If you haven't read N. K. Jemisin's incredible speech as GoH at Continuum in Australia, don't hesitate. Follow the link and read it now. Not only is it an amazing, wonderful, inspiring speech, it is a pivotal one for the genre, and for those of us who love it and have been exhorting it to step forward for years now.
For those of you too lazy to follow the link--well, fuck you. Do it anyway. This deserves our attention, if only for this:
We tread
upon the mythic ground of religions and civilizations that far predate
“Western” nations and Christianity; we dream of traveling amid stars
that were named by Arab astronomers, using the numbers they devised to
help us find our way; we retell the colonization stories that were life
and death for the Irish and the English and the Inka and the Inuit; we
find drama in the struggles of the marginalized and
not-quite-assimilated of every society. Speculative fiction is at its
core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it
certainly didn’t spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of
beardy old middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s. - See more
at:
http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/#sthash.RyAJdaOc.dpuf
We tread
upon the mythic ground of religions and civilizations that far predate
“Western” nations and Christianity; we dream of traveling amid stars
that were named by Arab astronomers, using the numbers they devised to
help us find our way; we retell the colonization stories that were life
and death for the Irish and the English and the Inka and the Inuit; we
find drama in the struggles of the marginalized and
not-quite-assimilated of every society. Speculative fiction is at its
core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it
certainly didn’t spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of
beardy old middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s. - See more
at:
http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/#sthash.RyAJdaOc.dpuf
We tread upon the mythic ground of religions and civilizations that far predate “Western” nations and Christianity; we dream of traveling amid stars that were named by Arab astronomers, using the numbers they devised to help us find our way; we retell the colonization stories that were life and death for the Irish and the English and the Inka and the Inuit; we find drama in the struggles of the marginalized and not-quite-assimilated of every society. Speculative fiction is at its core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it certainly didn’t spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s.
Speaking as a beardy middle-aged middle-class American guy in the 2010s, I am humbled by Nora Jemisin and her insight. Speaking as a writer, I know from reading this that I have a lot to learn about a lot of things, and that if I am true my education will never stop. Speaking as a human person . . . well. All I can say is that Jemisin nails it. Right on the goddamn head. And I am thankful that she has done so, because she has done so at a time when it is very much needed.
Share this. If you care about the genre, share it, boost it, send it, speak it, preach it, live it. And never, ever stop.
We tread
upon the mythic ground of religions and civilizations that far predate
“Western” nations and Christianity; we dream of traveling amid stars
that were named by Arab astronomers, using the numbers they devised to
help us find our way; we retell the colonization stories that were life
and death for the Irish and the English and the Inka and the Inuit; we
find drama in the struggles of the marginalized and
not-quite-assimilated of every society. Speculative fiction is at its
core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it
certainly didn’t spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of
beardy old middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s. - See more
at:
http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/#sthash.RyAJdaOc.dpufv
We tread
upon the mythic ground of religions and civilizations that far predate
“Western” nations and Christianity; we dream of traveling amid stars
that were named by Arab astronomers, using the numbers they devised to
help us find our way; we retell the colonization stories that were life
and death for the Irish and the English and the Inka and the Inuit; we
find drama in the struggles of the marginalized and
not-quite-assimilated of every society. Speculative fiction is at its
core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it
certainly didn’t spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of
beardy old middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s. - See more
at:
http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/#sthash.RyAJdaOc.dpuf
Some follow-up to yesterday's SFWA doings, and a response to some valid (and less valid) criticism.
First, the follow-up:
John Scalzi has announced that the SFWA is creating a task forceto look into the situation with the Bulletin and to decide how they should go forward. Hopefully this will result in some genuine changes moving foward, and not just the wagging of fingers and an arms-akimbo "Oh, you!" directed at the parties responsible. As an interested outside observer I do not think Malzberg and Resnick should be removed from the Bulletin, as they are experienced industry professionals and deserve to have their voices heard--but they clearly need to be reminded that, when they write in the Bulletin, they are representing SFWA as professionals, and should maybe conduct themselves accordingly (and this is vaguely important, so I'd like to call your attention to it as I plan to address it again in a minute).
This is a positive step, and more in line with what I expected from Scalzi, Gould, et al..
Next, the criticism. Laura Anne Gilman offered this up on her website. A few things caught my eye, notably this:
IMGO, leaving SFWA because we (alas) have asshats in the organization makes me wonder if those people are also going to leave the human race. I think that’s a fair question?
