Monday, April 30, 2012
Tasseomancy
When we switched tea brands (the store was out of the black tea I normally get), I needed to add milk to my morning mega-mug of caffeine (Mark was a dear to buy tea when we ran out, but he likes his blends with more bite than I do).
After I added the milk (pause to wonder if the milk should be poured first and then the tea...) sometimes I would see little images turning within the cobalt darkness of the mug. Then I would either channel my inner Centauri Noblewoman and whisper prophecies about the Shadows, or else I would channel Stevie Nicks and sing "Now here I go again, I have a crystal vision..." (pause to imagine Stevie Nicks as a Centauri Noblewoman).
After a week or so, I thought, "Hey! I could tweet these." So I have.
April 20 - This morning's tasseography: a dog, a mask, an animated speaker with hand gestures. (This one sort of came true, in that shortly afterward, I saw a mask (actually a bicycle banana-seat with handle-bar horns) that looked like the mask in the teacup.)
April 21 - Today's tasseogaphy (to Wagner): a rose, three circles in a triskellion, a sled, an Art Nouveau woman in harem pants.
April 22 - Today's tasseogaphy: three dolphins, sort of like a saint Brendan cross. And... um, milk diffusing into the tea. (This one also sort of came true, in that we were listening to a book on tape, and St. Brendan's Cross being mentioned.)
April 23 - Today's tasseogaphy (to Beethoven): X and O - a tic-tac-toe game; broken glass (from a rock?); colliding worlds, colliding electrons.
April 24 - Today's tasseogaphy: very swirly roses, two dolphins, an eye (vaguely Egyptian), and a hawk-like bird's profile. (Too early to signify the UO Osprey Nest at Hayward Field, as that happened the next day...)
April 25 - Today's tasseography: a nose, a - er, Freudian image. Later a giraffe, a longhorn steer with someone riding it. (Let me tell you, that Freudian image was burgeoning, too).
April 26 - Today's tasseography: Hmm. Difficult to see. Always in motion is future. Just a funnel of milk spinning in tea.
April 27 - Today's tasseography: an elongated monogram combining J and M, which turned around and became a swimming long-necked dinosaur. (Maybe Mark and I will go to Loch Ness....)
April 28 - Today's tasseography: an open sled on curled runners being pulled by an antlered reindeer.
April 29 - Today's tasseography: a rearing white horse. Then lots of bat-winged dragons with serpentine necks and chomping jaws. (I was hoping that I'd see the dragons - there was a whole flock of them, with a really detailed close-up of the last dragon's muzzel.)
While I am hopeful that what I interpret in the mug might happen, I'm not holding my breath. What I notice looking over this is that sleds, horns, steers, wings and bird-shapes seem to be a trend. Dripping milk off of a spoon produces primarily rings and also numbers like 3 6 8 and 9. Also, if I stir my tea too vigorously, the milk turns into a flower shape.
My friends noticed the tasseomancy. In a recent Facebook exchange, one of my friends, JB, said, "You must have lots of fun during Rorschach Tests." To which I replied, "You know, I've never taken one." His conclusion was, "Oh, I think you are ALWAYS taking one."
I think I need to put that into my e-mail signature.
After I added the milk (pause to wonder if the milk should be poured first and then the tea...) sometimes I would see little images turning within the cobalt darkness of the mug. Then I would either channel my inner Centauri Noblewoman and whisper prophecies about the Shadows, or else I would channel Stevie Nicks and sing "Now here I go again, I have a crystal vision..." (pause to imagine Stevie Nicks as a Centauri Noblewoman).
After a week or so, I thought, "Hey! I could tweet these." So I have.
April 20 - This morning's tasseography: a dog, a mask, an animated speaker with hand gestures. (This one sort of came true, in that shortly afterward, I saw a mask (actually a bicycle banana-seat with handle-bar horns) that looked like the mask in the teacup.)
April 21 - Today's tasseogaphy (to Wagner): a rose, three circles in a triskellion, a sled, an Art Nouveau woman in harem pants.
April 22 - Today's tasseogaphy: three dolphins, sort of like a saint Brendan cross. And... um, milk diffusing into the tea. (This one also sort of came true, in that we were listening to a book on tape, and St. Brendan's Cross being mentioned.)
April 23 - Today's tasseogaphy (to Beethoven): X and O - a tic-tac-toe game; broken glass (from a rock?); colliding worlds, colliding electrons.
April 24 - Today's tasseogaphy: very swirly roses, two dolphins, an eye (vaguely Egyptian), and a hawk-like bird's profile. (Too early to signify the UO Osprey Nest at Hayward Field, as that happened the next day...)
