Storm Warning

"A literature that is alive does not live by yesterday's clock, nor by today's, but by tomorrow's. It is a sailor sent aloft: from the masthead he can see foundering ships, icebergs, and maelstroms still invisible from the deck.


"In a storm you must have a man aloft. We are in the midst of a storm today, and SOS signals come from every side. Only yesterday a writer could calmly stroll along the deck, clicking his Kodak; but who will want to look at landscapes and genre scenes when the world is listing at a forty-five-degree angle, the green maws are gaping, the hull is creaking? Today we can look and think only as men do in the face of death: we are about to die--and what did it all mean? How have we lived? If we could start all over, from the beginning, what would we live by? And for what? What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons--horizons seen from mastheads, from airplanes; we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless 'Why?' and 'What next?'


"What is truly alive stops before nothing and ceaselessly seeks answers to absurd, childish questions. Let the answers be wrong, let the philosophy be mistaken--errors are more valuable than truths: truth is of the machine, error is alive; truth reassures, error disturbs. And if answers be impossible of attainment, all the better! Dealing with answered questions is the privilege of brains constructed like a cow's stomach, which, as we all know, is built to digest cud.


"If there were anything fixed in nature, if there were truths, all this would, of course, be wrong. But, fortunately, all truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number."


~Yevgeny Zamyatin, "On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters."




Ah, gotta love those Russians. Nobody does Revolution better... except, perhaps, the French. But I digress...


Zamyatin, along with the quote above, is referenced in Ursula K. Le Guin's book of essays, The Language of the Night (a book that I am proud to say I have loved into a state of near disintegration). He is primarily known for writing the dystopian science fiction novel We, which is credited as the forerunner of, if not the direct influence for, Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. I read 1984 in my teens and Brave New World in my 30s; I found them deeply disturbing. I have no doubt We offers more of the same. I have this sense of checked impulse; I am both fascinated and repulsed by the dystopic vision.


And yet, I do believe that Zamyatin is right in his assertion that Art should disturb, that it should ruffle the calm waters of complacency and question the very things we take for granted. Science Fiction does this especially well, when it is done right, and provides an answer, if not silences completely, those naysayers who don't believe genre fiction has anything to offer the world of Literature.


Zamyatin wrote those words almost 100 years ago, and they are no less true now. I am only left with more questions though. Who? Who are the ones in the mastheads today, the ones asking those "absurd childish questions"? The answer, I am certain, will be ongoing, with each new book I read. I'll try to find out for you...






97 Days til the Burn

Raumpatrouille ist Fantastisch!

Last night I was introduced to Space Patrol -- actually, Raumpatrouille -- a German science fiction television series that was broadcast one year before the original Star Trek. It was really good! The costumes, sets, and special effects were all impressive, especially for Germany in 1966. The story was engaging: In the first episode, the crew of the spaceship Orion investigates what has become of the human inhabitants of a remote space station and discover an alien threat. The lead, Captain Cliff McClane, is something of a rule-breaker, just like Kirk, and is often in trouble with his own government. The story was, in turns, both whimsical and suspenseful, just like the original Trek. Actually, being German, the show may have taken itself a bit more seriously. Except we had to laugh at the futuristic "dancing" (if you can call it that) in the Starlight Casino-- that was hilarious.


I am looking forward to more; sadly, however, the show only lasted for seven episodes. It was very popular, but it became too expensive to make, so it fell out of production. But it has its own cult following in Germany, just as Star Trek does here in the States, so perhaps one day it will be revived.


See the IMDB page for more.






98 Days til the Burn

Memories of the AWP

I went to the AWP in Chicago in February.


Yes, I know. I was thinking the same thing. Chicago? In February? Am I out of my mind? But I went. And it was... Amazing.


The weather stayed pleasant for us Californians; clear and cold. It didn't rain. In fact, we even got a little bit of snow at one point. But we were in the hotel for most of the event, so we didn't really notice the weather until we poked our heads out to take a look around.


