Ben Peek's Blog, page 22
July 30, 2012
Kentucky
Ah, Kentucky.
I nicked the photo from N's site, which is an entirely different rundown of us being there. But this photo was totally taken in Kentucky. It's not as bad as Kansas City, a place I will use a lot of power never to return to again, but it's a part of America where you can see a lot of poverty, a lot of religion, and a lot of places that don't sell booze when you want it.
Link.
I nicked the photo from N's site, which is an entirely different rundown of us being there. But this photo was totally taken in Kentucky. It's not as bad as Kansas City, a place I will use a lot of power never to return to again, but it's a part of America where you can see a lot of poverty, a lot of religion, and a lot of places that don't sell booze when you want it.
Link.
July 29, 2012
Also, You Can Buy Photos Online If You Wish
Over the weekend, N. opened her stall at the Glebe Markets and began selling photography. Response was positive and we turned a profit, which was sweet, and after we went and had dinner with Cat Sparks and Rob Hood.
It was a strange day, in some aspects. It's easy to imagine, when you're a writer, that the only way you can make cash from your art is by selling it to a publishing house, by being part of the machine, and all that entails. Certainly, if you want to make a lot of money, you most likely have to be in that, still. People such as Amanda Hocking, who made a reported two million from self publishing, are pretty rare, but even in the end she went into the machine, and for a tidy sum, at that. Her move probably says more about the 'validity' of mainstream publishing for an author in being able to say about his or herself that she's a real author, but that's a longer, and more complex discussion, really. But still, that idea that you can only make money through mainstream publishing houses is pretty much held as a truth in publishing, even as the majority of authors in such houses struggle to do that (indeed, if anything can be taken as a general rule for authors, in mainstream publishing houses or doing it themselves, it's that nearly all struggle for cash).
But markets like this have a certain offering, really, a place for you to move your work in different ways and to different audiences, and to create a new revenue stream, which is not to be overlooked in the making of Art. In many ways, markets become part of that jigsaw puzzle of sales, promoting the idea that the more venues you have to different audiences, the more places you can pull bits of cash from, the more places you can fund your art. It was not a new notion, this, but I do have to admit, as I stood there, I had a lot of ideas about things you could do, ways you could have a diversity of outlets for not just money, but for your art, as well.
At any rate, there's not much to be said here, other than I'm talking aloud, and that I have ideas, and that ideas often lead to terrible things done by me.
It was a strange day, in some aspects. It's easy to imagine, when you're a writer, that the only way you can make cash from your art is by selling it to a publishing house, by being part of the machine, and all that entails. Certainly, if you want to make a lot of money, you most likely have to be in that, still. People such as Amanda Hocking, who made a reported two million from self publishing, are pretty rare, but even in the end she went into the machine, and for a tidy sum, at that. Her move probably says more about the 'validity' of mainstream publishing for an author in being able to say about his or herself that she's a real author, but that's a longer, and more complex discussion, really. But still, that idea that you can only make money through mainstream publishing houses is pretty much held as a truth in publishing, even as the majority of authors in such houses struggle to do that (indeed, if anything can be taken as a general rule for authors, in mainstream publishing houses or doing it themselves, it's that nearly all struggle for cash).
But markets like this have a certain offering, really, a place for you to move your work in different ways and to different audiences, and to create a new revenue stream, which is not to be overlooked in the making of Art. In many ways, markets become part of that jigsaw puzzle of sales, promoting the idea that the more venues you have to different audiences, the more places you can pull bits of cash from, the more places you can fund your art. It was not a new notion, this, but I do have to admit, as I stood there, I had a lot of ideas about things you could do, ways you could have a diversity of outlets for not just money, but for your art, as well.
At any rate, there's not much to be said here, other than I'm talking aloud, and that I have ideas, and that ideas often lead to terrible things done by me.
