Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 208

Another Reason to Love Orkney

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I visited Orkney some years ago, after driving slowly through the highlands of Scotland, which is one of the most beautiful countries on Earth -- and it managed to trump Scotland!  Incredible but true.  The land is low and dun and almost treeless, but it tugs at the heart.

On my second day there, I got into a rental car and visited the Ring of Bookan, the Ring of Brodgar, the Barnhouse Settlement, the Cairn of the Hounds, and Maes Howe . . . and then broke for lunch.  I'd traveled less than ten miles down the road from my landlady's house.  Which I could see from the top of Maes Howe.

I could go on and on, but I won't.  Instead, I'll note that archeologists have found an "anomaly" in Loch Stenness.  It may be an ancient monument, a quarry, or something else.  You can read about it here.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again.  I'll be home briefly late tonight, but in the morning I'll be jumping in the car and off on the road again.  So if you're waiting on me to do something I've promised and I'm behind schedule . . . well, that's why and don't hesitate to send me a reminder.


Above:  Science illos.  Gotta love 'em.

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Thrillin' at the Mill 'n' Swill

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Check it out!  I went to the SFWA editors and publishers bash -- known informally as the Mill 'n' Swill -- on Monday.  It was held at Planet Hollywood in NYC and it was thronged as hell.  But fun.  The big players mostly stayed for the first hour, did serious business, and left.  Young new editorial people drifted through in small clumps of friends, looking hopeful and optimistic and unaware of how much power they're going to wield ten years from now.  And writers hung out with other writers . . . because it wouldn't do us any financial good whatsoever and because it felt good.

And do I walk the walk, you ask . . . ?

Yes.  And to a degree I would not ask of you.  Last night, I checked out to see if Terry Pratchett's new novel Snuff is available yet.  And I discovered two things:  First, that the American edition comes out in one week.  And second, that you can buy a book that would cost you twenty-six bucks from an independent bookstore for only fourteen dollars from Amazon-- less than it costs them to buy, merchandise, and sell!

So I'm buying it from one of my local independent bookstores.

It's crazy to pay that much more than I have to.  But I do it because I can afford it, and because I want those bookstores to stay around.

You, though, being more reasonable than I am, might want to go with the loss leader and then take that extra money to your local bookstore and buy something nice.


Above:  Master editor David Hartwell and master writer Tom Purdom.  I can just barely imagine not having a great time in the presence of one of them.  But two?  Not possible.

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An Astonishing Pile of Manuscripts

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I was in the Asimov's offices yesterday to meet Sheila Williams, who was taking Tom Purdom and me out to dinner.  And, while there, I took the above photo of a stack of story manuscripts on Sheila's desk.

Would you care to guess their significance?

I'll give you a second to ponder and then, in the very next paragraph, give you the answer.

Made your guesses?  Good.  What you see above is all the paper manuscripts that Asimov's received in the past month.  Every single one of them.  The other manuscripts, something like five hundred of them, were all submitted electronically.

The world is changing fast these days.

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What I Read On My Summer Vacation

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Well, I had a pleasant week doing absolutely nothing.  Now I have to drive to NYC tonight (along with the legendary Tom Purdom) for SFWA's Editors-Publishers Party -- better known as the Mill 'n' Swill.  Then it's off to Pittsburgh, to Newport NY, and to Kingston NY.  I've got a busy schedule this week.

But what, I hear you ask, did I read during those halcyon idle days Down The Shore?  Well . . .

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt.  This is the novel we all want to write when we grow up.  Either that or else Byatt's  Possession .

Life in a Putty Knife Factory by H. Allen Smith.  Light and inconsequential essays by a New York City newspaperman, back in the days when men word fedoras and Damon Runyan walked the streets.

Percy's Reliques .  This is one of those crosses between scholarship and amateurism gone mad, a collection of ballads and poems, largely from Elizabethan times.   The Dragon of Wantley alone would be worth the price of this eighteenth-century reissue (three bucks at the Baltimore Book Festival), but there are lots of gems to be found.

You Can't Win by Jack Black.  The memoirs of a yegg and a hobo.  Unapologetic and great fun to read -- though less fun to live, I imagine.  One of the very few books that William S. Burroughs admitted was an influence on his own work.

Collected Poems of Hope Mirrlees.  This is the long-awaited Carcanet Press collection, edited by Sandeep Parmar, of the poetry written by the author of the fantasy masterwork  Lud-in-the-Mist .  Mirrlees wrote one major modernist poem, Paris, a Poem , which was published by Virginia Woolf and which many suspect (but none can prove) was an influence on T. S. Eliot, a good friend of Mirrlees.  All her other poems are conventional formal.  As Parmar remarks in her extensive and illuminating introduction, "The poems . . . will not necessarily appeal to those who admire Paris ."  But those who wish to understand an artist who created a single important work in two seemingly-unrelated forms must start here.

