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I slept almost nine hours last night. Given how bad the insomnia has been of late (and mostly I'm just suffering through it without Ambien), that seems miraculous. Here in Providence, the day is overcast and wet, and also chilly (currently 43F, but the windchill has it feeling like 38F out there). We've had a mild autumn, compared to last year. Yesterday, I struggled with the anger all day. When it gets that bad, it threatens to shut me down and make work impossible. But, still, I pretty much finished with the "Sanderlings" chapbook, which I now have to send to Bill Schafer. I think it will make a fine companion piece to The Ammonite Violin & Others (though it only comes with the numbered state of the book, not the trade hardback). I also spoke with the editor about the excessively copyedited ms., but didn't actually get any work done on it. I answered a number of emails (I'm getting tired of explaining to editors that I do not write "paranormal romance"). Anyway, that was work yesterday. I need to dispense with all this necessary not-writing, and go back to writing. Last night, we watched Cloverfield for the third or fourth time. It still impresses me. Consider what a fine Yule/Solstice gift The Red Tree would make (the platypus told me to say that). Also, please have a look at the current eBay auctions. There are copies of Alabaster, The Dry Salvages, The Little Damned Book of Days, and Mercury, all currently out of print. I have this note, sent to me via Facebook (so I suppose I can't call it "email"): One of your stories has fallen through a black hole in my collection. I thought it was "Onion," but I was wrong. This story concerns a young couple, the young lady is suffering some serious mental anguish and attending an odd support group. And story ends with an outrageous scene in the bathroom of her flat. Very cool, very memorable, and very missing. I hate gaps. And forgetting. Please help? The only story I can recall having written that comes near fitting that exact description is, in fact, "Onion." So...I'm at a loss. Okay, now the platypus says I must go forth and get some work done. I am a monotreme's slave. Oh, but I have more photographs from Thursday's trip to the shore (behind the cut), and even a short piece of video I took of the waves at Harbor of Refuge (taken on the eastern side of the jetty, view to the south): Waves from Kathryn Pollnac on Vimeo.
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I'm probably feeling far too rabidly antisocial even for a journal entry this morning, but here goes. And isn't it odd that in 2009, an undertaking that was once the very definition of private— writing an entry in a journal or diary —has now become a public spectacle? It seems to me that "we" are so very afraid of a moment alone, truly and completely alone, without even the promise that someone will at least eventually look at what is being done, what we are thinking, what we are feeling. A society that is becoming increasingly exhibitionist, and, of course, also becoming increasingly voyeuristic. It's a nice psychotic balance, I suppose, a new ecosystem of excessive interaction. Or not new, only made more intent, more intensely so. Makes Big Brother's job easier, I suppose. No writing yesterday. No busyness of writing yesterday (a few emails aside). We went to the shore, to see the heavy surf that was the aftermath of the storm. We went first to Narragansett, to Harbor of Refuge. We were both surprised by the violence of the waves. It was greater than what we'd expected. We walked out on the beach on the western side of the granite jetty. The air was full of salt mist and sea gulls, and the wind was bitter, though the day was freakishly warm (high 60sF here in Providence). The sun was bright, a white hole of fire punched in the sky. It was almost impossible to hear one another over the roar of the waves, but then, there was nothing that needed saying, anyway. We found a surfboard washed up on the sand, its owner nowhere to be seen. It was clear that the high tide, which had been sometime around 9 a.m. (CaST), had come well inland, into the brush and salt marshes north of the harbor. It appeared that wooden barricades had been erected the day before to keep back sightseers, but the waves had smashed them. Spooky found an orange blob of fish eggs amongst the flotsam. I'm not sure how high the waves were— officially, I mean —but they were slamming against and over-topping the jetty (which is 5-7 feet high, if you're standing on the beach it protects), sending spray twenty or thirty feet into the afternoon air. We left Harbor of Refuge, having decided we wanted to see what was going on farther west, at Moonstone Beach. But first we went all the way down to Point Judith, where