Some Points Re: Recent Matters

1) If you decide to subvert the nomination process of a literary award in order to score a "Gotcha!" on your political opponents, you're probably kind of a prick.

2) Some people are proud of being a prick.

3) In an ideal world, all fiction would be judged separately from its author.  In the real world, some people are so loathsome and despicable, others may declare them anathema.  In the ecclesiastical sense, that includes excommunication, refusing them the sacraments.  In the literary sense, this equates to refusing to read or consider their writing.

4) Some people are proud of being so loathsome and despicable that others will declare them anathema.

5) However strong and determined their efforts toward that end, there is no one so loathsome or despicable that they cannot find people who will befriend or even love them.

J.T. Ready, neo-Nazi, anti-Semite,
former public voice of white supremacy
in Arizona, and boyfriend of Lisa Mederos,
up until the day he shot and killed
Ms. Mederos, Mederos' daughter,
the daughter's boyfriend, and
the daughter's 15-month old infant
before turning his gun on himself.

Amazon's 100 Mysteries

Amazon has a recent list of "100 Mysteries and Thrillers To Read In Your Lifetime".  Here are the ones I've read:

• Caleb Carr, The Alienist
• Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None
• James Clavell, Shogun
• Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain
• Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes
• Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
• James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential
• Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal
• Dashiel Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
• Thomas Harris, Red Dragon
• Franz Kafka, The Trial
• Stephen King, Misery
• Donald Sobol, Encyclopedia Brown
• Mickey Spillane, I, The Jury
• Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance
• Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
• Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me

There were books by additional authors (James Lee Burke, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, John MacDonald, Ross MacDonald, James Patterson, and Donald Westlake) that I've read some (sometimes a lot) of their work but don't remember for sure if I ever read those specific titles.  (If Kiss The Girls was James Patterson's first book, yes, I read it, and yes, that's why I've never read a second Patterson book.  *ka-zing!*)  A lot of those books were made into movies that I do remember seeing.

The Amazon list tries to provide a cross-section of various subgenres in the mystery/thriller line, so someone who's never read any who tries blind picks from the list is likely to have a roller-coaster ride, from puzzle mysteries to procedurals to noir to historicals.  But it's an interesting list.

The list includes one of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden detective-with-magic books,so I was a bit surprised that Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel wasn't included to represent the SF end of that spectrum.  Other omissions will probably come to mind later.

Wheel of Time and the Hugo Awards

Based on a technical interpretation of Hugo Award rules, the entire 13-volume Wheel of Time fantasy epic by Robert Jordan was ruled as eligible to be nominated for Best Novel for this year's Hugo awards.  People who bought a supporting or attending membership in this year's Worldcon are able to vote on the awards.

In recent years, a "Hugo Voter Packet" has collected a year's fiction nominees (usually four or five full novels, plus the shorter works) in digital format.  Some people view the HVP as enabling voters to read the full slate of nominees for Hugo consideration, and some people see it as an opportunity to buy a whole bunch of books and stories for a bargain rate.   (Supporting memberships are $40 this year.)

When Jordan's multi-volume epic got enough nominations to end up on the final Hugo ballot, a number of people wondered online whether Tor Books, Jordan's publisher, would actually include the entire three-million-word-plus work in the Hugo Voter Packet.

Yes, they will, it turns out.

In another example of why I am kind of a weirdo, this news actually lessens whatever small* impulse I had to buy a supporting or attending membership in this year's Worldcon.

Because if I bought a membership, I’d feel obligated to actually read the contents of the Hugo Voter Packet, give some consideration to the content’s merits, and actually vote. And one of the reasons I haven’t had a membership in any Worldcon since 1984 is that simply finding time enough to read all the Hugo-nominated work before the voting deadline was difficult if not impossible. I’d feel guilty about not doing that.

Add in a 13-volume, 10,000-page, three-million-word Big Fat Fantasy, and that guilt goes to a whole new level. “Crushing guilt” sounds appropriate.