To be perfectly honest? No, it's not. Because it avoids the issue. It's not about the asshats, Laura. It's about professionalism (see. I told you I'd come back to this). Professional people expect professional representation, and they do not feel comfortable continuing to associate with an organization that seems determined to let its quarterly newsletter walk around with its pants around its ankles while wearing a pair of "HOME OF THE WHOPPER" boxer shorts. Asshats are asshats, and you are quite right to point out that they are everywhere. We do and should put up with them when we have to. But there is a time that comes when they are doing more harm than good. Malzberg, Resnick, and C. J. Henderson have just landed a very significant series of rhetorical torpedoes in the side of the SFWA in the form of their Bulletin content. And it's not that they're asshats that is causing people to head for the lifeboats. It's that this has been going on for six goddamn months now, people at every level of the industry are looking askance (or starting to) at the SFWA, and the SFWA leadership only recently seems to have noticed that the ship is taking on a little water. That they're responding is commendable. That it took six months for them to do so? Not so much. It's not that Resnick, Malzberg and Henderson were asshats. It's that the SFWA didn't seem to give a shit how said asshattery was affecting the organization. Finally, Laura finishes with a statement that I couldn't agree with more:
This is particularly grating on a week when some of us have spent our time volunteering to make sure that the SFWA booth at Book Expo America (BEA) runs smoothly, and our members are well-represented to the publishing industry (including librarians, bloggers, and audiobook people, etc). This kerfuffle has totally overshadowed any mention of what we’re doing, and I may be a bit cranky about that.
Holy hell, yes. This. Emphatically, unequivocally THIS. I believe in the SFWA's mission and its goals, and I made sure I went out of my way yesterday to point those things out. I want to do so again now, because the SFWA provides vital advocacy and services and resources for writers, publishers, editors and librarians (and more) at every level of the industry. They by and large do a fantastic job. And that's what makes what happened with the last few issues of the Bulletin even more of a shame. It makes the SFWA look like it doesn't know what it's doing. And on a "street level," at least, that couldn't be further from the truth. Laura has every right to be cranky. I would be too. In closing, I wish the SFWA leadership luck in righting the ship. It's clear they need to, and it's clear they are finally taking that seriously. A lot of industry eyes are sure to be watching you now, folks. Don't muck this up.
That's the sound of me planting my face firmly into my palm. That's the sound of me saying "oh for fuck's sake," muffled by said palm covering said face. That's the sound of me starting to give up hope that the genre I love will ever fully drag itself into the twenty-first century.
That's me. In the spotlight. Losing my religion.
. . . sorry. I'm sure you get the idea by now.
Here's the thing:
The Science Fiction Writers of America is supposed to be a professional organization, folks. It's supposed to be there to be a resource and a recourse for writers out there who need it. And it has almost always done an admirable job of this--better, sometimes, than some of the other similar professional organizations that purport to offer the same services to professionals in other fields. Which is why it's a shame that the SFWA keeps pulling this amateur night bullshit.
With that in mind, a few notes:
A note to Messrs. Malzberg and Resnick: if government thugs have not kicked down your door, stormed into your house, and taken your computers, typewriters, pens, pencils and paper, and thrown you in jail forthwith, you have NOT EXPERIENCED CENSORSHIP. What you are actually experiencing is all from yourselves: to wit, a hissy-pissy of the sort that I would expect from my four year old son, not from professional men twenty or more years my senior. In short, you are behaving like assholes--excuse me, like childish assholes--because someone dared criticize you for being (get this) kind of assholish in something you said. Well guess what, boys: if the asshole fits, wear the motherfucker. Grow up and stop fucking whining.
A note to Mr. C. J. Henderson: if you said that shit about Barbie dolls to a woman in my family, you would soon find yourself wearing your nutsack for a bow tie. Bear that in mind as you travel the travails of your life, and consider that maybe you should show a little dignity of your own and respect other people instead of judging them by some bullshit standards that were hidebound when Camille Paglia was a mote in Gloria Steinem's eye.
A note to the SFWA Bulletin staff: Three strikes, kids. At least three. And really, a lot of you should have known better after the Red Sonja cover debacle.