the tide was lower than I'd ever seen it before. Mossy green rocks were exposed, and tide pools, but the waves were too treacherous to try for a look at what might be stranded in them. The foghorn at the lighthouse called out over the crash of the breakers. On the way to Moonstone Beach, I pointed out a bumper sticker to Spooky. "Do No Harm." As if that's even possible, as if every human action, no matter how profound or mundane, doesn't do harm in some way. Still, I suppose it's a nice sentiment. We reached Moonstone as the sun was getting low. We'd stopped somewhere along the way so I could photograph a field, still green in December. We passed cows and flooded pastures. When we finally reached Moonstone Beach, we found it completely transformed by the storm. The usual carpet of cobbles and pebbles was swept away or buried. Much of the sand was stained black with the ghost of the '96 oil spill. The waves were almost as impressive as those at Harbor of Refuge, four and half miles to the east. Despite low tide, the brackish tea-colored water in Trustom Pond was very high, rushing loudly through the spillway into Card Pond. Spooky and I walked west, towards Green Hill, walking into the wind. But we only went a hundred yards or so. The sun slipped behind clouds advancing from Long Island Sound, and the temperature abruptly plummeted. By the time we made it back to the car, we were shivering and the dunes were in shadow. And that was yesterday. I have enough photographs for several days, and the first seven are behind the cut below. Please note that we've begun a new round of eBay auctions. And that Spooky has only four of her Cthulhu-headstone Cehalopodmas ornaments remaining (of the ten she made); you can see (and purchase) them in her Etsy Dreaming Squid Dollworks shop. There will be no writing today. I have to finish editing "Sanderlings" and get the chapbook ready to send to Subterranean Press. Also, I need to undo a large number of changes that an over-zealous copy-editor wrought upon one of my stories. I will not name the story, the book, or the editors— it wasn't their fault. I just wish publishers would start firing copy-editors who try to become authors vicariously, by "correcting," and thereby mangling, prose. It is an enormous waste of my time that I have to go back, now, and fix what wasn't broken to begin with. Photos from Harbor of Refuge:
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This underground house of ours continues to amaze me. It was 18 degrees outside at six o'clock this morning when we got up. But inside our house -- despite the fact that we have no heat source in here at all at night -- it was 64 degrees. And when we turned on our electric space heater, it went up to 66 degrees in only twenty minutes. All summer long, heat is stored in the earth and stone around our house and in its concrete walls; then when winter comes, that heat is released into our house. Because we had almost no real heat this past summer -- we had a plague of thunderstorms and gloom, day after day and night after night -- I wondered if it would be colder in here this winter than it usually is. But it hasn't turned out that way. The first day that we had to turn on the space heater didn't come along until October 23rd. And well into late November, I was able to open the house to the outdoors -- which means opening the front door and all the screened windows on the front porch -- for a few hours around noon almost every day. I had always said that it would never get below 59 degrees in here, no matter how cold it got outside. Last year, in the January ice storm when we had a five-day power outage, I found out that that wasn't true. Ordinarily in the wintertime our lights are on all day long and late into the evening in all the rooms; ordinarily we use our oven -- which has electric ignition -- often for cooking. Ordinarily we have two tiny space heaters that we run in the bathroom and the room where our computers are when those rooms are in use. Ordinarily the thirty gallons of hot water in our water heater are giving off heat around the clock. Our little generator -- the one we've now replaced with a much larger unit -- wasn't powerful enough to do all of that; it wasn't powerful enough to run the oven or the hot water heater at all. And it not only was 55 degrees in here every morning, it never got warmer than 56 degrees inside, even with the big space heater running. Still, there was nothing ordinary about that ice storm, with its three consecutive days and nights of nonstop sleet. It seems to me that for this house to have maintained 55/56 degrees through all that was pretty amazing. And of course it works the other way round as well. The earth and stone and concrete walls store the winter's cold as well, and then release it into the house. We don't need our air conditioning until months after people living above ground have had to turn theirs on. I can enthusiastically recommend living underground. Not that there aren't adjustments you have to make; there are. But an underground house is a marvelous device. |