July 25, 2012
Ursula K. Le Guin on Writing and Publishing
Ursula K. Le Guin at Wired:
I do teach creative writing. I say, at the start, "Enjoy being poor, it's the key."
Link.
I mean, I think corporate control has just increased as publishing goes into terminal panic about how to handle e-publishing. Maybe this is the dark part of the tunnel and we are going to figure out how to do it, and how to pay writers some kind of decent return for their writing, but at the moment — I don’t teach writing classes anymore, and I’m really glad I don’t, because I would feel very strange about telling people, “Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.” I mean, ha. The writers and the editors are very, very low on the totem pole in the world of corporate publishing, and I don’t think it’s very good for books, and I know it isn’t very good for what writers have to buy their peanut butter.
I do teach creative writing. I say, at the start, "Enjoy being poor, it's the key."
Link.
July 23, 2012
Confederacy
[image error]
More text and more photos here.
The Civil War was, indeed, fought over slavery- as well as issues like economic determination and the strength of states’ rights. The south suffered great property losses which are still the cause of some bitterness; the memory of homes invaded and burned lingers between generations, it seems. But even the vaguest notion of sympathy to this is fraught with danger- are we really empathetic to a people who fought for the right to own others? Who then fostered decades of segregation and racism?
More text and more photos here.
July 22, 2012
Guns, In America
Over the last few days I have read a number of people commenting about guns, gun law, and violence.
A lot of it was similar to watching Salman Rushdie on twitter bait people who are pro-gun rights, which, while I love Rushdie dearly, seemed kind of childish. Emotions run high and etc, etc, but not a whole lot was said in the end.
Gun availability in America are excessive. That's my opinion as a foreigner, as someone who stood very recently in a Walmart and saw semi-automatic rifles on sale for four, five hundred dollars. You really don't need that kind of thing, but like everything else, once you have it, to take it away opens a series of doors that are linked to a series of other concepts, many of them linking back to a question of a freedom of expression. That part of the question is often ignored by the people I know because, as Bill Hicks once said, "There's no connection between not owning a gun and not shooting someone with it." Which, of course, is true: if you don't own a gun, you don't shoot it. But that argument is good elsewhere and on the other side of left, as well. After all, if you don't read Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five you can't at all think that war is bad. And if you don't read Darwin, you don't know that evolution is an important part of how we have come to be. And if you don't read about Climate Change, you'll never know about the things that we have to do to stop the world from dying.
Does that mean I'm for guns?
No.
I neither see guns as good, nor evil. They're simply objects.
What is problematic, however, is a society that feels it has to arm itself, that lives in fear of home invasions, of being attacked on the street, of being carjacked, of being violently beaten and raped, and which requires--requires, I repeat--for you to be armed and has a series of laws that ensures you can be.
That's the problem. I've spent time in tiny, rundown, hole in the wall gunshops and clean, bright ones, to rich and poor individuals, to elderly men and women with loaded guns in their drawers, to young people with them on themselves due to conceal and carry permits. I have listened to what I considered undesirable ways to use guns ("It blew a hole in the barn wall") and I listened to people who had strict gun safety rules. And none of that, really, is the problem--though we could probably all agree that we would like people to use guns in a responsible way if they have them, rather like we all like people to drive safely.
However, any conversation about guns, especially now, does not take into account any of this. The left make villains out of the right for wanting to be gun wielding maniacs, and the right make villains out of the left for taking away their rights, which neither helps nor furthers the argument, nor addresses what I consider the fundamental issues surrounding guns in America. That is the culture of fear, the culture of threat, and its prevalence in lower socio-economic States and communities. It does not seek to address the cultural need of a society that requires semi-automatic machine guns in their supermarket, or a law that allows them to sell firearms privately to men and women for whom it is impossible to background check. As my girlfriend said to be earlier today, Trayvon Martin was shot by a man who took a gun so he could go shopping in Target. There are lots of questions to be asked out of that case, many of them important, and one of them is, "In what kind of culture do you live where you need a gun to go to Target?"
