Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 95

the con game

Yesterday was moderately busy. At 11:30 I went to kibitz Gay in her "How to Enjoy Your First Worldcon" talk, and then at 12 we were on stage together, for a thing where she interviewed me and I interviewed her. We'd never done that before, but it was surprisingly successful, standing room only. Perhaps she and I draw from slightly different demographics, and together it added up.

We met former Clarion student Kij Johnson for a leisurely lunch at a lovely seafood place up in the old quarter. I

catching up

Follow me back through the labyrinth of July, as I exercise my flaccid blog muscles. I'm sitting here on Norton Island, Maine, having just finished preparing cauliflower salad for our skeleton crew. Almost all of the writers and artists have left, with just Jane (painter), Jacky (poet), Matt (intern writer) and yours truly holding down the fort.

Strangely peaceful. The wind machine whirs around, making us all feel green and smart. Lobster boats chug by, but not as many as in previous years.

Movin' on down the line

Too busy to be online much. Besides writing and life, I'm getting ready to spend almost a month on the road, packing for three distinct climates and venues -- teaching for a week in Wyoming, concentrated writing for a couple of weeks in Maine, worldconning for a week in Montreal. Gay's with me in Wyoming, and will meet me in Montreal with my coat 'n' tie 'n' shoes.

Have also been spending a couple of hours a day watching the Tour de France, which is addictive. Fine stuff this year, and some ha

Spacey at the movies

Last night we went to the opening of the new sf movie _Moon_. There's a lot to like about it. It's hard sf set on the Moon, but it's small in scale, a couple of people and robots, no guns, only a few loud noises. You really can't say much about the plot without revealing too much, especially to sf readers.

The special effects are a little cheesy, but that's more budget than a lapse of taste. It would bother anybody that while people are outside of the moonbase, they look like astronauts movin

A woody at the movies

Last night we saw _Whatever Works_, Woody Allen's latest. It does work, mostly because of Allen's misanthropic mouthpiece, played by Larry David, a world-weary retired physicist who lives in a shabby walk-up and earns a buck here and there teaching kids in the park to play chess -- by beating them over the head with the board and calling them shmendriks and worse. It's a romantic comedy, so of course he finds love and loses it a couple of times, and so do a host of supporting characters.

You do

Homer rocks

We had a fine time in Homer, staying with Michael Armstrong and Jenny. Mike built a small house there about twenty years ago and has since expanded it into a large and comfortable space. It's on a mountain (or at least a serious hill) overlooking Homer. Besides his freelance writing, Mike's a reporter for the local paper -- which means that everybody in the small town knows him, which is sometimes a good thing.

We'd rented a car in Anchorage and drove down one of the most scenic drives in Amer

Anchorage, my home town

Oops . . . didn't post yesterday. I was complaining about how little writing I've gotten done the past couple of weeks . . . I think one reason is that it's always light. I get up at three and the sun is already up. Where is my precious darkness, my isolation?

(Have to admit that the work did go well the last time I was in Alaska. But I'd just finished a novel -- finished it in Costa Rica and had the last chapter printed out in Ketchikan -- and decided to spend six weeks writing a novella.

seeing Seward

We had quite a full day yesterday. Jolund met us before nine for a coffee and we went to the Alaska Sealife Research Center, a nice size for a couple of hours' investigation. All kinds of interesting arctic sea fauna. One fascinating thing was a camera attached to a seal's head -- they're floppy and funny on land, but in the water they jet along with dizzying speed. Every couple of minutes they catch a big fish and slow down long enough to swallow it whole.

They also have a remote camera that

off the ship and onto a boat

I don't have my land legs yet; my head is still rocking slowly back and forth. Not dizzy, but not quite connected to the earth yet.

That was exacerbated by a rapid ride through choppy seas yesterday on a wildlife tour. We did see a humpback whale swimming along, showing us his tail a few times. Beautiful sleek Dahl dolphins running in a hunting pack. And sea lions and otters and lots of birds, including the tufted puffin, weirdly colorful. Bald eagles, cormorants, common murres and killewake

off da boat

(Following a conversation on sffnet -- )

There's a factor so obvious that no one has mentioned it. In any society men have a universe of shared experience and women have a different one, and by default that commonality affects the way they relate thoughts to one another. Sort of like a universal conspiracy in which no one has actively conspired.

Getting off the ship in about a half hour. It's been a wonderful experience.


My blackjack fortunes went down and back up. I quit when I got back half m