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It's sunny this morning, but we had a wild night here in Providence. A storm swept up from the southwest, and the Hurricane Barrier was closed for the first time since we moved here from Atlanta. It seems that the storm combined with the full-moon tides has produced some alarming seas. Today, we're driving down to Narragansett and Point Judith to see the waves (we also have to stop by Spooky's parents' place for eggs). This year, I have so-far entirely neglected to mention the arrival of Jethro Tull Season. Traditionally, it begins the day after Thanksgiving, and it helps me survive the winter and, most especially, the horrors of Xmas. Yesterday I worked on the "Sanderlings" chapbook, which will come FREE with the numbered edition of The Ammonite Violin & Others (Subterranean Press, June 2010). Mostly, I worked on the cover (for newcomers, I often do the covers of my subpress chapbooks) and came up with something I like. I emailed it to Bill Schafer, and he approved. Also, I wrote an afterword for the chapbook. Now, "Sanderlings" itself just needs a bit of tweaking, mostly line edits, and I have to get a couple of other images ready, and then it will all go to subpress and be out of my hands. And speaking of The Ammonite Violin & Others, last night Richard Kirk sent me a pencil sketch, an early study for his cover for the collection. I'm thinking, what a beautiful tattoo this would make:  Copyright © 2009 by Richard A. Rirk, All rights reserved. Also, I finished reading David Quammen's Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind. Research for the Next Novel, and, for the most part, an excellent (and heartbreaking) book. And I signed eBay books so Spooky could send them out to auction winners. Oh, and I finished the crossword puzzle in the December National Geographic. These little details should be remembered. Last night, we watched Darnell Martin's Cadillac Records (2008), which was quite good. I was especially taken with Eamonn Walker's performance as Howlin' Wolf. What with the trip to Boston and all, I forgot to mention that, Monday night, we watched Erick Zonca's Julia (not to be confused with either Peter Straub's novel or Fred Zinnemann's 1977 film, both of the same name). I'd only been alerted to the existence of this film the day before, by
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Yesterday... Well, I learned that December is Cthulhu month at Tor.com, and Also, Sirenia Digest #48 went out to subscribers late last night. Comments welcome (mostly). But yesterday was mostly an unexpected trip to Boston. For a week or so, we'd been planning to see John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road on December 1st. Little did we know that immediately before the November 25th release date, The Weinstein Company decided to radically scale back the number of theatres where the film would be screened. There's all sorts of confusion, apparently, about what's happened. But what it amounts to is that instead of getting a wide release, as planned, it opened in only "31 markets" across the US. And none of those were in Rhode Island. Yesterday morning I discovered that the nearest easily accessible theatre to us showing the film is Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So...yesterday we went to Boston. And I am not sorry that we went to such trouble to see The Road on a big (well, biggish) screen. All last night, I tried to decide how to write about the film, but I don't think I can say anything that will do it justice. I can say that it does McCarthy's novel justice. It is far more faithful to the book than I'd expected. It is, possibly, a perfect adaptation. Perfectly cast, perfectly acted, perfectly scored (by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis), just damned near perfect all the way 'round. It is one of the most terrible, beautiful, and true films I've ever seen. And no, I'm not ashamed to say that I was in tears through most of The Road. Viggo Mortensen (Man), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Boy), Charlize Theron (Woman), Robert Duvall (Old Man) all give pitch-perfect performances. Indeed, there is no miscast actor in the film. Hillcoat has translated McCarthy's film...well, I just don't have the words. I said that much at the start. You need to see this movie, not hear me talk about having seen it, even if seeing it means you have to go out of your way. It is not just art. It's important art. We should not be reluctant to inconvenience ourselves for important art. In this film, man confronts the face of all gods, which is Mortality and Extinction, Loss and Despair and Endurance. This film will hurt you, if you're still alive, and it will remind you that the best art does us harm, in one way or another. Harm we need to feel to know that we're alive, and to understand, fully and without reserve, how brief life is, and how frail. As we left the city, the almost-full moon rose over the Charles River, and it looked as cold and empty and distant from the world as I felt. Nothing lasts forever
