Has anyone seen Kazuo Hara's 1987 documentary The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On? I just watched it last night, and not to spoil things too much, it's very apropos to this thread.
MorganJLocke @25: Evelyn or Alec?
The problem with defining SF in terms of content is that eventually you're stuck with Michael Crichton.
The problem with defining SF in terms of merit is that eventually you're stuck with Dan Brown.
@ Beth #29: I had a music teacher in college who would sometimes describe the ensemble as sounding like "buckshot through a harp." I find a most apt analogy for all kinds of things.
Since no one's mentioned it, I will:
"And so tonight -- to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans -- I ask for your support.I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge."
If you want to understand the post-Romero zombie meme, and why it's so prevalent in Bushian cinema, you have to understand Nixon's "silent majority" speech. Zombies are, metaphorically, Nixon's "silent majority." Is it any wonder that the Bush administration led to a revival of the Romero zombie?
By the way, for you exploitation film fans, be sure to check out Messiah of Evil/Dead People, a largely unknown film, but the best post-Watergate perspective on the relationship between film zombies and the Nixon administration.
Seriously, zombies are all about Nixon. Whenever you see Internet memery about zombies, think "Nixon," and everything will make sense.
So, from reading Neil's weblog, I discover that at precisely the same moment he was falling asleep listening to the Jack Benny show on his iPod, I was falling asleep listening to the BBC-radio adaptation of Anansi Boys on my iPod.
As near as I can tell, according to quantum physics, this means that I am entangled with either Phil Harris or Grahame Coats. I'm not sure which, nor am I sure it would make a great deal of difference.
JESR @ 12: Oh, exactly. I hope my remark didn't come off as anything other than loving this kind of "traditional" dance. I love powwow, and I've just been on YouTube getting all teary and sentimental looking at powwow videos. (Go to YouTube and search for "jingle dance," and try to not to weep for joy at the sheer beauty of it. It's been probably 15 years since I've been to a powwow, and I forgot about the jingle dance.)
Being from the American Midwest, I don't know from Morris dancing other than from travelogues. But I was struck by the similarity to powwow dancing, especially the neo-pagan Morris dancing. If you compare the two, the first thing you think is how different they are, then you notice how similar they are, and finally you think, "Wow, people." And you're right -- they eat good, too. Let's have a Cornish pasty vs. Navajo taco showdown.
It's like powwow, for white people.
(Seriously, though. My ex-wife was Miami, and we used to go to powwows all the time. The costumes, the circle, the agreed-upon fantasy that it's ancient tradition when it's really modern speculation and vaguely informed reconstruction -- Morris dancing and powwow are very similar. Still, I would like to see a face off between a lead fancy dancer and a neo-pagan Morris dancer sometime.)
Middle French psychedelia:
Fumeux fume par fumee,
Fumeuse speculacion.
Fumeux fume par fumee,
Fumeuse speculacion.
Qu’antre fummet sa pensee
Fumeux fume par fumee.
Quar fumer molt li agree
Tant qu’il ait son entencion.
Fumeux fume par fumee,
Fumeuse speculacion.
-- Solage, c. 1390
Um...is that OUR Forrest J. Ackerman as Judge Rhinehole?
Actually, I think it's probably MY Forrest J. Ackerman.
There are in fact two Forrest J. Ackermen, who occupy the same space simultaneously -- there's 4E, the Ackerman of Science Fiction Fandom, and then there's Dr. Ackula, of Famous Monsters of Filmland, beloved of Monster Kids everywhere, the Ackerman of Horror Movie Fandom.
I find it amusing, as someone who occasionally traverses the rift between discrete fan continua, that there are two distinct, non-overlapping fandomains who both regard Forrest J. Ackerman with the same mix of awe and shame, while being largely unaware of his significance to other fandoms.
The particular smell of very old books (#137, et al):
When I was undergraduate at music school at Indiana University, I was vaguely aware that the library was selling off old books, but I wasn't particularly interested, because I thought it was going to be 3rd editions of Mozart, etc., whereas I was more interested in jazz and the roots of American music. After the auction was over, I was heading back home after several hours of desultory practice of scales and patterns. As I walked down a dark path outside the Music School, past the dumpsters, I picked up the unmistakable smell of ancient paper. I reached into the dumpster, and felt a small book, with a thin cover of wood veneer. I grabbed it and put it in my bag, sight unseen.
