I just got an e-mail from a good friend (who doesn’t write often enough) who is led to believe some “very advanced physics” must be underway at her undergraduate alma mater, as the subject line read: “Limited time travel discount.”
Now, I have traveled a bit in time, and spent hours at a go living in the <a href="http://www.sca.org/">European Middle Ages </a>and during the <a href="http://www.stonewallbrigade.com/3
Some years back, at <a href="http://www.massart.edu/">_my_ undergraduate alma mater,</a> a memo was circulated addressing time travel (or more precisely, trans-temporal delivery) and was headed, “Needing it by yesterday.” It included a complex formula which (so the memo’s author claimed) proved that delivery “by yesterday,” though a short time chronologically, would in fact require the energy output of a small sun for at least a year. Conversely, delivery by, say, 500 million years ago would only require the power needed to heat a pot of coffee on a hotplate. Hence (the author concluded) professors shouldn’t expect anything to be delivered earlier than the Jurassic Period, and to package it accordingly.
The key word in the e-mail she received is "limited." This could refer to how far back or forward in time a person could be sent, or how long a person would stay where and when they were sent, or how much of the person could be sent or retrieved. Perhaps my friend’s undergraduate alma mater is conducting their research using something like the Z machine, which can produce a powerful electric discharge of several tens of millions of amperes – sufficient to produce a needed item by the turn of the last century – but only for less than 100 nanoseconds (your time may vary), making the prospects of surviving the trip intact a little dicey (no pun intended). Perhaps that’s why her alumni office is offering a “discount”?
In any case, I’ve advised her not to get her hopes up. Recreational time travel is unlikely to be safe or affordable until the advent of relatively (pun intended) sophisticated retrieval systems and personal Class G stars.
Which brings me to what I’d like for Christmas…
This is in response to a posting in antoniseb's journal
I'm a pretty good calligrapher and painter of miniatures. I just do it very rarely these days. I used to do a lot, in the SCA. That's the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval recreation group. I used to live on the East Coast, in Boston and New York, which are part of the SCA's East Kingdom. For the past twenty years I've lived in Indiana, which is part of the SCA's Middle Kingdom.
In some ways, the Northeast's and Midwest's regional attitudes are reflected in the way the East and Middle Kingdoms consider calligraphy. In the Northeast, a certain amount of overt challenge is expected in social dealings. Grappling with issues verbally is a means to an organization's progress. In the Midwest, challenge is avoided, and harmony is sought. This reflects a strong tradition of boosterism and community service.
For example, a woman walks into a medieval event wearing a gown. In the East Kingdom, one person turns to another and says, "I wouldn't watch dogs fuck, in that dress." In the Middle Kingdom, one person turns to another and says, "My, that dress is...different." "Yuppers." Harmony, and restraint.
It is the wont of artists to wrestle with history, to come to some terms with how the work of their short lives will give those lives meaning by living on in posterity. I was taught in art school that art works should make a case, should pose problems and be answers to those problems. So when I did scrolls for the SCA, I felt of course I was helping to advance an art among the group; but I really hoped also that my work (and that of my students and others) would last until the SCA became just a bunch of funny-looking armor and clothes in a museum, that it would make a case to posterity, and say something about this odd bunch. While I lived and worked in the East Kingdom, this seemed possible. Since moving to the Midwest, it has become impossible. Here, scrolls don't make a case to anyone. They are, in the words of scribes here, "gifts to the Crown" (i.e. to the king and queen of the kingdom). They could be great art, or medicore scribblings, it doesn't matter. A scroll is there to be a gift, to show the Crown in a good light, and to be an example of service to the organization.
I'm frustrated by the context my kingdom's culture imposes on these potential works of art. It is the immediate context of the court and the reign of a particular king and queen (six months), rather than the historical context of the Middle Kingdom or the SCA (40-odd years and counting). So I don't find it worth my time any more to do scrolls, here.
"Gone to play poker. Back when I run out of clothes. -- Your Muse."