Sadly, the shooting in Colorado is not a good example of why there should, or should not be gun laws. If a person is intent on their desire for harm, no amount of laws, policing, or well armed civilians are going to stop it. It is a tragedy, but beyond that, it doesn't lay claim to either side of the argument. Some people may not like that as a statement, and you're free to do so, just as some people will no doubt not like me linking gun ownership, or even gun rights, to the rights of science, literature, sexuality, or anything else. But that's kind of the point about the freedom of expression: you don't have to like it, you just have to tolerate it. You just have to respect individuals their right to make that choice, no matter how ill or well formed you believe it. If that is a particularly hard pill to swallow right now, that's fine, because it is.
But a proper gun debate will not begin in America until that basic step is taken. If you want to change the availability and accessibility of weapons--and I think America should--then you need to have organisations like the NRA on your side, and you need to have them speaking about socio-economic issues, cultural profiling, cultures of fear, and the negative impact that some gun laws are having on people and communities. And the NRA and those think similarly need to listen to independent, rigorous data. They need to have intelligent, cultural theorists talking to them, and those theorists can't just come from right wing think tanks. They need--and we all need--to understand that to hear something we don't like doesn't mean you should close down that voice.
Especially when that voice says that there is a problem with guns--their availability, their cultural importance--in America.
A lot of it was similar to watching Salman Rushdie on twitter bait people who are pro-gun rights, which, while I love Rushdie dearly, seemed kind of childish. Emotions run high and etc, etc, but not a whole lot was said in the end.
Gun availability in America are excessive. That's my opinion as a foreigner, as someone who stood very recently in a Walmart and saw semi-automatic rifles on sale for four, five hundred dollars. You really don't need that kind of thing, but like everything else, once you have it, to take it away opens a series of doors that are linked to a series of other concepts, many of them linking back to a question of a freedom of expression. That part of the question is often ignored by the people I know because, as Bill Hicks once said, "There's no connection between not owning a gun and not shooting someone with it." Which, of course, is true: if you don't own a gun, you don't shoot it. But that argument is good elsewhere and on the other side of left, as well. After all, if you don't read Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five you can't at all think that war is bad. And if you don't read Darwin, you don't know that evolution is an important part of how we have come to be. And if you don't read about Climate Change, you'll never know about the things that we have to do to stop the world from dying.
Does that mean I'm for guns?
No.
I neither see guns as good, nor evil. They're simply objects.
What is problematic, however, is a society that feels it has to arm itself, that lives in fear of home invasions, of being attacked on the street, of being carjacked, of being violently beaten and raped, and which requires--requires, I repeat--for you to be armed and has a series of laws that ensures you can be.
That's the problem. I've spent time in tiny, rundown, hole in the wall gunshops and clean, bright ones, to rich and poor individuals, to elderly men and women with loaded guns in their drawers, to young people with them on themselves due to conceal and carry permits. I have listened to what I considered undesirable ways to use guns ("It blew a hole in the barn wall") and I listened to people who had strict gun safety rules. And none of that, really, is the problem--though we could probably all agree that we would like people to use guns in a responsible way if they have them, rather like we all like people to drive safely.
However, any conversation about guns, especially now, does not take into account any of this. The left make villains out of the right for wanting to be gun wielding maniacs, and the right make villains out of the left for taking away their rights, which neither helps nor furthers the argument, nor addresses what I consider the fundamental issues surrounding guns in America. That is the culture of fear, the culture of threat, and its prevalence in lower socio-economic States and communities. It does not seek to address the cultural need of a society that requires semi-automatic machine guns in their supermarket, or a law that allows them to sell firearms privately to men and women for whom it is impossible to background check. As my girlfriend said to be earlier today, Trayvon Martin was shot by a man who took a gun so he could go shopping in Target. There are lots of questions to be asked out of that case, many of them important, and one of them is, "In what kind of culture do you live where you need a gun to go to Target?"