April 25 - Today's tasseography: a nose, a - er, Freudian image. Later a giraffe, a longhorn steer with someone riding it. (Let me tell you, that Freudian image was burgeoning, too).
April 26 - Today's tasseography: Hmm. Difficult to see. Always in motion is future. Just a funnel of milk spinning in tea.
April 27 - Today's tasseography: an elongated monogram combining J and M, which turned around and became a swimming long-necked dinosaur. (Maybe Mark and I will go to Loch Ness....)
April 28 - Today's tasseography: an open sled on curled runners being pulled by an antlered reindeer.
April 29 - Today's tasseography: a rearing white horse. Then lots of bat-winged dragons with serpentine necks and chomping jaws. (I was hoping that I'd see the dragons - there was a whole flock of them, with a really detailed close-up of the last dragon's muzzel.)
While I am hopeful that what I interpret in the mug might happen, I'm not holding my breath. What I notice looking over this is that sleds, horns, steers, wings and bird-shapes seem to be a trend. Dripping milk off of a spoon produces primarily rings and also numbers like 3 6 8 and 9. Also, if I stir my tea too vigorously, the milk turns into a flower shape.
My friends noticed the tasseomancy. In a recent Facebook exchange, one of my friends, JB, said, "You must have lots of fun during Rorschach Tests." To which I replied, "You know, I've never taken one." His conclusion was, "Oh, I think you are ALWAYS taking one."
I think I need to put that into my e-mail signature.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Buying a Small Piece of Heaven
I went to the Crumpacker Family Library Book Sale.
Entering the Crumpacker Family Library always makes me want to run around like Julie Andrews and sing, "The Hills Are Alive" - only my song would be about how the hills are alive with books books books BOOOOKS! - and then read a book while seated on a ceremonial throne.
Before the doors opened, I met a painter, and we started talking about her paintings and how I hoped I'd run into a really good book on Paleolithic art.
Then the doors opened and I told myself that I wanted to look for books on Paleolithic art and oh, look interior arts -- and no, you're writing Steampunk, so - hey! Art Nouveau! and Oh! 7000 years of Iranian Art!
No. Focus focus focus Burridge! You're writing about fantasy and steampunk and you need to look at source work for the ... ooooh! a book on silver tableware! That's Steampunk, or at least fantasy....
Finding a scholarly book on art that's at a nice price which makes my heart bubble over with bibliophilic avarice.
Everyone was very polite. I helped someone find a book on interior design and the painter's friend handed me a book on European Art History. We were all enablers.
When I think of heaven, it's filled with books. When I think of buying a little bit of heaven, I go a little crazy with divine badness. That was a Freudian slip of the fingers there, but it's probably more correct to say "divine badness" because I really only meant for this to be a dry run on what I would do at the book sale next year -then next thing I knew I had a really huge, heavy stack of older books.
Which I bought.
And they're all my favorite. And I want to read them all. And I can use them for research. And I'm not sure where they will fit on my home shelves. But I am pretty sure Mark is going to start laughing in a few minutes when I walk out of the building with two shopping bags full of second-hand art books.
[editor's note: He did.]
Entering the Crumpacker Family Library always makes me want to run around like Julie Andrews and sing, "The Hills Are Alive" - only my song would be about how the hills are alive with books books books BOOOOKS! - and then read a book while seated on a ceremonial throne.
Before the doors opened, I met a painter, and we started talking about her paintings and how I hoped I'd run into a really good book on Paleolithic art.
Then the doors opened and I told myself that I wanted to look for books on Paleolithic art and oh, look interior arts -- and no, you're writing Steampunk, so - hey! Art Nouveau! and Oh! 7000 years of Iranian Art!
No. Focus focus focus Burridge! You're writing about fantasy and steampunk and you need to look at source work for the ... ooooh! a book on silver tableware! That's Steampunk, or at least fantasy....
Finding a scholarly book on art that's at a nice price which makes my heart bubble over with bibliophilic avarice.
Everyone was very polite. I helped someone find a book on interior design and the painter's friend handed me a book on European Art History. We were all enablers.
When I think of heaven, it's filled with books. When I think of buying a little bit of heaven, I go a little crazy with divine badness. That was a Freudian slip of the fingers there, but it's probably more correct to say "divine badness" because I really only meant for this to be a dry run on what I would do at the book sale next year -then next thing I knew I had a really huge, heavy stack of older books.
Which I bought.
And they're all my favorite. And I want to read them all. And I can use them for research. And I'm not sure where they will fit on my home shelves. But I am pretty sure Mark is going to start laughing in a few minutes when I walk out of the building with two shopping bags full of second-hand art books.
[editor's note: He did.]