(portions of this post originally appeared as a comment on File 770)

- - - - -
*microscopic

A Swarmish Souvenir

The bee swarm that tried to establish a hive in our front yard ash tree a few weeks ago left behind something to remember them by:

posted from Bloggeroid

Lost Creatures: A Short Story

(I generally don't put my fiction on my blog here. But this isn't my usual science fiction or fantasy. It's over ten years old, and has never been a suitable fit for literary-fiction or other markets. But I think it's a nice little story, so I'm putting it out here as an experiment to see if it has any audience. If you like it, let me know. Better yet, let other people know.)

LOST CREATURES

by Bruce Arthurs

He had been called Handsome Devil. That had been when he had a home, and owners who had fed and brushed him regularly, had played the fetch game with him on an almost daily basis. Then they had left in their car one day, and had never come back. Strangers in black clothing had entered the home after several days, bearing boxes into which they had solemnly packed his owners' belongings, sometimes breaking out in tears. Handsome Devil had hid from them, uncertain what their presence meant. One had opened a window, and failed to close it completely when the strangers left at the end of the day. Handsome Devil had squeezed out the narrow aperture, jumped to the ground, and gone to look for his owners. 

He had been full-bodied and sleek of coat, then. Now he was thin, and his coat was dry and spiky; both ears were ragged from combat, and one leg still ached from the damage when a boy had deliberately ridden his bicycle into Handsome Devil. He had learned that the world beyond his home was a dangerous place, and that many of the people who lived there were not kind, and were best avoided.

Hunger was his constant companion. He caught the occasional bird or lizard, scrounged in trash cans, would sometimes chance stealing food from a dish left outside for a cat or dog who still had their owners. He drank from gutters and puddles. His owners were a fading memory, and survival was his predominant thought.

There were places where finding food was more likely, brightly lit glass-front buildings where people would stop for snacks, drinks, cigarettes and sundries. Handsome Devil could usually find a bit of hot dog, or at least a piece of the bun, dropped on the ground or thrown towards the garbage cans. Sometimes pigeons or sparrows would gather for the crumbs found there, and he would be able to stalk and ambush them for his own needs.

He was in the underbrush near such a place, eyes and attention fixed and tense upon a sparrow pecking at crumbs, when the man approached. The man walked with a heavy step, his head down, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his worn jeans.

The sparrow looked up at the figure approaching across the asphalt. Handsome Devil began his move, rising and taking several quick panther-steps forward from under the bush, then stopping in frustration as the sparrow rose upwards in a fluster of wings.

The man stopped short as well. Cat and man stared at each other, one wary, the other surprised.

"Christ, puss," the man finally said. "You look like I feel."

The man slowly lowered himself into a crouch and extended a hand towards Handsome Devil; he made come-hither motions, strumming his thumb across his fingers. Handsome Devil stayed frozen in position, ready to flee but not sure this was the safest moment to do so.

The man ceased the come-hither motions. "Nah," he said softly, "you don't trust me. Or anybody else, I reckon. It's a hard world, isn't it, puss? A hard, crappy world."

He reached up slowly and pulled a cord from beneath his shirt. The cord went around his neck; a colored plastic disk was strung on the cord. The man held up the disk and looked at it.

"Ninety days sober, last week. I thought I was pulling things back together. And then..." He paused. "...this morning she told me she wanted the divorce anyway. She's going to take the kids and go to her parents back East."

He yanked at the disk, snapping the string. He rose back to his full height and stared at the storefront ahead of him. "To hell with it," he whispered. "To Hell." The man flung his arm to one side and cast the disk away.

The disk tumbled through the air. Sudden memory blossomed in Handsome Devil's mind as his eyes automatically tracked the colored object.

Fetch it, Handsome Devil, his owners would say, and toss the plastic bottlecap across the tiled kitchen floor.

He burst into a run across the asphalt. The disk struck and bounced, struck again, spinning and tumbling, and then Handsome Devil was on top of it, pinning it, capturing it, rising with it clenched in his mouth and turning proudly to display his catch.

And the man was disappearing into the building, the glass door starting to swing shut behind him.

