Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 71
January 7, 2011
endings and beginnings
Main reasons I haven't been around lately are (1.) finished a book and (2.) started another.
"Finishing" the book _Earthbound_ actually means finishing the handwritten draft. It's taken lots of hours past that, and I'm still in the final stage, which is Gay reading through the printout and making notes.
"Starting" _Work Done For Hire_ included a certain amount of curiously enjoyable non-literary silliness having to do with the nuts and bolts of the plot and preparation of the books I'll be writing into. I already had 34 pp. of the novel written, and they're incorporated into the 140 pp. of the first blank book (of four).
Meanwhile, we saw a good play last night, END DAYS, by Deborah Zoe Laufer. It's sort of, um, an apocalyptic drawing room comedy? A New York family moved out of the city after 9/11, and are going slightly, or not so slightly, crazy out in the suburbs.
Mom has converted to Fundamentalist Christianity and is convinced that the world is going to end on Monday. Her husband spends most of the day in a depressive staring near-coma at the kitchen table. Daughter is smoking way too much pot and the next-door neighbor kid spends all his time dressed up in a white vinyl Elvis costume, occasionally strumming badly and singing made-up bad lyrics.
The spirit of Jesus Christ, robes and all, follows the mother around during the first half of the play, quietly encouraging her. The same actor plays the daughter's hallucination of Stephen Hawking, expertly rolling an electric wheelchair. Hawking is exasperated and acerbic.
A charming craziness to the whole thing. Good writing, especially.
Joe
"Finishing" the book _Earthbound_ actually means finishing the handwritten draft. It's taken lots of hours past that, and I'm still in the final stage, which is Gay reading through the printout and making notes.
"Starting" _Work Done For Hire_ included a certain amount of curiously enjoyable non-literary silliness having to do with the nuts and bolts of the plot and preparation of the books I'll be writing into. I already had 34 pp. of the novel written, and they're incorporated into the 140 pp. of the first blank book (of four).
Meanwhile, we saw a good play last night, END DAYS, by Deborah Zoe Laufer. It's sort of, um, an apocalyptic drawing room comedy? A New York family moved out of the city after 9/11, and are going slightly, or not so slightly, crazy out in the suburbs.
Mom has converted to Fundamentalist Christianity and is convinced that the world is going to end on Monday. Her husband spends most of the day in a depressive staring near-coma at the kitchen table. Daughter is smoking way too much pot and the next-door neighbor kid spends all his time dressed up in a white vinyl Elvis costume, occasionally strumming badly and singing made-up bad lyrics.
The spirit of Jesus Christ, robes and all, follows the mother around during the first half of the play, quietly encouraging her. The same actor plays the daughter's hallucination of Stephen Hawking, expertly rolling an electric wheelchair. Hawking is exasperated and acerbic.
A charming craziness to the whole thing. Good writing, especially.
Joe
December 31, 2010
endings
Whoop de do. Finished the novel Earthbound this morning. Got up around three and finished the last page just after six. Still a bit of polish to be done, but it'll be in the mail next week.
(Yes, Virginia, some New York publishers still want paper copies. Of course I'll send an e-copy as soon as it's ready.)
Holiday finishes aren't unprecedented in this house. I finished the Star Trek novel Planet of Judgment on Christmas morning.
I started the trilogy (as a novella called "Mars is Hell!" and retitled "The Mars Girl") on 14 December 2004, so the three books took about six years.
I'm eager to start the next book, but will take off a couple of days on general principles. Right now I'd better help Gay get the place ready for seventy or eighty of our closest friends.
Happy old year!
Joe
(Yes, Virginia, some New York publishers still want paper copies. Of course I'll send an e-copy as soon as it's ready.)
Holiday finishes aren't unprecedented in this house. I finished the Star Trek novel Planet of Judgment on Christmas morning.
I started the trilogy (as a novella called "Mars is Hell!" and retitled "The Mars Girl") on 14 December 2004, so the three books took about six years.
I'm eager to start the next book, but will take off a couple of days on general principles. Right now I'd better help Gay get the place ready for seventy or eighty of our closest friends.
Happy old year!
