Mark W Tiedemann

Category: Life

Equality and History

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

This will be brief.  Going along with my last couple of quotes concerning the election and all that it implies this year, I thought I’d post one of my very favorite quotes.  This comes from a wonderful book about the Heroic Myths of the Greeks, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso.  I recommend this to anyone struggling with mythology and origin motifs and the history of so many things Hellenic we take for granted.  Anyway, this quote is one of those “obvious” things we usually forget about when dealing at a fever pitch with, you know, equality.

Equality only comes into being through initiation. 

…
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Old Stuff

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Still cleaning things out, emptying closets.  Unearthing a lot of Old Stuff int he process.  I’ve never been good at keeping journals or diaries, but I’ve tried from time to time.  Occasionally, when I go through one of these housecleaning fits, I find them, sad fragments, disconnected sometimes by years, even decades, a few weeks, maybe a couple of months consecutively recorded, and now…

I’m finding things from before Clarion, before 1988, when I was still trying on my own to break into writing—into publishing, I should say.  Spiral notebooks filled with cryptic notes, phone numbers, names now forgotten, and story fragments, as well as the personal expression of profound frustration. …

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Joy, Chagrine, and a Pretty Good Life

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I’m deeply into major clean-up mode.  It’s long past time.  Procrastination is the root of all dross and accumulation.  We buy bigger dwellings because, as George Carlin pointed out, we need someplace to put our Stuff.

I am of mixed feelings about this, though.  I’ve been emptying the two big closets in the basement.  A great deal of this has been little more than taking things out of one box, which was only half or less full, and putting them in another box with similar things that also was not full.  Almost as much, there’s been a lot of throwing out. …

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Merit and Fear

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

We like to believe, as Americans, that this country is a meritocracy. The idea—Horatio Alger, Thomas Edison, McGuyver, all emblematic of this notion—that the best qualified rise to the top, that those who can display and apply ability, skill, and intelligence are the ones who are selected—either by themselves or through the recognition of society—to do important jobs and that this, as opposed to elitist canards like family or school affiliation or looks or race, counts for more in this society. We like to believe that we judge people by their competence, not other things. It’s a driving national myth.

We like to tell ourselves that such people are Heroes.…

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Coffey (revisited)

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Another repost. It’s a few days early for Coffey’s anniversary—June 18, 2005—but I’ve got a busy week next week, so I’m putting this up now. I will say, that after a rocky start, Coffey settled into a fine companion. She still has too much energy, but she’s a sweet animal and so good-natured as to be a model of canine affection. Anyway, on to the main thing…

 

It’s time. It’s been more than a year, hell, it’s been almost two
years, since our friend Kory passed away. The memorial
piece for her has been up…well, too long. I’ve been busy.It’s

…
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Anniversaries

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

This is another repost from a long-ago Distal Muse.  But I’m adding a bit to it.  Yesterday was Donna’s birthday.

Anyone who knows me, knows that Donna is the love of my life.  There really is no other way to describe it.  Ours was a slowly-built relationship, a curious and unlikely collaboration that resulted in…well, we’ve been together for 28 years.  I think that should say enough.  She has supported my efforts, enjoyed the results, and more often has been the sole source of smiles in an otherwise grim time.  She’s my best friend, among other things.

One of the things she wanted was a dog. …

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Sex, Gor, and The Good Stuff

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

The subject of John Norman’s Gor  came up recently in a letter from a long-lost cousin.  He wrote me about SF and different tastes and he mentioned this peculiar series and I thought, Damn, I haven’t thought about that since 1997.

I can name the year and even the week fairly precisely because I was in San Antonio Texas for the worldcon that year and ended up sharing an autographing session with John Norman.  I’d arrived at the table first, saw the name tags, and thought It couldn’t be…

But it was.

For those who may not know of Gor, this was a series of novels published through the Seventies which I can only describe as a combination of Conan and The Arabian Nights as if written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in collaboration with the Marquis de Sade. …

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Back

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

We came back from New Mexico last Thursday.  The plane was slightly late getting off the ground, but we were only fifteen minutes’ behind upon landing.  It was one of the more pleasant plane trips I’ve had—as uneventful as one could hope for.  My sprained ankle is almost healed, but it wasn’t when we flew out, and the cramped space between seat rows meant I had to keep my feet rigid for almost two hours, which played havoc with my ankle.  On the return flight I managed to get a seat in the emergency exit row, which is more spacious, so I could stretch my legs. …

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Evolution & Morality III

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

[Last of the trio. After this, I promise, something brand new. Enjoy.]

Here is the link to the district court ruling in the Dover, PA trial about so-called Intelligent Design. It is worth reading in full. Basically, the judge threw out the claim by the defendants, that evolution is “merely a theory” and that Intelligent Design is somehow legitimate science.

This, of course, settles nothing in the long run. The true believers who pulled this stunt to begin with will not be persuaded, nor will they long shut up. That’s fine, that’s their prerogative, and it’s as should be in this country.…

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Evolution & Morality II

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

[The second part, still a repost.  Next week I’ll repost part three, and then on to something new.]

I’ve been prompted to do a follow-up on this by the events in Dover, PA and Kansas.  Not news anymore, but to recap, the trial in Dover over the school board’s insertion of Intelligent Design into public school science curriculum is over.  The judge won’t hand down his decision till January, probably, but in the immediate aftermath, the citizens of Dover ousted the entire school board and replaced them with less insidiously doctrinaire people.

I say insidious, because this can no longer be seen as well-intentioned people blundering into controversy unawares. …

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