I have told some of you that I am working on a new story, applying some alternate history to the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Just as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling reconfigured the stories of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace to bring about computer technology during the Victorian Era, so I am searching for Islamic mathematicianswho might have been able to counter them. My first candidate: Mehmet Nadir, Turkish amateur mathematician and professional educator, one of the few Turkish mathematicians to establish correspondence with Western mathematicians and be published in the West.
Born about 1856/57, Nadir grew up in poor circumstances on the island of Chios off the coast of Anatolia, he was adopted by a ferryboat captain and enrolled in a military school in Bursa. He turned out to be brilliant at math, and continued his education at the Kuleli military school in Istanbul, and graduated from the Naval Academy as a lieutenant. At first appointed to the Chamber of the Council of the First Admiralty, he proved too independent in character for the military, and was transferred after less than a year to the Naval Academy as an instructor. While he quickly developed a reputation for exacting teaching, he suddenly abandoned his position in early 1879 and went to Britain. Upon returning two years later he was imprisoned for a year for dereliction of duty, and discharged at the end of his sentence. He turned then to private education, again becoming successful, founding the progressive coeducational school Numunei Terakki in 1884. During his 13 years as director he wrote articles for the Turkish press on education and science, established his correspondence with Westerners, and translated Shakespeare into Turkish for the first time. In 1897 a plot was uncovered to dethrone the Sultan, in which he and several others at his school were involved. His school was taken over, and he was transferred to a special palace school and, after a revolt there in 1902, sent to Aleppo in Syria. He was allowed to return to Istanbul in 1912, but had difficulty finding work until former students came to his assistance. In 1919 he was appointed to the new chair for number theory at Istanbul University, and he taught there until his death.
My research on steampunk seems to show I am a decade or so behind the wave; but it also shows thh dystopian (though stylish) worlds created by these authors don't say much about Islam, or about how answers to such postulated problems as cybernetic implants, addictions, universal surveillance, or any mix of these, might be approached through non-Western moral and religious systems.
Or through non-Western music.
On the subject of steampunk, this link to the exhibit of steampunk fashion at the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University -- just copy it and paste it in your favorite search engine:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NFa71SQDIsk/Sm
Consider the first 'Harry potter" book. In its first few chapters we are introduced to three "bad guys" who will be there through the whole series. First, Draco -- one of Harry's classmates, he's the same age intellectually and emotionally. He is the inescapable school bully, who always has it in for Harry, in ways specific to kids of the same age, and he can be encountered at any moment. Second, Snape -- a teacher who treats most of his students rudely, he reserves special spite for Harry. Even though Harry meets with him only in controlled circumstances for only a few hours a week, Snape's effect is more devastating because he betreays a child's trust in an adult, manipulating the rules and denying the legitimacy of Harry's account of events. Third, Voldemort -- mysterious and absolutely lethal, his trail from the past marks so much in the first book, and his reappearance confirms he has not gone away and is still out to kill Harry.
So, three "bad guys" working in three spheres (the everyday, the special sessions, and the behind-the-scenes) and at three levels (simple physical abuse and treachery, psychological abuse, and psychotic murder). Suggestions for some alternatives?
Some of my friends have been coming down on the conservative Christian community in the US for expressing, not joy, but perhaps satisfaction with Dr. Tiller's death at the hands of one of their own. I like to play devil's advocate now and then, so remember, I am a liberal voter and usually in that camp.
In the absence of a firm scientific position on when life begins (and perhaps in spite of one, were one to be taken), religious conservatives hold to what their faith tells them. (Question: It's not automatically wrong to hold to one's faith, is it?) So, holding to their faith, they maintain unborn children deserve to live, on the basis of Biblical evidence and moral authority. (Question: It's not automatically wrong to want anyone, including unborn children, to have a chance at life, is it?) Maintaining this, they further maintain that those who deprive unborn children of life are doing serious moral wrong, and are working to make those actions legally wrong as well. (Question: It's not wrong to fight for justice based on your moral convictions, is it?) Hence the basis of their condemnation of Dr. Tiller. BTW news reports are saying that almost every conservative religious group has condemned the murder as such -- none of them has claimed the accused killer as a member, or condoned his actions, as a terrorist organization would.
