Yow. Fascinating reading, that link. Seems like it could have been in a Robert Anton Wilson or Thomas Pynchon book.
As an aside, I wish that I had learned (been taught) a second language in grade school--it wasn't until I volunteered as a tutor for a Chinese couple trying to master English that I started to discover all sorts of things about the language I had taken for granted.
Points well taken, Yonmei, and thanks. I don't think the media con I went to was one of the commercially-run ones, but it was in Los Angeles, and that may have been more the cause of the slant to it that I perceived, as I had also already been well-indoctrinated into what I considered the "writer" con (ArmadilloCon in Austin, Texas) and perhaps it was the change in coast (I always consider Texas the third coast) that was jarring.
Er, I begin this comment with some trepidation because I'm not sure that I've been forgiven yet. I said thirty "Hail Heinleins" last night, so I hope I can buy a round at the bar and snub the straw men.
I think I understand Patrick's stance, and I can understand the frustration, but I'm concerned because it seems that this wasn't necessarily a battle that was ever going to be won--"fandom" in the mainstream was never going to be understood as Patrick understands it, for some of the reasons placed here by the Kevins. I thought Hartwell did the best job of trying to explain it (I gave Age of Wonders to my parents, and my mom replied as I had hoped she would with a comment like, "Oh, I think I understand you a litte more now"), but it takes an entire book to encompass that idea correctly for those who have no experience whatsover with it. Between that and ten second sound bites or the endless right-before-the-end of the 30 minute local news broadcast about the local SF convention going on "in our town," the odds are not favorable.
Now, I'll take the blame for interjecting (and misinterpreting [or worse, creating whole cloth] Patrick's stance) more of the media/written distinction (apologizing once again for assuming I understand Patrick's meaning enough to say I agree with him), but that was from my own experience where I have seen first hand a startling difference between fan communities that get together for SF and those that get together for "Star Trek." The problem may be that I'm working from a limited set of data (I only went to one media con and decided I wasn't interested in attending another) and that other conventions/groupings centered on media aren't like that. Again, major massive mea culpa.
And my sincere apologies for "lying about" what you said, Patrick, which I had no indication of doing so (or else I wouldn't have linked to your post in the Glenn Reynolds tradition; that is, by linking to your post, I offer people a chance to check my perceptions against theirs and so they can judge whether or not my comments were thoughtless and baseless).
Not to be too much of a brown-noser, but I admire you too much to actively seek to lie about you or your comments. But I thought you were being snarky in your original post and follow-ups, and that's what I was trying to say.
(off to read Tim's follow-up)
Patrick wrote, In a very real sense, the kind of long-term "science fiction fandom" I've been involved with for decades is a loose international network of people all of whom were devoted to written science fiction at some point in their lives. Some of whom still are. And many of whom aren't. Admirable though the critical enterprise is, it's not the central ceremony.
Doesn't this, by example, mean that these people have moved beyond fandom to something else? So, are they really served by being called SF Fandom, except for the need to have some label to call that subcultural landscape wherein Patrick owns a large house in the center of town, where I used to live in an apartment and now just visit on holidays, and where Timothy flies in for the occasional convention?
I hate to go semantical on this, but maybe that's the breakdown in communication here. "Fandom," as a word, exists outside of the self-identifying subcultural town described in the paragraph above, and trying to change the definition in the larger culture to match how one fairly unique subculture uses it seems quixotic.
Or am I off the mark again, Patrick? (Note that I never said you agree with me or I agree with you here--let me have some brownie points for that, at least.)
Patrick asks:Explain to me again how it is that the networks92 election-day exit polling simply stopped happening all of a sudden. Was that magic, too?
No, that was called a fixed-price contract between a contractor and a media group (actually, a loose confederation of all the major networks) that couldn't quite decide on the methodology they wanted. From what I could tell (second hand from someone who worked for the contractor, but not exactly on the contract itself), it was a true software SNAFU where they were testing and finding bugs up to election day. Software created on a two-year cycle with a limited budget--not a pretty sight.
Which isn't to take away from your major point about the electronic voting machines having problems, but the lack of polling results wasn't due to a conspiracy, but other all too human reasons.
Nicely done, but I think another song, just three tracks away from that one on the same disc, fits slightly better:
There are men lost in jail
Crowded 50 to a room
There's too many rats
In this cage of a world.