The door almost closed on Handsome Devil's tail as he scooted through the shrinking opening and into the cooled air of the store.

The man was standing at the counter, staring past the clerk and at the rows of bottles containing amber and clear liquids. He raised a hand, started to point. "Give me one of----"

And stopped, and looked down towards his feet, where Handsome Devil was rubbing back and forth against his pant legs and purring around the disk still held between his jaws.

The clerk looked over. "How'd he get in here?"

The man leaned down and slipped a hand under Handsome Devil's stomach. He lifted him up, took the disk from Handsome Devil, and laid him against his shoulder. The man stared at the disk as he absently stroked the cat's head and shoulders.

Handsome Devil purred louder.

"If he's yours, you can't bring him in here," the clerk said.

The man turned his eyes toward the clerk. "Do you...?" he began. "Do you have any cat food here?"

-end-

The Brave Free Books -- April 2014

Yeah, it's been awhile since I did an installment of "The Brave Free Books", reviews of various books and e-books I've read for free (from promotions, giveaways, sweepstakes wins, and/or the Nook Free Fridays offerings).

In the self-published line, I'm very impressed by the work of a British chap named Luke Smitherd. His novel TheStone Man and novella The Man On Table Ten are both very compelling stories. They might be described as "Science-Fiction/Horror"; both use mysterious aliens manifesting in the normal world. The aliens don't explain themselves (with the strong implication that humans are too insignificant to bother giving explanations), they're close to omnipotent in what they can do, and we can't stop them. In those respects Smitherd's aliens are closer to Lovecraft's Elder Gods than traditional SF aliens. Smitherd draws you into the minds of his characters slowly, layering details and emotions, until you fully believe in them. Most "horror" stories, of whatever genre, slide off me; these stories actually made me anxious, both for the individual characters and for the suddenly-endangered worlds they lived in.  (Current Kindle prices: The Stone Man, 2.99; The Man At Table Ten, Free)

A less impressive self-published work was Strawman Made Steel, by Brett Adams. I picked this up during a free promotion by the author, because the opening scene was a compelling beat-the-clock scenario where the just-poisoned protagonist has to figure out which of two poisons he's been given, because taking the wrong antidote will kill him immediately. The rest of the book didn't live up to that scene, unfortunately. The protagonist can travel, via mirrors, between our normal world and a future where electricity vanished suddenly and the world has had to convert back to steam and kerosene and gas. An interesting premise, but I couldn't believe that the world, and the future New York City, would not only recover from such an overwhelming cataclysm in less than a century, but grow. The premise needed a lot more propping up and development. I also didn't see the need for the protagonist, a hard-boiled private detective, to be hopping back and forth between worlds. The central conceit of the world, the sudden disappearance of electricity, is never examined or solved. Pretty much a standard noir mystery, with gangsters and the spoiled rich and nightclubs, etc., with some fantastical trappings added on. Disappointing.  (Current Kindle Price: 2.99)

Death Blimps of Doom! by James Ivan Greco is a prequel short story to his "Reprobates of the Wasteland" novel Take The All-Mart!  The "Reprobates" series is about a couple of wasted wastrels in a satirical post-apocalypse setting.  (Chinese troops occupy a trashed California; the All-Mart has become self-expanding in runaway-nanotech style and now covers a large portion of North America; etc.)  Trip and Rudy may be the inheritors of all the bad genes from Charlie Sheen, Hunter Thompson, Cheech-and-Chong, and Leopold-and-Loeb; they make Harry Flashman look like a paragon of moral virtue and rectitude, leaving wreckage both literal and metaphorical in their wake.  It's funny, but in a kind of feel-dirty-afterwards way. As a short story, I think this sort of thing works, but I'm reluctant to engage in a full-length novel about these characters, and haven't gone on to read Greco's novel about Trip and Rudy's further adventures.  (Current Kindle price: Free)