A note to outgoing SFWA president John Scalzi: I know this is SFWA business and you try to keep that separate from your online presence as a writer--but really, nothing about this? No statement as head of SFWA? This all happened on your watch, and whether or not you personally think you are, a lot of people in the community see you as a feminist ally. So, um . . . not cool, you know? Get your Gamma Rabbit on about this, man. Your input is needed.
A note to incoming SFWA president Steve Gould: this is going to land in your lap. Good luck. The field and the fandom has had a hard row to hoe with this kind of nonsense lately. So . . . yeah, good luck.
A note to SFWA members: 25% of the annual SFWA budget goes into the production of issues of the Bulletin. Those are your dues in action. Speak up. Be heard. Maybe vote with those dues.
And finally a personal note: I am in the middle of getting my writing career off the ground. It was my plan, once I made enough professional sales, to join the SFWA and bear myself proudly as a member. Now, I am reconsidering that plan. Because it is my goal to be a professional writer. And it's quite possible I will have to reconsider my potential membership in SFWA. Because this? This is strictly amateur hour stuff. And a professional in any field should distance him or herself with such amateurish antics. They're an embarrassment. They're a liability.
They're unprofessional. And a true professional can't afford to be associated with them.
To Messrs. Malzberg, Resnick, Henderson, et al: Good luck in the future . . . because as the man said, that's where you're going to be living the rest of your lives. And the future doesn't forget this shit like it used to. bear that in mind as you approach the future . . . otherwise you're going to be relegated to the past pretty damned quickly.
Remain in light, faithful readers. See you soon.
UPDATE: John Scalzi is now taking some responsibility on Twitter--by sheepishly saying, "Yeah, it's on me," and asking people to email him at the SFWA president's office email address, more power to him, while incoming SFWA prez. Gould is engaging in a kind of "I have a black friend!" dissembling that sets my teeth on edge. meanwhile, Malzberg and Resnick have been bitching about "liberal fascism," whatever the fuck that's supposed to be.
Still unconvinced, guys. This is not the kind of organization a professional would want to be associated with.
“In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s 1/12)
On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion)
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
The Boolean Gate, Walter Jon Williams (Subterranean)
NOVELETTE
“Faster Gun”, Elizabeth Bear (Tor.com 8/12)
“The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi”, Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity)
“Close Encounters”, Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
“Fake Plastic Trees”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (After)
“The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Rip-Off!)
SHORT STORY
“The Deeps of the Sky”, Elizabeth Bear (Edge of Infinity)
“Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
“Mantis Wives”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 8/12)
“Elementals”, Ursula K. Le Guin (Tin House Fall ’12)
“Mono No Aware”, Ken Liu (The Future Is Japanese)
ANTHOLOGY
After, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Hyperion)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-ninth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin; Robinson as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25)
The Future Is Japanese, Nick Mamatas & Masumi Washington, eds. (Haikasoru)
Edge of Infinity, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)
COLLECTION
The Best of Kage Baker, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear (Prime)
At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson (Small Beer)
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volume One: Where on Earth and Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands, Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)
The Dragon Griaule, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean)
MAGAZINE
Asimov’s
F&SF
Tor.com
Clarkesworld
Subterranean
PUBLISHER
Tor
Subterranean Press
Orbit
Baen
Angry Robot
EDITOR
John Joseph Adams
Ellen Datlow
Gardner Dozois
Jonathan Strahan
Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
ARTIST
Donato Giancola
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan
Michael Whelan
NON-FICTION
An Exile on Planet Earth, Brian Aldiss (Bodleian Library)
Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010, Damien Broderick & Paul Di Filippo, eds. (NonStop)
Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson (Putnam)
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn, eds. (Cambridge University Press)
Some Remarks, Neal Stephenson (Morrow)
ART BOOK
Spectrum 19: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
Trolls, Brian Froud & Wendy Froud (Abrams)
Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration, Scott Tracy Griffin (Titan)
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, eds. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Steampunk: An Illustrated History, Brian J. Robb (Aurum)
***
On a personal note, I'm glad to see John Scalzi up there, as Redshirts was an unexpectedly deep book, one of his best. Likewise Elizabeth Bear, whose Shoggoths In Bloom is one of the best collections of short fiction I've been fortunate to encounter in a long time. Sadly missing are two of the other awesome collections I lucked upon this year: The VanderMeers' sprawling anthology The Weird, and Karin Tidbeck's uncanny Jagannath likewise edited and published by the VanderMeers, which is just insanely good. But Ann and Jeff were nominated in the Editor category, so I guess that will have to do.
