Proximal Eye – Page 8 – Mark W Tiedemann

Why Read

December 11, 2021 No Comments

In light of the last few years, the question bites. Indulge me in a venting plea. In my experience, limited though it is, I have found that the better read a person is, the more likely they will be to cope with reality, to defend against the twisting delights of both conspiracy theory and pseudoscience, and to be less vulnerable to charlatanry. Not always. Some deceptions come wrapped in marvelous packages that can appeal to the puzzle-solver in us all and present as aesthetically compelling. In my own life I have followed white rabbits in tweed down a number of holes, some part of me convinced that truth lay in some hidden recess along the way. I have been relegated to many sidelines since childhood because of reading, sidelines which at the time seemed harsh and unfair, but in retrospect were actually relatively safe places. Time and space are necessary for a mind to develop. Exposure to stimulating material does

Scandal In Romania

November 17, 2021 No Comments

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Nick and Nora Charles, Charles and Kate Sheridan, and in one unexpected offering Clark Gable and Carole Lombard—all have one thing in common: they are all detective marriages. Husband and wife teams, solving crimes, bringing their own domestic wrinkles to the task. Agatha Christie even wrote one, Tommy & Tuppence, as did Elizabeth Peters. The couple that solves crime together is more common than might first be suspected. And all of them have the unexpected about them, aspects of their relationship that would seem to make it unlikely, unstable, or unmanageable. And yet, they work. The hallmark of these couples, of course, is the combined ability to solve murders, but that is only an aspect of what may be the chief attraction—for them and for the reader. Along with all the other (presumed) pleasures of the relationship, the intellectual rises to the top as an aspect of love. Unspoken though it may be in

Seeking Meaning In Sand

October 24, 2021 No Comments

I have not yet seen the new film version of Dune. I may write about it after I do, although it is not the entire story. What I am interested in here is the ongoing obsession with the novel. This will be the third cinematic iteration. Famously, there are two uncompleted versions, one by Jodowrosky and another by Ridley Scott. We know how far the former came because there is a fascinating documentary about it, but as for Scott’s version there are mainly rumors and statements that he wanted to do one. Personally, I would have been interested to see that one—I very much like Ridley Scott’s palette: even those of his films that don’t quite work for other reasons I find wonderful to look at—and in some ways he has perhaps played around the edges of it through his Alien franchise. (The first film starts on a world that might have been Arakkis, the second is evocative of Gede

Strange New Worlds

September 18, 2021 No Comments

Fifty-five years ago a television show appeared that changed everything. it didn’t seem like it at the time. It was clumsy, but for the time it was a marvel of production values. The scripts were occasionally tortured constructs, the characters stiff, the plots absurd. It lasted three seasons, got canceled, and drifted into the twilight zone of fondly-remembered might-have-beens. Then fandom took over, kept it alive, and eventually it was revived. Not in the way of retreads, as those we see today—reboots that quite often, though with better production values, are not exactly new—but in a resumption. We’ve gotten used to some of this today, what with franchise switching from one network to another, evading cancellation. We’ve even gotten used to quality reboots. But Star Trek was the first to do all this successfully, in several incarnations. I recently finished viewing the third season of Star Trek: Discovery and then began a rewatch of the original series. It has become

Fifty Years of Blue

June 27, 2021 No Comments

Anniversaries of album releases usually do not prompt me to comment, other than a personal “My ghod, has it been that long already?” Part of it has to do with my ongoing assessments of important albums—the fact of the work means far more than when it first appeared. But lately I’ve been worrying at a musical issue which has brought distinct periods into focus and after listening to some of the commentary on the 50th Anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s Blue some thoughts have finally come into focus. So. Blue is fifty. To my embarrassment (somewhat) I was largely unaware of this album the year it came out. I was not then particularly invested in Joni Mitchell. Folk music, broadly speaking, was not of much interest to me. There was overlap, certainly: Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, Tom Rush, and Eric Anderson all impinged by way of other forms, and created a gestalt in which a wide array of artists were

2020 and Reading for Purpose

January 1, 2021 No Comments

In a year that felt more like some surreal historical melodrama that ought to be safely turned into a documentary rather than something to cling to the future like a belly-full of bad booze, what we read may have been one of the most important choices we were able to make. Our lives constrained by a pandemic, we may have lived more vicariously than ever before, but we also dealt with the world as a landscape of impending doom in ways that perhaps our parents and grandparents may have in different ways, but was unique in the manner of it collision with reality and ignorance. I think it fair to say that never before has so much information, understanding, and intellectual resource been so available to so many and yet rejected in turn to such a degree as to challenge one’s sanity. It seemed like the more we knew, the more concrete things we could say about so many things,

The Relevance of Science Fiction

October 29, 2020 No Comments

Kingsley Amis, in his book on science fiction, named Frederik Pohl as possibly the best practitioner of the craft. For some inside the field, it was a curious choice, but over time it has become difficult to deny. Pohl had one of the longest careers in SF, working at one time or another in just about every aspect of the genre—writer, agent, editor, certainly promoter. His novel Gateway is still one of the most memorable and poignant reads ever produced in the field and his work as editor of Galaxy and If brought many superb writers in. He was also one of the great collaborators. He worked with Jack Williamson, Thomas T. Thomas, Isaac Asimov, Lester Del Rey. But perhaps his best collaborations were with Cyril Kornbluth. Especially The Space Merchants. Much has been written about the so-called “predictive” qualities of science fiction. Those familiar with the field weary of this. The whole point of science fiction is speculation based

The Color of Sound

June 16, 2020 No Comments

Ages ago, it seems, I stumbled onto a band that opened up for me the possibilities of what music could be. Band. That word connotes things which seem oddly inadequate for this. Back in 1973 I bought two records from a local store I favored (Play It Again Records, now long gone). I may have been advised to get them or it may simply have been the covers and the length of the tracks. I used a number of questionable metrics back then to find music, because not all of it was being played on the radio, and frankly almost none of my peers were into some of things I was into. What I was into I later learned was called Progressive Rock. In 1973, my favorite bands were, in no particular order, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Santana, and Chicago. But I also owned Switched-On Bach and someone had told me about Beaver & Krause. As my

Mark W. Tiedemann

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The Proximal Eye