Wool - Part One, a novellette in the Silo series, by Hugh Howey.  Oh, so this is what all the fuss has been about the last few years.  Howey was an early self-publisher, and has achieved spectacular success and income from the Silo series and other works.  "Wool" was the story that started it all.  Why did "Wool" succeed, where so many other self-publishers had only limited or negligible results?  Canny marketing and promotion was one reason, but I think the primary reason is that "Wool" is a pretty damn good story.  The post-climate-collapse, dystopian underground society is well thought out, the characters are fully fleshed, there's an underlying mystery to this future setting, all of which draw the reader through to this story's conclusion and make one want to read further works in Howey's world.  The lesson is: Write a good story first.  The rest -- marketing, promotion, etc., whether in traditional publishing or self-publishing -- are secondary.  A reader might be hooked once by marketing, promotion, a striking cover (although "Wool" succeeded despite a, umm, less-than-impressive cover), but being more than a one-shot writer requires being the very best writer you can be.  (Current Kindle price: Free)

Augur is a short story collection by Freya Robertson.  While I was reading the collection, I kept having a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, but wasn't sure why.  The stories were decently written, decently plotted, decently inventive.  But I kept scratching my head as to why I wasn't enjoying them as much as I would have expected.  Until I got to one of the last entries, "Bearcub", about a young boy competing to be chosen for a knight's training, and found myself significantly more "into" the story than I had with earlier entries in the collection.  I thought about this, and went back and reread some passages from the earlier stories.  I think what the mystery was is that Freya Robertson's use of language, overall, tends to a shorter vocabulary, simpler sentences, and uncomplicated character development.  That her natural writing voice seems to be better suited to a middle-school or YA audience; the stories that left me feeling most dissatisfied were those with adult protagonists.  "Bearcub", with its young protagonist, read much more naturally for me; the writing style seemed much more suited to that particular story and character.  (Robertson's novel Heartwood catches up with Bearcub in his early-adult life; the sample chapters included at the end of Augur read pretty well, and it's being promoted as a YA book.) (Current Kindle price: 3.99)

Unnatural History by Jonathan Green is the first novel in the Pax Brittania alternate-history series from Abaddon Books. The cover and blurbs for this made it sound like it would be a fun romp.  (Dinosaurs on the rampage in a Steampunk London!  What's not to love?) Ehh, not so much.  The hero of the series, one Ulysses Quicksilver, appears meant to be an amalgram of Alan Quatermain, Doc Savage, and other heroes from pulp and adventure fiction.  But there's no real depth or development to him, and he came across as very flat and uninvolving.  (As a lead character in a series, it may simply be that he's not permitted to change or grown from episode to episode.)  Another disappointment, and I don't feel any inclination to read more in the Pax Brittania setting.  (Current Kindle Price: Free)

The above were all e-books.  This next was a hardcover I won in a Goodreads giveaway.

I read Jo Baker's Longbourn, a retelling/expansion of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, focusing on the household servants as the primary characters. Much about the wide gulf between the working class and the privileged/wealthy, and the lives of unending drudgery and work most people lived. In some ways it was like reading a well-written science fiction novel, because the society of early 19th-Century Britain is almost like an alien planet. Some of the antiquated terms used were ones I was unfamiliar with, and sometimes context wasn't quite enough to fully grasp the meaning; first time in a long time that I kept a notebook handy to jot an occasional word down to look up later. Baker depicts a very grim society to live in, but I came to... "enjoy" is not the right word... appreciate her depiction of the lower classes struggling to find love and a hope for the future in their harsh lives.  (Hardcover/retail 25.95; Amazon HC 15.11, Kindle version 10.99)

And that's it for this installment of Brave Free Books.

A Gallery of Godzilla

There's a "Poster Posse" group of artists who do occasional riffs on alternative posters for various movies. Their latest subject is the forthcoming reboot for Godzilla.  I like this traditionalist version, by Daniel Nash, best:

Hugos and Rockets and The Chain of Connection

The official Hugo Awards site describes the design of the award as having been "based upon the hood ornament from a 1950s American automobile."  They don't give a specific make or model, but I'll wager that the inspiration came from the Oldsmobile 88, aka the "Rocket 88".  There were variant versions of the hood ornament from year to year before the first Hugos were given in 1953, but the version used in advertising that preceded Oldsmobile's public introduction of the 88 line a few years before that makes, I think, a pretty irrefutable argument.