But I don't want to quibble (much). Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees in Seattle next month!
(But really, you should read Jagganath. Holy Hannah, what a talent.)
"I'm
grateful if I was a positive influence, because no one else was making
fantasy films the way we made them. People like Peter Jackson and
Spielberg and Lucas and Phil Tippett, all of those people say that if
we hadn't made those films they don't know where they'd be. So our
films have influenced, and I'm always grateful for that. I get a lot of
fan mail from young people who say that our films made their childhood,
because there was nothing else like it on the screen, of a fantasy
nature, except cartoons, and we're glad we made more than just an hour
or so of entertainment."
Take a second and mark the passing of one of the greats. Ray Harryhausen died today at the age of 92. He and his painstaking. demanding, incredibly detailed stop-motion creature work revolutionized special effects. it is no exaggeration to say that modern fantasy and S-F movies would not be what they are today if he had not worked in the field.
We will miss him. But his work will live on.
So long, Ray. And thank you. Thank you so much for filling this little boy's head with wonders.
It is 1973, not long
after my third birthday. I am in my grandmother's living room,
watching PBS. Sesame Street is on, and The Electric
Company, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and ZOOM are soon to
follow. I'm only dimly aware of this, as I am of most things having
to do with the adult world--my grandmother changes the channels and
decides what we watch. (This is why I watched so many Chicago Cubs
games in the 1970s. Yeah, I know. My therapist says I'm almost cured
now.)
I'll address Sesame
Street and TV for kids in some future post, but for now let me
just say that back then, the show was different. Not better,
necessarily--I'm generally not one to engage in false nostalgia,
especially not when talking about a show I by and large stopped
watching when I was six or seven. I will say that I'm not fond of
Elmo or the direction the show has taken in the last ten to twenty
years, but plenty of little kids love it (including mine), and since
they're the target audience I say more power to 'em. There's no way I
could compare my foggily-remembered childhood to theirs and sound
sensible, so to hell with it.
But the show was
different, yeah. There were a lot of segments they showed then that
they don't show now--the number painter, for instance, or the the
strange little films that would crop up--like the stop motion short
of an orange singing an aria from Carmen, for instance. That
kind of shit surely must have annoyed parents in the 70 as much as
Elmo annoys me today. But I’ve wandered afield, and I'm supposed to
be setting a scene for you, aren't I?
Onward:
I'll be damned if I
remember much about the day, other than it was, as the Sesame
Street theme song liked to boast, sunny. I can't even remember
what else was on the show that morning--the number painter, probably,
he was almost always on the shows in those days. And probably the
original "one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten"
cartoons, which I later learned featured music by Grace Slick and the
Jefferson Starship or Airplane or Wheelchair or whatever version it
was at that time--you can see the cartoons on YouTube if you want to
engage in some rosy-eyed, sugarcube-laced nostalgia. Bert and Ernie
and Big Bird and Bob (who’s still on the show today, looking
extremely long in the tooth) and David (remember David? he went
batshit and beat some woman up and had to leave the show for a while,
poor bastard) and Grover and Prairie Dawn and Henry the Blue Monster
and the Count were all there I'm sure--along with the late, fondly
remembered Mr. Looper (“Hooper! Hooper!”). But no way can I
remember what any of them said or did. And I'll tell you why.
Because sometime
during that episode, this happened:
Yep, that's Stevie
Wonder, with his band (featuring a young Ray Parker, Jr. on guitar!)
turning Sesame Street into his own personal playground of funk. And
seeing him do that pretty much knocked everything else out of my head
for the day.
I'd heard the song
before. It was on the radio pretty much constantly that year. Hell,
even the AM radio stations my grandmother listened to were playing
it, so it had to be special--not that I knew that at the time, you
understand, but in retrospect this song was a huge hit. I
liked the horns and the melody, but I had no idea what superstitions
were, really, or what the song was about. Hell, I was three. Cut me
some slack here.
And then Stevie came
on Sesame Street by dint of whatever programming or marketing miracle
that put him in touch with the Children's Television Workshop, and
knocked my tender young skull into left field someplace with a six
minute jam on this song, and I can still remember it now. I watched
him, watched his band play, and listened to what they were playing,
and for the first time in my life I understood what it was that
musicians really did. Or better, what they really could do. How
powerful music could be, how thrilling and energizing and enthralling
it could be in the right hands.