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PZB: I sure am tired of hearing about the Beaujolais. I hope it goes away soon. CdB: You should not be allowed to live. |
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As days off go, yesterday was so-so. I did manage to spend two or three hours Outside, so that part went well. But it was windy and not at all warm, and I forgot my wool toboggan cap, so my ears hurt. The day was dazzlingly bright, even though we didn't get out until well into the afternoon. We went nowhere in particular. It was too cold to go to the sea without some serious bundling, and I was in no mood to bundle. The sun is still with us today, but there will be rain again tomorrow. Unless there isn't. Oh, I did send "Exuvium" to Vince yesterday morning, and as soon as his illustration is ready, I'll send Sirenia Digest #48 out to subscribers. It shouldn't be any later than Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, "Sanderlings" will be going to Bill Schafer at subpress, where it will become the chapbook to accompany the numbered edition of The Ammonite Violin & Others. I still have to put together a short afterword for that. The coming month is going to be murder, so to speak. Sadly, only so to speak. I need to get through at least one chapter of The Next Novel. I've got to stop referring to it as Blood Oranges, as too many people are in love with the title, and I am beginning to see that it can't possibly work for this book. But, yeah...The Next Novel. The one that gets written after The Red Tree. That one. If only that was all I needed to get done this month. Last night, we watched J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (second viewing, first on DVD), and, if anything, I'm now even more in love with the film. We also played a little WoW. I do enjoy this game, obviously, but I'm wishing terribly that I could find an MMOG that wasn't afraid to take itself seriously, one almost entirely free of irony and parody. That shit wears thin. I suspect such games exist, but finding them for the Mac is an issue. And, later still, we started reading Robert Silverberg's Nightwings (1968), which I've not read since junior high. Hearing it, I wish science fiction was as free to explore as it once was, that the pretense at "science" had not, at some point, won out over the "fiction," with all that is not deemed suitably scientific consigned to various splinters of "fantasy." It's all fantasy. All literature is fantasy. Every piece of fiction ever written is someone's fantasy, something that has never occurred and never will. Hell, a good portion of the time, actual history is fantasy. I have a few photos from yesterday. I only allowed myself to take photographs from the moving car. Originally, I'd meant only to take them on the interstate, but that's dull as hell. Most parts of America look exactly the same when viewed from a car on an interstate. Anyway...
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Yesterday, I did 1,315 words on "Exuvium," and found THE END. It's the 70th piece I've written specifically for Sirenia Digest since Issue No. #0 went out to subscribers in December '05. Today (what's left of it), I'm going to take some time to rest. I've done two stories in as many weeks, and I'll have to spend the next two or three days getting #48 together and out the door. Then I have to get serious about Blood Oranges and...well, other stuff. Here in Providence, it's still cloudy. A strong wind last night, the sort that sets my nerves on edge. We did have about ten minutes of sun yesterday, from 3:14 p.m. (CST) until 3:24 or so. And I think I should probably make an effort to leave the house today. Last night, we watched Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control (2009). It's a peculiarly quiet, still film. After the first half hour or so, I realized that the film's minimal use of dialogue, the bleak Spanish countryside, bleaker halls of Modernist concrete architecture, and that omnipresent hush were all conspiring to create a suffocating sense of unease. All in all, I have mixed feelings about the film, and suspect I wasn't in the right frame of mind for it. I think maybe the sun's trying to come out again...