Sadly, the shooting in Colorado is not a good example of why there should, or should not be gun laws. If a person is intent on their desire for harm, no amount of laws, policing, or well armed civilians are going to stop it. It is a tragedy, but beyond that, it doesn't lay claim to either side of the argument. Some people may not like that as a statement, and you're free to do so, just as some people will no doubt not like me linking gun ownership, or even gun rights, to the rights of science, literature, sexuality, or anything else. But that's kind of the point about the freedom of expression: you don't have to like it, you just have to tolerate it. You just have to respect individuals their right to make that choice, no matter how ill or well formed you believe it. If that is a particularly hard pill to swallow right now, that's fine, because it is.
But a proper gun debate will not begin in America until that basic step is taken. If you want to change the availability and accessibility of weapons--and I think America should--then you need to have organisations like the NRA on your side, and you need to have them speaking about socio-economic issues, cultural profiling, cultures of fear, and the negative impact that some gun laws are having on people and communities. And the NRA and those think similarly need to listen to independent, rigorous data. They need to have intelligent, cultural theorists talking to them, and those theorists can't just come from right wing think tanks. They need--and we all need--to understand that to hear something we don't like doesn't mean you should close down that voice.
Especially when that voice says that there is a problem with guns--their availability, their cultural importance--in America.
July 19, 2012
The Dark Knight Rises
Yesterday, N. and I decided to go see a film. Choices were kind of limited, so we decided to see The Dark Knight Rises, which began around about every half hour.
After three hours, I had a strange experience: I liked it, thought it was great, actually, and I thought it did a very rare and special thing: it made the previous two Batman films seem better than they were.
I had seen both films upon their release and, while well made, I mostly thought that they were a bit of a waste of time and money, breathing life into a franchise that fuels an industry that lies and cheats its creators out of not just intellectual property, but financial security as well. But Christopher Nolan's intermission films the Prestige and Inception were such flat and dull affairs that, slowly but surely, I've come around to the idea that Nolan should be spending money and time on keeping a company icon propped up. A cynical attitude, for sure, but the truth of it is that Nolan hasn't once reached the success of art that announced him to an international audience in Memento. Your mileage will vary on this, of course--but that's neither here nor there, since, with the release of The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan, in using this last film to frame all three of his Batman films, rises to and meets the expectation of the start of his career.
The Dark Knight Rises is set eight years after The Dark Knight and presents a shut in Bruce Wayne, crippled physically and emotionally by the emotional loss of the girl he didn't have in the previous film, and a Gotham under control from a law drawn out of Harvey Dent's death. From here, Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle drops in to steal from Wayne who, like all good billionaire shut ins, spends his time shooting arrows indoors, and soon enough, Bane, the head of the reformed League of Shadows emerges from the sewers, bringing back the spectre of Ra's Al Ghul, or Liam Neeson, right before he became the new Steven Seagal of action films. However, the upside of this is that it allows for the third film to structurally draw from the previous two films, presenting a character arc for Bruce Wayne that results in a film with less Batman than the previous installment, The Dark Knight. And while Bane never raises to he heights of Heath Ledger's Joker--his voice is partly the problem, but more on that later--his service to the storyline, and the fact that he doesn't steal all parts of the film he appears in as Ledger did, results in a much more consistent and satisfying film.
As a film, it's not without it's problems. All three Batman films could be called the Trilogy of Funny Voices and Tom Hardy's Bane has what I would consider the worse villain voice to be debuted for quite some time. It is simply much too clear, much too articulate for someone speaking through what appears to be some kind of breathing apparatus. Bale's Batman voice is his usual thing and you spend half the time waiting for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's voice to drop a few octaves, though it never does. In addition to that, some of the older characters get a bit short shifted--Michael Caine's Alfred suffers from this, though it is part of the narrative that requires Bruce Wayne to lose everything that matters to him, and Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox likewise suffers, while also being strangely unaffected by the previous film. In addition, there are a lot of characters in the film, and another viewer could easily be put of by that, though I wasn't--most in my mind didn't really merit more than they got. And, on the plus side, Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon finally feels as if he has found his place within the films, and Hathaway is actually quite beguiling and charming as Selina Kyle.