Don't get it? Go
back up to that video, watch it again. And look for the kid dancing
on the fire escape. The other kids in the video are dancing and
having fun, but that kid is lost in the music, lost in the
best way, swept up by the beat and the melody and Stevie's clavinet
and that awesome descending horn figure, and he is gone, baby gone.
Look at him, banging his shaggy little head, rocking his ass
off. He's having the time of his life up there. (I sometimes wonder
what became of that kid. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to find out he
grew up to be Anthony Kiedis.)
I wanted to be that
kid. Not necessarily to stand on a fire escape on some TV soundstage
and do a dance that was somewhere between headbanging and a mild
epileptic seizure while Stevie funked up the room, you understand.
But I wanted to have that kind of fun. I wanted to get lost,
and stay lost for a while. I didn't know what escapism was, not then,
but I had just discovered it on that spring morning in 1973. And I
took full advantage of it.
I think my
grandmother came in to watch Stevie play about halfway through,
though I can't remember for sure. I was swept up, lost in the music,
gone, baby gone. I might even have been dancing around in my diaper.
Not much is clear to me except my memory of that performance, because
that was what I was fixated on for those six or seven minutes of my
life. And yeah, I guess you could say it was a life changer. To this
day I still can't hear that clavinet riff without thinking of
Stevie's performance. (And god bless the folks at CTW for making it
available online so middle aged farts like me can engage in some
nostalgia.)
When the performance
ended, Sesame Street moved on to its next segment, but for
once I didn't move on with it. I was still stuck with Stevie Wonder,
still hearing that song--my very first earworm. And in a way, I'm
still hearing it. Its never quite left me. I hope it never does.
***
It's 1974. I'm in
the car with my Mom, and we're listening to the radio--the AM dial.
We didn’t have a car with an FM radio in it until 1976 or '77.
We're somewhere in my hometown, a little suburb called Schiller Park,
half a mile from O'Hare Airport. It's notable for being the
birthplace of the Hostess Twinkie, for being home to Touhy Avenue,
one of the few streets outside of Cicero* to be named after a major
crime boss, and for fuck-all else.
We were probably
listening to WLS--the rock station back in the days when I was
a kidling. Or so I thought. Looking back on it now it was pretty much
a top 40 station that played rock because rock was always in the top
40. They also played a lot of James Taylor and Captain and Tenille
(and later, Barry Manilow and BeeGees) and songs like "Brother
Louie" and "Billy Don't Be a Hero" when they
were in the top 40. So WLS was really pretty much a
flavor-of-the-moment kind of station. Later when I discovered FM
radio (and I was lucky enough to come of age right at the tail end of
FM radio as a driving force in true musical eclecticism) I got
exposed to stuff beyond the top 40--college radio, progressive FM
stations like WXRT (which used to play everything and its weird
sister back when I was a teenager, and which used to run a great TV
commercial with Monty Python's Michael Palin in it), dance pop, heavy
metal, country, classical, and god help us, the Doctor Demento show
on WLUP every Sunday night at 11 pm. (I live in New York now, and the
good Doctor is no longer on the radio. He streams his show on the
internet these days. It’s not the same. Nothing is. And that’s as
it should be. But I miss the old Westwood One Radio Network broadcast
just the same.)
At the time all this
was in my future though, and my mom controlled the radio, not me.
Which was probably a good thing, as I would have annoyed the fuck out
of her playing with the radio dial instead of picking a station and
listening to it. And if I had done that I might have missed "Killer
Queen."
In the mid-70's
Queen was busy turning rock on its head with songs like this. Tight
vocal harmonies, overdubbed to produce a chorale effect, combined
with and caromed off of Freddie Mercury's music-hall showmanship,
Brian May's hard rock chops and signature guitar sound (seriously--if
there's a rock guitarist around aside from Chuck Berry who has a more
identifiable style and tone I can't think of him), and the lock-step
rhythm section of John Deacon and Roger Taylor: that was Queen. It
was one of the first times I remember linking a band to their song,
and realizing that a band could have such a distinct, recognizable
sound. I didn't know anything about overdubbed vocal harmonies or how
they were goofing on vaudeville tunes or that Brian May was using
"bell effect" chords in his guitar playing. I just knew it
sounded strange and wild and I liked it. Nothing else on the radio
sounded like Queen.
