John Crowley's Blog, page 20
August 30, 2012
Big thought for the day
Mitt's nomination day, which isn't really relevant.
This from a review by W.H. Auden in The New Republic in 1940, a forelooking that no SF or futuristic story I know of could match at the time, and whose fulfillment I see now as in a glass darkly, though it won't come in any recognizable form (maybe it HAS not recognizable form) till I'm long gone. This is what I meant by by jokes about Totalitopia.
I am both more optimistic and more pessimistic than Mr. Daiches. I welcome the atomization of society and I look forward to a socialism based on it, to the day when the disintegration of tradition will be as final and universal for the masses as it is already for the artist, because it will be only when they fully realize their “aloneness” and accept it, that men will be able to achieve a real unity through a common recognition of their diversity, and only when they are conscious that all symbols are symbols and not life, that they will be able to use them properly to live and communicate with each other, and the river will have at least reached the ocean: but, on the other hand, though I believe that we are on the last lap of this particular race, I fear that the last lap is going to be the worst.
The review is of a book about current fiction by David Daiches, and the whole is of interest, and will clarify the cut I've made, which is the peroration. ANd think of it being thought in 1940!
http://www.tnr.com/book/review/tradition-and-value
This from a review by W.H. Auden in The New Republic in 1940, a forelooking that no SF or futuristic story I know of could match at the time, and whose fulfillment I see now as in a glass darkly, though it won't come in any recognizable form (maybe it HAS not recognizable form) till I'm long gone. This is what I meant by by jokes about Totalitopia.
I am both more optimistic and more pessimistic than Mr. Daiches. I welcome the atomization of society and I look forward to a socialism based on it, to the day when the disintegration of tradition will be as final and universal for the masses as it is already for the artist, because it will be only when they fully realize their “aloneness” and accept it, that men will be able to achieve a real unity through a common recognition of their diversity, and only when they are conscious that all symbols are symbols and not life, that they will be able to use them properly to live and communicate with each other, and the river will have at least reached the ocean: but, on the other hand, though I believe that we are on the last lap of this particular race, I fear that the last lap is going to be the worst.
The review is of a book about current fiction by David Daiches, and the whole is of interest, and will clarify the cut I've made, which is the peroration. ANd think of it being thought in 1940!
http://www.tnr.com/book/review/tradition-and-value
Herman Wouk on the Moon
Reading the comments on the moon landing conspiracy theories, and particularly
hotcla
' link to frames from a BBC childrens show from the Dark Ages called The CLangers (
thatmakesmema
knew them well it seems) reminded me by a strange chain of association of Herman Wouk, who once wrote a Hollow Moon [see, doubtless, the CLute et al. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction] sf/fantasy story called The Lomokome Papers. WIkipedia tells me this was written in 1947, but I very distinctly remember it being serialized in -- I am quite sure -- Collier's magazine sometime in the middle 50s, where its rather cutesy and insincere (though solemn) tone annoyed me greatly. It was a first brush with Allegorical SF and I knew I didn't want any more. Anybody here ever encounter it?
hotcla
' link to frames from a BBC childrens show from the Dark Ages called The CLangers (
thatmakesmema
knew them well it seems) reminded me by a strange chain of association of Herman Wouk, who once wrote a Hollow Moon [see, doubtless, the CLute et al. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction] sf/fantasy story called The Lomokome Papers. WIkipedia tells me this was written in 1947, but I very distinctly remember it being serialized in -- I am quite sure -- Collier's magazine sometime in the middle 50s, where its rather cutesy and insincere (though solemn) tone annoyed me greatly. It was a first brush with Allegorical SF and I knew I didn't want any more. Anybody here ever encounter it?
August 28, 2012
Block That Metaphor!
That used to be the heading of little column-fillers in the New Yorker (mentioned here before.) This tyoe consisted of seriously tangled metaphors mixed to the point of miscegenation. (Block that metaphor!) Anyway here is the usually fairly restrained Roger Cohen in the Times today:
There is only one star in the galaxy at this White House and his name is Barack Obama. Everyone in the Sun King’s court has drunk the Kool-Aid.
It may be that a couple of these are now "dead metaphors" in Fowler's terms -- ones that don't make you think about the vehicle at all, until you're forced to by the context. "The evidence must be carefuly sifted with acid tests." Basically it's just writing too fast with a box of cliches at hand.
There is only one star in the galaxy at this White House and his name is Barack Obama. Everyone in the Sun King’s court has drunk the Kool-Aid.