Joe
December 27, 2010
Bob Tucker and Jim Beam
. . . . Wilson "Bob" Tucker used to be a perennial fixture at worldcons and regional cons, especially in the Midwest. He wasn't really a heavy drinker (I don't think his wife allowed alcohol in the house) but he had a shtik with Beam's Choice -- he would take a bottle by the neck and appear to hold it up and slug it down for about a count of three, his left hand in the air. Then he would sweep his hand down, intoning "Smoo-o-o-ooth," and pass the bottle to the next person, who would do the same.
I expect a lot of young fans got their first world-class hangovers trying to duplicate Tucker's prowess, which was largely sleight of tongue. He would tip the bottle up way above horizontal, while keeping it corked with his tongue, and then let a little booze slip through, which would make convincing bubbles.
Joe
I expect a lot of young fans got their first world-class hangovers trying to duplicate Tucker's prowess, which was largely sleight of tongue. He would tip the bottle up way above horizontal, while keeping it corked with his tongue, and then let a little booze slip through, which would make convincing bubbles.
Joe
December 26, 2010
talkin' books
The big book present I got for Christmas was not an actual book, technically, but an iPad, which eventually will bring anything I want to the desk. Right now it's dormant, so Gay can do the mail – Earthlink only allows two devices to be on at the same address, evidently.
Of actual printed books I didn't do too badly, either. A big picture book I coveted when I saw it at the Emily Dickinson bookstore in Amherst, American Writers at Home, which demonstrates that all other American writers were neater than me, or at least became neat after they died. Going through the table of contents, I find one unfamiliar name: Sarah Orne Jewett, best known for The Country of the Pointed Fires. And the Jewett House, I suppose. I also got Helen Vendler's new Dickinson, and the first volume of Mark Twain's new autobiography. Gay also got me The Untold War, Nancy Sherman's book subtitled "Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers."
On the science side I got Riding Rockets; The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope; Sizing Up the Universe, and The Solar System, which covers just about everything. In between science and art, I got, no kidding, The Science of Art, which is about optics and art.
Gay gave me a cool new toy, an iPad. More about it as I learn about it. Sort of like a cross between the Air and the iPhone. Powerful, though, with a fine-grain screen the size of a large paperback, 5X7", I think.
Two neat fountain pens, too; one from Gay and one from Barbara. Something I really need! And a nice wooden pochade box, which I will stock with good oil paints. It's very neat and bicycle-sized. A complete set of the Sopranos shows that I haven't seen, 21 episodes.
I went out this morning to write with the Pelikan Gay gave me, and it worked very well in spite of having been exposed to the cold. Near freezing, very unusual in these parts. It may get down to twenty tonight. Snow this morning just north of here. Maybe tomorrow I'll leave the bike in the garage and drive to the coffee house.
Joe
Of actual printed books I didn't do too badly, either. A big picture book I coveted when I saw it at the Emily Dickinson bookstore in Amherst, American Writers at Home, which demonstrates that all other American writers were neater than me, or at least became neat after they died. Going through the table of contents, I find one unfamiliar name: Sarah Orne Jewett, best known for The Country of the Pointed Fires. And the Jewett House, I suppose. I also got Helen Vendler's new Dickinson, and the first volume of Mark Twain's new autobiography. Gay also got me The Untold War, Nancy Sherman's book subtitled "Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers."
On the science side I got Riding Rockets; The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope; Sizing Up the Universe, and The Solar System, which covers just about everything. In between science and art, I got, no kidding, The Science of Art, which is about optics and art.
Gay gave me a cool new toy, an iPad. More about it as I learn about it. Sort of like a cross between the Air and the iPhone. Powerful, though, with a fine-grain screen the size of a large paperback, 5X7", I think.
Two neat fountain pens, too; one from Gay and one from Barbara. Something I really need! And a nice wooden pochade box, which I will stock with good oil paints. It's very neat and bicycle-sized. A complete set of the Sopranos shows that I haven't seen, 21 episodes.
I went out this morning to write with the Pelikan Gay gave me, and it worked very well in spite of having been exposed to the cold. Near freezing, very unusual in these parts. It may get down to twenty tonight. Snow this morning just north of here. Maybe tomorrow I'll leave the bike in the garage and drive to the coffee house.
Joe
December 25, 2010
L M N O Goldfish
(In sff.net, Bluesman Mike Linder asked about the future of the Worlds trilogy.)