Some favorite moments and observations:


The AWP is a writers conference. Now I've been to conferences before, but the clientele have been slightly different: scholars, professors, etc. And there were many of those here. But I could definitely sense that this was a different breed. These were the Artists. These are the Writers Who Take Their Work Seriously. A young poet I met put it best: He said that he could look around and see himself in all the different stages of his life: the young ingenue, wide-eyed with wonder; the determined student, building his skills and trying to break in; the published poet, confident and professional; then finally, older, fading, trying to stay in the public eye. And he was right. Everywhere I looked, I kept seeing people I knew, or thought I knew. Maybe they were reflections of friends far away; maybe they were pieces of me, from my future or my past. It was like stepping into an alternate reality, dizzying in its possibilities.


I met Gregory MacGuire.


I met the fellows from McSweeney's.


Most of the conference felt like a regular conference--I went to panels, listened and took notes on various aspects of the writing life--but I knew I was in a different world when I went to the reading by the guest artists. First off, the "reading" was held in a *huge* auditorium; it could hold 1000 people and they filled it to capacity. Next they opened the event with a "marching circus punk rock band"... Yes. That's exactly what it was. This was the weirdest, most appalling, excruciating, so-called "music" experience of my life. Do we really need opening acts for the reading of literature? Do we really need *this* kind of opening act? It's a reading, not a rock concert. (Listen to me; I sound like such an old lady.)


After the reading--which was brilliant--I went to an Irish pub and had a chocolate martini. An Irish band was playing live (*so* much better than that circus punk thing). Outside the window it began to snow--big, fat, fluffy flakes descending gently. It was magic.


In the park across the street there was an ice sculpture contest in progress. I walked around at midnight and the next afternoon watching the artists at work. There was a Chinese dragon, a wild horse, Max and the monster from the Wild Things, Einstein's brain, aliens, and so much more. I loved it.


I spent 2 hours in the Chicago Museum of Art before I realized that the reason it all looked so familiar was because it was featured in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. ;-)


On my last day in Chicago, I walked all the way from Grant Park to Navy Pier along Lake Michigan in 26 degree weather. I had to wrap my scarf around my head and face to keep my nose and ears from freezing. When I stood out on the end of the pier, the clouds opened up and cast murky sunbeams down on the skyline of Chicago. I ate a Chicago style hotdog with the best fries in the world.


On my first night in Chicago, I ate Chicago style pizza with a bunch of poets and out-"nerded" everyone at the table. Someone in the group had said we were all a bunch of nerds, and we were laughing and each one of us was insisting we were the nerdiest. And then I said, "No, I'm sure I can out-nerd anyone here. I've had Star Wars memorized since the 6th grade." So the guy sitting next to me says, "Okay, then, what's the first line?" Without missing a beat, I replied in my best C-3Po voice, "They've shut down the main reactor. We'll be destroyed for sure!" The table fell out. It was brilliant.


The saddest bit about all this is that I took loads of pictures, and then lost the chip a few weeks later because I'm such a ding-a-ling. So now the only pictures I have left are the memories. Sigh.






99 Days til the Burn

Golden Ticket, Golden Days

So.


With a great sigh of relief, I can put the semester to rest. Oh, I still have a few loose ends to tie up here and there, but the whole of the work is done. I finished writing my seminar papers, finished my student grading, and can point to a really fine issue of Reed magazine (Issue #62) as having my stamp of approval as Fiction co-Editor. You know, sometimes I amaze even myself.


So it's back to the Blog-o-sphere for me! Oh, happy day! Have you missed me? :)


I figure I have so much to catch up on I could easily write an entry per day this Summer... til the madness starts again this Fall. I thought I'd start out slow--just ease myself back in with some delighted musings on this most auspicious day, my official First Day of Summer.


Wha? June 21st? Perish the thought! No, my cosmos now turns on the date of the Burn. I've got my ticket. Let the countdown begin. One Hundred Golden Days and Nights til I get to go Home again....






100 Days til the Burn