But, even for its faults, the Dark Knight Rises is a uniform success. It's use of the divide between rich and poor was nice to see, though I would have liked to see it go slightly further against Wayne, but it was a solid inclusion, a thematic touch that the previous films lacked, and as a whole, lifted the film above the others. As strange as it is for me to say this, I recommend it. I recommend watching the previous two films if you haven't seen it and then watching the third. It's not a mind blowing, conscious altering watershed moment--though I am sure the trilogy itself will be defined by some as that--because it's still a franchise, still built around the rules of commercialism and not art, but it truly is a fine film, and does what the last in a trilogy rarely does: makes the films that proceeded it better.
After three hours, I had a strange experience: I liked it, thought it was great, actually, and I thought it did a very rare and special thing: it made the previous two Batman films seem better than they were.
I had seen both films upon their release and, while well made, I mostly thought that they were a bit of a waste of time and money, breathing life into a franchise that fuels an industry that lies and cheats its creators out of not just intellectual property, but financial security as well. But Christopher Nolan's intermission films the Prestige and Inception were such flat and dull affairs that, slowly but surely, I've come around to the idea that Nolan should be spending money and time on keeping a company icon propped up. A cynical attitude, for sure, but the truth of it is that Nolan hasn't once reached the success of art that announced him to an international audience in Memento. Your mileage will vary on this, of course--but that's neither here nor there, since, with the release of The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan, in using this last film to frame all three of his Batman films, rises to and meets the expectation of the start of his career.
The Dark Knight Rises is set eight years after The Dark Knight and presents a shut in Bruce Wayne, crippled physically and emotionally by the emotional loss of the girl he didn't have in the previous film, and a Gotham under control from a law drawn out of Harvey Dent's death. From here, Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle drops in to steal from Wayne who, like all good billionaire shut ins, spends his time shooting arrows indoors, and soon enough, Bane, the head of the reformed League of Shadows emerges from the sewers, bringing back the spectre of Ra's Al Ghul, or Liam Neeson, right before he became the new Steven Seagal of action films. However, the upside of this is that it allows for the third film to structurally draw from the previous two films, presenting a character arc for Bruce Wayne that results in a film with less Batman than the previous installment, The Dark Knight. And while Bane never raises to he heights of Heath Ledger's Joker--his voice is partly the problem, but more on that later--his service to the storyline, and the fact that he doesn't steal all parts of the film he appears in as Ledger did, results in a much more consistent and satisfying film.
As a film, it's not without it's problems. All three Batman films could be called the Trilogy of Funny Voices and Tom Hardy's Bane has what I would consider the worse villain voice to be debuted for quite some time. It is simply much too clear, much too articulate for someone speaking through what appears to be some kind of breathing apparatus. Bale's Batman voice is his usual thing and you spend half the time waiting for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's voice to drop a few octaves, though it never does. In addition to that, some of the older characters get a bit short shifted--Michael Caine's Alfred suffers from this, though it is part of the narrative that requires Bruce Wayne to lose everything that matters to him, and Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox likewise suffers, while also being strangely unaffected by the previous film. In addition, there are a lot of characters in the film, and another viewer could easily be put of by that, though I wasn't--most in my mind didn't really merit more than they got. And, on the plus side, Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon finally feels as if he has found his place within the films, and Hathaway is actually quite beguiling and charming as Selina Kyle.