Look familiar?

I came across this image, and others on the vintage site linked above, because I was making notes for a future story where I wanted a young woman traveling in an old car, and I wanted a car whose name would both trigger a science-fictiony association and be "a man's car".  The Rocket 88 fit the bill pretty well; it was one of the first cars with a V-8 engine and other power embellishments, and is now regarded as an early outlier for the "muscle cars" from other makers that started coming on market in the mid-1950's.  But I did a double-take when I did an image search and saw some pictures of the 1950 "fastback" model of the Olds 88.

Because I recognized that distinctive sloping trunk lid.  And I remembered that my grandfather had owned a car with that same trunk lid.  I'd always remembered that it had been an older Oldsmobile, but I'd never remembered the particular model.   And, after I got older and became aware of the Hugo awards, I'd remembered that a car with a Hugo-like ornament on its hood had been around while I was growing up, but I hadn't remembered it as being Grandpa's Oldsmobile.

My grandfather died when I was in sixth grade, I think in late 1963, and I had never remembered him as anything other than as a frail old man and, in his last several months, a dying old man.  So it was a bit of a shock to realize that Grandpa might have been driving a muscle-car all those years.  My grandfather as a bad-ass?  As a tough guy?  Hard to picture.  Even in older family photos, he was thin and non-intimidating, not the type of person you'd expect to see in a fight, not the type of person you'd want on your side in a fight.

Or maybe you would.  Because there was one family story I heard from my mother decades after Grandpa had died, only once, and only in very brief form.  Probably because it was, at heart, a pretty ugly and very discomforting story.  But it showed that when someone tried to harm his children, my grandfather -- and a length of wooden broom handle -- was capable of cold-blooded and deliberate violence.

(I was actually planning on using this family story, with a number of changes and expansions, as the basis for the next story on my "to-write" list.)

So maybe my grandfather really was, or had been, a bad-ass tough guy.  And maybe, on those times when I rode in Grandpa's car to the store or other relatives' homes, I was riding with a Hugo on the hood!  Probably the closest I ever got to a Hugo.

(Although I was told, back in the 1970's when fandom was a lot smaller and I was a much more active fanzine publisher and letterhack, that I'd once come within a few nominations of being on a Hugo ballot for Best Fan Writer one year.  But "within a few nominations" probably doesn't count for much, then or now.)

Bee Swarm

The ash tree in our front yard got colonized by a bee swarm yesterday afternoon.  I don't particularly freak out about bees or even bee swarms, but the assemblage was hanging almost over the public sidewalk and I thought the rest of the neighborhood might object.  I was also a little worried that some of the young neighborhood kids might decide to do the Rock Test on the swarm.  (Rock Test, as I recall it from my own misspent youth: "There's something unusual over there.  Let's throw a rock at it and see what happens.")

I was hoping the swarm would decide to move on after a night's rest, but no such luck.  So I had a bee service come out to remove it earlier today.  Sorry, bees.

Brass Brassieres: The Cliche That Will Not Die

So, back in the early days of science fiction, pulp magazines tended to feature garish covers with bug-eyed monsters, phallic spaceships, and -- especially on a magazine called STARTLING STORIES -- skimpily dressed spacewomen whose most striking feature tended to be the brass metal brassieres they wore. Yes, metal. As in cold, hard metal.

Like this:

And this:

And this:

 

And especially this:

No bonus extra sexual subtext
on THIS cover.
Move along, pervert.

That particular trope, memorable as it was (and it was used by critics as an example of science-fiction's essential juvenile/puerile nature for decades), faded away after awhile.  It sometimes appeared on "women warrior" covers for fantasy novels, though that seems to have dropped in frequency as well.  A few notable exceptions include the "Slave Girl Leia" costume from RETURN OF THE JEDI (but then, the whole Star Wars Trilogy -- There can be only one! There was only one! -- was a callback/homage to the old SF pulps), and, in a slightly different design, the ludicrous chain mail bikini worn by Marvel Comics' version of Red Sonja.  (There are also the occasional form-fitting spacesuits or power-armor, but at least they're not bare skin in space!)