When I examined it in the light of the following day, I found that it was a first edition of The Easy Instructor, from 1784, with arrangements by William Billings. It was the absolute beginning, the Magna Carta if you will, of what we now know as American popular music.
Language and travel:
Back in 2000, I took a trip to NYC with a friend of mine. He'd lived in Brooklyn for several years, and we were going to stay with an old friend of his in Williamsburg. It was only my second trip to New York, and the first time I spent any time in Brooklyn.
One night was reserved for my friend to get together and reminisce with his old buddies. I tagged along, even though I felt a bit like a fifth wheel. Anyway, the liquor was flowing freely, and there was an easy kind of male cameraderie, and I was having a fine time.
At some point in the evening, we managed to pick up a companion unknown to anyone in our group. He was a recent Polish immigrant, late 20s, who spoke very little English. Anyway, he was tagging along with our group, and seemed especially attracted to the fellow in whose apartment we were staying.
About 1:00 AM or so, we're walking down a fairly empty street in Williamsburg between a couple of bars on our list. Suddenly, a huge black Suburban with tinted windows looms up out of nowhere and comes to a stop in the middle of the street. I and the Polish stranger are kind of hanging back watching everything. The car window rolls down, and what do you know? It's another old buddy from my friend's Williamsburg days! Amid the greetings and crosstalk, this is what I hear:
"Where'd you get that freakin' tank?"
"It's my mafia car. You like it?"
"You're shitting me."
"Naw, I got it at a police auction."
"You seriously gonna drive around in a mob car like that?"
"The way I figure it, no one's going to steal the radio."
Now, I'm thinking this is hilarious, but the Polish guy, who can understand maybe every third word, is starting to look nervous.
"Hey, guess what else I got at the auction? Brand new set of clubs!" And he goes to the back of the Suburban and pulls out a complete set of golf clubs. "Check out these woods!"
Soon, five or six guys are standing in the middle of the street next to a mafia car, brandishing golf clubs and swinging them around and hitting imaginary golf balls. The immigrant's eyes look like dinner plates and he's shaking. Suddenly, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out all his money, throws it on the ground, and takes off running.
"Um, guys?" I'd been pretty quiet up 'til then. "Guys?"
My friend was the first to acknowledge me. "What's up, Howard?"
"I think we just mugged someone."
Ermines are indigenous to Denmark. I don't think it gets cold enough there for them to go into their white color phase, though.
Why I thought of ermines before elephants remains a mystery.
I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned Jack Abbot.
The whole Norman Mailer/Jack Abbot parole incident was quite the media spectacle at the time, and I suspect it may be informing the current situation.
I believe I am now officially the last person in the world to finish reading Little Brother. I haven't read a YA novel since I was, well, an older child, and most of my observations stem from that. But I want to mention some things that no one else has brought up.
I wasn't bothered by the longer expository bits on technology, but I was a bit confused by the choices regarding appositives to explain "exotic" things. Why did things like uni sushi, horchatas, leetspeak, etc., get the appositive treatment? Is it an assumption about flyover country? Because I can think of a couple places in rural northern Kentucky where you can gorge yourself on unimaki and then drive a couple of miles and wash it down with a horchata if that's what you want to do. And when I talk sushi or real taqueria food with friends, my age cohort acts like I'm some kind of freak, but my younger friends know exactly what I'm talking about. And leetspeak -- is there a thirteen-year-old alive who doesn't know what "h4wt" means?
But at other times, writerly words like caltrops and sere come out of Marcus's mouth without any explanation.
This isn't a criticism, mind you; I'm just curious about the decision-making that occurs when a bunch of adults are deciding what needs explaining to a juvenile audience.
---
No one's mentioned the character of Charles. I really liked the inclusion of the character, because he seemed like a such a throwback to classic Juvenile fiction. He is Bugs Meany to Marcus's Encyclopedia Brown. In a way, it took me out of the story (although we've all known people like Charles), but it was a such a wonderful literary nod that I cheered whenever he showed up.
---
One thing I noticed right away was Cory's use of pop culture references in the same way that a more traditional writer might use Shakespeare or the King James Bible. "When in trouble or in doubt,..." for example, or "are belong to us." It seems like a really natural progression of language. I could've used more of that. And then, after this pattern of pop-culture quotation has been established, when Marcus-as-narrator, strapped to the waterboard, says, "Gitmo-on-the-bay was in the hands of its enemies. I was saved," I cheered, even though I doubt that Marcus-as-character would have read enough Poe to quote him. But hey, Poe. And someday some kid will read Little Brother, and then later read The Pit and the Pendulum, and make a connection. And that warms my heart.