But, even for its faults, the Dark Knight Rises is a uniform success. It's use of the divide between rich and poor was nice to see, though I would have liked to see it go slightly further against Wayne, but it was a solid inclusion, a thematic touch that the previous films lacked, and as a whole, lifted the film above the others. As strange as it is for me to say this, I recommend it. I recommend watching the previous two films if you haven't seen it and then watching the third. It's not a mind blowing, conscious altering watershed moment--though I am sure the trilogy itself will be defined by some as that--because it's still a franchise, still built around the rules of commercialism and not art, but it truly is a fine film, and does what the last in a trilogy rarely does: makes the films that proceeded it better.
July 18, 2012
Spanish Adventure Novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Shortly before N. and I took off, I found a copy of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The King's Gold for five bucks in a bargain bin. Hardly the first in a series--it is, in fact, the fourth--I had heard about his books based around the character Captain Alatriste and figured I'd give it a go if I ever came across one. According the what I'd heard, they were pretty enjoyable, and had a great use of history.
Perez-Reverte's series begins with Captain Alatriste and has proceeded through what I believe is seven novels, becoming an increasingly successful series based in the 17th Century to a backdrop of Spain's slow, crumbling power and corruption, and the rise of the British. Without wanting to diminish the adventure aspect of The King's Gold, there is no doubt in my mind that the plot and, perhaps, yes, the characters, take a backseat to the recreation of historical Spain, a subject that Perez-Reverte has a fine and easy grasp of, and lets run in the background of his book like a wild, half mad behemoth that will, ultimately, be the death of all. It's fairly glorious, to be quite honest with you, and I am not going to lie that one of the big draws for me when I hunt down the earlier and later parts of this series, is that setting.
Narrated by Alatriste's squire, Inigo, Perez-Reverte grabs an old pulp style of narration, having the story told long after the fact by an older Inigo who constantly makes references to the fate of characters throughout the book--going so far as to tell the death of Alatriste himself within the first chapter, years later. It is the kind of narrative style that will not work for some people, but I like it, and I've always had a soft spot for that particular form--though I do think that Perez-Reverte lets it drop in places when he focuses on Alatriste away from Inigo. They're good scenes, mind, and Alatrise is a much more interesting character than his squire--world wearied, cynical, hard and dangerous with his own strange loyalty to the King--it did break with some of the consistency with the novel, I thought. Overall, however, it's not too much of a problem, and the plot of a ship full of gold and Alatriste's employment to retain it moves pretty quickly and snappishly along the page.
There's not much else to it, outside that. Perez-Reverte tips his hat generously to Alexander Dumas and his Musketeer novels, but it's done with a lot of admiration, and never gets in the way of his own, Spanish built narrative, and the book is funny and daring and with touches of romance and an evil Italian, who I believe is a villain across the novels. But lets face it: if you have to have an Italian in your books, he really should be evil, shouldn't he?
Ultimately, it's an easy, light read, and Perez-Reverte doesn't try to sell you on anything else. The translation by Margaret Costa doesn't allow for the narrative to drop or become rough, and the biggest selling point, the 17th Century Spain and the historical characters, places, and atmosphere is maintained throughout the entire piece, making it well worth the time if you're looking for an afternoon's light reading.
Perez-Reverte's series begins with Captain Alatriste and has proceeded through what I believe is seven novels, becoming an increasingly successful series based in the 17th Century to a backdrop of Spain's slow, crumbling power and corruption, and the rise of the British. Without wanting to diminish the adventure aspect of The King's Gold, there is no doubt in my mind that the plot and, perhaps, yes, the characters, take a backseat to the recreation of historical Spain, a subject that Perez-Reverte has a fine and easy grasp of, and lets run in the background of his book like a wild, half mad behemoth that will, ultimately, be the death of all. It's fairly glorious, to be quite honest with you, and I am not going to lie that one of the big draws for me when I hunt down the earlier and later parts of this series, is that setting.