So we can all breathe a sigh of relief that the "brass brassiere" cliche has, for the most part, vanished into the dustbin of history.  Right?

Well, not quite.  The BBC television series Da Vinci's Demons (shown on the Starz cable channel in the US) recently put out some publicity stills for the show's second season:

It's official: Brass brassieres are back!

From what I've read about Da Vinci's Demons, the show's first season played a bit fast and loose with historical timelines regarding what happened when, or with the lifespans of various historical characters. (One character depicted as being alive to interact with Da Vinci died, in real life, about thirteen years earlier.)  But they weren't egregiously anhistorical.

For the second season, it sounds like the show's writers are now turning more towards the Holy-Shit-These-Are-GREAT-Drugs! scriptwriting model made popular by ABC's Sleepy Hollow, wherein the historical record is turned inside-out, dressed up in a tutu, and painted in day-glo colors.  (See: Zombie George Washington.) Da Vinci will discover the Americas and have a run-in with the Incan Empire.  Yes, really. One assumes from the photo above that the brass-brassiered beauties are supposed to be the legendary Amazons, or that Da Vinci stumbled onto an Incan fashion-model photo shoot, or, oh fuck, I have no fucking idea what the fuck is going on in that photo, just that it makes me go "GHAAA! MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP!"

Wonderella On The Writer's Life

I try to follow a Twitter-avoidance policy (because timesink), but Wonderella is one of the few exceptions:

The 50 Shades of Grey series has sold 100 million copies, in case any authors out there needed a reason to drink on a Thursday

— Wonderella (@wonderella) February 28, 2014

Book Review: A Bloodsmoor Romance, by Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates has been turning out novels and short stories on a prolific basis for decades, frequently enough that she's been criticized for writing too quickly, while at the same time being highly regarded in literary circles.  Somehow, except for a few short stories, I'd never read any of her work until recently.

A Bloodsmoor Romance was first published in 1982 and is part of the "Gothic Quintet" (concluded in the recent The Accursed).  Judging from some of the reviews I've read, it has a reputation as a "black sheep" among Oates' work, with irregular and inconsistent plotting and narrative.

I can see where those opinions are coming from.  But I can also see, I think, what Oates was trying to accomplish with the book, not always successfully.  There were moments when I absolutely loved what I was reading, and also moments when I was definitely going "WTF?"  So my reaction is as mixed and inconsistent as the actual book is.  ABR is kind of a mess, but it's a "hot mess".

From The Urban Dictionary:

'Hot messes' are appealing for a variety of reasons, most notably because they're generally unexpected, capricious, & agonizingly provocative. Additionally, numerous contingent factors make duplication rare and continual repetition virtually impossible. 

No one set of guidelines can perpetually determine what distinguishes a "hot mess" from an above-average train wreck. Regardless of the circumstances, you know it when you see it; because they are typically conspicuous, and obviously they are always awesome.

Basics: In late 19th-century America (1879-1899), the Zinn sisters (Constance Philippa, Malvinia, Octavia, Samantha, and the adopted orphan Deidre) are the children of a gifted but irresponsible inventor who fortunately married into a wealthy Pennsylvania family, the Kiddemasters.  Though the backstories of John Quincy Zinn and Prudence Kiddemaster are told in flashbacks, the five sisters' stories are the main narrative. The initiating incident of the book is when Deidre, the youngest sister, is abducted by an unidentified balloonist in a sinister black balloon.

The stories of the five sisters are told by an unnamed female person of the same period and mores.  The Victorian repression and denial of sexuality is paramount in the narrator's voice, augmented by a cloying American fundamentalism.  Since much of the book deals with the sisters' actions in contradiction with those social codes and mores, there is much expression of disapproval from the narrator, couched in florid Victorian prose.

