Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 86

Happy Lunar New Year!

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So it's a brand new year all over again!

The Chinese New Year celebration always reminds me of when I was a young father and my son Sean was still an infant. Marianne and I had business downtown, so we parked in a garage in Chinatown and hit the street.

Which was when we discovered that it was the first day of the Year of the Rat. The streets were filled with celebrants and young men with cigarettes dangling out of the corners of their mouths were setting off string after string of firecrackers. It was gloriously noisy.

I was worried, of course, that the noise would frighten Sean. But instead, his eyes grew wide and he peered about him with wonder. Looking at his face, I could see exactly what he was thinking:  At last! The big people are doing something sensible!

To all my friends in China and everyone else who celebrates this holiday, let me wish you a Happy New Year.

The one day a year on which we big people put aside our ordinary concerns and do something sensible.


Above: Sean, some years later, celebrating the Western New Year at Gardner Dozois' and Susan Casper's apartment in Society Hill.

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The Godless Atheist Christmas Card of the Year! (Part 3)

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You've seen the runners-up. They were all worthy. In an ordinary year, any one of them could have  won. But this was no ordinary year.

Two works stood head and shoulders above all others for their towering bleakness and uncompromising refusal to even pretend to acknowledge the existence of the spirit of the season. When it came time to choose between them, even the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family could not find a rationale for choosing one above the other.




The adventure began with Sam Jordan's conceptual deconstruction of the traditional Christmas card. That's it immediately above.

Long term readers of this blog may remember Sam as last year's winner of the Godless Atheist Christmas Card of the Year competition. Which victory was achieved by writing a threatening seasonal note on a meat cleaver, burying the cleaver in a bloody turnip and then leaving the whole on the back porch in the dead of night. It was truly a breathtaking piece of work.




Mr. Jordan's submission this year was a genuine work of conceptual performance art. As the accompanying note says, "The Card is INSIDE the Ornaments." The accompanying hammer, complete with festive bow, implied that there was an obvious way to read the card.

One could, of course, employ tweezers. But to do so would be to show the white feather. So...




The hammer was raised.




And lowered.

It must be said that there is something exhilarating about deliberately smashing a Christmas ornament.  It explodes beautifully. It is an act of vandalism akin, one imagines, to flinging a stone through a stained glass window.

This is the first season's greetings I've ever received that made me feel complicit.

Inside the ornament was the message: This "card" represents the last of my creative ability as the depression tightens it's (sic) grip.

The solecism, it must be said, did nothing to lessen Sam's chance of winning.

So... you may well ask... What could possibly offer any competition to so remarkable an effort?

Simply this:



The seasonal card from Judith and John Clute is always an event because Judith Clute is a serious artist (you can find her web page here) and the card is a serious work of art.

Serious, it goes without saying, does not necessarily mean joyful.

The title for the original etching that became the card is 2666 , which clearly refers to
A familiarity with the book is not necessary to recognize that Ms Clute's work is dark indeed. The woman in the center looks happy and confident -- clearly, she's got it all together. But darkness impinges upon her from either side, with images of death, war, and suffering.

As one member of the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family put it, this is a picture that says: No matter how happy you may be, the common fate of all is death --- death in the past, death in the future, death everywhere.

From a lesser work of art, this would be easily dismissed. But Judith Clute is, as has been said, a real artist.

For a very long time, the debate went back and forth. Could Sam Jordan's conceptual piece be disqualified as an obvious attempt to win the Godless Atheist Christmas Card of the Year  competition? No, it was decided. What could be more godless and atheistic than wanting to win such a competition?

Could, then, Clute's card be downgraded for being aloof from the entire competition? Also, no. Its sincerity had to considered an asset.

For the first time ever, the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family was deadlocked. Nobody could bring him or herself to vote either way.

And then... And then...

And then, a Christmas miracle happened! One of us moodily smashed another of Mr. Jordan's ornaments:



And it contained a message saying: May this ornament find you in good health for years to come!

"Christmas," somebody gaped, "is saved."

With a palpable feeling of relief, the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family declared that this warm message of good will moved Sam's offering one degree off of negative zero. It was declared first through tenth runner-up.

And the title of Godless Atheist Christmas Card of 2018 went to Judith Clute's 2666 .

But it was a squeaker.


And for the second time in a row . . .

I have to apologize for being a day late with this post. I had it half-written when a certain family swept me away to see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse . By the time we'd watched and discussed it, built a fire in the wood stove, mixed Manhattans, and settled down to dinner, I had forgotten my obligations entirely.

For which I am sincerely sorry. The movie was good, though. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys the superhero genre.

Would it be a spoiler if I told you that Spider-Man dies? Okay, then, forget I said anything.