From then on, if we
were somewhere that had a jukebox, and my mom would let me have a
quarter, I always played at least one Queen song--this one if I
could. (I also played "Love Will Keep Us Together" a lot,
but don't hold that against me. I was a kid, man.)
***
1978. January.
Wednesday night. In the car with my mom again. She'd just bought a
powder blue Nova late the previous summer (which Chevy was reportedly
unable to sell in Latin America and Spain because the name translated
as "Doesn't go"), and she was either taking me to my
grandmother's for a visit or to spend the night because she had to
work the night shift at the postal sorting facility where she was
employed at the time. I can't remember which now, and it doesn't
matter. What matters is that it was radio time again. I still wasn't
allowed to control what we were listening to--though as I recall I
was allowed to change the station if Mom didn't like the song ("Oh
God, turn that shit off, Jay. Put on WLS again!"),and at this
point we had AM and FM on the car radio, so stations like WMET, WZRC,
and WLUP were suddenly at my hand . . . or at Mom's hand, really.
There wasn't much
radio dial shifitng that night though, as it was snowing like a bitch
and the wind was kicking up the dickens. I didn't know it at the
time, but we were driving at the beginning of one of the worst
blizzards ever to hit the Midwest. All I knew was that it was snowing
hard and there probably wouldn't be any school the next day. As it
turned out, there wasn't any school for most of the next week,
which I spent at my grandmother's watching bad daytime TV and
reading Pippi Longstocking books--when I wasn't building a
small army of snowmen or jumping off the sizable mountain the plows
had left on one side of the front yard. But all this lay ahead of me.
For now we were in the car, the snow was already thick and getting
thicker, and Mom was struggling to drive.
Just the same, when
a particular song came on the radio, she smiled, reached out, and
turned up the volume. "Listen to this," she said.
"This"
was, as you might be able to guess, was "Strawberry Fields
Forever." Mom had just started introducing me to the Beatles in
the past year--possibly having grown tired of my love of the Captain
and Tenille, Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, Queen, and Kiss (yeah,
I was a weird kid). She'd let me stay up to watch A Hard Day's
Night, Help, and Yellow Submarine, earlier that summer,
and later gave me the first real rock album I owned--a
sleeveless copy of Hey Jude, which I played to death for the
next year, along with a copy of the Monkees' Headquarters that
also found its way into my possession thanks to her.
I didn't know who
was doing this song, making this amazing and strange music, and so i
asked mom who they were.
"The Beatles,"
she said, still smiling.
"That's the
Beatles?" I said.
"Yep."
It was the first
time I'd heard "Strawberry Fields"--or at least the first
time I'd had it pointed out to me and been encouraged to listen to
it. And I took in as much as I could: The elusive, elliptical lyrics,
the backwards hi-hat in the second and third verses, the sudden
intrusion of the orchestra in the second chorus, the long fade-out at
the end. It would take several more years and dozens of listens
before I spotted the edit that joined one version of the song to the
other (and once you hear it, you sadly can't unhear it; it's the
musical version of a sore thumb), picked out the tape loops at the
end, marveled at Ringo's frenetic drumming in the fadeout, and
agonized over whether John was really saying "Cranberry sauce"
or "I buried Paul" at the end. (The second volume of the
Anthology albums finally removed all doubt on that account,
but even before then I was pretty sure John was just grooving on
cranberries.)
To this day all I
have to hear is those opening bars played on the mellotron, and I'm
right back in Mom's powder blue Nova, battered by the wind, skidding
a little on the icy pavement, the thick snow swirling and skirling
around the high streetlamps on Mannheim Road as we passed, O'Hare
Airport inert and mostly dark on our right, letting itself be buried
alive. And the music filled the car and made my heart warm, and took
me out of a snowy Chicago night and dropped me into a verdant English
garden, and no one I think was in my tree . . . and for the first
time I began to understand what music could do, what music was for.
And now here I sit
at the age of forty-three, listening to the Grateful Dead on my iPod,
and reflecting on that night, seeing the swirls of snow, part of me
wishes I could go back to that moment . . . and the other part of me
is equally glad I don't have to.
It was cold.