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One of the things that goes with eldering is that everything you do -- even things you've been doing for so many years that you could practically do them in your sleep -- starts taking much longer to do than it ever has before. It's frustrating, and infuriating, and you keep thinking that if you'd just put your mind to it you could do things faster .... but you learn that that's false. The reason I'm bringing this up isn't because I think it will come as a revelation to any of you. I'm bringing it up because starting tomorrow I'm going to be up to my eyebrows in getting ready for Christmas. Putting up the Christmas tree. Trimming the Christmas tree. Writing and addressing the Christmas cards and Christmas checks. Making the fruitcake. Making the handcrafted presents. Wrapping the presents. Putting the local presents under the tree, and getting the nonlocal ones off in the mail in time. Cleaning the house. Doing the last-minute Christmas shopping. Making the grocery list for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Cooking the Christmas dinner. Fixing the Christmas Eve buffet. And the most important task of all: Writing the To Do lists, where all of these things get scheduled, and without which I would be helpless. Usually we don't put up the Christmas tree until December 1st, but this year -- because George has discovered that everything he does takes him much longer now -- he has decided to get started early, and will be putting up the tree tomorrow instead. I won't be trimming it tomorrow, because tomorrow is my day off, but I will hit the ground running [slowly] on Monday. Everything has side effects, and a side effect of all this is that I'm not going to have much time for posting here at Live Journal. I wanted to let you know. In preparation for that, here are URLs for some of my Christmas posts from years past: Photo of our 2007 Christmas tree -- at http://ozarque.livejournal.com/476923.h Compiled list of Christmas links -- to holiday filksongs, holiday recipes [including that fruitcake], holiday poems, and posts about the handcrafted Christmas gifts I make -- at http://ozarque.livejournal.com/561560.h |
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Yesterday I did 1,252 words on the new vignette which, as of this writing, is still named "Exuvium." The weather here in Providence has been grey and chilly and on-and-off rainy for days now. Or so it seems. I can't recall the last time I saw the sun. Then again, I've not left the House since Tuesday. Which really isn't that long, not for me. But the sun would be nice, shining in my office window. The sea would be nice. Please consider observing "Black Friday" by bidding on the current eBay auctions, which include a copy of the lettered edition of my long-out-of-print first novel (though it was published after my second and third novels, just before my fourth). Also, check out the Cephalopodmas ornaments in Spooky's Etsy shop, Dreaming Squid Dollworks. Last night, we had trouble deciding whether to watch Wes Anderson's The Darjeeleng Limited (2007) again, or, instead, watch Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control (2009). The Darjeeleng Limited won out, as we were both in need of a comfort film. Later in the night, we played WoW, our new undead characters, and met up inworld with No sun yet. It's not the sort of thing that comes when you call.
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I've been avoiding all things Gaga, suspecting I'd be hooked, sooner or later. Now I've seen the video for "Bad Romance," and, well, it's happened. There's such an weird and wonderful mix of influences here (The Eurythmics, Bowie, Nomi, Nina Hagan, Queen, Lene Lovich, Grace Jones, and, well, it just goes on and on). Wow. The Lady can sing.
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Yesterday I began a new vignette for Sirenia Digest #48. I wrote 1,012 words. For the moment, I'm calling it "Exuvium," but that might change, as it could be confused with the epilogue of Silk. Otherwise, yesterday was fairly unremarkable. Last night, though, after dinner, Spooky and I played eight frakkin' straight hours of WoW. I think that's our record. Shaharrazad and Suraa finally completed Dire Maul, and then, for some reason known only to them Elder Gods what waste their time with addictive MMORPGs, I rolled a new character (my tenth) on the Venture Co. server (we have friends over there). An undead named...wait for it...Shaharrazad. Spooky already had an undead on that server (Artemizia), though she was still at Level 1. So...we were up until four a.m. and made it to Level 7. This is my first time to play an undead, and there's actually a perfectly rational explanation for this whole thing. Okay, maybe it's not exactly perfect or rational. Sure, there's not much in the way of RP in this MMO[RP]G, but we still make up backstories for our characters, as we sit here playing. Shah and Suraa's have become rather complex. And...no, I'm not getting into this, maybe some other time. But yeah, eight hours of WoW. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, and also at Spooky's most excellent Cephalopodmas ornaments (only five remaining), inspired by New England headstones, and featuring everyone's favorite Old One.
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This will be even funnier tomorrow, when I'm awake.
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zia_narratora ate at the Green Goddess and created this fabulous comic. Chris' hair cracks me up, but then it often does in real life too. At his old restaurant, the Downstairs, he once got a phone bill addressed to "Cliff DeHair." I still haven't let him live that one down. |
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Hey all! I'm new to the community. I've been working on a project I figure might be of interest to some of you :) Back in July/August I teamed up with SF/F novel writer Michael Jasper, and we put together an entry for Zuda.com (DC Comics' webcomic imprint)-- our comic IN MAPS & LEGENDS was accepted and it's been running in the November competition for a few weeks now! Basically, if our webcomic comes in first place (they count votes, ratings, favorites, views & comments), we get a contract to continue to serialize the story. All that good stuff. We’ve already got our foot in the door, getting this far, but at this point it’s up to voters (and anyone you can pass it on to~) to keep us at #1. So far there has been a LOT of hand-wringing this month. (You can check out the current rankings here. It's been a tight, tense race so far.)
