John Elder Robison's Blog, page 15

Animals

I don't know how long the screaming went on before I
noticed.  When I did, I lay very still
and listened close to determine what was happening, and where.  I concluded they were still on the outside, probably
at least a hundred feet away.




Moving slow and careful, I turned toward the clock.  It was 3:17 on a pitch black night.




It's hard to say which is worse, the howl of the pack or the
scream of a big cat.  We get both around
here.  So far, they've stayed in the
yard.  I've got a shotgun loaded beside
me, in case they change their minds.




The house was silent, up until the noise started.  Outside was a different story.  Wind, rain, and the unknowable sounds of the
night.  When the clouds drop low, and the
moon sets, you can't see ten feet in a clear meadow.  In the woods it's even darker.  There, you can't even see your shoes.




Something big could grab hold of your leg, and you wouldn't
know until it was too late.  Knowing that,
I listened close and moved slowly as I walked down the steps and into the yard.  Half expecting to see a dead animal or some
other sign; a warning or perhaps a challenge.




I crept forward into the night, until I heard a rustle.  It seemed to come from all around, but noises
can be tricky.  I looked up to the dark
sky.  It might be the wind, shaking the
fall leaves from the trees.  Or it might
be something else.




After a moment, I kept moving.  Every crack and pop makes you stop and listen
when the predators are howling.  No one
wants to end up as some animal's dinner.




I used to be the undisputed king of my property.  These past five years, things are
changing.  Animals are taking back the
night.  I don't know if it's the chemical
spills, the radiation up north, or something else.  All I know is, they're different. 




They don't back down so easy, and when they run, they only
go far enough to get out of reach. 
Things have started vanishing, too. First it was the cat.  Now the kid down the street.  No one's seen him for two weeks.  Then I found a piece of shoe, out back by the
creek.  I showed it to Snake, but neither
of us could recognize it.  It was a size
14, though. Whoever he was, he was big. 
No one that size has gone missing that I know of, but sometimes homeless
people take shelter in the woods, and when they get eaten, no one knows.




I'm gonna begin patrolling with night vision glasses and a
gun.  Getting a dog didn't work. On the
fifth night, I heard the noises, and all I could find the next morning was half
a hind leg.  So I'm down to
technology.  That's the only way to level
the playing field. 




I wonder where it will end.  
(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison[image error]

How to speak to an audience at a book event

I don't get asked many questions about being an author, or
the process of writing and promoting books. This evening, a fellow writer sent
me a letter, and I felt the answer might be of interest to one or two others,
so I've posted it below . . .




This Friday I'm making my first-ever author appearance at a booksellers convention. 
Apparently I'm supposed to give a short reading, followed by dinner and
a signing.  I've never done anything like
this before, and I was wondering if you could offer me some insight into how
these sorts of events tend to play out. 
In your experience, are there aspects of being a guest presenter that
are overwhelming or different from what you would have expected?  Anything I should definitely do, or not do?




The first point that I would make is that you are there to
entertain and engage your audience. 
Whatever high purpose you may have, you cannot accomplish it if you do
not capture their attention by entertaining or engaging them.




A successful author/speaker leaves audiences feeling one of
two ways:

This guy is really funny/entertaining – I need to read his
book

This guy is really insightful – I need to read his book




Obviously, there is more to speaking than that.  Your audience may go away thinking they need
to change this or that in their life, or in their community, or at work . . .
whatever.  However, before they can form
such an opinion, you must have gained their respect, and for that to happen you
must have entertained or engaged them, which takes me back to that original
point.




So how do you do that?




Find the two most entertaining passages in your book, and
distill a reading that is at most one or one and a half pages.  You may be wise to ask others what those
"best passages" are, and if there are differences, select two.  Work out what you say to set the scene up,
and use those little passages as your reading.




Tempting as it sounds, do not read more.  More = boring.  As a debut author, you need to read them
something so they can get a sense of who you are, in words.  More than a page, though, and even the best
prose gets boring when read aloud in a dinner setting.  If this were your second third or fourth
book, my advice would be to not read at all; just tell them stories.




When you get up to speak, thank the audience, thank the
sponsor.  Say a few words about your book
and why you wrote it. 




Read the entertaining scenes.




Thank the audience and tell them you will be available to
sign books and answer questions out front.




Do the whole think smoothly and quickly, and don't use a
prepared script.