And the women know their place
Sit home and write letters
Then they visit once a year
When they both just sit there and stare
See how we are
Gotta keep bars in between us
See how we are
We only sing about it
Once in every 20 years
See how we are
There are 17 kinds of coke,
500 kinds of cigarettes.
This freedom of choice in the U.S.A.
Drives everyone crazy.
While in Acapulco,
They don't give a damn
'bout kids selling chiclets
with no shoes on their feet.
See how we are
Hey man, what's in it for me?
See how we are
--John Doe/Exene Cervenka, "See How We Are"
Keven Andrew Murphy asks where Jefferson Davis is buried. I was just there two weeks ago: Hollywood Cemetary, Richmond, Virginia. Given the direction of this conversation, people might be surprised at what's inscribed on one monument:JEFFERSON DAVIS.
AT REST
AN AMERICAN SOLDIER.
AND DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION
BORN IN CHRISTIAN CO. KENTUCKY JUNE 3.1808.
DIED AT NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA DEC. 6.1889.
WEST POINT CLASS 1828.
MEMBER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FROM MISSISSIPPI.1845-1846
COL.1ST MISSI.RIFFLES MEXICAN WAR 1846-1847
BRIGADIER GENL.U.S.ARMY MAY 17.1847.
U.S. SENATE 1847-1851
SECRETARY OF WAR 1853-1857
U.S. SENATE 1857-1861.
Interesting, at least, for what it leaves off, as well as what it includes.
A different monument reads:PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES
OF AMERICA. 1861-1865.
FAITHFUL TO ALL TRUSTS, A MARTYR
TO PRINCIPLE. HE LIVED AND DIED THE
MOST CONSISTENT OF AMERICAN
SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN.
---
BLESSED ARE THEY WHICH ARE PERSECUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
---
ERECTED BY HIS WIFE
VARINA HOWELL DAVIS,
AND HIS DAUGHTER
MARGARET HOWELL DAVIS HAYES.
NOV. 9, 1889.
(I was there to visit the grave of James Branch Cabell.)
Simon asks, in an aside:("Those wanting to deify the leaders of the Confederate rebellion" - deify? is Barra doing that, really?)
I have no idea if Barra is doing that or not, but there is ample evidence of the glorification, if not deification, of Southern War leaders. I've been reading quite a bit of James Branch Cabell recently. Cabell was born in Richmond in 1879 and pretty much spent his formative years there. In one essay, he relates how he listened to his parents, grandparents, and their friends talk about Robert E. Lee as if he were King Arthur, who would return one day to restore the South to her glory (Jefferson Davis became Merlin, while the other generals became knights of the round table). Part of this is Cabell's young romantic imagination, but it doesn't take very long on a visit to the south to see how much of it is quite close to the truth.
Alan Barra also implies that the U.S. has healed the wounds of the American Civil War. I have to agree with Patrick that I'm not sure which Civil War he's talking about, because there's plenty of open wounds around--witness the controversy over the placement of a statue to Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia recently. As one resident of Virginia was quoted (my paraphrase), "There should never be a statue of Lincoln in Virginia after what he did to us." Ahem. I think a large segment of the Virginia population is quite happy with what Lincoln did to Virginia, as on that day when he stepped off the boat and toured Richmond he was greeted by them with song and cheers.
Thanks for being polite there, Patrick. Yep, the fingers moved too fast while the brain was lagging. I'll take the reporting in the New York Times over Washington Times any day, although at least with the latter, there's no doubt about the bias.
Gene Lyons (full column posted here: http://hnn.us/articles/900.html#06040304) writes about this very thing today.
On the other hand, it's the idea that the Times has a "complex, decades-old bureaucratic culture devoted" to just-the-facts that makes the current pile-on what it is, much the same way that everyone piled on William Bennett. That is, the Times has been shown in the Jayson Blair episode to be no better than any other newspaper, even with their decades of experience.
However, the Blair incident will linger--at least in the minds of those at the Times--and will force the Times to live up to that tradition that has been neglected in the last couple of years.
I agree that it's too bad such renewed carefulness won't be reflected in op-ed columns, either in the Times or online.
Not quite.
They don't have an XML/RSS/RDF feed AND they're all worth reading. There's plenty of blog (or blog-like pages) that don't have a feed.
Yeah! Welcome back, Patrick. I've been missing your daily voice.
The correct entry cgi is not available yet, but it is good news that the iSFdb has found a new home.
It still won't change my opinion about Texas A&M though. :-p
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