But, by God, it's great use of overblown prose.  Particularly in the early parts of the book, the rhythm and pace of the narrative is almost like poetry.  There were sections I wanted to read out loud.  I would have loved to hear this book done as an audiobook.

Also, there are parts of this book that are just plain goddamned funny.  "Goofball" isn't a term one usually finds applied to Oates, but for this one particular book she seems to have let her inner-goofball out at points.

[Spoilers below]

Ed Harris, Radio Fantasist

Along with other podcasts, I've been a regular listener to the BBC Radio Drama of the Week.  Sometimes these are modern-day slice-of-life stories about ordinary people, and sometimes they illuminate odd little corners of history (usually British history, for some odd reason).  But they also feature content of a science-fictional or fantastic nature on a surprisingly frequent basis.  And I've noticed the name "Ed Harris" listed as the author of a goodly number of those SF/F type radio plays.  So I decided to try and find out a bit more about him.

Here in America, when one hears the name "Ed Harris", one tends to think of this guy:

Ed Harris, actor

Helluva good actor, but not the guy we're looking for.  The "Ed Harris" writing for the BBC (and elsewhere) is this guy:

Ed Harris, playwright

So it turns out he's only been writing (as in, having his work produced) since 2005, the young snot, and has already become pretty notable in the rarified atmosphere of radio drama and stage plays.  (Radio drama is pretty close to extinct in the US, but it's still a viable medium in Great Britain and elsewhere.)  Several of his plays, Mongrel Island and The Cow Play, are available in book form.

Here's an interesting interview with him on medium.com: "Wanting To Write Is A Ridiculous Idea"  I like the "voice" he uses when discussing writing (I'm reminded a bit of Neil Gaiman), and he says some eminently quotable things:

     Inexperienced writers often put their hand to their forehead and exclaim “Oh my god how indulgent am I? – Why should other people be interested in me?”
     And the truth is, other people aren’t.
     They couldn’t give less of a shit about you and your wry observations or pithy philosophical quips. But, if you’re any kind of writer, you are interested in them. And they, if they read, are also interested in them. In each other. 

Here's a link to the BBC Radio Drama page.  And here's one to the Drama of the Week Podcast page, where the weekly offering can be downloaded onto your own player.  (The drawback to the DOW podcasts is that they're only made available for a week, Fridays-Thursdays, although some of them eventually show up available for purchase on iTunes.)  This week's offering is another Ed Harris work, "Pixie Juice", available until March 6th, 2014.

Bastet: 2003-2014

I had our black cat, Bastet, put to sleep a few days ago.  She was diagnosed about a year and a half ago with lymphoma.  This caused fluid to accumulate around her lungs, squeezing and restricting them.  Treatment with diuretics and anti-inflammatories slowed that accumulation, but it was still necessary to take her in every few months and get some of that excess fluid drained from around her lungs.  Prognosis at first diagnosis was that she might live another year to two years.

She'd been showing signs of labored breathing and restricted lung capacity again, so I took her in for another draining last week.  This time, though, she didn't show the signs of improvement as with earlier drainings.  In earlier treatments, once the excess fluid was withdrawn, her lungs were able to stretch back to fairly normal capacity.

That didn't happen this time.  X-rays showed her lungs weren't re-expanding, but staying cramped and restricted.  She'd reached the limits of her ability to recover from the effects of the disease.

It wasn't unexpected, but it was still sad to let her go.  She was a pretty sweet cat.  Never much for laps, but sometimes at night, when Hilde or I were laying on our backs, she'd climb on our chests (usually Hilde's) and nestle there for a while.

Bastet as kitten, 2003

Bastet grown, around 2010

We still have four cats in the household, tho' only Tyr and Sethra are "ours".  (Cassie is Tabbi's cat, while Aliera laid claim to James and Paul after she and Sethra were added to the household following our friend Anne's death in 2009.)  If we end up adopting another cat, it might well be another black cat, just because there's still a stupid stigma about black cats with a lot of people, making it harder to find people willing to adopt them..

Life of Washington

Slightly late, for Presidents Day:

What?  This never happened?  Well, damn it, it should have!