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The Godless Atheist Christmas Card of the Year (Part 2)

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The deliberations over this year's Godless Atheist Christmas Card were prolonged and fierce. As mentioned in Part 1, cards consisting of photos of happy family members (mostly children), were, after much esoteric discussion (is a heart truly a religious symbol? does a snowflake reference Christmas or merely the fact that winter is cold?), it was decided to eliminate the category en masse.

The cards were, yes, atheistic, but it seemed cruel to hold that against them when they were all about love of family.


Then we came to this card, from a friend in Moscow:



A stunned silence fell over the distinguished Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family. At last somebody said, "Let's just chalk this one up to the eternal mystery of the Russian soul."  Rather than deal with the religious content of a jolly Russian Santa-bear,  all immediately agreed.

Then came the question of corporate Christmas cards. Two of which are shown below:




Obviously, branding is not in the spirit of the religious holiday season. For which reason, the Asimov's/Analog card immediately went to the top of the heap for including two corporate logos into its design.

But what sent the cards as a category right to the top of the heap was the fact that one included a coupon for 5% off of their product. "That's not even generous" crowed the junior member of the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family. "I love it!!!"




Deeper into our Odyssey, we came upon two cards that in very similar way entered into the anti-spirit of the non-holiday. For sheer nihilism, it's hard to beat the top card showing an empty, lifeless wood in deep winter. There is not the least sense of a holy presence of any kind, not any hope that the unending winter will not stretch its way into infinity. This is a celebration of the heat death of the universe, and it simply takes the breath away.

As for the second card... “This sends the message that choosing the right religion isn’t as important as having the love of Man in your heart,” opined one member of the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family. To which, another opined, “Even ‘Happy New Year’ was deemed too controversially religious. Now that’s Godless.”



"Wrong season!" somebody cried, and the rest all nodded. This card immediately went to the finals. The sender is a friend and a very talented artist. We're always glad to hear from him and grateful for the sample of his work, Nevertheless, nothing bespeaks an anxiety to avoid the holiday season as evoking an entirely different time of year.



At fist blush, the  card from our friend Elizabeth eems to live at least next-door to the holiday spirit. There's a snowman smiling at a friendly-looking bird and in the background is what might be a snow-covered Mount Fuji.
Almost, this card was disqualified out of hand. But, just to be thorough, the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family. opened the card and looked within. Where we found the following hand-written explanation:

The more lies the snowman tells, the shorter his note gets. And snowmen tell a lot of lies. Birds know everything -- they told me statues lie too, and that's why they're covered with poop.

It takes the  breath away. The card immediately went to the top of the stack.



 Finally, our friend Charlottesent this card from New York City.  Sending the message that one of our number neatly encapsulated as: “New York is small and the night is large. The only warmth is here, in the only city that matters. I wish you were here. But you’re not. You’re in the darkness.


Well played, Charlotte! Your card made the finals.


In a lesser year, any of these cards might have won. But (SPOILER ALERT) none of them did. For among their worthy ranks were two giants of Godless Atheism, two cards that truly exemplified the anti-spirit of the nega-season. 
Nor was it easy to choose between them. For the first time ever, the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family was almost stymied. It was truly a battle of Titans.
But, as our television sets have wisely taught us, There Can Only Be One.
Next... that One is chosen.

And I owe apologies . . .
To everyone who checked the blog yesterday, expecting to find this post written and up, mea culpa. I can only plead laziness and irresponsibility.
It was perhaps overly optimistic to expect I'd write two blog posts on consecutive days. So, rather than compound my offense, I'll post the third and final part of this nail-biter of a contest on Friday.
Really.
This time for sure.

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The Godless Atheist Christmas Card of he Year! (Part 1)

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Every January, The Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family (that may or may not be one up above) meets in solemn conclave to determine which seasonal card best exemplifies the nihilistic, religion-shunning spirit of The Godless Atheist Christmas Card of the Year. This year, because of minor illnesses and foreign travel, the event was delayed a few weeks. But at last the distinguished event has occurred and 2018 has been sorted and judged.

And what a year it's been! For the first time ever, only three cards were overtly religious. One was from a woman who founded her own charity to provide housing for homeless men. The second was from a woman who's going through a hard patch of life and needs all the spiritual consolation she can get. And the third card with what at first blush appeared to be a photo of a medieval gold-and-silver soup tureen revealed itself on the inside to be a reliquary in Santa Maria Maggiore holding the sycamore boards that were said to be from the crib of the Nativity of Jesus.  All three were mmediately taken out of the running.

The rest of us? Astonishingly void of spiritual values.

While a certain proud member of the Not At All Nepotistic Blue Ribbon Panel of Family stood up for rigorous standards, it must be said that certain others on the panel pushed the definition of religious sentiment. The many cards consisting of a montage of family members, children most predominantly and usually at the beach, were summarily dismissed from consideration with the observation that, "They're atheist but not proudly atheist. I want a card that wholeheartedly denies the beauty, the grace, and the love of God."