The hypocracy of course begins with limiting the "right to life" (group responsibility for a fetus ends at birth, murderers deserve the death penalty, etc), or believing uncritically, on the basis of moral conviction, that your group has the only legitimate answer to a moral question. I'd like to point out that, for each question I asked above, we liberal voters can supply a number of historical deeds or movements of which we approve, which have answered, "Not only is it not wrong, it is the only right thing to do."
The original Ruritania features in the late 1890s novels of Anthony Hope (beginning with Prisoner of Zenda) and became the setting for many novels by other writers, grouped under the sub-genre of Ruritanian Romances. In these novels, Ruritania is an exotic and comfortably threatening place in which love can overcome challenges from the power-hungry. Vesna Goldsworthy (Reading Ruritania) goes further, suggesting that Western Europe's ideas of culture and the exotic, and sense of cultural superiority, find reflections in the stereotypical depictions of an imaginary Eastern European country.
I don't want these stories to fall into that. I want the country I imagine to be a quirky but deep place people want to visit over and over (good for sales, that). But I also want it to be true to those countries that do exist, and the problems which documentably affect their citizens. Eastern Orthodoxy, Soviet-era apartment complexes, imagining democracy amidst a plutocracy, economic problems and solutions, and the fate of older folk culture in a popular-culture era. I have something in mind like Ursula LeGuin's Malafrena, but I can't seem to get there yet.
But another problem is, how do I deal with serious real world issues, in particular with people smuggling, in a young adult book?
It might seem simple. A kid is kidnapped, and other kids go to the rescue. Erich Kaestner did this in "Emil and the Detectives; O. Henry switched the plot around in "The Ransom of Red Chief."
But human trafficking is a very unhumorous business. Kids and adults are sold into slavery; girls in particular, through beatings and rapings, are turned into prostitutes. It's not kid stuff. But that is what would happen, if a kid were kidnapped today in some countries. How could other kids rescue someone in that situation? It is the stuff of horror, of body snatchers and horrible transformations, and friends become monsters. How do I make that suffering real, in a fantasy country, in a young adult novel?
This relates to another argument, about how artists (and writers) have to suffer in order to do goot art. As i wrote elsewhere: I remember seeing the “suffering artist” myth pop up in the old cartoon “Beanie and Cecil.” (Anyone remember that one?) Cecil, a sea serpent, wants to become a beat artist, and his nemesis Dishonest John tells him great artists have to suffer, and proceeds to make him suffer in a variety of cartoon ways. Not recommended for real life.
And yet, people who have experienced suffering and can use it to put emotional power into their writing, singing, and painting can make phenomenal stuff. Without prison, would Dostoevsky or Solzehnitsyn be as powerful? Without addiction and life on the street, would William S. Burroughs or Tony O’Neill or Billie Holiday or Marianne Faithfull be as compelling? Without the death of her mother, would J.K. Rowling have succeeded in representing death so successfully in “Harry Potter”?
To counteract the “suffering artist” myth, we have to admit suffering’s role, in life and so in writing, but avoid glamourizing it as though without it you can’t ever be a cool artist, writer, or person.
But to represent suffering, and tell how kids overcome it, without havign experienced it? Closest I can think of is Mariane Satrapi's amazing "Persepolis" graphic novels, or Neil Gaiman's "Coraline." Maybe, to take legitimate horror and present it from a kid's-eye view, we need the distance of comic illustrations to make it acceptable for all readers.
You're packing your bag for that other desert island—the one with no electricity—what 5 books do you take with you? Submitted By |
2. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)
3. Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Bronislaw Malinowsky)
4. Noa Noa, a Tahitian journal (Paul Gaugin)
5. A good colletion of color reproductions of Gaugin's Tahitian paintings
I found a few Muse-related comments on two writers' blogs yesterday. Neither "has a Muse," and neither have anything good to say about Them. Nonetheless, I recommend their articulate, witty, and Muse-free blogs (and books).