So if you like curvy girls who glare a lot, maps, and the potential for some major steampunk, take a look! (check out the airships in the background of the last page-- there'll be a lot more of that if we win!) If you haven't voted at Zuda before, I know the site can be confusing, so I put together a quick image tutorial on how to vote. Hope that helps. The competition only lasts for November, so please vote before the month is out! I've been posting extra art and teasers at my site, too: http://www.niki-smith.com/ Zuda's got a bunch of SF/F/H comics being serialized on their site, so check it out in any case. |
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Yesterday was an appalling day. I do not feel like going into the details, but I've had it with the doctor I've been seeing, so now I have to find a new one, which isn't an easy thing. It wasn't easy to find the one I've been seeing. But I will no longer be treated as I have been treated since I came to Providence. I'm pretty sure there are animals in slaughterhouses that are handled more humanely. I am very much missing my doctor in Birmingham. She was my doctor for twenty years, even when I lived in Athens and Atlanta, I still went back to Birmingham for her. She wasn't renowned for her tact and bedside manner, but she also wasn't a complete fucking idiot. No, nothing was accomplished yesterday, nothing at all. Oh, well...I suppose something was, sort of. When we made it back from the hell that was the doctor's appointment, Spooky had to take the car into the shop, as it had suddenly begun hemorrhaging coolant. Turns out the water pump was blown, and they installed a new one, setting us back $250 (after the expense of the idiot doctor). So, at least the car is hale and hardy again. Today, I hope to begin a new vignette for Sirenia Digest #48. I have an email this morning, from a reader who writes, "I was shocked to discover Alabaster isn't available on the Kindle. Please, raise my hopes and tell me it's coming soon?" Sorry, but no. There are currently no plans for a Kindle edition of Alabaster. And remember, this sort of decision isn't up to me. Last night, we watched Chan-wook Park's Bakjwi (2009; aka Thirst), which was a nice tonic against Stephanie Meyer and her simpering spawn. A beautifully filmed vampire movie that manages to be sexy, bloody, and funny, and I don't even care that great swaths of it made no sense whatsoever. Definitely the best vampire film I've seen since Tomas Alfredson's Låt den rätte komma in (2008). Earlier this year, when Bakjwi was playing in Boston, Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, and also note that Spooky has five more of her Cephalopodmas ornaments remaining. Right now, a little "extra" cash wouldn't hurt. Thanks. And Thanksgiving can go fuck itself, please and thank you.
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Check out all new shirts a few skirts all made from T Shirts!!!!
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On this day in 1859, 150 years ago, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was first published (by British publishing house, John Murray). If any single book charted the course of my life, this is likely it. So, 150 years ago Darwin proposed a theory of evolution to explain the fact of evolution, and, of course, the theory is still evolving, which is the nature of science. And the creationists still don't get it. Maybe in another 150 years...well...let's not go there. My inner pessimist always wins. It's enough to marvel that so many years have passed, and we've made countless discoveries that would have dazzled, delighted, and humbled Mr. Darwin. Also on this date, in 2001, a mere eight years ago, I began this blog. It was over at Blogger at the time. So, here I have eight years worth of online journal. When it began, I was living in Birmingham and just getting started on Low Red Moon. And I thought I knew how my life would go. I could never have imagined all the things that the coming eight years held in store. So, there you go. Two anniversaries in one. Yesterday was mostly spent tweaking "Sanderlings." I also made notes for a new vignette, for Sirenia Digest #48, and that hardly ever happens. Oh, and my contributor's copy of Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown arrived a few days back, and I spent part of yesterday watching the extended interviews. Last night, Spooky and I were trying to get Shaharrazad and Surra through Dire Maul, but there was some sort of cataclysmic server breakdown. I think at least a third of the WoW servers crashed all at the same time. So, we were forced to stop killing ogres and seek intellectual stimulation elsewhere. So, we watched Peter Askin's documentary, Trumbo (2007), which was very good and almost made me glad for the server crash. I spend far too much time on that damned silly game. I will not be writing today, because I have a doctor's appointment. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. The copy of The Five of Cups that we're offering is the lettered edition, filled with extras. Also, Spooky has sold all of her non-winged Cthulhu ornaments (Cephalopodmas is just around the corner!), and only has the winged version remaining (the one I happen to prefer). Five of those remain. You can see them in her Dreaming Squid shop. Now I'm going to finish my coffee.