Stand in front of the audience, not behind a podium.  If you don't have a script, and you are fully
dressed, why would you need one?




At the dinner . . .




People will ask you questions, which you should try and answer.  Remember, anyone with a question has made a
special effort to seek you out.  No one
put them up to it. Consequently, they are going to be predisposed to be
friendly and you should not be afraid to answer.  Also, these people are your partners in selling
books, so they deserve your best thought. 
Give it to them.




When it comes to signing books, I will tell you what I
learned from Steve Ross, the president and publisher of Crown when they bought
Look Me in the Eye . . .




Books should be signed on the inside title page.  That is the page that has the book's
title.  It's usually the second or third
right side page inside the front cover. 
Don't sign the blank page just inside the cover. 




Develop and practice a signature you can do quickly and
consistently.   Ideally, it should be
different from the signature you use on checks. 
I use my initials, not my whole name.




Get a pen that you like, and keep control of it.  If you don't have a pen, people will hand you
any weird thing they have, and signing will be erratic and uncomfortable.  I use a Montblanc rollerball in black.  By using the same pen, I can go back and
personalize a book I signed earlier, and it all looks the same. 




You will occasionally be asked to sign shirts or bags.  You need a Sharpie Permanent Fine Point for
that task.  It's good to have one of them
too.




In closing, I'll just repeat one important point.  When you speak at an author event, every
person in the audience has chosen to come hear you talk.  There were plenty of other places they could
be, and they chose to come hear you. 




If you believe that, you know you have a duty to give them
your very best.




Having made that effort to come see you, the audience is
going to be friendly, so you have nothing to fear from getting up there and
talking.




Do not swear to excess, and do not spit from the stage.  If members of the audience throw eggs, it's
ok to throw them back, but do not throw rocks. 
If they throw rocks, retreat through the rear.




Best wishes

John
(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

Being Different, in an Australian TV special and a NZ magazine

This afternoon I received a nice review from Thread, a New Zealand news site.  We've had quite a bit of press from Down Under lately, including this one-hour special on Being Different from the ABC, the Australian Broadcast Company.  It aired last week but you can see it now online




Autobiographies by their very nature can be a bit self indulgent, like the book we are reviewing on the life of Steven Tyler. Others choose to use their experiences to illuminate – and make the path of others, easier. Be Different – Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian by John Elder Robison is just such a book. Having read his previous book Look Me in the Eye (a quip at the difficulty many with Autism have at staring you straight in the face) about his own struggles with his Aspergers/Autism, I can attest to his wonderful open writing style.

He has led a colourful life, from running away from home before he was 18, to designing the pyrotechnic displays known to shoot from the guitars of Rock Gods, KISS, his vintage car business, to his eventual marriage and diagnosis with Aspergers when his own son was diagnosed. This second book, while also autobiographical, is mostly a book full of "practical advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers." And what great advice it is! Some of it doesn't translate particularly well to our NZ schools – but on the whole it is a wonderful thing to get a bird's eye view of an Aspergian (his terminology for Aspergers Syndrome – and to my mind a much nicer turn of phrase) mind. With Aspergers a very personal subject for me, and one I know quite a lot about (various family members closely related to me), I am sorry this book wasn't available earlier. It is a book that can easily be read by parents, family members, and professionals.

I can see it being particularly good for parents of a newly diagnosed child, as it is so very hopeful and positive. It can easily be read by a teen Aspergian, and could definitely make the transition of understanding what makes them tick, and how they fit in the world, so much easier. Five stars. On a personal note – the author is the older brother of Augustin Burroughs who wrote the harrowing tale of his childhood in Running With Scissors. Writing well must run in the family. Be Different – Adventures of a Free Range Aspergian by John Elder Robison is published by Random House and is available now.(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

A Canadian Aspergian speaks up

Today I have a guest post from a fellow Aspergian in Canada.

I've never ever known what Autism was like. Nor did I suspect that I may be diagnosed with Asperger Syndrom, who according to the DSM, is a mild form of Autism, and part of the Autism Spectrum. To me, Autism was a stigma, something to be ashamed of if you happened to have it, a form of social disability. I remember I was a high school senior in 1991 when Rainman came out, and Dustin Hoffman, who won an Oscar for his excellent portrayal of a Savant individual, seemed to me what "All Autistic People Look Like, Act and Behave".




