John Crowley's Blog, page 30

Me and Major Tom

The new issue of Lapham's Quarterly is not out yet, but in the near future will be, and it is devoted to that topic exactly, the future.  I have an essay about how predicting the future has passed from its former importance even in the literature that once depended on it, SF; and yet I go ahead make a prediction anyway, which readers of this journal may remember having been shdawed forth here.

And check out this video accompanying the announcement of the new issue:

 http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/events-news/coming-soon-the-future.php

Knows his Shakespeare, Too

Rick Perry on the ACLU and its atheists, who are out to suppress or remove any mention of God in public life (NY Times):

"They protesteth too much,” he writes. “It’s as if the mere mention of a Creator is too powerful an idea for their own Godless ideology to withstand.”  

Not the first famous remark by the Bard that becomes its opposite in meaning over time, but probably it's time for all public speakers to stop trying to use the old verb forms.

Ike Hearts Thomas More

I retail this bit about my blossoming sports career in Muskego mostly for the startling headline (startling to me):


Eisenhower rolls over St. Thomas More to start 2-0
Muskego Now
Setz is especially happy with the play of converted quarterback John Crowley. "We had some concerns and we wondered how long it would take him to develop," ...  

[I guess if offered a choice I'd rather play for Ike than Thomas More, who I've always regarded coldly.]

Life as We Don't Know It

 

www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/science/23parasite.html

"Your shock is the shock that attends all new and sudden acquisitions of knowledge. Things go on behind your back, and you resent this. You're reminded that not even youth possesses total awareness of the magnitude, subtlety, and horror of Life's hidden engines." -- Anthony Burgess, M/F 

Snottiest review I have ever received

 

I'm rather glad I didn't see this back in September 1994 when it first appeared in the Atlantic, a magazien whose good opinion I would have liked to have.  This is it, complete:

Love & Sleep
by John Crowley.

Bantam, 502 pages, $22.95.

Mr. Crowley's novel begins with the proposition that "once, the world was not as it has since become." Let the reader be warned by this banality. The tale wanders plotlessly from the approximate present to Elizabethan England, encumbered by metaphysical and religious baggage, arcane references, and the philosophers' stone. There are ghosts, visions, and werewolves, but not even werewolves can locate any blood in the characters.

Shame on me, I think

 

What have I been up to in Texas?  This report is from the "Scam Informer", in toto:


John Crowley RIP OFF
15th of Aug, 2011 by User719963
This company has wasted my time over and over again... if you do not fall for the scheme they get very rude and will just hang up! I wish they were close to me because i would love to go see these freaking donkey's in person. What they sell is crap and way too expensive and i would not buy a $10 bill for $1 from them. Do Not Buy Anything from this company, they are out to hurt you and they are what is wrong with our country today and should all be shot and well anyway, don't buy what they are selling!


(I seem to have cheated and scammed this person "over and over again," which may seem strange if you aren't familiar with my particular kind of entrancing winsome appeal.

Nother grammar whiz

 Rules as always:  add words to either end or both ends of the phrase to make a sensible and grammatical English sentence.  No adding internal punctuation or capitalization (e.g. to make proper nouns from common).

the vast majority of the gotchas people

Most annoying everyday technology

 The "Check Engine" light.  

It comes on, you pay to have the computer read what the Check Engine light thinks is wrong, but it doesn't seem wrong to the mechanic.  He has to fix stuff anyway because you can't get the car inspected if the "Check Engine" light is on even though no one inspecting the car can tell if the thing that is wrong is serious or trivial.  The computer clears the code that makes the "Check Engine" light go on, and so you can't tell if the "Check Engine" light will stay off or not.  You drive a few miles and the "Check Engine" light comes on again, but whether for the same reason or one of the other reasons the computer considered or for a new reason it is impossible to tell.  The "Check Engine" light is like the Oracle of Delphi, but more annoying.

Plus ca change etc.

 NY Times book review article begins "We like to think that modern fiction, particularly American fiction, is free from the artificial stylistic pretensions of the past." Who actually thought that? Not someone who takes the trouble to tackle every novel written in 2011; and this search went farther:


www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/books/review/the-mechanic-muse-the-jargon-of-the-novel-computed.html

Nother Poll

 I am once again teaching Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction in the fall semester.  I want to upgrade my reading list.  I am pretty familiar with classic or old fantasy and SF but less so with cool new stuff.  I know that a college syllabus ought to have a slightly musty or stuffy air about it, but still -- can you tell me what ONE book written in the last, say, 10 or 15 years (yes, I know that that's already "old" to many) you would not want young readers to miss?  (One only because I'm afraid of too many to manage from widely-read friends.)