Above: Is this the face of the Illuminati? We're not telling.


Other comments included:

"This is tepid. Definitely athe-ish."

And the exchange:

"It's definitely godless."

"No, it's abstract."

"Which is godless."

An Edward Gorey card showing enervated Edwardians decorating a hearth was dealt with curtly: "Hearth rhymes with warmth. Dismissed!"

As you can see, the panel's standards were high. As ran the emotions as well. I don't know what card it was that caused one of the NAANBRPOF  (I am not saying whom) to exclaim in exasperation, "Poisoned with the blood of Christ?!" But it too was deemed religious by my fellow panelists.

But I can see that this post is running long and we still have yet to get to the specific cards. So... tomorrow, the runners-up. With images and comments!




Above: Look at that trustworthy expression! Whoever this is, he's obviously a meliorating influence on the others.


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A Few Words For New Writers

.You're absolutely right. The story you're working on sucks. It's terrible. It's unreadable. Worse than that, it's unpublishable.

And you know why?

Because you haven't finished it yet. And, unless it's by Franz Kafka or Jane Austen or J. D. Salinger, nobody is going to pay good money to publish an unfinished story.

Moreover, until it's finished, you don't know what changes you're going to have to make in order for it to be the best possible story it can be. So the odds are that your story is a bit of a mess and will remain so until you undo the inconsistencies, rewrite the problem sections, cut the superfluous ones, and do the final polish draft.

Meanwhile, instead of simply putting your head down and plowing ahead, you're staring at what you've written and comparing it to the finished work of writers you admire. Theirs is so marvelous! Yours is so... unfinished. Maybe, you think, the best thing would be to just erase the file and spend the rest of the day playing solitaire online.

But the work of those writers you like so much was nowhere near so admirable while it was being made. Trust me on this one. Sausage ain't even in it!

You may be a very dear friend, someone to whom I owe a lot and for whom I would walk a mile barefoot through the snow if need be, but I am not going to let you read my rough drafts.

The best writing advice I ever got was from Jack Dann. He asked me once what I was working on and I said something like, "Well, I have this story set in space but I'm not crazy about the characterization..."

Jack grabbed my lapels then and shook me. He literally did. Then he said, "Michael! Never criticize yourself! That's what other people are for."

So, when you're writing, your first responsibility to your craft is to learn to turn off that internal critic, that little Stalin of the soul for the duration. You can turn it back on when you're going over the finished story to see what changes need to be made, if you like. But keep its grubby little hands off the actual writing.

End of sermon. Go thou and sin no more.


And those "other people" Jack talked about . . . ?

They've never let me down. 


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Ginungagap in China

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I'm in print again! "Ginungagap," my second published story (and also, I am vain enough to point out, my second story to be on the Nebula ballot) is in the current issue of  Science Fiction World Translation.

It's always a particular pleasure to appear in China. Partly it's because I have friends in there. Partly it's because I admire Science Fiction World both as a magazine and as a publishing house. But mostly it's because this is a very exciting time for science fiction in China.

The first time I visited China, over a decade ago, I was told that science fiction there was still a Young Adult literature. Its readership peaked in the senior year of high school, dwindled throughout university, and went to zero upon graduation. Last year, I attended a bookstore event in Beijing that was thronged with adults. So the field is growing and evolving just as fast as everything else in China is.

It is in such times that new ideas arise and remarkable works get written. Which is why you should be reading all the Chinese science fiction you can find.

As well as all the other science fiction you can find, of course.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again! Or will be soon. I'm headed for the north coast of Scotland, where I'll be teaching at a workshop and retreat in Findhorn. Whenever I teach, I give the students all the attention I have. So I may or may not be able to blog then.

I promise I'll try.

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Merry Christmas to All!

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As always, I was on the road this weekend. Marianne and I took a quick jaunt up to New England for a carol sing at the family chapel of friends. We've been hearing about this neighborhood event for (my god, can it be?) decades and always resolved to attend some day. This year, Marianne decided that we must.

So we did.

Oh my, but it was heartwarming. Partly it was because the organizers knew that children would get restive after an hour and kept it from dragging. Partly it was because it was a tradition that went back at least a lifetime. Partly it was because the carols were sung only for two verses and so stopped before their composers ran out of inspiration and started stringing words together at random.

Mostly, it was because it was a neighborhood thing. People who knew each other from childhood made sure the organ was working, decorated the chapel, checked beforehand that everything was in place, put the songbooks out.

Then we sang.

I'll admit that my contribution was... what's the word? Corvine. Ever since I was the only child to be thrown out of the Second Grade Choir at St. Stephen's in Schenectady for vocal inadequacy, I've been painfully aware of what an offensive singing voice I have. And yet, in combination with a multitude of voices, we (including, mirabile dictu, me) sounded angelic.