 

My name is Steve Norris. But some of you may remember me as "Jim Perry", the name I went by before legally changing it in Ontario. The main reason I changed my name was to distance myself away from the past and turn a new page in my life, as someone who acknowledges and accepts his Asperger Syndrom, and lives with it rather than denying it. I was born in St. Catharines in 1973 to an Irish-Italian family. My father has never accepted me being a kid. He used to hurl insults at me as "stupid", "idiot" and claim that I was "odd", "weird" and "bizarre". My social interactions with my peers were poor since I could remember myself, and I was a target for physical assaults and bullying until I went to high school. Then the bullying stopped but I was still marginalized and ostricized. After my parent's divorce, my father became estranged, wanting nothing to do with the entire family. That's the main reason why I changed my name, so as not to carry his legacy.

  

In March 2011, I was officially diagnosed as having Asperger Syndrom. Finally I got an explanation as to what was "wrong" with me when it came to social interactions or failed employment opportunities. Drew and the office team were trying to help me out ever since (special thanks to Jay Burford who suspected I had Asperger in the summer of 2010). I gradually started to put my trust in Christ as well as learning what it's like to live with a mild form of Autism.

 

Recently, after a bitter break up with a fellow Autistic woman, I lost my shelter and clothes in the process as well as my monthly rent. Neurotypical friends and acquaintances I gathered in Toronto due to my volunteer activities garnered clothes for me and gave it to me. They also supported me throughout this tough time and it made me proud to realize that even though there were trying times when I thought I didn't fit, I finally and ultimately came to understand that the church has saved my life, and that I wouldn't be able to make it elsewhere.

 

 I hope to be able to use my newfound understanding about Autism to promote a better understanding between "mainstream society" ("Neurotypicals"), and the 3% of us who are born with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. I hope to be an activist of promoting rights and accomodations for Disabled people in general, and Autistic ones - in particular.

 

Steve Norris

25 Tournament Drive

North York, ON  M2P 1K1

647-678-3032"

(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

A walk through the casino

I stood in the lobby, taking in the bright sunlight, the
sound of falling water, and striking Native American sculptures.  In front of me, the casino entrance
beckoned.  Inside, the ceiling lights
were muted, allowing the glow of a thousand glowing slot machines to fill the
room. As I moved toward the entrance the sounds of gambling drew me in. 




Then I stopped.  Anyone
who has ever been in a casino knows it's a colorful and unique
environment.  Yet it's one of those
places cameras are not allowed.  Neither
are laptop computers, or any other electronic devices someone might use to beat
the system.  There I stood, forbidden
items in hand, wondering what to do.




The guards in the doorways are vigilant, and whatever they
miss, the eyes in the skies catch.  Most
people don't look up, but I do, and there are casinos where I've seen over
fifty camera domes around me. 
Entranceways are often covered by five, six, and sometimes even more
domes. 




The domes are hiding all sorts of cameras looking at us,
through us, and maybe even inside.  They
run sophisticated facial recognition software to look for those who are
blacklisted, and other software looks for suspicious motions and shapes.  The casino is about the most closely watched
place an ordinary civilian like me can go.




I've passed through quite a few casinos, and I knew they
were filled with bright colors and interesting characters.  Even now, I could look inside and see all the
things I love in a photo.  But how would
I get in? I knew being sneaky would not work; the surveillance is just too
good. 




I made a phone call, and got my chance.  A few months before, I'd gotten an invitation
to speak at the College of the Menominee Nation, which is an hour west of Green
Bay, Wisconsin.  When I flew there, I was
surprised to discover the college is right next door to the tribal casino.  In fact, two of my talks were scheduled in
the casino's grand ballroom.  The
opportunity was too good to pass up.




As soon as I saw the layout, I made a call to my hosts at
the college.  They called the casino
manager, who spoke to the security chief. 
Just like that, I was in.  And
that wasn't all . . . I was not only in at Menominee, I was also in at the two
nearby Oneida casinos.  I could not
believe my luck.




The following morning, my hosts walked me from my hotel room
into belly of the gambling machine. 
Plush carpet and art gave way to hard fluorescent light, linoleum, and
serious men in suits.  We met the
security chief, signed in, and headed onto the floor.  "Don't photograph the surveillance cameras,"
he said.  That was all. 




These pictures are the result of that visit.




The casino is filled with color, and constant undertone of
the slot machines.  I really don't know
how to describe the sound.  It's not
musical yet it's not noise, either.  It's
more of a robotic background; tinkles, clanks, and the occasional beep or brief
snatch of melody.   It's the sound of a
thousand slot machines in action.