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Eugene's Only Victorian House
Today we visited the Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House, a home built in Eugene in 1888. It's easy to forget that we have buildings this old in Eugene.
I liked seeing some of the older items in the SMJ House; it's always interesting to go to a historical source for a Victorian setting.
I found myself comparing SMJ House to Olana. Which really isn't a good comparison, but the attention to interior details prompted me to do so.
What I like about the windows in the front doors is how they use negative space.
The kitchens in Victorian houses are always interesting.
I always forget that the kitchen stove would have used wood as a fuel source, and that the ashes would need to be cleaned out periodically.
There was a large butter churn with a cool gear assembly. I like how the crank wheel has curved struts instead of straight spans. I also wondered if the smaller, five-fold gear might not be original.
The furniture was ornate and it struck me how it didn't look like it had been mass-produced or created by someone's on-line plans and laser-printed.
An old sewing machine, tredal-powered.
What really caught my eye was this medalion. The detailing on this is amazing; and there's no computer chips in the machine. How did they sew?
Here's the sewing machine's tredal mechanism. 
Obligatory old typewriter photo taken by an author. I thought this was a manual typewriter, but it looks like there's an electrical switch on this.
Door plate details. 
Did they mass-produce these by pressing them, or were they cast this way?
Well, there; I can design some electrical face-plate in Blender and then print them out with MakerBot and...Thursday, April 12, 2012
Honor Killings in Fiction
I've been thinking about honor killings in the news and honor-based fictional societies, which has led me to the question, what is it about the Klingon's honor- and shame-based society that makes them cool? I mean, they've got Mauk-to 'Vor (ritual killing of an individual so that his honor can be restored), and the rituals around discommendation affect the honor of a family for seven generations. So how is different from honor killings like the one which happened in Arizona? If the father involved had used a sword instead of a jeep, would that have made it better?
I asked around how and why Klingons were acceptable. One Facebook friend responded "To themselves, they are socially acceptable." A group of writer friends thought that Klingons were more acceptable because their honor killings seemed to be confined to acts of males against other males. (This was followed by an interesting observation about historical romance novels: make the female main character too bold and the historians trash your story for being too modern western; make the female main character an integrated part of her historical society and the feminists trash your story for supporting the patriarchy.)
Thinking about it more, I made an continuum. On the left side I put Sheri S Tepper's Land of the True Game series, because the central moral theme is that parents have a responsibility to make sure their children have souls (the ability to be moral) and kill them if they don't. A little to the right go the Klingons. Further to the right are mediaeval cultures like the Vikings or Knights of Chivalry. And all the way on the right is the Arizona Honor Killer.
What this appears to boil down to is, when do we as readers admire fictional killers? Now I have to figure out where National Geographic specials with hunting lionesses on the serengeti fit in.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Writing Progress
Today was going to be the day when I wrote.... but then I made a stupid mistake syncing a manuscript between Scrivener and SimpleNote and the next thing I knew I was digging through backups to restore an accidentally deleted scene. All I can say is, bless you, Scrivener, for automatically backing up my manuscripts.
On the "It's Not Working Because You're Doing It Wrong" front, I have a writing office that, by bits and pieces over the Winter Holiday, transformed into a junk drawer. I have a bad habit of tossing things I'm not quite sure what to do with into my office; which is literally a spare closet. Icleared out reconfigured the piles of paper and reclaimed the space. Now I have to make the painful decision about what to do with my Very Old Desktop. It has a lot of Illustrator files on it, which I'd like to keep... but if I wiped the hard drive and recycled (or re-purposed) it, I'd probably get an extra three feet back in my writing closet. The goal is to have a space I can write in without hurting my wrists, neck, back or feet, keep my writing and art projects from encroaching on the rest of the house, and that will be able to facilitate more than one project at a time.
Sounds like a day-by-day task...
On the "It's Not Working Because You're Doing It Wrong" front, I have a writing office that, by bits and pieces over the Winter Holiday, transformed into a junk drawer. I have a bad habit of tossing things I'm not quite sure what to do with into my office; which is literally a spare closet. I
Sounds like a day-by-day task...
Monday, April 02, 2012
Mark's Pre-Birthday Sky
This is what the sky will look like the night before Mark's birthday. If it isn't cloudy.
... And there probably won't be a giant grey arrow with a W on it.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Rocks and Peacocks!
We visited Peterson's Rock Museum, near Redmond, Oregon. Mark pointed out that I've been wanting to build something like this ampitheatre in our backyard for... well, actually, something like this anywhere since he's known me.