Blues, we're negotiating on a hardcover set to come out next year. Marianne O'Hara will ride again!
(Her name, incidentally, came from a conversation with Bob "Wilson" Tucker. He said he always named his main characters so their initials were alphabetically adjacent, like Charles Darwin, Art Buchwald, Frank Godwin. I did it phonetically, somewhat hiding the sequence of three letters. J-K-L in Jacque LeFavre and M-N-O in Marianne O'Hara.)
Joe
Blues, we're negotiating on a hardcover set to come out next year. Marianne O'Hara will ride again!
(Her name, incidentally, came from a conversation with Bob "Wilson" Tucker. He said he always named his main characters so their initials were alphabetically adjacent, like Charles Darwin, Art Buchwald, Frank Godwin. I did it phonetically, somewhat hiding the sequence of three letters. J-K-L in Jacque LeFavre and M-N-O in Marianne O'Hara.)
Joe
December 24, 2010
walla walla wash and kallamazoo
[Taking about irreverent Xmas carols etc. in sffnet . . . )
I love all the hymns. None can beat Tom Lehrer, of course . . . worth pasting in here, in memory of the old days (Hearts full of youth / Hearts full of truth / Six parts gin / and one part vermouth.)
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say "when."
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Relations, sparing no expense'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
"just the thing I need! how nice!"
It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
Hark the herald tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!
So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
Copyright © Tom Lehrer 1959
I was sixteen when that marvelously irreverent and subversive record came out – I think "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer" – and remember taking it to a friend's house (driving through the snow with my relatively new drivers' license) and laughing uproariously to the whole thing.
A slightly jealous wave to those of you who do have snow. (On balance, though, I'd rather go out with a bicycle than a snow shovel.) Sub-tropical Christmas is normal for us now, of course; except for a few years in Iowa, we've been in some part of Florida since 1971.
When I was a kid in Alaska, of course there was deep snow this time of year – but also after we moved down to Washington, D.C., which seems warmer nowadays. A lot less snow in Anchorage, too, though the years we lived there (1948-52) may have been anomalous.
Ah well. Have to go write something. Back to the future.
Joe
I love all the hymns. None can beat Tom Lehrer, of course . . . worth pasting in here, in memory of the old days (Hearts full of youth / Hearts full of truth / Six parts gin / and one part vermouth.)
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say "when."
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Relations, sparing no expense'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
"just the thing I need! how nice!"
It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
Hark the herald tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!
So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
Copyright © Tom Lehrer 1959
I was sixteen when that marvelously irreverent and subversive record came out – I think "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer" – and remember taking it to a friend's house (driving through the snow with my relatively new drivers' license) and laughing uproariously to the whole thing.
A slightly jealous wave to those of you who do have snow. (On balance, though, I'd rather go out with a bicycle than a snow shovel.) Sub-tropical Christmas is normal for us now, of course; except for a few years in Iowa, we've been in some part of Florida since 1971.
When I was a kid in Alaska, of course there was deep snow this time of year – but also after we moved down to Washington, D.C., which seems warmer nowadays. A lot less snow in Anchorage, too, though the years we lived there (1948-52) may have been anomalous.
Ah well. Have to go write something. Back to the future.
Joe
December 22, 2010
seasonal note?
Correspondence with a reader took a seasonal turn to religion this morning. Here is what I said –
. . . . I had a lukewarm conventional religious (Protestant) upbringing – my parents took me to church on Sunday and went home, but didn't go to church themselves except for Easter and Christmas. (That observation, of course, was more important than anything any preacher said in a pulpit.)
As a teenager I went to church youth group meetings, because that's where the girls were. Then when I went off to college I didn't go to church on my own. One undramatic day I remember I was lying in bed and it occurred to me that I didn't believe any of it, and really hadn't since I was ten or eleven.
I used to be more liberal in my attitude toward religion – like, if you want to believe, that's your problem, and your privilege. Getting snarkier in old age, because I see the tendrils of religion everywhere, and think it's dangerous in politics and education. And annoying when it's not dangerous. God bless us every one.
I claim that my atheism is not "belief," but of course I'm free to define "belief" in such a way as to exclude my connection to unbelief. Is that circuitous enough? To me, any religious belief (as opposed to faith, which is immune to argument) implies the existence of a belief system, at the bottom of which are assertions that can not and need not be proven. "There is a God," for instance.