No one talks.  The
gamblers are serious, focused on their machines.  Most of the players have gray hair, and a
surprising number were are.  They sit
back, lean forward, draw deeply on cigarettes and play.  Some push a button.  Others pull a lever. 




The days of mechanical slot machines are long gone.  Everything in a modern casino is electronic.  All of it flashes, glows, and sometimes beeps
or chirps.  It's mesmerizing.




In the center of the casino, guarded by rows and rows of
slots, you find the games.  There are
crap tables, poker, blackjack and roulette.  
There the dynamic changes. The players talk, but the language is
abbreviated.  "Gimme another," "stand,"
and the patter of the dealer as he rakes the chips and deals the cards.




I saw a few hundred people in the time I walked the
floor.  I don't think one of them
smiled.  A few looked angry, but the rest
looked serious.  And indeed gambling is a
serious business.  Whatever happens,
there is always another bet.  The buttons
sit there before you, glowing softly, silently taunting you to make a
choice.  To lay your money down.




For some, playing the slots is a new and fun experience.  They walk in laughing as they toss ten or
twenty dollars into a one-arm bandit. 
There's always the chance for a thousand dollar jackpot, but they
generally know better.  When their money
is gone, they smile and walk away.




Those are the people who can let it go.  I've seen them before, on other days in other
casinos.  There were none in evidence on
this trip.   The people I saw were not
having fun.  They were doing what they
needed to do.




I could see how the games become addictive.  I'm glad I was never tempted to gamble. 































































You can find more pictures on my Facebook gallery 























(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

A Surplus of Males

I spent this Tuesday in Washington, reviewing autism
research proposals.  I really enjoy that
work, because it puts me among some of the best minds in autism science.   In the course of our discussions, an
intriguing question arose.




We know autism is far more common in males, but the reason
why remains elusive.  It's one of those
facts of autism that most people take for granted, and simply accept for what
it is.  In earlier essays on this blog I
have considered possible explanations, from Simon Baron Cohen's theory that
autism is "exaggerated maleness" to reasons why females might be undiagnosed
and undetected.




All the explanations I have heard so far do not account for
this interesting observation:




If the male/female ratio within a society is 50/50, any
random group of families sould have a 50/50 distribution of sons and
daughters.  Some families would have one
child, others would have three.  Some
would have all sons and others two daughters and a son.  Taken together, we would expect the total of
sons and daughters to be equal.




If we assemble a collection of families in which there is at
least one autistic child, that distribution of sons and daughters is not
50/50.  It favors the males.  Any autism researcher who has worked with
families knows that to be true, even in the absence of hard studies to quantify
it.  Why?




All of us know families that have all sons or all
daughters.  We don't make anything more
of that that we do tossing a coin and having it come up heads three times in a
row.  Just chance, we say.  But when you identify a group of families
with a trait like autism, and they all have more sons than daughters . . .
suddenly it stops looking random and starts to seem the result of something
else. 




If this were a roll of the dice, you'd start to think the
dice were loaded.




One explanation is that some parents have a son with autism
and stop having children.  So the girls
that might even the male/female ratio are never born.  I think that explanation may be true today,
but what about the ages before modern birth control? 




Critics might say that we don't know how autism was
distributed among the sexes a hundred years ago, and that's true.  The autism diagnosis has only existed for
sixty-some years.  Yet we do have strong
anecdotal evidence.  Using that, some
modern day people have "diagnosed" historical figures with autism based on what
we know of them and their lives.  How
many of those individuals are female? 
Almost none.




Those "post-mortem diagnoses" are certainly subject to
challenge and I'm sure some are even wrong. 
That said, they can't all be wrong and the male-female ratio in the
known historical record of autism remains strikingly tilted toward the male
side. 




Geri Dawson suggested another possible explanation for the
male-female imbalance.  What if girl
embryos are actually more susceptible to some factor implicated in autism, but
in a different way?  The factor that
produces autistic baby boys might result in unsuccessful pregnancies when the
fetus is female.  The result – fewer baby
girls with autism are born.




To the best of my knowledge, no one has studied pregnancies
in families with autism.  All that has
been studied are the resultant children. 
We don't know how many miscarriages may have preceded or followed the
birth of an autistic boy.  The incidence
of miscarriage in general has been studied and it would be interesting to know
if families with autism deviate from the norms in that regard.