I was kind of busy photographing peacocks. This is probably the best shot in terms of asthetic design. The one peacock who performed a display dance did so after I'd filled my photo card.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sea Lion Caves 2012-03-25
Today we ended up at the Sea Lion Caves.
They're on the Oregon coast, underneath about 180 feet of basalt cliff. If I'm remembering the signs correctly, the sea lions we saw were mostly cows and calves. The bulls hadn't come back yet, or were too busy somewhere else figuring out how to get a herd of cows for later in the spring.
These sea lions were mostly keeping out of the rain and the storm (and earlier in the week the snow) that was outside the cave.
I'm trying to remember when I was in the caves last. I have a hazy memory of walking down a set of stairs that leads to a viewpoint now. In any case, what these pictures don't convey is the smell, which was salty, sea lion poopy, and dead-fishy. It sounds worse than it actually was; we got used to it quickly and it really wasn't all that bad (although I wouldn't want to eat a snack there). The pictures also don't give a sense of the noise: the barking, the wailing, and occasional squeaking; and over everything the splashing of the breakers against the cave rocks.
The cave has been a sea lion hang-out for a very long time; a Captain Cox found this skeleton around 1880 (the head was stolen in the 1950's).
We stayed for a while, then went back up to the visitors' center to look at touristy gifts. The whole set of photos is HERE
They're on the Oregon coast, underneath about 180 feet of basalt cliff. If I'm remembering the signs correctly, the sea lions we saw were mostly cows and calves. The bulls hadn't come back yet, or were too busy somewhere else figuring out how to get a herd of cows for later in the spring.These sea lions were mostly keeping out of the rain and the storm (and earlier in the week the snow) that was outside the cave. I'm trying to remember when I was in the caves last. I have a hazy memory of walking down a set of stairs that leads to a viewpoint now. In any case, what these pictures don't convey is the smell, which was salty, sea lion poopy, and dead-fishy. It sounds worse than it actually was; we got used to it quickly and it really wasn't all that bad (although I wouldn't want to eat a snack there). The pictures also don't give a sense of the noise: the barking, the wailing, and occasional squeaking; and over everything the splashing of the breakers against the cave rocks.The cave has been a sea lion hang-out for a very long time; a Captain Cox found this skeleton around 1880 (the head was stolen in the 1950's).We stayed for a while, then went back up to the visitors' center to look at touristy gifts. The whole set of photos is HERE
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Notes: Ursula K LeGuin
Talk at the Eugene Library.
(any misquotes, typos or mistakes are my own)
Le Guin: [I want to focus on the question] What happens when the the people in charge say hide or burn the books?
Reads excerpts from "The Telling."
All fictions writers dread the question, "Where do you get your ideas from? The answer is, "Out of my crazy head. But now and then you know where the crazy ideas get into your head. I got the ideas for "The Telling" from China and Chairman Mao and the suppression of Dauoism. The process was ruthless and methodical and went on for 40 yeas. Around 1982, they opened up the temples as tourist attractions. A religious practiced for 2000 years was erased in my lifetime. But and I didn't know about it at the time.
Ignorance is what allows such things to happen and keep happening. Ignorance is what despots and ideologues want. Ignorance will allow or applaud violence against what it doesn't understand, which is by definition everything and anything. I was ashamed by my ignorance, by writing a novel maybe I was trying to atone. I don't know. In the book I wanted to show a theocratic state and a secular state [both suppressing free thought], To me theism and atheism are equally dangerous.
[...]
I also want to say the more we fudge on the separation of church and state, the more we check our powers to check bigotry and demogrogary. To say that we are a Christian Nation is an ignorant statement if not an outright lie. America is a secualr democacy in which Christianity is one of the largest religions out of many which the government supports equally. We've been drifting away from that neutrality. We should activelly trust toloerance to keep from losing our freedom.
(Self observation/question what is it about Library of Alexandria, Library of Trantor, Asimov's Nightfall, Feihrenheit 451, and The Telling that compels certain readers -- is it a form of bibliophilia, a Reader's version of The Fall, or something else?)
MODERATOR:
You started writing at SF at age 11. What drew you to the genre?
Le Guin: I just have a weird mind. At 9, 10 and 11, my brother and I were reading Astounding SF and Amazing Stories. So , I liked these short stories, and I thought, maybe I could write one of these. So I submitted. And I got a rejection slip that lasted me 20 yaers.
MODERATOR: What challenges did you face publishing?
Le Guin: When I got into my 20 I was seriously writing for 6 or 7 years without acceptances. Finally, within the same week I sold to a SF and a literary magazine. The SF magazine paid and the literary one didn't... so I had a certain bias for that.
MODERATOR: [Lists various awards] What do you think about literary awards?