The first is from Justine Larbalestier, the author of a trilogy of YA books about magic as well as the new 'How To Ditch your Fairy." "Trouble is," she writes, "all the muse talk makes it sound like ideas and inspiration are the most important part of writing, which, sadly, is rubbish." It's really you doing all the grunt work (she's in the middle of grunt work right now, writing a sequel).
http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/?p=1
The second is a link from her site to Maureen Johnson's blog, who is the author of "13 Little Blue Envelopes" and several other YA-Girl books. Johnson is forthright: "DEATH TO MUSES." She writes how Muses never ever EVER help out when you run into "the Great Wall of Sucktitude" (aka writer's block), and it's really you doing all the grunt work (she too is in the middle of sequel grunt work).
http://maureenjohnson.blogspot.com/2008/0
Well, both writers divide the task of writing into "ideas" (both have theories about where the ideas come from, but none involve Muses) and "grunt work" (and no Muses are involved there either). My testimony on Muses involved a lot of metaphorical banging-head-against-wall while in a state of sleep deprivation (aka grunt work), the question "What do I do now?" and then an answer I perceived as aural (i.e. I Heard Voices). I stand by it, gals. My Muses didn't/don't do my grunt work. They didn't/don't give me my ideas. They answered a specific question about the direction I should take to make a particular piece of art better. And it was cool.
Gals, are you both sure this hasn't happened to you?
Hoping someday to be facing the "Great Wall of Sucktitude" with your grit on the way to my first book,
- John
When I was in art school, I had a moment of high inspiration. I was spending my third night working on an abstract film, a film which would make sense as a non-verbal narrative. Just like some music does. To work best, I had to present the colors and abstract shapes in just the right way. So watched the shapes roil about over and over again through the film viewer, over the course of three nights. By the third night, I had arranged my footage into two sections, and I was trying and trying to link them with the footage that remained. And I had two or three options on how to visually link them. And I heard a voice answer me, just like I had asked a question, "This way will work best." And sure enough it did. I was about to answer, "thanks," when I realized I was alone in the studio. There were a few students in the studio next door, and I told them about this. They hadn't said anything like what I'd heard, but they were not suprized. "Yeah, I;ve had that happen."
Since then I haven't looked at art-making in the same way. I'm convinced it is possible to literally hear the Muses advise you. I've told a few people about this -- amateur painters, costumers, writers -- and they've raised their eyebrows and shaken their heads; "He's hearing voices." And I've shaken mine; "They'll never hear the Muses."
Please be warned: I am working on a set of novels, and I will talk about them here from time to time. This is the first time.
I started writing them two years ago, while waiting for J.K. Rowling to get the final Harry Potter book done. I found myself spending too much time drawing charts and trying to figure out where her plot would go, and I said, "Hell, why don't I just write my own plot?"
And now I read a good many fantasy and Young Adult (YA) books, and can recommend Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Justine Larbalestier (feel free to recommend some others).
So: my books are about magic (yeah, another batch of those...) and the kids who use it (or who don't). And after writing three detailed outlines for three different books on this theme, I chucked them aside and began the fourth, which I am quite pleased with.
I will pose (this time) just one question I am wrestling with, and I encourage replies: Why do bad things happen to good magic-users?
Take care,
- John
1. Thanks for dropping by! In return for visiting, I will try and post once every two days one something interesting. Please take note: I define "interesting."
2. Almost all of my entries are unlocked. I will say nothing I wouldn't otherwise say in public.
3. Feel free to link any of my entries you like. But please, give credit where credit is due.
4. I appreciate all comments -- wait, let me rephrase that. I appreciate all intentions to comment; I may not like what you actually decide to say. But go ahead and say it, with the caveats below:
5. Caveats: Politeness Man says, 'Always be polite!" And the Mageland County Volunteer Firemen say, "No flames!"
6. I will sometimes sign off as "John" and sometimes as "Johannes." The curious will receive an explanation.
7. "Night Song of a Fish" is a concrete poem by Christian Morgenstern. Check him out.
-- John
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