The son-daughter imbalance certainly ties in with the
Baron-Cohen "maleness" theory.  If autism
indeed an expression of excessively male genetic material, that imbalance might
result in more males being born in those families.




I spoke to several scientists and it became clear that this
is one of those obvious questions that has never really been answered.  There is the general belief that autism
families contain more males, but we have no hard data to illustrate the
difference.  We also don't have any multi
generational data, which could shed light on the heritability of the condition.




In my own family, I have one child, a son with
Asperger's.  My father had many Aspergian
traits, but he died before anyone thought to explore that possibility.  He had a brother, and no sisters.   His father also had a brother and no
sisters.  His grandfather had three
brothers and a sister.  Is there a
pattern there that relates to autism?  I
really don't know.




It would be very interesting to see a study that addressed
this question.  Perhaps a grad student
somewhere will read this, and bring a research proposal to our next review
meeting . . . .




Stranger things have happened.
(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

Images of the Big E, New England's Carnival

Here are a few images from this year's fair.  I love photographing carnivals.  There's a certain magic to them.  I hope you enjoy the images.




For the camera enthusiasts among you these were taken with a Nikon D3S and 80-200 or 50mm lenses












































































































































(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

Greetings from Western Australia

I'm writing you today from Breaks, an Internet cafe in Freemantle, Western Australia.  My Internet went down a few days ago in Melbourne and I've been offline for the past few days.  It's exhausting traveling this far to speak, but the people are wonderful and the scenery is striking.  This is the Indian Ocean, rolling ashore at Freemantle.  It's open sea from here to South Africa
















It's much easier to visit the ports here than in America.  Here's a BigLift's heavy lift ship heavy lift ship Happy Delta tied up at the container terminal.  She is brand new, as of January 2011, and can lift 800 tons between the two deck cranes.  Standard container ships, in comparison, are limited at cargos of about 40 tons per container.








As the container crews work fisherman gaze out to sea and wait for the big one to bite.








There was a Wallenius car carrier ties to the dock behind the fishermen.








In this image you see APL RIYADH, an 850-foot container ship operated by American President Lines.  She's also a new ship, built in 2010 with the capacity to carry some 4,300 shipping containers.  She's powered by a single MAN diesel engine developing 50,000 horsepower.  That's equivalent to a dozen heavy freight locomotives, but she carries vastly more cargo than those same locomotives could pull.  That's why ocean transport is so efficient, and so inexpensive for the tons and miles moved.








In this image you can see two slightly smaller Malaysian container ships offloading cargo.  Even a small port like this can move a great deal of traffic with container handling and ship-to-rail and ship-to-truck facilities.







In this final shot synthetic dock lines dry in the sun



































I will be speaking at the University of Western Australia in Perth this evening.  Tomorrow, I am off to Brisbane and the Writer's Festival there.  I'm looking forward to meeting more of my Australian friends in person.



Woof!












(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

A visit to Melbourne Australia

One of the most remarkable things about this new writing career is that it's taken me all over the world.  My books are sold in over sixty countries, and I am now getting invitations to follow them.  These next two weeks I am in Australia, at the Melbourne Writer's Festival, the University of Western Australia, and the Brisbane Writer's Festival.





I hope to see some of my Australian friends on this trip. For those of you who are far away, here are some images of my travels.



It's a most amazing journey.  Thank you all for joining me, welcoming me, and making it possible.  




This is Melbourne at night:








Here are some images of the historic sailing ship Polly Woodside, at anchor in the Yarra River

















I never knew my long lost cousin Zebediah Robison went to Australia and set up a boiler factory.  We thought that animal ate him.  He must have got away.









The city, as seen from the river





They tell me you could walk across this river twenty years ago.  They need to get some more fill in there now, because this is not enough debris to support my weight.  












































Trolley riders look the same all over, lost in their thoughts
















Twelve tracks lead out of the Melbourne passenger station






You see some unusual vehicles on the street here.  Also, they drive on the wrong side.































The Sofitel is famed worldwide for the floor to ceiling windows in its bathrooms.  The have not heard of that Strauss Kuhn fellow down here, I guess












Ships at anchor in the harbor














Me, in a mirror and a hall




























(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison

Flooding from Hurricane Irene

Some images of flooding as Hurricane Irene hammers Western Massachusetts with rain last night and today
































































(c) 2007-2011 John Elder Robison