***
These are all frozen
moments (literally in the third case!) from early in my life,
examples of what I like to call finding magnetic north--the
moment when something happens and you feel something shift
inside you, like a gigantic compass needle in your brain suddenly
swinging around and pointing you the way you need to go. Others call
it the “aha” moment or “seeing the light” or “the nickel
dropping” but it all amounts to the same thing: something is
speaking to you, whispering or perhaps shouting in your ear, and it
so compels you that you cannot ignore it. Sometimes it speaks in a
language foreign to you, and you have to seek out translations, learn
your first halting syllables, and form crude baby-talk sentences in
that language before you can begin to understand what it means to
you. Other times, it is the language, the voice, the song you have
been waiting to hear your entire life, and you know it as instantly,
and as intimately, as you know the beat of your heart in your
breathless chest as you listen, as you dance, as you sing.
I have been
fortunate to have a life littered with such moments. From time to
time on this blog I hope to talk about some of them, what they mean
to me and why. You may have different ones, you may have the same
ones. You may not have any. Whatever the case, I hope you seek some
of these out and discover them, or rediscover them as the case may
be. And see which way your needle swings.
*To
my knowledge this is actually not true, I just like to rag on Cicero.
Everyone needs a hobby.
I was going to take a few minutes this evening to write a post about Amanda Palmer, her LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, I'M BEING OPPOSITIONAL form of attention whoring* and what an opportunistic, self-serving asshole she is.
Yeah, I've been away. I'm a bad boy, spank me. The good news is, I'm planning on having some more, and more regular, content here in the weeks and months to come. Big plans this year.
***
So the Hugo nominations are out, and in looking them over I realize I need to read more, as I've only read one of the novels and maybe two of the stories. So I suck.
Anyway, good luck to the nominees. I'm off to the bookstore!
“Rat-Catcher”, Seanan McGuire ( A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean)
Best Short Story (662 nominating ballots cast)
“Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard ( Clarkesworld, June 2012)
“Mantis Wives”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
“Mono no Aware”, Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC)
Note: Category has only 3 nominees due to the minimum 5% requirement of Section 3.8.5 of the WSFS constitution. Best Related Work (584 nominating ballots cast)
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, Edited by Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge University Press)
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them, Edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis (Mad Norwegian Press)
Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who, Edited by Deborah Stanish & L.M. Myles (Mad Norwegian Press)
I Have an Idea for a Book … The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg, Compiled by Martin H. Greenberg, edited by John Helfers (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box)
Writing Excuses Season Seven, Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson
Best Graphic Story (427 nominating ballots cast)
Grandville Bête Noire, written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse Comics, Jonathan Cape)
Locke & Key Volume 5: Clockworks, written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Saga, Volume One, written by Brian K. Vaughn, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (Hypernode Media)
Saucer Country, Volume 1: Run, written by Paul Cornell, illustrated by Ryan Kelly, Jimmy Broxton and Goran Sudžuka (Vertigo)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (787 nominating ballots cast)
The Avengers, Screenplay & Directed by Joss Whedon (Marvel Studios, Disney, Paramount)
The Cabin in the Woods, Screenplay by Drew Goddard & Joss Whedon; Directed by Drew Goddard (Mutant Enemy, Lionsgate)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Screenplay by Fran
Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, Directed
by Peter Jackson (WingNut Films, New Line Cinema, MGM, Warner Bros)
The Hunger Games, Screenplay by Gary Ross & Suzanne Collins, Directed by Gary Ross (Lionsgate, Color Force)
Looper, Screenplay and Directed by Rian Johnson (FilmDistrict, EndGame Entertainment)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (597 nominating ballots cast)
Doctor Who, “The Angels Take Manhattan”, Written by Steven Moffat, Directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who, “Asylum of the Daleks”, Written by Steven Moffat; Directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who, “The Snowmen”, written by Steven Moffat; directed by Saul Metzstein (BBC Wales)
Fringe, “Letters of Transit”, Written by J.J. Abrams, Alex
Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Akiva Goldsman, J.H.Wyman, Jeff Pinkner.