Found at mercyhurstuniverstitylibraries.

Game of Sartres

Dash It All

Amazon recently offered some of George Orwell's books as Kindle Daily Deals.  The Kindle edition of DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON bears a number of negative reviews, not because of Orwell or what he wrote, but because of excessive typos and because the Kindle edition's text was apparently taken from the old 1972 Harcourt edition, wherein naughty words were dashed out to protect the sensibilities of the fragile public.  Reviewer Brian Scearce provided an excerpt from a chapter dealing with, oh dear, naughty words:

“For example, ——. The Londoners do not now use, or very seldom use, this word in its original meaning; it is on their lips from morning till night, but it is a mere expletive and means nothing. Similarly with ——, which is rapidly losing its original sense. One can think of similar instances in French—for example, ——, which is now a quite meaningless expletive. The word——, also, is still used occasionally in Paris, but the people who use it, or most of them, have no idea of what it once meant.”

One is tempted to exclaim "WTF?"  Or, in Harcourtspeak, "---?"

Arpaio Does It Again

On Saturday, a local training exercise for law enforcement personnel, on how to respond to an active school shooter situation was held at an empty school.  The exercise was put together by our well-known and/or infamous Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arapio, with an assist by  former action movie star Steven Seagal.  Story and video here.

I'm not going to object to LEOs being taught how to respond to this type of situation, or even to the use of washed-up celebrities to get more media coverage.  It's just that, when I saw the video on local news, I couldn't help noticing, well....

Most school shooting situations involve actual students as the shooter.  Most of those student-shooter situations involve only one weapon, usually a handgun.  Heavily-armed shooters  and adult outsiders coming into a school, as in the Newtown shootings, are relatively rare. 

Oh, and one other thing: If you Google an image search for "school shooting mugshots", what you end up with is an overwhelming field of white faces, with only occasional appearances by black, brown, or other ethnicities.

So what type of person gets cast as the shooter in Arpaio's training exercise?  That's right: A Big Black Scary Guy.  Who appeared to be about 30-40.  And who carried multiple weapons and an ammo bag.

Of course that's who Arapio cast.  He just can't help himself.  It's been his pattern for decades.  If there's a chance to make a dogwhistle about black or brown people, he takes it.

And the saddest part?  He keeps getting reelected, and reelected, and reelected.

Doing Better

Saw doctor Wednesday, had a tentative diagnosis of pneumonia, prescribed antibiotics and told to stay off work until Monday.  Recovery in progress.  Still short-winded and rather lacking in endurance, but I can get some light stuff done.  Managed to catch up with laundry yesterday.  Later today (Sunday) I have to get to the grocery store; a trip was already overdue when I got sick a week ago, and we've run out of even more items since then.  The grocery trip should let me know how difficult going back to work will be.  (It's not a strenuous job, it's just pretty continuous.)  Workplace requires FMLA paperwork to authorize a return to work if someone's off more than three days, so I'll probably have to have a follow-up appointment with the doctor.

Everyone else in the house has come down with the crud, too, to greater or lesser extents.  While speculation as to who infected who may be entertaining, I've decided that "I Blame Society" is the best response.

Considering how many people in the household got sick so quickly, I found myself wondering if it wouldn't be suitable to hire someone with a horse and wagon to drive up and down the street outside, shouting "Bring out your dead!  Bring out your dead!"  (I must be getting better; my sense of humor is getting sicker.) (i.e., normal)

Later:  Grocery trip went fine, came home a little tired but not badly.  I should be okay going back to work in the next few days.

Creeping Crud

After a couple of completely miserable days, I've improved to the point of semi-miserable.  I came down with the respiratory crap everyone else has been having lately.  Judging by other  people's experience, I'll continue to have fatigue, headache, congestion and occasional coughing for several weeks before it clears completely, but at least I can do more than lay in bed like I've mostly done since Sunday morning.

Update, Tuesday afternoon: Spoke too soon.  Several hours this morning with the worst chills and shakes I've ever had.  Time to see the doctor.