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I'll be following your excellent suggestions and stashing the Swadesh [core vocabulary] lists for the four ET languages in my new novel on my SFWA website, so that those of you who are interested can see them and discuss them. It will take me a while to get the material in order for posting; and then it will take a while for the SFWA webtech to post it. As soon as that's done, I'll post the URLs here. ================== |
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I'm reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, whose books I always find interesting. In Chapter 3 he discusses unconscious biases as measured by Implicit Association Tests (IATs). You can take a bunch of different IATs at http://www.implicit.harvard.edu , but the one Gladwell describes in most detail is the Race IAT: I've taken the Race IAT on many occasions, and the result always leaves me feeling a bit creepy. At the beginning of the test, you are asked what your attitudes toward blacks and whites are. I answered, as I am sure most of you would, that I think of the races as equal. Then comes the test. Basically, you have to sort black and white faces and positive/negative words into two categories, then sort them again paired with "good" or "bad" concepts. For instance, you have to sort words like hurt, evil, and glorious into the categories "European American or Good" or "African American or Bad," then reverse the pairings: "African American or Good" and "European American or Bad." Supposedly most test takers of either race take significantly longer to sort the second set of pairings because they are biased to associate African American and bad, even if they don't consciously feel that way. Malcolm Gladwell, who's half black, was mortified to learn that he had "a moderate automatic preference for whites." He comments: [O]f the fifty thousand African Americans who have taken the Race IAT so far, about half of them, like me, have stronger associations with whites than with blacks. How could we not? We live in North America, where we are surrounded every day by cultural messages linking white with good. Well, I wondered. As far as I'm concerned, I don't live in North America. I live in a small northern outpost of the Caribbean that is, at most, a neglected protectorate of the United States. I am a white person living in a majority-black neighborhood and city. I find myself in way fewer all-white or mostly white environments here in New Orleans than in any other place I've ever lived or visited, except Jamaica and maybe London. Aside from Chris, most of the people I see and speak to on a daily basis are black. If I see white people in my neighborhood, it means potential disruption: volunteers (good/neutral) or lost tourists (neutral/bad). I'm pretty selective about the cultural messages I get: I watch no TV except sporting events (which have a large black demographic); I read the Times-Picayune (which has a significant black readership); many of our local political and cultural readers are black. I didn't feel I'd been inoculated with the white=good virus. And according to the Race IAT, I haven't: "Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African American compared to European American." Which is exactly what I predicted before I took the test. Gladwell says you can't fool the test or answer to make yourself look better. I don't know about that. I do agree with the statement he makes a few pages later: Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means we can change our first impressions ... by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way -- who would like to have a set of associations with blacks as positive as those that you have with whites -- it requires more than a simple commitment to equality. It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort. Which is true, obviously, of any minority you want to feel more comfortable with: people of other races, queer people, trans people. And which also makes me wonder: what would the Race IAT scores of black New Orleanians look like? How much would they vary by neighborhood, income and education level? Does white privilege allow me to romanticize somewhat, influencing my score? Chris and I can live in Central City more safely than many of our black neighbors: we're perceived as having money and influence because we're white, and to some degree, we do. The criminal element perceives us as too much trouble to mess with, and there's truth to that too. Black-on-black crime is by far the commonest type of violent crime in New Orleans. Other white people sometimes wonder how we "dare" to live here, but the truth is that our neighbors are probably in far more danger from each other than we are from any of them. |
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