It may be that a couple of these are now "dead metaphors" in Fowler's terms -- ones that don't make you think about the vehicle at all, until you're forced to by the context. "The evidence must be carefuly sifted with acid tests." Basically it's just writing too fast with a box of cliches at hand.
August 27, 2012
Neil Armstrong
It was a rainy night in New York, we couldn't see the moon in the sky -- but we watched him come forth in that clumsy getup and speak what at the time I thought was a banal remark but who cares about that now? it is the remark, forever. Though the future may not show it as a giant leap for mankind.
In honor of Neil, who had a wonderful gratifying life and needs no mourning, you might check out (I just did) the Wikipedia article "Moon Landing Conspiracy Theories." Amazingly lengthy and detailed dismantling of something that -- according to the article -- 28% of Russians and apparently almost everybody in Cuba believes.
"By 1977 the Hare Krishna magazine Back to Godhead called the landings a hoax. The reason they gave is that the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away and according to Vedas the Moon is 800,000 miles farther away than that, making the Moon nearly 94,000,000 miles away. To travel that span in 91 hours would require a speed of more than a million miles per hour, 'a patently impossible feat even by the scientists' calculations'."
In honor of Neil, who had a wonderful gratifying life and needs no mourning, you might check out (I just did) the Wikipedia article "Moon Landing Conspiracy Theories." Amazingly lengthy and detailed dismantling of something that -- according to the article -- 28% of Russians and apparently almost everybody in Cuba believes.
"By 1977 the Hare Krishna magazine Back to Godhead called the landings a hoax. The reason they gave is that the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away and according to Vedas the Moon is 800,000 miles farther away than that, making the Moon nearly 94,000,000 miles away. To travel that span in 91 hours would require a speed of more than a million miles per hour, 'a patently impossible feat even by the scientists' calculations'."
August 22, 2012
Bad Times
On Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown running in a heavily Democratic-liberal state:
He spent more than $1 million last week — an astonishing amount in the summer doldrums — to air a series of elegiac commercials in which Democrats praise him as an independent.
His opponent Elizabeth Warren and her supporters may wish that the commercials were elegiac, and its amusing to imagine them being so (I live here and i've never seen one) -- but what word did they miss to hit on "elegiac"?
He spent more than $1 million last week — an astonishing amount in the summer doldrums — to air a series of elegiac commercials in which Democrats praise him as an independent.
His opponent Elizabeth Warren and her supporters may wish that the commercials were elegiac, and its amusing to imagine them being so (I live here and i've never seen one) -- but what word did they miss to hit on "elegiac"?
August 21, 2012
Punning Products
Thanks to all for the contributions, and i just thought of a new one that's as good as any from the past, proving the practice is alive and well: the Bluetooth (?) earpiece that works with your phone and lies along the jaw is called the Jawbone. For what it looks like (a bone), where it lies, and because it's for talking ("jawboning" in the older world where you also chewed the fat, i.e. talking while moving your jaw as though endlessly chewing.)
August 19, 2012
Sunday Times
A miscellany --
-- Nice spam response to a long-ago post: Thank you a lot for sharing this with all of us you actually realize what you are speaking approximately!
Yes it is often the case that I realize what i am speaking approximately, though I do better when writing than speaking.
-- I am reading fro review a bio of H.P. Blavatsky, by Gary Lachman, former drummer for Blondie (never thought you'd see those phrases together, did you?) Comments?
-- I am also rereading the Wolves series -- or lots of it -- by Joan Aiken. Thoughts? Favorites? Re-reading the Wolves of Willoughby Chase it occurred to me how much more subtle, delightful and funny her book is than its obvious descendants, the Lemony Snicket books.
August 7, 2012
Fictional Medical News
Cases of Novel Swine Influenza SurgingMedscape Medical News
Of course in a novel, the swine can be cured with the stroke of a pen.
Me in public trouble
I feel bad for myself being put in the internet equivalent of the stocks. This should not be permitted. The carefully worded (in very small type) disclaimer is hardly mitigation.
http://www.bustedmugshots.com/missouri/st-louis/john-crowley-lacroix/60004061
July 29, 2012
PKD, Thou Shouldst be Living at this Hour
From the NY Times reporting on the Black Hat hacker's convention in LA, telling how many weird and serious attacks happen daily:
That was certainly the case in December after the F.B.I. helped the United States Chamber of Commerce clean up a monthslong cyberattack. Even after the chamber fixed its systems, a printer in one of its offices randomly started printing Chinese characters, and the group discovered that a thermometer in a chamber-owned apartment was communicating with an I.P. address in China.
The article goes on to describe the fun to be had at the convention, including near-nude dancers and "ice luges". I know about the former, but the latter?
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