The counterargument "But you do believe; for instance, you believe there is no God" doesn't really wash. I observe things, and accept my observations as tentatively true, until some other observation or logical connection says otherwise. My observation that the conventional God is wishful thinking, sometimes complex, awaits refutation.
It doesn't mean that I think religious believers are stupid or ignorant; obviously, some of them are more intelligent than me, and they are often well educated. I think their world view is warped and they think mine is. It's not just basic assumptions, either; it's logical process.
Joe
. . . . I had a lukewarm conventional religious (Protestant) upbringing – my parents took me to church on Sunday and went home, but didn't go to church themselves except for Easter and Christmas. (That observation, of course, was more important than anything any preacher said in a pulpit.)
As a teenager I went to church youth group meetings, because that's where the girls were. Then when I went off to college I didn't go to church on my own. One undramatic day I remember I was lying in bed and it occurred to me that I didn't believe any of it, and really hadn't since I was ten or eleven.
I used to be more liberal in my attitude toward religion – like, if you want to believe, that's your problem, and your privilege. Getting snarkier in old age, because I see the tendrils of religion everywhere, and think it's dangerous in politics and education. And annoying when it's not dangerous. God bless us every one.
I claim that my atheism is not "belief," but of course I'm free to define "belief" in such a way as to exclude my connection to unbelief. Is that circuitous enough? To me, any religious belief (as opposed to faith, which is immune to argument) implies the existence of a belief system, at the bottom of which are assertions that can not and need not be proven. "There is a God," for instance.
The counterargument "But you do believe; for instance, you believe there is no God" doesn't really wash. I observe things, and accept my observations as tentatively true, until some other observation or logical connection says otherwise. My observation that the conventional God is wishful thinking, sometimes complex, awaits refutation.
It doesn't mean that I think religious believers are stupid or ignorant; obviously, some of them are more intelligent than me, and they are often well educated. I think their world view is warped and they think mine is. It's not just basic assumptions, either; it's logical process.
Joe
December 19, 2010
da moon! da moon!
(Geoff Landis asked in sffnet whether the fully eclipsed moon was interesting in a telescope . . . )
Not so much "interesting" as "pretty," Geoff. I mean, the main interest in the telescopic moon is along the terminator, where shadows dramatize the local geological, selenelogical, features. By definition there's exactly zero terminator during a lunar eclipse, so the surface details are flat.
The full moon is not without interest – ray systems are especially prominent – but the dimming effect of the Earth's shadow is probably the same as the effect of using a lunar filter on a normal full moon. In fact, since you can change the polarization of some lunar filters, there might be marginally more information available that way.
The last full lunar eclipse, the local astronomy club had a party set up at the nearby community college. I had big binoculars on a tripod, and they actually gave a more impressive view than a telescope, with an illusion of depth, especially when part of the moon was still in bright sunlight. Our friend Tim Malles did a painting of it, which I bought; one of the few paintings in our house that I didn't do.
Hm . . . can't post a picture of the painting here. I'll put it on Live Journal.
Joe
Not so much "interesting" as "pretty," Geoff. I mean, the main interest in the telescopic moon is along the terminator, where shadows dramatize the local geological, selenelogical, features. By definition there's exactly zero terminator during a lunar eclipse, so the surface details are flat.
The full moon is not without interest – ray systems are especially prominent – but the dimming effect of the Earth's shadow is probably the same as the effect of using a lunar filter on a normal full moon. In fact, since you can change the polarization of some lunar filters, there might be marginally more information available that way.
The last full lunar eclipse, the local astronomy club had a party set up at the nearby community college. I had big binoculars on a tripod, and they actually gave a more impressive view than a telescope, with an illusion of depth, especially when part of the moon was still in bright sunlight. Our friend Tim Malles did a painting of it, which I bought; one of the few paintings in our house that I didn't do.
Hm . . . can't post a picture of the painting here. I'll put it on Live Journal.
Joe
joe_haldeman @ 2010-12-18T22:20:00
Got off the plane last night and niece Lore took us straight to the Vets for Peace Solstice Concert, always the event that starts the holidays for us. Good music and good feeling from the assembled peaceniks, most of them veterans, most of them oldsters like me.