Lee 57: HP, #47: Could you unpack that a bit more, please? It sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I'm following you.
I'll try.
I used to be a target for all kinds of conservative/authoritarian condescension and speechifying. This peaked sometime around the 2000 election fiasco. Around the same time, the conservative blogosphere started to take off, and after 9/11, went full-blown insane. Meanwhile, my actual face-to-face encounters were growing rarer and rarer.
By the time of the 2004 election fiasco, I was walking around with a chip on my shoulder, fully expecting some authoritarian to open his mouth, giving me an opening. And instead, . . . /*crickets*/.
And yet, it was clear from their frothing presence on the Internet that the RWAs hadn't gone anywhere. They just no longer open their mouths when in the same physical space as me.
Now, the odd thing is that I haven't changed all that much. I've never been terribly good at communicating politics, and my verbal reaction to authoritarians to this day tends toward spittle-flecked gibbering.
The one thing that has changed is my understanding of the role that fear plays in the conservative/authoritarian mindset. Perhaps there's something in my body language that suggests to these thugs that I know how scared they are. In any event, I find that conservatives rarely bother to tell me what they think anymore, unless they happen to be safely shielded behind miles and miles of cable.
Has anyone else had similar experiences?
Teresa writes:
If you let them go on talking that way for thread after thread, and keep count of all the things they insist are threatening (i.e., that frighten them), it's often a surprisingly long list.
I have noticed that, while the frequency and vehemence of authoritarian thinking has not diminished at all on the Internet, I encounter fewer and fewer of these sshls in real life. And I live in a very conservative part of the country.
It took a while to dawn on me what was going on, because I am a short, fat, sick old man, but I finally realized that one of the things authoritarians fear is me.
Asides and digressions:
Kip W @ 25: I heard that Canadian Tab is made with real sugar.
Xopher @ 28: I would've gone with mania, myself. But then, I use maniate as an intransitive verb.*
34 & 37: I'm reasonably certain that the "old timer" dialect is
not based on any actual dialect, but on the popular vaudeville skit "The Arkansas Traveler"
(1922 .mp3 at link) which dates, IIRC, from the 1850s. (Sample dialog
-- City slicker: "On my way here, I saw a horse with a broken leg.
Don't you usually shoot a horse with a broken leg? Old-Timer: "Nope.
Usually shoot'im with a shotgun.") The Old-Timer is a stock character
with no historical basis, much like Pierrot or Punch.**
* Well, I will now.
** My all-time favorite "old timey" dialect is the voice of "Old Nancy" from The Witch's Tale,
created by Adelaide Fitz-Allen***. Fitz-Allen was in her 70s when she
created the voice in the early 1930s, based on an impossibly old woman
she knew when she was a child in New England.**** Part New England,
part old England, and part Anglo-Carribean, it' the one old-time
American dialect I've heard that actually sounds plausible. (And now you can listen to her on the Internet. I love the future.)
*** The creator of the voice, not the show. The show was created by
Alonzo Deen Cole, perhaps better known (but not deservedly so) as the
creator of the radio/comic book franchise, Casey, Crime Photographer. Cole had nothing to do with EC's The Witches Tale comic, which was an unauthorizedripoffadaptation. I'm such a geek.
**** When Fitz-Allen passed away in 1935, she was replaced by an
actress named Miriam Wolfe***** who duplicated the antique dialect
exactly. Miriam Wolfe was 13 years old at the time.
***** Miriam Wolfe was replaced in the role by Martha Wentworth, who went to become Martha freakin' Wentworth.
Linkmeister 350: Word Association Football.
(This is a very strange page. Explaining the joke takes a lot of the humor out of it at first, and then, as it continues, interjects a whole new level of meta-humor which I believe is entirely unintended. Also, our annotator censors out the last line, which he disregards as unnecessary, but is in fact the punch line to the whole joke. Allow me to explain: the narrator, despite his seeming level-head thoughtfulness, is revealed through word association to be a seething mass of anger and resentment. Ha-ha! Comedy. Uncensored version.)
On preview: Pipped by Julie. But the link I found is too bizarre not to share.
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