Narrated by Alatriste's squire, Inigo, Perez-Reverte grabs an old pulp style of narration, having the story told long after the fact by an older Inigo who constantly makes references to the fate of characters throughout the book--going so far as to tell the death of Alatriste himself within the first chapter, years later. It is the kind of narrative style that will not work for some people, but I like it, and I've always had a soft spot for that particular form--though I do think that Perez-Reverte lets it drop in places when he focuses on Alatriste away from Inigo. They're good scenes, mind, and Alatrise is a much more interesting character than his squire--world wearied, cynical, hard and dangerous with his own strange loyalty to the King--it did break with some of the consistency with the novel, I thought. Overall, however, it's not too much of a problem, and the plot of a ship full of gold and Alatriste's employment to retain it moves pretty quickly and snappishly along the page.
There's not much else to it, outside that. Perez-Reverte tips his hat generously to Alexander Dumas and his Musketeer novels, but it's done with a lot of admiration, and never gets in the way of his own, Spanish built narrative, and the book is funny and daring and with touches of romance and an evil Italian, who I believe is a villain across the novels. But lets face it: if you have to have an Italian in your books, he really should be evil, shouldn't he?
Ultimately, it's an easy, light read, and Perez-Reverte doesn't try to sell you on anything else. The translation by Margaret Costa doesn't allow for the narrative to drop or become rough, and the biggest selling point, the 17th Century Spain and the historical characters, places, and atmosphere is maintained throughout the entire piece, making it well worth the time if you're looking for an afternoon's light reading.
July 17, 2012
Fritz Leiber at the Library of America
The Library of America has put up a bunch of pages relating to their release of old science fiction books. There are introductions to books by Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, and James Morrow, to name just a few, and they introduce work by James Blish, Alfred Bester, and Fritz Leiber, to go in reverse--and it's pretty sweet, and in the case of Leiber actually includes his own introduction to the Big Time:
Sweet stuff, there. Well worth the click if you're interested in some of the old SF work.
Link.
I hadn’t written anything for four years, my longest dry spell. I knew from experience that at such times a first-person story is the easiest way to break silence––it solves the problem of what you can tell and what you can’t, whereas in a third-person story you can bring in anything, an embarrassment of riches, and I determined that my next story would be in the intensified first person of Joyce Cary.
I’ve always been fascinated by time-travel tales in which soldiers are recruited from different ages to serve side by side in one war––there’s something irresistible about putting a Doughboy, a Hussar, a Landsknecht and a Roman Legionary in one tent––and it’s also exciting to think of a war fought in and across time, where battles can actually change the past (one of the truly impossibles, but who knows? Olaf Stapledon wrote about swinging it)––it’s an old minor theme in science fiction; I remember stories by Ed Hamilton and, I think, Jack Williamson. I determined to write such a story and to put the emphasis on the soldiers rather than on the two (or More?) warring powers. Those would be big and shadowy, so you couldn’t be altogether sure which side you were fighting on and at the very best you’d have only the feeling that you were defending something bad against something worse––the familiar predicament of man.
Sweet stuff, there. Well worth the click if you're interested in some of the old SF work.
Link.
July 15, 2012
Back (A Short Tour to Being Away)
Back.
Back, yes.
Back from long, twisting but cheap airplane routes when my body temperature was scanned and I saw a man I knew years ago pinning his pants back together with a safety pin. He could have bought a new pair of pants and there's a certain lunacy in ignoring an airport full of clothes stores for a cheap box of safety pins and a ten hour flight that connects you to another, but we all make choices in our lives, good and bad. I had a surreal conversation with an eighteen year old on his first solo flight to New York to attend a My Little Pony Convention. I had no idea they had revamped the show. I had no idea it would appeal to people. I had no idea they would want to put horns on their foreheads and fill their ipods with fan made My Little Pony music. But apparently they do and apparently there are four thousand people who do.