Le Guin: Its a big and complicated topic. I think the trouble with literary awards. They are wonderful for young and first writers. My first awards gave me a confidence that I really did have readers out there. The nebula and hugos are voted by writers and readers, not judges. I think a problem with a lot of the Big Literary wards is that they are selected by a panel of those judges. In the US, the judges are predominately from the Eastern half of the US and they don't care so much about what happens in the West. Too few awards are are Really BIg. The Newbury Award is the only really big award for children's lit; but there are no other children's awards. There aren't runner-up for Newbury . We put ay too much weight on our book awards.
MODERATOR: What experiences have you had with censorship?
Le Guin: I havnt had many experiences that effected me directly. What hit fantasy very hard started back in the 70s was fundamentalis Xtain decsion that Fantasy was Evil (witches). So a lot of school baords got members etermined to get SF/F away from the kids. Its censorship through the schools, which is dangerous. And here I did run into it directily a couel of times. I went to a hearing on my Books, because the studens to fhte High chlass stood up and defened The Lathe of Heaven (Iwant to decide that LoH is really stupid myself).
MODERATOR: Films?
Le Guin: The LoH in 1980 which is perfectly available still... I was in on the scripting and everything that I could b on. I think we did a pretty good job. Good acting... the script is so so.. After that it was down hill all the way. ... Its hard I didnt have to .. (makes face)
MODERATOR: What do you think about listening to audio-books?
Le Guin: Hearing books read aloud is different agreement [than reading them]. I think audio-books are great if you can't read; [and I think we all love to be read too I like to be read to].
MODERATOR: What are your observations about E-books, publishing, and print?
Le Guin: Can we stay here for a week? Ebooks are another way of doing books. Now we have two big ways of doing books. They each have their virtues and I hope we keep them BOTH (because they complement each other). Yay for Libraries which have to keep up with the technology. It s a difficult job for them to do.
MODERATOR: You moved from Berkeley to Portland. When did you move, what's the thing you like best about Oregon?
Le Guin: The rain. :-) 1959. I have a list of things I like; Oregon is a great place to live.
[The moderator opens up the microphone to the audience]
AUD: What would you say to a younger writer to encourage them?
Le Guin: Its kind of rough to to encourage them. The print publishers are thrashing. The ebook world is in flux. Therefore, a lot of bad things have happened. A lot o the commercial publishers are demanding security. Things are _harder_ now. I can say, "just say hang in there, it will be wort it."
AUD: How do you write; are you an actor in the story or a watcher of the story?
Le Guin: I'm a listenier, especially if it the story has one person's point-of-view. My novels come with a voice... :-) I hear voices in my head.
AUD: I've been reading you for years... what are the books you go back to over and over and over again?
Le Guin: I have read voraciously and constantly ever since I was five... many, many books. ... Dickens, Woolf, Patrick O'Brian. there are so many good writers.
AUD: "Love does not just sit there like a stone, it has to be made like bread... " (quote from "The Lathe of Heaven") How does that thought inform your thinking?
Le Guin: The reason for that sentence in LOH: "I'm not going to tell you how they make love" If you want to read about lovemaking, there's a lot of that. I think the actual act at the moment isn't interesting: ITS DIFFERENT EVERY TIME.
AUD: What ideas do you walk away from, OR what do you step away from? How do you cut things?
Le Guin: The filter is just there. I never think of writing something I don't want to write. My filter must be through temperament or experience built in. [Sorry, that probably doesn't help you too much.]
AUD: What's your favorite thing you've written?
Le Guin: The one I'm thinking about at the moment.
AUD: Did you have a cat in the past who inspired Catwings.
Le Guin: No, we've had and have cats. But the idea came from doodling on a fridge list. I drew a cat flying and looking smug. And I looked at the drawing and asked, "What if you had a family of cats with wings?" [...] It was like the cat flew into my head.
AUD: Some say there should be no copyright; some say copyright should be indefinite. What's your stance?
Le Guin: Most authors have a stance. It think both positions are incredibly wrong and wrong-headed and unthought-out. I am in favor of copyright because it is how authors make money. If you don't own the rights to your work so you can sell it, how are you going to live? [Without copyright] You have to find a patron; that is what they did up to the 18th C. Copyright saved authors and gave us 150 years of the ability to make a living. What went wrong was the Disney Law. Copyright should be the author's lifetime + 25 years for their heirs. DISNEY keeps extending copyright, which will destroy it. Copyright encourages pirating.
AUD: As a writer, is there a criteria that you hold yourself to when writing? Do you apply those criterion to others' works of art?
Le Guin: No... the criterion is too complicated. To set up any list of criterion of excellence immediately becomes a straight-jacket. You have to wing it. You have to [be able to look at what you're working on and say "This needs more work" or "Yeah, I think I got it."
