John Crowley's Blog, page 47

Short People

 
I'v had mixed feelings about the Martin Amis I've read, but he is very funny, and I have personal reasons for an interest in his new book  blending [Salon.com:] comedy, farce, even height jokes. The latter are partly at Amis's own expense -- Keith [the hero:] dwells in "that much-disputed territory between five foot six and five foot seven".

For years I believed myself to be, on what evidence I can't now remember, about five foot eight.  I have come to know that that was unlikely to have ever b...

As Maine goes oh so goes Oswego

 

Liz Hand, I suppose you were down east voting for this platform -- you left out the part about Barack Hussein being born in Kenya ("cinstitutional amendment to make all presidential candidates prove they were born in the USA", etc.)

www.mainepolitics.net/content/maine-republicans-adopt-tea-party-platform

Spelt from Sybil's leaves

 
I have been using Windows voice recognition with Windows 7 (given to me on  a laptop by Yale, how nice) to copy research materials from paper copy into the computer.  It's quite excellent but still erratic, maybe because the mike I'm using is an old VX1 that came with Dragon Naturally Speaking (version about 2) a long time ago.  Still faster (for me) than typing -- since I can't look at the page I'm transcribing at the same time as I type (I'm a terrible typist) and between reading, switchin...

...and one more.

 

"Look Better Naked"

Headline in the current issue of Women's Health magazine.

This is easy to do:  just dress in really ugly clothes.

More power

 

Things are looking up in the town of West Dim, wherever it is -- headline in the Times:

Democrats See Hopes for West Dim in Colorado

The Power of Language

This notice in the Times about a ferry crash suggests the power of virtuality:

Department spokesman said the crash appeared to be an accident and might have occurred when the ferry’s engines appeared to malfunction.

It might have continued:  "Several supposed passengers were conceived to have been injured by apparent flying debris, and seemed to be rushed to nearby 'hospitals' in what could be interpreted as ambulances.  Ferry spokesman made what were deemed speeches od seeming condolence and...

Twitted on Twitter

 
My Google Alert for self turned up this this morning:

Reading John Crowley's "Little, Big" Like eating a hardboiled egg to fast http:/ /bit.ly/brY43C.

(This may well be true; I can't say, never having eaten a hard-boiled egg too fast, unless eating one at all is by definition too fast.)

Query

 

I made reference in an essay to Margaret Mead's remark "The great problem for any society is finding something for the men to do."   I was quite naturally asked for a source.  I couldn't.  I've just always known it.  Can anyone help?

More Mary Sue

A quote from a Salon mag article by the redoubtable (what does that mean?) Laura Miller on the topic, showing that the concept is spreading rapidly; a neat distinction:

Because genre fiction tends to trade in wish fulfillment to begin with, you're far more likely to find shameless Mary Sues in mediocre mysteries, science fiction and romance novels. Even in the most routine series fiction, however, there's a distinction between the kind of character who embodies the fantasies of readers -...

My Crank Theory

  mattboggan   and others liked the line of Professor Flesch of Brandeis in the Times article about fiction and the brain:  ''It’s not that evolution gives us insight into fiction,” Mr. Flesch said, “but that fiction gives us insight into evolution.”

I like it too, and it gives me permission (or I take it so) to offer my own crank theory about the origins of fiction in human evolution.  I believe that the origins of narrative arose as nomadic early humans somewhere -- Africa, I guess, I'm not re...