And eventually, I came back. Back from the South, where I had my first real experience of what you could call culture shock in the US, of drifting through flea markets, pawn shops, gun shops... of a truly excellent second hand bookstore where both N and I spent too much money and I, for some strange reason, ended up with a pristine, 1975 hardcover edition of Stephen King's 'salem's Lot for seven fifty. I'm not a huge King fan, but I'm running a course on modern horror, and I'd never read this and I thought the book quite attractive--and you know, sitting in the South and reading it, it made a little more sense to me, it was a little more American, somehow, a little more Bradbury than I thought, a little more ambitious for a book that has had a huge influence on modern horror (and is still quite flawed despite its interesting structure and populated by uninteresting and poorly developed characters)... and, you know, I ate a lot of bad food and listened to people tell me how hot it was and saw so many huge churches next to run down trailer parks and houses and next to upscale houses and clean trailer parks, and somewhere, I decided to taste all the candy with peanut butter in it.
Yes, I did.
And now I am back, back in this peanut butter candyless land.
Back through long flights, through bad plane meals, back to the sight of Sydney spread out and lit up at night in a huge, beautiful mess on the shore, back to learn that Amina was kicked off Masterchef and I now no longer care about the show, back to bills and cheques, one of them, even, for Black Sheep, which still sells, mostly to Germans who read an excerpt in study guides, I assume.
So, I'm back, yes.
Hello.
Back, yes.
Back from long, twisting but cheap airplane routes when my body temperature was scanned and I saw a man I knew years ago pinning his pants back together with a safety pin. He could have bought a new pair of pants and there's a certain lunacy in ignoring an airport full of clothes stores for a cheap box of safety pins and a ten hour flight that connects you to another, but we all make choices in our lives, good and bad. I had a surreal conversation with an eighteen year old on his first solo flight to New York to attend a My Little Pony Convention. I had no idea they had revamped the show. I had no idea it would appeal to people. I had no idea they would want to put horns on their foreheads and fill their ipods with fan made My Little Pony music. But apparently they do and apparently there are four thousand people who do.
And eventually, I came back. Back from the South, where I had my first real experience of what you could call culture shock in the US, of drifting through flea markets, pawn shops, gun shops... of a truly excellent second hand bookstore where both N and I spent too much money and I, for some strange reason, ended up with a pristine, 1975 hardcover edition of Stephen King's 'salem's Lot for seven fifty. I'm not a huge King fan, but I'm running a course on modern horror, and I'd never read this and I thought the book quite attractive--and you know, sitting in the South and reading it, it made a little more sense to me, it was a little more American, somehow, a little more Bradbury than I thought, a little more ambitious for a book that has had a huge influence on modern horror (and is still quite flawed despite its interesting structure and populated by uninteresting and poorly developed characters)... and, you know, I ate a lot of bad food and listened to people tell me how hot it was and saw so many huge churches next to run down trailer parks and houses and next to upscale houses and clean trailer parks, and somewhere, I decided to taste all the candy with peanut butter in it.
Yes, I did.
And now I am back, back in this peanut butter candyless land.
Back through long flights, through bad plane meals, back to the sight of Sydney spread out and lit up at night in a huge, beautiful mess on the shore, back to learn that Amina was kicked off Masterchef and I now no longer care about the show, back to bills and cheques, one of them, even, for Black Sheep, which still sells, mostly to Germans who read an excerpt in study guides, I assume.
So, I'm back, yes.
Hello.
June 25, 2012
Away
In a couple of days I'm taking off to the States for a few weeks with N, so the blog'll be quiet for a while.
Though, man, I suspect I'm quickly on the downhill road to becoming some sort of strange cat person. I've always been a soft touch for animals, no lie there, but the fact that I've organised one of my friends to come around and feed my stray cat while I'm gone is probably a sign of some new depth.
Anyhow:
Be good while I'm gone. Try and break something I don't like.
Though, man, I suspect I'm quickly on the downhill road to becoming some sort of strange cat person. I've always been a soft touch for animals, no lie there, but the fact that I've organised one of my friends to come around and feed my stray cat while I'm gone is probably a sign of some new depth.
Anyhow:
Be good while I'm gone. Try and break something I don't like.