AUD: IS Science Fiction in a negative rut? Is every future is a distopia? Is the World is doomed? Is this a sympom of the times? Can SF writers do anyting about it? Is it possible for SF to make a difference?
Le Guin: Its a pendulum swing. In the 30s we would have stories about a bright, democratic galaxy. [...] my trouble with [science fiction] right now is that it's unpleasant, it's highly intellectual and has no emotional vitality. It's a sort of "Brainiac" mentality. In order to speak to people on a deep level, it has to include more than just negative emotions.
AUD: (Tesseract faux-pas). How do you see SF/F as being an integral part of education?
Le Guin: But I don't know ... if literature isn't a part of education....
AUD (a couple): We live in a householf of writers and artists and you're our patron saint. (Presentation of Poems) ... and thanks for helping me to become a whole human being.
(any misquotes, typos or mistakes are my own)
Le Guin: [I want to focus on the question] What happens when the the people in charge say hide or burn the books?
Reads excerpts from "The Telling."
All fictions writers dread the question, "Where do you get your ideas from? The answer is, "Out of my crazy head. But now and then you know where the crazy ideas get into your head. I got the ideas for "The Telling" from China and Chairman Mao and the suppression of Dauoism. The process was ruthless and methodical and went on for 40 yeas. Around 1982, they opened up the temples as tourist attractions. A religious practiced for 2000 years was erased in my lifetime. But and I didn't know about it at the time.
Ignorance is what allows such things to happen and keep happening. Ignorance is what despots and ideologues want. Ignorance will allow or applaud violence against what it doesn't understand, which is by definition everything and anything. I was ashamed by my ignorance, by writing a novel maybe I was trying to atone. I don't know. In the book I wanted to show a theocratic state and a secular state [both suppressing free thought], To me theism and atheism are equally dangerous.
[...]
I also want to say the more we fudge on the separation of church and state, the more we check our powers to check bigotry and demogrogary. To say that we are a Christian Nation is an ignorant statement if not an outright lie. America is a secualr democacy in which Christianity is one of the largest religions out of many which the government supports equally. We've been drifting away from that neutrality. We should activelly trust toloerance to keep from losing our freedom.
(Self observation/question what is it about Library of Alexandria, Library of Trantor, Asimov's Nightfall, Feihrenheit 451, and The Telling that compels certain readers -- is it a form of bibliophilia, a Reader's version of The Fall, or something else?)
MODERATOR:
You started writing at SF at age 11. What drew you to the genre?
Le Guin: I just have a weird mind. At 9, 10 and 11, my brother and I were reading Astounding SF and Amazing Stories. So , I liked these short stories, and I thought, maybe I could write one of these. So I submitted. And I got a rejection slip that lasted me 20 yaers.
MODERATOR: What challenges did you face publishing?
Le Guin: When I got into my 20 I was seriously writing for 6 or 7 years without acceptances. Finally, within the same week I sold to a SF and a literary magazine. The SF magazine paid and the literary one didn't... so I had a certain bias for that.
MODERATOR: [Lists various awards] What do you think about literary awards?
Le Guin: Its a big and complicated topic. I think the trouble with literary awards. They are wonderful for young and first writers. My first awards gave me a confidence that I really did have readers out there. The nebula and hugos are voted by writers and readers, not judges. I think a problem with a lot of the Big Literary wards is that they are selected by a panel of those judges. In the US, the judges are predominately from the Eastern half of the US and they don't care so much about what happens in the West. Too few awards are are Really BIg. The Newbury Award is the only really big award for children's lit; but there are no other children's awards. There aren't runner-up for Newbury . We put ay too much weight on our book awards.
MODERATOR: What experiences have you had with censorship?
Le Guin: I havnt had many experiences that effected me directly. What hit fantasy very hard started back in the 70s was fundamentalis Xtain decsion that Fantasy was Evil (witches). So a lot of school baords got members etermined to get SF/F away from the kids. Its censorship through the schools, which is dangerous. And here I did run into it directily a couel of times. I went to a hearing on my Books, because the studens to fhte High chlass stood up and defened The Lathe of Heaven (Iwant to decide that LoH is really stupid myself).
MODERATOR: Films?
Le Guin: The LoH in 1980 which is perfectly available still... I was in on the scripting and everything that I could b on. I think we did a pretty good job. Good acting... the script is so so.. After that it was down hill all the way. ... Its hard I didnt have to .. (makes face)
MODERATOR: What do you think about listening to audio-books?