It was a genuinely spiritual experience.

Marianne and I fit right in as the strangers at the feast. Afterward, though, a woman whose name I did not get told me that at the beginning of the event, the chapel was mostly full of strangers to her. But that after an hour's caroling, she knew that they were all neighbors.

Even the two strangers who had come up from Philadelphia for the event.

Merry Christmas to all! Happy Hanukah! Pagan Solstice! And all other wintry religious festivals to those who cherish them! I hope your new year is even happier than the one I hope for myself.


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The Evolution of American Rye Whiskey - Part 1

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While the name of the King of Cocktails is immortalized in the very title of the American Martini Laboratory, our investigations are not limited to one drink. Today begins an occasional series that will trace the history of Rye Whiskey in America, from its humble origins to the present day. Herewith, Part 1:


If we are to explore the history of Rye Whiskey in America (and that is certainly my intention), we must begin at the beginning. And that beginning is, amazingly enough, Rum.

The American Colonies, before the War of Independence were not peopled by teetotalers. Far from it! Life was hard, pleasures were relatively few and greatly appreciated, and the water was dangerous to drink. So, from the earliest colonists on, American society was awash in beer, hard cider, applejack, and distilled spirits. Some even sank so low as to drink wine -- though American wine was dreadful and imported wine so expensive that only Thomas Jefferson could afford it regularly.

In the Colonial era, the tipple of choice was rum.  Not the smooth and delicious drink we now know but a cruder version distilled from the by-products of the molasses industry. Still, it was the best of a bad lot and prodigious amounts of it were made and sold.

There were two problems with rum.

The first was that it was a major component of the "triangular trade." The Americas sold sugar and rum to England, which sent cloth and manufactured good to Africa, which sent slaves to the Americas. So it was a part of our great nation's Original Sin. Not that this bothered many American at the time. Which is also a part of our collective national guilt.

The second problem is that rum at that time was pretty rough stuff. Which is why so many Colonial drink recipes involved massive amounts of fruit and sugar.

One of the best of these drinks was invented at a gentlemen's fishing club on the banks of the Schuylkill River, not far from the world headquarters of the American Martini Institute. It is named  Fish House Punch, after the august institution in which it was first concocted

Most recipes involve bottles of each ingredient and sacks of sugar, because they were meant to be served in enormous punch bowls to large groups of hard-drinking men and women who had no idea how soon they would become our Founding Fathers and Mothers. With perseverance, however, you can find more manageable recipes. Here's one:

Fish House Punch 

1 shot rum
1 shot cognac
3/4 shot peach brandy
1 1/2 shots simple syrup.
juice from 1 lemon 

directions: Mix, Chill, and serve with a spiced cherry. Serves two.

And the results? as you might guess, this is an intensely sweet drink. Also very, very fruity. But anyone mixing this cocktail is going to know that going in. At the taste test, Fish House Punch won over even the skeptics. It is flavorful, bright, and festive. A terrific party drink and far superior to the dreadful things that are usually served in punch bowls.

Also, it packs a punch. Our Colonial forebears certainly knew how to party!

So for one bright, warm moment, everything (if you could ignore the slavery part, that is) everything was good.

But then -- spoiler alert! -- came the American Revolution and everything changed, changed utterly. Including what kind of alcohol Americans drank.

More on this will be published here later.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again. Off, in fact, to have Yuletide-related adventures. Be good while I'm away, all right? I know you can.

There's a first time for everything.



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a momentary whimsy

.The Brothers Grimm,
The Sisters Grinn,
The Doctors Gripp and Barbers Clipp,
The Dullards Dimm,
The Rascals Sinn,
The Dancers Dipp and Merchants Shipp,
And many other lass and gent
All set off on pilgrimage,
Quarreling as they went.

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My Icelandic Writing Advice

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Not long ago, I was in Reykjavik for Icecon, the second science fiction convention ever held in Iceland. I thought it was a terrific small convention. There'll be third Icecon in 2020 and if you have the opportunity to go, you really should.

Since I was there, the con committee asked me to participate in a brief writers' workshop. My part of it was more a lecture than anything else, really. But I tried to squeeze everything I knew into one hour.

One of the student writers, Debbie Lai, took notes and they've been posted at Friday Ten Min Club.

Notes are just notes, of course. Simplifications. But to see if you might benefit from them, try the following sample test. Most published writers will ace it.

What question should you ask before choosing a protagonist?

Why should your protagonist NOT be a nice guy?

What is the minimum number of characters a story should have?

How much of your research should you include in your story?

If you can't be good, be... what?

We all know what a story is. In one word, what is a story about?

Hamlet is notoriously badly plotted. Why. then, do we love it so?

Pencils down. All done?  Good. If you aced it, you already know. If not, you may proceed to check out the notes here.


Above: That's what I look like in Iceland. It's he northern light, I think.


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