Watched beginners lob balls back and forth for a while and then walked partway back, catching a bus for a couple of miles.
For dinner we had the UK equivalent of fish sticks, pretty good, and talked sf (well, sf gossip) with John for most of the evening.
Joe
I’ve never had such an experience, really, and I can’t say I envy you for it. Maybe it would make me a better or happier person. More likely (which sounds close to your experience) it would make me uneasy about everyday “reality.”
Nice London day today. Judith makes part of her living by giving guided tours for London Walks. I tagged along on her walk around Camden Town, and then we went to lunch at a nice – cheap! – Moroccan restaurant. Went back to the flat and packed up our art stuff and walked to the Rose Garden in Hyde Park, where we painted for a couple of hours.
Had tea before heading back, really bad tea-bag tea at a tennis club. Watched beginners lob balls back and forth for a while and then walked partway back, catching a bus for a couple of miles.
For dinner we had the UK equivalent of fish sticks, pretty good, and talked sf (well, sf gossip) with John for most of the evening.
Joe
in London
(In sff.net, someone brought up as an abstraction "the death of a 3-year-old.")
A certain kind of optimist would say of the death of a three-year-old, "At least she was spared 67 years of pain."
To me, it's a waste. To call it a "senseless" waste is almost content-free, like calling it a purple waste or a waste tetrachloride. A death can have meaning if the life has had meaning; in some rare circumstances a proper death can redeem a life not lived well. But the death of an innocent (who didn't die because of a misdeed) has no more moral dimension than a weather catastrophe.
Got into London fine and dumped my stuff with the Clutes, and then Judith took me off to her favorite art store. I wanted to get a new watercolor tablet for this trip to London and France, and after looking at about a hundred possibilities, I settled on a spiral A4 book with medium-weight paper. We returned for dinner and I sketched their kitchen as a warm-up. (The top picture was Judith's; she bought the same kind of tablet.)
Joe
A certain kind of optimist would say of the death of a three-year-old, "At least she was spared 67 years of pain."
To me, it's a waste. To call it a "senseless" waste is almost content-free, like calling it a purple waste or a waste tetrachloride. A death can have meaning if the life has had meaning; in some rare circumstances a proper death can redeem a life not lived well. But the death of an innocent (who didn't die because of a misdeed) has no more moral dimension than a weather catastrophe.
Got into London fine and dumped my stuff with the Clutes, and then Judith took me off to her favorite art store. I wanted to get a new watercolor tablet for this trip to London and France, and after looking at about a hundred possibilities, I settled on a spiral A4 book with medium-weight paper. We returned for dinner and I sketched their kitchen as a warm-up. (The top picture was Judith's; she bought the same kind of tablet.)
Joe
June 23, 2011
foiled again
Tried to fly to London yesterday but didn't get out of Gainesville. The pilot of the plane for the leg out of Atlanta was stuck in Denver. Does Delta only have one pilot in Atlanta?
Came back from the airport and played the guitar for a couple of minutes and watched TV, whoop de do. Well, for dinner I made angelhair pasta and improvised a sauce out of some shiitake mushrooms a friend harvested. Very good. Sauteed with garlic and onion in olive oil and a little butter, add some chicken stock and white wine.
Think I’ll look around for something interesting to read, something besides the mediocre novel I’m dissecting for graphic-novelization. A good mystery.
An actual book, because I won’t have the iPad. Have to take the MacBook because it has all my current correspondence on it, and it would be silly to haul both around.
(Which makes me feel so uncool . . . waiting in line interminably yesterday, all the hip young people were reading iPads or Zorks or whatever. While I leafed through a yellowing 1960 paperback. Their parents weren’t born in 1960. Jesus, I fell asleep and woke up in a science fiction universe.)
Joe
Came back from the airport and played the guitar for a couple of minutes and watched TV, whoop de do. Well, for dinner I made angelhair pasta and improvised a sauce out of some shiitake mushrooms a friend harvested. Very good. Sauteed with garlic and onion in olive oil and a little butter, add some chicken stock and white wine.
Think I’ll look around for something interesting to read, something besides the mediocre novel I’m dissecting for graphic-novelization. A good mystery.
An actual book, because I won’t have the iPad. Have to take the MacBook because it has all my current correspondence on it, and it would be silly to haul both around.
(Which makes me feel so uncool . . . waiting in line interminably yesterday, all the hip young people were reading iPads or Zorks or whatever. While I leafed through a yellowing 1960 paperback. Their parents weren’t born in 1960. Jesus, I fell asleep and woke up in a science fiction universe.)
Joe
June 20, 2011
noods
Oh, I do know what a skinny guy looks like with no clothes. Our model yesterday at open studio was not my favorite --
Hot peppers and naked women, oh my.
On impulse yesterday Gay and I went out to the Hot Pepper Festival for lunch. She can’t stand hot peppers, and though I like them, my tolerance is limited – still, a festival is a festival, and it was fun. Got some relishes and sauces that looked nontoxic, and feasted on curried chicken and rice. Some good country music and interesting folks walking around. I realized belatedly that I’d left my sketchbook behind.
Went into a new (to me) guitar store and was fascinated with the new things technology hath wrought. Weird little guitar-like instrument with three strings tuned to a minor triad. A note said you can pick out a song on any string and play the other two as drones, and that did work, finger-picking or strumming like a balalaika. If I’d been there alone I might have bought one. But I would have to explain why I need nine guitars when I can’t find time to play one.
Lore and the gang came over for a good “final” session of The Game of Thrones crowd last night. The series has been renewed, so we’ll do it again next year.
(And I’ll have to remember not to eat before the show. Tim and Erin and Barbara all brought trays of goodies, and I’d set out three cheeses and assorted crackers. It’s a good thing no hardy bearded barbarians descended on us. I could barely lift the cheese knife to ward them off.)
The last scene, with the nude sorceress rising with baby dragons pendant, was too too cool. Where were all these people when I was growing up and wondered what girls looked like under their clothes?
Joe
Went into a new (to me) guitar store and was fascinated with the new things technology hath wrought. Weird little guitar-like instrument with three strings tuned to a minor triad. A note said you can pick out a song on any string and play the other two as drones, and that did work, finger-picking or strumming like a balalaika. If I’d been there alone I might have bought one. But I would have to explain why I need nine guitars when I can’t find time to play one.
Lore and the gang came over for a good “final” session of The Game of Thrones crowd last night. The series has been renewed, so we’ll do it again next year.
(And I’ll have to remember not to eat before the show. Tim and Erin and Barbara all brought trays of goodies, and I’d set out three cheeses and assorted crackers. It’s a good thing no hardy bearded barbarians descended on us. I could barely lift the cheese knife to ward them off.)
The last scene, with the nude sorceress rising with baby dragons pendant, was too too cool. Where were all these people when I was growing up and wondered what girls looked like under their clothes?
Joe
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