Le Guin: Hearing books read aloud is different agreement [than reading them]. I think audio-books are great if you can't read; [and I think we all love to be read too I like to be read to].
MODERATOR: What are your observations about E-books, publishing, and print?
Le Guin: Can we stay here for a week? Ebooks are another way of doing books. Now we have two big ways of doing books. They each have their virtues and I hope we keep them BOTH (because they complement each other). Yay for Libraries which have to keep up with the technology. It s a difficult job for them to do.
MODERATOR: You moved from Berkeley to Portland. When did you move, what's the thing you like best about Oregon?
Le Guin: The rain. :-) 1959. I have a list of things I like; Oregon is a great place to live.
[The moderator opens up the microphone to the audience]
AUD: What would you say to a younger writer to encourage them?
Le Guin: Its kind of rough to to encourage them. The print publishers are thrashing. The ebook world is in flux. Therefore, a lot of bad things have happened. A lot o the commercial publishers are demanding security. Things are _harder_ now. I can say, "just say hang in there, it will be wort it."
AUD: How do you write; are you an actor in the story or a watcher of the story?
Le Guin: I'm a listenier, especially if it the story has one person's point-of-view. My novels come with a voice... :-) I hear voices in my head.
AUD: I've been reading you for years... what are the books you go back to over and over and over again?
Le Guin: I have read voraciously and constantly ever since I was five... many, many books. ... Dickens, Woolf, Patrick O'Brian. there are so many good writers.
AUD: "Love does not just sit there like a stone, it has to be made like bread... " (quote from "The Lathe of Heaven") How does that thought inform your thinking?
Le Guin: The reason for that sentence in LOH: "I'm not going to tell you how they make love" If you want to read about lovemaking, there's a lot of that. I think the actual act at the moment isn't interesting: ITS DIFFERENT EVERY TIME.
AUD: What ideas do you walk away from, OR what do you step away from? How do you cut things?
Le Guin: The filter is just there. I never think of writing something I don't want to write. My filter must be through temperament or experience built in. [Sorry, that probably doesn't help you too much.]
AUD: What's your favorite thing you've written?
Le Guin: The one I'm thinking about at the moment.
AUD: Did you have a cat in the past who inspired Catwings.
Le Guin: No, we've had and have cats. But the idea came from doodling on a fridge list. I drew a cat flying and looking smug. And I looked at the drawing and asked, "What if you had a family of cats with wings?" [...] It was like the cat flew into my head.
AUD: Some say there should be no copyright; some say copyright should be indefinite. What's your stance?
Le Guin: Most authors have a stance. It think both positions are incredibly wrong and wrong-headed and unthought-out. I am in favor of copyright because it is how authors make money. If you don't own the rights to your work so you can sell it, how are you going to live? [Without copyright] You have to find a patron; that is what they did up to the 18th C. Copyright saved authors and gave us 150 years of the ability to make a living. What went wrong was the Disney Law. Copyright should be the author's lifetime + 25 years for their heirs. DISNEY keeps extending copyright, which will destroy it. Copyright encourages pirating.
AUD: As a writer, is there a criteria that you hold yourself to when writing? Do you apply those criterion to others' works of art?
Le Guin: No... the criterion is too complicated. To set up any list of criterion of excellence immediately becomes a straight-jacket. You have to wing it. You have to [be able to look at what you're working on and say "This needs more work" or "Yeah, I think I got it."
AUD: IS Science Fiction in a negative rut? Is every future is a distopia? Is the World is doomed? Is this a sympom of the times? Can SF writers do anyting about it? Is it possible for SF to make a difference?
Le Guin: Its a pendulum swing. In the 30s we would have stories about a bright, democratic galaxy. [...] my trouble with [science fiction] right now is that it's unpleasant, it's highly intellectual and has no emotional vitality. It's a sort of "Brainiac" mentality. In order to speak to people on a deep level, it has to include more than just negative emotions.
AUD: (Tesseract faux-pas). How do you see SF/F as being an integral part of education?
Le Guin: But I don't know ... if literature isn't a part of education....
AUD (a couple): We live in a householf of writers and artists and you're our patron saint. (Presentation of Poems) ... and thanks for helping me to become a whole human being.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
March 2012 Snow
It's the second day of spring.
It's snowing:
I think this is the most "artsy" photo I took. And I'm being called back outside...
It's snowing:
 |
| FirstSnowofSpring2012 |
I think this is the most "artsy" photo I took. And I'm being called back outside...
Monday, March 19, 2012
Hieroglyphic Name...
I'm having way too much fun at
http://hieroglyphs.net/0301/cgi/pager.pl?p=42
generating my name.