Rusty Hevelin was along with us – we'd met at the Charlotte airport – and he was about the oldest vet there; I'm not sure there was anybody else there from WWII. Of course we Vietnam vets are getting kind of long in the tooth now, and our war only started twenty years after theirs was over.
(The old order changeth, the poet tells us, making place for new . . . when I first went to a Vets for Peace thing, those white-haired and bald WWII vets were forty years out of uniform. Now I am. White-haired and bald and forty years out of service.)
Good music, though; some of it unpredictable – an alto-and-basso duet of "What a Wonderful World," the male voice doing Louis Armstrong's solo an octave lower. Chills. Home to crash after a long day.
Up this morning and out to open studio, where I was pleased to find the model an attractive woman, which was pretty rare in Boston. I didn't do any real keepers, eye and hand not cooperating, but enjoyed the process.
Gay and Rusty and I had a quick lunch at Roly Poly and did some grocery shopping. Had a nice dinner over at Brandy & Christina's, and came home early to crash. Up early tomorrow to write and then dive into Christmas shopping, which I guess I have to stop putting off.
Planning to get up around 2:00 Tuesday morning, to take a look at the eclipse. Not set up for any fancy photography, but I'll take a peek at it with the 80-mm scope. Might get a snapshot with the digital camera in afocal mode.
Joe
Rusty Hevelin was along with us – we'd met at the Charlotte airport – and he was about the oldest vet there; I'm not sure there was anybody else there from WWII. Of course we Vietnam vets are getting kind of long in the tooth now, and our war only started twenty years after theirs was over.
(The old order changeth, the poet tells us, making place for new . . . when I first went to a Vets for Peace thing, those white-haired and bald WWII vets were forty years out of uniform. Now I am. White-haired and bald and forty years out of service.)
Good music, though; some of it unpredictable – an alto-and-basso duet of "What a Wonderful World," the male voice doing Louis Armstrong's solo an octave lower. Chills. Home to crash after a long day.
Up this morning and out to open studio, where I was pleased to find the model an attractive woman, which was pretty rare in Boston. I didn't do any real keepers, eye and hand not cooperating, but enjoyed the process.
Gay and Rusty and I had a quick lunch at Roly Poly and did some grocery shopping. Had a nice dinner over at Brandy & Christina's, and came home early to crash. Up early tomorrow to write and then dive into Christmas shopping, which I guess I have to stop putting off.
Planning to get up around 2:00 Tuesday morning, to take a look at the eclipse. Not set up for any fancy photography, but I'll take a peek at it with the 80-mm scope. Might get a snapshot with the digital camera in afocal mode.
Joe
December 16, 2010
jingle jingle
Winding down our residence in Cambridge for the year. Apartment cleaned up and most of the stuff put away. A couple dozen or so boxes sent down to Florida; we'll follow them tomorrow morning.
We had one little flurry of snow last night. I guess that's plenty. Though usually we do have at least one substantial infall, and I do miss it in spite of the inconvenience. (I should be glad we're not buried and frozen, like much of the rest of the East and Midwest.)
Grades delivered and classes over; time to dive into writing with a vengeance. Novel due the end of this month. I should just make it, in spite of the holidays. I should touch wood, or some reindeer's nose or something.
Would like to finish it before surgery; scheduled for sometime in January. Will know more in a week or so. Talking to the docs on the 21st.
Merciful Lee Dickens sent me this fascinating chart, a history of space flight in one look:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2445/4002050596_0c2b6c4dd2_o.jpg
Joe
We had one little flurry of snow last night. I guess that's plenty. Though usually we do have at least one substantial infall, and I do miss it in spite of the inconvenience. (I should be glad we're not buried and frozen, like much of the rest of the East and Midwest.)
Grades delivered and classes over; time to dive into writing with a vengeance. Novel due the end of this month. I should just make it, in spite of the holidays. I should touch wood, or some reindeer's nose or something.
Would like to finish it before surgery; scheduled for sometime in January. Will know more in a week or so. Talking to the docs on the 21st.
Merciful Lee Dickens sent me this fascinating chart, a history of space flight in one look:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2445/4002050596_0c2b6c4dd2_o.jpg
Joe
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