We returned home one year from a worldcon (world science fiction convention, for those who may not know the nomenclature)—I forget which year—and promptly I lost a book. Or a box of books. You see, we’d early on gotten into the habit of mailing our purchases home rather than try to take boxes of books on the plane. (The first worldcon we went to in 1984 resulted in about three hefty boxes going back, all of which cost around a hundred and fifty dollars. Today that much would fit in one (small) box.) This system worked pretty well until this time.…
Pack Ratting
Apropos of nothing, I have just finished putting (in order) all my LOCUS Magazines. I have nearly a complete run from 1982 to the present. They all but this current year fit in three 38 qt. Rubbermaid storage containers. Did I say I put them in order?
I’m keeping my LOCUS collection. I also have two other magazine collections I’m thinking of keeping (though I have no idea why, really). I have a nearly complete run of OMNIs from Issue One to about 1989, when the magazine got really too stupid. I also have a set of a magazine called GEO, which originally belonged to Earline, the woman who trained my as a photofinisher. …
More Quotes
I should point out that some of the quotes I’m putting up are my own thoughts, based on something I read. So anything unattributed is probably mine. With that in mind, here are a few more.
…Numbers suggest, constrain, and refute; they do not, by themselves, specify the content of scientific theories.
H.H. Goddard and Robert Yerkes and Lewis Teman managed to supply the U.S. Government with a supposedly scientific basis for passing the strict immigration laws of 1924 that effectively kept millions of Europeans from coming here where Hitler was coming to power. They had nowhere to flee, since American I.Q.
Quotes and Musings
As salve for the more astringent posts preceding, I thought I’d start putting up a series of some of my favorite quotes. I began keeping these on a pad of legal paper years ago, anytime I came across something I really liked, thinking maybe one day I could use them as epigrams. Well, the pages are starting to tear and I need to put them in some more permanent form. So I’m going to put them here. And continue the practice online. Some days I may just put up one, others I’ll do a few.
Bear in mind that in many instances I do not necessarily agree with the sentiments expressed. …
Georgia On My Mind
Just when we thought it was a good time to buy one of those magnificent, Soviet-era dachas in Georgia, this happens.
We’re getting the updates on the most spectacular round of this event, but the fact is this has been brewing since the break up of the Soviet Union. Georgia couldn’t wait to get out from under Russia’s thumb, where it had been for two centuries at least. That they could not understand the desire on the part of the Ossetians and Abkhazzians to get out from under their thumb is proof that willful blindness, when politically inspired, is alive in all parts of the world.…
Equality and History
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.Â
Elitism
In a previous post I talked about merit. It seems this election ability and expertise are hot topics. McCain has decided to attack Obama as Elitist. One wonders if he has any idea what that means.
To be utterly dismissive about it, it seems to mean that Obama speaks with an educated accent, uses words precisely, and refrains from talking to his audience as though they had only an eighth-grade education.
Unfortunately, we can’t be dismissive about it, because this sort of attack has historically played well in this country, and not always for the same reason.
Let’s start with Websters, though:
…Elite: Those who are choice or select; the best; a kind of typewriter having twelve characters to the linear inch.
The Election
Superlatives aside, I think everyone can agree that we have one those Major Elections coming up that are purported to mark Turning Points in History. We’ve seen many so touted that weren’t. It may be that the presidents involved in those Non Major Elections went on to be remarkable due to what transpired under their administrations, but that doesn’t turn their elections into something that could have been recognized as Turning Points. In a smaller sense, all presidential elections are turning points, because by the nature of our system we can mark shifts in historical currents handily under the heading of who is in the White House when the hairpin switchback came on us.…
Old Stuff
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. …
Joy, Chagrine, and a Pretty Good Life
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. …