This reads, "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Good God, John, given life, stability, and wealth, beloved of Hathor."
http://hieroglyphs.net/0301/cgi/pager.pl?p=42
generating my name.
This reads, "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Good God, John, given life, stability, and wealth, beloved of Hathor."
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Printing the Scarab
When I'm not writing, I play with Blender. Blender is a 3-D rendering program, sort of like AutoCad. It has a programming language, Python, that it can use to make mathematically precise models (and, goodness knows, you have to be precise when you're making 3D virtual star tiaras).
Over the winter, I've focused on geometric designs, but the latest project has been a scarab.
It turns out that Blender objects are pretty easy to export to files that MakerBot can use. So when Mark Wild said that he was going to visit the Eugene Maker Space and play with their 3D printer, I tagged along.
The setup took a little longer than we expected. But once everything started up, we were able to load a STL file of the scarab onto the MakerBot's rendering engine. Our first big surprise was how small the scarab was; we had to increase its size by four times.
Our next snag was discovering that the MakerBot G-code build (the set of instructions that actually make the MakerBot printer extrude plastic) wanted to save to my RAMstick, which I'd write-protected. Once we figured that out, the software took about five minutes to figure out the best path for the plastic printer head to take to create the scarab. And then another ten minutes to print it out.
The end result didn't come out as solidly as I thought it would, although it is recognizable as a scarab.
What I learned:
But, even though it looked a little like something Spiderman might make out of his webbing, I love it and have something to put on my forehead when I say, "Almighty Isis (Isis-Isis-Isis)!"
Over the winter, I've focused on geometric designs, but the latest project has been a scarab.
It turns out that Blender objects are pretty easy to export to files that MakerBot can use. So when Mark Wild said that he was going to visit the Eugene Maker Space and play with their 3D printer, I tagged along.
The setup took a little longer than we expected. But once everything started up, we were able to load a STL file of the scarab onto the MakerBot's rendering engine. Our first big surprise was how small the scarab was; we had to increase its size by four times.
Our next snag was discovering that the MakerBot G-code build (the set of instructions that actually make the MakerBot printer extrude plastic) wanted to save to my RAMstick, which I'd write-protected. Once we figured that out, the software took about five minutes to figure out the best path for the plastic printer head to take to create the scarab. And then another ten minutes to print it out.
The end result didn't come out as solidly as I thought it would, although it is recognizable as a scarab.
What I learned:
- The scarab design was too detailed and small. The parts that came out the best were the circular solar disk element and the dung beetle's carapace. What seemed like huge chunky bits to me when I was creating the scarab model turned out to be itty-bitty when printed. We probably would have had a cleaner print job if we'd expanded the model one more time.
- I should have put down a base to build upon. To make the wings' feathers stick out, I put all of them on the zero Z plane and then varied their thickness so the leading feathers were thicker than the trailing feathers. The feathers probably confused the MakerBot G-code because there were about fifteen, they overlapped, and by design they weren't all able to touch the printer's bed.
- I think next time rather than build a complex objects out of multiple overlapping ones, I'll see how much leverage I can get with a simpler design and one object with multiple Boolean difference "cuts" out of it. I also suspect that the procedure I followed to clean up the model didn't catch interior planes and vertices, which resulted in some, um, non-intuitive printer head paths. Or...um... use Boolean difference on the overlapping feathers.
- The MakerBot print head will approximate its print path in an attempt to fill an odd shape with plastic. It's not so much a limit on the printer head so much as it's a limitation of the melted plastic coming out of it. Which means you may or may not get the coverage you thought you might. An analogy would be trying to use a tube of toothpaste mounted on an etch-e-sketch to sign a check.
But, even though it looked a little like something Spiderman might make out of his webbing, I love it and have something to put on my forehead when I say, "Almighty Isis (Isis-Isis-Isis)!"
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Higgs Bosons?
I wish I knew a little more about this to be able to write a short story about the Higgs boson. I can imagine writing something whimsical, like a boson leaving behind a trail that says, "Hello!" I have a more difficult time imagining writing something hard science fiction, like a submarine powered by a Higgs boson.
Although, looking at a picture of the Tevatron, maybe Higgs bosons could be used to propel a space station... or maybe there's something about the Earth's mass that requires Higgs bosons to be more easily formed outside Earth's gravity well.
Higgs Boson May Be Indicated in New Data - NYTimes.com: Physicists from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., say they have found a bump in their data that might be the long-sought Higgs boson, a hypothesized particle that is responsible for endowing other elementary particles with mass.
Although, looking at a picture of the Tevatron, maybe Higgs bosons could be used to propel a space station... or maybe there's something about the Earth's mass that requires Higgs bosons to be more easily formed outside Earth's gravity well.
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