By Space Ship to the Moon by Jack Coggins and Fletcher Pratt.  Actually, I just looked at Coggins' wonderful pictures.  I bought this, in pristine collection, in an antique shop for six bucks.  Not bad.


And for those who are curious . . .

Why do I admire The Dragon of Wantley so greatly?  Consider only these lines:

Oh, quoth the dragon, with a deep sigh,

   And turn'd six times together,

Sobbing and tearing, cursing and wearing

   Out of his throat of leather;

More of More-hall!  O thou rascal!

   Would I had seen thee never;

With the thing at thy foot, thou hast prick'd my arse

   And I'm quite undone for ever.

Off I go to New York!

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A Culinary Invention of Genius

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There are many qualities a great fast food should have.  First, it should be fast -- you order it standing up and receive it before you get tired of standing.  It should be filling.  If at all possible, it should involve cheese.  It should be incredibly tasty in a very obvious way.  And it should leave you feeling pleasantly guilty at the self-indulgence of it all.


If it's served to you by a cheerful man wearing a hot-dog hat, well, that's just one step beyond perfection.

Those in the know can guess that I just had a Potato Tornado.  

The Potato Tornado is only available at HotDog Tommy's at the intersection of Jackson Street and Beach Avenue in Cape May, New Jersey.  In fact, now that the main tourist season is over, it's only available Fridays through Sundays from 10:57 a.m. to 5:01 p.m.  But, oh man, is it worth it.

The tornado was invented here and so far as I know, it's the first mashed-potato based junk food.  It starts with a cup of hot whipped mashed potatoes, topped with chili sauce, cheddar cheese, salsa, slivers of banana peppers and a blob of sour cream. 

Great stuff.  I feel guilty just thinking about it.

Right now there's only one place in the world you can have a Potato Tornado.  But someday somebody's going to steal the idea and make billions and billions off of it.  If it's you, don't forget to send me a Maserati in thanks.



Above:  Nudity and other serious topics will return when I return from vacation.  Right now I'm headed for the beach, clutching a book containing no socially redeeming value whatsoever.

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Dead Tropes of SF: The "Robes of Dignity"

.[INSERT NAKED PICTURE HERE]
I was on a panel at the SFWA tent at the Baltimore Book Festival last week when somebody asked for an example of a science fiction prediction that didn't pan out.

"The 'Robes of Dignity!," I cried.

Back in the late 60s and early 70s, a period roughly coterminous with the New Wave, a lot of specifically young and male writers predicted that, because the human body is a beautiful thing, in the future everybody would walk around totally naked.  {Subtext:  Thus allowing them, the writers, to see naked women.]  Then, when they reached age 40, they'd put on the Robes of Dignity, covering their bodies from neck to foot.  [Subtext:  And sparing them, the writers, from the sight of their parents' naked bodies.]

This was, I said, in essence an adolescent male fantasy.

"And one made up by adolescent boys who weren't spending any time with adolescent girls!" Brenda Clough added.  "Or they'd have noticed that adolescent girls spend every penny they can get hold of, buying new and novel things to wear."

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How I Suffer!

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Dinner at the Lobster House in Cape May.  Actually, it wasn't at the Lobster House but on the schooner American moored to the dock behind it.  And it wasn't a proper dinner.  It was martinis with platter after platter of oysters Rockefeller and clams casino.

The uncreated conscience of my race will just have to wait unforged until I get back from vacation.

Above:  Marianne, also suffering.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 189

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The end.

The long show is over at last.  I step to the front of the stage and bow.  Listening for . . . applause?
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Vegetating

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For a Philadelphian, where you go "down the Shore" says a lot about you.  If you're young, wild, and crazy, you to to Wildwood.  If you're the exact opposite, you go to Cape May -- Where Nothing Can Ever Happen, and Usually Doesn't.

Me, I go to Cape May Point.  That's for people who are too slow-lane for Cape May.  Nuns vacation here.  And nothing ever, ever happens.

So don't expect too much from this week's blogs.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 188

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The half credit card was an old one which I dutifully destroyed.  That account no longer exists, so there's no point hiding the number.
The infectious waste sticker is a real one.  This is the sort of thing you pick up when you hang out with medical laboratory folk.
The photo I found on a hallway floor at a convention.  It was apparently part of a LARP.
You'll note that this is the inside cover of the notebook.  Only one more day to go!
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