Directed by Joe Chappelle (Fox)
Game of Thrones, “Blackwater”, Written by George R.R. Martin, Directed by Neil Marshall. Created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (HBO)
Best Editor, Short Form (526 nominating ballots cast)
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Sheila Williams
Best Editor, Long Form (408 nominating ballots cast)
Lou Anders
Sheila Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Toni Weisskopf
Best Professional Artist (519 nominating ballots cast)
Vincent Chong
Julie Dillon
Dan dos Santos
Chris McGrath
John Picacio
Best Semiprozine (404 nominating ballots cast)
Apex Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore and Michael Damian Thomas
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews
Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Jason Heller, Sean Wallace and Kate Baker
Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams and Stefan Rudnicki
Strange Horizons, edited by Niall Harrison, Jed Hartman,
Brit Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Abigail Nussbaum, Sonya Taaffe,
Dave Nagdeman and Rebecca Cross
Best Fanzine (370 nominating ballots cast)
Banana Wings, edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
The Drink Tank, edited by Chris Garcia and James Bacon
Elitist Book Reviews, edited by Steven Diamond
Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Emma J. King, Helen J. Montgomery and Pete Young
SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo, JP Frantz, and Patrick Hester
Best Fancast (346 nominating ballots cast)
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester, John DeNardo, and JP Frantz
SF Squeecast, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire,
Lynne M. Thomas, Catherynne M. Valente (Presenters) and David
McHone-Chase (Technical Producer)
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith
Best Fan Writer (485 nominating ballots cast)
James Bacon
Christopher J. Garcia
Mark Oshiro
Tansy Rayner Roberts
Steven H Silver
Best Fan Artist (293 nominating ballots cast)
Galen Dara
Brad W. Foster
Spring Schoenhuth
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (476 nominating ballots cast)
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy
writer of 2011 or 2012, sponsored by Dell Magazines. (Not a Hugo Award,
but administered along with the Hugo Awards.)
I just want to take a second to say that two of my favorite webcomics, Something Positive and Girls With Slingshots, are being unfairly targeted and blocked by Google for nonexistent "malware" issues. I have been reading both comics for years and aside from the occasional server outage taking them down, I have never *once* had an issue with either of them. Right now Milholland and Corsetto are losing page views, which means a loss in ad revenue, which means it gets that much harder for them to keep their sites going, and when you're an independent artist trying to make your way in the world, that is a serious blow.
So show them some love. Go to their sites, click past the bullshit malware warnings, and let them know people are there. Oh, and read their comics while you're at it, because they're freakin' hilarious.
UPDATE: I posted a link on Twitter just now and Randy Milholland was kind enough to respond to me and pointed out, "Of course, if it turns out there was a hack and we all missed it, we'll all feel awkward as shit." Which is a fair point. But since none of my malware detection actually goes off when I click through to either site, if there is a hack I would think it's a cosmically inept one. Still, with what he said in mind I'll add the caveat that you should proceed at your own risk until Randy and Danielle deem it safe, even though it most likely was never not safe in the first place.
Continuing my streak of about one blog post a month, here is this year's list of Nebula nominees, cribbed straight from John Scalzi's blog:
Novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13) Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor) The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK) The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc) Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor) 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Novella On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press) After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
“All the Flavors”, Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12)
“Katabasis”, Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
“Barry’s Tale”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet)
Novelette
“The Pyre of New Day”, Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
“Close Encounters”, Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
“The Waves”, Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
“The Finite Canvas”, Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12)
“Swift, Brutal Retaliation”, Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12)
“Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12)
“Fade to White”, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12)
Short Story
“Robot”, Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12)
“Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
“Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes”, Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12)
“Nanny’s Day”, Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12)
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream”, Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed 7/12)
“The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species”, Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/12)
“Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain”, Cat Rambo (Near + Far)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation The Avengers, Joss Whedon (director) and Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (writers), (Marvel/Disney) Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight ) The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard (director), Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (writers) (Mutant Enemy/Lionsgate) The Hunger Games, Gary Ross (director), Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray writers), (Lionsgate) John Carter, Andrew Stanton (director), Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, and Andrew Stanton (writers), (Disney) Looper, Rian Johnson (director), Rian Johnson (writer), (FilmDistrict/TriStar)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown) Black Heart, Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz) Above, Leah Bobet (Levine) The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom) Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry) Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK) Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt) Every Day, David Levithan (Alice A. Knopf Books for Young Readers) Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books) Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan) Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr) Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)
The Forty-Eighth Nebula Awards Weekend will be held May 16-19th,
2013, in San Jose at the San Jose Hilton. Borderland Books will host the
mass autograph session from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May
17th at the San Jose Hilton. This autograph session is open to the
public and books by the authors in attendance will be available for
purchase. More information about the Nebula Awards Weekend is available
at http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/nebula-weekend/.
***
I give it about 3 hours before the first "NEBULAS SUCK AND HERE'S WHY RARGH RARGH RARGH" trolling starts to appear on various websites.
