John Crowley's Blog, page 29

Spooky

Levi Stahl's nice literary site The Second Pass hosts a number of selections, by several fine readers and also me, of the Scariest Story -- with some surprising results and some recovered classics:

http://thesecondpass.com/?p=7856 

In NY

Two nights of talking publicly about things I know nothing about. Last night with Wendy Walker and Henry Wessels at the wonderful Grolier Club, talking about Critical Fiction, in celebration of Wendy Walker's new book "MY Man and Other Critical Fictions" published by Temporary Culture. Now I do know what it is, and why (somewhat less), and what it's for (I think I get it.) Tonight at the Rubin Museum to talk about Urdu and Tibetan Sorcery (no clue) and their relation to other sorceries and magics through time (some knowledge maybe to contribute.) Hope you can come -- last in a series in honor of Ursula le Guin.

Flash Fiction

...which, as you know, describes complete stories in a minimum of words.  (Longer than "hint fiction," though.)  So I thought of a new category, "found flash fiction," examples of which from the net and the papers might not all be fictional, but still are exquisite.  Here's my first, which is actually the epitome or summary lead in to an article by Jami Attenberg in the NY Times; 

I donated the three books I'd written to the cafe's free bookcase, and then I drove myself crazy, waiting to see if anyone would take them home.

Nice?  The article itself is good but not necessarily better:  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/a-shelf-obsessed-writer/?ref=opinion&gwh=3E1D11385F4AE41E8A34C46C62509076

Sensawunda

Discussing the TV version of Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven I noted its attempts to get the old SF sensawunda in on the cheap. This was responded to by  anomiedysthymia with a query about examples of such attempts.  "For sensawunda on the cheap, see Chris Marker's La Jete. George Lucas's college-film version of THX 1138. Godard's Alphaville," was my response. But this is a question for all readers/commenters on this journal, and I will so post.  Favorites?  

I Predict the Future, Again

Readers of my story "In Blue" will see that the present is hot on its heels:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/11predict.html?ref=science&gwh=5DD033A08316133CFF54585F0480A

Of course they will need the additional resources of Act Theory and Coincidence Magnitude Calculation, as well as the more basic figure-ground mechanics and the social calculus, in order to make that work.  I'm looking at high Iarpa consulting fees.  

Ursula, Margaret and More

Consider teleporting to NYC for these events at the Center for Fiction (it's an immense skyscraper in midtown -- SF/F is on the 81st floor, I believe, above Romans a Clef -- just ask one of the interns loitering around the inclinators).

http://centerforfiction.org/the-big-read


Look through all the events and you will find one  on October 26  that begins, at least, with Urdu and Tibetan sorcerers and proceeds to the present, or at least Ursula's time.  I'll be on that one, displaying my impressive knowledge of Urdu sorcery, as will Liz Hand, displaying hers, and Paul Witcover, and other wise ones.  Free!

All History in a Day

Rebecca Mead, in a New Yorker article about fashion icon Daphne Guinness:  "Even before J.K. Rowling came up with the idea, Guinness dreamed of wearing a cloak that would render her invisible."  

Flesh and the Devil

There's a very recent documentary about Hollywood film censorship and how it works. Anybody remember the name? Google is being obtuse about all my hints.

Lapham's

My article in the Lapham's "Future" issue now available on the website.  Also to be found there a podcast interview with me offering furhter wisdom.  The entire Future issue is as beautiful and provocative as its foregoers.

Its little epigraph is from a book called The Future of Science by J.B.S. Haldane, the man who said "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."   Haldane was a friend of Huxley's, from whom Huxley got the information, if that's what it was, about raising babies in bottles.  HAldane was one of a kind of person less present today -- though hardly unknown -- in science, the bluff, smiling teller of simple truths both brutal and hopeful,(most of which have turned out to be less or more than the truth.)  His predictions in that bookare a wonderful mix of the likely and the impossible.

Little Big viva voce

A deal has been struck with Blackstone Audio for a complete audio version of Little, Big with myself doing the reading, working with Peter Acker at Armadillo Audiogroup in Amherst. I'll be recording in October with a release date in November.  It's a very long book (nearly twoce as long as my former effort in reading aloud, The Solitudes, or Aegypr as it was then called) so if there are any parts anyone doesn't care to hear, let me know and I willskip them.